NRIs Corner

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.

Indo-American healthcare economist and well known cardiac surgeon Dr. Mukesh Hariawala will be be honoured in Mumbai with the Indian Healthcare Visionary of the Decade award here.

Dr. Hariawala will receive the award during the fourth edition of India Leadership Conclave and Indian Affairs Business Leadership Awards 2013, being hosted by Indian Affairs, one of Asia”s credible news magazine.

Mr. Gola Rajanna (37) resident of Nella Velli, Dharmapalli of Nizamabad District went to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 2005 for employment. He had borrowed money from his relatives. The employer didn’t pay him salary. The persons who had given him money were pressurizing his family members and his son to repay the money. Vexed with the pressure of the people his 14 year old son Prashant committed suicide by hanging himself. This was not inform to his father. When he couldn’t talked to his son for so many days he came to know that he committed suicide due to the harassment of the people.

S. Ediga’s first birthday last month was bereft of any lavish celebrations in Metuchen, New Jersey. Instead, the $4,000 (Rs.232,000) saved on the party and gifts was donated for a noble cause – 10 widows of Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region.

“It was a tough decision. But my wife Sireesha, daughter Surina (6 years) and my parents, who had come down from Andhra Pradesh were very supportive and encouraged me to go ahead,” the boy’s father, software developer Suresh Ediga, told IANS over the phone from New Jersey.

On Saturday 15th June 2013, the Senior Citizens group at Bhartiya Samaj Charitable Trust (BSCT) stood together with one voice to oppose Elder Abuse. On the day when World Elder Abuse Awareness is commemorated worldwide, 200 senior citizens members of BSCT with purple ribbons tied around their wrist and several volunteers with purple badges, gathered at the Mt. Roskill War Memorial Hall, May Road, Mount Roskill, Auckland to unite and oppose the social ill of Elder Abuse.

External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Tuesday lauded the gesture of Saudi Arabian Government to grant three months respite to Indian immigrant workers overstaying or illegally residing in that country. “All those people who were there and did not have their complete paperwork or passports or those whose work visa had expired or those people who had received the visa for some work and were doing another, they did not have the right to live there as per the laws of the country or any country for that matter,” he said.

A married Indian couple have won the right to stay in Australia, for now, after seeking refugee status claiming they might be killed if they returned to India as they are from different castes.

A court in Canberra ruled in favour of the couple who hail from Punjab after their plea for refugee status was rejected by Australian immigration and refugee authorities.

However, there is still a chance of them getting deported as the authorities have appealed against the ruling of the Federal Circuit Court in Canberra in a higher court, The Canberra Times reported Saturday.