As we enter the holiday season and approach the new year, I want to take this opportunity to extend my heartfelt best wishes to and for India and Indians. Because of COVID-19, 2020 has been an extremely trying year. We have all had to try harder. We have done so across the board and it is starting to pay off. Vaccines are now being distributed in the UK, the US, in other countries and will soon be distributed across India. That is a reason for hope and to be of good … [Read more...]
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Frank blogs regularly for the Huffington Post and writes occasional columns and articles for publications such as the International Business Times and The Economic Times of India.
Frank writes on a wide variety of topics that are critical to shaping the future of America and the American dream and to making the United States and the world a better place. These include: Business; education; poverty and inequality; politics and public policy; immigration; manufacturing; innovation; leadership; citizenship; and social commentary.
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Holiday and new year wishes for India and Indian Americans
Holidays and a new year are reasons to celebrate and to look for new beginnings. As we near 2021, we have a need to do both, writes columnist Frank F. Islam. I recently wrote an article for India doing that. I share it here with you my fellow members of the Indian American diaspora in the belief that you will find it of interest and hold many of these same sentiments for your relatives on the other side of the globe. ******* As we enter the holiday season and … [Read more...]
Afghanistan, Bangladesh or undocumented Indians in US: Plight of displaced people needs attention
On this International Migrants Day, it is worth noting that not every migrant succeeds in an adopted land. For evidence, one need not go beyond the Indian American community. While the community’s many successes and accomplishments have been well-documented, a less-publicized fact is the plight of hundreds of thousands of Indian nationals in the United States, writes Frank Islam for South Asia Monitor. So, on this year’s International Migrants Day, as we celebrate the successes of … [Read more...]
Holiday Wishes for a Promised Land
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door. - Words of poet Emma Lazarus at the base of the Statue of Liberty ‘My late step-father, Samuel Pisar, was one of 900 children in his school in Bialystok, Poland, but the only one to survive the Holocaust after four years in concentration camps. ‘At … [Read more...]
2020 Elections Analysis: The Winners and The Losers
Now it’s time for America to bind the wounds of division; have to get together. To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation I say it is time for us to come together as one united people. Those were the words of president-elect Donald Trump in his acceptance speech on November 9 after it was apparent that he would be the winner in the 2016 election. Four years later, when it was apparent that he would be the loser of the 2020 election, Trump was … [Read more...]
Vaccine: 2020 Word of the Year
Vaccine. That is our word of the year for 2020. Our choice for 2019 was trust — not for its presence but for its absence in that year. In 2018, we chose three words: toxic justice, trumper-tantrum and shutdown. Our 2018 Word Of The Year blog began as follows, “2018 is past. May it rest in peace. It deserves a gentle farewell because there was little that was relieving or relaxing in this most tumultuous year.” Little did we suspect that 2018 and 2019 were dry runs … [Read more...]
Thanksgiving Thoughts on Our Divided Nation
After the presidential election contest of 2016, we posted a blog titled “Thanksgiving Thoughts on Our Divided Nation.” That blog began as follows: We wrote our first Thanksgiving blog for the Huffington Post in 2012 shortly after the presidential election of that year. Near the end of that blog, we observed, “One other thing we see as we look at our country is a citizenry that is more divided in values and perspective than it has been in the past.” If that was true in 2012, it is … [Read more...]
Joe Biden’s win is good for India-US ties
2020 was a long and contentious year politically which ended with a win for Biden, America, and India. That is good news. The better news is that the best is yet to come. Nearly three weeks after the historic presidential election, United States (US) President Donald Trump is yet to concede, clinging on to hope that he can somehow miraculously hold on to power despite losing by a huge margin. However, with even his Republican allies at state and local levels refusing to help him, … [Read more...]
How the Biden administration will improve US-India relations
Under Joe Biden, US-India relations in areas like trade and commerce, as well as defence and strategic ties, are likely to be strengthened. New Delhi will be a large part of the Biden administration’s Asia Pacific strategy. Now that the all-consuming debate on who will be better for New Delhi -- Donald Trump or Joe Biden -- is settled, India-watchers here have moved on to the next set of questions. They are: what will the Biden White House look like? Who will lead the two key … [Read more...]
Joe Biden’s victory brings positive winds of change
After months of trench warfare and 84 seemingly endless hours of counting votes, the verdict is finally in: Joseph R. Biden, Jr. is the president-elect of the United States. He will take office as the 46thPresident on January 20,2021. The quadrennial dance of democracy ended exactly the way many had feared: in a deeply divided country and a closer contest than some would have liked. Those who were hoping for a landslide Biden win, as several opinion polls had predicted, were … [Read more...]