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Getting Here

Colonial Ties O thercountrieshavealsobecomemajor locales for the Indian diaspora . Great Britain, for example, is now home to some 1.5 million people from India. The two countries share a long and complex history. From 1757 to 1858 India was under the rule of the British East India Company, a private firm made up of English merchants trading in East Asia. The company eventually established its ownarmy and judicial systemand took on government powers. The very first people who emigrated from India to Britain were servants and ayahs (nannies), who worked for company personnel. Indian sailors (called lascars ) sometimes jumped ship when

Sending Money Home

While Indians have flocked to Western countries like America and Britain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become a major destination for even great- er numbers of Indians—as many as 3.5 million. Many of them are low-skilled laborers (right) who have found work in the UAE thanks to a growing economy and building boom. Although a life of manual labor can be hard

or in fact even deadly, people from poor areas of India continue to settle in the UAE to earn money. They often send much of that money back home to family—almost $70 billion a year, by some estimates.