Vyalar Ravi in Australia, Study in Australia,

My visit to this country at this time will be very helpful

By admin Saturday June 19, 2010

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Vyalar Ravi, Union Cabinet Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs and a member of Rajya Sabha is also a very highly regarded Indian Parliamentarian. He visited Sydney recently. Editor-in-Chief, Rohit Revo interviewed Vyalar Ravi and discussed wide ranging issues.

It has been a long standing demand of people holding Indian passports especially in the Gulf to get voting rights in India. Group of ministers (GoM) has cleared a draft bill that will allow persons holding an Indian passport studying or working abroad to vote. Can you explain this a bit.

This is a long standing demand of the Gulf people. In the last UPA government, in our 4^th year we introduced the bill. It has been sent to the Parliamentary standing committee. They have come up with suggestions to the bill and also sought clarification about who has voting rights. Then it had to go again to the Indian cabinet and then the Parliament. Prime Minister has appointed a Cabinet committee which consists of AK Anthony as Chairman of the Committee, P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Veerappa Moily and myself as members. The new draft had made it clear that those who are holding the Indian passport can vote. We made a provision to the People Representation Act.

If anybody was not staying in their regular residence for more than 6 months then there name would be deleted from the list which included the names of people working in the Gulf and many students who go abroad and they are Indian passport holders. The clause of this bill is simple. By the reason of employment or studies, if anyone holding Indian passport is living abroad, their name will appear in the voters list of their village, They can vote whenever they are in India during election time.

One of the important deliveries of your ministry has been to implement a scholarship scheme for Diaspora children. How is it going?

It is going on very well and we increased the amount for this scheme and also increased the numbers. We took a decision that minimum 50% must go to PIO children. We want to increase the numbers but budget provisions is a constraint. But I plan to increase the number further.

The Indian government has been seriously considering “an institutionalised mechanism” to prevent attacks on Indian students in Australia. During this trip can you tell us whom you are meeting and what subjects are you covering.

Very good question. I had a very long and a good discussion today with Parramatta Police Commander Robert Redfern in the presence of students. Later we had a meeting with the Parramatta Mayor, Paul Gillard. These meetings were very fruitful here. Tomorrow in Canberra we are meeting almost 8 ministers. I had met many of them in India, including Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith.

My visit to this country at this time will be very helpful. I can sort out and talk to them. Australian High Commissioner Peter Varghese had a discussion with me in my office in Delhi and I told him that the bill introduced in lower house in Australia is being made retrospectively. Retrospective means it will affect those who are already here. This is a matter of concern which I thought I must discuss and tell them the anxiety of Indian students living and working here.

Attacks on students has been controlled in Sydney but Melbourne is still a problem. What is your feeling behind Sydney’s success story?

Yes I know. The police in Sydney reacted and were sensitive and concerned for the students who study here, not only Indians but also other foreign students and took action against the culprits. So there was a fear among the unwanted elements who created problems. Maybe there were stray incidents but students got a confidence boost but it appears that actions taken by Melbourne side were not as effective as in Sydney.

We put a question to ourselves if Sydney could succeed why the Melbourne police could not succeed. When Victorian Premier visited India we impressed upon him that the police action should be strong. Moreover we should also remember that a larger number of students are in Melbourne.

The Union Cabinet of India has approved setting up Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF) in Indian missions in 24 countries to meet contingency expenses for welfare of overseas Indian citizens who are in distress. How can Indian students in Australia access this, in times of need?

It was 24 countries initially, I increased it to 44 countries and Australia is one of them. It is my Ministries fund and we send the money. This is under the discretion of the Ambassador which can be used when students are in distress, when women are in distress, or if people die unfortunately and body needs to be sent back. We can give this money for covering the ticket expenses.

We charge some consular fees maybe 2 dollars and people are happily paying them which helps generate funds. I am happy because it is being welcomed by people of Indian origin all across.

Right now, many missions do not have a picture over how many Indian students are there in the respective countries. If the ministry has its way, a separate budget could be made to provide country-specific group health insurance cover as an incentive for students to register their names.

It’s a welcome suggestion. In fact we have an insurance scheme called Pravasi Yojana but that is only for workers who pass through immigration clearance. That is a wonderful scheme. They get money for injury and separate fund for treatment but unfortunately there is no such system for students as such because students are not going through our ministry. They don’t need an immigration clearance. They are taken straight by the agents and the educational institutions here and they land here.

Definitely this is a good suggestion and I will discuss this with the Ministry of Education as the subject belongs to them and we will talk together and also talk to Foreign minister and come up with something. I will try to work it out in whatever way we can to make sure that students take this insurance.

Your ministry has a Know India program. Would you please tell us about this program?

This is a wonderful program. Usually we give it to 40 students in 4 stages. When I took over we used to give only 50% air fare to participants. I said no give them full fare. We take the students to India and earlier they would go to different states and Nehru Kendra was the nodal agency and which took them to a few cities and they come to Delhi and meet the President and go back. Last year there was a little change to the program. I made sure that children stayed in the villages and stayed with the families. They later came and told me it was a wonderful experience and never thought India was such a wonderful place. They go back with the impression that this is not the India that their father and grand parents had left. They realize this is a new India with great pride.

That a real life version of Bollywood movie “Khosla ka ghosla” happening in India which is Illegal encroachment and unauthorized occupation of properties as was highlighted during this Pravasi Bhartiya Divas. Property dispute is one of the most common complaints by NRIs. They are unable to protect their property due to long absences or lack of awareness of laws?

There is a problem. I admit, especially the inherited land from ancestral property. Some people go abroad to western countries and neighbours will encroach their land. I need the help of state governments in this. I used to write to them and wrote to Chief Ministers to take steps to protect the properties of NRIs. Some time back I had been to United states and a person complained to me about his flat in Mumbai which had been taken over by bad elements. I talked to the then Chief Minister, Vilas Rao Deshmukh then and resolved the issue. …so we do that sort of an effort. There is a problem and we need to find the solution.

That solution can be done only by state governments. We are yet to formulate some system. Let me assure you when there is any communication to me or my office I take it up with that respective Chief Minister for somebody to follow it up.

Indian community members always raise demands to you and expect so many things from you. What is your expectation from the community?

The Government of India is doing whatever we can. Last thing was the voting rights and the OCI/PIO card. OCI card holders can come and stay as along as they want and get all the benefits. What we expect from them is close association in their countries and we want them as Indian ambassadors in their countries. Indian community has made a political presence in many countries which is good. We understand their first loyalty is to their countries where they are citizens but at the same time they can become partners in the development of India. India is emerging as the major economic power in Asia so we always wish they are party to that. We wish they create a name for themselves wherever they go.

We want our children to go abroad and want their children to come to India. Few years ago when I was in US, people in a conference complained that there is no phone, no road in their village. I told them we are very happy there. In my village around 25,000 people live and we have only 5 telephones there. They were comparing India with America in those days. Today they say what a wonderful country India is.

In the 2011 Pravasi Bhartiya Divas (PBD) can we have some focus Areas for Australia/New Zealand for us to participate in larger numbers.

You are always welcome. We have one PBD in India and the other PDB abroad. Last year it was in Singapore and this year we scheduled this in Durban. Definitely we will encourage more people from this part of the world to attend the conference. Last year the most discussed subject was the loss of property and I felt the first day of the conference were very useful as Chief Secretaries of States were there and they took a note of the problems. I believe two bodies of GOPIO are my hands and expect them to get more delegates.

What is your message to the Indian community living here in Australia?

My message is very simple. They are here in large numbers I wish and hope many of them will be citizens in this country which means they are going to be part and parcel of this society. They should make an impression on the Australian society that Indian community is one of the best who live along with them.

Students must be helped by society and society must guide them how to live in this country and students must go along with culture and tradition of this country and community can help them. Indian community which lives here can advise then.

You are the best persons who came here with your own tenacity and with your work. Remember there is big country where you were born which is coming up in a big way and you may come back and definitely one day you will come back and when you come back you are always welcome.