Air India issues advisory for US-bound Indian students with F/M visa under Vande Bharat

Nation's flagship carrier Air India has put up an important update for Indian citizens seeking to travel on outbound flights to the USA for higher studies. The flagship carrier has said that students having F or M category visa cannot travel to the USA on the current Air India repatriation flights under Mission Vande Bharat under the following circumstances which are mentioned in the tweet below:  

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Vande Bharat Mission

The Vande Bharat Mission aims to retrieve Indian expatriates amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The operation is spread over seven days is expected to operate a total of 64 flights to 13 countries and bring back around 14,800 people. Also naval ships have been deployed under the Samudra Setu (Sea Bridge) mission. Flights from India have been planned to fly to the Philippines, Singapore, Bangladesh, UAE, UK, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Singapore, Phillippines, USA, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait to bring back stranded Indian citizens.

Stranded citizens will be tested before boarding the flight and only asymptomatic individuals will be allowed.  The Ministry of Home Affairs has also issued a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the evacuation and has said that it will prioritise the distressed in foreign countries.

An Air India repatriation flight from Singapore landed at the Delhi airport on Friday morning with 234 passengers, senior officials of the airline said on Friday. About 234 Indians stranded in Bangladesh were also flown back on Friday by Air India flight on Friday.