Why kids of Indian origin are so successful in the Spelling Bees and why this could just be the beginning of their domination…..

Uncles, aunties, shady cousins and langotya friends are dancing on the streets. Friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers, and a whole bunch of unknown people are queuing up to hit the buffets. Banana leaves will be cut down en masse for people to slurp paysaam from. If you live in Mumbai or Delhi, on this particular day you might as well just choose to stay home, unless of course you’re attending a wedding. [BBC]
According to the Hindu calendar, Sunday is the Akshaya Tritiya day, the first of the four most auspicious days …

From ibiblio.org

India-Burma
2 April 1942–28 January 1945
“We got a hell of a beating,” Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell told the crowd of reporters in the Indian capital of New Delhi. It was May 1942, and the American general, who had only recently arrived in the Far East to assume the position of chief of staff to Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, was chafing at failure in his first command in the field. Following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor the previous December, the Japanese had won victory after victory, extending their …

Fair is fair. Three year ago we blogged about how researchers discovered something desi households have known for years, turmeric is good for your health. So when a study comes out that turmeric may not necessarily be as good as advertised, we’re here to report on that. As it turns out, the turmeric the previous researchers used was probably not bought in some (or, even worse, all???) Indian grocery stores in the US. [ABC]
Now, a study published today in the journal Pediatrics said young children who regularly ingest some imported …

This interesting feature on BBC talks about the recent emergence of actors of South Asian origin in Hollywood and US television shows. For decades, they were relegated to token and stereotypical roles. As recently as a couple of years back, one of the biggest South Asian names, Kal Penn, played the role of a ….. surprise ….. terrorist on the TV show, 24. Besides Penn, the article also talks about other popular TV names like Aasif Mandvi and Pooja Kumar.
However, before any of the current crop had an opportunity to …

It is not uncommon for the Indian media to report on Chinese transgressions into Indian interests almost on a weekly basis. However, in reporting this “sensational” news on an event-by-event basis, the desi media is missing the larger picture, something an UK news so correctly outlet points out. India and China are in the throes of a cold war, one that is redefining the balance of power in Asia. [Times]
Indo-Chinese relationships never recovered from the 1962 war, and to make worse for relationships between the two, China provides arms …

Globalization, India. India, globalization. [Outlook]
Thousands of undocumented workers with the same skill sets as the local populace, arrive by the proverbial boatloads, and “take away jobs” from the locals. Sounds like a Lou Dobbs’ wet dream come true.
The Outlook performed an “exposé” on thousands of undocumented Chinese workers in India.
Across the country, several thousands of Chinese workers are at work on infrastructure projects bagged by Chinese contractors. But the arrangement is not without controversy—the hordes of unskilled/semi-skilled imports from China are taking jobs from the unemployed Indian. One estimate …

You may have heard of the movies ‘Bwana Devil’ (first American 3-D Color movie) and ‘The Ghost and The Darkness’ (starring Val Kilmer, Michael Douglas and our very own Om Puri) that were based on real life incidents connected to the Tsavo man-eaters of Kenya.
New research suggests that the number of victims may have been much lesser than previously thought.
Over nine months the two voracious hunters claimed 35 lives _ no small figure, but much less than some accounts of as many as 135 victims.
It was 1898, when laborers from …

This may soon be a reality!
Hebrew, Hindi, other scripts get Web address nod . Link
ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the regulating authority for domain names and accreditation authority for website registrars, announced support to non-latin characters (Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew and Hindi) in web addresses and they could be a reality by middle of next year.
ICANN has also called this the ‘biggest change’  since the inception of the internet in its crudest form 40 years ago.
More info from ICANN here:
Link
“The coming introduction of non-Latin characters represents the …

Rediff reports:
Obama’s Diwali celebration upsets Indian-American community.
Here’s the back story – ex-president Bush started the practice of hosting a Diwali event since 2003, courtesy request of the Indian-American community and it’s been a practice ever since. Some of the events have been full fledged and upto two hours long, while some, like last year’s,  have been less flashy.
While the article about the first Obama-era Diwali, quoted above, points out reasons why Indian Americans are upset (mostly elderly immigrant Indians), the rest of the article quotes two second generation desis – …

CNN video had this short clip via source pangeaday.org

CNN International has this curious story on the prevalent fairness cream craze in India. [CNN]
Curious because CNN treats an age old social issue like it’s a new fad. Basically the article is a segue into comments by Indian Member of Parliament, Brinda Karat, who labeled the concept behind such creams “racist”.
“Basically if you need a job you have to have white skin. If you want a good partner, a companion you need white skin and you always seem to get it once you’ve used the fairness cream. Basically I …

One most important thing that is inherently Indian, is the respect given to Gurus in India. The first question as a graduate student the first week in Amrika was do I stand up when the professor walks in? I mean, logically I would follow what the rest of the class does, assuming there were non-Indians in the class . And from what I understand this is not the normal practice in American schools. But as a kid growing up (and fully grown up),  students in schools were expected to …

You probably noticed it, I certainly did, so did the Huffington Post – over the past decade there has been a significant rise in the number of foreign artistes in Indian movies – Bollywood or not. [HuffPo]
While most foreign-born artistes, ranging from countries in Latin America to the United States to Russia and even closer to home like Sri Lanka, are largely restricted to bit roles of back-up dancers and extras, breakthrough stories of such foreign born are becoming more common place.
The most popular among them, is half Brit-half desi, …

Roman veteran, Giancarlo Fisichela , driving for Force India Formula 1 managed to snag the teams first pole position, this afternoon at the Belgian grand prix.
Force India, which is not considered a front running team managed this feat without rain, crazy accidents or any untoward incident. Normally that would be the only way you would see a back marker team pulling such an upset.
To their credit, Fisi’s car was not lightly fueled. With the fuel adjusted levels (an indicator or how much fuel they have, resulting in how it affects …

This is a real spirited performance. What’s especially touching about this piece is that almost all the performers in this group are daily wage brick kiln workers, from Berhampur, Orissa.  Typically Indian daily wage workers live on anywhere between 40 Rupees to 60 Rupees a day, according to the Indian govt. stats in 2003-2004. (Roughly earning somewhere between 82 cents – $1.25 a day), with men earning more than women and children for the same job.
The physically challenged performers put up a great show too, and the choreography and the …

Prof. Ravi Shankar is a published poet, and a faculty member at the Central Connecticut State University. On July 10th this year, he was arrested on false charges, and detained for more than 30 hrs in a NY detention facility while being hurled with racial epithets. His record only had an unpaid speeding ticket, but he was being arrested as he ‘fit’ the description of a 140 pound caucasian male, while being a 200 pound, East Indian male.
After being produced before a magistrate after 30 hrs of detention and being …

India’s top chefs have warned Scottish MPs to keep their hands off the rights to chicken tikka masala.
Link
So here’s the story, Scottish MPs made an attempt to ‘patent’ the name Chicken Tikka Masala, claiming the dish was made in Glasgow, in 1970’s. They got a spicy reply back from Indian food historians who trashed the claim and suggested that the dish has been around for decades (some others claim centuries).
Wikipedia suggests, this (without a reference, though)
The literal meaning of tikka in Panjabi is “bits, pieces” (fron Sanskrit ṭikka, m., “Cake.” …

Is 25 years enough? India inc., has opted to import the power engines for India’s indigenous aircraft and has invited bids from European and American companies.
This comes after the indigenous Kaveri engine failed to pass muster even after two decades of development at a cost of Rs 2,839 crore. While the first 20 Tejas will be powered by GE-404 engines, the next six Tejas Mark-II squadrons (16-18 jets in each) will have the new more powerful engines. Link

That’s approximately 6 billion USD over 25 years, not adjusting for inflation (very …

That’s not a misprint. There are indeed African tribes in India. [BBC 1] [BBC 2]
Long before the first slave ships started supplying labour to the cotton plantations of the American south, and many centuries before the first Africans were brought ashore to the sugar estates of Brazil and the Caribbean, Africans were being sold as slave-soldiers for India’s princely states.

img: via BBC

People in the western states of India like Gujarat and Karnataka are probably familiar with the Siddi tribes in remote areas of those states. Students of Indian history …