Washington, Jun 8: Indians account for more than three-fourths of those highly-skilled professionals waiting in queue to obtain legal permanent residence status in the US, popularly known as Green Card, according to latest official figures.
As of May 2018, there were 395,025 foreign nationals waiting for Green Card under the employment-based preference category. Of these 306,601 were Indians, according to the latest figures released by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
This does not include counts of dependent beneficiaries associated with the approved immigrant petitions, it said.
India is followed by a distant second China, which currently has 67,031 Chinese waiting for the Green Card. Thereafter none of the other countries have more than 10,000 people waiting for Green Card. Other countries are El Salvador (7252), Guatemala (6,027), Honduras (5,402), Philippines (1,491), Mexico (700) and Vietnam (521).
Under the existing law, no more than seven per cent of the Green cards may be issued to natives of any one independent country in a fiscal year. As such Indians have the longest waiting period for Green Card.
Indian-Americans, most of whom are highly skilled and come to the US mainly on H-1B work visas, are the worst sufferers of the current immigration system which imposes a seven per cent per country quota on allotment of green cards or permanent legal residency.
As a result, the current wait period for Indian skilled immigrants for green card can be as long as 70 years.
According to a newly-launched group, GCReforms.org, under the current regulation, skilled immigrants from India need to wait anywhere between 25-92 years for a Green Card due to per-country limits.
The US Green Card, also known as the permanent resident card, gives the holder permanent residence in the United States. Green Card holders can legally live and work in the US. The Green Card is the first step toward US citizenship.
New Delhi, Jun 7: President Ram Nath Kovind will not host an Iftar party this year at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
“After the President took over office, he decided there would be no religious celebrations or observances in a public building such as Rashtrapati Bhavan on taxpayer expense. This is in keeping with the principles of a secular state and applies to all religious occasions, irrespective of religion,” said Ashok Malik, Press Secretary to the president.
He said the president of course wishes all fellow citizens on every major religious festivals.
After a gap of a decade there will be no Iftar celebrations at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Iftar parties have been traditionally hosted at the Rashtrapati Bhavan except during the tenure of A P J Abdul Kalam, who was the president from 2002-2007, officials said.
Vienna, Jun 6 : Iran said it was in “preparatory works” to restart nuclear activities in the event of the failure of the 2015 accord between Iran and world powers.
In such a scenario, Iran could “restart its activities without any limits,” Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Reza Najafi told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the IAEA’s board in Vienna.
The future of the deal — known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — has been thrown into doubt after US President Donald Trump announced last month that the EU would withdraw from the accord and re-impose sanctions.
The preparatory works mentioned by Najafi refer to steps to boost uranium enrichment capacity by producing new centrifuges, as outlined on Tuesday by Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi, who heads the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation.
Najafi said that in addition Iran had notified the IAEA of a plan to restart activity at its uranium conversion facility in Isfahan to produce the UF6 feedstock for centrifuges.
The IAEA confirmed on Tuesday that it had “received a letter from Iran on 4 June informing the Agency that there is a tentative schedule to start production of UF6”.
However, Najafi emphasised that the measures do “not mean that right now Iran will start any activities contrary to the JCPOA”.
The remaining signatories to the pact have been scrambling to find ways to preserve the accord since Trump’s announcement.
Last month a senior Iranian official said European powers had until the end of May to come up with an economic package to compensate Iran for the effects of the US withdrawal.
On Wednesday Najafi said that negotiations were still continuing at an expert level but that it could not be an “endless process” and needed to be concluded “very soon”.
Asked about the IAEA’s call for Iran to provide “timely and active cooperation” with the inspections mandated under the JCPOA, Najafi said that Iran had interpreted this as encouragement to extend voluntary invitations to the agency to conduct inspections.
However he said that “while Iran is not benefiting from the deal, no one should expect Iran to implement… voluntary measures”.
Mumbai, June 6 : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday raised its key policy as the Repo rate by 25 bps to 6.25 per cent, in its second bi-monthly meeting of this fiscal.
The reverse repo rate under the LAF stands adjusted to 6.0 per cent, and the marginal standing facility rate and the Bank Rate to 6.50 per cent.
The six-member monetary policy committee of RBI headed by Governor Urjit Patel on Wednesday bit the bullet and hiked the repo the short-term lending rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 per cent.
This was the first rate hike by the Indian central bank in four-and-a-half years, since the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government was voted into office in May 2014.
The central bank kept cash reserve ratio (CRR) and statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) unchanged at 4 per cent and 19.5 per cent
The MPC kept its policy stance to ‘neutral’. It was MPC’s second bimonthly policy review of this financial year
The Ethiopian government led by new premier Abiy Ahmed announced a slew of reforms on Tuesday, including ending its border dispute with Eritrea and opening key economic sectors, among them Ethiopian Airlines, to foreign investment.
Both steps represent major policy changes by Abiy, the first prime minister in modern Ethiopia from the country’s largest ethnicity the Oromo who took office in April after years of anti-government protests and political turmoil.
A former province, Eritrea became Ethiopia’s bitter foe after a 1998-2000 border conflict followed by Ethiopia’s refusal to accept the ruling of a UN-backed boundary commission that divided up contested territory between the two countries.
In a surprise announcement that came on the same day as parliament’s repeal of a nationwide state of emergency, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) said it would “fully implement” the boundary commission’s 2002 decision.
“The Eritrean government should take the same stand without any prerequisite and accept our call to bring back the long-lost peace of the two brother nations as it was before,” the EPRDF wrote on Facebook.
Since the formal end of the border conflict, Ethiopia and Eritrea have taken starkly different paths, with Eritrea growing increasingly isolated while Ethiopia has exerted power across the region, fuelled by an economy that has expanded at one of the fastest rates in Africa.
But a shortage of foreign currency is seen as threatening that economic growth, which dropped to 8.5 percent this year from 10.9 percent in 2017, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Looking to increase the players in the economy, the ruling party said it would sell minority stakes in Ethiopian Airlines and the sole telecom company Ethio Telecom to foreign investors — a reversal of years of policy that closed those sectors to outsiders.
The move would “enable Ethiopia-born citizens living abroad who’ve long wished to work on the development of their country, and… foreigners who have the knowledge and foreign currency, to play a positive role in our growth,” said the statement issued after a meeting of top EPRDF officials.
Colombo, Jun 6: Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s UNP won the secret ballot in parliament today for the deputy speaker’s position left vacant by the resignation of Thilanga Sumathipala, a loyalist of President Maithripala Sirisena.
UNP nominee Ananda Kumarasiri was elected deputy speaker with 97 for and 53 against in the 225-member assembly while 25 members were absent from the house. Kumarasiri’s defeated rival Sudarshani Fernandopulle is another Sirisena loyalist.
Sumathipala and 15 other Sirisena loyalists had walked out of the government in April after they voted against Wickremesinghe in a no-trust vote.
“We have gone on the basis that two for the government and one for the opposition in parliamentary positions. We want to retain that position,” Wickremesinghe said referring to an argument by R Sampanthan, the main opposition leader, that Sirisena loyalists should be appointed for the vacancy by consensus.
The group of 16 Sirisena loyalists now align with former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s joint opposition. However all three Rajapaksas – Mahinda, brother Chamal and son Namal – were not present in the house when the secret vote was taken.
The parliamentary competition between Sirisena loyalists and the president’s unity government partner UNP followed last week’s anti-UNP outburst from Sirisena who blamed the UNP for bungling in governance.
The ruling party however has chosen not to respond to the president’s public criticism.
Jerusalem, Jun 6: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Iranian plan to increase its nuclear enrichment capacity was aimed at producing nuclear weapons to be used against Israel.
“Two days ago Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, stated his intention to destroy the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said in a video. “Yesterday he explained how he would do it — by unlimited enrichment of uranium to create an arsenal of nuclear bombs”.
“Yesterday he explained how he would do it — by unlimited enrichment of uranium to create an arsenal of nuclear bombs.” “We’re not surprised,” Netanyahu said in the video from Paris, where he was to meet French President Emmanuel Macron.
“We won’t let Iran obtain nuclear weapons,” he said.
Iran yesterday notified the International Atomic Energy Agency of its plan to open a centre for the production of new centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment, according to the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi.
Salehi stressed the announcement did not mean they will start assembling the centrifuges, and “does not violate the (2015 nuclear) agreement” between Tehran and world powers.
Under the 2015 agreement, Iran can build parts for the centrifuges as long as it does not put them into operation within the first decade.
On Sunday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called Israel a “malignant cancerous tumour” that should be removed.
Netanyahu was visiting European leaders to discuss Iran’s regional involvement and nuclear programme, both seen by the Jewish state as grave threats.
European powers have been scrambling to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal since US President Donald Trump announced Washington’s withdrawal from the treaty last month.
New Delhi, June 6: Misplaced sympathy for the accused is harmful for the criminal justice system, a Delhi court has said while refusing to set aside the three-year jail term awarded to a man for illegally possessing a pistol.
Special Judge Rakesh Kumar upheld the sentence awarded to convict Anil Kumar, a south Delhi resident, by a magisterial court in 2016 under the Arms Act.
“The sentence must take into account the gravity of the offence and its nature, otherwise it can seriously undermine the respect of court of law. Misplaced sympathy for accused is harmful for criminal justice system,” the judge said.
The judge, while rejecting the convict’s appeal against the trial court order, held that he was rightly convicted and the sentence awarded to him was also not excessive.
“The appeal is without merit and accordingly the same is dismissed,” the court said.
According to the prosecution, the police received a tip off that a gang of snatchers was scheduled to arrive at a market near Saket on September 29, 2013.
A raiding team of police officers was formed and they nabbed two persons, including Kumar and recovered a country-made pistol from him, it said.
He was arrested under section 25 (illegal possession of arms and ammunition) of the Arms Act and charge sheet was filed. The court framed charge against him in 2014.
In its August 2016 judgement, the magisterial court convicted him and sentenced him to three years imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 25,000.
Challenging this order, the convict contended that the weapon recovered from him was planted by the police to falsely implicate him.
He further claimed that there was no independent prosecution witness in the trial.
However, the court rejected this contention saying non examination of independent witnesses was not fatal to the case and testimonies of police officials cannot be disregarded altogether in the absence of such witnesses.
Aizawl, Jun 5 : Ten people were killed and another injured when a building was swept away by a landslide triggered by heavy rains in the Lunglawn area of south Mizoram’s Lunglei town, police said today.
It was raining heavily last night in the Lunglawn area when the landslide hit the building killing 10 people, they said.
The Lunglei District Disaster Response Team and local volunteers rushed to the spot to rescue people, police said.