By Neeraj Nanda
Melbourne: India has asked Victoria to release statistics on as to how many overseas Indian students were attacked or faced violence last year here. This was disclosed by Mr. Kapil Sibal, India’s Minister of Human resource Development yesterday (8 April) during an interaction with the media after meeting Victorian Premier Mr. John Brumby.
“Mr Brumby said he will look into the matter, Mr Sibal disclosed.
Later addressing a select gathering of Indian community at the Langham Hotel, Mr. Sibal said, “ We did not know what was happening here with Indian students because we were not giving visas to Indian students”.
“It caused us great grief and the Indian community was anguished and now concrete steps are being taken by the state and federal governments to address the issue, Mr. Sibal said.
Some of the Indian students who were victims of violence were present during the meeting and MR. Sibal said they were victimised for no reason of theirs.
Mr. Sibal also disclosed that he asked the Australian government to have a similar law (as being done in India) to declare “education malpractices” as offences.
On a question by South Asia Times, Mr Sibal said the foreign education providers who will be allowed to open shop in India, will have to follow relevant state and central laws including ones on the reservation of seats for certain categories of people.
Mr. Sibal also launched he ‘Gyan Network’ , a internet network for academics of Indian origin in Australia.
Earlier, Mr Sibal and Australian Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard signed a joint ministerial statement to build on the cooperative ties between the two countries in the education sector.
A media statement from the Deputy Prime Minister’s office says, The Ministers also agreed to investigate the establishment of an India-Australia Education Council to improve collaboration on education-related issues.
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