By country · The Gulf
Part 6 of The Diaspora Plate. In the Gulf, Indian food is not a cuisine you seek out - it is the background hum of daily life, from the Malayali cafeteria's morning parotta to the tiffin carrier at a labour camp. How millions of Indian workers made their food the region's own.
Part 6 of Temples of the Diaspora. On 14 February 2024, a pink-sandstone-and-marble mandir rose from the desert outside Abu Dhabi - the first traditional hand-carved Hindu temple in the Gulf, built on land the UAE's ruler gifted, and now the largest in West Asia. It is a diaspora announcing its permanence in the unlikeliest of places.
For the Gulf NRI, the salary arrives untaxed - and the whole financial game is holding on to that advantage. Here is how to park a tax-free Gulf income in 2026 (NRE, FCNR and the deposit window closing in September), and how the date you fly home can hand you two extra years of tax-free status - or cost you the lot.
The Gulf is India's second-largest source of remittances after the United States, and for millions of workers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the monthly transfer home is the whole point of being abroad. Here is how it works in 2026 - exchange houses vs apps vs UPI, the AED-INR rate that decides everything, and the tax rules for the tax-free NRI.
The IOM's World Migration Report 2026 confirms India received about $138 billion in remittances in 2024 — the most of any country, and nearly double second-placed Mexico — underscoring the diaspora's economic weight.
A growing number of diaspora families are quietly moving back. The plane is the easy part. The actual return runs through tax-residency arithmetic, customs paperwork at Nhava Sheva, banking accounts that have to be redesignated on a clock, and a hundred small adjustments nobody warns you about. This is the practical map.
An OCI pays Indian tax on Indian-source income — rent, interest, capital gains — under residency rules that tightened again on 1 April 2026. The TDS regime, DTAA relief, TCS on outbound money, and the traps, explained.
Four pathways into India's best universities for diaspora children — JEE Advanced for IIT, the DASA scheme for NITs, NEET for medicine, and direct application for the private liberal arts schools. Plus the ICCR scholarship overlay, the 4 March 2021 OCI cut-off that splits the rules, and the practical pitfalls.
They invest before they turn 22. They run side hustles before they land their first job. They send money home and build portfolios abroad — at the same time. Meet Gen Z NRIs: the most financially ambitious generation India has ever produced. With sources from WEF, SEBI, BCG, and AMFI.
If you or someone you know has been quietly Googling hair transplants abroad — and wondering whether it makes sense to combine a trip home with treatment — this story is for you. Picture this: a man boards a flight from Manchester to Mumbai, not for a wedding or a family visit, but for a hair […]
The Edison wedding The Patel wedding I went to in Edison last summer had 1,400 guests, two days of pre-events, a sangeet rehearsed by a choreographer who flies in from Mumbai, and a baraat that got the local police to block off Oak Tree Road for forty minutes. It also had the most Gujarati I […]
