Bharat Rakshak

Article 47
Exemption From Work Permits

1. Members of the consular post shall, with respect to services rendered for the sending State, be exempt from any obligations in regard to work permits imposed by the laws and regulations of the receiving State concerning the employment of foreign labour.
2. Members of the private staff of consular officers and of consular employees shall, if they do not carry on any other gainful occupation in the receiving State, be exempt from the obligations referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article.

devesh wrote:even by any normal standards, no country goes to the length of extracting the family of a foreign consular worker UNLESS that worker had contributed something of vital importance to the country which is doing the extraction. that is the only thing that makes sense in this.

devesh wrote:contrary to Preet Bharara's pontificating, this is NOT a common practice.

GeorgeWelch wrote: 2. Sure she was treated fine . . . until she threatened to expose them. I fail to see how having her family arrested can be called being treated well.

GeorgeWelch wrote: It's also not common practice to arrest the family of those making a complaint.

GeorgeWelch wrote:

Lilo wrote:What's a full diplomatic immunity and what's a half diplomatic immunity hain ji? especially when an official (woman in question) is obviously a member of the diplomatic corps compared to the maid who is not even an US citizen (whose complaint against her employer ultimately and magically prevailed ) .

Full diplomatic immunity means you can literally get away with murder

Limited diplomatic immunity means you have immunity in actions related to your job, but not for other activities.

Thus you can't get arrested for spying (your job) but you can get arrested for not paying your nanny.

Prasad wrote:If the US can claim jurisdiction in cases on '84 riots, can't a case be filed against the US marshalls for rape of dk?

GeorgeWelch wrote:

Rahul M wrote:use google, start reading up on diplomatic immunity.

She didn't have full diplomatic immunity.

Rahul M wrote:

Dipanker wrote:
Can you point out where exactly I have demanded that US law applies to the rest of the world? My understanding would be that Indian laws applies in India and US laws applies in US.

not to contracts between Indian diplomats and Indian citizens.

GeorgeWelch wrote:

Lilo wrote:What's a full diplomatic immunity and what's a half diplomatic immunity hain ji? especially when an official (woman in question) is obviously a member of the diplomatic corps compared to the maid who is not even an US citizen (whose complaint against her employer ultimately and magically prevailed ) .

Full diplomatic immunity means you can literally get away with murder

Limited diplomatic immunity means you have immunity in actions related to your job, but not for other activities.

Thus you can't get arrested for spying (your job) but you can get arrested for not paying your nanny.

a_bharat wrote:I think it is unfair to link religion to some conspiracy against India, but, there is a coincidence here:

Army Chief (undeserved recognition from US), PM (US bhakta), US DA, Blackmail of Sonia.

I think this is most likely a coincidence, but there is a very small probability that there could be something.

Prasad wrote:Sigh. Let me quote http://www.sos.state.tx.us/border/intlp ... enna.shtml

Rudradev wrote:The real story is effectively buried in the minutiae once again.

GeorgeWelch wrote: The US takes domestic abuse seriously,

When the senior officer in R&AW MrRavinder Singh was spirited away with his family by the Americans, the then National Security Advisor of India had commented that the issue was not that there was a mole but why was he so important to the US establishment.

In the instant case the same question becomes relevant, i.e. why Sangeeta Richard, a domestic help of the Deputy Consul General (DCG) DevyaniKhobragade, was so important to the Americans that her family was whisked away to the US two days before the criminal treatment meted out to the DCG by the authorities in that country.

Was Sangeeta recruited by the US Intelligence Agencies to gain information of Indian diplomatic mission in the US?

The desperation to protect Sangeeta Richard and her family by the US authorities says it all. Such desperation betrays that possibly Sangeeta had been recruited and had been converted into what is called in Intelligence parlance ‘asset’.

Plausibly this asset was discovered and uncovered by the Consul General. It could be this fact that compelled Devyani to seek intervention of Delhi High Court, which issued an interim injunction against Sangeeta, preventing her from taking legal action in the US

This abrupt development may have been engendered by the imminent possibility of the Indian judiciary tightening its noose on the family members of Sangeeta.

It is therefore evident that Sangeetawas not absconding but in the safe-custody of the American authorities. The exposure of such assets, it must be remembered compromises the entire espionage framework of the hostile country. Any price therefore to protect the framework is less.

Devyani, it seems has paid the price.

The entire family could not have been spirited out of India, the manner in which it was done, without engineering some extremely sensational diplomatic incident, which carried both the stamp of morality and the object of provocation.

n any country in the world such incidents involving diplomats is rare of the rarest. Say in India, if a diplomat, at any level, of any country were to be involved in an accident, for instance running over a pedestrian by an automobile the matter would be reported right up the chain, i.e. from constable to SHO to Assistant Commission to Deputy Commission to Commissioner of Police to Home Secretary to Home Minister and finally to the Prime Minister.
It is because the factor of ‘diplomatic immunity’ is of overwhelming consideration.

In Devyani’s case, therefore, it was not a matter of ‘law taking its natural course’, but a clear case of deliberate provocation which entailed hand cuffing and stripping her. India has been provoked and outraged, the Americans have tried to gain a moral high-ground and the US intelligence ‘asset’ or ‘assets’ (Sangeeta and her other family members) have gained sympathy and credibility. A perfect script!

The attempt by the US to acquire a high-moral ground is nauseating. The morality part in favour of the Devyani has been more than upheld by the stance of the Court's in India.

They would not have taken the position, they did, if it was a matter only confined to wages.

The espionage angle seems to be very strong in the instant case.

Morality and the US diplomacy have always been contradiction in terms, rather antagonistic. If the US was so concerned about the sensitivities and laws of other countries, it would have extradited David Headley to India.

If it was so sensitive about disparity in wages, it would not have outsourced the job of call centers to other countries.

Indian youth working in these call centers spend sleepless nights to make America move during the day, for pittance.

Moreover the discerning people of India have abundantly understood the consummate skill with which American spin-doctors create agendas for destabilizing a country so that the economic and other strategic agendas could be pursued.

It began with a concept called 'march of democracies'. It then graduated to 'human rights'.

Then many countries like India were told that they were sitting on the mountain of 'AIDS bomb'. Now the latest in the inventory is a concept called 'modern slaves'.

This theme is being flogged on Western television channels. It seeks to say that 50 percent of India constitutes 'modern slaves', who are hostage to the remaining This is clever device to drive a wedge right through the middle of the Indian population. It is also a propaganda to convey the impression in the world that most countries including India are despotic, cruel and uncivilized.

With regards to slaves, it is another matter that the Father of America, George Washington, bequeathed his property to his wife, which included 'slaves'.

Nevertheless, it would be pertinent to mention that the arrangement and contract between the DCG and the Sangeeta Richard is laudable by any standards, and anybody who questions it is doing so due to motivated considerations.

The US has used this device of Sangeeta Richard to propagate this concept of 'modern slaves' and thus cause disaffection in the Indian society. In this bid they are being served by many Indian-Americans, who love to decry their motherland at the slightest behest of their adopted fatherland.

Echoing the same 'modern slaves' concept but in different tenor, is a newly created political party, known to be receiving huge funding from American entities. Apart from the Maoists, the Church and the jihadis this is a new political US leverage.

This author has taken the opportunity to stick his neck out and proclaim with all the emphasis that Devyani issue is only a veneer to protect a espionage network.

nachiket wrote:

GeorgeWelch wrote: The US takes domestic abuse seriously,

And there was none here. So what's your point? Other than trolling of course.

GeorgeWelch wrote:

Prasad wrote:Sigh. Let me quote http://www.sos.state.tx.us/border/intlp ... enna.shtml

That has to do with work permits and nothing to do with minimum wage.

GeorgeWelch wrote:

Rudradev wrote:The real story is effectively buried in the minutiae once again.

We have people like you in the US.

We call them 'truthers' and point and laugh at them.

You can always make a conspiracy, but the truth is usually far more mundane.

The US takes domestic abuse seriously, that's the only 'conspiracy' at work here.

GeorgeWelch wrote: Thus you can't get arrested for spying (your job) but you can get arrested for not paying your nanny.

BD angle is the key. The spat is interesting.

Technically, the maid might not have gotten $9/hour.

Jarita wrote:The impunity with which a person with court cases in India was whisked away is more troubling

Jarita wrote:

GeorgeWelch wrote:
That has to do with work permits and nothing to do with minimum wage.

Yeh kaun hai aur kahaa se tapak para

The government is calling for a full apology over the arrest of one of their diplomats. Even Indian advocates for the nanny are angry about the style of the arrest.

A key theme that emerges from comments from Indian journalists, bloggers, and politicians is that it was the style of the arrest –- which included a strip search – that was particularly egregious and is being taken as a violation of not only Ms. Khobragade's dignity, but that of India's as well.

"t is the US duty to treat a consular diplomat with dignity and respect. A strip-search is in violation of that,” says journalist Siddharth Varadarajan, a leading commentator on Indo-US Relations.

Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid told Parliament on Wednesday that “It is no longer about an individual, [...] It is about our sense of self as a nation and our place in the world,” according to the Associated Press.

<snip>

It did not help that the State Department's initial response to the outrage over strip-search was merely that “standard procedures” were followed. Indians find a strip-search, especially of a woman, a personal affront which in an Indian jail would be considered sexual abuse.

Even those who are asking questions about the treatment of the nanny whom Khobragade was reportedly paying a fraction of the minimum wage, are outraged at the police treatment of the diplomat.

“Just as Indians are unwilling to think about the plight of the domestic help because it is normal here to mistreat domestic labor, Americans don't seem to be outraged by the strip-search because American society seems to consider it routine. But it is a grave violation of democratic rights of a human being anywhere. Was the diplomat hiding something in her body that she needed to be strip-searched?” asks feminist writer Nivedita Menon.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has termed as "deplorable" the humiliating arrest, strip and cavity search that Khobragade, India's deputy consul general in New York, was put through, is learnt to have directed officials to ensure "full resolution" of the issue, sources said. India has demanded that Khobragade be released unconditionally and all charges against her dropped. She has been charged with visa fraud and underpaying her house maid. She has denied the charges.

India also stuck to its demand that the US must tender an unconditional apology for the humiliating treatment meted out to the envoy. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath Thursday said that to satisfy India the US will have to apologise and admit their mistake.

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/fwire/diplomat ... ef_article

chaanakya wrote:

Prasad wrote:If the US can claim jurisdiction in cases on '84 riots, can't a case be filed against the US marshalls for rape of dk?

Yes, crime against Indian citizen, anywhere is a crime under relevant laws. India can very well file fir and start investigation against unnamed persons involved in this like US Marshall and NYPD and demand US provide details They can also name Preet Bharara in that and issue RCN. That all depends on GOI and congis how much balls they can muster and whether amirkhans would care at all but it will be an incident par excellence.

Lilo wrote:

Singha wrote:Myanmar is steadily drifting out of chinese orbit towards the west and by implication good for India....

abhischekcc wrote:Uncle does not want BD to fall to China.

We donot want BD to fall to Unkil either.

US military base in Bangladesh?

..............Earlier, the US Ambassador, Mr Dan W Mozana, had also denied that any such a proposal had been made to Bangladesh. Still doubts are being raised nearer home. It needs to be recalled that US in the past had proposed the setting up of a military base in Bangladesh, and every time the proposal was made, it had faced domestic resistance in the country. Before Bangladesh attained Independence in 1971, the US, in 1969, first proposed to help the freedom fighters, and in return demanded that they hand over the St Martin Island in the Bay of Bengal to them for opening a base. The freedom movement declined the proposal. In the post-Independence period, the US made a similar request in 1974, but Mujibur Rahman, the then leader of Bangladesh, declined it again. During military ruler HM Ershad’s regime in 1984, the US expressed its interest in obtaining landing facilities for the Seventh Fleet aircraft. However, it could not progress much as the Chittagong port was found unfit for berthing large warships.

In 1998, the US proposed that Bangladesh sign the Status of the Force Agreement (SOFA), but the people of Bangladesh expressed their reservations. Under SOFA, the US troops would have enjoyed unhindered access to Bangladesh in times of emergency without having to comply with even visa and passport formalities. Equipment and supply would have been allowed to be brought in without being subject to customs formalities. But this was not received well in Bangladesh and was seen as a sovereignty issue. Although the US clarified that SOFA was not conceived as a military pact that would facilitate establishment of a US military base in Bangladesh, the people were not convinced.

Bangladesh’s strategic location makes the US to turn to this country, often. It is located between China and India, the two emerging powers and also has access to the sea (This is what was alluded by Hillary yesterday when she spoke about BD's strategic location . She wants BD to be a rentier state ala Pakis for the next 50 years , and unkil wants BD to playwith and playoff both India and China against each other). ............
A US military base would have helped not only increase the American footprint in South Asia, but it would have also helped to watch China and India closely. Again, as the US plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, Bangladesh could have been an ideal location to place a portion of them in the region, other than Pakistan with whom its relations are becoming increasingly strained.

The Bangladesh-US relationship itself had a shaky beginning, with the US supporting Pakistan initially during the ‘Bangladesh’s Liberation War’ of 1971. But now, the relationship has come a long way and the two countries share a friendly relations. Now, the US is one of the major trading partners of Bangladesh. The US is the largest export destination for Bangladesh products, with trade heavily tilted towards Bangladesh. Also, the US is a major development partner of Bangladesh. The US assistance to Bangladesh supports health, education and economic development programmes. Besides, defence cooperation between the two countries is very close. Since the Seventies, officers of the Bangladesh Army are receiving training from the US through International Military Education Training Programme. The two countries are regularly taking part in joint military exercises

"removing barricades from embassy is hitting below the belt"