Jack Slattery
President, FOI
|
I hope that this finds you all well and enjoying the summer. Inside you will find what FOI editor,
George Nepert, describes as our mellow "summer" edition. Now, a few updates.
India 42 is planning its 40th reunion in Lexington Kentucky in October 2007. Further details will
be posted on the website. India 38 and 42 were two Village-Level Food Production programs in
Mysore State that promoted cultivating high-yielding varieties of crops, e.g., rice and sorghum,
as part of India's "green Revolution". There were also two groups in northern India. All four
programs were innovative for Peace Corps in the mid-1960s. They incorporated in-country training,
village stays, self-selection and placing up to 30 volunteers in a single district. In the north,
Volunteers were assigned to more populated areas while in the south they lived with host farmers
in villages under the supervision of taluka and district agricultural officers.
More than a year ago we talked about issuing a new Friends of India Directory. It is just
now coming!! If you did not submit or need to change information previously submitted on
the Friends of India Questionnaire, it is still under REMINDER on the FOI homepage
FOIQuestionnaireForm.htm.
FOI NEEDS YOU!! We will be doing some extensive updating of the FOI website. If you have pictures
or stories you would like to share on the website, please email them to FOIndiaSlattery@aol.com.
If they are hard copies, please email me and I will send you my home address. I can scan them in
and send them back to you. We need your help to keep the FOI website relevant to you.
Also, check out this website for a detailed history of India 20A PCVs who were assigned to Kerala
from 1965 to 67. (http://www.peacecorpsjournals.com/in.html)
In side this newsletter is a letter from Charlie Houston who was, I believe, the first full-time
Peace Corps Director for India. He has interesting insights into his Peace Corps experience and
a thought about the future of FOI.
Also inside there is a memories piece on Kellogg Smith who died in June 2007. He was the first
Peace Corps Regional Director for southern India. Many of the earlier PCV groups assigned to
south India will remember him.
Finally, A possible read for you on India: In spite of the Gods, by Edward Luce, (Doubleday). From
the New Yorker:
|
"The CIA has projected India will become, within the decade, the fourth most
powerful country in the world.Luce tackles the contradictions of the subcontinent with a mixture
of respect, bemusement, and exasperation.. he meets corrupt officials, aggrieved diplomats,
Hindu-nationalist adherent of "biofuturology".The resulting book is stunning in its breadth and
refreshingly free of exorcism." (pg.85, 12 March 2007)
|
|
Namascaram,
Jack Slattery
Email: FOIndiaSlattery@aol.com
|
