NY city to pay USD 225,000 to Indian girl to settle lawsuit

September 18, 2014

New York, Sep 18: In a significant legal victory for the daughter of an Indian diplomat, the city of New York has agreed to pay her USD 225,000 to settle a lawsuit she brought against it after she was jailed for a day and suspended from school on suspicion of sending obscene emails to her teacher.

Krittika BiswasKrittika Biswas has in turn agreed to dismiss all the claims against the city, Board of Education and the officials of the New York Police Department who had arrested and detained her in 2011.

US District Judge John Koeltl in the Southern District of New York said in his order that the City of New York agrees to pay Biswas USD 225,000 in "full satisfaction of all claims" and in consideration for the payment Biswas "agrees to dismissal of all the claims" against the defendants.

He said that the parties in the case "desire to resolve the issues" raised in the litigation "without further proceedings and without admitting any fault or liability."

Biswas's lawyer Ravi Batra said in a statement to PTI that the "honour" of Biswas, Indian diplomats and India has been has been "vindicated" with the court order.

The settlement acknowledged that Biswas was an "honor student" at the time of her "false arrest."

He said Biswas joins him in "thanking" the Indian- American community, former ambassadors Prabhu Dayal and Meera Shanker and her former classmates and teachers whose "emotional and moral support" helped her in her legal fight.

Biswas had filed the lawsuit seeking USD 1.5 million in damages for her wrongful imprisonment and suspension from school. She was detained and arrested in February 2011 on the grounds that she had sent "offensive and sexually threatening" emails to her teachers in Queens's John Browne High School.Biswas is now in India.

The defendants had moved to "dismiss" the entire lawsuit but an appeals court had last month refused to throw out the lawsuit saying the arguments by them were "without merit."

Biswas's lawsuit had detailed the circumstances that led to her being handcuffed and imprisoned forcibly approximately 28 hours "for nothing."

Biswas was "forced to be processed through the criminal justice system, and spent over 24 hours in jail without being allowed to meet her parents or visited by senior Indian diplomats. All of this occurred, despite her actual innocence as this was a case of mistaken identity."

It states that she was discriminated against and falsely accused of sending offensive e-mails because of her ethnicity.

An investigation after her arrest had found that another student had sent the emails but that student was not arrested or criminally charged, which Batra said is "proof of foul discriminatory disparate treatment" of Biswas "despite her actual innocence."

Citing the India-US relations, particularly in the wake of the upcoming visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Batra said he advised Biswas and her family that a "just resolution" of the case would be an appropriate move to "enhance the bilateral relationship."

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News Network
June 8,2020

Hundreds of thousands of people across the world are joining the anti-racism demonstrations days after the killing of George Floyd in United Sates. 

The protests are being held in cities including London, Manchester, Cardiff, Leicester and Sheffield.

Demonstrators attached ropes to the statue of Edward Colston before pulling it down to cheers and roars of approval from the crowd. Images on social media show the statue was eventually rolled into the city's harbour. 

It was not the only statue targeted on Sunday. In Brussels, protesters clambered onto the statue of former King Leopold II and chanted "reparations".

The word "shame" was also graffitied on the monument, reference perhaps to the fact that Leopold is said to have reigned over the mass death of 10 million Congolese.

In London, thousands of people congregated around the US embassy for the second day running.

While protests were mainly peaceful, there were some scuffles near the office of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and outside the Parliament gates.

In Hong Kong, about 20 people staged a rally in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement on Sunday outside the US consulate in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.

"It's a global issue," Quinland Anderson, a 28-year-old British citizen living in Hong Kong, told The Associated Press news agency.

"We have to remind ourselves despite all we see going on in the US and in the other parts of the world, Black lives do indeed matter."

Several dozen demonstrators took part in a Black Lives Matter protest held in Tel Aviv's central Rabin Square.

A rally in Rome's sprawling People's Square was noisy but peaceful, with the majority of protesters wearing masks to protect against coronavirus. Participants listened to speeches and held up handmade placards saying "Black Lives Matter" and "It's a White Problem".

In Spain, several thousand people gathered on the streets of Barcelona and at the US embassy in Madrid.

Many in Madrid carried homemade signs reading "Black Lives Matter", "Human rights for all" and "Silence is pro-racist".

"We are not only doing this for our brother George Floyd," said Thimbo Samb, a spokesman for the group that organised the events in Spain mainly through social media. "Here in Europe, in Spain, where we live, we work, we sleep and pay taxes, we also suffer racism."

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News Network
May 9,2020

London, May 9: Air India's first evacuation flight from London will be taking off for Mumbai today.

The screening of passengers is underway.

"Air India's first evacuation flight from London taking off for Mumbai today at 1200. Flight is 100% booked! Shubh Yatra. Please stay in touch. GoI working to send more evacuation flights!" High Commission of India, London said in a tweet.

On Monday, India announced had that it will begin phased repatriation of its citizens stranded abroad from May 7.

The government said that Air India will operate 64 flights in the first week from May 7 to May 13 to bring back around 15,000 Indian nationals.

On day three of the 'Vande Bharat Mission', flights carrying Indians from the Gulf countries, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh and Malaysia will arrive in India.

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News Network
July 23,2020

Minneapolis, Jul 23: The former Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in the death of George Floyd was charged Wednesday with multiple felony counts of tax evasion.

Derek Chauvin and his wife, Kellie May Chauvin, were each charged in Washington County with six counts of filing false or fraudulent tax returns for the tax years 2014 through 2019 and three counts of failing to file tax returns for 2016, 2017 and 2018.

Floyd, a Black man who was handcuffed, died May 25 after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against Floyd's neck for nearly eight minutes as Floyd pleaded for air.

Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. He and three other officers who were at the scene were fired.

Chauvin is in custody on the charges in the Floyd case. Kellie Chauvin, who filed for divorce after Floyd's death, is not in custody.

Online court records didn't list attorneys for either in the tax evasion case, and calls to Kellie Chauvin did not go through.

Washington County Attorney Pete Orput said the investigation into the Chauvins was started in June by the Minnesota Department of Revenue and Oakdale Police Department.

Authorities allege in the criminal complaints that the Chauvins failed to file income tax returns and pay state income taxes, and that they underreported and underpaid taxes on income they earned from various jobs each year.

The complaints allege that they also failed to pay proper sales tax on a $100,000 BMW purchased in Minnesota in 2018.

Prosecutors say the Chauvins bought the car in Minnetonka but registered it in Florida, where they paid lower sales taxes.

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