10 February - 16 February 2012 4 NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

The Longest-Running and Most PrestigiousIndian Film Festival in the U.S.

Marks its 12th Year May 23 to 27, 2012(New York, NY)

Filmmakers and producershave until February 15,2012, to submit shorts,documentaries, or featurefilms pertaining to the Indiansubcontinent for the 12thAnnual New York IndianFilm Festival (NYIFF), pre-sented by the Indo-Ameri-can Arts Council (IAAC).Scheduled from May 23 to27 at the eclectic TribecaCinemas in Lower Manhat-tan, NYIFF features morethan 30 films over a span offive days and attracts someof the most high profile ce-lebrities, media, andguests. The festival willcommence with an openingnight film screening on May23 at the Paris Theater, fol-lowed by a VIP gala dinnerat the Essex House Ball-room, attracting more than500 of New York City’s

crème de la crèmecinephiles. In the past 11years, NYIFF (formerlyknown as the IAAC andMIAAC Film Festivals) haspremiered some of themost well-known SouthAsian and foreign films, in-cluding Slumdog Million-aire, Bride and Prejudice,Monsoon Wedding, TheNamesake, and severalothers.“NYIFF is a once-a-year opportunity to experi-ence the rich and diversefilm cultures of the Indiansubcontinent through a mixof film screenings, discus-sions, industry panels,nightly parties, an awards

ceremony, and gala red car-pet events,” says AseemChhabra, film journalist,board member of the SouthAsian Journalists Associa-tion, and Programming Di-rector of NYIFF. “We encour-age filmmakers to submittheir movies to one of thefew Indian film festivals in thecountry to attract such largemainstream and SouthAsian audiences.” Alongwith a plethora of local, na-tional, and internationalpress, The Wall Street Jour-nal has recognized NYIFF’sefforts, saying that it “hasgrown into the area's mostmainstream Indian film fes-

tival, offering features,documentaries, shorts andindies in numerous Indianlanguages and from variouscountries. The growth hasled not only to a widerrange of films, but to newpartnerships and inroadsto American audiencesAbout the Indo-American ArtsCouncil: The Indo-AmericanArts Council is a registered not-for-profit arts organization pas-sionately dedicated to showcasing,building awareness, and celebrat-ing artists of Indian origin in theperforming, visual and literary arts.Annual festivals of art, dance, playwriting and film are scheduledthrough the year, with several spe-cial events and book launches.

NASA’s Chandra finds milky way’s Black Hole Grazing on AsteroidsWASHINGTON --

The giant black hole at thecenter of the Milky Waymay be vaporizing and de-vouring asteroids, whichcould explain the frequentflares observed, accordingto astronomers using datafrom NASA's Chandra X-rayObservatory.For severalyears Chandra has de-tected X-ray flares aboutonce a day from thesupermassive black holeknown as Sagittarius A*, or"Sgr A*" for short. The flareslast a few hours with bright-ness ranging from a fewtimes to nearly one hundredtimes that of the blackhole's regular output. Theflares also have been seenin infrared data from ESO'sVery Large Telescope inChile.

"People have haddoubts about whether as-teroids could form at all inthe harsh environment neara supermassive blackhole," said KastytisZubovas of the University ofLeicester in the UnitedKingdom, and lead authorof the report appearing in the

Monthly Notices of theRoyal Astronomical Soci-ety. "It's exciting becauseour study suggests that ahuge number of them areneeded to produce theseflares."Zubovas and his col-leagues suggest there is acloud around Sgr A* con-taining trillions of asteroidsand comets, stripped fromtheir parent stars. Asteroidspassing within about 100million miles of the blackhole, roughly the distancebetween the Earth and thesun, would be torn intopieces by the tidal forcesfrom the black hole.

These fragmentsthen would be vaporized byfriction as they pass throughthe hot, thin gas flowing ontoSgr A*, similar to a meteorheating up and glowing asit falls through Earth's atmo-sphere. A flare is producedand the remains of the as-teroid are swallowed even-tually by the black hole.

"An asteroid's orbitcan change if it ventures tooclose to a star or planet nearSgr A*," said co-authorSergei Nayakshin, also of

the University of Leicester."If it's thrown toward theblack hole, it's doomed."

The authors esti-mate that it would take as-teroids larger than about sixmiles in radius to generatethe flares observed byChandra. Meanwhile, Sgr A*also may be consumingsmaller asteroids, but thesewould be difficult to spot be-cause the flares they gener-ate would be fainter. Theseresults reasonably agreewith models estimating ofhow many asteroids arelikely to be in this region, as-suming that the numberaround stars near Earth issimilar to the number sur-rounding stars near the cen-ter of the Milky Way."As areality check, we worked out

that a few trillion asteroidsshould have been removedby the black hole over the10-billion-year lifetime ofthe galaxy," said co-authorSera Markoff of the Univer-sity of Amsterdam in theNetherlands. "Only asmall fraction of the to-tal would have been con-sumed, so the supply ofasteroids would hardlybe depleted." P lanetsthrown into orbits tooclose to Sgr A* a lsoshould be disrupted bytidal forces, althoughthis would happen muchless frequently than thedisruption of asteroids,because planets are notas common. Such a sce-nario may have been re-sponsible for a previous

X-ray brightening of SgrA* by about a factor of amillion about a centuryago. While this event hap-pened many decades be-fore X-ray telescopes ex-isted, Chandra and otherX-ray missions have seenevidence of an X-ray "lightecho" re f lect ing of fnearby clouds, providinga measure of the bright-ness and timing of theflare.

"This would be asudden end to theplanet's life, a much moredramatic fate than theplanets in our solar sys-tem ever will experience,"Zubovas said. Very longobservations of Sgr A*will be made with Chandra

later in 2012 that will givevaluable new informationabout the frequency andbrightness of flares andshould help to test themodel proposed here to ex-plain them. This workcould improve under-standing abo t the forma-tion of asteroids and plan-ets in the harsh environmentof Sgr A*.

NASA's MarshallSpace Flight Center inHuntsville, Ala., managesthe Chandra program forNASA's Science MissionDirectorate in Washing-ton. The Smithsonian As-trophysical Observatorycontrols Chandra's sci-ence and flight operationsfrom Cambridge, Mass.

Hot Topic: Why M.I.A.’s Middle Finger MattersRutgers professor weighs in on how 'indecent' Super Bowl

halftime antics influence our airwaves(By Amber E. Hopkins-

Jenkins)Hip-hop artist M.I.A. of-

fers an obscene gesture

during the Super Bowl XLVIhalftime show in Indianapo-lis on Sunday, February 5,2012.

The Material Girl wasupstaged by . . . a bird?

Just before the eighthminute of Madonna’s SuperBowl XLVI halftime perfor-mance Sunday night, themiddle finger of rapperM.I.A. stole the show fromthe pop icon.

M.I.A., a 37-year-oldBritish hip-hop artist of SriLankan descent, flippedher left middle digit to-ward the camera for 110million viewers’ pleasureat the end of her verse onMadonna’s new single,

“Give Me All Your Luvin’.”The rapper’s accompanyinglyrics, “I don’t give a [exple-tive],” were unclear to the

audience.E i g h t

y e a r sago, dur-ing theS u p e rB o w lXXXVI I Iha l f t imeshow fea-t u r i n gJ a n e tJackson,guest per-f o r m e rJ u s t i nTimberlakeripped offa portiono f

Jackson’s costume, mo-mentarily exposing her rightbreast, which wasadornedwith a nipple shield, on livetelevision. His lyrics: "BetI'll have you naked by theend of this song.”

Ellen Goodman, aRutgers-Camden law pro-fessor and communicationslaw expert, sees similaritiesbetween M.I.A.’s finger inSuper Bowl XLVI andJanet Jackson’s, ahem,nipple from Super BowlXXXVIII. “This is not differ-ent from the ‘wardrobemalfunction,’ except that itwas intentional, whichmakes it easier to censure,”says Goodman, referencing

the euphemism made infa-mous by Timberlake’s pub-licist during “Nipplegate.”

A widespread indecencydebate followed the 2004 in-cident, as did increasedFederal CommunicationsCommission (FCC) scrutiny,and a $550,000 fine for CBS,which aired the sportingevent.

According to an apolo-getic statement released byNFL spokesperson BrianMcCarthy, the league had noreason to believe M.I.A.would make such a gestureduring Sunday night’s show.Apparently, she had notdone anything vaguely simi-lar during rehearsal. “The ob-scene gesture in the perfor-mance was completely inap-propriate, very disappointingand we apologize to ourfans,” said McCarthy.

Now, other non-middlefingers are pointing. TheNFL blames NBC for the de-layed censor, NBC blamesthe NFL for the show’scontent, and the ParentsTelevision Council, a con-servative media watchdoggroup, blames both theNFL and NBC for bookingand, thereby enabling,multiple performers withhistories of shocking be-havior, inc lud ingMadonna’s other guestsCeeLo Green, Nicki Minaj,and party rockers LMFAO.

Considering the plausiblerepercussions for M.I.A.’s

finger, Goodman, who hasserved as DistinguishedVisiting Scholar at theFCC, says the agency hasnever, to her knowledge,decided whether “the bird”is indecent. “Broadcastersact as if it is and it prob-ably does fall within the‘fleeting expletives’ policy.”

This uptick in discus-sion of “fleeting indecency”in broadcasting is certainlytimely. Just last month,the U.S. Supreme Courtheard arguments about theFCC’s role in policing theairwaves. The court is cur-rently deliberating whetherthe FCC’s indecency regu-lations violate the FirstAmendment’s guarantee offree speech and the FifthAmendment’s guarantee ofdue process.

Goodman doubts theFCC will levy any fines forSunday night’s middle fin-ger until the Supreme Courtdelivers its ruling on theFCC’s policies. “It will bevery close – hard to predictwhich way the court willgo,” she says.

How close? In a 5 to4 ruling on the FCC’s in-decency policy in 2009,Justice Antonin Scaliastated that the govern-ment agency was wellwithin its rights to pro-tect the public againstwhat he called “foul-mouthed glitteratae fromHollywood.”

CAPAC Chair Blasts Hoekstra Campaignfor Racially Charged Super Bowl Ad

(Press Release) WASH-INGTON, DC – Following the air-ing of former Congressman PeteHoekstra’s racially charged politi-cal ad during the Super Bowl lastnight, Congresswoman Judy Chu(CA-32), Chair of the Congres-sional Asian Pacific American Cau-cus (CAPAC), released the follow-ing statement: “Thirty years ago,a Chinese-American man namedVincent Chin was brutally mur-dered on the streets of Detroit byangry workers who blamed Japanfor the plight of the U.S. auto in-dustry,” said Chu. “Three decadeslater, Pete Hoekstra is stoking theflames of these same anti-Asiansentiments as he runs for the U.S.Senate in the very same state. Iam appal led at the Hoekstracampaign’s offensive and insen-sitive Super Bowl ad that reliesheavily on negative Asian ste-reotypes. Polit ics of fear and

d iv is ion w i l l never b r ing theAmerican people together aroundthe solutions they so desperatelyneed, and I amcalling on formerRep. Hoekstra totake down thisatrocious ad andissue an apologyimmediately.”Hoekstra’s ad-vertisement de-picted an Asianwoman speakingin broken En-g l ish and aheavy accent tothank Demo-crat ic SenatorD e b b i eStabenow (D-MI)for sendingmoney and jobsoverseas. Thead also directed viewers to a

Hoekstra-sponsored campaignwebsite that featured Chinesecharacters and imagery. The Con-

gressional Asian Pa-cific American Cau-cus (CAPAC) is com-prised of Members ofCongress of Asianand Pacific Islanderdescent and mem-bers who have astrong dedication topromoting the well-being of the AsianAmerican and PacificIslander (AAPI) com-muni ty. Current lyChai red by Con-gresswoman JudyChu, CAPAC hasbeen addressing theneeds of the AAPIcommunity in all ar-eas of American life

since it was founded in 1994.