COMA Newsletter March 2017

Hello Friends!

Wish you all a Happy Vishu and Happy Easter!!

Due to its unique characteristics, Kerala has unique cultural and religious celebrations; however, we don’t celebrate some of the major festivals of the rest of India. Prominent examples of Malayalee exclusive festivals are Onam and Vishu. Vishu comes around mid-April, and signifies the transition of the Sun from ‘Meenam’ to ‘Metam’ rashi (in astrological terms). Vishu is considered as the beginning of the year, and seeing the ‘Vishukkani’ arrangement decorated with ‘kannappoo’ as the first thing on the morning of Vishu is believed to have a positive effect on the entire year! I am sure, just like me, you are nostalgic about the “Vishukkani”, “Vishu Kaineettam” and fireworks!! Festivals are also about fun times with family and friends and the sumptuous ‘Sadya’ with a variety of desserts!

Easter, the celebration of resurrection of Jesus Christ is on the 17th of April, following Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

For those of you who might be travelling to Kerala in the month of April, you have a chance to see the Thrissur Pooram, which starts on April 17th this year.

Hope to see you all on the COMA Professional Networking Event on the 15th of April!

May the season of festivals bring you good luck, peace and prosperity!

EC 2017

Valentines Family Night Photos and Video

Valentine Event Videos are posted to the COMA YouTube Channel

Valentine Day Event Pictures can be found here

Professional Networking Event

COMA is happy to present the first Professional Networking event of 2017! It will feature two distinguished leaders from Columbus – Guru Vasudeva & Chetan Kandhari. They will share their professional journey and personal experiences that helped them to be successful in their career. There will be time for Q&A and informal networking. The event will be moderated by Hari Narayanaswamy.

COMA Events planned for the rest of the year

Date	Event
15-Apr	Professional Development (Corporate Networking)
17-Jun	Family Event (Picnic)
9-Sep	Cultural Event (Onam)
14-Oct	Professional Development (Kids or Business focused)
2-Dec	Cultural Event (Christmas)

 

Federation of Indian Association (FIA) Forum

• FIA organized a Candlelight Vigil on March 5th (Sunday) at the Ohio State Capital to honor Kansas City shooting victim, Srinivas Kuchibhotla. Inter-faith prayer was also held at the event. It was attended by more than 400 people, including Niraj Antani (Representative – Ohio House District 42)
• In the wake of recent events across the country, FIA is hosting Community Awareness Town Hall meeting with FBI, Dept. of Homeland Security & Franklin County Prosecutor on April 5th from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. It will be held inside Holiday Inn located at 7007 N High St., Worthington, OH-43085.
• FIA will host their premier event – “India Festival” on August 26th. They are looking for volunteers to help out with the planning and organizing of this prestigious event. If you are interested in helping out, please respond to coma.officials@gmail.com or reach out directly to one of the FIA office bearers -> http://fia-ohio.org/contact/

FIA Upcoming Events

Month	Date	Time	Host	Event	Location
April	8	8:45	NSF	Regional Contests	The Ohio State University
	9	8:45	NSF	Regional Contests	The Ohio State University
	15	2:00	COMA	Professional Networking	Der Dutchman, 445 S Jefferson Ave, Plain City, OH 43064
	22	11:30	All	Local Indian Group Meeting – 2Q	Persis Karaikudi & Biryani Grill, 195 E Campus View Blvd, Columbus, OH 43235
May	6	4:00	Dhvani	Carnatic Kutcheri by Archana and Aarathi	Persis Karaikudi & Biryani Grill, 195 E Campus View Blvd, Columbus, OH 43235
	6	TBD	VCA	Purandarasa and Tyagaraja Musical Festival	TBD
	20	TBD	CTA	B-Dinner	TBD
	21	TBD	CTA	Telanganam	Westerville North High School, 950 County Line Rd, Westerville, OH 43081
	TBD	TBD	COBCA	Bengali New Year Celebration	TBD
	TBD	TBD	GMOCO	Bengali New Year Celebration	TBD

 

Community Service News: Nish Nishant

The March Meals on Wheels route was on Sunday, March 26th. The volunteers for this month are Austin Pereira, Arun Kumar Radhakrishnan and Jacob Vengal

Badminton Tournament

Smash Badminton Club ‘Badminton Tournament’ was held on March 4th and 11th at Lazelle Woods Recreation Center. Six Men’s teams and two Women’s teams competed for the championship trophies. In coordinators Pradeesh’s and Aslam’s words, “The tournament was first of this kind in the community and was a big success. The competition was very tough, and many of the games were very close”. COMA President Ajayan Janardhanan, Pradip Ramachandran and Valsan Palika presented the medals to the winning teams.

• Mens Champions: Pradeesh Puthiyattil, Dijo George and Nish Nishant
• Runners Up: Biju Somarajan, Vinay Ramachandran and Hari Karunakaran
• Womens Champions: Latha Unni, Aswathi Pradeesh, Julie Joseph and Shakunthala Puthiyattil
• Runners up: Deepa Vinay, Sheeja Oommen, Priya Pramod and Priya Kumar

Tuberculosis in India: An Introduction to the Multi-Faceted Health Epidemic

Radhika Tampi

TB is a contagious disease which affects the lungs. TB is caused by a type of bacteria, Mycobacterium tuberculosiscauses. Even though TB is rare in the United States, it is wide spread in many other countries. India is one of the countries with significant TB cases. Do you know that there are about 2.5 million people living with active TB in India, and an estimated 40% of the Indian population is infected with tuberculosis? In the 20th century, TB was a leading cause of death in the United States. Today, a strong health infrastructure and easy access to antibiotics have made TB a disease of the past (and the poor) – but in India, a lack of public interest, minimal governmental response, an unregulated private sector and other issues have combined to make the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic a ticking time bomb. Although TB infection is curable with antibiotics that have been around for over 70 years, the mismanagement of the epidemic has made India the country with the highest burden of TB in the world.

For those of us who have loved ones in India, diabetes and other conditions that affect the immune system make it even easier to acquire TB and complicate the treatment process. In Kerala, the highest rates of TB are among elder patients with diabetes. Even more frightening is the rise of multi-drug resistant (MDR) cases in India. MDR cases require patients to take stronger (read: more harmful side effects and liver toxicity) antibiotics for longer periods of time (up to two years of daily doses) and can be more than 250 times more expensive to treat than regular TB (not including productivity losses for the patient due to hospitalization). MDR-TB has just as high of a transmission rate as regular TB – a cough or a sneeze from a man next to you in an airplane, and you could be facing months of quarantine, $150,000 in treatment costs (not including loss of income) and the possibility of death or disability.

We like to pretend that our lives are isolated from people living half a world away from us. But diseases do not have borders and the threat of an infection that is easier to transmit than both Ebola and HIV and takes months to cure could devastate health systems across the world. To stop the spread of this disease, we need to invest in research for cheaper and faster diagnostics, antibiotics that require shorter treatment regimens and public health networks to test and treat contacts of positive cases. The Government of India needs to be reminded of how far the national TB program is falling below international standards and how much of a threat TB is to the health and financial stability of the country.

Radhika Tampi is a health economist working at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health on determining the cost-effectiveness of new diagnostics and treatment models for TB in low and middle income countries.

Fashion

Tradition with a twist by Pooja Ranedev, Owner of Origin-Design & Sew and Celebrity Stylist from our own Cochin. Gathered by Rekha Nair

As a fashion, enthusiast I am more inclined towards the unconventional styles of dressing where in the comfort and making a statement comes together.
A recent design which we custom made for the young charming Mollywood actress Anushree was much appreciated and gained us more fan followers.
The whole idea was to mix casual fabrics with an evening design. The dress has got a paneled body and a waterfall hem. These types of dresses can be worn together with fitting bottoms as well as palazzos but here we clubbed it with a light biscuit shade cotton skirt. The screen printed motif on the fabric is so refreshing, it gives out a bohemian feel to whole attire. The olive green color is also a very rarely used but never the less beautiful shade.

Origin-Design & Sew is a made to measure kind of studio where customers can have their attires customized per their budget and other preferences.

Training Classes

COMA is planning to facilitate the following classes/sessions.

• Python programming
• Toastmasters
• Yoga

If you are interested in joining any of these classes, please contact us at coma.officials@gmail.com