Hindi Comedy On Tap for Asian Indians in Akron and Cleveland Ohio

International Hindi Association, Northeast Ohio Chapter President Dr. Anoop Kumar Announces Hasya Kavi Sammelan 2013 at Bamboo Garden in North Olmsted, Ohio

This year's Hasya Kavi Sammelan in Cleveland will feature three poets. 

Dr. Suresh Awasthi of Kanpur is a leading satirist in India who has entertained and awakened the conscience of millions of people with his humor containing a deep penetrating satire. Eleven books to his credit, Dr. Awasthi is a maestro of haasya-vyang. He is also a Hindi professor and a journalist.

Dr. Kunwar Bechain is a renowned lyricist and poet from Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. Dr. Bechain is also known as the king of ghazals, and has published several books. He has traveled to various countries outside India, and mesmerizes the audience with his creative and original poetry. He received President’s Award & worked as head of the Hindi department in MMH College, Ghaziabad.

Shri Sanjay Gupta is a leading humorist from Faridabad. He has entertained the audience at places like I.I.T., NDTV, Delhi Door Darshan, and Radio Salam Namaste. He has made numerous trips outside India, and has written several books. He keeps the audience spellbound with his humor and satire.

International Hindi Association's Hasya Kavi Sammelan at Cleveland Shiva Vishnu Temple

Audience at Hasya Kavi Sammelan at Cleveland Shiva Vishnu Temple in 2012

Audience at Hasya Kavi Sammelan at Cleveland Shiva Vishnu Temple 2012

Established in 1980 in the United States of America, the International Hindi Association (IHA) or Antarashtriya Hindi ‘Samiti’, is one of the most vibrant Hindi institutions in the world. Its programs and activities focus on fostering the cultural heritage of India through promotion and propagation of Hindi and its literature among Indians abroad to ensure that future generations are not only able to speak Hindi with pride but can also learn and enjoy the reflections of Indian culture abundant in Hindi prose and poetry written through generations. The activities such as Hindi classes, youth camps, poetry recitals (kavi sammelans), literary symposiums and publications promote and inculcate human values inherent in the Indian culture.  International Hindi Association is a non-religious, non-political, and non-profit lingo-cultural organization is run entirely by volunteers with the support and patronage from its growing membership worldwide. 

Sree Venkateswara Temple of Cleveland to Open in May 2013

Sree Venkateswara Temple of Cleveland website

S. V. Temple aka Sri Venkateswara Temple of Cleveland located at 4406 Brecksville Road in Richfield, Ohio is scheduled to open on May 22, 2013.  This Hindu temple area is approximately 3000 sft on a 7 acres of land lot. 

God in Hinduism is called Brahman.  According to Hindu scriptures, the Hindu God Brahman is formless, that is it has no material (stone or metal or clay or wood), feeling, boundaries (inside or outside temple or anywhere else), size (tall or short), sex (male or female) shape (thin or thick), color (white, gold or black idol), apperance (beautiful or not beautiful) etc.  In other words these visible or invisible characteristics are not important but have some minor yet significant meaning.  

People from other religions find a blue colored god with more than 2 hands bizarre and this is because they don't understand and further most Hindus themselves do not understand or care to understand the intricacies of Hindu symbolism.  Hinduism is like a relational database with several primary keys!  And these primary keys are conceptual, talk about redundancy here.  The many Hindu Gods are like tables some related to the primary keys and some not related.  If you don't understand this, you are working with meaningless data but the Hinduism database itself is on a sound foundation. 

The symbolic physical representation of this formless god Brahman in Hinduism is Vishnu aka Venkateswara, Srinivasa, Balaji, Venkatachalapti, Narayan, Jagannath etc etc etc.  In chemistry, Sulphur is represented by the alphabet S, its kinda like that, symbolism.  But unlike God, Sulphur is not formless and the alphabet S can be written in different font types, sizes, color etc., each font defining a characteristic.  So each of the names of the formless God Brahman represents a specific combination of characteristics.  Its not too complicated if you think about it but is unnecessarily confusing for Hindus and others, like a relational database with multiple primary keys. 

The one Hindu God, unlike God in other religions has several aliases.  Male and female aliases; therefore Hinduism has goddesses, unlike other religions.  To add to the confusion, Vishnu has avatars.  Interestingly, Buddha who is considered an avatar of Vishnu, does not support the existence of Brahman!!  Its tough argue with the Buddha.  So does the Hindu God exist or not?  Hindu scriptures do provide an answer to this question, I just don't know what it is.  In reality, 95% of Hindus worship alphabet S and bicker about the font in which S is written while trampling on real elemental Sulphur; that's how much they know about Hinduism.  This Hindu naivete provides a platform for Ammas, Babas, Didis, Matas, Maharaj, Bapus, Sri Sri etc., to make money off of Hindus.  Sweeter than the money is the power these fellows wield over people.  Heck, from now on, my username should be Sri Sri Sri Cleveland Desi!

Show me a picture of Brahman, the Hindu God, you say.  Each of the thousands of dots in this image is an entire galaxy containing billions of stars, revealed in a region of space called the Lockman hole, which allows a clear line of sight out into the distant universe, as seen by the Herschel Space Observatory.  So, the Hindu God does exist as described in the Hindu scriptures and it is formless indeed as shown by science in the picture below.  The Brahman shown in the picture is as it is on an earth scale.  Then there is Brahman on an individual scale and I don't want to say anything about that. 

This is Brahman, there is no other Hindu God but this

Bottom line is Hinduism is monotheistic, not polytheistic and is the most tolerant and accepting of other religions and Gods.  The neatest thing about the Hindu God is that it encompasses all other religions and Gods!!! and that is why it is called the Universal Religion.   This also implies that all disputes based on religion are fundamentally human ignorance and stupidity.  

Venkateswara means "the Lord who destroys the sins of the people".   According to the Hindu scriptures, Vishnu, out of love towards His devotees, incarnated as Venkateswara and appeared for the salvation and upliftment of humanity in this Kali Yuga age. He is considered the Supreme form of Vishnu in this age.  Venkateswara's consort is Lakshmi aka Padmavathi.  Lakshmi is said to exist in several other forms. The most famous amongst them are Sridevi, Bhoodevi, and Neeladevi

The pranapratishtapanam program at first Sree Venkateshwara Temple in Northeast Ohio is scheduled to be held from May 22 through May 28, 2013.  There is an auction for first Pattuvastram offering to Lord Venkateswara with a starting bid of $5,000.  Starting bid for first Pattuvastram for Sridevi and Bhoodevi is $2,500.  There are other auctions and inaugural pooja sponsorships available for devotees.   

Mailing address for donations etc. is P.O. Box 305 Richfield, OH 44286.  Checks should be made payable to Sree Venkateswara Temple of Cleveland.

Richfield, Ohio is a village in Summit County, Ohio, United States.  This area is approximately equidistant between the downtown areas of Akron and Cleveland.  Richfield is part of the Akron Metropolitan Statistical Area.

At this moment, it appears, via Google, like there is an issue with the website of the temple which is at http://www.balajiusa.org

Asian Indians In Cleveland Diss Indian Ambassador

FICA schedules a dinner reception with Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao on March 29, 2013.  Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson is expected to this event.  This email from Federation of Indian Community Associations appears in the inbox of some Asian Indian Community members of Cleveland recently.

 About 100-200 Asian Indian Hindus visit the Shiva Vishnu Temple in Northeast Ohio every Sunday to worship and pray.  They do this because they see a value in the temple.  This has been occurring consistently for about two decades now.   

If about 35 Asian Indians of the 25k who live in the greater Cleveland area have shown an interest in hearing Nirupama give a speech on "India & USA: Bilateral Business Opportunities and Challenges", it is perhaps because they think that Nirupama Rao is unlikely to provide any valuable take aways during the reception.  This is the reality, needlessly getting disappointed or embarrassed over this is not the way of the wise folks.  The Asian Indian community of Cleveland is undoubtedly credible.  Is Nirupama Rao, the current Indian ambassador, speaking on a topic that is of little interest for most Asian Indians, credible or not? the number (35 out of 25k) speaks loudly enough.  

H1B Visa Immigration Fraud Scheme

   H1B Visa Immigration Fraud Scheme by Indian National

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – An Indian national pleaded guilty Wednesday for his role in a conspiracy to violate U.S. laws by filing fraudulent immigration documents and related offenses following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Phani Raju Bhima Raju, 41, of Charlotte, pleaded guilty to five federal charges ranging from conspiracy to violate U.S. laws to money laundering conspiracy for his participation in a fraudulent scheme to obtain false H-1B immigration visas for foreign workers. The H-1B visa program allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in designated specialty occupations.

According to filed court documents, beginning in 2006 and through November 2012, Raju executed a fraudulent scheme to defraud the United States by submitting materially false documents to obtain H-1B immigration visas for foreign nationals seeking employment in the U.S. Raju was the president of iFuturistics, a Delaware company with headquarters in Pineville, N.C. Court records show that Raju and others falsely represented to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that iFuturistics was hiring H-1B visa holders to work directly for the company. Contrary to the statements made on DOL and USCIS forms submitted by iFuturistics, when the applicants were granted H-1B visas they were placed in work locations with various companies throughout the U.S. In fact, as court records show, iFuturistics had entered into lucrative contracts with staffing agencies prior to submitting the fraudulent forms claiming the skilled IT workers would be employed at iFuturistics' headquarters in Pineville. Court documents show that as a result of Raju's illegal visa scheme iFuturistics received $13.2 million as payment from staffing companies in the U.S.

As part of his plea agreement, Raju has admitted that he submitted false documentation to DOL and USCIS and that he made materially false statements on the relevant forms in order to obtain approval of the H-1B immigration visas. In addition to filing fraudulent paperwork, Raju and others engaged in an illegal scheme to recruit, solicit, entice and hire individuals outside the U.S. to apply for H-1B visas and to obtain work in the U.S. Court records show that Raju gave the H-1B visa applicants a "cheat sheet" of questions and answers to assist them during their interview process to obtain the H-1B visas. Court records indicate that Raju and his co-conspirators at times failed to find employment for the H-1B visa workers the company had recruited to work in the U.S. On those occasions, court records indicate, these workers were "benched" in the U.S. while waiting for another job assignment. While they were benched, and contrary to the salary claims made in the application forms, these workers received little or no pay from iFuturistics. On one occasion, court documents show, a foreign national H-1B
visa holder had paid $2,500 to iFuturistics as a security deposit for processing her H-1B visa.

According to the contract between iFuturistics and the employee, the employee was promised an annual salary of $60,000 and had agreed to the company's request to market her services for employment throughout the U.S. In the end, iFuturistics never provided the worker with any work assignments and failed to pay her any wages.  Filed documents also indicate that in November 2009, Raju and others attempted to hide their fraudulent activities from law enforcement and immigration agents during a scheduled inspection visit of the company's Pineville offices. In anticipation of the visit, Raju and others had set up work stations, moved in furniture and recruited several persons to pretend to be iFuturistics workers for the duration of the inspection visit, when, in fact, the office space prior to the site visit had been empty and unoccupied. When law enforcement and immigration agents returned to the company's offices a month after the site visit, the office space was dark and unoccupied, as it had been prior to the planned inspection.

Raju was charged with and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate United States laws, which carries a maximum prison term of five years and a $250,000 fine; one count of presenting fraudulent immigration documents, which carries a maximum prison term of 10 years and a $250,000 fine; one count of hiring at least 10 unauthorized aliens within a one year period, which carries a maximum prison term of five years and a $250,000 fine; one count of hiring recruiting, and referring for a
fee for employment an unauthorized alien, which carries a maximum prison term of six months and a $100,000 fine; and one count f money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison and a fine not to exceed the value of the
funds involved. In addition, Raju has agreed to pay restitution to any victims harmed by his fraudulent conduct.

The final restitution amount will be determined by the court.  Raju has been in federal custody since December 2012. A sentencing date has not been set. The investigation was handled by HSI and DOL. The prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Smith of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Charlotte.

H1B Visa Immigration Fraud Scheme by Indian Origin Man Alleged

An Indian origin businessman allegedly involved in an alleged H1B immigration visa fraud scheme.  Surprise, surprise,  Not. Many Asian Indians in the US and elsewhere are not unfamiliar with the feeling that these kinds of schemes go on in a few Indian cities involving a few/several Indian IT companies. 

Get one IT employee for a reduced price and get a second employee for half the price, which for-profit corporation, would not like considering this package?  This is body shopping.   Fair quality work performed by a large supply of young non-unionized Indian citizens at low Indian prices (at will work at low wages, open ended work hours, a $ucked up legal system in India, little or no legal recourse in India or the employer's country), this is an ideal perennial high yield labor-gold mine for any for-profit international corporation.  Simply put, its human from one hemisphere harvesting an another human in the opposite hemisphere for fulfillment of wants and profit.  It has less to do, if anything at all, with unavailability of qualified workers in the US or any other country.  Cheap labor in countries like China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and South East Asian countries will continue to attract international corporation for several years to come.  

It happened over about 6 years and involved 13 million dollars, 13 million dollars!!!  This SOB should have made atleast 30 million in 6 years screwing desperate fellow countrymen.  13, that turned out to be unlucky for Phaniraju Bhimaraju.  Someone shock me by advising me that his origin is from the State of Andhra Pradesh in India.  It is noted that on March 22, 2013, Julie Rose of WFAE, reports in her article titled Charlotte Businessman Pleads Guilty to Immigration Fraud Scheme that  a Charlotte resident pleaded guilty in federal court this week to running an immigration scheme that parlayed hundreds of temporary work visas into profits of $13.2 million.

So a Charlotte man named Phani Raju Bhima Raju set up shop as a middleman. He recruited people from his native India – and other countries - to allegedly work for his Pineville tech company called iFuturistics.

In reality, Raju was farming those workers out to companies across the country and making a handy profit of over $13 million.

Phaniraju Bhimaraju of Charlotte North Carolina, arrest dated Nov 28, 2012

 That was over a period of six years ending last November when Raju got caught. In one episode straight out of a con-man movie, Raju got word that Immigration was coming to check on all the H-1B workers he claimed to have in Pineville, so he filled an empty office with fake employees and new computers to throw inspectors off the scent. A month later, the investigators came back to find the same office dark and deserted.

Spradlin won't say how Raju's fraud was ultimately discovered, but court documents indicate at least one woman complained to authorities after coming to the U.S. for the promise of a $60,000 job, only to be given no work and no reimbursement of her $2,500 security deposit.

"That's another common thing that we see referred to as 'benching' where these people don't actually work and they're paying to take a position that they're not actually being given," says Spradlin.

Imtiaz Muqbil writes,

During the six month period from March through August 2009, Mission India’s consular sections identified a total of 3,596 cases of suspected visa fraud (Chennai – 1,237, New Delhi – 949, Mumbai – 809, Hyderabad – 523, Kolkata – 78). 5. Most of India’s fraudulent applicants come from specific and easily defined regional areas within each consular district.

“These states have some of the most mobile populations in India and the largest concentrations of expatriate communities overseas, including in the United States. In New Delhi, cases originating from the Punjab comprise the majority of its IV (Immigrant Visa) and fraud caseloads, while the same can be said in Mumbai with Gujarat. Chennai and Hyderabad’s fraud workload comes principally from Andhra Pradesh.”
It says that “B1/B2 visa fraud is the most commonplace.   Regionally-based fraud rings throughout the country, but especially in Hyderabad, continue to produce fraudulent documents for visa application and travel purposes. Some visa “consultants” and travel agents specialize in fraudulent experience letters and fake document packages, which include passport copies of false relatives, bogus financial documents, and affidavits of support.”