saja board 2008

south asian journalists
in the u.s.

By Kulamarva Balakrishna

Vienna,Wednesday, January 30, (thees January-
Mahamtam Gandhi assassination day,particularly
of significance of the kosher university hijacked
Arun Gandhi´s M.K.Gandhi Institute of Non Violence.
As if kosher blood letting is indeed very non violent
and 30 billion dollar U.S.Military supplies at one go
by George Bush serves the cause of non violence
in the ancient civilization of Middle East.)
2008:Here is the report from New York, sent by
Journalism Prof.Sree Sreenivasan of Columbia
University,on the new office bearers and Board of
the South Asian Journalists Association in the U.S.
which is preparing for its international convention
on June 20-21.It serves some one thousand
practicing journalists of South Asian origin.Report:

Sandeep Junnarkar SAJA president PHOTO: Preston Merchant	V.V. "Sugi" Ganeshananthan VP and convention chair PHOTO: Preston Merchant

By Prof.Sree Sreenivasan

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 29, 2008 -- SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association, announced its slate of officers for 2008 today. The group serves more than 1,000 journalists and others interested in South Asia and South Asians across the U.S. and Canada.

Sandeep Junnarkar, a new media professor at the City University of New York(CUNY) Graduate School of Journalism and one of the country's leading experts on online journalism, was elected president. V.V.Ganeshananthan, known as Sugi, a writer and author, was elected vice president. Anusha Shrivastava, a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires, who is new to the Board, was named secretary (she covers corporate bonds for the news service, and has been a business journalist for wire, print and broadcast media in the U.S., Canada and India). John Laxmi, a New Jersey-based freelance writer, continues as treasurer and Sree Sreenivasan, a Columbia University journalism professor and WNBC-TV technology reporter, continues as the executive committee's at-large officer. A full slate of Board members for the year has also been named, including Aseem Chhabra, NYC-based freelance writer( I think this young man Aseem is the same person, who worked in co-operation my underground experimental Hi young people´s news paper in the early 1970s); Kiran Khalid, freelance TV journalist and documentary filmmaker; Monika Mathur, researcher, the Associated Press; Gopal Ratnam, an automotive correspondent for Bloomberg News. Deepti Hajela, who served as SAJA's president for three years, remains on the board, coordinating the group's chapters across the U.S. and Canada.

Junnarkar (pronounced "SUN-deep joo-NAR-kar"), who is an associate professor at the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, was born in Gwalior, India. He spent his childhood in New Delhi, Mumbai, London, Paris, and his teenage years in parts of California and New York. He received a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley. He worked for the New York Times on the Web in the 1990s and later became the New York bureau chief at CNET News.com. Ganeshananthan takes over as vice president from Vikas Bajaj, a New York Times business reporter who will continue to work closely on SAJA programs.

Ganeshananthan (pronounced "SOO-ghee [not SOO-jee] gun-ay-SHAN-an-than"), the first Sri Lankan-American member of the SAJA Board, is a journalist and fiction writer. She grew up in Bethesda, Maryland. She is a 2002 graduate of Harvard College, where she was the managing editor of The Crimson. She received an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2005. During 2005-2006, she was the Phillips Exeter Academy Writer-in-Residence. In 2007, she graduated from the new MA program at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she specialized in arts and culture coverage.

Led by Ganeshananthan, SAJA (along with its partner, SAJA Group, Inc.) is preparing for the annual convention, which will take place June 20-21 2008, at Columbia University and the CUNY Journalism School in New York. More than 1,000 journalists and guests from around the U.S., Canada, South Asia and Europe are expected to gather for a series of workshops, panels and networking events.The dramatic increase in the South Asian population in the United States and growing importance of U.S.-South Asian relations have led to a huge growth in the coverage of the community and the region. As a result, SAJA serves as a resource for journalists, community organizations and members of the public trying to understand various complex issues related to the subcontinent.

Junnarkar, Ganeshananthan and other members of the board will focus on improving the quality and reach of SAJA programs, including the SAJA Reporting Fellowships, which provide funding for journalists who wish to cover stories about South Asia or the diaspora.(end)