voice of asia april 17 2015

VOICE OF ASIA 1 FRIDAY, April 17, 2015

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IDA awards $10,000 in scholarships to outstanding students at annual gala

Scholarship recipients: Emily Flynt, Sabrina Orta, Bridgette Guzman, and Perry Alagappan (not in order). Photo by Shobana Muratee.

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HOUSTON – The India Doctors Association of Houston (IDA)

held its Spring Gala 2015 on Sunday April 12 at the Hotel Derek here in Houston. The gala’s theme was ‘India’ and IDA board members represent-ed the tricolor of the Indian flag in their attire and decor that night.

Welcoming the gathering of nearly 300 guests, Dr. Raghu Athre, President IDA, spoke of IDA’s goals being to sup-port the IDA Charity Clinic and awarding scholarships. This year he said, IDA had received 60 applications from students which was phenomenal consid-ering what would typically be ten to 12 applicants in the past. For the first time in IDA his-tory, four scholarships totaling $10,000 were being awarded to four outstanding high School students from Houston at the gala: one by IDA and three others by individual sponsors Dr. Athre informed. The re-cipients were IDA Scholarship: Perry Alagappan - Clear Lake HS, Lynne Lipsitz scholarship: Bridgette Guzman Morton Ranch HS, Rajan Scholarship: Sabrina Orta Clear Springs HS, And Dr. T. and Mala Go-pal scholarsgip: Emily Flynt - Clear Creek HS.

The gala opened with the elegant Presentation of Colors by JROTC Walter High lead by Lt. Col Kenneth Shaw. Dr. Athre, expressed his thanks to all the volunteers for their time and support and recognized the IDA on the occasion. Dr. KT Shah, Medical Director and one the longest standing vol-unteers and directors of IDA gave a brief about the humble beginnings of the organization that was the founded by philan-thropists and physicians Drs. Sunita and Suresh Moonath in 1998. He mentioned many others who lead the charity organization to become one of the popular of the organization serving Houston communities and attending to over 1400 as recorded in 2013. Dr. Shah ini-

tiated the fundrais-ing and the first check he received was for $500 from a 13 year old do-nor representing ‘Little Wishes’ that raises funds from making jewelry, bookmarks and sorts and donates the amount to a charity, this year their chose IDA. Dr. Shah is assist-ed by dedicated volunteers like Dr. Ashima Chauhan who is a life time member of IDA.

IDA EC and Board members include: Vice President, Subodh Chauhan MD, Secretary, Man-ish Gandhi, MD, Treasurer, Prasul Jalal MD, past President Uttam Tripathy, MD and Board Members Swati joglekar, MD and Jignesh Shah MD. The event’s major donors:

BBVA Compass and Memorial Hermann, Scholarship spon-sors, vendors were recognized on the occasion.

The IDA has been initiating many changes to increasing

L-R: Dr. Raghu Athre, President IDA, Dr. Tripathy past president and incoming president Dr. Subodh Chauhan show off their Indian flag tricolor at the IDA gala

its visibility and branding like the new website http://www.ida-houston.org developed by Anand Kumar Chauhan. Please visit their website http://www.ida-houston.org for details of their activities.

NEW DELHI, In-dia, 8 April, 2015 – His Excellency

Pranab Mukherjee, Presi-dent of India, today awarded His Highness the Aga Khan the Padma Vibhushan, one of the country’s highest ci-vilian decorations, for his contributions to social de-velopment in India.

The award, which was bestowed at the Rashtra-pati Bhavan in New Delhi as part of the commemora-tion of India’s 66th Repub-lic Day, was also awarded to actor Amitabh Bhach-chan, philanthropist Dr. D. Veerendra Heggade and renowned nuclear scientist, Malur Ramasamy Srini-vasan, amongst others.

His Highness the Aga Khan receiving the Padma Vibhushan Award from

Aga Khan receives India’s Padma

Vibhushan Award

His Highness the Aga Khan receiving the Padma Vibhushan Award from President Pranab Mukherjee of India. Photo: AKDN

President Pranab Mukherjee of India. Photo: AKDN

Instituted in 1954, the Padma Awards recognise individual achievements in a wide range of disciplines as well as a recipient’s com-mitment to public service. The Awards comprise three levels of recognition: Pad-ma Shri is awarded for dis-tinguished service; Padma Bhushan is for distinguished service of a high order; and Padma Vibhushan recogn-ises exceptional and distin-guished service.

The Ismaili Imamat and the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) have a long and historic relation-ship with India, dating back 100 years to the first Aga Khan School in Mundra, Gu-jarat, which was established

Continued on page 3

VOICE OF ASIA 2 FRIDAY, April 17, 2015OP-ED/COMMENTARY/ANALYSIS

Publisher: Koshy ThomasAssociate Publisher: Sherly PhilipEditor-in-Chief: Shobana MurateeAustin Correspondent: Sherine ThomasPrint & Media Marketing: Jacob DavidMarketing: Susan Pothanikat Production: AR VadlamaniOffice Manager: Priyan Mathew Columnists:Legal: Richard M. AldermanLegal: Sharlene Sharmila RichardsResearch: Prof. Meenakshi BhattacharjeeHealth Insurance: Sudhir MathuriaAstrology: Hardik Vyas

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The large number of Re-publicans who plan to run for president face

a daunting problem. They will have to spend huge amounts of time and money just to intro-duce themselves to voters. In a recent CNN poll, 39% said they had never heard of Sen. Marco Rubioof Florida, who’s sched-uled to announce his candidacy Monday. Even the best-known member of the GOP pack, for-mer Florida governor Jeb Bush, has been out of the public spot-light since he left office eight years ago.

On the Democratic side, Hil-lary Clinton, who announced her bid for the presidency Sun-day in a two-minute video posted on her campaign web-site, faces no such problem. After a quarter-century in the limelight, she has 99% name recognition and leads potential contenders for the Democratic nomination by 40 percentage points or more — an extraordi-nary position in a party accus-tomed to fractious nominating fights.

Clinton’s familiarity, howev-er, represents both her biggest advantage and her biggest vul-nerability.

On the plus side, she brings more top-level experience — in the White House, Congress and foreign policy — than her rivals put together. She has a

devoted fan base that likes her and wants to see her become the first female president. And she has demonstrated an admi-rable persistence in decades-long fights for women’s rights and guaranteed health care.

But with more experience comes more baggage. Clinton’s record as first lady, senator, candidate and Cabinet member leaves her with a long trail of votes and controversies that cause a good chunk of the elec-torate — 44% in the CNN poll — to view her unfavorably. In an odd way, she has more to prove than lesser-known can-didates.

For starters, she will have to show that she can run a disci-plined campaign. Her 2008 bid for the Democratic nomination was a mess of the first order. It took her nomination for grant-ed, was plagued by infighting, had a hard time communicat-ing a coherent message, and in some cases didn’t even know the rules of state primaries.

Clinton will also have to convince voters that she un-derstands the importance of openness in government. Dur-ing her husband’s first term, her secrecy-shrouded health care task force released an un-

Hillary Clinton’s challenge

workable, overly complex plan that makes Obamacare look like an exercise in government restraint. More recently, her decision to run her email from a private server while she was secretary of State raised new concerns about her commit-ment to transparency.

In the months ahead, she’ll have to navigate the Demo-cratic Party’s increasingly vo-cal left wing, try to prevent her husband from becoming a dis-traction, and make a case that a polarizing figure such as herself

could possibly bridge polariza-tion in Washington.

Hillary Clinton’s understated announcement Sunday sug-gested she grasps that “it’s my turn” is not a viable campaign message. She cast herself as a “champion” for everyday Americans when many see her as a creature of Washington and Wall Street. Her challenge, to paraphrase another trailblazing Democrat, is to explain what she can do for the country, not what the country can do for her. - USA Today

Hillary Clinton announces her campaign for president Sunday on her website. (Photo: hillaryclinton.com via AP)

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The next U.S. presiden-tial election is a year and a half away, and

thus far three Republicans have thrown their hats in the ring – Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio. Much has been said about the female candidate Hillary Clinton, for-mer First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State announc-ing her candidacy for the 2016 presidency. One of the debates around her campaign revolves around the gender issue – whether Clinton’s team ought to highlight gender as a tool to profile her candidacy, versus downplaying the gender card as gender as an issue becomes more streamlined into other policy issues.

A recent Gallup poll of 649 Democrat and Democratic-leaning independents indicates Hillary Clinton as the most fa-vorable among the polled par-ticipants (79%), followed by Joe Biden (64%) and Elizabeth

Warren (37%). This means that even if Biden throws in his bid for the 2016 presidential elec-tion, Clinton would have about a 15-percentage point advantage over the current Vice President. These results are interesting as they show Democratic public opinion about Clinton (even af-ter the recent controversy about Clinton using her private email to conduct government busi-ness) and other party elites.

Barack Obama as a candi-date experienced a lead among women during both his 2008 and 2012 campaigns. Howev-er, over 50% of White women were seen to favor the Repub-lican candidate Mitt Romney, compared to about 40% for Obama. Also, Obama was less popular among married women compared to Romney. Clinton’s staff and campaign strategists would benefit using the gender card to continue to influence women in order to mobilize the female vote, and continue to build upon Obama’s coalition of support.

Given the economic hard-ships and unemployment in the recent times, more politi-cians are framing gender is-sues as “family” issues. Men have often experienced being laid off before their female counterparts in various indus-

tries, and the focus on women spans more than the traditional gender issues such as abortion and maternal health. Women are increasingly becoming part of the conversation with issues regarding minimum wage earn-ings and equality of pay.

Clinton’s video campaign for the Presidential bid starts out by highlighting various, diverse individuals and their lives, while she herself doesn’t appear in the video until much later. This is strategic as it highlights average Americans and the message of an all-inclu-sive struggle to strive for a bet-ter tomorrow. The campaign ad is framed to put people first, highlighting women in both subtle and non-subtle manner. Clinton is a female candidate who is not necessarily focusing on her gender, but working on her imaging to be much more beyond that.

Will Clinton have formi-dable challengers from the Democratic Party? This re-mains to be seen, but she has a clear advantage in the sense that she’s kicked off the cam-paign early, via social media. While the Republican candi-dates fight amongst each other (though they may be united in a sense as they see Clinton as their common enemy), she can

continue to act presidential in nature. The opposition’s criti-cism and negative campaigns, intentionally or intentionally, will be perceived as having gender-related over or under-tones, and this tactic may ac-tually end up helping Clinton; in uniting the Democratic base and steering Democratic elites towards supporting Clinton to be the only viable Democratic forerunner.

We have eighteen months of campaign news and activities ahead of us to see how things unfold. Though the 2016 elec-tion rhetoric may primary con-tinue to revolve mainly around jobs and the economy, as more candidates thrown in their bids for the presidential campaign, the race will surely prove to be interesting, especially in terms of how candidates of each par-ty will treat the gender card, even when they are not focus-ing on it.

Anjali Kanojia, PhD is a lec-turer and Assistant Director for the India Studies Program at the University of Houston. Any opinions expressed in this article are only those of the author and do not represent or reflect opinions or positions of the author’s employer.

Clinton’s 2016 Presidential Bid: The Gender Card

Anjali Kanojia, PhD


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From Bollywood to Houston: Celebrity & Music Director Jatin Pandit Named Brand Ambassador for the World Congress on Preventive Healthcare 2015

HOUSTON - Dr. Sumita Chowdhury, Chairperson for the

World Congress on Preven-tive Healthcare, at a press conference at Signature India, Houston, on Thursday, April 9, 2015, announced that Bol-lywood celebrity and music director Jatin Pandit will be the Brand Ambassador for the World Congress on Preventive Healthcare 2015. This Con-gress will be held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston from July 10th to July 12th, 2015.

The World Congress on Preventive Healthcare (Pre-vention2015.org) is a part of the North American Bengali Conference (NABC) 2015, a non-profit organization that will attract more than 10,000 visitors from all around the world. Entry is free and is open to all (NABC2015.org) and the primary focus of this Congress will be on the local South Asian community.

Press reporters from the Voice of Asia, Urdu Times,

Pakistan News, Duniya TV, and the Health Line attended the event. The President of the NABC, Mr Tapan Das, and the Secretary of the

NABC, Mr Partha Chatter-jee, presented its mission: to make a significant and sustainable difference to the global community.

by the Aga Khan’s grandfather, Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah, in 1905.

Today, AKDN institutions work in close partnership with governments and communities to address a broad spectrum of

development priorities in the country, including cultural re-vitalisation, education, health care, drinking water and sani-tation, rural development and access to finance for poor com-munities.

These initiatives include ru-ral support programmes in over

2,500 villages, the creation of 6,600 community institutions, urban and rural education pro-grammes working with over 400 schools, a comprehen-sive sanitation initiative in six states, the Aga Khan Academy in Hyderabad, and a 161-bed multi-specialty acute care hos-

pital in Mumbai.Yesterday, the Aga Khan and

Minister for Culture, Mahesh Sharma, presided over the foundation stone-laying cere-mony for the new Site Museum at the Humayun Tomb complex in Delhi. The Site Museum is designed to enhance the ex-perience of visitors coming to the Humayun’s Tomb-Sundar Nursery-Nizamuddin Basti world heritage site, allowing them to learn more about In-dia’s Mughal heritage, the de-velopment of the Nizamuddin area and the Sufi cultural tradi-tions that defined Hindustani culture for five centuries.

The Site Museum is part of over a decade of pioneer-ing cultural revitalisation and socioeconomic development projects undertaken by the Aga

Khan Trust for Culture at the Humayun’s Tomb and, more recently, at the Qutb Shahi Her-itage Park in Hyderabad.

The Aga Khan is in India on a week-long official visit.

For more information on other awards the Aga Khan has received, please see the AKDN website: http://www.akdn.org/about_honours.asp

From right to left: Jatin Pandit, Kainaz Pandit, Dr. Sumita Chowdhury, and Dr. Palash Chowdhury Left to Right: Mr. Tapan Das, Co-President, NABC 2015 and Mr. Partha S. Chatterjee, Co-Secre-tary, NABC 2015 presenting to the media.

Left to Right: Moani Thomas, Mou Das, Dr. Debleena Banerjee, Dr. Raja Banga, Gopendu Chakrabarti, and Fakhar Ali.

Continued from Page 1

Aga Khan receives India’s Padma ....Read more com-munity stories Visit: www.voi-ceofasiaonline.com


Q. About five months ago, my husband and I rented an apartment. Now my husband is being transferred to another city. If we do have to move soon, we’ll break our lease by 6 months. The landlord says we will owe him for leaving early. Is he right?

A. You cannot just end your lease for a new job, unless the lease says so. Leaving early for any reason not authorized in the lease will be considered a breach, and you could owe damages. My suggestion is to talk with the landlord and to see if he will agree to terminate the lease early. Maybe if you pay a month or two rent, he will let you leave. If you do work something out, be sure to get it in writing.

If you break the lease and move out early, you could owe the costs of finding a new tenant, plus rent until the end of the lease term or when the apartment is rented to someone else, whichever is earlier.

Q. I work at a freestanding emergency clinic. I started in October and work four to five 12-hour shifts per month. I was notified two weeks ago that the company overpaid me by almost $900 due to the accountant’s error. Am I obligated to pay them back? This was their fault. They did not notice the overage for months, and I don’t have an extra $900. Thanks for helping.

A. As far as the law is concerned, in most cases when someone makes a mistake and pays too much money, the person who receives it does not have the right to keep it. It doesn’t matter that it was their fault they overpaid you. The opposite is also true. If they underpaid you, and you didn’t discover it for several months, they would still owe you the money when you asked to be paid the proper amount. I suggest you speak with them about arranging a repayment plan you can afford.

Q. My father deeded his house to me, but kept a life estate for himself. He now is moving into assisted living, and wants me to be able to sell the house free of his life estate. What can I do?

A. As you know, the life estate gives him control over the property while he is alive. It is an interest in property and just like any other interest can be transferred or sold. If he wants to deed his interest to you he can, and that would give you the right to sell the property free and clear of his life estate. I suggest you speak with a local attorney, or even a realtor and title company, to find out the best way to do this. In my opinion, if he is still competent and will agree to sign a deed and sell his life estate with your interest in the house, it should not be a big deal.

Q. I was married in another state, but moved to Texas shortly after the wedding. We have lived in Texas for four years. If I file for divorce, would I collect alimony under Texas law or the law of the state where I was married?

A. If you live in Texas and divorce in Texas, you are subject to Texas law. Also, Texas does not have alimony. Texas is a “community property state,” which basically means you divide all the property you and your spouse acquired during the marriage. You also will be entitled to child support, assuming you were awarded custody. There is a provision in the law that is similar to short-term alimony, but this “spousal support” provision does not apply unless you have been married for at least ten years.

I suggest you speak with a family law attorney who can fully describe your legal rights in the event of divorce.

Q. I fell in a local bar. All my friends saw that I fell and was hurt. The bar says it is not responsible. Can I take them to justice court?

A. First, just because you fell does not mean the bar has any liability. It is responsible if its negligence caused the fall, but not simply because it owns the property. For example, if you tripped over your own feet or another customer and fell, the bar has no liability. On the other hand, if there was a spilled drink the bar did not clean up in a reasonable period of time and that caused the fall, the bar would be considered “negligent,” and responsible. I suggest you think about what caused cause of the fall. If you believe it was the bar’s fault, ask for compensation for your medical expenses. If they do not pay, justice court may be the best place to get the matter resolved.

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portant to understand the re-lationship of State and local government spending, property values, and tax rates which af-fect your property tax values. Last several years, all across Texas, the rise in property taxes have received more attention and in some cases criticism by the property owners, as property taxes are a substantial expense for them. Due to lack of aware-ness and knowledge only 10 % or less property owners file the protest every year. Instead every property owners should review and consider protesting property taxes each year.

How is your property valued? The appraisal district uses mass appraisal method to appraise large numbers of properties. The local appraisal district first collects detailed descriptions of each taxable property in the district. It then classifies prop-erties according to a variety of factors, such as size, use and construction type. Using data from recent property sales, the district appraises the value of typical properties in each class. The district take into account some variable factors such as age of the property, location, or esthetic value. Then the district uses “typical” property values to appraise all the properties in each class. For income pro-ducing properties, the appraisal district also use three common approaches to value property: market, income and cost. The market approach is most of-ten used, with bases of “What are properties similar to this property selling for as of Janu-ary 1?” The income approach, “What would an investor pay in anticipation of future income from the property?” The third is cost approach for replacing the property with one of equal factors.

Why other 90 % home own-ers do not appeal? 1. They do not know the appeal process. 2. They think the process is over-powering. 3. They are uncertain about the successful outcome after the appeal. 4. They think it is a waste of time. 5. They think their property assessed value is below market value, so no need to appeal. 6. They do not un-derstand they can appeal on un-equal appraisal for their prop-erty in the same subdivision or area. 7. Some believes that by reducing the assessed value will reduce the selling price. 8. They do not know that it is an annual process, and they should file an appeal every year.

Where to file an appeal? You can file an appeal on line or in person to the appraisal district office in the county where the property is exist.

How to appeal? You should always appeal on both market value and unequal appraisal, based on condition, desirabil-ity and utility for the property. In general, you can appeal in two steps - informal hearing and formal Arbitration Review Board (ARB) hearing. In ad-dition, you can also appeal by legal judicial process.

You must know the facts – 1. You can appeal though your taxes are lower than last year or assessed for less than market value. 2. For Homestead Prop-erty, tax increases are capped at 10% per year. But the ap-praisal district can increase your assessed value 10% plus the market value of any im-provements. 3. The value can-not be increased at the informal hearing, where most accounts are settled. The assessed value rarely increases at the ARB. 4. The appraisal district will not take revenge, if you or your agent protest for you even every year. 5. If the district has wrong square feet area of your proper-

ty, and if you request, they will come and measure the property again. 6. Taxes payments dates - Taxing units usually mail their tax bills in October. In general, January 31 is the deadline for paying property taxes. Taxes that are unpaid on February 1 are delinquent, so penalty and interest charges are added to the original amount. 7. Do not consider your tax assessed value to be indicative of your true market value. The prop-erty value changes each year depending upon the market and the comparable sales during the calendar year. 8. Exemptions – There are several exemptions available. It is not an automatic. You have to apply for the ap-plicable exemptions. Qualify-ing and receiving an exemption is an easy process but there are certain time frames that must be followed in order for you to receive it. Type of exemptions – Homestead, Optional 65 or older, disabled veteran exemp-tions and religious or charitable organization.

How can we help you? To save your time and hassle, let us help you. You pay nothing in advance or nothing later, unless we save you money in taxes. We have a team of licensed con-sultants, property tax profes-sionals, and experts with over twenty five years of diversified experience and knowledge in property valuation, engineer-ing, architectural, construction, legal and business administra-tion. We specialize in residen-tial, commercial, business per-sonal property, and vacant land. We can help you in all counties of State of Texas, but focusing to all counties of Greater Hous-ton Area.

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VOICE OF ASIA 5 FRIDAY, April 17, 2015COMMUNITYHouston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital named one of the nation’s 100 top hospitalsSUGAR LAND - Hous-

ton Methodist Sugar Land Hospital was

named one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals® by Truven Health AnalyticsTM, a leading provider of data-driven analyt-ics and solutions to improve the quality of health care.

The Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals® study identifies hospitals and leadership teams that provide the highest level of value to their communities, based on a national scorecard. The scorecard measures over-all organizational performance across 11 key analytic measures including patient care, opera-tional efficiency and financial stability.

“Houston Methodist Sugar Land Hospital is committed to serving our community by pro-viding exemplary, compassion-ate care.” says Chris Siebenal-er, CEO of Houston Methodist Sugar Land, “We are honored to be recognized as one of the nation’s 100 Top Hospitals.”

To conduct the 100 Top Hos-pitals study, Truven Health researchers evaluated close to 3,000 short-term, acute care, nonfederal hospitals. Risk-adjusted methodologies were used to analyze public informa-tion — Medicare cost reports, Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MEDPAR) data, and core measures and patient satisfaction data from the Cen-ters for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Com-pare reports.

“This year’s 100 Top Hos-pitals represent the highest national standards in hospital care and management today. They set the benchmarks for peers around the country to fol-low — consistently delivering outstanding quality of care, sat-isfaction and community value at a reasonable cost,” said Jean Chenoweth, senior vice presi-dent for performance improve-ment and the 100 Top Hospi-tals program at Truven Health Analytics. “The majority of the 2015 award winners have produced year-to-year perfor-mance improvement as well. This speaks to the consistent focus on excellence by the en-tire organization.”

The study shows that if all hospitals in the United States performed at the level of this year’s winners:

• 126,471 additional lives could be saved• 108,926 additional patients could be complication-free

• $1.8 billion in inpatient costs could be saved

• The average patient stay would decrease by half a day

• Episode-of-illness expense would be 2 percent lower

than the peer average • The winning hospitals were

announced in the March 2, 2015, edition of Modern Healthcare magazine. More information on this study and other 100 Top Hos-pitals research is available at www.100tophospitals.com.

Local teacher quits after complaints of anti-Muslim items

A Houston-area teacher has quit after parents complained that he

gave students anti-Muslim doc-uments during class.

The Lamar Consolidated In-dependent School District on Tuesday night announced the educator’s resignation. His name wasn’t immediately released.

Authorities last week said the handout, with references to terrorism and beheadings, was not approved by administrators at Foster High School in Rich-mond.

The Houston office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is asking Lamar CISD officials to discipline a teacher accused of passed out “virulently anti-Muslim mate-rials” to students in class.

CAIR-Houston Executive Di-rector Mustafaa Carroll urged the district to take the matter seriously.

The teacher was facing un-specified discipline over the eight-page document that chil-dren received in late March, then showed to their parents.

District officials say the teacher made independent changes to a lesson guide with information that did not follow curriculum plans. -AP

VOICE OF ASIA 6 FRIDAY, April 17, 2015COMMUNITY

by Seema Jain

Under the spiritual guidance and pres-ence of Samani Pa-

rimal Pragyaji and Samani Maryada Pragyaji, JVB Preksha Meditation Center, Houston conducted its 15th Annual 3-day Family Retreat Camp at 66-acre facility of Camp Woodmen in Bellville, TX from April 3rd to 5th .

About 85+ participants from the Greater Houston area, San Antonio and Aus-tin came along to enjoy the calm and scenic surround-ings while nurturing their soul through powerful dis-courses, yoga, meditation and relaxation techniques. This year we had a special guest, Shri Kamlesh Shah, Chairman of JVB Orlando who also participated in this camp.

Shri Swatantra Jain, Chair-man of JVB Houston deliv-ered the welcome note. New attendees introduced them-selves and shared their anxi-ety to experience this special camp.

The emcees of the evening, Shashank and Mukta Jain kept the audience engaged with their witty humor and interactive activities. Paral-lel session for kid’s meet and greet from ages 4 to 14 yrs. was also held under the su-pervision of Samini Marya-da Pragyaji and Seema Jain. Samani Parimal Pragyaji initiated the programs with an ever interesting topic- “Self Restraint-key to fulfill life.”

Saturday morning ses-sion conducted by Jeetendra Tannaji aimed at recharging everyone’s battery through various laughing exercises followed by a Powerful yoga class held by certi-fied yoga instructor, Upma Chauhan. Samani Parimal Pragyaji & Samani Maryada Pragyaji led various inter-active & learning sessions throughout the day which included multiple lectures/presentations on meaningful topics such as “Words create

“Self-Restraint- key to fulfill life” JVB conducts 15th Annual Family Camp

Families that attended the JVB 15 Annual Family Camp

the world”, “live in nature- live with nature” and “Talk show”.

Samanijis used everyday examples in their presenta-tions & delivered tips that can be utilized to transform one’s habits via different discourses. The audience appreciated situational ex-amples that they could relate to their daily lives; which led to thought provoking discus-sions and ideas to overcome them. Participants relaxed and meditated during vari-ous meditation sessions dur-ing the course of the day with focus on relaxation.

The retreat had concur-rent kids programs, where they focused on Learning, Yoga, Pranayam, and other creative activities conducted by Samini Maryada Pragya-ji, Shashi Jain , and Seema Jain. Some of the highlights of the children activities were interactive sessions on “My choice-stress or peace ” by Samanjis, “Jainism in to-day’s world ” conducted by

Kajal and Udai Jain, “Non- Violence beyond Vegetari-anism” led by Kamleshbhai Shah and Jigisha Doshi.

All participants, especially kids participated in a cul-tural eve on Saturday night, where they expressed and shared their views on Jain-ism in today’s world through presentation slides. For the adults, 10 different teams were formed to make a 4 minute silent skit (mime) on pre-assigned topics given to each team.

Creativity peaked in each of the team skits, and the audience enjoyed the enter-taining & fun presentations. Nitesh Jain played the per-fect host for the eve ning. Families also enjoyed the excellent recreational facili-ties like paddle boats and ca-noe in the beautiful spring weather.

Seema Govil from TV Asia Austin covered the event. Audio, Video & pictures were done by Ashok Jain &

Jigar Dedhia.All participants appreci-

ated the great bouquet of programs, activities, and the way arrangements were han-dled professionally by the JVB team. Food arrange-ments, which were handled by Anju Bengani, Ritu Jain, Anusha Jain, Bimlaji Jain and Meena Shah were also highly talked about. The An-nual camp concluded with a one hour interactive session

with Samanijis. Rajat Khater and Mukta Jain joined in and moderated a feedback ses-sion, & JVB President, Nikh-il Jain, expressed his thanks to Samanijis, all attendees & volunteers for making this a memorable and successful event for one and all.

Samaniji brought the event to a successful close by re-citing mangal paath, with ev-erybody taking the resolve of implementing things learned

Is Your Child Losing Interest in Studies? Don’t Worry,

Vastu Can Help!

Contact + 832 412 2827 • 832 269 9000 [email protected]

The writer, Chetan Patel a well-known MahaVastu Expert of Houston is also CEO of MahaVastu Houston. He is fully dedicated and well equipped to guide people on every problem related with Vastu Shastra.

Chetan Patel

Part 1

Most of the parents complain that their children do not concentrate in studies, or do not study at all! Some of them think that the various modern means of technol-ogy, such as Computers, Internet, Mobile, Laptop, etc., are responsible for this. Guardians/Parents also feel that various other reasons, such as bad company of friends, easy availability of different recreational facilities, like TV, Video Games, CDs, etc., are also responsible for children neglecting studies or losing interest in studies. Rarely do the parents stop to wonder if there is a fault lurking within the very environment where the child lives. And even where the parent suspects the existence of such a fault, he or she could be misled by myths that have no basis in truth. For example, during our school life, almost all of us were told innumerable times by our parents, friends and other well-wishers to study facing the East. The fact, however, is that there is no one direction that is suit-able for all fields of study. The ancient doctrine of Vastu Shastra tells us that the most suitable direction depends upon the subject being studied. For example, to achieve proficiency in Mathematics and Science, students should study facing the West. If one studies facing the South, he develops good debating skills, logical abili-ties and sharp business acumen. For creative or religious kind of work, one should study facing towards the East. Documented research in the world’s biggest book on Vastu Shastra, Maha-Vastu Handbook authored by VastuShastri Khushdeep Bansal clearly states that `the study table represents a ‘place for learning and acquiring new skills’. With respect to children, who do not pay much attention towards studies, the study table should be in the middle of the South-West and West Vastu zones. If children do not concentrate on their books and are easily and frequently distracted, they should study facing towards the West.’ As per Vastu Shastra, studying in different zones in your home produces dif-ferent effects. Here are a few examples. The North-East is a productive place for research work. Students studying in this zone will think and develop new ideas and develop insights required to excel in their studies. The West-South-West (WSW) Zone is ideal for school students – they feel naturally inclined towards studies and secure excellent grades. In contrast, in the East-North-East (ENE), the child will feel the burden of studies. When their study table is placed in this zone, they will be inclined more towards fun activities (like reading story books, novels, etc.,) than studying. Similarly, studies done in the South-South-West (SSW) Zone will prove futile, as the child will secure poor grades or even fail

K. V. Doraiswamy Bhattar281-489-0464 or 281-948-8368

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during the camp and to come back next year.

JVB Preksha Meditation Center is home to a spe-cially designed Preksha Dhyan ‘Pyramid’ Meditation Hall and is located at 14102 Schiller Road, Houston, TX 77082.

For more information and for current and upcoming programs please visit www.JVBHouston.org or call 281.596.9642.

VOICE OF ASIA 7 FRIDAY, April 17, 2015DIASPORARep. Tulsi Gabbard ties knot in vedic ceremony in Hawaii

Tulsi Gabbard, the first-ever Hindu American in the US Congress,

tied the knot with cinematog-rapher Abraham Williams in a Vedic ceremony in her home state of Hawaii.

The marriage between 33-year-old Gabbard and 26-year-old Williams at the historic Kahaluu Fishpond yesterday concluded with a traditional yoga ‘kirtan’ and was attend-ed by a large number of US lawmakers besides Gabbard’s friends and family.

The marriage ceremony that was conducted in a Vedic fashion ended with song and dance, local media reported.

In previous media inter-views, Gabbard said she will retain her last name.

Hawaii will always be the couple’s primary home, local media reported.

The second term Democrat-ic Congresswoman from Ha-waii, Gabbard, had announced her engagement in January.

“Both Abraham and I are generally kind of private peo-ple. He has nothing to do with politics. He’s a humble, great guy who doesn’t want to be in the limelight, so this is some-thing new to the both of us,” Gabbard told the Honolulu Star Advertiser in an interview published in February.

Williams proposed Gabbard with a 1.17-carat round, bril-liant-cut champagne diamond engagement ring in 18-karat rose gold designed, when the

Local Houston community leaders and supporters Vijay Pallod and the Bhutada family were on hand to join in the Hawaiian wedding

Congresswoman was visiting Hawaii during Thanksgiving.

“Will you marry me?” he asked. She said her answer was a resounding yes, accord-ing to the daily.

This is Gabbard’s second marriage and the first one for Williams.

Soon after her engagement, Gabbard was in India for sev-eral weeks meeting top Indian leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Indian-origin schoolgirl stumps British PM with her questionLONDON - It was

not any of the hard-nosed journalists or

politicians but a 10-year-old Indian-origin schoolgirl that has stumped the British Prime Minister on the campaign trail.

Reema, a student from the northern England city of Sal-ford in Greater Manchester, asked a question regarding his favorite politician apart from himself in BBC’s children’s programme ‘Newsround’ as part of a series on the upcom-ing General Election on May 7.

“If you could pick one politi-cian apart from yourself to win who would it be and why?,” 10-year-old asked Cameron.

48-year-old Prime Minister looked visibly rattled and failed to come up with an answer.

“Wow. If I could pick a poli-tician? Would they have to be living or dead?”

“If I thought someone else should win the election I would not be standing myself, so I

can’t really answer the ques-tion about who else I would like to win,” he said.

“There are lots of candidates around the country I am very enthusiastic about.”

“I am afraid it is too difficult to say I would like someone else to win other than me or I wouldn’t be here, and I am quite keen on winning,” he added.

“Top question, it is the best one I have been asked all elec-tion campaign,” Cameron said when he was leaving.

Cameron answered other questions on topics such as im-migration, what it’s like to be Prime Minister, and how much it now costs to go to univer-sity.

He was also quizzed on the noisy behaviour of MPs in the British Parliament.

‘Newsround’ is interviewing leaders from all major parties in the lead up to next month’s polls.

- PTI

Indian American Nik Sharma turned from being a scien-tist to pastry chefby Raif Karerat

WASHINGTON, DC - Nik Sharma has had a fairly unique

career path. Four months ago, approaching his 35th birthday, he quit his job as a scientist and completely shifted his at-

tention to the vocational path he’s dreamed of since he was a child — cooking.

“Growing up, I’d wanted to be a chef, but I decided to choose a more stable path — I went into molecular biology,” the former pharmaceutical re-

searcher told Yahoo Food.

Sharma moved to the United States for college to further his studies, earning degrees from the University of Cincinnati and Georgetown University, “but after long days in the lab, Sharma’s mind flooded with thoughts of vibrant Indian spices and simmering, cur-ried sauces,” the Yahoo report said.

The year 2011 saw the Cali-fornian start his own food blog, called “A Brown Table,” which eventually gave him

the confidence to leave the pharmaceutical field and to fully immerse himself in his passion. Presently, after com-pleting a two-month trial pe-riod earlier this year at a local bakery, Sharma is a full time pastry chef.

Sharma has kept up with his blog throughout his journey, and he told Yahoo Food that although he concocts classic Western deserts like Italian tiramasu and French-inspired chocolate mousse, his recipes for “A Brown Table” take their inspriation from the years he

spent in Mumbai.

“My blog focuses on non-traditional ways to use Indian food in everyday American cooking,” Sharma explained to Yahoo. “I feel like I’m on the fence, halfway between both [cultures]. I want to tell people that there’s a lot more than curries and naan to Indi-an food. You can make a pasta with curry. You can make great desserts with Indian in-gredients. It’s fun to do.”

Earlier this year, “A Brown Table” was awarded “Best

Photo Based Culinary Blog” from the International Associ-ation of Culinary Profession-als. Sharma is also currently nominated for “Best Photogra-phy” in Saveur’s annual blog awards.

He now hopes to hone his culinary skills even further by pursuing an institutional de-gree in pastry arts this upcom-ing autumn.

“I feel emotionally satisfied with what I do right now,” he admitted to Yahoo Food. “It’s a big thing for me.”

VOICE OF ASIA 8 FRIDAY, April 17, 2015COMMUNITY

On Saturday, May 2nd (actual day) we are celebrat-

ing Appearance day of Sri Nrsimhadeva - the half man half lion in-c a r n a t i o n of the Lord. Come and re-ceive bless-ing of Lord Nrsimhadev who ap-peared ex-clusive to protect His d e v o t e e s . Please join us by invit-ing your friends and family to take part in this auspicious celebration.

Srila Prabhupada says in SB 7.7 “Lord Nårasimhade-va appeared for the benefit of all human society, not only for Prahläda’s personal ben-efit. The fierce form of Lord Narasimhadeva may appear most awful to a nondevotee,

ISKCON of Houston to celebrate Sri Narasimha CaturdasiSaturday, May 2nd - 4:30PM - 7:00 PM

IITAGH and ASIE advise University of Houston graduate students

It took a bit of time, but after a while the students started asking all of their

questions. What should I say when the interviewers asks me, “Where do you expect to be five years from now?” What else can I be doing to get more interviews? How do I ap-proach the question, “Do you need sponsorship?”

The University of Houston Graduate Indian Student Or-ganization (GISO) partnered with the IIT Alumni of Greater Houston (IITAGH) and The American Society of Indian En-gineers and Architects (ASIE) to host a Career Mixer event on Thursday, April 9th.

The session was moderated by Pratish Kanani, President of IITAGH, who shared what his company looks for in col-lege hires. Ratan Bhagat, who recently started a second career at the University of Houston after spending 33 years at Fe-dEx, talked about how to best leverage networks. Shiladitya Basu with Granherne/KBR discussed how he transformed his background in Aerospace

give them the right pointers to be successful,” said Pratish Ka-nani at the end of the evening. Raj Basavaraju shared, “It is important that students take a longer view when approach-ing jobs, especially at the entry level. They really need to un-derstand that fit is more impor-tant rather than salary. It is also crucial to be confident and not undersell. Finally, they should never underestimate the value of an internship especially in this age of reference hiring.”

platform to get one. I am sure students have benefitted from this and took away some strat-egies and tips like preparing a job oriented resume, acquiring soft skills, etc.”

IIT Alumni of Greater Hous-ton (IITAGH) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We help our members connect, develop, and give back to the local community. For more information, please visit www.iitagh.org

Puneet Agarwal, VP IITAGH, and Ratan Bhagat

Pratish Kanani, President IITAGH, addressing the students

engineering into working with Offshore & Subsea structures. Surajit Dasgupta talked about how he found his job at KBR through a connection with a friend. Anand Chauhan talked about how to be passionate and let that show through in the interview. Puneet Agarwal discussed what it takes to sub-mit a strong application to post graduate programs and how to build on a diverse set of skills. Aaggrim Sabharwal discussed being in their shoes and how to keep their morale high and stay focused.

Raj Basavaraju, President of ASIE emphasized the impor-tance of understanding social cues. Hari Jaswal, also with ASIE, talked about the persis-tence it takes to find a job and shared a personal situation.

“We have all been where these students are, and we are looking for ways to help them, boost their confidence, and

According to Neha Jhinge, Vice President Public Rela-tions for GISO, “the students will definitely use a lot of the tips given by all the industry professionals.” One of the stu-dents shared, “It cleared a lot of the dilemmas that we are going through during this time.”

Thanking all the IITAGH and ASIE professionals who made it to the career mixer event to guide the UH GISO students, Dr. Phaneendra Kondapi, KBR Adjunct Professor of Subsea Engineering and faculty advisor to GISO, said “Coming from a different educational and cul-tural background from India and entering into a new profes-sional life here in the US, there are many parameters to consid-er while choosing a right career path and job prospect. Expert advice from experience profes-sionals will enhance their ca-reer opportunities and certainly this career mixer is an excellent

American Society of Indian Engineers (ASIE) is a Hous-ton, Texas based non-profit organization, tax exempt un-der IRS Rule 501(c)(3). ASIE was established in 1994 with specific objectives for engi-neers, architects, and engi-neering technicians of Indian origin.

Sri Nrsimhadeva

Chinmaya Mission - An evening to look back at the very beginning

By Somdatta GangopadhyayRich philosophy embedded

in bhajans like Hum Ko Man Ki Shakti Dena (Give me the strength of mind) and Sri Ra-machandra followed by an opening prayer laid the foun-dation for an eventful evening hosted by Chinmaya Mission on Saturday, April 11th 2015. Dr.Anand Naik, member, Chin-maya Mission shared the histo-ry of Chinmaya Mission which was followed by the lighting of deeya, and then the appearance of keynote speaker Sri Gaurang Nanavaty.

‘The youth have the vision, but the elders have the experi-ence of a lifetime.’ said Nana-vaty. Amit Mishra, JD, Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, National Communications Director ap-peared on stage next introduced by Dr.Naik.

Finally the much awaited

award moment dawned as Sri-harsha Kethireddipalli, the first awardee came on stage address-ing the audience with ‘Hari Om’. Vyas Ramankulangara, Sri Meenakshi Temple came

next as he thanked Meenakshi Temple for nominating him.

A cultural program came up next, which showcased the talents from the Chinmaya Youth Choir including Yuthika

Gundamaraju, Sanjana Rao, Ananya Joshi, Nidhi Wun-nava and many others, and the Chinmaya Youth Orchestra included Anitha Aadireddy, Sachi Khemka, Sohum Purao, Amogh Pandey, Anooj Shah among many others. A huge round of applause echoed with the ambience as the singers performed.

Karuna Kankani, Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh appeared on stage next as the award moment resumed. Once again there was a huge round of ap-plause as Kankani thanked the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, as well as her parents and all the ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’ ‘for their great advice’. Kankani un-veiled the significance of dis-cipline too through her speech. Ankit Bhatla, Arya Samaj was the next awardee who recalled the dilemma faced by Arjun at the battlefield and how Lord Krishna helped him face it.

The audience had an oppor-tunity to know and understand Swami Chinmayananda on a deeper level through videos like From Alone to Alone and The Pathless Journey which showed the biography of Swa-miji. Swami Tejomayananda’s biography was also shared through another video.

Keynote speaker Asit Shah, Board of Regents, University of Houston was introduced as

HGH President Anshuman Desai presenting plaque to host org. Chinmaya Mission, Jay Deshmukh

Snajay Jain co-chair of 2015 Hindu youth award.

but to the devotee the Lord is always affectionate as He is in other forms.”

Let us gather and sin-cerely offer our heartfelt prayers to the Lord fol-lowing the best of the exalted devo-tees Prahlada Mahara ja ’s instructions “...I simply take shelter of the mercy of the Lord, for without devotion one cannot ap-pease Him.

“One cannot please the Su-preme Personality of God-head simply by dint of high parentage or great opulence, learning, austerity, penance or mystic power. Indeed, these are never pleasing to the Supreme Lord, for noth-ing can please Him but pure devotional service”.

Continued on pg 17


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EU moves closer to counting calories in alcoholic drinks

by Catherine BoitardBrussels (AFP) - Health con-

scious tipplers may be closer to finding out just how many calories they are imbibing as consumer advocates push for EU nutritional labelling on al-coholic drinks in the face of strong industry resistance.

The European Parliament took a first step last month when it called on the European Commission to draw up legis-lation requiring such labelling by 2016.

Adopted by 63 of the 68 members of the parliament’s health committee, the resolu-tion also calls for labels that highlight the dangers of alco-hol for pregnant women and motorists.

It was sweet revenge for Glenis Willmott, a Labour MEP from Britain who steered the proposal through the commit-tee after a first attempt failed in 2011 with what she said was heavy lobbying from the drinks industry.

This time around, Willmott wants to make sure there is no mistake and that consumers get the information they need.

“Consumers have a right to know that a glass of wine has the same number of calories as a slice of cake and that drinking while pregnant can harm your baby,” she said.

“This isn’t about telling peo-ple what to do but giving them the information they need to make informed choices,” Will-mott added.

Ilaria Passarani, an official with the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) advo-cacy group, said people need to know alcohol’s effect on their diet.

“Most of us know alcohol must be consumed in modera-tion. However, the scale of al-cohol’s impact on our weight

Health conscious tipplers may be closer to finding out just how many calories they are imbibing as consumer advocates push for EU nutritional labelling on alcoholic drinks in the face of strong industry resistance (AFP Photo/Emmanuel Dunand)

France’s Ultra-Thin Ideal Is Passe But Not A Problem Says Plus-Size Model

France’s waif obsession means its fashion sector snubs many women with bigger body types, but there is no need for a ban on ultra-thin models, said the patron of a plus-size Paris catwalk show under way this weekend.

The size-44 brunette gets year-round catalogue and cam-paign modelling work in the US, where she emigrated four years ago, compared to rare jobs in France as American de-partment stores recognise that most women aren’t slim, she says.

“In the United States, it’s a market apart. You can make a career as a plus-size model. In France, it’s not a career, it’s a hobby; there are no clients” Desseaux said.

But, she added, “it’s not for lack of demand: there are a lot of round women here. Parisian women are round, too. You mustn’t think they are all small and thin!”

The data back her up. Accord-ing to the French Institute for Textile and Clothing, size 40 is the most-sold size in France, and 40 percent of Frenchwom-en wear size 44 or over.

- Third Pulp Fashion Week -In an effort to rebalance the

scales, Desseaux is the star model at the third Pulp Fashion Week, an event held over Sat-urday and Sunday in Paris that features larger women on the catwalk.

Twenty-four models will be walking the podium in some 20 labels to show that fashion is not only for the slimmest of customers.

Such initiatives are also held in the US, Britain and Germa-ny, with greater success.

The organiser of the Paris event, Blanche Kazi, said the refusal by major plus-size fash-ion labels was the main stum-bling block.

“They are the ones who could really shake things up with big sponsor budgets and financial partnerships,” she said.

She and the models, though, are determined to instil a sense of pride in plus-size women in France, and to push French clothing stores to cater to larger sizes.

French plus-size model Clementine Desseaux poses in Paris on April 9, 2015.

“Here, the image of big-size women is horrible. There’s a lot of work to be done,” Des-seaux said. “I want to make things change. One day I’d like to return to Paris, but I’m not ready yet.”

In France, the model said, “I don’t fit into anything. And yet, I’m not huge. In the United States, I fit into size M or L.

There are a lot more sizes -- nothing stops at size 42 in the US.”

- Against ban on thin models For all her morphological

militancy, Desseaux is against France’s mooted legislation to ban ultra-thin models who are under a certain body mass in-dex (BMI).

The measure was voted last week by lawmakers in the French parliament’s lower house, and could well become law if the upper house backs it.

Desseaux, like other profes-sional models, believes that the natural thinness of many top catwalk models is being wrongly mixed up with the medical condition of anorexia.

“For me, it’s just as dumb to say you’re too thin as it is too say you’re too fat -- it’s the same thing,” she said.

“The problem is not a mod-el’s BMI,” she said, adding that a more concrete issue was the insistence of certain fashion labels to hire only underfed models.

and health is far less obvious,” Passarani said.

“How many people know that an average half litre (around one pint) of five percent alcohol beer contains as many calories as a chocolate bar?” she asked.

- ‘North-south divide’ -The committee’s non-binding

resolution is due to be voted on by the full parliament at the end of April.

In spite of “a north-south divide on the question and the sensitivities of French, Span-ish and Italian winegrowers,” it might be adopted this time, a parliamentary source said.

The lines are moving.For Britain and the Scandi-

navian countries, it is becom-ing imperative to curb binge drinking among the young, as well as to fight the increase in obesity, which is partly fuelled by alcohol consumption.

The drinks industry is also facing consumers who are in-creasingly demanding trans-parency.

Spotting the trend, Carlsberg, Heineken, AB Inbev and SAB-Miller last month all backed a plan to voluntarily list the calo-rie count and other nutritional information of their beers.

The Brewers of Europe, a trade association representing more than 5,000 brewers, said the move will show that beer is not as fattening as some people think when compared to wine and spirits.

The group published a table comparing calories in 100 mil-lilitres of various drinks: 245 calories for whisky, 82 for red wine and 46 for beer contain-ing 4.5 percent or 5.5 percent alcohol -- the same as for fresh orange juice.

- Commission ‘resistance’ -

Continued on Page 12

VOICE OF ASIA 12 FRIDAY, April 17, 2015HEALTH, SCIENCE & TECH

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NYC’s World Trade Center observato-ry to open in May

NEW YORK - The observatory of New York’s new

World Trade Center will open May 29 to the pub-lic, building managers said Tuesday.

The observatory is on floors 100, 101 and 102 in the gleaming glass tower that was built on the site of buildings destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks in Manhattan.

Also known as One World Trade Center, the building houses the highest offices in the Western Hemisphere.

From a height of 1,250 feet (380 meters) visitors to the observatory will be able to see across much of the city of New York’s famous streets and parks.

The main viewing area is on floor 100, floor 101 fea-tures a cafe and restaurant and floor 102 includes a 3D tour of the city.

Spirit makers cried foul, say-ing the brewers’ move was mis-leading and also undermined messages about responsible drinking.

“While 100 ml is usually a fraction of the amount of beer a person might consume in one serving, it can equal three serv-ings of spirits: the maximum daily recommendation for men and beyond what is recom-mended for women,” industry group SpiritsEurope said.

When he took up his post last October, EU Health Com-missioner Vytenis Andriukaitis also called for ending the code of silence on the calorie count of alcohol.

“However, it seems there is

resistance from some parts of the Commission to any action on alcohol,” Willmott said.

Brussels estimates that alco-hol abuse costs the European Union some 155 billion euros ($164 billion) a year in social and health costs.

Even if people consume less alcohol after the peak in the 1970s, Europeans remain the biggest drinkers in the world.

The Commission, the EU’s executive arm, appears reluc-tant to get drawn into a fight and has so far failed to deliver a report it had said would be ready in December last year.

“Most of the work still has to be done. The question is sensi-tive and discussions are still necessary,” a Commission of-

ficial said.The wine industry has already

sharpened its arguments in the name of what is sees as the spe-cial character of its product.

“Wine is not the result of a fixed recipe,” said the CEEV, the European Committee of Wine Businesses, which repre-sents the EU industry and trade in wines.

“As an agricultural product, wine changes from one year to the next depending on the characteristics of the harvest,” it said.

“Imposing nutritional label-ling would lead to enormous additional costs for the wine-growing sector, costs with which most wine producers will not cope.”

EU moves closer to counting calories in alcoholic drinks

Continued from page 11

PC sales resume slide in 2015: surveys

NEW YORK - Global sales of personal computers resumed

their downward trajectory in early 2015 after a modest uptick late last year, surveys showed Thursday.

A survey by Gartner showed worldwide PC shipments to-taled 71.7 million units in the first quarter, a 5.2 percent de-cline from the same period a year ago.

A separate report by IDC showed a steeper 6.7 percent drop in the quarter to 68.5 mil-lion units.

“The PC industry received a boost in 2014 as many compa-nies replaced their PCs due to the end of Windows XP sup-port, but that replacement cycle faded in the first quarter of 2015,” said Mikako Kitagawa, analyst at Gartner.

“However, this decline is not necessarily a sign of sluggish overall PC sales long term. Mobile PCs, including note-books, hybrid and Windows tablets, grew compared with a year ago.”

Gartner is projecting “a mod-erate decline” of PC sales in 2015, followed by consistent growth the next five years.

Analysts at the two research firms said desktop PC sales were a key factor in the decline but that the new Microsoft Win-dows 10 operating system may spark renewed purchases.

“The upcoming launch of Windows 10 will consolidate the best of Windows 7 and Win-dows 8.1,” IDC analyst Rajani

Singh said.

“In addition to the free up-grade for consumers for a year after the release, Windows 10 should be a net positive as there is pent-up demand for re-placements of older PCs. Only part of the installed base needs to replace systems to keep the overall growth rate above zero for rest of the year.”

The PC market has been struggling in recent years amid a shift to mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. Some manufacturers have sought to spark renewed interest with light, thin PCs, some of which can double as a tablet.

IDC analyst Jay Chou said the PC market is facing tough competition that is pressuring prices.

“As more vendors find it in-creasingly difficult to compete, we can expect additional con-solidation in the PC market,” he said.

Lenovo remained the top vendor in the quarter: Gartner estimated the Chinese manu-facturer had an 18.9 percent market share and IDC estimat-ed 19.6 percent.

US-based Hewlett-Packard was the number two vendor, followed by Dell, according to both surveys.

Taiwanese firms Asus and Acer were the number four and five vendors, respectively, ac-cording to Gartner, while IDC reversed those positions.

HP was the top seller in the US market, according to both Gartner and IDC

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Entrance fees are $32 for adults, $30 for seniors and $26 for children.

The observatory will be open seven days a week from 9 am to midnight this summer and hours will change in September.

One World Trade Cen-ter was completed in late 2013 and its first occupants moved in shortly after.

The observatory will com-pete with two other popular viewing sites in the city: the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Centerac.

GENEVA, Switzerland - The UN’s World Health Organization

on Friday warned that too many women in developing and wealthy countries alike are resorting unnecessarily to Caesarean sections to give birth.

Other pregnant women with a real medical need for a C-section simply do not have access to the operation, the WHO added.

“In a lot of developing and developed countries, there is really an epidemic of Caesar-ean sections, even when there is no medical need,” said Marleen Temmerman, direc-tor of the WHO’s reproduc-tive health department.

WHO warns of Caesarean ‘epidemic’

In countries like Brazil, where some 53 percent of births are by C-section accord-ing to WHO figures, “there is a culture of ‘let’s go for Cae-sarean’,” Temmerman added.

Since the mid-1980s, doc-tors have said the ideal rate of C-sections should range between 10 and 15 percent, though the health community is working on establishing a new recommendation.

“If a country... has a rate that is below 10 percent, you can see that there are more moth-ers and babies dying because (there is) no access,” Temmer-man said.

“We see women dying” in some countries because they cannot be operated on in time,

she added.

According to the WHO’s 2008 figures, some 23 per-cent of births in Europe were by C-section, 35 percent in North and South America, and 24 percent in the Western Pacific.

Only Africa and southeast Asia, with rates of 3.8 and 8.8 percent, appeared to be free from the “epidemic”.

Friday’s recommendations were the first specific call by the WHO to stop childbirth by Caesarean except when it is medically necessary.

“I think this is the first time we are being so explicit about it,” said WHO perinatal ex-pert Metin Gulmezoglu.

The first specific call to stop childbirth by Caesarean except when it is medically necessary

VOICE OF ASIA 13 FRIDAY, April 17, 2015LEISURE

German woman pregnant with quadruplets - at 65: report

by Kate Millar

A 65-year-old Berlin woman who already has 13 children is preg-

nant again with quadruplets, Germany’s RTL broadcaster re-ported Sunday.

The Russian and English teacher’s pregnancy follows several attempts abroad at arti-ficial insemination over the last year-and-a-half, according to the private TV channel.

The woman, Annegret Raun-igk, decided to try to have an-other child because her youngest daughter, who is nine, wanted a little brother or sister, the chan-nel said on its website.

It said it would broadcast an interview with the expectant mother, who has seven grand-children, on Monday evening and plans to track her through the pregnancy and afterwards.

It said the pregnancy had so far been without any major com-plications and that if everything went well, the babies were due in the summer and that Raun-igk would be the world’s oldest mother of quadruplets.

Mass circulation newspa-per Bild am Sonntag reported the four-baby pregnancy on its front-page, quoting the prospec-tive mother-of-17, whose oldest daughter is reportedly 44, recall-ing the moment doctors broke the news.

“Certainly that was a shock for me.

“After the doctor discovered there were four, I had to give it some thought to begin with.

“On the scan it was just clear to see,” Bild quoted her as say-ing, adding however she had not considered it an option to reduce

Indian PM’s birthplace bus tour draws fans

AHMEDABAD, India - Modi, who stormed to power last May with a

landslide election win, has long had legions of fans including fellow Hindu nationalists and those impressed by his eco-nomic success as chief minister of Gujarat.

A suit with Modi’s name stitched into the pinstripe and worn by the premier when he met Barack Obama was sold at auction in February.

But fans overstepped the mark the same month by building a temple in his honour in Guja-rat, including a large statue of the leader. Modi said he was ap-palled by the move.

The tour includes a visit to the town’s railway station where Modi as a child famously helped his father sell tea, along with the

The former ‘tea stall’ (C) of Damodardas Mulchand Modi, father of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 20, 2014 in Vadnagar, India (AFP Photo/Sam Panthaky)

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivers a speech in New Delhi on April 6, 2015 (AFP Photo/Prakash Singh)

In rich Qatar, one restaurant lets poor eat for free

by David Harding

In a dusty corner of Qa-tar’s booming capital, a sign outside a modest res-

taurant popular with migrant labourers reads: “If you are hungry and have no money, eat for free!!!”

Sixteen kilometres (10 miles) from the gleaming glass tow-ers of Doha, one of the richest places on the planet, sits the “Industrial Area” of small-scale workshops, factories and low-cost accommodation.

It is only a 40-minute drive south of the centre of the Qatari capital and its luxury shops, upmarket brands and expen-sive restaurants.

But the “Industrial Area”, rarely seen by outsiders, is a different Qatar -- one which provides essential labour and materials for the country’s massive and relentless expan-sion.

It is at the margin of Doha life, both geographically and metaphorically, but home to a restaurant called Zaiqa doing something apparently unique for the oil-rich Gulf state.

About three weeks ago the Indian brothers who own Zai-qa decided to put up a small makeshift sign offering free food to customers who cannot afford to pay.

“When I saw the board I had tears in my eyes,” said one of the owners, Shadab Khan, 47, originally from New Delhi, who has lived in Qatar for 13 years.

“Even now when I talk about it, I get a lump in my throat.”

He said the idea came from his younger brother, Nishab.

- ‘People need free food’ - The 16-seater eaterie stands

on the prosaically named Street 23, sandwiched between another restaurant and a steel workshop.

It is a busy area -- opposite is a mosque and then a road where large trucks hurtle past.

Inside, on brightly coloured tablecloths, “authentic Indian cuisine from the heart of Del-hi” is served 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

A fish curry costs six Qatari riyals ($1.65, 1.50 euros), an egg roast is three riyals and a spinach dish of Palak Paneer is 10 riyals -- for those who choose to pay.

The need for free food in Qa-tar is particularly acute among labourers and those working in heavy industry.

It is estimated that there are anywhere between 700,000 and one million migrant work-ers in the tiny Gulf kingdom, out of a total population of 2.3 million.

Rights groups have criticised

companies in Qatar for not paying workers on time or, in some cases, not at all.

The Qatari government, un-der pressure to introduce sal-ary reform in the run-up to the 2022 World Cup, vowed earlier this year to force companies to pay wages through direct bank transfers.

Even those who do get paid will be intent on sending most of their money back home, said one of Zaiqa’s diners, Nepalese mechanic Ghufran Ahmed.

“Many labourers earn 800-1,000 riyals ($220-$275/200-250 euros) per month. They have to send money back to home. It’s expensive here so there are people who need free food,” he said.

Shadab, who is a filmmaker as well as a restaurant owner, said those asking for food are mostly construction workers from countries such as India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

- Just bread and water - “We realise a lot of people

out here do not get paid on time and do not have money, not even money to eat,” he said.

“So there were people who would come here and just buy a packet of bread. And they would eat the bread with wa-ter.

“So, we realised those people don’t have money for anything else. They just buy a packet of bread, which comes to about one riyal. So, we would try to

offer them food.”But it is not easy, added

Shadab.“Self-respect”, he said, means

many refuse to take something for nothing.

As a result, in the three weeks since the free food experiment started, “the number of people coming here to get free food is like two or three people a day at the most”.

As if to emphasise Shadab’s point, two workers entered the restaurant while AFP was there but left in case their compli-mentary lunch should become public knowledge.

In another sign of how peo-ple fuelling the Qatari boom are struggling to live, it was re-cently revealed that some Doha market workers were forced to live in their stalls as they can-not afford rents.

For Zaiqa too, there is a black cloud on the horizon.

The restaurant’s future is threatened by a dispute over rent with the property owner and may have to close down.

Shadab and his brother have a different plan for their next restaurant.

“We are putting a refrigera-tor outside, so this refrigerator won’t have a lock. It will be facing the road and it will have packets of food with dates on them,” he said.

“So anybody who wants to take it, he doesn’t have to come inside.”

Cooks prepare food at the Zaiqa restaurant in southern suburbs of the Qatari capital Doha on March 31, 2015 (AFP Photo/Karim Jaafar)

Shadab Khan, one of the Indian owners, stands outside the Zaiqa restaurant on March 31, 2015, in southern suburbs of the Qatari capital Doha (AFP Photo/Karim Jaafar).

house where he was born.

Visitors can also chat to some of Modi’s former school friends and others who knew him and his family.

“We are also beginning a mar-keting campaign for this pack-age in the US, Europe, China and Middle Eastern countries for the next tourist season (start-ing) in December,” Sharma said.

the number of embryos.At a time when other women

her age are preparing to slow down and take things easier, Raunigk indicated she had no reservations about the challeng-es ahead.

“I’m not actually afraid. I sim-ply assume I’ll remain healthy and fit. In matters of organisa-tion I have enough experience, that’s not new for me,” she said.

Asked about moral doubts, RTL quoted her as asking: “How does one have to be at 65? One must apparently always fit some cliches which I find rather tir-ing.

“I think, one must decide that for oneself.”

Her gynaecologist, Kai Hertwig, was quoted on the RTL website ahead of Monday’s broadcast as saying that qua-druple pregnancies were always a strain but that everything was currently going well.

The biggest risk for the babies is being born prematurely and doctors are doing all they can to prevent that, the gynaecologist added.

Raunigk made headlines 10 years ago too, when she gave birth to her 13th child, Lelia, at the age of 55.

Annegret Raunigk, a primary school teacher from Berlin, will create medical history when she becomes the oldest mother of four in a single birth in the world (Photo Credit: USA Today )


Friday, April 17, 2015 Section 2 Email: [email protected] Tel: 713-774-5140

Young Life

by Hazel WardZeev Portenoy was nine when

the Nazis invaded Tuchin, his Ukrainian hometown, in 1941, forcing his family and the other Jews into a ghetto while he went on the run.

For the next four years, he wandered aimlessly around the countryside, pretending to be Ukrainian or Polish just to sur-vive. He knew he was Jewish but just didn’t understand why everyone wanted to kill him, writing down his experiences in a song.

“There was this fear that one day they would find me so I kept the song on me,” he said.

“I put the song inside one of my long boots so that if they caught me and killed me, some-body would find the song.”

Now in his 80s, his voice breaks as he sings the words he wrote as a child: “I was still a small lad / when the Nazi beast / took over my life / And took me away from / My parents forever.”

He survived the genocide. But 1.5 million other Jewish children did not.

Their stories are the focus of a new exhibition at Jerusa-lem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust museum which opened ahead Israel’s Holocaust memorial day which starts at sunset on Wednesday.

Exhibit showcases world of children during Holocaust

Entitled “Stars Without A Heaven” the exhibit gives ex-pression to the lives of children during the Holocaust through a “symbolic forest” of 33 pillars, with each bearing a different personal story along with pic-tures and testimonies, but also small sculptures and short ani-mated clips that illustrate lives where no memento remained.

“The world of the child, the humanity which is expressed through their creativity, their thoughts, is this forest... a for-est of young souls,” said Yad Vashem chairman Avner Sha-lev.

Yehudit Inbar, the exhibi-tion’s curator, said there were very few mementos of the lives of the 1.5 million who perished -- about the same as the num-ber of children living in Israel today.

“If the adults thought they un-derstood what was happening, the children didn’t understand the situation at all,” she said.

- Teddy bear hero - At the entrance is a long

showcase inside which are doz-ens of worn teddy bears and dolls with china faces from the 1930s and 40s.

This is the world’s largest collection of surviving Holo-caust-era toys.

“It sounds like a lot but if you think that each child had a toy -- a doll or a teddy, or a small wooden toy -- and then think

that there are less 50, then you realise how many didn’t sur-vive,” Inbar said.

One of the bears belongs to Inna Rehavia, who was born in Krakow and was saved along with her mother by two Polish families.

“I went through the whole war with my teddy bear. He’s called Mishu and I got him when I was born. He was with me through the war, passing from one ghetto to the next,” she told AFP.

“The bear survived better than me and better than many people. Although he became disabled in the war. He’s miss-ing an ear and an arm. He was still a great hero.”

A series of drawings in coloured pencil tells the story of Stefan Cohn who was 14 when he was forced to work at the bricklaying factory in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

He survived, drawing de-tailed pictures of his experience when the camp was liberated in 1945.

Where there is no memento, small sculptures help tell the stories.

A tiny white ceramic book-case illustrates that of a Polish boy called Jakov Goldstein, who was four when the war be-gan, and spent more than two years hiding in a tiny cramped attic of a local family.

“My only consolation through this long dark period was books. If it weren’t for my incessant reading there is no doubt I would have become ‘brain dead’ or even worse,” says a snippet of his testimony.

- ‘I didn’t understand’ - Martin Weyl was only four

when he was sent to There-sienstadt concentration camp in what is now the Czech Re-public.

While he was there, the camp was smartened up for a Red Cross visit as part of a Nazi propaganda effort to portray the camps as model settlements.

“They came in a jeep with a red cross on it and I as a child was very impressed by this jeep and made a drawing of it,” he says, pointing to a yellowed re-production of his picture.

iEducateUSA recently hosted its annual Ca-reer Day at Braeburn

on march 27, 2015 and at Crockett Elementary School on April 2, 2015.In addition to in-class tutoring, one of the important aspects of the iEDU program is mentoring; without role models in their lives, children may have lim-ited aspirations and exposure to careers choices in the fu-ture. This is increasingly a re-ality at HISD schools, where over 80% are economically disadvantaged students.

About 30 professionals vol-unteered their time to speak about their careers to over 300 children across the two schools. Guest speakers in-cluded a variety of career fields and professions includ-ing an entrepreneur, attorney, doctor, nurse, engineer, scien-tist, graphic designer, astro-naut, dancer, artist, and chef. Students from third to fifth grade were able to ask ques-tions and had the opportunity

to learn about a wide variety of career choices. They were actively engaged in activities planned by the volunteers, and were given small takeaways to savor the experience.

“The career day event was exciting and it exposes our students to a variety of ca-reer fields and professions,” said Claudia Chavez, Crock-ett Elementary School prin-cipal. “It was a victorious day! I was mesmerized with all the presentations. Thanks to a wonderful vision on the part of iEducateUSA.” Car-men Johnson, the 5th grade math teacher, added that “the children truly enjoyed and learned so much.”

The presenters were just as

excited as the kids. Some of the comments from the pre-senters included “we were amazed by the number of questions”, and “the kids were like sponges that instantly ab-sorbed the information.”

iEducateUSA Hosts Career Day at HISD Schools

Graphics designers from Herring Design talking to 3rd grade at Crockett

The Crockett Elementary student orchestra greeted the guest speakers with a phe-nomenal 15-minute perfor-mance, much to the surprise of the career day profession-als who were in awe of the talent displayed by the kids.

Known for being an arts-focused school, Crockett has shown extraordinary prog-ress in science & math since adopting the iEDU program, rising from 28th to 76th per-centile in the state of Texas, in two years. Crockett Ele-mentary is currently applying for designation as a magnet school.

While iEducateUSA has been at Crockett for two years, we recently added Braeburn Elementary as our pilot’s second school in Sep-tember 2014. Braeburn edu-cates more than 900 students in Southwest Houston, 99.6% of who are economically dis-advantaged (compared to the 85% at Crockett). Since

Crockett Elementary school Children playing the orchestra to greet the career day professionals.

Some of the career day professionals along with school Principal Claudia Chavez, Vice Principal Dina Rayo-Kirkconnell, and iEducateUSA team

adopting the iEDU program, Braeburn has seen an increase in science passing rates up to 80%.Both schools have seen phenomenal success with the iEducateUSA program, where iEDU Fellows (tu-

tors) work alongside teachers across grades 3-5.

We are very excitedabout our next signature events this summer, beginning in June with the 3-day Explore! Sci-

ence Workshop and 3-week Bridge Summer Camp (to bridge the curriculum gap between grade levels). Please visit our website www.iEdu-cateUSA.org to learn more or get involved.

Dolls belonging to Jewish children victims of the Holocaust are displayed at “Children in the Holocaust: Stars Without a Heav-en”, a new exhibition of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem. AFP Photo by Hazel Ward

VOICE OF ASIA 15 FRIDAY, April 17, 2015BOLLYWOOD MASALA Friday, April 17, 2015 Section 2 Email: [email protected] Tel: 713-774-5140

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Shah Rukh-Kajol to Ranbir-Deepika: Bollywood hit pairs

reunite in 2015!by Prashant Singh

MUMBAI - News of Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol teaming

up again for Rohit Shetty’s Dilwale has excited fans of the actors who have deliv-ered several hits together. In-terestingly, they join a list of hit Bollywood pairs that will reunite on the big screen this

Moushumi Chatterjee — will be seen once again in Shoojit Sircar’s Piku.

Experts feel that such cast-ing gives films a good chance at the box office. “When a hit pair comes together, it excites their fans. And from the trade point of view, when names

like Shah Rukh and Kajol, or Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone, join hands for a film, it straightaway has an impact on the collections. It’s always good news for a filmmaker,” says trade ana-lyst Amod Mehra. Ranbir and Deepika, will be seen together in Imtiaz Ali’s Tamasha.

Kareena is also working on Bajrangi Bhaijaan with Sal-man Khan, and her next, Udta Punjab, reunites her with ex-boyfriend Shahid Kapoor.

Krish, who has directed Gabbar Is Back, is excited at the prospect of working with a hit pair. He says, “There’s a great comfort level and understanding between two actors. While shooting the film, we could clearly see the chemistry between Akshay and Kareena.” - Hindustan Times

year. Ajay Devgn and Tabu will

team up for Nishikant Ka-mat’s Drishyam, while Ak-shay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor Khan will be spotted together in Gabbar Is Back.

Even the yesteryear hit pair - Amitabh Bachchan and

Tanu has become a quintessential

Bollywood heroine: Kangana Ranaut on ‘Tanu

Weds Manu Returns’

MUMBAI - Kangana Ranaut and R Madhavan are reprising their quirky-sweet roles in romantic

drama ‘Tanu Weds Manu Returns’ which, the actress says, will show the tricky grounds of a marriage.“I hear so many love stories every year but

no one wants to go to the tricky grounds of a marriage. What we all see is happy end-ing and not what happens after marriage and what it takes to fall in love again.“This film will convey that. It’s an urban,

relatable issue and a beautiful love story. It can easily be a real life story,” Kangana said during the trailer launch of the movie here today.The film, directed by Aanand L Rai and

slated to hit the screens on May 22, will see Kangana in a double role and speaking in Haryanvi dialect.“I had a tough time with the dialect but I

had a tutor on the set. The conflict was al-ways between the two - Tanuja Trivedi and Datto. Datto is adorable, fearless and she has purity. On the other hand, Tanu is wild and a little bit selfish. Tanuja used to be the real heroine but Datto came into the scene

and stole the show.”Kangana, who recently won the best actress

National Award for her role in ‘Queen’, said her character as Tanu changed the way hero-ines were portrayed in Bollywood.“The character of Tanu was flirtatious and

she used to drink. This kind of girl in a Hindi movie is known as vamp... Tanu, who is a rebel, has become a quintessential Bollywood heroine. We have to give credit to the director and the writer Himanshoo Sharma for that,” said Kangana, 28.Madhavan said the movie was a true se-

quel as the story begins where the first film ended.“This is a very unique film. The earlier film

was four years ago we had shot it six years ago. The story begins where we last left. This is a sequel in a true sense,” he said. Rai said he wanted to bring Tanu and Manu back to life in a sequel.“As a director you fall in love with your

characters and you want to spend more time with them. It was a desire and I wanted to tell a story with the same characters and that’s how we did ‘Tanu Weds Manu Returns’,” he said.

Sunidhi Chauhan, India’s answer to Shakira!

The Indian adaptation of the the hit inter-national music tal-

ent hunt The Voice is being readied to go on air in June. While Karan Tacker has been finalised as the host, Sunidhi Chauhan has been locked in as one of the four coaches.

She is being touted as In-dia’s answer to Shakira who was one of the coaches in the original show. What’s more the two seem to have several things in common. Like the Hips Don’t Lie singer, Suni-dhi began as a child prodigy. Will she also be like Shakira in the show?

She is being touted as India’s answer to Shakira who was one of the coaches in the original show. What’s more the two seem to have several things in common.

Like the ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ singer, Sunidhi began as a child prodigy. Will she also be

like Shakira in the show?

VOICE OF ASIA 16 FRIDAY, April 17, 2015HEALTHHEALTHY LIVING Friday, April 17, 2015 Section 2 Email: [email protected] Tel: 713-774-5140

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Continue from Last WeekIf you write off the idea of

buying health insurance be-fore open enrollment ends, consider the following five points.

1. Your financial risk. Un-der the health law, remaining uninsured now comes with tax penalties, and they’re in-creasing this year. If during 2015 you go without health insurance, you’ll pay the greater of $325 per adult or 2% of your household’s tax-able income – that’s anything above the tax filing threshold of roughly $10,300 for an in-dividual and about $20,600 for a married couple. That means if you’re single, earn-ing $42,000 per year, you’ll be on the hook for a fine of about $634 for 2015 if you remain uninsured this year.

Then there’s the matter of getting sick or injured. An appendectomy can easily run $16,000 between hospital and doctor bills. The average cost of an MRI in the U.S. is more than $1,100. A more serious diagnosis requiring surgery and ongoing treat-ment can run into the tens and even hundreds of thou-sands of dollars.

If you incur medical costs and have any assets to your name, providers can go af-ter them if you’re unable to settle-up.

2. Tax benefits of insur-ance at work. If you or your spouse has access to employ-er-based coverage, that’s of-ten your best bet, even if it seems pricey.

Benefits offered on the job are tax free. That means if 30% of your income goes to taxes, you’ll pay just 70% of your portion of work-based health insurance costs. And remember that when your employer offers coverage, you generally won’t qualify for a premium tax credit to buy insurance through the Marketplace.

3. Shop the Marketplace. If you don’t have access to cov-erage at work, take a look at the policies being sold on the government Marketplaces.

The health care reform law provides subsidies to help lower the cost of insurance for individuals making as much as $46,680 and fami-lies of four making up to $95,400 per year. The less you make the more help is available to you. Nearly 8

in 10 people with market-place coverage now will be able to find a health plan for 2015 costing $100 or less per month.

4. Look outside govern-ment exchanges. If you earn too much to qualify for a tax credit, expand your search for health insurance beyond the government-run marketplaces to explore your options.

A recent analysis of health plans sold in 33 states by eHealth found that compared to Healthcare.gov, consumers who shopped on eHealth had more than 1,900 additional health insurance plans to choose from.

5. Don’t forget new ben-efits. Finally, when assessing the cost of going uninsured, keep in mind the new benefits health plans must offer, and their potential cost savings.

For example, certain pre-ventive services, such as flu shots, screenings and annual physicals must be covered without additional cost at the time of your visit. And, some health plans choose to waive cost-sharing for common ge-neric drugs.

Insurers negotiate with doc-tors and hospitals to provide lower costs than you would generally get on your own.

And, the law requires plans to cap out-of-pocket spending this year at $6,600 a year for individuals and $13,200 for families. Sure, that’s a lot of money, but it limits your fi-nancial exposure in a worst-case scenario.

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By Mariette le Roux

PARIS (AFP) - April 9, 2015 - People who are obese in middle age

run a lower risk of developing dementia later, said a large and long-term study Friday whose findings challenge the prevail-ing wisdom.

On the other end of the scale, however, being underweight in the 40-55 age bracket was as-sociated with a higher risk, the researchers found.

While admitting they were “surprised” by the potential protective effect of obesity, the team cautioned against jump-ing to conclusions.

The reasons for the observed association were not known, they wrote in the journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinol-ogy.

“The message that people shouldn’t take away is that it’s OK to be overweight or obese,” study co-author Nawab Qizil-bash of the OXON Epidemiol-ogy research company told AFP by telephone from Madrid.

“We do know... that if you are overweight or obese you have a high risk of (early) death, so it is not clear that the net benefit on dementia would be positive.

“In other words, even if there were to be protective effects on dementia from being over-weight or obese, you may not live long enough to get the ben-efit of it.”

But the widely-held belief that reducing obesity in middle age could help prevent demen-tia may also be ill-founded, said the team, and required a rethink of how we identify high-risk individuals.

The researchers combed a British database of patient in-formation recorded from 1992 to 2007, representing some nine percent of the UK population.

In what they claimed was the

Does midlife obesity protect against dementia?

A long-term study found people who are obese in middle age run a lower risk of developing demen-tia later, challenging the prevailing wisdom (AFP Photo/Christof Stache).

Shorter people have bigger risk of heart disease

April 8, 2015 9:41 PM

MIAMI (AFP) - Short people face a great-er lifetime risk of

clogged arteries, according to a study that confirmed the long-known link between height and heart disease by examining ge-netics.

The study is the first to show that the higher risk is primarily due to a variety of genes that influence whether a person is tall or short, and not poten-tially confounding factors like poverty or poor nutrition.

The research is published in the New England Journal of

Medicine.Researchers examined 180

different genetics variants in a database of nearly 200,000 people with and without coro-nary heart disease, which is caused by a buildup of plaque in the arteries and can lead to heart attack.

A study released on April 8, 2015 shows that short people face a greater lifetime risk of clogged arteries, confirming the long-known link between height and heart disease by examining genetics (AFP Photo/Nicolas Asfouri)

GET YOUR COPY TODAY!

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largest-ever study of any link between bodyweight and de-mentia risk, the team analysed the medical records of nearly two million 40-plussers.

They compared the patients’ BMI (body weight index, a ra-tio of weight to height) to how many developed dementia later on.

A BMI of 25 and higher is classified overweight, and 30 and over obese. Anything less than 18.5 is generally consid-ered underweight, though for this study the researchers set the bar at 20.

Over two decades, the re-searchers found, “the incidence of dementia continued to fall for every increasing BMI cate-gory with very obese people (a BMI over 40) having a 29 per-cent lower dementia risk than people of a healthy weight.”

Just over 45,500 of the total study group developed demen-tia.

“Compared with people of a healthy weight, underweight people (BMI under 20) had a

34 percent higher risk of de-mentia,” added the authors.

The underweight category is a wide one, ranging from lean to skeletal, said Qizilbash, who described the increased risk as “significant”.

- ‘We were surprised’ -Numerous other studies, in-

cluding one carried by The Lancet Neurology in July 2014, have linked obesity to a higher risk for Alzheimer’s Disease and other forms of dementia.

But Qizilbash said most were “fairly small and statistically unreliable”.

“We were surprised about the findings. Because most of them, not unanimously but the majority of previous studies, have tended to indicate that people who are overweight or obese in middle age have an increased risk of dementia in older age.”

Further research was needed to confirm the link and find an explanation for it, the research-er added.

“There are some potential contenders, particularly in terms of the role that nutrients may play,” he said.

The team hoped their re-sults would aid in the search for “protective factors” with a view to new treatments.

Alzheimer’s Disease Interna-tional (ADI) projects the num-ber of people with dementia will rise from 35.6 million in 2010 to 65.7 million by 2030 and 115.4 million by 2050.

Obesity, too, is soaring, hav-ing more than doubled world-wide since 1980. By 2014, more than 1.9 billion adults were overweight, of whom 600 million were obese, according to the World Health Organiza-tion.

In a comment also carried by The Lancet, neurology profes-sor Deborah Gustafson said the findings should be interpreted “with care”.

“The report by Qizilbash and colleagues is not the final word on this controversial topic,” she wrote.

It is the most common cause of early death worldwide, kill-ing nearly one in six men and one in 10 women.

They found that every 2.5 inches (6.3 centimeters) in a person’s height affected their risk of coronary heart disease by 13.5 percent.

As an example, a five-foot (1.5 meter) tall person would have on average a 32 percent higher risk of developing coronary heart disease than a person who was five-foot-six (1.68 meters), said the study.

“The more height increasing genetic variants that you carry the lower your risk of coronary heart disease,” said co-author Christopher Nelson, a British Heart Foundation-funded lec-turer at the University of Le-

icester.“And conversely if you were

genetically shorter the higher your risk.”

Researchers hope that further study of the genes implicated in height and heart disease may lead to better prevention and treatment in the future.

“For more than 60 years it has been known that there is an inverse relationship between

height and risk of coronary heart disease,” said lead author Sir Nilesh Samani, professor of cardiology at the University of Leicester.

“Now, using a genetic ap-proach,” he said, researchers have shown that the “asso-ciation between shorter height and higher risk of coronary heart disease is a primary rela-tionship and is not due to con-founding factors.”


Friday, April 17, 2015 Section 2 Email: [email protected] Tel: 713-774-5140

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he addressed the audience with a ‘namaste’. As Shah shared his philosophy, he said, ‘The prob-lem with our community is that we are so invested with success that we are afraid of failure. Failure is just an opportunity to learn.’ The audience could also see the President of the Hindus of Greater Houston on stage as he shared the mission, vision and activities of the Hindus of Greater Houston. Desai invited Jugal Malani, President, India House, on stage.

The award moment which took a break for a while resumed as awardee Jyothi Asokan, Sri Guruvayurappan Temple was awarded. ‘I have become motivated to become a bet-ter Hindu.’said Asokan as she thanked everyone including her parents, ‘uncles’ and ‘aunties’. Bharat Pallod,Vishwa Hindu Parishad was the next awardee who also received a huge round of applause as he received his award.

The audience was invited to attend the signature event Jan-masthami on September 12th by Vijay Pallod, Hindus of Greater Houston. Eventually it was a time to capture the mo-ment as all the award winners were invited for a photo ses-sion along with Sanjay Jain, Co-Chair, and other members of the Hindus of Greater Hous-ton. ‘Today’s program is also a symbol of Hindus’ togetherness in Houston.’ said Jain, as he in-vited Desai and other members to let them receive their respec-tive token of appreciation. As it was time to conclude, the audi-ence joined in a closing prayer with Dr.Naik.

‘I think that our gift to America and the world is re-ally an open heart and perspec-tive to the things that bind us together. I’d say Hinduism teaches us how to have that perspective.’said Dr.Naik when asked about defining future goals and Hinduism.

As no event can be complete without food, dinner was served soon after as catered by the Ma-dras Pavillion restaurant.

ChinmayaContinued from pg 8

India wins the remittance race again

Indians sent more money home last year than any other group

of migrants.

A World Bank report estimat-ed this week that India received $70.39 billion in remittances last year. That’s ahead of Chi-na, which got $64.14 billion, and more than all the remit-tances received by the Philip-pines, Mexico and Pakistan combined.

While India remained on top, its remittance growth slowed last year. The rupee’s strength relative to other currencies might have convinced Indians with savings to wait for a better exchange rate before sending extra money home.

“Remittance growth re-mained subdued in India–an estimated 0.6% in 2014 com-pared to 1.7% in 2013–perhaps in part because the appreciation of the Indian rupee discouraged investment-related inflows,” the report said.

Indians working outside of India have more money in their bank accounts than the migrants of most countries.

The World Bank report for the first time gave estimates on diaspora savings and said Indians have about $44 billion stocked away in savings in the countries in which they work. Mexicans control the largest pool of diaspora savings as the World Bank estimates they have around $53 billion in their accounts. Chinese migrants have a total of around $46 bil-lion, the report said.

The World Bank recommend-ed stable developing countries try to convince their overseas citizens to park more of that money at home with special

bonds and savings accounts.

“Countries with a large diaspora stock in richer desti-nation countries have a greater potential for successful issu-ance of diaspora bonds,” the re-port said. “Conversely, a coun-try with fragile governance may have a lower potential for success.”

The World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief pre-dicted that remittance growth from the world’s 250 million international migrants would slow to 0.9% this year before accelerating to 4.1% next year and 4.2% the year after that.

India can be key contributor to US growth: US officialWASHINGTON - In-

dia can be an im-portant contributor

to the US’ growth and its own development directly benefits American businesses, a top Obama Administration trade official has said.

“India can be an important contributor to continued US economic growth. Our trade with India correlates nicely with India’s own GDP growth rate. India’s growth thus direct-ly benefits US exporters and creates jobs in the US,” said Arun Kumar, Assistant Secre-tary of Commerce for Global Markets and Director General of the US and Foreign Com-mercial Service.

“If the United States and In-dia get the economic relation-ship right, the result can be the ultimate win-win. We can help each other grow our econo-mies, create well-paying jobs and bring our governments and our peoples still closer togeth-er,” Kumar said in his address to a conference on “Deepening the US-India Commercial Part-nership”.

He said India was the fourth fastest growing source of for-eign direct investment into the US.

“Just three weeks ago, over 80 Indian companies were right here in Washington to hear the President speak at the Select USA investment summit and explore investment opportuni-ties in the United States,” he said.

A strong Indian delegation at the summit reflected shared economic interest in heighten-ing the two countries’ commer-cial engagement, Kumar said.

He said while working with the Narendra Modi administra-

tion, the US aims at increas-ing two-way trade from nearly USD100 billion to USD500 billion in about ten years.

Kumar said the US-India Strategic and Commercial Dia-logue adds a commercial com-ponent to what was formerly the Strategic Dialogue.

The American leadership, he said, is energized and eager to enact additional concrete steps to take the commercial rela-tionship to the next level.

While the volume of trade in goods and services between the US and India has more than tri-pled since 2004, there is room to grow, he said.

According to a US Inter-national Trade Commission study, India only accounts for two percent or less of total US exports, foreign affiliate sales, and investment in 2013.

Similarly, despite being the world’s 10th-largest economy and 10th-largest importer, In-dia was only the 18th-largest export market for the US last year, he added.

Kumar said the US also looks forward to working with the Indian government under the S&D on steps it can take to at-tract American and other inter-national companies, consistent with Modi’s goal of placing India firmly in the top 50 of the World Banks’s Ease of Doing Business Index.

“As India’s economic center of gravity shifts from Delhi to the states, we will be seek-ing out forward-leaning state and local governments to build trade and investment ties even as we continue to engage the central government in Delhi,” Kumar added.

-PTI

These will be the world’s 20 largest economies in 2030

Take a peek at the new world that awaits us

Get ready for a new economic order. In the world 15 years

from now, the U.S. will be far less dominant, several emerg-ing markets will catapult into prominence, and some of the largest European economies

to almost entirely close its gap with the U.S.

India, ranked eighth for 2015, will climb past Brazil, the Unit-ed Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan to take third place in the world ranking. The Inter-national Monetary Fund calls

structure of an economy deliv-ers,” said Bruce Kasman, JP-Morgan’s chief economist.

France will slide three spots, while Italy drops two.

In the overall ranking, Ja-maica will surrender the most

ground, bumping down 13 places to 136. Countries with the biggest advanc-es -- like Uganda, which will climb 18 spots to rank 91 -- are concentrated in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

It’s important to take estimates stretching out so far with a note of cau-tion, though.

“There are lots of uncertainties,” said Kasman. “Whether China grows at 4 percent or 6 percent

matters an awful lot for where it looks like it’s going to be in the global economy. Whether India grows at 3 percent or 8 percent -- these are huge differences when you compound them over long periods of time.”

The USDA is not the only -- and hardly the most widely-fol-lowed -- ranking of global eco-nomic growth, though it does offer the advantage of particu-larly long-term outlooks. The International Monetary Fund’s economic outlook only projects out two years. Look out for it later this month.

And if 15 years is too far out for you, take a look at the fast-est-growing economies just for this year.

- Bloomberg News

will be slipping behind. That’s according to the U.S.

Department of Agriculture’s latest macroeconomic projec-tions that go out to 2030, dis-played in the chart below. The U.S. will just barely remain the global leader, with $24.8 tril-lion in annual output. The gray bar represents the $16.8 trillion gross domestic product pro-jected for 2015, and the green bar shows how much bigger the economy is expected to be 15 years from now. The country, worth 25 percent of the world economy in 2006 and 23 per-cent in 2015, will see its share decline to 20 percent.

China’s GDP will grow to more than twice its size today, helping the Asian powerhouse

India “the bright spot in the global landscape.” The country will have the largest workforce in the world within the next 15 years, the IMF notes, and among the youngest.

Other nations won’t be so lucky, particularly among de-veloped economies. Japan, which was a roaring economy until its asset bubble burst in the early 1990s, has already slogged through decades of stagnation and will likely con-tinue to see very little growth over the next 15 years. That will push Japan down a spot in the rankings by 2030, accord-ing to the USDA estimates.

Japan is “an important les-son in how quickly you can downshift your status of what a

VOICE OF ASIA 18 FRIDAY, April 17, 2015HOROSCOPEYour Horoscope for the Week of April 17, 2015

Aries (A,L,E) 21 March to 20 AprilThe bright expectations that may turn out not to be enough true information. You

may have to look elsewhere for what you really require. Family and friends will invite you to join at gatherings. Take them up on invites and you’ll be able to find new way to share your ideas. Your insights are almost ‘scary’ this week, when they are power-

ful and when they are ‘useful’ and could save time, money and a lot of ‘grief/work’ for yourself and/or others.

Taurus (B,V,U) 21 April to 20 MayNeed to value the instinctive powers that you possess. Sharing your enlightenment

with younger people will help you to progress. Your positive energy will help you to meet tight deadlines. You’ll be surprised at how much you can accomplish once you get started. A mistake could be costly IF you allow it to rob your focus and ‘rattle’ your

cage. Remain calm, if discipline is required, make the time fit the crime and if it is a financial mistake, fix it and say nothing if a sibling, elder or partner is involved.

Gemini (K,CHH,GH) 21 May to 20 JuneExperience the fact all roads you take this week will lead you to a sort of spiritual awaken-

ing. Use this time to refresh and rejuvenate your positive energy. Good relations with those you work with will enable you to spread your influence. Some interesting employment opportunities exist. Family members seem to ‘really need you’, even if you are a younger

member who does not carry weight or ‘make the calls’ within the family. Step up to the plate and be there with a ‘loving and willing’ heart, especially for needy, vulnerable and/or elderly/older members.

Cancer (D,H) 21 June to 22 JulyGood communications that will continue as long as you lead in the discussions. You will

realize that you are very important to others plans. Whether you are preparing fine dining or simple comfort food, your past experience give you that little edge on your competi-tion. Keep your word/promise to a member or risk a real ‘back lash’ later or as far out as

the ‘upcoming holidays’. Focus on spending issues and the commitment of ‘future income/debt’ deci-sions with ‘a practical eye’ on ‘need vs. want’ especially if pleasing youth is involved.

Leo (M) 23 July to 22 AugustGet ready for knowing your goals, which should be solid. All eyes will be on your recent

accomplishments. Take advantage of this opportunity to blow your own horn a little. Your change in focus will prove that you did in fact learn an important lesson. Teamwork will help accomplish the tasks you require. Good news from others is likely and may focus

around announcements, expansion, moves, upgrades, employment, benefits, awards or other types of ‘reasons to celebrate’.

Virgo (P) 23 August to 22 SeptemberThe fact that even though you do not always fit the normal mould, you definitely have

your own style. Aspects of your personality will shine this week. You may have to show your true colors to those who doubt your loyalty. If your heart is true then you will have nothing to worry about. A busy and demanding week is likely and your focus, espe-

cially, seems to be that ‘everyone should just get along’ and ‘harmony and balance’ are what you are shooting for. This may not be easy IF you are dealing with elders, youth of educating age members who are ‘unhappy with some issue’.

Libra (R,T) 23 Sept to 22 OctYour strong ties to your roots which will help you deal with a situation on a different

perspective. You’ll see how one could be misunderstood. Some interesting news from far away may help you to understand recent events. Your research and investigations will find the reasons.

Cooperation is NOT good early in the week and frustration levels rise with spending needs, especially for elders and any households with ‘educating youth’.

Scorpio (N,Y)23 Oct to 21 NovThe feeling that weight of your many responsibilities. Once you get your routine right,

you will have much more flexibility with your time demands. Emotions are very high. You need to try hard to keep your temper under control. Once you understand the truth, cooler heads will prevail. Many demands, expenses and travel, vehicle or transportation

needs may ‘gather’ to take an impressive bit out of your wallet/budget this week, especially IF you have educating youth in your household.

Sagittarius (BH,F,DH,TH) 22 Nov to 21 DecRealize, your immediate plans may not be as simple as you thought. You will need to look

a lot deeper to be able to see your future more clearly. You will start to feel better once you begin to be your fun loving self. Even though times have changed, you need to hold onto your past. Busy, happy and productive energies about early in the week but the later may

provide a few ‘close calls’ with regard to ‘worrying about other members’ especially elders, vulnerable personalities.

Capricorn (KH,J) 22 Dec to 20 JanDiscrepancies, which will be found within recent events. You will be worried about

your future employment. Insist on receiving honest answers. Your future plans may not be envisioned by all. Others may look for fault, but you’ll appreciate the strong aspects that can help the most. Demands on your time appear to escalate dramatically while

fatigue, minor illness/injury and other types of challenges may present some ‘juggling’ issues in a balancing act between ‘need and want’.

Aquarius (G,S,SH) 21 Jan to 19 FebFeeling like you have been working far too hard. You need to find ways to change your

old routine. Take the time to smell the flowers. You may feel vulnerable to others criticism right now. Push those negative thoughts out of your mind. You will achieve all your desired goals. Vehicles, repairs, purchases, upgrades, travel/transportation, shipping, moving and ANY form of ‘distance’ expense is likely to be on the rise BIG time. News ‘for members’

tends to be good, especially in employment, income upgrades, and prizes/awards

Pisces (D,CH,Z) 20 Feb to 20 MarchPersonal health issues which may influence your attitude. Dwell on what you can

do, not what you can’t. Strive hard to get past old restrictions. Big expectations may bring unexpected pressure. You’ll need to keep your composure. Show how well you can work with teammates. Travel, errands, multi tasking and several ‘acts of kindness’ may dominate and ‘getting the horse before the cart’ is a threat for expense, timing and

decision making processes. Long talks that address ‘old problems’ are likely with good results. A fun event warns you should ‘soft peddle’ your position, requests and even ‘presence’.

by Hardik Vyas, Astrologer Cell : 832-298-9950

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Weekend workersneeded for Demo marketing (6-8 weekends) in Hillcroft, Sugarland in Greater Houston area, Dallas (DFW area) and several more cities in USA. Young women & men Must be personable, well-mannered and able to work on their own. Demonstrate top Indian brands ranging from instant tea to cookies. Excellent ‘in-your-face opportunity with cus-tomers’ to learn and earn. Must have own transport. Call 201-566-0610 or email [email protected] - Hiring immediately.

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Amazing facts from all over the

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• The tea bag was invented in 1908 • The revolving door was invented in 1888

• The drinking straw was invented in 1886 • The elevator was invent-ed in 1850

• The hottest chile in the world is the habanero

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Condone- tacitly support; overlook

Eclectic- taking things from different sources

Genre- a category; type

Irascible- easily angered

Staunch- loyal; faithful; dependable

NEW FEATURE!

$30/-*

for Real Estate AgentsPost your listing!

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1234 Main st, Houston, TX 77074

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MLS #: 1234567890 | Year Built: 2006

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Associate Broadcast Systems SpecialistKTRK-TV ABC13 located in Houston, TX is seeking an Associate Broadcast Systems Specialist. This is a great opportunity for someone to broaden their knowledge of computerized television broadcast equipment and systems in a fast paced ever-changing environment. Candidates experience must include level 1 help desk support, working knowledge of Windows and Macintosh desktop and server operating systems as well as troubleshooting software and hardware components and basic networking skills. The ideal candidate will have experience providing technical support in a broadcast environment. We are looking for someone that is motivated to excel and possess strong interpersonal skills. Candidates must be willing to work a schedule that will include nights, overnights and weekends throughout the year. All interested applicants must apply on-line at www.disneycareers.com by uploading a re-sume file, cover letter and list of references. Interested applicants should also send video tape samples of your news related work to: Human Resourc-es, KTRK-TV, 3310 Bissonnet, Houston, TX 77005. Please Reference Job ID: 265630BR on all materials submitted. Equal Opportunity Employer – Female/ Minority/ Veteran/ Disability. No Telephone Calls.

MANAGEMENT TIP OF THE DAY FROM HBR.ORGMake Office Politics Less Personal

One of the reasons office politics makes so many of us uneasy is that complex situations are difficult to read and impossible to control. When personalities and motivations intertwine, anything can happen. One tactic for handling of-fice politics is to make its challenges less personal. If you begin to look at politics like a game — you win some, you lose some — you’ll become more resilient and have smarter responses when something takes you by surprise. If a situation starts to feel too personal, try to avoid looking your opponent in the eye. In many business situations eye contact is crucial, but in this case, averting your gaze can help you remain calm and avoid the fight-or-flight impulse that rises when you feel under attack. Keeping an even keel enables you to react more thoughtfully, of-fer productive suggestions, and regain control of the situation.

Adapted from “4 Strate-gies for Women Navigating Office Politics” by Kathryn Heath.

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