The students, along with other passengers, subsequently reached out to Air India ground staff…reports Asian Lite News
Around 20 to 25 students were left stranded at Canada’s Vancouver after the cancellation of Air India flight AI 186 to Delhi on July 2.
Describing their ordeal, the University of British Columbia (UBC) students mentioned that the flight was initially scheduled to depart from Vancouver airport at around 10.15 a.m. on July 2 but was rescheduled twice and eventually cancelled.
One of the students, speaking anonymously, stated, “On July 1, around 9 p.m., we received an email from Air India informing us of a five-hour delay, and the new departure time was set for 2.45 p.m. However, when we arrived at the airport, we discovered that the flight had been delayed for an additional hour.”
“We were waiting at the closed boarding gate at the new departure time of 3:45 p.m.
“But a fellow passenger informed us around 3:40 p.m that the flight had been cancelled, and there was no official announcement.”
The students, along with other passengers, subsequently reached out to Air India ground staff.
“They (ground staff) provided us with an email address and instructed us to send our expense receipts to the airport for reimbursement,” said another student.
“The ground staff also assured us that Air India would refund our ticket costs and other expenses. However, when we requested written confirmation, the staff refused, stating that they could only give oral assurances as there was no guarantee,” she said, adding that they don’t know if their ticket amount will be refunded or not.
The students claimed that they had sent an email requesting a refund for their tickets but had not received any response from Air India.
As a result of the flight cancellation, a group of 10 UBC students, who had already surrendered their rented accommodations, are now staying at a friend’s three-bedroom house.
“We each have three bags, and 10 of us are sharing this accommodation because we don’t have the funds to book another flight or rent another house,” the students explained.
Meanwhile, the Air India spokesperson said that the passengers are being offered other alternative arrangements and support until they are Delhi-bound again.
“Air India AI186 scheduled to operate Vancouver-Delhi on July 2 had been rescheduled earlier but now stands cancelled, as a technical issue was detected in the operating aircraft. While the aircraft undergoes the necessary checks and repairs, we have re-accommodated some of our guests on flights operated by other airlines,” said the spokesperson.
“The rest of the guests are being offered other alternative arrangements and support until they are Delhi-bound again. We regret the inconvenience caused to our guests, but as always, ensuring the safety of all is our top priority,” the spokesperson added.
Alex Ellis, the British High Commissioner to India.(Photo:linkedin)
The High Commissioner then gave an overview of geopolitical strategic imperatives which will influence the India-UK relationship…reports Asian Lite News
Indian students in the UK surpass all countries, including China, said Alex Ellis, the British High Commissioner to India, at a Distinguished Public Lecture on India-UK Relations.
“The degree of human connection between our two countries is extraordinary, yet there is potential to take the India-UK relationship to a deeper and profound level,” he said.
This was a unique and prestigious occasion when the High Commissioner of the UK visited JGU for the first time and addressed students of international affairs, law and other disciplines, giving them a diplomatic and strategic overview of the relationship between the world’s two important democracies.
“India and the UK connect on a human level. We are the fifth and sixth biggest economies in the world, India will grow to be the third in the world by 2030. We are trying to negotiate a free trade agreement and it’s quite important that we look at the economic value it gives but also the strategic value. Together, as nations we will try to deal with some of the biggest problems the world faces, especially climate change! We have already demonstrated how well we have cooperated in the research and production of Covishield vaccine during the pandemic. It was funded by research in Britain’s second best university and then developed and manufactured in India and that’s been a great milestone. But India will be one of the country’s most affected by climate change in the world and we will face it in our lifetimes.”
The High Commissioner then gave an overview of geopolitical strategic imperatives which will influence the India-UK relationship.
“Trade and investment, security in the region and the Indo-Pacific areas will also drive the discussion on cooperation. But it is the human level that is more important. I’d like to get more British people coming to India to understand the reality of India.”
He also touched on and the shared history between India and the UK and opined that India was one country where as a diplomat he had to take special care of historical sensitivities but he also looked at contemporary outcomes.
In his wide ranging lecture, the High Commissioner also dealt on the subject of geography, culture, language, food, cricket and showing respect for the country you live in.
Thousands of young Indians are finding themselves graduating with limited or no skills, undercutting the economy at a pivotal moment of growth.
More than 5 million Indians enter the 15-to-24 age group every year, adding a demographic thrust to the demand for more colleges and universities. Properly educated and employed, these young people could bring the country a demographic dividend, the sort of surge in growth that buoyed many of the Asian “tiger” economies from the 1960s to the 1990s. But if India does not create high-quality colleges for its youths, it risks reaping a demographic disaster.
The higher education commission recently released a list of 21 “fake universities,” many of them no more than a mailing address or signboard hanging over a shop, temple or hole-in-the-wall office space. A government regulator that focuses on technical schools named 340 private institutions across India that run courses without its accreditation. Of more than 31,000 higher education institutions, only 4,532 universities and colleges are accredited.
Meanwhile, business is booming in India’s $117 billion education industry and new colleges are popping up at breakneck speed. Yet thousands of young Indians are finding themselves graduating with limited or no skills, undercutting the economy at a pivotal moment of growth.
Desperate to get ahead, some of these young people are paying for two or three degrees in the hopes of finally landing a job. They are drawn to colleges popping up inside small apartment buildings or inside shops in marketplaces. Highways are lined with billboards for institutions promising job placements.
India has the world’s largest population by some estimates, and the government regularly highlights the benefits of having more young people than any other country. Yet half of all graduates in India are unemployable in the future due to problems in the education system, according to a study by talent assessment firm Wheebox.
Many businesses say they struggle to hire because of the mixed quality of education. That’s kept unemployment stubbornly high at more than 7% even though India is the world’s fastest growing major economy, reported Bloomberg.
The complexities of the country’s education boom are on show in Tier II cities. Massive billboards with private colleges promising young people degrees and jobs are ubiquitous.
Higher degrees, once accessible only to the wealthy, have a special cachet in India for young people from middle and low-income families.
In 2019, the Supreme Court barred the Bhopal-based RKDF Medical College Hospital and Research Centre from admitting new students for two years for allegedly using fake patients to meet medical college requirements. The college initially argued in court that the patients were genuine, but later submitted an apology after an investigative panel found that the purported patients weren’t really sick, reported Bloomberg.
The medical school is part of RKDF Group which has wide network of colleges in areas from engineering to medicine and management. The group faced another controversy last year. In May last year, police in Hyderabad arrested the vice chancellor of RKDF Group’s Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan University as well as his predecessor for alleged involvement in giving out fake degrees. Still, students could be seen flooding into several of RKDF’s institutions in Bhopal. One branch had posters of their “Shining Stars” – students who were placed in jobs after graduating.
India’s education industry is projected to hit $225 billion by 2025 from $117 billion in 2020, according to the India Brand Equity Foundation, a government trust. That’s still much smaller than the US education industry, where spending is estimated to be well above $1 trillion. In India, public spending on education has been stagnant at about 2.9% of GDP, much lower than the 6% target set in the government’s new education policy.
India has regulatory bodies and professional councils to regulate its educational institutions. While the government has announced plans to have a single agency that will replace all existing regulators, that’s still at the planning stage. The education department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The competition called on students to form small groups to present innovative projects that focussed on an aspect of the United Nation’s Global Sustainable Development Goals…reports Asian Lite News
A team of computer science students from Canadian university Dubai (CUD) has developed a smart solution that aims to reduce food waste by converting it into a source of renewable energy. The technology, known as Digi-Bin, has been created to support the UAE’s national sustainable consumption initiative, ne’ma, which aims to half food waste by 2030.
Developed under the banner, ‘Resolving food waste while rewarding you’, the Digi-Bin is intended to incentivize waste recycling by helping consumers to save on their electricity bills. The solution collects discarded food products and transports them to a biogas plant to be converted into biofuel, which can then be redirected into the power grid. Users are rewarded with carbon credits, which can be applied as savings coupons on their electricity bills.
The Digi-Bin was first conceived by the team of Zahab Khan, Prateek Mishra, and Denver Dias, in response to a competition called ‘Future Disruptors’, organized by technology firm, Software AG. The competition called on students to form small groups to present innovative projects that focussed on an aspect of the United Nation’s Global Sustainable Development Goals.
Revealing their thinking behind the project, Zahab said, “We were inspired by an article we read that explained how food waste was costing the UAE around six billion dirhams each year. We wanted to create something that would help tackle this, and that everyone in the UAE could contribute to. The solution involves managing food waste at a household level and actively encouraging users to contribute towards sustainability through the award of carbon credits.”
Explaining more about the technology behind the solution, Denver said, “The Digi-Bin uses multiple sensors, which work alongside the Internet of Things to connect the user through a smart app. With the Software AG dashboard, the weight of the food deposited into the Digi-Bin can instantly be calculated and displayed to the user’s mobile app. A filled Digi-Bin is transported to a biogas plant to be converted into biofuel and any food waste that is not suitable for this process is segregated to produce fertilizers.”
The CUD students were selected among a handful of teams to showcase their prototype at the ‘Future Disruptors Zone’ during this year’s GITEX, where they demonstrated their commitment to tackling the global sustainability challenge. Prateek explained, “The hypothesis of the project is that food waste is generated and populated from all corners of the earth. Our generation has been gifted with substantial advancements in technology, which can be applied to pursue sustainability, and this is the essence of our invention.”
Determined to see their project come to life in the near future, Zahab, Prateek, and Denver are now working to refine the technology and build the professional networks that will help take their innovation forward. Zahab said, “At the moment we’re still relying on user-segregation of waste, so we would like to build in artificial intelligence to make the process easier. We also hope to see a growth in the number of facilities that can convert the waste into fuel, to help the innovation reach its potential in re-using food waste in a sustainable way.”
Reflecting on their inspiration for the project, Denver concluded, “Ultimately, we hope that the Digi-Bin can contribute to one of the main goals of the national ne’ma initiative, to mobilize individuals and local communities to take collective action. By promoting new, positive behaviors, we can help contribute to the UN SDG target of reducing food loss and waste by 50% by 2030.”
Vice Chancellor, SKUAST-K, Prof Nazir Ahmad Ganai, said this is an outcome of long-term engagement between SKUAST-K and KSU on the faculty and student exchange programme under NAHEP…reports Asian Lite News
Three students from Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir have been awarded research fellowships for postgraduate programmes at Kansas State University, Manhattan, USA.
Sabreena Ayoub from the Faculty of Horticulture, Midhat Zulafkar from the Faculty of Agriculture and Muazzama Mushtaq from the Faculty of Forestry will be heading to the USA in the summer of 2023 to join their masters’ degrees at the first public land grant university of the world, KSU.
Sabreena and Midhat will be working under the mentorship of Prof PV Vara Prasad, Director of Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab, KSU, and Dr Ram Perumal, Professor of Plant Breeding on GWAS and Herbicide tolerance in Pearl millet, and Muazzama will be working under Nobel Laureate Dr Chuck Rice on soil carbon dynamics under climate change.
Vice Chancellor, SKUAST-K, Prof Nazir Ahmad Ganai, said this is an outcome of long-term engagement between SKUAST-K and KSU on the faculty and student exchange programme under NAHEP.
He congratulated the students for bringing laurels to the university and appreciated the efforts of SKUAST-K’s Coordinator of International Programmes, Dr Parvaze Ahmad Sofi, for facilitating student exchange between SKUAST-K and KSU and helping students find better places for higher learning across the globe.
Braverman is in fact opposed to freer movement of people from India to the UK, which is one of the Indian government’s demands in the current negotiations over a free trade agreement with the UK…writes Ashish Ray
British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak’s reported plan to restrict foreign students to premier universities in the UK could meet resistance from his chancellor of the exchequer, Jeremy Hunt.
Hunt told media immigration was required to boost growth, adding there had to be “a long-term plan if we’re going to bring down migration in a way that doesn’t harm the economy”.
Besides, the British government’s department of education could also raise objections, as the contemplated cut-down would increase state funding of universities, who otherwise benefit from high fee-paying international students.
The chairman of Whitehall’s Migration Advisory Committee, Brian Bell, said in an interview to BBC that the idea said to be in Sunak’s in-tray could “send many universities over the edge”.
“Most universities for most courses lose money on teaching British students and offset that loss by charging more for international students,” Bell emphasised.
Indians constitute the largest contingent of foreign students in the UK at present. If the restriction being mulled over by Sunak becomes policy, they are likely to be the worst sufferers.
New figures disclosed net migration had exceeded half a million – an increase of 300,000 in a single year. Among additional, the steps Sunak is believed to be considering is a clamp down on visas for dependents of overseas students.
Sunak’s hard line Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, previously expressed concern about foreign students “bringing in family members who can piggyback onto their student visa”. According to her, they undertake “substandard courses in inadequate institutions”.
Earlier, in an interview to The Spectator magazine, she accused Indians of being the biggest illegal over-stayers in the UK.
Braverman is in fact opposed to freer movement of people from India to the UK, which is one of the Indian government’s demands in the current negotiations over a free trade agreement with the UK.
However, the right-wing, inward looking Conservative party are happy about their 42-year-old new Prime Minister contemplating curbing the intake of foreign students to reduce immigration. At the same time, some of his MPs are already beginning to give up on him.
One such lawmaker who won from a constituency that was formerly an opposition Labour party stronghold in the north of England, commented to the pro-Conservative Daily Mail newspaper: “Rishi would be a decent project manager. Or senior civil servant. But he’s not a natural Prime Minister. He’s just not the sort of guy you want to follow out of the trenches.”
Meanwhile, the UK’s National Grid issued its first emergency warning about a winter blackout. And inflation is soaring. “But”, the Daily Mail, highly influential among Conservatives, said: “The Prime Minister was absent. Or, if not exactly absent, busy elsewhere.”
Sunak recently visited Kiev to pledge 125 anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
As economic hardship bites, a majority Britons are seemingly beginning to tire of the war, which wasn’t the case in the summer.
In the Mail’s opinion: “After the unrelenting bombast of the Boris Johnson years, and the frenetic mayhem that was the month of Truss, such reflective disengagement may be welcome… But the country is experiencing a growing sense of crisis. And what it needs isn’t a manager, but a leader.”
It headlined elsewhere: “Dire warning for ‘tainted’ Tories (Conservatives) as bombshell polling reveals Sir Keir Starmer (Labour leader) is ahead of Rishi Sunak on 11 out of 12 key issues – including cost of living, NHS (National Health Service), immigration and Brexit.”
Indian group urges govt to resolve issue
An Indian diaspora-led students’ organisation on Friday urged the UK government to remove international students from the country’s overall immigration statistics amid unconfirmed reports that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak may be considering a crackdown on foreigners granted study visas.
According to some UK media reports, Sunak is mulling a crackdown on foreign students bringing dependents and studying so-called low-quality degrees at mediocre UK universities after the country’s net migration figures hit record levels.
Downing Street has indicated that “all options” to bring overall migrant numbers down are on the table. The National Indian Students and Alumni Union (NISAU) UK, which campaigns for streamlined provisions for Indian students studying in the UK, said any move to arbitrarily rank universities would prove counterproductive in the long run.
“Students who are in the UK temporarily, should not be counted as migrants,” said NISAU UK Chair Sanam Arora.
“International students, of which Indians are the biggest cohort, bring a net revenue of GBP 30 billion into the British economy and go back as friends of the UK, furthering ties of trade, culture, and diplomacy. The UK’s higher education sector is one of our largest exports to the world, and we are hopeful that the government will ensure that there is no arbitrary definition of what counts as a ‘top’ university,” she said.
The group called for a “creative and innovative policy solution” that addresses the UK’s skills and labour shortages through its international graduates. The Universities UK International (UUKi), which represents over 140 UK universities, also sounded a note of caution over any policy moves to cut down international student numbers as a potential act of self-harm and pile on additional financial pressures on universities.
“Cutting international student numbers would run directly counter to the UK government’s strategy to welcome more students from around the world,” said UUKi Chief Executive Vivienne Stern. “International students make an enormous cultural and financial contribution to the UK. They help make our campuses and cities the vibrant, thought-provoking places they are known for being. They sustain jobs in towns and cities up and down the country,” she said.
“Beyond this, the financial contribution they make has been very significant for UK universities. Limiting international students would be an act of self-harm that would damage many parts of the UK,” she added. The concerns arise in the wake of the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures this week revealing net migration to the UK rose from 173,000 in the year to June 2021, to 504,000 in the year to June 2022 – an increase of 331,000 post-Brexit.
International students were a large contributory factor to this spike, with Indians overtaking Chinese students as the largest cohort of student visas for the first time. The Conservative Party-led UK government has a manifesto commitment to reduce migration “overall”, something reiterated in recent weeks and months by UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman. She has previously expressed worries about foreign students bringing in dependent family members who “piggyback” on a student visa and is believed to be looking at proposals to tackle the issue.
The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak working at the Darlington Economic Campus in Darlington. Picture by Simon Walker / No 10 Downing Street
Hersha Pandya, Executive Director of UK Partner Relations of M Square Media, an education management company, has also aired her concerns over this new development…reports Asian Lite News
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plan to restrict the entry of foreign students to curb increasing migration is being seen as a setback for universities and the UK economy in general by migration and education advisors.
According to media reports, Sunak is considering curbs on foreign students taking “low quality” degrees and bringing dependents.
The UK Prime Minister’s spokesman said the idea was being considered after official figures showed net migration to the UK had climbed to a record half a million, the reports said.
The Prime Minister’s plans to bring down foreign student numbers could include restricting admissions to top universities, as well as restricting visas for students’ dependents.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been quoted as saying as per media reports that foreign students have been “bringing in family members who can piggyback onto their student visa” and “propping up, frankly, substandard courses in inadequate institutions”.
However, a government migration adviser warned it would bankrupt many universities. Moreover, an adviser on immigration policy has warned that some universities could go bankrupt if there is a clampdown on so-called “low-quality” degrees.
Hersha Pandya, Executive Director of UK Partner Relations of M Square Media, an education management company, has also aired her concerns over this new development.
“Firstly, it was the UK government that set a target of 600,000 international students which was met and delivered well in advance through the hard work of universities, agents, and third-party providers,” Pandya said, adding that “now the UK government is once again putting international students under the spotlight when these students should never be included in the net migration statistics. The UK government must stop this yo-yo effect if it wishes to promote the country as the number one choice for international students”.
Just last week, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt insisted that immigration was required to boost growth, underscoring the need for “a long-term plan if we’re going to bring down migration in a way that doesn’t harm the economy.” Hunt said that migration would be needed “for the years ahead – that will be very important for the economy”.
In the 2020-21 school year, the number of international students at UK universities totalled 605,130, up by 48,505 or 8.71 per cent from the previous year’s total of 556,625 students. International students paid a total of 9.95 billion pound in tuition fees for the school year 2020-21.
According to media reports, Scotland Deputy First Minister John Swinney described the proposals as “stupid” while Education Minister Jamie Hepburn warned that the proposal would be “deeply damaging to Scotland’s world-class university sector.”
Moreover, the Scottish National Party has consistently praised the contribution made by foreign students and other migrants to Scotland.
In Jazan, education administrators said the region was all set to accept 162,583 students in stages to 1,320 public and private schools…reports Asian Lite News
Schools throughout Saudi Arabia are preparing to welcome tens of thousands of students for the start of the new academic year.
With school gates due to open on Sunday, education officials have been busy planning for a smooth classroom return.
In the Eastern Province, 4 million textbooks have been delivered to 1,627 schools, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Thursday.
And the region’s education department spokesman, Saeed Al-Bahes, said around 700 buses had been laid on for more than 50,000 students who had registered for school transport through the Noor system.
In Jazan, education administrators said the region was all set to accept 162,583 students in stages to 1,320 public and private schools.
Regional director general of education, Mallhi bin Hassan Aqdi, said employees in a range of departments had worked tirelessly to ensure school buildings and learning materials were ready and in place for the reopening.
Al-Ahsa Gov. Prince Saud bin Talal bin Badr has been working closely with education chiefs in the region in preparing for back-to-school day.
During a visit to Al-Tomouh Primary School for Early Childhood, the prince met officials and administrative staff and was briefed on the school’s future plans and programs.
They also receive individual counseling sessions to plan for their academic development, and support to write their resumes…reports Asian Lite News
The King Abdulaziz and His Companions’ Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity, also known as Mawhiba, has launched its second training workshop this year to prepare 200 secondary school students for admission to top US universities.
The seven-day workshop is part of Mawhiba’s Excellence Program to help outstanding students, of both genders, enroll at leading tertiary institutions in America. The students will receive career guidance counseling and intensive courses on academic writing.
Mawhiba’s Acting Secretary-General Dr. Amal Al-Hazzaa said the country’s leaders want to ensure that talented and skilled people are prepared to take up positions in various critical sectors of the economy.
“The leadership strongly believes the youth can overcome challenges and make the future. They can also enhance the Kingdom’s position among the countries of the developed world in various fields,” she said.
Al-Hazzaa urged students to continue working hard so that they can be excellent ambassadors for the country at the prestigious universities they will attend.
She stressed that the students would assist in transforming the nation into a knowledge society and achieving the goals of Vision 2030.
The Excellence Program lasts for one year, starting from the second semester of grade 11.
Al-Hazzaa said that 700 citizens have already completed the program.
“Some of these students have graduated from these universities and are now working in important positions locally and internationally. Some others are still receiving their education,” she said.
Students of the Excellence Program receive several benefits, the most important of which are intensive training workshops for the SAT examination, a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the US.
They also receive individual counseling sessions to plan for their academic development, and support to write their resumes.
The program also focuses on developing the students’ leadership and entrepreneurial skills. This includes advice on which projects to undertake so that they can stand out in the highly competitive application process, which normally sees hundreds of thousands of applicants from around the world.
The program was launched in 2015 with support provided virtually and in person.
Alex Ellis, the British High Commissioner to India, said that the number of visas issued to Indian students went up from 20,000 five years ago to one lakh last year, and is likely to climb further up…reports Asian Lite News
India is likely to overtake China vis-à-vis the number of overseas students going to Britain this year. At present, China sends the maximum number of international students to the UK, followed by India.
Alex Ellis, the British High Commissioner to India, said that the number of visas issued to Indian students went up from 20,000 five years ago to one lakh last year, and is likely to climb further up.
He added that this year, the number of Indian students on British campuses would surpass China. “We issued roughly 1,00,000 student visas last academic year. We hope to beat the record of last year. There’s been a huge growth in Indian student numbers to the UK. We’ve got down to somewhere very low, less than 20,000 four or five years ago, now it’s up to 100,000, we want to go even higher. It could be that this year India overtakes China in terms of students coming to the UK.”
India and UK had recently signed a memorandum of understanding to mutually recognise educational qualifications inclusive of maritime education and agreed upon a framework for healthcare workers. Ellis said that the MoU would enable the “recognition of the UK’s master’s degree by Indian authorities, which would be particularly relevant if one is seeking a government job or wishing to do a PhD in Britain”.
The British government had announced the pact, which is aimed at benefitting both undergraduate and postgraduate students of both the countries, stating “the MoU, part of the UK-India Enhanced Trade Partnership (ETP) agreed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year, means A-levels and their equivalents, undergraduate and postgraduate degrees will now be recognised in India.”
The statement noted that the two sides additionally inked Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to implement the ETP commitments to create a task force to provide opportunities for Indian nurses and nursing associates seeking to train and work in the UK’s National Health Service.
According to the British High Commissioner, this move will help build more confidence and trust between the nations and increase the flow of people between India and the UK.
He added: “A lot of people are already moving between the UK and India, but we want even more, including more people from Britain coming to India. Essentially, we would recognise Indian masters. That will help people from India if they want to get employment in the UK, so it works both ways.”
To mark India’s 75th year of independence, Britain is offering 75 — the highest number of Chevening scholarships to students from the country. The number of Chevening scholarships being issued to Indian students may go higher from next year if more sponsors join in.
Of the 75 scholarships, HSBC India will fund 15 of them, Pearson India will fund two, while Hindustan Unilever, Tata Sons, and Duolingo will each fund one.
Since 1983, the UK government has sponsored the Chevening international honours programme, which is available in 150 nations and is aimed at creating world leaders. With over 3500 graduates, India’s Chevening programme is the biggest in the world.
For a one-year postgraduate programme, the fully financed scholarship covers tuition, living expenses, and travel costs. Candidates must have at least two years of work experience to be eligible for the prize.
Considering the growing interest of Indians to study in the UK, the British embassy is taking measures to speed up the visa process. A few years back, only around 20,000 students visited the UK for studies, but the numbers now have increased manifolds. “There is every possibility that India will soon overtake China in terms of international students’ inflow to the UK. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two countries in turbulent times as seen in Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, will help in deepening the relationship between the two democracies,” added Ellis.
High Potential Individual (HPI) visas have been opened by the UK that allows two years stay to qualified people who have degrees from 50 prominent universities. “After Brexit, some of the policies have been changed to initiate controlled migration. However, this rule has made it relatively easy for Indian nationals to go to the UK. As of now, around 44% of skilled work visas go to Indians. You will see talented people spending time in the UK, studying and working there and eventually coming back to India, which is enriching for both the countries,” said Ellis.
