The Indian diaspora is diverse, “composed predominantly of persons who are workers but also students, and people who have moved for family reasons”, she said. India-born migrants in the Gulf countries are playing a central role in the economic prosperity of those countries, Menozzi said. “They’re also widely present in Northern America and Canada, the US and UK and Australia,” she said. “And if you look for example at the US, I know from the education statistics of some of the persons who are born in India, they have often a very high educational attainment, some tertiary or even post-doctoral), and so forth.”

She said that there is “a common misperception that migration is a reaction to lack of opportunity”. While that may be true in some contexts, “it’s also the sign of dynamism, the fact that a person, an individual makes a choice to pursue opportunities”, according to Menozzi. There is also a change in how people go abroad. “The notion that a person would migrate and then forever leave their countries is no longer the case. Most migrants actually now have an experience of moving abroad but then they return, they would go abroad to study, and then bring back some of the knowledge that they find abroad,” Menozzi added.