Karl Edward Rice, known online as Karl Rock, is a New Zealand blogger[3] and
YouTuber based in India. He is best known for his
vlogs, which are centred around his travels in the
Indian subcontinent, and his book How to Travel in India.[4][5][6][7]
Early and personal life
Rock was born in 1982 in
Auckland, New Zealand where he attended and graduated from the
University of Auckland.[8] He frequently travelled to
India.[9][10][11] In 2019, he married Manisha Malik, an Indian woman from
Haryana;[12][13] he resided with Malik in
Delhi until his blacklisting by the
Government of India in 2020, which cancelled his travel visa.[14] Rock holds dual citizenship of New Zealand and the Netherlands.[15]
In July 2021, Rock uploaded a video on
YouTube explaining that his travel visa was cancelled shortly after he left
India in October 2020 to travel to
Pakistan through
Dubai. Upon his attempts to apply for a new visa in Dubai, he was informed that he had been blacklisted by the
Government of India and was prohibited from re-entering India;[20] he had last entered the country in November 2019.[20][21] Rock stated that there was no official reason provided by the Indian government for his blacklisting and that he had not received any response from India's
Ministry of Home Affairs following his attempts to contact them.[1] In a statement, India's
Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Home Affairs stated that Rock had been blacklisted for "multiple visa violations on his last visit"; in the context of the blacklisting, an Indian government official stated that Rock had committed a violation by engaging in business activities while on a tourist visa.[22]
Rock returned to India in April 2022, after the restrictions on his entry into the country had been lifted. Rock had promised in April 2022 to make a video about the specifics of this case, but as of May 2024 he has not done so. [23]