Pakistanis can apply for Indian visa through courier

ISLAMABAD: India has taken several steps to facilitate people from across Pakistan in applying for visas, including the submission of applications through a courier service, Indian high commissioner Sharat Sabharwal has said. 

These steps were intended to help people who previously had to travel to Islamabad to apply for a visa, Sabharwal said during an interaction with reporters after visiting the Bhutto family mausoleum at Garhi Khuda Bux in southern Sindh province yesterday. 

Asked by reporters about the reopening of the Indian consulate in Karachi, Sabharwal said this was one of the issues discussed by India and Pakistan after the resumption of their peace talks last year. 

Even as talks on the issue were continuing, Indian authorities had taken steps to address the problems of people from areas like Sindh who want to apply for visas, the envoy said. 

After the Indian consulate in Karachi was closed in 1994, people from far-flung areas had complained about the problems they faced in travelling to Islamabad to personally apply for visas. 

At the Bhutto family mausoleum, Sabharwal visited the graves of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto, her father and former president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, his wife Nusrat Bhutto and laid wreaths. 

He observed silence for a few minutes as a mark of respect. 

Land dispute between Punjab and Chandigarh lingers on

Nayagaon, March 12
Even as the Chandigarh Administration has not been able to solve its inter-state border dispute regarding several chunks of land with Punjab and Haryana, yet another case of Punjab’s land sharks eating into UT’s land has come to light.
As a result, the effective width of the road passing (maintained by the UT engineering department) from Punjab Engineering College (PEC) to Nayagaon has been reduced.
A wide patch of land that had been acquired by the Land Acquisition Collector (LAC) in early seventies for widening of the road has now been encroached upon. A row of houses and shops raised on the land now form part of Nayagaon that falls in Punjab. The UT had then acquired the land to widen the road from PEC to Khuda Alisher village.
President of the Nayagaon Nagar Panchayat HS Bajwa said efforts were made to remove the encroachments, but those never fructified.
Land acquisition proceedings acquired by a resident of Khuda Ali Sher, Gurdyal Singh, reveals that the UT had acquired 15 ft wide patches of land on both the sides of the road. But with the passage of time, Nayagoan residents raised houses and shops with the UT never objecting to it.
Gurdyal has been consistently raising the issue with the UT Land Acquisition Collector. The UT officials have been maintaining the road, but they have never been able to remove encroachments.
It is not the only case. About two acres of UT land in Sector 63 had been encroached upon by Punjab in Mohali. The inter-state dispute resulted in inordinate delay in constructing multi-storeyed flats and the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) had to repeatedly change the alignment of its flats.
Similar disputes exist on the UT boundary with Haryana. The UT’s Land Acquisition Collector, Tilak Raj, was not available for comments. Sources in the UT said the issue was in the knowledge of senior officials but no sincere effort had been made to get the land vacated. 

Long periods of sitting is unhealthy

Taking a break to walk every 20 minutes instead of staying seated for hours helps reduce the body’s levels of glucose and insulin after eating, according to a study — the latest to highlight the hazards of long periods of inactivity.

Though the results, published in the journal Diabetes Care, don’t show whether these reductions have any lasting health benefits, experiencing large glucose and insulin spikes after a meal is tied to a greater risk of heart disease and diabetes.

“When we sit our muscles are in a state of disuse and they’re not contracting and helping our body to regulate many of the body’s metabolic processes,” said David Dunstan, a professor at Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia.

Dunstan and his colleagues have reported previously that people who watch more than four hours of TV a day are likely to have an earlier death. With this study, they experimented with how prolonged sitting could affect responses to food.

After a meal, glucose levels in the blood go up, followed by a rise in insulin, which helps cells use blood sugar for energy or store it. Then, levels in the bloodstream start to go down. In people with type 2 diabetes, this process falls out of whack usually because the body no longer responds to insulin properly. After a meal, blood sugar and insulin levels spike and remain high.

Dunstan’s group looked at 19 overweight adults who didn’t exercise much, asking them to come into a laboratory and sit for seven hours while having their blood sugar and insulin levels sampled hourly.

After the first two hours, they drank a 763-calorie drink high in sugar and fat, then sat for another five hours.

Each person went through three days of experiments, with each day separated by a week or two.

On one day, they sat the entire time, only taking breaks to use the bathroom. On another, they broke up the sitting session and took a two-minute break to walk around every 20 minutes following the drink — and on another day, they took similar breaks, but with more vigorous activity.

The days when people sat without interruption resulted in a spike in blood sugar within an hour of the drink from about 90 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl) to about 144 mg/dl.

On days when they got up every 20 minutes, blood sugar rose from 90 mg/dl to only about 125 mg/dl.

Overall, getting up and engaging in light activity reduced the total rise in glucose by an average of 24 per cent, compared to the group that kept sitting. That difference was almost 30 per cent with moderate-intensity activity.

The results were similar for insulin. Levels peaked about two hours after the drink, but they rose higher when the people continued sitting compared with moving about.

“What’s shocking to me in these studies is not how good breaks are but how bad sitting is,” said Barry Braun, a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, who was not involved in the study.

He said a good rule of thumb is to try and get up about every 15 minutes, even if it’s just to walk around the room.

What’s not clear is whether the 30 per cent reduction in glucose and insulin levels will translate into health benefits.

“This was only studied over one day. The next question is, can that reduction be (achieved regularly) and translate to reductions in atherosclerosis?” said Dunstan, whose group is now working on a longer experiment.

NRI returning to India? How to calculate your tax

The grass is not really greener on the other side as many Indians abroad are figuring it out the hard way. Faced with a gloomy economy and career prospects, some are packing their bags and heading back to test the job market.

Though finding a job would be easier in India, especially for those with good degrees and employment background, figuring out the tax liability — especially in the initial years — may be a daunting task. If you are returning to India for employment, there are some tax issues one has to consider before taking the final decision.

This is crucial because the taxability of overseas income (such as rental income from property outside India, capital gains, bank interest, dividends, etc.) for returning Indians largely depends on their residential status in India.  Planning the timing of one’s return is very important.

RESIDENTIAL STATUS
Residency rules play an important role in determining the income that is taxable in India. Indian residency is triggered in either of the following situations:

1. The individual is in India in that financial year for 182 or more days; or

2. The individual is in India in that financial year for 60 or more days and 365 days or more in the four financial years prior to that financial year.

If neither of the above conditions is satisfied, the individual would be treated as a Non-Resident (NR). Satisfying any of the above two conditions would qualify the individual as a resident. Indian tax laws provide a relief for a category of individuals who are ‘Not Ordinarily Resident’ (NOR).

One can become a NOR either if his/her stay in India in the 7 financial years immediately preceding that financial year is less than 729 days or if he/she was a Non-Resident for 9 of the 10 financial years immediately preceding that financial year. A Resident other than a NOR is generally referred to as an Ordinary Resident (‘ROR’).

In case an Indian citizen or a PIO visits India in any tax year, the above mentioned 60 days shall be replaced by 182 days. The proposed Direct Tax Code, however, does not give this preferential benefit to the NRIs or PIO visiting India.

SELLING YOUR PROPERTY ABROAD
As a returning Indian, try to sell your overseas property while you are still a NOR or NR. As a NOR or NR, if you sell any overseas assets and receive the sale proceeds outside India, you do not have to pay any taxes in India. If you need to buy a house in India out of the sale proceeds, you can first receive the sale proceeds in a foreign bank account and thereafter remit part or whole of the proceeds back to India without creating any Indian tax liability.

TAXABILITY AT A GLANCE
i. Income received or deemed to be received or accrues or arises in India during the previous year.

- ROR – Fully Taxable
- NOR/NR – Fully Taxable

ii. Income which accrues or arises outside India and received outside India in the previous year from any other source.

- ROR – Fully Taxable
- NOR/NR – Not Taxable

iii. Income which accrues or arises outside India and received outside India during the preceding previous years and remitted to India during the previous year.

- ROR – Not Taxable
- NOR/NR – Not Taxable

NRI man booked for cyber crime against wife

A matrimonial dispute between a Non-Resident Indian (NRI) from Ahmedabad and his wife, from Gurgaon in Haryana, hit cyberspace after the husband allegedly created a website by the name of his wife and posted photos and other evidence on it, alleging that he was tortured by her. Taking objection to this, the woman has registered a cyber-offence with Gurgaon police against her husband under the provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Act.

Based on the complaint, Gurgaon police had issued a look-out notice against the husband who was recently detained for a few hours at Ahmedabad International Airport and was let go with a condition not to leave India.

The NRI is Raj Trivedi from Ahmedabad and his wife is Bhavna Sachdev. They married in August 2009 after connecting on a matrimonial website. Trivedi is an NRI settled at Houston in the United States and he has been into the business of commodities.

According to Trivedi, after a short span of married life, they had started to have disputes which resulted in Bhavna lodging a criminal complaint of dowry, domestic violence and harassment against him, his parents and sister. He also added that a litigation related to the complaint is pending before Punjab & Haryana High Court as the court has sent it for mediation.

In the matrimonial dispute, Bhavna has accused Raj, his parents and his sister of dowry, domestic violence and harassment. Whereas, Raj has alleged that his wife is after his property by defrauding him.

After the dowry complaint registered against him, Raj had created a website by the name of his wife and posted all the 'evidence' in his possession against her on the website. Taking strong objection, Bhavna booked him under IT Act, on February 1.

Bhavna, in her complaint, has stated that the act of Raj has invaded her privacy and accused him of libel and defamation. She further stated that Raj has posted documents on those cases which are still running in court. “During this event he has repeatedly tortured and threatened me that he will try to defame me publicly by putting my picture/information on internet and now he has actually done this...,” she added in the complaint.

Following the complaint, the website has been made unavailable on the internet.

Raj, on his part for creating the website, said, “In the dowry complaint, the police was not treating me fairly, was harassing me and I was fearing for my life. And so, I posted that material on website to let my family members and friends know about the evidence in the case in case something happens to me. Also, I wanted to send out a warning message to people about the dangers of entering into a marriage through internet.”

When contacted by The Indian Express in connection with the case, Bhavna refused to comment saying it is not right for her to speak on a matter that is sub-judice.

ਜੱਸੀ ਹੱਤਿਆ ਕਾਂਡ 'ਚ ਕਥਿਤ ਦੋਸ਼ੀਆਂ ਦੀ ਭਾਰਤ ਹਵਾਲਗੀ ਦਾ ਮਾਮਲਾ

ਮ੍ਰਿਤਕਾ ਦੇ ਕੈਨੇਡਾ ਰਹਿੰਦੇ ਮਾਮੇ ਤੇ ਮਾਂ ਦੀ ਨਾ ਹੋ ਸਕੀ ਜ਼ਮਾਨਤ
ਮਾਰੀ ਗਈ ਜੱਸੀ ਸਿੱਧੂ ਤੇ ਗ੍ਰਿਫਤਾਰ ਕੀਤੇ ਗਏ ਮਾਮਾ ਸੁਰਜੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਬਦੇਸ਼ਾ ਤੇ ਮਾਂ ਮਲਕੀਤ ਕੌਰ ਸਿੱਧੂ।

ਵੈਨਕੂਵਰ, 1 ਮਾਰਚ - ਕੈਨੇਡੀਅਨ ਨਾਗਰਿਕ 25 ਸਾਲਾ ਜਸਵਿੰਦਰ ਕੌਰ ਉਰਫ ਜੱਸੀ ਸਿੱਧੂ ਦੀ 8 ਜੂਨ ਸੰਨ 2000 ਵਿਚ ਭਾੜੇ ਦੇ ਕਾਤਲਾਂ ਰਾਹੀਂ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਵਿਚ ਹੋਏ ਕਤਲ ਸਬੰਧੀ ਲੋੜੀਂਦੇ 67 ਸਾਲਾ ਸੁਰਜੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਬਦੇਸ਼ਾ ਤੇ 63 ਸਾਲਾ ਮਲਕੀਤ ਕੌਰ ਸਿੱਧੂ ਦੀ ਜ਼ਮਾਨਤ ਨਾ ਹੋ ਸਕੀ। ਬ੍ਰਿਟਿਸ਼ ਕੋਲੰਬੀਆ ਸੁਪਰੀਮ ਕੋਰਟ ਵਿਚ ਅੱਜ ਦੀ ਅਦਾਲਤੀ ਕਾਰਵਾਈ ਦੌਰਾਨ ਮਾਨਯੋਗ ਜੱਜ ਮਾਰਕ ਮੈਕੇਵਨ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਉਕਤ ਕੇਸ ਉੱਪਰ ਲੱਗੀ ਮੀਡੀਆ ਪ੍ਰਕਾਸ਼ਨ ਪਾਬੰਦੀ ਵੀ ਉਠਾ ਦਿੱਤੀ ਗਈ। 6 ਜਨਵਰੀ ਸੰਨ 2012 ਨੂੰ ਵੈਨਕੂਵਰ ਨੇੜੇ ਸ਼ਹਿਰ ਮੈਪਿਲ ਰਿਜ ਤੋਂ ਗ੍ਰਿਫਤਾਰ ਕੀਤੇ ਗਏ ਮ੍ਰਿਤਕ ਜੱਸੀ ਦੇ ਮਾਮੇ ਸੁਰਜੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਬਦੇਸ਼ਾ ਤੇ ਮਾਂ ਮਲਕੀਤ ਕੌਰ ਸਿੱਧੂ, ਭਾਰਤ ਹਵਾਲਗੀ ਨੂੰ ਲੈ ਕੇ ਅਦਾਲਤ ਵਿਚ ਵਕੀਲ ਦੋਬੇਰਾਹ ਸਤਰਾਜਨ ਨੇ ਦੱਸਿਆ ਕਿ ਦੋਵਾਂ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਲਗਾਤਾਰ ਜਾਨੋਂ ਮਾਰਨ ਦੀਆਂ ਜੱਸੀ ਨੂੰ ਧਮਕੀਆਂ ਮਿਲਦੀਆਂ ਰਹੀਆਂ। ਕੈਨੇਡੀਅਨ ਮੁਟਿਆਰ ਜਸਵਿੰਦਰ ਕੌਰ ਦੀ ਮੁਲਾਕਾਤ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਵਿਚ ਜਗਰਾਉਂ ਨੇੜਲੇ ਪਿੰਡ ਕਾਉਂਕੇ ਖੋਸਾ ਦੇ ਸੁਖਵਿੰਦਰ ਸਿੰਘ ਮਿੱਠੂ ਨਾਲ 1995 ਵਿਚ ਹੋਈ ਤੇ ਦੋਵਾਂ ਨੇ ਜੱਸੀ ਦੀ ਅਗਲੀ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਫੇਰੀ ਮੌਕੇ 15 ਮਾਰਚ 1999 ਨੂੰ ਲੁਧਿਆਣਾ ਵਿਚ ਬਿਨਾਂ ਦੱਸੇ ਵਿਆਹ ਕਰਵਾ ਲਿਆ, ਜੋ ਕਿ 19 ਅਪ੍ਰੈਲ ਨੂੰ ਬਕਾਇਦਾ ਰਜਿਸਟਰਡ ਕੀਤਾ ਗਿਆ। ਜੱਸੀ ਦੀ ਕੈਨੇਡਾ ਵਾਪਸੀ ਮਗਰੋਂ ਜਦੋਂ ਪ੍ਰੇਮ ਵਿਆਹ ਸਬੰਧੀ ਉਸ ਦੇ ਪੇਕਿਆਂ ਨੂੰ ਪਤਾ ਲੱਗਿਆ ਤਾਂ ਸਬੰਧ ਤਨਾਅ ਪੂਰਨ ਹੋ ਗਏ। ਉੱਧਰ ਜੱਸੀ ਦੇ ਮਾਮੇ ਉੱਪਰ ਮਿੱਠੂ ਨੂੰ 23 ਫਰਵਰੀ ਸੰਨ 2000 ਵਿਚ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਪੁਲਿਸ ਕੋਲੋਂ ਚੁਕਵਾਉਣ, ਧਮਕਾਉਣ ਤੇ ਕੁੱਟਮਾਰ ਦੇ ਦੋਸ਼ਾਂ ਮਗਰੋਂ ਜੱਸੀ ਨੇ, ਕੈਨੇਡੀਅਨ ਪੁਲਿਸ ਕੋਲ ਸ਼ਿਕਾਇਤ ਦਰਜ ਕਰਵਾ ਕੇ 6 ਅਪ੍ਰੈਲ 2000 ਨੂੰ ਘਰ ਛੱਡ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਤੇ 13 ਅਪ੍ਰੈਲ ਨੂੰ ਕੈਨੇਡਾ ਤੋਂ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਪੁੱਜ ਗਈ। ਵਕੀਲ ਅਨੁਸਾਰ ਕਥਿਤ ਦੋਸ਼ੀਆਂ ਨੇ ਭਾੜੇ ਦੇ ਕਾਤਲਾਂ ਰਾਹੀਂ 8 ਜੂਨ ਨੂੰ ਦੋਵਾਂ ਉੱਪਰ ਸੰਗਰੂਰ ਨੇੜੇ ਹਮਲਾ ਕਰਵਾ ਕੇ ਮਿੱਠੂ ਨੂੰ ਗੰਭੀਰ ਜ਼ਖਮੀ ਕਰ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਤੇ ਮਰਿਆ ਸਮਝ ਕੇ ਸੁੱਟ ਕੇ ਜਾਂਦਿਆਂ ਜੱਸੀ ਨੂੰ ਅਗਵਾ ਕਰਕੇ ਲੈ ਗਏ ਅਤੇ ਉਸ ਦੀ ਮਾਂ ਨਾਲ, ਫੋਨ 'ਤੇ ਗੱਲਬਾਤ ਮਗਰੋਂ ਜੱਸੀ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਮਿੱਠੂ ਦਾ ਸਾਥ ਨਾ ਛੱਡਣ 'ਤੇ ਕਤਲ ਦਾ ਹੁਕਮ ਮਿਲਦਿਆਂ ਹੀ, ਪੰਜਾਬਣ ਮੁਟਿਆਰ ਦਾ ਗਲਾ ਵੱਢ ਕੇ ਬੇਰਹਿਮੀ ਨਾਲ ਹੱਤਿਆ ਕਰ ਦਿੱਤੀ ਗਈ। ਇਸ ਕੇਸ ਵਿਚ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਅੰਦਰ ਦੋਸ਼ੀਆਂ ਨੂੰ ਸਜ਼ਾ ਪਹਿਲਾਂ ਹੀ ਹੋ ਚੁੱਕੀ ਹੈ, ਜਦਕਿ ਕੈਨੇਡੀਅਨ ਨਾਗਰਿਕ ਸੁਰਜੀਤ ਬਦੇਸ਼ਾ ਤੇ ਮਲਕੀਤ ਸਿੱਧੂ ਦੀ ਭਾਰਤ ਹਵਾਲਗੀ ਦੀ ਸੁਣਵਾਈ ਲਈ ਤਾਰੀਖ ਅਗਲੇ ਹਫਤੇ ਤੈਅ ਕੀਤੇ ਜਾਣ ਦੀ 

Gallery: The only female eagle hunter in Kazakhstan

Gallery: The only female eagle hunter in Kazakhstan

Makpal Abrazakova, 25, who is professionally trained as a lawyer, is the only female eagle hunter in Kazakhstan. She started learning falconry from her father at the age of 13.