It is getting difficult to be an Indian ...

That was the comment from a lady whose papers were denied for attestation at a recent visa camp in Dallas. It also echoed the sentiments of some other people who had also gotten there to get their visa or paper work done... Most of the people were simply very patient putting up witht he extremely inefficient visa camp process. These visa camps are organized every month by a volunteer Indian Association for the benefit of thousands of Indians living in the surrounding areas who would rather pay an extra $10 per transaction rather than go to Houston on a weekday for the same work. It is $10 extra per transaction which means if you were to get an attestation on two sheets of paper with the same information, you have to shell out $10x2=$20 extra in addition to the regular fees that are charged. What a rip-off!!!

Attestation of a couple of legal documents [transfer of PoA] is exactly what I had in mind on the day before the camp and I was weighing in the options of going to Houston vs Visa Camp in Dallas.

More international recognition needed!

Recently a 14 year old boy Om Prakash Gurjar from the Indian State of Rajasthan received an international peace prize from the KidsRights Foundation. The KidsRights Foundation, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, works in support of the world’s most vulnerable children who are on the edge of society, such as child prostitutes, AIDS orphans, child slaves and street kids. They focus on five basic rights: the Right to Education, the Right to proper Housing, the Right to Health care, the Right to Nutrition and the Right to Attention. It is good to see that Om has brought the World's attention [although for a brief moment in Internet time] to a very serious problem still in practice in many parts of the country. It remains to be seen as to how the State government and the Central government react to the problem in lieu of the above award.

Ravi Kandikonda