NRIs Corner

Anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada Wednesday said he missed his long time friend Nelson Mandela or Madiba as he voted in the country’s general elections.

“We miss him, not only today, but all the time. But, he was a human being and the time comes when human beings are no longer with us,” SA News quoted Indian-origin Kathrada as saying, while he voted at the University of Witswatersrand campus here Wednesday morning.

Kathrada was accompanied by South Africa’s Arts and Culture Minister Paul Mashatile.

An Indian expatriate died in Qatar after the vehicle he was travelling in hit a trailer parked on a road, media reported Wednesday.

Martin Kottackal, 32, was travelling in a mini van driven by one of his colleagues when the accident took place Monday evening near the entrance to Qatar’s Mesaieed Industrial City (MIC), Gulf Times reported.

Kottackal, from Ernakulam district in south Indian state of Kerala, reportedly died on the spot.

The injured driver was admitted to hospital.

Kottackal was employed in a private firm, providing support services to construction projects.

Two Indian-American chefs have won James Beard awards named after “the father of American cuisine” and considered the Oscars of the food and beverage industry.

There is no cash reward, but a win – or even a nomination – can substantially increase the buzz for business, according to James Beard Foundation president Susan Ungaro.

Mumbai native Vikram Sunderam, the chef behind Washington, DC’s famous Indian restaurant Rasika, where the Obamas have also dined, has been named Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic.

Around 25 Indian engineering firms of the power and oil exploration sectors are set to explore business prospects in a major energy show in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh May 26.

EEPC India, formerly known as Engineering Export Promotion Council, and India’s commerce and industry ministry will organise the India Pavilion at the Saudi Energy Show 2014 at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Centre May 26, the Saudi Gazette reported Tuesday.

An Indian-origin youth in Britain was brutally assaulted along with other family members in a violent attack outside a popular Indian restaurant.

Accountant Preet Panesar, 23, suffered a severe eye injury and was bludgeoned to the ground with baseball bats and tyre irons by a gang of seven unidentified men in the parking lot of Akbar’s restaurant in Britain’s Birmingham city Wednesday, the Birmingham Mail reported Monday.

His friend, 23-year-old Jagdeep Sira, was also beaten and left in a pool of blood with severe knee injuries.

Four young entrepreneurs from India are among this year’s winners of Harvard Business School New Venture Competition (NVC) inspired by a belief that “one simple idea can change everything”.

The Grand Prize in the Social Enterprise Track went to Saathi, founded by Amrita Saigal (MBA 2014) and Kristin Kagetsu at the grand finale of the competition in Boston Tuesday, according to an HBS media release.

The venture received the $50,000 Peter M. Sacerdote Prize in the competition which awards cash and in-kind prizes totalling more than $300,000.

Anil Rajvanshi, a renewable energy pioneer of India, Saturday was honoured by the University of Florida, one of the leading universities in the US, for his “groundbreaking” work in rural development.

Rajvanshi is the first Indian to receive the Distinguished Alumnus Award, the highest honour the University of Florida can bestow on persons who have graduated from the university and have excelled in their chosen field.

Lovers of Ghazals in general and pure Urdu poetry in particular can expect an evening of emotional engagement in Auckland later this month. ‘Sham E Ghazal Kavi Sammelan Mushaira’ is a programme that has enthralled men and women over the past few years.

Community friend Ghouse Majeed is hosting the programme organised by the Urdu Hindi Cultural Association of New Zealand at the Fickling Convention Centre in Three Kings on Saturday, May 24 at 630 pm.

Engineering students from India have bagged top laurels in an aero-design contest held in the US recently, officials said here Saturday.

Students from Mumbai’s M.H. Saboo Siddik College of Engineering won the first prize in the micro class and the fifth in the advanced section at the SAE Aero Design competition held in Fortworth, Texas.

A Sikh cab driver in the US has been found guilty by a jury here of raping and kidnapping a 29-year-old woman and faces up to 25 years in prison for the 2011 assault.

Gurmeet Singh, 42, will be sentenced on May 12 after the jurors at his trial in Brooklyn Supreme Court yesterday found him guilty of raping and kidnapping.

The jurors cleared him of the charges of robbery and assault as well as the on the count of predatory sexual assault.

The victim, a non-profit employee, recounted in court her trauma of being held at knife point during the 2011 assault.

An Indian nanny in Dubai has been accused of strangling an 11-month-old baby girl to death with her scarf as she was denied leave to go back to her country, media reported.

The 29-year-old woman initially denied all accusations, but later reportedly confessed to prosecution investigators she killed the baby because she was in a hard condition after her mother passed away in India a month earlier, the Khaleej Times reported.

Many online home rental websites in Singapore include the words “No Indians, no People’s Republic of China (PRC)”, which is sometimes followed by the word “sorry”, leading to increasing rental discrimination in the city.

The issue appears more common with less expensive properties and on sites where content is posted directly by users, the Online Citizen reported.

The president of the Universal Society of Hinduism (USH), Rajan Zed, has called on Singapore’s President Tony Tan and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to put an end to the discrimination, which is becoming a rising menace.

An Indian-American woman, who admitted to killing her 68-year-old mother-in-law in 2012, has been released from Sutter County jail in California after a jury acquitted her of first-degree murder.

The not guilty verdict came after Baljinder Kaur’s defence lawyer Mani Sidhu argued that she killed her mother-in-law Baljit Kaur in their Yuba City, California home on Oct 24, 2012, to save her unborn girl child from gender-based infanticide.

The body of an expatriate Indian has been lying in a morgue in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the last two years as his family members refused to claim his body, media reported Wednesday.

Bharat Kumar Behra, 37, from the Indian state of Odisha, died reportedly due to a cardiac arrest in June 2012 and his body has been lying in the morgue of Shaikh Khalifa Hospital in Abu Dhabi ever since, Gulf News reported Wednesday.

Behra was initially reported missing by his family, and his body was identified by an Indian embassy official in October 2013.

A Sikh in California has been barred from jury duty after he refused to remove a dagger he is supposed to wear under strict religious beliefs.

Gursant Singh was told that he could not bring the dagger, known as a kirpan, into a Sutter County courthouse in Yuba City due to security concerns.

According to CBS News, Singh said he would like to be a juror, but would go to jail rather than deny his religious beliefs.

Singh and dozens of supporters demonstrated outside the courthouse this week, demanding that they be allowed inside while wearing their ceremonial daggers, the report said.

An Indian-origin businessman in Britain, along with his brother and father, has been jailed for manufacturing fake designer garments worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, a media report said.

Principal offender Kuldip Singh, 26, director of Kully Screen Printing Ltd in Britain’s Leicester, was sentenced to 23 months in jail by the Leicester Crown Court, The Leicester Mercury reported Wednesday.

His father, Shinderpal Singh, 56, and brother, Sarbjit Singh 24, were each jailed for 11 months.

Two Sikh and Muslim groups have filed complaints alleging religious discrimination against a California amusement park after a couple of families wearing religious headgear were denied access to riding go-karts due to “safety concerns”.

The complaints were filed Tuesday with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) against Boomers!, which is owned by Newport Beach-based Palace Entertainment, according to CBS Local.

The body of a 20-year-old Indian, who was charred to death in a blaze in a cargo vessel in March end, is still in a mortuary in the UAE, due to ongoing court procedures to claim insurance money.

Deepak Singh, a resident of Uttarakhand, died in the accident aboard cargo ship Al Reem, which later sank 8 km off Sharjah coast on March 24. His completely charred body was found on the ship.

His identity was ascertained from the information provided by three other surviving seamen, of whom two are Indian, undergoing treatment at a hospital in Sharjah, Emirates 24/7 reported yesterday.

The Dubai Criminal Court has sentenced a man to a suspended six-month jail term for rendering permanently disabled a finger of an Indian expatriate, a media report said.

The Iraqi man, 24, identified only as OA, slammed a door on the hand of an Indian supervisor, 37, identified only as FA. He, however, denied assaulting and insulting the Indian, The National reported Tuesday.

“There is no reason that I assaulted him, no excuse, I did not do that,” OA, a computer engineer, said.

India’s general election is getting more attention in the US than ever before, a former top American diplomat who played a key role in revival of Indo-US ties after India’s 1998 nuclear tests, has said.

“My impression is that this election in India is getting more attention in the United States than any other in a very long time,” Strobe Talbott, president of the leading American think-tank Brookings Institute told a Washington audience at a panel discussion on Indian elections.

Calling the India-US relationship “an important factor in the future development of India”, Ambassador S. Jaishankar says the relationship is awaiting “its next quantum leap patiently.”

The Indian envoy was speaking Tuesday at the launch of the book “Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia’s Next Super Power” by McKinsey & Company at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

Ramesh Agrawal has been awarded the Goldman Environment Prize.

The Indian environmental activists has won the prize for organizing villagers in the central state of Chhattisgarh and succeeding in shutting down one of the largest planned coal mines in the area, the BBC reported.

The San Francisco-based Goldman Environmental Foundation issued a statement highlighting his exemplary work and acknowledged that his work has earned him powerful enemies.

Agrawal is among six other environmental activists who have won this year’s award and each will receive 175,000 dollars. (ANI)

Andrew Raymond Rodick, a British national whose body was found in a plastic sack in Delhi, died of deep injuries on his head and face inflicted by heavy objects, the initial autopsy report said Tuesday.

The post-mortem examination conducted on the body of 40-year-old Rodick said he died of excess bleeding due to the injuries, according to police sources.

The final report will be released after receiving the forensic details, including the viscera report.

CHANGE- CHANGE – CHANGE -CHANGE- CHANGE – CHANGE

WINNING POLITICAL ELECTION IS NOT A SUCCESS
BUT A SUCCESSFUL PERSON IS ONE WHO IS SAVED FROM HELL
FIRE AND ENTERS (JANNAT) HEAVEN HAPPILY

MAJEED ULLAH KHAN FARHAT’S SUCCESS YOUR SUCCESS
AND THE SUCCESS OF MANKIND IS IN THE HANDS OF THE
CREATOR OF THE CREATION

(((((((((((((((((((((( CREATOR —– PAIDA KARNAY WALA )))))))))))))))))))))

IF CREATOR WANTS FARHAT KHAN TO WIN THIS ELECTION THAN

NO POWER, NO MONEY, NO ROWDIES CAN DEFEAT HIM

AND WE TRUST IN ALL MIGHTY AND WE HOPE FARHAT KHAN WILL WIN THIS

ELECTION.

On the day BJP prime ministerial candidate did a triumphant roadshow in Varanasi, WikiLeaks released a new tranche of 5,173 documents of the US embassy in India which include an account of how the US had denied visa to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in 2005.
According to the cable released on Thursday, on March 18, 2005, US Deputy Chief of Mission Robert Blake had first contacted BJP leader Yashwant Sinha before the news “hit the wires” to give him a heads-up.