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Rekha Dixit
Rekha Dixit

WORKING VISA

Visa policy changes not to affect Indians: Australian envoy

PTI5_4_2017_000117A Punjab Cabinet Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu greeting Australian High Commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu in Chandigarh | PTI

Australian high commissioner to India Harinder Sidhu sought to allay fears that the new visa regimes in her country would not affect Indians. She said that the visa changes were not aimed at any particular country. “Every country wants to employ its people first. However, there is a short supply of IT professionals in Australia, and most Indians coming to Australia are in the highly qualified category. So we expect that many Indians who qualify now will still qualify,'' she said.

Sidhu was speaking at a special interactive session organised by the Indian Women Press Corps in New Delhi on May 9.

She also noted that these visa category, over which there has been so much anxiety of late, is only one of the many visas under which Indians seek to enter Australia. The visa tweaking, she said, was done to ensure that people who come are qualified for what they come. Sidhu further added that India was the largest source of skilled migration to Australia. 

Sidhu, who is a person of Indian origin, was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable she found herself in India. “I expected a cultural distance but was pleasantly surprised it wasn't. India is also changing and the gap is narrowing. I feel even more comfortable in Punjab,'' she said. Sidhu is impressed with Bahubali, which she recently watched, having stood in queue to buy the tickets.   

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