THE MEANING OF OZ - All you need to know!

I'm with you.

What an overpaid, incompetent, appalling eejit this creature was.

Of course there's racism here.....this wasn't an example of it.


Adios and good riddance.

Mr Rudd today told Parliament he has spoken to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the attacks which saw hundreds of students in Melbourne take to the streets last night in protest.

"I speak on behalf of all Australians when say I say that we deplore and condemn these attacks," he said.

"I said to Prime Minister Singh that the more than 90,000 Indian students in Australia are welcome guests in our country."

He also said the Government will work closely with the states and territories "as a matter of urgency" to work on ways to help international students feel safer.

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull described the attacks as "profoundly un-Australian".

"These students are guests in our country and this recent violent behavour has the potential to do great damage to the reputation of Australia as a destination of choice," he said.

Trade Minister Simon Crean says Indian authorities raised concerns about students being targeted more than a year ago.

He says their complaints are being taken seriously.

"There's no point sending your loved ones here to study if they feel under threat," he said.

"I think that this has been an issue that we've tried to address now for a number of months. We will continue to work on it; I think we can get on top of it."

Early this morning police broke up a sit-in by several hundred Indian students; the students had blockaded a major Melbourne intersection outside Flinders Street station overnight in protest against the violence.

Police say they detained 18 students for breaching the peace. The intersection has reopened to traffic.

Police tactics defended

Police say the force used to break up the protest was justified.

Chief Commissioner Simon Overland says an officer was bitten on the hand while trying to move the students.

"There were blows, because arms had been linked, and there was a lot of resistance going on," he said.

"If someone inadvertently got hit in the mouth and got injured I regret that, but that came about on the part of the actions of the demonstrators after they'd been given every opportunity to leave the area."

The protest started yesterday when thousands of Indian students held a protest in central Melbourne to express their anger about recent violent attacks. ...<cont>

.....The final nail was, of course, the Indian student being bashed on a Melbourne train. Word spreads and at quite a pace when it includes "Australia" and "racist" mentioned in the same sentence. Even before I could discover the news for myself as part of my ritual virtual news surfing, I had an email from a friend in London. All it contained were links to two news websites reporting the incident and two words: "Be careful."

Going through the reports, it amused me to think of how many Indian students are bashed up on Delhi Metro, the Indian capital's new rail network, and how they never make news. In late 2008, after an increase in crime on Delhi Metro, the authorities started a 24-hour customer care and complaints cell. As many as 71 offenders were fined or punished in one month for crimes ranging from sexually harassing women passengers to bashing and mugging lone male passengers at night. None of these attacks made headlines, but an Indian student being assaulted in Melbourne, tagged a racist threat, results in a media feast.

Watching these news clips in London irks me most because I genuinely don't think Australia is as racist as it is often portrayed to be by international media. I was born and brought up in India, lived in Sydney for five years and have been living in London for a year. Of course, I have seen instances of racism in Australia " some surreptitiously subtle, while others hit you like a bullet in your brain. But I have also come across as many instances of racism, if not more, during my travels in Europe and during my life in London (after all, wasn't it here where Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty was racially ridiculed on national TV not so long ago?).

In fact, I have encountered the worst form of discrimination, and most varieties of it, in my own country, India, where people are discriminated against on the basis of almost every difference: race, cast, class, gender and sexual orientation. So it is indeed puzzling that news about Australia being racist is reaching epic proportions in countries that can hardly claim to be any better. After all, charity begins at home. And so should social reform.

I moved to Sydney as an international student in 2003 and found racism lurking more in the immigrants' psyches than on the streets. A fellow Indian student at the University of Technology, Sydney, once told me he preferred to live a 50-minute train trip from the campus in Harris Park than in the student accommodation provided (for the same price) right next to the campus. When I asked why, he promptly replied: "Because Harris Park has Indian neighbourhood, Indian cinemas, Indian restaurants, Indian shops …" Just one question popped to my mind. Why did he move to Sydney if he didn't want the Australian way of life?

The problem, in fact, starts here. Many immigrants resist integrating into mainstream Australia. They want the benefits and lifestyle of a Western nation, but without blending with its current.

Over a period of time this creates a cultural rift, first in their lives and then in their minds, which, in the absence of any logical definition, they term "racism". .....

The man, a nursing student at Chisholm College was slashed with a stanley knife carried by one of the group, a spokeswoman for Victoria Police said.

The latest attack has been widely reported in India with the newpaper Times Now naming the victim as Nardeep Singh.

Police said the attack happened at 1.30 pm as Mr Singh was leaving the college.

Five males confronted him as he crossed the carpark.

Mr Singh, a non smoker he did not handover his money or cigarettes as they demanded, he was slashed across the chest with the stanley knife.

Police said his injury was minor and he did not need hospital treatment.

Mr Singh has been in Australia just two months.

Under a plan being pushed by Attorney-General Rob Hulls, judges would have to take into account "hatred for or a prejudice against a particular group of people" as an aggravating factor when sentencing offenders.

Tougher sentences would apply to crimes deemed to be based on victims' race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.

Attorney-General Rob Hulls defends the new hate crime laws he intends to introduce.

Mr Hulls hopes to have the new offence inserted into the state Sentencing Act by the end of the year.

The Age understands Government ministers, distressed at the spate of assaults on Indians in Melbourne, are also considering a longer-term proposal to make "hate crime" a new statutory offence.

The plans came to light as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Premier John Brumby both moved to reassure Indians and the Government in Delhi that they were taking the issue seriously and that Victoria was still a safe place for Indians to live. ...<cont>

Federal and state politicians today rushed to condemn a growing pattern of violent attacks on Indian students in Melbourne.

Students say that education advisers in India are painting a picture of attending university in Australia that is prettier than reality, and the gloss quickly wears off.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was forced today to publicly reassure the Indian Government that Australia is not a racist country after a rally of 3,000 Indian students in Melbourne's CBD.

An Indian student is fighting for his life after being stabbed with a screwdriver by intruders at a birthday party in his own home a few weeks back.

With the attacks getting widespread, media coverage in India and popular Bollywood movie stars weighing in too, what is at stake here is not just Australia's reputation - its multibillion-dollar international student industry could be damaged as well.

Jayasankar Bagiepalli, who has been studying IT in Melbourne for four months, said he has had enough.

"See what happens here? We are being attacked. Not once, twice," he said.

"Many people, many Indians are being attacked. That's what happens here. So if this country, you know, people from India really stops coming here.

"I'm going [home] on 17th of this month. My parents doesn't [sic] want me to stay here. They're really concerned about me."

The fear of governments and institutions catering to international students is that others will not be far behind him, spreading their negative message back home.

While police and Indian community leaders have appealed for calm, India's high commissioner says the students have been provoked out of desperation.

"Our Indian communities overseas are law-abiding," Sujatha Singh told ABC1's 7.30 Report.

"They go by the rules, and if they're being provoked into this, it is because they have very real concerns."...<cont>