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"This suggestion has not come from us, because we do not deal with the spiritual travels of a spiritual leader. He has to visit his flock as he deems fit. So I am sure that as far as I am aware the initiative would have come from him and the government would have been informed about it," Tharoor told reporters here.
"No," Tharoor said when asked if India had suggested to the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh.
"Dalai Lama is free to travel anywhere in India and it is a matter of courtesy to inform his coordinates to the government before he goes somewhere," he added. On reports of Maoists getting weapons from China, Tharoor said the matter was being dealt with by the Home Ministry and that it would be first left to that Ministry to look into it.
"Only if there is a need for Ministry of External Affairs to get down into the issue, we will consider appropriate action," he added.
On the issue of business visas to Chinese, the Minister said the Indian policy was to not issue business visas for unskilled or semi-skilled workers and that they should apply for employment visas instead.
"This is our national policy. Every country has a visa policy. If there is a good reason for these people to come and do certain kind of work, then we should cater for employment visas. It is not correct to say that business visas are much faster and we will apply for business visas (instead of employment visas)," Tharoor said.
Noting that India had been "very generous" with business visas as about 58,500 of them were given (to Chinese) last year, he said: "We are just looking if these people, who got business visas are actually businessmen travelling to India to set up businesses or do businesses here.
"Some of these visas may have been issued to people, who are just unskilled or semi-skilled workers coming to India on what should have been employment visas," he added.
Tharoor said the Home, External Affairs and Labour Ministries were discussing with each other the possibility of offering employment visas to foreigners in skills which Indians lacked.
"We would certainly be hesitant to offer visas for employment to a foreigner for a job which could be done by an Indian in India. Where there are jobs for which no Indian is available for a particular kind of skill, we would certainly be open for others to come in. It will depend on a case-by-case basis. There are foreigners working in our country," he added.
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These Congressi nuts first sent Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pardesh and now getting back. Do these people have any backbone or not??? This country has such a low self esteem and gut, people of other countries must feel pity on us. Even Sri Lanka and Nepal are better than India..
The bitter fact which Congress and media has hidden from general public is that there are four Christian churches in Tawang and according to a missionary 40% Arunachal people have been converted to Christanity in the last 10 years while Hindua are fighting each other. This news is in one of todays Indian newspapers. But it seems that media will go any length to hide this news. Whole of north-east is being turn into Christian and Muslim (BDs) areas.
I am sure this is standard chinese response to Dalai Lama. It is more productive for India to keep china out of it's policy making and concentrate on building longer strategic relation with US & EU. because it is clear till china resolves boundary issue upto India's satisfaction, there would not be much importance of china with 3rd largest economy in asia soon to be 2nd largest & another dominant military power in Asia. poor Ma is losing time to enagage with Lama than with India. Soon India would be more aligned with West not only US & EU but with Japan & latin America. Quite foolish to China to indulge in irresposible attitute with large military power in Asia. Sorry Ma there is no importance of China in indian policy making & do not think that appointment of High commissioner to China as Indian foreign secratary is indication of india recognising china as a important country
Me Cattle Class, Look like you need training and fire in your belly. Just tell Chinese to mind their business.