javadeveloper
08-02 01:31 PM
Your wisdom is amaizing and we are happy to see you and request you to help clear the darkness of GC for many souls.
I second you !!! I also heard from my co-worker that UN's wisdom is awesome.He is so popular.
I second you !!! I also heard from my co-worker that UN's wisdom is awesome.He is so popular.
wallpaper hairstyles no credit cards accepted. no credit cards accepted.
Ahimsa
11-13 06:37 PM
Just watched Lou Dobbs tonight.
Lou tried his usual tactic of calling politicians "powerful".
He said "Next guest is the most powerful chairman, likely chairman, of the ways and means committee in the senate, Charlie Rangel".
Charlie rebutted immediately "I don't know what you mean by that. You can call powerful or whatever, but what we think will matter is how to get things done by working together..."
Lou will never change his course...
Lou tried his usual tactic of calling politicians "powerful".
He said "Next guest is the most powerful chairman, likely chairman, of the ways and means committee in the senate, Charlie Rangel".
Charlie rebutted immediately "I don't know what you mean by that. You can call powerful or whatever, but what we think will matter is how to get things done by working together..."
Lou will never change his course...
mrajatish
07-08 10:07 AM
Hi,
I applied for GC under schedule A in may06 .My husband filed as derivative.He received a notice of intent to denial last month .Reason being he did not have paystubs for a period of more than 6 months during 2000 and 2001.His employer at that time did not pay him even after he worked for 4 months then he took few more months to change his company(more than 180 days)In 2002 he went to India and came back .and in 2004 filed for a GC as primary petitioner and me as a derivative .last year he withdrew the petition after he received several RFE`S fearing the worst.Even though he no longer has GC filed as primary petitioner he received notice of intent to deny for the petion filed through me saying that his H1 was not legal as could`nt show proof for several months and that when he filed for AOS he used those years as work experience.
and now another problem is I applied for EAD in march and have not received new ead.my old ead expired 10 days ago.and now Iam not working.
We bought a house last year thinking that under schedule A we`ll get GC in no time.Now we know it is a terrible mistake.Now both of us can`t work and had to take my son out of daycare. and we have house payments to make.We put our house for sale weeks ago and so far no offers.I contacted local representative to expedite My EAD and also contacted USCIS to expedite it,
citing financial burden.We are spending sleepless nights and have no clue what to do for my EAD and his AOS.pLEASE HELP.
Did anyone face similar situation .Any suggestions are welcome.
1. When you filed I-485, you should file under 245(K) immediately - I believe someone already mentioned that below. For derivative applications, the derivative applicant may be "out of status" for any length without any issues for AOS approval.
2. For the 6 mos period he was without pay check, does he have any proof of employment and correspondingly any letter showing that he was on vacation/leave of absense. I had a 15 day period between 2 jobs where I took time off but had no vacation, hence leave without pay but I have leave letter from my manager in letter-head (I know a lot of people do that as taking vacation between jobs gives them a fresh start).
3. Did the period length where he did not have a pay check exceed 180 days at a stretch?
Bottomline, it seems an overzealous USCIS officer is trying to find ways to deny your application - you should involve a good lawyer and get immediate rebuttal for Notice of Denial.
I applied for GC under schedule A in may06 .My husband filed as derivative.He received a notice of intent to denial last month .Reason being he did not have paystubs for a period of more than 6 months during 2000 and 2001.His employer at that time did not pay him even after he worked for 4 months then he took few more months to change his company(more than 180 days)In 2002 he went to India and came back .and in 2004 filed for a GC as primary petitioner and me as a derivative .last year he withdrew the petition after he received several RFE`S fearing the worst.Even though he no longer has GC filed as primary petitioner he received notice of intent to deny for the petion filed through me saying that his H1 was not legal as could`nt show proof for several months and that when he filed for AOS he used those years as work experience.
and now another problem is I applied for EAD in march and have not received new ead.my old ead expired 10 days ago.and now Iam not working.
We bought a house last year thinking that under schedule A we`ll get GC in no time.Now we know it is a terrible mistake.Now both of us can`t work and had to take my son out of daycare. and we have house payments to make.We put our house for sale weeks ago and so far no offers.I contacted local representative to expedite My EAD and also contacted USCIS to expedite it,
citing financial burden.We are spending sleepless nights and have no clue what to do for my EAD and his AOS.pLEASE HELP.
Did anyone face similar situation .Any suggestions are welcome.
1. When you filed I-485, you should file under 245(K) immediately - I believe someone already mentioned that below. For derivative applications, the derivative applicant may be "out of status" for any length without any issues for AOS approval.
2. For the 6 mos period he was without pay check, does he have any proof of employment and correspondingly any letter showing that he was on vacation/leave of absense. I had a 15 day period between 2 jobs where I took time off but had no vacation, hence leave without pay but I have leave letter from my manager in letter-head (I know a lot of people do that as taking vacation between jobs gives them a fresh start).
3. Did the period length where he did not have a pay check exceed 180 days at a stretch?
Bottomline, it seems an overzealous USCIS officer is trying to find ways to deny your application - you should involve a good lawyer and get immediate rebuttal for Notice of Denial.
2011 All Credit Cards Accepted
Macaca
02-21 04:04 PM
Sometime back CNN (or Wolf Blitzer) used to say that CNN is the best news on network. Does anyone remember the exact words? Thanks.
more...
chanduv23
03-24 02:48 PM
Unitednations,
I read your replies and it seems you are ignoring some facts and are forming a one sided opinion.
- Why did USCIS allow labor substitutions? Why did it take them so long to stop it? Why did they wait until after July 07 to stop it. Were they not allowing people to use this back door and lawyers to make money?
- If consulting is a problem, what were they doing in the past few years? What are they doing now? Do you think just a few raids once is enough to stop the problem? Why can't they enforce their own laws so that they punish the companies and not the immigrants.
- Why is USCIS making paperwork difficult. Why can't the system be simple like Canada or Australia so that we can do our own paperwork? Why are lawyers in the picture?
- If they find problem in consulting, why are they not going after Tata, Wipro etc. Don't tell me these companies are clean?
- Why is USCIS so disorganized without good IT. Do you think other agencies are also same? Do you think USCIS does not have enough money?
- Why can't they ban DV lottery? But go after H1Bs. You will say to do that law must be changed. But at least go strict on whom you approve once they are selected in the lottery. Are they not bringing lot of criminals, fanatics, unemployed and uneducated poor through DV.
- Why can't ICE do their job of enforcement and round up illegals. If they were strict we will not have so many illegals or the problem of illegals.
The questions will go on. But you need to step back and think more from the perspective of a applicant waiting for his GC or H1B .
Well - that is because we have a lot of opposition. Employers want us ONLY for the business, lawyers handle stuff with USCIS and employers and guide them accordingly - for lawyers - this complex web is bread and butter.
It is our visibility and vulnerability that puts focus on us.
Remember - it is not your fault if you get a call from USCIS asking for paperwork like the original poster. It is just that there is so much focus on people like us.
Also remember - nothing is over - as long as the original poster has followed the law and handles it he/she must be fine.
I read your replies and it seems you are ignoring some facts and are forming a one sided opinion.
- Why did USCIS allow labor substitutions? Why did it take them so long to stop it? Why did they wait until after July 07 to stop it. Were they not allowing people to use this back door and lawyers to make money?
- If consulting is a problem, what were they doing in the past few years? What are they doing now? Do you think just a few raids once is enough to stop the problem? Why can't they enforce their own laws so that they punish the companies and not the immigrants.
- Why is USCIS making paperwork difficult. Why can't the system be simple like Canada or Australia so that we can do our own paperwork? Why are lawyers in the picture?
- If they find problem in consulting, why are they not going after Tata, Wipro etc. Don't tell me these companies are clean?
- Why is USCIS so disorganized without good IT. Do you think other agencies are also same? Do you think USCIS does not have enough money?
- Why can't they ban DV lottery? But go after H1Bs. You will say to do that law must be changed. But at least go strict on whom you approve once they are selected in the lottery. Are they not bringing lot of criminals, fanatics, unemployed and uneducated poor through DV.
- Why can't ICE do their job of enforcement and round up illegals. If they were strict we will not have so many illegals or the problem of illegals.
The questions will go on. But you need to step back and think more from the perspective of a applicant waiting for his GC or H1B .
Well - that is because we have a lot of opposition. Employers want us ONLY for the business, lawyers handle stuff with USCIS and employers and guide them accordingly - for lawyers - this complex web is bread and butter.
It is our visibility and vulnerability that puts focus on us.
Remember - it is not your fault if you get a call from USCIS asking for paperwork like the original poster. It is just that there is so much focus on people like us.
Also remember - nothing is over - as long as the original poster has followed the law and handles it he/she must be fine.
smisachu
12-28 08:48 PM
India is nobody's fool. Will you take back inside your house, the trash you have trown out? India wins the war, destroys all terrorist camps, kills all the wanted terrorists on Indian files. Then India withdraws from pakistan leaving back pakistan in the hands of its current civilian heads. All India wants is to kill the terrorists, either Pakistan does it or We do it for you. India will be doing Pakistan a favor. So either you do it or we do it. Bottom like the terrorists need to be Killed.
And as far as comparing us to President Bush, India has never lost a war yet because India never went to war with any one with out them provoking it. India always fights Justified wars and justice always wins.
So Mr. Trained Reservist,
Let's say the war is won in 15-20 days based on your expert knowledge, what is next? India occupies Pakistan? and acquires 160 million muslim population along with Talibans? You think that will end terrorism and riots in India?
Oh BTW, there is another trained reservist in the history who claimed Iraq war would be won in two weeks. Do you know who he is? Hint: he became the worst president in the history of the US.
And as far as comparing us to President Bush, India has never lost a war yet because India never went to war with any one with out them provoking it. India always fights Justified wars and justice always wins.
So Mr. Trained Reservist,
Let's say the war is won in 15-20 days based on your expert knowledge, what is next? India occupies Pakistan? and acquires 160 million muslim population along with Talibans? You think that will end terrorism and riots in India?
Oh BTW, there is another trained reservist in the history who claimed Iraq war would be won in two weeks. Do you know who he is? Hint: he became the worst president in the history of the US.
more...
learning01
05-24 12:44 PM
can you tell me why nurses and physio-therapists are brought on H1B visas, and once they are employed their GCs are applied straight away and UNDER NO quota.
You seem to be liking one or part of Lou's argument. You are only seeing the trees. My friend, start to see the forest. The big picture of Lou.
You seem to be liking one or part of Lou's argument. You are only seeing the trees. My friend, start to see the forest. The big picture of Lou.
2010 images Credit Cards Accepted
redcard
12-23 12:03 AM
I feel the mood getting a little lighter here and about time. What happened in Mumbia was dastardly and the responsible gotta pay. Lets keep the pressure and focus on it.
What I dislike though is the attempt by extremists to generalize a group of people to make them less humane and easy for the other group to kill them or worse ethnic cleansing. The point you mentioned is very often quoted to scare/anger the majority. The muslims have been guilty of been easily misled too so this is not unique to hindus.
Amen to the end of terrorism but India is way ahead of its neighbors. I do not even wish to compare us to our neighbors though I hope they wake up and get their act together
I am sure that once muslim community or for that matter any community prospers the radicalism reduces. Unfortunately the religious muslim leaders dont want the community to get educated, prosper and westernized because than they would loose control..its precisely for this reason that the religious leaders of this community have for centuries scared the followers of the community with gods wrath if they changed. The Muslim religion has to become progressive and moderate.
About the terrorism was thinking what options does India have to fight against this. Yes military action definitely is an option but it does more harm to India than to Pakistan. Attacking Pakistan, India has a lot to loose while Pakistan has nothing loose. It would make Pakistan from a failing state to a failed state, but would put India years behind as far as economy is concerned and create the biggest headache for India for decades to come. A military confrontation and weakening of Pakistan’s military establishment would let Pakistan slip fully into the hands of Religious fanatics and produce million more terrorist who will be a long-term headache for India.
If one back goes back in the history, Pakistan has lost a lot more than India in the last three wars, and that is the only reason why the establishment in Pakistan including the Military has preferred encouraging and sponsoring cross border terrorism which is of very little cost to Pakistan but a constant headache to India. India has lost more from these terrorist attacks including Kargil war than they would if they had gone through a one time direct confrontation. I personally feel that if India does decide to go in for a military confrontation it has to be long term strategy to occupy the country and wipe out terrorism and help to nurture the economy so that prosperity and wealth creation takes a front seat and religion moves low in the peoples priority. In fact if Pakistan can ever have a strong economy and strong democracy, I am sure the country will move towards a moderate religious society. Lets face it, man is a very selfish being, it will never put its personal prosperity at stake for a larger cause even it that happens to be religion. An example of this is the Middle East Kingdom where the monarchs including the common folk is very possessive about personal wealth and will go to any extent to preserve it.
The only way this can ever happen is by a willing global coalition, which is ready to be there for a long haul and not by India alone. If India did do a quick military action and left the country, Pakistan would move to become another Afghanistan creating the biggest headache for India for decades and decades to come and effectively dragging Indian economy and prosperity.
Its sad that India let this headache linger on for so long, had it taken remedial action by taking control of complete kashmir and installing a pro Indian govt in 1971 we would not be confronting an nuclear dragon with very little option to fight it.
What I dislike though is the attempt by extremists to generalize a group of people to make them less humane and easy for the other group to kill them or worse ethnic cleansing. The point you mentioned is very often quoted to scare/anger the majority. The muslims have been guilty of been easily misled too so this is not unique to hindus.
Amen to the end of terrorism but India is way ahead of its neighbors. I do not even wish to compare us to our neighbors though I hope they wake up and get their act together
I am sure that once muslim community or for that matter any community prospers the radicalism reduces. Unfortunately the religious muslim leaders dont want the community to get educated, prosper and westernized because than they would loose control..its precisely for this reason that the religious leaders of this community have for centuries scared the followers of the community with gods wrath if they changed. The Muslim religion has to become progressive and moderate.
About the terrorism was thinking what options does India have to fight against this. Yes military action definitely is an option but it does more harm to India than to Pakistan. Attacking Pakistan, India has a lot to loose while Pakistan has nothing loose. It would make Pakistan from a failing state to a failed state, but would put India years behind as far as economy is concerned and create the biggest headache for India for decades to come. A military confrontation and weakening of Pakistan’s military establishment would let Pakistan slip fully into the hands of Religious fanatics and produce million more terrorist who will be a long-term headache for India.
If one back goes back in the history, Pakistan has lost a lot more than India in the last three wars, and that is the only reason why the establishment in Pakistan including the Military has preferred encouraging and sponsoring cross border terrorism which is of very little cost to Pakistan but a constant headache to India. India has lost more from these terrorist attacks including Kargil war than they would if they had gone through a one time direct confrontation. I personally feel that if India does decide to go in for a military confrontation it has to be long term strategy to occupy the country and wipe out terrorism and help to nurture the economy so that prosperity and wealth creation takes a front seat and religion moves low in the peoples priority. In fact if Pakistan can ever have a strong economy and strong democracy, I am sure the country will move towards a moderate religious society. Lets face it, man is a very selfish being, it will never put its personal prosperity at stake for a larger cause even it that happens to be religion. An example of this is the Middle East Kingdom where the monarchs including the common folk is very possessive about personal wealth and will go to any extent to preserve it.
The only way this can ever happen is by a willing global coalition, which is ready to be there for a long haul and not by India alone. If India did do a quick military action and left the country, Pakistan would move to become another Afghanistan creating the biggest headache for India for decades and decades to come and effectively dragging Indian economy and prosperity.
Its sad that India let this headache linger on for so long, had it taken remedial action by taking control of complete kashmir and installing a pro Indian govt in 1971 we would not be confronting an nuclear dragon with very little option to fight it.
more...
Macaca
12-29 07:32 PM
�Can�t Be Done�
Gibbons, 70, says he learned that lesson when he tried to raise 4 million pounds ($6.2 million) from two wealthy London- based nonresident Indian investors in November 2006.
Talks failed because of differences over expectations for returns on equity and other contract terms, he says.
�That�s what made me think this just can�t be done,� he says.
Indian microlenders differ from Yunus�s Grameen Bank in key ways. To protect depositors� money after bankruptcies among nonbanking financial companies in the early 1990s, India�s Reserve Bank in 1997 made it more difficult for them to meet the requirements needed to take deposits from the public. Only 36 microlenders are registered as nonbank financial companies, according to information supplied by the Reserve Bank.
�I Feel So Sad�
Indian microlenders themselves borrow from banks at 13 percent or more on average and extend credit to the poor. They charge interest rates that can rise to 36 percent, says Alok Prasad, chief executive officer of the Microfinance Institutions Network, which represents 44 microlenders. He says all 44 firms are registered with the Reserve Bank.
SKS Microfinance gets funds at about 12 percent interest and lends at 24.52 percent in Andhra Pradesh, spokesman Atul Takle says.
In Bangladesh, Grameen Bank got a banking license in 1983, which allowed it to take deposits. It charges 5 percent for education loans and 8 percent for housing loans. Beggars can borrow for free, and interest on major loans is capped at 20 percent, Yunus says.
�Microfinance has been abused and distorted,� he says. �I feel so sad because that�s not the microcredit I have created.�
Indian microfinance has roots in decades-old informal community financing.
Nongovernmental organizations pioneered cooperative lending, known today as self-help groups, with seed money from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. Encouraged by these projects, the state-backed bank worked to tie borrowing groups to local bank branches in 1992.
For-Profit Companies
Nonprofit organizations subsequently got involved as middlemen between the banks and the borrowers. By 2005, nonprofits such as SKS and Share Microfin had turned themselves into profit-making enterprises.
Akula�s SKS attracted investors such as Khosla Ventures, Sun Microsystems Inc. co-founder Vinod Khosla�s venture capital firm.
Capital flowed into the new industry from commercial banks, venture firms and private equity.
Sequoia Capital, in Menlo Park, California, and Bangalore- based Infosys Technologies Ltd. Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy were among the backers. George Soros�s Quantum Fund has a 0.37 percent stake in SKS.
Private-equity investors alone have put $515 million into Indian microfinance companies since 2006, research service Venture Intelligence says.
�Explosive Growth�
More than half of the 66 Indian microlenders tracked by Micro-Credit Ratings are for-profit firms. Some 260 microlenders had 26.7 million borrowers and 183.44 billion rupees of loans outstanding as of March, according to the Microfinance India State of the Sector Report 2010.
�Over the last two years, we�ve been seeing explosive growth,� says N. Srinivasan, who wrote the report. �Microfinance institutions found that it�s easy to make money. Not that making money is bad, but when you go overboard and say you require money for growth, you get into problems.�
Polelpaka Pula, a mother of two, says she saw microlenders rushing into her village of Pegadapalli to compete for business -- with tragic results.
Her husband, Prakash, a painter who made 250 rupees on a good day, first borrowed from a group of villagers to build a house. Each participant of the so-called chit fund contributed 1,000 rupees a month and took a turn collecting the entire sum.
Microfinance officers from L&T Finance Ltd., Spandana Sphoorty Financial Ltd., Share Microfin and SKS began offering loans in the village starting in 2004, she says.
The couple, already contributing to their village fund, took five more loans totaling 64,000 rupees. That saddled them with payments of 7,300 rupees a month, more than Prakash�s 5,000 rupee maximum monthly income.
Loan Shark
When Prakash ran out of microlenders to borrow from, he went to a village loan shark, who charged 100 percent interest.
With no way out and debt from multiple lenders ballooning, Prakash hanged himself in November 2009, his wife says.
The small house he�d dreamed of was never completed. Only the foundation stands next to the home of his parents, a tiny structure with a roof of palm leaves.
Spandana says that neither of the couple�s names is in its database. The company says the media wrongly attribute harassment cases to microfinance, especially when Spandana is mentioned.
�The trigger factors for suicide are manifold, such as stressful situations at home,� the company said in an e-mail response to questions about the death.
Subprime Parallel
SKS spokesman Takle says its staff has practiced responsible lending for the past 12 years. Its employees are not paid based on the loan size or repayment percentage.
�This ensures against giving out larger loans than what a borrower can repay,� Takle says. A spokesman for L&T Finance declined to comment.
Overlending in Andhra Pradesh calls to mind the U.S. subprime crisis, says Lakshmi Shyam-Sunder, director of corporate risk at International Finance Corp. in Washington, which invests in microlenders.
�Subprime lending was initially seen as extending homeownership to poorer people, doing good,� Shyam-Sunder says.
As the industry expanded, making a profit became more important to some lenders, she says. �Tension arises when you work on activities with both social goals as well as commercial interests,� she says, adding that it�s important to strike the right balance.
Companies chasing profits amid poor corporate governance are undermining the intent of microfinance, Cashpor�s Gibbons says.
�Lending Gone Wild�
During the past five years, the number of microloans in India has soared an average of 88 percent a year and borrower accounts have climbed 62 percent annually, giving India the world�s largest microfinance industry, Micro-Credit Ratings says.
�This is unrestrained consumer lending gone wild,� Gibbons says. �It�s not about poverty reduction anymore.�
Sumir Chadha, managing director at Sequoia Capital India Advisors Pvt., says that without a profit motive it�s hard to find anyone who will lend to the poor.
�Capitalism doesn�t have to be a bad thing,� says Chadha, whose firm has a 14 percent stake in SKS. �If you can�t profit off the poor, it means that no companies will service the poor -- and then they will be worse off than earlier.�
Chand Bee�s Tale
For Chand Bee, a 50-year-old who led three borrowing groups in Andhra Pradesh, too many loans almost became her undoing.
She says she ran away from home after collectors began harassing her. She took out multiple loans beginning in 2005, and she names Spandana as one of the lenders.
Some of the money paid for the funeral of her eldest son. When she fell behind on payments, she says loan officers threatened to humiliate her in front of neighbors and pressed her to sell her small grandchildren into prostitution.
She left her slum in Warangal, where she lived with her deaf husband, some of her eight grown children and more than a dozen grandchildren.
After living as a beggar for a year, Chand Bee returned home in early November when family members told her that the state ordinance that went into effect on Oct. 15 had suspended some collections. A Spandana spokeswoman says none of the company�s four customers in the district with the name Chand Bee has had trouble repaying.
Almost every household in the slum of 250 people -- where barefoot children play in lanes between rows of dilapidated shacks -- has taken several loans. So many microlenders ply their trade that residents refer to them by the days they collect: Monday company, Tuesday company and so on.
Debt Free
Rabbani, a widow with four children, is one of the few women who are debt-free. She started a spice shop with two loans, which she repaid with her small profit. After seeing her neighbors� pains, she vowed never to seek another microloan.
SKS says 17 of its clients have committed suicide, none because of loans being in arrears or harassment.
�Suicide is a complex issue,� Akula says.
Sitting in the second-floor conference room of SKS�s seven- story headquarters in Hyderabad, where posters of smiling women running handicraft and tailor shops decorate the doors of elevators, Akula says there�s nothing wrong with seeking profits.
�What does it matter to a poor woman how much an investor makes?� says Akula, dressed in his trademark knee-length kurta shirt from Fabindia, a seller of ethnic clothes made by rural craftsmen. �What matters to her is that she gets a loan on time at a reasonable rate that allows her to earn higher income.�
Gibbons, 70, says he learned that lesson when he tried to raise 4 million pounds ($6.2 million) from two wealthy London- based nonresident Indian investors in November 2006.
Talks failed because of differences over expectations for returns on equity and other contract terms, he says.
�That�s what made me think this just can�t be done,� he says.
Indian microlenders differ from Yunus�s Grameen Bank in key ways. To protect depositors� money after bankruptcies among nonbanking financial companies in the early 1990s, India�s Reserve Bank in 1997 made it more difficult for them to meet the requirements needed to take deposits from the public. Only 36 microlenders are registered as nonbank financial companies, according to information supplied by the Reserve Bank.
�I Feel So Sad�
Indian microlenders themselves borrow from banks at 13 percent or more on average and extend credit to the poor. They charge interest rates that can rise to 36 percent, says Alok Prasad, chief executive officer of the Microfinance Institutions Network, which represents 44 microlenders. He says all 44 firms are registered with the Reserve Bank.
SKS Microfinance gets funds at about 12 percent interest and lends at 24.52 percent in Andhra Pradesh, spokesman Atul Takle says.
In Bangladesh, Grameen Bank got a banking license in 1983, which allowed it to take deposits. It charges 5 percent for education loans and 8 percent for housing loans. Beggars can borrow for free, and interest on major loans is capped at 20 percent, Yunus says.
�Microfinance has been abused and distorted,� he says. �I feel so sad because that�s not the microcredit I have created.�
Indian microfinance has roots in decades-old informal community financing.
Nongovernmental organizations pioneered cooperative lending, known today as self-help groups, with seed money from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development. Encouraged by these projects, the state-backed bank worked to tie borrowing groups to local bank branches in 1992.
For-Profit Companies
Nonprofit organizations subsequently got involved as middlemen between the banks and the borrowers. By 2005, nonprofits such as SKS and Share Microfin had turned themselves into profit-making enterprises.
Akula�s SKS attracted investors such as Khosla Ventures, Sun Microsystems Inc. co-founder Vinod Khosla�s venture capital firm.
Capital flowed into the new industry from commercial banks, venture firms and private equity.
Sequoia Capital, in Menlo Park, California, and Bangalore- based Infosys Technologies Ltd. Chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy were among the backers. George Soros�s Quantum Fund has a 0.37 percent stake in SKS.
Private-equity investors alone have put $515 million into Indian microfinance companies since 2006, research service Venture Intelligence says.
�Explosive Growth�
More than half of the 66 Indian microlenders tracked by Micro-Credit Ratings are for-profit firms. Some 260 microlenders had 26.7 million borrowers and 183.44 billion rupees of loans outstanding as of March, according to the Microfinance India State of the Sector Report 2010.
�Over the last two years, we�ve been seeing explosive growth,� says N. Srinivasan, who wrote the report. �Microfinance institutions found that it�s easy to make money. Not that making money is bad, but when you go overboard and say you require money for growth, you get into problems.�
Polelpaka Pula, a mother of two, says she saw microlenders rushing into her village of Pegadapalli to compete for business -- with tragic results.
Her husband, Prakash, a painter who made 250 rupees on a good day, first borrowed from a group of villagers to build a house. Each participant of the so-called chit fund contributed 1,000 rupees a month and took a turn collecting the entire sum.
Microfinance officers from L&T Finance Ltd., Spandana Sphoorty Financial Ltd., Share Microfin and SKS began offering loans in the village starting in 2004, she says.
The couple, already contributing to their village fund, took five more loans totaling 64,000 rupees. That saddled them with payments of 7,300 rupees a month, more than Prakash�s 5,000 rupee maximum monthly income.
Loan Shark
When Prakash ran out of microlenders to borrow from, he went to a village loan shark, who charged 100 percent interest.
With no way out and debt from multiple lenders ballooning, Prakash hanged himself in November 2009, his wife says.
The small house he�d dreamed of was never completed. Only the foundation stands next to the home of his parents, a tiny structure with a roof of palm leaves.
Spandana says that neither of the couple�s names is in its database. The company says the media wrongly attribute harassment cases to microfinance, especially when Spandana is mentioned.
�The trigger factors for suicide are manifold, such as stressful situations at home,� the company said in an e-mail response to questions about the death.
Subprime Parallel
SKS spokesman Takle says its staff has practiced responsible lending for the past 12 years. Its employees are not paid based on the loan size or repayment percentage.
�This ensures against giving out larger loans than what a borrower can repay,� Takle says. A spokesman for L&T Finance declined to comment.
Overlending in Andhra Pradesh calls to mind the U.S. subprime crisis, says Lakshmi Shyam-Sunder, director of corporate risk at International Finance Corp. in Washington, which invests in microlenders.
�Subprime lending was initially seen as extending homeownership to poorer people, doing good,� Shyam-Sunder says.
As the industry expanded, making a profit became more important to some lenders, she says. �Tension arises when you work on activities with both social goals as well as commercial interests,� she says, adding that it�s important to strike the right balance.
Companies chasing profits amid poor corporate governance are undermining the intent of microfinance, Cashpor�s Gibbons says.
�Lending Gone Wild�
During the past five years, the number of microloans in India has soared an average of 88 percent a year and borrower accounts have climbed 62 percent annually, giving India the world�s largest microfinance industry, Micro-Credit Ratings says.
�This is unrestrained consumer lending gone wild,� Gibbons says. �It�s not about poverty reduction anymore.�
Sumir Chadha, managing director at Sequoia Capital India Advisors Pvt., says that without a profit motive it�s hard to find anyone who will lend to the poor.
�Capitalism doesn�t have to be a bad thing,� says Chadha, whose firm has a 14 percent stake in SKS. �If you can�t profit off the poor, it means that no companies will service the poor -- and then they will be worse off than earlier.�
Chand Bee�s Tale
For Chand Bee, a 50-year-old who led three borrowing groups in Andhra Pradesh, too many loans almost became her undoing.
She says she ran away from home after collectors began harassing her. She took out multiple loans beginning in 2005, and she names Spandana as one of the lenders.
Some of the money paid for the funeral of her eldest son. When she fell behind on payments, she says loan officers threatened to humiliate her in front of neighbors and pressed her to sell her small grandchildren into prostitution.
She left her slum in Warangal, where she lived with her deaf husband, some of her eight grown children and more than a dozen grandchildren.
After living as a beggar for a year, Chand Bee returned home in early November when family members told her that the state ordinance that went into effect on Oct. 15 had suspended some collections. A Spandana spokeswoman says none of the company�s four customers in the district with the name Chand Bee has had trouble repaying.
Almost every household in the slum of 250 people -- where barefoot children play in lanes between rows of dilapidated shacks -- has taken several loans. So many microlenders ply their trade that residents refer to them by the days they collect: Monday company, Tuesday company and so on.
Debt Free
Rabbani, a widow with four children, is one of the few women who are debt-free. She started a spice shop with two loans, which she repaid with her small profit. After seeing her neighbors� pains, she vowed never to seek another microloan.
SKS says 17 of its clients have committed suicide, none because of loans being in arrears or harassment.
�Suicide is a complex issue,� Akula says.
Sitting in the second-floor conference room of SKS�s seven- story headquarters in Hyderabad, where posters of smiling women running handicraft and tailor shops decorate the doors of elevators, Akula says there�s nothing wrong with seeking profits.
�What does it matter to a poor woman how much an investor makes?� says Akula, dressed in his trademark knee-length kurta shirt from Fabindia, a seller of ethnic clothes made by rural craftsmen. �What matters to her is that she gets a loan on time at a reasonable rate that allows her to earn higher income.�
hair 2011 No credit cards accepted.
optimystic
04-06 02:08 AM
Excellent analysis Jung.lee
Summers are OK, but desis want their houses warm enough in the winter for a lungi or veshti
I couldn't control my laughter. You have a good sense of humor too
Wow...do people wear lungi at home in winter !! May be in the temperate climates of bay area and further down in So Cal :)
But up here in North Cal (Roseville), where quite a few times the lawns freeze during early winter mornings, I feel cold even with full length fleece pants inside my home!! :D . But anyway, that might just be my excuse to not wear a lungi :) ....Never liked wearing it when I was growing up as well...preferred pajamas !
Summers are OK, but desis want their houses warm enough in the winter for a lungi or veshti
I couldn't control my laughter. You have a good sense of humor too
Wow...do people wear lungi at home in winter !! May be in the temperate climates of bay area and further down in So Cal :)
But up here in North Cal (Roseville), where quite a few times the lawns freeze during early winter mornings, I feel cold even with full length fleece pants inside my home!! :D . But anyway, that might just be my excuse to not wear a lungi :) ....Never liked wearing it when I was growing up as well...preferred pajamas !
more...
Macaca
12-27 06:16 PM
Of luxury cars and lowly tractors (http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/columns/sainath/article995828.ece) By P. SAINATH | The Hindu
When businessmen from Aurangabad in the backward Marathwada region bought 150 Mercedes Benz luxury cars worth Rs. 65 crore at one go in October, it grabbed media attention. The top public sector bank, State Bank of India, offered the buyers loans of over Rs. 40 crore. �This,� says Devidas Tulzapurkar, president of the Aurangabad district bank employees association, �at an interest rate of 7 per cent.� A top SBI official said the bank was �proud to be part of this deal,� and would �continue to scout for similar deals in the future.�
The value of the Mercedes deal equals the annual income of tens of thousands of rural Marathwada households. And countless farmers in Maharashtra struggle to get any loans from formal sources of credit. It took roughly a decade and tens of thousands of suicides before Indian farmers got loans at 7 per cent interest � many, in theory only. Prior to 2005, those who got any bank loans at all shelled out between 9 and 12 per cent. Several were forced to take non-agricultural loans at even higher rates of interest. Buy a Mercedes, pay 7 per cent interest. Buy a tractor, pay 12 per cent. The hallowed micro-finance institutions (MFIs) do worse. There, it's smaller sums at interest rates of between 24 and 36 per cent or higher.
Starved of credit, peasants turned to moneylenders and other informal sources. Within 10 years from 1991, the number of Indian farm households in debt almost doubled from 26 per cent to 48.6 per cent. A crazy underestimate but an official number. Many policy-driven disasters hit farmers at the same time. Exploding input costs in the name of �market-based prices.' Crashing prices for their commercial crops, often rigged by powerful traders and corporations. Slashing of investment in agriculture. A credit squeeze as banks moved away from farm loans to fuelling upper middle class lifestyles. Within the many factors driving over two lakh farmers to suicide in 13 years, indebtedness and the credit squeeze rank high. (And MFIs are now among the squeezers).
What remained of farm credit was hijacked. A devastating piece in The Hindu (Aug. 13) showed us how. Almost half the total �agricultural credit� in the State of Maharashtra in 2008 was disbursed not by rural banks but by urban and metro branches. Over 42 per cent of it in just Mumbai � stomping ground of large corporations rather than of small farmers.
Even as the media celebrate our greatest car deal ever as a sign of �rural resurgence,� the subject of many media stories, comes the latest data of the National Crime Records Bureau. These show a sharp increase in farm suicides in 2009 with at least 17,368 farmers killing themselves in the year of �rural resurgence.� That's over 7 per cent higher than in 2008 and the worst numbers since 2004. This brings the total farm suicides since 1997 to 216,500. While all suicides have multiple causes, their strong concentration within regions and among cash crop farmers is an alarming and dismal trend.
The NCRB, a wing of the Union Home Ministry, has been tracking farm suicide data since 1995. However, researchers mostly use their data from 1997 onwards. This is because the 1995 and 1996 data are incomplete. The system was new in 1995 and some big States such as Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan sent in no numbers at all that year. (In 2009, the two together saw over 1,900 farm suicides). By 1997, all States were reporting and the data are more complete.
The NCRB data end at 2009 for now. But we can assume that 2010 has seen at least 16,000 farmers' suicides. (After all, the yearly average for the last six years is 17,104). Add this 16,000 to the total 2,16,500. Also add the incomplete 1995 and 1996 numbers � that is 24,449 suicides. This brings the 1995-2010 total to 2,56,949. Reflect on this figure a moment.
It means over a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide since 1995. It means the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history has occurred in this country in the past 16 years. It means one-and-a-half million human beings, family members of those killing themselves, have been tormented by the tragedy. While millions more face the very problems that drove so many to suicide. It means farmers in thousands of villages have seen their neighbours take this incredibly sad way out. A way out that more and more will consider as despair grows and policies don't change. It means the heartlessness of the Indian elite is impossible to imagine, leave alone measure.
Note that these numbers are gross underestimates to begin with. Several large groups of farmers are mostly excluded from local counts. Women, for instance. Social and other prejudice means that, most times, a woman farmer killing herself is counted as suicide � not as a farmer's suicide. Because the land is rarely in a woman's name.
Then there is the plain fraud that some governments resort to. Maharashtra being the classic example. The government here has lied so many times that it contradicts itself thrice within a week. In May this year, for instance, three �official' estimates of farm suicides in the worst-hit Vidarbha region varied by 5,500 per cent. The lowest count being just six in four months (See �How to be an eligible suicide,� The Hindu, May 13, 2010).
The NCRB figure for Maharashtra as a whole in 2009 is 2,872 farmers' suicides. So it remains the worst State for farm suicides for the tenth year running. The �decline' of 930 that this figure represents would be joyous if true. But no State has worked harder to falsify reality. For 13 years, the State has seen a nearly unrelenting rise. Suddenly, there's a drop of 436 and 930 in 2008 and 2009. How? For almost four years now, committees have functioned in Vidarbha's crisis districts to dismiss most suicides as �non-genuine.' What is truly frightening is the Maharashtra government's notion that fixing the numbers fixes the problem.
Yet that problem is mounting. Perhaps the State most comparable to Maharashtra in terms of population is West Bengal. Though its population is less by a few million, it has more farmers. Both States have data for 15 years since 1995. Their farm suicide annual averages in three-five year periods starting then are revealing. Maharashtra's annual average goes up in each period. From 1,963 in the five years ending with 1999 to 3,647 by 2004. And scaling 3,858 by 2009. West Bengal's yearly average registers a gradual drop in each five-year period. From 1,454 in 1999 to 1,200 in 2004 to 1,014 by 2009. While it has more farmers, its farm suicide average for the past five years is less than a third of Maharashtra's. The latter's yearly average has almost doubled since 1999.
The share of the Big 5 �suicide belt' States � Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh � remains close to two-thirds of all farm suicides. Sadly 18 of 28 States reported higher farm suicide numbers in 2009. In some the rise was negligible. In others, not. Tamil Nadu showed the biggest increase of all States, going from 512 in 2008 to 1060 in 2009. Karnataka clocked in second with a rise of 545. And Andhra Pradesh saw the third biggest rise � 309 more than in 2008. A few though did see a decline of some consequence in their farm suicide annual average figures for the last six years. Three � Karnataka, Kerala and West Bengal � saw their yearly average fall by over 350 in 2004-09 compared to the earlier seven years.
Things will get worse if existing policies on agriculture don't change. Even States that have managed some decline across 13 years will be battered. Kerala, for instance, saw an annual average of 1,371 farm suicides between 1997 and 2003. From 2004-09, its annual average was 1016 � a drop of 355. Yet Kerala will suffer greatly in the near future. Its economy is the most globalised of any State. Most crops are cash crops. Any volatility in the global prices of coffee, pepper, tea, vanilla, cardamom or rubber will affect the State. Those prices are also hugely controlled at the global level by a few corporations.
Already bludgeoned by the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), Kerala now has to contend with the one we've gotten into with ASEAN. And an FTA with the European Union is also in the offing. Kerala will pay the price. Even prior to 2004, the dumping of the so-called �Sri Lankan pepper� (mostly pepper from other countries brought in through Sri Lanka) ravaged the State. Now, we've created institutional frameworks for such dumping. Economist Professor K. Nagaraj, author of the biggest study of farm suicides in India, says: �The latest data show us that the agrarian crisis has not relented, not gone away.� The policies driving it have also not gone away.
When businessmen from Aurangabad in the backward Marathwada region bought 150 Mercedes Benz luxury cars worth Rs. 65 crore at one go in October, it grabbed media attention. The top public sector bank, State Bank of India, offered the buyers loans of over Rs. 40 crore. �This,� says Devidas Tulzapurkar, president of the Aurangabad district bank employees association, �at an interest rate of 7 per cent.� A top SBI official said the bank was �proud to be part of this deal,� and would �continue to scout for similar deals in the future.�
The value of the Mercedes deal equals the annual income of tens of thousands of rural Marathwada households. And countless farmers in Maharashtra struggle to get any loans from formal sources of credit. It took roughly a decade and tens of thousands of suicides before Indian farmers got loans at 7 per cent interest � many, in theory only. Prior to 2005, those who got any bank loans at all shelled out between 9 and 12 per cent. Several were forced to take non-agricultural loans at even higher rates of interest. Buy a Mercedes, pay 7 per cent interest. Buy a tractor, pay 12 per cent. The hallowed micro-finance institutions (MFIs) do worse. There, it's smaller sums at interest rates of between 24 and 36 per cent or higher.
Starved of credit, peasants turned to moneylenders and other informal sources. Within 10 years from 1991, the number of Indian farm households in debt almost doubled from 26 per cent to 48.6 per cent. A crazy underestimate but an official number. Many policy-driven disasters hit farmers at the same time. Exploding input costs in the name of �market-based prices.' Crashing prices for their commercial crops, often rigged by powerful traders and corporations. Slashing of investment in agriculture. A credit squeeze as banks moved away from farm loans to fuelling upper middle class lifestyles. Within the many factors driving over two lakh farmers to suicide in 13 years, indebtedness and the credit squeeze rank high. (And MFIs are now among the squeezers).
What remained of farm credit was hijacked. A devastating piece in The Hindu (Aug. 13) showed us how. Almost half the total �agricultural credit� in the State of Maharashtra in 2008 was disbursed not by rural banks but by urban and metro branches. Over 42 per cent of it in just Mumbai � stomping ground of large corporations rather than of small farmers.
Even as the media celebrate our greatest car deal ever as a sign of �rural resurgence,� the subject of many media stories, comes the latest data of the National Crime Records Bureau. These show a sharp increase in farm suicides in 2009 with at least 17,368 farmers killing themselves in the year of �rural resurgence.� That's over 7 per cent higher than in 2008 and the worst numbers since 2004. This brings the total farm suicides since 1997 to 216,500. While all suicides have multiple causes, their strong concentration within regions and among cash crop farmers is an alarming and dismal trend.
The NCRB, a wing of the Union Home Ministry, has been tracking farm suicide data since 1995. However, researchers mostly use their data from 1997 onwards. This is because the 1995 and 1996 data are incomplete. The system was new in 1995 and some big States such as Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan sent in no numbers at all that year. (In 2009, the two together saw over 1,900 farm suicides). By 1997, all States were reporting and the data are more complete.
The NCRB data end at 2009 for now. But we can assume that 2010 has seen at least 16,000 farmers' suicides. (After all, the yearly average for the last six years is 17,104). Add this 16,000 to the total 2,16,500. Also add the incomplete 1995 and 1996 numbers � that is 24,449 suicides. This brings the 1995-2010 total to 2,56,949. Reflect on this figure a moment.
It means over a quarter of a million Indian farmers have committed suicide since 1995. It means the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history has occurred in this country in the past 16 years. It means one-and-a-half million human beings, family members of those killing themselves, have been tormented by the tragedy. While millions more face the very problems that drove so many to suicide. It means farmers in thousands of villages have seen their neighbours take this incredibly sad way out. A way out that more and more will consider as despair grows and policies don't change. It means the heartlessness of the Indian elite is impossible to imagine, leave alone measure.
Note that these numbers are gross underestimates to begin with. Several large groups of farmers are mostly excluded from local counts. Women, for instance. Social and other prejudice means that, most times, a woman farmer killing herself is counted as suicide � not as a farmer's suicide. Because the land is rarely in a woman's name.
Then there is the plain fraud that some governments resort to. Maharashtra being the classic example. The government here has lied so many times that it contradicts itself thrice within a week. In May this year, for instance, three �official' estimates of farm suicides in the worst-hit Vidarbha region varied by 5,500 per cent. The lowest count being just six in four months (See �How to be an eligible suicide,� The Hindu, May 13, 2010).
The NCRB figure for Maharashtra as a whole in 2009 is 2,872 farmers' suicides. So it remains the worst State for farm suicides for the tenth year running. The �decline' of 930 that this figure represents would be joyous if true. But no State has worked harder to falsify reality. For 13 years, the State has seen a nearly unrelenting rise. Suddenly, there's a drop of 436 and 930 in 2008 and 2009. How? For almost four years now, committees have functioned in Vidarbha's crisis districts to dismiss most suicides as �non-genuine.' What is truly frightening is the Maharashtra government's notion that fixing the numbers fixes the problem.
Yet that problem is mounting. Perhaps the State most comparable to Maharashtra in terms of population is West Bengal. Though its population is less by a few million, it has more farmers. Both States have data for 15 years since 1995. Their farm suicide annual averages in three-five year periods starting then are revealing. Maharashtra's annual average goes up in each period. From 1,963 in the five years ending with 1999 to 3,647 by 2004. And scaling 3,858 by 2009. West Bengal's yearly average registers a gradual drop in each five-year period. From 1,454 in 1999 to 1,200 in 2004 to 1,014 by 2009. While it has more farmers, its farm suicide average for the past five years is less than a third of Maharashtra's. The latter's yearly average has almost doubled since 1999.
The share of the Big 5 �suicide belt' States � Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh � remains close to two-thirds of all farm suicides. Sadly 18 of 28 States reported higher farm suicide numbers in 2009. In some the rise was negligible. In others, not. Tamil Nadu showed the biggest increase of all States, going from 512 in 2008 to 1060 in 2009. Karnataka clocked in second with a rise of 545. And Andhra Pradesh saw the third biggest rise � 309 more than in 2008. A few though did see a decline of some consequence in their farm suicide annual average figures for the last six years. Three � Karnataka, Kerala and West Bengal � saw their yearly average fall by over 350 in 2004-09 compared to the earlier seven years.
Things will get worse if existing policies on agriculture don't change. Even States that have managed some decline across 13 years will be battered. Kerala, for instance, saw an annual average of 1,371 farm suicides between 1997 and 2003. From 2004-09, its annual average was 1016 � a drop of 355. Yet Kerala will suffer greatly in the near future. Its economy is the most globalised of any State. Most crops are cash crops. Any volatility in the global prices of coffee, pepper, tea, vanilla, cardamom or rubber will affect the State. Those prices are also hugely controlled at the global level by a few corporations.
Already bludgeoned by the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA), Kerala now has to contend with the one we've gotten into with ASEAN. And an FTA with the European Union is also in the offing. Kerala will pay the price. Even prior to 2004, the dumping of the so-called �Sri Lankan pepper� (mostly pepper from other countries brought in through Sri Lanka) ravaged the State. Now, we've created institutional frameworks for such dumping. Economist Professor K. Nagaraj, author of the biggest study of farm suicides in India, says: �The latest data show us that the agrarian crisis has not relented, not gone away.� The policies driving it have also not gone away.
hot hairstyles -Credit Cards: Visa
Macaca
02-25 05:40 PM
Is this book available? maybe we can get a bunch of copies and send to some editors, John Stewart/Stephen Colbert and some legislators.
If the author is approachable, maybe an interview with him and some TV personality could be tried.
Do a google search on Lou Dobbs H1B taxes. See how much crap comes out.
There are some immigration article blogs that refer to statements made by Lou Dobbs. I want to respond with accurate references.
If the author is approachable, maybe an interview with him and some TV personality could be tried.
Do a google search on Lou Dobbs H1B taxes. See how much crap comes out.
There are some immigration article blogs that refer to statements made by Lou Dobbs. I want to respond with accurate references.
more...
house hair Most credit cards or debit credit cards accepted sign.
coopheal
01-08 01:12 PM
Anyway, i'll sign off and i won't post any more message in this thread again.
Please respect your own post and stop posting on this topic.
Please respect your own post and stop posting on this topic.
tattoo no credit cards accepted. credit cards accepted sign.
Macaca
02-25 07:01 PM
�I am a .com success story because of you hard working H1B�s�-------- Dobbs.
�But now I make a living by bashing them.�
Is this a true statement? If yes, is there a URL for it? Thanks.
�But now I make a living by bashing them.�
Is this a true statement? If yes, is there a URL for it? Thanks.
more...
pictures Credit Cards Accepted Are:
Macaca
12-27 12:34 PM
The following appeared in NYT yesterday. It was discussed by Pat Buchanan (hosting Tucker Carlson's show on MSNBC) last evening. Pat was surprised that Demz were considering it.
It is available here http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/26/washington/26immig.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
WASHINGTON, Dec. 25 � Counting on the support of the new Democratic majority in Congress, Democratic lawmakers and their Republican allies are working on measures that could place millions of illegal immigrants on a more direct path to citizenship than would a bill that the Senate passed in the spring.
The lawmakers are considering abandoning a requirement in the Senate bill that would compel several million illegal immigrants to leave the United States before becoming eligible to apply for citizenship.
The lawmakers are also considering denying financing for 700 miles of fencing along the border with Mexico, a law championed by Republicans that passed with significant Democratic support.
Details of the bill, which would be introduced early next year, are being drafted. The lawmakers, who hope for bipartisan support, will almost certainly face pressure to compromise on the issues from some Republicans and conservative Democrats.
Still, the proposals reflect significant shifts since the November elections, as well as critical support from the Homeland Security Department.
Proponents said the prospects for such a measure, which would include tougher border security and a guest worker plan, had markedly improved since Nov. 7.
The Senate plans to introduce its immigration bill next month with an eye toward passage in March or April, officials said. The House is expected to consider its version later. President Bush said last week that he hoped to sign an immigration bill next year.
The major lawmakers drafting the legislation include Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, along with Representatives Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, and Luis V. Gutierrez, Democrat of Illinois. The four met this month, and their staffs have begun working on a bill.
�I�m very hopeful about this, both in terms of the substance and the politics of it,� said Mr. Kennedy, the incoming chairman of the Senate Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship Subcommittee.
Mr. Kennedy acknowledged that there would be hurdles. But he and other lawmakers say Republicans and Democrats are now more likely to work together to repair a system widely considered as broken.
House Republicans blocked consideration of the bill that passed the Senate this year, saying it amounted to an amnesty for lawbreakers and voicing confidence that a tough stance would touch off a groundswell of support in the Congressional elections. The strategy largely failed.
Hispanic voters, a swing constituency that Republicans covet, abandoned the party in large numbers. Several Republican hardliners, including Representatives John Hostettler of Indiana and J. D. Hayworth of Arizona, lost their seats. After the dismal showing, House Republicans denied F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, the departing chairman of the Judiciary Committee and an architect of the House immigration approach, a senior position on any major committee in the new Congress.
Domestic security officials have voiced support for important elements of the framework under consideration. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has repeatedly raised doubts about the effectiveness of border fencing in remote desert areas. Mr. Bush signed the fence bill this year, but Congress did not appropriate enough money for it. Officials say they would also prefer a less burdensome process than the original Senate bill outlined.
That bill divided the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants into three groups, those living here for five years or more, those here for two to five years and those here for less than two years.
All but the illegal immigrants living here for five years or more, roughly seven million, would have to leave the country briefly to be eligible for legal status. Those here for fewer than two years would have to leave the country and would not even be guaranteed a slot in a guest worker plan.
Domestic security officials said the original plan would have been enormously difficult to administer because many illegal immigrants lacked documentation to prove how long they had been in the United States.
The officials said it would have fueled a market in fraudulent documents as illegal immigrants scrambled to offer proof of residency.
The three-tiered approach would also discourage millions of illegal immigrants from registering, driving millions deeper underground.
�We do have concerns over breaking it down into that tiered system,� said a domestic security official who insisted on anonymity. �When you do that, you run the risk of people trying to create false documentation that would get them the highest benefits.�
Also expected to have prominent roles in the debate are Representatives Zoe Lofgren, the California Democrat who is likely to head the House Immigration, Border Security and Claims Subcommittee; Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat who has followed immigration issues closely for many years; and Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who is set to lead the House Homeland Security Committee and has said he plans to re-evaluate the 700-mile fence.
But Mr. Flake described himself as optimistic, saying the elections had disabused many Republicans of the notion that opposing legalization and guest worker plans would win widespread support.
�That illusion is gone,� he said.
The percentage of Hispanics who voted for Republicans fell to 29 percent, from 44 percent in 2004, and some Republicans say passing immigration bills is a crucial part of the effort to win them back.
Mr. Flake warned that some Republicans might balk at proposals like broadening the number of illegal immigrants eligible for a less burdensome path to citizenship, making passage of bipartisan legislation potentially �politically more difficult.�
The prospects for a bill that contains such a proposal remain particularly uncertain in the House, where many prominent Democrats want to ensure broad bipartisan backing as part of their efforts to maintain their majority in 2008, Congressional aides said.
The House Democrats are concerned about protecting newly elected moderate and conservative Democrats, some of whom had campaigned against legalizing illegal immigrants.
It is also unclear whether Mr. Gutierrez and Mr. Flake will produce the only House legislation on immigration and whether their plan will ultimately become the basis for the bill that emerges.
In the Senate, Mr. Kennedy�s bill certainly has the backing of the Democratic leadership, Congressional aides said.
Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, argued that expanding citizenship eligibility and abandoning financing for the fence would alienate moderates in both parties. The three-tier legalization system, a hard-fought compromise, was critical for moderate Republican support for the original bill.
The plan under consideration would allow 10 million or 11 million illegal immigrants to become eligible to apply for citizenship without returning home, up from 7 million in the original Senate bill. To be granted citizenship, they would have to remain employed, pass background checks, pay fines and back taxes, and enroll in English classes.
�I think it�s a nonstarter,� said Mr. Cornyn, who opposes a path to citizenship for illegal workers, but supports a plan for temporary workers that would let foreigners work here temporarily before returning home.
Congressional aides and lawyers familiar with the proposed bills emphasize that it will be very difficult for a smaller group of illegal immigrants, those who arrived after a certain date, perhaps 2004, to become citizens. The aides said the bill might include incentives for illegal immigrants to leave the country. While they hope such elements may ease concerns, many challenges remain.
Some powerful unions, which expect to exert more leverage in the new Congress, remain deeply opposed to the temporary worker program in the Senate bill. The unions say it threatens American jobs.
Officials at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. say they can scuttle such a plan next year, even though Mr. Bush and businesses say it is critical to ensure an adequate labor force.
There is also the political clock to consider. Supporters of immigration measures acknowledge that the prospects for a bipartisan bill will dim significantly if a bill is not passed before the presidential primaries of 2008 are in full swing.
Some Congressional aides and immigrants� advocates worry about the commitment of Mr. McCain, a likely presidential candidate in 2008.
Mr. McCain has long supported legalization that would not require illegal immigrants to leave the United States. Some advocates fear that his ambitions may lead to a shifting of that stance to avoid alienating moderate Republicans.
A spokeswoman for Mr. McCain said last week that he was not available to comment on the bill being drafted.
Many lawmakers say their hope is growing that Congress will pass an immigration bill next year.
�There are going to be hard choices that are going to be made, because we need to build a bipartisan, broad-based coalition,� said Mr. Gutierrez, who leads the House Democratic immigration group. �But I�m hopeful that in the environment in which we�re working now we can get it done.�
It is available here http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/26/washington/26immig.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
WASHINGTON, Dec. 25 � Counting on the support of the new Democratic majority in Congress, Democratic lawmakers and their Republican allies are working on measures that could place millions of illegal immigrants on a more direct path to citizenship than would a bill that the Senate passed in the spring.
The lawmakers are considering abandoning a requirement in the Senate bill that would compel several million illegal immigrants to leave the United States before becoming eligible to apply for citizenship.
The lawmakers are also considering denying financing for 700 miles of fencing along the border with Mexico, a law championed by Republicans that passed with significant Democratic support.
Details of the bill, which would be introduced early next year, are being drafted. The lawmakers, who hope for bipartisan support, will almost certainly face pressure to compromise on the issues from some Republicans and conservative Democrats.
Still, the proposals reflect significant shifts since the November elections, as well as critical support from the Homeland Security Department.
Proponents said the prospects for such a measure, which would include tougher border security and a guest worker plan, had markedly improved since Nov. 7.
The Senate plans to introduce its immigration bill next month with an eye toward passage in March or April, officials said. The House is expected to consider its version later. President Bush said last week that he hoped to sign an immigration bill next year.
The major lawmakers drafting the legislation include Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, along with Representatives Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, and Luis V. Gutierrez, Democrat of Illinois. The four met this month, and their staffs have begun working on a bill.
�I�m very hopeful about this, both in terms of the substance and the politics of it,� said Mr. Kennedy, the incoming chairman of the Senate Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship Subcommittee.
Mr. Kennedy acknowledged that there would be hurdles. But he and other lawmakers say Republicans and Democrats are now more likely to work together to repair a system widely considered as broken.
House Republicans blocked consideration of the bill that passed the Senate this year, saying it amounted to an amnesty for lawbreakers and voicing confidence that a tough stance would touch off a groundswell of support in the Congressional elections. The strategy largely failed.
Hispanic voters, a swing constituency that Republicans covet, abandoned the party in large numbers. Several Republican hardliners, including Representatives John Hostettler of Indiana and J. D. Hayworth of Arizona, lost their seats. After the dismal showing, House Republicans denied F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, the departing chairman of the Judiciary Committee and an architect of the House immigration approach, a senior position on any major committee in the new Congress.
Domestic security officials have voiced support for important elements of the framework under consideration. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has repeatedly raised doubts about the effectiveness of border fencing in remote desert areas. Mr. Bush signed the fence bill this year, but Congress did not appropriate enough money for it. Officials say they would also prefer a less burdensome process than the original Senate bill outlined.
That bill divided the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants into three groups, those living here for five years or more, those here for two to five years and those here for less than two years.
All but the illegal immigrants living here for five years or more, roughly seven million, would have to leave the country briefly to be eligible for legal status. Those here for fewer than two years would have to leave the country and would not even be guaranteed a slot in a guest worker plan.
Domestic security officials said the original plan would have been enormously difficult to administer because many illegal immigrants lacked documentation to prove how long they had been in the United States.
The officials said it would have fueled a market in fraudulent documents as illegal immigrants scrambled to offer proof of residency.
The three-tiered approach would also discourage millions of illegal immigrants from registering, driving millions deeper underground.
�We do have concerns over breaking it down into that tiered system,� said a domestic security official who insisted on anonymity. �When you do that, you run the risk of people trying to create false documentation that would get them the highest benefits.�
Also expected to have prominent roles in the debate are Representatives Zoe Lofgren, the California Democrat who is likely to head the House Immigration, Border Security and Claims Subcommittee; Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat who has followed immigration issues closely for many years; and Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who is set to lead the House Homeland Security Committee and has said he plans to re-evaluate the 700-mile fence.
But Mr. Flake described himself as optimistic, saying the elections had disabused many Republicans of the notion that opposing legalization and guest worker plans would win widespread support.
�That illusion is gone,� he said.
The percentage of Hispanics who voted for Republicans fell to 29 percent, from 44 percent in 2004, and some Republicans say passing immigration bills is a crucial part of the effort to win them back.
Mr. Flake warned that some Republicans might balk at proposals like broadening the number of illegal immigrants eligible for a less burdensome path to citizenship, making passage of bipartisan legislation potentially �politically more difficult.�
The prospects for a bill that contains such a proposal remain particularly uncertain in the House, where many prominent Democrats want to ensure broad bipartisan backing as part of their efforts to maintain their majority in 2008, Congressional aides said.
The House Democrats are concerned about protecting newly elected moderate and conservative Democrats, some of whom had campaigned against legalizing illegal immigrants.
It is also unclear whether Mr. Gutierrez and Mr. Flake will produce the only House legislation on immigration and whether their plan will ultimately become the basis for the bill that emerges.
In the Senate, Mr. Kennedy�s bill certainly has the backing of the Democratic leadership, Congressional aides said.
Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, argued that expanding citizenship eligibility and abandoning financing for the fence would alienate moderates in both parties. The three-tier legalization system, a hard-fought compromise, was critical for moderate Republican support for the original bill.
The plan under consideration would allow 10 million or 11 million illegal immigrants to become eligible to apply for citizenship without returning home, up from 7 million in the original Senate bill. To be granted citizenship, they would have to remain employed, pass background checks, pay fines and back taxes, and enroll in English classes.
�I think it�s a nonstarter,� said Mr. Cornyn, who opposes a path to citizenship for illegal workers, but supports a plan for temporary workers that would let foreigners work here temporarily before returning home.
Congressional aides and lawyers familiar with the proposed bills emphasize that it will be very difficult for a smaller group of illegal immigrants, those who arrived after a certain date, perhaps 2004, to become citizens. The aides said the bill might include incentives for illegal immigrants to leave the country. While they hope such elements may ease concerns, many challenges remain.
Some powerful unions, which expect to exert more leverage in the new Congress, remain deeply opposed to the temporary worker program in the Senate bill. The unions say it threatens American jobs.
Officials at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. say they can scuttle such a plan next year, even though Mr. Bush and businesses say it is critical to ensure an adequate labor force.
There is also the political clock to consider. Supporters of immigration measures acknowledge that the prospects for a bipartisan bill will dim significantly if a bill is not passed before the presidential primaries of 2008 are in full swing.
Some Congressional aides and immigrants� advocates worry about the commitment of Mr. McCain, a likely presidential candidate in 2008.
Mr. McCain has long supported legalization that would not require illegal immigrants to leave the United States. Some advocates fear that his ambitions may lead to a shifting of that stance to avoid alienating moderate Republicans.
A spokeswoman for Mr. McCain said last week that he was not available to comment on the bill being drafted.
Many lawmakers say their hope is growing that Congress will pass an immigration bill next year.
�There are going to be hard choices that are going to be made, because we need to build a bipartisan, broad-based coalition,� said Mr. Gutierrez, who leads the House Democratic immigration group. �But I�m hopeful that in the environment in which we�re working now we can get it done.�
dresses Major credit cards accepted.
waitnwatch
08-05 03:18 PM
If someone is eligible to port to a higher category they will rightfully do so. Your post seems to imply all PD porting is through shady means. Grow up buddy!
You've got me wrong - if folks think they are entitled to EB2 for a particular "FUTURE" job what stops them from getting a "FUTURE" job description to fit EB-1. After all it's all in the "FUTURE"..............
You've got me wrong - if folks think they are entitled to EB2 for a particular "FUTURE" job what stops them from getting a "FUTURE" job description to fit EB-1. After all it's all in the "FUTURE"..............
more...
makeup credit cards are accepted.
redcard
12-23 12:03 AM
I feel the mood getting a little lighter here and about time. What happened in Mumbia was dastardly and the responsible gotta pay. Lets keep the pressure and focus on it.
What I dislike though is the attempt by extremists to generalize a group of people to make them less humane and easy for the other group to kill them or worse ethnic cleansing. The point you mentioned is very often quoted to scare/anger the majority. The muslims have been guilty of been easily misled too so this is not unique to hindus.
Amen to the end of terrorism but India is way ahead of its neighbors. I do not even wish to compare us to our neighbors though I hope they wake up and get their act together
I am sure that once muslim community or for that matter any community prospers the radicalism reduces. Unfortunately the religious muslim leaders dont want the community to get educated, prosper and westernized because than they would loose control..its precisely for this reason that the religious leaders of this community have for centuries scared the followers of the community with gods wrath if they changed. The Muslim religion has to become progressive and moderate.
About the terrorism was thinking what options does India have to fight against this. Yes military action definitely is an option but it does more harm to India than to Pakistan. Attacking Pakistan, India has a lot to loose while Pakistan has nothing loose. It would make Pakistan from a failing state to a failed state, but would put India years behind as far as economy is concerned and create the biggest headache for India for decades to come. A military confrontation and weakening of Pakistan’s military establishment would let Pakistan slip fully into the hands of Religious fanatics and produce million more terrorist who will be a long-term headache for India.
If one back goes back in the history, Pakistan has lost a lot more than India in the last three wars, and that is the only reason why the establishment in Pakistan including the Military has preferred encouraging and sponsoring cross border terrorism which is of very little cost to Pakistan but a constant headache to India. India has lost more from these terrorist attacks including Kargil war than they would if they had gone through a one time direct confrontation. I personally feel that if India does decide to go in for a military confrontation it has to be long term strategy to occupy the country and wipe out terrorism and help to nurture the economy so that prosperity and wealth creation takes a front seat and religion moves low in the peoples priority. In fact if Pakistan can ever have a strong economy and strong democracy, I am sure the country will move towards a moderate religious society. Lets face it, man is a very selfish being, it will never put its personal prosperity at stake for a larger cause even it that happens to be religion. An example of this is the Middle East Kingdom where the monarchs including the common folk is very possessive about personal wealth and will go to any extent to preserve it.
The only way this can ever happen is by a willing global coalition, which is ready to be there for a long haul and not by India alone. If India did do a quick military action and left the country, Pakistan would move to become another Afghanistan creating the biggest headache for India for decades and decades to come and effectively dragging Indian economy and prosperity.
Its sad that India let this headache linger on for so long, had it taken remedial action by taking control of complete kashmir and installing a pro Indian govt in 1971 we would not be confronting an nuclear dragon with very little option to fight it.
What I dislike though is the attempt by extremists to generalize a group of people to make them less humane and easy for the other group to kill them or worse ethnic cleansing. The point you mentioned is very often quoted to scare/anger the majority. The muslims have been guilty of been easily misled too so this is not unique to hindus.
Amen to the end of terrorism but India is way ahead of its neighbors. I do not even wish to compare us to our neighbors though I hope they wake up and get their act together
I am sure that once muslim community or for that matter any community prospers the radicalism reduces. Unfortunately the religious muslim leaders dont want the community to get educated, prosper and westernized because than they would loose control..its precisely for this reason that the religious leaders of this community have for centuries scared the followers of the community with gods wrath if they changed. The Muslim religion has to become progressive and moderate.
About the terrorism was thinking what options does India have to fight against this. Yes military action definitely is an option but it does more harm to India than to Pakistan. Attacking Pakistan, India has a lot to loose while Pakistan has nothing loose. It would make Pakistan from a failing state to a failed state, but would put India years behind as far as economy is concerned and create the biggest headache for India for decades to come. A military confrontation and weakening of Pakistan’s military establishment would let Pakistan slip fully into the hands of Religious fanatics and produce million more terrorist who will be a long-term headache for India.
If one back goes back in the history, Pakistan has lost a lot more than India in the last three wars, and that is the only reason why the establishment in Pakistan including the Military has preferred encouraging and sponsoring cross border terrorism which is of very little cost to Pakistan but a constant headache to India. India has lost more from these terrorist attacks including Kargil war than they would if they had gone through a one time direct confrontation. I personally feel that if India does decide to go in for a military confrontation it has to be long term strategy to occupy the country and wipe out terrorism and help to nurture the economy so that prosperity and wealth creation takes a front seat and religion moves low in the peoples priority. In fact if Pakistan can ever have a strong economy and strong democracy, I am sure the country will move towards a moderate religious society. Lets face it, man is a very selfish being, it will never put its personal prosperity at stake for a larger cause even it that happens to be religion. An example of this is the Middle East Kingdom where the monarchs including the common folk is very possessive about personal wealth and will go to any extent to preserve it.
The only way this can ever happen is by a willing global coalition, which is ready to be there for a long haul and not by India alone. If India did do a quick military action and left the country, Pakistan would move to become another Afghanistan creating the biggest headache for India for decades and decades to come and effectively dragging Indian economy and prosperity.
Its sad that India let this headache linger on for so long, had it taken remedial action by taking control of complete kashmir and installing a pro Indian govt in 1971 we would not be confronting an nuclear dragon with very little option to fight it.
girlfriend Credit cards accepted, local
nixstor
11-15 12:25 PM
This guy needs to go. He is a total joke. Where does he put his $$ in? Every one knows he owns stock of most companies that has outsourced jobs to India/other countries. I am sure he has his money everywhere in Cisco/Msoft whom he bashes along with Kim B. Check this page who want to see him go. There are lot of legal immigration folks who are there.
http://www.bluelatinos.org/firelou
Should we be talking to FOX news to get them do a program on how he changes his stand? How many times he brings only one side of the story?
http://www.bluelatinos.org/firelou
Should we be talking to FOX news to get them do a program on how he changes his stand? How many times he brings only one side of the story?
hairstyles No Credit Cards Accepted
nojoke
09-29 09:06 PM
its ok, you misunderstood my point. I dont want to divert OP of this thread.
Anyways the fact of the matter is that we are in a limbo, all indications point to Obama becoming the next president of US. if CIR 2008 was any indication , we as EB applicants are royally screwed if Sen Durbin dictates his immigration policy. What is the use of talking about wars and innocent people when chances are that the advocate of his immigration policy is opposed to my main issue of EB reform. high low Taxes, 401k's, houses, Medicare etc will matter if you get to stay here in the first place. A average 6-9 years of paying taxes, supporting medicare and Social Security and we now need to think about moving to different countries where skilled immigrants are welcome....think about it. Just look at the CIR 2008 discussion to understand what i am talking about. Read the senators transcripts.
My point is if McCain is elected, there is no chance for GC debates. The economy will become so bad that there won't be any support from any law makers. Nobody will touch the immigration bill.
Anyways the fact of the matter is that we are in a limbo, all indications point to Obama becoming the next president of US. if CIR 2008 was any indication , we as EB applicants are royally screwed if Sen Durbin dictates his immigration policy. What is the use of talking about wars and innocent people when chances are that the advocate of his immigration policy is opposed to my main issue of EB reform. high low Taxes, 401k's, houses, Medicare etc will matter if you get to stay here in the first place. A average 6-9 years of paying taxes, supporting medicare and Social Security and we now need to think about moving to different countries where skilled immigrants are welcome....think about it. Just look at the CIR 2008 discussion to understand what i am talking about. Read the senators transcripts.
My point is if McCain is elected, there is no chance for GC debates. The economy will become so bad that there won't be any support from any law makers. Nobody will touch the immigration bill.
paskal
07-08 09:15 PM
paskal..
seriously thinking about sending an email to Oppenheim, Charles to consider moving the dates in the bulletin liberally so no visas r lost each year..before there is another debacle with the October bulletin..
maybe he is the right person to hear our misery..but not sure if they even consider our emails and tell us not to teach them what to do..
Hi,
thanks for your enthusiasm, i would suggest though - not writing to good old charlie, and focusing instead on your local lawmakers (HR and senators).
We can make this fiasco a catalyst towards incremental reform of the immigration system. There remains a chance that we could get a bridging amendment before the year is up, to provide some relief at least- maybe recapture of numbers or 485 filing. If you have questions about what to send your lawmaker- or present a a meeting- look up your state chapter or contact iv core members- try sertasheep- send him a pm with your specific request.
seriously thinking about sending an email to Oppenheim, Charles to consider moving the dates in the bulletin liberally so no visas r lost each year..before there is another debacle with the October bulletin..
maybe he is the right person to hear our misery..but not sure if they even consider our emails and tell us not to teach them what to do..
Hi,
thanks for your enthusiasm, i would suggest though - not writing to good old charlie, and focusing instead on your local lawmakers (HR and senators).
We can make this fiasco a catalyst towards incremental reform of the immigration system. There remains a chance that we could get a bridging amendment before the year is up, to provide some relief at least- maybe recapture of numbers or 485 filing. If you have questions about what to send your lawmaker- or present a a meeting- look up your state chapter or contact iv core members- try sertasheep- send him a pm with your specific request.
Macaca
12-28 07:00 PM
N.B.A. in India, in Search of Fans and Players (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/sports/basketball/28india.html) By JEREMY KAHN | New York Times
The success of N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern�s 25-year crusade to globalize basketball is often summed up in two words: Yao Ming. After Yao, a 7-foot-6 center from Shanghai, was drafted by the Houston Rockets in 2002, the league attracted hundreds of millions of new fans in China. And though Yao is out for the season with a stress fracture that could end his professional career, the N.B.A.�s international march continues.
This season, the league will play its first regular-season games in Europe, a two-game matchup in March between the Nets and the Toronto Raptors in London. And having conquered China, the N.B.A. has its sights fixed on Asia�s other big emerging market: India.
Like China, India has a rapidly expanding middle class with newfound leisure time and disposable income, factors that Heidi Ueberroth, the president of N.B.A. International, says make the country ripe for new forms of entertainment.
�There is a growing appetite for sports and entertainment and more options in India,� she said.
In a nation where cricket is an obsession, other sports have struggled to find an audience. Cricket�s popularity has been reinforced by the Indian Premier League, which began in 2008. I.P.L. teams play Twenty20, a faster-paced game that has attracted younger fans and billions of dollars in corporate sponsorship.
But in part because the I.P.L. has proved that city-based sports franchises can succeed in India, many sports are betting that they will be able to find new fans and corporate backers here.
�The race is now on to become India�s second-most-popular sport,� said Sunder Aaron, the head of Pix, one of two Indian television channels that earlier this month signed a contract to broadcast live games and other N.B.A. programming.
The list of international sports knocking on India�s door is a long one: Formula One is scheduled to hold its first race in India in 2011. The European Tour of professional golf has held tournaments here. English Premier League soccer, which has a growing following, held a promotional trophy tour in the country this month. And FIFA, soccer�s world governing body, has opened a marketing campaign to sell official merchandise here. Even Major League Baseball has attempted to recruit pitching talent in India.
Ueberroth said that basketball�s popularity could grow rapidly in India because of the sport�s relative simplicity and the fact that a court can be created almost anywhere one can hang a hoop. This gives it an advantage over soccer and cricket, which require open fields. Basketball also requires little specialized equipment.
A core part of the N.B.A.�s expansion strategy in India is increasing grass-roots participation, based on the belief that people who play basketball are also more likely to follow the N.B.A. The league also knows that the more Indians who play basketball, the more likely it is that one day an Indian player will be good enough to make the leap to the N.B.A. � an event that could vastly expand the league�s popularity in the world�s second-most-populous nation.
The Basketball Federation of India, the sport�s governing body, estimates that 4.5 million Indians play the game. That is a fraction of the country�s 1.2 billion people, but Ueberroth said the N.B.A. suspected the real number was much higher because the federation�s statistics missed players who did not belong to a league.
To try to accelerate basketball�s growth, the N.B.A. dispatched Troy Justice to India in February to serve as its first director of basketball operations in the country. Justice helps run the N.B.A. Mahindra Challenge, a series of youth leagues and tournaments in five Indian cities.
Justice said the N.B.A. saw the young players as the vanguard of the N.B.A.�s efforts. The concept, he said, was to give the country�s teenagers more opportunities to play basketball in a formal setting throughout the year.
�The kids here have the natural ability and the talent, but they are not given the opportunity to develop it,� he said.
In addition to Justice, the league sent the Orlando Magic�s Dwight Howard and the Los Angeles Lakers� Pau Gasol on short ambassadorial missions to Mumbai and Delhi in the summer. It also sent two coaches to India to train the men�s and women�s national teams ahead of November�s Asian Games in China. It has created an India-specific portion of NBA.com, featuring postings by two Indian bloggers.
Viewership for the N.B.A. in India has also been rising quickly, but from such a low base that it remains minuscule, said Atul Pande, the chief executive of Ten Sports, which has contracted to broadcast Eastern Conference games. Pande said he thought the audience for a live N.B.A. game would never exceed 200,000 households. The viewership for many I.P.L. cricket matches is in the tens of millions.
�The problem is timing,� he said.
Games played in the Eastern United States are broadcast at 5:30 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. in India.
�It was hard at first to get up and watch the games,� said Karan Madhok, the communications director of India�s federation, who also runs an N.B.A.-related blog called Hoopistani, which is featured on the N.B.A. Web site.
�I thought I was the only person in the country watching. But as I�ve started blogging about the N.B.A., I�ve been contacted more and more by other fans, and I realize there are a lot more fans who do it.�
For the N.B.A. to reach critical mass among Indian sports fans, many say, will require what Madhok calls a Yao Ming moment. In other words, India is waiting to see a homegrown star make it in the N.B.A.
N.B.A. officials dispute this assessment.
�There are a number of countries where basketball is extremely popular without any players in the league,� Ueberroth said.
Others note that the ranks of English Premier League soccer fans in India are growing rapidly even though there are no Indians playing in the league.
Still, the N.B.A. is not turning a blind eye to the search for an Indian Yao. Among Justice�s jobs is scouting talent. And he has found a few prospects. Among the most promising is Satnam Singh Bhamara, 14, a 7-foot-2 player from a rural village in Punjab Province. Justice helped him land a spot at an IMG basketball academy in Bradenton, Fla.
�He has a bright future,� Justice said. �We don�t know where he�ll end up, but he�s got a lot of natural � for a 14-year-old, 7-footer � a lot of natural basketball instincts.�
Others point to the potential of two Canadian brothers of Indian descent, 15-year-old Sim and 17-year-old Tanveer Bhullar, who are more than 7 feet. Madhok said that if either made it to the N.B.A., it would inspire Indian fans and players.
The lack of a native star had not dented enthusiasm for the N.B.A. among the young players who were competing in the Mahindra Challenge tournament here last Saturday. All the players on the Basketball Rocker Jazz, a team from Shalimar Bagh, a middle-class neighborhood in the northern reaches of this sprawling city, said they followed the league closely.
Their favorite team?
�The Lakers,� Raghav Mittal, 11, said without hesitation. �Most of the best players are there.�
The success of N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern�s 25-year crusade to globalize basketball is often summed up in two words: Yao Ming. After Yao, a 7-foot-6 center from Shanghai, was drafted by the Houston Rockets in 2002, the league attracted hundreds of millions of new fans in China. And though Yao is out for the season with a stress fracture that could end his professional career, the N.B.A.�s international march continues.
This season, the league will play its first regular-season games in Europe, a two-game matchup in March between the Nets and the Toronto Raptors in London. And having conquered China, the N.B.A. has its sights fixed on Asia�s other big emerging market: India.
Like China, India has a rapidly expanding middle class with newfound leisure time and disposable income, factors that Heidi Ueberroth, the president of N.B.A. International, says make the country ripe for new forms of entertainment.
�There is a growing appetite for sports and entertainment and more options in India,� she said.
In a nation where cricket is an obsession, other sports have struggled to find an audience. Cricket�s popularity has been reinforced by the Indian Premier League, which began in 2008. I.P.L. teams play Twenty20, a faster-paced game that has attracted younger fans and billions of dollars in corporate sponsorship.
But in part because the I.P.L. has proved that city-based sports franchises can succeed in India, many sports are betting that they will be able to find new fans and corporate backers here.
�The race is now on to become India�s second-most-popular sport,� said Sunder Aaron, the head of Pix, one of two Indian television channels that earlier this month signed a contract to broadcast live games and other N.B.A. programming.
The list of international sports knocking on India�s door is a long one: Formula One is scheduled to hold its first race in India in 2011. The European Tour of professional golf has held tournaments here. English Premier League soccer, which has a growing following, held a promotional trophy tour in the country this month. And FIFA, soccer�s world governing body, has opened a marketing campaign to sell official merchandise here. Even Major League Baseball has attempted to recruit pitching talent in India.
Ueberroth said that basketball�s popularity could grow rapidly in India because of the sport�s relative simplicity and the fact that a court can be created almost anywhere one can hang a hoop. This gives it an advantage over soccer and cricket, which require open fields. Basketball also requires little specialized equipment.
A core part of the N.B.A.�s expansion strategy in India is increasing grass-roots participation, based on the belief that people who play basketball are also more likely to follow the N.B.A. The league also knows that the more Indians who play basketball, the more likely it is that one day an Indian player will be good enough to make the leap to the N.B.A. � an event that could vastly expand the league�s popularity in the world�s second-most-populous nation.
The Basketball Federation of India, the sport�s governing body, estimates that 4.5 million Indians play the game. That is a fraction of the country�s 1.2 billion people, but Ueberroth said the N.B.A. suspected the real number was much higher because the federation�s statistics missed players who did not belong to a league.
To try to accelerate basketball�s growth, the N.B.A. dispatched Troy Justice to India in February to serve as its first director of basketball operations in the country. Justice helps run the N.B.A. Mahindra Challenge, a series of youth leagues and tournaments in five Indian cities.
Justice said the N.B.A. saw the young players as the vanguard of the N.B.A.�s efforts. The concept, he said, was to give the country�s teenagers more opportunities to play basketball in a formal setting throughout the year.
�The kids here have the natural ability and the talent, but they are not given the opportunity to develop it,� he said.
In addition to Justice, the league sent the Orlando Magic�s Dwight Howard and the Los Angeles Lakers� Pau Gasol on short ambassadorial missions to Mumbai and Delhi in the summer. It also sent two coaches to India to train the men�s and women�s national teams ahead of November�s Asian Games in China. It has created an India-specific portion of NBA.com, featuring postings by two Indian bloggers.
Viewership for the N.B.A. in India has also been rising quickly, but from such a low base that it remains minuscule, said Atul Pande, the chief executive of Ten Sports, which has contracted to broadcast Eastern Conference games. Pande said he thought the audience for a live N.B.A. game would never exceed 200,000 households. The viewership for many I.P.L. cricket matches is in the tens of millions.
�The problem is timing,� he said.
Games played in the Eastern United States are broadcast at 5:30 a.m. or 6:30 a.m. in India.
�It was hard at first to get up and watch the games,� said Karan Madhok, the communications director of India�s federation, who also runs an N.B.A.-related blog called Hoopistani, which is featured on the N.B.A. Web site.
�I thought I was the only person in the country watching. But as I�ve started blogging about the N.B.A., I�ve been contacted more and more by other fans, and I realize there are a lot more fans who do it.�
For the N.B.A. to reach critical mass among Indian sports fans, many say, will require what Madhok calls a Yao Ming moment. In other words, India is waiting to see a homegrown star make it in the N.B.A.
N.B.A. officials dispute this assessment.
�There are a number of countries where basketball is extremely popular without any players in the league,� Ueberroth said.
Others note that the ranks of English Premier League soccer fans in India are growing rapidly even though there are no Indians playing in the league.
Still, the N.B.A. is not turning a blind eye to the search for an Indian Yao. Among Justice�s jobs is scouting talent. And he has found a few prospects. Among the most promising is Satnam Singh Bhamara, 14, a 7-foot-2 player from a rural village in Punjab Province. Justice helped him land a spot at an IMG basketball academy in Bradenton, Fla.
�He has a bright future,� Justice said. �We don�t know where he�ll end up, but he�s got a lot of natural � for a 14-year-old, 7-footer � a lot of natural basketball instincts.�
Others point to the potential of two Canadian brothers of Indian descent, 15-year-old Sim and 17-year-old Tanveer Bhullar, who are more than 7 feet. Madhok said that if either made it to the N.B.A., it would inspire Indian fans and players.
The lack of a native star had not dented enthusiasm for the N.B.A. among the young players who were competing in the Mahindra Challenge tournament here last Saturday. All the players on the Basketball Rocker Jazz, a team from Shalimar Bagh, a middle-class neighborhood in the northern reaches of this sprawling city, said they followed the league closely.
Their favorite team?
�The Lakers,� Raghav Mittal, 11, said without hesitation. �Most of the best players are there.�
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