Zee TV Partners With Cry America For Children’s Rights 

Zee TV, the premier South Asian entertainment network has announced its partnership with Child Rights and You America, Inc. (CRY America) to give deprived children a voice and ensure their basic rights to education, healthcare, protection from abuse and a life of dignity. “It is our mission to not only foster dialogue about the South Asian diaspora through best-in-class entertainment but also to impact the lives of South Asians in a meaningful way through nonprofit initiatives,” said Subroto Bhattacharya, Zee TV’s Country Head for the Americas.

Similar to last year’s campaign, creative entries for the ‘My Vision and Dream for Children’ campaign can be uploaded online across six categories and in three age groups of juniors, teens and adults. Onground contests will be held through local events organized by the volunteer chapters across 12 cities in the US. The campaign will run for five months until October 15, 2010, and winning entries will receive certificates and be displayed on CRY website.

“Their participation in the CRY Walk for Child Rights and ‘My Vision and Dream for Children’ campaign is a testament to their long-standing reputation and commitment to community outreach, advocacy campaigns and social responsibility initiatives, thereby impacting underprivileged children, their families and the communities where they live and work on a global level,” says Shefali Sunderlal, President of CRY America. 

Longest-running desi TV show ‘Darshan’ goes national

'Darshan', the longest-running Indian- American television program in the US, has launched a new nationally broadcast weekly half-hour program called 'Darshan America'.

The new show started last Saturday would be available throughout the US on the national independent channel, MHz Worldview, every Saturday at 3 p.m. MHz Worldview is available in over half of the top-20 US television markets - nearly 27 million households - through broadcast and cable affiliates in cities such as Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Miami, Denver and Seattle.

The hour-long original 'Darshan', which has aired continuously in the Washington DC Metro area since 1987, will continue airing weekly Saturdays at 9 a.m. and Tuesdays at 11 a.m. on MHz Networks 1.

Like the Washington show, the new show features host and executive producer Ramesh Butani along with primary co-hosts Aastha Verma and Shilpa Alimchandani. They engage in lively discussions of news-based topics of interest to the Indian-American community.

Guests include business executives, government officials, writers, artists, activists and entertainers.

Oscar- and Grammy-winning composer A.R. Rahman; Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, filmmakers Mira Nair ('The Namesake') and Gurinder Chadha ('Bend It Like Beckham') and Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra are amongst those who have appeared on the show.

The show takes on cultural taboos such as teenage dating, mixed marriages, Viagra and homosexuality, sometimes stirring up debates that end up on the editorial pages of local Indian newspapers. 

100 CHILDREN LEARN HINDI AT ATLANTA SUMMER CAMP

One hundred middle and high school children of Atlanta spent ten days at a summer camp to learn Hindi and Indian culture. Known as 'Startalk Yuva Summer Hindi Camp,' it was held at Berkmar High School in Lilburn, Atlanta from June 19 to 28.

“We worked hard to recruit 100 children for this camp,” said Manju Tiwari, asst. director of the Startalk program. “We pooled resources from our local network of volunteers and business owners to prepare for the camp. All students were fully engaged in cultural and language learning through a variety of activities,” she said. The camp was organized by Yuva Hindi Sansthan, a New Jersey based educational and cultural organization.

The participants took a virtual trip to India. They were introduced to India's geography, diversity, history and culture. The program aimed at making the students aware about the diversity of India and importance of Hindi as a link language. After ten days of total immersion into language learning and cultural practices, they were able to read and write simple Hindi texts and communicate in Hindi using formulaic expressions. T

he camp incorporated indoor and outdoor activities designed to provide social and cultural contexts for learning. Every morning students practiced yoga under the guidance of Anamika Dwivedi, a professional yoga instructor.

The participants enjoyed food that represented various regions of India. They sat on the floor to eat their food on the day they studied Indian village culture. The participants were taken on a field trip on the seventh day of the camp. They visited places of religious, cultural and commercial importance. They learned about Indian values at the Swami Narayan Temple and learned about parallels between Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. at the King Memorial. They had opportunities to interact with shopkeepers and buy things at a real Indian Bazaar that was organized as a part of the program.

“We aimed at informing our students about India in a deep immersion of linguistic and cultural environment. A treasure of authentic material was used to meet our objective. The participants quickly learned about India, its major cities and villages with the help of pictures, movie clips, music, dance, food and yoga practices. With the deployment of research-supported principles of second language acquisition, we were able to generate their interest in language learning and knowing more about Bharat,” informed Dr. Surendra Gambhir, a former professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who directed the program.

Yuva Hindi Sansthan (YHS), a non-profit educational and cultural organization incorporated in New Jersey is engaged in preservation, education and promotion of our heritage language Hindi in USA. 

Kerala Health Minister interacts with community at Kerala Center

The Indian American Kerala Cultural and Civic Center hosted luncheon reception and interactive meeting with Kerala Health Minister P.K. Sreemathi Teacher on July 5. Minister Sreemathi was on a brief tour of America to understand the bone marrow registry so as to set it up in Kerala. The Center’s President Jose Chummar in his welcome address said that the Center has been providing platform to all visiting dignitaries from Kerala since its inception in 1990. The Center’s board member and founding member Dr. Thomas Abraham in his introduction of Minister Sreemathi said that American Malayalees have been helping Kerala in many charitable, educational and health related projects and would welcome such interactive session to explore avenues of more cooperation. Minister Sreemathi, in her remarks explained Kerala government’s accomplishments in getting medical services to ordinary people. Some of these include providing cancer treatment free to children below 18 years, making sure hospitals have medicine supply, extend length of service of govt. doctors and setting up a separate council for nurses for their welfare. The interactive session was moderated by Jose Kadapuram of Kairali TV. During the question/answer session, Minister Sreemathi said that the Kerala Health Department has been exploring to set up ‘Bone Marrow Matching Tests’ and Plasanta Cord Blood Bank.’

“We are looking for help from American Malayalees to set up these new initiatives,” said Minister Sreemathi.

The delegation included Kerala Govt. Health Secretary Dr. Usha Titus, Kerala Govt. Medical Education Secretary Dr. Meenu Hariharan, Malabar Cancer Center Director Dr. B. Satheesan. Prominent American Malayalee physicians present at the meeting included Dr. Roy Thomas of Chicago who hosts a medical show at Kairali TV, Dr. Jame Abraham of Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center (Morgantown, WV) and Dr. Parameswaran N. Hari, Associate Professor of Medicine and Clinical Director of Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at Medical College of Wisconsin.  

CHICAGO TO HOST INDIAN COMMUNITY FESTIVAL

For the first time, Chicago's Millennium Park will become the venue of an Indian community festival in September to attract Indian businesses and trade delegations to the booming American city.

The India Fest International festival will begin with a Fusion Concert at Navy Pier featuring Korean, African and Indian dances. At least 30 per cent of the audience is expected to be American at this concert that will also feature a banquet style dinner.

The festival will also include the Taste of India in August 2011. It is for the first time that any ethnic community has organized such an event in downtown Chicago.

Promotion of Indian culture and involvement of most of the Indian community will be sought through this event.

It will also put the Chicago community on the Indian map. Before this, trade missions from India have visited New York and California but none have come to Chicago, though it is a sister city of New Delhi.

The event will showcase Indian culture and food and thus bring India closer to Americans. Anil Chugh of Market Links, Rajinder Bedi, founder of community newspaper Indian Reporter and Eric Shah publisher of newspaper India Tribune, organized India Fest International. Others involved are Usha Kamaria, a community activist, and Faisal Khan.

Bedi, who had worked as the head of trade missions in the former state government of Rod Blagojevich, has five and a half years experience in leading more than 85 trade delegations, will also be in charge of taking delegations to India.

Initially, these trade delegations will visit India and sign MoUs with Indian companies and encourage them to search for investment in Chicago, one of the world's top ten Global Financial Centres.

In January 2011, a delegation of 40 people will visit four major Indian cities of Mumbai, Ahmadabad, Delhi and Bangalore. They will also visit the Nano plant in Gujarat. The 'Vibrant Gujarat' celebration will be held from January 11 to 12 after which the delegation will proceed to Mumbai and Delhi. 

Shankar, Ehsaan & Loy on concert tour of US

Shankar Ehsaan & Loy will be touring the US for their concert dubbed Inspiration- Aman Ki Aasha, which started July 17 at the IZOD center in NJ and works its way across North America with showings in almost every major city. Cognizant of public sentiment after the cancellations of India centric concerts, the music trio announced that they are on schedule for their US tour and will be performing in all the cities listed for their concert.

The concert also features, Shafquat Amanat Ali, Mahalakshmi Iyer and Richa Sharma.

[ By VRN ]