So many Indians ....

We have a lot of Indians living abroad. And by saying, “a lot” we really mean, ‘a lot’ and now there is official data also to back this up.

With 17.5 million Indians living abroad, United Nations has officially declared that the Indian diaspora is the largest in the world.  The UN released a report – International Migrant Stock 2019 and it said that the overseas Indian community makes up a little more than 6% of the 272 million-strong global migrant community.

Even the second largest migrant community, Mexico comes at a little distance at 11.8 million. This is followed by Russia, Syria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ukraine, Philippines and Afghanistan. International migrants in India mostly originate from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal and stand at 5.1 million, 4% of which are refugees.

In terms of hosting, Europe is the most common destination with 82 million migrants. The United States of America hosts 19% of the total migrant population with Germany and Saudi Arabia hosting 13 million each.

People migrate when there is turmoil in their own home country. So it is kind of shocking to see India’s name figure out among these nations, all of which are very troubled. One can say that India is different from the rest because we do not have turmoil but then why do we figure out as the largest? Lack of opportunities given the size of the population? But then China is not there, isn’t it?

Really, this data of Indian diaspora should worry the Govt and we should seriously work on retaining brains and talent in India.