Building Bridges Beyond Boundaries

VOL. 14 ISSUE NO. 7 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 $1 ASIANERAONLINE.COM NEW YORK EDITION

The Indian Space Research Organisation on Feb 14 successfully launched Earth Observation Satellite EOS-04. ISRO marked its first mission launch for 2022 and the 80th launch vehicle mission from Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota. The satellite is capable of providing high-quality images under all weather conditions, will be used to capture pictures for agriculture, forestry, flood mapping, soil moisture and hydrology. It has a mission life of 10 years.

(Pho

to: I

SRO

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2 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM

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ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 3TOp NEwS

US President Joe Biden said on Thursday there was now every indication

Russia was planning to invade Ukraine, including signs Mos-cow was carrying out a false flag operation to justify it, after Ukrainian forces and pro-Mos-cow rebels traded fire.

Moscow, for its part, eject-ed the number two official from the US embassy and released a strongly worded letter accus-ing Washington of ignoring its security demands. It threatened unspecified "military-technical measures".

Early morning exchang-es of fire between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists raised alarm, with Western officials

who have long warned that Mos-cow could try to create a pre-text for an invasion saying they believed such a scenario was now unfolding.

"We have reason to believe they are engaged in a false flag operation to have an excuse to go in. Every indication we have is they're prepared to go into Ukraine and attack Ukraine," Bid-en told reporters as he departed the White House.

Biden ordered Secretary of State Antony Blinken to change his travel plans at the last minute to speak at a United Nations Secu-rity Council meeting on Ukraine.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called unrest at the front-line "a blatant attempt by the Rus-

sian government to fabricate pretexts for invasion".

Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels gave conflicting accounts of shelling across the front in the Donbass separatist region, the Reuters reports. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelens-kiy said the pro-Russian forces had shelled a kindergarten, in what he called a "big provoca-tion". Video footage released by Ukrainian police showed a hole through a brick wall in a room scattered with debris and chil-dren's toys. The separatists, for their part, accused government forces of opening fire on their territory four times in the past 24 hours. Neither account could be verified, the report said.

US says war appears imminent after shelling on Ukraine front line

An interior view shows a kindergarten, which according to Ukraine's military officials was damaged by shelling, in Stanytsia Luhanska in the Luhansk region, Ukraine, in this handout picture released on Feb 17. (Press Service of the Joint Forces Operation/Handout via Reuters)

Russia on Thursday announced a new draw-down of military forc-

es from the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula, continuing a troop withdrawal. While the United States warned that Mos-cow's announcement of a troop withdrawal is false. A senior White House official said that Russia has increased its pres-ence on the border with Ukraine "by as many as 7,000 troops".

In a statement that was pub-lished by Russian news agencies on Feb 17, the country's defense ministry said: "Units of the southern military district that ended tactical exercises at train-ing grounds on the Crimean

peninsula are returning by rail to their permanent bases."

The defense ministry said that tank units of the western mil-

itary district had departed on a military train for their bases 1,000 kilometers away. However, no details were provided to speci-

fy the number of troops or equip-ment involved.

Meanwhile, the senior White House official said that Russia could launch a "false" pretext to invade Ukraine "at any moment". The official added that while Rus-sia has said it wants to reach a diplomatic solution, its actions indicate otherwise.

Western countries have claimed that Russia has amassed well over 100,000 troops and sig-nificant military hardware near Ukraine's borders. The West also fears that such massive troops build-up could result in the potential invasion of Ukraine, which Washington says could take place "at any time".

On the other hand, Russia has repeatedly denied any plans for an attack but has agreed that "large-scale" military exercises are taking place in various are-as. Russia has never specified the number of troops present at the Ukraine border region.

Ukrainian President Volod-ymyr Zelensky said Kyiv had observed only "small rotations" that did not signify any real change.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has advised, "the West should not be fooled by Russia's claims that it is pulling forc-es away from Ukraine." James Heappey, the UK's armed forces minister, too expressed concern that Russian footage purport-ing to show troops retreating is false.

Russia says 'pulling back more troops'

Russian BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles during drills held by the armed forces of the Southern Military District at the Kadamovsky range in the Rostov region, Russia Jan 27. (Photo courtesy: Reuters)

Karnataka Education Min-ister BC Nagesh held a meeting with Muslim leg-

islators on Feb 17 in an effort to get Muslim girls to return to classrooms by adhering to the high court order that temporar-ily barred the hijab and other religious clothing in classes.

“There is a need for a revised uniform policy. A lot of contro-versy has occurred at present.

Students sit in protest after being denied entry while wearing hijab, outside a college campus, in Chikmagalur on Feb 16. (Photo courtesy: PTI)

Karnataka education minister meets Muslim lawmakers over hijab row

Two years after she went missing, a 6-year-old girl has been found alive and

in good health in a makeshift room underneath a staircase in a house in New York state, according to police who said they suspected she was abduct-ed by her biological non-custodi-al parents.

Officers found the girl, Pais-lee Shultis, on Monday in a house in the town of Saugerties, two years after she went missing from Spencer, New York, about 180 miles to the west, the Sau-gerties Police Department said in a statement on Feb 15.

At the time, police believed her biological parents, Kimberly Cooper, 33, and Kirk Shultis Jr., 32, abducted her, they said. The couple did not have custody of the girl, police said.

On Monday, police said they received a tip about the

Girl found underneath staircase in New York, two years after going missing

We will wait for the HC order to come up with a new poli-cy,” said Nagesh, whose office described the interaction as a “goodwill meeting”.

Schools and colleges reo-pened this week after being closed on Feb 9 because of the tension over the hijab ban imposed by the institutions as part of dress codes. But Mus-lim girls were kept out of class-rooms in many places for wear-ing headscarves after state authorities interpreted the Kar-nataka High Court’s interim order as a ban on the hijab in all educational institutions.

Despite the restrictions being applicable only to colleg-es where uniforms bar such religious clothing, the hijab has effectively been banned in many districts. On Wednesday many degree colleges did not allow Muslim girls to attend classes with the hijab.

girl's whereabouts and obtained a search war-rant. They said they went to the girl's grand-father's house where they searched for about an hour before locat-ing the child hidden in a makeshift room, under a closed staircase lead-ing to the basement. Upon removing the step boards, the girl and her moth-er Kimberly were found hiding in the dark and wet enclosure, police said.

Paislee was taken to police headquarters where paramed-ics examined her, police told the Daily Freeman, the community's local newspaper. The girl was in good health and released to her legal guardian. Police arrested her parents and the girl's grand-father Kirk Shultis, 57. They face charges of custodial interference

and endangering the welfare of a child.

Police said they interviewed Kirk Shultis Jr. several times since the girl went missing. He maintained that he had no knowledge of her location and told officers that he had not seen the child. (Source: Reuters)

View of a makeshift room underneath a staircase, in the house, where 6-year-old Paislee Shultis was found by police, in Saugerties, New York, in this undated handout released on Feb 16. (Saugerties Police Department/Handout)

4 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM

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TALkINg pOINT

Elections to five state assemblies in India have brought out the worst in politicians as they compete for votes. Politicians have suddenly remembered to pay obei-

sance to poet saint Ravidas because he is revered in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, states going to polls.

That Ravidas’ teachings spoke of a casteless society was irony not missed though, as politicians choose candidates based on caste. One party has been underlining the Scheduled Caste status of its chief minister, while another has over-looked the demand that a minister, whose son was charged with ploughing a vehicle into protesters, be sacked, for retain-ing ‘caste balance’ in the ministry.

Following the hijab ban in Karnataka schools a week ago, we stressed on the importance of keeping religion a private matter and away from political discourse. Politicians do not allow it, however, and in both United States and India reli-gion has been their playground. The Karnataka high court ordered reopening of schools without staying operation of the new law, as it was to decide on the case ‘in a few days’. A week later, hearing of the case continues and schools have turned battlegrounds for politicians and bigots.

Like several other practices, dress code for women is the sign of patriarchy. It has nothing to do with God or reli-gion. They are not confined to any particular religion either. Social reformers have to work with every community to bring change. Education of the girl child is a key to such change. That Karnataka should have a rule to forbid only Muslims from wearing religious dress and hinder their education, hence, questions the very sincerity of the move, apart from creating a hostile environment in society.

Know where ToDraw The Line

‘UP can become Kashmir, Kerala, Bengal if BJP not voted back’, says Yogi Adityanath; Oppn reacts strongly

Uttar Pradesh can become Kashmir, Kerala or Bengal if BJP is not

voted back to power, State Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said hours before the first round of elections in UP on Feb 10, evoking sharp reactions from opposition leaders, including from the three states, as they alleged that it was an attempt to polarize people in the state.

Reacting strongly to the UP CM’s comments, his Kerala counterpart Pinarayi Vijayan said if the north Indian state develops like Kerala, people will enjoy the peace and better living conditions while Congress leader Shashi Tharoor took a dig at Yogi Adityanath, saying

UP “should be so lucky” as Kashmir’s beauty, Bengal’s culture and Kerala’s education would do wonders for the place.

In a six-minute video message on Twitter, the UP chief minister said a vote for him will be a “guarantee of fear-free life”, asserting that the time for a big decision has come.

“Beware! If you miss this time, the five-year effort will be washed away. And it will take no time for UP to become Kashmir, Kerala or Bengal. This vote will be your guarantee to a life without fear,” Yogi Adityanath said in his appeal to voters.

While non-BJP political parties in West Bengal alleged that it was an “attempt to

polarise people of his state” and will fail, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah attacked Yogi Adityanath, saying, “He should be so lucky. J&K has less poverty, better human development indices, less crime & generally better standards of living than UP.”

In an apparent response to Yogi Adityanath’s remarks, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said India is beautiful in all its colors and “don’t insult the spirit” of the country.

Trinamool Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Santanu Sen said that Adityanath is desperately trying to divide people, “which is an old game of the BJP when it finds the going tough”.

CPI(M) leader Sujan Chakraborty said Adityanath’s comments were a “blatant attempt at polarizing the peace-loving people of UP”.

Students of aligarh college attend classes in saffron stoles

The Karnataka hijab row has begun to find reso-nance in Uttar Pradesh

that is in the midst of a tight-ly-contested Assembly election. On Monday, some students of Aligarh’s Dharam Samaj Col-lege attended the classes wear-ing saffron stoles and shawls. Aligarh voted in the first round on Feb 10.

The students gave a memo-randum to the college proctor saying if Muslim girls would attend classes in hijab, they would cover themselves with saffron stoles. Amit Goswami, senior student leader and vice–president of the city unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party Yuva Morcha, said it was in response

Students of Dharam Samaj College seen wearing saffron stoles in the classroom (Photo Courtesy: The Hindu)

Leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that Adityanath knows noth-ing about the eastern state and its secular traditions.

to those institutions that sup-port students sporting hijabs in classrooms. “We demand that the dress code be followed in all educational institutions,” he said.

Local Akhil Bharatiya Vid-yarthi Parishad leader Seetu Chaudhary said as one commu-nity was trying to vitiate the atmosphere, it was a symbol-

ic protest to make them under-stand that if they insist on car-rying their religious symbols to classrooms, others could do so as well. “The case is pending in the Karnataka High Court and we look forward to its direc-tives,” he said.

The move had come after the students of the Aligarh Mus-lim University had organized a protest in support of the women students who were not allowed to attend classes in hijab in a college in Udupi in Karnataka. During the protest, religious slo-gans were raised. “Hijab is not a symbol of oppression, it is a mark of freedom,” said Man-sha Zahan, a student. “You cover your mobile to keep it safe. Sim-ilarly, we cover ourselves with hijab for safety,” she said.

D.S. college officials said the video was shot when the teach-er was not present in the class. “Students have submitted a memorandum but hijab was never an issue in the college,” said proctor Dr. Mukesh Bharad-waj. Principal Dr. R.K. Verma told reporters that disciplinary action would be taken against those who broke the dress code. The college is affiliated to the Ambedkar University, Agra.

“Hijab is not a symbol of oppres-sion, it is a mark of freedom,” said Mansha Zahan, a student

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 5

Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Chan-ni has courted controversy during a poll ral-ly by asking people not to let the "bhaiyas" of

Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi enter the state, a remark apparently aimed at AAP leaders.

The word "bhaiyas" in reference to people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is generally considered offensive.

In a video circulating on social media, Con-gress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was seen beside Channi clapping when he made the remarks during a roadshow in Rupnagar on Tuesday.

"Priyanka Gandhi is the daughter-in-law of Punjab. Will not let the 'Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Del-hi de bhaiye', who have come here to rule, enter the state," the incumbent chief minister of Pun-jab said.

His remark was met with criticism by the Aam Aadmi Party. AAP national convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal termed his Pun-jab counterpart's comments "very shameful". "We strongly condemn the wrong comments made against any individual or any particular commu-nity," he replied when asked during a press confer-ence to comment on Channi's remark.

Kejriwal added that Channi had earlier taunt-ed him over his skin complexion, calling him 'kala (dark)'. When Bhagwant Mann said Priyanka Gan-dhi also belongs to Uttar Pradesh, Kejriwal said she too is then a "bhaiya".

BJP leader Tejasvi Surya shared the video of Channi on Twitter and targeted Priyanka Gandhi Vadra over this. "Priyanka Vadra Ji calls herself a daughter of Uttar Pradesh when she visits the state and claps when people of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are insulted in Punjab. This is her double character and face as well," Surya said.

TALkINg pOINT

Channi's controversial remarks at poll rally spark row

Underscoring that Shirom-ani Akali Dal has a pres-ence in every village of

Punjab and can understand peo-ple's aspirations better than any-one, its chief Sukhbir Badal says he is confident voters will this time choose the state-based party and not those which are "remote-controlled by Delhi".

Akali Dal is among the old-est parties of Punjab and is the only Punjab-based Punjabi par-ty, a party of farmers. No one can understand the psyche of Pun-jab better than us as we are not remote-controlled by Delhi, Bad-al told in an interview to PTI, on the sidelines of a rally in Raikot.

"We have a presence in every village and every habitation of Punjab. People of Punjab will choose their own party, not the

ones remotely controlled by Del-hi," he said. People have seen through AAP, and like the Con-gress and the BJP, it is remote controlled by Delhi, he said.

The Akali Dal chief also said that the BSP is a much better ally than the BJP and ruled out the possibility of coming togeth-er with the saffron party again.

Akali Dal only Punjab-based party, others remote-controlled by Delhi, says Sukhbir Badal

Sukhbir Singh Badal

The Election Commis-sion (EC) on Wednesday issued a notice to a BJP

MLA from Telangana, T Raja Singh, for his statement alleg-edly threatening to use bulldoz-ers against voters who did not vote for the party in the Uttar Pradesh elections.

Singh's statement, as repro-duced by EC, threatens voters in UP those areas that do not vote Raja Singh

EC issues notice to Telangana BJP MLA for ‘threatening’ UP voters

A case has been lodged against Dinesh Khatik, a minister in Yogi Adityanath led BJP government,

in Mawana police station for allegedly threatening polling staff on duty and vio-lating the model code of conduct.

“A case of model code violation has been registered against Dinesh Khatik in Mawana police station. Sector magis-trate of Hastinapur constituency, Vaib-

hav Sharma, has accused the minister of entering a polling booth in Mawana area when the voting was underway on Feb 10. He was wearing a stole of BJP and holding his mobile phone which was direct violation of model code,” said senior superintendent of police (SSP), Meerut, Prabhakar Choudhary. The min-ister also allegedly threatened the poll-ing staff and policemen on duty, the SSP said.

A controversy started soon after SP-RLD alliance candidate Yogesh Ver-ma reached the polling booth for inspec-tion where a polling officer reportedly touched his feet. Agitated over this, BJP workers protested against the act of the officer and accused him of affecting the polling. They reported this issue to Kha-tik who arrived at the booth and alleg-edly threatened the polling staff and policemen on duty. The matter subsid-ed only after the polling officer and a sub inspector on duty were removed from the booth.

The SSP said that sector magistrate lodged the complaint on Feb 13.

Earlier, a case was also registered against the BJP candidate from Sardha-na, who is also a sitting MLA, for slap-ping a presiding officer at a booth in Sal-awa village on Feb 10.

Case lodged against BJP minister Dinesh Khatik in Meerut

for BJP will be identified and bulldozers and JCB machines used "for what they meant".

According to the notice, Raja was shown in a widely circulat-ed video clip as saying, “Those who do not vote for the BJP, I would like to tell them that Yogi-ji has arranged thousands of JCB bulldozers…”

He is also heard saying that "traitors" of UP who do not want

CM Yogi Adityanath re-elected, should chant 'Yogi-Yogi' if they want to continue living in the state.

The poll watchdog asked the MLA to provide an explanation within 24 hours on why action should not be initiated against him for allegedly violating the model code of conduct, the Indi-an Penal Code, and the Rep-resentation of the People Act.

“Now, therefore, you are here-by called upon to show cause within 24 hours from the receipt of this notice as to why appro-priate penal action under crim-inal law should not be initiat-ed against you and also as to why appropriate action for vio-lation of the model code of con-duct should not be taken against you,” the poll panel said in its notice.

Close to two dozen BJP leaders, majorly from Punjab, have been given security cover by the central

government after analyzing threat per-ception.

Two top paramilitary forces — Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) — that are involved in providing security cov-er to the maximum number of protectees have been asked to provide these leaders the same.

Interestingly, some of them already have security cover from Punjab Police but the Centre has asked to give security “over and above the security cover pres-ently provided to them by the Punjab Police”, a communication says.

Most leaders will enjoy the security

cover till the conclusion of the assembly elections in Punjab and a review will be done after polls.

"Z" category security cover has been accorded to Union minister S P S Baghel, the party candidate running against SP chief Akhilesh Yadav from the Karh-al seat in UP. Another prominent name among those accorded "Z" category secu-rity is BJP MP from Delhi and singer Hans Raj Hans.

Also, BJP MP from UP's Bhadohi Lok Sabha seat Ramesh Chand Bind has been granted the smaller "X" category of CISF cover in his state.

The CRPF has been asked to provide security to at least 20 politicians or candi-dates in these two states.

From Punjab, the names include Sukhwinder Sin-gh Bindra, SAD (Sanyukt) leader and party candidate Par-minder Singh Dhind-sa and Avtar Singh Zira.

Punjab will vote in a single phase on Feb 20, while Uttar Pradesh will see sev-en phases of polling, the last phase being on Mar 7.

nearly two dozen BJP leaders get ViP security cover in Punjab, UP

Dinesh Khatik

6 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM TRISTATE

US Senator Kirsten Gil-librand endorsed Gov. Kathy Hochul in the race

for New York's highest office on Monday. It's the most prominent endorsement yet for Hochul as she looks to secure the Demo-cratic nomination and win the governorship in her own right. Her predecessor Andrew Cuomo resigned last summer amid sex-ual harassment allegations.

Gillibrand, who has made women's rights a core tenet of her public advocacy, applaud-ed New York's first female gov-ernor. Gillibrand cited Hochul's defense of abortion rights, directing state agencies to make it clear women have the right to an abortion, as well as her expansion of paid leave to also allow time off to care for a sib-ling.

“Kathy Hochul is a proven leader with the know-how, work ethic, and passion for public ser-vice to deliver results for New

Yorkers in every community,'' Gillibrand said.

Hochul was relatively unknown when she ascended to the governor's office in August, and was initially expected to face a tough battle for her par-ty's nomination, especially when Attorney General Letitia James briefly joined the race last fall. But months ahead of the June primary, James has dropped out, choosing instead to run for reelection. Meanwhile, Hochul has solidified her position as the front-runner leading in the polls, amassing $22 million in campaign donations and the backing of a number of prom-inent unions and political fig-ures.

She's being challenged by US Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Democrat representing Long Island, and New York City's elected public advocate Jumaane Williams, the most progressive candidate in the race.

Sen. Gillibrand endorses Hochul in New York governor's race

Governor Kathy Hochul; Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

The accounting firm that handled former presi-dent Donald Trump's

company's financial statements dropped it as a client and said it could no longer stand behind a decade of statements, a court fil-ing showed on Monday.

Mazars USA, in a Feb 9 letter made public on Monday, told the Trump Organization, the former president's New York-based real estate business, that its financial statements for 2011 through 2020 should no longer be relied on.

The disclosure was made as part of New York Attorney Gen-eral Letitia James' civil inves-tigation into the Trump Organ-ization, which could result in financial penalties. That probe partially overlaps a criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney, which James joined in May, into the compa-ny's practices.

Mazars said it had based its conclusion on a January filing by the New York attorney gen-eral, its own investigation and information from internal and external sources.

"While we have not conclud-ed that the various financial statements, as a whole, contain material discrepancies, based upon the totality of the circum-stances we believe our advice to you to no longer rely upon those financial statements is appro-priate," Mazars said in the let-ter addressed to the chief legal officer at the Trump Organiza-tion, Alan Garten.

In the letter, filed in New York state court, Mazars said that it had "performed its work in accordance with professional

standards." The accounting firm also said it would no longer work for the Trump Organization.

New York state's attorney general has accused the Trump Organization of repeatedly mis-representing the value of its assets to obtain financial bene-fits.

A Trump Organization spokesperson said in a statement the company is "disappointed that Mazars has chosen to part ways." But the spokesperson added the letter confirms that "Mazars' work was performed in accordance with all applicable accounting standards and prin-ciples" and that the statements of financial condition "do not con-tain any material discrepancies."

The New York attorney gener-al filed the Mazars letter in sup-port of its efforts to compel the production of outstanding docu-ments from Trump and his com-pany as well as testimony by him and two of his adult children, Donald Trump Jr. And Ivanka Trump.

In a memorandum also filed

on Monday, the attorney gen-eral noted media reports that Trump had destroyed docu-ments covered by the Presiden-tial Records Act and wants him to supply a sworn statement on whether the files produced for her probe are complete and how they may have been destroyed and by whom.

Trump has decried the probe as political. In Monday's filing, James' office said the account-ing firm's statement and actions further supported the legitimacy of the investigation.

James has been investigat-ing whether the Trumps inflat-ed real estate values to obtain bank loans, and reduced val-ues to lower tax bills. In one example, she said Trump's annual financial statements said an apartment he personal-ly owned in Trump Tower was 30,000 square feet (2,787 square meters), when it was in fact a third that size.

Neither Trump nor his chil-dren have been accused of criminal wrongdoing.

Trump's longtime accounting firm cuts ties

The state of New Jersey has suspended new admis-sions at a nursing home

where 17 bodies were found stacked in a morgue in 2020, cit-ing the results of recent inspec-tions in which staff members allegedly failed to do CPR or call 911 for unresponsive patients or provide lifesaving medicine for Covid patients, the NBC report-ed.

According to state officials, 16 residents at the facility have died from Covid since September.

On Thursday, the facility, once known as Andover Suba-cute II but now known as Wood-land Behavioral Health, was giv-en 72 hours to respond to the report and address allegations of shortcomings or the state would revoke its license. The facili-ty has now responded, a spokes-person for the state said, and the state is reviewing its response. As of Monday, the facility’s

license had not been revoked. According to state inspectors,

the following anomalies were found:

Staff members failed to do CPR or call 911 for two residents who were found unresponsive, one of whom was 55 years old. Both residents died.

A doctor ordered immedi-ate monoclonal antibodies for a resident who had Covid, but although the facility got the drugs, the lifesaving medicine was never given to the resident, who later died.

A doctor ordered monoclonal antibodies for a resident with Covid, but the nursing home failed to “verify receipt of the medication” or send the resident to the hospital to get the infu-sion, and the resident later died.

On Jan 11, a resident was left “soiled in feces for ten hours” despite having a “pressure ulcer wound” to the lower back.

Another resident complained that a suprapubic catheter was caught in a motorized wheel-chair and was causing physical pain, but the “resident’s pleas for help were ignored” by staff members “for over 40 minutes.”

Covid cases at the facility

increased by 102 from Dec 23 to Jan 1.

At one point, the facility was functioning with 23 certified nursing assistants when regu-lations required 58. Inspectors also gave numerous examples of verbal abuse of residents.

Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center in New Jersey, where police found more than a dozen bodies on April 16, 2020. (Phot courtesy: AP)

State threatens to take over NJ nursing home where bodies were stacked

The inspections were conducted from Jan 3 through Feb 2.

The investigation is ongoing. The owners changed the facil-ity’s name and accepted new residents. They are still being paid by Medicare and Medic-aid, the taxpayer-funded pro-grams that pay most costs for US nursing home operators — even though one of the owners, Louis Schwartz, was an exec-utive at a chain called Skyline Healthcare, which collapsed in 2019 amid accusations of neglect and financial mismanagement, which the chain denied.

In a previous statement, the owners of Woodland Behav-ioral said, “The Covid-19 pan-demic brought unprecedented challenges, and our heroic staff faced those challenges as best as they could. We continue to thank them for everything they did (and continue to do) to pro-tect our residents.” (NBC News)

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 7NEw YORk CITY

New York’s Asian Ameri-can and Pacific Islander community held demon-

strations on Monday to pro-test the increasing hate crimes against the community, the lat-est incident being the Feb 13 brutal killing of Christina Yuna Lee inside her Chinatown apart-ment.

“Enough is enough,” chanted a crowd of several dozen people who gathered outside of Lee’s apartment building on Feb 14 to mourn her death. “Do some-thing, New York.”

Lee, 35, was a creative pro-ducer at the music platform Splice. She was followed into her apartment building around 4:30 am on Feb 13 by a man iden-tified as 25-year-old Assamad Nash, according to the NYPD. Emergency responders found Lee dead in her bathroom. Nash, who tried to run away through the fire escape of Lee’s sixth-

Asian American New Yorkers wary as hate crimes risefloor walk-up, had barricaded himself inside her apartment.

Nash was arrested on charg-es of burglary and murder and remains in custody, police said. The investigation is ongoing. Nash had prior arrests, includ-ing for assault and criminal trespassing, according to court records and the NYPD.

The NYPD did not say that Lee’s killing was a hate crime. But her death follows the Jan 15 killing of 40-year-old Michelle Go on the subway tracks of the Times Square station and the Dec 31 death of Yao Pan Ma, 61, who was beaten in the head last April. Police increased the charges against Ma’s attacker to second-degree murder as a hate crime on Feb 10 from attempted murder.

In New York City, hate inci-dents against people of Asian descent rose by 361% to 129 in 2021, from 28 in 2020, according

to the NYPD. Across the US, hate crimes against the group rose 73% in 2020, said the FBI in Octo-ber 2021. While overall crime in New York City remains at histor-ic lows, shootings and hate inci-dents have risen during the pan-demic.

At the vigil on Monday, NYPD Inspector Max Tolentino said the city planned to engage in an awareness campaign and dis-seminate information in com-munities with predominate-ly Asian-American residents to help them protect themselves. “No community should have to go through what the Asian com-munity has been dealing with,” he said.

A tenth of the state’s popula-tion identified as Asian in the 2020 Census. That proportion ris-es to nearly a third in Queens, 15% in Brooklyn and 15% in Manhattan.

Yuh-Line Niou, the Taiwanese

American member of the New York State Assembly whose dis-trict includes Chinatown, had organized a news conference on Sunday after the killing. The state legislator said the legacy of racism is clear in the recent

violence. “We have a history in America of perpetuating this notion that Asian Americans do not belong here,” she said, point-ing to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Japanese intern-ment during World War II.

People hold signs and pictures of Christina Yuna Lee during a rally in Chinatown on Feb 14. (Photo Courtesy: AP)

New York City fired more than a thousand work-ers who failed to comply

with the city's Covid-19 vaccine mandate, the mayor's office said Monday.

The 1,430 workers who lost their jobs represent less than 1% of the 370,000-person city work-force and are far fewer termina-tions than expected before a Fri-day deadline to get the shots.

The city sent notices in late January to up to 4,000 workers, saying they had to show proof they got at least two doses of the vaccine or else they'd lose their jobs. Three-quarters of those workers had already been on leave without pay for months, having missed an earlier dead-line for getting vaccinated in

New York City fires unvaccinated workers

order to stay on the job.Mayor Eric Adams' office

said hundreds of workers pro-duced proof of their vaccines or got the shots after being notified they would be fired.

“City workers served on the front lines during the pandemic, and by getting vaccinated, they are, once again, showing how they are willing to do the right thing to protect themselves and

all New Yorkers,” Adams said in a statement. “Our goal was always to vaccinate, not termi-nate, and city workers stepped up and met the goal placed before them.''

Of the 1,430 fired workers, about 64% worked for the city's education department. The Unit-ed Federation of Teachers, the public school teachers' union, said last week that about 700 of its members had been given notice they would be fired. The union joined with others to sue to block the firings, but a judge ruled in favor of the city on Thursday.

The US Supreme Court on Friday dismissed an appeal from a group of Department of Edu-cation employees.

New York City workers hold an anti-vaccine-mandate protest on Feb 7. (Photo courtesy: AP)

New York City has imposed some of the most sweeping vac-cine mandates in the country, requiring almost all city work-ers to be vaccinated and requir-ing private employers to ensure their workers get vaccinated as well. Customers of restaurants, gym and entertainment venues also have to show proof of vac-cine to enter.

The United Federation of Teachers had struck a deal with the city to allow its members to choose to stay on unpaid leave until September 5. But about 700 members opted not to extend their leave or provide proof of vaccine. The union contended that the workers deserved due process that involved a hearing before being fired.

Minimum pay rate for taxi drivers in New York City is set to

increase from Mar 1. Last week, Mayor Eric Adams announced a 5.3% raise for drivers of high-volume, for-hire vehicle services — including those who work for Uber and Lyft.

The order from the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), which goes into effect on Mar 1 and impacts an estimated 90,000 drivers, will increase the mini-mum driver pay rates to $1.161 per mile and $0.529 per minute. New York became the first city in the country to implement a minimum pay rate for Uber and Lyft drivers in 2018, when ride-hailing companies were required to begin paying drivers approximately $17.22 per hour after expenses — about $5 per

nYC to raise minimum pay for Uber and Lyft drivershour more than they'd paid previously.

In a statement posted to the city's official website, Mayor Ad-ams acknowledged that the city's drivers have put themselves at risk to provide an essential ser-vice during the pandemic and deserve to be compensated ac-cordingly. “Drivers have served on the frontlines and have been there for their neighbors — driv-ing them around the city and delivering food to those in need. This is about respect and paying each one of these individuals a fair and decent wage."

Over the past several years, New York City ride-hail drivers have fought for the right to un-ionize, which would enable them to bargain for improved pay and workplace benefits. But despite numerous protests, a union has

yet to be realized. Bhairavi Desai, executive

director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a group that represents ride-hail and taxi

drivers in the city, noted that state regulations surrounding ride-hail services disproportion-ately affect some of the city's most vulnerable populations.

New York City taxi and limo drivers will get a 5.3% pay raise, according to Mayor Eric Adams. (Photo courtesy: Maria Cormack-Pitts/Patch)

"[Uber, Lyft, and Via drivers] are the anchor in many neigh-borhoods and are majority immigrants of color working to transition out of poverty," Desai said in a statement. "We all know the price of basic needs, like bread and milk, have gone up, and, for drivers, so have operating costs, like fuel and re-pairs. This 5.3% raise will help thousands of families find secu-rity and give many the chance to live under better conditions."

Desai also considered how this new policy may affect ride-sharing app customers as well as drivers, and detailed the union’s continued struggle to ensure that all for-hire and yel-low cab drivers earn a fair and livable wage. “We need to make a job that is priceless not remain wageless,” she said.

8 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM LOCAL gOvERNMENT

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced on Feb 15 that New

York City will support a record 100,000 summer job opportu-nities annually for young peo-ple, in the largest offering of employment opportunities for city youth ages 14-24. Of the opportunities, 90,000 stem from the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) and 10,000 opportunities come from other city programs.

The 90,000 opportunities through SYEP is the largest number of jobs ever made avail-

able in the program’s 60-year history. The record number of opportunities — an increase from the previous record of near-ly 75,000 — is possible in part due to a $79 million investment made in the mayor’s Fiscal Year 2023 Preliminary Budget. This expan-sion is a key part of an overall strategy to keep the city’s youth engaged and active over the sum-mer months when crime spikes — and is a preventive action out-lined in Mayor Adams’ Blueprint to End Gun Violence.

“Young people in this city should have the opportunity to

work or learn this summer, and this historic investment will help secure a better future for tens of thousands while help-ing to make our city safer,” said Mayor Adams. “We owe it to our children to give them every opportunity to thrive, and this expansion will do just that.”

The city’s SYEP program, which is the largest in the coun-try, typically runs for six weeks in July and August. SYEP pro-vides participants with paid opportunities to explore poten-tial career interests and path-ways, allowing participants to engage in learning experiences that help develop their profes-sional, social, civic, and leader-ship skills. Research shows sum-mer jobs save lives, cut crimes, and strengthens communities. A 2021 study found that SYEP par-ticipation lowers participants’ chances of being arrested that summer by 17 percent and by 23 percent for felony arrests. Oth-er research has found that SYEP youth are significantly less like-ly to be incarcerated in New York State more than five years after their participation in the program.

Beyond the public safety

implications, summer jobs can offer life-changing experienc-es for participants who discover a passion, connect with a men-tor, and gain the confidence that comes from successfully navi-gating the world of work. As the program has evolved over its six-decade history, the Depart-ment of Youth and Commu-nity Development (DYCD) has put greater emphasis on youth development. City officials are also working with private sec-tor partners, non-profit organi-zations, and others to help place participants.

Applications for New York City’s SYEP CareerReady and Special Initiatives tracks opened on Feb 14, and the general com-munity-based application peri-od for all youth opens on Mar 1. The CareerReady track is designed for students between the ages of 14 and 21 from select DOE schools, while the Spe-cial Initiatives track offers tai-lored opportunities for youth aged 14-24 who are: Residents of select New York City Hous-ing Authority (NYCHA) devel-opments; Homeless or have run away; Justice- or court-involved; In foster care; Receiving pre-

NYC announces record 100,000 summer youth employment opportunities

ventative services through the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS); New York City Human Resourc-es Administration participants receiving Cash Assistance via Business Link; Students from Access and alternative schools; or Have experienced gen-der-based violence.

“This record-breaking expansion of the Summer Youth Employment Program comes at a critical time for our young people,” said Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives Sheena Wright. “This histor-ic investment will help ensure our young people are given the opportunity to gain the experi-ence and skills needed to secure a successful future. We are so grateful for all the employer partners and community-based organizations committed to the career and professional devel-opment of our city’s young peo-ple.”

“For many communi-ties, summer youth employ-ment opportunities are a crit-ical chance for young people to begin a life of making good choices,” said New York City Deputy Mayor Phil Banks.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has announced a settlement that paves the way for the creation of

82 affordable homes for low-income and formerly homeless New Yorkers at 258 West 97th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

The $1.1 million settlement between the city — led by the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) — and ille-gal hotel operator Hank Freid and his company ends a decade-long legal battle to protect tenants and housing stock at buildings Freid owned and operated as illegal hotels, including dozens of apartments in the said building ille-gally used for short-term rentals. The lawsuit has generated nearly $2 million in total penalties and stopped the illegal use of more than 300 Manhattan homes in the said building and two other illegal hotels.

“Today, we are not only shutting down an illegal hotel operator but also creating 82 new affordable homes for New Yorkers struggling to get by,” said Mayor Adams on Feb 14. “The old approaches to the affordable housing crisis are no longer enough — which is why my adminis-tration is pursuing bold, innovative strategies like this

NYC plans to create 82 new affordable homes on Upper West Side

The newest Staten Island Ferry has taken its inaugural ride and begun regular passenger service, Mayor

Eric Adams announced on Feb 14. The Staff Sergeant Michael H. Ollis —

an $85 million state-of-the-art ferry that is the first new vessel added to the fleet since 2005 — is named for a Staten islander who was killed in Afghanistan saving the life of a fellow soldier in 2013. Members of the Ollis family joined the boat’s inaugu-ral trip from St. George Terminal on Stat-en Island to Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan.

“Staff Sergeant Michael Ollis made the ultimate sacrifice for his country and one of his brothers in arms, and I am proud to honor his legacy today,” said Mayor

New state of art ferry begins regular passenger service

Adams. “Michael’s bravery knew no bounds, and now thou-sands of New Yorkers and visitors from all over the world will be able to recognize that bravery every single day. We owe the entire Ollis family a debt of gratitude for all they have given and for allowing us the hon-or of remembering Michael.”

The Staff Sergeant Michael H. Ollis is the first of three new fer-

ries that will enter service this year, col-lectively known as the Ollis-class vessels. Together, the vessels represent a trans-formative upgrade for the nation’s busi-est municipal ferry system; the three new ferries are larger, more modern, and bet-ter equipped for extreme weather than the existing fleet. They will feature popu-lar design elements of past Staten Island ferries, phone charging outlets, and com-fortable seating, as well as an oval upper-deck promenade that will, for the first time, serve as an outdoor “walking track” for riders. The Ollis completed harbor tri-als and passed US Coast Guard inspections late last year. The other two Ollis-class fer-ries are expected to be commissioned later this year.

one to create housing New Yorkers can actually afford.”

The Fortune Society has acquired the building and is working with the Department of Housing Preserva-tion and Development (HPD) and the Department of Social Services (DSS) to turn it into 100 percent afforda-ble housing, with rent protections, rehabilitation, and social services on site. This effort will create 82 total rent-restricted affordable apartments: 58 homes for formerly homeless New Yorkers, nine homes to be filled through the city’s affordable housing lottery portal, Housing Connect, and 15 units for existing tenants who will receive additional protections from the city to maintain their affordable rents. There will also be one super’s unit.

“The city will use every tool it has to hold accountable illegal operators who turn housing into hotels,” said OSE Executive Director Christian Klossner. “After over a decade of

enforcement and litigation, this owner’s illegal hotel empire is closed for business, proving that defying the law and depleting the city’s housing stock is a costly proposi-tion.”

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 9LOCAL gOvERNMENTULT IMATE BOLLYW OOD 17January 15-21, 2021TheSouthAsianTimes.info

At a time when region‑al cinema is gettingits due recognition,

South movie stars are alsobreaking barriers and book‑ing their ticket toBollywood. Here's a list ofsouth stars lining up to takeover the big screens in B‑town:

SamanthaShe is all set to stake her

claim of Bollywood with herfirst Hindi film bankrolledby Taapsee Pannu. Theactress, who most recentlymade waves with her stellaract in the OTT series 'TheFamily Man 2', will now take over thebig screen in a female‑centric thriller.

Vijay DeverakondaHe wooed the audience with his bad‑

boy act in 'Arjun Reddy'. Now fans willsoon get to sit ringside and cheer him onas he plays an MMA fighter in KaranJohar's 'Liger'. The hunk will bring therags to riches story of a slumdog chaiwala turned world champ in the film thatalso stars Ananya Panday and boxinglegend Mike Tyson.

Rashmika MandannaThe southern beauty will share the

screen with B‑town hunk Sidharth

Malhotra in the spy thriller 'MissionMajnu' that is inspired by real events.

Naga ChaitanyaThe Telugu star got an offer he could

not refuse when Aamir Khan personallycalled him to offer a role in 'Laal SinghChaddha'. Naga revealed that Aamiroffered him one of the key roles of Balain the upcoming remake of theHollywood film 'Forrest Gump'.

Bellamkonda Sai SreenivasHe is set to make his Hindi film debut

with the remake of S S Rajamouliʼs 2005movie 'Chatrapathi'. The new movie willbe helmed by filmmaker V V Vinayak.

The character artists lentcredibility to a film's story,they filled the screen and,

what is more, helped break themonotony of the lead pair domi‑nating the screen. Some of theseartists who propped up a filmwere versatile, but a lot of thecharacter actors in our earlierfilms were typecast and chosenwhen required for a particularcharacter for which they wereloved by their audience. In fact,some of these were so popular,roles were written especially tocast them in a film. Some specialized innegative characters, some as backup.People never got tired of these actorsplaying the same role again and again. Infact, that is what was expected of them!

Balraj Sahni and Jayant were toweringpersonalities besides being great talents.Iftikhar, while also doing varied roles,made a strong presence playing a no‑nonsense top cop. Sapru was gifted witha royal presence and fitted all roles of a'khandani' wealthy man. Om Prakash wasin a class of his own. Kanhaiyalal andJeevan were both scheming, deceptivemanipulators each in their own inim‑itable style.

Be it a family drama, a thriller, or anaction movie, a comedian in the cast wasa must and his/her appearance on thescreen was looked forward to like clownsin a circus. It is no wonder that somecomic actors such as Rajendra Nath,Johnny Walker, Mehmood, and DevenVerma went on to become legends.

There came a time when Mehmood was

the draw for a film and not the film'shero! Legend has it that he was paidmore than a film's lead actor! Mehmood'ssuccess never went to his head, but itstarted eating into others' heads. Starsnursed bigger egos than their successcould afford them.

But now, real character actors havestaged a comeback. Not through the bigbill commercial potboilers, but throughsmall films by makers who chose closer‑to‑life stories. The films told stories aviewer could relate to. Their films, as arule, were low‑ or moderate‑budget pro‑ductions, such as 'Fukrey', 'Vicky Donor','Piku', 'Kahaani', 'English Vinglish', 'PaanSingh Tomar'.

Sadly, most of these talents do not gettheir due in mainstream cinema. Thestory is the same. Our writers don't thinkof creating characters, besides the heroand villain (the heroine being mandato‑ry). But, now, the popularity of some ofthe actors on OTT is compelling filmmak‑ers to cast them.

The return of the character actor

Vijay Deverakonda will be seen in ʻLigerʼ and RashmikaMandanna in ʻMission Manjuʼ.

(Photo courtesy: wallpapercave.com)

South actors taking overBollywood in 2022

In a recent episode of the reboot ofthe cult classic, 'Sex And The City'christened 'And Just Like That',

actress Sarah Jessica Parker was seensashaying a lehenga by Indian designersFalguni and Shane Peacock.

The actress kind of had an oopsmoment in the episode, where she calledthe Indian attire a sari.

In an episode revolving around the fes‑tival of Diwali, Sarah's iconic character

Carrie Bradshaw wore a Falguni andShane Peacock lehenga and called it asari in the show, which is known fordressing the actresses in some of themost iconic and memorable ensembles.

In the episode, Seema, played by anEnglish actress with Indian roots SaritaChoudhury, invites Carrie to her intimatefamily Diwali party and takes her shop‑ping to a luxurious Indian boutique inNew York.

Sarah Jessica Parker wearsa lehnga, calls it a sari

Sanjay Mishra and Deepak Dobriyal are among thepopular character actors of Bollywood.

(Photo courtesy: National Herald)

Actress SarahJessica Parkerʼsensemble wasdesigned byFalguni and

Shane Peacock.(Photo courtesy:desinema.com)

Learn about new rules and responsibilities

for owners under NYC law.

Stay current!

Visit nyc.gov/leadfree TODAY for information about your responsibilities and resources to help you

get ahead of lead.

If you can’t afford to fix or remove lead paint hazards in your rental properties, there are grants and other

resources available that can help.

NEED HELP?

Under NYC’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Act, property owners

must inspect and remediate all potential lead hazards safely.

New definition for lead-based paint: The definition of lead-based paint changed to paint that has a lead content

measured at 0.5mg/cm2, lowered from 1.0mg/cm2.

New definition of the term “resides” for a child: Lead-based paint requirements now apply to units where a child under the age of 6 routinely

spends 10 or more hours per week, not just where they live.

New requirements for 1–2 family homes: All of NYC’s lead-based paintrequirements now apply to tenant-occupied units in 1–2 family homes.

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Eric Adams’ $98 billion budget reduces spending, increases reserves New York Mayor Eric Adams on

Wednesday unveiled a $98 billion preliminary budget for fiscal 2023

that reduces spending by $200 million to result in a savings of more than $2 billion with the largest budget reserve in history, $6.1 billion. Adams says the budget serves as the foundation for his commitment to “Get Stuff Done” for New Yorkers.

The mayor’s first budget proposal called for across-the-board cuts to most city agencies, as well as a reduction in the city’s work force.

“Fiscal discipline will be a hallmark of my administration,” he said, adding, “I’m not going to taxpayers and saying ‘Let’s spend more of your money’ when I’m not doing a good job in the agency with what they gave us already.”

Despite the increase in violence, he avoided an increase in police budget arguing that he could improve public safety without increasing police spend-ing by moving officers from desks to the streets.

“We’re going to redeploy our manpow-er, we’re going to make sure that every-one who is supposed to be on the streets doing their job is doing their job, and then we will make the analysis if we have to put more money into it,” Adams said at a news conference at City Hall.

Adams called for a gradual reduction in a municipal work force, proposing to cut 10,000 workers through attrition and unfilled vacancies. The mayor also required most city agencies to cut spend-ing by 3%, and proposed adding roughly $1 billion to the city’s reserve funds.

He shielded several agencies from making the 3% budget cuts, including the Correction Department, which is facing a crisis at the Rikers jail complex, and the Health Department, which is overseeing the pandemic response.

Adams also said that hospital beds for psychiatric patients that were being filled Covid-19 patients would revert back to their original purpose and would aid in the treatment of mentally ill homeless people.

“We’re ending the era of tents. We’re ending the era of sleeping on our subway system with all your belongings. That era has ended,” he said.

Adams said the city was facing “mixed economic signals” as it recovers from the pandemic. He said that he was wor-ried about a high unemployment rate and workers delaying their return to offic-es. He said he spoke with dozens of busi-ness leaders on Wednesday morning and urged them to bring workers back imme-diately.

“New York City can’t run from home,” he said, before adding: “It is time to get back to work.”

But after months of a prolonged eco-nomic decline, the mayor said that the city projected that it would receive $1.6 billion more tax revenue in the cur-rent fiscal year than originally forecast, because of higher than expected person-al and business income taxes, sales taxes and transaction taxes.

Higher property tax values contributed to a $726 million increase in revenue for the next fiscal year.

Adams said that his budget proposal fulfilled his campaign vow to find savings. He argued that his budget plan focused on “equity, justice and safety,” and predict-ed “an urban renaissance unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes.”

The budget proposal included funding for a summer youth program to provide 100,000 jobs, transit discounts for low-in-come New Yorkers and the expansion of a tax credit for poor New Yorkers — some-thing Adams promised to do on the cam-paign trail. The city will also still face daunting deficits in the coming years, starting with about $2.7 billion in the 2024 fiscal year.

Adams’ plan also includes cutting the Department of Education’s budget by more than $826 million, or 2.6%, to about $30.7 billion. Reduced enrollment in the nation’s largest school system and the elimination of more than 3,200 open jobs will account for about $375 million in sav-ings, City Hall said.

Another $405 million of the cut came from the expiration of the retroactive pay requirements under the city’s agreement with the United Federation of Teachers, City Hall said. Funding of city schools is directly tied to enrollment and the Big Apple has lost about 9% of students in kindergarten through 12th grade over the past two years, according to state figures.

Adams said he expected some fami-lies with school-age kids that fled the city due to the pandemic would return if he can bring down crime. “We believe we’re going to get the enrollments up,” he said. “If we ensure the city is safe, you’re going to see a massive return to the city.”

Following the release of Hizzoner’s plan, the DOE said it would earmark

$240 million in federal stimulus funds to help administrators cover costs during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years. “This investment will provide continued stability as schools adjust to enrollment changes,” the DOE said in a statement.

Other cuts are planned for the Depart-ment of Health and the public NYC Health + Hospitals system, even though Adams had said they would be exempt from his “Program to Eliminate the Gap,” which calls for 3 percent cuts to most city agencies.

Adams credited that program with generating nearly $2 billion in savings contained in his budget proposal, which he also said would provide the city with $6.1 billion in reserves, the largest in his-tory.

“This is the result of effective plan-ning and judicious management, and New Yorkers can be confident that we have the resources for recovery, as well as for any uncertainties that may lie ahead of us,” he said.

Adams hopes his plan would cut spending by $2.3 billion, based on official projections in November that expendi-tures during the 2023 fiscal year would hit $100.8 billion.

The president of the Citizens Budget Commission, Andrew Rein, said Adams’ spending plan “proposes important, wel-come, and refreshing initial steps in the right direction.” However, in a prepared statement, Rein added, “Many more steps should be taken in the Executive and Adopted Budgets to address the city and federal fiscal cliffs, restructure to make government more efficient, and save for the inevitable next downturn.”

This is the result of effective planning and judicious management, and New Yorkers can be confident that we have the resources for recovery, as well as for any uncertainties that may lie ahead of us

10 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM TRISTATE COMMUNITY

Indian American lawyer and businessman Suraj Patel is challenging Congresswoman

Carolyn Maloney for a House race for the third time in a row after losing to her twice in New York’s 12th Congressional District.

The Democrat enters a prima-ry that already includes multiple challengers but believes the new-ly drawn 12th Congressional Dis-trict lines will work in his favor. Patel lost to Maloney by less than four points in 2020.

“I think that the new bounda-ries fill the district with regular, everyday New Yorkers who have never heard of Carolyn Maloney or never voted for her before,” Patel told Spectrum News NY1. “Running as pragmatic, pro-sci-

Suraj Patel to run against Carolyn Maloney in New York

Suraj Patel; Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (Photo courtesy: NY1)

ence, pro-democracy and pro-growth candidate, I think this new district and the voters who have been added are primed for that kind of appeal.”

Maloney, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, is seeking a 16th term in Congress.

The redistricting process has meant that the 12th District will include swaths of Manhat-tan’s West Side but exclude Wil-liamsburg, Brooklyn, and parts of Astoria, Queens, two neigh-borhoods with younger, more left-leaning voters.

Other Democrats are running to Maloney’s political left. They include community organizer Rana Abdelhamid and housing advocate Maya Contreras.

India’s Consul General in New York Randhir Jaiswal, in a private ceremony Feb. 9,

administered the oath of office to the newly-elected executive team of the Federation of Indi-an Associations.

The FIA President for 2022 Kenny Desai was sworn in to commit and fulfill his commu-nity organizational duties along with his 2022 executive team, a press release from FIA said.

The new team consists of Himanshu Bhatia as the exec-utive vice president along with Saurin Parikh and Haresh Shah, the two vice presidents; Parveen Bansal as the general secretary;

Smita Miki Patel as the joint secretary; Amit Ringasia as the treasurer with Mahesh Dubbal as the joint treasurer.

Outgoing president Anil Bansal will remain a part of the executive committee 2022 assist-ing the new president.

Desai, a seasoned veteran community leader expressed his gratitude to the communi-ty and board for trusting him with leading the organization-al efforts. He assured he would deliver on the expectation of enhancing the community’s image and its selfless service and engagements.

On celebrating 75 years of

Independence of India, Desai said he is committed to “a jam-boree of blockbuster mega events” that will start with International Women’s Day cel-ebration and carry on into Octo-ber of this year.

The planned events include FIA’s cultural event of children’s Dance Competition on May 7th; a historical inaugural launch of the festivities from Capitol Hill in DC on May 12; Press events in India; International Yoga day in NYC; and the flagship event of flag-hoisting at Times Square, followed by the World’s largest India Day Parade on Aug 21 on Madison Ave in New York City.

New FIA officeholders with India’s Consul General in New York Randhir Jaiswal, at the swearing-in ceremony held on Feb 9. (Photo courtesy: FIA)

New FIA leadership sworn-in by India’s Consul General in NY

The Sikh Coalition joined with ‘sevadaars’ city agencies, and civil rights and community

organizations on Feb 12 to distribute free resources to taxi and rideshare drivers to help drivers respond quick-ly and effectively if passengers do threaten their safety.

More than 25 volunteers gathered at the JFK airport and distributed 600 fliers with links to free resourc-es available from 10 organizations in more than a dozen languages.

“Events like these are critical for getting resources into the hands of people who need them and showing solidarity between different commu-nity organizations and the city agen-cies that serve them,” Sikh Coalition Senior Policy and Advocacy Manager Nikki Singh said. “We are grateful to everyone who made this resource dis-tribution possible, and look forward to continuing to provide legal, advo-cacy, and community-based support to our taxi and rideshare drivers,” she added.

“Taxi and rideshare drivers from our communities remain vulnera-ble to hate and discrimination given their interactions with the public,” the Sikh Coalition noted pointing to the past several years, when it has provided free legal aid to a number of Sikh drivers who have been violent-ly attacked.

The most recent one was on Jan.3,

and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department have since arrested Mohamed Has-sanain for the attack at JFK Airport. Hassanain was charged with assault in the third degree as a hate crime, assault in the third degree, and aggra-vated harassment in the second degree. Hassanain allegedly repeated-ly hit “Mr. Singh” in the head, chest, and arms, called him “turbaned peo-ple” and shouted at him to “go back to your country.”

The Sikh Coalition has provided free legal support to the victim who filed a report with the PAPD immedi-ately after the incident, to ensure that the report included all of the details of the attack, given the language barrier during the initial conversa-tions. The coalition said it remained engaged on this case as Hassanain heads to court next month.

The organizations involved includ-ed Arab American Association of New York, the Asian American Fed-eration, CAIR of New York, the Kore-an American Family Service Center, Muslim Community Network New York, Nonviolent Peace Force, Stand with Asian Americans, the NYC Com-mission on Human Rights, the NYC Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit, the NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, the NYC Office for the Pre-vention of Hate Crimes, and the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission.

An Indian-American, Anil Menon, is among the 7 researchers Cornell Uni-versity’s College of Arts and Sciences

has selected for its 2022 cohort of Klarman Postdoctoral Fellows.

Ithaca, New York-based Cornell University described the candidates as “seven excep-tional early-career scholars” from around the country who will be awarded three-year fellowships to pursue independent research in the arts and humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. They will begin their fellowships in fall 2022, “exploring some of humanity’s most pressing questions,” each working with a College of Arts & Sciences faculty mentor.

“Our first two cohorts of Klarman Postdoc-toral Fellows have already enriched our aca-

demic community in so many ways – sparking new ideas, perspectives and creativity across Cornell,” President Martha E. Pollack is quot-ed saying in the Feb 7 press release. “These highly coveted fellowships attract applicants of an extraordinary caliber, and I look forward to seeing what our newest Klarman Fellows will achieve and contribute in the years ahead.”

Menon is a doctoral student in political science at the University of Michigan. He will write a book on the political legacy of forced migration, which is on the rise globally due to climate change and conflict, the press release said.

Menon argues that forced migrants can develop a shared identity grounded in their victimization, which in turn can help mobi-lize their vote toward parties that champion their grievances. His faculty host at Cornell is Thomas Pepinsky, the Walter F. LaFeber Professor of government.

Currently, Menon is a Rackham Predoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan, accord-ing to his profile on the University of Michi-gan website. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at The Center for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict at Harris Manchester College, Oxford University.

Before joining University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Menon completed an MSc. in Eco-nomic History (Research) at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a B.A. in Economics and History at Middlebury College.

Sikh coalition provides drivers at JFK with info on hate crimes

Anil Menon chosen by Cornell University for prestigious post-doctoral scholarship

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 11NATIONAL COMMUNITY

Gobind Munjal, the new National President of Association of Indians

in America (AIA), was sworn-in along with the newly-elected National Executive Committee for 2022-2023 at a virtual ceremo-ny held on Feb 6.

The AIA is the oldest not-for-profit organization of Asian Indians in America. Found-ed on Aug 20, 1967, it is a grass-roots national organization with chapters and membership spread across the United States of America, a press release from AIA said.

“AIA represents the hopes and aspirations of those immi-grants who are united by their common bond of Indian Her-

itage and American Commit-ment,” the organizers said.

Consul General of India in New York Randhir Jaiswal was the chief guest. Other important guests included Congressman Tom Suozzi, D-NY, and New York State Senator Kevin Thomas.

The inauguration and oath ceremony was attended by over a hundred attendees and their families, organizers said. This included AIA’s founding mem-bers, board of trustees, past national presidents, current and past chapter presidents, commu-nity leaders, members, friends, and all the media partners.

Legendary Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar was paid homage by observing a moment of silence.

It was followed by singing of American and Indian nation-al anthems by Gita Setia. The Chairman Board of Trustees, Dr Samin Sharma, initiated the program and spoke briefly about AIA.

Consul General Jaiswal, in his opening remarks, praised AIA for all that it has done for the community during its 55 years of existence and commended the organization for sending oxygen concentrators to India in 2021. He also pledged to work with AIA for outreach to the community.

National President Gobind Munjal was sworn-in by Rep. Suozzi, who also administered the oath to Vice Presidents Uma Swaminathan (NJ), Nili-

ma Madan (NY), Santosh Pan-dey(IL), Uma Eniasivam (Fl), Secretary Gunjan Rastogi (NY) and Treasurer Dr. Bal Gilja (NY). Honorable NYS Senator Kevin Thomas had the honors for swearing-in the members at large from all the states, name-ly Anil Sharma (IL), Arida-man Jain (NJ), Ashish Sen (IL), Dr. Bharti Palkhiwala (NJ), Dr Binod K. Verma (NY), Gobind Bhatija (NY), Mano-ranjan Mishra (IL), Maya Kir-palani (FL), Neelam Modi (NY), OM Dhirgra (IL), Pradeep Tan-don (NY), Prem Mehrotra (IL), Rajeev Chaudhary(NY) Ram Khanna (NY), Santosh Khera (NY), Sharmistha Dutta (FL), Shashi Malik (NY), Sujata Seth

(NY), Sushma Kotahwala (NY), and Usha Bansal (NY).

In his speech, President Mun-jal emphasized the AIA moto of “Indian Heritage and Ameri-can Commitment” adding, “We are here to serve the communi-ty needs. As we continue to direct our help to the people in India, our homeland, we should equal-ly remain committed to the com-munity right here in the United States, our adopted homeland. We hope to work towards increasing that commitment.”

Munjal went on to note that as the demographic profile of the Indian-American communi-ty has changed in past 5 decades since the founding of AIA, so have their needs, and that AIA remains committed to understanding the changing requirements of the community, and then will develop programs to help both the youth and the elderly.

The new executive committee “pledges support to all the Chap-ter Presidents and its members, so they all can build and expand on these programs across the nation. This way together, we can make the next two years most produc-tive,” Munjal said.

A plaque was presented to the outgoing National President Dr. Urmilesh Arya for her “splendid service” and all the contributions to the organization and the com-munity.

All AIA leadership extended their good wishes and support to the new team. The program con-cluded with a traditional vote of thanks by the Secretary Gunjan Rastogi.

AIA’s new national executive committee sworn in

Sumit Sulan, the Indian Amer-ican NYPD cop who shot the gunman who ambushed

officers Jason Rivera and Wilbert Mora in Harlem last month, has been promoted to detective on Tues-day. Law enforcement sources dubbed Sulan the “super rookie” for his act of heroism.

Officer Sulan, 27 was presented with detective shield No. 332, “sym-bolizing three brothers from the 32 [Precinct],” Commissioner Keechant Sewell said during the ceremony, according to a clip posted to the top cop’s Twitter on Feb 15.

“Today, I had the honor of pro-moting Police Officer Sumit Sulan to the rank of detective,” she tweet-

NYPD rewards Sumit Sulan’s bravery with promotion The National Federation of Indian Amer-

ican Associations (NFIA) has elected Lavanya Reddy to lead the organization

as President for the 2022 board term.All board members were elected unop-

posed except for two positions; Treasurer & Regional Vice President (South Pacific), a Feb 10 press release from NFIA said. The oath cer-emony of the newly elected board members was conducted via virtual video conference by Dr. Thomas Abraham, the founder and past president of NFIA.

Following the oath ceremony, a motion was unanimously passed to appoint Dr. Hari Har Singh as the NFIA Executive Director. Babu K. Patel was elected Chairman of the board. The newly-elected team will focus on being truly representative of the entire Indian American community, working alongside members to learn more about how NFIA can better serve them – including their communities and busi-nesses, the organization said.

Reddy shared her goals as president saying she wants to provide local NFIA leaders with the support and tools to revitalize their com-munities. Setting up new committees for vari-ous demographics is a large component of the action plan. Through the creation of groups for youth, women, business owners, technol-ogy innovators and politicians, she believes NFIA can create better opportunities to net-work while also providing opportunities for mentorship, particularly important for young-

ed. “Like his partners, he is an example that police officers are ordi-nary people called upon to do extraordinary things — and they often do, risking everything. The action taken by Officer Sulan likely saved the lives of the other officers respond-ing to that apartment.”

Sulan had only been on the job since April — and at Harlem’s 32nd Precinct for two months — when he responded along with Rivera, 22, and Mora, 27, to the domestic violence call on West 135th Street that turned deadly. Lashawn McNeil, 47, opened fire without warning — gunning down Rivera and Mora — prompting Sulan to jump into action.

“When the shooting started, Officer Sulan directed the moth-er and brother into the kitchen to shield them away and advanced toward the hallway where the gun-man had opened fire, taking him down as he prepared to open fire again,” Sewell said during the pro-motion ceremony.

(Photo courtesy: twitter/ Commissioner Sewell@NYPDPC)

er generations.Reddy is a longtime resident of Seattle,

Washington. An active member of the Indian community for decades, she is the founder and former president of the Federations of Indi-an American organizations of Washington, has served as president of Washington Telugu Samithi for two consecutive years, and is an active board member of many local organiza-tions including NW Share, Women of Wisdom and Ambassadors of Peace Washington.

Reddy is a Montessori teacher by profes-sion, teaching for more than 40 years. She is also the founder of the SMR educational and cultural foundation.

The NFIA, established in 1980, describes itself as the largest non-profit umbrella organ-ization for Indian associations in the US.

Lavanya Reddy elected president of NFIA

Lavanya Reddy, newly-elected president of NFIA for 2022 (Photo courtesy: NFIA)

12 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM 10 January 15-21, 2022 TheSouthAsianTimes.infoUS AFFA IRS

Atlanta: President Joe Biden challengedsenators Tuesday to “stand against votersuppression” by changing Senate rules topass voting rights legislat ion thatRepublicans are blocking from debate andvotes.

Biden told a crowd in Atlanta that heʼdbeen having quiet conversations with sena‑tors for months over the two bills ̶ a lackof progress that has brought him criticismfrom activists in his own party. “Iʼm tired ofbeing quiet!” he shouted to cheers from thecrowd.

Biden chastised Republicans for falling inline behind Trumpʼs election lies. “Today,we call on Congress to get done what histo‑ry will judge,” Biden said. “Pass the freedomto vote act.”

Current rules require 60 votes to advancemost legislation ̶ a threshold that SenateDemocrats canʼt meet alone because theyhave just a 50‑50 majority with VicePresident Kamala Harris to break ties.

“Not a single Republican has displayedthe courage to stand up to a defeated presi‑dent to protect Americansʼ right to vote,”Biden said. “Not one. Not one.”

Congressional Democrats have writtenvoting legislation that would usher in thebiggest overhaul of U.S. elections in a gen‑eration by striking down hurdles to votingenacted in the name of election security.The legislation also would reduce the influ‑ence of big money in politics and limit par‑tisan influence over the drawing of con‑gressional districts.

Washington DC: Members of Congress,police officers, and government watch‑dog groups argued in federal court onJanuary 10 that Donald Trump was liablefor major financial damages for his rolein inspiring the Jan. 6 attack onCongress, pressing an array of civil suitsagainst the former president amidmounting frustration that he has facedno penalty for the riot.

Over nearly five hours in the U.S.District Court for Washington, lawyerslaid out their cases against Trump, con‑tending that he deserved to be held

responsible for inflaming a violent mob,despite what are typically wide immunityprotections for a presidentʼs speech andactions while in office.

“Mr. Trump dispatched the crowd thathe assembled,” said Joseph Sellers, thelawyer for a group of House Democrats.“After he saw that they were engaged inbreaking into the Capitol, instead of try‑ing to calm them, he retweeted his incen‑diary remarks from the rally before.”

Judge Amit P. Mehta asked lawyers forTrump whether the presidentʼs slowresponse was not evidenced he agreed

with the siege afterte ll ing the crowd to“fight l ike hell” andmarch to the Capitol.

Trumpʼs lawyer, JesseR. Binnall, argued thatthe suits should be dis‑missed because hisremarks inflaming thecrowd were protectedby presidential immuni‑ty and his FirstAmendment right to freespeech. He asserted thatTrump had told thecrowd to “peacefully andpatriotically” march onthe Capitol.

Republicansunanimouslyoppose the

voting rights

measures. (Image

Courtesy: ABC

Chicago)

During a hearing over whether the suits can moveforward, Judge Amit P. Mehta focused on why

Trump did not act more quickly tocall off the mob. (Image Courtesy: USA Today)

Civil Suits Against Trump SeekDamages for Jan. 6 Attack

Biden challenges Senate on voting:ʻTired of being quiet!ʼ

NATIONAL COMMUNITY

SpaceX engineer Anna Menon will be among the crew of a unique space mission announced by US billion-

aire Jared Isaacman, who last year led the world’s first all-private space crew into orbit.

Anna Menon, the wife of Indian-ori-gin physician Anil Menon, is a Lead Space Operations Engineer at SpaceX, where she manages the development of crew opera-tions and serves in mission control as both a Mission Director and crew communica-tor, SpaceX release said on Monday.

Isaacman, the founder and CEO of American payment processing company Shift4, who had commanded the Inspira-tion4 mission, announced the Polaris Pro-gram, “a first-of-its-kind effort to rapid-ly advance human spaceflight capabilities while continuing to raise funds and aware-ness for important causes here on Earth.”

Polaris Dawn is targeted to launch no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2022 from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Flor-ida. In addition to Isaacman, the crew includes Menon, a veteran member of

Isaacman’s team Scott Poteet and SpaceX employee Sarah Gillis. On the mission, Menon will be acting as a Mission Spe-cialist and Medical Officer.

During her tenure at SpaceX, Anna Menon has led the implementation of Dragon’s crew capabilities, helped cre-

ate the crew communicator operator role, and developed critical operational responses to vehicle emergencies, such as a fire or cabin depressurization. The engi-neer has also served in mission control during multiple cargoes and crew Drag-on missions, including Demo-2, Crew-1,

SpaceX engineer Anna Menon part of Polaris Dawn mission

(Pho

to c

ourt

esy:

PT

I)

CRS-22, and CRS-23. Prior to SpaceX, she worked for seven years at Nasa as a bio-medical flight controller for the Interna-tional Space Station. Menon is also Lieu-tenant Colonel at the US Air Force, who was selected by Nasa in December last year along with nine others to be astro-nauts for future missions.

In addition to pursuing her lifelong passion for space, Anna enjoys hiking, flying small airplanes, and salsa dancing and her greatest love is her family, includ-ing husband Anil, son James, and daugh-ter Grace.

Anil Menon, 45, was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Ukrainian and Indian immigrants. He was SpaceX’s first flight surgeon, helping to launch the company’s first humans to space during Nasa’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission and build-ing a medical organization to support the human system during future missions. He previously served Nasa as the crew flight surgeon for various expeditions taking astronauts to the International Space Station.

Five South Asian-origin scholars win 2022 Sloan Research Fellowship

Four Indian-origin scien-tists and one Nepal-origin scientist have been select-

ed for the prestigious Sloan fel-lowship awarded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. They are among 118 winners of the 2022 Sloan Research Fellowships announced on Feb 15.

“These 118 early-career schol-ars represent the most promis-ing scientific researchers work-ing today,” the Sloan Foundation said. “Their achievements and potential place them among the next generation of scientific leaders in the US and Canada.”

Deep Jariwala is an Assis-tant Professor in Department of Electrical and Systems Engi-neering at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn), which he joined in 2018 and where he started his own group. A grad-uate in Metallurgical Engineer-ing from the Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, he earned further degrees from top US universi-ties, Northwestern University and Caltech. Jariwala has sev-eral patents in his name and has received numerous awards through his career. His research

UMD website says. A common theme across these diverse sys-tems is that many of these are plagued with hard to model rare events. Tiwary has received numerous major recognitions and honors including Open-Eye Outstanding Junior Facul-ty Award, American Chemical Society, 2021; National Science Foundation Career Award, 2021; National Institutes of Health R35 Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA), 2021, among many others. After grad-uating from India, Prof. Tiwary got further degrees at Caltech,

the “proofs-to-algorithms” para-digm, for designing algorithms for statistical estimation prob-lems arising in areas such as machine learning and cryptog-raphy, Carnegie Mellon said in a press release. “His recent work has led to progress on long-stand-ing open questions such as find-ing an algorithm to robust-ly learn a mixture of arbitrary Gaussians and proving Feige’s conjecture in combinatorics on the length of the smallest cycle in hypergraphs,” CMU said. He earlier worked at the School of Mathematics of the Institute for Advanced Study, and was a research instructor at Princeton University.

Aparna Bhaduri, an assistant professor in biological chemis-

Winners receive $75,000, which may be spent over a two-year term on any expense that supports their research.

Indian origin researchers among the 2022 fellows include Deep M. Jariwala from Univer-sity of Pennsylvania and Praty-ush Tiwary from University of Maryland in Chemistry, Pravesh K. Kothari from Carnegie Mel-lon University in Computer Sci-ence, and Aparna Bhaduri from University of California in Neu-roscience. Nepal-origin scien-tist Prerana Shrestha of Stony Brook University won the schol-arship in Neuroscience.

interests broadly lie at the inter-section of new materials, sur-face science and solid-state devices for computing, sensing, opto-electronics and energy har-vesting applications.

Pratyush Tiwary, also a grad-uate of IIT, Banaras Hindu Uni-versity, leads his research group at University of Maryland to do inter-disciplinary theoreti-cal and computational research to model and predict thermo-dynamics, dynamics and their interplay in complex real-world systems, relevant to pharma-ceutical, chemical and materi-als sciences, his profile on the

and earned two Postdoctoral fel-lowships, one at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Bio-sciences, ETH Zurich, and the other at Columbia University.

Professor Pravesh K. Kothari of Carnegie Mellon Universi-ty works broadly in the field of theoretical computer science and its interactions with allied areas such as high-dimensional probability and statistical esti-mation. Kothari is a graduate of IIT, Kanpur, and went on to get his PhD in Theoretical Com-puter Science at the University of Texas at Austin. His research develops a new approach, called

try at UCLA, received her B.S. in Biochemistry and Cell Biolo-gy and B.A. in Political Science from Rice University in 2007. She did her doctoral work in Cancer Biology at Stanford Uni-versity working with Dr. Paul Khavari where she studied epi-dermal differentiation and epi-thelial cancers. While she was a graduate student, she devel-oped her bioinformatic skill set as well as an appreciation for the inverse roles of development and cancer. As a postdoc, she used single-cell RNA-sequenc-ing to characterize the develop-ing human brain and to com-

pare these developmental time points to cortical organoid mod-els of development and glio-blastoma brain tumors. She has received several awards includ-ing the 2022 Allen Institute Next Generation Leaders Advisory Council membership; For Wom-en in Science Fellowship, L’Ore-al and AAAS; and the 2019 K99/R00 Transition to Independence Award.

Prerana Shrestha of Stony Brook University in New York is an assistant professor at the Department of neurobiology and Behavior. She received her B.S. in Biological Chemistry Mag-na cum laude from Bates College and her Ph.D. in Life Sciences from The Rockefeller Univer-sity. Shrestha has done origi-

nal research in the study of the prefrontal cortex and behavior among mice. During her post-doctoral fellowship with Eric Klann at New York University, she developed genetically encod-ed cell-type specific protein syn-thesis inhibitors and studied the role of de novo protein synthe-sis in specific neuronal popula-tions in amygdala during consol-idation of emotional memories. Her laboratory is focused on studying the dynamics of pro-tein synthesis regulation in memory systems. She received the NARSAD Young investigator award in 2017.

Professor Deep M. Jariwala (Photo: iitbhufoundation.org)

Professor Pratyush Tiwary (Photo: chem.umd.edu)

Professor Pravesh K. Kothari (Photo: csd.cmu.edu)

Professor Aparna Bhaduri (Photo: biolchem.ucla.edu)

Professor Prerena Shrestha (Photo: stonybrook.edu)

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 13NATIONAL COMMUNITY10 January 15-21, 2022 TheSouthAsianTimes.infoUS AFFA IRS

Atlanta: President Joe Biden challengedsenators Tuesday to “stand against votersuppression” by changing Senate rules topass voting rights legislat ion thatRepublicans are blocking from debate andvotes.

Biden told a crowd in Atlanta that heʼdbeen having quiet conversations with sena‑tors for months over the two bills ̶ a lackof progress that has brought him criticismfrom activists in his own party. “Iʼm tired ofbeing quiet!” he shouted to cheers from thecrowd.

Biden chastised Republicans for falling inline behind Trumpʼs election lies. “Today,we call on Congress to get done what histo‑ry will judge,” Biden said. “Pass the freedomto vote act.”

Current rules require 60 votes to advancemost legislation ̶ a threshold that SenateDemocrats canʼt meet alone because theyhave just a 50‑50 majority with VicePresident Kamala Harris to break ties.

“Not a single Republican has displayedthe courage to stand up to a defeated presi‑dent to protect Americansʼ right to vote,”Biden said. “Not one. Not one.”

Congressional Democrats have writtenvoting legislation that would usher in thebiggest overhaul of U.S. elections in a gen‑eration by striking down hurdles to votingenacted in the name of election security.The legislation also would reduce the influ‑ence of big money in politics and limit par‑tisan influence over the drawing of con‑gressional districts.

Washington DC: Members of Congress,police officers, and government watch‑dog groups argued in federal court onJanuary 10 that Donald Trump was liablefor major financial damages for his rolein inspiring the Jan. 6 attack onCongress, pressing an array of civil suitsagainst the former president amidmounting frustration that he has facedno penalty for the riot.

Over nearly five hours in the U.S.District Court for Washington, lawyerslaid out their cases against Trump, con‑tending that he deserved to be held

responsible for inflaming a violent mob,despite what are typically wide immunityprotections for a presidentʼs speech andactions while in office.

“Mr. Trump dispatched the crowd thathe assembled,” said Joseph Sellers, thelawyer for a group of House Democrats.“After he saw that they were engaged inbreaking into the Capitol, instead of try‑ing to calm them, he retweeted his incen‑diary remarks from the rally before.”

Judge Amit P. Mehta asked lawyers forTrump whether the presidentʼs slowresponse was not evidenced he agreed

with the siege afterte ll ing the crowd to“fight l ike hell” andmarch to the Capitol.

Trumpʼs lawyer, JesseR. Binnall, argued thatthe suits should be dis‑missed because hisremarks inflaming thecrowd were protectedby presidential immuni‑ty and his FirstAmendment right to freespeech. He asserted thatTrump had told thecrowd to “peacefully andpatriotically” march onthe Capitol.

Republicansunanimouslyoppose the

voting rights

measures. (Image

Courtesy: ABC

Chicago)

During a hearing over whether the suits can moveforward, Judge Amit P. Mehta focused on why

Trump did not act more quickly tocall off the mob. (Image Courtesy: USA Today)

Civil Suits Against Trump SeekDamages for Jan. 6 Attack

Biden challenges Senate on voting:ʻTired of being quiet!ʼThree students of South

Asian heritage from around the U.S., are

among the 23 winners of the 2022 Gates Cambridge Scholars announced on Feb 9.

Nisita Dutta who will be pur-suing Chemistry at Cambridge’s St. Catharines College, Maya Juman, a PhD student in Biolog-ical Sciences who will join the Department of Veterinary Med-icine at Selwyn College, Cam-bridge, and Anjali Kantharuban who will pursue her M.Phil in Theoretical and Applied Lin-guistics at Churchill College, are among those named for the pres-tigious scholarship.

Juman, who did Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Yale University, grew up in New York City and South India. That background, she said, made her develop, “a lifelong appreciation for biodiversity and curiosity about global change.”

At Yale University, she con-ducted research on South and Southeast Asian mammal bioge-ography.

Upon graduating in 2020, she worked on COVID-19 response at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. “My academic and work experiences have led

me to explore the human-wild-life interface where viral spillo-ver occurs,” she says in a brief account on the Gates Cambridge website.

She is completing a Fulbright fellowship studying deforest-ation in Malaysia, on comple-tion of which she will be doing her PhD from Cambridge. “My research employs a One Health approach to modeling anthropo-genic drivers of zoonotic emer-gence from bat populations,” an area of study which she says will inform solutions to both biodiversity loss and future pan-demics, particularly in regions with threatened habitats, high spillover risk, and limited health infrastructure.

For Dutta, when a close fam-ily member was diagnosed with breast cancer, she was con-sumed with fear and concern.

During her undergraduate years at Johns Hopkins Univer-sity (JHU), she started to chan-nel those feelings into the chem-istry, biology, and mathematics that she said she had become so familiar with. Through her Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChemBE) degree, she realized she could use the skills learned “to combine my

passions in research, engineer-ing, and medicine to design effective chemotherapy delivery methods that can help alleviate cancer patients’ pain.”

After earning her master’s degree in ChemBE at JHU, she started medical school at the University of Maryland Medical Scientist Training Program she expanded her interests in not only patient care, but in teach-ing, mentoring, and medical education as well.

For her PhD, she will be working to create novel nano-body-drug conjugates to treat pancreatic cancer in an inter-national collaboration between the Cambridge Department of Chemistry and the National Institutes of Health.

Kantharuban is a Univesi-

ty of California, Berkeley grad-uate in Computer Science and Linguistics. A first-generation immigrant in California, Kan-thuruban says, “As a non-stand-ard dialect speaker, I have seen first-hand how globalized com-munication has intensified pres-sures to convert to specific lan-guages in exchange for economic reward.”

While getting her bachelors, “I was exposed to natural lan-guage processing and its capac-ity to make information and tools more broadly accessible by allowing interactions with tech-nology to take place in human languages.” At the same time, she noticed that the field still pri-marily focuses on a small set of languages.

“My goal is to make natu-

ral language processing equal-ly functional for all languages, in all their variations, to prevent a further loss of linguistic and cul-tural diversity,” she says. “Spe-cifically, I want to create natural language interfaces for computa-tional systems so minority lan-guage speakers can use them without altering their method of communication.” Kantharuban can speak and has taught Tamil to kindergarteners, according to her Linkedin profile.

The Gates Cambridge Trust was established in October 2000 by a donation of US$210m from the Gates Foundation to the University of Cambridge. This remains the largest sin-gle donation to a UK universi-ty, the Gatescambridge.org web-site says.

Three Indian-origin students among 2022 Gates Cambridge Scholars

Maya Juman; Nisita Dutta; Anjali Kantharuban (Photos: Gatescambridge.org)

14 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM NATIONAL COMMUNITY

Virginia professor writes on social impact of the Delhi Metro

Indian American Rashmi Sadana, an associate professor of anthropology at Virginia’s George Mason Universi-

ty, has written a book on the Delhi Metro. Sadana spent five years in India on teach-ing assignments in New Delhi and Chen-nai but most of them in the national cap-ital, extensively travelling on the system and sharing the “experiences of Metro riders and how those experiences inter-sect with larger issues of urban planning in Delhi”.

Her book, Metronama, is published by Lotus/Roli books. The 264-page book com-prises 75 short stories or “scenes” so that “readers can read (it) in little bits, scene-by-scene”, Sadana said.

“The idea for the book came when I first rode the Delhi Metro in 2006. I was a joy-rider like so many others but also an urban anthropologist. I immediately knew the Metro would be my next project. It was a real “a-ha” moment. I thought, this Metro is going to be a game-changer for so many people in the city, and it’s also going to change how the city looks and feels,” the Indian American said.

“I knew that I wanted to research and write about the social impact the Met-ro would have. As a woman who has gone around Delhi on foot, in auto rickshaws,

in buses, and in cars for decades, I also knew that for women especially this was going to increase their sense of mobili-ty and freedom in the city. That was excit-ing,” Sadana, an urban anthropologist, added.

Delhi, she said, “is often portrayed either as a rich city of powerful bureau-crats and politicians or as a poor city of slum dwellers” and so she focused on “the in-between sectors and their social mobil-ity and aspirations. We hear a lot about the aspiring middle classes in India, and those are the kinds of people who I talked to on the trains”.

She also studied the metro as it was expanding, describing the physical impact that each new construction phase of the metro had on “a changing city on the move”.

“What I loved most about writing this book was how it enabled me to write about so many parts of the city, such as Lajpat Nagar (where I lived when I was doing the research for the book), Defence Colony, Greater Kailash, Hauz Khas, Jangpura, Nehru Place, Okhla, Mandi House, Dwarka, Old Delhi, Vasant Kunj, Saket, and metro stations all the way to the ends of the lines in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, including Noida and Gur-

ugram.“I covered posh and less posh areas,

formal colonies and informal settlements, crowded and less crowded places. In some scenes in the book, I’m sitting talking to someone in Dilli Haat or at a Cafe Cof-fee Day in Connaught Place or South Ex, and in others I’m walking in the lanes of Trilokpuri or am sitting outside next to cow dung patties in Mundka. This is Del-hi, and the book shows how all these plac-es are connected,” Sadana explained.

“For some Dilliwalas, the novelty of riding the Metro came from the fact that it was in India, and they could compare it to what they had only ever experienced abroad, in cities like London or Singa-pore. For most in the city, it was their first experience of high-speed under-ground rail travel. For still others, it was the first time they had ridden an escala-tor. For all, the system had rearranged city space and their experience of time. In this solid state-of-art structure, a new form of fleetingness took shape, a multi-tude of instances, a moving city,” Sada-na writes.

Describing Delhi as a “desert city inside a bowl” on the vast Indo-Gangetic Plain, she writes: “The Aravali mountain range lies to the southwest of the city, gaining stature as it breaks away from the Ridge, a monkey-filled forested area in North Delhi where people stroll in the mornings and evenings, sticks in hand. With the Ridge and the city’s many parks and green spaces, Delhi can feel both lush and dry depending on the season and where you are in the city. Delhi has the largest square acreage of any city in India, incorporating villages and wildlife, as well as diverse sensibilities, from rural mind-sets to middle-class aspirations and globalized consumerism. The metro joins and cuts across these spaces.”

Then, the metro “makes a private relationship public, as public transport is also a moving picture of social rela-tionships, sometimes laid bare. In this case, where Metro and digital platforms intersect, there is a capacity of the met-

ro as a public space to spark debate on issues that on the surface have nothing to do with the transport. Yet two mobil-ities, two kinds of movement are for an instant juxtaposed and captured on film. And with it, the great anxiety that exists about who is moving up in the world and who is staying in place”, Sadana writes.

What unfolds in the space of the met-ro “is not just a blurring of the static and kinetic, but a relationship between them, a meeting of multiple mobilities” and yet not quite a “cultural” experience in the way some streets and bazaars are.

“There are more things that you can-not do (spit, smoke, eat) than you can do. And there are those things you are told not to do (stop the door with your hand, take photographs, befriend strangers) than you do. It is a public space and yet still a space apart,” Sadana points out.

“The form of the book mimics the stops and starts of the metro itself. My point is to relay the brevity and quick-ness of metro rides alongside the heav-iness and depth of such a transport infrastructure. So, in a way, readers will experience the book as people in Delhi experience the metro,” Sadana conclud-ed. (IANS)

Vidyaranya Kannada Kuta, a not-for-profit organization catering to the needs of Kannada speaking commu-

nity in Chicago and nearby areas, held its first cultural event of the year to celebrate its Golden Jubilee and Sankranti festival, on Feb 5.

Due to the prevailing Covid situation the cultural part of the program was conduct-ed virtually and was relayed live via their YouTube channel, a press release from the organization said.

This year Vidyaranya Kannada Kuta is reaching a milestone in its history, cele-brating its Golden Jubilee. Founded in 1972 by just a few families, VKK is now the only organization in the Chicago area which serves the cultural, educational, charita-ble and networking needs of the Kannada speaking population.

The cultural program included perfor-mances from adults and kids who are part of the organization.

Vidyaranya Kannada Kuta in Chicago celebrates Sankranti festivalThe Consulate General of India in Chi-

cago conveyed a special message by Consul for press, information & culture Ranjit Sin-gh, congratulating the organization during the festival and for the Golden Jubilee cele-bration.

The highlight of the celebration was the release of a theme song and emblem to mark the Golden Jubilee occasion. This was pro-duced by eminent Kannada actor, director, theater personality T.S. Nagabharana.

Nagabharana, who is also the presi-dent of the Kannada Development Author-ity of the Karnataka Government, praised the efforts of the Vidyaranya Kannada Kuta in nurturing the culture and literature for the Kannada speaking population abroad. He also spoke about the Kannada school for kids in the area.

The event also featured a live saxophone performance from India by Vidwan Sridhar Sagar and his party, engaging the viewers with his multi-genre musical concert.

“The form of the book mimics the stops and starts of the metro itself. My point is to relay the brevity and quickness of metro rides alongside the heaviness and depth of such a transport infrastructure. So, in a way, readers will experience the book as people in Delhi experience the metro”- Rashmi Sadana

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 15DIASpORA

The Rajkot resident, who suffered a brain stroke on board an Air India

flight from Delhi to Chicago last November and had to spend close to two months in Stockholm where the pilots diverted the flight to, is doing well now. She has even started walking again.

The senior citizen couple had been on their way to attend their son’s wedding in the US when the midair emergency happened. Instead, they wound up at the Karolinska hospital in Stock-holm.

In a gesture of gratitude, Usha and Dr Jaysukh Makwana shared a video of the recovery made by Usha, 63, with Indian families in the Swedish capital last weekend. It was the mag-nanimity of the desi diaspora, Indian embassy officials and the hospital staff that had kept the couple afloat.

After the stroke in Novem-ber, she couldn’t move, have food or water. Now she can do all of

that and even walk 50-100 steps,” Usha’s husband Dr Makwana said. “My wife’s two-month hos-pital stay would have overshot our medical insurance cover-age limit. But the hospital didn’t charge a penny,” said Dr Mak-wana.

The hospital is linked to the Karolinska Institute, the med-ical university which awards the Nobel prize for physiology or medicine every year. Once Usha was better, the couple had to cancel plans to return thrice: twice because airlines—a Swed-

ish and a Middle Eastern carri-er—denied them boarding over her medical condition.

The third time, Usha tested positive for Covid a day before the trip. Each time, the hospi-tal re-admitted her and took the opportunity to rehabilitate her, said Dr Makwana.

Stockholm-based Indranil Sinha, one of the first to help the Makwanas, said Indian families had rallied around. “The fami-lies formed a WhatsApp group to coordinate and every day, a vege-tarian tiffin would be sent to the hospital for Dr Makwana,” said Sinha. Dr Makwana acknowl-edged the generosity. “About 12-13 families sent food and hosted me. Tiffins came from families belonging to Maharashtra, MP, Gujarat, Bengal, Haryana and other Indian states.”

In January, when they board-ed a flight to Delhi, the manag-er of the Karolinska hospital’s rehab station drove them to the airport.

Rajkot woman who suffered stroke on US flight recovers, thanks diaspora

India's Foreign Minister S Jaishankar met Indian dias-pora in Australia and appre-

ciated their contribution in shaping India's image on the for-eign land.

The Union Minister was in Australia from Feb 10 to 13 to represent India in the 4th Quad Foreign Minister's meet. Quad is a strategic security dialogue between the United States of America, India, Japan and Aus-tralia that is maintained by talks between member coun-tries. This was Jaishankar’s

first visit to Australia as the External Affairs Minister.

"So appropriate to conclude my Melbourne visit meeting the Indian community. Their role in shaping India's positive image is commendable. Key partners in this new phase of our ties," Jais-hankar tweeted.

Melbourne has a lively Indi-an population. 3% of India-born migrants make up for the city's population. The population of the Indian diaspora has almost tripled since the start of the cen-tury, 2001.

Foreign minister Jaishankar meets Indian diaspora in Australia

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The flight ticket prices from Ukraine have sky-rocketed, forcing Indian

students to stay put despite an advisory by the Indian govern-ment. The Indian embassy in Ukraine advised Indian citizens, especially the students, to tem-porarily leave that country in view of the uncertainties due to the Russian military buildup at the borders.

The Indian government is looking into expanding the num-ber of flights between the two countries to make it easier for Indians to return home. Discus-sions are underway with civil aviation authorities and various airlines on how to increase the number of flights between India and Ukraine, official sources said.

However, many students are unable to return due to skyrock-eting flight ticket prices. The

High airfare holding Indian students back in Ukraine

High Commission of India in Ottawa has issued an advisory for the Indi-

an citizens in Canada and ones planning travel to Canada.

Ottawa and several other major cities including Toron-to have been hit with protests, road blockages, demonstrations, large gatherings and gener-al strikes resulting disruptions to traffic, public transporta-tion and shortages of essential items, including food and water.

As a result of the prevailing situation, the City of Ottawa has declared a state of emergen-

cy. Local authorities in oth-er major cities of Canada may also impose curfews or other restrictions at short notice with the likelihood of continued impacts on traffic and services.

"Keeping in mind the ongo-ing situation, Indian citizens in Canada and those planning to visit Canada are hereby advised to exercise a high degree of caution and remain alert; avoid areas where demonstrations and large gatherings are tak-ing place, such as downtown Ottawa; follow the instructions of local authorities, includ-

Travel advisory for diaspora in Canada amid truckers' protesting curfews; and monitor local media for information on ongo-ing demonstrations and the evolving situation," the adviso-ry said.

Indian citizens in Canada are also encouraged to register with the High Commission of India in Ottawa or Consulates of India in Toronto and Vancouver through their websites, or the MADAD portal madad.gov.in

Registration would enable the High Commission and the Consulates to better connect with Indian citizens in Canada in the event of an emergency.

flight ticket prices have risen from Rs 50,000 to over Rs 70,000 and the students say it is this financial hurdle that is forc-ing them to stay put despite the advisory by the Indian govern-

ment. On normal days, the flight tickets would cost Rs 21,000-Rs 26,000. But now, due to the Rus-sia-Ukraine tensions, the rates have jacked up.

"Travel agents are exploiting

the situation to mint money. We don't have so much money. The news of this Russian-Ukraine conflict allowed them to push flight ticket booking charges cit-ing the troubled situation over here, what can we do? We can-not afford this," said a medical student in the Ukrainian capi-tal, Kyiv.

"The Indian embassy issued an advisory, telling us to leave the country (Ukraine) temporar-ily, but how? That's the question and we have not been answered by them," said another medical student.

A small but vibrant Indian community lives in Ukraine, comprising mostly business pro-fessionals and students. About 18,000 Indian students are stud-ying in Ukraine, mainly in the field of medicine. Indian busi-ness professionals work predom-inantly in the fields of phar-

maceuticals, IT, engineering, medicine, education, etc.

“India Club, founded by Indian ex-pats in 2001, actively engages the Indian diaspora in Ukraine and organizes/supports several events – such as Diwa-li festival, cricket tournaments, Holi festival, Indian dance fes-tival, screening of Bollywood movies, etc.," informed the Min-istry of External Affairs.

A delegation of parents of the students from Gujarat approached Chief Minister Bhu-pendra Patel and asked for help to make a safe passage for their children staying in Ukraine to return home.

The Ministry of External Affairs has activated helpline numbers and emails so that Indian nationals in Ukraine can contact the embassy when required. (with inputs from PTI)

16 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM US

Congressman Ro Khanna’s book on digital age creates buzzIndian-American Congress-

man Ro Khanna’s book on the digital age has been getting

rave reviews and accolades from the top American politicians and global economists. The book, Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us, seeks to democratize the digital revolu-tion in the larger good of human-ity and the planet.

In his rare foreword to a book, eminent economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen writes that Khanna offers a graceful pic-ture of the coexistence of dispa-rate ways of living, allowing jus-tice and fairness. Sen describes

ters a nucleus of tech jobs with myriad applications for differ-ent industries and local entre-preneurs in thousands of rural and underrepresented commu-nities across our nation.”

“The digital revolution is reshaping our economy and society, but it continues to side-line, exclude, upend, and manip-ulate too many in the process. My aim is to advance our demo-cratic values by empowering all of us to direct and steer these digital forces,” wrote the Con-gressman who represents Sil-icon Valley in the US House of Representatives.

together to make them a reality and spread the benefits of tech-nology to every American,” he wrote in his tweet.

Khanna, the three-term Congressman from Califor-nia, writes that the book ima-gines how the digital econo-my can create opportunities for people where they live instead of uprooting them. It offers a vision for decentralizing digi-tal innovation and wealth gen-eration to build economically vibrant and inclusive commu-nities that are connected to each other, he wrote. “We need a development strategy that fos-

45-year-old Khanna, a Democrat-ic politician, as an “innovative social thinker”.

The book, which hit the bookstores early this month, has climbed up the best sellers' list and has received accolades from the tech industry as well, including Microsoft CEO Sat-ya Nadella. “Whether we con-sider the future of America, or of other places, we have reason to be grateful to Ro Khanna,” he writes in the book.

Former US president Bill Clinton tweeted that ‘Dignity in a Digital Age’ is full of good ide-as for creating opportunities in places across America that have been left out and left behind for too long. “We should all work

Ro Khanna (Photo courtesy: Twitter)

India reaches out to American mayors, governors to build people-to-people relationship

With a view to enhanc-ing localized ties and people-to-people rela-

tionships, Indian Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu has stepped up interactions with local city mayors and governors across the US.

Ambassador Sandhu has met three dominant mayors in the last fortnight, apart from engag-ing senior American adminis-

tration officials and over 40 of the 50 state governors.

The Indian diplomatic mis-sion’s special efforts in its out-reach to local administrations assumes significance in the context of the growing clout of elected representatives in pow-erful metropolises - New York, Los Angeles and Chicago - in domestic and national politics. Affirming this trend, US Presi-

dent Joe Biden has now nomi-nated Los Angeles City Mayor Eric Garcetti as his ambassador to India.

Last month, Sandhu met New York Mayor Eric Adams. Dur-ing his Jan 30 meet with Adams, Sandhu congratulated him on his historic election as New York City's Mayor. He thanked the Mayor for his support to the India-US partnership and

to the Indian diaspora in New York. Sandhu and the mayor held discussion on further bol-stering the strong partnership between India and the City of New York with special emphasis on key areas including afforda-ble health care, renewable ener-gy, new and emerging technol-ogy, education and knowledge partnership, IT and fintech and space.Taranjit Singh Sandhu. (File photo)

Jury rules against Palin in libel lawsuit against new York Times

A US jury on Tuesday rejected for-mer vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's claim that the New

York Times had intentionally defamed her in a 2017 editorial. The New York jurors ruled in the newspaper's favor a day after the judge presiding over the case said he would dismiss the libel law-suit irrespective of their verdict.

The civil trial was viewed by legal experts as a test case for the US Consti-tution's First Amendment that protects free speech and journalistic freedom

of expression. The bar to prove defa-mation in the United States is high, due to a famous 1964 Supreme Court ruling known as the New York Times v. Sullivan. A plaintiff needs to show that the defend-ant intended to cause harm. It is not suf-ficient to demonstrate that an error was made. The ruling shields journalists from liability if they make unintention-al errors.

District Judge Jed Rakoff had said on Monday that he would toss out the case because Palin's lawyers had failed to prove that the Times had acted with actual malice. He added that he would allow the jury to reach a verdict anyway because it would "greatly benefit" a court when it hears Palin's likely appeal.

The editorial linked a 2011 shooting in Arizona that wounded lawmaker Gabri-elle Giffords and killed six others with an ad run by Palin's political action com-mittee. The ad, which ran shortly before the attack, showed Gifford's congression-al district in the crosshairs of a firearm. The Times corrected the editorial the next day, saying there was nothing that could demonstrate that the perpetrator had been driven to act by that controver-sial ad.

Palin, a former governor of Alaska, was Republican candidate John McCain's running mate during his 2008 election defeat to Barack Obama.

Sarah Palin

George Floyd killing: Second officer testifies in federal trial

Two of the three Minneapolis police officers charged with federal civil rights violations in George Floyd’s

killing, which triggered global protests and a re-examination of racism and polic-ing in the United States, took the stand on Wednesday at their trial.

J Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao are charged with violat-ing Floyd’s constitutional rights when Officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for more than nine min-utes as the 46-year-old Black man was handcuffed, face down on the street.

Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back. Lane held his legs and Thao kept bystanders back. Kueng was the second of the for-mer officers to testify on Wednesday. Ear-lier, Thao testified that he knew Floyd’s pleas that he could not breathe were becoming weaker, but still did not realize Floyd was in danger even as bystanders became increasingly vocal.

Under cross-examination by prose-cutor LeeAnn Bell, Thao said he did not relay any of the onlookers’ concerns about Floyd’s wellbeing to the other officers and did not check his pulse after bystanders asked him to.

He said he was relying on the oth-er three officers at the scene to care for Floyd’s medical needs while he controlled the crowd and traffic and that he did not think Chauvin’s knee was on Floyd’s tra-chea.

Thao, Kueng, and Lane are accused of depriving Floyd of medical care. Kueng and Thao are further accused of failing to intervene to stop the killing.

Prosecutors rested their case on Mon-day after calling to the stand doctors, police officers and bystanders to build an argument that the officers should have intervened to stop Chauvin and that they violated their training by not rolling Floyd onto his side so he could breathe, or giving him CPR as soon as he stopped breathing and they could not find a pulse.

Defense lawyers are seeking to show that the Minneapolis Police Department provided inadequate training and taught cadets to obey superiors. Chauvin, who was convicted of state murder and man-slaughter charges last year, was the most senior officer at the scene.

Former Minneapolis police officers J Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao are accused of depriving Floyd of medical care (File: Hennepin County Sheriff's Office via AP)

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 17US

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The families of the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre reached a $73 mil-lion settlement on Feb 15 with the

now-bankrupt Remington Arms, which man-ufactures the Bushmaster AR-15 style rifle.

The settlement, reached with the fami-lies of five children and four adults who were killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Ele-mentary School, draws in all four of Rem-ington’s insurers and allows the families to share thousands of pages of company docu-ments it obtained during discovery — provi-sions that legal experts and attorneys for the families say represent a landmark victory in forcing a gun manufacturer to face responsi-bility for how it markets its products.

The eight-year-long legal battle began two years after shooter Adam Lanza tore through

Britain’s Prince Andrew has set-tled a civil sexual assault case brought against him in the US

by Virginia Giuffre, who says she was trafficked to him by financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Giuffre, now a 38-year-old moth-er living in Australia, alleged that she was forced to have sexual encounters with Andrew in New York, in London and on Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean in the early 2000s, when she was 17. Andrew has repeatedly denied the allegations.

A letter filed to the US district court on Tuesday said the duke and Giuffre had reached an out-of-court settlement. It said the duke - who makes no admission of liabili-ty - would pay an undisclosed sum to Giuffre.

In a letter to US judge Lewis A Kaplan, Giuffre's lawyer David Boies wrote jointly with Prince Andrew's lawyers to say the pair had reached "a settlement in principle".

A statement included with the let-ter read: "The parties will file a stipu-lated dismissal upon Giuffre's receipt of the settlement (the sum of which is not being disclosed)." It said the duke would make a "substantial donation to Giuffre's charity in support of vic-tims' rights".

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ed, had "never intended to malign Giuffre's character" and he recog-nized she had "suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks".

The duke also pledged to "demon-strate his regret for his association" with the late convicted sex offend-er Epstein by supporting the "fight against the evils of sex traffick-ing, and by supporting its victims". He also commended the "bravery of Giuffre and other survivors in stand-ing up for themselves and others".

Prince Andrew's lawyers had previously said he was ready to go before a jury to fight Giuffre's claims, with a trial expected later this year. His representatives said he had no comment beyond what was said in the document filed to the court.

Prince Andrew settles US civil sex assault case with Virginia Giuffre

Prince Andrew

Families of Sandy Hook victims settle with Remington in landmark agreement

the Newtown, Connect-icut, elementary school with a high-powered rifle and killed 26 peo-ple, including 20 young children.

“They had the moti-vation to do whatev-er they could … so that other families — wheth-er they are in a sub-urb or township or city — would not have to go through the kind of pain and the loss that they had,” Joshua Kosk-off, an attorney for the

families, said during a Tuesday news confer-ence. Crucially, the settlement also provides a framework for how to pursue legal action against gun manufacturers that have for dec-ades enjoyed broad protection from lawsuits under a federal shield law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that grants gun manufacturers broad immunity from lawsuits.

Koskoff said the settlement sends a signal to gunmakers that they cannot act with impu-nity and clearly “have skin in the game.”

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong (D), who in 2017 filed an amicus brief in the state Supreme Court in support of the Sandy Hook families, said in a statement that the families showed the gun industry is not above the law.

18 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM INDIA

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At least 13 people have died after falling into a well on Feb 16 dur-

ing a wedding ceremony in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Two more people have been injured in the accident, which took place in Kushinagar district.

Police said the victims - all women and children - were sitting on a metal slab cover-ing the well when it collapsed under their weight. Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi called the

deaths "heart-wrenching". UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath has asked district authorities to assist the families of the vic-tims.

The tragedy took place on Wednesday evening during the traditional "haldi" ceremo-ny. When the slab broke, oth-er guests ran to rescue the vic-tims and took them to a nearby hospital. While 11 people were declared dead immediately, two others died later during treat-ment, police said.

Uttar Pradesh: 13 dead after falling into well in Kushinagar

The guests were sitting on a metal slab covering the well (Photo courtesy: ANI)

Citing a threat to national security, the Indian gov-ernment has banned 54

Chinese apps on Monday, tak-ing the total number of Chinese apps banned in India to 278.

In June 2020, the government had first banned 59 Chinese apps, which included TikTok, WeChat, and Helo, while the last ban order on Chinese apps was issued in Sept 2020 covering 118 apps including PUBG.

The Feb 14 ban order cov-ers apps such as Beauty Cam-era: Sweet Selfie HD, Beauty Camera-Selfie Camera, Equaliz-er & Bass Booster, CamCard for

The United Kingdom raised the issue of financial restrictions placed on

Oxfam in India during an offi-cial talk held last week between British permanent home sec-retary Matthew Rycroft and India's union home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla. India is reported to have apprised Brit-ish officials of the "procedures for renewal" of the license.

Oxfam India is among the 6,000 NGOs that lost authoriza-tion under India's Foreign Con-

India's curbs on NGOs draw international attention

tribution Regulation Act (FCRA) on Jan 1, barring them from receiving financial donations from abroad. FCRA clearanc-es are given by the union home ministry.

The Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa, was also among the organizations whose registration was refused, but a week later, home minis-try reversed course and renewed the organization’s FCRA license.

The home ministry had not given specific reasons for the

non-renewal of FCRA clear-ances of Oxfam India, Oxfam India Trust and others, but said the decision had been tak-en in "public interest". Oxfam India is one the country's larg-est NGOs.

Oxfam India's CEO Amitabh Behar had said last month that the government's decision would "severely affect the ongo-ing humanitarian and social work in 16 states across the country", including the Cov-id-19 relief programs.

India bans more Chinese appsSalesForce Ent, Isoland 2: Ashes of Time Lite, Viva Video Editor, Tencent Xriver, Onmyoji Chess, Onmyoji Arena, AppLock, and Dual Space Lite among others.

The bans were triggered by the killing of 20 Indian soldiers in Galwan valley in June 2020 which also claimed the lives of an unspecified number of Chi-nese soldiers, though a recent independent report by an Aus-tralian newspaper pegs the Chi-nese casualties at 42.

Meanwhile, Beijing on Mon-day said that the blame for drag-ging the border standoff in east-ern Ladakh lay on India and

that the "responsibility does not rest with China." The Chinese foreign ministry statement came a day after the external affairs minister S Jaishankar, at a Quad meeting in Melbourne, said the current border conflict had aris-en as China disregarded "writ-ten agreements with us."

West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Monday made a clean sweep in the civic polls to four municipal corpo-

rations — Bidhannagar, Siliguri, Chandernagore and Asansol — held on Saturday. The party got control of the Siliguri municipal corporation for the first time.

In 2015, the TMC had won Asansol, Biddhan-nagar and Chandannagar civic bodies while the Left-Congress alliance the Siliguri civic body.

For Mamata Banerjee, the results are yet anoth-er affirmation of her party's dominance in the state. In December, the TMC swept the Kolka-

Despite a tough few months during the pan-demic, India contin-

ues to project the highest sala-ry increases among the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and Chi-na) nations in 2022 at 9.9%, with Brazil at 5%, Russia at 6.1% and China at 6%, shows a survey by HR Consultancy firm Aon.

Despite salary increments being the highest since 2016, India's attrition level stands at a whopping 21% — the highest in over a decade.

Whether it's remote work expanding workers' employ-ment options, the chance to increase salary or, in many cas-

The Delhi High court (HC) on Wednesday rejected a plea by brothers Sush-

il and Gopal Ansal who sought a suspension of their seven year jail term, awarded to them for tampering with evidence in the 1997 Uphaar cinema fire tragedy that claimed 59 lives.

Last year in November, the brothers, who were found guilty under sections 201 (tampering of evidence), 120B and 409 (crim-inal breach of trust by public servant) of the IPC were sen-tenced to seven years imprison-ment for evidence tampering, which had come to light in 2002. A Delhi court had also imposed a fine of Rs 2.25 crore each on the duo.

The siblings had filed a plea in the HC following the refusal of a Sessions Court to suspend the

TMC sweeps West Bengal civic bodies' pollsta Municipal Corporation elections, bagging 134 of the 144 seats, while the BJP finished with three and Congress and the Left two each. In 2021, the TMC returned to power in the state for the third time in a row by winning 203 out of the 272 seats. The BJP could manage just 77.

However, TMC is struggling with an internal feud between Mamata loyalists and her nephew Abhishek Banerjee, with poll strategist Prashant Kishor involved as well. One reason was the list of candi-dates for the civic polls. Two competing lists came out of the party, which prompted Mamata to pick a side and back the faction perceived as the old guard.

India projects highest salary increases among BRIC nations

es, employee burnout, the Great Resignation continues with employees leaving their jobs in record numbers.

Data analytics, internet, engineering and marketing are the most difficult jobs for tal-ent recruitment and retention, shows another survey by Mer-cer.

The industries with the high-est projected salary increas-es are e-commerce and venture capital at 12.4%, followed by IT at 11.6%. Sectors with the low-est projected increase include metals and mining at 8.3%, QSR Restaurants at 8.5% and cement at 8.6%.

New hires are attracting sig-nificant premiums over the career-level median salaries. From a location standpoint, while Bangalore still com-mands a significant premium for software development engi-neering roles, average high-tech salaries in Delhi and Mum-bai have started showing an upward trend due to the majori-ty of the internet / e-commerce companies being based out of these two locations.

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sentence, though it had fixed Feb 23, 2022 as the date for hearing appeals against the conviction.

Calling the brothers "pollut-ers of the judicial firmament", the Sessions Court noted that the duo "be shown no leniency" as their offence appeared to be the outcome of a calculated design to interfere with the course of justice.

The brothers were earlier con-victed by the Supreme Court in 2015 which fined them Rs 30 crore each but restricted their prison sentence — which was of two years, as awarded by a tri-al court — to the time already served in prison, which was less than six months each. It had also given them three months to pay the fine, failing which they would undergo a two year rigor-ous imprisonment.

The Uphaar Cinema fire tragedy in 1997 claimed 59 lives.

Delhi HC refuses relief to Ansal brothers in Uphaar tragedy case

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 19INDIA

In the second phase of polling in Uttar Pradesh, a turnout of over 62% was recorded while in the single-phase Uttarakhand elections, 62.5% (approx.) voters turned up to cast their vote on Monday. However, Goa saw the highest turnout at 79%, a tad low-er than the previous time’s 83%.

Meanwhile, the Samajwadi Party in UP has sent letters to the Election Commission regarding fake voting in some places, high-handedness by polling officers and inconsistent voting, with some of the charges being rub-bished by the EC. The BJP has also written a letter to the EC that the identities of Burqa-clad women were not being verified due to which fake voting was tak-ing place and that women officers were required to be stationed at the booths to check their identity.

This phase, which took place in a high minority populat-ed area, will be a sure test of whether the SP’s assumption of Muslims supporting it is true. It will also be a test of BJP’s claim that Muslim women are support-ing the party. Split of Muslim votes between the SP, BSP and Aimim resulting in gains for the BJP may be another factor to watch out for.

Residents of Narau village in Shekhupur constituency of Badaun boycotted voting to pro-test against the inflow of waste-water from a nagar palika into their villages that inundated their farms and polluted potable water, the sub-divisional magis-trate of Badaun, BP Verma said.

After polling concluded, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav exuded confidence saying that the first

two phases alone have guaran-teed a minimum of a hundred seats for the SP.

The party handle kept alert-ing the EC all day on sever-al inconsistencies noticed at many booths, also posting vid-eo statements of some voters. It also released a list of numbers SP leaders and workers could contact if they were facing any trouble while voting or saw any inconsistency at any booth.

In Uttarakhand, polling began at 8 am in all the 70 constituen-cies spread over 13 districts in the state’s plain and hilly parts. Long queues of voters were seen outside the polling booths from early morning. Voters were pro-vided hand gloves and sanitizers.

While chief minister Push-kar Singh Dhami is seeking to enter the assembly for the third

consecutive term from Khatima, Congress leader Harish Rawat is trying his luck from a new seat Lalkuan. AAP’s CM face Colo-nel (retd) Ajay Kothiyal is in the fray from Gangotri seat.

The BJP, Congress, All India

79% turnout in Goa, more than 62% in Uttarakhand and in UP phase-2

Trinamool Congress (AITC), AAP, NCP and Shiv Sena are in the fray in Goa. BJP leaders are keeping their fingers crossed as a higher turnout in the previous elections have not turned out well for the ruling party.

India on Monday said it is ready to extend its SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium

(INSACOG) network of laborato-ries for genomic sequencing and surveillance in the neighbor-

india offers genomic labs to neighborhood

hood as part of the fight against Covid-19.

This offer was extended by foreign secretary Harsh Vard-han Shringla in his intervention at the Covid-19 Global Action

Meeting convened by the US sec-retary of state Antony Blinken.

Shringla is understood to have conveyed that India will rally with like-minded partners and the WHO to improve sub-op-

timal approval and regulatory processes, which are an impedi-ment for stable and predictable supplies.

India also said that it will also work for the implementa-tion of the TRIPS waiver that it cosponsored with South Africa to diversify local manufacturing in regional markets.

As part of India’s develop-ment assistance package during the pandemic, it has conducted 17 training modules for more than 60 countries focused on the entire spectrum of Covid management.

The foreign secretary con-veyed that India will take its experience in testing, treating and vaccinating a large popu-

lation spread out in different geographies and terrains to cre-ate customized and tailor made capacity building and technical training programs for front-line and healthcare workers in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This will complement the Quad Vac-cine Partnership.

India has supplied over 162 million vaccine doses to 97 coun-tries and two UN organizations, which includes humanitari-an assistance to Myanmar and Afghanistan.

India is also collaborating with Quad partners to deliver a billion doses in the Indo-Pacif-ic region in 2022. The plan is to continue to share safe, effica-cious and affordable made-in-In-dia vaccines with countries in our region and beyond.

The oil wells run by state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corpora-tion (ONGC) on the disputed

Assam Nagaland border may soon resume operations, with the Union home ministry stepping in to resolve the controversy between the two state governments.

Union home secretary Ajay Bhal-la held discussions to allay concerns of the two states, after which teams from the Centre visited Nagaland in a bid to help resume operations, said officials. While the Assam gov-ernment has granted permission, a response from Nagaland is awaited, they said.

Home ministry officials said dif-ferences arose due to an inter-bor-der dispute between Assam and Nagaland. The chief secretaries of the two states attended the meet-ing called by Bhalla and assured that drilling operations would be resumed.

Exploration and production activ-ities were stopped at three oil wells – Khoraghat#10z, Khoraghat#48 and

Nambar#05 – in June last year by the Nagaland government for allegedly not obtaining pri-or permission before starting drilling activities. Officials said the area where the drilling wells are located has a large Naga population and is among the regions which are a matter of dis-pute between Nagaland and Assam. While Assam claims it to be its area, Nagaland says the people there are Naga speaking and hence it is part of Nagaland.

Dimapur deputy commission-er wrote a letter to ONGC in June last year, instructing it to stop oper-ations at the three wells. It said the state government had received “a report” regarding setting up of drill-ing activities at Piheku, Tokishe and Nikihe villages "which are under Dimapur district" and that ONGC

was carrying out drilling activities “without prior permission” from the Nagaland government.

Officials said the three wells were at different stages of exploration and production by ONGC but had to be halted abruptly.

The Centre also urged the two states to resolve their inter-state border issues using satellite image-ry. Both Assam and Nagaland have agreed to withdraw forces from the disputed border and monitor the area by using unmanned aerial vehi-cles and satellite imagery from the North Eastern Space Application Centre.

ONGC may resume ops after Nagaland, Assam talk peace

The Centre has constituted a Ken-Betwa Link Project Authority (KBLPA) and a 20- member national steering committee for interlinking the

two rivers. The committee will be chaired by jal shak-ti ministry secretary and will have on board secretar-ies of ministries of environment, power and tribal affairs and the Department of Expenditure secretary. Additional chief secretaries of UP and MP govern-ments, besides Central Water Commission chairman and heads of National Tiger Conservation Authority and National Waterway Development Authority and officials from state wildlife departments will be in the panel.

Those who advocate linking Ken to Betwa, tributar-ies of the Yamuna, say it would irrigate Bundelkhand. However, the project has generated controversy over possible environmental impact. It has been challenged in courts over possible displacement of inhabitants. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced Rs 44,605 crore for KBLP in the 2022 budget.

The Centre has said that the steering committee would resolve any operational issue at the implemen-tation stage. However, in case of a dispute with the committee, it would be referred to a high-level commit-tee headed by the Jal Shakti minister and concerned ministers of both states.

Central Govt constitutes Ken-Betwa Link Project Authority

20 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM

would erode Nepal’s credibility. “This grant is expected to help spur the eco-nomic growth in Nepal … We will contin-ue to hold dialogue with other coalition partners as well as other political parties to mobilize their support to present the MCC Compact in the next session of the Parliament,” he said.

SUBCONTINENT

Police used tear gas and water can-non to disperse protesters object-ing to a United States-funded infra-

structure project in Nepal, officials have said.

The US is providing a $500m grant for the construction of power transmission lines and a road improvement project, but detractors say the funds come with unacceptable conditions.

The Millennium Challenge Corpora-tion (MCC), a US government aid agency, agreed in 2017 to provide $500m in grants to fund an electricity transmission line and road improvement project in Nepal.

The proposal was scheduled to be pre-sented in Parliament for approval, but the debate was postponed because of disa-greements among political parties. There has been growing opposition to the grant, mainly led by Communist parties, who say the grant comes with conditions that are not acceptable.

Two of the Communist parties are part of the coalition government. They claim the conditions in the grant agree-ment will override Nepal’s laws and dam-age the country’s sovereignty. They say it is part of Washington’s Indo-Pacific strat-

egy, which has military components that could bring US soldiers to Nepal.

US officials have spoken to Nepalese leaders recently to assure that the grant concerns only Nepal’s development.

A few hundred protesters managed to push through the thick lines of riot police, who used bamboo batons and fired tear gas. Police also used water cannon on the protesters, who pelted them with stones.

Roads leading to the parliament build-ings were blocked for hours because of the clashes. A general strike called by the protesters also shut down schools and dis-rupted transport in the country. Police in Kathmandu detained dozens of protesters who tried to block traffic and attempted to set a taxi on fire.

Officials said they used minimum force to disperse about 3,000 protesters near par-liament in Kathmandu. “We have used minimum force to stop protesters from marching on parliament,” police spokes-man Bishnu Kumar KC told the news agency Reuters.

Washington believes that China is behind a disinformation campaign against the pact. “Should outside influence and corruption cause parliament not to rati-

Protests in Nepal against US grant, police use tear gas

Demonstrators clash with police during a protest in Kathmandu on Feb 16 (Photo courtesy: AFP)

fy, it would be deeply concerning for the US, and a loss for the people of Nepal,” a report in The Hindustan Times quoted a US State Department spokesperson as saying.

Prakash Sharan Mahat, a spokesman of the governing Nepali Congress party, said backtracking from the commitment

Hundreds of people gathered to mourn Modassar Khandaker,

a Bangladeshi immigrant in Brooklyn, and called for jus-tice, abc7ny reported on Feb 11.

Khandaker, 36, was shot during a carjacking in front of his house, at 12.45 am, a police tweet said. Khandaker, who worked at JFK Airport, had stepped out of his car on the night of Feb 9/10, when he was shot.

CBS local reported that a neighbor Nezrul Islam said he heard just one shot, and that his outdoor surveillance vid-eo captured two men, one of them wearing a mask, who Islam said, jumped into the car and drove off.

The shooting took place near the mosque that Khanda-ker attended across from his home, and mourners gathered at the spot where he was shot

Bangladeshi community in US mourn Brooklyn father murdered in carjacking

Modassar Khandaker, his wife, and son. (Photo: GoFundMe page)

dead. “I don’t know if jus-tice will be served or not, but I know one thing-that God Almighty will not spare this criminal,” the victim’s broth-er Onik Khandaker is quoted saying by news channels.

The motive for the kill-ing is not known, which is instilling fear in the commu-nity. Imam Kabir Chowdhury of Masjid Al-Aman, is quoted saying the community did not want to gather again in some other location where such a killing takes place, adding, “…something needs to happen with the mayor and the NYPD as soon as possible.”

A fundraiser has been set up in his memory by Khairul Islam on GoFundMe at “Help a devastated Ozone Park fam-ily in crisis”. As of Feb 15, $38,688 was collected towards a goal of $100,000. Donations raised are anything from $20 to $1,000.

Representatives of the Euro-pean Union and the Unit-ed States have met Talib-

an members as the group seeks to unfreeze funds to tackle Afghan-istan’s dire humanitarian crisis. The Afghan delegation led by act-ing Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Wednesday held the second day of talks with diplo-mats from 16 European countries in the Qatari capital, Doha.

“All participants pledged to make all possible efforts for the overall well-being of the Afghan people,” read a statement issued by the Taliban, adding that the in-ternational community is ready to take “effective steps in the field of humanitarian assistance”. The statements though did not provide any specific details about the steps to be taken by the inter-national community.

Thomas Niklasson, EU special representative for Afghanistan,

who also attended the talks, said that the bloc remains committed to delivering 500 million euros ($569m) in assistance through the UN and humanitarian organi-zation. The Taliban is still not recognized by any country and many of its senior officials are still under Western and UN sanctions. The country is also cut off from international financial institutions, which has triggered a banking crisis.

The talks came weeks after the armed group met Western diplomats in the Norwegian cap-ital Oslo during which the issue of human rights and the need for humanitarian aid was discussed.

Niklasson in a Twitter post added that the Taliban expressed “commitment to open primary and secondary schools for boys and girls throughout the country no later than March”.

The Taliban-led government is

gripped with a fast-deteriorating humanitarian crisis with 97% of the population at the risk of sinking below the poverty line, according to UNDP’s projection.

The group, which seized power in August last year by toppling the Western-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani, is also seeking to unfreeze billions of dollars of money by the West.

But Western countries and international financial institution have linked their release to the improvement of the country’s human rights record, especially regarding women.

Last week, US President Joe Biden said that some $7bn in Afghan reserves held in the US would be split between a fund to aid Afghanistan and to compen-sate victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. “It is not acceptable for us to spend this money on hu-manitarian aid or compensation,” Mottaqi said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

Millions of dollars in aid pledged by the West will be chan-neled through a special mecha-nism, which means the fund will not go through the government departments.

The talks come a day after am-bassadors from the six GCC Gulf states raised the issue of women’s right to work and study in their meeting with the Taliban dele-gation. Women have been barred from working in a number of sectors and high school girls are still not allowed to attend classes, though the Taliban has promised the return of girls of all ages to schools by the end of next month.

Taliban delegation holds talks with eU, US diplomats in Doha

The Taliban delegation arrives for Afghan peace talks in Doha, Qatar (Photo courtesy: AFP)

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 21INTERNATIONAL

Several beaches in Sydney, including the iconic Bon-di and Bronte, were shut

down on Thursday after a swim-mer was killed in a shark attack, the first such fatality at the city’s beaches in 59 years.

Australian authorities are searching for the white shark that mauled a man just off Little Bay in east Sydney. Simon Nel-list, a 35-year-old British man, has been named as the victim. He was a diving instructor and a

regular swimmer at the beach.Shark attacks in Sydney are

uncommon because the city has long had nets and other deter-rents in its waters. Sydney’s last shark attack claimed the life of television and radio actress Marcia Hathaway in 1963 in Middle Harbour.

On Thursday, surf lifesavers on jet skis patrolled a 15.5 mile stretch of water from Bondi in the city's east to Cronulla in the south to find the shark. Author-

ities are also using helicopters and drones.

The state government said its shark experts had estimated the predator to be a white shark "at least three meters" in length based on footage of the incident taken by a member of the pub-lic. Several passers-by who wit-nessed the scene have described a vicious and frenzied attack.

"(The person) was swimming and a shark came and attacked (them) vertically," Kris Lin-to told Nine News. "We heard a yell and turned around, it looked like a car had landed in the water, a big splash then the shark."

One man recounted how he had been fishing on the rocks when he saw the swimmer get dragged under. "It was terrible. I am shaking. I keep vomiting. It's very, very upsetting," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corpo-ration (ABC).

Authorities managed to retrieve body parts from the water two hours after the attack.

Sydney beaches close after shark mauls swimmer

Onlookers and emergency workers had gathered at the spot where the swimmer was found on Wednesday Almost 100 people have

died in landslides and flash flooding in the Bra-

zilian city of Petrópolis, officials say. The city, which is located in the mountains north of Rio de Janeiro, was hit by torrential rainfall.

Houses in hillside neighbor-hoods were destroyed and cars swept away as floodwaters raced through the city's streets. Search and rescue teams are combing the mud for survivors.

Brazil's National Civil Defense said on Twitter 24 peo-ple had been rescued alive so far, with 94 confirmed deaths. Videos shared on social media showed extensive damage and vehicles floating in the streets.

"The situation is almost like war... Cars hanging from poles, cars overturned, lots of mud and water still," Rio de Janei-ro Governor Claudio Castro told journalists.

With 35 people reported miss-ing, he said that the search and rescue efforts would continue

non-stop.Petrópolis is a popular tour-

ist destination in the hills above Rio de Janeiro which used to be the summer getaway for Brazil's monarchs in the 19th Century.

But after a month's worth of rain fell on the city in just three hours, much of its regal charm lay in ruins, with homes and shops destroyed by the flooding.

In one of the worst-hit neigh-borhoods, up to 80 houses were hit by landslides. Around 300 people are being housed in schools and shelters, and chari-ties are calling for donations of mattresses, food, clothing and face masks.

The city's mayor has declared a state of emergency. President Jair Bolsonaro, who is on an official trip to Russia, has said he will organize immediate help for the victims.

It is the latest in a series of heavy rains to hit Brazil in the past three months, which scien-tists say are being made worse by climate change.

Deadly landslides wreak havoc in Brazilian city

Deluge of rainfall causes a landslide and flooding in Petrópolis, Brazil

Kuwait's constitution-al court has overturned a law that criminalized

"imitation of the opposite sex" and was used to prosecute trans-gender people. The Gulf state's parliament amended Article 198 of the penal code in 2007 to make the offence punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine. But Wednesday's court rul-ing said the amendment violated the constitution.

Amnesty International called the development "a major break-through for transgender rights in the region".

Lynn Maalouf, the human rights group's deputy Middle East director, said the law was "deeply discriminatory, over-ly vague and never should have been accepted into law in the first place".

"The Kuwaiti authorities must now ensure that Arti-cle 198 is repealed in its entire-ty," she added. "They must also immediately halt arbitrary arrests of transgender people and drop all charges and con-

Police in Canada's capi-tal are telling protesters to "leave the area now" as

the demonstration against Cov-id restrictions continues. The warning came as the last remain-ing border blockade, at Emer-son, Manitoba, came to an end on Wednesday.

Hundreds remain in Ottawa in defiance of the newly deployed Emergencies Act. Prime Minis-ter Justin Trudeau has taken the unprecedented step of invoking emergency powers to crack down on the demonstrations.

Authorities already cleared border blockades in Coutts, Alberta; in Surrey, British Columbia; and the vital Ambassa-dor Bridge in Windsor, Ontario.

On Wednesday morning, Otta-wa police issued leaflets warning

Ottawa stand-off continues as blockades cleared

those still in the city center after nearly three weeks of demon-strations that anyone blocking the streets - or assisting those doing so - would face arrest.

"The people of Ottawa are being denied the lawful use, enjoyment and operation of their property and you are caus-ing businesses to close. That is mischief under the criminal code," the leaflets said.

Many Ottawa residents are angry about the protests, which have affected local businesses and daily life. The police chief resigned this week after mount-ing criticism over his force's handling of the demonstration.

Interim Police Steve Bell said on Wednesday that officers will "take back the entirety of the downtown core and every occu-

pied space" in the "coming days".

The new pow-ers invoked by Trudeau will be used to ban gather-ings in the parts of Ottawa most affect-ed by the protest - around Parliament Hill and nearby government build-ings and war mon-uments - and pro-hibit travel to these areas. Demonstra-tors will also be barred from bring-ing children to the

Ottawa protest. Those who do so risk incurring thousands of dollars in fines as well as poten-tial jail time. The powers will also be used to compel the pro-vision of essential services, namely tow truck drivers and companies to help remove vehi-cles from Ottawa's congested downtown.

Ottawa police have said near-ly 400 trucks are currently parked in the city center. Con-voys arrived in the city from around Canada in late Janu-ary to protest against a vaccine mandate for truckers cross-ing the US-Canada border. The demonstrations later spread and became about a wider oppo-sition to pandemic restrictions.

The prime minister has maintained he has no plans to deploy the military to remove the protesters.

victions brought against them under this transphobic law."

She called for the immediate release of Maha al-Mutairi, a 40-year-old transgender woman who was jailed and fined under the law.

In June 2020, Mutairi was summoned by authorities after she posted videos on Snapchat accusing police officers of rap-ing and beating her during a seven-month period of detention in a men's prison in 2019. Mutai-ri's case sparked an internation-al outcry and prompted Kuwaiti lawyer Ali al-Aryan to file a law-suit requesting that the amend-ment to Article 198 be repealed.

Kuwait overturns law criminalizing 'imitation of opposite sex'

Kuwaiti trans woman Maha al-Mutairi, whose case sparked an international outcry and prompted the lawsuit to repeal the 2007 amendment to Article 198

22 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM BUSINESS & ECONOMY

Rahul Bajaj, India’s auto industry veteran, died on Feb 12 in Ruby hall hospi-

tal in Pune. He was 83. He was at the helm of India’s

second largest auto company for over five decades. Under his strong leadership, Bajaj Auto reached the hearts of millions

in the country. Two-wheelers in India had been synonymous with Bajaj between 1970s and 1990s.

Born on June 30, 1938 in Kol-kata, Bajaj graduated with an Honours Degree in Economics from the prestigious St Stephen’s College, Delhi in 1958. He also had an MBA from Harvard Busi-

ness School. In 1926, Jamnalal Bajaj, Rahul Bajaj’s grandfather formed Bajaj group of compa-nies. After finishing studies, Bajaj took over as chief exec-utive officer of Bajaj Auto in 1968. Within a few years of his stint at the helm, Bajaj expand-ed into new businesses, includ-

ing cement, electrical applianc-es and scooters. The company’s most iconic scooter Bajaj Chetak became one of the most-loved two-wheelers in the country. The ‘Humara Bajaj’ advertisement became synonymous with the middle-class’ rising aspirations and hopes of a better future in

Eminent industrialist Rahul Bajaj passes away at 83

Rahul Bajaj commemorating the roll out of the 100,000th Vespa from the Bajaj Auto Akurdi plant in 1970. (Photograph: Bajaj Heritage)

the 1980s-90s.Known for his ‘frank and fear-

less’ nature, Rahul Bajaj was truly an icon who shaped the two-wheeler industry. He has nev-er shied away from making his position clear on the policy con-cerning industry and others.

Rahul Bajaj served twice as the President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), once at the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). Bajaj also served as the chairman of the erstwhile Indian Airlines. In 2001, he was awarded with Padma Bhu-shan, the third highest civilian honor in the country. He was also a former chairman of the Inter-national Business Council, World Economic Forum and a former member of the South Asia advi-sory board of Harvard Business School.

Former chairman of Turkish Air-lines Ilker Ayci has been appoint-ed Air India's new CEO and MD, the

erstwhile national carrier’s new owners the Tata Group announced.

Announcing the new appointment on Feb 15, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrase-karan said, “Ilker is an aviation indus-try leader who led Turkish Airlines to its current success during his tenure there. We are delighted to welcome Ilker to the Tata Group where he would lead Air India into the new era.”

Ilker Ayci will assume his responsi-bilities on or before 1st April 2022. He

Turkish Airlines' former chairman Ilker Ayci is new Air India CEOwas chairman of Turkish Airlines from 2015 to Jan 27 this year, the same day Tatas were handed over Air India by the Center.

“I am delighted and honored to accept the privilege of leading an iconic air-line and to join the Tata Group. Working closely with my colleagues at Air India and the leadership of the Tata Group, we will utilize the strong heritage of Air India to make it one of the best airlines in the world with a uniquely superi-or flying experience that reflects Indian warmth and hospitality,” Ilker Ayci said.

Ayci was born in Istanbul in 1971. He

is 1994 alumni of Bilkent University’s Department of Political Science and Pub-lic Administration, according to the Tata Group statement. After a research stay on political science at the Leeds University in the UK in 1995, he completed an Inter-national Relations Master’s program at the Marmara University in Istanbul in 1997.

The Tata Group took over Air India in January and is finalizing a team of top notch professionals to revive the airline. The new board of AI is likely to be led by Tata Group chairman N Chandrasekaran himself.

A high-level Israeli inquiry is exam-ining a database provided by NSO Group following allegations of war-

rantless wiretaps using Pegasus spyware, Israel's Justice Ministry said on Sunday.

Israel's Calcalist newspaper reported last week that Israeli police had used Pegasus without judges' warrants against public fig-ures includ-ing a son and two confidants of former Prime Min-ister Ben-jamin Net-anyahu. Netanyahu is on trial in three corruption cases. He has pleaded innocent.

NSO Group has maintained that its spy-ware cannot be used to hack Israeli or US numbers. The New York Time recently reported NSO had another version of the spyware, called Phantom, that it tested for the FBI to hack American phones.

This even as another Israeli publication, Haaretz, reported Sunday that Israeli spy agency Mossad had used Pegasus spyware off the books. During 2016-2021 Mossad offi-cials would visit NSO and ask it to hack spe-cific phones, it reported.

Israel probes NSO database over allegations of rogue wiretapping

Rohit Kadimisetty, a 28-year-old Indian-origin former employee of Amazon, has been sentenced to 10

months in prison for his involvement in fraud and bribery scheme to steal confi-dential information and manipulate the Amazon Marketplace, the Department of Justice (DoJ) said in a statement. Kadimisetty of California's Northridge, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy in Sep-tember 2021, is also ordered to pay a $50,000 fine and undertake three years of supervised release.

At the sentencing hearing US District Judge Richard A Jones said, "You do not have a license to steal from Amazon... you were involved in illegal conduct... This could be called modern day organ-ized crime."

Kadimisetty used his knowledge and contacts from prior employment at Amazon to enrich himself by manipu-lating listings on Amazon Marketplace, US Attorney Nick Brown said on Fri-day. "He was a critical cog in the bribery wheel: paying contacts in India to rein-state suspended accounts, steal confiden-tial information and attack competitors who got in the way of those funding the bribery scheme," Brown said.

Kadimisetty worked as a seller sup-port employee out of Amazon’s Hyder-

abad, India, office until 2015, when he relocated to the US. He is one of six indi-viduals who the US Department of Jus-tice charged with conspiracy for alleged-ly bribing Amazon employees to gain an “upper hand” over other sellers on Ama-zon’s online marketplace.

According to records in the case, since at least 2017, the defendants allegedly bribed Amazon employees to leak infor-mation about the company’s search and ranking algorithms, as well as share con-fidential data on third-party sellers they competed with on the marketplace. The scheme also involved bribing employ-ees to reinstate suspended accounts and defacing competitors’ product listings, the DOJ alleged in its indictment.

In all, the individuals allegedly paid $100,000 worth of bribes to employees and reaped more than $100 million in competitive benefits, the DOJ said.

In 2018, Amazon fired four employees

ex-amazon indian employee sentenced for fraud in US

in India who were allegedly connected to the bribery scheme, including Nishad Kunju of Hyderabad and three people not identified in court filings.

Amazon launched the online mar-ketplace in 2000, allowing a wide varie-ty of third-party businesses, from small to global, to sell on its site. It has since grown to encompass millions of sellers and now accounts for roughly 60% of Amazon’s overall retail sales. While the marketplace has helped Amazon haul in record revenue, it has also been found to host counterfeit, unsafe and expired goods. Behind the scenes, scammers have for years resorted to black hat tac-tics to squash competitors, artificially boost their listings or bypass Amazon’s marketplace rules.

Four defendants – Ephraim Rosen-berg of Brooklyn, Joseph Nilsen and Kristen Leccese of New York City and Hadis Nuhanovic of Georgia – are scheduled for trial in October 2022. The other defendant, Nishad Kunju of Hyderabad in India, has not been arraigned on the indictment.

The case is being investigated by the FBI, with assistance from the Inter-nal Revenue Service-Criminal Investi-gations and the Department of Justice Office of International Affairs.

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 23

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Matches to watch this week

The New York Islanders and the Boston Bruins face off in a fairly evenly-matched fixture at the UBS Arena. Neither of the two teams is challenging for the first place in their respective divisions, but the Islanders’ longer losing streak makes them out to be the more vulnerable side.

New York Rangers vs Washington Capitals (NHL / February 24, Thursday)The New York Rangers will host the Washington Capitals at Madi-son Square Garden next week. The Rangers have been in fine form as of late with a three-game winning streak, and are expected to grab victory.

Brooklyn Nets vs Boston Celtics (NBA / February 24, Thursday)The Boston Celtics will travel to the Barclays Arena and square off against the Brooklyn Nets. The Nets have a glimmer of hope after they recently put an end to their long losing streak by defeating the Sacramento Kings.

New York Red Bulls vs Los Angeles FC(Friendlies / February 18, Friday)There is only a week to go before the MLS season kicks off. In the final match of the New York Red Bulls’ friendly campaign, they hope to defeat Los Angeles Football Club and end their pre-season on a high note.

Pittsburgh Penguins vs New Jersey Devils(NHL / February 24, Thursday)The New Jersey Devils face a mountain of a challenge as they take on the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Penguins currently sit 1st-placed in the Metropolitan Divi-sion, and the Devils will be hard pushed to get a positive result.

New York Islanders vs Boston Bruins (NHL / February 17, Thursday)

Suffolk County PD are the defending champions. To purchase tickets for the event, please visit http://linetsgroups.com/PoliceGame

Kamila Valieva's anti-dop-ing sample showed traces of three drugs that can

be used to treat heart conditions, according to a New York Times report. The 15-year-old Russian figure skater is being allowed to compete at Beijing 2022 despite testing positive for banned angi-na drug trimetazidine.

The report said it also showed hyproxen and L-Carnitine, which are not banned. The com-bination of substances prompted "a lot of red flags", United States anti-doping chief Travis Tygart said. The three substances are all used for increasing performance as they can increase endurance and reduce fatigue.

The case is ongoing and Valieva has the right to request the testing of her B sample, un-der World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) rules.

Kamila Valieva sample 'showed three drugs'WinTer Olympics

She goes into Thursday's free skate top of the standings and on track for victory - but if she finished in the top three, there will be no medal or ceremony until her anti-doping case has been concluded.

The medals for the team event, where she helped the Russian Olympic Committee to victory before learning of the failed test, are also on hold for the same reason.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Tues-

day that Valieva has argued her positive drugs test was due to contamination with her gran-dad's medicine. Neither the IOC nor Russian Olympic Committee has commented on the report that the Stockholm laboratory that processed the sample had found evidence of three drugs.

In its report, the New York Times cited documents filed in Valieva's arbitration hearing this week and confirmed by someone who took part in the hearing.

Valieva was allowed to con-tinue competing at the Games after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) ruled that a pro-visional suspension by the Rus-sian Anti-Doping Agency should not be re-imposed on grounds of her age and the timing of the result, which came almost six weeks after she gave the sample.

Speedskater Erin Jackson became the first black wom-

an to win gold medal in individ-ual event at Winter Games. With 37.04 seconds of brilliance, Jack-son won the women's 500 meters at the National Speed Skating Oval on Sunday night – and, in the process, achieved a number of firsts. The 29-year-old is the first American to win an individual speedskating medal since 2010.

The first American woman to do so since 2002 and, according to US Olympic and Paralympic Com-mittee historian Bill Mallon, the first Black woman to win gold in an individual sport at the Win-ter Olympics. "Hopefully it has an effect," Jackson said. "Hope-fully we can see more minorities, especially in the USA, getting out and trying some of these winter sports."

Speedskater Erin Jackson wins historic gold

Kaillie Hum-

phries has won a gold medal for the US in the bobsled. The 36-year-old Cana-da native who gained US citizen-ship just two months ago captured gold in the Olympic debut of mon-obob after a dominating per-formance on the sliding track. Humphries took a command-ing lead after the first two heats on Sunday then sealed the deal

Kaillie Humphries wins gold in bobsled

Monday in the final two heats to win her third Olympic gold. US teammate Elana Meyers Taylor brought home her fourth career Olympic medal, winning the sil-ver after rallying in the final two heats.

Alexander Hall won free-style skiing gold in the

Winter Olympics men's slope-style as the USA claimed a one-two on the podium in Beijing. An opening run score of 90.01

was enough to earn the 23-year-old victory ahead of compa-triot Nicholas Goepper, who posted 86.48 on his second run to take silver, as Sweden's Jes-per Tjader finished in bronze

with 85.35. Hall, who failed to qualify for the final at his first Games in 2018, completed his gold medal-winning first run with an innovative double 1080 pretzel.

Alexander Hall wins freestyle skiing slopestyle gold

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 25SpORTS

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Rams defeat Bengals to win this year's Super Bowl

Los Angeles Rams won their first Super Bowl and lifted the Vince Lombar-

di Trophy on Sunday at Sofi Sta-dium in Inglewood, California. Rams completed their dream season knocking off the Cincin-nati Bengals to win the Super Bowl LVI in their home stadium by a score of 23-20.

The Bengals looked set to win their first Super Bowl - just two years after being the NFL's worst team. But the Rams' star-studded roster pro-duced when it mattered most, with quarterback Matthew Staf-

named the game's Most Valuable Player, adding to the Offensive Player of the Year award he won last week.

The Rams are only the sec-ond team to win a Super Bowl in their own stadium after the Tam-pa Bay Buccaneers achieved the feat last year. Built at a cost of $5bn by Rams and Arsenal own-er Stan Kroenke, the SoFi Stadi-um earned the right to stage the first Super Bowl in the LA region since 1993 and the Rams went all in to ensure they were part of the big show.

Los Angeles is celebrating the Rams Super Bowl victo-ry by changing one of the city's most iconic symbols, the AP has reported. The Hollywood sign is being temporarily changed to read "Rams House." And fans

across South-ern California are snapping up Rams-themed T-shirts and oth-er merchandise as they celebrate. The city held a victory parade for the Rams on Wednesday.

ford leading a game-winning 15-play drive. With just one min-ute 25 seconds left, Cooper Kupp scored his second touchdown to give the Rams a second NFL title. The wide receiver, 28, was

Indian-origin American golfer Sahith Reddy Theegala had a dream run at the $8.2 million

WM Phoenix Open that ended last Sunday at the at TPC Scotts-dale, Arizona. Sahith led the second and third rounds of the PGA Tour's Phoenix Open before missing a playoff spot by one stroke to finish tied third along with defending champion Brooks Koepka and Olympic gold medal-list Xander Schauffele.

Eventually, Scottie Schef-fler sank a 26-foot birdie putt on the third playoff hole to win the Phoenix Open beating World No. 4 Patrick Cantlay.

Sahith was bidding to become the first sponsor exemption to win on the PGA Tour since Mar-tin Laird (2020 Shriners Chil-dren's Open) of Scotland and the third Indian-origin golfer to win on the world's most lucrative Tour after Daniel Chopra and Arjun Atwal. Chopra won the 2007 Ginn sur Mer Classic and 2008 Mercedes-Benz Champion-ship, while Atwal won the 2010 Wyndham Championship.

The 24-year-old Sahith pocket-ed $434,600 for his effort in only his 11th PGA Tour start, earn-ing praise from both his rivals and aficionados of the sport. His memorable outing at the TPC Scottsdale helped him jump 153 places on the Official World Golf Rankings to be placed 165th. He is currently 40th on the FedEx Cup Standings. Sahith had scripted another top-10 finish (tied eighth) at the 2021 Sander-son Farms Championship receiv-ing a cheque of $204,750.

His impressive performance earned Sahith another spon-sor exemption into this week's $12 million Genesis Invitational beginning Thursday at the Rivi-era Country Club.

After finishing his round on Sunday, Sahith received immense support from the crowd and also a small group of family and friends who followed him for all the four rounds. While com-ing out of the course after sub-mitting his card, Sahith became emotional embracing his par-ents, which was captured on camera by the PGA Tour produc-tion team.

The Californian, who has his family roots in Hyderabad, played on the Korn Ferry Tour last season before earning his full card on the PGA Tour. Sahith swept all the major awards as the top collegiate golfer in 2020 rep-resenting Pepperdine University. He won the Fred Haskins, Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan awards. Sahith began his Korn Ferry Tour season with a tied 19th fin-ish in Louisiana last year. He had a tied ninth result in the MGM Resorts Championship and a tied fourth finish in the Nationwide Children's Hospital Champion-

ship, helping him earn his tick-et to the Korn Ferry Tour finals. Sahith finished sole sixth to earn his conditional PGA Tour card.

Asked where he got his resil-ience from, the way he played in pressure situations pitted against some of the best pro-fessionals in the world, Sahith said: "One of the main things is just seeing my parents' jour-ney to the States and how they managed to raise me and my younger brother Sahan (a fresh-man at Seton Hall) and gave us such a good life. The hardships that they went through and the hardships that some other fam-ily went through in India, like the life that me and my young-er brother are living are noth-ing compared to the resiliency that my relatives and my par-ents have shown." "So just kind of keeping that in the back of my mind has really grounded me as a person and just to take advantage of any opportunity I can get because again I'm real-ly blessed and thankful that my parents and grandparents put me in this position to be able to succeed...I definitely think that Asian heritage part is a big part of why I have reached this point," he said.

Sahith picked up golf at the age of six and went on to win the Junior World Championship with motivation from his father Muralidhar Theegala, who moved to United States in 1987 for graduate school. Murali real-ized that his elder son had a hid-den talent when he took Sahith to the driving range only to find that the youngster made con-tact with 20 out of 25 balls in his very first attempt.

Recently, another Indian-or-igin player made headlines for capturing a Korn Ferry Tour title. Akshay Bhatia had won the $750,000 Bahamas Great Exu-ma Classic four weeks back. At 19 years 11 months 19 days, he became the third-youngest pro to win on the development cir-cuit after the likes of Jason Day and Sungjae Im.

Sahith Theegala has a dream run at Phoenix Open

Indian-origin golfer Sahith Reddy Theegala with parents after the final round of the WM Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale, in Arizona, on Feb 13 (Photo: screen grab from video by PGA Tour/twitter)

Sri Lanka's tour of India to begin on Feb 24 with T20I series

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced the revised dates and venues

for Sri Lanka's tour of India, which will comprise three T20Is and two Tests. The tour begins with the first T20I in Lucknow on Feb 24, with the other two being back-to-back match-es in Dharamsala on Feb 26 and 27. This will be followed by the first Test in Mohali from Mar 4, before the tour concludes with a day-night Test in Bengaluru starting Mar 12. Both Tests will be a part of the second cycle of the World Test Championship.

The two-day Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction concluded on Feb 13. The total money spent amounted to Rs 551,70,00,000 ($73.5 million approx.), with 204 players, including 67 foreign players, bought. 108 players were worth Rs.1 crore or more.

The most expensive players this year are:

• Ishan Kishan: Rs 15.25 crore ($2.02 million) Mumbai Indians• Deepak Chahar: Rs 14 crore ($1.85 million) Chennai Super Kings• Shreyas Iyer: Rs 12.25 crore ($1.62 million) Kolkata Knight Riders• Liam Livingstone: Rs 11.5 crore ($1.52 million) Punjab Kings• Harshal Patel: Rs 10.75 crore ($1.42 million) Royal Challengers Bangalore• Nicholas Pooran: Rs 10.75 crore ($1.42 million) Sunrisers Hyderabad• Shardul Thakur: Rs 10.75 crore ($1.42 million) Delhi Capitals• Wanindu Hasaranga: Rs 10.75 crore ($1.42 million) Royal Challengers Bangalore• Prasidh Krishna: Rs 10 crore ($1.32 million) Rajasthan Royals• Avesh Khan: Rs 10 crore ($1.32 million) Lucknow Super Giants• Lockie Ferguson: Rs 10 crore ($1.32 million) Gujarat Titans

IPL mega auction 2022 concludes

26 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM SHOwBIZ

Text and PixPrastuti Designs

The festive season in thepost‑pandemic era hasbrought in new hopes and

optimism. After almost two yearspeople have now gradually startedto organize festive gatheringswhich spread cheer.

Festivity and traditional clothinggo hand in hand. The saree is thefavorite choice for Indian women,specially during the festivity as itshowcases elegance and grandeurof every woman.

Owing to the high demand,there is a wide variety of sareeoptions available in the market,starting from chiffon, silk to geor‑gette, kanjivaram, and more. Everystate in India has a different sareestyle, however, in the currenttimes with the ever‑expanding

intercultural connect, women havenow begun to create their ownstyles and trends.

Here are the 5 trendiest tradi‑tional saree styles for this festiveseason:

Kanjivaram SareesThe grandeur of Kanjivaram

sarees is well‑known. Weaversfrom Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu,design these sarees. Dip the silkthreads in melted gold and silverto include the gold in the designs.Kanchipuram's weavers are con‑sidered to be descendants of thesage Markanda (the master weav‑er of Gods). A Kanjivaram saree isyour finest pick for any festiveevent.

Ikat SareesFor Ikat sarees, the warp and

weft are tie‑dyed before weaving.During the tie‑dye process, theknots in the beautifully wovensaree are tied into the fabric.Odisha (Sambalpur) is where thesesarees are manufactured with out‑standing workmanship.

Bandhani Sarees'Bandhan' means tying a knot.

The fabric of these sarees is tied ina particular way before dyeing thefabric which gives them thedesired design. Bandhani sareesare popular in Gujarat andRajasthan as they make the mostauthentic Bandhani. Bright colorsin the Bandhani print makes it anapt choice for festivities.

Gara sareeA traditional Parsi Gara's time‑

less charm is unmistakable. The

Gara sari, which is embroideredwith photorealistic perfection, isunique among the country's vastarray of crafts. The magnificentstyle, which is mostly worn by theParsi community for weddingsand special celebrations, shouldnot be kept hidden away for spe‑cial occasions.

Petit Point embroideryPetit point embroidery is a type

of canvas embroidery that is com‑

parable to cross‑stitch embroiderybut finer due to its smaller scale.At normal viewing distance, thesquareness and regularity of theoutlines of the forms representedare less visible. The stitch is indiagonal or horizontal rows acrossthe intersection of the canvasthreads and is also known as petitpoint or tent stitch. This beautifuland intricate pattern on sarees iswhat adds to the grace in yourfestive look.

5 Saree Styles for the Festive Season

45November 6-12, 2021TheSouthAsianTimes.info FASH ION

WARNING: MAY CONTAIN LEAD

Spices bought in South Asian countries can contain lead, which can cause learning and behavior problems in children, miscarriage in pregnant women, and infertility.

� Buy your spices locally. � If you use spices bought in

South Asia, ask your doctor for a blood lead test.

Call 311 or visit nyc.gov/leadfree for more information.

Bill de Blasio

Mayor

Dave A. Chokshi, MD, MSc

Commissioner

Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes to host Oscars

Comic actresses Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes will host the 94th Oscars on Mar 27. It

has been 35 years since as many as three people hosted Hollywood’s biggest night, and never have that many women held the emcee position in a single evening. For the past three years, the ceremony has had no official overall host.

The trio were formally announced on Good Morning America on Feb 15, with Schumer saying in a brief remote state-ment, “I’m not sure who thought this was a good idea, but I am hosting the Oscars along with Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall — I better go watch some movies.”

On Tuesday, Academy President David Rubin and Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said in a statement that they felt “invig-

orated” by producer Will Packer‘s vision for the show, starting with the hosts. “This year’s show is all about uniting movie lovers,” added Packer. “It’s apropos that we’ve lined up three of the most dynam-ic, hilarious women with very different comedic styles. I know the fun Regina, Amy and Wanda will be having will trans-late to our audience as well. Many surpris-es in store! Expect the unexpected!”

Next month's ceremony will also include a new "fan favorite" prize for the year's most popular film, as voted for by the public via Twitter and the web. The move, announced on Monday, comes as organizers try to lure viewers back to the awards show. The Oscars telecast is com-ing off its lowest-rated telecast since it first hit the air in 1953.

Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes

Asia Week returns to New York after 18-months

Asia Week New York will resume next month after an 18-month hia-tus due to the pandemic. The par-

ticipating galleries and auction houses will arrange - live and online - a series of exhibitions, sales, and lectures surround-ing Asian art and culture from Mar 16-25.

The week-long celebration of Asian art and culture, organized by Asia Week New York Association, a nonprofit group, in collaboration with museums, galleries, auction houses, and other cultural insti-tutions since 2009, was temporarily inter-rupted in 2020-21.

At Christie’s, Asia Art week will fea-ture the collection belonging to Indi-an-American collectors and philanthro-pists Mahinder and Sharad Tak. More than 40 South Asian modern and contem-porary art works from their collection will be offered at a live auction on Mar 23. Highlights include major paintings by Bhupen Khakhar, Manjit Bawa, Arpita Singh, and Sayed Haider Raza, appearing at auction for the first time. Also includ-

ed in the sale are works by Maqbool Fida Husain, Rameshwar Broota, Jogen Chow-dhury, and Jagdish Swaminathan, all close friends of the Taks, according to Christie’s.

Sotheby’s Asia Week auction will be dedicated to the collection of Wou Kiuan, one of the most comprehensive collec-tions of Chinese art in private hands, the auction house announced on Feb 11.

Bonhams’s celebration of Asia Week will include sales of Chinese works of art on Mar 21, sales of Indian, Himala-yan, and Southeast Asian art on Mar 22 and Japanese and Korean Art on Mar 23, as well as a series of online sales on Bonhams.com throughout the week. Highlights include a painting by Zhang Daqian titled Woman Holding a Flower and estimated to sell for between $800,000 and $1.2 million, and a Celadon-glazed dish from the Qing dynasty, Emperor Yongzheng period, with an estimate of $40,000 and $60,000. Additionally, from March 17-22, Bonhams will host a special exhibition and lectures about the Himala-yan Buddhist masterpieces from the col-lection of the late Claude de Marteau, a Brussels-based art dealer and collector.

Other auction houses will also offer the rarest and finest examples of Asian art, including porcelain, jewelry, textiles, paintings, ceramics, sculpture, bronzes, and prints from ancient times to the pres-ent. (Source: Barrons.com)

A blue-and-white and Iron-red decorated bowl will be offered at Bonhams with an estimate of between $10,000 and US$15,000. (Photo Courtesy: Barrons)

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 27ART BUZZ

Lahiri had been admitted to the hospital for a month and was discharged on

Monday. But his health deterio-rated on Tuesday and his family called for a doctor to visit their home. He was brought to the hospital. He had multiple health issues. He died due to OSA (obstructive sleep apnea) short-ly before midnight," Dr Deepak Namjoshi, director of the hospi-tal, told PTI.

Bappi Lahiri delivered popu-lar songs in several films of the late 1970s-90s. His last Bollywood song titled Bhankas was for the 2020 film 'Baaghi 3'. His music ruled the charts, especially in 80s and the 90s with his Disco tracks. Among his most popular ones, were tracks from the films

Music composer and singer Bappi Lahiri, who popularised disco music in India in the 80s and 90s, died at Mumbai's CritiCare Hospital on Feb 16. He was 69.

Composer-singer Bappi Lahiri dies at 69Disco Dancer, Dance Dance and Namak Halaal, Chalte Chalte, and Sharaabi. He composed and sang musical gems like Koi Yaha Naache Naache from Dis-co Dancer and Pyar Bina Chain Kaha from Saheb, to name a few.

Besides his music, Bappi Lahiri was known for his sig-nature style of wearing gold chains and sunglasses.

The singer's last appearance on the screen was with Salman Khan on reality show Bigg Boss 15, where he was promoting his grandson Swastik's new song 'Baccha Party'.

In April last year, the singer had been admitted to Mumbai's Breach Candy Hospital after testing positive for Covid. He recovered after a few days.

Prime Minister Naren-dra Modi tweeted that Lahiri's music was "all-encompassing, beautifully expressing diverse emotions" and that "people across generations could relate to his works". "His lively nature will be missed by everyone. Sad-dened by his demise. Condolenc-es to his family and admirers. Om Shanti," he added.

Lahiri was born in Calcutta, West Bengal in 1952 into a fami-ly of musicians. His inclination towards music started at an ear-ly age of three when he started learning to play the tabla.

The singer is survived by his wife Chitrani, two children – daughter Reema, who is also a singer, and music composer Bap-pa Lahiri.

The music world remem-bered the legendary sing-er-composer Bappi Lahiri

through his songs and composi-tions. Several members of the music fraternity including sing-ers Alka Yagnik and Shaan, composer Lalit Pandit, and late composer Aadesh Srivastava's family visited Lahiri's home on Wednesday.

Oscar-winning composer AR Rahman tweeted his condolenc-es and called Lahiri the "Disco King of Hindi cinema".

Shreya Ghoshal, who sang Ooh La La with Bappi Lahiri for the 2011 film The Dirty Picture, shared a throwback picture with him and she wrote: "The most iconic personality, a true rock star of our country. Have been

Music world pays tribute to Bappi Lahiriso fortunate to have had your blessings through my career, got several opportunities to sing with you. Bappi da, you have gone too soon. Will miss you ter-ribly. Rest in peace. Om Shanti."

Composer-singer Vishal Dad-lani, who co-judged several real-ity TV shows with Bappi Lahi-ri and worked with him The Dirty Picture song Ooh La La, and Tune Maari Entriyaan from Gunday, wrote: "First my Dad, then Lataji, now Bappi Da. 2022 is really hitting hard. Far too hard. My deepest condolences to Bappa, Rema, Mrs Lahiri and the grandkids. I'm still unable to process this."

Singer Adnan Sami remem-bered Bappi Lahiri with his iconic song Kabhi Alvida Na

Kehna from the film Chalte Chalte was sung by Kishore Kumar. Adnan Sami wrote for Bappi Lahiri: "He was India's First 'ROCK STAR'! He was full of love and generosity! Will miss him dearly..."Chalte Chalte... Mere Ye Geet Yaad Rakhna... Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna... Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna... Rest in peace dear Bappi Da.”

Shankar Mahadevan wrote: "This is devastating! We just had the honor and pleasure of having Bappi Lahiri on our set for Sar-egama. and now he is no more! Just unbelievable! Will miss you Sir. Prayers for the entire family."

Singer Anup Jalota posted a throwback with Bappi Lahiri on Koo and wrote: "Another great loss of the music industry. RIP

Bappi da. My deepest condolenc-es to his family."

"We will miss you Bappi da," wrote Himesh Reshammiya.

Shekhar Ravjiani tweeted: "Will miss you Dada Bappi Lahi-ri." In a separate tweet, he post-ed a throwback with the legend.

Award-winning director Devanand Janki will direct the soon to open musical that explores the life

of American icon Nina Simone, as told through her own words and songs. Based in New York City, Janki is a director, cho-reographer and teacher.

The musical, Little Girl Blue, will have its first preview on Mar 5, and opening night will be off-Broadway at the Shubert Organization’s New World Stages (Stage V) on Mar 14, announced the show’s lead producer, Rashad V. Chambers.

The musical is written by Laio-na Michelle, who also stars as Nina. It reveals Nina’s journey from classical piano child prodigy to the High Priest-ess of Soul. Michelle is known for Amaz-ing Grace, Book of Mormon, and Ameri-can Hero.

Chambers is the co-producer of Amer-ican Son, Tony Award-winning Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of The Temp-tations, the critically acclaimed 2019 revival of Betrayal, The Inheritance, and The Music Man.

The show was originally scheduled to open on Feb 28, but it was pushed back due to the Omicron spike in New York

Devanand Janki to direct off-Broadway musical on Nina SimoneCity. “My top priority is keeping every-one safe and ensuring that our show can have a lengthy and prosperous run,” said Chambers.

Janki has been a part of the project since it was workshopped and picked up by the George Street Playhouse in 2018, according to an email from the show’s publicists.

Currently a resident of New York City, Janki is originally from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He graduated from the

American Musical and Dramatic Acad-emy in New York. His career spans all facets of the performing arts – theatre, opera, ballet and corporate entertain-ment.

He began as a performer, appearing in numerous productions including Broad-

way’s Miss Saigon. Cats, The King & I, and Side Show. For the past 15 years, he has been a freelance director, working regionally and in New York on over 50 shows including Aladdin, Junie B. Jones, Man of La Mancha, Rent, The Full Mon-ty and Off-Broadway’s Zanna Don’t for which he won the Lucille Lortel Award as well as the Joseph A. Callaway and GLAAD media awards.

A great advocate for diversity and inclusion in the arts, Janki is the found-er and artistic director of Live & In Color, according to his biography on devanand-janki.com. He is currently the director of the Musical Theatre Division at The Stel-la Adler Studio for Acting in New York City and has taught in several art colleg-es of repute. Throughout the year, Jan-ki holds several Theatre for Young Audi-ences shows touring the country. He has developed numerous shows through workshops and readings, and has worked on numerous corporate events. For nine years he was a choreographer, artis-tic associate and dancer for Broadway Bares for a benefit, and has been involved in mounting ‘innumerable’ high profile charity events, his bio says.

Devanand Janki

28 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM IN STYLE

Sanjukta Dutta presents new collection Alphool at NYFW 2022 Designer Sanjukta Dutta

who is known for design-ing beautiful Mekhe-

la Chador and reviving the Silk of Assam, showcased her new collection "Alphool" at the New York Fashion Week 2022 on Feb 12.

"When you are celebrating Sanjukta you are celebrating India. Her designs are very rich; it represents all that Assam is, all that India is," said Ran-dhir Jaiswal, Consul General of India. Apart from the Consul General, the show was attended by Dr Varun Jeph (Deputy Con-sul General of India), Senthur Kumaran (Director, India Tour-ism Office), Prem Lata - VP State Bank of India and many other known expats of Indian origin based in New York.

Sanjukta Dutta Label con-tinues to be synonymous with classic Indian design sensibili-ties fusing new characteristics to suit the taste of the contem-porary era. Each of Sanjuk-

ta Dutta's silk attire is a rig-orous handmade wonder that takes a minimum of 25 days to finish. The collection promis-es to enhance feminism and ele-gance of a woman with its varie-ty of signature Mekhela Chador, Structured Saree, Flowy-Gowns, Drape-Skirts and Indo-Western Lehengas. The couture contin-ues to celebrate Indian hand-loom and ensures contemporary ethnic assembles for women from all walks of life.

"It's a dream come true and a privilege for me and my artisans to get this overwhelming oppor-tunity to see the Assam Hand-loom to be recognized at The New York Fashion Week, which is one of the world's biggest fashion platforms for the design-ers. I am sure many closets in the US will soon find a perfect Assamese couture designed by me and I will continue to bring success in all my endless efforts to make fashion a medium of self-discovery," Dutta said.

Designer Sanjukta Dutta at the New York Fashion Week 2022 presenting her new collection Alphool

Indian students present sustainable collection at NYFW

The students of Inter National Institute of Fashion Design (INIFD)

in collaboration with London School of Trends (LST) present-ed a sustainable and fashion-for-ward collection called “Indian Fashion Trunk” at the 7th sea-son of the recently concluded New York Fashion Week held at Ziegfeld Ballroom, New York.

Mentored by fashion expert Gintare Jankuniene, the Indian Fashion Trunk presented 52 gar-ments, all of which reflected the personal narratives of the stu-dents coming from diverse back-grounds. The collection, focus-ing on fall-winter trends for the 2022 season, reflected ‘Crafts-manship of the Future’. With sustainability and consideration towards the environment being crucial, students conscious-ly sourced, manufactured and

designed clothes using ethical fabrics, repurposed materials, ensuring zero wastage.

It depicted the rich culture, indigenous craftsmanship, art, design, originality, textiles from different states of India. The vibrant colors with rich deep hues and fabrics are one-of-a-kind which highlighted the craftsmanship that makes India a powerhouse source for fash-ion.

Talking about it, Anil Kho-sla, CEO, INIFD, said, “We are elated to be able to support tal-ented and foresighted creative minds and enable them to rep-resent the country at a global platform such as the renowned New York Fashion Week. With the objective of providing world class mentorship and guidance to nurture the talent pool to become the fashion moguls of

the future, we are continuously investing in the journey of the students pursuing fashion with grit and passion”

“It’s our 7th season at NYFW presenting Indian crafts and artisans for the world. It’s com-mendable that in times of pan-demic, INIFD connected as a team with more than 100 design schools pan-India, as a part of our exclusive partnership,” said Sunny Somra, Director, London School of Trends.

The Director of INIFD, Ritu Kochhar, said that “Indian Fashion Trunk designs depict our rich culture, indigenous craftsmanship, art, design, orig-inality, textiles from different states of India. I am extremely proud of the student designers who have worked hard in these difficult times to give their best shot.”

Bollywood designer featured at NYFW

Bollywood fashion design-er Kirti Rathore’s col-lection was displayed

at New York Fashion Week by more than 50 models. Accord-ing to a press release, Rashmi Bedi -Mydream Entertainment Association, along with New York Top Model Academy, a New York\New Jersey-based Enter-tainment company, organized the showing.

The models who walked the ramp were from Miss Bharat USA Pageant and New York Top Model Academy. Mydream Entertainment’s models includ-ed Aanchal, Animesh, Asha, Devshree, Kinjal( Miss Bharat New Jersey 2021 ), Krupa (Miss

Bharat Elite New Jersey 2021), Kunjita (Mrs South Asia World 2021), Madhuri, Madhuri, Man-si, Manasa (Miss Bharat Elite USA 2021), Meenal (Mrs Bharat USA 2021), Nagashree (Mrs Bharat IliNois 2021), Neha, Nira-li, Preeti, Priyanka, Sanyogi-ta, Sabrina (Miss Internation-al Beauty 2021), Sirisha, Sonia, Surekha, Surya, Ulka (Mrs Bharat New Jersey 2021), Vaib-hav, Anusha, and Gagan.

The Mydream Entertainment will also be participating in organizing shows at the Septem-ber 2022 NYFW, the press release said, where more than 200 Indi-an models will be featuring col-lections.

Designer Kirti Rathore and models pose on the runway during the NYFW hiTechMODA Season 7 Réversion #noapology show at The Edison Ballroom on Feb 12 in New York City. (Photo provided by Mydream Entertainment – by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for NYFW hiTechMODA)

Indian American designers at NYFW

Indian American designers Deepthi Reddy of Drisha Closet and Anusmita Bard-

han Sur of The Tradition Oiti-jhyo showcased their lines, dur-ing NYFW hiTechMODA Season 7 – Reversion – noapolgy, on Feb 11 and 12, at the iconic Edison Ballroom in New York.

Deepthi Reddy’s collection, Red Carpet by Drisha Closet, was featured on Feb 11. Drisha Closet is a luxury clothing cus-

tom made for runway shows including Los Angeles, New York, Milan, Paris, and London Fashion Weeks, and also special-izes in custom designs for spe-cial events.

Atlanta-based Anusmita Bardhan Sur presented her col-lection Indo American by The Tradition Oitijhyo on Feb 12. The Tradition revels in display-ing the unique ethnic heritage of India.

Designer Anusmita Bardhan Sur (right) of The Tradition – Oitijhyo walks the runway on Feb 12 (Photo provided by Mydream Entertainment — Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for NYFW hiTechMODA)

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 29FOOD

One pot meals These one pot rice recipes are simply effortless and time savers for a busy day

Chickpeas PulaoThis delicious pulao with a flavorful amritsari twist is cooked in an instant pot.

Ingredients• 200 grams basmati rice• 2 cups water• 150 grams Chickpea cooked • 100 grams onion sliced• 75 grams Amritsari Vadi (optional)• 1 teaspoon ginger green chili paste

(optional)• 30 grams ghee• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds jeera• 1 bay leaf • 1 cinnamon stick • 3-4 cloves • 1 mace flower• 1 star anise • 1 teaspoon Kashmiri red chili powder

• ½ teaspoon turmeric powder • ½ teaspoon salt to taste• 4 tablespoon coriander leaves for

garnish• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method1. Set the instant pot (IP) on sauté mode.

Add ghee or cooking oil and bay leaf, cinnamon, cumin seeds, cinnamon stick, mace flower, star anise and cook spices for 20 – 30 seconds till fragrant. Next, add sliced onion and ginger green chilli paste. Fry until the onions are light brown in color. Add cooked chickpeas, turmeric, red chilli and salt as per your taste. Sauté the chickpeas with spices for 1 minute.

2. Add rinsed basmati rice, Amritsari vadi (if you are using) and mix them to coat well with spices. Now add water, lemon juice and chopped cori-ander and stir the whole contents in the inner pot of IP. Cover the lid and now set the IP on Pressure cook mode and set the timer to 3 minutes.

3. Open the IP and after releasing the pressure first. Fluff the rice, add some more fresh coriander leaves and enjoy.

Tawa pulao Tawa pulao infused with pav bhaji flavors is a popular street food from Mumbai and can be made at home in 30 minutes.

Ingredients• 2.5 cups cooked rice • 1 teaspoon cumin• 1 teaspoon ginger paste• 1/3 cup green bell peppers• 1/3 cup red bell peppers• 1 cup tomatoes• ½ cup chopped onion• 1 cup fresh peas• 2 green chillies• 2/3 cup carrot• ½ cup potato• 2-3 cube butter/oil• 1 teaspoon lemon juice• 1-2 teaspoon pav bhaji masala• 1 teaspoon tomato sauce• 1 teaspoon green chilli sauce• salt• 1 teaspoon red chilli powder• 50 grams cheddar cheese• coriander leaves

Method1. Add butter in a pan and splutter

cumin seeds in it. Add onion, ginger paste and saute it until the onion is golden brown. Add finely chopped green chillies and carrot in the pan

along with red and green bell peppers. Add boiled potatoes (cut into pieces), fresh peas in the pan and mash them. Allow the food to sauté for 5 minutes.

2. After 5 minutes add chopped tomatoes. Mix in tomato sauce, green chilli sauce and mix them well. Add salt to taste. Mix all the ingredients well. Add red chilli powder and pav bhaji masala, and cook further.

3. Add rice (fresh or leftover) and mix well. Add grated cheddar cheese to the pulao and squeeze some lemon juice. Sprinkle coriander leaves. Serve hot with fresh yogurt.

Coconut RiceThis easy instant pot recipe makes perfect fluffy coconut rice that is flavorful and delicious.

Ingredients• 2 tablespoon coconut oil• 1 pinch asafetida• ½ teaspoon urad dal (black

gram split)• 1 teaspoon chana dal (chick

peas split)• 4 curry leaves• 1 few mustard seeds• 2 green chillis chopped• 2 dried red chilli• 2 tablespoon cashew• 1 cup coconut grated• 200 grams rice• ½ teaspoon salt

Method1. Start the instant pot in sauté

mode. Add coconut oil and add asafetida, and also add dried red chilli, mustard seeds, urad dal, chana dal, curry leaves and cashew

sauté for one or two minutes. Now add in the grated coconut and sauté for 1-2 minutes till the raw smell goes away. After roasting the coconut, switch off the instant pot. Take out everything out of the pan put it in a bowl. Keep it aside.

2. Now, again switch on the instant pan in sauté mode set the timer for 3-4 minutes. Add washed and soaked rice and stir to lightly toast them. Add in the 2 cups of water and cover it with lid of instant pot. Now again switch on the instant pot in pressure cook mode and flip the pressure valve in the sealing position. Set the timer on 5 minutes and low pressure.

3. After 5 minutes, immediately release the pressure with the

help of long handled spoon by bringing the pressure valve to ventilating position. Open the lid of the instant pot and fluff the rice gently with a flat spoon. Now add the cooked coconut masala in the rice and mix in gently. Serve the coconut rice hot.

Sambar sadam Tamil nadu style traditional sambar sadam is a deli-cious comfort meal that tastes quite different from the north indian Khichdi.

Ingredients• 2 cups raw rice • 1 cup pigeon peas (toor dal)• salt as per taste• 1 tablespoons tamarind paste• ¼ teaspoons turmeric powder• 1 teaspoon red chilli powder• 1 tablespoons ghee• 1 onion (medium sliced)• 100 grams carrots chopped• 100 grams pumpkin chopped• 70 grams tomato chopped• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds• 2-3 red chilli• 1/5 teaspoon asafetida• 30 curry leaves

For fresh sambhar masala• 2 tablespoons coconut • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds • ½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds• 2 tablespoons of coriander

seeds• 1 teaspoon skinned black

gram (urad dal)• few red Kashmiri chillies.

Method1. Wash rice and dal separately

till water comes out clean. In a pressure cooker add split pigeon peas, rice with salt and 3.5 cups of water. Cover pressure cooker with lid and cook for 3-4 whistles and allow the pressure to release naturally.

2. To make fresh sambar masala: Add in a pan dry roast coriander seeds, cumin, fenugreek, pigeon peas, and few red Kashmiri chillies. Roast them on slow heat for 2 minutes. Now add grated coconut and roast for 2 more minutes. Coconut is optional but tastes very nice so highly recommended. Cool and grind to make sambar powder. (alternately, use store bought sambar masala.)

3. To cook vegetables: Heat a pan and add 1tbsp ghee (or coconut oil). Add mustard seeds, asafetida, curry leaves, cumin seeds and white urad dal. Add chopped vegetables in the pan and sauté them along for 3-4 minutes. Add salt, turmeric powder, red chilli and freshly ground sambar masala. Mix

everything together and add 2 cups of water. Cover with a lid and cook for 7-8 minutes so that vegetables are cooked through. Add tamarind paste and mix.

4. To assemble Sambar Rice: Once the pressure releases, open the cooker. Mix in cooked vegetables with the cooked lentils and rice in the pressure cooker. Heat one tablespoon of ghee (or coconut oil) in a mini pan; add mustard seeds and curry leaves along with dried red chillies. Allow the mustard seeds to splutter and pour it over the rice mix. Mix it gently and serve hot with a side of yogurt, papad and a pickle for a perfect comfort meal.

(All recipes & photos courtesy: mytastycurry.com)

30 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM ENvIRONMENT

American west’s megadrought, worst in 1,200 years: new study The Western United States

has spent the last two dec-ades in the most extreme

megadrought in at least 1,200 years, says a new study pub-lished on Feb 14. Noting that human-caused climate change is a significant driver of the destructive conditions, research-ers say that even drier decades lie ahead.

“Anyone who has been paying attention knows that the west has been dry for most of the last couple decades,” says Park Wil-liams, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles and the study’s lead author.

“We now know from these studies that it is dry not only from the context of recent mem-ory but in the context of the last millennium.”

Nearly 65% of the Amer-ican west is experiencing in severe drought according to the US drought monitor, even after

record rainfall hit some areas late last year. For the first time, federal officials curbed alloca-tions from the Colorado Riv-er Basin, which supplies water and power for more than 40 mil-lion people. Wildfires in the last two years have left behind more blackened earth than ever before and performed feats nev-er thought possible.

So far this year similar con-ditions persist. California saw one of the driest Januaries on record. February has already delivered heat waves that broke records across the state. By the start of this month, the snow-pack has dwindled to below-av-erage, melting rapidly after reaching 160% of average at the start of the year. Forecasts show there’s little short-term relief in sight. (Source: The Guardian)

A kayaker fishes in Lake Oroville as water levels remained low due to continuing drought conditions in California on Aug 22, 2021. (Photo courtesy: AP)

Turning up the temperature – the result of human caused warming – has played a big part. Other studies show how the cli-mate crisis “will increasing-ly enhance the odds of long, widespread and severe mega-droughts”, the researchers write. The west is now in the midst of the driest 22-year peri-od in knowable history, they note adding that “this worst-case scenario already appears to be coming to pass”.

The research builds on con-clusions from a previous study – also led by Williams – that ranked the period between 2000 and 2018 as the second driest in 12 centuries. The last two incredibly dry years – which were marked by record-setting heatwaves, receding reservoirs, and a rise in dangerously erratic

blazes that burned both uncon-trollably and unseasonably – were enough to push this period into first.

Deforestation in Amazon region hits new record, raising concerns

Brazil recorded the most deforestation ever in the Amazon rainforest for the

month of January, according to new government data, as the destruction continues to worsen

despite the government’s recent pledges to bring it under con-trol.

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon totaled 166sq miles last month, five times higher than January 2021, according to pre-liminary satellite data from gov-ernment space research agen-cy Inpe released on Feb 11. That was the highest for January since the current data series began in 2015.

The new data came as envi-ronmental researchers say that the destruction is rising largely due to President Jair Bolsonaro, who since taking office in 2019, has weakened environmental protections in the country. Bol-sonaro has long argued for more commercial farming and mining in the Amazon to help lift the

An aerial view shows a deforested area of Amazonia rainforest in Brazil, in Sept 2021 (Photo courtesy: AFP)

region out of poverty.Meanwhile, the Ministry

of the Environment said that making comparisons using sin-gle months does not provide the best picture, stating that in August to January deforestation fell slightly compared with the same period a year ago. The fed-eral government is acting more forcefully in 2022 to fight against environmental crimes, the min-istry said in a statement to Reu-ters.

There is also concern that Colombia’s Amazon region is facing similar threats. On Tues-day, environmental groups expressed alarm about a sharp increase in forest fires that they blamed on logging to make way for cattle ranches, coca fields and illegal roads.

More than 150 academics and activists from Colombia, Bra-zil, France and Spain sent a let-ter to Colombia’s President Ivan Duque urging the government to take a more aggressive stance against deforestation, using the military to put out the fires, cre-ating economic alternatives for people in the Amazon region and arresting those who finance efforts to clear the forest.

The preservation of the Ama-zon, the world’s largest rain-forest, is vital to curbing cli-mate change because of the vast amount of greenhouse gas absorbed in its trees.

Facing international pres-sure from the United States and Europe, Brazil last year pledged to end illegal deforestation by 2028.

Ethiopia's enset seen as wondercrop for a warming world

Scientists say the plant enset, an Ethiopian staple, could be a lifesav-er in the face of climate change. The

banana-like crop has the potential to feed more than 100 million people in a warm-ing world, according to a new study pub-lished in Environmental Research Let-ters.

Enset or "false banana" is a close rela-tive of the banana, but is consumed only in one part of Ethiopia. The banana-like fruit of the plant is inedible, but the starchy stems and roots can be fermented and used to make porridge and bread.

Researchers suggest the crop can be grown over a much larger range in Afri-ca as a buffer crop for lean times could help boost food security. There is grow-ing interest in seeking new plants to feed the world, given our reliance on a few sta-ple crops.

"This is a crop that can play a really important role in addressing food securi-ty and sustainable development," said Dr Wendawek Abebe of Hawassa University in Awasa, Ethiopia.

Enset is a staple in Ethiopia, where around 20 million people rely on it for food, but elsewhere it has not been culti-vated, although wild relatives - which are not considered edible - grow as far south as South Africa, suggesting the plant can tolerate a much wider range.

Using agricultural surveys and model-ling work, scientists predicted the poten-tial range of enset over the next four decades. They found the crop could poten-tially feed more than 100 million people and boost food security in Ethiopia and other African countries, including Ken-ya, Uganda and Rwanda, facing severe food crises. (Source: BBC)

Lake of Ice, a reflective landscape photo capturing a grove of icy willow trees partially submerged in a frozen lake, taken by Italian photographer Cristiano Vendramin, won the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award

2021. More than 31,800 wildlife and nature enthusiasts voted online and chose the photo from 25 images, shortlisted out of more than 50,000 images from 95 coun-

tries submitted to the Natural History Museum, London.

ASIANERAONLINE.COM 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 2022 The AsiAn erA 31TheSouthAsianTimes.info August 21-27, 2021I ND IA DAY SPEC IAL

32 The AsiAn erA 17 - 23 FEBRUARY 2022 ASIANERAONLINE.COM