The Indian embassy in Riyadh has received around 15,000 passports of Indian workers in Saudi Arabia, facing cases of running away from their local sponsors and other violations, from that country’s foreign ministry.
Most of the passports were handed over to the Saudi authorities by the Saudi sponsors, local media reported Monday.
Dubai,An expatriate Indian man and his three-year-old daughter in Bahrain have been forced to rough it out in the open for the last six months after a business deal went sour.
A desperate Mohammad Sikandar Samrat and his daughter Sara have been living in a park, mosque and car since November 2012 as his daughter does not have a passport and he is yet to get 65,000 Bahraini dinars owed to him by a Bahraini businessman, the Gulf Daily News reported Monday.
The father-daughter duo was forced out in the open after his wife and their youngest daughter left for India in November last year.
From corporate America to Indian techies to Indian-Americans with family ties to their native land – all are lobbying hard to influence changes in the proposed immigration law that has started moving through the US legislative labyrinthine.
Concerned that some “aggressively protectionist” provisions in the bipartisan legislation proposed by the so-called Senate gang of eight would adversely affect US-India trade ties, a leading association of over 300 US firms doing business with India is engaging a lobbying firm as it once did to push the landmark India-US nuclear deal.
Canada’s Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by convicted Indo-Canadian killer Raminder Bhander who claimed that his rights were violated by the police.
Bhander had approached the country’s top court after his appeal was rejected by a court of appeal in the Canadian province of British Columbia in November 2012, the South Asian Link reported. Bhander was convicted in July 2010 and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years for killing another Indo-Canadian man in 2008.
Hundreds of Indian women, mainly from the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, are entering Bahrain on forged visit visas to work as domestic helps, a media report said Saturday.
Unscrupulous recruitment agents are helping these women, who mainly come from poor backgrounds and are willing to pay a large amount of money to work in the Gulf nation, which is causing a major problem for Bahraini families, the Gulf Daily News reported.
Expressing concern over increasing “abduction” of American children to India, an influential lawmaker has said that the country has been a source of immense frustration and grief for parents in the US.
“India has been a source of immense frustration and grief for American parents,” said Congressman Christopher Smith, chairing a Congressional hearing on “Resolving International Parental Child Abductions to Non-Hague Convention Countries”.
Washington, May 9 (ANI): Senior Asian-American leaders met with President Barack Obama and senior staff in a meeting that has been called a ‘meaningful’ discussion on immigration, health care and civil rights.
The meeting with Obama on Wednesday is the first time that the president met with top officials from the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community.
According to Politico, the sit-down centered around comprehensive immigration reform that is making its way through Congress.
A court in New Zealand has given lengthy jail terms to two men of Indian origin for raping and abducting a 15-year-old girl in 2011.
The high court of Hamilton sentenced Benjamin Nilesh Goundar, 24, and Ashumendra Prasad, 27, to 16 years and 15 years in prison, respectively, for raping and abducting the 15-year-old and abducting her 17-year-old cousin in December 2011, local media reported Thursday.
The two had targeted the teenaged girls while they were walking on Boundary Road in Hamilton one night that December.
The bi-partisan group of eight US Senators has come out with eight killer provisions in its comprehensive immigration reform bill, which if passed by the Congress, may prove to be detrimental to the interests of major Indian IT companies.
The Senators, also known as the gang of eight, has put forward provisions in the bill, which when signed into law by the President, can harm the interests of Indian IT companies and professionals.
Durban, May 8 (IANS) The Indian-origin mayor of a South African town has said that he would claim damages from an officer for subjecting him to a racism slur.
Afzul Rehman, the mayor of Newcastle in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, has alleged that the officer in the town’s Road Transport Inspectorate (RTI) had called him a ‘Gupta’ in reference to a recent controversy-ridden wedding in an India-origin family in the country who go by the surname of Gupta, according to local media.
Rehman said the officer also told him to return to India if he was offended.
Durban, May 8 (IANS) South African gold-mining company AngloGold Ashanti has appointed Indian-origin Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan as it new chief executive officer with immediate effect.
“We’re extremely pleased to have an executive of Mr Venkatakrishnan’s calibre to lead AngloGold Ashanti through the next phase of its development,” Tito Mboweni, chairman of the Johannesburg-headquartered firm said in a statement Wednesday.
The Indian embassy in Riyadh has asked Indian workers in Saudi Arabia to either regularise their stay or return to India in view of the new labour policy in that country.
In a statement issued Monday, the embassy called upon the Indian community to participate in an ongoing campaign to help those Indian workers affected by the Nitaqat or Saudisation policy, which makes it mandatory for all Saudi companies to reserve at least 10 percent jobs for Saudi nationals.
Abu Dhabi Airport has been installed with “GoSleep” sleeping pods, which lets travellers take a quick nap before boarding a plane.
The ‘pods’ are essentially chairs that convert into private flat beds, the Herald Sun reported.
There have been 10 pods installed in Terminal 1 and 3, with an extra 35 due to be fitted later this year.
According to airport authorities, the chairs, which include a sliding shade, will isolate the passenger from noise, light and crowds.
Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry has asked foreigners staying illegally in the country to take advantage of the three-month grace period to regularise their situation.
The ministry in a statement said that there will be no extension of the grace period and there will be a zero-tolerance policy for those who fail to regularise their status.
According to Gulf News, the ministry said that expatriates who were staying illegally should get their status rectified from concerned authorities.
Dubai, May 6 (IANS) A 26-year-old Indian man drowned after he went for a swim at a Bahrain beach.
The body of Sajith Somarajan Pillai was Sunday found on the Al Jazair beach of the country, the Gulf Daily News reported Monday.
According to police, though the death is not being treated as suspicious, investigations are still on.
Achu Sreenivasan, a friend of Pillai, said he was with the victim on the beach when the latter decided to go for a swim Saturday.
Durban, May 6 (IANS) A controversial wedding in an Indian-origin family in South Africa has allegedly created a rift between President Jacob Zuma and African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, a media report said.
The wedding in the influential Gupta family got hit by controversy when a chartered aircraft carrying guests from India landed at an air force base at Waterkloof near Pretoria April 30.
Dubai, May 4 (IANS) A musical extravaganza featuring Bollywood personalities in Bahrain drew hundreds of people.
Batelco Mega Fair 2013 was hosted Friday by St Mary’s Orthodox Syrian Church at the Indian School in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, the Gulf Daily News reported Saturday.
Bollywood singer Benny Dayal and Indian playback singer Swetha Menon performed live.
Actors Ramesh Pisharadi, Sajan Palluruthi, Saju Kodiyan, Pramod Mala and Devi Chandana also appeared on stage.
Johannesburg, May 5 (ANI): The wealthy Gupta family has apologized for the scandalous family wedding in South Africa, but the apology might have come a little too late since several officials, including a top diplomat, were suspended for their parts in the controversy. The Gupta family, which owns The New Age newspaper and Sahara Computers, was celebrating the wedding of Vega Gupta, 23, to Indian-born Aaskash Jahajgarhia at Sun City in North West, reports News24.
Dharamsala, May 5 (ANI): In the wake of recent brutal assault and death of Sarabjit Singh, kin of Indian prisoner of war in Himachal Pradesh on Sunday hoped for the safety of their relative reportedly languishing in a Pakistan jail. Sarabjit Singh”s tragic ordeal has shaken the family of missing Indian Army Captain K.C Sharma living in the hilly town of Dharamsala.
Johannesburg, May 4 (ANI): President Jacob Zuma has welcomed the investigations into the landing of a Gupta family-chartered jet at the Waterkloof Air Force Base, but emphasised that the investigation should not be allowed to impact negatively on the relations between South Africa and India.
Zuma’s spokesperson Mac Maharaj in a statement said that the president is kept abreast on the steps that are being taken to establish what happened in order to prevent a recurrence, and to ensure that whoever is found to have breached regulations and procedures is brought to book.
An Indian American student at a US university has won the changing entrepreneurship and outstanding teaching awards at an annual awards ceremony for co-founding a company that can detect bacteria in water.
Nisarg Patel of the Arizona State University (ASU) was given the awards at the annual Pitchfork Awards ceremony in the institute for co-founding HyrdoGene Biotechnologies, the College Times reported Friday.
According to Patel, his group creates biosensors that can detect bacteria in water.
An Indian-origin man has been arrested in Canada in connection with the 2012 murder of another Indian-origin man.
Dinesh Suntharalingam, 23, was arrested from his home at Markham in the Greater Toronto Area of the Canadian province of Ontario in connection with the killing of Sathiyaraj Mahindran, media reported Friday.
The body of 21-year-old Mahindran was found at the edge of river Welland in King’s Bridge in the Niagara area April 21, 2012. He was reported missing the same day.
Police charged Suntharalingam with second-degree murder.
Thursday May 2nd, 2013
The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC -www.iamc.com ), an advocacy group dedicated to safeguarding India’s pluralist and tolerant ethos lauded the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), for calling on the Obama administration to maintain a visa ban on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for his role in the pogrom of 2002, that claimed over 2,000 lives and displaced over 150,000.
A wedding in an influential Indian origin family in South Africa got further mired in controversy after allegations of racism at the event.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has levelled allegations of racism against guests in the Gupta family wedding at Palace of the Lost City five-star hotel in Sun City.
Johannesburg, May 3 (ANI): Indian High Commissioner in South Africa Virendra Gupta has created a furore after landing a chartered jet at Waterkloof Air Force Base to carry guests for his niece”s wedding. Gupta, however, said that special permission to land a chartered jet at Waterkloof – a national key point – was obtained for security reasons. The Gupta family, which owns The New Age newspaper and Sahara Computers, is celebrating the wedding of Vega Gupta, 23, to Indian-born Aaskash Jahajgarhia at Sun City in North West, reports News24.