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SOUTH ASIA NEWS




STRING

     US NEWS SOURCES - July 26&27, 2003 (Weekend)

---IN WEEKEND NEWS---


The U.S. ambassador to India warns unspecified consequences if Pakistan fails to end incursions into the Indian Kashmir. A top U.S. military official is to meet Indian security leaders Monday for talks on bilateral defense cooperation and regional security. Another grenade attack by Islamic rebels wounds 15 people in Kashmir. Indian soldiers raid a rebel hide-out in the Indian Kashmir and kill six suspected Islamic guerrillas. Sri Lanka plans toU.N. peacekeeper training center. In the business news, Covansys’ shares jumps 62 percent after an analyst praises the company for shifting jobs to India. Coke's India fertilizer may be toxic, BBC reports citing a study.

HEADLINES

TOP STORIES
U.S. ambassador warns of consequences if Pakistan fails to stop cross-border terrorism in Kashmir (Hoovers) (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required)
Top US military official to discuss Indian troops for Iraq during talks with Indian officials (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)
Pakistan, India trade artillery fire along Kashmir border; six civilians killed (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers) (New York Times - Registration required) (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) (Charlotte Observer)
Fifteen wounded in grenade blast in Indian Kashmir (New York Times - Registration required) (Washington Post)
Soldiers kill six suspected guerrillas in Indian-held Kashmir (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers) (News Day) (New York Times - Registration required) (USA Today) (Washington Post)
Judge frees 4th Virginia jihad suspect  (Washington Post)
Pakistani religious leader ends India visit (Washington Times)
Pakistani Islamic coalition agrees to talks with government over political impasse (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)
Two elderly civilians killed in border skirmish (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)
Top state official in India's northeast survives rebel attack (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)
Bomb rips through remote corner of northwest Pakistan (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)
Sri Lanka toU.N. peacekeeper training center (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)
Afghan president invites Pakistan's Musharraf for state visit (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)
Bomb explodes outside a bank in eastern India, one person killed (Wall Street Journal - Subscription required) (Hoovers)
Pakistan shootout kills cop, two gunmen (Times Leader) (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) (Washington Post)
Indian troops kill 16 along Kashmir border (Boston Globe)
India denies visa to the secretary-general of Amnesty International (Washington Post)
OTHER STORIES
At least 175 feared dead in Bangladesh (Washington Times)
Mother Teresa's beatification planned (Miami Herald)
Trading stardom for cozy obscurity (Baltimore Sun)
Cell phone companies in India offering matchmaking messages (San Jose Mercury News) (Houston Chronicle - Subscription required) (Washington Post)
Indian festivals to celebrate together (Contra Costa Times)
Making safety a top priority for workers (New Bedford Standard)
Poet's choice (Washington Post)
Citizen of the year (Fort Bend Southwest Sun)
Elephants kill two Bangladeshi villagers (Washington Post)
Ogniana Ivanova and Rajpuram Sriram (New York Times - Registration required)
Overstay of Visa Complicates Things   (NY NewsDay)
Indian Prime Minister: Put health on agenda (Times Leader) (News Day)
Indian PM seeks quick response to AIDS crisis (Washington Post) (New York Times - Registration required)

STORIES

TOP STORIES

*

U.S. ambassador warns of consequences if Pakistan fails to stop cross-border terrorism in Kashmir
  July 26, New Delhi -- The U.S. ambassador to India has warned of unspecified consequences if Pakistan fails to end incursions by Islamic guerrillas into the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir. Ambassador Robert Blackwill told the New Delhi Television channel that Pakistan-based terrorists continue to cross the border despite a pledge by Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to end the problem. A so-called ``Line of Control' divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, nuclear-armed rivals which both claim the entire territory and have fought two wars over it.
 

  http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_
  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030726_000042,00.html

*

Top US military official to discuss Indian troops for Iraq during talks with Indian officials
  July 27, New Delhi -- A top U.S. military official was to meet Indian security leaders Monday for talks on bilateral defense cooperation and regional security, including the possibility of New Delhi sending troops to Iraq. The Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, who is scheduled to arrive in New Delhi on Monday, was to meet India's National Security Adviser Brajesh Misra for discussions on closer military ties between the two countries. Myers is also scheduled to meet with his Indian counterpart, Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, Admiral Madhvendra Singh, and Gen. N. C. Vij, the army chief. New Delhi recently rejected Washington's request to send troops to help stabilize Iraq, after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee failed to achieve a political consensus on the issue. But news reports say officials from both sides continue to explore a politically acceptable way for India to deploy forces.
 

  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030727_000947-search,00.html
  http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_cf10000376d44a65

*

Pakistan, India trade artillery fire along Kashmir border; six civilians killed
  July 27, Muzaffarabad, Pakistan -- Troops from India and Pakistan traded artillery and mortar fire along the Kashmir border, killing six Pakistani civilians. The dead from Sunday's skirmish, which is not uncommon in the disputed border region, included two brothers, ages 8 and 10. Another 15 people were wounded on Pakistan's side, said police Superintendent Raja Abdul Razzaq. There were no immediate reports of casualties on the Indian side. The young brothers died of shrapnel wounds when an artillery shell exploded near their home in Hajira, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.
 

  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030727_000743-search,00.html
  http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_8a1700016e4c0f26
  http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Pakistan-Kashmirhtml
  http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Pakistan%20Kashmir
  http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/6398026.htm

*

Fifteen wounded in grenade blast in Indian Kashmir
  July 27, Srinagar, India -- Fifteen people were wounded in India's Jammu and Kashmir state on Sunday when a grenade thrown by suspected Muslim rebels at an army patrol missed the target and exploded on a crowded street, police said. Rebel violence has continued in the disputed Himalayan region despite India and Pakistan making efforts to improve ties. ``Militants attacked a security patrol with a grenade at Kokernag which missed the target and exploded on the road injuring fifteen civilians,'' a police official told Reuters.
 

  http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-kashmir-explosion.html
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AJul27.html

*

Soldiers kill six suspected guerrillas in Indian-held Kashmir
  July 27, Srinagar, India -- Indian soldiers on Sunday raided a rebel hide-out in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir and killed six suspected Islamic guerrillas, while 14 people were wounded in a grenade attack elsewhere in the disputed region, police said. Two houses in Khandpora, the village where the rebels were allegedly hiding, were also destroyed in a fierce six-hour gunbattle sparked by the raid, a police officer said on condition of anonymity. There were no reports of casualties among Indian troops, the officer said. Khandpora is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Srinagar, the summer capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state.
 

  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030727_000500,00.html
  http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_a5e1000479fb9d70
  http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-kashmir-killings,0,4112053.story
  http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Kashmir-Killingshtml
  http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/-kashmir_x.htm
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AJul27.html

*

Judge frees 4th Virginia jihad suspect
  July 26 -- Federal prosecutors, for the first time, yesterday tried to directly link a member of an alleged Virginia jihad network to al Qaeda, telling a judge that the suspect's phone number was found in the cell phone directory of a friend authorities say admitted to being a member of the terror network. But their efforts failed to persuade U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema to jail the suspect, Sabri Benkahla, before trial. Instead, Brinkema upheld a Thursday ruling by a magistrate judge and freed Benkahla after his father agreed to put up the family's Falls Church home as bond. He is the fourth of 11 suspects charged in the case to be released pending trial.
 

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AJul25.html
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AJul25.html

*

Pakistani religious leader ends India visit
  July 26, Islamabad -- The leader of Pakistan's main religious party returned home after visiting India as part of an effort to improve relations between the two countries. Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, brought with him a message from India Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, The Dawn reported. The message was handed over to Pakistan Prime Minister Zafrullah Khan Jamali but its contents were not disclosed. The maulana spent 10 days in India. The Dawn, an English language newspaper in Pakistan, speculated the message contained options for a solution to the Kashmir issue over which the two countries have fought two wars since 1947.
 

  http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/r.htm

*

Pakistani Islamic coalition agrees to talks with government over political impasse
  July 27, Islamabad -- A coalition of hardline Islamic parties said it is willing to hold talks with the government on ending a political impasse that has blocked debate in Parliament. Another group of opposition parties, called the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy, rejected the talks. Both opposition groups have been demanding that President Gen. Pervez Musharraf step down as chief of the armed forces and give up special powers he decreed allowing him to dissolve Parliament and sack the prime minister. Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless 1999 coup, has refused. The Pakistani leader allowed democratic elections in October, but he has vowed to stay on as president and army chief as long as he deems it is in the best interests of the countr
 

  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030727_000814-search,00.html
  http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_fd170005132eef46

*

Two elderly civilians killed in border skirmish
  July 27, Muzaffarabad, Pakistan -- Pakistani and Indian troops traded heavy artillery and mortar fire along the disputed Kashmir border on Sunday, killing two civilians and injuring 13 others on the Pakistan side of the border, police said. A 65-year-old woman died in Nakial village, about 260 kilometers (156 miles) south of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, when a stray shell hit her home, Police Superintendent Raja Abdul Razzaq said. The second civilian, a 70 year-old man, was also killed by an exploding shell in Forward Kahuta area, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Muzaffarabad, he said.
 

  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030727_000512-search,00.html
  http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_10cb00013dc4d5bb

*

Top state official in India's northeast survives rebel attack
  July 27, New Delhi -- Suspected separatist rebels ambushed the convoy of the top elected official in India's northeastern Manipur state on Sunday, wounding four security guards, a news report said. Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh escaped the gunfire unhurt, the Press Trust of India news agency said, quoting police. The security guards retaliated but the attackers escaped, the agency said. The four wounded guards were being treated in a nearby hospital, it said. No other details were immediately available. Manipur police said they suspected rebels, but didn't name any specific group. More than two dozen insurgent groups have been fighting in India's seven northeastern states, demanding independent homelands.
 

  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030727_000489,00.html
  http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_67420002a1da01aa

*

Bomb rips through remote corner of northwest Pakistan
  July 27, Peshawar, Pakistan -- A powerful bomb exploded in a remote town in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, injuring seven people, two of them seriously, an interior ministry official said. The homemade bomb was detonated under a vehicle in Miran Shah belonging to the Tochi Scouts, a local militia allied with the Pakistan army, said ministry official Mohammed Aslam. No one was in the vehicle at the time, he said, adding that the injured were passers by. Aslam said the bomb targeted the Tochi Scouts, but no one claimed responsibility for it. U.S. Special Forces are stationed in Miran Shah, 290 kilometers (170 miles) northwest of the federal capital of Islamabad and close to the Afghan border.
 

  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030727_000539-search,00.html
  http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_3c3100025d6189df

*

Sri Lanka toU.N. peacekeeper training center
  July 27, Colombo -- The Sri Lankan government plans toa training center for would-be U.N. peacekeepers from across South Asia, a news report said Sunday. The state-run Sunday Observer newspaper said the government had already allocated land in central Sri Lanka for the training center, which would start operating by June, 2004. The United Nations would provide the instructors and funding for the training, the report said. Sri Lanka is keen to send troops on peacekeeping operations, especially since its efforts to end its own two-decade civil war appear to be taking root.
 

  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030727_000481,00.html
  http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_a72a000247ab0163

*

Afghan president invites Pakistan's Musharraf for state visit
  July 26, Kabul -- After a month in which a mob ransacked Pakistan's embassy in Afghanistan and border clashes broke out between the two countries, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has invited Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to visit, an official said Saturday. Musharraf accepted the invitation during a telephone conversation between the two heads of state on Friday, but no date has been set for the visit, Foreign Ministry spokesman Omar Samad said. ``Generally, both sides are moving toward putting relations back on track, but that doesn't mean all the issues have been resolved,' Samad told The Associated Press. ``We still have some pretty important issues that have to be taken up by Pakistan and we expect some action on their part.'
 

  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030726_000063,00.html
  http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_18f8000aea4f1158

*

Bomb explodes outside a bank in eastern India, one person killed
  July 26, New Delhi -- Suspected robbers exploded a bomb outside a bank in an eastern Indian city, killing one person and wounding a police officer on Saturday, a news report said. The unidentified assailants detonated the explosive in an attempt to rob a man carrying cash to a branch of the Bank of Baroda in Patna, the capital of Bihar state, the Press Trust of India news agency quoted police as saying. The report said a passer-by was killed and a police officer injured in the blast. It wasn't clear if the intended victim, who was on his way to deposit cash for his company, was also wounded.
 

  http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,BT_CO_20030726_000032,00.html
  http://www.hoovers.com/free/news/detail.xhtml?ArticleID=NR_17040000f6efcf3a

*

Pakistan shootout kills cop, two gunmen
  July 27, New Delhi -- A shootout between police and gunmen on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital left one policeman and two assailants dead, police said Sunday. The shootout happened late Saturday after police tried to stop the vehicle during a routine check, police spokesman Nusrat Ali said. Gunmen insided fire on the policemen, killing one. Police then killed two of the gunmen, Ali said. Another two gunmen were arrested after the vehicle screamed to a halt on the side of the road.
 

  http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/news/nation/6393592.htm
  http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Pakistan%20Shooting
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AJul27.html

*

Indian troops kill 16 along Kashmir border
  July 26, Stinagar, India -- Indian soldiers killed 11 suspected Muslim rebels and five unarmed Bangladeshis trying to sneak into the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir yesterday, police said. Two Indian soldiers were killed. India and Pakistani troops also pounded each other with artillery along the Line of Control, the cease-fire line that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan. No casualties were reported. Indian and Pakistani troops routinely shell each other, but there has been a comparative lull since April, when leaders of the two countries renewed efforts to resume talks on Kashmir after two years of bitter relations.
 

  http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/207/nation/Indian_troops_kill_16_along_Kashmir_border+.shtml

*

India denies visa to the secretary-general of Amnesty International
  July 25 New Delhi -- The Indian government has denied a visa to the secretary-general of Amnesty International without giving a reason, officials from the London-based human rights group said Friday. Vijay Nagaraj, an Amnesty official in India, confirmed on Friday that the group's secretary-general, Irene Khan Zubeida, had been denied a visa. He said he could not comment further. Amnesty International has written critical reports about the conduct of Indian security forces in Kashmir and the lack of police intervention in religious riots in Gujarat last year in which more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.
 

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AJul25.html

EDITORIALS / OP-ED

*

Johnny can't add but Suresh Venktasubramanian can
  July 27 -- The other day I went to the Web site of Bell Labs, one of the country's premier research outfits. I clicked at random on a research project, Programmable Networks for Tomorrow. The scientists working on the project were Gisli Hjalmstysson, Nikos Anerousis, Pawan Goyal, K. K. Ramakrishnan, Jennifer Rexford, Kobus Van der Merwe, and Sneha Kumar Kasera. Clicking again at random, this time on the Information Visualization Research Group, the research team turned out to be John Ellson, Emden Gansner, John Mocenigo, Stephen North, Jeffery Korn, Eleftherios Koutsofios, Bin Wei, Shankar Krishnan, and Suresh Venktasubramanian.
 

  http://mensnewsdaily.com/archive/r/reed/03/reed072703.htm

*

Moving jobs overseas not all bad
  July 27 -- Since the U.S. recession began in March 2001, the economy has lost nearly 2.6 million jobs. These losses have continued for more than two years, and unemployment in June stood at a nine-year high of 6.4 percent, despite the end of the recession in November 2001. Nowhere has the pain of joblessness been felt more acutely than in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley with the meltdown of the technology sector. An issue that has gained a great deal of media attention in the past several months in high-tech centers such as Silicon Valley is the "offshoring" of information-technology jobs to countries such as India, China, Russia, Philippines and Vietnam.
 

  http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/business/6395778.htm

BUSINESS / TECHNOLOGY / DEFENSE

*

Coke's India fertilizer may be toxic
  July 26, New Delhi -- Waste from a Coca-Cola plant in India which the company provides as fertilizer for local farmers may contain toxic chemicals. A study shows dangerous levels of the known carcinogen cadmium have been found in the sludge produced from the plant in the southern state of Kerala, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported. The chemicals were traced in an investigation by BBC Radio 4's "Face The Facts" program and prompted scientists to call for the practice to be halted immediately.
 

  http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/r.htm

*

Indian employee sues Oracle, manager for alleged harassment
  July 26 -- An Indian programmer at Oracle has sued her Indian male supervisor and the world's No. 2 software maker for alleged sexual harassment, claiming the man forced her into sex by telling her she needed to ``learn the art of pleasing the American manager.'' In her complaint, the plaintiff, identified only as ``Barbara Doe,'' accused her supervisor of exploiting their shared background as Indians to sexually harass, assault and exploit her. Both parties were born and educated in India. ``The facts do not support the allegations made in the case, but it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time,'' Oracle spokeswoman Jennifer Glass said in a statement Friday.
 

  http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/6390146.htm
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AJul25.html

*

Indian drug institute uses computers to reduce animal testing
  July 26, Lucknow, India -- India's premier drug research institute says it can reduce animal testing by 80 percent through use of new computer programs to help check whether a prospective medicine would be toxic to humans. The government-run Central Drug Research Institute -- which develops and tests most drugs produced by India's prolific pharmaceutical industry -- produced the computer software in collaboration with New Delhi-based Invenio Biosolutions and began using it in early July, institute director Dr. C.M. Gupta said. The software also checks whether drugs have already been rejected or produced by other laboratories.
 

  http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6389346.htm

*

Covansys' stock jumps after it sends jobs to India
  July 26 -- Shares of information technology consultant Covansys Corp. jumped 62 percent Friday after an analyst praised the Farmington Hills company for shifting jobs to India. More than 1.5 millions shares changed hands, or 16 times the usual daily average, after Robert W. Baird & Co. raised the stock from "neutral" to "outperform." Baird analyst Timothy Byrne boosted his target price for Covansys shares from $4 to $8. The stock jumped Friday, Byrne said, because the restructuring moves "came more rapidly and aggressively than expected." Covansys closed Friday at $6.09, up $2.34. Byrne was responding to a Thursday report in which Covansys said it had cut 200 jobs, or 8.5 percent of its U.S. workforce, to reduce costs. The company eliminated 25 percent of the top two layers of management.
 

  http://www.freep.com/money/business/cov26_20030726.htm

*

Pakistan-born agent 'proud to get into the mainstream of America, yet still maintain her identity'
  July 27 -- It took four years for Firdaus Rahman to establish her career as a Realtor in Mobile. Her diligence paid off when the Pakistan native was named Realtor of the Year by her peers at the Mobile Area Association of Realtors. "I was very surprised," said Rahman, an agent at REMAX Partners in west Mobile. "I didn't even know my name was in" the running for the award. The Realtor of the Year is the highest recognition that the real estate community gives to one of its own, according to Jeff Newman, executive director of the 1,200-member Realtors association. The honoree was selected by her peers based on her contributions to the industry, community and professional achievement, he said.
 

  http://www.al.com/business/mobileregister/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/business/.xml

OTHER STORIES

*

At least 175 feared dead in Bangladesh
  July 27, Chittagong, Bangladesh -- Severe storms and earthquakes wrecked havoc across Bangladesh this weekend and at least 175 fishermen were feared dead in raging waters. At least 20 fishing trawlers sank Sunday in the Bay of Bengal storms, which officials said were common during the monsoon season, the BBC reported. Eight trawlers sank on Saturday with 96 fishermen on board, officials said. Meanwhile, in Chittagong, 135 miles south of Dhaka, at least 20 people were injured in an earthquake Sunday, the BBC said.
  http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/r.htm

*

Mother Teresa's beatification planned
  July 26, Calcutta, India -- A film festival and music concert are among the events planned by followers of Mother Teresa when she is beatified in October. Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun who devoted her life to helping the poor in the slums of Calcutta, died in 1997 at age 87. Her beatification will take place at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome on Oct. 19. It will be shown live in downtown Calcutta. Thousands of her admirers, including hundreds of nuns, are expected to watch the ceremony, which will be followed by a music concert, organizers said recently.
  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/6391447.htm

*

Trading stardom for cozy obscurity
  July 27 -- Prem Raja Mahat bustles through the lunch rush, topping off the ice water and making cheerful small talk. He weaves between the clothed tables. He recommends a refreshing glass of iced mango yogurt. He buses the dirty buffet plates - in every way the consummate Charles Street restaurant manager. It's a performance that provides a comfortable life for Mahat, his wife and four children. But it is his other gig - headlining concerts and singing in villages nestled atop the world's highest mountain ranges - that makes him a favorite son in his native Nepal. Mahat, the man who just delivered the check to a table near the kitchen, is one of Nepal's best-loved folk singers, a musician whose melodies about love and nature and life are as ubiquitous in his homeland as Sherpas, mountain climbers and yaks. The Bruce Springsteen of Katmandu.
  http://www.sunspot.net/entertainment/music/bal-te.md.nepal27jul27,0,4858025.story

*

Cell phone companies in India offering matchmaking messages
  July 26, Bangalore, India -- In a country where most marriages are arranged by parents, technology is taking over the matchmaker's job. First came newspaper advertisements, then Web sites. Now comes a text messaging service to help cell phone subscribers find suitable mates. But careful not to buck tradition, the phone companies made clear the short message service, or SMS, is primarily for parents, not the growing tribe of teenage cell phone users. ``Parents can register the profiles of their sons and daughters with us and ask for matching profiles,'' said Arun Sikka, vice president for sales and marketing at RPG Cellular. ``They just need to send an SMS to a specified number to do all this.''
  http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6389350.htm

  http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2013827

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AJul26.html

*

Indian festivals to celebrate together
  July 27, Fremont -- After three years of competing Bay Area festivals celebrating India's independence, organizers have decided to forget past gripes and hold one showcase event in Fremont this summer. Leaders of the three festivals of India -- historically held in Fremont, Santa Clara and Union City -- decided this week it would be best for the Indo-American community if they joined forces to put on the community's most significant cultural event. A unified festival also would save money during tight financial times, organizers said. "I think it's a good thing," said Romesh Japra, a cardiologist who started the original festival in Fremont, now in its 11th year. "The perception was that we were divided and split and that didn't look good. We decided to put our personal differences aside. Will this last forever? No one can guarantee that. But at least we're making an effort."
  http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/news/6395511.htm

*

Making safety a top priority for workers
  July 27, New Bedford -- A month has passed since an attack on a Hindu pizza delivery driver, mistaken for a Muslim by young thugs with mayhem in mind, made a hate crime in New Bedford an international news story. The men who attacked Saurabh Bhalerao, a UMass student from India moonlighting as a Sarducci's Pizza delivery driver, hadn't planned a hate crime. They planned what one reporter called a "simple robbery." For those of us in the pizza delivery business, this is no comfort at all. Robbery itself is an ugly enough crime, even without the orgy of violence that followed that night. The idea that the men who attacked Saurabh apparently believed that robbing a pizza delivery driver would be profitable and an easy crime to get away with should be a wakeup call for everyone in the pizza business. Each week New Bedford's Domino's Pizza stores safely deliver piping hot pizza to more than 3,000 households in and around the city. We do this 52 weeks a year, completing more than 1.5 million deliveries in the past decade. We take safety very seriously. At our stores, robberies are nearly as rare as winning Megabucks tickets.
  http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/07-03/07-27-03/b02op059.htm

*

Poet's choice
  July 27 -- The late Reetika Vazirani ), who was found dead in Chevy Chase on July 18 with her 2-year-old son, was born in India and raised in Maryland. She published two books of poems, White Elephants (1996) and World Hotel (2002), in her short life. Her poetry showed so much cosmopolitan energy and panache, so much formal dexterity and control -- her work abounds with sonnets, sestinas, villanelles -- that it was possible for readers to miss its underlying sense of dislocation and homelessness. "It's me, I'm not home," she declared jauntily in one poem, though the phrase also had a deadly accuracy. She could be playful and even jokey, but the lightness masked a darker rootlessness, a deeper pain.
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AJul24.html

*

Citizen of the year
  July 24 -- Singh came to Houston from India to attend the University of Houston, and by the time he graduated, he knew he had found a country in which to build a successful business and a family. Singh has served as president of the Fort Bend County U of H Alumni Organization and raised money for scholarships for FBISD students to attend U of H. Also a dedicated Rotarian, he has been president of the Astrodome Rotary Club and is currently Assistant District Governor for District 5890. He led the Astrodome Club to sponsor a patient through the Rotary REACT program, which brings children from other countries to the Medical Center to receive treatment.
  http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=8603946&BRD=1914&PAG=461&dept_id=183407&rfi=6

*

Elephants kill two Bangladeshi villagers
  July 26, Dhaka -- A herd of wild elephants apparently foraging for food rampaged through two villages in northern Bangladesh, killing two people and destroying a dozen thatched huts, according to a news report Saturday. The herd of about 25 elephants came down from the forested hills along the Bangladesh-India border into the two villages Friday in Sherpur district, 90 miles north of the capital Dhaka, the United News of Bangladesh said.
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AJul26.html

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Ogniana Ivanova and Rajpuram Sriram
  July 27 -- The bridegroom's mother beamed as her son was married on July 19 under a gazebo wreathed in garlands in Sakura Park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Rajpuram Sriram, a native of India, had done what his mother and his 44 cousins had not: he had chosen a "love marriage" over an arranged one. "I always dreamt of love marriages," said the bridegroom's mother, Vasantha Srinivasan, a 54-year-old schoolteacher in Bombay. As a young woman, she read romantic novels by Danielle Steel and wanted to be swept away by love. Instead, at 24, she had an arranged marriage to a man she had known for 25 minutes, M. R. Srinivasan, now a top official of the Reserve Bank of India, in Bombay. But she did fall in love with him -- after 15 years.
  http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/fashion/weddings/27VOWS.html

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Overstay of Visa Complicates Things
  In 1995 I petitioned for my unmarried, adult son in India to become a U.S. permanent resident. In 2001 I became an American citizen. In 1998, my son married and soon after had a child. Is there any way for my son's family to also become permanent residents through my petition so they can all immigrate to the United States together? What type of visa would they get? How long is the wait for them to get their visas?
  http://www.newsday.com/mynews/ny-g3388542jul27,0,7021150.story

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Indian Prime Minister: Put health on agenda
  July 28, New Delhi -- India's prime minister urged top policy-makers to make health issues part of the nation's political agenda in an effort to slow the rapid spread of HIV-AIDS. Indian Health Minister Sushma Swaraj told a conference of political leaders and AIDS workers Saturday that clinical trials were under way in Indian laboratories to develop an AIDS vaccine. Swaraj said she hoped India would be the first country to develop such a vaccine.
  http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/news/nation/6396853.htm

  http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ats-ap_health13jul27,0,6589318story

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Indian PM seeks quick response to AIDS crisis
  July 26, New Delhi -- Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee called on Saturday for an immediate response to HIV/AIDS, which has struck more than four million people in the country, the second largest number in the world after South Africa. "HIV/AIDS is not only a grave global challenge. It is equally a national concern, one that demands an effective and undelayed response," Vajpayee told India's first conference on HIV/AIDS geared to the country's lawmakers.
  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/AJul26.html

  http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/27/international/asia/27INDI.html


              --- South Asian News, July 26&27, 2003 (Weekend) ---

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