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Vol. 27 No. 43 Friday, October 24, 2014 • Published Weekly from Houston • 713-774-5140 24 Pages ( 2 sections) 50 cents E-mail: editor@voiceofasiaonline.com Over 26 years of dedicated service to the community V OICE OF A SIA H appy Diwali and New Year. Read News on Medi- care and Medicaid by Su- dhir Mathuria Page 18. Call 713-771-2900. ONLINE .COM voiceofasiaonline.com VOICEOFASIAONLINE.COM Prime Laser Center utilizes the state of the art most advanced ND; YAG Lasers which safely and effectively treat unwanted hair for permanent removal. Call us for a Free Consultation! Tel: 281-903-7470 • www.PrimeLaserCenter.com 2655 Cordes Dr, Suite: 120, Sugar Land, TX 77479 (one block from Highway 6/Lexington) $999 Full Body Laser Hair Removal (Includes 6 sessions of full body treatment and Prime Laser Center’s Lifetime Warranty) $299 Full Face Laser Hair Removal (Includes 6 sessions of full face treatment and Prime Laser Center’s Lifetime Warranty) Med Spa & Laser Hair Removal Center proof (Limited Time Special) (Limited Time Special) M any years ago Rupal Patel recalls read- ing comic books on Ramayan in India. She remem- bers that anytime she would have a question, her grand- mother would narrate the jour- ney of Bhagwan Ram and Sita by memory. She was always intrigued when hearing about when Ram would triumph over Ravan and bring Sita back to Ayodhya. She felt a sense of peace and restoration of bal- ance. After each narration, Rupal would take away a new moral and apply it to her life. It is with this spirit that millions of Hindus celebrate the festival of Diwali every year. Now that she lives in Sugar Land, Texas and thousands of miles from India she misses Diwali and its atmosphere. She misses the assortments of sweets or mithai during Diwali. In order to sustain those memo- ries, for the last 10 years, she and her family attend the cele- brations at the BAPS Shri Swa- minarayan Mandir in Stafford, Texas. For the last two weekends, Diwali has been celebrated in grand scale at the Mandir. On October 11th, children of all ages got to participate in a DIL Touches Heart and Purse Strings of Houstonians! BAPS Diwali Celebrations - A Learning Experience For Children special Kid’s Diwali Carnival. Each child took part in a special sabha or assembly followed by carnival rides. The day ended with each child lighting their own divos and participating in a special grand Diwali arti on the Mandir. The celebrations continued at the Mandir on Saturday, Octo- ber 18th with an outdoor Diwali program titled “Unity in Diver- sity.” The BAPS Shri Swami- narayan Mandir was beauti- fully lit with orange, white and green representing the Indian flag. Along with Rupal’s fam- ily, several hundred visitors were welcomed with beautiful rangolis and divos. The Diwali program highlighted India’s diverse culture, language, mu- sic, character and most impor- tantly unity. Throughout the program a special laser show was displayed lighting up the dark skies with beautiful col- ors. Rupal Patel’s daughter was amazed when the fireworks started to pop at the end of the program. Each visitor left with the sentiments of being proud Indians and happy citizens of the community in which they live in. Continued on Page 6 by Shobana Muratee H OUSTON – At the fitting time when the world is hailing the efforts of the youngest Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan for her human rights advocacy for education and for women in her native Swat Val- ley, the Houston Chapter of De- velopment In Literacy (DIL), a nonprofit organization with a mission to educate the under- privileged children in Pakistan and empower communities held its fundraiser event on Sunday, Oct 19 at the Omni Houston Hotel and raised over $230,000 for the cause. The elegant event ‘Mughal Durbar, A Royal Evening’ was a sold out one with over 500 guests and supporters of DIL. Eminent dignitaries included the Aga Khan Council Presi- dent (SW region), Aftab Ghe- sani, Saleena Jafry (AK Council Communications), Chairman, AKF SW region Dr. Suleman Lalani, Consul General of Pakistan, Houston, Hon. Afzaal Mahmood, Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey, Houston’s well known socialite Joanne King Herring. Welcoming the guest, DIL President, Neelofur R Ahmad spoke on the importance of sup- porting a cause like DIL which is changing the dynamics of children’s education in Paki- stan. Ahmad reported that the dropout rate of DIL was 0.57% as compared to Pakistan’s 45%. With a mission to educate and empower underprivileged chil- dren, DIL currently has an en- Raises over 230K at its 14th Annual Gala and Fundraiser rollment rate of girls at 68% compared to Pakistan’s 48% and the overall primary School completion rate of DIL she said was 99% as compared to 66% in overall Pakistan. In Pakistan, the dropout rate of girls is twice as high as boys, lowering the lit- eracy rate in some areas to mere 8%. Currently, some 25million children or one out of three have not completed primary education. Even after stating such astounding achievements of DIL, Ahmad said that there was still a lot more to achieve in the coming years. Event Chair Farida Abjani said, “I experienced nothing but generosity and kindness. And tonight as I walked in I realized I have never seen such a di- verse group of people in ethnic clothes.” She thanked the mem- bers of DIL for their support in putting the event together and made a special mention of her two very good friends and busi- ness partners Rosemin Premji and Munir Ibrahim. “Poverty, child labor, child marriages, human trafficking or everyday crimes are all question that we face every day and I honestly believe that education is the only answer,” and “Education and only education teaches you how to be human,” Abjani said. Guest Speaker, Art Rascon, an Emmy Award winning re- porter with ABC -13, spoke passionately about the welfare of children, especially the care of educating them. Raised, in a humble home, Rascon said, if it wasn’t for his parent’s determi- nation to educate him, he would never have reached the heights in his career and that everyone deserves to be educated so that a village and subsequently a na- tion can be changed. He also said that of the many stories that he heard and wrote, the most endearing were that of children empowerment espe- cially through education. He commended DIL for its efforts in taking up such a courageous cause for Pakistan’s underprivi- leged children. The event was efficiently em- ceed by Janey Ali Rizvi who brought a good balance of se- riousness and light spiritedness with some entertainment by a dance performance by the Uiv- ersity of Houston Roarin’ Raas and an exquisite speed painter, Clarione Gutierrez. Later a tribute was paid to Iman Haq by Friends of Iman and it also included a gift of Scholarship to DIL’s students. A silent auc- tion was also a highlight of the event. A sumptuous, Moghulai style dinner was catered by Mezban Restaurant. DIL President, Neelofur R Ahmad (left) and Event Chair Farida Abjani steal a moment together at the gala. Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey with the guests Photos by Mitchell Alexander Young girls arrange the diyas (oil lamps) specially used during Diwali, at the entrance of the BAPS Temple.
Transcript
VOICE OF ASIA 1 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014
Vol. 27 No. 43 Friday, October 24, 2014 • Published Weekly from Houston • 713-774-5140 24 Pages ( 2 sections) 50 cents E-mail: [email protected]
Over 26 years of dedicated service to the community
VOICE OF ASIA Happy Diwali and New Year. Read News on Medi-
care and Medicaid by Su-dhir Mathuria Page 18. Call 713-771-2900.
ONLINE.COMvoiceofasiaonline.com
VOICEOFASIAONLINE.COM
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Many years ago Rupal Patel recalls read-ing comic books on
Ramayan in India. She remem-bers that anytime she would have a question, her grand-mother would narrate the jour-ney of Bhagwan Ram and Sita by memory. She was always intrigued when hearing about when Ram would triumph over Ravan and bring Sita back to Ayodhya. She felt a sense of peace and restoration of bal-ance. After each narration, Rupal would take away a new moral and apply it to her life. It is with this spirit that millions of Hindus celebrate the festival of Diwali every year.
Now that she lives in Sugar Land, Texas and thousands of miles from India she misses Diwali and its atmosphere. She misses the assortments of sweets or mithai during Diwali. In order to sustain those memo-ries, for the last 10 years, she and her family attend the cele-brations at the BAPS Shri Swa-minarayan Mandir in Stafford, Texas.
For the last two weekends, Diwali has been celebrated in grand scale at the Mandir. On October 11th, children of all ages got to participate in a
DIL Touches Heart and Purse Strings of Houstonians!
BAPS Diwali Celebrations - A Learning Experience For Childrenspecial Kid’s Diwali Carnival. Each child took part in a special sabha or assembly followed by carnival rides. The day ended with each child lighting their own divos and participating in a special grand Diwali arti on the Mandir.
The celebrations continued at the Mandir on Saturday, Octo-ber 18th with an outdoor Diwali program titled “Unity in Diver-sity.” The BAPS Shri Swami-narayan Mandir was beauti-fully lit with orange, white and green representing the Indian flag. Along with Rupal’s fam-ily, several hundred visitors were welcomed with beautiful rangolis and divos. The Diwali program highlighted India’s diverse culture, language, mu-sic, character and most impor-tantly unity. Throughout the program a special laser show was displayed lighting up the dark skies with beautiful col-ors. Rupal Patel’s daughter was amazed when the fireworks started to pop at the end of the program. Each visitor left with the sentiments of being proud Indians and happy citizens of the community in which they live in.
Continued on Page 6
by Shobana Muratee
HOUSTON – At the fitting time when the world is hailing the
efforts of the youngest Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan for her human rights advocacy for education and for women in her native Swat Val-ley, the Houston Chapter of De-velopment In Literacy (DIL), a nonprofit organization with a mission to educate the under-privileged children in Pakistan and empower communities held its fundraiser event on Sunday, Oct 19 at the Omni Houston Hotel and raised over $230,000 for the cause.
The elegant event ‘Mughal Durbar, A Royal Evening’ was a sold out one with over 500 guests and supporters of DIL. Eminent dignitaries included the Aga Khan Council Presi-dent (SW region), Aftab Ghe-sani, Saleena Jafry (AK Council Communications), Chairman, AKF SW region Dr. Suleman Lalani, Consul General of Pakistan, Houston, Hon. Afzaal Mahmood, Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey, Houston’s well known socialite Joanne King Herring.
Welcoming the guest, DIL President, Neelofur R Ahmad spoke on the importance of sup-porting a cause like DIL which is changing the dynamics of children’s education in Paki-stan. Ahmad reported that the dropout rate of DIL was 0.57% as compared to Pakistan’s 45%. With a mission to educate and empower underprivileged chil-dren, DIL currently has an en-
Raises over 230K at its 14th Annual Gala and Fundraiser
rollment rate of girls at 68% compared to Pakistan’s 48% and the overall primary School completion rate of DIL she said was 99% as compared to 66% in overall Pakistan. In Pakistan, the dropout rate of girls is twice as high as boys, lowering the lit-eracy rate in some areas to mere
8%. Currently, some 25million children or one out of three have not completed primary education. Even after stating such astounding achievements of DIL, Ahmad said that there was still a lot more to achieve in the coming years.
Event Chair Farida Abjani said, “I experienced nothing but generosity and kindness. And tonight as I walked in I realized I have never seen such a di-verse group of people in ethnic clothes.” She thanked the mem-bers of DIL for their support in putting the event together and made a special mention of her two very good friends and busi-ness partners Rosemin Premji and Munir Ibrahim. “Poverty, child labor, child marriages, human trafficking or everyday crimes are all question that we face every day and I honestly believe that education is the only answer,” and “Education and only education teaches you how to be human,” Abjani said.
Guest Speaker, Art Rascon, an Emmy Award winning re-porter with ABC -13, spoke passionately about the welfare of children, especially the care of educating them. Raised, in a humble home, Rascon said, if it wasn’t for his parent’s determi-nation to educate him, he would never have reached the heights in his career and that everyone deserves to be educated so that a village and subsequently a na-tion can be changed. He also said that of the many stories that he heard and wrote, the most endearing were that of children empowerment espe-cially through education. He commended DIL for its efforts in taking up such a courageous
cause for Pakistan’s underprivi-leged children.
The event was efficiently em-ceed by Janey Ali Rizvi who brought a good balance of se-riousness and light spiritedness with some entertainment by a dance performance by the Uiv-ersity of Houston Roarin’ Raas and an exquisite speed painter, Clarione Gutierrez. Later a tribute was paid to Iman Haq by Friends of Iman and it also included a gift of Scholarship to DIL’s students. A silent auc-tion was also a highlight of the event.
A sumptuous, Moghulai style dinner was catered by Mezban Restaurant.
DIL President, Neelofur R Ahmad (left) and Event Chair Farida Abjani steal a moment together at the gala.
Fort Bend County District Attorney John Healey with the guests Photos by Mitchell Alexander
Young girls arrange the diyas (oil lamps) specially used during Diwali, at the entrance of the BAPS Temple.
VOICE OF ASIA 2 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014OP-ED/COMMENTARY/ANALYSIS
Publisher: Koshy ThomasAssociate Publisher: Sherly PhilipEditor-in-Chief: Shobana MurateeAustin Correspondent: Sherine ThomasPrint & Media Marketing: Jacob DavidMarketing: Susan Pothanikat Production: AR VadlamaniOffice Manager: Priyan Mathew Columnists:Legal: Richard M. AldermanLegal: Sharlene Sharmila RichardsMedical: Kesavan Shan, MDResearch: Prof. Meenakshi BhattacharjeeHealth Insurance: Sudhir MathuriaAstrology: Hardik Vyas
VoiceofAsiaOnline.com
Editor: Online & Newsletter : Shobana Muratee
All rights reserved. No material herein or portions thereof may be published without the consent of the publisher. Voice of Asia assumes no liability resulting from action taken based on the information included herein. Pub-lished weekly by Free Press LLC, 8303 SW Freeway, Suite # 325, Houston, TX 77074. Tel: 713-774-5140. Fax: 713-774-5143. Email for editorial submissions: [email protected]; Email for advertising inquiries and submissions: [email protected]
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K. V. Doraiswamy Bhattar281-489-0464 or 281-948-8368
narayana puja, and all kind of Homas (Havans) and more. I can drive to your place.
by Dan Coats, (USA Today, October 21, 2014).
Following the 9/11 at-tacks, the American people demanded that
the intelligence community have the capability to “con-nect the dots” and prevent ter-rorist attacks. Enacting major changes that diminish the very counterterrorism tools recommended by the 9/11 Commission will make our country less safe and more vulnerable.
Unfortunately, the USA Freedom Act, sponsored by Sen. Leahy, would do exactly that — weaken our defenses. It would render our coun-terterrorism tools less agile and reliable. The remaining capability would be less re-sponsive, if not operationally useless, at exactly the wrong time.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has a better idea. In response to public skepti-
FISA Improvements Act increases privacy protections and public transparency
Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. (Photo: J. Scott Apple-white, AP)
Public supports sensible ID laws: Opposing view
Midterm elections are Nov. 4. (Photo: Eric Gay, AP)
Is it too much to ask any plaintiff challenging a voter ID law to prove irreparable harm?
by Matt Mackowiak, (USA Today, October 20, 2014).
A nationwide Rasmus-sen pollthis year found that 74% of likely vot-
ers believe all voters should be required to prove their identity before voting (19% against).
On Saturday, the strong and sensible Texas voter ID law was ordered to stay in effect for the November elections by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Texas law requirement, mod-eled after Indiana’s law (which the Supreme Court upheld), has been in effect for most of 2014. There have been very few problems, despite dooms-day predictions made by some Democrats.
Is it too much to ask any plaintiff challenging a voter ID law to prove irreparable harm?
In Texas, through this year’s statewide primaries and pri-mary runoffs, there have been almost no reports of voters who were unfairly or illegally de-nied the right to vote.
That said, here are three need-ed improvements for the Texas law: Make it easier for rural voters to obtain an acceptable photo ID; reduce long drives for counties without DMV of-fices; and address mail ballot fraud, which many experts be-lieve is rampant.
Democrats often say voter fraud is a “myth.”
To them, I ask:
Are you truly in favor of weaker voter integrity?
If a photo ID is not required to vote, how should voters prove their identity?
Does a perceived “absence” of voter fraud evidence prove there is no voter fraud?
The absence of evidence is not evidence. Voter fraud is very hard to catch and can be hard to prove.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott wrote in a 2012 USA TODAY column that his office alone secured over 50 voter fraud convictions.
A government photo ID is sufficient proof for boarding a plane, picking up a prescrip-
tion or receiving government benefits.
Voter ID has unlikely cham-pions. Civil rights pioneer Andrew Young recently sent a message to President Obama:
Put photos on Social Security cards (Bill Clinton agrees).
All Americans should want an election system of complete integrity. If Democrats don’t, they should have to explain
why they don’t — to the 74% of us who support voter ID.
Syndicated columnist Matt Mackowiak is an Austin-based Republican consultant and president of Potomac Strategy Group, LLC.
cism and privacy concerns, our panel produced the bipar-tisan FISA Improvements Act to enshrine safeguards in law for the first time, including my proposal to establish an independent inspector gen-eral at the National Security Agency.
Our bill does not end the call-records program, thus preserving an important coun-terterrorism tool. However, it prohibits access to phone data except under specific proce-dures and restrictions, and it bars the collection of content.
The bill increases privacy protections and public trans-parency. It mandates judicial review, limits data retention and restricts government ac-cess. The committee approved it, 11-4. It is the only measure with sufficient bipartisan sup-port to pass Congress.
The executive branch, Con-gress and courts agree that bulk collection of phone re-
cords is constitutional and operated with strict oversight. Despite contrary claims, the government is barred from in-discriminately listening to our phone calls. There is no evi-dence to support accusations of abuse or unlawful spying on Americans.
Currently, Americans and Europeans are joining the Islamic State, the wealthi-est and most brutal terrorist group in history. By exploit-ing the passports of Western members, ISIL-trained opera-tives can come to our shores far more easily than the 9/11 hijackers.
The government’s inter-est is the most compelling imaginable: To the best of our ability, never again allow an attack on our homeland that costs innocent lives. Cour-tesy: USA Today
Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., serves on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
VOICE OF ASIA 3 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014
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Sri Meenakshi Temple looked extraordinarily vibrant starting from the
daybreak on Saturday, October 18 with the morning Suprabhad-am to welcome Sri Venkateswara and Sri Lakshmi to the beautiful dawn. The festive look of the temple with colorful lights, huge tents and filled parking lots were all indicative of a grand celebra-tion. Deepavali (Diwali) literally means Festival of Lights with an ancient message to erase dark-ness of ignorance with the light of knowledge.
A feature of the festivities is the free community Health fair (running 19th year) and was inaugurated by dignitaries (Erin Asprec, CEO Memorial Her-mann Southeast hospital, Hon. Mayor Tom Reid and Joanne Barrett, Chief Nursing officer, Kindred Hospital). Kindred Hospital and their staff pro-vided all the blood tests. Dr. Nirmala Kethineni of Cypress Spring Family clinic provided Flu shots (either free or heav-ily subsidized price). Free tests and general medical checkup
The Grand Deepavali Bazaar 2014 at Sri Meenakshi Temple
was conducted. Dr. Ramesh Patel gave lectures on vegetar-ian diet, stress management and cardiac risk screening. Temple chairman and coordinator of the
Health Fair Dr. P. Vaduganathan thanked the Health profession-als and volunteers.
Devotees thronged all day
with families offering prayers; by noon, the temple premises had turned into a little India. The choices of delicious food items provided by the vendors,
art competitions, facial paint-ings and the carnival games and a shiny Red Fire truck kept the children excitingly engaged.
Many area merchants had their display of beautiful items for sale - ornaments, jewels, clothes, sarees, gift items, paint-
ings, handicrafts, imported art work, ayurvedic medicine, just to name a few. Information booths were set up to promote valuable services and innovative educational materials.
The variety of entertainment demonstrated the wealth of cul-
ture in the Indian community living in Greater Houston area. While the children entertained the crowd with their impressive talents, the outstanding classical dance performance by Krithika Subrahmanian and group enter-tained the audience packed in the Kalyanamandapam.
By sunset, an elaborate set up was made by the priests for the traditional Lakshmi puja; this was preceded with the Diwali parade, where MTS was joined by Namadwar and ISKCON. The dedicated priest of MTS inspired the devotees with Veda manthras and pushpa archana. The utsava murthy of Sri Lak-shmi was taken out on the ma-jestic silver chariot pulled by hundreds of devotees with thou-sands assembled all around the temple to have a darshan of this auspicious scene. The exhilarat-ing sound of Chenda Melam led the Rathotsavam.
The crowd rejoiced in the spectacular firework, which was followed by Garba with live mu-sic. The mood was just exhila-rating till the end.
We thank the volunteers and employees of MTS for organiz-ing such a flawless festival year after year for two decades. They deserve congratulations for a meticulous job well done with the support of many benevolent well-wishers and supporters. We pray to Sri Meenakshi, Sri Sun-dareswara, Sri Padmavathi and Sri Venkateswara for a year of happiness and welfare to all.
Dignitaries Erin Asprec, CEO Memorial Hermann Southeast hospital, and Joanne Barrett, Chief Nursing officer, Kindred Hospital, join Hon. Mayor Tom Reid at the ribbon cutting ceremony.
Children have a field day at the temple Diwali celebrations.
Priests seen performing the traditional Lakshmi puja in which hundreds of devotees partook.
VOICE OF ASIA 4 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014
Now you an read these articles by legal experts Online
Q. This month I received an email from my mortgage company that I had a credit balance of $324.09 in my account. I did not receive a monthly statement so was happy for the credit and withdrew it. The company now says it was a mistake. I would like to know what options I have. I don’t think it is fair to make me give the money back because it appeared legitimate and I had no way of questioning it. I guessed it was due to overpaying for several years. I don’t feel I owe them anything. What are my legal rights?
A. It may have been the mortgage company’s mistake, but you have no legal right to keep money paid by mistake. Think about it from the other side. What if you over-paid your bill by mistake? Would you expect them to return the overpayment, or would you think because it was your mistake they could keep it? As far as the law is concerned, when money is paid by mistake, the person who made the mistake has the right its return. I suggest you ask them for an accounting showing the mistake, and then repay it unless you can show you were entitled to the credit.
Q. My aunt raised me since I was born. I always considered her my mother, and even called her mom. She recently died without a will and her son says he inherits all her property. I know she would have wanted me to have half her property. What are my legal rights?
A. Unless your aunt adopted you or had a will naming you as a beneficiary, you have no legal right to share in her estate. Even though she treated you like a son, the law says that without a will her property goes to her son. .
Q. A windstorm knocked down a tree on my property and it fell on my neighbor’s yard. It knocked down a section of her fence down and did a little damage to the patio. Am I respon-sible for the the damage caused by the tree?
A. A homeowner is not liable for damage caused by a falling tree simply because he is the owner of the property. For you to have liability for a falling tree, you must have been “neg-ligent,” and contributed to the tree falling. Negligence means not taking reasonable steps to protect others from harm. For example, if a healthy tree blows down in a big storm, the owner of the tree would not have any liability. It was an act of God and the owner was not negligent. On the other hand, if the tree was known to be diseased, had some dead limbs, and blew down in a light wind because it was in a weakened condition, the owner would be responsible because he was negligent in not pruning or removing the tree. Property owners have a responsibility to neighbors to take reasonable steps to protect them against damage caused by falling trees.
Bottom line—if it was a healthy tree I don’t see how you have any liability for the fence and patio. But if you knew it was dead or diseased, you had a responsibility to prevent it from falling and could be liable for all the damage caused.
Q. I am being sued for $6,000 by a credit card company. If I lose, can they come into my apart-ment and take my furniture? What about my car? I am very worried about what will happen after the lawsuit.
A. After the lawsuit is over, the court will award a judgment against you for the amount of the debt, plus court costs and attorneys’ fee. The credit card company must then try to enforce that judgment.
Under Texas law, only “non-exempt” property may be taken to enforce the judgment. Texas has a very liberal list of “exempt” property that is protected against your creditors. For example, your wages are exempt, and for a single individual $30,000 of personal property is exempt. This includes your car and furniture. Money in a retirement account is also protected. On the other hand, the creditor may be able to garnish non-exempt money, such as funds in a checking or savings account. To see everything that can happen after you are sued, look at the debt collection section on my website below.
To learn more about your legal rights, visit my website, www.peopleslawyer.net
The People’s Lawyer
You cannot keep money paid by mistake
Richard M. AldermanInterim Dean of the Law Center
www.peopleslawyer.net
COMMUNITY
Sharlene Sharmila Richards
YOUR IMMIGRATION LAWYER Answers to your Immigration Questions by Sharlene Sharmila Richards, Immigration Lawyer:email at [email protected]
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT GREEN CARD RE-NEWAL AND REPLACEMENT
Q: My 10 year Green Card just expired. Have I lost my permanent residence? A: No you have not. Your permanent resident status will not expire just because your Green
Card has expired. I recommend that you apply to renew the Green Card as soon as possible as the law requires that you have proof of you Permanent Residence status with you (unexpired Green Card or proof of filing the application for Green Card renewal) at all times.
Q: How do I apply for renewal of my Permanent Resident Card? A: You have to complete Form I-90, Application To Replace Permanent Resident Card.
You may do this either by e-filing (online), using Form I-90 from USCIS’s website at www.uscis.gov. Alternatively you may go to that website and download Form I-90 or call USCIS Customer Service at 1-800-375-5263 to request for the form to be mailed to you. Complete and sign the I-90 and mail it to USCIS. Please follow the Form I-90 instructions for information on how to com-plete the form, the kinds of supporting documents you need to submit, the amount of fees needed and where to mail the completed form. An immigration attorney will be able to assist you if you are unsure about how to handle the application.
Q: What happens if I do not renew my Permanent Resident Card?A: If your Permanent Resident Card has expired you will most likely experience problems
with obtaining new employment or keeping your present employment. In addition to that, you will not be able to re-enter the US after your trip abroad.
Q: I have an old style Green Card issued in 1988 and it does not have any expiration date. Do I have to renew the card and if so, when do I renew my Green Card?
A: It is recommended that you apply to renew the card. You may use Form I-90. Under Part 2, Section A (for Permanent Residents), you need to select the box 2j (you have a prior edition of the Alien Registration Card).
Q: How soon should I apply to renew my 10 year Permanent Resident Card? A: I recommend that you apply for the renewal within 6 months of the Permanent Resident
Card’s expiration date. Please do not apply for the renewal too early in advance of its expiration as it may lead to the application being rejected.
Q: I already filed my Form I-90 for my Green Card renewal and have attended the biomet-rics appointment. I have to travel but I have not received my new Green Card and my present one has already expired. What can I do?
A: You will need to make an Infopass appointment with the local USCIS office. This ap-pointment can be done online at www.uscis.gov. On the day of the appointment, take you unex-pired Passport, your expired Green Card and the receipt notice for the I-90 filing. The officer will place a temporary I-551 (Green Card) stamp in your passport which will be valid for one year. This I-551 stamp is proof of your temporary resident status and you may use this stamp to return to the US after your travel abroad.
Q: I lost my Green Card. What Form do I use to request for a replacement and how much is the Filing Fee?
A: You have to use Form I-90 to apply for a replacement Green Card and enclose a copy of the card or a government issued form of identification for verification of your identity. The Form Fee is $365 and the Biometric Fee is an additional $85. The total you will need to pay is $450.
Q: I just received my Permanent Resident Card but my date of birth is incorrect. I am sure this is not my mistake but USCIS’s mistake. How do I go about requesting for this correction to be done?
A: You have to make the request using Form I-90. If the incorrect date of birth is because of USCIS’s error, then you need not pay any filing fees. You will need to send the original Green Card that bears the incorrect data as well as evidence documenting your correct date of birth.
Disclaimer: Any advice provided in this article is general in nature and not intended to constitute
legal advice for any specific case. Please consult with an immigration lawyer about the specific circumstances of your case.
Sharlene Sharmila Richards is a licensed Immigration lawyer practicing in Houston, Texas. She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. She was admitted to the New York State Bar in 2000 and is a member of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and a member of the US Supreme Court. You may contact her at telephone number 713-623-8088 or by email at [email protected] to schedule a free consultation to discuss your case.
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VOICE OF ASIA 5 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014COMMUNITYby Lakshmy Parameswaran
Daya, an organization serving South Asian survivors of domes-
tic violence and sexual as-sault was inaugurated in 1996 by the then Consul General of India, Mr. Swashpawan Singh. Since then, Daya has been fortunate to have the support of every Consul Gen-eral and his spouse who suc-ceeded Mr and Mrs. Singh in Houston.
This relationship between Daya and the office of the Consul General reached a new height on October 14 when our current Consul General Honorable Par-vathaneni Harish and his wife Nandita Harish hosted a din-ner at their home honoring Daya’s work to end violence against women and children. The couple had invited the staff, board members and ad-visory board along with their spouses for this occasion. Af-ter a short yet soulful music performance by Keerthana
From left to right: Daya Board and Staff: Chitra Divakaruni, Lakshmy Parameswaran, Vyoma Majmudar-Banker, Vatsala Bhaskaran, Abhilasha Raj, Sesh Bala & Anita Manoharan.
Consul General Hosts Dinner Honoring DAYA Efforts
Lakshmy Parameswaran, Mrs. Nandita Harish and Honorable Consul General of India Mr. Parvathaneni Harish
and Kruti Bhat and Tanmayi Krishnamurthy, the Consul
General spoke of his asso-ciation with Daya from the
time he arrived in Houston and about the importance of
Daya’s work and its impact on both women’s and men’s lives. He praised and encour-aged Daya’s dedicated staff and volunteers.
The sentiments expressed by Mr. Harish was all the more meaningful to the staff and board of Daya consider-ing October is Domestic Vio-lence Awareness Month. The speech was followed by an el-egant formal dinner that Nan-
dita Harish had thoughtfully planned for her guests. Mrs. Harish, like her predecessors, serves on Daya’s Advisory Board and has identified and referred clients to the organi-zation. Her compassion and passion for women’s causes have benefited not only Daya but also our community at-large. Houston is indeed fortunate to have this power couple among its residents for a few years at least.
Gandhi Global Family Awards Dr. Thotakura Gandhi Seva Medal
Dr. Prasad Thotakura receiving Gandhi Seva Medal
Dr. Prasad Thotakura was bestowed with Gandhi Seva Medal
form Gandhi Global Family for his efforts in creating aware-ness in international under-standing, communal harmony and friendship.
Dr. Prasad Thotakura who spearheaded to build one of the unique landmarks in USA “Ma-hatma Gandhi Memorial Plaza” in Irving (Dallas area), TX was honored at Fraser Mansion, in Washington D.C. on Saturday with “Gandhi Seva Medal” by Gandhi Global Family, a New Delhi India based, non-profit organization.
Dr. Thotakura along with his team worked relentlessly with City of Irving for more than four years to realize the long cherished dream of the com-munity in unveiling one of the most beautiful statues of Ma-
hatma Gandhi in USA on Oc-tober 2nd, 2014, on the 145th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. Mr. Satish Dhupelia, a na-tive of South Africa, the great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, attended the ceremonies as a
Chief Guest of Honor to un-veil the statue. The memorial plaza was situated in Thomas Jefferson Park in Irving, TX in 18 acres of lush lawns, lake, trees, centrally located in DFW Metroplex. A 7-foot tall, 30-
Inch wide, 1,500 lbs. bronze statue with powder coated weather resistant material was installed on a 6-foot tall ped-estal. The special attraction of this memorial is LED Lights, Engraved granite panels with Mahatma Gandhi Biography, Gandhi’s famous quotations, and quotations by the world leaders who were influenced by Mahatma Gandhi like Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, General Douglas MacArthur, President Obama etc.,
Padmashri S.P. Varma, Vice President, Gandhi Global Fam-ily while presenting the award stated Dr. Prasad Thotakura was instrumental in bringing not only thousands of Indian American communities to-gether along with this project but also involved people from all cross sections of regions,
religions, races like Indians, Asians, Africans, Hispanics and Jewish communities and made them part of various committees.
Dr. Prasad Thotakura’s more than twenty- five years of sin-cere and dedicated community service with smile was lauded by many individuals, organiza-tions including several main-stream politicians. Mahatma Gandhi Memorial of North Texas (MGMNT) Board mem-bers congratulated their leader Dr. Prasad Thotakura for re-ceiving this vey prestigious Gandhi Seva Medal award from Gandhi Global Family or-ganization.
Gandhi Seva Medal is be-ing presented to leaders who promote and propagate the philosophies and principles of Mahatma Gandhi among youth and other communities includ-
ing foreign nations. At the same event Mr. Samuel & Mrs. Rima Lal of Reach Out International; Dr. Vinod Prakash of India De-velopment and Relief Fund; Dr. Sasala Challa of Challa Foundation and Mr. Rizwan Jaka of All Dulles area Muslim Society were bestowed with Gandhi Seva Medal for their committed community service in their chosen fields to make a big difference.
Other esteemed dignitaries like US President Bill Clin-ton, His Holiness Dalai Lama, President of India Shri. K R Narayanan, Monk Ven Phrara-jabhavanavisudh, UPA Chair-person & President of Indian national Congress Smt. Sonia Gandhi, Lok Sabha Speaker Smt. Meira Kumar, YHAI President Shri. Harish Saxena were decorated with this Gan-dhi Seva Medal earlier.
VOICE OF ASIA 6 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014COMMUNITYIn an age where traditions and
morals are challenging to main-tain, His Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj invests time to build the roots of ancient rituals for generations. On the surface, Diwali is the most colorful hol-iday with fireworks, rangolis, and beautiful decorations, vari-ety of mithais, fancy flowers and lit divos. But the true essence of Diwali is an internal journey of dispelling darkness in the forms of ego, anger, jealously, greed, and envy and invoking the light to bring in positive virtues of patience, contentment, compas-sion and inner-stability. Pra-mukh Swami Maharaj is a liv-ing example of positive virtues that we can strive towards with sincere efforts. Through intro-spection at this auspicious time, we can overcome our negative virtues and bring out the light from within.
Rupal Patel left this Diwali with the hope that the coming year will bring joy and peace to her family and instill moral val-ues for her children to pass onto coming generations. Not only was she able to be a spectator of the beautiful colors of Diwali, she left with a sense of ease by applying virtues displayed by Pramukh Swami Maharaj into
BAPS Diwali Celebrations - A Learning Experience For Children
by Ravi Ozarker
HOUSTON - HMM celebrated Diwali on 18th October in Katy.
Highlights of the Diwali event included Mangaldeep Sugam Sangeet Concert by Padmaja Phenany Joglekar. Padmaja received Padma Shri Award in 2001 for her god gifted voice and singing talent. She had a special privilege of compos-ing and singing poems written by Honorable Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee. She has also tuned and sung poems written by former Prime Minister Hon’ Shri V P Singh. Her voice and personality is exceptional. She molded her God gifted golden voice with dedication and hard work and quickly grew up to become an extremely versatile singer.
The HMM Diwali event started with a beautiful Diwali welcome message by Viju Bhadkamkar and introduc-tion of all artists (i.e. Padmaja Phenany Joglekar , Guitar - Aditya Joglekar, Tabla - Nit-ish Kulkarni, Harmonium - Mandar Parkhi). All songs were undoubtedly well sung by Padmaja Phenany Joglekar. Rising stars Aditya Joglekar (Padmaja’s son who is doing his masters in Atlanta) and Nitish Kulkarni (HMM’s home grown talent, released a Hollywood album) also gave a splendid performance. The
a high esteem for their roots. Its 3,300 international centers sup-port these character-building activities. Under the guidance and leadership of His Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj, BAPS aspires to build a com-munity that is morally, ethi-cally and spiritually pure, and free of addictions.
About Pramukh Swami Ma-haraj
His Holiness Pramukh Swa-mi Maharaj, the fifth spiri-tual successor of Bhagwan Swaminarayan, has inspired millions of people across the world to lead a God-centered, morally pure life. As the pres-ent leader of BAPS, Pramukh Swami Maharaj has traveled extensively, emphasizing the importance of family har-mony, community service and spiritual progress. He embod-ies the essence of Hindu life. His compassion for humanity, universal wisdom and striking simplicity has touched many world religious and national leaders.
Houston Maharashtra Mandal celebrates Diwali and Durga Zali Gauri
250+ attendees were very happy to hear the sweet tabla and guitar. Mandar was just phenomenal on harmonium ready to play almost any tune. Mandar also sang one song very well. People enjoyed nice Marathi and Hindi songs and then enjoyed delicious food from Maharaja Bhog restaurant.
HMM President Megha Ozarker requested all HMM
members to donate for the HMM 2014 Kashmir Floods Fundraiser. In September 2014, the Jammu and Kash-mir region was hit by heavy floods caused by torrential rainfall. By September 24, 2014, nearly 284 people in India died due to the floods. HMM had started fundraising for the Flood/Disaster led by Houston’s, Mrudula Lele and supported by Houston’s Sewa International.
During the Diwali event, HMM Vastu Division Presi-dent, Samir Karandikar thanked all the Vastu Donors. HMM is planning to build a Vastu (a facility including a temple and community center) in the Houston area. The facil-ity will be a symbol for HMM children to stay connected and identify with our Indian cultural heritage. HMM has organized a fundraising event called “Durga Zali Gauri” on
November 8th at Cullen Per-formance Hall to raise funds and awareness of this initia-tive.
Durga Zaali Gauri is the sto-ry of a tempestuous adolescent Princess Gauri who runs away from the palace since she can-not get sleep on any bed in the palace. The musical has 60 participants between the age group of 6 and 25 from the Houston area who have been practicing for almost one year. This show will be staged in Cullen Performance Theatre in Houston on 8th Novem-ber 2014. HMM’s Durga Zali Gauri is directed by Sharmila Moharir and choreographed
Guests of Honor: Sachin and Supriya Pilgaonkar, well known Indian films and TV personalities
by Madhura Swadi, Rupa Aranke, Tanuja Sahasrabudhe & Uma Rajguru.
Famous movie stars/di-rectors, Sachin and Supriya Pilgaonkar will be attending this event. Sachin has acted in several Hindi and Marathi movies such as Sholay, Jewel Thief, Bramhachari. He has also directed several films such as Aamhi Saatpute. Sa-chin Pilgaonkar celebrated his 50 years as part of Indian Cinema.
For more details, contact Shirish Kulkarni (281)213-3799 or email [email protected].
her life.
About BAPS
The BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), a worldwide socio-spiritual organization is dedicated to community service,
peace and harmony. Motivated by Hindu principles, BAPS strives to care for the world by caring for societies, families
and individuals. Through social and spiritual activities, BAPS endeavors to produce better citizens of tomorrow who have
Continued from Page 1
Children sing devotional songs at the Diwali celebrations.
VOICE OF ASIA 7 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014DIASPORAIndian American doctor Subra Suresh honoured
WASHINGTON: A top Indian Ameri-can scientist who
heads the prestigious Carn-egie Mellon University, will be inducted into the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in recog-nition of his research into cell mechanics related to malaria, blood diseases and certain types of cancer.
Subra Suresh, would be one of the only 16 living Ameri-
cans to be elected to all three national academies - IOM, National Academy of Scienc-es and National Academy of Engineering.
Suresh is the first Carnegie Mellon (CMU) faculty mem-ber to hold membership in all three academies.
Before becoming president of CMU last year, he served as director of the National Science Foundation (NSF),
Dr Subra Suresh has also been elected a fellow or honorary member of all the major materials research societies in the United States and India.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA, September 22, 2014 – Xoom Corporation
(NASDAQ: XOOM), a leading digital money transfer provider, is now offering instant deposits to ICICI Bank accounts in In-dia. This revolutionary service allows Xoom customers to instantly deposit money into their recipients’ ICICI Bank accounts, 365 days a year, in-cluding bank holidays. Instant deposits to ICICI Bank are pro-cessed through Xoom’s part-nership with Punjab National Bank.
“Through our partnership with Punjab National Bank and the breakthrough IMPS technology, we are thrilled to expand our instant deposit service to ICICI Bank, one of India’s largest banks,” said Julian King, Senior Vice President of Marketing
and Business Development for Xoom. “Instant deposits are available 365 days, including bank holidays, so customers will never have to wait. Speed and convenience are what customers expect from Xoom’s service and we continue to do just that in our mission to provide instant deposit to even more banks in India.”
In addition to ICICI Bank, Xoom also offers instant de-posits to Punjab National Bank, HDFC Bank, Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Federal Bank and Yes Bank.
Xoom provides great locked-in exchange rates for money transfers to India, and there is no fee when customers send more than $1,000 and pay with their U.S.-based bank account. Plus, Xoom continues to provide fast bank deposits within four
Xoom Announces Instant Deposit Service to ICICI Bank Accounts in IndiaXoom expands instant deposit service to one of India’s leading financial institutions
hours to all other banks in India, including to NRE and NRO ac-counts, when sent during bank processing hours in India.
Customers can also download the Xoom App for Android and iOS mobile devices for free. Visit https://www.xoom.com/india for more information.
About Xoom Xoom is a leading digital
money transfer provider that enables consumers to send money to 30 countries in a secure, fast and cost-effective way, using their mobile phone, tablet or computer. During the 12 months ended June 30, 2014, Xoom’s more than 1.1 million active customers sent approxi-mately $6.3 billion to family and friends. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and can be found online at www.xoom.com
a USD 7-billion independent government science agency charged with advancing all fields of fundamental science, engineering research and edu-cation.
He has also been elected a fellow or honorary member of all the major materials re-search societies in the United States and India.
Suresh received his Bach-elor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, a mas-ter’s degree from Iowa State University and Doctor of Sci-ence degree from MIT.
Following postdoctoral re-search at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley Na-tional Laboratory, he joined the faculty of engineering at Brown University in Decem-ber 1983.
He joined MIT in 1993 as the R P Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engi-neering and served as head of MIT’s Department of Materi-als Science and Engineering during 2000-2006.
In 2011, Suresh was awarded the Padma Shri. PTI
SAN FRANCISCO, Octo-ber 16, 2014 – Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is donating $100,000 to United Way Worldwide to help with flood relief efforts in the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in northern India. Floods struck the region in September, killing at least 300 people, submerg-ing hundreds of villages, and triggering landslides. Addition-ally, to make it as convenient as possible for customers to trans-fer money to India and help friends and family, Wells Fargo is waiving ExpressSend® re-mittance fees to India through October 31, 2014.
“Flooding of this magnitude has not been seen in this area for quite some time,” said Tim Hanlon, head of Strategic Phi-lanthropy and Partnerships for Wells Fargo. “Although none of our team members were di-rectly affected, and although we have no facilities in the region, we felt the need to pro-vide assistance, given the scope of the devastation caused by this disaster.”
Now through October 31, 2014, Wells Fargo is also waiv-ing remittance transfer fees for ExpressSend®transfers sent from an eligible checking or savings account to friends and family in India. Custom-ers can send funds to their
Wells Fargo Donates $100,000 for J&K Flood Relief Efforts in India
family or friends in India at more than 5,000 locations and 16,500 ATMs at HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. Funds can be sent by calling Wells Fargo Global Remittance Services at 1-800-556-0605, going online at wellsfargo.com, or visiting a Wells Fargo banking store. The first remittance for a service agreement must be completed in person at a store. “Our hearts go out to the families and com-munities that have been devas-tated by the flooding in northern India,” said Daniel Ayala, head of Wells Fargo’s Global Re-mittance Services Group. “As these communities begin to re-cover from this tragedy, we’re honored to do what we can to make it easier for our custom-ers and team members to sup-port their family and friends in India.”
“A national calamity of this magnitude needs help from all quarters and we at Wells Fargo are committed to helping the community recover. Apart from the monetary support, we look forward to working together with our nonprofit partners to aid in the relief and reha-bilitation efforts,” said Aveek Mukherjee, managing director of Wells Fargo India Solutions. Wells Fargo team members in India, in association with the nonprofit Goonj, also conduct-
ed a weeklong donation drive for essential relief materials such as blankets, medicine, so-lar lamps, and other supplies.
The Wells Fargo India So-lutions team, an extension of Wells Fargo’s technology, op-erations, and corporate support teams, is comprised of more than 5,000 team members at centers in the cities of Hydera-bad, Bangalore and Chennai. In July of 2013, Wells Fargo made a donation of $100,000 to aid in flood relief and recovery in the states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh in northern India.
About Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company
(NYSE: WFC) is a nationwide, diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.6 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and head-quartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mort-gage, and consumer and com-mercial finance through more than 8,700 locations, 12,500 ATMs, and the internet (wells-fargo.com), and has offices in 36 countries to support cus-tomers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 265,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the
United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 29 on Fortune’s 2014 rankings of America’s largest corpora-tions. In 2013, the Company invested $275.5 million in grants to 18,500 nonprofits, and team members contributed more than 1.69 million volun-teer hours around the country. Wells Fargo’s vision is to sat-isfy all our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed fi-nancially. Wells Fargo perspec-tives are also available at Wells
Funds will go to United Way Worldwide; company also offers a transfer fee waiver for remittances sent to India through October 31, 2014
Fargo Blogs and Wells Fargo Stories. About Wells Fargo En-terprise Global Services (EGS) - India Wells Fargo Enterprise Global Services (EGS) is a critical component of the Wells Fargo’s (Wells Fargo Bank N.A.) strategy to leverage dis-tinct advantages in doing busi-ness in a global environment. Wells Fargo EGS - India (Wells Fargo India Solutions Private Limited and Wells Fargo Inter-national Services Private Lim-ited) is primarily an extension
of the technology, operations, knowledge services, and cor-porate support teams of Wells Fargo. It engages in applica-tion development and support, testing, other technology func-tions, international operations, knowledge support, middle and back-end banking process solutions for a wide spectrum of Wells Fargo’s needs. The entities currently have a 5000+ strong team across their offices in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Chennai.
New York Foundry Owner Brian Ramnarine Gets 2½ Years for Art ScamNEW YORK , (Oct. 22, 2014) -
A former New York foundry owner was sentenced to 2½ years
in prison Oct. 16 for trying to sell knockoff sculptures that he passed off as the multimillion-dollar work of Jasper Johns and other artists.
“Love it!” Brian Ramnarine said after U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl imposed a sen-tence far lighter than the eight to 10 years called for in the plea agreement with prosecutors. The judge also ordered him to forfeit $34,250 and pay an equal amount in restitution to a gallery that got cheated.
Ramnarine, 60, of Queens, interrupted his January trial by pleading guilty to fraud charg-es, admitting he cast sculptures that he falsely claimed were the work of Johns, Robert Indiana and Saint Clair Cemin.
Ramnarine, whose skills with
liquid metal made him a favorite of artists in the 1980s and early 1990s, had done work for Johns in the past, including casting a sculpture of Johns’ classic 1960 “Flag” painting. Prosecutors said Ramnarine kept the mold and used it to turn out unauthor-ized copies, forging Johns’ sig-nature on the backs.
He got caught after he put out word that he had an $11 million bronze “Flag” sculpture to sell and an art collector expressed doubts about the authenticity of the work.
Johns, 84, testified at the trial that the sculptures were fakes that lacked the finishing touches he puts on his works after they are cast.
Given a chance to speak be-fore sentencing, Ramnarine said he was sorry.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Ramnarine’s “only art was as a con artist.”
PTI adds: Ramnarine was given special permission by Koeltl to attend the Sept. 28 grand reception hosted by the Indian American community at Madison Square Garden here in honor of Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi.
The Indian leader was alleg-edly presented with a “Peace Warrior” statue that Ramnarine had cast, according to a report in the Courthouse News Service.
Ramnarine’s lawyer Troy Smith said in a New York Daily News report the prison time would cost his client a big op-portunity as he had been invited to participate in the building of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s stat-ue, touted as the world’s largest once completed.
A project close to his heart, Modi has set aside $33 million to help fund the construction of the bronze-and-iron “Statue of Unity” in Gujarat.
VOICE OF ASIA 8 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014
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FORT BEND ISD - For the fourth con-secutive year, Fort
Bend Independent School District has received the highest level of recognition from the Texas Comptroller Leadership Circle program for its excellence in online financial transparency. By logging on to FBISD’s Busi-
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“Fix your goal. When the goal is clear; the direc-tion is defined and the perspective clear, the base for the success is ready” Acharya Shri Mahapragyaji
15 years ago in Houston, JVB Preksha Medita-tion Center opened its
doors to envision the untiring efforts of Acharya Shri Tulsi & Acharya Shri Mahapragyaji to spread Preksha Meditation among masses of all religions. Today, JVB is proudly pioneer-ing in serving the entire com-munity with weekly classes, programs and special events to fulfill this dream and is grow-ing by leaps and bounds.
To celebrate JVB’s 15th An-niversary in Houston & 5th Anniversary of the current
JVB Preksha Meditation Center Holds Grand Annual Day Celebrates 15 years in Houston
center located @ 14102 Schil-ler Rd, JVB patrons once again graced the occasion by active-ly participating in the festivi-ties held on October 12th with much fervor. The day started early with Adhar Abhishek Pooja of Bhagwan Mahavir by Reverend Shri Jayesh Khona
(from California) followed by Aarti. Several devotees took the labh of this special, once a year, Pooja which lasted for over three hours.
The afternoon program start-ed under auspicious guidance of Samani Sanmati Pragyaji
& Sanmati Jayant Pragyaji with the recitation of Navkar Mahamantra. JVB’s president Nikhil Jain paid his respectful tribute to the founder of JVB H.H.Acharya Tulsi, the pres-ent Guru, Acharya Mahashra-manji and Samaniji who are the messenger of Gurudev
stationed in Houston. He, fur-ther, welcomed the commu-nity members including those who had supported JVB center by “Tan, Mun and Dhan” and have been supporting since then. The highlight of the cel-ebration was cultural program aptly crafted and prepared by
the JVB cultural team- Seema, Pooja, Mukta, Anusha, and Pradeep Jain. Young & Tal-ented kids of JVB Gyanshala ages 4-14 stormed the stage with their respective perfor-mances and won the accolades from the audience. The pre-sentations of Darshan Vihar and Charitra Vihar were full of messages on Unity as well as on removing Anger, Ego and Sadness from life. The climax of the cultural program was much awaited special Qaw-wali led by JVB Members. No effort was spared and the result spoke for itself. Spe-cial thanks to Dilip Kapasi for playing Harmonium and Ni-shad Kanhere for assisting in Tabla playing.
JVB Chairman, Shri Swa-tantra Jain’s spirited speech appreciated all volunteers and the enthusiasm with which
JVB Gyanshala kids & par-ents performed. Samani San-mati Pragyaji addressed the audience with her simple but very powerful discourse. She said that we are celebrating this year Acharya Tulsi birth centenary. He has done many humanitarian work in his life.
Acharya Tulsi has given the concept of JVB for multiple purposes. Samaniji empha-sized that JVB is a Journey, a place for exploring spirituality for Life, inspiration to develop moral conduct and equanim-ity. If one stays detached from material possessions, then he/she becomes the part of natu-ral system (law of nature) where only Prosperity, Suc-cess, Honor and Solutions pre-vail. Samanijis too recognized the precious efforts of each & every community member associated with JVB since its inception.
JVB Preksha Meditation Center envisions a blissful and peaceful society through Preksha Meditation, Yoga and Education of Non-violence. It conducts weekly Mediation, Yoga and Swadhyay sessions and runs special events and
programs like Sunday school for Children, iChoose & Med-itation Camps. Its open to all and every session or event is free of charge to its attendees.
For more information please visit www.jvbhouston.org or call them at 281.596.9642.
Fort Bend ISD Awarded Platinum Seal from State Comptroller for Financial Transparency
ness and Finance homepage, the public is able to access detailed information about the District’s budget, expen-ditures, and monthly finan-cial reports, offering them a glimpse into the District’s financial stability and stew-ardship.
Texas Comptroller Susan
Combs enhanced the Leader-ship Circle program in 2014 by introducing a “Platinum” classification that spotlights entities that go above and beyond providing financial transparency. Fort Bend ISD is among one percent of pub-lic school districts who have achieved this honor thus far in 2014. The District earned
a Gold designation from 2011-2013, the highest level attainable during that time period. “Pursuing and at-taining Platinum level dem-onstrates our commitment to financial transparency for our taxpayers,” said FBISD Chief Financial Officer Ste-ven Bassett.
The Texas Comptroller Leadership Circle program began in December 2009 and is designed to recognize lo-cal governments across Tex-as that strive to meet a high standard for online financial transparency by opening their books to the public; by providing clear, consistent pictures of spending; and by
sharing information in a us-er-friendly format that helps taxpayers understand how their tax dollars are spent.
The award emphasizes the District’s commitment to financial transparency and diligence in the fiscal man-agement of the District.
JVB Gyanshala kids stage a performance.
Abhishek Pooja of Bhagwan Mahavir being performed. Samani Sanmati Pragyaji and Sanmati Jayant Pragyaji seen here listening to the presentation.
VOICE OF ASIA 9 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014
HOUSTON, TX [October 21, 2014]- 18 Houston Community College students in the Culinary Arts Program were served one unforgettable experience at the 2014 March of Dimes Signature Chefs Gala.
The students got to work alongside 22 of the finest chefs from across Houston at the “Cirque du Cuisine” themed event, presented by Wells Far-go.
The high-profile event at Silver Street Studios catered to an important cause: to raise awareness and money to support the March of Dimes mission of helping mothers have full-term pregnancies and healthy babies.
Six students were assigned to help Chef Mark Cox of Mark’s American Cuisine in food prepa-ration and presentation of a
HCC Culinary students work with top Houston chefs
AUSTIN – A mobile station issuing Elec-tion Identification
Certificates (EICs) will be in Houston for six days in October and November. On Monday and Tuesday, Oct. 27 and 28, the sta-tion will be at the Harris County Mickey Leland Courthouse An-nex from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The courthouse annex is located at 7300 N. Shepherd Drive, Hous-ton, TX 77091.
The mobile station will be at Holman Street Baptist Church on Thursday and Friday, Oct. 30 and Oct. 31, and Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 1 and Nov. 2, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day. The church is located at 3422 Holman Street, Houston, TX 77004.
Election Identification Cer-tificates are available without charge to qualified Texas voters
Mobile Election Identification Certificate station coming to Houston
who do not already have an ap-proved form of photo ID, which is now required for voting in person.
Many Texans already have an approved form of ID and will not need or qualify for an EIC. Acceptable forms of ID in addi-tion to an EIC are:
•Texas driver license issued by the Department of Public Safety (DPS)
•Texas personal identification card issued by DPS
•Texas concealed handgun li-cense issued by DPS
•United States military identi-fication card containing the per-son’s photograph
•United States citizenship cer-tificate containing the person’s photograph
•United States passport
Applicants for an EIC will need to present proof of citizen-
ship and identity. For most applicants that means
a birth certificate and two forms of supporting documentation. A complete list of documentation requirements is available at:
EICs are issued by the DPS and are available at DPS driver license offices.
Mobile stations provide ad-ditional locations for voters to acquire an EIC. The stations are made available by a joint initia-tive with the Texas Secretary of State’s office and DPS. Only EICs will be issued from these mobile stations. A list of EIC mobile stations locations can be found at: http://votetexas.gov/election-identification-certifi-cate-mobile-stations.
Locations will be added as they are finalized.
3-course dinner served ex-clusively to top donors at the platinum tables.
“I am so glad Mark’s was included in the festivities,” said Cox, an honoree. “It’s our way of giving back to the community and raising money for a great cause.”
“We were able to gain experi-ence working behind the scenes and meet some very well known chefs in the Houston area,” said RoNee Fullylove, HCC culinary student.
The remaining student volun-teers helped chefs from restau-rants such as Peli Peli, Pico’s Mex-Mex and Nara Sushi & Korean Kitchen.
For more information on the HCC Culinary Arts program go to www.hccs.edu.
About HCC
HCC is one of the country’s largest singly-accredited, open-admission, community colleges offering associate degrees, cer-tificates, workforce training and lifelong learning opportunities for 75,000 students each se-mester. HCC is composed of six colleges and numerous satellite centers that serve the diverse communities in the Greater Houston area by preparing in-dividuals to live and work in an increasingly international and technological society. To learn more go to www.hccs.edu
HCC students participated in March of Dimes Signature Chefs Gala and were given behind the scenes hints and tips from Houston area chefs.
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an international conference in Cincinnati, Ohio to address various issues facing rural edu-cation, hygiene, and integrated development in remote parts of India, where it operates. In opening remarks, Shyamji Gupta, founder of ‘Ekal Move-ment’ set the tone by challeng-ing the gathering to undertake a new initiative for the rural masses. Inspired by the clarion call for a ‘Swachha-Bharat’ (Clean-India) by P.M. Nar-endra Modi, Ekal volunteers whole heartedly adopted this campaign to create and imple-ment a strategy to clean the Ekal Villages where 1.5 million children are being nurtured and groomed. The campaign will create awareness and develop sustainable approaches to keep the villages clean. This con-ference had brought together volunteers, field teams and phi-lanthropists from across US, India and Canada and astound-ingly raised Rs. 1 Crore for this purpose.
Spearheading the on-the-spot fundraising efforts Himanshu Shah, CEO, Shah Capital, said “poor sanitation and lack of solid waste management has had tremendous negative im-
Ekal Raises Rs. 1 Crore to Implement Clean India Campaign in Villages
pact on the health of Indians all over. It is time we address this issue”. He contributed signifi-cant amount of his own monies to the cause and matched dona-tions raised by Ekal. Welcom-ing this impromptu generosity, Vinod Jhunjhunwala, President of ‘EVF-USA’ said, “while ideas are plenty, India often los-es out on implementation. Ekal, with its reach in over 54,000 villages throughout India has wide grass-root network that can effectively implement this cleaning initiative”. Ekal uses education as a primary vehicle to bring holistic development of remote and rural villages. In addition to education, Ekal is working on health, sanitation, agriculture and development. Ajay Singh, Project Coordina-tor for EVF-USA, informed the gathering about the state-of-the-art approach adopted by ‘Ekal-India’ to administer and monitor various aspects of ‘Ekal’. He further elaborated that the teacher’s and student’s third-party assessment, auto-mated school allocation as well as their ‘google-mapping’ was already underway. The move-ment has created so much ex-citement among youth in the U. S. that several college students are going to Ekal villages to study the movement. Recently, Rohan & Anjeli Sharma, broth-
er-sister team, both less than 15 year old, spent three weeks in an Ekal Village, learning how Ekal had impacted villager’s lives. The reciprocal volun-teerism of the Ekal model has also caught the eye of the Af-ghanistan community who feel that this unique model could be beneficial to the tribal-rural villages of Afghanistan. A team from Afghanistan headed by Sunil Ishairzay, visited India, last year, with the sole inten-tion of studying and replicat-ing Ekal education model in Afghanistan.
Several innovative solutions to a range of issues includ-ing the use of technology for education and the micro-rural entrepreneurship were also dis-cussed. In several villages, so-lar energy is already being used by the villagers for life’s ba-sic necessities with help from ‘Ekal’. At the conference, Ekal also addressed the national tragedy of the floods affecting the Kashmir valley. Ekal USA has year-marked $150,000 for these flood victims. In short, Ekal Vidyalaya, the largest grass-root movement under-taken by NRIs and Indians is playing a key role in the lives of neglected masses for their self-sustenance and empower-ment
L-R: Shyamji Gupta, founder of ‘Ekal Movement with Himanshu Shah, and Ramesh Shah
HOUSTON, TEXAS: Mayor Annise Parker invited Houstonians
to participate in the Aga Khan Foundation’s Partnership Walk/Run to be held on Nov. 15 at Sam Houston Park.
“Partnership Walk is one of
the largest activities which we will do during the Citizenship Month,” said Mayor Parker, as she encouraged the Aga Khan Foundation’s efforts in helping impoverished communities cre-ate long-term solutions to lift themselves out of poverty.
Inaugurated on October 15
and on display for two weeks at the City Hall tunnel, the exhibit showcases Aga Khan Founda-tion’s projects in Africa and Asia.
“November is the time when
we highlight the fact that we are an amazingly diverse com-munity,” said Mayor Parker, “And here in Houston, we take
strength from our diversity.” Mayor Parker serves as the
Honorary Chair for the Partner-ship Walk/ Run and this year’s Walk is a public event for the Citizenship Month, which is cel-ebrated each year in November to celebrate Houston’s diversity. Dr. William Flores chairs the Honorary Host Committee for the Walk, which includes civic, community and corporate lead-ers.
Around 7,000 Houstonians
participated in last year’s Walk/ Run and the event raised $1.4 million for the Aga Khan Foun-dation’s (AKF) programs to reduce poverty. From girls in Afghanistan receiving educa-tion, to farmers in Mali feed-ing their families, to mothers in India leading healthy lives – donor contributions go a long way. 100% of the funds raised at Partnership Walk go directly to projects supported by the Foun-dation and not a cent is spent on
Mayor Annise Parker Invites Houstonians to the Aga Khan Foundation’s Partnership Walk AKF Exhibit on Display at the City Hall Tunnel
administration. While the Partnership Walk/
Run takes place only for one day a year, the AKF volunteers are involved in outreach through-out the year, raising awareness about the Foundation’s innova-tive solutions to end poverty in Asia and Africa. The dedicated team of volunteers begins pre-paring for the Walk months in advance.
“When Texans put their hearts
into something – they really mean it,” said Dr. Suleman La-lani, chairman for Aga Khan Foundation Southwest region.
The Partnership Walk features
activities for all ages celebrating a rich diversity of cultures. One of the most inspiring features of the Walk is the Village in Action, where participants can enjoy in-teractive exhibits spotlighting the Foundation’s practical solu-tions for alleviating poverty – from Afghanistan to Zanzibar.
Dr. William Flores and Dr. Suleman Lalani opening the AKF Exhibition along with guests.
VOICE OF ASIA 11 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014
Texas sets up new Ebola care facility
by MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE (Los Angeles Tmes).
DALLAS - (Oct. 21. 2014)Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday an-nounced the opening of a new Ebola healthcare facility near Dallas with staff equipped and trained to respond quickly to any new cases of the deadly virus, a move designed to re-lieve Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital from the front line of treatment.
“In the event of another diag-nosis, this facility will allow us to act quickly to limit the virus’ reach and give patients the care they need in an environment where healthcare workers are specially trained and equipped to deal with the unique require-ments of this disease,” Perry said during a briefing at the University of Texas Southwest-ern Medical Center.
The “bio containment unit” will be one of two in the state, joining a facility at the Univer-sity of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston that has handled in-fectious diseases for more than a decade, Perry said.
The new unit will be housed in a vacant Methodist Hospital building in nearby Richardson and will be staffed by Univer-sity of Texas Southwestern and Parkland Hospital, Perry said.
Speaking at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Gov. Rick Perry, surround-ed by state, local and healthcare leaders, addresses the media on Oct. 21 regarding the Ebola cases diagnosed in the state. (Brandon Wade / EPA).
Notably absent from the partnership was Texas Health Presbyterian, which treated the first Ebola patient in the U.S., Thomas Eric Duncan, then saw two of its nurses diagnosed with the virus.
Perry compared the Ebola response to a “military opera-tion,” saying it was time to give Presbyterian a break “to give them some relief.”
“That hospital has been on the front line. They have paid a very heavy price,” he said.
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, a Democrat who has been directing the local re-sponse, agreed.
“They are tired and it would be inhumane and not in their best interest or in anyone else’s to force them into this,” Jenkins said of Texas Health Presbyte-rian.
Statewide, 60 people who had come into contact with Duncan, who died from the virus, have completed a 21-monitoring period and are Ebola-free. Another 112, many of them healthcare workers, are still under monitoring. The fi-nal day of monitoring in Texas is expected to be Nov. 7.
“We all hope that the steps we are taking today will be precau-
tionary and that this team will not be called upon to treat an-other patient with Ebola,” said Dr. Daniel K. Podolsky, presi-dent of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
Doctors at Tuesday’s brief-ing stressed that the new facil-ity will not be part of a func-tioning hospital, so patients at other campuses of Methodist Hospital or University of Texas Southwestern will not be af-fected. Presbyterian’s emer-gency room has repeatedly been placed on diversion, with ambulances sent to other hos-pitals.
The doctors said staff, includ-ing a “pathogen strike team” from Parkland Hospital, will be equipped with personal protec-tive suits and equipment and trained to use them. Treatment teams will be small, they said, to minimize staff exposure. State officials said they and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have also stepped up safety proto-cols.
“The entire climate and the awareness has changed with the first Ebola patient,” said Dr. Brett Giroir, head of a state infectious disease task force, adding that the Dallas cases have “catalyzed people’s pre-paredness.”
General Assembly elects 15 members to UN Human Rights Council
A delegate casts his country’s ballot in the election of members for the Human Rights Council. UN Photo/Evan Schneider
elected 15 countries to serve on the United Nations Human Rights Council for a period of three years beginning on 1 January 2015.
In one round of secret bal-loting at UN Headquarters in New York, the Assembly elected Albania, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Ghana, Latvia, Netherlands, Nigeria, Para-guay, Portugal and Qatar.
Bolivia, Botswana, Congo, India and Indonesia, whose terms were due to expire at the end of this year, were re-elected today.
Members of the Council serve for a period of three years and are not eligible for immediate re-election af-ter serving two consecutive terms.
The distribution of seats for the current election was as
follows: 4 seats allotted to the African States Group; 4 for the Asia-Pacific Group; 2 for the Eastern European Group; 3 for the Latin American and Caribbean Group; and 2 for the Western European and Other States Group.
The Councils’ outgoing members are: Austria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chile, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Ku-wait, Peru Philippines and Romania.
Created by the Assembly in 2006, the 47-member Coun-cil, is an inter-governmental body within the UN system responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situ-ations of human rights viola-tions and make recommenda-tions on them.
All of its members are elect-ed by the world body’s Gen-eral Assembly, and it has the ability to discuss all thematic
human rights issues and situa-tions that require its attention throughout the year. It meets at the UN Office at Geneva.
Those elected today will be joining in the following States who will remain on the Coun-cil: Algeria (2016); Argentina (2015); Brazil (2015); China (2016); Côte d’Ivoire (2015); Cuba (2016); Estonia (2015); Ethiopia (2015); France (2016); Gabon (2015); Ger-many (2015); Ireland (2015); Japan (2015); Kazakhstan (2015); Kenya (2015): Mal-dives (2016): Mexico (2016): Montenegro (2015); Moroc-co (2016); Namibia (2016); Pakistan (2015); Republic of Korea (2015); Russia (2016); Saud Arabia (2016); Sierra Leone (2015); South Africa (2016); the former Yugo-slav Republic of Macedonia (2016); United Arab Emir-ates (2015); United Kingdom (2016); United States (2015); Venezuela (2015); and Viet Nam (2016). SOURCE: UN News Center.
Earl voting is in full swing. Now until Oc-tober 31st, get out and
vote at one of the early vot-ing locations that are located through out Fort Bend County. In this 2014 General Elec-tion, the choice for District Attorney is clear. With over 32 years as a public servant n Fort Bend County, and five strong terms as our District Attorney – John Healey is the consistent choice of voters, for many reasons including: A STRONG BACKGROUND IN CRIMINAL PROSECU-TION – As an assistant district attorney in our county, John Healey tried over fifty felony cases without having a single reversal on appeal. After be-coming appointed to perform the duties of District Attorney in 1992, he gained experience in office management, learning every aspect of the jobs in the district attorney’s office. He worked among the assistant district attorneys, their secre-taries, investigators and victim assistance coordinators. He dedicated his time as a public servant to Fort Bend County, and did so successfully.
ADMINISTRATIVE EXPE-RIENCE – Since 1992, John Healey has managed the larg-est law office solely contained in Fort Bend County, and nur-tured its growth into one of the largest district attorney’ s offices in the State of Texas. During his term in office, his team of prosecutors has grown from 16 assistant district at-torneys to an office of 50 as-sistant district attorneys. Each year, over 10,000 serious cases are filed and prosecuted in the adult and juvenile systems of the D.A.’s office. Hiring, train-ing and retention of outstand-ing personnel to deal with this caseloadis one of Healey’s
EARLY VOTING Vote Healey - The choice for DA
chief responsibilities, and one that he has effectively handled for 21 years.
CONSERVING THE TAX-PAYERS’ DOLLARS – John Healey has worked 21 times at developing annual budgets which were approved by Com-missioner’s Court and audited on a regular basis by the Fort Bend County Auditor. Healey and his administrative coor-dinator have monitored the spending of this money care-fully, because he knows that this money is not his; it belongs to the citizens of Fort Bend County.
A RECORD OF SUCCESS IN PROSECUTING CRIMI-NALS – The Fort Bend Coun-ty District Attorney’s office is successful at their courtroom work. In the most serious of cases, those classified as felo-nies, Healeys prosecutors have been consistently higher in their trial conviction rates than the Texas state average. In Fort
Bend County c o u r t s which regularly hear criminal matters, Healey’s prosecutors, the judges, and the defense bar have worked well together in disposing of the large number of cases filed.
AN OPEN DOOR POLICY – For 22 years, John Healey has always been accessible to the citizens of Fort Bend County. His open-door policy applies equally to all – vot-ers, police, Judges, elected officials, news media, defense attorneys and crime vic-tims. John Healey has been an outstanding public servant, and his career illustrates the priorities of a worker who places the needs of the public over the needs of his campaign or political career. Now is the time to join with our campaign and re-elect John Healey to continue working for Fort Bend County! For more information or for a direct link to early vot-ing locations visit www.john-healeyfbda.com. Vote Healey!
John Healey
VOICE OF ASIA 13 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014
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Halloween comes but once a year. So make it extra spooky with
ghosts, goblins and ghouls ga-lore -- and don’t forget all the great treats. While all this fall fun does come at a price, you don’t have to spend a pirate’s booty if you plan carefully.
For more treats than tricks this year, make a budget and stick to it. The shopping experts at Dollar General are sharing great ways to celebrate Halloween afford-ably.
Clean UpBefore the trick-or-treaters
are at your door, spruce up your house with a few house-hold cleaning supplies. Stock up on paper towels to use for clean-up after pumpkin carving, or pick up a new broom for all those fall leaves that are bound to make their way into your house. These fall months lead right into the holiday party season, so
Tricks and Treats to Stay on Budget this Halloween
Halloween trails only behind Christmas when it comes to
spending on decorations. Americans spent an estimat-ed $6.9 billion on Halloween in 2013, according to the Na-tional Retail Federation.
You can make more of your Halloween spending with a few spooky tips. Larry Kirch-ner, operator of the world’s number-one rated haunted house, “The Darkness” in St. Louis, Missouri and owner of Hauntworld.com -- a re-source for building haunts, and a national directory of haunted houses, corn mazes, hayrides, and pumpkin patches -- offers advice from his 25 years of ex-perience building professional Halloween attractions.
Spooky Façade
Give your home’s façade the abandoned, dusty look by spin-ning cobwebs and creepifying doors and windows. Hang aged and shredded curtains and add lights to each window. Change outdoor lights with flicker bulbs. Add spooky
sounds for atmosphere. Lastly, you can purchase affordable computer graphic effects from HauntedHouseSupplies.com and with a TV pressed into your window, add anything from ghosts to werewolves to
ghouls to your haunt.
Cemetery
Let the leaves collect for a few weeks in your yard. Add a gothic fence and a few
zombies popping up through the ground. Add jute ma-terial or aged cheesecloth to your fence. Adding dead bodies under trees or creepy birds helps set the scene.
Make gravestones by using a hot knife to carve foam into shapes, and even add an epitaph. To give the tombstone a real stone look, coat in plas-ter or lightweight concrete. Two simple doll rods driven into the ground can hold the tombstone in place. For a coffin, nail together 1x6 and 2x2 pine boards. For the extra effect, add mulch in front of the tombstones or use paving bricks in the shape of a grave filled with mulch.
Spooky Maze
Empty the garage and set up walls to create two to three scary scenes. If your garage isn’t big enough, start the at-traction inside and have it exit into the backyard graveyard. Start by sketching a design. You can build simple walls from plywood or drywall. For the old rotting look, cut odd shapes into the walls and screw in thin slats of wood behind the cut out holes. For best results, cake on plaster between the slats, then use raised wallpaper for the rest.
Five Tips for Haunting Your House this HalloweenPaint the entire wall one color and add some watered down black paint for an aged look.
Eerie Effects
Spooky sounds, special ef-fects and lighting make all the difference. Play a spooky soundtrack from a movie or find music online. Buy a couple of cheap skeleton speakers, available online for as low as $10. For home haunters on a budget, air can-nons or any loud noise are great for scares. Create special effects with fog machines and air compressors. Finally, dress up in your spookiest costume and make your guests scream for candy!
To prepare for next year, stock up on deeply discounted props the day after Halloween. For more inspiration on Hal-loween or haunted houses, visit www.Hauntworld.com.
This year, go beyond the basics and give your neighbor-hood a real scare! SOURCE: StatePoint
make sure you have all the tools you need to be party ready for your guests!
DecorationsGive your home a fresh fall
update. Evoke the harvest season in the entryway with an autumn wreath. Buy one or DIY the project with sup-plies like glue guns, ribbons, faux leaves and flowers. Use seasonal placemats, runners and pumpkin pie scented candles to accent your home with fall flair.
Stock up on spooky sup-plies, too. Skeletons, cob-webs, ghosts and other fes-tive supplies will make your home a favorite in the neigh-borhood.
TreatsWhether you’re hosting
a Halloween bash or just preparing for a crowd of trick-or-treaters, think fru-gally when stocking up on
treats. Buy candy, chocolates and treats at a discount store such as Dollar General. If you’re ordering online, con-sider buying in bulk to save further, as many retailers offer free shipping on large purchases.
Make Halloween party snacks for less by buying peanuts, pumpkin seeds and candy corn, and creating your own seasonal trail mix. For dessert, bake a cake and decorate it creatively with gummy worms and colored icing to scare your guests!
For crowd-pleasing ideas and more Halloween tips, visit www.DollarGeneral.com or visit their Pinterest page.
With more holidays on the horizon, be sure to stay within your budget this Halloween season. Take steps to cel-ebrate affordably. SOURCE: StatePoint
A spooky hallway. Photo Source: Hauntworld
Children with Halloween tricks and treats. Photo Source: (c) Gennadiy Poznyakov - Fotolia.com
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LOS ANGELES, (AFP) - Harry Potter author JK Rowling is work-
ing on three new wizard-based movies to be released starting in 2016, studio giant Warner Bros announced Wednesday.
The first, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” will be directed by David Yates, who directed the last four “Harry Potter” movies, and reunite the same filmmaking team.
It is described as “set in an extension of her familiar wiz-arding world, featuring magi-cal creatures and characters inspired by Harry Potter’s Hog-warts textbook and its fictitious author.”
A second movie is set for release in 2018 and a third in 2012, the studio said. The first movie was announced last month.
Rowling, who has sold more than 450 million copies of the Harry Potter books, announced in September that Warner Bros had approached her about doing “Fantastic Beasts.”
“I thought it was a fun idea, but the idea of seeing Newt Scaramander, the supposed author of ‘Fantastic Beasts,’ realized by another writer was difficult.
“Having lived for so long in my fictional universe, I feel very protective of it,” she said, explaining her decision to write the screenplay.
Warner Bros did not announce who will direct or star in any of
British Author JK Rowling poses for photographers as she arrives to attend the World Premiere of the film ‘Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part One’ in Leicester Square, central London on November 11, 2010 (AFP Photo/Ben Stansall)
Three new JK Rowling wizard movies due from 2016
the three new scheduled films.
Rowling’s Harry Potter books -- which were published from 1997 to 2007 and tell the story of the young wizard and his friends at the Hogwarts school of magic -- spawned a string of hit films
and the Pottermore website.
The movies made global celebrities of its actors, princi-pally Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger and Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley.
MUMBAI: A cancer patient from Mum-bai, Megha Patil,
has emerged victorious on the Amitabh Bachchan hosted real-ity game show ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati 8’ by winning Rs 1 crore.
Patil recently recovered from breast cancer but now she has been diagnosed with liver can-cer. She says the prize money will be a big help for her medical treatment and her kids’ studies.
“I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006 and since then 35 lakhs have been spent on my treatment and now with liver cancer, we don’t know how much more will be needed. This win is like world bank for me, God has been kind. My daughter wants to be an architect and son is trying for MBA, so we will be using the money for their fees,” she told PTI in an interview.
Patil credits her family for
supporting and encouraging her to live a normal life despite her illness.
“My husband made cancer look so small. He never used to show that he was tensed. He just told me to be happy and concentrate on our kids and slowly I got tuned with that and eventually the illness appeared nothing to me. I am living for my kids and their smile give me life,” she said.
Patil says her win on the show is yet to sink in.
“I never thought I would win such a big amount. I went with an open mind and prayed to God to bless me with whatever he wants. I have always been like this, even when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, my husband and I took it lightly so that we keep our sanity intact. My strong will power and optimism has brought me this far,” Patil said.
A mother of two, Patil, has always been a follower of the game show but it was her son who prompted her to partici-pate.
“I am glad I agreed to my son as this win means so much for me. Two years back, my son saw me giving correct answers for the questions that was being asked to the contestants and he asked me to prepare for it,” she said.
Patil says she is loving the at-tention her winning stint on the show has brought.
“Many men in my locality are telling their wives to be like me, it feels so good. My female friends say that I inspire them. I am loving the VIP attention but it has not gone to my head,” she said.
The episode in which Patil won, will be aired on October 20 on Sony channel.
Mumbai cancer patient be-comes crorepati on ‘KBC 8’
by Ammu KANNAMPILLY
KATHMANDU, (AFP) - A snowstorm that killed dozens of peo-
ple in Nepal is a “wake-up call” for the trekking industry and tourists alike, experts say, with some heading to the world’s highest mountains unprepared for conditions that can easily turn deadly.
Forty people are dead or still missing after heavy snow and avalanches struck the An-napurna circuit in the Himala-yas last Tuesday in one of the worst trekking disasters ever to hit the country.
The victims include at least 26 hikers, guides and porters who had headed to the popular trail at the height of the trekking season.
Hundreds more have had to be airlifted to safety, some suf-fering from frostbite after days in freezing conditions without adequate clothing or shelter.
But unlike a deadly avalanche that hit Mount Everest earlier this year, experts say the lat-est disaster could have been alleviated had warnings of bad weather in the area been heeded.
“This is a wake-up call for us. We need a weather warning sys-tem and emergency shelters for stranded hikers,” Nepal Tour-ism Board spokesman Sharad Pradhan told AFP as emergency workers continued to pull bod-ies out of the snow, almost a week after the storm hit.
“It’s also a reminder for thou-sands of trekkers who think they can go up 4,000-5,000 metres alone that they need to take responsibility for their safety,” he added.
“If they had gone with reg-istered guides, the casualties would have been much lower.”
Every year thousands of tour-ists hike the Annapurna circuit, known as the “apple pie” trek because of the food served at the lodges known as teahouses that line the route.
Most of the route follows clearly marked paths at rela-tively low altitudes, making it suitable for inexperienced trekkers.
But the Thorong La pass, near where many of the victims were killed, climbs to 5,416 metres (17,770 feet), exposing trekkers to the risk of altitude sickness as well as avalanches.
MOUNTAINEERING
Nepal disaster a ‘wake-up call’ for trekkers and agencies
“It’s not an ordinary trek if you go up to the Thorong La pass -- it’s almost mountaineer-ing,” said Kunda Dixit, editor of the Nepali Times and an author-ity on the Himalayas.
Paul Sherridan, a British survivor who has described how his group made their way to safety in near-zero visibility, claimed trekkers were “herded to their deaths” by Nepalese guides who lacked the expertise to deal with the conditions.
“My view is that this incident could have been prevented,” the 49-year-old policeman told the BBC.
- Warning systems -
Nepal’s prime minister has promised to set up weather warning systems in remote mountain areas, particularly those popular with tourists.
But experts say much more needs to be done to raise aware-ness of the dangers of trekking at altitude in a country where many tourists head into the mountains with little preparation.
Anna Solander, a 21-year-old Swede among the many young people who flock to Nepal for
holidays, had planned to hike across the Annapurna region later this month -- but said she was now debating whether to go ahead.
“I didn’t even know that trek-king was, like, dangerous -- I thought it was only dangerous if you go for Everest or some-thing,” she said.
About 30 percent of the around 200,000 hikers who trek in Ne-pal every year do so without a registered guide, according to Pradhan, who said trekkers needed to shoulder some respon-sibility for their own safety.
Some survivors have said they were unaware the storm was coming when they set out on their trek -- even though it had been forecast by meteo-rologists.
But much of the blame for the scale of the disaster has fallen on trekking agencies, who crit-ics say should have been better prepared.
Tashi Sherpa, a trekking agency head who postponed his clients’ trip after seeing the weather forecast, said lives could have been saved had the proper precautions been taken.
NEW YORK, October 17, 2014 (AFP) - She was born while Europe was fighting World War I, but age is just a number to one New York math teacher, still going strong and celebrating her 100th birthday.
Madeline Scotto, who turned 100 on Thursday, works almost every day as a math coach at the Catholic school in Brooklyn where she was in the graduating class of 1928.
She was off Friday celebrat-ing her birthday, but would be back at work on Monday morn-ing, said a representative at St Ephrem School.
The sprightly Scotto, looking elegant in a lavender sweater and necklace, told the DNAinfo website she couldn’t believe how the years had raced by.
“I think it just happens, you know,” she said.
“Last year I thought, ‘this can’t be, that I’m going to be 100.’ I sat down and did the math actually!”
St Ephrem’s congratulated
Scotto on its Facebook page.
“Many students through the generations have been influ-enced by this amazing woman,” it wrote.
Her pupils span generations in the same family.
“She taught my mom, broth-ers and me. Spanning nearly 75 years. Amazing women. She rocked! I remember her teach-ing fractions in 3rd grade,” said James Stawniczy on Facebook.
Lisa Marrapodi Cistulli said her whole family had been taught by Scotto.
“She was so helpful and kind to my parents who were Italian immigrants. Happy 100th Mrs SCOTTO!!!” she wrote.
Former pupil Tina Fevola Nash said Scotto taught her children.
“I had Mrs Scotto in the 3rd grade and I love math to this day because of her. So glad my kids were able to learn from her since she preps them for math bee for the last seven years,” she said.
New York teacher still do-ing the math at 100
VOICE OF ASIA 15 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014CULTURE
NEW DELHI, October 1, 2014 (AFP) - With traditional theatre
and the burning of giant effi-gies, millions of Hindus across northern India are celebrating a religious festival that symbol-ises the triumph of good over evil.
Outside the walls of the Indian capital’s imposing Red Fort, plays are performed nightly that re-enact revered Hindu deity Ram’s battle to kill the demon king Ravana.
In the nine days leading up to the Dussehra festival, which falls this year on October 3, hundreds
India celebrates good over evil at popular Hindu festival - Diwali in 2014
Indian artists dressed as Hindu deities Laxman, left, Rama, center, and Sita, sit in a tableau during a Dussehra festival procession in Allahabad, India, Monday, Sept. 29, 2014. The procession is held to celebrate the Hindu festival that marks the victory of good over evil. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh).
pan and fry the cashews, break them to small pieces and keep aside.
2. In another nonstick pan boil the condensed milk,rose syrup and immediately add the dessicated coconut.
3. Cook till the mixture comes from sides of pan,then add cardamom powder along
Coconut BallsDIWALI RECIPIES
with broken cashews and mix well and remove from heat.
4. When medium warm roll to medium sized balls and roll over dessicated coconut.
5. Serve or store them in air-tight box. I refrigerated remain-ing in airtight box.
http://funwidfud.blogspot.com/
by Samantha Payne
Diwali is the biggest and most famous of the Hindu festivals.
The word Diwali means ‘rows of lighted lamps’, and Diwali is known as the ‘festival of lights’ because houses, shops and public places are deco-rated with small earthenware oil lamps called diyas. Diwali is celebrated in India, Malay-sia, Singapore, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nepal, and by Hindu communities all over the world, including Britain.
In Britain, as in India, the festival is a time for:
- spring-cleaning the home- wearing new clothes- exchanging gifts (often
sweets and dried fruits) and preparing festive meals
- decorating buildings with fancy lights
- huge firework displaysThere are several events are
associated with Diwali:Lord Rama came back to
Ayodhaya after 14 years of vanvas (exile)
In Dwapara Yuga (the third of four ages in Hindu scrip-tures) Lord Krishna’s wife Satyabhama killed Asura Narakasura
The Pandavas returned home after 12 years of exile
Lord Mahavira attained Nir-vana on this day
The most important event associated with Diwali is the sixth Guru of Sikhs, Shri Guru Hargobind Singh Ji, be-ing freed from imprisonment under Emperor Jahangir Cel-ebrating five days of Diwali
Diwali is celebrated over five days of prayer, song and worship.
First Day: DhanterasFor many Hindus this five-
day festival honours Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth.
Dhanteras is the day for worshipping Lakshmi. Hindus pray for protection from un-timely death and offer a light-ed diya and prasad (sweets) to Lakshmi. All houses and buildings are renovated and decorated and entrances are made colourful with motifs of rangoli designs and flow-ers. Hindus buy gold or silver articles and sing devotional songs in praise of Lakshmi. At sunset all Hindus bathe and in the evening “Lakshmi-Puja” is performed and tiny diyas of clay are lit to drive away the shadows of evil spirits.
Second Day: Choti DiwaliOn Choti Diwali, Hindus
bathe then massage their bod-ies with oils to relieve tired-ness and rest so the remainder of Diwali can be celebrated with vigour and devotion. Songs are sung but fewer lights are lit.
Third Day: Lakshmi Puju on Diwali
Lakshmi Puja on Diwali is the main celebration of Diwali and is celebrated at the full moon on the 15th day of the month. On this day Lakshmi and the broom are worshipped, the latter because it has helped to keep the house clean. Drums and bells are played in the temples, lamps are lit and firecrackers are burst. People join with family and a priest to worship goddess Lakshmi to receive blessings of wealth and prosperity, and celebrate the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness.
Diwali : The Hindu Festival of Lights Explained
Fourth Day: Padwa and Govardhan Puju
On Padwa and Govardhan Puju the main focus is Govard-han Mountain, a mountain is said to have saved its inhabit-ants from incessant rains. This symbolises the importance of nature in a Hindu’s life. Dif-ferent types of food are cooked and newly wedded couples are invited for special meals and receive gifts.
Fifth Day: Bhai Duj
Bhai Duj is the fifth and last day of Diwali and its main focus is brothers. According to religious scriptures, Yama-raj (God of death) visited his sister’s house. His sister Yami welcomed him by putting an auspicious mark on his fore-head for his welfare. He was so pleased with his sister’s recep-tion that he proclaimed that on this day every year, if a sister puts a tilak on her brother’s forehead, no one can harm him. SOURCE: Reuters
are flocking to catch one of the plays or Ramlila that are based on the epic Ramayana text.
Arjun Kumar, head of a com-mittee that hosts the Ramlila at the 17th-century fort, said the plays were a chance to teach moral lessons of the Hindu faith including to the country’s younger generations.
“We are serving the culture which has been given by our elders, to our young genera-tions,” Kumar told AFP of the performances, which take place alongside food stalls and rides in a carnival-like atmosphere.
Lead actor Sunny Kumar said
Lord Ram was like “an ideal son and an ideal brother with nobody like him”.
“After playing his part, I rea-lise that I can’t really be like him, I can only try to take on some of his values,” he said.
On Friday, towering effigies of Ravana, along with smaller ones of his brother Kumbh Karan and son Meghnath will be set alight to celebrate the success of good over evil.
The effigies, some 15 to 18-metres (50-60 feet) high, will blaze at the Red Fort and in neighbourhoods throughout Del-hi and other cities and cities.
Make saving for retirement a priority throughout your career.
Most Americans are taking a careful and deliberate ap-
proach when it comes to their retirement plans, according to the recent Measuring Opti-mism, Outlook and Direction (M.O.O.D.) of America Survey conducted by Lincoln Finan-cial Group. Among those who feel prepared, 77 percent be-lieve they have saved enough to cover retirement expenses and 64 percent expect to be debt free during retirement.
“While there are basic tips that apply to everyone, taking a holistic view of saving for retirement at the different stages of your career can help you take a more thoughtful approach to achieving retirement readiness,” said Chuck Cornelio, President of Retirement Plan Services, Lincoln Financial Group.
Cornelio offers tips for savers at every career checkpoint:
First Job
Create a monthly budget to prioritize your expenses as you begin your career. Include a line for retirement savings to help you get in the habit of contributing regularly and managing your new paycheck accordingly. As soon as it’s available to you, enroll in your employer-sponsored retire-ment savings plan. At this stage you’ll want to save at least up to the company match so you don’t leave money on the table.
Changing or In Between Jobs
Throughout your career, you
Saving for Retirement Through Different Stages of Your Career
may find yourself in between jobs or ready to pursue a new one. To help you better prepare for life’s unexpected events, it’s important to have emergency savings to cover at least a few months’ expenses.
When looking for your next career move, consider the em-ployer’s retirement benefits as part of your overall compensa-tion package. Learn about the company match, investment options and resources to help you stay on track with retire-ment savings.
Mid-Career
At this point in your career, you likely have competing savings priorities including mortgage and car payments,
education expenses and more. At this stage you may be tempt-ed to stop saving altogether or borrow from your plan. Resist the temptation. Keep up your momentum and continue to save as much as possible from every paycheck. Meet with a financial professional to help look at your entire savings pic-ture and assess the best ways to maintain the momentum you’ve achieved so far.
Career Advancement
As you make more, save more. Increase your contribu-tions and save extras from a bonus or any other unexpected income boost. If you’ve maxed out your contributions in your employer-sponsored plan, talk to a professional about invest-
ment and savings options that make sense at this point in your career.
Near Retirement
Take advantage of income guarantee options that may be available in your plan. It’s also important to understand social security benefits in addition to the other income sources you’ve secured along your savings journey.
For more information visit www.LincolnFinancial.com
When you take act ions throughout your career, you can boost your retirement readi-ness and feel better prepared for the road ahead. SOURCE: StatePoint
The Princeton University professor accused of stealing 21 lawn signs belonging to a computer repair business will tutor students in exchange for the charges being dismissed.
John Mulvey must perform 120 hours of community ser-vice by teaching students in the Trenton area about finance and computer science, or prosecu-tors can reopen the case.
Owner Ted Horodynsky vid-eotaped Mulvey driving off with the signs that he placed on clients’ lawns in July. Mulvey, a professor of operations re-search and financial engineer-ing, said he was just picking up debris.
Mulvey’s attorney, Kim Otis, tells The Times of Trenton ( http://bit.ly/1CPqbKe ) her cli-ent is happy to do community service and have the charges dismissed.
Horodynsky says Mulvey has been humiliated enough.
By Rob Polansky
NEW HAVEN, CT (WFSB) Oct 16, 2014 - The test re-
sults for the Yale research student admitted to Yale-New Haven Hospital with Ebola-like symptoms late Wednesday night came back negative, of-ficials said.
Up until getting the symp-toms, the patient was in his New Haven apartment monitoring himself with the help of a doc-tor since returning from Libera over the weekend.
Eyewitness News has learned that the patient, who was one of the Yale University student researchers who returned from Liberia over the weekend after helping with the Ebola outbreak in the country last month. Hos-pital officials said the patient did come into contact with someone who was eventu-ally diagnosed with Ebola in Africa.
A specimen was taken from the patient and transported to a Lab in Massachusetts on Thurs-day morning. The results from that test came back negative, hospital officials said, however they are continuing to take pre-cautions.
“Due to an overabundance of caution, before we fully rule it out, we will wait for the CDC official confirmation of the test result. In the meantime we will continue to monitor the patient using all appropriate protocols and precautions in order to ensure the safety of our staff, patients and community,” Yale-New Haven Hospital said in a statement on Thursday evening.
Eyewitnesses sent in video of emergency officials in pro-tective gear as the patient was arrived by ambulance.
New Haven emergency offi-cials said they helped transport the patient Wednesday night.
“We then went and retrieved the patient from his home and brought him to hospital and went through all the decon-taminating process,” News Haven Emergency Director Rick Fontana.
Fontana said the city emer-gency officials were ready to handle this incident.
“All of our workers were in fully protected at the level the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) re-quires and recommends and we actually went one step above that,” Fontana said. The man was treated while in isolation in a special room where the air cannot circulate into the rest of the hospital.
“A negative pressure room is something we use commonly for infections like TB, measles, chicken pox, we have a lot of these rooms in our institution,” Dr. Thomas J. Balcezak said.
The hospital said the room is designed so the air inside doesn’t mix with the air in the rest of the hospital.
“It essentially keeps all that air in the room and away from anywhere else,” Balcezak said.
In addition to the two doctors, two nurses are working with the patient. One is doing the treatment with protective gear. The other nurse helps make sure the treating nurse is fully protected
“We have two attending phy-sicians that are caring for this patient around the clock these individuals are critical care trained,” Louise Dembry, who is the Associate Director of Hospital Epidemiology.
The students made the deci-sion to stay away from people anyway.
“our understanding is they did have contact with one per-son who eventually developed Ebola but he didn’t have it and wasn’t symptomatic when they had contact,” Director of Yale School Medicine Robert Alpern said at Thursday’s press conference.
City health officials say the researcher’s apartment is now vacant and locked while the hospital awaits test results. Yale-New Haven Hospital of-ficials said it’s also making sure the patient’s belongings do not come into contact with others.
Yale officials said the stu-dents are knowledgeable about public health and they carefully followed recommended travel and hygiene precautions during their stay.
Some students at Yale Uni-versity told Eyewitness News they think more can be done to inform others about the disease.
“I feel that I’m well informed about what I should be doing. I think that the country as a whole is taking an honest look right now about whether or not we are doing enough as a country to make sure everyone under-stands the proper precaution,” student Melissa Woolls said.
Eyewitness News tried getting information about that second student who has returned, but Yale officials wouldn’t re-lease any more information. SOURCE: WFSB.
Yale research student tested negative for Ebola
Dr. Thomas Balcezak, chief medical officer at Yale-New Haven Hospital, provides an update. (WFSB photo)
by Howard Pousner
Atlanta author Deborah Wiles is a National Book Awards finalist
in the Young People’s Literature category for “Revolution: The Sixties Trilogy, Book Two.” Winners will be announced at a New York ceremony on Nov. 19.
Wiles is the author of two picture books and six young adult novels, including “Each
Atlanta author Deborah Wiles grew up in Mississippi.
Atlantan Deborah Wiles is National Book Awards finalist for Young People’s lit
in by the limits of Jim Crow laws.
The other Young People’s Literature nominees are: El-iot Schrefer’s “Threatened” (Scholastic Press); Steve Shei-nkin’s “The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights” (Roar-ing Brook Press/Macmillan Publishers); John Corey Wha-ley’s “Noggin” (Atheneum Books for Young Readers/Si-mon & Schuster); and Jacque-line Woodson, Brown’s “Girl Dreaming” (Nancy Paulsen Books/Penguin Group).
Little Bird That Sings,” a 2005 National Book Award finalist.
A fictional account of the Freedom Summer of 1964 in Greenwood, Miss., “Revolu-tion” (Scholastic Press, $19.99) is told from the dual perspec-tives of Sunny, a white girl worried about “invaders” to her town while feeling invaded by her new stepmom and steps-iblings; and Raymond, an Af-rican-American boy hemmed
Princeton Prof Accused of Theft to Tutor Students
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
We would like you to participate!
Voice of Asia is dedicating each issue in October for Breast Cancer Awareness. Send in your tributes to loved ones you lost to Cancer, share your personal stories of challenges and success, stories of how you or your loved one conquered cancer.
Send us 250 - 500 words, photos, your contact details.
VOICE OF ASIA 17 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014BOLLYWOOD MASALA Friday, October 24, 2014 Section 2 Page 17 Email: [email protected] Tel: 713-774-5140
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Ranbir Kapoor-Katrina Kaif to get married in February 2015?
Buzz is that the love birds have decided to take the pheras early
next yearThat Ranbir Kapoor and Ka-
trina Kaif have been dating for a long time is known to all. In fact, a few days a ago we even broke the news that the two lovebirds have indeed moved-in together. With two living under the same roof, marriage was
Bollywood actress and former beauty queen Dia Mirza is just a few
days from her wedding and she has been posting updating her fans about the beautiful mo-ments from her wedding rituals on Twitter. After posting the news about her mehendi cer-emony, she, last night, took to the microblogging site to share her ‘happiness’ and gratitude with us.
The image has a gorgeous looking Dia Mir-za with her fian-ce Sahil Sangha posing for the photogs ahead of the mehendi ceremony. Dia wore a golden yellow ankle length anarkali suit embroidered with gold by Ritu Kumar, while
Dia Mirza to marry beau Sahil Sangha next year
Shah Rukh Khan: Comparison with Narendra Modi a compliment
“He (Modi) is the leader of the country. We expect him to take the country forward, while people expect me to entertain the country. Therefore, my being compared with Modi is a bit strange,” said Shah Rukh Khan.
INDORE - Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan said that he takes being
compared to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a com-pliment, though he finds it strange because their profes-sions are different.
“He (Modi) is the leader of the country. We expect him to take the country forward, while people expect me to entertain the country. There-fore, my being compared with Modi is a bit strange, but I take it as a compliment,” Shah Rukh Khan, who arrived here to promote his forthcoming
by Shubhra Gupta |
Sonali Cable Review: The leading lady tries for perkiness but
comes off as a weak link, her foul-mouthedness more forced than natural. Kher is over-the-top. Fazal is a good addition to the team. Star Cast: Rhea Chakraborty, Ali Fazal, Raghav Juyal, Anupam Kher, Smita Jaykar, Swanand Kirkire.
Director: Charudutt Acharya.11/2 STARSThe evil corporate’s job is to
gobble, grunch and munch. The feisty underdog’s is to stand up and be counted, and refuse to be-come easy meal. ‘Sonali Cable’
Sonali Cable movie review: It could have been a modern day fable
Bollywood actors Katrina Kaif and Ranbir Kapoorcertainly on the cards because neither Ms Kaif nor the Rockstar actor is just fooling around, hai na? And looks like the couple has decided to take the plunge. Apparently, there is a lot of buzz in the Kapoor khandaan about Ranbir and Katrina get-ting married. What’s even more interesting is that the duo might just take the plunge in February next year which is hardly four months from now.
Last year, the Jagga Jasoos co-stars were to get engaged but we hear Ranbir panicked at the last moment and nothing happened. Well, lets hope this time things do fall into place because RK and the Bang Bang actress have been in a relationship forever and wethinks its time they took it one step further. What do you think Bollywoodlifers – should Ranbir and Katrina get married next year?
Dia Mirza wedding celebrations kick off, shares mehendi pic with fans
Sahil accompanied her with a maroon red kurta. The couple looked much in love. The im-age also shows the exquisite decorations done at Dia’s resi-dence, where the ceremonies were taking place.
The wedding rituals span over a few days consisting of mehendi, that happened yester-day; sangeet, that’s expected to take place today; wedding on October 18 and a post wedding dinner thereafter. Dia Mirza
has a nice premise, especially relevant in this age of the perma-nently wired universe, soulless corporations, and the scams that come out of acquiring spectrum. But its execution is much less so. Spirited Mumbai girl Sonali (Rhea Chakraborty) is the Girl With The Cable in her locality. Her love interest Raghu (Ali Fazal) is the son of an ambi-tious local corporator (Smita Jaykar), and her (Sonali’s) aim is to keep doing what she does because she connects hearts, not just wires.
A spanner in the works ar-rives in the shape of a greedy old tycoon (Anupam Kher), who likes crunching ‘khakras’
and who wants to grab ‘akkhi Mumbai’ in the manner of old- style dons. There are some vivid patches in this David-Goliath war, but overall consistency and credibility is a problem. The leading lady tries for perkiness but comes off as a weak link, her foul-mouthedness more forced than natural. Kher is over-the-top. Fazal is a good addition to the team, even if he is in the same mode as he was in ‘Bobby Jasoos’. And I like Swanand Kirkire in his acting gigs : he makes things believable even when he is patently on a set. This could have been a modern day fable, but ‘Sonali Cable’ is not that film.
film ‘Happy New Year’ told reporters.
“I like to listen about such a comparison, but I don’t think that it is correct, because my profession and his (Modi) profession is different,” the 48-year-old actor said when a reporter asked for his com-ments that he is as popular as Modi in film industry as the BJP leader is in the country’s politics.
Praising Modi’s leadership, Shah Rukh said, “He (Modi) is a big leader. People love him a lot and like him a lot. Therefore, being compared
to him is like a compliment”. Answering a question, he de-nied that he does not want to come out of his comfort zone. “I always try to ensure that my latest film should be different from my last film. Today, I am acting even with those girls who have grown up watching me. That means that I must be working quite okay and it shows that I was not just sit-ting in my comfort zone,” he said. However, he said that after spending some 22 years in the movie industry, he is in a position to think that he could shortlist roles which enhances his acting skills. (PTI).
is said to be wearing an Anita Dongre creation for sangeet, a Ritu Kumar ensemble for the wedding and a Shantanu Nikhil outfit for the post wedding cer-emony dinner. Also, reportedly, Boman Irani is expected to do the ‘Kanyadaan’ for Dia as she considers him a fatherly figure. During the making of ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’, they shared a very special bond and hence, he will perform all the rituals of a father.
Poster of Sonali Cable
ONLINE.COMvoiceofasiaonline.com
VOICE OF ASIA 18 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014HEALTHHEALTHY LIVINGWhat Doctors, Hospitals Are Provided Free by Drug Firms, Suppliers Released by CMSInformation promotes transparency in financial relationships between health care industry, doc-tors and teaching hospitals
Oct. 1, 2014 – For the first time, consumers have information on consulting fees, research grants, travel reimbursements, and other gifts the health care industry – such as medical device manufac-turers and pharmaceutical compa-nies – provided to physicians and teaching hospitals. The informa-tion was released yesterday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for the last five months of 2013. It meets a re-quirement of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) to help con-sumers understand the financial relationships between the health care industry, and physicians and teaching hospitals.
In a news release on the first round of Open Payments data, CMS said it is “part of our ongo-ing effort to increase transparency and accountability in health care.” Future reports will be published annually and will include a full 12 months of payment data, begin-ning in June 2015.
This data contains 4.4 million payments valued at nearly $3.5 billion attributable to 546,000 individual physicians and almost 1,360 teaching hospitals.
“CMS is committed to transpar-ency and this is an opportunity for the public to learn about the rela-tionships among health care pro-viders, and pharmaceutical and device companies,” CMS Admin-istrator Marilyn Tavenner said.
“This initial public posting of data is only the first phase of the Open Payments program. In coming weeks, we will be add-ing additional data and tools that will give consumers, researchers, and others a detailed look into this industry and its financial arrange-ments.”
Financial ties among medi-cal manufacturers’ payments and health care providers do not necessarily signal wrongdoing. Given the importance of discour-aging inappropriate relationships without harming beneficial ones, CMS is working closely with stakeholders to better understand the current scope of the interac-tions among physicians, teaching hospitals, and industry manufac-turers. CMS encourages patients to discuss these relationships with their health care providers.
“Using this new data, it is now possible to conduct a wide range of analyses of payments made by drug and device manufacturers,” said Dr. Shantanu Agrawal, dep-uty administrator and director of the Center for Program Integrity at CMS.
“Open Payments does not iden-tify which financial relationships are beneficial and which could cause conflicts of interest. It sim-ply makes the data available to the public. So while these data could
discourage payments and others transfers of value that might have an inappropriate influence on re-search, education, and clinical decision-making, they could also help identify relationships that lead to the development of benefi-cial new technologies.”
Manufacturers submitted data to CMS this summer and CMS per-formed initial matching to aggre-gate payments to a single physi-cian or teaching hospital. After the data were collected and displayed, registered physicians and teaching hospitals had the opportunity to review payments reported about them and dispute information they believed inaccurate.
More than 26,000 physicians and 400 teaching hospitals regis-tered in the Open Payments sys-tem to review payments attributed to them. During the review and dispute period, CMS identified payment records that had incon-sistent physician information, such as National Provider Identi-fier (NPI) for one doctor and a li-cense number for another.
In cases where CMS was unable to match the physician informa-tion or the record was not avail-able for review and dispute but the company had attested that the payment had been made, the per-sonally-identifiable information has been suppressed temporarily in the record. About 40 percent of the records published today are de-identified. This data will be fully identifiable in 2015 after the reporting entity submits corrected data, and physicians and teaching hospitals have a chance to review and dispute.
In addition, data that were dis-puted and not resolved by the end of the September 11 review period have not been published and will be updated at a later date.
Over time, CMS expects to make enhancements such as in-troducing new tools to allow for easier data searches. This im-proved search functionality will allow users to more easily review payments received by their per-sonal physician, or search on cri-teria such as specialty, location, or types of payments received.
LONDON, October 17, 2014 (AFP) - An Ebola vaccine by British pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline may not be ready for commercial use until late 2016 and should therefore not be seen as the “primary an-swer” to the current outbreak, a company researcher said.
“We have to be able to manu-facture the vaccine at doses that would be consistent with general use and that’s going to take well into 2016,” Doctor Ripley Ballou, head of GSK’s Ebola vaccine research unit, told BBC radio in an interview aired on Friday.
“I don’t think this vaccine should be seen as the primary answer to this particular out-break but we certainly hope that this vaccine could be used to prevent future outbreaks.
“Unfortunately it’s not going to be as quickly as we would like,” he said, adding: “In ret-rospect we should have pulled the trigger earlier.”
Ballou said data on the vac-cine’s efficacy and safety would not be available before the end of 2015.
“In order for the vaccine to be used we have to have data on its safety and its efficacy and those data will not be available before the end of 2015,” he said.
He added that the whole pro-cess was “incredibly acceler-ated” as vaccine development would normally take seven to 10 years.
GSK’s is one of two vac-cines along with one by US group NewLink Genetics that the World Health Organization has been focusing on and it has helped accelerate clinical trials.
Some clinical trials of the GSK vaccine have begun in the United States and Britain and the WHO has said that around 10,000 doses of the vaccine should be available by early 2015.
Medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) voiced disap-pointment, saying work on the vaccine had to be speeded up.
“While we recognise and ap-preciate the vastly accelerated development of GSK’s Ebola vaccine, efforts need to go fur-ther as we believe a vaccine could be important in curbing this outbreak as well as prevent-ing and controlling Ebola in the future,” said Manica Balase-garam, executive director of MSF’s access campaign.
“Nobody knows how long this outbreak will last for; our patients, front-line workers, and people across West Africa can’t afford to hear ‘it’s too late’,” she said.
“We need GSK to show lead-ership by making a bold deci-sion now and take on some risk in driving through a process of accelerating development in parallel with the scale-up of supply.”
Ebola vaccine not before late 2016: GSK researcher
WA S H I N G T O N , October 21, 2014 (AFP) - The United
States on Tuesday tightened restrictions on travelers ar-riving from the West African countries gripped by an Ebola outbreak, funneling them into five airports with extra health checks.
The Department of Home-land Security ordered passen-gers whose journeys begin in Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Le-one to fly to New York’s JFK or Newark airports, Washington Dulles, Atlanta or Chicago.
The new measures go into effect on Wednesday.
There are no direct scheduled flights to the United States from the three countries at the heart of the Ebola epidemic, but travelers from the region can transfer through African and European hubs.
One Liberian with Ebola arrived in Dallas, Texas and infected at least two US health workers before dying, piling pressure on President Barack
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Obama’s government to im-pose a flight ban.
Health authorities have set up additional screening for passengers at five ports of entry, airports which they say normally handle 94 percent of the travelers arriving from the three worst hit countries.
But Tuesday’s order would prevent travelers from Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone from transferring to flights to other US airports where they would not necessarily have to pass additional screening.
“If not already handled by the airlines, the few impacted trav-elers should contact the airlines for rebooking, as needed,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said.
“We currently have in place measures to identify and screen anyone at all land, sea and air ports of entry into the United States who we have reason to believe has been present in Li-beria, Sierra Leone or Guinea in the preceding 21 days.”
The virus has killed more than 4,500 people in West Af-rica this year, and stoked fears that it could spread beyond the three worst hit countries and become a global threat.
But small outbreaks in Sen-egal and Nigeria have been halted and, with no new con-firmed infections in the United States for six days, authorities are hopeful they have contained the danger here.
Congressman Michael Mc-Caul, a Republican from Texas and chairman of the House Com-mittee on Homeland Security, hailed the DHS move but urged even stricter measures to keep out travelers from West Africa.
“Putting in place travel restric-tions and additional screening measures at our airports is a common sense proposal, and I am pleased to see DHS make this announcement,” he said in a statement.
“I continue to call on the ad-ministration to suspend all visas from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.”
US tightens restrictions on air travel from Ebola zone
Brave healer of DR Congo’s most horrific wounds - Profile
by Marc JOURDIER
KINSHASA, Octo-ber 21, 2014 (AFP) - Congolese doctor
Denis Mukwege, who won the Sakharov human rights prize Tuesday, has been dubbed “Doctor Miracle” for helping tens of thousands of gang rape victims in the Democratic Re-public of Congo.
Mass rape has been used as a weapon of war during the de-cades of violence that has devas-tated the mineral-rich east of the country.
The 59-year-old gynaecologist founded the General Referral Hospital of Panzi near Bukavu in South Kivu province, scene of some of the worst violence, to treat the often appalling injuries suffered by rape victims.
Their internal injuries are sometimes so severe he has to carry out major reconstructive surgery.
Mukwege survived an assas-sination attempt two years ago after speaking out about the con-tinued use of rape in the conflict, and accused the world of failing to act.
“My first patient in 1999 had been raped, then they stuck a gun into her genitals and fired. Her whole pelvis was destroyed. I thought it was the work of a mad-man, but the same year I treated 45 similar cases,” Mukwege said last year.
“For 15 years I have witnessed mass atrocities committed against women’s bodies and I cannot remain with my arms crossed because our common humanity calls on us to care for each other,” he added.
- Systematic rape -Aid agencies have accused all
sides in the conflicts raging in the eastern DRC regions of North Kivu and South Kivu of using “systematic rape” against women as a weapon of war.
Last year Mukwege defied threats and returned to the DRC after narrowly escaping an at-tempt on his life on October 25, 2012 in which his guard was killed.
Memorial Hermann of-fers state-of-the-art, three-dimensional
(3-D), digital technology that improves physicians’ ability to detect smaller tumors at the earliest stages of breast cancer, potentially saving the lives of hundreds of women.
Statistics indicate one in eight women will develop breast can-cer, and according to the Ameri-can Cancer Society, if detected early, the five-year survival rate is 98 percent.
“Breast tomosynthesis sees through dense breast tissue and spots tumors that a traditional mammogram is more likely to miss,” said Arlene Ricardo, M.D., Breast Surgeon affiliated with Memorial Hermann South-
Memorial Hermann Offers 3-D Tech-nology for Breast Cancer Detection
west Hospital. “Our goal is to find breast cancer as early as possible, when tumors are only millimeters in size instead of centimeters.”
Tomosynthesis is a 3-D im-aging technology that enables radiologists to see ‘inside” the breast. Breast tissue is made up of pockets of dense tissue sur-rounded by fat. On a traditional, flat mammogram, the tissues overlap which can mimic or even hide breast cancer. During a tomosynthesis exam, multiple, low-dose images of the breast are acquired at different angles. These images are then used to produce a series of one-milli-meter thick slices that can be viewed by radiologists as a 3-D reconstruction of the breast.
“While the quality of images with 2-D digital mammography systems is excellent and is still considered the gold standard of breast screening, the ability to peel away layers with tomosyn-thesis is a tremendous advance,” said Dr. Ricardo “It provides an opportunity to markedly improve what we are doing in breast screening.”
Tomosynthesis offers a num-ber of advantages over con-ventional 2-D digital mam-mography, including improved diagnostic and screening ac-curacy, fewer recalls, reduction in additional testing for false positive results, greater radiolo-gist confidence, and 3-D lesion localization.
It is especially valuable for
women receiving a baseline screening, those who have dense breast tissue, and women with a history of breast cancer.
Memorial Hermann urges women to receive yearly mam-mograms, whether tomosynthe-sis is available to them or not.
“Multiple studies have shown mammography increases sur-vival rates,” said Dr. Ricardo. “And, it’s not just getting a mammogram, but getting one every year, that is important. Studies clearly show annual screenings, starting at age 40, save lives.”
To find a Memorial Hermann location near you that offers 3-D mammogram technology, call 877-40-MAMMO or schedule an appointment online.
The US pressed for a “thor-ough” investigation of the kill-ing, hailing Mukwege’s dogged efforts “not only for the health of women in the eastern DRC, but also for peace in a troubled region.”
He sought refuge in Sweden and Belgium before being wel-comed home by thousands of people and urging them to declare “no to sexual violence, no to war, and no to the Balkanisation of the DRC”.
The 50,000-euro ($64,000) Sakharov Prize, named after
the late Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, is given by the Euro-pean Parliament to outstanding human rights advocates.
The 350-bed hospital Muk-wege founded treats more than 3,500 women a year, providing free consultations and doing re-constructive surgery on women who have suffered serious inter-nal injuries.
The doctor relates the horror suffered by rape victims with a steady and soft voice, praising the women’s bravery and resilience.
VOICE OF ASIA 19 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014HEALTH, SC & TECH
by Penelope MACRAE
NEW DELHI, (AFP) - Medical charity Me-decins Sans Frontieres
(MSF) on Saturday accused the United States of ratcheting up pressure on India’s new gov-ernment to relax strict patent conditions which have made the country the “world’s phar-macy”.
India’s vast generics industry is a major supplier of cheap copycat, lifesaving drugs to treat diabetes, cancer and other diseases afflicting poor people locally and globally who can-not afford expensive branded versions.
“India has been the world’s affordable drug safe-haven -- the biggest source of affordable medicines,” Leena Menghaney, South Asia Regional Head of MSF’s Access Campaign, told AFP.
“But now the US is trying to paint India as a rogue nation” in the area of patent law, she said in an interview.
India’s stringent rules for obtaining patents and its $12.2-billion generics industry reduce incentives to produce cutting-edge medicines, the US and other global drugmakers say.
MSF’s comments come after the US Trade Representative announced in mid-October it was launching an “Out-of-Cycle Review” of India’s intellectual property regime in which the nation’s drug patent laws will be closely scrutinised.
Medical charity accuses US of pushing India to ease patent rules
India’s vast generics industry is a major supplier of cheap copycat, lifesaving drugs to treat diabetes, cancer and other diseases afflicting poor people locally and globally who cannot afford expensive branded versions (AFP Photo/Manjunath Kiran)
Through the review, the US is seeking “constructive engage-ment that will both improve IP (intellectual property) protec-tion and enforcement” in India, the USTR said in a website statement.
Menghaney, however, as-serted the review was an attempt to “roll back progressive patent law safeguards” balancing intel-lectual property protection with need for affordable drugs.
The previous left-leaning Congress government, which lost power in May, had said it
would not water down India’s patent criteria, which are among the world’s toughest.
Indian law stipulates drugs must “satisfy the test of novelty or inventiveness” to win patent protection.
But US authorities now are seeking to get Modi’s right-wing government to lower India’s pat-ent eligibility bar, MSF said.
“The new government must stand firm and not allow the patent regime to be dismantled. It (India) must not be bullied,” said MSF’s Menghaney.
Unlike many Western nations, India does not award patents for so-called “evergreening” or tweaking existing drug for-mulas, angering multinational pharmaceutical firms which rely on such measures to extend patents and income stream.
Foreign drug companies also dislike India’s “compulsory licensing” which allows a lo-cal company to produce a drug
without the patent owner’s con-sent if the medicine is deemed unaffordable and vital.
Following Modi’s US visit, MSF noted the two governments agreed to “establish an annual high-level Intellectual Property Working Group with appropriate decision-making and technical-level meetings”.
Menghaney said MSF fears the group will give Washington a “formal platform” to pressure Modi’s government to change the country’s patent laws.
The importance of India’s cheap drugs in enabling charities like MSF to meet patient needs around the world “cannot be underestimated”, Menghaney said.
“India has no reason to feel it’s doing anything wrong in the patent arena -- its rules are fully compliant with global trade rules” and are “seen as a model for such countries as Brazil and South Africa,” she added.
Abdul Sattar Edhi (right), who receives kidney dialysis, was asleep when the robbers arrived
Pakistan charity boss Ab-dul Sattar Edhi ‘heartbro-ken’ after robbery
One of Pakistan’s top charity leaders has told the BBC he is
heartbroken after being robbed at gunpoint.
Abdul Sattar Edhi, 86, was asleep when a gang of armed men raided the Karachi slum building that serves as his resi-dence and charity headquar-ters.
They made off with gold, sil-ver and cash worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in the raid early on Sunday.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and opposition leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari both condemned the robbery.
Mr Edhi is one of Pakistan’s most revered figures and has spent a lifetime building up its largest health charity. The Edhi Foundation provides a broad range of free social services, including ambulances, orphan-ages and support for the elderly and disabled.
“I am heartbroken. After ev-erything I have done, I never thought I’d be violated like this inside my own home,” Mr Edhi told the BBC.
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The BBC’s Aleem Maqbool travels to Karachi to meet Dr Edhi and look back on his life
and achievementsHis son Faisal Edhi said: “My
father is fine, but deeply sad-dened by this incident. He was tearful yesterday. It’s not about the money or the valuables they took away. But his pride has been violated.”
Many people took to social media to voice their anger at the robbery, which correspondents say is shocking despite the notoriously high crime rates in Karachi.
Mubashar Lucman, a leading presenter on the ARY News channel, said: “If a person of his stature is not safe in this country then what system are we talking about.”
“It is heart breaking then what happened with our asset, our saviour, our angel.... Abdul Sattar Edhi saab,” tweeted jour-nalist Fereeha Idrees.
“Imagine what would have happened if Edhi got the Nobel Peace Prize and lost it in the rob-bery in his center,” said another message.
Many messages urged people to donate to Edhi because of the robbery, but some others questioned why so much money and valuables had been kept in his residence.
Mr Edhi said as well as some cash kept for emergencies, the money and valuables included deposits entrusted to the founda-
tion for safekeeping.
He said the robbers had walked straight to the locker where the money and gold was kept and demanded the key.
“I thought they came to ask me about the Edhi centre but they started asking me about money. I don’t understand how they knew that everything was kept in the
cupboard,” Mr Edhi told the Express Tribune newspaper.
“Please protect my Pakistan where VIPs are guarded & Philanthropist are looted & abused on gun point,” he said in a tweet.
Police are hunting for the rob-bers but have yet to make any arrests. Courtesy:BBC
Earlier this month, Mi-crosoft CEO Satya Na-della got in hot water
for his comments about women asking for raises. He said it’s all about “good karma” and “hav-ing faith that the system will give you the right raise.”
His comments were deemed offensive and sexist by so many that Nadella eventually had to publicly apologize many times.
On Monday, in his first TV interview since becoming Mi-crosoft’s CEO, Nadella further clarified his stance on inequality in the workplace.
Speaking to CNBC’s Jon Fortt, Nadella apologized again, saying, “I basically took my own approach, to how I’ve ap-proached my career and sprung it on half the humanity. And that was just insensitive.”
He continued, “I said some-thing that was just generic, but I come out of it with real understanding, real empathy that this is a real issue that we want to make real progress on. And I just was, I would say a bit naive in thinking of my own personal experience versus un-
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella On Equality In The Workplace: ‘This Is A Real Issue That We Want To Make Real Progress On’
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Source: Flickr/Fortune Brainstorm TECH 2014
derstanding that I’m speaking to women who really, really want to make sure that people like me are making it easy for them to be able to participate in the workforce fully.”
Nadella pointed out that 99.7% of the men’s salaries was what women made at Microsoft last year, stressing work equality is something Microsoft takes very seriously. He said “equal pay for equal work” and “equal opportunity for equal work” are two main principles that guide his approach to solving this problem.
But Nadella acknowledged there’s still a long way to go to establish not just pay equality, but ethnic and gender equality at work.
“The real issue is, do we have enough people of different ethnicity, and women in those levels? Do we have them in my SLT [senior leadership team], do we have them in, you know, our corporate vice president ranks? Are we promoting them as vig-orously? So there are a lot of other secondary things that we have to go actively work.”
MUMBAI, October 21, 2014 (AFP) - Workers in India’s lucrative firecracker industry say illegal Chinese imports are flooding the market and threat-ening their jobs as the country prepares for the Hindu festival of lights this week.
Diwali, which is on Thursday, is marked in Indian cities each year with the deafening sound of celebratory firecrackers, but those who manufacture them in the southern state of Tamil Nadu fear their decades-old monopoly is being challenged.
“Chinese firecracker imports seem to have taken off in the last two years. But this year the problem has reached enormous proportions,” said G. Abiruben, president of the Tamil Nadu Fireworks and Amorces Manu-facturers Association.
“We have already lost nearly 30 percent of our yearly sales and things do not look good,” he told AFP.
Chinese imports already dom-inate the market for other Diwali goods, such as lanterns, candles and decorations.
Indian cracker industry fears rival Chinese fire power
But the Tamil Nadu asso-ciation says about half a mil-lion jobs are at risk from the declining sales of Indian-made firecrackers, and has called for government intervention to stop illegal imports.
Authorities recently issued a public notice reiterating that it is illegal to import foreign crackers without a license be-cause they contain explosive materials. Anyone caught can face up to three years in jail and be slapped with a 5,000 rupees ($82) fine -- though the law is rarely enforced.
But with China continuing to undercut India on manufactur-ing costs, their cheaper rival firecrackers are widely available in India stores.
One shopkeeper on the out-skirts of Mumbai, who declined to be named, said they had received no complaints from customers about their Chinese goods, despite claims from do-mestic producers that Chinese made firecrackers are more dangerous.
Other sellers insisted they were not dealing in the illegal imports from China.
“These are not Chinese!,” said one shopkeeper in Thane, a district neighbouring Mumbai, although he struggled to explain the Chinese script all over the packaging.
Lax enforcement of laws have led to poor safety records at In-dia’s own cracker-making units, which are often makeshift setups and employ children.
On Monday, 17 people were killed at a cracker factory in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh.
Abhay Desai, a social worker who has complained to regula-tors about the dangers in such factories, said the billion-dollar industry’s biggest players ran the business as a cartel.
“They have been controlling prices upstream and down-stream for decades and now that the status quo is challenged they are afraid of losing power,” Desai said.
Thiruvananthapuram - South Africa’s Free State Province has shown a keen interest in Kera-la’s women self-help network ‘Kudumbashree’, which has empowered a number of women through its initiatives ranging from IT to pickle-making.
A Free State delegation led by Chief Minister Ace Magashule visited ‘Kudumbashree’ units on the outskirts here on Thursday
South African state keen to replicate Kerala’s Kudumbashree
and said a similar programme would be launched in their state, according to the organisation’s officials.
The delegation held discus-sions with the state’s Social Justice and Panchayats Minister M K Muneer, focusing on activi-ties undertaken by the self-help network and how it has helped empower women, especially the lesser privileged.
A memorandum of under-standing would be signed be-tween the two states soon on sharing Kerala’s experiences in women empowerment initia-tives, Muneer said.
Besides Magashule, the del-egation, comprised Consul Gen-eral of South African Embassy in Mumbai, Pule Malefane and two ministers and officials from Free State Province. PTI.
Now you an read these articles and more on Business Online
VOICE OF ASIA 21 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014BUSINESS
AHMEDABAD, AFP - A generous boss in western India has given 1,200 of his workers new cars, deposits for flats and thousands of dollars worth of diamond jewellery as rewards for loyalty.
The diamond merchant from the city of Surat presented the lavish gifts to the employees in a ceremony on Sunday (Oct 19) before the major Hindu festival of Deepavali. The presents, including those for worker’s wives, were part of Savjibhai Dholakia’s company loyalty programme worth a total of 500 million rupees (US$8.15 million).
“We have rewarded those employees who have contrib-uted to the development of the company over the years,” Dho-lakia, chairman of Hari Krishna Exports, told AFP on Monday. “The have sacrificed their fam-ily lives for the progress of the firm and hence they deserve the reward,” Dholakia said from Surat, a diamond polishing and export hub.
Most employees receive pres-ents of some kind from their bosses during Deepavali, the festival of lights, but they are usually just boxes of Indian sweets. Dholakia’s complex loyalty programme, in which employees earn points in 25 cri-teria, has been in place for five years - but this year the rewards have reached new heights.
“We gave apartments to 207 employees, cars to 491 and jewellery to 500 employees,” Dholakia said. “The (deposits on) apartments were given to those who did not own one,” he said, while cars were given to those workers who already have their own home.
Jewellery, worth a maximum US$5,860 apiece, was given to some employees as presents
The diamond merchant from the city of Surat presented the lavish gifts to the employees in a ceremony on Sunday (Oct 19) before the major Hindu festival of Deepavali.
India boss gives workers cars, home deposits, jewelry for festival
for their wives because spouses “have also contributed indirectly to the progress of the firm”, he said.
Employee Gaurav Duggal said his two-odd years of work-ing for the company had been “indescribable”. “The jewellery
Will be celebrating Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s Prakash Purab (Birth Anniversary) by
releasing a Special Supplement in His honor
VOICE OF ASIAw w w . v o i c e o f a s i a o n l i n e . c o m
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which they have given me is not only priceless, it shows the sen-timent that the company has to-wards me and other employees,” he told the NDTV network.
Dholakia’s firm exports pol-ished diamonds to 75 coun-tries.
MassMutual Honors Diwali and Business
Tradition of Chopda PujanNo-Cost Seminars Help Business Owners Secure Their Futures and Protect the Next Generation
SP R I N G F I E L D , MASS., OCT. XX, 2014-- Almost three
million Asian Indians in the United States are preparing to celebrate Diwali, the festi-val of lights, on Oct. 23. For the more than 300,000 Asian-Indian owned firms* in the U.S., the holiday takes on an added dimension, as the cel-ebration marks the beginning of a new business year. To help business owners prepare for the New Year ahead, Mas-
sachusetts Mutual Life Insur-ance Company (MassMutual) is offering a series of free, no-obligation business seminars in five cities across the coun-try this Diwali.
In a special Diwali ritual for businesses known as Chopda Pujan, new account books are opened and blessed. Business owners use this time to reflect on the past year while looking ahead to new opportunities for prosperity and wealth. It is said the goddess of wealth, known as Lakshmi, visits the homes of devotees on this day, and lamps light the way to welcome her.
A MassMutual study** found that although 77 percent of Asian Indian business owners believe financial planning for their business is very important, only 43 percent are concerned about who will run their busi-nesses if they or another owner leaves, becomes disabled or dies; only 46 percent have a formal retirement plan.
“Entrepreneurial businesses are vital to our growing eco-nomic recovery, so it is con-cerning that so many business owners seem to be sacrificing their own and their family’s financial future,” says Nimesh Trivedi, Asian-Indian Market lead at MassMutual. “With help, business owners can look
past the seemingly overwhelm-ing day-to-day demands of running their businesses and establish and meet their long-term financial goals.”
To help Asian Indian busi-ness owners open their new books this Diwali and plan for a prosperous new year, MassMu-tual is offering a series of free video-based seminars featuring stories shared by real business owners. The vignettes explore critical business planning top-ics, such as passing ownership
on from one generation to the next, preparing for the unex-pected, the death of an owner, retaining key employees, and proper estate and retirement planning.
Seminars addressing these topics critical to Asian In-dian business owners will be presented in the following cities across the country this Diwali:
For more information on the multi-city business owner seminar tour, contact Nimesh Trivedi, 413.744.1244. For more information on plan-ning for your businesses’ and
*2007 Survey of Business Owners Summaries of Find-ings, U.S. Census Bureau. This information is the most current data available.
**MassMutual’s Business Owner Perspectives: 2011 Insights in an Uncertain Econo-my, conducted by GfK Custom Research North America for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMu-tual), 2011.
About MassMutualFounded in 1851, MassMu-
tual is a leading mutual life insurance company that is run for the benefit of its members and participating policyowners. The company has a long history of financial strength and strong performance, and although dividends are not guaranteed, MassMutual has paid dividends to eligible participating poli-cyowners consistently since the 1860s. With whole life insurance as its foundation, MassMutual provides prod-ucts to help meet the financial needs of clients, such as life insurance, disability income insurance, long term care in-surance, retirement/401(k) plan services, and annuities. In addition, the company’s strong and growing network of finan-cial professionals helps clients make good financial decisions
for the long-term.MassMutual Financial Group
is a marketing name for Massa-chusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual) and its affiliated companies and sales representatives. MassMutual is headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts and its major affiliates include: Babson Capi-tal Management LLC; Baring Asset Management Limited; Cornerstone Real Estate Advis-ers LLC; The First Mercantile Trust Company; MassMutual International LLC; MML In-vestors Services, LLC, Mem-ber FINRA and SIPC; Oppen-heimerFunds, Inc.; and The MassMutual Trust Company, FSB.
For more information, visit www.massmutual.com or find MassMutual on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+ and Pinterest.
CRN201610-187217
L to R Nimesh Trivedi, Lalit Jallan, Adam Segal and Vikesh Amin
A section of the audience at the event.
WASHINGTON, October 17, 2014 (AFP) - US President Barack Obama on Friday or-dered “pin and chip” security measures for government pay-ment systems, aiming to stem the proliferation of credit card fraud and identity theft.
The president signed an ex-ecutive order which adds an extra layer of protection for US government cards and payment terminals, at a time when the financial industry is moving in the same direction.
“More than 100 million Amer-icans had information that was compromised in data breaches in some of our largest com-panies. And identity theft is now America’s fastest-growing crime,” Obama said as he signed the order.
“The idea that somebody halfway around the world could run up thousands of dollars in charges in your name just be-cause they stole your number, or because you swiped your card at the wrong place in the wrong time, that’s infuriating. For victims, it’s heartbreaking. And as a country, we’ve got to do more to stop it.”
The order puts government payments in a more secure sys-tem that have cut fraud in other countries. Embedding a chip makes it far more difficult to produce a counterfeit card than one with a magnetic stripe, and a personal identification code adds additional security.
“We know this technology works,” Obama said. “When Britain switched to a chip-and-pin system, they cut fraud in stores by 70 percent.”
The shift in the US has been slow because retailers, banks and payment processors all need to upgrade their technol-ogy. But the change has ac-celerated following disclosures of high-profile breaches of payment systems at retailers including Target, Home Depot and Kmart.
At least 47 percent of US merchant terminals will be enabled for chip technology by the end of 2015, according to the Payments Security Task Force which includes major banks and retailers, along with payment processing firms like Visa and MasterCard.
Obama unveils new measures to stem identity theft
NEW YORK, - Ama-zon said Thursday it would hire 80,000
seasonal employees in the United States to help with an expected flood of holiday sales.
The figure is 10,000 more than Amazon announced last year.
Amazon is adding employees in its warehouses and other centers that manage sales and deliveries, and noted that it of-fers “competitive hourly wages and a comprehensive benefits
Amazon to boost seasonal hiring to 80,000
package.”Some of these employees will
be kept after the holiday season, Amazon said, noting that 10,000 of those hired for seasonal jobs last year were retained for per-manent positions.
“We’re excited to be creating 80,000 seasonal jobs, thousands of which will lead to regular, full-time roles with benefits starting on day one and innova-tive programs like Career Choice for employees to further pursue their education,” said Amazon vice president Mike Roth.
Amazon now has more than 50 “fulfillment centers” which manage product deliveries in the United States and will have more than 15 sorting centers by the end of 2014.
Amazon is also reportedly set to open physical brick-and-mortar stores in some cities for the first time, possibly as “pop-up” locations that would operate only for a few weeks.
The US National Retail Fed-eration has said it expects a 4.1 percent rise in holiday shopping purchases this year.
VOICE OF ASIA 22 FRIDAY, October 24, 2014HOROSCOPEYour Horoscope for the Week of October 24, 2014
Aries (A,L,E) 21 March to 20 April
Arrange the things into a clearer perspective. This is an ideal time to reunite a group that has been growing apart. Once you do, you’ll have a keener understanding of how things work. An official announcement will open a new connection. Look behind the
scenes & understand all of our options. Focus your energy full force. Creative in search of better op-portunities won’t have to look far. You will reach a very positive goal! Play your cards right & you may be celebrating true success. For you, physical attractions begin in the mind.
Taurus (B,V,U) 21 April to 20 MayBide your time and get the past negative feelings you have about the current situation.
You may not have any control over the situation, but you can still get something from it. Strength begins with courage and you happen to have lots of that. Don’t allow oth-ers to press your emotional buttons. Promises may have been broken, but you need to
conserve your energy for more positive use. You’ll feel frustrated by other’s neglect for your feelings. Express yourself clearly & directly.
Gemini (K,CHH,GH) 21 May to 20 JuneOrganize and keep everybody on track. You may be faced with more details than
you normally like to handle. Unless you are careful, miscommunications or misunder-standings may happen. Think deeper to find a way to make your job easier. There are so many things happening around you, that you may feel overwhelmed. Don’t allow
others to put you in the middle of their problems. If someone wants your opinion, you can lend them an ear, but you can’t solve their problems for them. Be clear on that.
Cancer (D,H) 21 June to 22 JulyChanges, even though you want your life could stay exactly the same. After all, that
makes you feel safe and secure. Change doesn’t have to be frightening, in fact, major changes taking place in your creative life, could awaken you to new talents and abili-ties. Remember that there is always another step to take and that things may not actu-
ally be as they seem. Don’t resist these changes. You are developing new levels of consciousness, and these changes are part of that development.
Leo (M) 23 July to 22 AugustYou are accepting your role and realizing that last minute changes are for the best.
You will need to plan your approach, carefully. Take the time you need to present your-self & your ideas. If you think more positively, you’ll be able to handle any situation thrown your way. Once you get started, you’ll be able to influence others greatly to
your way of thinking. You’re understandable as well as interesting. By week’s end, make plans for a get together with friends & family. It’ll be just what you need.
Virgo (P) 23 August to 22 SeptemberYou can excel in everything you do. Cash in on a fresh start by opening your mind
and learning about people. Things will come more easily to you once you do. You won’t require any permission for the truly important things. Someone will offer your name to those in charge. Your confidence level will rise and others will be able to see
things from your perspective. Be patient with those who still can’t see the view. You may be asked to express your ideas to a larger audience. The temptation to allow emotions to ‘totally rule you’ in everything from your decisions to your statements, appears to be strongest.
Libra (R,T) 23 Sept to 22 OctDiscover the new powers you possess. You may have felt restrained lately, but you’ll
soon feel like you could climb mountains. Patience will be required, but more impor-tant is focus. You’d much rather start something new than committing yourself to tired old business. This is the perfect time for you to find a new approach to use to gain needed support. Pursue new avenues of interest that spark your creative side. Fresh
energy will enable you to figure out things more easily than before.
Scorpio (N,Y)23 Oct to 21 NovListen to your intuitive feelings. You may need to experiment with different ways to
achieve your goals. You’re all about big ideas and big events. Try your best to get you priorities straight. You need to find something to help you to relax & relieve the stress
you feel. Things are temporary, not written in stone. You can generate ideas with the best of them, but you should know your limits. Utilize experts who can bridge the gaps in your knowledge. You are very much the peacemaker these days. Invite others to spend time with you.
Sagittarius (BH,F,DH,TH) 22 Nov to 21 DecYou are taking the time you need now to be able to look at things from a different
perspective. Meet a challenge in your own time and on your own turf. Friends share a bond that will survive any miss-understandings that may occur. They will try to help you through your emotional difficulties. Allow them to teach you new ways to battle
your foes & lift your spirits. Time together will help you to deal with emotional hurts. Try to plan a week-end getaway with family & friends.
Capricorn (KH,J) 22 Dec to 20 JanYou can find a practical use for other’s talents. You know what’s best for others and
more than likely you’ll be able to convince them of it. Instead of assuming that your system is perfect, allow others to test its flaws. Your source is pure even if the output is limited right now. Collect what you can find and use it wisely. Lately, you seem to have
been taken off track from your personal interests & goals. Other situations have taken over & become a real priority for you. It’s time to get back to the basics.
Aquarius (G,S,SH) 21 Jan to 19 FebShare your creative ideas. Everyone will be fascinated with your conversations. Your
shThe feeling that things have been going well, but you may feel as if something im-portant is missing. You need to focus your energy into a new plan or project in order to reach your immediate goals. Don’t go searching for anything in particular, as your solu-tion will present itself to you. Learn to try to let things come to you, rather than chasing
rainbows.
Pisces (D,CH,Z) 20 Feb to 20 MarchChannel your energy through shortcuts. You’ve done it all before, so now all you have
to do is re-call your magic and make it appear. Your every desire will peak the passion meter. Beware of a fair weathered friend who may be trying to pull the wool over your eyes. Ask for proof and insist on honesty. Base your decisions on what you know for sure. Putting things into a more positive perspective will help you to see things clearer.
. Emotions rule and escalate to either ‘good excitement’ or ‘negative confrontation’ levels.
by Hardik Vyas, Astrologer Cell : 832-298-9950
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Here’s your chance to be a Vocabulary Sleuth!Furtive - adj. Stealthy or sly, like the actions of a thief.
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