Indian scholars on UK's vetting list

Indian post-graduate students are likely to be 'vetted' under Britain's decade-old Voluntary Vetting Scheme, currently under review, before being accepted by a British university if the area of their research is seen as contributing to weapons proliferation.

Britain has presently undertaken a review of the scheme, which involves students from non-EU countries coming to its shores for further studies, to see whether it could be made compulsory to prevent potential terrorists from infiltrating British laboratories in the guise of research students.

"There is a comprehensive review to look into merits of making the Vetting Scheme Compulsory," a spokesman of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office told PTI on Friday evening.

India is among the ten countries affected by the Foreign Office scheme under which post-graduate scholars from these countries are so far 'vetted' on a selective basis before being accepted by a university.

Stating that the scheme initiated in 1994 has been voluntary so far, the spokesman said in 2002, there were 10,280 post-graduate students from Non-European Union countries specialising among others in Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics and Physics.

Of them, 2,285 were from countries of "concern" regarding nuclear proliferation. From among them, only 700 applications were processed and 33 were turned down, he said.

"The scheme is targeting a small number of cases from countries where there is problem," he stated.

Besides India, the countries covered under the scheme are Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Cuba, Libya and North Korea.

As many as 21 areas, covering a wide spectrum of scientific research are regarded as potentially risky under the scheme.

"The 'no-go' areas include aeronautical engineering, computing science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, electronic engineering, genetics, biochemistry, biotechnology, biology, ceramics and glass. Microbiology, molecular biology and biophysics, physics including nuclear physics, chemistry, control engineering, materials science, mathematics and production engineering," he said.

Under the voluntary scheme, if a university has 'concerns' about an applicant from one of these countries, it sends his or details to the Foreign Office for 'vetting' before a decision is taken to accept the scholar.

There is concern in academic circles over reports that universities are under pressure to implement the scheme more actively in the wake of renewed stress on the war against terrorism and the discovery that several leading scientists in the Saddam Hussein regime were trained in Britain.