India stands up for Indians in UK
	London:There's finally hope for Indian professionals in Britain with the Indian mission in London saying it will support the cause of an estimated 30,000 Indians who work in Britain on the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP). This is the first instance of an 'official intervention' on India's part against UK's new immigration policies, which makes it mandatory for non-EU immigrants to have a permit to work and train in the UK. Now their protests seem to have been finally heard. The Indian High Commission in London has met a group of Indian professionals affected by the change in the rules. It is reported that they have been assured that the High Commission will take up the issue with the British Home and Foreign office. The new rule now means that thousands of Indians, like the doctors, will have to return home. The rule was challenged by a body of Indian professionals in court but the decision went against them, jeopardising their careers and ambitions. “We would have been fine if these promises had not been made in the first place. Then we would not have come to UK at all. We would have worked in our homeland,” said a coordinator of HSMP forum, Amit Kapadia. But the British government is clear that it has the right to change the rules. “The court will now review all the evidence. The approach that the Government has taken is given that the rules stated in 2003 which existed till November 2006 were not rules upon which individuals could rely,” said Partner, Bates Wells & Braithwaite, Philip Trott. For these professionals, now all hope rests on the skills of the diplomats in the Indian High Commission.