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Asian Voice - Saturday 10th March 2012

India Connect Q & A: Visa to India What are the normal processing times? Normal processing times are a minimum of 2-3 working days depending upon the visa category applied for and the application itself. How do I withdraw my application and will I get a refund? If you wish to withdraw your Jiten Vyas, VFS Global application you are required to visit the application centre and submit your withdrawal request. VFS will not be able to provide you any definite timelines to get your passport back. You are requested to wait and check the status of your passport on our website Can I send my application directly to the High Commission? Where does it go if I have done so? All applications should be submitted at the specified visa application centres. If you have already dispatched your application to the High Commission of India (London) – your application will be redelivered to our Visa Centre on India Visa Application Centre, 142-148, Goswell Road, London EC1V 7DU. But please keep in mind that there will be a delay in the processing of your documents until they reach the Visa Centre from the High Commission. Where can I get the correct specifications of photographs? Each Visa Application Centre (except for Cardiff, Glasgow and Manchester) have in-house photo booths that will provide you with the required 50x50 size photographs for your application. The cost is £4 for a set of 2. I get a message of ‘No Record Found’ on my postal application. What is the processing timelines? Postal applications must be scrutinised before we can begin to process them. In case there are further details required to have been submitted by you or for example, the photographs given were not up to the specification – your application will be posted back to you. In this case, since we are unable to enter your details through our system, there will not be a record to track. In such cases, you can address your concern info.inuk@vfshelpline.com. It is always strongly advised to be ensure that you have read all requirements for an application before it is dispatched through the post. How do I track my application? You can track your application through the website by entering data required under the tab ‘Track your Application’ found on the left hand side of the homepage. How do I withdraw my application and will I get a refund? If you wish to withdraw your application you are required to visit the application centre and submit your withdrawal request. VFS will not be able to provide you any definite timelines to get your passport back. You are requested to wait and check the status of your passport on our website. What if I have lost my ICR for collection of passport? If you have lost your receipt, we will be unable to provide you with your passport without photographic proof of identification. If I need to offer a compliment for good service or a complaint for service not up to mark – to where can I address this? You can address all such feedback, including application queries to info.inuk@vfshelpline.com. Complete information is given under the tab ‘Contact Us’ found on the left hand side of the homepage.

For more information regarding any quires about Indian Visa please contact by email or post: Email: info.inuk@vfshelpline.com Customer Relations Department. India Visa Application Center, 60-62 Wilton Road, London SW1V 1DE

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Migrants outdo natives in GCSEs Children for whom English is a second language now outperform their classmates in exams. 80.8% of those whose first language isn’t English gained at least five GCSEs at grade C or above Pupils for whom English is a second language are working so hard at school that their GCSE results have overtaken those of native speakers for the first time. Experts said the difference was the result of the focus and ambition of many recently arrived families, together with the boost to brainpower that children gain from being brought up speaking more than one language fluently. They warned, however, that too many white working-class children had become alienated from school while their families lacked ambition for them and felt they had no chance of rising up the social scale.

GP goes to court for alleged 9 sexual abuses A respected GP allegedly sexually abused nine female patients - the youngest just eight - over a decade, despite a string of complaints against him, a jury heard last week.

Leading Lights

by Rani Singh

Special Assignments Editor

Jaideep Prabhu Jaideep Prabhu, 44, is the Jawaharlal Nehru Professor of Indian Business & Enterprise at Cambridge. He has held positions at Imperial College London, Tilburg University, and UCLA. He has a BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and a PhD from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. The Nehru Chair was created in 2007 and endowed by the Government of India. That Government’s vision for the Chair was that it examine India’s role in the global economy from a business perspective. This is the only Chair of its kind that the Indian Government has endowed anywhere in the world. Q. What valuable opportunities does your Chair provide? A; The biggest opportunity is to be at the heart of the unfolding India story. The 21st century will be a huge one for India. In the next decade, over 100 million Indians will join the workforce. This offers a massive opportunity for growth. However, that growth is not a foregone conclusion. For India to make the most of it, it will need to innovate in many ways. Whole new sectors will need to be created, for instance around affordable and sustainable energy. And India will need foreign help in achieving this. Equally, however, India will make significant contributions to the rest of the world during that evolution. My Chair helps me to be part of the process by which India gains from the rest of the world, especially the West, and gives something back in the process. Q. Can you give me some examples?

Dr Markandu Ragupathy, 61, from Beckenham, south London, ‘used his position of trust to satisfy his own sexual gratification and curiosity,’ prosecutor Toby Fitzgerald claimed. From the mid-Nineties until 2007 the GP was employed at the Torridon Road Medical Practice in Catford, where eight of the complainants say they were sexually assaulted. ‘He would say there was a misunderstanding or miscommunication and this was accepted by the senior partner at the practise,’ Mr Fitzgerald told Woolwich Crown Court. ‘The defendant remained free at the practise to sexually assault other patients and believed the practise would accept any explanation and for some years he was correct in thinking this.’ Ragupathy, pictured, denies fifteen counts of indecent assault; one count of attempted indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault between 1995 and 2005. The trial is expected to last five weeks.

A; Solar energy is a good case in point. India has huge energy needs to fuel its growth, but few sources of such energy. Coal, which India has in abundance, is not a good solution as it is very polluting. Nuclear energy meanwhile is not yet economical enough. But solar could be just the

thing India needs. Many parts of India have plentiful sunlight; the market opportunity is huge; and there are few substitutes (such as oil and gas). So India is a fantastic lab in which to test and develop solar technologies. But the technologies, meanwhile, are being developed elsewhere in the world, Cambridge interestingly being at the forefront in many respects. For scientists and tech-

The Opportunity to be at the heart of the Unfolding India story nologists here, India offers a wonderful opportunity to test, develop and commercialize their ideas. But it isn’t just energy: the same can be said for food security, environment, healthcare, and so on. India is a huge potential market in all these areas, with massive needs. The West, meanwhile, has many of the solutions but is looking for sources of growth. So there is a perfect fit between supply and demand! Q. What is the concept of your new book and what is its relevance to the West at this time? A; My book, Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible,

Jaideep Prabhu

Generate Breakthrough Growth, is about what India can offer the world, especially the world of large Western corporations desperate to drive innovation in growth in an age of scarcity and recession. The book is about “jugaad”, the dominant approach to innovation in India that involves improvising frugal solutions to complex problems using scare resources. This approach is in sharp contrast to the highly structured attitude towards innovation that is dominant in the West: one that is expensive, top down, planned and insular. In the book we explore the principles that make up a jugaad mindset (e.g., find opportunity in adversity, get more from less, keep it simple, think and act flexible etc.) and examine how Western corporations can adopt these principles to innovate frugally and flexibly in a world of scarcity and complexity. The publisher is Jossey-Bass and the book is due out on April 1st.

Teenage girls victims of sexual abuse by bfs A British survey has found that a third of teenage girls become victims of sexual violence by their boyfriends. Experts fear that some do not even realise they are victims of a crime and others are too terrified or embarrassed to speak out, the Daily Mail reported on Monday. Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who was helping to launch an unprecedented advertising campaign to stem the tide of abuse, told an audience of teenage girls Monday that the latest figures

were shocking. Based on research by the NSPCC, a child support charity, and the University of Bristol involving 1,353 teenagers, the Home Office says a third of girls aged 13 to 17 have been the victim of some form of sexual violence from a partner. And research shows that the problem is not just confined to girls, with 16% of boys also reporting that they have experienced some form of sexual violence from a boyfriend or girlfriend. The advertisement -

to be broadcast on TV, in cinemas and online urges young people to rethink their view of what constitutes rape. It will be screened to viewers of TV programmes popular with teenagers such as Skins and Hollyoaks. Research has shown some boys think girls must have sex with them if they spend enough money on them. And campaigners say teenage girls often accept abuse in a relationship because they do not realise it is wrong or know how to stop it.