The Hindu : National : Manmohan hands over OCI cards

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Sunday, Jan 08, 2006

National

National

Manmohan hands over OCI cards

Y. Mallikarjun

It is a big honour to be given the Overseas Citizen of India card: Nivruti Rai

A SENSE OF BELONGING: Nivruti Rai (right) with her family after she got the first Overseas Citizenship card and a passport from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Pravasi Bharatiya Divas-2006 in Hyberabad on Saturday. Iftekhar Shareef, president and CEO of National Bankcard Corporation-U.S., receives the OCI. — Photos: Mohammed Yousuf

HYDERABAD: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday launched the Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) scheme that grants a life-long multiple entry visa, handing over the first set of OCI cards to Nivruti Rai and Iftekhar Shareef, at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas here.

"This is very exciting. It is a big honour to be given the Overseas Citizen of India card by the Prime Minister and become part of history," said Ms. Rai.Besides enabling "emotional connectivity" with the country, it will enable her to travel to any part of the country, including Arunachal Pradesh (where normally a special permit is needed for access). She will no longer have to visit the foreign registration officers periodically as foreign nationals are required to do.

Ms. Rai, the seniormost woman executive of Intel India and based in Bangalore, said she would like to take up technology projects that would help the Indian economy. She is technical manager for research and development pertaining to mobile platform technologies for handheld and laptop computers, working to make high performance computers lighter, faster and with lower power requirements. She took her B.Sc from Lucknow University and M.S. in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. She has five patents pending filed internationally. She has authored more than 10 technical papers on integrated circuits, design methodologies and operations research.

FEELING PROUD: Nivruti Rai, with her family after she got first Overseas Citizenship card and a passport from Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh at Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas-2006 in Cyberabad on Saturday.

Her husband, Sunit Tyagi is an Indian citizen. Their two children have applied for OCI status.

"I am a dual citizen... I am not an NRI anymore," said Iftekhar Shareef, the second person to be given OCI status. He hails from from Hyderabad.

He said the new status would enable him to be a part of the "booming economy" and felt that it would be "win-win situation" if he adopted a village or a hospital.

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