President's salute to Indians working in Gulf

“India’s remittances from overseas Indians, estimated at over $50 billion in 2009, were the highest in the world. What is less known, though, is the fact that nearly 40 per cent of these remittances–about $20 billion annually–come from overseas Indians working in the Gulf, consisting of temporary contractual skilled and semi-skilled workers,” Patil said in her valedictory address on the last day of the eighth Pravasi Bharatiya Divas here.

She said that the Indian workers in Gulf often experienced “harsh living and working conditions” and remained “separated from their families for long periods of time”. “I take this opportunity to salute Indian workers in the Gulf,” she added. The President termed the community of 25 million overseas Indians, spread across the world, as the ‘Knowledge Diaspora’.