Yet ethnic Indians, who dominate much of the country's commercial life, make up 44% of the population.

ECONOMIST: Fiji

One such was Samy Vellu, the only representative of Malaysia's ethnic Indians (8% of the population) in the cabinet.

ECONOMIST: The prime minister fights for survival

In Britain ethnic Indians earn at least 10% more than the national average.

ECONOMIST: Schumpeter

Ethnic Indians are less than 1% of America's population but 13% of the graduate students at the country's best universities.

ECONOMIST: Schumpeter

The Madhvani family in Uganda might have qualified had Idi Amin not interrupted by expelling ethnic Indians for most of the 1970s.

FORBES: Sidelines

For, surprisingly, they were uttered this week by Fiji's new president, a man backed by Mr Speight in the belief that he would ensure the supremacy of Fiji's indigenous people over its ethnic Indians.

ECONOMIST: Forlorn Fiji

Ethnic Indians came to dominate business.

ECONOMIST: Fiji

Only a quarter of ethnic Pakistani women work, compared with 64% of Indians, for example.

ECONOMIST: Pakistan and Britain

In recent years Indians have displaced Lebanese as the suburb's biggest ethnic group.

ECONOMIST: Australia and anti-Indian violence: Regrettable facts | The

There are also Creoles, who speak a Creole dialect of English and are often of African and African-European extraction, and Garifuna, who are descended from Carib Indians and Africans, as well as a number of smaller ethnic groups.

BBC: Belize country profile

They are more likely than other Asians to be employed (though they earn slightly less than Indians) and Sri Lankan children do better at school than any ethnic group bar the Chinese.

ECONOMIST: Tamil Tigers in Britain