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  • Macaca
    08-14 11:37 AM
    Congressman, It's (Still) on Us: The Ethics Law's Many Loopholes (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/13/AR2007081300980.html?hpid=topnews) By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum | Washington Post, August 14, 2007

    Activists on the reform side of the lobbying debate have been celebrating that Congress finally got around to passing an ethics bill. The question is: Should voters celebrate as well?

    Paul A. Miller, a former president of the American League of Lobbyists, thinks the hoorahs should be muted, and he has a point. The legislation bars lobbyists from providing meals and gifts to lawmakers, a provision long sought by the advocates of change as a way to keep well-heeled interests from buying their way into the hearts of decision-makers.

    But Miller and others point out that the ban is full of loopholes. The largest of the gaps, Miller said, could end up worsening the public's perception that lawmakers are for sale.

    If lobbyists are prevented from buying meals for lawmakers for lobbying purposes, he noted, lobbyists will almost certainly make up for the loss by boosting the number of meals they buy lawmakers as part of campaign fundraising events.

    And believe it or not, they will be perfectly able to do so. Lobbying laws are separate from campaign finance laws, and the new ban on meals and gifts applies only to lobbying laws. That means the legislation does not rein in fundraising events, so lobbyists and their clients will still be able to buy food and entertainment for lawmakers at those events.

    Hence the following perversity: Lobbyists will not be able to pick up the check for members of Congress unless they also hand the lawmakers a check to help their reelections.

    "Lobbyists will move lunches and dinners to the campaign side of things," Miller predicts. "They will increasingly get members of Congress for an hour or so to give them a campaign check; that's a better deal for the lobbyists and will also make it more likely for corruption to happen."

    Jan W. Baran, the campaign finance expert at the law firm Wiley Rein, finds it hard to imagine that lawmakers can schedule more fundraisers than they already do. But he does think there will continue to be plenty of lobbyist-financed partying thanks to the nearly two dozen exceptions to the meal-and-gift ban.

    Baran said that members of Congress will be able to accept invitations from lobbyists to events that are widely attended, including receptions and charity golf tournaments. Lobbyists will also still be allowed to underwrite visits by lawmakers if they have some official or ceremonial role. Members of Congress generally cannot accept tickets to sporting events from lobbyists. But they can be comped to a baseball game if they throw out the first pitch, to a football game if they toss the opening coin or to a NASCAR race if they wave the checkered flag. That's nice work if you can get it, and you can bet there'll be a lot more of it available soon.

    Interest groups are also expressing concern about another feature of the legislation. The provision would require more disclosure by organizations about who is paying for and actively participating in the lobbying activities of coalitions and trade groups. At the moment, most of that information is proprietary and protected by Supreme Court decisions that shield the members of many kinds of groups. Organizations are worried that they might, for the first time, have to disclose who their top members are.

    But they probably need not worry. Ways are always found to get around laws like this one. "The balloon will be pressed, and the air will come out another way," said Kenneth A. Gross, a lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.





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  • pitha
    10-06 01:57 PM
    Fareed Zakaria has a program called GPS on CNN. Last week he went to singapore and interviewed a security\economic analyst from india, singapore and China. The analyst said something which was 100% acurate and something very semilar to what is happenning on this forum, He said India in its heart wants Obama to win but thinking with its head (logically) they want Mccain to win. He said Obama would be a disaster to India. He went on to read a laundry list of things in which Obama would be bad for India and one of the things that he cited would be bad for India under Obama was EB immigration for Indians and Chinese. Even analysts from India, China and singapore recognize what a disaster Obama would be for Eb immigrants and we here are still hoping for a obama win. Anyway, You and I (EB imigrants) hoping will not make any difference but atleast wake up to the impending disaster in the form of Obama\Durbin and start planning for it.

    I think Barrack Obama is really interested in strengthning its ties with India. I think he will definitely do something to help legal immigrants waiting in queue as one aspect of strengthning ties with India.

    Source: http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/oct/03ndeal.htm





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  • Macaca
    03-06 09:03 PM
    Visa Statistics (http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/statistics/statistics_1476.html) Report of the Visa Office

    The Report of the Visa Office is an annual report providing statistical information on immigrant and non-immigrant visa issuances by consular offices, as well as information on the use of visa numbers in numerically limited categories.

    APPLICATIONS FOR IMMIGRATION BENEFITS (http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/APPLICATIONS%20FOR%20IMMIGRATION%20BENEFITS_Aug07. pdf)
    Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman (http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/editorial_0482.shtm)

    CIS Ombudsman's 2007 Annual Report to Congress (http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/gc_1183751418157.shtm)
    CIS Ombudsman's 2006 Annual Report to Congress (http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/editorial_0890.shtm)
    Annual Report 2005 (http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/CIS_AnnualReport_2005.pdf)
    Annual Report 2004 (http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/CISReport_to_Congress.pdf)

    Spotlight on Legal Immigration to the United States (http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/display.cfm?id=651) By Gretchen Reinemeyer and Jeanne Batalova | Migration Policy Institute, November 2007
    Yearbook of Immigration Statistics (http://www.dhs.gov/ximgtn/statistics/publications/yearbook.shtm)
    Annual Flow Report

    U.S. Legal Permanent Residents: 2006 (http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/IS-4496_LPRFlowReport_04vaccessible.pdf) By KELLY JEFFERYS
    U.S. Legal Permanent Residents: 2005 (http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/USLegalPermEst_5.pdf) By KELLY JEFFERYS AND NANCY RYTINA





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  • ItIsNotFunny
    01-06 01:15 PM
    Israeli shelling kills more than 40 at UN school in Gaza.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/06/gaza-israel-death-un

    More killing while the world watches silently.

    Its barberian to kill innocent people.

    My prayers for innocents who got killed.



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  • NeverEndingH1
    12-17 04:10 PM
    LOL!

    Since everyone is posting what they want, I guess I can also just post anything here....



    .





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  • SunnySurya
    12-22 11:28 AM
    A supporter of terrorism left a red dot with this message:
    "if u r so concerned about india and attacks on india,,,what are u doing in US? U should be in politics in india if u think so bad about the indian politicians,,,go get ur hand dirty in it first then blaim the politicians"

    My very simple reply to that person.
    ---

    I am in every right to express the concerns for my country of origin. Of course not blindly. It takes for ever to hang Afzal Guru and almost no concrete repsonse to the bombings in Delhi, Gujrat, Karnataka, Hyedrabad etc etc, which directly affect my freinds and family over there. If it is not politics then what it is.

    Finally, if Jews can express their concerns for Israel (which I also support full heartedly and unconditionally) so can we, with the same passion.



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  • nojoke
    01-03 07:42 PM
    You are a Kashmiri muslim.
    Will you accept the responsibility of making hundreds of thousands Kashimiri pandits homeless? Will you accept the responsibility for the Godhra attack?
    Do you have a time machine that can take you back to 1600 A.D and stop the evil islamic barbarics from pillaging our land? Can you? Or you need a proof for that as well to interpol?

    1. To curb terrorism, Pakistan must destroy all the terror camps. Its not doing it, its not handing over any terrorists, what's the point of having cup of chai and talking non-sense?

    2. You are a Kashmiri. Tell us, what is a possible solution? India will not hand over the remainder of the Kashmir because part of the Kashmir is already occupied by Pakistan. Period. Now, do you have a solution?

    3. You are open for open visas. What good will it do except for terrorists to come in freely and legally?

    4. By exchanging prisoners you mean hand over the terrorists, right. Hand over Afzal and Kasam and the other butchers. And ask president to pardon them.
    Sorry, won't happen.

    What else?

    I agree there are issues that need to be resolved in India. But what is happening in India ia India's problem. They don't need to handover anyone to international court. India is not causing problem to other countries. There are laws and due process to handle the criminals in India. But the powerful do get away. It is silly to ask all these problems to be solved by International court. I don't think they will be interested to run trials on such cases.
    Sorry this post is to engineer.





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  • h1techSlave
    04-15 02:57 PM
    I just want to list the difference in your home purchase decision when you have GC vs. you are in H1B/EAD.

    GC - You can splurge a little. Even if you have to move, you are almost certain that you are able to move within the US, or will be able to come back to the US. You will get better interest rates on a mortgage and a higher percentage of financing (upto 97%). You can buy your dream home (this usually means a nice community, big house etc. etc.) Even if the value of your purchase comes down, you can afford to wait for a longer period of time.

    H1/EAD - Think 10 times before purchasing a home. Take a conservative approach. If you think you can really afford a $400,000 house, purchase only a $350,000 house. Prepare to pay around 8% down-payment (some times even 20%) and you may not get the best interest rate. Plan very well for the possibility that you may have to move within the US or even out of the country. And prepare some plans considering that you may have to go out of the US and may not be able to come back. Consider the possibility of renting a town home or a single family home. In this market, you can even find homes by paying a rent which could be some times lower than the mortgage on the home.



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  • file485
    07-08 05:05 PM
    Must an H-1B alien be working at all times? (http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=a62bec897643f010VgnVCM1000000ecd190aRCR D&vgnextchannel=1847c9ee2f82b010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1 RCRD)

    As long as the employer/employee relationship exists, an H-1B alien is still in status. An H-1B alien may work in full or part-time employment and remain in status. An H-1B alien may also be on vacation, sick/maternity/paternity leave, on strike, or otherwise inactive without affecting his or her status.

    I am not aware of any GC stage that requires all pay stubs. How did they detect missing pay stubs for 6+ months?

    reminds me of a backhome saying..

    'pinching the butt and singing a lullaby" :)

    the only way the relationship between the employer/employee is the green$$ pay stub...never trust these USCIS Memo's ..all crap and BS..





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  • ilikekilo
    03-25 04:27 PM
    lol...you are right..

    but dont know... I am going by hunch..I hope not to regret..:)


    None of my business as to what you do but U not going thru a lawyer seems counter intuitive to me.. not sure why u r taking chances to see whether you would regret or not? anyways good luck man..



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  • abracadabra102
    08-06 05:16 PM
    Thompson, Ritchie and Kernighan admit that Unix was a prank

    In an announcement that has stunned the computer industry, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Brian Kernighan admitted that the Unix operating system and C programming language created by them is an elaborate prank kept alive for over 20 years. Speaking at the recent UnixWorld Software Development Forum, Thompson revealed the following:

    "In 1969, AT&T had just terminated their work with the GE/Honeywell/AT&T Multics project. Brian and I had started work with an early release of Pascal from Professor Niklaus Wirth's ETH Labs in Switzerland and we were impressed with its elegant simplicity and power. Dennis had just finished reading 'Bored of the Rings', a National Lampoon parody of the Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy. As a lark, we decided to do parodies of the Multics environment and Pascal. Dennis and I were responsible for the operating environment. We looked at Multics and designed the new OS to be as complex and cryptic as possible to maximize casual users' frustration levels, calling it Unix as a parody of Multics, as well as other more risque! allusions. We sold the terse command language to novitiates by telling them that it saved them typing.

    Then Dennis and Brian worked on a warped version of Pascal, called 'A'. 'A' looked a lot like Pascal, but elevated the notion of the direct memory address (which Wirth had banished) to the central concept of the "pointer" as an innocuous sounding name for a truly malevolent construct. Brian must be credited with the idea of having absolutely no standard I/O specification: this ensured that at least 50% of the typical commercial program would have to be re-coded when changing hardware platforms.

    Brian was also responsible for pitching this lack of I/O as a feature: it allowed us to describe the language as "truly portable". When we found others were actually creating real programs with A, we removed compulsory type-checking on function arguments. Later, we added a notion we called "casting": this allowed the programmer to treat an integer as though it were a 50kb user-defined structure. When we found that some programmers were simply not using pointers, we eliminated the ability to pass structures to functions, enforcing their use in even the simplest applications. We sold this, and many other features, as enhancements to the efficiency of the language. In this way, our prank evolved into B, BCPL, and finally C.

    We stopped when we got a clean compile on the following syntax: for(;P("\n"),R-;P("|"))for(e=C;e-;P("_"+(*u++/8)%2))P("| "+(*u/4)%2);

    At one time, we joked about selling this to the Soviets to set their computer science progress back 20 or more years.

    Unfortunately, AT&T and other US corporations actually began using Unix and C. We decided we'd better keep mum, assuming it was just a passing phase. In fact, it's taken US companies over 20 years to develop enough expertise to generate useful applications using this 1960's technological parody. We are impressed with the tenacity of the general Unix and C programmer. In fact, Brian, Dennis and I have never ourselves attempted to write a commercial application in this environment.

    We feel really guilty about the chaos, confusion and truly awesome programming projects that have resulted from our silly prank so long ago."

    Dennis Ritchie said: "What really tore it (just when ADA was catching on), was that Bjarne Stroustrup caught onto our joke. He extended it to further parody Smalltalk. Like us, he was caught by surprise when nobody laughed. So he added multiple inheritance, virtual base classes, and later ...templates. All to no avail. So we now have compilers that can compile 100,000 lines per second, but need to process header files for 25 minutes before they get to the meat of "Hello, World".

    Major Unix and C vendors and customers, including AT&T, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, GTE, NCR, and DEC have refused comment at this time.

    Borland International, a leading vendor of object-oriented tools, including the popular Turbo Pascal and Borland C++, stated they had suspected for Windows was originally written in C++. Philippe Kahn said: "After two and a half years programming, and massive programmer burn-outs, we re-coded the whole thing in Turbo Pascal in three months. I think it's fair to say that Turbo Pascal saved our bacon". Another Borland spokesman said that they would continue to enhance their Pascal products and halt further efforts to develop C/C++.

    Professor Wirth of the ETH Institute and father of the Pascal, Modula 2, and Oberon structured languages, cryptically said "P.T. Barnum was right." He had no further comments.





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  • Jimi_Hendrix
    11-11 05:45 PM
    http://www.bluelatinos.org/firelou?from=0

    I encourage IV members to go to the above website and add themselves to the list of petitioners asking CNN to fire Lou.



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  • delax
    07-13 07:56 PM
    I don't think the issue is that simple. The whole thing just surfaced another screw-up of the system. The actions taken by all the agencies certainly made things worse.

    DoS suddenly interpretted laws differently than before. This just like the PERM, BEC, and last July episode. They took actions without considering people already in line. Those with good faith waiting in line have been constantly pushed around. How many people experienced being stuck in BEC while PERM approves new application like crazy? Who is accountable for all of these? They can't do things willy nilly any more. Someone mentioned lawsuit since DoS either interpret the law wrong now or in the past.

    Needless to say that the distincation between EB2 and EB3 has become so meaniningless now. How many positions really satisfy the EB2 requirements? From what I heard that most people just try to get around the system to get an EB2. One of the persons who filed EB2 told me that a high school graduate would probably be able to work in that position too.

    Just my observation.

    I dont agree at all!!!!!!!

    How can you give consideration to people already in line at the expense of other people from a higher preference category also waiting patiently in line. Regardless of the duration of the wait EB3 is a lower prefrence category and will remain so under any interpretation. Remember that even under the 'old' interpretation EB3-I only got visa numbers after passing through the EB3 ROW and the EB2-I gate.

    Notwithstanding the 'new' interpretation, an argument can always be made that the 'old' interpretation was not only wrong but blatantly wrong where EB3ROW was given preference over an EB2 retro country.

    The only fix for this is elimination of country cap and/or increase in number of visas. The means to acheive that goal may be legislative or administrative. I'll defer to the experts on that!





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  • alisa
    04-07 01:23 PM
    Can there be a differentiation between extensions/renewals/company changes and new H1bs?

    In some sense there already is, since the former are not subject to cap, while the latter are.

    So, why not extend the same argument to other situations?
    Get an LCA and impose all kinds of restrictions on new H-1Bs, but don't apply these on existing H-1Bs, especially if they have had their labors filed.

    That way, they don't get rid of existing H1B employees.
    They only make it harder for new people to get H1bs. Which, it is my understanding, is not our fight.

    You hit the nail in the head.

    Instead of getting rid of all H1B employees in one full swoop, this lobby wants to put law in place where new H1s will be mostly rejected due the "Consulting clause" and existing H1 employees will be hit in the head with a 2 X 4 when renewing H1, since the scrutiny and paperwork is the same for new H1, H1 extensions and H1 transfers. Same LCA filing, same I-129 forms.

    So instead of immediate purge, this is like getting rid of 5 to 10 thousand each month by making extensions and renewals and transfer impossible for those doing the consulting.

    Like the admin said, this is the slow bleed of H1B program where death is slow but not obvious and easily detectable.



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  • dixie
    08-13 01:17 AM
    He said that average productivity of an american is greater than the productivity of 3-4 Asians and then went on to ask, why is then corporate american sending jobs outside of united states?.


    How the hell did he arrive at that figure ? the whole trouble with lou is he fabricates "research" such as the above statement with absolutely nothing to back it up. So much for the Harvard educated economist in him.





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  • anand2007
    07-07 11:42 PM
    I wish you a good luck and hope that your issue will be solved. contact good lawyer soon.



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  • rockstart
    07-14 02:27 PM
    People in Eb3 visa are not our enemies most of these people are our friends. We all have friends in both categories suffering. The issue exploded because of the contents of letter drafted by pani_6. It was pitting eb2 vs eb3. We all agreed all along that entire immigration system needs to be changed but here we have a letter that says dont give visa's to eb2 because we are not getting any. That I feel is unfair because all these days these spill visa's were going to ROW and people like pani_6 were perfectly happy but once their friends from eb2 (Ind) started to get them he was crying fowl.

    About same time last year we had different "schism" on these forums: July 2007 filers with approved labor who could file their 485s Vs those with older PDs but unfortunately stuck in BECs. Most of Eb3s who are outraged today are July 2007 filers. Any guesses how many of them requested BEC victims back then "to be happy" for others and not rock the boat?

    The unfortunate fact is that although everyone here is convinced of their moral high ground it is nothing more than self-preservation at the end. If it was just that it would still be fine (human nature) but still more unfortunate is the fact that we as a group never get this riled up - except few notable and respected exceptions - as long as everyone is equally miserable. Only if we had so much participation in all action items (admin fixes, house bills, funding drive etc.)...





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  • spbpsg
    03-24 12:54 PM
    my greencard is filed under EB3 category and it looks like a long wait. My PD is 2003 Nov and i am an indian. We've been debating whether to buy a house when 485 is pending. what is the risk involved? how many people are in a similar situation? I have twin boys and they are 3 yrs old now and it's getting increasingly difficult to keep them in an apartment. Now with housing market going down as well, we are in a tight spot and have to make a decision quickly. I would appreciate any suggestion in this regard.

    I bought house while I was on H1 itself. After living here for 7 years I realized that I should have done this much earlier. In last seven years I have paid 100K in rent which will never come back to me and also compromised on living space. After few years from now I don't want to repent again for not buying a house, so bought it with 20% down to keep my monthly payments less.

    I am happy now and as far as job is concerned with EAD we should not have that much problem. Anyway it will take many years to get GC until then enjoy the house, meanwhile house market value will be appreciated in case GC is denied or you want to move back.





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  • Macaca
    12-28 07:00 PM
    N.B.A. in India, in Search of Fans and Players (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/sports/basketball/28india.html) By JEREMY KAHN | New York Times

    The success of N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern�s 25-year crusade to globalize basketball is often summed up in two words: Yao Ming. After Yao, a 7-foot-6 center from Shanghai, was drafted by the Houston Rockets in 2002, the league attracted hundreds of millions of new fans in China. And though Yao is out for the season with a stress fracture that could end his professional career, the N.B.A.�s international march continues.

    This season, the league will play its first regular-season games in Europe, a two-game matchup in March between the Nets and the Toronto Raptors in London. And having conquered China, the N.B.A. has its sights fixed on Asia�s other big emerging market: India.

    Like China, India has a rapidly expanding middle class with newfound leisure time and disposable income, factors that Heidi Ueberroth, the president of N.B.A. International, says make the country ripe for new forms of entertainment.

    �There is a growing appetite for sports and entertainment and more options in India,� she said.

    In a nation where cricket is an obsession, other sports have struggled to find an audience. Cricket�s popularity has been reinforced by the Indian Premier League, which began in 2008. I.P.L. teams play Twenty20, a faster-paced game that has attracted younger fans and billions of dollars in corporate sponsorship.

    But in part because the I.P.L. has proved that city-based sports franchises can succeed in India, many sports are betting that they will be able to find new fans and corporate backers here.

    �The race is now on to become India�s second-most-popular sport,� said Sunder Aaron, the head of Pix, one of two Indian television channels that earlier this month signed a contract to broadcast live games and other N.B.A. programming.

    The list of international sports knocking on India�s door is a long one: Formula One is scheduled to hold its first race in India in 2011. The European Tour of professional golf has held tournaments here. English Premier League soccer, which has a growing following, held a promotional trophy tour in the country this month. And FIFA, soccer�s world governing body, has opened a marketing campaign to sell official merchandise here. Even Major League Baseball has attempted to recruit pitching talent in India.

    Ueberroth said that basketball�s popularity could grow rapidly in India because of the sport�s relative simplicity and the fact that a court can be created almost anywhere one can hang a hoop. This gives it an advantage over soccer and cricket, which require open fields. Basketball also requires little specialized equipment.

    A core part of the N.B.A.�s expansion strategy in India is increasing grass-roots participation, based on the belief that people who play basketball are also more likely to follow the N.B.A. The league also knows that the more Indians who play basketball, the more likely it is that one day an Indian player will be good enough to make the leap to the N.B.A. � an event that could vastly expand the league�s popularity in the world�s second-most-populous nation.

    The Basketball Federation of India, the sport�s governing body, estimates that 4.5 million Indians play the game. That is a fraction of the country�s 1.2 billion people, but Ueberroth said the N.B.A. suspected the real number was much higher because the federation�s statistics missed players who did not belong to a league.

    To try to accelerate basketball�s growth, the N.B.A. dispatched Troy Justice to India in February to serve as its first director of basketball operations in the country. Justice helps run the N.B.A. Mahindra Challenge, a series of youth leagues and tournaments in five Indian cities.

    Justice said the N.B.A. saw the young players as the vanguard of the N.B.A.�s efforts. The concept, he said, was to give the country�s teenagers more opportunities to play basketball in a formal setting throughout the year.

    �The kids here have the natural ability and the talent, but they are not given the opportunity to develop it,� he said.

    In addition to Justice, the league sent the Orlando Magic�s Dwight Howard and the Los Angeles Lakers� Pau Gasol on short ambassadorial missions to Mumbai and Delhi in the summer. It also sent two coaches to India to train the men�s and women�s national teams ahead of November�s Asian Games in China. It has created an India-specific portion of NBA.com, featuring postings by two Indian bloggers.

    Viewership for the N.B.A. in India has also been rising quickly, but from such a low base that it remains minuscule, said Atul Pande, the chief executive of Ten Sports, which has contracted to broadcast Eastern Conference games. Pande said he thought the audience for a live N.B.A. game would never exceed 200,000 households. The viewership for many I.P.L. cricket matches is in the tens of millions.

    �The problem is timing,� he said.

    Games played in the Eastern United States are broadcast at 5:30 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. in India.

    �It was hard at first to get up and watch the games,� said Karan Madhok, the communications director of India�s federation, who also runs an N.B.A.-related blog called Hoopistani, which is featured on the N.B.A. Web site.

    �I thought I was the only person in the country watching. But as I�ve started blogging about the N.B.A., I�ve been contacted more and more by other fans, and I realize there are a lot more fans who do it.�

    For the N.B.A. to reach critical mass among Indian sports fans, many say, will require what Madhok calls a Yao Ming moment. In other words, India is waiting to see a homegrown star make it in the N.B.A.

    N.B.A. officials dispute this assessment.

    �There are a number of countries where basketball is extremely popular without any players in the league,� Ueberroth said.

    Others note that the ranks of English Premier League soccer fans in India are growing rapidly even though there are no Indians playing in the league.

    Still, the N.B.A. is not turning a blind eye to the search for an Indian Yao. Among Justice�s jobs is scouting talent. And he has found a few prospects. Among the most promising is Satnam Singh Bhamara, 14, a 7-foot-2 player from a rural village in Punjab Province. Justice helped him land a spot at an IMG basketball academy in Bradenton, Fla.

    �He has a bright future,� Justice said. �We don�t know where he�ll end up, but he�s got a lot of natural � for a 14-year-old, 7-footer � a lot of natural basketball instincts.�

    Others point to the potential of two Canadian brothers of Indian descent, 15-year-old Sim and 17-year-old Tanveer Bhullar, who are more than 7 feet. Madhok said that if either made it to the N.B.A., it would inspire Indian fans and players.

    The lack of a native star had not dented enthusiasm for the N.B.A. among the young players who were competing in the Mahindra Challenge tournament here last Saturday. All the players on the Basketball Rocker Jazz, a team from Shalimar Bagh, a middle-class neighborhood in the northern reaches of this sprawling city, said they followed the league closely.

    Their favorite team?

    �The Lakers,� Raghav Mittal, 11, said without hesitation. �Most of the best players are there.�





    chintu25
    08-28 09:36 AM
    Parts of the conversetion in Embassy between the Visa Officer and an applicant for a visa:

    O: All your responses must be oral, OK?
    A: OK
    O: What school did you go to?
    A: Oral.
    After a short explaination, the conversation continued:
    O: What is your date of birth?
    A: July fifteenth.
    O: What year?
    A: Every year

    :D





    gcisadawg
    12-27 12:04 AM
    Don't you think Pakistan already knows that?

    Yes, you are right. Pakistan knows that. But our audience is not pakistan. It is US and other countries. Who comes to india when pak does nuclear sabre-rattling? It is US. We need to send that message clearly and forcibly to the world. The Clear message is " Nukes dont impact our options. The decision to go to war or not is not impacted by the presence or absence of nukes"

    Do you mean to say that the state and the government of Pakistan did this?

    As to your second question, you never know. To be honest, I dont know...Musharraf started Kargil and they did not acknowledge even dead Pakistan soldiers. Sharif went to US and pleaded Clinton to stop the war.

    I do believe ISI's footprint is there. ISI is built on the image of CIA during cold war. They are a pretty powerful bunch with one complete victory ( against Soviets) and two successful (atleast so far) distruptive operations in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Without the big brother ISI watching, these jihadists can not move around. But I do give the benefit of doubt to Zardari's govt. The poor guy has just lost his wife. He might not have signed off on this ops.



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