The forum was organized at the persuasion of a local Member of Parliament David Bradbury.

Among the attendees from the Indian Community were Dr Rohitas Batta, Dr Ajit Sidhu, Dr Narsimha Reddy, Harpreet Singh, Dr Gurmit Brar, Naib Sangha, Dr Paramjit Singh and Dr M. S. Brar.

Issues related to the Indian community were brought to the notice of Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burnke by Dr. Rohitas Batta, President of GOPIO-Sydney Chapter.

TRINDAD BORN PIO SERGEANT DHANOOLAL DIES IN IRAQ

Trinidad-born Sgt Dayne Darren Dhanoolal, of Brooklyn, New York, was killed in Baghdad on March 31. Dhanoolal, 26, originally from Acono Road, Belle View, Maracas, St Joseph, migrated to the United States in 1997 when he was 15 years old. He was due home from Iraq in three weeks' time, when he died. Dhanoolal was wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated near his vehicle. He was the son of Monica Mary Brown, who now lives in Killeen, Texas, and Sylvon Dhanoolal, of Acono Road, Belle View, Maracas, St Joseph. Dhanoolal is the 4,012th American soldier to die in the war in Iraq. His sister Natalie Dhanoolal said the US Department of Defence yesterday announced the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was Dhanoolal's second tour in Iraq. Natalie said he was assigned to the Second Battalion, 69th Armour Regiment, Third Brigade Combat Team, Third Infantry Division, Fort Benning, Georgia.

He attended New Dorp High School in Staten Island and went on to Brooklyn College to start his higher education studies. Natalie said Dhanoolal decided not to continue with his studies and then joined the Army in 2002. Dhanoolal was the only son of his parents. He had three sisters, Karlene Fenton, Jillene Fenton, also a soldier in the US Army, and Natalie. Natalie said her sister Jillene was on her fourth tour in Iraq and rushed home to attend to the funeral arrangements. He is believed to be the first Trinidad born casualty in the Iraq war that has also seen thousands of US soldiers wounded.

INDIANS IN GUYANA COMMEMORATE 170^TH ANNIVERSARY OF INDIAN ARRIVAL DAY

East Indians from colonial India were brought to work in the sugar plantations in the West Indies, including, British Guiana, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago by the British owners of the plantations one hundred and seventy years ago. The first batch of Indians arrived in British Guiana on May 5^th 1838 on board the ships Whitby and the Hesperus.

Until today, the descendents of Indians in Guyana celebrate Indian Arrival Day in grand style across the country. The government of Guyana has designated May 5^th a national holiday in commemoration of the great sacrifices, hardships and struggles our Indian forebears were forced to endure while working on the sugar plantations.  

In honor of this year's celebration, the Indian Arrival Committee (IAC) has launched its first ever colored magazine, called Kal Aaj Aur Kal (which means Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow) in observance of the 170^th Anniversary of the arrival of East Indians in Guyana. The first copy of the commemorative magazine was present to the President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, who was instrumental in designating May 5^th as a national holiday.

Other celebrations in honor of our ancestors will be held at the National Park, Georgetown; Anna Regina Community Center and the Albion Sports Complex, Berbice. Meanwhile, mandirs and other Indian organizations across Guyana also organize cultural programs to celebrate the Indian Arrival Day. (Reported By Bina Mahabir)

MALAYSIAN MINISTER VELLU BRINGS DEMOLITION ISSUE TO THE FORE

Senior Malaysian Indian leader S. Samy Vellu has once again spoken out against the demolition of a Hindu temple a week before Diwali last year, saying that it caused the Indian vote to swing away from the government.

Vellu blamed the then chief minister of Selangor, Mohamad Khir Toyo, for refusing to heed his plea that the Hindu temple in Padang Jawa in Shah Alam not be demolished following a long dispute between the temple management and the civic authorities.

On the day it was brought down, Vellu said he had rushed to a hotel in Shah Alam to meet Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Khir who were attending a function.

"I begged him (Dr Khir) not to demolish the temple but he refused, citing a court order. I told him that if the temple was demolished, it would mean demolishing the Barisan Nasional."

However, according to Vellu, Khir refused to listen despite the prime minister's intervention.

Vellu had last week called the incident an "atom bomb" that caused the "political tsunami" against ruling coalition Barisan Nasional, reducing its two-thirds majority support in parliament to a simple one in last month's general elections.

Vellu supported Badawi in the current tussle within the BN and said: "Let us stop blaming the prime minister for everything."

According to a post-poll study, 69 percent of ethnic Indian votes that traditionally went to MIC and 43 percent of ethnic Chinese vote swung in favor of the opposition, giving it an unprecedented 82 seats in parliament and control of five states.

Ethnic Chinese comprise 33 percent and Indians 8 percent of Malaysia's 29 million population.

SOUTH ASIANS NOW THE BIGGEST VISIBLE MINORITY IN CANADA

Data from the recent census suggest that immigrants are coming to Canada in record numbers. An article in the Globe and Mail indicates that the number of visible minorities has reached five million. This represents 16.2 per cent of Canada's total population (data released April 02 2008). Now for the first time ever, South Asians form Canada's largest visible minority group, surpassing citizens of Chinese origin. Included among South Asians are Indo- Caribbean peoples.

"Visible minority" is the term to describe persons who are not of the majority race in a given population. In March 2007, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination described this term as racist, since it singles out a specific group. Despite this, Canadians have grown accustomed to its use. To us, "visible minorities" refers to "persons (other than Aboriginals) who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in color". Statistics Canada uses it as a demographic category to reflect our country's multiculturalism. Visible minorities are designated as a protected group under the Canadian Employment Equity Act.

In Canada, the term "South Asian" refers to any person whose ethnicity is associated with the southern part of Asia, or one who self-identifies with the South Asian visible minority group. This definition encompasses people from a great diversity of ethnic backgrounds-Afghanistan, Bangladeshi, Bengali, Goan, Gujarati, Hindu, Ismaili, Kashmiri, Nepali, Pakistani, Punjabi, Sikh, Sinhalese, Sri Lankan and Tamil ancestry. South Asians may have been born in Canada, on the Indian sub-continent, as well as in Africa, Great Britain, the Caribbean (Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago), or elsewhere. The growth in the visible minority population was driven largely by immigration (as opposed to natural birth). Between 2001 and 2006, it soared 26.2 per cent, five times faster than the 5.4 per cent increase for the population as a whole.

South Asians are now Canada's largest visible minority people-a 38% increase. The next largest visible minority group comprises Canadians who self-identified as Chinese increased 18.2% to 1.2 million. Indo-Guyanese arrivals showed a 4.2%, and Trinidad & Tobago (2.5%). Over the past 25 years Canada's visible minority population has grown steadily. In 1981, the estimated 1.1 million represented 4.7 per cent of Canada's total population. Today, this figure stands at five million. If current immigration trends continue, visible minorities will account for about one fifth of Canada's population by 2017 (Reported by Roop Misir, PhD).

INDIAN IT COMPANIES HIRING MORE FOREIGNERS

Infosys Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and HCL Technologies not only have one or more foreigners on their boards but also hire people overseas to work at the entry level. It is estimated that as many as 40,000 expatriates are currently working in India, of which 15 per cent are in top leadership roles.

Infosys has hired from 82 US colleges and universities, Wipro has hired 200 from colleges in the US and Europe while TCS has hired from 24 colleges in the US and Canada. Many of the newly hired are stationed in India while those to be deployed outside India are generally given orientation course for a few months in India.

Due to the appreciation of rupee against foreign currencies, particularly the dollar and rapid increases in salaries of Indian IT professionals, the hiring of workers overseas is becoming cheaper than sending Indians abroad.

NEW AUSTRALIAN LAW ALLOWS INDIAN STUDENTS TO WORK

The Australian government has made changes to its visa system so that Indian citizens studying in Australia will automatically become eligible to work part time during their courses.

Australian Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Senator Chris Evans said, "Under new processing arrangements, which come into effect April 26, all student visas will be granted with work rights attached, removing the need for people to make a separate application."

Until now, Indian students had to apply separately for permission to work part time while pursuing their studies in Australia.The new law in Australia for the grant of visa to Indian citizens for study in Australia will automatically allow them to work part time up to 20 hours per week. Under the current system, students have to apply separately for permission to work. The new procedure will reduce red tape and allow the students to begin earning as soon as their coursework starts, which would help them reduce the funds needed to finish schooling.

Under the new arrangement, Indian citizens would also have to shell out less for the overall student visa fee.The minister said: "Applicants from India will now be charged Australian $450 (Rs.17,000) for the visa and work permission, a saving of $40 (Rs.1,500) on the previous arrangements. The process for applying for a student visa has also been streamlined.

"Successful applicants will now not need to have an Australian visa label in their passports as evidence of their visa grant. Instead, their visa information will be stored electronically for access through the Visa Entitlement Verification Online (VEVO) service," Evans said.

The advantage of the online service is that it allows employers, government agencies, education providers and the visa holders themselves to check visa conditions such as expiry date, work and study restrictions.

Indian students contribute significantly to Australia's international education market of $12 billion. India is the second largest source of overseas students in Australia. As many as 34,146 student visas were granted to Indian citizens in the year ending June 2007. Overall 228,592 students from 191 countries got visas during the same period.

UK ANNOUNCES SECOND SET OF IMMIGRATION RULES

Britain has announced new strict criteria of rules regulate entry of skilled non-European workers in the second phase of the biggest overhaul of immigration policy for a generation. The strict new criteria announced on May 6^th require British employers to prove they cannot fill skilled posts with resident or European workers. Non-European skilled workers will need to have a firm job offer in hand even before they apply for visas.

Skilled non-Europeans would also need to speak fluent English and earn the equivalent of £24,000 (Sterling Pounds) in their home country in order to have any chance of entering Britain legally to work.

The new rules were announced by Immigration Minister Liam Byrne as a "system (that) means British jobseekers get the first crack of the whip and that only the skilled migrants we actually need will be able to come".

The new announcement comes barely eight weeks after Britain formally inaugurated an Australian-style points-based system in the hope it would have "one of the toughest borders in the world" by year-end.

On February 29, rules governing the controversial, existing highly-skilled migrants program were overhauled and a new licensing system put in place for employers wanting to recruit from overseas locations outside Europe.

The February changes dealt with Tier 1 of the immigrant worker category. Tier 2 is the second of five tiers due to be rolled out over the next 12 months. It will be introduced along with Tier 5, for temporary workers such as musicians, actors and sportsmen. Tier 4, which covers students, will follow at the beginning of 2009.

The government has already said that had the new rules been in force, 12 per cent fewer skilled non-European migrants would have entered the UK last year. The Home Office said that in the 12 months to September, 65,000 skilled workers from outside the EEA - the European Union plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein - entered the UK. The new criteria, it said, would have trimmed that figure by 8,000.

The government's analysis also showed that its tighter rules could have shaved off skilled and temporary non-European migrants by roughly 20,000 people last year.

On Tuesday, it was also confirmed that low-skilled non-Europeans, officially categorized as Tier 3, would no longer be allowed to enter Britain to work. The UK said it would only ever allow entry to this tier of non-European worker if specific shortages are identified that cannot be filled from the domestic or European labor force.

The crackdown on immigration policy and implementation also includes some of the toughest penalties in the world for employers who break the rules and illegally hire non-Europeans.

The government said that in the first 80 days of the new immigration regime, 137 British companies were issued with Notices of Potential Liability worth almost half a million pounds for illegally employing non-Europeans. This is more than ten times as much as the entire number of prosecutions last year for the same offence.