As spring turns into fall, we should be seeing a lot of excitement and action in the fashion arena. Will more and more Americans be seduced by Indian fashion through travel to India, through cinema, and through Indian-American friends in an ever increasing Asian population?
Will American designers continue to find inspiration in India’s myriad delights of color, crafts and couture? Will Indian designers make it big in America? Will new mega-fashion stores dedicated to India ring up the sweet music of cash registers?

A gossamer web of stories ensnares the reader in ‘One Amazing Thing,’ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s new novel, taking you into distant lands, hidden places in the heart and into the hidden strengths people have.

Nine very different people drawn by chance or luck or destiny into the same spot just as disaster strikes. They are all gathered for obtaining visas to India in the basement of the Indian consulate in an unnamed American city when a powerful earthquake strikes. ALSO LISTEN TO A LIVE INTERVIEW WITH CHITRA DIVAKARUNI

He’s fifty percent Japanese and fifty percent Indian, so does that make him a Lexus-Nano hybrid? Or a Toyota-Ambassador? This might be my own sorry attempt at stand-up, but Dan Nainan’s mixed heritage has certainly had him laughing all the way to the moolah house. Always squeaky clean, his humor has found many takers in the South Asian community across the diaspora. Here the funny man answers some serious questions.

Are Hollywood movies going to be a cash cow for Indian-American producers? Generally you have NRI filmmakers making movies with Indian themes or Indian actors but Naveen Chathapuram of Chicago has just ventured into mainstream territory, by producing ‘CA$H’, a psychological thriller with Hollywood stars Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings), Chris Hemsworth (Thor, Star Trek) and Victoria Profeta (Push, The Drew Carey Show). The film is written and directed by Stephen Milburn Anderson (South Central)

Now we’ve seen it all! Steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, Chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal – and one of the world’s richest men, will actually have a tower named after him, and it’s no less a structure than the mighty Olympic Tower being readied for the 2012 Games in London. He will be picking up most of the $30 million tab. It’s going to be made of 1400 tonnes of steel, appropriate for the King of Steel, and is being designed by the acclaimed London-based artist Anish Kapoor

It’s been voted the best Indian restaurant in the San Francisco Bay area by the 2010 Zagat’s guide and offers food that is innovative and yet rooted in regional cuisine

I always suspected Indian chili peppers were good for something more earth-shattering than merely spicing up our food. Well now the Indian military has discovered the true value of the formidable Bhut Jalokia pepper from Assam which is 100 times hotter than the Jalapeno. It will be used in smoke grenades to battle unruly mobs and nasty terrorists.

If you went on the Google home page today, you’d have to rub your eyes and wonder whether you were still on Planet Earth. Google has been renamed Topeka! Then you realize – right, its April 1 and this is Google’s idea of an April Fools’ Day prank. As you must remember, some days back the city of Topeka in Kansas did Google the supreme honor of actually renaming itself Google and this has so touched this Jagannath of all internet activity that it decided to change its world-famous name to Topeka – for a day!

Meet some of the Big Apple’s hottest and happening Indian chefs…

They are the interpreters of Indian Cuisine, the innovators who aren’t afraid to experiment and create, adding new dimensions to the food they grew up with, giving an exciting buzz to the ho-hum chicken tikka masala and palak paneer which has become the norm of Indian restaurants around the world. Some of them are at the helm of New York’s most noted Indian restaurants and bring in the foodies.

When you need to find a wonderful restaurant where do you turn? Forget reviews and restaurant guides, just hop into a cab and consult your taxiwalla!

Layne Mosler is a New Yorker who has found that the cabbie who knows his way on the streets of Manhattan can also guide you to the right restaurant. Constantly navigating the city, cabbies are a great resource for off-the-beaten-track inexpensive places with authentic food.