CSIR (Center for Scientific and Industrial Research) chief Dr M O Garg was denied a visa by the US, due to which he failed to make it to an important meeting that was held in Ohio from June 17 to 19. The senior scientist missed the opportunity to bid for an innovations project on behalf of the organization he heads, owing to the delay. Meanwhile, the American Embassy says his visa is in process and has not actually been denied.
Apparently, a system outage caused the problem even though Dr Garg has submitted all the required forms, and has even gone through the interview and finger printing formalities. He has also visited the US more than a dozen times in the past. Back in 2006 just before George W Bush’s visit to India, scientist Goverdhan Mehta was refused a US visa, sparking outrage and forcing the American Embassy to apologize for its regressive policies.
Other prominent Indian researchers who’ve been denied a US visa in the past include Dr Placid Rodriguez, P C Kesavan and Rajagopal Chidambaram. Meanwhile, Dr Garg has implied to PTI that the embassy’s apology is insignificant since he has failed to attend the meeting in spite of having received all the necessary approvals and being given the go ahead by the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of External Affairs. He regrets the opportunity to take India’s strength in science and technology to the world.
CSIR which employs about 4000 scientists and runs on an annual budget of Rs 3800 crores, has 38 laboratories all across the nation. The issue of visa denials has always caused friction in Indo-American relationships. The US has been accused of unwisely applying political restraints on exchange of scientific knowledge in the past, and it looks like these allegations will continue to fly around until it does something about its overly suspicious attitude towards our country’s greatest minds.