Condolence meeting for air crash today

The Indian Consulate in Dubai is holding a condolence meeting to mourn the loss of lives in the tragic crash involving the Air India Express flight from Dubai to Mangalore on May 22, in which 158 people were killed.

The condolence meeting will be held at the Consulate-General of India in Al Hamaria Diplomatic Enclave, Dubai, at 6pm today.

Members of the Indian community and well-wishers are invited to attend the condolence meeting.

A spokesperson from the consulate told Emirates Business: "We decided to hold a condolence meeting to mourn the loss of those precious lives along with other members of the Indian community. We are informing the community through the press and also getting in touch with different associations in Dubai. We hope there will be a big representation from the Indian community."

The consulate will also assist family members who want to travel to India and require passport, visa and other consular services. The consulate can be contacted on hotline numbers +971 4 396 0174, 397 1222 and 397 1333.

In another community-related initiative, the consulate will host an "open house" on June 11 from 10am to 12noon on its premises. This open house will address issues related to passport, visa, labour and other consular services rendered by the consulate.

The spokesperson said: "We have always hosted open houses in the past but ever since we outsourced the visa and passport services we stopped the open house as the problems related to these services became miniscule. However, recently some associations urged the consulate to hold the open house once again so we decided to do that.

"We are keen to learn from the public how the services are doing, if there are any issues that need to be addressed. We also want community members to come to us with any other issue so that we can try and solve it for them."

Residents are urged to give information about their problems and queries to the consulate on or before June 7. Enquiries can be sent by fax (04-3570529) or e-mail (vccons@?cgidubai.com) or post addressed to the Consulate-General of India, PO Box 737, Dubai.