NRIs Corner

An Indian worker at a building construction site in Qatar died after a pile of cement blocks fell on him, a media report said.

The worker, identified as Madan Lal, was working at an excavation area of a basement at the Bin Mahmoud area of Doha, Qatar’s capital, Friday when the incident took place, The Peninsula reported Saturday.

According to the report, the worker sustained severe head injuries when the cement blocks fell on him.

Two other workers, an Indian and a Nepali, also sustained injuries and were rushed to hospital.

Indians in Singapore should continue to work unitedly both for their own development as well as for the development of this Southeast Asian city state, Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said Saturday.

Speaking at the Community Forum 2013 of the Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA), where he was the guest of honour, Shanmugaratnam said that community effort was critical for helping people to achieve success, local media reported.

Set up in 1991, SINDA is a self-help group that addresses educational and socio-economic issues faced by Indians in Singapore.

An Indian American professor of biological and agricultural engineering has been recognised by a top US environmental and water resources institute for his pioneering work in hydrology.

Vijay P Singh, professor and Caroline & William N Lehrer distinguished chair in the department of biological and agricultural engineering at Texas A&M University, was named a recipient of the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Society of Civil Engineers Environmental and Water Resources Institute (ASCE-EWRI).

Indians in Kuwait celebrated India’s 67th Independence Day Thursday with Ambassador Satish C. Mehra unfurling the tricolour in the embassy premises here.

After the singing of the national anthem, the ambassador read out the address to the nation by Indian President Pranab Mukherjee on the eve of the Independence Day.

Speaking on the occasion, the ambassador stated that India-Kuwait relations were historic, close and characterised by mutual respect and understanding.

He also lauded the contribution of the Indian community in Kuwait’s development and to India-Kuwait relations.

A 21-year-old Indian-origin medical student accused of killing his father by bashing him with a baseball bat was today acquitted of murder by a court in Australia.

Joshua John Ravindran had said that he bashed his father with a baseball bat in a fit of grief and shock after finding him hanged.

He always maintained he found his father, Ravi Ravindran, 48, hanging from a beam in his Blue Mountains home on April 23, 2011, the Australian reported.

Joshua Ravindran’s version of events was accepted by Justice Stephen Campbell in the Supreme Court in Sydney today.

Indian-origin surgeon Dr. Jayant Patel, accused of the man slaughter of three patients in Australia, has been granted the rare privilege of polling potential jurors to establish if they are biased due to adverse media coverage.

A petition was filed in the Madras High Court today seeking to bring back over 6,000 Tamils living in Saudi Arabia without citizenship and have been asked to leave the country before November.

When the matter came up for hearing today, the First Bench, comprising Acting Chief Justice Rajesh Kumar Agrawal and Justice M Sathyanarayanan ordered issuing of notices to Central and state government authorities to reply within two weeks.

To mark the 67th Independence Day of India, a four-day extravaganza showcasing Indian fashion and classical and folk dances will be held at a top shopping mall in Thailand’s capital Bangkok.

The “Incredible India Week”, being organised by the Indian embassy in Bangkok, will be held at the Siam Paragon mall Aug 15-18.

The event will showcase contemporary Indian fashion by popular Bollywood fashion designers Joy Mitra and Vikram Phadnis, the Bangkok Post reported Wednesday.

A senior lawyer in India earns almost 54 times the country’s gross domestic product per head of population, compared with 5.4 times in the UK, a study has found.

According to a survey published in the Law Society Gazette, Indian lawyers are also more confident of job security, with 94 per cent feeling secure in their roles, compared with 89 per cent in the UK.

The figures emerge in a study of lawyers in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) conducted by a recruitment consultancy, Laurence Simons.

Three domestic maids, including one Indian, have managed to escape from their employers, who allegedly forced them to work round-the-clock, by jumping from balconies of their homes in Bahrain.

The women, an Indian and two Indonesians, suffered minor injuries and are being treated at a hospital in Bahrain’s capital city of Manama.

Official documents of the Indian woman, only known as Anusha, shows she is 35-years-old, however a probe revealed she is only 19.

Ministers Jason Kenney and Chris Alexander issued the following statement recognizing Eid al-Fitr, the Festival of the Breaking of the Fast:

“Falling on the first day of the month of Shawwal on the Islamic calendar, Eid al-Fitr is an important holiday marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan and the start of a feast that lasts up to three days.

“Muslims everywhere celebrate the day by sharing festive meals with family, friends and neighbours. Muslims also observe Eid al-Fitr with congregational prayers and charitable giving to those in need.

A Sikh family in California has alleged discrimination at a go-kart track on account of the turban or patka that is central to their faith.

The Singh family of Alameda county in the San Francisco Bay Area has alleged that staff at Boomer’s, a fun centre in Livermore city that owns the go-kart track, stopped four members of the family who had gone there July 28 to use the track, local media reported Saturday.

An Indian American has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for 35 years for the murder of another Indian American outside a Sikh gurdwara in California in 2008.

Jurors in Sacramento Superior Court this week sentenced Gurpreet Singh Gosal, 28, for the second degree murder of Parmjit Singh Pamma outside the Bradshaw gurdwara in Sacramento during a Sikh sports festival Aug 31, 2008.

On hearing the sentence, Gosal apologised to the victim’s family through his attorney, News10.net reported Saturday.

The family members of a man who was working as a welder in Malaysia have sought the district collector’s help to secure a probe into his death, which occurred under mysterious circumstances.

Officials said Karuppasamy had been working in Malaysia since 2005. He had called up his son in India on August 7 asking him to purchase an air ticket for him.

However, that night, some of his colleagues called up his son and told him that his father had passed away. They said that Karuppasamy had collapsed in a banana grove and was rushed to a hospital.

A court in Australia has reserved its verdict till Aug 15 in the case of a man of Indian descent accused of murdering his father.

Stephen Russell, the defence barrister for 21-year-old Joshua Ravindran, submitted before the New South Wales Supreme Court Thursday that his client cannot be guilty of murder and that his “good character supports that proposition”.

Ravindran is accused of murdering his father Ravi Ravindran, 49, in their home in the town of Medlow Bath in the Australian state of New South Wales April 23, 2011, after an argument between the two the previous day.

Brit-Indian businessman Shrien Dewani, who allegedly killed his bride during their honeymoon in South Africa, has launched an attempt to take his case to the Supreme Court after a judge ruled he should be extradited to South Africa.

An Indian ex-employee at software giant Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Washington has been reportedly charged with raping a janitor at his office.

Vineet Kumar Srivastava, 36, a former programming manager at the company allegedly called the woman in his office, molested her, showed her pornographic images on his cellphone and then raped her, the New York Daily News reports.

According to authorities, Srivastava blocker the woman from leaving her office and raped her for several minutes.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa is the most qualified to become India’s next prime minister, followed closely by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, a survey conducted among NRIs and released here Wednesday has revealed.

With a score of 86 out of 100, Jayalalithaa ruled the roost and Modi got 81 marks.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi came in third with a score of 53 while other leaders like Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and BJP leader L.K. Advani could not even secure the basic score to enter the survey.

An Indian ex-employee at software giant Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Washington has been reportedly charged with raping a janitor at his office.

Vineet Kumar Srivastava, 36, a former programming manager at the company allegedly called the woman in his office, molested her, showed her pornographic images on his cellphone and then raped her, the New York Daily News reports.

According to authorities, Srivastava blocker the woman from leaving her office and raped her for several minutes.

Across the Muslim world, families gather at sunset after the daylong fast during the holy month of Ramadan. In a parking lot in Dubai, a group of Muslim labourer’s from India separated from their homeland like millions of other workers across the Gulf come together to play a game of cricket and to swap stories late into the evening.

The Australian woman who was accused of racially abusing an Asian schoolboy Sydney bus earlier this year has reportedly escaped a conviction although she had pleaded guilty to the offence.

According to News.com.au, Susan Bernobich from Sydney had pleaded guilty to one charge of using offensive language in or near a public place or school and has apologised for her actions outside the court.

Volunteers and Friends of Aam Aadmi Party in the United States, Singapore and Australia organised protests during the weekend against the planned amendment to the Right to Information (RTI) Act in the upcoming parliament session.

The protests were planned to show the strong public demand for transparency in political parties as well as the anger against the any amendments to the act by vested interests.

An Indian was stopped from entering the Dubai Metro recently, apparently for wearing a dhoti. The 67-year-old man was respectively dressed in the traditional Indian dress, his daughter, who was with him when the incident happened last Saturday at Etisalat Metro Station, said. The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) said it has no official RTA dress code or policy.

Holi may be celebrated only once in India, but in Britain it is fast catching on as a new rage in the party and clubbing circuit with thousands flocking Holi-themed festivals in the country.

Mass paint fights, where people hurl bags of brightly coloured powder over each other, are being hosted up and down the country.

Thousands of Britons are expected to flock to more Holi-themed festivals in London and Manchester over the next few weeks of the English summer.

A group of Indians and Indian Americans held a protest in front of the Indian Embassy here opposing the proposed amendment in the RTI Act that excludes six political parties from its purview.

“We as citizens of India are empowered by the RTI Act demand that it not be amended,” the protestors said in a letter memorandum submitted to the Embassy which was addressed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.