Where else are Indian workers facing problems?
In Kuala Lumpur. About 150,000 Indians are held up as the authorities are not extending their work visas. Most of them are labourers and unskilled workers. We have to productively intervene to alleviate their sufferings. You are passionately involved in the problems of expatriate workers and seldom associate your ministry with the affluent Non Resident Indian (NRI) community. They too have problems… NRIs do not need me — they are too well off to require any help. Do you know, in the US alone 2.6 per cent of NRIs are millionaires and 7 per cent billionaires? We have been engaging them in the past and seeking investments from them. One decade of our effort has yielded just 5 per cent of the FDI by NRIs. So why waste time and energy on them? Instead, they (pointing to a sheaf of online petitions from workers) need me and I am available to them. I am not apologetic about my concern for overseas workers. They sent in about $24.6 billion worth of remittances last year alone. We beat China an
