NRIs Corner

A police investigation has been launched into the death of a 22-year-old Indian woman in Sharjah.

The woman’s father told the police that he discovered his daughter hanging from a rope in her bedroom in Al Bardi Dec 22, Gulf News reported.

The man, currently in police custody, said he was shocked to see his only child hanging in her bedroom, said the report.

Police said the body was brought to hospital with signs showing that a rope had been tied around the neck.

An autopsy will be conducted to establish the cause of death.

President Barack Obama has named 102 researchers, including two Indian-Americans, as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest US honour for young professionals in these fields.

The winners including, Dr. Karunesh Ganguly of San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Centre and Dr. Hardeep Singh of Houston Veterans Affairs Medical Centre, will receive their awards at a Washington, DC, ceremony in the coming year.

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Indian-origin Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will run for president in 2016, Senator David Vitter has said. Vitter said Jindal (Republican) was already laying the groundwork to pursue 2016 GOP nomination for president.

The body of Indian-origin British doctor Shah Abbas Khan, who died in a Syrian prison, was brought back to Britain today and will undergo a post-mortem.

The 32-year-old orthopaedic surgeon from south London was found dead in his cell just days before the Syrian government had said he would be freed.

Khan’s family insist he was murdered while the Syrian authorities claim he took his own life.

He had been arrested in Syria 48 hours after arriving in the country for humanitarian work last November.

When rebels against South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit killed Warrant Officers Dharmesh Sangwan and Kumar Pal Singh of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) Thursday, the toll of Indian military personnel lost there in 2013 mounted to seven.

A third Indian peacekeeper suffered a chest wound.

In April this year, five Indian peacekeepers — Lt. Col. Mahipal Singh, Naib Subedar Shiv Kumar Pal, Lance Naik Nand Kishore Joshi, Havaldar Bharat Sasmal and Havaldar Hira Lal — had been slain in Jonglei state of South Sudan.

A veteran Indian social worker, who was known for his voluntary services to expatriates, has died at a hospital in Qatar.

M.V. Abdul Khader Haji, 67, who hailed from Thrissur district in the southern Indian state of Kerala, died at around 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Hamad General Hospital in Qatar’s capital Doha where he had been admitted for the past several weeks, The Peninsula reported Sunday.

People sought his assistance, irrespective of religion and nationality, to complete legal and medical formalities to perform the final rites for the dead.

Over 600 women belonging to community-based organisation Nari Sangh from nine districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh congregated at Mau town to share their success stories, announce their future programmes and seek government support.

The repatriation of 53 foreign workers, 52 of them Indians, for their alleged involvement in the Dec 8 riots in this city-state has begun, media reported Friday.

The process of deportation of the Indians and a Bangladeshi in groups started Thursday, The Straits Times reported.

Some of the men have met members of the Committee of Inquiry, appointed by Home Affairs Minister Teo Chee Hean Dec 13, to look into the cause of the incident and make recommendations.

The family of Sangeeta Richard, the former maid of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, has alleged that they were frightened on several occasions as demands were made on them to bring the domestic worker back to India.

A report in the New York Times quoted a person close to Richard’s family as describing several episodes that frightened her family members.

In one case, Richard’s husband Philip, while bicycling with one of his children, was confronted by a man with a gun who demanded that his wife return home, the report said.

Three Indian peacekeepers have been reportedly killed in an attack on a United Nations compound in South Sudan’s Jonglei state on Thursday.

The attack had been carried out by rebels from the second-largest ethnic group, the Nuer, targeting civilians of the majority Dinka ethnic community.

According to the BBC, South Sudan has been in turmoil since President Salva Kiir accused his ex-deputy Riek Machar of mounting a coup and the unrest that began on Sunday, has killed 500 people so far.

Three Indian peacekeepers were killed when attackers stormed a United Nations base in South Sudan where civilians had taken refuge, as violence and unrest continued unabated in the the world’s newest country.

“Unfortunately, just this very morning such militia groups have targeted and killed three soldiers from India in South Sudan,” India’s Ambassador to the UN Asoke Mukerji told a UN meeting on peacekeeping last evening.

Rebels from the second-largest ethnic group, the Nuer, stormed the base in Akobo in Jonglei state, targeting civilians of the majority Dinka ethnic community.

Singapore has started deporting 52 Indian nationals for their alleged role in the December 8 riot, the city state’s worst street violence in 40 years.

Sixteen of the men were interviewed by the state-appointed Committee of Enquiry (COI) into the riot in the Little India area, The Straits Times reported today.

The riot was sparked by a fatal accident involving an Indian national.

The Urdu Hindi Cultural association of New Zealand (Inc) held the annual general meeting on Sunday 15th of Dec, 2013 at Roberton Rd Avondale Auckland.

India hit back Thursday at the US over the arrest of its diplomat Devyani Khobragade and accused American officials of interfering with the Indian legal system.

Describing Khobragade as the “only … victim” in this case, the external affairs ministry said the action taken against her violated the Vienna Convention.

“There were no courtesies in the treatment meted out to the diplomat, under the normal definition of that word in the English language,” said spokesman Syed Akbaruddin.

The spokesman was responding to a Wednesday statement from the Manhattan US Attorney.

A Kerala based dog trainer has been hired by UAE based wild pet owners who are seeking his services to tame their aggressive pets.

Chris Wolf, who is planning to open a Big Cat training and boarding centre in Dubai, has been tasked with the job of taming wild pets as he has been successful at domesticated a hostile cheetah in Bahrain, Gulf News reported.

The 32-year-old founder of ‘Wolf N Pack Dog Training’ and ‘K9 Security Services’ said that he will be heading to Dubai next month to train a leopard.

A court here is expected to hear the case of Puneet Kumar, the main accused of mowing down an Australian student and injuring another in Melbourne in 2009. Kumar has been charged by Victoria Police for causing the death of 19-year-old Dean Hofstee and seriously injuring 20-year-old Clancy Coker in a road accident on October, 2008. Both victims were students from Queensland. Police then said alcohol levels in Kumar’s blood showed he was inebriated at the time of the mishap.

The Government of Singapore has said that it will deport 52 Indians for their participation in riots in the “Little India” precinct on December 8.

It also said criminal charges would be filed against 28 alleged rioters.

The Indians and a Bangladesh national were arrested by police, but not charged in court as their involvement in December 8 violence was assessed to be less egregious

The Indian population in Britain has more than doubled from 313,000 in 1971 to 700,000 in 2011, according to latest figures released by the UK’s Office National Statistics (ONS).

India was in the third place in 1951, with many of those coming to Britain as the children of service personnel who were based in the country before independence in 1947, an analysis of the 2011 census reveals.

It also found that immigration accounted for almost half the increase in the population in England and Wales over the past 60 years.

An Indian-origin ex-mayor in a British city has vowed to continue as a councillor even after admitting to a fraud charge.

Councillor Bhupendra Patel, who represents the Hemmingwell ward of Borough Council of Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, pleaded guilty Dec 16 to the offence of failing to promptly to notify the Department for Work and Pensions(DWP) of “a change of circumstances that affected his entitlement to incapacity benefit”, BBC reported Wednesday.

Patel, 61, has represented Hemmingwell ward since 2003 and was mayor of Borough Council of Wellingborough in 2011-12.

A young South African Indian couple have been killed in a road accident enroute to their honeymoon destination, just a day after their Hindu wedding.

Medical technologist Ashley Reddy, 30, and his bride Depika, 29, were killed in a head-on collision on a highway here yesterday. They had a dream wedding on Sunday after a courtship of three years as they had decided to wait for Ashley to complete his Masters.

The accident also left dead a 15-year-old teenager who was holidaying in the area and had hitched a ride in the other vehicle with a friend.

In a gesture well appreciated here, Indian businessmen and the Indian community here have come to the aid of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian returnees from Saudi Arabia.

Sanjay Verma, newly-appointed Ambassador of India to Ethiopia, accompanied by Mayur Kothari, the convener of the Indian Business Forum (IBF) and Rajeev Sharma, Deputy Convener of IBF along with leading Indian businessmen, presented a cheque of half a million birr ($26,182) to Ethiopian returnees from Saudi Arabia.

An Indian origin man has reportedly committed suicide by hanging himself with a plastic cable in a house under construction in Sharjah’s Al Qraan area.

The local police identified the deceased as K.R, aged 43, and said that the victim was found by construction workers.

According to Gulf News, the police official condemned the act and urged people contemplating suicide to think rationally and overcome problems rather than resorting to such extreme steps.

Another Indian national has been arrested in connection with Little India riots Dec 8 and will be charged in court Tuesday.

The 41-year-old man will be charged in court Tuesday for rioting, which will take the total number of people to be charged in court to 34, Today Online reported Monday.

Earlier, a total of 33 persons were charged. The report, however, did not mention when the latest arrest was made.

An Indian man, accused of battering his co-worker’s head with an iron pipe pleaded not guilty in a court here.

The 29-year-old Indian electrician, who is identified by the initials of his name, JS, was charged with assaulting his countryman, YB, with a one-metre pipe five times on July 31, causing the victim a five percent permanent disability, Gulf News reported.

“I am not guilty. It is true that we had a fight… but it was his mistake. He (the victim) fell and hurt himself,” JS told the Dubai Court of First Instance Sunday.