US India diplomatic row over Devyani Khobragade escalates

Everyone should support Devyani in this case . The problem is not that she took undue benefit and amassed assets running in crores or flouted rules or took undue benefit of reservation but it is a matter of prestige of India . There is very little chance that she will be prosecuted in India , though i seriously want all corrupt civil servants to rot in Indian jails but here India's prestige and honor comes first
 
mpaspc said:
but it is a matter of prestige of India .
Click to expand...
mpaspc said:
but here India's prestige and honor comes first
Click to expand...

You know, that's the core of the problem with our country. People in our country are deluded about the existence of some "honor", "prestige", "culture", "heritage" etc. and they also have an unfathomable itch to defend it at all costs disregarding all reason i.e. as long as it doesn't affect them personally. Further more they are too arrogant and stubborn to ever snap out of it. Till the people come out of this mindset, our country will just continue becoming a bigger sh1thole every day than it was a day before.
 
Lord Nemesis said:
You know, that's the core of the problem with our country. People in our country are deluded about the existence of some "honor", "prestige", "culture", "heritage" etc. and they also have an unfathomable itch to defend it at all costs disregarding all reason i.e. as long as it doesn't affect them personally. Further more they are too arrogant and stubborn to ever snap out of it. Till the people come out of this mindset, our country will just continue becoming a bigger sh1thole every day than it was a day before.
Click to expand...
It's hard to expect such a thing in a vastly hypocritical society.
 
Now they are saying: Preet and his team, might have misread: the diplomats salary as the house-workers salary, on her VISA form.

What is your employer's monthly salary : $4500.

And was taken as, Richard's salary. Seems like a case of trying to get the GC.
 
So they can't differentiate between employer and employee? They look like utter fools now, since they were employed in such high positions.
 
USA's own diplomats have killed people in other countries and were back in US in no time.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/08/02/diplomat-kenya-car-crash/2612229/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Allen_Davis_incident

Other such incidents can be found here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity#Abuse

Our Govt. might be thinking of next elections, but US is hypocrite in this matter. I am of opinion that the Khobragade case should be dropped along with an apology.

As for the charges and her involvement in cases in India, she should be prosecuted by Indian Law.


A nice and interesting, albeit a long read : http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/2081
 
asingh said:
Now they are saying: Preet and his team, might have misread: the diplomats salary as the house-workers salary, on her VISA form.

What is your employer's monthly salary : $4500.

And was taken as, Richard's salary.
Click to expand...
ok, so how much was the maid promised on the A-3 visa application then ?
 
blr_p said:
ok, so how much was the maid promised on the A-3 visa application then ?
Click to expand...

From yesterdays TOI:

US mistook Devyani’s $4.5k pay for maid’s?
Bharara Press Release Claim Erroneous
Sachin Parashar TNN

New Delhi: The disclosure that the amount of $4500, which diplomat Devyani Khobragade was supposed to pay her maid Sangeeta Richard, may have ‘mistakenly’ been cited by US authorities as the salary promised to the maid has added a new twist to the episode, allowing India to toughen its stand on the issue.
It may also just have attorney Preet Bharara end up with egg on his face for claiming in a press release that $4500 was offered to Sangeeta in the visa form. As first reported by TOI on Tuesday, US authorities had wrongly concluded that this was the salary offered to Sangeeta.
As Khobragade’s lawyer too has now asserted, $4500 may be nothing more than a figure mentioned on Sangeeta’s visa application form (DS-160) in the box asking for salary of the employer (Khobragade). According to Indian authorities, there is no justification for the US authorities to state that Khobragade had agreed to pay that amount to her maid.
Khobragade is said to have helped Sangeeta fill up DS-160 around October 15, 2012. On November 11 the same year, the diplomat and her maid signed the state department mandated employment contract, which guaranteed Sangeeta an hourly wage of $9.75, indicating certain benefits and stating that impermissible deductions would not be made. It projected an average of 40 working hours per week (approximately a salary of $1560 per month) and stipulated off days and other details, all as required by the US state department for receiving the A-3 visa.
A few days later, Sangeeta is said to have asked for signing another contract to ensure that her basic salary, or Rs 30,000, was deposited to her account in Delhi as her husband was unemployed. Khobragade then signed a separate contract with the maid, on November 23, 2012, guaranteeing Sangeeta the same. According to the Indian government, there was no stipulation about following US law as this was not for “ex-India purposes”.
According to the government, from November 24, 2012 to June 22 this year, until she went missing, Sangeeta was paid as per the stipulations of the November 11 contract as per the actual hours worked. Sangeeta’s average work hours, said sources, would not usually total more than 40. She is said to have received many more actual sick days, holidays and off days than required in the contract.
So, how much was Sangeeta actually being paid and did Khobragade fulfill her November 11 contract for around $1560? According to the government, Khobragade fulfilled all her commitments in the form of $560 (or Rs 30,000 transferred to Sangeeta’s bank account in India every month), another $375 as deducted from the salary to pay for her chargeable utilities like telephone usage, cable TV, non-work related conveyance, expenses and another $625 given in cash, occasionally with signed receipts. As there were several months where the weekly hours fell well below 40 working hours, the cash payment was apparently adjusted accordingly.
Some signed receipts for salary payments are said to be in the possession of Khobragade. According to Indian authorities, Sangeeta also purchased many gifts to send back to her family in India, and there is witness testimony of at least four separate persons, who travelled to India from New York, that they carried gifts, cash and goods on behalf of Sangeeta to deliver to her children in India.
Maid may face music for error in visa docu if case goes to trial I f the case involving diplomat Devyani Khobragade goes to trial — and it might never come to that — then the housekeeper Sangeeta Richard herself could be under the lens for misrepresenting and claiming a $ 4500 per month salary, which is way beyond the $ 9.75 per hour for 40 weeks she contracted with the diplomat. There could also be questions about how she was paid Rs 30,000 per month in India through her family, although such arrangement is said to be common among domestic staff attached to diplomats so that they bankroll their families in India and also avoid taxes, wire transfer fees etc. But even more, as more inconsistencies come to light, the spotlight will be on the State Department, its Bureau of Diplomatic Security, and the US Attorney Preet Bharara for the haste with which they initiated the arrest of the Indian diplomat. Over the past few days, the overall narrative of the story has begun to veer towards the motive and modus operandi of the housekeeper, with the Indian diplomatic corps charging that she used her contacts in the US Embassy in Delhi to trump up false charges against Khobragade to emigrate to the US with her family. Chidanand Rajghatta Bharara’s activism in Devyani’s maid case even riles US judge
New Delhi: The Devyani Khobragade case has put the spotlight on US attorney Preet Bharara in a way that his other famous case against Rajat Gupta failed to do. Last week, Bharara’s long press release on the case against Khobragade set teeth on edge in staid South Block, to the extent that the foreign ministry went out of its way to issue a rebuttal.
For many, Bharara’s activism is a manifestation of his Arvind Kejriwal-like politics in New York City. But just as it is grating in India, it turns out that federal judges too are not impressed by his tactics.
Wall Street Journal recently reported that Bharara’s thundering press statements on ongoing cases came in for criticism from a federal judge in New York, who openly criticized their “tabloid tone”.
The report quoted US district judge Richard J Sullivan as saying the attorney office’s press releases had assumed a “tabloid” tone. The judge questioned whether Bharara was casting too much judgment on public officials who stood accused of corruption, but had not been convicted.
“Judge Sullivan singled out one Southern District press release for ridicule — an April announcement of criminal charges against two New York City lawmakers — that brimmed with statements from Mr Bharara about New York’s ‘show-methe-money culture’,” the report said. “That sounds like the theme from Mighty Mouse,” Judge Sullivan said, according to a Law360 report on the October 1 event, hosted by the Practising Law Institute. “This seems to be designed for tabloid consumption... there should be a question asked that is that appropriate at the pre-conviction stage.”
The criticism, the report said, was seen to be particularly damning, coming as it did from a judge who is believed to be equally merciless towards corrupt politicians and people in high places. According to the report, although Bharara’s office kept its peace on the judge’s criticism, a second attorney from his office defended Bharara’s thundering press statements. “Richard Zabel, the deputy US attorney in Bharara’s office and another panelist, defended how they talk about their cases. ‘The purpose of a quote is to be quoted and draw attention to the case’, he said,” according to Law360. “Laypeople can’t read a complaint.
Click to expand...
 
Lord Nemesis said:
You know, that's the core of the problem with our country. People in our country are deluded about the existence of some "honor", "prestige", "culture", "heritage" etc. and they also have an unfathomable itch to defend it at all costs disregarding all reason i.e. as long as it doesn't affect them personally. Further more they are too arrogant and stubborn to ever snap out of it. Till the people come out of this mindset, our country will just continue becoming a bigger sh1thole every day than it was a day before.
Click to expand...
Now I haven't followed the case properly (or at all), but you mean to say the Westerners, including Americans, Britishers, Germans, French etc. think otherwise of their own country ? I'm not denying that this mindset has caused innumerable issues, but saying only "WE" have it is pushing it too far !
 
asingh said:
From yesterdays TOI:
Click to expand...
SO the answer is...

the diplomat and her maid signed the state department mandated employment contract, which guaranteed Sangeeta an hourly wage of $9.75, indicating certain benefits and stating that impermissible deductions would not be made. It projected an average of 40 working hours per week (approximately a salary of $1560 per month) and stipulated off days and other details, all as required by the US state department for receiving the A-3 visa.
A few days later, Sangeeta is said to have asked for signing another contract to ensure that her basic salary, or Rs 30,000, was deposited to her account in Delhi as her husband was unemployed. ”.
Click to expand...

So they want to try her for underpaying, pfft. i dont care what they charge her with. She just needs to be out of the country when the sentence is given as happened with neena malhotra. DOne!

Case cannot be dropped just because of some mistatement but she can be tried in absentia. She had to return for some reason or other.

Remember those italian marines going back for xmas, and not returning. This is the same.
 
Last edited:
"Remember those italian marines going back for xmas, and not returning. This is the same."

Weren't they forced to return after Govt. of India used forceful diplomatic tactics ?
Since they are not responding properly here, NIA was trying to put manslaughter case over them.
 
manu1991 said:
Sure, if by forceful diplomatic tactics you mean begging them by promising no death sentence even though they had no legal authority to do so.
Click to expand...

No, Indian authorities told Italian Ambassador cannot leave India unless Italian marines are bought back to India.
‘Airports told to prevent Italy ambassador from leaving India’
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/03/16/293802/india-airports-told-to-stop-italy-amb/

That does not sound like begging, but strong arming. One of those rare moments, give devil it's due... :)
 
Prole73 said:
No, Indian authorities told Italian Ambassador cannot leave India unless Italian marines are bought back to India.
‘Airports told to prevent Italy ambassador from leaving India’
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/03/16/293802/india-airports-told-to-stop-italy-amb/

That does not sound like begging, but strong arming. One of those rare moments, give devil it's due... :)
Click to expand...

Supreme Court had passed orders that italian ambassador can't leave until the marines come back.
Govt was just following the orders of the court
 
It seems US govt itself is paying less than the 9.5 or whatever figure they came up with to Indians employed as cooks, drivers, etc in US embassies here.
This has been going on from years, since even the past employees say so.
Wonder why not one of them has been arrested so far.

USA is a fcked up hypocritical nation imo. Acting like big shots when they're scum on earth.
 
So you mean to say they themselves don't know their embassy staff in India is underpaying the staff here? Or they know it and choose not to do anything about it since its natural for them to not follow their own rules?
 
Well they arrested Devyani over the same issue of underpaying her maid. So if its such a big of an issue for them there, surely they should arrest all their staff here who have willfully underpaid their maids, cooks and drivers.
 
6pack said:
Well they arrested Devyani over the same issue of underpaying her maid. So if its such a big of an issue for them there, surely they should arrest all their staff here who have willfully underpaid their maids, cooks and drivers.
Click to expand...
Is it below the minimum wage in India?

No.

The government should increase the minimum wage here if they feel they are being underpaid.

But that would involve doing something that our useless government doesn't want to do. Bunch of useless, entitled morons always deflecting blame on someone else.

According to the Delhi government, anyone earning more than 8k/9k per month (depending on skilled/unskilled) is being paid above the minimum wage.
http://delhi.gov.in/wps/wcm/connect/doit_labour/Labour/Home/Minimum+Wages/
 
Back
Top