Indian-origin businessman joins Business and Sustainable Development Commission! September 14, 2016 10:49
A Singapore-based Indian-origin businessman joined the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, which aims to help accelerate sustainable growth in agri-business. Indian-origin Sunny Verghese is co-founder and CEO of Singapore's agri-business group Olam International Limited. He joins a host of leaders from the private sector, academia and civil society, who are committed to accelerating the world's transition to inclusive and sustainable growth. Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, Chair of the Business Commission, said that, "The world cannot achieve sustainable development without the full engagement of the food and agriculture sectors, which are critical to achieving not just one, but the majority of the Global Goals." "Sunny's leadership in agri-business will be essential to increasing the number of leaders who understand the incredible opportunity for both growth and sustainability in this sector." Verghese said that, "One of the meanings of the word Olam is 'enduring' or 'everlasting'. I believe the only way we can build an enduring business is to put sustainability at the heart of our business. This is reflected in 'Growing Responsibly', our core purpose, which guides us to pursue profitable growth in an ethical, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable way." "I am excited to join the Business Commission, as it seeks to inspire and catalyse companies to embed sustainability at the core of their businesses and aims to foster collaborations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030," he added. The SDGs was launched in 2015. It aims 17 ambitious targets to end hunger and poverty, reduce inequality and tackle climate change by 2030. Also Read: Indra Nooyi 2nd most powerful woman in Fortune list! Nandini
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Indian-American teenager's open letter to PM Modi on Kashmir unrest! August 03, 2016 10:21
An Indian-origin teenage girl in the United States has written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi pleading that the voices of agitating Kashmiris be heard. A 17-year-old NRI Fatima Shaheen, based in Georgia state of the US, wrote in the letter, that, "Dear Mr PM, if we cared for Kashmir people, we wouldn't find ways to turn off all communications in the Valley only to further deprive them of freedom, we'd open up all means for their voices to be heard. Because isn't that all Kashmir people are asking for? (sic)." "Everyone wants Kashmir, but no one cares for the people of the land. Because if we cared for Kashmir people, we wouldn't care of people's opinion on whether Burhan Wani was a militant or a martyr, we'd try to understand why an ace student chose to continue his career holding a gun rather than a pen (sic)," she wrote. "Mr PM, I see the newsflash, the attack in Nice, France, is screened followed by the attempted military coup in Turkey, along with the report on the monsoon rains in southern India. But where is the news on Kashmir? Is this why I never knew what was going on in my hometown for such a long time, Sir? (sic)" she asked. Also Read: Kashmir violence: Modi chairs high-level meeting, Rajnath cancels US visit Nandini
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NRI architect launches bamboo structure design in Australia! July 29, 2016 10:31
An Indian-origin architect launched the designs of Australia's largest bamboo structure, that will be used for festival processions in the country. The renowned NRI Bijoy Jain designed the 12-metre-high tower in the Queen Victoria Gardens of the Melbourne city, Australia. The creation will reflect a connection between "earth, sky and the shared gravity". Naomi Milgrom Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that supports various public design and architecture projects said in a statement that, "MPavilion 2016 would be similar to tazia (a ceremonial tower structure used in festival processions in Bharuch)." Jain said while displaying the design, that, "MPavilion 2016 structure would use basic elements like bamboo, earth, stone and rope. The pavilion is in itself a gesture reflecting this internationally recognised architects' interest in the connection between earth, sky and the shared gravity that connects all humans." "The idea is not to guide observers but to allow discoveries through visual layers of thinking, making and seeing," he said. Jain and his craftsmen were working in Mumbai over the past six months. They have tested and designed MPavilion 2016 through a series of models and full-scale prototypes. "I wanted to create a space that connects the entire culture of the land," he said. Naomi Milgrom AO, the founder of MPavilion, said that, "Bijoy's practice is unique in that. It focuses on honouring age-old crafts and building-techniques which resonate strongly in this technologised world.” "Mpavilion has become one of Australia's most significant architectural and design projects, playing a leading role in celebrating and promoting good design and sparking a public conversation about its value," Minister for Creative Industries Martin Foley said. Also Read: Indian-origin scientist leads team to develop drones that navigate like birds Nandini
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British-Indian hotelier Ranjit Singh Power dead body found June 02, 2015 11:17
It seems the mysterious missing case of British-Indian hotelier Ranjit Singh Power has been solved by the police of Punjab as two friends of him claimed to have identified his caracas, which was recovered from Bhakra Canal on Pehowa Road. The body was reportedly recovered from the canal on Monday evening and the same was shown to Ranjit Singh's friends Gulshan and Darshan Singh. However, the police officials have not confirmed the body as London's Grade II-listed Ramada Park Hall Hotel owner's death. They are awaiting for the identification by his kins. His daughter Emma Power and son Gian Power have approached the police in London and have announced $25,000 to find him. A case was filed against his friend and UK citizen Baldev Singh for apparently kidnapping him from the airport on May 7th. Further reports can be expected once his son and daughter arrives in India. -Kannamsai
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Rahul Gupta gets Life Sentence in US May 28, 2015 11:52
An Indian-American has been sentenced to life for killing his friend Mark Waugh allegedly for cheating him with his girlfriend. He was convicted in 2013’s fatal stabbing charges by a US court. The 25-year-old George Washington University graduate student, Rahul Gupta, has changed his version in court multiple times in these 2 years. Rahul, described to police that he caught his friend Waugh cheating with his girlfriend on October 13, 2013, in his high-rise apartment in Silver Spring. He walked in on them and killed his friend by stabbing and slashing 11 times. He knew Waugh right from his high school days. The deceased was a first-year law student at the Georgetown University. Image Credits: Washington post -Kannamsai
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Indian-origin millionaire Ranjit Singh Power missing mystery May 27, 2015 12:17
The members of British-Indian hotelier Ranjit Singh Power family have raised the reward amount from £10,000 to £25,000 to find him. Family members have no communication with him since he left for India on May 7. The owner of London’s Grade II-listed Ramada Park Hall Hotel is suspected to be kidnapped as per his family members. His daughter Emma Power and son Gian Power have approached police officials for finding him. Accused kidnapper NRI Baldev Singh Deol has been pleading his innocence and he told police about receiving the British-Indian hotelier from the airport on May 7th and dropping him Phagwara on May 8. He also said that he had no communication with Power since then. The Punjab police officials are reportedly planning to seek help from Interpol to investigate the mysterious disappearance case. -Kannamsai
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Indian-American Scientist Latha Venkataraman designed single-molecule electronic device May 26, 2015 17:47
The fast and reliable technological devices with single molecule electronic instruments, likely to come into reality in this decade. Researchers Columbia Engineering have created a single-molecule diode under the guidance of an Indian-American scientist Latha Venkataraman. The newly developed single-molecule diode has been showing excellent performance and speed 50 times better than that of existing ones. "Our new device represents the ultimate in functional miniaturisation that can be achieved for an electronic device," said Latha Venkataraman. The size of electronic devices is coming down and the molecular electronics or nanoscience has become crucial. The report, which was published on May 25 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, mentioned that the idea of developing single-molecule diode was suggested by Arieh Aviram and Mark Ratner. The duo theorised in 1974 that a molecule could act as a rectifier. Developing miniatures with enhanced performances can bring down the size of devices. -Kannamsai
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Eastern European autocrats pose new test for democracy September 30, 2013 17:05
A 40-minute drive south-west of Budapest, Felcsut is a typical Hungarian village on the surface, its cottages strung out neatly along either side of the long main street. Untypical of the Hungarian countryside, however, is the frenzy of building activity here. Private security guards watch over armies of men in hard hats, bulldozers, and cranes toiling in the sweltering heat to complete a fancy football stadium dwarfing the pretty cottage gardens and vegetable patches. Then there are half a dozen practice pitches plus a "football academy" named after Hungary's soccer saint, Ferenc Puskás, the Real Madrid maestro of the 1960s. The village of 1,800 seems a strange location for such an investment. But Felcsút is also home to Viktor Orbán, Hungary's powerful prime minister who is a football fanatic and has changed the law to facilitate such developments. Megalomania? Vanity project? Or just another aspect of the dizzying pace of change in Hungary since Orbán and his Fidesz party won a landslide in elections three years ago? Orbán has given Hungary a new constitution and hundreds of new laws, sometimes reckoned to amount to one a day, including changes to the tax code making business investment in, and sponsorship of sports, tax-deductible. The result has been a bonanza for the village where he grew up and keeps a family house. According to two independent Hungarian media investigations, businesses donated some 6bn forints (£17m) to football projects in Hungary last year. Staggeringly, almost half of that total flowed to Orbán's village. The bounty suggests that Hungary's businessmen are very eager to please their strongman prime minister who enjoys an electoral mandate that other leaders in Europe can only dream about, but is also broadly seen to be abusing that mandate to establish a system perpetuating his power. "There is a very clear tendency of concentrating power and deciding everything on his own," says Péter Molnár, a civil rights activist and former close associate of Orbán. "They're very seriously weakening democracy in Hungary. He has changed things to concentrate power in his hands." But the Hungarian leader is not alone in eastern and southern Europe, where democratically elected populist strongmen increasingly dominate, deploying the power of the state and a battery of instruments of intimidation to crush dissent, demonise opposition, tame the media and tailor the system to their ends. In Russia and Turkey, the two big former imperial powers that bracket Europe to the east and south, president Vladimir Putin and prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lash out aggressively at opponents, trying and jailing opposition figures and routinely resorting to violence to crush peaceful protest. They are both popular and utterly dominate their national politics. In Romania last year, the prime minister, Victor Ponta, attempted what was widely seen as an abortive constitutional coup to unseat and impeach his rival and enemy, president Traian Basescu. He failed. In Prague, president Milos Zeman has sought to exploit a government crisis to boost his power. The Czech Republic is a parliamentary democracy under cabinet government, but when the government collapsed under the weight of a corruption scandal in June, Zeman moved to appoint a close ally as a technocratic prime minister. Parliament has revolted, voting against Zeman in a confidence vote last week, and on Tuesday the cabinet resigned, clearing the way for early elections which could resolve the deadlock. With the exception of Russia, where democratic standards are far weaker, all these power-hungry leaders have been democratically elected and are careful to operate within the letter of the law. "I'm sure he believes there should be fair and free elections, but the system he's building now is working against those principles," says Ákos Maróy, an IT specialist and freedom of information campaigner at Atlatszo, of Orbán's tactics. "Orbán is really world class at doing things in a way that is, or at least looks, formally legal when often it is obvious they are abusing the law," says Molnár, who shared student rooms with Orbán as law students in the 1980s and was a co-founder of Fidesz with Orbán in 1988, a year before the collapse of communism across the region. He quit Fidesz in the 1990s. While the different countries vary hugely in their politics, the strongmen leaders tend to exhibit strikingly similar characteristics and often resort to identical tactics. Orbán, Erdoğan, and Putin head political parties or elites very much focused on and dominated by the leader. Molnár describes Orbán's approach to policymaking as follows: "There might be some very limited discussion, but I'm telling you the result, and I'm doing it for the good of my country." Like Putin and Erdoğan, Orbán also views politics as a zero sum game where the winner takes all. Opponents are reviled as extremists and traitors. Whether genuinely believed or used simply as a populist tactic, paranoia about foreign plots is regularly invoked to disarm critics. Nationalist rhetoric is used to brand opponents as unpatriotic puppets of foreign powers. "There is an anti-Hungarian campaign," says Enikő Győri, the minister for European affairs. "Foreign businesses are going to Brussels to complain about new taxes. Some in Europe say we're reducing democracy. It's not true. But the new constitution, plus the speed of reform and legislation, is seen as politically incorrect in Europe. Our critics say stupid things and that provokes anti-EU sentiment." She sees Orbán as a visionary leader bent on restoring Hungary to regional prominence and arresting a long process of national decline: "No one wants to reshape the borders in Europe, but we want to survive. The long-term vision is that the Hungarian people has to survive, and for that you need more children. "The population is declining. It's awful. It's frightening. If you want to survive in the Carpathian basin, if you want these people to remain, we maybe need more Hungarians. You need to encourage people that it's a good thing." "Crisis management needs fast, decisive action. That's exactly what our leader is doing," says Balázs Orbán, a constitutional lawyer at the pro-government thinktank, Szazadveg. "He's a role model for others in eastern Europe. He's capable of many things that other European leaders couldn't do." With a two-thirds majority and the Hungarian parliament effectively reduced to a rubber stamp for the prime minister's will, Orbán can do whatever he wants. But his antics have brought him in conflict with Brussels. The latest spat involves a highly critical and detailed report from the European parliament demanding a special EU monitoring system to scrutinise Orbán's actions. Events in Hungary have caused Berlin and other EU capitals to call for a EU system of monitoring democracy in the 28 member states, with penalties for perceived transgressions. It appears that such calls will gain traction in Brussels this year. A tone of authoritarian nationalism pervades the discourse of the Orbán government, according to critics. A Fidesz declaration after Orbán's landslide interpreted his mandate as "a new social contract" for the country. "Hungarians decided to create a new system, the national co-operation system… It is shared by every Hungarian inside or outside the country… It is not only an opportunity, but a requirement for every Hungarian," with the parliament and government "obliged by the Hungarian nation to take the helm in this endeavour". Molnár describes such language as "Orwellian, a total lie," a throwback to the language of the 1930s. Orbán's government ordered the declaration to be hung prominently in every public building. Outside parliament on the banks of the Danube in Budapest, the large park area that has frequently been the site of political protests has also been cordoned off and turned into a giant building site. Under Orbán, the site is being redeveloped into a replica of how it looked in the 1930s under the authoritarian regime of Admiral Miklos Horthy. There has been no opposition of note, in contrast to Turkey, where last month's protests, crushed by teargas and water cannon, were sparked by the prime minister's determination to destroy an Istanbul park also to build a 1930s replica of a military barracks and mosque. If Orbán, Erdoğan and others share an intolerance of dissent and an aversion to pluralism, these tendencies are most sharply felt in the media. The instruments of control range from the legal framework, regulators packed with political cronies, state media homogenisation, private media in the hands of loyal businessmen and oligarchs who depend on government contracts for their wealth and discourage critical reporting or holding policymakers to account. Orbán brought in a controversial media law that centralised and homogenised all news production for state television, radio, and the national news agency and appointed all five members of the regulatory media council. "They've succeeded in domesticating and chilling the media. You don't get jailed or shot like in Russia. But you lose your job," says Bodoky. "Censorship is internalised," adds his colleague, Maróy. "People are protecting their livelihoods, behaving as they're expected to. That's what is happening." Other instruments commonly wielded to coerce loyalty and punish dissidence include the selective use of tax inspectors to intimidate business leaders and individuals, and the awarding of government contracts and licenses. Orbán, for example, brought in a new system of tobacco sales licensing, destroying around 40,000 small family businesses then reissuing some 5,000 licences in an operation that critics and independent journalists say was used to reward cronies and buy loyalty to the government. He is also giving citizenship and the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of Hungarians outside the country. They will be able to vote for the first time in general elections next April. The expectation is they will vote for the party that gave them that right, helping Orbán to another term. Gordon Bajnai, an opposition leader and former prime minister, described the political project in Hungary last week as the building of "Orbánistan", citing the Felcsút football stadium as a typical example. Tamás Bodoky, an investigative journalist who runs the freedom of information website, Atlatszo, describes the Felcsút football project as "pure feudalism", somehow symptomatic of the new climate being wrought by Orbán in Hungary. "He is a very clever and a very authoritarian person. He's a control freak," says Bodoky. "He knows very well how the state works. He's putting all his officers in all key positions and has no respect for independent institutions that can control or limit his power." But Orbán's supporters – and he remains far ahead in the opinion polls – insist that the leader is simply daring to "deviate" from the European mainstream and put his country first. They are confident that Hungary and Orbán, who utterly dominates national politics, are winning. Others are less sure. "It's a really tragic story," says Molnár. "It's a drama of how a very talented political person is being destroyed by his own hubris. I think he's lost."
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Australia's foreign aid spending September 30, 2013 17:02
Australia was once considered one of the world's most generous aid donors. More recently, Canberra has been criticised for pushing back plans to increase aid spending and for diverting money from overseas development projects to help pay for controversial asylum-seeker schemes at home and in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Oxfam has accused the government of treating the aid budget like an ATM machine and Samah Hadid, from the Global Poverty Project, has lamented that, as Australians prepare to vote in September's federal election, the country's major parties have shown "the weakest global poverty commitments in years".
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Germany exporting old and sick to foreign care homes September 30, 2013 16:54
Growing numbers of elderly and sick Germans are being sent overseas for long-term care in retirement and rehabilitation centres because of rising costs and falling standards in Germany. The move, which has seen thousands of retired Germans rehoused in homes in eastern Europe and Asia, has been severely criticised by social welfare organisations who have called it "inhumane deportation". But with increasing numbers of Germans unable to afford the growing costs of retirement homes, and an ageing and shrinking population, the number expected to be sent abroad in the next few years is only likely to rise. Experts describe it as a "time bomb". Germany's chronic care crisis – the care industry suffers from lack of workers and soaring costs – has for years been mitigated by eastern Europeans migrating to Germany in growing numbers to care for the country's elderly. But the transfer of old people to eastern Europe is being seen as a new and desperate departure, indicating that even with imported, cheaper workers, the system is unworkable. Germany has one of the fastest-ageing populations in the world, and the movement here has implications for other western countries, including Britain, particularly amid fears that austerity measures and rising care costs are potentially undermining standards of residential care. The Sozialverband Deutschland (VdK), a German socio-political advisory group, said the fact that growing numbers of Germans were unable to afford the costs of a retirement home in their own country sent a huge "alarm signal". It has called for political intervention. "We simply cannot let those people who built Germany up to be what it is, who put their backbones into it all their lives, be deported," said VdK's president, Ulrike Mascher. "It is inhumane." Researchers found an estimated 7,146 German pensioners living in retirement homes in Hungary in 2011. More than 3,000 had been sent to homes in the Czech Republic, and there were more than 600 in Slovakia. There are also unknown numbers in Spain, Greece and Ukraine. Thailand and the Philippines are also attracting increasing numbers. The Guardian spoke to retired Germans and people needing long-term care living in homes in Hungary, Thailand and Greece, some of whom said that they were there out of choice, because the costs were lower – on average between a third and two-thirds of the price in Germany – and because of what they perceived as better standards of care. But others were evidently there reluctantly. The Guardian also found a variety of healthcare providers were in the process of building or just about to open homes overseas dedicated to the care of elderly Germans in what is clearly perceived in the industry to be a growing and highly profitable market. According to Germany's federal bureau of statistics, more than 400,000 senior citizens are currently unable to afford a German retirement home, a figure that is growing by around 5% a year. The reasons are rising care home costs – which average between €2,900 and €3,400 (£2,700) a month, stagnating pensions, and the fact that people are more likely to need care as they get older. As a result, the Krankenkassen or statutory insurers that make up Germany's state insurance system are openly discussing how to make care in foreign retirement homes into a long-term workable financial model. In Asia, and eastern and southern Europe, care workers' pay and other expenses such as laundry, maintenance and not least land and building costs, are often much lower. Today, European Union law prevents state insurers from signing contracts directly with overseas homes, but that is likely to change as legislators are forced to find ways to respond to Europe's ageing population. The lack of legislation has not stopped retired people or their families from opting for foreign homes if their pensions could cover the costs. But critics of the move have voiced particular worries about patients with dementia, amid concern that they are being sent abroad on the basis that they will not know the difference. Sabine Jansen, head of Germany's Alzheimer Society, said that surroundings and language were often of paramount importance to those with dementia looking to cling to their identity. "In particular, people with dementia can find it difficult to orientate themselves in a wholly other culture with a completely different language, because they're very much living in an old world consisting of their earlier memories," she said. With Germany's population expected to shrink from almost 82 million to about 69 million by 2050, one in every 15 – about 4.7 million people – are expected to be in need of care, meaning the problem of provision is only likely to worsen. Willi Zylajew, an MP with the conservative Christian Democrats and a care service specialist, said it would be increasingly necessary to consider foreign care. "Considering the imminent crisis, it would be judicious to at least start thinking about alternative forms of care for the elderly," he said. Christel Bienstein, a nursing scientist from the University of Witten/Herdecke, said many German care homes had reached breaking point due to lack of staff, and that care standards had dropped as a result. "On average each patient is given only around 53 minutes of individual care every day, including feeding them," she said. "Often there are 40 to 60 residents being looked after by just one carer." Artur Frank, the owner of Senior Palace, which finds care homes for Germans in Slovakia, said that was why it was wrong to suggest senior citizens were being "deported" abroad, as the VdK described it. "They are not being deported or expelled," he said. "Many are here of their own free will, and these are the results of sensible decisions by their families who know they will be better off." He said he had seen "plenty of examples of bad care" in German homes among the 50 pensioners for whom he had already found homes in Slovakia. "There was one woman who had hardly been given anything to eat or drink, and in Slovakia they had to teach her how to swallow again," he said. German politicians have shied away from dealing with the subject, largely due to fears of a voter backlash if Germany's state insurers are seen to be financing care workers abroad to the detriment of the domestic care industry.
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Russia Energy Deals with East Asia September 30, 2013 16:44
Russia has consummated some huge energy deals with China in recent weeks. These deals are – or at least are being advertised as – major steps forward in the Russo-Chinese energy relations, Russia’s pivot to Asia – which uses big energy sales to upgrade its influence and standing – and the development of the energy base in Eastern Siberia, the Arctic and the Far East. All seen in Moscow as necessary preconditions for Russia’s return to the stage as a great, independent Asian power, and as a major energy player for years to come. In the biggest deal, worth an estimated $270 billion, Rosneft agreed to supply CNPC (China National Petroleum Corporation) with 365 million tons of oil over 25 years. In return, CNPC has apparently made a pre-payment to Rosneft of around 70 billion. The deal represents 15 million metric tons of crude oil annually for 25 years, at just over $10 billion each year. The oil will probably go through the existing Eastern Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) pipeline to Daqing, China Rosneft will also sell LNG (liquefied natural gas) from a terminal it is planning with Exxon Mobil on Sakhalin to Japanese trading firm Marubeni and the Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development Company, another Japanese company. Novatek, an independent gas producer, has meanwhile granted CNPC a 20% stake in its LNG project on the Yamal Peninsula in the Arctic. CNPC will become an “anchor customer” and import 3 million tons of natural gas annually. It is worth observing who got what from these deals to determine their significance. In Japan’s case, the deal with Rosneft clearly betokens a gradually improving energy and political relationship between Russia and Japan and probably presages other future deals – if a Russo-Japanese peace treaty and determination of the Kurile Islands can be signed and if Japanese concerns about Russian business can be allayed. This deal also hints at a growing Russian – or at least Rosneft – capability to sell LNG, an area where Rusia has lagged and which has cost it significantly as the international gas market changes. To the degree that it can develop an indigenous LNG capacity Russia benefits, especially in East Asia. But while Japan gains modestly and has hopes for the future, Gazprom – the leading gas company in Russia and chief rival to Rosneft and Novatek – has lost again in these recent deals. Although it says it is pivoting to Asia, there is still no gas deal with China despite constant announcements that one was forthcoming. The giant may be setting up a special-purpose company to manage development of a 15 million-ton LNG facility in the Far East, but Gazprom is clearly well behind its rivals in that region. Indeed, Gazprom’s entire record, going back a decade, has revealed a consistent stubbornness when it comes to selling gas of any kind to the Far East, a factor that has allowed its rivals to steal several marches. Just as Gazprom has lost a round, there appear – at least at first glance – to be significant advantages for Novatek and Rosneft. These companies will now be allowed to sell LNG abroad, signaling an end to Gazprom’s monopoly on gas exports. Moreover, they will clearly be active in the Arctic, the next great frontier of Russian energy, and with Chinese as well as Western companies. Rosneft in particular benefits in a number of ways. Rosneft and Transneft had already secured $25 billion from China in 2009 to build the ESPO oil pipeline and cover their very high indebtedness. With the recent acquisition of TNK-BP, Rosneft once again incurred huge debts that this prepayment will alleviate. Reportedly, it faced debt maturities between now and 2015 of $6.6 billion, $15.9 billion and $16.2 billion annually, so this new infusion greatly improves its balance sheet and allows it to show a real cash position, even though its working capital will be negative. This could attenuate future financing risks.
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Another NRI mother wants Indian Govt to release her son from foster home May 01, 2012 18:07
After the custody row of NRI children settled with the intervention of the government of India, a NRI woman from Sweden approached the mother of Norway children seeking her help in releasing her son from the government’s custody. The NRI mother in Norway has forwarded the request of Annie Johansson to the chairman of the National Human Right Commission with copies to the president, the prime minister, external affairs minister and home minister. According to NRI woman in Norway, Annie migrated to Visby in Norway and settled there in 2000. She gave birth to Domenic Johansson in 2001. After a couple of years, in 2009, the Swedish authorities took Domenic away from her mother and kept him in an emergency foster home on stating the Domenic’s mother was not taking proper care of her son. Anie has alleged that Swedish authorities don’t know anything about Indian culture and traditions. Annie was formerly known as Nirmal Kumar Bharos and was a resident of Pune. She changed her name after she married Christopher Johannson in India. The Government of India is yet to respond to the plea of Annie that was forwarded by NRI woman in Norway. (Phani)
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