apparently someone was concerned that the ISS and the Indian station could collide
expert completely excludes this possibility
The expert is a bit too optimistic there.
As long as BOTH stations are able to maneuver, they can be kept out of the way. Of course, there is still no right of way in space, no rules how to avoid collisions between active spacecraft. And fuel is precious. Especially Starlink is notorious for reacting late to collision warnings and forcing the other spacecraft to spend fuel. Since both stations need reboosts, it should be easy to coordinate the maneuers and stay in a box. If the people involved are adults.
If one of them can't maneuver, things get a bit harder, but still solvable, at least the legal problem is solved who has to move.
If both can't maneuver, its a lottery, but the low risk exists. Same altitude and same inclination can at least reduce the risk a lot (most collisions would happen at low velocity differences, similar to the Progress-Mir collision), but the LAN drift can still result in a fatal head-on collision eventually. And of course, fragmentation events will increase the risk again. And of course, inclination and nodes also get periodic and secular perturbations by Earth, Sun and Moon, even if they are similar for both stations then, they are never the same and will eventually become more distinct.
So, my choice of words would rather be: "We place it exactly there to keep the collision risk and the need for collision avoidance maneuvers as low as possible."
Skylab was also unable to maneuver and didn't collide with any Soviet space station during the period, neither Salyuz 3, Salyut 4 or Salyut 5, and at the time of Salyut 5, Skylab orbited already very low above the atmosphere. And the difference in inclination wasn't that big as well, Skylab orbited at 50°.
