Oct 28th, Thursday; 6:35 - 7:45 pm; 160, Union South
Attendees: 
  Anita, Charu, Harit, Kamal, Manoj, Murali, Subbu, Utthara,
  Venki (Iyengar), Venky (Ganti), Vidhi, Vishal,
  Rick (WISPIRG), Shannon, (WISPIRG)

Anita:
- First event: Food stall at UW homecoming.  Asha volunteers cooked food,
   had Asha flyers and posters.  Raised $194.
- Will plan future events, set a target at later meetings.
- Murali suggested looking into planning a dance concert by a couple on the
   East Coast who had volunteered to perform for free to raise funds for
   Asha.  While doing this, have to co-ordinate with other student orgns.
   on campus (IGSA, ISA).
- Have to plan the sale of Diwali diyas (soon), Y2K Asha calendars and
   Asha T-shirts.
- Suggestion to attend the upcoming Sanatana Dharma Association events to
   sell the Diwali diays there.
 
Kamal:
- Currently, have 11 proposals. 
- Projects group met last Saturday (23rd Oct) to review projects.
- Got done with 4.  Meeting again coming Saturday (30th Oct) and 
   Thursday (Nov 4th) to review the rest.
- Subbu: the proposal for 9 venture schools in Assam (that Sandeep had sent to
   Asha) currently asks for funding for 4 out of the 9 schools.  Currently,
   Asha-Madison has asked Berkeley and St.Louis chapters to go ahead with
   their plans to fund 2 schools each.  Madison will pick up the other
   schools as needs arise in the future.

Manoj:
- Have obtained web space from SIT (Students Information Technology).
- Current website has been moved over to "www.sit.wisc.edu/~asha".
- Work in progress to bring the entire site up to date.
- Newsletter: Most of the newsletter material has been collected and Charu
   is working on editing the matter.  Vidhi is working on an article to
   submit based on her recent visit to India.
- Param is working on building up the address database.  Might require help
   from other volunteers to key in the addresses, as required.

Subbu:
- The study group has been formed - currently, has both Asha and non-Asha
   members.  The group will decide on the topics of discussion based on
   interest.  Currently, taken up the topic of education.
- In collaboration with Chingari, we'll screen selected videos that were
   shown at the recent South Asia Conference at Madison.  These vidoes
   will be screened one every week.

Vishal: (Update on Little Stars)
- Currently has 200 students upto 4th standard.
- Work on building has stopped because of lack of funds.
- Current funds will last them till the end of this financial year to take
   care of running expenses.
- Asha Pandey is planning to approach Asha-Berkeley to renew funding for
   the next year's running expenses.
- Based on a presentation made by Asha-Seattle folks, Infospace Corporation
   in Seattle has released $5K funds towards the building.  They are willing
   to fund the construction of the school till 10th standard.
- A total of $6000 ($1000 from Madison & $5000 from Seattle) has been held up
   because they still haven't obtained FCRA clearance.  In the recent phone
   conversation with Asha Pandey, we (Vishal & Subbu) learnt that she is having
   problems at Delhi - she is being asked for a bribe for Rs.20000 to get
   the clearance!
- The other alternatives is to route the funds through Asha-India.  However,
   these creates accounting hassles because all receipts and transactions
   will have to go through Asha-India rather than Little Stars School.
- Kamal mentioned the recent discussion on Asha wide about obtaining temporary
   FCRA clearances (one-time clearance) for receiving funds.  This might be
   an avenue that could be explored..  This process typically takes 1 month.
- Vishal will get in touch with Sandeep Pandey to work out a solution to the
   problem of releasing funds.


WISPIRG:
- Shannon and Rick were attendees from WISPIRG (Wisconsin Students Public
   Interest Research Group).
- They told the group about the work they do - environmental education in
   schools in Madison.
- They visit schools and teach children (till 6th grade) about environmental
   issues.  She invited interested Asha members to join them in this effort.
- They attended the meeting to explore avenues for collaborating with Asha 
   in some activities - pooling resources in organizing events, raising
   funds, awareness activities and the like.  She extended support on behalf
   of WISPIRG in helping us out in fundraising.
- They are having an upcoming event - a night nike in the woods (along
   lakeshore path).  Interested people should contact Shannon.
- There was discussion about issues of deforestation, exploitation of
   resources (third-world countries) by first-world countries to feed
   the lifestyles here..
- Asha will discuss how we can collaborate and pool resources.

Subbu: (update on national happenings)
- Update on the ongoing Asha fellowship discussion.
- Update on the Asha newsletter group.
- Update on the Projects group.
- 5 new Asha chapters have been formed recently.  Asha-Madison and Asha-Seattle
   will serve as "mentor" chapters for the Minnesota chapter.

Future plans:
- Fundraising group will set a target and plan events around it.
- Sale of diays (for Diwali), Y2k Asha calendars & Asha T-shirts.
- Projects group: finish reviews of the remaining projects and work on
   releasing funds for approved ones.
- Publicity: ongoing work on website to get it update.
- Newsletter: Plan to get the newsletter ready and mailed out around Nov 15th.
- Awareness: Study group; Movie screenings.

The meeting concluded with a short discussion about the fate of NGOs and the
politics of FCRA clearances (in the light of the recent show-cause notice
issued by the Home Ministry to some NGOs).