indian Citizenship, Visas Made Easy for hindusand sikh Refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh

[HariPrasad]

Ahmedis led the call for partition of India. They were the most ardent believers of Pakistan, so please do not make the mistake of shedding tears for them.

My impression is different. Any way I noted your point.

 

[Indrani]

What I am saying is if we want to ease the visa norms then it should be applied to all the rest. Whether Shias are eligible or not we may leave it to personal preferences as of now.

We will make a deal with secular Bengalis. We will take all Shias in Pakistan if the Secular Bengalis will vacate India and go to Pakistan in exchange. Agreed?

 

[Indrani]

My impression is different. Any way I noted your point.

Aga Khan arrived in India in 1840 as a political refugee from Persia. A 100 years later his family were spearheading partition demands. Take any sect of Islam in India and again and again this is the story.

 

[Sahasranama]

Anything which applies to Hindus applies to Tibetans and Burmese too. Or are you advocating discriminating on racial basis?

Yes, racial and religious basis.

 

[Ayush]

great decision......
community service is something Hindus are bad at.

 

[HariPrasad]

Aga Khan arrived in India in 1840 as a political refugee from Persia. A 100 years later his family were spearheading partition demands. Take any sect of Islam in India and again and again this is the story.

Ok I did not know that. I think that These Agakhan followers are very sane and peace loving people.

 

[Indrani]

Ok I did not know that. I think that These Agakhan followers are very sane and peace loving people.

They are more prosperous and perhaps well educated slice of the Muslim society, but I do not think their outlook towards other religions is any different. You should read articles by Farzana Versey to know how much hate there is for Hindus.

Asghar Ali Engineer of the Bohra Muslim community also comes to mind whose single crusade is to label Hindus as killers of Muslims.

 

[ghoul]

India should offer visa free travel to it's ally Afghanistan too.

 

[kurup]

India should offer visa free travel to it's ally Afghanistan too.

OK ...... I will forward this suggestion to GOI .

 

[cloud_9]

India should offer visa free travel to it's ally Afghanistan too.

Afghan National's don't pay any Visa Fee or anything and they usually travel to India for Business/Medical or Study purposes.So they have no issues getting a visa

NEW DELHI: India on Monday announced a new liberal visa policy for Afghan nationals who will now be allowed to stay in the country on humanitarian grounds for two years.

According to a home ministry release, the new policy further streamlines procedures being implemented in the current visa policy for citizens of Afghanistan. The new policy will be implemented from July 1.

SpiceJet Profits as Afghans Seek Medical Care in India - Businessweek

Bibihaji Zia returned to Kabul in August after knee surgery in New Delhi. She flew on SpiceJet, the only private Indian carrier with direct flights to war-torn Afghanistan. “There are hospitals in Afghanistan, but the quality of medicine is the biggest issue,” says Zia’s son, Sediq. “Getting Indian visas is easy. The alternative, Pakistan, is less secure and less friendly.”

The demand for medical tourism is a rare bright spot for SpiceJet, which is struggling financially. The number of Afghans seeking treatment, up 21 percent last year to more than 32,000, is set to climb further now that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has relaxed visa rules to strengthen ties between the two nations. SpiceJet’s data show it flies about 1,000 Afghan medical tourists and their relatives each month from Kabul to New Delhi, earning the company about 156 million rupees ($2.6 million) a year based on average ticket prices. The carrier says the route is “very positive” when asked about profitability but won’t give details. Mounting costs and competition in India’s skies caused SpiceJet to lose 1.24 billion rupees from April to June, its fourth straight quarterly loss.

Sediq Zia, 24, studies in New Delhi and lives in the city’s Lajpat Nagar neighborhood, a “Little Afghanistan” that draws medical tourists from his country and is dotted with travel agencies bearing signs in Pashto. He says he paid $3,700 for his mother’s knee replacement at Saket City Hospital in India’s capital. The same procedure costs about $19,200 in Singapore and $34,000 in the U.S., according to Patients Beyond Borders. “Demand is quite high for Delhi-Kabul flights,” says Mehtab Singh, a manager at Welcome Travels in Lajpat Nagar. “We book 20 to 25 tickets to Kabul every day during peak season.”

Afghan patients are part of an Indian medical tourism industry that will double in value to $6 billion by 2018, the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates. Arrivals in that period will climb from about 230,000 to 400,000. The two-hour, 625-mile trip linking the Indian capital with Kabul can be risky. On July 3 the Taliban attacked the airport in the Afghan capital with rockets while a SpiceJet plane was parked there. The assault damaged three helicopters and a hangar, says Mohammad Yaqub Rassouli, head of Kabul International Airport. SpiceJet, which briefly suspended flights to Kabul after the attack, wasn’t the target and has security steps in place, spokeswoman Sudipta Das said via e-mail.

The airline, India’s second-biggest by market share, is one of four that provide direct service between Kabul and New Delhi. The others are Air India and Kabul-based Kam Air and Safi Airways.

SpiceJet’s Indian network, which provides the bulk of its revenue, has been losing money because of cutthroat pricing in the overcrowded domestic market. The carrier’s debt has erased its net worth; it’s fallen behind on airport fees and has been forced to postpone aircraft deliveries. That’s why the Afghan medical customers are so welcome. The fare on SpiceJet’s Kabul-to-Delhi flight is almost $500 for a round trip—up to three times the price of its hop from Mumbai to Delhi, even though the domestic flight is almost 90 miles longer. “High-risk or war-risk routes are high-yield,” says Mark Martin, chief executive officer of Dubai-based Martin Consulting, which advises airlines on strategy.

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India introduced a medical visa for Afghans in 2005, then eased the rules on July 1, allowing Afghans to stay up to two years and exempting medical tourists from some police registration requirements. India issued about 100,000 visas to Afghans in 2013—including more than 32,000 medical permits—up from 85,000 in 2012, says Niteen Yeola, a political officer at the Indian Embassy in Kabul. Raju Vaishya, a senior orthopedics consultant at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital in New Delhi, says he operates on about 600 Afghan patients a year.

SpiceJet says demand for Kabul flights may lead it to increase services from the three a week it currently operates, if slots at airports are available. The alternative for Afghans seeking medical treatment, Pakistan, is less welcoming because of animosity between the governments over cross-border terrorism. “Once I was going home with my girlfriend at 2 a.m. in Delhi, and the cops gave me a lift,” Zia, the student, says. “Can you imagine the same in Pakistan? There, they’d probably shoot me the moment they realize I’m an Afghan.”

 

[SouthDesi]

This month alone 3 sikhs were killed in Pakistan apart from 100's of Shias. This is the best thing India could do for Sikh and Hindus.