Republicans convened their national convention in St Paul, Minnesota on a subdued note focussing much of their attention on how best they could rally forces to the beleaguered folks of Louisiana and Mississippi affected by Hurricane Gustav.

More than one million people in the US state of Louisiana and neighbouring areas were without power as strong winds and rains produced by a weakened Hurricane Gustav lashed the area, but mostly spared New Orleans, which was devastated three years ago by Katrina.

A downgraded Hurricane Gustav packed with strong winds and heavy rains lashed the Gulf coast on Monday but spared New Orleans, the city which was devastated three years ago by Hurricane Katrina.Fearing a repeat of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster, more than two million people fled their homes from coastal Mississippi, Albama and South-eastern Texas ahead of the storm, which was at one stage forecast to attain highest Category 5 before making the landfall.

Jet speed winds and heavy rains from the approaching powerful Hurricane Gustav began lashing the US Gulf coast early Monday, but its fury was greeted mostly by ghost towns.

Hurricane Gustav churning towards the Gulf Coast of the US nearly three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated that region has not only killed any chance of Louisiana Governor Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal creating history once again, but may end up completely disrupting the Republican National Convention that was scheduled to kick off in Minneapolis-Saint Paul and run through September 4.

Palin, who is young (44) and moderate, might be able to stake a claim to many of the undecided and independent voters, where pundits expect the battle for the Presidency to be won or lost. Aside from her physical attractiveness (she is a former beauty queen), Palin's reputation as a 'clean government, anti-corruption' candidate would be a refreshing departure from the closed doors and whispered secrets of the Bush administration.

With the mantras 'Explore, Dream, Discover,' the 17th edition of the three-day Network of Indian Professionals in North America (NetIP) conference to be held in Boston offers to the 800 participants opportunities to hear industry leaders and stalwart professors, including Gururaj 'Desh' Deshpande of Sycamore Networks; Tarun Khanna, professor at Harvard University Business School; and Vikram Akula of SKS Microfinance.

After becoming the first ever Indian American to be elected Governor last year, Jindal has been given a speaking slot at the Republican National Convention at prime time, making him the first Indian American to speak at the political convention of a major party.Republican party sources told rediff.com that while it is unlikely that Jindal will be McCain's vice presidential nominee, he nonetheless remains "a strong voice on behalf of Senator McCain."

A three-day international conference, held between June 27 and June 29, at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, discussed how the ancient Indian wisdom of the Vedas could shape and sustain future generations in the context of social, economic, environmental, and political upheavals worldwide.

In what has now become a routine media query, Indian-American Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has once again said he is not going to be the vice presidential candidate with the presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain. Despite his daily statements to the contrary, the name of 37-year-old Jindal for the running mate simply does not go away from the radar screen.

The Hurricane Dolly plummeting the Texas coast thwarted a high-profile event of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who was to fly to an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and meet Indian-American Governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal, being seen as a possible running mate.Media analysts said the event -- at which McCain was to raise the issue of offshore oil drilling and technology that made it safe -- was aimed at stealing some thunder from his Democratic rival Obama.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal told Fox News on Wednesday he will not run for vice president on the Republican ticket

Presumptive US Republican presidential nominee John McCain is expected to meet soon with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, a recent report said. McCain is expected to travel to Louisiana on Wednesday. The timing and the haste with which the visit is arranged, has caught some members of Jindal's team by surprise, the report added.

Indian-American Governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal denied being the running mate to the presumptive Republican nominee Senator John McCain, saying he had "never" talked about the subject with him.

Jindal's name has been surfaced as a potential running mate to Senator McCain but the Indian American head of a state has persistently ruled it out.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, is hogging US media headlines as he mulls challenging a recent controversial Supreme Court ruling forbidding the death penalty in child-rape cases. The Supreme Court's June 25 decision said there was no legal precedent for the death penalty, but the court neglected to consider a 2006 federal law that says the rape of children by military personnel could attract capital punishment.

The next general election for state legislators is scheduled for October 2011 and those elected will take office in January 2012. The pay raise had infuriated voters, leading some to file 'recall petitions' against the governor and two of his top allies in the Legislature.

Facing an embarrassing recall petition, Indian-American Governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal has vetoed a bill that would have more than doubled the salaries of legislators, correcting his earlier 'mistake'.

Jindal has been against the idea of doubling legislators' salaries. But he baulked at the notion of vetoing the legislation, leading to a campaign to recall him.During his gubernatorial campaign last year, Jindal pledged to prohibit an immediate legislative pay raise. He has until July 8 to veto the bill, or it will become a law.Tempers have been rising in the state ever since law makers, during the recent legislative session, raised their annual base salary.

Addressing an election rally in New Orleans, Louisiana, shortly before 46-year-old Obama declared victory, the presumptive Republican nominee also sought to distance himself from President George W Bush on energy, military and economic policies. The Vietnam war veteran told a cheering crowd that they would listen a lot during the coming months that he represents third term of Bush, but that is because the Democratic candidate has nothing to offer.

From a dark horse in the Democrat race to the first black US presidential candidate from a major party, Barack Obama has had a meteoric rise from political obscurity to be at a sniffing distance of the White House.

Commodity prices did rise as interest rates fell.

The three US men arrested for the brutal double murder of Indian doctoral students at Louisiana State University had a lengthy criminal record with charges including rape and kidnapping.

By inviting Bobby Jindal to his ranch and fueling speculation that the young Louisiana governor could be a candidate for the vice-presidential slot, John McCain is reaching out to the far right of the Republican party that has been enamoured with Jindal in recent months and have been suggesting his name as a possible running mate on the Republican presidential ticket.

On a hunger strike for the last 11 days, Indian dock workers, who are demanding that they be allowed to stay in the United States till an inquiry against a company that allegedly exploited them is completed, have vowed to continue their stir even after four of them were hospitalised.

Michael Jermaine Lewis, 19, and Casey Gathers, 20, were arrested on Thursday for the December 13 killing of Chandrasekhar Reddy Komma and Kiran Kumar Allam who were found shot in the head in what police called a home invasion of Allam's apartment. Devin Jamell Parker, 19, was arrested on Wednesday in an unrelated simple robbery and booked into prison, Gary Durham, acting chief of the LSU Police Department, said at a press conference held to announce the arrests.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist and former presidential hopeful and ex-Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney have also accepted invitations, fueling speculation that the three (Jindal, Crist, Romney) are the McCain campaign's top choices, and that this weekend's discussions will go a long way in determining who gets the nod.

Though the Iraq war and the economic downturn have affected the popularity of the Republican Party, Harmeet Dhillon, candidate for the 13th Assembly District in California, is not unduly worried. "I am running for a local election, not for the United States Congress. International or national issues are not relevant," Dhillon, who is unopposed in the Republican Primary scheduled for June 3, said.

'To see Jindal just a heartbeat away from the US Presidency should gladden our hearts.'

The Indian Americans will be awarded the medal for theri contribution to strengthening of Indo-US relations and philanthropic work in both India and the US, at an award ceremony on May 10 at the historic Ellis Island in New York City.

Bobby Jindal, the Governor of Louisiana, has ruled out the possibility of becoming the running mate to the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, saying that his focus was on getting his state back on its feet after the debilitating Katrina. Jindal's name has surfaced as a potential running mate to Senator McCain but the Indian American has persistently ruled it out. "I think it'd be presumptuous of me to turn down something I've not been offered," said Jindal.

Dismissing speculation that he could be the Republican candidate for vice president, Bobby Jindal, the Indian-origin Governor of Louisiana and also the youngest governor in the United States, has said such rumours were 'flattering' but he was happy with his current job and was keen to run for a second term. "I told the people of Louisiana this is a historic opportunity to fix our state. I want to be involved in doing that," Jindal said.

Beginning May, as temperatures rise in the North Atlantic Ocean, tropical disturbances are formed. These travel westwards and some of them take the form of tropical depressions, which then graduate to tropical storms when they achieve a speed of 39 miles an hour. Not every tropical depression becomes a storm or a hurricane. But even those that do may not bring harm if they do not make a landfall.

Ram Varadarajan, president and CEO of Arcot Systems, an authentication software company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, has joined the electoral fray for the United States of America Cricket Association elections slated for March 29. Varadarajan, an Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay graduate, is contesting for USACA president, leading a team of cricket administrators and leaders contesting for other positions to challenge the incumbents.

The winners were selected from among the 97 students in 50 states, including 85 high school seniors and 12 high school juniors, who were chosen as state winners in the award programme sponsored by the Siemens Foundation and run by the College Board, which administers the AP programme. The national winners -- a girl and a boy -- are each awarded a $5,000 college scholarship.

Professors Padma Desai and Jagdish Bhagwati were conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr Renu Khator, President and Chancellor of the University of Houston, was given the Publisher's Special Award for Excellence. The Youth Achiever 2007 Award was given to 24-year-old Somdev Dev Burman, the first Indian to win the US collegiate tennis title. The Community Service Award went to Dr Navin Shah, while Dr Joy Cherian received the Lifetime Award for Service to the Community

Britney Spears' 16-year-old sister Jamie Lynn Spears is engaged to her longtime boyfriend and unborn baby's father Casey Aldridge. The star of US television's Zoey 101 has been spotted showing off a diamond band to friends and family around Louisiana and Mississippi.

Entrepreneurs will need every drop of hard-earned wisdom to navigate the coming year--by all accounts, a challenging one, care of a deepening credit crisis and potential recession.

Over 100 Indians who quit work in a Mississippi shipyard have sued their employer demanding 'tens of millions of dollars' in damages. The Indian consulate has deployed two senior diplomats to New Orleans to get in touch with the Indian workers, the NGOs representing them and their employer. They have filed a suit against Signal for human trafficking and civil rights' violation. They are demanding the $20,000 each of them paid for their jobs as well as monetary compensation.

The first Indian-origin governor of the United States, Bobby Jindal, has taken some bold decisions in an attempt to turn the fortunes of his state of Louisiana around.