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Newsletter Jan 2004
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Thursday, Feb 18, 2010
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From Narain V. Hingorani, AIS President
Another turbulent year full of historically far reaching events has just ended. After the turmoil of Iraq war and the wide spread global terrorism, the world witnessed sudden surprising developments, which will have continued reverberation and repercussions through the New Year and beyond. Even the two neighboring nations, scions of the common heritage of Indus Valley Civilization and Culture, whose people have lived for over half a century under the shadow of mutual animosity inflamed by the antagonistic attitude of their communal leaders, appear to be coming closer in the spirit of new understanding. AIS hopes and prays for lasting peace and mutual respect among people of all nations and wishes all our patrons and web site visitors a very happy and prosperous year 2004. AIS completed three years of its journey since it was ceremoniously launched in August 2000. At this juncture it will be appropriate to review the major goals of our mission, the activities performed so far while sailing along the chartered course and the planned tasks and new avenues to be explored in future with view to enhance the awareness of Indus/Saraswati civilization.
Book Distribution
In order to promote awareness of Indus civilization and its contribution to world cultures it was deemed essential that all the important libraries should have at least one outstanding book recounting greatness and grandeur of this ancient culture with its message of peace and goodwill among all people. With this aspiration we unanimously chose the highly acclaimed book "Return of the Aryans" by Bhagwan Gidwani which so radiantly relates the evolution of the Indian ethos from prehistoric ages to the historical times. The book elaborates the exciting accounts of the origin of the Aryans, art, music, advancement of our ancient philosophical and spiritual vales. With the generous donations from Dr. Dayal and Dr. Indu Meshri AIS distributed more than 500 copies of the book to various public and academic libraries in USA free of any cost. This concept of book distribution was appreciated and highly lauded by very encouraging comments in the Guest Book. How ever, in spite of our repeated requests in the Guest Book and newsletters, and several appeals to various Indo-American corporations and foundations, there has been negligible inflow of funds to finance our planned activities. In order to make this great book widely available to larger number of people, AIS wrote letters by regular mail and Email to more than 1000 academic libraries (an effort of more than 200 hours) recommending them to consider acquiring Return of the Aryans with their own resources. If this mass campaign will have any positive response from the libraries, we will only perceive in the coming months. AIS request all the well wishers, who would like this book to attain a larger readership, to help us by addressing a suitable letter to the public and academic institutions in their areas to acquire this important book for their libraries.
School Program
We live in a world in which differences rather than similarities between the people are recognized; and the disagreements are settled by conflict and strife. This is because people have little regard and respect for various cultures, which accounts for indifference to ideals of harmony and tolerance. Historically USA is a new nation but derives its strength from richness of its diverse cultures and ethnic melange. The school programs must aim at impressing upon young minds the beauty of this bounteous richness and encouraging understanding for tolerance and harmony in society. It has been noted that information about ancient cultures of Indian sub continent is scantily available in American Schools. Earlier in the year AIS contacted appropriate school authorities to encourage the study of Sindhu/Saraswati cultures. The school board of Evanston, Illinois showed great enthusiasm for this project. AIS has also established contact with National Educational Academy (Teachers Union in USA) to include study of Indus civilization in school curriculum along with other world civilizations. Further, in this connection we have addressed a letter to Ms. Leona Hiraoka, executive editor of the monthly Newsletter of NEA, to develop some mechanism for dissemination and encouragement among teachers and students through their Newsletter and other teaching resources. In April 2003 AIS elected Dr Faquir Vohra and Mrs. Sudesh Vohra to the AIS board. Dr. Vohra who served UNESCO in important positions for more than 25 years bring his expertise in education and cultural fields. He will be in charge of Research and Education and will be actively involved in our School Program.
Indus Valley Exposition - Chicago
AIS web site has links to the Exhibition of Indus Valley in Japan (2000) and recent exhibition entitled Art of First Cities sponsored by the New York Metropolitan Art Museum (May-August 2003). The New York Exhibition also included a large section on Indus Valley Civilization, which received enthusiastic comments. AIS plans a similar exhibition in Chicago. With untiring efforts of our Founding President Dial Gidwani we have succeeded in creating in the minds of The Field Museum's officials to consider arranging an exhibition of Indus/Saraswati artifacts. After receiving a very positive and encouraging response we have submitted to Ms. Robin Groesbeck, Manager Exhibition Coordination, initial information about the Indian Exhibition held in Japan along with other relevant material. We hope to have meeting with her and other museum officials in March 2004 to further discuss the detailed plans for the exhibition.
Miscellaneous News
In November 2003 Honorable Richard Daley, Mayor of city of Chicago visited the Sister City New Delhi, India and sought to strengthen commercial and cultural ties between the two great cities. On his return to Chicago AIS sent to him an appreciative and congratulatory letter for taking initiatory steps to consolidate the cooperation between the two countries. He was also presented with a copy of Return of the Aryans for his better understanding and awareness about the fountainhead of Indian ethos and culture. We were fortunate to obtain largely volunteer services of Michael Chase from Kingfisher Software and Consulting Inc. to overhaul our web site. Reconstruction process is continuing and in a few weeks the web site will have a completely new look. Mike also spent many of his valuable hours organizing and executing a library email Campaign. AIS thank Mike for his help and dedication to our mission. AIS also takes the opportunity to thank Cheri Lasher for her help in data entry for the email campaign. On January 9th 2004 India will witness a conclave of the Indian Diaspora when thousands of Pravasi Bharatiyas will gather in New Delhi on the occasion of 2nd Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (NIR Day) under. A High level Committee under the chairmanship of Dr L M Singhvi will recognize and reward the constructive role played by the Indian Diaspora in promoting goodwill towards and advancing the awareness about India. Dial Gidwani, during his recent visit to New Delhi, had an opportunity to meet Dr. Singhvi and apprise him of the mission and activities of American Institute of Sindhulogy. In response to the idea introduced in many recent guest book comments, we have included on the home page a link, Recognize AIS for NRI Award. To encourage and assist our readers, who deem the mission and the activities of American Institute of Sindhulogy worthy of recognition and merit a Pravasi Bharatiya award, we have included email link, [email protected]. The email may please be addressed to Ms. Rathi Vinay Jha, secretary to honorable Mr. Jagmohan, minister for tourism and culture. The letters may also be addressed to Mr. Agnihotri ambassador-at-large, [email protected] (Phone 212 478 777). AIS looks forward to continued cognizance and encouragement from our readers to accomplish the planned programs in the coming year for advancing the awareness of our glorious culture civilization.
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