India

Rajaram Ramanathan, the retired chief financial and operations officer of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, died of cancer Feb. 2 at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The Federal Hill resident was 74. Born near Madras, India, he earned psychology and political science degrees there and, after moving to New York City in 1971, he received a master's degree in public accounting from Baruch College. Mr. Ramanathan worked at the Rockefeller Foundation both in India and in the U.S., where he was controller.

Monday dawned wet, gray and windy, but Ann Varghese wanted to get back to work. Needed to, she felt, after all that had happened. At 7:15, she pulled onto Charles Street and drove out to Carroll County for the first time since enduring 55 hours in a collapsed hotel in Haiti. "Hi, everybody," Varghese, 31, said cheerfully as she walked into the New Windsor offices of IMA World Health. One by one, she hugged several co-workers amid smiles and bits of laughter. Someone clapped. Hovering over the happy reunion was a yellow balloon with a big smiley face.

Monday dawned wet, gray and windy, but Ann Varghese wanted to get back to work. Needed to, she felt, after all that had happened. At 7:15, she pulled onto Charles Street and drove out to Carroll County for the first time since enduring 55 hours in a collapsed hotel in Haiti. "Hi, everybody," Varghese, 31, said cheerfully as she walked into the New Windsor offices of IMA World Health. One by one, she hugged several co-workers amid smiles and bits of laughter. Someone clapped. Hovering over the happy reunion was a yellow balloon with a big smiley face.

Baltimore money manager T. Rowe Price Group said Wednesday that it finished acquiring a 26 percent stake in India's oldest mutual-fund company, an effort to expand in a large and growing market. T. Rowe spent $142.4 million buying into UTI Asset Management Co. Ltd. Because of a change in exchange rates, that was about $4 million more than what T. Rowe estimated in November that it would pay. - Jamie Smith Hopkins

A new McDaniel College partnership aims to give aspiring teachers in India a chance to earn a master's in education, as well as their teaching certification, on the Westminster campus. The partnership, with Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies in Kerala, India, would bring people who already have degrees in math or the sciences - and an interest in teaching - to McDaniel for "an accelerated and intensive" one-year version of its graduate education program, said Henry Reiff, dean of graduate and professional studies.

On October 4, 2009, HIAWATHA P. WATKINS; beloved husband of India; loving father of Hiawatha D., Kelvin D., and Melissa; cherished grandfather of Alex and Breanna; loving brother of Linda and the late Bettie and a host of other relatives and friends. Memorial service will be held at a later date. Memorial contributions may be sent to the American Cancer Society.

Tucked inside Kitchen of India's leatherette menu is a page of five appetizers and six entrees titled "New Additions." I wouldn't be surprised if this page with the same items, give or take an appetizer, has been inserted like this since Kitchen of India opened two years ago. (The Indian-Nepalese restaurant Mount Everest used to have this location before it relocated to Nottingham.) If so, then that's pretty smart marketing. We tried, and liked, a few things off of the New Additions page, but I don't think we would have if they had been listed under "Chef Specialties."

Like countless other artists recording for major labels, India.Arie found herself at odds with the demands of the pop machine. How much of her art - or herself - was she willing to compromise for a hit? Why couldn't the suits at the label just let her deliver her music without the artificial additives? In the nine years since her lauded debut, Acoustic Soul, the urban-pop star has sold millions of albums, won two Grammys and collaborated with some of the biggest names in pop: Stevie Wonder and John Mellencamp are just a few. But in the 2 1/2 years between the release of her last two albums, 2006's Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship and this year's Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics, Arie had had it with the artistic alterations.

Starring Dev Patel, Freida Pinto. Directed by Danny Boyle. Released by 20th Century Fox. $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95. **** (4 STARS) Slumdog Millionaire is the rare film that deserves all the accolades it has been receiving. With verve and panache, it transports American audiences to a world they've never experienced; makes it seem believable and wonderfully alive; presents us with characters we can identify with and, more important, root for; and leaves audiences craving more. Salman Rushdie's curmudgeonly dismissal notwithstanding, Slumdog is not crammed with "impossibilities" - at least no more so than any other Hollywood drama (Has Rushdie seen The Reader?