Category: Women

Sumita Mitra Wins European Inventor Award 2021

Staff ReporterProfile, Science, Women 0

Indian-American chemist SumitaMitra has won the European Inventor Award 2021, one of Europe’s most prestigious innovation prizes, in the “Non-European Patent Office countries” category for her application of nanotechnology in dentistry. Mitra was the first to successfully integrate nanoparticles into dental materials to produce stronger, durable and more aesthetically pleasing fillings. Her innovation has been successfully commercialised and used in more than 1 billion tooth restorations by dentists around the world.

“SumitaMitra took an entirely new path in her field, and demonstrated how technological innovation, protected by patents, can transform a sector, and in this case bring benefits to millions of dental patients,” said Antonio Campinos, President at the European Patent Office (EPO), on Thursday. “Her invention remains commercially successful nearly 20 years after its launch — another reason why she is an inspiration to the next generation of scientists,” he added.

The 2021 European Inventor Award ceremony was held digitally and, for the first time, was open to the public who tuned in to the event from around the world. The Award, one of Europe’s most prestigious innovation prizes, is presented annually by the EPO to distinguish outstanding inventors from Europe and beyond who have made an exceptional contribution to society, technological progress and economic growth. The finalists and winners in five categories (Industry, Research, SMEs, Non-EPO countries and Lifetime achievement) were selected by an independent international jury.

“Curiosity and exploration are the essential points of starting an innovation. It is something that we really need to cultivate in our children,” Mitra said. SumitaMitra is a partner at Mitra Chemical Consulting, LLC, which advises companies on new technology development, product design, commercialisation, mergers and acquisitions. She was named the American Chemical Society Hero of Chemistry in 2009, inducted into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2018 and elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2021 for her work related to inventions in nanotechnology for use in dental materials. (IANS)

The European Patent Office June 18 honored Indian American chemist SumitaMitra with the European Inventor Award 2021 in the “Non-EPO countries” category. Mitra, who was named among the finalists for the award last month (see India-West article here: https://bit.ly/3gMCvI4), was the first to successfully integrate nanotechnology into dental materials to produce stronger and more aesthetically pleasing fillings, which are now used by dentists around the world.

“SumitaMitra took an entirely new path in her field, and demonstrated how technological innovation, protected by patents, can transform a sector, and in this case bring benefits to millions of dental patients,” EPO president AntónioCampinos said in a statement. “Her invention remains commercially successful nearly 20 years after its launch – another reason why she is an inspiration to the next generation of scientists.”

The 2021 European Inventor Award ceremony was held digitally and, for the first time, was open to the public who tuned in to the event from around the world. The award, one of Europe’s most prestigious innovation prizes, is presented annually by the EPO to distinguish outstanding inventors from Europe and beyond who have made an exceptional contribution to society, technological progress and economic growth, according to a news release. The finalists and winners in five categories — industry, research, SMEs, Non-EPO countries and lifetime achievement — were selected by an independent international jury.

While working in the oral care division of U.S. multinational 3M in the late 1990s, Mitra became aware of the limitations of existing materials used in dental fillings, which were either too weak to be used on biting surfaces, or quickly lost their polish, the release notes of the Indian American winner. At the same time, nanotechnology was emerging as a field of research and Mitra decided to explore how these new developments could be applied to dentistry. She began working on nanotechnology-based solutions for a new dental material, driven by a desire to use her expertise in polymer chemistry and materials science to develop inventions that solve real-life problems, it said.

Mitra and her team developed a technique for creating linked clusters of nanoparticles, which they called nanoclusters. These clusters combine single nanoparticles of varying diameters, resulting in a strong, durable and shiny material. By adding tiny amounts of pigment, and altering the chemical composition of the nanoparticles, the team was also able to create a range of different shades that can be matched to individual teeth, and layered to create a more natural finish, the release noted. “The use of nanotechnology gave me the opportunity to make a new material,” Mitra said in a statement. “It restores people’s smiles and improves the quality of their lives.”

Following this successful development process, Mitra worked closely with 3M’s patent attorneys to draft the patents to protect her ground-breaking research. Although several new generations of the material have been developed since its launch in 2002 as FiltekTM Supreme Universal Restorative, the current line of products is still based on Mitra’s European patents, according to the release. The enduring legacy of Mitra’s work can be seen in the fact that 3M was named as one of the top three manufacturers of global composite fillings in the dental restoration market in 2019.

Although she retired from the company in 2010, the success of her technology continues with products based on her inventions used in over one billion tooth restorations worldwide to date. Mitra herself continues to contribute to research and development through her own consulting company. In addition, she enjoys volunteering at schools and colleges, passing on her enthusiasm for science to young people: “Curiosity and exploration are the essential points of starting an innovation. It is something that we really need to cultivate in our children,” Mitra said in the release.

Mitra is a partner at Mitra Chemical Consulting, LLC, a company she set up with her husband after leaving 3M in 2010, and which advises companies on new technology development, product design, commercialization, mergers and acquisitions. She was named an American Chemical Society Hero of Chemistry in 2009, inducted into the U.S. National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2018 and elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2021 for her work related to inventions in nanotechnology for use in dental materials.

Other awards include a Hollenback Memorial Prize from the Academy of Operative Dentistry (2020); a Peyton-Skinner Award for Innovation in Dental Materials from the International Association of Dental Research (2012); and a Top 25 Women in Dentistry Award (2010). Mitrawas elected to the 3M Carlton Society in 1998 – the highest 3M award given for lifelong contribution to R&D, her bio notes. Mitra is named on 58 European patents, four of which are related to her nomination for the European Inventor Award 2021.

Radhika Fox Confirmed By US Senate To Lead Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water

Staff ReporterEnvironment, Women 0

The US Senate voted 55-43 to confirm Radhika Fox as head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water on June 16th. The confirmation comes five weeks after Fox testified before the EPW Committee during her nomination hearing. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chairman Tom Carper, D-Del., in remarks on the Senate floor, praised Fox’s record and highlighted the organizations endorsing her for the position, according to a report from The Hill. These include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Family Farm Alliance and the U.S. Water Alliance, where Fox previously served as chief executive, the report said.

“What those organizations have said — again and again — about Radhika Fox is that she is an exceptional leader who will work day and night to come up with practical solutions to our country’s serious water challenges,” Carper said June 16, according to the report. “Moreover, Ms. Fox will make sure everyone’s point of view is heard and taken into account when EPA acts to protect our country’s precious water resources.” Seven Republicans crossed the aisle and joined every Democrat present to vote in favor of Fox’s nomination: Sens. Susan Collins of Maine; Lindsey Graham of South Carolina; Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker of Mississippi; Richard Burr of North Carolina; Kevin Cramer of North Dakota; and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.

According to her bio, Fox is the CEO of the U.S. Water Alliance, a national nonprofit organization advancing policies and programs that build a sustainable water future for all. The Alliance educates the nation on the value of water, accelerates the adoption of one water policies and programs, and celebrates innovation in water management. Fox also serves as director of the Value of Water Coalition, a national campaign dedicated to educating and inspiring people about how water is essential, invaluable, and needs investment.

The Indian American has over 20 years of experience in developing policies, programs, and issue-based advocacy campaigns. She previously directed the policy and government affairs agenda for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which is responsible for providing 24/7 water, wastewater, and municipal power services to 2.6 million Bay Area residents. She also served as the Federal Policy director at PolicyLink, where she coordinated the organization’s policy agenda on a wide range of issues, including infrastructure investment, transportation, sustainable communities, economic inclusion, and workforce development. Fox holds a B.A. from Columbia University and a masters degree in City and Regional Planning from the University of California at Berkeley where she was a HUD Community Development Fellow.

Mindy Kaling Is Co-Founder Of Film School For Underserved

Staff ReporterEntertainment, Women 0

For those without connections, Hollywood’s film industry is notoriously hard to break into. Or at least, it has been. A coalition of Hollywood stars has partnered with the Los Angeles Unified School District to form a public magnet high school focused on all things film. Celeb parents like George Clooney, Mindy Kaling, Kerry Washington, Eva Longoria, Don Cheadle, and more hope the school will provide students from diverse and traditionally underserved communities with more opportunities to break into the industry, be it as cinematographers, set designers, screenwriters, or make-up artists.

Mindy Kaling, George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Eva Longoria and Kerry Washington are among several Hollywood personalities who will come together to co-found a film school for underserved communities next year. The institution, named Roybal School of Film and Television Production, will provide academic as well as practical lessons, and access to Hollywood stalwarts and professionals, besides an internship initiative, according to variety.com.

“Our aim is to better reflect the diversity of our country. That means starting early. It means creating high school programs that teach young people about cameras, and editing and visual effects and sound and all the career opportunities that this industry has to offer. It means internships that lead to well-paying careers. It means understanding that we’re all in this together,” Clooney said in a statement, reported the website. Others associated with the initiative include actor Grant Heslov, producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, Hollywood talent scout Bryan Lourd, Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner, and Nicole Avant. (IANS)

Medical Myths About Gender Roles Go Back To Ancient Greece. Women Are Still Paying The Price Today

Elinor Cleghorn At TIMECulture, Women 0

We are taught that medicine is the art of solving our body’s mysteries. And we expect medicine, as a science, to uphold the principles of evidence and impartiality. We want our doctors to listen to us and care for us as people. But we also need their assessments of our pain and fevers, aches and exhaustion, to be free of any prejudice about who we are. We expect, and deserve, fair and ethical treatment regardless of our gender or the color of our skin.

But here things get complicated. Medicine carries the burden of its own troubling history. The history of medicine, of illness, is every bit as social and cultural as it is scientific. It is a history of people, of their bodies and their lives, not just of physicians, surgeons, clinicians and researchers. And medical progress has not marched forward just in laboratories and benches, lectures and textbooks; it has always reflected the realities of the changing world and the meanings of being human.

Gender difference is intimately stitched into the fabric of humanness. At every stage in its long history, medicine has absorbed and enforced socially constructed gender divisions. These divisions have traditionally ascribed power and dominance to men. Historically, women have been subordinated in politics, wealth and education. Modern scientific medicine, as it has evolved over the centuries as a profession, an institution and a discipline, has flourished in these exact conditions. Male dominance—and with it the superiority of the male body—was cemented into medicine’s very foundations, laid down in ancient Greece.

In the third century BCE, the philosopher Aristotle described the female body as the inverse of the male body, with its genitalia “turn’d outside in.” Women were marked by their anatomical difference from men and medically defined as faulty, defective, deficient. But women also possessed an organ of the highest biological—and social—value: the uterus. Possession of this organ defined the purpose of women: to bear and raise children. Knowledge about female biology centered on women’s capacity—and duty—to reproduce. Being biologically female defined and constrained what it meant to be a woman. Women’s illnesses and diseases consistently related back to the “secrets” and “curiosities” of her reproductive organs.

Of course, not all women have uteruses, and not all people who have uteruses, or who menstruate, are women. But medicine, historically, has insisted on conflating biological sex with gender identity. As medicine’s understanding of female biology has expanded and evolved, it has constantly reflected and validated dominant social and cultural expectations about who women are; what they should think, feel and desire; and—above all else—what they can do with their own bodies. Medical myths about gender roles and behaviors, constructed as facts before medicine became an evidence-based science, have resonated perniciously. And these myths about female bodies and illnesses have enormous cultural sticking power. Today, gender myths are ingrained as biases that negatively impact the care, treatment and diagnosis of all people who identify as women.

For example, health-care providers and the health-care systemare failing women in their responses to and treatment of women’s pain, especially chronic pain. Women are more likely to be offered minor tranquilizers and antidepressants than analgesic pain medication. Women are less likely to be referred for further diagnostic investigations than men are. And women’s pain is much more likely to be seen as having an emotional or a psychological cause, rather than a bodily or biological one. Women are the predominant sufferers of chronic diseases that begin with pain. But before our pain is taken seriously as a symptom of a possible disease, it first has to be validated—and believed—by a medical professional. And this pervasive aura of distrust around women’s accounts of their pain has been enfolded into medical attitudes over centuries. The historical—and hysterical—idea that women’s excessive emotions have profound influences on their bodies, and vice versa, is impressed like a photographic negative beneath today’s image of the attention-seeking, hypochondriac female patient. Prevailing social stereotypes about the way women experience, express, and tolerate pain are not modern phenomena—they have been ingrained across medicine’s history. Our contemporary biomedical knowledge is stained with the residue of old stories, fallacies, assumptions, and myths.

Over the past few years, gender bias in medical knowledge, research, and practice has hit the mainstream. Headlines like “Why Won’t Doctors Believe Women?,” “Doctors Are Failing Women with Chronic Illness,” and “Doctors Are More Likely to Misdiagnose Women Than Men” crop up regularly in the U.K. and U.S. press. Public awareness is growing around the way that women are all too frequently being dismissed and misdiagnosed. We’re learning that medical sexism is rife, systemic and making women sicker. But women are not a monolithic category. The discrimination women encounter as medical patients is magnified when they are Black, Asian, Indigenous, Latinx, or ethnically diverse; when their access to health services is restricted; and when they don’t identify with the gender norms medicine ascribes to biological womanhood.

It seems ridiculous now to imagine physicians once believed that women’s nerves were too highly strung for them to receive an education and that their ovaries would become inflamed if they read too much. But these outrageous myths are alive and well in a world where menstruation and menopause are still seen by many people as credible reasons why women shouldn’t hold positions of political power. When clinical research exempts women from studies and trials on the grounds that female hormones fluctuate too much and upset the consistency of results, medical culture is reinforcing the centuries-old myth that women are too biologically erratic to be useful or valuable.

Since the 1960s, feminist health campaigners have fought tirelessly against the suppression of drugs’ side effects and systemic gender and racial bias in clinical research, from both inside and outside the medical establishment. Women forced changes in law and practice by campaigning from the ground up. Their efforts, ultimately, have made medications, including the contraceptive pill and hormone replacement therapy, safer for all women. And medical feminism has a long, fascinating, and inspiring history of women raising their heads above the parapet to ensure that women are represented, cared for and listened to. Feminist social reformers denounced medicine’s perpetuation of women’s “natural” inferiority in the 18th century. Grassroots activists in the 1970s empowered women to reclaim the ownership and enjoyment of their bodies from man-made medical mystification, and created knowledge for women, by women. In the decades and centuries in between, feminist physicians, socialists, researchers and reformers have defended women’s body rights and freedoms—from normalizing menstruation and celebrating sexual pleasure to legalizing contraception and defending reproductive autonomy.

Medicine is working to revolutionize its practice and protocols, but there is a long legacy to quash when it comes to women’s bodies and minds. I know from experience that this legacy continues to stymie effective and timely care, diagnosis, and treatment. It is well past time for medicine’s checkered past to give way to a future where the fabric of women’s experience is recognized and respected in its entirety.

I believe that the only way to move forward, to change the culture of myth and misdiagnosis that obscures medicine’s understanding of unwell women, is to learn from our history. In the man-made world, women’s bodies and minds have been the primary battleground of gender oppression. To dismantle this painful legacy in medical knowledge and practice, we must first understand where we are and how we got here. No unwell woman should be reduced to a file of notes, a set of clinical observations, a case study lurking in an archive. Medicine must listen to and believe our testimonies about our own bodies and ultimately turn its energies, time, and money toward finally solving our medical mysteries. The answers reside in our bodies, and in the histories our bodies have always been writing.

Dutton

Adapted from Unwell Women by Elinor Cleghorn. Copyright 2021 by Elinor Cleghorn. Published by arrangement with Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group/Random House/The Knopf Doubleday Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Vijayalakshmi Appareddy, M.D. Reappointed To AMA-COL

Staff ReporterProfile, Women 0

Dr. Appareddy was recently reappointed to the Council on Legislation (COL), of the American Medical Association (AMA).  The COL reviews proposed federal legislation and recommends appropriate action in accordance with AMA policy. It also develops model state legislation, recommends changes in existing AMA policy when necessary to accomplish effective legislative goals, and recommends to the Board of Trustees new federal legislation and legislation to modify existing laws of interest to the AMA.

The COL meets during the Annual & Interim meeting of the AMA, during the Sate advocacy conference, twice at Washington DC including the National advocacy conference.  The COL works closely with the AMA legislative staff at Washington DC.  During these unprecedented times the COL has been very involved in advising the AMA Board of Trustees in advocating for Physicians and Patients; with CMS, HHS, Congress and the White House.

Dr. Appareddy served AAPI as the Chairperson of the Board of Trustees from 2002-2003.  She was appointed by President Trump and President Bush to serve on the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities (PCPID).

Her continuum of service to the medical profession has spanned over three decades.  She has been a Delegate/Delegate (A) to the AMA since 2007.  Delegate to the Tennessee Medical Association (TMA).  She is the past Chairperson of the AMA-IMG Governing Council. She represented AMA at the Commission to end Health Care Disparities. She is the recipient of several awards including the AMA Foundation leadership award.

Sarala Vidya Nagala Nominated By President Biden To Be A Federal Judge

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Sarala Vidya Nagala of South Asian origin has been nominated by President Joe Biden to serve on the District Court for the District of Connecticut. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, she would be the first judge of South Asian descent, nominated by President Biden. The White House announced last week that President Joe Biden has made a slate of judicial nominees June 15, 2021. She was chosen for this nomination being an “extraordinarily qualified, experienced, and devoted to the rule of law and US Constitution,” the White House said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Indian-American civil rights attorney Sarala VidyaNagala, who is working as a federal prosecutor in New Haven, Connecticut, has been nominated by US President Joe Biden as a federal judge in the state. She brings 13-year-long experience to the table. The appointment, if comes through, will make her the first judge of South Asian descent to serve on the federal bench in the state, media reports suggest. Besides her, Biden has also announced the names of four more judicial nominees on June 15.

The new nomination of VidyaNagala and others, according to the White House, is a continuation to fulfill President Biden’s “promise to ensure that the nation’s courts reflect the diversity that is one of the greatest assets as a country — both in terms of personal and professional backgrounds,” a statement said.

Indian-American VidyaNagala will receive a wide opportunity to use the leadership qualities that she has developed in many roles during her tenure at the US Attorney’s Office. She joined the US Attorney’s Office as an assistant attorney in 2012 and has been serving the state for over nine years now. In 2016, she took over the position of deputy chief. In her leadership role in the office, for the past four years, VidyaNagala has provided extensive results in a number of projects, including as Hate Crimes Coordinator, the White House announcement revealed. She had previously overseen the programs at Munger, Tolles, & Olson in San Francisco, California as an associate. She worked there between 2009 to 2012.

Nagala joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 2012, and has served in a number of leadership roles in the office, including as Hate Crimes Coordinator, the White House announcement noted. Previously, she was an associate at Munger, Tolles, & Olson in San Francisco, California from 2009 to 2012. She began her legal career as a law clerk for Judge Susan Graber on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2008 to 2009. Nagala received her J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law in 2008 and her B.A. from Stanford University in 2005.

After Being Rejected By Vatican, Indian Nun Seeks Solace From Indian Civil Court

Staff ReporterReligion, Women 0

A Catholic nun who has exhausted all avenues of appeal against her dismissal from her congregation stemming from her activism in a rape case involving a Catholic bishop says she will not leave her convent until an Indian court decides on her petition.The Vatican’s supreme tribunal has rejected the appeal of Indian nun Lucy Kalappura against dismissal, leaving her with no other option than to move out of her congregation. Kalappura, however, has told the media on June 14 that she will continue to live in her convent until an Indian court settles the case about her right to housing. The nun has challenged her congregation’s order to move out of her convent, where she lived for more than three decades.

The Franciscan Clarist Congregation on June 13 ordered Sr. Lucy Kalappura to vacate the convent in Kakkamala in the Wayanad district of Kerala after the Vatican’s Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura categorically dismissed her revision petition against her dismissal.”My case will come up in the Indian court in June or July this year,” Kalappura told the media.The tussle began after Kalappura’s Franciscan Clarist Congregation based in southern India’s Kerala state dismissed her on Aug. 5, 2019, for alleged charges of disobedience and breaking religious vows.

The congregation, however, followed church laws to give her an opportunity to appeal to the Vatican and continue in the convent. The nun appealed against the congregation’s dismissal order before the Vatican’s Congregation for Oriental Churches, which rejected her appeal on Oct. 11, 2019.But she refused to move out of the convent and within a fortnight appealed to the Supreme Tribunal, the Vatican’s highest appeal court, against her dismissal. The appeal now stands rejected and the Vatican has confirmed her dismissal, said Sister Ann Joseph, the congregation’s superior general, in a June 12 letter.

Informing the congregation of the rejection of Kalappura’s second appeal, the nun said: “Let us raise our hearts praising the Almighty for his unspeakable gift.” But the nun is unfazed. “I will continue to live in the convent until the court settles my case,” she told the media on June 14. Kalappura currently lives in her congregation’s convent in Wayanad district in Mananthavady Diocese of Kerala.“I have already challenged my eviction from the convent and the case is still pending in the court,” she said. “I will not move out from the convent until the court pronounces its verdict.”

Earlier Kalappura said her convent began to act against her after she backed the public protests of five nuns in September 2018 seeking the arrest of Bishop Franco Mulakkal, who was accused of raping the former superior general of Missionaries of Jesus, a diocesan congregation under him.Bishop Mulakkal of Jalandhar was arrested on Sept. 21, 2018 year following fortnight-long public protests and faces court proceedings on rape charges. The congregation, however, claims that the nun’s case has no links with the bishop’s case.

For the past several years, the nun has been defiantly disobeying her superiors and the rules of the congregation, neglecting warnings and opportunities to correct herself, it said. The dismissal came after several written warnings, her superiors maintain, quoting documents in their support

Kamala Harris On Trip To Central America, Urges Illegal Immigrants, ‘Do not come to US’

Staff ReporterImmigration, Profile, Women 0

Harris warned Central Americans not to migrate to the US and said the administration will intensify efforts to combat corruption in the region, after meeting with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei. “Do not come. Do not come.”

Vice President Kamala Harris offered an optimistic outlook for improved cooperation with Guatemala during her first ever visit abroad since she assumed office as the Vice President of the United States. Harris warned Central Americans not to migrate to the US and said the administration will intensify efforts to combat corruption in the region, after meeting with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei. “Do not come. Do not come,” Harris said at a news conference in Guatemala City. “If you come to our border, you will be turned back.”

Speaking on her first overseas trip since taking office, she said the journey north was dangerous and would mainly benefit people smugglers.  Her comments, during a press conference after she met privately with Giammattei, underscored the challenge that remains even as Harris engages in substantive talks with the Guatemalan and Mexican presidents during a three-day visit to the region this week, her first foreign trip as vice president.“I want to emphasize that the goal of our work is to help Guatemalans find hope at home,” Harris said. “At the same time, I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come, do not come.”

In conjunction with Harris’ trip, the Biden administration announced that the Justice Department would create an anti-corruption task force and an additional task force to combat human trafficking and drug smuggling in the region. Harris also promised a new program focused on creating education and economic opportunities for girls there, among other new initiatives. And she told Giammattei that her goal in the region was to restore “hope” to residents so they no longer felt the need to flee their homeland for better opportunities in the U.S.

Harris’s trip is part of the Biden administration’s effort to address the so-called root causes of migration from Central America, after more than 200,000 attempts by migrants from the region to enter the US since the start of the year. President Joe Biden directed Harris to lead the effort to stem the surge in migration.Harris and Giammattei had a “very frank and very candid” conversation that included “the importance of anti-corruption and the importance of an independent judiciary,” she said. In April, the country’s legislature — controlled by Giammattei’s party — refused to seat an anti-corruption judge, Gloria Porras, a move criticized by US officials.

More than 178,000 migrants arrived at the border this April, the highest one-month total in more than two decades, according to US border officials. Of those migrants, more than 40% originated from the Central American region known as the Northern Triangle: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. A central issue contributing to the border crisis is the corruption of government officials in the region, who have been accused of aiding in drug and human trafficking. Many migrants leaving the Northern Triangle say they are fleeing violence, discrimination and poverty.

The steady “brain drain” of locals has exacerbated problems caused by decades of political instability. These countries have also stressed that they are feeling the most adverse effects of global warming – most notably hurricanes – despite hardly contributing to climate change.The new announcements follow $310 million in humanitarian aid for Central America that Harris unveiled in April. US and regional leaders must “give the people a sense of hope that help is on the way and to then follow through, understanding that hope does not exist by itself,” Harris said earlier as her meeting with Giammattei began. “It must be coupled with relationships and trust. It must be coupled with tangible outcomes, in terms of what we do as leaders to convince people that there is a reason to be hopeful about their future and the future of their children.”

Republicans have criticized Harris’s effort, repeatedly noting that she has yet to travel to the US border. She said in response that the reason she’s in Guatemala is “because this is one of our highest priorities,” adding that she wanted to talk about “what we can do in a way that is significant, is tangible. I will continue to be focused on that kind of work as opposed to grand gestures,” she said.The Biden administration’s migration strategy is not yet fully formed, and Harris’s advisers have framed her first overseas trip as a fact-finding mission to help develop the policy. The final strategy is not expected to be released until after Harris returns to the US

US officials have said the Biden administration’s plan will center on improving economic conditions in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador so their citizens have less reason to leave. That strategy has been tried before with mixed results; those countries remain among the poorest in the Western Hemisphere and racked by violence.Harris regards corruption as a main driver of migration since it affects all sectors from the economy to criminal justice. She has pledged to work with non-governmental organizations and companies to direct assistance. Later Monday, she plans to meet with civil society leaders and entrepreneurs before flying to Mexico.

”These are efforts that have not been tried in the past that we believe will be quite productive,” Harris said. The benefits of greater US financial aid may be used to soften the blow of tough messages Harris and other officials are expected to send about cracking down on corruption and upholding democratic principles. The US has already condemned the government of El Salvador for a recent purge of the judicial branch and views Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez warily since federal prosecutors implicated him in a drug trafficking ring involving his brother.

Harris has been tasked by President Joe Biden with controlling a surge in migration at the southern border. Harris has described her task as finding solutions to tackle the root causes of the border crisis, including corruption and the lack of economic opportunities. Her staff say this first visit is primarily an information-gathering trip.

Woman Sets New Fastest Climber Record ForMount Everest

Staff ReporterLifestyle, Women 0

“When you aim high, expect high,” Tsang Yin Hung, a former teacher from Hong Kong, told reporters in Nepal.It is a phrase she often repeated to her friends before recording the world’s fastest ascent of Mount Everest by a woman last Sunday.

Ms Tsang, 45, reached the top of the world’s highest mountain from base camp in 25 hours and 50 minutes. She is one of three climbers who have set new Everest records in recent days.That was fast enough to beat the previous record, set by a Nepalese climber in 2017, by more than 12 hours.

“I just feel a kind of relieved and happy because I am not looking for breaking record. I just [wanted to] challenge myself,” Ms Tsang told media in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu on Sunday, after safely returning from Everest.Last Sunday, Arthur Muir, 75, became the oldest American to climb the mountain, while 46-year old Zhang Hong of China became the first blind man from Asia to complete the feat on Monday.

The record-breakers are three of the hundreds of climbers who have summited the mountain so far this spring.They have done so despite a surge in coronavirus cases in Nepal and Everest base camp since mid-April.Nepal’s government reopened Mount Everest to foreigners in April after it was shut last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

‘I feel relieved’

Ms Tsang made a previous attempt on 11 May, but bad weather forced her to turn back. Determined to make it to the top, she returned a week later.She left base camp at 13:20 local time (07:35 GMT) on 22 May and reached the top at 15:10 the next day, a Nepalese government official said told AFP news agency. Usually climbers spend several days in different camps before reaching the peak.

Ms Tsang beat the 2017 record set by Nepali woman PhunjoJhangmu Lama, who climbed Everest in 39 hours and six minutes.Ms Tsang attributed the record to her ability, team work and luck. But for her, the record was an afterthought.”I always tell my working team, my friends, when you aim high, expect high,” Ms Tsang was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. “So I feel relieved because I can prove my work to my friends, to my students.”

‘A strong mind’ over matter

Mr Zhang reached the top of the 8,849m-tall (29,031ft) mountain a few days after Ms Tsang on 24 May.The Chinese mountaineer lost his sight at the age of 21 due to glaucoma, an eye condition where the optic nerve becomes damaged.Mr Zhang, who was born in south-western Chinese city of Chongqing, was escorted to the top by three guides.”No matter if you’re disabled or normal, whether you have lost your eyesight or you have no legs or hands, it doesn’t matter as long as you have a strong mind,” Mr Zhang told Reuters.

Ileana D’Cruz: You Just Want People To Like Watching You

Staff ReporterCinema, Entertainment, Women 0

Actress Ileana D’Cruz has had a great run down South and has also been doing her share of Bollywood films. She says everything comes down to people and, as an artiste, one just wants the audience to like watching you.Ileana made her debut in the Telugu film Devadasu, which became the year’s first major commercial success. She debuted in Tamil with “Kedi”. Telugu movie “Pokiri”, which was one of the highest money grosser, set her in top slot actresses. She appeared in many commercially successful movies like Jalsa, Kick etc. She made her debut in Bollywood with Anurag Basu’sBarfi! (2012) starring Ranbir Kapoor.

Popularity, she explains, is the one thing that balances the fact that the film industry can actually be a very cruel place to survive. “It (the film industry) is brutal, of course, but it comes down to people. If they (people) like you that is all you need. You just want people to like watching you,” she told IANS.Ileana feels the moment an actor is not appreciated they lose the mark. “It basically goes the same for me. I wouldn’t want to watch a film with an actor I don’t like watching. The minute you are not liked anymore you sort of lose the mark. The industry is brutal in a sense, but it has got so many perks as well,” she says.

Acting is a profession that comes with its pros and cons, the actress notes, in this context. “You cannot have all the good things only, there is always a little bit of con. I think that makes it interesting. It makes you work harder. It makes you strive to keep doing better,” she sums up.Ileana will next be seen in “Unfair N Lovely”, a comic take on India’s obsession with fair skin. The film is set against the backdrop of Haryana and casts her opposite RandeepHooda. (IANS)

Dr. Manju Sheth’s Candid Conversation With Panera Bread CEO, Niren Chaudhary

Staff ReporterBusiness, Profile, Women 0

With an impressive track record of establishing brands and leading companies around the world, Niren Chaudhary leads Panera Bread as CEO with passion since May 2019. In an exclusive interview With Dr. ManjuSheth, Mr. Chaudhary talks about his personal life story, inspiration, interests, how Panera leads food industry during the pandemic, and on ways to make global brands succeed in India.Watch The Interview Online at: https://youtu.be/8CEPgSpKzRE

Niren Chaudhary believes in leading with compassion and channeling pain into purpose. His philosophy to live each day to its fullest is inspired by his daughter Aisha who lived each day of her life fully and with gratitude till she passed away in 2015 at the age of 18.

Her life has been made into a powerful movie called ‘Sky is Pink’ with Priyanka Chopra Jonas , Farhan Akhtar and ZairaWasim playing lead roles. The movie is now streaming on Netflix. It was inspiring to share Niren’s journey on Chai with Manju. His input in the food and hospitality industry were very insightful including leading Panera profitably in tough Covid times. His advice to those looking to invest in India is worth a watch. His emotional appeal to donate bone marrow to save lives is important as Indian lag behind and his daughter’s life would have been saved with a timely bone marrow donation I loved his three step recipe to make dreams come true and to live life fully describing life as an unfinished painting.

When it comes to food retail industry, Panera CEO Niren Chaudhary has established himself as an undisputed leader of corporate leadership on a global scale. Mr. Chaudhary joined Panera from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc., where he served as Chief Operating Officer and President of the International Division. Prior to that, he spent 23 years at Yum! Brands in a number of positions, including serving as President of Yum! India, and most recently in the role of President of KFC Global, where he was responsible for 5,000 stores in 50 countries with $5 billion in revenue.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from St. Stephen’s College in Delhi, an MBA in marketing from the University of Delhi, and also completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.One of the best parts of the interview with Dr. Manju Shethwas to watch him sing. Music plays a huge role in his life. Indeed, he is a rockstar CEO.

A physician by profession, having a passion for media and commitment to serve the larger humanity, with special focus on women’s empowerment, Dr. Manju Sheth is a Board Certified Internist, currently serving patients at Beth Israel Lahey Hospital.in the Boston Region in Massachusetts. Dr. Sheth is the co-founder and CEO of INE MultiMedia, a non-profit organization devoted to promoting and supporting charitable organizations, art, culture, education and empowerment through workshops, seminars and multimedia. Dr. Sheth is known to be a natural storyteller her popular “Chai with Manju” celebrity series is one of the most read news features in the New England region, where she featured celebrities and spiritual leaders such as Sadhguru, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the Kennedys and the like.Watch the live Interview Dr. Manju Sheth had with https://youtu.be/8CEPgSpKzRE

How My Family Dynamics Gave Me a New Path

Staff ReporterCommunity, Profile, Women 0

“My son was attached to my stepmother and my daughter enjoyed the attention from my mother. This camaraderie, unity and selfless teamwork was and is uncommon amongst divorced couples: Eshani ShahShares Her Fascinating Journey Growing Up in The Taarak Mehta Family

Today’s woman dreamer, Eshani Shah, the daughter of Taarak Mehta, one of India’s most famous writers, fondly known for the famous show, Taarak Mehta KaOoltahChashmah, shares her incredible journey growing up in this creative, artistic celebrity family, and how being immensely loved and nurtured by both her mothers (birth-mother and step-mother) helped her grow into the woman she is today.

Eshani, a very talented artist, shares how effective co-parenting changed her life in this heartwarming story. An inspiring story for all generations on the power of great parenting and putting children first! Enjoy her story below!

A healthy relationship between separated parents leaves a very positive impact. Honest, straightforward co-parenting is the best way to raise a content child. They should never have to make choices of time and lifestyle between parents. For an only child this can become challenging but my family dynamics made a profound impact on who I am today.

My childhood was mostly normal with one main exception: Since both my parents did theater, I spent a lot of evenings alone at home with domestic help or at the rehearsals with one of them. The weekends again would be spent backstage or dozing in the auditorium. Living in an apartment complex eventually introduced me to lots of friends, whose houses became another good option for weekends. When they toured for plays, I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents. While I didn’t see my parents often, being surrounded by people 24/7 definitely gave me a supportive environment to grow up in. Although I grew up in a vibrant theater background, the theater bug did not really bite till much later in life after I met my Husband Chandu Shah, who is also from a similar background.

My parent’s marriage was a love marriage which always comes with higher expectations. You have already put your partner on a pedestal and believe that they are your soulmate or your dream partner. When these presumptions start shattering, it becomes difficult to save a relationship. Giving time to each other, shouldering responsibilities equally or respecting each other’s ambitions are some of the key elements of a happy marriage; when these somehow started diminishing from their marriage, they mutually decided to part ways.

I was 11 and a bit young to understand what was going on, but a decision was made to put me in boarding school. I went to a boarding school in Panchgani, the most memorable time of my life. My parents used to visit but never came together. I was 13 when they officially divorced. I was a very mature child at 13 so they did not fight for custody but gave me a choice of who I would stay with. I chose to stay with my dad primarily because it was an environment I grew up in. My mom eventually remarried. I came back to Mumbai when I was 16. after graduating high school. Whenever I visited during vacations, both my parents always presented a unified front spending some quality time together with me. Even my step father joined at times. My transitions spending time with both my parents were peaceful. The time at boarding school helped to build my high-spirited personality, which has helped me all my life.

I have seen my mom struggle in the initial years of marriage trying to balance work and personal life. She was fiercely independent and worked very hard to fulfill her dreams. Divorce in the 70s was very uncommon and most of my maternal family, including my grandmother, broke ties with her. She was heartbroken, but with her resilience, continued her journey of theater. By then, she had taken a job with a bank and was multitasking. She never let her personal struggles influence me. My step father passed away when I was 19 and it was devastating. As now she was alone all over again, I started staying with her. In all those years, what I learnt from her is to be independent. She taught me that emotional dependency and financial dependency can lead to disappointments. This holds true for partners, friends, family and children. She had excellent taste in clothes and jewelry and was always very presentable. She was a good singer, dancer and an artist and always the life of a party. I think I have inherited most of her traits.

After I came to Mumbai, I stayed with my father but he was as busy as I had seen him growing up. I was then going to college and busy with my life. It was around then that my step mother Induben used to visit. Dad first introduced her as a friend. But whenever she visited, she cooked for us and did errands for my dad. That’s when I told my father that if he feels that she is the right life partner for him, I am with him. That’s when they got married and my step mother became a bigger part of my life. I did not need much parenting at that point, so she became more of a friend… She was very lovable and took such good care of my dad. Her struggles were similar to my moms, due to my fathers lifestyle, but she took it in her stride. She gave up her ambitions and became a homemaker. Starting the 1980s, my father had become a household name with his column “ Duniya ne UndhaChasma “ in a Gujarati magazine Chitralekha and my step mother was his PR. With all his popularity, he was shy and a bit of an introvert, but my step mother responded to his fans and made them feel special. Her reverence for my father is what kept her going. When I got married, both my mothers did my “Kanyadan” (gave me away). They were a team from the start. I came to the USA in 1984 and my relationship with both my moms became long distance – despite this, they were unified looking after my needs. Whenever either visited, there would be goodies from both of them.

This tradition continued after my twins were born. It looked like God had created a miracle so they each had a bundle of joy they could pamper. My son was attached to my stepmother and my daughter enjoyed the attention from my mother. This camaraderie, unity and selfless teamwork was and is uncommon amongst divorced couples. As for me, because I did not have to make any difficult choices and there was so much harmony in the relationship with both of them , I did not grow up with any emotional baggage.

My stepmother and my father even after achieving celebrity status was not abashed about his divorce and supported/ took care of my mother through thick and thin till her last days. Their solidarity gave me a lot of peace of mind. These days, divorces are common and custody cases can get nasty, creating a negative impact on the child. Fighting parents is not an uncommon sight for children and if things just don’t work out then I think a seamless separation and giving the child a guilt free upbringing is the key. I was blessed that I did not have to choose and balance my affections, so in turn they were never competing for my attention.

I have fulfilled most of my dreams and now just want to support my children and whatever they do and live their dreams. I want to travel. I love planning events but with this pandemic the dynamics have changed so hoping to find a new avenue…I want to thank the Women Who Win team for inviting me to share my personal journey that I am blessed with. First by love of 2 mothers and now love of twins….

(Eshani Shah is an accomplished entrepreneur, award winning actor, event planner and a community leader combined with experience in two very distinct fields, Entertainment and National Security. Eshani’s leadership contribution includes organizing various theatrical as well as cultural events in the New England Area and helped non-profit organizations to raise funds for educational, cultural and religious purposes. She has volunteered her services and skills to many local Boston and National organizations. As a part of the executive team at S4, Eshani helped S4, Inc. growth over 700% in last 10 years which has been in top five growing companies of Boston Business Journal Pacesetter and fastest growing small business as rated by Inc 500. Being an award winning actress dancer herself she is also the owner of a very successful Entertainment/Event management company called Dhoom Entertainment which arranges programs all over USA.)

Founded in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, Women Who Win was born with the belief that every woman has a dream and a story to tell.  Created by three South-Asian women based in Boston, Dr. Manju Sheth, Dr. Deepa Jhaveri, and ShaleenSheth, Women Who Win is the platform that brings women of all cultures, industries, and age groups together. Their global network of contributors share inspiring, relatable, and relevant original stories, educating and empowering the everyday woman dreamer.  Through education, empowerment, and a global community, they equip women with the tools and motivation to make their dreams a reality.  Their platform covers all topics from women’s health, women in the workplace, women in tech, arts & lifestyle, wellness & workouts, and global recipes. With a global network of women in over 80 countries, their members learn from and inspire each other in their personal and professional careers, they invite you to join their leading women’s community here.

 

For more details on Women Who Win, and other brave and pioneering women featured,  please visit: https://www.womenwhowin100.com/blog/how-my-family-dynamics-gave-me-a-new-path-eshani-shah-taarak-mehta

Share Your Dreams with Us By Joining Our Empowered Women’s Facebook Group ; Follow our Facebook Page; Connect on LinkedIn; Follow Us on Instagram; Explore our Website at: https://www.womenwhowin100.com

Sonal Shah-Led Asian American Foundation Raises $1 Billion to Fight Anti-Asian Hate

Staff ReporterBusiness, Community, Women 0

Today’s historic announcement should send a clear signal to the 23 million AAPIs living in this country that TAAF and our AAPI Giving Challenge partners are here to upend the status quo in favor of a better, brighter future for AAPI communities.

Asian American Foundation, led by an Indian American, Sonal Shah along with prominent Asian American business leaders, launched less than a month ago, has raised more than $1 billion to support Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) announced of the historic and impressive fund raising success story, after President Joe Biden signed legislation aimed at curtailing the rise in hate crimes against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in the United States.

“TAFF was founded to close critical gaps of support for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and end the longstanding underinvestment in our communities,” said Shah, who previously served as a deputy assistant to former President Barack Obama. “Today’s historic announcement should send a clear signal to the 23 million AAPIs living in this country that TAAF and our AAPI Giving Challenge partners are here to upend the status quo in favor of a better, brighter future for AAPI communities.”

Sonal Shah, the foundation’s president, and TAAF board members were at the White House, where they briefed administration officials, including domestic policy adviser Susan Rice. They discussed how the foundation plans to spend the $1.1 billion in donations to fight back against hate crimes directed at these communities, according to a statement from the foundation. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris dropped by the meeting to express their support, the foundation said.

The foundation had previously announced that it had raised $300 million from its board members and other donors. More donors have since pledged contributions to its “AAPI Giving Challenge,” an initiative to bring additional funding to Asian American and Pacific Islander organizations that have traditionally been neglected in philanthropy.

The Asian American Foundation has said its giving will focus on supporting organizations and leaders measuring and challenging violence against Asian American and Pacific Islanders; developing a common data standard that tracks violence and hate incidents; and helping create K-12 and college curriculums that “reflect the history of Asian American and Pacific Islanders as part of the American story.”

Members of the foundation’s advisory council, including CNN host Lisa Ling and actor Daniel Dae Kim, virtually joined the White House meeting alongside representatives from donors, including Mastercard and the MacArthur Foundation.Separately, TAFF is producing a TV special designed to expand support for Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. The program, called “See Us Unite for Change — The Asian American Foundation in service of the AAPI Community,” aired May 21 on multiple channels, including MTV, BET, VH1 and Comedy Central.

Sonal Shah is a Professor at Georgetown University, and was the Founding Executive Director of the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation (2014-20).Sonal served as Deputy Assistant to the President for President Obama and founded the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. She has extensive experience in the public sector including as an international economist at the Department of Treasury, setting set up the central bank in Bosnia, working post conflict reconstruction in Kosovo, and implementing poverty reduction strategies in Africa and financial crises in Asia and Latin America.

She has extensive private sector experience. At Google, Sonal led technology initiative for civic voice and investing for impact as the head of Global Development Initiatives. At Goldman Sachs, she developed the environmental strategy and ran the initiatives, including investing clean technologies at Goldman Sachs.One of Sonal’s most proud accomplishments is working with her siblings to create a non-profit, Indicorps, to build a new generation of socially conscious global leaders. Indicorps created the service movement in India inspiring and incubating new social enterprises like Teach for India and Sarvajal.

Sonal serves on the boards of Oxfam America, the UBS Optimus Foundation, the Case Foundation Non Profit Finance Fund, Voto Latino, and The Century Foundation. She also serves as an adviser to the Democracy Fund and is coordinating the Initiative on Tech & Society at Georgetown University.

Is There A Link Between Nutrition And Skin Ageing?

Geetika MittalLifestyle, Women 0

There is a whole gamut of skincare products available right now online and in stores that might give our skin the glow, shine, anti-ageing, smoothness that we all crave. But, what happens when we stop using these products? Many of us have an endless list of skin concerns like pigmentation, others about dryness or oiliness, or pimples, or allergies. However, as you grow older, one of the best ways to take care of your skin is to focus on what you eat, rather than what you apply.

Many of us face challenges in deciding what to eat to keep our skin young and healthy, defining a healthy diet, and understanding the role of diet in ageing. Currently, the buzzing topic is finding ways to maintain healthy skin and delay skin aging.

According to a study, there is a close association between sugar and some food processing methods (such as grilling, frying, baking, etc) with skin ageing, and their mechanisms are related to skin advanced glycation end products. Skin health is closely linked to nutrition, which is required for all biological processes in the skin, from youth to ageing or disease. Nutritional deficiencies and eating habits can both repair and cause damage to the skin.

There are several simple things we don’t follow regularly that can cause skin ageing: Not drinking enough water, deficiency of vitamin, proteins, trace elements like zinc, copper, iron, iodine, etc.

Water deficiency in the body can lead to tissue dehydration and functional issues (such as ageing and inflammation). Skin is no exception, and the state of moisture in the body is reflected in the appearance of the skin on the lips and limbs. It is advisable to at least drink more than two litres of water every day.

Almonds are a source of 15 nutrients such as vitamin E, magnesium, protein, copper, zinc, iodine, etc. A new research suggests that there may be more than one reason to add almonds to your daily skin care routine. The study found that eating almonds daily in place of typical calorie-matched snacks improved measures of both wrinkle severity and skin pigmentation in postmenopausal women. Almonds are known to be a rich source of antioxidant vitamin E and deliver essential fatty acids and polyphenols, which make them a great addition to one’s daily diet for improved skin health.

Lack of Vitamin C can also cause skin disorders. They are available in abundance in oranges, lemons, strawberries and guavas.

All of the body’s tissue cells are constantly renewed, and only a sufficient protein intake can keep normal tissue renewal and repair going. The skin is no exception, with a 28-day skin renewal cycle being the norm. Apart from almonds that are rich in protein, you could also consume other protein-rich foods such as yoghurt (dahi), lentils and oats for healthier skin. (IANS)

How My Family Dynamics Gave Me a New Path

Staff ReporterCommunity, Profile, Women 0

“My son was attached to my stepmother and my daughter enjoyed the attention from my mother. This camaraderie, unity and selfless teamwork was and is uncommon amongst divorced couples: Eshani ShahShares Her Fascinating Journey Growing Up in The Taarak Mehta Family

Today’s woman dreamer, Eshani Shah, the daughter of Taarak Mehta, one of India’s most famous writers, fondly known for the famous show, Taarak Mehta KaOoltahChashmah, shares her incredible journey growing up in this creative, artistic celebrity family, and how being immensely loved and nurtured by both her mothers (birth-mother and step-mother) helped her grow into the woman she is today.

Eshani, a very talented artist, shares how effective co-parenting changed her life in this heartwarming story. An inspiring story for all generations on the power of great parenting and putting children first! Enjoy her story below!

A healthy relationship between separated parents leaves a very positive impact. Honest, straightforward co-parenting is the best way to raise a content child. They should never have to make choices of time and lifestyle between parents. For an only child this can become challenging but my family dynamics made a profound impact on who I am today.

My childhood was mostly normal with one main exception: Since both my parents did theater, I spent a lot of evenings alone at home with domestic help or at the rehearsals with one of them. The weekends again would be spent backstage or dozing in the auditorium. Living in an apartment complex eventually introduced me to lots of friends, whose houses became another good option for weekends. When they toured for plays, I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents. While I didn’t see my parents often, being surrounded by people 24/7 definitely gave me a supportive environment to grow up in. Although I grew up in a vibrant theater background, the theater bug did not really bite till much later in life after I met my Husband Chandu Shah, who is also from a similar background.

My parent’s marriage was a love marriage which always comes with higher expectations. You have already put your partner on a pedestal and believe that they are your soulmate or your dream partner. When these presumptions start shattering, it becomes difficult to save a relationship. Giving time to each other, shouldering responsibilities equally or respecting each other’s ambitions are some of the key elements of a happy marriage; when these somehow started diminishing from their marriage, they mutually decided to part ways.

I was 11 and a bit young to understand what was going on, but a decision was made to put me in boarding school. I went to a boarding school in Panchgani, the most memorable time of my life. My parents used to visit but never came together. I was 13 when they officially divorced. I was a very mature child at 13 so they did not fight for custody but gave me a choice of who I would stay with. I chose to stay with my dad primarily because it was an environment I grew up in. My mom eventually remarried. I came back to Mumbai when I was 16. after graduating high school. Whenever I visited during vacations, both my parents always presented a unified front spending some quality time together with me. Even my step father joined at times. My transitions spending time with both my parents were peaceful. The time at boarding school helped to build my high-spirited personality, which has helped me all my life.

I have seen my mom struggle in the initial years of marriage trying to balance work and personal life. She was fiercely independent and worked very hard to fulfill her dreams. Divorce in the 70s was very uncommon and most of my maternal family, including my grandmother, broke ties with her. She was heartbroken, but with her resilience, continued her journey of theater. By then, she had taken a job with a bank and was multitasking. She never let her personal struggles influence me. My step father passed away when I was 19 and it was devastating. As now she was alone all over again, I started staying with her. In all those years, what I learnt from her is to be independent. She taught me that emotional dependency and financial dependency can lead to disappointments. This holds true for partners, friends, family and children. She had excellent taste in clothes and jewelry and was always very presentable. She was a good singer, dancer and an artist and always the life of a party. I think I have inherited most of her traits.

After I came to Mumbai, I stayed with my father but he was as busy as I had seen him growing up. I was then going to college and busy with my life. It was around then that my step mother Induben used to visit. Dad first introduced her as a friend. But whenever she visited, she cooked for us and did errands for my dad. That’s when I told my father that if he feels that she is the right life partner for him, I am with him. That’s when they got married and my step mother became a bigger part of my life. I did not need much parenting at that point, so she became more of a friend… She was very lovable and took such good care of my dad. Her struggles were similar to my moms, due to my fathers lifestyle, but she took it in her stride. She gave up her ambitions and became a homemaker. Starting the 1980s, my father had become a household name with his column “ Duniya ne UndhaChasma “ in a Gujarati magazine Chitralekha and my step mother was his PR. With all his popularity, he was shy and a bit of an introvert, but my step mother responded to his fans and made them feel special. Her reverence for my father is what kept her going. When I got married, both my mothers did my “Kanyadan” (gave me away). They were a team from the start. I came to the USA in 1984 and my relationship with both my moms became long distance – despite this, they were unified looking after my needs. Whenever either visited, there would be goodies from both of them.

This tradition continued after my twins were born. It looked like God had created a miracle so they each had a bundle of joy they could pamper. My son was attached to my stepmother and my daughter enjoyed the attention from my mother. This camaraderie, unity and selfless teamwork was and is uncommon amongst divorced couples. As for me, because I did not have to make any difficult choices and there was so much harmony in the relationship with both of them , I did not grow up with any emotional baggage.

My stepmother and my father even after achieving celebrity status was not abashed about his divorce and supported/ took care of my mother through thick and thin till her last days. Their solidarity gave me a lot of peace of mind. These days, divorces are common and custody cases can get nasty, creating a negative impact on the child. Fighting parents is not an uncommon sight for children and if things just don’t work out then I think a seamless separation and giving the child a guilt free upbringing is the key. I was blessed that I did not have to choose and balance my affections, so in turn they were never competing for my attention.

I have fulfilled most of my dreams and now just want to support my children and whatever they do and live their dreams. I want to travel. I love planning events but with this pandemic the dynamics have changed so hoping to find a new avenue…I want to thank the Women Who Win team for inviting me to share my personal journey that I am blessed with. First by love of 2 mothers and now love of twins….

(Eshani Shah is an accomplished entrepreneur, award winning actor, event planner and a community leader combined with experience in two very distinct fields, Entertainment and National Security. Eshani’s leadership contribution includes organizing various theatrical as well as cultural events in the New England Area and helped non-profit organizations to raise funds for educational, cultural and religious purposes. She has volunteered her services and skills to many local Boston and National organizations. As a part of the executive team at S4, Eshani helped S4, Inc. growth over 700% in last 10 years which has been in top five growing companies of Boston Business Journal Pacesetter and fastest growing small business as rated by Inc 500. Being an award winning actress dancer herself she is also the owner of a very successful Entertainment/Event management company called Dhoom Entertainment which arranges programs all over USA.)

Founded in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic, Women Who Win was born with the belief that every woman has a dream and a story to tell.  Created by three South-Asian women based in Boston, Dr. Manju Sheth, Dr. Deepa Jhaveri, and ShaleenSheth, Women Who Win is the platform that brings women of all cultures, industries, and age groups together. Their global network of contributors share inspiring, relatable, and relevant original stories, educating and empowering the everyday woman dreamer.  Through education, empowerment, and a global community, they equip women with the tools and motivation to make their dreams a reality.  Their platform covers all topics from women’s health, women in the workplace, women in tech, arts & lifestyle, wellness & workouts, and global recipes. With a global network of women in over 80 countries, their members learn from and inspire each other in their personal and professional careers, they invite you to join their leading women’s community here.

 

For more details on Women Who Win, and other brave and pioneering women featured,  please visit: https://www.womenwhowin100.com/blog/how-my-family-dynamics-gave-me-a-new-path-eshani-shah-taarak-mehta

Share Your Dreams with Us By Joining Our Empowered Women’s Facebook Group ; Follow our Facebook Page; Connect on LinkedIn; Follow Us on Instagram; Explore our Website at: https://www.womenwhowin100.com

Neera Tanden Appointed As Senior Adviser To President Biden

Staff ReporterProfile, Women 0

President Joe Biden’s lone Cabinet choice who was rebuffed by Congress has landed a job as a White House senior adviser, Associated Press reported. Neera Tanden had been Biden’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget but withdrew her nomination in March after it was clear that she would not garner enough Republican support to be confirmed. Several GOP senators objected to her previous tweeted criticisms of her political rivals.

Tanden will now be a senior advisor to Biden, the White House said May 14. She will launch a review of the US Digital Service and begin planning for possible policy changes that could result from the forthcoming Supreme Court decision on GOP legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act. Tanden worked in former President Barack Obama’s administration as the act was designed and implemented.

Tanden, a close ally of White House chief of staff Ron Klain, will depart the think tank Center for American Progress. Its founder, John Podesta, said that “Neera’s intellect, tenacity, and political savvy will be an asset to the Biden administration.”Podesta added, “While we will be sorry to lose her considerable policy expertise and leadership at the Center for American Progress—an organization which we founded together in 2003—I am exceptionally thrilled to see her step into a new position serving this White House and the American people.” He further said that many of the policy solutions under the Biden administration were developed and led by Tanden at CAP over many years.

“The administration’s efforts will be magnified with Neera Tanden on the team, and I am excited to see what she will achieve in the role of senior adviser and in the years to come,” he added. Tanden serves as president and CEO of CAP and has served as the CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

A loyal Democrat with decades of senior policy-making experience, Tanden was a close ally of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and served as a senior adviser to President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services, where she helped draft the Affordable Care Act. She most recently served as president of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-leaning think tank with deep ties to Democratic policy-makers.

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Tanden was raised by a single mother who relied on government assistance programs before attending the University of California at Los Angeles and Yale University’s law school.“After my parents were divorced when I was young, my mother relied on public food and housing programs to get by,” Tanden tweeted Monday. “Now, I’m being nominated to help ensure those programs are secure, and ensure families like mine can live with dignity. I am beyond honored.”

Tanden held prominent policy positions in the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and her resume played a role in her selection to lead the OMB. She has denied playing a role in Clinton’s welfare policy, which many Democrats now view as a mistake. At the Center for American Progress, Tanden also helped push the party left on budget and spending issues, though she initially expressed openness to cutting Social Security and Medicare along with many other Washington liberals at the time.

A Yale law graduate, Tanden had earlier worked for former President Bill Clinton’s campaign and went on to work at the White House as an associate director for domestic policy and as an adviser to Hillary Clinton. When Hillary Clinton ran successfully for senator, Tanden was her deputy campaign manager and became her legislative director after her election.

On Madhuri Dixit’s 54th Birthday Bollywood Lauds Her Contributions To Cinema

Staff ReporterCinema, Women 0

Bollywood star Madhuri Dixit Nene celebrated her 54th birthday on Saturday, May 15thand the entire Bollywood world took to social media to wish her on her special day.Among the first to wish was veteran actor Anil Kapoor, Madhuri’s co-star in numerous hits including “Tezaab” (1988), “Ram Lakhan” (1989), “Parinda” (1989), “KishenKanhaiya” (1990), “Beta” (1992), Pukar (2000) and “Total Dhamaal” (2019).

“Happy Birthday, @MADHURIDIXITNENE! As actors I feel all of us are the happiest on the sets, especially if you are working with friends… so I’m looking forward to being on set with you again! Wishing you all the health and happiness always!!” wrote Anil.

Actress-politician Urmila Matondkar described Madhuri as “graceful” and “gorgeous” while wishing her.“Wishing a very Happy Birthday to the most gracious, graceful n gorgeous @MadhuriDixitji..lots of love n best wishes always,” wrote Urmila.Actress RaveenaTandon wrote: “Happy Birthday Beautiful! @MadhuriDixitloadsa love and happiness!”Actor Abhishek Bachchan tweeted: “@MadhuriDixit wishing you a very happy, healthy and safe birthday. Lots of love and respect.”

Actor Riteish Deshmukh, who shared screen space with Madhuri in “Total Dhamaal”, says working with her was “a dream come true”.“Happy Birthday to the most beautiful @MadhuriDixit mam. Working with you was my absolute dream come true… I wish you happiness, love, best of health and may god fulfil your wish to work with me (again) real soon. Have a great great day,” wrote Riteish.Riteish’s wife, actress Genelia, tweeted: “Happy Birthday @MadhuriDixitji.. Wishing you the best of health and warmest regards.”Actress EnaSaha tweeted: “Wishing you a very happy birthday maam! Big time inspiration.”

Actress Sonali Kulkarni tweeted: “Happy Birthday dear dear @MadhuriDixit. You prove that passion, talent and genuine beauty is absolutely timeless. 365 days of added awe and truck loads of love..best wishes.”Actress PallaviiShirke tweeted: “Wishing the charming and timeless beauty @MadhuriDixit ma’am a very Happy Birthday! May you always be blessed with good health &happiness. #HappyBirthdayMadhuriDixit”

Husband Shriram Nene posted a special message for his star wife Madhuri Dixit Nene birthday on Saturday, along with a throwback picture.“Happy Birthday to my soulmate, Madhuri Dixit Nene. Life has been an amazing journey for us together and I look forward to the road ahead. Much love and many happy returns of the day,” he wrote on his verified Instagram page, drneneofficial, and tagged it with #HappyBirthdayMadhuriDixit and #DrNene.The throwback image he posted with the note was a photo of the couple clicked on October 16, 1999. The couple got married a day later, on October 17 that year.Madhuri and Shriram Nene have two sons, Arin and Ryan.

After Ouster, Liz Cheney Says She Will “Lead The Fight”

Staff ReporterNation USA, Women 0

Republican Party leader Liz Cheney says she will “lead the fight” for a Republican party based on conservatism after being removed from the party’s leadership. Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney remained defiant after being ousted from her post as the No 3 House Republican on Wednesday for her criticism of Donald Trump.

She said America needed a Republican party “based upon fundamental principles of conservatism” and vowed: “I plan to lead the fight to do that.” Her removal was widely expected after she refused to stop blaming the former president for inciting the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

Before the vote, seen as a bellwether for the future of the Republican party, she addressed the caucus and was even booed by some of her colleagues. “If you want leaders who will enable and spread his destructive lies, I’m not your person,” she said.The battle to unseat Republican congresswoman Elizabeth Cheney from her leadership position in the party was a dispute that went far beyond simple jockeying for power by politicians.

It was widely seen as a litmus test for the direction of the Republican party as it grapples with the enduring power of Donald Trump, the former president who remains hugely popular with its base and thus a force to be reckoned with by party leaders.Cheney had emerged as a vocal critic of Trump, especially since the attack on the Capitol on 6 January by Trump supporters. But her price for her outspokenness was being ousted from party leadership – and may still cost her her congressional seat to a Republican challenger.

Who is Liz Cheney?

Cheney is a congresswoman from Wyoming and a staunch conservative who is also the daughter of the former vice-president Dick Cheney – a man who previously occupied the position of “liberal hate figure” before Trump appeared. She is also one of the most senior women in a party with few in top positions.

Why did the party oust her?

Cheney has angered Trump, and by extension his base and other Trump-supporting politicians, by slamming the former president for the attack on the Capitol on 6 January. She also been critical of Trump’s propagating of false claims that the 2020 election that Joe Biden won was somehow carried out fraudulently. After her ouster she said she would dedicate herself to ensuring Trump never returns to the Oval Office.

So what happened?

Congressional Republicans held a secret ballot to vote Cheney out from her leadership position in the House of Representatives, saying she is out of touch with the grassroots of the party. She is also being challenged in her Wyoming congressional seat.

What does it mean?

Bluntly, Cheney should have been untouchable on paper. She’s a high-profile woman in a party that desperately needs them. She’s a true conservative and daughter of a powerful party elder. On policy, she is widely seen as more conservative than the woman many now tip to succeed her, the New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik.

But in the post-Trump Republican party none of that mattered. Policy and networking fell prey to one thing: a Trump loyalty test. And with her outspoken criticism of the former president, Cheney failed that exam spectacularly.

What next?

The few other prominent anti-Trump voices will see Cheney’s ouster as a chastening moment that will keep their already weak movement even more in the background of Republican politics. It sends a message that to thrive in the next few years in the current incarnation of the party, loyalty to Trump is the be all and end all as the US looks to the 2022 midterm elections and the 2024 presidential contest.

Nikhita Gandhi Is Excited To Be Part Of New Wave Of Indie Releases

Staff ReporterEntertainment, Women 0

Singer Nikhita Gandhi is making sure that she continues making music during the pandemic, and says the Indie genre excites her. “I am excited to be part of this new wave of Indie releases. I have another single dropping soon, where you get to hear the female version of ‘Mawaalidil’. All in all, a lot of self-written melodies,” she told IANS.

Nikhita added: “I’m excited because the spectrum is so global right now, and to be a part of this movement is a dream come true. I got to collaborate with the American RnB artiste Pink Sweats for the song ‘At my worst’ and be on playlists with Rihanna and Kehlani. I don’t think if I went back to 13-year-old me and told her all this would happen, she would ever believe me!”

Talking about her recent number “Karobaardilka”, she says that musician KushalMangal came to her with the idea. “Kushal has been my bandmate and he’s been playing the keys with me for the past couple of years. He’s an extremely talented musician, and more importantly, a wonderful person. He started releasing his own compositions in 2020 and he came to me with ‘Karobaardilka’ saying that he really wanted me to sing the last stanza. I agreed even without hearing the song because I know how great he is. And when I did listen to it, I fell in love with the simple, yet resonating melody of the song. It’s so mature and gorgeous and I really hope people listen to it,” she says. (IANS)

Born into a mixed Bengali and Punjabi family in Kolkata, Nikita relocated to Chennai in 2010 to pursue a degree in dentistry. A former student of A. R. Rahman’s K. M. College of Music and Technology, Nikhita’s first association with Rahman was during an Indo-German exchange, where she was a part of a choir which performed with the German orchestra. Rahman then individually auditioned her for a commercial project titled ‘Qyuki’ with ShekharKapur, the duo were working on. In 2012, she cut a Bengali album titled Kotha, a re-arrangement of NazrulGeeti, songs written by renowned poet KaziNazrul Islam.

After having worked on her personal studio album and sung as a part of songs in regional films, Nikhita got a breakthrough by performing the song “Ladio” from Shankar’s film, I (2015). Composed by A. R. Rahman, she managed to record the song within four hours after translating it into Hindi. She then also subsequently recorded the Telugu and Hindi versions of the song, earning critical acclaim for her work. Other projects she worked for in 2015 include Rahman’s O KadhalKanmani and Anirudh’s ThangaMagan.

Dr. Manju Sheth’s Interview With Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Candid Conversations Featured on UNN.COM From “Chai with Manju”

Ajay GhoshCommunity, Media, Profile, Women 0

“Interviewing Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni felt like catching up with an old friend,” says Dr. Manju Sheth, a Boston-based physician by profession, having a passion for media and commitment to serve the larger humanity, with special focus on women’s empowerment.

“This is because I have been reading her books for decades and have been fully absorbed in the strong characters that she has created in her magnificent books. I have always believed that best authors have their essence and personality seeped in the characters, who also tend to evolve over the years along with the journey of the writer.”

Ms. Banerjee is an award-winning and bestselling author, poet, activist and teacher of writing. Her work has been published in over 50 magazines, including the Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker

Describing her experience of meeting (via zoom) and having a face to face interview with Ms. Banerjee, Dr. Sheth says, “I was very impressed with her simplicity. She does not wear a burden of ego or of her tremendous success and is deeply interested in hearing from her audience.”

According to Dr. Sheth, “One of the most inspiring and fun part of the interview was her explanation of the difference in personality between Panchali  and Draupadi of Palace of illusions and Sita from Forest of enchantment. Both are very strong women, yet one has a flair for drama and the other is very demure.”

A world renowned author, Ms. Banerjee’s works have been made into films and plays. A resident of Houston, Ms. Banerjee was born in Kolkata, India, and came to the United States for her graduate studies, receiving a Master’s degree in English from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Ms. Banerjee’s most recent book written in Covid times is “The Last Queen,” based on life of Rani Jindan of Punjab. A story of a strong queen and a mother with her invincible spirit, who though imprisoned, never gives up on finding her son who is forcibly taken away from her by the British.

 In her interview with Dr. Sheth, Ms Banerjee “takes you to a visual wonderland with the spell of words that she weaves very effortlessly, so it is not surprising and perhaps was a prophecy that she was named Chitralekha by her maternal grandfather,whom she adored and was the earliest inspiration for her books with the beautiful tales from mythology that she heard from him in her school vacations.”

Dr. Manju Sheth is a Board Certified Internist, currently serving patients at Beth Israel Lahey Hospital.in the Boston Region in Massachusetts. Dr. Sheth is the co-founder and CEO of INE MultiMedia, a non-profit organization devoted to promoting and supporting charitable organizations, art, culture, education and empowerment through workshops, seminars and multimedia. Dr. Sheth is known to be a natural storyteller her popular “Chai with Manju” celebrity series is one of the most read news features in the New England region, where she featured celebrities and spiritual leaders such as Sadhguru, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the Kennedys and the like. She is the creator and host of celebrity interview series called Chai with Manju which has had over 2 million views.

Dr. Sheth says, “My interview with Chitra Banerjee is surely one of my most memorable conversation with a celebrity guest .I hope that the viewers enjoy it as much as I did.” Please click the link below to watch Dr. Manju Sheth’s Interview with Ms. Banerjee:https://player.vimeo.com/video/545402566

Dr. Lakshmi Devy Is Winning Laurels In US

Staff ReporterCinema, Health, Women 0

Dr. Lakshmi Devy has  won the prestigious Gold Remy award for direction at the 54th World Houston International Film festival for her movie — “When the Music Changes.”

Dr. Lakshmi Devy, a doctor by profession has always been passionate about acting and filmmaking and her dreams have come true after she won the prestigious Gold Remy award for direction at the 54th World Houston International Film festival for her movie — “When the Music Changes.”

It is to be noted that other famous winners of the Gold Remy awards are the who’s who of the global film industry including Spielberg, Lucas, Ang Lee, The Coen brothers, Ridley Scott and several famous directors of Hollywood.

Worldfest is one of the oldest and largest film and video competitions in the world.

Dr Lakshmi Devy while speaking to IANS said, “This has been a great honour for a filmmaker like me and I am proud to represent my Indian roots in this manner.”

Lakshmi shuttles between US and Chennai and after the lockdown and mounting Covid cases she has preferred to stay back in India and is currently in discussions with several Hollywood production companies for her new venture.

She has a production house in New York, FiDi talkies which has produced “When the Music Changes” and Hollywood actor and director, John Turturro is the executive producer for this project.

On her new ventures, the doctor turned filmmaker told IANS, “I am speaking to several big names in the global film industry however, I am bound by certain contracts in not revealing the names of these companies. Once we sign the agreement, I will definitely inform you on the production companies.”

Her movie, “When the Music Changes”, which is scripted, directed and produced by her, has her playing the role of the protagonist. The movie is based on the Indian rape scenario as studies point out that in every 16 minutes a girl is raped in the country.

Lakshmi while speaking on the movie said, “The movie speaks on the rape in India and that it is not the woman who is raped loses the honour, instead it is the man who loses it because of the dastardly act.”

The medical doctor also said that she is planning to do several charity shows across the globe including a movie on the current medical emergency after the emergence of Covid and how humanity has to stay together to overcome this pandemic which is taking away the precious lives of many in the most unfortunate of conditions.

She was the screenwriter for the national award winning actor Bobby Sinha, Mirchi Shiva movie “Masala Padam”, which is the story of how tough it is to make a hot movie. The film has won major accolades across Tamil Nadu. Lakshmi also played the role of a protagonist in the movie.

This medical doctor also had done a short film, “Daro Mat” made in both Tamil and Hindi. It was critically acclaimed in many international film festivals across the world and is now released on YouTube with over 3.5 million views.

Tim Van Petten, Ten Time Emmy award nominated director, Edie Falco, Emmy award winning Hollywood actress, Aida Turturro, two time Emmy award nominated actress were all praises for the movie made by Dr Lakshmi Devy.

Dr Lakshmi Devy while speaking to IANS said, “As I said earlier, I am now finalizing the scripts for a couple of movies which will definitely have renowned production houses and I have to keep my fingers crossed for now as I am not permitted to speak on them now.”

During National Women’s Health Week, May 9-15: Top Tips for Women Who Do it All!

Hackensack Meridian HealthWomen 0

This year for National Women’s Health Week, we tip our hats to all that women have done during the COVID-19 pandemic — and remind women of all ages to make their health a priority.

There’s no doubt that the pandemic has been tough on everyone. However, many women have stepped up and taken on extra responsibilities, often putting their own well-being on the bottom of their “to-do” list.

Whether managing their children’s virtual education, caring for older loved ones, or juggling work and household responsibilities, women take care of others every day. This week, Hackensack Meridian Health is reminding women that they can’t take care of everyone else if they don’t take care of themselves first.

It’s like they say on the airplane: You have to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others!

Hackensack Meridian Health internal medicine specialist Nora Tossounian, M.D., has seen the results of women putting their health on hold during the past year to care for others.

“Postponing preventive screenings such as wellness checks, mammograms, and gynecological exams can have serious consequences, including diagnosis at a more advanced stage of illness,” said Dr. Tossounian.

And because substance use and mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression have been on the rise during the pandemic, Dr. Tossounian said it is especially important for women to seek help if they are struggling.

“Because women often wear many different hats, some may be having trouble coping with economic, emotional, and logistical stressors associated with the pandemic,” said Dr. Tossounian. “We want to encourage women to seek the mental health care they need — so they can be their best for the people they love.”

Pamela Schultz, M.D., Obstetrics & Gynecology Specialist with Jersey Shore University Medical Center, said preventive gynecological care is especially important for the early detection of female reproductive cancers, as well as benign conditions that can affect a woman’s health.

“Having an annual gynecological exam and following your doctor’s recommendations for mammograms and Pap tests can help to detect breast and cervical cancers early when they are easier to treat,” said Dr. Schultz. “We understand that women are busy, so we make it as convenient as possible to schedule appointments for preventive screenings.”

Dr. Schultz also said there is no reason for women to postpone preventive care due to COVID-19 concerns.

“All of our enhanced safety protocols that were created during the early days of the pandemic remain in place,” said Dr. Schultz. “Our facilities are safe and ready to care for women in our communities.”

To the women who sacrifice so much to care for the well-being of others, taking care of yourself isn’t just empowering — it’s selfless, and it’s smart!

Upcoming Virtual Well-Being Programs for May 

To help you jumpstart your commitment to your own well-being, we have lots of great virtual programs to help you get started:

  • Grounding Meditation, May 6
  • Mind-Body Skills, May 6
  • Women and Heart Disease, May 6
  • Nutrition for Self-Care, May 6
  • What is Crohn’s Disease? May 6
  • Eating the Mediterranean Way, May 11
  • Mid-Day Mindfulness Meditation, May 18
  • Gynecology Conditions, What Your Doctor Can’t Tell You in 15 Minutes, May 19
  • Breast Health Awareness, May 21
  • Women Over 50: From Hot Flashes to Healthy Bones, May 22
  • Getting Ready for Summer: Exercising the Right Way!, May 27

Youth Demand Action on Nature, Following IUCN’s First-Ever Global Youth Summit

Alison Kentish ,Inter Press AgencyEducation, Environment, Women, Youth 0

Following almost two weeks of talks on issues such as climate change, innovation, marine conservation and social justice, thousands of young people from across the globe concluded the first-ever International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) One Nature One Future Global Youth Summit with a list of demands for action on nature.

Under three umbrella themes of diversity, accessibility and intersectionality, they are calling on countries and corporations to invest the required resources to redress environmental racism and climate injustice, create green jobs, engage communities for biodiversity protection, safeguard the ocean, realise gender equality for climate change mitigation and empower underrepresented voices in environmental policymaking.

“Young people talk about these key demands that they have and most of the time, they are criticised for always saying ‘I want this,’ and are told ‘but you’re not even sure you know what you can do,’” Global South Focal Point for the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) Swetha Stotra Bhashyam told IPS. “So we linked our demands to our own actions through our ‘Your Promise, Our Future’ campaign and are showing world leaders what we are doing for the world and then asking them what they are going to do for us and our future.”

Bhashyam is one of the young people dedicated to climate and conservation action. A zoologist who once studied rare species from the field in India, she told IPS that while she hoped to someday return to wildlife studies and research, her skills in advocacy and rallying young people are urgently needed. Through her work with GYBN, the youth constituency recognised under the Convention on Biological Diversity, she stated proudly that the network has truly become ‘grassroots,’ with 46 national chapters. She said the IUCN Global Youth Summit, which took place from Apr. 5 to 16,  gave youth networks like hers an unprecedented platform to reach tens of thousands of the world’s youth.

“The Summit was able to create spaces for young people to voice their opinions. We in the biodiversity space have these spaces, but cannot reach the numbers that IUCN can. IUCN not only reached a larger subset of youth, but gave us an open space to talk about critical issues,” she said. “They even let us write a blog about it on their main IUCN page. It’s called IUCN Crossroads. They tried to ensure that the voice of young people was really mainstream in those two weeks.”

The United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, Jayathma Wickramanayake, told IPS that the Summit achieved an important goal of bringing institutions and political conversations closer to young people. During her tenure, Wickramanayake has advocated for a common set of principles for youth engagement within the UN system, based on rights, safety and adequate financing. She said it is important for institutions to open their doors to meaningful engagement with young people.

“I remember in 8th or 9th grade in one of our biology classes, we were taught about endangered animal species. We learned about this organisation called IUCN, which works on biodiversity. In my head, this was a big organisation that was out of my reach as a young person.

“But having the opportunity to attend the IUCN Summit, even virtually, engage with its officials and engage with other young people, really gave me and perhaps gave other young people a sense of belonging and a sense of taking us closer to institutions trying to achieve the same goals as we are as youth advocates.”

The Youth Envoy said the Summit was timely for young people, allowing them to meet virtually following a particularly difficult year and during a pandemic that has cost them jobs, education opportunities and raised anxieties.

“Youth activists felt that the momentum we had created from years of campaigning, protesting and striking school would be diluted because of this uncertainty and postponement of big negotiations. In order to keep the momentum high and maintain the pressure on institutions and governments, summits like this one are extremely important,” Wickramanayake said.

Global Youth Summit speakers during live sessions and intergenerational dialogues. Courtesy: International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

Other outcomes of the Global Youth Summit included calls to:

  • advance food sovereignty for marginalised communities, which included recommendations to promote climate-smart farming techniques through direct access to funding for marginalised communities most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and extreme events,
  • motivate creative responses to the climate emergency, and
  • engineer sustainable futures through citizen science, which included recommendations to develop accessible education materials that promote the idea that everyone can participate in data collection and scientific knowledge creation.

The event was billed as not just a summit, but an experience. There were a number of sessions live streamed over the two weeks, including on youth engagement in conservation governance, a live story slam event, yoga as well as a session on how to start up and scale up a sustainable lifestyle business. There were also various networking sessions.

Diana Garlytska of Lithuania represented Coalition WILD, as the co-chair of the youth-led organisation, which works to create lasting youth leadership for the planet.

She told IPS the Summit was a “very powerful and immersive experience”.

“I am impressed at how knowledgeable the young people of different ages were. Many spoke about recycling projects and entrepreneurship activities from their own experiences. Others shared ideas on how to use different art forms for communicating climate emergencies. Somehow, the conversation I most vividly remember was on how to disclose environmental issues in theatrical performances. I’m taking that with me as food for thought,” Garlytska said.

For Emmanuel Sindikubwabo of Rwanda’s reforestation and youth environmental education organisation We Do GREEN, the Summit provided excellent networking opportunities.

“I truly believe that youth around the world are better connected because of the Summit. It’s scary because so much is going wrong because of the pandemic, but exciting because there was this invitation to collaborate. There is a lot of youth action taking place already. We need to do better at showcasing and supporting it,” he told IPS.

Sindikubwabo said he is ready to implement what he learned at the Summit.

“The IUCN Global Youth Summit has provided my team and I at We Do GREEN new insight and perspective from the global youth community that will be useful to redefine our programming in Rwanda….as the world faces the triple-crises; climate, nature and poverty, we made a lot of new connections that will make a significant positive change in our communities and nation in the near future.”

The Global Youth Summit took place less than six months before the IUCN World Conservation Congress, scheduled forSep. 3 to 11. Its outcomes will be presented at the Congress.

Reflecting on the just-concluded event, the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth is hoping to see more of these events.

“I would like to see that this becomes the norm. This was IUCN’s first youth summit, which is great and I hope that it will not be the last, that it will just be a beginning of a longer conversation and more sustainable conversation with young people on IUCN… its work, its strategies, policies and negotiations,” Wickramanayake said.

Nikki Haley Says She’ll Support Trump, Stand Down If He Runs in 2024

Staff ReporterProfile, Women 0

Indian American former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, often mentioned as a possible 2024 GOP presidential contender, has said that she would not seek her party’s nomination if former President Donald Trump opts to run a second time. “Yes,” Haley said, when asked if she would support a second bid by Trump, in whose Cabinet she served for the first half of his administration.

“I would not run if President Trump ran, and I would talk to him about it,” Haley said, asked by The Associated Press if a possible Trump bid could preclude her own effort, were he to announce first. “That’s something that we’ll have a conversation about at some point, if that decision is something that has to be made.”

Haley spoke after touring the campus of South Carolina State University, an HBCU in Orangeburg where current President James E. Clark showed her campus improvements including a revamped student center and state-of-the-art cancer research and cybersecurity facilities.

The visit was one of Haley’s first public events in months in her home state. Since her 2016 resignation as South Carolina governor to join Trump’s Cabinet, Haley has maintained a delicate balancing act among Republicans who have in some ways been sharply split on the now-former president. In two years at the United Nations, Haley treaded a path of speaking out against Trump while not directly drawing his ire. She justify the office on her own terms in 2018, a rarity then during a wave of staffing turmoil.

Haley has made several moves in recent years to fuel speculation her sights are on higher office. In 2019, she and her family moved back to South Carolina, purchasing a home in the Kiawah Island community. She also launched a political action committee, published a memoir and commanded as much as $200,000 for speaking appearances.

Republicans had already been grappling with the party’s future following Trump’s tumultuous term. But after the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill violence as lawmakers gathered to certify Joe Biden’s election victory, Haley said Trump had been “badly wrong” in stoking the crowd before the riot, telling an audience at the Republican National Committee winter meeting that Trump’s “actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.”

Haley also said the whole notion was “deeply disappointing” because of the effect it will have on the legacy of the Trump administration, echoing remarks by some including fellow South Carolinian Sen. Lindsey Graham, who called the melee Trump’s “self-inflicted wound.”

On Monday, Haley defended her former boss, who this past weekend lit into fellow Republicans including his own vice president, saying he was “disappointed” in Mike Pence and calling Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell a “stone-cold loser.”

Vanita Gupta Confirmed as Associate Attorney General, the Third-Highest Position at the US Department of Justice

Staff ReporterProfile, Women 0

Indian-American civil rights lawyer Vanita Gupta has been confirmed as the US Associate Attorney-General with the help of a breakaway Republican Senator overcoming stiff opposition from her fellow party members who accused the nominee of espousing “radical” policies. She makes history becoming the first Indian American and first woman of color to hold the position.

Senator Lisa Murkowski gave her the crucial vote on Wednesday, April 21st in the 100-member Senate, which is evenly divided between the Republican and Democratic parties, to assume the third-highest position in the Justice Department.

Gupta is a legendary figure in the US civil rights movement having as a newly-minted lawyer won the release of 38 people, most of them African-Americans, who had been wrongly convicted by all-White juries on drug charges in a Texas town and also got them $6 million in compensation.

IMPACT congratulated Vanita Gupta on her historic confirmation as Associate Attorney General of the United States, the third-highest ranking position at the Department of Justice.  “Vanita Gupta is the daughter of Indian immigrants who came to the U.S. with only eight dollars and a dream. She has become one of the foremost civil rights advocates in the country and will effectuate our highest ideals of justice as Associate Attorney General,” said Neil Makhija, Executive Director of IMPACT.

“We are deeply proud of Vanita Gupta, knowing that she will be a stalwart champion for all Americans and in particular communities that have been marginalized. At a time when we see assaults on our voting rights and a rise in hate crimes, our country needs a champion for civil rights like Vanita Gupta at the highest levels of the Justice Department.”

Born and raised in the Philadelphia area to Indian immigrants, Ms. Gupta received her BA from Yale and her JD from NYU and has had a long and illustrious career of fighting for civil rights. She started her legal career in the ACLU and then became an Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under President Obama. She went on to become the Principal Deputy Associate Attorney-General and head of the Civil Rights Division during former President Barack Obama’s administration.

Gupta overcame a campaign against her estimated to have run close to a million dollars by conservative and right-wing groups portraying as a “radical” who was against law enforcement. But she also received the support of other conservative Republicans and law enforcement groups.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which has to give preliminary approval for Gupta’s confirmation, was deadlocked on her nomination for more than a month and the Senate bypassed it. Gupta was the second Indian-American nominee of President Joe Biden to run into difficulties in the Senate, which must approve all senior appointments, because of previous policy stances as well as divisive tweets.

Neera Tandon, who was nominated to the important cabinet position of the director of the Office of Management and Budget, withdrew herself from consideration after it became clear that she would face opposition from Democrats in addition to all the 50 Republicans making her confirmation impossible.

But Gupta was able to keep the support of all the Democrats and get one crucial Republican vote in the full Senate. Vice President Kamala Harris was at the ready to cast a tie-breaking vote as the Senate president if the votes had been split 50-50.

Murkowsi, who represents Alaska, said that Gupta “has demonstrated throughout her professional career to be deeply, deeply committed to matters of justice.” Democratic Party Senator Leader Chuck Schumer said: “Not only is Gupta the first woman of colour to ever be nominated to the position, she is the first civil rights attorney ever to be nominated to the position.”

But Republican Party Senate Leader Mitch McConnell called her “way outside the mainstream” and “an activist for justify-wing causes” who had attacked Senators. Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, Gupta had apologised for some of her tweets saying that she had “fallen prey” to “the rhetoric (that) has gotten quite harsh over the last several years”.

The campaign against her was spearheaded by the right-wing Judicial Crisis Network which launched an ad campaign accusing her of being soft on crime. Five Republican Attorneys-General circulated a petition against her confirmation.

Defending Democracy Together (DDT), an organisation of conservatives who had opposed former President Donald Trump, countered with a campaign supporting Gupta, saying that she “has been building bridges across partisan divides, she has the broad backing of law enforcement”. Three groups of law enforcement officials, Fraternal Order of Police, Major County Sheriffs of America and Federal Law Enforcement Officials Association, also supported her. (IANS)

What’s The Deal With FemTech?

Staff ReporterTechnology, Women 0

It seems like the tech industry is always delivering exciting new innovations. However, it often seems like women are either forgotten about or just a side thought for many of these innovations. Solutions are usually one-size-fits-all for both genders or solutions lean toward meeting the needs of men.

While we are not near a landscape that offers perfect equality and representation, there is a movement that aims to address some of the issues. This movement is called FemTech.

What is FemTech?

As you may have noticed, FemTech is a term that combines the words “female” and “technology”. The idea is to solve issues for women using technology. It could be healthcare software development, connected wearables for women, tech-based subscription services or any other product that uses technology to support or improve health or well-being for women.

This movement in women’s health tech is largely credited to Ida Tin. She created the Clue reproductive health app and she coined the term FemTech. That was back in 2013, but FemTech companies have come a long way since then.

Why does it matter?

As you might be aware, about half of the world’s population is female. They have needs that are different from those of men. This is especially true when you consider the areas of health and well-being.

Unfortunately, the needs of women are often overlooked when designing tech solutions. While there have been great strides in female leadership in tech, it is still an industry that is mostly male. When men make design decisions or decisions on what to fund, it is often hard for them to consider the important differences between men and women. FemTech helps to make up for this.

With smart technology solutions meeting the needs of women, they can expect better health outcomes, get services that are more convenient and live happier, healthier lives. Along with that, FemTech is an opportunity for businesses. With half the population being female, it is a large market that needs to be served.

A Look at FemTech in Action

FemTech has a lot to offer women as consumers and the businesses that may choose to offer services. As an example of FemTech, consider the previously mentioned Clue app. With this, a FemTech company created an app that can help women manage their reproductive health in a way that is more convenient and more useful. By tracking things like a woman’s period and ovulation, it helps women take more control over their health.

Elvie is another great company that focuses on women’s health tech. This company looks to create a range of tech solutions for women. This includes their range of breast pumps that can be managed from an app and an app and accessories focused on pelvic floor exercises.

While FemTech is growing, there is still a lot of potential to offer new solutions that are just for women. Healthcare software development for women has tons of room to meet needs that are still going unmet. The businesses that identify these problems and deliver solutions could do a lot of good while also turning a nice profit.

Kamala Harris Advocates American Jobs Plan At 1st Economic Speech Since Becoming VP

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“Help is here and hope is here — and things are looking up. Schools are reopening. Businesses are reopening. Grandparents are seeing their grandchildren in person. We are delivering real, real relief:” Said Kmala Harris

Kamala Harris delivered her first extended economic speech since becoming vice president, making a pitch for the Biden administration’s infrastructure plan and touting the White House’s accomplishments since President Joe Biden was sworn in.

“Help is here and hope is here — and things are looking up. Schools are reopening. Businesses are reopening. Grandparents are seeing their grandchildren in person. We are delivering real, real relief,” Harris told an audience at Guilford Technical Community College in North Carolina.

The vice president specifically discussed what the administration’s roughly $2 trillion infrastructure package — the President’s top legislative priority — would do for infrastructure jobs, water infrastructure, child and home care businesses broadband and job training. She called the plan “a once in a lifetime, once in a generation investment in America’s infrastructure — in America’s future. It is what the American people deserve.” Harris said the plan “is not just about fixing what has been. It is about building what can be.”

Harris has become increasingly involved in promoting the Biden administration’s infrastructure proposal currently being considered by Congress, known as the American Jobs Plan. She’s taken part in meetings with the Congressional Black Caucus as well as with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to discuss it and last week, USA Today published her op-ed calling on Congress to pass the plan.

According to the White House, after her speech in North Carolina on Monday, Harris “will continue traveling the country to promote the plan in the weeks to come” — serving in an outreach role similar to the one she played in promoting the passage of the American Rescue Plan.

“In the 21st century in America, I believe you should not have to work more than one job to be able to pay your bills and feed your family. One good job should be enough. At a good job, you shouldn’t have to worry about your safety. You shouldn’t have to worry about whether you have the ability to get a good life, because you might have to go in debt for a diploma that promises a decent paycheck,” she argued.

“A good job allows people the freedom to build the life you want. To reach as high as you want, to aspire. That’s what a good job does. And good jobs are what the President and I will create with the American Jobs Plan.”

The speech comes on the same day Biden hosts his second bipartisan gathering in as many weeks in the Oval Office.  The White House has launched a massive legislative outreach effort to sway key members of Congress to buy into the proposal, but Republicans appear to have not yet reached consensus on a potential counter-proposal with a lower price tag. And no comprehensive GOP plan has been released so far.

Michelle Obama With Puppets Showcases ‘Waffles + Mochi’ On Netflix, Taking Kids to Japan, Italy, and More

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In Netflix’s new children’s series “Waffles + Mochi,” Waffles is a Yeti with a waffle for a father, and her sidekick Mochi is filled with strawberry ice cream. Together with the wise guidance of Michelle Obama, the former first lady, these intrepid puppets traverse the globe, meeting world class chefs, expanding their food and taste vocabularies, and spreading joy in their wake. Jeremy Konner and Erika Thormahlen are the creators of the new series.

As per reports, in Netflix’s latest kids’ show, Waffles + Mochi, two adorable puppets from the Land of Frozen Food are catapulted into the real world to learn about food by traveling the globe. The TV series, which has dashes of Sesame Street, Parts Unknown, Chef’s Table, and Pee Wee’s Playhouse, follows Waffles and Mochi as they find out where ingredients come from, cook and eat tasty dishes, and discover new cultures, all while working at a whimsical grocery store owned by Mrs. Obama—played by none other than Michelle Obama.

The 10-episode series, filmed around the world pre-pandemic, brings together witty dialogue, standout original music, and genuine education to entertain kids and adults alike. It’s also the first children’s show produced by Higher Ground Productions, the Obamas’ production company. Waffles + Mochi features adults and children of various ethnicities and racial and social backgrounds, as well as members of the disabled community as part of the production company’s larger mission of uplifting diverse voices.

“The level of diversity and food that they showcase is incredible,” says Los Angeles–based Bricia Lopez, a James Beard Award–winning chef, who appears in the show’s second episode about salt. “To be able to talk about Oaxaca in a show like this and to see the level of respect they’re giving not just the food but the children—they’re not dumbing anything down.”

Mashama Bailey, chef and owner of The Grey in Savannah, who appears in two episodes, agrees. “It’s really a cool way to talk about how different people can relate to each other, find common ground, enjoy each other’s company, teach each other about their cultures, and not judge each other,” she said.

And with kids mostly home-bound after a year of the pandemic, the show’s release couldn’t have been better timed. “[Waffles and Mochi are] traveling for learning purposes, which I thought was really cool,” says Bailey. “That’s a good way to talk to children about travel. When you travel and eat food, you put a face to the food, you put a culture to the food. Travel helps you recognize the history and the struggle of food and prevents you from trying to take over that narrative and turn it into your own.”

In Waffles + Mochi, the puppets learn how to make mazamorra morada, a sweet purple corn desert, in Lamay, Peru. Each episode is focused around a specific ingredient. In the sixth episode, the puppets are sent on a mission to collect different types of eggs to bring to chef Massimo Bottura in Modena, Italy. They start by going to Long Beach, California, to the Growing Experience, where they meet kids helping to raise chickens and learn how eggs are laid. The duo also travels to Kyoto to eat a Japanese omelet made by chef Motokichi Yukimura. There, Mochi discovers he doesn’t like the texture of eggs, which is explained in its own cartoon skit all about taste buds, set inside the puppet’s mouth. Next, Waffles and Mochi collect fish eggs from Nishiki Market, fly to the Sacred Valley in Peru to find quail eggs at Urubamba Market, and finally meet up with Bottura in Modena, where they discover that one of the eggs broke during the journey.

Bottura reassures them that it’s okay to make mistakes and that that’s how one of his best dishes—the Oops, I Dropped the Lemon Tart—was invented. “[The show is] for kids, but also for adults,” says Bottura. “They take a simple way to understand a very complicated concept, like the idea of making a mistake—you are allowed to make mistakes, and from that mistake, you’re going to learn something.”

Aside from the former first lady, Bailey, Lopez, and Bottura, adults will be delighted by cameos from José Andrés (who we discover is a fabulous dancer), Tan France, Rashida Jones, and Samin Nosrat, to name just a few.

Still, one of the best parts of the show is observing the genuine joy that the guests get from their interactions with the puppets, which were mostly ad-libbed. “It was so wonderful to speak to this puppet, this character, in real life, and have a conversation and have it talking back to me,” says Lopez. “Obviously there’s a human behind it, but I actually connected with the character in real life.”

Each of the chefs featured were consulted on which ingredient they connected with and which food they wanted to showcase. Bottura decided to showcase his pasta and for Bailey, the choice was obvious. “When they started talking about ingredients that were indigenous, or ingredients that I worked with, for me it was corn and grits,” said Bailey, who can be seen in the corn-focused episode.

You’ll find Lopez in the kitchen in Los Angeles making mole with the puppets in the salt episode. They later eat dinner with her family, including her young son. “The kitchen is a whole new world for children,” said Lopez. “I think children [being] in a kitchen, it can truly empower them.”

Indian Nurses Association of New York Announces Essay Contest

Paul PanakalWomen, Youth 0

Indian Nurses Association of New York (INA-NY), the professional organization of nurses of Indian origin in the State of New York is inviting essays to the annual competition.  The theme of the essay is “Nurses A Voice to Lead:  A Vision for Future Healthcare”.  All nurses of Indian origin/heritage living in New York State are eligible to participate in the competition.

The two-page essay should be double spaced, without any identifiable author’s personal information.  A separate cover page with author’s name, credentials, telephone number(s) and email address is to be submitted with the essay.

The winners of 1st and 2nd place will be announced at the Nurses Day celebration of INA-NY on May 8th. Nominations are also invited for Annual Student Scholarship for undergraduate and Associate degree nursing students of Indian origin.  The student must be a member of INA-NY. Application form for Graduate Nursing Student Scholarship can be obtained from inany.org.

Nominations for ‘INA-NY Nurse Excellence Award 2021’ are also accepted from INA-NY members.  The selected candidate will exemplify the very best attributes of Nursing profession, excelled in giving high quality patient care and demonstrated a commitment to professional nursing practice.

The leadership of INA-NY intents to utilize the Nurses Day celebrations for promoting nursing, nurses, education, health and wellness. The submission is to be sent to Grace Alexander, Chair of the Awards & Scholarship committee at gracemol@gmail.com.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal Is Pushing Biden To Be More Progressive

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Indian American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, one of the top leaders of the progressive movement in the US Congress, has been in the back and front, effecting changes in a Democrat-controlled government after a decade of the party sharing power with Republicans.

Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, pushed President Joe Biden to push further on issues including student debt and insfrastructure bill, but said he overall has done “really well” on progressive issues.

After the passage of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package in mid-March, Jayapal has been preparing to reintroduce her Medicare for All Act. The central question for Jayapal and the left is how far Biden is willing to go. Biden doesn’t support Medicare for All—which is one of Jayapal’s signature policies—and he’s more moderate on most economic issues than Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, whom Jayapal endorsed in the presidential primary. Nor does Biden so far support eliminating the filibuster, the Senate rule that effectively requires 60 votes to pass most legislation, which Jayapal and other progressives want to scrap.

But Jayapal says she has never been interested in replicating the antagonistic relationship between the right-wing House Freedom Caucus and Republican leadership that divided the GOP starting in 2015. Instead of acting as an “opposition” arm, she says she wants to be a “proposition” one: proposing the most progressive ideas possible and framing them in ways that can persuade her colleagues—and the President—to support them.

She says that model worked for Biden’s COVID-19 relief legislation. The American Rescue Plan looked a lot like what progressive members wanted, and Biden got there in part because of the careful negotiating by people like Jayapal.

Congresswoman. Jayapal, 55, who was born in India and came to the U.S. to attend college at Georgetown, got her start in politics as an activist in Seattle advocating for immigrants who experienced discrimination after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She built the largest immigrant-rights organization in Washington State, formed diverse coalitions, and sued George W. Bush’s Administration over its deportation of Somali immigrants.

She has said that experience taught her that even tragedies can be opportunities for change. But after years of agitating from the outside, Jayapal is a bona fide insider. After two years in the Washington State senate, she was elected to Congress in 2016, and she spent her first years fighting President Donald Trump at every turn. Now, as the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, she is one of the most influential officials of the Democrats’ left flank, and she has become a primary conduit between President Joe Biden and those in his party who think he’s an overly cautious centrist. Her journey from activist to powerful legislator was aided by an approach that melds progressive beliefs with pragmatic style—a combination that has won her respect from both Democratic camps.

Jayapal has kept in close contact with House and Senate leadership, and her team spoke to the White House legislative-affairs staff almost daily, she says. When a $15 minimum-wage increase fell out of the package because of Senate rules, some Democrats considered withholding their votes entirely. Jayapal helped persuade those members to support the deal, and it passed almost entirely along party lines. “Progressives have been sort of pushed to the margins so often in politics that I think we may have gotten used to that,” Jayapal says. “And so people are very inclined to say, ‘Oh, this happened again—we didn’t get everything we wanted.’” But she taught her colleagues to realize, “We should take the win.”

It’s the strategy Jayapal plans to pursue on other policies—while still trying to bring Biden further left behind the scenes. Biden called Jayapal after the relief package passed to thank her for her help, she says, and while she thanked him for his leadership on the law in return, she also told him she still wants to see the minimum wage increased.

“This is not a normal time. We’re trying to act like it’s normal,” Jayapal said. “I have only limited tolerance for a Republican party that wrings its hands and talks about unity and moving forward. We had an insurrection where their leader of their party incited that insurrection and many of them continue to support him.”

Health care is an important area to Jayapal. She co-chaired the health care unity task force that Biden and Sanders established last summer, and she wants Biden to adopt the proposals they agreed to, including lowering the Medicare eligibility age and adding aggressive drug-pricing powers. “I have raised it now to everyone that I’ve had the opportunity to speak with,” she says.

She knows none of her goals is going to be easy to accomplish, and time is short, with Republicans gunning to take back the House in 2022. But she is energized, and during difficult days she draws on the lessons from those early years of her career defending immigrant rights.

Kamala Harris Steps Into Role As A Voice For Asian Americans

David NakamuraNation India, Women 0

Vice President Kamala Harris was in Atlanta to meet with community leaders in the wake of the mass shooting two weeks ago when she summoned top aides to discuss what she would say.Her speechwriter had called in from Washington. Others were seated in front of her in a semicircle. The attacker had killed eight, including six women of Asian descent, and a draft of Harris’s speech had focused on the need for everyone to feel safe.

“That’s true, but it’s more than that,” she told the aides, according to one person familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting. “It’s about being seen as American and not as the other.”A short time later, after emerging from the meeting with local Asian American leaders, Harris told reporters: “Sadly, it’s not new. Racism is real in America, and it has always been. Xenophobia is real in America, and it always has been. Sexism, too.” With President Joe Biden standing behind her, she ticked through laws discriminating against Chinese immigrants in the 1860s, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and attacks against Muslim Americans after 9/11.

“Ultimately, this is about who we are as a nation,” Harris said. Asians “have the right to be recognized as American – not as the ‘other,’ not as ‘them,’ but as ‘us.’ ”For Harris, the use of the collective pronoun was poignant. Though her late mother was an immigrant from India, Harris, 56, whose father is from Jamaica, was raised to identify as Black – a reflection of her mother’s recognition that a young biracial woman would be viewed that way in a society whose racial dialogue was defined principally through a lens of Black and White.Now, amid accounts of rising violence targeting Asian Americans, it is her South Asian heritage that has put Harris in a unique position to give voice to the pain and anger that inspired a nascent political movement.

People who have worked with her said that Harris – although she seldom talks publicly about her Indian background – has an authentic understanding of the trepidation felt by many Asian Americans and shares their sense of urgency. The question, they said, is how far she is willing or able to go to embrace the role of forceful advocate and how much pressure she will face from the Asian American community to act as an influence on Biden to follow through on his pledges to prioritize their concerns.

“Kamala’s speech in Atlanta was very well done. It was clear and to the point. She spoke from a position no other vice president could,” said Shekar Narasimhan, the Indian American chairman of the AAPI Victory Fund, a SuperPAC focused on bolstering political activism among the nation’s 23 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.Though Harris did not offer a personal reflection, “her lived experience is translating on the world stage into that authenticity,” Narasimhan added. “I’m not worried about her representing us or advocating for the right causes. The only thing I preach about her to others is: ‘Be patient.’ She has to have time to find her footing. When she finds her legs, she will be the person we want her to be, to be advocating for us and for communities of color.”

Among Asian American leaders, Harris is widely regarded as a source of pride and as an ally of their causes. Yet they cautioned that her ability to advocate for them could be compromised by her multiple responsibilities as Biden’s deputy. Last week, for example, the president put Harris in charge of managing an influx of unauthorized migrants, mostly from Central America.For months, starting during the campaign and continuing through the transition, Democrats in Congress and community leaders have expressed frustration that Biden has not named more Asian Americans to his senior ranks.

Biden assembled the most racially diverse leadership team of any administration, with people of color making up half of his nominees and appointees.But none of his nominees for the 15 statutory Cabinet positions is an Asian American, breaking two decades of precedent from Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

The impatience boiled over last week during a private call between Democratic lawmakers and Biden aides, during which Jen O’Malley Dillon, the White House deputy chief of staff, reportedly pointed to Harris in the discussion over Asian representation in the Cabinet.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who is of Chinese Thai descent, later called the remarks “insulting” and announced – along with Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, a Japanese American – that they would oppose all of Biden’s nominees other than those who are racial minorities or LGBTQ. The senators withdrew their threat after the White House hastily agreed to appoint a senior official to focus on Asian American issues, a new position whose duties have yet to be defined.

Duckworth told reporters that White House aides had pointed at Harris “multiple times” over the past year in response to lawmakers’ pressure. She questioned whether the White House would dare tell the Congressional Black Caucus: “Well you have Kamala, so we’re not going to put any more African Americans in the Cabinet.”Biden administration officials said they are working to address lawmakers’ concerns. They noted that the president has been at the forefront of the efforts to address the violence, signing an executive action in January that barred the government from using racist or xenophobic language to describe the pandemic and that instructed the Justice Department to improve hate-crime tracking and prosecutions.

The senators emphasized that their anger was not aimed at Harris, with whom they had collaborated closely when she served on the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus as a senator from California.In May, Harris introduced a Senate resolution condemning Trump’s use of “Wuhan virus” to blame China for the coronavirus pandemic, and she joined her former CAPAC colleagues for a celebratory event after the election. She has spoken out numerous times over the anti-Asian hate incidents, including on social media and in an op-ed in the California-based Asian Journal in May in which she accused Trump of “race-baiting.”Yet Asian American leaders have made clear to the White House that Harris, alone, is not enough.

“We need more than the vice president. This is a national issue that deserves the highest level of coordination and a whole-of -government approach,” said Russell Jeung, an Asian American studies professor at San Francisco State University. He is a co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate, an advocacy group that has tallied 3,800 incidents of bias and hate directed at Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders over the past year.

Biden aides responded to the criticism by noting that 15 percent of his Senate-confirmed nominees are Asian American, including U.S. Trade Ambassador Katherine Tai and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, plus two Cabinet deputies and the directors of the Office of Property Management and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Neera Tanden, an Indian American, failed last month to win Senate confirmation to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

The absence of Asian Americans at the White House has been noticeable. Last month, White House domestic policy adviser Susan Rice and senior adviser Cedric Richmond, both of whom are Black, led a videoconference with Asian American community groups.
Rohini Kosoglu, a Sri Lankan American who serves as Harris’s domestic policy adviser, was the highest-ranking Asian American official in attendance, participants said.

“They got themselves into an unfortunate situation, and they are beginning to understand the problem, but it’s not easy to fix,” said a former Obama administration official, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid.This person called the new senior official position a “consolation prize” and said the political blowback over the Cabinet “was entirely predictable and having a voice in the White House would have foreseen it.”

In some ways, Harris’s position underscores the complexities of the term “Asian American,” which was coined by activists during the civil rights movement of the 1960s to demonstrate political solidarity in the fight against racism. Experts said the label was purposely broad, loosely tying together a broad and diverse swath of immigrants from East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia who do not share a common language, religion or immigration history.

“The concept was a political marker and a political commitment – a commitment to act in solidarity with other Third World people, in the U.S. and abroad,” said Daryl Maeda, an associate professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “In the broadest sense, Asian America is a coalition – a highly diverse coalition filled with people of different aims, backgrounds, histories, priorities.”Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan – who raised her two daughters after divorcing Donald Harris when Kamala was 7 years old – was active in the civil rights movement. She recognized early on that Americans would largely view her children as Black and, though she steeped them in elements of Indian culture at home and took them on trips to India to meet relatives and learn about their heritage, she raised them to be aware of that reality.

The family worshiped at an African American church, and Kamala and her sister, Maya, were bused with other Black kids to an elementary school in a wealthier White neighborhood. Harris attended Howard University, a historically Black institution in Washington, D.C., and former classmates have said that they did not learn of her Indian heritage until years after they had graduated and she became a public figure.

In that sense, advocates said, it is through political solidarity, perhaps more so than through cultural affinity, that Harris and the Asian American community have begun to demonstrate their mutual kinship.“When she ran for president, some criticized her for not emphasizing her Indian heritage enough,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political scientist at the University of California at Riverside and co-founder of AAPI Data, a polling and research organization. “She generally had not done much to put herself out there, in terms of not talking much about her identity, but that changed under the glare of the presidential race. What you did see once she was tapped to be vice president was an outpouring of enthusiasm among South Asians and among Asian Americans more broadly.”

They also rallied to her defense in the fall after then-Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., mocked the pronunciation of Harris’s first name at a Trump campaign rally – a reminder that despite her pedigree, Harris is subject to the “perpetual foreigner” stereotype so often aimed at Asian Americans. The incident prompted a wave of support from actors Kal Penn, Kumail Nanjiani and Daniel Dae Kim, Olympian Michelle Kwan, and comedian Ken Jeong, who led a social media campaign titled #MyNameIs aimed at mobilizing Georgia voters.
Biden and Harris won the state in November, the first time Democrats carried it since 1992, and Perdue was defeated by Democrat Jon Ossoff in his re-election bid.

Asian American identity “is a complex thing,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. “It’s not a true identity that many in the first generation or the second or the third identify with. It’s so broad. It’s a political identity as much as a cultural identity. I didn’t grow up eating dumplings or sushi or using chopsticks, but that doesn’t make me any less or more Asian.”

Biden Nominates Judge Rupa Ranga Puttagunta As Judge Of DC District Court

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President Biden made history March 30, 2021, announcing his intent to nominate the first Asian American woman of Indian descent to the U.S. District Court in D.C., and the first Muslim to the New Jersey higher court.

“This trailblazing slate of nominees draws from the very best and brightest minds of the American legal profession,” Biden said in the White House press release. “Each is deeply qualified and prepared to deliver justice faithfully under our Constitution and impartially to the American people — and together they represent the broad diversity of background, experience, and perspective that makes our nation strong.”

The diverse slate of 11 candidates for judicial nominations includes Judge Rupa Ranga Puttagunta, the Indian-American nominee for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. She currently serves as an Administrative Judge for the D.C. Rental Housing Commission.
Prior to joining the Commission in 2019, Judge Puttagunta was a solo practitioner from 2013 to 2019, representing indigent criminal defendants in trial and on appeal. Before opening her own practice, Judge Puttagunta practiced family and appellate law at Delaney McKinney, LLP from 2012 to 2013.

While working on domestic relations matters in private practice, Judge Puttagunta also provided hundreds of hours of pro bono legal services by volunteering at D.C. Superior Court’s Family Court Self-Help Center and Attorney Negotiator Program and representing victims of domestic violence in D.C. Superior Court.Judge Puttagunta began her legal career as a law clerk for Judge William M. Jackson of the D.C. Superior Court from 2008 to 2010, as well as the Senior Judges of the D.C. Court of Appeals from 2010 to 2011. She received her J.D. from Ohio State Moritz College of Law in 2007 and her B.A. from Vassar College in 2002.

Judge Zahid N. Quraishi is being nominated to the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Quraishi, who was born in New York City to parents of Pakistani origin, is currently a United States Magistrate Judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, a position he was appointed to in 2019.Prior to his appointment, Judge Quraishi was a partner at Riker Danzig where he chaired the firm’s White Collar Criminal Defense and Investigations Group and served as his firm’s first Chief Diversity Officer.

Before joining Riker Danzig, Judge Quraishi served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey from 2008 to 2013.Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s office, Judge Quraishi served as an assistant chief counsel at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.He also served as a military prosecutor and achieved the rank of Captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, deploying to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004 and 2006.

Judge Quraishi received his J.D. in 2000 from Rutgers Law School – Newark and his B.A. in 1997 from John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Earlier in his career, Judge Quraishi worked in private practice and clerked for Judge Edwin H. Stern, of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, from 2000 to 2001.

According to news reports, Senate hearings for these nominees is expected to begin in April. With the 50-50 party representation in the Senate, it may be a tough task to get the nominees confirmed. Among the presidential nominations, 10 are for Federal Circuit and District Court judge posts, and one is for Superior Court Judge for the District of Columbia. The nominations announced on Tuesday also include three African American women and a Muslim American. If confirmed by the US Senate, Judge Puttagunta would be the first Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) woman to serve on the US District Court for the District of DC, the White House said.

Indra Nooyi Relates Her own story to evolving global economy

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Indra Nooyi is one of the worlds foremost business visionaries, who broke the glass ceiling in global business as a woman of Indian origin and immigrant leading an iconic American company that operates in 200 countries. Now, she essays her journey in “My Life In Full: Work, Family And Our Future” to be published by Hachette India.

A revered corporate strategist, she is also a sought-after advisor to entrepreneurs, executives and governments.

As Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2018, she was the chief architect of Performance with Purpose, PepsiCo’s mission to deliver sustained growth by making more nutritious products, limiting the company’s environmental footprint, and empowering its associates and people in the communities it serves.

It offers an intimate look inside PepsiCo, detailing how Nooyi steered the iconic American company toward healthier products and reinvented its environmental profile without curbing financial performance — despite resistance at every turn. “My Life in Full” includes Nooyi’s unvarnished take on the competing pressures on her attention and time, and what she learned as a leader along the way.

“As I wrote ‘My Life in Full’, I saw how my own story relates to our evolving global economy and how it may inform our progress on better integrating work and family in the years ahead. I hope this book inspires business leaders, policymakers and all women and men passionate about easing the work-and-family burden to come together and create change”, Nooyi says of the memoir.

Thomas Abraham, Managing Director, Hachette India, says: “This is that unusual book that works at so many levels — as a celebration of an extraordinary life, as an emotional memoir, a

Hindu Women’s Network Celebrates International Women’s Day

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Hindu Women’s Network held an online Conference and Panel Discussion, Sunday March 7, 2021, to celebrate International Women’s Day which was on March 8. The theme of the Conference was “The Hindu Woman: Inspiration through Action.”

The Hindu woman plays a significant role in being the torch bearer of Hindu samskaras and inspiring others to sustain our culture and traditions. The HWN seeks to motivate every woman to achieve this ideal, to strengthen her own family and society and enable all women to reach their full potential.

The program started with Shankh Naad and Deep Prajwalan by Bhawna Sharma. 8-year-old Shree Kotadia set the mood by enchanting Stutis in praise of various Devi/Devatas, recited with perfect pronunciation. Shree is a student of Bal Vidya Mandir in Ashland, MA.

Neelam Jaiswal introduced Hindu Women’s Network and took us through its various chapters and activities. Everyone enjoyed a short movie about the mission, vision and goals of Hindu Women’s Network, its history and achievements. We saw a short documentary of an inspiring talk by Sarojini Naidu during her visit to USA in 1928.

The moderator of the day, Toral Mehta, led the panel through a series of questions which brought out their viewpoints.

Aparna Rayasam opened the event with her rousing keynote address, a call to all women to lead through example. Aparna is an IT professional and dedicated Bal Vihar teacher. Aparna spoke about her exposure to all the extraordinary women in her life journey, and the roles they played in shaping her life, from her mother, her mother-in-law, her aunts, her two daughters, her co-workers, all of whom inspired her with the unique choices they made and the legacy they passed on, based on the bedrock of Hindu Dharma. She talked about four major themes as a framework to inspire: Truth or Satya, which leads one to discover one’s authentic self; Dharma, which helps us set our priorities in life; Karma, which are our actions to achieve our Dharma, and Shakti, which is the strength inherent in each of us, which we need to discover.

The distinguished panel consisted of women from varying walks and different stages of their lives.  Toral then introduced the panelists, who addressed different aspects of their journey to discover the potential in themselves, and lead by example.

Swapnali Puradkar has been a resident of Japan for the past 15 years. She works in International finance and is a mother of two young children. She spoke about finding balance or ‘Santulan’ in our life, to use our Shakti during moments of crisis, to help us think rationally. She urged everyone to practice meditation as a tool to help not only yourself but also your family, to help the mind and body connect.

Heena Rathore spoke about her entrepreneurial journey, and how she overcame the fear of failure, which initially kept her from starting her company of biodegradable products. Her mother played a big role in her life and taught her to believe in her own inner strength, how our inner shakti creates our outer reality.

Sucharita Jayanti, who is a student in New Hampshire and part of the leadership team of Hindu Students Council, discussed the major challenges facing our youth, which was to connect, assimilate and fit into the world around them, to understand their own Dharma and culture, their need for spiritual, emotional, and mental strength. She urged them to go back to the basics – Spiritually, to find Gurus who are guides and mentors, mentally, to have strong family units that can guide them, and to have access to resources, to have volunteers who can create these resources. Yashwini Desai talked about balancing her career with her extended family, and with illustrations from her own life, showed how her Hindu background helped her lead by example.

The last question by the moderator went to all the panelists and Keynote speaker. What Hindu value can be used collectively to sustain Hindu culture for the coming generations?

Aparna talked about educating ourselves in the infinite wisdom of Hindu Dharma, to start our own journey of education. Swapnali urged everyone to adhere to our Dharma faithfully and start teaching children from an incredibly young age. Heena spoke about being persistent in connecting children to their Hindu roots. Yashwini encouraged everyone to become a cultural ambassador.

Next, to give a welcome break before the Q and A session, everyone was treated to a wonderful performance by a young artiste, Aanika Patel. Aanika performed a beautiful dance in Kuchipudi style, on Bhama Kalapam. She enthralled everyone with her rendition of Satyabhama, the vivacious wife of Krishna, and made it come alive with her eloquent expressions.

Smita Daftardar ably led the Question-and-Answer sessions, and made sure maximum number of questions were asked, while still adhering to time.

The discussion ended with Shobha Patel, who summarized the takeaway points of the event, as expounded by the speakers: Accountability, Be bold, Confidence, Devotion to family, and Education. The event ended by a prayer by Manju Tiwari.

To view the event in its entirety, please click on the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJff4yogi1o&pbjreload=101

Hindu Women’s Network is an initiative of World Hindu Council of America (VHPA). For more information or to start a chapter of Hindu Women’s Network in your area, please contact Neelam Jaiswal at Neelam.jswl@gmail.com or Manju Tiwari at msrtiwari@gmail.com

Indra Nooyi Honored By National Women’s Hall Of Fame

Staff ReporterProfile, Women 0

Indra Nooyi, former chairperson and chief executive officer of PepsiCo is among nine women inducted into the 2021 class of National Women’s Hall of Fame (NWHF). Nooyi who has consistently ranked among the world’s most powerful people was honored for her contribution to the business field. The NWHF made the announcement on March 8, International Women’s Day.

The nation’s oldest membership organization, NWHF is dedicated to honoring and celebrating the achievements of these distinguished American women, the organization’s website says, noting that it uses the stories of its inductees as tools for inspiration, innovation and imagination,

During her tenure at PepsiCo, the company grew its net revenue by more than eighty percent, and PepsiCo’s total shareholder return was one hundred and sixty-two percent, the NWHF says in its press release.

PepsiCo expanded significantly during Nooyi’s tenure, acquiring Tropicana Products, Inc., merging with Quaker Oats Company and PepsiCo’s anchor bottlers, and acquiring the Russian company Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods, resulting in the largest international acquisition in PepsiCo’s history.

In addition to her business success as CEO, Nooyi was the chief architect of Performance with Purpose, PepsiCo’s pledge to do what is right for the business by being responsive to the needs of the world.

This pledge included delivering more nutritious products, limiting the company’s environmental footprint, and empowering its associates and the people in the communities PepsiCo serves.

Other women honored include the late renowned author Octavia Butler, former United States Army officer Rebecca Halstead, a multidisciplinary artist Joy Harjo, late philanthropist and educator Emily Howland, late NASA research mathematician Katherine Johnson, former first lady of the United States Michelle Obama, soccer icon Mia Hamm, and feminist artist and educator Judy Chicago. aHaHBnnn

NWHF will celebrate the inclusion of these women into the Hall at the biennial in-person induction ceremony on Oct. 2, 2021 at the its new home, the recently revitalized 1844 Seneca Knitting Mill building in New York. The ceremony will be held monitoring the COVID-19 situation and will be live streamed free to the public.

Anoushka Shankar Announces New Track, ‘Sister Susannah’

Staff ReporterEntertainment, Women 0

Grammy-nominated sitarist, composer and producer Anoushka Shankar has announced the release of her new track, “Sister Susannah,” slated to drop on March 22.

“Over the course of the last year, it has been impossible to ignore the shadow pandemic happening alongside the pandemic itself. Hearing of the suffering of so many women, I have once again been startled by how common the experiences of abuse can be,” Shankar said.

The track features the Indian American musician on sitar, and reciting a checklist of requirements from the perspective of an unidentified man to his romantic partner.

She added: “‘Sister Susannah’ is a song I’ve toyed with for some time and the current situation, alongside people’s visceral reactions to our rare live performances of the song, prompted me to revisit and release it.”

Alongside Shankar, Grammy-nominated composer Alev Lenz has co-written the music and lyrics, and poet Nikita Gill contributes the poem in the song, marking her first foray into music. Manu Delago performs percussion and Nina Harries, Alev Lenz and Anandi Bhattacharya provide additional vocals.

Shankar is also scheduled to perform at the 63rd Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony. She will join artists including Gregory Porter and Kamasi Washington.

As part of the International Women’s Day celebrations, she performed Mar. 8 evening at Women, Power and Change: International Women’s Day at WOW, an event by WOW UK Festival 2021 that is being held virtually for the first time.

Outstanding Women’s Achievements Awards Gala Held Virtually

Indi JaiswalCommunity, Profile, Women 0

On a Cool Saturday Evening, March 6, 2021, Honorable Supervisor Joseph Saladino, New York State Assembly woman Jennifer Raj Kumar, Nassau County Executive Laura Curran, Bobby Kumar Kalotee, Founding Member of IAF, and Community Leaders, joined in the ZOOM Call, they all very well felt the pride and achievement regarding the theme of the program. The attendance of Honorees and members of Indian American Community filled up the screens. of so many accomplished and elite, who is who of the society gathered for one singular purpose, to be the part of and to celebrate 10th Outstanding Women’s Achievements Gala, part of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day Celebrations

IAF (Indian American Forum) led by Indu Jaiswal, known for her strong commitment and dedication to the community cause was the organizing force behind the gala.  This year well known Community Leader Shammi Singh was the Chairperson of the Gala., Shammi Singh in her remarks welcomed all the guests congratulated all the honorees and praised their efforts in achieving such success. American National Anthem sung by Gurbani Kaur Sethi and Indian National Anthem sung by Roopam Maini. Mistress of Ceremonies Aashmeeta Yogiraj Sandhu. Made the evening enjoyable.

Program started with Ganesh Vandana sung by Vandana Jauhar, Dance performances presented by students of Nartan Rang Dance Academy, well-known Choreographers Swati Vaishnav, Students from Satya Narayan Charka Schools. Vocal performances by Pallavi, Jyoti Gupta and Kul Bhushan Sharma enthralled the audience.

Chanbir Kaur Sethi, Roopam Maini, Inesha Singh, Rohini Singh and Dr Meena Jaiswal coordinated a brief Q&A session with the honorees discussing and emphasizing their accomplishments.

Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino congratulated all honorees and acknowledged the efforts of IAF Team. Five distinguished women who had excelled in their profession and community services were presented with Outstanding Women’s achievements Awards

Dr NIRMAL KUMAR KHURANA, MD.MBA. F.A.A. P A very well well-known pediatrician of Long Island, who not only treated children over half a century to maintain their robust health but also trained an army of doctors on Long Island Hospitals.: Mercy, South Nassau, Hempstead General Etc. A very successful entrepreneur too who along with her husband Dr ISH KUMAR, a neurosurgeon, attained successes in many enterprises in America and founded a large Hospital in India facility with first class medical technologies which is also affiliated with a medical college in New Delhi. India, to meet the health care challenges of burgeoning population and train an army of medical doctors, to meet future needs. Both are known for their philanthropic work over several decades that served various causes of humanity.

DR ANGELISH KUMAR MD, NCMP, AOA A young dynamic diplomat of the American Board of Urology, who is affiliated with Mount Sinai Hospital. Shei s also the founder of Women’s Orology, New York, New York. She got training at NEW YORK UNIVERSITY’S LANGON MEDICAL CENTER. Dr Kumar has handled women’s need with cutting edge technology very successfully for over a decade enhancing the quality of care for busy New York City women who want to stay fit and make most of their lives. Dr. Kumar serves on the Executive Boards of Springboard Enterprises, USA and Human Care Charitable Trust a medical facility in New Delhi, India

HONORABLE LAURA CURRAN A very successful NASSAU COUNTY EXECUTIVE serving the sixth richest county of America, abutting New York City, with Gold Coast of America, she opened the gates of opportunity to many on Long Island and handled the Pandemic specter very ably to control it and is bringing the thriving economy back to Long Island.

HONORABLE JENNIFER RAJKUMAR A dynamic political leader and first Indian American Lady to get elected as ASSEMBLY WOMAN OF THE NEW YOTK STATE ASSEMBLY in the thirty-eight district to lead the well-known State of New York with a thriving population of over twenty million. We wish her good luck

MS ROOPAL PATEL A glamorous leader in the fashion world of New York City where she leads as SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT in the prestigious SAKS FIFTH AVENUE, bringing a touch of beauty and elegance to the lives of eight million New York City dwellers and beyond.

Also, Citations of Appreciations were presented to Dr Sanjana Jon and MS Brahashitha Gupta for their community services. Nassau County Executive Honorable Laura Curran was all in praises for the efforts of Indian American Forum and Indian American Community. She congratulated all honorees and stressed the importance of role women are playing in this world.  Citations of behalf of Nassau County Executive Laura Curran were presented by Jasbir Jay Singh Executive Member of Office of ASIAN AMERICAN AFFAIRS, NASSAU COUNTY and from Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino, New York State Senator Kevin Thomas Were presented to all Honorees

Among those present during the event were Bobby Kumar Kalotee Founder of IAF and Chair of Nassau County Human right Commissioner Board of Trustees Dr Parveen Chopra, Dr Azad Anand, Surinder Rametra, Dr Ved Kawatra, Animesh Goenka, Dr Urmilesh Arya, Dr Bhupendra Patel, Board members Beena Kothari, Bina Sabapathy, Nirmala Rametra, Anu Gulati, Dr Meena Jaiswal, Vijay Goswamy, Dr Meena Jaiswal, Roopam Maini, Chanbir Kaur Sethi, Rohini Singh, Anuj Rihal, Inesha Singh, Gala Chairperson Shammi Singh and Many others helped in making the event a grand success.

Also, messages and video clips were presented by Anika Tolat from Arti Foundation, Dr Pratichi Goenka from AIA  and Dr Sudha Acharya from SACCS ., in appreciation for their support with IAF during COVID Pandemic, providing relief helping with donations of PPE, Food for seniors, Donations to SACCS Food Pantry, Donations of Jackets, blankets and many more items as needed to the Veterans.

It was indeed a very successful evening, showcasing and honoring outstanding women achievers, who are successful in business, cultural, professional, education, and medical. Community and social services.

Mithali Raj, 1st Woman Cricketer To Complete 7,000 ODI Runs

Staff ReporterSports, Women 0

Mithali Raj reached the 7,000-run milestone in her 213th match, which was the fourth ODI of the ongoing five-match series against South Africa. Veteran batter Mithali Raj on Sunday added another feather to her cap by becoming the first player to complete 7,000 runs in women’s ODI cricket.

The Indian skipper reached the 7,000-run milestone in her 213th match, which was the fourth ODI of the ongoing five-match series against South Africa.

“Magnificent Mithali! #TeamIndia ODI skipper becomes the first woman cricketer to score 7000 ODI runs. What a performer she has been!” the BCCI tweeted.

The 38-year-old, who made her international debut in 1999, was also the first player to score 6,000 runs in women’s ODIs. England’s Charlotte Edwards, who retired from international cricket in 2016, is second the list of leading run scorers with 5,992.

Mitahli scored a 71-ball 45 before being dismissed by medium pacer Tumi Sekhukhune in the 38th over of the fourth ODI. She hit four boundaries during her stay in the middle.

On Friday, during the third match, Mithali had become the first Indian player and only the second internationally to complete 10,000 runs across all formats.

Young Climate Activist Varshini Prakash Recognized As Woman of the Year 2021

Staff ReporterCommunity, Women, Youth 0

A climate activist, Varshini Prakash was given the coveted Woman of the Year 2021during the annual awards ceremony on Saturday, March 6th . She was chosen for the award for her courage, persistence and energy to inspire to the next generation to join the battle to make the world a better place. Ms. Prakash was on the TIME 100 Next List in 2019 and also made to Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 2020.

As per reports, a panel of nine independent judges on Saturday broke from the tradition and chose 27-year-old and she was honored with the award at the 18th annual INDIA New England Woman of the Year Awards ceremony organized virtually.

The organizers of the awards ceremony said, “Ms. Prakash is leading a climate revolution in U.S. politics. Co-founder and Executive Director of the Sunrise Movement, as well as co-author of the book “Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can”, Ms. Prakash has led a youth movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process, while bringing The Green New Deal to the attention of millions during the recent election.”

In her acceptance speech, Ms. Prakash said she was surprised to win this honor, and said “the people should lead and the leaders follow” calling upon all of the people to come together to fight against climate change. Only then perhaps leaders will listen and take concrete far-reaching measures, she said.

“It is indeed a very proud moment for the New England community to celebrate these amazing women and their journeys and recognize a young and vibrant leader in Varshini Prakash as the Woman of the Year,” said Praveen Tailam, Chair TiE Global who headed an independent panel of nine judges. “Launching and growing a revolution to address the climate crises through her Sunrise movement is no easy task. Varshini’s courage, persistence, and energy inspire the next generation to join the battle to make the world a better place and create new jobs.”

Mr. Tailam added: “Varshini is a real trailblazer by embarking on a path less traveled, especially from our community. It is upon us to nurture such selfless individuals and elevate the initiatives that affect the entire human race.”

In addition to Mr. Tailam, the right other judges were: Nikhil Bhojwani Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Recon Strategy; Shipra Dubey, PhD, Principal Associate, Harvard Medical School Director, Radiochemistry, Research and Development, BICOR, Radiology Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Vineeta Kumar, President Indian American Getting Involved Group; Santhana Krishnan, Founder, South Asian Art Gallery and Managing Partner, Om Ventures; Revathy Ramakrishna, Co-Founder, Vision-Aid; Preetesh Shrivastava, Founder, Hindi Manch and Preetesh Entertainment, LLC; Meena Subramanyam , Vice President and Global Program Leader, Takeda Pharmaceuticals; Bala Sundaram, PhD, Vice Provost for Research & Dean of Graduate Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Judges also selected two out of 20 Outstanding Women for Honorable Mentions. “We were entrusted to pick one winner and it was hard. Along with the winner the jury decided to honorably mention two incredible women and in no particular order,” said Mr. Tailam. “Rhitu Siddarth. Rhitu has been bravely providing humanitarian leadership thru her work with UN in many troubled and battled countries like Syria, Sudan, Libya and more over the last 18 years. So proud of you. And Priti Chatter, who quietly and surely make an impact to solving problems that address the immediate needs of billion people.”

Bharatanatyam dance teacher Sridevi Ajai Thirumalai, who has taught over 1,000 students and has developed her own-style of teaching classical dance to Indian-American children, received India New England News Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mandy Pant and Jharna Madan served as emcees of the evening. Tech support was provided by Sraveo. Key sponsors included Boston Group/Sybu Kota, BMW Sudbury/Pranav Gill, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Alankar Decorators, Boston Sound & Light Company, Dyuti Majumdar Photography.

“I always say that you do not get Woman of the Year award. It finds you. Somehow an independent jury panel finds someone who is right for the role in that moment in time from 20 fantastic and extremely qualified women,” said Dr. Manju Sheth, director hostess of the Woman of the Year awards. “Climate change is currently on everyone’s mind so not surprisingly that Varshini, a leader in climate revolution with her sunrise movement is Woman of the Year 2021. She is perhaps our youngest winner. Congratulations to her. We are proud of her. Congratulations also to Rhitu Siddarth and Priti Chatter for special well deserved recognition as well.”

New Face Of Great Indian Economy: An Exclusive Interview with DR. Swati V Kulkarni Consulate General Of India at Atlanta

Dr. Mathew Joys, Las VegasCommunity, Nation India, Women 0

Meticulously rebuilding and reshaping a great democratic nation need the dedicated efforts of politicians and diplomats who reflect the characteristics and features of the progress of their motherland on international platforms, and weaving vibrant relationships globally.

 

Indian Consulate General at Atlanta USA, Dr. Swati Vijay Kulkarni, with her exciting initiatives, demonstrates her dedication to uplift the greatness of India and bestow unparalleled benefits to the Indian community.

 

Dr. Swati Vijay Kulkarni is a career diplomat who holds an M.B.B.S. (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) degree from the prestigious Government Medical College, Nagpur, India. She joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1995.

 

In a recent interview with her, she revealed how much she is ambitious, energetic, and looking for ways to help people.Her achievements, background, and personality can be evident from the concrete answers provided for the questions of national importance, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic hit a developing nation like India, and how successful the Indian government is able to combat and control the disaster.

 

Q : How far Indian diplomacy is successful in expediting the Covid vaccination programs in India and other foreign countries in distress?

On January 16, we launched the world’s largest vaccination drive. The vaccination drive has been planned in a phased manner. The Phase 1 work is in progress. As of date, i.e., February 17, 2021, we have vaccinated over 9.42 million people, mostly frontline and health workers. The 2nd Phase is starting shortly. It will give priority to people over 50 years and those with co-morbidities. Both the phases will vaccinate about 300 million people, almost the entire America minus 32 million or so. This will fast-track our economic recovery.

The launch of ‘Vaccine Maitri’ in January has been a landmark in our diplomacy. In accordance with the Honorable Prime Minister’s commitment to deploy vaccine production and delivery capacity for the benefit of all humanity, vaccines have been delivered to 25 countries as of February 17, 2021. So far, we have delivered about 16.5 million doses. A limited quantity of vaccines has initially been supplied as grant assistance/as a gift as our commitment to neighborhood first policy and our commitment to special relationships. Rest supplied on a commercial basis. Our exports have taken place to Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, and other countries like Brazil, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Canada, and others. Forty-nine more countries will be supplied shortly. By doing this, we reinforced our image of brand India as the ‘pharmacy of the world.’ We demonstrated in practical terms our intent of being good international citizens and responsible stakeholders in global healthcare supply chains. Our COVID response needs to be seen in the context of

‘ Aatmanirbhar Bharat’- where we have come out with not one but two made in India corona vaccines to protect humanity. You may recall that we earlier supplied made in India Hydroxychloroquine, Paracetamol, PPE, RT-PCR test kits, etc., to our international friends. Our Hon’ble PM says: “Wherever India has capabilities, the benefits have reached the entire world.”

 

 

 Q: How far the last few years of the Government machinery pushed the economy of India to higher levels, and how positive is the latest Union Budget?

As far as our economic fundamentals are concerned, our economy is forecasted to contract by 7.7 % in 2020-2021. It will witness a sharp recovery of 10-12 % in 2021-2022. So, we will witness a V-shaped recovery. During early COVID, we saw interim measures such as liquidity infusion and direct cash transfers. We gave free cooking gas to over 80 million families, free food grains to about 800 million. Then we saw the launch of structural reforms – Aatmanirbhar Bharat 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 – i.e., reforms in growth sectors in agriculture, power, defense, civil aviation, mining, etc., reforms are introduced in the MSME sector with the focus on manufacturing, fast Track Investment Clearance through Empowered Group of Secretaries, New Education Policy, Tax Policy- Transparent Taxation- Honoring The Honest including Product Linked Incentive Scheme in over ten sectors. So, it was a crisis period for us, but an opportunity was taken to usher in five-mini budgets to bring in essential reforms that have been long overdue.

In fact, during the pandemic, we have seen certain positive developments. India’s foreign exchange reserves rose to an all-time high of more than US$ 586 billion, and external debt decreased by US$ 2 billion -we are expected to see a current account surplus after a gap of 17 years. FDI inflows were nearly US $ 50 billion in the last financial year as compared to US$ 44 billion in the year 2019. We added a record number of 12 start-ups to the Unicorn list the previous year with a valuation of over US $ 1 billion. Most significantly, India, for the first time, entered the top 50 innovative economies.

Our recent historic budget needs to be seen against this backdrop. Union Budget itself carries forward this process of reforms and other initiatives. It focuses on healthcare and wellness, universal water supply, voluntary vehicle scrapping, infrastructure, skilling, education, innovation – basically on holistic, inclusive development and a mantra of Minimum Government and Maximum governance.

 

Q: What is the impact of the  Farmers protest in India, and how distressing it is  to the overall growth- in-progress?

As you are aware, the Parliament of India, after a full debate and discussion, passed reformist legislation relating to the agricultural sector as our Government is committed to the socio-economic empowerment of the farmers. These reforms give expanded market access and provide greater flexibility to farmers. They also pave the way for economically and ecologically sustainable farming. A tiny section of farmers in parts of India has some reservations about these reforms. Union Ministers have been part of the negotiations, and eleven rounds of talks have already been held. The Government has even offered to keep the laws on hold and offer iterated by no less than India’s prime minister. It is miserable to see vested interest groups trying to enforce their agenda on the farmers’ protests and derail them. The vandalization of the Red Fort on Republic Day was a deplorable and anti-national act. Some of these vested interest groups have also tried to mobilize international support against India. Instigated by such fringe elements, Mahatma Gandhi statues have been desecrated in parts of the world. This is extremely disturbing for India and civilized society everywhere. Indian police forces have handled these protests with utmost restraint and have taken all these violent incidents seriously. It may be noted that hundreds of men and women serving in the police have been physically attacked and stabbed, and seriously wounded in some cases.

We want to emphasize that Government is committed to resolving the impasse within our democratic ethos and polity framework.

Motivated campaigns shall not succeed. We have self-confidence today to hold on to our own. This India will push back any propaganda.

 

Q In view of the new US administration, what are our priorities?

India’s global partnership with the US continues to deepen across the extraordinary breadth. There are many dimensions to our relationship, and it has assumed new significance in the changing world. Our co-operation is expanding at all fronts. Trade is growing. With the new administration in Washington, both sides will carry forward this momentum, especially in post-pandemic recovery. Our countries’ leadership had a telephone conversation on two occasions – one in November 2020 and another at the beginning of this month. Both the leaders have agreed to work closely to advance our comprehensive partnership built on shared values and common interests. The dialogue at the Ministerial and official level too continues for enhanced diplomatic consultation and coordination.

The priority area is to work on Healthcare and wellness front to contain the pandemic and promote access to vaccines on a fast-track basis. Other significant areas of India-US collaboration are digital, innovation, IT & start-Up; Education & Knowledge partnerships, clean energy including LNG & Solar and defense & related sectors.

 

Q How far India is supportive to Paris Climate Accord and what are the strategies in action?

India remains committed to the goals of the Paris Climate Accord. We know that climate change requires an integrated and comprehensive approach. India, therefore, has included climate action strategies in its national and developmental agenda. India has also demonstrated leadership by creating the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure. Our solar energy production will reach 450 GW by 2030 as we expect to cross 220 GW in the next two years. Our National Clean Air Program aims to reduce greenhouse emissions by 20-30% in the next four years. Several other initiatives like safe drinking water for all by 2024, planting more trees, using LED lamps, promoting electric vehicles, creating Smart cities and green transport networks will help us to reduce the impact of climate change.

 

No doubt Dr. Swati Kulkarni has offered deep insights into her perspective on important topics through the analysis of their crisp responses. Best wishes to her all endeavors that make India Great again.

Vanita Gupta’s Nomination As US Associate Attorney-General Meets With Mixed Response From Conservatives

Staff ReporterNation USA, Profile, Women 0

After the Indian-American cabinet nominee, Neera Tandon withdrew her nomination last week, , the focus is now on Vanita Gupta, who is soon to face the Senate for confirmation as the third highest-ranking official in the Justice Department. Conservatives are split on Gupta, a civil rights lawyer, with two groups fighting it out with TV ads — one rallying against attacks on her by another.

President Joe Biden has nominated Gupta to be the associate attorney-general and the Senate is take up her confirmation – a requirement for senior administration positions – on March 9.

The first salvo came from the Judicial Crisis Network with an ad campaign accusing her of being soft on crime. In a reference to the Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality that sometimes turned violent last year, the group’s ad said, “When our cities burned Gupta could’ve stood for law and order, for victims. Instead, she advocated to let convicts out of jail.”

However, it also coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic and her suggestion to release some of the low-level criminals only echoed that of former President Donald Trump’s Attorney General William Barr, who wanted to ease crowding inn jails to ease overcrowding that could spread the disease. According to media reports, the Network spent $800,000 on the campaign.

Now, the Defending Democracy Together (DDT) organization is countering it with a campaign ad of its own that is on YouTube and is set to air on TV. Urging her nomination, the ad said, “Don’t let Washington play politics with the nomination of Vanita Gupta.”

It said that she “has been building bridges across partisan divides, she has the broad backing of law enforcement” and has the support of leading conservatives.

DDT is a group of Republican conservatives who have opposed Trump. Its directors include former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and Linda Chavez, the highest-ranking woman among former President Ronald Reagan’s White House staff.

Gupta will need the support of all the 50 Democrats in the evenly-divided Senate to get her nomination approved – or will have to get Republican support if anyone from her party defects.

Tanden’s nomination to be the director of the Office of Management and Budget is stalled because one Democrat, Joseph Manchin, announced that he will not vote for her citing her intemperate statements and tweets attacking both Republicans and Democrats.

While a leftist group, Roots Action, has campaigned against Tanden, who had attacked the leftist Senator Bernie Sanders among others, the Democrats and other liberals are solidly behind Gupta.

The Wall Street Journal reported that a petition against Gupta was being circulated by some Republican state attorneys-general.

Countering that campaign and the one by the Network campaign labelling Gupta soft on crime, three groups of law enforcement officials – Fraternal Order of Police, Major County Sheriffs of America and Federal Law Enforcement Officials Association have come out to support her.

During his Senate hearings Merrick Garland, who was confirmed as the attorney-general, faced hostile questions about Gupta from Republican Senator Mike Lee.

Garland vouched for her saying, “I regard her as a person of great integrity and a person dedicated to the mission of the department, particularly equal justice under the law.”

Gupta was the principal deputy assistant attorney-general and head of the Civil Rights Division in former President Barack Obama’s administration.

She made her mark as a newly-minted lawyer by winning the release of 38 people, most of them African-Americans, who had been wrongly convicted by all-White juries on drug charges in a Texas town and also got them $6 million on compensation. (IANS)

International Women’s Day, 2021: To Change the World, Women Must Choose to Challenge

Patricia ScotlandWomen, Youth 0

Among the greatest gifts with which I have been blessed were parents who instilled in me a deep-rooted sense of identity, and the unequivocal belief that there was no difference between what a boy and a girl could achieve.

This assurance sustained me while growing up, as the tenth child out of twelve wonderful siblings, and through the numerous times when it was suggested by others that I would never succeed, simply because I was black, poor and female.

Patricia Scotland

When I set out on my career in law, a mere 3% of the profession were women, and less than 0.01% were black women. Given my background, few expected that I would one day become the first woman in 700 years to serve as Her Majesty’s Attorney-General for England and Wales.

We have come a long way since then, and today – thanks in a large part to sustained advocacy efforts over the years – there is encouraging progress in terms of gender equality in the Commonwealth.

Almost half the lawyers in the UK are women now. In the Commonwealth, a girl is just as likely to attend primary school as a boy, while on average, 56% of women participate in the labour force, and they make up the larger part of the informal sector.

To date, 13 member countries have achieved 30% or more female members of parliament, while ten have 30% or more ministers who are women. The Commonwealth Secretariat continues to work diligently alongside member countries through programmes that encourage women’s participation in politics to build on success already achieved.

However, there remains much progress to be made on several key indicators. Currently, only one in five Commonwealth parliamentarians is a woman, and only three Commonwealth countries have achieved gender parity in parliament. Women are still vastly under-represented in leadership positions in the science, academic and private sectors.

Furthermore, in an era where digital technology is becoming increasingly the norm, women in poorer countries face a ‘double digital divide’, being 14% less likely than men to own a mobile phone. In practical terms, this means that there are 200 million fewer women who can readily access this technology to find information or manage money online.

Other underlying systemic inequalities continue to be remarkably persistent, including the distressing prevalence of violence against women and girls, which remains high throughout the Commonwealth and across the world, despite the advances there have been in women’s economic status, leadership and agency.

Covid-19

A year into the global pandemic, it is clear that besides economic and social shocks, the consequences of COVID-19 are also exacerbating existing gender inequities.

In addition to rising cases of domestic violence, reports show that women have been losing their jobs at a greater rate than men, despite making up a smaller proportion of the formal labour force. Meanwhile, the burden of unpaid care work is being borne disproportionately by women.

Research indicates that women are overly represented in sectors and industries expected to decline because of COVID-19, such as education, accommodation and food services, wholesale and retail trade, arts and recreation, and public administration. Similarly, women-owned micro, small and medium enterprises which rely on tourism have also been affected, because of greatly reduced travel and visitor arrivals in most Commonwealth countries.

Notably, throughout this crisis, I have been impressed by the leadership demonstrated by female heads of government in the Commonwealth. Prime Ministers Mia Mottley of Barbados, Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh and Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand have all been rightly lauded for their able handling of the crisis, marked by coordinated action as well as compassion.

However, this also draws our attention to how few women hold these positions of leadership, underlining the need for politics and government to reflect more fairly and inclusively the societies they represent and serve.

International Women’s Day

This International Women’s Day, the Commonwealth Secretariat is highlighting ways in which it engages to challenge the gender inequalities that continue to hold back the economic, social and leadership potential of half of the world’s population.

The Commonwealth Secretariat has launched a social media campaign #SheLeadsTheWay, which aims to recognise women leaders across the Commonwealth, during COVID-19 and beyond.

On 5 March, we celebrated women’s contributions to ocean science in a virtual event featuring women from across the Commonwealth who are challenging gender norms through their work in ocean industries.

On 8 March, another virtual panel will put a spotlight on women’s leadership in responding to COVID-19 and charting an equitable recovery.

There remains much more to do to achieve gender equality in the Commonwealth, and in order to deliver Goal 5 of the Sustainable Development Agenda. As the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on inequality emerges, laws and policies to support women’s empowerment are needed more than ever before, and it is vital that we should not be diverted from this priority by other competing demands during these times of crisis.

(The author is the sixth Commonwealth Secretary-General and the first woman to hold the post.)

How Chef Asma Khan Created an All-Women Kitchen

Kamalika MukherjeeCulture, Women 0

If you’ve seen Netflix’s popular show Chef’s Table, chances are that you already know Asma Khan. Raised in Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta), India, as a second daughter (an often overlooked member of the family), the chef and restaurateur behind London’s Darjeeling Express is known for serving the Indian dishes of her childhood, filled with Bengali, Mughlai, and Bihari influences. But she has also worked tirelessly to create a safe space for many more “second daughters” like herself, by hiring an all-women staff, most of whom are South Asian immigrants. We caught up with Khan on the eve of the restaurant’s move to its new Covent Garden location, to discuss the food she grew up eating, sexism in the industry, and the pandemic’s ongoing impact on restaurants.

What experiences back home inspired you to become a chef?

Although I have lived across Hyderabad and Chennai, I spent most of my life in Kolkata. I never learned to cook but I was always in the kitchen talking to my mother, who had a catering business back in the day. I think what really helped me was the fact that I always tasted her dishes at their most critical stages of preparation. I love the Kolkata biryani, chaap, and rezala, and I grew up eating street food like phuchka, jhalmuri, and churmur. When I go back to Kolkata, I have chop suey because it is so unique to the city. I used to host supper clubs in my house and make chop suey, tangra prawns, and momos.

The menu at Darjeeling Express has the Kolkata biryani, kosha mangsho [mutton curry], chicken chaap, luchi-aloor dum [fried Indian bread with a spicy potato curry]—all of the prominent dishes that represent the city. When I left India, we had no mobile phones and ads were on billboards. I feel like I am better off than today’s generation because our center of attention was food. When we went out, everyone ate and talked rather than hanging out on Instagram.

You run an all-women kitchen. How do you respond to sexism within the restaurant industry?

There have been unfortunate comments from prominent men in hospitality, dismissing women, specifically pregnant women, as “weak.” I see men and women as equally skilled. I personally haven’t faced sexism but have heard terrible stories of sexual harassment, sexism, and racism. The underlying problem is a dynamic that finds women lacking power, which leads them to being bullied and dismissed. I wanted to give these women a platform where we could celebrate our identity. Women in our culture have always cooked for the family but are rarely applauded for it.

How have hiring practices across the industry changed? Do you think more work needs to be done?

In [U.K.] kitchens, there is a total absence of senior BAME [Black, Asian, and minority ethnic] members. Often the only person from the BAME community is the kitchen porter. Leaving aside family-run ethnic cuisine restaurants, there is definitely a lack of representation in the senior ranks of hospitality. When white people are in power there is a lot of self-selection as they feel affinity toward people who look like them. Diversity is extremely important because it brings to the table a different voice, a different perspective on everything. It’s not like ticking a box and saying “I hired a brown person or a Black person so I am diverse.” It is about giving them a voice in decision making. We need more people of our community who are decision makers and recruiters for diversity to truly exist.

The majority of your staff have not been professionally trained, in the traditional sense. How does it make your kitchen different from other restaurants?

I don’t think there is much of a difference—being in the restaurant business is difficult on its own. I know people in their 60s who have been cooking since they were teenagers. That is life experience. I would say that a home cook, however, has a secret ingredient: love. In our case, we cook in an old fashioned, traditional style which is much slower; we don’t use too many utensils or technology. I personally meet all of my customers because I believe in ibadat [the Urdu word for sense of service]. If we are serving luchi-aloor dum it will be served exactly the way it is supposed to; there’s no fancy plating or micro greens to elevate the dish. I am not trying to be someone else. I am very proud of my Bengali heritage.

The kind of food that I do needs to be cooked with people who have the same instincts as me. Honestly, it’s not about having an “all-women” kitchen, it is about having no hierarchy at all. The women in my kitchen cook like my aunts in the family did. In a normal kitchen, men are made to feel like there are tiers to the job and it is a divided kitchen, even the pay scales are different. At Darjeeling Express, everyone gets paid the same, which eliminates the chances of division and negativity.

You traveled to a refugee camp in Iraq to mark your 50th birthday. Tell us about that experience.

I financed and opened an all women café in the Essyan refugee camp in northern Iraq for young girls and women who were captured by ISIS. The excitement and happiness that this café gave everyone was incredible and only strengthened my belief that food is a powerful bridge that brings people together. In the refugee camp, everyone had a small cooker where they would make their version of biryani. In our kind of cooking, a lot of preparation is involved so these women came together and cooked the dishes they could not cook once they left their home. Food is the way home for me—when I cook, I am back in Kolkata. These refugees won’t be able to go home so I gave them a space that felt like home. Now, they are successfully running it, cooking and baking as they would if they were back home.

With restaurants cautiously reopening after lockdown, what do you think the future of dining looks like?

I would like to think that after this long pause, restaurateurs will come back more humble and in support of their teams. However, my fear is that they will use the economic hardship to further exploit and squeeze the wages of their staff. The government support system [in the U.K.] has been fantastic and we are very grateful, however, not everyone has been lucky. The power structure has changed; restaurants will now have higher debts. The owners might use it as an excuse to squeeze out more from the workers. I’m afraid that because we can only operate at a much lower capacity than before, much less staff and, particularly women and people of color, might not be re-hired. I want to increase the number of people who work with me, so that the business acts like an incubator for the next generation of women in food.

4000+ Eminent And Concerned Citizens Raise A Strong Collective Voice

Staff ReporterCommunity, Women 0

Deeply distressed by the regressive statements of the CJI asking a rapist to marry the victim and condoning marital rape in court on 01 March 2021, over 4000+ concerned citizens, from representatives of India’s women’s movements, progressive groups and feminists, from students to senior citizens to advocates to filmmakers got together and issued an open letter to the CJI demanding an apology, retraction of his remarks and said ‘propriety demands you step down without a moment’s delay!’.

The CJI was hearing the petition for protection from arrest, of a man accused of stalking, tying up, gagging, repeatedly raping a minor school going girl, and threatening to douse her in petrol and set her alight, to hurl acid at her, and to have her brother killed. Stating that the facts of the case are that the rape came to light when the minor school-going victim attempted suicide, the letter condemned the comment by CJI and said that “it fills us with rage that women bear the burden of having to explain the meaning of ‘seduction’, ‘rape’, and ‘marriage“.

The letter cites the second case (Vinay Pratap Singh vs State of UP) also reported in the media, where the CJI commented that, ‘If a couple is living together as man and wife, the husband may be a brutal man, but can you call the act of sexual intercourse between a lawfully wedded man and wife as rape?’ Criticising the comment, the letter stated that it not only legitimises any kind of sexual, physical and mental violence by the husband, but it normalises the torture that Indian women have been facing within marriages for years without any legal recourse.

Further the letter states that, “From the towering heights of the post of CJI of the Supreme Court, it sends the message to other courts, judges, police and all other law enforcing agencies that justice is not a constitutional right of women in India. This will only lead to the further silencing of girls and women, a process that took decades to break. To the rapists, it sends the message that marriage is a licence to rape; and that by obtaining such a licence, the rapist can post facto decriminalise and legalise his act.”

The strongly worded letter has been endorsed by:

Well known women’s rights activists such as: Annie Raja, Mariam Dhawale, Kavita Krishnan, Kamla Bhasin, Meera Sanghamitra, Arudhati Dhuru, Maimoona Mollah, Zakia Soman, Chayanika Shah, Hasina Khan. About 50 groups and networks including All India Progressive Women’s Association, All India Democratic Women’s Association, National Federation of Indian Women, Saheli, Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression, THITS, Forum Against Oppression of Women, Bebaak Collective, Bharatiya Muslim Mahila aandolan, Domestic Workers Union, Dalit Women’s Fight, BASO, Women and Transgender Orgs Joint Action Committee, Feminists in Resistance, Gather Sisters, Mahila Sampark Samiti, Human Rights Forum, Mazdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, Jan Chetna Manch, Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Women Against Sexual Harassment, Orinam Collective, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, New Socialist Initiative, National Allaince of People’s Movements

Eminent citizens, intellectuals, writers, journalists, and cultural artists such as Admiral L Ramdas, Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, Pamela Phillipose, Anand Sahay, Devaki Jain, John Dayal, Laxmi Murthy, Apoorvanand, Farah Naqvi, Ayesha Kidwai, Anja Kovacs, Geeta Seshu, Maya Rao, Sooni Taporevala, Anjali Monteiro, K.P Jayasankar, Nupur Basu, Anamika Haksar

For more info: saheliwomen@gmail.com; Kavita Krishnan: 9560756628; Anuradha Banerji: 8860824559

A Virtual International Women’s Day Honoring Inspiring Women Planned

Divya ChaturvediCommunity, Profile, Women 0

International Women’s Day, observed on March 8th every year, celebrates the many achievements of women globally and raises awareness about gender equality. The day is marked by a multitude of events and rallies that are held across the globe.

United India Association of New England, together with Saheli, Women Who Win #Dreamcatchers, and Asian American Commission, is holding a virtual International Women’s Day event on March 6th from 3.00 to 5.00 pm in partnership with Team Aid, TAGB, Sewa International, Project Just Because, INE Multimedia, and Newton-Wellesley Hospital.

Massachusetts Senate President Karen E. Spilka will headline the event as a keynote speaker. As the 95th President of the Massachusetts Senate, Senator Spilka has broad-ranging legislative accomplishments. They cover critical areas like criminal justice reform, economic development, education, and services for the elderly and differently-abled communities.

The theme of the International Women’s Day event is ‘Celebrating Women’s Leadership’. The event will highlight inspiring women leaders from South Asia, raise awareness about challenges facing women and prevailing gender biases, and present suggestions and recommendations for brand elevation and emotional well-being. The event will feature presentations and discussions on topics like unconscious bias, building your personal brand, emotional first-aid, women in leadership, and the role of men as allies.

The topics will be curated by accomplished women leaders in the South Asian community who will bring their leadership perspectives to the discussion.

  • Aditi Soni, Director, Program and Alliance Management at Dyne Therapeutics and President of the United India Association of New England (UIANE)
  • Meenakshi Bharath, Commissioner, Asian American Commission and Chair, DESE Gifted & Talented Education Advisory Council
  • Malini Prabhu, Psychiatrist at Newton Wellesley Hospital, Assistant Professor at Tufts University, and Vice President of UAE.
  • Roopal Patel, Vice President at Parexel International and Leadership & Executive Coach
  • Shaleen Sheth, Co-Founder, Women Who Win #Dreamcatchers
  • Manju Sheth,  Co-founder of Women who Win #Dreamcatchers
  • Deepa Zhaveri, Podiatrist at Beth Israel Lahey Hospital & Boston Medical Center, Treasurer, Indian Medical Association of New England, and Co-founder Women Who Win #Dreamcatchers
  • Rollie Lal, Associate Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University
  • Divya Chaturvedi, Co-Executive Director, Saheli Inc.
  • Shweta Agrawal, Director of Marketing and Mobile development at a smart city startup based in Burlington and Saheli Board Member
  • Tanu Debasri, Saheli Board Member and HR Professional
  • Samantha Ganglani, Vice President of Global Development at D-L Incentives,
  • Anupama Gotimukula, Pediatric Anesthesiologist, Children’s Hospital of San Antonio
  • Pratima Penumarthy, Founder and Director of Arya Math Academy
  • Shova Sharma, Financial Service Professional at New York Life and Board Member of Sewa International

The International Women’s Day event hopes to inspire women to embrace the leader within them and become agents of change in making the world a better, more equitable place.

To register for the virtual event and view the full agenda and speaker lineup, click here. To join the International Women’s Day conversation on social media, use the hashtags #uianeboston,  #ChooseToChallenge,  #IWD2021 on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Bollywood’s Sense Of Women’s Beauty Is To Fair Skin

Staff ReporterCommunity, Profile, Women 0

We often hear comments such as these from women, especially in the fancy Bollywood world: “The managers like me more because I am fair and I look like a foreigner.” “You should apply haldi [turmeric] to your skin. If you don’t become fair, who will marry you?” “I was dark when I was born, but my parents bathed me in brandy to make me fair. Your parents should have tried it too.”

Fair-skinned women have often thought of themselves as superior. They have displayed a sense of entitlement because of their fairness. For Bollywood, beautiful women have fair skin, according to an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based computer analysis which reveals that conception of beauty has remained consistent through the years in the film industry centered in Mumbai. The automated computer analysis was led by Indian-origin researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the US.

The research revealed that babies whose births were depicted in Bollywood films from the 1950s and 60s were more often than not boys; in today’s films, boy and girl newborns are about evenly split. In the 50s and 60s, dowries were socially acceptable; today, not so much.

The researchers, led by Kunal Khadilkar and Ashiqur KhudaBukhsh of CMU’s Language Technologies Institute (LTI), gathered 100 Bollywood movies from each of the past seven decades along with 100 of the top-grossing Hollywood moves from the same periods.

They then used statistical language models to analyse subtitles of those 1,400 films for gender and social biases, looking for such factors as what words are closely associated with each other. “Most cultural studies of movies might consider five or 10 movies,” said Khadilkar, a master’s student in LTI.

“Our method can look at 2,000 movies in a matter of days.”

For instance, the researchers assessed beauty conventions in movies by using a so-called cloze test.

Essentially, it’s a fill-in-the-blank exercise: “A beautiful woman should have BLANK skin.”

A language model normally would predict “soft” as the answer, the researchers noted.

But when the model was trained with the Bollywood subtitles, the consistent prediction became “fair”.

The same thing happened when Hollywood subtitles were used, though the bias was less pronounced, said the study.

To assess the prevalence of male characters, the researchers used a metric called Male Pronoun Ratio (MPR), which compares the occurrence of male pronouns such as “he” and “him” with the total occurrences of male and female pronouns.

From 1950 through today, the MPR for Bollywood and Hollywood movies ranged from roughly 60 to 65 MPR.

Looking at words associated with dowry over the years, the researchers found such words as “loan,” “debt” and “jewelry” in Bollywood films of the 50s, which suggested compliance.

By the 1970s, other words, such as “consent” and “responsibility,” began to appear. Finally, in the 2000s, the words most closely associated with dowry — including “trouble,” “divorce” and “refused” — indicate noncompliance or its consequences.

“All of these things we kind of knew,” said KhudaBukhsh, an LTI project scientist, “but now we have numbers to quantify them. And we can also see the progress over the last 70 years as these biases have been reduced.” The findings were presented at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence virtual conference earlier this month. (IANS)

In Vice President Kamala Harris, We Can See How America Has Changed

Kim Parker and Amanda BarrosoCommunity, Profile, Women 0

The swearing-in of Kamala Harris as the vice president of the United States marked several important “firsts”: She became the first female vice president, as well as the first Black person and first Asian American to hold that office. But her ascendance to the second-highest office in the land represented so much more. It held up a mirror to America, revealing how key demographic trends have reshaped the country.

Kamala Harris embodies several trends that have been unfolding gradually over recent decades. As a result, many Americans – not just women of color – can see themselves in her story.

The rise in multiracial Americans: Harris has a multiracial background. Her mother was South Asian and her father is Black. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans who identify as two or more races are one of the fastest growing racial or ethnic groups in the country, along with Asians. Roughly 6.3 million American adults – 2.5% of the adult population – identified as being more than one race in 2019. The number has grown significantly since the census first allowed people to choose more than one racial category to describe themselves in 2000. Among adults who identify as more than one race, relatively few (2.1%) are Black and Asian.

Racial identity is complex, and estimates of the multiracial population may underrepresent the share of people who identify with multiple racial groups based on their family history. In addition, racial identity can be fluid and may change over the course of one’s lifetime. In a 2015 Pew Research Center survey, about three-in-ten adults with a multiracial background said the way they describe their race has changed over the years – either from seeing themselves as multiracial at one point and single race at another, or vice versa.

Growing waves of immigrants are from Asia and the Caribbean: Harris is the daughter of two immigrants, one from India and one from Jamaica. The share of immigrants from Asia living in the U.S. has been on the rise in recent decades, following the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. In 2018, Asians made up 28% of the U.S. foreign-born population, up from 4% in 1960. And starting as early as 2010, Asian immigrants outnumbered Hispanic immigrants among new arrivals.

 

Harris’ father immigrated to the U.S. in 1961 from Jamaica. There were roughly 125,000 Black immigrants in the U.S. at that time, but their numbers have grown steadily, particularly in the last two decades. By 2019, one-in-ten Black people living in the U.S. were foreign born. That same year, Jamaica was the top birthplace for Black immigrants.

As a second-generation American, Harris is among the roughly 25 million U.S. adults who are children of immigrants. This group represents about 10% of the adult population.

The rise of intermarriage: Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is White, which makes them – as a couple – part of a growing group of intermarried couples. In 2019, 11% of all married U.S. adults had a spouse who was a different race or ethnicity from them, up from 3% in 1967. Among newlyweds in 2019, roughly one-in-five (19%) were intermarried.

The rise of intermarriage was driven initially by legal changes: The 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia ruled that marriage across racial lines was legal throughout the country. Demographic trends have contributed as well – in particular, the growing share of the population that is Asian or Hispanic, as these groups are more likely than others to marry someone of another race or ethnicity. As of 2015, the largest share of intermarried couples include one Hispanic and one White spouse. Some 15% are White and Asian, 12% are White and multiracial and 11% are White and Black.

In addition, public attitudes about intermarriage have evolved. The public has become more accepting of mixed marriages. In 2017, 39% of all adults said the growing number of people marrying someone of a different race is a good thing for the country, up from 24% in 2010.

Divorce and blended families: When she married Emhoff – who is divorced and has two children from his previous marriage – Harris became part of a blended family. The American family has evolved considerably in recent decades, and today there is no typical “family.” In 1980, most children younger than 18 lived in a household with two married parents who were in their first marriage. By 2014, fewer than half of U.S. children lived in that type of household. Some 15% lived with parents in a remarriage, 7% lived with cohabiting parents and 26% lived with an unpartnered parent.

Trends in divorce and remarriage have contributed to the increasing diversity of family types. The divorce rate for U.S. adults ages 50 and older has roughly doubled since the 1990s. At the same time, divorce has become less common for younger adults who are delaying marriage until later in life. In 2015, for every 1,000 married adults ages 50 and older, 10 had divorced.

Remarriage is also on the rise. In 2013, four-in-ten new marriages in the U.S. included at least one partner who had been married before. This marked a significant increase from past decades, fueled in large part by rising divorce rates and the overall aging of the U.S. population, which gives people more years to form – and dissolve – marital unions.

Childlessness: Harris does not have any biological children of her own. A look at U.S. women at the end of their childbearing years reveals that 15% were childless in 2014, while the majority (85%) had given birth to at least one child. The childlessness rate was down from 20% in 2005 but still higher than the rate prior to the 1990s.

Higher levels of education are associated with higher rates of childlessness. In 2014, only 7% of women ages 40 to 44 without a high school diploma were childless. This compares with 13% of those who completed high school or attended some college, and about 20% of those with a bachelor’s degree or more education.

Delayed marriage: Harris married when she was 49 years old, and while this is older than the median age at first marriage, it reflects a trend toward women and men waiting longer to get married. In 2020, the U.S. had its highest median age at first marriage on record – 28.1 for women and 30.5 for men. These numbers have crept up steadily over time. In 2000, the median age at first marriage was 25.1 for women and 26.8 for men. In 1980, the median ages were 22.0 for women and 24.7 for men.

One reason for the uptick in delayed marriage is a rise in cohabitation among Americans. A 2019 Pew Research Center analysis found that the share of adults ages 18 to 44 who have ever cohabited (59%) was higher than the share who had ever been married (50%). This represented a reversal of sorts from 2002, when more adults had been married (60%) than had ever cohabited (54%).

At the same time, relatively few adults view marriage as central to a person’s happiness. In 2019, only 17% of adults said being married was essential for a woman to live a fulfilling life, and a similar share (16%) said the same about a man. Having a job or career they enjoy is viewed as essential for women and men to live fulfilling lives by much larger shares of the public (46% and 57% respectively). Still, a majority of never-married adults said in a 2017 survey that they wanted to get married someday.

Interfaith marriage: Harris and Emhoff are among a growing share of married adults whose spouse does not share their religion. Harris is Christian and attends a Baptist church, and Emhoff is Jewish. While most married adults in the U.S. have a spouse who is the same religion as them, that has become less common in recent decades. Among adults who were married before 1960 (and are still married), only 19% have a spouse who does not share their religion. For those married in the 1980s and ’90s, 30% are in an interfaith marriage. The share has continued to rise: 39% of adults who were married between 2010 and 2014 have a spouse who identifies with a different religious group than their own.

The most common interfaith marriages involve Christians who are either married to a spouse from a different Christian tradition or Christians who are married to an unaffiliated spouse. The share who are married to someone from a different faith (such as Harris and Emhoff) is smaller but still growing.

Women in leadership: Before becoming the first female vice president, Harris served as a U.S. senator. Elected in 2016, Harris joined 20 other women in the U.S. Senate in 2017. This marked a historic high for women; the number rose to 25 in 2019. Now, the Senate has 24 female members, including one Latina woman and two who are Asian-Pacific Islander. There are no Black women currently serving in the Senate. In the House of Representatives, women make up 27.3% of current members. This represents a historic high for that chamber.

While women have made significant gains in leadership positions in recent decades, they still hold a relatively small share of top leadership positions in politics and in business. Women hold only nine of the nation’s governorships. They were 7.4% of Fortune 500 CEOs in 2020 and 27% of Fortune 500 board members in 2019.

For their part, most Americans say they would like to see more women in top leadership positions, and majorities see women and men as equally capable across key dimensions of leadership. Still, most men and women say it’s generally easier for men to get elected to high political office and to get top executive positions in business

Educational gains for women: Kamala Harris is a highly educated woman. She has a bachelor’s degree and a law degree. Her achievements in this area are emblematic of a generation of women who have surpassed men in terms of educational attainment. In 2019, among those ages 25 and older, 37% of women and 35% of men had completed four years of college.

Looking at young adults, the gender gap in favor of women is much wider, reflecting recent gains. In 2020, 44% of women ages 25 to 29 had at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 35% of men in the same age group. Young women surpassed young men in college completion for the first time in 1991. Since then the gender gap has steadily grown. Today, young women are more likely than young men to have completed a four-year college degree across all major racial and ethnic groups.

Women also make up the majority of enrolled law school students. In 2020, 55% of those enrolled in U.S. law schools were women, while 45% were men. Women are represented in larger shares among White law students as well as students from racial and ethnic minority groups.

Attorney Kiran Ahuja Appointed By Biden To Head Office Of Personnel Management

Staff ReporterProfile, Women 0

President Joe Biden has appointed Kiran Ahuja, a civil rights lawyer and an advocate for Asian Americans, to head the Office of Personnel Management. Ahuja, whose nomination was announced Feb. 23 by the White House, is joining at least 20 other Indian Americans nominated by Biden to senior positions in his administration.

As a member of Biden’s transition team, she was in charge of ensuring a smooth move by the agency to the new administration. OPM oversees the federal government’s civil service, coordinating the recruitment of government employees, and manages their health insurance and retirement benefits programs.

In former President Barack Obama’s administration Ahuja had served in the OPM as chief of staff. She will have to be confirmed by the Senate in her new position. Ahuja is now the CEO of Philanthropy Northwest, a network of charitable organizations across six states.

The White House said Ahuja grew up in Savannah, Georgia, “as a young Indian immigrant in the wake of the civil rights era.” She shares an educational background with Vice President Kamala Harris having attended a historically Black institution like her. Harris went to Howard University for her bachelor’s degree and Ahuja to Spelman College in Atlanta.

With a law degree from the University of Georgia, Ahuja “began her career as a civil rights lawyer at the U.S .Department of Justice, litigating school desegregation cases, and filing the department’s first student racial harassment case,” according to the White House.

Initially in the Obama administration she had been the executive director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, “leading efforts to increase access to federal services, resources and programs for underserved Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,” according to the White House.

She also founded the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, an advocacy and membership organization. As yet, none of the Indian American nominees requiring Senate confirmation have come up for a vote before it.

Ahuja grew up in Savannah, Georgia as a young Indian immigrant in the wake of the civil rights era and earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Spelman College and a law degree from the University of Georgia.

The Washington Post said Ahuja would have a mandate to reverse course on former president Donald Trump’s policies on the civil service, which he and his top aides often derided as a deep state of Democratic bureaucrats. Many agencies lost experts in a range of fields during the Trump era, and Biden has pledged to revitalize the workforce, the daily reported.

“President Biden has made an excellent choice in his nomination of Ahuja to serve as OPM director,” Congresswoman Judy Chu said. “With over two decades of experience serving in government, non-profit and philanthropic sectors, Kiran is uniquely qualified to lead OPM at this critical juncture as we work to build a federal workforce that reflects the full diversity of our country,” she said. “As the former chief of staff to the director of OPM and the former executive director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders under the Obama administration, she will bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to OPM that will enable her to hit the ground running on day one,” Chu added.

Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, said Ahuja is a civic-minded leader and an outstanding choice for this important job. “Her exceptional qualifications include more than two decades of non-profit leadership and public service, including at OPM and the White House, and a track record of solving human capital issues through innovation and collaboration,” he noted.

In ‘Girlhood,’ Teens Across The Globe Write About Their Everyday Lives

Isabella Gomez SarmientoWomen, Youth 0

Masuma Ahuja can vividly recall what she wore on her first day of school in the United States: black jeans and a gray and orange T-shirt.  It was the early 2000s and her family had just moved from India to Pittsburgh. She remembers a boy at her middle school asking her, on that very first day, about what she was wearing.

“He was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize that you wore [Western] clothes in India,” she says. “He thought India was very much a place where there were snake charmers and elephants on the street.”

The India that her classmate had pictured was pulled from storybooks and fantasy — but the reality was that Ahuja grew up in more affluent neighborhoods of Mumbai and Bangalore. Those misconceptions about the lives of those in different places — especially women and girls — stuck with her as she went on to become a journalist at The Washington Post and CNN.

And it raised a question — what is life really like for girls around the world?

She sets out to answer it in her new book, Girlhood: Teenagers Around The World In Their Own Voices. Published in February, it captures snapshots of everyday life from 30 girls around the globe in the form of diary entries.

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There’s Claudie, a 13-year-old surfer from Pango Village in Vanuatu who dreams of becoming a lawyer; Halima, a 17-year-old from Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan, who listens to Celine Dion and helps her father peel potatoes for his job before school; Sattigul, a 16-year-old who comes from a family of nomadic herders in western Mongolia, loves her pet eagle and wants to one day be an English translator.

Diza Saxena, 16, lived in Mumbai when she wrote her entries in 2019 — but moved to Dubai in 2020. Her contributions to the book discussed her wish to be “cute, cool and popular” at her school in Mumbai. Saxena says girls at her new school aspire to the same qualities. “The kids that don’t fit into that standard are always alone,” she says. “But when I spent time with them, we had so much fun.”

NPR talkrf to Ahuja about the inspiration and process behind capturing the girls’ ordinary lives: their hopes, dreams, anxieties and frustrations.  This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Why did you choose to focus on girls’ “ordinary” lives?

I was in South Asia bouncing around [reporting] and I realized very quickly that the ways in which [Western media] told stories of girls generally fell into some set buckets: sexualization, victimization, gender-based violence, which are really important stories to tell.

On the other side of it, we had a lot of stories about exceptional girls fighting back, girls like Malala [Yousafzai], Greta [Thunberg], Emma Gonzalez, [who rose to the spotlight after surviving the Parkland shooting and standing up against gun violence]. But the vast in-between is where most ordinary girls’ lives exist. And there just wasn’t any representation of that. So that’s part of the reason I wanted to do this.

Why did you decide to use diary entries as a format?

Diary entries felt like a very natural way to get girls to tell their own stories and have ownership about how their lives and stories are represented.

Can you share an example of a girl’s ordinary life that you highlight in the book? What makes that girl’s story so special?

Chen Xi from Singapore writes about staying up late finishing her homework, her school and her teachers, her love of poetry and books, and her hopes to study English literature in college. Her story is unique to her — shaped by her circumstances, her community, her culture and her interests — but it’s also deeply relatable, whether you’ve lived in Singapore or taken the classes she did in school.

Naya Sarah, 18, lives in Berlin. Her family moved there from Damascus, Syria when she was age 13 to escape the civil war. Her diary entries, written in 2019, chronicle her rigorous schedule in the International Baccalaureate program at her school. Her final exams for graduation ended up being cancelled because of the pandemic. And she’s worried about how the pandemic may limit her opportunities.

What is universally true about girls from reporting your book?

Despite the differences in circumstances, cultures and identities between the girls in this book, often the day-to-day texture of their lives looked similar:the types of conversations they had with friends and family; the things they worried about; their big hopes and dreams for the future. And while girls’ circumstances vary, girls everywhere are growing up in a world that is not equitable.

How did you connect with the girls and decide who would be in the book?

Some of the girls I [found] through NGOs [nonprofit organizations]. I didn’t want to ever approach a girl, like direct message her on Instagram and say, “Hey, do you want to do this?” I wanted to go through someone they trusted or knew. My only real requirement in looking for girls was I wanted to include people who felt comfortable sharing their lives and wanted to share their lives.

What kind of instructions or guidance did you provide for the diary entries?

Everyone got the same instructions in their own language, which were like, “Here are some things you can write about. Also, you are welcome to ignore all of my instructions and write about something entirely different,” which often happens. And then I would ask more questions about things I wanted to know more about.

But it really varied girl to girl. The girl in Baghdad — Ruqaya — she would text me in the evening and tell me what was going on with her, so her diary entries were sent to me in real time. But on the other hand, Shanai from New Jersey pulled out her journal and was like, “Hey, I’m going to l take photos of three entries I’m thinking of exploring. What sounds good to you?” We talked through what she wanted to include, what she felt comfortable with, and she just sent me photos of her journal.

Raksa Hong, 20, is the first person in her family to go to college. She attends the University of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. Her entries in Girlhood from 2019 look back on a happy childhood that she can’t help but miss amid the stress of school. Reflecting on her entries now, she says she hopes it gives people a glimpse of the sacrifices she’s made to get to where she is today.

Were there any stories that particularly stood out to you or resonated with you in a special way?

The cheesy answer is that I feel like I relate to all the girls in some way, and that was really surprising. I have moved many times in my life — I’m an immigrant many times over — and I am living on a different continent from my family at the moment.

I think back a lot to the girls who wrote about homesickness and moving away from their families right now. I remember when we were going through final edits, the two girls whose entries really resonated with me at that time were Ruoxiao from China, who is in the U.K. studying, and Varvara from Russia, who wrote about her wish to leave home in Saransk for Moscow.

They both talked about the very specific longing to go to a new place and live a bigger life and thinking that big, exciting things are happening elsewhere. There’s so much for me to do and I just can’t wait for it.

What do you hope readers take away from Girlhood?

I hope that every reader will find themselves reflected in unexpected corners of their stories. And I hope that every girl who picks up the book recognizes that her voice is important and belongs in the pages of a book.

Madhuri Dixit On Secret To Memorable Dances In Bollywood Career

Staff ReporterEntertainment, Fashion, Women 0

It may have been a while since Bollywood’s timeless beauty Madhuri Dixit Nene graced the silver screen and flashed her ‘butterflies in stomach’ inducing smile. However the Dedh Ishqiya is always sharing stunning pictures of herself, dressed to perfection and oozing grace and blessing our social media feeds with her stunning looks.

Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit Nene says performances like Choli ke piche kya hai, Chane ke khet mein, Ke sera sera, Ek do teen and Tamma tamma put her to test. “There are a lot of songs which were difficult for me. But the ones which really put me to test were performances like Choli ke piche kya hai, Chane ke khet mein, Ke sera sera, Ek do teen and Tamma tamma,” Madhuri, who is currently seen as judge in “Dance Deewane 3”, said.

“While these were some of the most difficult songs that I danced on, they are also the most memorable ones,” she added. Madhuri feels choreography in films has become more challenging. “Choreography in movies is definitely more challenging today. These days, dance involves a lot of leaps and there are several new techniques for lifts as well. The choreography these days has a lot of physical movements compared to before,” she said.

The actress pointed out that there were no stunts in dance before, but now if one wants to become an all-round dancer, one should be skilled in stunts, too. “It is definitely more challenging. The young kids who are six and seven also dance well at such a small age. I wonder what magic they will do later!” she said. (IANS)

Last week, the ever green star treated fans to stunning all smiles pictures. The Devdas actor hopped on to Instagram and shared some beautiful pictures posing in traditional attire. The pictures featured in the post see Madhuri sporting a royal blue georgette saree with accentuated scalloped gold floral designs towards the border as well as a very heavily embroidered half-sleeved blouse. With her luscious locks open, the actor looked stunning with a subtle bronze, smokey eye and deep red lips. She accessorized her glamorous avatar with heavy diamond and stone studded earrings, as well as kadas and rings. The Hum Aapke Hain Koun star’s million-dollar smile seemed enough to make the fan’s heart skip a beat.

The Dil Toh Pagal Hai star captioned the post, “Blue hue,” and added a blue heart. Celebrity followers including Lara Dutta Bhupathi and more than 4.7 million fans liked the post with scores of them leaving adorable comments. Nora Fatehi left heart eyes and smiley face emoticon while others left heart and fire emoticons over the post. Madhuri’s stunning blue saree with the embroidered blouse is the Royal Blue tiered ruffle sari set with beige gold linear embroidery by ace couturier Arpita Mehta priced at ₹98,000 on the designer’s website, while her stunning jewellery is from Falguni Mehta’s Jadau Jewellery

UN Environment Assembly Kicks Off With a Call to Make Peace with Nature

Staff ReporterEnvironment, Women 0

Its time for the world to radically change our ways if we are to make peace with the planet and create the environmental conditions so that all of humanity can thrive, delegates attending the Fifth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) heard this morning.

The assembly, world’s top environmental decision-making body attended by government leaders, businesses, civil society and environmental activists, met virtually today under a theme “Strengthening Actions for Nature to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals”. It concludes Feb. 23.

Ahead of the assembly, IPS interviewed Joyce Msuya, the Deputy Executive Director for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), to find out what to expect from the two-day event.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): What outcome should African countries expect from the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA)?

Joyce Msuya (JM): UNEA is the highest international authority on environmental issues, and is focusing on nature and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

In terms of African countries, I will put three things on the table.  One is Action. Science has already spoken. Climate change is an issue, and biodiversity loss is happening at a faster rate than ever before, and lastly, pollution, especially plastic pollution is a big problem. So what we need is to bring the African voices and leadership to UNEA, to collectively see what African countries plan to do in terms of actions in delivering around these three planetary crises.

The second thing is partnerships. Environmental issues are development issues and they are everybody’s issues. Citizens can make little changes in their households, communities can make little changes for example on waste management, and those who live around the oceans can take care of the blue economy. So we need to see how the governments work together with the private sector, indigenous communities, with the youth and even children to address the environmental changes.

The third issue is the support to the UNEP. UNEP is the only United Nations largest entity located in the Southern Hemisphere. So this is the time it needs to be supported not just by the government of Kenya, but by African governments.

IPS: How is the COVID-19 situation going to affect these outcomes?

JM: COVID-19 has already impacted and is still going to impact the meeting in three ways. The pandemic has actually shown us the interconnectedness of environment as well as of human health. Last June for example, UNEP released a study on zoonotics to show the connection between nature and viruses.

In terms of the impact on the meeting, this is the first virtual meeting with over 100 countries participating online. This virtual connectivity was driven by COVID-19.

Thirdly, because of the virtual connectivity, countries and member states that are not represented in Nairobi will be able to join through internet connectivity. So the inclusive multilateralism will also be showcased as part of the meeting.

IPS: What informed the choice of UNEA-5’s theme, ‘Strengthening Actions for Nature to achieve the 2020 agenda on SDGs’?

JM: The design and the agreement of the theme was grounded on a consultative process. For example in Africa, there was the African ministerial meeting looking at environmental issues. The theme was proposed for member states consideration and so they debated for its relevance, it’s implication for different countries and they collectively decided on this theme. It is a timely theme for the nature, but also for the SDGs. We are nine years away for the 2030 deadline for the SDGs.

As the UN Secretary General has already said, this is the UN decade for action when it comes to agenda 2030.

IPS: The UN Secretary General has also said that this is the year he is pushing for commitments from all member states for zero emissions by 2050, and the COP is the most appropriate forum where this should materialize. What does the UNEP want to see in terms of commitments?

JM: We work under various teams under the Secretary General and what he said is actually what has been guiding our work. We work very closely with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on the upcoming Conference of Parties (COP) on climate change and we are providing science to help the discussions. As well, we should not forget about the COP on biodiversity, which will be hosted by China because nature and climate change go hand in hand.

In addition, we are providing science to inform for example businesses. Recently we launched the Global Environmental Outlook for Business to provide data and science to help businesses understand what role they can play in reducing the impact of climate change.

IPS: In many African countries, people have invaded wetlands with buildings being constructed in such areas especially in urban areas to accommodate the surging population. Is this a concern to you? If so, how can it be addressed?

JM: In UNEP we believe that wetlands are important in maintaining micro-climates in the areas where they occur, as well as releasing moisture into the atmosphere through evaporation.

At the global level we advocate for the preservation of the wetlands. We have worked with a number of countries in sharing experiences that are working very well on preservation of wetlands  from one country to another. Our science also helps inform how wetlands can be preserved and in Kenya here for example, we work with the government at their request to provide technical assistance and science to support their efforts in protecting the wetlands.

Overall in many African countries, we are starting a discussion with ministries of environment where we are advocating for the preservation of wetlands.

IPS: What kind of policies do we need to put in place to reverse the biodiversity loss across the world?

JM: One of the places where UNEP has been working with the Biodiversity Secretariat is on the post 2020 Biodiversity Framework. Parties, member states and the environment community have been looking at the lessons learned from previous studies. And now there is a new biodiversity framework that will be discussed at the COP.

So, one, is providing substantive support to the work of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The second, for example in Kenya, we are working with the Ministry of Interior on tree planting. The government has set out a goal of planting millions of trees over the next two years, and through our Africa department. We are supporting those efforts. We have had some of our staff members join hands with local communities to plant trees.

Then third area is on partnerships. Trees are important not only for the environment, but also for the agriculture sector. So we are joining hands with other parts of the UN to advocate and support tree planting.

IPS: How has COVID-19 and subsequent lockdowns impacted on climate action globally?

JM: That is a very interesting question. From the time the pandemic came in place almost a year ago, a number of countries shut down including offices and economic activities. What anecdotal evidence seems to suggest is that air pollution has been addressed. This is because there were no many cars in the streets, and there was no much pollution into the air.

However, we should not forget that the pandemic is still a humanitarian problem and a crisis because people have lost jobs and many more have lost lives. We have been working with the World Health Organisation for example to try and understand the link between nature and health.

We are also mindful that this is also an economic problem, and we are seeing a number of countries now rebuilding their economies.

But the post COVID-19 era provides us with an opportunity for a green reconstruction of our economies. So the pandemic has been a reflecting time, but it has also shown that UNEP, member states and multilateralism can still function virtually.

Neera Tanden, Biden’s Nominee For US Budget Office Runs Into Senate Opposition

Staff ReporterNation USA, Women 0

President Joe Biden’s Indian-American nominee for a cabinet post is at risk of not getting the Senate’s approval after a Democratic Senator announced he would not vote for her.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., a key moderate Democrat, announced Friday he would oppose President Joe Biden’s nominee to run the Office of Management and Budget, throwing her nomination into jeopardy.  Appointments of members of the cabinet and senior officials have to be confirmed by the Senate.

 

“Her overtly partisan statements will have a toxic and detrimental impact on the important working relationship between members of Congress and the next director of the Office of Management and Budget,” he said.

A loyalist of former Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, she had alienated both Republicans and Democrats with her caustic tweets which have now come back to haunt her.

Although a final Senate vote on Tanden’s nomination has yet been scheduled, Manchin’s opposition could scuttle her confirmation because of the Senate’s 50-50 split between Republicans and Democrats. She would need to pick up at least one vote from a Republican and for Vice President Kamala Harris to break a potential tie to secure the simple majority needed for confirmation.

The White House signaled it would press ahead with Tanden’s confirmation. It seems unlikely that any Republican would support her nomination in the evenly divided 100-member Senate.

GOP Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah will vote against confirming Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget, further putting Tanden’s nomination in peril in the evenly divided Senate.

“Congress has to be able to trust the OMB director to make countless decisions in an impartial manner, carrying out the letter of the law and congressional intent. Neera Tanden has neither the experience nor the temperament to lead this critical agency,” Collins said in a statement. “Her past actions have demonstrated exactly the kind of animosity that President Biden has pledged to transcend.”

The defeat of Tanden’s nomination would mark the first defeat for Biden in the Senate, which has so far approved seven appointees with the support of many Republicans. They include the secretaries of state, defense, treasury and homeland security. It would also point to the rough road ahead for Biden in keeping all the 50 Democrats in his fold to get the budget and some other legislation through.

 

“You wrote that Susan Collins is the worst, that Tom Cotton is a fraud, that vampires have more heart than Ted Cruz. You called leader McConnell: Moscow Mitch and Voldemort, and on and on,” he said. As an adviser to the Clinton campaign, Tanden had made personal attacks on Sanders.

 

She faced an embarrassing situation when she appeared before the Senate Budget Committee, which is chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent aligned with the Democrats who had run for that party’s presidential nomination against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

 

Tanden has apologized for her tweets telling the Senate Homeland Security Committee last week, “I deeply regret and apologize for my language and some of my past language.” At that committee’s hearing, Republican Senator Rob Portman brought up some of her tweets.

 

She admitted, “I must have meant them, but I really regret them.”

Sanders has not indicated how he would vote, but during the hearing the leftist leader grilled her about the donations of 33 million the Centre for American Progress that she headed had received from big business.

 

Tanden, who leads the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, faces a steep battle to confirmation, as her history of combative tweets targeting senators on both sides of the aisle rankled Republicans, in particular.

The Maine Republican also criticized Tanden’s decision to delete tweets before President Biden announced her nomination last year, saying the move “raises concerns about her commitment to transparency.” Tanden has admitted to deleting more than 1,000 tweets in November 2020 around the time Biden had named her to be OMB director.

However, Biden stood firmly by Tanden saying a firm “No”, when reporters asked him if he would withdraw her nomination. His Spokesperson Jen Psaki said, “Tanden is an accomplished policy expert who would be an excellent Budget Director and we look forward to the committee votes next week and to continuing to work toward her confirmation through engagement with both parties.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday he is working to “find the extra votes” to carry her across the finish line.

 

If her nomination were to be approved by the Senate, she would be the second Indian-American to serve on the US cabinet. The first was Nikki Haley, who was given a cabinet rank by Trump when she was the US permanent representative to the United Nations

Eight Persons of Indian Origin on TIME’s 100 Most Influential People

Staff ReporterCommunity, Profile, Women 0

Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Rishi Sunak, Apoorva Mehta, Vijaya Gadde, Shikha Gupta, Rohan Pavuluri, Chandra Shekhar Aazad, Ranga Dias are among the 100 Most Influential People on the prestigious TIME’s List for the year 2021 and Beyond, who are “emerging leaders who are shaping the future.”

The 2021 TIME100 Next, released on Wednesday, is an expansion of TIME’s flagship TIME100 franchise of the most influential people in the world and highlights 100 emerging leaders who are shaping the future. “Everyone on this list is poised to make history. And in fact, many already have,” Dan Macsai, the editorial director of the TIME100, said.

  1. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan

 

When you’re a minority woman with your own show, you gotta represent. It’s a tough job to be in that spotlight, where you are scrutinized for your every action, but it’s exhilarating too. People come up to you at the airport or online and say those three magic words: “I feel seen.” It’s a huge responsibility—and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan is exactly the kind of talented young woman who is up to the task.

 

While she might come off as a carefree teen in her hilarious TikToks and Instagram videos, Maitreyi—who plays the lead role in Never Have I Ever—is a gifted comic actress. She studies her craft and takes it seriously. Moreover, she’s an artist who cares deeply about the material she’s performing, and what it’s saying. She has an activist’s heart and wants to use her platform to help others.

What’s most extraordinary about Maitreyi is that when you’re with her, you think you’re simply talking to a cool, smart teenager, but later, when you see her work onscreen, you realize you were actually interacting with a great artist at the beginning of her journey.

(By Kaling, an actor, writer and producer and the co-creator of Never Have I Ever)

 

  1. Rishi Sunak

 

Little more than a year ago, Rishi Sunak was an unknown junior minister in the British government. But after the 40-year-old former hedge-fund partner was appointed to lead Britain’s Treasury in February 2020, he quickly became the benevolent face of the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, approving large handouts for many citizens whose jobs were disrupted by the virus. (The already unemployed and self-employed received less support.) Sunak also oversaw a policy that, when infections were low over the summer, subsidized dining out at restaurants in an attempt to revive the economy. The perceived generosity—and his youthful charm—earned him a legion of fans, but his policy was blamed when cases of COVID-19 began to rise shortly after. Critics also point out that because he has consistently advocated for early relaxation of lockdown rules, Sunak bears perhaps more responsibility than most for Britain’s failures in responding to the virus, which has left more than 115,000 people dead—the fifth highest toll in the world. Nonetheless, Sunak remains the country’s most popular politician, according to the pollster YouGov. And he’s the oddsmakers’ favorite to be Britain’s next Prime Minister. (By Billy Perrigo)

 

  1. Apoorva Mehta

 

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Instacart faced a tidal wave of orders, as people with means opted en masse to pay the service’s workers to buy groceries for them. Apoorva Mehta, the company’s 34-year-old founder and CEO, calls that period a “wartime moment”: “We just didn’t have enough shoppers.” Instacart went on a hiring binge in March 2020, bringing on 300,000 gig workers in a matter of weeks; the next month, it announced it would hire a quarter-million more.

 

But as usage soared, Instacart faced new criticism about the way it treated its workers, including labyrinthine sick-pay policies, frequent rule changes for shoppers and demanding performance metrics. And after pouring more than $20 million into a controversial ballot initiative in California, Instacart—alongside other firms such as Uber and Lyft—decisively won that bid last fall to avoid classifying their workers as employees under state law.

 

Mehta says, “This is going to be a conversation that we’re going to have as a society over the next decade or so,” about the gig economy: “The ecosystem that we want to build is one that recognizes that flexibility is going to be an important part of people’s work.”In the meantime, Instacart—which raised more than $500 million in venture-capital funding last year—continues to expand. “The smartphone is the supermarket of the future,” Mehta says. “We are going to help co-create that.”  (By Alejandro de la Garza)

 

  1. Vijaya Gadde

 

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was on a private island in the Pacific when he found out President Trump had been suspended from his platform. Conveying the news, on Jan. 6, was Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top lawyer and head of policy. In a phone call, first reported by the New York Times, Gadde told Dorsey that the decision had been taken to reduce the risk of further violence after the attack on the Capitol earlier that day. Within two days, Gadde and a team of other employees had persuaded a hesitant Dorsey to ban Trump permanently.

 

Gadde, 46, is one of Twitter’s most powerful executives. Her boss, Dorsey, has delegated to her Twitter’s content-moderation decisions; she was the architect of the 2019 decision to ban all political advertising, and is responsible for the warning labels that Twitter applied to COVID-19 and election-interference misinformation in 2020. While Twitter is still home to much misinformation and harassment, Gadde’s influence is slowly turning the company into one that sees free speech not as sacrosanct—but as just one human right among many that need to be weighed against one another.

(By Billy Perrigo)

 

  1. Shikha Gupta

 

In a crisis, small acts can make a big impact. And in extraordinary times, ordinary people, driven by service, can do extraordinary things. The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic were some of the darkest in America’s history. A leadership vacuum from the White House contributed to health care professionals across the country lacking the personal protective equipment they needed to stay safe and save lives.

 

Dr. Shikha Gupta wasn’t on the White House Task Force. She wasn’t a governor or a member of Congress. She held no title other than doctor and citizen. But when she and her colleagues saw a need—and a hashtag—they met the moment and took action. Powered by a dedicated coalition of medical professionals and other team members, the Get Us PPE organization—where Gupta is the executive director—has helped distribute more than 6.5 million pieces of PPE to frontline workers.

 

Their fight, like this pandemic, is not done. But across the country, millions of people working to save lives can do so with confidence because of Gupta and her colleagues’ small acts and incredible impact.

(By Kim, a Democratic Congressman from New Jersey

 

  1. Chandra Shekhar Aazad

 

Chandra Shekhar Aazad, 34, is a Dalit—a member of India’s most oppressed caste group. The movement he leads, the Bhim Army, runs schools to help Dalits escape poverty through education. It also practices a distinct brand of assertiveness, sweeping into villages on loud motorbikes to protect victims of caste-based violence and organizing provocative demonstrations against discrimination.

 

In September 2020, when police in the state of Uttar Pradesh delayed investigation of the fatal gang-rape of a 19-year-old Dalit woman, allegedly perpetrated by four dominant-caste men, Aazad and the Bhim Army spearheaded a campaign for justice. The protests and public outcry that followed eventually led to the accused rapists’ arrests. (They deny the charges.) Aazad has also lent his support to several other progressive movements, including recently to farmers protesting against corporate agricultural reforms.

 

He hopes to turn the reach of the Bhim Army—and his own growing popularity—into wins at the ballot box, and in March 2020 launched a political party. Its first real test comes during elections next year in Uttar Pradesh, where Hindu nationalists are politically dominant.

Despite the Bhim Army’s muscular stance, Aazad has also cultivated an aura of charismatic approachability through deft use of social media; even Aazad’s luxuriant mustache—a style seen by some dominant castes as a status symbol—is a form of resistance. By challenging the notion that Dalits should be deferential, says Dhrubo Jyoti, a Dalit journalist at the Hindustan Times, Aazad and the Bhim Army “have visually and psychologically changed the pitch of caste resistance in India.”

 

  1. Rohan Pavuluri

 

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to put Americans in financial distress, more and more people have lost jobs, incurred expensive medical bills and faced other hardships. Filing for personal bankruptcy can be an effective way to eliminate debt and re-enter the economy, but high legal fees and complex paperwork can make it difficult to seek that relief, especially for low-income families. That’s why, in 2018, 25-year-old Rohan Pavuluri founded Upsolve, a nonprofit that offers a free online tool to help users fill out bankruptcy forms on their own. To date, Upsolve has helped U.S. users relieve more than $300 million in debt. “We’ve found a way to use technology to address a civil rights injustice at scale,” Pavuluri says. (By Mariah Espada)

 

  1. Ranga Dias

 

Let’s be clear: hoverboards, magnetic levitation trains and resistance-free power lines are not coming this year or next. But thanks to Ranga Dias, they’re closer than they ever were. Those technologies (and many more) rely on developing new superconductors: materials through which energy can move with no resistance.

 

The catch is that supercold temperatures have long been necessary for superconductors to work, making them impractical. So Dias, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Rochester, came up with a solution that could pave the way for future innovations: a room-temperature superconductor that’s superdense instead of supercold.

 

Dias developed a material made of hydrogen, sulfur and carbon, squeezed at a pressure equivalent to 2.5 million atmospheres. The extreme compression eliminates electrical resistance, allowing energy to traverse with ease. Dias is aware of the breakthrough nature of his work. “People have been trying to develop superconductors for a century,” he says. They missed their chance in the 20th. In the 21st, thanks to Dias, they just might succeed. (By Jeffrey Kluger)

Preeti Sinha Is UNCDF Executive Secretary

Staff ReporterProfile, Women 0

An Indian American investment and development banker has been appointed as the Executive Secretary of UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).

The New York-headquartered organization named Preeti Sinha has one of its highest leadership ranks in the institution. Her tenure as UNCDF Executive Secretary commenced on Monday, February 15.

 

In a statement, it said that she will “oversee the organization’s efforts to deliver scalable impact in order to make the international financial architecture work for the world’s frontier and pre-frontier markets; with a specific emphasis on supporting sustainable development for women, youth, small and medium-sized enterprises, smallholder farmers, and other traditionally underserved communities.”

 

Sinha said her goal would be to make ‘C’ in UNCDF to be “highly catalytic in mobilizing manifold the public and private finance for the LDCs it serves and in developing a new era of engagement with capital markets in 2021 and onwards.”

Sinha succeeds Judith Karl, who retired in February after concluding her 30-year career in the United Nations, the agency said.

 

Welcoming Sinha, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner said: “UNCDF’s support for the world’s Least Developed Countries is critical, and I look forward to continuing the strong partnership between our organizations into the future.

 

Sinha will lead UNCDF’s work to harness the untapped growth potential of the LDCs, to enable and empower communities, local governments and small businesses to address the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic while building more resilient and inclusive economies, the agency said.

 

As Executive Secretary, Sinha will oversee UNCDF’s last mile’ finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

 

She has three decades of global experience across investment and development finance during which she managed institutional public and private development capital.

The UNCDF statement said Sinha served as CEO and President of FFD Financing for Development LLC, a specialist development finance firm in Geneva, focusing on resource mobilization, donor relations, innovative capital markets, partnerships, strategy, business development, and impact investment advisory to finance the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

 

Previously, she managed the YES Global Institute, a practicing private sector think-tank for socio-economic development in New Delhi, building the impact investment ecosystem in India, the agency said, adding that she also served in senior resource mobilization roles at the African Development Bank.

 

Sinha graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government Executive Education program in Public Financial Management. She holds a Master’s in Global Leadership from the World Economic Forum and a Master’s in Public and Private Management (MPPM)/MBA from the Yale School of Management.

 

She is an alumnus of Dartmouth College, where she completed her Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Computer Science. UNCDF “makes public and private finance work for the world’s 46 least developed countries (LDCs) to harness their untapped growth potential.”

 

Its program “help to empower women, and are designed to catalyze larger capital flows from the private sector, national governments and development partners, for maximum impact towards the internationally agreed developments goals.

Swati Mohan At NASA’s Perseverance Rover Mission

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When NASA’s Perseverance rover gently touched down on the surface of Mars on Thursday after seven months in space, it was an Indian-American named Dr. Swati Mohan, who first confirmed that the rover had survived a particularly tricky plunge into the Martian atmosphere.

 

“Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance is safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking the signs of past life,” a calm and composed bindi-clad Mohan announced soon after the rover landed, as cheers erupted in NASA’s mission control room in California.

 

Mohan, who successfully spearheaded the development of attitude control and the landing system for the rover, was among the team of scientists behind the historic mission. The attitude control system is responsible for pointing the rover in the direction it needs to be and also helps figure out where the spacecraft is oriented in space.

 

The Cornell graduate has been associated with the Perseverance Mars Mission since its inception and has been part of a number of other NASA missions over the years. Notably, she also worked on NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn.

 

On Thursday, Mohan made history yet again, when she steered the controls and landing system of the rover and navigated a rather difficult touchdown, while the whole world watched with bated breath.

 

The NASA scientist first emigrated from India to the United States when she was just a year old. Most of her childhood was spent in the Northern Virginia-Washington DC area. Mohan traces her love for space back to the American science fiction series ‘Star Trek’, which she first watched at the age of 9. While she wanted to become a paediatrician until she was 16, she later decided to become an engineer and pursue her interest in space exploration.

 

Not only is Mohan a pivotal player in the effort to determine whether there was ever life on the red planet; she’s also a reflection of the progress NASA has made in reflecting the nation it represents.

 

Her passion for space started with ‘Star Trek’

 

Mohan has been interested in space ever since she saw her first “Star Trek” television episode at age 9. It opened up her world to the beauty and expanse of the universe.

“I remember thinking ‘I want to do that. I want to find new and beautiful places in the universe,'” she recalled in a Q&A on NASA’s website. “The vastness of space holds so much knowledge that we have only begun to learn.”

 

Still, she thought she would grow up to become a pediatrician. It wasn’t until she took her first physics class at age 16 that she began considering a career in engineering, which would allow her to follow her childhood dreams of exploring space.

Mohan went on to study mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University, followed by a masters degree and doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Eventually, she landed at NASA.

Before her work on Perseverance, Mohan was a part of space exploration efforts such as Cassini, a spacecraft that unearthed countless discoveries about Saturn, and GRAIL, a mission that sent twin spacecraft around the moon.

 

She started working on the Mars 2020 mission in 2013, and ultimately became the lead engineer for guidance, navigation and controls operations. She helmed the mission’s attitude control system, which helps make sure the spacecraft is heading in the direction it needs to be.

 

“During the cruise phase heading toward Mars, our job is to figure out how we are oriented, make sure the spacecraft is pointed correctly in space (solar arrays to sun, antenna to Earth), and maneuver the spacecraft to get it where we want to go,” Mohan explained in a NASA Q&A. “During entry, descent, and landing on Mars, GN&C determines the position of the spacecraft and commands the maneuvers to help it land safely.”

 

And on Thursday, she was one of two voices heard in the control room and around the world — explaining major milestones in NASA’s first mission to search for signs of life on another planet.

 

“I’ve been on Perseverance longer than I’ve been at any school,” Mohan told the newspaper Florida Today. “I’ve been on Perseverance longer than my younger daughter is alive. It’s just taken up such a large portion of my life for so long.”

This was a diverse mission

 

It wasn’t just Mohan, either.  The Perseverance rover mission was diverse by a number of measures: race, gender and sexuality. That the team behind the historic spacecraft included folks like landing lead Allen Chen, and engineers such as Moogega Cooper, Cj Giovingo and Gregorio Villar, shows it was representative of the nation’s demographics.

 

That array of names and faces is a sign of the progress NASA has made since it was founded in 1958. White men were long seen as the face of the space exploration program, despite significant contributions from women and people of color over the years. The agency had only ever selected White men as astronauts until 1978, when it admitted a class that included the first female, first African American and first Asian American astronauts.

 

There is still progress to be made, but NASA’s workforce now looks much more like the nation.  Of the more than 17,000 people who work for NASA, 72% are White, 12% are Black, 8% are Asian American or Pacific Islander, 7% are Hispanic or Latino, 1% are American Indian or Alaska Native and less than 1% are more than one race, according to agency data

Usha Rao-Monari Appointed UN Under Secretary General

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Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed investment professional Usha Rao-Monari as an Under Secretary General and the associate administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

 

The announcement on Wednesday said that she has over 30 years of investment experience in infrastructure and is a senior adviser with investment company Blackstone’s Infrastructure Group.

 

The UNDP is the main UN organisation to promote the UN’s development agenda with international cooperation. With a budget of about $3 billion, it works in around 170 countries and territories on eradicating poverty and reducing inequalities.

Rao-Monari, a Delhi University graduate with a master’s degree from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management, Mumbai, has been the CEO of Global Water Development Partners.

 

She also was the director of the Sustainable Business Advisory Group at the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.

She also holds a master’s degree in International Affairs and Finance from Columbia University.

 

Rao-Monari joins several Indians working in the top echelons of the UN. They include Atul Khare, the Under Secretary General for operational support; and Assistant Secretary General Chandramouli Ramanathan, who is also the controller, Anita Bhatia, who is also the Deputy Executive Director of UN-Women, and Satya S. Tripathi, who is also the head of the New York office of the United Nations Environment Programme.

Bhumi Pednekar Joins Efforts By UNESCO To Educate Girls On Menstrual Hygiene

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With an aim to raise awareness and educate girls on menstrual hygiene management, UNESCO has joined the #KeepGirlsInSchool mission, being supported by Bollywood actress Bhumi Pednekar.

 

The movement, launched by feminine care brand Whisper, begins with shedding light on the impact of 2.3 crore girls dropping out of school due to lack of period education and protection.

 

According to studies, even today, 71 per cent of adolescent girls in India remain unaware of menstruation till they get their first period. This affects their confidence and self-esteem adversely, leading to 2.3 crore adolescent girls dropping out of school every year, at the onset of the puberty. In addition to this, the ongoing pandemic has led to the closure of schools and lack of structured learning process, making these girls even more vulnerable to dropping out.

 

According to the UNESCO, the global pandemic has impacted 74 crore schoolgirls, and could severely affect their return to school.

To bring to light the struggles of young girls as they reach puberty, Whisper and

 

UNESCO released a film that illustrates the journey of the playful innocence of a schoolgirl with boundless dreams coming to a grinding halt due to the lack of period education and protection. The film underscores the importance of empowering young girls to achieve their full potential and not let periods get in the way of 2.3 crore dreams.

 

Continuing to share her support for the cause, Bhumi Pednekar said: “For the past one year I have been working closely with Whisper to drive awareness on the importance of menstrual hygiene education and protection. This gave me an understanding of the on-ground reality of crores of girls who drop out of school and unfortunately give up on their dreams of becoming a pilot, doctor, teacher, designer, etc. Every girl in India should be able to complete her education like I did and not have to drop out just because of periods. I strongly believe that empowering young girls with menstrual education and protection will give them wings to transform into leaders of tomorrow. It is great to see that Whisper and UNESCO are enabling this change at a ground level, which will not only accelerate the cause but also encourage wider participation. I urge everyone to come forward and be part of the #KeepGirlsInSchool movement.”

 

Emphasizing UNESCO’s commitment to right to Education, Eric Falt, Director and UNESCO Representative to Bhutan, India, Maldives and Sri Lanka, said: “During puberty and the start of menstruation, a girl’s confidence and self-esteem can be affected in many different ways, sometimes even leading to her dropping out of school. UNESCO and Whisper are on a mission to change that. The #KeepGirlsInSchool initiative builds on our strong commitment to ensuring everyone’s fundamental right to education. Investing in girls’ education is an investment for society as a whole.”

 

Sharing her thoughts on the movement, Chetna Soni, Senior Director and Category Head, P&G Indian Subcontinent, Feminine Care, said: “Whisper believes in empowering girls and women to unleash their confidence and ensure that nothing comes in the way of achieving their dreams. With this mission, we continue to challenge the barriers surrounding menstrual hygiene through education and multi-stakeholder engagement to advocate for change.

 

To widen the impact, we are delighted to be joining hands with UNESCO to further our force for female good movement #KeepGirlsInSchool. We strongly believe that we all have a role to play in breaking menstrual stigma and normalizing periods so nothing can come in the way of girls fulfilling their dreams and achieving their full potential.” (IANS)

Delhi Police Arrest Disha Ravi In Toolkit On Farmer Protests

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A 21-year-old climate activist from Bengaluru was arrested by Delhi Police in connection with the ‘toolkit‘ on farmer protests, which was shared on Twitter by teen climate activist Greta Thunberg. Divulging details, the Delhi Police later said in a statement Disha was the “key conspirator” in the formulation  and dissemination of the document. She collaborated with pro-Khalisatani Poetic Justice Foundation to “spread disaffection against Indian state” and also shared the doc with Thunberg.

“Disha Ravi, arrested by CyPAD Delhi Police, is an Editor of the Toolkit Google Doc & key conspirator in document’s formulation & dissemination. She started WhatsApp Group and collaborated to make the toolkit doc. She worked closely with them to draft the doc. In this process, they all collaborated with pro-Khalistani Poetic Justice Foundation to spread disaffection against the Indian State. She was the one who shared the Toolkit Doc with Greta Thunberg,” Delhi Police statement read.

“Later, she asked Greta to remove the main Doc after its incriminating details accidentally got into public domain. This is many times more than the 2 lines editing that she claims,” it added.

The Police said they arrested Disha Ravi from Bengaluru on Saturday and was produced at the Patiala court on Sunday. Anil Mittal, Additional PRO Delhi Police said, “ Ravi has been remanded to police custody for 5 days. The Special Cell is investigating the conspiracy behind the google document- Toolkit. They found that Ravi was one of the editors of the toolkit and also a key conspirator in the document’s formulation and dissemination.”

Disha Ravi, a graduate of Mount Carmel College, is one of the founders of Fridays for Future India. Fridays for Future is an international movement of school students who skip classes on Fridays to join demonstrations demanding politicians to act against climate change. It gained widespread popularity after Thunberg protested outside the Swedish parliament in 2018.

On February 4, the police cyber-crime cell of the Delhi Police registered an FIR on charges of “sedition”, “criminal conspiracy” and “promoting hatred” against the creators of the ‘toolkit’. The police said that the sequence of events in the farmer protests, including the January 26 violence during the tractor rally, was a “copycat” of the alleged action plan shared in the toolkit.

Special CP (Crime Branch) Praveer Ranjan said a preliminary enquiry indicated that the toolkit in question was created by “pro-Khalistani organisation” Poetic Justice Foundation.

A toolkit is a document created to explain an issue and is used by online groups to amplify their voices and guide their movements in specific ways.

A Delhi court on Sunday sent Ravi to five days police custody. During the hearing, Ravi broke down inside the courtroom and told the judge that she had edited only two lines and that she wanted to support the farmers’ protest.

Ravi is one of the founders of Fridays for Future (FFF) India. FFF is a global movement of school students that began in August 2018, after Thunberg and other young activists sat in front of the Swedish parliament every schoolday for three weeks, to protest against the lack of action on the climate crisis.

Delhi Police said they have identified over 300 handles that are spreading “disaffection and ill-will” against the government. Centre had recently asked Twitter to remove 1,178 accounts, which it said were spreading misinformation on farmers’ agitation.

 

Deepika Padukone Signs with Hollywood Talent Agency ICM

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Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone is seriously considering more Hollywood projects or so it seems as the actress has now signed up with ICM Partners. Padukone has signed with Hollywood talent agency ICM, reports Deadline. The “Padmavaat” star has signed with ICM for representation in all areas. Padukone is additionally represented in India by KWAN and in the U.S. by Danielle Robinson at Alan Siegel Entertainment, it said.

ICM currently represents celebrities such as John Cena, The Vampire Diaries star Ian Somerhalder and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before actor Lana Condor among others. The Padmaavat actor made her Hollywood debut opposite Vin Diesel in 2017 DJ Caruso directorial XXX: Return of Xander Cage.

Deepika will be seen as Kapil Dev’s wife Romi Bhatia in Kabir Khan’s sports film 83. The film, based on India’s historic win at the 1983 Cricket World Cup, features Ranveer Singh in the lead along with an ensemble cast of Pankaj Tripathi, Ammy Virk, Saqib Saleem and Hardy Sandhu. The actor will also co-star with Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan for War director Siddharth Anand’s upcoming films Pathan and Fighter, respectively. Also in the pipeline is Shakun Batra’s untitled film featuring Ananya Panday and Siddhant Chaturvedi.

According to the agency’s website, they “represent Oscar, Emmy and Golden Globe Award winning actors, including some of the biggest and most respected stars in Hollywood. Our clients include some of the greatest character actors of their generation and the freshest faces to burst upon the scene in motion pictures, television and on stage.”

The agency reportedly represents stars such as Jerry Seinfeld, John Cena, Eugene Levy, Regina King, John Travolta, Olivia Colman and Shonda Rhimes. “I don’t look or evaluate films as Indian or international, but as a medium where I can express myself. If that opportunity is out of India, great. If that is out of the United States or another part of the world, I am happy to explore that too,” Padukone previously told The Hindustan Times. “For me, it’s always been content. I did ‘Xander Cage’ because it was an extremely powerful, strong character to play. Eventually, it’s about the character and role, and of course, the film. It’s not like I’m actively seeking something in Hollywood. Whether India or any other part in the world, great content is what I seek.”

Meanwhile, Deepika Padukone has a busy 2021 as she recently confirmed a slate of Bollywood projects that we will be seeing her in including ‘Pathan’ with Shah Rukh Khan, Shakun Batra’s untitled film, ‘The Intern’ remake, Nag Ashwin’s multilingual movie with Prabhas and playing Draupadi in an upcoming movie on Mahabharata. It was also announced that Deepika Padukone will be collaborating with Hrithik Roshan for the first time in Siddharth Anand’s ‘Fighter’. Fighter is slated to release on September 30, 2022.

(Picture: Masala)

From Shyamala Gopalan To Kamala Devi Harris: A Timeline Of Two Audacious Journeys

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When Kamala Harris takes oath as America’s Vice President, it will be a moment without equal in the country’s history. Harris will be the first Indian and Black American, first woman and first woman of colour to ever win election to America’s highest political office.

Her journey was made possible by another audacious traveller – her mother Shyamala Gopalan, who arrived in America as a 19-year-old, in 1958. Below is a timeline that traces the two women’s paths — starting with Gopalan’s arrival in America — that finally culminated in Harris’ barrier-shattering triumph.

1958: Shyamala Gopalan wins the Hilgard scholarship to study at University of California, Berkeley.

1960: Shyamala Gopalan finishes her Masters degree at theA University of California, Berkeley.

1962: Shyamala Gopalan meets Donald Harris, her future husband, who was speaking at a meeting of the Afro American Association.

July 5, 1963: Shyamala Gopalan marries Donald Harris.

1964: Shyamala Gopalan earns a PhD in nutrition and endocrinology at UC Berkeley.

Oct 20, 1964: Kamala Harris is born at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland, California.

1966: Shyamala Gopalan and Donald Harris move to Urbana Champaign. Donald Harris begins teaching economics at the University of Illinois.

1967: On January 30, Kamala Harris’ sister Maya is born.

1970: Shyamala Gopalan moves back from Illinois to Berkeley. The relationship between Gopalan and Donald Harris goes downhill.

1971: Shyamala Gopalan and Donald Harris divorce.

1976: Shyamala moves with her girls to Montreal, Canada. She begins teaching at McGill University and doing research at the Jewish General Hospital.

1981: Kamala Harris graduates from Westmount High School, Montreal.

1982: Kamala Harris joins Howard University, a famous historically Black university in Washington, D.C.

1986: Kamala Harris earns undergraduate degree in political science, Howard University.

1989: Kamala Harris earns a law degree from Hastings College, California.

1990: Kamala Harris begins working as deputy district attorney in Alameda County, California.

2000: Kamala Harris joins San Francisco City Hall. She runs the Family and Children’s Services Division representing child abuse and neglect cases.

2003: Kamala Harris elected as the first woman District Attorney in San Francisco’s history. She ran and won in a runoff against her former boss in the DA office.

2004-2010: For six long years, Kamala Harris serves as the first Indian and Black American woman District Attorney in California.

Feb 11, 2009: Shyamala Gopalan Harris passes away, after battling cancer. She was 70.

2010: Kamala Harris is elected attorney general of California, becoming the first woman and the first Indian and Black American to hold the post.

2012: Harris delivers a speech at the Democratic National Convention, raising her profile.

Aug 22, 2014: Harris marries Doug Emhoff in Santa Barbara, California. Kamala’s sister Maya Harris officiates.

2016: Kamala Harris is elected to the US Senate from California after defeating Loretta Sanchez. She replaces retiring Senator Barbara Boxer.

Jan 8, 2019: Harris’ memoir, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, is published.

Jan 21, 2019: Harris launches her presidential run, with an announcement on Good Morning America.

Dec 3, 2019: Citing lack of funds, Harris shutters her presidential campaign.

Aug 11, 2020: Joe Biden announces Kamala Harris as his running mate on the presidential ticket.

Nov 7, 2020: Kamala Harris elected vice president of the United States on the Joe Biden ticket.

Nov 7, 2020: On a chilly Fall evening, Kamala Harris delivers a rousing victory speech, taking the stage before President-elect Joe Biden.

Jan 20, 2021: Kamala Harris will take her oath as America’s Vice President. She is the first woman of color, first Indian and Black American to have ever held this position. (IANS)

The Many Identities Of Kamala Harris

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Born in Oakland, California, to two immigrant parents – an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father – her parents divorced when she was five and she was primarily raised by her Hindu single mother, Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a cancer researcher and civil rights activist. 

She grew up engaged with her Indian heritage, joining her mother on visits to India, but Ms Harris has said that her mother adopted Oakland’s black culture, immersing her two daughters – Kamala and her younger sister Maya – within it. 

“My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters,” she wrote in her autobiography The Truths We Hold. “She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as black girls and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud black women.” 

 

On the eve of her taking over as the path-breaking first Indian American vice president, Kamala Harris assured her fellow Americans from the continent celebrating her victory that she will ensure a pathway is open for the community – and that is a lesson she learnt from her mother.

She said at a celebration by Asian Americans on Jan. 19, “My mother Shyamala Gopalan arrived in the United States from India, she raised my sister Maya and me to know that though we may be the first, we should not be the last. And I’ve carried that lesson with me throughout my career.”

The Asian American Pacific Islander Ball is one of the traditional galas held around the inauguration ceremony and this year’s events were held virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Asian Ball held a special significance for the community this time as one of their own was becoming the vice president, the second most powerful position in the nation. Americans of Asian origin expressed their joy and congratulated the community for contributing to her election.

Performances and speeches by Asian American entertainers were the highlight of the event which also featured members of Congress and community leaders.

Harris said, “Your continued faith in me has brought me to this moment. When I accepted the nomination to be your vice president, I did so, fully-committed to realizing the vision of a stronger, more united America that provides an opportunity for all.”

The pan-Asian event on the theme “Breaking Barrier” was sponsored by the Indian American Impact Fund, better known as just IMPACT, which aims to produce more political leaders from the community, and RUN AAPI, a youth organization.

IMPACT co-founder Raj Goyal was jubilant about the rapid rise of someone with Indian heritage to be the vice president.

“We never knew how quickly we may see a ‘desi’ at the national level. When I was elected to the Kansas legislature in 2006, it was unimaginable. We’ve come so far in such a short period of time,” Gopal said.

The other co-founder, Deepak Raj, said that Harris had been at the founding of IMPACT and has been a “trailblazer for the community.”

Usually people wear formal clothing like tuxedos and gowns or national dresses, but everyone was dressed informally for the virtual event.

Hollywood Indian American actor Kal Penn joked, “I don’t know how everybody else is dressed, since we can’t really see each other until we see each other. But I am wearing a hoodie. I just want everybody to know that this is my tuxedo for 2021 for the inaugural.”

When “my parents came here didn’t really see folks who look like us on TV or in sports or in politics,” he said.

Therefore, Harris’ election has been an emotional moment and “there’s been a lot of good cry. You know what I mean? Like a lot of good inspirational cries,” he said.

Hip hop artist Raja Kumari performed a number that melded rap and hip-hop with taals and swaras. Bangladeshi American singer Ari Afsar, who performed in the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton,” also sang.

The founder of Indiaspora, an international community network, M.R. Rangaswami, said he had met her when she was the San Francisco public prosecutor and “seen her grow from strength to strength” and now she is going to be the new vice president in a “historic administration.”

Neera Tanden, who will be a member of the cabinet as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said, “For many in our community, there is so much to be proud of. Not only can we celebrate an incredibly diverse cabinet, but we can also celebrate the fact that we have the first vice president-elect who is from Asian descent. I am incredibly proud to serve alongside Kamala Harris”

IMPACT executive director Neil Makhija said, “Our community turned out in record numbers. We really made our voices heard. And we changed the course of history” with the Biden-Harris election.

He said the Asian members of Congress at the event, who included those of Indian, Chinese and Korean descent, “are some of our luminaries, they are role models. They showed us the meaning of service.”

Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi echoed the community’s excitement at the election of Harris. Representative Ro Khanna said, “I can’t stress what an amazing moment this is for our community, and frankly, for a multiracial democracy in America.”

Representative Pramila Jayapal said that she was excited to see “the first woman, the first South Asian American, and the first black American to ever be elected to this position of public trust.”

The work of Asians who contributed to the Biden-Harris election though financial contributions, helping with the campaign and going house to house to ask for votes was mentioned by Representative Ami Bera.

“I am so grateful that we got this right,” said Hollywood actress Sheetal Seth about the election of Harris and Biden. TV actor Sendhil Ramamurthy said, “We made a difference,” as he recalled the campaign work of the Asian community to get the votes out.

Pakistani American comedian-actor Kumail Nanjiani said that after the alienation felt by people like him and his family, finally his mother “feels proud to call America home.”

“I’m excited to see if it shows that people who look like me and my family, who sound like me and my family, who have names like me and my family, that America is our home, because the new administration sees us as belonging here too,” he added.

(Picture: POLITICO)

Vice President Kamala Harris Says She’ll Ensure a Pathway for Community

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Three women tried unsuccessfully to break the glass ceiling to reach the top positions of the US, one as president and two as vice presidents, and finally Kamala Harris has managed to smash it.

Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016 but was defeated by Donald Trump on the basis of the Electoral College votes although she got more popular votes than him.

Geraldine Ferraro was the Democrat Party vice presidential candidate in 1984 running with Walter Mondale, the presidential candidate. They ran against a very popular president, Ronald Reagan, and his Vice President George H.W. Bush, who defeated them in a landslide.

Republican Sara Palin, considered a political lightweight, ran for vice president in 2008 with the presidential candidate John McCain. They lost to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Palin was the governor of Alaska state with no experience in national politics or international affairs and her campaign was punctuated by gaffes.

There have been other women running for president and vice president but they were from smaller parties with no chance of election.

Harris was not the only vice president candidate of Indian origin in the 2020 election. Sunil Freeman, whose mother is an immigrant from India, ran for vice president on the ticket of the Party for Socialism and Liberation with presidential candidate Gloria La Riva. They received 84,905 votes or 0.01 per cent. 

The many identities of the first woman vice-president

In a video posted to her social media she shares the news with President-elect Joe Biden: “We did it, we did it Joe. You’re going to be the next president of the United States!”

Her words are about him but the history of the moment is hers. 

Just over a year ago, as the senator from California hoping to win the Democratic nomination for presidency, she launched a potent attack on Joe Biden over race during a debate. Many thought it inflicted a serious blow on his ambitions. But by the end of the year her campaign was dead and it was Mr Biden who returned the 56-year-old to the national spotlight by putting her on his ticket. 

“It is a big reversal of fortune for Kamala Harris,” says Gil Duran, a communications director for Ms Harris in 2013 and who has critiqued her run for the presidential nomination. 

“Many people didn’t think she had the discipline and focus to ascend to a position in the White House so quickly… although people knew she had ambition and star potential. It was always clear that she had the raw talent.”

What she has demonstrated from the moment she took the national stage with her pitch for the presidency – is grit. 

(Picture: ABC News)

From Madras To The White House: Idlis Come Full Circle

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When was the last time we took the names of fluffy, white idlis, sambar, okra fry and the White House in the same sentence? On January 20, we’ll get there.

Seen through a culinary perspective, the travels of US Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ mother Shyamala Gopalan from Madras (now Chennai) and father Donald Harris from Jamaica nearly 60 years ago set in motion a blended kitchen culture that Kamala Harris brings with her to the Vice President’s home in Washington D.C.

With it come idlis, sambar, okra, roast chicken, tuna melt sandwiches and a Veep who’s an unapologetic food connoisseur, for Kamala Harris the act of cooking is meditative and joyful in equal measure.

Kamala Harris writes in her memoir: “My mother cooked like a scientist.”

She describes the “giant Chinese-style cleaver that she chopped with, and a cupboard full of spices” and loved that “okra could be soul food or Indian food, depending on what spices you chose”.

As a young girl, Harris began by loving okra either fried to a crisp with a seasoning of oil and mustard seeds or floating in tamarind stew, in her mother’s kitchen in a yellow stucco house in Oakland, California.

Later, among a diverse group of friends and family came new ways to cook the vegetable and an appreciation for soul food, a term that swept into America’s collective vocabulary right around the time that Harris’ parents met and later married.

In an ask me anything session on Twitter, Kamala talks about how idlis “with like, really good sambar” are among her favourite South Indian foods. Harris recalls how her mother, during trips to India, sparked a “love for good idli”.

Harris is both indulgent and minimal, depending on the context. The idli fits neatly within that construct, it’s survivalist cuisine or heavenly, depending on your approach.

Idli is a traditional fermented rice and black gram-based food which originated in South India and makes an important contribution to diet as a source of protein, calories and vitamins, especially B complex vitamins.

The idli and its cousin the dosa are as much about Shyamala Gopalan’s roots as they are about Kamala Harris’.

Long before the Kamala connection transported Chennai’s Besant Nagar into international fame, the neighbourhood has been a go-to for the city’s prime real estate, the softest idlis and famous Hindu temples dedicated to Lord Ganesha, the elephant headed god of good luck and Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth – from where Kamala gets her first name.

The location of Kamala Harris’ grandfather home in Chennai, in Besant Nagar, is dotted with plenty of big and small idli shops, with Murugan Idli being among the most popular. An idli is an idli, wherever you go – soft, round, white and fluffy but like Kamala Harris says, “with like, really good sambar” is the secret.

In Indian homes, this round, white rice cake is staple fare, it’s available for a few rupees at food carts on street corners, it’s the first thing that goes on the stove in millions of Indian homes every morning, it’s now firmly on the all-time favourites menu of the first Indian American Vice President of the US.

Plenty from Kamala Harris’ network have vouched for the straight A student quality she brings to almost everything she does. She took it seriously when her mother told her not to do anything “half-assed”.

In the kitchen too, her joy and involvement with the particulars of what she puts on the table has served to define Indian American-ness in more granular terms, the way things show up in recipes. It’s no longer generic curry or Indian food. The idli has come full circle. (IANS)

(Picture: Onmanorama)

Is The COVID-19 Vaccine Safe For Nursing Mothers?

Mary Ann LiebertHealth, Women 0

Newswise — New Rochelle, NY, January 12, 2021–The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (ABM) does not recommend cessation of breastfeeding for individuals who are vaccinated against COVID-19. In a new statement, the ABM suggests that lactating women discuss the risks and benefits of vaccination with their health care provider, within the context of their risk of contracting COVID-19 and of developing severe disease, according to the peer-reviewed journal Breastfeeding Medicine. Click here to read the ABM statement now.

This is a challenging topic because the vaccine trials excluded lactating women. Thus, there are no clinical data regarding the safety of the Pfizer/BioNtech or the Moderna vaccine in nursing mothers. According to the ABM statement, “there is little biological plausibility that the vaccine will cause harm, and antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 [the virus that causes COVID-19] in milk may protect the breastfeeding child.”

“Without clinical data, the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine relied on biological plausibility and expert opinion to craft a statement on considerations for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in lactation,” says Alison Stuebe, MD, President of ABM. “The available information is reassuring; however, pregnant and lactating people deserve better than plausibility to guide medical decisions. Henceforward, phase 3 clinical trials should routinely include pregnant and lactating participants. It’s time to protect pregnant and breastfeeding individuals through research, not from research.”

Arthur I. Eidelman, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Breastfeeding Medicine, states: “The publication of the balanced ABM statement will serve as an immediate guide for clinicians and families in deciding to proceed with Covid-19 vaccination of nursing mothers.”

Breastfeeding Medicine, the official journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, is an authoritative, peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal published 10 times per year in print and online. The Journal publishes original scientific papers, reviews, and case studies on a broad spectrum of topics in lactation medicine. It presents evidence-based research advances and explores the immediate and long-term outcomes of breastfeeding, including the epidemiologic, physiologic, and psychological benefits of breastfeeding. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Breastfeeding Medicine website.

The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine is a worldwide organization of medical doctors dedicated to the promotion, protection, and support of breastfeeding. Our mission is to unite members of the various medical specialties with this common purpose. For more than 20 years, ABM has been bringing doctors together to provide evidence-based solutions to the challenges facing breastfeeding across the globe. A vast body of research has demonstrated significant nutritional, physiological, and psychological benefits for both mothers and children that last well beyond infancy. But while breastfeeding is the foundation of a lifetime of health and well-being, clinical practice lags behind scientific evidence. By building on our legacy of research into this field and sharing it with the broader medical community, we can overcome barriers, influence health policies, and change behaviors.

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research. A complete list of the firm’s 90 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.

(picture courtesy: Science) 

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw Is New Vice-Chair Of US-India Business Council

Staff ReporterBusiness, Finance/Economy, Women 0

US-India Business Council (USIBC) has selected Biocon Executive Chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw as one of its vice-chairs effective immediately. US Chamber of Commerce’s USIBC on January 14 announced three vice-chairs to its 2021 Global Board of Directors. The two other business executives joining Shaw as vice-chairs are Amway CEO Milind Pant and Edward Knight who is the vice-chair at Nasdaq. 

 “Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw will be one of the three vice-chairs for the US-India Business Council’s board of directors,” said USIBC Chairman Vijay Advani in a statement from Washington DC. “The perspectives of the new vice-chairs will be invaluable as the Council charts a path forward in the post-pandemic era and work to deepen the US-India partnership,” said Advani.

As vice-chairs, Mazumdar-Shaw, Pant and Knight will work with Council President Nisha Biswal and its policy directors to elevate priorities in key sectors and lead meetings between industry and government.

The trio will also work to amplify the voice of industry on international trade and investment issues and emphasise the key role that businesses can play in strengthening democratic institutions and combatting the global pandemic.

“I am honoured to serve the Council, which is committed to enhancing the US-India bilateral trade. In my new role, I look forward to forging collaborative initiatives in pharma and healthcare in research, innovation and skill development between our two nations,” Mazumdar-Shaw said.

The pandemic has provided an opportunity for robust engagement between the two countries that can lead to knowledge sharing in digital healthcare, medical technologies and Intellectual Property-led drug and vaccine innovation to deliver healthcare solutions, she added.

The Council represents top global firms operating across the US, India and the Indo-Pacific. Recognising that US-India trade is driven by new business hubs, the Council is also focused on strengthening connections between cities and states in both countries.

Sonia Aggarwal Named To Be Biden’s Climate Policy Adviser

Staff ReporterEnvironment, Profile, Women 0

Sonia Aggarwal, an energy policy expert has been named by President-elect Joe Biden as the senior advisor for climate policy and innovation, the latest of several key Indian American nominees for his administration.

She led America’s Power Plan, bringing together 200 electricity policy experts, at Energy Innovation, of which she was a co-founder and Vice President, according to the biography from Biden’s transition team.

Aggarwal also directed the team that developed the Energy Policy Simulator to analyse the environmental, economic, and public health impacts of climate and energy policies

Earlier, she managed global research at ClimateWorks Foundation, “where she worked on the McKinsey carbon abatement cost curves and led research for the American Energy Innovation Council”, the biography said. Born and raised in Ohio, Aggarwal has a masters at Stanford University in civil engineering.

Indian Americans named to important positions in the administration of Biden, who will take over as President, and Kamala Harris, as Vice President next Wednesday, include Neera Tanden, who will be the director of the Office of Management and Budget with cabinet rank, and Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General, both of whom will have to be confirmed in their positions by the Senate, and Vedant Patel, to be his assistant press secretary, Vinay Reddy to be the director of speechwriting and Gautam Raghavan, to be the deputy director of the Office of Presidential Personnel.

Among others are: Atul Gawande and Celine Gounder, members of the COVID-19 task force; Bharat Ramamurti, deputy director of the National Economic Council; Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary for Harris; Mala Adiga, policy director for Jill Biden, who will become the First Lady, and Maju Varghese, executive director of their inauguration — the swearing-in ceremony and the festivities around it.

At the powerful National Security Council, the nominees are Tarun Chhabra, senior director for technology and national security; Sumona Guha, senior director for South Asia, and Shanthi Kalathil, coordinator for Democracy and Human Rights. 

A media strategist, Garima Verma, has been named the digital director for Jill Biden, who will become the First Lady next week. Making the announcement about Verma and other additions to her staff, President-elect Joe Biden’ wife Jill Biden said, “Together, we will work to open the White House in new, inclusive and innovative ways, reflecting more fully the distinct beauty of all our communities, cultures and traditions.”

On Jill Biden’s staff, Verma will be joining Mala Adiga who was appointed the policy director. The president’s spouse has a large staff and an office because of the extensive social life and work on chosen public causes.

One of Jill Biden’s causes is helping military service members, their families and ex-service members. That program will be run through a relaunched Joining Forces, a nationwide effort that had been started by her and former First Lady Michelle Obama.

Vanita Gupta Named By Bident As Associate Attorney General

Staff ReporterProfile, Women 0

President-elect Joe Biden has nominated notable Indian-American civil rights attorney, Vanita Gupta, as Associate Attorney General, the third highest ranking position at the Department of Justice (DOJ).

“As associate attorney general, the number three job at the department, I nominate Vanita Gupta. A woman I’ve known for some time. One of the most respected civil rights lawyers in America,” said Biden. “The proud daughter of immigrants from India, I’m grateful that Vanita is leaving her current job leading one of the premier civil rights organizations in the world as she answers the call to serve once again to ensure our justice system is even more fair and equitable,” the President-elect said in his announcement address.

One of the best-known and most respected civil rights attorneys in America, Gupta served as acting assistant attorney general for the civil rights division at the Justice Department under President Obama. She is currently the president and chief executive officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

“I am humbled and honored to return to the Department of Justice and to once again work alongside the women and men who defend our Constitution and enforce our federal laws,” Gupta said. “My parents were proud immigrants from India; who taught me early on the values that led me to civil rights work and public service.”

Vice-President elect Harris in her speech highlighted the damage that has been done to the Justice Department and the country’s long-overdue reckoning on racial injustice, once again condemning the storming of the US Capitol and Trump’s role in inciting the violence.

Gupta had served as the principal deputy assistant attorney general and head of the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department in former President Barack Obama’s administration when Biden was the Vice President.

Vanita Gupta, has recalled her experience of racial bigotry as a four-year-old while she pledged her commitment to civil rights and justice reform. Speaking on Thursday after Biden introduced her as “one of the most respected civil rights lawyers in America”, Gupta spoke of her parents as “proud immigrants from India”, and the family’s experience of bias, “an early memorybut one that is seared in my mind”.

“One day, I was sitting in a McDonald’s restaurant with my sister, mother, and grandmother. As we ate our meals, a group of skinheads at the next table began shouting ethnic slurs and throwing food at us until we had to leave the restaurant,” she said. “That feeling never left me of what it means to be made to feel unsafe because of who you are,” said Gupta, who went on to a brilliant career as a fighter for civil rights.

She gained fame when straight out of law school she won the release of 38 people, most of them African Americans, who had been wrongly convicted on drug charges in a Texas town by all-White juries. She also got them $6 million on compensation.

She was then working for the Legal Defence Fund of NAACP (National Association of Coloured People). Gupta went on to work as a staff lawyer for the top human rights organisation, the American Civil Liberties Union, where she took on several cases for immigrants and victims of mass arrests.

A landmark case she won was getting a settlement for children held in privately run immigration prisons. She is now the president and CEO of Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of more than 200 human rights organisations.

Gupta will have to be confirmed by the Senate as associate attorney general, which would be smooth sailing because the Democrats have taken control of the Senate. She is the latest of a series of Indian Americans appointed to important posts by Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

They include Neera Tanden, who will be the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General, both of whom will have to be confirmed in their positions by the Senate, and Vedant Patel, to be his assistant press secretary, Vinay Reddy to be the director of speechwriting and Gautam Raghavan, to be the deputy director of the Office of Presidential Personnel.

Indian-American Dr Raj Iyer has also taken over as the first Chief Information Officer of the US Army, after the Pentagon created the position in July 2020. Equivalent in rank to a three-star General, Iyer will supervise an annual budget of USD 16 billion for the US Army’s IT operations.

One of the highest ranking Indian-American civilians in the US Department of Defense, Iyer, who holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering, serves as the principal advisor to the Secretary of the Army and directs representation of the secretary in matters relating to information management/information technology (IT), the Pentagon said in a statement.

Biden on Friday named health policy expert Vidur Sharma as the testing adviser on his Covid-19 Response Team. Sharma, the latest Indian American nominee for a key position in the administration of Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris that takes over next Wednesday, will be joining others dealing with the fight against coronavirus like Surgeon General-nominee Vivek Murthy, and Covid-19 Task Force members Atul Gawande and Celine Gounder.

Sharma, like many Biden nominees, is an old White House hand having served in the administration of former President Barack Obama, when Biden was Vice President. In that stint, he was a health policy adviser on the Domestic Policy Council working on implementing Obama’s signature programme of trying to ensure health insurance for all, known as Obamacare.

Among others are Atul Gawande and Celine Gounder to the Covid-19 task force, Mala Adiga to be the policy director for Jill Biden, who will become the First Lady, and Maju Varghese to be the executive director of their inauguration – the swearing-in ceremony and the festivities around it. Appointment of Gupta with a strong civil rights records could reassure them about Biden’s commitment to the cause. 

(Picture Courtesy: OneIndia)

Miss Transqueen India 2020 Crowned

Staff ReporterEntertainment, Fashion, Women 0

India has a new Miss Transqueen — and she’s headed for the world stage, determined to speak out for the country’s marginalized transgender community, reports here stated. Fashion designer Shaine Soni was crowned Miss Transqueen India, the country’s beauty pageant for transgender women, last week. She will represent India at next year’s Miss International Queen, the world’s biggest pageant for transgender women.
Miss Transqueen India was first established in 2017, and involves all the trappings of a traditional beauty pageant — photoshoots, talent rounds, elaborate costumes, judges and hundreds of audience members.
This year, organizers were unable to hold the competition due to the pandemic, which prompted a national lockdown from late March to May. But Reena Rai, chairwoman and founder of Miss Transqueen India, wasn’t ready to give up; she was determined to send a contestant to represent India in the 2021 international pageant.
“My pageant isn’t just about beauty, it is about empowerment and inclusion,” Rai told CNN in a phone interview. “If I am going to send someone without holding a competition, then I have to make sure that they are a very strong candidate, the best of the best, someone who knows the value of (becoming Miss) Transqueen India.”
Soni seemed like the obvious choice; as a fashion designer and stylist whose work is known on the pageant circuit, she has previously helped coach contestants and pick their outfits. For years, she stayed relatively quiet about her own transgender identity while struggling for acceptance from her family and friends — but Rai encouraged her to step forward for the title.
“She has always been a very strong backbone for Transqueen India,” said Rai. “I told her that because you’ve been with us and how important it is, and because you have been struggling with publicly coming out, this might be the best platform to do so because it is something that a lot of people will draw strength and inspiration from.”
While Soni was born biologically male, she identified as a girl from a young age — and was confused and dismayed when people around her began insisting she was a boy, and told her to act and behave like one.
As she grew up, she faced increasing pressure from relatives and friends who would discourage her from growing her hair long, wearing “girly” clothes, or having “effeminate” mannerisms, she said over the phone. “With so much pressure and bullying around me, I desperately felt I was different and that there was a problem in me.”
She found some relief when, as a teenager, she began researching and stumbled upon information about gender identity and gender confirmation surgery. She ended up leaving home at 17, pursuing an education in fashion, and transitioning with hormonal therapy a few years later — a process that she described as “difficult.”
“A lot of my friends gave up on me, they could not understand,” she said. “But I was very determined, so I went ahead and did everything on my own.” Shaine Soni will represent India next year at Miss International Queen. Credit: Courtesy Shaine Soni

The Covid-19 Baby Boom

Staff ReporterLifestyle, Women 0

In June of 2020, three months after the COVID pandemic began in earnest in the United States, we wrote a report suggesting that the public health crisis and associated recession would result in 300,000 to 500,000 fewer births in 2021. Six months later, we have been asked several times if we have an updated estimate. We have revisited the issue and stand by our initial prediction of a large reduction in births. Based on our previous methodology and a labor market that improved somewhat more quickly than we anticipated, we place more emphasis on the lower range of our original estimate, likely closer to 300,000 fewer births. However, additional factors that we did not incorporate into our model – in particular, ongoing school and day care closures – might very well mean a larger reduction in births than that.
It will still be several months before birth data will become available that will enable us to count the “missing” births. Additional survey evidence has come out, though, since we released our initial report that supports a coming baby bust. Corroborating evidence generated since our June report supports our prediction of a baby bust next year. A survey conducted by Laura D. Lindberg, Alicia VandeVusse, Jennifer Mueller and Marielle Kirstein of the Guttmacher Institute reveals that that 34 percent of American women have either delayed their plans to have a child or reduced the number of children they expect to have as a result of the pandemic. A different survey conducted by Francesca Luppi, Bruno Arpino, and Alessandro Rosina shows that European women similarly report that they plan to postpone giving birth or have fewer children.
Levels of sexual activity have also fallen. In one survey (conducted by Justin Lehmiller, Justin Garcia, Amanda Gesselman, and Kristen Mark of the Kinsey Institute), almost half of adults surveyed report a decline in their sex lives. In another (conducted by Devel Hensel, Molly Rosenberg, Maya Luetke, Tsungchieh Fu, and Debby Herbenick at the University of Indiana), those with young children and, particularly, those with school-age children report the largest declines in intercourse.
One way to gauge individual behavior is to examine what they search for in Google; these data are available through Google Trends. A study by Joshua Wilde, Wei Chen, and Sophie Lohmann based on these data supports our prediction of reduced fertility. The authors report that searches for pregnancy-related terms, such as “ClearBlue” (a pregnancy test), “ultrasound,” and “morning sickness” have fallen since the pandemic began. Based on the reduced searches for pregnancy-related terms, the authors of that study forecast a reduction of births on the order of 15 percent, an even larger drop than what we forecasted.
In the six months that have elapsed since our original June report, labor market conditions have improved more rapidly than experts were predicting back in June. A key element of our forecast for declining births was based on our empirical analysis that found that a one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate is associated with a one percent drop in the birth rate. We applied that estimated relationship to the expectation of a seven to 10 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate, which was in line with Federal Reserve expectations.
From today’s vantage point, it looks more likely that unemployment will have risen by around 5.5 percentage points in the year following the start of the pandemic (April 2020 through March 2021) from 3.5 percent to roughly nine percent. This estimate is based on observed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for April through November and assumes little change in the next few months. Using this revised expected change in unemployment, we would predict a 5.5 percent reduction in births from the unemployment effect alone. Applying that to the number of births in 2019 (3.75 million) suggests 206,000 fewer births in 2021.
Our original forecast also incorporated an additional reduction in births coming from the anxiety and social conditions associated with the public health crisis. We incorporated this into our forecast by examining the experience of the 1918 Spanish Flu. Back then, every spike in the death rate attributable to the flu was associated with a dramatic reduction in births nine months later. We relied on that evidence to increase our forecast based solely on labor market conditions by one to three additional percent, or another 38,000 to 114,000 fewer births.
The public health crisis has unfolded much as anticipated in the spring and similar in magnitude to the 1918 experience. That pandemic led to 408,000 deaths in the year after it began. Currently 290,000 deaths have occurred as of December 8 and 539,000 deaths are forecast to occur by April 1. The population of the United States is three times as large today as it was in 1918, but medical care has significantly improved, which should have reduced the death rate for a similar level of disease. We see no reason to alter our forecast based on these data. Combining the updated impact of the recession with our earlier additional impact of the public health crisis indicates that we should expect a baby bust in the range of about 245,000 to 320,000.
Yet there are reasons to believe that our July prediction might understate the impact on fertility. Ongoing school closures are putting tremendous strain on families that may reduce their willingness to have more children. Restrictions on public gatherings and social encounters might mean fewer new couplings that could lead to pregnancies, intended or otherwise. The extended nature of this crisis also is likely to create large structural changes in the economy; a sizable share of the jobs lost will be permanent. The longer the duration of the income loss that workers expect, the more likely it is that delayed births will never happen. We did not attempt to make any predictions based on these additional factors because we had no previous context or data from which to draw empirical conclusions.
It will still be several months before data will be available on the number of post-pandemic births that we can use to begin to assess our forecast. In the meantime, we have revisited our prediction based on the most recent evidence available. As of now, we stand by our prediction of a COVID baby bust of around 300,000 fewer births. But the longer the pandemic lasts, and the deeper the economic and social anxiety runs, it is feasible that we will see an even larger reduction in births with an increasing share of them averted permanently.

SUITABLE BOY

Staff ReporterEntertainment, Women 0

With the highly anticipated conclusion of the epic miniseries A SUITABLE BOY approaching, actress Tanya Maniktala sat down to discuss the making of her acclaimed project. In North America, all episodes are available exclusively on the streaming service Acorn TV with new episodes premiering every Monday. More information is available at http://signup.acorn.tv where a free trial is also being offered.
 
 
Interview with lead actress Tanya Maniktala of A Suitable Boy
 
Tell us about the story of A Suitable Boy?
 
A Suitable Boy is a book written by Vikram Seth and the series that we are making is based on the novel. Based in 1950s India, the story is about Lata Mehra and her journey to find herself and also to find A Suitable Boy! There are a lot of other elements, such as the turmoil after the partition and the Hindu/Muslim riots. I would say that it is a love story, but it’s also Lata finding love in herself and the potential to be able to love somebody else as well.
 
Who is Lata Mehra and what is her journey?
 
Lata is a 19 year old girl. She is attending university and graduating in English Literature. Lata’s beauty lies in her simplicity; I would say that she is very relatable, very grounded and humble. She is taking the world as it is and has no illusions about how it’s going to be. However, we see her bubble break when she actually enters into the real world. Lata and her mother’s ideas of marriage and love are very different. Lata follows her heart but her mother follows what society says. There’s always a constant conflict between the two of them.
 
How does the relationship between Lata and her mother develop across the first few episodes?
 
Lata and her mother share a love/hate relationship where they push each other towards the edge but pull each other back as well. They are always there for each other and they understand each other. I feel like Lata is almost an extension, or rather a younger version, of her mother. They both have very strong opinions. At the end of it all, her mother wants Lata to be happy, whether it’s studying literature or law and I think Lata understands that. However, her youth takes over at times when she feels like rebelling – but she would never do anything to hurt her mother.
 
How did you become involved in A Suitable Boy?
 
Just a few days before I got the call for the audition my friend and I were discussing this book and how Lata and Malati’s relationship was very much like ours. I was working as a copywriter and I was very happy with my life. A few days later, a friend called me and asked me to come for an audition but didn’t tell me what it was for. My friend is a huge fan of the book. I get goose bumps now when I remember showing up for the audition and how it was for A Suitable Boy and the role of Lata.
 
What has it been like working with Mira Nair?
 
Mira is absolutely phenomenal; she’s the best director that anybody could ask for. She’s so clear and vocal in what she wants. It’s so easy for any artist to deliver when they know what the director wants from them and that’s so important since it’s my first time working on such a huge scale project. I couldn’t have been luckier. I’m blessed. I’m honestly honoured to have her directing me and this entire cast. Mira gave me opportunities to grow and learn which is very important for me as an actor. I need to figure out my own process and she allowed me time to just be with the character, so I’m really grateful. Her vision about what she wants from the book is very clear and you can tell she’s totally in love with the book and its characters.
 
What has it been like to be part of this huge production?
 
Every day on set feels like a dream – from the cars, to the sets and the costumes. I can’t believe that this has actually happened. I feel so humbled and grateful for this wonderful opportunity. I can’t believe this is my life. There are so many people around me who encourage me and give me that boost of confidence whenever I feel low. I’m honestly so grateful for it all!
 
 Watch the NEW making-of video “Creating A Suitable Boy” here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAoj43V8gxo

“Women Who Win” Awarded ‘Leadership in Women Empowerment Award By Indian Medical Association of New England

Staff ReporterCommunity, Profile, Women 0

Dr. Manju Sheth, Dr. Deepa Jhaveri, and Shaleen Sheth, the pioneers in creating a new movement to empower women with the recent launch of their movement, “Women who win# Dreamcatchers” were awarded the prestigious Leadership in Women Empowerment Award by Indian Medical Association of New England (IMANE) at the annual gala organized virtually on Saturday, December 12th, 2020.

The platform was honored for “Leadership in Women Empowerment” as the “President’s Award.” Founded in 1978, IMANE is one of the oldest Indian Medical Associations in the United States. It is an organization for medical professionals of Indian origin in the New England area.

“Women who win# Dreamcatchers” is a Global Media Platform sharing dreams, Passions & Life lessons of a Woman’s Journey, Emphasizing women empowerment across all ages, industries, and backgrounds, & bringing women from around the world together daily with inspiring, relatable, and relevant original stories.

The platform has featured as exclusive interviews, skill shares, webinars, podcasts, and more including Business, Policy, Technology, Social Activism, Arts & Lifestyle, Global Recipes, Women’s Health and more with trailblazing contributors across all fields.

“This year with the pandemic and other challenges being faced in the world right now, women who win brings positivity and inspiration, reminding women to continue chasing their dreams and make it a reality,” said Dr. Maju Sheth the visionary women’s leader. 

Women Who Win has done outstanding work for global women’s health and wellness through weekly articles and webinars, bringing together providers and patients around the world, and IMANE is excited to have collaborated with them on webinars including an international podiatry panel, and an open-minded conversation on gynecology.

This year, they have brought expertise from renowned specialists in topics such as allergies, nutrition and wellness, pulmonary, dental care during Covid-19 and more. Further, they highlighted the discussion in healthcare policy, including gender gap in healthcare, affordable healthcare, and creating change with leading health reform pioneer Rosemarie Day. They have also brought in the patient’s perspective, sharing women in our community’s powerful journeys with breast and colon cancer.

In her address, Dr. Dhrumil Shah, President of IMANE, said, “The work of a small group of thoughtful and passionate individuals can change the world. I never doubted this sentiment but, there is a difference in believing it and experiencing it first-hand. This year the work of three women in our community, two of them being IMANE (Indian Medical Association leaders] Dr. Manju Sheth, Dr. Deepa Jhaveri, and Shaleen Sheth, have done extraordinary work to empower women globally in these tough times.”

According to Dr. Shah, ‘Women Who Win’ #Dreamcatchers has become a platform full of inspirational stories, life lessons of women’s journeys and insights from topics such as humanitarian, social & entrepreneurial causes.. I am amazed each time their stories come out on how powerful an impact it is making in our global sentiment as they fuel positivity, inclusion, diversity and collaboration. We at IMANE are proud to partner with Women Who Win on the Women’s Health Series webinars, where we bring global experts and speakers on key healthcare related topics. I feel truly proud and honored to see the work of our team reaching the stage beyond my imagination. I would like to thank and congratulate the Women Who Win team for their ongoing success in changing the world one story at a time.”

From the stories of social activists fighting to end gender-based violence and the life of a female pilot flying planes for humanity, to a woman building 2200 schools for girls in remote areas, trailblazing millennials, and women overcoming adversities and challenges of daily life, the platform has something for everyone.

Dr. Manju Sheth is a physician by profession, having a passion for media and commitment to serve the larger humanity, with special focus on women’s empowerment. She is a Board Certified Internist, currently serving patients at Beth Israel Lahey Hospital.in the Boston Region in Massachusetts.

Dr. Sheth wears many hats to her credit. A multi-tasker and with full of energy, Dr. Sheth says, “If you want to do something in life then you will find a way.” It has not been easy to be “a physician, mother, media personality, and be involved in our vibrant New England community and the media world, but each of my involvements is truly important to me, and I give my full heart and energy to each of them. I always remind myself, that anything worth having has to be worked for.”

Dr. Sheth has been a big advocate for empowerment of women and she has invested her time, energy and efforts all her life more than any other cause. “I’ve always had a passion for women empowerment, and I bring that to all the projects and opportunities I pursue,” she says. She has served on the board of ATASK (Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence) and as the Chairperson of Saheli, a prestigious Boston based organization, whose mission is to empower South Asian women to lead safe and healthy lives.

Having served on spreading awareness on women’s rights, Dr. Sheth says, “My biggest focus right now is the new Women who win # Dreamcatchers platform where we showcase dreams, passions & life lessons of a women’s journey on our website, womenwhowin100.com and on multiple social media platforms. And this initiative keeps me stay motivated each and every day.”

To join a global group of women around the world to share stories and discuss prominent and relevant women’s topics, join their vibrant community on  Facebook ,Instagram,Linkedin & website wwwwomenwhowin100.

Congresswoman Jayapal Elected Chair of Congressional Progressive Caucus

Staff ReporterWomen 0

Indian American U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal has been elected chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on December 9th, continuing her leadership of the growing progressive movement across America.

“As a lifelong organizer, I am honored that my colleagues have elected me to lead the Congressional Progressive Caucus at this pivotal moment. We have massive crises knocking at our nation’s door, and the work of the Progressive Caucus has never been more important,” Jayapal, D-Wash., said in a statement. “The American people need Congress to lead with vision, conviction, empathy and dedication to people and families in every community who are struggling right now.”

“It’s time for Congress to act boldly, restoring power to where it belongs — with the people,” the caucus chair added. “I am confident that with this talented leadership team and the expertise and passion of our entire caucus, we can deliver progressive policies that bring real relief to families, advance racial justice, tackle poverty and inequality of any kind, strengthen worker power, advance climate justice, break up monopolies, bring humanity to our immigration system and help transform this country so working people finally get ahead.”

Jayapal most recently served as the caucus’ co-chair. The newly elected Congressional Progressive Caucus Executive Board is also representative of the diversity within the caucus — more than half of Executive Board members are people of color and more than half are women.

Among the board members are Democratic Congressman in California’s 17th Congressional District, Ro Khanna, who was named a deputy whip. The CPC is currently made up of nearly 100 members who champion progressive ideals in Congress and throughout the country.

Since 1991, the CPC has advocated for progressive policies that prioritize working Americans over corporate interests, fight economic and social inequality and advance civil liberties, the release said.

The CPC leads on progressive policy solutions like comprehensive immigration reform, Medicare for All, good-paying jobs, fair trade, debt-free college, bold climate action, racial justice and a just foreign policy, added the release.

The increasingly influential Congressional Progressive Caucus announced its senior leadership Dec. 9, 2020, for the 117th Congress. The CPC Executive Board will be chaired by Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington.

“As a lifelong organizer, I am honored that my colleagues have elected me to lead the Congressional Progressive Caucus at this pivotal moment. We have massive crises knocking at our nation’s door, and the work of the Progressive Caucus has never been more important,” Jayapal said in a statement.

Jayapal has become one of the most vocal leaders in the progressive movement nationally during the Trump administration. “The American people need Congress to lead with vision, conviction, empathy, and dedication to people and families in every community who are struggling right now,” she said, adding that the Congress needed to “act boldly” to restore power to the people.

Jayapal vowed to work with her colleagues to “bring real relief to families, advance racial justice, tackle poverty and inequality of any kind, strengthen worker power, advance climate justice, break up monopolies, bring humanity to our immigration system, and help transform this country so working people finally get ahead.”

California Congressman Ro Khanna, D-California, a strong supporter of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, was appointed one of several Deputy Whips of the CPC.

The full CPC Executive Board for the 117th Congress will be:

Chair: Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (WA-07)

Deputy Chair: Congresswoman Katie Porter (CA-45)

Whip: Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (MN-05)

Chair Emeriti: Congressman Mark Pocan (WI-02), Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-13), and Congressman Raul Grijalva (AZ-03)

Vice Chair for Policy: Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08)

Vice Chair for Communications: Congresswoman-elect Marie Newman (IL-03)

Vice Chair for New Members: Congressman Joe Neguse (CO-02)

Vice Chair for Inter-Caucus Relations: Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-18)

Vice Chair for Labor: Congressman Don Norcross (NJ-01)

Vice Chair for Member Services: Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-13)

Vice Chairs At-Large: Congressman David Cicilline (RI-01), Congressman Jesus “Chuy” García (IL-04), Congresswoman Deb Haaland (NM-01), and Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12)

Deputy Whips: Congressman Mark Takano (CA-41), Congressman Lloyd Doggett (TX-35), Congressman Ro Khanna (CA-17), Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (MI-12), Congressman Mondaire Jones (NY-17), Congressman Andy Levin (MI-09), Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (TX-16) and Congresswoman-elect Cori Bush (MO-01)

Executive Board Member At-Large: Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (IL-09)

Special Order Hour Conveners: Congressman-elect Jamaal Bowman (NY-16) and Congresswoman-elect Teresa Leger Fernandez (NM-03)

Biden, Harris Named TIME’s 2020 ‘Person Of The Year’

Staff ReporterNation USA, Profile, Women 0

TIME magazine has named Joe Biden and Kamala Harris 2020’s Person of the Year. The two made history this year when they beat Donald Trump in a bitter election that put him in a small club of presidents who served only one term. Harris on that day became the country’s first female, first Black and first South Asian vice president-elect.

“For changing the American story, for showing that the forces of empathy are greater than the furies of division, for sharing a vision of healing in a grieving world, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are TIME’s 2020 Person of the Year,” wrote Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal.

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan was named Businessperson of the Year. The video chat service spiked in popularity amid a health crisis that forced people to work and learn from home.  In the category of Guardians of the Year, Time named activists Assa Traoré, Porche Bennett-Bey and racial-justice organizers; frontline health workers fighting the pandemic; and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Time magazine’s tradition of singling out an especially influential person started in 1927, launching as Man of the Year. The name was later changed to Person of the Year, which is bestowed on an individual, a group, a movement or an idea that had the most influence in the past year. In 2006, Time named “You” as Person of the Year to recognize the millions of people who contribute to content on the internet. Not everyone who made the cut wielded positive influence. Adolf Hitler, for example, was Man of the Year in 1938. In 2019, Time picked young climate activist, Greta Thunberg.

The shortlist unveiled earlier last weekwas a clear reflection of the year’s most dramatic events. Biden, Trump, Frontline Health Care Workers and Dr. Fauci and the Movement for Racial Justice were all major characters in a tumultuous year that included a deadly pandemic, social unrest over racial injustices and a contentious election.

NBA star LeBron James was named Athlete of the Year and Korean pop group BTS was Entertainer of the Year, both of which were revealed on NBC’s “Today” show Thursday morning. The Person of the Year was introduced in a special prime time broadcast on the network, marking the first time that NBC has partnered with the magazine’s Emmy-winning Time Studios on coverage of this scale for Person of the Year.

Actors Issa Rae and Matthew McConaughey kicked off the hour-long, star-studded event that included appearances by Vanessa Bryant, John Cena, Yo Yo Ma, BTS and H.E.R. Bruce Springsteen presented the Person of the Year.

Time expanded its Person of the Year franchise last year by introducing four additional categories including Businessperson of the Year. The decision came after Salesforce (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne Benioff bought Time in 2018 from magazine conglomerate Meredith Corp (MDP), which had acquired Time Inc. in 2017.

In a statement, Time’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote: “For changing the American story, for showing that the forces of empathy are greater than the furies of division, for sharing a vision of healing in a grieving world, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are TIME’s 2020 Person of the Year.”

Biden is the 10th President-elect to achieve the title, but his selection marks the first time a President-elect and Vice President-elect have shared the cover together, The Hill news reported.Former Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Gerald Ford are the only US Presidents never named “Person of the Year”.

Neera Tanden To Be Nominated to Head Powerful Office of Management and Budget

Staff ReporterNation USA, Women 0

President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to lead the powerful White House budget office generated early controversy Monday, with Neera Tanden emerging as an immediate target for conservatives and Republican lawmakers.

Tanden, 50, has regularly clashed with the GOP in a manner that Republicans say will complicate her Senate confirmation process. Several GOP senators said Monday that she could run into trouble during confirmation hearings, warning that her “partisan” background could make it hard for her to win Republican support.

The two Senate Republicans poised to lead committees that would hold Tanden‘s confirmation hearings declined to commit to doing so. One of them – Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who is in line to chair the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee – also said he hopes that Biden will decide not to formally nominate Tanden.

“The concern I have is both judgment, based on the tweets that I’ve been shown, just in the last 24 hours . . . and it’s the partisan nature,” said Portman, a former Office of Management and Budget director himself. “Of all the jobs, that’s one where I think you would need to be careful not to have someone who’s overtly partisan.”

The other potential committee chairman who would oversee Tanden‘s hearings, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chuckled when asked about Tanden on Monday, noting that she in the past has had a lot to say about him. He also declined to commit to hearings for her, saying only that senators will “cross that bridge when we get there.”

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D. told reporters, “I’m not disqualifying anybody, but I do think it gets a lot harder obviously if they send someone from their progressive left that [is] kind of out of the mainstream.” Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s first budget director, told Fox News that Tanden had very little chance of being confirmed.

Tanden would not be the first recent OMB nominee to face a contested Senate confirmation. Mulvaney was narrowly approved; 51 senators voted to confirm him for the post. Democrats broadly opposed Mulvaney because of his past efforts to slash the budget and his role in a previous government shutdown. Mulvaney even received a “no” vote from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. But Republicans controlled the Senate during Mulvaney’s confirmation, making his passage a bit easier.

A loyal Democrat with decades of senior policy-making experience, Tanden has been tapped by Biden to lead the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which plays a crucial role in setting the president’s economic agenda and approving agency policies. She would be the first woman of color to lead the budget office.

She was a close ally of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and served as a senior adviser to President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services, where she helped draft the Affordable Care Act. She most recently served as president of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-leaning think tank with deep ties to Democratic policy-makers. The OMB plays a pivotal role in the White House because of its role in setting the federal budget and clearing new regulations.

“She’ll be well situated to play hard,” said Dean Baker, a liberal economist. “Tanden is obviously an inside player, but she has been around Washington and will be smart on pushing stuff in ways that get through.”

If confirmed to lead the OMB, Tanden would be one of the central economic voices in the Biden administration, along with Janet Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chairwoman chosen to lead the Treasury Department; Cecilia Rouse, a Princeton University economist chosen to lead the White House Council of Economic Advisers; and Brian Deese, a BlackRock executive named to lead the White House National Economic Council. All but Deese would require Senate confirmation.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Senate GOP leadership, said he did not see any reason why he would oppose Yellen, but he called Tanden Biden’s “worst nominee so far.”

“I think, in light of her combative and insulting comments about many members of the Senate, mainly on our side of the aisle, that it creates certainly a problematic path,” he said Monday.

Tanden would be required to go through two Senate confirmation hearings – one through the Budget Committee and the other through the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The OMB is a rare Cabinet position in which nominees have to file their tax returns to the committees for review.

The daughter of Indian immigrants, Tanden was raised by a single mother who relied on government assistance programs before attending the University of California at Los Angeles and Yale University’s law school.

“After my parents were divorced when I was young, my mother relied on public food and housing programs to get by,” Tanden tweeted Monday. “Now, I’m being nominated to help ensure those programs are secure, and ensure families like mine can live with dignity. I am beyond honored.”

Tanden held prominent policy positions in the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and her resume played a role in her selection to lead the OMB. She has denied playing a role in Clinton’s welfare policy, which many Democrats now view as a mistake. At the Center for American Progress, Tanden also helped push the party left on budget and spending issues, though she initially expressed openness to cutting Social Security and Medicare along with many other Washington liberals at the time.

And if Tanden gets the job, she will have to work with Congress to get the budget through. She was one of the vehement critics of Trump and has said his “actions and words are tearing the country apart, and it falls upon every government official of both parties and every citizen to reject his call.”

A Yale law graduate, Tanden had earlier worked for former President Bill Clinton’s campaign and went on to work at the White House as an associate director for domestic policy and as an adviser to Hillary Clinton. When Hillary Clinton ran successfully for senator, Tanden was her deputy campaign manager and became her legislative director after her election.

Meanwhile, a loyalist to President Donald Trump who was connected to efforts to spread conspiracy theories about President-elect Joe Biden has been put in charge of the Pentagon transition effort and will oversee coordination with the incoming Biden-Kamala Harris administration.

CNN reports that Kash Patel, a former aide to Republican Rep. Devin Nunes who currently serves as chief of staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, will lead the transition in the Pentagon.

While it is not unusual for someone in that job to take a leading role in the transition effort, two defense officials told CNN that Patel will likely come under scrutiny from many inside the Pentagon who are watching to see how cooperative he may be with the Biden team, the report notes.

Dr. Manju Sheth: An Inspiring Role Model For Women

Ajay GhoshCommunity, Health, Profiles, Women 0

A physician by profession, having a passion for media and commitment to serve the larger humanity, with special focus on women’s empowerment, Dr. Manju Sheth is a Board Certified Internist, currently serving patients at Beth Israel Lahey Hospital.in the Boston Region in Massachusetts.

Dr. Sheth wears many hats to her credit. A multi-tasker and with full of energy, Dr. Sheth says, “If you want to do something in life then you will find a way.” It has not been easy to be “a physician, mother, media personality, and be involved in our vibrant New England community and the media world, but each of my involvements is truly important to me, and I give my full heart and energy to each of them. I always remind myself, that anything worth having has to be worked for.”

Recalling her childhood, growing up in India, and about her ambitions in life, Dr. Sheth says, “Growing up in a close-knit family, I had a wonderful childhood with two great parents and two wonderful brothers.” Dr. Sheth is proud that “I have made my mom’s dream a reality by becoming an accomplished Doctor.”

Dr. Sheth had a passion for writing from school days onwards. “I always loved to write and was also the editor of my school magazine and wrote for local magazines as well. Although journalism was not the most popular career for women in India, especially in those days, “it remained a big passion for me. I have always been intrigued by people’s stories. And once I was well settled in my medical career, I decided to pursue my passion for media as well. The media world has given me the opportunity to meet amazing people, and bring a platform to unique and powerful stories.”

Having endowed with the gift of writing, Dr. Sheth is known to be a natural storyteller and “I truly believe that every life has a story and a dream. I’m always looking to hear stories of everybody’s life, in everyone that I meet, and then I look to find the right platform and the right medium to showcase it.” Her popular “Chai with Manju” celebrity series is one of the most read news features in the New England region, where she featured celebrities and spiritual leaders such as Sadhguru, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the Kennedys and the like.

Dr. Sheth was the co-founder and CEO of INE MultiMedia, a non-profit organization devoted to promoting and supporting charitable organizations, art, culture, education and empowerment through workshops, seminars and multimedia. Dr. Sheth is a former trustee of the Indian-American Forum for Political Education. Dr. Sheth is very dedicated to the education of the community about health related issues, and is also the producer and chair of the annual free mega Health & Wellness Expo.

“I am a very genuine person, what you see is what you get,” says Dr. Sheth about herself. “There is nothing fake or unauthentic in what I do. I am very creative with a big vision, always looking to create & conceptualize the next exciting project. I am also a very positive person and make conscious effort to not have any negativity around me because I believe that negativity & conflicts crush creativity.”

Dr. Sheth has been a big advocate for empowerment of women and she has invested her time, energy and efforts all her life more than any other cause. “I’ve always had a passion for women empowerment, and I bring that to all the projects and opportunities I pursue,” she says. She has served on the board of ATASK (Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence) and as the Chairperson of Saheli, a prestigious Boston based organization, whose mission is to empower South Asian women to lead safe and healthy lives.

Having served on spreading awareness on women’s rights, Dr. Sheth says, “My biggest focus right now is the new Women who win # Dreamcatchers platform where we showcase dreams, passions & life lessons of a women’s journey on our website, womenwhowin100.com and on multiple social media platforms. And this initiative keeps me stay motivated each and every day.”

Born out of combination of her passions for both media and women empowerment, this noble initiative was co-founded by Dr. Sheth, her daughter, Shaleen Sheth, and her close friend, Deepa Jhaveri. The new global media platform is founded with the “mission to empower women across all ages, industries, and backgrounds, bringing women from around the world together daily with our inspiring, relatable, and relevant original stories,” Dr. Sheth explains. “With thousands of members and daily readers, our membership and our readership spans over 80 countries, and across the United States on our multiple social media channels.”

How does this new platform reach and inspire women across the world, especially during the Covid pandemic? The new and unforeseen challenges did not deter the creative energy of Dr. Sheth. “We wanted to bring positivity and inspiration, reminding women to continue chasing their dreams and make it a reality. Through story-sharing and skill-sharing ,we equip our readers and members to pursue their next dream. By voicing their story on our platform, they see that their dream is achievable, and there is a whole network of women and mentors around the world encouraging them and celebrating each other. And, I am truly excited for this new journey,” describes the women’s leader.

She served as the president of Indian Medical Association of New England in 2013. Upon her election to be the president of Indian Medical Association of New England (IMANE) Dr. Sheth said, “My goals for the group in the coming year include strengthening ties with the research and academic medical community, deepening IMANE’s many charitable, social and professional activities and organizing a collaborative health expo that will bring various hospitals and health care providers together with the Indian community.” At the end of her presidency, she had accomplished her goals and was highly praised for her leadership.

She has played an important role as the Director of the annual Woman of the Year award show, a  Flagship Event of India New England News, which recognizes and honors South Asian women of New England for the past eight years , She is the co-producer and creator of New England Choice Awards along with Upendra Mishra, This is one of the most popular and much awaited shows in New England, which has honored Nitin Nohria Desh and Jaishree Deshpande, and many others who have given back to the larger society.

Describing herself as “a visionary with a mission,” Dr. Sheth, a diehard optimistic person, says, “Once I am convinced on a mission to accomplish something, I give my one hundred percent to the cause. I am also quite a perfectionist .I do tend to work 24/7 as I get closer to my big events & am often reminded by my family & friends to take a break .”

Calling herself a “diehard mystery buff,” Dr. Sheth who was trained in Medicine in London, says, “I have been in love with British mysteries as well as mystery shows.” Having a background with varying interests and diversities has been a huge blessing. “I am a Sindhi from Delhi married to a Gujrati and went to college in Kolkata,” says Dr Sheth. “I am also very good cook. And I love cooking great Sindhi,Guju & Bengali food is my specialty. Spending time with family& friends, of course is the most important thing in life.”

What motivates her to do what she has been doing all her life? Imbibed with the desire to give back to the world that has given her much, Dr. Sheth says, “I just like to make things better than what they are. Whatever I am doing in life, whether it’s seeing my patients, cooking, doing a social or media project, I have to do it better than the last time. I have to do be a better person in the evening than I was in the morning. It’s my inherent need for constant improvement that motivates me.”

Although Dr. Sheth and her accomplishments are well known in the New England region, she says, “My greatest achievement in life is being a mother and raising my beautiful daughter. She is everything that a mother could dream off in a child. She’s smart, kind, compassionate and she has a lot of gratitude for the opportunities that life has brought her.”  One of the first things that she taught her daughter as well was her favorite quote is that “if you reach for the moon then at least you land among the stars.”

Dr. Sheth is grateful to all who have made her what she is today. She believes that so many people whom she has met in life have inspired her and taught, and motivated her dream big and give her best to all the noble causes and dreams. “Gratitude is important for me .I never forget any kindness or someone going out of their way for me in life,” says Dr. Sheth. She expresses her gratitude to her “mom and my grandmother, and in the public sphere, it is Oprah. I like her ability to empathize with people and always land on her feet no matter what is thrown at her in life.”

Recognitions and awards came her way as her noble works came to be recognized by the larger society. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts recognized Dr. Sheth for her contributions to the medical community and her empowerment and promotion of other successful women of South Asian descent throughout Massachusetts. YWCA Boston, one of the nation’s oldest organizations which has been striving to create racial, gender and social equity in Boston for 150 years, inducted Dr. Sheth along with Mindy Kaling in its list of 150 Boston Women of Influence Series recently. She has been widely recognized for her community services, and was voted Woman of the Year in 2011 as well as among the top 50 most influential Indians in New England.

Dr. Sheth is married to a physician, Dr. Dipak Sheth, and has a 22 year old daughter Shaleen. Her message for everyone is: “Always do the right thing. I feel that somehow life works out if you follow this principle. And pick a journey of your choice and be your best .I am not a fan of mediocrity.”

Gunjan Rastogi Is Elected President of NIAASC

Staff ReporterCommunity, Women 0

Gunjan Rastogi, a well known community leader in the New York region has taken over as the new President of The National Indo-American Association (NIAASC), Rajeshwar Prasad, the founder and outgoing President of NIAASC announced here at the end of the  NIAASC’s 31st annual virtual conference and Board of Directors meeting held on November 8. 2020.

Dozens of participants from across the United States attended this interactive conference, which was inaugurated with an audio message from Honorable Randhir Singh, Consul General of India in New York.

The conference discussed the current global hot issue, ‘The Impact of COVID-19 on Seniors.’ Speakers at the conference included: Dr. Mani Srinivasan, Dr. Jyothi Jasti and Dr. Rao. Executive Director of National Federation of Indian American Associations (NFIA), Dr. Hari Har Singh spoke about the NFIA and the larger role it plays in organizing Indian  American community. 

Dr. Bhavani Srinivasan, NIAASC Vice President was the host and Gunjan Rastogi was the co-host of the day long conference. Dr. Vasundhara Kalasapudi, Founder and President of India Home in New York, facilitated  the smooth running of the conference through technical support.

In his opening remarks at the conference, Rajeshwar Prasad, NIAASC President, welcomed the participants and focused on the importance of precautions everyone MUST take during this deadly and dangerous virus, COBVID-19, which has taken millions of lives all over the World.

Dr. Mani Srinivasan through a power point presentation focused on the simple preventive measures we all should follow strictly: no close assembly and be at least six to eight feet of social distance; wash your hands frequently; never go out without a mask covering your nose and mouth fully. 

Drs. Jasti and Dr. Rao complemented and provided examples how dangerous this virus can be if not handled carefully. It not only requires professional support and guidance but equally important is the precautions people should take for being safe.

While elaborating the elections process, Rajeshwar Prasad, said, one-third of the Board members retire every year; however they are eligible to be re- elected if so recommended by the Nominating Committee and approved by the General Body at its annual meeting. Of the five retiring members, three would continue as Board members for a period of three years ending December 31, 2023. They are: Dr. Asha Samant, Professor Jyotsna Kalavar, and  Harbachan Singh. Two members of NIAASC were also recommended by the Nominating Committee to serve on the Board of Directors and approved by the general body. They are; Baldev Seekri, from Rhode Island and Santosh Kumar from Chicago area. Both Seekri and Kumar, life members of NIAASC were speakers at the annual meeting of NIAASC in 2019 held at Shantiniketan, Tavares, Florida. Santosh Kumar would be for one year ending December 31, 2021, and Baldev Seekri would be for two years, ending December 31, 2022. 

In addition to Gunjan Rastogi, who has become the President of NIAASC, Bhavani Srinivasan, currently serving as the Vice President was reelected for the second full term. Harbachan Singh, currently a Board member, was elected as the Secretary, and E M Stephen, associated with NIAASC since its inception, was elected as the Treasurer.

The General Body also approved the two NAASC members for the Board of Directors: Mrs. Santosh Kumar, Counselor, attorney, professor and community leader from Greater  Chicago for one-year-term ending December 31, 2021, and Mr. Baldev Seekri, who has been the General Manager, Texas Instrument, and now lives in Rhode Island for a 2-year term ending December 31, 2022.

IALI past president and current NIAASC president Rastogi elaborated on her vision as the new president to lead the organization, especially during Covid pandemic. She reminded of the many activities by IALI for seniors in Long Island coordinating efforts by both the organizations.  Stephen, Founder of Kerala Center described also in details services rendered by the Center for seniors and their families.

Since 1998 NIAASC has arranged 31 conferences on seniors in various places in USA. In addition to organizing several programs pertaining to the needs of the seniors, NIAASC uses the Area Agency on Aging as front line support for seniors. Any caller to NIAASC is referred to local AAA in the callers’ zip code.

(Submitted by Rajeshwar Prasad)

Dr. Céline Gounder, Adviser To Joe Biden Covid

Staff ReporterEducation, Health, Women 0

When President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January, he will inherit a pandemic that has convulsed the country. His transition team last week announced a 13-member team of scientists and doctors who will advise on control of the coronavirus.

One of them is Dr. Céline Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center and assistant professor at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. In a wide-ranging conversation with The New York Times, she discussed plans to prioritize racial inequities, to keep schools open as long as possible, and to restore the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the premiere public health agency in the world.

In an interview with the New York Times, Gounder said, “I’m a part of the Biden-Harris advisory board. Then there’s the internal transition team, which is much bigger. The transition team has been developing a COVID blueprint, the nuts and bolts of the operations, and this is something they’ve been working on for months.” Describing the objective of the advisory board, she said,  “The purpose of the advisory board is really to have a group of people who think big, creatively and in interdisciplinary ways — to be a second set of eyes on the blueprint they’ve come up with, and also to function as a liaison with state and local health departments.

On th question of returning to normal life, Dr. Gounder said, “If you have widespread community transmission, there may come a tipping point where you do need to go back to virtual schooling. But I think the priority is to try to keep schools open as much as possible, and to provide the resources for that to happen. From an epidemiologic perspective, we know that the highest-risk settings are restaurants, bars, gyms, nail salons and also indoor gatherings — social gatherings and private settings.”

After months of criticism and ignoring by Trump of CDC, Dr. Gounder said, “The approach is going to be much more along the lines of giving control back to the CDC. There’s recognition that the CDC is the premier public health agency in the world. And while their role has been diminished during this current crisis, they play a very important role in all this.”

While pointing the vaccines, and its distribution, she said, “our local doctor’s office is not going to have the deep-freeze capability that, at least for the Pfizer vaccine, you’re going to need. They’re not necessarily going to have the tech systems to track and call people back to make sure they get their second doses.”

The incoming administration is contemplating state mask mandates, free testing for everyone and invocation of the Defense Production Act to ramp up supplies of protective gear for health workers. Indeed, that will be “one of the first executive orders” of the Biden administration, Dr. Gounder said.

Kamala Harris Makes History as First Woman and Woman of Color as Vice President of USA

Staff ReporterPolitics, Profiles, U.S., Women 0

The greatest democracy on earth took over 250 years to elect a female to be the Vice President. And, justifiably so, the first woman, who has made the cut, breaking the barriers and the glass ceilings that prevented any female from being elected to the office, is none other than the first time Senator from California, an first Indian American and Black American candidate, Kamala Harris. When Joe Biden, President-Elect gives his first speech to Congress, his first words promise to be memorable: “Madame Vice-President”.

The historic 2020 election, held among a pandemic that has impacted almost every aspect of our lives, did not deter the nearly 150 million Americans from casting their ballots, the highest ever voter turn out in any US election, helped win Biden-Harris ticket to the White House on November 3rd, 2020.  With millions of votes still to be counted, the Biden-Harris ticket has received the most votes ever – more than 75 million – in the history of America’s elections.

When Kamala Devi Harris enters 1 Observatory Circle, the official home of the Vice President in January 2021, she will have achieved many firsts: The first woman, the first person of Indian descent, the first African-American, the first with Jamaican heritage, the first daughter of immigrants to hold that office

Joe Biden, who has been declared the winner of the 2020 US presidential election by the media, marveling at her string of firsts, said on Saturday: “Once again, America has bent the arc of the moral universe towards justice. It’s long overdue.”

Her multi-racial background gives her a degree of identity fluidity to navigate American society riven by race and ethnicity. Harris’ lightning fast political rise and her triumph marks a high point for women of color in politics at an anxious time in American society. Harris, 55, is a California senator, the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother. She is also a former prosecutor, whose grilling of Trump’s appointees and unflappable cool has transported her to Democratic Party stardom.

Harris won her first election in 2003 and became San Francisco’s district attorney. In 2010, she became the first woman of color to be elected California’s attorney general. Harris was elected to the US Senate in 2016. The historic nature of Harris’ candidacy has underlined her every stump speech, and Harris handled the pressure with a certain confidence that comes from years of tough questioning and tons of preparation.

Surrounded by the unmistakable aura of a historic campaign, the Harris candidacy has had some remarkable moments since August. First came Harris’ introduction to America, during the Democratic National Convention. There, Harris framed the election as a race that hinges, among other things, on the fighting spirit that her mother taught her.

“There’s another woman, whose name isn’t known, whose story isn’t shared. Another woman whose shoulders I stand on. And that’s my mother. She’d say, ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’” has become Harris’ favorite pull out on her mother Shyamala Gopalan, a woman who paved the way for Harris’ path-breaking candidacy.

Shyamala Gopalan came to the US from India at age 19 to pursue her dream of curing cancer. At the University of California Berkeley, she met Donald Harris who had come from Jamaica to study economics. “They fell in love in that most American way — while marching together for justice in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.”

In all her best moments of political oratory, Harris finds ways of weaving in echoes of her mother’s fight song and the civil rights movement, just like she did during her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. The Shyamala Gopalan stamp on Kamala Harris’ candidacy is at once powerful and unmistakable. Harris grew up between Oakland and Berkeley in California and spent time in college towns in the Midwest before attending college on the US East Coast. Harris’ father, in an essay, describes his elder child Kamala Harris as “ever the adventurous and assertive one”.

Harris is the embodiment of the American dream with the amalgam of all those unique identities and adding to that her White Jewish husband, Douglas Emhoff, and step-daughters to complete the American mosaic.

“Years from now, this moment will have passed. And our children and our grandchildren will look in our eyes and ask us: Where were you when the stakes were so high?” Harris said at the Democratic National Convention in August. “They will ask us, what was it like? And we will tell them. We will tell them, not just how we felt. We will tell them what we did.”

Born in the US to immigrants, cancer researcher Shyamala Gopalan from India and economics professor Donald Harris from Jamaica, Harris has leapt in a generation to a position that puts her a heartbeat away from the presidency. Harris wrote in her memoir, “The Truths We Hold”, that she was raised in “a place where people believed in the most basic tenet of the American Dream: that if you worked hard and do right by the world, your kids will be better of than you were”.

While the African-American identity became the dominant one and, in fact, the one that boosted her chances to the get the vice presidential nomination, Harris wrote: “Our classical Indian names harked back to our heritage and we were raised with a strong awareness of and appreciation for Indian culture. “My mother, grandparents, aunts and uncle instilled us with pride in our South Asian roots. “I was also very close to my mother’s brother, Balu, and her two sisters, Sarala and Chinni (whom I called Chittis, which means ‘younger mother’ (in Tamil),” she recalled.

In her memoir, Harris wrote that the lesson she inherited from her mother that “it was service to others that gave life purpose and meaning” came from her grandmother Rajam, who had not completed high school but was a fiery protector of victims of domestic abuse.

In her victory speech on Saturday night, she said of her mother: “When she came here from India at the age of 19, maybe she didn’t quite imagine this moment. But she believed so deeply in an America where a moment like this is possible.”

Indian- American Nitya Kodali Crowned Miss Teen Telugu Universe

Staff ReporterFashion, Women, Youth 0

American-born teenager, Nitya Kodali has been crowned the world’s first Miss Teen Telugu Universe representing the USA.   Out of 700 semi-finalists, 22 finalists were selected to compete in the grand finals of the Telugu Universe pageant. Contestants from over 40 countries including India, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand competed for the coveted title.

“To win one of the most prestigious titles in my first ever pageant is a huge honor and I am still in disbelief. The pageant has changed my life forever, and for that, I am always grateful. This victory is not just mine, but the amazing people in my life that have taught me everything I know today. This crown is dedicated to you all.” Kodali wrote on her Instagram page.

Nitya is a high school sophomore and valedictorian of her class. She is working towards a career in medicine and is the founder of the global nonprofit, Letters & Love. Nitya is also a trained Bharatanatyam dancer and on Houston’s Bollywood dance team.

The Telugu Universe pageant consisted of multiple rounds including introduction, ramp walk, talent, and question-and-answer. The global event had over 18,000 participants where Nitya was crowned by Miss Earth India, Tejaswini Manogna.

In the same category 1st runner up award was captured by Sathvika Movva and 2nd runner up award bagged by Sushmita Kolloju. 

Evelyn Sharma is India’s face of a new fashion system

Staff ReporterFashion, Profiles, Women 0

The first week of October witnessed the world’s most concerned fashion (CFS) industry experts gather at the Paris Fashion Week’s Circular Fashion Summit. Organised by lablaco in association with Microsoft’s AltspaceVR, Unity Technologies, Oculus, and Unilever to pioneer the redesign of events for the first ever virtual reality summit in fashion, Station F in Paris and attended by companies such as Hermes, Chanel and Balenciaga.

Evelyn Sharma, actor and ambassador to ‘reusable, up-cycled’ fashion’ represented India at this one of a kind Circular Fashion Summit that reconstructed the Grand Palais in Paris, famous for hosting spectacular fashion shows, in virtual reality. Fashion week leaders from Shanghai, Paris, London, Milan and New York united for the first time in virtual reality at the Circular Fashion Summit.

It featured names such as Burak Cakmak, Dean of Fashion at Parsons School of Design, Shaway Yeh, founder of yehyehyeh and former Editor-in-Chief of Condé Nast, Pascal Morand, Executive President of Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode, Caroline Rush, Chief Executive of the British Fashion Council and  Carlo Capasa, President and CEO of the Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana

Speaking post the event, Evelyn Sharma shared  “ it was  an exciting opportunity to learn more about collective action on issues of innovation, digitization, greater sustainability and social diversity in the fashion industry.”

“As the fashion industry readjusts its rules to a new world order to survive, Circular Fashion Summit comes at a timely moment to give the platform to key stakeholders for their insights into what is next. What better way to do this than have the conversation in a parallel universe in virtual reality where social distancing rules don’t apply,” added Burak Cakmak, Dean of Fashion at Parsons School of Design.

The goal of the CFS was to  initiate measurable action to sustain the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030, to reduce social inequality, advance innovation in the fashion industry, and promote responsible consumption.

“Now more than ever have we felt the readiness of the market and the opportunity to truly accelerate the digitization and transition of the fashion industry towards a global circular economy powered by collective action and technology.” — Lorenzo and Yun, Co-Founders of lablaco and CFS.

Evelyn Sharma is an actor who runs Seams for Dreams in India. Seams For Dreams is founded on the philosophy that every piece of fabric can and should be reused instead of being discarded into landfills. Seams for Dreams  aims to give clothes a second life and new purpose through reusing, recycling, and upcycling. 

https://www.seamsfordreams.com/

Record Number of Women to Serve in the 117th U.S. Congress

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At least 131 (100D, 31R) women will serve in the U.S. Congress in 2021, surpassing the previous record of 127, first set in 2019, according to data compiled by the Center for American Women and Politics, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. A record 106 (83D, 23R) women have already been elected to the U.S. House, including 85 (75D, 10R) incumbents and 21 (8D, 13R) non-incumbents.

The previous record for women in the U.S. House was 102 and was set in 2019. Republican women are also close to breaking their record of 25 House members, set in 2006. Republican women currently hold 13 seats in the U.S. House. At 83 winners already selected, Democratic women are still short of their record of 89 women House members, set in 2019. Democratic women currently hold 88 seats in the U.S. House. As of now, 29 (19D, 10R) women House nominees – including 6 (5D, 1R) incumbents and 23 (14D, 9R) non-incumbents – remain in races that are not yet called.

Republican women have already surpassed the record for non-incumbent women House winners, with 13 women winning their 2020 races. The previous record of 9 was set in 2006. So far, 8 non-incumbent Democratic have won election this year; the record for freshman Democratic women House winners is 35, set in 2019. In contrast, already 5 Democratic women incumbents – all responsible for flipping districts from Republican to Democrat in 2018 – were defeated in 2020. No Republican women incumbents have been defeated in 2020 races already called.

As it stands now, 25 (17D, 8R) women will serve in the U.S. Senate in 2021, falling short of the record of 26 set in 2019, including 7 (2D, 5R) women who have won election in 2020 and 18 (15D, 3R) incumbent women senators who were not up for re-election this year. These numbers will change should incumbent Senator Kamala Harris ascend to the vice presidency or Senator Kelly Loeffler win her runoff election on January 5th.

“Women’s representation in American politics has been, through struggle and persistence, on a long, if occasionally fitful, upward trajectory. With all that progress, at best women will still make up less than thirty percent of Congress in 2021,” said CAWP Director Debbie Walsh. “The 2018 cycle was a story of Democratic success; this year we are seeing significant gains on the Republican side. Advances for women must come from both sides of the aisle if women are to achieve equal representation in Congress.”

As many races remain too close to call, these numbers will change as results are determined. For the most current data about women in the 2020 elections, visit CAWP’s Election 2020 Results Tracker, and for full results about women in the 2020 elections, head to CAWP’s Election Analysis.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan sworn in as New Zealand Minister

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Priyanca Radhakrishnan became the first Indian to be sworn in as a Minister in New Zealand as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern unveiled her new cabinet. The 41-year-old has been sworn in as the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector.

Radhakrishnan, born in Chennai and brought up in Singapore, has her roots at Paravur, Kochi, where her grandfather was a medical professional as well as a Communist.

A two-time MP from Auckland, she reached New Zealand to pursue her higher studies, following which she a Kiwi national hailing from Christchurch and since 2004 she has been in active politics with the Labour Party.

Radhakrishnan, who is from the 2017 intake of new MPs, is a minister outside of the Cabinet. She lives in Auckland with her husband.

Announcing the names of the new ministers, Prime Minister Ardern said: “I am excited to be bringing in some new talent, with the first-hand experience in the areas that they will be working in, and reflecting the New Zealand that elected us on the 17th of October. Within this lineup, I’m playing to people’s strengths,” she said.

“This is a Cabinet and an executive that is based on merit but also happens to be incredibly diverse,” Ardern said, days after her centre-left Labour Party won a landslide victory in the country’s general election.

The new executive was sworn in on Friday, which was followed by the Cabinet’s first meeting. “Much of what we’re focused on is making sure we’ve got our economic recovery hastened,” the 40-year-old prime minister said.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan shot into prominence and became a household name in Kerala during last Onam when she came live with Ardern to extend her greetings on the occassion. Radhakrishnan continues her love with Malayalam songs and she said her most admired singer is none other popular Keralite playback singer K.J. Yesudas.

Mothers affect how daughters act in close relationships

Staff ReporterHealth, Women, Youth 0

Newswise — Feminist mothers raise more feminist daughters who are able to stand up for themselves in their close relationships, according to new research from the University of Georgia.

The study revealed that a mother’s feminist attitudes have an impact on her daughter’s “voice” – or the ability to speak her mind in close relationships. And daughters with a stronger ability to speak their minds have better mental health too, according to the study.

Also called “self-silencing,” women who lack a strong “voice” tend to inhibit their own thoughts, feelings and emotions in order to avoid conflict and maintain their relationships. The authors argue that self-silencing is a socially learned behavior due to social expectations regarding traditional gender roles within relationships. This self-silencing can lead to negative mental health outcomes because it does not allow women to express their authenticity and needs in their relationships

For the purposes of the study, “feminist attitudes” were grounded in the assumption that there should be equality among the sexes and that women can stick up for themselves and should.  

“The idea of ‘voice’ isn’t new, but this is one of the first studies to examine how mothers and daughters are associated with each other’s ‘voice,’” said the study’s lead author, Analisa Arroyo, an associate professor in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “We found interesting results occurring at the relational level. Not only does having feminist attitudes discourage the act of self-silencing and therefore result in better mental health for both mothers and daughters, our results also found that feminist mothers were experiencing better mental health outcomes as a result of their daughters using their voice in their close relationships.”

The authors refer to daughters’ impact on their mothers as reciprocal socialization. “Reciprocal socialization means that not only do daughters learn from their mothers, but mothers can learn from their daughters just the same. A mother seeing her daughter use her voice and speak her mind can be inspiring and motivating to mothers,” said Arroyo.

Participants in the study included 169 mother-daughter dyads. Female students were recruited from communication classes at UGA and were asked to provide the names and email addresses for themselves and their mothers. Surveys were sent separately to mothers and daughters.

On average, the daughters were 19.7 years old and primarily Caucasian (78.1% compared to 9.5% Asian, 7.1% Black/African American, 2.4% Latinx, and 3.0% other responses). The mothers’ average age was 50.9 and they were also mostly Caucasian (79.9% compared to 8.9% Asian, 5.9% Black/African American, 1.2% Latinx, and 1.8% other responses).

Arroyo, who has a 4-year-old son and an infant daughter, plans to keep this research in mind as she raises her own daughter.

“I want my daughter to have the agency to share her unique thoughts and perspective with the world. When women self-silence, they aren’t being true to themselves. And when they do that in their close relationships, it has a negative impact on their psychological well-being,” Arroyo said. “I already see a lack of ‘voice’ when I interact with my 7-year-old niece. She is quick to say ‘Whatever you want. I don’t know.’ Now I have a label for that behavior. I have to ask her what do you want? Don’t be afraid to tell me — your voice is valid.’”

The full study is available online at

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03637751.2020.1758949

Manushi Chillar Is Adidas Brand Ambassador

Staff ReporterEntertainment, Women 0

The winner of Miss World 2017 and Bollywood debutant Manushi Chhillar has been roped in by fitness and sportswear brand Adidas as its female brand ambassador. Manushi’s association with the brand is her first global brand endorsement deal.

Commenting on the association, she said: “I’m super excited to be a part of the Adidas family. It is an honour to be a part of a legacy brand like Adidas that is synonymous to anything related to sports and fitness. To be among some of the global titans of the sports and entertainment industry, as the brand ambassador for India, is a huge moment for me that I will cherish forever.”

The model and actress is all set to debut opposite Akshay Kumar in the magnum opus “Prithviraj”. Directed by Chandraprakash Dwivedi, “Prithviraj” is based on the life of king Prithviraj Chauhan. It stars Akshay as Prithviraj, while Manushi will play the role of the Sanyogita, the love of his life. 

Chhillar has joined the league of star cricketer Rohit Sharma, sprint sensation Hima Das and Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh as brand ambassador of the Indian arm of German sports brand Adidas. The footwear giant said Chillar will lead Adidas’s mission to inspire more women to embrace fitness.

With this, Chhillar joins a powerful roster of Adidas ambassadors, including Ranveer Singh, Rohit Sharma, Hima Das and over 20 other top athletes and youth icons who are redefining India’s sporting and fitness culture, the company said in a press relese.

Chhillar will join the #HOMETEAMHERO Challenge, a campaign that supports the WHO COVID-19 Response Fund, to inspire people across the globe, including India, to stay physically and mentally fit.

“Amidst COVID-19 lockdown, when thousands are looking for inspiration, adidas has been leading the charge with #HOMETEAMHERO Challenge — inspiring more people every single day to stay physically and mentally fit. Joining adidas in this endeavour is fitness enthusiast and former Miss World 2017 Manushi Chhillar,” a release said.

“Announced as a brand ambassador today, Manushi will be front-running Adidas’ mission to inspire more women to embrace fitness, whilst creating a positive social impact through the power of sport,” the company said.

Adidas said it will donate $1 for every hour of fitness activity clocked on the Adidas Running and Adidas Training apps till 7 June.

Speaking on the development, Chhillar said, “I have always been into fitness so to represent Adidas is a dream come true.”

“I resonate with Adidas when it comes to being change makers and our aim together is to use the platform of sport to inspire people and drive positive change, whether it is to inspire women, drive sustainability, or encourage kids to take up sport. I’m so excited to train in my new gear which I’ve just ordered from the Adidas website.”

Why Is Supreme Court Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett Very Controversial?

Staff ReporterPolitics, U.S., Women 0

The death of a sitting justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has thrust the court into the center of a bruising political campaign for the White House. Republican President Donald Trump has nominated federal appellate judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy left by Ginsburg, even as Trump’s opponent, Democrat Joe Biden, calls for confirmation proceedings to be postponed until after voters have cast their ballots for president. Republicans control the U.S. Senate and have vowed to move forward with Barrett’s confirmation over the objections of Biden and other Democrats.

The battle to get Donald Trump’s nominee to the US Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, confirmed by the Senate began on Monday with Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings. The shifting ideological balance of the court will have an impact in all areas of American life and across the US – perhaps in no place more than Texas.

A 6-3 conservative majority in the court could directly attack Democratic Party priorities like government-managed healthcare and access to abortion services. While the political battle over Trump’s appointment of Barrett is taking place between the White House and Democratic senators in the US Capitol, some of the biggest legal fights that have made it to the Supreme Court in recent years have come out of Texas.

For instance, the current challenge to the Affordable Care Act – Barack Obama’s signature law when in office, aiming to expand access to healthcare – was brought by the state of Texas. It will come before the Supreme Court just days after the election, possibly with Barrett on the bench.

A major 2016 court decision on regulating abortion clinics also originated in the state, as did recent disputes over federal voting rights laws, the consideration of race in university admissions, the constitutionality of Obama-era immigration reforms. Texas was also a key player in several challenges to capital punishment, anti-sodomy laws and, going back to 1973, the landmark Roe v Wade decision that legalised abortion across the US.

Part of this, explains University of Texas law professor HW Perry, is a result of Texas being a large state, both in population and size, with interests touching on most aspects of American life. More recently, however, Texas’s prominence in high-profile court battles is the result of a concerted effort by the state’s top Republican politicians to become a major player in the conservative legal world.

“Texas has become quite a leader in pushing cases to the Supreme Court to get accepted for review, and then often they are the ones who wind up arguing it,” Perry says. “It’s developed this highly professionalised office which is also the one leading many of the other conservative states in getting cases before the Supreme Court.”

From 2013 to 2020, the state’s then-solicitor general, Scott Keller, argued 11 cases before the Supreme Court. The next closest state lawyer had four. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, when he served as the state’s attorney general, would frequently say of his job: “I go to the office, I sue the federal government, and then I go home.”

The state, which made a habit of pushing the boundaries of conservative law and causes, didn’t always win those high-profile cases. On anti-sodomy law, voting rights, the death penalty and, most recently, abortion, it was often on the short end of the judicial stick, many times by narrow, 5-to-4 decisions. With Ginsburg gone and Barrett poised to take a seat on the court, however, conservatives in Texas are optimistic that the legal tide may be turning.

“It’s a historic opportunity,” says Matt Mackowiak, an Austin-based political consultant and chair of the Travis County Republican Party. “Conservatives in Texas and across the country are really, really satisfied with the past two Supreme Court nominations the president made and are encouraged and, I think, really hopeful about the next one, as well.”

Anti-abortion groups like Texas Right to Life celebrated Barrett’s announcement, noting that she would replace Ginsburg, who was a consistent vote for abortion rights. Replacing her, they said “could yield new hope for the protection of preborn children”.

Another abortion-related case, challenging a Texas law that bans a common second-term “dilation and extraction” abortion procedure and requires burial or cremation for embryonic or foetal tissue, is currently in being considered by a federal appellate court.

The Right to Life group expressed optimism that Barrett will join Trump’s other appointments, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, in upholding the Texas law and setting the stage for more stringent regulation of abortions in other states. “Texas is a pro-life state, and certainly among conservatives we’d like to see Roe vs Wade overturned,” says Mackowiak. “Of course, that doesn’t make abortion illegal, it makes it a state issue again.”

As much as conservatives in Texas are relishing the ways the Republican leadership in their state can benefit from a rightward move in the Supreme Court’s ideology, those on the left who have fought them in the courts are hunkering down for what they see as long, frustrating and frequently futile battles.

“It’s horribly depressing,” says Susan Hays, an Austin-based lawyer who has spent decades litigating abortion rights cases. “Texas has been the source of a disproportionate number of reproductive rights cases, voting rights case, other sorts of civil rights cases that the Supreme Court has had to decide in order to protect basic human rights in the state.”

The conservative refrain to these kind of complaints is that elections have consequences. Donald Trump won in 2016, and Republicans took control of the US Senate, which confirms judicial nominees, in 2015. Texas itself hasn’t elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994.

There are signs of life for Texas liberals, however. Polls show Joe Biden and Trump in a close fight for the state’s presidential electoral votes. Cornyn is in a closer-than-expected re-election race, and the Democrats may even be the favourites at this point to take back the state legislature, which it last controlled in 2002.

According to law professor Perry, if Texas does go blue, the Democrats could inherit a legal apparatus they can use for their own causes. “Hope may spring eternal that because of the changing demographics and other things, Texas is moving towards purple and there will be a future where the institution that is built for Texas for the conservative point of view may someday become one that is a powerful place for liberals to be,” he says. “I don’t think it’s quite there yet, however.”

The average tenure of a Supreme Court justice is nearly 17 years, according to a February 2017 Pew Research Center analysis of biographical data for 104 former high court justices. (The analysis excluded the members of the court who were serving at the time.) Not surprisingly, younger appointees tend to stay on the court longer. Those who were younger than 45 when they were sworn in served for an average of 21.6 years. That’s about two years longer than those who were ages 45 to 49 when they took the oath of office; three years longer than those who were 50 to 54; seven years longer than those who were 55 to 59; and nearly a decade longer than those who were ages 60 and older. Barrett, Trump’s pending nominee for the high court, is 48. If confirmed, she would be the youngest member of the court.

The Evergreen Bollywood Star Rekha Turns 66

Staff ReporterEntertainment, Women 0

Living legend and the evergreen iconic actress of Bollywood, Rekha turned 66 on Saturday, October 10th. The talented and beautiful diva made her mark in Bollywood with her amazing performances in the 70s and 80s. Rekha has acted in many great films in Bollywood. 

Her personal life has been very mysterious. Bhanurekha Ganesan, known as Rekha today, was born in Madras to Tamil actor Gemini Ganesan and Telugu actress Pushpavalli. Rekha has a sister, one half-brother, and five half-sisters.

 She had started working in films at the age of 14 years to make her family condition better. Rekha started her career as a child actress in Telugu films Inti Guttu (1958) and Rangula Ratnam (1966). Her first film as a lead happened with the Kannada movie Operation Jackpot Nalli C.I.D 999 (1969). She made her Hindi debut with Sawan Bhadon (1970), which gained her wider recognition.

Birthday wishes have been pouring in from friends and fans all through the day. “Happy Birthday wishes go out today to dear Rekha. We have been good friends for many years now and I always wish her happiness and prosperity in life. Have a great day and year dear friend,” actress-politician Hema Malini tweeted, along with a picture collage of the two superstar actresses who were contemporaries in their heydays.

Urmila Matondkar wrote: “Star-struck. Happy Birthday Most Gorgeous #Rekha ji. Thank you for sharing love n warmth both on n off screen. Love you to moon and back.” “Wish you a very happy birthday Rekha Maa. The love that you shower, the aura around you, and the affection you lavish me…with are all so pure. May you continue to shine brighter and spread positivity like only you can,” Shilpa Shetty wrote on Instagram Story.

Wishes also poured in from fans, who have been sharing pictures of the actress to posting scenes from her movies. “You are one in a billion; we respect you from the bottom of our heart,” a fan wrote on the microblogging site. “Happy birthday Rekha ma’am. You look so beautiful,” another user one wished.

Rekha started her acting career as a child artiste in the 1958 Telugu film, “Inti Guttu”, and she made her Bollywood debut in Mohan Segal’s 1970 release, “Sawan Bhadon”, opposite Navin Nischol. Many consider the 1976 release, “Do Anjaane” to be her breakthrough film. She impressed essaying a role with grey shades.

She has acted in over 180 Hindi films and won a National Film Award in 1982 for her role in Muzaffar Ali’s “Umrao Jaan”. In 2010, she was a recipient of Padma Shri for her contribution to the arts. In hero-dominated Bollywood of the seventies, eighties and nineties, Rekha was a rare actress who regularly scored with heroine-centric films such as “Ijaazat”, “Khubsoorat”, “Umrao Jaan”, “Ghar”, “Khoon Bhari Maang”, “Utsav”, “Jhoothi”, “Biwi Ho To Aisi”, “Jeevan Dhaara”, “Sansar”, “Azaad Desh Ke Gulam” and “Phool Bane Angaray” among many others.

In a career spanning nearly 50 years, Rekha has scored numerous memorable roles in Bollywood films across genres that include “Raampur Ka Lakshman”, “Kahani Kismat Ki”, “Namak Haraam”, “Dharmatma”, “Dharam Karam”, “Nagin”, “Khoon Pasina”, “Ganga Ki Saugandh”, “Muqaddar Ka Sikander”, “Mr. Natwarlal”, “Jaani Dushman”, “Kartavya”, “Maang Bharo Sajana”, “Judaai”, “Kalyug”, “Silsila”, “Ek Hi Bhool”, “Ghazab”, “Agar Tum Na Hote”, “Baazi”, “Asha Jyoti”, “Jhutha Sach”, “Insaaf Ki Awaaz”, “Jaal”, “Souten Ki Beti”, “Ladaai”, “Bhrashtachar”, “Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi”, “Dil Hai Tumhaara”, “Bhoot”, and “Koi… Mil Gaya”.

Nowadays where actresses usually wear gowns and dresses in functions, Rekha stands out in her golden Kanjeevaram saree which has now become an ‘evergreen’ trend for her admirers. Rekha is considered a Bollywood style icon for her ethnic statements, particularly in signature Kanjeevaram saris.

 

Priyanka Chopra’s Memoir ‘Unfinished’ Unveiled

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Priyanka Chopra, 38-year-old actor, took to Instagram to share an intriguing short clip featuring the posters of her films. The video that starts from a monochromatic picture of her parents, showcases some iconic characters essayed by the actor over the big screen. The video is created in form of a film reel which plays horizontally, in the same fashion as a movie plays in a cinema hall, with the sound of the reel rolling up and down. The clip featuring the posters chronicle the journey of the actor from the very beginning. It puts on display the poster of ‘The Hero: Love Story of A Spy’, ‘Fashion’ ‘Mari Kom’, ‘Dostana’, Barfi, ‘Bajirao Mastaani’, ‘Quantico’ and ‘Baywatch.’ It also summaries the journey of the actor from Bollywood to Hollywood.

Alongside the clip, Priyanka wrote, “This is my story. #unfinished.” It was in June 2018 that the star first announced of making her memoir, and had said that it “gives you an indescribable sense of accomplishment” when you tick off something from your “bucket list”. ‘Unfinished’ will be a collection of personal essays, stories, and observations by the actor, producer, singer, and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, Chopra.

Priyanka Chopra is an Indian actor and singer who has appeared in many movies and TV dramas. The actor is also the winner of Miss World 2000 pageant. Priyanka was born on 18 July 1982 in Jamshedpur, Bihar to Ashok Madhu Chopra, both physicians in the Indian Army. Priyanka is one of the most popular personalities in the country today.

The actor began working on ABC thriller series Quantico, making her the first South Asian woman to headline an American network series. Priyanka made her Bollywood debut in The Hero: Love Story of a Spy co-starring Sunny Deol and Preity Zinta. She got critical acclaim for her roles in films like Fashion and Barfi. She has won National Film Award for Best Actress for portraying a troubled model in Fashion. Priyanka also starred in commercially successful movies like Don starring Shah Rukh Khan. Priyanka is also the recipient of Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian award, by the government of India in 2016. Priyanka has become a multifaceted personality with her forays into the various divergent of the entertainment industry.

Kangana Ranaut Criticizes Male-Dominated Bollywood Industry For “offering 2-minute roles, item numbers after sleeping with hero”

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Actress Kangana Ranaut has made shocking claims, saying all that Bollywood ever offered her were two-minute roles, item numbers and a romantic scene — that too in return of sleeping with the hero.

Actor Kangana Ranaut has said that she has charted her own path in the film industry, and was served nothing on a platter. Kangana’s remarks come a day after Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan questioned Kangana’s comments about the film industry being a ‘gutter’. Jaya Bachchan, in a recent Parliament speech, criticized people who were tarnishing the film industry by badmouthing it.

Reacting to Jaya Bachchan’s Parliamentary speech, Kanagna tweeted: “The one that was offered to me had two-minute roles, item numbers and a romantic scene, that too in return of sleeping with the hero. I taught the industry feminism. This is my own plate, Jayaji, not yours).”

Jaya had said on the second day of the Monsoon Session in Parliament, “People in the entertainment industry are being flogged by social media. People who made their names in the industry have called it a gutter. I completely disagree. I hope that the government tells such people not to use this kind of language. Jis thali mein khate hai usme chhed karte hai. Galat baat hai (they bite the hand that feeds, it’s wrong).” Previously, Kangana had called the film industry a ‘gutter’ and alleged that 99% of the people who work in it have been exposed to drugs.

Jaya’s comments came after Kangana’s sustained attacks on a few powerful members of the film industry, whom she refers to as the ‘movie mafia’. Kangana has alleged that the ‘movie mafia’ mistreats outsiders such as herself and the late Sushant Singh Rajput, whose death fuelled this debate.

Jaya had also expressed shock at Ravi Kishan’s remarks on Monday. “Just because there are some people, you can’t tarnish the image of the entire industry. I am ashamed that yesterday one of our members in Lok Sabha, who is from the film industry, spoke against it. It is a shame,” she had said.

Ravi responded to Jaya’s comments and said that he is surprised that she didn’t support his stance. “I expected Jaya ji to support what I said,” ANI quoted him as saying. “Not everyone in the industry consumes drugs but those who do are part of a plan to finish the world’s largest film industry. When Jaya ji and I joined, situation was not like this but now we need to protect the industry.” The Bhojpuri actor had alleged that drugs are being smuggled into India by Pakistan and China, in a ploy to corrupt the youth.

Many members of the industry, such as Sonam Kapoor, Richa Chaddha and Farhan Akhtar hailed Jaya’s comments, and appreciated her taking a stand for the rest of them. “I send my best regards to Jaya Ji. Those who don’t know, please see this is how the spinal cord looks,” filmmaker Anubhav Sinha wrote on Twitter.

In response, Kangana tweeted, “Jaya ji would you say the same thing if in my place it was your daughter Shweta beaten, drugged and molested as a teenager, would you say the same thing if Abhieshek complained about bullying and harassment constantly and found hanging one day? Show compassion for us also.”

Jaya, alleging a ‘conspiracy to defame the film industry’, said on the second day of the Monsoon Session in Parliament, “People in the entertainment industry are being flogged by social media. People who made their names in the industry have called it a gutter. I completely disagree. I hope that the government tells such people not to use this kind of language.”

Amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, and the subsequent drugs-related investigation in the case, questions have been raised about certain alleged activities in the film industry. Sushant’s girlfriend, actor Rhea Chakraborty, has been arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau, along with her brother Showik and four others for allegedly procuring drugs for the late actor.

Kangana had earlier alleged that 99 per cent of Bollywood consumes drugs and asked top stars Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal and director Ayan Mukerji to take blood tests to prove they are clean. Replying to a Twitter user who pointed out that the film industry employs not just actors and directors, but also technicians, Kangana wrote, “Like a famous choreographer once said ‘rape kiya toh kya hua roti to di na (so what if you’re violated, at least you got paid)’ is that what you implying? There are no proper HR departments in production houses where women can complain, no safety or insurances for those who risk their lives every day, no 8 hours shift regulations.”

She added that in addition to money, employees also deserve respect. The belief that paying someone for their services is enough needs to change, she said, adding that she has compiled ‘a full list of reforms I want from central government for workers and junior artists’.

Kangana Ranaut is known for her fine acting skills and is also known to perfectly fit in any role. Her prominent roles in movies like  Fashion, Queen and Tanu Weds Manu gained her immense popularity and she has won awards for these roles, including the prestigious National Award. Achieving this feat is no joke, but Kangana has managed to lock this prestigious awards not once, but multiple times. Check out the list of movies for which she has won National and Padmashree Awards.

Over the past two decades, Kangana has won three National Awards—as Best Supporting Actress in 2009 for “Fashion”, and Best Actress awards for “Queen” (2015) and “Tanu Weds Manu Returns” (2016). She is a recipient of Padma Shri, besides numerous popular film awards.

Her upcoming projects include “Thalaivi”, where she essays late Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa, besides the action film “Dhaakad” and “Tejas”, where she plays an Air Force Pilot.

Sonia Raman To Coach NBA Team

Staff ReporterProfiles, Sports, Women 0

Described as “MIT’s all-time winningest coach,” Sonia Raman, possibly one of very few Indian American basketball coaches at a major institution, was just appointed assistant coach to the Memphis Grizzlies, (@memgrizz) who tweeted Sept. 11, 2020 – “JUST ANNOUNCED: We’ve hired Sonia Raman as an assistant coach.” Sonia, who is the head coach of the women’s basketball team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), becomes the fourth person of Indian-origin to work as a coach in the NBA, joining Vin Bhavnani (Oklahoma City Thunder) and Roy Rana (Sacramento Kings) and Adi Vase (Fitness coach with Golden STate Warriors). Sonia, who coached MIT for 12 years will join head coach Taylor Jenkins’s staff on November 1. She comes in place of Niele Ivey, a former Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) star who left to take up head coach’s role at University of Notre Dame. Sonia is the 14th woman coach in NBA history and the seventh to join the league since 2019. “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to be part of the Memphis Grizzlies coaching staff,” she was quoted as saying by the Grizzlies in a release. “I can’t wait to get to Memphis and get started with Taylor, his staff and the team’s emerging young core,” she said. “I must also give a truly special thank you to MIT and the women I’ve had the honour of coaching for the past 12 years. I wish the program continued success.” Sonia has had a very successful stint at MIT as she took the team to three Division III finals and was also voted coach of the year in her region. Eighteen of her players have earned New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) All-Conference accolades, including four Rookie of the Year honours. Prior to her arrival at MIT, she was the top assistant coach at Wellesley College. During her six-year tenure, she scouted opponents, assisted with practice and game planning, managed individual player skill and leadership development, and served as the Blue’s primary recruiter. “We are beyond excited to welcome Sonia to the Memphis Grizzlies,” Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins is quoted saying in the announcement posted on the NBA website. “She has a high basketball IQ and a tremendous ability to teach the game, as well as a strong passion for the game. She is going to be a great addition to our current coaching staff.” “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to be part of the Memphis Grizzlies coaching staff. I can’t wait to get to Memphis and get started with Taylor, his staff and the team’s emerging young core,” Raman said. “I must also give a truly special thank you to MIT and the women I’ve had the honor of coaching for the past 12 years. I wish the program continued success.” Sonia began her intercollegiate coaching career with a two-year stint as an assistant coach at her alma mater, Tufts University. A four-year player and a captain for the Tufts, she graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations and went on to receive a Juris Doctor from Boston College Law School in 2001. Sonia, who served as an ambassador in the Massachusetts area. was in September 2017 selected to serve on the Coaches Council for the Alliance of Women Coaches, which aims to empower women coaches, at all levels, by providing support, resources, events and programs which address the needs and interests of its members. 

7 Indian-Americans To Compete For Miss World America 2020 Title

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A record seven Indian Americans are set to compete for the Miss America World 2020 Contest, according to a report released by The Miss World America pageant, announcing the 30 contestants for its 2020 national competition. Shree Saini of Washington, Serene Singh of Colorado, Amulya Chava of Kansas, Radhika Shah of Nevada, Manju Bangalore of Oregon, Manya Saaraswat of Pennsylvania; and Mangala Chava of West Virginia are the Indian American contestants who will be competing for the Miss World America 2020 crown. Afroza Nishi of Rhode Island is the Bangladeshi-American contestant. Shree Saini from Washington state, who has a heart condition, is a global motivational speaker and has addressed audiences in more than 8 countries and 30 states in the United States. Shree Saini has been a visiting student at Harvard, Stanford and Yale Universities, her bio states.  She has earned the “Best Pageant Titleholder” award and recognitions from the Secretary of State, Senate, Governor and the American Heart Association CEO. Singh from Colorado is the founder of a nonprofit, ‘The Serenity Project Brave Enough to Fly’ that aims to give confidence tools to at-risk women, according to the Miss World America website, which provides brief bios of the contestants, A graduate of University of Washington, Singh has also worked for former First Lady Michele Obama and the Girls Opportunity Alliance to improve girls’ education in South Asia. She plans to one day serve on the United States Supreme Court, the bio says. Amulya Chava from Kansas wants to be a civil rights attorney and is currently majoring in political science. She is the founding president of her local Wounded Warrior Project chapter. She recently released her first book entitled ‘Soar’. 

Shah from Nevada founded Real Autism Difference (RAD), a nonprofit to provide respite services for those with autism in the Southern Nevada community and beyond. In just two years, she raised more than $100,000 for RAD’s programs. In December of 2018, she was appointed by then Governor Brian Sandoval to serve as the youngest Youth Commissioner for the state of Nevada. Shah will be attending Stanford University this fall as a Public Policy major before pursuing a medical degree, the bio says. Bangalore is a physicist, actor, and the founder of Operation Period, a youth-led nonprofit addressing menstrual inequity through art, advocacy, education, community engagement, and aid.
Bangalore has worked at two NASA centers, Marshall Space Flight Center and Johnson Space Center, as well as in the White House on science policy in the Obama administration. Bangalore is now pursuing her M.S. in aerospace engineering with a concentration on propulsion systems. Saaraswat from Pennsylvania is pursuing a Master of Science in Health Policy and Economics at Weill Cornell Medicine before she enters medical school and wants to focus on global pediatric health.
Saaraswat has done a stem cell internship at Harvard university, has 4 publications in medical journals, and experienced what she says was a ‘life-changing’ trip to volunteer and intern at a local hospital in India.Mangala Chava is from West Virginia and wants to become a physician. She is a recent graduate of Biology from University of California, San Diego and has been involved with Alzheimer’s San Diego during her time in college and currently volunteers for Alzheimer’s Orange County. 
The contestants will participate in real-time preliminary competitions, receive camera time in front of a live audience and judges; they will also interact with viewers, and rehearse and collaborate with each other, according to the contest website. Each contestant will be able to plug in to Miss World America events through her smart phone or laptop. Viewers will have access to series of online virtual events, during the month of October.Preliminary competitions will include Beauty with a Purpose; Influencer Challenge; Talent Showcase; Head To Head Challenge; Entrepreneur Challenge; Top Model Challenge; and People’s Choice. The new Miss World America and Miss Teen World America queens will be invited to an all-expense paid trip to Los Angeles for an official crowning ceremony, photo shoot, appearances, media interviews and other activities, all of which will be included in the Miss World America 2020 Final webcast, according to a news release. The 2020 national competition will be held in the form of a series of virtual web casts. Tickets to the event can be accessed at https://missworldamerica.com/ for $15 for the All-Access pass and $45 VIP Access pass.

In Unanimous Vote, Diane Gujarati Confirmed for Federal Judge Position in New York

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Diane Gujarati, a prosecutor with decades of experience in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, was confirmed unanimously by the US Senate on September 10th as the newest district judge in the Eastern District of New York.

Gujarati, an Indian American prosecutor with decades of experience in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, by a vote 99-0 in favor of confirming Gujarati. The Senate Judiciary Committee on June 27 had advanced the nomination of Gujarati for the post.

Initially announced last May as President Donald Trump’s 14th wave of judicial nominees, the slate of nominees cleared the Judiciary Committee in September but did not receive a confirmation vote in the full Senate before the end of the last Congress.

Trump re-nominated the prospective judges in April. Gujarati, of New York, is the daughter of an Indian father and Jewish mother. The attorney has been nominated by the president to serve as a district judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Gujarati is deputy chief of the criminal division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, where she has served as an assistant United States attorney for the past 19 years.

She has also served as an adjunct professor of clinical law at New York University School of Law until earlier this year.

Before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Gujarati practiced for three years as a litigation associate in the New York City office of Davis Polk & Wardwell, LLP, her bio notes.

Upon graduation from law school, Gujarati served as a law clerk to Judge John M. Walker Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Gujarati had previously been nominated by former President Barack Obama to the same post for which Trump nominated her for April 8.

Obama, at the time, said, “I am pleased to nominate Diane Gujarati to serve on the United States District Court bench,” said Obama (see India-West article here: https://bit.ly/2WXQZtj). “I am confident she will serve the American people with distinction.”

The Indian American’s nomination from Obama expired in early 2017 and then Trump in May 2018 nominated her again for the same post. The seat for which Gujarati has been nominated covers parts of the city as well the suburbs on Long Island.

The nomination by Trump shows both her legal standing as well as the administration’s difficulty in finding candidates within its ideological spectrum who will be able to win Senate support, according to a news release at the time of Trump’s initial nomination.

Three vacancies remain in the Eastern District following Gujarati’s confirmation, and all have active nominees, according to Law.com. The nominees are Hector Gonzalez, a partner at Dechert; Saritha Komatireddy, deputy chief of general crimes in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York; and David C. Woll Jr., a principal deputy assistant secretary for community planning and development in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Padma Lakshmi on the Immigrant Cuisines That Make America

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When we chatted with Padma Lakshmi back in March, the U.S. was just one week into quarantine—a time dedicated to adjusting to life at home and, if you were Lakshmi, cooking big pots of lentils and decadent slabs of chocolate cake. A lot has happened since then. And while the concept of her just-released show, Taste the Nation, was acutely relevant three months ago, watching Lakshmi dismantle American food to its immigrant roots feels even more essential now, especially as conversations around who gets to claim those foods continue to swirl. But as much as Taste the Nation is a food show, it’s also a travel show, taking Lakshmi all over the country to eat meals with the Gullah Geechee community in South Carolina, comedian Ali Wong in San Francisco, and spearfisher Kimi Werner in Honolulu. We caught up with Lakshmi to hear about what she’s learned while filming—and the cheese-laden taco from El Paso that she can’t stop thinking about. Taste the Nation takes you all over the country. How did you choose the places you visited? I wanted to cover [as many] different parts of the country as I could. I knew, for example, that I wanted to do an African American episode, because we don’t often look at African American food as separate from white American food in the history of this country. Yet that food has roots on other continents that date back centuries. Understanding your food history—and also just understanding your history—is essential, and so that was a very important episode for me to do. I’ve always been interested in immigrant issues, as well, because I’m an immigrant, and immigration is integral to the reason that America exists. One of my favorite scenes from ‘Taste the Nation’ is when you’re grocery shopping with your mother in New York City. Why did that feel important to film? I think that’s something that mothers and daughters do a lot—or at least, it’s something we certainly did when I was growing up. She lives on the West Coast so she hadn’t experienced Patel Brothers, and I wanted her to see what [immigrant communities] who haven’t left Queens have done. I’m very proud of my mom. I think she did a very heroic thing [moving to the U.S.]. And there are millions of people like her in this country. Those are the interesting people. They make America interesting. How did your mom’s cooking shape your own palate? She had a huge, huge influence on my palate. But it was also shaped by trips back to India every summer, where I had the influence of my grandmother and my aunt. My mother worked full time, though, so she not only taught me about our food heritage by way of practicing it everyday in our kitchen, but she also taught me how to cook quickly. She taught me how to be a working woman and get a healthy, hot meal quickly on the table. Those are not restaurant methods, but the methods of people in the world who get it done. My mom was a great example of that, more than just showing me how to make Indian food. Speaking of people getting it done, women are at the center of many stories highlighted in the show. Which really stuck with you? H&H Car Wash in El Paso was the only restaurant [I visited] where the women were completely in charge. These women have turned H&H into such an industry, and they walk across that border from [the Mexican city of] Juarez every day to do so. When people say things [about immigrants] like “they’re taking our jobs,” what exactly are they talking about? These women contribute to our economy as well, at an American business that pays American taxes. Then there were the Thai war brides I met in Las Vegas. All three of them worked at the same commissary in Thailand, married American GIs, and then lived all over the world [before settling in the U.S.]. Through all of that, these women stayed in touch with each other through letters and long-distance phone calls. They became great mothers and citizens. Their story allowed me to show that America also has this beautiful history of accepting other cultures, and making them feel welcome. What’s the best thing you ate while filming? Oh my god, there were so many things. I really loved the taco I made with beautiful dark corn at Elemi in El Paso. The taco campesino is just so fucking delicious, and it’s genius the way chef Emiliano Marentes flips it over and singes all of the cheese rather than just the edges of it. Then there was this homemade kebab right off the grill [in Los Angeles] that was a thing of beauty. It only took four ingredients, which just proves that the sign of a really good cook is someone who can make something delicious out of very little.Food is such a social thing, and we’re all missing that human connection right now. What do you hope people get out of watching the show, as we come out of isolation? When you’re not allowed to go out and meet anyone new, you begin to reflect on who is and isn’t in your life in a more thoughtful way. So my hope is that [this show] makes people more curious and wanting to know their neighbors a little bit better. I hope they learn the value of breaking bread with someone. 

MacKenzie Scott has become the world’s richest woman

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MacKenzie Scott — philanthropist, author and ex-wife of Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeff Bezos — is now the wealthiest woman in the world.

Scott’s net worth is now $68 billion, propelling her past L’Oréal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire index.

Scott received a quarter of Bezos’ Amazon shares in the couple’s divorce settlement in 2019. That equated to a 4% stake that was worth more than $35 billion at the time. She is now the 12th wealthiest person in the world.

In July, Scott announced that she had already donated nearly $1.7 billion to 116 organizations that included four historically Black colleges and universities. She described the organizations as focusing on one of nine “areas of need” ranging from racial equity to climate change.

Last year, Scott also signed onto the Giving Pledge initiative, founded by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates. The initiative encourages the world’s richest people to dedicate a majority of their wealth to charitable causes.

Bezos, the world’s richest man, hasn’t signed the pledge, according to a list of signatories.Amazon’s stock jumped roughly 28% over the last three months, and is up more than 90% so far this year, according to data from Refinitiv. The soar in shares increased the wealth of Bezos to over $200 billion.Scott’s bump up in wealth follows a surge in tech stock gains, which has led to other billionaire ranking shake ups at the top. Earlier this week, Elon Musk surpassed Mark Zuckerberg to become the third richest person in the world. Tesla saw a 12% stock gain after Tesla’s 5-1 stock split last week. 

“How to Be Your Badass Self: A Guide to Using Your Inner Energy for Brand Success”

Staff ReporterEducation, Women 0

Are you struggling with branding yourself professionally, in order to achieve your dreams and goals? Is your purpose unclear? Then you need How to Be Your Badass Self: A Guide to Using Your Inner Energy for Brand Success! Annie Koshy lays out the steps to turn your mindset and focus to building your brand and growing your business or career.

Start by tackling your mindset and growing your understanding of what you have to offer, as a brand and as a professional. Annie walks you through the process, giving you stories from her personal journey in the world of media and marketing. Get the tools you need to determine your strengths, create a call to action, and build relationships with your clients.

Each stage of building a brand is covered in How to Be Your Badass Self. Annie does not leave anything out, from your thoughts to your habits, and everything that contributes to the energy related to your brand. Once she guides you through the process of building a brand, Annie shares the pitfalls to avoid. By the end of How to Be Your Badass Self: A Guide to Using Your Inner Energy for Brand Success, you will be inspired to be your own badass self!

Award-winning media professional, Annie Koshy is truly a powerhouse to reckon with. Recognized as a multi-talented media and events personality, trained elite speaker and emcee Annie’s work is highly applauded, as she has made a lasting impression within the arts, media, and events arena. She has gained an impressive reputation for bridging opportunities for those in a variety of industries. Through her disciplined work ethic, aptitude for branding and skill in business networking,

Annie is a role model to many within the community.  Annie is the author of the book, How to Be Your Badass Self: A Guide to Using Your Inner Energy for Brand Success, released on Amazon August 2020. The book lays out the steps to turn your mindset and focus to building your brand and growing your business or career. Annie walks you through the process, giving you stories from her personal journey in the world of media and marketing. Get the tools you need to determine your strengths, create a call to action, and build relationships with your clients. 

As a published model with one of the city’s premier modelling agencies, Annie has garnered mainstream attention through her commercial work. Her ads have run throughout North America, has hosted on multiple stages in Canada, US and India and her voice is frequently used in commercials and films. Most recently, she was featured in a lead role in a short film titled, A Bloody Mess. This film, which is a catalyst to conversations around the stigmatized topic of menstruation has received over 16 nominations and or awards from across the world with a coveted Remi from the Houston Worldfest Film Festival. Her second film is a documentary on her life called F•E•A•R: Face Everything And Rise. Her journey is something thousands of women face on a daily basis with a purpose to inspire minds to believe in themselves. 

Weekends don’t slow down this media magnet as she hosts nFocus with Annie Koshy on the mainstream radio station, Sauga 960AM, as part of their Saturday lineup.  Premiering on Sept 12, 2020, nFocus with Annie Koshy looks at People and their milestones, places where international changemakers are impacting our world as well as events that bring our communities together. The icing on the cake is that Annie, along with 125 others, were part of a Guinness World Records attempt that was successful. In addition, she, along with the others, are officially published as #1 Amazon bestseller book in five different categories. As a fine example of a multi-disciplinary woman leader in the community, Annie’s story is inspirational and unique to young entrepreneurs and women. Her kernels of truth and words of wisdom are steeped in experience and cultural diversity.

Want to learn more? Get in touch with Annie: Social Media Handles:  Instagram:  @gtasouthasianmedianetwork | @anniejkoshyTwitter: GTASAMNLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anniekoshy/Facebook: Annie J Koshy – Media Consultant | GTA South Asian Media Network | Annie JWebsite (if applicable): https://anniejkoshy.com/ | https://findyourselfseries.com/ Link to Amazon book: www.amazon.com/dp/177277362X

The Rise Of Kamala Harris Is Symbolic Of The Coming Of Age Of Indian Americans

Staff ReporterCommunity, Politics, U.S., Women 0

“My name is pronounced “comma-la”, like the punctuation mark,” Kamala Harris writes in her 2018 autobiography, The Truths We Hold. The California senator, daughter of an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father, then explains the meaning of her Indian name. “It means ‘lotus flower’, which is a symbol of significance in Indian culture. A lotus grows underwater, its flowers rising above the surface while the roots are planted firmly in the river bottom.”

 

The Vice Presidential Candidate, Kamala Harris’s public image has been more tied to her identity as an African-American politician, especially recently during the current conversation around race and the Black Lives Matter movement in the US.

But Indian-Americans also view her as one of their own, her candidacy suggesting a potential wider recognition of the Indian and South Asian communities in the country. It is clear that her late mother was a big inspiration for Kamala Harris. Shyamala Gopalan was born in the southern Indian city of Chennai, the oldest of four children.

 

The speech at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday created a buzz on social media among the Indian-American and Tamilian community after she gave a special shoutout to her “chithis” while emphasising the importance of family. Tamil word ‘chithi‘ means aunt.

Harris, who made history by being the first Black woman and the first woman of Indian descent to contest US elections on a major party’s ticket, made the remark during her vice-presidential acceptance speech. In her speech, Harris spoke about the importance of family support in shaping an individual.

“She raised us to be proud, strong Black women. And she raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage. She taught us to put family first. The family you are born into and the family you choose,” said Harris while talking about her mother Shyamala Gopalan Harris. Describing what family means to her, she said, “Family is my uncles, my aunts, and my chithis”.

For many Tamil Americans, Kamala Harris’s use of the phrase chitti was a small but significant way for the vice-presidential candidate to say, before an audience of millions, that she is one of them, too. As she accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president last week, California Sen. Kamala Harris recounted how she had been taught to “put family first.”

That covers both “the family you’re born into and the family you choose,” she said. Family is her husband, she said, and her two step-kids. Her sister, her sorority, her best friend, her godchildren. And then, she added, “Family is my uncles, my aunts and my chittis.” That last word, a Tamil term of endearment for the younger sisters of one’s mother, was met with a fierce outpouring of pride across social media.

For many Tamil Americans, Ms Harris’s use of the phrase – which can also be spelled out phonetically in English as “citti,” “chitthi” or “chitthi” – was more than just another word for “auntie.” It was a small but significant way for the vice-presidential candidate to say, before an audience of millions, that she is one of them, too. “Americans everywhere are googling ‘chitthi’ but @KamalaHarris we know,” Gautam Raghavan, a former Obama White House staffer, wrote on Twitter. “And we love you for it.”

By now, the basics of Ms Harris’s Black and South Asian identity are familiar: Born to a Jamaican father and an Indian mother who met as graduate students, she was raised to appreciate her Black and South Asian heritage but prefers to call herself simply “American.”

Yet less commonly acknowledged in that biography is the regional heritage of her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, in Tamil Nadu, a South Indian state whose majority ethnic group is known for a deep pride in its distinct language and culture.

More than 240,000 people in the United States speak Tamil at home, according to census data, and a growing number of Tamil Americans – including Google CEO Sundar Pichai, actress Mindy Kaling, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. – have risen to national prominence in recent years.

In 2015, the comic Aziz Ansari featured lengthy snippets of Tamil dialogue during a much-celebrated episode of “Master of None,” when his real-life parents appeared on the show to played his fictional ones. But there’s nothing quite like prime-time politics.

“A Tamil word in an acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Still blows my mind,” wrote Hari Sevugan, the former deputy campaign manager for Pete Buttigieg. “Despite this president, ‘only in America’ is still a thing.”

As her multiracial heritage challenges American notions of identity, and some have accused Harris of playing down her South Asian roots – or merely not playing them up as much as her Black identity – her use of “chittis” was a swift reproach.

“My Indian mother knew she was raising two Black daughters,” the candidate told the Los Angeles Times in 2015. “But that’s not to the exclusion of who I am in terms of my Indian heritage.”

After her parents’ divorce in the early 1970s, Harris often traveled as a child to visit relatives in Chennai, the Tamil Nadu city where her maternal grandparents had settled. She wore saris to family events and spoke Tamil with her relatives, the Times reported.

In her autobiography, Kamala Harris described how her mother would often use Tamil around the house to express “affection or frustration.” Her use of the word chitti is a reflection of the family structures and specific language used by Brahmin Tamils, a group that includes Gopalan and her family in India, said Vasu Renganathan, a lecturer in Tamil at the University of Pennsylvania.

The combination of linguistic Tamil roots that mean “little mother,” it can also be used to refer to a stepmother or even a friend of one’s mother who is a bit younger than her. A popular Tamil soap opera called “Chitti,” which first aired 20 years ago, tells of the relationship between a young girl who loses her mother and the woman she begins to treat as a maternal figure.

Hours after Harris’s speech, Renganathan told The Washington Post he was disappointed that Harris did not sprinkle in more Tamil phrases.

“Tamils are passionate about their homeland, and many want to identify themselves as Tamil in order to distinguish from North Indians or other South Indians,” he said. “She could have at least talked about her ‘amma,’ her own mother.” But, he added, it’s only a matter of time before she uses more Tamil on the campaign trail.

Dr. Sajani Shah, A Second Generation Physician Of Indian Origin Becomes Chair Of BOT, AAPI

Staff ReporterHealth, Politics, Women 0

(Chicago, IL – August 22, 2020) “We are extremely happy that Dr. Sajani Shah, a second generation physician of Indian Origin, and the first ever from the Young Physicians Section, has become the Chair of BOT, AAPI for the year 2020-21,” Dr. Dr. Sudhakar Jonnalagadda, President of AAPI announced here. “I am so proud that this historic milestone by AAPI has occurred during my Presidency.”

Dr. Sajani Shah assumed charge as the Chair of Board of Trustees, AAPI during the first ever Virtual Summit on July 12th. Also, Dr. Ami Baxi was sworn as the President of YPS and Dr. Kinjal Solanki as the AAPI MSRF President. In her farewell message, Dr. Seema Arora, outgoing BOT Chair, said, “I congratulate and wish the very best to three incoming Trustees – Dr. Jagdish Gupta, Dr. Raghu Lolabhattu and Dr. V. Ranga, the incoming President, Dr. Sudhakar Jonnalagadda and the incoming BOT Chair, Dr. Sajani Shah and entire AAPI leadership & membership to take AAPI to further heights in the future.”

Dr. Shah is a general surgeon from Boston, MA who specializes in minimally invasive Bariatric Surgery. She earned her executive MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Currently, she is serving as the Chief of Minimally Invasive Bariatric/Surgery and is the Medical Director of Weight and Wellness, Obesity Treatment Program in New England. Dr. Shah is an Associate Professor of Surgery at Tufts University School of Medicine. As the Board Chair, Dr. Shah “will focus on what is best for the AAPI organization by facilitating board leadership and governance by setting the direction and priorities of the board for the upcoming year.”

“An organization can only survive to its fullest potential when it is financially independent,” says Dr. Shah, who lives in Boston with her family and enjoys traveling and visiting her family in New York. “The trustee account from which we have been drawing each past year will deplete someday, therefore, it’s vital that we work on strategies to help strengthen the financial well-being of AAPI.” Dr. Shah promises to focus on academic excellence, without compromising AAPI’s financial well-being or the fact that AAPI is an organization of friends and families.” Dr. Shah wants to “work with her board to help engage the younger generation of physicians to the organization and overall increase in AAPI membership.”

Dr. Sajani Shah, a past president of IMANE, a subchapter of AAPI, has been serving as a member of BOT, AAPI since 2018 and involved in AAPI since the 2007 in several capacities including regional director, co-chair of the academic committee and chair of the women’s forum, “hopes to continue molding the organization’s culture, mission and work ethics.” Working in coordination with She is excited for a wonderful slate of board members and looks forward to actively engaging the board members, building upon each member’s individual strengths to accomplish great things this year.” Dr. Shah is confident that “working collaboratively under the guidance of the AAPI president and his executive team, AAPI will be lifted to new heights. As a second generation Indian and youngest to serve as the Chair of the Board of Trustees, I am truly humbled, honored and excited to start my tenure as the new BOT Chair.”

Dr. Ami Baxi, AAPI YPS President, is a board certified psychiatrist, based in New York City. During Residency, she had served as Chief Resident in her final year, Dr. Baxi has advanced up the chain of hospital administration at Lenox Hill Hospital, a prestigious Upper East Side hospital, part of the Northwell health system.  After serving as Director of Inpatient Psychiatry for five years, Dr. Baxi is now Director of Ambulatory Services within the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Baxi’s keen interest in the training and education of future doctors resulted in an appointment as the Director of Medical Student Education, overseeing medical students and residents from Downstate Medical College, Westchester Medical Center, New York Medical College, and Staten Island University Hospital. Dr. Baxi’s work has not gone unnoticed by her trainees as they have often appointed her Faculty of the Year. Finally, Dr. Baxi also most recently graduated from Northwell’s esteemed Physician Leadership Development Program.

Dr. Baxi has been familiar with AAPI, growing up in a family of physicians and as her own career developed, she naturally took a leadership role as an active member of the Young Physicians Section.  In her first year on the YPS Executive Committee, she served as the convention chair of their Marquee event, the Winter Medical Conference in Las Vegas,  In subsequent years, she served as Treasurer, then President-Elect prior to now being President of YPS.

In her new role, Dr. Baxi wants to “work towards increasing AAPI membership to sustain the future of the national organization while continuing to enhance value to the YPS constituents, and growing the mentorship program so that members may benefit from each other’s experiences and accomplishments.” While recognizing the challenges of unprecedented times, Dr. Baxi is aware that “flexibility is of utmost importance to successfully implement the goals of our organization.  We plan to leverage our networks and work with national AAPI to organize webinars with well-credentialed industry experts to assure the community and physicians from all over the country benefit from the wealth of information that AAPI has to offer.”  In this way, Dr. Baxi hopes to increase YPS’s visibility and value throughout the nation.

“Working in close coordination with AAPI leadership, YPS will remain actively engaged with our contemporaries in India via the Global Health Summit to ensure AAPI’s presence on a global stage while also giving back to our motherland,” says the young physician endowed with a vision to serve India.  “We will continue to be a voice for young physicians at next year’s annual convention in Orlando, Florida.  And, of course, our highly acclaimed 8th Annual Winter Medical Conference will be second to none as we bring our members the best and most current content from the country’s most renowned medical professionals.  We are confident these will all be events not to be missed.”

Dr. Kinjal Solanki, AAPI MSRF President is an Infectious Disease Fellow in New Jersey. “I am honored to take over the role as the president for the AAPI medical students, residents, and fellows. As a first-generation Indian-American and an international medical graduate, I truly believe my multicultural experiences have humbled me, cultivated my cultural awareness, and enabled me to relate to others on both personal and professional levels.”  Giving credit to her Indian heritage in shaping who she is today, Dr. Solanki says, “I am grateful for the opportunity to give back to our Indian-American community through my involvement in AAPI these past four years. This upcoming year, I am excited to help develop AAPI as an organization, further advance its mission, and continue to learn from and work alongside all of the AAPI members.”

In her new role as the MSRF President for the year 2020-2021, Dr. Solanki is looking forward “to working with the YPS team and the AAPI Executive Committee on various projects that will interest and benefit medical students, residents, and my co-fellows. This year presents with both academic as well as professional and personal challenges as the world continues to tackle the COVID-19 global pandemic. We plan to hold a series of virtual seminars to educate, discuss, and navigate these challenges. My main goal for this year is to increase awareness and interest in AAPI via the easily accessible virtual platform. I look forward to a great and productive year ahead.”

“We are so excited that all the three leaders Indian American women leaders, who are passionate about AAPI and its noble mission to be the voice of the over 100,000 Physicians of Indian Origin in the United States,” said Dr. Anupama Gotimukula, another woman leader of AAPI, who will become the president of AAPI in 2021.  For more information about AAPI and the many initiatives of AAPI, please visit www.appiusa.org

Are Women Happier Than Men? Do Gender Rights Make A Difference?

Staff ReporterCommunity, Women 0

I have been working on well-being and happiness in economics for more than two decades. The research—based on the work of scholars around the world—finds consistent patterns in the determinants of life satisfaction across millions of respondents. These include income (yes it matters but not as much as you might think), health (matters a lot), employment, families and friendships, and age (there is a mid-life dip in well-being that holds across most people and countries around the world). A question that always comes up, though, is “are women happier than men?” The answer is “yes, but it’s complicated”—and at times in surprising ways.

In a 2013 study of happiness and gender, based on Gallup World Poll data for 160 countries, Soumya Chattopadhyay and I explored that basic question. Women around the world report higher levels of life satisfaction than men, but at the same time report more daily stress. And while this finding holds across countries on average, it does not hold in countries where gender rights are compromised, as in much of the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. The gap between women and men’s well-being is greater (e.g., women are that much happier than men) in wealthier contexts, among more educated and older cohorts, and in urban areas. While there seems to be a modest gender difference in life satisfaction, it does not hold when women’s rights are compromised.

We also found that the typically positive links between life satisfaction and marriage were much weaker in the same countries with compromised gender rights, where marriage is often an imposed norm rather than a choice. Indeed, it was the married men who were happier than the unmarried in these countries, not the married women. More generally, the common finding that married people are happier than non-married people is in part due to selection bias: happier people are more likely to get married. By construction most cross-section studies—which are at one point in time—are simply comparing the higher happiness levels of those individuals who married each other versus those who did not marry.

As Claudia Senik and colleagues find, the actual effects of getting married (which we can explore with over-time data on the same people) last approximately 18 months, after which people adapt to their pre-marriage happiness levels. Meanwhile, divorce (in rich countries) is most common when there are asymmetries in happiness levels within couples; in other words it seems that it is better to have two happy people or two unhappy people married to each other, rather than one happy and one unhappy person in the same partnership. Unhappily married women in countries with compromised gender rights, meanwhile, are much less likely to be able to divorce if they would like to.

The logical conclusion, then, is that once women’s rights improve, their life satisfaction levels will increase. Yet while women’s rights undoubtedly improved with a host of changes that occurred during the 1970s, there was a “paradox of declining female happiness” in the decades after gender rights improved, as found by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers. Rafael Levine and Alois Stutzer (2010) discovered a similar pattern in Switzerland, one of the last wealthy countries to give women the right to vote in 1971 (!). A national referendum (common for the Swiss) was passed in 1981 that mandated equal pay for equal work, giving them a natural experiment to explore its effects on gender differences in well-being. The authors were able to compare the differences in cantons that voted for the amendment versus those that did not. One would think that women would be happier in the cantons that voted for equal pay. Instead, the opposite occured and female happiness fell precisely in those cantons, compared to in those that did not vote for equal pay.

What explains this? First, these trends reversed over time. A later study of women’s happiness in the U.S. based on data that covered a later time period—1985 to 2005—by Chris Herbst  found that men’s happiness declined more than women’s in that period, beginning in the late 1980s, while the decline for women slowed down significantly, reversing the gender gap in happiness. And over time in Switzerland, the differences across the cantons also declined. One reason for the initial decline is that when unequal gender rights are amended with legislation, established gender norms lag, and that may be particularly strong within households, creating new tensions, especially for working women.

My own experience, entering the labor force in the 1980s and having children in the 1990s was that being a full-time working mother was often seen as a choice between being a “good” mother and working. Many of my impressive colleagues and predecessors at Brookings—such as Alice Rivlin, Belle Sawhill, and Janet Yellen—no doubt faced even more such challenges in previous decades. By now, that choice seems a straw man. College completion and full-time work are now the rule rather than the exception for most women (at least those with means).

The gaps in well-being between unemployed and out-of-labor-force women and their counterparts in other labor market categories are much smaller than those for men.

Indeed, in the U.S. today, there is much more concern about declining male happiness and, more importantly, hope—particularly among less-than-college-educated white men. Kelsey O’Connor and I, based on data from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics for the U.S., find that individuals born in the 1930s and 1940s who reported to be optimistic in their twenties were much more likely to still be alive in 2015 than were non-optimists. While optimism among women and African Americans gradually increased after gender and civil rights improved (again with a lag) the one group that decreased in optimism was less-than-college-educated white men. And since that time, minorities have continued to make gradual progress on both education and health fronts, while discrimination decreased (but certainly did not disappear), and more women entered the labor market.

The decline in men’s well-being began in the late 1970s, coinciding with the first decline of manufacturing, and has continued since. The erosion of stable blue-collar jobs due to both changes in labor market demand and supply (individuals with only a high school education do not have the skills to compete in today’s labor markets) has been a major factor in this trend. The trend is starkest for white men who previously had privileged access to good blue-collar jobs and to a stable middle-class existence—and that existence was very much a part of their identity as breadwinners. Not surprisingly, men suffer greater drops in well-being when they become unemployed than do women.

In contrast, the gaps in well-being between unemployed and out-of-labor-force women and their counterparts in other labor market categories are much smaller than those for men. This is likely due to women’s ability to multitask and to have multiple identities as mothers or caregivers, among other things, in addition to working. While that is often stress inducing, it also seems to be (somewhat) protective of psychological well-being.

These well-being declines matter to life outcomes. Less-than-college-educated white men—and particularly those who are unemployed or out of the labor force—are overrepresented in the crisis of deaths of despair (premature mortality due to suicide, drug overdose, and liver disease) that has taken over 1 million lives in the U.S. in the past two decades.

In sum, in wealthy places women’s happiness is typically higher than men’s, even when they are in less privileged jobs and lifestyles. Yet in many developing countries where women’s rights are compromised, women do not experience that same happiness differential. In addition, strong gender norms—which are preclusive of women giving honest responses—can affect the accuracy of their life satisfaction scores. Malorie Montgomery tests for this bias using vignette research. This approach asks respondents to rank their expected happiness in a series of different scenarios (in this case a range of lifestyles involving different levels of freedom and opportunities for women). She finds that women’s rankings of the desirability of these lifestyles often differ markedly from their general life satisfaction scores. Adjusting for this bias, she finds that the around-the-world gender gap in well-being remains but is substantially smaller, driven by countries where strong gender norms preclude honest life satisfaction reports.

While women’s rights have advanced a great deal in most wealthy countries, there are still many poor women around the world whose lives—and well-being—will remain compromised for the foreseeable future. And, as the trajectory of those countries who have already improved equity in gender rights shows, the process is far from simple and does not end with legal changes alone.

This piece is part of 19A: The Brookings Gender Equality Series.

Yoga Will Improve Reproductive, Sexual Health

Staff ReporterHealth, India, Women 0

Yoga is an ancient method of relaxation, exercise, and healing that has gained a wide following across the world. It rejuvenates the mind, body and soul. It may come as no surprise, then, that yoga may also serve to enhance sexual function. According to a study published online in The Journal of Sexual Medicine (Nov 12, 2009), regular yoga practice improves several aspects of sexual function in women, including desire, arousal, orgasm, and overall satisfaction, points out Dr Arockia Virgin Fernando, Fertility Specialist, Obstetrician and Gynaecologist at Cloudnine Group of Hospitals. The expert shares some benefits of yoga on sex life and during pregnancy. Benefits of Yoga on your Sex life More and more people are discovering the benefits of practicing yoga, from building strength to relieving stress. 40 percent of women with fertility related issues have anxiety, stress or both. Yoga and mindfulness exercises like deep breathing helps in reducing the cortisol levels in our blood which is a marker for stress. High levels of cortisol damages the fine balance between the hormones which control the brain, heart and reproductive system. Many fertility groups who conduct support group meetings to help the anxious couples trying to conceive- have included yoga in their program. It can improve your sex life. Here’s how: Yoga can target your sexual zones. Many forms of yoga refer to the root lock “Mula Bandha,” which is the root of the spine, the pelvic floor, the perineum. Bringing awareness to these areas in a yoga class will help you be more in touch with them overall and can help you enjoy having sex more. In the challenging physical postures such as downward dog, chatarunga, supta konasana and plow pose, engaging Mula Bandha actually helps lift the pelvic-floor muscles, which increases core strength, which then functions to support and protect the spine. Engaging Mula Bandha can help with balance in postures such as warrior 3 and crow pose. You’ll feel better in your skin: Yoga is a series of physical exercises and postures that are geared toward improving one’s flexibility, strength and balance. A regular practice helps to strengthen, and tone your body, and all of these will make you feel better about yourself. Improved self-thoughts about your appearance will boost your body confidence and self-esteem. All of these will help you boost your personal life. Yoga helps reduce stress and anxiety: By transferring focus and attention to breathing and the body, yoga can help to lower anxiety and release physical tension. Lower stress levels at the end of the day can lead to feeling better about being with your partner. If you are not worried about other things and feel mentally balanced, you are more likely to want and be able to give to your significant other. It will allow you to relax and enjoy sex, which makes it even better. The calming, toning practice can be a wonderful escape from the stressors of daily life, while increasing your flexibility and strength to boot. This will also bring increased relationship satisfaction along with improvements in sex life and intimacy levels. It brings overall satisfaction, better communication and trust among couples along with the overall reduction in stress and anxiety. Yoga can increase the beta endorphin hormone release from the brain which gives a sense of well-being, improve immunity and prevents infections in turn increasing our reproductive health. With better hormone balance, there is increased sexual desire and reproductive function, also an increase in sperm production. Regular yoga practice may improve the interaction between the brain and the reproductive system in both men and women. There are many positive and negative feedback systems in our reproductive endocrinology and even a subtle imbalance disrupts the whole system.With better hormone balance, there is increased sexual desire and reproductive function, also an increase in sperm production. Yoga indirectly improves the reproductive health by improving immunity and thereby decreasing infections which damages the vaginal, tubal and uterine bacterial flora and thus preventing pregnancy. It increases the success rates of Assisted Reproductive Technologies like In vitro Fertilisation and Intra uterine Insemination by reducing the stress levels; thereby improving ovulation and sperm production. Women with high levels of stress biomarkers like cortisol have less chance of conceiving during ovulation and also an increased risk of miscarriage. Therefore Yoga can play a major role in these people. Breathing, meditation, asanas can reduce pain levels in people suffering from painful periods and pain during sexual intercourse, thus in turn increasing the odds of conception. The beginners should focus on breathing and poses which are comfortable. Above all it is safe. The key is to start slow. Benefits of Yoga during pregnancy Yoga helps you in dealing with the symptoms of pregnancy like morning sickness and mood swings, ensuring smoother and easier delivery, and faster recovery after childbirth. So, if you want to make your pregnancy and childbirth a peaceful and easy journey, you must go for a prenatal yoga class during and after your pregnancy. Look for a prenatal yoga programme where you are comfortable with the activities, style, and the yoga class environment. Always remember doing “Lamaze” which is a simple breathing yoga techniques, it always encourages you to be active throughout your pregnancy and increases your sense of wellbeing. All the exercises should be started pre pregnancy so as to have the best result during pregnancy. Do not start exercise for the first time in the first trimester except the breathing exercises under the supervision and consultation of your gynaecologist/ fertility expert. (IANS)

21-year-old Meera Mehta, volunteer with Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care honoured with The Diana Award from UK

Staff ReporterCommunity, Education, India, Women, Youth 0

21-year-old young COVID-19 warrior from India, Meera Mehta, volunteering with the global non-profit Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care, has been recognised with The Diana Award – the most prestigious accolade a young person aged 9-25 years can receive for their social action or humanitarian work. Established in memory of Princess Diana of Wales, the Award is given out by The Diana Award charity and has the support of both her sons, The Duke of Cambridge and The Duke of Sussex.

Inspired by the vision and guidance of her spiritual mentor Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai, founder of Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care, Meera was nurtured with a desire to serve selflessly since a young age. For the benevolent initiatives of Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care, she has been dedicatedly raising funds to uplift the underprivileged sections since the past 10 years.

“Make compassion your nature, not hobby, habit or mood.” – Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai

Since a tender age of six, Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai inspired Meera to volunteer for various projects undertaken by Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care, for the remote communities of South Gujarat, India.  Talking about how through this holistic experience, deep virtues of empathy and compassion were sown within her, Meera shares, “I will always remember the day at the first tribal camp I visited. When I gave a tribal child a gift, Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai encouraged me to say thank you to that child and told me that it is a privilege to be able to serve the less fortunate.” Thus, implementing this teaching, she began raising enormous funds for many benevolent initiatives of Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care including the health and education projects, including tertiary healthcare for a rural charity hospital, a Science college for the tribal students, primary and secondary education for indigenous communities, an ICU unit for new-born, and a skill development program for rural women.

“What Pujya Gurudevshri taught me changed my entire perspective towards fundraising. While I continue to actively raise funds, I am also studying hard to become a doctor,

and help tribal children in more ways than one.” – Meera Mehta 

As a true changemaker, she has inspired and inducted numerous youngsters to volunteer and raise funds effectively. In fact, Meera was also selected as an ‘Inspirational Change Agent’ at the Mumbai Marathon 2019, alongside the eminent boxer Mary Kom, for her impactful fundraising endeavors. Across her 10-year journey, she has raised over Rs. 1.5 crore, garnering massive support from corporates, celebrities and organisations.  In addition to several awards and accolades won for fundraising, Meera was also presented the ‘Youth Leader 2015’ award by The Global Education & Leadership Foundation, India for her unique social impact project ‘Poster to Shelter’.

Meera continues to work for the greater good through several endeavours of Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care across 5 continents focused on the welfare of mankind, animals, and the environment. Even amidst the current COVID-19 pandemic, she continues to display an extraordinary passion to serve by actively contributing to Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care’s 360-degree COVID-19 Relief Initiatives. These relief activities provide essential resources to front liners, healthcare professionals, daily wagers, and stray animals. Owing to its Mission Statement “Realise one’s True Self and Serve Others Selflessly”, 2500 volunteers are selflessly working in over 50 cities across the world, distinctly catering to each community’s personal needs amidst this crisis.

Having raised over Rs. 33 lakhs to support vulnerable communities during the pandemic, Meera has been instrumental in sponsoring 2 buses for migrant workers to return to their hometown in Bihar, providing over lakhs of meals for daily wagers and support to thousands frontline workers with PPE Kits, masks etc. For Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care’s recent initiative for proving migrants’ workers leaving in Mumbai for their hometown with nutritious meal for their journey, encouraged Meera to prepare handmade meals too.  Meera aims to raise Rs. 50 lakhs to support Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care’s extensive Covid relief work, that committedly provides safety and sufficiency to lakhs across the globe.

“We congratulate all our new Diana Award recipients who are changemakers for their generation. We know by receiving this honour they will inspire more young people to get involved in their communities and begin their own journey as active citizens.” -Tessy Ojo, CEO of The Diana Award.

 With inspiration from her mentor Pujya Guru

21-year-old young COVID-19 warrior from India, Meera Mehta, volunteering with the global non-profit Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care, has been recognised with The Diana Award – the most prestigious accolade a young person aged 9-25 years can receive for their social action or humanitarian work. Established in memory of Princess Diana of Wales, the Award is given out by The Diana Award charity and has the support of both her sons, The Duke of Cambridge and The Duke of Sussex.

Inspired by the vision and guidance of her spiritual mentor Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai, founder of Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care, Meera was nurtured with a desire to serve selflessly since a young age. For the benevolent initiatives of Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care, she has been dedicatedly raising funds to uplift the underprivileged sections since the past 10 years.

“Make compassion your nature, not hobby, habit or mood.” – Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai

Since a tender age of six, Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai inspired Meera to volunteer for various projects undertaken by Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care, for the remote communities of South Gujarat, India.  Talking about how through this holistic experience, deep virtues of empathy and compassion were sown within her, Meera shares, “I will always remember the day at the first tribal camp I visited. When I gave a tribal child a gift, Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai encouraged me to say thank you to that child and told me that it is a privilege to be able to serve the less fortunate.” Thus, implementing this teaching, she began raising enormous funds for many benevolent initiatives of Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care including the health and education projects, including tertiary healthcare for a rural charity hospital, a Science college for the tribal students, primary and secondary education for indigenous communities, an ICU unit for new-born, and a skill development program for rural women.

“What Pujya Gurudevshri taught me changed my entire perspective towards fundraising. While I continue to actively raise funds, I am also studying hard to become a doctor,

and help tribal children in more ways than one.” – Meera Mehta 

As a true changemaker, she has inspired and inducted numerous youngsters to volunteer and raise funds effectively. In fact, Meera was also selected as an ‘Inspirational Change Agent’ at the Mumbai Marathon 2019, alongside the eminent boxer Mary Kom, for her impactful fundraising endeavors. Across her 10-year journey, she has raised over Rs. 1.5 crore, garnering massive support from corporates, celebrities and organisations.  In addition to several awards and accolades won for fundraising, Meera was also presented the ‘Youth Leader 2015’ award by The Global Education & Leadership Foundation, India for her unique social impact project ‘Poster to Shelter’.

Meera continues to work for the greater good through several endeavours of Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care across 5 continents focused on the welfare of mankind, animals, and the environment. Even amidst the current COVID-19 pandemic, she continues to display an extraordinary passion to serve by actively contributing to Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care’s 360-degree COVID-19 Relief Initiatives. These relief activities provide essential resources to front liners, healthcare professionals, daily wagers, and stray animals. Owing to its Mission Statement “Realise one’s True Self and Serve Others Selflessly”, 2500 volunteers are selflessly working in over 50 cities across the world, distinctly catering to each community’s personal needs amidst this crisis.

Having raised over Rs. 33 lakhs to support vulnerable communities during the pandemic, Meera has been instrumental in sponsoring 2 buses for migrant workers to return to their hometown in Bihar, providing over lakhs of meals for daily wagers and support to thousands frontline workers with PPE Kits, masks etc. For Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care’s recent initiative for proving migrants’ workers leaving in Mumbai for their hometown with nutritious meal for their journey, encouraged Meera to prepare handmade meals too.  Meera aims to raise Rs. 50 lakhs to support Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care’s extensive Covid relief work, that committedly provides safety and sufficiency to lakhs across the globe.

“We congratulate all our new Diana Award recipients who are changemakers for their generation. We know by receiving this honour they will inspire more young people to get involved in their communities and begin their own journey as active citizens.” -Tessy Ojo, CEO of The Diana Award. 

With inspiration from her mentor Pujya Gurudevshri, coupled with the passion of volunteers at Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care, Meera Mehta strives to take mighty strides in creating hope and happiness in the lives of thousands.

devshri, coupled with the passion of volunteers at Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care, Meera Mehta strives to take mighty strides in creating hope and happiness in the lives of thousands.

Padma Thakkar aka Stellar Woman Passes Away

Staff ReporterCommunity, Women 0

Chicago IL: Padma Surendra Thakkar of Chicago, Illinois passed away peacefully in her sleep in Atlanta with her daughter, Anisa Daftari at her bedside, on March 31, 2020 at the young age of 72.  Padma Thakkar was predeceased by her husband, Surendra Thakkar and her parents, Maneklal and Savitaben Thakkar.  She is survived by her daughter and son-in-law, Anisa and Dr. Tapan Daftari, respectively; her son and daughter-in-law, Shobhan Thakkar and Rashmi Rampuria, respectively.  She was part of big family that included: her late brother and sister-in-law, Mahesh and Prabha Thakkar, respectively; her sister and late brother-in-law, Usha and Prahlad Thakkar, respectively; her late brother and late sister-in-law, Hasmukh and Jayshree Thakkar, respectively; her sister and brother-in-law, Bhavna and Kirit Thakkar, respectively; and her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Ashwin and Gita Thakkar, respectively.  She is also survived by her four grandchildren, Shivam, Manav, Avi and Surene and many nieces and nephews, all of whom she loved dearly.

Padma Thakkar aka Stellar Woman Passes AwayPadma Thakkar was born on November 10, 1947 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat to Maneklal and Savitaben Thakkar. She was the eldest of 5 brothers and sisters.  She married Surendra Thakkar in 1966. After moving to the United States in 1967, she continued to be the support for not only her husband, but numerous  family members who were immigrating to the United States..  Over the next ten years, the couple welcomed two beautiful children into their home. They also sponsored many family members who immigrated to the United States from India, and not only helped them to settle into a new country, but did so by creating a welcoming and loving environment.  Padma not only made and served homemade meals, but provided a sense of stability and comfort for those that left all of their family and friends back home. Together, Padma and Surendra are directly and indirectly responsible for over 800 Lohana Samaj members being in the Chicagoland area. Her children and grandchildren remember her as an extremely kind, loving, warm and generous woman who would welcome everyone she could into her home. She was most well known for her wonderful cooking and dinner parties that will be missed by so many.

Padma Thakkar moved around the US with her husband, living in cities such as Chicago, Pittsburg, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Fort Worth, Charlotte, Kennewick, and Augusta.  Throughout her journeys, she worked while always being the support of her children and husband. When she wasn’t a homemaker, she worked in management at various banks and eventually owned her own business (Dunkin Donuts) for over 10 years. Everywhere she went, she rose to higher positions through her dedication and hard work.  Despite her long work hours, she was always devoted to making sure her family members were always well taken care of.  This was no small task, as her extended family grew to more than a few hundred.

She was an active and dedicated member of the Lohana Samaj and the Shree Jalaram Mandir and was very well-known by many members of the Chicago community. She had also made a new home in Atlanta for the last few years and been loved by all of her friends there as well.

Due to the current COVID-19 virus affecting the lives of everyone, the family will not be able to accept any flowers, though very much appreciated.  In lieu of flowers, if you wish, please send donations to A School Bell Rings (www.aschoolbellrings.org) or Pratham (https://prathamusa.org).

Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 restrictions, only immediate family in Atlanta will be able to pay their respects in-person at a private memorial service this Saturday, April 4, 2020 at 11am EST.  Anyone wishing to join in the service may join the live stream at https://www.mayeswarddobbins.com/obituaries/Padma-Thakkar/#!/Obituary.

The family will hold a larger in-person service for family & friends when time permits for anyone wishing to pay their respects and celebrate the life of our beloved Padma Thakkar.

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