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IndiaConnect-USA
2005 AAOHA Annual Convention And Trade Show
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CAPITOL JOURNAL
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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
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Rep. Frank Pallone introduces Diwali Stamp Bill in the House
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) on April 20 introduced legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that urges the U.S. Postal Service to issue a postage stamp honoring ‘Diwali.’
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Jindal’s 1st bill to become law; protects FEMA grants
Louisiana’s Republican freshman Congressman Bobby Jindal’s (R-LA) first bill became law last week, protecting Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster mitigation grant recipients from having to pay income taxes on those grants. Last year, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) ruled that those disaster grants must now be taxed as income. As a result, recipients began receiving tax notices, in many cases Jindal said, for amounts well beyond their means.
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INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP
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‘U.S. should condition education aid to Pakistan, Bangladesh’
The U.S. should condition its education aid to Pakistan and Bangladesh on their raising the level of expenditure in this field, asserted Samina Ahmed, South Asia Project Director, International Crisis Group that focuses on education.
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SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE
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World must worry about growth of terrorism in Pakistan
Pakistan’s former Finance Minister Shahid Javed Burki on April 19 conceded the world should be worried about the growth of terrorism in his home country, but by the same token, it must step forward to help modernize the system.
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Sen. Lugar stresses on education funding to prevent terrorism
Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, on April 19 urged the Bush administration to further stress education as a tool to prevent growth of terrorism as it was doing in Pakistan.
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2005 AAHOA ANNUAL CONVENTION AND TRADE SHOW
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Over 3,000 attendees, 65% franchisees and 27% independent hoteliers
AAHOA Board of Directors on the stage at the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) Convention in Florida. (Photo: Gujarat Times News Service)
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AAHOA recognizes achievers for ’04; announces scholarship
The Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) announced five award winners for the year 2004 and the 2005-2006 scholarship recipient during its closing gala on March 26 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., at its annual convention and trade show. They include:
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Emotional kickoff to the 2005 AAHOA annual convention and trade show
Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) kicked off the 2005 annual convention with the traditional welcome reception and Board tribute. What was different was the palpable emotion in the atmosphere on theng day.
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‘Nash’ Patel on his legacy and M.P. Rama on finishing ‘unfinished business’
Welcome to Capitol Debates. This time we are not in New Jersey, we are in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the AAHOA Annual Convention 2005. We have with us current chairman Naresh 'Nash' Patel and in two hours there will be a switchover,
M.P. Rama will be the new chairman. We have both of them with us.
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CIVIL RIGHTS
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Discrimination lawsuit against Port Authority is filed by 12 Asian American police officers
Twelve Asian American police officers of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey filed a federal lawsuit accusing the agency of discrimination, The New York Times reported.
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DELHI DIARY
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16 dead in Gujarat train crash; minister attacked
Samalaya, Gujarat : Sixteen people died when a passenger train crashed with an idle goods train near Vadodara, Gujarat, on April 21, railway officials said.
The collision near Samalaya station, 18 miles from Vadodara, around 3 a.m. also left at least 100 people injured. Among the dead were the Ahmedabad bound train’s driver and his helper.
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Amarendra Khatua appointed Ambassador to Ivory Coast
Amarendra Khatua, till recently posted at the Permanent Mission of India at the United Nations, has been appointed Ambassador to the Ivory Coast.
The 58-year-old Khatua, who was the representative of the Ministry of External Affairs in the office of Ambassador-at-large for NRIs and PIOs Bhishma Agnihotri, will spend a month and a half in India for orientation before he takes charge.
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Echoes of India-Pakistan thaw at peace rally in Washington, D.C.
A 620-mile-long subcontinental peace march between New Delhi and Multan, which began on March 23 and is to conclude on May 11, struck a positive chord in the United States last week. Several dozen Indian and Pakistani Americans participated in a peace rally in Washington, D.C.
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UNHCR special rapporteurs on Dalit discrimination appointed
The U.N. Commission on Human Rights has adopted by consensus a decision to appoint two Special Rapporteurs to tackle the entrenched problem of caste-based discrimination.
“This is the first time a political body of the U.N. has referred directly to the problem, and the decision is seen as a crucial step in the campaign for justice for South Asia’s Dalits (formerly known as ‘untouchables’) and communities suffering from similar forms of discrimination around the world,” a press release from International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN) said.
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Pope Benedict XVI’s special link with a church in Kerala
New Delhi : While the world cheers Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, elected as the next Pope to lead 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, a priest in Kerala remembers the man as a friend who helped build a church in the 1970s.
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DIPLOMACY
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Natwar’s visit was very productive: Inderfurth
Washington may be looking for ways to circumvent strict laws against nuclear technology exchange to cooperate with India in civilian nuclear development, indicated former Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Karl F. Inderfurth.
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Terrorism will not impede peace, Manmohan, Musharraf pledge
New Delhi : Declaring that their bilateral peace process is “irreversible,” India and Pakistan on April 18 pledged not to allow terrorism to impede the process.
A joint statement issued at the end of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s three-day visit to India also said the two countries expressed satisfaction at the progress in the peace process and the improvement of bilateral relations that had since been realized.
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Text of Joint Statement
President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf and Begum Sehba Musharraf visited New Delhi as guests of the Prime Minister of India and Shrimati Gursharan Kaur on 16 to 18.
While in New Delhi, Musharraf called on the President of India. He also had a meeting with the Prime Minister of India, who hosted a dinner in his honor. The President also watched the last One-day International cricket match between India and Pakistan.
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Musharraf devotes only 15 minutes to Kashmir issue
New Delhi : In the 150-odd minutes that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf spent talking to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other Indian officials on April 17, he spent not more than 15 minutes discussing Kashmir — an issue that has all along been his fixation.
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Vajpayee, Musharraf revel in ‘new chapter’ in ties
New Delhi : Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on April 18 broke with protocol to call on former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, paying tributes to the man with whom he launched the peace process over a year ago.
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Vignettes from the Visit
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on April 17 gave each other a piece of home and childhood as they exchanged gifts. Singh presented Delhi-born Musharraf his birth certificate, extricated from more than six-decade-old records with the New Delhi Municipal Council.
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Wife Sehba goes sightseeing as President talks business
New Delhi : Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's wife Sehba on April 17 went on a short guided tour of the city as her husband was busy in talks with the Indian leadership.
Accompanied by officials from the Pakistan High Commission, Sehba visited Qutab Minar and Mughal emperor Humayun’s tomb.
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IMMIGRATION
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Sierra Club battles with questions on limiting immigration
The scheduled April 25 elections to the Board of Directors of Sierra Club, one of the largest environmental groups in this country and the world, has been battling with questions of population growth and environmental degradation, voting on a ballot initiative that requires the Club to work toward limiting immigration to the U.S.
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NEWSMAKERS
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Manmohan Singh, Dalai Lama in Time's list of 100 most influential people
Time magazine has named Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama among the 100 most influential people in the world.
Prime Minister Singh features in a section titled ‘Leaders and Revolutionaries,’ which, according to the April 10 special issue of the magazine, focuses on warriors and peacemakers, dictators and democrats, terrorists and holy men with the clout and power to change our world.
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Wipro’s Vivek Paul among Barron’s list of 30 respected CEOs
Mumbai : Infotech giant Wipro’s vice chairman Vivek Paul has been named one of the world’s 30 most respected chief executive officers by a U.S.-based news weekly.
Barron’s, the premier financial weekly from the publishers of Wall Street Journal, acknowledged Paul’s contribution in transforming Wipro from a $150 million software developer into a $1 billion force in outsourcing, IT and customer services. It said because of Paul, Wipro could pose the “greatest long-term threat” to the world’s IT providers.
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Kiran Patel donates $3 million to Pepin Heart Hospital
Dr. Kiran Patel, former President of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), has donated $3 million to the Pepin Heart Hospital’s research institute that is to be named after him. This is the latest in a strong of philanthropic donations Dr. Patel has made over the years. Dr. Patel, who recently branched out into what he calls the “health care infomatics business” told News India-Times, he had worked at the hospital when he first came to settle in Tampa, Fla,. in 1982.
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Taraknath Das Award
In a break from its usual practice, Taraknath Das Foundation is conferring its 2005 Annual Award to Sakhi for South Asian Women; in previous years, with one exception, the award has gone to outstanding individuals for their “contributions to Indo-American understanding.”
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‘Annual Webby Awards Competition;’ Kang & Lee are winners
The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences announced on April 12 that Kang & Lee Advertising’s web site (www.kanglee.com), the online destination for information about Asian American marketing, has been honored as ‘Webby Worthy’ in the 9th ‘Annual Webby Awards Competition.’ The Webby Award Competition — often referred to as the ‘Oscars of the Internet’ — recognizes the best web sites and the teams that develop them, a press release said.
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OUTSOURCING
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Outsourcing companies favor test for job seekers
Chennai : The business process outsourcing (BPO) industry has welcomed a Nasscom plan to hold a common all India pre-qualifying test for job seekers in this rapidly growing sector.
Nasscom (National Association of Software and Service Companies) recently announced it will conduct the test for those seeking employment in call centers and other BPO services to help companies hire people with a minimum set of relevant skills. Nasscom even evolved a model based on experiments by Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala in their BPO Skills Assessment Test (BEST), which helped many BPO companies in these states get the right candidates.
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UNDER 30
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Wiping stereotypes of India off textbooks; Indian American parents launch campaign
Fairfax County businesswoman Sandhya Kumar teaches her three daughters about other countries, cultures and religions. She wants them to take pride in their Indian heritage and Hindu faith — and to respect and understand other views.
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Copyright © 2001-2004, Indian American Center for
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