Thousands of Indian doctors in UK return home

Saturday, 17 February 2007

London, Feb 16 (IANS) Nearly 5,000 Indian doctors have so far returned home after failing to find suitable employment in Britain's National Health Service (NHS) that forced them to live with rats, cockroaches and scrounge for free meals in temples and gurdwaras.

The figure of 5,000 returning to India since April 2006 is approximate, and the actual figure could be more. The doctors had passed the requisite tests for employment in the NHS, but failed to find jobs due to changes in immigration rules and a larger pool of available doctors from within Britain and the European Union.

Many more face the prospect of returning home after the Feb 9 high court ruling that disallowed a judicial review of the changes made in April 2006. All attention is now focussed on the ongoing recruitment process for 21,000 NHS jobs starting August 2007, according to leaders of the Indian medical community here.

The current recruitment is part of a new system called Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) that came into effect this year. From Jan 22 to Feb 4 more than 30,000 doctors applied for the 21,000 available jobs in various specialities - and 10,000-12,000 applicants of them are said to be Indians.

Shortlisting of candidates for the jobs is expected to be completed by Feb 24 and interviews will take place in the first week of March.

Leaders of the Indian medical community are working to ensure that the Indian applicants are not adversely affected in the recruitment process by the Feb 9 ruling of the high court. Those who are not selected in this round will also face the prospect of returning home.

Lakshman Raman, vice-chair (policy) of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO), told IANS that if the new rules issued in April 2006 were applied, there would be practically two shortlists for the NHS posts - one of British and EU citizens and another pile of Indian and other overseas doctors.

'The second list would only be considered for jobs that are not filled using doctors in the first list. Since BAPIO went to court and the verdict was announced on Feb 9 we believe so far the new rules have not been applied.

'After the verdict, BAPIO has written to the Department of Health (DoH), asking that they continue to hold the new rules in abeyance as we are going to appeal and we hope they will agree to this request.

'We will need to apply for a stay order only if the DoH does not agree to hold the new rules in abeyance while awaiting the appeal. They are still considering their options and will get back to us on this.'

The BAPIO legal team is working on the appeal petition that can be filed within three weeks of the Feb 9 ruling. Raman said that BAPIO had decided to file the appeal before March 2 and had launched another fund-raising drive among Indian doctors to meet legal costs.

Raman added: 'We are collecting funds for the appeal process and the initial response from our members and the wider doctor and Indian community has been encouraging. We understand that the judiciary understands the importance of this and will process it expeditiously.

'Since the MMC process only comes into force for jobs starting August 2007, the implications for doctors will be only from August 2007. Doctors who are currently in jobs will be able to continue till August 2007 when if their current job has got over and if they have not managed to get another job they may have to consider returning home.

'We fear that if the new rules are applied there may be many thousands of doctors unable to find a job from August 2007.'

Raman added that a major reason for the large number of unemployed Indian doctors in Britain is the increased frequency of holding the mandatory qualifying test called the Professional and Linguistic Assessment Board (PLAB) test.

Every overseas doctor needs to pass this test before being registered for possible employment. Earlier this test used to be held twice or thrice a year. Now it is held twice or thrice a week. The success rate is also higher with the result that there are now more doctors who have cleared the test.

According to official figures, nearly 1,000 passed the test in 1998, but the number sprung to 6,666 in 2005. One part of the PLAB test is held in centres in India while another is held in London.

So high was the unemployment among Indian doctors who had passed the PLAB tests but were unable to find unemployment that one of them, Surinder Sareen, wrote a clinical account in the British Medical Journal of the condition such doctors found themselves in.

Calling it PPUD (Post PLAB Unemployment Doctor) Syndrome, Sareen detailed a series of ailments such doctors suffered from, including depression, insomnia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, hallucinations, somnambulism, omniphagia, dissociative fugue and muskoskeletal deformities.

Sareen wrote: 'In an effort to keep up an old medical tradition, I report a new syndrome, prevalent in the age group 25-35, but some cases are seen in the early 40s. Both sexes are equally affected. It is endemic in east London, but sporadic cases can be seen all over Britain. It is mostly found in immigrants from the Indian subcontinent.'

His treatment for the PPUD Syndrome: 'Love and a healing touch. Patients should be encouraged to go back to their home country, as in Britain even local graduates find it difficult to get a job and nobody is bothered about someone with PPUD syndrome.'

NRI in Britain like coconuts: brown outside, white inside

By Kul Bhushan

NRIs settled in Britain are sometimes called 'Coconuts' by some of their own social commentators. Brown from outside, 'Coconuts' are Indians who are white inside thus implying their 'Britishness' in their language, habits and thinking. Of course, tag is open to a lot of criticism but it does make a point: 'Coconuts' are Indians who have adopted the British way of life all the way and have joined the mainstream of their country's flow.

Most younger generations of NRIs were born in Britain or in other countries, educated and started to work there and so are totally 'British', American or like their compatriots where they live - in their speech, accent, dress, manners and behaviour. Some do stand out due to their religious symbols such as the turban, a beard or the veil. A full-scale controversy on Muslim women wearing a veil in public and at work has generated a stormy debate and court cases. Now Britain wants all newcomers who want to live in Britain to take a 'Britishness' test from next April.

UK Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said: 'It is essential that migrants wishing to live in the UK permanently recognise that there are responsibilities that go with this. Having a good rasp of English is essential in order for them to play a full role in society and properly integrate into our communities.'

The decision came after the Home Office published research by the Centre for Migration Policy and Society at Oxford showing that the degree of public anxiety over immigration is closely linked to jobs and incomes rather than colour. When jobs are scarce, then the poor black and white groups resent newcomers. So it's not about colour but money.

NRIs in Britain have opposed this test but the British government now insists on it. It boils down melting with the majority of the population.

'The British ruled India for 200 years, did they learn Hindustani after they landed here?' argues Avinash Kaushik, who has lived abroad for over 45 years. 'Even without knowing English language or learning about Britishness, NRIs in Britain have worked hard, paid their taxes and contributed to the economy. So what is the need for this test?'

NRIs follow their own religions - mostly Hinduism, Sikhism or Islam. This means not only taking part in religious practices but also taking part in most social interactions -- that happens entirely with their own community. Thus they have little time or opportunity to move into or with the mainstream. NRIs have been accused of 'keeping aloof' in Africa, the Far East and the Middle East - not just in developed countries. But in the West, the younger generation that has grown up with the majority of the population makes friends easily, mixes with them and even marries them.

The US and many other developed countries have similar tests before granting citizenship but there are no such tests for NRIs in the Middle East, Africa and other countries.

Now - after the terror attacks - Britain has woken up to put into place some measures to integrate immigrants after allowing them in without any language test for over half a century. This has resulted in both educated and uneducated men and women from the subcontinent arriving in Britain without speaking English - and they immediately went to live in areas with a majority of their communities and never bothered to learn the language properly or make an effort to know about how most British people lived.

Now the newcomers will have to answer 24 multiple-choice questions and get at least 18 right. More than 180,000 people each year seek to settle in Britain, and they must pass this test. They can sit the test as many times as they need to - but for a fee. People over 65 will be exempt, and those with poor English can take a 'skills for life' and language course rather than taking the test.

A booklet 'Life in the UK' covers the material of the test but doubts have been raised if many - if not most - Britons can pass such a test. For example, why did large numbers of Jewish people come to Britain during 1880-1910? When did women first get the vote? How long was Britain at war during the Second World War? The answers are: To escape violence they faced at home, 1918, and six years. Then there are lifestyle questions like what would you do if you spill someone's pint of beer in the pub? Answer: Saying 'Sorry' is not enough; buy him/her another pint.

The US prides itself as 'a melting pot' of peoples and cultures while Britain promotes it 'multi-culturalism'. But the European nations have no such phrase to describe their immigrant peoples. So how about the label 'coconut'?

(A media consultant to a UN Agency, Kul Bhushan previously worked abroad as a newspaper editor and has travelled to over 55 countries. He lives in New Delhi and can be contacted at: kulbhushan2038@gmail.com)

My fake passports and me : Shahida Tulaganova

SHAHIDA'S PASSPORTS UK, Germany France, Italy Sweden, Denmark Finland, Estonia Netherlands, Belgium Spain, Portugal Greece, Slovenia Czech Republic, Poland Austria, Slovakia Lithuania, Latvia

From Kiev to Barcelona, in the back streets or the central markets, there are all sorts of people who can supply a fake European Union passport. Undercover reporter Shahida Tulaganova explored the dark corners of this secret industry as she travelled the continent acquiring 20 fake or stolen passports, using two of them to enter the UK illegally.

I am from the former Soviet state of Uzbekistan but I have a British passport, which I got by living and working as a journalist in the UK for 10 years.

Here I am, in a tiny cafe right smack in the centre of London, learning how to go about getting a fake passport.

I am attending an informal seminar led by a passport dealer, along with six hopefuls who are living illegally in the UK.

We are told that all our problems can be solved by a "high quality" Czech passport. It will take just two weeks to obtain and cost a mere £1,500.

This may already sound surreal enough, but it was just the beginning of my journey across Europe in search of fake passports from all 25 EU member states.

My goal was to put some of them to the test at Britain's border controls.

Smuggling tips

Since the former Eastern bloc countries joined the EU in 2004, hundreds of thousands of Poles, Czechs, Lithuanians and others have come to work legally in Britain.

EU expansion opened a world of opportunity for those with the knowledge and skill to forge the passports of these countries for citizens of non-EU neighbouring countries.

And it turns out that getting fake passports is neither very difficult nor very expensive.

I am in the biggest open air market in Warsaw and it looks like there are plenty of people who are happy to help me.

I am directed to somebody who introduces me to somebody else, and finally I end up face to face with two innocent-looking pensioners.

They say that for just 300 euros they can get me a Polish passport in less than 24 hours.

This deal falls through, but another dealer has delivered Polish and Lithuanian passports, complete with my own photos and two different identities.

I also get my first tips about how to get into Britain: "Look smart and confident, avoid airports if possible and don't bring lots of bags with you," he says.

At another market - this one in Hungary - among the counterfeit Chinese goods, I find a Syrian man who agrees to help me in the name of Muslim solidarity.

Among the dealers I met, most were confident that their passports would get me into Britain.

One was so sure he said I did not have to pay until I had crossed into Britain. And another one offered me an insurance policy on his passport.

"It costs more but it's guaranteed. If by bad luck you do get caught your next passport is on us," he said.

I had good luck most of the time, mainly because I turned out to be better liar than even I expected.

Although the passport dealers were in a sense exploiting me, many of them were friendly and sympathetic to my supposed plight.

Since I was setting up various passport deals in various different countries simultaneously, I had to do a lot of travelling - including trips to Greece, Spain, Lithuania, Slovakia, Estonia and Luxembourg.

My quest came to an ugly end in Bulgaria, which has a reputation for being the source of some of the highest quality fake documents.

There I met an Albanian gangster who promised to obtain five fake passports for me.

I told him I needed five passports in order to pull off a benefit fraud in the UK.

He believed me.

After three weeks of negotiations on the outskirts of Sofia, the deal was all set.

Late at night I met with the Albanian to get the five passports with my hard cash in hand and a sense of foreboding.

I was right to feel nervous - the Albanian had no passports for me.

When I refused payment, he pulled out a sharp knife and took my cash anyway.

In not-so-beautiful downtown Sofia I ended my hunt for passports, and given what could have happened, I call it a happy end.

Twenty fake passports were more than enough to prove my point.

It took me just five months to get 20 fake EU passports.

Some of them were of the very best quality and were unlikely to be spotted as fakes by even the most stringent of border controls.

This meant that once in the UK I could start a new life with somebody else's identity, find work, open a bank account and eventually become a British citizen.

I met many immigrants in the UK on fake identities and passports.

Many of them were here only for work, but I also met quite a few dodgy characters who are dealing with banking scams and benefit fraud.

The first time I tested out my fake passports, I travelled on the ferry from Bilbao, Spain to Portsmouth, having been told border controls are most lax at Britain's seaports.

The immigration officer scrutinised the passport - my fake Latvian - but let me pass through. But then officer approached me and took me into a separate room for questioning, but after a few questions let me go.

My second border crossing was at Waterloo Station, where I arrived from Brussels on the Eurostar. I was advised against taking this route by all of the passport dealers, who said that the double border controls were tough at the Eurostar terminals.

But they were not tough enough: my fake Estonian passport did the job. And this time there was no additional interrogation.

If I can get in so easily to Britain on not one, but two fake passports, just think who else could get in?

Britain fails fake passport test

BBC News, Friday, 1 December 2006,

Serious questions have been raised over Britain's border security after a BBC journalist entered the UK twice on fake and stolen passports.

Shahida Tulaganov obtained 20 illegal passports - each from an EU country, including the UK - within months.

Those in the trade told her to travel via sea or bus, saying port security was less stringent than airports.

SHAHIDA'S PASSPORTS

UK, Germany
France, Italy
Sweden, Denmark
Finland, Estonia
Netherlands, Belgium
Spain, Portugal
Greece, Slovenia
Czech Republic, Poland
Austria, Slovakia
Lithuania, Latvia

The Home Office said it works closely with the EU to tackle the crime, taking the issue of false documents seriously.

In 2004, 8,285 fraudulent documents were detected at UK ports of entry, according to Home Office figures.

Entering the UK on a fake or stolen passport carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail, while making a false statement to obtain a passport can lead to a prison sentence of up to two years.

Shahida travelled across Europe to obtain her false documents for her Panorama investigation.

They ranged in price from just £250 to more than £1,500. Some were provided within several days, while others took weeks.

She found her first illegal passport dealer in the centre of London - through an advertisement in a Russian language newspaper.

The dealer - Henry - provided her with a genuine Czech passport, by getting someone who looked like her to apply for one, using her photo.

Forgery detection

Shahida's investigation poses questions over the number of non-EU nationals entering Britain on illegal passports. She uses Poland as an example.

"Since [Poland] country joined the EU less than two years ago a quarter of a million Poles have left and legally registered for work in Britain," she says.

"But if my contacts are right, many of these may not have been Poles at all, but illegal immigrants using fake passports."

Shahida enters Britain via boat - from Spain to Portsmouth - on a fake Latvian passport, and then later on the Eurostar using a stolen Estonian passport.

Despite information on stolen passports being registered to a central Interpol database, her Estonian passport goes undetected.

The Home Office says there is a "comprehensive bilateral exchange of information between member states regarding the issue of lost and stolen EU passports".

It maintains that in addition to this, all immigration officers are highly trained in identifying false documents.

"All our immigration officers at British ports are trained in forgery detection techniques and have access to specialist forgery detection equipment," a spokesperson said.

The government has also introduced biometric e-passports with images securely stored inside chips, in an attempt to combat forgery and improve the security of British passports.

Panorama: My Fake Passports and Me will be broadcast on Monday, 4 December, 2006 at 2100 GMT on BBC One.

Asian women lowest-paid workers in Britain

PRESS TRUST OF INDIA, October 23, 2006

LONDON, OCTOBER 23: Leading black and Asian professional women in Britain have called on their peers to ‘storm the doors’ of blue chip companies, following a report this week that shows that a form of employment apartheid is rife in Britain.

Asian and black women are the lowest-paid workers in Britain, according to a report for the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University.

While black men are paid less than white men, black and Asian women are paid the least of all. Some earn 28 per cent less than white women.

Saira Khan, the businesswoman who came to national prominence on the BBC reality programme The Apprentice, said that it wasn't the figures that made her angry, but that the EOC should do more to promote role models.

"I don't need a report to tell me black and Asian women are low paid," she said. "I knew that already."

36-year-old Khan, who has just launched a baby products business, said "Where I differ from other Asian women is that I've always tried to get into blue chip companies so I could learn and work my way up.

"If I failed an interview I didn't think it was because I'm Asian or a Muslim. Prejudice is an obstacle that has to be overcome in any work situation.

One of the reasons is because (Asian women) don't have role models to live up to. So they work for family businesses with no training, no opportunities for growth. Or there is this tendency to start your own business - but you need to learn how to do it," she added.

British grooms fly out with dowry, but without the bride

Monday, 13 March 2006

The Times

NEW DELHI: Hundreds of British Asian men have been accused of abandoning new brides in India after securing lucrative dowry payments.

Police in India are investigating more than a thousand allegations from young women who claim that they have been lured into arranged marriages with the promise of a new life in Britain. Once dowries of up to £9,000 have been paid, the men abandon them, it is claimed.

The men, in some instances, return to India to marry a number of times, but the women’s lives are left in ruins in a society where divorce is still frowned upon.

“It’s a common sight: young girls with their parents, clutching their marriage papers and weeping. We have thousands of abandoned wives,” Parminder Kaur, chairwoman of the National Commission for Women in the Punjab, said.

Poorva Sharma, 24, from the village of Surajpur, Punjab, believed that her parents had found her a perfect partner in Rakesh Gupta, 35, a businessman from Coventry. They married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in India in July 2002 and lived together in India for a fortnight before he returned to Britain.

According to Ms Sharma’s solicitor, her father paid £5,625 to Gupta as a dowry payment: the now illegal deal, still widely practised, whereby a groom is paid for entering a marriage. The family was later asked for more money, it was alleged.

Ms Sharma’s dreams were shattered when she applied for permission to join her husband in Coventry and the British High Commission refused, because it said that Gupta had already married other Indian women.

“They told me he had been married a number of times, and they were suspicious of why I would want to go out there. I felt like dying. My life had ended before it had begun,” Ms Sharma said.

It emerged that Gupta was unemployed and had previously married two other women in the Punjab, according to court documents. One of them, Vandana Gupta, allegedly married Mr Gupta in July 1995 in Ludhiana. She left him in January 1996 after her parents repeatedly received demands for a dowry payment, she said. After parting, she discovered that she was pregnant.

She said that her husband obtained an ex parte divorce without informing her and had failed to pay maintenance for their son.

Following a complaint from Sharma, Gupta was arrested in March 2003 for dowry harassment but left India before the case came to court. Police documents show that he is now a “proclaimed offender” in India after skipping bail.

Rajinder Singh Rathi, Deputy Superintendent of Police in the Punjab, said: “We hope to get him through Interpol.”

The Times tracked down Mr Gupta to a terraced house that he owns in Coventry. He said that he had married only once in India — to Ms Sharma — and that he had been subjected to threats and blackmail from her family. “She was not a good wife,” he said. He added that he had never married Ms Gupta.

Gupta appears to have failed to tell his solicitors that he was wanted by Indian police. When The Times sent the law firm Heer Manak a police document proving this, the senior partner, Kulwant Manak, said that he was surprised to see it.

Social workers who help the Punjab’s abandoned women said that grooms exploited the overpowering desire of some Indians to go abroad. Britain, Canada and America still hold an allure for some in India as countries where jobs and good salaries are guaranteed.

Punjab police said that there had been a 40 per cent rise in the number of fraudulent marriages in the past three years. The authorities have issued a booklet warning parents to check the background of prospective grooms abroad.

In some cases software engineers have turned out to be welders, while doctors were waiters, social workers said.

Satnam Chana, a social worker in Jalandhar, Punjab, said that parents were often too eager to marry off their daughters quickly. “We tell parents that we can ask people in the UK to check a groom’s background but we’ve had only two requests in two years. They just hope blindly that it will be all right,” she said.

The motivations of British Asian men vary. Most, according to the authorities, are hoping for dowry payments. Others, however, are second-generation British Asians forced into marriages in India by their parents.

Many of the rejected women, convinced that their lives are over, become suicidal. Left in limbo, in a society obsessed with marriage, they are neither married in the real sense nor free to remarry.

Legal action against missing British grooms is difficult. An Indian family court can send a summons to a British Asian man but it can easily be ignored.

The extradition treaty between Britain and India does not cover matrimonial crimes, according to legal experts. The British High Commission in Delhi said that officials were examining ways of closing this legal loophole. There is, at least, a growing awareness of the problem in India. Ms Sharma said that her sister married last month — to a local man. “I didn’t want her to suffer the way I have. I’m rotting here, with no future. I just want my husband to rot in jail too,” she said.

British Sikhs and Hindus seek open-air cremations

Thursday, 09 February 2006

LONDON - Britain’s Hindus and Sikhs want the right to stage open-air cremations on funeral pyres so their dead can take an unimpeded path to reincarnation. “Without these essential last rites, the soul languishes in restless torment,” said Davender Ghai of the Anglo-Asian Friendship Society, a charity that is seeking to overturn a 75-year-old ban.

They are offended by the use of gas-powered crematorium furnaces and fearful that the ashes could be inadvertently mixed with others. Arguing that the law unfairly penalises followers of both religions, the charity has asked permission from local authorities in the northern English city of Newcastle to cremate their dead in the open air.

If the council refuses, they plan to take their case to the High Court in London and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg if necessary. Up to 70 percent of people who die in Britain every year are cremated. Ghai said that at present many Hindus and Sikhs “take the ashes to the river Ganges because they think the last rites are not proper here because of gas-fuelled crematoriums.

“I am not blaming the funeral directors. They do their best but ashes should not be mixed,” he told Reuters. More than 550,000 Hindus and an estimated 320,000 Sikhs live in Britain where open-air cremations have been banned since 1930 amid environmental concerns over mercury emissions.

“This is the first time we have asked for anything. I am just praying and hoping,” Ghai said.

Andrew Bogan, legal adviser to the charity’s 2,000 members, said it was sad and poignant that having made their home in Britain, they should have to go continents away to find peace for their dead.

Explaining the sensitivities, he said: “Reincarnation is the fundamental tenet of the Hindu religion and the point of death and the ceremony and disposal to a large degree determines transmigration of the soul and its next embodiment. “Under no circumstances must there be any intermingling of the ashes. Modern crematoriums have up to 12 services a day so guaranteeing this is just not possible. For Hindus that is catastrophic.” A spokesman for Newcastle City Council said of the proposal: ”Until we have had time to examine the legal, environmental and financial implications involved, we are not in a position to comment.” But Bogan said he was he was confident of victory, concluding, “We are gathering signatures for a petition but we don’t want to bang the door down yet and start jumping on the desk.”