By Ronald D.F. D’Souza & Joe Andrade for DNN

Bahrain, Sep 22: During the visit of His Excellency, Vyalar Ravi, the Hon’ble Minister for Overseas Affairs & Parliamentary Affairs in the Indian Cabinet, who was on a private visit to the island recently, the leaders and members of the various Indian communities in Bahrain took the opportunity to meet him.    

The Co-ordination Committee of the Indian Associations under the patronage of the Embassy of India, along with The Ambassodor of India to Bahrain, Balakrishna Shetty, organized a luncheon gathering of Indian Community Leaders at the Awal Ballroom of the Bahrain Sheraton Hotel the same afternoon to discuss various issues relevant to Non Resident Indians.    

Some of the some prominent members of the Indian Community hailing from Karnataka, took this opportunity to table and submit  a brief memorandum of proposals on behalf of the Non-Resident Indians in Bahrain to the Minister after the normal Agenda concluded.   

The memorandum was handed over to the Minister by Austin Santosh, President of the Bahrain Kannada Sangha, in the presence of B.R. Shetty of New Medical Centre, Abu Dhabi, Vittal Shetty of Chef’s Corner, Jayaprakash and Doomanna Rai.     

Minister Vyalar Ravi patiently listened to the leaders proposals put forth by the Karnataka lobby and sincerely highlighted the needs of the Indians in Bahrain with a request to implement the same at the earliest.

Among the proposals put forth was for a Passport Office in Mangalore, a Health Insurance Policy catering exclusively for the health welfare of Non Resident Indians in Bahrain and a request that the Government of India send a cultural troupe every year from Karnataka to Bahrain and other Gulf countries to keep the rich heritage alive among the Karnatakans living in Bahrain through the good offices of the Rajyotsava Award winning organization, Kannada Sangha, Bahrain.

The Minister assured the leaders of the Karnataka Community, that he would look into the viable requests put forth by them and would act upon his return to India taking all the necessary steps for its implementation by those concerned.    He was taken aback to note that while Kerala had three regional Passport offices, Karnataka had only one in Bangalore and said he would do his best in this regard.

The gathering of Indians at the Sheraton Hotel also brought to light the various problems faced by the Indian labourers with their employers and ways in which the Government of India could solve them. Vyalar Ravi is forthright in his remarks and Balakrishna Shetty encouraged the gathering that if anyone had a genuine issue, the same could be brought to their attention for appropriate guidance and redressal with the labour authorities in Bahrain.