Happy Vaisakhi

2 wanted for murder in India arrested in USA roundup of Sikh gangs called ‘Minta’s’ & ‘AK47’

Two men wanted for murder in India have been arrested in California in a multi-agency law enforcement operation against internecine Sikh violence, according to a local prosecutor. Sutter County District Attorney Jennifer Dupre said on Monday the two men were “fugitives from India or wanted on a number of murders out of India”.

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Passports, tax returns, immigration applications delayed during massive Federal strike

Canada’s largest federal public-service union and Ottawa are both warning of likely service disruptions as nearly one-third of all federal workers remain on strike. The job action taken by members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada could amount to a complete halt of the tax season, slowdowns at the border and pauses to new EI, immigration

Indians ditch cash as home-grown apps like PhonePe, Paytm and QR codes make digital payments ‘much easier’

Indians ditch cash as home-grown apps like PhonePe, Paytm and QR codes make digital payments ‘much easier’. On the streets of Kherki Daula, a village outside the tech hub of Gurugram in northern India, Icha Lohar holds her young child, as she prepares for work selling claypots. She is one of millions across the country who make a living selling roadside items – but the old-fashioned routine of trading goods for money is now moving into the digital age. In front of Lohar’s stall is a

Continued on page 20 and passport applications. In one of the largest strikes in Canada history, government workers walked off the job as of 12:01 a.m. ET Wednesday, hitting the picket lines at some 250-plus locations across the country. The bargaining groups involve some 155,000 federal public servants, including 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency staffers

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Rahul’s defamation trial highlights drift away from democracy under Modi

Two men were arrested Monday on charges that they helped establish a secret police station in New York City on behalf of the Chinese government, and about three dozen officers with China’s national police force were charged with using social media to harass dissidents inside the United States, authorities said Monday. The cases are part of a series of U.S. Justice Department prosecutions in recent years aimed at disrupting Chinese government efforts to locate

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Rahul Gandhi, India’s most prominent opposition leader and the principal adversary of the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, was recently disqualified as member of parliament. This came after Rahul was found guilty of defamation for comment he made about Modi’s surname at a rally in 2019. Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party had also run a furious campaign demanding “Rahul Gandhi maafi mango” (Rahul Gandhi, apologise) after comments Gandhi made during his recent visit to UK.

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Budget officer says Trudeau gov’t may have ‘lost control of its spending’

Budget Officer Yves Giroux said the Trudeau government may have “lost control of its spending,” as the department of Finance forecasts halftrillion dollar budgets for the next several years with deficits until at least 2028. “The government projects $500 billion in annual spending over the next two or three years,” Giroux testified at the Senate National Finance committee. “We are going over a psychological hurdle, a very large one.”

“Has the government lost control of its expenditures?” asked Sen. Clément Gignac (QC).

“This is a good point,” replied Giroux.“Has the government lost control of its spending? I don’t know if they have lost control, but I can certainly say expenditures are rising at a sustained rate,” said Giroux.

South Asian man arrested from Surrey in connection with assault & abduction of Ontario woman

A South Asian man from Delta has been arrested and transported to Ontario to face charges in relation to an alleged December 2021 attack on a woman hit with frying pan and then later abducted.

He was taken from B.C. to the York region Friday night and remains in custody.

Cops have nailed sixth suspect in the Richmond Hill beatdown of Elnaz Hajtamiri, who was lucky to escape with her life. Two weeks later, Hajtamiri, 37 at the time, was kidnapped in the dead of night from a relative’s home in Wasaga Beach by three suspects wearing police gear.

She has not been seen since.

Last Friday in Surrey, B.C., police arrested Jaspreet Singh, 24, of Delta,

B.C. York Regional Police had issued a Canada-wide warrant for Singh. He has now been charged with aggravated assault and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence and extradited back to York Region.

Detectives are still hunting at least one more suspect in the Dec. 20, 2021 assault and suspected kidnapping attempt in a Richmond Hill underground garage. He is Sukhpreet Singh, 24, of Mississauga.

“He is encouraged to seek legal counsel and turn himself in. Investigators are reminding the public that anyone who is, or has, assisted the suspect may be subject to criminal charges,” YRP said in a press release. Singh is the sixth person arrested in relation to an assault on 37-year-old Elnaz Hajtamiri.

Traffic police busts same driver for same offence twice in four hours

A Vancouver traffic cop must have thought he was seeing double on Tuesday, after busting the same driver twice for the same offence. The VPD Traffic Section posted about the incident on Twitter, which involved the same officer and same driver in separate traffic stops in the 3800-block of Granville Street and the 1300-block of West Georgia

Street less than four hours apart.

“The driver didn’t recognize the officer and even gave the same excuse for their driving behaviour,” the traffic unit wrote.

Police said the motorist was driving in a bus-only lane, but claimed both times not to realize what they were doing was wrong.

The driver was handed a pair of tickets for $109 each.

Violent crime has technically been worse in Canada, but never quite like this. As recently as the early 1990s, the rate of knives and bullets being driven into Canadians was far higher than it is now. But amid a dramatic uptick in national violence are trends the country has never really seen before. Police officers are being shot and killed on duty at unprecedented rates. Record numbers of Canadians are being randomly attacked by people they’ve never met, for seemingly no reason.

Just on Wednesday, a 17-year-old boy was stabbed and killed on a bus in Surrey, B.C. The tragedy occurs just two weeks after a 16-year-old was killed in a similar incident in a Toronto subway station. And in the interim have come a host of transit stabbings which didn’t make national headlines because the blades missed vital organs. And worst of all, the crime is everywhere.

When Toronto was struck by the socalled “summer of the gun” in 2005, it was a shocking anomaly within a country that was otherwise enjoying another year of dropping crime.

In the first months of 2023, skyrocketing violent crime is the new reality in basically every Canadian time zone.

In Saskatchewan, First Nations leaders are sounding the alarm on a “crisis” of on-reserve violence. Newfoundland and Labrador is coping with a 20 per cent increase in violent crime severity. In the Yukon territory, politicians and RCMP officials are reporting crime that is both “more intense” and “increasing dramatically.”

First Nation says 40 unmarked graves of children found around former school in BC

The shishalh Nation on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast says groundpenetrating radar has identified what are believed to be 40 unmarked graves of children on or near the site of the former St. Augustine’s Residential School.

A statement from the nation says it listened to elders and survivors of the residential school and stories shared of missing children have now been confirmed.

The nation says ground-penetrating radar is one of the tools it used in the archeological project, which also includes interviews with survivors and records of documented historical events. The shishalh First Nation says it has been working with the University of Saskatchewan to find the remains of children who didn’t return from St. Augustine’s Residential School. Terry Clark, an associate professor at the university, said they always had enough proof of the remains and they strongly believe there are many more unmarked graves in the area.

Delhi family’s clever ‘jugaad’ (solution) to attend daughter’s wedding in USA

Weddings are an important part of our life. And it is a dream that our families should be present to witness this beautiful moment. But what to do if your dear ones aren’t able to attend this special occasion? Terrible, right? Well, you will love this wedding ‘jugaad’ by a US-based Indian family. And you will love it!

Sunil Dhar, a US-based man, was planning his son’s wedding. However, there was just one obstacle — visa! Apparently, the bride’s family didn’t have a US visa permit mandatory to enter the United States Of America. For Indians, the waiting time for a US visa can stretch up to one month, despite the deployment of temporary visa officers to Mumbai.

According to Sunil Dhar, a wedding is a memory that lasts for a lifetime and he didn’t want his daughter-in-law to have the wedding without her parents. So, he came up with the idea of shifting the location to a place that is neutral territory for the United States and Canada!

The family decided to host the wedding at Blaine, Washington, near Peace Arch — a neutral territory for both countries, and people don’t need a visa to visit. This will give a chance to the bride’s family (who have a Canadian visa) to attend the wedding without any problem! In fact, they can carry out every ceremony without any hassle. This ultimate wedding jugaad by the Dhar family enables everyone to attend this joyous occasion.

Immigration delays are a huge inconvenience for many people. This is because of a massive backlog in the visa process. Besides, students and working professionals, people who are getting married or who want to visit their parents suffer due to this delay.

Many immigrants experience great mental hardship as a result of the difficult visa application procedure. Moreover, there is the uncertainty of when they will be reunited with their loved ones. This can be depressing and can take a toll on one’s health too! There should be a faster visa process to ensure that people don’t have to wait for too long.

Every country in the Gulf seems to try to become liberal and break social norms that have been followed for ages here. The latest one to follow the trail is Oman. What’s happening there you ask? Well, Omanis can now marry any foreign national without needing approval. That’s a revolutionary reform that has been now confirmed by the Oman government. Let’s check out the details of this act.The good news was announced by the Sultan of Oman, Haitham bin Tarik. In the announcement, he proceeds with the statement that the law governing Omanis marrying foreigners has changed. The new decree on marriage laws was passed on Sunday in Oman.

This confirms that there would be no permit or prior approval required to marry non-Omanis. .The royal decree had seven articles, the first of which provided for the deletion of the prior law’s authority to issue laws governing Omani marriages to non-Omanis and amending the law governing Omani nationality.

The implementation of the previous law that barred Omanis and nonOmanis marriage has been cancelled.

British Columbia is bringing in a new regulation immediately to ensure diabetes patients don’t face a shortage of the drug Ozempic, touted by celebrities for its weight loss side-effects.

Health Minister Adrian Dix said Wednesday the change will ensure patients in B.C. and Canada needing Ozempic to treat their Type 2 diabetes will continue to have access to that medication and other drugs that may require protection in the future. Dix said the regulation will help prevent online or mail-order sales of Ozempic to people who don’t live in Canada and who are not in B.C. to make a purchase.

“We do not bring drugs to B.C. for them to be re-exported to the United States,” Dix said at a news conference. “Here in Canada, we have to protect the interests of B.C. patients. This is a legislated regulation response to a real problem. This action will address this problem.”

The changes come after the discovery that about 15 per cent of Ozempic prescriptions were being filled at two Vancouver locations for shipment to the United States. Earlier this month, the Nova Scotia College of Physicians and Surgeons suspended the licence of a doctor living in the United States who the college said wrote thousands of prescriptions for Ozempic, a drug some patients are seeking to help with weight loss.