Students' return from Ukraine shows up gaps in India's medical education

Narrating her escape from Kharkiv city in Ukraine as though she could still hear shelling, fighter jets and people screaming, medical student Arulmozhi Ramesh is finally recovering from fever and fear at her home in Coimbatore in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

- Rohini Mohan India Correspondent In Bangalore

The 22-year-old is relieved to be reunited with her worried parents, but also angry about the comments she hears in India.

“Why are Indian politicians blaming students for going to Ukraine? Even after I almost lost my life in the war, I don’t regret going there to study because it was the most practical choice for a middle-class Indian like me,” Ms Arulmozhi told The Straits Times.

She is a fifth-year medical student at Kharkiv National Medical University, which ranks 560 of 11,000 universities globally.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a webinar on budget announcements on Feb 26, had said that “our children today are going to small countries for study, especially in medical education” and asked why the private sector in India could not accommodate them.

Evacuations during Russia’s attacks on Ukraine have brought to light that more than 18,000 Indians are studying there, about 90 per cent of them medical students. This has also exposed the shortage of places in government colleges and unaffordable fees at private institutes in India.