When Adam sired his first offspring, the seed of emigration too, had been planted. Since then we have been migrating from one place to another.

Whilst economics might be the main reason for migrating, there are other factors too which motivate people to travel. Man has an innate desire to know more about what's in store on the other side of the shore.

Hence he developed various transportation modes to achieve this: on foot, the use of animals, boats, later ships; and of course in this day and age, we have an armamentarium of ways and means to travel.

There is an adage, which says (paraphrased) that if you wish to acquire knowledge pursue it till you reach China. In the early days, the Indians travelled to China to spread Buddhism, while the Chinese came to India to learn mathematics.

Circa 14th century AD, emigration became more economically motivated. Admiral Cheng Ho led the biggest flotilla of Chinese ships travelling as far as Africa. The Chinese then were a major superpower. They stopped traveling after about a century because they thought the rest of the world could not offer much to China. Otherwise they could have been the maritime superpower today.

There other factors which influence migration. The socio-economic system of a government may be perceived as restrictive to the advancement of one's endeavour, so he or she migrates to escape from the system.

But more importantly, as we travel from one place to settle in another country, our DNA too migrates. And if there is an intermarriage, a new combination of genes would be created giving forth offspring more resistant to disease. And hopefully they are more tenacious individuals as well to.

Migrating people are usually highly trained and skillful. Marry these traits with the raw resources of their host countries and you have a potent mix which can propel the host countries to greater economic development.

For many years to come, people will continue to migrate from one country to another and vice versa. A time will come when this state of continuos flux will find its equilibrium, not in the sense that migration comes to a standstill. but that emigration equals to immigration.

By that time, the sense of nationhood, or nation-state, nationalism, ethno-centrism will gradually diminish. As the result of inter and cross-marriages, a new race would emerge - a race, which is not conscious of its ethnicity and nationality, but one with the whole of humanity.

We, like any other organism on this planet, are part of a gigantic evolutionary unit. Call it Nature's grand design if you may, constantly moving forward like a juggernaut.

But I foresee religious bigotry as major obstacle to this great march forward.