Metka Hercog

Diaspora Engagement in India: From Non-Required Indians to Angels of Development

It has been mainly only in the last decade that India started to look seriously at a diaspora policy, which is quite late given the fact that it has had a large diaspora for centuries. For a long time India’s official position was that emigrants deserted their country and harmed the country’s interests. At the time of economic liberalization and globalization in the 1990s ethnic networks started to be seen as value-free networks which could serve as a resource. Concomitantly, the diaspora’s economic and political situation greatly improved. This led to a swift change in government’s perception of its own migrants, applauding their achievements with great pride. While in the past, overseas emigrants were often referred to as non-required Indians (a parody of the term non-resident Indian (NRI)), nowadays they are addressed as ‘angels of development’ (Khadria, 2008), a source of national pride, members of the Indian family or ‘Mother India’s Children’ (Sinha-Kerkhoff and Bal, 2003).

Europe as unlikely immigrant destination: location choice for internationally mobile students in India

ABSTRACT This paper examines how country-specific factors in receiving countries influence a highly skilled migrant’s choice between several possible locations. While continental European countries recognize that attracting migrants is a key component of their economic strategies, it is unclear to what extent these immigration policies result in European countries performing better in the global competition for the skilled. Surveys of prospective migrants in India show that while European countries appear to be relatively attractive for educational purposes, European countries are not perceived as favourably for long-term stays. Relative to migrants selecting traditional immigration countries, migrants selecting Europe as a destination typically have more skills and increased access to resources, such as existing networks abroad, higher educational level or better language skills. With fewer long-term migration initiatives to Europe, immigration policies and destination country-specific factors, opportunities to obtain citizenship and amenities of local environment become less relevant. European governments put considerable effort in integrating student migration as a part of a wider immigration strategy; however, this strategy is likely to prove ineffective if ‘probationary migrants’ do not view European countries as realistic work destinations after graduation.