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External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Wednesday highlighted the strides made in the last ten years on the front of mobility of Indian talent- through the expansion of passport services, to welfare funds for Indians abroad and how Indian demography is stepping up and meeting the needs of the world.
He made the remarks during the India's World Annual Conclave 2025. "We are 1/6th of the world's population, and when you look at the younger working age population, we are around 1/4th of the global workforce of a certain demography. So, our relevance to the global talent skill market is only going to grow." He said when discussions take place on the world, while discussions take place mostly centered on trade, work and the mobility associated with it is often ignored. Jaishankar highlighted three important aspects of mobility--demography, competitiveness and the societal attitude towards work. "Last year, remittances to India were 135 billion USD- that is twice our exports to the United States". He pushed people to think about the assets people have created abroad and the size of this business. He shared that while mobility has its politics in the receiving society, managing that is also a part of the diplomatic challenge. He noted that several challenges arise when mobility is not legal. "When mobility is legal, when mobility is formal, then it has a lot of benefits. But when it is not, then I think it is actually almost a magnet for every kind of bad business to be associated. If you look at trafficking, per se, all the associated crimes and often, it leads people with agendas of various kinds- political agendas, separatist agenda, they all join up to the illegal mobility side of it." Highlighting that there is a market for mobility, he said three consequences which emerge. These are improving the skillsets of people who are mobile, formal arrangements and finally how to equip people who go abroad with confidence and assurance to operate in a global workplace. Highlighting the achievements in the last 10 years, EAM underscored how these "very deep changes which have been of great impact when it comes to mobility." He shared, "10 years ago, if you wanted a passport, There were, I think, 77 places in India to which you could attend. Today, in the last 10 years, we have added 468 more such places. So this expansion of actually a passport, because passport is where your mobility begins, international mobility begins." He noted how intergovernmental agreements dealing with mobility are a very important part of India's diplomacy and said, "We have 21 such agreements, in addition to which, we have mobility provisions in some of the pre trade agreements that we have done, and we certainly in many relationships, see that as actually adding a new dimension to the relationship. " The Mobility Imperative Conference aims at bringing conversations around developments taking place revolving mobility in the world. (ANI)
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