Sangeetha Thangavel, an assistant professor and bioenergy researcher at National Taipei University of Technology (NTUT), has been granted a Plum Blossom Card by the National Immigration Agency.
The agency yesterday said that Thangavel, who is from India, had been awarded the special Alien Permanent Resident Certificate (APRC) for her efforts in cultivating biochemistry engineering talent in Taiwan and for her contributions to the research of bioelectrochemical systems for use in clean energy production.
Thangavel’s work on microbial fuel cells, microbial electrolysis cells, and bioenergy production methods related to methane and wastewater aligned closely with the nation’s renewable energy and environmental goals, the agency said.
Photo provided by National Immigration Agency via CNA
Thangavel’s research has been used in a wide variety of agricultural applications, such as removing heavy metal ions from soil and creating diluted seawater, it added.
Thangavel, who received her doctorate from Bharathiar University in Coimbatore, India, in January 2013, has worked at NTUT’s Department of Energy and Refrigerating Air-conditioning Engineering since 2017.
The agency said that it had issued a total of 244 Plum Blossom Cards since the program began in 2009, including 169 to specialized professionals, 48 for outstanding contributions and 27 for significant investments in Taiwan.
Plum Blossom cardholders can apply for citizenship in Taiwan without renouncing their original passports.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS