1100 Indian students still in Ukraine: MoS Meenakshi Lekhi

While the Supreme Court's final verdict on the accommodation of Ukraine-returned medical students in Indian colleges is still pending, Minister of State for External Affairs Ministry Meenakshi Lekhi confirmed that as many as 1100 Indian students are still in Ukraine.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for External Affairs Ministry Meenakshi Lekhi said that around 1100 Indian students and 90 other Indian citizens are still in conflict-hit Ukraine.

"Most of the Indian students pursuing medical education in Ukraine have returned to India since the conflict began. The Indian Mission in Kyiv, in its advisory also provided information about available options to Indian citizens for crossing borders and it remains in touch with them to provide help," she said, as reported by News On Air.

She also outlined the steps taken by the National Medical Commission to help these students. She said the NMC, through a public notice dated July 28, 2022, devised a scheme whereby Indian students, who were in the last year of their undergraduate medical course but had to leave their foreign institute and had completed their studies with a certificate of completion of the course from their institute by June 2022, will be permitted to appear in the Foreign Medical Graduate examination (FMGE). 

Moreover, NMC said that these FMGs after qualifying in the FMGE exam need to undergo a “Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship” for a period of two years instead of the standard one year to make up for the clinical training which could not be physically done by them during the undergraduate medicine course at the foreign institute and also to familiarise themselves with the practice of medicine under Indian conditions.

Read more:

• Supreme Court to hear Ukraine returned medicos' pleas today
• Supreme Court to hear Ukraine returned medicos' case on November 29