Pakistani envoy denies trying to block Indian delegation's visit
The Pakistan High Commission in Kuala Lumpur has denied allegations that it attempted to block an Indian parliamentary delegation's recent visit to Malaysia.
Its High Commissioner Syed Ahsan Raza Shah dismissed the claims - first aired by India's NDTV - as 'preposterous' and 'unthinkable.'
'In the context of contemporary diplomacy...
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Malaysiakini
20 hours ago
- Malaysiakini
MIC at crossroads - unity, not legacy, is the future
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New Straits Times
a day ago
- New Straits Times
Foreign students prepare Plan B as US closes door
OVER the last few weeks, 28-year-old Raj Iyer and his family have been scrambling to figure out ways to fund his Master's programme at Columbia University in the United States. Iyer, who used a pseudonym to avoid potential reprisals, received a partial scholarship but still needed to come up with nearly US$110,000 to cover tuition and living expenses, for which his family took out a loan and used their savings. Now Iyer fears it is all for naught. Less than three months before classes start, Iyer has been left stranded after the US government announced it is pausing student visa interviews. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio last month instructed embassies to stop scheduling new visa appointments, saying the Trump administration would review the process and expand vetting of students' social media profiles. Officials have not said when student interviews will resume, plunging the education of students from abroad into doubt, including those in India, the biggest contributor of international students to US schools of higher learning. According to the US Embassy in India, more than 331,000 students went there in 2024. Students hoping to attend university in the US are now deleting their social media posts, writing emails to their universities and laying out hastily crafted backup plans. Even before the decision to pause student visas, the Trump administration had revoked visas or terminated visa records belonging to 1,600 international students by May 7, according to data from the US-based National Association of Foreign Student Advisors. Indian students have borne the biggest brunt of these actions, the data showed, with 309 visas revoked, following closely by Chinese students. In March, the Trump administration cancelled the visa of Indian PhD student Ranjini Srinivasan and called her a "terrorist sympathiser" for her pro-Palestine activism on campus. Vibha Kagzi, founder and chief executive officer of ReachIvy, a Mumbai-based education consultancy that helps Indian students seek admission at foreign universities, said she was seeing "anxiety and a flurry of queries" from both students and parents. "There's a deep sense of uncertainty, ranging from fear of deferral to questions around return on investment," Kagzi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Iyer, a filmmaker, is especially concerned about the introduction of stringent social media vetting and is unfollowing pages and undoing previous "likes" on political posts on his accounts. "I have always been a person with strong convictions, and I don't walk back on them. I am going to a place where I know my freedom of speech is going to be curtailed," he said. "This is making me feel like a hypocrite." Some of the students interviewed for this story said their universities had not reached out about potential next steps. Kagzi said she was advising students to "keep calm" and wait for updates from their schools, including possible alternatives, like online classes. The uncertainty has prompted some Indian students to consider enrolling at universities outside of the US. Lakshmi and her partner had been looking at a half-dozen American universities for the PhDs they both want to pursue. But a crackdown on political activism on US campuses, the deportation of students and earlier changes in visa rules has prompted them to look elsewhere. "In February, we decided that we won't go to the US at all and are now looking entirely at European universities," said Lakshmi, using a pseudonym. Lakshmi said the decision to turn to Europe comes with reduced funding options, shorter PhD programmes and fewer work opportunities after earning her degree. For those still hoping to study in the US, the delay in visa appointments may force them to put off the start of their studies. Even without the pause, the online State Department calendar shows the average wait time for a student visa is as long as two months in Mumbai, where Iyer is applying. Unless the embassy restarts visa interviews soon, Iyer fears it will be too late. "I feel like I am running out of time," he said.
The Star
a day ago
- The Star
India intensifies expulsion of suspected foreigners to Bangladesh
FILE PHOTO. Police officers stand next to men they believe to be undocumented Bangladeshi nationals after detained during raids in Ahmedabad, India, April 26, 2025. - Photo: Reuters file GUWAHATI, (India): India has started to push people it considers illegal immigrants into neighbouring Bangladesh, but human rights activists say authorities are arbitrarily throwing people out of the country. Since May, the northeastern Indian state of Assam has "pushed back" 303 people into Bangladesh out of 30,000 declared as foreigners by various tribunals over the years, a top official said this week. Such people in Assam are typically long-term residents with families and land in the state, which is home to tens of thousands of families tracing their roots to Muslim-majority Bangladesh. Activists say many of them and their families are often wrongly classified as foreigners in mainly Hindu India and are too poor to challenge tribunal judgements in higher courts. Some activists, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal, said only Muslims had been targeted in the expulsion drive. An Assam government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Assam, which has a 260 km (160 mile) border with Bangladesh, started sending back people last month who had been declared as foreigners by its Foreigners Tribunals. Such a move is politically popular in Assam, where Bengali language speakers with possible roots in Bangladesh compete for jobs and resources with local Assamese speakers. "There is pressure from the Supreme Court to act on the expulsion of foreigners," Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told the state assembly on Monday. "We have pushed back 303 people. These pushbacks will be intensified. We have to be more active and proactive to save the state." He was referring to the Supreme Court asking Assam in February why it had not moved on deporting declared foreigners. Bangladesh's foreign affairs adviser, Touhid Hossain, did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment. Last week, he told reporters that people were being sent to his country from India and that the government was in touch with New Delhi over it. Aman Wadud, an Assam-based lawyer who routinely fights citizenship cases and is now a member of the main opposition Congress party, said the government was "arbitrarily throwing people out of the country". "There is a lot of panic on the ground - more than ever before," he said. Some brought back Sarma said no genuine Indian citizens will be expelled. But he added that up to four of the people deported were brought back to India because appeals challenging their non-Indian status were being heard in court. One of them was Khairul Islam, a 51-year-old former government school teacher who was declared a foreigner by a tribunal in 2016. He spent two years in an Assam detention centre and was released on bail in August 2020. He said police picked him up on May 23 from his home and took him to a detention centre, from where he and 31 others were rounded up by Indian border guards and loaded into a van, blindfolded and hands tied. "Then, 14 of us were put onto another truck. We were taken to a spot along the border and pushed into Bangladesh," he said. "It was terrifying. I've never experienced anything like it. It was late at night. There was a straight road, and we all started walking along it." Islam said residents of a Bangladeshi village then called the Border Guard Bangladesh, who then pushed the group of 14 into the "no man's land between the two countries". "All day we stood there in the open field under the harsh sun," he said. Later, the group was taken to a Bangladesh guards camp while Islam's wife told police in Assam that as his case was still pending in court, he should be brought back. "After a few days, I was suddenly handed back to Indian police," he said. "That's how I made my way back home. I have no idea what happened to the others who were with me, or where they are." It is not only Assam that is acting against people deemed to be living illegally in the country. Police in the western city of Ahmedabad said they have identified more than 250 people "confirmed to be Bangladeshi immigrants living illegally here". "The process to deport them is in progress," said senior police officer Ajit Rajian. - Reuters
