Posts tagged Research

Indian PhD students say long Australian visa delays have put their lives on hold

1 Comment read Education

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 12.01.2023 (IPS): When Megha Jacob, who had been applying for a doctoral degree at various overseas universities, received an offer from the Australian National University’s Department of Chemistry to do a fully funded PhD, she was thrilled and immediately accepted the position. It was January 2022. She submitted her visa application and resigned from her job at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. One year later, she is still waiting for her visa to be processed.

Several international Indian students enrolled in doctoral degree courses in Australia’s leading universities have been waiting for their visas to be approved for months, some for up to two years. “The protracted delays have put our lives on hold. We seek clarity and a definitive timeline so we can plan our future,” say students from one of the WhatsApp groups formed by Indian doctoral students facing Australian visa processing delays.

Since the easing of Australia’s stringent COVID-19 restrictions, these students allege, the visa processing time for doctoral degree students has increased. “The median processing time for offshore student visa application was 18 days for the Postgraduate Research Sector in November 2022,” an Australian Department of Home Affairs (DHA) spokesperson tells IPS. However, the most recent processing time on the DHA website for 500 – Student visa (subclass 500) Postgraduate Research Sector shows 90 percent of applications are processed in 10 months.

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New tool to find giant base metal deposits

0 Comments read Environment & Development, Health & Science
Photo Credit: © Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 08.07.2020 (SciDev.Net): Scientists have discovered a new tool to predict the location of base metal deposits, which are buried too deep beneath the Earth’s surface to be found using current exploration methods. This augurs well for targeted mining of metals, such as copper, lead, zinc, which are much in demand for their use in renewable energies.

The study, published on 29th June 2020 in the journal Nature Geoscience, found that 85 percent of all known base metal deposits and 100 percent of all “giant” deposits (those holding more than 10 million tons of metal) hosted in sedimentary basins are located on the edges of cratons – older regions of the continents, which are generally on thicker lithosphere, the rigid outermost cladding of the planet comprising the crust and upper mantle.

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Stephen MacMahon – A visionary researcher’s offering to Indian public health

0 Comments read Health & Science
Professors Stephen MacMahon and Robyn Norton, Australian High Commissioner in India, Harinder Sidhu, at the launch of the 10th anniversary of The George Institute for Global Health in India book written by Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

As new epidemics of chronic disease and injury were growing in the world’s largest emerging economies, Institute co-founders, Stephen MacMahon and Robyn Norton, thought there would be value in creating a research centre focused on developing new effective and affordable solutions, in partnership with researchers in India, China and other countries in Asia.

“The main challenge at the time we founded the Institute was that the entire focus of the global health world was infectious disease, maternal and child health, and malnutrition. There was very little interest in chronic disease or injury, trauma or mental health. There was the general view that these were all diseases of rich countries and of rich people and they weren’t likely to be of much relevance to people in emerging economies. That meant that it was very difficult to raise money for projects focusing on these diseases in low and middle-income countries. So we began by building a research program in Australia and extending that to places like India and China, until we were able to find financial support that allowed us to do work that was entirely focused on healthcare solutions for these countries”, says Professor MacMahon, who is currently the Principal Director of The George Institute for Global Health (worldwide).

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