If you plan to visit any of the western or central European countries for a holiday, you will most probably require, what is called as a Schengen Visa. My wife and I planned a trip across Austria, Poland, Czech Republic and Germany in August 2016 and needed to get a Schengen visa. There are many blogs on how to get a Schengen visa already. However very few discuss Indian perspective. So I thought of sharing my experience when applying for Schengen visa from India. This blog is not a visa advice though and what worked in our case may or may not work for you. Which Embassy to apply the visa to? First thing to consider…
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Police Verification for Passport
A lot of visitors to my passport application article have been asking me about the police verification process. Below are the steps that I took to complete my police verification. Some disclaimers: The verification was done in May 2013 and the process may change in future. The verification was conducted in Mumbai. Process for other police stations may be completely different. Even within Mumbai each local police station acts independent of the other. The verification was for a re-issue of passport. For fresh applications, the verification process may be different. A police constable visited my house within 2 weeks of the receiving the passport. My application was put for post…
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How to renew or reissue your Indian Passport?
Update (Nov 2018): Recently my parents got their passports reissued under tatkal scheme and got the new passports in less than 24 hours without any police verification. Recently I went through the whole process of reissuing my passport as it was about to expire. I just thought of documenting the whole process so that it could benefit others. The steps listed here may or may not be of help to you as every passport reissue case is different. Do note that renewal and reissue of passport are two different things. Passport is generally reissued. Renewal only happens in special cases where a short validity passport was issued which now has…
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How to get passport appointment online?
Since 2012, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has changed the process of passport application and reissue. The application for issuance of fresh passport or reissue of expired/expiring passport has been made online. This has been done to streamline the whole process. Also Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been roped in to manage the online application system as well as to manage the data entry process. MEA and TCS have launched many passport kiosks also known as Passport Seva Kendras (PSK) where an Indian citizen can visit to submit his or her passport application. This is certainly a good news for Indian Passport applicants as it removes all middlemen…