NRIs Corner

An Australian man will face attempted murder charges after a horrific hit-and-run incident in Melbourne that left a 27-year-old Indian-origin man hospitalised in a serious condition.

Amandeep Singh was hit by a car more than once when he was taking a walk on Chandler Road, Noble Park, in Melbourne Tuesday, local media reported.

Shannon Marchant, 21, who was on the wheel of the Holden Commodore, appeared briefly in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court Wednesday afternoon.

Indian American Muslim Council (http://www.iamc.com) an advocacy group dedicated to safeguarding India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos today denounced and strongly condemned the custodial death of Khalid Mujahid, at the hands of the Uttar Pradesh state police. IAMC also condemned the brutal attack on Mr. Mujahid’s counsel, Advocate Mohammed Salim, and the ransacking of the chambers of other advocates related to the case [1].

Ahead of the second US-India Homeland Security dialogue here Tuesday, the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans has sought expanded cooperation between the two countries on internal security issues.

Indian Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, who arrived here Sunday, will be co-chairing the dialogue with the US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. He will also meet Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert S. Muller and the US Attorney General Eric Holder, before leaving for Boston Tuesday evening.

With the general elections over, Malaysia’s largest ethnic Indian political party will discuss on Friday its forthcoming organisational polls that have been postponed since last year. Newly-appointed party secretary-general A Sakthivel said the party elections would be among the issues to be discussed at the Malaysian Indian Congress central working committee (CWC) meeting. He said the CWC meeting would also discuss the party’s performance in the May 5 general election, where it won only four of nine parliamentary seats and five out of 18 state seats contested.

A NRI, running a NGO here for HIV-AIDS afflicted, was found dead under mysterious circumstances at his rented accomodation here Monday, police said.

While police claimed that it appeared to be a case of suicide, the deceased – Shivanand Dunker George Khan – had polythene was wrapped around his face with a rubber band tying it around his neck.

Police officials however told IANS that since the door was bolted from inside and he was all alone in the room, suicide seems to be the only plausible cause of death.

(Syed Mujeeb) Indian diaspora witnessed last night a unique amalgamation of languages, Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi in the form of a Poetic Symposium known as Mushaira in Urdu and Kavi Sammelan in Hindi. After the successful and popular event last year, Urdu Hindi Cultural Association of NZ organized it again this year with a mix of national and international poets and renowned guests.

The program started with a very popular traditional genre of music known as ‘Ghazal’ in Urdu where participants sing famous couplets of Poetry composed in mesmerising tunes.

The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC -www.iamc.com ), an advocacy group dedicated to safeguarding India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos has expressed a deep sense of loss over the demise of noted activist Asghar Ali Engineer.

The number of Hindus migrating to the US every year has more than doubled in the last one decade, with an overwhelming majority of them coming from India, a new study released today said. An average of about 30,000 Hindus were admitted each year in the 1990s, by contrast, the US admitted an estimated 70,000 Hindu immigrants in 2012, the prestigious Pew Research Center said in its latest report on religious affiliation of immigrants released today.

An Indian-origin woman in Trinidad & Tobago, who sold a winning lottery ticket, stands to get a part of the 20.4 million Trinidadian dollars (approx $3.17 mn).

An official of this country’s National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB) said Kamla Bhooklal was entitled to “a fixed percentage of the prize money”, the Trinidad & Tobago Express reported Friday.

However, the winner has remained a mystery with no one coming forward to claim the prize till the news report was filed.

The NLCB official said the winner has 180 days to claim the money.

Indian American software magnate Vivek Ranadive, who has become the first person of Indian descent to become the owner of a major US basketball team, plans to build the Sacramento Kings into a global brand.

“It’s going to be exciting,” he told the USA Today after securing an agreement to buy 65 percent of the Kings from the Maloof family for a National Basketball Association (NBA) league-record valuation of $535 million.

An Indian police unit in the Democratic Republic of Congo has received the United Nations Peacekeeping Medal.

The 135 Indian Formed Police Unit-2 (FPU) was honoured with the medal as an appreciation for their service in Goma/North Kivu.

The medal parade, held at the FPU camp in Goma May 15 was attended by senior officials, including Jacques Desilets, United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) deputy police commissioner, said a statement.

The Indian unit has served in Democratic Republic of Congo since November 2005.

Chandigarh-born Indian-American legal luminary Srikanth ‘Sri’ Srinivasan has moved a step closer to making history as the first South Asian judge on the US Court of Appeals for the American capital.

Srinivasan, 46, who in August last year was named principal deputy solicitor general of the US, succeeding another Indian American, Neal Kumar Katyal, Thursday won unanimous approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

(By Syed Mujeeb) Air New Zealand continues its leadership in the digital space teaming up with Google to showcase its Air New Zealand Fairy website at Google’s annual developer conference – Google I/O – in San Francisco.

Jodi Williams, Head of Global Brand Development at Air New Zealand, says it’s an honour to be one of just 70 companies in the world to be invited to show its product at this week’s event.

“Air New Zealand recognises the importance of social media and prides itself on its innovation in this space.

Singapore, May 16 (IANS) Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has come in for appreciation from the Indian community in that country for including more members from the ethnic Indian community in his new cabinet, a media report said.

The new cabinet comprises two ministers and four deputy ministers of ethnic Indian origin.

A South African medical body found an Indian-origin doctor not guilty of misdiagnosing after a suspected heart attack patient died the day he was discharged from a Durban hospital in 2008.

The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) also cleared Soojatha Hariprasad of Netcare Umhlanaga Hospital of charges of failing to take a complete history of the patient, failure to admit him for further observation and failure to keep adequate clinical notes, the Independent Online reported Thursday.

(Syed Mujeeb) One of the most well known New Zealanders and a respected member of the Indian community has been appointed as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bank of Baroda (New Zealand) Limited.

Dr Rajen Prasad, who has been a Director of the Bank since its operations began in 2009, has the distinction of being the first local head of the fast growing bank with three branches, one each in Auckland City, Wellington and Manukau.
Announcing the appointment, the Bank’s Auckland based Managing Director Navin Upreti said that Dr Prasad brings immense value to the post.

The United States is looking to triple the number of Americans going to India for higher studies in the next five years. “That is still far from our goal of 15,000 in five years,” Tara Sonenshine, the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, told the visiting Human Resources and Development Minister, Pallam Raju, in a roundtable interaction earlier this week.

The body of an Indian woman, who committed suicide Sunday in her apartment in Bahrain’s capital Manama, will be repatriated to her Coimbatore city home in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

According to officials of the Indian embassy, authorities in that Gulf nation have issued a death certificate confirming that Seethalakshmi Vinoth had died of hanging, the Gulf Daily News reported Wednesday.

“If a death certificate has been issued, it means all investigations are over,” the report quoted an embassy official as saying.

New Delhi, May 15 (ANI): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria and three others for murder charges in connection with the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter killing case. Kataria is the second high profile politician to be named in the alleged fake encounter case after former Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah, who is considered close to Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Two Indo-Canadians from different parties were among the winners in the provincial elections in British Columbia, Canada, media reported Wednesday.

While Amrik Virk of the Liberals, who swept back to power in the province, was declared elected from Surrey-Tynehead over the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) Avtar Bains, incumbent Raj Chouhan of the NDP held on to his seat in Burnaby-Edmonds in a close fight against Jeff Kuah of the Liberals, the Vancouver Desi reported.

Twenty-nine diaspora students from seven countries called on Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi Tuesday, a statement said.

The participants in the 24th Know India Programme (KIP) hail from South Africa, Malaysia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Trinidad & Tobago, Mauritius and Canada.

The participants had a two-day interactive session in Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) and visited Aurobindo Ashram, Rajghat, Akshardham Temple and other prominent tourist places in Delhi.

They also visited Lucknow, Banaras and Agra and the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh.

New Delhi, May 14 (ANI): Renowned Indian American health expert Mukesh Hariawala will address the fourth edition of the India Leadership Conclave 2013 in Mumbai next month.

Harvard trained and internationally acclaimed Indian American healthcare economist and cardiac surgeon Dr Mukesh Hariawala will deliver the keynote address with the theme ” President Barack Obama 2nd Term – Business Implications on Indian Healthcare “.

The Ministries of Labor and Interior has announced that, the Haj and Umrah overstayers who arrived in the country before July 3, 2008, can work for private companies or as domestic workers. As part of its major concessions, the ministries have also declared that the illegal workers will be allowed to leave Saudi Arabia during the three-month grace period, who have violated the residence and labor regulations, without paying any fines. The Huroob or runaway workers will also be allowed to get back to their current sponsors or transfer to another.

India has sought more institution level academic collaborations with the US to help build a robust vocational education system through community colleges to prepare the global workforce of the 21st century.

“The workforce of the future will be global, their skill sets requiring international acceptance,” Indian Minister of Human Resource Development, M. Mangapati Pallam Raju, said here Monday at a policy briefing in support of the US-India Higher Education Dialogue.

Nearly half of over $61 billion sent by expatriates in the Gulf countries in 2012 went to India, according to new data.

A total of $29.69 billion was sent as remittances by Indian expatriates living in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states in 2012, the arabianbusiness.com reported Monday citing the World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief.

The GCC comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The Indian remittances accounted for 49 percent of the total remittances sent from the Gulf nations last year.