Forty-six delegates representing 40 schools from across India will arrive in Boston at the end of July to participate in the International Colloquium on Jesuit Secondary Education, the first-ever global summit of Jesuit secondary school educators. 

To commemorate the billionth meal to be served by Akshaya Patra in August 2012, the legendary lyricist Javed Akthar and India's iconic singer Shankar Mahadevan are partnering to create music that will celebrate the joys of childhood and help Akshaya Patra to raise awareness about its program to enable hunger free education. The music, accompanied by a video featuring Mahadevan, will launch in the month of August when Akshaya Patra will be serving their billionth meal. According to Shankar the music will be poetic and will have a melody that lingers.

 

 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Associate Professor Pawan Sinha and Professor Parag Pathak have been named recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers. The award is the highest honor given by the U.S. government to science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their research careers.

The Indian Community of Greater Rhode Island will hold its annual "India Community Picnic" this Sunday at Colt State Park in Bristol, R.I. The event will start at noon and run through the afternoon. It features many events for family and children, including carnival games, a bounce house, temporary tattoos, kites, cricket and Frisbee. The picnic will also feature food, music, bhangra and raas-garba.

This week a federal jury in Hartford, Conn., has found Shaneel Jain, 56, currently residing in Cumberland, R.I., guilty of threatening to bomb the facilities of a Connecticut company. The trial before United States District Judge Robert N Chatigny began on July 16, and the jury returned its verdict on July 23.

Chandu Shah's S4 Inc. has inked a deal with NORAD-U.S. Northern Command worth as much as $262 million. The Burlington, Mass.-based S4 will provide technical and advisory support services at the NORAD-U.S. Northern Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo.

 

Maggie Sharma, 82, was honored by the 18th annual Ordinary Heroes Community Service Learning Project in Sharon, Mass., for her efforts with the Meals on Wheels program. Sharma is a volunteer with Meals on Wheels. She was one of four "Ordinary Heroes" honored.

Sunita Williams, who grew up in Needham, Mass. and is a U.S. Navy captain and NASA astronaut, launched on Soyuz TMA-05M spacecraft at 10:40 p.m. on July 14 from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. Williams is joined by Yuri Malenchenko and Aki Hoshide. They are on their way to the International Space Station to join Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineers Joe Acaba and Sergei Revin.

Charu Gupta, a former investigative journalist, will join the Veng Group as managing partner of the firm’s new Boston office, which will open later this month. Based in Washington, D.C., the Veng Group is a government relations, communications, public affairs and outreach firm with a client roster that includes national African American, Asian American, Latino and Native American organizations.

VideoIQ, a Bedford, Mass.-based video surveillance company, has opened an office in Hyderabad. The company said it plans to sell its full line of intelligent video surveillance systems, such as iCVR-HD cameras, iCVR dome cameras and Rialto multi-channel encoders, to the Indian market.

 

INDIA New England is seeking nominations for its annual 20 Under 20 Awards.   Nominations may come from anyone: parents, teachers, friends or other students; and self-nominations are okay. Award winners will be selected based on academic achievement, extracurricular activities, athletic involvement, entrepreneurship, involvement in the community, volunteerism or skills in writing or the arts. Twenty winners will be recognized in a special section of INDIA New England in the September 2012 issue. Please click here to nominate The deadline to enter nominations is Thurs., Aug. 9, 2012 at 6 p.m. Nominees must be under 20 years of age as of Sept. 1, 2012. If you have any questions, please contact Martin Desmarais, Editor at MJD@IndiaNewEngland.com.

 

 

 

Catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide, which is based in Boston, has released a cyclone model for India. The new peer-reviewed model, which was developed out of AIR's Hyderabad office, captures the effects of wind and precipitation-induced flooding on insured properties in India, enabling companies to assess cyclone risk in the region more fully and accurately, the company said.

Crossover Basketball and Scholars Academy, which is based in Boston, is set to run its initial session in India from Aug. 5 to Aug. 15. Crossover Basketball founder Shaun Jayachandran, program coordinator Neha Soneji and College of the Holy Cross basketball player Eric Obeysekere will travel to Chennai and work with 40 area students. Basketballs and other coaching equipment have been donated by CHAMPRO Sports.

Dover Rug & Home is sponsoring Boston magazine's Design Home 2012, which will open its doors to the public for six weeks of house tours this October, with all proceeds benefiting the Ronald McDonald House Charities.  

May 12, Shri Dwarkamai Vidyapeeth, Shri Shirdi Sai Baba Temple, North Billerica, Mass., hosted the Spiritual Gold 2012 program to honor our senior citizens and elders. It is an annual cultural and spiritual all day program to honor and respect our seniors and seek their guidance and blessings. 

When the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs held a Fulbright Enrichment Seminar in Boston in late May, with the goal of pooling some bright graduate student minds in examination of public health market opportunities, it featured two scholars from India.

 

The India Association of New Hampshire held its third annual Chess Tournament in June at the YMCA in Nashua, N.H. About 25 players competed in two age groups: 5 to 15 and 15 and older. Kaival Shah won first place in the under 15 category and Ram Kanchrala and Kanagavel Rajanwhile tied for first place in the over 15 group.

The Indian Medical Association of New England and the Greater Boston chapter of the South Asian Bar Association have joined forced to host a panel discussion on July 18 at Tufts University about recent health-care legislation and its impact. The panel, "Affordable Care Act and the Supreme Court: The Future of Healthcare Reform," features area experts and will include a Q&A and networking.

Pankti Jog, the Advocacy Coordinator for Janpath and the Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel groups, addressed a crowd of about 30 people at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on June 17. Her talk, organized by the MIT and Boston chapters of Association for India's Development, covered Janpath's and MAGP's advocacy work with Right to Information primarily in the state of Gujarat. RTI is a powerful act passed by the parliament of India in 2005, allowing the common citizen to inquire about any government related information and activity. 

Kronos Inc. has further extended its reach in the Indian market through a strategic alliance with Qimpro Consultants Pvt. Ltd., a leader in quality consulting in India. The alliance will leverage the synergies of Qimpro's leadership in quality consulting and Kronos workforce management services to drive workforce transformation for Indian businesses through workforce cost optimization, process effectiveness and performance excellence, the Chelmsford, Mass.-based Kronos said.

Perhaps we thought popularity contests ended in high school, but recent polls are showing that "likeability" could very well determine who wins the presidency in November. Though Mitt Romney scores higher in polls on economic know-how, President Barack Obama currently polls at about 29 percentage points higher on likeability, according to a Gallup poll.

 

The sight of a Bollywood hit on the big screen has been as rare as a bright sunny day in the New England Area. Hoping that Bollywood sees its first big hit soon and New Englanders get the warmness of the sun, here is the list of movie that come with a promise to entertain.

Publicly traded networking giant NetScout Systems has acquired the technology and assets of the intelligent customer service assurance product line of Accanto Systems, which is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland. NetScout said the acquisition will help the company support rapidly developing voice-over-Internet technology. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Dr. M.R. Rajagopal, founder of Pallium India, is stopping by in Boston this week to take part in an informal meeting "Palliative Care in India — Present Status and Path to Improvement" on Thursday, Aug. 2 from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Waltham, Mass. Rajagopal is considered to be the father of palliative care in India and is credited with providing palliative care to thousands.

"The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it," said Mao Tse-Tung, the 20th Century revolutionary, who became the father of China.

It is no easy task to pick the INDIA New England Woman of the Year, the newspaper staff knows that and always has a hard enough time narrowing down the so many impressive nominations to the 20 Woman of the Year Finalist. However, the task of choosing the Woman of the Year winner is turned over every year to a panel of judges. Meet the judges who were tasked with choosing the 2012 INDIA New England Woman of the Year.

Throughout the past several decades, the private equity market has shown great potential to achieve impressive long-term returns, as institutional investors and wealthy individuals demonstrate continued interest in this space. In this column, I will explore how individuals can invest in the private equity market — although for a high price — and explain the factors one should take into consideration prior to doing so.

The New England Shirdi Sai Parivaar, a religious and spiritual organization, recently commemorated the Sai Palkhi festival which is an annual event that the organization has been practicing since its inception in 2006. The festival kicked off this year in late May and then continued with a procession on weekends throughout June.

She has been likened to Mother Teresa and Mohandas Gandhi by Reuters and named as one of the twelve most influential religious leaders in the world by CBS TV in its Primetime Special, "In God's Name." Hundreds of thousands of people flock to see her both in India and all over the world. And yet, this humble 58-year-old from Kerala dressed in a simple white sari, has only one concern — uplifting the suffering of humanity. Known simply as Amma or Mother, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi has created a vast network of institutions including hospitals, universities and charitable organizations that tackle all aspects of human suffering. To that end, several conferences were held recently at the Amrita University which Amma started in 2003. 

2011 INDIA New England Woman of the Year Dr. Manju Sheth has agreed to become one of the lead sponsors of the annual INDIA New England Woman of the Year, including the banquet and awards ceremony. Subu Kota, head of the Boston Group, sponsor of the Woman of the Year event for the last three years has also agreed to renew his commitment for the next three years.

Shishu Bharati, a school of languages and culture of India, has opened its registration for the 2012-2013 school year. Shishu Bharati has locations in Lexington, Mass.; Walpole, Mass.; and Nashua, N.H. The school's objective is to develop a sense of well-informed cultural pride in the students by creating the environment that fosters the learning of Indian arts, customs, languages, religions, history and current events. 

A study by Sudbury, Mass.-based iViZ Security on security products titled, "(In)Security in Security Products," finds that many security products are themselves vulnerable to hacking. Of the various categories of security tools, antivirus solutions, firewalls and VPN security tools were found to have maximum number of vulnerabilities. 

The American Tamil Medical Association will hold its eighth annual convention in Boston from Aug. 23 to Aug. 26. The event will include dining, entertainment, a Boston Harbor cruise and Continuing Medical Education courses. The event is being sponsored by the Massachusetts chapter of the ATMA and is headed by conference chair Prakash Rau.

To share United States' latest Asia-Pacific vision, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently jetted across Asia stopping in Singapore, Vietnam, India and Afghanistan to assess reactions and takers for its shift in the naval strategy that seems to have rattled China. 

Indians' contributions to U.S. need to be recognized, applauded and encouraged

 

Summer is a good time to visit the United States. The pleasant weather conditions, blooming seasonal flowers and the relaxed air kind of entice many to visit around this time of the year. Who does not want to experience the Big Apple, the Grand Canyon and the thriving amusement parks strewn across the country? Not surprisingly many Indian residents in the United States get busy hosting friends and family members. But then it is the same if it were the reverse — guests are always welcome in India to the extent that they are revered. 

Western Union Business Solutions, a unit of The Western Union Co., said it is enabling participating universities to accept international students' tuition payments and fees in Indian rupees. The service, available via a strategic agreement with India's premiere ICICI Bank, will facilitate the processing of foreign tuition invoices and student fees directly via students' home country bank accounts.