No Decision on Declaring Diwali School Holiday: NYC Mayor

The City of New York is still undecided on declaring school holidays for Diwali festival, a longstanding demand of the Indian community, the largest South Asian group here.

However, for Eid and the Chinese New Year, the city's Mayor said, "The goal is to get there."

"Have not spoken about Diwali yet. On the other two (festivals), goal is to get there (declare school holidays)," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

"It will take time. It is complicated in terms of logistics and school calendar and budget. But it is something I want to get done in a reasonable time frame," de Blasio said.

Appearing on a local radio show, the Mayor was asked if he would make the Lunar New Year, Eid (both Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha) and Diwali school holidays.

Indians are the largest South Asian group here, comprising 2.4 per cent of the city's population of more than 8 million people.

The New York City metropolitan area is home to nearly 600,000 Indian-Americans, with a majority of residents concentrated in Queens neighbourhoods such as Jackson Heights, Flushing, Glen Oaks, Floral Park, Bellerose, Jamaica, Kew Gardens, and Elmhurst.

The ethnic community has long been demanding that the city's schools should be closed on Diwali.

A representative of the Association of Indians in America, Shashi Shah told the New York Daily News that the community is disappointed that Diwali is not a school holiday in the city.

Shah appealed to the Mayor to recognise the Hindu holiday, saying, "We are disappointed. We have been trying for a long time. It's very important for the community."

Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg too had opposed a school holiday on Diwali saying kids should not miss more school

source:news.outlookindia.com

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Indian Consulate looking into ‘Vedic pandits’ disappearance

Consul General Ausaf Sayeed said none of the pandits had sought any assistance from the Consulate for their repatriation to India.

The Indian Consul General in Chicago has said that no complaints or information has been received from either the Iowa-based Maharishi Vedic City, or from any one of the 130 “Vedic pandits,” or religious scholars brought here from India for studies and training, who have said to have gone “missing” in the last seven months.

In an email to The Hindu Consul General Ausaf Sayeed said none of the pandits had sought any assistance from the Consulate for their repatriation to India, and “The Consulate has no information on the current whereabouts of the missing pandits and whether they are working elsewhere.”

Dr. Sayeed further clarified, “The Maharishi University has also not deposited any passport of their missing employees with the Consulate.”

Earlier, a Maharishi University official said that the missing pandits were “in violation of U.S. immigration law and it is therefore a federal matter, beyond the legal jurisdiction of local officials in Iowa or the Indian Consul General in Chicago,” however adding that, “The prior Consul General has visited the pandit campus in Iowa and expressed great pleasure at the program and facilities.”

Although Dr. Sayeed said that the Consulate General was in the process of ascertaining full facts of the case, what is evident is that unprecedented numbers of R-1 visa holders have been vanishing from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi institutions since they began coming here for their training since 2006.

In messages sent to The Hindu earlier, William Goldstein, Dean of Global Development and General Counsel to the Maharishi University of Management, based in Fairfield, Iowa, said that the Global Country of World Peace (GCWP), the U.S. organisation sponsoring the pandits’ R-1 visas and their stay in this country, had not received any prior communication from the scholars before they went “AWOL” (Absence Without Leave).

Mr. Goldstein said that while they did not know for sure what they pandits were doing after their departure from the Vedic city, but suspected that many of them were “working simple jobs in restaurants as the ones who have returned or the few we have information on seem to have followed that pattern”.

He added that it could be that, “Someone is misinforming them about the financial opportunities and the legal implications, and their prime motive appears to be to generate more money for their families,” and there could be an “organised racket brokering the operation”.

Further, Mr. Goldstein said that few, if any, of the pandits spoke English at all, and allegations made by the Chicago-based Hi India newspaper that the pandits’ initial contract signed with the Maharishi institutions for travel to the U.S. had not been translated from English to Hindi were “untrue”.

Mr. Goldstein also said, “I am the attorney who spent many hours before and after the project launched working with the U.S. State Department and Indian passport officials setting up the visas for the project.”

The Hindu contacted the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding this matter, but their office in Minneapolis, which is dealing with the case, was closed owing to extreme weather conditions.

An ICE official however noted that missing person reports were generally not filed with ICE, rather they had to be submitted to local law enforcement authorities and in the case of foreign nationals with the government concerned.

source:thehindu.com

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Only 5% Vedic Pandits Missing in US, Claims Vedic Univ

The Iowa-based institutions of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi have said about only five per cent of the 2,600 Vedic pandits, who were brought to the US from north Indian villages, have gone missing in recent years.

"Each of these cases the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been informed about Vedic pandits leaving their United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and State Department approved programme at its Iowa campus," said William Goldstein, Dean of Global Development and General Counsel to the Maharishi University of Management.

"Only a small number of the over 2,600 pandits, about five per cent, who have come on this unprecedented Vedic programme to the US have gone AWOL (absent without leave)," Goldstein told PTI in an email.

"For the first four years of this programme, it was a very small number. In recent months this number has been unfortunately increasing," he said.

He alleged that they appear to have been induced by individuals providing false and bad information of high earnings, or by unscrupulous employers taking advantage of them.

He also denied allegations of mistreatment of the priests, including giving them low wages.

In an investigative report, Chicago-based ethnic weekly newspaper Hi India alleged that 163 Vedic pandits brought to the US lived in pathetic conditions and were paid less than 75 cents an hour.

Goldstein claimed that these pandits come to the US under R-1 visas and thus are not subject to the minimum wage rules.

"They are on R-1 visas. They are not in possession of a visa to be day labourers nor are they equipped to be such. Their visa only entitles them, and they are solely qualified to engage in, their spiritual vocation of meditation and Vedic performances," he said.

"They are not subject to minimum wage laws in this spiritual or ministerial vocation, like monks in a monastery," said the official from Maharishi University of Management. The Iowa campus has been specifically inspected and approved for this precise purpose by USCIS, for use as a site for R-1 pandits," he said.

Denying allegations that pandits brought to the US are underage, he said, "No pandit has ever come on the programme under 18 years of age."

He said that it has been agreed with the pandits that of the USD 200 per month base cash compensation, USD 150 will be transmitted to their families in India.

All the pandits, contrary to the allegations, reside in modern, fully heated and air-conditioned comfortable modular homes, with an indoor and outdoor athletic facility and a large organic vegetarian kitchen and cafeteria, along with their meditation halls, classrooms, and Vedic performance halls, he said.

source:news.outlookindia.com

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