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NEW YORK • WASHINGTON D.C. • CHICAGO • ATLANTA • CALIFORNIA VOL 26, No. 1368 December 25, 2020 50¢ Periodical Postage

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This week’s question

Last week’s result

YES 68% NO 32%

INCLUSIVE GROWTH

CONTENTSDetails on page 10

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Bollywood -------------------------- 30

Classifieds ------------------------ 32

Community Post -------------- 17-25

Edit Page --------------------------- 35

Horoscope ------------------------- 33

Immigration Post ------------ 10-11

Life Style ------------------------ 14-15

Philosophy/Perspective ------- 34

Info/Highlights ---------------------- 4

Real Estate -------------------- 28-29

TechBiz Post ------------------ 12-13

Travel & Hospitality Post -------- 16

Wellness Post ---------------- 26-27

Discussions on global growth cannot happen among few countries

Details on page 5

Lake Countycelebrates RamJanaki Vivah

Do you think China maybe

involved with recent hacking?

Details on page 9

NEW DELHI: Asserting that growth patterns mustfollow a human-centric approach, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Monday (21 Dec.) said discus-sions on global growth cannot happen only amonga few as the "table must be bigger" and the agendabroader.

The prime minister's remarks at the 6th Indo-Ja-pan Samwad Conference assume significance asthey come at a time when India has been pushing

for reformed multilateralism at the UN and otherglobal forums, calling for representation reflectingcontemporary realities.

Modi, in his message at the conference via videolink, said hostility will never achieve peace and in thepast, humanity took the path of confrontation in-stead of collaboration.

Details on page 7

Will Amit Shah be able to sort

out farmers' issues?

President

Donald Trump

presented the

Legion of Merit

to Indian PM

Narendra Modi

for his leadership

in elevating the

US-India

strategic

partnership.

Indian

Ambassador to

US Taranjit

Singh Sandhu

accepted the

medal on behalf

of PM Modi

given by US

National

Security

Advisor Robert C

O'Brien.

(ANI Photo)

IND-AM assignedBiden's assistantpress secretary

Vedant Patel

US blackliststop Chinesechipmaker

Biden urgedto extend workauthorizations

Minister Tomar'sopen letterto farmers

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HIGHLIGHTS

30Bollywood:Taapsee's transformationFor her upcoming 'Rashmi Rocket' actorTaapsee Pannu talked about her bodytransformation, said she wanted to trans-form her body in a real believable way.

5Cover Story:INCLUSIVE GROWTHAt the 6th Indo-Japan Conference PMModi said global growth cannot happenonly among a few as the "table must bebigger" and the agenda broader.

17Community:Celebrating Ram Janaki VivahFifth day of the ShuklaPaksha is of greatimportance where all Hindus believethat Ma Janaki married Lord Ram, thePrince of Ayodhya.

10Immigration:Lawmakers urge Biden60 US lawmakers have urged Presi-dent-elect Joe Biden to revoke a Trumpadministration policy and extend workauthorization for H4 visa holders.

14Lifestyle:Online dating in IndiaWith the enforced lockdown restrictionsand social distancing norms in place, vir-tual dating has slowly become the new'Favorite' among Indian singles.

12Techbiz:US blacklists Chinese chipmaker"We will not allow advanced US technol-ogy to help build the military of an in-creasingly belligerent adversary,''Comm. Secy. Wilbur Ross said.

16Travel:MunnarThis incredibly beautiful hill town is po-sitioned at a height of 6000ft in theIdukki district of Kerala and is the mostprivileged summer resort.

26Wellness:China's Covid vaccineChina hasdone a deal for the PfizerBioNtech vaccine from Germany for itsown use, which shows the dragon is notas confident in its home-made product.

NewsweeklyIndia Post

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Cover/Top Stories

INCLUSIVE GROWTHDiscussions on global growth cannot happen among few countries

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressing the Indo-Japan Samwad conference, via video conferencing, in New Delhi on December 21

NEW DELHI: Asserting that growth patterns mustfollow a human-centric approach, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Monday (21 Dec.) said discussionson global growth cannot happen only among a few asthe "table must be bigger" and the agenda broader.

The prime minister's remarks at the 6th Indo-JapanSamwad Conference assume significance as theycome at a time when India has been pushing for re-formed multilateralism at the UN and other global fo-rums, calling for representation reflecting contempo-rary realities.

Modi, in his message at the conference via videolink, said hostility will never achieve peace and in thepast, humanity took the path of confrontation insteadof collaboration.

"From Imperialism to the world wars. From the armsrace to the space race. We had dialogues but theywere aimed at pulling others down. Now, let us risetogether," Modi said.

Lord Buddha's teachings command the strength toturn the discourse from enmity to empowerment andhis teachings also make us large-hearted, Modi said.

"They (Buddha's teachings) tell us: learn from thepast and work towards a better future. This is the bestservice we can do for our future generations," he said.

Noting that this is the first Samwad of a new de-cade, which is happening at a critical moment of hu-man history, Modi said, "Our actions today will shapethe discourse in the coming times. This decade andbeyond will belong to those societies that place a pre-mium on learning and innovating together."

It will be about nurturing bright young minds whowill add value to the humanity in the times to come,he said.

Learning should be such that it furthers innovation,which is the cornerstone to human empowerment, he said.

Underlining that societies that are open minded,democratic and transparent are better suited to inno-vate, Modi said now is the time, more than ever be-fore, to change the paradigm on what we see asgrowth.

"Discussions on global growth cannot happen onlybetween a few. The table must be bigger. The agendamust be broader. Growth patterns must follow a hu-man-centric approach. And, be in harmony with oursurroundings," he said.

Modi also called for keeping humanism at the coreof policies.

"We must make harmonious co-existence with na-

ture as the central pillar of our existence," he said.In his address at the conference, the prime minis-

ter also proposed the creation of a library dedicatedto traditional Buddhist literature and scriptures.

"We will be happy to create such a facility in Indiaand will provide appropriate resources for it," hesaid.

The library will collect digital copies of all suchBuddhist literature from different countries, he said.

It will aim to translate them, and make them freelyavailable for all monks and scholars of Buddhism,Modi added.

"The library will not only be a depository of litera-ture. It will also be a platform for research and dia-logue - a true Samwad between human beings, be-tween societies, and between humans and nature,"he said.

Its research mandate will also include examininghow Buddha's message can guide our modern worldagainst contemporary challenges, Modi said.

The prime minister noted that "we began this se-ries of conferences with former Prime MinisterShinzo Abe" and since then, the 'Samwad' has trav-elled from New Delhi to Tokyo, from Yangon to

Ulaanbaatar."In this journey, it has remained true to its funda-

mental objectives: to encourage dialogue and de-bate; to highlight our shared values of democracy,humanism, Ahimsa, freedom and tolerance; and, tocarry forward our ancient tradition of spiritual andscholarly exchanges," Modi said, thanking the Japa-nese government for their constant support to'Samwad'.

"About three weeks ago, I was at Sarnath. Sarnathis where Lord Buddha gave his first sermon after at-taining enlightenment. This Jyoti Punj emerged fromSarnath spread across the world embracing the val-ues of compassion, nobility and above all, 'ManavKalyan', the good of entire humanity. And gently,peacefully, it changed the course of world history,"Modi said.

It was in Sarnath that Lord Buddha spoke in detailabout his ideal of Dhamma which for him was morethan prayer and rituals, the prime minister noted.

"At the center of Dhamma are humans, and theirrelation with fellow humans. Thus, it is most importantto be a positive force in the lives of others. Samwadshould be one that will spread this spirit of positivity,unity and compassion across our planet. That too at atime when we need it the most," he said.

The essence of Samwad remains togetherness, hesaid, noting that Samwad brings out the best in us.

"This is the time to draw upon our ancient valuesand prepare for the times to come. We must keephumanism at the core of our policies. We must makeharmonious co-existence with nature as the centralpillar of our existence. Samwad, a dialogue with our-selves, with fellow human beings, and with naturecan light our way on this path," he said. PTI

‘From Imperialism to the world wars. From the arms race to the space race.

We had dialogues but they were aimed at pulling others down. Now, let us rise

together. Lord Buddha's teachings command the strength to turn

the discourse from enmity to empowerment and his teachings

also make us large-hearted’ Modi said

India Post December 25, 20206

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Top Stories

Indian American appointed Biden'sassistant press secretary

NEW YORK: US President-elect JoeBiden has appointed Vedant Patel, aformer communications aide to Houseof Representatives member PramilaJayapal, as his assistant press secretary.

His appointment makes him one ofthe three Indian Americans nominatedto important positions by Biden. Theothers are Neera Tanden,who will be the director ofthe Office of Managementand Budget, and VivekMurthy, the Surgeon General,both of whom will have to beconfirmed in their positionsby the Senate, unlike in thecase of Patel.

Patel has held a string ofcommunications positions inthe Democratic Party do-main, most recently as a re-gional communications di-rector for the campaign ofBiden and Kamala Harris,moving up from the Bidenprimary campaign where he headed upcommunications for Nevada and west-ern states.

He was born in India and grew upCalifornia, graduating from the Univer-sity of California-Riverside.

Patel has also been the western re-gional press secretary for the Demo-cratic National Committee and commu-nication director for Jayapal and MikeHonda, the California representativewho lost to Ro Khanna.

Biden, whose nominations to key postshave been dominated by those who hadserved in the administrations of Presi-dents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama orwere close to them, has been feeling thetugs of the various other factions of theparty for jobs in his administration whenhe takes over on January 20.

Patel's nomination is a gesture to theleft; Jayapal is a leader of the Congres-sional Progressive Caucus.

Other nominations by Biden and Har-ris include Atul Gawande and CelineGounder to the COVID-19 task force,Mala Adiga to be the policy director forJill Biden, who will become the FirstLady, and Maju Varghese to be the ex-ecutive director of their inauguration -the swearing-in ceremony and the fes-tivities around it. IANS

Vedant Patel

People of Bengal yearning for change, wantto get rid of Bangladeshi infiltration: ShahBOLPUR (WB): People of West Ben-

gal are yearning for change as theywant to get rid of political violence,corruption, extortion andBangladeshi infiltration,Union Home MinisterAmit Shah has said, at-tacking the MamataBanerjee government.

Addressing peopleduring a roadshow inthis town associatedwith Bengali cultural andliterary iconRabindranath Tagore,Shah vowed to restorethe state to its old glory when it wascalled "sonar Bangla" (Bengal of gold)if the BJP is voted to power.

"I have attended and organizedseveral roadshows in my life but havenever seen one like this. Thisroadshow is a reflection of people's

anger against theMamata Banerjee gov-ernment. This crowd re-flects people's faith inthe agenda of develop-ment of Narendra ModiJi," Shah told the massivegathering at theroadshow.

He said the yearningwas not about changing apolitical leader but "get-

ting rid of corruption, political vio-lence, extortion and Bangladeshi infil-tration". PTI

Amit Shah

London could be under lockdownfor months: UK Health Secy

LONDON: UK Health Secretary MattHancock has warned that London couldbe under a lockdown for months, as itwill be "very difficult" to keep a highlyinfectious mutant strain of the novelcoronavirus under control until vaccina-tions are rolled out.

His remarks came just hours after thenew Tier Four restrictions came intoforce in the British capital and parts ofsoutheast England, reports Xinhuanews agency.

The new tighter restrictions will bereviewed on December 30.

Hancock however indicated that it wasunlikely they would be relaxed at thatpoint."It is going to be very difficult tokeep it under control until we have thevaccine rolled out," he told Sky News.

"We know with this new variant you

can catch it more easily from a smallamount of the virus being present.

"All of the different measures wehave in place, we need more of themto control the spread of the new vari-ant than we did to control the spreadof the old variant.

"That is the fundamental problem,"the Health Secretary added.

Hancock also criticized people whofled London before the new Tier Fourlockdown came into force as "totally ir-responsible".

"I think those scenes were totally ir-responsible," Hancock said whilespeaking to the BBC later in the day.

"We have all got a responsibility. We

in government of course have a re-sponsibility, but so does every singleperson.

"The plea that I have is that peoplewill play their part, because it is onlyby acting -- all of us -- that we can getthis under control," he added.

On December 19, Prime MinisterBoris Johnson effectively cancelledChristmas for more than 16 millionpeople in London, south-eastern andeastern England as the region wentinto a new two-week lockdown onSunday 20 December midnight.

Addressing a virtual briefing,Johnson said that the previous plan toallow up to three households to meetduring five days around Christmas willhave to be scrapped due to the discov-ery of the mutant strain.

An esti-mated 16.4million peopleliving in thenew Tier Fourareas, whichinclude Lon-don and much

of the surrounding region, will have tostay at home for a fortnight.

They will be barred from socializingwith more than one person even out-doors, meaning no Christmas gather-ings of entire families, while shops, lei-sure facilities, gyms and hairdresserswill be closed.

England was previously under athree-tier system.

London and parts of Essex andHertfordshire had just moved into TierThree on December 16 while someother areas in east and southeast of En-gland entered Tier Three from Decem-ber 19 following a rapid rise in infec-tions in the area. IANS

‘All of the different measures we have in place,we need more of them to control the spread

of the new variant than we did to controlthe spread of the old variant’


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Quad would be detrimental to inclusive dialogue: RussiaNEW DELHI: Russia has supported

India's vision for the Indo-Pacific but atthe same time criticized the Quadrilat-eral coalition or Quad, saying it wouldbe detrimental to inclusive dialogue forensuring peace and stability in the re-gion.

Russian Ambassador NikolayKudashev, replying to a question at amedia briefing on China's growing bel-ligerence in the Indo-Pacific, said Mos-cow would welcome enhanced dia-logue between New Delhi and Beijingand even wished that relations be-tween the two sides reach the level ofIndo-Russia ties.

"We (India and Russia) are specialprivileged and trusted strategic part-ners. I do really dream and I really wishyour relationship with China reachesthe same level. In our capacity as afriend to both India and China, we willwelcome enhanced dialogue betweenBeijing and New Delhi," he said.

"We believe that this is the key to fu-ture progress of your ties with thePeople's Republic of China and for re-gional stability and security," he said.

Kudashev's comments came nearlytwo weeks after Russian Foreign Minis-

ter Sergey Lavrov accused the Westernpowers of pursuing an "aggressive anddevious" policy to engage New Delhi in"anti-China games" by promoting Indo-Pacific strategies.

The Russian envoy said Moscow does

not have any problem with Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi's Indo-PacificOcean's Initiative (IPOI) while DeputyChief of the Russian mission RomanBabushkin said his country supports In-dian vision for the region.

At the East Asia Summit in Bangkoklast year, Modi proposed setting up ofthe IPOI to conserve and sustainablyuse the maritime domain and to makemeaningful efforts to create a safe andsecure maritime domain.

"We are facing some attempts bysome countries to create containmentand alienation in the Indo-Pacific regionwhich could threaten and jeopardizebasic principles for regional coopera-tion, for example ASEAN centrality andASEAN unity...Quad would be detrimen-tal to the inclusive dialogue in the re-gion," Babushkin said.

The 10-nation Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a majorstakeholder in the Indo-Pacific region.

The Quad, comprising the US, India,Japan and Australia, is aimed at ensur-ing a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pa-cific. China has increasingly consideredthe Quad as a mechanism to contain itin the maritime domain.

Kudashev said Russia was offering a"unifying agenda" for the Indo-Pacificthat could bring together the Russianvision, the Chinese vision and the Indianvision for the region.

"Unlike this approach (Quad), Russiacalls for a broad regional dialogue andunified agenda based on equality andrespect for all countries for inclusiveand undivided regional security,"Babushkin said in the joint briefing.

He said Russia was looking forwardto continuing consultations with Indiaon the issue, noting that his country isthe "most sincere well wisher" of Indiain its growing regional and global pro-file.

In his comments, Kudashev also re-ferred to recent visits of Defense Minis-ter Rajnath Singh and External AffairsMinister S Jaishankar to Moscow, add-ing they had "profound negotiations"with their Chinese counterparts there.

"It was very significant in the contextof constructive engagement of bothsides to maintain peace and tranquilityat the Line of Actual Control," he said.

Singh and Jaishankar visited Moscowin September to attend separate meet-ings of the Shanghai Cooperation Orga-nization (SCO) during which they heldmeetings with their Chinese counter-parts on the eastern Ladakh borderstandoff. PTI

Super Hornet fighter jet performs ski-jumplaunch in US, Indian officials witness: Boeing

NEW DELHI: Leading aerospace com-pany Boeing has said its F/A-18 SuperHornet fighter jet has successfully per-formed a ski-jump launch, which is takeoff from a short distance upward-curved ramp, demonstrating theplane's suitability for the Indian Navy'saircraft carriers.

"Officials from the Indian Embassy inWashington DC witnessed the test,"said Ankur Kanaglekar, an official of the

aircraft manufacturer, at a virtual pressbriefing.

In 2018, the Indian Navy kick-startedthe process to procure 57 multi-rolecombat aircraft for its carriers, whichuse the ski-jump take off mechanism.

At present, six planes are compatible forthe aircraft carrier -- Rafale (Dassault, France),F/A-18 Super Hornet (Boeing, US), MIG-29K

(Russia), F-35B and F-35C (Lockheed Martin,US) and Gripen (Saab, Sweden).

"The conclusion of the successful ski-jump trial presents a key milestone inthe validation process of carrier com-patibility of F/A-18 Super Hornet," saidKanaglekar, Head India Fighters Sales,Boeing Defense, Space and Security.

"We understand that the aircraft hasto maneuver and it has to fit. From thatregard, we have a solution and it is safe

and it takes care of the Indian Navy'srequirements of fully operating the air-craft on the carrier," he stated.

Currently, the Indian navy has onlyone aircraft carrier -- the INSVikramaditya -- which is a Russian originship. India's first indigenous carrier INSVikrant is likely to be inducted into theIndian Navy by 2022.

The trials were held at a US naval airstation at Patuxent River in Marylandand they showed that the Super Hornetwould do well with the Indian Navy'sShort Takeoff but Arrested Recovery(STOBAR) system, the aircraft manufac-turer said, adding that the trials vali-dated its earlier simulation studies.

Kanaglekar said at the press briefing:"The multi role frontline US fighter jet'slatest variant Block III, which is on offer,will provide several unique advantagesto the Indian Navy. First, our offer of two-seater and single-seater variants, bothof which are carrier compatible, will al-low the Indian Navy to execute missionsfrom the carrier that benefits from hav-ing a second crew."

Second, Super Hornet can act as alynchpin of the naval aviation collabora-tion between the US Navy and the In-dian Navy that will improveinteroperability between the twonavies, he said. Third, it will interfacewith P-8I aircraft and other assets of USorigin to act as a force multiplier for theIndian Navy, he mentioned.

As part of Boeing's proposed By India,for India sustainment program, Block IIISuper Hornet aircraft can be serviced inpartnership with the Indian Navy as wellas India and U.S. based partners through-out the lifecycle of the aircraft. PTI

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LA moves to ration healthcare if COVID-19hospital crisis worsens

LOS ANGELES: As cases continue tospike in the United States that is result-ing in hospitals reaching full capacity,intensive care units in SouthernCalifornia's medical system is not beingable to provide critical medical care topeople.

Many hospitals are preparing for thepossibility of rationing care in the com-ing weeks as the number of patientsexceeds their staffs' abilities to care forthem, wherein the guidelines call for ashift in mindset that is unfamiliar tomany medical providers, Los AngelesTimes reported. The overflow of pa-tients in ICU (Intensive Care Unit) andother critical wards keep the patientson ambulances for as long as eighthours until space is available.

According to Los Angeles Times,there is hope for the arrival of an armyof additional medical professionals whocan greatly expand intensive care unitavailability through the end of the year.

The goal during the ongoing crisis isto save people as much as possible, pa-tients with less likely to survive will notreceive the same level of care, whichothers will get. Doctors will strategizeto keep people save as many as pos-

sible."Some compromise of the standard

of care is unavoidable; it is not that anentity, system, or locale chooses to limitresources, it is that the resources areclearly not available to provide care in aregular manner," Los Angeles Timesquoted a document obtained by thenewspaper that highlights how to allo-cate resources in a crisis situation wasrecently circulated among doctors at

the four hospitals run by Los AngelesCounty.

"In an email that the guidelines werenot in place as of Friday night (18 Dec.) butthat they were essential to develop giventhe surge has arrived and "the worst is yetto come," The Los Angeles Times quotedDr Christina Ghaly, LA County Health Ser-vices Director as saying.

"We have enough beds, supplies, andequipment for now, but we don't have

enough trained staff for the number ofpatients who need care. We havebrought in new staff, retrained and re-deployed staff from other areas of thesystem, and have requested additionalresources from the state," Ghaly saidadding "But these measures are not an-ticipated to be enough to meet thecontinuously escalating number of pa-tients that are presenting across thecounty for care."

Across the nation, it has already be-come harder to get admitted to thehospital with COVID-19 symptoms to-day than it was a couple of months ago,Dr Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, UC SanFrancisco chair of the department ofepidemiology and biostatistics said.

"When hospitals start to get full ... wesubtly change our thresholds for admit-ting someone to the hospital," Bibbins-Domingo said.

"So maybe last month, we might say,'Wow, you're not getting enough oxy-gen. Let's admit you to the hospital be-cause we want to be more cautious.'And when a hospital is full, that is a timewhen we might ... say, 'Well, why don'twe wait another day and see how youdo?" Bibbins-Domingo added. ANI

Imran Khan claims Pak Army 'working under' him, is defender of democracyATEET SHARMA

NEW DELHI: The deepening dividebetween the Pakistani military Gener-als and the top politicians of the coun-try has been acknowledged by ImranKhan, himself dubbed as a "puppet"Prime Minister by the opposition.Khan, in an interview to a local TVchannel said that there is a "lot of an-ger" within the Pakistani Army overthe verbal attacks launched againstthe top military leadership, particu-larly by former premier Nawaz Shariffrom the Pakistan Democratic Move-ment (PDM) platform, but Chief ofArmy Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa is put-ting up with the tirades "for the sakeof democracy",

Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz(PML-N) supremo Sharif has repeatedly,while addressing the PDM ralliesthrough a video link from London, ac-cused the Pakistan's security establish-ment of orchestrating his ouster, bring-

ing Khan into power, creating "two gov-ernments" and a "state above the state".

"General Qamar Javed Bajwa, youpacked up our government which wasworking well and put the nation and thecountry at the alter of your wishes. This

is all your doing. Now there is a stateabove the state, which is the root of allproblems. Should I blame Imran Khanfor this catastrophe or the people who

brought him into power? I hold you re-sponsible for all the mess you have cre-ated," Sharif had said while targetingBajwa during the first rally of the 11-party opposition alliance in Gujranwala.

The three-time Prime Minister has

maintained that Bajwa, along with ISIhead Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, rigged the2018 general elections to "impose the in-competent Imran Khan" on the nation.

Thus it comes as no surprise to seethe former cricketer-turned politiciancoming out to bat for his bosses sit-ting in Rawalpindi's General Head-quarters (GHQ). Khan believes thatthe opposition is pressurizing theArmy to remove his democraticallyelected government by constantlyreferring to him as a 'puppet' who istaking orders from the GHQ.

"I praise General Bajwa today. To at-tack an army chief in this manner; areaction comes from the army.[But]Gen Bajwa is an uncomplicated man.There is composure in him that is whyhe is tolerating this. There would be abig reaction if somebody else wasleading the army. There is a lot of an-ger within the army ranks, I know heis tolerating this because he believesin democracy," Khan was quoted assaying during the TV interview byPakistan's leading daily, Dawn. IANS

Imran Khan and Qamar Javed Bajwa


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Minister of Agriculture Tomar's open letter to farmersIndia Post News Service

NEW DELHI: In an open letter addressed to farmers,Union Agriculture Minister Shri Narendra Singh Tomarsought to offer clarification on some of the mis-con-ceptions regarding the newly enacted farm laws inIndia. The letter written in Hindi and directly ad-dressed to farmers underlined that the new laws aresolely intended to increase income and to bring pros-perity to farmers.

Following are the main points highlighted in his let-ter offering clarification to various myths concerningthe law:

Myth: The MSP system is ending.Truth: The MSP system in operation and will be op-

erational.Myth: APMCmandis are being closed.Truth: APMCmandis will be continued. This law will

not be applicable on APMCmandis.Myth: Farmers' land is in danger.Truth: Agreement will be only for crop, not for land.

There will be no agreement for any transfer of landincluding sale, lease and mortgage.

Myth: Contractors can acquire land of the farmeragainst any due.

Truth: Whatever be the situation, the land of thefarmers is safe.

Myth: There is no price guarantee for farmers in thecase of contract farming.

Truth: The procurement price of agricultural pro-duce will be mentioned in the farming agreement.

Myth: Farmers will not be paid.Truth: Farmers have to be paid within the stipulated

time frame, otherwise legal action will be taken andpenalty will be imposed.

Myth: Farmers cannot withdraw from the contracts.Truth: Farmers can withdraw from the contract at

any time without any penalty.Myth: Contract farming has never been tried be-

fore.Truth: Many states have approved contract farm-

ing. Many states even have contract farming laws.Myth: There is no consultation or discussion regard-

ing these laws.Truth:There have been discussions for two de-

cades. It started in the year 2000 with the ShankarlalGuru Committee. Thereafter, the Model APMC Act in2003, APMC Rules in 2007, Committee of Chief Minis-ters of Haryana, Punjab, Bihar and West Bengal in 2010and approved by Agriculture Ministers of 10 states in2013, Model APMC Act in 2013 and finally approvedby Parliament in 2020.

The letter ends with assurances on Government'sreadiness to give written assurance about MSP; allow-ing farmers'to go to court to resolve any type of dis-pute; not allowing contracts to make any permanentchanges to farm lands or to avail any loans; and allow-ing State Governments to tax private markets outsideAPMC.

Narendra Singh TomarPrime Minister Narendra Modi

Cabinet Committee approves of three major tasksIndia Post News Service

NEW DELHI: The Cabinet Committee on EconomicAffairs, chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modihas approved assistance of about Rs. 3,500 crore forsugarcane farmers (Ganna Kisan); Auction of spectrumand Revised Cost estimate for the Northeast regionpower improvement system.

Currently, there are close to five crore sugarcanefarmers (Ganna Kisan) and their dependents in India.In addition to this, there are about five lakh workersemployed in the sugar mills and ancillary activities;and their livelihood depends on the sugar industry.

Farmers sell their sugarcane to the sugar mills,however the farmers are not getting their dues fromthe sugar mill owners as they have surplus sugarstock. To address this concern, the Government is fa-cilitating the evacuation of surplus sugar stock. Gov-ernment will incur about Rs. 3,500 crore for this pur-pose, and this assistance would be directly creditedinto farmers' accounts on behalf of sugar mills againstcane price dues and subsequent balance, if any,would be credited to mill's account.

This decision will benefit the five crore sugarcanefarmers and their dependents, as well as the five lakhworkers employed in the sugar mills and related an-cillary activities.

This subsidy aims at covering expenses on mar-keting costs including handling, upgrading and

other processing costs and costs of international andinternal transport and freight charges on export ofupto 60 LMT of sugar limited to Maximum AdmissibleExport Quota (MAEQ) allocated to sugar mills for sugarseason 2020-21.

Similarly,a proposal of the Department of Telecom-munications to conduct spectrum auction throughwhich spectrum will be assigned to the successful bid-ders for providing commercial mobile services.

The auction will be for spectrum in 700 MHz, 800MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz and2500 MHz frequency bands. Spectrum will be offeredfor assignment for validity period of 20 years. A total of2251.25 MHz is being offered with total valuation of Rs.3,92,332.70 crore (at reserve price).

By winning right to use spectrum through the auc-tion, incumbent telecom service providers will be ableto augment their network capacity whereas new play-ers will be able to start their services.

It is relevant that the Telecom Sector today is a keyinfrastructure provider with strong linkages with eco-nomic growth, direct and indirect employment genera-tion and expansion of Digital India.

The Cabinet Committee has also approved the Re-vised Cost Estimate (RCE) of North Eastern RegionPower System Improvement Project (NERPSIP) at anestimated cost of Rs. 6,700 crore. This is a major steptowards economic development of North Eastern Re-

gion through strengthening of Intra - State Transmis-sion and Distribution systems.

The scheme is being implemented throughPOWERGRID, a Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) underMinistry of Power in association with six beneficiaryNorth Eastern States namely, Assam, Manipur,Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, and Tripura and is tar-geted to be commissioned by December 2021. Aftercommissioning, the project will be owned and main-tained by the respective North Eastern State Utilities.

The main objective of the project is Governmentcommitment for the total economic development ofNorth Eastern Region and to strengthen the Intra-State Transmission & Distribution Infrastructure in theNorth East Region.

Implementation of this scheme will create a reli-able power grid and improve NER States' connectiv-ity to the upcoming load centers, and thus extendthe benefits of the grid connected power to all cat-egories of consumersof beneficiaries in North East-ern Region.

Implementing agencies are hiring a considerablenumber of local manpower during their constructionworks, generating a lot of employment for skilled andunskilled manpower of North-Eastern Region.

All three of the above decisions of the Cabinet areexpected to have a salutary impact on all aspects ofdevelopment urgently required by the nation.

10 India Post December 25, 2020www.indiapost.com

In Brief Immigration

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issued to those who

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lawful permanent

resident status

US lawmakers urge Biden to extendwork authorizations of spouses

WASHINGTON: A group of 60US lawmakers have urgedPresident-elect Joe Biden torevoke a Trump administra-tion policy and extend the va-lidity of work authorizationdocuments for H4 visa hold-ers, who are spouses of thosepossessing H-1B visas, withmajority being highly-skilledIndian women.

An H-4 visa is issued by theUS Citizenship and Immigra-tion Services (USCIS) to imme-diate family members (spouseand children under 21 years ofage) of the H-1B visa holders,most of whom are Indian ITprofessionals.

It is normally issued tothose who have alreadystarted the process of seekingemployment-based lawfulpermanent resident status.

We respectfully requestthat the Department ofHomeland Security publish aFederal Register notice onday one of your administra-tion that would extend thevalidity period of all expiredH4 EADs, the members of the

US House of Representativeswrote to Biden in a letter onDecember 16.

Biden, a Democrat, isscheduled to be inauguratedas the 46th US President on

January 20.In 2015 the Department of

Homeland Security (DHS) is-sued a rule allowing certainH4 dependent spouses of H-1B visa holders to legally seekemployment in the US, the let-ter said.

This rule presented an im-portant step towards rectify-ing gender disparities in ourimmigration system, asaround 95 per cent of H4 visaholders who have securedwork authorizations arewomen, it added.

Soon after coming topower, the Republican Trumpadministration informed a UScourt that it plans to rescindsuch a rule.

Before the rule wasgranted, many women on H4visas described depressionand isolation in moving to anew country and not being al-lowed to work outside of thehome. Unfortunately, these

women are losing and willcontinue to lose their jobs un-til this is put right, disruptingthe lives of their families andthe functioning of employersin our districts, the letter said.

Among signatories to theletter are Indian-Americancongressmen Dr Ami Bera, RoKhanna, Raja Krishnamoorthiand Pramila Jayapal. Other keysignatories are congress-women Bonnie WatsonColeman, Rashida Talib, Bar-bara Lee and Judy Chu.

In the letter to Biden, the

lawmakers said that once anH-1B holder is sponsored foremployment-based lawfulpermanent resident (LPR) sta-tus (otherwise known as aGreen Card), his or her H-4visa-holding spouse may ap-ply for work authorization.

This rule presented an im-portant step towards rectify-ing gender disparities in ourimmigration system as around95 per cent of H-4 visa hold-ers who have secured workauthorization are women, theywrote.

These women on H-4 visaswork in a variety of f ieldsl ike essential healthcareworkers , including in re-search and developmentroles at pharmaceuticalcompanies; these womenplay tremendously impor-tant roles as we continue tobatt le the COVID-19 pan-demic, the letter said.

We are confident that yourincoming Secretary of the De-partment of Homeland Secu-rity will rectify the systemicprocessing issues that havebeen created by the TrumpAdministration, the lawmakerswrote.

As of December 2017,USCIS had approved 1,26,853applications for employmentauthorization for H-4 visaholders. According to a 2018

report by Congressional Re-search Service (CRS), 93 percent of approved applicationsfor H-4 employment authori-zation were issued to indi-viduals born in India, and fiveper cent were issued to indi-viduals born in China. PTI

An H-4 visa is issued by the US Citizenship and

Immigration Services (USCIS) to immediate

family members (spouse and children under 21

years of age) of the H-1B visa holders, most of

whom are Indian IT professionals

India, UK to set upjoint task force formutual recognition

NEW DELHI: India and the UKhave agreed to set up a jointtask force consisting of desig-nated higher education orga-nizations from both the coun-tries to work towards mutualrecognition of academic quali-fications, Union Education Min-ister Ramesh Pokhriyal'Nishank' said.

A decision in this regardwas taken in a bilateral meet-ing between Nishank and UKForeign Secretary DominicRaab here 16 December.

"India and the United King-dom have agreed to set up ajoint task force consisting ofdesignated higher educationorganizations from both thecountries to work towards mu-tual recognition of academicqualifications. This will supportIndia's agenda for internation-alization of higher education.

"The agreement to work to-wards mutual recognition ofacademic qualifications alignswith the vision of Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi for creatinga globally mobile workforceand internationalization of In-dian higher education, as pro-posed in the National Educa-tion Policy (NEP) 2020 rolledout in July this year," Nishanksaid.

Both sides expressed hopeand confidence that theywould further enhance mutualengagement in the field ofeducation, research and inno-vation, leading to deeper andstronger bilateral relations. PTI

India Post 11December 25, 2020 Immigration Postwww.indiapost.com

Make or break moment for Indians in US GreenCard queue as stimulus bill nears closure

NIKHILA NATARAJAN

Five Afghans held forresiding in Bihar withforged documents

KATIHAR: Police seized Rs 5 lakh cash, docu-ments relating to transactions worth over Rs onecrore, fake passports, Aadhaar and voter ID cardsand other documents from five Afghan nationalswho were arrested from Katihar district, an officialof the force said Wednesday 16 December.

The five Afghan nationals, who were staying inKatihar on the basis of forged documents, werearrested,Katihar superintendent of police VikasKumar said.

The five were staying in a rented house inChoudhary Mohalla locality of Katihar district forseveral years, he said.

The police had raided their residence based onsuspicion and seized fake documents like theAadhar cards, driving licenses, voter ID cards, PANcards, ATM cards and other documents, he said.

When the police interrogated the five men abouttheir nationality, they claimed that they are Indiansand produced forged documents to prove it.

While three of them were found to have validpassports, two had no papers to show, the SP said.

They were found to have procured documentslike birth certificates, residential certificates fromKishanganj and Kolkata to prove their nationality,the SP said.

The house owner had allegedly helped them toprocure the fake documents, the SP said.

A total of seven persons have been named inthe FIR.They are the five Afghans, the house ownerand another person.The two other than the Af-ghans are on the run, the SP said.

An FIR had been lodged under various sectionsof the IPC, the Money Laundering and Foreign Im-migration Acts, he said adding probe agencies in-cluding the CID, special branch, ATS, local policeare investigating the case.

As per the preliminary probe all of them wereinvolved in lending money on interest, the SPadded. PTI

NEW YORK: It's a make or break moment for Indiansstuck in decades-long lines for US permanent resi-dency. Congressional negotiators are on the cusp ofsealing a long delayed Covid-19 relief package andwithin it could be tucked away a move to "shuffle thedecks of the Titanic" in how 'green cards' are awardedto legal immigrants.

The clock is ticking. "If this bill were to get passed,it should get passed before Congress adjourns. Oth-erwise, it has to be reintroduced in the next Congress.So if it doesn't get attached to a larger spending billin the House, it's gone," explains immigration attor-ney Cyrus Mehta.

The final round of haggling is already a heavy lift.Two bills that have cleared the House (H.R.1044) andSenate (S. 386) needto be blended andslipped into the om-nibus funding bill(before Congress ad-journs for the year)to lift the existingper-country cap onthe number of em-ployment based per-manent-residency permits issued to legal immigrants.

The overall pie does not get bigger, though. At thesame time, legal Indian immigrants have never beencloser to smashing through what some of them de-scribe as "forever" wait times for green cards.

Current US. rules limit any one country to 7 per cent ofall employment-based green cards. Indians make upmore than 600,000 of those whose paperwork is ap-proved but are waiting. The US State Departmentawards about 140,000 such Green Cards a year but doesnot have caps on how many applications get approvedeach year - creating a demand supply asymmetry thatputs millions of legal immigrants on a perpetual waitlist.

For foreign workers who have turned their personaljourneys into advocacy missions, it's a big moment,and they sense its weight. "Congress has not passed amajor immigration bill in 30 years. So, we know it is

incredibly hard to get an immigration bill passedthrough Congress," says Anirban Das, who leads SkilledImmigrants in America (SIIA), a non profit. "This billpassed the House with almost 85% votes and the Senateby Unanimous Consent. When was the last time an immi-gration bill passed the Senate by UC? That is a tremen-dous achievement and a testament to years of advocacy.Hopefully, they can amend the China provision and get itpassed. Or else, we simply try again come January."

The "China provision" that Das refers to is a carveout in the recently passed Senate version (S. 386)ofthe bill. A There, a Republican Senator inserted twomeasures backed by the White House. The first wouldimpose a new cap for the next decade on the overallnumber of immigrants on H-1B visas who can receive

green cards. The sec-ond could severelyrestrict immigrationfrom China by barringwould-be Chineseimmigrants with tiesto the Chinese Com-munist Party or theChinese military fromqualifying for visas or

green cards. Attorney Mehta calls this "problematic.""The bill is also very controversial because it doesn't

increase the number of visas, which would be ideal,we would want an increment. But what it does is itshuffles the deck of the Titanic. And it does create fair-ness so everybody will now have to wait and Indians,even though they have to wait won't have to wait for alifetime or more than a lifetime," Mehta told IANS.

Information trickling out of the Congress nego-tiations indicate the deal does not include every-thing that either side wants, which is why it mayget done. It's still not clear what this means for theimmigration piece of the pie. That's still unraveling.Around 2 pm EST, headline items that are report-edly baked into the cake are stimulus checks in the$600-$700 range, unemployment aid, and moneyfor small businesses. IANS

‘If this bill were to get passed, it should get

passed before Congress adjourns. Otherwise,

it has to be reintroduced in the next

Congress. So if it doesn't get attached to a

larger spending bill in the House, it's gone’

www.indiapost.com

NEWSon your desktop


Tech News TechBizUS blacklists top Chinese chipmaker,

alleging military tiesWASHINGTON: The Trump

administration blacklistedChina's top chipmaker Friday(18 Dec.), limiting the Semicon-ductor Manufacturing Interna-tional Corp's (SMIC) access toadvanced US technology be-cause of its alleged ties to theChinese military.

We will not allow advanced UStechnology to help build the mili-tary of an increasingly belligerentadversary,'' Commerce SecretaryWilbur Ross said in a statementexplaining the decision to putSMIC on the US government's so-called Entity List.

SMIC has previously said ithas no ties to the Chinese gov-ernment.

Commerce is putting morethan 60 other firms on the list

for such things as allegedlysupporting the Chinese mili-tary, assisting the Chinesegovernment's crackdown on

dissent, being involved in thetheft of trade secrets and help-ing Beijing's aggressive effortsto claim territory in the South

China Sea.But SMIC is the most high-

profile target.The move meansthat US companies will need toget a license to sell sophisti-cated technology to SMIC.

Technology that helps withthe production of the most-ad-vanced chips -- those 10 nanom-eters or smaller -- face the pre-sumption of denial,'' Commercesaid. Other items will be as-sessed on a case-by-case basis.

The decision comes barely amonth before President-electJoe Biden takes office.

A senior Commerce Depart-ment official, briefing report-ers on condition of anonymity,said the move had not beencoordinated with the Bidentransition team. AP

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross

Our investment plans in India on track, Indian economyhas strength to bounce back: Saudi Arabia

NEW DELHI: Saudi Arabia,the world's largest oil ex-porter, stated its investmentplans in India are on track,noting that the Indianeconomy has the strength torecover from the adverse im-pact of the coronavirus crisis.

In February last year, SaudiCrown Prince Mohammedbin Salman announced thatSaudi Arabia would investover USD 100 billion in Indiain petrochemicals, refining,infrastructure, mining andmanufacturing, agricultureand several other sectors.

"Our plans to invest in In-dia are on track and we are indiscussion to prioritize in-vestment opportunities inseveral sectors in both coun-

tries," Saudi Ambassador to In-dia Dr Saud bin Mohammed AlSati told PTI in an interview.

Stating that Saudi Arabia

values India as a strategic part-ner and a close friend, Al Satiidentified ongoing coopera-tion in areas of training, knowl-edge sharing and combating

terrorism as key elements ofthe partnership in defense andsecurity sphere.

Al Sati complimented India's

measures to revive itseconomy in view of the impactof the pandemic and said theeconomic recovery of bothcountries will help elevate

other economies in the re-gion as well.

"The economic relief packageprovided by India for its mostprominent sectors is commend-able. As the fifth-largest globaleconomy and the largesteconomy in South Asia, the Indianeconomy has the impetus to re-cover from the impact of the on-going pandemic," he said.

Without commenting onArmy Chief Gen MMNaravane's visit to SaudiArabia last week, the Ambas-sador said the setting up ofthe Strategic PartnershipCouncil by the two countriesopened new avenues of co-operation in several sectorsincluding defense and secu-rity and counter-terrorism. PTI

Saudi Ambassador to India Dr Saud bin Mohammed Al Sati

Agri reforms havestarted benefitingfarmers: PM

NEW DELHI: As farmer pro-tests against new farm lawsentered the 24th day, PrimeMinister Narendra Modi saidreforms brought by his gov-ernment six months ago havestarted benefiting farmers.

Speaking at an Assocham con-vention, Modi highlighted reformsspanning from the manufacturingsector to labor to say India hasduring the last six years emergedas the world's preferred destina-tion for investment.

Record foreign direct in-vestment (FDI) and foreignportfolio investment (FPI) dur-ing the pandemic is a testi-mony to the faith that theworld now has in India, he said.

"Agriculture reforms initi-ated six months back havestarted benefitting farmers,"he said without elaborating.

Hundreds of farmers fromstates like Punjab and Haryanahave blocked some of thehighways leading to Delhi formore than three weeks nowagainst the new farm lawswhich they fear will promptthe government to stop mak-ing direct crop purchases atminimum state-set prices,called minimum support price(MSP). PTI

Pine Labs raises freshfunding,valuationexceeds $2 billion

NEW DELHI: Merchant com-merce platform Pine Labs an-nounced it has raised a freshround of funding from LonePine Capital, taking its valua-tion at over $2 billion.

The company, however, didnot disclose the amount offresh investment.

Lone Pine's investment fol-lows the strategic investmentmade by Mastercard in January2020, when Pine Labs was de-clared a unicorn.

Earlier in December, PineLabs and Mastercard jointly an-nounced that they will expandtheir integrated "pay later" so-lution to five South East Asianmarkets early next year. IANS

'Why India' to 'Why Not India': Modi onchange his reforms have brought

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday (19Dec.), hard sold his government's reforms spanning from manu-facturing to taxation to labor, saying they have changed theworld perception about the country from 'why India' to 'why notIndia' and went on to quote record foreign investment duringthe pandemic as a testimony to that.

Speaking at industry association Assocham's Foundation Weekevent, Modi also said agriculture reforms brought by his govern-ment six months back have started benefiting farmers. PTI

13India PostTechBiz PostDecember 25, 2020

www.indiapost.com

Tech Briefs4K Indian sellers surpass salesworth Rs 1 cr in 2020 on Amazon

NEW DELHI: Business of smalland medium enterprises sell-ing products on Amazon.in wit-nessed growth amid the pan-demic and around 4,152 Indiansellers surpassed sales worthRs 1 crore in 2020 onAmazon.in, said a report by thee-commerce major.

The report noted that thenumber of 'crorepati' sellers onthe platform grew 29 per centon a year-on-year basis.

It said that emerging brandson Amazon Launchpad sawtheir business grow by 135 per

cent YoY. Further, the numberof women entrepreneurs un-der 'Saheli' program saw theirbusiness grow nearly '15x', andweavers and artisans part of'Karigar' program saw theirbusiness grow by 2.8 times.

Amazon.in has publishedthe 2020 Small and Medium

Business (SMB) Impact Report.The report marks some of theachievements made by theSMBs working with Amazonand highlights the impact ofdigitization on entrepreneursand businesses across sectors.

Amit Agarwal, Senior VP andCountry Head for Amazon In-dia, said: "It's humbling to seeover 10 lakh small businessesassociated with Amazon in In-dia. This year has been unprec-edented and has impacted theway we work and live."

"Yet, we remain inspired bythe undying entrepreneurialspirit, creativity, resolve andtrust in us of businesses, cre-ators, authors, etc. to over-come challenges and grow," hesaid.

Agarwal said that technol-ogy adoption and digitizationwill continue to play a crucialrole in offering expanded ac-cess and opportunities toSMBs, and Amazon India re-mains committed to invest andpartner in their success.

Manish Tiwary, VP of AmazonIndia said: "Through this chal-lenging year, we introducedseveral innovations and mea-sure to help our SMB partnersserve customers and it is thecustomer trust and engage-ment with Amazon that re-flects in the success of lakhs ofentrepreneurs, small busi-nesses and content creatorsincluded in this report."

Earlier this year, Amazon hadpledged to invest $1 billion todigitize 10 million SMBs, enablee-commerce exports worth$10 billion and create 1 millionincremental jobs, by 2025.

The report said thatAmazon's B2B marketplaceregistered 85 per cent YOYgrowth in sales. There hasbeen a 64 per cent increase inmonthly order volumes in2020.

It also said that there arenow over 70,000 Indian ex-porters selling millions of'Made in India' products world-wide across 15 internationalAmazon websites.

"Indian SMBs and brands onthe program have crossed Rs15,000 crore in cumulative ex-ports. In 2019, over 800 Indiansmall businesses on Global Sell-ing surpassed Rs 1 crore insales," said the report. IANS

California Walnuts: MakingEveryday Healthy

NEW DELHI: The year 2020may have brought the world toa halt, but there's one takeaway from it - health, undoubt-edly, is wealth. And self-carehas become ever more impor-tant to support mental healthand holistic well-being. Buthow does one strikethat health-work-lifebalance? How doesone make timein their alreadyhectic sched-ules to rustleup some-thing nutri-tious, power-packed, healthy, and yummy?Well, to start with, why notgrab a fistful of good ol' wal-nuts! Yes, walnuts. They are a

versatile nut that has thepower to help you that goesions beyond its wonderful nut-tiness, making everydayhealthy.

A handful of walnuts (28g)are packed with the essentialfatty acid omega-3 ALA (2.5g)

and also offer protein(4g), fiber (2g),

and other keyn u t r i e n t s .They notonly sup-

port hearthealth, but re-

search also indicatesthat including walnuts as

part of a healthy diet may playa role in helping to maintainand improve cognitive healthas people age. ANI/NewsVoir

Apple iPad with OLED displaynot before 2022

SAN FRANCISCO: An iPadwith an OLED display is un-likely until 2022 at the earli-est, the media reported.

The iPhone maker alreadyuses OLED displays for theiPhone X and newer and allApple Watch models, withbenefits over LCDs includinghigher brightness, improvedcontrast, in-c r e a s e dpower effi-ciency, widerv i e w i n gangles, andmore.

In a recentd i s c u s s i o nwith AppleSuppliers, Barclays analystspredicted that iPads with anOLED display may come in2022.

According to MacRumors,Apple is planning to releaseat least one iPad Pro model

with Mini-LED backlightingin the first half of 2021.

"And it would seem ratherquick for Apple to switchdisplay technologies twicewithin the same year withthe release of OLED mod-els<" the report said.

Apple is also planning tolaunch 5G-enabled high-end

iPad Prom o d e l snext yearw i t hm m W a v esupport.

A p p l e ' ssuccess indevelopingits own in-

house mmWave (antenna inthe package) modules fornext year's iPhone lineup hasincreased the likelihood thatnext-generation models inApple's iPad range wouldalso benefit. PTI

5G connected cars to take 40%of China market by 2025

NEW DELHI: 5G connectedcar sales volume in China willreach 7.1 million units in2025, accounting for 40 percent of the country's totalconnected car sales volume,according to latest research.

The sales volume of 4Gconnected cars are ex-pected to reach 7.8 millionunits in 2020 to account for95 per cent of the country'stotal connected car salesvolume, according to Coun-terpoint Research's SmartAutomotive service.

However, with 5G seeinga fast rollout in China andthe automotive industry ex-pected to grow faster start-ing 2021, the share of 5Gconnected car sales volumewill show rapid growth.

"Despite the impact ofCOVID-19, China's con-nected car sales volume are

expected to reach 8.2 mil-lion units in 2020, a slightincrease of 0.8 per cent YoYfrom the 8.1 million unitsshipped in 2019," said Se-nior Analyst Aman Madhok.

In terms of the globalshare, China is expected tograb 26.8 per cent of thesales volume in 2020, be-coming the second-largestconnected car market.

With a projected shareof 30 per cent, the US willcontinue to lead the mar-ket while Europe will takethe third spot, but with al-most the same volume asChina.

The three state-ownedtelecom operators in China -China Mobile, China Unicom,and China Telecom - are ex-pected to invest around$184 billion in 5G networksby 2025. PTI

India Post14 www.indiapost.com December 25, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has redefined therules for online dating in the country. Withthe enforced lockdown restrictions and social distancing norms in place, virtual dating

has slowly become the new 'Favorite' among Indiansingles.

The effect can be very well witnessed across dat-ing platforms as they experienced a vast surge innew user signups from all over the country. Datingapp QuackQuack saw a whopping 300 percent in-crease in signups from smaller cities and towns andthat took their current user base to 11 million. The

users for 3 months straight and they have come upwith the dating trends that will be followed in the in-dustry in the coming year.

Online Dating will continue to prosper in Tier 2 & 3cities

The months long isolation and social distancing hascompelled the users from smaller cities to come onlinein search of their love interest. The app on-boarded 70percent of their new users from such cities and thetrend is expecting to grow further as more & morepeople start adopting the culture of Virtual Dating.

Average age of user is expected to dropThe current average age of users on QuackQuack

is 25 years that has dropped from 29 just a few yearsback. The average age is expected to drop even fur-ther as more and more youngsters adopt the cul-ture of Online Dating.

Women have started to embrace Online DatingThe app witnessed a 12 percent increase in

women signups during the lockdown. With the in-creasing acceptance of the online dating cultureand with the continuity of social distancing normsmore women are expected to get comfortable withonline dating. It also revealed that female users

open the app 48 times a day while maleusers tend to use the app 24 times dur-ing the day. Women open the app twiceas much as their male counterparts.

Dating apps are the new WhatsApp for couplesThe user chats on the app have increased from

350k to 500k per day, a clear sign of things to comewith social distancing in place. They also witnesseda 25 percent surge in profile views this year. Withlow confidence in stepping out, we can expectpeople to spend more time on dating apps brows-ing matches & interacting with their love interests.

Video Calling is the most preferred optionfor Indian Singles

During the lockdown, video calling wasone of the most used features by couples on

dating platforms. This trendis only expected to

grow as users are in-teracting with pro-

files that are quite faroff from their current

location and it givesthem a sense of connec-

tivity & closeness.QuackQuack is also com-

ing up with a video callingfeature on their app soon.

IANSlife

platform added the last million users in just 115days and in the past one year they added around3.40 million new users.

"2020 has been the year when virtual dating wasaccepted by masses among the desi-singles. Wewitnessed participation from people of all agegroups and geographies. What's pleasing to see wasthe huge growth in participation of users from smalltowns & cities and in the near future we are expect-ing the number to shoot up even further,"says Ravi Mittal, Founder of QuackQuackon the growing culture of Online Datingin India.

"With the COVID danger still hanging inthe backdrop and socialdistancing normsstill in place, we areexpecting the com-ing year to continue toreap good results foronline dating as usersare much more comfort-able in interacting virtually.If 2020 was the starter, 2021will be the main course fordaters!," he adds.

To analyze this growing trendof online dating, QuackQuackclosely monitored 50,000 of their

The era of commitment is back again!There has been a welcome surge in people who are

looking for meaningful relationships. With more timein hand, users are willing to go that extra-mile in orderto know their counter-part and are engaging withthe profile of their interest for hours. It was re-

vealed that the average time a user spendson their app is 11 minutes.

December 25, 2020 India Post

www.indiapost.com

15

5-day Tansen Music Conferencebegins from Dec 26

GWALIOR: The five-day All IndiaTansen Music Conference is going to beheld in Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior fromDecember 26 to December 30. Thepreparations for this major event aregoing in full swing.

According to official information, theArchaeological Survey of India (ASI) hasgiven permission for the festival to beheld at Tansen's tomb in Hazira in Gwalior.A subcommittee has been constituted toensure all the necessary arrangementsfor the musical conference are done andexecuted well in a time-bound manner.

Special arrangements are beingmade in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.The musical conference would be inau-

gurated on December 26 morning atTansen's tomb with traditional festiverituals like 'Harikatha', playing shehnai,etc. After this, the musical festivalwould begin from 3 p.m.

As per the schedule, an event titled'Vadi-Samvadi' during the conferencewould be held at the Raja MansinghTomar Music and Arts University hereon December 28 between 1.30 p.m.and 2.30 p.m. The university administra-tion would be organizing this event.

The last event of the Tansen festivalwould take place in Behat.

During the conference, food will bemade available in packets in view of theCovid-19 pandemic. IANS

Home decor ideas for Christmas 2020NEW DELHI: After a year full of turbu-

lence, Christmas seems to be that firstray of light that touches the surface ofearth and fills the quit life into a bustlingone. People have finally come out of theirhome and started cleaning their housesto prepare for Christmas. Decorationsare in line, regardless of day or night.

Christmas is all about giving and re-ceiving the happiness to people thatmatter to you the most. To make the

maximum out of this festival, you can re-decorate your place into a magnificentabode of merry-making with just thecorrect decor ideas. Here are 9 Christ-mas home decor ideas by Heena Jain,Head -- Design Consultant,Woodenstreet that will completelytransform the look of your home:Lounge Chairs

It is a fact that a Sofa has the capabil-ity to completely transform the livingarea, but a lounge chair is not that farbehind. A beautiful lounge chair can

make your living space more invitingand intriguing. You can place the chairwherever you want but the preferredlocation would be right beside the fire-place. It will be even better if there aretwo lounge chairs, that way it will com-plete the setup.Ottomans

Right after placing two lounge chairsbeside the fire place, place two to threeottomans in the living room, because an

ottoman increases the seating capacityof your area, so in case of extra guests,you don't have to end up standingalone. Other than Christmas, it is oftenused frequently in the house. Now, it isnot necessary to buy all the productseither in red or white, any color canwork the charm.Bar Cabinet

Now that you have settled with theseating arrangement, lets decide on theparty starter. Just a bar cabinet is notenough, a fully functional bar cabinet is

what we need for this Christmas. Aproper wine cellar and a cabinetwith inverted wine glass section,spacious shelf will keep you handywhen serving the drinks. This is themost important part, as the wholeparty will revolve around thetable.Bookshelf

A bookshelf is what we need todesign a perfect Christmas decor.Fetch all the books in the houseand arrange each book into thebookshelf, and place it in a cornerof your living room, so it can pro-vide a classic oxford appearance tothe space.Curtains

Just like we bring new clotheson the festival, bring the sets ofcurtains for your home, so that nota single corner remains un-touched. A curtain really demar-

cates the detail and enlivens the space.Don't go for a dark shade, go for lightshade drapes so it will maintain thetheme of Christmas.Rugs and Carpets

It is very essential to bring any car-pet or a rug for your home, because itcreates a clean and organized space. Ashaggy carpet or a Wool rug is very ap-propriate for this Christmas, as winterswill be less cold with the carpets.IANSlife

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December 25, 2020www.indiapost.comIndia Post16


Munnar is a haven ofpeace and harmony.This incredibly beau-

tiful hill town is positioned at aheight of 6000ft in the Idukkidistrict of Kerala and is themost privileged summer resort.Munnar was a significant resorteven during the British mon-archs in those colonial days.

Opulent with unique speciesof flora and fauna, the place alsohas an extensive stretch of teaplantations amidst the highmountains and unspoiled val-

leys, giving a pleasant feeling.The scented cool air is filledwith the aroma of spices. Therising and falling terrain ofMunnar is covered with forestsand grasslands.

The undulated topographyoffers a breathtaking vision ofcraggy rocks, adding to the pic-turesque scenery the towncaptivates many tourists withits scenic beauty. Some of thetrees found in the region areteak, red sandalwood, rosewood, jungle jack, etc. Munnar

is also paradise for bird watch-ers as rare species of birds arefound in abundance and bestexplored on Kerala packages.

Cocooned in the State ofKerala, Munnar poses breath-taking scenery amidst thethriving green tea plantationswith the combination of val-leys, streams, cliffs, bubblingbrooks, exotic wildlife andclear trout streams making itan irresistible place.

Munnar is a perfect destina-tion for adventure enthusiasts,honeymoon couples, wildlifeand nature lovers. Accommo-dation facilities and touristguides are available easilysuiting the budgets. It is idealfor tourist to spend at least 2nights so as to enjoy all thatMunnar tour packages have tooffer!

TOURIST ATTRACTIONSTata Tea Museum: A very

popular tourist attraction inMunnar, Tata Tea Museum is lo-cated around 2 km fromMunnar in Nallathanni Estateof Tata Tea. The museum show-cases various antiquities andthe most famous among themis the burial urn excavatedfrom the vicinity of PeriakanalEstate, dating back to 2nd cen-tury. Curious, old photographs

and machinery are also dis-played in the museum. For thetourists, to get a glimpse intothe history and culture of theregion, a video presentation isscreened here.

Anamudi Peak: AnamudiPeak lies to the interior of theEravikulam National Park. Thisnational park is at a peak of2695 m, and it towers the sanc-tuary in grandiose pride.

This hill is opulent in variouskinds of flora and fauna and isvery well known for possessingendangered animals. Anamudipeak shelters many animals asit resembles the originalabode for the animals with itsdense forests. Nilgiri langurs,leopards, t igers, andmacaques are found here.

Atukkad Water falls: Thescenic water fall of Atukkadlies at a distance of about 2km from Munnar town.Amidst lush green forest andhills, this waterfall is a worth

visiting spot in Munnar. Withfewer crowds, it is an idealplace for romantic escapesand picnics.

The scenic water fall ofAtukkad lies about 2 km fromMunnar town. Amidst lushgreen forest and hil ls , andwith fewer crowds, it is anideal place for romantic es-capes and picnics.

Cheeyappara Waterfalls:Located very close to ValaraFalls, Cheeyappara waterfalllies between the towns ofNeriamangalam and Adimali,along the national highwaylinking Cochin with Madurai. Itis around 40 km from Munnar.

This is a seven-step water-fall and watching it cascadingdown is a meme rising sight.An ideal picnic spot, touristscan take a bus, taxi or autorickshaw to reach this spot.

www.indiapost.comDecember 25, 2020

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Lake County Temple celebratesRam Janaki Vivah

GEETHA PATIL

Welcome to Ma JanakiVastram Offering to Lord Ram and Ma Janaki

CHICAGO: The Hindu Mandirof Lake County, Grayslake, aChicago suburb, celebratedthe VivahUtsava/marriage an-niversary of Lord Rama and MaJanaki on the Vivah Panchamiday that usually falls on thefifth day of the Shukla Pakshaor the waxing phase of themoon in the Hindu calendarmonth of Margashirsha on Fri-

day, December 18, 2020.This day is of great impor-

tance especially in India andNepal, where all the Hindusbelieve that Ma Janaki marriedLord Ram, the Prince ofAyodhya. The Hindu Mandircommemorated theVivahUtsavawith a limitednumber of devotees due toCOVID-19 guideline and social

distancing directionsThe temple priests per-

formed the ritual part oftheVivahUtsava. They wel-comed Ma Janaki's Baraat withfull happiness, devotion anddedication and made all thearrangements for theirParvesh/entry into the shrine.Ma Janaki performed Ma GauriPujan as mentioned in the

Ramayana. This was followedby the chanting of Mantrasand Pujan of Lord Ganesh andLord Ram Parivar by thetemple priest, Yogesh Pandey.

Kanya Daanam, GauDaanam,tying of Mangal Sutra, offering ofSindhoor, and exchange ofVaramala were all done by Pt AnilJoshi Ji following all the Vedic ritu-als and chanting of Vedic Mantras.Later, both groom and bride'sparties(devotees), offeredVastram and jewelries as gifts toLord Ram and Ma Janaki respec-tively.

Pt. Anil Joshi in his discoursesaid that before enteringGrahasthashram, the couplehas to offer to each other, andone should remove ego. Break-ing of Shiva's Dhanush (bow)by Lord Rama to win Sita as hiswife symbolizes the breakingof the ego or arrogance. Andperforming ofPujan of Devi Maby Ma Janaki to obtain LordRam as her husband alongwith happiness and prosperityin life represents offering ofherself to Lord Ram as his wife.

Gauri Pujan by Ma Janaki Cont’d on page 21

Hindi Club onlineAnterrashtriyaKavi Sammelan

VIJAY CHOPRA

CHICAGO: During this pan-demic year Hindi Club of Illi-nois (HCI) has hosted manyonline events. But the one thatit hosted on Saturday, Decem-ber 19 was rather special. Pro-moted as Anterrashtriya KaviSammelan it turned out to be agreat and stimulating gather-ing of Hindi talents from acrossvarious parts of our world.

Noted Hindi writers and po-ets from India, Australia,Canada and the USA sharedtheir high quality poetic recit-als during a two-hour event.

Supporting LA'sEssential Workers inthe PandemicVIDYA SETHURAMANIndia Post News Service

The COVID-19 pandemic hasvividly highlighted how

much society depends uponessential workers. Essentialworkers are heroes of the pan-demic but many pay a highcost, putting themselves andtheir families at risk to do thework that keeps LA Countyfunctioning. But essential workextends beyond health care, infood processing, construction,packing warehouses, andcleaning and sanitizing busi-nesses to name a few.

American fabricco. to remove Godimage napkins

MADHU PATEL

CHICAGO: ADurham (NorthCarolina) headquartered"world's largest custom fabric,wallpaper and home decordigital marketplace,"Spoonflower's CEO has assuredremoving napkins carrying im-ages of various Hindu deitiesfollowing strong protest froma large group of Indian Ameri-cans in the country.

December 25, 2020India Post18 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

Blow to Asian New York workersIndia Post News Service

This week's in-door dining shutdownis another major economic blow for

Asian New Yorkers, who have seen thehighest increase in unem-ployment of any group inNYC due to the pandemic.

Restaurants and eater-ies are a major source ofemployment for many low-income Asian workers andsmall business owners. Thejob losses have also leftmany without health insur-ance coverage - a criticalneed during this secondwave of COVID.

MetroPlus Health (asubsidiary of NYC Health +Hospitals) is joining forceswith several prominentAsian American New York-ers to address healthcare insecuritywith a social media campaign launchingon Monday, December 21.

#MetroPlusYou will feature Broad-way star Telly Leung (Disney's Aladdin),Chinatown Ice Cream Factory ownerChristina Seid and others sharing per-

sonal tips on how to stay healthy andpositive during these challengingtimes.

Asian NewYorkers

Solidarity Protest for Farmers in IndiaSURENDRA ULLAL

Chicago Protest in support of Indian Farmers

CHICAGO: The Chicago Sikh Youth,along with other local South Asian Com-munities, led a peaceful protest on De-cember 13, 2020 at the Federal Plaza inChicago, in support of farmers in Indiawho had organized historic protests inf New Delhi against three anti-farmerslaws passed by the Indian governmentin September of this year.

The peaceful protest saw a turnoutupwards of four-hundred participantsfrom Illinois and other neighboringStates. The participants donned masksand warm winter wears to account forboth the COVID-19 pandemic and thecold Chicago. Many Participants'wore green and yellow in support ofthe farmer unions leading the pro-tests in India. Handouts outlining thefacts and objectives of the farmer pro-test were distributed to participantsand those passing-by with the pur-pose of educating the American pub-

lic on what's happening in India.For approximately two hours, par-

ticipants holding posters showcasingtheir support of farmers pithed for"Take Back Farm Laws," and, "If you ate

today, thank a farmer." Participantschanted, "No farmers...no food," and"Kissan Mazdoor Ekta...Zindabad. Theycircled Federal Plaza with posters andfarmer union flags. In between chants,members of Chicago's youth spoke onboth the content of the anti-farmerslaws, and the impact it's had on popula-tions within and outside of India.

Speakers from both SawarajAbhiyan Chicago, Motika Anand andthe Indian American Musl imCouncil's, Aminah Ahmed, spoke ofunity and solidarity with the farmersof India and demanded basic human

rights for farmers protesting. Sikhyouth speakers , Kiran Gi l l andAmneet Kaur educated the publicon the Farmer Laws and why this isimportant for us as a united commu-nity and shared how their farmingrelatives are impacted in India.

Kiran Kaur Gill a ,prominent cor-porate lawyer spoke about theselaws. Monika Anand of SwarajAbhyan Chicago spoke about Indiangovernment treatment of minoritiesin India. Ms Amneet Kaur spokeabout r ich Sikh heritage, f ightagainst injustice. Amish Ahmed ofIndian American Musl im counci lspoke about supporting againstthese illegal laws

In the memory of those who losttheir lives in the #DelhiChalo ' pro-test was not forgotten. A memorialfor the martyrs who lost their livesin the protest was displayed on ea-sels with flowers, along with an ad-ditional list with names of martyrs.

The Chicago's peaceful protestshowcased sol idarity and unityamongst South Asian communities intheir support for the prosperity offarmers in India. As posters atSunday's peaceful protest in Chicagostated, quoting Bhagat Singh: "Laboris the real sustainer of society."

India Post 19December 25, 2020 Community Across Americawww.indiapost.com

California brewery Asked to removeLord Ganesha image from beer

MADHU PATEL

CHICAGO: A large group of IndianAmericans across the country havepitched with Weed (California) basedMount Shasta Brewing Company not touse Lord Ganesha's image on its Moun-

tain High IPA beer, dubbing it highly in-appropriate.

The pitching campaign is led by Zed,president of Universal Society of Hindu-ism, it is contended that Lord Ganeshis highly revered in Hinduism meant to

be worshipped in temples or homeshrines and not to be used in sellingbeer. Moreover, linking a deity with analcoholic beverage is highly disre-spectful, Zed added.

Breweries should not be inthe business of religious ap-propriation, sacrilege, andridiculing entire communi-ties. It was deeply trivializingof immensely veneratedHindu deity Lord Ganesha tobe portrayed on a beer label.

Hinduism is the oldest andthird largest religion of theworld with about 1.2 billionadherents and a rich philo-sophical thought and itshould not be taken frivo-lously. Symbols of any faith,larger or smaller, should notbe mishandled; Zed noted.

Mt. Shasta Brewing Co., themicrobrewery which startedproducing bottled beer in2005, claims: "Our beersguarantee to please your pal-ate". Mountain High IPA (62.1

IBU - 7% ABV ) is described as "deepgolden, mild and malty". A blog postedon the microbrewery website aboutthis beer label mentions Ganesha, de-scribing him as "a Hindu God" and "lordof success".

Lord Ganesha Image

Update on the engagement between Govt and FarmersIndia Post News Service

CHICAGO: On 17 December 2020, abench headed by Chief Justice of In-dia (CJI) S.A.Bobde asked AttorneyGeneral K.K. Venugopal if the Govern-ment can assure the Court that it willnot take any executiveaction onimplementation of the farm laws tillthe Court hears the matter.

The CJI said it is to enable the dis-cussion. During the hearing, the CJIBobde observed that "The protest isconstitutional till it does not destroyproperty or endanger life. It is an ab-solutely perfect protest. But the pur-pose cannot be realized if theycontinueto sit without talking. TheCentre and the farmers have to talk."The CJI said,"Blocking Delhi may leadto people in the city going hungry.Your (farmers) purpose can be ful-filled by talking. Just sitting in protestwon't help."

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, ap-pearing for the Government, sug-gested people of eminence facilitatedialogue between the farmers andthe Centre instead of constituting acommittee. Shri Mehta said, "We needsomeone who can break the ice. I amsuggesting that instead of a commit-tee adjudicating let there be peopleof eminence who can facilitate thedialogue. We have solutions issue wiseto farmers. We have given them inwriting too."

While addressing an ASSOCHAMsession via video conferencing on 16December 2020, Agriculture MinisterShri Narendra Singh Tomar said that"While there is a protest against re-forms, lakhs of farmers are also gath-ering to express support for bills. To-day, thousands of farmers gathered inGwalior for it."Meanwhile, addressinga gathering at Kisansammelan in

Madhya Pradesh's Gwalior district on16 December 2020, Shri Tomarsaid,"The Swaminathan Committee saidthat the MSP should be declared byadding 50 per cent profit on the costof the farmer. The Swaminathan Com-mission presented its recommenda-tions to the United Progressive Alli-

ance (UPA) government in 2006 butthe decision was not taken. But Modigovernment did the job of declaringMSP by adding 50 per cent profit onthe cost."

Cont’d on page 24


Hindi Club onlineAnterrashtriya Kavi SammelanVIJAY CHOPRA

A group of participants of Kavi Sammelan

CHICAGO: During this pandemic year Hindi Club ofIllinois (HCI) has hosted many online events. But theone that it hosted on Saturday, December 19 wasrather special. Promoted as Anterrashtriya Kavi

Sammelan itturned out to bea great ands t i m u l a t i n ggathering ofHindi talentsfrom across vari-ous parts of ourworld.

Noted Hindiwriters and po-ets from India,A u s t r a l i a ,Canada and theUSA shared theirhigh quality po-etic recitals dur-ing a two-hour

event. The event was carried live on Facebook and wasfollowed live by thousands of enthusiastic fans overmany countries.

The event opened with HCI Secretary, Vijay Chopraintroducing HCI Founder and President GurbachanKaur Neelam who shared some background about theClub and welcomed the participants. Program started

Ms Nisha Pandya Host of the event

SmtGurbachan Kaur Founder President Hindi Club of Illinois

with a traditional Saraswati Vandana recital by Dr.Nisha Pandya who also skillfully emceed the event.

Chief Guest Keshav Rai, President, Vishaw HindiAcademy, Mumbai applauded HCI for its pioneeringefforts in promoting Hindi overseas. Through his poemhe encouraged all Indian diaspora to keep this flameof language and culture burning bright. ChanchalaPriyadarshini of Boston shared her thoughtful andtouching poem on motherhood. Monica Sharma ofFaridabad, India recitals included feelings of stayingaway abroad.

Dr. Farooque Rehman of Mumbai showcased somemoving poetry about down to earth topics. AmbicaSharma from Montreal shared her sentiments aboutmiddle age women not giving up.

Special Guest Girlish Vidrohi, Rashtriay Kavi, a songwriter and highly regarded and decorated writer keptthe audience spell bound with his unique style andrecitals. Canadian poetess Pramilla Bhargava sharedher views about struggles in learning Hindi in a for-eign country. Talented couple Bhavana Kunwar andPrageet Kunwar from Sydney, Australia shared theirghazal recitals.

The event rounded off with an impressive poem onvarious aspects of life by HCI Secretary, Vijay Chopra.In closing this wonderful event he thanked the vitaltechnical support of Puneet Chhibber, expertcompering by Nisha Pandya and our supporters SunilShah, Ashok Lachlan of PMI mortgage, SBI, Regal Jew-els, Ganesh Temple, Radio Panipuri.

HCI will host its next virtual event on World HindiDivas, January 10, 2021 at 10:30 am Central. Pleasewatch our home page www.hindiclub.org or ourFacebook page /HindiClubIL for details.

Kavi Girish Vidrohi Guest of Honor

Vijya Chopra SecretaryShri Keshav Rai Chief Guest

Chief Guest Keshav Rai, President,

Vishaw Hindi Academy, Mumbai ap-

plauded HCI for its pioneering efforts in

promoting Hindi overseas. Through his

poem he encouraged all Indian diaspora

to keep this flame of language and

culture burning bright


Supporting LA's Essential Workers in the PandemicVIDYA SETHURAMANIndia Post News Service

The COVID-19 pandemic has vividlyhighlighted how much societydepends upon essential workers.

Essential workers are heroes of the pan-demic but many pay a high cost, put-ting themselves and their families atrisk to do the work that keeps LA Countyfunctioning. But essential work extendsbeyond health care, in food processing,construction, packing warehouses, andcleaning and sanitizing businesses toname a few. Dec 14 EMS briefing spot-lights the programs the county pro-vides to support them.

Michael Nobleza, FUSE Executive Ad-visor for the Office of Immigrant Affairs(OIA). discussed on the Immigrant es-sential workers, upcoming EssentialWorker Summit hosted by OIA, includ-ing the essential worker support initia-tives that OIA is planning for the com-ing year. Immigrants have always beena vital part of the social and economicfabric of this country. They have alwaystaken on an oversized share of the front-line work of caring for our sick, ouryoung, and our elderly. So it may not besurprising that immigrant communitiesare disproportionately impacted by theCOVID-19 pandemic.

L.A. County has more than 3.6 millionimmigrants, a third of the population,according to a recent report from theUniversity of Southern California. Immi-

grants are critical to the success of thecountry's economy. They are more likelyto be entrepreneurs and make up 40 -60 % of the essential workforce. Immi-grants not only make up a large propor-tion of L.A. County's workforce, but theyare also disproportionately repre-sented among essential workers, in-cluding in food services, nursing, con-struction, and childcare. Alongsidepoor housing conditions, immigrantsare also more likely to live in higherdensity buildings and neighborhoods,

which makes the respect of social dis-tancing more difficult. Undocumentedworkers are ineligible for most stateand federal aid programs, and the fed-eral CARES Act disqualifies entirehouseholds for assistance if just oneperson is undocumented, cutting out1.125 million Angeleno citizens orgreen card holders, Nobleza said.

OIA aims to increase immigrants' ac-

cess to public services and engage thecommunity around issues such as wagetheft, worker safety, childcare, andworkforce development. OIA has alsobeen holding weekly news conferencesin English and Spanish for ethnic andcommunity media to share informationabout COVID-19 and available re-sources. In early February of 2021, aspart of its new LA Immigrant EssentialWorkers Initiative, OIA will host a two-day summit "focused on day laborers,domestic workers and DACA recipients

entering the workforce" to proposelegislation reforms and connect essen-tial workers to "wraparound" services.

Rose Basmadzhyan, Chief of the WageEnforcement Program & Investigation

Division at the Department of Con-sumer & Business Affairs (DCBA) saidthey provide services to employers andemployees to ensure there is no theftof wages. "We have reached 2,000 busi-

nesses in the county and created con-tracts with nonprofits to ensure thatworkers of different ethnic groups, sub-ject to wage theft, have available re-sources." The county's tools includefines ranging from $ 200 to $ 2,000 perday and have the authority to intervenein settlements. "We have already solvedthe wage theft for 1,500 workers; andmore than $ 3 million in money hasbeen recovered. "

Monica Nguyen, director of the GAINprogram at the Department of PublicSocial Services (DPSS), said that due tothe pandemic there is much more un-employment than normal in Los Ange-les County, and they provide a safetynet for those who have lost their jobs.To find out the eligibility criteria, youcan call the customer service phone:866-613-3777; or 877-292-4246.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, wehave seen an increase in the number ofworkers working for less than the mini-mum wage. They don't report this fear-ing they might lose their earnings."Can't blame them. That is why we havecome together to promote a coalitionfor a safety net for legislators to provideassistance to undocumented employ-ees, especially when they face retalia-tion, "said Yvonne Medrano, attorneyfor Bet Tzedek Legal Services.

L.A. County has more than 3.6 million immigrants, a third of the

population, according to a recent report from the University of

Southern California. Immigrants are critical to the success of the

country's economy. They are more likely to be entrepreneurs

and make up 40 - 60 % of the essential workforce

He further stated that Lord Ramsymbolizes 'Dharma' and Ma Janaki sym-bolizes 'Bhakti and Shanti.' One's Bhaktiand Shanti will not become completewithout Dharma. The marriage of LordRam and Ma Janaki signifies the mar-riage between Dharma and Bhakti. BothDharma and Bhakti must go hand-in-hand for experiencing happiness andpeace in life.

Lake CountycelebratesRam Janaki VivahCont’d from page 17

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LA's health care needs in the pandemicVIDYA SETHURAMANIndia Post News Service

A record number of COVID-19deaths were reported in Los Angeles County this week, as well

as an overwhelming number of cases inthe midst of intensive care units state-wide slipping to just 1.7% remaining ca-pacity. Community spread of the virusis now so rampant that officials esti-mate about 1 in 80 county residents areinfected and infecting others. EMSbriefing on Dec 17 explained onMyHealth LA's 200-clinic network, whoqualifies for MediCal coverage, how toaccess mental health care, and more.

Dr. Christina Ghaly, the county's di-rector of health services, put it bluntly:"Our hospitals are under siege, and ourmodel shows no end in sight."

My Health LA is here to help you withCOVID-19 questions and answers, in-cluding how to protect yourself andyour family and how to find communityresources, said Anna Gorman, MPH, Di-rector of Community Partnerships &

Programs, LA County Department ofHealth Services (DHS). It is a primarycare program for low income uninsuredresidents of LA County. It is not healthinsurance. It is funded by the Los Ange-les County Board of supervisors andDHS. We don't ask for immigrant status,said Anna. Anybody who is uninsured,LA County residents, age 26 or olderand income at or below the Federalpoverty level are eligible for this pro-

gram. We have seen predominantlySpanish speaking population availingthis program. Individuals enroll at MHLAat one of 52 community partner clinics,which has over 200 clinic sites. Patientsenroll at the clinics using the County's

web based eligibility and enrollmentsystem called One-e-App, said Anna.

What Does MHLA Cover? We coverpreventive health care, medications,basic labs, dental care at some sites,specialty, urgent, emergency care atDHS. We also provide mental health pre-vention and SUD treatment. Programssuch as MHLA are essential during thepandemic and become imperative tothe low income, uninsured population.

She urged everyone to take a look atthe website and spread information onthis program.

The COVID-19 pandemic has intensi-fied mental health issues, depression,anxiety, stress and the urge to stop liv-ing, Los Angeles County experts said.Miriam Brown, Deputy Director, Depart-ment of Mental Health (DMH) spoke onthe programs run by LA county for men-tal well being of the residents duringthe pandemic. The Los Angeles CountyDepartment of Mental Health

(LACDMH) supports the wellbeing ofour County residents and communities.LACDMH has published the materials toaddress mental health & wellbeingneeds and concerns in different lan-guages. LACDMH's 24/7 Helpline at(800) 854-7771 is available to providemental health support, resources andreferrals.

Sherri Cheatham, head of the Depart-ment of Social Services (DPSS) Home andMedical Support Services program, saidthat due to the pandemic, they have en-countered a record number of peoplewho are unemployed; or whose salaryhas dropped due to reduced hours.

The department has expanded theirefforts to let people know about theavailability of Medi-Cal for their healthneeds and to get screened for COVID."We have had to close the services inperson, but we attend them by phone;and we have more hours of attentionfrom 7:30 a.m. at 7:30 p.m. from Mon-day to Friday; and on Saturdays from 8a.m. at 4 p.m. " Support services in thehome continue to be offered unlesssomeone has COVID.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti wrote onTwitter, "This is as serious as it gets. Wemust flatten the curve to avoid over-whelming our hospital system, Stay in-doors and mask up".

MyHealth LA is here to help you with COVID-19 questions

and answers, including how to protect yourself and your family

and how to find community resources, said Anna Gorman,

MPH, Director of Community Partnerships & Programs,

LA County Department of Health Services (DHS)

Bipartisan resolution urging China to end militaryaggression toward India passes both chambers

NELA PANDYA

WASHINGTON, DC: The U.S. House andSenate officially passed the NationalDefense Authorization Act (NDAA),which included key components ofCongressman Krishnamoorthi's resolu-tion language urging the Chinese gov-ernment to end its military aggres-sion toward India along the Line ofActual Control.

The inclusion of this provision,which Krishnamoorthi led as anamendment when the bill passedthe House, reflects the USGovernment's strong support for itsallies and partners like India in theIndo-Pacific region and beyond:

"Violent aggression is seldom theanswer, and this is especially true forthe Line of Actual Control, which is thedisputed border region that separatesthe People's Republic of China from In-dia," said Raja Krishnamoorthi. Headded, "By including my resolution lan-guage in the NDAA and signing that

legislation into law, the United Statesgovernment will send a clear messagethat China's military provocations of In-dia will not be tolerated. The UnitedStates is committed to standing withour allies and partners like India in re-

solving the border standoff using dip-lomatic means."

Raja Krishnamoorthi's measure,which passed each chamber with over-whelming bipartisan support, will be-come law if President Trump signs it.


Operation Income Illusion by FTCVIDYA SETHURAMANIndia Post News Service

The financial impact of thepandemic has created anenvironment that's ripe

for scammers. As consumersstruggle with financial uncer-tainty in the COVID economy,promoters of questionablework-at-home offers, coachingprograms, and other scamsand schemes are contributingto the problem. Income-basedscams have increased signifi-cantly because of the pan-demic. In the first nine monthsof 2020, people looking forways to earn money werecheated out of $150 million,according to new data from

the Federal Trade Commission.The FTC officials briefed theEthnic media on new informa-tion to share with their audi-ence to help them spot andavoid scams targeting your

communities.Kati Daffan and Rhonda

Perkins, two lawyers in theFTC's Division of MarketingPractices, spotlighted a varietyof scams promoted in adver-

tisements online or in TV, radioand newspapers.

The Federal Trade Commis-sion (FTC) has announced anew operation, Operation In-come Illusion, to crack down on

fraudsters targeting victimswith fake promises of jobs orincome . Operation Income Il-lusion will target over 50 lawenforcement actions againstthose operating "work-from-home and employment scams,pyramid schemes, investmentscams, bogus coachingcourses" and other such scams,which the release stated cancost consumers thousands ofdollars.

A recent FTC analysis of cus-tomer data found that custom-ers have reported losses of$610 million to these kinds ofscams since 2016, with thenumber sitting at around $150million for the first nine monthsof this year, according to call.Scams investigated in this par-ticular sweep have netted over$1 billion from victims, said theofficial.

"At a time like this, whenthere's so much financial hard-

ship, we see many kinds ofmoney making schemesspreading like wildfire, espe-cially on social media," saidKati Daffan, an assistant direc-tor in the FTC's division of mar-keting practices. "Schemes likethis are illegal because they'reinherently harmful." Daffensays you should research thecompany and contact the FTCwith your concerns. ??

If a company promises ex-travagant earnings, stronglyemphasizes recruiting, or useshigh-pressure sales tactics, itcould be a pyramid scheme."Sometimes a pyramid schememight be trying to look like anMLM enterprise. We havesome red flags that we encour-age consumers to look out for,"said Daffen.

COVID Vaccine relatedscams are expected to sky-rocket in coming months. Ifyou get a call, text, email - oreven someone knocking onyour door - claiming they canget you early access to the vac-cine, STOP. That's a scam. Don'tpay for a promise of vaccineaccess or share personal infor-mation. Instead, report it to theFTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov orfile a complaint with your stateor territory attorney generalthrough www.consume-rresources.org, the consumerwebsite of the National Asso-ciation of Attorneys General.

Both speakers urged every-one to contact the FTC withany suspicions. You can do soat www.ReportFraud.ftc.gov,or www.ReporteFraude.ftc.gov or by phone at(877) 382-4357.

American fabric co. toremove God image napkins

MADHU PATEL

CHICAGO: ADurham (NorthCarolina) headquartered"world's largest custom fabric,wallpaper and home decordigital marketplace,"Spoonflower's CEO has assuredremoving napkins carrying im-ages of various Hindu deitiesfollowing strong protest froma large group of IndianAmericans in the country.

Spoonflower CEO MichaelJones, in a statement postedon company website andsent to Rajan Zed, whospearheaded the protest,wrote:... "we are newly in-formed that the display ofHindu deity imagery onsome of our dining prod-ucts is unsuitable withinHindu religion tenets…Weapologize to the Hinducommunity for the inad-vertent misuse of this im-agery… Among the actions wewill take is in removing Hindudeity designs fromSpoonflower.com home decor,and its home decormarketplaces…we alwayswant to appropriately respondwhen we are fortunate enoughto learn that we sometimes

don't know what we don'tknow. We humbly acknowl-edge that fact."

Rajan is President of Univer-sal Society of Hinduism and hethanked Spoonflower andJones for quick action and un-derstanding the concerns of

Hindu community, whichthought that placing images ofHindu gods and goddesses onnapkins was insensitive anddisquieting.

Hindu deities (Shiva, Krishna,Lakshmi, Ganesh, Murugan,Kali, Hanuman, etc.) are meantto be worshipped in templesor home shrines and not forwiping mouth/fingers, catch-ing crumbs, blowing nose, con-taining coughs/sneezes,throwing on dirty plate, cover-ing lap, etc. Inappropriate us-age of sacred Hindu deities orconcepts or symbols or iconsfor commercial or otheragenda was not okay as it hurtthe devotees, Rajan argued.

"Global marketplace" likeSpoonflower should not be inthe business of religious ap-propriation, sacrilege, and ridi-culing entire communities. Itwas deeply trivializing of im-mensely venerated Hindugods and goddesses like Shiva,Krishna, Lakshmi, Ganesh,Murugan, Kali, Hanuman, etc.,to be displayed on napkins;Rajan Zed had emphasized.

Spoonflower, reportedly es-tablished in 2008 and with of-fices in Durham and Berlin(Germany), claims to be "a glo-bal marketplace connectingmakers and consumers withartists worldwide".


Minister for Housing & Ur-ban Affairs, Shri Hardeep SinghPuri said at an online functionof industry chamber HDCCI on17 December, "It pains me thatmany people who are sitting inprotest probably are not awareof what they are protestingagainst... Government is stillsending a message to all thefarmers that please come andtalk". While interacting withfarmers on their concerns overfarm bills at a virtual

Update on the engagementbetween Govt and Farmers

KisanSammelanon 16 Decem-ber, Minister Shri Purisaid,"Ourfarmer sisters and brothers, in-cluding those from Punjab,have played a pivotal role inGreen Revolution and towardsIndia's effort to attain food se-curity." He was joined by seniorleaders of Punjab from BJP unitat the event.

PM was to have also ad-dressed 'kisansammelan'orFarmers' conferences acrossMadhya Pradesh on December18 at 2 pm via videoconferencing.

Cont’d from page 19

Shri Ram Mandir NidhiSamarpan drive

Highest eviction rates in California - Central Valley'stenants push for housing rights

VIDYA SETHURAMANIndia Post News Service

In California, a family mustreport a household incomeof roughly $100,000 to

make the median rent in thestate. Millions of California

renters are at risk of eviction astenant protections soon ex-pire, raising fears of a mass

surge in homelessness duringthe deadliest phase of the pan-demic so far. California's Cen-tral Valley-the fastest growingregion of the state with 7.2 mil-lion-has long been seen as alow-rent sanctuary amidst a

crisis in affordable housing. Inthe Central Valley, not only dotenants pay more than half of

their income in rent, but alsoface the highest eviction rates;and minority women with chil-dren have been disproportion-ately affected by home evic-tions.

Jessica Ramirez, a mother ofsix children, experienced aneviction and was forced to liveon the streets. "For no reason,they gave me a warning toleave early in the pandemic.When you go to court to de-fend yourself so that you arenot thrown out of your home, itdoes not matter how much evi-dence you bring. I ended up onthe street, living in the car witha newborn child ", said Ramirezin the EMS conference call on

Dec 18.Claude Bailey, an African-

American senior living in theCentral Valley city of Stockton,had to leave his apartmentwhere he lived for more than20 years, when he was told he

no longer qualified for Section8, the subsidy program to low-income housing. "I had to livein my car for over 5 months"and this has affected me physi-cally and emotionally.

Professor Edward Orozco ofthe University of California atMerced said that the CentralValley of California despite theeconomic growth it has expe-rienced, offers very low wages.As a result, few people ownhomes, and the homes are in-habited by multiple families.In Fresno, the largest urbancenter of the Central Valley, afamily needs to earn nearly$20 per hour to afford the me-dian rent in the area while thecurrent state minimum wage is

only $12 per hour. These gapsare not static over time but aregrowing as rent increases out-pace wage increases; this pan-demic has pushed many to thebrim. The central valley pro-vides our food, but people

there cannot not only owntheir home, but they do nothave the ability to buy theirown food and are dependenton food stamps.

Janine Nkosi, regional coun-selor for the Fresno-basedcommunity organization Faithin the Valley, said there aremore evictions in the CentralValley than anywhere else inCalifornia. In California we haveprotection against evictionsuntil January 31 and we hopethat before January the pro-posal of Assemblyman DavidChiu that prohibitshomeowners from evictingtenants damaged by the pan-demic will be approved untilDecember 31, 2021.

In the Central Valley, not only do tenants

pay more than half of their income in rent, but

also face the highest eviction rates; and

minority women with children

Claude Bailey, an African-American senior living in

the Central Valley city of Stockton, had to leave his

apartment where he lived for more than 20 years,

when he was told he no longer qualified for Section

8, the subsidy program to low-income housing

India Post News Service

MUMBAI: The support of ev-ery Ram devotee from all overthe country will be solicited forthe grand temple to be builton the birthplace of BhagwanSri Rama in Ayodhya.

For this, Vishva HinduParishad will go from door todoor with the veneratedsaints announcing Shri RamJanmabhoomi Mandir NidhiSamarpan Abhiyan. This inten-

sive and extensive campaignwill commence from the up-coming Makar SankrantiJanuary 15, 2021 and last tillMagh-Purnima February 272021 as per VHPKaryakartasplan, reaching outto 110 million families of400,000 villages of the coun-try. Ram temple would actu-

ally take the form of a RashtraMandir ( Temple of the na-tion).

Many struggled for re-claiming the birthplace ofBhagwan Sri Ram. Finally, theSupreme Court sealed its ap-proval to this just demandfrom the society and the his-torical associated with thetemple directing the Govern-ment to form a trust. The gov-ernment announced a trust in

the name of "Shri RamJanmabhoomi TeerthKshetra".

Preparations are underwayto construct the temple. En-gineers from IIT Mumbai, IITDelhi, IIT Chennai, IITGuwahati, CBRI Roorkee,Larsen & Toubro and Tata, areworking on the foundationdrawing. The foundation con-

figuration and layout wouldvery soon come out. The en-tire temple will be of stoneblocks. Every-one of the threefloors will be 20 feet high; thelength and breadth of thetemple will be 360 and 235feet respectively.

Shri Champat Rai of VHPsaid that it is planned to gofrom door-to-door to createawareness among at leasthalf of the country's 1350 mil-lion people from Kashmir toKanyakumari and Atuck toCuttack leasing out any cor-ner of the country unvisited.The plan is to hand out Ramtemple literature to peopleand seek their support.

The temple is of ShreeRam and lack of funds cannotbe a hindrance in the work ofGod. In order to maintaintransparency in the financialdealings and transactions,the trust has printed cou-pons and receipts of de-nominations of INR 10, 100and 1000. Karyakartas will is-sue coupons or receipts ac-cording to what the societycontributes.

Preparations are underway to construct

the temple. Engineers from IIT Mumbai, IIT Delhi,

IIT Chennai, IIT Guwahati, CBRI Roorkee, Larsen

& Toubro and Tata, are working on the

foundation drawing


"Women Who Win" Awarded WE Awards byNew England Indian Medical Association

IMPACT Launches Historic$2.5M Campaign In Georgia


GEORGIA: IMPACT, a leadingIndian American advocacy andpolitical action committee, haslaunched a historic $2.5 millioncampaign to turnout AAPI vot-ers in Georgia ahead of theJanuary Senate runoffs.

The funds will be spent ondigital, mail, and turnout op-erations.

"MPACT Executive DirectorNeil Makhija said. "The Demo-cratic Party couldn't win thepresidency or the Senate with-out Asian Americans. In No-vember, South Asian and AsianAmerican voters were the criti-cal difference between victoryand defeat in Georgia, Pennsyl-vania, and Arizona. The num-bers are striking: Asian Ameri-cans increased turnout morethan any other demographic,nearly doubling in Georgia.Asian Americans are becominga core constituency of theDemocratic Party, but theycan't be taken for granted."

"We are poised to play a criti-

cal role in January for the Geor-gia Senate runoff races," Makhijacontinued. "IMPACT's historic in-vestment over the remainingweeks of the campaign will har-ness this emerging power ofSouth Asian and Asian Americanvoters to help deliver Georgiaand control of the U.S. Senate forDemocrats. This election canplay a transformative role for theBiden-Harris Administration andfor our country, and Asian Ameri-cans realize that -which is whythey're already turning in theirballots in record numbers."

In November's general elec-tion, AAPI voters - the fastest-growing demographic nation-ally and in the state of Georgia- helped swing Georgia forDemocrats for the first time inmore than 25 years.

IMPACT's new Georgia cam-paign follows its $10 millioncampaign in November fo-cused on targeting AsianAmerican voters in Pennsylva-nia and Arizona, the largest-ever effort to target SouthAsian voters.


NEW ENGLAND: Dr. ManjuSheth, Dr. Deepa Jhaveri, andShaleenSheth, the pioneers increating a new movement toempower women with the re-cent launch of their movement,"Women who win#Dreamcatchers" wereawarded the prestigious Lead-ership in Women Empower-ment Award by Indian MedicalAssociation of New England(IMANE) at the annual gala or-ganized virtually on Saturday,December 12, 2020.

Founded in 1978, IMANE isone of the oldest Indian Medi-cal Associations in the UnitedStates. It is an organization formedical professionals of Indianorigin in the New England area.

"Women who win#Dreamcatchers" is a GlobalMedia Platform sharingdreams, Passions & Life lessonsof a Woman's Journey, Empha-sizing women empowermentacross all ages, industries, andbackgrounds, & bringingwomen from around the worldtogether daily with inspiring,relatable, and relevant originalstories.

The platform was honoredfor "Leadership in Women Em-powerment" as the"President's Award." The plat-form has featured as exclusiveinterviews, skill shares,

webinars, podcasts, and moreincluding Business, Policy, Tech-nology, Social Activism, Arts &Lifestyle, Global Recipes,Women's Health and more withtrailblazing contributors acrossall fields.

"This year with the pan-demic and other challengesbeing faced in the world rightnow, women who win brings

positivity and inspiration, re-minding women to continuechasing their dreams and makeit a reality," said Dr. MajuSheththe visionary women's leader.

Women Who Win has doneoutstanding work for globalwomen's health and wellnessthrough weekly articles andwebinars, bringing togetherproviders and patients aroundthe world, and IMANE is ex-cited to have collaboratedwith them on webinars includ-ing an international podiatrypanel, and an open-mindedconversation on gynecology.

This year, they have broughtexpertise from renowned spe-

cialists in topics such as aller-gies, nutrition and wellness,pulmonary, dental care duringCovid-19 and more. Further,they highlighted the discus-sion in healthcare policy, in-cluding gender gap inhealthcare, affordablehealthcare, and creatingchange with leading health re-form pioneer Rosemarie Day.

They have also brought in thepatient's perspective, sharingwomen in our community'spowerful journeys with breastand colon cancer.

In her address, Dr. DhrumilShah, President of IMANE, said,"The work of a small group ofthoughtful and passionate in-dividuals can change theworld. I never doubted thissentiment but, there is a differ-ence in believing it and experi-encing it first-hand. This yearthe work of three women inour community, two of thembeing IMANE (Indian MedicalAssociation leaders] Dr. ManjuSheth, Dr. Deepa Jhaveri, and

ShaleenSheth, have done ex-traordinary work to empowerwomen globally in these toughtimes."

From the stories of social ac-tivists fighting to end gender-based violence and the life of afemale pilot flying planes forhumanity, to a woman building2200 schools for girls in remoteareas, trailblazing millennials,and women overcoming adver-sities and challenges of dailylife, the platform has somethingfor everyone.

Dr. Manju Sheth is a physi-cian by profession, having apassion for media and commit-ment to serve the larger hu-manity, with special focus onwomen's empowerment. She isa Board Certified Internist, cur-rently serving patients at Beth

Israel Lahey Hospital in theBoston Region in Massachu-setts.

Dr. Sheth wears many hatsto her credit. A multi-taskerand with full of energy, hasbeen a big advocate for em-powerment of women and shehas invested her time, energyand efforts all her life morethan any other cause. She said"I always remind myself, thatanything worth having has tobe worked for."

To join a global group ofwomen around the world toshare stories and discussprominent and relevantwomen's topics, join their vi-brant community onFacebook,Instagram,Linkedin&website www.women-whowin100.com

Founded in 1978, IMANE is one of the oldest

Indian Medical Associations in the United States.

It is an organization for medical professionals of

Indian origin in the New England area

Health Line


One can be said to be perfectly healthy in body and mind only if no part of the body or mind makes itself felt. A partmakes itself felt only when there is something wrong with it. You know that you have a head only when it aches.

Sri Atmananda (1883 - 1959)

China's Covid vaccine iscaught in controversy

SPS PANNU

NEW DELHI: China has beenprojecting itself as the front-runner in the Covid vaccinerace but has now gone in for adeal to buy the Pfizer BioNtechvaccine from Germany for itsown use which shows that thedragon is not as confident in itshome-made product as itwould have others believe.

Beijing had launched aggres-sive vaccine diplomacy to wooASEAN, Brazil and Mexico aspart of its campaign to increaseits influence worldwide. How-ever, countries in the ASEANbloc have turned away from theoffer and signed deals for thePfizer vaccine instead sincethere is no transparency in thedevelopment of the Chinesevaccine as is the case with muchelse in the country. ASEANmembers Thailand, the Philip-pines and Malaysia have final-ized deals for procuring COVID-19 vaccines from US pharma gi-ant Pfizer and Britain'sAstraZeneca which also has a

collaboration with Pune-basedSerum Institute of India. Braziland Taiwan have also raisedquestions over the Chinesevaccine candidates.

The fact that China is nowsourcing 100 million doses ofthe Covid-19 vaccine from Ger-

man company BioNtech for itsown use only goes tostrengthen the doubts ofthese countries over the Chi-nese vaccine candidates.

Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceu-

tical Group of China said onWednesday that its subsidiaryhas entered into an agreementwith the German firm aimed atensuring "an adequate supply"of vaccines in China. The com-pany will make an initial pay-ment $152 million this month

for 50 million doses while an-other $152 million would bepaid after receiving authoriza-tion to commercialize the Ger-man vaccine in Mainland China.

China's vaccine has also

been questioned in Brazilwhere it is undergoing trials.Brazilian health regulatorAnvisa had said on Mondaythat the Chinese health au-thorities had not been trans-parent about their experimen-tal Covid-19 vaccines, one ofwhich is currently beingtested in Sao Paulo.

The health regulatorpointed out that while the vac-cine has had an emergency useauthorization in China sinceJune, the country's authoritieshave not been transparentabout the criteria used forgranting this authorization.

Doubts over the Chinesevaccine were earlier raisedwhen Taiwan made it very clearthat it would not buy COVIDvaccines manufactured bymainland companies due tosafety and regulatory concerns.

According to reports in Tai-wanese media, Chen Shih-Chung, head of the Central Epi-demic Command Center, saidthe reasons for the decision

include the questionablequality of Chinese vaccines andproduction processes, whichhave both been a source ofsafety concerns. He had de-nied allegations that Taiwanwas putting ideology beforepublic health by not seekingChinese vaccines.

Chou Jih-haw, who sits onTaiwan's coronavirus task force,added that China is infamousfor its inoculation history offlawed vaccine managementand administration. Scandalshave surfaced in China overthe years, including over theuse of expired polio vaccinesin 2019. IANS

US Covid deaths top 310,000: Johns Hopkins UniversityNEW YORK: US Covid-19

deaths surpassed 310,000 on17 December, according tothe Center for Systems Sci-ence and Engineering (CSSE)at Johns Hopkins University.

With the national case counttopping 17.1 million, the deathtoll across the US amounted to310,095 as of 5.26 p.m. localtime (2226 GMT), according tothe CSSE data, Xinhua newsagency reported.

New York State registered36,052 fatalities, at the top of

with the world's highestcaseload and death toll, ac-counting for more than 18per cent of the global deaths.

US Covid-19 deathssoared above 300,000 onDecember 14, and added10,000 in just three days.

On Wednesday 16 Decem-ber, the country reported3,656 deaths, the highestsingle-day rise in death tollsince the pandemic began,according to data compiledby the university. IANS

the US state-level death toll list.Texas recorded the second mostdeaths, which stood at 24,932. Thestates of California, Florida andNew Jersey all confirmed morethan 18,000 deaths, the CSSE tally

showed. States with more than10,000 fatalities also include Illi-nois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Mas-sachusetts and Georgia.

The US remains the nationhit the worst by the pandemic,

US experts debate:Who should be nextin line for vaccine?

NEW YORK: The US COVID-19vaccination campaign has be-gun, and the few availabledoses are mostly going into thearms of health-care workers andnursing home residents.

But what about in January,February and March, whenmore shots are expected to be-come available? Who should getthose doses? A federal panel ofvaccination experts takes upthat question at an emergencymeeting this weekend.

No matter what the com-mittee decides, there will bedifferences from state to state.

The panelists are leaning to-ward putting essential workersfirst because bus drivers, gro-cery store clerks and similar em-ployees can't work from home.They are the people getting in-fected most often, and whereconcerns about racial inequitiesin risk are most apparent.

But other experts saypeople age 65 and oldershould be next, along withpeople with certain medicalconditions. Those are thepeople who are dying at thehighest rates, they say.

The group is scheduled tovote on the proposal soon af-ter it discusses a vaccine madeby Moderna.

I think we know this isn't go-ing to be perfect. We don'thave vaccine for everyoneright away, so we're going tohave to make difficult deci-sions, said Claire Hannan AP

India PostWellness Post 27December 25, 2020

www.indiapost.com

Health of fathers-to-be is linkedto risk of pregnancy loss

WASHINGTON: The findings of a new study suggestthat more than a quarter of pregnancies might be ec-topic or end in miscarriage or stillbirth if the father-to-be is unhealthy and has three or more medical con-ditions such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressureor high cholesterol levels.

In a retrospective study of nearly a mil-lion pregnancies between 2009 and2016 in the US, published today in thejournal Human Reproduction, re-searchers found that if the fatherwas diagnosed with metabolic syn-drome, which includes these medi-cal conditions, there was an in-creased risk of the mother losing thepregnancy. Compared to men whohad none of the components of meta-bolic syndrome, the risk of pregnancy lossincreased by 10%, 15% and 19% respectivelyfor men with one, two or three or more components.

Associate Professor Michael Eisenberg fromStanford University School of Medicine (California,USA), who led the research, said: "It's been known forsome time that the health of mothers has an impacton the developing fetus and events at the time of

birth. This is the first study to suggest that pregnan-cies sired by men with increasing numbers of medicalconditions are at higher risk of ending in miscarriage,ectopic pregnancy or stillbirth.

"In the group of men we studied, the risk of losingthe pregnancy was 17% in couples where the

father had no components of the meta-bolic syndrome but increased to 21% in

couples where the father has onemetabolic syndrome component,23% where he has two, and 27%where he has three or more.

"While this study cannot provethat poor paternal health is a cause

of pregnancy loss, it shows there is anassociation. The clinical implications of

these findings are that pre-conceptioncounseling should not forget the father, as

his health may have an important impact on thepregnancy."

The researchers analyzed data from US insuranceclaims covering 958,804 pregnancies. As well as meta-bolic syndrome, they gathered information on othermedical conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmo-nary disease (COPD), depression and heart disease. ANI

Trump stays on sidelines asvaccine injections begin

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump's admin-istration helped deliver vaccinations against thecoronavirus earlier than even some in his adminis-tration thought possible, but the president hasbeen largely absent from the effort to sell theAmerican public on what aides hope will be a keypart of his legacy.

Trump launched Operation Warp Speed the gov-ernment campaign to help swiftly develop and dis-tribute vaccines this springwith great fanfare in theWhite House Rose Garden.

But now, five days intothe largest vaccinationcampaign in the nation'shistory, Trump has held nopublic events to trumpetthe rollout. He hasn't beeninoculated himself. He hastweeted only twice aboutthe shot.

Vice President Mike Pence, meanwhile, has takencenter stage touring a vaccine production facilitythis week and preparing to receive a dose himselfon live television. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi andSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both saidthey will get vaccinated in the next few days. AP

Donald Trump

Realty Tidbits Real Estatewww.indiapost.comIndia Post December 25, 202028 Details on page25

Airbnb co-founder donates $25mn tocurb homelessness in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO: San Fran-cisco Mayor London Breed hasannounced a $25 million dona-tion from Airbnb co-FounderJoe Gebbia to tacklehomelessness in the US cityand support families and indi-viduals facing economic hard-ship due to the raging Covid-19 pandemic.

The donation was made tothe 'Rising Up' campaign, a pub-lic-private partnership launchedby Breed with the goal of raising$35 million to reduce youthhomelessness in San Franciscoby 50 per cent by 2023.

To date the organization hasraised $17 million in privateand public donations.

Gebbia's donation will helpthe organization get closer toits $35 million funding goal anddirectly support Rising Up'spartnership with Larkin StreetYouth Services to cover rentsubsidies, education and em-ployment services, and staff-ing to help young people ex-periencing homelessness de-velop self-sufficiency.

"As we recover from thispandemic, we have an oppor-tunity to lift thousands of

London Breed, Mayor of San Franscisco announces Airbnb co-founder Gebbia's $25M donation. (Photo/IANS)

people out of homelessnessand change lives, but the Citycan't do this alone," Xinhuanews agency quoted Breed assaying in her announcementon 16 December.

"We need the partnership oforganizations like Larkin StreetYouth and All Home, as well asthe support of our philanthropiccommunity," she added.

In a statement, Gebbia, who

is also the chief product officerof Airbnb, said: "The Covid-19pandemic has exacerbated theneeds of our communities andit's incumbent on all of us to doour part to help.

"I am proud to support thework Rising Up-Larkin StreetYouth Services and All Homeare doing to improve the livesof so many during these diffi-cult times."

Gebbia's donation will alsoamplify All Home's work at atime when the San Franciscocommunity needs it most.

As rent bills pile up, AllHome will launch a first of itskind regional homelessnessprevention system to reducethe number of people becom-ing unsheltered in the BayArea, according to the an-nouncement. IANS

Trump's move tohis Florida estatechallenged

FORT LAUDERDALE: Presi-dent Donald Trump's expectedmove to his Mar-a-Lago club af-ter he leaves office next monthis being challenged by a law-yer who says a 1990s agree-ment allowing Trump to con-vert the Florida property into abusiness prohibits anyonefrom living there, includinghim.

Attorney ReginaldStambaugh sent a letter thisweek to the Town of PalmBeach saying he represents aneighbor who doesn't wantthe president to take up resi-dence at the 17-acre propertybecause it would decrease thearea's property values.

He also asserts that a micro-wave security barrier operatedby the Secret Service is harm-ing his client, who he says isexhibiting symptoms of micro-wave exposure. He did notgive the client's name.

The president and first ladyMelania Trump changed their le-gal residence from New YorkCity to Palm Beach last year.Stambaugh says that violates the1993 agreement betweenTrump and the town that al-lowed him to turn Mar-a-Lagofrom a private home into a clubthat has 10 guest rooms for rent.

The agreement says onlymembers can stay overnightand for no more than 21 daysper year, divided into threeone-week stays that cannot runconsecutively.

The question is whetherTrump is a club member andcovered by those rules.Stambaugh believes he is andcomments Trump's lawyermade in 1993 back that up.

In order to avoid an embar-rassing situation for everyoneand to give the President timeto make other living arrange-ments in the area, we trust youwill work with his team to re-mind them of the agreement,Stambaugh wrote.

Palm Beach has many lovelyestates for sale and surely hecan find one that meets hisneeds. He did not immediatelyrespond to a call and emailseeking further comment. AP

Will property prices crash in India due to the Coronavirus outbreak?SUNITA MISHRA

If a demand slowdown hasbeen keeping pricegrowth in India's residen-

tial real estate market incheck, the Coronavirus pan-demic, which threatens todrastically impact global eco-nomic growth would wipe offany chances of value appre-ciation in the property mar-ket. In the near future, ex-

pecting price appreciationwould be nothing but wishfulthinking.

Sample this.On Knight Frank's global

house price index, whichtracks the movement in main-stream residential pricesacross 56 countries and terri-tories worldwide, Indiaslipped seven spots to rank

54th in the July-Septemberperiod of 2020 against 47thrank in the same period lastyear, with a decline of 2.4%year-on-year in propertyprices. Compared to the pre-vious quarter, however, thecountry's the ranking re-mained unchanged, at 54th.The report points out that In-dia was among the countries

that saw the weakest pricegrowth, year-on-year.

PropTiger.com numbersalso indicate the nine majorresidential markets in Indiaregistered only negligibleprice growth in the past halfa decade amid consumersentiment hitting a new low.

Cont’d on page 25

Griha pravesh tips for your newhouse, this festive season

29India PostDecember 25, 2020

www.indiapost.com

Real Estate Post

Griha pravesh tips for your newhouse, this festive season

PURNIMA GOSWAMI SHARMA

While there has not been any significant up-ward or downward movement in terms of pric-ing, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad's real estatemarkets have seen some appreciation over time.In the MMR, where property prices are alreadymuch higher than the national average, pricegrowth has been quite slow. Only the housingmarkets in the National Capital Region have un-dergone some correction. Elsewhere, thegrowth has been largely insignificant.

According to a recently-unveiled report byinternational property consultancy KnightFrank, the top six housing markets in India un-derwent a price correction in the range of 2%-7% during the July-September period in 2020.

A poll conducted by Reuters also shows aver-age house price is expected to fall 6% this yearand 3% in 2021. The poll, in which 15 analystsparticipated between September 16-28,2020, aregion-wise house prices decline of 7.5%, 7.0%,5.0% and 3.5%was also predicted for Mumbai,Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru, respectively.

As for the future, the effects of the pandemic,say some experts, would result in propertyprices dropping by at least 10%.

"Prices in most markets have held steady,despite the lending and shadow banking crises.They may come down by 10%-20% across ge-ographies, while land prices could see an evenhigher reduction of 30%," Pankaj Kapoor, chiefexecutive of real estate consultancy firm LiasesForas was quoted as saying.

According to HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh,developers should be prepared for up to a 20%fall in housing prices.

Some, however, beg to differ from the likesof Kapoor and Parekh. This segment is of theopinion that those expecting any reduction inproperty prices, in the medium to long term,might be disappointed as property values, ifanything, are likely to show an upward move-ment in the post-Coronavirus world, based onseveral factors.

Why property prices in India might not dropafter COVID-19?

The developer community in India has beenin a tizzy after union minister of commerce andindustry Piyush Goyal on June 3, 2020, saidbuilders needed to sell housing projects at re-duced prices and let go of the high-priced un-sold stock. In a terse message to the commu-nity, the minister said the government mightoffer some concession in circle rates, to lowertheir burden but they must be more forthcom-ing in reducing prices. www.housing.com

Will property pricescrash in India due to theCoronavirus outbreak?Cont’d from page 24


Indians are generally particular about shubhmuhurats, when it comes to buying a property orshifting to a new house. They believe that perform-

ing a griha pravesh ceremony on an auspicious daywill bring them good fortune.

A griha pravesh ceremony is performed, when oneenters a new home for the first time. "It is important, notjust for the owner but also for the entire family," saysMumbai-based Jayshree Dhamani, a Vastu Shastra andastrology expert. According to Vastu, a house is made upof five elements - the sun, earth, water, fire and wind andthe proper alignment of these elements in a house,brings happiness, good health and prosperity.

"It is believed that entering a home during an aus-picious time, makes life easy and there will be mini-mum struggle for the family, after moving into thenew house. Days that are most favorable for such

muhurats are Vasant Panchami, Akshaya Tritiya, GudiPadwa, Dussehra (also known as Vijayadashmi), whiledays like Uttarayana, Holi, Adhikmas and ShraddhaPaksha are to be avoided," adds Dhamani.

A house warming performed on Dussehra does noteven require an auspicious time, as every moment ofthis day is considered auspicious. Before the grihapravesh, a kalash pooja is usually performed.

For this ritual, a copper pot is filled with water andnine types of grains and a coin are placed in it. A coco-nut is placed on the pot and one enters the house withit, accompanied by the chanting of mantras by a priest.

Dos and don'ts for performing a Griha PraveshThe griha pravesh should be done, only when the

new house is ready for the family to shift into it andreside. "The house should be fully done up. It shouldbe freshly painted and the roof should be ready (if it isan independent house). The doors, windows and otherfittings too, should be complete," says Nitien Parmar,a Vastu consultant of Vastu Plus.

"The Vastu Purush and other deities are wor-shipped. The main door, which is the entry point forprosperity and good vibes into the house, has to be

decorated with auspicious symbols like a swastika andLakshmi feet, drawn on the threshold. A toran (origi-nating from the Sanskrit word 'torana', meaning thesacred gateway), which is made of fresh mango leavesand marigold flowers, should be hung on the door-way. The temple in the house should be in the north-east zone and should be fixed on day of the housewarming," advises Parmar.

The griha pravesh ceremony can be simple or elabo-rate, depending upon the homeowner. Usually, a havanis conducted, to purify the space cleanse it of negativeforces. A Ganesh puja, Navagraha Shanti, which meansworship of the nine planets and a Vastu puja, are gener-ally performed. One should also serve food to thepriests and family and friends, who are invited on thisday. Once the house warming ceremony has been per-formed, the owners can then move into the new house.

Tips for the Griha Praveshof your new home

Always do the grihapravesh on an auspiciousday. The idols should beplaced in an east-facing di-rection of the house.

Thoroughly clean thehouse before the puja. Mopthe floor with salt water, tocleanse and purify the place.You can also wash it with amixture of salt, lime juice andwhite vinegar.

While entering the house,always put your right footfirst.

The main door should be decorated, as it is calledas Simha Dwara and is the face of the Vastu Purush.Decorate the door with mango leaves and fresh flow-ers. It should have a swastika, go-padma, lotus, or anyother spiritual symbol at both the ends.

Adorn the floor with rangoli made of rice flour orvibrant colors. Rangolis on the floor are believed toinvite goddesses Lakshmi. A havan (herbs and woodput in fire) is said to purify the space and cleanse thesurroundings. If possible, have house warming partieswith only near and dear ones, as inviting too manypeople may bring in negative energy, which mighthamper the well-being of the residents.

Things to do before a Griha PraveshChoose the auspicious dateWhile the festive season brings many auspicious

dates, which are suitable for a Griha Pravesh, you cancheck the best house-warming dates 2020. Dussehraand Diwali are considered very lucky for the GrihaPravesh and you can conduct a puja after consulting apriest. www.housing.com


December 25, 2020www.indiapost.com30 India Post

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Chronicling the inspirational journey of her upcoming sports drama

'Rashmi Rocket' and being activein sports from school days, actorTaapsee Pannu dropped a videoto share her entire journey oftransformation in achieving theperfect athletic body naturally.

The actor also talked about herbody transformation and saidthat she wanted to transformher body in a real believableway. Pannu's trainers alsosaid that the actor has usedall-natural supplementsand homemade meals forthe body transformation.

The 'Naam Shabana' starcaptioned the video as, "Coz or-dinary people are meant to doextra ordinarythings...(khudi ko karbuland itana ki hartaqadeer sepehle, khudabande sekhud puchhebata tereeraza kyahai."

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Bollywood GenNext star Sara AliKhan is happy with the way her

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Bollywood actor-producer Ajay Devgan haspurchased the Hindi remake rights of2019 Telugu crime comedy Brochevarevarura.

Ajay will produce the Hindi remake.Trade analyst Ramesh Bala con-

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He will produce it with others

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The Telugu original was

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starred actors Sree Vishnu,

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Pethuraj, Satyadev

Kancharana, Priyadarshi

Pullikonda and Rahul

Ramakrishna in key roles.

The Hindi remake backed by

Devgan will reportedly star Abhay

Deol and Karan Deol. It is not yet known

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Meanwhile, Devgan's upcoming film

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2021, on the occasion of Dussehra. IANS

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Horoscope

Kindly read the predictions from your ascendant sign. If you do not know your ascendant sign then read thesame from Moon sign. If Moon sign is also not known then read it from the Zodiac sign. The ascendant sign which is

calculated from the birth details viz. date, month, year, time & place of birth gives 85 % accurate predictions. Theaccuracy of predictions from Moon sign get limited to only 50 %. The predictions from Zodiac sign are only 25 %

accurate. In nutshell the predictions from ascendant sign are most accurate. In getting personality analysis the traitsgiven by ascendant sign are 100 % accurate and that is the essence of Vedic Astrology.

Your Weekly Futureby VANEET SHARMA

MAR 21 to APRIL 20 JUN 21 to JULY 22 SEP 23 to OCT 22 DEC 22 to JAN 19

MAY 21 to JUN 20 AUG 23 to SEP 22 NOV 23 to DEC 21 FEB 20 to MAR 20

APRIL 21 to MAY 20 JULY 23 to AUG 22 OCT 23 to NOV 22 JAN 20 to FEB 19

DEC 25TH to DEC 31ST 2020

“Felicitated and

honored by then

President of India Shri

Pranab Mukherjee"

VANEETSHARMA

510-648-4899

You shall not begetting good

results in terms ofhealth of family mem-bers and even there

shall be lack of harmony among them inthe starting of the week however you shallbe putting lot of your energies to settlethe issues. Up to a great extent you shallbe able to do justice in addressing thesematters. You shall be doing lot of planningto consolidate your resources of financialarrangement and your main focus shall beto create a strong source of income.

This shall prove to be excellent for all areas

of life specifically withthe support of spouse,friends, relatives, part-

ners and your intelligence in handlingadministrative activities shall be appre-ciated and you would be pleased with thebeneficial results that you shall be get-ting for the tasks undertaken. The only is-sue can remain there that of health andhappiness on 26th and 27th of the week.You are advised not to take any impor-tant decisions on these two days.

This shall also beone of the

brightest and luckiestweeks for you as yourwork and education

shall be admired and appreciated forsure. In the beginning of the week somegood news about work progress andchildren's result shall pour in. Specula-tive activities shall prove fruitful. Lovelife shall be at its best. You shall enjoygreat conjugal compatibility with yourpartner.

The planetary tran-sit indicates

that health problemsshall get aggravated.In the mid of the week

that is after 26th December you shallstart getting favorable results in all ar-eas. Health shall get recovered fully. Youmight go on journey and social reputa-tion and work position shall also improvesuddenly as the good news of yourprogress shall pour in. The financial prob-lems shall get rectified.

The initial threedays of the

week are indicatingdecent financial gains.On 26th and 27th you

might remain slightly disturbed how-ever you shall feel better if you happento go out on a journey. The day of 28thand 29th are good for the restoration ofyour confidence and happiness. You shalllook after your health and this is also agreat time to seek the blessings of yourmother.

The planetary tran-sit indicates

that this is going to beone of the best weeksof the year for you.

There shall be an atmosphere of celebra-tion everywhere you shall be going. Thefamily atmosphere shall be full of love,laughter, peace and happiness. Friendsand relatives shall appreciate you for yourachievements. You are going to get com-plete favor of destiny and you can takeany important decision regarding ar-rangement of funds.

In the beginning ofthe week you

shouldn't be takingany important decisionhowever after 25th of

December you can specifically makesome plans regarding education, loverelationship, children and speculativeactivities. After the mid of the week youshall do better in the field of competi-tion. Health conditions shall remain av-erage in this week and there shall bebetterment in marital bliss on the lasttwo days of the week.

In the beginning ofthe week you

shall be spendinggood time with yourfamily and the support

of your spouse shall help you improve thefamily atmosphere. The financial issuesshall also get addressed properly. In spiteof busy schedule because of some prob-lems related to health and finance youshall not fail in maintaining the pace ofprogress at work. The social life and chil-dren related plans shall be successful.

This week shallprove highly

auspicious for all areasof life specifically yourfinancial position shall

remain perfect. If you wish to get rid ofyour mental tensions then don't keepanything pending. Accomplish all tasksat right time and do not postpone anywork but you are advised not to takeany important decision on 28th and29th of December as these two daysare not auspicious for your health andhappiness.

This week shall beone of the

brightest weeks of thismonth for you as youshall be getting suc-

cess at every step in the beginning ofthe week. In the mid of the week yourwork situation shall improve and youshall be earning more gains with in-crease in income. Although there shallremain ups and downs in financial mat-ters but you shall remain satisfied withthe inflow of money. Last two days aregood for going on journeys.

The planetary transit indicates

that from the begin-ning of this week youshall be putting in lot

of efforts to do well at work place so thatyou succeed in getting a solution for theproblems that are following you from along time. You shall succeed in doing sothe only hitch is lack of focus therefore ifyou shall work with a focused approachthe success shall come easily as your ad-versaries and competitors are alreadynot as competent as you are.

The beginning ofthe week is not

good for your state ofmind therefore skiptaking important deci-

sions on initial three days of the week.From the late evening of 25th you shallfeel better and then you can think ofstarting any important task. You shall befocused for your activities like education,love life, children's future. Stay away fromspeculative activities. The last four daysof the week are comparatively better foryour family life.

'Let one without sincast the first stone'

Jesus Christ

"What did you expect, a giantwho comes down on a chariot offire?" said Jesus

50 SPIRITUAL APPETIZERSVinod Dhawan

“It’s a lovely book. It feels en-

ergetically clear and light. It’s

easy to read, dip in and out and

most importantly it offers infor-

mation without fluff! Blessings

on this project.”Jac O’Keeffe

Spirituality teacher based inUSA.

Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal to the author

Philosophy

Available on AMAZON, FLIPKART Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal to the author

DEEPAK CHOPRA

Each man had picked up a stone, andthey would have assaulted her

then and there. Mary couldn't look atthem; she sank down on the ground,numb and shivering.

"What are you doing brothers?"Heads turned and Mary couldn't help

but look up. The sight of Jesus brought noflicker of recognition in her.

"We're exacting justice," an elder toldthe stranger.

"Why?""She was found committing adultery.

Her sin was still warm on her flesh." The el-der eyed Jesus warily.

"The rabbi gave us permission" some-one shouted from the crowd which was alie in hopes of making the stranger thinktwice.

"But the rabbi isn't here" Jesus pointedout. He kept his gaze on the men and awayfrom Mary. "Why is that?"

When nobody answered, Jesus said"Could it be because killing is also a sin? Iam among Jews, aren't I?"

"Go away. We're in the right" someoneelse called out.

"If you are, let me find you a biggerstone." Jesus reached down and picked upa jagged rock twice as large as his hand."As long as one of you is without sin lethim cast the first stone. He has nothing tofear from the Father. Our God only pun-ishes the guilty."

He held the rock up. "Well?"The men glanced at each other ner-

vously. Jesus dropped the stone from hishand; it clattered loudly on the pile thathad been gathered for the execution.

"I will make a bargain with you," Jesussaid. He walked over and stooped downtaking Mary by the hand. He lifted her toher feet. "This woman will sin no more. Ifany of you see even the slightest blemishin her from this day on, I will come andlead the punishment."

Shame had replaced much of the mob'sanger but there were mutters now. "Youcan't promise such a thing," the elder de-clared.

"I promise it not only for her but all of

you. Isn't it written that someone willcome to take away your sins? It may betime to believe it."

The mob buzzed. "How can you claim tobe the messiah?" the elder said suspiciously.

"What did you expect, a giant whocomes down on a chariot of fire?" saidJesus. "So did I, once."

Mary stared at him with the same be-wilderment Judas had. She tried to pullaway. Jesus whispered in her ear. "Youwanted to possess me with your love.Don't you remember?" She began totremble.

"What are you to this whore?" the elderdemanded. "She has a husband. Shegreatly offended him."

"I am her soul's husband and I amnever offended," said Jesus.

Leading Mary through the crowd, Jesuslooked right and left. "I bring good newsfrom God, enough to fill the world. First Imust take this woman to be purified."

Mary was in a daze, aware only that

they were not being followed. A few min-utes later she passed Jacob the weaver'shouse which was shuttered and bolted.Jesus saw her eyeing it.

He said "Leave that life behind. TheLord has prepared the way before me."

This wasn't enough to calm her heart,and soon they were away from the town.A stream ran by the side of the road; shecould wash away the dust and tears fromher face. When she knelt by the water andsplashed her face, more than dust andtears came away. Around her reflectionshone brilliance like the sun at noon, andJesus's hand was poised over her.

Excerpted from the novel 'Jesus'

34 OP-EDwww.indiapost.com

December 25, 2020India Post

The Wall Street Journal and RahulGandhi should apologize: VHP

VINOD BANSAL

National Spokesperson

Vishva Hindu Parishad

The Vishva Hindu Parishadtoday said that Rahul Gandhi's con-

spiracy to defame Bajrang Dal, undercover of false accusations published inthe Wall Street Journal, has exposed hismind set. VHP Secretary General ShriMilind Parande today said that a na-tionalist organization like the BajrangDal is evidently poking in the eyes ofRahul Gandhi, who has proactivelybeen standing by and standing up withlots of anti-national elements, includingthe pro-China and pro-Pakistan Tukde-Tukde gang, the anti-CAA hordes andhooligans and the Delhi rioters advo-cating their unconstitutional and anti-national stances. His affiliation and rap-port with China is well known. Hewould believe in an American newspa-per but, not in a Pan-Bharat nationalist

youth organization!The VHP Secretary General also

asked the Wall Street Journal to apolo-gize for its false reporting. He said thatthe WSJ tried to target and discreditBharat under the pretext of maligningBajrang Dal, is totally unacceptable.

He said that the earlier media re-ports, quoted from the Wiki-Leaks,make it clear that Mrs Sonia Gandhi hadalso been hatching quite a lot of con-spiracies to ban the Bajrang Dal, but shecould not succeed. Incidentally, theFace-book has clarified that there is noreason to block Bajrang Dal onFacebook. This reflects their hostile anti-Hindu mindset. Sri Parande said thatnow Rahul Gandhi and the Wall StreetJournal should apologize to the BajrangDal and the Hindu society that forms 1/6th of the global population.

Disclaimer: Views expressed arepersonal to the author

Pakistan should be compelled to apologizeto Bangladesh for 1971 genocide

FARABI BIN ZAHIR

For India, April 13, 1919, is a scandalous day in the history of British imperialism. A British army of-

ficer had ordered the firing on unarmedprotesters in Amritsar, Punjab. The inci-dent killed many people, which isknown as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Historically, Amritsar is a holy city ofthe Sikh community. The Golden Templeof the Sikhs is located here not far fromJallianwala Bagh.

Jallianwala Bagh massacreIn 1919, the city was in the midst of a

bitter dispute between Indian Indepen-dence leaders and the British rulers.Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, a se-nior British army officer, was informedon April 13 that people were gatheringin Jallianwala Bagh to protest. He headedthere immediately with a squad of sol-diers to deal with the situation. Not onlythat, he promptly forbade any kind of as-sembly in the city. However, many peoplewere not aware of this decision and theycame to Jallianwala Bagh on that day tojoin the protest against the deportation oftwo freedom fighters, Satyapal andSaifuddin Kitchlew. Several Sikh pilgrimswere also present to celebrate the impor-

tant Indian festival of Vaisakhi.Colonel Reginald Dyer besieged

Jallianwala Bagh with Sikh, Rajput,Gorkha, and Baloch army troops andthey blocked all the entrances. Then heordered indiscriminate firing on thecrowd that included women and chil-dren, without warning anyone and with-out giving them a chance to flee.

Sergeant William Anderson servedunder Brigadier Dyer. Later, he wroteabout the incident, "When the shootingbegan, people started lying on theground. By climbing high walls, sometried to flee. I was not afraid of themthreatening us."

There are numerous claims about thenumber of people in Jallianwala Baghthat day. Later, the British governmentconducted an inquiry into the killingsand prepared a report that placed thedeath toll at 379. However, in India's in-vestigation, the figure was around1,000. It is worth mentioning that inprotest against this massacre of inno-cent people, Rabindranath Tagore, thegreat Indian poet and philosopher, re-linquished his knighthood awarded bythe British government. South AsiaMonitor

Disclaimer: Views expressed are personal to the author

35OP-EDwww.indiapost.com

December 25, 2020 India Post

Biden's Asia policy: Will India be able tocultivate its proximity with Washington?

AMB AMIT DASGUPTA (RETD)

Joe Biden will be the 46thUS president. But his coming four years in office are

likely to be turbulent. Noformer US president has facedsuch a situation. That, in itself,would be a major part ofBiden's legacy.

An array of domestic issuesand serious external chal-lenges will preoccupy theBiden Administration along-side a strident and combativepredecessor, who has the time,the energy, the money and,more importantly, the supportof around 74 million Ameri-cans. This is, assuredly, a com-plex and divisive terrain tonavigate.

To Biden's credit, he has, sofar, maintained his composureand refrained from being

drawn into a slugfest withPresident Donald Trump. Hehas focused on the job at handand carefully gone about pick-ing his cabinet colleagues andkey advisors. But, he is alsoacutely mindful that Trump isthe last person to simply fadeaway and would do everythingin his power to discredit the

Biden presidency.

A divided AmericaDespite confirmation of

Biden's victory by the ElectoralCollege, allegations of elec-toral fraud are not likely tocease but they are the least of

Biden's worries. The courtshave already rejected allega-tions by Trump and his support-ers that the elections were 'far-cical,' 'rigged' or 'stolen'. Inter-estingly, Rudi Giuliani, Trump'spersonal attorney, went a dra-matic step further alleging aGeorge Soros-Venezuelan con-spiracy to tamper with electionsoftware and thereby hand theelection to Biden.

Biden is aware that Trumpcontinues to enjoy the supportof those who voted for him, in-

cluding evangelicals, whofirmly believe he is chosen byGod to lead America. For them,his departure from the WhiteHouse is the result of a sinisterand deep-rooted satanic con-spiracy.

Biden knows that what hefaces are sharply dividedAmericans in a nation that is

fractured and has lost faith initself. A prevailing sense ofhate, fear, and gloom appearsto have enveloped Americans.According to a study, 66 per-cent of Americans believe theUS is in decline; 82 percent ofBiden supporters believeTrump is taking the US to a dic-tatorship; while 92 percent ofTrump voters believe Bidenwill convert the US into a so-cialist and left-leaning country.

American columnist DavidBrooks believes there is a politi-cal and cultural-divide civil warconfronting America. Winningthe trust of all Americans wouldbe his biggest challenge. Thisexplains why, starting from hisvictory speech, Biden repeat-edly emphasized that he andhis Administration would workfor all Americans. Inclusivenesswould be the defining charac-teristic of his presidency. Forthis to genuinely happen, Bidenneeds to emerge as the greathealer, who touches hearts andminds across the US.

This is easier said than done.For Trump, nothing would beoff the table and his singularfocus would be to discreditBiden and his Administration,even if this means launchingpersonal attacks. Biden is alsoaware that there are deep mis-giving and distrust amongTrump's supporters, as to whatBiden stands for and this isprecisely what Trump wouldexploit to his advantage.

The real problem thatBiden faces is that Trump andhis supporters genuinely be-lieve that Biden and theDemocrats are misleadingAmericans. Trump's support-ers endorse Trump's anti-im-migrant views to make Ameri-can great again. Building awall to keep Mexicans out, anexpanded role for homelandsecurity, tighter immigrationpolicies, including on H1B vi-sas, are all part of this grandscheme. South Asia Monitor

To Biden's credit, he has, so far, maintainedhis composure and refrained from being drawn

into a slugfest with President Donald Trump.He has focused on the job at hand and

carefully gone about picking his cabinetcolleagues and key advisors


INVEST IN INDIAGovernment of India's economic policy saw FII inflows of

$21 bn this year as a result of right set of monetary andliquidity infusion by Reserve Bank of India. Demand also saw astronger than expected increase despite the Pandemic. Thesensex hit a new high crossing 47k for the first time last week.These factors are mainly due to announcement of vaccine glo-bally, coupled with easing of interest rate and the decreasingmortality rate of Covid19.

Several investors including global leaders like Vedanta GroupChairman, Agarwal, who is planning to invest US $ 10bn, in part-nership with London-based Centricus Asset Management, inIndia. His major USP has been turn around of loss-making PublicSector Units into Private-Sector Companies. In retail sector Mu-tual Funds are also showing signs of maturity. Most of them re-invested into short-term debt funds, which are comparativelyless volatile than equities. Government is also considering alloptions including setting up of a 'bad-bank', to help nurse thehealth of banking sector, said Mr. Tarun Bajaj, DEA, Secretary at arecent panel discussion held at CII partnership summit. Theidea of setting up of bad-bank is to buy back bad loans of abank or financial entity by helping them clean up their balancesheet and get on with the task of lending.

Other areas the Indian government needs reform urgentlyis to exit from competing with private industry like hotels, air-lines, retail industry and several Small and Medium industries.Why is once profit making Air India in deep red today? It is alldue to mismanagement by the government. How can a pri-vately owned entity compete with government that can in-fuse unlimited public funds? Be it banking or other industriesmentioned above. A Government's main job must be left toadminister and introduce policies to generate growth thatcreate jobs and development. An excellent example beingthe new farm policy the government took with bold initiativescutting across all political adversaries. This is the best thingIndia has done since its Independence.

Farmers are being misled by vested interest for the last 70years by successive governments. Now, finally they have a chanceto better their livelihood and may be double their income. Natu-rally the middleman and vested groups do not want this to hap-pen, as one can see from the protest across India. The danger, ifthe government backs down in implementing the new farmpolicy, it could push India back by 30 years. India's GDP growthwill mainly depend on increasing farm income and moderniza-tion, as 60% of India's work force lives in rural areas and mainlyconsists of subsistence farmers. Government must work hard toensure this golden opportunity is not lost.

Government policies on skill development too need a com-plete revamp. Its attempts to promote and improve workforce skilling, has not shown any major improvement asclaimed by the authorities. This again is a key area requiringserious intervention,to infuse growth and provide muchneeded quality skill force for the industry. It could considerintroducing skill-training starting from school level and makeit mandatory for every graduating student to train in at leastone of the skills the country needs. That could well be themajor game changer for India.

India Postwww.indiapost.com

December 25, 202036

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December 25, 2020

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