Indian-Americans form third largest Asian population in US

Washington:  Indian-Americans numbering 3.34 million are the third largest Asian community in the US, after people from China and the Philippines, a report said.

The Indian-American population shot up 76 per cent in the first 12 years of the 21st century, a report on demographics of the Asian-American population released by the Center for American Progress said.

While the Chinese-Americans form the largest group of Asian-American population with 4.1 million (22 per cent), Filipino-Americans are placed second with 3.59 million (19 per cent) followed by Indian-Americans with 3.34 million (18 per cent).

Indian-Americans grew 76 per cent from 2000 to 2012, compared to Filipino-Americans who expanded by 52 per cent in the corresponding period.

The top six groups - Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese - account for 85 per cent of all Asian-American residents.

Japanese-Americans - who were once in the top two Asian-American communities - have seen a decline in population share.

They form the smallest of the top six groups.

"While this shows a fair amount of national origin concentration, it nevertheless represents a decline from 89 per cent for these top six groups in 2000, as smaller Asian American groups have grown disproportionately in the last decade," the report said.

As many as 56 per cent of the Asian-American population lives in the top five states of California, New York, Texas, New Jersey, and Hawaii.

The largest concentration of Indian-Americans is in three States - California (19 per cent), New York (12 per cent) and New Jersey (10 per cent). Hindus (51 per cent) are in majority among Indian-American, followed by Christians (18 per cent), Muslims (10 per cent), Sikhs (5 per cent), Jains (2 per cent) and Buddhists (1 per cent).

Some smaller groups such as Bangladeshi-Americans are growing at an exceptional rate - 177 per cent between 2000 and 2010. If this rate is maintained, it will have a large impact on the future diversity of the Asian-American community, the report, by Karthick Ramakrishnan and Farah Ahmad, said.

"Indeed, we might even see new forms of detailed origin identification. For example, it is possible that, as these South Asian populations grow and settle longer in the United States, we might see a new consolidated subgrouping of South Asians that is used fairly commonly among second-generation immigrants on many college campuses and increasingly among social service organisations," the report said.


 http://www.ndtv.com/article/diaspora/indian-americans-form-third-largest-asian-population-in-us-513152?pfrom=home-diaspora

Interfaith Relations

ISNA’s Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances (IOICA), located in Washington, DC, runs its community outreach and interfaith programs, strengthening ties with local grassroots organizations and engaging in joint initiatives with other mainstream religious organizations. These inter-religious projects have helped break down barriers of misunderstanding, form genuine partnerships of faith and ethics, and establish a platform to advocate for social justice issues for the common good.

IOICA also fosters strong relationships with U.S. congressional staff and federal government officials, serving as an outreach resource to the American Muslim community and promoting a positive image of Islam and Muslims to the nation’s political leaders.

http://www.isna.net/interfaith-relations.html

Modi: Stumbling on history

By Amulya Ganguli, IANS,
It is difficult to anticipate what may cause a politician to stumble. When Narendra Modi was chosen by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as its prime ministerial candidate, his only disadvantage was his anti-minority image. It isn't surprising, therefore, that he has been working overtime to refurbish his reputation in this respect - short of wearing a skull cap.
It is not known whether he has succeeded. But, in the meantime, he has been ambushed by a trait which cannot be easily rectified for it is a part of his personality and background. The characteristic is his inattention to historical details.
Whether born of carelessness in the drafting of his speeches, or the outcome of his school record as an "average" student, as one of his teachers in Vadnagar testified, the flaw can divert attention from his message. However impressive his oration may be, even one "slip of the tongue", as an acolyte has explained, can spoil the overall effect.
But the problem for the BJP, as is evident from the eagerness with which his supporters in the media and elsewhere are coming to his defence, is that his mistakes are piling up.
Modi's first blunder was understandable. The erroneous claim that Nehru did not attend Sardar Patel's funeral was palpably motivated by his zeal to paint the first prime minister in darker hues than what history portrays, presumably because, according to Modi, he had usurped the Iron Man's rightful place in that office.
But this was not the only occasion when Modi played fast and loose with history. His mixing up of two towering personalities of ancient India - Chandragupta Maurya and Chandragupta II of the Gupta dynasty - showed that he was out of his depth where knowledge of the past was concerned.
This deficiency was substantiated by his assertion that Alexander was stopped by the Ganga. Considering that every schoolboy knows that the Macedonian conqueror met his match in Porus in Punjab, which is far away from the Ganga, the faux pas was inexcusable. As was the placing of two centres of learning a thousand miles apart - Taxila in the northwest of the sub-continent and Nalanda in Bihar - in close proximity to one another.
But perhaps Modi's most disturbing howler was telling a public meeting that Shyama Prasad Mukherjee died abroad when he meant Shyamji Krishna Varma, a Gujarati freedom fighter who is not very well known outside the state.
The memory lapse was curious since Modi had gone abroad in 2003 to bring back Varma's ashes and dedicated a memorial to him in 2010. Although he later apologized for his mistake, the mental confusion over the two names is odd since there is nothing common between them except the word "Shyam".
Besides, as the founder of the Jana Sangh (the BJP's predecessor), Mukherjee had a major presence in saffron history and his name cannot easily be substituted with someone else's, especially by a person who began his political life at an early age as a pracharak (preacher) of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). As a Congress spokesman pointed out, it is like confusing between Jawaharlal Nehru and Arun Nehru.
That the BJP is worried by these blunders is evident from the decision to deploy what has been described as "in-house historians" to vet the draft of Modi's speech before his next major public engagement in Bengaluru. The party is obviously concerned that having built up Modi as a larger-than-life figure, it doesn't want to expose his feet of clay.
Its worries are probably all the greater because having tried to portray Rahul Gandhi as "Pappu", or an immature youth, mainly through the saffron elements in the cyber world, a smearing of Modi's image because of his inadequate acquaintance with history can be politically damaging since it will undermine the he-man's image among the intelligentsia.
As it is, the Hindutva lobby's version of history is quite different from what is commonly accepted in the academic world - even if the saffronites dismiss it as a secular distortion.
However, an understanding of how the saffron brigade sees the main trends of Indian history can be gauged from the following passage circulating in the Internet. It says: "what a pathetic country we are.. just ready to get screwed first by moghuls.. then brits.. then both.. then now another foreigner who has no interest in the country and then another half foreigner...come on folks...wake up..."
This inanity is not very different from Modi's gaffes or Murli Manohar Joshi's attempt to rewrite history, when he was the human resource development minister, by describing the Indus Valley Civilization (3300 to 1300 B.C.) as Vedic to assert that India is the homeland of Aryans, unlike the claim in the "secular" version that they came from Iran in 1500 B.C.
But there is a slight difference.
The execrable taste displayed by the netizen can be said to have been replicated by Modi when he said - rather tastelessly - that in view of Sonia Gandhi's "illness" (she is reported to have had cancer), she should make way for the shehzada (prince), or Rahul. Not only should Modi take lessons in history but also in good manners.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)

 http://twocircles.net/2013nov16/modi_stumbling_history.html

Hindu guru convicted of molesting girls in US

An octogenarian Hindu religious leader, head of a Hindu ashram, one of the largest temples in the US, has been convicted of molesting two young girls.

The girls, many of whose family members serve at the ashram 'Barsana Dham', a 200-acre Hindu ashram located in Austin. alleged that they were molested by Prakashanand Saraswati, who is known to his devotees as Shree Swamiji, when they grew up there in the mid-1990s.

His conviction at the ashram,, which attracts a large number of Hindu Americans from across the country every year, has sent shock waves among the community members.

"We are very disappointed with the verdict. We are certain that Swamiji is innocent. This is not the end of the legal process," said Aman Agrawal, spokesman of Barsana Dham.

The sentencing is scheduled for today. Convicted in all of the 20 counts, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years on each of the counts.

In their charges, two women Shyama Rose, 30, and Vesla Tonnessen Kazimer, 27, alleged that Prakashanand Saraswati tried to exploit them on numerous occasions over the course of several years, beginning when they were as young as 12.

The two lived in the campus of the ashram along with their other family members.

The charges by Rose and Kazimer against Prakashanand were first levied in April 2008 following which he was arrested.

He was later released on a USD 1 million bond. A third woman Kate Tonnessen, 31, too made similar allegations recently.

Barsana Dham was established by Prakashanand in 1990.