Suo Motu Statement by Shri S.M. Krishna, External Affairs Minister in Parliament on 25 February 2010 on "Attacks on Indians in Australia"

2. The attacks on Indian students have been coming to our notice for over two years now, since 2007 when some students were assaulted in Sydney. In 2008 and 2009 also, there were other sporadic instances of assaults on Indian students, including some working as taxi drivers in Melbourne and in Adelaide. However, it is since May 2009 that there seems to have been a significant increase in the number and frequency of attacks on Indians in Australia. This has coincided with the substantial increase in the number of Indian students studying in Australia over the last three years, with a 141% increase recorded in just two years from 2006 to 2008.

3. The attacks continued in a sporadic manner till May, 2009. On 9 May, a student named Saurabh Sharma was attacked in a train by a gang of 4-5 people. On 23 May, 2009, a young student studying in Melbourne, Sravan Kumar Theerthala was savagely attacked with a screw driver, resulting in serious injuries to his head. On 2nd January 2010, a student Mr. Nitin Garg was attacked late at night while crossing a park in a Melbourne suburb on his way to work. He later died in the hospital. While there were other cases of assaults on Indian students and taxi drivers in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, most of the incidents seem to have been occurring in and around Melbourne. On 14th January, 2010 night there was an incident of arson by fire in Cranbourne Nanaksar Taath Gurudwara in Melbourne. These attacks received extensive coverage in the media in both countries.
4. Each assault was taken up with the Australian authorities, at the state level by the Consulates General and at the state and federal levels by the High Commission of India.

5. The incidents relating to Indian students and nationals in Australia have involved one or more of the following elements: robbery, assault, violence fuelled by alcohol/drugs, juvenile crime and racial abuse. Other contributing factors have been: the financial constraints of the Indian students which have led to them living in poor neighbourhoods, working late hours and travelling in late night public transport, all of which have made them more vulnerable to street crime which has been on the increase in Melbourne, where most of the incidents have taken place.

6. The profile of the attackers in most of these assaults is of youngsters in their teens and early 20s, largely under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The attackers are of mixed ethnicity, including sometimes, other Indians. Some of the attacks have had racial elements.

7. Besides the obvious law and order problem, the other issues which have come to the fore include the commercialisation of the Australian international education industry and laxity in monitoring/enforcing compliance of the regulations by the Australian authorities. The increase in number of students in Vocational Education & Training (VET) sector was linked to the immigration system of Australia which gave priority in the last few years to applicants for permanent residency (PR) in certain skills where there are significant shortages. These immigration rules are now in the process of undergoing changes.

8. The matter of the growing number of assaults on Indian students was taken up in May-June, 2009 at the highest level by Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and by me with Foreign Minister Stephen Smith. More...

The Union Finance Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee leaves North Block for Parliament House to present the General Budget 2010-11, in New Delhi on February 26, 2010. The Ministers of State of Finance, Shri S.S. Palanimanickam and ShriNamoNarainMeena and other officials of the Ministry are also seen.

The Union Budget this year has aimed to focus on inclusive growth and insuring food security. These concerns for ‘aam aadami’ have gone hand in hand with credible measures for improving investment climate, strengthening infrastructure and fiscal consolidation. As the country looks to ‘quickly revert to high GDP growth path’ in the wake of ‘uncertain times’, concerns for inclusive growth targeting the disadvantaged sections form the defining features of the Budget.

Hyderabad: SenSen Networks Private Limited, an Australian technology company engaged in providing networked video surveillance solutions, has launched its products in the city.

The products automatically read the number plates of moving vehicles in real time. The number plates thus detected can be cross-referenced against ‘vehicles of interest’ database (like arrival of VIP guests or vehicles wanted by police) to alert the relevant staff.

According to company’s director of India operations V Ajaya Kumar, working on its patented Data Fusion Technology, SenSen products take information from different sources and fuse them together to give a complete picture. The products, whose price is about Rs 6 lakh, will be particularly useful in locations like hotels, temples, schools and government offices where there is unrestricted movement of vehicles.

Kumar said the company had so far invested $2 million in its India operations. It would be introducing some more products over a period of time.

Green Park Hotels in the city was first to deploy SenSen products in the country. Hotels vice president Mohan Krishna said the products had enhanced the security in the premises and they were able to alert staff to take immediate action on potential security threats. "We can also use business intelligence such as frequency of visits by our most loyal customers to further improve our customer experience,” he added.

New Delhi: Tata Communications Internet Services has said that it has tied up with Wi-Fi solutions company Tomizone, which is based out of Australia, to offer low-cost Internet services to Indian subscribers.

The company said in a press release that the tie-up would allow broadband subscribers of the Tata Indicom service, to instantly set-up Wi-Fi hotspots at their premises, and also allows them to utilize bandwidth that is not being used, by offering it to others on credit, enabling them to subsidise broadband connection cost.

Prateek Pashine, COO of Tata Communications Internet Services said, “There is a need for higher penetration of Wi-Fi hotspots where laptop and Wi-Fi enabled-device users can connect to the Internet. Currently there are less than 1,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in India with Tata Indicom Wi-Fi having a share of over 50 per cent. Through this partnership, the number of such hotspots can grow manifold in a much shorter time.”

He also said, “We will usher in a Wi-Fi revolution that can create thousands of hotspots and enable lakhs of users to access blistering Internet on Wi-Fi technology in a more ubiquitous manner than today.”