F1 champ visits Mumbai

Looks like you are new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Formula One defending world champion leader for 2008, Lewis Hamilton of the McLaren racing team visited Mumbai and entertained hundreds of fans by showing his skills off on a kart with a few laps around a Go-Kart [...]

Don’t touch that! - Part 2

What is it with Indian men in Britain and the distressing habit of playing with their built-in pacifiers? Here we go again. Indian national Ray George, 38, a cardiology registrar at New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton has been charged with committing an indecent act in a swimming pool packed with children. (link)

It is alleged that the [...]

Desi jailed for siphoning 9/11 funds

Natarajan Venkataram, was sentenced to 15 years for stealing funds intended to help victims of the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks. He was a director in the office of chief medical examiner and according to statements routed the money to the amount of almost $9 million through bogus computer companies, including some in India. [Sify]
Really, [...]

Desi guilty of trade secret theft

Former Hewlett-Packard Vice-President, Atul Malhotra, plead guilty to passing confidential information about his former employer IBM on to his new employer, HP. [HT]

Share this postDiggdel.icio.usFacebookRedditStumbleUponTechnorati

Torture Top 10

Apparently the US military has been playing David Gray’s Babylon nonstop to torture Guantanamo prisoners. [Guardian via Freakonomics Blog]
May I suggest a medley of Himesh Reshammiya, Bappi Lahiri and Anu Malik?

Share this postDiggdel.icio.usFacebookRedditStumbleUponTechnorati

He survived the eye of the tiger

No, this has nothing to do with Rocky getting creamed by Clubber Lang, it’s the amazing true life story of a fisherman in West Bengal getting attacked by a man-eating tiger and living to tell about it. [BBC]

Share this postDiggdel.icio.usFacebookRedditStumbleUponTechnorati

Freed Indian prisoner sent back at border by babus

An Indian national, Ram Prakash, who was freed from a jail in Pakistan after 10 years on charges of spying, was denied entry into India by our bureaucratic babus for ‘not possessing valid travel documents’. As a result he had to go back into Pakistan where he was promptly jailed. All this because our babus [...]

Lakshmi Mittal now on Goldman board.

Goldman Sachs named Lakshmi N. Mittal as an independent director. He will be the board’s 13th member.

Share this postDiggdel.icio.usFacebookRedditStumbleUponTechnorati

11 year sentence for Sabhnani (UPDATE 2 )

A judge has sentenced Mahendra Varsha Sabhnani convicted in a slavery case that we covered here , and here to 11 years of prison.Unfortunately, this is an AP news release so I cannot quote any of it here because of this .
UPDATE: CNN now reports that Varsha Sabhnani was sentenced to 11 yedars while Mahendra [...]

Desi’s car towed, sold on Craigslist

In another weird news filled day, Vaibhav Chopda went on vacation to India for his brother’s wedding. When he came back his car was gone. Apparently, he did not display the car’s DMV sticker in the correct location and was towed. The towing company then auctioned it off (while he was still in India) and [...]

Sleeping pilots overshoot Mumbai

An Air-India (big surprise there) flight from Jaipur to Mumbai overshot the Mumbai when pilots onboard decided to grab a few winks. The plane was halfway between Goa and Mumbai when the pilots woke up, turned the plane around and landed safely in Mumbai. All in a day’s work.
Excuses notwithstanding, who wants to bet these [...]

Live cricket on ESPN360

If you are a hardcore sports fan, you will definitely be familiar with ESPN360. For those of you who are not, here is the lowdown (via Wikipedia)
ESPN360.com is a broadband network for live sports programming in the United States, Mexico, Brazil and Europe. In the U.S. the network can only be accessed through [...]

Laloo blogs

In case you missed it, Laloo Prasad Yadav, my candidate for President of The United States, has started blogging. [Lalu's blog] [via TOI]
It appears from the comments section, his blog has turned into the Indian railways complaint desk.

Share this postDiggdel.icio.usFacebookRedditStumbleUponTechnorati

NRI sentenced in US-India arms scam

Parthasarathy Sudarshan, a NRI has been sentenced for three years in the US for an arms scam. [BBC]
As discussed on UD earlier this year, Sudarshan was accused violating arms control laws by secretly trying to sell components for space vehicles, ballistic missiles and fighter jets to firms associated with India’s defense agencies [UD].

Share this postDiggdel.icio.usFacebookRedditStumbleUponTechnorati

Desi joins Obama team

Hari Sevugan, an attorney has joined the Obama team as a senior spokesperson. [Rediff] (tip Sai via email)
Sevugan was previously Communications Director for the Chris Dodd campaign. Here’s a video of Seguvan from Chris Dodd’s campaign.
Web TV provided by Ustream

Share this postDiggdel.icio.usFacebookRedditStumbleUponTechnorati

Tim Russert dies

NBC’s “Meet the Press” anchor Tim Russert, 58, collapsed at work with a heart attack and passed away. He was doing what he loved best, voice overs for “Meet the Press”. [ABC]

Share this postDiggdel.icio.usFacebookRedditStumbleUponTechnorati

Jennifer Aniston to star in remake of Bollywood classic?

The economy being the way it is, our effigy making business has fallen upon tough times. So now, as much as I hate it, we’re moving on to posting rumors - desi media ishtyle. This one was too good and too cool (if true) to pass up anyway.
Word is that, Jennifer Aniston could star in [...]

Global image of US improves slightly, up in India

A Pew Global Attitudes Project poll for 2008 showed that the image of the US severely tarnished by the Iraq war is up compared to the past years, including in India. [NYT] [NYT map]
The survey also indicates that people worldwide view Barack Obama more favorably than John McCain “to do the right thing regarding world [...]

Catwalkers share H1B quota

Trivia question: What does a nerdy pot bellied software engineer from India have in common with a lithe nubile hottie from Eastern Europe who walks the ramps of NYC?
A: Both are here on a H1B visa. [Information Week]
Apparently it’s not just software engineers who’re “stealing American jobs”. Shame on you, oh 5 foot 11 busty [...]

Tata, Mahindra approached about acquiring Hummer

Close on the heels of Tata acquiring Land Rover and Jaguar from Ford, [UD Post 1, UD Post 2] Edmunds.com is reporting that GM has approached Tata and Mahindra to potentially acquire it’s fuel guzzler, The Hummer. With gas prices on the rise, the sales of Hummers, which give a whopping 9mpg, have plummeted and [...]

Pint-sized desi heroes

A strong nomination for the UberDesi Hero awards: 9-year old Ravnik Kler

and his sister Arnik who is just 7 years old were instrumental in saving the life of a toddler who almost drowned in Oakley, California. The Kler siblings, Shayne Webb, siblings BJ and Heidi Viola worked together to save the life of [...]

World’s worst job applicant

Just in time for Father’s day , this “heartwarming” story from India.
An Indian man, frustrated at failing to find employment, ordered the murder of his father to get his government job a day before the victim was to retire, police said on Tuesday. (link)
The Government in India has a policy of allowing qualified family [...]

The Dunkin’ Donuts protest (Update: Link fixed)

So far we’ve had 9 confirmed mailings (10 if you count mine) of the letter protesting Dunkin’ Donuts decision to withdraw an ad because of an ethnic scarf. If you haven’t done so but intend to, please print the following letter, sign it, stamp it and mail it ….. today! [Word 97-2003] [PDF]

Share this postDiggdel.icio.usFacebookRedditStumbleUponTechnorati

OPT extension challenged in court

The recent USCIS decision to extend OPTs from 12 months to 29 months is being challenged in court by the anti-H1B lobby. [ComputerWorld]

Share this postDiggdel.icio.usFacebookRedditStumbleUponTechnorati

French Open: Clash of the desis

In a revenge match of sorts, Mahesh Bhupati combined with China’s Zheng Jie to knock out Leander Paes and Russia’s Nadia Petrova, 7-5 6-4 in the mixed doubles at the French Open. Paes and Bhupati once the world’s top doubles duo, have been plagued by infighting and petty politics. On line to represent India at [...]