India, Aug. 17 -- There is a March Monday morning in Mohali I keep returning to. A twenty-three-year-old woman, an engineering graduate with an IELTS band of 7.5, sat across the table from her father and asked a question neither of us could answer easily: "Papa, if Canada has shut doors, where do I go?"

That question, multiplied across thousands of Punjab households last year to today, is the real story. Not the fortunes of any consultancy, but the fact that an entire generation's roadmap to the world has been redrawn, and most families do not yet know the new route.

For nearly two decades, "going abroad" in Punjab meant one thing: Canada. The post-graduate work permit (PGWP), the low-friction path to permanent residency, the cousin alr...