The foreign minister who is the latest Australian dignitary to visit New Delhi, met Singh today and apprised him of the steps being taken by his government to contain assaults on Indians.
Foreign minister Stephen Smith's unexpected meeting with prime minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi today was termed as a "positive sign" by the government in Australia's efforts to deal with the issue of attacks on Indians.
Smith, who is the latest Australian dignitary to visit New Delhi to address concerns in India, met Singh today and apprised him of the steps being taken by his government to contain assaults on Indians.
During the meeting, the prime minister told Smith that the Indian government appreciated Australia's efforts to address the problem, AAP reported.
Smith's meeting with Singh, which was only agreed to yesterday, was a "positive sign", government sources were quoted as saying.
On a three-day visit, Smith said in New Delhi that he was pleased that "there is much greater understanding" now about the steps being taken by the Australian government to minimize attacks on Indian students studying in his country.
Singh said he "appreciated the Australian government's efforts to address this issue," a statement by the Australian government said, adding: "prime minister Singh underlined the goodwill between the two countries".
"The raw edge has come off the students issue but we can't in any way be complacent," Smith was quoted as saying. Smith, who held meetings with Union ministers SM
Krishna, Kapil Sibal and P Chidambaram in the past two days, said he had a "very productive round of meetings with the Indian leaders".
"We particularly find contemptible any attack which has racial or racist overtones associated with it. We have no tolerance for such attacks," he said.
During his three-day visit to India, Smith acknowledged that some attacks on Indians in Australia had racial overtones but stressed that Australia has zero tolerance for this.
"I think my visit here and my frank acknowledgement of the difficulties has helped," he said and promised to renew efforts to make sure the risks of attacks on Indian students were absolutely minimised.
Following the spate of attacks on Indians, particularly students, Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, his deputy and education minister Julia Gillard and Victorian premier John Brumby have visited India to allay concerns.
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