Indian Ambassador to the United States Meera Shankar visited Boston late last week with stops at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and the statehouse.

The Race Amity Day Celebration is seeking Indian and South Asian performers for an event on June 12 from noon to 5:00 p.m. at the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston.

Harvard Medical School graduate Siddhartha Mukherjee has won a 2011 Pulitzer Prize for his nonfiction book "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer."

Along with his Pulitzer Prize, Mukherjee will receive an award of $10,000. 

Massachusetts politicians voted to restore funding for a program providing health-care coverage for legal immigrants. The program, known as CommonwealthCare Bridge, was stripped of funds earlier this year by the initial Massachusetts House of Representatives budget, but a vote on April 27 of 150 to four approved $25 million from the beginning of the fiscal year through December, after which the legislature will reassess the program’s needs.

NetSAP Boston is hosting a career fair on April 27 from 4:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Seaport Hotel in Boston.

According to the group, the career fair will enable up to 150 qualified job-seekers and up to 20 established companies currently looking for talent to interact in a cozy setting. 

Leader Bank, in conjunction with TiE-Boston, is sponsoring a seminar "Accessing Capital for Your Small Business" tonight from 6:00 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Burlington Marriott in Burlington, Mass.

 

Photos by Jen Richman

The third Sensational India! event was held at the Salem-based Peabody Essex Museum on April 2 and April 3, with a crowd of more than 2,000. The event examined Indian culture through a variety of lenses, including art, dance, cuisine and music.

The weekend featured interactive arts exhibits for kids and adults, lectures, dance performances and workshops, and Indian classical music presentations. Highlights included a performance by Sa Dance Company, musician Kartik Seshardi, "Mama's Sari's" storytelling and an "Indian Peacock" art activity.

A table covered in small colored beads — one of the first things visitors encountered as they entered the museum — gave kids the chance to make their own rangoli. 

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LearnQuest Academy’s sixth annual music conference held between March 30 and April 3 featured fabulous performances in the two main styles of Indian classical music — North Indian (Hindustani) and South Indian (Carnatic) — a Carnatic-jazz collaboration, an informative lecture demonstration that highlighted commonalities between Hindustani Dhrupad tradition and some of Muthuswami Dikshidar’s Carnatic compositions, and additionally included a rare film screening on Bhimsen Joshi. 

In an era when the intersection of various musical styles and global influences can make it impossible to discern a song’s origin, British band Cornershop, which has Boston ties, continues to reach out to people on both sides of the pond with its blend of Punjabi folk music, British indie-rock and dance music with its recent album “Cornershop & the Double ‘O’ Groove Of.” 

Anytime you get a chance to see a hugely popular play that is returning thanks to popular demand you should jump at it and that was exactly what I did when I heard “Krishan vs. Kanhaiya” was returning to Boston.

Movik Networks, a mobile broadband technology company, has raised $25 million in funding.

Oak Investment Partners led the round while previous investors Highland Capital Partners and Northbridge Venture Partners participated.

Manish Chowdhary, 32, is a businessman who was always going to be an entrepreneur. In fact, the founder and chief executive officer of GoECart couldn’t even wait until he was out of college to start his own business – a move that put him on the path to running the successful company he does today.

With the H-1B visa cap hit in January for 2011, and the new application process for 2012 just kicking off, criticism of the H-1B visa system is a hot topic and many are calling the regulations flawed ones that stifle innovation and hurt growth. The Competitive Enterprise Institute has gone beyond just pointing out the flaws, though, and is offering some fixes.

The increased popularity of yoga leaves many practitioners wondering about the ancient roots of the system, how it is connected to India and whether their practice is compatible with their own faith traditions.  On March 20, a sage of India came to South Portland, Maine, to teach on this subject.

University of Massachusetts Amherst-educated psychologist and author Salma Bhalla believes in nipping children’s behavioral problems in the bud, before they are allowed to follow a child into adulthood. Her new book, “Cues and Clues to Children’s Behaviors: A Guide to Raising a Happy, Well-Adjusted Child,” outlines strategies to identify possible emotional and behavioral problems in young people. It also gives parents warning signs of emotional distress in their kids and advice in dealing with their emotional needs.

A small group of researchers is currently looking at South Asian languages spoken throughout the United States, a move they hope will one day spur on South Asian language curriculum in kindergarten through twelfth grade classrooms across the country.

A 72 year old man came to my office with a history of low back pain. He had a previous history of alcoholism; however, he had stopped drinking almost 10 years ago. He also had kidney disease and a 50-pack-year smoking history. He took steroids because of frequent breathing issues. On examination, he had lumbar lordosis, tenderness on palpation of the lumbar spine and height loss. An X-ray showed a compression fracture of one of his lumbar vertebra. A dual energy x-ray absorptiometry scan revealed evidence of osteoporosis.

The Desai Family Foundation, in conjunction with various community organizations, held a health symposium, “Managing Diabetes and Eating Healthy,” in Burlington on March 26.

When Solmon and Rokeya Chowdhury opened Taste of India-Shanti restaurant in Dorchester 10 years ago they knew they would have to compensate for the city's reputation as having tough neighborhoods in order to get patrons in the door. What they did not know is that after a decade their restaruant would become a fixture in the community.

The community-at-large and members of the Sree Vijaya Durga Temple gathered in Burlington to witness its inauguration on April 8. Just over a dozen devotees arrived to watch 23-year-old priest Tejasvi Putcha perform a vital facet of inaugurating a new temple — the Hindu ceremony of introducing the temple's main goddess, Durga, to the new temple.