Category: Education

“I am different from every other girl in my village, because I believe I have a good future ahead of me,” Bhavani, a student at Shanti Bhavan told an audience of over one thousand people at a Northwestern University function.

Bhavani and Vijay, two 11th graders from Shanti Bhavan, came to the U.S. last month through its partnership with Tufaan Entertainment. The first in their families to travel overseas, they were full of wonder as they explored museums, tried new foods, and saw the world open up to them in a way they had never experienced before.

“I know now that I can make my dreams real. I’ve been given a special opportunity and I want to make the most of it.” – Vijay, reflecting on his dreams of becoming a software engineer after visits to Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

Bhavani and Vijay come from humble backgrounds and their families face discrimination, but through education and support at Shanti Bhavan, these children have a bright future.

Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project opens the door for a world of possibilities through high-quality education at our residential boarding school, and subsequently at top-tier universities. More than an education, Shanti Bhavan is a home and a community. However, we know that none of these accomplishments would be possible without the generosity and support of our donors. “No matter how large or small, your contribution can make a difference to promising young people like Bhavani and Vijay,” said the founder Abraham George, who left his well-paying job in the US to start this not-for-profit, in the rural area near Bangalore, India. “We have three classes of children in top colleges such as Christ University, Mount Carmel, St. Josephs and Jyoti Nivas. Your support will ensure we are able to continue their high-quality education, housing, clothing, food, and medical care,” George added.

Shanti Bhavan’s mission is to adequately develop the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children of India’s “lowest caste” by providing them world class education and instilling globally shared values to enable them to aspire to careers and professions of their choice.

The organization provides a holistic, high quality focused education to children on a beautiful boarding school campus. For these communities, Shanti Bhavan is a beacon of hope that shines a path of opportunity for their children. It is an oasis built within the confines of crushing poverty supported by a devoted administration and global network of volunteers. Our children see that a better world isn’t just an idea but a real possibility.

Students Nithya Menon and Shivana Anand, both from Irvine, Calif., won the Top Heritage Award in the high school and middle school academic categories, respectively, at the Indian American Heritage Foundation’s 30th Annual Heritage Foundation awards function held on Sunday, April 10, 2016 at Cerritos Sheraton Hotel, Cerritos, California.

Tejal Gala won the second place while the third place winner was Vikas Munukutta in the GHigh School category. Others who were awarded at the annual event included, Vibha Vijayakumar, Kanhai Shah, Chirag Bisht, Kriti Kumar, Ashwath Manivannan, Varun Mandi, and Megan Phansalkar. The second place winner in the Middle school category was Sreekar Kasturi while the third place winner was Rishi Shah. The fourth and fifth awards went to Abhinav Ganguly and Ria Arora respectively. Sreekar Kasturi and Shivana Anand also won the Visual and Performing Arts awards instituted in honor of “Teachers, parents and family.”

Vikas Munukutta won Outstanding Achievement Award and revolving trophy in Visual & Performing Arts. Tejal Gala shared the Award and revolving trophy in Math, Science and Technology with Varun Mandi, Kanhai Shah shared award and revolving trophy in sports with Deeksha Chaturvedi, while Kriti Kumar shared award and trophy in community service with Navya Katragadda.

Consul General of India, San Francisco Ambassador Venkatesan Ashok who was the chief guest speaking to the gathering empathized the importance of education and preserving the cultural heritage of India and applauded IAHF for the great work it is doing in promoting this. He also donated $20,000 to the IAHF from the leftover Parvasi Diwas funds. The CGI took the opportunity to talk about the petition regarding the California Department of Education’s move to make changes in textbooks by replacing ‘India’ with South East Asia. He urged all present to support the petition as it is important for   all Indian- Americans.

Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, Cerritos Mayor Pro Tem, Naresh Solanki and Artesia Mayor Pro Tem Ali S Taj were the guests of honor. Sanchez spoke about the importance of education and culture and about her long time association with the Indian-American community. She thanked all the organizers and the students for the tremendous work they put in.

Inder Singh, the main organizer, in welcoming the attendees, appreciated the support by the sponsors who provided necessary funding for the continuity of the awards program. He also thanked the judges who undertook the grueling task of evaluating the applicants, and praised his “working crew” — team of volunteers — who worked hard to make the event a success. He said, “An individual, howsoever brilliant, intelligent and smart, would find it difficult, if not impossible to match the collaborative efforts of an effective team,” adding that he was blessed with a team which has been providing selfless service for the cause of   youth.

The IAHF  has been recognizing the achievements of youth, graduating from high and middle schools in Southern California for the past 30 years. The Foundation started with just five scholarship awards in 1987 and now gives 24 scholarships annually.

In “The End of Karma,” Somini Sengupta delivers a portentous warning that echoes Ambedkar’s, updated for the present. “The End of Karma” shifts in and out of three modes of narrative. The weakest involves Sengupta’s recollections of a childhood in India and North America, as well as her decision, during the stint in New Delhi, to adopt a baby girl. Her interest in India’s youth, she suggests, was quickened by this entry into her life by her daughter, a bona fide member of these restless generations, a unit of India’s demographic dividend. But much of this feels tenuous, the sort of material an editor commonly asks for, reproaching a writer because her manuscript is Not Personal Enough. The book’s second mode is expository — summations of news, history and statistics, which Sengupta delivers in cool, swift language. Two pages about Laloo Prasad Yadav, a powerful politician in the state of Bihar, are a marvel of economy, laying bare his background, his machinery of caste politics, his wrecking of Bihar, and his folksy charisma.

In November 1949, India had been independent for slightly more than two years, and through that duration, a drafting committee labored to devise a constitution for the new nation. The work was nearly finished, but critics grumbled about how long it had taken; one pundit thought the panel ought to have been called the “drifting committee.” B. R. Ambedkar, the Columbia-educated lawyer heading the group, defended his colleagues. Their task was difficult. The constitution incorporated 395 articles and 2,473 amendments, a density that reflected India’s complications — its iniquities of caste, its poverty, its various languages and faiths. India already had political democracy (one vote per citizen), but the constitution also needed to foster social democracy. “How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life?” Ambedkar said in a speech. “We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment, or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political ­democracy.”

The lives of India’s poor and its lowest castes have improved in many ways, but the country remains riddled with inequality; in fact, over the last 35 years the gulf between the wealthiest and the most impoverished has widened.

A quarter of India’s 1.25 billion people are younger than 15; every month, until 2030, nearly a million Indians will turn 18, raring for more education and employment prospects. The size and energy of such a work force is a nation’s dream — the celebrated “demographic dividend.” But the state’s failure to supply these young people with schools, universities and jobs, and to help them climb into prosperity, will tug India into perilous waters, Sengupta writes. “In the coming years, India can thrive because of its young. Or it can implode. Or both. There’s little time left.”

Sengupta, a reporter for The New York Times, served as the newspaper’s New Delhi bureau chief from 2005 to 2009. She had first left India 30 years earlier, when her father decided, in the teeth of a nationwide crackdown on civil liberties, to move the family to Canada and thence to the United States. Now, returning to a transformed nation — its economy in bloom, its cities abuzz — she sensed a fresh impatience of aspiration. Sengupta refers to the Hindu notion of karma, a preordained destiny based on the virtues and sins of previous lives, a psychic past that is impossible to escape. The invocation is loose. She avoids making the unwise argument that Hindu fatalism had, in earlier years, persuaded Indians to be resigned to their hardscrabble times. It is only that, right now, “the demands of India’s young are pushing India to break free of its past. They are no longer willing to put up with their lot.”

In the book’s most vibrant sections, Sengupta profiles seven young Indians, shadowing some of them over years. All grew up in poor or lower-middle-class homes — the socioeconomic brackets that hold a majority of India’s populace — and their lives illustrate the ways in which the state is failing its youth.

A young woman named Rakhi from one of West Bengal’s numerous underdeveloped villages joins a Maoist insurgency after her family slides suddenly into penury. She can list the people she has killed: “Each leaves a vivid memory,” Sengupta writes. “The time of day, the season of the year, the name of the victim.” Near Mumbai, the police, provoked by a right-wing mob, arrest two girls who complained, on Facebook, that the city had come to a grinding halt just to accommodate a politician’s funeral cortege. In Gurgaon, a 17-year-old named Varsha thirsts for more education, so that she can become a cop. Her father, who drives an auto rickshaw, has to be cajoled out of his reluctance: Schools cost money and pull his daughter too far out of the orbit of their world. “He loves her, but he also sabotages her. . . . She keeps pushing the bounds, and he has to figure out how far to let her go.”

Sengupta’s finest profile is of Anupam Kumar. In Patna, Bihar’s capital, Anupam grew up in a tiny brick house with a corrugated tin roof; pigs prospected in a trash dump next door. His father, like Varsha’s, drove an auto rickshaw. His mother, recognizing brightness in Anupam, scoured the neighborhood for affordable private schools and tuition classes, short-circuiting the abysmal, erratic government schools. “The latest survey results, from 2014, showed that most Indian children in Class 5 are functionally illiterate,” Sengupta writes. “More than half cannot subtract.”

Anupam studied hard, entered the most competitive engineering school in the country, lost his way there, switched colleges, then got an M.B.A. and began working for India’s equivalent of the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Anupam is no Horatio Alger. His country is not a country of Horatio Algers,” Sengupta notes carefully. His story gains its potency by hinting at the reserves of talent and intelligence within India, but also by revealing how close India is coming to squandering it all, content to watch only the prodigious few burst free of the gravitational field of their past.

Sujit Choudhry, Dean of the prestigious law school at the University of California at Berkeley, is taking an “indefinite leave of absence” from his position after he was sued for sexual harassment by his former executive assistant, who claims he made inappropriate advances toward her, officials at the University of California at Berkeley said.

Later reports say, the 45-year-old Indian-origin dean of a prestigious US law school has resigned from his post, days after a lawsuit was filed against him by his executive assistant alleging that he sexually harassed her over a period of several months.

University Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Claude Steele said in a statement that Choudhry will be “stepping down to his faculty position and salary” and the school will name an interim dean. “A thorough investigation of this case found that Dean Choudhry’s behavior in this situation violated policy,” Steele said, “and that he demonstrated a failure to understand the power dynamic and the effect of his actions on the plaintiff personally and in her employment.

“Based on the findings of the investigation I believed that a combination of disciplinary actions, monitoring of his behavior and formal training would be an appropriate and effective response, and would produce the necessary changes in his behavior.”

The complaint was filed against Berkeley Law Dean Sujit Choudhry and the University of California Board of Regents, claiming sexual harassment, retaliation and failure to stop it, among other actions. Tyann Sorrell, the former executive assistant, claims in the lawsuit that from September 2014 to March 2015, Choudhry sexually harassed her — rubbing her shoulders and arms, kissing her cheeks and giving her bear hugs that pressed her body against him, according to court documents. Sorrell claims that when she told supervisors, they first failed to stop Choudhry, and then tried to retaliate.

Choudhry has not yet spoken publicly about the allegations against him. Choudhry took over the position in July 2014, according to the university. Soon after, Sorrell claims, Choudhry started to initiate sexual contact.

Sorrell, a 41-year-old mother of five, claims in the lawsuit that “Choudhry’s kissing and hugging plaintiff was a near daily occurrence. The hugs became tighter and more lingering and the kissing more intimate in that over time Choudhry’s kisses began to land closer and closer” to her mouth, according to the court documents.

“She wondered what she had done to make him think it was OK for him to touch her,” according to the documents. “She was worried about her reputation and what her work colleagues thought of her. At the same time, she worried about upsetting him and possibly losing her job, on which her family depended.”

Sorrell said she is a victim of domestic and sexual abuse and claims in the lawsuit that the unwanted sexual contact made her anxious and depressed — causing her to lose sleep and dread her going to work. She said she suffered “insomnia, hair loss, depression and anxiety” as a result.

By March 2015, Sorrell said she had “had enough” and wrote a six-page email to Choudhry, telling him she felt “violated and humiliated” and forwarded the email to human resources, according to court documents.

It was reported to UC Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination. “During the investigation, Dean Choudhry admitted to hugging, kissing, messaging (sic) and/or caressing” her several times a week, according to the documents. He purportedly said he had grabbed her hands, “putting them on his waist. He also admitted to hugging and kissing other female employees.”

The Berkeley School of Law was ranked No. 8 in the most recent U.S. News & World Report list of best American law schools. The law school has pioneered curriculums like intellectual property law and technology-related law and offers specialized curricular programs in areas such as Energy and Clean Technology Law and Environmental Law.

Choudhry is “an internationally recognized authority on comparative constitutional law and comparative constitutional development,” according to his Berkeley Law biography. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank Institute and is a member of the United Nations Mediation Roster. Prior to joining Berkeley Law, the biography states, Choudhry was a professor at the NYU School of Law and a faculty chair at the University of Toronto.

“In 2010, he was one of four Canadians to receive the Trudeau Fellowship, the Canadian equivalent of the MacArthur awards,” it states. “Professor Choudhry holds law degrees from Oxford, Toronto and Harvard, was a Rhodes Scholar, and served as law clerk to Chief Justice Antonio Lamer of the Supreme Court of Canada.”

UC Berkeley chancellor Nicholas Dirks and Provost Claude Steele said in a statement that they were wrong to not to take action against Choudhry even though the investigative report had supported the victim’s claims. “The dean’s resignation is an outcome in the best interests of Berkeley Law and the university as a whole. At the same time we are under no illusion that a resignation could or even should bring this matter and broader, related issues to a close,” they said.

Chicago IL: Chicago State University student body of 5000 and its faculty is waiting for Mr. Chandrababu Naidu’s visit to its campus to receive an honorary doctorate. CSU first time in its history announced an honorary doctorate to a foreign head of government Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of State of Andhra Pradesh, India.

As university prepares to host him at a mega event, top officials of university requested   the Indian media to give more insights about the Chief Minister’s visit and its impact on CSU and South Side of Chicago.

Speaking about the CSU, Dr. Thomas J. Calhoun, Jr, President of Chicago State University said that, the Chicago State University is one of the great universities in Illinois, formed 150 years ago. Speaking on this awarding honorary doctorate to Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, India, Dr. Calhoun, Jr, said that Chicago State University’s Board of Governors unanimously awarded an honorary doctorate to the Chief Minister. We anticipate that he will be visiting our campus to be awarded the degree. His work is world renowned. The way he utilized high technology to bring a higher standard of living for the people of low or meagre resources, and be very competitive in nationally and internationally in IT areas. On CSU acting as possible gateway for commerce between Andhra and Illinois, Dr. Calhoun said that, the two states have a lot to offer each other.

Dr. Angela Henderson, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs said that, entire CSU community is very excited and deeply honored that the Chief Minister will be visiting us.  His visit will reverberate educationally, economically and having him visit us from India to speak to us and work with us will offer hope and inspiration to all.

Noted political science Professor Dr. Bernard Rowan in his comments described the Chief Minister as a great leader and a person open to other cultures and societies and in the mission of serving those whom not have been served as properly as they should have been in the past, and building a bridge to the future.

Dr. David Kanis, Professor and Vice President in his remarks said that, “We are anxiously waiting for the arrival of the Chief Minister.  What he could do to the South Side of Chicago is to inspire the both old and young to do special things with their lives.”

Professor Rohan Attele, Chairman of Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, said that :the Chief Minister’s address will leave an indelible mark on our minds. His greatest legacy and the one he would cherish the most would be his inspiration of the young minds. They will be inspired to create, innovate, and lead the communities we serve on paths of upward mobility.”

Speaking about the Chief Minister’s visit, Dr. Rao Achanta, Chairman University-Industry Partnerships, said that, for past few years we have made tremendous progress in collaboration with universities in the Telugu speaking states. Dr. Achanta said that Mr. Chandrababu Naidu is only the second Head of a Government to receive an honorary doctorate from the University.

Chicago State University faculty and student body of more than a five thousand, eagerly await his visit.  It will leave a long lasting impression on our minds inspiring them to succeed, adopt IT and various technologies for the betterment of their lives and contribute for uplifting of underserved communities.

Indian-American studemnt from New York University and Cooper Union college in Manhattan, New York, gathered at Washington Square Park to support JNU Students Union leader Kanhaiya Kumar and other students who were arrested on sedition charges last month, Washington Square News newspaper reported Feb. 29.

An Indian-American student said during the protest that the primary purpose of the event was to raise awareness about Kumar’s arrest. “[Kumar] was arrested for making these comments against the government, even though he was not actually saying anything against the government, he was just having this poetry reading,” Anjana Sreedhar said. “We are protesting against the fact that he was arrested under the sedition law which is very antiquated and very outdated,” Sreedhar added.

Sreedhar, along with several other students read English transcripts of Kumar’s speech during the poetry reading and asked if his words warranted arrest. They also encouraged passersby and attendees to attend a forum discussion at Cooper Union next week.

A student activist at the NYU Sumathy Kumar said she attended the rally because she wants to show her support to the JNU students who were “beaten and arrested and so much violence was being committed against them just for speaking out”.

“I am an activist, and I think we take it for granted sometimes that we have the right to dissent and that home where my parents are from and where I call my ancestors are from, they are not allowed to dissent,” Kumar said.

Anthropology professor Tejaswini Ganti said that she was glad students were voicing support for JNU’s students and that universities should be an open forum for all opinions – even those that dissent against the governing party.

The University of California, Irvine has decided to reject over a $6 million gift from donors affiliated with the Dharma Civilization Foundation, which would endow four chairs in Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhist studies. The decision comes after faculty members objected to the establishment of the chairs, saying proper procedural practices had not been followed, and alleging that DCF is affiliated with Hindu fundamentalist organizations.

Catherine Liu, a professor at UC Irvine’s Film and Media Study Department, said that due diligence was not followed in accepting the donation and that DCF had not been properly vetted. Moreover, Liu claimed, South Asian scholars at UCI were excluded from the process of consultation. She reiterated the protesting professors’ belief that many of DCF’s members have ties to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh.

“This country has studies of most religions, but not Hinduism. We need Indian scholars to defend and create a narrative,” Ushakant Thakkar, who has helped establish a Chair in Indian Studies, said. Thakkar refuted such statements, noting that he is married to a Catholic woman, and his children practice Jainism and Buddhism.

The Thakkar Family chair was established at UCI in May 2015 in the university’s School of Humanities. Donations have also been secured to endow a chair in Jain Studies, one in Sikh Studies, as well as the Swami Vivekananda-DCF Chair in Modern India Studies. Plans are also in the works to endow a chair in Buddhist Studies and one in Parsi Studies; DCF has connected with the Godrej family to possibly fund the latter.

DCF was established in 2012 with the goal of establishing Indian religious and cultural studies at several U.S. universities. The organization was created after Shiva Bajpai, who served as professor of history and director of Asian Studies at California State University, Northridge, and psychiatrist Manohar Shinde, who was on the teaching faculty at UCLA’s School of Medicine, found there was a lot of misrepresentation of Hindus and India in current academia, and a lack of religious scholars, according to Thakkar, who serves as the chairman of DCF. Bajpai, who has a Ph.D. in ancient Indian history, has few contemporaries of his genre.

“I feel strongly violated, humiliated and discriminated against,” nephrologist Ushakant Thakkar, who gave $1 million to fund the Thakkar Family-Dharma Civilization Foundation Presidential Chair in Vedic and Indic Civilization Studies, has been reported to have told the media. “The university pursued us for two years. We never wanted to be in a place that was not receptive,” the Indian American physician added.

But shortly after the first chair was established, faculty at UC Irvine began a petition drive protesting the endowments. A total of 391 professors from UCI and other universities throughout the world have signed an online statement, which states that DCF has ties to fundamentalist groups in India, and seeks to establish its own agenda through the gift.

DCF has stipulated, however, that the chair of Vedic Studies must be held by a Hindu scholar and practitioner, and also proficient in Sanskrit as the Vedas are written in Sanskrit. DCF will take its money elsewhere, though it will be difficult to endow chairs at other universities as “the name of DCF has been tarnished as a fundamentalist organization,” said Thakkar.

Ohio State University and Delhi-based IndoGenius have developed an online course to help students learn about the importance of India. The course, which was launched last month by Ambassador to India, Richard Verma, at the American Center in New Delhi will be delivered via the world’s largest online course platform, Coursera.

The massive open online course (MOOC) is funded through the U.S. Department of State’s Passport to India initiative, which is jointly managed by Ohio State and IndoGenius. Passport to India seeks to increase the number and diversity of American college and university students studying abroad and interning in India by 2020.

The program was launched by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2011 to create a hub for U.S.-India higher education partnerships and to develop a stronger bond between the youth of both countries by increasing American student mobility.

“With India’s growing economy it is critical for our future leaders to understand India’s cultural, historic and economic importance in world affairs,” said William Brustein, vice provost for global strategies and international affairs at Ohio State. “Engaging young Americans to experience the depth and breadth of India firsthand will only produce stronger U.S.-India relations. For Ohio State to take a leadership role in this transformative process is an exciting and important opportunity.”

The curriculum for the course was developed by Brian Joseph, a distinguished university professor of linguistics at Ohio State and Nick Booker, co-founder of IndoGenius, and implemented through the Office of Distance Education and eLearning.

The course titled, The Importance of India, covers a broad range of topics, from India’s ancient trade relations with the Roman Empire, South East Asia and China to India’s rapidly growing startup ecosystem and its role in creatively solving global problems through technology.

The course’s final lecture is dedicated to presenting study, startup and internship opportunities in India along with references and advice for those wishing to travel to India.

By educating students about India through the online course, Ohio State and IndoGenius are hoping it will make a significant contribution toward meeting Passport to India’s goal of increasing the number of students studying abroad in India annually from its current, 4,583 to at least 10,000 in the next four years.

“India is relevant to American students of all backgrounds and interests,” said Booker of IndoGenius. “The Passport to India MOOC will demonstrate how India’s economic and civilizational re-emergence has renewed the importance of India. Take any of the grand challenges faced by the world today and if you can innovate a solution that works in India it can work anywhere.”

The course is free for anyone in the world and currently open for enrollment on coursera.org Indian students are actively encouraged to join and learn alongside their American peers. Those interested in learning more about Passport to India and its directory of 60+ study abroad and paid internship opportunities in India can do so at www.passporttoindia.com.

High school students from throughout the nation are testing their knowledge in all-things India for this year’s United States Academic Decathlon. The 2015-2016 event is still in the qualifying stage, but the underlying theme of this year’s competition is India. Teams of nine — three “A” or Honor students; three “B” or Scholastic students; and three “C” or below Varsity students — compete in 10 areas.

Among the study points the teams will be tested on include art, economics, literature, mathematics, music, science and social science. Additionally, the 10 phases will be rounded out by an essay exam, as well as speech and interview events.

All the tests have India as the backdrop. For example, questions in literature will be focused on India-based literature, or Indian economics. The culmination of the decathlon is a Super Quiz relay, including multiple-choice questions from art, economics, literature, music, science and social science. One team will represent their state for the Decathlon. The event is scheduled to take place April 28 through April 30 in Anchorage, Alaska.

The University of Chicago, has established the Anupama and Guru Ramakrishnan Professorship in Sanskrit Studies with a $3.5 million gift from Guru and Anupama Ramakrishnan. The Chair supports a faculty member whose work focuses on the ancient classical language. Gary Tubb, professor in South Asian Languages and Civilizations and faculty director of the University’s Delhi branch, will be the first scholar to hold the new position, according to an announcement January 26^th.

With this new initiative, the University already known for its strong South Asia studies department, has added a new chair to fund the study of Sanskrit. Guru Ramakrishnan, MBA’88, is a founding partner at Meru Capital Group; Anupama Ramakrishnan is on the advisory board of the Agastya Foundation, a Bangalore-based NGO that funds and operates educational programs in rural India. They also support a scholarship program for Indian students at Chicago Booth School of Business.

This year, the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and the Committee on Southern Asian Studies marks its 60th year at the university in 2016 and several events are planned in April.  Considered the oldest literary language of South Asia, Sanskrit is also the longest continuously taught South Asian language at UChicago, offered at the University since 1892.

“Sanskrit really stands out among the world’s languages – alongside other classical languages – as being a single language that provides access to an extraordinarily broad range of texts and histories,” Tubb is quoted saying. He is the author of Scholastic Sanskrit: A Handbook for Students, and several other books.

“We are delighted to fund this chair in Sanskrit – one of the oldest languages that has given the world the Vedas, Upanishads and other exceptional works of spirituality, poetry, music and dance,” the Ramakrishnans are quoted saying.

We are thrilled that Professor Tubb will be the first chair, especially in light of his lifelong dedication and passion for Sanskrit. Most importantly, the University of Chicago’s long-term commitment to scholarship in Sanskrit made it our institution of choice to partner with on this important initiative,” they added.

Washington, DC: January 24, 2016:  Howard County Public School System in the state of Maryland, has unanimously voted to add Diwali, Eid al-Adha and Chinese Lunar New Year’s Eve in the school holiday calendar, for the first time in the school system’s history.

Indian-American community hailed the decision by Howard County Public School System, which manages 71 schools and serves nearly 50,000 students, as “historic”. “I am extremely pleased by the Board’s ability to discuss and unanimously agree to seek ways to recognise the diverse backgrounds of Howard County’s students and families,” Board of Education Chairwoman Christine O’Connor said in a statement after the eight member board unanimously supported such a motion. “We want to do our best to find flexibility within the calendar to provide opportunities for all students to experience all cultures within our community,” O’Connor said.

The motion in this regard as proposed by board member Janet Siddiqui. “By taking this vote, the Howard County Board of Education has shown a great way forward in acknowledging diverse religious holidays without violating the spirit of church-state separation,” said Murali Balaji education director of Hindu American Foundation.

HAF and Chinmaya Mission started a petition that collected over 250 signatures in under three weeks, while the Board received nearly 500 emails from parents asking for inclusion of Diwali.
Indian Students at Centennial High School (ISAC) also collected and submitted signatures for the effort, said Balaji, who along with several Chinmaya Mission members, testified at the Board’s hearing last month.

“This vote is proof that it is indeed possible to accommodate the religious needs of multiple faith communities in diverse school districts,” said Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Maryland Outreach Manager Zainab Chaudry, who has submitted testimony on the holiday inclusion issue.

“Religious pluralism is the hallmark of an integrated and inclusive society. We see that reflected in the Howard County Board of Education’s decision,” Chaudry said. According to Baltimore Sun, as of the 2014-2015 school year, 42 percent of Howard County students were white, 22 percent were black, 19 percent were Asian, nine percent were Hispanic and six percent were of two or more races. The school system does not record the religious backgrounds of its students, it said.

A controversy over $1.5 million donation by the Dharma Civilization Foundation to University of California at Irvine’s School of Humanities started last week with more than 350, including varsity students, signing an online petition questioning the non-profit’s motive behind the gift.

The petitioners questioned the donations by the foundation, saying they are worried that it might be an attempt to exert too much influence over hiring and may be pressuring professors.

The university announced the setting up of three new endowed chairs in October last year with the help of donations including from DCF. It said that the chairs will be named the Dhan Kaur Sahota Presidential Chair in Sikh Studies, Shri Parshvanath Presidential Chair in Jain Studies, and Swami Vivekananda-Dharma Civilization Foundation Presidential Chair in Modern India Studies.

The setting up of the chairs is aimed at expanding UCI’s scholarship in South Asian religions and culture. An Orange County Register report said quoting the vice president of the foundation that the current controversy is a “tempest in a teapot.”

“This petition has regrettably cast aspersions and doubt on the motivations and intentions of the Dharma Civilization Foundation” Kalyan Viswanathan, executive vice president of DCF, was quoted as saying.

It also said that the organization “rejects the accusations put forth both by the petition and the people who have endorsed it as false and having little basis in fact.”

The foundation’s objective is to simply “find safe academic environments for the accurate and respectful study of the Dharma traditions of India” in the U.S., including Hinduism, Indian Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism,” DCF was quoted as saying.

One of the criticisms against the foundation was that it brought prospective candidates to campus – which struck some as over-the-line. “DCF acknowledges that for members of the University faculty to engage with potential candidates for these proposed chairs through informal contact, at an early stage when the chairs have not yet been approved, and the faculty search committees have not yet been constituted could have given the appearance of an intent to exercise undue influence in the selection process,” Viswanathan was quoted as saying in a letter. “DCF had no such intentions, and regrets that some of its actions may have been cause for such misunderstanding.”

Some faculty members like Catherine Liu, a media studies professor in UCI’s School of Humanities, were, however, not convinced by DCF’s line of argument, saying that UCI is a secular, public university and does not teach faith-based scholarship.

“I don’t know what this scholar/practitioner line is – but DCF is implying that only a Hindu can teach Hinduism. We are not a seminary. I don’t think they understand that and I don’t think the Dean has communicated to them the nature of the academic enterprise,” Liu was quoted as saying.

UCI is still reviewing the gifts, and no decisions have been made yet, said university spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has announced that Carnegie India, its sixth international center, will open in April 2016. Based in New Delhi, Carnegie India will produce high-quality public policy research about critical national, regional, and global issues. As with Carnegie’s centers in Beijing, Beirut, Brussels, Moscow, and Washington, Carnegie India will be staffed and led by local experts who will collaborate extensively with colleagues around the world.

Raja Mohan will serve as the founding director of Carnegie India. Mohan has been a nonresident senior associate at Carnegie since 2012, as well as a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, and a visiting research professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He also served as a member of India’s National Security Advisory Board. From 2009 to 2010, Mohan was the Henry Alfred Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the U.S. Library of Congress. Previously, he was a professor of South Asian studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. He is a columnist for the Indian Express and previously worked as the diplomatic editor and Washington correspondent of the Hindu.

“I am deeply honored to serve as the center’s founding director and to work even more closely with longtime Carnegie colleagues across the world. I look forward to the center contributing to India’s rich intellectual tradition through the in-depth, nonpartisan research of our scholars,” Mohan said. “I am confident that Carnegie India will add to Carnegie’s global reputation for quality, integrity, and independence.”

The center’s research and programmatic focus will include the political economy of reform in India, foreign and security policy, and the role of innovation and technology in India’s internal transformation and international relations. It will build on decades of scholarship on India and South Asia across Carnegie’s programs, in particular the work of Vice President for Studies George Perkovich, Senior Associate Ashley J. Tellis, and Associate Milan Vaishnav, while placing special emphasis on developing a cadre of young, up-and-coming Indian scholars.

Shivnath Thukral will serve as Carnegie India’s managing director. He was group president of corporate branding and strategic initiatives at Essar, a $35 billion corporation. He spent fifteen years as a TV anchor and business analyst for India’s premier English TV news channel New Delhi Television, and was managing editor of the business television news channel NDTV Profit. A graduate of the Delhi School of Economics, he interned at the U.S. Senate and was awarded the Eisenhower Fellowship in 2012.

The center’s creation has been supported by Carnegie India’s Founders Committee, a group of Indian and international donors co-chaired by former cabinet secretary and Indian ambassador to the United States, Naresh Chandra, and former United States ambassador to India, Frank Wisner.

“On behalf of the entire Founders Committee, we want to congratulate Carnegie on the formal launch of Carnegie India,” said ambassadors Chandra and Wisner. “India—with its strategic partnership with the United States and its growing role in the Asia-Pacific and around the world—is a significant development on the international landscape and a natural area of focus for Carnegie.”

President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Williams J. Burns, said, “We are very proud to add Carnegie India to Carnegie’s network of international centers. We are especially proud to have Raja Mohan serve as its founding director and grateful for the generous support of our donors and Founders Committee members that made this milestone possible.”

It has been announced that Dell has awarded AIF a multi-year grant to support our Digital Equalizer (DE) program. Aiming to impact 61,000 students and 2,500 teachers in four states, this generous grant will help bridge India’s educational and digital divide and bring technology literacy and 21st century skills to more young people in the country. Since 2007, Dell has been a staunch supporter of our Digital Equalizer program.

With 70% of India’s one million public schools lacking basic computing technology, the country is facing significant challenges to prepare its youth for success in the global economy. Since 2002, Digital Equalizer has been bringing technology to schools across India and utilizing technology to transform teaching and learning into a collaborative, project-based approach. The program is creating public education reform by targeting under-resourced government schools. This approach helps teachers to be more effective while motivating and inspiring students to continue their education and open doors of opportunity to higher education and career success. To date, the program has touched the lives of over 1 million children.

The grant from Dell will create impact in the various ways that includes having training & resource centers with state-of-the-art technology, offering professional development to school administrators, and enriching math, science, and social science content. As India’s economy continues to grow, it is vital that the country’s youth have access to technology and are better prepared for the job market.

The number of foreign students who have come to India in 2012 was 76,753 which rose to 93,693 in 2013, according to records of the Ministry of Home Affairs. “More number of foreign students came to India this year with the highest draw from Malaysia followed by Afghanistan and Bangladesh,” India’s Human Resources Department Minister Smriti Irani has said. Irani, while replying to a written question in Lok Sabha, also said, there is no definite trend about the number of foreign students coming to the country.

Dipping by almost half, a total of 44,620 foreign students came to India last year. The figures, however, rose to 66,885 in 2015. Maximum of 6,471 students came to India from Malaysia followed by 5,605 from Afghanistan and 5,431 from Bangladesh, respectively. Other countries from which over 2,000 students came to India last year included Sudan, Yemen, Thailand, Sri Lanka Iran, Iraq, Nigeria and Korea.

His is a story straight out of a dream, and has reached a shimmering chrome. Pichai Sundararajan, better known as Sundar Pichai, shot to fame when he became the CEO of tech giant Google in August. Earlier, while heading Google’s products division, his vision of a separate browser (Chrome) impressed the then CEO Eric Schmidt. Pichai joined Google in 2004 and rose to the top. He was also a potential candidate for the top jobs at Microsoft and Twitter as well.

Hailing from a middle-class Chennai family, Pichai earned a Mettalurgical Engineering degree from IIT Kharagpur, an MS from Stanford University and an MBA from Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining Google, he worked with Applied Materials and McKinsey & Company. But his love for math, science and software took him to the Silicon Valley. By his own admission, as a child, Pichai was an average student and didn’t score high grades that would have fetched him a seat at one of Delhi’s top colleges. His engineer father earned Rs 3,000 a month in the 70s; Pichai’s annual package from Google is $50 million.

Sundar Pichai had a hall full of students from Delhi University’s Shri Ram College of Commerce eating out of his hands. From software to India’s education system, T20 cricket to Lionel Messi, India’s biggest success story in Silicon Valley took a range of questions from students, teachers and social media users during his maiden visit to India since becoming Google’s CEO.

Referring to India’s educational system as “strong”, Sunder Pichai pointed out that “to move forward, creativity is an important attribute.” He added that students in the US have a more practical approach, compared to India where things are rather methodical. “In the US, education is experiential, very hands on. People learn to do things, project-based experiential learning. Teach students to take risks. System shouldn’t penalise students for taking risks.”

Pichai said it was a global phenomenon but significantly pronounced in India. “It is global problem. Less than one third in usage in rural areas. Most women in rural areas don’t think the internet applies to them. The most important thing we can do is to bring them online.”

Google’s public Wi-Fi project in India will be the largest rollout of public internet anywhere on the globe, he said. “We are very excited about the public Wi-Fi project. (It is the) largest such project in the world, covering 400 railway stations. Reason why we are doing it is, in India when you bring access to the Internet, it changes people’s lives.” The Google CEO recalled how he used to travel by train from Chennai to IIT Kharagpur and would be more concerned of getting food on his train rather than internet!

On a question why Android updates are named only after western desserts (a question he must have faced many times before) Pichai said he is open to the idea and may even do an online poll on it and it may become a reality. He was responding to a question from the audience. Pichai isn’t big on sweets though, and recalled how in his childhood he would add “sambhar” to his “payasam”!

On the difference between the startup space in India and the Silicon Valley in the US, Pichai said he pleasantly surprised to find a similar wave of growth in India. He said the quality of ideas by Indian startup founders is the same as that of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and that India is well positioned to become the Silicon Valley of the East. “India has an unique opportunity. All the relevant things are already here. Very well positioned in that sense.I don’t see any difference between entrepreneurs here and the Silicon Valley”, he said.

It turns out that the Google CEO is a huge football fan and loves FC Barcelona! Pichai revealed that he was big Barcelona and Lionel Messi fan. He also said that he loved former Indian captain Sunil Gavaskar and was there at the second tied test in Chennai back in 1986.

Project Loon will very soon be a reality in India, Pichai said, adding that “Google was in talks with telecom operators and regulatory authorities in the country to bring it to India, especially for rural areas which lagged in connectivity.” Pichai said India has been the starting point for Google on many projects. “We do thing first in India like YouTube Offline which started in India and is now in 77 countries. It is a goal to build things here. We do things we can build here at scale which will apply to the world.”

Dr. Rakesh Jain, of the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, is among those named recipients of the National Medal of Science, Technology and Innovations the White House announced on December 22nd. The medals are the nation’s highest honors for achievement and leadership in advancing fields of science and technology, according to a White House news release.

“Science and technology are fundamental to solving some of our nation’s biggest challenges,” Obama said in a statement. “The knowledge produced by these Americans today will carry our country’s legacy of innovation forward and continue to help countless others around the world. Their work is a testament to American ingenuity.”

Jain, the A. Werk Cook professor of radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School and director of the Edwin L. Steele Laboratory for Tumor Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is a member of all three branches of the U.S. National Academies – the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences – and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He received his bachelor’s degree in from IIT Kanpur and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Delaware, all in chemical engineering. The National Medal of Science was established by statute in 1959 and is administered by the National Science Foundation. It is awarded annually to those who have made outstanding contributions to science and engineering.

The president receives nominations from a committee of presidential appointees based on their extraordinary knowledge in and contributions to chemistry, engineering, computing, math and the biological, behavioral/social and physical sciences.

Created by statute in 1980, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation is administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Patent and Trademark Office. It recognizes those who have made lasting contributions to America’s competitiveness and quality of life, and helped strengthen the nation’s technological workforce. Jain and the 16 other recipients will receive their medals at a White House ceremony early next year.

Priyanka Chopra will go on a nationwide tour to spread awareness on fighting anemia among adolescents through a short movie. The actress was in New Delhi on December 23rd to launch the nationwide Weekly Iron and Folic Acid Supplement awareness campaign along with Health Minister J.P. Nadda.

Through the initiative, free pills will be distributed to teenagers across the country to eradicate nutritional anemia among adolescents. A short video featuring Chopra was also released.

The “Bajirao Mastani” actress, who is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, said health and nutrition play a crucial role in the development of a country.

“I am so fortunate to be able to be associated with UNICEF for around a decade and be a part of some incredible life-changing campaigns. It is in our hands to make our future better,” Chopra said. The Bollywood star said she added the “blue pill” to her diet.

“We started this campaign about six months ago in Bhopal, and I got introduced to it for the first time. It was such an easy concept, because I have a crazy lifestyle,” the actress said. “I work 16 hours a day, traveling up and down, and I don’t get time to eat. I have been taking this pill for the last six months. It has given me a strong immune system,” she added.

Spotswood in New Jersey will set up a scholarship fund to honor the memory of an Indian-origin emergency medical technician, who died in the line of duty in July this year, a media report said.

Hinal Patel, 22, was enroute with her partner to assist on a routine call in a neighboring town when her ambulance was struck by a car. Patel died in the crash while her partner and the woman who hit the ambulance survived, American news website,tapinto.net, reported Dec.13

It was Patel’s last shift at the Spotswood Emergency Medical Services. She was leaving her position to continue her education at the Graduate School of Biomedical Science at Rutgers University. Patel hoped to one day become a doctor.

The scholarship will keep Patel’s memory alive and it will be awarded annually to a deserving senior at Spotswood High School every spring on awards night.

The organizers of the Kloos Family Lights, another yearly tradition that supports “a worthy cause”, has invited donations for Patel’s scholarship fund.

Rajesh Singh, an Indian American former assistant professor Rajesh Singh has filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against four Emporia StateUniversity officials; a month after another professor in the same department also sued the Kansas school.

Rajesh Singh taught at the university’s School of Library and Information Management from 2009 until he was fired in January 2015. His lawsuit names two current administrators in the department, Provost David Cordle and former university president Michael Shonrock. The university will be added to the lawsuit when Singh’s attorneys receive a right to sue letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The lawsuit comes about a month after Melvin Hale, an assistant professor in the same department, filed a defamation and invasion of privacy lawsuit against the university. In the lawsuit, Singh details discrimination and retaliation from department Dean Gwen Alexander and interim associate dean Andrew Smith, who he said were supported by Cordle and Shonrock. He said the discrimination occurred despite his receiving positive reviews during his first three years on campus.

Singh alleges the discrimination began in 2010 after he asked to be paid the same as two other, newer staff members, including Smith. He said he was actively marginalized and criticized, culminating when all of his fall 2014 teaching assignments were canceled without warning, he was locked out of his office and had all his office contents seized. Singh said he sought to resolve the conflict through personal meetings and the university’s procedures but administrators ignored or disputed his efforts and did not follow the procedures.

The university does not comment on pending litigation, spokeswoman Gwen Larson said. Alexander, who has been on administrative leave for most of this school year, plans to retire next June. Hale, who is black, alleged in his lawsuit that he was defamed and ostracized after he and his wife complained that someone wrote a racial slur near her office and administrators did not investigate their report of the incident or respond to their complaints. Angelica Hale’s position as assistant to the dean of the library information department was not renewed after the couple complained. A university investigation found no evidence to support the couple’s allegations of a hate crime and discrimination, prompting Hale to file his lawsuit.

After that investigation, the university announced several steps to improve diversity and inclusivity on campus, including hiring a facilitator to conduct public forums on the topic. During the first of those forums Thursday, members of the media were asked to leave after some students expressed concern about their presence. The school’s counsel said the media should be admitted and allowed to attend a second forum Thursday. University officials attributed the disagreement to a lack of communication.

Another forum is scheduled for today, Dec. 3, with an equity and inclusion summit scheduled for the next day. Larson said the media will be allowed into those meetings. The school will work with students to help them understand the role of media and also will provide an alternative way for students to add their comments without speaking in front of the media, she said.

Several South Asian Americans were the winners who contributed to a pressure ulcer prevention cover, technology to assist the visually impaired, a social media website for connecting STEM college students, and an energy-creating mat for high-traffic areas, who were behind the 10 winning ideas from the entries in the fall 2015 Change the World Challenge at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Established in 2005 by Rensselaer alumnus and entrepreneur Sean O’Sullivan ’85, the Change the World Challenge competition has helped to validate new student ideas.

The winning ideas for the fall 2015 competition cover a range of innovative devices, processes, and technologies: Pressure Ulcer Prevention Cover is for use with long-term care patients in the home and in hospitals. It helps to reduce the likelihood of a person developing a pressure ulcer due to certain medical conditions. Created by Jason Bernotsky ’15, Design, Innovation, and Society/Mechanical Engineering.

Tactile Vision is a wearable technology providing environmental feedback to the visually impaired allowing them to perceive the world around them as others do. The product will allow them to distinguish what is around them without the use of a cane or primitive sonar technology. Created by William Lawler ’17, Electrical Engineering, and Christopher Dannhauser ’17, Electrical Engineering/Computer and Systems Engineering.

STEM Social Media is a social media website for college students in STEM schools. The website will have a primary purpose of integrating, informing, and stimulating the STEM community. Additionally, students can connect with others who are doing similar research in different schools. Created by William Francis ’18, Mathematics and Management; Shaeed McLeod ’18, Industrial and Management Engineering; Chidiadi Onyeukwu ’18, Electrical Engineering; and Khalil Fleming ’19, Computer Science.

VR Tech is smart eyewear that projects a virtual reality motion-picture to the user while connecting wirelessly to a smart phone or computer. It could be used for exercise or watching movies, and is designed to be more comfortable than other products currently on the market. Created by Anurag Kaushik ’17, M.S. in Technology Commercialization and Entrepreneurship; Ian He ’16, MBA/M.S. in Technology Commercialization and Entrepreneurship; and Anand Prakash ’16, M.S. in Management.

Power Walk is a mat that uses the piezoelectric property of certain crystals to convert energy people expend while walking into electricity. It can be used in high foot-traffic areas to generate electricity. Created by Jason Luo ’18, Electrical Engineering/Mechanical Engineering.

Mobile Teaching Platform leverages the power of mobile communication to create a platform that can encourage social good in millennials. The product addresses literacy as well as other educational goals. Created by Shankar Rao ’15, Computer and Systems Engineering, and James Cazzoli ’16, Design, Innovation, and Society.

Bottle Technologies is a geographical context-driven social media content creation and delivery mobile platform which essentially allows users to “bottle” their experiences and leave them behind in that location for others to find. Created by Saurabh Dargar ’15, Biomedical Engineering; Jaikrishen Wadhwani ’15, Information Technology and Web Science; and Arun Nemani ’16, Biomedical Engineering.

Agora Technologies recognized the lack of entrepreneurial resources for the high school-aged student and implemented a program to mentor and coach high school teams through current business model generation tools being used in colleges around the world. Created by Richard Lin ’18, Computer Science/Business Management; Sidharth Modha ’16, Biomedical Engineering; Christina Ford; and Herman Li.

A “Whey” Better Beer is a beverage that combines a traditional light beer with eight grams of whey protein to provide a product for consumers who are interested in managing their protein intake. Created by Greg Merrill ’17, Chemical Engineering; James Male ’17, Materials Science and Engineering; and Christopher Lore ’17, Geology.

Guide assists visually impaired individuals with everyday tasks to increase safety and independence. There will be a line of products designed mainly for use in the kitchen to serve this population. Created by Jordan Hutensky ’18, Design Innovation and Society, and Morgan Schweitzer ’16, Mechanical Engineering.

The Change the World Challenge was created by Rensselaer alumnus, serial entrepreneur, inventor, filmmaker, and venture capitalist Sean O’Sullivan ’85, who earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer. O’Sullivan, who also serves as managing director of SOSventures International, an investment management operation, is the founder of JumpStart International, NetCentric, and was a founder and first president of software firm MapInfo, now known as PitneyBowes MapInfo. O’Sullivan has started a number of other successful companies and organizations. He was selected as the 2011 William F. Glaser ’53 Rensselaer Entrepreneur of the Year.

The Change the World Challenge competition is a twice-yearly event created to support entrepreneurship education and inspire Rensselaer students to consider ways to improve the human condition. Each semester, a $10,000 prize is shared by the winning students and student teams who develop innovative ideas and inventions. Patent application assistance is also given to the winning student proposals when applicable.

“Entrepreneurship takes our students on an amazing journey of creative exploration and problem-solving, but also collaboration, learning, and innovation with students of other academic disciplines,” said Thomas Begley, dean of the Lally School of Management. “We are very grateful to Sean O’Sullivan ’85 for sponsoring this competition and demonstrating through his own extraordinary entrepreneurial work that great ideas combined with ambition can change the world we live in for the better.”

Students involved in the competition develop ideas that have the potential to improve human life through innovative and sustainable solutions. The competition is overseen by the Paul J. ’69 and Kathleen M. Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship in the Lally School of Management.

“This fall’s Change the World Challenge winners have worked very hard reaching out to their potential customer base and working with their mentors from our Entrepreneurs-In-Residence program,” said Jason Kuruzovich, academic director of the Severino Center. “Entrepreneurship is one of the many great hallmarks of the student experience at Rensselaer and we are excited to continue to help our students develop their nascent ideas into real companies.”

Pratham has just finished holding 11 galas across the US. It is a vote of confidence in our organization to have thousands turn out to show their support. I am truly grateful to each and every one of you, Deepak Raj, President, Pratham USA, said in a statement issued here.

“We had inspiring speakers in each location,” he said. On October 16th, more than 550 guests at the NYC Gala were all brought to their feet by a rousing speech from Cory Booker, the charismatic U.S. Senator from New Jersey, and member of the Senate India Caucus. Booker acknowledged the key strength of Pratham – action.

“Here is an organization that has shown us that we can do things that people think are impossible. At a cost and an expense that is shockingly low… An organization that says we can reach the people by going to them. That we can educate folks that other people marginalize, that don’t see their worth, their dignity. We can do it all,” Booker had said.

Cory Booker has been in the headlines before with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, and many others. He has even been the subject of more than one film about his work – the Academy-award nominated documentary Street Fight, and Brick City, which won a Peabody. But at the gala, Booker got personal, telling us stories about his parents and the lessons they taught him.

Recalling his inspiring speech, the Pratham leader said, “We must sacrifice like those who came before us. We must plant trees for others to sit under and to benefit from. That’s who we are. That’s what we are called to be. Above all, Booker reminded us to: Don’t just sit there. Stand up.”

Deepak Raj said, “If we believe this world can transform the educational outcomes for children in India, we cannot just talk about it or hope for it or pray for it. We must stand up and with audacity and determination and bold dreams, we must do something about it. This Thanksgiving season, let us remember those who planted trees of learning for us to reap the fruits–and do the same for the next generation. I urge you to join Pratham in fulfilling our mission: Every child in school and learning well.”

Aashrit Abhinav Sundar, an Indian-origin student has been awarded a presidential scholarship in a U.S. college for outstanding academic merit and an exceptional commitment to the field of culinary arts. Kendall College School of Culinary Arts in Chicago awarded Aashrit Abhinav Sundar the scholarship recently following a final interview with college president, Emily Williams Knight, a news release said.

“Throughout his life, Aashrit has demonstrated a passion for the hospitality and culinary industry and a drive to build a remarkable career in the field of baking and pastry,” Knight said. “Having completed his hospitality management degree in India, Aashrit now wants to take his love for baking and pastry and attend one of the best programmes in the U.S.,” she added.

Sundar began classes at the institution in October 2015 and is pursuing an “Associate of Applied Science in Baking and Pastry”. The scholarship will cover 50 percent of the programme’s total cost. “Aashrit is confident, driven, and passionate about his field of study,” Knight noted. “It is clear that he is a leader and he is an example of the type of student that will thrive and lead the industry in the future.”

The U.S. Presidential Scholars Program is a programme of the department of education that recognizes the academic achievements of distinguished U.S. citizens graduating high school. It is described as “one of the nation’s highest honours for high school students” in the U.S.

In Kendell College, the presidential scholarship is awarded each academic term to one international student who demonstrates superior academic achievement and passion for their area of study.

Kendall College, founded in 1934 and located in Chicago, Illinois, offers undergraduate degrees in business, culinary arts, early childhood education and hospitality management to a diverse and passionate community of more than 1,800 students.

A high school in Idaho is considering removing a book by an award-winning Indian-American author from the reading list because of sexual content. The Coeur d’Alene School District’s ad-hoc literature committee voted 4-2, to recommend excluding “The Namesake,” a 2004 book by renowned author Jhumpa Lahiri that tells the story of an immigrant couple from India adjusting to a new life in America.

Last year, the same committee made an unsuccessful attempt to remove John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” from the reading list of optional books that English teachers could assign to 9th Graders. That attempt by the 5-year old volunteer committee which reviews 5 titles per month, made headlines, the local news outlet cdapress.com reported Nov. 5.

Pulitzer Prize winner Lahiri is one of President Obama’s favorite authors and is on the White House Committee on Arts and Humanities and was awarded the National Medal of Arts and Humanities at a White House ceremony this September.

After the committee recently submitted its recommendation to the board of trustees, a 30-day review period is underway during which members of the community can make comments on the decision. Board Chair Christa Hazel told The Press, local input was important. “Without that it’s more individual governance,” Hazel said. “We need to have local representation and it’s hard to represent when we don’t hear from the people we are representing.”

According to local school authorities, teachers have a strong voice in the selection process, and in case Lahiri’s title is challenged, the principal will appoint a committee of two parents and two teachers to review the material. The board has the final say in approving her book.

Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore is the only Indian University that has featured on the list of top 100 varsities in the Times Higher Education (THE) ranking. IISc ranked 99^th on the list. The number of US institutions on the list has come down to 31 from 34 last year. Asia universities have gone up to 25 positions from 18 in 2014. The US institutions dominated the top 10 list with the Stanford University, California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology getting first three positions.

“This year’s stand-out success story has to be India, making its debut in this prestigious engineering and technology ranking, which represents the top few per cent of world universities for these subject disciplines,” said The World University Rankings editor Phil Baty.

“Whether you look at high-tech sectors such as IT or aerospace engineering or more traditional fields such as steelmaking, India’s engineering and technology prowess is highly visible the world over in the shape of companies based in India or run by people born in India, such as Google and Microsoft, Infosys and Wipro or Tata and Mittal.”

Baty said like their flagship World University Rankings, the THE ranking for engineering and technology subjects applies rigorous standards. It uses tough global benchmarks across all of a global research university’s key missions — teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

“But although the table employs the same range of 13 performance indicators they have been carefully recalibrated to fit more closely the research culture in this subject,” said Baty. Maximum weightage (30%) is given to teaching-learning environment and research followed by research, citations (27.5) and international outlook (7.5%).

IISc scored 60.7 points for teaching and 46.7 in research as per performance breakdown of the ranking. In teaching, IISc is among the top 50 universities while for research it is ranked 77th. Baty said while the US and UK still dominates the upper echelons of this table, Asia is shifting the balance of power, proving that its institutions are world-class in this field.

“Six Asian universities — the National University of Singapore, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, Peking and Tsinghua Universities from China and Korea’s Seoul National University — make the top 30.”