Kerala asks for legal attaches in Gulf >From Indo-Asian News Service
Thiruvananthapuram, June 27 (IANS) The Kerala government has requested the centre to post a legal attach� in each Indian embassy in the Gulf, Minister for Non-Resident Keralites (NRKs) M.M. Hassan told the state assembly Friday. This would help the hundreds of Keralites fighting legal battles in the Middle East, he said. "We cannot take any steps to post a legal person in these embassies without the permission of the union government. "As per information provided by the Indian embassies, in Oman there are 17 Keralites languishing in jail, in Qatar there are 26 jailed for various offences. In Saudi Arabia, there are 349 Indians in jail. Information of Keralites in jails in other Gulf countries is not available," he said. Hassan said if any relative of a prisoner approached the state government for help, the NRK department immediately contacted the relevant Indian embassy. Hassan visited several Gulf countries last April and discovered that the Keralite community had one major complaint -- the legal problems while fighting labour cases. He had met External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha and Labour Minister Sahib Singh Verma to seek help in resolving these problems. According to a study by the Centre for Development Studies here in 2001, there are an estimated 1.6 million Keralites in the Middle East. For almost three decades, the mainstay of the state economy has been NRK remittances amounting to Rs. 35 billion a year. The Kerala government tried to express its gratitude to NRKs by a unique insurance scheme launched in April. It has also set aside Rs. 25 million in the 2003-04 budget for various social service measures. --Indo-Asian News Service ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
