Dear Signers,
More news continues to come about China allowing students from other countries to return to their university campuses there. The Sri Lankan Embassy in China said in a statement that the Chinese Embassy in Colombo had “finalised two groups of students to return to China”.
Share this petition instantly over WhatsApp by clicking here: https://cutt.ly/lS99nNG. We’re trying to get a meeting for Indian medical students in China with the Union Health Minister. To help us do that, share this petition as widely as you can so that it grows to 30,000 signatures and our request for a meeting and government intervention cannot be turned down.
Earlier, there was news about China permitting the return of batches of students from Pakistan and South Korea as well. Meanwhile, India, which accounts for among the highest number of students in China at around 20,000, continues to be discriminated against by the Chinese officials. This, after the recent much-hyped meeting in New Delhi between the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
The Indian government is cognisant of our plight. As China continues to discriminate against Indian students, the Indian government has suspended tourist visas of Chinese nationals. But until China lets us return to our universities, back home, the National Medical Council (NMC) is making our lives even more difficult.
We are in a very precarious situation wherein, while China refuses to call us back, the NMC is not recognising degrees for which classes have been conducted in part through the online mode. This would mean that we will not be eligible to appear for the Foreign Medical Graduates Entrance Examination or FMGE.
Some students who returned from China when the pandemic broke out have passed the FMGE, so that they can complete their compulsory one-year internship here. However, even after passing the FMGE, they’re not able to obtain a licence to practise medicine in their home state The state medical councils in Kerala and Tamil Nadu are not registering these students, citing the fact that part of their education has been held online.
Our concerns continue to get air-time on news channels and are being taken up by digital media outlets as well. I urge you to share this petition widely over WhatsApp. Help us get to 30,000 signatures so that the government and the NMC allow us to do our clinical rotations in Indian medical colleges.
Click here to share this petition instantly over Twitter tagging the right decision makers. When 20,000 students tweet to the authorities, it will be too much for them to ignore!
Image courtesy: Scroll.in