NRIs Corner

Kumar P Barve, the first Indian- American to be elected to a US state legislature, has decided to run for the US Congress in the 2016 elections.

Saudi Arabia vowed “zero tolerance” against the illegal employment of migrants, more than a year after tens of thousands of foreigners were deported in an earlier crackdown.

The labour and interior ministries “confirm that the inspection campaigns aim to track violators of labour and residency”, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said.

“Violations will be met with zero tolerance,” it said, targeting those who allow the illegal employment of foreigners.

Police on Monday released CCTV footage of the Indian IT consultant minutes before she was stabbed to death in a park on Saturday, just metres away from her home in Sydney’s Westmead suburb, a media report said.

The footage show Prabha Arun Kumar, 41, on phone on a well-lit concourse near Parramatta railway station before she took a shortcut through a nearby dimly-lit park where she was attacked and killed, The Sydney Morning Herald reported, adding that police could not find anyone following her or acting suspiciously nearby.

Over 50 people who belong to the cream of the community of India and Pakistan gathered to draw a road map to eradicate the dowry system, at a seminar organized by Socio-Reforms Society Jeddah on 5th March, 2015 at Shadab Restaurant and concluded with the pledge to boycott the prevailing un-Islamic wedding ceremonies.

A 41-year-old Indian IT consultant was brutally stabbed to death in Australia, just 300m from her home, police said on Sunday as they launched a probe into the horrific attack.

Prabha Arun Kumar was on the phone to a member of her family when the “horrific” attack happened yesterday in Westmead, a suburb in Sydney.

Sydney newspaper Daily Telegraph reported that Prabha was speaking to her husband when she was stabbed, 300 metres from her home. “I think I’ve been stabbed,” she told him before collapsing in a pool of blood. The line then went dead, the report said.

An Indian woman IT consultant, employed with Bengaluru-based tech firm MindTree, was stabbed to death while she was walking home from work in the Australian city of Sydney, police said on Sunday.

Prabha Arun, in her 40s, was attacked at Amos Street in the western part of the city about 9.30 p.m. on Saturday. She was on the phone with her husband Arun Kumar, who lives in Bengaluru with their 10-year-old daughter, when she was stabbed. She was around 300 metres from her Westmead home when she was attacked.

With an average of over Rs 1,000 crore a day, the net foreign fund inflows into Indian capital markets have crossed USD 11 billion (over Rs 68,000 crore) in little over two months so far in 2015.

The analysts expect the inflows to further accelerate going ahead, following assurances in the Union Budget to revisit controversial issues like GAAR (General Anti Avoidance Rule).

A police officer in the US state of Alabama has been arrested and is under investigation by the FBI after he threw an elderly man from India to the ground, leaving him temporarily paralyzed.

Officer Eric Parker from Madison, Alabama was fired on Thursday and charged with assault for throwing 57-year-old Sureshbhai Patel to the ground during a morning walk near his son’s home.

The brutal incident, which was recorded from inside a patrol vehicle, left Patel severely injured and required surgery to relieve pressure on his spinal cord.

An Indian has been arrested in Saudi Arabia for allegedly posting a blasphemous image of the Kaaba on his Facebook page, a media report here said today.

The Indian expatriate was arrested last month by the police at the airport. He admitted that the Facebook page was his, but said that he had seen a link to the picture on another account and that he had to click “Like” to enable him to see it.

The picture was automatically loaded onto his account for his followers to see, he was quoted as saying by Arab News.

The Indian consulate in Jeddah has confirmed the arrest of an Indian in Saudi Arabia for allegedly posting a blasphemous image of the Kaaba on his Facebook page, media reported Thursday.

Consul General B.S. Mubarak on Wednesday confirmed that the Indian national has been jailed for violating the country’s cyber laws, the Arab News reported on Thursday.

“This happened a month ago in Jeddah and the Saudi law enforcement authorities are currently conducting an investigation,” he said.

“We are trying to help him in the best possible way,” he added.

An Indian American woman, who was convicted in 2013 of harbouring an illegal immigrant at her upstate New York mansion for over five years and subjecting her to slave-like conditions, has lost an appeal to overturn the verdict.

Prosecutors alleged Annie George, who is originally from Kerala, forced victim Valsamma Mathai, also a native of Kerala, to work 17-hour days with no time off or sick leave.
Mathai also alleged that she was forced to sleep in a squalid closet during what little time she wasn’t working.

An Indian American woman, who was convicted in 2013 of harbouring an illegal immigrant at her upstate New York mansion for over five years and subjecting her to slave-like conditions, has lost an appeal to overturn the verdict.

Prosecutors alleged Annie George, who is originally from Kerala, forced victim Valsamma Mathai, also a native of Kerala, to work 17-hour days with no time off or sick leave.

Mathai also alleged that she was forced to sleep in a squalid closet during what little time she wasn’t working.

US President Barack Obama has re-nominated Sunil Sabharwal, an independent Indian-American investor, to a key administration post as Alternate Executive Director at the IMF.

A top Indian-American physician has been selected for the prestigious Fulbright-Nehru Distinguished Chair to India. Ahmedabad-based HL Trivedi Institute of Transplantation Sciences would host Doctor Rahul Jindal during the duration of the chair, a media release said yesterday.

The Institute performs about 400 kidney transplants in a year and has developed innovative transplant tolerance models. Dr Jindal is Professor of Surgery and Global Health at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.

A 24-year-old Indian worker in the UAE has been jailed for three months for molesting a Filipina housewife inside a building and will be deported after completing his sentence.

The worker, who was identified by his initials H R, followed the 27-year-old woman while she was returning home
before kissing her at the first floor of the building in July last year.

“I was heading home… I entered the building and he continued walking behind me. Once I reached the first floor,

Ms. Hameeda Begum who has a valid US multiple visit Visa, have travelled US on various occasions presently residing in Hyderabad, India.

She is seeking any sponsor to work as Baby Sitter or attainder. She has the experience of working as Baby sitter in US and she is flexible to work in all conditions.

If anyone interested to hire her or sponsor her for the positions mentioned above can contact on +91-7097131917.

In a shocking case of racism, a young Sikh boy in the US state of Georgia has been called a “terrorist” by a group of school children, with the video of the abuse now going viral on the internet.

In the video posted on Inquisitr, the bespectacled Sikh boy is seen sitting in what appears to be a school bus and is surrounded by students.He whispers to the camera: “The kids are being racist to me.”

A young girl sitting behind him then shouts “terrorist! terrorist!” and points her finger at the boy, who remains calm and even shouts “who cares” when the kids hurl abuses at him.

Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway chairman & CEO, said there’s no horse race to run between India-born top insurance executive Ajit Jain and Greg Abel, head of Berkshire’s energy companies, as his possible successors.

“There’s no jockeying position at all” between front-runners Jain, 63, and Abel, 52, and neither of them knows who will be Berkshire Hathaway’s next CEO, Buffett said on CNBC on Monday.

“The board has talked about it at every meeting for I don’t know how many years. We have a precise plan in mind,” the 84-year-old Buffett said.

A shocking video of a bunch of school kids abusing a Sikh boy in the US state of Georgia was uploaded on video-sharing website YouTube and is going viral.

The video, which was uploaded on Sunday by a user named “Nagra Nagra”, claims that the Sikh boy being bullied is named Harsukh Singh and is a student at the Chattahoochee Elementary School in Duluth, Georgia, The Inquisitr news portal reported.

The video, which was originally uploaded by Harsukh, has been now made private. The video that is now going viral has been downloaded and re-uploaded by another user.

A Sikh man has been unveiled as the UK Independence Party’s (UKIP) candidate for Hull North in the British county of Yorkshire in the upcoming general election, media reported Monday.

Sergi Singh, a shopkeeper and the party’s Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire branch vice-president, stood unsuccessfully as a councillor for the Holderness ward in 2014.

As the owner of Jackpot Wines in east Hull, Singh has been a prominent member of the small business community for several years.

An Indo-Canadian man has sued the Canadian federal government over his wrongful conviction in a sexual assault case, a media report said.

Gurdev Singh Dhillon, a former Surrey resident who spent three years in jail for a rape he did not commit and who was subsequently deported, is now suing the provincial and federal governments, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Crown prosecutor Don Wilson and his former defence lawyer Sukhjinder Grewal, Canada’s South Asian Observer reported Friday.

An Indian-origin senior counsel has been appointed as a judicial commissioner of the Singapore High Court, a media report said.

Kannan Ramesh, 49, will serve for a term of two years with effect from May 22, a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said.

Ramesh specialises in dispute resolution, insolvency and restructuring, and international arbitration, The Straits Times reported.

He graduated from the National University of Singapore in 1990, and was appointed a senior counsel — which recognises the best and most skilful advocates in the legal profession

“The family has learned of the acquittal of six men charged with the murders of Saeed and Sakil Dawood, apparently on the basis that none of the accused were identified.

In February 2002, two family members, Sakil Dawood, Saeed Dawood and their childhood friend, Mohammed Aswat and the Indian driver, Yusuf Palagar, were killed in appalling circumstances. Another family member, Imran Dawood, was left for dead but miraculously survived though suffering serious and long-term injuries. Ironically the verdict has been announced exactly 13 years to the day when the violence began.

Insisting that he was tired of hyphenated Americans, Louisiana’s Indian-American Republican Governor Bobby Jindal has accused the “politically correct crowd” of trying to turn the American “melting pot” into a “salad bowl”.

Jindal, who unlike other Indian-American politicians declines to embrace his ethnicity, dilated Friday on the need for new immigrants to adopt American culture and learn to speak English.

A 49-year-old Indian-origin lawyer has been appointed as a Judicial Commissioner to Singapore’s Supreme Court bench for two years.

Senior Counsel Kannan Ramesh, who was appointed to the bench yesterday, will assume the position from May 22, according to a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office.

“It is a privilege and honour to be asked to serve. This is the beginning of a new and exciting chapter in an institution which I have always held in the highest regard,” said Ramesh who specializes in dispute resolution, insolvency and restructuring as well as international arbitration.