The Indian Panorama

Tag: California

  • Dr Ami Bera Comes to Washington; Third Indian-American Elected to Congress

    Dr Ami Bera Comes to Washington; Third Indian-American Elected to Congress

    WASHINGTON (TIP): An Indian- American physician from California has become only the third person of Indianorigin to be elected to the US House of Representatives, attesting to the incremental progress the thriving community is making in politics and public life in America. The Sacramento County Registrar of Voters announced on Friday that Ami Bera had increased his lead to 2.2 per cent against sitting Congressman Dan Lungren in last week’s election, surging ahead by 5,696 votes after the latest round of counting, a margin Bera and his supporters think is insurmountable.

    The regular counting without absentee ballots and provisional votes had seen the two rivals less than 200 votes apart. “Today’s update shows that we’ve processed another 38,510 ballots since Tuesday’s update. This leaves an estimated 7,782 vbm (vote by mail) and of course the 31,000 provisional ballots left to process,” the County Registrar said. Next update is scheduled for Monday. But Associated Press and the local media, not to speak of Bera himself, called the race for the Indian-American Democrat, for whom this was a second shot at the seat. “It’s increasingly clear that the voters of Sacramento County want new leadership that puts the people first. Our lead continues to widen and we are confident that this election will be resolved in our favor,” Bera said in a statement.

    Lungren is yet to concede the race, but Bera is already in Washington DC for an orientation course for new lawmakers, which incidentally is being led by a committee headed by Lungren. Earlier this week, Bera, who describes himself as a Unitarian, attended the White House Diwali celebration along with Tulsi Gabbard, another newly elected lawmaker from Hawaii who is a self-described Hindu- American. Bera is only the third Indian elected to the US Congress after Dalip Singh Saund, who was a mathematician with farming interests, and Bobby Jindal, who is a health policy expert and currently governor of Louisiana. Saund in fact was the first person of non-Abrahamic faith elected to the U.S Congress and the only Indian- American so far to clock three terms.

    Like his Indian-American predecessors, Bera too has an impressive academic record in keeping with the community’s cachet. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from the University of California at Irvine, and went on to get an MD in 1991. He served as Associate Dean for Admissions at the UC Davis School of Medicine and later as the Chief Medical Officer for the County of Sacramento. His wife Janine is also a physician and they have a 14-year young daughter, Sydra. “As a first generation American, born and raised in California, the promise of America has been the story of my life,” Bera told voters in his election pitch, promising to work for a “more compassionate, sensible, and sustainable America.”

  • Indian-Americans Elected To House Of Representatives

    Indian-Americans Elected To House Of Representatives

    WASHINGTON (TIP): Dr Ami Bera becomes the third Indian-American ever to be elected to the US House of Representatives, after Dalip Singh Saund, elected in 1950’s and Governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal who was a House member from 2005 to 2008. Bera, 45, had a lead of just 184 votes against his Republican rival and incumbent Dan Lungren, when all the votes were counted for the Seventh Congressional District in California. But the Secretary of State, California put the results in the category of “Close Contest”, in which there is less than a two per cent difference between the first and second place for candidates or between yes and no votes for ballot measures.

    According to the Office of the Secretary of State, California, Bera had received 50.1 per cent of the total votes counted, while Lungren had received 49.9 per cent of the votes. Bera received 88,406 votes, while Lungren got 88,222 votes. Bera whose parents migrated to the US some 50 years ago was endorsed by charismatic Bill Clinton, the former US president, last month who campaigned for him. Bera had outraised his opponent in fund raising.

    Born and raised in Southern California, Dr. Bera served Sacramento County as Chief Medical Officer before becoming a Clinical Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Admissions and Outreach at UC Davis. Ami and his wife Janine live in Elk Grove with their daughter, Sydra. Tulsi Gabbard is the first Indian American woman and the first Hindu woman to win an election to House of Representatives. 31-year-old Gabbard defeated K. Crowley of the Republican Party with a handsome margin in Hawaii’s second Congressional district. Her victory has been cheered by the Hindu-American community across the country. The heavily Democratic district also elected one of two Buddhists to have ever served in the Congress, Mazie Hirono, who won her seat in 2006 but is now running for the US Senate.

    Born in American Samoa to a Catholic father and a Hindu mother, Gabbard moved to Hawaii when she was two

    In 2002, at age 21, she was elected to the Hawaii state legislature. The next year, she joined the Hawaii National Guard, and in 2004 was deployed to Baghdad as a medical operations specialist. After completing officers’ training, she was deployed to Kuwait in 2008 to train the country’s counterterrorism units. “Although there are not very many Hindus in Hawaii, I never felt discriminated against.

    I never really gave it a second thought growing up that any other reality existed, or that it was not the same everywhere,” Gabbard said in a statement soon after she took an unbeatable lead over her Republican challenger. “On my last trip to the mainland, I met a man who told me that his teenage daughter felt embarrassed about her faith, but after meeting me, she’s no longer feeling that way,” Gabbard said.

    “He was so happy that my being elected to Congress would give hope to hundreds and thousands of young Hindus in America, that they can be open about their faith, and even run for office, without fear of being discriminated against or attacked because of their religion,” Gabbard said. At 21, Gabbard became the youngest person elected to the Hawaii legislature.

    At 23, she was the state’s first elected official to voluntarily resign to go to war. At 28, she was the first woman to be presented with an award by the Kuwait Army National Guard. She is a deeply committed Vaishnava Hindu who is a strict vegetarian and is very knowledgeable about the Bhagavad Gita. She has also served with distinction as an officer of the US Army – twice, in Iraq and Kuwait.

  • Sunita Williams voted for US Prez polls by absentee

    Sunita Williams voted for US Prez polls by absentee

    NEW YORK (TIP): Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams, currently in space and floating around in zero-gravity, voted for US Presidential polls by absentee ballot. Sunita, along with flight engineer Kevin Ford, exercised her franchise in July while stationed in Russia even before heading up to the station aboard Soyuz ships launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome.

    The other four members of the station’s current Expedition 33 crew are all non-Americans – three Russian cosmonauts and one Japanese space ace.

    For several years now, adventurers aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have been able to cast their votes via encrypted e-mail. Voting facility is available to those in the ISS with the help of to a digital ballot provided by Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

    The provision was envisaged by a 1997 Bill passed in the state of Texas, home to most of the NASA astronauts. The Bill allowed registered voters to digitally beam their ballots back down to Houston.

    After filling out the form, “they send it back to Mission Control,” says NASA spokesman Jay Bolden. “It’s a secure ballot that is then sent directly to the voting authorities,” says Bolden.

    Various US astronauts have cast their ballots from orbit in various past elections, and NASA has a procedure for such cases, brought in at the behest of Texan politicians keen to capitalize on publicity around space-going voters likely to be resident in the Houston area.

    When the bill was passed, David Wolf, then aboard Russia’s Mir space station became the first astronaut to file his vote from space via encrypted email. Wolf, however, was voting in a local election. In October 2004 that Leroy Chiao, then stuck aboard the ISS, became the first far-flung astronaut to vote for a President.

    Meanwhile, one former US astronaut will also be participating in the US elections. Former space shuttle mission specialist Jose Hernandez is hoping to be elected as a Democrat congressman for California’s 10th District.
    had made one spaceflight in 2009 aboard shuttle Discovery, a routine support mission to the ISS.

  • More than 110 Perish-NY hardest hit with 48 lives lost

    More than 110 Perish-NY hardest hit with 48 lives lost

    NEW YORK (TIP): Hurricane Sandy will be remembered as one of the biggest in the history of the states located North of Washington D.C. It was eight hundred miles long and four hundred miles wide. The winds were gusting at 90 to 115 miles per hour, which is equal to 150 to 190 kilometers. Unprecedented rainfall ranging from 8 inches upwards was wreaking havoc with the communities falling in its unexpected route. The winds shattered doors and windows of several homes and blew off many roofs.

    It originated in the warm Caribbean Islands (West Indies) and its cyclonic rains took 69 lives in the tropical archipelago. Such storms, of smaller proportions have been hitting the Caribbean Islands and America before too, but the dimensions have never been so massive and these storms have never made landfall as far North as New Jersey.was not so much in the area of its eye. The worst damage was within a radius of hundred to two hundred miles around the eye.

    This circular path of devastation included entire New Jersey and Long Island area of New York. Some areas of New York city, including Staten Island, Queens and Lower Manhattan were hit hard. The full moon high tides in the Hudson and the East River inundated the low lying areas. The hundred year tidal elevation in coastal New Jersey ranges between ten and twelve feet, but the tidal surges of this storm exceeded those figures by several feet. As a result, there were massive power outages and some fires in the flooded regions. Days after the storm, a lot of communities all over New York and New Jersey are still without electricity. More than a hundred deaths have been confirmed so far. Some fatalities are still being found in houses. The worst property and infrastructure damages occurred in New Jersey. But New York suffered the highest death toll, after 9/11.

    There are hundreds of barrier islands in New Jersey. These barrier islands are a natural protection for the hinterland of the state. There are small bushes, wild grass and dwarf trees on these islands. During the coastal storms and Nor-Easters, the vegetation gets destroyed, but roots stay and the lost vegetation comes back. Before the European immigrants arrived in this country, these islands were practically uninhabited. Some of the adventurous Red Indians used to fish on these beauties during the day, but used to return home by nightfall. But the modern days Americans built communities with all modern facilities on some of these islands. During this hurricane, these barrier islands suffered the brunt of the fury. Some were wiped out in entirety and some were badly obliterated. It will be a gigantic task to restore normalcy on these islands. Some may have to be abandoned.

    Hurricane Sandy has done extensive damage to vital installations and properties in all states. Most heavily impacted municipalities are in the coastal regions of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut and New York. On the first day, the financial losses have been roughly assessed at thirty five billion dollars. By now the losses have been revised to put the final figure at well past one hundred billion dollar mark. When final figures are tallied, the figures may increase substantially. This impact of the unprecedented storm is going to be harsh on the insurance companies. Most of them will ask for increased home insurance costs from their customers, when the next premium paying time comes. The FEMA has been very helpful with its generous financial and logistics help and so was the U.S. Army. Eight thousand electric experts from other states, along with their massive equipment, were in New Jersey alone. They have been working day and night to restore power in all affected states. Giant C-130 cargo planes have transported heavy electrical equipment from far flung areas like California.

    Considering massive damage to the properties and installations, the restoration of all electricity and other services shall need billions of dollars of new expenditure. Damaged home appliances, furniture, carpets and fittings shall have to be replaced. Hundreds of thousands of permanent gas operated generators shall have to be installed. Indubitably, Sandy has not only been the biggest storm in tears but also one of the most expensive.

  • The United States and India: A Vital Partnership in a Changing World

    The United States and India: A Vital Partnership in a Changing World

    The issue that I’ve been asked to address today — India’s rise and the promise of U.S.-Indian partnership — is one of those rarest of Washington species, especially ten days before a Presidential election, a genuinely bipartisan policy priority. I have been fortunate to play a small role in building our relationship with India over the past five years, spanning two U.S. Administrations, including the completion of the historic civil nuclear agreement by then-President Bush and Prime Minister Singh in 2008, and the landmark visits of Prime Minister Singh to the U.S. in 2009 and President Obama to India in 2010. I just returned from another visit to New Delhi, at the end of a fascinating trip across Asia, surely the most consequential region of the world in the new century unfolding before us.

    I remember well all the questions that spun around our relationship four years ago, as the Bush Administration gave way to the Obama Administration. Would we “re-hyphenate” relations with India, and see India mainly through the prism of preoccupations in Afghanistan and Pakistan? Would we be tempted by visions of a “G-2” world, subordinating relations with India to the significance of a rising China? Would India see as clearly as others how important its role in the world was becoming, and see beyond its G-77 past to its G-20 future? Would Indians embrace the rising responsibilities that come with rising influence?

    Debates were held. Papers were written. Hands were wrung. But together we’ve largely moved beyond those honest questions and concerns. Of course some suspicions linger, and some differences persist, which is only natural. Of course we have a great deal more work to do. But there is growing confidence in both our countries about what my longtime colleague and friend, India’s National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, has recently described as a steady convergence of interests and values. Indians and Americans, it seems to me, understand that the only “hyphen” we will pursue with respect to our relationship is the one that links the United States and India.

    The essence of the vital partnership that we’re building lies in a simple truth. For the first time, for both of us, our individual success at home and abroad depends significantly on our cooperation.

    Progress between us won’t always be measured in dramatic breakthroughs, like President Bush’s civil-nuclear initiative, or dramatic moments, like President Obama’s declaration of support for India’s permanent membership in a reformed UN Security Council. It won’t be measured in diplomatic honeymoons which never end. It won’t be measured in some special alchemy that magically transforms strategic convergence and powerful aspirations into meaningful cooperation.

    The real measure of progress in our increasingly vital partnership will instead be steady focus, persistence, hard work, systematic habits of collaboration, and methodically widening the arc of common interests and complementary actions. With that in mind, let me highlight quickly three important dimensions of the work — and the promise — that lies ahead of us: strengthening strategic cooperation; building shared prosperity; and deepening people to people ties.

    I. Strategic Cooperation

    First, as India’s recent economic rise has expanded its role and deepened its stake in shaping the international system, we are counting on India’s rise as a truly global power — one that looks east and west, a strategic partner for economic growth, security, and the provision of public goods.

    Last December in Pune, I spoke to Indian international affairs students. I told them that the U.S.-India relationship must be a cornerstone of the Asia-Pacific century ahead. And as the world’s economic and strategic center of gravity shifts east, the United States is not the only nation emphasizing its role as a resident diplomatic, economic and military power in the Asia-Pacific. India’s distinguished former Foreign Secretary, Shyam Saran, has also observed that India’s own engagement in East Asia reflects “the concept of the Asia-Pacific, which hitherto excluded India, expanding westwards to encompass the subcontinent as its integral part.”

    India and the United States have a powerful and shared interest in an Asia-Pacific where economic interdependence drives growth and shared prosperity … where disputes are resolved peacefully… where rules are respected and patterns of political and economic behavior favor openness. So we are working to define a shared agenda to help achieve and assure those goals.

    India has shown increasing signs that it intends to build on its longstanding “Look East” policy. I came away from my recent visits to India and Burma with renewed admiration for the East-West connectivity agenda India’s leadership is advancing across Southeast Asia. India is revitalizing centuries-old commercial ties with countries to its east and making headway on an Indo-Pacific corridor through Bangladesh and Burma that connects South and Southeast Asia.
    India just hosted the Mekong-Ganga ministerial meeting and held 2+2 consultations with Japan, and next week will host the U.S. and Japan for trilateral consultations. The ASEAN-India Summit will come to New Delhi this winter. Some may dismiss India’s efforts to become more embedded in the regional diplomatic architecture of the East Asia Summit, ASEAN Regional Forum and APEC as maybe good for India’s hotel industry, but really just so many talk shops. But consider this: last week, India’s External Affairs Minister was in Brunei celebrating $80 billion in India-ASEAN trade this year — up 37% in the last year alone. We should all find talk shops as profitable as these.

    We all obviously also have to keep a very careful eye on less promising trends across the region, and the revival of old animosities that can quickly undermine the promise of economic interdependence and easy assumptions about shared prosperity. Recent frictions in both the East China Sea and the South China Sea are a sobering reminder of how fast nationalism and maximalism can rear their heads. All that should simply reinforce the interest of the U.S. and India in encouraging dialogue and diplomacy, instead of intimidation and coercion.

    Looking westward, both the United States and India have a strong interest in a peaceful, stable future for Afghanistan. The same week the U.S. and Afghanistan signed the Strategic Partnership Agreement in May, New Delhi hosted the inaugural meeting of the India-Afghanistan Partnership Council and in a few weeks President Karzai will pay a return visit to Delhi. India and the U.S. share a long-term commitment to pursue sustainable economic growth, strong democratic institutions and an Afghan-led process of peace and reconciliation — commitments reflected in the first United States-India-Afghanistan trilateral dialogue in September.

    For our part, the United States will lead a security transition in — not a departure from — Afghanistan. As Secretary Clinton has made clear, none of us can afford to repeat the mistakes that followed the Soviet exit from Afghanistan. With coalition forces drawing down, Afghanistan will need massive private investment and far greater economic linkages to its neighbors.

    India has committed more than $2 billion in development assistance to Afghanistan since 2001, building on ties that go back to the early Indus Valley civilizations. Even without direct access to India’s growing markets, Afghanistan already sends one quarter of its exports to India. Extending trade and transit agreements outward to India and Central Asia will allow Afghan traders to return to the marketplaces of Amritsar and Delhi. In June, when India hosted its own investment conference with Afghanistan, attendance far outstripped expectations, reminding us how organic these connections are. There has also been good progress on the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, though a great deal of work still lies ahead. The vision of a “New Silk Road” is not a single path, it is a long-term vision of economic, transit, infrastructure and human links across Asia. And India is its natural engine.

    Deeper defense and security ties have become another leading indicator of a burgeoning strategic partnership. As India’s military influence grows, our hope is that our partnership can become one of our closest in the region. We are united by our experience of tragedy and terror, shared threats in Afghanistan and a shared vision for a peaceful and open Asia-Pacific. We are proud of our robust counterterrorism cooperation, which simply didn’t exist until a few years ago — and now extends to all levels of policy and law enforcement.

    Since 2008, India has bought over $8 billion in U.S. defense equipment, up from effectively zero less than a decade ago. When we complete delivery of India’s $4 billion in C-17 aircraft, our combined fleet will represent the largest air lift capability in the world. These are indispensable assets for global response to crisis and disaster; last year’s delivery of the C-130J Hercules came just in time for rescue operations after the Sikkim earthquake. Our military services conduct some of their largest joint exercises with India, including over fifty formal engagements in the past year. As our defense relationship evolves from “buyer-seller” to co-production and joint research, we will be ambitious, and we ask India to be equally ambitious in sharing this vision of a new security partnership with the United States.

    As our partnership matures, we will continue to seek India’s help in building what Secretary Clinton has called “a global architecture of cooperation.” While it is true that the international architecture has sometimes struggled to keep up with the emergence of a rising India, it is equally true that India has sometimes bristled at the burdens of global leadership. Both need to change, and both, I would argue, are changing. As President Obama said in his 2010 address to the Indian Parliament, the United States looks forward to “a reformed UN Security Council that includes India as a permanent member.”

    But India is not waiting for a permanent seat to begin exercising leadership. The list of India’s global contributions is long and growing: deep engagement in the Global Counterterrorism Forum … tough votes at the IAEA against Iran’s failure to meet its international obligations, and a lowering of dependence on Iranian crude … election support in Egypt … and peacekeepers around the globe. In the UN Human Rights Council, India made a powerful call for enhanced efforts to achieve reconciliation and accountability in troubled Sri Lanka. While we certainly don’t agree on everything, or see eye-to-eye on every issue, what matters is that India is continuing to use its resources and standing to help others enjoy the peace, prosperity and freedom its own people have worked so hard to achieve for themselves.

    II. Shared Prosperity

    The second critical area of cooperation is economic, consistent with Secretary Clinton’s greater emphasis on economic statecraft in America’s relationships around the world. But in this case, it is also a reflection of India’s vast potential and the realization that America’s and India’s long-term economic interests are essentially congruent and mutually reinforcing.

    Each of us is eager to put to rest questions about our economic staying power. In America, we obviously have to continue to put our own economic house in order. India has seen currency devaluation and high inflation, and its economic growth has slipped. We can and must help each other grow, and prove our doubters wrong.

    India’s modernization and the lifting of hundreds of millions of its own citizens out of poverty rightly remains the focus of the Indian government. In this endeavor, India has no more important partner than the United States. Our total direct investment in India in 2000 was $2.4 billion. By 2010, it was $27 billion. By the way, over roughly the same time period, the stock of Indian direct investment in America grew from a little over $200 million to nearly $5 billion – more than a twenty-fold increase. So we have literally never been so invested in each other’s success.
    Our economic relationship is very much a two-way street. Both of us are focused on attracting growth and investment to our shores. An Indian-owned Tata factory in Ohio puts thousands of Americans to work, part of the over 50,000 jobs Indian firms have created in the United States. And the opportunities for small, medium and large American businesses in India are staggering. While it’s well-known that India is projected to be the world’s third-largest economy by 2025, what is less well-known is that 90% of India is still without broadband; that 80% of the India of 2030 hasn’t yet been built, according to McKinsey; that India plans to invest one trillion dollars on infrastructure in the next five years alone. That is why Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley visited India, and came back with $60 million in two-way business. That is why Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear visited India three times and helped bring about a $7 billion private sector energy deal. That is why Norfolk has a sister-city alliance with Kochi in Kerala that has helped Virginia export nearly $300 million in goods to India each year.

    Of course, for our companies to provide the technology and expertise to help India prosper, India’s government must create an environment that encourages growth. That is why India’s recent easing of some restrictions on Foreign Direct Investment are so promising. Indian multi-brand retail, aviation, power grid and broadcasting companies and markets will be more open to investment, technologies, and best practices from all around the world. It will be easier to bring food to market. India’s Commerce Ministry estimates these changes will create 10 million jobs for its young and growing population. As encouraging as these changes are, we all know there is more to do to bring predictability to the Indian market — for India’s sake and for the sake of our economic relations.

    Greater economic openness is not a concession to the United States. It is one of the most powerful tools India has to maintain and expand its growth. In New Delhi last week, I urged my Indian counterparts to address non-tariff barriers, favoritism for local companies, restrictions on foreign investment and intellectual property protection — because progress and predictability will only shore up India’s economic foundations.

    So will a U.S.-India Bilateral Investment Treaty. We are aiming for a high-quality agreement that expands on recent reforms to provide still greater openness to investment; strong rules to protect investors and guarantee transparency; and effective means for resolving disputes should they arise.

    So will the Infrastructure Debt Fund, a consortium of Indian and American corporations and banks — created by the U.S.-India CEO Forum to finance India’s massive investment in roads, grids, seaports, airports and all the necessary building blocks of a modern economy.

    And so will a steady supply of energy. The Civil-Nuclear Initiative still holds remarkable promise for the people of India and the United States. Without diminishing the very real and often frustrating challenges we have faced, both our governments are now engaged in realizing the practical benefits of the civil-nuclear agreement, especially reliable electricity for India’s homes and businesses. Our companies are making good headway in negotiations with their Indian counterpart to complete pre-early works agreements by the end of this year. In June, Westinghouse and India’s Nuclear Power Corporation took important early steps that will lead to Westinghouse nuclear reactors in Gujarat. We hope General Electric can follow suit. The Indian government has clearly indicated that nuclear energy will remain an important part of India’s energy equation, and we are equally committed to expanding cooperation in other areas, from wind and solar energy to natural gas and biofuels.

    Of course, there is still more we can do. If we do not seize these economic opportunities, others will, and we will fall behind. Japan, Canada and the European Union are all moving to open up trade with India. Our goal should be to think ambitiously about the opportunities we can offer our businesses — including our small business and globalized entrepreneurs — through deepened economic engagement with India.

    III. People-to-People

    As important as economic resources and capital are, India has no greater resource and no richer source of capital than its own people. That brings me to my third area of cooperation: people-to-people ties. Some might think this “soft” or besides the point with hard security issues at stake. Diplomatic and economic dialogues are critical, but they are not enough for a twenty-first century friendship like ours. As Secretary Clinton has said, our greatest friendships have never been confined to the halls of power. They live also in the aspirations and interactions of our people. The phrase “people to people” actually covers tremendous ground in our relationship: science and technology, educational exchange, civil society engagement and innovation. The organic growth of people-to-people ties is what has set the pace in our relationship for many years, and our governments are only now catching up.

    The talents of the Indian diaspora are creating wealth from Calcutta to California. At a time when Indian immigrants comprised less than 1% of America’s population, they founded more than six percent of America’s startups, and over thirteen percent of the startups in Silicon Valley that powered our economy through the 1990s. We can all be proud of the successes of Indian-Americans in the U.S. and their contributions in boardrooms, classrooms, laboratories and now in the governor’s offices of South Carolina and Louisiana.

    We support student exchanges because we know from experience that today’s participants become tomorrow’s constituents for a strong U.S.-India relationship — from business leaders like Ratan Tata, educated at Harvard and Cornell; to statesmen like India’s External Affairs Minister, SM Krishna, a Fulbright Scholar who studied at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and George Washington University just up the street.

    In 2011, we held a U.S.-India Higher Education summit to usher in a new era of government support for people-to-people ties. 100,000 Indian students study in the U.S. every year, and we created a program called “Passport to India” to increase the numbers of young people heading in the other direction to learn and serve. A common determination to educate our children is one more tie that binds America and India together.

    And when tragedy strikes, as it did last August at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, we come together to mourn and to heal. American police officers risked their lives to stop the gunman before he could do any more harm. The President personally reached out to India and to Indian-Americans, calling the Sikh community, “a part of our broader American family” and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff at every U.S. federal building in America and every U.S. mission around the world. The First Lady went to Wisconsin to show her support in person. The powerful response to this tragedy showed the very values of tolerance that the gunman sought to threaten. These, too, are values that Indians and Americans share.

    Conclusion

    While the potential of our bilateral relationship is limitless, I want to assure you that my remarks this morning are not.

    Much is possible as we deepen strategic cooperation and strengthen our economic and people-to-people ties. But we have to tend carefully to our partnership. Further progress is neither automatic nor pre-ordained. Keeping a partnership on track between two proud, noisy democracies takes vision and steady commitment. It’s a little like riding a bike; either you keep peddling ahead, or you tend to fall over.

    I remain an optimist about what’s possible for Indians and Americans. The truth is that there has never been a moment when India and America mattered more to one another. And there has never been a moment when partnership between us mattered more to the rest of the globe. As two of the world’s leading-democracies and most influential powers, we can help build a new international order — in which other democracies can flourish, human dignity is advanced, poverty is reduced, trade is expanded, our environment is preserved, violent extremism is marginalized, the spread of weapons of mass destruction is curbed, and new frontiers in science and technology are explored. That is the moment, and the promise, which lies before us.

    (Speech delivered by US Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns at Center for American Progress, Washington DC October 26, 2012)

  • With Clinton’s backing, PIO tipped to win Congress seat

    With Clinton’s backing, PIO tipped to win Congress seat

    WASHINGTON (TIP): Having bagged the endorsement of former United States president Bill Clinton, Indian American Democratic Congressional candidate from California, Ami Bera appears to have moved closer to victory.

    The independent Center for Politics at the University of Virginia moved his seat (California 7th Congressional District) from a “tossup” to a “Lean Democratic” which means that Bera has now greater chances of winning the seat by defeating the incumbent Dan Lungren of Republican Party.

    “If there is one state where Republican House chances appear to be slipping, it’s in heavily Democratic California, which is why we’ve added Representatives Dan Lungren (R, CA-7 ) and Jeff Denham (R, CA-10 ) to Representative Brian Bilbray (R, CA-52 ) in the ‘leans Democratic’ column, meaning we believe all three incumbents are underdogs in their battles to return to Congress,” the Center for Politics said on Thursday.

    This new ranking comes as a further boost to Bera’s campaign , which early this month was endorsed by Clinton and the popular daily newspaper Sacramento Bee from California. In the third quarter ending September 30, Bera added more than $731,000 to his campaign funds, and outraising his opponent Dan Lungren by more than $223,000.

    Bera, whose parents migrated to the US from India over 50 years ago, has now successfully outraised Lungren for 12 out of the last 13 quarters and netted almost $2.7 million this cycle. Along with Bera, a record number of six Indian American candidates are in fray for the House of Representatives, the upper house of the US legislature.

  • Walmart workers threaten to go on nationwide strike

    Walmart workers threaten to go on nationwide strike

    WASHINGTON (TIP): Hundreds of Walmart workers rallied across dozen cities in the US, protesting against low wages and alleged unjust labour practices and have threatened to go on a nationwide strike on November 23, the ‘Black Friday’, which is said to be the busiest day for the company. According to news reports, workers held walkouts and marches in cities across the US including those in Dallas, San Diego, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington DC, Sacramento and even at its headquarters in Arkansas. The retail giant dismissed the protests as nothing more than union publicity stunts. But several union workers asserted that they were serious about going ahead with their strike call if their demands were not met.

    According to “Making Change at Walmart” 100 Associates, travelled to the company’s corporate head quarters to call on it to stop trying to silence and retaliate against workers for speaking out for job improvements. “Walmart’s efforts to try to silence us is only building support among our co-workers, in calling for changes at the store. We will not be silenced, especially on ‘Black Friday’ when Walmart wants us to cut short the holiday with our families to help the company profit.

    If Walmart wants workers fully committed to the stores on ’Black Friday’, Walmart needs to do more for us, the rest of the days of the year,” Colby Harris, who earns just USD 8.90 an hour after three years of working at Walmart in Lancaster, Texas, said in a press statement. Company’s spokesman Dan Fogleman in an interview to ABC news refuted the charges and said that majority of the company’s employees are against the idea of strike.

    “They seem to recognise that Walmart has some of the best jobs in the retail industry – good pay, affordable benefits and the chance for advancement,” he said. Walmart and its practices have made the news a lot, lately.In mid-September, warehouse workers in Southern California were on a 15-day strike that included a sixday, 50-mile pilgrimage for safe jobs. Around the same time, hundreds of people marched in Dallas and San Diego, demanding better work conditions, the news channel said. Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in US, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.On this day, most major retailers open extremely early, often at 4 a.m. or earlier and offer promotional sales to kick off the shopping season.

  • Reverse Outsourcing: Indian remedies to a fever-pitch outsourcing debate

    Reverse Outsourcing: Indian remedies to a fever-pitch outsourcing debate

    Presidential elections in the US follow a scripted narrative. As the candidates battle for the highest office, everything is fair game. In a weak economy, that means it is open season on that familiar bogey: outsourcing of jobs. US firms, driven less by altruism than by a desperation to cut costs, send jobs overseas: a well-known story. A deep recession that cost many Americans their jobs fuelled a backlash against outsourcing’s beneficiaries. And as the American economy has been making only a languid recovery, outsourcing has returned to being a political hot potato.
    In his speech accepting the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, President Barack Obama threw in an allusion to outsourcing. His campaign has accused Republican rival Mitt Romney of investing in firms that moved jobs overseas when he was at the helm of private equity firm Bain Capital. Romney, whose campaign is run on the promise of creating American jobs, has distanced himself from that record and to show his critics where he stands on outsourcing, said earlier this year: “We will not let China continue to steal jobs from the United States of America.” India, of course, gets pride of place in that narrative.

    The truth is less simple. Actually, Indian-origin firms have over the years steadily established a foothold in the US, employing Americans, building the local economies and giving back to the communities in which they have put down roots. This trend is putting a dent in the tired argument that India, the most identifiable beneficiary of outsourcing, only “takes away” American jobs. While their US counterparts tend to be PR-savvy, the Indian companies have been reluctant to announce and promote their accomplishments. Largely due to a cultural difference, says Ameet Nivsarkar, vice-president of NASSCOM, the IT lobbying body

    A NASSCOM report in March found that Indian IT created over 2,80,000 jobs in the US in the past five years, of which about 2,18,000 are held by Americans or Green Card holders. “The US is the largest trading partner in the technology sector for the Indian industry and will continue to be so in the future. Over a period of time, more and more companies are getting closer to their customers. This kind of work can be outsourced, but it can’t be offshored,” says Nivsarkar.

    It isn’t just in the tech sector that desi firms have carved a niche for themselves. They are spread over a broad range of sectors, including education, energy, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare and hospitality. “Hundreds of Indian-origin companies currently operate in the US; these have put down roots, invested millions of dollars, and are today an integral part of the economic and social fabric,” reads a Confederation of Indian Industries report.

    “Rather than send American jobs to India, an Indian company is sending, safeguarding and even creating jobs overseas in the US.” Mani Iyer, President Mahindra US says.

    A list of firms that have established a presence in the US reads like a veritable who’s who of Indian industry. Mahindra USA was incorporated in 1994 in Houston, Texas. It has four assembly and distribution facilities: Houston; Red Bluff, California; Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Mani Iyer, Mahindra USA president, has a unique take on outsourcing: Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd outsources jobs to the US in the form of Mahindra USA and its partner-supplier relationships. “Rather than sending American jobs overseas to India, an Indian firm is sending, safeguarding and creating jobs overseas in the US,” he says.

    In 1999, Madhu Vuppuluri opened up shop for Essar in North America. Today, Essar Americas has close to 10,000 employees; 99 per cent are Americans. Essar Americas operates three main businesses in North America-iron ore in Minnesota, coal in West Virginia and Kentucky, and BPOs. It has acquired three call centers in the past decade, two of which are based in Texas and are run under the banner Aegis. Its employee base in this sector has grown from around 2,200 at the time of acquisition to 5,000 American employees and around 55,000 employees globally. “We have stabilized the operation, increased the employee base, increased the reach of this company and made it into a truly global BPO company, which has nearshore, onshore and offshore capabilities,” says Vuppuluri, who is president and CEO of Essar Americas.

    Some Indian-origin firms have actually gone out of their way to hire Americans. Akhil Jindal, head of finance and corporate strategy at Welspun, says the company, steel pipe and home textile producers in the US, resisted employing Indians at its facilities. “We actually brought 200 unskilled Americans who had no experience making a pipe to India for training,” says Jindal. “Indian companies probably have thought (in terms) of cost-saving, but at Welspun we have employed more than 600 people in Arkansas, one of the poorest states in America. When the US was going through a very difficult phase, we created more jobs and more opportunities, and that is also good for the company. It is not a social service,” he adds.

    And Welspun has also made greenfield investments, setting up operations from scratch. Similarly, Essar Americas is constructing a $1.7 billion iron ore palletizing project, one of the largest greenfield projects ever undertaken by an Indian corporation outside India, at the iron ore venture in northern Minnesota that it acquired in 2007. This undertaking is the first of its kind in the area in the past 35 years. “We are essentially engaged in manufacturing a revival, in some ways, in that part of the world,” says Vuppuluri.

    “We did not establish a call centre in India and move to the US. We acquired a US call centre and grew it. We were the first ones.” Madhu Vuppuluri, CEO Essar Americas

    Indian firms that have set up BPOs in the US may seem to go against the common wisdom that drives outsourcing. Essar followed a completely different model, Vuppuluri says. “We did not establish a call centre in India and move to the US. We acquired a call centre in the US, we grew that in the US and also grew outside the US. We were the first,” he says. “The driving factor is that instead of setting up shop in India and looking for customers here, we thought we would first try and understand the business as it is run within the US and then try and grow outside the US in a logical way in which to bring value to the customer. We proved we can manage operations onshore and still keep the competitiveness of the onshore operations intact, not by huge but by healthy margins,” Vuppuluri adds.

    The US is an obvious destination for Indian companies looking to grow a global presence. New Jersey-based Maneesh Agarwal, senior VP (finance) at Birlasoft, a global IT services provider, says the US is at an advantage since it has the “largest share of the biggest companies in the world and whatever global expansion they are doing, there are a lot of residual benefits that come to the US, as far as innovation and profits go”.

    Besides employing Americans, Indian-origin companies are making significant contributions to the wider communities in which they are based. In Nashwauk, Minnesota, Essar Americas (the biggest employer in north Minnesota) uses cutting-edge technology, reducing environmental emissions. And Mahindra USA has sponsored a scholarship program that recognizes and celebrates the important role women play in securing the future of the agricultural industry. This year, it has pledged to donate a portion of revenue from its tractor sales to Operation Finally Home, a non-profit body that provides custom-made, mortgage-free homes to wounded and disabled war veterans as also war widows. It has also contributed money and resources to disaster recovery programs, including after Hurricane Katrina. Welspun, meanwhile, has made healthcare for the needy its primary focus in Little Rock, Arkansas.

    For most India-based companies, their US experience has been rewarding, but not without challenges. “Doing business in America is not a bed of roses,” Vuppuluri points out. Yet, their Indian roots haven’t hindered, but appear rather to have helped, firms seeking innovative solutions to the constraints posed by a cautious, post-recession US banking system. “We got a financial tie-up of our entire financing before the crisis and suddenly realized that all the banks that had sanctioned us money for the project were not that forthcoming because of their own challenges,” Jindal says. His firm was forced to raise funds from the Indian banking sector. Essar Americas’s Minnesota iron ore project too is financed through a club of Indian banks.

    Yet such challenges have done little to deter their quests to grow their operations in the US. Jindal summed up the experience thus: “All in all, it’s been a good experience in a difficult time.” It’s an assessment many would agree with.

  • California man behind ‘Innocence of Muslims jailed

    California man behind ‘Innocence of Muslims jailed

    LOS ANGELES (TIP): An Egyptian-American man behind an anti-Islam film that has stoked violent protests across the Muslim world was arrested on Thursday, September 27 in California for allegedly violating his probation, and a federal judge ordered him jailed without bond, a Reuter report said.

    Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, was taken into custody at an undisclosed location by U.S. marshals and brought to court in Los Angeles still wearing his street clothes but handcuffed and shackled at the waist.
    Nakoula has been under investigation by probation officials looking into whether he violated the terms of his 2011 release from prison on a bank fraud conviction while making the film, though authorities have said they were not probing the movie itself.

    “The court has a lack of trust in the defendant at this time,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Suzanne Segal said in refusing Nakoula’s request for bail at a hearing in U.S. District Court.

    His crudely made 13-minute video was filmed in California and circulated online under several titles including “Innocence of Muslims.” It portrays the Prophet Mohammad as a fool and a sexual deviant.

    The clip sparked a torrent of anti-American unrest in Egypt, Libya and dozens of other Muslim countries over the past two weeks. The violence coincided with an attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

    Nakoula, under the terms of his release from jail, has been barred from accessing the Internet or using aliases without the permission of a probation officer, court records show. He now faces eight probation violation accusations.

    In denying his request for bail, Segal called him a flight risk and said the Coptic Christian filmmaker who most recently lived in the Los Angeles suburb of Cerritos had “engaged in a lengthy pattern of deception,” including using several aliases.

    Meanwhile, Google has refused to remove the film from YouTube, despite pressure from the White House and others to take it down, though the company has blocked the trailer in Egypt, Libya and other Muslim countries.

  • Actress sues California man behind anti-Muslim film

    Actress sues California man behind anti-Muslim film

    LOS ANGELES (TIP): An actress in an anti-Islam film that triggered violent protests across the Muslim world sued a California man linked to its production on Wednesday for fraud and slander, saying she had received death threats after the video was posted on YouTube.

    Actress Cindy Lee Garcia, who also named Google Inc and its YouTube unit as defendants, asked that the film be removed from YouTube and said her right to privacy had been violated and her life endangered, among other allegations.

    It was the first known civil lawsuit connected to the making of the video, which depicts the Prophet Mohammad as a womanizer and a fool, and helped generate a torrent of violence across the Muslim world last week.

    The violence included an attack on US diplomatic facilities in Benghazi in which the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed. U.S. and other foreign embassies were also stormed in cities in Asia, Africa and the Middle East by furious Muslims.

    Garcia accused a producer of the movie, whom she identified as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and said he used the alias Sam Bacile, of duping her into appearing in a “hateful” film that she had been led to believe was a simple desert adventure movie.”There was no mention of ‘Mohammed’ during filming or on set.

    There were no references made to religion nor was there any sexual content of which Ms. Garcia was aware,” said the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

    For many Muslims, any depiction of the prophet is blasphemous.
    Caricatures deemed insulting in the past have provoked protests and drawn condemnation from officials, preachers, ordinary Muslims and many Christians.
    “This lawsuit is not an attack on the First Amendment nor on the right for Americans to say what they think, but does request that the offending content be removed from the Internet,” the lawsuit said.

    A representative for Nakoula’s criminal attorney declined to comment on the law suit.

    A Google spokesman said the company was reviewing the complaint and “will be in court tomorrow.”APPARENT DUBBING Garcia, who had a relatively small part in a trailer available online, has said that her character was forced to give away her child toa character named “Master George” in one scene.

    An expired casting call available online describes a character named George as a “strong leader” and a “tyrant.”But in the English-language trailer at YouTube, Garcia’s character appears to be dubbed over in that scene, with a voice-over for her character referring to Mohammad instead of George.

    Garcia’s lawsuit said her voice was also” dubbed into Arabic” in another version of the trailer.

    She said the film, which has circulated online as a 13-minute trailer, had prompted her family to refuse to allow her to see orbabysit her grandchildren, fearing for their safety.

    The suit accuses Nakoula, Google and YouTube of invasion of privacy, unfair business practices, the use of Garcia’s likeness without permission and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

    US officials have said authorities were not investigating the film project itself and that even if it was inflammatory or led to violence, simply producing it cannot be considered a crime in the United States, which has strong free speech laws.

    But Nakoula, a Coptic Christian California man who pleaded guilty to bank fraud in 2010,was interviewed by federal probation officers on Saturday probing whether he violated the terms of his release while making the film.

    Nakoula, who was released from prison in2011, is prohibited from accessing the Web or assuming aliases without the approval of his probation officer, court records show.

  • Flushing Saibaba temple to hold Gita discoursea

    Flushing Saibaba temple to hold Gita discoursea

    NEW YORK (TIP): The Saibaba temple on Robinson Street in Flushing, Queens is organizing a program on the Bhagavad-Gita on September 22, according to information given out by the temple management.

    The discourse will be given by Swami Bodhananda Saraswati, the spiritual founder-director of the Sambodh Society, which is incorporated in the US.

    The swami is popular both in the US and India, and has written commentaries and delivered spiritual talks focusing on the Gita and other holy texts. He was born in Mattatur, Kerala, about 50 kilometers from Kalady village, the birthplace of Adi Sankaracharya-the great Indian philosopher of the Eighth Century and the best-known exponent of the Advaita philosophy. The swami has been spiritually inclined since his childhood and decided to lead a life of sanyasi in later years. He earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Christ College, Irinjalkuda, Kerala. It was during the time when he was studying for his master’s that the swami decided to take the spiritual plunge.

    The swami began his spiritual journey to the US in 1997. New York was one of his first stops, along with Michigan, Illinois and California. After that visit the swami and his disciples incorporated The Sambodh Society, a non-profit and religious, charitable organization to teach meditation and vedanta to Indian-Americans and Americans at large.
    Since that first visit to the US, the swami has visited the country every year. Aside from his teachings to the public, the swami taught himself about the culture and traditions of different peoples of the New World through reading and observing.

    The year 2000 was a turning point when the swami made his most extensive tour of the US and Canada visiting devotees in more than 25 cities. In November a 32-acre parcel of land near Kalamazoo, Michigan, was bought on which the swami’s first center and headquarters in the US was set up.

    The swami gave discourses not only in Hindu temples, but also in Christian churches. Libraries, homes, workplaces and educational institutions have also played host to his spiritual talks, which generally focus on the Gita and the Upanishads.

    At the Saibaba temple in Flushing, the swami will speak on the Gita and answer queries of devotees with his engaging conversation laced with lively humor. He will also talk about applying the age-old tenets in the holy book to the modern-day context. The program is scheduled for Saturday, September 22 in the afternoon/evening.

    The two-session program begins at 4:30PM with a half-hour break at 6:30PM, according to the temple.

  • California law bars discrimination against Sikhs, Muslims

    California law bars discrimination against Sikhs, Muslims

    Washington (TIP): California Governor Jerry Brown has signed two bills aimed at battling workplace discrimination against Sikhs and Muslims by shunting workers wearing turbans, beards and hijabs to backroom jobs out of public view.

    “This bill, AB 1964, makes it very clear that wearing any type of religious clothing or hairstyle, particularly such as Sikhs do, that that is protected by law and nobody can discriminate against you because of that,” Brown told an enthusiastic crowd of 500 Sikhs on Saturday, the ‘Sacramento Bee’ reported.

    “Breaking down prejudice is something you’ve got to do every day, and to help us do that, I’m going to sign a couple of bills,” he said at a rally of the North American Punjabi Association on the steps of the Capitol in the state capital of Sacramento. “Sikhs everywhere can see that in California, they are a powerful presence,” he was quoted as saying.

    The Workplace Religious Freedom Act, Assembly Bill 1964 by Democrat Mariko Yamada, ensures that employees receive equal protection under law, protecting workers who wear turbans, hijabs and yarmulkes. In California, employers faced over 500 cases of religious discrimination in 2011.

    Brown himself declined to wear a turban, saying, “I’ve worked hard to get my head cleared,” but honoured the thousands of Sikhs who have given their lives in a long history of struggle for religious freedom, both in India and the United States, the Bee said.

    Brown also signed the Senate Bill 1540, sponsored by Democrat Loni Hancock, changing how history and social sciences are taught in schools so that students learn about the history, tradition and theology of California Sikhs. Education can blunt hatred, prejudice and fatal misunderstandings, such as the massacre of Sikhs outside a Wisconsin temple, Brown said.

    ‘Both bills represent landmark achievements that will increase protection for all religious observers in the workplace and expand awareness of the 100-year history of Sikhs in California,’ said Balbir Dhillon, president of the Sacramento Sikh Temple.

  • Anti-Islam Film ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Film Maker’s Real Identity Found

    Anti-Islam Film ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Film Maker’s Real Identity Found

    NEW YORK (TIP): An AP report says that Federal authorities have identified a southern California man once convicted of financial crimes as the key figure behind the anti-Muslim film that ignited mob violence against U.S. embassies across the Middle East, a U.S. law enforcement official said Thursday, September 13.

    Attorney General Eric Holder said that Justice Department officials had opened a criminal investigation into the deaths of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other diplomats killed during an attack on the American mission in Benghazi. It was not immediately clear whether authorities were focusing on the California filmmaker as part of that probe.

    A federal law enforcement official said Thursday that Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, was the man behind “Innocence of Muslims,” a film denigrating Islam and the Prophet Muhammad that sparked protests earlier in the week in Egypt and Libya and now in Yemen. U.S. authorities are investigating whether the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya came during a terrorist attack.

    The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation, said Nakoula was connected to the persona of Sam Bacile, a figure who initially claimed to be the writer and director of the film. But Bacile quickly turned out to be a false identity and the Associated Press traced a cellphone number used by Bacile to a southern California house where Nakoula was found.

    Bacile initially claimed a Jewish and Israeli background. But others involved in the film said his statements were contrived as evidence mounted that the film’s key player was a southern Californian Coptic Christian with a checkered past.

    Nakoula told The Associated Press in an interview outside Los Angeles Wednesday that he managed logistics for the company that produced “Innocence of Muslims,” which mocked Muslims and the prophet Muhammad.

    Nakoula denied that he was Bacile and insisted he did not direct the film, though he said he knew Bacile. But federal court papers filed against Nakoula in a 2010 criminal prosecution said that he had used numerous aliases in the past. Among the fake names, the documents said, were Nicola Bacily, Robert Bacily and Erwin Salameh, all similar to the Sam Bacile persona. Other aliases described in the documents included Ahmad Hamdy, Kritbag Difrat and PJ Tobacco.
    During a conversation outside his home, Nakoula offered his driver’s license to show his identity but kept his thumb over his middle name, Basseley. Records checks by the AP subsequently found that middle name as well as other connections to the Bacile persona.

    The AP located Bacile after obtaining his cellphone number from Morris Sadek, a conservative Coptic Christian in the U.S. who had promoted the anti-Muslim film in recent days on his website. Egypt’s Christian Coptic populace has long decried what they describe as a history of discrimination and occasional violence from the country’s Arab majority.
    Pastor Terry Jones, of Gainesville, Fla., who sparked outrage in the Arab world when he burned Qurans on the ninth anniversary of 9/11, said he spoke with the movie’s director on the phone Wednesday and prayed for him. Jones said he has not met the filmmaker in person but added that the man contacted him a few weeks ago about promoting the movie. Jones and others who have dealt with the filmmaker said Wednesday that Bacile was hiding his real identity.

    “I have not met him. Sam Bacile, that is not his real name,” Jones said. “I just talked to him on the phone. He is definitely in hiding and does not reveal his identity. He was quite honestly fairly shook up concerning the events and what is happening. A lot of people are not supporting him. He was generally a little shook up concerning this situation.”

    The YouTube account under the username “Sam Bacile,” which was used to publish excerpts of the provocative movie in July, was used to post comments online as recently as Tuesday, including this defense of the film written in Arabic: “It is a 100 percent American movie, you cows.”

    Nakoula, who talked guardedly about his role, pleaded no contest in 2010 to federal bank fraud charges in California and was ordered to pay more than $790,000 in restitution. He was also sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and ordered not to use computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer.
    Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Leigh Williams said Nakoula set up fraudulent bank accounts using stolen identities and Social Security numbers; then, checks from those accounts would be deposited into other bogus accounts from which Nakoula would withdraw money at ATM machines.

    It was “basically a check-kiting scheme,” the prosecutor told the AP. “You try to get the money out of the bank before the bank realizes they are drawn from a fraudulent account. There basically is no money.”

    Prior to his bank fraud conviction, Nakoula struggled with a series of financial problems in recent years, according to California state tax and bankruptcy records. In June 2006, a $191,000 tax lien was filed against him in the Los Angeles County Recorder of Deeds office. In 1997, a $106,000 lien was filed against him in Orange County.

    American actors and actresses who appeared in “Innocence of Muslims” issued a joint statement Wednesday saying they were misled about the project and alleged that some of their dialogue was crudely dubbed during post-production.
    In the English-language version of the trailer, direct references to Muhammad appear to be the result of post-production changes to the movie. Either actors aren’t seen when the name “Muhammad” is spoken in the overdubbed sound, or they appear to be mouthing something else as the name of the prophet is spoken.

    “The entire cast and crew are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer,” said the statement, obtained by the Los Angeles Times. “We are 100 percent not behind this film and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose. We are shocked by the drastic rewrites of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred.”

    One of the actresses, Cindy Lee Garcia, told KERO-TV in Bakersfield that the film was originally titled “Desert Warriors” and that the script did not contain offensive references to Islam.

    She wants her name cleared.

    “When I found out this movie had caused all this havoc, I called Sam and asked him why, what happened, why did he do this? I said, ‘Why did you do this to us, to me and to us?’ And he said, ‘Tell the world that it wasn’t you that did it, it was me, the one who wrote the script, because I’m tired of the radical Muslims running around killing everyone,’” she said.

    Garcia said the director, who identified himself as Bacile, told her then that he was Egyptian.
    The person who identified himself as Bacile and described himself as the film’s writer and director told the AP on Tuesday that he had gone into hiding. But doubts rose about the man’s identity amid a flurry of false claims about his background and role in the purported film.

    Bacile told the AP he was an Israeli-born, 56-year-old Jewish writer and director. But a Christian activist involved in the film project, Steve Klein, told the AP on Wednesday that Bacile was a pseudonym and that he was Christian.
    Klein had told the AP on Tuesday that the filmmaker was an Israeli Jew who was concerned for family members who live in Egypt.

    Officials in Israel said there was no record of Bacile as an Israeli citizen.

    When the AP initially left a message for Bacile, Klein contacted the AP from another number to confirm the interview request was legitimate; then Bacile called back from his own cellphone.

    Klein said he didn’t know the real name of the man he called “Sam,” who came to him for advice on First Amendment issues.

    About 15 key players from the Middle East – people from Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan and Iran, and a couple of Coptic Christians from Egypt – worked on the film, Klein said.

    “Most of them won’t tell me their real names because they’re terrified,” Klein said. “He was really scared and now he’s so nervous. He’s turned off his phone.”

    An official of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Los Angeles said in a statement Thursday that the church’s adherents had no involvement in the “inflammatory movie about the prophet of Islam.” An official identified as HG Bishop Serapion, of the Coptic Orthodox of Los Angeles, said that “the producers of this movie should be responsible for their actions. The name of our blessed parishioners should not be associated with the efforts of individuals who have ulterior motives.”

    The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, said Klein is a former Marine and longtime religious-right activist who has helped train paramilitary militias at a California church. It described Klein as founder of Courageous Christians United, which conducts protests outside abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques.
    It quoted Klein as saying he believes that California is riddled with Muslim Brotherhood sleeper cells “who are awaiting the trigger date and will begin randomly killing as many of us as they can.”

    In his brief interview with the AP, the man identifying himself as Bacile called Islam a cancer and said he intended the film to be a provocative political statement condemning the religion.

    But several key facts Bacile provided proved false or questionable. Bacile told the AP he was 56 but identified himself on his YouTube profile as 74. Bacile said he is a real estate developer, but Bacile does not appear in searches of California state licenses, including the Department of Real Estate.

    Hollywood and California film industry groups and permit agencies said they had no records of the project under the name “Innocence of Muslims,” but a Los Angeles film permit agency later found a record of a movie filmed in Los Angeles last year under the working title “Desert Warriors.”

    A man who answered a phone listed for the Vine Theater, a faded Hollywood movie house, confirmed that the film had run for a least a day, and possibly longer, several months ago, arranged by a customer known as “Sam.”
    Google Inc., which owns YouTube, pulled down the video Wednesday in Egypt, citing a legal complaint. It was still accessible in the U.S. and other countries.

    Klein told the AP he vowed to help make the movie but warned the filmmaker that “you’re going to be the next Theo van Gogh.” Van Gogh was a Dutch filmmaker killed by a Muslim extremist in 2004 after making a film that was perceived as insulting to Islam.

    “We went into this knowing this was probably going to happen,” Klein said

  • US Healthcare System Wastes $750 Billion a Year: Report

    US Healthcare System Wastes $750 Billion a Year: Report

    WASHINGTON (TIP): The U.S. health care system squanders $750 billion a year – roughly 30 cents of every medical dollar – through unneeded care, byzantine paperwork, fraud and other waste, the influential Institute of Medicine said Thursday, September 6 in a report that ties directly into the presidential campaign.

    President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney are accusing each other of trying to slash Medicare and put seniors at risk. But the counter-intuitive finding from the report is that deep cuts are possible without rationing, and a leaner system may even produce better quality

    “Health care in America presents a fundamental paradox,” said the report from an 18-member panel of prominent experts, including doctors, business people, and public officials. “The past 50 years have seen an explosion in biomedical knowledge, dramatic innovation in therapies and surgical procedures, and management of conditions that previously were fatal …

    “Yet, American health care is falling short on basic dimensions of quality, outcomes, costs and equity,” the report concluded.

    If banking worked like health care, ATM transactions would take days, the report said. If home building were like health care, carpenters, electricians and plumbers would work from different blueprints and hardly talk to each other. If shopping were like health care, prices would not be posted and could vary widely within the same store, depending on who was paying.

    If airline travel were like health care, individual pilots would be free to design their own preflight safety checks – or not perform one at all.

    How much is $750 billion? The one-year estimate of health care waste is equal to more than ten years of Medicare cuts in Obama’s health care law. It’s more than the Pentagon budget. It’s more than enough to care for the uninsured.
    Getting health care costs better controlled is one of the keys to reducing the deficit, the biggest domestic challenge facing the next president. The report did not lay out a policy prescription for Medicare and Medicaid but suggested there’s plenty of room for lawmakers to find a path.

    Both Obama and Romney agree there has to be a limit to Medicare spending, but they differ on how to get that done. Obama would rely on a powerful board to cut payments to service providers, while gradually changing how hospitals and doctors are paid to reward results instead of volume. Romney would limit the amount of money future retirees can get from the government for medical insurance, relying on the private market to find an efficient solution. Each accuses of the other of jeopardizing the well-being of seniors.

    But panel members urged a frank discussion with the public about the value Americans are getting for their health care dollars. As a model, they cited “Choosing Wisely,” a campaign launched earlier this year by nine medical societies to challenge the widespread perception that more care is better.

    “Rationing to me is when we are denying medical care that is helpful to patients, on the basis of costs,” said cardiologist Dr. Rita Redberg, a medical school professor at the University of California, San Francisco. “We have a lot of medical care that is not helpful to patients, and some of it is harmful. The problem is when you talk about getting rid of any type of health care, someone yells, ‘Rationing.’ ”

    More than 18 months in the making, the report identified six major areas of waste: unnecessary services ($210 billion annually); inefficient delivery of care ($130 billion); excess administrative costs ($190 billion); inflated prices ($105 billion); prevention failures ($55 billion), and fraud ($75 billion). Adjusting for some overlap among the categories, the panel settled on an estimate of $750 billion.

    Examples of wasteful care include most repeat colonoscopies within 10 years of a first such test, early imaging for most back pain, and brain scans for patients who fainted but didn’t have seizures.
    The report makes ten recommendations, including payment reforms to reward quality results instead of reimbursing for each procedure, improving coordination among different kinds of service providers, leveraging technology to reinforce sound clinical decisions and educating patients to become more savvy consumers.

    The report’s main message for government is to accelerate payment reforms, said panel chair Dr. Mark Smith, president of the California HealthCare Foundation, a research group. For employers, it’s to move beyond cost shifts to workers and start demanding accountability from hospitals and major medical groups. For doctors, it means getting beyond the bubble of solo practice and collaborating with peers and other clinicians.

    “It’s a huge hill to climb, and we’re not going to get out of this overnight,” said Smith. “The good news is that the very common notion that quality will suffer if less money is spent is simply not true. That should reassure people that the conversation about controlling costs is not necessarily about reducing quality.”
    The Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, is an independent organization that advises the government.

  • The 10 U.S. cities with the worst drivers tilt towards the coasts

    The 10 U.S. cities with the worst drivers tilt towards the coasts

    NEW YORK (TIP): New Yorkers are not among the worst drivers. Nor are the LA drivers. While it would seem logical for smaller cities to have safer roads, and crash rates are generally worse in more populated areas, there are a few large cities — namely Phoenix, Tucson and Indianapolis — whose drivers outperform the national average. Philadelphia, Miami and San Francisco crack the list of 10 cities with the worst drivers, but are outpaced in wretched wheeling by several smaller towns.

    In its eighth annual report on traffic accidents, Allstate analyzed its claims data for 195 cities filed between January 2009 and December 2010 to determine how likely it was for a driver in those cities to get into a fender bender. For the fifth time, Sioux Falls, S.D. ranked as the city with the best drivers, who are 27.6 percent less likely to get into a crash than the national average. Close behind: Boise, Idaho; Fort Collins, Colo.; Madison, Wisc., and Lincoln, Neb.

    The real secret to having the worst drivers lies in geography. Washington, D.C.is the city Allstate has identified as the home of the worst drivers in America for seven of the past eight years. It should be among the safest; the city has thousands of speed cameras, well-funded traffic police and has banned any use of hand-held cell phones while driving. But Washington’s street layout creates dozens of six-way intersections featuring one road crossing at an unusual angle, turning below-average skills or aggressive drivers into a clear and present danger. According to Allstate, Washington drivers get into a wreck once every 4.7 years on average.

    Of the remaining nine cities with the worst drivers, five are East Coast towns whose streets were originally laid out for horse-drawn wagons rather than rip tides of two-ton SUVs traveling 50 mph. Even though California tops the Atlantic seaboard for traffic tie ups, only Glendale, Calif., and San Francisco crack the 10-worst list for accidents. Miami and its suburb of Hialeah, Fla., round out the list — another example where drivers unfamiliar with roads play a starring role, although the average age of the people behind the wheel factor in as well.

    It doesn’t take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, and it doesn’t take a database of insurance claims to know bad drivers fill American roads every day. You can’t control what other people do, but you can control what you do — driving a little slower, being more careful, even extending some courtesy on the road. Or you could just move to Sioux Falls

  • Democratic convention calls for Obama re-election

    Democratic convention calls for Obama re-election

    CHARLOTTE, NC (TIP): The US Democratic Party launched its National Convention September 4 as it seeks to convince voters that President Barack Obama deserves a second term.
    The chair of the Democratic National Committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, brought the gala into session with a strike of the gavel at 5 P.M. ET.

    Schultz, who is also the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said that throughout the next three days, “we will demonstrate we need to keep President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden four more years.”
    We will keep tabs on the convention all night. I’ll be joined by NPR’s Liz Halloran, and photographer Becky Lettenberger will bring us some of the sights.

    If Ted Strickland delivered the strongest attack on Mitt Romney, Gov. Deval Patrick delivered the best defense of Barack Obama.

    “If we want to win elections in November and keep our country moving forward, if we want to earn the privilege to lead, it’s time for Democrats to stiffen our backbone and stand up for what we believe,” he said.

    He added:”This is the president who delivered the security of affordable health care to every single American after 90 years of trying. This is the president who brought Osama bin Laden to justice, who ended the war in Iraq and is ending the war in Afghanistan. This is the president who ended “don’t ask, don’t tell” so that love of country, not love of another, determines fitness for military service. Who made equal pay for equal work the law of the land. This is the president who saved the American auto industry from extinction, the American financial industry from self-destruction, and the American economy from depression. Who added over 4.5 million private sector jobs in the last two-plus years, more jobs than George W. Bush added in eight.

    “The list of accomplishments is long, impressive and barely told—even more so when you consider that congressional Republicans have made obstruction itself the centerpiece of their governing strategy. With a record and a vision like that, I will not stand by and let him be bullied out of office—and neither should you, and neither should you and neither should you.”

    First Lady Michelle Obama and former President Bill Clinton are among those who will address the three-day jamboree in Time Warner Cable Arena, Charlotte, North Carolina.
    A recent opinion poll shows Mr. Obama maintains a thin lead over the Republican nominee Mr. Mitt Romney.

    With November’s election looming, the president will aim to recapture the political spotlight over the next few days, after last week’s Republican convention. Throughout this campaign, there’s been a lot of talk about whether President Obama would be able to rekindle the kind of fervor he sparked in 2008.

    Mr. Obama is expected to answer Republican attacks that his economic policies have failed, and present himself to voters as an experienced and caring alternative to Mr. Romney.Shortly after the convention opened, delegates cheered their backing for the party’s new platform in an open voice vote.

    Among the changes found in the text of the party’s 2012 platform was the removal of language from the Middle East section referring to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. That message was replaced with a passage referring to the party’s “unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security” and Mr. Obama’s “steadfast opposition to any attempt to delegitimize Israel”.

    The change prompted criticism from Republicans and Mitt Romney, who accuse Mr. Obama of “selling out” a key US ally.
    Tuesday’s first session saw a series of Democratic governors, members of Congress, mayors and electoral candidates speak in support of Mr. Obama and his policies, most notably his much-criticized healthcare reform law.

    A video tribute to the late Senator Edward Kennedy included clips from his 1994 Senate debate with Mr. Romney, and independent Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee argued that his former party – the Republicans – had lost their way and had forfeited the label of conservative.

    Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said the next president would set the tone for the next 40 years.
    “It will be the president’s leadership that determines how we as a nation meet the challenges that face the middle class. It is the president’s values that shape a future in which the middle class has hope,” he said.
    Mrs. Obama’s address at the end of Tuesday’s session will highlight the president’s character and praise his attributes as a father and husband.

    Her remarks will inevitably be compared and contrasted with those by would-be first lady Ann Romney, who gave a glowing tribute to her husband last week to the Republican convention in Tampa, Florida.
    The Democratic convention is likely to highlight the party’s diversity, with young black and Hispanic party members set to deliver speeches.Julian Castro, the Latino Mayor of San Antonio, Texas, will give the keynote address immediately before Mrs. Obama. But a number of the country’s top Democratic figures will not attend.
    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is missing a Democratic convention for the first time in more than 40 years on account of ethical guidelines preventing cabinet heads from participating in political activities.
    Nor will California Governor Jerry Brown and former Vice-President Al Gore be present, both citing personal commitments.

    A number of Democratic congressional candidates and incumbents have also declined to attend, as they are engaged in tough battles for election in November.

    The Democratic gathering will see Mr. Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden formally re-nominated as the party’s presidential and vice-presidential candidates on Wednesday.

    Later that evening, there will be speeches from Elizabeth Warren, who is fighting Republican incumbent Scott Brown in a high-profile race for a Massachusetts Senate seat, and former President Clinton.The convention culminates on Thursday with speeches from Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden.The gala also offers the Democrats the chance to make a high-profile pitch to voters in North Carolina, a state that narrowly voted for Mr. Obama in 2008, but is now firmly up for grabs.

    As they did four years ago, the Democrats will take the event outside the convention centre for the president’s prime-time speech, taking over a 74,000-seater stadium in Charlotte for the final night of speeches.

    Organizers are working to ensure a full house for Mr. Obama’s speech. But organizers are concerned that thunderstorms forecast to hit Charlotte during the convention could keep people away.

    Meanwhile, Republicans were quick to seize on a remark Mr. Obama made on Monday, in which he told a local Colorado news station that he would give himself an “incomplete” grade on the economy.

    Vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan told CBS News that the US should be “bouncing out of” the recent recession. “We’re not creating jobs at near the pace we could,” he said.

    A Gallup opinion poll on Monday suggested the convention had given the Republicans only the slightest of boosts, with 40% saying they were now more likely to vote for Mr. Romney but 38% of respondents describing themselves as less likely to.Mr. Obama maintained a lead over Mr. Romney of one percentage point – as he had done before the event