Ramesh Butani speaks to Teresa Carlson, Gala Chair for the 2008 Fire & Ice Ball organized by the American Red Cross of the National Capital Area, and to Neena Shenoy who serves on the American Red Cross Board (NCA), Tiffany Circle. The ladies enlighten Darshan viewers about the important role Red Cross plays in helping people and providing them food, clothing, shelter and other immediate emergency needs during disasters like fire, earthquake, flooding and other calamities. The National Capital Area chapter of Red Cross is organizing the 2008 Fire & Ice Ball on April 5th. The goal for this fundraiser is to salute nation’s Armed Forces and to recognize their service to our country. The funds raised during this Gala will be used to support our service men, women and their families. A part of this funding will also be used to provide help during local disasters. For more information on the Gala and how to register, please go to www.redcrossnca.org; or call Denise Daffron at (703) 584-8420 or email: daffrond@redcrossnca.org

 

Ramesh Butani speaks to Dr. A.S. Kolaskar, who is an advisor to India’s National Knowledge Commission. He is a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Pune and Professor in Molecular Biophysics & Computational Chemistry.  Dr. Kolaskar is currently the Managing Director of the DSK International Institute of Animation, Gaming & Industrial Design. He informed viewers about the five-year, full time courses and degrees being offered by the DSK School of Animation located in Pune, India.  The school has numerous distinguishing features. Its campus will accommodate 900 students and follows the finest traditions and recipes of the institutes of Supinfocom Group – Valenciennes, France which made this institute world’s No. 1 in animation. If interested in learning more about the DSK International Institute and getting admissions, please visit websites: www.dskglobaledu.com; and www.design-valenciennes.com.  Dr. Kolaskar’s contact is: Kolaskar@dskglobaledu.com; Kolaskar@bioinfo.ernet.in.

Ramesh Butani interviews Dr. Sarfraz Durrani and Irfan Shahmiri who are on the Board of Directors of CHINAR.  Child Nurture and Relief (CHINAR) is an independent, non-profit organization working for the psychosocial rehabilitation of orphaned and vulnerable children in conflict areas.  One of the goals of CHINAR is to serve all children – irrespective of race, religion, culture or gender.  CHINAR has divided its strategy into three different phases.  The Phase I is focusing on Kashmir, India.  The two guests talked about their experiences and successes with Phase I in which they have established a CHINAR home in Srinagar, Kashmir.  This home has 22 boys and girls and is being managed by two women who are the “volunteer mothers” for these orphaned children.  For more information on CHINAR, and to donate to this cause, please visit www.chinar.org; phone: (703)858-9983.

Other stories discussed this week include:

-Federal Government’s efforts to hire new recruits to replace retiring workforce (Newsweek) – the Government is even offering signing bonuses!

-A new, online game called, “Scrabulous” (which is a virtual knockoff of the Scrabble board game) has been created by 21-year old Jayant Agarwalla. It has over 700,000 players-a-day and nearly three million registered users! Makers of Scrabble, Mattel and Hasbro, are not too thrilled about this.

-Indian state of Gujarat will connect 16,000 villages via broadband (The Economic Times).

-Sridhar Vembu, founder and CEO of AdventNet, has launched productivity suite, “Zoho” which is equivalent of the Microsoft Office, but costs only a fraction.

- Vatican will canonize Indian woman, Sister Alphonsa (1910-1946). Sister Alphonsa will be the first Indian woman to attain sainthood (ahead of the Albanian-born, Mother Teresa of Calcutta).

- Bollywood’s famous “Bachchan Family” (consisting of Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) will go on a world tour in July.