A day after Union Minister Sharad Pawar met Bal Thackeray requesting him to withdraw its threat against Australian cricketers' participation in IPL, Shiv Sena on Monday said it would take a final call on the issue in two-three days.
"Thackeray would take a final call on the issue of Australian players in two-three days," Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' said on Monday. Pawar had met Thackeray at the Sena chief's 'Matoshree' residence in Bandra on Sunday night.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Shashank Manohar and Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray were also present at the two-hour meeting.
"For me, the country is more important than the game," Saamana quoted Thackeray as telling Pawar. "I will never tolerate India's insult," the Sena supremo said.
"We told Balasaheb that the Australian team will not participate in the IPL, but each IPL team will have one or two Australians," Manohar had said Sunday night after the meeting.
"He asked us to give a presentation on how many Australian players will play in the IPL. We will make the presentation in a day or two," Manohar had said.
"Thackeray and he (Uddhav) gave us a considerate hearing. We tried to convince him that only one or two Australian players will participate in the IPL matches and by not allowing all IPL matches it s the state players (Marathi players) who will lose ultimately," he had told reporters.
Meanwhile, Times of India reported on Monday that many Indian students are packing their bags in Australia and heading home for good. That's despite incurring a loss from Rs 12 lakh to Rs 20 lakh per student.
"There are no statistics available. But several Indian students are either leaving or have left and are not coming back. The primary reasons are lack of safe living conditions and absence of job security," says Gautam Gupta, secretary, Federation of Indian Students of Australia (FISA). Over 150,000 Indian students are studying in Australia today.
Gupta talks of a couple who came to Australia in June 2009 to study and left within three months in October 2009 after the husband got beaten up at Carnegie station, Melbourne. "They said, "We didn't come here to be beaten up. What wrong have we done to be treated like this?" says Gupta.
Sejal Shah (name changed on request), 26, is another such student. She was confident of a secure future when she went to Melbourne early 2008. She hadn't dreamt that 18 months later in November 2009 —- six months short of completing her course —- she'd be returning without a degree in hand.
"Even if I got an Australian qualification, I wasn't sure of a getting a job anymore," says the student of business and finance from Melbourne's La Trobe University.
The tension was palpable, only five out of the current batch of 150 students had landed jobs. She chucked the residency dream: as per Australian law, a degree would have ensured her residency.
But insecurity and sense of threat to Indians further pushed her to return, says the Gujarat resident. Parental concern saw to it that Ambala's Avinash Minocha returned within a year of his two-year accounting course. He came to India on vacation in December but parents told him to stay put at home.
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