The Internet Newspaper of Global Indians: news, video, blogs, community
Gateway of India, Mumbai
Prabal Gurung elated that Kate Middleton wears his printed skirt soon after New York fashion week
Gurung, who declines to give his age, got a bigger boost after his show at New York Fashion Week, when Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, wore a printed dress from his spring 2012 collection during her visit to Singapore. As he told The New York Times “I can’t even tell you how amazing it is professionally and how surreal,” he said. “It’s a dream and very emotional for me, and it solidifies my belief in what I am trying to do as a designer.” He added that he had no idea that Ms. Middleton was going to don the bold dress or where she might have bought it, the Times report added. For more on Gurung's show, as well as other Indian designers like Naeem Khan, Sheena Trivedi and Bhibu Mohapatra, see:http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/south-asian-designers-make-their-mark-at-fashion-week/
Divya Narendra's Sum Zero gets $1 million from Facebook co-founders & Harvard class mates
In a report the Wall Street Journal notes that, "Flush with at least $65 million from the settlement of a legal battle with Mr. Zuckerberg and Facebook Inc., FB +1.20% Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss are backing fellow Harvard alumnus Divya Narendra, their ally in the Facebook fight, in the investment website. The Winklevosses have put $1 million into SumZero, which was founded by Mr. Narendra and another Harvard alum Aalap Mahadevia, in 2008."For more on the story:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444433504577651750662070974.html
Rakesh Kapoor CEO of Reckitt Benckiser, replaces Chief Financial Officer
In a news release issued by the company, Rakesh Kapoor says, that former CFO Liz Doherty "and I have agreed that RB’s and her way of working are not as well matched as either of us would like, and now is the right time for her to move to a new opportunity.”http://www.rb.com/site/RKBR/Templates/MediaInvestorsGeneral2.aspx?pageid=1300&cc=GB
Bounty on Salman Rushdie for writing "Satanic Verses" raised to $3.3 million by Ayatollah in Iran
A key Ayatollah in Iran has raised the bounty on Rushdie by $500,000 to $3.3 million total. The mullah's statement, according to The London Telegraph, noted the recent controversial film about Prophet Mohammed, "....won't be the last insulting act as long as Imam Khomeini's historic order on executing the blasphemous Salman Rushdie is not carried out".http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9546513/Iran-resurrects-Salman-Rushdie-threat.html
Darbar classical musical festival opens in London
The festival will be "presenting India’s two traditions - Hindustani (north Indian) and Carnatic (south Indian) - together. From the Hindustani tradition we bring you one of India’s greatest sitar maestros, Ustad Shujaat Khan with tabla maestro Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri. Come and experience rare ragas by the khayal vocalist, Shruti Sadolikar-Katkar. Headlining from the Carnatic tradition is India’s greatest violin duo, Mysore Nagraj and Manjunath and on the fabulous veena we have maestro, Chitraveena Ravikiren.But we go beyond the big names. We go out of our way to seek out those musicians who you may not have heard of but are at the top of their game. This is what our audiences tell us give them the biggest buzz.
So this year, we bring to you many musicians performing for the first time in the UK. Look out for Prattyush Banerjee on sarod, Pushpraj Koshti on surbahar, Joydeep Ghosh on surshingar, Shubh Maharaj on tabla and lovers of vocal music must not miss Ram Deshpande Mahadeva singing khayal.
In addition, Chitrangana Agle-Reshwal India’s only female pakhawaj player and Manjiri Asnare-Kelkar singing khayal return after many years for their second visit to London."
For more information go to the festival site:
http://www.darbar.org/darbarfestival
Janaki Bhakle of Columbia University to discuss is Hindu fundamentalism an oxymoron?
What is Hindu fundamentalism? How can fundamentalism be self-consciously modern and progressively science-driven? Listen to Bakhle discuss Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, famous as the author of Hindu fundamentalism and as a revolutionary nationalist deeply devoted to the idea of India as a Hindu state and infamous for his alleged involvement in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. How can a study of this fundamentalist serve as the political biography of a distinctly non-monotheistic fundamentalism?
https://secure.www.alumniconnections.com/olc/pub/COUC/event/showEventForm.jsp?form_id=133222
Kapila Venu's Kuttiyattam dance at the Asia Society was astounding says The New York Times
Brian Seibert, writing in The New York Times sets the background for the dance depicting the episode in the Ramayana, where Sita is abandoned in the forest by Rama over doubts about her chastity.
"In one seldom-celebrated episode Rama, having rescued his wife, Sita,
from a demon, requires her to prove her chastity in a trial by fire. She
passes the test, but rumors persist, and so he abandons his pregnant
wife in the forest. The forest animals weep with her. A sage takes her
in and trains her twin sons, and years later, when Rama discovers them,
he rejoices. But still he requires of his wife another trial by fire.
The mistrust is too much for Sita to bear, and she asks the earth to
open up and swallow her."
Seibert
goes on to write that this story was "...recounted in an extraordinary
performance at Asia Society on Saturday (co-produced by Sanskriti
Center). “The Abandonment of Sita” was a highly rare glimpse into kuttiyattam,
an ancient form of temple theater from the Kerala region in South
India. All the characters were portrayed — in mime and occasional bursts
of song — by one woman, the astounding Kapila Venu."
Siddhartha Deb gets PEN author of color $5000 award
It appears that Siddhartha Deb and/or his publisher Faber & Faber must have identified Deb as an Asian minority in the US when submitting his memoir "The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India" for the PEN award. The submission form for the PEN award states, "To be eligible, candidates must be writers of color who have not received wide media coverage."Further, "The PEN Open Book Award, formerly the Beyond Margins Awards, celebrate outstanding books by writers of color published in the United States during the previous year.
Sponsored by the Open Book Program, this award is one of the many ways in which the Open Book Program encourages racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities. The Open Book Committee works to increase the literature by, for, and about African, Arab, Asian, Caribbean, Latin, and Native Americans, and to establish access for these groups to the publishing industry. "
Last year Deb's book was discussed in The New Yorker.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2011/08/siddhartha-debs-publishing-odyssey.html
Maybe Deb and his publisher will submit his next book for the main PEN award.
The news from PEN about Deb's award:
"Fiction and nonfiction writer Siddhartha Deb won the PEN Open Book Award for his memoir, The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India (Faber & Faber, 2011). The $5,000 prize is given for a book by an author of color published in 2011. Alexander Chee, Mat Johnson, and Natasha Trethewey judged."
http://www.pw.org/content/pen_american_center_announces_winners_of_2012_literary_awards?cmnt_all=1
Hyde Park Corner: An Open Forum
Indians should press Harvard and other top US universities to abolish 20% Asian quota
Good education is very important to Indian parents since a degree from a good college, preferably a professional one, largely determines income and perhaps even eligibility for a good "catch", as in marriage. But Indians and other Asians are finding their avenues for success limited by the Asian ceiling - unstated quota limiting total Asian admissions to a maximum 20% as apparently is the case at Harvard and other elite Universities in the US. According to article below, while Asian students at the University of California Berkeley has risen to 40% that at Harvard has stayed stagnant around 18% for the past decade.So Indians in the US, especially those donating money and holding influential posts, should voice opposition and team up with other Asians to press elite universities to abolish the Asian ceiling.
"Admissions officers deny capping the number of Asian-American students at schools, but a 2009 book called No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal posited that Asian Americans needed nearly perfect SAT scores to gain entrance to a top private university ........".
Ivy League Discrimination? Harvard's Asian student admissions static around 17% while Asians at UC Berkeley have risen to 40%
Khan Academy: effective and free online education help
How to do better at an exam or just improve your knowledge?
Thanks to Salman Khan, you have free access to learning methods that Microsoft founder, mega billionaire and major philanthropist Bill Gates uses to teach his own kids."With over 3,200 videos on everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and hundreds of skills to practice, we're on a mission to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace.
A free world-class education for anyone anywhere."
www.khanacademy.org/
https://www.edx.org/
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