New Zealand is latest destination for Indian tourists

10/02/2008 0 Comments read Travel

By Neena Bhandari

Auckland (New Zealand), 10.02.2008 (IANS): An increasing number of Indian tourists are visiting New Zealand, known as the land of the long white cloud. In 2006-2007, as many as 20,946 Indians spent an average of 13.8 days in New Zealand, showing a growth of 8.3 percent over the previous year.

Most visitors are choosing to stay in 4- or 5-star hotels, luxury lodges and boutique accommodation on an average spending NZ$3,425 (Rs.105,782), excluding airfare, per person per trip – higher than the average of NZ$3,115 (Rs.96,304) spent by tourists from other countries. Continue reading →

Maidens Set for Successful Innings

09/12/2007 0 Comments read Cricket & Sports, Gender

Lisa Sthalekar was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame on 25th August 2020, becoming the fifth Australian woman to achieve the honour. Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 09.12.2007 (Women’s Feature Service): The gentlemen’s game is catching the fancy of women, who are wielding the willow with élan. Cricket Australia, the governing body for professional and amateur cricket in the country and formally known as the Australian Cricket Board, is going all out to change the perception of cricket amongst women as an old fashioned and male-dominated game.

Announcing the first ‘Females in Cricket Strategy’, James Sutherland, Chief Executive Officer of Cricket Australia, said, “We must recognize that engaging women and girls is the key to growing the game.” The strategy provides a framework to evolve cricket to the needs of women and girls and increase their participation in all areas of the game – playing, volunteering and watching.

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At home in the world: Indian diaspora in Australia

07/11/2007 1 Comment read Diaspora, Features, Migration

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 07.11.2007: Nestling amidst the unkempt undergrowth of native shrubs, a haven for Rainbow lorikeets, kookaburras, bush rats and possums, Ian De Mellow’s home in the Sydney suburb of Wahroonga has kept alive his memories of a childhood spent in a Delhi bungalow with sprawling gardens.

“When you live in Australia for some years, as in India, the land itself permeates your soul”, says De Mellow, who arrived on the shores of Sydney in 1948 at the age of 13 with his mother and half-sister. His father, whose career as a superintending engineer in the central Public Works Department was bluntly nipped with all senior posts in independent India going to Indians, joined them four years later.

“There was a tremendous sense of betrayal and disillusionment with the British Raj”, he says. “My mother was part of the secret committee for air evacuation of Europeans, in case the post-partition riots spilled over to consume the European population”.

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