Archive: The Week

The Labor Department said on October 8 it is suspending eight companies from PERM, the labor certification step behind most employment green cards: Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, Capgemini, Microsoft and Adobe. New filings stop and pending cases freeze; existing H-1Bs and green cards are not affected. It is a processing suspension, not a debarment or a fraud finding, and lawyers expect it to run at least 180 days.

Source: CNBC

Tech companies booked $2.4 billion in compute and tool credits for federal science at the White House AI science summit on October 8, led by NVIDIA's $1 billion. Federal science compute is moving from announcements to committed capacity.

Source: NewsBytes

The proposed rule charges schools $70,000 the first time they recommend an F-1 student for Optional Practical Training and $30,000 for later recommendations, including the STEM extension. DHS says schools may pass the cost to students or employers. Indian students are the largest group on OPT, the main bridge from a US degree to an H-1B; comments run to about November 9 and lawsuits are expected.

Source: Politico

Democrat Amy Acton led Vivek Ramaswamy in five straight governor polls, including CNN 50 to 42 and NYT/Siena 49 to 45, after Trump rallied for him near Dayton on October 3. A co/efficient poll fielded October 5 to 6 then gave Ramaswamy his first lead, 45 to 43. Ohio is the clearest test of whether an Indian American Republican can win a red-state governorship on November 3.

Source: Newsweek

Vandals broke windows at the Shree Swaminarayan Hindu Temple Vadtaldham in Richmond Heights, near Cleveland, while priests and devotees were in the building. No one was hurt. The Hindu American Foundation called it a possible hate crime and is notifying the FBI and the Justice Department; no arrests have been reported.

Source: India West

The program gives defenders including Accenture, CrowdStrike, Dragos, Palo Alto Networks and Rockwell Automation access to its strongest models, plus a free scanner for open-source projects. A new usage policy covers weapons software. A frontier lab is productizing defense access and writing weapons rules into the contract.

Source: Anthropic

Asked by IANS about Modi's 25 years in office, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly praised the Trump-Modi relationship and called India one of the strongest US allies. It was a reply to a wire-service question, not a policy statement, and it came as trade talks stall.

Source: IANS

The University Grants Commission issued a Letter of Intent to the University of Colorado Denver, the first US public university cleared for a degree campus in India and the first foreign campus in Telangana. Programs cover business, computing, engineering and analytics, with students from August 2027. Illinois Tech, a private school, opened first in Mumbai this fall.

Source: Careers360

Trump posted late October 8 that the US "will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterm elections" and called talks productive. Indian markets rallied on the news Friday as oil eased. The pledge is about timing; it says nothing about after November 3.

Source: Al Jazeera

SpaceX's Dragon Freedom landed off California on October 8 with NASA's Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA's Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos's Andrey Fedyaev. Long stays like this are the rehearsal for Moon and Mars missions.

Source: Spectrum News 13

Isaias became a major hurricane on Friday and is forecast to come ashore near Pensacola Friday night, with evacuations ordered in parts of Alabama and Florida. Forecasters warn of 5 to 7 feet of storm surge from Gulf Shores to Port St. Joe and up to 15 inches of rain. It would be the first US hurricane landfall since Milton in October 2024.

Source: ABC News

Zacharia, a lawyer and Fox News commentator who served briefly as a Homeland Security spokeswoman this spring, takes the podium Karoline Leavitt left at the end of August. Leavitt joins Fox News as a contributor on November 1. The briefing room has run without a permanent press secretary for more than a month.

Source: The New York Times

An ICE agent fired several rounds into Oscar Belgal's car during an arrest in Marble Hill on Thursday, hitting the 28-year-old in the neck while his five-year-old son sat unhurt in the back. Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he spent about two hours on the phone with Trump and DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin seeking Belgal's release and called for ICE to be abolished; DHS calls Belgal a Dominican national with a criminal record. The NYPD says no officers were on scene.

Source: Fox 5 New York

The Fort Hood shooter, convicted of killing 13 people in 2009, is set to be executed by firing squad at Fort Hood on December 3, with Trump's approval. It would be the first US military execution since 1961, and the plan to stream it has drawn sharp objections.

Source: PBS NewsHour

A three-member committee will examine mortgage-fraud allegations Cook denies and advise Trump on whether there is cause to remove her, after the Supreme Court ruled in June that she was owed notice and a chance to respond. Her lawyers, Abbe Lowell and Norm Eisen, say they have grave doubts the process is genuine. The hearing falls two days after the midterms, with a Fed seat at stake.

Source: CBS News

The committee honored Navanethem Pillay on October 9 for promoting peace and international law. The granddaughter of Indian indentured laborers, she was the first woman of color on South Africa's High Court, president of the Rwanda tribunal, an ICC judge and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The prize goes to institutional human-rights law, not a sitting mediator.

Source: Norwegian Nobel Committee

The earthquake struck off Panama's southern Pacific coast at 1:56 p.m. ET on Friday; first readings put it at 8.0 before the USGS revised it to 7.6. A tsunami threat was issued for nearby coasts including Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Peru, while the US West Coast received only an information statement. Damage reports are still coming in.

Source: ABC News

A 28-year-old technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute died of suspected pneumonic plague; Russia has not confirmed it and about 200 people are under observation. Washington sent a formal demarche asking for the lab and sample trail.

Source: KATV

The fifth round of CEPA talks ran in Ottawa with a year-end target, and Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu leads about 300 Canadian businesses to India October 12 to 17. Mark Carney expects Modi in Canada around December. It is a full reset after the Nijjar rupture, with 2.9 million people of Indian origin in Canada watching.

Source: Government of Canada

An emergency meeting in Riyadh on October 5 activated the August defense pact, with Pakistani and Turkish forces in collective deterrence against the Houthis, who hit two Saudi airports the same day. Pakistan's army is now formally in a Gulf war, with millions of South Asian workers in the kingdom.

Source: Al Jazeera

Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won for showing how one mirror-image form of a molecule can come to dominate, a core problem in drug design. It explains why life, and many medicines, prefer one handedness.

Source: Al Jazeera

Memorials ran across Israel on October 7 alongside protests and continued strikes in Gaza, with the wider US-Israel war with Iran unresolved. The anniversary is now a live war date, not only a memorial.

Source: ITV News

Data on at least 68,000 people was taken from institutions including Hana, KB Kookmin and Shinhan, and officials suspect a Chinese AI tool did much of the work. It is one of the first reported AI-agent intrusions into a national banking system.

Source: The Record

Missiles and drones hit Kyiv, Pryluky and energy sites overnight October 6 to 7, with 14 killed in Pryluky alone. The winter campaign against Ukraine's grid is already underway.

Source: Al Jazeera

Opposition parties are protesting the Election Commission's revision of voter rolls, which has removed more than 130 million names, and are demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Rahul Gandhi was detained on October 6 and twice on October 7; about 260 people, including 10 MPs, were held. It is the biggest challenge yet to Modi's third term.

Source: Al Jazeera

October 7 marked 25 years since Modi became Gujarat's chief minister in 2001, followed by three terms as prime minister. The PMO lists 16 leaders who sent congratulations, including Japan's Sanae Takaichi, South Korea's Lee Jae-myung and Dominica's Roosevelt Skerrit.

Source: PMO India

Guy Parmelin met Modi in New Delhi on October 5, and the two sides signed migration, young-professional and other agreements. Modi pressed for wider Swiss market access for Indian farm goods, pharma, textiles and engineering, and for Swiss money in biotech, banking, insurance and food processing. The pact carries a $100 billion investment pledge and a target of one million jobs.

Source: ANI

Yogi Adityanath's cabinet cleared a proposal to rename Noida International Airport as Narendra Modi International Airport, Noida-Jewar. The name still needs central approval. The airport opened in March and began flights in June.

Source: Swarajya

Musk blamed unnamed oligarchs for holding up Starlink's India launch; the government called the claim baseless and said Jio's and Airtel's satellite services sit at the same security-review stage. The fight lands in the same week Reliance prices the Jio Platforms IPO.

Source: Al Jazeera

On a US trip as trade talks stalled, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal called Indian Americans the living bridge between the two countries and urged them to stay loyal to the US. New Delhi is openly enlisting the diaspora as advocates for a trade deal.

Source: The Hans India

Thousands left Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on October 4 after talks with the government failed, demanding Khan's release. UN chief Antonio Guterres met army chief Asim Munir the same week. Pakistan's September inflation ran at 10.3% with petrol up about 50% since the Iran war began.

Source: NPR

She was arrested in Colombo on October 7 over alleged misuse of donations meant for a children's hospital, and denies wrongdoing. The Rajapaksa family's legal exposure keeps widening under the current government.

Source: Al Jazeera

The South Asian Journalists Association honored Steven D'Souza (CBC, Daniel Pearl Award), Reuters' Aditya Kalra, Munsif Vengattil and Arpan Chaturvedi, the Washington Post's Niha Masih, the Guardian's Lok Darjee, Hasan Ali, Tanka Dhakal and Aparna Ganesan. The gala is October 24 in New York.

Source: SAJA

South Asian Youth Action, the Elmhurst, Queens nonprofit for South Asian young people, held its 2026 gala at Pier Sixty in Manhattan on October 3. The evening honored the supporters who fund its programs and celebrated the youth it serves. It is where New York's diaspora builders put money behind the next generation.

Source: SAYA (IG)

Titan's jewelry brand opened a 4,700-square-foot store with more than 5,500 designs in the heart of Los Angeles's Little India, with Congressman Derek Tran and the Indian consul general at the ribbon cutting. It is Tanishq's first Southern California store and lands ahead of Diwali gold buying. India's biggest jeweler is building US stores market by market where the diaspora is densest.

Source: FashionUnited

Nadella received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at the White House on October 8, alongside Michael Dell, while Musk, Brin, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su took the National Medal of Science. Hours earlier JD Vance singled out Microsoft over layoffs and foreign hiring. Washington is honoring the CEO and penalizing his hiring pipeline in the same news cycle.

Source: The White House

India's snack giant debuts a 110-seat, full-service restaurant with a sweets counter at 7010 Preston Road on October 11, timed to Navratri. Dallas-Fort Worth is where national Indian brands now test the US market first.

Source: FSR Magazine

Ajay Devgn's thriller opened October 2 and became Bollywood's fourth-biggest North American grosser of 2026 within four days, on pace to pass Border 2. Diaspora box office is now a market Hollywood tracking firms report on.

Source: Koimoi

Rajinikanth's sequel had sold about 16,700 North American premiere tickets across 375 locations by October 7. Texas accounts for more than $131,000, ahead of California at about $76,000.

Source: Sacnilk

The world's biggest YouTuber shared photos with Ranbir Kapoor, Hardik Pandya and CarryMinati. He met Kapoor at a Ramayana VFX event and is working with producer Namit Malhotra on Angry Birds 3.

Source: Khaleej Times

The director of Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake will receive the 2026 Film and Beyond Award at the Geneva International Film Festival, October 30 to November 8.

Source: New India Abroad

The actor of Parinda, Krantiveer and Salaam Bombay! died of a suspected cardiac arrest in Goa on October 8. He won three National Film Awards and the Padma Shri.

Source: Al Jazeera

The longest-serving Indian American in Congress debated Republican Robb Tucker on October 6 for California's redrawn 3rd District. Bera called the Iran war illegal and wants Trump's tariffs rolled back, but drew a line at a national wealth tax. It is a competitive seat after Prop 50 broke up his old district.

Source: India West

The Association of Indians in America brought music, food and fireworks to Overlook Beach on October 3, one of the longest-running Diwali festivals in the country.

Source: The Indian Eye

The IIT Kharagpur and UCLA-trained engineer, a partner at the quant fund, received the UCLA Samueli 2026 Alum of the Year award, announced October 2.

Source: UCLA Samueli

The award-winning director of "Saffron Kingdom," a Georgia State graduate living in Virginia, was detained at Dulles on September 24 despite a pending asylum claim filed in 2020. DHS said he overstayed. He was released on bond October 8 and faces a hearing October 27.

Source: Al Jazeera