India announces e-visas for 43 countries – but UK not included
(SN Editorial)
The Indian Government made what they self called an “important” announcement yesterday (Nov 29th).
As part of Mr Modi’s, the recently elected Indian Prime Minister, new promises, it has extended its tourist e-visas on arrival, offering it to 43 countries, including Australia, the US and a number of European countries, BUT the UK is not included. Sannyas News wonders why?!
India received 6.58 million tourists in 2012, far fewer than other Asian countries such as Thailand and Malaysia, the BBC has reported.
The visa facility is designed to boost India’s tourism sector, with India’s home minister stating that he wanted to double the current 7% contribution of tourism to GDP.
It previously only applied to visitors from 12 countries, however now tourists from countries such as Germany, Norway and Russia can apply and pay for an e-visa online to receive an electronic travel authorisation within 72 hours.
The visas will be valid for 30 days, and a tourist will be able to use the facility twice a year.
Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma added that the change would be a boost to the Tourist industry.
The scheme was “a dream come true for the entire tourism industry of India and is bound to positively impact the economy,” he said in a statement.
One does hope India cleans up its terrible health and water standards to safeguard these tourists from the usual medley of diseases in the sub-continent, and SN challenges the Indian government to comment on why the British have been excluded from this, when freshly totaliatrianised countries like Russia have been included.
SNews…wait a bit.
It is a pilot project therefore only few countries are added in the begining. For example, two countries,Germany and Switzerland, which are dear to me are also not in the first list.
And anyway, this e visa thing is not the brainchild of Modi and co. The policy matters continue, only the signatures of politicians change.
You seem, as usual, not to know your facts. At first, there was a pilot project for 12 countries. But this week, just two days ago, countries like Germany, and 46 others were added to the list. BUT not the UK!
So maybe in the next list.
Why you are becoming so impatient?
Neither you have forgotten, nor I, once you were our lords. Still much superior in many respects.
Maybe Modi interpreted / misinterpreted this from his External Affairs ministry!
To be spared the seduction of an Indian E-bureaucracy can be as if a blessing in disguise, as to be spared of such in UK, US, Australia etc.
Anyway – business people, for example, have had always – other ways, – anywhere – and they may not ´bother´ either.
However, there may be a little hint onto historical facts of a long colonialisation story…?
When I see what happens here, where I live, with ´E-Bureaucracy´, I often do not know any more what is worse, to meet a person with a ´stamp´ on his hands or to mutate into an algorhythm in a computer-net.
Sober-Sunday-morning-blues-little-song (S-S-M-B-S-/small).
Madhu
A visa to visit India! It is a joke. Paying money to travel to a filthy place. Last time I flew into Delhi it was winter, Ibiza was 24 hours behind me. It was cold. Poor folks were burning car tyres to keep warm. My first thought was, what the fuck did I come here for?
As it happens, I spent two months having a lot of fun. Taj Mahal was great under the light of the fool moon. I bribed a cop to let me into the building at night and chanted “Allah” under the main cupola. Cosmic! Stayed a month by the Ganges up near Rishikesh. Every time I stepped out of the door I could have written a chapter in a book about my adventures. India is unique like that. The one constant in a world of change was the dirt and general lack of hygiene.
Today I am more in love with the idea of India than the filthy reality. Still, if you did not have this ridiculous visa application business to go through I might be tempted to go there and probably get food-poisoned. Last person I talked to who visited the Ramana ashram caught typhoid.
As for Poona, it is supposed to be one of the most polluted and congested cities on the planet. So, thanks to the Indian government I will not be tempted to visit. For that I am grateful. Stops me making a bad mistake. The world is in a mess but there are still plenty of wondrful places to visit. India isn’t one of them. I spent ten years there and that is enough for one lifetime.
P.S:
From another day, Friends, of my everyday life here in Bavaria recently…
I gave a man, a Bulgarian beggar here, some money recently and just tried to advise him where to find a warm bed for the night. His response was that he hates the Germans more the any inhabitants of other European countries and that he wouldn’t give a shit for my advice, and that he would go to hell rather than to go to such a place.
Then I asked, “So why you are coming here then, when you hate the people here?”
He answered that he comes every now and then because the Germans give good money.
When I then turned around, I had his loudly expressed curses on my back. Just to say, I was repelled is not my whole ´inner story´, as the whole thing is complex. Very much so.
I didn´t take it personally, Friends, but yet – I am a woman of flesh and bones and psyche and SOUL.
And paining sometimes about inter-human-communication-affairs. In everyday life as well as virtual chats.
Last lines also addressed to Kavita, India, especially.
Madhu
A friend to Lokesh, “A new orthopadic surgeon has come in the city.”
Lokesh, “Why? I don’t have any problems with bones.”
Another friend to Lokesh, “Sildenafil is now available in generic form. Price of Viagra will fall.”
Lokesh, “Price may fall or rise. I don’t need such things.”
Lokesh to friend, “Spain is passing through worst economic recession. Unemployment rate among youth is 25%.”
Lokesh, “There is no recession. I just sold my 1988 model Jaguar.”
Me, me and me – this is Lokesh.
When he will realise, there are millions of people who would like to visit India? They may not sepnd 10 years but at least 4 weeks. Such people will really appreciate hassle-free visa.
El Chudo, ever the humanitarian…you…you…you. I heard El Pope might declare him a saint. Santo Chudo. Even though he never did figure out the conflicts that exist in the selfish/selfless conundrum.
And how many weeks have you yourself spent in India since your years (how many is it now – 10?15?) of self-imposed exile from your mother country, Shantam?
This question is very much in my brain and answer is not easy. Few simple things become very complex.
I remember one Hindi song, which means:
‘Yes, I also got a home,
Roof is not where the ground is!’
“We are not born cowardly or lazy; we choose to be these things. We are responsible for what we are. We are alone, without excuses. This is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. If many people dislike this philosophy, it is because they prefer to make excuses for themselves, to tell themselves that circumstances were against them. “I have not had a great love, or a great friendship, but it’s because I did not meet the right man or woman. If I have not written very good books, it’s because I haven’t the leisure time to do it.” The way I see it, all these people are simply lying to themselves about their freedom.”
John Paul Sartre.
“We are responsible for what we are”, says JPS.
That`s a very popular idea these days. As a pick-me-up for when you are feeling irresponsible or in denial about your role in life, it can be handy.
On the other hand,if you take it as an absolute statement of fixed truth, that everybody is responsible for their own reality, then what about the kids with ebola and AIDS in Africa and the babies dying of starvation or having their legs blown off in Syria or wherever? Are they also “responsible for what they are”?
You would have to be a pretty sick bastard to entertain such ideas but there are many nuagers and others who follow that philosophy and that do just that.
It is good to remember that the idea that you are responsible for your fate is a philosophy very much favoured by people who are born into advantage, ownership and power, and may indeed have been invented by them to keep the status quo.
As for JPS, many say that he was responsible for some of the most unreadable and depressing nonsense in the history of writing, which may have been something to do with his lifelong dependence on speed and downers, not to mention caffeine, gauloises and cognac on tap.
Think: Lemmie meets Shantam in complicated French for about 10 million words.
I don’t disagree with any of this, but don’t you find it amazing that people in countries much poorer than anywhere in the West often seem to rise to the difficulty of their circumstances in a way that spoilt westerners don’t?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0_36mXx-mw
True enough.
I mean, take Shantam, for example.
He has been tragically torn away from his homeland by cruel fate and been forced to sit in front of his computer all day, scoffing Lidl buffalo burgers and Stollen and getting free medical care when he falls out of his pram, all paid for by the German govt…
And you don`t hear him complaining, do you?
When did Lidl start selling buffalo burgers then?
Since Black Friday.
I don`t know if its real buffalo, probably been cut with horse meat.
Frank, what you have done for your living?
An Englishman wasting his youth behind an Indian guru; was it financed by your ancestry, or it was hard-earned money, or some quick bucks from a dubious trade, that many of your generation of sannyasins became expert into?
And who is paying approx. £2000 per month for your stay in old people’s home? Are the bills being cleared by O Foundation Multinational?
How did you guess?
Yes, Jayesh personally pays the fees for the Dorchester care home, which includes regular visits from Bianca, Goldie and Irena – all from the numbered Swiss account that the Resort gate receipts go into. Plus, Amrito sends me all the incontinence pants I need, batteries for my mobility scooter and crate of Bombay Sapphire Gin every month..,for…er…services rendered to the cause.
Like my uncle Albert always said:
“Don`t do the crime if you can`t do the time.”
Yahoo!
But apparently, Arpana, this is from an ad for Domino’s pizza – ie a spoof!
Re the resilience of the underprivileged world, well, it’s simply survive or die, isn’t it? Also, they haven’t been conditioned into our level of expectations.
So, bearing all that in mind, it might be an “amazing” demonstration of the human spirit in adversity, but perhaps not surprising.
‘But apparently, Arpana, this is from an ad for Domino’s pizza – ie a spoof!’
Some disagreement on that!!
Some people can make a sows ear out of a silk purse, and I’ve met a few.
Response to Frank, yesterday 6.11 pm:
Very often, people in painful circumstances have more response-ability, contrary to most people who live ‘happily’ in the trance state and are more prone to react-ability.
Pain, suffering, death and the threat of death as wake-up calls, eh, Karima?
While you are busy believing you create your own reality, realiy is busy creating you. True or false?
Er, do you mean, sort of, erm…life is what happens while you’re making other plans, sort of thing, like, know what I mean, innit, mate?
Ah, it`s quiz night again down at the old ‘Finger Pointing At The Moon’ advaita-theme pub…
That`s a difficult one…er, true?
No, wait, if ‘you’ don`t exist in the first place, then how can there be a separate reality that is creating something that doesn’t exist?…Mmm…another pint of wallop and a packet of smoky buffalo crisps, George, I`m going to have to pass on that one…
The next question:
Who famously described the universe thus:
“Something unknown is doing we don`t know what”?
A. Bob Dylan
B. Kojak
C Inspector Montalbano
D Neil, from ‘The Young Ones’
E. Kim Kardashian
F. Sir Arthur Eddington.
I guess, Arpana, there is a need to upgrade quotes of Jean Paul Sartre according to some new and important paradigm changes of the post-modern world and some conditionings as such – like the technical progress in what we call the communication industry, which has thoroughly changed since the time Sartre went for his favourite coffee shop (like Gurdijeff also did, to write his treatises and to communicate with friends).
However, what comes as an undertone with your comment is well known to me. And sure enough, quite often used by those who had good luck also, which is needed, besides putting effort into something (before complaining)….
Madhu
Such a pity, Shantam Prem, that you seem to be such a jealous man with indian native background.
There´s nearly nobody here in Sannyas News (besides Frank, maybe?) who does not cherish and appreciate the Gifts given from your Motherland.
Especially when you read also what Lokesh, whom you like to attack under the.´gürtelline`, as we call it here, has been posting on that issue in course of time.
It’s a pity when threats like this and other ones are coming up because then we all – other contributors too – have to miss the chance that all this migration stuff (be it touristic, be it in an economic context, be it on a so-called spiritual level) could be discussed in a way that is not drowned in hostility, and in your case also drowned in jealousy or ambition camouflaged.
What a pity! That you seem to have just verbal knives to throw. And don’t even read what others contribute and get more acquainted.
Sorry about that, sometimes like today – angry too.
Madhu
Madhu, you may not understand from your analytical German mind, with Lokesh I have great affinity. Whenever I visit Ibiza I won’t miss the chance to meet him. This I cannot say about visiting Munich and meeting you.
One does not have the obligation to say Hello to everybody in the bus.
And when one writes on a public platform, every reader gets the right to judge and project in their own way. It is their right and no one with right senses should feel offended.
I have rushed the red carpet in to the dry cleaners and ordered up the massed pipes and drums of the Orange Lodge in anticipation of touchdown. Don’t forget your sporran, because you will be paying.
I remember the great Bazza, he of the cork string hat, reply to a very irate woman in a Bristol meeting. She stood up in the middle of one of his orations and surprised the well-behaved and well-heeled audience with a passionate attack on all his self-indulgent gizmo with a “What about the starving children?”, to which he replied, “Where are they, are they here?”.
This lasted a few more sentences until she stormed out, and the rest of us carried on as the team of freedom fighting revolutionaries from the Life of Brian, who had their meeting rudely interrupted by an intruder who was obviously off-topic and irascible.
Activism and its semantics doesn’t lend or marry easily to the world of energy, consciousness and fulfilment as a product for accessible use. And that challenge in place of functional survivalism or escapist aesthetics echoes much of the human search for complete justice and meaning.
The universe contains the dilemma where we can’t answer for its or our own mortality and fate by speculation alone.
Well, Martyn, the day you give your life to the poor, starving, exploited and underprivileged of the world (who are probably within easy enough reach, wherever you are, ie not necessarily half a continent away), is the day your speculations will deserve to be taken seriously.
Until then, it’s just pumping out hot air – words, words, words…And do you necessarily know what’s ‘good’ for everyone?
Yet what’s the problem? If you’re moved to help the victims of injustice, then do it, just as I or anyone else will. You know, just like the 2000 Britons fighting for ISIS have done….
I don’t consider the merit or not of those people-aid charities, but I’ll let you guess what I have given to and who I approve of. That wasn’t my main point though. I just enjoy a good spat between cunnilinguists.
If you mean giving money by “giving to”, that’s not the point, is it? If people really cared as much as they like to say they do, then they’d be out there, helping the poor and underprivileged, fighting for justice, doing practical stuff, giving their lives, not just a tiny part of their wealth, or blowing hot air at their computers.
I admit it, you’re wrong…There, I’m sure you feel better now. Do write again.
Well, in the immortal words of Hurree Singh*, “The level of arrogantly irresponsible self-defensiveness is…TERRIFIC!”
(* Relax, Shantam Iqbal, it’s not you, it’s a character from PM’s school, Greyfriars, in ‘Billy Bunter’s Schooldays’. Hurree and PM are both in the 5th form, btw).
“BILLY BUNTER chuckled.
Pon & Co., going as fast as they could drive their bikes, had vanished in the direction of Courtfield. Skip had disappeared in the opposite direction — without spotting Bunter in his coat. So it was all right for Bunter. The fat Owl chuckled gleefully.
His own part in the episode had not been fearfully creditable. Even Bunter realised that. Still, as it had turned out, Skip had not needed help.
He had beaten the Highcliffians, one against three, and put them to flight. And Pon & Co.’s defeat was a great satisfaction to Bunter.
After what Pon had done the previous day, Bunter would have been very glad to get Pon’s head into chancery. Skip had had it in chancery, which was really just as good; and every thump on Pon’s features had been a happy satisfaction to Bunter.”
^ THE TENTH CHAPTER.
‘Just Like Bunter!’
Plus one, no returns.
Getting a visa for India was always a real hassle. I remember in 2000, for example, waiting in the London Indian Embassy with Pari for at least three hours, and the chaos, noise and numbers in the place were a clear reminder of where we were headed!
Any improvement on that would be most welcome. The fact that the UK is not included in the list is a mystery – but there is a residue of anti-colonialism in that party of Modi!
Of course, as I remember, in the seventies and eighties there was a real bonus to being a UK passport holder in India, no visa was required and one could stay there as long as one liked! Clearly, some Indians were grateful to their old colonial Masters!
Parmartha, it has been quite easy for some years. They created visa centres that are efficient: http://in.vfsglobal.co.uk/contactus.html.
Thanks, that’s good to know.
British disciples of Osho are not going to India any more, visa formalities have become too difficult to fulfil. They all want to spend two or three months every year in the garden of Koregaon Park, but are unable to pack the luggage, visa is too difficult to get.
I, Shantam Iqbal Singh, on behalf of my fellow travellors, request the sleepy Modi government with open mouth to mend the ways. UK should be given the priority. Thousands of Osho disciples are waiting to celebrate their master’s 25th annual celebration in Pune.
It is really unjustified that only two or three old Britishers settled in Pune get all the chicks from around the globe! (Yesterday, I have read Subhuti’s diary in Oshonews).
India still has a mysterious influence on westerners, as seen in last night’s BBC2 programme on Fred Barton, a hard-bitten, middle-aged, workaholic, money-mad Billingsgate Fish Market (London) trader who tried his luck in the largest fruit and veg market in New Delhi.
For anyone with access to BBC I-Player, I thoroughly recommend this, it’s an eye-opener – with a surprising ending.
Good recommendation, SD.
Interesting, moving, and took me back, as they say!
What a precise and accurate self-description:
“I just enjoy a good spat between cunnilinguists”, Prem Martyn,
about how you see yourself, how you see others here.
No one could have put it better, be proud.
Madhu
Would you mind, Satyadeva, to describe that in your words, “it’s an eye-opener – with a surprising ending.”? (the Fred Barton story).
I mean, share what was it that ´opened eyes´ (yours)?
I would be interested to read, couldn´t open up the feature in BBC.
Anyway, I would like to read what touched you in this.
Madhu
Ok, Madhu, it’s like this…
The man – a ‘hard-nosed’, ultra-competitive (and highly successful) market trader, who (apart from time in prison), had had just 10 weeks of holiday in the last 50 years! – went through a certain transformation through participating in Indian communal street life, being exposed, for the first time, to a Hindu religious festival, taking part as well as being a ‘spectator’, and plying his trade (buying and selling fruit and vegetables) in a huge Delhi wholesale market.
He was visibly affected by the festival, by the devotional sincerity of the people, and particularly by how the market functioned, whereby many people ended up with a profit, via a series of buying and selling, rather than carrying on by the ‘every man for himself’ ethos, whereby a few ‘clean up’ by ruthlessly exploiting the rest (which had been his habitual style for decades).
He was moved by how people struggled and got by, eg by the help he had from a willing, cheerful young man who was doing his best to earn money in the market to provide for his wife and child, hundreds of miles away.
Then there was the divorced young woman whose child had been taken away and, unable to have another, wanted to adopt one so that she could return to her home with her new husband and pretend the child was theirs! As she said, “Everyone has their story in this market, and that’s mine.”
Life in the raw, Indian-style…If you really get into it, as Fred Barton did, it can change you…It seemed to expand his vision of ‘what life’s about’, making him less ‘individualistic’, less compulsively competitive, less greedy, less selfish (appropriate word for a man whose business is selling fish!), more compassionate.
He ended up doing something way out of character, taking a big risk by giving credit to two stall owners who didn’t have the money to pay for the goods and having to find them on another day. They both paid (although one tried not to) – and remarkably, the final scene of the programme was back in Billingsgate, where we saw him on the phone at work, cheerfully giving credit to a customer, breaking the habit of a working lifetime.
Oh, Satydeva, I am delighted that you shared in your words and took that effort to share what you have seen in this BBC feature (I didn´t expect that you’d respond to my plea).
I can very well relate to your words, and that´s what I meant the other day when I said I, like others, are “grateful for the gifts of Shantam´s Motherland”.
True it is that so much is unforgettable; also, besides the Pune Ashram, the traces which that left and in a miraculous way have become cellular memories, even though cellular material has renewed completely since…
I love to watch documentaries and life stories from all over the world and do that quite often.
And I love to share with others how we are moved by it.
So, thank you for this.
Madhu