With the demands of performing on her Monster Ball tour, recording a new album and being one of her generation's top pop stars, Lady Gaga has a lot on her plate -- but she stays healthy by watching what she puts on her plate.

Since fainting during a concert in New Zealand earlier this year, Gaga has become a stickler for maintaining a healthy routine, according to her choreographer LaurieAnn Gibson.

"It's all about salsa with grain chips, tofu, turkey slices, hummus and coconut water," says the choreographer, who is nominated for two MTV VMAs for Gaga's "Bad Romance" and "Telephone" videos.

But a girl can't put on a show on hummus alone.

"We'll have a toast or two with a little white wine!" says Gibson, who will premiere a Ryan Seacrest-produced reality show on E! in November, of Gaga's pre-show ritual.

So just who is the real Gaga? Gibson, who choreographed the singer's videos for "Poker Face," "Love Game," "Paparazzi," "Bad Romance," "Telephone" and "Alejandro," says Gaga is a soulful theater buff who has "become a lot more comfortable with herself."

Gibson describes the pop star as "fearless," and says her new music, which Gaga has been recording while on tour, reflects that fearlessness. "She's going to take a bigger bite out of things," says Gibson. "You're going to see more of who she really is."

New Delhi, India (FT.com) -- India's economy grew 8.8 per cent from April to June compared with the same period last year, driven by a strong pick-up in manufacturing, trade, transport and services.

The growth in the first quarter of India's financial year -- which runs from April to March -- was largely in line with expectations, and was an acceleration of the 8.6 per cent growth recorded in the previous quarter.

The robust growth will encourage the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank, to persist with its course of monetary tightening and interest rate normalisation, as it tries to control inflation, which remains high after falling from its peak double-digit levels.

India's economy expanded 7.4 per cent last year, despite a severe drought that hit farm production and caused food prices to rocket. New Delhi is forecasting that growth will exceed 8.5 per cent in the current financial year, and that inflation will drop sharply to more manageable levels.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the influential planning commission, said the pace of growth of India's manufacturing sector -- which expanded a robust 12.2 per cent in the first quarter -- will slow in the coming months for statistical reasons.

But he said farm output, which rose 2.8 per cent this year compared with 1.9 per cent last year, would be substantially stronger this year because of the bountiful monsoon rains. Data indicates that India's sown crop acreage is now 10 per cent higher than it was at the same time last year

Trade, transport and services also grew 12.2 per cent during the first quarter, up from 5.5 per cent last year, buoyed by a rebound in domestic air travel, which fell sharply during the global economic slowdown.

Despite its healthy domestic economic growth, India has recorded a sharp 18.8 per cent drop in its foreign direct investment inflows, to $10.78bn, during the first six months of 2010. The drop was particularly precipitous in June, when FDI fell 46.5 per cent from a year earlier to $1.38bn.




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William Safire used to write a column in which he'd try to read the mind of some world leader and imagine what Mikhail Gorbachev or Anwar Sadat really thought, as opposed to the diplomatic niceties they were obliged to utter aloud.

In homage to the master, let me try an imitation: reading Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's mind.

"Everybody asks me what the next plan is. There is no plan! We have broken our leg and we have to wait for the leg to heal. It's just a matter of time. And most of the bright ideas to heal faster will only make things worse.

"The banks need time. They are all broke. We have them on life support, lending them money at 0 percent and then allowing them to buy Treasury bonds at 2 percent. It's basically welfare to help them reduce their debts.

"Consumers need time. We can sprinkle money at them, but they aren't going to spend it. They borrowed and borrowed during the real estate bubble. Now they are paying off their credit cards, paying down their home equity lines. Don't look to them to start buying again until they feel more confidence they won't be laid off tomorrow.





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Editor's note: Julian E. Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Arsenal of Democracy" and a book on former President Carter and editor of a book assessing former President George W. Bush's administration, to be published this fall by Princeton University Press.
Princeton, New Jersey If current polls are a guide, the midterm elections probably won't be good for President Obama and his party. The Democrats are in danger of losing control of the House of Representatives and of seeing their majority in the Senate diminish.
With Obama's approval rating sagging to 45 percent according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll, even his most ardent supporters admit that he will need a stimulus act for his presidency before 2012 comes around.
One of Obama's biggest challenges has been his reticence about defining a clear agenda and a set of governing principles. Doing so has been at odds with his legislative strategy, which has hinged on avoiding big proclamations to give himself wiggle room with Congress.

But that legislative strategy has had a major political cost. Many Democrats don't feel as if they know exactly what their leader is about. Some conservative critics have been able to paint a rather pragmatic Democrat as a Soviet-style socialist, and sometimes, according to recent polls, as a Muslim.
Video: Midterm battle lines drawn
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To bounce back, Obama will need to do more to articulate his agenda. For guidance, he can look back to two presidents who recovered from difficult midterms, Republican Ronald Reagan and Democrat Bill Clinton.

In 1982, Democrats gained 26 seats in the House. In 1994, Republicans took control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 1954. Both presidents, however, coasted to victory in their bids for re-election.

In both cases, the most obvious factor was economic recovery. For Reagan, the recovery from the 1982 recession made many Americans more confident that his economic policies, namely the tax cuts of 1981, were responsible for ending the economic malaise.

Glenn Beck, consummate showman and talk hound, would have been more honest calling his rally to "Restore Honor" a rally to restore the culture wars.

Despite his splashy show to celebrate the troops, Beck's rally was not about "honor" any more than the controversy over the Islamic center near ground zero is about a building -- or the immigration debate is about fixing the system. Instead, Beck's rally upped the ante on America's social divides, all the while appearing to champion unity. It was a clever head-fake disguising backward conservative zealotry as feel-good inclusion.

"May this day be the change point," said Sarah Palin, the rally's darling. "Look around you. You're not alone. You are Americans!" In his keynote, Beck declared that America is "in the midst of a great war" over its values. "America is at a crossroads," Beck said. "We must decide: Who are we and what do we believe?"

Anxious that the culture war over gay and reproductive rights is suffering setbacks, the right is doubling down. Its revamped culture war, flaunted at the rally, is gaining impressive traction.

Fiery skirmishes in this war abound. Beck and his progressive adversaries clash over this nation's role and purpose in the world, who gets to be American at home, and what our country can afford and should demand of us. The debates over immigration, birthright citizenship, and the scope of public spending are the more visible flashpoints of this clash.
That "Muslim" and "socialist" are the country's two reigning slanders speaks volumes about ... this cultural war.
--Rich Benjamin
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Besides the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the major figure dominating the rally in absentia was President Obama. One rally supporter, typifying the mood, dubbed the president "Chairman Maobama." Another rally participant sported a T-shirt: "If you can't love America, go back to Kenya."

Beck may insist the rally was nonpolitical, but participants and viewers had other ideas.

With each passing day, President Obama stands increasingly as the lightning rod of this morphing culture war. Growing numbers of people believe the president is Muslim. Other data show that a majority of Americans believe that he is a socialist.

That "Muslim" and "socialist" are the country's two reigning scarlet slanders speaks volumes about the psyche behind this cultural war.

Editor's note: Kathleen McCartney is the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Cambridge, Massachusetts Across the country, parents have been busy preparing their children for the return to school. They have been buying new backpacks, new school supplies and new clothes.

Their goal is not to stimulate the economy; rather, they are providing incentives to jittery children who are about to trade the halcyon days of summer for homework. Change is hard -- and new sneakers ease the blow.

Education policy is changing, too. Last week, the Department of Education announced the second round of winners of its Race to the Top competition. Nine states and the District of Columbia received $3.4 billion thanks to funds included in the stimulus package.

The winning states are making dramatic changes in how they do business -- adopting common standards and assessments, building data systems that measure student growth and success, retaining effective teachers and principals, and turning around their lowest performing schools.

Critics are already on the attack. They argue that the federal government is micromanaging districts, that states have been force-fed national standards, that the competition is too dependent on union support, that the selection of states was based on politics, and that $3.4 billion is not meaningful, given that education is a $650 billion enterprise nationwide. And yet, 40 states and the District of Columbia applied to Race to the Top in round one, and 35 states and the district applied in round two.

I guess Race to the Top worked as well as new sneakers as an incentive for change.

Opponents also say that Race to the Top is funding unproven policies, like encouraging the growth of charter schools and linking teacher evaluation to student performance. It's a fair point; however, the sad truth is that the knowledge base in education is abysmal.

In contrast with medical research, we haven't invested in education research, so we don't know nearly enough about what works. Failing children can't wait for needed research. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is right to make some best guesses about best practices. The critics don't seem to realize that they are standing in the way of innovation.

The education sector isn't used to competition; it's used to complacency. So, to jump-start reform, the Department of Education has also asked organizations to compete for a share of its Investing in Innovation Fund.

The fund is modest -- $650 million -- designed to accelerate the growth of programs with demonstrated evidence of their effectiveness. Seventeen hundred institutions applied, and the 49 highest-rated applicants must now secure a 20 percent private sector match.

This is a new strategy for the Education Department -- it is willing to change, too. Soon, nonprofits such as Teach For America, districts such as Denver, Colorado, and higher education institutions such as Ohio State and Harvard universities will receive resources to bring good ideas to scale. We need more programs such as this to foster creative thinking in the education sector.

Most policies have unintended consequences, as is the case here. For example, in Burlington, Vermont, a well-regarded principal was fired because her school appeared to be a failure, based on fifth-grade test scores; however, a serious examination would have revealed that 37 of 39 fifth-graders in her school were either refugees or special-ed children.

Firing this principal was wrong, of course. Yet we can't use examples such as this as evidence of policy failure. Instead, as we implement new policies, we need to get smarter about how we evaluate performance at the level of state, district, school and child.

We must resist resistance to change. The status quo in education provides reason enough. Consider three stunning statistics. First, 53 percent of U.S. children in our 50 largest cities graduate from high school. According to research by McKinsey & Co., underperforming students, many of whom are poor, have lower earnings, poorer health and higher rates of incarceration. This costs us money -- the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession year after year, according to McKinsey.

Second, black and Latino students are roughly two to three years behind their white peers on standardized tests. For this reason, education is a social justice issue. Education is the gateway to success -- there is no other. Education cannot be the root of inequity and thereby inequality.

Third, the U.S. no longer has the best public education system in the world -- not even close. Our children performed 25th and 21st in math and science, respectively, on the Program in International Student Assessment, well behind countries such as Finland and Singapore.

Andreas Schleicher, a principal investigator of the Program in International Student Assessment study, has written, "Success will go to those individuals and countries which are swift to adapt, slow to complain, and open to change." We can listen to Schleicher or suffer the consequences. Global competitiveness, scientific discoveries and the very future of our democracy are all at stake.

Race to the Top and the Innovation Fund are not the answer in and of themselves, but they are important next steps in education reform. Already there are early signs of success. For example, both have incentivized school districts and union leaders to work together to improve teacher evaluation systems, a precondition for meaningful classroom innovation.

It is also clear that these policies will turn states and districts into learning laboratories. Then researchers can evaluate the impact of innovation on student achievement. To contribute to this work, schools of education have to make fundamental changes in our approach to research.





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