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Washington, March 1 (IANS) President Barack Obama has chosen the son of an Indian migrant couple from Bihar to help bridge the cultural divide in US relations with Muslims inside and outside America’s borders.

As Obama’s new special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Rashad Hussain, both a Quran scholar and an ardent North Carolina Tar Heels basketball fan, will be the face of the president’s new approach to engage the Islamic world.

At a time when the US is fighting two wars in Muslim nations, changing perceptions will take time, says Hussain, 31.

“The challenge is to continue to communicate that this is a long-term process,” Hussain told the Washington Post. “Sometimes the challenge becomes that people want to focus exclusively on the political issues, issues that this administration is working very diligently to solve.”

Hussain’s father, a mining engineer, moved from Bihar to Wyoming in the late 1960s. A few years later, during a visit to India, he married Hussain’s mother, now an obstetrician in Plano.

“A lot is made about American misperceptions about Muslim communities, but there’s a lot of misperceptions that Muslim communities have about the US,” he told the Post.

To counter such misunderstandings of Muslim culture, Hussain cited his wife, whom he said “breaks down a lot of the misperceptions of women in Islam”. Isra Bhatty, a Yale Law School student currently on a Rhodes scholarship, wears the hijab and is an epic Chicago Bears fan.

After the 2008 election, Hussain was recruited to the White House counsel’s office where he has worked on national security and new media issues, and helped inform the administration’s Muslim outreach efforts.

Ben Rhodes, Obama’s chief foreign policy speech writer, sought Hussain’s counsel last year as he drafted the president’s Cairo address.

Hussain told the Post his advice concerned the contributions Muslims have made to American society and the context behind some of the religious passages.

Hussain travelled in the Middle East after Obama announced his appointment during a Feb 13 videoconference at the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar.

His approach, Hussain was quoted as saying, will be to emphasise to Muslim countries what “America stands for” through joint projects in health, education and science.

“It’s clear that we’re not going to agree on every single issue,” Hussain said. “Our job will be to try to maximise our areas of agreement and work through our areas of disagreement and come to the best policy.”

Washington, March 1 (IANS) A leading Indian-American cardiac surgeon suggests a “lean healthcare” system model for India to attract larger private investments and widen its reach and says the country needs more trained healthcare executives to manage the growing industry.

“The best implementation of lean principles is optimising of available resources directly reflected by visible increased productivity,” says Dr. Mukesh Hariawala, 50, who has just completed a “Physician Executive Healthcare MBA” programme at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

“This methodology, if implemented correctly, makes most hospital systems viable with augmented profitability,” the Boston-based doctor told IANS. “This in India will attract and increase private sector participation including larger investments in the healthcare space.”

“My dream is to see a vibrant Indian healthcare industry managed by trained educated professionals who can navigate India to the path of prosperity.”

Hariawala, who did his MD from Topiwala National Medical School, Mumbai, said doctors in India too could do a better job of managing hospitals with a specialised management course like the one offered at Tennessee.

“Predominantly the culture of hiring CEOs in Indian hospitals is to seek retired defence personnel,” he said. “The attraction is not experience or good finance acumen but simply their ability to bring in higher standards of discipline in the organization.”

“Some excel with experience gained on the job,” Hariawala said, but “it would be more desirable if healthcare executives go through a formal business education and the results would be exponentially greater.”

Doctors in India particularly those in the pre-retirement age group phasing out from active clinical practice should consider an MBA programme especially since there are US programmes that are available which offer full internet distant e-learning, he said.

“This will lead to heightened career fulfilment and could open new revenue streams. This will also keep MBA graduate doctors actively engaged and productive longer in the Indian healthcare industry” Hariawala said.

Many medical colleges in India, including D.Y.Patil College in Navi Mumbai, had expressed interest in running combined MD/MBA programmes to make the Indian healthcare system more efficient.

India has a dual track healthcare system with government-funded hospitals catering to lower income group and the private sector geared to the affluent and upper middle class. As both are integral parts of the larger Indian healthcare community, Hariawala said, mandatory basic management education to all levels of providers of service would help them understand the values of conservation of available resources and run them more efficiently.

A doctor with an Executive Healthcare MBA with a better understanding of corporate governance and strong clinical knowledge offers a perfect combination of talent to steer Healthcare corporations to a position of strength as they develop new products or educate other doctors about their products.

Turning to the hot button issue of healthcare reform in the US, Hariawala said President Barack Obama had rightly given it top priority during his election campaign. But the timing of its push is not the best due to the current economic turndown which dilutes the attention it deserves, he said, as American citizens want all energies to be focused on job creation and address other urgent matters.

Healthcare reform must also be accompanied by insurance reform for it to be a meaningful long-term solution, Hariawala said.

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)

Washington, March 1 (DPA) US President Barack Obama was judged to be in “excellent health” but still smokes too much and suffers from some knee pain, according to his first routine physical examination since becoming president.

Obama is “fit for duty,” White House physician Jeffrey Kuhlman declared Sunday after the traditional periodic presidential exam conducted at the National Naval Medical Centre in Bethesda, Maryland, outside the nation’s capital.

Kuhlman urged Obama to continue his efforts to quit smoking and recommended “nicotine replacement therapy, self use” – which may have been music for First Lady Michelle’s ears after she has launched health initiatives like fighting childhood obesity.

At 48, Obama is known to make spontaneous lunchtime trips to local burger-and-fries establishments, but that practice has also apparently gotten him into trouble. His “bad” – or LDL – cholesterol, was 138, said Kuhlman, higher than the 130 he’d like to see.

High LDL rates can be a forewarning of heart disease, and Obama’s has gone up considerably since 2008, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Although Obama keeps in shape by playing basketball and golf, he struggles with pain in his left knee, identified as “chronic tendonitis”.

To address the problem, the president was recommended to continue his exercise regimen to strenghten his “lower” extremities. He also will continue “non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication”, Kuhlman wrote in the report released by the White House.

Other vital statistics: Obama has 20/20 vision, weighs 82 kg and has a resting heart rate of 56, with low blood pressure.

Obama is in such good health that he won’t have to return for another routine exam until August 2011, after he turns 50, Kulhman said.

Washington, March 1 (IANS) President Barack Obama’s doctor has given him an excellent bill of health but has obliquely asked him to cut down on those cheese burgers he sneaks off to eat once in a while.

“The president is in excellent health and ‘fit for duty,’” Dr. Jeff Kuhlman, a Navy captain and physician to the president wrote in his report after Obama’s first check-up Sunday. “All clinical data indicate that he will remain so for the duration of his presidency.”

The doctor did recommend Obama change his eating habits a bit. “Recommend dietary modification to reduce LDL cholesterol below 130,” Kuhlman wrote.

The report – made publicly available as Americans want to know the state of health of their chief executive – lists Obama’s LDL level at 138. LDL, or low-density lipoprotein, is what’s known as “bad” cholesterol, according to the American Heart Association.

“Cool” Obama had a resting heart rate of 56 and a blood pressure reading of 105-62. Kuhlman noted that the 48-year-old president should keep up his efforts to stop smoking. Obama’s medications include nicotine replacement therapy.

The 6-foot-1-inch president weighed in at 179.9 pounds with his shoes and workout attire on.

His body mass index (BMI) is 23.7. According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, that’s in the upper end of the “normal” weight range. “Overweight” begins at 25.0.

The White House said Obama’s doctor recommended his next physical take place in August of next year, when the president turns 50.

Washington, Feb 28 (IANS) President Barack Obama moved quickly to name a new social secretary to replace Desiree Rogers at the centre of a controversy over two wannabe reality TV stars crashing his first state dinner for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

A day after Rogers, a close friend of the Obamas from their Chicago days, stepped down three months after the embarrassing security breach at the Nov 24 event, Julianna Smoot was appointed deputy assistant to the president and social secretary Saturday.

“Julianna shares our commitment to creating an inclusive, dynamic and culturally vibrant White House, and Michelle and I are pleased to have her join our team,” the president said in a statement.

“I am humbled and excited to take on the role of White House Social Secretary and support the Obama administration in a different capacity,” said Smoot, who was most recently US Trade Representative Ron Kirk’s chief of staff.

“Over the last year, I have had the honour of building relationships in the international community through my work at USTR, and I am looking forward to implementing this experience at the White House,” she said.

Smoot was the national finance director for the 2008 presidential campaign of Obama, where she headed a record-setting fundraising operation.

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama issued a statement Friday saying they are “enormously grateful” to their long time friend Rogers “for the terrific job she’s done as the White House Social Secretary.”

But the Obamas made no mention of what he had called a “screw up” the Nov 24 night when an uninvited Virginia couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, one dressed in a tuxedo and the other in a bright red lehnga choli, slipped past layers of security to crash the dinner.

Rogers admitted that nobody from her staff was working at the gates and check points when the Salahis slipped in. The couple spent up to two hours on the grounds, making it all the way to the Blue Room to shake hands with the president and prime minister.

The US Secret Service, the agency responsible for protecting the president, his family, and visiting dignitaries has taken blame for the incident, but Rogers came under heavy fire for not stationing someone at the gate with Secret Service agents in a break from past practice.

The Salahi episode was not a factor in her resignation. Rogers told the Chicago Sun Times Friday. “The incident at the State Dinner was not a deciding factor,” she said. “But it did show me a side of the job and of Washington that I had not seen before.”

Santiago, Feb 28 (DPA) An 8.8-magnitude quake and a resulting tsunami killed at least 214 people in Chile, Chilean Interior Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma has said.

“This was a cataclysm of immense proportions, and it will be very difficult to have a single figure,” he said Saturday.

Perez Yoma asked the community to help, as the government seeks to coordinate aid. People should follow government instructions to remain calm in the face of continuing aftershocks, he said.

Twenty-two people were rescued from a collapsed building in the city of Concepcion, where a team of firefighters had laboured to find and free them.

Hundreds of people were missing and feared trapped under the rubble of buildings which buckled under the force of the quake, the worst to hit the South American nation since 1960.

The earthquake occurred at 3.34 a.m. (0634 GMT), some 90 km northeast of Concepcion, a city of 630,000 in Chile’s central coastal region. It also caused damage in the capital Santiago, 320 km north of the epicentre, affecting buildings, roads and closing the international airport.

The Pacific region was bracing for a tidal wave, with Japan, New Zealand and Hawaii going on alert. On Hawaii, sirens wailed and officials began moving people from low-lying areas to higher ground.

The capital’s modern international airport was knocked out of operation and will remain closed to incoming and outgoing flights for at least three days. The city’s underground rail network was also closed.

Overturned cars littered motorway flyovers, which buckled and crumbled during the quake.

Power lines were down, water supplies were cut and burst gas pipes raised fears of explosions. Internet communications were also cut and the mobile phone network badly disrupted.

In Concepcion, where according to television reports there was hardly a street without damaged buildings, the extent of the devastation remain unclear hours after the quake struck.

The offices of the region government were reported to have been destroyed and the walls of the city’s prison collapsed, leading to fears that convicts might have escaped.

The European Union (EU) granted three million euros ($4.1 million) in immediate aid. “We stand ready to do whatever it takes to help the Chilean authorities at this time of need,” EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed condolences for the victims and the UN “is on standby to offer rapid assistance to the Chilean government and people”.

President Barack Obama also expressed his condolences and said the US “have resources to deploy should the Chilean people need our help”.

A forward-planning team from Germany’s THW civil-defence agency left by air Saturday evening for the quake zone.

The quake was 50 times more powerful than the one which claimed more than 200,000 lives in the Caribbean nation of Haiti Jan 12, said the head of the University of Santiago’s Seismological Institute, Sergio Barrientos.

The worst earthquake to hit Chile was in 1960 when a 9.5 magnitude quake claimed 1,600 lives.

Santiago, Feb 28 (DPA) One of the most powerful earthquakes in decades rocked Chile Saturday, leaving more than 140 people dead and triggering a tsunami alert across the Pacific basin.

Hundreds of people were missing and feared trapped under the rubble of buildings which buckled under the force of the magnitude 8.8 quake, the worst to hit the South American nation since 1960.

The earthquake occurred at 3.34 a.m. (0634 GMT), some 90 km northeast of Concepcion, a city of 630,000 in Chile’s central coastal region. It also caused damage in the capital Santiago, 320 km north of the epicentre, affecting buildings, roads and closing the international airport.

The Pacific region was bracing for a tidal wave, with Japan, New Zealand and Hawaii going on alert. On Hawaii, sirens wailed and officials began moving people from low-lying areas to higher ground.

Coastal areas of Chile and neighbouring Peru escaped the tsunami, but a wall of water swept across the island of Robinson Crusoe, 670 km off the Chilean coast.

A pilot who flew over the area reported that a school, the mayor’s office and beachside apartments were damaged. Three people were reported missing.

Chilean President Michelle Bachelet declared “a state of catastrophe” in the worst-hit region south of Santiago. Sebastian Pinera, who takes over from her as head of state on March 11, appealed for solidarity.

“The earthquake is a heavy blow for Chile,” the conservative president-elect said.

By mid-afternoon, officials put the death toll at 147, but said the figure was expected to rise as searchers pulled out more bodies from the rubble. In Conception, 150 people were feared trapped in the debris of a 14-floor apartment block.

Most people were asleep when the quake hit. Hundreds of thousands ran into the streets in panic and camped out overnight, fearing more damage from powerful aftershocks.

“We ran into the street in our pyjamas. Outside, in the darkness, the earth shook so violently that we could barely keep our balance,” one witness told DPA.

The capital’s modern international airport was knocked out of operation and will remain closed to incoming and outgoing flights for at least three days. The city’s underground rail network was also closed.

Overturned cars littered motorway flyovers, which buckled and crumbled during the quake.

Power lines were down, water supplies were cut and burst gas pipes raised fears of explosions. Internet communications were also cut and the mobile phone network badly disrupted.

In Concepcion, where according to television reports there was hardly a street without damaged buildings, the extent of the devastation remain unclear hours after the quake struck.

The offices of the region government were reported to have been destroyed and the walls of the city’s prison collapsed, leading to fears that convicts might have escaped.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said a woman standing on the corner of city street, a woollen blanket draped over her shoulder.

Chilean television showed footage of collapsed hospitals, buildings on fire and wrecked bridges. But solidly built high-rise buildings in Santiago were relatively unscathed by the quake and the more than 20 after shocks that followed.

The European Union granted three million euros ($4.1 million) in immediate aid. “We stand ready to do whatever it takes to help the Chilean authorities at this time of need,” EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed condolences for the victims and the UN “is on standby to offer rapid assistance to the Chilean government and people”.

President Barack Obama also expressed his condolences and said the US “have resources to deploy should the Chilean people need our help”.

A forward-planning team from Germany’s THW civil-defence agency left by air Saturday evening for the quake zone.

The quake was 50 times more powerful than the one which claimed more than 200,000 lives in the Caribbean nation of Haiti Jan 12, said the head of the University of Santiago’s Seismological Institute, Sergio Barrientos.

The worst earthquake to hit Chile was in 1960 when a 9.5 magnitude quake claimed 1,600 lives.

Tsunami warnings have been issued since morning in Hawaii after the earthquake magnitude of 8.8 struck in Chile. State Department had informed residents to stay off the lower area and seek high level shelter. The first wavView postes of tsunami are expected to hit around 4:19 EST.

President Obama speaking on the possible tsunami hitting Hawaii that resident should “carefully heed the instructions of state and local officials.”. He further added that government is ready to “prepare our shores” and “protect our citizens.”

The decision to order and manage evacuation is the responsibility of state and local official in Hawaii and homeland Security officials.