India

NEW DELHI (AP) -- A speeding express train collided with a passenger train at a station in eastern India early Monday, mangling the carriages and killing at least 35 people, railway police said. The crash happened at about 2 a.m. when the Uttarbanga Express slammed into the stationary Bananchal Express as it was leaving the platform at Sainthia station, about 125 miles north of Calcutta. Television footage showed twisted metal. The force of the crash was so intense the roof of one car flew into the air and landed on an overpass above the tracks.

MAUGANSVILLE scottb@herald-mail.com A woman who has done ministry work in Calcutta, India, for more than 50 years spoke at Zion Assembly of God in Maugansville on Sunday about her life and faith. About 75 people attended the evening service at which Huldah Buntain, 79, spoke for about one hour. In 1954, Buntain and her husband, Mark Buntain, now deceased, were asked to go to Calcutta as missionaries. The Buntains later founded Missions of Mercy, which has more than 700 churches, 73 schools and a hospital in India, according to the Colorado-based organization.

By CLYDE FORD Staff Writer RANSON, W.Va. - When Dr. S.P. Nayak travels back to his native India to visit his 80-year-old mother, his family tells him to stay off the roads. Not only are the drivers dangerous and the road conditions hazardous, those injured in accidents frequently cannot get an ambulance to take them to a hospital. "There's a limited number of ambulances and too many patients," Nayak said. The Ranson, W.Va., orthopedic surgeon decided to do something about it. He purchased a used ambulance from the Independent Volunteer Fire Co. and is going to have it shipped to India.

Ten Thousand Villages, 13625 Pennsylvania Ave., will be hosting Irani Sen, director of Craft Resourse Center in Kolkata, India, today beginning at 2 p.m. Sen will help celebrate World Fair Trade Day by interacting with customers and telling her stories. Customers will share light refreshments and balloons. Call 301-797-3020 for information.

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - After meeting with Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff and visiting greenhouses, produce auctions, a hydroponic farm and other sites of interest, a group of agriculture officials sat down Thursday to a fairly typical Pennsylvania meal - chicken, macaroni and cheese, coleslaw and apple compote. Standard fare for Pennsylvanians, but perhaps new to the palates of the visitors from the states of Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan in India.

Hagerstown City Park, Praise at the Park, today from 6 to 8 p.m., music, food and love. Hagerstown City Park, Outreach Ministries will focus on The Word of God during its 2008 summer series in the park Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m. Sponsored by New Beginnings Christian Fellowship Church, the weekly events will feature free music, a message, water, snacks, books and a helping hand for those in need. United Methodist Church of Pleasant Valley, off Md. 77 on Pleasant Valley Road, the Rev. Bill Wareham will conduct special services Sunday at 7 p.m. Donna Johnson will provide music.

Dinesh B. Trinidade, 44, of Falling Waters, W.Va., passed away suddenly Friday, June 1, 2012, at Reston Hospital Center in Virginia. Born March 8, 1968, in Vasco de Gama, Goa, India, he was the son of David Trinidade and Juiet (Fernandes) Trinidade, both of Goa, India. Dinesh was a U.S. citizen. He was a project leader for Fannie Mae in Reston, Va. He was working toward his Ph.D. in civil engineering at Utah State, where he was president of the international students. In addition to his parents, he will be sadly missed by his loving wife, Sandra Bostwick-Trinidade of Falling Waters; a sister, Daria Trinidade; two brothers, Noel Trinidade and his wife, Nitya, and Darwin Trinidade; and a niece and nephew, Evika and Edgar.

HAGERSTOWN - Former Hagerstown psychiatrist and convicted child molester Alan J. Horowitz was deported Sunday morning from India to the United States, where he faces charges that he violated the terms of his parole in New York. "We met the plane at the Newark, N.J., airport at 4 a.m. Sunday and made the arrest at the gate," U.S. Marshal Gary Mattison said. "Horowitz was accompanied by representatives of the U.S. State Department and the FBI. " Horowitz was found May 22 in a seaside resort in southern India and has been jailed since, awaiting deportation to the United States for traveling under a false British passport, Mattison said.

katec@herald-mail.com Kelly Pannill said her reasons for wanting to experience a Semester at Sea were "corny. " "I wanted to see other cultures and expand my horizons," she said. Along with 630 other students - including Lewis Rawlings of Hagerstown and Barbara Spoonire of Williamsport - the 21-year-old Shepherd University senior cruised around the world. There's nothing corny about the ways they have changed. The ship left Nassau, Bahamas, in January.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- WVU Hospitals-East officials recently announced plans to open a family medicine practice in northern Berkeley County at Spring Mills. The Spring Mills Medical Center, scheduled to open Monday, is at 1179 T.J. Jackson Drive next to CNB. It can be accessed off exit 20 of Interstate 81. The center will be staffed by Dr. Devika Hanumara and Dr. Vineet Sood. Both family medicine physicians are Maryland natives who recently moved to the area after completing their family medicine training.

Linda Altizer of Hagerstown visited The Home of the Deaf, Dumb and Blind in Raigarh, India, on a mission trip through Central India Christian Mission that she took in late January and early February. More than 500 disabled children live in the orphanage. It was Altizer's ninth overseas mission trip and her fourth to central India, where she shared Christian and medical ministry. Altizer, who is joint/ortho care coordinator at Western Maryland Regional Medical Center in Cumberland, Md., returned with the goal of raising money for a C-T scanner and MRI machine for a poorly equipped mission hospital in India.

Far from this idyllic town, Zane Steward traveled the globe to help others. The assistant manager of E.L.M. Shoes in the square of downtown Greencastle, Steward, 25, said it was just coincidence that his first humanitarian trips involved shoes. It was the shoe store's partnership to collect donated shoes in the past that raised Steward's awareness of the group. Steward said they have run a short donation period in exchange for a discount on new shoes once a year, every other year.

Dinesh B. Trinidade, 44, of Falling Waters, W.Va., passed away suddenly Friday, June 1, 2012, at Reston Hospital Center in Virginia. Born March 8, 1968, in Vasco de Gama, Goa, India, he was the son of David Trinidade and Juiet (Fernandes) Trinidade, both of Goa, India. Dinesh was a U.S. citizen. He was a project leader for Fannie Mae in Reston, Va. He was working toward his Ph.D. in civil engineering at Utah State, where he was president of the international students. In addition to his parents, he will be sadly missed by his loving wife, Sandra Bostwick-Trinidade of Falling Waters; a sister, Daria Trinidade; two brothers, Noel Trinidade and his wife, Nitya, and Darwin Trinidade; and a niece and nephew, Evika and Edgar.

The Hagerstown Police Department sent every officer who was on duty early Sunday to a fight that involved nearly 100 people at a popular downtown restaurant, Police Chief Arthur Smith said Monday. Smith said all 13 police units responded to break up the melee at the Taj India restaurant at 28 S. Potomac St. “It looks like the officers got there and they were trying to clear it out before it got worse,” Smith said. “They had to pepper spray at least one guy.” Smith said two Hagerstown women and a Frederick, Md., man were charged with failing to comply with police.

The New Year causes us to look back and to look forward. To view what has been and what might yet be. For Washington County, the look back involves empires, once mighty and now gone; love stories that end in private chapels on English meadows; and adventures with beginnings in humble country stores in small towns at the edge of the Western Maryland mountains. Levi Leiter, of Swiss Mennonite descent, was born and grew up in the village his family platted just north of Hagerstown known to this day as Leitersburg.

By Anne Chovey Special to The Herald-Mail I confess: I don't know much about Indian food. I think tandoor is an oven and curry is blend of spices, but I am stumped when it comes to vindaloo and masala. What I do know is that I like it. A lot. So my friend, Pap Ricka, and I were excited to see that a new Indian restaurant, Sitar of India, had opened in the Railway Lane shopping center at Hagerstown. Pap and I invited our friends Penny Pasta and Sam Osato join us. Penny and Sam love Indian food and were our guides in making our selections.

EAST LAKE, Fla. - They sat around the bar area of Surinder Dhaliwal's spacious townhouse kitchen on a recent Friday evening and watched as she gracefully moved around the room. From refrigerator to stove to sink and back to the stove, where she stirred sizzling garlic or ginger, Dhaliwal never stopped talking. Her magenta scarf flowed with her every move. The strands of her hair, perfectly clipped in a bob, never swung out of place for long. Dhaliwal, 60, was in her element teaching others how to cook authentic Indian cuisine.

NEW DELHI (AP) -- A speeding express train collided with a passenger train at a station in eastern India early Monday, mangling the carriages and killing at least 35 people, railway police said. The crash happened at about 2 a.m. when the Uttarbanga Express slammed into the stationary Bananchal Express as it was leaving the platform at Sainthia station, about 125 miles north of Calcutta. Television footage showed twisted metal. The force of the crash was so intense the roof of one car flew into the air and landed on an overpass above the tracks.

Dear Friends, I started writing this column almost exactly two years ago with a visit to an Indian buffet in Frederick, Md. This is my last column and it seems very appropriate to me to end with an Indian restaurant in downtown Hagerstown, Taj India. Thank you for being with me over the last two years as we explored all the fine and unusual restaurants in this Tri-State area. I have enjoyed my term immensely. Happy dining! Taj India restaurant is in the Arts and Entertainment district of downtown Hagerstown.

NEW DELHI (AP) -- As many as 160 people were feared dead after an Air India plane arriving from Dubai crashed Saturday as it overshot a runway while trying to land in southern India. Television images showed dense black smoke billowing from the aircraft surrounded by flames just outside the Mangalore city airport in a hilly area with thick grass and trees. Firefighters sprayed water on the plane as rescue workers struggled to find survivors. One firefighter ran up a hill with an injured child in his arms.