How can young girls get a sense of self and confidence in tackling the larger world? On the recent Take Our Daughters to Work Day, two South Asian organizations came together to make this a reality. South Asian Women’s Leadership Forum (SAWLF) partnered with South Asian Youth Action (SAYA!). Over 45 high school students got a chance to visit corporate offices such as JP Morgan Private Bank, Harper Collins, MTV, Infosys and Colgate, thanks to SAWLF women who are already working in these companies.
Browsing: The Buzz
The buzz around us about trends and events
They may live in American cities, go to American schools but Bollywood runs in their blood. We’re talking of young Indian-Americans, thousands and thousands of them, scattered across American towns and cities. Weaned on Bollywood movies on DVD since babyhood, they learn the Shah Rukh moves, the Madhuri moves, the Shahid moves, almost by osmosis in family living rooms.
Later many of them learn dance, classical and Bollywood, at the scores of Indian dance schools that have sprouted up in towns and cities. They dance at family events, birthdays and weddings, as naturally as if they were in a Bollywood movie and it was written into the script of life.
In the wake of recent events, what’s happening with Shashi Tharoor will need much more than 140 characters of Twitter analysis! You could of course say ‘Storm in a Teacup’, ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ – or ‘There’s More to This Than meets the Eye’. All would be essentially correct.
A store is born – or should we say a star is born?
Misha Nicole, a new fashion concept store which is opening in Soho in fall 2010 gave shoppers a peek at things to come with Global Runway’s Night Out, a fashion show organized with the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC) at the Paramount Hotel. Over 300 people turned up for an evening of cocktails and style-gazing as a battalion of models showed the collections of 10 designers from India, the US and Canada in a series of looks conceptualized by Misha Nicole Shivdasani.
Indians are getting all sorts of recognition worldwide – now are they going to be known as the world’s biggest drinkers too? Thanks to Vijay Mallya, Chairman of the UB Group, they may get that distinction! United Spirits Limited (USL), the flagship company of The UB Group, has crossed the milestone of a sales volume of 100 million cases for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2010.
Folks, be careful. Is that a piece of spinach sticking to your teeth? Is that safety pin holding up your hemline showing? You’re on candid camera – for ever and ever! Today came the news that Twitter is donating its digital archive of public tweets to the Library of Congress. Your 140 character masterpieces are immortal now.
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
“This side is Delhi, so you’ll only find people. This side is Haryana, so you’ll find buffaloes. A lot of buffaloes,” says Sunil Bhu, a cheesemaker, as he talks to NPR in India.
“India has more than 39 million water buffalos. They’re just like the ones in Italy whose milk is used to make the Italian delicacy mozzarella di bufala. So the Indians thought: Well, if the Italians can make mozzarella, why can’t we?” So welcome to a new world where your mozzarella may came from India and your samosas from New York!
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
It was a bit like a floating library of Vedantic literature – and now it’s shutting down, or is being grounded, if you want to take the airport analogy a bit further. For the last four decades, the Hare Krishnas, as the followers of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) are popularly known, were a fixture in American airports. Heads shaved, clad in orange and white robes, they would cluster in busy terminals, waving Vedic literature at rushing passengers. Now their spiritual take-off has been canceled – a California Supreme Court ruling prohibits the Hare Krishnas from soliciting passengers at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
Can this be true? Kal Penn, who had changed his name back to the original Kalpen Modi, and serves in the Obama Administration as the Associate Director of Public Engagement, is leaving the White House to make yet another Harold and Kumar movie.
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!
You’ve heard about the Old Boys’ Network – so how about something for women? Reema Rasool, a young entrepreneur, has come up with Say We, an organization that brings together mentors and emerging entrepreneurs. The launch event at Vermilion brought in over a hundred women to mingle and brainstorm and listen to some savvy women who’ve established successful companies.
Are you into yoga? What about your dog? If you didn’t know this already, there is yoga for dogs, known as Doga and it’s beneficial to your pets.
If you’ve ever wondered how the Internet can change lives, you have only to hear the story of John Ullman, an architectural designer in Brooklyn, NY. Since doing community service was a requirement for obtaining his American architectural license, he keyed in two words into the Google search bar: ‘India’ and ‘volunteer.’
The name of Manjushree Orphanage in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh came up, and now three years later, this is where Ullman’s destiny lies and where he is building a brand new school for the children of this village.
Indian filmgoers have endured through much to see their favorite cinema, right from projections on a sheet in the open air in villages to screenings in ramshackle halls across the Diaspora. Early immigrants tell of renting small tattered theaters or community centers for a single showing of an Indian film to which starved filmiholics would drive from miles to get sustenance. Now they finally have a theater chain of their own.
So powerful is Dr. Atul Gawande’s writing that Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s partner, sent him a $20,000 check without ever having met him, after reading ‘The Cost Conundrum’ his piece about healthcare in The New Yorker, the Huffington Post reports.
Gawande, being Gawande, did not accept the check personally but donated it to Brigham and Women’s Hospital Center for Surgery and Public Health for an international project.
Gawande’s passion and commitment comes through in his latest book.
Guess what, Lassi with Lavina is being followed on Twitter by someone from the White House!
No, not the President, not even the First Lady. Not even the First Children but by the First Dog, Bo Diddley Obama! Of course, I wasn’t aware that dogs could read or keyboard, much less get on to Twitter. But then again, you have to remember it’s the Obama dog and he probably has a great IQ to match the rest of the Obamas.
Would you like to import an elephant or a rhino perhaps? Ornaments of jade, lapis lazuli, crystal and carnelian?
We may think of global trade as a modern day invention but way back in the ancient world there was a brisk trade and rich cultural exchange going on between far-flung countries. ‘Arts of Ancient Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea’ is an intriguing new exhibition at The Asia Society in collaboration with Museum of Fine Arts Houston, which shows the interconnections which existed between Viet Nam and many countries, including India.