For two years, Yasmeen Azimi, a 22-year-old Afghan pupil, has been struggling to obtain a visa to continue her research in India. Despite being admitted to a postgraduate programme in political science at Chandigarh University beneath a scholarship from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) in January 2021, her visa utility has been rejected thrice.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) invalidated all current Afghan visas, including student visas, following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021. Consequently, Azimi and 1000’s of other Afghan students have been left in limbo, unable to proceed their training in India.
The Indian government directed Afghan nationals to apply for e-visas, which are solely valid for six months and granted in rare circumstances. However, solely 300 e-visas had been issued to Afghans final yr, leaving more than 2,500 Afghan students enrolled in Indian universities and schools stranded in Afghanistan.
The ICCR had previously provided 1,000 annual scholarships to Afghan nationals for undergraduate and postgraduate studies in India. More than 10,000 Afghan college students are presently finding out in various Indian universities. However, the cancellation of visas has disrupted the schooling of many Afghan college students, forcing some to hunt alternatives in other nations, such as the United Arab Emirates, Europe, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan.
Meena Nizami, a 22-year-old Afghan pupil who pursued a master’s in psychology at the University of Delhi, had to return to Afghanistan because of the coronavirus outbreak in December 2020. Frustrated by the denial of a visa and the lack of response from Indian institutions, Nizami has now been admitted to Westford University College within the United Arab Emirates.
In 2022, Pakistan announced four,500 scholarships for Afghan students, and more than 7,000 Afghans are at present enrolled in various graduate and postgraduate programmes in the country.
Private , a 30-year-old PhD student in Computer Science at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, has turn out to be an advocate for Afghan students. He has reached out to India’s Ministry of Home Affairs and run campaigns on social media to raise consciousness of the problem.
Dadgar stated that Gujarat Technical University (GTU) cancelled the admission of 24 Afghan engineering college students final 12 months as a end result of visa points. A GTU official justified the cancellation, stating that the university was following norms set by the ICCR, which had offered them scholarships.
Al Jazeera contacted different ICCR officials, together with Nalini Singhal, scholarship policy and admissions programme director, however received no response. Another ICCR official refused to offer any info relating to the cancellation of admissions..