London Diary: More bad news for Indian students

In a week when India and Britain a now-on-now-off Free Trade Agreement (FTA) after India agreed to heavily slash import duty on Scotch whiskey and cars, there was some bad news for as the British Home Office announced a slew of fresh restrictions on study visa applications from nationalities who are most likely to overstay and claim asylum. They are said to include Indians, Pakistanis, Nigerians and Sri Lankans.

Visas will be rejected for individuals who fit the profile of those likely to claim asylum and are from countries with high rates of asylum seekers in the UK—India being one of them.

The crackdown comes amid government claims that study visas are being increasingly used as a backdoor into Britain’s creaking asylum system.

Home secretary Yvette Cooper is concerned about a sharp increase in migrants who come here on study visas, and on their expiry, lodge asylum claims to get free government-funded accommodation. She is said to be planning measures to bar them from doing so.

The attraction of seeking the asylum route is that it gives successful applicants an opportunity to stay in the UK permanently, whereas work and study visas are temporary.

The proposed measures reportedly include forcing foreign graduates to leave the UK unless they get a graduate level job, which will be based on skill levels instead of salary.

Meanwhile, India is pressing for a special student exchange programme to allow 3,000 young Indian professionals, aged 18 to 30, to work in the UK for two years, with India allowing the same for young Britons.

The two countries had reportedly reached an agreement when former prime minister Rishi Sunak visited India two years back, but it’s not clear if it has been implemented.

Sunak had then hailed it as a once-in-a-lifetime cultural exchange, rather than a route to permanent settlement. “I am pleased that even more of India’s brightest young people will now have the opportunity to experience all that life in the UK has to offer—and vice versa—making our economies and societies richer,” was how he put it.

But that was then.

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A novel prize for aspiring novelists

Aspiring novelists struggling to find a publisher now have a new and rather unconventional route to try their luck.

A first-of-its-kind book prize has been launched for those ‘overlooked by the publishing industry’, with applicants needing to submit just the first three pages—not exceeding 900 words—of a planned novel to be given a chance to become a ‘proper’ writer.

The successful candidate will be awarded £75,000 and professional support for a year to develop their three pages into a full-blown novel.

The Next Big Story competition has been launched by The Novelry, a British creative writing school which has recruited a judging panel including Yann Martel, who won the Booker Prize for Life of Pi.

Initially, entries will be restricted to the UK, US, Canada and Australia.

Louise Dean, an author and founder of the school, said that she wanted to reward the ‘impulse of creativity’ that leads to a first sentence. Too many people, she said, found it difficult taking the first steps into the literary world.

"We want to change that with an extraordinary prize that rewards the mischief of that moment and the impulse of creativity, when a first sentence goes down on a page and anything can happen next," she told The Times.

Tayari Jones — author of An American Marriage, which won the 2019 Women’s Prize for Fiction — who is on the judging panel, said: "Somewhere out there is a writer whose life is about to change."

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‘Pub desking’, the new work from home

Don’t have a place of your own to work from? Well, there’s ‘pub desking’—work from the pub for £15 a day, including breakfast or lunch, drinks and fast Wi-Fi.

Hundreds of self-employed Britons are flocking to such pubs which have popped up on Britain’s high streets. “It’s casual, social, and offers a refreshing change from home offices and crowded cafés. I know where I’m going to be spending most of my time now,” said a freelance fashion designer.

And she’s not the only one.

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Gone in a blink

If you think culture wars can’t get more ridiculous than they already are, consider this latest one between men who shave their eyelashes and those who don’t.

The former believe that getting rid of eyelashes makes a man more masculine. And it seems more and more fashion-conscious men agree with this view.

Andy Burnham

Outside of the celebrity bubble, the most high-profile Brit to have had his eyelashes shaved is the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham.

If the social media chatter is to be believed, women are swooning over his newly-acquired masculinity at the age of 55. But the jury is still out on whether it will help him become more popular among his constituents.

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And, finally, a new word to describe addiction to luxury, from excessive shopping to over-the-top travel: ‘opulomania’ (opulence mania).