www.sewausa.org

ATLANTA, GEORGIA, USA, March 22, 2008: With the blessing of a glorious warm and sunny weather, Alpharetta played host to the Festival of Colors this spring of 2008. Lions Pavilion at Wills Park, Alpharetta was a colorful scene as 700 people including youngsters, children and elders celebrated Holi.

This was the third year when SewaUSA, a non-profit global service organization, the USA affiliate of Sewa International, had organized Holi for the Indian community in metro Atlanta. The crowd turnover was double as of last year, which which underlined the popularity of the occasion. The event was co-sponsored by Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh and VHP-America, Atlanta Chapters, Hot Breads and Canton Street Insurance Inc.

Evergreen Holi themed songs filled the air alternating with the latest Bollywood dance numbers. In the midst of music and masti, participants smeared each other with handfuls of color. A unique new feature of this year’s Holi celebration was that SewaUSA provided organic colors (tested for lead content in Chemical Lab) made with natural ingredients instead of the commonly available synthetic colors. The natural ingredients ensured that everyone including young children could use it without restrictions. And use it they did.

The enthusiasm of the people reached its peak as the clear skies and pleasant weather encouraged the festivities. While the crowd rocked to the music, adding to the festive mood was authentic Thandai prepared and served by VHP Atlanta volunteers.

www.suntimes.com

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 31, 2008: Having sons is important to many Asian cultures, and now American families from those groups seem to be asserting the same preference. A new analysis of the 2000 Census shows that among U.S. born children of Chinese, Korean and Asian Indian parents the odds of having a boy increase if the family already has a girl or two. The findings “suggest that in a sub-population with a traditional son preference, the technologies are being used to generate male births when preceding births are female,” co-authors Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund said of their findings, appearing in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Edlund and Almond said they do not know what method is being used for sex selection, but they speculated that the most common is fetal ultrasound to determine the sex of the baby followed by disproportionate abortion of females. Ultrasound has improved in recent years and is being given earlier, they noted.

“Between 1989 and 1999, prenatal ultrasound use among non-Japanese Asian mothers rose from around 38 percent to 64 percent of pregnancies,” they said, citing data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. The normal sex ratio at birth is 1.05 boys to 1 girl and that holds for first children of these families, the researchers found. But if the first baby is a girl, the odds of a boy coming next rise to 1.17-to-1, and after two sisters the likelihood of having a son jumps to 1.51-to-1.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Society of Reproductive Medicine say assisting patients in choosing the sex of their offspring to avoid serious sex-linked genetic disorders is ethical, but they discourage sex selection for personal and family reasons, such as family balancing. Nevertheless, while many countries prohibit sex selection techniques without a medical purpose, the United States does not.

www.hinduonnet.com

CHENNAI, INDIA, March 31, 2008: The Tamil Nadu government on Monday announced that yoga would be made a compulsory subject in all schools in the state from the next academic year. School Education Minister Thangam Thennarasu, while replying to a question by Congress member S. Sekar in the Assembly, said efforts were already underway for this purpose. “We have trained about 110,000 teachers in private and government schools in the state, with the help of 300 yoga instructors.” “Chief Minister M Karunanidhi himself is a regular practitioner of yoga and that is a secret of his good health,” the Minister said.

www.hinduismtoday.com

Mahatma Gandhi visited London in 1932. He toured the city wearing traditional dhoti and khadi shawl. People who met him were shocked with his “barbaric” attire, and he was the subject of ridicule–notably by Churchill himself. On one occasion Gandhi accepted an invitation to tea from King George V, “Emperor of India.” When asked afterwards if he felt underdressed, Gandhi replied, “His Majesty had enough clothes on for both of us.”