Many mosques all over the US held special prayers services for the victims of the Boston terrorist bombings
The prayer services were held in congregation during the early afternoon Friday Sabbath services. More are planned for Friday evening and on the weekend.
Washington, Apr 20 (ANI): Following the revelation that the suspect of the Boston Marathon bombings is a Muslim, an extra layer of fear that rides along with the news of a possible terror attack has been created among the country’s Sikh community that they will be blamed for the attacks. Although blaming an entire ethnic group for the actions of two young men has no rational basis, however, Amardeep Singh, the program director of the Sikh Coalition, said that he has seen worse, adding that Sikhs have often been targeted after terrorist attacks, the Huffington Post reports.
Indian-American student Sunil Tripathi, who had been missing since mid-March, was today wrongly identified on social media websites as one of the two suspects responsible for the Boston Marathon terror attack.
The social media and part of the mainstream media was abuzz with rumors that 22-year-old Sunil, who went missing on March 16 and they have still not been able to find him, was the “possible suspect” in the Boston bombing that killed three persons and wounded nearly 180 others.
Indian IT bellwether Wipro Ltd is studying the impact of the US immigration bill drafted by a group of eight senators, chairman Azim Premji said Friday.
“We appreciate the bipartisan work of the ‘gang of eight’ senators to work towards comprehensive immigration reform and address issues of critical importance for the US. We are reviewing and evaluating the impact of the bill, which is 800-page document,” Premji told reporters here.
The proposed changes to the US immigration law submitted on Wednesday by the “gang of eight”, the bi-partisan group in the US Senate, would increase the number of employment based green cards, directly benefitting applicants from India and China.
An Indian-American orthopaedic surgeon, who participated the ill-fated Boston Marathon, emerged as a ‘hero’ by providing first aid to victims after the twin bombings ripped through a cheering crowd, killed three people and injured over 180 others.
Dr Vivek Shah, who works at New England Baptist Hospital in Boston, was about to cross the finish line when he was put to the ultimate test. Shah and his running mates heard a loud boom, but weren’t sure what had happened. So they continued toward the finish line. Then came the second blast.
Melbourne, Apr 18 (ANI): According to the Australian press, the racist attacks on Indian students are still a major concern for Indians, who still believe that Australia is a dangerous place for Indian students. Stating that most Australians often do not realise the scale of the Indian media”s reaction to the student attacks, the Age added that the negative perceptions of Australia, created by the attacks, has deeply infiltrated Indian society.
An expert witness, who appeared in an Irish court, has said that Indian dentist Savita Halappanavar would have survived if her pregnancy had been terminated days before she died of blood poisoning, last October.
“The real problem was the inability to terminate prior to Mrs Halappanavar developing a real or substantive risk to her life. By that time it was effectively too late to save her life,” Dr Peter Boylan, one of Ireland’s most eminent obstetricians, said in his statement during the inquest at Galway Courthouse on Wednesday.
New Zealand Indian Diaspora should be ready to be immersed once again in the upcoming Mushaira and Ghazal night in Auckland.
Urdu Hindi Cultural Association of NZ (UHCANZ) is committed to provide the speakers of Urdu and Hindi a rich experience of these great languages in the form of poetic symposium called Mushaira in Urdu and Kawi Sammelan in Hindi. The program will reach its epitome on the tunes of Urdu Ghazals, intoned by most popular singers in New Zealand.
Like many of his colleagues, Indian origin deep space navigator Shyam Bhaskaran devotes a great deal of time to crafting, and contemplating, computer-generated 3D models of asteroids.
But while many of his coworkers are calculating asteroids’ past, present and future locations in the cosmos, zapping them with the world’s most massive radar dishes, or considering how to rendezvous and perhaps even gently nudge an asteroid into lunar orbit, Bhaskaran thinks about how to collide with one.
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr Wednesday welcomed findings of a survey that indicates Indians see Australia as a good place to visit, live, work and study.
The survey by the Lowy Institute for International Policy and the Australia India Institute indicated that Australia was viewed as a country that was friendly to India, with attractive values, strong educational institutions and a sound political system, said a statement.
Carr said the survey confirmed the strength of Australia-India ties.
A 25-year-old Indian student has been sentenced to 10 years in jail by a British court for raping a TV star in her hotel room after a birthday party.
Soby John, a porter, used another worker’s key card to let himself in before attacking the woman celebrity as she slept after a night of heavy drinking with her friends.
John, who admitted rape, will be deported to India after serving his sentence, British tabloid ‘The Sun’ reported today.
Indian IT professionals in the US have welcomed the proposed immigration bill on several counts, particularly the Green Card, introduction of merit-based visa and increase in H-1B visa quota.
Thousands of Indian IT professionals, most of whom here work on the H-1B visa, are jubilant over the proposal which would give them a 60-day period to find a new job after they lose the existing one.
Under the current provision, an IT professional has to leave the country the same day if they lose their job.
The proposed changes in the issuing of H-1B visas, the highly sought after US work permits, will badly affect the Indian IT firms which depend heavily on these work visas.
The changes under the Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) put a curb on use of H-1B visa for those companies which have a higher ratio of work force under this category.
Most of the Indian companies will fall under this classification.
The companies will also have to shell out more fee to get a H-1B visa, if the draft legislation is cleared by the Congress and is signed into law by the US President.
A young Indian-American economist from the Harvard University, whose pioneering work was cited by US President Barack Obama in his last year’s State of the Union Address, has won the prestigious John Bates Clark medal, often described as the ‘Baby Nobel’.
Delhi-born Raj Chetty, a professor in the Department of Economy at the Harvard University since 2009, has been declared the winner of this year’s award.
The John Bates Clark medal is awarded to an American economist under the age of 40 who is adjudged to have made a “significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge”.
Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao has sought a generous American visa policy for high-skilled workers from India saying it would help both countries to come out winners.
As US policymakers move forward with efforts to reform the immigration system, “we respectfully urge that they consider the impact of their decisions on the ability of both US and foreign-based companies to expand now and in the future,” she wrote in an opinion piece in the USA Today
Sikh-Americans joined 25 religious leaders from across America to set up markers on the national mall to honour victims of gun violence, including six Sikh worshippers killed at an Oak Creek, Wisconsin, gurdwara last August.
Exhorting the US Congress to pass legislation to limit access to firearms, the peace activists created a mock cemetery on the mall Thursday by installing more than 3,300 crosses, Stars of David, Hinduism, Sikhism and Islamic symbols.
An Indian-origin school laboratory technician and her two daughters have been found dead under mysterious circumstances at their home in northwest London.
Heena Solanki, 34, was found dead along with Prish, 4, and Jasmine, 9, at their Ruislip home in London on Friday, according to the police.
“Police were called at approximately 6.40 pm on Friday. The deaths are being treated as unexplained at this stage,” a Scotland Yard spokesman was quoted as saying in the local media today.
Washington, April 11 (IANS) Thousands of immigrants and activists held a rally at the US Capitol to urge Congress to overhaul the immigration system for over 11 million illegal immigrants, including some 260,000 Indians, living in the shadows.
The show of support for comprehensive immigration reforms came Wednesday even as the so-called Gang of Eight senators – four Democrats and four Republicans – announced they were close to a deal after weeks of negotiations.
Washington, April 12 (IANS) An influential group of Indian-American doctors has proposed a comprehensive legislative agenda to end the shortage of physicians in the US, which would need a staggering 130,000 doctors by 2025.
Members of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), representing thousands of Indian-American doctors, spent Thursday in the Capitol Hill meeting lawmakers to press their agenda.
This includes a provision for green cards for physicians graduating from accredited US residency programmes in the proposed comprehensive immigration reform bill.
Most Americans support creating a pathway to citizenship for America’s over 11 million immigrants, including some 260,000 Indians, with a shorter timeline than that contemplated by Congress, according to a new poll.
With the Senate close to considering an overhaul of immigration laws, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll also found that nearly two-thirds favour giving citizenship to those who came to the US illegally and now hold jobs.
Described by President Barack Obama as a “trailblazer”, Chandigarh-born Indian-American legal luminary Srikanth ‘Sri’ Srinivasan appears poised to become the first South Asian judge in a US appeals court.
Srinivasan, currently the principal deputy solicitor general of the US, Wednesday headed toward confirmation to the prestigious US Court of Appeals for the American capital “often called the nation’s second-highest court” with little opposition from Republican senators.
A midwife has apologised for telling Indian dentist Savita Halappanavar, who had a miscarriage, that she could not have an abortion in Ireland because it was a “Catholic country”.
Ann Maria Burke admitted she made the remark to dentist Savita in University Hospital Galway just days before she died after giving birth.
According to Irish media reports, the senior midwife said she had been trying to explain the law of the land after the 31-year-old said she was a Hindu and she would have ended her pregnancy in her home country.
Amritsar, April 10 (ANI):The Sikh diaspora on Wednesday demanded justice for victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in wake of a Delhi Court setting aside the CBI closure report on the role of senior Congress leader Jagdish Tytler.
They stated that even after 28 years, justice had not been delivered to the families of the victims.
They also questioned as to why the culprits involved in that pogrom were still scot free in various parts of the country.
President Barack Obama is making a hard push for the Senate confirmation of a Chandigarh-born Indian-American legal luminary, Srikanth ‘Sri’ Srinivasan, to what is “often called the nation’s second-highest court”.
If confirmed Srinivasan, 45, who in August last year was named principal deputy solicitor general of the US, succeeding another Indian American, Neal Kumar Katyal, would create history as the first appeals court judge of South Asian heritage.