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US Round-Up Pratibha Kelapure At one time Pratibha's signature line read, "a mother, a poet and an engineer-- in that order." At the age of fifteen, she completed Rashtrabhasha Prachaar Samiti's Pandit degree with first place in the state of Maharashtra and discovered her passion for literature. Later on though she followed well traveled road to a science degree, marriage and move to bay area - California, where she has lived for past 22 years. She is a software engineer by profession, and a piece of code with imaginative, meaningful variable names moves her to tears. She retains a child's naivete, curiosity and sense of wonder about the world around her. Kindness is her philosophy in life.

Gandhi world peace memorial marks 50 years

Pacific Palisades (California): The 50th anniversary of the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial and Lake Shrine will be marked on Aug.20. It is the only known remaining repository of Gandhi's ashes. Paramahansa Yogananda who is the founder of International Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) dedicated the Lake Shrine here on Aug. 20, 1950. The sanctuary draws thousands of visitors each year from all over the world.

Gita contest in US

Bhagavad Gita recitation competition was recently held in Chicago. The Chinmaya Mission, Chicago, organized the competition. The competition was part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Chinmaya Mission by the late Swami Chinmayananda. More than 500 students, from Kindergarten to 12th grade, participated in the US competition held in five age groups. The top two winners of the regional competitions, 70 in all, were invited to the national competition, on the Mahasamadhi Day (death anniversary) of Swami Chinmayananda. Chinmaya Mission in Wisconsin held the finals at the Mahasamadhi Memorial Spiritual Camp. Swami Tejomayananda, head of the trust and Chinmaya Mission presented the prizes to the winners worldwide.

Indian American appointed to co-head Merrill Lynch equity division New York:

Merrill Lynch has announced the appointment of India-born Deepak Raj as co-head of its Global Fundamental Equity Research division, a position that will leapfrog Raj into a key position within the leading US financial management giant. Along with equity research veteran Charles Lambert, the other co-head, Raj will oversee the company's global equity research strategy. Merrill Lynch has more than 800 analysts in 26 countries, covering the performance of more than 3,700 companies worldwide. It has a total client asset of more than $1.8 trillion, according to company figures.

Communication between India and Pakistan -

Only solution to Jammu and Kashmir problem:
NY Times: Even though the US cannot calm the dangerous conflict overnight in Kashmir, the administration must nudge both India and Pakistan towards dialogue, said the New York Times Thursday editorial. Saying that India must also start talks with militant Muslim groups in Kashmir, the editorial noted that a promising initiative with one such group, Hizbul Mujahedeen, broke down on Tuesday, leading the militants to end a brief cease-fire. One problem was Hizbul Mujahedeen's insistence that Pakistan be represented at the talks, something that India refused to accept, it said. "Washington should press both sides to come back to the table without preconditions. Every reasonable effort musts be made to avoid a new Kashmir war," it added. The paper said the Clinton administration was right to be concerned about the military confrontation between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, a conflict that American intelligent agencies now judge to be the world's most perilous. The dispute over who would control India's Muslim-majority, it said, had already provoked two wars. That was before New Delhi and Islamabad acquired nuclear bombs and medium range missiles. "Now any resumption of full-scale conflict carries the risk of starting a nuclear war between the two nations," it said. India Abroad News Service

Wright State University (WSU) in Dayton, Ohio, Business School named after Indo-American

New York: A state-funded university in Ohio has renamed its college of business to honor an Indian American entrepreneur, who the university said was instrumental in shaping the region's economy. The Raj Soin College of Business at Wright State University (WSU) in Dayton, Ohio, is a culmination of the long relationship between Delhi-born Soin and the university, which was founded in 1963. The university boasts of a highly competitive master of business administration (MBA) program. This is the first time, the university said, that it had named a college in honor of an individual. Soin, 53, who the university said has donated millions of dollars to the college of business, heads Dayton-headquartered MTC International, a group of manufacturing and consultancy companies with sales exceeding $100 million and employing more than 1,000 workers in 18 US states. He is equally active in the local community, having donated 180 acres in Beavercreek to build a public golf course. He is also the founding president of the Ohio-India Project, which has funded two local Ohio projects -- the Gandhi House, a transitional house for women in need and the Annual Day of Caring, a program started as a local event but which has now expanded to several other states.

His charitable foundation in India has funded a hospital and several other community projects.

Film on Punjabi-Mexican community on PBS San Francisco:

In 1899, four men in turbans walked off a boat in San Francisco with hopes of earning enough money to buy land in their home country of India. These four were the first in a long line of Punjabi men who eventually settled in southern California's Imperial Valley, married the Mexican women who worked the land alongside them and started the large Punjabi-Mexican community that still thrives there. Recently, television station PBS, in association with the National Asian American Telecommunications Association and Latino Public Broadcasting, announced that they would air a film 'Roots in the Sand', a documentary about the Punjabi-Mexican community, in September, California newspaper India-West reported.

The film, produced and directed by Jayasri Majumdar Hart, is a multi-generation portrait of the Punjabi-Mexican families who first settled in Imperial Valley over a century ago. The film documents the hardships and struggles faced by a community that grew out of the need for economic survival in the face of prejudice. The Punjabi men who arrived in this country at the turn of the century were not allowed to become citizens nor could they bring brides from back home. Instead, they turned to the Mexican women who toiled beside them -- often to face even more difficulties. Many looked down upon these inter-racial relationships, and often, women who were U.S. citizens to begin with lost their status because of their marriage. As 'Roots in the Sand' shows, the troubles faced by these families did not end there. Yet, somehow, they survived and prospered. Hart received a master of fine arts degree from the USC School of Cinema-TV in 1985. Since then, she has produced, edited, and directed many documentaries, with a special emphasis on the South Asian experience worldwide.

Fund-raiser concert for Society for Battered Asian Indian Women Society:

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. -- A solo classical dance performance by Devaki Narayanan at the Civic Arts Plaza's Scherr Forum Theater here Aug. 5 contributed toward raising the $15,000 seed money needed to launch the Society for Battered Asian Indian Woman.

The dance concert, entitled 'Abhaya Hastha' (which in Hindi means 'The Hand That Protects'), drew a crowd of more than 300. Soloist Narayanan was the featured attraction, and the second half of the program comprised of dance performances by 15 students from Viji Prakash's Shakti Dance Company.

The musicians, who were flown in from India especially for the occasion, where headed by renowned vocalist and composer Babu Parameswaram, a disciple of the legendary Chembai Vaidyanatha Bhagavathar.

Performing alongside him on stage were vocalist Srishuka, Vedakrishnan on tabla and mridangam, Ravichandra on flute, and Krishna Kutty on violin.

Organizers Sulekha Patel and Veena Narayanan conceived the idea of a concert as a means to establish a Society for Battered Asian Indian Women to address the issue of spousal abuse.

Broadcom to Acquire Silicon Spice for $1.2B

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Broadcom Corp. announced Aug. 7 that it will acquire Silicon Spice Inc., a privately-held company in Mountain View, Calif., that makes processor chips for communications networks, for about $1.24 billion in stock.