About this series

Most diaspora-facing journalism on India treats the country as a destination — a place to visit, a place a parent retired to, a place the next family wedding is in. The OCI cardholder's relationship with India is something else: a place where one can own property, send children to school, file tax returns, inherit assets, and eventually return to live. Each of those is a system, with its own rules, its own paperwork, its own pitfalls.

This series is the Diaspora Dreams newsroom's attempt at one careful reference piece on each of the major OCI-India systems. Every part is reported from primary government sources, cross-checked against current practitioner guidance, and anchored by an annexure of citations a reader can follow. The standard is journalism, not advice — but the standard is rigorous, and the citations are real.

Five parts are planned. Two are published. The remaining three will follow over the coming months.