Do you know why many people know about yoga in the US and the West? India Ink, the new New York Times India blog has the answer. Vivekananda was the one who single-handedly helped westerners understand the value of yoga and practice it. NYT launched India Ink in early September to “provide more in-depth, on-the-ground coverage of the world’s biggest democracy — and of a people who know that no matter how far they roam, their hearts will always be Indian.” At the time of this writing @nytindia had 6,250 Twitter followers.
It's Grammy Sunday in America, and here is a music-related post, including some items connected to the biggest music awards in the land and some not.
Two long-time friends of SAJA, Chandrika Tandon and Vijay Iyer, were nominated for Grammys today. They didn't win, but they certainly showed yet another dimension of the South Asian community in the U.S. You can listen to the SAJA webcast here.
Chandrika Tandon (@soulchantmusic), nominated for Best Contemporary World Music Album for "Soul Call"; and Vijay Iyer (@vijayiyer), nominated for the Best Jazz Instrumental Album for "Historicity".
Jay Sean, who hit #1 on the Billboard charts with "Down" two years ago - and whose webcast with SAJA/SAMMA you can listen to at this link - is back. Here's a press release:
Jay Sean and Lil Wayne Recreate Magic
On February 8, 2011, Jay Sean released his latest single “Hit the Lights” featuring Lil Wayne on iTunes. The club banging track rocketed to the top 20 on the first day and within 72 hours, “Hit the Lights” shot up the charts and held the #4 spot. Jay Sean and Lil Wayne have surely recreated the magic of their first single together, in fact, this time around the dynamic duo has outdone the initial success of “Down” by taking their track to the top five immediately following the release.
For interviews with Jay Sean please contact Komposit Entertainment: isha at kompositlive.com (tell her SAJA sent you).
From a note by SAMMA co-founder Raj Shah:
HP, in its new global campaign “Everybody On” with Alicia Keys includes a video from Billboard pop/urban recording artist Jay Sean, on the heels of Jay’s Tuesday release of a new track “Hit the Lights” (#3 on iTunes as of Friday).
It's the first time that HP, the largest computer-maker in the world has included a South Asian artist in its U.S. content/campaigns.
This is a preview on YouTube before it hits the HP Global site:
Nita Chawla, a NY-based singer-songwriter, has just written a song, "Revolution," dedicated to the people of Egypt & Tunisia. It's not yet on NitaChawla.com, but she's shared it with SAJAforum. Thanks, Nita!
Long-time SAJA member Brian Q. Silver, Ethnomusicologist and World Music Curator of the Voice of America wrote in to let us know that he has launched a new VOAWorldMusic page on Facebook. He's looking forward to your feedback: BSilver at voanews.com.
Liveblogging, sorta, the Grammys:
11:20 pm: This ad runs:
10:50 pm: Nicki Minaj, the Trinidadian hip-hop star (who is of South Asian origin) is presenting a category with will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas.
10:10 pm:Norah Jones, who won nine Grammys between 2000 and 2009, is presenting a category (she presented with Ringo Starr last year).
[Desi Spotting = items with a South Asian connection - see our archive]
Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011: Live-blogging the Super Bowl on this post, looking for South Asian stuff during the telecast - starting 6:30 pm EST. You can see all the commercials at http://foxsports.com/ads
What did we miss? Email us: saja at columbia.edu or @sajaHQ on Twitter.
We'll be looking for sideline shots of Brandon Chillar, who is a member of the Green Bay Packers. A terrific linebacker for the team, he was injured in November, so is not in uniform tonight.You can listen to the SAJA webcast from 2009 with Chillar; his agent, Jim Ivler, his agent; and Kevin Negandhi, ESPN anchor.
SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association, and SAMMA, South Asians in Media, Marketing and Entertainment Association, present a conversation about the biggest day in American sports from a South Asian perspective. Join us as SAJA co-founder Sree Sreenivasan (@sree) and sports marketing prof Vijay Setlur (@vijaysetlur) chats with ESPN's Kevin Negandhi (@knegandhiespn), who's co-hosting SportsCenter that night; Anish Shroff (@anishESPN), ESPN anchor-reporter, who covers college footballl; Adnan Virk (@adnanvirkESPN), ESPN anchor; Aditi Kinkhabwala (@AKinkhabwala), NY Giants reporter for the Wall Street Journal, who is covering the Super Bowl; and Arash Markazi (@arashmarkazi) columnist for ESPNLosAngeles.com. We had hoped to have Chillar call in for a few minutes, but he wasn't able to join us (see above for our 2009 webcast with #54).
12:08 pm: SAJAer and ESPNEWS anchor Adnan Virk (@adnanvirkESPN) (or the right) co-hosts "Highlight Express," filled with Super Bowl coverage. Negandhi was a guest on SAJA's Super Bowl webcast - see link above - and discussed his career path, advice for those interested in sportscasting and more. Click on image for bigger version.
10:02 pm: A desi gets a Super Bowl ring - Brandon Chillar (who is on injured reserve) will be among those who get a Super Bowl Ring as the Packers beat the Steelers. That makes him the second South Asian to win a ring (Bobby Singh was the first, with the St. Louis Rams).
From an 2009 post on SAJAforum, here are the only two other South Asian players to play for the NFL:
Bobby Singh, St. Louis Rams (the only player, perhaps, to be on the teams to win an NFL Super Bowl, a Canadian Football League Grey Cup and an XFL championship)
Sanjay Rajiv Beach, who played four years from 1989-1993 (for the NY Jets, Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers); he is in the record books for catching soon-to-be superstar Brett Favre's first proper completion, in 1992 (Favre's very first completion was a pass deflected to, and caught by, Favre himself).
9:58 pm: SAJAforum exclusive! This is a photo of SAJAer and ESPN anchor Kevin Negandhi (@knegandhiESPN), taken minutes before he hosts SportsCenter, which goes live on ESPN as soon as the Super Bowl ends on Fox.. The SportsCenter right after the Super Bowl as got to be one of the highest-rated episodes of the most popular sports shows in the world. Negandhi was a guest on SAJA's Super Bowl webcast - see link above - and discussed his career path, advice for those interested in sportscasting and more. Click on image for bigger version.
UPDATE - 10:08 pm: A photo of Negandhi in action:
8:20 pm: SAJAer Aman Batheja (@amanbatheja), a reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, is tweeting from the action. Here are some of his tweets:
amanbatheja8:12pm via twidroyd jerry jones was right. this is the greenest #superbowl ever #sbst #sbxlv http://twitpic.com/3x9j2l
And you can see one of his blog posts here, which is about fans outside the stadium (which is where you see him below).
7:40 pm: From tweets to @sajaHQ by Niraj Warikoo (@nwarikoo), religion reporter for the Detroit Free Press:
The guy who helped former Steelers all-star center Mike Webster when he was sick was an Indian-American, Sunny Jani http://es.pn/hch7fM
"For the last six years of Mike Webster's life, from 1997 to 2002, Jani was his most consistent, most constant companion."
7:05 pm: There are three Groupon ads coming up during the Super Bowl telecast (featuring Cuba Gooding, Jr., Timothy Hutton, and Liz Hurley). The site with came to worldwide attention when it turned down Google's offer of a $6-billion acquistion, is now preparing for an IPO said to be valued at $15 billion. The desi connection? Groupon's VP of product development is Suneel Gupta (@guptathink), who we featured on SAJAforum two years ago when he launched KahaniMovement with his brother Dr. Sanjay Gupta (@SanjayGuptaCNN) of CNN. Suneel's wife is SAJAer Leena Rao (@leenarao), who is a writer at TechCrunch, the popular tech news site.
6:45 pm: While you're watching the most famous hair in American sports - that would be Troy Polamalu's lustrous tresses - take a moment to see a NY Post article called "The Hair Pair." It's about how SAJA Board member Raakhee Mirchandani (@raakstar) has the same hair as Polamalu.
This program is aimed at promoting a rare element in 24/7-news-cycle journalism -- in-depth and follow-up reporting on major events relating to South Asia or South Asians, long after the breaking-news crews have moved on.
Questions to Sandeep Junnarkar, Awards & Fellowships chair: sjnews at gmail.com
Short cut to this page: http://bit.ly/srfnow
> Listen to our webcast, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2010, 1-2 pm ET - live or as a recording (or dial-in live to +1-347-324-5991):
If you are interested in applying for the fellowship but have questions about what kind of stories get funded, what the fellowship pays for, the timeline for completing the work, etc., join Sandeep Junnarkar, SAJA's awards and fellowship chair and Jigar Mehta, SAJA president and former SRF winner, who will provide answers to these and other questions.Ria Misra and Matt O'Brien, 2009-2010 fellows, will also be on hand to answer questions about the fellowships.
NEW YORK, November 1, 2010 - As part of their mission to encourage in-depth coverage of South Asia and the South Asian Diaspora, SAJA and SAJA Group Inc are pleased to announce changes to its flagship SAJA Reporting Fellowship program (SRF), which will now provide greater flexibility while streamlining the application process.
Journalists will have two opportunities each year to apply for the fellowship, once each fall and spring, which we envision allows them to pitch more timely underreported pieces. The fall 2010 round opens Nov. 1, 2010 and the Spring round 2011 opens April 1, 2011.
The application process has also been simplified. Journalists will now submit a short application that asks for their pitch and credentials. If the application is approved by our judges, SAJA will ask for more details about the project.
With those changes in mind, SAJA and SAJA Group Inc. announces a call for submissions for the SAJA Reporting Fellowship. Open to freelancers and staff journalists in any medium, the fellowships are meant to encourage in-depth reporting projects by providing grants to cover a portion of reporting expenses.
A total of up to $20,000 may be given out annually, divided among projects or a single project at SAJA's discretion. Each fellowship award is typically between $3,000-$7,000.
These Fellowships, launched in 2005 to ensure follow-up reportage about the 2004 tsunami and its victims, were initially funded by SAJA members, corporate donors and friends of SAJA. For the last five years, SRF received a major financial boost thanks to the support of the Mahadeva Family Foundation, which will make an annual contribution of $20,000.
"The support of Kumar Mahadeva and Simi Ahuja, who have been part of the SAJA community for more than a decade, is critical to SAJA's core mission of improving the coverage of South Asia through the SAJA Reporting Fellowships and similar programs," said Sandeep Junnarkar, the group's Awards & Fellowships chair and professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. "This is going to have a major impact on the kind of stories that the Fellows do and how Americans learn about what's going on in South Asia today."
In the 2010 Fall period, the fellowship is open to proposals on any in-depth topics covering South Asia or the South Asian Diaspora.
SAJA will start accepting preliminary proposals on starting Nov. 1 through Nov. 15. After reviewing the proposals and credentials, we will inform applicants whether we are interested in a full proposal. The deadline for the complete proposal, with supporting materials will be Nov. 30, 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.
A lot has happened since then, especially in the last few months: The much publicized sale of Newsweek by the Washington Post Company to electronics magnate Sidney Harman (for a $1 pricetag and the assumption of $47 million of liabilities). Rumors of a hookup with The Daily Beast. The launch of a Pakistan edition of Newsweek. Several big names have left the magazine, including SAJAer Fareed Zakaria, who is now an editor-at-large at Time, connecting his CNN show, "Fareed Zakaria GPS" with the network's Time Inc cousin.
In America’s relationship with Pakistan, carrots predominate, in part because we have so few sticks. After our almost unquestioned support for Pakistani dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf didn’t elicit sufficient cooperation against the Taliban, we showered the civilian government that replaced him with $7.5 billion in aid, to little effect. American generals praise the very real sacrifices—in blood and treasure—made by the Pakistani Army in the fight against militants in Swat and South Waziristan; yet calls to broaden the campaign to North Waziristan, home to one of the deadliest Afghan insurgent groups, the Haqqani network, go unheeded. U.S. and Pakistani diplomats recite platitudes about “our common enemy, and Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari repeatedly invokes his assassinated wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, to underscore his dedication to battling extremists. But that depends on whose extremists.
We asked the always upbeat Hajari three quick questions about Newsweek, the future of US-Pak ties and the new Pakistan edition. His answers, via e-mail:
>>> SHORTCUT TO THIS PAGE: http://bit.ly/kakaria <<<
Funeral arrangements: Viewing on Tuesday, Sept. 28, 3-5 pm and 7-9 pm at Moloney Lake Funeral Home, 132 Ronkonkoma Ave, Lake Ronkonkoma, NY, 11779;tel: 631-588-1515. The cremation, for family only, will be held on Wednesday at 11 am. Please note: A separate SAJA memorial service will be planned for the weeks ahead.
Please post your comments and memories of Amrit in the comments section below or e-mail saja@columbia.edu - we already have comments from S. Mitra Kalita, former SAJA president; Shashi Tharoor, Indian parliamentarian and author and many more. Add yours!
NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: You are welcome to re-use any of the materials from the site.
Amrit Kakaria, a leading Indian-American journalist in the U.S., died on Sunday, Sept. 26, 2010, in Long Island, New York. The cause was a heart attack (he had been battling cancer, but it was under remission). He was 72. He is survived by his wife Bettina Kakaria and other family members, including, his brother Bal Kakaria.
Kakaria retired in 2002 after 45 years in the media business, most recently as head of U.S. operations for the India Today group (he had earlier launched India Today's North American edition and also worked in New Delhi and London).
An early member of the South Asian Journalists Association, Kakaria played a critical role in the group's growth as an adviser to the group's founding members. In 1996, wrote a personal check for $2,000 to launch its most influential program, the SAJA Journalism Awards.
"Amrit was SAJA's guiding spirit and a mentor to dozens of us in the media," said Sree Sreenivasan, SAJA co-founder and a professor at Columbia Journalism School. "His passing is a tremendous loss to all South Asian journalists in the U.S.," he said.
In 2005, he was inducted into the SAJA Hall of Fame, which recognizes pioneering South Asian journalists for their contributions to U.S. media as well as veteran U.S. journalists who helped shape coverage of South Asia (other inductees include Gobind Behari Lal, who won a Pulitzer Prize for science writing in 1937 and the first journalist to write about cancer research; his nephew, Brij Lal, a veteran broadcast journalist who joined ABC News in 1952; Gopal Raju of founder of India Abroad; Peter Bhatia, executive editor of The Oregonian and former president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors; Rajan Devdas, a photojournalist for more than 60 years in India and the U.S.; A.M. "Abe" Rosenthal, the former New York Times editor who covered South Asia as a young correspodent and continued to write about it as a columnist and James W. Michaels, former editor of Forbes, who first covered India during its struggle for independence and revisited the region in reports over five decades).
ABOVE: Amrit Kakaria, as he was inducted into the SAJA Hall of Fame in June 2005 by SAJA co-founder Sree Sreenivasan.PHOTO: Preston Merchant.
"Amrit was involved with SAJA from its very early days and cared deeply about SAJA," said John Laxmi, SAJA treasurer and board member. "He took the liberty to call me and email me every now and then to give me tips, advise and admonitions to keep SAJA on its track and committed to its mission. Anyone who has dealt with Amrit will miss his kind and gentle friendship," he said.
Editor's note: Omar Kasrawi is a freelance journalist and a production assistant on "Fareed Zakaria GPS." SAJAforum asked him to chat with his boss (and one of our most influential members) for us. Please post your comments below.
Earlier this month, a small reception was held to honor Zakaria for receiving the award. Indian Ambassador to the United States Meera Shankar made the journey up from D.C and explained to the crowd what the award means. (Her full remarks can be found here as a PDF)
I had the chance to speak with Zakaria recently on what this recognition means to him, his move to Time and more.
First of all, congratulations on receiving
the Padma Bhushan.
You’ve been called a lot of things in the
press. An academic, journalist, foreign affairs analyst, a future candidate for Secretary of State and so forth. The night you were honored for receiving the award you joked,
quoting Churchill, that from now on, “Your Excellency will do.”But you seemed genuinely humbled, if
not embarrassed, at the attention bestowed upon you that evening. What does
this award mean to you?
Fareed Zakaria: Well for me
it’s sort of humbling because my father was a politician in India, so I grew up
quite aware of this award. Quite aware of the enormous debates that used to
take place about who should get it. Whether or not it was appropriate for
somebody to get it. And I always assumed my father would get it, and in one of
the strange ironies of life was that he ended up, for the last ten years of his
life, being on the panel that determines who gets these awards.
So he was
automatically ruled out because of the conflict of interest. I think that I
have sort of mixed feelings about it. Honestly there’s a part of me that feels
like that Grouch Marx line, “I don’t want to be a member of any club that would
have me as a member.” And so I feel like it can’t be that important of an award
if they give it to me.
SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association, and SAMMA, South Asians in Media, Marketing and Entertainment Association, present the latest in their series of high-profile webcasts - via BlogTalkRadio - with some of the leading South Asian names in global media, arts, entertainment, politics and much more...
Join us for a webcast with Sunil Gulati, president of U.S. Soccer, chairman of the U.S. effort to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cup (Bill Clinton is the honorary chairman) and the most influential South Asian in American sports. Fresh from Team USA's run at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, he'll discuss the state of the sport, his career and more. He'll be interviewed by Deepti Hajela, Associated Press newswoman and former SAJA president; and SAMMA member Vijay Setlur, sports marketing instructor and former media manager for FIFA Under-20 World Cup 2007 Toronto.
Srinija Srinivasan, Yahoo's employee #5 and editor-in-chief, is leaving the company after 15 years. She's written a blog post and put together a video (see above). From "Reflecting Back, Looking Forward":
Today more than 15 years later, I’m proud to announce my graduation from Yahoo! employee to Yahoo! user. No blog post can capture the density of this experience, the richness of what I’ve learned, and the profound gratitude I’ll always have — for David and Jerry taking that leap of faith in me, and for the thousands of Yahoo! employees who have made this a place where magic happens. And above all, nothing I write can convey how humbled and inspired I’ve been by the hundreds of millions of you who share your time, extend your trust, and make Yahoo! a part of your lives. I’m glad to count myself among you.
Here are some pointers on how she'll be keeping busy:
As I turn in my employee badge, I’ll be devoting more time to my longstanding love for jazz. I chair the board of SFJAZZ, a nonprofit in San Francisco in the midst of an exciting phase of growth. On the opposite side of the country, my partner Josh and I are developing a performance and production center for creative music in Brooklyn. At Yahoo! I’ve witnessed the kinds of circumstances that give rise to great creativity, and I find the same holds true in music: bringing together diverse perspectives in a collaborative spirit, allowing each voice individual expression in service to the collective whole, striking just the right balance between structure and freedom, being mindful and respectful of the past but relentlessly looking forward to what’s next.
She has always been a great supporter of SAJA and we wish her the very best in her new adventures.
BTW, Srinivasan, who is known universally as Ninj, and I are not related, even though we both have fathers named T.P. Srinivasan/Sreenivasan and her brother's name is Sri Srinivasan (Sri is a high-profile lawyer who regularly argues cases at the Supreme Court).
Four South Asians are in this year's collection of
"30 Under 30: America's Coolest Young Entrepreneurs" (there are more than 30 folks on the full list because, in some cases, more than one person represented the company in question. Some, like Naveen Sevadurai who co-founded Foursquare, run one of the hottest tech startups in the world, while others run companies just now getting noticed.
Below, you will find the at-a-glance looks at the four South Asians, and via the hyperlinks, you can read profiles of them:
Recent Comments