Dec

31

K for counterfeits

December 31, 2007 posted by indiatime | 6 Comments

Sony TV has been airing episodes of ‘K for Kishore’ since a week ago, a singing contest about Kishore Kumar’s songs. The first episode was rather sentimental considering Kishore Kumar’s family members showed up, wife Leena Ganguly as well as sons Amit and Sumit. Elder son Amit Kumar is a judge for the contest along with composer Bappi Lahiri and singer Sudesh Bhonsale.

The first episode last week will also be remembered for the heartfelt tributes that each of the contestants paid to Kishore Kumar. The singing was okay and the judges didn’t award any points then, since last week was more or less an ice-breaker. With the contest now in its second week, many of the contestants continued their tributes to Kishore Kumar, some talking about how they wooed their wives singing Kishore’s romantic songs, others speaking about making their living imitating Kishore’s voice. The best part of the show is probably the three judges, themselves ardent fans of Kishore Kumar.

Unlike Zee’s Saregama show however, Sony, it seems, doesn’t have a good filtering system to choose good singers. As with its Indian Idol show, I think Sony has failed yet again to gather good singing talent, making this contest not so much of a first-class talent show, reducing it to a mere tribute to the great Kishore Kumar.

That is a pity, because Kishore Kumar, for many, is the greatest singer of their generation. His voice was instrumental in turning many Bollywood actors into legends and superstars - Dev Anand, Rajesh Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, to name a few. What separated Kishore Kumar from other singers of his and other eras was his multifaceted versatility that went beyond his extraordinary singing - his acting, directing, composing, everything. Kishore Kumar, along with Rafi and Mukesh, made the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s a beautiful time to live in India.

I think it is futile to find a singer who can match Kishore’s voice or sing his songs the way he did. It is probably even more futile to find a singer who can emote joy and fun like Kishore did. For now, we have these tenderfoot amateurs imitating the great one’s class act. It may be a good thing that Kishor Kumar isn’t around to listen to these counterfeits.

Dec

31

NRI brothers shot to death

December 31, 2007 posted by indiatime | 4 Comments

Ravinder and Paramjit Kalsi, who owned the Sahib Indian restaurant in the town of Richmond in California, were shot to death last Thursday night, just as they had closed for the day.

Kalsis who were originally from Punjab, had bought the restaurant about 5 years ago, and were known to the local community as hard-working businessmen. The brothers frequently sent money to their disabled sister who is still back home in India. Ravinder, the younger brother, had recently gotten engaged and was planning to get married soon.

It is not known yet if the killings were a random robbery or a hate crime.

Dec

31

Why Tata’s $2500 car spells trouble for India

December 31, 2007 posted by indiatime | 24 Comments

In less than 2 weeks, at New Delhi’s auto expo, India’s Tata group will be lifting the curtains off of its new venture - India’s cheapest car that will cost only $2.5K - one lakh Indian Rupees. The new car affectionately referred to as Pepole’s car or ‘Lakhpatia’ by many is aimed towards the 2-wheeler owners who’ve always dreamt of owning a family car but haven’t always had the financial resources to make the transition from a 2-wheeler to a 4-wheeler.

Tata Motors has lately been in the news for its ambitious entry into the luxury car market with the Jaguar venture. For last few years, the thinktanks at Tata Motors have been busy coming up with strategies to make the Tata brand more competitive and attractive, having enjoyed a virtually monopolistic throne at the top of India’s car market for decades.

However attractive the cheap car proposition may be for the consumers, it is sure to spell disaster on several other fronts.

1. India’s roads, or highways, if one can give those roads some undeserving discount, are so clogged and choked already that an influx of a few thousand vehicles on some of these routes can bring traffic to a standstill for sure.

2. Many of India’s big cities already do not have any parking space left. Add a few thousand vehicles and the parking scenario wis sure to become a logistical nightmare.

3. The new car, however cheap, is surely cutting corners for safety, no matter what anyone says. The number of highway accident fatalities in India is already disproportionately higher than most western countries. With India’s tricky traffic where one often finds vehicles coming towards you in your own lane, any compromise on safety can spell big trouble in a little car.

4. Here’s where the real magic trick is with these cheap cars. It may be easy to own the car henceforth. But every car owner will thus become a permanent customer consuming ever more oil than before. That can’t be good news except for India’s big oil corporations.

5. There are three types of companies who will benefit from these new cars and all those are already sitting at the top of India’s business world. Companies that make steel, companies that make oil, and companies that make cars. Steel is sustainable so I don’t have a problem with those companies. The other two types are taking more from the planet and giving back smoke and pollution and poisonous gases.

No, I’m not against an Indian company ruling the car market. I only wish Tatas had shown some innovation and creativity to come up with automobiles that could have solved or at least addressed the planet’s problems rather than add to those. With all their billions, Tatas and Ambanis can afford to send their grandsons and great-grandsons to Mars or Jupiter for fresh air. You and I can’t.

Dec

30

Ten things about Bhutto murder that don’t make sense

December 30, 2007 posted by indiatime | 6 Comments

man who shot Benazir Bhutto

24 hours after Benazir Bhutto’s burial, there still are several things that do not make any sense. Here are some of them:

1. Benazir was attacked within the first few hours of her arrival in Pakistan back in October. Form all accounts, she was fully aware and alert about the risks she faced. Several times, she complained about lack of security support from the Musharraf government. Why did she break her own security bubble and put her head through the sunroor of her car, exposing herself to her shooters? Did anyone ask her to do so?

2. While Benazir stood up through her SUV’s sunroof, the only security covering her vehicle seemed to be covering the backside. How could the security detail have been so sloppy exposing Pakistan’s supposedly only hope? Was it just incompetence on her security detail’s part or was there a plan in motion to leave both the flanks exposed?

3. The shooter who shot at Benazir seemed to have plenty of time to get his gun up, aim at her and shoot at her. How is it that nobody in the crowd is seen stopping this person? Were all those around the vehicle just way too dumb not to notice him?

4. The government of Pakistan seemed to be in some hurry to draw conclusions about the murder. With this leader is so important and the situation so grave, nobody was expecting the government to come out with a conclusive report on the murder practically within minutes of the murder. How is it that the government that has shown ineptness at everything else is suddenly on top of this one investigation?

5. Nawaz Sharif, the other former prime minister in the election fray, was apparently shot at the same day, and four of his aides were killed. How is it that he wasn’t whisked away to safety, but was still around at the hosiptal? How did he or some other people know that there wasn’t any more threat to Mr. Sharif anymore? Why didn’t anyone doubt that this could have been part of a larger plot to eliminate all former prime ministers and not just Ms. Bhutto? Did Mr. Sharif or his people have any role in Ms. Bhutto’s murder, since most people would point their finger at Musharraf first?

6. Baitullah Masood, the Al-Qaeda commander who Benazir had suspected could one day harm her, gave a statement yesterday saying that Al-Qaeda doesn’t attack women. Since that statement, the media seems to have absolved Al-Qaeda, buying into Masood’s argument. How can people buy that argument? What about several hundred women who died in 9/11 attacks? Why does media even believe anything Al-Qaeda says?

7. Musharraf’s and his cronies now try to convince the world that they did provide security to Benazir Bhutto. How is it that there was only one police officer with Benazir while she is addressing a rally in Pakistan’s capital city? If there were more undercover officers who were supposed to be present, where the heck were they before, during or after the assassination?

8. The accident scene was quickly pressure-washed by Pakistan government officials with pressure washers. Why would the government be in a hurry to pressure-wash the crime scene away? If an important leader is killed, wouldn’t that entire area be cordoned off? Who pressure-washes the crime scene but the perpetrator himself?

9. This is 2007. Everyone on the planet has cellphones and digital cameras and video camcorders. How is it after almost 3 days off the murder, every image that we see is hazy and blurry like the Zapruder film from Kennedy assassination?

10. How does it or does it matter if Benazir died of a bullet wound or a sharpnel wound or a fall resulting from a suicide attack? Why would the government of Pakistan go to great lengths to advocate one assassination theory over another? How does that help Musharraf’s case?

Dec

29

Missing NRI woman found safe

December 29, 2007 posted by indiatime | 2 Comments

24-year old Anu Solanki, a Chiacgo housewife and a gift-shop worker, was found safe on Friday. Solanki’s family had reported her missing since last Monday. An initial search had found her Honda civic car parked with engine running and doors unlocked in a forest preserve parking lot. Her laptop was missing but one purse was found intact. The same day, a friend received a call from Anu Solanki that she was being followed by 4 men in a car. Later, Solanki called friend back saying the men weren’t chasing her anymore.

What followed was 4 days of frantic search by the police and her relatives, a search that included the help of a police helicopter, sniffer dogs, sonar units and scuba divers who searched for Solanki’s body in the river. That authorities have said that the search cost them about a quarter million dollars.

Solanki had ostensibly gone to the Des Plaines River to immerse a Ganesha idol on Christmas eve. The idol had apparently broken and a Hindu priest had told the family to immerse it in water. Police, however, found from Solanki’s own cell phone records, that on the day she supposedly went missing, she had been communicating with Karan Jani, a friend from California before she went missing. Solanki’s family, however, was oblivious to her friendship with the Californian and have told the press that for now, they are happy to have her back safe and sound.

Dec

29

A question of guts and guns in Pakistan

December 29, 2007 posted by indiatime | 6 Comments

The most striking thing amidst the flood of news items after Benazir Bhutto’s assasination has been the lassitide and lethargy of the Pakistan’s middle class.

James Madison, considered by many to be the father of the American constitution, once defined the role of middle class in a democratic setup as a group which, by the silent operation of the laws and without violating the rights of property, reduces extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raises extreme indigence toward a state of comfort. If one were to tweak those words towards a desirable goal in a utopian Pakistan, its middle class would have to, by the silent operation of the laws, reduce the militant extremism towards a state of mediocrity, discredit and overthrow the powerful military machine, and win the trust of the poor masses.

That lack of vibrancy in Pakistan’s middle class and the lack of any sense of nationalism in its greedy elite are the two major reasons the masses in Pakistan find themselves in disarray and chaos in these very critical times of that nation’s history. Neighboring India, on the other hand, has always had a vibrant middle class, a majority that is not really silent. One of the classic examples in the modern Indian history is the 1977 middle class revolt against the rule of emergency when professors and teachers and nurses and doctors joined hands with farmers and students, a grassroot movement growing faster than bamboo.

It is amazing to see the plight of countries like Pakistan and Cuba, where the middle class is resigned to a life of silent condemnation, hoping for some miracle, dreaming at night about a leader in shining armor who will come their way. The only good life for Pakistan’s middle class is outside of it.

If you look at the world freedom map, the only countries where people are still not free in 2007 are either Islamic or communist. For Pakistan, the roots of this mess were there for anyone to see and predict when India and Pakistan split apart 60 years ago. Unlike the rest of the Islamic world, Pakistan used to be a part of a structured ancient civilization where democratic ideals had taken roots long before Greece and Rome and any other country ever spoke of it. But Pakistan’s then leaders, with their myopic vision and insatiable greed for power, sacrificed the future of their people by misusing religion to gain jurisdiction.

The only hope for Pakistan’s democracy is murdered, and there is not even a postmortem done. How did the military government get so audacious? Not because the military has guns, but because the masses don’t have guts! And Pakistan’s imbalanced constitution has seen to it that the only leaders of men will come from the ranks of its military or its religious order. Either way, Pakistan is screwed big time.

Dec

29

Indian woman traveler puts USA on TB alert

December 29, 2007 posted by indiatime | 5 Comments

An Indian woman passenger who traveled on an American Airlines flight (AA 293) from New Delhi to San Francisco via Chicago, has caused a stir in the public health corridors of the US.

The 30-year old Indian woman was being treated for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) while she was in India. While still very sick, the woman, originally from Nepal, took off for the US on December 13th. Within a few days of her reaching the US, she showed up at the emergency room in Stanford, where she reamins isolated from the rest of the hospital population.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta is in overdrive, trying to locate the 44 passengers who shared the American Airlines flight with the sick woman. Since the New Delhi-Chicago flight was a long flight, some of the passengers might have caught the drug-resistant TB infection from the woman. The CDC isn’t focusing on the Chicago-San Francisco flight since it was shorter than 8 hours, which the CDC considers to be the minimum period of exposure needed to catch this particular TB infection.

Dec

28

Top 10 little known facts about Benazir Bhutto

December 28, 2007 posted by indiatime | 29 Comments

1. Benazir Bhutto, who was assasinated in Rawalpindi yesterday, will be buried in her hometown Larkana today. Larkana, in the province of Sindh, is only 15 miles away from the ancient city of Mohenjodaro - famous as the showpiece of Indus valley civilization from 5000 years ago.

2. Benazir’s last name Bhutto is a modified version of the original family name Bhatto which is actually a village in the Indian state of Haryana. Benazir’s grandfather moved to Pakistan before India’s 1947 partition, and settled in the Sindh province. Benazir’s father Zulfiqar, who was educated in California, changed the spelling of his last name to Bhutto (which would be pronounced the same as Bhatto in India or Pakistan).

3. Benazir’s niece Fatima (brother Murtaza’s daughter) wrote a stinging article about her aunt in the Los Angeles Times just over a month ago. She came very close to blaming aunt Benazir for her father’s murder at the hands of the police, at a time when aunt Benazir was the prime minister of Pakistan.

4. For several years, Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir’s husband, denied owning a lavish country estate in England. He eventually admitted to owning the $8 million dollar Rockwood Estate (Surrey Palace) - a 20-room mansion on a 365 acre lot. Benazir herself always denied knowing anything about the mansion, once suggesting that her husband might have bought it for some other woman.

5. The Liaquat Bagh, where Benazir Bhutto was assasinated, was named for Pakistan’s first prime minister Liaquat Ali, who was also assasinated in the same Park (then Municipal Park, now named after him) on October 16th, 1951. In the 1980s, Liaquat Ali’s wife Begum Rana became the foremost critic of Pakistani General Zia-Ul-Haq, the same dictator who had orchestrated the hanging of Benazir’s father.

6. Benazir’s grandfather Shahnawaz Bhutto almost managed to annex the state of Gujarat (then the state of Junagadh) to Pakistan at the time of India’s partition in 1947. Shahnawaz Bhutto was the diwanjee (prime minister) of the state of Junagadh and conspired with the Nawab of Junagadh (who was a muslim) to join Pakistan after partition. But the majority of Junagadh’s Hindu population revolted and Shahnawaz as well as the Nawab ended up fleeing Junagadh on November 8th, 1947.

7. Benazir’s grandmother was a Hindu. Grandpa Shahnawaz had married Lakhi Bai, a Hindu beauty who converted to Islam (and became Khursheed Begum) before marriage, but the rest of Lakhi Bai’s family remain Hindu to date and live peacefully in India.

8. Benazir’s mother Nusrat Bhutto was Iranian-Kurdish whose family are descendants of Saladin (Salahuddin Ayubi), the famous 12th century ruler of Egypt and Syria who defeated the Christian crusaders and conquered Jerusalem.

9. Asif Zardari, Benazir’s husband, came to be known as Mr. Ten-percent on acount of coruption allegations against him. Speaking about his problems with the auditors, he once compared his plight to that of Jesus Christ, saying
“…Jesus Christ was crucified because they said he was a threat to Rome..We [Zardari and the PPP] are being crucified… because we are a threat to the establishment..”

10. Benazir kept an idol of Hindu deity Ganesha in her home. The jade idol of Ganesha was clearly visible in her Karachi residence when NBC newswoman Ann Curry interviewed Benazir after the October attack on her motorcade.

Dec

27

Benazir Bhutto killed in terrorist attack

December 27, 2007 posted by indiatime | 4 Comments

There are reports that Pakistan’s opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in a terrorist attack on her political rally in Rawalpindi.

Bhutto had just finished addressing the political rally and was leaving the rally in her armored Ford car. As the car came close to the gates of the Liaquat Bagh park, Al-Qaida terrorists, probably from the ranks of Tahrik-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, came on a motorbike and shot at Benazir. The bullets hit her head and neck region, wounding her critically.

THere was a bomb blast immediately following the shooting. About 20 people are said to have been killed in the blast. Earlier reports had indicated that she was safe, but her party workers later reported that she had been injured and had been taken to the Rawalpindi General Hospital in about 30 minutes, where she was immediately taken to the operation theater. The doctors announced her death at about 6:16 pm local time in Rawalpindi, 8:16 am EST.

Bhutto was campaigning for Pakistan’s national elections which are only 10 days away. Barely 2 months ago, she had survived a terrorist attack on her motorcade the day she entered Pakistan from her long exile abroad.

Dec

27

The doggone Delhi politics

December 27, 2007 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

Yesterday, New Delhi’s government got rid of two of its problems. One of the problems was a public menace. The other was a menace to the criminals and the corrupt ones in the establishment.

Kiran Bedi, India’s most famous lady cop, who recently opted for voluntary retirement, yesterday started her private life, prematurely and voluntarily ending her 35-year old service to the Indian police, a glorious career fighting criminals in and out of the establishment. Ms. Bedi managed to reform hundreds if not thousands of hardened criminals during those 35 years, though the number of politicians she reformed is probably less than one or two. India’s rigid bureaucratic system meant that Ms. Bedi had to work under people of much less caliber, little vision, and probably zero tolerance for her innovative approach to criminology. It is to Kiran Bedi’s credit that she still managed to carve a career full of unbelievable accomplishments and monumental achievements, not just as a lady cop, but as a police officer of the highest order.

New Delhi let go of Kiran Bedi because people in power couldn’t handle her charisma, her popularity, or her stature. That Kiran Bedi, one of the most dignified and respected administrative officers in the country felt cheated, slighted and belittled by our government is a fact that doesn’t put the slightest of dents on her illustrious public service. but rather reflects the sad state of affairs in India’s coveted bureaucratic corridors.

The second problem that New Delhi is trying to get rid of soon is its stray dogs. Several politicians in the city government have proposed shipping Delhi’s stray dogs to South Korea, where dog meat is quite popular, especially the Bosintang soup, a dish that is supposed to give virility to those who drink it. Delhi’s dogs have enough of that virility going on, since the city has been struggling to control its stray dog population, which now runs into several thousands, 18-20000 by some estimates. New Delhi’s politicians have been toying with the idea of exporting stray dogs for dog meat, hoping to rid themselves of the responsibilities of any humane resolution to the stray animal issue. It is well known that those dogs await a horrible fate in South Korea, but New Delhi’s government seems little inclined to look for any rational resolutions, having rather chosen to wash their hands of the dog meat altogether.

So what do you call a doggone system that treats top cops as dogs and dogs as food? No matter what you think, it doesn’t change a thing for the capital city. For the dogs who run it, yesterday was just another walk in the park.

Dec

26

Jaguar from the land of tigers?

December 26, 2007 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

Narain Batra, a Norwich University Communications professor in Vermont, has an interesting piece in The Statesman about the survival of brands when they are diluted by association to new owners, new environments and new perceptions. Batra is speaking about Tata Motors’ buy of the famous Jaguar brand, an issue I’ve written about previously, as far back as July of this year.

Batra is asking a fascinating question - Will Europeans and Americans buy Champagne from the slums of Mumbai?. Unlike Indians, says Batra, the west has little tolerance for cognitive dissonance.

OK. So the issue here is will the luxury-car buying consumers, wherever they are on the planet, perceive the Jaguar brand differently, when they know that it is owned by an Indian company? Just as BMWs and Mercedes are known as German luxury cars, will the Jaguar be henceforth known as the Indian luxury car?

Just the other day, the same Tata group got a rude response from the luxury hotel brand Orient Express, in what is once again a battle of brand identities and their perceptions.

That brings up several more important questions.

1. Why is brand India looked down upon?
2. Who is responsible for that? The government? The people? The west?
3. Will the perceptions about brand India ever change? When? And how?

Though I agree with Batra that the west is a little inflexible about cognitive dissonance, I also feel that the west does have a tendency to quickly come around and support a kickass quality product. Companies like Hyundai have made inroads into the US auto market based more on the improving quality of their products than attractive pricing alone. Unlike Hyundai or some Japanese companies however, the Tatas are a virtually unknown brand in the US, be it the auto market or anything else.

These next few months will give us a lot of insight into how the consumers react to the passing of big brand batons. That insight can help other Indian companies to tweak and tune their strategies so as to make brand India a more attractive proposition for the global consumer.

Dec

25

Tallest Xmas cake and other records for 2007

December 25, 2007 posted by indiatime | 1 Comment

Uday Samudra Leisure Beach hotel, a resort hotel in Kerala, is claiming that it has set a new world record for the tallest xmas cake ever. The almost 30 feet cake tops the previous record by almost a foot and will be cut into 22,000 small pieces to be distributed into hotel’s guests and neighboring charity homes. The cake was built by ten chefs working for last 3 weeks (probably leaving the hotel’s guests hungry for those 3 weeks). Earlier, the hotel had set a world record for the largest sandwitch a few months ago. Next on the hotel’s agenda? The tallest laddoos ever built for Makar Sankranti (just to keep the secular balance, perhaps) ?

The Guinness book of records, on its website, lists all the major records broken during the year 2007. That list includes only one record from India -

the longest ever concert by any group-

The record for the longest concert by a group is 50 hours and was achieved by Comaganin Raaga Priya Light Music Orchestra for the Visually Impaired in Chennai, India, from 27 to 29 April 2007

Browsing the Guinness website, I thought there were at least 2 other records that could have been attributed to India, but Guinness has discriminated a little bit there. Here are those 2 records that I dispute-

1. Longest marathon cricket playing

Guinness attributes that record to the Red Row cricket team (UK) at Morpeth, Northumberland, UK, on 26-27 May 2007, for playing continuously for 34 hours. That is nothing. India’s national cricket team has been playing non-stop round-the-clock cricket for last several years, let alone a few hours or a few days or even a few months.

2. Most people sitting on one chair

The most people sitting on one chair was 722, which was set by staff and students of Wilson’s Creek School, Missouri, United States on 1 June 2007.

Actually, I apologize. I think I read this one wrong as ‘most people sitting in their chairs for the longest time‘. Because that distinction would undoubtedly be claimed by the cricket fanatics of India who have been sitting in their chairs for last several decades.

Here are some of my other nominees from 2007:

1. Least languages learnt while living in multilingual India
Only one nominee so far - Shiamak Dawar

2. Loudest voice from a singing contest judge
Nominees are Himesh Reshammiya, Mahesh Bhatt, and Anu Malik

3. Most gold ornaments ever worn - man or woman
Only one nomiee - Bappi Lahiri

Please feel free to contribute more!

Dec

24

The state government of Orissa is suing a US-based online garment company for insulting Hindu sentiments.

Cafepress.com allows its resgistered users to create and sell their own designs and then lets others choose from various designs including those made by its own users. In the process, several users have created designs that include Hindu Gods, symbols such as Aum, Indian national flag, etc. Such designs can be printed on various garments or undergarments including t-shirts, jackets or even skimpy thongs!

A private citizen in the state of Orissa, yesterday filed a report in a police station in Puri, Orissa and Orissa’s law minister has now taken it up. “I, on the behalf of the government of Orissa, request you to take up the issue with the American government for taking action against the website owner to refrain the company from such unholy activities“, the law minister said in a published statement.

Cafepress has several designs for Indian consumers, including spme quite creative ones like this ‘I’m so sari“.

It’s true that some of the Cafepress users have created designs that depict Hindu gods or the aum symbol. At the same time, there are more Christian and Buddhist and Jewish and Islamic symbols on cafepress. Plus Cafepress also has several designs depicting love for all these religions and it also has some designs for atheists - like this one that puts all the religious symbols in trash. Many Cafepress garment designs incorporate the Indian national flag as well. Can that be considered as hurting national sentiments or breaking some flag-related laws in Indian territory?

Several countries have laws that prevent a website owner from the content or comments contributed by users of the website. But should a website be accountable and legally liable for any hurt sentiments if the website is making money off of the content in question?

This whole issue of hurting of religious symbols reminds me of my school days. A street artist near my high school, used to paint or draw Hindu Gods on the sidewalks and footpaths. People threw money at his art and by the end of the day, he would make tens of Rupees if not less. But since the sidewalks were now occupied by his religious paintings, pedestrians could not use the sidewalks and had to use the street, sometimes risking their lives in the heavy traffic. You see, people were afraid to walk on his paintings (even though he was painting sidewalks), since it would hurt religious sentiments. One Friday evening, a little girl who felt forced not to use the sidewalk, was hit by a city bus, and thus lost her life to the street paintings. The street artist was never charged or held liable for the accident.

Religion and law is a dangerous mix and one of the grayest of territories, especially when it comes to hurting sentiments. Throw in some ecommerce and a dash of globalization into that mix and the legal waters probably get a lot muddier. So, I don’t know, folks. What is one supposed to think when one sees someone wearing this? Or as Bruce Lee would say, “Don’t think idiot, feeeeel”!

Dec

23

Bhagwat Gita in America’s motels and inns

December 23, 2007 posted by indiatime | Leave a Comment

It is common knowledge that the motel business in the United States is dominated by Indian Americans. Of the 47000 American hotels and motels, a whopping 43% or more than 20,000 are owned by Americans of ethnic Indian origin. And that figure included several big-name branded hotels such as some Marriott, Sheratons as well as Hiltons, not just the days inns or the comfort inns. The Indian invasion of the US hotel industry began about 3 decades ago, and has now turned into a second-generation venture for many of those families. Their sons and daughters, born in America, some educated at top business schools in that country, are now bringing their wall-street smartness into the business, ensuring that the Indian American domination continues and expands.

But it’s not just the ethic Indian financial savvy that is news at the American hotel industry. Besides the free mroning coffee, something else is brewing in America’s hotels and motels.

More than a 100 years ago, the Gideon’s International, an association of traveling businessmen in America, started placing bibles in the hotel rooms in the US. The practice started in the room 19 of the Bascobel hotel in Bascobel, Wisconsin, a town that also hosts Wisconsin’s Supermax prison. Gideons distribute more than 56 million copies of the bible every year, about a hundred per minute. Besides the Gideon’s bible or the New Testament, Marriott hotels will typically have the Book of Mormons and some hotel chains such as Nikko properties (JAL hotels) have started carrying Buddhist texts.

Now with Indian Americans controlling almost half of America’s motels and inns, VHP (Viswa Hindu Parishad) or the World Hindu Council, has vowed to place copies of Bhagawat Gita in the American hotels. “In a hotel room where one has more leisure time, one can get inspiration and insights from browsing through a copy of the Gita”, said Vijay Narang, a speaking for the VHP. Narang fellow VHPians are a bit late in the game, as the most of America’s hotel drawers are already occupied. But with their fellow Hindu businessmen in control of the hotel industry, the VHP may have an inside track into the hotel rooms of North America.

Dec

22

The viewers of Saregama Little Champs singing reality show were reminded last night how some ambitious parents will go to absolutely any lengths to push their kids into the winning circle. The incidence happened when one of the contestants on the show was eliminated in the public voting stage, her father took a strong exception and voiced concerns about the veracity of the voting system.

Now, I don’t trust all these public voting systems either, and I am sure there are some reality shows that manipulate the voting and manipulate the eventual results. What is more disconcerting is how the little girl’s father found out that the vote count wasn’t perfect. Near the end of ths show, Aditya Narayan, the host of the show, declared that the 6 contenders vying for the two wildcard spots had won a combined total of 200,000 votes. The girl’s father got upset and contended that his family and friends alone had ‘managed’ more than 200,00 votes for his daughter. He told the stunned audience that his friends and family had used 6 computers in 3 states to put in tens of thousands of votes, by submitting the votes on the internet day and night.

What the girl’s family didn’t realize was that the producers had counted only one vote per computer, precisely to address the voting fraud that can give an unfair advantage to a contestant. By doing what they did, and by stupidly confessing what they did, the family did a great disservice to the little girl who really was a great singer in her own right.

The judges staged a walkout in protest of the scheming father. Sonu Nigam, one of the judges, did the right thing chastising the parents and expressing his indignation at the unhealthy attitude shown by some of the contestant families.

Another bothersome thing about the same 12-year old contestant was her being addressed by everyone as a little genius. Apparently, the girl’s ambitious parents seem to have pushed her through a rigorous academic grind, forcing her to complete 12th grade before the age of 12, probably to get into the record books.

Parents like these not only do injustice and disservice to their own kids, they also taint the whole concept of healthy competition, basically killing any sense of comraderie and sportsmanship. I am all for mining prodigial talent in arts and sciences, but there are parents out there, who would go to any extent to see their kids succeed early and succeed big, even if it means sacrificing the kids’ childhoods and innocence. Any parent who does that should be sentenced to healthy and happy parenting classes. It is better to have a nation with happy and healthy kids than a nation full of manipulating little schemers.

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