HeritagePart 1 of Mother Tongues. When labourers from a dozen Indian districts were thrown together on Fijian plantations, their languages fused into something new — a tongue that is now the mother language of a people.
HeritagePart 1 of Children of the Girmit. Nearly 700,000 indentured Indians passed through a single stone depot in Port Louis — and their descendants became the majority, and the rulers, of an Indian Ocean nation.
CulturePart 1 of The Diaspora Plate. A dish nobody in India had quite eaten became, in the hands of Bangladeshi cooks in Britain, the country's unofficial national meal — and a perfect parable of how diaspora food is made.
PoliticsPart 1 of Power Abroad. The grandson of Punjabi migrants became the United Kingdom's first British Indian prime minister — and lit Diwali lamps on the steps of Downing Street.
CultureThe 2026 Grammy season made it impossible to ignore. Across Best New Artist, Best Pop Duo, Best Global Music Album, Best Global Music Performance, and Best Contemporary Instrumental Album — five different categories — Indian-origin singers and musicians weren't just present. They were the conversation.
HeritageIn BriefExternal Affairs Minister Jaishankar signed an archival cooperation agreement with Trinidad and Tobago to help members of the Indo-Caribbean diaspora trace their ancestral roots. The Government of India is creating a comprehensive global Girmitiya database.
Visas & LawIn BriefThe Government of India has extended Overseas Citizen of India eligibility to the sixth generation of Indian-origin diaspora in Trinidad and Tobago — recognising the descendants of indentured Girmitiya labourers who arrived in 1845. A historic outreach with implications for other long-tail diaspora communities.
Visas & LawHow the Indian tax system actually treats an Overseas Citizen of India — the residency rules that determine what is taxable, the TDS regime that bites every kind of Indian-source income, the DTAA framework that reduces it, the TCS that catches money flowing out, and the 1 April 2026 rule changes that reshape the residency test for high-Indian-income NRIs.
EducationFour 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.
Visas & LawWhat the OCI actually is The Overseas Citizen of India card, in plain language, is a lifetime visa to India that comes with most — but not all — of the practical rights of Indian citizenship. It is a document, not a status. It does not make you a citizen of India. India does not permit […]