IISc PhD students denied visa to attend conference in Canada

Prof. R. Venkatesh Babu, who heads Vision & AI Lab (VAL) at IISc., said, “CVPR is a very prestigious conference for vision researchers... unfortunate that our students denied visas despite applying 2 months ago.”

Of the 3 PhD students of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc.). two are part of the Prime Minister’s Research Fellows (PMRF) Scheme. | Photo Credit: Sudhakara Jain

Three PhD students of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) including two who are part of the Prime Minister’s Research Fellows (PMRF) Scheme, and an intern have been denied visas to attend an international conference in Canada.

While two students — Harsh Rangwani and Abhipsa Basu — are from Vision & AI Lab (VAL), which is part of the Department of Computational and Data Sciences, one student — Siddarth Asokan — is from the spectrum lab, which is part of the Electrical Engineering Department. The intern — Samyak Jain — is from IIT-BHU.

The students were to attend the Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) 2023, which is to be held in Vancouver between June 18 and 22.

Prof. R. Venkatesh Babu, who heads VAL, said, “CVPR is a very prestigious conference for vision researchers, and India’s representation is very less. Less than 1% of accepted papers are from India. In the past, this conference had been held in the U.S. where our students presented their papers. But this time, the event is being organised in Canada. It is very unfortunate that our students have been denied visas despite applying for them two months ago.”

Earlier, Prof. Babu tweeted, ”Indian PhD students from @iiscbangalore, who have first-authored papers at prestigious conferences like @CVPR, are facing unjust denial of Canadian visas. With shocking reasons “limited employment possibilities in India” and “purpose of visit not consistent with a temp. stay”.

“It is disheartening to witness such treatment for 4 students who applied for the visa from IISc, especially considering that @iiscbangalore  is ranked amongst the top Indian universities in the world by QS World University Rankings. Graduates from IISc and other esteemed Indian universities have secured employment at leading global companies like @GoogleAI, @MetaAI, @Boeing, as well as prominent Indian branches like @GoogleIndia, @MicrosoftIndia, and @amazonIN”.

He urged Canadian immigration authorities to re-evaluate the visa applications of these students, and promote a more inclusive and globally connected research ecosystem.