NRIs Corner

Indo-Kuwait Friendship Society, a leading non-profit socio-cultural NRI Friendship Association in Kuwait SENT congratulatory letter to Arvind Kejriwal, & AAP’s greatest victory, winning of 67 of the 70 seats in Delhi. IKFS values that the decisive verdict given by the people of our great country is a strong testimony to your dynamic, inspiring and visionary leadership qualities and manifestation of the trust and confidence reposed in you by the people of Delhi. We want a strong Local government to form and become one of the best legislative oriented state.

Mir Gazanfar Ali Zaki a well-known social activist and General Secretary of Indian Youth Welfare Association (IYWA) Jeddah, K.S.A has been appointed as honorary Vice-President of Indian Importers Association (IIA ) for Kingdom of Saudi Arabia recently.

Zaki who has been appointed for the period of two years will form his team cornpnsinq of representatives from different cities like Riyadh, Dammam, Makkah, Madinah, Asir, Abha, Jizanand Tabuk in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

An Indian-origin businessman in the United States has succumbed to his injuries a day after being shot by an unidentified gunman in his family-owned liquor shop in the U.S.

Amit Patel from Edison was alone in the liquor store, Roseway Liquors, in Irvington when he was shot at close range, police said.

They added that there was no indication of a robbery or damage to the store and just one shot was fired.

India-born Punit Renjen was today appointed the next CEO of US-based accounting giant Deloitte’s global operations, becoming the first Indian-origin person to head a ‘Big-Four’ audit firm. Renjen joins a growing list of persons of Indian origin like Indira Nooyi, Satya Nadela and Anshu Jain, who have made to the top posts at multi-billion dollar global corporations like PepsiCo, Microsoft and Deutsche Bank, respectively.

A 28-year-old Indian-American businessman, who was gunned down by an unidentified assailant in his family-owned liquor shop in the US, has succumbed to his injuries, police said on Monday.

Amit Patel from Edison was shot and killed in New Jersey inside Roseway Liquors in Irvington yesterday.

Patel was alone in the liquor store, owned by his father, when the assailant shot at him at close range, police said.

There was no damage to the store or indication of a robbery and only one shot was fired, they said.

An Indian-American surgeon is on a mission to save thousands of lives that are lost on Indian roads every day with an innovative training programme for trauma first responders using a $200,000 simulator dummy.

Rajasthan University educated surgeon Dr. Dinesh Vyas, an assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at Michigan State University since 2011, estimates that the number of road deaths in India would in 10 years swell four times from current 1,000 a day.

She comes from a family of chefs and co-owns Southall-based Brilliant Restaurant that specialises in Punjabi cooking with a Kenyan twist. Dipna Anand, a London-based Indian chef, says the city has welcomed Indian curries with open arms.

“Indian cuisine is pretty big in the UK. So much so that the national dish, fish and chips, has been replaced by curry. Fridays have become curry days as people look forward to eating Indian food on weekends. London is full of Indian restaurants,” Anand told IANS in an email interaction from London.

Washington: The health condition of a 57-year-old Indian man, who was wrongfully assaulted in the US state of Alabama by two police officers that left him partially paralysed, showed improvement, his attorney has said.

Attorney Henry F Sherrod said on Saturday that Sureshbhai Patel could speak but it is a long way to go for his full recovery.

Gurpreet Singh, an Indian American assistant professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering at Kansas State University, has received a $500,000 National Science Foundation Career award for his research on nanosheets.

The prestigious award will also help Singh organize educational activities for high school students and teachers.

Singh has received the award for his research on “Scalable liquid exfoliation processing of ultrathin two-dimensional metal dichalcogenides nanosheets for energy storage devices,” according to a University release.

Police in Saudi Arabia are investigating the deaths of two unidentified Indian workers whose decomposed bodies were found north of capital Riyadh, a media report said Saturday.

On a tip-off from the security guard of a holiday resort in the Al-Rumeih district, police found the two bodies in a room where liquor had been brewed, Arab News reported.

According to the police, the guard smelt the stench coming from a room, which was occupied by the Indian workers.

Police broke open the room and found the bodies of the Indian workers, whose ages were estimated at between 30 and 40 years.

Several US lawmakers condemned the police assault on an Indian grandfather who was slammed to the ground by a police officer in Alabama – while he was out for a walk in the neighbourhood – leaving him partially paralysed as donations poured in for the victim.

The police officer Eric Parker, who assaulted Sureshbhai Patel, 57, Feb 6 while he was taking a walk in front of his son Chirag Patel’s house in a Madison, Alabama suburb was arrested Thursday and Police Chief Larry Muncey has recommended that he be fired.

A police officer, accused of assaulting a 57-year-old Indian man in the US and leaving him partially paralysed, has been arrested and a FBI probe ordered into the incident, even as his family filed a lawsuit seeking compensation.

Larry Muncey, the Madison City Chief of Police while apologising to the victim Sureshbhai Patel, who was wrongfully assaulted by two police officers, without any provocation just because he did not know English and was unable to answer to their questions, informed that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will also be conducting a probe into the matter.

One of the two police officers who allegedly assaulted the 57-year-old Indian man in Alabama has been arrested and FBI will be conducting a probe into the matter to find out if there were any federal violations in the incident.

Larry Muncey, the Madison City Chief of Police while apologising to the victim Sureshbhai Patel, who was wrongfully assaulted by two police officers, without any provocation just because he did not know English and was unable to answer to their questions, informed that Federal Bureau of Investigation will also be conducting a probe into the matter.

The family of the 57-year-old Indian man, who has been left partially paralysed after a police officer forced him on ground in US, will file a lawsuit with many rights organisations terming the incident as “police brutality” and “racial profiling”.

Several Indian-American organisations and rights bodies not only condemned the brutality against Sureshbhai Patel, who was visiting his son in Alabama, but also demanded action against the police official whose aggression last week has left him paralysed.

An Indian national was temporarily paralysed and hospitalised with fused vertebrae after police in the US state of Alabama roughed him up last week when he was walking on the sidewalk outside his son’s home, media reported.

“He was just walking on the sidewalk as he does all the time,” Alabama news portal al.com quoted his son, Chirag Patel, as saying Tuesday. “They put him to the ground.”

The 57-year-old Indian citizen, who came from a small town in Gujarat to visit his son, committed no crime.

As South Africa marked the 25th anniversary of the release of Nelson Mandela from prison to usher in the new democratic order in the country, two veteran Indian-origin anti-apartheid activists called on people to renew the fight against racism.

Ahmed Kathrada and Laloo Chiba, who spent 26 and 18 years respectively in South African jails with the country’s first black president, said that they were concerned about an increasing number of reports of racial and xenophobic incidents, and public debate around matters relating to race over the past few weeks.

An Indian national in Singapore was sentenced to 10 months in jail and ordered to be given three cane strokes Monday for molesting a woman on New Year’s Day this year, media reported.

Parthiban Pandu, 24, taking advantage of the festive mood, hugged the 44-year-old victim from behind, the Straits Times reported.

Pandu, a construction worker, pleaded guilty to outraging the victim’s modesty just after midnight Jan 1.

The incident took place in a recreation centre for the foreign workers in Boon Lay.

The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC – www.iamc.com), an advocacy group dedicated to safeguarding India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos has called President Obama’s expressions of concern over religious intolerance in India as justified, given the alarming escalation of violence and rhetoric against minorities.

Bengaluru-based musician Ricky Kej’s collaborative album ‘Winds of Samsara’ with African flautist Wouter Kellerman has won the best new age album award at the 57th Grammy Awards.

A self-taught musician Kej, 33, has previously composed soundtracks for Kannada films.

‘Winds of Samsara’, with multiple collaborations, is his 14th studio album and refers to the cycle of life.

It had made a debut at number on on the US Billboard New Age Albums last year.

–PTI

A 26-year-old Indian waiter was sentenced to a one-year jail term in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for setting his ex-girlfriend’s shoe and bed on fire, media reported Sunday.

The accused admitted that he got drunk before he visited his Filipina ex-girlfriend’s residence and set her shoe and bed on fire, after breaking up with her in October, last year, Gulf News reported.

The former girlfriend of the accused youth reportedly worked in the same hotel at Jumeirah Palm in Dubai, as a receptionist.

A toll-free helpline set up by India to deal with problems of 20 lakh Indians in the UAE especially the blue-collar workers has received almost 70,000 calls since its inception four years ago.

The Indian Workers Resource Centre, an outsourced facility, was inaugurated by then president Pratibha Patil during her visit to the UAE in November 2010.

The 24×7 toll-free helpline 800INDIA (80046342) now receives an average of 70 calls a day compared to the 40 calls of late, Khaleej Times reported, citing IWRC officials.

Three Singaporean men of Indian origin were charged Saturday for offences during a Tamil Thaipusam religious festival procession earlier this month, Channel NewsAsia reported.

Ramachandra Chandramohan, 32, was charged on seven counts, the most among the three accused, including disorderly conduct and voluntarily hurting a police officer. He was asked to surrender his passport.

Ethnic Indian Hindus in Malaysia have strongly criticised a Muslim cleric’s suggestions that Prime Minister Najib Razak should not have donned a “Hindu” attire, nor should he have been garlanded at a “Hindu” ceremony, media reported Saturday.

Malaysian Prime Minister Razak donned the kurta and was garlanded at the Tamil Thaipusam celebrations in Batu Caves near Kuala Lumpur Tuesday, to which the mufti of the Malaysian state of Perlis, Mohammad Asri Zainul Abidin, took umbrage, the Malaysian Insider reported.

Three Indian-origin Singaporean men have been arrested for disorderly behaviour during the celebration of Thaipusama, a colourful annual Hindu festival in which many believers pierce their bodies with hooks to honour Lord Murugan’s victory over demon hordes.

Ramachandra Chandramohan, 32, faces seven charges, including behaving in a disorderly manner and hurting a police officer. He has also been asked to surrender his Singapore passport.

A portrait of Indian-American Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has sparked a racial controversy in the US with the Republican presidential aspirant appearing to be a white man in the painting instead of his actual skin tone.

Though the painting, made by Louisiana painter Tommy Yow Jr, who had painted the unofficial portrait from a photograph, had been hanging in his Capitol Office since 2008, it went viral on the social media this week when a blogger Lamar White tweeted with a picture of the portrait.