No visa discrimination against foreign scholars : India

New Delhi, Mar 19 (UNI) The Government today denied that there was any discrimination against scholars from any country in granting visas and said the proposals from foreign scholars were processed in consultation with Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of External Affairs in accordance with the prescribed guidelines and instructions.

Minister of State for Human Resource Development D Purandeshwari in her written reply to Mr B Janardhana Poojari in the Rajya Sabha dispelled fears that the foreign scholars were not given subjects of the choice in Indian universities and institutes under Indo-US Fulbright bilateral scholarship exchange programme or asked to change their topic of research while Indian scholars under the same programme got necessary clearances immediately.

To a question of Mr Uday Pratap Singh, the Minister said there was no specific scheme in operation in the field of education between India and Pakistan. However, a Working Group on Education which was set up by Indo-Pakistan Joint Commission held its first meeting in February 2007. The Group had identified areas of cooperation between the two countries through exchange of information, joint workshops, seminars, exploratory visits, training and collaborative research.

UNI