The Indian Panorama

Tag: CPC

  • “BROADWAY DEITY” PERFORMS AT FTH GALA

    By Mabel Pais

    The Flushing Town Hall (FlushingTownHall.org) holds its annual gala, theme: ‘Around the World & Home Again,‘ on Thursday, June 15. The gala will celebrate the Smithsonian affiliate’s mission to bring people together through arts and culture from around the globe.

    This year, the gala will honor Broadway Deity André De Shields, President and CEO of the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC) Wayne Ho, and Founder of the Guru Krupa Foundation Mukund Padmanabhan.

    PROGRAM

    The evening will consist of a cocktail hour, a sit-down dinner in the theater, and live entertainment, including a show-stopping performance from none other than De Shields himself.

    As the nonprofit’s main benefit event of the year, the Gala raises critical funds for Flushing Town Hall.

    “Like all of our programming at Flushing Town Hall, our gala is an opportunity to bring the community together in celebration of the arts and our borough’s rich, global culture. It is also a chance to celebrate the remarkable individuals who, through their leadership, generosity, and extraordinary craft, have helped Flushing Town Hall to thrive and educate and inspire our audiences,” said Ellen Kodadek, Executive & Artistic Director at Flushing Town Hall.

    The Honorees

    Andre de Shields (Photo Credit/andredeshields.com)

    André De Shields

    “The shifting cultural paradigm calls for every artist to advocate for Foundational Democracy–the doing of the greatest good for the greatest number of people. During the month of February in both 2021 and 2022, Flushing Town Hall provided the forum for my demonstrating the intersection of art and activism by inviting me to perform my tribute to Frederick Douglass–Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory–in commemoration of Black Heritage Month. Accepting the Award for Life Achievement and serenading the audience with song are my expressions of immense gratitude.” says André De Shields

    Perennially known for his show-stopping performances in four legendary Broadway musicals—The Wiz, Ain’t Misbehavin (Emmy Award), Play On!, and The Full Monty—Mr. De Shields has achieved the status of “Broadway Deity.” Learn more at andredeshields.com.

    Wayne Ho

    Wayne Ho is the President and CEO of the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC), the nation’s largest Asian American social services agency. With a mission to promote the social and economic empowerment of Chinese American, immigrant, and low-income communities, CPC serves over 280,000 community members in education, family support, and community and economic empowerment at 35 locations throughout New York City.

    Since the pandemic started, CPC has led successful advocacy efforts to secure $20 million from the State and $5 million from the City to promote Asian American recovery and safety, spoken out against the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes, led the #Providers4FairPay campaign in support of living wages for home care workers, distributed over $7.4 million in cash assistance and over 400,000 pounds of food to community members, and has been quoted in over 250 news stories.

    Most recently, Ho served on the transition teams for Mayor Eric Adams, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and the joint nonprofit procurement task force of Mayor Eric Adams and Comptroller Brad Lander.

    Ho has been recognized by City and State in the inaugural Asian Power 100 in 2020, in the inaugural Nonprofit Power 50 in 2018, and as a member of the 40 Under 40 New York City Rising Star in 2014. He was one of 10 leaders invited to meet with President Obama during the White House’s Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month Celebration in 2011. Ho serves on numerous boards, including the Human Services Council and Coro New York Leadership Center. He has also been appointed to several New York City and State advisory boards, including the NYC Independent Budget Office. Learn more at cpc-nyc.org.

    Mukund Padmanabhan

    Dr. Mukund Padmanabhan, founder of the Guru Krupa Foundation (guru-krupa.org – GKF). He has worked as a Research Scientist at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Lab. Then he pivoted to Wall Street, applying his technical expertise at the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies. Dr. Padmanabhan’s work has been published prolifically in several international technical journals. He is also a recipient of the Professional Achievement Award from UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Kharagpur. The foundation takes a holistic approach to charity and philanthropy, addressing various issues from social, educational, cultural/spiritual to environmental. GKF gives grants to partner organizations in the United States and India. GKF handed out over 70 grants in 2022 alone.

    GKF’s social projects assist vulnerable groups to help them break out of the cycle of poverty. The projects address child welfare (funding orphanages, schools, and book banks), food insecurity (funding food banks), and youth, women, and disabled empowerment (funding skill training programs). GKF’s higher educational projects provide scholarships to students at institutions of higher learning. GKF’s cultural/spiritual projects support preserving Hindu traditions and promoting cross-cultural integration and collaboration. Their environmental projects focus on water preservation and cleanup in India.

    TICKETS 

    Single gala tickets and table packages are available. Gala ads and donations are greatly appreciated. For more detailed ticket, sponsor, and advertising information or to make a contribution, visit flushingtownhall.org/gala or contact Jessica Peña, Director of Development, at jpena@flushingtownhall.org

    Flushing Town Hall

    Learn more at flushingtownhall.org

    (Mabel Pais writes on The Arts and Entertainment, Social Issues, Health & Wellness, Education, Cuisine, Spirituality, and Business)

  • Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang to visit Pakistan after attending SCO meet in India

    Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang to visit Pakistan after attending SCO meet in India

    BEIJING (TIP): China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang will travel to Pakistan on May 5 on a two-day visit after attending the meeting of the SCO Foreign Ministers hosted by India in Goa, it was announced here on Thursday.
    Qin is attending the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) Foreign Ministers meeting being held on May 4 and 5 at Panaji in Goa where his Pakistan counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari too is taking part.
    Besides being the Foreign Minister, Qin is also the State Councillor, a higher rank associated with the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC). SCO bloc consists of China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India holds the presidency of the grouping for this year.
    Significantly the Chinese Foreign Ministry while announcing the visit of Qin to Myanmar and India on May 2 did not include his visit to Islamabad though Pakistan media reported about it.
    Instead, the ministry announced his visit to Pakistan separately on Thursday during which he is due to take part in China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ meeting.
    The trilateral is being held less than a month after the Neighbouring Countries of Afghanistan Plus Afghanistan Foreign Ministers meeting of China, Russia, Pakistan and Iran in Samarkand, in which Qin presided.
    Announcing Qin’s visit to Pakistan, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said that this will be his first visit to Pakistan after taking charge and an important part of the recent close and frequent interactions between the high levels of China and Pakistan. The reference apparently was the just concluded maiden visit of Pakistan’s new Army Chief Asim Munir, here during which he held a series of meetings with top Chinese Generals and top diplomat Wang Yi who is the Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee.
    During Gen.Munir’s visit, China’s new Premier Li Qiang also held his first phone call with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and promised continued financial help for Pakistan which is facing a serious political and economic crisis. “In Pakistan Qin will meet with the leader of Pakistan and co-chair the fourth round of China-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Strategic Dialogue with Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari”, the foreign ministry statement which included a Q&A posted on the website on Friday said.
    “The two sides will have in-person and in-depth communication on bilateral relations and the international and regional situation,” it said. “China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic cooperative partners and ironclad friends. The friendship is time honoured”, it further said recalling Sharif’s successful visit to China last November and Li’s April 27 phone call with him. The foreign ministry also hoped that the ties between the two nations would further deepen with the visit of the Chinese foreign minister.
    “China hopes that this visit will follow through on the important common understandings between the leaders of the two countries, further, deepen strategic communication and practical cooperation, promote the building of an ever-closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era, and contribute positive energy to the region and the wider world,” it said.
    About why the fifth China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue in less than a month of Samarkand meeting, it said, although the people of Afghanistan have tided over the most difficult time, they still face severe challenges at the moment and are in dire need of more support and help from the rest of the world.
    The international community need to step up contact and dialogue with the Afghan interim government, support its effort of reconstruction and development, and encourage it to build an inclusive government, exercise moderate governance, develop friendly relations with its neighbours and firmly fight terrorism, it said.
    The Foreign Ministers’ Meeting among the Neighbouring Countries of Afghanistan and the China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue are both important platforms for exchanges and cooperation on issues related to Afghanistan and conducive to more consensus among regional countries on the Afghan issue, it said.
    “China hopes to exchange views with Afghanistan and Pakistan on the situation in Afghanistan and tri-party cooperation at the Dialogue, so as to build up consensus, consolidate mutual trust, and jointly contribute to peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region,” it said. (PTI)

  • Battle within US panel on religious freedom on putting India on Red List

    Battle within US panel on religious freedom on putting India on Red List

    WASHINGTON, D.C. (TIP): Behind the exchange of words on the state of human rights in each other’s countries between External Affair Minister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is a more intense battle being fought in the corridors of United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) as it prepares a report to be submitted to the US State Department on April 25. Twice in past successive years, the USCIRF wanted the US State Department to treat India as a ‘Country of Particular Concern (CPC)’ which would bracket it with egregious human rights abusers such as China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. And, both times two different US administrations have rejected its recommendation and kept India a rung below the Red List. This time, the battle within USCIRF on the India chapter is more intense than in the past amidst insider accounts that one Commissioner has “been turned” and is understood to be insisting on several changes in the draft under preparation.

    In a letter to USCIRF, several US-based civil rights and faith groups have asked it to withstand the pressure. “It is clear that those seeking to obfuscate the reality of India’s persecution of its religious minorities are now using intense lobbying and combative communication with the goal of preventing USCIRF from recommending India’s designation as a CPC for the third straight year,” said the letter. “We have also learned that such pressure includes attempts to influence USCIRF Commissioners and officials to exclude even a mention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” it added. On Wednesday, April 13, Jaishankar held a press conference in Washington to rebut Blinken’s comments a day earlier. Nationalist Congress Party has criticized the Government for the two Indian Ministers present at the press conference – Jaishankar and Defense Minister Rajnath Singh – not giving an on-the-spot rebuttal. Stating that human rights issue was not a topic of discussion during the India-US 2+2 ministerial meeting, Jaishankar said people are entitled to have views about India but “we also take our views on other people’s human rights situation, including that of the US”. Blinken had said a day earlier that the US is monitoring some recent “concerning developments” in India, including a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police and prison officials.

  • Indian American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal Tests Positive for COVID-19 

    Indian American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal Tests Positive for COVID-19 

    WASHINGTON  (TIP): Indian American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said on Tuesday, January 12 ,  that she has tested positive for coronavirus after being locked down in a secured room at the US Capitol where several Republican lawmakers recklessly refused to wear masks in the moments after the January 6 attack.

    “I just received a positive COVID-19 test result after being locked down in a secured room at the Capitol where several Republicans not only cruelly refused to wear a mask but recklessly mocked colleagues and staff who offered them one,” 55-year-old Ms Jayapal tweeted.

    In a statement, Ms Jayapal said she began quarantining immediately after the attack on the Capitol, fearing and foreseeing exactly what would occur given the number of maskless lawmakers sitting in the same room with her.

    The duration in the room was multiple hours, she said.

    “Too many Republicans have refused to take this pandemic and virus seriously, and in doing so, they endanger everyone around them,” she said.

    “Only hours after President (Donald) Trump incited a deadly assault on our Capitol, our country, and our democracy, many Republicans still refused to take the bare minimum COVID-19 precaution and simply wear a damn mask in a crowded room during a pandemic – creating a superspreader event on top of a domestic terrorist attack,” she added.

    “While I am isolating per the Capitol Physician’s instructions, I will continue to work to the best of my ability because the deep urgency of our many crises is paramount,” she said.

    Dr. Brian Monahan, the Attending Physician of the US Congress, advised representatives and Congressional staff on Sunday that those in the secured room could have, “been exposed to another occupant with coronavirus infection.”

    “I am also calling for serious fines to be immediately levied on every single Member who refuses to wear a mask in the Capitol,” Ms Jayapal said. “Additionally, any Member who refuses to wear a mask should be immediately removed from the floor by the Sergeant at Arms. This is not a joke. Our lives and our livelihoods are at risk, and anyone who refuses to wear a mask should be fully held accountable for endangering our lives because of their selfish idiocy.”

    In December, Ms Jayapal was elected as the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), making her one of the most powerful US lawmakers in the 117th Congress.

    On Monday, January 11,  Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey said that she had tested positive for COVID-19.

    “Following the events of Wednesday, including sheltering with several colleagues who refused to wear masks, I decided to take a Covid test. I have tested positive,” Mr Coleman tweeted on Monday.