Stricter Visa Rules

The Government of India has decided to introduce new, stricter visa rules for tourists that will be announced next week. In a sense, such stricter visa rules were long overdue considering how Indian visas have been misused in the past by associates of terrorists like David Coleman Headley masquerading as harmless tourists. A major security hazard to the country was posed by the Indian tourist visa that doubled as a business visa and provided foreign visitors and Indian expatriates the facility of flying into and out of the country as often as they liked over an extended period. Terrorists and people like David Coleman Headley could use it to enter the country a number of times, stay in India as long as they wanted and go back to their associates with all the targets for terrorists well identified. The important change in the new visa rules is that no tourist will be able to stay in India longer than 90 days at a time on a tourist visa. He/she could return only after a two-month ‘time out’ before returning. A tourist visa would now cease to be one that gives a tourist the right to residency. A lot of tourists and Indian expatriates would be affected, but right now India’s imperative of eliminating well-planned terrorist activities ranks a much higher priority than promoting tourism. THE SENTINEL