India mulling steps to protect expatriates from meltdown:

Richa Tyagi

Kuwait City, Apr 7 (PTI) India is mulling measures to
ensure the welfare of Indian expatriates in the Gulf reeling
under the fallout of the global financial crisis, Vice
president Hamid Ansari has indicated.

"Some people here are affected, some people in the
Gulf are affected. These are the matters on which the
government is thinking because the welfare of Indians is the
primary responsibility of the government of the country," he
said at a reception Monday night hosted by the Indian
community, the nearly six-lakh strong largest expatriate group
in Kuwait.


Indian engineers, doctors, professionals besides a
large number of accountants, nurses, housemaids, drivers,
clerical staff and cooks have made a niche for themselves in
the oil-rich Gulf country.

Ansari, the first top Indian leader to visit the
Gulf country in 28 years, said "it is a microcosm of India
reflective of India's diversity and talents that we as a
people produce and of which we all are proud."

Indians living in Gulf had remitted USD 27 billion in
2007 to make India the top receiver of migrant remittances.

The Vice President said, "the good thing, as Indians,
is because of the innate caution for which we were blamed has
saved our country from the worst consequences of the meltdown.

"It has affected us in some measure but by no means as
it has affected others," the Vice President said.

India's growth rate which was 9 per cent last year
will be about 6 per cent this year, Ansari said, adding that
it will still be one of the highest globally.

Ansari, who is on a three-day visit, said his
interaction with Kuwaiti leadership convinced him of "genuine
warmth of feeling that they entertain towards India and
Indians".

Noting that welfare of India and the gulf region was
interlinked, Ansari said "we have a joint interest to make
sure that we live in surroundings that are peaceful and
productive. If the neighbourhood is disturbed we are
disturbed."

With the world virtually turning into a global
village, "the only answer... is for the countries to live
together, in cooperation and contribute to each other's well
being and prosperity. No two countries are better placed than
India and Kuwait".

More so, as Kuwait is in "our extended neighbourhood"
and part of a wider grouping GCC countries and we have with
each one of them excellent relations - political, commercial
and economic, he said. PTI RT
AM
NNNN