India-US Strategic News and Discussion

abhischekcc · Post by **abhischekcc** » 29 May 2012 21:44

Advait wrote:Be ready for crap on caste, women blah blah blah.

As if this is not already happening. Anglos have a peculiar tendency to insult those races/groups they are threatened by. In the 80s it was the Japanese, in the 90s it was the Chinese, and now it is us.

Advait · Post by **Advait** » 29 May 2012 21:53

abhischekcc, the main difference with Japanese/Chinese and us is that the Indian government, and our elites both in India and abroad are also against us.

We only have Ranjan Zed

I mean, how many of our emerging elites in US have the right attitude. I read on Harvard (or maybe Yale's, either way) site that the Hindu students who had organized the Diwali festival as part of the "South Asian club" changed the name to something else to make it "more secular".

This was from the early 2000s. They seemed to be 2nd gen undergrads. And these ppl are now probably our "elites"/self-appointed community leaders. I can only hope they have more sense now. This is how deep our rot is.

Nandu · Post by **Nandu** » 29 May 2012 22:03

Jayram wrote:Oh btw the way top 3 in the National Geographic jeopardy round were also Indians.
looke here Geography Jeopardy

I finally got to watch this event.

Top 10 were 1 girl and 9 boys. The girl was Indian, and so were six of the nine boys, the rest being two white kids and one Chinese.

The girl had a Punjabi last name. Unfortunately, she couldn't answer one of the only two questions in the event that I knew the answer to, i.e. she didn't ID the Harmandir Sahib from an aerial photo.

She and the white kids got eliminated early. The Chinese kid held on for a little longer, but by the time it got to top 4, it was all Indians.

Anyways, don't forget to set your DVRs for the spelling bee this Thursday.

I don't really agree with hnair, but I would like to see Indian kids taking as dominating a position, or close to it, in the math olympiads.

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 29 May 2012 22:10

Advait wrote:abhischekcc, the main difference with Japanese/Chinese and us is that the Indian government, and our elites both in India and abroad are also against us.

We only have Ranjan Zed

I mean, how many of our emerging elites in US have the right attitude. I read on Harvard (or maybe Yale's, either way) site that the Hindu students who had organized the Diwali festival as part of the "South Asian club" changed the name to something else to make it "more secular".

This was from the early 2000s. They seemed to be 2nd gen undergrads. And these ppl are now probably our "elites"/self-appointed community leaders. I can only hope they have more sense now. This is how deep our rot is.

i don't dispute what you've witnessed, but my personal experience is that i've seen the complete opposite of the above. 2nd gen kids who are born and brought up in US, or who've been in US since 2 or 3 years age, who wear tilak on forehead, without any sense of shame or loss of face.

you'd be surprised just how much "resistance" there is to p-sec nonsense in certain determined sections of Indians in US. and it is not limited to any linguistic section, but spread out among various regional origins in India.

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 29 May 2012 22:13

abhischekcc wrote:
Advait wrote:Be ready for crap on caste, women blah blah blah.
As if this is not already happening. Anglos have a peculiar tendency to insult those races/groups they are threatened by. In the 80s it was the Japanese, in the 90s it was the Chinese, and now it is us.

It's sledging, psywar. The target either believes the insult and loses the drive to win, or gets enraged and wastes energy and attention battling the insult.

Advait · Post by **Advait** » 29 May 2012 22:25

Just read the news about Rahul Nagvekar winning the spelling bee. As more and more desis win these type of contests, except editorials saying that these kids are just robots, not winning push-up contests and being the star quarterback etc etc. That they need to be more well-rounded for their own benefit and learn to play the piano blah blah blah.

Btw, nothing on Fox News about the kid or even the contest.

Reading the comments on Yahoo, some of the comments from the "native" population are just sour grapes, calling the contest useless.

Seems like most Americans would rather raise their kids to be an Al Bundy.

Anybody remember the show. Al "4 touchdowns in a single game" Bundy and then sr. shoe salesman.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 29 May 2012 22:27

Nandu wrote:I don't really agree with hnair, but I would like to see Indian kids taking as dominating a position, or close to it, in the math olympiads.

hnair is spot on. There was an article about where the past spelling bee winners are doing now. What they have done is yawn compared to the past Westinghouse/Intel winners or IMO winners.

I also had a chance to talk to Dr. Ratnam. I asked him why concentrate on spelling. His premise was that PIO kids are good are getting good scores in the math section of ACT and SAT, but not doing so well in the verbal and analogies etc. I think that premise is incorrect. (and the end goal - to do well in standardized tests - is not a great thing either).

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 30 May 2012 04:56

Advait wrote: Reading the comments on Yahoo, some of the comments from the "native" population are just sour grapes, calling the contest useless.

Personally, I find spelling bee championships a little one-dimensional (I am sure it helps in more than one way though) but I say that participating and winning the spelling bee is any day better than not participating in it. And yes, some of the comments seem to be just plain pejorative. A local radio talk show that had a guest talking about (a few years ago) about the pre-ponderance of Indians winning spelling bee, he dismissively said something about the kids being 'home-schooled'. He had no clue but that did not stop him from pontificating.

Anybody remember the show. Al "4 touchdowns in a single game" Bundy and then ~~sr.~~ women's shoe salesman.

Married, with Children. How dare you mock my guru and role model Al Bundy....there is and will be only one Al Bundy.

. Trivia: AL Bundy=Ed O' NEill is also a jiu jitsu martial artist, black belt, I saw him recently on a show about Bruce Lee.

@matrimc: If you find that article on the spelling bee champions and where are they now, please do post a link.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 30 May 2012 07:23

Srikumar, here you go (from Wikipedia entry of Scripps Spelling Bee)

when spelling bee champs grow up

Regarding Indian languages being phonetic which leads us to be good spellers, I have first hand experience of this with my daughter. We were in India for a year when she was 2.5 years old. She picked up a lot of Telugu. When we came back to US, she had a few classes in Telugu alphabet. After that she was able to read fairly complicated Telugu books fluently, but I doubt she understood everything she was reading. Now she completely forgot the Telugu alphabet and lost the Telugu reading ability as well. At about the same time, she started to learn English alphabet and she started to read English books quite fluently at the age of 4 which I felt was quite remarkable. I think her knowing Telugu alphabet and language helped her in English reading enormously. FWIW...

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 30 May 2012 07:35

ok this is funny

here we have some saying the reason for excellent performance is the basis in Indian languages??

but out there in burkha thread people are wasting their lives trying to find a link language to replace English

i always mention the fact that European languages originate from Sanskrit. Also the fact that most Indians speak more than 2 languages. I used to wonder why it is so difficult for Phillipino's, Japanese, Chinese to speak grammatically correct structures in English which they learn as a 2nd language.

err many Indians who learn English as a second or third language much later are not that fluent either.

Just like the effects of Tamil or Hindi rub of on their english speaking skills - the same happens to Chinese etc

As for Filipinos they compete with Indians in the many of the same areas (call center\off shoring etc) - so I am not sure why you think their English skills are poor.

Many of the teachers\nurses coming actoss on H1s to US are filipinos.

I would neither disparage others nor overrate us

SriKumar · Post by **SriKumar** » 30 May 2012 07:53

matrimc wrote:Srikumar, here you go (from Wikipedia entry of Scripps Spelling Bee)
when spelling bee champs grow up

Thanks. It seems to be a mixed bag. Three of them are doctors/lawyers including the only desi in the list of 7 winners.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 30 May 2012 09:11

To put in perspective Westinghouse winners went on to win nobels and IMO winners went onto win fields medals
Added later I am not saying that they are not good solid professions but they are not like winning a Fields or equivalently a Pulitzer or booker or something

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 30 May 2012 10:43

SriKumar wrote:
Anybody remember the show. Al "4 touchdowns in a single game" Bundy and then ~~sr.~~ women's shoe salesman.
Married, with Children. How dare you mock my guru and role model Al Bundy....there is and will be only one Al Bundy. . Trivia: AL Bundy=Ed O' NEill is also a jiu jitsu martial artist, black belt, I saw him recently on a show about Bruce Lee.

Al Bundy rocks! Love that man and his No Ma'am club. Incidentally, Ed O' Neill is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner and is supposed to be pretty good at it.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 30 May 2012 11:03

Surya wrote:ok this is funny

here we have some saying the reason for excellent performance is the basis in Indian languages??

but out there in burkha thread people are wasting their lives trying to find a link language to replace English

Good catch.

shyam · Post by **shyam** » 30 May 2012 12:43

I don't understand this anti-bee feeling among many people here.

Bee or other things, we want Indian names to appear in public media. More the better and these bees do a good job in that. If you realize that being a bee-champion doesn't get much, no problem, send your kid to outshine others in something else that you find suitable and make his/her name appear in the media. We have enough talented people to excel in different fields. There is no need to demonize something that does good PR job for Indians in America.

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 30 May 2012 12:48

bee et al., stereotype indian kids in a particular model. i don't think that is universally good. we need to excel in all walks of life

Hari Seldon · Post by **Hari Seldon** » 30 May 2012 13:32

desis are also stereotyped as some kind of a 'model minority' in massaland. IOW, the 'keep yer heads down and keep paying taxes on time' group. Has among the highest per capita incomes by ethnic group, has a huge number of med school admissions (almost a sixth of all US med school admissions are to PIOs i.e. in a decade, a sixth of all US doctors would be desi origin), poor stats on law school admissions though. And so on.

Any case, reality catches up with stereotyping. I'd worry more about packees claiming to be Indians than Indians doing anything.

devesh · Post by **devesh** » 30 May 2012 18:48

that stereotyping is more prevalent in areas where the Indian population is tiny. in place like the NJ belt, the stereotypes are being broken pretty visibly. the "outliers" who have chosen to be "radical" have increased in frequency. and "radical" in the sense that doing the opposite of the "norm".

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 30 May 2012 19:24

I am okay with this type of stereotyping. This is a positive stereotype. So it is welcome. When people think doctors, they think Indians. Earlier, it was only cabbies and 7-11 owners and motel guys. Software is taken over by Indians. The Chinese and Koreans are like us.

Contrast with Pakis. They are only known for terrorism, going to Pakistan for "religious training", causing trouble in their patron nations and just making regular asses of themselves.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 30 May 2012 20:26

The hidden angst over the spelling bee is the bogus premise that a mastery over vocabulary is an IQ indicator. SDRE kids have shown its a skill that can be learned and mastered.
The Westinghouse/Intel winners are creative and have to come up with something new and hence some of them go on to win acclaim.
Spelling bee champions have demolished a myth of high vocabulary== high IQ.
So they too have contributed.

Yayavar · Post by **Yayavar** » 30 May 2012 21:15

moved bee/westinghouse question to off-topic thread...

shyamoo · Post by **shyamoo** » 31 May 2012 23:59

ramana wrote:Spelling bee champions have demolished a myth of high vocabulary== high IQ.
So they too have contributed.

Ramana garu,

Having a high/decent IQ by itself doesn't make one successful.

High IQ ( 140+ ) + Hardwork --> Very successfull
High IQ ( 140+ ) --> Successful ( depends on how high )
Decent IQ ( 130 + ) + Hardwork --> Successful
Decent IQ ( 130+ ) --> Success not guaranteed

Spelling bee champions have already cultivated a habit of putting effort and developing a good work ethic. I feel this is not something that can be ignored. It will help them to become relatively successful.

I have never worked hard for anything in my life. I never developed a good work ethic. In fact, I had never done any homework in my life ( It was not required in my school

).
I do not consider myself as a successful person. I have an IQ in the 140s ( apparently genius level ..

genius my *ss ). It means didly squat.

There is no substitute for hardwork. 99% perspiration..1% inspiration.

JMT

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 01 Jun 2012 01:55

US eyes 7th fleet base in Chittagong port per Times Now.
http://www.timesnow.tv/Excl-America-eye ... 403319.cms

Indian strategists leaked the news. My initial comments is a no although I am aware of the alliance (with US) strategy that strategic community is debating.

Lilo · Post by **Lilo** » 01 Jun 2012 02:21

^^ Shyamd ji,
This has been first mentioned by an ORF research analyst Dr Joyeeta Bhattacharjee back in April. After 2 months our DDM has finally sniffed it.

Please refer this post

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 01 Jun 2012 02:25

Thanks. DDM sniffed it because officials leaked it to journo's. Why the leak now? Thats the question.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 01 Jun 2012 03:27

shyamd wrote:US eyes 7th fleet base in Chittagong port per Times Now.
http://www.timesnow.tv/Excl-America-eye ... 403319.cms

Indian strategists leaked the news. My initial comments is a no although I am aware of the alliance (with US) strategy that strategic community is debating.

It is the location near china which is the focus. also access to bay of bengal and snooping on Indian nuclear fleet will be in the radar. Not good for Asia and Asians.

By splitting the Indian subcontinent Indians have allowed other powers to enter our region.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 01 Jun 2012 03:53

Acharya wrote: By splitting the Indian subcontinent Indians have allowed other powers to enter our region.

How in seven hells is India responsible for this? Are you saying that we should not have helped the Bangladeshis in 71?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 01 Jun 2012 04:25

No its the 1947 Partition silly.

chandrabhan · Post by **chandrabhan** » 01 Jun 2012 16:01

Raman Sir,
Partition? Ask Pakis , they already existed and in fact post 1990, there is a birth of new nation called 'South Asia' and it exists in the stratosphere.

Altair · Post by **Altair** » 01 Jun 2012 16:12

June is India Month in Washington

Defence Secretary Leon Panetta will spend two days in New Delhi next week as part of a visit aimed at taking the military-to-military relationship between the two countries to the next level.

By June end, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is scheduled to land in India for economic and business talks with his Indian counterpart.

And in between, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has decided to go out of her way to co-chair at least three cabinet level meetings/summits with Indian ministers, including the third round of Strategic Dialogue in Washington with External Affairs Minister SM Krishna on June 13.

The Indian delegation would be represented by four cabinet ministers and two cabinet-level officials

A day before the India-US Strategic Dialogue, Ms Clinton would co-chair with Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal at the Education Dialogue, which is a follow up to the first meeting held here last year on June 12.

Mr Sibal would be accompanied by a number of Indian education officials and representatives from Indian universities and educational institutions.

On June 11, Science and Technology Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh would co-chair a meeting with his US counterpart to discuss cooperation in the field of science and technology.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 01 Jun 2012 18:23

shyamd wrote:US eyes 7th fleet base in Chittagong port per Times Now.
http://www.timesnow.tv/Excl-America-eye ... 403319.cms

Indian strategists leaked the news. My initial comments is a no although I am aware of the alliance (with US) strategy that strategic community is debating.

Owww sheeet!

Don't they have enough on their plate in the Pacific?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 02 Jun 2012 08:06

hnair Apparently the zombie effect is due to a high potency street drug called "bath salts". Check the Islamism thread for the effects.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 02 Jun 2012 08:54

Leon panetta says US will shift 60% of navy into pacific by 2020.

excerpt:

The increased U.S. naval presence in the Pacific will allow the U.S. to boost the number and size of the military exercises in the region in the next few years and to plan for more port visits over a wider area (*cough cough* chittagong anyone?), including the Indian Ocean. Last year, the U.S. military participated in 172 exercises in the region involving 24 counties.

Currently, the Navy has about 285 ships, with roughly half assigned to each coast, but that total may decline a bit as some ships are retired in the coming years and may not be replaced.

The current fleet includes 11 aircraft carriers, with six assigned to the Pacific. But those numbers are slated to go down later this year, dipping to 10 carriers, with five assigned to Pacific ports in San Diego, Washington state and Japan.

Panetta, however, said he intends to go back to having six carriers in the Pacific in the coming years. And he said the Pacific will also eventually host a majority of the Navy's cruisers, destroyers, submarines and littoral combat ships, which operate in close to shore.

Numbers, however, aren't everything. So Panetta assured the conference that the region will also get ships that have greater technological capabilities. He did not elaborate on what those might be, but he noted that the U.S. expects to deploy more enhanced and high-tech submarines and fighter aircraft, along with new electronic warfare and communications systems.

Panetta is on a nine-day trip across Asia, with planned stops in Vietnam and India

darshhan · Post by **darshhan** » 02 Jun 2012 09:10

ramana wrote:hnair Apparently the zombie effect is due to a high potency street drug called "bath salts". Check the Islamism thread for the effects.

Ramana ji , The Miami cannibal attack is also being blamed on consumption of bath salts by the aggressor.Probably you know this already. Check out the following links.

http://kdvr.com/2012/06/01/zombie-canni ... dangerous/

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/true-c ... 6376597046

If true , then this is the final evidence that US has lost the war on drugs. Infact there will come a time when Americans will rue the fact that they never legalised Marijuana and cocaine. Same goes for other countries who chose to follow similar policies.

After all Human imagination can never be restricted by govt regulation.

darshhan · Post by **darshhan** » 02 Jun 2012 09:23

Just check the following link (as a testament to human imagination)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designer_drug

Advait · Post by **Advait** » 02 Jun 2012 09:35

Indian-Americans (Hindus) are 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the spelling bee this year

(does lungi dance

)

Just see the comments at most of the sites. Jealous losers. Now the spelling bee has become "uncool" and "geeky".

So the pattern has been established: Any competition where Indians are regular winners and that too disproportionate to their pop. numbers, are useless and counterproductive to the child's growth blah blah blah.

Also, most American sites are avoiding mentioning the fact that all three winners are Indians. Most of them just have the winner's name and a few mention the second place winner.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 02 Jun 2012 10:03

You know why that drug was banned? Every drug was banned as it was associated with one immigrant group!
opium for Chinese laborers who built the railroads
marijuna for Mexican migrants

and so on.

Alcohol which afflicts Caucasians is not banned.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 03 Jun 2012 01:14

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/12/re ... latestnews
Report warns US educational failures pose national security threat
( great many lessons for Indians)

A new report finds that the United States' education system is putting the country's national security at risk.The independent study, sponsored by The Council on Foreign Relations, finds K-12 school systems across the country are failing to adequately prepare kids to grow up and protect the U.S."For starters, we don't have nearly enough people who are capable in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math," said former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, a member of the council's task force that wrote the report, titled "U.S. Education Reform and National Security.""When we think about the modern world of defense," Spellings said, "the fact that we don't have people who are capable to do this work is scary."
In addition to skills needed to defend ourselves in war, the study found American schools fail to teach students skills needed to avoid conflicts."We don't have people who know and understand foreign languages and other cultures," said Spelling, pointing out that U.S. children are ranked No. 17 in the world for language skills. "On any given day, there are hundreds of (job) vacancies for people who speak Pashtu and Arabic, and Mandarin and on and on."The Council on Foreign Relations report was chaired by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former New York City Department of Education Chancellor Joel Klein.
It states America's educational failures pose five distinct threats to national security:
- Threats to economic growth and competitiveness
- U.S. physical safety
- Intellectual property
- U.S. global awareness
- U.S. unity and cohesion
Klein, who now works for News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, said he believes the greatest threat to national security is the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots and the increasing belief that the American Dream could soon become nothing but a memory."This sense that your kids lives won't be better than your lives. That, to me will erode America's confidence. That will make us more divided," Klein said. "A massively undereducated country is not going to be competitive. It's not going to be cohesive." However, there is no difference between black and white, rich and poor, when it comes to American schools' failure to teach skills that could eventually be life saving."Disadvantaged kids are the most impacted. But even at the high end, we are sort of fat, dumb and happy," Spellings said. "Some new data out suggests that even in Beverly Hills and Princeton and Scarsdale, any affluent community you can think of, those kids don't perform very well compared to their peers around the world, either."So what can Americans do? The report recommends these three main concepts:- Expanding state standards to offer more lessons necessary for safeguarding national security, like science and language
- Provide parents and students school choice
- Conduct "national security readiness audits" of all schools and hold them accountable if they’re not meeting standards
To spur these changes, Klein and Spellings are urging Americans, whether they have kids or not, to discuss education issues with their local legislators."Don't talk about tax abatement. Don't talk about pollution. Talk first and foremost about transforming education," Klein said. "That's the only way I know to make the political processes change."
Spellings suggests getting involved yourself.
"We've got to get back to the day where people in this room will stand up and say: 'I'm going to run for the school board.' We have left that level of politics to self-interested political careerists who want to use it as a stepping stone or people who represent the system," Spellings said. "If we're not paying attention, then shame on us. That's what we get."

Y

Sushupti · Post by **Sushupti** » 03 Jun 2012 22:19

Daily Herald: Controversy in 8th District

A controversy is brewing in the suburban Indian-American community over Republican Congressman Joe Walsh's support of an Indian state official, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Walsh has asked the U.S. State Department to grant a visa for Modi, whose visa was revoked after he was accused by some of complicity in the ethnic cleansing of Muslims a decade ago in India. Walsh is vying against Democrat Tammy Duckworth in the 8th Congressional District in the Nov. 6 election.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?sectio ... id=8687121

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 04 Jun 2012 07:55

War in the White House!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... rated.html

War in the White House: attorney general Eric Holder and top Obama adviser David Axelrod 'had to be separated'
Eric Holder, Barack Obama's attorney general and David Axelrod, his top political adviser had to be separated after squaring up during a furious row over attempts to impose White House operatives in the justice department.