A total of 62 police officers were paid overtime for their work during a high-profile wedding in an influential Indian family in South Africa. In a parliamentary reply to the Inkatha Freedom Party, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said the SA Police Service followed due process with regard to the matter. According to news24, his spokesperson Zweli Mnisi said payments had been made to those officers who were on duty.
A Canada-born man of Indian descent, who has served time in jail, is now fighting to stay on in the country of his birth.
The case of Deepan Budlakoti, 23, has caught the attention of the Canadian media, a section of which has described his predicament as Kafkaesque.
Budlakoti was born Oct 19, 1989 to Indian parents who had come to work as household support staff at the Indian High Commission in Ottawa.
The Immigration New Zealand has reportedly declined Indian man Balwinder Singh aged 22 a visa to stay in the country with his wedded wife, a New Zealander Glyn Kessell who is aged 59. The immigration authorities cited the age gap as one of the reasons to deny Singh the visa, a move which he labels as ‘ageist’ and ‘racist’, the New Zealand Herald reports.
A 60-year-old Indian fisherman, Dadu Bhai, dies in the Malir District jail of Pakistan.
The Assistant Superintendent of Police, Shunail H. Shah, said that Dadu had completed his prison term and was only awaiting release orders to reunite with his family.
Shah said that Dadu had suddenly fallen ill on Wednesday after his blood pressure dropped drastically and was receiving treatment at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC).
The Dawn reports that the cause of his death was hypotension and cardiopulmonary failure.
The Civil Aviation Ministry is revising a note for the Union Cabinet on the enhanced bilateral air traffic rights between India and Abu Dhabi, following concerns raised by some political leaders over it.
But there is no question of revising the number of seats already agreed upon with Abu Dhabi under the bilateral air traffic agreement in April. Under an MoU, both sides had decided to increase the number of seats by 36,670 seats per week over three years, taking the total to 50,000.
The parents, who called teaching yoga in schools as an effort to ‘promote Eastern religion’, are set to appeal the ruling by a San Diego County Superior Court judge which stated that teaching yoga does not violate the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.
The student’s of Encinitas Union School District attend two, 30-minute yoga classes each week in a program supported by a 533,000-dollar grant from the a nonprofit group that promotes Ashtanga yoga, the Christian Science Monitor reported.
At a time when the UK is mulling hefty visa cash bond raising concerns here, France today announced a slew of India-specific measures easing visa norms for those wanting to pursue higher education, a move that is expected to increase the inflow of Indian students to that country.
“There is no competition between the UK and us. We have our own visa policy, they (the UK) have their own visa policy,” French Ambassador to India Francois Richier said here.
France, he said, is not challenging anybody but has introduced a number of measures to enable Indian students to study in his country.
Five Indian-American children are among 54 winners of a nationwide recipe challenge to promote healthy lunches as part of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Initiative invited to a “State Dinner” at White House Tuesday.
The group will join First Lady Michelle Obama for a healthy lunch, featuring a selection of the winning recipes and a performance by singer Rachel Crow, followed by a visit to the White House kitchen garden, according to an official announcement.
The parents of Ankur Sharma who went missing in New Zealand have expressed their concern over his safety as he had been the victim of an assault earlier. The parents have been in constant touch with the authorities in New Zealand ever since he went missing. 23-year-old Ankur Sharma has been in New Zealand since February this year on a student visa and was currently on a work visa after the completion of his course. He has been missing since June 9 and was last seen in the south Auckland suburb of Manurewa.
Indian workers in Saudi Arabia are going to benefit with Saudi Arabian King Abdullah’s decision of extending amnesty for illegal foreign workers in order to obtain legal status in the country from the previous deadline of July 3 to November 3. Director of the branch office of the Labour Ministry in Riyadh, Fahd Bin Ali Al Khilaiwi said that a massive public campaign against violating expatriate workers will be launched giving details of the new extensions and penalties applicable, Gulf News reports.
One of Britain’s main television channels will air ‘azaan’ or Muslim call to prayer during the holy month of Ramadan.
Channel 4 will become the first mainstream British TV channel to broadcast the call to prayer on a daily basis as
part of a season of programmes around the Muslim period of prayer and fasting, which begins next Tuesday.
The headline-grabbing move will see Channel 4 broadcast the three-minute call to prayer at about 3 am (local time) for 30 days from the start of Ramadan on July 9.
A representative body of over 100,000 physicians of Indian origin in the US is working on a five-year strategic plan to create and lobby for meaningful legislative agenda at the federal level.
Members of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) “should be at the table during implementation stage of the health care reform”, says the association’s new president Jayesh Shah.
“I want AAPI members to remember: If you are not at the table, then you are most probably on the menu,” he said as the new AAPI team assumed charge during its annual convention here last week.
From the passage of a comprehensive Senate immigration bill to a series of US Supreme Court rulings on minority voting rights to gay marriages, it was a week of momentous decisions with wide implications for Indians.
The Senate immigration bill passed with a 68-32 vote with 14 Republicans joining all the 54 Democrats, for one, is a mixed bag for India with IT service companies like TCS, Wipro and Infosys and US companies doing business with them complaining about higher fees for H1B and L1 visas for highly skilled workers.
Moved by their plight, an Indian businessman in the UAE has helped nearly 3,700 prisoners from several nations who had served their sentences but remained in jails in the country for lack of money, by paying off their
debts and buying them air tickets for home.
Firoz G Merchant, owner of a jewellery company, has already secured the release of about 3,700 prisoners since
2011, including 500 this year – spending an estimated Rs 6 crore and plans to pay off the debts of another 1,000 inmates later this year.
Nelson Mandela striding out of the Victor Vorester prison, outside Cape Town, on a sultry Feb 11, 1990 will remain etched on my mind as the everlasting image of “Freedom” in the 20th century. “Your piece to camera; your piece to camera,” screamed Akhtar Ali Khan, my cameraman. I came back with a start, so absorbed was I in the moment of history I was witnessing.
Later, it took me years of travel as a journalist to fix that historic moment in a broader perspective, both South African as well as global.
An Indian American contractor has been pleaded guilty to the charges of bribing government officials for bagging a contract, the Department of Justice has said.
42-year-old Hitesh Desai, a resident of Jersey City in New Jersey, faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and fine of USD 2,50,000.
Sentencing is scheduled for October 2.
In his guilty plea, Desai conceded to offer a bribe of USD 5,000 to a government official in New Jersey to bag a contract. Desai was a contractor, who worked on various construction projects for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Malaysia has deported an Indian national for allegedly being part of an international Sikh militant group.
Satpal Singh Raghvir Singh, 41, was arrested in Cheras for immigration offences on January 4 and sent back to India on Thursday.
Special Task Force (Operations and Counter Terrorism) director Comm Datuk Mohamad Fuzi Harun said that they believe Singh is part of a Sikh militant group called Babbar Khalsa International (BKI).
US lawmakers have requested the State of California to induct Dalip Singh Saund, the first Indian to be elected to Congress, into the California Hall of Fame.
A group of 14 Congressmen from California today led by Ami Bera sent a letter to California Governor Jerry Brown described Congressman Saund as “a trailblazer for human and civil rights and for the Asian-American community”.
An Indian man in Britain has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering his British wife last year.
The Stafford Crown Court sentenced Devendra Singh, 33, to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 16 years for bludgeoning to death Charlotte Smith, 41, with a two-kg ornamental elephant in their home at Laddeege, near Leek, Staffordshire, Sep 3 last year, according to media reports.
Singh reportedly flew into a rage when Smith sought a divorce as she was unhappy with their relationship and smashed and shattered the latter’s skull with the wooden ornamental piece.
Dubai Customs officials have foiled a bid by an African passenger to allegedly smuggle two kilogrammes of narcotics to India.
Customs officers at Dubai international airport detected 2 kgs of crystal methamphetamine hidden in secret pockets in a bag belonging to an African passenger on a multi-transit destinations flight starting from Nigeria and ending in India via Ethiopia and Dubai, Dubai Customs has said in a statement.
The move came as part of Dubai Customs’ consistent efforts to counter international smuggling operations of narcotic drugs.
Devendra Singh who battered his wife Charlotte Smith to death last year with an ornamental elephant has been reportedly sentenced life imprisonment in UK for at least 16 years.
According to the Mirror, Singh used ‘ off the scale ‘ violence to attack Smith when she demanded a divorce for being unhappy with their relationship.
Senior pathologist Olaf Biedrzycki, who examined the body of Smith, said that her injuries were among the worst he had ever seen during his 20-year career as her skull was repeatedly ‘smashed’ and ‘shattered’ with the wooden elephant.
The California State Senate has passed a resolution to declare October as the Hindu Awareness and Appreciation Month this year to acknowledge the contribution made by Hindu Americans.
The Senate Majority Leader, Ellen Corbett who is widely recognized for her support of the Hindu American community has worked closely with the Washington-based Hindu American Foundation (HAF) in drafting the language of the resolution.
The British government’s plans to demand a hefty visa bond from visitors of certain “high-risk” countries such as India continued to create furore in the UK with many calling it “unfair” and “discriminatory”.
The HSMP Forum, a non-profit campaign group that fights for the rights of Indian and other non-EU immigrants to the country, became the latest group to voice its concerns around the “unfair” pilot scheme which will target nationals of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Ghana.
More than half of migrant students in Britain have said they have felt ‘less welcome’ in the country because of policies on migration, a new survey has found.
The survey conducted of more than 500 overseas students across 105 institutions revealed that 52 percent had a negative perception of the attempts to cut migration numbers.
The poll found that almost half of North American students in the UK shared this concern.
According to the BBC, the survey of attitudes of overseas students in the UK was commissioned by Regent’s University in London.
An Indo-Canadian man has been sentenced to life in prison by a court in Canada for murdering his wife in 2011.
The supreme court of the Canadian province of British Columbia has sentenced Manmeet Singh to life in prison with no eligibility for parole for 16 years for murdering wife Ravinder Kaur Bhangu, 23, in her office July 28, 2011, media reports said Saturday.
Singh had pleaded guilty to the charge that he had walked into the office of the bilingual newspaper, Aaj Di Awaaz, in Surrey, British Columbia, and stabbed Bhangu to death in front of her colleagues.