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A TRIP to India next week to promote Melbourne as a safe city has turned into a monumental challenge for John Brumby after another racist attack that has attracted fresh headlines and anti-Australian fury across India.

Two Indian men and another two of Indian origin say they were racially taunted and told to ''go back to your country'' before being kicked and punched by attackers who were part of a large birthday celebration at Legends Entertainment Centre. The Indian Government increased pressure on Australia last night over the ''recurring attacks'' on its citizens. It called on authorities to ''take all necessary steps towards the safety and security of Indians''. Indian consular officials in Melbourne were also ordered to investigate.

One of the victims, Sukhdip Singh, 26, had been in Australia just one month. A relative said he had suffered head and facial injuries and wanted to return to India immediately. His uncle, Mukhtiar Singh, 45, also a victim, said Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard's recent assurance to India's Foreign Minister that Australia was safe for Indian students rang hollow. ''I used to say the same thing … now I would say Melbourne is worse than a Third-World country, violence-wise,'' Mr Singh told The Age. Recalling Saturday's incident, he said his nephew was taunted with verbal abuse and racial slurs in the bar before they were later set upon in the car park by about 20 people. ''I have lived here for 22 years,'' Mr Singh said. ''I've got my own business here, my own house, my kids have grown up here. Why should I go back? We all come from somewhere.''

AUSTRALIA’S elite universities are set to pay a high price for the foreign student crisis, as middle-class Indian parents concerned for the safety of their children opt for universities in Britain, New Zealand and North America instead of Australia.

The agents have experienced falls of up to 50 per cent in inquiries by students wanting to study at Australia’s top tertiary institutions since the controversy began.

Australia and India agreed to an extradition treaty in June last year, but the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, it is not yet in force.

"Once the extradition treaty enters into force, Indian authorities would be bound to uphold and process the extradition request, and to seek to lodge an arrest warrant within India to seek out and detain this individual."

"In 2008 in addition to the extradition treaty, Australia also concluded a mutual assistance treaty dealing with matters of criminal interest between the two countries, and since then of course we've had the terrorist events in Bombay and no doubt the Australian Federal Police have got interests in matters that are occurring in India,"

a decline in student visa applications from India compared with last year.

The department was unable to provide the figures last night because they are still being compiled.

Education is Australia's third-largest export, after coal and iron ore. Universities have come to depend on international student fees to cover the shortfall created by chronic underfunding from government.

This is the San Polo municipal football ground on the outskirts of Brescia - a big industrial city in the north of Italy home to one of the biggest south Asian communities in the country.

The attraction is cricket - the final rounds of a limited overs competition.

"It's not a good place to live", he says. "Most Italians only speak their own language and so - unlike Indians and Pakistanis - they don't mix well with people from other cultures."