In message sp7d8ch2gehlltumrg47cq0of42emajr5h@None, at 17:34:06 on
Mon, 23 Jan 2017, Arthur Conan Doyle remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:

But what if I were to organise a meeting, booking a conference room,
greeting guests and holding a seminar (where I was speaking). Is that
closer to "work" than "business"?

I manage engineering teams in the US, India and the EU and I can say the rules
aren't black in white. They strongly depend on your visa legal counsel

I've never had one of those (other than perhaps the very first time I
got a classic USA 'indefinite' B1/B2, and that was decades ago).

and the mood of the border control agent on any given day.

In general, the rule of thumb I use is that talking in any format (one to one,
giving or receiving instruction to one or many people, etc.) falls under a
business visa.

Pick up a screwdriver, connect a cable, even in the context of training and
things start to get complicated.

I recall helping mount, populate (with leaflets and give-aways) and
later dismount a classic "trade show" booth at one of the Indian venues.

And of course hand things out to people walking past.

There are also ancillary rules - your paycheck needs to come from your
home country, your reporting manager needs to be in your home country

Home, or just "not India"?

and you are not allowed to take direction from any local person.

I'm pretty sure I must have come quite close to that when discussing
things with the chap from the Indian Telecoms Ministry who was the
official host for the meetings.

[However, as I said earlier, I had a UN 'access all areas' type of visa,
but I'm still interested in what the position would have been had the
conference been held under a different umbrella]
--
Roland Perry