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NEWS SCAPE
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Please click here for the PDF File   The colors of India's flag are now represented in the logo for American Centers in India. Ameet Mehta, principal designer at Pineapple Consulting in Mumbai, blended India's saffron, white and green with America's red, white and blue, into a shooting star design that won an India-wide contest. Victorious over 1,300 entrants, Mehta won a Motorola mobile phone and a 10-day study tour to interact with top design schools and professionals in the United States. Celebrating World Intellectual Property Day in April, the American Library in New Delhi opened its new collection of some 400 DVDs for rental by members. Dominic Keating, the U.S. intellectual property rights attaché, Ajay Shukla, managing director of Tata McGraw Hill and Rajiv Dalal, managing director of the Motion Picture Distributors Association, highlighted why it is important to protect intellectual property rights. "In today's world creative industries contribute enormously to a country's tax base as well as to its job market. And copyrights are essential to protect these industries," said Keating. "Creative industries which need effective copyright protection to flourish include publishing, music, movies, gaming, animation, software, photography and advertising. In the United States, core copyright industries are responsible for an estimated 6 percent of the nation's GDP, totaling $6.26 billion a year." Dalal cited a U.S.-India Business Council/Ernst & Young 2008 report on the effects of counterfeiting and piracy on India's entertainment industry. It showed that the Indian film industry lost $959 million and more than 570,000 jobs due to piracy. "It's never been as bad as it is right now," Dalal said. Indian writers, teachers and students celebrated the U.S. National Poetry Month in April at the Chennai American Library. Vice Consuls Kris Fresonke and Kelly Kopcial spoke on the works of Walt Whitman (1819-1892) and Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). In his Passage to India, Whitman describes a mystical journey to an ancient land: "For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go, And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all." Ginsberg saw India as a spiritual fountainhead, and lived in Calcutta in the early 1960s and '70s. The United States and India were joined for the first time by the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force in the annual Malabar naval exercise, conducted this year off the coast of Okinawa, Japan from April 29 to May 3. The exercises help the naval forces work together and strengthen the stability of the Pacific region. They practiced techniques in anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, air defense, search and seizure, and live-fire gunnery. Shobit Nair and Shonan Kothari were winners in a Young Ambassadors competition sponsored by the Indo-American Society, which celebrated its 50th anniversary on April 24 at the U.S. Consulate lawns in Mumbai. The chief postmaster general released a first day cover to mark the occasion. |
