Advantage Outsiders
With the balance tilted against it, the Taliban regime will soon find itself vanquished.

Lull Before The Storm
Amid calls for a quick and decisive end to the conflict, Afghanistan has been abuzz with talk of an imminent Northern Alliance ground war against the Taliban.

History's Pointers
The Soviet Union's 10 years campaign in Afghanistan — a conflict that led to a humiliating withdrawal and, some say, its eventual breakup
— can be a learning experience for
the US.

NORTH AMERICAN SPECIAL: VARIETY

With all that’s been happening in the past few days, everyone was cooped up in their houses. This was a way to come out and enjoy,” said designer Asif Chowdhury. His company, Desi Trendz, was part of an event of music, fashion and entertainment co-sponsored by the South Asian Networking Association and Dastak, an organisation of Pakistani professionals. The event held at the Royal Albert Palace attracted a large crowd. The proceeds from the evening were earmarked for the wtc 9-11 Charity Foundation.

Florida
Nocturnal Dhamaka

Brightly dressed women and men swung to the thumping beats of modern-day sound systems. Hands clapped during the garba and dandiyas clashed in tandem for raas. The idols of the three main Hindu goddesses—Parvati, Lakshmi and Saraswati—gazed on from the centre of the 20,000-sq ft India Cultural Center as each day more than 1,000 people celebrated Navratri in Tampa over the past two weekends in October. Kirit Shah, president of the Gujarati Samaj of Tampa Bay that organises the event annually, was thrilled with the response to the festival of nine nights. “We were very happy with the turnout,” he said.

—Nitish S. Rele

Canadian Cameo
Switcheroo

After years of the media pursuing him as a politician, Manmohan (Moe) Sihota has now switched sides. The first ever Indian-Canadian MLA and minister chose not to contest the last elections and instead became a tv news anchor.
In the competition between two tv stations for a license for a new channel in Victoria, Sihota took sides. He lobbied for Toronto-based Chum tv, and as a reward, bagged a contract to be tv news anchor with an annual salary believed to be over $100,000! Sihota is now co-host of the vil and news. A man that the mainstream media loved to hate has finally taken revenge by joining their ranks!

—Eugene Correia

It will take several months before the spherical mobile robot devised by Ranjan Mukherjee, a PhD in mechanical engineering from UC, Santa Barbara, is built but it is already generating interest with a patent under its belt. The New York Times ran a story on it and soon Mukherjee, 36, had to take a lot of phone calls. Given the current preoccupation with terrorism and safety, the robot’s usefulness in a number of defence areas has caught the media attention. But Mukherjee says: “Our r&d is not aimed at any specific mission; it is rather intended to experimentally validate and obviate that the spherical robot will be suitable for a wide range of tasks in a number of scenarios.”

—Mabel Pais

New York
Poetry In Gold

The mighty Mughals may be long gone but their opulent jewels live on, sheer poetry written in rubies, emeralds and diamonds, etched in gold. New Yorkers have been pouring in in droves to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to view “Treasury of the World Jewelled Arts of India in the Age of the Mughals”. The stunning array of over 300 jewelled objects is part of the Al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait National Museum, which is reputed to be matchless for its Mughal period jewellery. The collection has been assembled over three decades by Sheikh Nasser Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, and was lost to Iraq during the 1990 Gulf War, until the UN interceded. For the first time, museum-goers were able to buy one of a kind pieces designed exclusively for the Met by Gem Palace of Jaipur.

—Lavina Melwani

New York
Heart Strings

	FOR A CAUSE: Ustad Vilayat Khan(above) Ganguly

It was an evening of melody and percussion, of taut strings vibrating with heart-warming resonance, and rhythmic drums resounding with fluid empathy. It was a benefit show of Rabindra Sangeet by Isheeta Ganguly—founder of Ragas & Rhapsodies, a cultural organisation that uses classical music to fund disadvantaged children in India—and Pramita Mallick—a graded air artiste—and a riveting sitar performance by Ustaad Vilayat Khan and his son, Hidayat Khan. Accompanying them were Samir Chatterjee on the tabla and Anirban Dasgupta on the sarod. Proceeds from the evening went to the World Trade Center Red Cross Fund in memory of the September 11 tragedy, Street Children International that helps Kolkata’s pavement schools and Neerupama, a non-profit organisation that supports primary schoolchildren.

—Raj S. Rangarajan

MetroScape

Looking Glass

Mumbai Restaurant:
India Jones

Mumbai Puppetry Festival: Toccata

Bangalore Restaurant: Chung Wah

Kolkata Exhibition : Life Is Beautiful