Bharat Rakshak

Also! Still a crime committed on the soil of USA is a crime which sooner or later is going to come back to haunt so these IFS officers need to understand to not commit any crimes.

BTW.. Mr. Bharara has also prosecuted scores of the nPaki wife beaters and drug dealer diplomats.

Rajiv Malhotra ‏@RajivMessage 9h
Preet Bharara is building his career in the US establishment by performing sepoy services to prove his usefulness.

Rajiv Malhotra ‏@RajivMessage 9h
India should behave more like China in dealing with USA, less like a banana republic with inferiority complex and sepoys eager to please

Rajiv Malhotra ‏@RajivMessage 2h
Almost every case of wage disputes in New York is handled as civil not criminal. Did sepoy Preet Barara get hyper dose of something?

Rajiv Malhotra ‏@RajivMessage 2h
Soon Indian diplomat issue will get resolved. But HOW India behaves will shape US-India relations. Important to be STRONG & not a doormat!

Rony wrote:Rajiv Malhotra on the House Negros/Sepoys

paramu wrote:Diplomat’s Fraud Arrest in U.S. Draws India Government

The arrest of an Indian diplomat in New York last week on fraud charges drew protests from the government of the Asian nation and the main opposition party.

by SanjayKumar
If I may ask an innocent question, 'aliens' are routinely abused in the NYC with below minimum wages, lack of medical care, threats of deportation, unpaid overtime, sexual exploitation in parlours as well as the domestic setting.

venug wrote:Idev ji your answer here:The mystery of why Devyani Khobragade should have paid $54,000 a year to Sangeeta Richards

According to the allegations against her, Khobragade and her maid had agreed that Khobragade would pay 30,000 rupees per month, which at the time was equivalent to $573.07. At 40 hours per week, with approximately 4.3 weeks in a month, $573.07 equates to a rate of $3.31 per hour. However, the complaint says, Khobragade instructed her maid to say that she would be paid $9.75 per hour, and not to say anything about being paid 30,000 rupees per month. Khobragade also instructed the maid to say that she would work 40 hours per week, with duty hours being 7 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Khobragade, it’s alleged, told the maid that the amount of $4,500 per month was a US prerequisite to get a visa.

Now, as important as it is to ask who decided to process the maid’s visa in India in the first place, given Khobragade’s salary, it is also important to ask as to where did this number of $4,500 come from?

Let’s do a quick math (with calculators): $9.75 x 40 (hours of work per week) is equal to $390. In a month with 4 weeks, Khobragade’s maid, Sangeeta Richard, would make $1560. In the five months of the year with five weeks, she would make $1950. A full time year (at 40 hours a week) is equal to 2080 hours, which means the annual salary for her would be $20,280, almost one third of what the US government wanted Khobragade to pay her maid – $54,000 annually.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a maid and housekeeper in the US earned an average median salary of $19,390 in 2011, or approximately $9.32 per hour. That year, there were 111, 600 individuals working such jobs in the country. In comparison, a restaurant cook’s median salary is $22,080; a security guard makes $23, 900; a pre-school teacher made $26, 620; a sports coach $28, 470; Bookkeeping, Accounting, & Audit Clerks made $34,740, while a bus driver made 35,720, and a marriage and family therapist’s media salary was $46,240, just a bit more than what Khobragade’s maid was supposed to be paid.

But then Sangeeta Richards was employed as a maid and housekeeper, not as a marriage and family therapist. Her salary should be closer to $20,000.

Can somebody please solve the mystery of why Sangeeta Richards, the maid of Devyani Khobragade, was to be paid $54,000 a year, and not $20,280?

by Ramana
Even better option is to publish the amounts imported by the folks under those permits and let the Tea party take care of the mess.

November 2012: Richard arrived in the US and started to work for Dr Khobragade on November 23, 2012.

March 2013: Problems started with Richard, according to Dr Khobragade's lawsuit against her in the Delhi high court. It said that Richard wanted to work outside on her off days, but she was told that it was illegal according to her visa status, and also because she had an official passport.

June 23: Richard left DR Khobragade's home to buy groceries, and did not return. Dr Khobragade informed the matter to the consulate general, who informed the concerned authorities.

July 8: Richard visited an immigration attorney's firm in Manhattan, New York. A person present there told Rediff.com then that four individuals from the consulate soon arrived at the attorney's office.

There were discussions, and reports indicated Richard demanded a sum as her wages, and an ordinary Indian passport.

Meanwhile, her husband and child in India were taken into custody, according to the witness. A scared Richard spoke with them, and refused to leave the attorney's office premises.

The consulate officials remained outside. Later in the evening, the police were called and they took Richard away.

The Indian government revoked Richard's official passport the same day, which made her status illegal in the US.

The Indian embassy in Washington, DC requested the US State Department to locate Richard and return her to India.

September: The Delhi high court issued an order to restrain Richard from instituting any action or proceedings against Dr Khobragade outside India on the terms or conditions of her employment, according to a statement issued by the Indian embassy.

In his order on September 20, Justice Jayant Nath noted that any grievance about the terms of employment, salary or ill-treatment could only be adjudicated by an Indian court, since Richard and Dr Khobragade worked for the Government of India.

The high court also issued notice to Richard's husband Philip in Delhi. The case is scheduled for hearing in February.

Meanwhile, an arrest warrant was issued against Richard by the metropolitan magistrate of the south district court in New Delhi under Sections 387, 420 and 120B of the Indian Penal Code, according to the Indian embassy.

These are related to extortion, cheating and conspiracy.

If Richard enters India, she will be arrested.

Richard chose to remain in the US rather than return to India, where she would be arrested on arrival, and the US officials proceeded against Dr Khobragade.

Highly placed sources said the fact that Richard left her employment within six months of her arrival in the US seems suspicious.

The Indian embassy said it had urged Washington to resolve the matter with due sensitivity, taking into account the existing court case in India that had already been brought to America's attention by the Government of India, and the diplomatic status of the officer concerned.

by Sanjaykumar
Half the Panjabis would be in jail for domestic abuse and the rest for immigration fraud. But I will keep it in mind.

SBajwa wrote:

O.k here is a contrarian view: So an Indian American prosecutor on the complaint of an Indian maid has the Indian consular staff arrested because she violated the law of which there is documentary proof, and it is all Uncle Sam's fault? Hypocrisy anyone?

Exactly!! Hypocrisy!! Indian diplomats have been so accustomed to abusing the Law in their own country along with other countries (like nPakistan) that they expect to do the same all over the world. It does not work that way!

Can Maid Fracture Plateau with US?
Wednesday, 18 December 2013 | Rohit Bansal | in Business


On Monday morning, 70 of us tackled dense fog to be at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) for the India launch of “Beyond the Plateau in US-India Relations,” a joint study** with The Heritage Foundation.

Trading tricks to skirt “post-2010 logjams,” including the one to reach ORF that day, many discussants dwelled on the intriguing term, “plateau.” The optimists had the final word thanks to Manish Tewari, his presidential argument being that a plateau isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “It (a plateau) gives us occasion to think and to recalibrate,” the Government’s principal spokesperson counselled.

But in less than 36 hours, there’s a crater right at the heart of the plateau. Whither our relationship with our fifth largest source of FDI, trade in goods accounting for $58 billion (2011), two-way investment to the tune of $30 billion (2010), and the stakes of 2.9 million people of Indian origin living there! All because of a maid and her calculative employer, a 1999-batch IFS officer, flouting her own undertaking on complying with US minimum wages – and the fact that over-zealous enforcement agencies in New York wounded our national pride!

So, ID cards of US diplomats have been recalled - a precursor to withdrawal of diplomatic and consular immunity; payment details of Indian teachers at American schools here sought for a likely tax assault; protection barricades around the US embassy removed; and licenses Team Nancy Powell enjoys to import, say, turkeys and wine for Christmas, rolled back!

Poor yanks! As Shiv Aroor, a TV anchor said on his twitter, ‘what’ll starve them truly is if Delhi’s INA Market shuts down too!’ Banter apart, a US Congressional group was denied pre-accorded handshakes with Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi, the Lok Sabha speaker, the Home Minister, and the NSA. I am unsure if ambassador-designate S Jai Shankar, here in Delhi just ahead of flying off to Washington this weekend, will now go so soon. Even if the tough-talking envoy does, will Barak Obama grant him accreditation in a hurry?

For those smarting under the humiliation, our diplomat’s unnecessary handcuffing, her strip search etc, the cause comes down to our track record on human labour:

1)It’s because we brush under the carpet modern laws on domestic workers. We lack basic data on their numbers what to speak of classifying them appropriately or enforcing their rights on healthcare, hours of work and pensions.

The US claims to do better. Which is why New-York-based Devyani Khobragade, the IFS officer causing the row, signed a false declaration on the sum she’ll pay her maid. (In IFS legalese, a maid is called, “India-based Domestic Help” – IBDH, and the justification is that she/he can toss up “Indian-home-cooked food” to visiting locals. For all practical purposes, more often than not, the said IBDH is a 24x7 “slave.”)

2) Our foreign office entitles its officers of the rank of Third Secretary up to Ambassador a complement of IBDH and reimburses their wage at par with industrial workers here. The problem arises in the “First World,” say, the US, where the law demands a minimum wage of $9 per hour, something Khobragade (and, perhaps, all others diplomats seconded to the US) signed up to just so that the maid got a visa. In a 24x7 format, this translates into $220 a day, or a whopping $6,500 a month! Now, US law doesn’t factor inhouse servants just as IFS folks don’t just go to the US. In, say, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh, the money is enough to add more servants! Some IBDH, all white-passport holders, have been found to find a love life or compromised by intelligence agencies. Others have jumped their visa and disappeared. Some have blackmailed their way back to India.

So, when tempers have cooled down, and the plateau regained, we should rethink IBDH, enforce strict set of “Devyani Guidelines,” and derisk an entire gamut of ties – sadly, the US one being the only legacy Manmohan Singh might have had!

(The columnist is CEO & Co-Founder, India Strategy Group, Hammurabi & Solomon Consulting. Tweets @therohitbansal)

**Authors: Sunjoy Joshi, C Raja Mohan, Vikram Sood and Rajeswari Rajagopalan from ORF and James Jay Carafano, Walter Lohman, Lisa Curtis and Derek Scissors from the Washington-based think tank

Rony wrote:Timeline of the events that led to an Indian diplomat's arrest in New York last week

November 2012: Richard arrived in the US and started to work for Dr Khobragade on November 23, 2012.

...............

June 23: Richard left DR Khobragade's home to buy groceries, and did not return. Dr Khobragade informed the matter to the consulate general, who informed the concerned authorities.

July 8: Richard visited an immigration attorney's firm in Manhattan, New York. A person present there told Rediff.com then that four individuals from the consulate soon arrived at the attorney's office.

There were discussions, and reports indicated Richard demanded a sum as her wages, and an ordinary Indian passport.

Meanwhile, her husband and child in India were taken into custody, according to the witness. A scared Richard spoke with them, and refused to leave the attorney's office premises.

The consulate officials remained outside. Later in the evening, the police were called and they took Richard away.



Highly placed sources said the fact that Richard left her employment within six months of her arrival in the US seems suspicious.

The Indian embassy said it had urged Washington to resolve the matter with due sensitivity, taking into account the existing court case in India that had already been brought to America's attention by the Government of India, and the diplomatic status of the officer concerned.

Karan M wrote: if the husband was part of the tough "negotiations", egging her on, it makes sense to have arrested him.

by Karan M

MMS and co, have let Indian national pride down thoroughly as KPN says and hence this sort of attitude.

Narayana Rao wrote:There are certain things which led to this incident.
1. Democratic party is anti Indian. Obama in particular was attacking India that we stole their jobs.
2. John Kerry is anti Indian. We know it.
3. Entire U.S. actions in Afghan war are anti Indian denying any role to us in our back yard.
4. Newyark city lost tax case on us just now.
5. These kind of incidents were happening before yet we chose to ignore.

MMS happy to eat dinner with Obama like a dog taking biscuits from master. Our foreign policy is serving US interests more than ours since MMS became P.M. We eat biryani with people cut our soldiers heads.

Then what else you get with these kinds of conduct.

by Karan M
And you think the US and other nations diplomats follow the law exactly in whichever country they are? C'mon Bajwa ji, you know this is not correct.

We can humiliate US gay diplomats,but what will be the consequences?

NEW DELHI: L'affaire Devyani Khobragade has escalated into a full-blown diplomatic spat between India and the US. Stung by the humiliating treatment meted out to India's deputy consul general in New York, New Delhi on Tuesday upped the ante by taking a series of steps including withdrawal of certain privileges from American diplomats, removing barricades around the US embassy and seeking information on wages paid to Indians employed by the US embassy and the American School.

As political parties, cutting across party lines, condemned the US action, New Delhi unveiled a series of retaliatory actions which showed a rare hardened attitude towards the US. This was in sharp contrast to its weak-kneed response to previous slights by the US, the latest being the response to phone tapping by the Americans of the Indian mission in Washington.

On Tuesday, India demanded an unconditional apology for the humiliation of its diplomat, who was strip-searched, handcuffed, had her DNA swab taken and was bunged in a lock-up with drug addicts and common criminals. Foreign minister Salman Khurshid described the US action as completely unacceptable. "We have put in motion what we believe would be an effective way of addressing the issue but also (put) in motion such steps that need to be taken to protect her dignity," he told reporters here.

The identity cards of all US officials serving in the Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad consulates have been withdrawn, which means they will become ordinary foreign nationals rather than those with diplomatic status. Indian officials in consulates in the US are not given such ID cards, which can be used to claim immunity from the police. Special airport passes for American diplomats have also been withdrawn. Aviation authorities have been told to ensure that US embassy vehicles do not get any priority treatment at reserved parking lots at airports across the country.

The most demonstrative action was removal of barricades from the road that runs behind the US embassy here. Bulldozers arrived on Tuesday afternoon to push away concrete barricades from the road which serves as the entry for visa seekers and had been closed to all traffic. The reason cited for this was denial of designated parking space for the Indian embassy in Washington in January this year.

'We're going to insist on strict reciprocity'

The Indian government has asked for details of family members of US officials in India, their bank accounts and whether they are employed in any capacity. Indian officials' spouses or family members in Washington have to seek special permission from the state department if they want to work outside. The government has also asked for salary and bank account details of all Indians working for the US embassy and its consulates across India, including teachers and staff employed in the American Embassy School. They want to demonstrate that unequal pay is a part of the US' own practices.

"We are going to insist on strict reciprocity," said foreign ministry officials. India has also withdrawn tax exemption facility for US diplomats to import and export items. This facility has been frequently misused by many members of the diplomatic corps of all countries. However, India has argued that since Indians don't get the same facilities in the US, there was no reason for US diplomats to enjoy the same facility in India.

Khobragade's humiliation has angered the IFS community which has asked for protection of their dignity from overzealous foreign governments. This possibly prodded the government and Salman Khurshid, who came under some criticism from other parts of the government for meeting a visiting US congressional delegation on Monday, to take up a much more aggressive stance against the US on Tuesday.

The other meetings sought by the US team were cancelled as Rahul Gandhi, Sushilkumar Shinde and Narendra Modi refused to meet it. The delegation included Congressmen George Holding (Republican, North Carolina), Pete Olson (Republican, Texas) David Schweikert (Republican, Arizona), Robert Woodall (Republican, Georgia), and Madeleine Bordallo (Democrat, Guam).

by Venug
Quote:

We can humiliate US gay diplomats,but what will be the consequences?

Could be bad idea. Bad PR for India. Their media will go ape$hit on India, show how primitive India is, our slum dogs, so on and so forth. We become defensive, instead go offensive, humiliate them otherwise.

SBajwa wrote:The real problem is economic disparity and the "help" that these "diplomats" bring with them.

easiest solution is for Indian government is to hire "Maids" by calling the affordable maids (I have nothing to do with this business)., why do you need people from India to come work in U.S.A? These people who come from india don't want to go back and thus there is problem.

Indian government is the problem they need to figure out this issue of people wanting their servants with them in U.S.A!!

Nandu wrote:

Karan M wrote: if the husband was part of the tough "negotiations", egging her on, it makes sense to have arrested him.

It makes no such sense. Negotiating is not a crime.

SBajwa wrote:

by Karan M
And you think the US and other nations diplomats follow the law exactly in whichever country they are? C'mon Bajwa ji, you know this is not correct.

That's because the law agencies in the respective countries look the other way when they counter the US diplomat!! arrest the law breaker and prosecute him/her! if not then the problem is with these diplomats and their jobs around the world!! why are these people thinking of themselves above the law? I would have arrested the Gay Diplomat couple in India (per Indian law 377) after 12/17/2013 as they are criminals as per Indian law!