Field composites

Profile · STEM Professional, Bengaluru-to-US Skill Track

Aarav Mehta ~28 years · STEM engineer · Bengaluru-to-US skill track

The US H-1B specialty-occupation work visa programme approved 71% of FY24 petitions for beneficiaries born in India (USCIS FY24 — ~283,397 of 399,395 total approvals). Aarav's option-value chain: US student visa → up to 12 months of post-graduation work authorisation (OPT) + 24 months STEM extension (USCIS OPT/STEM-OPT) → H-1B lottery → eventual green-card backlog.

422,335 Indian SEVIS records in CY2024 (Business Standard); the February 2025 to February 2026 figure fell 6.9% from 378,787 to 352,644 under tighter US visa scrutiny and the proposed PAUSE Act (Financial Express). Aarav prices the option year-over-year: the announced career upside versus the realised visa-class dependency. The salary is announced. The visa class is the option.

Profile: announced US-tech upside · realised 3-yr option window · H-1B visa-class dependency
Profile · Business-Family Principal, Mumbai-to-Dubai/Singapore Wealth Track

Nisha Shah ~38 years · CFO of a family business · Mumbai-to-Dubai/Singapore wealth track

RBI LRS FY25 = $29.56 Bn total, but $16.96 Bn (57.4%) was Travel — not migration. The migration-relevant wealth-track (Investment in equity/debt $1.70 Bn + Immovable property $0.32 Bn + Deposit $0.71 Bn + Gift $2.94 Bn) was ~$5.67 Bn — the part the brief headlines as the wealth-track (RBI Bulletin July 2025). And it is accelerating: 9MFY26 Investment-LRS was +89% YoY ($1.77 Bn vs $934 Mn) and Immovable-property +107% YoY ($381 Mn vs $185 Mn).

India saw ~206,378 citizenship renunciations in 2024 (5-year 2020-24 total = 896,843, MEA). Henley 2025 forecast India's net millionaire outflow at -3,500 HNWIs. The MHA Citizenship (Amendment) Rules 2026 (notified 30 Apr 2026) introduced e-OCI and a minor-child dual-passport guard. LRS total is announced. The wealth-track underneath is what families actually price.

Profile: announced LRS scale · realised wealth-track decomposed · option-on-passport accelerating
Profile · Gulf Construction Migrant, Kerala-to-UAE Wage Track

Imran Ansari ~32 years · semi-skilled construction worker · Kerala-to-UAE wage track

MEA eMigrate data shows 449,110 Indian emigration clearances to Gulf countries in 2025 — up from 387,067 in 2024 and 398,316 in 2023. The destination mix is shifting: UAE 200,686 (up from 111,308 in 2024 — +80% YoY) overtook Saudi Arabia 136,812 (down from 167,598 — -18%). Imran's decision-layer math is the recruitment-fee debt paid at departure (MODELLED; no public corridor-fee anchor in FACTS), the Gulf-wage spread vs Kerala-domestic equivalent (MODELLED), and the years-1 to 5 contract risk.

  • The gap lives in the first year. Agency fees, documentation costs, and foregone domestic wages are paid at departure; the remittance that reaches Kerala starts after that debt is cleared. The announced remittance figure captures the gross flow; it does not decompose the net-of-departure-cost yield per corridor.
  • The destination shift compounds: UAE's share of clearances doubled in two years (71,687 in 2023 → 200,686 in 2025) while Saudi Arabia fell by a third. A worker in 2025 is heading to a different labour market than a worker in 2023 — with a different wage spread, a different contract structure, and a different remittance corridor. None of these three shifts surfaces as a single disclosed line in the $129 Bn headline.
Profile: announced remittance flow · realised net-of-recruitment-debt yield · destination-shift to UAE