Earlier this week I received a phone call from my mom asking me if I had heard of the egregious criminal activity that has caused many South Asian Americans in the DC area (specifically Northern Virginia’s Fairfax and Loudoun counties) to become worried and to take steps to protect their family jewels. My mom, probably typical of most desi moms, is overly sensitive to ANY criminal activity or health hazard (seemingly anywhere in the world) that has ANY chance to impact me…by whatever stretch of imagination. If Ebola breaks out in the Congo then I receive a call from my mom that evening. She just wants to make sure I am not hanging out with friends that have recently returned from the Congo…just to be safe. She is, of course, worried about her jewelry. It has all been safely relocated to a safety deposit box at an undisclosed bank.

When Raman Kumar’s Centreville home was burglarized in late February, he became an early victim in a crime spree that has continued across the county and into Loudoun, spiking last month.

“This is no ordinary burglary,” Kumar told the hundreds of residents, as well as numerous police officers and detectives, gathered at Colin Powell Elementary School in Centreville last Thursday, Oct. 29. He said the burglars who have been targeting the homes of South Asian residents for their gold jewelry were obviously well organized and well equipped with sophisticated equipment and information.

Three similar burglaries had been carried out that day, one in Oak Hill, one in Chantilly and another in South Riding, bringing the total to around 30. Two days earlier, two homes in Lorton had been burglarized, as well as one in Centreville and another in Fair Oaks. As in previous cases, the perpetrators broke in through back doors and windows in the late morning or afternoon and ransacked the master bedrooms, making off with gold jewelry, electronics and other valuables. In cases where homes were armed with security systems, those systems have been defeated. Any fake gold has been left behind…

Police believe South Asians are being targeted because they traditionally pass high-karat gold jewelry heirlooms from one generation to the next, and the price of gold now is especially high. Some victims have reported tens of thousands of dollars in losses. [link]

Since desi gold is on our minds, I would like to take the opportunity to address some fundamental “best practices” advice regarding gold within our community. Gold holds a special significance in desi culture and thus, demands a special discussion. I believe the following discussion will be even more useful if it can generate a conversation with our parents, many who are getting up there in age (hint: forward this post to them and see what they think):

1) Take a digital picture inventory of every valuable piece of gold (or otherwise) jewelry in your possession

You have collected a lot over your lifetime, loaned a lot out, and maybe even lost a lot. Take the time to document everything so you know what you have and can communicate to others what you may have had stolen. Plus, I know some of you will like flipping through an album of all your jewelry just because you can. Don’t be ashamed.

To my fellow Desi wanna-be esquires:

Remember how in law school you had that “Litigation Basics” class the first semester of your first year? Think back. It was probably one of those half-semester pass/fail deals where you spent class time surfing the net instead of taking notes. (Or was that just me). At the beginning of the term, the professor passes out a little booklet that says “Rules of Professional Conduct.” It lays out the ethical duties of attorneys, basically what they can and cannot do while practicing in that state. It covers client confidentiality, conflict of interest issues, etc. If you haven’t read your copy lately, may I suggest a refresher may be in order? Especially that part about “conduct…which tends to…. bring the courts or the legal profession into disrepute” a.k.a known as asking your employees to have sex with you as part of their duties of employment. You think I jest?

Take Samir Zia Chowhan of Chowhan Law, an attorney practicing in Chicago, Illinois. Allegedly, one fine day, Mr. Chowdan decided his firm needed a secretary/legal assistant and where better to advertise than on the ‘Adult Gigs’ section of Craigslist? He posted a somewhat typical help-wanted ad.

Loop law firm looking to hire am [sic] energetic woman for their open secretary/legal assistant position. Duties will include general secretarial work, some paralegal work and additional duties for two lawyers in the firm. No experience required, training will be provided… If interested, please send current resume and a few pictures along with a description of your physical features, including measurements.

Measurements, eh? That’s a warning flag. Or is it? According to news sources, Ms. Debbie Dickinson, assuming the ad to be innocuous (?!?!) submits her resume, photo and measurements only to receive this reply.

S. Mitra Kalita’s Wall Street Journal article, “Desi vs. Desi” frames the news of the largest hedge fund insider trading case in history as part of a broader story of desis immigrating to the United States, developing networks with other desis, and their progress in the technology and financial industries (desis might have found hedge funds to be more of a meritocracy than the “cozy world of investment banking”). Those industries are at the center of the allegations that billionaire founder of Galleon Group Raj Rajaratnam, conspired with director of consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Anil Kumar and Intel Capital’s Rajiv Goel, among other executives and hedge fund managers.

Media reports included coverage of the downward effect of Rajaratnam’s recent arrest on the Colombo Stock Exchange in Sri Lanka, where “even rumors of his trades can send the stock market up or down” and transcripts from wiretaps of the illegal conversations at issue. But “Desi vs. Desi” brings up another interesting angle on the story about the case’s prosecution.

Remember when the large stimulus bill was passed earlier this year and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal came out against Obama? For a while he even made headlines by refusing to accept some of the stimulus money. What has happened to him since then? Whatever else you want to think about Jindal, he is undeniably intelligent. After Obama, he might be, intellectually speaking, among the smartest of elected officials in the country. Jindal knows when to hold and knows when to walk away. After the “Kenneth debacle” he smartly walked away from the limelight. Let Pawlenty and Palin and Huck go all Icarus. The shrewd ones like Jindal and Romney (and maybe even George Allen) will fly under the radar, biding their time (for the record, Huntsman is my 2016 dark horse).

Jindal knows that there is no way he has a shot in hell of being president in 2012 or even 2016 unless he has a record as a successful governor (cough cough…Sarah Palin). You know what you need to deliver to your people in order for them to consider you a successful governor? Healthcare reform. From his op-ed in WaPo last week:

A majority of so-called Republican strategists believe that health care is a Democratic issue. They are wrong; health care is an American issue, and the Republican Party has an opportunity to demonstrate that conservative principles work when applied to real-world problems…

Republicans must shift gears. Conservatives should seize the mantle of reform and lead. Conservatives either genuinely believe that conservative principles will work to solve real-world problems such as health care or they don’t. I believe they will. [Link]

The people of Louisiana want healthcare reform. They also want continued post-Katrina assistance. By cozying up to Obama he sacrifices some love from the Republican base for a whole lot more of everything else he needs to be successful as governor. But just who is playing who here?

This year's MacArthur "Genius Grants" have been announced and, as usual, the award committee has tried to recognize a wide variety of human endeavor and scholarship -

A papermaker dedicated to preserving traditional Western and Japanese techniques; a scientist developing theories of global climate change; and a journalist who helps uncover details of unsolved murders from the civil rights era are among the 24 recipients of the $500,000 "genius awards," to be announced on Tuesday by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation....

Mutineers might be particularly interested in 3 of the award recipients who have a desi flavor -

Update: Ekram Haque passed away today.

::

I just read a horrifying, heartbreaking story in the Daily Mail:

A Muslim pensioner was on the brink of death last night A Muslim pensioner has died today after an appalling race-hate attack by a gang of schoolboys.

Retired care worker Ekram Haque, 67, was battered to the ground in front of his three-year- old granddaughter Marian.

Anand Jon. Syed Haris Ahmed. Ehsanul Sadequee. The first is the Indian born fashion designer (who’ve we’ve covered on Sepia before) convicted of one count of rape and 15 counts of sexual assault and sentenced yesterday to 59 plus years in prison. The second is a Pakistani-born American who was convicted of conspiring to commit terrorist acts back in June and who is set to be sentenced September 15 along with the third man, a Bangladeshi American. Besides the fact that these are three brown men accused and convicted of disparate bad deeds, they do share another thing in common – they chose to represent themselves in court.

First, Anand Jon. This case has been drama from the start. In July, after his request for a new trial was overruled, Jon fired his entire defense team and took responsibility for his own defense. While he read law books in a prison cell, his mother, sister and various supporters staged vigils for his release. And even after yesterday’s conviction, his family is continuing to press the Indian government to intervene in the case.

We have been getting several tips about the conviction of a Sri Lankan journalist, J.S. Tissainayagam, who has written articles critical of the Sri Lankan government for a magazine. Tissinayagam has been sentenced to 20 years in prison under Sri Lanka’s emergency laws:

J. S. Tissainayagam, editor of the North Eastern Monthly magazine, wrote articles highly critical of a government military offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels who had controlled a large chunk of Sri Lanka’s north. The government decisively defeated the Tigers in a bloody final battle on a strip of beach in northern Sri Lanka in May.

Mr. Tissainayagam was arrested in 2008 and charged under Sri Lanka’s powerful emergency laws, which were enacted in response to the Tamil Tiger insurgency. The insurgents, members of the Hindu Tamil minority, sought a separate state from Sri Lanka’s Buddhist, Sinhalese majority. Prosecutors argued that Mr. Tissainayagam had received money and other support from the Tamil Tigers in exchange for writing articles critical of the government. Mr. Tissainayagam has repeatedly denied this.

As is often the case with local journalists in conflict zones, Mr. Tissainayagam’s reporting reflected the prevailing point of view of the minority to which he belonged, but the government argued his work went further. (link)

I don’t know about the supposed evidence that Tissainayagam ever took money directly from the LTTE, or gave money to them. It’s very difficult, from this distance, to know whether there is any validity to that. Obviously, if you’re critical of the Sri Lankan government you’re likely to be extremely skeptical about that part of the story. By contrast, if you’re critical primarily of the LTTE, you might wonder where the funding for Tissainayagam’s magazine, North Eastern Monthly came from.

I recently came across the news that, in Delhi, for the first time in many years, the number of girls born was higher than the number of boys.

Having long campaigned against a cultural discrimination towards baby girls which has led to a growth in the aborting of female foetuses, campaigners said figures, which showed that in 2008 1,004 girls were born for every 1,000 boys, could mark a break-through.

Dr Dharm Prakash of the Indian Medical Association, which ran a campaign against aborting girl foetuses, said: “The community has responded to our request that girls should be born.” Selective abortion has been illegal for years, but the practice remains rife. There are often reports of police raiding clinics where such operations are performed. In 2007, police in Gurgaon, a satellite city of Delhi, arrested a doctor after the remains of up to 35 foetuses were discovered in his clinic. The government has estimated that up to 10 million girls have been killed, before or immediately after birth, by their parents over the past 20 years.

In Delhi, some credit for the turn-around has been given to the local government’s so-called Ladli scheme. Under this project, the government deposits 10,000 rupees (£125) on the the birth of a baby girl and makes subsequent payments as she passes through school. The money is used for further education or to pay for a wedding and setting up home. (link)

In total, the Delhi government is committing to spend Rs. 1 Lakh (~$2000) to support families that give birth to girls. As I understand it, the program is limited to lower income families.

Livemint raises questions about whether the “Ladli” program, which was only initiated in the spring of 2008 itself, could have become so instantly successful. In a way, it would be even better if it wasn’t the government-financed program, as that might suggest that behaviors were starting to change on their own, at least in Delhi.

For the curious, here is the Delhi government’s web page outlining the guidelines for the Ladli scheme.

(See Abhi’s previous post for grim statistics on female foeticide in India, and indeed, around the world.)

A lot has been happening in Sri Lanka since mid-May, when the 25 year conflict between the government and the Tamil rebels effectively came to an end.

AFP Photo

Last week, Amnesty International posted a call for the government of Sri Lanka to start opening the camps, so people in them can either return to their villages, or, if those homes are destroyed, be relocated to new permanent housing. Earlier, the government justified keeping these camps open on the grounds that it needed to ensure that militants that are mixed in with the civilian population in the camps should be discovered and extracted. It’s now been four months, which should be enough time. The government originally said people would be resettled in 180 days — six months. But as of now (four months in), there is no progress at all on that front, leading one to think that the promise is unlikely to be met. Update/Correction: A commenter links to a report that re-settlement is in fact well underway: TheHindu. The minister in charge of resettlement is named Rishad Bathiudeen; there is more about him, and government reports on resettlement progress here.

The detailed Amnesty Briefing paper can be found here, for people who are interested.

I am curious to hear what readers think about this. How long will this go on? Are there any indications from Rajapaksa or others in the Sri Lankan government on a timeline for closing the camps? Might the government have other considerations or unspoken reasons for keeping these camps open for an indefinite period of time?

I looked at Groundviews to see their thoughts on the Amnesty call, but I haven’t found much specific coverage of the issue there.

It’s Indian and Pakistani independence day time. Zindabad! On the Pakistan side, Raza Rumi has a sobering reflection here; a look at Pakistaniat is also recommended. On the Indian side, not much is going on yet in the blog world that I’ve seen, since the actual day is tomorrow. (If anyone has recommended I-Day reading to recommend, please post the link below.)

In New York, they’re having the annual India Day Parade this Sunday, with a couple of Indian A-List celebs (i.e., Shilpa Shetty) airlifted in to add a little glamor to what is otherwise, in my experience, a rather ho-hum affair.

The usual slew of groups will be marching in the parade, from the “Telugu Literary and Cultural Association” to the VHP-A (yes, them again). One group that petitioned to march but was denied is SALGA, the South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association. SALGA has fought in the past to participate, and won that fight. However, the refusal this year carries an extra sting, since it was only a few weeks ago that the Delhi High Court threw out the old ban on homosexuality in India (as I understand it, the Supreme Court later upheld the Delhi High Court’s ruling, making the decriminalization of homosexuality a national fact). Here is what a SALGA supporter named Sapna Pandya wrote in an Op-Ed she has been circulating:

If you get a chance, check out the full slide show of the parade from this past weekend in Jersey that I wrote about in the previous post. In one or two of the pictures I observed a level of militancy and jingoism that made me feel uneasy. I am pretty far removed from such sentiment so I am not sure how strong such opinions are in Indian Americans. I believe nobody should ever parade children this way:

I want to stress that most of the pictures in the set are of perfectly appropriate displays. This one really threw me off though.

We have mentioned Saqib Ali several times previously on Sepia Mutiny. Anna mentioned a personal challenge he and his wife faced a few years ago here. We also had posts on his campaign for the Maryland state legislature here, and then again after his election victory here

Now Saqib Ali, one of a very small number of Muslim candidates elected to public office anywhere in the U.S., has taken a public stand in favor of granting gays and lesbians the right to marry. He published an op-ed in the community paper the Gazette: here. It was also covered yesterday on NPR, which is how I heard about it. What I like about Saqib Ali’s approach is the directness with which he handles the religious prohibition on homosexual acts in Islam:

It feels like the nature of the fight for equality has changed. It has gone from being a rather niche liberal issue to perhaps the most pressing civil rights issue of this generation. And marriage equality throughout the land now feels like an eventual inevitability.

I expect some day people will look back at this fight for equality like we now look back on oddly antiquated anti-miscegenation laws. I’m proud that I’ll have stood on the right side of history: In support of full marital rights for same-sex couples.

My stance on this issue isn’t politically expedient. I am the first Muslim in the legislature. Homosexuality is strictly forbidden in Islam. As such I have evinced much grief from my most conservative supporters.

But I recognize that I represent people of all faiths and no faith at all. If I tried to enforce religion by law — as in a theocracy — I would be doing a disservice to my both constituents and to my religion. (link)

What’s clever about this is the twist on religious morality. Normally, opponents of gay marriage apply a version of a presumed Judeo-Christian morality as support for their position. Saqib Ali, coming from an Islamic background, knows full well that his invocation of “theocracy” has extra rhetorical weight; the last sentence in the paragraph quoted above hits home.

There has been a new wave of anti-Christian communal violence in Pakistan, with a riot involving as many as 20,000 people in the town of Gojra, west of Lahore.

We normally use the phrase “communal violence” in the Indian context, but reading the particulars of this story in the New York Times, the idea of “communalism” (a particularly South Asian expression of communitarian religious hostility) seems to fit. The recent riots were not on a huge scale — 100 houses belonging to local Christians were burned (compare to 3000 homes of Christians burned in the violence in Orissa last year) — but it’s still frightening and sad.

There is a history of this kind of violence in Pakistan. I don’t know the history in great detail, but Wikipedia has links to several similar incidents in just the past few years. (It often starts with the claim that someone has desecrated the Koran.)

One oddity in the Times coverage was the way they described the size of the Christian community in Pakistan, as comprising “less than five percent of the population.” I gather the number is more like 1.6% — why not simply say, “less than 2%”? Maybe that’s a nitpick.

As a response, the Christian schools in Karachi are on strike for three days. A number of arrests of those involved in the attacks have been made, and President Zardari has strongly condemned them. The Daily Times newspaper has a story with a subheader that the DPO (police chief) in the district has been “booked” as well, but the text of the story actually states that authorities are at this point just thinking about charging him with failing in his duty to keep the peace.

Incidentally, the town of Gojra is in the Toba Tek Singh District of Punjab, an area made famous by Sa’adat Hasan Manto’s story about Partition, “Toba Tek Singh.” Though we’re no longer talking directly about partition, that story about the madness that can sometimes overtake people in the name of religion still feels relevant. Here is a translation of the story, and Professor Fran Pritchett has both the original Urdu and a Devanagari version of the story linked from her site: here.

Three stories caught my eye in the New York Times this weekend, but I found reading all three in a row a little dizzying. All three relate to love, dating, and marriage, and say something about life in the Indian diaspora. But the pictures painted by the respective stories seem to have little to do with one another. What happens if we line them up together?

The first, from our news tab, is the story of a marriage between a Sikh, Parminder Suchdev, and an African-American woman, Danielle Jackson. Both have advanced degrees in public health and medicine, with resumes a mile long. Because the Times Weddings/Celebrations section is also kind of a “society” page, they also mention how successful and accomplished their parents are (especially Danielle’s parents, in this case; wow). I walked away thinking, what a wonderful, accomplished couple… and, man, am I a slacker.

Next, a second-gen named Ranu Sinha, in a first-person account of being introduced to a guy who at first seemed to be interesting because of the commonality of “Brownness and Bhangra.” But later she gets mad at him, and it leads her to a blanket condemnation of modern Indian culture:

When I took too long on a buffet line, he was furious for having been left to eat alone. I couldn’t understand at first, but then it hit me: In India, solitude is feared more than anything else. Another time, when I surprised him with a homemade picnic, he agreed reluctantly and then left early. His parents needed him at home. For him, family obligations came first. The ladder of his priorities was long and I, the newcomer, found myself on the bottom rung. But it was from that vantage point that I grew up.

Underneath his modern American clothes, his American degree and his American accent, I discovered the beauty of an ancient Indian hierarchy that could not be taken off — of kinship, of family, of honor among men, of the traditions. In his world, the needs of the dozen always override the needs of two.

And with that, I uncovered, what I had never really understood. India is a place where love of tribe trumps romance-novel love.

Where heritage is still sacred and change skin deep. Where the sights, sounds, smells of Western modernity are mimicked, perfectly, as if Indians were characters on a Hollywood movie set. But when the lights go down and the costumes come off, India is exactly the same — just as she always was. A place, held together, by the kind of human bonds that last. (link)

Do you agree with her main point? I don’t; while it is true that there you will find a fair number of people out there for whom tribe and family work like this, it’s dangerous to extrapolate on the basis of one experience. Another thought: it’s sentiments like these that give second-gens (ABDs) a bad reputation with other Indians (“first know something about Indian culture before you turn up your nose, yaar”).

Still, at least some of what she’s saying rings a bell: “India is a place where love of tribe trumps romance-novel love.” Maybe, though that doesn’t mean the trump card always wins the hand.

Finally, Harsimarbir Singh, with a column in the Times describing coming to the U.S. to get a Master’s in Engineering at Duke. Most of it made me roll my eyes, though I did chuckle at the following paragraph:

Though it’s been a short time for me at a top-tier American university, I have had the opportunity to see the party culture that the American student craves. The American passion is extended here as well, with young guys and girls passing out and losing control after consuming alcohol. Being a teetotaler, I have stayed away from drinks, but not from the joys, of the American celebration. (link)

That last sentence, somehow, made me laugh.

Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving member of the squad that allegedly carried out the terrorist attack in Mumbai last November, has reversed his plea for a second time. He had initially admitted involvement in the attacks, and then denied it, saying his first confession had been produced under torture. But he decided to do his latest, and presumably final, confession in open court, where there’s no question of coercion. Also, he gives some new details about how he got involved with Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani Jihadi group, to begin with. Interestingly, it wasn’t a driving ideology initially, but rather the desire to learn a certain “skill set”:

Moments before the trial’s 135th witness was to take the stand, the defendant, a young Pakistani named Ajmal Kasab, stood up and told the judge that he had participated in the attacks.

Speaking softly in a mix of Hindi and Urdu to a stunned and spellbound courtroom, he gave a detailed recounting of the planning and execution of the operation, beginning with his introduction to a Pakistan-based Islamic extremist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and ending with the rampage that hit two luxury hotels, a railway station, popular cafe and a Jewish center.

“I don’t think I am innocent,” Mr. Kasab, 21, declared toward the end of his daylong confession. “My request is that we end the trial and I be sentenced.”

Mr. Kasab spoke extemporaneously, without forewarning even his own court-appointed lawyer, and the court must now decide how to proceed.

Revealing new details, Mr. Kasab described how he became a Lashkar-e-Taiba soldier, a rare glimpse into the motivations of extremist recruits. He said he was working for a pittance at a decorating shop in the town of Jhelum, in Pakistan, a job he hated. He and a friend decided to become armed robbers.

Mr. Kasab said they went to the garrison city of Rawalpindi, next to Islamabad, with the idea that they would ask a jihadi group to train them to be militants. They would then use those skills to become expert robbers. They asked around in the city’s market for the mujahedeen fighters, and someone directed them to Lashkar-e-Taiba’s office. (link)

He decided to come out with the confession because he apparently heard about the secret dossier that Pakistan had delivered to India last week at a meeting in Cairo, confirming that Kasab was in fact a Pakistani citizen. The contents of the dossier had already been leaked to the Indian media.

To my ear, the details all fit together relatively well, including the timing of the current confession. What do people think? Is this “Tamasha” effectively over?

A few more links:

Reuters: Key Facts on Ajmal Kasab

TOI: Partial transcript of the confession in Urdu (Has anyone seen a full transcript of the confession anywhere?)

Daily Times, Pakistan: India leaks Contents of Confidential Dossier to Media

Finally, the law has changed. Congrats to at the activists in India that made it happen! Our hats off to you.

In a landmark ruling Thursday that could usher in an era of greater freedom for gay men and lesbians in India, New Delhi’s highest court decriminalized homosexuality.

“Discrimination is antithesis of equality,” the judges of the Delhi High Court wrote in a 105-page decision that is the first in India to directly guarantee rights for gay people. “It is the recognition of equality which will foster dignity of every individual,” the decision said.

Homosexuality has been illegal in India since 1861, when British rulers codified a law prohibiting “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.” [Link]

…Maria.

As soon as word of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s adulterous affair with an Argentinian mystery woman hit the streets, Indian American gubernatorial candidate Nikki Randhawa-Haley pulled any association with him off of her website. Sanford who? Never heard of him. Did you check under the bus?

Hmmm, just a week ago some were intimating how close a professional relationship the two had:

Since there’s no question who S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford is backing for governor 2010, the only real suspense left is this: at what point does First Lady Jenny Sanford start getting jealous?

Seriously, Sanford’s abiding affection for third-term Lexington Representative Nikki Haley continues to manifest itself, as the governor blasted out an e-mail to several thousand of his closest friends this morning telling them Haley was “worth getting to know.” [Link]

I’ve been transfixed for the last three days by the news coming out of Pakistan’s neighbor to the west, Iran. And I’ve really really wanted to blog it, but honestly, there just isn’t a desi angle.

Unlike Burma, which is similarly just outside the region, South Asian countries don’t play a large role in Iranian politics, and what’s happening in Iran is unlikely to have direct consequences for either Afghanistan or Pakistan. While Surinder Singh Karkar played an important role in the Burmese democracy movement, there seem to be no desis involved in the Persian protests; a difference most likely due to the fact that there are close to 1 million Burmese desis and only a few thousand desis in Iran:

Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many wealthy Parsis began to travel to Iran to revive the Zoroastrian faith and traditions among the stagnating Zoroastrian community in Iran at the time … In 1950s, more Indians migrated to Iran and settled primarily in Tehran. They consisted Sikhs and some Gujaratis. In the 1960s and early 70s, about 10,000 Indian Doctors, Engineers and Teachers moved to Iran as a response to the open policies initiated by the Shah of Iran, but most of them left Iran after the Iranian revolution.

Now, there are several hundred people each concentrated in and around Tehran and Zahidan, primarily engaged in various businesses. A majority are still Indian citizens. They continue to maintain strong links with India, especially in matters of children’s education, marriage and property acquisition. [link]

Over at Ultrabrown, Manish does a better job of connecting to recent events from a South Asian perspective, including this useful observation:

Mir-Hossein Mousavi is the political hero of the moment. But he’s recycled, and his reform credentials are suspect, like Nawaz Sharif in Pakistan. He served as prime minister in the ’80s, during which he was implicated in a massacre of 30,000 political opponents, supported seizing hostages from the U.S. embassy and wanted Salman Rushdie killed. [link]

but honestly, there’s still not a lot of brown in these recent events. If you’re interested, I suggest The Lede and Andrew Sullivan’s blog (The Daily Dish, but nobody calls it that) for breaking developments. Juan Cole’s blog has some good analysis, and I suggest FiveThirtyEight for a fairly geeky analysis of why the official election numbers are fairly improbable. Lastly, the best photos I’ve seen (warning, some are quite graphic) are at the Boston Globe.

Click on the BBC video below and watch it WITH THE SOUND TURNED OFF. Then imagine that you are an anthropologist being sent to observe a strange custom/ritual. How would your notes read?

I’ve never hitchhiked, but I’ve often wondered what it would be like, sticking your thumb out at motorists, hoping one of them stops, hoping it isn’t someone who wants to take you home and introduce you to his woodchipper.

That’s a reference, of course, to the movie Fargo, set partly in North Dakota, not far from the small city of Edgeley in LaMoure County, where 16-year-old Harman Singh was an exchange student until May 16, when he apparently tried to make it on his own. He left goodbye notes and hit the road for about a week, before calling his host mother from Fergus Falls, Minn., about 130 miles away. He’s now in custody and will be sent back to India.

The Tamil-Canadian community in Winnipeg is minuscule compared to the one in Toronto, but they’re also making their voices heard. More than 100 of them gathered Sunday evening on the steps of the  Manitoba Legislative Building for a somber candlelight vigil that centered on prayers and songs. “We can only pray to God now,” said Dr. Mathu Singarajah, a dentist. “Nobody else can listen to us.”

They held candles, signs, black flags and pictures of children whom they see as victims of the Sri Lankan government’s assault on civilians. While people in Colombo and elsewhere celebrated the apparent end of the 25-year civil war, those at the vigil mourned the deaths of innocent people and wondered what, if anything, had been solved. “It doesn’t solve anything,” Singarajah said. “People’s grievances aren’t going to be over. This government is so ruthless. They don’t want to give us our rights. As long as that is the case, the problems will go on.”

Anita Subramaniam, a young woman who helped organize the vigil, served as spokeswoman for the group. “I think this is far from over,” she said. “The diaspora all over the world are watching their relatives die and aren’t going to let this go.”

The Tamil community organized the vigil after hearing that 25,000 civilians had just been killed. Because independent journalists aren’t allowed to travel freely in Sri Lanka — some have even been barred from entering the country — casualty numbers can’t be verified and tend to vary considerably, depending on the source. “They need to let the UN go in and investigate,” Subramaniam said.

The Indian election results have been pouring in, with the Congress/UPA government set to return to power for another five years. Here is the New York Times’ story; apparently, this is the first time since Nehru that an Indian political party has served out the full five years, and then been reelected to power.

I wanted to give readers a chance to share information and suggest sites that are gathering results in various parts of the country. I am especially curious to see what happens with Shashi Tharoor in Trivandrum (I blogged about him a few weeks ago), and of course the political landscape as a whole. As of 1:00 am EDT, the UPA is up over the NDA/BJP around 220-150 [update: the final number for the UPA will be something more like 259]. The UPA is going to stay in, and even consolidate its power — which means, greater independence from the Left. Manmohan Singh is likely to remain Prime Minister for awhile, and perhaps it’s going to be curtains for L.K. Advani’s Prime Ministerial aspirations.

I was watching IBN live here.

The NDTV VoteMap is pretty nice, though it would be better if there were a way to see who held a given state or a given district earlier.

On Twitter, the tag seems to be #indiavotes09. The stream is moving very quickly. There is something called Tweetgrid, which lets you see feeds for six Twitter keywords at once.

Shashi Tharoor has his own Twitter feed: ShashiTharoor. As of now, he is up by 30,000 votes, with more than half of the votes counted.

The BBC’s live results are pretty good. As of this writing, Varun Gandhi (the communal one, from Sanjay’s wing of the family) is leading, and Mayawati’s BSP is losing. In Kerala, the left is likely to decline dramatically from 2004. The Communists are in decline in West Bengal too, presumably in payback for their handling of Nandigram. Lalu Prasad Yadav, who had earlier decided to pull support from Congress, is now admitting it was a mistake, as his RJD party ended up losing seats.

Via Ultrabrown, Bloomberg has a story, with Congress leaders using “Jai Ho” as a victory chant. Also via Ultrabrown, Mayawati is going to lock up victorious BSP candidates, to prevent them from being picked off by other parties. It’s a typical Mayawati thing to do, and presumably illegal — though that’s never stopped her before.

Please suggest any sites with data and analysis that you would recommend.

Via a friend on Facebook, I came across the following interview with Tamil Canadian journalist Ignatius Sellah, on CBC. It’s interesting to hear his perspective, and also to see pictures from the recent protests in Toronto:

While the Sri Lankan government is hardly innocent of committing human rights violations, at the current moment the overwhelming evidence from refugees who have escaped the war zone suggests that the LTTE has been holding them hostage. If so, they are more at fault than the Government of Sri Lanka for what is happening to the civilians.

The protesters in Toronto and London may be voicing legitimate concerns about the condition of civilians in the war zone and in the internment centers outside of the war zone. But when they wave LTTE flags, use children as a buffer against the police (in a strange echo of how the real LTTE operate), and talk about genocide, I think they are acting irresponsibly. (Not that her opinion matters all that much — she’s a musician — but I think M.I.A., who has been throwing around the word “genocide” as well lately in her public statements, has also been irresponsible in using that word.)

It’s natural that the people shouting loudest are getting the most attention, but it would be ideal if the media covering these diasporic protests would also represent alternate (i.e., moderate, non-LTTE) points of view. There are plenty of people out there who have real and legitimate grievances regarding the treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka over the years, who stop well short of supporting this senseless war. Are there other non-LTTE Tamil SL voices you would recommend?

The economic downturn has begun to take its toll on the spread of diversity into the burbs. If what we know from past analysis is true, less immigration equals an even worse economy:

The recession has reduced the growth rate of U.S. Hispanic and Asian populations, the Census said Wednesday, slowing the spread of diversity in American suburbs and exurbs…

The combined growth rate of Asians and Pacific Islanders dropped more than a full percentage point to 2.5% in 2007-2008, compared with 3.7% in 2000-2001, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research group in Washington. The Hispanic growth rate was 3.2% over the latest period, compared with 4% in 2000-2001.

“We have a slowdown in immigration,” said Mark Mather, a PRB demographer.

The worst recession in a generation has prompted people of all races to stay in place, causing a migration drop-off demographers say is among the worst since the Great Depression. One consequence is that minorities, in particular Hispanics, have increasingly stayed in city centers and gateway states where they entered the country, such as California. During the boom years, increased numbers of blacks, Asians and Hispanics moved to the suburbs and exurbs, seeking jobs in places where their numbers were fewer. [Link]

…

“What this means is that the idea of creating new Asian and Hispanic enclaves in different parts of the United States will undergo a bit of a wall,” said Frey. “Those staying in these enclaves will be competing for jobs with long-term residents, while others will return to social support systems in major gateways.” [Link]

This reminds me of the Tom Friedman observations that I blogged about a few months ago.

The Census Bureau projected last August that white children will become the minority in 2023 and the overall white population will follow in 2042. The agency now says it will recalculate those figures, typically updated every three to four years, because they do not fully take into account anti-immigration policies after the September 2001 terror attacks and the current economic crisis. [Link]

It looks like the conflict in northern Sri Lanka is nearing its endpoint, judging from various news reports this week. There have been pressures on the Sri Lankan government to call a cease-fire, to allow humanitarian efforts to move forward, but the government has rejected that call.

Reuters has a helpful FAQ on the basics of the humanitarian situation in northern Sri Lanka:

HOW MANY ARE TRAPPED?

That is a subject of great debate and confusion. The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it is less than 50,000, while the United Nations has said up to that number are in danger. Sri Lanka’s government estimates between 10,000 and 20,000. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) say it is 160,000. Diplomats say the number is immaterial with so many in harm’s way, and a host of nations have pushed for a humanitarian truce. The civilians are in a tiny strip of northern coast with the ocean to the east and a lagoon to the west, measuring no more than 5 square km (2 sq miles), according to the military.

HOW MANY HAVE BEEN KILLED AND WOUNDED?

A U.N. working document, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, said 6,432 civilians had been killed and 13,946 wounded in fighting since the end of January. A U.N. spokesman declined to comment on it. The government has consistently called casualty figures inflated to serve LTTE propaganda purposes, and the government and the rebels blame each other for killing civilians. Getting accurate information is nearly impossible, since very few people inside the war zone can be said to be free of rebel influence and few independent observers have been permitted in.

HOW MANY HAVE ESCAPED?

Early this week, the military said it had registered more than 113,000 since an exodus began a week earlier when troops punched through an earthen barrier the Tigers erected to block entry and exit. The government says more than 200,000 have left since the beginning of the year. Doctors treating the wounded pouring out said they suffered from horrific injuries from shelling and gunfire. (link)

From my point of view, the situation of the 200,000 displaced people who have escaped the “no fire zone” is probably the most urgent issue, and it is also clearly something that the international community can be directly involved in.

The UNHCR seems to be the relief agency that is mentioned most often in the articles I’ve been reading; if you’re concerned about the situation of these displaced civilians, as I am, you might want to donate something here.

The last few days I have been tweeting about a set of unfortunate circumstances surrounding young Rubina Ali, the young girl that played the child Latika in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. First, a British paper engaged in some investigative reporting and alleged that Ali’s parents were attempting to sell her off for a high bid (in order to buy their way out of the slums or just out of plain greed). Then it appears that Indian police began investigating this serious allegation. Finally today, a vicious cat fight occurred between Ali’s mom and step mom as the poor girl watched on in tears. This is of course a really sad story born from a seemingly happy one. There aren’t a lot of details I can add to this that you can’t simply read in the three articles I linked above. Instead, the focus of this post is in about a single sentence from the third article which caught my eye:

After seeing Munni [the step mother] talking to reporters, Khushi [the biological mother] launched a verbal attack, accusing Munni of using black magic to control Rubina. [Link]

Allegations of witches and witchcraft are not new to India and at least a few times a year the western media highlights them. They also occur quite regularly in the U.S. and all around the world for that matter. It is a phenomenon that spans borders, cultures, and time. A must-read piece at Slate today highlighted two new books (The Enemy Within and The Last Witch of Langenburg: Murder in a German Village) on the subject of witch hunts and why vulnerable women or young girls are most frequently the victims of these sort of hunts which seek to expunge “evils” from within a group.

The allure of witch hunting can grip any of us if we abandon our adherence to reason and evidence. As a tribal, poorly evolved species, we are very vulnerable to believing that we are surrounded by secretive, wicked people who might seem like us at first glance but who are, in fact, conspiring against us—and must be rooted out and destroyed. John Demos explains how this differs from other forms of persecution: “Witch-hunting alone finds the other within its own ranks. The Jew, the black, and the ethnic opposite exist, in some fundamental sense, ‘on the outside.’ … The witch, by contrast, is discovered (and ‘discovery’ is key to the process) inside the host community.”

We know that witch hunts break out most ferociously at times of trauma and stress. There was no concept of child witchcraft in Congo until the war began and 6 million people were killed. Now a broken and terrorized population has turned on its own children in a desperate, futile attempt to find some way to regain control. The first great witch hunt in Europe came after the Black Death killed one-third of the population. The second came between 1580 and 1650, when the climate cooled and crops failed. Similarly, witch hunting erupted in America—on the dirt-tracks of Salem, Mass.—at a time when 10 percent of the colonists were being killed and all lived in constant fear of the American Indians who were trying to defend their civilization from extinction. [Link]

A heart-breaking story out of Santa Clara, in Northern California. Devan Kalathat took his own life— but only after shooting his wife, his two children, and three other relatives (including an 11-month old baby girl) who had just arrived from India.

A father is suspected of killing his two children and three other relatives before taking his own life in an upscale neighborhood of Silicon Valley where the family had recently moved.

Authorities were still searching Tuesday for a motive in Sunday night’s slayings, though they have said financial issues did not appear to be a factor. [Yahoo]

Everyone died except Kalathat’s wife, who remained in critical condition Tuesday with multiple gunshot wounds in her upper body. She managed to stumble outside and collapse on a concrete pathway, where she was found in a pool of blood by neighbors. Along with the bodies of five others, including his two children and niece, police found Kalathat inside with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The two handguns were laying nearby. [SJMercuryNews]

An unintentionally hilarious (to me) story on NPR Monday morning. It seems that West Point researchers stumbled upon a terrorist recruitment “how-to” manual:

Researchers at West Point recently stumbled on the 51-page manual while they were visiting a jihadi chat room, called Ecles. It’s a Web site that allows members to have interactive discussions, post videos and download manuals. Ecles is the second most popular jihadi chat room on the Web, and al-Qaida often posts things there. Because of that, it is a place counterterrorism analysts track regularly.

So when the West Point analysts discovered a step-by-step primer called “The Art of Recruiting Mujahedeen,” it got their attention. On one level, the manual might be an early indication that al-Qaida is trying to identify new sleeper terrorists. On the other hand, the book is so basic it seems to suggest al-Qaida is getting desperate for new members. [Link]

What is it in the manual that suggests desperation to some? Well, if I were to slap a different, more pleasant cover on the book and then re-name it to, let’s say… “The Art of Seducing Desi Boys” I think I could make big money by marketing it to some SM readers. Behold the advice, straight from the manual [with my suggested modifications]:

Here’s how the manual, as translated by the CIA, suggests a recruiter build a rapport with a recruit:

“This stage lasts approximately three weeks [unless it overlaps with March Madness in which case it may take longer],” it says. “You must do something important at this stage [such as letting him go past first base]. You must identify his interests and relations with people [especially with his overprotective mother] and how he spends the whole 24 hours, meaning you study him secretly to be reassured about your choice [and make sure he does not talk about finance, medicine, or Battlestar Galactica too much…well definitely not finance or medicine].”

This section touches on such things as being nice to the recruit. It suggests the recruiter pretend to be his friend, perhaps even buy him small gifts [like the Wii]. It ends with a questionnaire to assess progress. “Is the recruit [more] anxious to see you [than Jamal was to see Latika]?” it asks. You get one point for “no” [because he probably doesn’t have many options anyways] and three points for “[hell] yes.” Does he accept your advice and respect your opinion [about how he should smile like Sanjay Gupta more often]?… “If you have received less than 10 points, you are on the wrong path [and need to try again on Shaddi.com, or a speed dating event], repeat the stages from the beginning. From 10 to 18, you are on your way [to achieving your Bollywood Dreams].” [Link]

I’m telling you. There is money to be made in this book idea of mine.

Well, here we go again. Mass protests have erupted in Pakistan, as Nawaz Sharif and others have embarked on a “long march” to protest a recent judicial decision barring the Sharif brothers from holding office. Among other things, the protesters are demanding the reinstatement of Supreme Court Justice Iftikar Choudhry. But one gets the feeling that what is really at stake here is Zardari’s grip on power.

[Update: According to Reuters, Zardari has agreed to reinstate Choudhry, which should defuse the crisis somewhat, and perhaps stabilize his own grip on power. Also see SAJA, and #longmarch at Twitter, for the Tweets of the Twitterers]

First, let me just point readers to a blog from the newspaper, Dawn, with updates on the “Long March” protests. If the stuff hits the fan on Monday in the next few weeks, when the protesters go to Islamabad, this might be a good place to get the latest information.

Second, weren’t we just doing this in Pakistan last year? In a recent post on Michael Dorf’s blog, Anil Kalhan argues that the parallels are too strong to ignore. I’m not entirely sure I agree, since Musharraf was a much stronger leader before his power started to erode. That said, Zardari’s over-zealous response to threats to his authority has had a lot in common with Musharraf’s own response.

There is also a very detailed account of the back-story behind the current protests by Beena Sarwar here. Among other things, Sarwar notes that the coalition supporting the current protests, which includes the Jamaat-e-Islami, might cause progressives abroad to pause before we raise our fists in pro-democracy solidarity:

In this situation, political instability is distracting at best and dangerous at worst. The ‘long march’ demanding the reinstatement of chief justice Iftikhar Mohammed Choudhry, spearheaded by the legal fraternity and sections of civil society, has ready allies among the right-wing political opposition.

This includes Sharif’s PML-N and the Jamaat-e-Islami, a mainstream religious party sympathetic to militant Islam, as well as others sympathetic to the Taliban, like ex-chief Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and anti-India hawk Gen. (retd.) Hamid Gul, retired bureaucrat Roedad Khan who brutally quashed political opposition during the Zia years, and cricket hero-turned politician Imran Khan, chief of the Tehrik-e-Insaaf (Movement for Justice).

All these forces boycotted the 2008 polls, except Sharif who rescinded his boycott decision after Bhutto convinced him that elections were the only way forward.

Long-festering tensions between the PPP and PML-N came to a head with a Supreme Court ruling of Feb 25 barring Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif from holding elected office. Bhutto’s widower, President Asif Ali Zardari is widely believed to be behind this controversial ruling. (link)

Kundra is Obama’s “much-lauded” pick to be the CIO of the federal government. The AP has more on this budding bribery scandal:

FBI agents are conducting a search of the offices of the District of Columbia’s chief technology officer.

The head of that office, Vivek Kundra, recently left to take a job with the Obama administration.

Katherine Schweit, spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington field office, said a search is being conducted that is part of an ongoing investigation…

President Barack Obama named Kundra earlier this month to help oversee the ability of government computer systems to speak to each other and security for vast federal information databanks. [AP]

I know of at least one mutineer who is on the scene, right now. I’ll update this post as we learn more.

UPDATE #1 Kundra is not the target of the raid, but at least one other South Asian (an employee in his office) IS:

The FBI raided the former office of Obama administration official Vivek Kundra in a corruption probe on Thursday but Kundra is not a target of the investigation, a spokeswoman for Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty said.

The FBI was searching the offices of the District of Columbia’s chief technology officer, a position formerly held by Kundra, as it investigates employees for corruption there, spokeswoman Mafara Hobson said…

Yusuf Acar, who works in the District’s technology office, and another man, Sushil Bansal, were arrested as part of the investigation, FBI spokeswoman Lindsay Godwin said, adding that the charges remain under seal. [Reuters]

Last week, the Oklahoma House passed H.B. 1645 which states that you can’t cover your head in your driver’s license photo for any reason:

Hats, head scarves, head garments, bandanas, prescription … glasses … are strictly prohibited and shall not be worn by the licensee or cardholder when being photographed for a license or identification card.

It means that religious Sikhs, Jews, Muslims and others who wear religious head covering will have to choose between their faith and their ability to travel.

The legislation was proposed in a fit of pique, after the Oklahoma Department of Transportation reversed itself and allowed a young hijabi woman to have her license photo taken with her head scarf on and her face clearly visible, but without her hair showing.

Represenative Rex Duncan was so incensed by this that he took over a different bill, with a different purpose, and “hijacked it” to create requirements that the bureaucracy says it doesn’t need, that it will have to defend in court, and that don’t really make a lot of practical sense.

Why don’t I think the bill makes sense? Imagine that I actually did what the law wanted (which I wouldn’t, I would leave the state) and got my photo taken with a naked head. Do you think that a cop would find it easier to recognize me with my glasses and turban from a photograph of me with my hair down and my beard unfurled, man on the cross ishtyle? How about the TSA person at the gate at Tulsa airport?

The bill is also inconsistent. If the legislature seriously believes that hair is a critical part of identification, this is what they would have to do:

• Mandate no toupees or hairplugs or extensions — sorry, Represenative, but you have to go baldy now
• Mandate no changes to facial hair
• Mandate no changes in hair color or style — sorry Represenative, but your wife can’t color that grey out, and your daughter who had long brown hair can’t drive now that she has short pink hair unless she had the photo taken with the short pink hair, in which case you have to live with it from now on
• Mandate that any time somebody does change hair color or style they have to have their photo retaken
• Apply the bill retroactively, so that everybody whose appearance has changed at all since their photo was taken has to get a new ID

Can you imagine? The hairdresser’s lobby would kill that bill deader than a combover on a red carpet!

Here’s a petition in opposition to the bill. Right now, the bill is in limbo, since the Senate sponsor has backed down after talking to the transportation bureaucracy and finding out that they don’t actually want these changes. I’m hoping the pressure keeps it that way, and that they recognize that they will face opposition if they proceed with their hair-brained (sic) scheme.

Everybody knows that all desis are either doctors or engineers. Today the White House managed to gain an engineer, Vivek Kundra, as the new White House CIO and “lose” a doctor, Sanjay Gupta, who pulled out of contention for the Surgeon General’s position.

Kundra is the former CIO for Washington DC and Obama’s “tech daddy,” He was born in Delhi, grew up in Tanzania (he speaks Swahili as a first language) and came to the US when he was 11.

But don’t worry, DBD’s, his globe trotting youth hasn’t led him to forget where he came from. In 2007 he assembled the largest US trade delegation ever to visit India. Not bad for a guy who is only 34!

In just 19 months with the District, Mr. Kundra has moved to post city contracts on YouTube and to make Twitter use common in his office and others. He hopes to allow drivers to pay parking tickets or renew their driver’s licenses on Facebook. [link]

He will oversee $71 billion in annual technology spending across the government and set standards for the design of federal systems. [He said that] government needs to stop thinking it is special.Instead of designing custom systems for each problem, it should use off-the-shelf software and approaches whenever possible. [link]

Right now the federal government relies on extensive custom built systems, generated by expensive private contractors who make a lot of money, and sometimes leave the government with systems that are years behind schedule, over budget, and don’t even work (like the IRS computer upgrade). Moving towards off the shelf systems, when possible, will avoid a lot of that and produce more modern, robust, computing solutions.

But what you really care about isn’t the computer geek, it’s the former Sexiest Man Alive, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Gupta withdrew his name from consideration for the Surgeon General’s position today, saying “It’s not you, it’s me” and “I’m just not in the right place in my life for what you’re offering.”

“This is more about my family and my surgical career,” …The neurosurgeon said he would likely have had to give up practicing had he taken the job as the nation’s top doctor.

In addition, the 39-year-old and his wife are expecting their third daughter any time, and the government job would have meant long periods away from his family, he said. “I think, for me, it really came down to a sense of timing more than anything else,” he said. “I just didn’t feel I should do that now.” [link]

Last year everyone was talking about Sarah Palin’s eyeglasses. This year I predict Gandhi-type glasses will be the hot trend among the urban elite. After days of protest by the Indian government and it’s private citizens, Gandhi’s glasses and a few additional personal effects went on the auction block in NYC. In the end, after drama throughout the day, an Indian citizen got the goods:

No wonder he wanted new glasses. Those are pretty fugly.

After intense protests from India’s government and the Indian press, Mohandas K. Gandhi’s eyeglasses and some of his other belongings were sold on Thursday afternoon for $1.8 million at an auction in Manhattan, after last-minute attempts to halt the sale.

The buyer was identified as Vijay Mallya, an Indian liquor and airline executive who owns the company that makes Kingfisher beer. A representative for Mr. Mallya, Tony Bedi, did the bidding and later announced that the belongings would be returned to India for public display, but it was not clear whether they would be turned over to the government, as some officials have demanded.

Indian officials had maintained that the auction — scheduled to be completed on Thursday afternoon in Manhattan — was illegal, but also that they were continuing to negotiate with the owner, James Otis, over a possible resolution. Ultimately, the government and Mr. Otis were not successful in halting the auction. [Link]

At one point in negotiations with the Indian government, Otis asked for the following:

James Otis said he was ready to halt the sale and donate Gandhi’s personal items, including his trademark round eyeglasses, in exchange for India’s commitment to a substantial rise in its funding for poverty. [Link]

Ummm, yeah. Good starting negotiation position. Next time I negotiate with anyone I will start by asking for world peace.

In what’s being called the worst attack on a sports team since Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olymic games, gunmen with rifles, grenades and rocket launchers ambushed the Sri Lankan cricket team today in Lahore. Seven players, an umpire and a coach were wounded. Six Pakistani policemen and a driver for the Pakistan Cricket Board were killed.

The attackers abandoned machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and plastic explosives…They carried backpacks stuffed with dried fruit, mineral water and walkie-talkies — provisions also abandoned at or near the scene, officials said.

Sri Lanka had agreed to this tour — allowing Pakistan to host its first test matches in 14 months — only after India and Australia backed out of scheduled trips over security concerns. The assault will end hopes of international cricket teams — or any sports teams — playing in the country for months, if not years.

Tuesday’s attack came three months after the Mumbai terror strikes that killed 164 people. Those raids were allegedly carried out by Pakistan militants, and the assault in Lahore resembled them in many respects. Both were coordinated, used multiple gunmen, apparently in teams of two, who were armed with explosives and assault rifles and apparently had little fear of death or capture.

Authorities will also consider possible links to Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger separatist rebels who are being badly hit in a military offensive at home, though Sri Lankan military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said it was unlikely the group was involved.

Two Sri Lankan players — Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavitana — were being treated for bullet wounds in a hospital but were stable…Umpire Ahsan Raza was hit in his abdomen…Team captain Mahela Jayawardene and four other players had minor injuries…British assistant coach Paul Farbrace also sustained minor injuries.

Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona said little could be done to stop such an attack, saying “there is never enough security to counter a well organized and determined terrorist group.” link

Update: Commenter pingpong points us to this great article in the The Economist that provides context re the Sri Lankan team’s bravery in agreeing to play, and the tragic ramifications for Pakistan.

In the aftermath of last Wednesday’s shocking Border Patrol (BDR) mutiny, Bangladeshi police, rescue teams and firefighters are faced with the grisly task of uncovering and burying the dead. Numbering around 70,000, the BDR’s main role is to secure Bangladesh’s long, porous borders with India and Myanmar.

The truth of the situation still remains unclear, but so far, this is what we know:

• The 33-hour standoff ended Thursday night
• 72 officers are missing (link)
• A total of 76 bodies have been found
• 48 bodies were discovered buried in two graves that each measured about 20 feet by 10
• Bodies being unearthed in manholes, sewers and shallow mass graves show signs of being shot and badly mutilated with bayonets
• PM Hasina promised amnesty on Thursday, but on Friday rescinded amnesty for killers. 200 BDR members have been arrested (link)
• Maj. Gen. Shakil Ahmed, commander of the Bangladesh Rifles border force, and a woman that authorities believed was his wife are among the dead (link)
• The government has ordered a 10-member committee to investigate the mutiny link

The weather, hovering around 30 degrees celsius, is not helping matters:

Bangladesh firefighter Arif Ullah reaches for a handkerchief and retches, overcome by a thick stench of bodies, as he combs a sprawling military compound for victims of a deadly mutiny by border guards…

“It’s hot and it stinks,” Ullah said, as flies buzzed around the flaps of green khaki tents erected over two mass graves into which many bodies had been hurled by the mutineers.

“But we’ve got to keep going. It’s been three days since these guys were buried. They’re badly decomposed.”

Sheikh Mohammad Shahjalal, a hardened veteran of rescue operations…says he is at a loss to explain the savagery of the killings. “It’s beyond comprehension how one human being could have done this to another. They not only shot them dead but some of the bodies were badly mutilated with bayonets.” link

Commenter dudeDAC lives in Dhaka and has been updating us on the situation in the previous post. He also took a series of stunning pics of tanks rolling through a busy downtown intersection.

February 25-26: we were discussing the security threat and the situation when the intersection went into turmoil, people running and simply standing gawking….We heard a rumble, growing, shaking the ground, and when the first tank (one of 10-12) rolled past, we knew the jig was up, it would either end in massive casualties, or quick diffusion.

Have you seen a tank up close? No matter how old or run by whom, it is a frightening sight. Only the naive and stupid think it is fun, or something to laugh about. The tanks can cause severe damage without ever shooting a round. Army is/should be the last resort, and heavy artillery the end of even that option.

More photos, with dudeDAC’s captions and on-the-ground sense of the situation, are below.

For the last few years, every time I hang out with my crew its like “what’s up Macaca?” Or “Macaca puleez.” If one of them is acting ignorant I have to bust out with this derogatory term that we have appropriated from the Man and made our own. The distinction is clear: I love me my South Asian people. But I hate macacas.

Ok ok, I’m just kidding…and ripping off Chris Rock’s material a bit.

A few days ago one of our commenters made the following observation: “slumdog” is the new “macaca.” Bobby Jindal’s primetime response to Obama was given about 48 hours after Slumdog Millionaire mopped up at the Oscars. The most watched speech ever given by an Indian American occurred only two days after a huge audience watched a large cast of Indians take centerstage at an event embodying American culture. I think the combined effect of the two is greater than many people realize. Over the span of 48 hours desis literally dominated the airways. And, of course, that can be a double edged sword when you are a minority

On many websites and blogs, liberal commenters, who immediately pounced on Jindal’s poor performance to discredit his “rising star” hype, used the term “slumdog” to describe him. It wasn’t limited to liberals though. Conservative commenters and bloggers did the same exact thing. After Allen used it in Virginia, the term “Macaca” was denounced almost immediately, and to the best of my knowledge was never widely used by non-desis again. I get the feeling “slumdog” is going to have some legs, however. See this exchange today between the new Chairman of the RNC and a Guardian Angels founder turned conservative radio host Curtis Sliwa:

Did Steele say “friggin’ awesome?” The Republicans have publicly stated that part of their strategy to come back from the wilderness has to be to aggressively court the urban youth vote:

Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an “off the hook” public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party’s principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

The RNC’s first black chairman will “surprise everyone” when updating the party’s image using the Internet and advertisements on radio, on television and in print, he told The Washington Times. [Link]

If this is part of his strategy I think he should fire whoever is advising him. Is it just me or does Steele come across like an old white guy trying to sound like he can speak like a young black guy?

Mainly I would like to hear from our readers. Have any of you been called “Slumdog,” even jokingly, in the past few days? Were you okay with it or did it bother you?

The Dhaka headquarters of the border guards known as the Bangldesh Rifles (BDR) was under siege yesterday, as renegade soldiers took civilians and army officers hostage.

The violence appeared to stem from the border guards’ longstanding grievances about better pay and treatment from their army commanders…

Around 9 a.m., they took an unknown number of army officers hostage, and a number of women and children were apparently caught inside.
To quell the mutiny, soldiers surrounded the narrow lanes surrounding the building. Two army helicopters hovered nearby, taking fire…

The Bangladesh Rifles has more than 40,000 members. Its rank and file are under the command of the Bangladesh Army. The mutinous guards’ demands included better pay, the ability to participate in lucrative United Nations peacekeeping missions and a change in the command and control structure of the border force. link

In the immediate aftermath, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urged Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) paramilitary troops to lay down their arms, offering a general amnesty, but by all accounts the unrest is spreading, with six other towns reporting violence.

At least 50 are reported dead, and now PM Hasina is taking a harder line, warning:

Do not force me to take tough actions or push my patience beyond tolerable limits. link

Details are still sketchy.Q&A about the situation from Reuters here. Readers in Bangladesh, our thoughts are with you. Please update on the situation in the comments.

In this week’s print issue of the New Yorker, there’s a long, satisfying piece by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll on India and Pakistan’s attempts to resolve the status of Kashmir over the past few years. The big surprise is just how close the two countries were to permanently resolving the seemingly insoluble problem. The agreement, which was in its final stages in the spring of 2007, was never put into effect or publicly revealed because it was being finalized just when Pervez Musharraf’s government began to unravel. Musharraf had hoped to simply postpone the public summit where the deal would have been announced, but instead the whole thing had to be shelved.

The article isn’t online at the New Yorker’s web site, but you can read it here, at the New America Foundation:

By early 2007, the back-channel talks on Kashmir had become “so advanced that we’d come to semicolons,” Kasuri recalled. A senior Indian official who was involved agreed. “It was huge—I think it would have changed the basic nature of the problem,” he told me. “You would have then had the freedom to remake Indo-Pakistani relations.” Aziz and Lambah were negotiating the details for a visit to Pakistan by the Indian Prime Minister during which, they hoped, the principles underlying the Kashmir agreement would be announced and talks aimed at implementation would be inaugurated. One quarrel, over a waterway known as Sir Creek, would be formally settled.

Neither government, however, had done much to prepare its public for a breakthrough. In the spring of 2007, a military aide in Musharraf’s office contacted a senior civilian official to ask how politicians, the media, and the public might react. “We think we’re close to a deal,” Musharraf ’s aide said, as this official recalled it. “Do you think we can sell it?”

Regrettably, the time did not look ripe, this official recalled answering. In early March, Musharraf had invoked his near-dictatorial powers to fire the chief justice of the country’s highest court. That decision set off rock-tossing protests by lawyers and political activists. (link)

And from there that it just went downhill for General Musharraf. Now, with weak and unstable new leadership in Asif Zardari, and a possible change in leadership coming in India as well this spring, it’s unclear whether anything can be done anytime soon.

The actual details of the almost-agreement aren’t spelled out entirely in the article, but we do get some promising inklings:

Rrrrrrrrrrrr.

Earlier this week I read a salacious article claiming that innocent little Latika Frieda Pinto is really a shady McShadester:

The star of Slumdog Millionaire has been hiding a secret husband whom she ditched after the film became a hit, it was claimed today.

Freida Pinto, 24, is said to have married Rohan Antao at a ceremony in Goa in December 2007 but last month ended their relationship. The couple were previously thought only to have been engaged… Their relationship appears to have foundered in the wake of Slumdog Millionaire’s success. Pinto, who plays the main love interest, was nominated for a Bafta and the film won a Screen Actors Guild Award for outstanding performance by a cast.

It is claimed that Mr Antao, a Mumbai-based executive, supported Pinto during filming but ‘she just stopped calling him’ at the time of the Golden Globes this year, according to reports today. [Link]

If you check out the picture of Mr. Antao you can’t help but come to the conclusion that the poor chap never had a chance. In reality you can only date so far outside of your attractiveness league and the fact that guys like Salman Rushdie have a lock on the statistical outlier category means that the Rohan Antaos of the world are headed for disaster. Then I read another article yesterday that got me to re-think this all a bit. Perhaps Frieda is innocent and Antao is possessive and delusional.

India’s religious right has been taking a public relations beating this past week. The newly formed Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women (which, by the way, is the greatest name for a group since the Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice) has organized the Pink Chaddis Campaign to oppose the Sri Ram Sena’s despicable actions last month and their impending Valentine’s Day protests:

The group says it will give the pink underwear to Sri Ram Sena (Army of Lord Ram) on Valentine’s Day on Saturday.

[SRS] was blamed for the bar attack in the southern city of Mangalore last month.

Pramod Mutalik, who heads the little known Ram Sena and is now on bail after he was held following the attack, has said it is “not acceptable” for women to go to bars in India.

He has also said his men will protest against Valentine’s Day on Saturday. [Link]

Let’s just hope that the SRS leaders don’t have a fetish for women’s underwear or this campaign will not have its intended effect.

In other news (perhaps not entirely unrelated) the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India’s Hindu nationalist group, has decided to start marketing a soft drink that contains cow urine. They see it as a refreshing alternative to Coke or Pepsi. I am sure they would rather young women kick back with a six pack of these instead of be loose at a bar with a beer:

Om Prakash, the head of the department, said the drink - called “gau jal”, or “cow water” - in Sanskrit was undergoing laboratory tests and would be launched “very soon, maybe by the end of this year”.

“Don’t worry, it won’t smell like urine and will be tasty too,” he told The Times from his headquarters in Hardwar, one of four holy cities on the River Ganges. “Its USP will be that it’s going to be very healthy. It won’t be like carbonated drinks and would be devoid of any toxins.”

The drink is the latest attempt by the RSS - which was founded in 1925 and now claims eight million members - to cleanse India of foreign influence and promote its ideology of Hindutva, or Hindu-ness. [Link]

I am curious, does anyone know how the cow urine aftershave splash has been doing in sales?

I’ve never been to an inauguration, despite my decade in D.C. So, I set out on a special Presidential Inauguration bus route, via my special Presidential Inauguration Metro card, which took me to the security perimeter. From there I walked in frigid temperatures to get to the Presidential Inauguration Metro train which would, it turns out, NOT take me to my intended destination.

Due to crowd control concerns, WMATA quickly shut down two train stations while I was underground, in transit, and packed in so tightly with other would-be attendees, that I felt assaulted every time someone moved an elbow. Everyone was aware of a different station which had been closed earlier; they announced it was unexpectedly reopening just as we pulled away from it. Too late. At this point, they had closed the last three stations at which we could have exited and we were well past the stop we needed. I started to worry about logistics as previously cheery train inhabitants cursed under their breath.

I hastily exited the Metro the moment I was able to, and I still ended up on the wrong side of the Capitol building. I had just over an hour to trudge through brutal, 11 degree weather, while attempting to avoid idling charter buses spewing exhaust, forbidding barricades, chaotic Police checkpoints and of course, thousands of people who were alternately shivering in their Uggs or shouting “Woooo! Obama!”.

The only thing I could think about was how I was thisclose to missing the whole point of the day, the whole point of the last two years, and it was all because of my bad luck with Metro. I tried to be mindful and prepare myself for the worst; if I was too late to get through security or move through the sludge of confused people faster than one mile per hour, I could say that I tried. That I had experienced the cold and the crowds and the optimism which was muffled by scarves, earmuffs and gloves. Que sera, sera…

I barely expected to make it to my rooftop viewing party in time for pomp and circumstance. I certainly did not expect to see a copy of Obama’s speech before he delivered it. And I definitely did not expect to be in tears when our new President recognized a faith which I respect, but don’t practice.

One thing at a time.

Washington D.C. is all a twitter this weekend, anxiously awaiting the multitude of inauguration balls to be thrown in honor of Obama’s swearing in ceremony (which is a mere afterthought). Everyone I talk to is just ready to get their party on. At least two Mutineers (Ennis and Anna) will be on hand. There is an unspoken competition underway as to who will throw the biggest and best ball. The Huffinton Post for example has been bragging non-stop about lining up Sting, Sheryl Crow, and other big names. It turns out that there is even a Sikh Ball you can hang at:

When a Barack Obama campaign volunteer offered to help Gulshan Gachoke attend the Sikh Inaugural Ball in Washington, her response was: What is an inaugural ball?

Although it has been more than 30 years since Gachoke and her husband left their village in India’s Punjab province for Northern California — and 18 years since she became a U.S. citizen — the 63-year-old speaks halting English, doesn’t know how to use the Internet and almost never ventures beyond her Fremont neighborhood’s Indian shops, lest someone mistake her for a Muslim and insult her.

But after a volunteer, Reena Johar, who shares Gachoke’s Sikh religion, explained that the ball will be the first-ever inaugural gala sponsored by Indian Americans, Gachoke eagerly signed on. [Link]

Hmmmm, I wonder if she will get mistaken for a Muslim and be insulted on her way to the ball. WaPo better follow up on this. It seems like Gachoke was able to work up the courage to go because she too believes that Obama counts as a desi:

But more than anything, she was drawn by the sense that she shared something fundamental in common with the young man whose skin color was so close to her own that Gachoke initially thought he might be Indian.

“He is one of us, you know,” she said. “He feels the pain.” [Link]

After attending the chaos that was the DNC I am going to watch the events of these next several days on television and not worry about finding a place to pee. For those of you in DC, the tickets to the ball may be a bit pricey, but how many times in your life do you get a chance to be treated like a Maharajah?

THE “MAHARAJAH” PACKAGE
Product : Maharajah | Maharajah VIP Ticket | Price/Unit : 250.00 USD

$250 per person VIP Level (from 7 p.m. onward, includes no waiting, sit-down reception, complimentary tickets to open bar, passed hors d’oeuvres, butler service from 7-8 p.m., a sumptuous and a Very Presidential Buffet Dinner, entertainment, gift bag, and a commemorative gift to mark this historic occasion) [Link]

The Atlantic has the absolute must read piece of the day (seriously) about the coming minority majority in America. In the rhetorically titled, “The End of White America?” Hua Hsu of Vassar College examines a basket of issues surrounding the idea that it is no longer even mildly desireable to be “white” in America. According to Hsu, white youth are trying desperately to mimic the cultures they see within minority groups as a means to escape the blandness of their “non-culture”:

Whether you describe it as the dawning of a post-racial age or just the end of white America, we’re approaching a profound demographic tipping point. According to an August 2008 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, those groups currently categorized as racial minorities—blacks and Hispanics, East Asians and South Asians—will account for a majority of the U.S. population by the year 2042. Among Americans under the age of 18, this shift is projected to take place in 2023, which means that every child born in the United States from here on out will belong to the first post-white generation.

Obviously, steadily ascending rates of interracial marriage complicate this picture, pointing toward what Michael Lind has described as the “beiging” of America. And it’s possible that “beige Americans” will self-identify as “white” in sufficient numbers to push the tipping point further into the future than the Census Bureau projects. But even if they do, whiteness will be a label adopted out of convenience and even indifference, rather than aspiration and necessity. For an earlier generation of minorities and immigrants, to be recognized as a “white American,” whether you were an Italian or a Pole or a Hungarian, was to enter the mainstream of American life; to be recognized as something else, as the Thind case suggests, was to be permanently excluded. As Bill Imada, head of the IW Group, a prominent Asian American communications and marketing company, puts it: “I think in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, [for] anyone who immigrated, the aspiration was to blend in and be as American as possible so that white America wouldn’t be intimidated by them. They wanted to imitate white America as much as possible: learn English, go to church, go to the same schools.”

Today, the picture is far more complex. To take the most obvious example, whiteness is no longer a precondition for entry into the highest levels of public office. The son of Indian immigrants doesn’t have to become “white” in order to be elected governor of Louisiana. A half-Kenyan, half-Kansan politician can self-identify as black and be elected president of the United States. [Link]

The case of The United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind mentioned in the article (someone we’ve blogged of before) refers to the 1923 case in which an Indian American veteran argued that he should be considered white (a precondition to becoming a naturalized citizen) because Indians were descended from Aryans:

Associate Justice George Sutherland found that, while Thind, an Asian Indian, may have had “purity of Aryan blood” due to being “born in Village Taragarh Talawa,near Jandiala Guru, Amritsar, Punjab” and having “high caste” status he was not Caucasian in the “common understanding”, so he could not be included in the “statutory category as white persons”.[1] George Sutherland wrote in his summary: [Link]

Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickramatunge was assassinated in broad daylight outside of Colombo last week. SAJA has a helpful round-up of coverage of the event, including some background on Wickramatunge’s journalistic record. What stands out is the fact that he has been a consistent dissenting voice in Sri Lankan politics, sharply criticizing the previous government for years. In recent years he had also become a critic of the new government of Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom he had earlier supported. Indeed, Wickramatunge and Rajapaska were until recently rather close friends.

Wickramatunge’s assassination is widely believed to have been carried out by forces allied with the government, if not directly sponsored by the government itself. His memorial service, which took place yesterday in Colombo, was attended by thousands of people (see a Flickr photostream of the event here).

This past Sunday, the Sunday Leader, the Sri Lankan newspaper founded by Wickramatunge and his brother, carried a posthumous editorial authored by Wickramatunge himself. It’s called, “And Then They Came For Me,” and it’s written with the understanding that it would only be printed in the event of the author’s assassination.

It’s a moving statement, which ought to be read by anyone who doubts whether freedom of the press or freedom of speech is, after all, an essential right. Wickramatunge begins by asserting his primary goal as a journalist over the fifteen years he had worked with this newspaper:

The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence thanks to the public-spiritedness of citizens who at great risk to themselves pass on this material to us. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.

The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning. Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognise that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic… well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you’d best stop buying this paper. (a link)

One of you phoned me, all out of breath, to say: “Have you heard? Prince Harry said racist things about BROWN people! This is so Sepia Mutiny. Are you going to blog it? Are you? Are you? Because, like, if you do? I don’t want credit, but I can’t WAIT until SM covers it. Okay? So, are you blogging it? When?”

Well…how ‘bout now, you not-annoying-at-all badger.

The video embedded above features Prince Harry disparaging darkies, his Grandmother and perhaps Canadians, as well— I couldn’t tell at times, with his accent. Well, that and a lot of people seem to insult Canadians (why?), so it seems like a safe assumption. The footage commences with time spent in an airport, waiting for a flight to the former British colony of Cyprus; after some editing, Harry is shown later on, discussing night maneuvers in Cyprus, as well as his pubes.

Speaking of those, they are what inspired the title of this post. In my title, I use the word “Ginger”, to refer to an infamous South Park episode which can help us understand why the Prince did what he did; perhaps by understanding, we may gain closure, and move on.

I had initially typed, “What next? Water is wet?” in the little Movable Type box before going the Ginger route. I only reveal this because I was really torn about which title to use. Obviously, South Park beats logic and sarcasm, every time. And for good reason, at least in this case.

Listening to Eric Cartman is especially instructive when trying to pick up the pieces after a traumatic video like the one above. Many people are asking themselves, why would Prince Harry SAY such a thing? Because water is wet? Trolls like to upset people? It’s just the way things are?

Or…is there something…more sinister…behind that pale skin and insolent mouth?

In a class presentation, Cartman argues that “Gingers” - people with red hair, freckles, and pale skin - are disgusting and are inherently evil, have no souls, and are unable to walk around during the day because of this...

Happy New Year, Mutiny! It is not possible to hyperlink a post title, so I offer this as my inspiration for the headline above.

Sometimes, when people assume I’m of Indian origin, I get grumpy and I think, I know just how Jan feels. I mean, I like Marcia. I understand that she’s the biggest sister and everyone in school knows her. But I am special too. :)

As a result of this feeling (and arguably, my background as a sometime member of the Fourth Estate), I read media descriptions of desis pretty closely. Indian is NOT a racial or ethnic descriptor. But sometimes it’s used as such.

I recently wrote an e-mail to an editor at [ed: The New York] Times about three articles in which this came up.

Kerala’s, I mean India’s Parvathy Omanakuttan was almost Miss World 2008; in the end, however, it was Russia’s glamazon who won the crown. Just another instance of a brown girl being passed over in favor of some blue-eyed blonde…KIDDING. Sort of. ;) Here is her biodata, I mean, bio (thanks, nik and mithua):

Parvathy, hailing from Kottayam, grew up in Mumbai. Having graduated in Arts, she has studied Sociology, Psychology & English Literature.

Parvathy’s ambition is to further her studies in Psychology to learn more about human behaviour in depth…The lanky beauty is an ardent sports fan with a special interest in basketball, badminton and swimming.

She has a special talent for whistling. She likes listening to music, singing, reading, glass painting, acting, modelling, dancing (varying from local dances to ballroom and Latin dances) and learning new languages.[zee]

I have to ask, why is whistling important? Apart from being extra-able to hail a cab, re-enact the “Whistle while you work” scene from Snow White or tell some hottie that he or she is foine—in a rather inappropriate way—what is it good for? Never mind , I answered my own question with that list.

Parvathy is also very fond of a beautiful quote by former President APJ Abdul Kalam ‘Dreams are not what you see in your sleep, but dreams are that, which do not allow you to sleep’, hence her motto in life is ‘Dream with your eyes open’. [zee]

She might be fond of that dreamy quote, but I’m fond of the fact that she’s athletic. We at SM love us some sporty brown girls.

Speaking of those of us at SM, feast your eyes on this inter-bunker haterade Ennis sent to me, via G-chat:

4:30 PM Ennis: everybody knows mallu chicks are too short to win a pageant ;)

For your information, HATER, she is either 5’8 or 5’9; I’ve seen both heights listed in the 20+ articles I trudged through for this post (which were all filled with the same lame quotes). Either way, she’s tall enough. Oh, when will the North-South hate end? When, I ask? When? ;)

Reading the following made me smile with recognition:

Prior to witnessing the event on TV, close family members visited a few temples to offer prayers for Parvathy’s success.

Those present couldn’t contain their joy when Parvathy’s name was announced in the five semi finalists.

Then followed tense moments as they waited for the winner to be announced, and when the news came that she was the first runner up, not everyone was happy.

Pakistan’s DAWN newspaper features a great investigative piece that details how its reporters tracked down (whereas other major papers failed) the family of Mohammed Ajmal “Babyface” Kasab (who may really be Mohammad Ajmal Amir) and listened to what they had to say. Kasab was, of course, the lone surviving gunman from the recent Mumbai attacks.

Ajmal Kasab…was supposed to belong to the village Faridkot in the Punjab. Media organisations such as the BBC and now the British newspaper Observer have done reports trying to ascertain the veracity of claims appearing in the media that the young man had a home there.

At the weekend, the Observer in England claimed that it had managed to locate the house everyone was looking for so desperately. Its correspondent said he had got hold of the voters’ roll which had the names of Amir Kasab and his wife, identified as Noor, as well as the numbers on the identity cards the couple carried…

However, the man who said he was Amir Kasab confirmed to Dawn that the young man whose face had been beamed over the media was his son.

For the next few minutes, the fifty-something man of medium build agonized over the reality that took time sinking in, amid sobs complaining about the raw deal the fate had given him and his family. [Dawn]

I have commented before on SM about how much I disagree with using the term “evil” to describe men like Ajmal Kasab. To call them “evil” or “insane” (without clinical proof of insanity) in my opinion gives society an undeserved excuse. It allows us to isolate them as others, as subhumans. It allows us to feel superior in thinking that we were born good whereas these men were born bad. Their “affliction” is seen as having zero probability of transmission to good people like us. It just cannot spread. You are born evil. Then you go and talk to their parents and you realize the difference between how we were nurtured and how they were nurtured can’t really be pinpointed except for a few wrong turns and bad decisions that cascade into fanatic acts. The father continued:

‘I was in denial for the first couple of days, saying to myself it could not have been my son,’ he told Dawn in the courtyard of his house in Faridkot, a village of about 2,500 people just a few kilometres from Deepalpur on the way to Kasur. ‘Now I have accepted it. This is the truth. I have seen the picture in the newspaper. This is my son Ajmal…’

Indian media reports ‘based on intelligence sources’ said the man was said to be a former Faridkot resident who left home a frustrated teenager about four years ago and went to Lahore…

After his brush with crime and criminals in Lahore, he is said to have run into and joined a religious group during a visit to Rawalpindi.

‘He had asked me for new clothes on Eid that I couldn’t provide him. He got angry and left.’ [Dawn]

Sounds like the name of a law practice right? Instead it’s the surnames of the three (brown) stooges in low places who figure at the heart of the Blagojevich pay-for-play scandal, key actors in the attempt to auction off the IL senate seat vacated by Obama to the highest bidder as if it were nothing more than a suitable boy from a “respectable” but dowry mad family.

This is how it allegedly went down, at a lunch meeting at India House, of course:

Businessmen with ties to both Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson discussed raising $1 million for Blagojevich as a way of persuading him to appoint Jackson to President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat. [Link]

Blagojevich made an appearance at an Oct. 31 luncheon meeting at the India House restaurant in Schaumburg sponsored by Oak Brook businessman Raghuveer Nayak… Nayak and Blagojevich aide Rajinder Bedi privately told many of the more than two dozen attendees the fundraising effort was aimed at supporting Jackson’s bid for the Senate. Among the attendees was a Blagojevich fundraiser already under scrutiny by federal investigators, Joliet pharmacist Harish Bhatt.

“Raghu said he needed to raise a million for Rod to make sure Jesse got the seat,” the second businessman said. “He said, ‘I can raise half of it, $500,000.’ The idea was that the other two would help raise the rest.” [Link]

I know that our generation often tries to persuade the older generation to get involved in American politics, but this is not what we have in mind! Legal campaign contributions can be good, but getting busted trying to buy a senate seat is bad.

(For the record, “Jackson’s attorney said while Jackson discussed the Senate seat with Nayak, he never asked him to do anything.” [Link] It really isn’t clear at this point whether Nayak was acting for Jackson or just freelancing, but Jackson’s seems unlikely to gain the senate seat now. )

So who are these jokers? (profiles and pics after the fold)

About a week ago the Houston Chronicle ran a story about a burglary here in Houston. A Sikh family (the Tagores) came home one night to find that their master bedroom had been ransacked and that a window was broken. They did what anyone would have done: called the police to report the crime. Then the story becomes not so routine:

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office is investigating allegations that deputies harassed a family of Sikhs whose home was burglarized last week.

Family members say the deputies handcuffed them, roughed them up and taunted them instead of taking a report on the break-in.

One deputy reportedly asked them if they’d “heard about the bombings in Bombay.” Another allegedly said he had been to Kuwait and “knew about Muslims…”

“The allegations, if they’re true, are certainly intolerable and inconsistent with our policies,” said sheriff’s spokesman John Legg.

The deputies could face anything from disciplinary action to termination, Legg said. He declined to release their names pending further investigation. [Houston Chronicle]

This incident occurred on November 26th. On November 27th, a film crew from San Antonio-based Sach Productions was already in Houston to interview the family.

The idea behind the birth of Sach Productions is the creation of an agency that uses the film media to further the Sikh cause. The intention of Sach Productions is to introduce Sikhs to the world and then bring forth issues that concern them.

The initial projects are short documentaries that introduce Sikhs to the Western world. The intention is to then bring issues relating to Punjab, Human Rights, Arts and Culture to the people. [Sach Productions]

By December 5th, as the local news began to pick up on the story, Sach Productions had already filmed and uploaded a documentary about the incident on to the web:

At the same time that one report mentions Sonal as a possible cabinet choice, Sonal seems to be under pressure as a member of the transition team as a couple of mainstream media outlets started to write about her.

I last posted about Sonal when she issued her statement, almost a month ago. In case, you’ve forgotten, here are the key things she said:

1. “my personal politics have nothing in common with the views espoused by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or any such organization”
2. “I’ve always condemned any politics of division, of ethnic or religious hatred, of violence and intimidation as a political tool”
3. “factually inaccurate internet rumors have attempted to link me to Hindu Nationalist groups through a variety of tenuous connections: Relief work I’m proud to have helped coordinate following the Gujarati earthquake of 2001 … “
4. “I do not subscribe to the views of such Hindu nationalist groups, and never have”

Since then, however, there have been four new developments (listed chronologically) in the continuing saga of Sonal Shah:

1 The general secretary of VHP-America said Sonal was a member of the governing council of the VHPA for three years. Her critics followed up with a link to the “VHP Governing Council & Chapter Presidents/Coordinators List” in 1998, hosted on Hindunet.org, which showed Sonal as a member of that group, and listed her US Treasury department email as a contact.

Sonal’s earlier statement stated that she was not a member of any Sangh organization in India and had implied that she had never been a member of the VHP-A, but had simply coordinated relief efforts after the earthquake. There was no response by her supporters, some of whom had argued outright that she was not a member of the VHPA, to this news.

2 The transition team announced that Sonal’s work is on the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform panel.

When I found out that Sonal would be working on tech issues, not foreign policy or personnel issues, I thought this would quiet criticism since it made her past affiliations less relevant. However, as with point #1, there was little acknowledgement of this from the other side.

Politico.com listed Shah as a contender for Secretary of Energy in the new administration:

Here’s a look at the five best jobs left to be doled out by Obama…. Secretary of Energy

The list: Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm; Dan Reicher, ex-Clinton renewable energy chief, now at Google; Sonal Shah, who heads Google.org’s global development efforts; Obama advisor Jason Grumet; John Bryson, retired chair at Edison International and hybrid car advocate; former Indiana Rep. Philip Sharp, Resources for the Future think tank.

It is not clear to me where this list comes from - whether these are a list of candidates that they know are under consideration or whether they are people that Politico thinks would be good for the job.

Sonal has a solid background in energy. She was a VP at Goldman Sachs, focusing on Green issues before she went over to Google.org:

Sonal worked on green initiatives, including advising clients and bankers on alternative energy opportunities and how to implement environmental, social and governance criteria for all investments. [wiki]

Sonal’s job was to make sure that green was … well, green, i.e. profitable. In this period, Goldman came up with a plan to reduce its emissions by 12% by 2007 and invest $1 billion in alternative energy. This dovetails nicely with Obama’s emphasis on alternative energy as one of his top priorities:

Obama has made the greening of America in all forms - reducing dependence on foreign oil, boosting solar and wind power, increasing auto fuel efficiency, and using green technology to drive the economic recovery - a central part of his pitch for the White House, and the person in this job could ride herd on those activities. [Politico]

The question is, could Sonal pass confirmation for such a high profile post? This is a post which would involve diplomacy with India, so her ties to the VHPA and other Sangh organizations would definitely become an issue.

UPDATE: As Homer Singhson points out, the NYT has Nobel Prizewinner Steven Chu as the front runner for the Energy Secretary position. Even so, this is the first time, to the best of my knowledge, that a desi-American has even been mentioned for a cabinet position.

As Ennis mentioned in the earlier post, there isn’t much we, as American bloggers, can add to the story from Mumbai as it continues to unfold on the ground. The time for blogging about the specifics will come in the next few days as more facts emerge. I recommend forgetting the news channels with their endlessly repeating video loops and paid talking heads. The best place to follow what is happening in Mumbai is to visit the wiki page created to compile all information about these attacks. It is continually being updated and the references section is terrific. There is also a Google Map of the region that has been created with all the attack sites highlighted.

Twitter has also been a great way to get details about what’s going on. Try typing Oberoi for example. “Terrorists trapped” also results in a slew of Tweets.

USE THE COMMENTS TO POST INFORMATIONAL FACTS or WORDS OF SYMPATHY ONLY. RIGHT NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR RECRIMINATIONS.

The revolution will not be televised, but I’m glued to CNN-IBN coverage live of this horrific attack. Here’s the short version from the BBC:

Gunmen have opened fire at a number of sites in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay), reportedly killing at least 10 people and injuring others. Police said the shootings appeared to be terrorist attacks. Gunmen opened fire at seven sites including a train station and a restaurant popular with tourists. Shootings were also reported near two hotels and at a hospital. At least two blasts, suspected to be grenade attacks, were reported. [BBC]

According to IBN, terrorists are still holed up and fighting the police, most likely in Oberoi Hotel, Taj and possibly in Colaba. The attack seems focussed on the popular areas of South Bombay, the posh supposedly secure areas, in order to spread panic and terror.

I’m going to close the comments, because they get ugly and we have little to add to the regular news coverage here at SM. If you feel an urge to discuss it and contribute what you have heard, I suggest you discuss the matter on the SAJA post.

She tried.

She tried to make her marriage to a violent new husband work, and when that failed, she did what she was supposed to do; she summoned the courage to leave. She got not one, but two restraining orders. She switched coasts, to take shelter with the only relatives she had in this vast country, and put 3,ooo miles between herself and her abuser. He drove across that vastness, with a single purpose: to take back what was “his”.

She did everything right, and he still hunted her down, and killed her, in front of the Holy of Holies, in God’s own house, while a hapless congregation was on their knees, reciting prayers for the dead.

A 24-year old Indian immigrant from Kerala trying to escape an abusive marriage, was killed by her husband, who also shot two other persons injuring them critically at a church in New Jersey. [express]

The shootings happened at 11:44 a.m., a witness said.

The gunman ran from the church and drove away in a green convertible Jeep Wrangler with a black soft top and the California license 5JHD200, said the police, who identified him as Joseph Pallipurath, 27, of Sacramento. He remained at large Sunday night as the New Jersey State Police and law enforcement authorities in northern New Jersey widened a manhunt on highways and at transportation terminals. [nyt]

Police kept the parishioners inside the defiled sanctuary for two hours, to gather statements. Then,

Stunned, teary-eyed congregants emerged from their Clifton church this afternoon after a gunman shot three people in the head, killing his estranged wife from an arranged marriage, and leaving the other two victims clinging to life.

Reshma James, 24, died about 4 p.m., police said. The other two victims, identified by fellow parishioners as Dennis John Malloosseril, 23, and Silvy Perincheril, 47, were in what police termed “very critical condition.”

Friends of Malloosseril said he was near death and family members were making arrangements to donate his organs late tonight. [NJ.com]

Malloosseril did die tonight. Besides being on the church’s Board of Directors, he was a computer analyst who took responsibility for the parish website. Had Malloosseril survived, this heroic man would have celebrated his birthday on Tuesday. Instead, he is a victim of what the New York Times called “the climax of a violent domestic quarrel that had reached from California to India to New Jersey over the past year”.

Lately, when reading some Indian publications on the web, I often see America portrayed as a dangerous jungle where Indians (especially students) get slaughtered left and right (and the race of the suspected murderer is always stressed in the article). Over the past year Anna has written here on SM about some DBD students who were the unfortunate murder victims of what were probably robberies (see here and here). Also, just last week a silicon valley CEO was killed by a disgruntled employee fired earlier in the day. All of these are really tragic deaths. However, to make the absurd leap of logic that Indians around the U.S. are being targeted is just ignorant. If all the victims were turban-wearing Sikhs and a terrorist attack has just occurred, THEN there might be reason to worry about this being a trend. But random crime in a large country does not a trend make. Enter the Atlanta-based “United States Hindu Alliance” who want something done:

Expressing concern over killing of Indian students and professionals in the US, a Hindu group in New York has approached the top American intelligence agency asking it to take steps to prevent such incidents.

In a letter to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the United States Hindu Alliance said it is “alarmed” by growing number of the killings, pointing out that there have been as many as five reported murders of Indian students and professionals in the past one year.

The letter, which was released by the alliance, also referred to the latest attack on 22-year-old MBA student in the University of Middle Tennessee Pulluri Shashank on November 16. He was shot but is reported to be out of danger.

The killings, it said, began at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge when two PhD students - Komma Chandrasekhar Reddy and Allam Kiran Kumar — were found dead in their apartment near the campus on December 14, 2007.

This was followed by the murder of Dr Akkaldelvi Srinivas, a second year medical student at Scranton University in Pennsylvania. Tummala Soumya Reddy, who was pursuing her master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at Southern Illinois University, was killed on September 22, 2008. Her cousin Vikram Reddy was also found dead near a lake in Chicago. [Link]

I can’t find a website for USHA but I did find a statement by one of its founders (Gokul Kunnath) that may help to explain the psychology behind this request:

Gokul Kunnath said that post 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US; Hindus became targets of racial hatred, violence, discrimination and abuse due to ignorance and misperceptions. There are one billion Indians, about 20% of the global population. The global Hindu diaspora is peace loving, and believes in pluralism and freedom of worship. Sadly it is being targeted for the wrong reasons. Hindus everywhere need to be proactive in safeguarding their interests. USHA will strive to empower Hindus everywhere through education, advocacy and activism. It will release an agenda of its concerns and problems and deliver it to the political representatives to resolve the issues in a bipartisan manner, he said. [Link]

I feel like this is tangentially related to Amardeep’s post from earlier in the week. I would be SHOCKED if the FBI decided to investigate any of these crimes. They are all local incidents and not part of some conspiracy. However, I can see how this “pro-Hindu” organization might be able to bring in donations from both here and abroad simply by writing this letter and convincing people that they are standing up for Indians/Hindus. I know that I risk coming across as overly cynical here. Maybe the folks in this organization truly are clueless and this letter is just an innocent token of concern. The alternative is that they are contributing to fear mongering and using the deaths of these students as a recruiting/fundraising tool for their organization (which is wrong no matter how innocuous the organization might be).

Today, in Los Angeles, Anand Jon was convicted of rape and sexual assault.

A Beverly Hills fashion designer was found guilty today of sexually assaulting seven girls and young women, capping a two-month trial that offered a sordid portrait of the fashion world.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for seven days before finding Anand Jon Alexander guilty of one count of rape and 15 counts of sexual assault and other charges.

The designer, who goes by the professional name of Anand Jon, sat silently in court wearing a light gray suit and yellow tie as the court clerk announced the jury’s verdicts. Behind him, his sister sobbed as she sat with friends and family in the crowded downtown Los Angeles courtroom. [LAT]

Jon, 34, a rising designer who had dressed socialite Paris Hilton and singer Janet Jackson before his arrest last year, faces possible life imprisonment after a Los Angeles Superior Court jury found him guilty on 16 criminal counts.

The crimes involved lewd acts on a child, rape and sexual battery in assaults between 2001 and 2007 against nine would-be models aged between 14 and 21. He was also convicted of possessing child pornography. [Reuters]

An anonymous tipster emailed us about a disturbing story out of dirty Jersey:

A family who had supported Barack Obama’s presidential campaign emerged from their home in the northwestern New Jersey town of Hardwick Thursday morning to find the charred remnants of a 6-foot wooden cross on their front lawn.

Pieces of a homemade bedsheet banner reading “President Obama , Victory ‘08,” which had been stolen from the yard the night before, also were found, leading investigators to believe the banner had been wrapped around the cross before it was set afire.

Lt. Gerald Lewis of the New Jersey State Police said his agency is treating the incident as a bias crime. [philly.com]

And why is that?

“Even though the victims are not African-American, it is being treated as a bias crime,” Jones said, noting the combination of a cross — a “well-known icon” — and Obama’s race. [PoconoRecord]

Obama received a mere 38% of the votes cast in Hardwick. The area is rather snowy:

As of the census of 2000…The racial makeup of the township was 97.06% White, 0.61% African American, 0.07% Native American, 0.41% Asian, 0.89% from other races, and 0.96% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.32% of the population. [wikiwiki wikiwiki]

[Apologies this was delayed. It took me a while to recover on Wednesday]

I was lucky enough to be at the official victory celebration of the Obama Campaign in Grant Park, Chicago Tuesday night. It was indeed an amazing experience.

The crowd was friendly and mellow. The air was one of expectation rather than suspense, since the outcome was over determined. I was passing through the various checkpoints when the networks called OH for Obama, bringing him to 194 electoral votes. Since the Pacific states would bring the total up to 271 FTW, everybody knew what would happen.

If the Cubs had won the World Series, the celebration would have been far more ecstatic and frenzied, with drunken people venting all the excitement that had been pent up during the games. This was very different, and far calmer than it appeared on TV.

People milled around, chatting, while watching CNN on the jumbotron. A cheer would go up every time a new state was called for Obama, and a few people cried when CNN finally called the election for him, but these were quiet tears of release leaking from the corners of peoples’ eyes, and not the ragged sobbing I had expected. I too was far calmer than I had expected, given all the energy I had put into the campaign in my life off-line.

Today on “Meet the Press” General Powell said what I wish McCain would say and what I wish Obama had said more strongly:

Well, the correct answer is, he [Obama] is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America. [NewYorker]

Powell also implicitly criticized the Palin wing of the party for being unfriendly to minorities:

Mr. Obama, at the same time, has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He’s crossing lines—ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He’s thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values. [MSN]

Powell’s point is worth explication. If America is going to be open to Americans who did not come over on the Mayflower, it has to also embrace the big cities in and around which most immigrants have historically lived.

Claims that small-town America is the only authentic America are implicitly claims that white America is the only real America. Immigrants were discouraged from moving to many small towns, and sometimes ethnically cleansed from them when they did. And while there are African-American small towns in the South and Latino small downs in the Southwest, that’s not the image that comes to mind for most voters when small town America is invoked. They see Mayberry in their minds eye, not Yuba city.

As the non-white son of immigrants, Powell “gets it.” I wish more members of his party did.

I’ve never been to Orissa and in general I don’t know much about eastern India outside of Bengal, so sorting out what has been happening in Orissa over the past few weeks is difficult. As I attempt to address this issue, I’m not interested in pointing fingers or arguing with religious zealots; rather, I’m interested in getting a balanced perspective on what is actually happening. (Take a deep breath. Now begin.)

Let’s start out with the New York Times, and focus on some of the basic facts. First, there has been a wave of anti-Christian violence following the vicious murder of a prominent VHP leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, and four associates. Swami Laxmanananda had been an advocate for local Hindus, and had worked against Christian missionaries and conversion in the area. Here is some of what’s followed:

Here in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped. Today it is a heap of rubble on an empty field, where cows blithely graze. (link)

There has also been violence between Christians and Hindus in five other Indian states — suggesting that what started in Orissa has the potential to turn into a communal bloodbath at the national level.

A local Bajrang Dal leader is quoted in the New York Times as saying that the violence is just a “spontaneous reaction” to the killing of a locally beloved leader, but whether or not that is so it is unclear whether Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati’s murder was motivated by Christian anti-Hindu feeling or a more generalized hostility towards organized religion associated with Maoism and Naxalism, or some mixture of the two (see this). Adding to the confusion, the Times and other news agencies have reported that local Maoists have claimed responsibility (see the Times of India), but last week three Christian tribals were arrested for the killing. According to the Indian Express, the three were in fact Maoists (as I understand it, the majority of Maoists in the area come from Christian backgrounds.).

Not that all that should matter now — the focus should obviously be on stopping any further violence from occurring, and in rectifying the wrongs that have been committed against people on both sides. The murderers of Swami Laxmanananda should go to jail, as should all those who have participated in recriminatory violence against Christians subsequently.

Another vitally important factor is the local element. This is not just a matter of Hindus vs. Christians. According to the Times, there is a pronounced local and tribal element to the polarization of the communities:

White House pool reporter Goyal asked Dana Perino a question in today’s regular press briefing (I guess a few reporters still bother to show up to hear what the Bush administration has to say):

Go ahead, Goyal.

Q Two quick questions — thank you, Dana. One, as far as this deal to be signed by the President this afternoon, what you think this deal will do in the future as far as U.S.-India relations are concerned? You think this deal will strengthen —

MS. PERINO: You know what I think I’ll do? In about an hour and a half, you can hear the President himself, and he’ll say it better than I will, so I’ll refer you to him. [Link]

And with that I believe Goyal wet himself. The President himself would appear to take THAT question.

Was the Secret Service really that ok with him being surrounded by this many brown folks at once? I’m just saying.

The President signed in to law today H.R. 7081, the United States-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Nonproliferation Enhancement Act. The deal was passed by Congress just last week.

The LA Times has a rather silly piece, where they interview “body language” experts on yesterday’s Presidential debate. The highlight for me was this little bit about pronunciation:

But Glass, who thought the debate was a draw, said Obama seemed unnatural at times. “Somebody coached him and did not do him a favor,” she said. “When he talks about an issue he’s passionate about, his gestures are fluid and real, but other times, he took his index finger and clasped it to his thumb, and it’s phony, it’s not real.”

She also thought his inflection might be a turn-off to some voters. “He’d say, ‘Pahk-ee-stahn,’ or ‘Tolly-bahn.’ You need to say Pakistan and Taliban like everyone else.” (link)

Um, is it possible he pronounces it correctly because… it’s actually the correct pronunciation?

Some bloggers over at the National Review’s “The Corner” have picked up on this as well (thanks for the tip, Sree):

The National Review’s Mark Stein, for example, said that Obama prefers the “exotic pronunciation.” He added, “[O]ne thing I like about Sarah Palin is the way she says ‘Eye-raq’.”

This came after the National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez posted an email that argued, “[N]o one in flyover country says Pock-i-stahn. It’s annoying.” (link)

Actually, I know plenty of people in certain “flyover countries” — i.e., in the Indian subcontinent — who pronounce it exactly that way.

Welcome to the United States of Stupidistan, folks.

Well, it took three years and it nearly toppled Manmohan Singh’s UPA government, but the India-U.S. nuclear deal was finally ratified in the U.S. Senate last night (along with some other trivial legislation…). On NPR yesterday, I heard snippets of speeches supporting the deal from Republican Senator Richard Lugar and Democratic Senator Chris Dodd (who is almost as ubiquitous as the top 40 M.I.A. these days). I also heard a Democratic Senator, Byron Dorgan, from North Dakota, who opposed it. India’s fourteen civilian nuclear reactors will be under international inspection, but eight military reactors will operate without inspection.

Interestingly, India has also just signed a nuclear deal with France, after getting a general waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group. So clearly the work that went into the main India-U.S. deal is already paying off for India in some surprising ways. There is further talk of a deal with Russia in weeks to come.

Though I’ve supported the deal from the beginning, one of the arguments against it from the American side seems worth considering: if you grant India an exemption for civilian nuclear energy, even though it didn’t play by the rules and sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and even though it engaged in testing ten years ago, you weaken the argument against allowing countries like Iran to develop civilian nuclear energy.

Does that hold water? I tend to think not, since the point is moot if India already has nuclear technology and is committed to not sharing it with nations that want it. But the Times quotes one Michael Krepon who thinks it will be a problem:

Michael Krepon, co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a research organization in Washington, called the promise of big dollars and American jobs “pure fantasy” and predicted that the United States would regret further opening the nuclear door.

“There will be a reckoning for this agreement,” he said. “You can argue till you’re blue in the face that India is a special case. But what happens in one country affects what happens in others.” (link)

There is a full-length critique of the deal by Michael Krepon here, published in 2006.

For the past 29 days, if I wasn’t working late I would head over to my parents’ local mosque for the nightly taraweeh prayer. Held only during the month of Ramadan and performed after the last of five prescribed prayers, taraweeh takes worshipers through all the suras in the entire Quran from start to finish throughout the holy month. Unfortunately, Muslims in swing states do not have the freedom of praying freely this year.

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West — the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by (sic) the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail — were distributed by mail in Ohio, a “chemical irritant” was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers.[DailyKos]

This is a cause and effect story. The cause is their cause; promote fear and paranoia of Muslims by mass distribuion of this video (which I am intentionally not linking to).

This week, 28 million copies of a right-wing, terror propaganda DVD are being mailed and bundled in newspaper deliveries to voters in swing states. The 60-minute DVDs, titled Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, are landing on doorsteps in a campaign coinciding with the 7th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Funding is coming from a New York-based group called the Clarion Fund, a shadowy outfit whose financial backers are unclear…the DVDs were distributed last weekend in national editions of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal within selected swing states. These included Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia.[HuffingtonPost]

The effect of the fear-mongering — and keep this in mind, as you hear what conservatives are bound to say regarding how this DVD is only meant to call out ‘radical’ Islamists and not ‘moderate’ Muslims — has been tragic for Americans here at home. The following is a quote about a woman who was at the mosque, praying.

“She told me that the gas was sprayed into the room where the babies and children were being kept while their mothers prayed together their Ramadan prayers. Panicked mothers ran for their babies, crying for their children so they could flee from the gas that was burning their eyes and throats and lungs. She grabbed her youngest in her arms and grabbed the hand of her other daughter, moving with the others to exit the building and the irritating substance there…The paramedic said the young one was in shock, and gave her oxygen to help her breathe.” [DailyKos]

And of course, to add another layer of absurdity to the story, Dayton Ohio Police decided that the event was NOT a hate crime.

Last week, SM reader “S” emailed us a tip about the October issue of National Geographic:

Just wanted to send a quick link to a story I worked on for ngm.com (National Geographic magazine). It’s a story about India’s highway project and has some amazing photography. The photo map has photos submitted to our site by readers.

The highway project is called the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ), and it is

…the brand-new, 3,633-mile expressway linking the country’s major population centers of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata. [ngm]

Some history behind the project:

Announced in 1998 by then Prime Minister Atal B. Vajpayee, who is credited with giving the project its grandiose name, the Golden Quadrilateral is exceeded in scale only by the national railway system built by the British in the 1850s. For decades after its 1947 independence, India practiced a kind of South Asian socialism in keeping with the idealism of its founders, Gandhi and Nehru, and its economy eventually stalled. In the 1990s the country began opening its markets to foreign investment, led by a pro-growth government and staffed by an army of young go-getters who speak excellent English and work for a fraction of the wages paid in the West. Yet India’s leaders realized their decrepit highways could hobble the country in its race toward modernization. “Our roads don’t have a few potholes,” Prime Minister Vajpayee complained to aides in the mid-1990s. “Our potholes have a few roads.”

Ten years after Vajpayee’s announcement, the GQ is among the most elaborately conceived highway systems in the world, a masterpiece of high-tech ingenuity that is, in many ways, a calling card for India in the 21st century. Seen on a 48-inch flat-screen computer monitor at highway administration headquarters in Delhi, the GQ seems as beautiful as a space capsule. Its designers describe it as an “elegant collection of data points,” or a gleaming, “state-of-the-art machine,” a technologically advanced conveyor belt moving goods and people around India with seamless precision.

Things in the Houston area are only partly starting to get back to normal in the wake of Ike’s destruction. Still only about 50% of the people here have their power back (I was luckily in the top 35%) and tensions are running high, especially as you get closer towards Galveston. Taz tipped me off yesterday that some nearby gas stations (specifically the ones with a small co-located convenience store) have been hiring Black Panther party members to secure the premises and prevent potential looting:

The Black Panther Party says it deployed 17 of its members to area gasoline station convenience stores to protect them from theft in the hours before and after Hurricane Ike makes landfall.

Owners asked the group to provide private security for their property, said Major Kenyha Shabazz, chairman of Peoples Party No. 3, the Houston affiliate of the Black Panther Party.

“These are the places that service our communities with food, water and fuel,” Shabazz said. “We don’t want these places torn up.”… [Link]

As you can imagine, many of these gas station/convenience stores are desi owned. I find this to be a rather interesting (and perhaps symbiotic) relationship. A party once thought of as extremist in the 60s is now being hired by South Asian business owners (not necessarily known for racial integration into the communities in which they reside). In return, the Panthers are given a new legitimacy and may even help improve race relations since the areas they are protecting also include large hispanic populations.

Once these owners and the community residents the Panthers sought to defend might have seen each other as adversaries, partners in a relationship filled with racial tension. The Panthers’ defense of these corner stores is a nice reminder of how times have changed to the benefit of the whole community.

“We hired these Black Panther people to take care of our two stores, one here on Dowling and the other one on Elgin,” said Nabi Chowdhury, manager of a Mobil station on Dowling Street.

“We have confidence in them because for a long time we have known them, and their attitude and everything, we like,” Chowdhury said. [Link]

Taz suggested I go conduct some interviews at one of these gas stations. However, I don’t want to get shot as a potential looter (I kind of have the avaricious eyes of one).

As the comments section of Ennis’ post on the GOP’s efforts to reach out to minorities indicates, many of us saw the video below on ABC News last night. I know I wasn’t the only one who immediately hit rewind, out of a combination of incredulity and astonishment.

Natural disasters are awful and over-worked, frazzled law enforcement officials are under much strain, but that still doesn’t justify ignorant reactions like the one captured above. I wonder if that same cop instructed other drivers who annoyed him or “talked back” to perhaps return to Africa or England? I’m thinking not.

Reader Suede wrote in to the tip line, with this update:

3:40am PST.

World News Now on ABC 7

Vinita Nair and her co-host are covering a story about the devastation in Texas, and they show a clip about how cops are turning people back and not letting them return.

The clip begins with a guy (desi) in a car arguing with the cop who is not letting him go through. The cop finally tells him “go back to India”. After the clip, Vinita didn’t just shove the comment under the rug, but instead, she was shocked and raised her concern about the trooper’s comments.

Go Vinita! As a massive insomniac (who grew up in a home with no cable), I have always loved WNN— I even list it under my favorite TV shows, on my facebook profile ;). Now that the beautiful and brainy Ms. Nair is co-anchoring it, consider me a rabid fan. Yay for calling out stupidity and not glossing over the truth.

This just in…five bombs went off in New Delhi today, at approximately 6pm.

India’s capital New Delhi was rocked by blasts in three busy market areas, killing at least 18 people, the worst bomb attack in the country since 50 people were killed in the city of Ahmedabad in July.

…Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who said five blasts took place within 45 minutes starting at about 6 p.m., condemned the attacks in a televised statement in the capital.

…As many as 50 were injured in the blasts, Delhi Police chief Y.S. Dadwal told reporters at one of the bomb sites. Some television channels put the toll as high as 20 and the number of those injured at 92. [Bloomberg]

Other media outlets are reporting up to fourteen have died from the blast. I’m sure this number will change throughout the course of the day once the facts are sorted out.

Two of today’s blasts took place in the central Connaught Place area and two at a market in the upscale Greater Kailash area, Dadwal said. One blast took place at Ghaffar Market in the Karol Bagh area, he said. [Bloomberg]

With Diwali right around the corner, and in the midst of Ramadan, I’m sure the markets were crowded with people preparing for festivities. It feels like an overwhelming 24 hours of tragedy - between these bombings, Hurricane Ike, and here in Southern California a tragic head on train collision.

I hope all of our readers and family are safe - whether in New Delhi, Houston or LA. If you are in New Delhi, please keep us posted!

UPDATE: The death toll is up to 30, with at least 90 people injured.

The Indian Mujahideen, regarded by security agencies as a front of the Lashkar-Huji terror machine, has claimed responsibility for the blasts… This group had sent emails before the UP court blasts, the Jaipur and Ahmedabad blasts. This time, too, it sent an email to media groups, however, 10 minutes after the first blast. [TimesofIndia]

To keep following the latest, there’s been a pretty well-linked wiki page set up on the Delhi bombings.

By now most readers will have seen the news that Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s President, has resigned from his post rather than face impeachment charges. While for some this might seem like a happy day, a slightly closer look at the situation in Pakistan suggests that the country is not now headed for greater stability or economic prosperity.

Since his party lost the Parliamentary elections earlier this spring, he was already essentially irrelevant. The threat of impeachment announced by Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif in recent weeks says more about the desperation of the new coalition government than it does about Musharraf himself.

In the weeks to come, I’m sure we’ll see a number of accounts of the fall of Musharraf, ranging from, “well, he was bad, but these guys are worse,” to “well, he was so bad that the room can’t help but smell better now that he’s gone.” There might even be a couple of people saying that he was actually good for Pakistan (democracy is overrated), good for women’s rights (he got a couple of laws passed; who cares about Mukhtar Mai, anyway?), and an invaluable ally to the United States in the fight against Islamic extremism (though I’m not sure how anyone could really make that argument with a straight face).

A preliminary account worth reading, which leans towards the first position, comes from Fatima Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto’s niece (but no fan of her aunt or her aunt’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari). Bhutto who starts off with a description of the recent press conference where Zardari and Sharif expressed their moral outrage about Musharraf’s “anti-democratic” actions as President and head of the military:

Zardari snarled every time Musharraf’s name came up, seething with political rage and righteousness, while Sharif did his best to keep up with the pace of things. He nodded sombrely and harrumphed every once in a while. The two men are acting for democracy, you see. And impeaching dictators is a good thing for democracies, you know.

But Nawaz Sharif and Asif Zardari are unelected. They’re not just unrepresentative in that they don’t hold seats in the parliament - they have absolutely no mandate in Pakistan. They head the two largest, and most corrupt, parties in the state but hold no public office. Pots and kettles.

When I saw this headline on Monday I couldn’t help but laugh a little: Four [Indian] Kids on NASA Trip Go Missing. I mean, I know NASA is occasionally accused by some crackpot (even well-respected crackpots) of covering up info about aliens, but the idea of foreign kids going missing on a NASA field trip is a whole new kind of conspiracy (wrong kind of aliens). Here is how things unfolded:

The authorities of a private school here have lodged a police complaint that two of its students, who went on an educational trip to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at its US headquarters, have gone “missing.”

The two students, Paramjit Singh and Kunal Bhandari, went as part of a 13-member delegation of the Dayanand Model School on July 22. While the other members returned, these two students did not come back. [Link]

Then there was this:

Four students from a school in Parowal village who went on a trip to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have gone missing in the US. One of the teachers accompanying them has also not returned as she reportedly got married.

Eighteen students of the CBSE-affiliated Doaba Public Senior Secondary School went to NASA for a project. While 14 returned, Arshdeep, Sumit Sahni, Dalbir Singh and Baljinder Singh have not come back. The four are aged between 14 and 15 years.

“Teacher Meenu Sharma sent an e-mail to the school authorities, requesting them to extend her leave by a month as she got married,” a source said. [Link]

SM reader Meenbeen tipped us off to a horrific crime story, earlier today:

Shelley Malil, an actor who played one of Steve Carell’s co-workers in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, has been arrested for investigation of attempted murder after his former girlfriend was critically injured when she was stabbed more than 20 times, authorities said Tuesday. [People]

Malil’s family, friends and lawyer persuaded the actor, who has also appeared on Scrubs, NYPD Blue, ER, Seinfeld and The West Wing to turn himself in.

Shelley Malil, 43, remained in custody on $2 million bail after he was taken into custody late Monday as he left a train in Oceanside, California, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said. His arraignment is scheduled for Wednesday…

Deputies found the victim Sunday night while responding to reports of screams for help and breaking glass in San Marcos, about 15 miles (24 kilometers) east of Oceanside. [fox]

According to both of the stories quoted above, Shelley Malil and the victim, 35-year old Kendra Beebe, had broken up recently, though TMZ states that neighbors thought they were still in a relationship; it’s difficult to nail down a time line of events, since some eye-witnesses saw the two going to the gym together the morning of the stabbing. A few articles also mention that Malil and Beebe took her children to the beach, the same weekend this occurred.

NBC 7 news reported (via video, so no quote) that Beebe’s two young children were at home, asleep, at the time of the attack, which occurred when Malil encountered Beebe in her backyard with a man with whom she was on a date. Sepia Mutiny: we dredge TMZ so you don’t have to…

According to Wikipedia, Malil was born in Kerala and came to the U.S. when he was ten years old, in 1974. WaPo has the quainter version of his backstory:

Shelley began pursuing his dream of entertaining people on the high school stage, where his leading turns often earned awards in district competitions in Texas, where his family settled after emigrating to the U.S. in 1974. As a child, he had dreams of becoming a comedic actor like Bob Hope, whom he first saw on a neighbor’s TV set, the only one in the fishing village on the southern tip of India. [WaPo]

That’s the background information for an online chat Malil did, in 2001, after gaining fame for playing “Chad” in the popular “What are YOU doing?” commercials for Budweiser (for which he won a Clio). It’s disconcerting to read the transcript now, and to find myself nodding in agreement with some of his responses…I keep self-reprimanding, “DUDE! You’re concurring with a savage, almost-murderer!!”

Here’s a YouTube clip of the award-winning ad, below:

There’s an interesting think-piece in The Atlantic by Robert D. Kaplan, exploring some of the possible reasons for the ISI’s involvement (recently reinforced by American intelligence reports) in the recent Indian embassy bombing in Kabul, as well as an assassination attempt on Hamid Karzai.

Kaplan begins with a historical overview, which I won’t recount (but do read the whole article). What seems like the key argument is the following:

The Karzai government has openly and brazenly strengthened its ties with India, and allowed Indian consulates in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-e-Sharif. It has kept alive the possibility of inviting India to help train the new Afghan army, and to help in dam construction in the northeastern Afghan province of Kunar, abutting Pakistan. All this has driven the ISI wild with fear and anger.

[…] In the mind of the ISI, India uses its new consulates in Afghanistan to back rebels in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Baluchistan, whose capital, Quetta, is only a few hours’ drive from Kandahar. When India talks of building dams in Kunar, the ISI thinks that India wants to help Afghanistan steal Pakistan’s water. Karzai’s open alliance with India is nearly a casus belli for the ISI. So elements of the ISI have responded in kind; they likely helped in the recent assassination attempt against the Afghan president.(link)

Though Kaplan depends a bit too much on the projection of probable motives and regional alignments (rather than actual utterances from the parties involved), the schematic he describes seems convincing to me.

He also offers a “takeaway” for American readers, namely, you can’t just throw troops and money at Afghanistan, and expect to win:

In the midst of all this, both Bush and Barack Obama talk simplistically about sending more American troops to Afghanistan. The India-Pakistan rivalry is just one of several political problems in the region that negate the benefit of more troops. As in the past in both Afghanistan and Iraq, we are in danger of conceiving of war in narrow military terms alone, and thus getting the politics wrong.

In the first place, we need vigorous shuttle diplomacy between Kabul, Islamabad, and New Delhi to address India’s and Pakistan’s fears about Afghanistan. Only by assuaging the ISI’s fears, while allowing India its rightful place in Kabul, can we get more cooperation from Pakistan in our fight against Islamic extremism. (link)

Thoughts? I like the flavor of this explanation for two reasons. First, while Kaplan’s take does not by any means make the ISI more likeable, in general it makes more sense to see an organization like the ISI as operating on the basis of rational, if short-term, self-interest, not as a mindless agent of violence. Second, it downplays the issue of local religious fundamentalism, which is of course exploited by the ISI, but not the underlying cause for its actions. Pure religious fundamentalism might lead someone to blow up a marketplace full of people. But what motivates someone to blow up an embassy is obviously something much more pointedly political.

Also: see an earlier post relating to the ISI here.

In a move “designed to create panic”, at least seven small bombs exploded in Bangalore, earlier today (thanks Janeofalltrades and smallpress):

Bangalore Police Commissioner Shankar Bidri said the seven blasts went off within several minutes of each other at different spots across the city. One woman was killed in an explosion at a bus stop in the city’s Madiwala neighborhood, he said.

Another person died later of his injuries, federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil said.

Bidri said each of the small bombs contained the amount of explosives equal to “one or two grenades” and appeared to have been set off by timers. [AP]

No one has owned the terrorist act, which took aim at the city’s neighborhoods (vs. its companies), as of yet.

The police took pains to say that the city’s famed technology sector did not seem to be targeted, and that the blasts were designed to create panic. The blasts took place in crowded, middle-class neighborhoods. The city has grown rapidly in recent years from a boom in technology outsourcing.

By Indian standards, where several cities have been hit in recent years by large-scale terror attacks, the explosions on Friday were relatively minor. In the last major attack, serial blasts in Jaipur, an historic city and a main tourist hub in western Rajasthan, killed more than 60 people in May. The authorities have said in the past that terror attacks were designed to sow hostility and fear among Indian Muslims and Hindus.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is often described, not entirely without reason, as a somewhat passive and non-confrontational leader — an accidental politician, with the real strings being pulled, behind the scenes, by Sonia Gandhi. (Manmohan may wear the Pagri, but Sonia wears the pants, as it were.)

However, in the speech he gave yesterday in the Indian Parliament before the Confidence Vote (which the UPA government won, by about 20 votes), Manmohan Singh showed no signs of meekness or passivity. Indeed, his take-down of BJP leader L.K. Advani is rhetorically ferocious. I was impressed:

“The Leader of Opposition, Shri L.K. Advani has chosen to use all manner of abusive objectives to describe my performance. He has described me as the weakest Prime Minister, a nikamma PM, and of having devalued the office of PM. To fulfill his ambitions, he has made at least three attempts to topple our government. But on each occasion his astrologers have misled him. This pattern, I am sure, will be repeated today. At his ripe old age, I do not expect Shri Advani to change his thinking. But for his sake and India’s sake, I urge him at least to change his astrologers so that he gets more accurate predictions of things to come.

As for Shri Advani’s various charges, I do not wish to waste the time of the House in rebutting them. All I can say is that before leveling charges of incompetence on others, Shri Advani should do some introspection. Can our nation forgive a Home Minister who slept when the terrorists were knocking at the doors of our Parliament? Can our nation forgive a person who single handedly provided the inspiration for the destruction of the Babri Masjid with all the terrible consequences that followed? To atone for his sins, he suddenly decided to visit Pakistan and there he discovered new virtues in Mr. Jinnah. Alas, his own party and his mentors in the RSS disowned him on this issue. Can our nation approve the conduct of a Home Minister who was sleeping while Gujarat was burning leading to the loss of thousands of innocent lives? Our friends in the Left Front should ponder over the company they are forced to keep because of miscalculations by their General Secretary. (link)

Unfortunately, I gather the din was too great for the speech to actually be heard. But hey, at least he tried to say it.

In terms of content, the only thing that seems off key here is the reference to Advani’s “ripe old age” — I’m not sure that a 75 year old man can really get away with that comment! (Advani, for reference, is even older — about 81.)

The rest of the speech (read it here in its entirety) is more focused on substantively defending the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal and the general policies of the current government. It is, by comparison to the above, a bit dull… but necessary.

In the interest of opposing dullness, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the second remarkable thing that happened in the chaotic Parliamentary session yesterday:

After a long court battle, the family of Dr. Sneha Philip is feeling some closure. The New York medical examiner’s office has finally concluded that she must have died in the twin towers, and restored her name to the list of official victims of the terror attacks (thanks, Art Vandalay).

Her name had been removed from the list in 2006, after a judge found that there was no conclusive evidence she had been in the towers on 9/11. She did not work there, but she and her husband did live a block away. She’s seen on a video camera, buying shoes at Century21, on the evening of September 10. The problem is, she did not come home that evening. When investigators began looking into her activities more closely, they discovered that this wasn’t entirely unusual — Sneha Philip often went out to bars, and sometimes spent the night at the homes of “strangers unknown to her husband.” The judge in 2006 seemed to think that as a result there wasn’t enough evidence that she was in the area — and that it’s speculation to say that she voluntarily went into the towers after the planes hit to try and help people.

The most detailed study of Ron Liberman and Sneha Philip’s story, along with evidence for and against the idea that she died in the Twin Towers on 9/11, is here, in a long article in New York magazine. I would strongly recommend reading it.

I hesitated posting on this a little, because I’m not really into gossip about people’s private miseries — Sneha Philip and Ron Philip’s Liberman’s lifestyle, and the nature of their marriage, isn’t really our concern. And the fact that Sneha Philip seems to have had some alcohol issues doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have tried to use her skills and knowledge to help people on the morning of September 11.

Two tidbits worth keeping in mind: the 9/11 victim’s fund is closed, which means there’s no financial benefit to Ron Philip or Sneha’s parents in Albany. Secondly, there’s at least one other case of someone for whom there’s no proof he was in the towers on 9/11 being included on the list — Juan Lafuente called his mother on September 8, telling her that he was starting a job three blocks from the WTC, and was never heard from again. There is no forensic or direct evidence he was there, but his name has remained on the list.

I’ve never quite understood what “Izzat” means, since it covers behavior I think of as thoroughly dishonorable and fails to cover other things that I think of as being quite honorable. But now, thanks to two tragedies in Georgia that have recently been in the news, I think I understand. Izzat means kill the bride.

Exhibit A: Chaudhry Rashid and his daughter Sandeela Kanwal

Rashid is accused of having killed his daughter because she wanted to get out of her arranged marriage:

Authorities allege that Rashid killed his daughter because he feared that her resistance to a recently arranged marriage would disgrace the Pakistani-American family… “She was very unhappy with the marriage, had not seen the husband in three months and was seeking a divorce,” … “The father felt like the he had to uphold his family’s honor…” [Link]

Let’s ignore for a second the fact that in Islam marriage is a civil affair and divorce is allowed. And let’s ignore the fact that if the marriage broke down, some responsibility must reasonably lay with the person responsible for choosing the groom. And let’s ignore the fact that the father was married to an American, so he clearly had not had an arranged marriage himself.

If the police account is correct (and Rashid has been charged but not yet tried, so the facts are not all out and there is no verdict), Rashid saw his daughter’s behavior as bringing disgrace to the family, and believed that the only way to set things right was to kill his daughter.

Exhibit B: Chiman Rai and his daughter-in-law Sparkle Michelle Rai

In this case, it’s Chiman Rai’s son, Ricky, who the father feels has stained the escutcheon by marrying a black woman, Sparkle Reid. The son is the one who has dishonored the family here, right? So what does the father do? Disinherit him? Kill his son? Nope - he hires hitmen to kill his daughter-in-law:

On June 27th, India’s Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji “Sam Bahadur” Jamshedji Manekshaw died at age 94. Manekshaw was one of the heros of the 1971 India-Pakistan war, and an extremely popular figure in India:

Sam Manekshaw, who has died at the age of 94, was the first general of the modern Indian army to be made a field marshal; he was awarded this honorary rank in 1973, at the end of his four years as chief of army staff. His career lasted almost four decades, saw five wars, and culminated in his successful masterminding of the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971. [Link]

As an ABD I had never heard of Sam Bahadur until somebody sent me this statement from the Obama campaign:

“I offer my deep condolences to the people of India, on the passing of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. He was a legendary soldier, a patriot, and an inspiration to his fellow citizens. Field Marshal Manekshaw provided an example of personal bravery, self-sacrifice, and steadfast devotion to duty that began before India’s independence, and will deservedly be remembered far into the future.” [Link]

Who in the campaign knew about Manekshaw? The new India brain trust had:

Obama’s statement is a product of a new India policy team set up two weeks ago within his campaign team. The team, co-chaired by two prominent Indian-Americans Vinod Khosla and Swadesh Chatterjee, includes some 20 Indian-Americans and South Asia experts from Bill Clinton’s administration. A key member of the team and the only Indian-American in Obama’s inner circle is Preeta Bansal, a Harvard Law School colleague of Obama. [Link]

What benefit does the campaign get from this? It wont help them with this Indian government if Obama becomes POTUS; neither the defense minister, nor the service chiefs, nor a single member of parliament were at the funeral.

Last week, on Thursday and Friday, a federal judge handed down sentences to the Sabhnanis, the couple in Long Island who were charged with enslaving and torturing their Indonesian maids (Previous SM coverage: 1, 2, 3).

• Varsha Sabhnani, identified as the person responsible for torturing the maids, received 11 years in prison.
• Her husband, Mahender Sabhnani, was sentenced to 40 months in prison for allowing the crimes to take place and benefitting from them.

The sensational details of this case caught the attention of the mainstream press, as did the resemblance of Varsha Sabhnani to a certain Disney villain. I can imagine this made other Indian families in Long Island, especially the ones who knew the Sabhnanis, a bit unconfortable.

What I can’t understand is why their friend, Jotwani, thought that this would be a defense:

“This case is very frightening for Indian families here,” said Bharat Jotwani, a wealthy friend of the Sabhnanis’ who lives nearby. “We are all educated, nice people. We came here to make it…”

“There is no way on earth any Indian family in the United States could do what they were accused of,” he said. “The [Indian] people I know here all feel this way. Anybody from India who has come here comes from a very good family…” [Link]

WTF? The Sabhnani’s couldn’t possibly be guilty because … they’re educated and nice people from good families? No Indian could possibly commit a crime? I know Jotwani’s speaking uncle-speak here, but I honestly can’t figure out what this would translate to in ABCD English. They couldn’t be criminals because they’re wealthy? Sometimes you just gotta shake your head and wonder …

Indian aviation just can’t seem to catch a break. First there was a story about the number of pilots who get grounded because they are have had too much to drink:

Around 50 pilots each year in India are being grounded because they had consumed alcohol before taking a flight, the country’s civil aviation authorities said Tuesday… Civil aviation rules specify that pilots and cabin crew cannot consume alcohol 12 hours before taking a flight… India is one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world with dozens of new airlines competing with each other everyday, often resulting in pilots forced to fly at short notices. [Link]

Notice that this is meant to be a positive story. Even if pilots are boneheaded, they’re getting caught before they get into the cockpit. If they’re actually catching all the tipsy pilots (and that’s a big if), then oversight authorities have done their job well.

However, there’s no good way to spin this next story other than to point out that at least nobody got hurt:

An Air India flight headed for Mumbai overshot its destination and was halfway to Goa before its dozing pilots were woken out of a deep slumber by air traffic control, a report said…

“After operating an overnight flight, fatigue levels peak — and so the pilots dozed off after taking off from Jaipur,” … The plane flew to Mumbai on autopilot, but when air traffic there tried to help the aircraft land, the plane ignored their instructions and carried on at full speed towards Goa. “It was only after the aircraft reached Mumbai airspace that air traffic control realised it was not responding to any instructions and was carrying on its own course,” the source said.

Finally air traffic control buzzed the cockpit and woke up the pilots, who turned the plane around, the report said. [Link]

Air India has strenuously denied the story, saying that it was merely a communications glitch:

“The report is absolutely incorrect, devoid of facts, misleading and irresponsible. It is a figment of imagination,” Air India spokesman Jitender Bhargava told AFP by telephone from Mumbai. [Link]

Note that a shutdown in communication still doesn’t explain why the pilots neglected to land the airplane as they were supposed to in Bombay. At best Air India is saying that its pilots simply … forgot, and there was nobody to remind them. Maybe they had a bit too much to drink.

The Obama campaign got itself into a crap load (a unit of measure used in politics) of trouble today after a couple of its junior campaign staffers (who no doubt had some guidelines from higher up advisors to Obama) decided that women wearing headscarves should be “discouraged” from being in the background when pictures of the candidate were being taken in Detroit (of all places!):

Two Muslim women at Barack Obama’s rally in Detroit on Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women’s headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate.

The campaign has apologized to the women, both Obama supporters who said they felt betrayed by their treatment at the rally.

“This is of course not the policy of the campaign. It is offensive and counter to Obama’s commitment to bring Americans together and simply not the kind of campaign we run,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. “We sincerely apologize for the behavior of these volunteers.”

Building a human backdrop to a political candidate, a set of faces to appear on television and in photographs, is always a delicate exercise in demographics and political correctness. Advance staffers typically pick supporters out of a crowd to reflect the candidate’s message. [Link]

This incident is D-Punjab all over again. I have no doubt that Obama is disappointed in his staffers over this but the buck has to stop at the top of the ticket. By forcefully refuting rumors that he is a “secret Muslim,” I think he is beginning to overreact and hurt his reputation among the very people who believe in him to bring a change. I mean, how in the world do you expect to campaign in Detroit and NOT be associated with Muslim supporters?

… incident began when the volunteer asked Aref’s friend Ali Koussan and two others, Aref’s brother Sharif and another young lawyer, Brandon Edward Miller, whether they would like to sit behind the stage. The three young men said they would but mentioned they were with friends.

The men said the volunteer, a 20-something African-American woman in a green shirt, asked if their friends looked and were dressed like the young men, who were all light-skinned and wearing suits.

Miller said yes but mentioned that one of their friends was wearing a headscarf with her suit.

The volunteer “explained to me that because of the political climate and what’s going on in the world and what’s going on with Muslim Americans, it’s not good for [Aref] to be seen on TV or associated with Obama,” said Koussan, a law student at Wayne State University. [Link]

There has been a little bit of a diplomatic incident in Mumbai with regards to a warning posted on the U.S. Consulate’s website that warns Americans walking around the city to be careful not to drop down manholes into the sewer:

Dear American citizens:

We bring this warden message to your attention so you can carefully consider the information it contains. Please pass along the information below to the American citizens in your area or put this information on your notice boards for dissemination. Thank you for your cooperation…

The monsoon has arrived in western India, and Mumbai is experiencing the season’s storms. With these come the possibility of heavy flooding. Heavy rains and associated winds can, at times, have the same intensity as a tropical storm. The rains during monsoon are significant and, in July 2005, led to heavy loss of life. You should follow common sense precautions, avoiding low-lying areas that appear to be flooded. Also be extremely cautious when driving or walking during flood periods. To ease flooding in Mumbai, Bombay Municipal Corporation workers will open manhole covers on roads, and there may be no markers. Tree branches upright on streets sometimes serve as caution signals. In reduced visibility conditions, you could drive into one of these open manholes. You should also pay attention when walking, since sidewalks are non-existent in some areas or used for other purposes in most parts of the city. It’s possible that you could inadvertently step into an open manhole. [Link]

SM commenters have previously discussed the “manhole problem” on this thread. However, the pride of some officials was hurt over the above statement.

Mumbai city officials are upset by an American warning about the risks of falling into manholes in India’s commercial capital during the monsoon season… The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation rejected the statement, and said it had e-mailed the U.S. consulate on Wednesday stating it had cast the city in a bad light.

Jairaj Phatak, the municipal commissioner, estimates that 10 people or fewer have died in such a manner in recent years. [Link]

I like the “10 people or fewer” comment because it speaks to the different thresholds applied to a public safety problem in the U.S. and India. Maybe instead of denying the problem the officials should instead launch a PR campaign by highlighting that Indian manholes are used all over the U.S. Something like “India: Securing American holes since 19##.”

A few months ago I wrote about Indra Sinha’s Booker-nominated novel Animal’s People, a fictionalized take on the 1984 Bhopal Union Carbide gas disaster.

In Animal’s People, several of the main characters embark on a hunger strike, including Zafar, the leading activist in the fictional town of Khaufpur. Now, a new development in Indra Sinha’s story, where his fiction is meeting his life: On June 10, Sinha began an indefinite hunger strike (from his home in France) in solidarity with 9 other Bhopal activists in New Delhi, many of whom are victims of gas or water contamination. His action is part of a global fast to finally force the Indian government into action to bring US giant Dow Chemical to justice in India.

Two days after the Worldwide Hunger Strike Relay has begun, 60 people in India, the US, Europe and South America have already signed up online to participate. Of this number, nine have committed to indefinite fasts, including Indra Sinha.

In his piece “Why I’m Going on Hunger Strike for Bhopal” in The Guardian today, Sinha writes:

I have spent much of the last five years writing a novel in which victims of a chemical disaster caused by a rogue corporation are sold out by their own politicians, triggering a desperate hunger strike. Animal’s People is set in the fictional city of Khaufpur, but whatever success it has had, it owes to the inspiring courage and spirit of the Bhopalis, and the descriptions of the hunger strike were drawn directly from the experiences of my friends. … On their small stretch of pavement in Delhi, now battered by monsoon rain, nine [people] have sat down to begin an indefinite fast for justice. Among them are my old friend Sathyu and, grown up into a fine young man … How can I not join them? How can we all not support them?

More on the strike and how to get involved, below the fold, as well as a look at Dow Chemical’s ironic “Human Element” ad campaign.

A report issued yesterday by NYU and the College Board attempts to lay out a case for why we should remove “model” from in front of “minority” with respect to AAPI students. The New York Times covers the report:

The report, by New York University, the College Board and a commission of mostly Asian-American educators and community leaders, largely avoids the debates over both affirmative action and the heavy representation of Asian-Americans at the most selective colleges.

But it pokes holes in stereotypes about Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, including the perception that they cluster in science, technology, engineering and math. And it points out that the term “Asian-American” is extraordinarily broad, embracing members of many ethnic groups. [Link]

I’m a census data geek so I had already flipped through a Powerpoint presentation of some of the study results before the Times write-up. I should admit that even before looking at the data I was slightly biased in that I thought it would be skewed in favor of the results that the “mostly Asian-American educators and community leaders” wanted to see. These types of studies usually seem to be. I agree that it is demeaning and not nuanced enough to label Asian Americans as model minorities, but I am also against making weak arguments to prove the contrary. Besides, if we weren’t “model minorities,” then why would Hollywood always portray us so? Here is Robert Teraishi’s presentation.

Figure by Robert T. Teranishi, N.Y.U.

Something about the above graph surprised me. It makes sense that Asian American groups (AAs only, not the PIs) with the shortest orange bars would be relatively better-off economically than those with longer orange bars. However, Chinese Americans seem to break that pattern. As a group they have a pretty long orange bar, indicating a substantial subset with poor English skills, and yet as a group they seem to have been pretty successful. I’m guessing the reason my perception is a bit skewed is that the absolute number of Chinese Americans is far greater than Indian or Filipino Americans. Maybe percentage-wise they haven’t been as successful as I assumed.

SM Tipster Vishal informed us of something today that I just assumed was a bad joke until I visited the website. There is a new Spelling Bee…exclusively for South Asian children:

About the South Asian Spelling Bee

The South Asian Spelling Bee is a platform that will give all South Asian students the opportunity to test their skills within their core peer group. In the 78th Nationals Scripps Spelling Bee, over 11% participants were South Asian and over the years many South Asian students have been champions. It is the effort of the South Asian Spelling Bee contest to encourage and promote South Asian talent across the US and to bring this aspect of a South Asian student’s life into the foreground by broadcasting this contest on National Television. [Link]

Are you kidding me? Is it not good enough that we already dominate the spelling world like the Kenyans do long distance running, or like Mr. T dominated Rocky in their first fight? Then again, that many geeky South Asian kids competing against each other is bound to provide an environment that engenders accelerated evolution (via hyper competition), resulting in the emergence of a super-speller. Its the same reason why you should always finish a course of antibiotics. If you don’t then the strongest bacteria will survive and multiply to create a superstrain. Speaking of multiply, desi parents can even use this venue to arrange child marriages like in the good old days. Mixing the right genetic lines would guarantee us victory in Scripps for years to come. Perhaps this new event has some merit after all.

The Guardian is reporting something we probably should have suspected: According to the human rights watch group Reprieve the United States has been, and continues to operate floating prisons to extrajudicially interrogate and house suspected terrorists:

Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those detained.

Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through a number of sources, including statements from the US military, the Council of Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of prisoners.

The analysis, due to be published this year by the human rights organisation Reprieve, also claims there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when President George Bush declared that the practice had stopped. [Link]

I think that as G.W. Bush’s term ends we will be seeing ever more skeletons (pardon the pun) fall out of the closet. Traditionally, as soon as the Democrat and Republicans have chosen a nominee, they begin to receive briefings from the CIA on a host of national security topics and current operations. This is done to assure some degree of continuity by keeping the potential president elect informed. A transition is also a time when you’d expect increased leaking of information as new people look under the hood.

Ships that are understood to have held prisoners include the USS Bataan and USS Peleliu. A further 15 ships are suspected of having operated around the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which has been used as a military base by the UK and the Americans. [Link]

We have previously written about Diego Garcia here and here (where the use of the island as a secret detention center was discussed).

13-year-old Sameer Mishra spelled “guerdon” correctly to win the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee. The word, rather wonderfully, means “something that one has earned or gained.” Champion!

Sameer was a crowd favorite throughout the tournament. When told one of his words in the semifinals was a dessert, he deadpanned: “That sounds good right now.” He rolled his eyes and muttered “wonderful” when told that one of his words had five different language roots. He once asked “Are you sure there are no alternate pronunciations?” In another round, he uttered “That’s a relief” after initially mishearing the word “numnah” (a type of sheepskin pad).

And what did he have to say while hoisting the heavy trophy? “I’m really, really weak.” link

Seriously, this kid was a delight. The last desi to win was Anurag Kashyap in 2005. Only three years ago, but an eternity for a competition heavily loaded with over-achieving, heartbreaking desi kids.

As someone who can’t spell cat without spell-check, I never really paid attention to or understood the mesmerizing drama of spelling bees. Not until I recently saw the documentary Spellbound. Suddenly the years of study, weight of familial expectation, the children’s innocence and drive, the announcer’s voices, the rigid rules, the way personalities emerged in unexpected ways under crushing pressure…This was nail-biting, stomach-knotting suspense!! Hot damn!!

I caught a bit of the finals last night - this year seemed harder than ever before. After the jump, a list of the twelve finalists (five desis!) and the words faced by the last three standing in order of elimination.

Continuing my suddenly service-y news coverage this the week, I bring you the most fascinating case of corruption gone awry yet! Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is currently under trial, facing at least 10 counts of extortion and misuse of power. Legal proceedings just hit a snag when documents pertaining to a “barge-mounted power plant graft case” were found eaten by termites.

According to her lawyers:

…many of the documents were now unreadable. The insect-eaten files were produced in court so that the matter could be officially recorded by the judge.

The defence say their case has been ruined. link

But wait! All is not so cut-and-dry (or, uh, chewed-and-digested):

The prosecution argued that only a tiny part of the cover page of the file was destroyed by termites.

They demanded to know whether the file had been damaged deliberately or because of negligence. link

Termites. Termites! Wow…think of how history might have changed if Monica had introduced a few boll weevils to that blue dress.

I wonder if I can get away with not paying rent this month… the mice ate my checkbook.

Quick update to Amardeep’s post on the Maoist victory in Nepal last month. Delegates from Nepal’s political parties convened a special assembly yesterday and voted 597 to 4 to abolish the 239-year-old Shah dynasty:

The government has told unpopular King Gyanendra to vacate his pink pagoda-roofed palace in the capital Kathmandu within a fortnight, or be forced out… It has been a dramatic decline and fall for a king once waited upon by thousands of retainers. Many Nepalis revered the monarch in majority-Hindu Nepal as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the god of protection.

Now, his portrait has been wiped off bank notes and his name has disappeared from the national anthem. He has been asked to pay his own electricity bills.

Nepalis say much of the mystique of the royal family was destroyed by the 2001 palace massacre in which popular King Birendra and eight other royals were killed by then Crown Prince Dipendra, who then turned a gun on himself. The royal image was further tarnished after Gyanendra fired the government and assumed absolute powers in 2005, only to be humbled by weeks of anti-king protests a year later.

Political parties and Maoists say a new president will step into the king’s place as a head of state after the end of the monarchy. link

And thus the world welcomes its newest republic. The palace is to become a historical museum after the king departs, but no word yet on where the new president will reside. Especially since the new president has not been selected/elected yet:

According to the Associated Press, the ubiquitous Fareed Zakaria is going to be getting his own show on CNN, to be called “Fareed Zakaria — GPS,” where “GPS” stands for “global public square,” not “global positioning system”. Reading the news reports on the coming show, my biggest concern is that people simply won’t be interested enough to watch:

“Fareed Zakaria — GPS,” which stands for “global public square,” will air Sundays at 1 p.m. EDT and be rebroadcast at a yet-to-be determined time on CNN International.

CNN U.S. chief Jonathan Klein approached Zakaria about a year ago and was told that “the only show I want to do is one that fills in the huge gaping hole in American television, which is 95 percent of the rest of the world,” Zakaria said in an interview with the Associated Press on Monday.

[Zakaria] said he’s frustrated when he turns on American news networks to hear endless discussions about why Hillary Clinton should or shouldn’t leave the presidential race, because there is legitimate news elsewhere. He fears a vicious circle is at work: Networks don’t show much international news because they fear viewers aren’t interested, and viewers aren’t interested because they get so little of it. (link)

The problem with taking this approach is, of course, that it’s a little like saying to viewers, “take your medicine, pay attention to serious international news, not this fluffy campaign nonsense.” American viewers are used to a diet of tabloid-style cable news that is obsessively America-centric; indeed, they prefer it. On TV, once you leave the protected space of PBS, entertainment has to be part of the package. to his credit, it appears Zakaria isn’t completely unaware of this, but listening to his comments I’m not sure he really gets it:

Zakaria also said he understands the need to make a compelling program that won’t seem like the college seminar you tried to skip. “People instinctively think they’re going to be bored by this and you have to grab them by the lapels,” he said. (link)

The problem with this, of course, is that people watching his show are not going to be wearing lapels — because they’re not wearing suits! Indeed, on Sundays at 1pm, they’re wearing old t-shirts while in the middle of doing laundry, flipping channels to avoid having to vacuum (sorry, TMI). If Zakaria and the producers of the show don’t quite get that, I’m not quite sure how the show will work.

Bangalore’s much-awaited new airport is finally opening this week, though the supporting infrastructure around it isn’t yet ready, according to the New York Times:

The way things stand now, the trip to the new airport, 21 miles outside town, will easily take 90 minutes from the city center, and even longer from the software companies that have turned Bangalore, also known as Bengaluru, into India’s own Silicon Valley.

India’s famously sluggish bureaucracy has meant that workers are only now scrambling to finish widening the main road to the new airport. The city water supply has yet to reach the area, making it impossible to begin construction on the shops and office towers that are supposed to sprout around the airport. Even though airport officials were ready to open on schedule, in March, air traffic controllers said they needed more time to train. Late Wednesday, airport officials said they had been told by the government to postpone the opening by one day, to Saturday. (link)

The words “famously sluggish bureaucracy” are, of course, de rigueur in any article on public works in India, a little like travel writers mentioning the heat. It’s a truism that is so true, it sweats.

In this case, though, it’s not just the government that has bolloxed this up. The airport was actually built and designed by private shareholders (including Siemens), who have operated under the assumption that the old airport, closer to the city center, will be closed once the new aiport opens. But given the incredible growth in the demand for air travel in India (and in Bangalore in particular), the new aiport may not be big enough after all, and the group Bangalore City Connect is calling for the old airport to remain in operation in parallel with the new one. I think that makes sense — why throw away an existing facility?

Sepia Mutiny has had a long tradition of writing about the exploits of Raghubir Goyal (born on July 6!), a White House press corps member who claims to write for an Indian-American magazine (“India Globe”) that may or may not actually exist. (Does it? Has anyone ever actually seen it?)

Goyal was of interest to us and others because of his status as “foil” for White House press secretaries eager to change the subject over the years, especially when hammered with too many tough questions about things like Enron, Abu Ghraib, missing WMDs, Katrina, civil war in Iraq, the President’s abject failure to privatize social security, and other various and sundry White House failures. Now, however, general interest in the Bush White House is winding down a bit, and reporters are often skipping press briefings. Goyal, however, is still faithful, as we see in a story in this week’s “On the Media”:

(Also see an earlier NPR “On the Media” story involving Raghubir Goyal here.)

I will miss Goyal; I cannot imagine his press credentials will survive into the Obama presidency. Indeed, his will be one of the very few faces from the Bush administration I will really miss. Appropriately, he is an unintentionally comic figure, with no particular qualifications or competency. And yet he continues to do his job as he always has, and no one has seemed to mind, except for a few alienated cynics.

Earlier Sepia Mutiny posts on Raghubir Goyal: here, here, here, here, and here.

Also, see the comprehensive Raghubir Goyal Watchdog site for some choice quotes.

On May 2, George W. Bush explained that the current spike in food prices worldwide is primarily a consequence of rising demand from China and India: “when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food, and so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up.” The quote was widely seen in the English-language Indian media as “blaming” Chindia for the problem, and was met with outrage.

Some of that outrage is collected in a recent IHT article on the President’s controversial statement. Some of the best, most snarky comments are by Pradeep Mehta, who works for a private economic research organization in India:

The food problem has “clearly” been created by Americans, who are eating 50 percent more calories than the average person in India, said Pradeep Mehta, the secretary general of CUTS Center for International Trade, Economics and Environment, a private economic research organization based in India with offices in Kenya, Zambia, Vietnam and Britain.

If Americans were to slim down to even the middle-class weight in India, “many hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa would find food on their plates,” Mehta said. The money Americans spend on liposuction to get rid of their excess fat could be funneled to famine victims instead, he added. (link)

And somewhat more measured comments, along with some more statistics on caloric consumption, are here:

Americans eat an average of 3,770 calories per capita a day, the highest amount in the world, according to data from the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, compared to 2,440 calories in India. They are also the largest per capita consumers in any major economy of beef, the most energy-intensive common food source, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The United States and Canada top the world in oil consumption per person, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“George Bush has never been known for his knowledge of economics,” Jairam Ramesh, the minister of state for commerce, told The Press Trust of India after Bush’s remarks, which he said proved again how “comprehensively wrong” Bush is.

“To say that demand for food in India is causing increase in global food prices is completely wrong,” Ramesh said.

Politicians and academics in India cite various other reasons: diversion of arable land in the United States and Europe into ethanol production; trade subsidies by the United States and Europe; and the dollar’s decline. (link)

Those latter factors (ethanol production, trade subsidies, dollar’s decline) have also been cited by a number of economists in the west. Still, the President and Condoleezza Rice (who made a similar statement a couple of weeks ago) are presumably right when they say that there has been a rise in global demand, though I have a strong feeling that that demand started to rise more than a decade ago. It’s those other factors that, as I understand it, have really converged this year to drive up prices. (Does anyone really know? Is this an economics problem that can be solved?)

Consumption-wise, I admittedly look like an ordinary American: my own caloric intake is probably closer to 3000 than 2000 (though I’ve admittedly never been able to count it out… how many calories in roti? rajma-chaval? chicken biryani?). Still, on this issue, I can’t help but see things from the Indian point of view: “Why do Americans think they deserve to eat more than Indians?”

A series of explosions went off in Jaipur’s old city today, killing at least 60 people and wounding another 150 (thanks, Rob). Via CNN:

The seven explosions started at about 7:30 p.m. (1400 GMT, 1000 ET) and detonated within 12 minutes of each other, police said.

The bombs exploded within about 500 meters (0.3 mile) of each other in Jaipur’s old city, which is frequented by tourists…

An eighth bomb was defused, according to H.G. Raghavendra, a Jaipur city official. He described all the bombs as “medium intensity.”

“There is no reason to panic,” he told CNN-IBN. “Everything is under control.”

The Associated Press says it was actually six bombs and the seventh was defused. I’ve also seen different numbers for how many casualties the bombing caused.

Ruthless timing:

One of the blasts in Jaipur hit a market near a temple dedicated to the Hindu monkey god Hanuman, according to police. Tuesday is the day of worship set aside for Hanuman, and the temple was packed with people offering prayers on the way home from work.[AP]

No group has stepped forward yet to claim credit for the horrific, dastardly act, which Reuters said is “the deadliest bomb (attack) in India in nearly two years”. If you have relatives in, friends visiting or are otherwise connected to the Pink City, you are in my thoughts.

Developing…

In a rather surprising move, British Airways announced this week that it will no longer be serving beef aboard its (often Hindu-filled) flights in economy (a.k.a. “cattle”) class:

What will become of me now? What will they pay me in if not in beef?

British Airways has ditched beef for economy class passengers this summer in an attempt to appeal to a more international passenger base.

The familiar cabin crew inquiry of “chicken or beef?” will not be heard in economy after the airline ditched the national dish in favour of what it calls a lighter, healthier option.

Critics will suspect that the relentless pressure to cut costs that all airlines are facing is behind the move, although BA said cost was not a factor…

“We can only serve two options and beef and pork obviously have religious restrictions,” the spokesman added. BA’s second-biggest long-haul market, after transatlantic routes, is to India. [Link]

As might be expected, many Brits were not happy about this. For one thing, what the hell are all the Beefeaters going to do?

The decision to scrap the nation’s favourite fare was described as a “great shame” by the English Beef and Lamb Executive, formerly part of the Meat and Livestock Commission.

A spokesman said: “It is regrettable that Britain’s flag carrier is not proposing to serve Britain’s national dish.

“It is a meal we are rightly proud of. Roast beef and beefeaters are symbols or Britain used to promote tourism.

“Our beef is also much in demand overseas. It is predominately grass fed and highly praised for its flavour. [Link]