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  • Coronavirus: Delta variant fears leave India’s international students struggling to get back to class in the US, Australia | South China Morning Post
    https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3138199/delta-variant-fears-leave-indias-international

    Coronavirus: Delta variant fears leave India’s international students struggling to get back to class in the US, Australia. The world has reacted to India’s deadly second wave of Covid-19 by putting in place a web of regulations, visa delays and travel bans. Now, as Western universities prepare to restart in-person lectures, many of these students risk being stranded. An Indian health worker administers the Covishield vaccine to a student pr
    Saif Ali Khan is fully vaccinated and all set to start a postgraduate engineering course in the United States– but he’s worried.The 22-year-old from Aurangabad has received two shots of Covaxin, India
    ’s home-made vaccine, which the Michigan-based university does not recognise as it has not been approved by the World Health Organization
    nor authorised for use in the US. Students entering the US must show they tested negative for Covid-19 within 72 hours of departure, but vaccination is not mandatory. However, some universities want students living on campus to be fully inoculated, leading to growing concerns they will be required to get revaccinated – an issue Indian foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla reportedly raised with acting US ambassador Daniel Smith earlier this month.“I am not keen to mix up vaccines because my body may react adversely to it,” Khan said. “I would avoid re-vaccination if the university allows it.” Khan is one of thousands of young Indians whose plans to study abroad this year have been entangled in a web of regulations, travel bans and delayed visa applications as the world reacts to India’s deadly second wave of coronavirus infections.Anuj Poddar, 25, an analytical engineer from Mumbai, is another. He plans to start a Master’s in computer science in Massachusetts, and has already quit his job – but he is still frantically trying to obtain a visa to enter the US. His appointment at the US consulate in May was cancelled because of India’s increased number of Covid-19 cases. After visa applications were reopened, Poddar spent 15 hours on the consulate’s website across five days and managed to book an appointment for August 31. He needs to be on campus by September 8 – if not, he will need to start the course online or seek permission to join late.
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    “For an online class, I have to pay US$50,000, the same tuition fee that I would pay for in-person classes, and pursuing the course online won’t be of much help academically,” Poddar said. “So I have been trying to look for an earlier slot so that I have enough time to book the airline tickets and join the class on time.” During the height of the pandemic last year, students from all over the world dialled in from home to learn online. Now, as universities in the US, Britain, Australia and Canada prepare to restart in-person lectures, many of India’s hundreds of thousands of international students risk being stranded. The US, for example, has limited the number of direct flights from India and banned entry for anyone who has spent 14 days in India before travelling. Students are exempt from the ban, but many have nonetheless been forced to take longer flights or unusual routes via Muscat or Belgrade. Other students enrolled in Canadian and Australian universities have not been exempt from the travel ban, meaning they must wait indefinitely before being allowed to attend classes. According to India’s Ministry of External Affairs, the number of Indians studying abroad dropped 55 per cent last year, but that has recovered this year as 72,000 students left for foreign universities in January and February. In 2019-20, about 193,000 Indian students were attending university in the US, while more than 49,700 Indian students were issued visas to study in Britain

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