Friday, January 15, 2010

Sushi Das on Indian students in Australia

From It's simple: India doesn't want to see its citizens harmed by Sushi Das:
"... first, that Australia has a crime problem in the suburbs that it must attend to, and second, that India is within its rights to speak out when its citizens face danger."
There is also a discussion in Death Ends Fun during which Michiel Bass's thesis on Indian students in Australia covering the period 2005-2009 came up:Imagined Mobility. He has also two articles:Cash Cows from 2005 and Voices from Down Under written in June 2009. I have not yet read the thesis; the students he met seem to be mostly those who had English medium in schools. The thesis was completed in October 2009 and there is a postscript on the more recent outbreaks of violence. He seems to think there has been rapid change in the situation since 2005. I understand that there is an Australian blog with suburb wise statistics on the violence but I have not located it yet.
P.S. {January 20)From the Victorian police chief We've known for two years about Indian attacks: Overland :
"We recognised this problem a long time before it hit the public.

"We have known for two years that there has been this issue and we have been working away, at a number of levels around engaging with students, trying to make them understand the risks and how they keep themselves safe."

Mr Overland said police had detailed data on attacks involving Indians and said that while Indians were over represented when it came to robberies, the same could not be said for assaults.

About 50 per cent of assaults on Indians occurred in their workplace, mostly involving taxi drivers and convenience store clerks, he said.

Mr Overland said some of the attacks were racist.

"I have said from day one undoubtedly some of these attacks have a racist motive or there is racist elements to these attacks," he said.

"Regardless of who they are, what they are, what colour they are, what occupation they are, my job is to make the state as safe as I can for everyone."
P.P.S. (January 23rd) Sushi Das has two informative articles in The Age today:
Advice on Indian students ignored
Hard lessons to be learnt
Conservative leader's reaction:
Immigrant support hit by gangs: Abbott

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