Friday, July 27, 2007

இங்கிலாந்தில் இந்திய டாக்டர்களுக்கு விசா கடினமாகிறது

இதுவரை இந்தியாவிலிருந்து வரும் டாக்டர்கள் மற்றும் தொழில் நுட்பவியலாளர்களுக்கு கடினமான பரிசோதனைகள் ஏதும் இருந்ததில்லை. இது மாறுகிறது.

இனி இந்தியாவிலிருந்து வரும் மாணவர்கள், டாக்டர்கள், தொழில்நுட்பவியலாளர்களுக்கு பரிசோதனைகளும் விசா மறுத்தல்களும் அதிகமாகும் என்று கூறுகிறார்கள்


Biometric visas must for all UK visitors
26 Jul, 2007, 0718 hrs IST,Rashmee Roshan Lall , TNN


LONDON: Everyone applying to enter the UK for longer than six months will need to procure biometric visas from March, Britain’s prime minister Gordon Brown has announced as part of his urgent new counter-terrorism strategy, unveiling a scheme that no longer makes a distinction between countries like Pakistan presumed to be “high-risk ” and the rest of the world.

Less than a month after Britain suffered three separate, botched car-bomb attacks allegedly led by Bangalore engineer Kafeel Ahmed, his doctor brother Sabeel and other West Asian medics, Brown said recent experience indicated the UK urgently needed to double the 28-day period currently allowed to police to detain suspected terrorists without charge.

The changes to Britain’s visa policy mean that Indians and other nationals of countries not currently classified as “high-risk ” would need biometric or electronically-verifiable visas to enter the country.
In a nod to the ongoing prosecution of Sabeel and his alleged West Asian conspirators in the London and Glasgow attacks, even as Kafeel remains critically ill with 92% burns, Brown pointed out that “during the recent period six people had to be held for 27 or 28 days.”

Sabeel was charged a full 14 days after he was detained for questioning, thereby becoming the first Indian to be accused of overseas terrorist activities.

Another of the Ahmed brothers ’ alleged conspirators, Dr Mohammed Asha, was charged nearly three weeks after he was originally picked up by police.

Sketching out the global spread of the terrorist threats to Britain, reaching as far away as into India, Brown told parliament on Wednesday that the London and Glasgow attacks “were the 15th attempted terrorist plot on British soil since 2001”; that “the police and security services are currently having to contend with around 30 known plots, and monitor over 200 groupings or networks and around 2,000 individuals” and longer detention without charge of suspects was essential because “there may be huge quantities of material evidence to be analysed and there is a need for assistance from other countries.”

The London and Glasgow attacks prompted British police and security services to launch an investigation spanning three continents and multiple countries.

The British government’s proposed change to detention without charge is highly controversial and considered a politicallysensitive counter-terrorism measure , with opposition parties and activist groups arguing it will curtail key civil liberties embedded in the British way of life.




Indians under visa scannerFULL COVERAGE
Vijay Dutt , Hindustan Times
London, July 10, 2007
First Published: 02:02 IST(10/7/2007)
Last Updated: 02:29 IST(10/7/2007)


With many students from the “hot spots” of Islamist unrest thought to obtain visas to study in Britain and then “go under the wire” by failing to show up for their courses when they arrive, Indian students are sure to come under the visa scanner.

A Tory spokesman said the student visa loophole had to be tackled soon. Damian Green, shadow Home Office minister, told The Daily Telegraph: “If someone does not show up for their course and explain immediately, their visas should be cancelled at once. It’s an appalling loophole.”


• Most of them are in the Mid-lands and the North, according to a ‘risk map’ of terrorist threats

• All areas have a large segment of Pakistanis, Mirpuris and Bangladeshis

Lord Bikhu Parekh, associated with the London School of Economics, told HT it was sad that students from India would now come under the same kind of scrutiny as their colleagues from West Asia.

In the United States, following 9/11, American consulates started extensive interviews of applicants and rejected many. Parekh feared that Britain too would now start scrutinising students applying from India more thoroughly. “It is sad, but that is the reality. This will entail delays. I also expect that apart from university authorities, MI5 and MI6 could keep a watch.”

Writer Farookh Dhondy, on telephone from Frankfurt, however, disputed the focus on “Indian”. He said: “Most (referring to arrested doctors) are British educated and a few in Saudi Arabia — and that is what is important. Just being an Indian does not matter.”

“There is no jehadi Islamist philosophy in Bangalore. This jehadi Islamist has been picked up from (the) Wahabis in Saudi Arabia and followers of the Muslim Brotherhood in Britain,” he argued.

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