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Passage to London becomes a flood
Indians are dominating London like never before. According to the new figures released, they are now the largest ethnic minority group in the UK capital, reports V Dutt.
Indians are dominating London like never before. They are now the largest ethnic minority group in Britain’s capital, figures released by UK’s Office for National Statistics show.
Of the 7.4 million people living in Greater London, 197,000 are of Indian origin that’s a little less than three Indians per hundred Londoners. More than one in every hundred Londoners is a Bangladeshi (population 115,000). Next come people from Ireland (113,000), Jamaica (108,000), Poland (105,000), Nigeria (91,000) and Pakistan (81,000).
One in three people living in London was born on foreign soil, the figures show. Britons make up a little less than 5 million (67 per cent) of the city’s population. The Office for National Statistics produces economic and social numbers, registers “life events” and carries out a decennial census.
There are over 10,000 Indian-owned businesses in London. They employ 49,000 people and have a turnover of $14.4 billion. That’s 5 per cent of the city’s economy.
The Indian population has surged nearly 37 per cent since 1997, when they numbered 144,000, just behind the Irish. Their influence on social and cultural trends in the city has been intensified dramatically by Bollywood music, Indian cuisine, and the number and prestige of Indian businesses in the UK.
London mayor Ken Livingstone recently signed a twin-city pact with Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit.
