NRIs Corner

CCTV footage has been found showing a South African hotel worker allegedly arranging the murder of Anni Dewani, the Indian-origin woman who was murdered during her honeymoon. Her husband Shrien is accused of planning her murder near Cape Town in 2010, but audio from the tape is said to reveal receptionist Monde Mbolombo played a key role. According to the Mirror, taxi driver Zola Tongo got a reduced sentence after blaming Dewani for his wife’s death, but Mbolombo is seen on a CCTV footage telling Tongo as the couple left their hotel.

An Indian American physician has created a unique quilt depicting the US national flag which has the signatures of governors of all 50 American states and former President George W Bush, making it the only ‘Stars and Stripes’ of its kind.

“This Patriotic Flag Quilt came about as a medium to portray my feelings after the horrific incident of September 11, 2001. It was emotionally overwhelming to see that everyone in their own way were expressing their feelings of patriotism,” Dallas-based Dr Anis Ansari told PTI.

The bodies of two missing victims of the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster are yet to be found. 32 people had died when the ship ran aground as she was sailed too close to shore on January 13. Among them, Italian passenger Maria Grazia Trecarichi and Indian waiter Russel Rebello are still unaccounted for and presumed dead, news.com.au reports. Franco Gabrielli, head of the civil protection agency and project overseer, said the search for the corpses of Rebello and Trecarichi would start ‘in the next few days at the latest’.

The parents of an NRI student, who was killed in a house on September 13, today questioned the probe of the Delhi police before a court here seeking an explanation how their son suffered injuries in his private parts.

According to police, the deceased student Anmol Sarna was murdered after a scuffle at a party on September 13 night.

“As per the postmortem report, there is an injury near his private parts and also beside it. The report also states that there were injuries on his knees…

Indian-American defense contractor Vishnu Pandit, who was shot dead during the mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, “lived the American Dream,” said friends of the deceased Indian American.

Pandit (61), a Marine engineer and naval architect migrated to the US from Mumbai in the mid 70s.

A large number of friends and relatives gathered outside the North Potomac home of Vishnu ‘Kisan’ Pandit, as the news spread about his tragic death among the small Indian American community in this Maryland neighbourhood, a suburb of Washington DC.

Nina Davuluri, the first Miss America of Indian heritage, dove right into her new role with a photo shoot on the Jersey shore.

The 24-year-old pageant winner, who has been target of hate tweets right after her win, posed on the beach during the traditional dipping of the toes on the shallow surf of the Atlantic Ocean, the New York Daily News reported.

Davuluri stood barefoot, wearing a wearing a lime green Miss America T-shirt and white shorts, for the shoot. (ANI)

The British politicians are divided over Conservative-led government’s pilot project proposal of implementing a ‘tourist deposit’ rule, in which residents from India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ghana, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka would need to pay extra to visit the UK.

The pilot project particularly targets these nations and the security deposit of 4,800 dollars would be refunded upon departure but will be forfeited if travelers overstay their visas.

A 39-year-old Indian doctor was today found guilty by Australian Supreme Court of raping two women during consultations, even as he pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Manu Maimbilly Gopal was arrested on March 1 at Melbourne International Airport while waiting to fly to Kochi after contacted by local police about the sexual assault claims.

Gopal was accused of digitally penetrating two women after telling them they needed internal vaginal examinations when they complained of abdominal pain during separate visits to a Sunbury medical clinic in February last year.

Three people, including a resident of Noida, have been detained in connection with the murder of a 21-year-old NRI student here, police said Monday.

“Three people have been detained… we are very close to cracking the case,” a police officer told IANS but declined to divulge further details.

Anmol Sarna, from New York, succumbed to his injuries in hospital late Friday after he was attacked with a heavy object in a scuffle while partying with friends in south Delhi. He was found in a pool of blood outside Southpark Apartment in the Kalkaji area.

Scotland Yard, a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police (Met), wants to downgrade the importance of written English tests at police recruitment centres to make it easier for candidates from ethnic minorities to join the department.

Officials have recommended lowering the weightage placed on written communication section of the Met’s entrance exam as they felt people with non-English background were being discriminated against under current assessment rules, the Daily Express reports.

Racist remarks have flooded Twitter, after a contestant of Indian descent was crowned Miss America 2014.

Users commented on the 24-year-old Nina Davuluri’s heritage and race.

One of the users on the micro-blogging site said that one has to be “American” to be crowned the coveted title, CNN reported.

Fox News and Commentary host, Todd Starnes, posted that the liberal Miss America judges won”t admit that Miss Kansas lost for “actually representing American values.”

Overcoming bulimia and obesity, Nina Davuluri created history today as the first Indian-American to be crowned Miss America and also emerged as an inspirational figure for youngsters obsessed with weight and image issues.

The 24-year-old aspiring doctor has struggled with her own weight problem and suffered from bulimia – Davuluri lost nearly 30 kilos to get back in shape.

“People who’ve been overweight, especially women, feel like at a moment’s notice we can go back to where we were,” she told the Syracuse Post-Standard.

A candle light vigil was organised here today by friends and family of a 20-year-old NRI youth, who was allegedly murdered in a house in South East Delhi two days ago, demanding punishment for his killers.

Anmol Sarna, a US Citizen and a resident of Hicksville near New York City was on a vacation in India and was to return to the US next month.

The world”s biggest match-fixer, Indian-origin Wilson Raj Perumal is suspected of masterminding the rigging of Australian professional football, the biggest in the nation”s history, even while he was under Hungarian police protection in Europe.

The uncle of Anni Dewani, who was murdered during her honeymoon in South Africa, has accused documentary makers of interfering in the justice system.

Ashok Hindocha slammed the film makers ahead of a programme, which will be aired on Thursday, raising questions about the case against her alleged killer.

He said it is for a court to look at allegations against her former husband Shrien, who is accused of ordering the murder of his wife in 2010.

An NRI youth was killed last night when he was hit with a heavy object after a scuffle broke out among friends during a party, police said.

According to the police, Anmol Sama (21), who had completed his class 12 from New York and was living in Delhi with his relatives, was found in a pool of blood late last night outside South Park Apartment at Kalkaji area in South Delhi.

“Police reached the spot after a PCR call was received from a passerby. He was rushed to AIIMS where he succumbed to his injuries during treatment at around 2:00 AM,” said a police official.

US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University topped the list of the world’s top 200 university rankings. None of the Institutions of India figured even in the top 100.

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, the country’s premier institution, comes in way down at No 222, dropping from 212 last year, in the ‘QS World University Rankings’ released on Tuesday.

The list is dominated By MIT at the top, Harvard University is adjudged at the second place and Britain’s Cambridge University has been pushed to no: 3

The nominee to be the top US diplomat for South Asia said Thursday that India’s economy remained strong despite recent concerns, and that further liberalization would strengthen relations.

Nisha Desai Biswal, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, pledged to keep up a two-decade push to build ties between India and the United States.

Five former US Ambassadors to India have requested the Congress to remove India-specific discriminatory provisions in immigration reform, underscoring that continuation of such steps would have an adverse impact on the bilateral relationship between the two countries.

In a letter to top lawmakers, these former envoys observed that American competitiveness and vitality depend heavily on robust US-India commercial ties

The divisions within Britain’s Conservative-led coalition government have been exposed over the controversial plans to impose 3,000-pound visa bonds on visitors from countries like India.

UK business secretary Vince Cable, from the Liberal Democrat Party, today warned of the negative impact the yet-to-be-finalised scheme would have on relations with India.

“The reaction to it from our friends in India and elsewhere, where we are trying to build up relations, was one of outrage,” Cable told the BBC here today.

At the conference in Quebec City.Canada. On September 9th, 2013.Aging together builds collaborations that create and enhance supports for aging persons, their families and their care givers. Aging together is a collaborative effort to help our localities prepare for unprecedented growth in the aging population.
We should values and encourages the Contribution if older people to the wider community, it’s committed to respecting people as they age, upholding the rights to independence,participation. and access to opportunities and resources.

Prince Charles praised young Indian entrepreneurs for their work in poverty eradication and jobs creation as he hosted them at a special reception at his official residence here.

“I am very proud of the work you are doing in India,” Prince Charles said during his interaction with the entrepreneurs supported by his charity network Youth Business International (YBI).

A US court has banned two American companies from providing various types of financial services on charges of bilking consumers of millions of dollars through call centres in India.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said the defendants used phony debt collection calls from India and bogus claims that they would reduce consumers’ credit card interest rates to bilk consumers.

Brett Fisher, a repeat offender who settled charges with the FTC in 2009 in a scam involving both advance-fee credit cards and bogus interest-rate reduction claims, masterminded both schemes, the FTC alleged.

An Indian-origin teenager in US state of Colorado was shot dead after a prank on a friend went horribly wrong. Police said that Premila Lal, 18, and a cousin planned to scare her 15-year-old brother and an older friend, Nerrek Galley, by making noise and jumping out of a closet. According to the Huffington Post, but when Galley thought there was an intruder in the house, he opened fire, fatally injuring Lal. Galley, 21, rushed Lal to Longmont United Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead. The report said that police arrested Galley on charges unrelated to the shooting. (ANI)

Two people have been arrested over the killing of an Indian woman, who wrote a memoir about her escape from the Taliban, in Afghanistan.

Sushmita Banerjee was shot dead by suspected militants last Thursday. The police chief of Paktika province told the BBC that the arrested were member of the Haqqani militant network. According to the report, Banerjee had recently moved back to Afghanistan to live with her husband, an Afghan businessman.