Students are watched carefully during security checks. All over the world, students are considered as potential security risks. Hence there is an all round watch over them. India has less than 30,000 students from foreign countries. USA has over 5.5 lakh students. Yet India is more worried about foreign students than USA. The reason is simple – security fear and lack of single window clearance for the students. Without analyzing the economic potential of the foreign students, the Government of India is having knee jerk reactions. The real culprits are left out but the innocent students are harassed. Despite the technological development over staying guests were checked adequately and deported.
The Times of India (26.12.2008, p.11) reports “Foreign students enrolled in different institutions of India – are under the police scanner. Their visa details are being scrutinized to find out whether some of them might have overstayed, posing a security risk.
The move has been initiated by the Foreigners Regional Registration Offices (FRROs) through respective state/U police forces across the country in the wake of the Centre’s direction to weed out overstaying foreign nationals through detailed checks post Mumbai terror attacks.
“Although it is an ongoing exercise in the case of al foreigners who visit India on valid documents, the idea is to sensitize educational institutions of the problem of overstaying students and its security implications for India”, said a senior home ministry official.
Incidentally, no Pakistani student was enrolled in the country as on December 31, 2007,. Though the ministry has not come out with any specific figure of overstaying foreign students, the enormity of the problem can be understood by the huge numbers of missing Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals who have just disappeared while visiting India.
The figure shows that over 62,000 Bangladeshi nationals disappeared after expiry of their visa during 2005-07. The number of missing Bangladeshis (62,547) is in fact much higher than the number of Pakistanis (22,097) who had come to India using proper visas and subsequently vanished.
Top 10 States/UTs having foreign students (28,842)
Delhi 7,424
Maharastra 5,551
Tamil Nadu 4,956
Andra Pradesh 2,289
West Bengal 1,697
Uttar Pradesh 1,486
Kerala 1,050
Gujarat 721
Punjab 576
Himachal Pradesh 572
Top 10 – (Country-wise break-up)
US 2,645
Sri Lanka 1,642
Hungary 1,557
Bangladesh 1,411
Sudan 1,078
Thailand 1,038
UK 891
Kenya 816
Afghanistan 801
Malaysia 792
An efficient administrative setup is needed to capitalize the human resources of India. Foreign students should be given all the possible help and clearances should be given in a single window. Those who overstay and violate the visa procedures should be immediately deported. There should not be a mix of priorities. India is relaxed over both the issues which cost the economy and society very dearly.
The Times of India (26.12.2008, p.11) reports “Foreign students enrolled in different institutions of India – are under the police scanner. Their visa details are being scrutinized to find out whether some of them might have overstayed, posing a security risk.
The move has been initiated by the Foreigners Regional Registration Offices (FRROs) through respective state/U police forces across the country in the wake of the Centre’s direction to weed out overstaying foreign nationals through detailed checks post Mumbai terror attacks.
“Although it is an ongoing exercise in the case of al foreigners who visit India on valid documents, the idea is to sensitize educational institutions of the problem of overstaying students and its security implications for India”, said a senior home ministry official.
Incidentally, no Pakistani student was enrolled in the country as on December 31, 2007,. Though the ministry has not come out with any specific figure of overstaying foreign students, the enormity of the problem can be understood by the huge numbers of missing Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals who have just disappeared while visiting India.
The figure shows that over 62,000 Bangladeshi nationals disappeared after expiry of their visa during 2005-07. The number of missing Bangladeshis (62,547) is in fact much higher than the number of Pakistanis (22,097) who had come to India using proper visas and subsequently vanished.
Top 10 States/UTs having foreign students (28,842)
Delhi 7,424
Maharastra 5,551
Tamil Nadu 4,956
Andra Pradesh 2,289
West Bengal 1,697
Uttar Pradesh 1,486
Kerala 1,050
Gujarat 721
Punjab 576
Himachal Pradesh 572
Top 10 – (Country-wise break-up)
US 2,645
Sri Lanka 1,642
Hungary 1,557
Bangladesh 1,411
Sudan 1,078
Thailand 1,038
UK 891
Kenya 816
Afghanistan 801
Malaysia 792
An efficient administrative setup is needed to capitalize the human resources of India. Foreign students should be given all the possible help and clearances should be given in a single window. Those who overstay and violate the visa procedures should be immediately deported. There should not be a mix of priorities. India is relaxed over both the issues which cost the economy and society very dearly.
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