Planning an India trip? You may need to cancel it due to new visa rules

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• Paul says:

  8 Oct8 October 07:56

  I just love the usual English sense of exceptionalism that makes people wonder “why us?”
  The simple fact is it’s political. The Tories are desperate for a trade deal and Modi want effective free movement and so is using his leverage.
  It’s extraordinary that England committed economic suicide to stop short term migration from the EU, only to replace it with mass immigration from the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia, etc. Brexit keeps on giving!!

  • Callum says:

    8 Oct8 October 08:27

    Given the vast majority of the UK doesn’t care about the difficulty in getting an Indian visa, it’s hardly leverage.

    This is a long term policy decision by India to have reciprocity in their visa scheme and not because of Brexit or the Tories. In fact, you could arguably call it Indian exceptionalism – most other developing countries recognise the vast disparity in wealth (and in this case size) between them and the UK makes stricter visa conditions into the UK logical and so don’t insist on reciprocity. I know I’ve avoided India for years due to the visa policy (not out of principle, out of practicality), I’d imagine a lot of others are the same.

• masaccio says:

  8 Oct8 October 08:01

  Does this affect business visas too, or are there separate slots for those visas?

  • A says:

    8 Oct8 October 10:43

    Yes, when I had visited the centre back in May . I witnessed a lady pleading to get her business visa to India approved as it was rejected 4 times and the visa clerks won’t tell what’s wrong .

• ianM says:

  8 Oct8 October 08:10

  India is a big supporter of Putin, we should be making it harder for them to come here not easier, and giving them less taxpayer monies.

  • KP says:

    8 Oct8 October 08:16

    Seriously….! You need a lesson on geopolitics

  • KevinS says:

    8 Oct8 October 20:34

    The uk is a supporter of Saudi Arabia and
    America, so we’re in no position to virtue signal about others.

• Roberto says:

  8 Oct8 October 08:36

  Went to India in March 2020 just as Covid was kicking off , its an amazing place, filled to the brim with amazing people none of which could organise a p155 up in a brewery.

  • KevinS says:

    8 Oct8 October 09:08

    Sounds quite similar to the current situation in the uk.

• Zumi says:

  8 Oct8 October 08:47

  yes gave up LHR-BOM 2-4-1 booking as visa takes soooooo long. Good luck everyone…..

• Rob says:

  8 Oct8 October 08:53

  I have had nothing in it until this week – this includes protesting press releases from travel firms.

• Lottie says:

  8 Oct8 October 08:57

  We cancelled our October half term trip 4 weeks ago as we needed to go in person. The only appointment we could get was three days before the trip, which was cutting it a bit fine, so I’m pretty sure it’s been in person for quite a while.

• Tim Rogers says:

  8 Oct8 October 09:09

  Whilst annoying, this isn’t actually new. We went to India in July and had to go through the manual in-person process. It seems that the appointments have become much trickier now Autumn has arrived. I suspect that is why travel agencies are making more noise.

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