Amitabh Turns Down Australian Doctorate  

Saddened by the continuing racist attacks against Indians in Australia, Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan has refused to accept an honorary doctorate from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
The University’s highest honorary award was to be conferred on Big B at a major public event on July 30, at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, to recognise his outstanding contribution to creative industries over several decades. Expressing his distress on the issue, Amitabh, in his latest blog post, said, "I have been witnessing with great dismay and shock, the recent violent attacks on Indian students in Australia, on the electronic media the entire day." "I mean no disrespect to the Institution that honours me, but under the present circumstances, where citizens of my own country are subjected to such acts of inhuman horror, my conscience does not permit me to accept this decoration from a country that perpetrates such indignity to my fellow countrymen," he added. Amitabh is only the second person from India, after IT leader Narayan Murthy, to be chosen for such an honour from QUT. Australia has recently seen a series of attacks on Indian students, the most serious being the assault of Shravan Kumar, a 25-year-old student from Andhra Pradesh who is battling for life in a hospital here after being stabbed by a screwdriver by a group of teens in a weekend attack that also left three of his friends injured.