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Israel - India friendship thread

Mech

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A popular joke amongst Israelis traveling in India goes like this:
An Indian asks an Israeli backpacker, "So how many Israelis are there?" The backpacker answers "Around 7 million." The Indian then asks, "And how many in Israel?"

Around 50,000 Israelis visit India each year - mostly backpackers, a large proportion of whom are on a gap year between the end of their army service and the beginning of the rest of their lives. They comprise only a minuscule proportion of the total number of foreign visitors to India each year, but Israelis are the only ones who have a tendency to travel in packs, and to cluster in certain places. In Delhi they stay at the Hare Rama, one of the grottiest guesthouses in Pahar Ganj, a seedy area near the train station. In Goa there is Tel Aviv Beach, and during the summer Israelis stay in spots around Himachal Pradesh (HP), most notably in a little village called Bhagsu Nag, near Dharamsala.

The presence of Hebrew-speaking backpackers is so overwhelming in these places that they have come to resemble little Israeli colonies in India. Some speak of an Israeli invasion, and one Israeli woman wrote her doctoral dissertation on the phenomenon. The locals who run the restaurants and guesthouses often speak a bizarre version of idiomatic Hebrew that is notable for its hilarious syntax. Hebrew signs for various services - from internet cafes to rickshaws - are posted everywhere, and the restaurants serve falafel in pita, hummus, shakshouka and jachnun. Mostly, everyone gets along well - but there are always some louts who have to spoil it for everyone else, and there have been several reports in the Israeli press of young people behaving badly in India. Sometimes they cause offense without meaning to, because they are ignorant of local customs - like a couple that was fined for kissing in public - but I often saw people who were just inexcusably rude. (Yes, yes - there were plenty of rude tourists from other countries too). The popular weekly satire show Eretz Nehederet (A Wonderful Country) did a hilarious skit about the Ugly Israeli in India that you can view here.

So "shanti" has been integrated into the Hebrew vernacular, we have popular Indian eateries in Tel Aviv, plus thousands of India veterans wandering around the country, satire skits, doctoral dissertations and now...the documentary film.

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you Hummus Curry.

The film was shot last year in Bhagsu Nag, where I spent a couple of months in 2000. Back then there were a lot of Israelis, but their presence was nothing compared to what it has become, as seen in the film.

The clip below shows Shoresh, a local businessman who runs a guesthouse and falafel stand (Falafel Mazal), posting signs for his super blowout dinner to celebrate the Jewish New Year. Will he win the popularity contest with the local Chabad missionaries emissaries? (oh yes, they are here too). There are more clips here; the woman named Shirley in this clip teaches yoga at Chandra Yoga, in Tel Aviv.

On the Face :: Hummus Curry: the movie

---------- Post added at 02:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:14 PM ----------

If you got to Goa in India, you might get to experience more than you anticipated. Goa is fast becoming known as the venue of choice for Israelis finishing their mandatory stint in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). IDF national service is a responsibility that young Israelis take seriously. It is also a stressful role. On completion of service, young Israeli men and women need somewhere for some serious R&R and Goa seems to fit the bill.

Goa is exotic, laid back and the scene of one or two quality party venues. Just what a young person wants to bring them back to earth. However, having an influx of recently ex-IDF service personnel also makes Goa a target, and security has to be taken seriously. This requirement has seen the Israeli Consulate in a post-Mumbai attack world, taking a tour of Goa to ensure that those partying young Israelis are kept safe and sound. It is a small, and very interconnected, world out there.

The Goa Police said Saturday that it was “natural” for officers from Israel’s Mumbai consulate to inspect the North Goa coast as it was frequented by Israeli tourists.

“They will obviously want to see the security arrangement here after what happened in Mumbai,” Superintendent of Police Atmaram Deshpande told reporters, referring to last year’s terror attack on Mumbai that left 170 people dead.

“Mumbai is only 500 km away. And a lot of tourists from Israel visit Goa,” he added.

Goa receives several thousands of tourists from Israel, mostly ex-soldiers who travel the Himachal Pradesh-Goa tourist circuit after a mandatory stint in the Israeli armed forces.

“They come to Goa during our season, at a time when it is off season in places like Manali in Himachal Pradesh,” Deshpande said.

He said the police did not know the exact number of Israeli tourists visiting the state each year.

There are two Jewish prayer houses in Anjuna and Morjim, both beach villages in north Goa, which have now been kept under discreet observation by the state police.

“We are taking every precaution and have made substantial arrangements for the safety of every tourist coming to the state,” the official said.

http://mydailyclarity.com/2009/11/going-to-goa-you-may-be-surpised-at-whom-you-see-there/
 
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nothing else
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i thought you posted flags only
 
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INDIAN COMMUNITY IN ISRAEL

There are approximately 70,000 Jews of Indian origin in Israel, most of who are Israeli nationals. A majority of them are engaged in agriculture or work in the new development towns outside the traditional urban centres. The main waves of immigration into Israel from India took place in the fifties and sixties. The majority is from Maharashtra and smaller numbers are from Kerala and Calcutta. The older generation still maintains an Indian lifestyle and their cultural links with India, while the younger generation is increasingly assimilated into Israeli society.


"Know India Program" - Internship Program for Diaspora Youth (IPDY)


This program for Diaspora Youth is conducted by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) two to three times in a year. These are in the nature of an orientation program which will enable the participants to get exposure to various facets of Indian way of life, culture, spirituality, adventure and sports, creativity and composite character of India and interaction with youth from different parts of India.

Embassy of India - Indian Diaspora
 
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Visiting Minister of Tourism:
"Israel is an undiscovered gem to most Indians"



Mr. Stas Misezhnikov, Israel’s Minister of Tourism, visited India during September 2011 to promote
Indian tourism to Israel. This was the first visit ever of an Israeli Minister of Tourism to India.
Minister Misezhnikov met with
his Indian counterpart, Mr.
Subodh Kant Sahai, and with
the Minister of Civil Aviation,
Mr. Vayalar Ravi. Accompanied
by senior officials from his
Ministry and a business
delegation, Mr. Misezhnikov
also conducted meetings and
seminars with business leaders
of the tourism and aviation
sectors in Delhi and Mumbai.
The Ministers agreed on having
follow-up discussions on
aviation and establishing a
steering committee on tourism following the agreement on tourism signed in 1993 by President
Shimon Peres who was then Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The year 2010 saw India emerging as the number 1 source country of tourism from Asia to Israel.
The number of Indian tourists to Israel almost doubled from the previous year’s figure and reached
over 40,000. In addition, Israel was awarded “Most promising destination” in Outbound Travel
Mart Fair in Mumbai in February 2011. Seeing the huge potential of Indian tourists, the Israeli
Ministry of Tourism decided to put India at the forefront of its promotional activity in Asia, and is
cooperating with leading tour companies in India to further promote Indian tourism to the country.

http://delhi.mfa.gov.il/mfm/Data/201180.pdf

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Ambassador Ushpiz visits Kolkata

Ambassador Alon Ushpiz conducted his first official state-level visit to Kolkata, West
Bengal last month, where he emphasized that Israel and West Bengal share deep
sentiments of friendship and that West Bengal is a priority state for cooperation.

Ambassador Ushpiz called upon the Chief Minister, Ms. Mamta Banerjee, and
discussed with her a number of fields for potential cooperation between Israel and the
state of West Bengal, including: agriculture, water technologies, hi-tech, alternative
energy, R&D, Christian pilgrimage to Israel and more. In this context, it was agreed that
a delegation of officials from West Bengal will participate in WATEC, an exhibition of
water technologies which will take place in Israel in November 2011.
Ambassador Ushpiz also met the Governor of West Bengal, Mr. M.K. Narayanan,
Minister of Finance and Excise Mr. Amit Mitra and Director General of Police Mr.
Naparajit Mukherjee.
To further strengthen trade relations between Israel and West Bengal, Ambassador
Ushpiz, was hosted by the Honorary Consul of Israel in West Bengal Mr. Harshavardhan
Neotia, at the inauguration of the Israel - West Bengal Business Promotion Centre in
Kolkata to facilitate connections between companies in the region and their Israeli
counterparts. In addition, he also interacted with the members of the Indian Chambers of
Commerce, media establishments and the Jewish community in the two synagogues
Beth-El and Magen David .

http://delhi.mfa.gov.il/mfm/Data/201180.pdf
 
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A passage from India


She is credited with adding masala to the land of milk and honey. When the curry queen of Israel came to the country 25 years ago to make food her business, little did she realise the Promised Land would prove to be just that. “Vinod and I began a small restaurant, and called it Ichakdana, after Raj Kapoor, but it did not do well. We decided to give it another try, though, and this time we got it right,” says Reena Pushkarna, in a salwar kameez at the Herzliya branch of her chain, Tandoori, as she makes a stop at a table to exchange pleasantries in Hebrew and waves to a bunch of Indian diamond merchants who she says often come here looking for their “dal roti”.
Dal roti is a serious understatement. Her chicken tikkas, hearty vegetable curries and paneer gulab jamun easily rival the five-star fare in Delhi. And..then there is Reena herself. “I live in my restaurants. It’s a family thing—our food business is close to our hearts,” she says. One of Israel’s most successful restaurateurs with four popular Indian eateries to her name, Reena, who honed her culinary skills as a young bride in a Brahmin household in India, was inspired to enter the food business by her exchanges with chefs on board her voyages—her Cordon Bleu, she says now—with her merchant marine husband.
Daughter of a Jewish mother and a Sikh father who served in the Indian Army, Reena, a “Chandigarh ki ladki”, was quick to pick up Hebrew from the streets—“When we came here, hardly anyone spoke English. And curries were not something people were interested in,” she says.

Considered a sort of Martha Stewart of India, she has a food processing unit on the Lebanon border and sells kosher Indian ethnic food to supermarkets...and the Israeli Army.
Reena, who visits India often and has a house in Pali Hill, Mumbai, fondly remembers when former Israel prime minister Ariel Sharon, who included her in his delegation on his first trip in 2003 to India, called her “Israel’s most loved and respected Indian”. “This country has welcomed me and given me so much, but I will always be an Indian at heart,” she says....


A passage from India
 
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Building a bridge between India and Israel


Abraham ‘Rami’ Goren has spent a lot of time in India meeting real estate developers, chief ministers and prospective partners. For the executive vice-chairman of Elbit Imaging Ltd.—an Israeli conglomerate engaged in building and operating shopping centres, residential buildings and hotels and developing bio-tech and medical devices—it all made perfect business sense. After successfully building several dozens of shopping centres in Eastern and Central Europe, Elbit Imaging entered India in 2006 and currently employs more than 80 local employees as its core team. “We knew the East was the future. We have residential projects in Bangalore, Chennai, Cochin and Thiruvananthapuram in the pipeline, and for most of these projects we have Indian partners. Elbit is the largest foreign developer in India now,” says Goren, head of the company’s operations in India, adding, “The real estate sector in India poses tremendous opportunities. The market needs are huge and growing and the...sector must, and definitely will, grow in a very fast pace to meet the challenge.” Goren recently resigned as vice-chairman of Elbit Imaging, but not before making sure that the company is investing over $400 million in Indian equity and has well over 40 million sq ft in construction across six locations in five Indian cities.
Besides building its first mall in India in Pune—which will open by early Q2 next year and according to the company, set a landmark for shopping centres in India—Elbit is also developing what would be the country’s largest dairy in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh.

With 10,000 milking cows and a dairy plant with a processing capacity of over 250,000 litres a day, it is expected to be operational in three years and will begin producing high-quality milk, yoghurt and cottage cheese to start with, later graduating to gourmet cheeses currently available only through import.

“Elbit’s production..technology will be based on the acclaimed achievements of the Israeli and European dairy sectors which will bring in new dimensions to the existing Indian dairy market. The biggest advantage of the dairy plant is the direct flow of fresh and quality raw milk from the company’s own farm which is located right next to the plant,” says Oren Kolton, who serves as Elbit’s India Country Director....

Building a bridge between India and Israel

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[/COLOR]'Israel and India have a lot in common'

: What are the areas of bilateral interaction between India and Israel?
Bilateral cooperation between India and Israel encompasses practically all areas of interaction between two countries and peoples—economic activity, agriculture, culture, political ties, defence, and homeland security, technology transfer, academia and education etc. The list is nearly endless. Yet what is most striking is the dynamism of the cooperation which is almost unprecedented in any bilateral relationship.

Cooperation in agriculture is a prime example of this. The Indo-Israel MoU of 2008 established joint governmental projects establishing Centres of Excellence and the introduction of new farming technologies in Maharashtra, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat in such fields as horticulture, floriculture and micro-irrigation. Israel and India are working together to introduce new advances in the fields of water technologies, water conservation and water management, areas of prime concern in India and in which Israel leads the world.

Cultural interchange is playing an increasing role in the Indo-Israel relationship. Recent months have seen an Israeli Film Festival in Delhi, participation by a leading Israeli writer at the Delhi Book Fair, visits by two theatre troupes and even tours by Israeli rock and heavy metal bands.

At the end of the day, and with all the crucial importance of geo-strategic considerations and emphases, bilateral relations must be dedicated to enhancing the welfare of the respective populations, and the thrust of our activity with India has taken this as its motto.

What do the two countries have in common?

We are two democratic nations established at around the same date, suffering from unwanted conflicts with our neighbours and grappling with the scourge of extremist terror. Yet at the same time we both strive for just peace in our respective regions and it is to be hoped that as South Asia and West Asia move forward inexorably towards resolving their conflicts, peace will reign for Israel, India and their neighbourhoods in the not-too-distant future.

In my travels in India, I am struck by the warmth and friendship towards Israel among the general public and at the complete absence of any anti-Semitism toward the Jewish People and the Jewish religion. Moreover, one cannot fail to be impressed by the amazing capacity to absorb and adapt new state-of-the-art technologies. This is only matched by the awe and admiration in Israel for Indian history, culture and mentality as evidenced by the fact that Indian studies are taught at every major university in Israel.

The emphasis on education and family lie at the very foundation of our two civilisations and provide the crucial “meeting of minds”, which has provided the basis for the dynamism in our bilateral ties.

Economic relations between India and Israel are also going strong.

When India and Israel established full diplomatic relations in 1992, mutual annual civilian trade stood at only $180 million dollars. It has recently reached over $4billion and is finely balanced. The increase has been incessant and constant and is poised this year to reach record heights. Indeed, the two countries have embarked on negotiations towards a Free Trade Agreement which according to international experts will triple our bilateral civilian trade within three-four years.

Yet our economic interaction is by no means limited to trade. Israeli companies have invested over $3 billion in India in the past few years alone, including in dairy farming, real estate, hospitals and hi-tech industries. Indian investment in Israel, too, is growing at an unprecedented rate and joint applied industrial research is being carried out by seven of the most prestigious academic institutions in both India and Israel.

The future holds great promise indeed for our two business communities and in its wake will bring increased employment opportunities, the introduction of new technologies and enhanced welfare for both our peoples. In a nutshell, our economic relationship is a win-win relationship, which has by no means gone unnoticed by business leaders from both countries.

How has Israel’s economy evolved since the State of Israel was formed?

Over the past three decades, the economy of Israel has undergone a metamorphosis from what was a total dependence on agriculture to that of an economic system based almost entirely on hi-tech. As a result, Israel is recognised today as one of the world’s leading nations in technical innovation.

Another major change which Israel’s economy has undergone in recent years has been the massive privatisation process and its corollary—the parallel reduction of the role of the government in economic life which is now basically limited to policy-making and prioritisation and the supporting of the essential R&D sector.

What are the challenges your country faces?

Wealth inequality is a major challenge facing Israel, for it has ramifications not only for the economy, but perhaps even more crucially for the social fabric of the country. Another main challenge Israel faces is the maintenance of the high level of R&D capabilities which are the main catalyst for the high of foreign investment in the country. Practically devoid of natural resources, Israel is almost totally dependent on its skilled work force for its economic success. This in turn places a heavy onus on academic institutions and on industrial research.

Who are Israel’s major trading partners?

Israel’s major trading partner remains the European Union followed by the United States. Yet increasingly in recent years focus is being placed on the emerging markets of India and China, as well as on Russia and Brazil (BRIC) as evidenced by the many business delegations in the past few months from various fields such as mobile technology, healthcare, water technologies and life sciences.

'Israel and India have a lot in common'
 
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Yes they have some things in common :


-Enemy is Pakistan,
-Are Capitalistic
- Like making money
- Have been ruled for centuries
-Love America
- Good liars
 
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long live our friendly relations with israel .
 
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