Indian National Students Association of UK (INSA UK) was formally launched in London at the High Commission of India on Monday 6 November by Lord Karan Bilimoria and Ambassador Dinesh Patnaik, the acting High Commissioner of India to UK. This is the second union for Indian students in the UK, the first being National Indian Students and Alumni Union (NISAU) launched 5 years back. NISAU include Indian MP Shashi Tharoor as one of their patrons.
INSA is an organisation started in UK by the Indian students with the objective of providing "a home away from home " for the students from India. INSA was founded in 2016 with the vision to make every Indian student in the UK feel at home when away from home. INSA- UK aims to provide an opportunity for all students from India to interact and share the joy of the culture and heritage of India, and to educate other students, by bringing awareness. They have future events planned to welcome and engage with the students of Birmingham and Manchester.
Currently Indians make the second largest diaspora of students with approximately 40,000 Indian students in UK and there is a huge demand for the kind of voluntary service based actions undertaken by INSA.
There are various challenges students face when in a foreign country such as UK and INSA aims to be the missing link of further helping and providing guidance to the students for their day to day queries. 46 universities in UK have already signed up to be part of the INSA network with the objective of being part of the future activities such as the celebration of Indian Republic Day and talks by eminent personalities from India. Currently the Indian students in UK can register to be part of INSA via their social media pages or by speaking directly to their respective University coordinator.
The High Commission of India used this opportunity to underline the positive role played by the Indian student diaspora in UK and welcomed the students from 26 universities. They thanked INSA for taking this initiative and requested the students to positively engage with the High Commission going forward . Lord Karan Billimoria who was also present spoke on how he too came to U.K as a student and challenges faced by the Indian students. He complimented the students present on the role they play as defacto mini ambassadors of India and wished INSA success in its future activities.
Lord Karan Bilimoria said, “The UK's international scholars go on to become world leaders with one in ten global heads of state educated in the UK. British universities are the jewels in the crown yet the number of Indian students coming to study in the UK has halved in the past five years.”
Ambassador Patnaik said, “India-UK relations have always done well because large amount of our leaders of our country (India) are educated in Britain. In the last few years large number of Indian students have gone down in the UK, but going up elsewhere including in China, Singapore, Germany. They have a choice. But UK is losing out an opportunity here.”
The team of INSA is made up of present as well as ex students with Sunil Pala and Amit Tiwari leading their team.
Sunil Pala told Asian Voice, "In 2016 External Affairs Minister (Govt of India), Smt Sushma Swaraj, invited student representatives from the UK to discuss issues faced by Indian students studying abroad at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas. It was clear from this that Indian international students had specific needs that were not being catered to. Under the inspiration provided by MEA and High Commission of India, a group of current and past Indian students came together with the guidance and support of NHSF (UK) to form the Indian National Students Association (UK)."
