India eases visa rule for Korean tourists

Indian Ambassador to Korea Vishnu Prakash, right, listens to Lee Ock-soon, professor of Yonsei University, as Lee answered reporters’s questions during a news conference at the embassy in Seoul, Thursday. / Korea Times

By Kang Hyun-kyung

India will implement a visa-on-arrival program for Korean tourists from Tuesday to encourage more Koreans to travel to the country, said Indian Ambassador to Korea Vishnu Prakash on Thursday.

During a press meeting at the embassy, the envoy said that it is a unilateral measure taken by the Indian government.

“At the moment this is our decision to show our gesture of goodwill to the Korean government,” he said.

The move is expected to make Koreans travel India easier as they don’t need to wait two or three days to get a tourist visa after submitting their applications to the Indian Embassy in Seoul.

India’s visa on arrival for Koreans was rare, given that visa decisions are usually reciprocal and the two sides adopt such a measure after agreeing to implement it together.

Ambassador Prakash stressed that India’s unilateral decision reflects strong Korea-India relations, calling on the Korean government to consider taking a similar measure.

Last year, 112,000 Koreans travelled to India.

Prakash expressed hope that the figure will rise once the new visa rule is implemented from Tuesday.

The Indian Embassy invited several Korean journalists to the embassy to present the activities of the newly-launched Institute of Indian Studies led by Professor Lee Ock-soon of Yonsei University.

Ambassador Prakash, Lee, Park Hyun-chae, professor of Chonnam National University Graduate School of Business based in Gwangju City, and several embassy staff joined the get together with the media.

Lee, who earned her doctoral degree in Indian history from an Indian university, said that she and the Indian Embassy decided to organize a press meeting as there are lots of misconceptions about India due to “misleading” media reports.

She argued that the media portrayed India as a dangerous country to travel after a couple of gang rape incidents occurred last year.

“The way the media handles such cases is misleading because they focused on sexual attack cases in India while staying mum on other positive images of the country,” Lee, president of the Institute of Indian Studies based in Seoul, said.

source:koreatimes