Wife as Family Visitor and documents to prove PhD student

[PinkFloyd]

Hi All,

It's time again for me to call on the collective wisdom of this board for a tricky situation that I find myself in. I plan to sponsor my wife on a family visitor visa [logic for this in PS]. She is currently pursuing her PhD in India and has been a student all throughout her life, meaning she has no bank balance or property in her name and I am worried that this will have a negative impact on the application. Also to prove that her PhD is active, the set of documents that we can come up with (PhD enrollment letter, letter of references from the guides) somehow seems weak when compared to documents that you can furnish for graduate or post-graduate courses(letter from institutions, student ID cards, attendance records etc). Please help with the following queries so that we can make a strong case for the application..

1. What documents can I use to prove enrollment for PhD and that it currently active? The thesis is not yet submitted. At present we have managed only the letters from the guides.

2. The strongest reason for her return is for the completion of her PhD (Thesis submission and Viva) but I am finding this hard to prove via documents. Any pointers here will greatly help.

3. If I make her joint account holder for my Bank accounts in India, will that count towards her assets to show strong ties with the country? We recently got married, so wondering if this approach will hold water.

4. We have not updated our passports post marriage with spouses information as it will take a long time. Can this cause an issue?

Thanks for all your help.

Cheers!

PS: I am T1G with validity till July 2012. So it makes little sense for a dependent visa. Once I am successful with my ILR application, we will apply for dependent visa. I am aware that we cannot switch this in-country and will have to make a trip to India, but we are fine with this.