India protests new UK immigration rules

NEW DELHI: India has made its first protests against the UK\'s new cap on skilled immigration. Commerce minister Anand Sharma, who met British PM David Cameron, echoed the concerns of Indian industry which is worried that the new rules against non-EU immigration might impact Indian companies who are heavily invested in the UK, particularly in the service sector.



Cameron will visit India in July, and he told Sharma he wanted to focus on attracting greater Indian investment into the UK, supporting India\'s education development and work on joint development of new technologies. India\'s view is the new visa rules might affect these goals.



New restrictions will put a cap on number of workers entering the UK from non-EU countries to 24,100 before April 2011, which is a 5% drop from last year.



British home secretary Theresa May was quoted as saying, \"Introducing this temporary limit is necessary to ensure that we don\'t get a rush of people trying to come through into the UK before that permanent limit is put in place next year. What we have as an aim is indeed to bring immigration down from the hundreds of thousands that it became under Labour to the tens of thousands that it used to be.\"



Over 52% of UK\'s migrants come from non-EU countries. According to British figures, in 2009, UK welcomed 142,000 immigrants, down from 160,000.



Meanwhile, a new Australian visa rule, coming in the wake of the difficulties with Indian students, will make life tough for many Indian students, who thought they could use the skills acquired to get permanent residency in the country.



Minister for overseas Indian affairs Vyalar Ravi has asked Australian authorities for greater leniency for Indian students already there but that may not be possible. According to estimates, about 15,000 Indian students in Australia may be affected, and compelled to return home, because the occupations they now pursue will no longer qualify for permanent residency. In fact, they will need sponsors to be able to stay on. \"I asked the Australian ministers to implement the list prospectively and not retrospectively... I have asked them to give our students two-and-a-half years\' time to find a sponsor and employment,\" Ravi was quoted as saying.



Australia has slashed the existing Skilled Occupations List (SOL) from 400 skills to 181 for vocational courses and jobs, which are prerequisites to acquire permanent resident status and student visas.



India has asked the Australian government to allow students already there to finish their courses, but its unclear how Canberra will react.



While most Indian students will be unaffected, the new rules could affect about 15,000 students, mainly there only to pick up permanent residency status.


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