Tag: NRI

ALBANY, NY (TIP): A 12-year-old Arjanveer Singh has come out with an album of Gurbani Shabad Kirtan in 31 ragas of Guru Granth Sahib, qualifying him as a prodigy.
Based at Albany, New York he learned the recital of Gurbani Kirtan in classical Ragas pointed towards his dedication towards Gurmat philosophy. About his feat he said it was an initiative aimed at connecting children worldwide with the ‘Ragatmic Shabad Kirtan’ of Guru Granth Sahib. He rendered Gurbani Kirtain in Ragas such as Aasaa, Wadhans, Sorath and others. He learnt Gurbani Kirtan based on 31 ragas of Guru Granth Sahib from renowned Sangeet Kirtankar Dr Gurnam Singh, former head of Gurbani Sangeet Chair of Punjabi University through Baljinder Singh, the head of the Rara Sahib Samprada.
Album containing Gurbani Shabad Keertan in 31 ragas sung by 12-year-old Arjanveer Singh was jointly released by Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh, SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami, Rara Sahib Samprada head Baba Baljinder Singh and others at Akal Takht secretariat in Amritsar on Saturday.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (TIP): British Indian American liberal commentator Mehdi Hasan, who departed from MSNBC last month following the controversial cancellation of his weekly show in November, is preparing to launch his own digital media company, Zeteo.
Named after the Greek word meaning “to seek,” Zeteo is scheduled to make its debut in April on the Substack platform. The company’s flagship offerings will include a weekly streaming show titled “Mehdi Unfiltered,” hosted by Hasan himself, alongside a weekly podcast and a range of written contributions from prominent figures. Subscribers can access the platform for $6 per month, with an annual subscription option available.
Announcing the launch of the platform, Hasan told his 1.5 million followers on X, formerly known as Twitter:
“Some personal & professional news: I’m launching a new media company! It’s called Zeteo.
“And, in this era of war abroad, fascism at home, and propaganda everywhere, I hope I can count on your support.”
To kickstart Zeteo, Hasan told the Washington Post that he secured $4 million in funding, with support from friends, family, and concerned viewers following his departure from MSNBC. The network faced significant backlash after axing Hasan’s television and streaming shows on November 30, which many of his supporters believed was due to the sidelining of critical voices on the US position regarding the Israeli-Hamas war.
“I’ve decided that it’s time for me to look for a new challenge,” Hasan announced during his final episode on January 7. “Tonight is not just my final episode of ‘The Mehdi Hasan Show.’ It’s my last day with MSNBC. Yes, I’ve decided to leave.”
In a message circulated on social media to his followers on Wednesday, Hasan expressed, “I have asked you all to share and repost a lot of things over the years. You’ve always supported me. I am now making my biggest ask of all: I’ve launched my own media company. We need an alternative to the mainstream folks. This is it.”
While Hasan will serve as the face of Zeteo, he emphasizes the platform’s dedication to amplifying diverse voices and perspectives often sidelined by mainstream media. The launch of Zeteo signifies a bold move for Hasan, who acknowledges the risks involved but remains optimistic about the venture’s potential.
Hasan’s foray into the digital realm reflects a broader trend among media personalities seeking greater independence and autonomy in their expression.
Recently, Hasan joined The Guardian as a regular columnist. His first column, published on February 21, called on President Joe Biden to pressure the Israeli government to end the “genocide” of Palestinians in Gaza. Hasan told Semafor that he was grateful for the opportunity to contribute to The Guardian, stating that he has been an avid reader of the publication since his teenage years.
Hasan previously worked for Al Jazeera English and the Intercept. His new venture mirrors a broader shift in media consumption, with digital platforms playing an increasingly influential role in shaping public opinion. The success of Zeteo will be closely monitored as Hasan aims to carve out a space for independent voices.

SAN FRANCISCO (TIP) : Indian American executive Sidhartha Nair has joined Alta Equipment Group Inc, a leading provider of premium material handling, construction and environmental processing equipment and related services, as a director.
Nair, 52, currently is the Head of Strategy, Americas Region, for Mercedes-Benz Mobility and leads Strategic and Transformation activities in the US, Canada and Mexico since December 2021.
Nair brings global experience and knowledge of startup, new market entry, growth, and digital transformation of businesses at different periods in their life cycle, according to a media release.
“Sid brings extensive business leadership experience as well as in-depth knowledge in digital transformation and business transformation in the automotive industry,” said Ryan Greenawalt, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman. “His expertise will be a significant boost to our ongoing initiatives. I look forward to the contributions he will make as part of the Alta family.”
“I am excited to join the Board of Alta and be part of its rapidly expanding growth and position in the market,” said Nair. “My experience should be beneficial to Alta’s diversified strategy to capitalize on the growth opportunities and cost- efficiency initiatives.”
Nair first joined Daimler Financial Services in 2003 and has held roles of increasing responsibility during his tenure of more than 20 years in the US, Caribbean and India business units.
Prior to 2003, he held a previous role with McKinsey & Company as a consultant working on developing strategic solutions addressing growth, turnaround and new market entry.
Nair holds a MBA from the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business and a Masters in Engineering from Purdue University. Alta owns and operates one of the largest integrated equipment dealership platforms in the US and has a presence in Canada.

LOS ANGELES (TIP): In one of the largest verdicts in the US in a decade, four brothers from India have been awarded $7 billion after a 20year legal battle with a fifth brother over alleged breach of a family partnership agreement. After a five-month trial, a jury Monday ordered Haresh Jogani to pay his brothers Shashikant, Rajesh, Chetan and Shailesh Jogani more than $2.5 billion in damages and to divide up shares of their Southern California property empire.
In total, the Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded the four successful brothers $2.5 billion in monetary damages and more than $4.5 billion in property interests, making the award one of the largest in the United States this year, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.
The case arose from a conflict involving the siblings, all from India, concerning more than 170 apartment buildings incorporating 17,000 units, primarily in the San Fernando Valley.
One of the brothers, Haresh Jogani, is listed on paper as the owner of the buildings. His attorneys maintained that there was no oral partnership as his siblings alleged and that he was the sole owner of the real estate portfolio.
But his brothers contended to the contrary and the jury agreed with them, determining that the defendant owed brothers Rajesh Jogani and Chetan Jogani $750 million in damages, plus real estate interests valued at more than $1 billion. “We are grateful to the jurors for their decision,” said attorney Peter Ross of Ross LLP, who represented Rajesh and Chetan Jogani. “Thanks to them, a long-standing wrong has been corrected, and this brother-against-brother war can come to an end.”
Shashikant Jogani, who was represented by another law firm, received the biggest payout; the jury awarded him $4.75 billion, and the fifth brother, Shailesh, received $570 million.
The jury also found that prevailing brothers Rajesh, Chetan and Shashikant are entitled to punitive damages. The hearing regarding the punitive damages will take place on Friday.
The 2003 lawsuit already has been through 18 appeals, generations of attorneys and five judges in Los Angeles Superior Court. It’s drawing comparisons from some of the lawyers to the fictional Victorian-era probate case that Charles Dickens wrote about in his 1852 novel Bleak House. They’re calling Jogani v. Jogani the new Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, but with a twist. “At end of the book, there was no money, hence the name, Bleak House,” said Peter Ross, an attorney who represents Chetan and Rajesh Jogani. “That’s not the case here. There’s billions here that remain to be distributed.”
The Jogani family from Gujarat, India, built a fortune in the global diamond trade, establishing outposts in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and North America.
Shashikant “Shashi” Jogani moved at age 22 in 1969 to California, where he began a solo firm in the gem business and started to build a property portfolio, according to a complaint he filed in 2003.
The properties suffered losses in the recession of the early 1990s, which worsened after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake killed 16 people in one of his buildings, leading Shashi to bring in his brothers as partners.
The firm then embarked on a buying spree that eventually built the portfolio to roughly 17,000 apartment units with the brothers collaborating until Haresh “forcibly removed” his sibling from managing the firm and refused to pay him, according to Shashi Jogani’s complaint. Haresh Jogani contended that without a written agreement, his brothers couldn’t prove they had a partnership with him.
But the jury found that Haresh had broken an oral contract. Jurors heard testimony that oral agreements are customary in both the diamond trade and among Gujaratis.
“The law is you can have oral contracts that are just as valuable as written contracts,” said attorney Steve Friedman, an attorney for Shashi Jogani.
The jury concluded Shashi owns 50% of the real estate partnership, followed by 24% to Haresh, 10% to Rajesh, 9.5% to Shailesh and 6.5% to Chetan, the youngest, who is now 62 years old, according to Ross. The initial damages award for Shashi, now 77, was $1.8 billion.
The properties generated as much as $137 million a year in net operating income, according to Michael Friedman, 37, who with his father, Steve, has represented Shashi since 2014, the year after he passed the bar to practice law.
“There’s an enormous portfolio that Shashi built,” he said. “And it sustains itself.”

TORONTO (TIP): Three Indian-origin men have been arrested in Canada and will be extradited for trial in the US for their alleged links with a network trafficking drugs between Mexico and the North American nations.
A joint operation between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) dubbed “Operation Dead Hand” saw 19 people charged in two US federal indictments for their alleged roles in the organized crime ring.
Ayush Sharma, 25, and Guramrit Sandhu, 60, both from Brampton, and Subham Kumar, 29, from Calgary, were arrested under an international arrest warrant, the RCMP said in a release on Tuesday.
“Drug trafficking is a global problem being driven by sophisticated, organized crime groups who put profits over people’s lives. Motivated by greed, these criminals destroy lives, devastate families, and wreak havoc in our community,” told US Attorney Martin Estrada for the Central District of California.
Investigators developed information indicating the organized crime group used Canadian “handlers’ and “dispatchers” who travelled from Canada to Los Angeles for short amounts of time, a Department of Justice release noted.
The handlers coordinated the pick-up and delivery of large shipments of cocaine and methamphetamine, which were loaded onto long-haul semi-trucks destined for Canada. Wholesale quantities of fentanyl were seized as a result of the investigation.
The transportation was coordinated by a network of drivers working with dozens of trucking companies who made numerous border crossings from the US to Canada via the Detroit Windsor Tunnel, the Buffalo Peace Bridge, and the Blue Water Bridge.
Sandhu, also known as King, is alleged to have orchestrated the trafficking and exportation of large-scale quantities of controlled substances to Canada working with several co-defendants described as suppliers.
According to the indictment, Sandhu occupied the position of an organizer, supervisor, and manager, and in this role obtained substantial income and resources.
He has been charged with one count of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, and if convicted, he faces a mandatory minimum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Sharma and Kumar were identified in the indictment as semi-truck drivers involved in exporting drugs to Canada.
Both the indictments allege illicit drug trafficking activity cumulatively involving approximately 845 kg of methamphetamine, 951 kg of cocaine, 20 kg of fentanyl, and 4 kg of heroin.
Over $900,000 in cash was seized during the investigation. The estimated wholesale value of the narcotics seized was between $16-28 million.
Arrest and search warrants were executed on Tuesday morning by a coalition of international law enforcement partners in various cities, including Los Angeles; Sacramento, California; Miami; Odessa, Texas; Montreal; Toronto; and Calgary, Canada.

TORONTO (TIP): An Indian-origin teenager has been arrested in connection with the death of another Indian-origin youth in a Canadian city and the police are on the lookout for any information or video footage to support the active investigation.
Nishan Thind, 18, of Brampton, a city in the Canadian province of Ontario, was admitted to a local hospital there on December 19 last year. The police were notified that he died after reaching the hospital.
“It was determined he (Thind) had been shot at an unidentified location and time and dropped off at the hospital,” police from the Region of Peel said in a statement.
Following Thind’s death, detectives from the Peel Regional Police Homicide Bureau on January 9 executed a search warrant at a Brampton residence and subsequently arrested 18-year-old Preetpaul Singh.
“He has been charged with Accessory After the Fact to Commit an Indictable Offence. He was held in custody to appear before the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton,” police added.
The suspected shooter is a 16-year-old male from Brampton and is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for manslaughter.
Police said, “This remains an active investigation; anyone with information or video footage (dashcam or otherwise) is urged to contact Homicide detectives.”

CHICAGO (TIP): Neel Acharya, an Indian student at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who was reported missing on social media by his mother Sunday, January 28, has been confirmed dead.
In an email written to the university’s computer science department Monday, interim CS head Chris Clifton informed students and faculty of Acharya’s death, according to a local newspaper.
“It is with great sadness that I inform you that one of our students, Neel Acharya, has passed away,” Clifton wrote. “My condolences go out to his friends, family, and all affected.”
Clifton called Acharya a “driven individual and academically talented.” Acharya’s friend and roommate, Aryan Khanolkar, said he was a “loving, charismatic soul, and will be cherished by all of us.”
Acharya, who went to St. Mary’s School in Pune, was a double major in computer science and data science in the John Martinson Honors College. Clifton told the Exponent he received an email from the Office of the Dean of Students confirming Acharya’s death.
“A deceased person was found that matched Neel’s description and had Neel’s ID on (him),” he said.
On Sunday morning, a “college-aged” man was found dead near the Maurice J. Zucrow Laboratories about 10:30 am. According to social media posts by users claiming to be close to Acharya, the student’s last known location was pinned in the same area the body was found.
The coroner has not confirmed whether Acharya was the man found near Zucrow that morning, which Robert Wang, a research assistant working at the lab, said had been found by a graduate student.
“It’s a shock,” Clifton said of Acharya. “A real loss to our community.”
Earlier, in a desperate plea, Gaury Acharya, Neel’s mother, posted about his disappearance on X, “Our son Neel Acharya has been missing since yesterday Jan 28 (12:30 AM EST) He is studying in Purdue University in the US. He was last seen by the Uber driver who dropped him off in Purdue university. We are looking for any info on him. Please help us if you know anything.”
The Consulate General of India in Chicago responded with assurances of support. “Consulate is in touch with Purdue University authorities and with Neel’s family. Consulate will extend all possible support and help,” it wrote.

ATLANTA (TIP): Vivek Saini, a 25-year-old Indian student from Haryana, who had come to the US to do his master’s in business administration was killed by a homeless man inside a store in Lithonia, Georgia.
The incident occurred on Jan 16, a local channel reported. Witnesses cited by the channel said Saini was brutally attacked with a hammer by the homeless man late at night after he asked him to leave the store.
Notably, employees at the food mart including Saini, had been feeding and sheltering the homeless man, identified as Julian Faulkner, for days.” He asked us for chips and coke. We gave him everything including the water,” one of the employees at the food mart, told media.
” He asked if I could get a blanket. I said we don’t have blankets, so I gave him a jacket. He was walking in and out asking him for cigarettes, water, and everything. He was sitting here all the time, and we never asked him to get out because we know that it’s cold.”
On Monday night, Saini told Faulkner that he needed to leave or else he would call the police. As the student was preparing to go home, Faulkner attacked him with a hammer and “kept on hitting for almost 50 times on the face on the head.” Saini suffered from ”severe head trauma” and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Officers got a call around 12:30 am about an assault at a Chevron gas station in Lithonia, according to DeKalb County police. When officers arrived, they found a man, identified as Julian Faulkner, standing over a store clerk and holding a hammer in his hand, according to a police report.
Officers ordered the man to put down the weapon, and he complied before being arrested and escorted outside to a patrol vehicle. Two knives and another hammer were seized from him, the media reported.
A” substantial amount of blood spatter” was found on the floor of the convenience store. Cops also found a store clerk, who was hiding in the back of the booth” visibly shaken and could hardly speak due to fear.”
Faulkner remains in jail on charges of malice murder, and interference with government property.
Meanwhile, Saini’s family in Barwala, Haryana, told local media he had gone to the US two years ago after completing his BTech in Computer Science from Chandigarh University. He had recently completed his master’s in business administration from Alabama University.
“He was a brilliant student who just wanted a decent job to support himself and his family,” Saini’s cousin Simran said. The entire family is still reeling from Vivek’s brutal death and his parents, Gurjeet Singh and Lalita Saini, were not in a condition to talk about what happened.