According to The Chronicle of Higher Education:

"The United States plans to issue 20 percent more visas to Indian students in 2007 than in 2006, a State Department official said during a visit to India this week, according to domain-b.com, an online Indian business magazine.

During a weeklong tour of India to promote American higher education, Karen P. Hughes, under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, said that the United States wanted to assure ”every Indian student admitted to a legitimate institution of higher education in the U.S. that he or she will be granted a visa on time.”

Some 24,600 visas were issued to Indian students in 2006, up 32 percent over the previous year, a senior U.S. official said. According to the latest figures from an annual report on international students and scholars in the United States, about 76,500 students from India studied at American institutions in 2005. That number was down about 5 percent from the previous year."

(U.S. Plans Increase in Number of Visas for Students From India, by Beth McMurtrie. Chronicle of Higher Education 3-29-07)