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India suspends tourists visas for Chinese nationals.
India suspends tourist visas for Chinese nationals.
On 20th April, a worldwide airline industry organization, International Air Transport Association (IATA) informed its member that, India has suspended tourist visas issued to Chinese nationals residing in the country i.e, Chinese people will no longer be allowed tourist visas in India. IATA is a global airline body with around 290 members that comprise more than 80 percent of global air traffic. According to the reports, India suspends Tourist visas as the action came from Beijing's refusal to heed India’s petition over nearly 22,000 Indian students enrolled in Chinese colleges who are enabled to return to their home countries for physical education. Their entry into the neighboring nation has been rejected up to this point. These students had to leave their studies in China and came to India when the Covid-19 pandemic began at the starting of 2020.
IATA issued the update regularly so that airlines know which nationalities are allowed to be flown to which countries. India had late last month restored the electronic tourist visa facility for about 256 countries, in time for the resumption of the scheduled international flight from 27 March this year, after a gap of two years. A circular issued on 20th April by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said, “Tourist visas issued to nationals of china (people’s republic) are no longer valid.” And also that the following passengers are allowed to enter India: nationals of Bhutan, India, Maldives, and Nepal; passengers with a residence permit issued by India; passengers with a visa or an e-visa issued by India; passengers with an overseas citizen of India (OCI) card or booklet; passengers with a person of Indian origin (PIO) card; and passenger with a diplomatic passport. And also informed about the validity of the tourist visas. The tourist visas with a validity of 10 years are no longer valid.
as per the update of the IATA that tourist visas issued to nationals of china are no longer valid. But the Indian government is still giving business, employment, diplomatic, and official visas to Chinese nationals. Students from different countries like Thailand, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka have been allowed to return to China but remains silent about permission to the Indian students, hundreds of businessman, and workers along with their families to return and re-join their work.
The spokesperson of the external affairs minister said that a foreign ministry spokesperson had earlier stated in February that the country was looking into the matter in an uncoordinated manner and foreign students to return to China were being examined. And furtherance of it, S. Jaishankar, India’s External Affairs minister had taken up the issues with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in March when visited India.
S Jaishankar said, “ I also took up strongly the predicament of Indian students studying in China who have not been allowed to return citing COVID restrictions. We hope China will take no discriminatory approach since it involves the future of many young people.” Beijing had promised the Indian embassy to work for the early return of the Indian students and assured them that they will not discriminate in any manner as their resumption of their studies.
