Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab President and Member of Parliament Bhagwant Mann on Friday appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure safe repatriation of Indian students stranded in Ukraine and make immediate arrangements for the continuation and completion of their degrees in India so that they don’t suffer any more monetary and academic losses.
In a statement, Mann said the Central government should form a committee to ensure that the students returning from Ukraine could continue their studies and complete their degrees without any hassle.
He said the Central and state governments should re-evaluate the country’s education system and make good policies and take concrete steps to address the shortcomings.
The AAP leader said the students going abroad for study are not inferior in merit but they get the same opportunity and degree in countries like Ukraine at affordable fees, so they go to these countries.
He said the failure of our education system today was the result of continuous negligence and mistakes of previous governments and it is costing the new and young generation a great deal. Education, basic to higher, should be affordable to every section of the society, Mann added.
He said thousands of Indian students, mostly Punjabi and Haryanvi students, are still stranded in Ukraine. “We are constantly getting anxious calls from parents and students who are stranded in Ukrainian cities like Kyiv and Kharkiv and on the international borders of Hungary, Poland, Romania, etc. It is clear from the information and complaints received that the Indian government, especially the Indian embassies have failed to do its job and they’ve failed to stay in touch with the students,” Mann said.
The AAP leader said in such a sensitive situation, the Indian embassies stationed in Poland, Hungary, Belarus, Russia, and all other countries bordering Ukraine should have been coordinating and working day and night to ensure the safety of every Indian.
“But unfortunately, the coordination between the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and our embassies has been lax at the expense of Indian students and citizens,” he added.