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Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey is the “bright spot in the Mets' season of gloom,†said an editorial in The New York Times. The baseball player began his year by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to raise money for “women and girls in India who fall prey to sex-trafficking.â€
“Dickey is an amazing story,†the editorial said, he is a “model of reinvention, a man who outwitted and outmaneuvered his decline.†Read more '
“‘You become the movie you are making,' the Oscar-winning director Ang Lee told Anupama Chopra in a recent telephone interview. “Given that the movie in question is ‘Life of Pi,' based on the award-winning, fantastical novel about a boy and a Bengal tiger marooned on a boat for 227 days, Mr. Lee is feeling a bit more at sea than usual these days,†Ms.Chopra wrote in The New York Times.
The film began with a two-week shoot at locales in southern India in March 2011, Ms. Chopra wrote. The younger Pi is “played by an unknown 17-year-old Indian teenager named Suraj Sharma, whose parents just happen to be mathematicians,†she wrote. “A coincidence that gave Mr. Lee a big laugh : ‘What are the chances,' he asked, that two mathematicians give birth to a kid who plays the lead in a film called ‘Life of Pi'?â€
The film is scheduled to open on Nov. 21. Read more '
MOSCOW - After news broke that Russia's strongman president intended to don a snow-white costume, climb into a hang-glider and guide a group of young cranes on their long southern migration, a colleague here wondered aloud: “Who says Russia needs more heroes? Its Photoshoppers are among the world's best.â€
Президент принÑл учаÑтие в ÑкологичеÑком проекте «ПолÑ'Ñ‚ надежды' http://t.co/eF2w9YXR http://t.co/AM4oFYoh
- Президент РоÑÑии (@KremlinRussia) 6 Sep 12
He was right. Satirical images were flowing onto t he Internet so quickly that it seemed they were being produced in some espresso-fueled sweatshop. There was a striking remix of a Mr. Putin astride a flying crane; and another which showed him bareback (but with stirrups) on a huge, rampant shark. Another showed him swimming the butterfly stroke - an iconic photo released by his press office in 2009 - now sporting a silly-looking beak and white wings.
The next wave of sight gags, based on a photograph from his flight, were more caustic. One showed Mr. Putin in his white bird suit and straitjacket, and another showed him walking beside another bird-man - the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. In a third, the bird suit was red and his eyes were dots of malicious flame, a la Angry Birds. “Welcome to Russia,†read the caption.
Actually, the year-long upwe lling of dissent here has ushered in kind of a golden age of Photoshopping, a form that seems particularly well suited to the ironic, stylish young Russians who make up much of its core. Sight gags don't require prescriptions for change; they don't even require hope, especially, just a lacerating gaze. One of the first signs that a strange new political current was running through Moscow was a doctored photograph that seeped into every corner of the Internet in September, superimposing Leonid Brezhnev, who ruled the Soviet Union for 18 years, onto Mr. Putin.
Maybe it was inevitable that Russians would be the ones to vault Photoshop to this prominence. As my colleague Andrew Kramer has pointed out, airbrushing and photomontage served as powerful ideological weapons through the Soviet era, used to smear or erase those who challenged the regime.
These days, however, young Russians can turn the tables on the authorities with breathtaking speed. Early this year, when a pro-Kremlin publication printed a doctored photograph linking opposition leader Aleksei Navalny to an exiled billionaire wanted by the Russian police, not only did the photographer immediately come forward to expose the fraud, but Mr. Navalny's defenders circulated multiple altered versions of the same photo that showed him standing next to Stalin, Hitler, Chuck Norris and a bulbous-headed alien.
Whatever the reason, the mockery built to such a height this week that it prompted a response from Mr. Putin's press spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov. “You get the feeling that many people have not left behind the mood of summer vacation,†he told a reporter from Dozhd, a cable television station. “They don't want to hear the news, and they have created a kind of vacuum where they can dive into their allusions - sometimes, you must admit, bordering on idiocy.â€
Chastening words, though perhaps not enough to drive out the image of Mr. Putin dressed up like a giant chi cken.
This week, The Choice published our monthly Counselor's Calendar, designed to keep students on track during the college admissions process.
We've asked Jody Sanford Sweeney, the associate director of college counseling at William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia for this month's admissions advice for juniors. Webster T. Trenchard, the director of college guidance at The Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Conn., offers this month's admissions advice for seniors.
What follows are excerpts that are most relevant for international students. - Tanya Abrams
Juniors: College Checklist for SeptemberBeyond balancing the increased academic expectations of junior year with extracurricular leadership, it's hard not to notice that your senior friends are immersed in college applications. You may be wondering what your college list will look like this time next year. With months on your side, you'll be well prepared a year from now. So let's get started with these best practices.
Take the Lead
The college search is often the first time the student is in the driver's seat, so to speak. It's your turn to show initiative. Parents are there to advise and guide, but admissions officers will ultimately want to hear from you, not them. The college search is an excellent time to take the lead while establishing open lines of communication with your parents.
Research, Research, Research
Researching universities can be considered another extracurricular activity: it's time consuming, fun and occasionally overwhelming.
Favorite resources of mine include:
To start your university search, consider the school's geographic location, size and the majors it offers, and also note whether it is a public or private institution, a research university or a liberal arts college. There may be other aspects that are important to you, like the school's athletic division or its offerings in the visual and performing arts; take note of those things, too.
With over 3,000 colleges and universities in the United States, there is more than one college out there for you. With a thoughtful approach, you will find a great match.
To stay organized, create a spreadsheet of the institutions that have caught your eye, their Web addresses and whether they meet your basic criteria. Make columns for particular attributes, and check them off. Add special on-campus admissions events dates and application deadlines for future reference.
Connect With Admissions Offices
High school visit appointments and reception announcements are announced on admissions Web sites and through college offices at your school. Request to be added to the mailing lists of your prospective schools. Explore admissions Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, blogs and virtual tours.
Get to know your regional recruiter. Admissions officers travel and recruit in regions and even read applications by region. Find out who your contact is and learn where that recruiter will host off-campus receptions and conduct high school visits this fall.
To make a positive impression, attend these events with questions. Ask specific information about majors, service opportunities, the balance of academic and social life, and the advising program. The regional representative may even put you in touch with a current student at his university.
Add a list of recruiter contact e-mails to the spreadsheet you are creating.
Establish a Standardized Testing Strategy
It is important to understand what testing is expected at each of your colleges. (Another column for your spreadsheet.) Some colleges don't require testing at all, others are test optional, many require the SAT and/or the ACT, and still others expect subject tests in addition to these exams.
Find out if your school offers the October PSAT/NMSQT, a practice standardized test that will help you understand your strengths and weaknesses. Ask whether your school provides an ACT diagnostic exam to compare tests. You may find you perform better on one or simply prefer one exam over the other.
Sit for one of these exams before the end of your junior year. Popular test dates for my students are:
There is no testing plan that fits all. Consider your extracurricular demands now, and discuss your calendar with your parents and guidance counselor.
- Jody Sanford Sweeney
Seniors: College Checklist for SeptemberSenior year should be a meaningful, culminating experience that holds many fond memories for years to come. With good forethought and planning in September, the college selection process can become not only a manageable part of that experience but also a time of self-discovery that prepares you for the exciting opportunity that the college years can and should represent.
Plan Your Class Schedule Carefully
While it is true that your junior year is the most important when it comes to the college application process, the senior fall is the single most important term. Most selective colleges want to see seniors engaged in a challenging slate of classes across disciplines. Students whose transcripts say “I've worked hard enough already and have earned a break†risk looking entitled and anti-intellectual during the application review process.
That being said, it would be imprudent to take on A.P. physics when math and science have never been your strong suits. Yes, colleges care about your senior year curriculum, but they also care about your performance. A drop-off in either the rigor of the classes or the grades earned in them can hurt your prospects.
Scrutinize Your Academic Progress
Of course, striking this balance is not always easy. Perhaps you have some trepidation about whether one of your classes is too hard for you. Be sure to be in early and frequent communication with your teacher, guidance or college counselor, and your parents. These people can help you to make a thoughtful, informed decision about whether a particular course is a good fit. In the meantime, consider these questions:
The answers to these questions should help you to make a reasoned decision.
Additionally, be aware of your school's policy regarding dropping a course or changing the level of a class; it would be unfortunate to realize that a class is too hard after you have the ability to do anything about it.
Make an Academic Action Plan
With so much going on in the fall of senior year, be sure to develop a plan of action for the next several months. Map out the dates that are important to you, like SAT or ACT test dates and college application deadlines.
Don't stop there. If you have a big audition, performance or game, be sure to put those dates on your calendar. The earlier you know about an intense week full of commitments, the better you can plan for it.
Complete the Easy Tasks Quickly
It is not very difficult to establish a Common Application account, to ask for teacher recommendations, or to sign up for the SAT or ACT. If you haven't already done so, take care of these things right away.
Keep Your Parents Informed
Your parents are vested partners in your educational aspirations and want to stay in the loop. Set aside one day a week to talk to your parents about your college process and progress, and stick to that commitment. You don't want every conversation with your parents to be about college, yet it is reasonable that they would want to check in and see how you are doing.
This post was prepared in consultation with the Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools, a membership organization.
In comments broadcast on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin joked about the reputed benefits of group sex for the lazy as he attacked the morals of three women from the punk band Pussy Riot who were jailed by a Moscow court last month.
The women, who performed a profane, anti-Putin song in a Moscow cathedral on the eve of the Russian presidential election in February, were sentenced to two years in prison by a judge who interpreted their actions as an act of “hooliganism†intended to incite religious hatred.
During an interview with an English-language satellite news channel financed by the Russian government, Mr. Putin was asked about the harsh senten ces for the dissident musicians. He responded by seeking to draw attention to what he termed “the moral side†of the Pussy Riot saga.
Before replying at all, Mr. Putin asked the British reporter, “Could you please translate the name of the band into Russian?†When the reporter demurred, Mr. Putin continued: “Can you translate the first word into Russian? Or maybe it would sound too obscene? Yes, I think you wouldn't do it because it sounds too obscene, even in English.â€
When the journalists tried to pass the matter off as a joke - “I actually thought it was referring to a cat†- Mr. Putin again stressed the obscene nature of the group's name. “I know you understand it per fectly well, you don't need to pretend you don't get it,†he said. “It's just because these people made everyone say their band's name too many times. It's obscene â€" but forget it.â€
The Russian president then described a series of political stunts some of the jailed women were involved in before they formed Pussy Riot. Referring to acts of performance art carried out in previous years by another group of dissident artists, the collective known as Voina - “War†in Russian - Mr. Putin said:
First, in case you never heard of it, a couple of years ago one of the band's members put up three effigies in one of Moscow's big supermarkets, with a sign saying that Jews, gays and migrant workers should be driven out of Moscow. I think the authorities should have looked into their activities back then.
After that, they staged an orgy in a public place. Of course, people are allowed to do whatever they want to do, as long as it's legal, but this kind of conduct in a public place should not go unnoticed by the authorities. Then they upload of the time.
Mr. Putin's description of Voina's supermarket performance appeared to invert the meaning of stunt - the artists were trying to draw attention to what they called government policies encouraging anti-Semitism, xenophobia and homophobia, not endorsing those sentiments.
It seems unlikely that Kevin Owen, the journalist who interviewed Mr. Putin for the Kremlin's own network - known as RT or Russia Today - would have been unaware of the stunt, but just in case international viewers, who are the channel's target audience, missed the YouTube clips documenting it in 2008, the broadcaster made video of that performance available to illustrate Mr. Putin's remarks.
More ima ges of the supermarket performance, and heavily blurred images of the orgy, were included in a video report from Pravda this week, which similarly suggested that Western supporters of Pussy Riot were unaware of the true, depraved nature of the dissident art produced by the activists.
Although the members of Pussy Riot insisted at their trial that the song they performed in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior - an obscenity-laced plea for the Virgin Mary to free Russia from Vladimir Putin's grip - was a political stunt, not an attack on believers, the Russian president continued to act as if the entire point of the performance was to ridicule the Russian Orthodox Church.
Accusing the women of “causing unholy mayhem†in the cathedral, which was destroyed during the Soviet era, Mr. Putin said:
You know, Russians still have painful memories of the early years of Soviet rule, when thousands of Orthodox, Muslim, as well as clergy of other reli gions were persecuted. Soviet authorities brutally repressed the clergy. Many churches were destroyed. The attacks had a devastating effect on all our traditional religions. And so in general I think the state has to protect the feelings of believers.
Asked later in the interview about new restrictions on the Internet described as an attempt to suppress dissent by the opposition, Mr. Putin again cast himself as a defender of Russia's moral majority, insisting that his only concern was to “ban child pornography†online. “Any steps we take are in the interests of the Russian people, and our children need this kind of protection,†he said. “No one is going to use this as a tool to restrict the Internet or online freedoms, but we have the right to protect our children.â€
Reporting was contributed by Michael Schwirtz.
LONDON â€" It is not often that stilt walkers wearing columns of silk sway and totter on the pavement on New Bond Street. But on Wednesday evening, towering models in a fanfare of silk outfits embroidered with tiny mirrors greeted guests, including the steel baron Lakshmi Mittal and film director Gurinder Chadha, at a book launch and auction for the celebrated Indian designers Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla.
“India Fantastique†is a two-volume coffee-table book celebrating the 25-year partnership of the two couturiers from India, who met by chance in 1986 and set up a small boutique store in Juhu, Mumbai called Mata Hari. It was the beginning of an unlikely clothing and interior design empire (neither of the two had formal training) which became a favorite of the film industry A-list, such as the Indian actress Dimple Kapadia,  and royalty, like Britain's Princess Anne.
Written by the art critic Gayatri Sinha, with photography by Ram Shergill, the 616-page book showcases hundreds of fashions and interiors.  Mr. Shergill was granted license to “have fun†with the book, Mr. Khosla said, so the photographer has put the designers' iconic outfits on models and celebrities including Hrithik Roshan and Shah Rukh Khan, and placed them in locations from Death Valley and Brighton's Royal Pavilion to Morocco and the Lake Palace in Udaipur.
Mr. Jani and Mr. Khosla's designs, which are known for their intricate embroidery, were first stocked at Harrods and Harvey Nichols in London in 1989. Their work came to Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus in New York as a range of shawls under the “Shakira Caine†label. Their outfits have been fea tured in films including Devdas and The World Is Not Enough and worn by actors such as Amitabh Bachchan and Dame Judi Dench. Both Mr. Bachchan and Dame Judi were at Wednesday's launch, which was held at Sotheby's London headquarters, where an exhibition of the designers' work was shown.
Sporting a black-and-gold dress coat made by the designers, Mr. Bachchan said, “Abu and Sandeep are like my wife Jaya's rakhi brothers,†referring to the Hindu holiday celebrating the bond between sisters and brothers. The designers “were always referred to as ‘the boys' and they still are,†he said. “They create a very elegant way of dressing. Regal is the closest I can get to describing it. I'm certainly feeling very regal tonight,†he added.
Mr. Bachchan's coat, which cost £5,000 ($7,950) to make, was auctioned for £10,500 to a bidder named “Mrs. Gandhi,†with proceeds going to Breakthrough, a global human rights organization. A photograph of Mr. B achchan wearing the coat, signed by both him and Mr. Shergill, went for £5,000.
Dame Judi described her first encounter with the designers' work, during the filming of The World Is Not Enough: “There was a scene I did with Sophie Marceau, and I don't think I looked her in the eye at all, I was so busy looking at the coat she was wearing.†The designers “really are the most phenomenal two people who always come to my rescue, whether it's for the Oscars or another occasion,†she said. The duo have dressed Dench for several Oscar and Bafta award ceremonies.
During a tour of the exhibition the day before the book launch, Mr. Khosla showed off some of his creations. He squatted down and fanned out a richly multicoloured outfit, so thickly woven it practically stood up on its own. “There are 40 embroidered panels here, taken from various bridal gowns including those belonging to Vanisha Mittal, daughter of Lakshmi Mittal, and the actress Amrita Singh,†he said.
“When we first started, we didn't have the money to keep samples, so we had to recall items from clients for the exhibition,†he said.
Previous clients include the Ambani, Hinduja and Mittal families.
The majority of the outfits are handmade from silk, featuring a complicated embroidery processes known as chikankari, which is unique to Lucknow, where the designers employ 150 local female artisans to create their pieces. The also use zardozi, a gold thread embroidery from Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, and vasli, a form of  embroidery over paper. One chikankari outfit requires six people, working eight hours a day, for eight months to finish, and prices start at £3,000.
In addition to clothing, Mr. Jani and Mr. Khosla are passionate about interior design. In 1993 they started a furniture line, and have since expanded to designing home interiors for Dimple Kapadia and the Bachchans. Mr. Khosla pointed to a hand-painted wooden table and two chairs that were borrowed from a customer's London home for the exhibition.
“Indian craftsmanship is second to none,†he said. “Abu and I wanted to spend money and time to revive and encourage these techniques to continue. We have artisans in India, who could still build the Taj Mahal today.â€
“We are unabashedly Indian in our aesthetic,†Mr. Jani is fond of saying “and passionately in love with the rich cultural, historic and design legacy of our land.â€
(That passion does beg the question, however: Why were no Indian models to be found among the 12 used to showcase the collection at the launch?)
India Fantastique is published by Thames & Hudson and priced at £95.
KOLKATA â€" Despite his reputation as a tough, no-nonsense police officer who has stood up to the government on several occasions, Nazrul Islam is soft-spoken and gentle, even when refusing to discuss the controversy surrounding his latest book, “Musalmander Koroniyo†(What Muslims Should Do).
“My intention is not to create, or fuel, any kind of controversy,†he said politely. (He also asked that his photo not be used in this interview.) But in the 102 page book, Mr. Islam minces no words in criticizing the West Bengal's governing party, Trinamool Congress, and its leader, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for the policies towards Muslims in the state. While taking care not to name Ms. Banerjee di rectly, his use of the term “Shashak daler Netri,†or female leader of the governing party, leaves no doubt about who he is referring to. In particular, the book criticizes new promises that Ms. Banerjee has made to provide stipends for imams and muezzins, who give the call to prayer, and the state's plan to recognize 10,000 madrasas, calling the promises a “trick†to keep India's Muslims poor and uneducated.
On Wednesday afternoon, India Ink met with Mr. Islam to discuss the book and his career:
Your Web site describes you as someone who has risen from being a village boy to a successful police officer.
Successful police officer? No. I don't think so. I would get removed every time I tried to do anything.
You lasted barely more than a month in Bolpur, where you were sub-divisional police officer in 1983?
Yes. I had arrested the son of the legislator from the Communist Party of India, which was the ruling par ty then. They had beaten up supporters of the opposition party, dragged them out of their homes, urinated on them and stripped their women.
It is not very common for policemen to obey the orders of the ruling party. Were you not scared to defy the party?
I always stood by justice and neutrality. I never considered who belongs to which party while discharging my duties as a policeman. I was not scared. Why should I be? What would have happened in the worst of cases, I could have either been transferred or, maybe, killed. What more can anyone do beyond this? So I never cared. I was born a good human being and want to die a good human being too.
What does your family have to say?
They never stop feeling concerned about me but do not interfere. Even before I had got married, I had told my wife, Dr. Kumud Gupta, that being with me may not be the best of experiences. It could mean a lot of suffering because I am never going to give up my ways.
Do you think vote-bank politics have come in the way of the progress of Muslims in India?
Yes. But, it is not just the Muslims. Many others including the low-caste Hindus and tribals have been prey to vote-bank politics. It is just that the case of Scheduled Castes and Tribes is a little better because they enjoy reservations in educational institutions and jobs.
Are you in favor of similar reservations for Muslims as well?
Yes.
You were born in a village which did not have a single primary school, and you have done well without reservations. Why do you think they are necessary?
I did it, but it was not easy. I had to work extremely hard to compete with those who had come from good backgrounds and had access to the best facilities. You see, many Muslims, especially those in Bengal, were low-caste Hindus earlier. Their life never improved even after conversion. Being a Muslim, they are neither entitled to any reservation. Something needs to be worked ou t for them.
You have written 71 books, both fiction and nonfiction. That's quite something.
I write when I get the urge to speak out what goes on in my mind. When I first came to college in the town of Behrampur, I saw that the educated people were more communal in their mindset than the simple people in my native village of Basantapur in Murshidabad district. People in the village were religious, no doubt, but were more tolerant of other religions and lived peacefully with other communities.
I began to question religion, education, and started studying the different faiths, which resulted in the book “Banglay Hindu-Musalman Samparka†(Hindu-Muslim Relations in Bengal). “Bakul†is fiction, yet it is drawn from my experiences as additional superintendent of police in Siliguri in the late '80s.
Siliguri was your favorite posting?
Yes, because I could do a lot of work. For example I successfully curbed the smuggling of timber and contraband goods. People loved me there. I remember once a man who had overheard a secret meeting of some businessmen in neighboring Bihar had come all the way to Siliguri to just inform me that my life was in danger and that a plot was being hatched for me to be killed or transferred.
Just a few days ago, I got a call from a lady in Siliguri. She called to say that her husband, who recently passed away, wanted to apologize to me. He was sympathetic to the Communist Party (Maoists) and had apparently worked against me. I don't remember, of course.
An earlier book, “Police Prasanga†(About Police), put you in trouble with the Left Front government of the time.
Yes. In that I had written about how the Communist Party was using the police for its gains. I was asked to withdraw the comments. I refused to backtrack. Then they got the vigilance commission to initiate an inquiry against me. The matter went to the High Court and there it was proven that the charges were baseless. When I was asked how I could be compensated, I asked for one rupee from the salary of the person who started the inquiry. I was paid by check.
You will retire in one and a half years. Have you already started planning what to do after that?
There is so much to do. I am the founder and chairman of the Basantapur Education Society, which is responsible for setting up several schools and colleges (one of them offering engineering courses) in my village where once there wasn't even a single primary school. The next step is to set up a university there.
(The interview has been lightly edited and condensed.)
DUBAI - A new program introduced by 's Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs aims to encourage the country's migrant workers in the Gulf to put aside savings for their inevitable return instead of sending all their earnings home to their families.
Five million Indians live and work in the Gulf on temporary employment or contract visas, mostly on construction sites, in hospitals and as household servants. Remittances by migrant workers to India totaled $64 billion in 2011, according to the World Bank, making India the leading receiver of remittances in the world, and Indians in the Gulf accounted for about 30 percent of that. But most of the money that they periodically send back is spent by their parents, wives and children; little gets saved.
“Gulf money has raised the standard of living for millions of families in India,†said K.V. Shamsudeen, chairman of the Pravasi Bandhu Welfare Trust, an organization that helps troubled lower- and middle-income nonresident Indians. “But I always ask the workers: Can you maintain your family's new and improved lifestyle if you return to India? Their response is always no.â€
The new Indian government program, the Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Suraksha Yojna, opened its first enrollment center in July in Kerala, the Indian state that is home to the largest number of Indians working in the Gulf. Its first overseas operations are expected to begin in the this month.
Social activists have long highlighted the urgent need for a pension or other financial plan that protects workers.
Sanjay Verma, consul general of India in Dubai, said: “Why has it taken so long is a difficult question to answer. There have been attempts in the past to introduce a few insurance policies specifically for the workers, but they didn't take off.â€
“For a worker to understand that giving up 1 rupee today is a wise investment for his future takes a lot of time,†Mr. Verma added. “How do you generate a pension out of temporary work over three to five years?â€
The program is open to workers in the Gulf aged 18 to 50 who have “Emigration Clearance Required†stamped on their passport. Holders of such passports are subject to additional checks when going to selected countries on a work visa.
“It's the government's way of protecting the worker - ensuring he or she is on a valid and legal contract and understands the contract,†Mr. Verma said.
Workers who sign up for the program can benefit from a pension that would vary based on the amount of their savings and the time over which it had been built up; a return and resettlement savings benefit from UTI AMC, a public-sector financial institution; and a free life-insurance benefit from the ministry through the Life Insurance Corp. of India. In case of death by accident, the subscriber's family would receive 75,000 rupees, or $1,350, while a permanent partial disability from an accident would give the subscriber 37,500 rupees.
“The premiums are not very high, but it's too early to predict a reaction to the scheme,†Mr. Verma said. “Naturally, a lot of communication and engagement with the work force must take place to make them understand the modalities.â€
“In time, if there's a higher demand and depending on the response,†he said, “the premiums and numbers could change.â€
Women, representing 20 percent of all Indian migrant workers, who save 5,000 rupees under the plan can expect a contribution of 3,000 rupees from the ministry each year. Men would receive 2,000 rupees from the ministry. The ministry's contributions would continue up to five years as long as the individual is working in the Gulf.
“Any effort by the Indian government to look after the interests of this important group of people is always welcome,†said Mr. Shamsudeen, who since setting up his social organization in 2001 has conducted dozens of financial planning and guidance seminars for unskilled nonresident Indians and their families.
“Our workers are barely literate,†he said. “To expect financial literacy of them is like asking for the moon. They send money home and their families spend it without any accountability on wasteful and extravagant items - mobile phones, clothes, weddings, electronics and unnecessary food.â€
In a measure that could expand India's affirmative action programs, the government introduced a bill Wednesday that would make it easier to grant promotions to members of India's lowest castes and tribal people in government jobs.
The bill, which was introduced in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, was waylaid Wednesday by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which has repeatedly disrupted Parliament's “monsoon session†over the recent coal concessions scandal.  But the legislation is expected to be addressed again as soon as Parliament gets back to work.
Ultimately, the bill is expected to pass both houses of Parliament. But  questions are already being raised about whet her it will withstand the scrutiny of the courts. It represents the latest volley in a series of battles between lawmakers who have pushed for broader quotas, in part to garner votes, and the courts, which have regarded many such measures as violating the constitutional right to equal treatment.
The bill “may be liable to be challenged on constitutional grounds,†said P.P. Rao, an expert in constitutional law and a senior lawyer in the Supreme Court. The main concern, he said, is whether the bill violates what is called the “basic structure†of the Constitution, most prominently the “right to equality,†by guaranteeing some citizens preferred treatment without demonstrating “compelling reasons†for such measures.
The central government, not surprisingly, has said the bill is sound. “We have brought this bill after understanding every aspect of this matter,†Law Minister Salman Khurshid said in a televised intervie w on Wednesday.
Since independence, India has introduced a large and often controversial system of quotas or “reservations,†aimed at creating a level playing field for disadvantaged groups by guaranteeing spots for them in state universities and government agencies. “It is because of reservations that the weaker sections of society have been able to make some progress in this country,†Kumari Mayawati, a proponent of the bill and a leader of the Dalits, once known as the untouchables, said in Parliament in April.
India's so-called scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, which make up 16 and 8 percent of the population, respectively, are entitled to 15 percent and 7.5 percent (again, respectively) of jobs and university seats administered by the central government.
The bill introduced this week, which if it passes would amend the Constitution, would go a step further by making it easier to establish quotas for promotions in government, a particularly divisive issue.
In 1992, the Supreme Court forbade quotas in promotions. But Parliament amended the Constitution three years later, making that ruling null and void.
Another blow to the reservations system came from the country's highest court in 2006, when it set three criteria for quotas in government jobs: the groups in question must be truly “backward,†or disadvantaged; data must show that they are underrepresented in government jobs; and the proposed quota mustn't make the government less efficient.
Following those criteria, the Supreme Court in April struck down as unconstitutional a law passed by the government of Uttar Pradesh setting quotas in promotions. The state failed to provide data, the court said, to show that scheduled castes and tribes were not adequately represented in state jobs.
The new bill would essentially remove the requirement that states collect and present such data. A note attached to the bill reads, “It has been o bserved that there is difficulty in collection of quantifiable data showing backwardness of the class and inadequacy of representation of that class in public employment. Moreover, there is uncertainty on the methodology of this exercise.â€
The bill would also let central and state governments reserve the same ratio for promotions in state jobs for a given group as is reserved for the jobs themselves. States in India have the power to set their own quotas for government jobs, and they vary widely. Tamil Nadu, for instance, reserved 69 percent of seats in educational institutions and public sector jobs for disadvantaged groups, while most other states have reserved close to 50 percent.
A broad range of parties have declared their support for the bill, most prominently the Bahujan Samaj Party, which represents Dalits. It is opposed, however, by the Samajwadi Party, which represents another group of socially and economically disadvantaged, known as the “other bac kward classes.†“This bill makes juniors senior and seniors junior,†Mulayam Singh Yadav, head of the Samajwadi Party, told reporters outside Parliament House. “Who will tolerate this?â€