The editorial in the latest issue of the Organiser, titled ‘Attack on Indian Students’, says: “Australia is finding it difficult to put down attacks on Indian students even a fortnight after such incidents attracted worldwide condemnation. Now there are isolated instances of racist attacks on Indians in Canada as well as racist discrimination in a couple of French flights. These are isolated incidents but disturbing. Matters could have been better resolved had the Indian government been more sensitive to the problems of the Indian diaspora. The prime minister who reportedly lost sleep when a single Indian charged with terror link was arrested in Australia last year is extremely coy about the plight of thousands of Indian students. The Indian tourism minister Kumari Selja cancelled her official visit to that country as a protest to the crime against Indians there. This is rather a knee-jerk reaction. In fact, the Indian students would have been reassured had some senior minister visited that country and spoken to the Australian authorities and students”.

The editorial adds: “It is because the quality of education in most Indian universities is so lamentably low that there is this rush for foreign degrees. There are world-class institutions here. But they are not sufficient and there is a huge scope for a big bang in higher education through a combined effort of the private capital and public spending. The Knowledge Commission said that we need 1500 more universities of higher quality. In fact at this stage of development India should be attracting students from outside its shores rather than forcing Indian students spend billions of dollars abroad in pursuit of better education...”

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