Indians are acquiring nationalities of other nations like never before; top the foreign citizenship list

Indians are not shying away from taking up citizenship of other countries and India is on the top of the list of origin countries of naturalised citizens across the world.

As per a report- ‘International Migration Outlook (2017)’- released by Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, Indian diaspora is not apprehensive of acquiring foreign citizenship.

In 2015, 1.30 lakh Indians, consisting mostly expatriates on work visas, acquired citizenship of OECD member countries.

Meanwhile, India was followed by (1.12 lakh) and the Philippines (94,000). China came fifth with 78,000 opting to relinquish their citizenship.

The report mentioned that in 2015, just over 20 lakh people acquired the nationality of an OECD country. This was slightly above (3%) the 2014 figure, even as it remains within the OECD average of the past 10 years.

China retained its top position when it came to new immigrants to OECD countries.

As per the findings of the report, US, Canada, UK, Australia and Germany continued to be the preferred destinations of Indian migrants. Both China and India continued to be the major source countries for international students.

OECD is a global thinktank of 35 member countries, which include European countries, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. An earlier OECD report had pointed out that India had the world's largest diaspora with 156 lakh migrants.