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Wednesday 18 December 2013
Tuesday 10 December 2013
Bangladeshis as New York traffic agents
In the last decade at least 400 Bangladeshi immigrants, according to the statistics available with the union representing the traffic enforcement agent, have reportedly become traffic agents in New York, opening a new career path to those who traditionally find their way in this country from behind the wheel of a taxicab.
The paper says, city records put the number at slightly less than 200, but Police Department officials said they suspected the number to be higher because many employees do not list their birthplace.
Salaries start at $29,000 a year, but the insurance benefits and pension are generous. A college education and citizenship are not needed; one must be legally eligible to work in the United States and possess a high school diploma. Residency requirements are also slight.
Sheikh Zaman, a traffic agent, while explaining to the newspaper how he secured the job, recalled, “I saw a lot of Bengali people walking around the city, writing tickets...... They told me this was a very easy job to get.”
Zaman took a Civil Service test in 2008 and began his new career the next year.
“I love my job, I respect the job,” Zaman, 40, told the NYT. “Nobody likes getting tickets, but I enjoy the job. It gives me security. I’m happy.”
Before becoming an agent, Zaman was an airport security guard in New York, a job that did not have the stature of his occupation back home in Bangladesh, where he oversaw murder, rape and robbery investigations for the national police force.
The proliferation of Bangladeshi traffic agents has a lot to do with word of mouth, much of it from one Showkat Khan, a 53-year-old traffic agent and union official whose informal advice and encouragement to Bangladeshi immigrants turned into sit-down seminars, in which he helps applicants prepare for the Civil Service exam.
“I had thought having a uniform meant you were born in America; that was a misunderstanding,” recalled Khan, an energetic man who made a living as an itinerant magician in his native Bangladesh. “When I joined, I opened the door.”
The work can be challenging. The agents sweat through the summer, shiver through the winter and bristle year-round at the insults shouted as they slip parking tickets under windshield wipers. The insults can be particularly unsettling to new immigrants only in the country for a few months.
“A lot of people say, ‘Go back to your country,’ ” Jamil Sarwar, a parking enforcement officer for several years told the NYT, “But I ignored them because I know I’m doing no wrong. I work for the city.”
According to the newspaper, of the hundreds of Bangladeshi immigrants who became traffic agents over the years, about 100, including Sarwar, went on to become police officers.
The influx initially caused some friction.
“Not only was there a language barrier, which is abating, but our Bangladeshi brothers and sisters were very standoffish at the beginning,” a Union representative told the NYT. But over time, he added, they have become less insular and more willing to assimilate and adopt what he called “the traffic mentality.”
The tension also extended to Khan’s seminars. He said the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau had investigated him a number of years ago and questioned him about the sudden surge of his countrymen into the department. Police officials would neither confirm nor deny that an inquiry had taken place.
Khan told the NYT that the bureau also wanted to know if he was making income from his job seminars; he said that, in fact, he lost money for each one he held. “ ‘Come to my funeral’ — that is all I would ask of people,” he said.
There are more than 74,000 Bangladeshi immigrants in New York City, according to census figures. At one point, immigrants from Bangladesh were receiving more licenses to drive yellow cabs than any other immigrant group. (It was a somewhat strange affinity; many had never driven in their home country.)
In New York, law enforcement and cab driving have a complicated relationship. Taxi drivers are frequently robbed, and the police often come to their aid. But many taxi drivers resent receiving tickets over infractions that can easily wipe out a day’s pay and threaten their license.
These days, the draw toward the traffic enforcement jobs can be felt in the office of Shah Nawaz, an insurance broker, who specializes in accident policies for livery and yellow-cab drivers. His office, in the Bangladesh Plaza, an office building in Jackson Heights, is as important a port of call for cabbies as the restaurants along Lexington Avenue.
Nawaz recalled that a cabdriver client had recently scaled back to part-time driving because of a new job as a parking enforcement officer. Not long afterward, a 24-year-old livery driver, who had sat down across from his desk to discuss insurance premiums, acknowledged that he was considering a change in jobs.
“I drive a cab, but I think traffic enforcement is a better job,” the livery driver, Abdul Hafiz, has been quoted by the newspaper as saying.
Nawaz’s bookkeeper, Mahmuda Haseen, is married to a traffic enforcement agent.
“It is a very prestigious job,” she chimed in, noting that her husband had sent photographs of himself in his blue police uniform to relatives back home.
Parking enforcement jobs, Nawaz said, had become “a source of pride for a new generation of Bangladeshis.”
He gestured to a framed photograph of his 14-year-old son, Sadman, and added: “He says, ‘I will be a police officer.’ I say, ‘It’s an honorable job working for the N.Y.P.D., why not?’ ”
Church of England proposes celebrating gay marriage
One of 18 recommendations put forward by a two-year working group suggested clergy should "be able to offer appropriate services to mark a faithful same-sex relationship".
The group, which had its dissenters, also said the church should warmly welcome and affirm "the presence within the church of gay and lesbian people both lay and ordained".
"The church's teaching on sexuality is in tension with contemporary social attitudes, not only for gay and lesbian Christians but for straight Christians too," noted the report that will now be discussed by key groups in the church.
The spiritual head of the Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, has acknowledged there has been a "revolution" in attitudes towards homosexuality and that the church's stance against gay marriage could be seen as out-of-step with public opinion.
Parliament approved same-sex marriage earlier this year, despite opposition from several religious groups and Conservative legislators, allowing gay couples to marry in England from 2014
Thai food fest at Radisson
Madurapochana Ittarong, the Thai ambassador to Bangladesh, will inaugurate the event.
Water Garden Brasserie will serve authentic Thai cuisine, specially prepared by two highly acclaimed chefs flown in from Thailand.
Two lucky winners will be awarded free Dhaka-Bangkok-Dhaka air tickets, sponsored by an international airline, and a complimentary three nights stay at Radisson Suits Bangkok Sukhumvit
New Ford Mustang unveiled
Top Ford executives, including Chief Executive Alan
Mulally, will fan out across six cities to take the wraps off the 2015 Mustang
on Thursday. The car will be shown in Dearborn, Michigan, Shanghai, Sydney,
Barcelona, New York and Los Angeles.
This will be the first Mustang sold in Europe and Asia. The second-largest US automaker expects most sales to come from North America, but the car's mystique should prompt new consumers to visit Ford showrooms in other markets.
A new influx of buyers could help Ford increase sales of its other high-performance models, such as the Focus ST, boosting profit margins and the Ford brand image, analysts said.
"We kept seeing them show up even though we don't sell them in China, Australia and other places," Joe Hinrichs, Ford's head of North and South America, said of the Mustang on the sidelines of the Los Angeles Auto Show last month.
"People (are) figuring out a way to get it into the country, even though it's not sold there, which tells you something," added Hinrichs, who previously led Ford's operations in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
The Mustang was redesigned to appeal to a global audience, in keeping with Mulally's effort to cut costs by building models that can be sold around the world with a few tweaks.
The new look may alienate some enthusiasts. Leaked images of the car earlier this week drew varied responses.
"If I were planning the next Mustang today, I'd try to recreate a low-priced sports car that was more exciting than the Focus and would appeal to younger buyers," said Hal Sperlich, the chief architect of the original Ford Mustang.
"I'm not sure this will sell well in Europe, where gasoline is close to 10 bucks a gallon," he said. "A $50,000 Mustang with a V8 engine probably isn't going to have a significant impact there."
The new Mustang also features the trapezoid grill that lends a more premium look to the updated Fusion midsize sedan that was given a global redesign of its own last year.
It also has a new suspension system
to improve handling and a lower, wider stance. Ford is offering a 2.3 liter
turbocharged engine in the Mustang as well.
So far this year, the Chevrolet Camaro, made by General Motors Co, is outselling the Mustang. Mustang sales were down 7.7 percent to 71,459 during the first 11 months of 2013. Camaro sales were off 3.8 percent to 75,552 during that same period.
The original Mustang was introduced at the New York World's Fair on April 17, 1964, to national fanfare. It was featured on the covers of Time and Newsweek magazine and was purchased by more than half a million customers in 1965, its first full year on the market.
The Mustang was the inspiration for the R&B song "Mustang Sally," which was popular in the mid-1960s, and has been featured in Hollywood movies. Steve McQueen, for instance, famously drove a dark green Mustang in the 1968 film "Bullitt."
This will be the first Mustang sold in Europe and Asia. The second-largest US automaker expects most sales to come from North America, but the car's mystique should prompt new consumers to visit Ford showrooms in other markets.
A new influx of buyers could help Ford increase sales of its other high-performance models, such as the Focus ST, boosting profit margins and the Ford brand image, analysts said.
"We kept seeing them show up even though we don't sell them in China, Australia and other places," Joe Hinrichs, Ford's head of North and South America, said of the Mustang on the sidelines of the Los Angeles Auto Show last month.
"People (are) figuring out a way to get it into the country, even though it's not sold there, which tells you something," added Hinrichs, who previously led Ford's operations in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
The Mustang was redesigned to appeal to a global audience, in keeping with Mulally's effort to cut costs by building models that can be sold around the world with a few tweaks.
The new look may alienate some enthusiasts. Leaked images of the car earlier this week drew varied responses.
"If I were planning the next Mustang today, I'd try to recreate a low-priced sports car that was more exciting than the Focus and would appeal to younger buyers," said Hal Sperlich, the chief architect of the original Ford Mustang.
"I'm not sure this will sell well in Europe, where gasoline is close to 10 bucks a gallon," he said. "A $50,000 Mustang with a V8 engine probably isn't going to have a significant impact there."
The new Mustang also features the trapezoid grill that lends a more premium look to the updated Fusion midsize sedan that was given a global redesign of its own last year.
So far this year, the Chevrolet Camaro, made by General Motors Co, is outselling the Mustang. Mustang sales were down 7.7 percent to 71,459 during the first 11 months of 2013. Camaro sales were off 3.8 percent to 75,552 during that same period.
The original Mustang was introduced at the New York World's Fair on April 17, 1964, to national fanfare. It was featured on the covers of Time and Newsweek magazine and was purchased by more than half a million customers in 1965, its first full year on the market.
The Mustang was the inspiration for the R&B song "Mustang Sally," which was popular in the mid-1960s, and has been featured in Hollywood movies. Steve McQueen, for instance, famously drove a dark green Mustang in the 1968 film "Bullitt."
Friday 6 December 2013
Time for farming!
What he can't tell you is what he would sell it for -
because it will all be given away by the Chester County Food Bank in its efforts
to grow food for the needy. The fresh produce programme gives low-sodium,
low-sugar foods to the poorest Americans year-round, including during the
holiday season often associated with canned-food drives.
"We picked a thousand pounds this weekend and we'll do another thousand next week," Shick, the food bank's agricultural director said, while standing in a greenhouse where the programme grows seedlings in a suburban Philadelphia park.
Chester County is among about 20 food banks across the country that have started their own farms to boost healthier eating by the needy, said Domenic Vitiello, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has studied food pantry agricultural operations.
Low-income Americans are a demographic often plagued by diet-related ailments such as diabetes and heart disease.
Chester County Food Bank opened about five years ago, springing from the ashes of a similar programme that relied on nearby Amish farmers. It was started explicitly with the goal of distributing food straight from the field.
Canned food that is often donated to food banks because of its long shelf life is typically higher in sodium, which the American Heart Association says may increase risk for heart failure. People with diabetes also are encouraged to limit the sodium in their daily diet to 1,500 mg to help prevent or control high blood pressure, according to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
"The cans we've gotten in through the years - it's not the healthiest stuff," said Larry Welsch, Chester County Food Bank's executive director. "I've gotten cans of pickled cactus with 2,800 (milli) grams of sodium."
Contributing Through Volunteering
"When we formed this food bank," Welsch said, "it wasn't going to be cans in, cans out."
The farming effort has offered the public new ways to contribute to the food pantry.
"People are very excited to volunteer in the field," Shick said. "It isn't stuffing envelopes and putting cans in a box."
In three growing houses in Chester County's Springton Manor Farm park, the food bank cultivates seedlings for its partners, including private farmers and corporations such as Endo Health Solutions and Malvern, Pennsylvania-based Vanguard Group. Some schools use the seedlings to grow vegetables for student lunches, others raise their own crops in horticulture and culinary programs, and donate to the food bank what they do not use.
The charity grows food on more than a dozen acres spread across multiple sites. To supplement its crop yield, the food bank buys from a farm auction in nearby Lancaster County.
Fresh produce makes up about 22 percent of the edibles
the Chester County Food Bank distributes. It ranks sixth-highest in the nation
for the amount of fresh produce it distributes as a percentage of all the food
it gives out, according to statistics compiled by a University of Pennsylvania
researcher.
Growing produce allows food banks to distribute a wider variety, including leafy greens, Shick said.
But it also means footing the expense of buying commercial refrigerators and refrigerated trucks, said Ross Fraser, a spokesman for the non-profit Feeding America. Those costly hurdles have slowed the transition of food cupboards away from canned goods able to last for months in church basements and toward often more nutritious, but perishable food.
Nationwide, most food bank agricultural programs are still in the experimental stages, but they share some characteristics, Vitiello said. They are usually located in wealthier areas because of the start-up expense, and they tend to have educational components that can be just as important as feeding people.
Chester County is Pennsylvania's wealthiest, with an economy buoyed by the pharmaceutical industry. But it also has pockets of poverty, particularly in the Kennett Square area, where there are numerous migrant farm workers who pick mushrooms; and Coatesville, a city whose fortunes have declined as a local steel mill closed and then re-opened with fewer jobs.
Food bank farming programmes have important roles to play in educating people to cook and use healthier food, Vitiello said.
"When these programmes are training low-income people in learning how to produce their own food, they're playing a different role in the food system and promoting food justice," Vitiello said.
"We picked a thousand pounds this weekend and we'll do another thousand next week," Shick, the food bank's agricultural director said, while standing in a greenhouse where the programme grows seedlings in a suburban Philadelphia park.
Chester County is among about 20 food banks across the country that have started their own farms to boost healthier eating by the needy, said Domenic Vitiello, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has studied food pantry agricultural operations.
Low-income Americans are a demographic often plagued by diet-related ailments such as diabetes and heart disease.
Chester County Food Bank opened about five years ago, springing from the ashes of a similar programme that relied on nearby Amish farmers. It was started explicitly with the goal of distributing food straight from the field.
Canned food that is often donated to food banks because of its long shelf life is typically higher in sodium, which the American Heart Association says may increase risk for heart failure. People with diabetes also are encouraged to limit the sodium in their daily diet to 1,500 mg to help prevent or control high blood pressure, according to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
"The cans we've gotten in through the years - it's not the healthiest stuff," said Larry Welsch, Chester County Food Bank's executive director. "I've gotten cans of pickled cactus with 2,800 (milli) grams of sodium."
Contributing Through Volunteering
"When we formed this food bank," Welsch said, "it wasn't going to be cans in, cans out."
The farming effort has offered the public new ways to contribute to the food pantry.
"People are very excited to volunteer in the field," Shick said. "It isn't stuffing envelopes and putting cans in a box."
In three growing houses in Chester County's Springton Manor Farm park, the food bank cultivates seedlings for its partners, including private farmers and corporations such as Endo Health Solutions and Malvern, Pennsylvania-based Vanguard Group. Some schools use the seedlings to grow vegetables for student lunches, others raise their own crops in horticulture and culinary programs, and donate to the food bank what they do not use.
The charity grows food on more than a dozen acres spread across multiple sites. To supplement its crop yield, the food bank buys from a farm auction in nearby Lancaster County.
Growing produce allows food banks to distribute a wider variety, including leafy greens, Shick said.
But it also means footing the expense of buying commercial refrigerators and refrigerated trucks, said Ross Fraser, a spokesman for the non-profit Feeding America. Those costly hurdles have slowed the transition of food cupboards away from canned goods able to last for months in church basements and toward often more nutritious, but perishable food.
Nationwide, most food bank agricultural programs are still in the experimental stages, but they share some characteristics, Vitiello said. They are usually located in wealthier areas because of the start-up expense, and they tend to have educational components that can be just as important as feeding people.
Chester County is Pennsylvania's wealthiest, with an economy buoyed by the pharmaceutical industry. But it also has pockets of poverty, particularly in the Kennett Square area, where there are numerous migrant farm workers who pick mushrooms; and Coatesville, a city whose fortunes have declined as a local steel mill closed and then re-opened with fewer jobs.
Food bank farming programmes have important roles to play in educating people to cook and use healthier food, Vitiello said.
"When these programmes are training low-income people in learning how to produce their own food, they're playing a different role in the food system and promoting food justice," Vitiello said.
Bangladeshis as New York traffic agents
According to a report in the New York Times, the Bangladeshi immigrants,
who represent less than 1 percent of the city’s population, now make up
between 10 percent and 15 percent of the 3,000 traffic agents.
In the last decade at least 400 Bangladeshi immigrants, according to the statistics available with the union representing the traffic enforcement agent, have reportedly become traffic agents in New York, opening a new career path to those who traditionally find their way in this country from behind the wheel of a taxicab.
The paper says, city records put the number at slightly less than 200, but Police Department officials said they suspected the number to be higher because many employees do not list their birthplace.
Salaries start at $29,000 a year, but the insurance benefits and pension are generous. A college education and citizenship are not needed; one must be legally eligible to work in the United States and possess a high school diploma. Residency requirements are also slight.
Sheikh Zaman, a traffic agent, while explaining to the newspaper how he secured the job, recalled, “I saw a lot of Bengali people walking around the city, writing tickets...... They told me this was a very easy job to get.”
Zaman took a Civil Service test in 2008 and began his new career the next year.
“I love my job, I respect the job,” Zaman, 40, told the NYT. “Nobody likes getting tickets, but I enjoy the job. It gives me security. I’m happy.”
Before becoming an agent, Zaman was an airport security guard in New York, a job that did not have the stature of his occupation back home in Bangladesh, where he oversaw murder, rape and robbery investigations for the national police force.
The proliferation of Bangladeshi traffic agents has a lot to do with word of mouth, much of it from one Showkat Khan, a 53-year-old traffic agent and union official whose informal advice and encouragement to Bangladeshi immigrants turned into sit-down seminars, in which he helps applicants prepare for the Civil Service exam.
“I had thought having a uniform meant you were born in America; that was a misunderstanding,” recalled Khan, an energetic man who made a living as an itinerant magician in his native Bangladesh. “When I joined, I opened the door.”
The work can be challenging. The agents sweat through the summer, shiver through the winter and bristle year-round at the insults shouted as they slip parking tickets under windshield wipers. The insults can be particularly unsettling to new immigrants only in the country for a few months.
“A lot of people say, ‘Go back to your country,’ ” Jamil Sarwar, a parking enforcement officer for several years told the NYT, “But I ignored them because I know I’m doing no wrong. I work for the city.”
According to the newspaper, of the hundreds of Bangladeshi immigrants who became traffic agents over the years, about 100, including Sarwar, went on to become police officers.
The influx initially caused some friction.
“Not only was there a language barrier, which is abating, but our Bangladeshi brothers and sisters were very standoffish at the beginning,” a Union representative told the NYT. But over time, he added, they have become less insular and more willing to assimilate and adopt what he called “the traffic mentality.”
The tension also extended to Khan’s seminars. He said the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau had investigated him a number of years ago and questioned him about the sudden surge of his countrymen into the department. Police officials would neither confirm nor deny that an inquiry had taken place.
Khan told the NYT that the bureau also wanted to know if he was making income from his job seminars; he said that, in fact, he lost money for each one he held. “ ‘Come to my funeral’ — that is all I would ask of people,” he said.
There are more than 74,000 Bangladeshi immigrants in New York City, according to census figures. At one point, immigrants from Bangladesh were receiving more licenses to drive yellow cabs than any other immigrant group. (It was a somewhat strange affinity; many had never driven in their home country.)
In New York, law enforcement and cab driving have a complicated relationship. Taxi drivers are frequently robbed, and the police often come to their aid. But many taxi drivers resent receiving tickets over infractions that can easily wipe out a day’s pay and threaten their license.
These days, the draw toward the traffic enforcement jobs can be felt in the office of Shah Nawaz, an insurance broker, who specializes in accident policies for livery and yellow-cab drivers. His office, in the Bangladesh Plaza, an office building in Jackson Heights, is as important a port of call for cabbies as the restaurants along Lexington Avenue.
Nawaz recalled that a cabdriver client had recently scaled back to part-time driving because of a new job as a parking enforcement officer. Not long afterward, a 24-year-old livery driver, who had sat down across from his desk to discuss insurance premiums, acknowledged that he was considering a change in jobs.
“I drive a cab, but I think traffic enforcement is a better job,” the livery driver, Abdul Hafiz, has been quoted by the newspaper as saying.
Nawaz’s bookkeeper, Mahmuda Haseen, is married to a traffic enforcement agent.
“It is a very prestigious job,” she chimed in, noting that her husband had sent photographs of himself in his blue police uniform to relatives back home.
Parking enforcement jobs, Nawaz said, had become “a source of pride for a new generation of Bangladeshis.”
He gestured to a framed photograph of his 14-year-old son, Sadman, and added: “He says, ‘I will be a police officer.’ I say, ‘It’s an honorable job working for the N.Y.P.D., why not?’ ”
In the last decade at least 400 Bangladeshi immigrants, according to the statistics available with the union representing the traffic enforcement agent, have reportedly become traffic agents in New York, opening a new career path to those who traditionally find their way in this country from behind the wheel of a taxicab.
The paper says, city records put the number at slightly less than 200, but Police Department officials said they suspected the number to be higher because many employees do not list their birthplace.
Salaries start at $29,000 a year, but the insurance benefits and pension are generous. A college education and citizenship are not needed; one must be legally eligible to work in the United States and possess a high school diploma. Residency requirements are also slight.
Sheikh Zaman, a traffic agent, while explaining to the newspaper how he secured the job, recalled, “I saw a lot of Bengali people walking around the city, writing tickets...... They told me this was a very easy job to get.”
Zaman took a Civil Service test in 2008 and began his new career the next year.
“I love my job, I respect the job,” Zaman, 40, told the NYT. “Nobody likes getting tickets, but I enjoy the job. It gives me security. I’m happy.”
Before becoming an agent, Zaman was an airport security guard in New York, a job that did not have the stature of his occupation back home in Bangladesh, where he oversaw murder, rape and robbery investigations for the national police force.
The proliferation of Bangladeshi traffic agents has a lot to do with word of mouth, much of it from one Showkat Khan, a 53-year-old traffic agent and union official whose informal advice and encouragement to Bangladeshi immigrants turned into sit-down seminars, in which he helps applicants prepare for the Civil Service exam.
“I had thought having a uniform meant you were born in America; that was a misunderstanding,” recalled Khan, an energetic man who made a living as an itinerant magician in his native Bangladesh. “When I joined, I opened the door.”
The work can be challenging. The agents sweat through the summer, shiver through the winter and bristle year-round at the insults shouted as they slip parking tickets under windshield wipers. The insults can be particularly unsettling to new immigrants only in the country for a few months.
“A lot of people say, ‘Go back to your country,’ ” Jamil Sarwar, a parking enforcement officer for several years told the NYT, “But I ignored them because I know I’m doing no wrong. I work for the city.”
According to the newspaper, of the hundreds of Bangladeshi immigrants who became traffic agents over the years, about 100, including Sarwar, went on to become police officers.
The influx initially caused some friction.
“Not only was there a language barrier, which is abating, but our Bangladeshi brothers and sisters were very standoffish at the beginning,” a Union representative told the NYT. But over time, he added, they have become less insular and more willing to assimilate and adopt what he called “the traffic mentality.”
The tension also extended to Khan’s seminars. He said the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau had investigated him a number of years ago and questioned him about the sudden surge of his countrymen into the department. Police officials would neither confirm nor deny that an inquiry had taken place.
Khan told the NYT that the bureau also wanted to know if he was making income from his job seminars; he said that, in fact, he lost money for each one he held. “ ‘Come to my funeral’ — that is all I would ask of people,” he said.
There are more than 74,000 Bangladeshi immigrants in New York City, according to census figures. At one point, immigrants from Bangladesh were receiving more licenses to drive yellow cabs than any other immigrant group. (It was a somewhat strange affinity; many had never driven in their home country.)
In New York, law enforcement and cab driving have a complicated relationship. Taxi drivers are frequently robbed, and the police often come to their aid. But many taxi drivers resent receiving tickets over infractions that can easily wipe out a day’s pay and threaten their license.
These days, the draw toward the traffic enforcement jobs can be felt in the office of Shah Nawaz, an insurance broker, who specializes in accident policies for livery and yellow-cab drivers. His office, in the Bangladesh Plaza, an office building in Jackson Heights, is as important a port of call for cabbies as the restaurants along Lexington Avenue.
Nawaz recalled that a cabdriver client had recently scaled back to part-time driving because of a new job as a parking enforcement officer. Not long afterward, a 24-year-old livery driver, who had sat down across from his desk to discuss insurance premiums, acknowledged that he was considering a change in jobs.
“I drive a cab, but I think traffic enforcement is a better job,” the livery driver, Abdul Hafiz, has been quoted by the newspaper as saying.
Nawaz’s bookkeeper, Mahmuda Haseen, is married to a traffic enforcement agent.
“It is a very prestigious job,” she chimed in, noting that her husband had sent photographs of himself in his blue police uniform to relatives back home.
Parking enforcement jobs, Nawaz said, had become “a source of pride for a new generation of Bangladeshis.”
He gestured to a framed photograph of his 14-year-old son, Sadman, and added: “He says, ‘I will be a police officer.’ I say, ‘It’s an honorable job working for the N.Y.P.D., why not?’ ”
Church of England proposes celebrating gay marriage
The proposals come after the mother
church for the world's 80 million Anglicans earlier this year dropped its ban on
gay clergy in civil partnerships becoming bishops.
One of 18 recommendations put forward by a two-year working group suggested clergy should "be able to offer appropriate services to mark a faithful same-sex relationship".
The group, which had its dissenters, also said the church should warmly welcome and affirm "the presence within the church of gay and lesbian people both lay and ordained".
"The church's teaching on sexuality is in tension with contemporary social attitudes, not only for gay and lesbian Christians but for straight Christians too," noted the report that will now be discussed by key groups in the church.
The spiritual head of the Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, has acknowledged there has been a "revolution" in attitudes towards homosexuality and that the church's stance against gay marriage could be seen as out-of-step with public opinion.
Parliament approved same-sex marriage earlier this year, despite opposition from several religious groups and Conservative legislators, allowing gay couples to marry in England from 2014.
One of 18 recommendations put forward by a two-year working group suggested clergy should "be able to offer appropriate services to mark a faithful same-sex relationship".
The group, which had its dissenters, also said the church should warmly welcome and affirm "the presence within the church of gay and lesbian people both lay and ordained".
"The church's teaching on sexuality is in tension with contemporary social attitudes, not only for gay and lesbian Christians but for straight Christians too," noted the report that will now be discussed by key groups in the church.
The spiritual head of the Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, has acknowledged there has been a "revolution" in attitudes towards homosexuality and that the church's stance against gay marriage could be seen as out-of-step with public opinion.
Parliament approved same-sex marriage earlier this year, despite opposition from several religious groups and Conservative legislators, allowing gay couples to marry in England from 2014.
New Ford Mustang unveiled
Top Ford executives, including Chief Executive Alan
Mulally, will fan out across six cities to take the wraps off the 2015 Mustang
on Thursday. The car will be shown in Dearborn, Michigan, Shanghai, Sydney,
Barcelona, New York and Los Angeles.
This will be the first Mustang sold in Europe and Asia. The second-largest US automaker expects most sales to come from North America, but the car's mystique should prompt new consumers to visit Ford showrooms in other markets.
A new influx of buyers could help Ford increase sales of its other high-performance models, such as the Focus ST, boosting profit margins and the Ford brand image, analysts said.
"We kept seeing them show up even though we don't sell them in China, Australia and other places," Joe Hinrichs, Ford's head of North and South America, said of the Mustang on the sidelines of the Los Angeles Auto Show last month.
"People (are) figuring out a way to get it into the country, even though it's not sold there, which tells you something," added Hinrichs, who previously led Ford's operations in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
The Mustang was redesigned to appeal to a global audience, in keeping with Mulally's effort to cut costs by building models that can be sold around the world with a few tweaks.
The new look may alienate some enthusiasts. Leaked images of the car earlier this week drew varied responses.
"If I were planning the next Mustang today, I'd try to recreate a low-priced sports car that was more exciting than the Focus and would appeal to younger buyers," said Hal Sperlich, the chief architect of the original Ford Mustang.
"I'm not sure this will sell well in Europe, where gasoline is close to 10 bucks a gallon," he said. "A $50,000 Mustang with a V8 engine probably isn't going to have a significant impact there."
The new Mustang also features the trapezoid grill that lends a more premium look to the updated Fusion midsize sedan that was given a global redesign of its own last year.
It also has a new suspension system
to improve handling and a lower, wider stance. Ford is offering a 2.3 liter
turbocharged engine in the Mustang as well.
So far this year, the Chevrolet Camaro, made by General Motors Co, is outselling the Mustang. Mustang sales were down 7.7 percent to 71,459 during the first 11 months of 2013. Camaro sales were off 3.8 percent to 75,552 during that same period.
The original Mustang was introduced at the New York World's Fair on April 17, 1964, to national fanfare. It was featured on the covers of Time and Newsweek magazine and was purchased by more than half a million customers in 1965, its first full year on the market.
The Mustang was the inspiration for the R&B song "Mustang Sally," which was popular in the mid-1960s, and has been featured in Hollywood movies. Steve McQueen, for instance, famously drove a dark green Mustang in the 1968 film "Bullitt."
This will be the first Mustang sold in Europe and Asia. The second-largest US automaker expects most sales to come from North America, but the car's mystique should prompt new consumers to visit Ford showrooms in other markets.
A new influx of buyers could help Ford increase sales of its other high-performance models, such as the Focus ST, boosting profit margins and the Ford brand image, analysts said.
"We kept seeing them show up even though we don't sell them in China, Australia and other places," Joe Hinrichs, Ford's head of North and South America, said of the Mustang on the sidelines of the Los Angeles Auto Show last month.
"People (are) figuring out a way to get it into the country, even though it's not sold there, which tells you something," added Hinrichs, who previously led Ford's operations in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
The Mustang was redesigned to appeal to a global audience, in keeping with Mulally's effort to cut costs by building models that can be sold around the world with a few tweaks.
The new look may alienate some enthusiasts. Leaked images of the car earlier this week drew varied responses.
"If I were planning the next Mustang today, I'd try to recreate a low-priced sports car that was more exciting than the Focus and would appeal to younger buyers," said Hal Sperlich, the chief architect of the original Ford Mustang.
"I'm not sure this will sell well in Europe, where gasoline is close to 10 bucks a gallon," he said. "A $50,000 Mustang with a V8 engine probably isn't going to have a significant impact there."
The new Mustang also features the trapezoid grill that lends a more premium look to the updated Fusion midsize sedan that was given a global redesign of its own last year.
So far this year, the Chevrolet Camaro, made by General Motors Co, is outselling the Mustang. Mustang sales were down 7.7 percent to 71,459 during the first 11 months of 2013. Camaro sales were off 3.8 percent to 75,552 during that same period.
The original Mustang was introduced at the New York World's Fair on April 17, 1964, to national fanfare. It was featured on the covers of Time and Newsweek magazine and was purchased by more than half a million customers in 1965, its first full year on the market.
The Mustang was the inspiration for the R&B song "Mustang Sally," which was popular in the mid-1960s, and has been featured in Hollywood movies. Steve McQueen, for instance, famously drove a dark green Mustang in the 1968 film "Bullitt."
UNESCO recognition for Jamdani
The Inter-Governmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible
Heritage unanimously decided to include the craft of making Jamdani
saris into the ICHH list.
According to the UNESCO, intangible cultural heritage includes oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festivals, knowledge and practices concerning nature. On December 4, the world inter-governmental committee for the safeguarding of intangible heritage under Unesco met at Baku in Azerbaijan to enlist new entries in the world register.
While they included Jamdani into the list from Bangladesh, from India, the only entry was Manipur's Sankirtana and that was also included in the ICHH list, the 'Times of India' said.
Jamdani is a vividly patterned, sheer cotton fabric, traditionally woven on a handloom by craftspeople around Dhaka.
This year the committee has included 14 elements on the list which serves to raise awareness of intangible heritage and provide recognition to communities' traditions and know-how that reflect their cultural diversity.
The Unesco said, "Jamdani is a time-consuming and
labour-intensive form of weaving because of the richness of its motifs
which are created directly on the loom using the discontinuous weft
technique. Weaving is thriving today due to the fabric's popularity for
making saris, the principal dress of Bengali women at home and abroad.
The Jamdani sari is a symbol of identity, dignity and self-recognition
and provides wearers with a sense of cultural identity and social
cohesion."
It added, "The weavers develop an occupational identity and take great pride in their heritage; they enjoy social recognition and are highly respected for their skills. A few master weavers are recognised as bearers of the traditional Jamdani motifs and weaving techniques and transmit the knowledge and skills to disciples. Weavers - together with spinners, dyers, loom-dressers and practitioners of a number of other supporting crafts - form a closely knit community with a strong sense of unity, identity and continuity."
The Committee decides that the craft satisfied all the criteria required for inscription.
"It has been passed down through generations particularly within families. Jamdani weaving provides its community a sense of cultural identity and continuity as well as a source of income and empowerment. Inscription could promote safeguarding measures involving both the craftspeople and governmental agencies and reflecting their shared commitment aim to create favourable conditions for the transmission of knowledge and marketing of the textiles," the organisation said.
Jamdani is a word of Persian origin. It is derived from a combination of two Persian words - 'Jama' meaning cloth and 'dana' meaning any small granule. At present around 5000 people are involved with the traditional art.
The UNESCO said, "The Jamdani weavers have remained in the
weaving profession from generation to generation. The element represents
Bangladesh's rich textile heritage, contains significant historic value
and has been designated as a unique element of the intangible cultural
heritage of the country."
It added that inscription will ensure visibility and awareness of the socio-cultural significance of the intangible cultural heritage which is expressed in a body of knowledge, practices and traditional craftsmanship. More importantly its inscription, by testifying to human creativity, will encourage the local and international consumers to ensure its safeguarding as an element of cultural diversity worldwide and for the tremendous social and economic impact it creates in the lifestyle of the community concerned.
According to the UNESCO, intangible cultural heritage includes oral traditions, performing arts, social practices, rituals and festivals, knowledge and practices concerning nature. On December 4, the world inter-governmental committee for the safeguarding of intangible heritage under Unesco met at Baku in Azerbaijan to enlist new entries in the world register.
While they included Jamdani into the list from Bangladesh, from India, the only entry was Manipur's Sankirtana and that was also included in the ICHH list, the 'Times of India' said.
Jamdani is a vividly patterned, sheer cotton fabric, traditionally woven on a handloom by craftspeople around Dhaka.
This year the committee has included 14 elements on the list which serves to raise awareness of intangible heritage and provide recognition to communities' traditions and know-how that reflect their cultural diversity.
File Photo
It added, "The weavers develop an occupational identity and take great pride in their heritage; they enjoy social recognition and are highly respected for their skills. A few master weavers are recognised as bearers of the traditional Jamdani motifs and weaving techniques and transmit the knowledge and skills to disciples. Weavers - together with spinners, dyers, loom-dressers and practitioners of a number of other supporting crafts - form a closely knit community with a strong sense of unity, identity and continuity."
The Committee decides that the craft satisfied all the criteria required for inscription.
"It has been passed down through generations particularly within families. Jamdani weaving provides its community a sense of cultural identity and continuity as well as a source of income and empowerment. Inscription could promote safeguarding measures involving both the craftspeople and governmental agencies and reflecting their shared commitment aim to create favourable conditions for the transmission of knowledge and marketing of the textiles," the organisation said.
Jamdani is a word of Persian origin. It is derived from a combination of two Persian words - 'Jama' meaning cloth and 'dana' meaning any small granule. At present around 5000 people are involved with the traditional art.
File Photo
It added that inscription will ensure visibility and awareness of the socio-cultural significance of the intangible cultural heritage which is expressed in a body of knowledge, practices and traditional craftsmanship. More importantly its inscription, by testifying to human creativity, will encourage the local and international consumers to ensure its safeguarding as an element of cultural diversity worldwide and for the tremendous social and economic impact it creates in the lifestyle of the community concerned.
Sunday 1 December 2013
Piyush Chawla gets married to long-time friend
Piyush and Anubhuti, who happen to be neighbours, got married late on Friday night in the presence of close family members and friends, including the cricketers` Uttar Pradesh teammates.
Anubhuti, an MBA, is the daughter of Dr Ameer Singh Chauhan, who is posted as the chief medical officer in Meerut.
`My son and Anubhuti are well known to each other for last many years. Anubhuti is very familiar and the relationship has now been changed from friendship to life partners,` said Piyush`s father Pramod Kumar Chawla.
The wedding was attended by Piyush`s UP teammates including pacer Irfan Pathan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and
Gyanendra Pandey among others.
However, former Test captain and local MP Mohammed Azaharuddin, who was invited as special guest, did not attend the ceremony.
Friday 29 November 2013
Women have more options for breast cancer surgery
One of the world’s most glamorous women had an operation that once was terribly disfiguring — removal of both breasts. But new approaches are dramatically changing breast surgeries, whether to treat cancer or to prevent it as Angelina Jolie just chose to do. As Jolie said, “the results can be beautiful.”
Jolie revealed on Tuesday that she had a double mastectomy and reconstruction with implants because she carries a gene mutation that puts her at high risk of developing breast cancer.
For women who already have the disease, the choice used to be whether to have the lump or the whole breast removed. Now there are more options that allow faster treatment, smaller scars, fewer long-term side effects and better cosmetic results. It has led to a new specialty — “oncoplastic” surgery — combining oncology, which focuses on cancer treatment, and plastic surgery to restore appearance.
“Cosmetics is very important” and can help a woman recover psychologically as well as physically, said Dr. Deanna Attai, a Burbank, Calif., surgeon who is on the board of directors of the American Society of Breast Surgeons. Its annual meeting in Chicago earlier this month featured many of these new approaches.
More women are getting chemotherapy or hormone therapy before surgery to shrink large tumors enough to let them have a breast-conserving operation instead of a mastectomy. Fewer lymph nodes are being removed to check for cancer’s spread, sparing women painful arm swelling for years afterward.
Newer ways to rebuild breasts have made mastectomy a more appealing option for some women. More of them are getting immediate reconstruction with an implant at the same time the cancer is removed rather than several operations that have been standard for many years. Skin and nipples increasingly are being preserved for more natural results. Jolie, for example, was able to keep her nipples and presumably her skin.
Some doctors are experimenting with operating on breast tumors through incisions in the armpit to avoid breast scars. There’s even a “Goldilocks” mastectomy for large-breasted women — not too much or too little removed, and using excess skin to create a “just right” natural implant.
Finally, doctors are testing a way to avoid surgery altogether, destroying small tumors by freezing them with a probe through the skin.
“Breast surgery has become more minimalistic,” said Dr. Shawna Willey of Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
“Women have more options. It’s much more complex decision-making.”
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women around the world. In the U.S. alone, about 230,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.
Most can be treated by just having the lump removed, but that requires radiation for weeks afterward to kill any stray cancer cells in the breast, plus frequent mammograms to watch for a recurrence.
Many women don’t want the worry or the radiation, and choose mastectomy even though they could have less drastic surgery. Mastectomy rates have been rising. Federal law requires insurers to cover reconstruction for mastectomy patients, and many of the improvements in surgery are aimed at making it less disfiguring.
Can potato chips & french fries cause cancer?
Nothing can be as scary as knowing that enjoying some of the taken for granted popular edibles like the potato chips and French fries may expose you and your family to the risk of developing certain kinds of cancers.
There has been a spate of studies done to find out if there is a correlation between fries and human cancer ever since Swedish scientists tumbled upon acrylamide in foods. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, say that there is a link between the chemical compound acrylamide formed in foods and cancer. One may be exposed to acrylamide through the skin, inhalation or by ingestion (eating). There are several sources of contamination by Acrylamide like through water containing it, cigarette smoking, or workers inhaling it in factories because acrylamide is used in a whole lot of industries like cosmetics, oil, paper, water treatment, plastics, mining, etc, but our concern here is its presence in certain foods.
Acrylamide in foods: Acrylamide is formed when carbohydrate foods are cooked over 120 degrees Celsius. Foods cooked below this temperature are not found to contain acrylamide. Cooking methods that employ high temperatures like baking, roasting and frying seem to produce acrylamide in foods. And longer the cooking time with these methods, higher is the acrylamide content produced.
Foods that show high acrylamide contents are French fries, potato chips, biscuits, breakfast cereals, toasted bread and coffee beans.
Cancers: Making the above said foods a large and constant part of one’s daily eating pattern may be detrimental to health in more than one way, with risk for cancer being one of it. There is a positive association between high intake of such foods and risk for endometrial, ovarian, renal cell and prostate cancers.
While more researches are needed to confirm what other foods also contain acrylamide and what dietary precautions we should take, one thing is for sure. Avoid French fries potato chips or anything processed or deep fried.
5 Tips to reduce this carcinogen:
Minimise eating at take – away joints where fries are part of the meal and encourage children to choose other kinds of meals. Fast foods are not healthy meals anyway.
Should you want potato fries made at home, then half cook fresh potato before frying so that frying time is reduced and only fry to a light brown. Avoid using frozen potato fries.
Similarly, toast bread to a light shade avoiding burnt breads.
Avoid or keep to a minimum biscuits and such processed foods, while setting an example to your children by opting for fruits, oatmeal and nuts as more often eaten items on your family’s daily menu.
Stick to traditional snacks and breakfast items, made fresh at home.
There may be other sources of acrylamide creeping into our body which may not be as easily eliminated. But we have a choice on the foods we eat. And here we can control carcinogens like acrylamide to a great extent.
Weekly Beauty Tip
DHAKA: This week’s beauty tip is on ‘Undone Side Braid’. Take your makeup box and try…
Undone Side Braid
Whether you’re looking to style your hair quickly, or find a way to conceal second-day strands, a piecey side braid like Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra’s is a chic and easy answer to both issues.
While the star’s hairstylist Josue Perez created the look by first lathering up and blowing-out Chopra’s strands, the style works just as well when you’ve skipped a shampoo – your hair’s natural oils give the style grip, allowing it to stay in place without adding additional product.
To impart a soft wave, Perez wound individual sections around a medium-barrel curling iron, then shook out the texture using his fingers for an undone feel.
After determining where the plait should fall, he began twisting a braid to the side, and tied it off with a rubber band.
‘I went back and broke up the braid to give it a messy texture,’ he said, reports InStyle.
‘With a tail comb, you can pull out small sections, and choose how much hair you want falling out.’
A few face-framing wisps added to the tousled effect, and a final veil of hairspray held the style in place.
What women want at that time of the month
DHAKA: Here is a guide for men who are coping with that time of the month in their partner`s cycle.
It is the quiet before the storm and you can sense the inevitable ship commanded by Captain PMS slowly and steadily hit rocky shores. If you find your woman stacking up the refrigerator with chocolates and the drawer below the television with rented romantic comedies, chances are that she may be going through the premenstrual stress or what some people call, unfairly, the pissed-at-men syndrome. While you wear your shields and prepare to dodge the dynamites, do keep in mind that this monthly hormonal phase is no picnic for your female companion.
Some women undergo moodswingduring the ovulation period. Psychiatrist Dr. Anshu Kulkarni says general malice, sadness or happiness without reason is common too.
What to do:
Do the dates you`ve been avoiding: Watch that romantic movie while snuggled in bed with her, if she tells you to. Take her out for dinner at her favourite restaurant, hold doors and pull out chairs for her. But try not to be obvious or imposing about it.
Be the guinea pig: Clinical hypnotherapist and psychologist, Dr Deepali S Ajinkya says,"Keep in mind that it is the physiological and hormonal changes that she is going through that is making her act out of her element." So try out the new dishes she might cook during these days. Wear that shirt at the back of your closet that you know she likes a lot. If she moves the furniture in the drawing room, let her.
Get her chocolates: If you ever find yourself in the situation of arguing with a woman who is PMSing, be sure to have a piece of chocolate on hand. Research shows that chocolate intake enhances the expression of MKP in the trigeminal ganglion that lowers the level of inflammatory chemicals, suppressing the symptoms of headaches and migraines.
Show sympathy: A woman, whether PMSing or not, simply wants to be assured of the fact that her significant other gets her. All she needs you to do is nod your head and say, `Yes honey, I understand`. Ajinkya says, assuring your spouse of your presence is all that is needed. If you stand there and offer advice on how to change her mood, it will take you a while to get back in her good books.
Be patient: On an average, women have about six days of `moody blues`," says Kulkarni. All you have to do is wait it out with more patience than you thought you ever had. Keep different cramping medication handy. This will let her know you care. Your thoughtfulness will heal her more than the medication will.
Take on some of her chores: Whether she`s requesting you to run to the store and pick up sanitary napkins or help her with the cooking, if her chore list is within reason and physically possible, just do it.
What to avoid
Questioning: No woman likes being given the hint that she`s acting like a raving lunatic. The worst thing a man can do is ask his partner if she is PMSing. This means that you have noticed her attitude change and are unwilling to deal with it.
Point out flaws: A very important thing to remember is not to comment. Don`t bring up the fact that she looks fatter in some regions or that her cheeks look chubbier than usual. Women tend to eat comfort food when they are PMSing, regardless of their otherwise strict diet. It isn`t up to you to monitor what she eats. Instead, accommodate her temporary diet changes. "It is important that the man is not critical and doesn`t nag his woman during her hormonal phase," states Kulkarni. Blemishes and zits on her face, if pointed out, will add to the depression.
Arguing: Arguing and fighting with a PMSing woman is highly avoided as it adds to her frustration. Make an effort to calm her down and delay important discussions for a later time when she is not so agitated.
Yoga for naturally glowing skin
Stressful work conditions can up diabetes risk
All you need to know about organic foods
Saturday 23 November 2013
Bangladesh Lifestyle
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