India's job engine strains as Middle East war hits remittances and trade

The war in the Middle East is squeezing two pillars of Indian employment, forcing Gulf-based workers home and crushing demand for the country’s manufactured exports, from leather goods to glassware. For decades, work in the Middle East and global demand for labour-intensive manufacturing in sectors such as footwear and garments gave a generation of Indians stable, and in some cases lucrative, inco