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Posts Tagged ‘Steven Spielberg’

Breaking Bread with Barack Obama

By Lavina Melwani • Dec 3rd, 2009 • Category: 24/7 Talk is Cheap - The Blog

When Bhairavi Desai met President Barack Obama on the receiving line at the Administration’s first State Dinner at the White House, she introduced herself as the director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. Obama smiled his high voltage smile and bending down, confided: “I was an organizer too!”

“It was such a thrill to hear him say that – it was such a nice endorsement of my profession,” recalls Desai, who is a fearless advocate for the rights of New York cabbies. She and co-founder Javaid Tariq were both guests at the glittering dinner with celebs and politicos, a party which possibly America’s entire population wanted to attend but to which only 320 guests were invited, not counting the gate-crashers Michaele and Tareq Salahi.



Shalini Kantayya – The Water Warrior

By Lavina Melwani • Aug 17th, 2009 • Category: 24/7 Talk is Cheap - The Blog, People

“Water is life and I think as a human rights activist there is no more poignant metaphor than water – the commoditization of water and the corporate control of water is to me the human rights issue of the millennium.”