Globalisation has been on the rise for the last couple of decades with cheaper transportation and better communication in all corners of the world. The rapid changes have caused a lot of people
to begin travelling for various prospects, whether migration with their families for a new life, migration for work, or various other reasons.
Over the years, these changes lead to a large number of people moving from one country to another, and many of them settled from India in various other parts of the world. There are currently 18 million Indians living out of India, in different parts of the world. Many of them gave up their Indian citizenship for a foreign one, which varied based on the country that they moved to. Another study conducted in 2017 shows that the largest Indian diaspora has immigrated to the United States with 1.3% of the population of America being of Indian descent.
While many countries support dual citizenship, which is their people being citizens in two different countries, according to the Indian constitution, India does not. Furthermore, people needed to get passports of the country they were living in for some of the benefits they can claim from working there. Unfortunately, making such a change meant sacrificing the perks that come with Indian citizenship. In 2005, the OCI card was introduced by the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, in response to demands for dual citizenship by the Indian diaspora in developed countries.
The Overseas Citizen of India card allows the people of India origin some rights within the country. However, the most relevant aspect of the card was allowing people with foreign nationalities, and origins leading to India to travel back and forth to India without having to keep applying for a visa. Additionally, they can stay within the country for as long as they want, and they do not have to worry about any paperwork.
Applying for an OCI card is quite simple and can be done from any of the various centres around the world. Furthermore, the OCI application is now online, which makes getting through them a
lot easier. They can fill out and complete their applications at the convenience of the applicant, which makes it that much easier. There are exceptions where people would like to handle the
process at the Indian mission abroad, and they too can download all their forms and submit them at the mission. People can also download all the supporting documents that they would need to
get through the process and have to doop that off the mission as well.
The OCI card does not have an expiration date, but they have to renew it when they are getting through the process of their passport renewal. OCI cards went through a bunch of changes over
the years, with added security checks as well. There are currently more than six million OCI cardholders around the world. OCI cardholders are allowed to move to India, but there are a few
restrictions that they have to get through since they are not allowed to purchase agricultural land and so on.