OVERHEARD

"Is the elected Senate majority leader revealing an inner desire to turn the clock back? How are we to trust such a politician? Our nation will be better served if the Republican Caucus elects another leader."

— S.B. Woo, the president of the Chinese American organization 80-20 and former lieutenant governor of Delaware, about Sen. Trent Lott’s recent faux pas.

HIGH ACHIEVER

Indian American Woman Youngest Rhodes Scholar

At the tender age of 18, Devi Sridhar speaks five languages, earns straight A’s, plays the violin and has co-written a book on Indian mythology.

Now the University of Miami, Florida student can add another accolade to her impressive resume: She’s the youngest U.S. Rhodes scholar in the organization’s 100-year history.

“I never actually thought even once about winning and being a Rhodes scholar and how it would feel because it seemed so far away,” Sridhar said Tuesday. “So I just took it step by step.”

Sridhar was named one of 32 Americans to receive the scholarship to Oxford University on Sunday, joining a select group that includes former President Clinton, Supreme Court Justice David Souter and ABC’s “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos.

Rhodes officials confirmed that Sridhar is the youngest American ever to receive the award. She is 3 and a 1/2 weeks younger than previous record-holder, Michael Lanham, when he was named to the 2000 class out of Centre College in Kentucky.

The daughter of two doctors, Sridhar entered the University of Miami at age 16 in a fast-track program to medical school. But now she plans to study international relations at Oxford, pursue a law degree and work with the United Nations as a health care advocate.

Despite her age, Sridhar survived the notoriously arduous Rhodes vetting process with grace, fending off questions about the biological and cellular mechanism of AIDS and the status of the national debt.

Her supporters point to her long list of accomplishments.

She co-wrote Puzzle Your Way Through Indian Mythology with her siblings, helped her prep school tennis team win a state title, tutored autistic children, became an accomplished violinist and picked up five languages — English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Tamil.

Her college GPA was 3.98, with her lone A-minus in genetics.

“She’s the kind of student who immediately makes an impression,” said Robert Casillo, a University of Miami English professor who taught Sridhar in a summer course two years ago.

Sridhar’s interest in health care caught the attention of University of Miami President Donna Shalala, the former secretary of Health and Human Services under Clinton. Shalala plans to put together a special reading list for her university’s third Rhodes recipient.

“We’re going to spend some time this spring exploring issues of health policy,” Shalala said. “Who knows — she might be secretary of Health and Human Services someday.”

Sridhar won the scholarship a year after her father, noted lung cancer researcher Dr. Kasi Sridhar, died of leukemia and lymphoma at 49.

After Shalala toasted her and other scholarship winners at a university luncheon Tuesday, Sridhar’s mother said she was sad that her husband couldn’t watch their daughter go off to England.

“His children were the most important thing to him. But I sometimes wonder if it’s his legacy that she’s winning all of these awards,” Dr. Leela Sridhar said.

— Ken Thomas,
The Associated Press

POLITICAL STARS

Barve Named Majority Leader

Speaker-designate Michael Busch recently announced the appointment of Del. Kumar P. Barve to be majority leader of the Maryland House of Delegates. Barve is the first and longest-running incumbent Indian American state elected official in U.S. history.

Barve was first elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1990. He represents Rockville, Gaithersburg and Garrett Park, a district with a population of 110,000 in central Montgomery County, Md.

“I feel great. I am now in senior leadership,” said Barve. “The majority leader is especially important now that there’s a Republican governor for the first time in 36 years in Maryland. I am going to be standing up on the floor of the House and speaking on behalf of the Democratic majority.”

Barve has served as chairman of the Montgomery County House Delegation for the past eight years. As a member of the House Economic Matters Committee and the chairman of its Subcommittee on Science and Technology, he helped develop laws pertaining to insurance, business regulation, consumer protection and economic development strategy.

Barve has sponsored many landmark health insurance and HMO reform measures. He was the prime sponsor of Maryland’s Patient Access Act, which allows HMO patients to use physicians outside of their network.

In 2000, Barve was the prime architect of the landmark “e-commerce” Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA). With its passage, Maryland became the first state in the nation to place this important consumer and business protection statute in effect.

The Washington Post called Barve “a nimble and knowledgeable leader” on Nov. 4, and in the days leading to the election the paper said: “Kumar P. Barve is chairman of the Montgomery delegation for good reason: He has shepherded progressive legislation with intelligence and skill.”

— RPG Newswire,
PolticalCircus.com

HOLY APA

First Asian Bishop in United States Appointed in SF

Pope John Paul II has appointed Monsignor Ignatius Wang as the first bishop of Asian ancestry in the United States.

“It has become a belief that the Catholic Church is a Western church, I will help correct that,” Wang said Friday at a news conference.

Born in Beijing, 68 years ago to a traditional Catholic family, Wang was ordained in Hong Kong in 1959. But, unable to serve in his home country because of the Communist government, Wang left for Rome. In 1974, he moved to San Francisco and served as vicar in several parishes.

In 1982, he was appointed pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Church in San Francisco, becoming the city’s first Chinese Catholic pastor. More recently, he has served as chancellor of the archdiocese.

Wang said he hopes to deal with the church’s current challenges, such as accusations of sexual abuse, as well as dealing with global issues such as terrorism and world peace.

“[I hope] to bring the light of Christ into our world today,” said Wang, who will be ordained Jan. 30 at St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco.

The Archdiocese of San Francisco covers San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties, where an estimated 450,000 Catholics reside.

— A.P.