Dubai: The UAE government will issue equivalency to all Indian degrees that match the set criteria, a move that comes as a huge relief for expats having difficulty in getting jobs in the Gulf country.

Indian Ambasador Navdeep Singh Suri called on UAE Education Minister Hussain Bin Ibrahim last week to discuss problems faced by Indian nationals following rejection of equivalency of some Indian degrees due to lack of clarity over internal/external marks, according to a press release issued by the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi.

"The Embassy of India, Abu Dhabi is happy to inform the Indian community that following the above discussions, the Ministry of Education of the United Arab Emirates notified that it has no objection to equivalence those degrees that meets all other certificate equivalency criteria," it stated.

The UAE education ministry reviewed the information provided to it through the Action Plan for Academic and Administrative Reforms' issued by the University Grant Commission which clarified that the word external in some of the Indian mark sheets reflect the method of evaluation and not place of study, it said.

"Those applications that have been rejected previously, will be reviewed and equivalency letters would be issued after meeting all other certificate equivalency conditions," it added.

The Ministry of Education of the United Arab Emirates further informed the Indian Embassy official that it is working on all such applications gradually, it added.

Indian community is the largest expatriate community in the UAE. Approximately 3.3 million non-resident Indians constitute about 30 per cent of the total population of the Gulf country.

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Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.

The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.

Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.

The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.

India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.

In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.

Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.

The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.

It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.

Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.

The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.

The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.

On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.