Archives for 2018

Telugu is the fastest growing language in the US, says a study by an American think tank.

The number of US residents speaking Telugu rose by 86 per cent between 2010 and 2017, according to an online video by the World Economic Forum.

But Telugu, the fourth most spoken language in India, is still outside the top 20 of the most widely-spoken languages other than English in the US, reports the BBC.

The video referred to a study by the US-based Centre for Immigration, which analysed census data to look at the pace at which languages were being spoken in America.

The study on languages spoken in the US used data from the American Community Survey and compared the number of people who said they spoke a language other than English at home in 2010 and 2017, the BBC said.

Last year there were more than 400,000 Telugu speakers in the US – nearly double the number in 2010. Out of the top 10 fastest-growing languages in America, seven are from South Asia.

The rise of Telugu was connected to the links forged between Hyderabad and the US engineering and technology industries, Prasad Kunisetty, founder of the Telugu People Foundation, a non-profit organisation in the US, was quoted as saying.

The rapid growth of IT in the mid-1990s led to a huge demand for software engineers, he said.
Many were recruited from Hyderabad, which sends students to the US in large numbers.

Down the years, Telugu-speaking Americans have continued to hire software engineers from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, the BBC said.

Notable US-based Telugu speakers include the first Indian-American Miss America Nina Davuluri and the current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Of the more than 60 million people that speak a language other than English out of the total population of about 320 million, the vast majority speak Spanish.

Out of the most commonly spoken South Asian languages, Hindi is first, followed by Urdu, Gujarati and then Telugu.

IANS

The Mysuru royal family suffered a double blow Friday marring Dasara festivities when Putta Chikkammani (98), mother of Rajamata Pramoda Devi, and Vishalakshi Devi, sister of late Maharaja Srikantadatta Wadiyar, died in hospital.

The royal family has announced postponing rituals associated with the Dasara festival to October 22, Raja Chandra, brother-in-law of the late Maharaja, said.

He said Pramoda Devis mother died in the morning while sister-in-law Princess Vishalakshi Devi, youngest daughter of late Maharaja of Mysuru Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar, died in the evening.

Raja Chandra said being in a state of impurity following the death, the royal family, including the titular Maharaja Yaduveer Krishnadatta Wadiyar, could not take part in rituals like special prayers to weapons, welcoming the entry of elephant carrying howdah and Uttara Pooja.

By evening, Vishalakshi Devi died in a private hospital in Bengaluru, he said, adding, she was 55.

The 10-day long Mysuru Dasara festivities came to an end Friday with a colourful procession here.

PTI

N Muthappa Rai, former gangster, activist, president of the Karnataka Athletics Association has received a notice from the Central Crime Branch police after he posted a video on social media performing a puja on arms and lethal weapons during the Ayudha Puja event .

In the video, Rai was seen with long guns and machetes. The video went viral on social media.

The Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Organised Crime Wing issued a notice to Rai on Friday, seeking an explanation and the documents to own the weapons.

PTI

A woman worker of a software firm in Pakistan was told to either stop wearing hijab at workplace or resign, in perhaps the first incident of its kind in the Muslim-majority country.

The incident caused an uproar on social media, leading to the resignation of Chief Executive Officer Jawwad Kadir of the Creative Choas company.

She was told that she could keep her job only if she took off her hijab by her line manager who said that wearing hijab would spoil the company’s image as an “all-embracing” workplace.

Kadir initially tried to downplay the incident by issuing an apology.

“Yesterday, a senior member of our staff asked a colleague to resign on unprofessional and unethical grounds. She was told that her obligations may come in the way of her performance,” Kadir said.

“Not only is this action disgraceful but shows extremely poor moral judgement by her hiring manager. I take full responsibility for this failure and am deeply ashamed that a colleague was put through distress and trauma,” he said.

Kadir said the victim has been asked to withdraw her resignation and resume her job.

A Facebook post detailing the trauma faced by the hijab-wearing woman caused a hue and cry with majority of people terming it as discrimination against the woman.

The software firm in a Facebook post later said Kadir had been asked to step down “for workplace discrimination”.

In an email sent to the board members and associates, titled “My apology is not enough”, Kadir said he was resigning as the CEO of the software house.

“I have crossed a line which I deeply regret,” he wrote in the email, a copy of which was available on social media.

PTI

A 52-year-old woman devotee from Trichy in Tamil Nadu on Saturday faced angry devotees ahead of her darshan at Kerala’s Sabarimala temple as they surrounded her before the last few hallowed steps.

Dressed in a blue saree, Latha, who was accompanied by her husband and son, was stopped as Sabarimala traditionalists were on the look-out for women within the hitherto barred ages suspected her age and started shouting Ayyappa slogans.

They surrounded her as they assumed she was below 50 years, who were for centuries barred from entering the temple.

Ever since this practice was overruled by the Supreme Court’s September 28 verdict, the hilltop shrine has turned into a war zone since October 17 when the temple doors opened for the first time after the decision.

The couple on Saturday tried to explain that Latha has not broken any rules. That she was here at the temple in the past two years, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.

It was only after senior BJP leader K. Surendran and others rushed to the spot detecting the commotion that the devotees allowed Latha passage to the sanctum sanctorum after checking her identification card.

The family then went up the hallowed 18 steps and performed the darshan.

Later she said the minor disturbance ahead of her darshan has hurt her as she had taken all the penance traditionally required for the Lord Ayyappa temple pilgrimage.

Three women were on Friday stopped from visiting the Ayyappan shrine despite police protection. Temple Tantri has threatened to close the Sabarimala temple if attempts were made by women of the barred age group to perform darshan.