Last weekend (August 14-15), was very important for the Indian and Pakistani communities across New Zealand. As both countries celebrate their respective independence days on these days. India’s is on August 15, and Pakistan celebrates it a day earlier, on August 14. As such, there were major celebrations planned in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and other major cities, by several Indian and Pakistani community organisations.

As part of the world’s largest evacuation exercise undertaken by the Government of India (GOI), which till now has brought over half a million Indians safely back to India, the New Zealand leg of Vande Bharat Mission (VBM) finished on July 3. In total, over the course of just over a month, the leg which started on June 7, took 1,650 Indians stranded in New Zealand back home, covered across 10 flights. Nine were flown by Air India, and one was a private charter.

Organised by the Facebook group New Zealanders United to Save the Indian Constitution, a small group of protestors gathered on Sunday at Auckland’s Aotea Square, to highlight what they called “arrest and intimidation by instruments of the State of journalists, activists and students”.

“Over the last three days our volunteers have been hard at work putting New Zealand Labour Party signs up across the town. This morning we found out that one lovely Hamiltonian was harassed and verbally abused by two sets of people for having signs supporting ‘a curry candidate’”.

Born and brought up in West Bengal, Karpal Singh moved to New Zealand in 2001, as an international student. After completing his studies, he went on to spend over fifteen years in the New Zealand banking and hospitality sectors.

The event was organised in Auckland on Sunday, January 19, with some speakers speaking in favour of CAA as well.

As protests have been raging across India against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), protests in Auckland are continuing as well.

Together, Sid and Chand Sahrawat, are a formidable team. What else can describe their achievements in just under ten years. The recent one is of course, their restaurant Sidart, winning the Restaurant of the Year title at the Cuisine Good Food Awards announced last month. But this list is long.

Last week, Priyanca Radhakrishnan MP, Labour Party, List MP based in Maungakiekie, sat with Gaurav Sharma, Associate Editor, The Indian News, and discussed a wide range of issues. These included recent changes [and then back-tracking] on culturally-arranged partnership visas;