Where on Earth is Vanuatu?
This question has been bothering many since former Indian Premier League chairman Lalit Modi announced that he was giving up his Indian passport and taking up the citizenship of Vanuatu.
That was before Vanuatu cancelled Modi's passport, saying he was using it to try and avoid extradition to India.
The island-nation is located in the South Pacific Ocean, between Australia and New Zealand.
The name Vanuatu means 'our land forever' in the Melanesian language.
With a population of country just 307,800, Vanuatu was a joint condominium territory ruled by the British and French till it got independence in 1980.
Vanuatu's capital is the port city of Port Vila, and there are three languages spoken on the island; English, French and Bislama.
Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernandez de Quiros discovered Vanuatu in 1606, making the first European contact with this tiny nation.
Later, British Captain James Cook named the island New Hebrides in 1774.
The indigenous populations of Vanuatu are referred to as 'ni-Vanuatu', who are Melanesians, though some outer islands of Vanuatu have a Polynesian population.
The country follows Christianity with Protestants followed by Presbyterians and Catholics in a majority. There are also people who follow the traditional religion.
The country's economy mainly depends on agriculture or tourism.
Vanuatu offers citizenship to people who are willing to invest $150,000 in the country. Which means you can invest between Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) and Rs 1.5 crore (Rs 15 million) and get to be a Vanuatu citizen.
The best part about getting a Vanuatu passport is that you can get visa-free entry to 91 countries. The Henley Passport Index ranks Vanuatu at 51st slot out of 199 countries.
In comparison, India ranks 80 with 56 visa-free destinations.
Vanuatu is also known as a tax haven as it has no levies such as capital gains tax, income tax, wealth tax and inheritance tax.
In 2021, Vanuatu was in the news for all the wrong reasons as it granted a passport to Abdul Rahman Khiti, a Syrian businessman whose many businesses were under sanctions by the US government.
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