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Indian cooks dish up meals for US military in Iraq |
He hails from Tamil Nadu but he learned to cook pancakes, eggs and chopped fruit for the 10,000 American soldiers’ breakfasts at a US army base in Iraq. He also learned to cook chicken, buttered noodles, macaroni, lasagne, beef and caramel custard the way the hungry fighters like. Two years later his contract was complete and Rasoolshah Nagoor Meerranpillai returned to India.
He is one among hundreds of Indian cooks recruited by agencies in Mumbai for jobs in Kuwait, Dubai and Amman. They are however sent onwards, and end up in Iraq, assigned there by companies who have sponsored them to work in the Mid East. Indian recruiters deny any knowledge of the cooks being sent to Iraq, adhering to India’s governmental advisory stipulating that workers from India are not to be sent to Iraq.
The cooks who are mainly from Mumbai, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal go to Iraq with the tasty promise of dollar salaries, some of whom say they were paid $400 plus compulsory overtime, with raises every six months. Sadly they save little as they initially paid hefty amounts to the recruiting agents to get them the jobs.
As one cook said, the Americans treated them well, though he had an initial problem cooking pork, as he is a Muslim. The cooks were quite taken with the Certificates of Appreciation they were given by the US military for their services.
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Indian school principal convicted for illicit sex
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A US court has sentenced a former Indian American headmistress of an exclusive Manhattan Montessori school to a maximum of 14 years in prison for a sex liaison with an underage male student.
Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Carol Berkman said Lina Sinha’s offences become all the more “culpable” as she comes from an advantageous background. “She is intelligent, educated, well-raised, hardworking and beautiful, and she is a predator. She abused the position of trust she had with the victim. She took a great deal, I think, from (the victim),” the judge observed. Sinha has two master’s degrees from Columbia University.
The victim, now a 24-year policeman, had alleged that he was only 13 when Sinha, more than twice his age, began sexual relations with him saying that she loved him and that one day they would marry. She, he said, taught him to reach her bedroom above the school by sneaking past the security cameras installed by her parents, who owned the institution. She stocked her room with video games and kept him there weekends at a time.
The prosecution said the two had sexual intercourse for the first time when the boy was 15. They allegedly met at a number of places including a school van and their relationship ended when the student was transferred to another school at age 17.
Assistant District Attorney Florence Chapin asked Berkman to sentence her to the maximum possible time. Sinha could be paroled after about five years.
Her lawyer said he would file an appeal against the conviction and the judge allowed her to remain free on a bail of $3.5 million
bail.
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Fiji National Soccer Team US Tour
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After a fast-paced but clumsy scrimmage in a sports park in Hayward, California, seasoned Uruguayan soccer coach Juan Carlos Buzzetti gathered his players around him in a circle. “The air is different, the ground is different, the sun is different from where you come from,” the ponytailed 62-year-old coach intoned. “Without adjusting, you can’t do things.”
It was the first time in more than 15 years that Fiji’s national soccer team had touched American soil, and the current crop of players was struggling somewhat with the fancy field turf at Oliver Sports Park. For a team accustomed to the heat and humidity of the South Pacific, this week’s seemingly pleasant Hayward weather—sunny, breezy, dry and in the high 60s F—also was a bit of a system shock. “It’s very cold here,” said 19-year-old striker and rising star Roy Krishna, sniffling and wearing a knit cap. “But we’ll adjust.”
The Fiji Football Association’s nearly two-week tour of the Bay Area has been a source of huge anticipation for many in the East Bay’s substantial Fijian immigrant community.
“All of my friends are going,” said Hayward resident Rajesh Chand, 38, who took a break from his work as a machine operator to watch the scrimmage. “Everyone is asking me where the games are.” Chand moved to California from Fiji about a decade ago but knows many of today’s national players by name.
Raveen Rama, 60, who lives and coaches in Hawaii but was visiting his daughter in Hayward this week and came to the sports park to scout the talent, said much has changed since he grew up in Fiji playing backyard soccer in the 1960s. “They really groom them up now. It has improved a lot, and I think the standard of soccer in Fiji is comparable now to New Zealand, and probably getting closer to Australia,” Rama said.
“Get used to the ground,” the coach yells during the scrimmage. “Get used to the ground!” After a few hours, the players appeared to be better adjusted. The well-liked Buzzetti took the reins of the cash-strapped team late last year after coaching in the neighboring island nation of Vanuatu. A native of Uruguay, Buzzetti has lived in the South Pacific since the 1970s. “Football is a passion for me,” he said. He added that he is trying to build up a first-rate operation while also respecting the fact that for many Fijian families, education trumps professional sports—especially when even the country’s top players don’t get paid very much.
Saiyad Ali, 37, Fiji’s assistant coach and a former player, said he hopes Buzzetti’s decades of experience will help propel Fiji into the Pacific Games later this year. Meanwhile, Khan’s hope is that more exposure outside of Fiji might help some young players get college scholarships abroad. Buzzetti said he was blown away by the treatment his team got in Hayward.
The feeling was mutual. Ronald Mani, a 42-year-old Hayward resident who was in the Fijian national team when it visited the US in 1989, said he was impressed with the team’s professional attitude. “Our boys used to drink, party all the time,” said Mani, who serves as pastor of a local Christian church. “But these guys, no, man. The standard of soccer is getting high.”
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| British Indians trickling back home |
It is the return of the natives. The Times, London, recently reported that 32,000 naturalised Britons of Indian origin have already made their way back to India, with a view to cash in on the booming economy.
Punjabi immigrants are leading the way. “The community is prosperous. The younger generation has been attracted back by better prospects, no discrimination, and better schooling for their children,” said Southall-based Krishna Bhatia, who migrated to London in 1973. His nephew is studying in Delhi and intends to settle there.
Priyanka Raizada, 23, a law graduate from Essex University, was offered a good starting salary by a London firm, but opted for a job in Delhi instead. “A few years ago, it would have been considered unthinkable,” she says. “In Delhi, I have an apartment, a car and enjoy a better quality of life, though in terms of pounds, I get half the salary.”
With the PIO and dual citizenship schemes, there are no visa restrictions — an inducement for those wanting to retain British passports.
The booming medical tourism sector in India has also helped. There are doctors like Sisir Ray, a general practitioner in England for over three decades, who now does ‘consultancy practice’ in India.
And it is not just the elderly who want to come back to India. “The number of young people has been increasing significantly,” says Bikhu Parekh, who studied Asian families in Britain. The passage back to India is part of a bigger trend besetting Britain. While Parekh claims 10 out of 100 Britons are leaving the country, a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research, published on December 11, stated that around 200,000 left the country last year with single tickets to various
countries.
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No plans for single-window recruitment: Vayalar Ravi |
Union Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi has said there are no plans to introduce a single-window recruitment system for labourers coming to work in the Gulf countries from India.
“We don’t have any plans to eliminate recruiting agencies as they offer plenty of job opportunities across the country. But we are regulating all their activities,” he said.
The ministry took some measures including harsher penalties and jail term for fraudulent agents, Ravi said.
“The UAE and India are currently monitoring all the activities of recruitment agencies and both countries are working together to uplift the living standards of the workforce,” he told today’s edition of the Khaleej Times.
Ravi said the proposed NRI university project would be finalised within six months and would start operation soon.
“The funds for the university would be raised from NRIs,” he said.
Regarding measures taken to protect domestic workers’ rights, Ravi said, “We took stringent measures such as mandatory attestation by the Indian missions while hiring domestic workers and special monitoring in the airports.”
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| Indian American veteran assaulted by cop in Illinois |
The Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund has called upon the Joliet Police Department to investigate the actions of one of its officers when patrolling a local neighborhood.
On Friday, March 30, 2007 at around 3:00pm, Kuldip Singh Nag, a Sikh American who was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in the US Navy during the first Gulf War, was at his home in Joliet, IL, when a local police officer noticed that a van parked on Nag's private property had expired registration tags. Upon being confronted with this, Nag's wife, Vera Kaur, informed the officer that the van is parked on their driveway and was inoperable.
At this moment, the officer pulled out his pepper spray and attacked Nag. As Nag screamed in agony, the officer removed his baton and violently struck Nag numerous times until he fell to the ground. While the assault ensued, the officer was reported by both Mr. and Nag as saying, "You f****** Arab! You f****** immigrant, go back to you f****** country before I kill you!"
Nag's wife and six year-old child both witnessed the violent assault, which resulted in Nag being admitted to the hospital where he stayed for five days due to a serious head injury which have caused him to go blind for several minutes at a time.
"This case seems to be a clear incident of police misconduct in Illinois," said SALDEF Managing Director Kavneet Singh. "We are horrified at the anti-immigrant sentiment the officer allegedly used as he violently accosted Nag, and further that his six year old son was a witness to this violent assault.” |
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