Indian Americans

It's 8 p.m. Friday and the historic Towne Theatre downtown is sold out. About 500 moviegoers have crowded into the three-screen movie house, paying up to $12 a ticket to watch not the latest Hollywood blockbuster but instead the premieres of three Indian movies that are opening simultaneously in India. Tonight's showcase feature: the Tamil action thriller "Aadhavan" starring hunk Surya Sivakumar, who enjoys rock-star status among fans known to break out in cheers when his image appears on screen.

THE 2.2 MILLION Indian Americans in the U.S. constitute a model minority, highly educated and well paid. And now, following in the footsteps of earlier immigrant groups such as the Irish, the Jews and the Cubans, Indian Americans are emerging as an influential force in Washington. And look what just whizzed through the Capitol: the Henry J. Hyde U.S.-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act. The legislation, which allows U.S.

Sen. Barack Obama scrambled Monday to soothe hurt feelings among some of his strongest supporters after they complained that a memo distributed by his presidential campaign was offensive to Indian Americans. Obama telephoned several Indian American activists to express his regret for the memo, which poked fun at the ties between India and his chief rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

When Bobby Jindal lost his first Louisiana governor's race four years ago, some experts told him that white people here were not ready to elect a dark-skinned son of Indian immigrants. On Tuesday, as he dashed across the state in a victory caravan after his historic Saturday landslide win, Louisiana's Republican governor-elect had a message for his rural supporters: Thank you for proving the conventional political wisdom wrong.