India’s plea for uni help

INDIA’S foreign minister has urged Australia to ease Covid-19 travel restrictions for thousands of students who have been unable to get into the country since the pandemic started 18 months ago.

India sends tens of thousands of students to universities worldwide, and Australia is among the key destinations.

Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said he raised the issue “in some detail” with his Australian counterpart Marise Payne alongside talks between defence ministers from both countries dominated by the situation in Afghanistan.

“We have heard a lot from the students and I think their frustrations, their feelings, are completely understandable,” Mr Jaishankar said.

“Many of them would like to be at the institutions where they want to study.”

He said students were “a very high priority” for his government, which had faced similar hurdles with the US and Canada.

University education is a multibillion-dollar industry and Australia is one of several countries to have aggressively campaigned to attract Indian students.

“I am one of the most enthusiastic proponents of welcoming back our much-loved Indian students back to the Australian education system as soon as it is possible for us,” Ms Payne said.