Sify News has an series on the “NRIs who have made India proud”:http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13341259. The list includes Kalpana Chawla, Deepak Chopra, Sabeer Bhatia, Jhumpa Lahiri to name a few. What is missing in the list is the countless number of Indians who are working in countries all over the world.

John Laxmi, a member of the board of directors of South Asian Journalists Association ( a group of people who think that India should not retain its own identity, but be grouped along with terrorist nation Pakistan, under the “South Asia” label), has an article in Rediff in which he expresses the opinion that Indians should not fight against the negative image of India being portrayed. For example
bq. There are hundreds of reputed academic scholars in the West who study and expound India’s history, culture and economy. Some of these scholars are now being attacked unjustly for all the negative perceptions of India. A fanciful notion suggested by some is to deploy rival academic scholars to ‘market’ a positive image of India.
John thinks that scholars who portray negative images of India should not be corrected. He says it is their right, fair enough. But he in the same vein denies the right of Indians to correct it. If you would like to know what is being portrayed and what is being corrected, please read Rajiv’s article “RISA Lila – 1: Wendy’s Child Syndrome”:http://www.sulekha.com/expressions/column.asp?cid=239156
But then John goes onto attack NRIs in general with statement without any basis.
bq. Whether Indians like it or not, most NRIs are not interested in marketing India. This is not because they are ashamed of their origins (as some Indo-philes frequently claim, using some vague Vedic psychiatry) but because most NRIs are preoccupied with their personal lives and, as they assimilate into new societies, they develop a greater level of interest in advancing the interests of their host nation than the interests of the country of their origin. One can debate whether this is right or wrong, but that is a separate issue. Many NRIs in America are, at heart, more American than Indian, although most may not admit it or even realize it fully.
Perhaps John has never heard of an organization called “USINPAC”:http://washingtontimes.com/world/20031219-093705-9413r.htm (Please note that this is an Indian Political Action Committee, not South Asian Political Action Commmittee). This organization is made up of the same NRIs whom John accuses of not being intrested in India. More than a year old, this organization has 27,000 members
bq. Next on USINPAC’s domestic list of issues is immigration and the controversial H-1B visas that allow foreign professionals with special skills to come to the United States to work. Indians currently are major beneficiaries of the program, obtaining 40 percent of the 65,000 visas issued annually. It is lobbying hard for the United Nations to admit India as a permanent member of the Security Council.
John does not know that many NRIs here do not go for the South Asian brand and like to promote the Indian identity, as a democratic secular nation.

The Communist Party of India, Marxist Leninist is an organization that has chosen the path of violence to spread communism

It is significant that the erstwhile CPI(M-L)-PWG had been similarly formed in 1980 by the merger of seven splinter Communist outfits operating in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The CPI(M-L)-Party Unity of undivided Bihar merged with the CPI(M-L)-PWG in August 1998 in a new avatar called the CPI(M-L) People?s War. Since then, the outfit has acquired a national dimension and today accounts for about 64 per cent of country-wide Communist violence, with its activities being reported from 12 states.

And guess who these murderers are honoring ?

• Mahashweta Devi
• Arundhati Roy, author of God of Small Things
• Sandeep Pandey, founder of ASHA
• Rajinder Sachar
• Praful Bidwai, liar and columnist
• Anand Patwardhan, film maker