At 18 million, India has the world's largest diaspora population
United Nations: India has the largest diaspora population in the world with 18 million people from the country living outside their homeland in 2020, according to a report by the United Nations, which says the UAE, the US and Saudi Arabia host the largest number of migrants from India.
The report 'International Migration 2020 Highlights', by the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) released on Friday, said the spatial distribution of transnational populations varies greatly and India's diaspora, the largest in the world, is distributed across a number of major countries of destination.
In 2020, 18 million persons from India were living outside their country of birth. Other countries with a large diaspora population included Mexico and Russia (11 million each), China (10 million) and Syria (8 million).
India's large diaspora is distributed across the United Arab Emirates (3.5 million), the United States of America (2.7 million) and Saudi Arabia (2.5 million). Other countries hosting large numbers of Indian migrants included Australia, Canada, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar and the United Kingdom, the report said.
China and Russia also have spatially diffused diasporas.
Between 2000 and 2020, the size of the migrant population abroad grew for nearly all countries and areas of the world.
India experienced the largest gain during that period at nearly 10 million, followed in order of magnitude by Syria, Venezuela, China and the Philippines.
The US remained by far the largest country of destination of international migrants with 51 million migrants in 2020, equal to 18 per cent of the world's total.
Germany hosted the second largest number of migrants worldwide at around 16 million, followed by Saudi Arabia (13 million), Russia (12 million) and the United Kingdom (9 million).
Of the top 20 destinations of international migrants in 2020, all but three were high-income or upper-middle-income countries.
The report noted that the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted all forms of human mobility through the closing of national borders and halting of travel worldwide.
Preliminary estimates suggest that the pandemic may have slowed the growth in the stock of international migrants by around 2 million by mid-2020, 27 per cent less than the growth expected since mid-2019.
The report added that growth in the number of international migrants has been robust over the last two decades, reaching 281 million people living outside their countries of origin in 2020, up from 173 million in 2000 and 221 million in 2010.
Currently, international migrants represent about 3.6 per cent of the world's population.
Between 2000 and 2020, the number of migrants grew in 179 countries or areas.
Germany, Spain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the United States of America gained the largest number of migrants during that period.
In contrast, 53 countries saw a decline in international migrant population between 2000 and 2020.
Armenia, India, Pakistan, Ukraine and the United Republic of Tanzania were among the countries that experienced the most pronounced declines, the report said, adding that in many cases the declines resulted from the old age of the migrant populations or the return of refugees and asylum seekers to their countries of origin.
In 2020, 63 million, or 23 per cent of the total international migrants population, at 281 million, were born in Europe.
Central and Southern Asia was the birthplace of the second largest number of international migrants (51 million), followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (43 million), Eastern and South-Eastern Asia (38 million), Northern Africa and Western Asia (38 million) and sub-Saharan Africa (28 million).
Relatively few migrants globally originated from Northern America (4 million) or Oceania (2 million).
In these two decades, some regional migration corridors grew rapidly.
The corridor Central and Southern Asia to Northern Africa and Western Asia grew the most, with 13 million migrants added between 2000 and 2020, more than tripling in size.
"The majority of that increase resulted from labour migration from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka to the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the report said.
The report noted that while it is too soon to understand the full extent of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, it may have slowed the growth of this regional migration corridor.
In many of the GCC countries, tens of thousands of migrant workers in the construction, hospitality, retail and transportation sectors lost their jobs due to the pandemic and were required to return home.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Liu Zhenmin said, The report affirms that migration is a part of today's globalised world and shows how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the livelihoods of millions of migrants and their families and undermined progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Diasporas contribute to the development of their countries of origin through the promotion of foreign investment, trade, access to technology and financial inclusion.
However, according to projections by the World Bank, the COVID-19 pandemic may reduce the volume of remittances sent to low-and middle-income countries from USD 548 billion in 2019 to USD 470 billion in 2021, a decline of USD 78 billion or 14 per cent.
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Malegaon blast case: After repeated warnings, Pragya appears before court to record statement
Mumbai, Apr 25: BJP's Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur, who is an accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case, on Thursday finally appeared before a special court here to record her final statement in connection with the case.
On several occasions in the past, Thakur had failed to appear before the court on the grounds of medical illness. This prompted the special court to issue a warning, saying if Thakur fails to appear before it on April 25, then she would face action.
On Thursday, Thakur appeared before the special court hearing cases probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), but claimed she was still unwell.
Thakur submitted to the court her statement in a question-answer format. She also filed an application seeking permission to put her thumb impression on the statement as she was unable to sign the paper due to sudden loss of strength in her palms.
The court permitted the same.
Thakur, along with six others, is facing trial in the case under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), Explosive Substances Act, Indian Arms Act, and Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
The court is currently recording the statements of the accused under Section 313 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). These are final statements of the accused before final arguments are made and the case is closed for judgment.
Special court judge A K Lahoti posted the matter for further recording of the statement on Friday.
Six people were killed and over 100 injured when an explosive device strapped on a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon, a town about 200 km from Mumbai in Nashik district of north Maharashtra, on September 29, 2008.
The case was initially probed by Maharashtra's Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS) before being transferred to National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Last month, after she failed to appear before it, the special court had issued a bailable warrant against Thakur. She later personally appeared before the court, following which the warrant was cancelled.
The court in the past had warned Thakur of action when she failed to appear before it to record her statement.
