INDIA and Saudi Arabia are very serious about further developing their strategic partnership after the signing in February of the historic Riyadh Declaration, said Indian Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor in an interview with Saudi Gazette. “The momentum has been built up; it will not be allowed to lapse,” he said. India and Saudi Arabia decided to raise their existing bilateral cooperation to a strategic partnership covering security, economic, defense and political areas through the Riyadh Declaration signed in the Saudi capital by King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, and the visiting Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. “We are not only working on following up the Riyadh Declaration, but there are contacts at a very high level between the establishments of the two countries,” said Tharoor. Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, Emir of Riyadh Region, is scheduled to visit India later this month. Tharoor, who is also in-charge of Haj affairs, told Saudi Gazette that he raised the issue of increasing the Haj quota for Indian pilgrims during his meeting with Saudi Haj Minister Fouad Al-Farsy. “We raised the issue, but the minister said he alone cannot decide.” “We are very grateful for the 160,000 (Haj quota) allocation. Last year we received 360,000 applications, so for us the mismatch between the numbers who want to go (on Haj) and the numbers who are allowed to go is still very high. The Saudi government is aware that the Indian government would like to see a larger quota. Equally we are conscious of their limitation, which is the number of people who can be accommodated in the Valley of Mina,” said Tharoor, who was all praise for the Saudi government for successfully organizing such a massive operation every year. “The accomplishment is tremendous and we really salute the Saudi government for this,” he said. In reply to a question about the large Indian Haj Goodwill delegations which visit Saudi Arabia after every Haj, Tharoor admitted that “the concerns of some about the size of the delegations is shared in some parts of the government.” “We will look into it,” he said. “Some of us would like to have this entire approach reviewed. It is difficult in our country to easily change well-established traditions,” he said regarding the tradition of sending large Haj Goodwill delegations. But the minister pointed out that between 2008 and 2009, the number of members on the delegation was reduced from 35 to 29. He also upheld the democratization of the process of issuing Haj quotas to Private Tour Operators (PTOs) in India. “There has been a kind of entrenched monopoly of certain long-time providers who had a very generous quantity of the quota year after year without giving others an opportunity. Some even went to court (because they felt) that they were unfairly denied the right to operate. So the government of India felt that in terms of equity, those PTOs who had applied consistently for two or three years should be given a chance to prove themselves. The only way to do this is by depriving the old ones.” Tharoor, who came a close second to Ban Ki-moon out of a total seven official candidates for the post of UN secretary general, said that the Indian government was very concerned about the welfare of Indian workers. According to reports, Tharoor in a written reply to the Lok Sabha (the Lower House of parliament) earlier this year said that more than 6,470 Indian workers were lodged in prisons in 71 countries, of which the highest number – 1,226 – were in Saudi Arabian jails. “We are very concerned. We immediately pursue it (a case of imprisonment or a report of the dead body of an Indian worker in the morgue),” he told Saudi Gazette, adding that a vast majority of Indian workers were in good condition and were being well looked after. However, when informed about some specific cases of Indian workers whose bodies were lying in morgues for months, Indian Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad intervened to say: “This is not an issue before us as of now. It is not because of neglect, but because of local law.” In reply to a question about the education opportunities for the children of Indian workers back home and the discrepancy in the tuition fees for them, Tharoor said that the change in approach to education will benefit the children of NRIs. “Indian expat workers are facing the problem of a limited amount of opportunities in schools back home, but as the educational space in India expands, you will find more schools of high quality coming up.” “The idea that more opportunity and more space should be made available is being taken on board,” said Tharoor. He said that the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs in cooperation with the Human Resources Development Ministry is working in this direction, and that some high caliber universities for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) are being established in which children of overseas Indian workers will have privileged admission possibilities. The minister, however, did not throw light on the issue of the lack of higher education opportunities for children of Indian workers in Saudi Arabia. As of now higher education is not open for expatriates in a number of universities and colleges here. And where such an opportunity is available, the tuition fee is too expensive for many expatriate children to afford. However, the Council of Ministers in one of its sessions last month endorsed rules governing the admission of non-Saudi students to higher education and professional institutions. __
