Immigration policy not to put barriers: Britain
Thursday, 26 August 2010, 07:28 IST
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NEW DELHI: British Immigration Minister Damian Green said Wednesday that his country has no plans to erect barriers and close doors on Indians in its efforts to control immigration effectively. "I wanted to tackle the perception that the UK's new immigration policy was about erecting barriers and closing doors. It is not and I hope that I have been able to explain this during my visit," Green told reporters here, in the backdrop of a new cap on migration from non-European countries. "The aim of the UK government is to control immigration more effectively and reduce numbers to more sustainable levels to maximise the benefits to the UK and all those coming to work and live there," he added. Green said that having a "properly controlled" immigration knocks away one of the aspects that extremists can exploit. Such a system will benefit minority communities which "are otherwise targeted unfairly or scapegoated by extremists", he said. Green on the last day of his three-day follow up visit to British Prime Minister David Cameron's official trip last month, met Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi and discussed the new immigration policy. "My ministry had a meeting with the UK Immigration Minister Damian Green and I pointed out to him our economic and historical ties, about Indians investing in the UK and Indian students preferring UK to US," Ravi told IANS. "In the light of these aspects I told him the UK-India relationship should be seen in a broader sense of what India offers to the UK and not see India like other nations," Ravi told IANS. Ravi said he asked the British government to launch a comprehensive bilateral dialogue on migration for dealing with bilateral social security agreement and human resources mobility partnership agreement. "Green responded by saying that it is a good idea to discuss bilaterally and keep the dialogue going," Joint Secretary G. Gurucharan told IANS. Gurucharan also informed that the British government has set in motion a consultation process with various other governments including India in the form of an "analytical questionnaire" in an effort to improve the British immigration policy. The questionnaire has to be replied by Sep 15. "They are expected to get back to us after the consultation process by the end of the calender year 2010," Gurucharan added. Green met Minister of Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma, Minister of State for Home Affairs Mullapally Ramachandran and Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur in the capital.
Source: IANS
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