India's Foreign Minister, S. M. Krishna, has warned that the Government may advise young people not to go to Australia for study if attacks on Indians continue.

A Government advisory against studying in Australia would further damage the $15 billion-a-year education industry, already hit hard by months of negative publicity in India about attacks on students.

Mr Krishna said the relatively conciliatory stance adopted by New Delhi so far could change.

''I'm sure that the Australian authorities would take confidence in the fact that India talks softly but when the decisive moment comes India can also act,'' he said on television.

Mr Krishna admitted that official advice against studying in Australia would harm bilateral relations but said it would ''possibly be one of the actions that the Indian Government can take if the present trend continues''.

Mr Krishna's warning came amid widespread coverage in the Indian media of comments by the former chief of the defence force Peter Cosgrove that it is ''easy to conclude'' that Indians in Australia have recently been racially targeted.

The popular news channel Times Now described Mr Cosgrove's comments as an ''Aus' reality check'' and a headline on its website said ''Top Oz General admits 'racial strand' in Aus''. Similar headlines featured on Indian newspaper websites yesterday and the story topped hourly new bulletins on the leading English-language news channel NDTV.

The Indian media's interest was stoked by reports of an attack on an Indian cab driver, Satish Kumar, in Melbourne on Saturday. Mr Kumar told an Indian TV station yesterday that the passengers used ''racial slurs'' before assaulting him.

After the murder of Nitin Garg, 21, in Melbourne this month, Mr Krishna warned that ''non-redressal of this vital issue will cast a shadow on our otherwise excellent bilateral relations''.

The Indian Government also issued a special advisory to Indian students in Australia to ''take certain basic precautions in being alert to their own security while moving around''.

The number of student visa applications between July and October 31 last year was almost 50 per cent down on that for the same period in 2008.

''If it continues the way it has been in the last few days I'm afraid the flow of Indian students to Australia might slow down and ultimately taper off,'' Mr Krishna said. ''This will have to be kept in mind by the Australian authorities and also the provincial governments.''

Mr Krishna said that it seemed to only be a ''section of foreign students who are mainly from India that are being attacked so I think this angle needs to be looked into more deeply by the Australian authorities''.

Last week sport was dragged into the row over student safety when the hardline Hindu political party Shiv Sena said it would not allow Australian cricketers to play in Mumbai or the surrounding state of Maharashtra until violence against Indians in Australia had stopped.

Meanwhile, the Victorian Police Chief Commissioner, Simon Overland, backed comments by Mr Cosgrove that the attacks on Indian students were racially motivated.

Mr Overland said on ABC radio that police had recognised for more than two years that Indian students had been targeted in robberies, and were working to keep them safe.
 

（www.eduwo.com, Anna）