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)

pressure on u.n

Prof.Ms.Yakin Erturk,u.n. special rapporteuer on women for saudi arabia, the sand land of savages.

cheers to saudi

young women!

By Kulamarva Balakrishna

Vienna, Wednesday,January 30,2008:Agencies
report from Geneva,Yakin Erturk,United Nations
expert on women's rights,is set to visit Saudi Arabia
after the kingdom came under fierce public attacks
against ill treatment of women,including whipping
punishment to rape victim young women.

Ms.Yakin Erturk, the UN special rapporteur on
violence against women,its causes and consequences,
will be in the savage kingdom from February 4 to
13 at the La illaha Abdullah government's invitation.
Erturk, a sociology professor at the Middle East
Technical University in Ankara, will meet saudi
authorities,UN officials and individual victims of
violence against women during her visit.She will
report her findings to the UN Human Rights Council.
Saudia Arabia is governed by Wahabism, a strict
misinterpretation of Islam.The religion is
born with protection of Khadija bint
Khuwaylid, a great female personality of
her time.

Now-- in the name of Sharia law --the sand land
imposes complete segregation of the sexes,in a
kind of Islamic Apartheid against women. As such,
it is illegal in that lawless land, for a woman to be
in the company of a man who is not considered her
family member.Earlier this month, the Committee
on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
quizzed Saudi officials on numerous aspects of
women's life in the kingdom, including that
men have the right to twice the inheritance
women are allowed, and that women are
compelled to have a strange "male page"
accompany them wherever they went as
routine."Without the presence of this male page,
a woman cannot study, may be not able to go to
a toilet,access health services, marry, travel abroad,
have a business or even access an ambulance in an
emergency,"an experts on the committee said.
The Saudi delegation highlighted in a report to
the committee that "Saudi society is still largely
a savage tribal society and changes in mentality
allowing new ideas take time".Riyadh also reported
in black and white writing that "Islam, as a realistic
religion,admits that total equality between man and
woman is impossible, as various scientific studies
by wahabi mullahs on their psychological differences
have shown.But the U.N. committee has responsibility
of seeing the application of the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women, a UN treaty regarded as a global bill of
rights for women. The U.N.is responsible for the
global human family.(end)

erotics & temples (conclusion)

gawds enjoyed their
sexual freedom

By Kulamarva Balakrishna

(I am open to discuss the subject and even
debate it.This in sum would be the introduction
if I ever issue new edition of my translation of
Jayadeva´s erotic ashtapadis. The late
Srilanka artist George Keyt has published original
Gitagovinda with English translation with his
sensuous illustrations.)

Vienna, Tuesday, January 29,2008:Then there
are a number of godly castes,which includes
devils as well.Gods,angels,singer gandharvas,
instrumentalists and dancers half men half
horse male female couple,siddhas etc about
half a dozen sky-and heaven bound people
maintaining social intercourse with humans
make an exotic crowd.They are many in
number with individual identities.All these
deserve prominent locations in adorning
the architecture of a =sanatana= temple.
When temples were begun to be erected
from the early Christian era,most of these
are visualized by sculptors and their stories
got to be illustrated.Some of them for example,
bhuta ganas of Shiva included nandi bull
and other sacred lives. If Shiva temples are
decorated by them Vaishnava temples had
their own favorites of sub gods.

They all enjoyed greater behavioural freedom
than normal mortals, which included sexual
freedoms.Some kinnaras with human face
sang,male and female couple only kissed
each other.But they made love like animals.
Temple sculptures tend to depict these.These
are not based on Kamasutra of frogs or horses
but godly kinnara couples.

It would be indeed an interesting study if made
the sociology of Hindu gods and semi gods and
their sexual moralities.Just as in todays world
we have here in Vienna, a reserved places
for societies believing in naked bodies.It is the
same for Yugoslavia.In Germany and elsewhere
during summer days men and woman remove
cloths to absorb sun rays to the body.One can
see people on river beds, sea shores resting
on stones or benches free of cloths.In some cases
with only exotic panties printed or painted with
figures like krishnas or gopies.In saunas, men
and women sit naked on towels close to one
another.No one takes offence if a black, brown,
or any other colour race or women sits naked
for less than 15 minutes until they sweat well
and go for foam and warm and cold showers
all in birth day dress.

But in church precincts there are dress codes.
Heads should not be covered inside.Until
recently women in pants were not allowed in
ortodox churches.Skirt or saris ok but no
manly dress.These are then social ethics.

As for Indian temple sculptures,they also serve
as educative.If one reads Kannada Ratnakara
Varni´s Bharatesh Vaibhava, there is a very
descriptive chapter in =sangatya= metre
called =stree ratna sambhoga sandhi=,which
narrates openly how Tirthankara Bahubali
enjoyed his sex with his jewel of a woman,queen.
He is one to Jayadeva who wrote Gitagovinda
the lyrics on the krishna gopies dances and
love making, even repeating the noises of
love making couple and the noise their bedstead
makes.That is not part of Kamasutra. That
holy love of holy men and women!

Now please do not curse if some one depicts
Hindu gods as they reportedly enjoyed.It is
normal to see them so.May be it is because
indu Purohitas worshipped gods as men and
women ever since the sacrificial rites were
fully abandoned following the advent of Buddha
and he was accepted as a Hindu incarnation,
avatar and his slogan =ahimsa paramo dharmah=
was acknowledged by the rest of the hindus.

Let me point out the late Bollywood humourist
I.S.Johar.He used to say sexual exuberance
was a Hindu divine behavior which we should
respect.He would say we should not transplant
Islamic tenets into Hindu culture.(end)

our global responsibility

environmental engineering By Jamais Cascio (courtesy Foreign Policy Magazine Carnegie Endowment.org) Posted January 2008 It may sound like science fiction, but it’s only a matter of time before the world’s militaries learn to wield the planet itself as a weapon. NASA Preventing global warming from becoming a planetary catastrophe may take something even more drastic than renewable energy, superefficient urban design, and global carbon taxes. Such innovations remain critical, and yet disruptions to the Earth’s climate could overwhelm these relatively slow, incremental changes in how we live. As reports of faster-than-expected climate changes mount, a growing number of experts worry that we might ultimately be forced to try something quite radical: geoengineering. Geoengineering involves humans making intentional, large-scale modifications to the Earth’s geophysical systems in order to change the environment. These can include sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide in the oceans, changing the reflectivity of the Earth’s surface, and pumping particles into the stratosphere to block a fraction of incoming sunlight. Many of these proposals mimic natural events, so we know that—in principle—they can work, although there is insufficient understanding of their potential side effects. Unsurprisingly, geoengineering is highly controversial, and even proponents view it as a “Hail Mary” pass, to be considered only after all other options have failed. But geoengineering presents more than just an environmental question. It also presents a geopolitical dilemma. With processes of this magnitude and degree of uncertainty, countries would inevitably argue over control, costs, and liability for mistakes. More troubling, however, is the possibility that states may decide to use geoengineering efforts and technologies as weapons. Two factors make this a danger we dismiss at our peril: the unequal impact of climate changes, and the ability of small states and even nonstate actors to attempt geoengineering. For a variety of political and natural reasons, global warming affects some countries differently than others. Fragile economies and weak infrastructures tend to worsen the results of climate disruptions, a problem exemplified by Bangladesh’s vulnerability to monsoons, accelerating desertification in northern China, and, most visibly, Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in New Orleans. At the same time, warming and altered rainfall patterns may— temporarily—improve conditions for countries in extreme latitudes, increasing harvests in Canada and Russia for a few years. Similarly, intentional changes meant to fight global warming would also have differential results. start up climos =ocean iron fertilization= with india participating At the same time, the resources required for geoengineering projects can vary dramatically. A start-up company called Climos and the government of India have each begun to prepare tests of “ocean iron fertilization” to boost oceanic phytoplankton blooms, in order to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, at a cost of just a few million dollars. At the other end of the spectrum, projects like the injection of megatons of sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere to simulate the effects of a volcano would easily cost in the tens of billions of dollars—still within the means of most developed countries.

It’s this combination of differential impact and relatively low cost that makes international disputes over geoengineering almost inevitable. Even if there is broad consensus that geoengineering is too risky, research into environmental modification will happen simply out of self-preservation—nobody wants to fall behind. Moreover, it’s not hard to imagine some international actors seeing geoengineering as something other than solely a way of avoiding environmental disaster. environment as weapon It wouldn’t be the first time states looked at the environment as a weapon. In the early 1970s, the Pentagon’s Project Popeye attempted to use cloud seeding to increase the strength of monsoons and bog down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In 1996, a group of Air Force and Army officers working with a theory =weather as force multipler=.The Air Force 2025 program produced a document =owing the weather in 2025=and a similar project was launched by the Soviet Union as well.But it got nowhere,there remains the story.The idea of a geoengineering arms race may superficially parallel this line of thinking, it’s actually a very different concept. Unlike “weather warfare,” geoengineering would be subtle and long term, more a strategic project than a tactical weapon; moreover, unlike weather control, we know it can work, since we’ve been unintentionally changing the climate for decades. The offensive use of geoengineering could take a variety of forms. Overproductive algae blooms can actually sterilize large stretches of ocean over time, effectively destroying fisheries and local ecosystems. Sulfur dioxide carries health risks when it cycles out of the stratosphere. One proposal would pull cooler water from the deep oceans to the surface in an explicit attempt to shift the trajectories of hurricanes. Some actors might even deploy counter -geoengineering projects to slow or alter the effects of other efforts. The subtle, long-term aspects of geoengineering could make it appealing. Because the overt purpose of geoengineering would be to fight global warming, and because complex climate systems would make it hard to definitively blame a given project for harmful outcomes elsewhere, offensive uses would likely be hard to detect with certainty. And, in a world where nuclear deterrence remains strong but the value of conventional military force has come under question, states will look for alternative, unexpected ways of boosting their strategic power relative to competitors. thinking the unthinkable Despite the global impact of geoengineering, the differential climate patterns and the resilience of local technological, economic, and social infrastructures guarantees that some states will fare better than others.Much as Cold War nuclear strategists could argue about “winning” a nuclear war by having more survivors, advocates of a Global Warming War might see the United States, Western Europe, or Russia as better able to “ride out” climate disruption and manipulation than, say, China or the countries of the Middle East. It’s a new version of “thinking the unthinkable.” Smart policies could lessen these risks. The 1977 Environmental Modification Convention, produced by the United Nations in response to Project Popeye, prohibits the use of engineered weather or environmental changes for military purposes; signatory countries may wish to look at ways of monitoring and enforcing this treaty. Outright banning of geoengineering research is highly unlikely, as it offers a last-ditch hope for staving off climate disaster. Instead, putting research into the hands of transparent, international bodies could reduce the temptation to “weaponize” geoengineering; internationalization could also help to spread the liability and costs, reducing one potential source of tension. The best strategy to avoid the possible offensive use of geoengineering techniques, however, is twofold: First, embrace the social, economic, and technological changes necessary to avoid climate disaster before it’s too late; and second, expand the global environmental sensor and satellite networks allowing us to monitor ecosystem changes—and manipulation. This strategy may not reduce the temptation to look at geoengineering as an offensive capacity, but it would ensure that experiments and prototype efforts couldn’t readily be hidden under the cover of fighting climate change. We know all too well that the international contest for power will continue even in the face of a growing global threat. It would be a tragedy if, in seeking to avoid environmental catastrophe, we inadvertently enabled a new quest for geopolitical advantage. The risks of turning the Earth itself into a weapon are far too great. (Jamais Cascio is an environmental futurist and a fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. He blogs at Open the Future.)(end)

fuel & environment

Tata´s people´s five seater low cost (2500 dollar)car released
on January 8, in New Delhi should harness low cost emission
bio waste fuel.
use natural
sources
with care

By Kulamarva Balakrishna

Vienna,Tuesday, January 29,2008: I put out
yesterday a www.wired.com copy on
less than a dollar per gallon methanol fuel
for cars sponsored by General Motors.
There are two messages.One for developing
economies like India to clean up garbage to
use as fuel.To the oil rich watch out you
can not go on being unreasonable.There
are now infra structure bottle necks in the
U.S. That economy however, can meet the
task.Over night there would be methanol
pump stations.In India too, if indisciplined
langoti monkeys go constructive, we can
grow bio fuel resources enough to meet
our demands for road transport cutting
emission levels to the environment.Nano
makers Tatas should adjust themselves
to bio fuel to lead other neo industrialists.

The dedicated work is overdue.We have
to meet the challenge of fuel,and water
sources development in India on emergency
basis.We need both desalination plants
and monsoon lakes on both sides of
all express motor ways.We should motivate
people to work instead of running hate
campaigns.

Instead of linking rivers, we should harness
them for energy generation.We should
improve transmission lines to global
standards to with stand weather related
emergencies to say the least.We have the
means, idle population for labour. By
harnessing the resources we would be
only increasing social harmony.

All the cities do require sewage systems
that take the waste outside the habitation
separating solid waste releasing the liquid
for horticulture.That is wealth generation
and social welfare Prof.Amartya Sen
will agree.There is no time to be lost
in silly controversies.

Will the left and right see reason?Will those
who have chosen to renounce stake
in the material world withdraw into seclusion
leaving the down to earth society work with
out interruption?I mean Hindu and Muslim
Mullah mobs should keep themselves away
from public affairs.(end)

yoga system (15)

managing mental
tendencies

By Kulamarva Balakrishna

Vienna,Tuesday, January 29,2008:So far we have
dealt with the meaning of yoga as mastering the
mental tendencies,which are five fold, multiplying
into pleasant and unpleasant bearings.The means
of mastering are derived by practice and disinterest
in superficial appearances and disappearances.
When we understand the nature of human
consciousness, our disinterest, =vairagya= gets
stabilized to make us qualified into =samadhi=,
union with the radiating consciousness outside
of our body.

Led by reason,analysis,happiness,and remaining
aware of own individual presence behind in line,
we reach =samprjnata= samadhi,union.This is
the sum of the seventeenth sutra of Patanjali.It
reads: = vitarka,vichara,ananda,asmita
anugamat samprajnatah=.This is then the logistic
route of our consciousness getting fused to
the universal consciousness.The name of this
sort of union is designated as =samprajnatah=,
meaning substantive understanding.

It should be kept in mind that guiding the mental
tendencies cover all five fold diversion points
namely,worldly knowledge,wrong knowledge,
imaginary creative perception,sleep and
memories.In human life all these are essential.
But these should remain under management,
to avoid unpleasantness and problems that
could chase us all our lives. The tendencies
should work in team as a system letting
the boss enough room for decision making.
There should be no mistake that by yoga we
stop our mind like our watch from functioning.
This is what most gawd men like us believe
so they can assert their importance in other
people´s normal life.On the contrary,if we are
healthy,we should remain natural,maintain
our harmonious relation with the environment,
keep enjoying it in full awareness to fine tune
ourselves to our understanding,nature and
society as Buddha said to his followers in
that time´s people´s simple Pali language.
=Take care be mindful= is the sum substance
of the message.

For us it leads to our individual website.The
procedure starts with the morning prayer,
followed up mid day and evening.Once we
remain aware then the procedure of prayer
need not be theatrical, interrupted by =why
dog is calling?,look=etc.We should pray
internally avoiding ourselves being a nuisance
to the outside world.That is how the sages
of old went about.Not like the Jain muni
of yesterday,displaying in public how he
pulls out his pubic and other hair with the
help of wet ashes.It is not a =dharmasthala
Mela Yakshagana=! How one removes
unwanted hair is a private affair for every
man or women.That should be done
privately.Not as a public ceremony.
Even Dharmasthala =Pergade= should
know this simple thing,when he runs
yet another school of abstract yoga.(end)

note india´s chance

Startup Says It Can Make Ethanol for $1 a Gallon, and Without Corn

By Chuck Squatriglia

Design engineer Mike Sura adjusts settings on Coskata's 150L bioreactor to make ethanol.
Photo: Tyler Mallory/General Motors(courtesy Sqatriglia www.wired.com 24.01.2008)

A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn't interfere with food supplies, company officials said.

Coskata, which is backed by General Motors and other investors, uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol.

"It's not five years away, it's not 10 years away. It's affordable, and it's now," said Wes Bolsen, the company's vice president of business development.

The discovery underscores the rapid innovation under way in the race to make cellulosic ethanol cheaply. With the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requiring an almost five-fold increase in ethanol production to 36 billion gallons annually by 2022, scientists are working quickly to reach that breakthrough.

"It signals just how hot the competition is right now," said David Friedman, research director of the clean vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "There are a lot of people diving into this right now, trying to figure out how to crack the nut. This increases my confidence that someone will do it."

Besides cutting production costs to fire sale prices, the process avoids some key drawbacks of making ethanol from corn, company officials said. It wouldn't impact the food supply, and its net energy balance is high because the technique works almost anywhere using almost anything with great efficiency. The end result will be E85 sold at the pump for about a dollar cheaper per gallon than gasoline, according to the company.

Coskata won't have a pilot plant running until this time next year, and it will produce just 40,000 gallons a year. Still, several experts said Coskata shows enough promise to leave them cautiously optimistic.

"The question will come down to 'Can they deliver?'" said Nathanael Greene, a senior energy-policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The approach is interesting and promising in the problems it addresses."

Coskata uses existing gasification technology to convert almost any organic material into synthesis gas, which is a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Rather than fermenting that gas or using thermo-chemical catalysts to produce ethanol, Coskata pumps it into a reactor containing bacteria that consume the gas and excrete ethanol. Richard Tobey, Coskata's vice president of engineering, says the process yields 99.7 percent pure ethanol.

Gasification and bacterial conversion are common methods of producing ethanol, but biofuel experts said Coskata is the first to combine them. Doing so, they said, merges the feedstock flexibility of gasification with the relatively low cost of bacterial conversion.

Tobey said Coskata's method generates more ethanol per ton of feedstock than corn-based ethanol and requires far less water, heat and pressure. Those cost savings allow it to turn, say, two bales of hay into five gallons of ethanol for less than $1 a gallon, the company said. Corn-based ethanol costs $1.40 a gallon to produce, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.

The company plans to have its first commercial-scale plant producing up to 100 million gallons of ethanol a year by 2011. Friedman and Greene said the time line is realistic.

May Wu, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, says Coskata's ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel even after accounting for the energy needed to produce and transport the feedstock. It also generates 7.7 times more energy than is required to produce it. Corn ethanol typically generates 1.3 times more energy than is used producing it.

Making ethanol is one thing, but there's almost no infrastructure in place for distributing it. But the company's method solves that problem because ethanol could be made locally from whatever feedstock is available, Tobey said.

"You're not bound by location," he said. "If you're in Orange County, you can use municipal waste. If you're in the Pacific Northwest, you can use wood waste. Florida has sugar. The Midwest has corn. Each region has been blessed with the ability to grow its own biomass."

Still, consumers will need some way of getting that fuel into their vehicle. Less than 1 percent of the nation's 170,000 gas stations sell E85, said Mike Omotoso, senior manager of the global power train group at J.D. Power & Associates.

"Even if you produce it county by county, you still need an infrastructure," he said. "People aren't going to go to some remote location for fuel."

But with production set to ramp up quickly to meet the 36 billion gallon mandate, ethanol advocates believe it won't be long before E85 is widely available.(end)