The Isha Foundation had a successful evening of music and fund-raising with “Isha Isai Mazhai 2012,” which was held on Saturday, Jan. 14 at Ashland High School in Ashland, Mass. Over 300 people attended the event and the foundation raised $6,000 to support its efforts.

Hit film "Don 2" has broken the record for 2011's top-grossing Bollywood film in North America in less than two weeks in the theater. The Shak Rukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra action thriller grossed $3.3 million in North American theaters from its opening on December 23, 2011 to January 3, surpassing the $3.1 million mark set by "Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara" starring Hrithik Roshan. 

 

Proceeds from the event, "Shua Kay Sung," will go to benefit the victims of the recent flooding in Pakistan.

Aap Ka Manoranjan has been bringing Bollywood stars, in concert and on the movie screen, for almost two decades and now the entertainment promoters are launching new Indian movie screenings in Rhode Island.

The movies will be screened at Cinemaworld in the Lincoln Mall at 622 George Washington Highway in Lincoln, R.I. Cinemaworld has state of the art facilities including stadium seating, digital projection and digital surround sound. 

 

U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-VA, co-chair of the Senate's India Caucus, led a five-member congressional delegation on a visit to India, which began on Jan. 7 and ended on Jan. 14. The delegation meet with top government and business leaders in New Dehli, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Kolkata, exploring opportunities to expand business, trade, defense and cultural relationships between the two countries.

This Sunday, January 8, at 3 p.m. Harvard University's Department of South Asian Studies continued its lecture series on "Indian Society through the Ages" with a free event at the Harvard Science Center in Cambridge, Mass. The lecture, "Heroic Krishna in the Epic Mahabharata," featured Harvard Professor Kevin McGrath. 

IMS Health has acquired PharmARC, an India-based company specializing in commercial analytics and services for the life sciences industry. The acquisition adds to IMS’s business process outsourcing capabilities, the Danbury, Conn.-based company said.

PharmARC, which is headquartered in Bangalore, serves 15 of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies and covers multiple therapeutic areas, geographies and data types. 

Music lovers in the region enjoyed an evening of Tamil film songs of various genres, from gaana pattu to romantic ballads to dance numbers, all sung by local artists during "Isha Isai Mazhai 2012," which was held on Saturday, Jan. 14 at Ashland High School in Ashland, Mass., at 4:30 p.m. Proceeds from the benefit will go to support the work of the Isha Foundation.

Linear Retail Properties has appointed Deepa Krishnamurthy partner. She joined the Burlington, Mass.-based retail real estate company in 2004 as controller and was promoted to vice president of finance in 2007 and chief financial officer in 2010.   

As partner and CFO, Krishnamurthy is responsible for overseeing the finance, accounting and human resource functions as well as a wide range of other corporate activities. 

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab has appointed Sepandar Kamvar, a computer scientist, artist and entrepreneur with an international reputation for his work in personalized search and peer-to-peer networks, as the LG Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and head of the social computing research group. 

Harvard Business School professor Krishna G. Palepu has been appointed senior advisor for global strategy to Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust.

In this role, Palepu will implement proposals from the school’s International Strategy Working Group and work on international fundraising, as well as relations with Harvard about 40,000 alumni who live and work abroad. 

Dipak K. Das, a professor at in the University of Connecticut’s Department of Surgery and director of the school’s Cardiovascular Research Center, is facing dismissal from the university and disgrace after a three-year investigation found 145 counts of fabrication and falsification of data in his research.

Das is most well known for his research into the beneficial properties of resveratrol, an ingredient in red win, which he found to have potential for promoting health.

 

It was time to usher in the spirit of everything new -- new hopes, new wishes, new ideas and a new year filled with dreams of a better future. The fun, music and euphoria were all pervasive at the Westin Hotel Waltham, where United India Association of New England hosted its New Year's party on December 31 with over 450 revelers gathered to welcome 2012 with gusto.

In the serene lush green tranquil surroundings on the banks of the river Thunga is located the Sri Sharada Lakshminarasimha Swamy Temple & Peetam at Hariharapura in Chickmagalur District, Karnataka, India. It has now been proposed to reconstruct this ancient temple to its stateliness. So, is this yet another temple renovation project? Let’s cogitate.

Proloy K. Das, a partner with Rome McGuigan in Hartford, Conn., was named one of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association's "Best Lawyers Under 40" for 2011.

Das was presented with the award at the bar association's annual gala, which was held late last year in Washington, D.C.

According to the bar association, the "Best Lawyers Under 40" awards recognize talented Asian Pacific American attorneys under the age of 40 who have achieved prominence in their respective areas of law while demonstrating an unwavering dedication to the Asian Pacific American community. 

 

While INDIA New England was out and about at many Diwali celebrations from late October through December a few more celebrations are certainly worth noting. So to find out how some other groups celebrate the festive Diwali season read below.

 

 

On a bright Sunday morning in November, a little over one hundred people gathered at Walpole High School in Walpole, Mass., to celebrate one of the most anticipated Indian holidays of the year and the birthday of one of India's most beloved political figures in history, Jawaharlal Nehru. What is this place? This is Shishu Bharati, a school of Indian culture and languages.

Headlines last fall were ominous: Rajat Gupta to surrender to the FBI; Rajat Gupta released on $10 million bail. It was the lead story in major American newspapers and the lead story on evening news on network TV. 

Rajat Gupta was one of a special group of Indian Americans who had made their way to the top in American business and academic world, and so in a way, he was among the "best and the brightest," even in the "best and the brightest" group. 

Every year millions of Sikhs and their well-wishers from all over the world celebrate Guru Gobind Singh's birthday in the first week of January. But few outside India know the background of this day, a bit of history should help.

Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust made her first visited to India in late January.

As president of Harvard, Faust, who is also a history professor at the school, has expanded financial aid to improve access to Harvard for students of all economic backgrounds and advocated for increased federal funding for scientific research. She has broadened the university's international reach, raised the profile of the arts on campus, embraced sustainability, and promoted collaboration across academic disciplines and administrative units as she guided the University through a period of significant financial challenges.

Indian Carnatic singer Bhavadhaarini Anantaraman thrilled a crowd of gathered music enthusiasts with a concert on late last fall at the Shirdi Baba Temple in Billerica, Mass.

Bhavadhaarini Anantaraman is a familiar name in the Chennai Carnatic circles. She has been a distinguished disciple of Sangeetha Kalanidhi Smt. D.K. Pattamal for over 25 years. She has recently settled down in Malden, Mass. and has been continuing her concerts and classes there.

At an age when most students in the United States are worried about acclimating to high school, 14-year-old Geeta Renuse left her hometown in Pune, India, when she accepted a full scholarship to attend five weeks of classes at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. In so doing, she became the first member of an organization dedicated to supporting childhood education and health to attend school in the United States.

 

In the ever-shifting, restaurant business you can expect longtime Massachusetts restaurateur and caterer Vinod Kapoor, to make moves to stay ahead of the pack. 

 

Given that high-voltage action thrillers and suspense flicks enthrall and electrify viewers no end, March offers two fleet-footed and consuming riddles — "Kahaani" and "Agent Vinod." Get ready for some on-the-edge entertainment.

Bollywood has been remaking films forever but lately filmmakers are opting for official remakes over blatant plagiarism and it is raining remakes in Bollywood in 2012 with "Players" and "Agneepath" releasing in January.

 

Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Burmawala Brothers jointly present "Players -- Go for Gold," an action thriller which was released on January 6.

The Network of South Asian Women celebrated a year of successful programming by holding a special networking event at Bollywood Grill in Framingham, Mass., in December. The event titled, "How Successful Women Succeed" was well attended and a great success as women from diverse backgrounds came together for an afternoon of productive networking, sharing, and learning, according to organizers.

 

INDIA New England is proud to announce Nitin Nohria, dean of Harvard Business School, as the 2012 INDIA New England Person of the Year.

The Person of the Year award is a new honor bestowed by the newspaper and follows closely on the heels of INDIA New England's first ever "50 Most Influential People" list, which was released in the November edition. Nohria was also honored on this list and rose above his fellow honorees to be tabbed as "Person of the Year" for his work with Harvard in 2011.

At a recent book club gathering of women from the world over, including yours truly, who have thriving lives in the United States spoke about how they perceived India as they were growing up. "Eat up your dinner because people in India are starving!" This has a time stamp and children growing up in the '50s and '60s in the United States thought of India as a poor developing country. In the same breath, these women also expressed their views on the current scene and how wonderful the call centers have been for India — I sensed a veiled cynicism there.

SikhNet has launched an interactive video game designed to appeal to, and inspire Punjabi and Sikh youth around the world, according to the company. "Karma Game -- The Ogre's Curse" is a decision-making adventure game that teaches spiritual values and Punjabi culture. It is illustrated and narrated with the same high quality expected from commercial video games.

According to the fifth annual MetLife Study of the American Dream, South Asian Americans show a slight shift in their view of the "American Dream." This compares to a clear emergence of a less traditional and more personalized definition of the Dream among the general population. And while South Asian Americans remain far more confident about achieving the Dream than most Americans, pessimism is starting to creep in.

 

The immigration law of 1924 enacted by the Congress of the United States and signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge allowed immigrants to enter, live and work, and apply for citizenship here, under a quota system. Under this law, the annual quota for Britain was set at 34,007, while a mere 100 were allowed to emigrate from India. Some four decades later, with President Kennedy’s initiative and at the urging of President Johnson, Congress abolished the system entirely and allowed annually up to 170,000 people worldwide to emigrate on a first-come, first-served basis. This law contributed to increasing the number of students entering from India in the 1960s. 

In this article, I'll be sharing with you the Winter Regimen or Ritu (Season) charya (activities or regimen) for the winter season.

Ancient treatises of Ayurved, describe two subjects (besides others) that are distinctly unique to this science -- one is Dinacharya or the Daily Regimen, and the other is Ritucharya or the Seasonal Regimen.