NRIs Corner

Registrations are now open for New Zealand’s first Muslim World Forum and Ethnic Affairs Minister Judith Collins is encouraging Kiwis of all ethnicities to take part.

“The Forum provides a fantastic opportunity for New Zealanders who are interested to connect, explore contemporary issues and celebrate New Zealand’s diversity,” Ms Collins says.

“Participants will have the chance to discuss challenges the Muslim community may face and find solutions to support Muslim Kiwis to be active and engaged members of New Zealand society.”

More than 12 known poets of the country recited their poetry at the 2nd IKFS Urdu Mushaera organized by Indo-Kuwait Friendship Society on Friday evening. Some fresh entrants also presented their verses on different subjects within the traditional frame of MUSHAERA.

Mushaera, is a medium of Urdu and Hindi speaking poem(s), has over the past years gained immense popularity among the poets in India, Pakistan, and Middle Eastern countries and has also been equally appreciated by listeners capable to appreciate poetry.

Democratic party nominee Raj Mukherji, a rising Indian-American figure on the political scene here, has won the State Assembly polls in New Jersey, becoming one of the youngest to be elected to the house.

29-year-old Mukherji, a first-time Democratic nominee for the 33rd Legislative District and former Jersey City Deputy Mayor, had won the primary election in June by a 36-point margin.

According to the Office of County Clerk, Hudson County, Mukherji got 18,586 votes and will represent the Legislative District, which covers Hoboken, Union City, Weehawken and parts of Jersey City.

A court in Bahrain has sentenced an Indian man to five years in jail for assaulting an Indian woman in her house and snatching away her gold chain.

The Indian labourer, 32, was convicted of theft and assault by the High Criminal Court in Bahrain Wednesday, Gulf Daily News reported Thursday.

According to the report, the attacker entered the woman’s apartment and struck her with a hammer.

The accused then fled with victim’s gold chain worth 350 Bahraini dinars (around $930).

The woman allowed the attacker into the flat, believing he was a TV company employee.

A court in Bahrain has sentenced an Indian man to 10 years in jail for sexually assaulting a nine-year-old boy.

The High Criminal Court in Bahrain Wednesday convicted the Indian, a cold storage employee, on charges of sexually assaulting the boy, who is also an Indian, inside a shop in the city of Riffa, the Gulf Daily News reported Thursday.

The boy had come to the shop one evening to buy yogurt when the shop employee reportedly took off his clothes and assaulted him.

A court in Britain has sentenced a 23-year-old Indian-origin man to seven-and-half years in jail for taking part in an armed burglary.

Gurinder Ranshi, a second year student of opticianry in the University of Bradford, joined an armed masked gang who burst into a house and robbed a couple in January 2012 in Hyde, Greater Manchester, in northwest England.

The gang reportedly also assaulted the occupants of the house.

The jury at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court found Ranshi guilty of aggravated burglary, the Daily Mail reported Thursday.

An 80-year-old Sikh man, who was assaulted by a teenaged girl in the British city of Coventry in August this year, has died.

Joginder Singh, who was assaulted on Trinity Street in Coventry city centre by Coral Millerchip, 19, around 8.30 p.m. Aug 10, died Nov 3, the police of West Midlands county said in a statement Thursday.

The incident was captured on closed circuit television (CCTV) and the footage was widely circulated on social media.

The victim, who suffered a cut nose and swelling, hailed from the Canley neighbourhood of the city.

Indian students largely drove the growth of new foreign enrolment in US graduate schools this year with a 40 percent surge, while growth from China slowed to 5 percent, according to a new survey.

The 40 percent increase in new enrolees from India in 2013 was substantially more than the 1 percent increase in 2012 and 2 percent increase in 2011, according to an annual survey of 285 members of the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS).

Three Indian men were charged in a Dubai court for unlawfully confining 19 Filipina women hotel workers and not allowing them to go out during free time for a period of one month.

The men, who were identified by the initials of their names — SS, 41, an electrician, KM, 61, a supervisor, and KA, 54, a cook — were tried in the Dubai Court of First Instance Tuesday for unlawfully locking up the women, who worked for a hotel, from sunset to sunrise for a period of one month at a residence in Al Mutainah in Dubai, the Gulf News reported.

An Indian-origin woman has been appointed head of the Canada operations of a leading multinational wealth management company, Northern Trust Corporation.

In a press release, the Northern Trust Corporation Tuesday said Arti Sharma will be responsible for the company’s operations in the Canadian market.

Prior to this appointment, Sharma was principal and custody practice leader at Mercer Sentinel Services, responsible for business development.

India-born former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta has asked a US appeals court to overturn a court’s ruling that he pay a hefty $13.9 million fine in the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s insider trading case.

Arguing that the penalty was excessive in light of an earlier $5 million criminal fine, Gupta’s lawyers Tuesday also asked the appeals court for the Second Circuit here to reverse a life ban on him from serving as an officer or director of a public company.

Rabindranath Tagore, the first Indian to recieve the Nobel Prize in Literature will be at the centre of celebrations of the Sweden India Nobel Memorial Week in the country.

Organised by the Swedish Embassy, the seventh edition of the week is dedicated to Rabindranath Tagore to mark the centenary of his Nobel Prize in Literature.

“Tagore was not only the first Indian to bring home the prestigious award but also the non-European to get one in Literature,” according to an official statement from the Embassy.

The US First Lady, Michelle Obama led the Diwali celebrations with the Bollywood music at the State room of the building along with Indian American children and a popular Indian American band.

“We got to practise a little Bollywood this afternoon,” Michelle Obama told a select Indian American audience at the East Room on the occasion of Diwali celebrations at the White House yesterday.

India today said it was happy that UK government has taken on board its “concerns” over the proposed 3,000-pound visa bond scheme and asserted that people-to-people contacts provide strength and durability to the long standing warm and friendly bilateral ties.

Soon after media reports on the proposed visa bond scheme came to the Government’s attention earlier this year, India responded promptly by raising the matter with the UK Government.

Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin on Tuesday expressed India’s happiness over British Government’s decision to abandon its pilot 3000 pound bond scheme, and said that people to people contact provides strength and durability to the long standing and friendly ties between India and United Kingdom.

“Our views on this matter had been conveyed previously to the UK, both at the political level by Anand Sharma when he visited UK in June and subsequently at the India-UK comprehensive dialogue on visa related issues in July,” he said.

Over 134,000 Indian workers have returned from Saudi Arabia after the kingdom enforced stricter labour regulations, Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi said Tuesday.

Talking to reporters here, Ravi said the Indian government is closely watching the situation and providing all possible help to the affected person.

“Some 1.34 lakh Indians have already come back from Saudi Arabia,” Ravi said, adding the Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia is facilitating the return of the workers who do not have proper documents.

A Global Healthcare Summit organised by an influential body of Indian American physicians in Ahmadabad in January would focus on how to use modern technology more effectively in providing efficient care to patients.

As healthcare leaders, physicians need to embrace technology as their friend enabling them to understand and help their patients with chronic diseases, says Dr. Jayesh Shah, president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI).

A catholic church organised a mass in Oman capital Muscat to pay tribute to the Indian-origin trainee teacher Tarun Asthana, who died of his injuries Monday in New Zealand.

The Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Ruwi Monday paid tribute to Tarun Asthana, a former student of the Indian School Muscat, who died of his head injuries after being assaulted by a sailor in Auckland, New Zealand, Nov 2, the Times Of Oman reported Tuesday.

Asthana, 25, was on life support in Auckland City Hospital for two days.

The famous saying of Diwali “You are invited to the festival of this world and your life is blessed” was really printed on the faces of the 500-odd members of the Indian community gathered in this Ethiopian capital to celebrate the festival of lights.

Women dressed in their finest saris and men in their sherwanis, lungis, kurtas and suits filled the air with the flavour of joy and a hope of a prosperous New Year and everything Diwali entails. Children dressed in the traditional clothes played with the friends they met after a long time.

Three Indian barbers have been jailed for one year each after being caught in a sting operation offering 1500 dirhams (USD 400) as bribe to a Dubai health inspector to get one of them a health card despite suffering from a contagious disease.

The trio, identified by initials IM, AK and MS, were said to have offered a bribe to the Dubai Municipality health inspector to ignore the hepatitis B disease AK was suffering from and issue him a health card, Gulf News reported.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, accompanied by his wife Samantha, visited the Swaminarayan Mandir, the largest traditional Hindu temple outside India, in north-west London and celebrated Diwali.

While Cameron wore a trusty navy suit, 42-year-old Samantha glittered in a spectacular autumnal sari as they performed puja yesterday at the temple in Neasden on Diwali, the festival of lights, that is celebrated by millions of Hindus, Jains and Sikhs around the world.

The temple opened in 1995 and is the largest of its kind outside of India.

The 25-year-old Indian man, Tarun Asthana, who was fatally punched in Auckland, took his last breath on Monday after his life support was switched off.

Asthana, a trained teacher, was punched outside McDonald’s in downtown Queen St early on Saturday morning after he was returning from a night of clubbing.

According to stuff.co.nz, the offender allegedly approached Asthana after a woman got upset when he complimented her on her dress and the punch was so fatal that he had to be put on a life support at the city hospital.

A 25-year-old Indian-origin trainee teacher in New Zealand died today after being punched outside a fast food outlet in central Auckland.

Tarun Asthana, who was on life support in hospital since he was assaulted on Saturday morning, died in Auckland City Hospital today, police said.

He was surrounded by family and friends at the time of his death, local media reported quoting police officials.

Asthana was returning from a night of clubbing with friends when he was punched.

The offender had allegedly approached Asthana after a woman got upset when he complimented her on her dress.

An Indian American scientist has claimed that he has found the answer to the question about how life on earth began more than 3.8 billion years ago.

Sankar Chatterjee, professor of geo-sciences and curator of paleontology at the museum of Texas Tech University, has claimed that meteor and comet strikes likely brought the ingredients and created the right conditions for life on our planet.

A Dubai court has upheld the death sentence awarded to an Indian national for killing a woman, from whom he had bought a washing machine, by slitting her throat.

The 28-year-old Indian man, identified by the initials of his name AM, admitted in a court of appeal in Dubai to attacking the woman with a knife and stealing her jewellery Sep 26 last year, The National reported Sunday.