Eideard

Nikita Sachdeva – from Delhi – now a student at University of Chicago

Moulshri Mohan was an excellent student at one of the top private high schools in New Delhi. When she applied to colleges, she received scholarship offers of $20,000 from Dartmouth and $15,000 from Smith. Her pile of acceptance letters would have made any ambitious teenager smile: Cornell, Bryn Mawr, Duke, Wesleyan, Barnard and the University of Virginia.

But because of her 93.5 percent cumulative score on her final high school examinations, which are the sole criteria for admission to most colleges here, Ms. Mohan was rejected by the top colleges at Delhi University, better known as D.U., her family’s first choice and one of India’s top schools…

Mohan, 18, is now one of a surging number of Indian students attending American colleges and universities, as competition in India has grown formidable, even for the best students. With about half of India’s 1.2 billion people under the age of 25, and with the ranks of the middle class swelling, the country’s handful of highly selective universities are overwhelmed…

“The problem is clear,” said Kapil Sibal, the government minister overseeing education in India, who studied law at Harvard. “There is a demand and supply issue. You don’t have enough quality institutions, and there are enough quality young people who want to go to only quality institutions.”

American universities and colleges have been more than happy to pick up the slack. Faced with shrinking returns from endowment funds, a decline in the number of high school graduates in the United States and growing economic hardship among American families, they have stepped up their efforts to woo Indian students thousands of miles away…

Indians are now the second-largest foreign student population in America, after the Chinese, with almost 105,000 students in the United States in the 2009-10 academic year, the last for which comprehensive figures were available. Student visa applications from India increased 20 percent in the past year, according to the American Embassy here.

RTFA. A multipliplex of incompetence, political foolishness, unwillingness to see beyond your nose.

Young people capable of learning, acquiring skills and knowledge, of contributing to the betterment of society lose the opportunity. The barriers in either nation may differ. The result is the same.

It doesn’t even matter if there’s television to watch at the bar. Conversation takes a higher priority. And beer.

With its dark red and black stripes, spotted fins and long venomous black spikes, the lionfish seems better suited for horror films than consumption. But lionfish fritters and filets may be on American tables soon.

An invasive species, the lionfish is devastating reef fish populations along the Florida coast and into the Caribbean. Now, an increasing number of environmentalists, consumer groups and scientists are seriously testing a novel solution to control it and other aquatic invasive species — one that would also takes pressure off depleted ocean fish stocks: they want Americans to step up to their plates and start eating invasive critters in large numbers.

“Humans are the most ubiquitous predators on earth,” said Philip Kramer, director of the Caribbean program for the Nature Conservancy. “Instead of eating something like shark fin soup, why not eat a species that is causing harm, and with your meal make a positive contribution?”

We’re already at consideration of three questions at this point in the article: 1. Ready access to the invader?; 2. How easy and cost effective is it to harvest? 3. Any cultural barriers to overcome [back to the marketing department folks].

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Yup – roll out the heavy hitter!

Lawyers for hundreds of people across the country who say their kidneys were harmed by over-the-counter oral laxatives — used to prepare them for colonoscopies and other medical procedures — are close to reaching a final settlement with the maker of the products, C.B. Fleet Co. of Lynchburg, Va…

Those who sued say they suffered from kidney failure and chronic kidney disease after drinking two bottles of the laxative within 24 hours. That amount was promoted by Fleet and prescribed by doctors, according to the suit.

In the most serious cases, the suit says, those who drank the laxative needed dialysis or kidney transplants. In a few instances, the kidney damage resulted in death.

The suit also claims Fleet received numerous reports of the harm its products caused dating back to at least 1992, it suppressed that information, downplayed the risks and reassured doctors the products were safe for most patients…

Fleet took them off the market in December 2008, after the FDA issued a safety alert.

Phew. Can you imagine the effect on someone drinking a simple preparation like this – prior to a medical procedure which is nothing more than uncomfortable – and ending up with disability or even death?

I’m impressed. Ain’t going to be able to get any African Land Snails in northern New Mexico – and I haven’t traveled to London in years. Though the A2 Delicious restaurant looks like a gas.

I’ve eaten traditional garden snails even as a child. Our landlady was French and kept a terrarium stocked.

I’ve even been with mates just starving for a snack on the beach of some Caribbean island I wasn’t allowed to visit legally by my ever-protective government – and we captured and sliced up Conch au natural. And scungilli was a frequent Sunday treat. This – looks like a gastropod worth trying.