India is readying an emergency social security system for workers who have lost their jobs overseas as a result of the global economic downturn. The announcement came during the ongoing 8th Pravasi Bhartiya Divas Meet in New Delhi. Government has pledged that their security is its top priority. Our correspondent reports that steps are being taken to protect the country's expatriate workforce from the adverse effects of the economic crisis in their place of work and when they returned home.<br/><br/>AIR correspondent Manikant Thakur reports that India is one of the world's biggest recipients of remittances, alongside Mexico and China. Remittances, totalled about 50 billion US dollars in the 2007-08 financial year. While India's largest flows of money come from North America, they had been spurred in recent years by demand for migrant labour in the strengthening economies of oil-exporting Middle Eastern countries.India, Asia's third-largest economy, is also negotiating social security agreements with countries that have a large emigrant Indian population. Such agreements have been signed with Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands; while labour agreements – covering recruitment, terms of employment and welfare – have been negotiated with Malaysia, Bahrain and Qatar.Economists and policymakers have stressed the need for the government to improve social protection to overcome a widening poverty gap. About 300m Indians live on less than a 1 US dollar a day.<br/><br/>The President Mrs. Pratibhadevi Singh Patil will address the valedictory function of the 8th Pravasi Bhartiya Divas Meet in New Delhi this evening.<br/>