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NEW YORK • WASHINGTON D.C. • CHICAGO • ATLANTA • CALIFORNIA VOL 24, No. 1247 August 24, 2018 50¢ Periodical Postage INDIA POST SURVEY [email protected] This week’s question Last week’s result YES 62% NO 38% CONTENTS Bollywood ----------------------28-29 Classifieds ------------------------ 50 Community Post -------------- 14-27 Date Book -------------------------- 54 Edit Page --------------------------- 53 Horoscope ------------------------- 48 Immigration Post ------------44-47 Life Style ------------------------ 30-33 Philosophy ------------------------- 52 Publisher’s Diary ------------------ 4 Real Estate --------------------34-35 TechBiz Post ------------------10-13 Travel & Hospitality Post ---- 40-43 Wellness Post----------------36-38 2+2 DIALOGUE WITH INDIA IMPORTANT: U.S. Was Sidhu right in hugging Pak Army Chief? WASHINGTON: Describing India as an "all-weather partner", the US has said the upcoming 2+2 dialogue with the country is an important opportunity to en- hance engagement on a range of diplomatic and se- curity issues and discuss how to operationalise India's status as a major defense partner. US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secre- tary of Defense James Mattis will travel to New Delhi next month for the 2+2 dialogue, the format of which was agreed upon between the two sides during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington in June 2017. Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman were to travel to Washington to take part in the meeting with their US counterparts in July. But the US had postponed the dialogue citing "un- avoidable reasons." Details on page 5 Details on page 6 Details on page 7 GRAND PARADE: Federation of Indo-Americans of Northern California celebrated its 26th FOG India Day Mela and Parade in Fremont, CA, with more than 80,000 in attendance. Grand Marshals Bollywood stars Tusshar Kapoor and Tanisha Mukherji led the parade with Dr Romesh Japra, Convener of FIA and Chairman, FOG. Pic courtesy AB 24 (Details on page 14) Details on page 5 Details on page 6 Assamese film bags another award in US Details on page 25 Details on page 15 Naperville I-Day a big success Special interview with Koenraad Elst Imran Khan defends Sidhu hug US top buyer of Indian auto parts Rain battered Kerala begins task of recovery Is it too early to guesstimate about Indian elections?

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NEW YORK • WASHINGTON D.C. • CHICAGO • ATLANTA • CALIFORNIA VOL 24, No. 1247 August 24, 2018 50¢ Periodical Postage

INDIA POST SURVEYsurvey@ind iapos t .com

This week’s question

Last week’s result

YES 62% NO 38%

CONTENTSBollywood ---------------------- 28-29

Classifieds ------------------------ 50

Community Post -------------- 14-27

Date Book -------------------------- 54

Edit Page --------------------------- 53

Horoscope ------------------------- 48

Immigration Post ------------ 44-47Life Style ------------------------ 30-33

Philosophy ------------------------- 52

Publisher’s Diary ------------------ 4

Real Estate --------------------34-35

TechBiz Post ------------------ 10-13

Travel & Hospitality Post ---- 40-43

Wellness Post ---------------- 36-38

2+2 DIALOGUE WITHINDIA IMPORTANT: U.S.

Was Sidhu right in huggingPak Army Chief?

WASHINGTON: Describing India as an "all-weatherpartner", the US has said the upcoming 2+2 dialoguewith the country is an important opportunity to en-hance engagement on a range of diplomatic and se-curity issues and discuss how to operationalise India'sstatus as a major defense partner.

US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secre-tary of Defense James Mattis will travel to New Delhinext month for the 2+2 dialogue, the format of which

was agreed upon between the two sides during thevisit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washingtonin June 2017.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj andDefense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman were to travelto Washington to take part in the meeting with theirUS counterparts in July.

But the US had postponed the dialogue citing "un-avoidable reasons." Details on page 5

Details on page 6

Details on page 7

GRAND PARADE: Federation of Indo-Americans of Northern California celebrated its 26th FOG India Day Mela and Parade inFremont, CA, with more than 80,000 in attendance. Grand Marshals Bollywood stars Tusshar Kapoor and Tanisha Mukherji led

the parade with Dr Romesh Japra, Convener of FIA and Chairman, FOG. Pic courtesy AB 24 (Details on page 14)

Details on page 5

Details on page 6

Assamese filmbags anotheraward in US

Details on page 25

Details on page 15

NapervilleI-Day a bigsuccess

Specialinterview withKoenraad Elst

Imran KhandefendsSidhu hug

US top buyerof Indianauto parts

Rain batteredKerala beginstask of recovery

Is it too early to guesstimateabout Indian elections?

India Postwww.indiapost.com

August 24, 20182

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August 24, 2018

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It's like a really bad Broadway musical - not only do the actors keepchanging regularly, there are new characters being added to the plotevery day and worse, characters keep changing their lines all the time.

Exhausting as it is to follow, this playbill does not seem to be taking ahint from the audience and ending the show.

Well, in case you are wondering, I am talking about the Robert Muellerinvestigation into the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US elec-tions and a possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

As I said, I have lost track of the characters involved in this potboilerand who is connected to who and how, the indictments, the charges, thesubpoenas, the depositions, the questionings, the witnesses… but whatI am subjected to everyday is a barrage of bizarre pronouncements byPresident Trump's key attorney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giulianiand tweet bombs by the President himself. Their endlessly repeated termslike Witch hunt, Fake news, Rigged, McCarthyism, No Collusion, No Ob-struction are beginning to sound like mantras to invoke a demon.

The longer the special counsel takes to wind up his investigation, theworse the drama will get with speculation in the media, selective leaksfrom those who may or may not fully know what's going on, vexatiousanalyses by anti-Trump pundits, incredible cover up attempts by Trumppeople, and defensive attacks by the President on all concerned andthose not concerned in the least.

While all that is exhausting enough even for folks trying to mind theirown business, I fear the consequences, where there is but a single fatalcasualty - that of Truth. Because, if Giuliani is to be believed, truth is nottruth. It is just a version. So can we end the investigation already beforetruth dies tragically?

28HIGHLIGHTS

Bollywood:Jealous friendsAnushka and Varun Dhawan could havebeen the greatest friends but for somepeople spreading rumors about them

5Cover Story:

14Community:FOG Extravaganza

44

30Life style:

The world premiere of the aerial movieof Vienna shot by the eagles is now avail-able for tourists in 360 degree format

10Techbiz:

China is sending a top official to Wash-ington to resume the high-level dialogueto resolve the deadlock over trade

40Travel:TarkarliA divinely beautiful hamlet inSindhudurg of Maharashtra, Tarkarli boastsof a gracious beauty and alluring charm

Sino-US trade talks

FIA of Northern California celebrated its25th FOG India Day Mela and Paradewith more than 80,000 in attendance

The US has said the upcoming 2+2 dia-logue with India is an important oppor-tunity to enhance engagement

Eagle-eye view

Immigration:

Federal agencies have launched a cam-paign to deport immigrants seeking tobecome U.S. residents through marriage

'Trap' to deport

2+2 dialogue

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Cover/Top Stories

2+2 dialogue with India important: USWASHINGTON: Describing

India as an "all-weather part-ner", the US has said the up-coming 2+2 dialogue with the

country is an important oppor-tunity to enhance engage-ment on a range of diplomaticand security issues and discusshow to operationalise India'sstatus as a major defense part-ner.

US Secretary of StateMichael Pompeo and Secretaryof Defense James Mattis willtravel to New Delhi next monthfor the 2+2 dialogue, the for-mat of which was agreed uponbetween the two sides duringthe visit of Prime MinisterNarendra Modi to Washingtonin June 2017.

Earlier, External Affairs Min-

ister Sushma Swaraj and De-fense Minister NirmalaSitharaman were to travel toWashington to take part in the

meeting with their US counter-parts in July.

But the US had postponedthe dialogue citing "unavoid-able reasons."

After June last year, the twocountries have tried to sched-ule the dialogue many timeswith several dates having

been considered. Earlier thisyear also, the '2+2 dialogue'had been postponed due touncertainty over the confirma-tion of Pompeo as PresidentDonald Trump's new Secretaryof State.

"With India, we are lookingforward to the inaugural 2+2dialogue with SecretariesPompeo and Mattis travelingfor these meetings in NewDelhi on September 6," Princi-pal Deputy Assistant SecretaryAlice Wells told reporters.

"It is an important opportu-nity to discuss and enhance ourengagement on a range of dip-lomatic and security prioritiesand really is an indication ofthe deepening strategic part-nership that we enjoy with In-

dia," she said.Wells was addressing a For-

eign Press Centre video con-ference from Washington on

"US Policy in the Indian OceanRegion" during which she pre-viewed her upcoming travel tothe Indian Ocean Conferencehosted by the India Foundationin Hanoi on August 27-28.

She said India plays a centralrole in US national security add-ing that it is "enshrined in thePresident's national securitystrategy as well as theadministration's South Asia andIndo-Pacific strategies."

She said at the upcoming2+2 ministerial, the US is look-ing to discuss "how do weoperationalise India's status asa major defense partner."

India was designated a ma-jor defense partner by the USin 2016. Defense cooperationbetween India and the US hasgrown from "essentially zerodollars" in 2008 to USD 18 bil-lion today.

The US does more military

exercises with India than withany other country in the world"but how do we take this part-nership to a new level so thatit is not just going to be de-fense acquisitions but really a

way of framing how we seechallenges and how we wantto be able to respond togetherto address these challenges."

Highlighting that the India-US partnership is rooted inshared democratic values andcommitment to rules-basedorder, Wells said the two na-tions are going to be able todemonstrate at the 2+2 dia-logue the facts of this matur-ing partnership.

On a question about traderelations with India, Wells saidopening up trade with India isa "key strategic objective" forthe Trump administration.

Alice Wells

Michael Pompeo James Mattis

"With India, we are looking forward to the inau-gural 2+2 dialogue with Secretaries Pompeo

and Mattis traveling for these meetings in NewDelhi on September 6," Principal Deputy

Assistant Secretary Alice Wells told reporters

Cont’d on page 9

Assamese film bags anotheraward in US

NEW DELHI: "XhoixoboteDhemalite" (Rainbow fields), anAssamese film dealing with thesensitive issue of childrengrowing up in violent times,has won another award - thistime for screenplay ata US festival.

The Bidyut Kotoky-directed film baggedthe best screenplayaward at TreasureCoast InternationalFilm Festival in Florida.It received nomina-tions in five categories.

"The film's story isbased in Assam butpeople from halfwayacross the globe arerelating to it. This goesto show that emotionsacross the globe aresame. In 'Xhoihobote

Dhemlite', we always believedthat we are making a film for inAssamese language for theglobal audience," saidMumbai-based Kotoky.

Last month, "Xhoixobote

Dhemalite" became the firstAssamese film to be commer-cially released in the US. Be-sides, it won three awards, in-cluding that of best film, in theLove international Film Festi-

val, Los Angeles.Based on true

events, the film alsofeatures seasoned ac-tors like VictorBanerjee, Nakul Vaid,Naved Aslam, NiponGoswami andNikumoni Barua.

The film is pro-duced by 'India Sto-ries', a Mumbai-basedproduction houseand co-produced byKotoky's Dhruv Cre-ative Productions andUS-based KurmasanaKreates.PTI

India Post August 24, 20186

www.indiapost.comTop Stories

Imran Khan defendsSidhu hug

Navjot Singh Sidhu hugs Pakistan's Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa

Hugging Pak General wasemotional: Sidhu

CHANDIGARH: Punjab minis-ter Navjot Singh Sidhu has de-fended hugging the PakistanArmy chief during his recentIslamabad visit, saying he gotcaught in the moment afterhearing that Sikh pilgrims mayget access to a shrine acrossthe border.

Back from the swearing-inceremony of Pakistan PrimeMinister Imran Khan, theformer cricketer compared hisemotional reaction with PrimeMinister Narendra Modi visit toLahore in 2015, when hehugged the then PakistanPrime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Sidhu said his tripwas not a "political"visit but in responseto a "warm invitationfrom a friend".

Sidhu said it wasan emotional mo-ment for him whenGeneral Qamar JavedBajwa told him thatPakistan was makingefforts to open a cor-ridor for pilgrimsfrom Dera Baba Nanak inGurdaspur district to KartarpurSahib.

Sidhu was slammed by theopposition Bharatiya JanataParty and the Akali Dal, andcriticized even by Punjab ChiefMinister Amarinder Singh forhugging Bajwa at Imran Khan'sswearing-in on August 18.

After his Chandigarh pressconference, the BJP has againcriticized Sidhu.

Sidhu said Bajwa had methim with enthusiasm when hespotted him sitting in the frontrow at the Islamabad cer-emony. Immediately, he toldme that they were making ef-forts to open the corridor from

India's Dera Baba Nanak toKartarpur Sahib, he said. This,Sidhu said, was being done tomark the 550th birth anniver-sary of Guru Nanak Dev. Thetwo shrines are about three ki-lometers apart.

"This thing said by GenBajwa was an emotional mo-ment for me and the result (thehug) was for everyone to see.After that brief meeting at thegathering, I had no meetingwith Gen Bajwa," the Congressleader said.

Sidhu said he wanted toclarify that his Islamabad visitwas just in response to a warm

invitation from a friend. "Thatfriend who went through im-mense hard work and strugglein life. The one who reached aposition which is respectedand holds the capability ofchanging the fate of crores ofpeople," he said in his openingstatement at the press confer-ence.

The minister said crores ofpilgrims have been waiting topay obeisance at KartarpurSahib, the place where GuruNanak Dev spent 18 years.Sidhu said he is hurt over thecriticism following his un-planned meeting with the gen-eral and his "emotional reac-tion" to it. PTI

Navjot Singh Sidhu

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan PrimeMinister Imran Khan has comeout in support of Navjot SinghSidhu who is embroiled in acontroversy after attending hisoath-taking ceremony, saying

those who are criticizing thePunjab minister are doing agreat disservice to peace in thesubcontinent.

Sidhu had attended the

event in Pakistan on August 18.He was slammed by the Oppo-sition and earned displeasureeven from his own chief minis-ter Amarinder Singh over hisdecision to visit Pakistan and

hug its Army chief GeneralQamar Javed Bajwa.

The former cricketer held apress conference in Chandigarhto defend his decision.

"I want to thank Sidhu forcoming to Pakistan for my oathtaking. He was an ambassadorof peace and was given amaz-ing love and affection bypeople of Pakistan," Khantweeted soon after Sidhu'spress conference.

"Those in India who tar-geted him are doing a greatdisservice to peace in the sub-continent - without peace ourpeople cannot progress," Khansaid.

To move forward, Khan saidPakistan and India must en-gage in dialogue and resolvetheir conflicts, including theKashmir issue. "The best way toalleviate poverty and uplift thepeople of the subcontinent isto resolve our differencesthrough dialogue and starttrading," he said.

Sidhu during the press con-ference said his visit to Paki-stan was not "political" but juston a "warm invitation from afriend". PTI

Imran Khan

US top buyer of Indianauto parts

NEW DELHI: The US im-ported USD 290 million worthof auto components from Indiain April-June, a growth of 23.8per cent on yearly basis, to re-tain its position as the topbuyer of Indian auto parts, ac-cording to an analysis by Engi-neering Export PromotionCouncil (EEPC).

Turkey was the second larg-est auto component importerfrom India with shipments ofabout USD 100 million in thefirst quarter of 2018-19, a year-on-year growth of 28.36 percent.

Bangladesh, Brazil and Ger-many were the other major im-porters of Indian auto compo-nents with aggregate ship-ments of USD 80 million, USD72 million and USD 61 millionrespectively for the period.

Bangladesh showed the

maximum growth of over 53per cent in auto parts importsduring April-June.

"We had seen some con-cerns amongst the stock inves-tors as regards Indian auto ex-porters after tariff and counter-

tariff issues cropped upamong two major economies,but performance of our autocomponent exporters hasbeen quite good. Close to 24per cent growth in auto com-

ponents exports to the USdoes not reflect any trade warimpact," EEPC India ChairmanRavi Sehgal said.

Though low in scale, Indianauto component makers havefound expanding markets in

Romania, Japan, Vietnam andColombia."This shows a qualityof enterprise on the part of ourexporters," the engineeringexport organisation' chairmansaid. PTI

India PostAugust 24, 2018 7

www.indiapost.comTop Stories

Rain battered Kerala beginsmassive task of recovery

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:With rains easing and water re-ceding in some areas of flood-ravaged Kerala, people startedreturning to their homes asUnion Ministrer K J Alphons ap-pealed for cooked food andskilled workers to rehabilitatemore than 10 lakh displacedpeople.

Though there has beensome respite from the rain inthe last two days, the waterlevel has not come down inseveral areas of the worst-hitErnakulam, Thrissur,Pathanamthitta, Alappuzhaand Kollam districts, the offi-cials said, a day after the UnionHome Ministry declared theflood a 'calamity of severe na-ture'.

An estimated 223 peoplehave lost their lives since Au-gust 8 in Kerala's worst floodsin decades that has causeddamage worth more than Rs20,000 crore. About 10.78 lakhpeople, including 2.12 lakhwomen and one lakh children

under 12, have been shelteredin 3,200 relief camps, officialssaid.

Rail and road traffic serviceshave been restored in most

places, they said.As relief agencies, local gov-

ernments and people acrossthe country banded togetherto put together relief supplies,

the flood-hit in several parts ofKerala began returning home.

Many people found theirelectrical appliances and furni-ture ruined and a thick layers

of sludge and slime. Incidentsof snake bites were reportedfrom Ernakulam and Thrissurdistricts.

"As the flood is receding inKerala people have to move towhatever is left of their homes.Need ready to eat cookedfood, clothes and an army ofelectricians, plumbers and car-penters," Alphons said on Twit-ter, tagging Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and BJP chiefAmit Shah.

The minister, who belongsto Kerala, also issued an appealto skilled workers like plumb-ers, electricians and carpen-ters to come to the state tomake homes livable and helpin the task of restoring nor-malcy.

Flagging the immediateneeds of the people, hetweeted, "Doctors and nurseswho can go down to the vil-lages as there is apprehensionabout the possibility of out-break of diseases." He also ap-pealed for new clothes to bedistributed through NGOs," hesaid.

The minister also thankedthe National Dairy Develop-ment Board (NDDB) for provid-ing the state huge quantities oftetra pack milk and public sec-tor oil companies which cametogether and handed Rs 25crore to the Kerala chief minis-ter for flood relief.

As the state began the taskof recovering from the disas-ter, one small step at a time,more relief material arrived atthe Cochin port.

Over the last four days,more than 1.63 lakh strandedpeople were rescued in a jointoperation conducted by po-lice, National Disaster Re-sponse Team, Army, Navy, AirForce and a large number ofvolunteers.

The Southern Air Commandhas said the Indian Air Force(IAF) will continue all out effortsin coordination with the civiladministration to ensure thatthe people of the Kerala re-cover quickly from the calamity.

It has dispatched four medi-cal teams to Thiruvalla andChengannur for setting upmedical facilities. A total of 364helicopter sorties were flown,1.25 lakh kg of supplies droppedand 574 people rescued, a re-lease said. The state level bank-ers committee has also decidedto declare a moratorium on agri-culture loan for one year. PTI

Modi offers 'constructiveengagement' to Imran

NEW DELHI: Prime MinisterNarendra Modi has conveyedto his newly elected Pakistanicounterpart Imran Khan India'scommitment to pursue "mean-ingful" and "constructive" en-gagement with Islamabad andemphasized the need to workfor a terror-free South Asia, of-ficial sources said here.

In a letter to Khan on August18, the day he was sworn in asPakistan's 22nd Prime Minister,Modi also expressed India's re-solve to build good neighborlyrelations between the twocountries, the sources said.

Soon after the news ofModi's congratulatory letter toKhan emerged, Pakistan For-eign Minister Shah MahmoodQureshi reportedly indicatedin Islamabad that the IndianPM has called for talks be-tween the two countries in thecommunication.

However, hours later thePakistan's Foreign Office clari-fied that Modi had "not madean offer of a dialogue" in theletter to Khan. It said Pakistanlooks forward to a mutuallybeneficial, uninterrupted dia-

logue with India to resolve allissues.

Government sources saidIndia's position on engage-ment with Pakistan that talksand terror cannot go hand-in-hand has not changed at all.

"In the letter, the PM ex-pressed India's commitment tobuild good neighborly rela-tions between India and Paki-stan and pursue meaningfuland constructive engagementfor the benefit of the people ofthe region," a source said.

In Islamabad, Qureshi of-fered "uninterrupted" dia-

logue with India to resolve alloutstanding issues, saying it isthe "only wise course" as thetwo countries cannot affordany "adventurism".

He also said External AffairsMinister Sushma Swaraj sent a

letter to congratulate PrimeMinister Khan and mentionedabout talks to resolve issuesbetween the two countries.

On July 30, Modi had tele-phoned Khan to congratulatehim on his party's victory in thegeneral elections and ex-pressed hope that both coun-tries will work to open a new

chapter in bilateral ties.Days before Modi's phone

call, Khan said he wanted toimprove ties with India and re-solve all the issues throughtalks. "If India takes one steptowards us, we will take two,"he had said.

In the letter, Modi recalledhis telephonic conversationwith Khan, in which they spokeof their shared vision to bringpeace, security and prosperityin the Indian subcontinent tomake it free of terror and vio-lence, the sources said, quot-ing from the letter.

The Prime Minister also ex-pressed the belief that thesmooth transition of govern-ment in Pakistan willstrengthen and cementpeople's belief in democracy.

Asked whether Modi's letterrevived hopes for resumptionof talks between the twoneighbors, former diplomatVivek Katju said he has reiter-ated India's position and it isfor Pakistan to create an envi-ronment for engagement bycoming down hard on terrorgroups. PTI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi

India Post August 24, 20188

www.indiapost.comTop Stories

India, Japan to deepen maritime cooperation

Union Minister for Defense, Nirmala Sitharaman and the Defense Minister of Japan, Itsunori Onodera at the delegation level talks, in New Delhi on August 20

NEW DELHI: India and Japanhave decided to expand theirmaritime cooperation andwork together to ensure peaceand stability in the Indo-Pacificregion, which is witnessinggrowing Chineseassertiveness, officials said.

The two countries also de-cided to hold the first-everjoint Army exercise later thisyear besides deepening coop-eration in co-development ofmilitary hardware and weap-ons.

The decisions were takenduring wide-ranging talks be-tween Defense MinisterNirmala Sitharaman and herJapanese counterpart ItsunoriOnodera.

The India-Japan defense dia-logue came a day before Chi-nese defense minister WeiFenghe arrives here on a four-day visit.

Officials said the two minis-ters also exchanged views onIndia's long-pending proposalto procure the US-2ShinMaywa amphibious air-craft from Japan for its Navy.

The two sides also firmed

up a project in the area of Un-manned Ground Vehicle (UGV)and robotics, marking thestart of first such bilateral ini-tiative.

They said Japan MaritimeSelf-Defense Force (JMSDF)and the Indian Navy are work-ing towards firming up an ar-rangement for deeper coop-eration between the twonavies.

"The ministers shared therecognition that it is impor-

tant for the two countries tofurther strengthen defenseand security cooperation un-der the 'Japan-lndia SpecialStrategic and Global Partner-ship' that aligns Japan's Freeand Open Indo-Pacific Strat-egy' with India's 'Act EastPolicy'," a joint press state-ment said.

It said Sitharaman andOnodera recognized that sta-bility of the Indian Ocean andthe Pacific Ocean are crucial

for ensuring the peace andprosperity of the Indo-Pacificregion.

On technology sharing, itsaid engagement betweenthe Acquisition, Technologyand Logistical Agency (ATLA)of Japan and India's DefenseResearch and DevelopmentOrganization (DRDO) has re-sulted in a joint project inthe area of development ofUnmanned Ground Vehicle(UGV ) and Robotics.

"The Ministers recognizedthe importance of promot-ing defense equipment andtechnology cooperationthrough a joint effort be-tween the public and privatesectors in order to bilaterallystrengthen technological ca-pability," said the statement.

On India's proposal to pro-cure the US-2 amphibious air-craft, the statement said theministers noted the effort madeby both countries over it. PTI

Indian students in UK seek action on fake callsLONDON: An Indian stu-

dents' group in Britain hascalled for action to supportmembers who had been sub-jected to a fake calls scam,which involves fraudstersclaiming to be from the UKHome Office and threateninginnocent students with depor-tation.

Indian National Students As-

sociation (INSA) UK resolved atits annual National Executivemeeting in London over theweekend to provide supportto students affected by thescam.

"At the meeting, represen-tatives from Westminster Uni-versity and King's College Lon-don chapters highlighted the

issue of fake calls being madeto Indian students and re-solved to provide support tothose affected," INSA UK said ina statement.

The case of Hardik Somani,from Westminster Universityemerged as a case study afterhe was targeted by fraudstersposing as "officials of the HomeOffice".

He was threatened with im-mediate deportation for failingto fill out paperwork "cor-rectly" and was warned hefaced a 10-year ban from theUK unless he paid a "fine" of upto 6,500 pounds. INSA UK saidit supported him through theprocess of alerting the UK au-thorities.

Shweta Kulkarni, Presidentof the students' body, said:"INSA UK was set up to speakup on behalf of Indian stu-dents and we are keen to ad-dress all issues of concern, in-cluding such fake calls andvisa hurdles.

"We urge the authorities totake action against thefraudsters and increase thelevel of support for the tar-

geted students."A Home Office spokesper-

son said: "Legitimate HomeOffice officials will never con-tact individuals to demandpayment over the phone forvisa fees or fines. Anyone whothinks they have been a victimof fraud should contact thepolice."

Earlier this month, anotherIndian students' body the Na-

tional Indian Students andAlumni Union (NISAU) UK andthe University of Manchesterhad issued alerts directed atIndian students, warningthem to be wary of such scamphone calls.

It called on students not toengage with such callers, whouse software to create "spoof"numbers that may seem legiti-mate. PTI

Indian National Students Association (INSA)

UK resolved at its annual National Executive

meeting in London over the weekend to pro-

vide support to students affected by the scam

Hindi has become world language: AkbarPORT LOUIS: Minister of

State for External Affairs MJAkbar has said Hindi has be-come a global language si-lently, which was witnessedby the entire world.

"When history changes, itchanges with so much of si-lence that it does not makeany sound. This is what hap-pened with Hindi," he told theclosing session of the 11thWorld Hindi Conference here.

"Many people had raised

questions in the conferenceon when Hindi will becomethe world language. I can saywith conviction that it has al-ready become a global lan-guage silently," the ministersaid.

He said Hindi has taken in-spiration from Sanskrit. Twothousand years ago, Sanskritgrew due to cultural powerand today the use of Hindi isincreasing through humanpower.

"In several countries, in-cluding that of West Asia,when we go to the airport, wecan see Hindi TV shows andmovies being played," Akbarsaid, adding that he had wit-nessed similar experience inBaghdad and Damascus.

Even in Mauritius, the influ-ence of Hindi is clearly visible,he said.

The three-day World HindiConference was inauguratedon August 18. PTI

India PostAugust 24, 2018 9

www.indiapost.comTop Stories

2+2 dialogue withIndia important: US

Bilateral trade currentlystands at about USD 126 bil-lion, an increase of more thanUSD 10 billion from last yearand there have been criticalpurchases by Indian firms inthe commercial aviation, en-ergy as well as the defense sec-tors She however added thatimpediments do remain be-tween the two countries ontrade.

"Tariff and non-tariff barriershave been a subject oflongstanding concern and in-tellectual property rights aswell. So we are continuing avery intensive dialogue withthe Indian government on howdo we address these irritantsand unlock the trade that is ofgreat interest to US firms whenthey look at the Indian marketand its potential," she said.

Wells added that lookingoutside of India, Washingtonwants to work together withNew Delhi and identifyprojects whether they be in Sri

Lanka or Nepal."One of the great new ele-

ments of our relationship withIndia is that we are working inthird countries," she said asshe cited the example of theassistance and developmentallevel work with India in Africaon health-related issues andpeacekeeping training. Shesaid India and the US workedtogether in programs that in-volved bringing Afghans to In-dia for cost-effective training.

"India really is an all-weatherpartner as we look ahead tohow to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains free and open."

During the press briefing,Wells previewed her upcomingtravel to the Indian Ocean Con-ference and how it supportsthe Trump administration'sIndo-Pacific strategy.

The annual conference,hosted by the India Foundationalong with its partners fromSingapore, Sri Lanka andBangladesh, will focus on thetheme of 'Building Regional Ar-chitectures'. PTI

Cont’d from page 5

US concerned over terrorist groups in PakWASHINGTON: The US has

expressed concern over ter-rorist groups continuing to en-joy safe haven in Pakistan andis asking the country to domore against "externally ori-ented" extremist outfits, a topofficial in the Trump adminis-tration said.

Principal Deputy AssistantSecretary Alice Wells at thesame time welcomed PakistanPrime Minister Imran Khan's re-marks on the importance ofhaving peace on both sides ofthe country's borders.

"Pakistan has an importantrole to play in furthering stabil-ity in Afghanistan. We have ex-pressed our concern over thefact that terrorist proxy groups

continue to be able to enjoysafe haven in Pakistan. We areurging the government to domore to bring pressure to bearagainst these organisations,externally oriented terrorists

groups," Wells told reporters.She was asked whether the

US has seen any progress in itsdemand that Pakistan take ac-tion against terror groups likethe Haqqani network and

Taliban.Wells was addressing a For-

eign Press Centre video con-ference from Washington on'US Policy in the Indian OceanRegion' during which she pre-

viewed her upcoming travel tothe Indian Ocean Conferencehosted by the India Foundationin Hanoi on August 27-28.

Wells said the US looks for-ward to working with the new

government of Pakistan and"we welcome the words ofPrime Minister Imran Khanwhen he discussed the impor-tance of having peace on bothsides of Pakistan's borders."

Responding to questions onAfghanistan and the securitysituation in the region, she saidPakistan "obviously" has a criti-cal role to play in the stabiliza-tion of Afghanistan.

"We have encouraged Paki-stan to take stronger steps toensure that the Taliban eithercome to the negotiating tableor expelled back into Afghani-stan rather than enjoy safe ha-ven outside of the country."

She noted that Pakistan andAfghanistan have embarkedover the last several months onan effort to improve the bilat-eral relationship with the ne-gotiation of a solidarity docu-ment which the US stronglysupports.

On a question on PresidentDonald Trump's South Asia

Strategy announced last yearencompassing Afghanistan, Pa-kistan, India, the Central Asiannations and extending intoSoutheast Asia, Wells said theSouth Asia strategy "obviouslypointed to the role that India canand should play in supportingthe stabilisation of Afghanistan."

"I think that was one of thekey new features of the strat-egy, tapping what has beenIndia's three billion dollar com-mitment to date up to 2020 insupport of Afghanistan's eco-nomic development."

Wells said Afghanistanneeds to be "stitched back intothe region" and that includesboth north-south trade as wellas east-west trade.

"We welcome the fact thatIndia has stepped up and hasevinced this new commitmentand enjoys a strategic relation-ship with Afghanistan thatdoes not have to come at theexpense of any other countryin the region." PTI

"Pakistan has an important role to play infurthering stability in Afghanistan. We have

expressed our concern over the fact thatterrorist proxy groups continue to be able

to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan”

Manmohan calls for arrestingtrends of intolerance

NEW DELHI: Former PrimeMinister Manmohan Singh hascalled upon the people to re-flect on how to work togetherand contribute in arresting"disturbing trends" of intoler-ance, communal polarizationand incidents of violent crimespropelled by hate groups andmobs being witnessed in thecountry.

Addressing the Rajiv GandhiSadbhavana Award function,he said such "unsavory" trendscan only harm national inter-ests and are an anathema tothe promotion of peace andcommunal harmony.

The award was presented to

former West Bengal GovernorGopalkrishna Gandhi, thegrandson of Mahatma Gandhi.Singh, along with UPA chairper-son Sonia Gandhi and formerunion minister Karan Singh, whois the chairman of the advisoryboard of Rajiv GandhiSadbhavana award trust, wereamong those present.

Congress President Rahul

Gandhi did not attend thefunction.

Talking about the presentclimate in the country, UPAchairperson Sonia Gandhicalled for a collective resolveto fight forces of "divisiveness,hate and bigotry" in the coun-

try, as she asserted that formerprime minister and her hus-band Rajiv Gandhi's'Sadbhavana' has a great rel-evance and resonance in thecurrent times.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi said allthose opposed to 'zabardasti'(coercion), bigotry, cult of fearand hate, the centralization ofpower, the nexus of big powerand big money, need to worktogether.

"That means shedding per-sonal institutional egos. Thelarger entity, be it the biggerleader, the bigger party or thelarger community is expectedto make the larger gesture....

"I envision the democraticparties and movements of In-dia in the wisdom of their dy-namism harmonizing theirstrengths to meet the chal-lenge of harmonies opposite -suspicion, bigotry and vio-lence," he said.

The award, given every yearon the former prime minister'sbirth anniversary, was insti-tuted to commemorate hiscontributions to promotepeace, communal harmonyand fight against violence.

Singh lauded GopalkrishnaGandhi for speaking with cour-age and conviction on thesetrends, "holding up a mirror toour people at large". PTI

Manmohan Singh

10 India Post August 24, 2018www.indiapost.com

TechBizTech News

MIT Technology Review

AI may destabilizethe financialsystem

According to a new report,increased use of machine

learning and cloud servicescould make the financial worldmore vulnerable.

The details: Compiledthrough interviews with finan-cial experts and industry lead-ers, the WEF research concludesthat artificial intelligence willdisrupt the industry by allowingearly adopters to outmaneuvercompetitors. It also suggeststhat the technology will createmore convenient products forconsumers, such as sophisti-cated tools for managing per-sonal finances and investments.

But most notably: The studypoints to the potential for big fi-nancial institutions to build ma-chine-learning-based servicesthat live in the cloud and are ac-cessed by other institutions.

Why it matters: These typesof financial systems couldpresent a juicy target for hack-ers and a single point of sys-temic failure.

Extreme heatjust start of a super-hot stretch

Climate change is almostcertainly causing or exac-

erbating many extremeweather events by creatingdrier, hotter conditions andthrowing off the polar jetstream. And, scientists con-tinue to remind us, it's all justgetting started.

Going to extremes: A studyin Nature Communicationsfound that we may be enteringa naturally warmer period,which could magnify the effectsof human-influenced climatechange. That could boost theodds of "extreme warm events"from now through 2022.

Approaching "HothouseEarth": Such natural fluctua-tions will continue, but climateresearch consistently points toa much warmer future over thelong term. A study in Proceed-ings of the National Academy ofSciences warned there's a "sig-nificant risk" of a "HothouseEarth" scenario, in which cross-ing certain temperature.

Student coders just beat Google's best

The success shows that elite programmers don't have a monopoly on advances in artificial intelligence.

The news: Students from Fast.ai, a small organization that runs freemachine-learning courses online, just created an AI algorithm that out-performs code from Google's researchers, as measured using abenchmark called DAWNBench. They were able to compete with thelikes of Google by doing a lot of simple things, like making sure thatthe images fed into its training algorithm were cropped correctly.

Who are they: Fast.ai consists of part-time students keen to trytheir hand at machine learning-and perhaps transition into a ca-reer in data science. It rents access to computers in Amazon'scloud.

Chinese official to visit US to resumetalks to end trade war

BEIJING: Amid a stalemate inthe trade war with the US,China will send a top official toWashington this month to re-sume the high-level dialogueto resolve the deadlock overPresident Donald Trump's de-mand to drastically reduce theUSD 375 billion trade deficit.

Wang Shouwen, vice-minis-ter of commerce, will lead adelegation to the US at the endof August to discuss bilateraltrade issues with a team led byDavid Malpass, secretary oftreasury for international af-fairs, the Chinese CommerceMinistry said in a statement.

The initiative to resumetalks followed a spate of tit-for-tat tariffs slapped by both thecounties.

China, which has a trade sur-plus of USD 375 billion in itsUSD 636 billion bilateral tradewith US, is trying to retaliate inthe same measure though itsofficials maintain that Beijing isreluctantly following the suit.

China has been reiteratingthat it opposes unilateralismand trade protectionism ofTrump and will not accept anyunilateral trade restrictions.

"China welcomes dialogueand communication on the ba-sis of equity, equality and in-

tegrity," the official statementadded.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu Heheld talks with US CommerceMinister Wilbur Ross in Beijingin June.

The visit of the Chinese del-egation headed by the ViceMinister unlike in the past

when it was led by Vice Pre-mier Liu comes in the back-drop of the end of annual infor-mal consultative meetings be-tween top Chinese leaders at

summer resort Beidaihe.The leaders of the ruling

Communist Party of Chinameet every year around Au-gust to discuss a host of majorissues.

Beijing and Washingtonstarted the trade war in Julythis year each imposing 25 per

cent tariffs on USD 34 billion ofeach other's exports.

Washington is due to im-pose tariffs on another USD 16billion of Chinese goods on Au-

gust 23, and China has warnedthat it will retaliate to thatmove.

There have been no high-level talks between the twosides since July, but HongKong-based the South ChinaMorning Post quoted officialsas saying that that the two

countries made unofficial con-tact late last month to explorethe possibility of resumingtalks.

Cont’d on page 12

Beijing and

Washington started

the trade war in July

this year each

imposing 25 per

cent tariffs on USD

34 billion of each

other's exportsWang Shouwen David Malpass

Indian aviation market posts highest growthNEW DELHI: India led the Asia

Pacific region in posting thehighest growth in air passengertraffic in May at 13.3 per cent,said a global body represent-ing airports worldwide.

The growth in China in com-parison stood at 8.3 per cent

and South Korea at 8.1 percent, said the Airports CouncilInternational in its latest studyreleased this month.

It said the impressive

growth showed by the Asiangiants has led a situation of"disparity" in the region if com-pared with passenger trafficgrowth of Japan and Australia.

Japan, for example, posted amore subdued figure of 2.8 percent and Australia at 2.3 per

cent. "...the flourishing middleclass in populous countriessuch as India and China havecertainly helped to boost traf-fic especially in their respec-

tive domestic markets," the re-port said.

The Asia-Pacific market as awhole posted a growth rate of6.3 per cent, slightly higher thanEurope where the figure stoodat 6.2 per cent. North America,on the other hand, saw the traf-

fic grow by 5.6 per cent.The report said that the

"presence of the low-costbusiness model among carrierscoupled with historically low jetfuel prices", have certainly actedas catalysts to stimulate air trans-port demand through lower fareofferings on certain market seg-ments.

Cont’d on page 12

11India PostTechBiz PostAugust 24, 2018

www.indiapost.com

I-T collection at recordRs 10.03 lakh crore

Airlines not charging exorbitant fares: DGCANEW DELHI: Civil aviation

regulator, DGCA, has told theDelhi High Court that airlines inthe country are not chargingfares that are unlawful, dis-criminatory or exorbitant andthe ticket prices change ac-cording to market forces.

The Directorate General ofCivil Aviation (DGCA) also tolda bench of Chief JusticeRajendra Menon and Justice VK Rao that under the Aircraft

Act it was not empowered tomake "financial regulations"with regard to air fares.

The regulator took thestand in an affidavit filed in re-sponse to a PIL seeking cap-ping of air fares charged by air-lines in the country. The plea byconsumer rights activist BejonK Misra has alleged that theauthorities, including DGCA,were acting as "silent specta-

tors" to the "arbitrary" fixing offares by the airlines.

Denying the allegation,DGCA said in its affidavit that"change in air fares was dy-namic".

"Fare increase with increasein demand for seats on any

given flight and as a flight'savailable seat inventory dimin-ishes, lower bucket fares con-sequently may no longer beavailable.

"It is denied that air farescharged by the airlines are un-lawful and discriminatory andthat the respondents (DGCAand the Centre) have shirkedtheir responsibility," the avia-tion regulator said while urging

the court to dismiss the plea.The court took the affidavit,

filed by advocate AnjanaGosain, on record and listedthe matter for further hearingon October 9.

Explaining how the fares arecalculated, DGCA in its affidavitsaid that airlines adopt a dy-namic pricing mechanism inwhich prices are changed of-ten depending on the day of aweek, time of day, numbers ofdays before the flight and

other factors like number ofseats and departure time.

The regulator also said that"prevailing airline practiceswith regard to the type of faresoffered and their chargingmethod by private and gov-ernment owned airlines aresame and in line with practicesfollowed globally".

The DGCA also said that"petitioner's averments re-

garding charging of exorbitantairfares by private airlines havenot been substantiated" as theprices charged by them do notexceed the fare buckets (lev-els) displayed on their website.

Misra in his plea has claimedthat capping of air fares wasnecessary as airlines oftencharge more than 10 times thebase rate when there is a

shortage of seats. In support ofhis claim, he has referred to theincident of IndiGo airline can-celling a large number of itsflights after some of its A320Naircraft were grounded due toengine trouble.

Misra has alleged that dueto the cancellation of theseflights, IndiGo passengers hadto book tickets at the lastminute on other airlines at "ex-orbitant prices". He has soughtthat airlines should not be al-lowed to charge more than ajustified hike in the advancebooking fare.

The petitioner has said that

capping of air fares or guide-lines to regulate them are nec-essary to ensure "greater trans-parency and accountability"and "discourage profiteeringand undue enrichment in thebusiness of civil aviation". PTI

GUWAHATI: Income Tax col-lection in the country stood ata record Rs 10.03 lakh croreduring 2017-18, the CentralBoard of Direct Taxes (CBDT )has said.

Addressing a two-day con-ference of Income Tax Admin-istrators of Eastern Zone here,Shabri Bhattasali,Member of CBDT saidthat during 2017-18, arecord number of 6.92crore I-T returns werefiled, which was 1.31crore more than 5.61crore returns filed in2016-17.

The I-T Departmentadded 1.06 crore newreturn filers during2017-18 and aims toadd 1.25 crore new fil-ers for the current year. In theNorth East region, this numberwas 1.89 lakh, she said.

L C Joshi Ranee, PrincipalChief Commissioner of IncomeTax, North Eastern Region saidthat Rs 7,097 crore tax was col-lected from the region during2017-18. This is 16.7 per centhigher than Rs 6,082 crore col-

lected in the preceding year,Ranee said.

He said the target in the re-gion for 2018-19 has beenfixed at Rs 8,357 crore, 17.75per cent more than last year'scollection.

Stating that the departmentis committed to meet the tar-

get tax collection, increase tax-payer base and deliver supe-rior services, 'Aaykar SevaKendras' have already beenopened in 22 out of 29 stationsin NER.

New offices are beingopened in far-flung areas todeliver taxpayer services, headded. PTI

"Fare increase with increase in demandfor seats on any given flight and as a

flight's available seat inventory diminishes,lower bucket fares consequently may

no longer be available”

Engine issues ground newIndiGo Airbus

NEW DELHI: A new AirbusA320 neo aircraft of budgetcarrier IndiGo, which was in-ducted into its fleet barely acouple of weeks ago, has beengrounded due to Pratt andWhitney engine issues.

"An IndiGo A320 neo hasbeen grounded and is under-going a routine engine change.

There is no impact on our flightoperations," the airline said in astatement when reached out toconfirm the grounding.

According to sources, theaircraft had flown less than 50hours after it was delivered tothe airline on July 31 this year,

raising concern over groundingof a new plane.

The flight was inducted forregular commercial operationin the first week of this month.On August 10, after operatingfrom Indore to Bengaluru (flightno 6E708), it was grounded. Re-portedly an oil/magnetic chipwas found in the engine.

Sources said IndiGo had toseek special permission fromaviation watchdog DirectorateGeneral of Civil Aviation to flythis aircraft from Bengaluru toNew Delhi on August 12 as a"ferry aircraft" to undergo en-gine replacement. Ferry aircraft

does not carry passengers.No comments were available

from the airline about the othersix A320 neo planes which weregrounded by it between Julyand the first week of thismonth.

P&W had in a statement saidthat the grounded aircraftcould be back in air from thismonth onwards. The sixth air-craft was grounded on August6 due to P&W engine issues.P&W engine woes had forcedthe airline to ground some ofthe A320 neo aircraft on earlieroccasions also.

On August 10, InterGlobe'sChief Operating OfficerWolfgang Prock-Schauer hadexpressed full confidence inA320 neo planes. InterGlobeoperates IndiGo. At present,IndiGo has a fleet of more than170 aircrafts, including 40A320 neo planes. PTI

The flight was inducted for regular commercialoperation in the first week of this month. On

August 10, after operating from Indore toBengaluru (flight no 6E708), it was grounded

12 India Post TechBiz Post August 24, 2018

www.indiapost.com

Liu Weidong, a US affairs ex-pert at the Chinese Academy ofSocial Sciences, said a key as-pect of Wang's visit was tocheck whether further formaldialogue between the two na-tions was possible.

"The main purpose is to seewhether both sides are reallyinterested in having furtherdialogue. If both sides are in-terested, then there will be fol-low-up actions," Liu told thePost.

Chinese official to visit US toresume talks to end trade war

Wang Yiwei, a professor atRenmin University's interna-tional studies, said Wang's tripfollows the Communist Party'sannual closed door meeting atthe Beidahe resort, where thetrade war was likely to havebeen one of the main topics ofdiscussion.

"It is possible that Chinamay stress to the US that Chinawill continue reform," he said."China realizes how serious thetrade war with the US is anddoes not want a more seriousconfrontation," he said. PTI

Cont’d from page 10

Indian aviation marketposts highest growth

Oil prices have, however,shown a steady rise in the suc-ceeding months.

As per the report, in May,the global passenger trafficgrew by 5.6 per cent in May ona year-over-year basis. "Whilethis was close to one percent-age point below its year-to-date growth figure, it remainsa robust demonstration of re-silience considering the globalclimate of increasing geopoliti-cal tension," it said.

The ACI's month-by-monthpassenger and freight statis-tics are based on sample of air-

ports that provide regular re-ports.

The ACI's report comesagainst the backdrop of stud-ies by other global bodies, say-ing that the growth of the avia-tion industry remained thehighest worldwide last year.

As per the International AirTransport Association (IATA),India's civil aviation market willbecome the world's third larg-est aviation market by 2025.

The domestic carrier, put to-gether, are expected to addabout 1,100 aircraft in the In-dian skies in the next 10 years.At present, they are operatingabout 600 aircrafts. PTI

Cont’d from page 10

Vajpayee was a bellwether policy reformerNEW DELHI: He built India's

most famous highway project,started privatization to cutgovernment's role in runningbusinesses and made big-ticket overseas acquisitions tosecure energy supplies -former prime minister AtalBihari Vajpayee was truly abellwether policy reformer ofmodern India.

Regarded by some as thefather of second generation

economic reforms, Vajpayee,who died at the age of 93years, was decisive and pur-sued his reforms agenda withvigor without getting ruffledby criticism.

Modeled loosely aroundthe National Highway Systemof the US, he in 2001 launchedthe Golden Quadrilateral andthe North-South & East-WestCorridor projects to build 4/6lane highways between fourtop metropolitan cities ofDelhi, Mumbai, Chennai and

Kolkata as well as fromSrinagar to Kanyakumari andPorbandar to Silchar.

His idea was simple - con-struct arterial roads that couldspur development just likewhat was witnessed in the US.Subsequent governmentshave only expanded on that

theme.But arguably the biggest re-

form of his tenure was theprivatization drive which saw 32state-owned companies and ho-tels being sold to private firmsin five years. For the first timeever, a Department of Disinvest-ment to process privatizationcandidates was created and aCabinet Committee on Disin-vestment formed to accord ex-peditious approvals.

Beginning with sale of Mod-ern Food Industries toHindustan Unilever (HUL) in1999-2000, his governmentwent on to sell Bharat Alumi-num Company Ltd (Balco) andHindustan Zinc Ltd to miningbaron Anil Agarwal's SterliteIndustries, IT firm CMC Ltd andVidesh Sanchar Nigam Ltd(VSNL) to Tatas, fuel retailer IBPLtd to Indian Oil Corp (IOC) andIndian Petrochemicals CorpLtd (IPCL) to Reliance Indus-tries Ltd.

Also sold were a host of ho-tels including Kovalam AshokBeach Resort, Hotel AirportAshok in Kolkata and three ho-tels in New Delhi - Ranjit Hotel,Qutab Hotel and HotelKanishka.

But the privatization drivewasn't easy. He faced opposi-

tion and the decision to priva-tize Balco was challenged rightup to the Supreme Court,which upheld the move. How-ever, he failed in privatizing oilrefiner Hindustan PetroleumCorp Ltd (HPCL) with his owncabinet colleagues opposingthe move.

He was ahead of times whenhis government made a diplo-matic push to acquire a 20 percent stake in the giganticSakhalin-I oil and gas fields in fareast Russia for USD 1.7 billion in2001. This was India's singlelargest investment abroad. Thiswas followed up with a 25 percent stake in an oilfield in Sudanfor USD 720 million.

The decisions were criti-cized for making such huge in-vestments in risky countriesbut Vajpayee was proven rightwhen even the Sudan projectrecouped investments withinyears.

His model of energy securityby investing in overseasprojects has since then beenfollowed vigorously with foot-print now expanded to 20countries and energy diplo-macy part of India's engage-ments with other countries.

China too has vigorously fol-lowed the same model and hasinvested in more projects than

India in the last one-and-a-halfdecade.

Vajpayee will also be re-membered for introducingdoping of sugarcane-extractedethanol in petrol to not just cutimport dependence but alsoprovide farmers with an alterna-tive source of income.

The concept, however, suf-fered lethargy during the 10-year UPA rule. It has againbeen revived by the Modi gov-ernment. PTI

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

His idea was simple - construct arterial

roads that could spur development just

like what was witnessed in the US.

Subsequent governments have only

expanded on that theme

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13India PostTechBiz PostAugust 24, 2018

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MIT Technology Review

Tech BriefsWe've got a 'fake news'

problem now

AI now makes it possiblefor anyone with a decent

computer and a few hours tospare to do what only used tobe possible at a big-budgetmovie studio: create believ-able, but totally fake videofootage. Further machine-learning advances will makeeven more complex decep-tion possible-and make fakeryharder to spot.

Deep fakes and politics:Convincing AI enabled faceswaps-called deepfakes-thatthreaten to further blur theline between truth and fictionin politics. "Deepfakes have

the potential to derail politi-cal discourse," says CharlesSeife, a professor at NYU."Technology is altering ourperception of reality at analarming rate."

Easy to fake: Tools for cre-ating these false videos arebecoming increasing easy touse. Our own Will Knight eas-ily stitched Ted Cruz's faceonto Paul Rudd. Perhaps thegreatest risk is that the tech-nology will further underminetruth and objectivity. It's notthat the truth won't still be outthere-it's that we might notknow it when we see it.

Company embedsmicrochips in employees

Last August, 50 employeesat Three Square Market

got RFID chips in their hands.Now, 80 have them.

What they're for: Thechips, which are about thesize of a very large grain ofrice, are meant to make iteasier to do things like getinto the office, log on to com-puters, and buy food in thecompany's cafeteria.

Where are they now: Ayear into their experiment,president Patrick McMullanand a few employees saythey are still using the chips

regularly at work for all theactivities they started outwith last summer. Since then,an additional 30 employeeshave gotten the chips. Thatmeans that nearly a third ofthe company's employees,are walking, talking cyborgs."You get used to it, it's easy,"McMullan says.

What's next? The company isalso exploring some ways to usemicrochips outside of the body.McMullan said that the companyis now running tests at two hos-pitals that will verify when doc-tors wash their hands.

'Neuropolitics' consultantswho hack voters' brains

Peering inside your braincan reveal a lot about

your political leanings.Forget Facebook: Ambi-

tious data scientists think Cam-bridge Analytica, which wasshut down in May after usingmined Facebook data for adtargeting, was behind thecurve. Today's "neuropolitical"consultants say they can pegvoters' feelings by observingtheir spontaneous responses.

How? By observing anelectrical impulse from a key

brain region, a split--secondgrimace, or a moment's hesi-tation as they ponder a ques-tion, the experts aim to divinevoters' intent. A candidate'sadvisors can then attempt touse that biological data to in-fluence voting decisions.

Is this actually beingused? "It's rare that a cam-paign would admit to usingneuromarketing techniques-though it's quite likely thewell-funded campaigns are,"says consultant Roger Dooley.

India clocked 10.08 pc growthunder Manmohan Singh

NEW DELHI: Indian economyclocked a 10.08 per centgrowth rate in 2006-07 underthe then Prime MinisterManmohan Singh, the highestsince liberalization of theeconomy in 1991, according toan official data.

The highest ever growthrate since Independence wasrecorded at 10.2 per cent in1988-89 when Rajiv Gandhiwas prime minister.

The back series data on GDPhas been prepared by theCommittee on Real Sector Sta-tistics, constituted by the Na-tional Statistical Commission.The report has been releasedon the website of the Ministryof Statistics and ProgramImplementation (MOSPI).

The report comparesgrowth rates between old se-ries (2004-05) and new seriesbased on 2011-12 prices.

As per the old series (2004-05), the expansion in the GrossDomestic Product (GDP) atconstant prices was 9.57 percent during 2006-07, when

Manmohan Singh was primeminister. As per the new series(2011-12), the growth numberstands revised at 10.08 percent.

This is the highest growth

rate recorded by the countryafter launch of the economicliberalization programlaunched by then Prime Minis-ter P V Narasimha Rao.

"The GDP back series data isfinally out. It proves that like-

for-like, the economy underboth UPA terms (10 year avg:8.1%) outperformed the ModiGovt (Avg 7.3%), the Congressparty said in a tweet.

"The UPA also delivered theONLY instanceof double digitannual growthin modern In-dian history," itsaid.

The GDPnumbers forthe later yearstoo have beenrevised up-wards, accord-ing to the re-port.

The NationalStatistics Com-mission hadset up the

Committee to recommendsuitable measures tostrengthen systems and pro-cesses for collection, collationand dissemination of these sta-tistics with possibility for im-proving timeliness. PTI

Manmohan Singh

UPA policies led to macroinstability: Jaitley

NEW DELHI: Union MinisterArun Jaitley has said policies ofthe UPA to promote growthled to macro-economic insta-bility, as hejoins the de-bate over theback seriesdata indicat-ing bettere c o n o m i cperformanceduring theM a n m o h a nSingh govern-ment.

During theUPA regime,"fiscal disci-pline wascompromisedand the banking system wasadvised to go in for recklesslending notwithstanding thefact that it would eventually

put the banks at a risk. And yetwhen the UPA moved out ofpower in 2014, the last threeyear record, even in terms of

growth, was less than modest,"Jaitley said in a Facebook post.

A debate is taking placeover the National Statistical

Commission (NSC) sub-committee's estimates of GDPgrowth series with 2011-12base.

As per the back series dataon GDP, Indian economyclocked a 10.08 per centgrowth rate in 2006-07 underthe then Prime MinisterManmohan Singh, the highestsince liberalization of theeconomy in 1991.

"The policies of the UPA topromote growth led to macroinstability thus producing apoor quality of growth," Jaitleysaid.

Jaitley has citied data on fis-cal deficit, bank credit growth,inflation and current accountbalance from 1999 to 2017-18to support his argument.

He said 2003-04 witnessedthe boom period for the globaleconomy. PTI

Arun Jaitley

www.indiapost.com August 24, 2018

COMMUNITYACROSS AMERICA

Details on page 21

Aastha Charities tops inCommunity service

India Post

Desi News

14

Details on page 18

Details on page 19

Details on page 24

FOG Extravaganza climaxedby biggest India-Day Parade

VIDYA SETHURAMANIndia Post News Service

California's Fremont City,also dubbed as Little In-dia, was alive with danc-

ing, singing and flag waving asthe community held its annualweeklong FOG (Festival ofGlobe) extravaganza. Federa-tion of Indo-Americans ofNorthern California celebratedits 25th FOG India Day Melaand Parade with more than80,000 in attendance forweek-long events includingFOG Movie fest, Awards Nite,Summit, dance competition,singing contest, food festival,fair and parade.

Billed as the biggest Indian

parade in West Coast to cel-ebrate the 72nd Indian Indepen-dence Day, the event kicked offon Saturday August 18 withMela and cultural performances.The 26th FOG India Day Melaand Parade was held on August

18 and 19 at 39439 Paseo PadreParkway, Fremont, CA.

For past 26 years, FIA-orga-nized Festival of India has cometo symbolize the unity, integ-rity, culture and best of thethings that are hallmark of the

Indian community in Bay area.Celebrated over two days, thisfestival has many popular andwell sought after segmentssuch as health fair, grand pa-rade, Bollywood celebrity asGrand Marshal, kids talent pro-grams, cultural programs rep-resenting cross section of Indiaand a Mela (fair) that featuresbest of offers for Indian com-munity.

On a breezy weekend withtemperature little over 80Fand summer coming to a close,26th FOG India Day Mela andParade opened with a bang inCalifornia, which has over 16%of Asian population.

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Auspiciousopening forFOG Film FestLAKSHMI IYERIndia Post News Service

FREMONT, CA: On India's72nd Independence Day - Au-gust 15, a lamp lighting cer-emony attended by local dig-nitaries marked an auspiciousbeginning for the FOG FilmFest, now in its 5th consecutiveyear, and also for the Festival ofGlobe (FOG) - a five day ex-travaganza culminating in a'mela' and Parade in the city ofFremont on the weekend of18th and 19th August.

This time, the venue for thefestival was the lively AMCMercado 20, a popular multiplexin the city of Santa Clara, Califor-nia - the heart of Silicon Valley.

Consulate celebratesIndia-Day withgreat enthusiasm

HIMANI SANAGARAM

CHICAGO: Indian Consulatein Chicago celebrated the72nd Independence Day of In-dia on August 15 with greatenthusiasm.

The Flag hoisting ceremonyin the morning was held at theConsulate premises with agood participation of the In-dian-American community andfriends of India. The atmo-sphere at the venue wascharged with feelings of pa-triotism and pride. Over 200people participated in the flaghoisting ceremony.

I-Day celebrated atMahatma GandhiMemorialIndia Post News Service

DALLAS, TX: More than 700people consisting of many chil-dren, visiting parents and NRIsfrom all walks of life gatheredto celebrate India's Indepen-dence Day on August 15 at Ma-hatma Gandhi Memorial Plaza inIrving, TX hosted by MahatmaGandhi Memorial of NorthTexas (MGMNT)

Dr. Prasad Thotakura,MGMNT Chairman, hoisted theIndian flag. Vice-Consul from In-dian Consulate Ashok Kumarwas the Chief Guest of Honor.

India Post 15August 24, 2018 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

Governor's presence lights up I-DayCelebrations & Parade

SURENDRA ULLAL

Group of enthusiastic members marching before the Parade floats

People lining up before Haldiram booth

Two floats - Hare Krishna and Tamil Bansal

The crowd watching the Parade that had 72 floats. Pics Dave Vasudevan

ICO Chief Krishna Bansal, Naperville Mayor Steve Chirico and Emcee SmitaBhatia at India Day celebrations

CHICAGO: The Fourth IndiaDay Parade & Celebration onthe occasion of India's 72nd In-dependence Day organized byIndian Community Outreach

(ICO) in Naperville on SundayAugust 12 turned out to be ahuge success. Thousands of In-dian-Americans from all overChicagoland and neighboringStates and a large number oflocal residents participated.The rocking concert featuringBollywood singing sensationSukhwinder Singh was the ic-ing on the cake.

Governor Bruce Rauner, Lt.Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti,Consul General of India, NeetaBhushan and Mayor SteveChirico were the Guests of

Honor at the event. Congress-man Raja Krishnamoorthi, Con-gressman Peter Roskam, Con-gressman Bill Foster, State andlocal elected representatives

and prominent leaders of Chi-cago and Naperville alsograced the occasion.

The event proved to be amagnificent platform for India-Americans to display their tal-ents in the domains of art,dance, music, and culture.Over 100 booths presentingtheir products, health fair, anInternational food court,children's park, and ethnic In-dian bazaar attracted the at-tention of the spectators. A col-orful parade with over 70 en-tries including 35 intricately

decorated floats, sponsored byvarious community organiza-tions, businesses and restau-rants captured the imagina-tion of one and all.

The talent show includedunique and energetic perfor-mances by the best and mostbrilliant dance groups ofChicagoland. The spectaculardisplay of flair by Indian youthin music and dance left everyone awe-struck. The winner ofthe talent show, UC Bhangra,led the parade and performedat the main stage in theevening.

The free Health Fair featur-ing specialists from differentareas, screenings and blooddrive was a biggest draw forthe community members. TheAutism awareness booth withspecialists providing guidancewas very much applauded.Kid's area with free activitiesincluding bounce houses, pet-ting zoo, educational activities,

Some of the booths at the Magnificent I Day celebrations in Naperville

face painting, slime stationsand much more were highlyenjoyed by the children. Pres-ence of US Military and theirvehicle was as much an attrac-tion.

The crowd attending Sukhvinder showCont’d on page 23

August 24, 2018India Post16 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

FOG Extravaganza climaxed by biggest I-Day Parade

It started as a local event some 26 years back andhas now grown manifold. It showcases the perfectblend of fun, entertainment and national integration.

Today it has become a national event attracting par-ticipants from as far away as East Coast, says DrRomesh Japra, Convener of FIA and Chairman, FOG.

The celebrations kicked off with a flag hoisting cer-emony on August 16th at the San Jose City Hall. Theevent was hosted by Councilmember Sylvia Arenasand Assemblymember Ash Kalra. The event was at-tended by Consul Sumathi Saxena Rao, Dr RomeshJapra, Rajesh Verma, Savita Vaidhyanathan to name afew. Dr Japra, Chairman and Convener of the FIA, spokeabout what the flag raising ceremony meant to him,"Every year it keeps getting better and bigger - I thinkwe realize how fortunate we are to have this freedom,unlike many others. This flag hoisting makes us proudand makes us realize who we are and what we are."

The festival opened on August 18 at 10 a.m. in PaseoPadre Parkway with the "Free Health Fair".

Cont’d from page 14

Cont’d on page 17

India Post 17August 24, 2018 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

FOG Extravaganza climaxed by biggest I-Day Parade

The Health Fair had about 20 Indian American phy-sicians and other medical professionals providing freemedical services and follow up. The fair was organizedby FIA team members with physicians and other medi-cal professionals from Pacific Cardiology, KeralaAyurveda, Kaiser Permanente, Gilead, Amgen, AFC Ur-gent care, Isha Foundation, Colombia Asthma and Al-lergy Clinic to name a few. The Health fair was coordi-nated by Naresh Sodhi, Raju Mantena and team.

MOST AWAITED EVENTFOG parade, the most awaited event, started at

11:30 a.m. and lasted for over two hours on August 19.Grand Marshal Bollywood star Tusshar Kapoor andTanisha Mukherji led the parade with FIA Chairman DrRomesh Japra. The Parade route was on the main streetof Paseo Padre Parkway. Tusshar, who rode through the

parade in a horse-drawn carriage, said the pride hesees in the younger participants and watchers is "verymuch visible." "They love America, and being Ameri-cans, but at the same time they feel so rooted to theplace where they come from," said Tusshar.

Tusshar Kapoor is an Indian Bollywood actor andproducer and son of veteran actor Jeetendra. He is alsothe co-owner of Balaji Telefilms and Balaji Motion Pic-tures. His notable work includes the romance MujheKucch Kehna Hai (2001), the action-thriller Khakee(2004), the comedies Kyaa Kool Hai Hum (2005) andGolmaal - Fun Unlimited (2006), the biographical ac-tion crime film Shootout at Lokhandwala and the com-edy thriller Dhol (both 2007), the comedies One TwoThree, Golmaal Returns (both 2008) and Golmaal 3(2010), the biographical musical drama The Dirty Pic-ture (2011), and the supernatural comedy GolmaalAgain (2017).

Cont’d from page 16

Cont’d on page 27

August 24, 2018India Post18 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

Consulate celebrates India-Day with great enthusiasmHIMANI SANAGARAM

CHICAGO: Indian Consulatein Chicago celebrated the72nd Independence Day of In-dia on August 15 with greatenthusiasm.

The Flag hoisting ceremonyin the morning was held at theConsulate premises with a

good participation of the In-dian-American community andfriends of India. The atmo-sphere at the venue wascharged with feelings of pa-triotism and pride. Over 200people participated in the flaghoisting ceremony.

The celebration started withConsul General Ms. NeetaBhushan hoisting the NationalFlag which was followed bysinging of the National Anthemof India. CG read the address ofthe President of India. A cul-tural program was organizedin which students of theKalapriya Dance Academy,Dilshad Dance Academy andBharatam Academy of DanceArts was presented and waswell received.

Patriotic songs were sungby Ishan Ahmed, Nalini Parikhand teacher of Indian culture atthe Consulate Prerna Arya. CGthanked each and everyone fortheir presence even on a work-ing day.

The National Day Receptionwas hosted at the beautifuliconic building of Chicago Cul-tural Centre in the evening. TheChief Guest was CongressmanDanny K. Davis, 7th Congres-

sional District. Davis pre-sented Bhushan with theGolden Leadership Award2018 in recognition of her ex-emplary leadership in the Mid-western States.

The Chicago Consulate

serves the states of Illinois, In-diana, Iowa, Michigan, Minne-sota, Missouri, North Dakota,South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Among the attendees wereJudge Linda Davenport, JudgeRishi Agrawal, Mayor of Burr

Ridge Mickey Straub, membersof Diplomatic Corps, membersof U.S.Immigration and Cus-toms Enforcement (ICE), Fed-eral Bureau of Investigation(FBI), Office of Foreign Mission(OFM), University Professors,Indian-American communityleaders, and prominent localdignitaries from Chicago and

US Midwest.Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and

Governor Bruce Rauner couldnot attend the celebrationsbut sent greetings to be readto the audience. Many ConsulGenerals also attended the

event. On this occasion, Procla-mations and Messages re-ceived from these offices werealso read out.

In her address, CG NeetaBhushan welcomed the guestsfor being a part of the 72nd In-

dependence Day of India cel-ebrations. She referred to thespeech of Prime MinisterNarendra Modi where he men-tioned about the great stridesmade by India and that thepeople of India have travelleda long journey on the worldstage.

Flag hoisting by Consulate officials

Congressman Danny Davis, CG Ms Neeta Bhushan

CG with a group of invitees

Indian CG with artists

Cont’d on page 23

India Post 19August 24, 2018 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

I-Day celebrated at Mahatma Gandhi MemorialIndia Post News Service

DALLAS, TX: More than 700people consisting of many chil-dren, visiting parents and NRIsfrom all walks of life gatheredto celebrate India's Indepen-dence Day on August 15 at Ma-hatma Gandhi Memorial Plaza inIrving, TX hosted by MahatmaGandhi Memorial of NorthTexas (MGMNT)

Dr. Prasad Thotakura,MGMNT Chairman, hoisted theIndian flag. Vice-Consul from In-dian Consulate Ashok Kumarwas the Chief Guest of Honorwhile Irving City Mayor RickStopfer, Sunnyvale City MayorSaji George, Coppell CityCouncilmember Biju Mathewand former Director of IrvingCity Parks and Recreation RayCerda attended as SpecialGuests. Local musical teacherSwathi presented a couple ofpatriotic songs with her stu-dents at this event.

Rao Kalvala, MGMNT Secre-tary welcomed all and intro-

duced guests to the audience.Dr. Prasad Thotakura, Chairman,in his message said "We pay richtribute to all freedom fightersand national leaders like Ma-hatma Gandhi, SubhashChandra Bose, Chandra SekharAzad, Bhagat Singh, Lala LajpatRai, Jawahar Lal Nehru, SardarVallabhbhai Patel and manymore who surrendered andsacrificed everything in attain-ing independence from Britishrule".

"We all need to realize thathatred, bigotry, outrage, racismwill create an enormous gapamong the mankind. Only pa-tience, alliance, tolerance andcoherence will bring all peopletogether," Dr Thotakura added.

Vice-Consul Ashok Kumar A section of attendees at MGMNT celebrations

and Dr. Anupam Ray congratu-lated the gathering for cel-ebrating India's IndependenceDay with huge enthusiasm. Hesaid that it is very fortunate toparticipate in this event and In-dia continues to be on the rightpath in the right direction to-wards the development of thenation.

Irving City Mayor RickStopfer said he was proud anddelighted to have many IndianAmericans live in the Irving Cityand appreciated all their greatcontributions for the better-

ment of the city. Irving City al-ways welcomes many immi-grants and city officials are al-ways there to help and build astrong relationship with the In-dian American community.

Mayor Rick Stopfer said hewas pleased to have GandhijiMemorial in the center of theCity. It is very joyful to see thou-sands of visitors across theglobe visiting the Plaza everymonth.

Former Director of Parks andRecreation, Irving City, RayCerda mentioned that thisGandhi Memorial stood out as amemorable project not only inthe state of Texas but also inUSA. Cerda appreciated the ef-forts of MGMNT Board for rais-ing over $700,000 within ashort span of time to build thismemorial.

Sunnyvale City Mayor SajiGeorge appreciated MGMNTBoard for organizing the Inde-pendence Day Celebrationsevent with great patriotic fer-vor. India became the largestand best democracy in theworld. Mayor George reminded

that India got its independencethrough non-violence and civil-ian disobedience. "We are allproud to celebrate India's Inde-pendence Day in the land ofUSA."

Coppell City Council mem-ber Biju Mathew conveyedgreetings from the city ofCoppell officials and said he

was honored to be at the event.He congratulated all teammembers for their tireless ef-forts in building the largestGandhi Memorial in the USA. Hestated that our home land India

and adopted land USA are notdifferent and both the nationshave many things in common.

Kamal Kaushal, MGMNT Co-chair in his remarks stated thatit was very joyful to see a hugecrowd near Father of the Nation,Mahatma Gandhiji's memorial.He said India was an under-de-veloped country at Indepen-dence but today it is a devel-oped and the fastest growingeconomy in the world. India'seconomy is higher than anyother country in the world.

Irving City Mayor RickStopfer released a book titled"Explorify" authored by a localwriter Vivek Acharya. MGMNTTeam felicitated all guests.

B.N Rao, MGMNT Treasurerthanked Chief Guest, all specialguests, Irving City officials, TV5Media, Dallas Morning News, TVAsia for their media coverage,Bombay studio for photogra-phy, DJ Manesh for Audio Video

arrangements, FunAsiA for thepromotion and scores of

volunteers for making theevent a grand success. MGMNTBoard of Directors JohnHammond, Piyush Patel,Shabnam Modgil, KunteshChokshi, community leadersMVL Prasad, CR Rao, AbhijitRailkar, Jack Godhwani at-tended the event. MGMNTBoard distributed the Indianand American flags and refresh-ments at the event.

Besides MGMNT, Universityof Texas at Richardson also cel-ebrated India's IndependenceDay. Dr. Prasad Thotakura, Presi-dent, Indian American Friend-ship Council, attended as ChiefGuest of Honor at the Indepen-dence Day celebrations eventorganized by the Indian Stu-dents Association.

MGMNT Chairman Dr Thotukara addressing a jubilant crowd during India Day celebrations

MGMNT team with guests and dignitariesChildren at India Day celebrations

August 24, 2018India Post20 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

AIA holds flag hoisting ceremonySURENDRA ULLAL

CHICAGO: The Associationof Indians in America (AIA) or-ganized a flag hoisting cer-emony at Daley Plaza on Au-gust 13. It was attended by agood number of Indian Ameri-cans, AIA officials and IndianConsul D.B.Bhati.

The program started at11.55 am with flag hoistingdone by Consul

D B Bhati and all the AIAmembers present at that time.Children in Indian attires from

Chicago Indian community rallies behind CG Neeta BhushanIndia Post News Service

CHICAGO: In a joint state-ment, a group of prominentcommunity leaders led byIftekhar Shareef, KeerthiKumar, Sanhita AgnihotriPresident of Federation of In-dian Associations, Chicago,have paid glowing tributes toMs Neeta Bhushan for the dis-charge of her duties as IndianConsul General and assuredher solid support from mem-bers of the Indian community.

The solidarity of supportalso comes from several com-munity organization headsincluding Hanmanth Reddyof American Telugu Associa-tion, Harish Kolasani of NRISeva Foundation, Dr. VijayPrabhakar Founder Directorof Multi-Ethnic American TaskForce, Emmanuel Neela Presi-dent South Asian Cultural As-sociation and several rankingFIA-Chicago Trustees andmembers.

The joint statement, which isalso signed by Babu Patel, KantiS. Patel, Bhailal Patel, MinhajAkhtar and many other Trust-ees of FIA-Chicago, said it is ahuge honor to convey collec-

tive support and a deep senseof appreciation to Ms NeetaBhushan in her role as the Con-sul General of India. The state-ment describes her as a distin-

guished patriot, an extraordi-nary humanitarian and an ex-emplary representative of In-dia in meeting the demands ofthe Diaspora and the main-stream Americans as the Con-

sul General of India. The state-ment mentions that supporthas come from many other FIAmember organizations.

Iftekhar Shareef said that CG

Neeta Bhushan has ably per-formed the duties of her officeright from the day she arrivedin Chicago, building bridges offriendship with all the commu-nities in these vast Midwest-

ern states, particularly in Illi-nois. Shareef, who is the recipi-ent of the first OCI Card fromthe then Prime Minister of In-dia, said CG Neeta Bhushan

should be commended forhosting numerous roundtable meetings, conferencesand seminars highlightingthe economic eminence ofIndia. She has truly helpedfoster fervent working rela-tionships with business com-munities, corporate chiefs,and industry heads in pro-moting robust bilateral tradeexchanges.

Keerthi Kumar Ravoori em-phasized that CG NeetaBhushan has instituted a se-ries of bold administrativeinitiatives and reforms thatseek to bring more account-ability, a sense of transpar-ency and, more importantly,providing consular servicesmost expeditiously.

Ravoori added the visitsshe paid to hospitals to meetthe victims of violence andthe help she providedproactively to their families isheartfelt.

AIA Flag hoisting at Daley Plaza in Chicago

different age groups gatheredaround. This was followed byIndian National Anthem andslogans of Bharat Matajee Ki Jai& Vandemataram.

Cook County Treasurer MariaPapas joined the AIA group.Welcoming all, AIA President

Santosh Pandey felicitated Con-sul Bhati with a flower bouquet

Hina Trivedi was the Emceefor the event and she spokeabout AIA and its different ac-tivities. She then invited Maria

Papas to address the gather-ing. Papas spoke about Indianhistory, achievements and wasvery happy to be part of thisfunction. She was also felici-tated with a flower bouquet.

Santosh Pandey introducedthe AIA Executive team and

talked about Indian Americanscontribution in USA. ThakarBasati, a Sikh community activ-ist, talked about AIA achieve-ments and AIA activities.

A group of artists with Santosh Pandey, Thakar Basati, Consul DB Bhati and Maria Papas

Cont’d on page 22

The supporters of CG Neeta Bhushan

India Post 21August 24, 2018 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

Aastha Charities topsin Community service

India Post News Service

DALLAS, TX: Surti LeuvaPatidar Samaj (SLPS) AasthaCharities started as an ideaamong a group of women ona road to Austin, TX two yearsago. The idea supported andnourished by the SLPS Com-munity of Dallas slowly fructi-fied turning into reality.

Basically, the idea was tocreate a group of individualsto promote charitable activi-

ties and have a platform toserve the local as well as theglobal community at large.

Some of SLPS Aastha's pastprojects were- (1) a WinterCoat Drive benefitingMetrocrest Services. They as-sist individuals living inCarrollton, Addison, FarmersBranch, Coppell and the city ofDallas in Denton County., (2) aToy Drive helping Children'sMedical Center during Christ-mas of 2016 and (3) a CannedFood Drive benefitting IrvingCares, Backpack Drive 2017which donated 400 backpacksto two districts, HurricaneHarvey Relief Help at a localshelter.

Yet another Toy Drivehelped Scottish Rites Hospital,

A group of Aastha activists

while several individuals fromAastha have volunteered tofeed the homeless at AustinShelter in Dallas.

2018 came with a very suc-cessful Backpack Drive be-yond imagination. Last year,Aastha donated 400 back-packs, so the committee feltthat this year they could reacha goal of 1,000. With this loftygoal, and a group of passionateAastha Charities members, this

goal was surpassed. Theycollected enough funds fromthe local SLPS Community topurchase 1,050 backpacks.

These were put togetherby the SLPS Youth and com-munity members in less thanfive hours on July 31. On Au-gust 1, these backpackswere distributed to five Dal-las Metroplex Districts forthe students to start theirschool year in a successfulmanner.

SLPS Aastha Charities isvery fortunate to have thesupport from the SLPS Com-munity in Dallas, TX. Theyplan to expand and reach outto more people in need topromote their slogan: GivingHope For A Better Tomorrow.

Backpack donation drive by Aastha

August 24, 2018India Post22 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

Shagun Pandey sang theAmerican National Anthem fol-lowed by Indian National An-them sung by all. The culturalprogram started with a thrill-ing dance from classical to

AIA holds flag hoisting ceremony

Bollywood with IndependenceDay theme performed byyoung kids in beautiful match-ing attire.

It was followed by threeclassic South Indian songs byyounger kids. All the kids fromfive different teams were in-

vited on the stage to dance onRang De Basanti song whichwas cheered by the entirecrowd.

Hina Trivedi gave Vote ofThanks. There where close to200 people present with Chan-nel 5 also covering the event.

Cont’d from page 20

Performances by local artists

Gurpurnima celebrated with Kundi Gayatri YagyaSURENDRA ULLAL

CHICAGO: Global GayatriPariwar's Gayatri Shaktipeethcelebrated Gurupurnima lastmonth at Lake Opeka (cornerof Lee &Touhy) Desplaineswith 108 Kundi Gayatri MahaYagya.

The start was with Pragyasangeet sung by Kusum Patel,Harshaben Bhanuben, Vilasbenand Rajnibhai. In Mahakalki GitaKatha, Kusumben said that ittransforms one to become di-vine. It is the biggest service tosociety as well as to God. Self-less service, piousness, surren-der to God and faith in Guruare the main characteristics ofa disciple.

Main Yajmans Vishnubhaiand Chamben Patel inaugu-rated the Souvenir book"Mahakalki Gita" with Dr.Amratbhai Patel, a naturopathfrom India.

Dr. Amratbhai in his talk said

that in last 35 years he hadcured more than 50,000 pa-tients naturally. He can cureany disease and showed sometechniques about what to eat,when and how to eat. He alsomentioned that he is going togive his service to GayatriShaktipeeth Chicago in DesPlaines, (847)257-7048. His ser-vice well cover service 7:30 to8; Aarti, prayer, 8 am to 10am;Yoga-Paranayam 4pm to 6 pmand discussion about differentdiseases and how to resolveany problem.

Sangita Gupta's babyshower meaning Garbhapujanrituals were performed duringyagya.

Guru Purnima is celebratedevery year on the full moon dayof the lunar month Aashad tostrengthen spiritual bonds be-tween Guru (spiritual teacher)and Shishya (disciple). This fes-

Guru Purnima 108 Kundi Yagya

Veda Vyas.A guru understands his dis-

ciples in totality. This is the onlyrelationship in which a personis understood so holistically.Others will know a person, butin bits and pieces. A motherunderstands her child, but she

cannot do so completely be-cause when her child growsinto youth, his personalitychanges so much that a mothermight wonder if he is the samechild she nurtured. The rela-tionship between a wife andhusband is very deep. They un-derstand each other very well.Even then, there are instances

tival is also celebrated as VyasaPurnima in the honor of Sage

Guru Purnima team: Smt Kusumben Patel (third from left) and Dr Amritbhai Patel naturopathy (fifth from right) with others

when they might find them-selves as complete strangers.It is only the relationship ofGuru and disciple that theGuru understands the disciplecompletely. His understandingis not superficial. He knows hisentire personality, his chitta

and samskaras too. In additionto this life, he also knows thepast lives of the disciple.

When the disciple surren-ders himself more and more,then the Guru's presence is feltmore and more within the self.If we can achieve this, then wehave truly celebrated GuruPurnima, said Kusumben Patel.

Guru Purnima Aarti

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India Post 23August 24, 2018 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

Thousands of enthusiasticIndian-Americans and mem-bers of Naperville communitylined the Grand Parade routewaving flags of both theUnited States and India. TheParade showcased culture,dances and uniqueness fromover 20 states of India and wasaired live by many media out-lets, including NCTV17 and TVAsia. The event concluded withmagnificent fireworks.

The highly acclaimed Indianrock star singer, SukhwinderSingh, set the stage on fire byrendering patriotic songs anda number of Bollywood hits. Hekick-started the scintillatingevening with the most unfor-gettable melodies. The non-stop singing for over two hoursand a fusion of the rare talentof Sukhwinder and the musicalcapabilities of his team mes-

Governor's presence lights up I-DayCelebrations & Parade

merized the audience.Guest of Honor Governor

Bruce Rauner said that the In-dian-American community isan integral part of the US andit has been enriching the mu-sic, food, and dance of the USMidwest in a big way. He ap-plauded Indian Americans fortheir worth-emulating contri-butions in a number of fields,especially Health Sector, Tech-nology, Hotel Industry, Teach-ing & Research, etc.

Naperville Mayor Steve

Chirico said that he was pleas-antly overwhelmed to see theresponse of Indian-Americansto the celebrations and parade.He added that Indians are re-spected across the globe fortheir right attitude and posi-tive work ethics.

CG Neeta Bhushan urgedthe Indian-Americans to keepcontributing to the multifac-eted development of India as

well as USA. "In such diversefields as technology, educa-tion, science, entrepreneur-ship, etc., Indian-Americanshave been empowering bothIndia and the USA to growmuch stronger and dynamic",she added.

Krishna Bansal, Chairman ofthe ICO, said that the Celebra-tions and the Parade wereaimed at engaging Indian-Americans into mainstreamfabric of Naperville. He stated,with a sense of pride thatNaperville has emerged as oneof the best places in the USMidwest to work and live. Headded that many Indian-Americans, who own busi-nesses, are not only looking tocome to Naperville but alsoshowing enthusiasm to get in-volved with the city as volun-teers.

Governor Bruce Rauner pre-sented the "Outstanding Ser-vice in Leadership Award" toKrishna Bansal for his distin-guished service to the IndianAmerican community in Illinois.

Chirag Jani, ICO Board Mem-ber and Co-chair of India Dayand Viral Shah addressed thegathering. ICO TreasurerDinkar Karumuri thanked tech-nology companies ofChicagoland for stepping up insupporting the event whileproviding local jobs to arearesidents. He also thanked astrong army of volunteers whocontributed immensely to thesuccess of the fourth India DayParade & Celebration.

Krishna Bansal announced to

be back next year on 11th Aug2019 India Day and urged ev-eryone to join the outreach ef-forts and encouraged to visitwww.indiancommunityoutreach.orgby call 630.300.0345 for moredetails.

DAVE VASUDEVAN ADDS:This event was made FREE

for all by the generous contri-butions from a number ofsponsors. The event proved tobe a magnificent platform forthe India-Americans to displaytheir talents in the domains ofart, dance, music, and culture.Over 100 booths presentingtheir products, health fair, anInternational food court,

children's park, and ethnic In-dian bazaar attracted the at-tention of the spectators.

Bollywood singerSukhwinder Singh, who gainedinternational fame for singing"Jai Ho" from the film SlumdogMillionaire which won an Acad-emy Award for Best OriginalSong and a Grammy Award forBest Song Written for a MotionPicture, performed live atKnock Park. The park was filledwith thousands of fans dancingmerrily enjoying the evening.

The Grand Sponsors werePatel Bros. The event Sponsors

Cont’d from page 15 were Tech Companies of Chi-cago, and India Health CareProfessionals. The Platinumsponsors were Wintrust Bankrepresented by VP BusinessBanking Shakeel Khan, NewYork Life, Accenture, Vinakomand Famous Liquors.

The Gold sponsors wereAshok Lakshmanan of PMSIleading Mortgage providerserving the community forover 17 years, Air India, SugaBuilders, Power Volt, SpiceMart, MAFS, North Central Col-lege, Universal Metro Servicesand Arlington Rental. Followedby many Silver and BronzeSponsors.

It is worth recalling that the

commencement of India daycelebrations was a veryhumble beginning in 2011-2014 as India Fest. It wasstarted by the Alliance of Mid-west India Associations. The Al-liance team included PremLalvani, Dave Vasudevan, M.Bhaskaran, and Suresh Khattar.Now it has grown into IndiaDay festivities and the primemover is the ICO team led byKrishna Bansal and the ICOteam of Chirag Jani, Viral Shah,Dinkar Karumuri, DharmeshPatel, Rahul Saigal, VC Vasisthand Vasavi Chakka.

Guest of Honor Governor Bruce Raunersaid that the Indian-American community is an

integral part of the US and it has beenenriching the music, food, and dance of the

US Midwest in a big way

With the growth rate of over7%, India is now the fastestgrowing economy in theworld, she said

The IMF has recently de-scribed India as, "an Elephantthat has started to run". BrandIndia is based on a strongfoundation of talent, trade,tradition and technology. She

Consulate celebrates India-Day with great enthusiasmCont’d from page 18 also highlighted the scientific

achievements of India andmentioned that India is one ofthe largest contributors tothe United Nations Peace-keeping Operations and itwas the first country to con-tribute a female formed Po-lice Unit to the UN Mission inLiberia.

Thanking Danny Davis forhis presence, Vijay Prabhakar,

a community activist, saidthat the Congressman was abig help in getting Indian-American candidates like RajaKrishnamoorthi and RamVillivalam into American po-litical office as he had en-dorsed them.

"I'm delighted to be here...Raja has been a tremendousaddition to the Indian-Ameri-can community that he repre-

sents and is part of the larg-est democracy in the world,"Davis said.

The ceremony was fol-lowed by a cultural programwhere students from NatyaDance Theatre, KalapadmaDance Academy and I-RadhaSchool of Dance presentedscintillating dance per for-mances.

Guru Ruth "Parijata"

Varghese's Kalapadma DanceAcademy performed theopening dance "VandeMataram", followed by NatyaDance Acadmey's "Trishakti"and other patriotic items.

The function concludedwith a grand banquet at-tended by a full house of over400 people to whom sumptu-ous Indian delicacies wereserved.

August 24, 2018India Post24 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

Auspicious opening for FOG Film Fest

FOG lamp lighting ceremony. Pics AB24 and FOG Facebook page At the inaugration

LAKSHMI IYERIndia Post News Service

FREMONT, CA: On India's 72nd Inde-pendence Day - August 15, a lamp light-ing ceremony attended by local digni-taries marked an auspicious beginningfor the FOG Film Fest, now in its 5th con-secutive year, and also for the Festivalof Globe (FOG) - a five day extravaganzaculminating in a 'mela' and Parade in thecity of Fremont on the weekend of 18thand 19th August.

This time, the venue for the festivalwas the lively AMC Mercado 20, a popu-lar multiplex in the city of Santa Clara,California - the heart of Silicon Valley.

Fremont Mayor Lily Mei, Councilmember Raj Salwan, Sunnyvale Councilmember Nancy Smith and Vice Mayor ofSanta Clara where FOG Film Fest tookplace, Kathy Watanabe, and a represen-tative from California StateAssemblymember Kansen Chu's office,District Director, Anurag Paul, were thedignitaries who graced the occasion.

Dr. Romesh Japra, Founder and Con-vener of Festival of Globe (FOG), RajeshVerma, President of FIA, ChandruBhambra from the Board of Trustees andmany other FOG members were

present.The three day film festival had mov-

ies from the Bay Area on the first day,international films on the second day

and special screenings on the last daythat also had a Women EmpowermentPanel discussion with celebrity panelistand Grand Marshal Tanishaa Mukerji.

The film fest closed with the 2008 com-edy, "One Two Three" that featured theGrand Marshals, Tanishaa Mukerji andTusshar Kapoor in its ensemble cast.

Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy & Farhan Akhtar tooIndia Post News Service

MILPITAS, CA: World-class magnifi-cent trio Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy, along

with the multi-talented heartthrob ofmillions, Farhan Akhtar, will present amesmerizing musical concert on August24 in San Jose and August 25 in Pasa-dena.

Organized by Sankara Eye Founda-tion (SEF), the evening withShankar, Ehsaan, Loy andFarhan will surely leave youawe-inspired. SEF shows areimpeccably well organizedwith the minutest attentionto detail and thoughtful-ness. That is what differenti-ates a concert from beinggood to being breathtak-ingly amazing. Also you mayknow that these fundraisersare helping brighten theworld of those needlesslyblind.

Shankar Mahadevan is afamous singer and musiccomposer who made an im-pressive start with his veryfirst album Breathless. Hehas won the National awardmultiple times for best play-back singer and best musicdirector. Ehsaan Noorani is afamous music composerand guitarist. He has lent hisvocals to many Bollywoodsongs such as "Ek Junoon" from ZindagiNa Milegi Dobara and "Don The Theme"from Don. Loy Mendonsa played guitarand piano for A.R Rehman before hebecame a music composer.

Farhan Akhtar, the son of notedscreenwriter and lyricist Javed Akhtar,

is an Indian film director, screenwriter,producer, actor, playback singer andtelevision host. After beginning his ca-reer in Bollywood as an assistant direc-tor for Lamhe (1991), Farhan made hisdirectorial debut with Dil Chahta Hai

(2001), which won a National award.Farhan Akhtar made his Hollywood de-but through the soundtrack of Brideand Prejudice (2004), for which hewrote the lyrics.

Cont’d on page 26

India Post 25August 24, 2018 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

European scholar champions Hindu perspectivesSUNTHAR VISUVALINGAM

CHICAGO: Among the hand-ful of white Europeans speak-ing at the World Hindu Con-gress 2018 to be held herefrom September 7 to 9 is inde-pendent Belgian scholarKoenraad Elst, PhD. He is sched-uled to speak on September 8on "Implications of mis-por-trayal of Hindus on Bharat'spolicies and destiny."

Elst has a track record ofpublicly critiquing WesternIndologists for theoreticalstances derived more from col-lective prejudice than incon-t r o v e r t i b l eevidence. Thefollowing is ani n t e r v i e wwith the re-s p e c t e dscholar:

How did youget exposedto Indian cul-ture andwhence thisabiding sym-pathy for Hin-duism?

I'm from aprovincial Belgian Flemishbackground but my father,though a staunch Catholic, wasa committed Hatha Yogapractitioner.When I begansearching for my own truth, Itook up Chinese and Indian phi-lology and history. Later I wasin Varanasi researching Indianphilosophy. My meeting in1989 with historian and pub-lisher Sita Ram Goel catalyzedthis radically new chapter in

my life.

What are the key Indologicalcontroversies that your publi-cations have addressed?

This was also when I was ex-posed to my first controversy:Ayodhya. The consensus hadbeen of a Hindu temple forc-ibly replaced by Babri Masjid.But "eminent historians" sud-denly turned that consensusinto a "Hindu fascist concoc-tion" such that reasonablesettlement became impos-sible. In the polarization that

followed, the whole of Westernacademe fell in line with theeminences, which served as anargument of authority for theirbrand-new orthodoxy.

That controversy forced meto study the theology of Islamiciconoclasm. My first major pub-lication, in Dutch, was on thecontroversy aboutThe SatanicVerses, Salman Rushdie's novelabout the beginnings of Islam,especially its turn against the

three goddesses of paganArabia and thus against poly-theism. It is little-known thatthe Rushdie affair had started

as aramification of the Ayodhyaconflict.

In the 1980s I still espousedthe Aryan invasion theory, notknowing it was already beingquestioned by KD Sethnathrough his research on cotton,absent in Rig-Veda but evi-denced in the Harappan ar-chaeological record. Readinghis book in 1990 against thelinguistic background, I real-ized there was no real proof forthe established view that theIndo-Aryans came from CentralAsia. More evidence has sinceaccumulated for India itself ashomeland of the Indo-Euro-pean ("Aryan") language family.

Mahatma Gandhi was acomplex figure and some ofthe good said about him is stilltrue. But the negative side hasbeen pushed under the carpetbecause, by being murdered,he became a saint, never to bequestioned. I thought the timehad come to restore the bal-ance. Assassin NathuramGodse had a case, and many ofhis contemporaries were onthe same wave length, but itbecame unsayable.

How has the Western acad-emy received your counter-theses and treated you per-sonally?

The Ayodhya controversy

Special Interview

made me a pariah. That is why Ireally savored the news in2003 that the foundations hadbeen dug up and the pre-exist-ence of the temple had becomeundeniable. A few "eminent his-torians" in Delhi still tried to sowdoubts, but most understoodthat the game was up.

Not that anyone has formallyconceded, let alone apolo-gized, but the sudden silenceabout the historical side of theaffair is eloquent enough. In2010, after the court verdictacknowledged the Hinduclaim to the site, I receivedcongratulations from one ofthe American professors hated

by Hindus for a stance deemedsacrilegious. But that wasabout all.

I was nevertheless fortunatein an intellectual sense. Firstly,my stance opened the doors ofthe otherwise secretive Hindumovement, which allowed meto write a remarkable Ph.D.thesis about it, published asDecolonizing the Hindu Mind.Secondly, I was still around towitness the moment when theold consensus got vindicatedand all the eminences had eggon their faces.

My article on The Satanic

Verses was published in a Bel-gian Leftist journal, because inthose days the European Leftwas still candidly secular, notin the Indian sense of "anti-Hindu."

A few years later, though, itbecame militantly pro-Islamicand therefore started treatingme with hostility. In India, thepower equation in academiahas not changed, not even un-der the Vajpayee and Modigovernments: so, both in theWest and in India, I am personanon grata.

Though Islam has lost my in-terest, I am still reduced to mypositions on it. However, the

torch has been taken over byex-Muslims, who write in thesame vein as me. No fatwa canstop it anymore, not from theMullahs nor from "eminent his-torians."

My pleas for the Out-of-IndiaTheory likewise led to exclu-sion, but less grimly. Evidence infavor of OIT is accumulating,and the younger generation ofscholars is acknowledging it asa contender. In Belgium, I havebeen re-accepted byOrientalists and Indo-Europeanists as one of them.

[To be continued]

Koenraad Elst, PhD

When I began searching for my own truth,I took up Chinese and Indian philology and

history. Later I was in Varanasi researching Indianphilosophy. My meeting in 1989 with historian

and publisher Sita Ram Goel catalyzed thisradically new chapter in my life

Vajpayee death mourned in TexasIndia Post News Service

DALLAS: India Association ofNorth Texas (IANT) and IndianAmerican Friendship Council(IAFC) held a condolencemeeting in the memory offormer Prime Minister AtalBihari Vajpayee on August 18at Richardson, TX. The boardand trustee members of boththe councils and officials of In-dian Consulate Houston andcommunity attended the con-dolence meeting.

Kamal Kaushal, President ofIANT, Rakesh Banati, Vice Con-

sul of IAFC,P r a s a dThotakura, IANTTrustee Chair,K u n t e s hChokshi & IANTPresident ElectB.N. Rao alongwith all the at-tendees paidtheir respect byl i g h t i n gcandles, offer-ing tilak androse petals tothe former

Prime Minister's picture andspeaking about his life andlegacy in contribution to In-dia and the world. AbhijitRailkar, Vice President of IANT,emceed the event while B.N.Rao proposed a vote ofthanks.

IANT is an approved Federa-tion of Indian Associations(FIA) umbrella organizationsituated in the DFW Area bythe National Federation of In-dian Associations. More than50 Indian organizations are itsaffiliate members.Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee remembered

August 24, 2018India Post26 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

'Plush Pillow' wins as the best business idea

RISING STAR: The United States Chapter of the Indian NationalCongress organized annual awards at Crown Plaza JFK NewYork City on July 28 to recognize Indian American leaders in

different fields. Picture shows Chief Guest Sam Pitroda present-ing the 'Rising Star' Award to Saim Hyder for his contribution as

an actor in the United States and India.

India Post News Service

CHICAGO: Lyons TownshipHigh School students in LaGrange presented productideas to a panel of area busi-nessmen and women and en-trepreneurs in a project mod-eled after the television show"Shark Tank."

Students in LT's introductionto business classes pitchedtheir products, showed the"sharks" their prototype and

explained their marketingstrategies and financial com-ponents at a recent La GrangeBusiness Association meeting.

The winning group, sopho-mores Angelina Godinez andKiley Durkin, both of La Grange,

and their Plush Pillow idea wonover the sharks and will receivemarketing, financial and pro-motional support so they cansell their product, the releasestated. The Corporate IdentityKit Package valued at $5,000includes logo, business cardand letterhead design, and fullcollateral.

Dave Vasudevan, VPDigislate, Inc - a Napervillebased New Media Company

specializing in Web Designing,Printing, Graphic Design -pre-sented the Corporate IdentityKit to the winner. ThereseO'Sullivan, Owner ofUnishippers a UPS Franchise,also presented a $250.00 gift

certificate towards shippingservice for the winner.

Portable Plush is a "new andimproved" travel pillow, pro-viding double the support, therelease stated. The pillows,which are offered in adult andchild sizes, are made of supersoft anti-pill fleece and filledwith royal-silk fiberfill stuffing.They are offered in numerouscolors and designs. The pillowhas a circular head rest con-nected to two neck pads toprovide support on both sides,and the two neck pads connectwith long stripes of velcro to al-low personalized fitting. All pil-lows are handmade and sewn,according to the release.

The project required stu-dents to work in pairs overabout five weeks and developa business plan based on aproduct or service of their owndesign. The students' businessplans included an executivesummary, company description,objective for the business, mar-keting plan and financial infor-mation, the release stated. Theproject also had to detail thecost of goods, selling price andestimated net income or netloss for the first quarter, as wellas a partnership agreement.

The event was brought byThe La Grange Business Asso-ciation (LGBA) which is a groupof over 300 businesses, ser-vices and non-profit organiza-tions that strive to energizeand enhance the local

economy through events, net-working and advocacy.

The group of business lead-ers work to develop effectiveprograms, create new ideasand establish relationships thathelp local small businesses

grow. Signature events orga-nized by the LGBA are de-signed to drive foot traffic tobusinesses and position LaGrange as a destination for daytourism. They include a weeklyseasonal farmers market, craftfairs, arts festivals, carnivals,holiday events, and retailer andrestaurant sales promotions.

For example, unique pro-gramming organized by thegroup, such as an outdoor pi-ano near a fountain-plaza formusic-lovers, helps promote avibrate arts community in La

Grange. A summer exhibit ofhand-painted love seats dis-played in front of local busi-nesses draws attention to thediversity of businesses in thecommunity.

To assist in this initiative, in

2017 the organizationlaunched a La Grange mobileapp, available to download forfree in Google or Apple stores,which quickly and conve-niently puts community-basedevents, programs, offers andpromotions at everyone's fin-gertips.

The La Grange Business As-sociation also provides educa-tional opportunities for smallbusinesses on relevant topicslike Social Media Boot Camp,Marketing on a Shoestring, Im-proving SEO and more.

Dave Vasudevan presenting the Corporate Identity Kit to Angelina Godinez.Therese O'Sullivan, Owner of Unishippers, is on the right of Vasudevan

Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy &Farhan Akhtar too

His official acting debut waswith Rock On. (2008), for whichhe won a second NationalAward for Best Feature Film inHindi as producer. He wrotethe dialogues, produced andacted for the critical andcommercial success ZindagiNa Milegi Dobara (2011),which won him two FilmfareAwards, including Best Sup-porting Actor. His portrayal ofMilkha Singh in the 2013 filmBhaag Milkha Bhaag earned

him the Filmfare Award forBest Actor.

The trio of Shankar/Ehsaan/Loy has created magic to-gether and won many nationalawards for best Music Direc-tion with such hits as Kal Ho NaHo, Dil Chahta Hai, Bunty aurBabli, Rock On, Dil DhadakaneDo, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara,Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, and so on.They have also won awards forTwo States (Best Music) andMission Kashmir (Best Back-ground Music).

When Shankar, Ehsaan and

Loy performed a five city tourfor SEF two years ago, theyrocked the jam-packed audito-riums and the audience leftwanting for more, saying thiswas the best concert experi-ence ever.

You can help prevent need-less blindness by enjoying thisfun-filled musical event withfamily and friends. Buy yourtickets online atwww.giftofvision.org and treatyourself to an amazing experi-ence, while brighteningsomeone's world.

Cont’d from page 24

Dave Vasudevan, VP Digislate, Inc - a Napervillebased New Media Company specializing in WebDesigning, Printing, Graphic Design -presented

the Corporate Identity Kit to the winner

India Post 27August 24, 2018 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

Tanishaa Mukerji is an Indianfilm actress known for herworks in Indian movies. Part ofthe Mukherjee-Samarth family,she is the daughter of film-maker Shomu Mukherjee andactress Tanuja Samarth and theyounger sister of Bollywood ac-tress Kajol. She made her debutwith the Hindi film Sssshhh... in2003. She had her first hit with

Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar, ap-pearing alongside AmitabhBachchan and AbhishekBachchan. She also was a con-testant on the reality show BiggBoss 7 in 2013.

The Parade was coordinatedby Deepak Chhabra, Chair, Pa-rade and there were about 20floats showcasing the rich cul-ture and heritage of India. Manylocal ethnic groups such asSindhi Association, Gujarat,Tamil Nadu, Haryana, UttarPradesh, Maharashtra and WestBengal participated in the pa-rade with colorful floats and

FOG Extravaganza climaxed by biggest I-Day Parade

entertainment programs high-lighting the state's culture andheritage.

Deepak Chhabra (Chair, Pa-rade) said, "The Parade contin-ues to be the main attraction ofFestival of India every year.There is renewed interest, en-thusiasm and participationfrom various parts of commu-nity in making the parade agrand success. We are planningto increase the number of floats

significantly andleave an indelibleimpression of richIndian culture thisyear."

Cultural eventsshowcasing the tal-ent of Bay area kidsand adults went onfor all two days. Thedance competitionwas coordinatedby Jyotsna

Bendapudi, FOG cultural chair.Over 150 groups and 700 kidsperformed at the show whichwent on for two days.

The cultural events werespread for two days under dif-ferent categories of groups andsolo in both Indian and Westerndance forms. Kuchipudi,Bharatanatyam, Kathak,Bhangra, Bollywood and classi-cal dances by kids and adultsentertained the audiencesthoroughly.

The FOG India Day Mela, be-sides having the entertainmentfactor, is the best platform to

MansiBansal andKaryn Bhideperforming atFOGFestival.Both are 7years old

market your business. The festi-val offers an opportunity forbusinesses to provide support,patronage and encourageevents that increase andstrengthen the cultural diver-sity and community involve-ment. There were around 125trade booths and nine foodbooths. The trade booths ca-tered to wide range of businessstarting from fashion jewelry,clothing, designers, real estate,insurance, credit union, banks,tourist agents, airlines etc.There were stalls carryingmulti-colored and elaboratelypatterned fabrics of saris,shawls and kurtas; intricatelydesigned bangles, toe rings,anklets and earrings.

Sponsors who made thisevent possible are Airlines part-ner Air India, Astrology partnerAstro Vastu Solution by VaneetSharma, Bank of the West, WellsFargo, Comcast xfinity, Sling TV,Turkish Airlines, Nurture Kids,Young explorers, TV Asia, Dr.Monika Chugh, Poppy Bank,Techcu, Patelco, Jhalak.com, Gu-rus Education, Visitors Guru, Ex-cel Test Prep, CEFCU,, KeenLearners Montessori, EventMozo, Raymond James,Summerhill Homes, RobsonHomes, Timothy Crofton, ICICIBank, Eros Now, State Farm andNewyork Life.

Commenting on the successof the Festival, Rajesh Verma,President FIA and FOG Eventcoordinator said, "This is our

Cont’d from page 17

way of passing on the torch ofour pride in our traditions to thefuture generations of AmericanIndian youth." Festival of India isunmatched in performance,participation and organization

by dynamic and talented spiritof Asian Indians. He thanked thevolunteers who had worked re-lentlessly and planned theevents for months and made ita huge success.

TOP TENHINDI SONGS

1 Dilbar: Satyameva Jayate2 Dhadak: Dhadak3 High Rated Gabru:Nawabzaade4 Naino Ne Baandhi: Gold5 Zingaat: Dhadak6 Tere Naal Nachna:Nawabzaade7 Tareefan: Veere Di Wedding8 Ishq Di Baajiyaan: Soorma9 Dilbaro: Raazi10 Tera Ghata: GajendraVerma

28 August 24, 2018www.indiapost.comIndia Post

Anushka Sharma and VarunDhawan are excited withtheir maiden project to-

gether - 'Sui Dhaaga: Made in In-dia' which also marks Varun's de-but in Yash Raj Films' banner.Since the trailer launch of thefilm, their chemistry has becomethe talk of the town, a uniquepairing that has won manyhearts. However, this chemistrystarted long before we wereshown the trailer.

In an interview, Anushka re-vealed 'I started to really respectand like Varun when he didBadlapur, which was very early onin his career and he had just doneStudent of the Year,' when Varuninterrupted by asking "BeforeThat?!,' to which Anushka ex-plained, 'Varun and me actuallycould have been the greatestfriends in the history of film frater-nity.'

There are two actors whostood between us and in themiddle of our friendship. One isRanbir Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor.They knew we would becomefriends and change the cinemahistory.

They spread rumors about us -that we didn't like each other andall of that. They came in the pathof our true friendship."

Yami Gautam says shelearnt the most valuable lesson of becom-

ing a "selfless performer"from her co-star HrithikRoshan. "I learnt a lot aboutcinema on the sets of 'Kaabil'.I learnt the value of beingselfless. "But working withHrithik made me understandand appreciate the value ofbeing selfless. It isn't easybut very simple. That's whyhe is where he is. That hasbeen quite life changing les-son in a lot of ways," Yamisaid.

"With the kind of work I'mdoing, I feel like myself. I'muninhibited and ready totake on challenges. I'm in ahappy space," she said. "I hadto chop off my hair for 'Uri'and hair is a big deal for anactor. But I said lets go for it.It's going to be worth it," sheadded. The 29-year-old actorsays she has evolved - bothas a person and a performer- over the years and feelsmost comfortable today.

Superstar Salman Khan says heused to flirt a lot with his school

teacher. While shooting for the epi-sode of "Dus Ka Dum - DumdaarWeekend", Khan discussed his flirt-ing history.

When a question was asked aboutIndians falling in love for the firsttime with their school teacher,Salman said he used to flirt with histeacher when he was in school, reada statement. He also admitted thathe used to drop his school teacherhome on a bicycle and even re-moved the carrier to ensure that hegot the teacher to sit in front of him.

"It is impossible for someone tonot have a crush on their

teacher. Most peoplewon't admit it, but I

openly say that I usedto flirt a lot with my

teacher," He said.

India Post 29

www.indiapost.com

BollywoodAugust 24, 2018

A c t r e s s Nora

Fatehi feelslucky to be work-

ing with superstarSalman Khan in

'Bharat'. "It is an excitingmoment in my career to

be a part of a huge projectlike 'Bharat'. I feel very lucky to

be working with SalmanKhan sir and Ali (Abbas

Zafar) sir and the entireteam! I hope to be a part

of more projects as an actorin the near future," Nora said

in a statement.Nora, who has commenced

shooting for 'Bharat' in Malta, willbe seen playing the role of aLatina in the film, which is a Hindiremake of the 2014South Ko-rean film 'Ode to My Father'.Talking about her character,Nora said, "I am playing a

Latina character from Maltaand it's going to be a very differ-

ent experience for me as an actor. Speakingin the way a Latina would speak, the body language

and mannerism is something I needed to prep forbefore the shoot." 'Bharat' is slated for Eid 2019 re-

lease. It also stars Disha Patani and Sunil Grover.

Kangana Ranaut is honored to tell the story of Rani Laxmibai through herforthcoming period drama 'Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi', and calls it an iconic role. The project, directed by Krish, promises to tell a story of

courage, strength, and determination, and celebrates the extraordinary story ofthe queen who laid down her life at the age of 30. 'Manikarnika: The Queen of

Jhansi' first look: Kangana Ranaut's fierce warrior avatar will leave youstunned. On the occasion of Independence Day, the makers unveiled

the first look of the film. "It's an iconic role. I trained a lot in swordfights and horse riding. In fact after riding the horse for two days

straight I got a fever." "I can only imagine the strength and nervesof steel that Laxmibai had... I am nowhere

close to her greatness," Kangana said ina statement.

Uday Chopra has changed his name to GudvarThorgard on social media. He wrote, "Thanks

Viking name generator." The name change wasaccompanied by gloom as the Dhoom actorposted, "I wish I could love with the same in-tensity, I used to love a few years ago. Therewas this girl and I felt alive just loving her. I'velost that now. I just want that passion back."Netizens were quick to point out that he isstill pining for former flame Nargis Fakhriwho is now dating American director MattAlonzo.

On the work front, Uday Chopra waslast seen on the silver screen in 2013 asAli in the third installment of the Dhoomfranchise which also starred Aamir Khan,Abhishek Bachchan and Katrina Kaif. Udayfounded YRF Entertainment, a Los Angeles based pro-

duction and financing company focused on de-veloping and producing feature films for the

United States and international marketplace. Itis a wholly owned subsidiary of Yash Raj Films

Private Limited.

"IT'S AN ICONIC ROLE.I TRAINED A LOTIN SWORD FIGHTSAND HORSERIDING. IN FACTAFTERRIDING THEHORSE FORTWO DAYSSTRAIGHTI GOTA FEVER."

30 India Post www.indiapost.com August 24, 2018

PREETI VERMA LAL

VIENNA: Even as four eaglesfitted with cameras have beencircling over Vienna capturingbreathtaking images of theAustrian capital, on the groundthe city has hosted 7.2 milliontravelers in January-June 2018- a 4.1% increase in tourist arriv-als over the same period lastyear.

There was a 4.3% rise in In-dian tourists to Vienna this yearwith 66,828 bed nights clockedby them in the first six months.India is one of the high growthtourist markets for Vienna alongwith China and Russia. Last yearin the same period, 64,075 In-

dians winged their way to Vienna.Tourist arrivals rose to 30,445

in January-June 2018 recordinga growth of 5% (compared to29,022 the same period lastyear). Month of June 2018 saw agrowth of near 8% with Indiantravelers recording 23,499 bednights. Tourist arrivals grew11.7% to 10,659 in the January-June 2018 period from 9,543 in

the year ago period.The rising number of Indian

travelers to the city of castles andpalaces has been aided by grow-ing direct air connectivity. India'snational carrier Air India hadbeen operating a direct Delhi-Vienna flight three days a week.This year, the Maharaja added onemore flight to the Austrian capi-tal in its summer schedule en-

hancing seating capacity by 33%.Eagleography: Now yet an-

other attraction for fans of thisbeautiful city is a unique film ofVienna from an unusual perspec-tive. The world premiere of theaerial movie shot by the eagles isnow available for tourists in 360degree format to double theirpleasure of this breathtaking city.The making of the film is a veri-

table story in itself. Bruno andFritzi, golden eagle siblings setoff in a hot air balloon launchedfrom the Palais Schwarzenberggrounds with cameras on theirbacks in October 2017 record-ing pictures of Vienna. Soonthey were joined by French seaeagles Darshan and Victor whoswooped down from DanubeTower at a height of 160 metercapturing the autumn scenes ofDanube Island.

The birds, expert trained film-makers, have been circlingabove Vienna over the last fewmonths taking amazing shots ofthe city that no human couldhave taken.

The eagles captured bird's-eye views in stunning4K resolution supported by the production company

Red Bull Media House, who were brought on board to givethe Vienna Tourist Board campaign wings.

Cont’d on page 33

August 24, 2018 India Post

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Sui Dhaaga's logo made in 15 art formsIndia Post News Service

For the first time ever, thelogo of a Bollywood filmhas been made by artisans!

The marketing team of 'SuiDhaaga - Made in India' wantedto celebrate the rich and diverseculture of making Indian handi-crafts. So they reached out to 15uniquely skilled artists/artistgroups from across the lengthand breadth of the country to cre-ate the logo of the film in theirunique stitching styles.

"It has been an exhaustiveand most rewarding experiencefor all of us at YRF. It has taken sixmonths to plan, research and ex-ecute our logo in 15 differentstyles that celebrates ourcountry's diversity and entrepre-neur spirit." says Manan Mehta,VP - Marketing and Merchandis-ing, YRF.

The Sui Dhaaga logo has beendone in a striking, globally popu-lar Indian hand needleworkforms of Kashida and Sozni from

awareness of India's cultureamongst today's youth and theimpact that it leaves on moderndesign, fabrics and fashion at large.

A film about finding love andrespect through self-reliance,Varun Dhawan and AnushkaSharma starrer 'Sui Dhaaga -Made in India' is a heart-warmingstory that celebrates the spirit ofself-reliance. The film's plot is in-spired by Mahatma Gandhi's phi-losophy and takes a leaf out ofthe hugely acclaimed Make In In-dia campaign. While Varun playsthe role of a tailor, Anushka playsan embroiderer in the film.

Champion actors Varun andAnushka have been paired forthe first time and are definitelythe most-awaited on-screen jodiof 2018. The National Award-winning, dream-team of directorSharat Kataria and producerManeesh Sharma team up againfor Yash Raj Films' entertainerwhich is set to release on Sep-tember 28 this year, just beforeGandhi Jayanti.

Kashmir, colorful Phulkari fromPunjab, the intricate thread workforms Rabari and Mochi Bharatfrom Gujarat, Phool Patti fromUttar Pradesh and Zardozi workfrom Lucknow. It has also be cre-ated in Rajasthan's prominent

crafts like Aari, Banjara and GotaPatti, Tamil Nadu's popular Todastyle and Karnataka's Kasuti de-sign. Traveling towards the east,which constitutes of over 50 per-cent of the India's handloom ex-ports, the film's logo has been

made in Pipli style from Odisha,Handloom work from Assam,Kantha stitch work from WestBengal.

By creating a logo in as many as15 different needle art forms fromIndia, Sui Dhaaga hopes to create

A daring journey tohockey honor

SUDHANSHU MAHESHWARI

Reema Kagti's Gold is an in- spiring story of the Indian

hockey team which as-pires to win a gold medal inOlympics. The film is divided intotwo segments. One before inde-pendence, when Indian playersused to play under the leadershipof the British. And the second af-ter Independence, when they

played for free India. But this jour-ney was not easy. Tapan Das(Akshay Kumar) who was the jun-ior manager under the British In-dia team got the responsibility toform a team for free India.Through hard work and dedica-tion Tapan prepared a team butall was not well. Majority of Mus-lim players including the captain

had left for Pakistan. Tapan wasdevastated, his dream of gettinga gold medal shattered. But thiswas not the end but start of aninspiring, daring journey whichultimately gave us our firsthockey gold medal.

The film has been presented ina simple though effective manner.There is no over dramatization

which works in its favor. It slowsdown in between but does not letthe audience lose attention.

The cast has been intelligentlychosen which has strengthenedthe film threefold. Akshay Kumaras Tapan Das has done a marvel-ous job. He fits in these types ofroles. Every kind of emotion canbe witnessed in his character.

Though his Bengali accent is notso good, but this can be ignored.Mouni Roy is the surprise ele-ment. It is her debut film and shelooks graceful onscreen. Herchemistry with Akshay is a treatto watch. Amit Sadh in the role ofRaghubir Pratap Singh has an ar-rogance and royalty which he hasportrayed successfully. SunnyKaushal as Himmat is good. There

is good balance of love and ag-gression in his character.

Reema Kagti's direction isawesome. The Partition segmentleaves an impression. The climaxis strong and generates a feelingof patriotism. The dialogues havebeen written by Javed Akhtar and

his intense style can be felt allthrough the film.

Sachin-Jigar music is good butsome unwanted songs in the firsthalf could have been avoided. Inthe second half however, thesongs are in perfect sync with thestory.

August 24, 2018India Post32

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Poetry meet in honorof Gulzar

HARSHITA JAISWALIndia Post News Service

NEW DELHI: 'Ye kaisa ishq haiUrdu zaban kaa' the popularpoem by eminent lyricist Gulzarwas performed by Sanket on theoccasion of the writer's 84thbirthday here. 'Inspire Urdu'along with Club 2:1 hosted theevent to honor Gulzar Saab'scontribution to Indian theatreand cinema. The show consistedof young performers and audi-ence who found their reso-nance with love for the lan-guage and appreciated theworks of historic Urdu poets.

Insight into the immortalShayaris of Amir Khusro to MirzaGhalib , Faiz Ahmed Faiz andGulzar was given by Shamshad

Alam, who is also an active RJ ofJamia Radio. While poetry anddialogue was sprouting duringthe Shandar Shaam, self com-posed Nazm of Atiya Aleeshaand recitations of popular Urduprose of Faiz & Indori Saabheightened the Charm of theevening.

The participants were infusedwith Urdu spirit while playingBait Bazi (Antakshri of Shayari)while Shamshad Alam inspiredthe audience to recite at leastone Sher of their favorite poet.The program concluded withthe iconic poetry of Mirza Galib'Yu hota to kya hota'.

Participants at the poetry meet at YMCA in Connaught Place

Modi wanted Gandhiwith broom at Tussauds

NEW DELHI: Prime MinisterNarendra Modi had suggestedthat Mahatma Gandhi's wax fig-ure at the Madame Tussauds hereshould show the Father of theNation cleaning his surroundingswith a broom.

"It'll serve to inspire the 1.25billion people of the country withthe message of cleanliness

across India that is enshrined inthe 'Clean India' movement un-derway, and is also somethingwhich Gandhi's life teaches us,"the prime minister told MadameTussauds authorities in an un-dated interview, a video of whichwas shared by the museumahead of Independence Day.

The request was made afterModi was informed that his wasthe first wax figure to be includedin the museum that openeddoors to the public in Decemberlast year.

"You have said that you would

like the first replica in the mu-seum in India to be mine. Instead,I would request you to considerhaving the first statue as that ofMahatma Gandhi and that toowhich depicts him as cleaning hissurroundings," he said.

"I will send a photograph thatshows Gandhi with a broom," hetold the authorities.

Modi's wax figure is installedalongside Gandhi's in themuseum's history section thathouses other national leaders in-cluding Bhagat Singh, NetajiSubhas Chandra Bose, Sardar

Vallabhbhai Patel and APJ AbdulKalam.

Initially hesitant about getting

his wax figure installed alongside"distinguished dignitaries fromaround the world", the primeminister eventually gave in, afterlearning that the decision was anoutcome of "public opinion".

He said the installation of hiswax figure would perhaps lend a"softer" dimension to his person-ality which had otherwise beenportrayed as a "harsh" one.

"I am happy that you have ren-dered me - someone who is per-haps seen as 'hard' by some - intender, pliable wax."And it's pos-sible that when people see thiswax figure, their natural instinctmight be to exclaim, 'look here'sModi gone soft'," he said.

According to Modi, bringingthe famed wax museum to Delhiis a step towards boosting tour-ism in the country and it will alsoinspire young artists to hone theirtalent.

"Your decision to establish amuseum in India is welcome!And it is possible it will expand itsreach to other parts of India too,"he said.

The museum housed in thehistoric Regal building, features50 life-like wax figures of person-alities from different walks of lifeincluding actors AmitabhBachchan, Tom Cruise, SalmanKhan, sports starts SachinTendulkar, Virat Kohli and MaryKom. PTI

Kangana heartbroken over lynchings

Over the last two years,the country has seenseveral incidents of mob

lynching, allegedly at the handsof cow vigilantes. At an interac-tion with Sadhguru JaggiVasudev, actor Kangana Ranautshared her opinion on the in-creased number of lynchings.

"You feel conflicted. You wantto save the animals but when

the lynching happens, you feelheartbroken at what's going on.You feel this is wrong," Kanganasaid.

During the interaction, the ac-tor revealed that while shootingfor her upcoming filmManikarnika, her crew panickedabout a scene, where her char-acter (Rani Laxmibai) had to savea calf. Kangana, however, did not

say whether the scene was fi-nally changed.

"I'm working on a martyr'sbiopic Manikarnika where thereis a scene where my protagonist,Laxmibai, goes and saves a calf.My crew had a discussion, wehalted the shoot. They said 'wecan't save a calf' because wedon't want to look like cow sav-ers," she said.

August 24, 2018 India Post

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33

The eagles captured bird's-eyeviews in stunning 4K resolutionsupported by the productioncompany Red Bull Media House,who were brought on board togive the Vienna Tourist Boardcampaign wings. "The projectwas a world first - never beforehad eagles wearing 360° cam-eras been used to capture foot-age of a major city," said NorbertKettner, CEO of the Vienna TouristBoard.

UK returns 12th century stolen Buddha statueLONDON: A 12th century Bud-

dha statue stolen from a mu-seum at Nalanda in Bihar nearly60 years ago has been returnedto India by UK's Metropolitan Po-lice as part of a ceremony here tomark India's Independence Day.

The bronze statue with silverinlay is one of the 14 statues sto-len in 1961 from the Archaeo-logical Survey of India (ASI) sitemuseum in Nalanda and changedseveral hands over the years be-fore surfacing at a London auc-tion.

Once the dealer and theowner were made aware thesculpture was the same one thathad been stolen from India, theMetropolitan Police said they co-operated with the Met's Art andAntiques Unit and agreed for thepiece to be returned to India.

The statue was identified at a

the "priceless Buddha" as a "won-derful gesture" and a particularhonor given his own roots inBihar.

"I hope it will now go back towhere it originally belongs... Onour Independence Day, it (returnof the statue) highlights themulti-faceted cooperation be-tween our two countries," he said,after a Tricolor-hoisting ceremonyto mark India's 72nd Indepen-dence Day at the Indian HighCommission in London.

Detective Constable SophieHayes of the Met's Art and An-tique Unit said that it had beenestablished that there was nocriminality by the current owneror the dealer who had been of-fering the stolen statue for sale.PTI

Officials with the Indian High Commissioner to the UK YK Sinha stand arounda bronze Buddha statue which was returned to India by the London's

Metropolitan Police as part of a ceremony to mark India's Independence Day,in London on Aug 15, the 12th century bronze statue was stolen from a

museum at Nalanda in Bihar nearly 60 years ago.

trade fair in March this year byLynda Albertson of the Associa-tion for Research into CrimesAgainst Art (ARCA) and VijayKumar from the India PrideProject, who then alerted the po-

lice.Scotland Yard returned the

stolen statue to the Indian HighCommissioner to the UK, Y KSinha, as part of the ceremony tomark Independence Day at India

Cont’d from page 30

House in London."I am delighted to return this

piece of history. This is an excel-lent example of the results thatcan come with close cooperationbetween law enforcement, tradeand scholars," said Met PoliceDetective Chief Inspector SheilaStewart, who was accompaniedby officials from the UK's Depart-ment for Digital, Culture, Mediaand Sport at the handover cer-emony.

"Although this was stolen over50 years ago, this did not preventthe piece being recognized andthe credit must go to the eagleeye informants who made usaware that the missing piece hadbeen located after so manyyears," she said.

Sinha described the return of

New book brings Khushwant'sbest on Punjab

NEW DELHI: Four years sincethe death of the legendaryKhushwant Singh, a new bookbrings together some of his fin-est writings on his native landPunjab and its people.

"Punjab, Punjabis & Punjabiyat:Reflections on a Land and itsPeople" presents a comprehen-sive picture of the land of five riv-ers, from its origins and geogra-phy to its illustrious history andthe troubled times of Partition allthrough Singh's lens.

"The pieces collected in thisbook are my father's best writingson Punjab, its land and people,history, religion, culture, literatureand art. Together they give us aportrait of Punjab and Punjabiyat,

as he saw it," says Mala Dayal, theeditor of the book, published byAleph.

Born on August 15, 1915 inHadali, in the then-undivided

Punjab, Singh is considered oneof the country's greatest writers.He could blend humor and sim-plicity in his signature descriptive

storytelling."My father closely followed

the political situation in Punjaband watched with dismay thegrowth of the Khalistan move-ment and the increasing influ-ence of Bhindranwale.

"His anguish at the storming ofthe Golden Temple by the Armywas so great that he returned thePadma Bhushan awarded to himby the government," Dayal saysin the book. She reveals thatmany of Singh's Rajya Sabhaspeeches, his diary and columnsreflected his involvement andconcerns about matters relatedto Punjab.

Dayal says though her fatherwas a professed agnostic, heidentified himself as a Sikh. "Hewas worried Sikhism would loseits distinctiveness as a faith andbe absorbed by Hinduism," shesays. PTI

Eagle-eye view

Khushwant Singh

India Post August 24, 2018www.indiapost.com

Real Estate34

Realty Tidbits OYO acquires Weddingz.infor undisclosed amount

Benefits and suggestions tobuy home in your 20's

AMIT SETHI

Owning a home is a dreamfor many and being ableto buy a home early in

one's career, can give you lots ofjoy. Experts point out that veryfew youngsters take the plungeinto this big purchase, as the en-tire process is often challengingand complex. Although it mayseem like a challenging task, ifthe process is managed smartly,the benefits are worth it.

"A house is one of the mostexpensive investments, as com-pared to other purchases. Hence,buying such an appreciating as-set early helps in correctly settingone's financial goals. Earlier theinvestment, higher the opportu-nity to reinvest and multiply yourreturns," says Samson Arthur,branch director - Hyderabad,Knight Frank (India) Pvt Ltd.

Benefits of buying a homein the 20s

For a millennial, buying ahome is an investment in the fi-nancial future, says Rajat Johar,head of residential services, India,CBRE, who explains some of theadvantages of buying a home in

the 20s:Future investment: It allows

youngsters to invest in their fu-ture, as it provides them with anasset that can be sold, when theyare ready to move on.

Youngsters tend to learn bet-ter spending habits: It changes

the young buyer's decision-mak-ing process, as they learn how tosave and spend money in themost effective and efficient man-ner.

Tax benefits: As home buy-ers get tax credits, youngsters canuse it for lowering their tax liabil-ity.

"Also, owning a house is ahuge responsibility, which canmake youngsters more respon-sible" he says.

Planning aspects that a buyerin his/her 20s should keep inmind

Planning the budget for a

home is more important thanevaluating the maximum loaneligibility. For a first home pur-chase, set aside a budget that isaffordable and in-line with yourcareer growth and pay scale. En-sure that you have savings of upto 20-25 per cent of the value ofthe house, prior to purchase,

while the rest could be from ahome loan. Maintain sufficientbalance in your savings, for emer-gencies and other investmentslike marriage, family, vacations,further education, vehicle, etc.

While most banks provideloans of up to 85 per cent of theproperty value, youngsters needto first check the EMI that theywould be comfortable payingeach month.

Sunil Sharma, VP - marketingand CRM, Mahindra LifespaceDevelopers Ltd, offers somesuggestions for propertybuyers in their 20s:

Loan planning: Consult at leasttwo to three reputed banking in-stitutions, to understand the nu-ances of the home loan process,including documentation, inter-est, repayment terms, tenure im-plications, EMIs, etc.

Project location andconnectivity: Work hours tendto be longer at an early careerstage and thus, connectivity tocore the business district is im-portant.

Govt assures solution to all affected home buyersNEW DELHI: The government

is committed to finding a solu-tion for all the affected homebuyers in Noida and GreaterNoida, Union Housing and Ur-ban Affairs Minister HardeepSingh Puri has said. Puri said theempowered committee underthe chairmanship of the hous-ing and urban affairs secretaryis expected to finalize its reportshortly to resolve the problemsof affected home buyers ofstalled housing projects.

"We are committed to find-

ing a solution for all the affectedhome buyers," Puri told report-ers when asked about steps be-ing taken by the government toresolve the issues of buyers. Ear-lier this month, the NationalBuildings Construction Corpora-tion (NBCC), which comes un-der the ministry, told the Su-preme Court that it was ready to"undertake" the projects of em-battled real estate majorAmrapali group of companies,which has failed to hand overpossession of flats to around

42,000 buyers.The apex court asked the

NBCC to place before it a "con-crete proposal" within 30 dayson how it proposes to completethe projects along with atimeline of work. The Centrehas already introduced the RealEstate (Regulation and Devel-opment) (RERA) Act, 2016, un-der which proper protection isprovided to the buyers.

So far, around 29,033 real es-tate projects have been regis-tered under the RERA Act, while22,568 real estate agents havebeen recorded under the law. PTI

Cont’d on page 35

NEW DELHI: Hospitality firm OYO has said it has ac-quired wedding banquet company Weddingz.in for anundisclosed amount. The acquisition is a step towards thecompany expanding its play field to real estate sector,OYO said in a statement. "What this partnership facilitatesis combining OYO's capabilities of asset managementand technology with the scale Weddingz.in offers inIndia's fragmented USD 40 billion weddings industry,"OYO Chief Strategy Officer Maninder Gulati said. PTI

Indiabulls RealEstate closesbuyback offer

NEW DELHI: Indiabulls Real Es-tate Ltd has closed its buyback of-fer after purchasing 2.6 croreshares for Rs 443 crore. In May thisyear, the company had announcedbuyback of up to 2.6 crore fullypaid-up equity shares of Rs 2 eachof the company at prevailing mar-ket price on stock exchanges at aprice not exceeding Rs 240 apiece,up to an aggregate amount notexceeding Rs 624 crore.

The buyback was from allshareholders of the company, ex-cluding promoters and promotergroup of the company, fromopen market through stock ex-changes. In a regulatory filing,the Mumbai-based developersaid that the board constitutedcommittee reviewed the presentstatus of the funds utilized andnumber of shares bought back bythe company under its ongoingbuyback offer. PTI

DLF's salesbookings maydouble this fiscal

NEW DELHI: Realty major DLFexpects its net sales bookings tomore than double to Rs 2,250crore in the current fiscal on im-proved demand for ready-to-move-in flats, the company said.The country's largest realty firmhad achieved bookings of only Rs1,000 crore during 2017-18 assales were suspended for sixmonths to comply with the pro-visions of new real estate lawRERA that came into force fromMay last year.

"Achieved net new sales book-ings of Rs 600 crore during thequarter; given the current salesmomentum, the company main-tains its guidance for fresh sales atRs 2,000-2,250 crore for FY19,"DLF said in an analyst presentationof the first quarter. The real estatesector continued to be in thephase of stabilization and consoli-dation post the structural transfor-mation of the landscape owing tolegislations like RERA, GST and de-monetization, it said, adding thatthere was a clear shift in demandin favor of big developers.

DLF would continue to focuson selling its completed housingstocks worth about Rs 13,500crore, the bulk of which are inGurgaon. PTI

Hardeep Singh Puri

tor and Chief Executive Officer.He said the partnership agree-

ment with Hayre was in line withthe company's growth strategy ofadding hotels in key locationsglobally. The new Taj Vivanta ho-tel is a Greenfield project, slatedto open in 2021, and will be lo-

cated across from Terminals 1, 2and 3 at Heathrow Airport.

The company said the newhotel will have around 108 spa-cious rooms, an all-day-diner, abar and lounge, gym as well asbanqueting and meeting spacefacilities. Additionally, it willhouse the fourth outpost of thepopular Indian restaurant,Bombay Brasserie, famed for itseclectic Indian cuisine.

35India PostAugust 24, 2018

www.indiapost.comReal Estate Post

Complaint filed onCIDCO's illegal ads

MUMBAI: City-based con-sumer body Mumbai GrakahPanchayat (MGP) has filed a com-plaint with the MahaRERA, seek-ing to penalize Navi Mumbai'splanning agency, the City and In-dustrial Development Corpora-tion (CIDCO), for advertising 11housing projects without regis-tering with the regulator and notmentioning the registrationnumbers of the ones registered,on advertisements. In a letter toMahaRERA chief GautamChatterjee, the MGP has allegedthat out of the 11 housingprojects advertised in newspa-pers and marketed on itswebsite, only two located inGhansoli are registered.

"In spite of there being noMahaRERA registration for these

nine projects, they are also be-ing prominently advertised, mar-keted, with photos of prime min-ister Narendra Modi and chiefminister Devendra Fadnavis,which is in gross violation ofSection 3(1) of the RERA," MGPsaid in the letter. When con-tacted, a CIDCO spokespersontold PTI, "Yes, we had not men-tioned the registration numbersin the advertisements but wehave already got registrationnumbers for four projects in to-tal, including those in Ghansoliand Dronagiri. We have appliedfor registration for the remain-ing projects and will get themsoon."

CIDCO announced 14,838 af-fordable homes under thePradhan Mantri Awas Yojana,

registrations for which com-menced on August 13. Of the14,838 houses, 5,262 apart-ments are being built for theeconomically weaker sectionsand the remaining 9,576 for the

lower income group category.The housing projects will comeup in 11 locations in the fivenodes of Taloja, Kalamboli,Kharghar, Ghansoli and Dronagiriin Navi Mumbai.

Meanwhile, seeking imposi-tion of penalty on CIDCO, MGPchairman Shirish Deshpandesaid, "We expect the govern-ment development authoritieslike these (CIDCO) to be morediligent and careful in the dis-charge of their obligations/du-

ties under RERA. If private pro-moters and real estate agentscould be penalized byMahaRERA for similar violation,the same law must also apply toCIDCO in this case."

The MGP has sought imposi-tion of penalty up to 10 per centof the project's cost, as providedunder Section 59 (a) of RERA, foradvertising nine unregisteredprojects in violation of Section3 (a) and up to five per cent ofthe project cost of all 11projects under Section 61, fornot publishing MahaRERA reg-istration numbers and not giv-ing the MahaRERA website ad-dress in the said advertisement.

The consumer body also re-quested MahaRERA that thepenalty to be paid by CIDCOshould be recovered from its topofficials responsible for such se-rious lapses. Meanwhile, in aseparate release, CIDCO said an-other list of 25,000 homeswould be released, by the endof 2018. PTI

Social infrastructure:Nearby retail, dining and enter-tainment options must be con-sidered, given the fact thatyoungsters give significant im-portance to recreation avenues.

Clear titles and other docu-mentation: A younger buyermay need extra guidance on thevarious legal aspects of a prop-erty, such as land titles, statutoryapprovals, RERA compliance, etc.A consultant or expert can helpevaluate the feasibility of aproject in this context.

Inculcate financial discipline,by prioritizing savings and asset

London to get new TajVivanta hotel by 2021

LONDON: The Indian HotelsCompany Limited (IHCL), India'slargest hospitality company be-hind the Taj brand of hotels, hasannounced plans to open a newTaj Vivanta in London by 2021.The IHCL signed a partnershipagreement with the Hayre Group

Limited last week for the new108-room hotel at Heathrow Air-port in London.

The new hotel will be the TataGroups second Taj hotel in theBritish capital, besides the iconicSt James Court Hotel and Suitesnear Buckingham Palace in cen-tral London. IHCL was the first In-dian hospitality company to forayinto the United Kingdom withthe iconic St James' Court hotelin 1982. We are proud to partnerwith Hayre Group Limited inbringing the first Vivanta brandedhotel to London, said PuneetChhatwal, IHCL Managing Direc-

Talwinder Hayre, Director,Hayre Group Limited, said: Welook forward to bringing the leg-endary Indian hospitality to Lon-don Heathrow, one of the busiestairports in the world. HayreGroup, established in 2004 in theUK, claim to be among the lead-

ing emerging real estate devel-

opers in the world. Currently, theGroup has in excess of 300,000square feet of pipeline in the UKacross hospitality, residential andcommercial sectors.

IHCL, South Asia's largest In-dian hospitality company interms of market capitalization,brings together a group of Tajbrands since founder JamsetjiTata opened the Taj Mahal Palacein Bombay in 1903. PTI

Taj brand of hotels, hasannounced plans toopen a new Taj Vivantain London by 2021.

Benefits and suggestions tobuy home in your 20's

building and you can end up be-coming a smart real estateowner. If you get it right the firsttime, there is a good chance youwill know the pitfalls during fu-ture investments.

Why buying a home in the 20sis a wise decision

• Longer loan-tenure eligibility• More tax saving, due to in-

come tax deduction benefitavailable against home loan inter-est and principal repayment

• Risk appetite is higher, forwhich the rewards can be better

• A youngster has more time, tobalance other financial objectives

-Courtesy housing.com.

Cont’d from page 34

36 India Post August 24, 2018

WellnessHealth Line

One can be said to be perfectly healthy in body and mind onlyif no part of the body or mind makes itself felt. A part makesitself felt only when there is something wrong with it. You knowthat you have a head only when it aches.

www.indiapost.com

Delhi initiates steps toban e-cigarettes

Sri Atmananda(1883 - 1959)

Details on page 39

Wearable mesh can help monitorsignals from the heart and muscles

SEOUL: Scientists have devel-oped a soft mesh that can recordsignals from the heart andmuscles, paving the way for anew generation of flexible wear-able health monitoring devices.The implantable device, providesinformation on muscle and car-diac dysfunctions, and thus couldbe implemented for pain relief,rehabilitation, and prosthetic mo-tor control.

It is the first soft implant thatcan record the cardiac activity inmultiple points of a swine heart,according to a study published inthe journal NatureNanotechnology. Researchersfrom the Institute for Basic Sci-ence (IBS) in South Korea usedthe device on human skin torecord the electrical activity ofheart and muscles, that is elec-trocardiogram (ECG) and elec-tromyogram (EMG) respectively.

Its softness, elasticity andstretchability, allows the deviceto follow the contours of flexiblejoints, such as the wrist. Worn ona forearm, it simultaneouslymonitored EMG signals, and de-

livered electrical and/or thermalstimulations that could be em-ployed in therapeutic applica-tions.

The research team has alsoproduced a customized largemesh that fits the lower part of aswine heart. Wrapped around the

heart, theimplant canread signalsfrom the en-tire organ toidentify pos-sible lesionsand help re-covery. Forexample, itwas able toregister thechange ofECG signalcaused by anacute heartattack.

The meshis stable dur-ing repeti-tive heartmovementsand doesnot interferewith theh e a r t ' spumping ac-

tivity. "Although various soft car-diac devices have been reportedfor the rat heart. This study on pigscan approximate human physiol-ogy more accurately," said ChoiSuji, from IBS.

"We aim to study heart dis-eases, and stimulate the heartmore effectively by synchroniz-ing cardiac pumping activity,"said Suji. This stretchable and con-ductive patch is created by gold-coated silver nanowires mixedwith a type of rubber, called poly-styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS).

Conventional silver wire-based conductive rubbers havehad limited biomedical applica-tions because silver is toxic tothe body. The gold sheath pre-vents both silver's leaching, andcorrosion caused by air and bio-logical fluids, such as sweat."We took advantage of silver'shigh conductivity, SBS' stretch-ability, and gold's highbiocompatibility," said HyeonTaeghwan, from IBS. "Finding theright proportion of each materialwas the key to success,"Taeghwan said. PTI

New wearable device capable of recording the electricalactivity of the heart and muscles, as well as delivering

therapeutic electrical and thermal stimulations. It issuitable for flexible joints, like the wrist, and allowsreliable heat transfer even when the wrist is flexed

or extended.

Indian elected President of UK medical society LONDON: Dr Sudha Sundar,

a leading Indian-origin cancerwoman expert was named asPresident-elect of the presti-gious British GynecologicalCancer Society. Sundar, the firstfemale gynecological oncolo-gist to be elected to the presti-gious post at the British Gyne-cological Cancer Society(BGCS), is Senior Lecturer in Gy-necological Oncology at theUniversity of Birmingham's In-stitute of Cancer and GenomicSciences.

The surgeon-cum-academicis working with partners acrossIndia and Africa to establish

matched cohort studies that willhelp investigate ethnic diversityin women's cancer genomics."This is an exciting time to beelected as President-Elect of theBGCS; we have a vibrantmultidisciplinary society workingtogether and engaging with pa-tients. This is a real opportunity toimprove outcomes for women

with gynecological cancer and Ilook forward to contributing tothis," said Sundar, who is the thirdBGCS President to be electedfrom the University of Birming-ham.

The BGCS described itself as asociety of professionals dedi-cated to improving the care pro-vided to patients with gyneco-

logical cancers. It developsguidelines, advocates for ad-vances in care, helps improvetraining and education for gyne-cological cancer professionalsand works in partnership withcharities and patients.

In addition to her clinical andteaching work, Sundar's re-search program investigatesclinical challenges in patientswith ovarian and endometrialcancer, using a combined clini-cal trials and translational re-search approach, the Universityof Birmingham said.

"This is an exciting time to be elected asPresident-Elect of the BGCS; we have a vibrant

multidisciplinary society working togetherand engaging with patients.”

'Important tobe open aboutmental health'

LOS ANGELES: Rapper-singerKanye West believes it is impor-tant for people to be open abouttheir struggle with mental healthas it makes others aware aboutthe ways to deal with the issue.During an appearance at "JimmyKimmel Live" West said an inte-gral part of his career success hasbeen embracing each and everypart of his identity including bi-polar disorder.

"I think it's important for us tohave open conversations aboutmental health - especially withme being black. We never hadtherapists in the black commu-nity. We never approached takinga medication. "I think it's goodthat when I had my first completeblackout at age five, my momdidn't fully medicate me. I mighthave never been 'Ye. And there'stimes where at least I'm happythat I know (I'm bipolar). Like,even like for this interview, I knewI wanted to stay in a calm state,"he said. PTI

3,600 helped bybike ambulancesin Mumbai

MUMBAI: As many as 3,600persons had received timelymedical help due to the motor-cycle ambulances operating inMumbai, Melghat and Palghar inthe state, Health Minister DeepakSawant has said. There are 20such ambulances operating inMumbai and five each in Palgharand Melghat, the minister in-formed.

Sawant said that people whogot treatment due to these mo-torcycle ambulances in the pastone year, 390 were accident vic-tims, 42 were pregnant womenand 2,700 got medical help foremergencies. PTI

Cont’d on page 39

India PostWellness Post 37

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August 24, 2018

Babies in strollers exposed to more pollutionLONDON: Babies in prams can

be exposed to up to 60 per centmore pollution than their parents,causing potential damage totheir frontal lobe and impactingon their brain development, astudy has found. Researchersfrom the University of Surrey inthe UK examined over 160 refer-ences to highlight the factorsconcerning the pollution expo-sure of babies in prams and asso-ciated mitigation strategies.

The study, published in thejournal Environment Interna-tional, also investigated differenttypes of prams based on theirheight, width, and whether theyseat one child or two to assess ifthis impacted on pollution expo-sure levels. They found that in-fants in prams breathe in morepolluted air since they are posi-tioned between 0.55m and0.85m above ground level and

vehicle exhaust pipes usually sitwithin 1m above road level.

This increases in-pram babies'vulnerability to being exposed tomore pollution than adults. Thestudy suggests a range of mitiga-tion actions, including 'active' so-lutions such as controlling emis-sions of road vehicles, and 'pas-sive' actions such as roadsidehedges between vehicles andpedestrians. The researchers alsosuggested technological solu-tions that can help to create a

clean air zone around the child'sbreathing area as another effec-tive mean.

They concluded that a mixtureof innovative technological solu-tions, community activism, andexposure-centric policies that en-courage authorities to tackle traf-fic congestion are needed as they

are seen to be the key to a lastingsolution to the problem. The re-view also notes other measuressuch as carpooling, using publictransportation to reduce trafficlevels, improving technologies,and community collaborationswith industry could make a realdifference to improving air qual-

ity for children.According to UNICEF,

17 million childrenacross the world whoare less than a year oldliving in regions whereair pollution levels ex-ceed World Health Or-ganization recom-mended guidelines.Children from pooreconomic back-grounds are most at riskof these dangerous lev-els of pollution becauseof a lack of nutrition, ac-

cess to health care, and exposureto tobacco smoke.

"We know that infants breathein higher amounts of airborneparticles relative to their lung sizeand body weight compared toadults," said Prashant Kumar,Founding Director of the GlobalCentre for Clean Air Research."What we have proven here isthat the height most childrentravel at while in a pram doublesthe likelihood of negative im-pacts from air pollution whencompared to an adult," saidKumar.

"When you also considerhow vulnerable they are be-cause of their tissues, immunesystems, and brain develop-ment at this early stage of theirlife, it is extremely worryingthat they are being exposed tothese dangerous levels of pol-lution," he said. PTI

Work emails after hoursmay harm health

WASHINGTON: Are you ex-pected to monitor your workemail even after office hours?Such an 'always on' organiza-tional culture can be detrimentalto your health and well-being -even if you do not actually en-gage in working off-hours, astudy has found. The study showsthat such expectations result in

anxiety, which adversely affectsthe health of employees andtheir families.

"The competing demands ofwork and nonwork lives presenta dilemma for employees, whotriggers feelings of anxiety andendangers work and personallives," said William Becker, an as-sociate professor at Virginia Techin the US. Previous studies haveshown that the stress of in-creased job demands leads tostrain and conflict in family rela-

tionships when the employee isunable to fulfill nonwork roles athome - "such as when someonebrings work home to finish up."

The new study demonstratesthat employees do not need tospend actual time on work intheir off-hours to experience theharmful effects. The mere ex-pectations of availability in-

crease strain for employees andtheir significant others - evenwhen employees do not engagein actual work during nonworktime.

Unlike work-related demandsthat deplete employee re-sources, physical and psycho-logical, by requiring time awayfrom home, "the insidious im-pact of 'always on' organizationalculture is often unaccounted foror disguised as a benefit - in-creased convenience, for ex-

ample, or higher autonomy andcontrol over work-life bound-aries," Becker said.

"Our research exposes the re-ality: 'flexible work boundaries'often turn into 'work withoutboundaries,' compromising anemployee's and their family'shealth and well-being," he said."Employees today must navigate

more complex boundaries be-tween work and family thanever before," said Becker.

"Employer expectations dur-ing nonwork hours appear to in-crease this burden, as employeesfeel an obligation to shift rolesthroughout their nonwork time,"he said. "Efforts to manage theseexpectations are more importantthan ever, given our findings thatemployees' families are also af-fected by these expectations," headded. PTI

"Employer expectations during nonworkhours appear to increase this burden, as

employees feel an obligation to shift rolesthroughout their nonwork time"

'Risk awareness detershealth insurance growth'NEW DELHI: Health insurance

has not picked up in the countryas expected due to lack ofaffordability and risk awareness,IRDA Chairman Subhash ChandraKhuntia has said. He called forsimplification and rationalizationof health insurance products sothat they are understood bya common people.

"Low risk awareness, lackof affordability and low un-derstanding of the insur-ance products - these aresome of the reasons whyhealth insurance has notpicked up so well eventhough the growth rate ishigh for the higher incomegroup as a whole," Khuntiasaid at the Health InsuranceSummit organized by indus-try body CII. The health in-surance industry has seen an av-erage growth of 16 per cent cu-mulatively over the last 4-5 years.About 27 per cent of the total in-surance premium in the generalinsurance comes from healthsector.

As the government's ambi-tious health insurance schemeAyushman Bharat, which aims tocover nearly 10 crore familiescomprising almost 50 crore

members, takes off, Khuntiaasked the insurance firms onboard the scheme to offer stan-dardized and simple productsthat are understandable to thepolicyholders. He said most of thestates have agreed to joinAyushman Bharat with only a few

not yet confirmed to be a part ofit.

Ayushman Bharat Chief Ex-ecutive Officer Indu Bhushan saidas many as 28 states/union terri-tories are on board the schemeand the remaining 8 are yet togive their confirmation. Bhushansaid the states will be given flex-ibility to implement theschemes. "It will be one countryone scheme. PTI

Subhash Chandra Khuntia

India Post Wellness Post38

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August 24, 2018

Govt told to study effectof firecrackers on publicNEW DELHI: The Supreme

Court has said it needs to takeinto account all aspects, includ-ing the fundamental right of live-lihood of firecracker manufactur-ers and the right to health of over1.3 billion people in the country,while considering a plea for theirban. The top court said the Article

21 (right to life) of Constitutionapplies to both segments ofpeople and it needs to maintain abalance while considering acountrywide ban on firecrackers.

A bench of justices A K Sikriand Ashok Bhushan asked theCentre to file an affidavit givingdetails of measures to be takenfor curbing pollution and what isthe effect of firecrackers on thepublic at large. "There are eco-nomic aspects attached to it. The

government affidavit says thereare 1,750 firecrackers manufac-turing industries in Tamil Nadu,which employs 5,000 families di-rectly or indirectly. It says fire-crackers industries are worth Rs6,000 crore. We have to see whatis the relevance of economic as-pect on the fundamental rights,"

the bench said.It added, "There is fundamen-

tal right to livelihood of manufac-turers and at the same time thereis fundamental right to health for130 crore people of this country.We have to keep in mind the costof manufacturing and the cost ofhealth. Although it is difficult tocollect exact data of people suf-fering from respiratory problemsand other health issues from dif-ferent hospitals." Senior advocate

Dhruv Mehta, appearing for fire-crackers manufacturers saidregulatory provisions exist and asfar as pollution or the impactfrom bursting of firecrackers isconcerned, there is no compre-hensive study on the subject.

To this, the bench said the pro-visions which exist are madefrom the point of view of safetyfrom firecrackers but these pro-visions are not related to their en-vironmental impact. Mehta saidnot enough material is availableon record to suggest that the fire-crackers should be banned dueto their impact on environmentand health.

The bench replied that peti-tioners who are seeking a ban onfirecrackers have contended thatdamage to health is such that it isremediless. Senior advocateShekhar Naphade, appearing forTamil Nadu said the apex courthad earlier directed for conduct-ing a study and constitution of acommittee, which has not beencomplied with. The bench thenasked Centre what is stand andsolution to the problem of pollu-

tion caused due to bursting offirecrackers. It asked the counselfor Centre to file an affidavit de-tailing the short-term steps andits suggestions as how it plans tocurb the pollution due to fire-crackers.

The bench posted the matterfor further hearing on August 21.The apex court had on August 8said a spike in PM 2.5 levels in theair is a severe problem as the par-ticulate matter remains inpeople's lungs, leading to serioushealth implications. Firecrackersmanufacturers earlier told thecourt that use of firecrackersshould not be completelybanned and it should instead bestrictly regulated.

They have contended that thecrackers are not the reason for

increase in air pollution and thereare other factors, like wind andtemperature, which contribute toit. They have said the firecrackermanufacturers can be deprivedof their right to do businessbased on statements which werenot supported by facts. On Octo-ber 9 last year, the top court tem-porarily banned the sale of fire-crackers ahead of Diwali.

Later, the court refused to re-lax its order while dismissing aplea by traders who had soughtpermission to sell crackers forat least a day or two beforeDiwali on October 19, 2017. Theapex court said its ban orderduring Diwali that year was anexperiment to examine its ef-fect on the pollution levels inthe region. PTI

"There is fundamental right to livelihood ofmanufacturers and at the same time there is

fundamental right to health for 130 crore peopleof this country. We have to keep in mind the cost

of manufacturing and the cost of health.”

Marital spats can affectphysical health

WASHINGTON: Married peoplewho have nasty fights are morelikely to suffer from leaky guts -a problem that unleashes bac-teria into the blood and candrive up disease-causing in-flammation, a study has found.It's the first study to illuminatethis particular pathway be-tween bad marriages and poorhealth, said Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, from The Ohio State Uni-versity in the US.

"We think that this everydaymarital distress - at least for somepeople - is causing changes inthe gut that lead to inflammationand, potentially, illness," saidKiecolt-Glaser, lead author of thestudy published in the journalPsychoneuroendocrinology. Re-searchers at Ohio State recruited43 healthy married couples, sur-veyed them about their relation-

ships and then encouraged themto discuss and try to resolve aconflict likely to provoke strongdisagreement. Touchy topics in-cluded money and in-laws.

The researchers left thecouples alone for these discus-sions, videotaped the 20-minuteinteractions and later watchedhow the couples fought. Theycategorized their verbal and non-verbal fighting behaviors, withspecial interest in hostility -things such as dramatic eye rollsor criticism of one's partner. "Hos-tility is a hallmark of bad mar-riages - the kind that lead to ad-verse physiological changes,"said Kiecolt-Glaser.

Then the researchers com-pared blood drawn pre-fight toblood drawn post-fight. Menand women who demonstratedmore hostile behaviors during

the observed discussions hadhigher levels of one biomarkerfor leaky gut - LPS-binding pro-tein - than their mellower peers.Evidence of leaky gut was evengreater in study participants

who had particularly hostile in-teractions with their spouse anda history of depression or an-other mood disorder.

Previous studies have drawnstrong correlations betweenpoor marriages and healthwoes. "Marital stress is a particu-larly potent stress, because yourpartner is typically your primarysupport and in a troubled mar-riage your partner becomesyour major source of stress,"Kiecolt-Glaser said. Previous re-search has shown that maritaldiscord can slow wound heal-ing and drive up risk for inflam-mation-related diseases, in-cluding depression, heart dis-ease and diabetes.

By looking for the presenceof a biomarker associated withbacteria in the bloodstream, theteam was able to find evidenceof leaky gut, a little-understoodcondition in which the lining ofthe intestines becomes morepermeable, allowing for the re-lease of partially digested foodand bacteria into the blood-stream. PTI

"We think that this everyday maritaldistress - at least for some people - is

causing changes in the gut that lead toinflammation and, potentially, illness"

India PostWellness Post 39

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August 24, 2018

Delhi initiates steps to ban e-cigarettesNEW DELHI: The Delhi government has

informed the Delhi High Court that it hasinitiated steps to completely ban the pro-duction, sale and supply of e-cigarettesand steps are being taken to create publicawareness. In an affidavit, the DirectorateGeneral of Health Services (DGHS) saidpreparation of e-cigarettes and e-liquidscontaining nicotine was contrary to theprovisions of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act(DCA).

The DGHS, which comes under theDelhi government's Health Department,put forward its stand in an affidavit filedbefore a bench of Acting Chief Justice GitaMittal and Justice C Hari Shankar, whichwas hearing a plea seeking to regulate thesale and consumption of e-cigarettes. Thecourt has listed the matter for hearing onAugust 21.

The DGHS said in the affidavit that onlya certain kind of nicotine preparation is al-lowed under the DCA. Electronic, vapor,electronic nicotine delivery systems(ENDS), e-cigarettes and e-liquids do notfall in the categories of preparations thatare allowed under the Act. "Therefore, the

trade, commerce, production, supply anddistribution of these substances would beprohibited under the DCA," it said.

E-cigarettes arehand-held deviceswhich help to createthe feeling of tobaccosmoking. Various mak-ers of the device saythe e-liquid inside thedevice heats up whenactivated and createsan aerosolized vaporwhich provides a fla-vor similar to tobacco.The DGHS said it hasalready initiated stepsto completely ban theproduction, supply, ad-vertisement, sale, dis-tribution and use of electronic vapors,ENDS/ e-cigarettes, e-liquids containingnicotine etc, among all age groups and inall places.

It said it was also "creating awarenessamong the public, including educationalinstitutes and various stakeholders at ev-

ery level, and is also planning mass mediaactivities to communicate the adverse ef-fects of these substances". It submitted

that the petition was in fructuous in rela-tion to the DGHS as it has already initiatedthe process for banning these substancesand is already taking steps to spreadawareness about the adverse effects ofthese substances.

Earlier, the Union Ministry of Health andFamily Welfare had told the court that nico-

tine addiction through e-cigarettes amongyoung people may lead them to try con-ventional tobacco products and it was con-sidering a ban on the item. Though thereare no specific guidelines to deal with newemerging threats such as ENDS or e-ciga-rettes (ECs), several states and Union terri-tories have taken steps to prohibit them, ithad said.

The court was hearing a plea filed bySeema Sehgal, a homemaker, who hassought directions to the governments toformulate a policy and guidelines for ad-vertisements and regulation of sale, pro-duction and supply of the product. The pleahas sought directions to authorities to in-form the public about the harmful effectsof the e-cigarettes. It has claimed that e-liquids comprise a solution of liquid nico-tine.

The petition has said the Cigarettes andOther Tobacco Products (Prohibition ofAdvertisement and Regulation of Tradeand Commerce, Production, Supply andDistribution) Act, 2003, which governs thetobacco consumption law, does not pro-vide for the use of e-liquids containingnicotine. PTI

PM reviews launch of healthassurance scheme

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister NarendraModi has reviewed the progress of prepa-rations for the launch of the health assur-ance program under Ayushman Bharat.The scheme will provide health assurancecover of up to Rs 5 lakh per family. It willcover over 10 crore poor and vulnerablefamilies in the country.

Top officials of the Ministry of Healthand Family Welfare, NITI Aayog and the

Prime Minister's Office (PMO) briefed thePrime Minister on various aspects, includ-ing the preparations in states and develop-ment of the technological infrastructureassociated with the scheme, a PMO re-lease said. In April, on the occasion ofAmbedkar Jayanti, the Prime Minister hadinaugurated the first 'health and wellnesscentre' under Ayushman Bharat in Bijapurdistrict in Chhattisgarh. PTI

She is Chief Investigator for the ROCK-ETS project, which aims to achieve earlierdiagnosis of ovarian cancer collaborationbetween international experts from KULeuven (Netherlands), University CollegeLondon and the University of Birmingham.Translational research in genomics,steroidomics, and metabolomics is alsounderway, the university added.

Sundar is also leading the SOCQER 2study, commissioned by the UKs NationalInstitute of Health and Care Excellence(NICE), which investigates surgical out-

Indian elected President ofUK medical society

comes in advanced stage ovarian cancerin 15 cancer centers in the UK, India andAustralia. As cancer surgery work packagelead for the NIHR global health researchunit on Global Surgery, she is carrying outsurgical research across sub-Saharan Af-rica, India and other countries.

Sundar trained in Obstetrics and Gyne-cology at Oxford and in Gynecological On-cology at the Three Counties cancer cen-tre, Gloucestershire. Dr Sundar alsotrained in Molecular Oncology as a Can-cer Research UK Clinical Fellow at theWeatherall Institute of Molecular Medi-cine, Oxford. PTI

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August 24, 2018India Post www.indiapost.com40

A divinely beautifulhamlet in theSindhudurg districtof Maharashtra,Tarkarli boasts of a

gracious beauty and alluringcharm. Embraced by the enchant-ing beauty of the Konkan Coast,this quaint village is the scenicabode of several pristine beachesthat showcase the most un-touched form of Mother Nature.

Located on the confluencepoint of the majestic Arabian Seaand the gurgling Karli River, mostof the Tarkarli beaches are nowgaining popularity among visitors.

Places to visit: Tarkarli Beach:This gorgeous beach should bethe first place to visit in Tarkarli vil-

lage. The beach has the most cap-tivating white sands which are anideal destination to seek for somepleasantly lazy moments; theazure sea and the tranquil back-water of the Karli River add moreto the fun and fascination of theday. A paradise for the water sportlovers, Tarkarli Beach is a perfectdestination to enjoy and witnessthe grooviness of the majesticsea. Starting from several forms ofexciting water rides to the ex-tremely fun-filled parasailing, thisamazing beach offers everything!

Achara Beach: Achara Beachnot only attracts the leisure or thefrolic seekers. Dolphin lovers alsothrong this sandy retreat as it hasa large population of this livelymammal. Bird watchers can also

find this place an ideal spot tohave a tryst with various speciesof rare and exotic birds. Other at-tractions near Achara Beach in-clude a library that is around 115years old, Sindhudurg Fort; a boatride from the beach to the fort,Mahadev Temple and lot more.

Tsunami Island: Accessibleonly by boat rides, this pictur-esque island also showcases along stretch of playful sands and a

pleasant expanse of turquoisewater. In addition to enjoyingblissful moments, visitors to Tsu-nami Island can also enjoy severalexciting water sports. For the thrillseekers, they can cruise over thewaves while jet-skiing.

Devbaugh Beach: Amongthe many different Tarkarlibeaches, Devbaug Beach is onesuch place that should not bemissed at any cost! Located in a

small fishing hamlet with thesame name that sits amicablyalongside the silent backwaters ofthe Karli River, this beach is lo-cated close to the Tarkarli Beachand concludes at the point wherethe Arabian Sea meets the KarliRiver.

Best time to visit:Although, Tarkarli bestows ac-

tivities throughout the year, yetthe best time to visit the place isfrom October to March.

How to reach:By air: The approachable air-

port to this city is Dabolim (Goa)which connects this region withdifferent parts of the country. An-other airport is Kolhapur Airportwhich is approximately 115 kmaway from the Tarkarli.

By train: The nearest railwaystation to the city is Kudal which isapproximately 45 km away fromTarkarli. One can board varioustypes of trains from cities likeMumbai, Pune and Goa to reachthe city. The Konkan Express andMandovi Express are the majortrains which serve Tarkarli.

By road: The place does nothave a direct bus service but onecan take a bus till Malvan which isjust 6 km away from Tarkarli. FromMalvan, the city is well connectedby road with the cities likeKolhapur (157km), Sangli(204km), Kudal (28km) andRatnagiri (169km).

India PostAugust 24, 2018 41Travel & Hospitality Postwww.indiapost.com

App-based taxi servicelaunched in Goa

PREETI VERMA LAL

GOA: Goa's first and exclusivemobile app-based taxi serviceGoamiles has been launched byGoa Chief Minister ManoharParrikar.

Speaking at the launch, Mr.Parrikar said, "Goa can now taketourists for miles through thenew app-based taxi servicewhich will be affordable andgive travelers a comfortablejourney from the time they ar-rive till they leave. I congratulateGoa Tourism for launching thisinitiative and wish them a hugesuccess."

Talking about the advantagesof this initiative, Nilesh Cabral,Chairman of

Goa Tourism DevelopmentCorporation (GTDC), said, "Wehave launched a public informa-

tion campaign to reach out toone million people in Goa to cre-ate awareness about Goamiles.We are anticipating a huge re-sponse from the general publicwho will download and use theapp for tourism purposes anddaily commute as well. This appbased taxi service aims to boostthe digital economy, enableease of travel for tourists andgive taxi drivers better income.This initiative offers not only abrand new customer experi-ence, but also makes taxi farepayment easy and secure."

He explained that the app isone of the quickest and mostconvenient systems beingimplemented for the first timemaking Goan taxi drivers part-ners in the digital system whilegiving amazing customer experi-ence to tourists.

Goa CM Manohar Parrikarlaunching Goamiles

Solo women travelerson the rise

KOLKATA: The number of solowomen travelers has been risingin the country with 75 per centgrowth in bookings for such jour-ney to some tour operators. Mostof these women are from tier-1cities such as Delhi, Mumbai,Hyderabad, Bangalore, andChennai, online tour operatorssaid.

With rising income levels ofwomen professionals, there hasalso been a growth in the numberof women traveler taking interna-tional trips. "We found that theleading city destinations for solowomen travelers in the last fewyears were Delhi, Mumbai, Banga-lore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata,Pune followed by leisure destina-tions of Goa, Kochi, Jaipur,Guwahati, Visakhapatnam andThiruvananthapuram.

"Dubai, Bangkok, Singapore,London, Denpasar in Bali andKuala Lumpur led the interna-tional solo travel bookings bywomen travelers," said BaluRamachandran - Head of Air andDistribution, Cleartrip. The trendhas seen a considerable rise over

the past couple of years with 75per cent of travel bookings onCleartrip's platform made bywomen who preferred travellingalone, he said.

For international travel,Cleartrip has witnessed a 10 percent year-on-year growth in solo

bookings till date this year, ofwhich 22 per cent were womensolo travelers. Online travel portalBigBreaks has been promotingsolo women trips to destinationslike Bhutan and Ladakh, said KapilGoswami, Managing Director ofBigBreaks.

has emerged as an extremely safeoption for women, said AlokeBajpai, CEO and Co-founder ixigo.

For adventure travel market-place Mojhi, the rise of womensolo adventurers is slow in thecountry, but is expected to growexponentially. "From 2016 to tilldate this year, there has been asignificant increase of 6 per centin the number of bookings atMojhi for Indian solo female trav-elers opting for adventure pack-ages across Asia and Africa. Wild-life safaris in Tanzania, Kenya andSouth Africa have been the mostopted adventure activity com-pared to more physically taxingactivities such as climbingKilimanjaro or an Everest BaseCamp trek," said Viswanath Raju,Co-Founder, Mojhi.

To step up the safety aspect ofwomen during the travel, Mojhihas created specialized female-only departures. "We have about5 safari departures every year thatis meant only for female travelersand does not allow any male tobe a part of it, except for the safariguide. Raju said. PTI

For Mumbai-based travel por-tal ixigo, more and more womenare opting to travel in women-only groups in the country andabroad. Places such as Ladakh,Kashmir, Goa, Dubai, Bali, Vietnam,Sri Lanka and Cambodia havegained in popularity amongwomen. For instance, Sri Lanka

Indians urged to travel within the countryNEW DELHI: After producing ad

films to woo foreign tourists toIndia, the Union Tourism Ministrywill now bring out promotionalvideos to target globetrotting In-dians urging them to travelwithin the country instead, Min-ister K J Alphons has said.

The ministry had earlier,

through Parayatan Parv (tourismfestival), tried to attract the coun-trymen to spend their holidays inIndia instead of going abroad. Allstate governments as well as 18central ministries had partici-pated in the event last year. "Indi-ans are travelling all across theworld. While we want them to

get that exposure and experi-ence it, we also want them totravel in India.

"We are in the process ofmaking a promo on why Indi-ans should come to India andanother one on why NRIsshould come to India.Bharatbala is making the vid-

eos," said Alphons at a pressmeeting here. Earlier, thepromos, targeting foreign tour-ists, focused on Yoga, Ayurveda,Indian cuisines, culture and heri-tage, cruise tourism, eco and ad-venture tourism.

According to statistics fromthe tourism sector, India will ac-count for around 50 million out-bound tourists by 2020, some ofwhom the ministry wants to con-vert into domestic tourists. PTI

India Post August 24, 201842 Travel & Hospitality Postwww.indiapost.com

Govt to open up 10 islands in AndamansNEW DELHI: The government

looks to open up to 100 islands inAndaman & Nicobar andLakshadweep for the develop-ment of eco-tourism on public pri-vate partnership (PPP) basis, NitiAayog CEO Amitabh Kant has said.Under the Holistic Development ofIslands program, 10 islands inAndaman & Nicobar andLakshadweep have been taken upfor development in the first phase.

"Now we are opening up 10islands, in the next 12 months weshould be opening close to 100islands," Kant said. "We welcome

all dynamic entrepreneurs to cre-ate projects that India can be proudof. The success of the IncredibleIslands of India initiative will begetfurther success," he added. Kantwas addressing investors' confer-ence organized by Niti Aayog toattract investments for the devel-opment of eco-tourism on PPPbasis in Andaman & Nicobar, andLakshadweep Islands.

"A detailed study has beendone on the carrying capacity ofthese Incredible Islands of India.We are not looking at mass tour-ism that will burden the environ-

ment, sustainable development isthe goal," Kant added. The NitiAayog CEO said key approvals willbe provided upfront to reduce riskfor investors involved. "Foreigntourists coming to India will notneed separate permission to visitthese Incredible Islands of India,"he said. Kant also said that thegovernment's objective is to en-sure sustainable and eco-friendlydevelopment of Island projects.

"We will keep in mind the car-rying capacity of these pristine is-lands to ensure they are neverunder burden," he noted. Island

Development Agency (IDA) anapex body, under the chairman-ship of Home Minister RajnathSingh was constituted in June2017, while NITI Aayog has beenmandated to steer the HolisticDevelopment of Islands program,along with the respective UT ad-ministration/ State Governments.

According to an official state-ment has issued 11 anchor tour-ism projects Andaman & Nicobarand Lakshadweep are proposed tobe implemented with private sec-tor participation under suitablerisk-sharing model and through

open-competitive bidding."The tourism projects have

been identified on government-owned land in Smith, Aves, Long,Neil & Little Andaman Islands ofAndaman & Nicobar, and inKadmat, Suheli and Minicoy is-lands of Lakshadweep," it hadsaid. The statement had also saiddetailed land survey and demar-cation of project sites, carryingcapacity assessment of theproject islands, coastal regulationzone (CRZ) application and pre-feasibility study have been under-taken. PTI

India to promote Buddhist Circuit in ChinaNEW DELHI: India is all set to

promote its Buddhist Circuit to at-tract tourists from China whichprovides the biggest outboundvisitors in the world at 144 milliona year, Tourism Minister K JAlphons said. The number of Chi-nese tourists visiting Indiareached 2,47,000 in 2017, a meretwo per cent of the total 10.18million foreign tourist arrivals, ac-cording to data available with theMinistry of Tourism.

"China provides the biggestoutbound tourists in the world. I

want to increase the number ofChinese tourists visiting India to14 million in the next five years.We will conduct promotionalroadshows and continuously en-gage with the people so that wecan build confidence," saidAlphons who will be visitingBeijing, Shanghai, Wuhan andGuangzhou during his trip.

Alphons, speaking at an eventhere, said that the ministry wastaking a lead out of the UAE'sstrategy which increased its foot-fall of Chinese tourists by 119 percent in the past three years byconducting 40 roadshows

across the country. "We willpromote our heritage,the Buddhist Circuit willindeed be the focus.

However, we need to

improve our infrastructure andwe will start with Sarnath. I havealready had discussions withRoadways and Transport MinisterNit in Gadara and we are set tobuild a four- lane highway con-necting the Buddhism-relatedcities," he said.

The minister also said thatgiven that there are around 490million Buddhists across theworld and since Buddha livedonly in India - in Uttar Pradeshand Bihar, a big chunk of thesetourists should be attracted to-wards the country. "They are bigspenders. For them it's a pilgrim-age, not just a journey."

The Buddhist Circuit is a routethat follows in the footsteps ofthe Buddha in India. The sites onthe route all over 2,500 years old

E-visa extended for citizens of 165 countries

NEW DELHI: Seeking to pro-mote tourism, the governmenthas extended e-visa facility forcitizens of 165 countries at 25airports and five seaports, the LokSabha was informed.

Tourism Minister K J Alphonsalso said the government haslaunched the 'Incredible India2.0' campaign, marking a shiftfrom generic promotions to mar-ket-specific promotional plans. A24X7 toll free multi-lingual tour-ist helpline has also been put inplace as part of the efforts.

To promote tourism in India,events such as 'Paryatan Parv'(tourism festival), InternationalBuddhist Conclave and Interna-tional Tourism Mart too havebeen organized. He said whiledevelopment and promotion oftourism is primarily the responsi-bility of state government, theUnion Tourism Ministry providescentral financial assistance tostates and UTs to organize fairs,festivals and tourism- relatedevents for the promotion of tour-ism. PTI

are among the most significantand revered for all Buddhists.They include Bodh Gaya in Biharwhere the Buddha attained en-

lightenment, and Sarnath andKushinagar in Uttar Pradesh,where he gave his first teachingsand died. PTI

India PostAugust 24, 2018 43Travel & Hospitality Postwww.indiapost.com

Malta eyes 20% growth in Indian visitorsMUMBAI: Malta, a small island

country in the Mediterranean Sea,is eyeing a 20 percent growth inIndian tourist arrivals this year.Around 4,000 Indian tourists vis-ited Malta in 2017. "With India be-ing one of the biggest emergingmarkets for tourism in Malta, wewant to tap its potential. We ex-pect the number of tourists willcontinue to increase in the com-ing years," Malta tourism ministerKonrad Mizzi told PTI.

The minister further said heexpects the footfalls from India togrow over 20 percent in 2018."Our vision is to register sustainedincreases of tourism from the In-dian market," he added.

Mizzi said the film industry willboost the tourism, with initiatives

like the Malta-India Film Festival, athree-day event starting 14 De-cember in Malta, along with in-centives for filmmakers, which isbeing reviewed to address the in-dustry needs further. He saidthere have already been a num-ber of tie-ups established withmajor production companies inBollywood. Malta, he said, is con-nected with India with directflights to and from all major Euro-pean cities and airport hubs, aswell as North Africa, with dailyconnections to most of the majorcities in India.

"Talks have focused on en-hanced airline connectivity be-tween Malta and India, in order toprovide travelers with a muchshorter connection to Europe, as

well as a hub for connectivity toboth Europe and North Africa," headded. The country is looking topromote itself as an all-year-

round destination, with heritageall around and diving and adven-ture opportunities, he said. It is intalks with Maharashtra govern-

ment and Bollywood on promot-ing and marketing both the coun-tries for tourism, according toMizzi.

19% rise in Indian touriststo Australia

NEW DELHI: Australia wit-nessed 19 per cent growth in tour-ist arrivals between June 2017-May with 3, 30,700 Indians visit-ing the country. Around 2, 77,100Indians travelled to the Down Un-der during June 2016 and May2017, according to AustralianTourism data. This has made Indiathe eighth largest inbound mar-ket, after China, New Zealand, theUS, Britain, Japan, Singapore andMalaysia, according to the data.

Besides, even sightseeing Indi-ans are also considered goodspenders while travelling in theDown Under, it said. Spending by

Indian tourists grew by 14 percent between April 2017 andMarch 2018, with visitors spend-ing AUD 1.53 billion (around Rs7,650 crore) on the Australian soil,up from AUD 1.33 billion in thesame period in the previous year.

In terms of spending, Indiastood seventh after China, the US,Britain, New Zealand, Japan andKorea. This is the fourth yearwhere Australia has recordeddouble-digit growth in both arriv-als and spend, indicating thedestination's growing preferenceamong Indians, Tourism Australiasaid. The recent government

move to extend online visitor visaapplications to all Indians alsohelped boost the numbers, itadded.

"In an age where travelers areincreasingly self-reliant in plan-ning and booking holidays, the e-lodgment facility allows touristsgreater independence whenplanning a trip to Australia and hasproved to be a strong catalyst forboosting tourist arrivals from In-dia," Tourism Australia India man-ager Nishant Kashikar said, addingIndian arrivals have increasedsince the introduction of the newvisa system. PTI

'Bengal should boost tourism within state'KOLKATA: The West Bengal

government should make con-certed efforts to attract more tour-ists at different locations withinthe state, a senior tourism officialhas said. "While Bengali touristsare among the top travelers in thecountry, apparently they don'tgive topmost priority to the tour-ist spots located in their ownstate," Regional Director (East),Tourism, J P Shaw told reportershere on the sidelines of a seminaron 'Heritage and Weekend Tour-ism in Bengal'.

He said according to latest fig-ures, West Bengal figured in thefifth spot in terms of foreign tour-ist inflow and stood eighth withregard to domestic tourist visits."You have everything in Bengal, itis time you showcase the placesand further improve facilities," hesaid, seeking cooperation fromthe state government and otherstakeholders for improving tour-ist amenities. Shaw referred to theimproving road condition inplaces like Hazarduari, Bishnupur,and 'classified hotels' (hotels with

star facilities) in locations likeSantiniketan.

"Nowadays, we have formednew guidelines for hotels. A hotelmust also have rooms for differ-

ently-abled persons," he said,adding, the state governmentmust draft guidelines forhomestay tourism as well.Homestays should have basic

amenities like hygiene, attachedbathrooms and one extra room ina house, Shaw said. The tourismofficial said the Centre was readyto give funds under the 'SwadeshDarshan' project to the state forimproving tourist facilities in thecoastal circuits - Mandarmani,Bakkhali and Frazergunj - and reli-gious places like Belur Math.

"While we have already allot-ted funds for beautification ofBelur Math and its surroundingriver bank areas, we are ready toallot funds for beautification ofreligious places like Tarapith andTarakeswar, if given concrete pro-posals by the state government,"he said. PTI

44 India Post August 24, 2018www.indiapost.com

In Brief ImmigrationDetails on page 47

Immigrationaudits affect

dozens ofbusinesses

Federal agencies setting 'trap' todeport immigrants, says ACLU

BOSTON: Federal immigrationagencies have launched a coor-dinated campaign to arrest anddeport immigrants seeking tobecome legal U.S. residentsthrough marriage, according todocuments released in a class-action lawsuit filed by the Ameri-can Civil Liberties Union.

The documents, which in-clude depositions and correspon-dence from federal officials,show the extent to which offi-cials for the U.S. Citizenship andImmigration Services have beencoordinating with their counter-parts at Immigration and Cus-toms Enforcement to facilitatearrests at citizenship offices inNew England.

The ACLU, in its arguments,criticizes the efforts as a deporta-tion ̀ `trap'' that violates the con-stitutional rights of immigrantsotherwise following the rules tobecome legal residents.

``The government createdthis path for them to seek a greencard,'' Matthew Segal, legal direc-tor for the ACLU of Massachu-setts, said in an interview. ``Thegovernment can't create thatpath and then arrest folks for fol-

lowing that path.''ICE spokesman John Mohan

responded that allegations of``inappropriate coordination'' be-tween the two agencies are ̀ `un-founded'' and that coordinationbetween the two Department ofHomeland Security agencies is

``lawful and legitimate.'' He de-clined to elaborate, citing thepending litigation.

USCIS spokesman MichaelBars declined to comment on thelegal filing, but said his agency, ingeneral, notifies law enforce-ment of individuals with an out-standing warrant or removal or-der and leaves it to them to de-cide if an arrest is necessary.

The ACLU lawsuit argues thatHomeland Security regulationscreated under former President

Barack Obama allow immigrantswith U.S.-citizen spouses to stayin the country while they seek agreen card - even if they're al-ready subject to deportation.

``That regulation is still the lawof the land,'' Segal said. ``So ar-resting these folks is not aboutlaw and order. These are peoplewith a path to legalization andthe government is trying to blockthat.''

The federal government, inseeking to dismiss the lawsuit,argues in part that federal DistrictCourt has no jurisdiction in thematter.

The ACLU's more than 250-page legal brief includes emailsbetween ICE officials outlininghow it coordinates arrests withUSCIS in New England.

Andrew Graham, a Boston-based ICE officer, said the agencygenerally receives from USCISlists of immigrants seeking legalresidency who have already beenordered for deportation, had re-entered the country illegally orwere considered ``an egregiouscriminal alien.''

Lilian Calderon, center, cries as she describes her experiences while incustody, alongside her husband, Luis Gordillo, right, during a news confer-ence at the office of the American Civil Liberties Union in Providence, R.I.

Gordillo is a U.S. citizen, but Calderon is a native of Guatemala who came tothe country with her family at the age of 3. She was ordered to leave in 2002

after her father was denied asylum.

More Indians crossing into US from MexicoWASHINGTON: The number

of Indians crossing into the USfrom Mexico and seeking asy-lum has been increasing in therecent years, a media report hasclaimed.

Indian citizens are amongthousands of migrants fromHaiti, Africa and Asia who aretrekking across Latin Americathrough travel routes forged byLatino immigrants, The Los An-geles Times reported.

According to the immigra-tion officials and attorneys,there has been an increase inrecent years in Indian nationals

crossing into the US throughMexico, although they repre-sent a small percentage ofthose detained overall, it said.

About 380 of the 680 mi-grants in August at theVictorville federal prison inCalifornia were Indian nation-als, according to the FederalBureau of Prisons. The reportsaid that they were sent thereas civil rather than criminal de-tainees pending the outcomeof their immigration cases.Immigrant children, many of whom have been separated from their

parents under a new "zero tolerance" policy by the U.S. administration,walk in single file between tents in their compound next to the Mexican

border in Tornillo, Texas.

S.Korean held withsatellite phoneat Delhi airport

NEW DELHI: A Leh-boundSouth Korean passenger hasbeen apprehended by the Cen-tral Industrial Security Force atthe IGI airport here for allegedlycarrying an unauthorized satel-lite phone, a senior official said.

J Geonchang (35), who had aSouth Korean passport, was ap-prehended by CISF personnel af-ter the satellite phone was de-tected in his baggage, he said.Geonchang was handed over tothe Delhi Police as carrying a sat-ellite phone is against the law, anofficial said. Only defense andother authorized personnel areallowed to posses the communi-cation gadget, he added.

This is the fourth such inci-dent in the last month. Earlier anIndian, a Danish and a British na-tional have been apprehendedat this airport for the same of-fence. PTI

Two Romaniansarrested forATM fraud

INDORE, Madhya Pradesh: TwoRomanian nationals have beenarrested here in connection withan alleged ATM fraud in variouscities of the country, police said.

The duo, Adrian Liviu (30) andCornel Constantine (27), were ar-rested on the basis of inputs pro-vided by the Kolkata Police, saidAdditional Superintendent of Po-lice (Crime Branch) AmrendraSingh.

The two were handed over to aKolkata Police team which has takenthem to West Bengal, Singh said.

Cases related to the fraudwere reported from various cit-ies, including Kolkata, where anFIR has been lodged.

Another senior officer said theRomanians were allegedly mem-bers of a gang involved in stealingdata from ATM cards of customersby using secret cameras and skim-mers (a device used by fraudstersto steal credit/debit card informa-tion) at cash dispensing machines.

Using the stolen data, the gangmembers would prepare clonesof ATM cards and used them tofraudulently withdraw moneyfrom bank accounts of customers,he said. The gang members usedto visit India on tourist visas andstay in costly hotels, he added. PTI

Cont'd on page 47

Cont'd on page 47

India Post 45August 24, 2018 Immigration Postwww.indiapost.com

Muslim woman appointedto Australia's Senate

MELBOURNE: A Muslimwoman has been appointed as amember of the Australia's Senate,becoming the first female fromthe minority community toachieve the position amid a bit-

ter row over racism in the coun-try.

Mehreen Faruqi, the Pakistani-origin Greens Party MP for NewSouth Wales, was selected by thelegislative council to fill a vacantsenate seat.

"The New South Wales Parlia-ment has selected Dr

@MehreenFaruqi to fill the va-cancy caused by the resignationof Senator @leerhiannon," theAustralian Senate tweeted.

Faruqi became the first Mus-lim to hold any political office in

Australia when she was electedto the state parliament in 2013,the BBC reported.

She had migrated from Paki-stan to Australia in 1992 with heryoung family. Prior to enteringpolitics she held a distinguishedcareer as an academic and has adoctorate in environmental engi-

neering.Faruqi, who is in her 50s, said

she would use her new role assenator to fight for a "positive fu-ture for Australia where we arestronger for our diversity".

Her joining coincided with therow sparked by Senator FraserAnning who has sought a na-tional vote on whether to banMuslim migration.

In his maiden speech in Parlia-ment, Anning alleged that Mus-lims were responsible for acts ofterror and crime and were de-pendant on welfare. Muslims ac-count for less than three per centof Australia's population, censusdata shows.

"The final solution to the im-migration problem is, of course, apopular vote," Anning concluded,before proposing a plebiscite "toallow the Australian people todecide whether they wantwholesale non-English speakingimmigrants from the Third Worldand, in particular, whether theywant any Muslims".

Commenting on Anning's re-marks, Faruqi said the AustralianParty senator had "spat in the faceof millions of Australians, spew-ing hate and racism" in his firstspeech to parliament. PTI

Mehreen Faruqi, the Pakistani-origin Greens Party MP for New South Wales,was selected by the legislative council to fill a vacant senate seat.

Aus senator slammed for'final solution' speech

CANBERRA, Australia: An Aus-tralian senator is being con-demned for his speech in Parlia-ment advocating reviving awhite-only immigration policyand using the term ``final solu-tion'' in calling for a vote on whichmigrants to admit into the coun-try.

Fraser Anning has refused toapologize for the content of hisfirst upper house speech. Butpoliticians across the spectrumwere united in denouncing hiswords. Prime Minister MalcolmTurnbull and opposition Laborleader Bill Shorten gave passion-ate Parliament speeches oppos-ing Anning's comments.

Anning also called for a com-plete ban on Muslim immigrationand linked Muslim communitiesto terrorism and being on welfareprograms. Turnbull said in his ownspeech, ``Those who try to de-monize Muslims because of thecrimes of a tiny minority are onlyhelping the terrorists.''

A member of the minor

Katter's Australian Party, Anningwas unapologetic about usingthe same phrase Nazi leadersused in planning the Holocaustduring World War II.

``The final solution to the im-migration problem is, of course, apopular vote,'' Anning said in hisSenate speech.

He claimed to be simply refer-ring to the ̀ `ultimate solution'' toa political problem and saidpeople who were offended tookthe two words out of context.

Shorten said those two wordsevoke trauma and come fromhistory's darkest moments. ̀ `Twowords would speak for the bru-talization and murder of millions.Two words that evoke fear andgrief and trauma and loss,''Shorten said.

He said most Australians didnot want to see the country goback to 1958 and moved a unani-mous motion praising the dis-mantling of discriminatory immi-gration policies over several de-cades. AP

Senator Fraser Anning of Katter's Australian Party, provoked controversyat his maiden speech in the Senate.

British Muslim convert plotted ISIS attackLONDON: A British Muslim

convert has pleaded guilty toplotting an Islamic State-inspiredterrorist attack on targets in Lon-don, including the city's shop-ping hub of Oxford Street andMadame Tussauds wax museum.

Lewis Ludlow admitted toswearing allegiance to IslamicState (ISIS) terror group and pre-paring to drive a van throughmajor targets in the British capi-tal at the Old Bailey court in Lon-don.

"At its highest it is a plot tocause mass fatalities using a ve-hicle in Oxford Street, targetingthe Disney store amongst otherplaces, at its busiest time," Pros-ecutor Mark Dawson told thecourt.

Using a false name, the 26-year-old bought a mobile phoneand wrote down his plans tocarry out an attack in notes later

found by counter-terrorism of-ficers torn up in pieces in a bin.

He picked out Oxford Streetas an "ideal target" and wrote: "Itis expected nearly 100 could bekilled in the attack".

Ludlow, a postal worker with

Royal Mail from Kent near Lon-don, planned an attack after be-ing stopped by police atHeathrow Airport in February ashe tried to board a flight to thePhilippines.

He was arrested by counter-terrorism police on April 18 andat an initial court appearance re-fused to stand, telling the chiefmagistrate he could only standfor Allah.

"Ludlow had gone as far aswriting out attack plansand conducting reconnais-sance of potential targets.I have no doubt that thepublic will be much saferas a result of our actions,"said Detective Chief Su-perintendent Kath Barnes,head of counterterrorismpolicing in the southeast.

He was due to go on triallater this year on two

charges of preparing acts of ter-rorism and one of terror fundingbut he pleaded guilty to plottingan attack in the UK and fundingISIS abroad at the hearing yester-day. PTI

Lewis Ludlow appeared at the Old Baileyvia a videolink from prison

India Post46 August 24, 2018Immigration Postwww.indiapost.com

The loneliness of being an immigrantLU XU

"I don't have anything else todo," says Keith Bi. He is cleaningpig intestines-a tedious job. Inthe sink of his café in downtownHalifax sit two bowls filled withcold water and floating chunks ofpig intestine that he bought fromToronto. Bi's back is arched for-ward. He selects one of the intes-tines and turns it inside out so thathe can see where the fat is, andcarefully cuts out the white fatwith a pair of scissors.

It's delicate work. He has tomake sure he takes out the fatwithout poking holes. His right

hand skillfully guides the bladesof the scissors close against theinside wall. In one quick move-ment, the fat slips away into tothe sink.

Bi is making a traditional Chi-nese dish: pot-stewed pig intes-tines. The café business has beenquiet today, as it is on most days.He had to let go his only em-ployee because he couldn't af-ford the salary; he's often the onlyone inside. A few days before, headded a catering service hopingit would increase revenue. Andthis traditional stew is somethinghe wants to serve as part of hiscatering service.

He could've just thrown theintestines into a pot and boiledthem all together-the fatwould've just melted into thewater, which he could've simplythrown away. But, as Bi says, hedoesn't have anything else to do.

In 2011, Bi immigrated fromthe city of Xi'an, China, on a work-ing visa after being told by one ofhis relatives who lives in Halifaxthat Canada is a good place tolive. He wouldn't have to dealwith the complicated social rela-tionships that occur in China; re-lationships are more straight for-ward in Canada, he was told. Andhe could even open his own

business. He decided to come toCanada first, and then hopefullybring his wife and son in the fu-ture.

Bi is not happy with the statusquo in modern China. People of-ten go around the law and rules,which has turned non-elites inthe country resentful. You are afool if you just obey the rules,people think. Networks andknowing the right people mattermore. For someone like Bi whowants to play by the rules and isnot part of the 1 percent, build-ing a life in Canada seemed to be

a good choice.Since Bi came to Canada, he

has worked as a chef, a cleaner,and other low-paying jobs. Hehad one goal: permanent resi-dency. And he worked hard for itlike most immigrants do. In 2014,three years after he arrived, hereceived his PR. It was a long timecoming. His wife was supportiveand helped with his applicationby sending all the required docu-ments from China. Two weekslater, he bought himself a round-trip ticket to China and two one-way tickets to Canada for his wifeand son. But one week beforethey were about to leave China,his wife told Bi that she was notcoming to Canada with him. In-stead, she wanted a divorce. Thenext day, she packed up her be-longings and left.

Bi was shocked. He hadn't seenit coming. Everything was goingas planned and then all of sud-den his life was falling to pieces.He went from a happy new im-migrant with a PR in hand, to alonely, divorced man explainingto a customs officer why his wifewas not with him.

It takes Bi an hour to finish thecleaning the pig intestines. Afterwashing his hands, he takes offhis hat. His hair is longer than he'd

like and it gets slippery with sweatwhen he works. But he hates theblack baseball hat. Still, he wears it."No matter where the kitchen isyou have to put it on if you work inone," he says. Bi is firm when itcomes to obeying rules.

Bi is a forty-seven-year-oldChinese immigrant and theowner of Coffee Corner, a cafélocated in the windowless base-ment below the office of Citizen-ship and Immigration Canada.The café is only thirty-five meterssquared and is a conveniencestore with a help-yourself take-out lunch service.

He does all the work himselfand schedules his tasks to getthings done on time. He learnedhow to be efficient when heworked in China as a chief inspec-tor in a five-star restaurant. Hewas a good manager and knowshow to train people. Once, he hadtwo hundred people workingunder him.

In the late '90s, Bi was honoredto work in a restaurant of its kind.Not only because it was well-paid, but also because of the as-sociated privileges had thatcome with the job. Most restau-rants were only open to foreignguests, which is why he wastaught how to cook Western foodand learn basic English. They hadproducts that you couldn't geteven if you had the money. It wasalmost like they got to see a dif-ferent world.

But Bi never settles. He wentall the way alone from Macau, insouthern China, to Halifax, in East-ern Canada.

Emotional stressUsually, the stories we hear

about immigration are inspiring-about how a refugee family en-dured trauma and rebuilt theirlife after coming to Canada.These stories are true, but thereare also others-stories of immi-grants, especially people with anAsian background, who experi-ence high levels of emotionalstress. A 2012 report by Citizen-ship and Immigration Canadasuggests that immigrants fromAsia and Pacific are more likely tohave emotional problems, in-cluding depression or loneliness,than those who come from therest of North America, the UnitedKingdom, and Western Europe.

Opening a new chapter in lifeis never easy. The first time Bi triedto launch a restaurant it fell flat, hesays due to a poor choice of part-ners. And although his second at-tempt is also struggling, he willnever give up. He gets up at 5:30a.m. before the sun rises andleaves after 6 p.m. on most nights.He doesn't sit down until noon.

Since the café is in a basement,the only time he gets to see thesun on a winter weekday is whenhe goes outside to have a smoke.He throws on his ten-year-oldleather jacket and strolls downthe hallway, joking that smokingfor him is like an injection, tomotivate himself.

He tries his best to strike up aconversation with his customerswhen they walk through the cafédoor. He smiles-he's alwayscheerful around his customers-and asks how they are. He oftentells them to leave their moneyat the counter or pay him later ifhe is away in the bathroom orsmoking. He trusts them. Hethinks everyone who works in thebuilding has a decent heart.

To his customers, he is an at-tentive Chinese immigrant whoruns a convenient café but theydon't see that when he's on hisown, he gets lonely now and

then. When the café is empty, Biis quiet.

Loneliness is a terrifying thing.It's like a black hole that sucks youin. Bi's thoughts go wild when heslows down. He thinks about howrough it has been starting a busi-ness, how rebellious his son is, and,above all, how he doesn't have thefamily he wanted at his age.

In Chinese culture, a family isone of the most important partsof a man's life. The pressure fromparents to get married and havechildren is relentless. Divorceand being childless are still newconcepts for the community, andlike many other divorced men inChina, they think it's somehow afailure or a mistake that they areresponsible for.

When friends visit, he always

cheers up. It just doesn't happenvery often.

The combination of livingoverseas, divorced, with a strug-gling business has made this rest-less man depressed-but Bi sayshe will always keep trying tomake a better future. In April2016, he boarded a plane toChina to meet a woman he hadbeen talking to online for sixmonths. He didn't know howthings would turn out, but hehoped that they would like eachother-that she would eventuallyjoin him in Canada. Nevertheless,he hopped on the plane.

When he arrived in China, hetook a bus to meet her butmissed the stop while helpingblind person dial a number ontheir cell phone. Bi apologized tothe woman when he met her andexplained what happened, butshe lashed out. "Why did you helpa blind person?" she said. "It'snone of your business."

In that moment, Bi knew shewasn't the one.

Three months later, he flewback to Halifax, alone.

On a Wednesday in January, ataround 1:40 p.m., Bi is sitting at asmall table outside his café eat-ing lunch. It is his first break in fivehours of work. His bowl is filled

with a few spoons of some dishesfrom his buffet, all mixed to-gether. Like many other Chinesepeople, he doesn't separate hisfood. Although he's a chef, hedoesn't seem to have a high stan-dard for his own meals. He eatswhatever is left over.

Bi adjusts his hat, places his cellphone on the round table in frontof him, and starts eating. He is fo-cused on his food with his faceclose to the bowl. There are nocustomers around, so he plays hiscell phone out loud. It's a videoclip from a Chinese media outletcalled Today's Headline-how hekeeps track of what's happeningback home.

Lu Xu, who hails from China, isstudying journalism at the Uni-versity of King's College in Halifax.Courtesy New Canadian Media

Loneliness is a terrifying thing. It's like a blackhole that sucks you in. Bi's thoughts go wildwhen he slows down. He thinks about howrough it has been starting a business, how

rebellious his son is

India Post 47August 24, 2018 Immigration Postwww.indiapost.com

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Federal agencies setting 'trap' todeport immigrants, says ACLU

Graham said ICE then workswith USCIS to schedule inter-views so that ICE agents can bepresent to make an arrest. Henoted ICE prefers to spread outthe interviews to ease theworkload on its agents and toprevent generating ``negativemedia interest'' from the arrests.

``At the end of the day we arein the removal business and it'sour job to locate and arrestthem,'' Graham wrote in part.

The ACLU's legal brief is thelatest in the class-action suit filedearlier this year on behalf of im-migrants who have been or fearbeing separated from their U.S.-citizen spouses.

The case will be argued Aug.20 in Boston federal court andnames five couples, includinglead plaintiffs Lilian Calderon andLuis Gordillo, of Rhode Island.

Gordillo is a U.S. citizen, butCalderon is a native of Guate-mala who came to the countrywith her family at the age of 3.She was ordered to leave in2002 after her father was deniedasylum.

The 30-year-old mother oftwo was detained by ICE in Janu-ary after she and her husband at-tended an interview at the USCISoffice in Johnston, Rhode Island,to confirm their marriage.

Calderon was released in Feb-ruary after the ACLU challengedthe detention. AP

6 duped on promise ofsending to Canada

ASHOK KAURAIndia Post News Service

PHAGWARA, Punjab: A casehas been registered againsttravel agent Harwinder Singh ofvillage Lambapind on thecharges of duping six persons ofRs 53.63 lakh on the promise ofsending them to Canada. VictimNarinder Singh of village Pandoritold the police that he gave Rs13.5 lakh to the accused forsending him to Canada. His fivefriends also gave the travelagent money to send them toCanada in the following manner:Kulbir Singh gave Rs 8 lakh,Mangal Singh Rs 9.36 lakh,Sarabjit Singh Rs 10.27 lakh,

Kuldip Singh Rs 5 lakh andNaresh Kumar Rs 7.5 lakh. The

accused could not send themabroad nor has he returned backtheir money. No arrest has beenmade so for.

Victim NarinderSingh of villagePandori told the

police that he gaveRs 13.5 lakh to

the accused forsending him

to Canada.

More Indians crossing intoUS from Mexico

In addition, about 40 per centof the detainees at the Immigra-tion and Customs Enforcement'sImperial Valley facility are fromIndia, a spokeswoman said in thereport. Nearly 20 per cent of thedetainees at the Immigration andCustoms Enforcement'sAdelanto processing center are

Indians.The report also cited data from

Syracuse University's Transac-tional Records Access Clearing-house which said that so far dur-ing the 2018 fiscal year, 4,197 ofthose arrested by Border Patrolagents have been Indian nation-als. And many have seen theirasylum claims denied.

The report said that detaineesfrom India have cited an increasein political and religious persecu-

tion as their reasons for seekingasylum, according to the US Cus-toms and Border Protection.Some of those seeking asylumare from the Sikh community andhave alleged that they are notable to follow their religious prac-tices and beliefs.

Quoting Sukhwinder, 20, animmigrant from Punjab who didnot want his full name used for

fear of retribution, the report saidhe spent two months inside theImperial Valley center, where hesaid that he was not allowed towear the turban and braceletmany Sikhs wear as part of theirfaith.

Hindus housed in the same fa-cility were forced to eat meat formore than two weeks, despitetheir religious beliefs, he said inthe report. "I didn't feel at ease. Iwished I was in my home coun-

try," Sukhwinder said through aninterpreter.

Management and TrainingCorp, the company that operatesthe Imperial Regional DetentionFacility, said in an email to the pa-per, "we provide turbans to de-tainees free of charge" whenthey are requested. The companysaid that the center's menu is ap-proved by a dietician accordingto the national standards and ifdetainees request, they are pro-vided with a vegetarian diet.

Vinay Lal, a history professor atthe University of California, LosAngeles, said that although hehas not seen evidence of Indianrefugees coming to the US to es-cape political persecution but itis possible. He said that he viewsthe increase in the number of In-dian immigrants crossingthrough Mexico as part of a glo-bal "migration crisis" rather than apolitical one.

"I think that the word has goneout that there are various waysthat you can try to move andcoming through the Mexicanborder remains one of the moreaccessible ways," Lal said. PTI

He said that he views the increase in thenumber of Indian immigrants crossing

through Mexico as part of a global"migration crisis"

Immigration audits affectdozens of businesses

ST. PAUL, Minn: A St. Paul bak-ing company that shuttered afteran immigration audit is amongnearly three dozen Minnesotabusinesses U.S. Immigration andCustoms Enforcement has tar-geted since President DonaldTrump took office.

ICE audited as least 34 Minne-sota companies from January2017 through April 2018 as partof the government's increasedenforcement to discourage ille-gal work. The number doesn't in-clude pending and open caseslike St. Agnes Baking Co., Minne-sota Public Radio reported.

The wholesale bakery closedin January after 15 years as a re-sult of an audit finding half itsemployees were unauthorized towork in the country. The 23 em-ployees had to be terminated af-ter being unable to show proper

work authorization. St. Agnescouldn't find replacements withthe same expertise by ICE's dead-line, so leadership decided tostop production and cleared out

the warehouse.``I wish I could list (the em-

ployees) all by name becausethey deserve it,'' said MikeMitchelson, the bakery's opera-tions director. ``They built thecompany.''

The company said no arrestsresulted from the audit and noneof the workers have been de-ported.

A two-phase operation thisyear that served more than 5,200businesses around the U.S. re-sulted in 100 arrests, according toICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer.He said ICE conducted more than110 audits in the region that in-cludes Minnesota.

Audits themselves don't sparkinvestigations, but ICE couldlaunch one if the agency findsegregious violations or a patternof intent to deceive, Neudauersaid.

St. Agnes Baking CEO DanMcGleno said he still keeps intouch with his former employ-ees. He said he was unawaresome of the employees were un-authorized to work in the U.S. AP

The wholesale bakeryclosed in Januaryafter 15 years as aresult of an audit

finding half its em-ployees were unau-thorized to work in

the country.

Cont'd from Page 44

Cont'd from Page 44

India Post August 24, 2018www.indiapost.comHoroscope48

Kindly read the predictions from your ascendant sign. If you do not know your ascendant sign then read thesame from Moon sign. If Moon sign is also not known then read it from the Zodiac sign. The ascendant sign which is

calculated from the birth details viz. date, month, year, time & place of birth gives 85 % accurate predictions. Theaccuracy of predictions from Moon sign get limited to only 50 %. The predictions from Zodiac sign are only 25 %

accurate. In nutshell the predictions from ascendant sign are most accurate. In getting personality analysis the traitsgiven by ascendant sign are 100 % accurate and that is the essence of Vedic Astrology.

Your Weekly Futureby VANEET SHARMA

MAR 21 to APRIL 20 JUN 21 to JULY 22 SEP 23 to OCT 22 DEC 22 to JAN 19

MAY 21 to JUN 20 AUG 23 to SEP 22 NOV 23 to DEC 22 FEB 19 to MAR 20

APRIL 21 to MAY 20 JULY 23 to AUG 22 OCT 23 to NOV 22 JAN 20 to FEB 18

AUG 24TH - AUG 30TH 2018

“Felicitated andhonored by then

President of India ShriPranab Mukherjee"

VANEETSHARMA

510-648-4899

The beginning ofthe week is

wonderful for domes-tic happiness. Peoplewould be full of appre-

ciation for your cheerful disposition.There shall be an atmosphere of love,laughter and harmony at home. Apartfrom this you can expect lot of growthin the betterment of your emotional re-lations. You might plan to take interestin speculative activities. You would bekeen in studying something related topersonality development.

The planetary tran-sit in the first

half of the week isshowing that youwould be spending

most of your time in social activities,travelling, merry making, partying andshopping whereas the latter half of theweek is promising good luck of enjoy-ing association of those people who arelucky for your business and work area.The last day of the week is marking somesadness in life because of temporaryseparation from dear ones.

This full week is per-fectly fine for

all areas of life. Al-though you mightcontinue to exhibit

some carefree and careless attitude thisweek too however your abilities and man-agement skills shall bring some reward toyou this week. You would plan to visit someplace of tourist attraction along with yourfriends, family and relatives this week. Forsure there shall be an increase in the de-velopment of your destiny. Some goodnews from your children shall pour in.

The first half of theweek is not fa-

vorable for your gen-eral happiness andhealth. You shall have

to face some bitterness in your emo-tional relations. Your enthusiasm and spir-its shall get decreased substantially how-ever your some kind of hidden talentwon't let you get frustrated. In the latterhalf of the week your all drained energiesshall be regained and it would prove bet-ter for public welfare activities, socialreputation, journeys and for work also.

The beginning ofthe week is

going to come up toyour expectations interms of getting aus-

picious results in areas like general hap-piness, partnership, love life, domesticatmosphere etc. and your spirits and en-thusiasm shall be at its best whereas inthe latter half of the week i.e. from 28thto 30th you shall lose your happiness,health and enthusiasm substantially. Thelast day of the week indicates restora-tion of your drained energies.

The first half of the week is absolutely

perfect for your familylife and prosperity. Al-though expenses shall

be high however the time period, en-ergy & the money that you shall bespending on your family would keep youhappier. You might go on a journey withyour family member. Although therewould remain some kind of tension andstress in the back of your mind howeveryour attitude to keep yourself busywould certainly work for you.

This week is auspi-cious for at-

taining support of se-niors and royal peoplein business. Statesman

type of people would extend their sup-port to you. All gentlemen in societyshall develop a tendency to appreciateyou. This move and development shallprove beneficial for attaining stability inthe inflow of money the impact of whichshall be visible after a couple of monthsfor sure. In nutshell this week shall cre-ate a seed for a better financial future.

The beginning ofthe week is not

auspicious for yourgeneral happiness.You might suffer from

the problems of mood swings. Your ex-penses might remain uncontrolled. Yourextra generous attitude this week mightcreate financial scarcity. You will also goon journeys which might not prove verybeneficial. In fact this is the best weekto plan to go on pilgrimages. It wouldbe better to drop the idea of taking anyimportant decision this week.

This week you aredestined to

get the support ofyour spouse, lovemates and partners

which would surely help you in upgrad-ing your skills professionally and youwould find yourself doing better at workarea and by the end of the week you shallbe earning more gains also and in thesegains too there shall be tremendous sup-port of your associates. It can prove tobe a period of starting point of gains inbusiness.

The first half of theweek is won-

derful for love rela-tions, family life; enter-tainment related ac-

tivities and financial gains are also indi-cated. Children shall do better and thoseassociated with consultation work shallbe doing better. The latter half of theweek is promising better performanceof your in those activities in which yourabilities shall be put to test. You mighttravel to attend some celebration in thehouse of your friends or relatives.

Your destiny's bet-ter force and

your reserve mentalenergy shall help youto cope with the

stress which is chasing you from last fewweeks. In the first half of the week youshall manage with the same spirit andgo on fighting with the odds but the lat-ter half shall be disappointing & youmight go to the verge of giving up. Weshall advise you to work with patienceand better not to take any importantdecision regarding investment.

In the first half of theweek you shall

get big relief from thestress and extra bur-den that you were go-

ing through from last few days. Thereshall be betterment and increase in gainsand inflow of money whereas the latterhalf of the weak won't be that favorablefor starting and accomplishing any impor-tant tasks. Don't trust people blindly andabstain from taking any decision in ahurry. You might suffer from some kind ofsadness and a problem of mood swings.

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Matter is manifestation ofthoughts & feelings

August 24, 2018www.indiapost.comPhilosophy

JEFF FOSTER

A relationship ends unex-pectedly, success turns tofailure overnight, a loved

one dies, you receive a diagnosisout of the blue, and you suddenlyfeel a profound groundlessness, adeep uncertainty, the sense thatyour world is spinning out of con-trol. Nothing feels real anymore. Itfeels like your life is no longer'your' life, like you're in somestrange kind of impersonalmovie, like you don't know whereto turn, or even stand.

The future, which onceseemed so solid and 'real', is nowexposed for the lie and the fairystory that it was, and your dreamsof 'tomorrow' crumble to dust.'Tomorrow' was never going tohappen, not in the way you hadunconsciously planned, anyway.There are no answers that willsatisfy now, no authority to guideyou, since nobody can experi-ence your experience for you,and nobody has your answers,and you feel profoundly alone ona single planet spinning in vastand unfathomable space. Youfeel like crawling back into thewomb.

Wonderful! What an invitationthis is! Life has not gone wrong,for life cannot go wrong, for all is

SHAWN RADCLIFFE

From the comfortable seat ofour bodies (and built-inbrains), it's easy to think that

consciousness is a unique prop-erty of humans. But some philoso-phers argue that the entire uni-verse is conscious, or to put itmore broadly: that there is onlycosmic consciousness.

This solves the problem ofwhere consciousness comesfrom, but it leaves other lingeringdilemmas - such as why do peoplehave private consciousnesses thatare less-than cosmic-sized? And ifyou and I are part of the same cos-mic consciousness, why can't Iread your thoughts simply by shift-ing the focus of my attention?

In a paper published in theJournal of Consciousness Studies,philosopher and author BernardoKastrup tackles these questions byusing the analogy of dissociativeidentity disorder (DID), what wasonce known as multiple personal-ity disorder.

Kastrup starts with the premisethat cosmic consciousness is ev-erything. The material environ-ment, along with the properties ofmatter, are physical manifesta-

Perhaps breakdown alwayscontains breakthrough

The cosmic intelligence has not actuallyabandoned us, and right at the heart of theseeming mess of this moment, there is some-thing that is not involved in the mess at all.

life, and life is all. Only our dreamsand plans 'about' life can crumble,but life itself cannot. This presentexperience, this confusion andcosmic doubt, this heartbreak, isnot against life, this IS life, the sa-cred life of the moment. This isnot the 'wrong' scene in themovie, this IS the movie, howeverhard that is to see right now.There is a vast intelligence atwork here, an intelligence that

breathes us at night, and beatsour heart, pumping blood aroundthe body, healing wounds when'we' are not even around to no-tice or care.

What happens, when we stoptrying to figure it all out, we stopclinging to the old dreams andstop mourning their loss, and weface the raw, broken open realityof things as they are. What hap-pens when, just for a moment,

we actually take the radical andunexpected step of saying YES tothe uncertainty, the doubt, theconfusion, the pain, the heart-break? What happens when weaffirm the not-knowing insteadof trying to escape it?

Perhaps the cosmic intelli-gence has not actually aban-doned us, and right at the heartof the seeming mess of this mo-ment, there is something that is

not involved in the mess at all.We can call it love, or God, or con-sciousness, or simply Who WeReally Are, prior to our dreams ofhow life should be, of how thismoment should look and feel andtaste and sound and smell.

Perhaps our dreams are thereto be broken, and our plans arethere to crumble, and our tomor-rows are there to dissolve intotodays, and perhaps all of this is all

a giant invitation to wake up fromthe dream of separation, toawaken from the mirage of con-trol, and embrace whole-heartedly what is present. Perhapsit is all a call to compassion, to adeep embrace of this universe inall its bliss and pain and bitter-sweet glory.

Perhaps we were never reallyin control of our lives, and perhapswe are constantly invited to re-

member this, since we constantlyforget it. Perhaps suffering is notthe enemy at all, and at its core,there is a real-time lesson wemust all learn, if we are to be trulyhuman, and truly divine. Perhapsbreakdown always containsbreakthrough.

Jeff Foster is an author andspiritual teacher from England. His38th birthday was celebrated onJuly 30

tions of the thoughts and feelingsof this consciousness. These arethe "revealed" and "concealed"aspects of the cosmos, respec-tively.

He then argues that all livingorganisms, including people, aredissociated alters of the cosmicconsciousness. This is similar tohow people with DID can havemultiple personalities - or alters -coexisting within the samepsyche. In both cases, the altersare part of the whole.

And like the cosmic conscious-ness itself, the alters have both aconcealed aspect (thoughts andfeelings) and a revealed aspect(physical body, metabolism,senses, etc.).

Kastrup writes that all alters areseparated from the rest of the cos-

mic consciousness - while stillbeing part of it - by a dissociationboundary. Unlike the boundariesof inanimate objects, the bound-aries of living organisms are notarbitrary.

Take a mug, for example:whether the handle of the mug isan integral part of its "mug-ness"is an arbitrary decision. You couldjust as easily have a mug with-out a handle.

But with living organisms, ourboundaries coincide with

where we perceive our body toend. We can perceive photonsthat strike our retinas or our skin,but not those that strike a wallor chair. We also can't decidethat one part of our skin is notintegral to our body the way wedecide a handle is not integral

India Post52

We can will the parts of our body tomove. But we can't will the bodies of

other living organisms (alters) to move.

At any moment, you have achoice, that either leads youcloser to your spirit or furtheraway from it.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

However many holy wordsyou read, how many youspeak, what good will they doyou if you do not act uponthem?.

-Buddha

Love is what we are bornwith. Fear is what we havelearned here. The spiritualjourney is the unlearning offear and the acceptance oflove back into our hearts.

-Marianne Williamson

To be conscious of Being,you need to reclaim con-sciousness from the mind.This is one of the most es-sential tasks on your spiri-tual journey.

-Eckhart Tolle

To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth faceto face, one must be able tolove the meanest of all cre-ation as oneself.

-Gandhi

A mature mind is one whounderstands the impossibil-ity of knowing the ultimate,and with this understandingthere is a new dimension: thedimension of being.

-Osho

Jeff Foster

to a mug.Likewise, we can will the parts

of our body to move. But wecan't will the bodies of other liv-ing organisms (alters) to move.This is part of what makes us dis-tinct from each other.

The dissociative boundary isso strong - along with our egoand I-ness - that we see our-selves as distinctly separatefrom the cosmic consciousness.But this, according to Kastrup, isonly an illusion.

Kastrup writes that alters arelike islands immersed in a singleocean. Because we are all in thesame ocean, we experience theuniverse in roughly the same way.

Shawn Radcliffe is a health andscience writer and yoga teacherliving in Ontario, Canada

Bernardo Kastrup

53Edit Pagewww.indiapost.com

August 24, 2018 India Post

Man of extremesNavjot Singh Sidhu is a first reaction man. He leaps before

he thinks. He has worn so many hats in life that it be-comes difficult to fix who is the real one under the pugree. Itis a tremendous tribute that he switches easily from a crick-eter to a commentator known for bombast and hyperbole, acomic, to a politician. And even as a politician he so easilyswitches sides and even his allegiance that it is mind-bog-gling.

His dharma is that he has no dharma. He thrives on contro-versy and can be summed up as an attention grabber. Hemakes outlandish statements and when twitted, comes upwith more absurd statements. His stint on television with co-median Kapil Sharma showed up his skill at impromptu versi-fying. He had his own fan following and his laughter and styleinspired mimicry that is reserved only for the famous.

Sidhu began as a timid cricketer who excelled at defensebut blossomed into a hitter of huge sixes. His immaturity andemotional reaction was first exposed in 1996 when he infa-mously walked out from Indian team's UK visit alleging hewas being sidelined by skipper Azharuddin. Later it tran-spired Sidhu thought he was being abused by the skipperwhile Azhar was only using a common Hyderabadi wordwhich meant something offensive in North India.

We can take his word that he was reacting only emotion-ally while hugging the Pakistan Army Chief during his recentIslamabad visit, saying he got caught in the moment afterhearing that Sikh pilgrims may get access to a shrine acrossthe border. The news has really great importance for the Sikhcommunity.

General Qamar Javed Bajwa told Sidhu that Pakistan mightopen a corridor for pilgrims from Dera Baba Nanak inGurdaspur district to Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan which is thebirthplace of Guru Nanak. It was being done to mark the550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. The two shrines aremerely three kilometers apart. Sidhu said later in Chandigarhthat crores of pilgrims have been waiting to pay obeisanceat Kartarpur Sahib, the place where Guru Nanak Dev spent 18years.

Sidhu may not have noticed but it is quite likely that thePak Army Chief was laying a trap for him. By this gesture hewas luring the Indian Sikhs into believing his concern for theirwelfare. Previously when Sikh pilgrims have visited Pakistan,they have not been allowed to meet the Indian High Com-mission representatives lest they find out Pak propagandaagenda with the Sikhs of provoking them to demand separa-tion from India.

As a politician Sidhu was initially BJP MP from Amritsar. Hewas always at loggerheads with the Akali government at thattime accusing it of scuttling his plans for development ofAmritsar. But since BJP was a coalition partner of the Akalis inPunjab, he was given no support by the leadership in Delhi.

So much so that in the 2014 elections he was sidelinedand in his place the BJP fielded Arun Jaitley who went on tolose the Amritsar election. Furious, Sidhu quit the BJP andjoined the Congress. In the 2017 Assembly elections, he wononce again from Amritsar and went on to become a minister.As a man of extremes, his loyalty has shifted so much that hewent on to touch the feet of Sonia Gandhi in gratitude.

Drones present newthreats for militaries

DR VIJAY SAKHUJA

The use of drones has pro-liferated into many facetsof human activity. These

range from delivering medicalaid/medicines to inaccessibleareas, search and rescue dur-ing disasters, firefighting, toeven the fashion industry. Theywere recently used in a fashionshow in Saudi Arabia to carryclothes on hangers and glidedown the catwalk.

In terms of the negative im-pact of their use, three recentdrone-led attacks against civil-ian and military targets by non-state actors are noteworthy.These put enormous pressureon security agencies and mili-taries to devise counter-strate-gies and systems to deter andthwart the use of drones.

First, President NicolásMaduro of Venezuela escapedan assassination attempt by un-known groups who used explo-sive laden drones that blewup; one within Maduro'sline of sight, and the sec-ond one or two blocksaway, while he was deliver-ing a speech at a militaryparade. More than a dozen sus-pects were arrested amid accu-sations that local oppositionleaders might have been in-volved.

The second instance involvesdrone attacks on Russia'sKhmeimim airbase in Syria. At-tacks on Russian military instal-lations have continued un-abated, and according to a se-nior Russian general, the mili-tary was successful in repellingas many as 45 attacks in July2018. The northern province ofIdlib, an anti-Syria rebel strong-hold, is the base for drone at-tacks, and these platforms havea range of up to 100 km.

The third attack, though notcorroborated, involves theHouthi rebels fighting againstSaudi coalition forces in Yemen,who claimed via video that inJuly 2018, they successfullydropped bomblets on Saudiand Emirati troops in the fieldby using drones.

A few weeks later, the groupclaimed that they conducted a

drone attack on Abu Dhabi air-port, which was dismissed byUAE authorities. Whether theseattacks on sensitive installationsare true or not, the use ofdrones by non-state actors is areality and has forced militariesto develop counter-dronehardware.

Interestingly, the counter-drone market has been on therise and is expected to growfrom US$ 342.6 million in 2016to US$ 1,571.3 million by 2023,at a CAGR of 25.9 per cent be-tween 2017 and 2023.

The rise in demand forcounter-drone hardware bystates and militaries has been aconsequence of successful se-curity breach incidents by uni-dentified drones operated bynon-state actors. A number ofmilitary hardware companiesare developing

counter-drone technologiesthat offer a variety of sensors(electronic warfare equipment,acoustic sensors, radar, etc) andjammers, which can potentiallydisrupt a drone's navigationsystem.

National militaries, too, arestrategizing to respond to thisnew warfare. For instance, thePentagon had sought a budgetfor as many as 3,447 new un-manned platforms and drones,totaling US$ 9.39 billion (US$ 2.6billion for the air force, US$ 3.7billion for the navy and marines,US$ 1.7 billion for the army, andalmost US$ 1.3 billion across therest of the Pentagon).

The US' 2019 National De-fense Authorization Act is in-deed a windfall, and allocationfor unmanned platforms anddrones is pegged at nearly 1.4per cent of the allocated de-fense budget which also in-cludes a counter-drone share ofabout US$ 1.5 billion.

At the operational level,

some militaries have beguntraining for counter-drone war-fare. The Pentagon is using hy-pothetical scenarios to train na-tional guardsmen deployed inAfghanistan to use anti-dronerifles against mock drone at-tacks. It was recently an-nounced that the US Army ispreparing to acquire"Raytheon's Coyote drone bythe end of the year to takedown enemy drones encroach-ing on US or partner positionson the battlefield." These willbe strapped with "small-blastwarhead and a radio frequencyseeker at the nose to track andengage targets."

Similarly, the French anti-drone air defense force isequipped with "rifle-shapedantenna that can jam the re-mote control signals of a

drone," and the op-erator is "paired withother shotgun-armedsquad members,whose shotguns firespecialized shells."

While these mayoffer a good chance of

success, the bigger worry isof swarm drones comprisinghundreds of smart and light-weight drones approaching ingroups, formations, or in waves,which present a much morecomplex situation. Further, theincreasing diversity in drone andcounter-drone technologies in-cluding counter-measures hasresulted in a flux, and presentnew threats for militaries.

In fact major militaries andother defense and securityagencies across the globe areseeing themselves enter adrone arms race which featuresprogressive advancements indrone warfare involving bothkinetic and smart technologies.

It is quite likely that futurenational defense budgets willsee more spending on counter-drone platforms and systems,and militaries will start devisingoperational counter-measures.

Dr Vijay Sakhuja is former Di-rector, National Maritime Foun-dation, New Delhi. CourtesyIPCS

CHICAGOUpcoming

ATLANTAUpcoming

Sat, Aug 25• AR Rahman Live Concert 2018 inAtlanta and Troupe 25 GloriousYears Of MusicVenue: Infinite Energy Arena, 6400Sugarloaf Parkway, Duluth, GA 30097Time: 08:00 pm

Thu, Sep 20•Russell Peters: The DeportedWorld TourVenue: Cobb Energy Performing ArtCenter Center, 800 Galleria Pkwy SE,Atlanta, GA 30339Time: 08:00 pm

1st and 3rd Sunday of Month• Chicago Children'sBal MukundCharacter Building Programand Hindi Literacy ClassesVenue: Vogelei Center, 650 W. HigginsRoad, Hoffmann Estates, IL 60192 (Next toNissan Dealership)Contact: Ajay & Arti Chandhok @630-561-4807

Mondays and Fridays• Free ESL - English as SecondLanguage ClassesMetropolitan Asian Family ServicesVenue: 9015 N Milwaukee Ave, Niles, IL,Time: 10:30am to 12:30pmContact: 773-465-3105

Mondays and Fridays• Free ESL - English as SecondLanguage ClassesWhere: Metropolitan Asian FamilyServicesVenue: 9015 N Milwaukee Ave, Niles, IL,Time: 10:30am to 12:30pmContact: 773-465-3105

Swami Ishatmananda• Bhagavad Gita: Philosophyof lifeVenue: Public Library-95th Street 3015Cedar Glade Rd Naperville IL 60564Time: 1st friday of every month 7-8 pmContact: 630-637-0662• India Eternal: From theVedic Age to the PresentVenue: Hindu Temple of Greater Chicago10915 N. Main Street Glendale Heights,IL 60139Time: 10:00 pmContact: 630-655-8822

ILLINOISUpcoming

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NEW YORKUpcoming

Sat, Sep 15• Dance Workshop with MasterChoreographer Sohini RoyVenue: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 305

7th Avenue, New York, NY 10001

Time : 10:00 am

Sat, Aug 25• Festival of India, Canalside,BuffaloVenue: India Association of Buffalo,

New York, Buffalo, NY 14221

Time : 10:00 am

Mon, Sep 03• Krishna Costume Competition SriRadha Gopinath TempleVenue: Sri Radha Gopinath Temple, 7Kilmer Ct, Edison, NJ 08817Time: 05:00 pm

Sun, Sep 23• Zumba Master Class Men ofPortugal &Adriano SosaVenue: Portuguese Instructive SocialClub, 417 U.S. Highway 1 New Jersey,Elizabeth, NJ 07202Time: 01:00 pm

Mon, Sep 03• Sri Krishna Janmastami Venue: Iskcon Naperville, 1505

McDowell Rd Illinois, Naperville,

IL 60563

Time: 05:00 am

Wed, Sep 12• Shree Ganesh Mahotsav PujaCelebrationVenue: Renaissance Schaumburg Con-vention Center Hotel, 1551 ThoreauDrive North Illinois, Schaumburg, IL60173Time: 12:00 am

NORTHERN CALIFORNIAUpcoming

Sat, Aug 25•BATM - Volley Ball & Throw BallTournament 2018Venue: 35725 Cedar Blvd, 35725 Ce-

dar Blvd, Newark, CA 94560Time: 08:00 am

Sat, Aug 25• Lighting the way-Kolkata StreetFood FestivalVenue: San Jose, San Jose, CA 95113

Time: 04:30 pm

Sat, Sep 01• 48th Millbrae Art & Wine Festival,The Last Blast of SummerVenue: Downtown Millbrae, 490

Broadway, Millbrae, CA 94030

Sat, Sep 01• Maithry Onam 2018 GrandCelebrationVenue: Maithry - Bay Area Malayalee

Community, 2132 Road California,

Cupertino, CA 95014

Time: 10:30 am

Sun, Sep 16•BACDA presents - Raabdta andThe Unexpected GuestVenue: Castro Valley Center for the

Arts, 19501 Redwood Road California,

Castro Valley, CA 94546Time: 02:30 pm

WASHINGTON DCUpcoming

Sun, Aug 26• Bollywood Boulevard: A JourneyThrough Hindi CinemaVenue: Wolf Trap, 1551 Trap Road,Vienna, VA 22182Time: 08:00 pm

Fri, Aug 31• A R Rahman Live in Concertin Washington DCVenue: Eagle Bank Arena, 4500Patriot Circle, Fairfax, VA 22030Time: 08:00 pm

India Post54 August 24, 2018Datebookwww.indiapost.com

India Post 55www.indiapost.com

August 24, 2018

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