Dr. John D. Balian launched ‘Gray Wolves and White Doves’

Mr. Venkatesh Rajagopal, the Chairman and Managing Director of Indian Terrain, will host the launch event of the novel Gray Wolves and White Doves at ITC Windsor Manor on 25th February 2012. The thriller based novel, Gray Wolves and White Doves is based on actual events. Here, in India to launch his first novel among Bangalore’s literati, Dr. Balian in conversation with Vidya Virkar -daughter of Lt T.N Shanbhag and Managing Director of Strand Bookstore. Dr. Balian will interact with the select group of invitees.

Dr. Balian has lived in the locales described in the novel and has first-hand knowledge of the events. While the novel is the epitome of a timeless story and the struggle between the good and the evil and the perseverance of the underdog, it is an unique tale told in an unique manner. The historical/current political and social upheavals in the Middle East make this book eminently relevant.

Synopsis of ‘Gray Wolves and White Doves’

In a rugged and ancient corner of the world shrouded in mystery and myth, five-year-old Hanna can imagine no other home than his small village at the edge of the Turkish Plains of Anatolia.

Suddenly, in one terrible instant an unimaginable tragedy strikes and the boy’s happy life is overturned, sending him into exile and on an odyssey of lurking dangers, dashed hopes and thwarted ambitions.

Torn from his family and uprooted from his homeland, the young boy is dispatched to a seminary in Jerusalem where he is renamed Jonah and embarks on a discovery of his true heritage and new identity. This sanctuary is also snatched away when Jonah, still in his early adolescence, finds himself caught in the crossfire of the Holy City’s “unholy” wars.

Caught in a web of deceit and factional feuds, a persecuted Jonah narrowly escapes the snares of his nemesis and the specter of the hellish Turkish prisons. He resorts to a fugitive subsistence in foreign lands, and is recruited by his former foe to join a clandestine group. Despondent, young Jonah finds himself forced to choose his fate: abandon his principles to carry out a barbaric mission to exact revenge; or find a new path to pursue an improbable dream in a new world.

Based on actual events of the 1960’s and 1970’s in the Middle East, Gray Wolves and White Doves transports the reader to a land steeped in ancient rituals, Middle Eastern traditions and modern intrigue. From this tumultuous background rises a moving, captivating story of a child’s search for identity and belonging amid rekindled feuds and the turmoil of a changing world.

Gray Wolves and White Doves is a real life and action-packed thriller that weaves a timeless tale of man’s perseverance, the endurance of hope, and the winning ways of the human spirit no matter how bleak the circumstances.

Gray Wolves and White Doves by Dr. John D. Balian is available on Amazon.com.

About the Author

John D Balian, MD’s life story personifies the immigrant story and the American Dream. Considering his very humble beginnings in the Middle East and the inconceivable adversity Dr. Balian faced from childhood through adolescence to later become an accomplished physician and a senior executive in a multinational corporation, his life story should be the inspirational and motivational account of these challenging times.

Dr. Balian was born to parents of no education and no means in a remote village in Anatolia near Diyarbekir, a historic Armenian city now in Eastern Turkey. He faced unimaginable tragedy that led to the splintering of his family that launched him into a life of destitution and wandering through several Middle Eastern and European countries.  Despite cruel twists of fate, he eventually reached the land of opportunity because of his own fighting spirit and survival instincts and the help and kindness of strangers.

He attended Columbia University on a full scholarship and received a medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine. After a medical residency and fellowship, Dr. Balian worked for the United States Food and Drug Administration prior to moving into the healthcare industry. He currently is a senior executive of a US-based global corporation.  Due to his reputation of a transformational leader in his field with numerous accomplishments and innovations, Dr. Balian was recently elected to serve on the Board of Directors of the Armenian Center of Columbia University. He is widely published in varied trade journals.
 

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McDonald's India opens 51st restaurant in south India

BANGALORE: Fast-food chain McDonald's India announced the launch of its 51st restaurant in the South and its 34th restaurant in Bangalore.

Hardcastle Restaurants Pvt Ltd, the owner of the McDonald's brand in West and South India, has plans plans for Rs 500-crore investment over the next three years. The company is looking to undertake almost 50 per cent expansion in South India.

Mr Amit Jatia, Vice-Chairman, McDonald's India (West & South), said, “McDonald's is committed to grow in India and South.” He also said that the restaurant chain is on the lookout for opportunities to develop the brand to suit Indian preferences and seek out newer markets in the region by connecting with consumers better and developing new products.”

At Present, the restaurant chain McDonald's has 250 restaurants across the country and 33,000 across the globe. It serves nearly 67.8 million customers in 118 countries each day.

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Red Digita bags Pepsicos Mirinda social media mandate

RED DIGITAL BAGS PEPSICO’S MIRINDA SOCIAL MEDIA MANDATE

Red Digital will make use of consumer-centric platforms like Facebook and Twitter along with various other applications and new technology, which will help connect the online and offline worlds. It will help the brands reach out and engage Mirinda drinkers across the country.

Bangalore, February 18, 2012:  

Red Digital has been awarded the social media mandate for PepsiCo’s Mirinda.

Red Digital will build and execute social media strategies that will help PepsiCo’s Mirinda brand reach out to their audience on social media platforms. The agency will play a key role in creating online buzz about the brand’s new offerings along with launching various campaigns and building engagement across social networks.

For Mirinda, Red Digital’s immediate mandate on social media is to create an impact for Mirinda’s latest breathless campaign, with which it has launched two new flavors, Mirinda Orange Masala and Mirinda Orange Mango, while continuing with the base Mirinda Orange flavor. The launch is supported by a robust 360-degree campaign called the Taste Twister Challenge, supported via Radio, Outdoor & On-Ground activation along with social media. Red Digital will help in bringing the experience of this program to Facebook & On-ground. The program requires consumers to call or SMS at 08800033333 to choose the Taste Twister of their favorite flavor and recite it repeatedly in one breath for as long as possible; longer the recording, greater are the chances of winning exciting prizes, including 10 MP3 players and 1 tablet PC every day! Red Digital has replicated this experience on Facebook and Android tablets for on-ground activation, making the programme truly 360-degree.

Red Digital is also geared to exploit the new disruptive full sleeve packaging that captures the taste and fun experience of drinking Mirinda through applications on Facebook. These applications use the most prominent aspect of the packaging: the emoticons, to bring alive the new flavors. The applications range from allowing fans on the Mirinda India Facebook fan page to enter into an augmented reality world and play with the emoticons to classifying friends in various taste categories. The agency will also be creating an augmented reality iPhone and Android application.

The campaign, for the first time ever, will also see Red Digital creating TweetMobs though the duration of this campaign.  These will be high impact subjects being Tweeted by Mirinda and re-tweeted by a group of people within a specific time frame. Red Digital will connect with the Twitterati’s and get as many people to tweet about the topic with various Mirinda branded hash tags creating a plethora of endorsements for Mirinda.

Commenting on the development, Harsh Jain, Founder & Managing Director, Red Digital said, “Social media provides seamless opportunities to build interest groups. Digital is no longer just about showing banners and clicking on them. It’s about generating engagement, activation and creating convergence between the online and offline worlds. We are glad to have an innovative partner like Pepsi Co onboard and look forward to creating path-breaking innovations in new media in the near future. The new activities for Mirinda brand emphasize our continued focus on digital innovation aimed at bringing value to our clients.”

Speaking on Mirinda’s partnership with Red Digital, Ruchira Jaitly, Executive Vice President - Marketing, Beverages (Flavours), PepsiCo India said "Social Media has become a very important tool for engaging with consumers and having a dialogue with them on a constant basis. We are pleased to have Red Digital on board as our social media partner for this initiative. Their prior experience in handling leading brands coupled with a deep understanding of consumer behavior in the digital space will definitely ensure there is a high level of engagement and traction for Mirinda’s campaign on 3 Flavors."

Mirinda India Facebook Fan Page: https://www.facebook.com/mirindaindia

ABOUT RED DIGITAL:

Red Digital is a Mumbai based 360 degree digital ideation and services company which operates across new media platforms including social media, gaming, mobile and the traditional web. From start-ups to global brands, they've helped businesses realize their online potential. Red Digital presently works with multiple high profile clients including Adidas Cricket, Mumbai Indians, Danone, Godrej, Educomp, UTV Motion Pictures, Monginis, Godrej, Ibibo, Pogo, Cartoon Network, Disney, Apollo and Dream11.com for whom they manage design, brand solutions, gaming, social reputation management, ideation, online activation, product development and social commerce .

ABOUT PEPSICO INDIA:

PepsiCo entered India in 1989 and has grown to become one of the largest food and beverage businesses in India. With an investment of over $1 billion, PepsiCo India has built an expansive beverage and snack food business supported by 37 beverage bottling plants and 3 food plants. PepsiCo India’s extensive portfolio includes iconic brands like Pepsi, Lay’s, Kurkure, Tropicana 100%, Gatorade, Quaker, and fast growing brands i.e. Nimbooz and Aliva.

PepsiCo India is driven by its global commitment to sustainable growth, Performance with Purpose, which works on four planks of replenishing water, partnering with farmers, waste to wealth and healthy kids. In 2009, PepsiCo India achieved a significant milestone, by becoming the first business to achieve ‘Positive Water Balance’ in the beverage world. In 2010, PepsiCo India gave back 4 billion liters more water than what it consumed, a fact verified by Deloitte Touché Tohmatsu India Pvt. Ltd. For more information, please visit www.pepsicoindia.co.in 

For further information, please contact:

  Vinayak, Integrated Brand Comm

  Email: vinayak@brand-comm.com

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S.F. sustains ties with Bangalore Andrew S. Ross

San Francisco is turning its eyes toward India.

Next month, a delegation of city officials and corporate executives, led by Mayor Gavin Newsom, will be spending three days in Bangalore, where initial agreements on projects involving sustainable building, health technology, water treatment and solid waste management are expected to be signed. All areas in which Bangalore, India's version of Silicon Valley, have said it could use some help.

The trip also marks a coming-out party of sorts for San Francisco and Bangalore as sister cities. "It's our fanfare," says Jim Herlihy, co-chair of the San Francisco-Bangalore Sister City Initiative. Herlihy, a managing director of Deutsche Bank, and Madhav Misra, who formerly headed a hedge fund and private equity group at Citibank in San Francisco, have been quietly building on the relationship since the two cities officially became siblings, at Newsom's behest, last year.

As with San Francisco's growing relationship with Shanghai, the aim is to develop business and trade ties - sustainably, the organization's mission statement emphasizes - with an Indian metropolis that is exploding, technologically and geographically, with a population estimated to be 10 million by 2012. "Given Bangalore's growth rate, and the role Indians already have in the Bay Area economy, there's enormous untapped potential," Misra said.

The two co-chairs have already rounded up some heavy hitters. Board members include Kumar Malavalli, founder of San Jose's Brocade Communications, Vish Mishra, president of the Indus Entrepreneurs, an Indian-American business group in Silicon Valley, and Regis Kelly, who chairs the Bay Area Scientific Innovation Consortium. (A specific biotech agreement is on the November trip's agenda.)

Corporate sponsors range from Cisco Systems, whose LEED-compliant building - India's first - on its Bangalore campus will be highlighted on the trip, to Taj Hotels, a subsidiary of the giant Tata Group conglomerate, which numbers San Francisco's Campton Place among its U.S. properties.

The latter's involvement, along with Bangalore's UB Group, which owns the Mendocino Brewing Group (Red Tail Ale, Blue Heron) along with India's Kingfisher Beer and Kingfisher Airlines, points to the two-way-street nature of the relationship. "We want Indian investors and businesses to look at the Bay Area as a logical point of entry," Herlihy said.

Misra added: "As this becomes India's as well as China's time, we want to see the Bay Area benefiting from it."

More information on the San Francisco-Bangalore Sister City Initiative at www.sfbangalore.org.

Another passage to India: Coincidentally, the San Francisco delegation arrives one week after the Obama administration wraps up its business trip there.

This one's being led by another Bay Arean, Ro Khanna, a deputy assistant secretary in the Commerce Department. Khanna, formerly an intellectual property lawyer at the San Francisco office of O'Melveny & Myers, is the first Indian American to lead an official trade delegation to India.

He was not available to talk about the five-day trip to New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, but the focus is supposed to be on energy efficiency, "clean" energy, and what U.S. companies could bring to the Indian table in those areas.

Despite India's demurrers on mandated emission reduction targets, it has been investing more in the renewable energy field of late. Last week, it signed an agreement with Scotland "to drive innovation in renewable energy and support both governments' goals to increase supplies of wind energy, solar power and biofuels," according to a Scottish government statement.

Time for the United States to play catch-up.

Blogging at sfgate.com/columns/bottomline. Tweeting at twitter.com/andrewsross. Tips, feedback: E-mail bottomline@sfchronicle.com.

Bangalore & Sanfrisco Bonding gets stronger

Bangalore and San Francisco on Monday signed seven Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) strengthening the ‘sister cities’ arrangement.

The MoUs were signed in the presence of Chief Minister Yedddyurappa and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom at Vidhana Soudha. “The sister cities concept is unique - it is a two-way process, which ensures give and take by both the sides,” the Chief Minister told reporters. Healthcare, water and sanitation, education and research, art, museum and culture, trade and commerce and fashion technology were the areas wherein MoUs were signed. Promoting growth The two cities had signed an MoU in October last year to form sister cities arrangement, aimed at promoting cooperation and understanding between the two cities and to partner in the areas of economic growth, cultural exchange, knowledge transfer and fostering clean technology. It has now been extended to seven more areas. Great output Gavin Newsom said San Francisco would take the MoU seriously and provide great results. The main thrust will be on exchanges in infrastructure development, waste disposal, environment initiatives. “Bangalore is a remarkable place which attracts creative people...I am a huge fan of India and Bangalore. Having cordial relations with India is essential,” he stated.

19th INTERNATIONAL YOGA CONFERENCE

20^th Dec. 2011  -  Prashanti Kutiram, Jigini

INAUGURAL CEREMONY OF THE 19^th INTERNATIONAL YOGA CONFERENCE

It was unique gathering in the form of the 19^th International Yoga Conference on Frontiers in Yoga Research & Its’ applications, being organized at S-VYASA. Yoga University, Bengaluru.  The theme of the conference is “Yoga for Global Health, Peace and Education”.  This has evolved as a result of consequences the world has been facing with regards to health, education and peace. 

Remarkable advances in science and technology have provided powerful tools in the fields of diagnosis, surgery and target oriented pharmaceuticals and has actually taken us away from the natural and healthy living.  We are obsessed by the conventional modern medical system for treating life style related disorders, which can be easily treated by mere life style changes and few healthy habits.  Modern medicine is promising in managing these disorders but remains far unsuccessful in rendering a cure. 

Yoga is an Art, a Science and Philosophy.  More practically it is a way life.  It was the subject of various eminent dignitaries who were present in the Inauguration of the International Yoga Conference on 20^th Dec.2011 at 5.00 pm in Prashanti Kutiram.  Dr.H.R.Nagendra, Vice Chancellor, S-VYASA spoke of the research base wealth of knowledge which the university has.  He also mentioned about USA’s huge funding on defense, which could if be utilized for health issues, it could be five years budget for the whole world.  The power hunger has to be reduced.   Materialized world has to be regulated. 

Swami Gautamanadaji, President, RK Math, Chennai released the book – The Evolution of Enlightenment, which explains the new relationship between the new enlightenment and moksha. 

The ex-Chief Minister Sri Yedurappa, wished all the delegates of the conference the greater heights of enlightenment.

Dr.Acharaya, Education Minister, Govt. of Karnataka said that Karnataka has first state to have UG and PG level Yoga Courses. 

HH Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Guruji, Founder of Art of Living said that “Science and Spirituality” were never contradictory.  He said that if you understand an atom, you will understand spirituality.  Yoga is not a philosophy to be kept in a library but is to be lived.  Sri Sri Ravi Shakar answered a question about Russia banning the Bhagat Gita!  He said that banning the Bhagawat Gita is injustice to the people of Russia and an insult to 1.2 billion people of India.

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Forum Mall Celebrates 8th Birthday !!

Bangalore, 19^th February, 2012: Forum Mall, Koramangala celebrated its 8^th birthday this weekend. The celebrations lasted three days, February 17^th -19^th. As it was their 8^th birthday, the theme and events were grand and centred around the number ‘8’and the decor resembled that of ‘The Cannes Festival’; with Red Carpets, exuberant set up & lighting. Forum Mall ensured a fun filled weekend with grand festivities and a lucky few who won irresistible goodies.

Brand Walk: As a part of the extravagant celebrations, Soch, Isis, and Rajesh Shetty mesmerized the people that flocked the venue by flaunting their extravagant collection at the central atrium. Day 2 saw the works of Isis and Rajesh Shetty, and on Day 3 Soch and Rajesh Shetty showcased their collection. 

Kate Elizabeth Hallum, a UK model and wife of singer Lucky Ali grabbed everyone’s attention as the show stopper on the final day with a few popular Bangalore models that graced the runway in breath-taking outfits.  

Kate Elizabeth Hallam

·         Since age 14 years she has modelled.

·         A UK Model + Actress and Ambassador for The Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust Since Age 13 has raised over 100.000 british pounds for cancer charities.

·         Modelled and featured in all National tabloids in the UK also magazine Hello, Ok Mag, Grazia, Look and Woman.

·         A Cover Girl for 'Take a Break' Magazine featuring on the cover 16times.

·         A Formula 1 model for Mercedes McClaren also featured on famous BBC car show TopGear

·         Won Face of Aintree 2004 chosen out of 900 as 'Most Stylish Race-goer'

·         Represented Great Britain in China at Miss Intercontinental World Final.

 ·         Won Miss Great Britain photogenic 2003

·         Miss England.  

 Won a Bravery Award from The House of Commons for saving her brother's life when he suffered Leukemia she aspires to run an NGO here for Leukemia sufferers. 

·         A fashion Entrepeuner who will be running the Hyderabad Fashion week with Her husband and Asif Iqbal's Co The Surplus Group where she will also showcase local + international designers with an elegant and feminine twist 

·         She has Modelled for Vivvienne Westwood + Jiki (Monte Carlo)

·         Now married to husband 'Lucky Ali' where they reside in Bangalore with their little son Dani who is 7months old 

 

 Classic Reel: People experienced never before like cinematic experience at PVR cinemas that aired a range of classic movies like The Godfather, Scarface and Citizen Kane from 7:00 PM onwards for Rs.80 only! If you weren’t there you surely missed out on something! The movies showcased were truly mind-blowing and left people asking for more.

Forum mall welcomes you to its new year! Be part of its never ending happenings!!!

About Forum Mall
Prestige Group launched The Forum Mall at Koramangala – the IT Hub of Bangalore. Since its inception in 2004, The Forum Mall, Koramangala has been the most premium destination for Bangaloreans. The Forum Mall was the result of the convergence of shopping and entertainment and the emergence of family entertainment centers. 

The Forum Mall boasts of 76 stores having the biggest brands catering to every need of the shopper spread across 3,50,000 sq.ft. And true to its promise, one is welcomed by a wide and exquisite array of brands such as Westside, Landmark, Tommy Hilfiger, Espirit, United Colors of Benetton, Mc Donalds and KFC. Besides elevating the shopping experience, it is a haven for the entertainment buffs with PVR’s eleven-screen cinema. Bringing alive the best of brands and amusement, The Forum Mall presents a novel shopping experience unlike any other.

For further information, please contact:

Nischal Reddy

9738007727

nischal@mediamoments.in

Shwetha N

shwetha@mediamoments.in

9663398976

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