New Delhi: Demanding a halt in the implementation of the Nitaqat law in Saudi Arabia, the BJP on Saturday said in Delhi that it would work against Indian interests. "The Nitaqat scheme shall primarily work against the Indian interests. A minimum of two to three years moratorium to implement it is demanded," said BJP's Convenor of Overseas Affairs Vijay Jolly.
Under Nitaqat, it is mandatory for local companies to hire one Saudi national for every 10 migrant workers. Over 300,000 firms in Saudi Arabia reportedly do not employ any locals and the Nitaqat policy seeks to deal firmly with this.
Indian missions in Saudi Arabia are scrambling to help over 55,000 Indian workers leave the kingdom in adherence to the new policy. Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid is in Jeddah to discuss matters of bilateral interest, including the Nitaqat law.
The Indian embassy in Riyadh and the consulate in Jeddah and other centres in Dammam and the Eastern Province have issued a second lot of 27,000 emergency certificates to enable Indian citizens to leave Saudi Arabia for home....
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05:24 AM, May 26, 2013
Kolkata: The Congress in West Bengal on Saturday attacked Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on implementation of the rural jobs programme, saying the state has turned out a poor performer in the 100 days work scheme despite tall claims of the Trinamool Congress government. "The state government kept on claiming that it is number one in crating jobs in 100 days work programme. It is absolutely wrong," state Congress chief Pradip...
05:15 AM, May 26, 2013
Jeddah: Terming the 'Nitaqat' law as an "opportunity" for those who are stuck in Saudi Arabia for years, India on Saturday said that contrary to perceptions, the number of Indians coming to the Gulf Kingdom has increased "significantly" in the last few months. "There is no exodus of people. The number of Indians who have come to Saudi Arabia in the past three months have risen significantly according to Saudi...
02:21 PM, May 25, 2013
Lucknow: A mother and her three-year-old daughter were killed in Uttar Pradesh late on Friday after they jumped off a speeding truck while resisting a sexual assault by the driver, police said Saturday. The incident took place near the Chitaura toll plaza in Fatehpur, 120 km from Lucknow, after Raj Kumari, 30, along with son Deepak, daughter Meena and husband Rakesh hitched a ride in a truck. After travelling for...
11:28 AM, May 25, 2013
On Board Special Aircraft: With thousands of Indians set to return from Saudi Arabia due to the 'Nitaqat' law, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Friday said state governments have been "forewarned" so that the situation does not become "unmanageable". Khurshid said the government was in touch with Saudi authorities to fasten the formalities so that the deadline of July 3 given by them could be adhered to. The 'Nitaqat'...
11:06 AM, May 25, 2013
Shimla: In a setback to the previous Prem Kumar Dhumal-led BJP government in the state, the Himachal Pradesh High Court on Friday quashed appointments of 480 teachers made in 2011 as these were not in accordance with law. Delivering the judgment, Justice Rajiv Sharma said the appointments of postgraduate teachers under the Postgraduate Teacher Class III (non-gazetted) Recruitment and Promotion Rules of 2011, which have not been published, are illegal....
04:25 AM, May 25, 2013
New Delhi: The West Bengal government's decision to take over two channels owned by scam-tainted Saradha Group which were facing closure may hit the roadblock as present guidelines do not allow state governments to run TV channels. "At present no proposal has come to us from the state government but as per the present set of guidelines state governments are not allowed to run television channels," a senior Information &...
08:43 PM, May 24, 2013
Kanpur: Ninty three colleges of Chhatrapati Sahu Ji Maharaj University in Kanpur will be served notice on May 27 for their alleged involvement in mass cheating in the undergraduate and postgraduate exams of 2012-2013. "The examination committee of the university has probed the complaints of mass cheating against the colleges, mostly in Allahabad and Kaushambi, and they were found to be true," said Ashok Kumar, Vice Chancellor of the university,...
02:43 PM, May 24, 2013
Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis return to Las Vegas this weekend for the Hangover III. David Daniel has more on that. ...
01:32 PM, May 24, 2013
Bhopal: With an aim to score a hat-trick in Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections slated later this year, the ruling BJP has reposed faith in senior party leader Anil Madhav Dave, who played a pivotal role in the 2003 elections, party sources said on Friday. Dave is a "key member" of the BJP's poll management committee in Madhya Pradesh, they said. A Rajya Sabha member, Dave along with his team had...
01:08 PM, May 24, 2013
Badaun: Son of a Samajwadi Party leader was sentenced to life imprisonment and a penalty of Rs one lakh was also imposed on him by a local court in Badaun for raping a teenaged girl. The 15-year-old victim was raped by Varun Bharadwaj alias Chinu, son of former SP block head Patanjali Bhardwaj, in Alapur area on December 27, 2010, prosecution counsel Gyan Swaroop Gupta said. After hearing both the...
12:25 PM, May 24, 2013
Hyderabad: An alleged cricket bookie was nabbed from the international airport in Hyderabad by a Delhi Police team in the early hours on Friday. "One person identified as Mohammad Yahya has been picked up from the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) in connection with the cricket betting racket by the Delhi Police team in the wee hours," a senior police official said. Yahya was picked up by police while he...
11:45 AM, May 24, 2013
Los Angeles: For Comedian Ed Helms and actor Bradley Cooper, actors of the successful 'The Hangover' films, the franchise is "over". Cooper, who essays the role of Phil Wenneck, said: "It's over. It's done. Yeah, it's done." "It would take peace in the Middle East for me to do 'Hangover IV'," femalefirst.co.uk quoted Helms as saying. Helms plays Stuart "Stu" Price in the movie. The first two films in the...
10:38 AM, May 24, 2013
Mumbai: The rupee on Friday weakened further by 10 paise to 55.69 against the dollar in early trade on the Interbank Foreign Exchange due to appreciation of the US currency overseas. Dealers attributed the rupee's fall to dollar gains against other currencies overseas but a higher opening of the domestic equity market capped rupee's losses to some extent. The rupee had lost 13 paise to close at a fresh six-month...
10:18 AM, May 24, 2013
Mumbai: Benchmark indices closed firm, riding a late surge, but finished roughly 3 per cent lower week-on-week. Brokers say the mood is cautious after the global sell-off on Thursday, and back home, a mixed bag of quarterly earnings. The Sensex closed at 19704, up 30 points over the previous close, after touching a low of 19568.49 earlier in the day. The Nifty ended 16.50 points higher at 5983.55. Tata Power,...
09:37 AM, May 24, 2013
Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh Police on Thursday claimed to have busted two IPL betting rackets with the arrest of 13 people in separate raids in Hyderabad and Nellore. Saroornagar police raided an apartment in Tirumala Nagar in Hyderabad on Wednesday night and arrested seven persons. The police team seized four laptops, 18 cellphones, a TV set, betting slips and Rs 19,600 in cash, DCP C Ravi Varma said. The seven men...
09:16 PM, May 23, 2013
Bhopal: Beating all odds, a visually impaired girl, Shrishti Tiwari, from Damoh town has topped the Madhya Pradesh Higher Secondary examination in Arts stream. The results were declared two days back by the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education. For Shrishti, a student of JBP Government Higher Secondary School in Damoh, the achievement is special not only academically but also because of the fact that she is visually impaired since...
04:13 PM, May 23, 2013
The Ghaziabad police has arrested a man identified as Rahul, the former driver of businessman Satish Goel, for allegedly killing him and six other members his family. The seven people were killed late on Tuesday night in Ghaziabad. ...
02:30 PM, May 23, 2013
Los Angeles: Actor Brad Pitt says he wasted a lot of time using drugs in the past. He admits he damaged his health with it just in the quest of exploring new things. The 49-year-old, who is engaged to actress Angelina Jolie and has six children, says he realised his mistake and took control of his drug intake. "For a long time I thought I did too much damage -...
11:37 AM, May 23, 2013
