NRIs Corner

India’s new government should look into the issue of denial of visas to Sikhs who took political asylum in the US at peak of the militancy and in the aftermath of the 1984 riots, according to a top Sikh leader.

Manjit Singh, president of Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Prabhandhak Committee (DSGPC) and a leader of the Akali Dal (Badal) which is part of the ruling NDA coalition at the Centre, told members of the Sikh community in the US that the new government is serious in resolving the issue.

Amid anxieties of families of Keralite nurses and students stranded in violence-hit cities in Iraq, Kerala Government today said it has been doing all that it could for their safe return.

As the issue figured in the state Assembly, Minister for Non-Resident Keralalites Affairs K C Joseph said Government had information that 44 nurses stranded in trouble-torn Tikrit in Iraq were safe.

According to the Indian Embassy in Iraq they could be evacuated only when the road from their hospital to the nearest airport became risk-free as heavy bombing was going on in the area.

US based rights group “Sikhs for Justice” has challenged US government’s suggestion to a Washington court to grant immunity to former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh in a human rights violation case.

The US Department of Justice in a May 2 submission asked the Washington federal court “to recognize Prime Minister Singh’s immunity from this suit while in office” as determined by the US government.

India today said it “firmly stands by” the Government and people of Iraq in their fight against “international terrorism” while expressing serious concern over the safety and security of its nationals in the violence-hit country.

Strongly condemning the violence, the government said it was “deeply concerned” with deteriorating security situation in Iraq resulting out of recent attacks and taking over of some cities, including Mosul and Tikrit, by terrorist outfits since June 8.

An Indian expatriate died after he fell from an under-construction building in the UAE, media reported Sunday.

The unnamed Indian construction worker, 30, fell from a highrise, while carrying construction material in Al Majaz area in Sharjah Friday, Khaleej Times reported.

He was rushed to Al Kuwaiti Hospital in Sharjah, where he was pronounced dead.

Police were inspecting whether the prescribed safety measures were followed by the company.
(IANS)

Indian-origin physicist, Professor Tejinder Virdee, best known for his work on the Large Hadron Collider, was accorded an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to the field of science.

Virdee of Imperial College London was named a Knight Bachelor for his services to science in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, released here yesterday evening.

His citation reads: “Professor Virdee is one of the UK’s most distinguished physicists and, as one of the creators of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) Experiment he has made outstanding contributions to science.

Bharat Shimpukade, an Indian-origin scientist from University of Southern Denmark, along with his colleagues has come up with a smart tool that has brought the hunt for a pill against obesity one step closer.

Their research is focused on a special protein that can stimulate different physiological activities such as the production of appetite controlling hormones and hormones that control the intestinal uptake of food.

Six members of a gang in Britain, accused of killing an Indian-origin businessman, were sentenced to jail Friday.

Shammi Atwal, 45, was pushed into the path of an oncoming lorry outside his shop in Barking, East London when he tried to stop the robbers Oct 14, 2013, the Mirror reported.

Vidmantas Gorskoves, 26, Ayrimas Diliunas, 27, Farhan Sheikh, 39, Deibidas Sumskas, 25, Reiniks Kivers, 28, and Edgaras Balezantis, 25, were all found guilty last month of manslaughter and conspiracy to commit robbery.

Indian scientist Rasik Ravindra has been unanimously elected as member of the UN’s body focussed on oceans and law of the sea.

Ravindra, India’s candidate for member of the Commission on the Limits of Continental Shelf (CLCS), was elected during the 24th Meeting of States Parties of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea here on Thursday.

He secured support of all the 111 members present and voting. His term in the CLCS will be till June 15, 2017.

An Indian-origin professor in the US has been conferred the service award by a diaspora organisation in recognition of her contributions to the society through her teachings and research.

Meena Kumari, associate professor of anatomy and physiology at University College of Veterinary Medicine in Manhattan received the award yesterday from the Association of Scientists of Indian Origin in America, a university statement said.

Four persons, including two Indians, are battling for their lives in Sharjah after sustaining severe injuries in a horrific pile-up involving eight cars.

The incident took place at 4 pm in the Sharjah Industrial Area 3 last evening, Khaleej Times reported today.

The four – two Indians and two Pakistanis – have been admitted to the intensive care unit of Al Kuwaiti Hospital following the accident.

A traffic official said the pile-up occurred due to overspeeding and lack of sufficient gap between the cars.

An Indian-born nanotechnologist has developed a copper wire that can transmit and store electricity simultaneously. The new innovation would ultimately make conventional lithium-ion batteries out of vogue.

The store-and-transmit cables using nanotechnology is expected to transform high-technology sectors like aircraft manufacturing, spacecraft by embedding these wires throughout the body, significantly boosting total energy storage, while saving space.

An Indian male nurse was assaulted by five men after they accused him of being amused by the death of their relative in the UAE, police said.

An unnamed Indian, in his 30s, was severely beaten up by five local youths after their relative died in the Al Qassimi Hospital in the UAE’s Sharjah and they believed the nurse was laughing at them, the Gulf News reported Monday.

Police described the victim as having “a smiling face” and have registered a case against the five local residents.

The victim was admitted to the surgical department as he suffered bruises.

The agony of a 58-year-old Indian man in Bahrain, who has been separated from his family for 25 years owing to a travel ban over an unpaid debt of USD 2750, may end soon.

A ray of hope to see his family emerged for Parasuram Hublikar after officials from the Indian embassy here met him and discussed his plight.

Hublikar, a garage mechanic without a permanent job, is banned from travelling abroad over an unpaid debt of Bahraini Dinar 1,037 (USD 2,750) he claims to have paid off but lacks evidence as he has lost the receipts.

An Indian male nurse was severely thrashed by five Emirati men at a hospital in Sharjah after they found him laughing at a grieving woman who fell down after hearing the news of their relative’s death.

The incident took place on Saturday at Al Qassimi Hospital.

The nurse, who is said to be in his 30s, was described by police as having a smiling face, Gulf News reported today.

He sustained bruises in the attack and was recuperating at the surgical department of the same hospital.

The attackers struck when a woman relative of the deceased fell on the ground as she was shocked.

In its crackdown on minimum wage violations, the British government Sunday ‘named and shamed’ an Indian-origin family duo, along with 24 other employers, who failed to pay their staff the national minimum wage, a media report said.

Satwinder Singh Khatter and Tejinder Singh Khatter, owner of The Bath Hotel in Reading in Britain’s Berkshire, neglected to pay 1,237.79 pounds (around $2081) to two of its workers, Evening Standard reported Sunday.

A total of 25 employers were named, including a hire company, a hairdressers, a hotel and a retail outlet.

Bonalu poster of Telangan NRI Forum (TeNF) has been released by BJP Telangana spokesperson N. Ramchander Rao, who is also All India Bar Council member and National BJP Executive member. The program was held in Osterley Park Hotel, London where Ramchander Rao was the chief guest.

A 51-year-old Indian-origin man, who stabbed his daughter-in-law in her face in Britain, has been jailed for more than 10 years, a media report said.

Manjit Singh Mirgind accused his son’s wife Jageer Mirgind of having extra-marital sexual relations with another man, and attacked her with a knife leading to severe injuries in both the eyes, in Dec 18 last year, The Ilford Recorder reported Friday.

The Snaresbrook Crown Court Friday sentenced Mirjind to a 10 years and eight months jail-term, half of which he will serve, with the rest on licence.

An UAE Appeals court has upheld the three-month jail sentence of an Indian for molesting a seven-year-old Algerian girl in a lift here.

The court also upheld the deportation order against him. The incident occurred on December 22 last year.

The accused, 25, working as a delivery boy, tricked the Algerian girl into taking lift with him saying he would return the balance amount from the money her mother had paid him for the lunch she ordered, Khaleej Times reported.

He then molested her in the lift.

However, during interrogation the accused said he touched the girl by mistake.

An Indian-American architect has been ordered to pay thousands of dollars in compensation and penalty to settle a civil rights lawsuit, which alleged that a rental building designed by him and his firm had apartments inaccessible for persons with disabilities.

Avinash Malhotra and his firm Avinash Malhotra Architects settled the federal civil rights lawsuit filed in 2013 under which he and his firm would retain an accessibility expert.

Canadian police has charged two Americans and one British businessman of Indian origin with trying to bribe Indian officials to secure a $100 million contract with Air India for a biometric security system.

British national Shailesh Govindia, and Americans Robert Barra, former chief executive officer of Cryptometrics Canada Inc, and Dario Berini, the company’s former chief operating officer were charged Wednesday after an international investigation, according to Ottawa Citizen.

In a show of solidarity with victims of sexual assaults in India, students of Indian origin graduating from Ivy League universities in the US wore a red tape on their graduation caps during convocation ceremonies this week.

Later, several students from Columbia University, Harvard University and Brown University participated in a peaceful protest against the rise in sexual violence in India, especially in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Saudi Arabia’s health ministry has recruited 1,800 Indian nurses to work in various government hospitals, a media report said.

The new nurses would assume their duties within a month after completing their recruitment procedures, the Saudi Gazette quoted Ilham Sindi, director of the ministry’s nursing department, as telling the Makkah daily Wednesday.

The nurses would be coming from India on a renewable contract of one year. Three hundred more would come from the Philippines, Sindi said.

An expatriate Indian has embarked on a first-time challenge of cultivating rice in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a media report said.

Sudhish Kumar, 41, who entered the Limca Book of Records for growing the longest okra(41.91cm), and the smallest as well (3.81cm), has been waiting for the harvest of the staple crop that he cultivated in the desert-like climate of UAE, different from the warm and damp climate necessary to its growth, Gulf News reported Wednesday.

A six-month-old Indian baby is fighting for her life at a hospital here after being operated nine times for multiple complications due to her premature birth.