Write an article on racial attacks on indian students abroad
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by aditya kumar
Students of Indian origin are traveling in higher numbers than ever before to pursue higher educationabroad. Nearly 85% of internationally mobile Indian students head for five countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand[citation needed]—but China and Germany are both emerging destinations for Indian students heading abroad, though the numbers heading for Germany are still relatively small. In 2006, of the 123,000 studying outside India, 76,500 chose the US, followed by the UK; in 2001 India overtook China as the source of the largest number of foreign students in the United States.
In 2009, the media of Australia, mostly in Melbourne, Sydney, and India publicised reports of crimes and robberies against Indians in Australia that were described as racially motivated.Rallies were organised in Melbourne and Sydney, and intense media coverage of the perceived hate crimes commenced in India, which were mostly critical of Australian and Victorian Police. The Australian government initially called for calm as it began an investigation into the crimes. In June 2009, the Victoria Police Chief Commissioner, Simon Overland, stated that some of the crimes were racist and hinduphobic[citation needed] in nature, and others were opportunistic.[1] A subsequent Indian Government investigation concluded that, of 152 reported assaults against Indian students in Australia that year, 23 involved racial overtones.[2]There were 120,913 Indian students enrolled to undertake an Australian qualification in 2009.[11] In the year 2007–2008, 1,447 Indians had been victims of crime including assaults and robberies in the state of Victoria in Australia. However, the statistics reportedly show that Indians were not over represented in assaults.[12] In either case, the Victorian police refused to release the data for public scrutiny, the stated reason being that it was "problematic: as well as 'subjective and open to interpretation'".On 29 April 2008, in Melbourne an estimated five hundred Indian taxi drivers protested at Flinders Street station with a sit-in protest following the stabbing of a taxi driver.[14] A similar protest was held on 19 May 2008 in Adelaide, where about fifty taxi drivers protested after an assault on an Indian taxi driver.[15] The Victorian Government brought in mandatory safety shields later that year, but this was met with protests because of the costs.