Packet Publications, the publisher of Princeton Packet and other news papers has covered Jaya Teas under its Business 2006 Supplement on Entrepreneurs. Please visit the paper and check it out.

Photo Credit: Sonal Bahl

Sonal Bahl kindly agreed to share his beautiful pics of Holi being celebrated in Bombay! Just click on the picture above to see some more pics on his Flickr posts.

Pic credit: Vinu Ranganathan

How colorful can India get? One simple word describes it, Holi! Under normal circumstances it wouldn’t be wrong to call India a land of colors. Indian women are well known for wearing sarees and churidars that are a riot of colors. Indian men are usually drab in their subdued brown and white, or black and white, But when it comes to Holi, no one is spared of colors, not even men! Holi, dear western friends, is a festival of colors which is celebrated all over India. If you want to see scope of this festival, and the gusto with which it is celebrated, simply browse over to Flickr and type in the tag “Holi”, and you will see what I mean.

This came via Globe And Mail….

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed former chief executive officer of OAO Yukos, was put in solitary confinement for drinking tea in the wrong place, his lawyers said. Mr. Khodorkovsky, who is serving an eight-year sentence at a Siberian penal colony, is being punished for having a cup of tea with a fellow prisoner in an area not dedicated to that purpose, according to a statement on a website run by his lawyers.

I wonder if it was Darjeeling or Assam that he was drinking. Not exactly a relaxing cup of tea, is it?

We want to wish all of our Irish customers a very Happy St. Patricks Day!

Here are recepies for Irish Breakfast and Afternoon teas from All About Irish via our friends at The Coffee Works

An Irish Breakfast Blend might consist of :
3 parts Assam tea
1 part Ceylon tea

An Irish Afternoon Blend would be softer with:
2 parts Darjeeling tea
1 part Assam tea
1 part Ceylon tea
1 part Keemun tea

Ceylon tea can be replaced by Nilgiri tea, and Keemun is very close to Assam. But if you need Keemun, Imperial Tea Court is a great site for Chinese teas.

Here is the March month wall paper! Simply click on the image above.

Thank you to all of those who have been downloading the wallpaper. If you like the wallpaper, please let us know by leaving a brief comment on this page. We will continue to provide these wall papers for your computers as long as you want them!

If any one thought that the nuclear deal that US and India signed (and will have to be ratified on both sides by the respective elected assemblies) was a “done deal”, they would be wrong. There is a lot of opposition from hard liners on both sides to this agreement. Here is an example of how the non-proliferation policy wonks are describing the deal…quotes from The Washington Post

“The nuclear options that India insisted on protecting in this deal cast serious doubt on its declared policy of seeking only a credible minimum deterrent,” said Robert J. Einhorn, a former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

….and another quote….

Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), who chairs the International Relations subcommittee on international terrorism and nonproliferation, said he welcomed better ties with India, but not at any cost. In a statement, he said the agreement had “implications beyond U.S.-India relations” and that the “goal of curbing nuclear proliferation should be paramount.” He warned that Congress would not be rushed into backing the deal.

The Governments on both sides will have to work really hard to make it go through the Congress in US and the Indian Parliament. Joe Gandelman summarizes this beautifully on his weblog The Moderate Voice”

Here are my ten reasons - 5 for the US side and 5 for Indian side. The five reasons why it makes sense for US Congress to sign this deal:

Now for the five reasons why Indian Parliament should sign this deal…

President George Bush and Laura Bush are currently visiting my homeland of India. I went to the Whitehouse website to see if they had posted any news, and indeed, they have posted a whole lot of photographs of this visit. As I sit here in New Jersey anticipating the snow/sleet storm, the pictures brought back fond memories of hot sun drenched days I used to enjoy in Jaipur, Delhi and Mumbai. I hope both our President and First Lady have a wonderful time in India.

As a new immigrant of Indian origin, I have very close ties to my homeland. Of course most of my family is still back there as are most of my friends of childhood. The feelings of friendship that our President and Indian Prime minister are invoking is a good thing for both countries. And having lived through numerous “brown outs” in summer due to lack of enough electricity, what ever others have to say about the nuclear energy cooperation between the two countries, I for one find it a welcome change that will bring a lot of good to the Indian society. It is amazing that it has taken the two large democracies this long to find trust in each other. Lets hope that this is a begining of a new era in the relationship between India and United States.