Indian Diaspora

📌 Background & Key Features

• Historical waves: Colonial-era "Girmitiya" indentured labour migration (Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad, Guyana, South Africa) followed by post-1960s professional/skilled migration to the US, UK and Gulf.
• Categories: NRI (Non-Resident Indian), PIO (Person of Indian Origin, now merged into OCI), and OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) cardholders — each with distinct legal/visa entitlements.
• Strategic value: Diaspora functions as an economic driver (remittances, investment), cultural soft-power ambassador, and an informal lobbying constituency shaping host-country India policy (esp. in the US, UK, Gulf).

📋 Quick Facts

📰 Current Affairs Linkage (2025-26)

• 2025-26 remittances hit a record ~$135-138 billion, financing nearly half of India’s merchandise trade deficit — per Indiaspora’s 2026 report, underscoring the diaspora’s macroeconomic weight.
• The 18th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (Bhubaneswar, Jan 2025) carried the theme "Diaspora’s Contribution to a Viksit Bharat," alongside new initiatives like the Pravasi Bharatiya Express tourist train and Pravasi Teertha Darshan Yojana.
• Emerging concern: Commentary increasingly flags the diaspora’s political polarisation as a challenge to its cohesion as a development lobby, and calls for moving "beyond remittances" toward structured deep-tech/R&D; engagement (VAIBHAV Fellowship, Global Capability Centres).

📝 PYQs for Practice (Mains)