Re: GNOME.Asia 2012 Official Announcement

[Frederic Muller <fredm gnome org>]

On 02/22/2012 08:48 PM, Chandni Verma wrote:
> unfortunately many countries' bureaucrats fail to understand.

Just to mitigate that comment: a few years back I was informed about the 
number of visa issued in another Asian country to citizens of that 
country (not India - I think it can be applied a lot of countries in 
this region) to France and how many people came back:
visa isssued: 70,000
number of people who came back: 35,000

That means that 35,000 people had "disappeared". They were living in 
France or Europe illegally and could have become forced workers (from 
hard manual labor, to sewing in underground illegal shops, or having 
been tricked by the sex industry or worse) or just had been 'abducted' 
and God knows what.

So with that in mind those bureaucrats are actually trying to protect 
people from being abused or ending up in terrible living conditions with 
very little hope to ever seeing their family and friends again.

When you fill a visa application you need to put the best effort 
possible to convince those bureaucrats you will come back no matter 
what, and can take care of yourself (and will not look for employment 
while in the country of destination). I've heard of a few rejections 
while doing Gnome.Asia from Asian people traveling to another Asian 
country and in all cases it was an obvious mistake on their part in the 
way they filled the application form (such as but not limited to: 
requesting double entry visa to attend a 1-time event, requesting a 
business visa for a 1 week event, etc). We have tried to assist people 
during their application but they often do not listen.

I hope this perspective will make you see the 'other side' of the visa 
story.

All the best.

Fred