i don't agree, at least for US to europe/asia and vice versa travel. what's to differentiate someone who travels to the USA on tourist status (i.e. european citizens travel to the US under the US visa waiver program) and traveling on business/student/immigrant status. i'm not sure in 30 years of travel i've EVER been asked by an AIRLINE CHECK IN person to explain my reason to visit xx country and then been asked if i had the proper (or not) visa for my visit. while i'm sure they are fined if they let someone travel with a bad passport, they are not visa clerks, and do not know enough about the rules to know if a particular person has/needs a visa for that particular trip, unless that country has a 100% no exceptions visa rule. hell, they barely know the rules of their own airline. maybe your home country airline rules are different, but I stand by the US rules.

As an example, I recently flew from Zurich to Bangkok, via Seoul on KE on a US passport. There is no way the check in person at KE had any idea of the visa rules for my visit. She didn't ask, she doesn't know, and as long as my passport is valid, I fly. What happens on the other end when I meet the immigration agent is my problem, not the airlines.

If I purposely fly with no visa, and then I am stupid enough to show up in a foreign country and tell the imm agent that I am here to live in your country for two years and get a job and marry a local national, then that's another story.

Bottom line to the OP. Its sunday, you're not going to get an offical answer from anyone in the Indian government today. Your call.