While telling reporters that this is “not the right time to debate why students are moving out to study medicine”, Union Minister Pralhad Joshi has controversially claimed that “90 per cent of Indians who study medicine abroad fail to clear qualifying exams in India”.
Students who get a medical degree abroad have to pass the Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (FMGE), to practice medicine in India.
The Parliamentary Affairs Minister’s comment comes at a time when thousands of Indian students remain stranded in Ukraine, which is currently fighting a bitter war with invading troops of Russia.
Ever since Thursday, when the hostilities between Ukraine and Russia started, videos have been pouring in from students desperate to leave the country.
The students are heard saying that they are not being allowed to board trains and are being manhandled and physically thrown out of trains.
At the border, where many reached after walking miles in the sub-zero temperature, they are being made to wait for hours without food or water, the students seeking urgent help have said. One of the students, a 21-year-old from Karnataka, died during Russian shelling in Kharkiv.
As criticism from the opposition sharpens over what it called a slow pace of evacuation, many on social media argued that the students were given timely warning by the government, but chose
to disregard advice to evacuate.
The government has said that the country is making all efforts to bring the students back home safely.
Sources said evacuation is taking place in areas where the conflict has not endangered movement. More than 9000 Indian nationals have been brought out of Ukraine while a considerable number are now in safer areas, the government has said.
