V
V.Balasubramani
Guest
Perils abroad
The brutal murder of an Indian national, Prabha Arun Kumar, in Sydney on March 7 has reignited debates around the safety of Indians abroad. The spate of violent attacks on Indians in Australia over the past decade has persistently fuelled nagging tensions in India-Australia relations, puncturing the sense of optimism that had emerged on that front. Ruling out racial motivation behind the attack, Australia has promised that the perpetrators of the crime would be brought to justice; a special detective squad has been assigned to investigate it. But given Australia’s generally lackadaisical response in such contexts in the past, India has reason to be sceptical of these promises. The series of attacks on Indian students about half a decade ago had been severely condemned by India. The government had questioned the effectiveness of the steps taken then by the Australian authorities, and issued a “restrained travel advisory”, asking Indian students to take basic precautions in being alert to their own security. The insensitivity shown by Australian officials — who were often in denial mode — in responding to these attacks had come to notice in India at that time. So one can only hope that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s recent call to her Australian counterparts for complete cooperation in resolving the issue is met with the needed level of seriousness at least this time.
Read more at: Perils abroad - The Hindu
The brutal murder of an Indian national, Prabha Arun Kumar, in Sydney on March 7 has reignited debates around the safety of Indians abroad. The spate of violent attacks on Indians in Australia over the past decade has persistently fuelled nagging tensions in India-Australia relations, puncturing the sense of optimism that had emerged on that front. Ruling out racial motivation behind the attack, Australia has promised that the perpetrators of the crime would be brought to justice; a special detective squad has been assigned to investigate it. But given Australia’s generally lackadaisical response in such contexts in the past, India has reason to be sceptical of these promises. The series of attacks on Indian students about half a decade ago had been severely condemned by India. The government had questioned the effectiveness of the steps taken then by the Australian authorities, and issued a “restrained travel advisory”, asking Indian students to take basic precautions in being alert to their own security. The insensitivity shown by Australian officials — who were often in denial mode — in responding to these attacks had come to notice in India at that time. So one can only hope that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s recent call to her Australian counterparts for complete cooperation in resolving the issue is met with the needed level of seriousness at least this time.
Read more at: Perils abroad - The Hindu
