Damien Cave, our Australia bureau chief, shares insights on Australia, news of the world and reader feedback in this weekly newsletter. Want it by email? Sign up.

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A few months ago, my wife and I were in an Uber in Melbourne talking to a driver from India who had a Ph.D in literature. He wrote essays for Indian media outlets but mostly drove, he said, in part because he had a hard time finding a teaching or writing job in Australia.

Ever since, I’ve wondered how many more Uber drivers were like him — foreign, skilled but stuck in the gig or service economy.

I thought of this again last week, as I reported a story about Ola, the Indian ride-sharing company that just started offering service in Perth and Sydney. Ola has not explicitly marketed itself to drivers or riders of Indian origin, but the company does expect that the awareness of its brand among Indians will help — and that idea prompted me to do some more digging.