India is likely to strongly raise the issue of reduction in students’ visa to Britain during United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May’s visit next week.
Tighter students’ visa regime has led to a sharp decline in overseas students’ enrollment in the UK after the new norms were announced this year. News reports from london said May strongly backs strict student visas norms in a bid to crackdown on immigration. There have been concerns in the UK Government that a lot of students who take admissions in institutions end up as migrant workers.
Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup said in the last five years, the number of Indian students enrolling in UK Universities have gone down by almost 50 per cent — from around 40,000 to about 20,000 now. “This has happened because of restrictions on post-study stay in the UK. Indian students and people-to-people relations are important pillars of India-UK ties. We have raised our concerns on the difficulties being faced by Indian students with the UK side. We expect mobility issues to be raised during the visit,” Swarup said on Thursday while talking about the agenda of discussions during May’s visit from November 6-8. This is her first bilateral visit outside the European Union.
May on Thursday called up PM Narendra Modi to wish him on the occasion of Diwali. Modi said he is looking forward to welcoming her in India next week. Swarup said the two PMs agreed that there is substantial scope for further strengthening bilateral cooperation across a range of sectors including science and technology, finance, trade and investment, defence and security.
It is expected that May will raise the issue of six British sailors lodged in Tamil Nadu jail with Modi and seek his intervention in their release. The jailed sailors are among the 35 members of American anti-piracy vessel 'MV Seaman Guard Ohio' that was intercepted by the Coast Guard off Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu in 2013 for allegedly carrying unlicensed weapons.
She along with Modi will inaugurate the India-UK Technology Summit on November 7, in New Delhi. The decision to hold the India-UK Tech Summit was agreed to during Modi's visit to london in November 2015.
The Tech Summit is being organised by the Department of Science and Technology and CII. "New initiatives on deepening science and technology collaboration between India and UK will be announced," Swarup said.
Under the umbrella of India-UK Technology Summit, four other Summits are also being organized: Higher Education Summit, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Summit,
Design Summit, Intellectual Property Rights Summit. A meeting of the Joint Economic and Trade Committee (JETCO) chaired by Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman, and UK Secretary of State for International, Trade liam Fox, will be held during the visit to strengthen trade and investments relations. Besides a meeting of India-UK CEOs Forum will also be held alongside JETCO.
India and UK have a robust trade and investment partnership. Bilateral trade in goods stood at $14 billion in 2015-16. India is the third largest investor in UK and the latter too is the third largest investor in India and the leading investor here from among the G-20 countries.