Word: indianness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...There's not too much humor, however, in the 36-year-old's dry chuckle. Race and discrimination are raw topics in Australia these days, after a series of violent assaults and robberies on Indian students over the past 18 months that have strained relations between Australia and India, triggered riots and mass protests in Sydney and Melbourne, and threatened Australia's $15 billion international education sector - the country's third biggest export income earner after coal and iron...
...Reports of assaults started to surface a year ago, peaking with a series of vicious attacks in May and June this year that left one student in a coma. Over 2,000 students marched in Melbourne in protest, prompting the Indian government to condemn the violence in June and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to issue a statement officially denying that the country was unsafe for Indian students. Students claimed the attacks were racially motivated, but police and government authorities maintained they were mainly opportunistic. Tensions also spread to Sydney, with protests erupting at Harris Park, in the city's west...
...well-known beach in Sydney's south. The country is also grappling with an upsurge of ultra-nationalism among some younger Australians. The issue facing South Asian students is far larger than a few isolated - and possibly opportunistic - attacks, says Unni, the Sydney coordinator of the Federation of Indian Students of Australia. The far bigger problem, he says, is the long-term systemic neglect of the welfare of foreign students in Australia, with too many students being treated as cash cows by indifferent government authorities and unscrupulous private-college operators...
...everything from the quality of the education, to lack of student services, to dingy student accommodation, to not being paid the correct hourly rate," Unni says. Pawan Luthra, chief executive of the local Indian community newspaper, Indian Link, agrees. "If even 0.1% of the $15 billion or so earned by Australia from the sector had been invested in safeguards and [better conditions], this situation would not have occurred ... Coal and iron are commodities, but these are human beings, with feelings and emotions. They need to be protected...
...Unni says framing the attacks in a purely racial context masks the fact that, on the whole, Indian students have found Australia a safe country to study and work in, though he adds many Australians have yet to adapt to the reality that the formerly white nation has become a diverse, multicultural society. Luthra believes the Indian media went overboard in emphasizing the racial motivation of the assaults, and as a result, "Australia has picked up a tag as a racist country in India." That perception has further damaged a relationship already strained by the fallout over the Mohamed Haneef...