Diasporic Connect
Our Prime Minister has just returned from another international tour – this time around the islands in the Indian Ocean – including Mauritius and Madagascar that have a strong diasporic presence. In fact the diaspora has been a matter of great concern for our PM. His visit to the US included a film star like appearance at the Madison Square Gardens in New York City. Following this he soon changed the rules for the PIO programme making it initially a life time validity programme, and then merging it with the OCI programme, granting all PIO automatic quasi-citizenship status. Clearly the diasporic Indian is very important in the scheme of things especially at this point in time. According to recent estimates over 2 million people of Indian origin live in the US and about 1.4 million in the UK. Even though the numbers are high they are miniscule. However their friendships and opinion counts high, at least for the Indian Government. I have recently made two visits to the UK and the US ...