Ramana Ji the said thread is locked thats why I put it here.ramana wrote:^^^ Is this relevant to this thread? Shouldnt it be in the Indi-US news thread?
Just saw Archan's Post...I suppose this could be in Nukkad as well, depending on Admins' views.Monday, Jul. 05, 2010
My Own Private India
By Joel Stein
I am very much in favor of immigration everywhere in the U.S. except Edison, N.J. The mostly white suburban town I left when I graduated from high school in 1989 — the town that was called Menlo Park when Thomas Alva Edison set up shop there and was later renamed in his honor — has become home to one of the biggest Indian communities in the U.S., as familiar to people in India as how to instruct stupid Americans to reboot their Internet routers.
My town is totally unfamiliar to me. The Pizza Hut where my busboy friends stole pies for our drunken parties is now an Indian sweets shop with a completely inappropriate roof. The A&P I shoplifted from is now an Indian grocery. The multiplex where we snuck into R-rated movies now shows only Bollywood films and serves samosas. The Italian restaurant that my friends stole cash from as waiters is now Moghul, one of the most famous Indian restaurants in the country. There is an entire generation of white children in Edison who have nowhere to learn crime. (See pictures of Thomas Edison's Menlo Park.)
I never knew how a bunch of people half a world away chose a random town in New Jersey to populate. Were they from some Indian state that got made fun of by all the other Indian states and didn't want to give up that feeling? Are the malls in India that bad? Did we accidentally keep numbering our parkway exits all the way to Mumbai?
I called James W. Hughes, policy-school dean at Rutgers University, who explained that Lyndon Johnson's 1965 immigration law raised immigration caps for non-European countries. LBJ apparently had some weird relationship with Asians in which he liked both inviting them over and going over to Asia to kill them.
After the law passed, when I was a kid, a few engineers and doctors from Gujarat moved to Edison because of its proximity to AT&T, good schools and reasonably priced, if slightly deteriorating, post–WW II housing. For a while, we assumed all Indians were geniuses. Then, in the 1980s, the doctors and engineers brought over their merchant cousins, and we were no longer so sure about the genius thing. In the 1990s, the not-as-brilliant merchants brought their even-less-bright cousins, and we started to understand why India is so damn poor.
Eventually, there were enough Indians in Edison to change the culture. At which point my townsfolk started calling the new Edisonians "dot heads." One kid I knew in high school drove down an Indian-dense street yelling for its residents to "go home to India." In retrospect, I question just how good our schools were if "dot heads" was the best racist insult we could come up with for a group of people whose gods have multiple arms and an elephant nose. (See TIME's special report "The Making of America: Thomas Edison.")
Unlike some of my friends in the 1980s, I liked a lot of things about the way my town changed: far better restaurants, friends dorky enough to play Dungeons & Dragons with me, restaurant owners who didn't card us because all white people look old. But sometime after I left, the town became a maze of charmless Indian strip malls and housing developments. Whenever I go back, I feel what people in Arizona talk about: a sense of loss and anomie and disbelief that anyone can eat food that spicy.
To figure out why it bothered me so much, I talked to a friend of mine from high school, Jun Choi, who just finished a term as mayor of Edison. Choi said that part of what I don't like about the new Edison is the reduction of wealth, which probably would have been worse without the arrival of so many Indians, many of whom, fittingly for a town called Edison, are inventors and engineers. And no place is immune to change. In the 11 years I lived in Manhattan's Chelsea district, that area transformed from a place with gangs and hookers to a place with gays and transvestite hookers to a place with artists and no hookers to a place with rich families and, I'm guessing, mistresses who live a lot like hookers. As Choi pointed out, I was a participant in at least one of those changes. We left it at that.
Unlike previous waves of immigrants, who couldn't fly home or Skype with relatives, Edison's first Indian generation didn't quickly assimilate (and give their kids Western names). But if you look at the current Facebook photos of students at my old high school, J.P. Stevens, which would be very creepy of you, you'll see that, while the population seems at least half Indian, a lot of them look like the Italian Guidos I grew up with in the 1980s: gold chains, gelled hair, unbuttoned shirts. In fact, they are called Guindians. Their assimilation is so wonderfully American that if the Statue of Liberty could shed a tear, she would. Because of the amount of cologne they wear.
Worth listening to. Stefanie Syman appears very knowledgable; she goes back all the way to Swami Vivekanda to trace the history of Yoga in USA. She quotes Aurbindo. No major qualms with the show; matter of fact refreshing to see India's soft power highlighted.Yoga in America. How downward dogs and crow poses went mainstream.
Last Thursday, the U.S. Export-Import Bank denied loan guarantees to Reliance Power Ltd., an Indian utility building a coal-fired power plant near Sasan, India. Bucyrus International Inc., a South Milwaukee-based manufacturer, was ready to export some $310 million in mining equipment—and about $600 million over three years—but Reliance's order was contingent on the favorable financing rates provided by the Ex-Im guarantee. Reliance cancelled the order Monday morning and will reboot with Bucyrus's competitors in China or Belarus if the bank doesn't reverse in the coming days.
The Reliance-Bucyrus deal met all of the Export-Import Bank's qualifying criteria, including the tougher environmental and CO2 standards that the White House has imposed over the last several months. But the bank nonetheless rejected the project in a 2-to-1 vote under pressure from the Treasury and State Departments. "We were absolutely flabbergasted and shocked," Bucyrus CEO Tim Sullivan told us in an interview.
According to Mr. Sullivan, the decision was reached because the "carbon footprint" of the project is too large, though the Ex-Im Bank has published no objective guidelines to quantify that judgment. "President Obama has made clear his Administration's commitment to transition away from high-carbon investments and toward a cleaner-energy future," Obama-appointed Ex-Im Chairman Fred Hochberg said in a statement. After "careful deliberation," he added, the project's "adverse environmental impact" made it untenable.
The Asian Immigration exclusion act was passed in 1905 to prohibit Asian immigration. After WWII, immigration of ~105 people per annum was permitted to recognize India's contributions to war effort. LBJ, as part of Great Society reforms, raised the quotas in the thousands. Also needed scientific trained manpower to support the space programs.I called James W. Hughes, policy-school dean at Rutgers University, who explained that Lyndon Johnson's 1965 immigration law raised immigration caps for non-European countries. LBJ apparently had some weird relationship with Asians in which he liked both inviting them over and going over to Asia to kill them.
Asian Immigration exclusion act was passed in 1905 was based on the advise of Britain which did not want people from the colonies to emigrate to US. They especially targeted Indians.ramana wrote:From Joel Stein's article
The Asian Immigration exclusion act was passed in 1905 to prohibit Asian immigration. After WWII, immigration of ~105 people per annum was permitted to recognize India's contributions to war effort. LBJ, as part of Great Society reforms, raised the quotas in the thousands. Also needed scientific trained manpower to support the space programs.I called James W. Hughes, policy-school dean at Rutgers University, who explained that Lyndon Johnson's 1965 immigration law raised immigration caps for non-European countries. LBJ apparently had some weird relationship with Asians in which he liked both inviting them over and going over to Asia to kill them.
, I don't take their spiritual musings seriously; many times, its just harmless, benign but yet pompous mumbo jumbo. But this article: The First Book of Yoga by Stefanie Syman explaining the Mahabharata is an excellent narrative. Boss, any evidence of this? Yes, Indians can be obstinate and aggressive towards each other, be it over religion, caste, or whatever. But how often do we see Indians acting obstinate and aggressively against external entities?sanjaykumar wrote:(We know India can be as obstinate and aggressive as the best, but it marshals its resources rather judiciously).
They are willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars(tesla etc) in subsidies, but are not willing to save existing jobs without having to spend tax payers money! How stupid can they get?? Given the high unemployment rates, and given that the US needs every single manufacturing job that it currently has, this is absurdity of the highest order! And then they complain when jobs are moved to other countries, go figure!prad wrote:^^^ that's the kind of insanity you get when 'Green' terrorists take over policy. at a time when manufacturing and industry need to be restrengthened, a $310 Million worth exports were canceled b/c tree huggers are in control of Democratic policy. the insanity displayed here is profoundly disturbing.
Security Council members would say that India has been obstinate as far as NPT and CTBT are concerned. (We, of course, have pretty good reasons for our view.)CRamS wrote:Boss, any evidence of this? Yes, Indians can be obstinate and aggressive towards each other, be it over religion, caste, or whatever. But how often do we see Indians acting obstinate and aggressively against external entities?sanjaykumar wrote:(We know India can be as obstinate and aggressive as the best, but it marshals its resources rather judiciously).
http://news.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/ ... hankar.htmKavya Shivashankar, winner of the 2009 Scripps National Spelling Bee and the India Abroad Young Achiever Award, was invited to meet President Obama this month.
When will I get to meet the president was my first question after winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee last year. Each year I had heard stories about past winners being invited into the Oval Office. It seemed like it had almost become a tradition for the winner to meet with the President. The fact that I would have the opportunity to meet President Barack Obama was another motivation for me as I studied for the Bee that year. After I won the National Bee May 28, 2009, I could not wait to actually meet the President, and for months, I waited in anticipation for a call from the White House.
This is a good post. This needs good approachsanjaykumar wrote: Now how many Indians have actually thought about this point? So in a India-West discussion the Indian may only reiterate his view in a loud voice while the westerner smirks. I have seen that often enough.
abhishek_sharma wrote:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj
Last Thursday, the U.S. Export-Import Bank denied loan guarantees to Reliance Power Ltd., an Indian utility building a coal-fired power plant near Sasan, India. Bucyrus International Inc., a South Milwaukee-based manufacturer, was ready to export some $310 million in mining equipment—and about $600 million over three years—but Reliance's order was contingent on the favorable financing rates provided by the Ex-Im guarantee. Reliance cancelled the order Monday morning and will reboot with Bucyrus's competitors in China or Belarus if the bank doesn't reverse in the coming days.
The Reliance-Bucyrus deal met all of the Export-Import Bank's qualifying criteria, including the tougher environmental and CO2 standards that the White House has imposed over the last several months. But the bank nonetheless rejected the project in a 2-to-1 vote under pressure from the Treasury and State Departments. "We were absolutely flabbergasted and shocked," Bucyrus CEO Tim Sullivan told us in an interview.
According to Mr. Sullivan, the decision was reached because the "carbon footprint" of the project is too large, though the Ex-Im Bank has published no objective guidelines to quantify that judgment. "President Obama has made clear his Administration's commitment to transition away from high-carbon investments and toward a cleaner-energy future," Obama-appointed Ex-Im Chairman Fred Hochberg said in a statement. After "careful deliberation," he added, the project's "adverse environmental impact" made it untenable.
http://www.business-standard.com/india/ ... t/99893/onUS Exim approves Reliance Power's Sasan project
Press Trust of India / Washington July 1, 2010, 12:59 IST
Reversing its earlier decision, the US Exim Bank has agreed to provide $600 million in loan guarantees to suppliers for Reliance Power's coal-fired project and a mine in Sasan, Madhya Pradesh.
Wednesday's announcement would help preserve 1,000 jobs in Wisconsin and 13 other states.
Last Thursday, the Export Bank of the United States had rejected a request from Reliance Power to finance the projects on environmental grounds.
The 3,960 MW coal-fired power project is projected to emit 26,000 to 27,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum.
The loan guarantees are for US made mining equipment that Reliance Power has contracted to purchase from Bucyrus International, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based company.
The sales agreement was contingent upon the Indian company receiving United States Export-Import Bank-supported financing.
"I'm glad that the US Export-Import Bank reversed its decision and extended loan guarantees to Bucyrus International, Inc," said Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, who is the Ranking Republican on the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
"This will create hundreds of sorely needed jobs for Milwaukee residents. But we shouldn't let the reversal obscure the bad policy that led to it," he said in a statement soon after the Ex-IM Bank reversed its decision.
On Tuesday, Sensenbrenner had sought Obama's intervention on reversing the Bank's decision.
Several US lawmakers too had written a letter to the Ex-IM Bank, saying that such a decision would kill about 1,000 jobs in the US.
"If President Obama continues to push a job-killing cap-and-tax agenda, job losses will be a thousand times worse. The National Association of Manufacturers predicted that cap-and-tax would cost the economy more than 1 million manufacturing jobs over the next two decades," he said.
In a phone conversation with Bucyrus CEO Tim Sullivan, Fred Hochberg, Chairman of Export-Import Bank, confirmed that the Bank now has sufficient additional information, including a broader understanding of Reliance Power's development of other renewable power generation facilities, to approve this application from an environmental perspective, the company said in a statement.
"We are very pleased with the decision of the US Export-Import Bank to change course and support this project. This is great news for Bucyrus, but more importantly it is great news to be keeping this work in the US and providing job opportunities across 13 states," Sullivan said.
A newly released study from students at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government provides the latest evidence of how thoroughly devoted the American establishment media is to amplifying and serving (rather than checking) government officials. This new study examines how waterboarding has been discussed by America's four largest newspapers over the past 100 years, and finds that the technique, almost invariably, was unequivocally referred to as "torture" -- until the U.S. Government began openly using it and insisting that it was not torture, at which time these newspapers obediently ceased describing it that way.......Similarly, American newspapers are highly inclined to refer to waterboarding as "torture" when practiced by other nations, but will suddenly refuse to use the term when it's the U.S. employing that technique......
It's to be expected that governments will try to propagandize their citizenry by applying completely different standards -- even completely different language -- to their own conduct as opposed to when other countries engage in exactly the same conduct. But when the media copies that behavior (as ours does), they're amplifying and bolstering government propaganda rather than critically scrutinizing and debunking it. Isn't that a fairly serious problem?
For how long Sanku has been banned?archan wrote:All actors involved in the act have been warned officially. Sanku has qualified for it, and hence been banned. In the future, hopefully better sense will prevail overall.
Boss, one doesn't need a study from well-paid Harvard fat cats to conclude this, all they have to do is log into to BR and read the views of CRamS and othersA_Gupta wrote:Essential to understanding the US media, and how it toes the government line
(therefore I think it belongs in the strategic thread).
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn ... index.html
A newly released study from students at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government provides the latest evidence of how thoroughly devoted the American establishment media is to amplifying and serving (rather than checking) government officials.
. They will actually get more insight.( While he showers Paki with Gifts of F-16s , LGBs and Cash)Source: Economic Times (India)
President Barack Obama has pledged to fix America's "broken" immigration system to ensure that the US will remain a magnet for the best and the brightest from countries like India. In his first major policy speech on the thorny issue of immigration, Obama revealed the broad contours of his vision of reform, which if implemented would be helpful to hundreds and thousands of people from countries like India, who are professionals and law abiding and add value to the American society.
Also allow LeT to keep killing Indian and even civilian Indians. LeT should have been banned long time ago and not allowed to operate inside Pakistan getting support from the army and the state institutions.Prem wrote:
( While he showers Paki with Gifts of F-16s , LGBs and Cash)
The Fort Hood shooter, the Christmas Day bomber, the Times Square attacker. On May 13, the following exchange occurred at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee:
Rep. Lamar Smith (R.,Texas): Do you feel that these individuals might have been incited to take the actions that they did because of radical Islam?
Attorney General Eric Holder: There are a variety of reasons why I think people have taken these actions. . . .
–
Smith: Okay, but radical Islam could have been one of the reasons?
Holder: There are a variety of reasons why people—
Smith: But was radical Islam one of them?
Holder: There are a variety of reasons why people do these things. Some of them are potentially religious-based.
Potentially, mind you. This went on until the questioner gave up in exasperation.
The Pentagon report on the Fort Hood shooter runs 86 pages with not a single mention of Hasan’s Islamism. It contains such politically correct inanities as “religious fundamentalism alone is not a risk factor.”
Of course it is. Indeed, Islamist fundamentalism is not only a risk factor. It is the risk factor, the common denominator linking all the great terror attacks of this century — from 9/11 to Mumbai, from Fort Hood to Times Square, from London to Madrid to Bali. The attackers were of various national origin, occupation, age, social class, native tongue, and race. The one thing that united them was the jihadist vision in whose name they acted.
Ramana,ramana wrote:VijayK, "Naming enemies solidifies them". Lamar Alexander and Charles Krauthammer are political hacks and want to pin the AG down. Its no skin of their nose if the US gets attacked for they can score political gains. During the Bush Admin when TSP was being mollycoddled these guys were silent as church mice. So don't take them to be paragon of truth.
Washington Post Honors Independence Day By Celebrating Muslim Separatist "Founding Father" Of Pakistan
Cuz, you know, Muslims can't live with Hindus. Yeah, maybe, "we're all equal" - as the Muslim Washington Post writer tries to slide down our throat - but though we maybe be equal, Mohammed Ali Jinnah believed MUSLIMS MUST BE SEPARATE.
Can you imagine if a Presbyterian said, You know, Presbyterians can not live with Hindus. We must have our own state."Would the Washington Post celebrate that on the 4th of July?
But, in a way, we can thank Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Because, really, who wants to live with such Muslims?
Mentor Says McChrystal Is ‘Crushed’ by the Change in His Circumstances
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: July 2, 2010
WASHINGTON — The White House sent a powerful signal this week by permitting Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal to retire with all of his four stars, but the general’s most important mentor, Adm. Mike Mullen, still described him as “crushed” during the shock of a transition from commanding nearly 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan to living in exile on the Potomac.
US Congressman Howard Berman’s argument is simple enough. Addressing a meeting of US physicians of Pakistani descent, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee stated the obvious on Sunday when he said that democracy cannot prosper if civilian governments do not enjoy complete administrative control over the armed forces.
The onslaught of Islamic fundamentalists is going to turn this Enlightenment lesson on its head. You will see a Praetorianization of the West.ajit_tr wrote:America & dictators
US Congressman Howard Berman’s argument is simple enough. Addressing a meeting of US physicians of Pakistani descent, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee stated the obvious on Sunday when he said that democracy cannot prosper if civilian governments do not enjoy complete administrative control over the armed forces.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-inv ... 2010-07-06LONDON (MarketWatch) -- The U.S. Justice Department is investigating clients of HSBC Holdings /quotes/comstock/23s!a:hsba (UK:HSBA 613.50, +17.30, +2.90%) /quotes/comstock/13*!hbc/quotes/nls/hbc (HBC 46.45, +0.11, +0.24%) who may have failed to disclose accounts they hold in India and Singapore, according to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the situation. One client received a letter in late June saying the Justice Department believed he hadn't disclosed an account in India to the Internal Revenue Service, the report said. The probe shows the U.S. is expanding its crackdown on offshore tax evasion beyond Switzerland and UBS /quotes/comstock/13*!ubs/quotes/nls/ubs (UBS 13.66, +0.01, +0.04%) the report said. UBS has agreed to disclose data on nearly 4,500 customers to U.S. authorities and has previously paid $780 million and disclosed information on another 250 clients as part of an earlier settlement.
Ayesha Siddiqa, a Pakistani defense analyst with the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, said the sale of advanced technology to India will "perturb Pakistan beyond imagination."
"Such deals will be seen as excessively strengthening India, have a major impact on the future of Pakistan" and could exacerbate an arms race between India and Pakistan, she said.
That is why US Govt and Boeing are adding premium to the bill for C-17 aircraft sold to India. That premium can pay for the military grant to Pakistan by US Congress.ramana wrote:What she is saying is that US will have to gift to TSP what India pays for in order to keep the H&D balance. And the US wont do it for free.
Net result is India will have to pay for the TSP arms too when it buys from the US.
So why buy from there?
