Hopes crushed by degrees of extortion in the Philippines
The Hindu
Indian medical students fleeced by agents, colleges
When 17-year old Anjali*, the daughter of a small shopkeeper in Gujarat, went to the Philippines in March 2015, she was fuelled by an education loan and dreams of becoming the first doctor in her family. When she returned home in January 2021, she had her hard-earned medical degree, but had also been robbed of $12,000 courtesy an unscrupulous agent, saddled with an additional loan, and put through six months of harassment and threats of losing her visa for fees she had already paid. Anjali (name changed on request) is one of the 15,000 Indian students who head to the Pacific island nation for a medical education every year, lured by easier admission criteria and lower fees than in India’s private medical colleges. But the promises soon turned sour for Anjali and several other Indian students.
On December 23, the newly elected office bearers of the Anna Nagar Towers Club, led by its president ‘Purasai’ B. Ranganathan, who is a former MLA, met with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin and conveyed their greetings. According to a press release, besides, ‘Purasai’ B. Ranganathan, the Anna Nagar Towers Club delegation that met Stalin at Anna Arivalayam, the DMK Party headquarters, included vice-president R. Sivakumar, secretary R. Muralibabu, joint secretary D. Manojkumar, treasurer K. Jayachandran and executive committee members N. D. Avinash, K. Kumar, N. R. Madhurakavi, K. Mohan, U. Niranjan, S. Parthasarathi, K. Rajasekar, S. Rajasekar, M. S. Ramesh, R. Satheesh, N. C. Venkatesan and K. Yuvaraj. Karthik Mohan, deputy secretary of DMK’s Information Technology Wing, was present on the occasion.












