Dr Arathi Krishna welcomes relaxation in visa, travel restrictions for OCI card holders

coastaldigest.com web desk
May 23, 2020

The decision of the Indian government to ease the coronavirus-linked global travel restrictions imposed on those having OCI cards has given a big relief to many stranded overseas citizens of India across the world.

OCI card is issued to people of Indian origin globally which gives them almost all the privileges of an Indian national except for the right to vote, government service and buying agricultural land. The OCI card gives them a visa-free travel to India.

On Friday, the central government allowed certain categories of OCI card holders, who are stranded abroad, to come to the country. Earlier, according to the regulations issued by the Indian government in April, visas of foreign nationals and OCI cards were suspended as part of the new international travel restrictions following the COVID-19 pandemic.

This privilege of visa free travel to India was causing distress among a large number of people of Indian-origin and Indian citizens in countries like the US whose children were OCI card holders as they were born in this country.

Many Indian parents, several of whom lost their jobs as a result of the economic crisis due to coronavirus pandemic, but were not allowed to take the special evacuation flights of Air India from various US cities, took to social media and urged the Indian leaders to allow them to travel to India.

“This is a big relief for the OCI card holders. It was a humanitarian crisis in the making. I am pleased that the Indian Government listened to their voices,” said social activist Prem Bhandari, chairman of Jaipur Foot USA, who has been taking up the cause of the OCI card holders.

Dr Arathi Krishna, former deputy chairperson of NRI Forum of Karnataka government, who had been demanding this relaxation, many of the thousands of stranded OCI card holders in defferent parts of the world were in pursuading her to exert pressure on the authorities concerned for this much needed relaxation.

The restrictions on traveling of OCI card holders to India was issued by govt of India on March 13 in the wake of global outbreak of coronavirus pandemic. 

She said: "Many parents who are Indian nationals could not travel for emergency purpose to India after repatriation flights started due to their minor children being OCI card holders. Many children who were OCI card holders could not travel to India to perform last rites when there was death in their family due to these restrictions"

"I was constantly pressurising and bringing these issues to the attention of ministry officials in External Affairs and Home Affairs departments. I was following up with Mr Dammu Ravi who is heading the COVID task force  task firce in the ministry of overseas Indian affairs who took interest in solving this problem through his consistent efforts with MHA. Iam thankful to Fireign Secretary too for his efforts and concern and to MHA for making it easier now for OCI card holders to travel in repatriation flights with emergency reasons," she said.

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News Network
April 7,2020

Bengaluru, Apr 7: Leader of Opposition in Karnataka Siddaramaiah on Monday urged Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa to announce a special package to help farmers, agriculture labourers and also working class in various sectors who are affected by the lockdown.

Mr Siddaramaiah put forth his demands during a telephonic conversation and the Chief Minister positively responding to it informed that he will formulate a programme keeping in mind the suggestions made by the Opposition, a statement from the LoP's office said.

It said, the Chief Minister also spoke to Mr Siddaramaiah regarding the government's decision to stop supply of free food for poor and needy through Indira Canteens.

Mr Siddaramaiah on Saturday had written to Yediyurappa urging him to utilise Indira Canteens efficiently and provide food for poor and needy until the coronavirus crisis and lockdown is over.

The former Chief Minister's letter had come a day after the state government had decided not to provide free food at Indira Canteens as concerns were raised about the quality and misuse that was happening.

It had, however, decided to continue to provide subsidised food- breakfast at Rs 5 and lunch and dinner at Rs 10, as usual.

Mr Yediyurappa during the phone conversation on Monday appraised Siddaramaiah that the decision to supply food by fixing a price was taken to stop misuse that was happening.

Mr Siddaramaiah, however, insisted the government should provide food free of cost to the poor and needy, by taking care that misuse doesn't happen.

The senior Congress leader asked the Chief Minister to take action against errant officials who allowed misuse to happen, the statement said, adding that Yediyurappa has promised to look into it.

Initially, the government last month had decided that the state subsidised Indira Canteens would provide food packets free of cost to the poor and needy in the wake of the lockdown.

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News Network
April 17,2020

Bengaluru, Apr 17: Nikhil Kumaraswamy, son of former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, married Revathi, grand-niece of former Congress Minister for Housing, M Krishnappa, on Friday.

According to sources, more than 100 people participated in the marriage ceremony held at Kumaraswamy's farmhouse in Kethaganahally, Ramanagara.

There were around 50-60 members from former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda's family and more than 30 people participated from Revathi's family, sources added.

This comes in the middle of a nationwide lockdown which has been imposed to deal with the coronavirus threat.

Earlier, HD Kumaraswamy had said that the marriage ceremony would be held behind closed doors in the presence of family members.

Nikhil Kumaraswamy, who contested the Lok Sabha election from Mandya, is also the national youth wing president of Janata Dal-Secular.

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News Network
March 25,2020

Pune/Bengaluru, Mar 25: e-Zest Solutions and Neurosynaptic Communications today announced the ReMeDi SCAN-CORONA platform, an innovative technology solution to help control the Novel COVID-19 pandemic.
As countries worldwide grapple to contain the spread and flatten the curve while treating the ones infected, the need of the hour is to deploy widespread screening and testing procedures to identify and isolate those showing symptoms.
The ReMeDi® SCAN-CORONA platform has a three-pronged approach to controlling the pandemic that makes the task of screening, testing, tracking and reporting extremely easy and manageable at a large scale.
"Mass screening and testing is the need of the hour. With the scarcity of healthcare professionals, there is a need of technology enabled platforms to do this at a large scale with minimal to no human intervention. The ReMeDi SCAN-CORONA brings together remote healthcare expertise and the power of emerging technology such as AI & ML, and promises to reduce the load on the healthcare system, so that timely care reaches the right set of people as fast as possible," said Shree Shingane - Founder and Managing Director, e-Zest Solutions GmbH.
The solution features a Corona-Screen Kit - a portable, lightweight kit that includes basic screening tools that seamlessly connect and feed data into a Patient Health Record (PHR) system without any manual intervention.
It also features a geo-tagging powered Screening app that, by importing and analyzing data from the screening tools as well as travel and medical history. The input from a third-party COVID-19 rapid testing kit further enhances the accuracy of the outcome.
"ReMeDi SCAN-CORONA helps front-line health workers to quickly assess the essential risk factors for a person digitally. It has the unique ability to track the progression of symptoms with time. The tele-consultation facility allows individuals to obtain counselling as well as consult doctors independent of location, to access timely information and guidance. We are proud to present this solution in collaboration with e-Zest," said Sameer Sawarkar CEO - Neurosynaptic.
The beauty of this solution is that while it can bring a big relief for COVID-19 screening efforts, it is equally advantageous to heavily burdened Healthcare Providers in remotely treating the non-corona health requirements as well.
The team acknowledges the valuable contribution in terms of clinical inputs for application development, from Dr Nandakumar, a renowned public health expert.
"e-Zest vision is to leverage Healthcare technologies to impact human life positively. We are happy to be part of this collaboration & look forward to it's contribution to combat the pandemic challenge globally," said Devendra Deshmukh, e-Zest CEO.
This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article.

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