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India's brain gain: Fewer than 200 IIT graduates went abroad last year

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By ET
India's brain gain: Fewer than 200 IIT graduates went abroad last year
56588762.cms
This year, the US, which used to attract most candidates, has been pipped by Japan. For instance, 35 students from IIT-B are headed to the Far East as compared to 10 who are going to the USA.
MUMBAI: One leg of an IITian is in India, the other in Air India, went a popular wisecrack in the late 1980s and early '90s.Every year hundreds of freshly minted engineers from these highly rated institutes would fly westward. This time, the template followed by several graduating classes was disrupted as many turned down international job offers.

Not even 200 of the approximate 10,000 students from the Indian Institutes of Technology took up positions outside India last year. Fifty students, who make up the largest contingent, will be leaving from IIT-Bombay, followed by 40 from Delhi, 25 from Kharagpur, 19 from Kanpur, 13 from Madras, 17 from Roorkee and five from Guwahati. In 2012, 84 IIT-B candidates had accepted international job offers.
indias-brain-gain-fewer-than-200-iit-graduates-went-abroad-last-year.jpg

"Compared to 20 years ago, a very small percentage of students go abroad today . This is contrary to the general perception," says IIT-Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao. "Twenty years ago, 80% of the BTech class used to go abroad. Now these numbers are insignificant.“ The count was larger last year, though not drama tically different. While the first phase of placements has concluded, the ensuing edition is unlikely to have international companies flying down to campuses.

"When we asked companies why they were coming to campus with fewer offers, they said that their requirement was lower and profiles too had changed," said professor Kaustubha Mohanty, convenor of the All-IIT Placement Committee.

indias-brain-gain-fewer-than-200-iit-graduates-went-abroad-last-year.jpg


But that may not be the entire story. Deepak Phatak, chair professor at IIT-Bombay, said that the real question is how many IITians applied for international jobs.

"A large number of our students are not seeking jobs outside India," he said. In fact, Phatak was concerned about the quality of graduates when international offers started dwindling a few years ago.

"So I conducted exit interviews and found that students perceive that the land of opportunity is here," he said. Moreover, with global companies setting up offices in India, students can join Google in Bennigana Halli in Bengaluru instead of Mountain View, California.

In the early '90s, the outflow of computer science graduates to the US was so high that the World Bank, in a report, had suggested that an exit tax be imposed on IIT-ians and other professionals leaving the country-this, it said, could earn the government over $1 billion (about Rs 4,400 crore then) per annum.

This year, the US, which used to attract most candidates, has been pipped by Japan. For instance, 35 students from IIT-B are headed to the Far East as compared to 10 who are going to the USA.

The concern that state-subsidised educated talent was flying off to the West to build a foreign economy and driving innovation and entrepreneurship there, gave birth to the aching term--brain drain. The turn of events has led to a new expression, the euphonious "brain circulation".
 
By ET
India's brain gain: Fewer than 200 IIT graduates went abroad last year
56588762.cms
This year, the US, which used to attract most candidates, has been pipped by Japan. For instance, 35 students from IIT-B are headed to the Far East as compared to 10 who are going to the USA.
MUMBAI: One leg of an IITian is in India, the other in Air India, went a popular wisecrack in the late 1980s and early '90s.Every year hundreds of freshly minted engineers from these highly rated institutes would fly westward. This time, the template followed by several graduating classes was disrupted as many turned down international job offers.

Not even 200 of the approximate 10,000 students from the Indian Institutes of Technology took up positions outside India last year. Fifty students, who make up the largest contingent, will be leaving from IIT-Bombay, followed by 40 from Delhi, 25 from Kharagpur, 19 from Kanpur, 13 from Madras, 17 from Roorkee and five from Guwahati. In 2012, 84 IIT-B candidates had accepted international job offers.
indias-brain-gain-fewer-than-200-iit-graduates-went-abroad-last-year.jpg

"Compared to 20 years ago, a very small percentage of students go abroad today . This is contrary to the general perception," says IIT-Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao. "Twenty years ago, 80% of the BTech class used to go abroad. Now these numbers are insignificant.“ The count was larger last year, though not drama tically different. While the first phase of placements has concluded, the ensuing edition is unlikely to have international companies flying down to campuses.

"When we asked companies why they were coming to campus with fewer offers, they said that their requirement was lower and profiles too had changed," said professor Kaustubha Mohanty, convenor of the All-IIT Placement Committee.

indias-brain-gain-fewer-than-200-iit-graduates-went-abroad-last-year.jpg


But that may not be the entire story. Deepak Phatak, chair professor at IIT-Bombay, said that the real question is how many IITians applied for international jobs.

"A large number of our students are not seeking jobs outside India," he said. In fact, Phatak was concerned about the quality of graduates when international offers started dwindling a few years ago.

"So I conducted exit interviews and found that students perceive that the land of opportunity is here," he said. Moreover, with global companies setting up offices in India, students can join Google in Bennigana Halli in Bengaluru instead of Mountain View, California.

In the early '90s, the outflow of computer science graduates to the US was so high that the World Bank, in a report, had suggested that an exit tax be imposed on IIT-ians and other professionals leaving the country-this, it said, could earn the government over $1 billion (about Rs 4,400 crore then) per annum.

This year, the US, which used to attract most candidates, has been pipped by Japan. For instance, 35 students from IIT-B are headed to the Far East as compared to 10 who are going to the USA.

The concern that state-subsidised educated talent was flying off to the West to build a foreign economy and driving innovation and entrepreneurship there, gave birth to the aching term--brain drain. The turn of events has led to a new expression, the euphonious "brain circulation".
The trend has been quite clear for a while, both China and India are not attractive enough for most fo their highest skilled proffesionals and in many cases there is even a reverse brain drain.
 
Brain gain would be when foreign brains come to India and bring expertise which does not exist locally..if local graduates did not go abroad it simply means brain retention..it could be due to fall in wages world wide or general slow down in economy...
 
Brain gain would be when foreign brains come to India and bring expertise which does not exist locally..if local graduates did not go abroad it simply means brain retention..it could be due to fall in wages world wide or general slow down in economy...

I think india has enough bright minds to sustain. The 2MM or so in the US or U.K. do not make much of a dent to the Indian talent pool.
In fact the "brain drain" serves a very important role in furthering indias image abroad as well as counts towards remittance and "soft power"

What excites me is that this trend of brain retention might be because of newer opportunities in government and rise of the private sector opportunities. Hopefully, the trend continues.
 
I suppose with a population of a billion plus, a few bright cookies will emerge, even then I say these IIT students and institutions are vastly overrated, a typical example of IIT student being Mainak Sarkar who was intellectually out of his depth once he arrived at UCLA for his engineering course, his resulting depression made him shoot dead his American professor:disagree::disagree::hitwall: These IIT kids may be real book worms but make no mistake about it, they cannot think out of the box, in fact they would be completely lost outside of the box, they would be as blind as bats, I say NUST, LUMS and QAU are more than a match for these institutions despite what one may hear from some H!ndian trolls on PDF.
 
I take it your jealous of them. But dont worry 20-30 years from now even graduates from your country will reach their level. There is no point on crying for something you dont have.
Keep your third rate IITs, we do not wish to emulate them, we have institutions such as LUMS modeled on MIT, have a good day!
 
Just because its modelled on MIT doesn't make it MIT :lol:
But the point is we are on the right path and path breaking research is being conducted at LUMS whilst your IITs produce nothing but human robots, no creativity to speak of, just a whole bunch of myopic book worms.Kudos
 
Yeah path breaking research that no one has heard of :rofl:
HMMMMmmm how many Nobel prize winners have IITs produced hhhmmmmmm......ZERO yet you are projecting them as HERO, log off young man before you embarrass yourself any further with your nonsensical drivel.Bye bye.
 
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HMMMMmmm ho many Nobel prize winners have IITs produced hhhmmmmmm......ZERO yet you are projecting them as HERO, log off young man before you embarrass yourself any further with your nonsensical drivel.Bye bye.

Am still waiting to see some evidence of this path breaking research that's going on at LUMS :lol:
 
Django Sir unfortunately us folk from the Ganga region are not blessed with much intellect hence no innovation and no path breaking research
Well young man I suggest as a starter you disband all of those archaic third rate IITs and then and only then could you potentially see a glimmer of hope.Kudos
 
I suppose with a population of a billion plus, a few bright cookies will emerge, even then I say these IIT students and institutions are vastly overrated, a typical example of IIT student being Mainak Sarkar who was intellectually out of his depth once he arrived at UCLA for his engineering course, his resulting depression made him shoot dead his American professor:disagree::disagree::hitwall: These IIT kids may be real book worms but make no mistake about it, they cannot think out of the box, in fact they would be completely lost outside of the box, they would be as blind as bats, I say NUST, LUMS and QAU are more than a match for these institutions despite what one may hear from some H!ndian trolls on PDF.
Yes IITians cant thik out of the box that is why the worlds most famous company for thinking out of the box (google) is headed by an IITian.

I can give you hundreds of examples of successful IITians can you give me names of just 10 internationally recognised successful alumni of NUST, LUMS and QAU
 
Well young man I suggest as a starter you disband all of those archaic third rate IITs and then and only then could you potentially see a glimmer of hope.Kudos

OK, but only after you show some evidence of path breaking research at LUMS :lol:
 
Brain gain would be when foreign brains come to India and bring expertise which does not exist locally..if local graduates did not go abroad it simply means brain retention..it could be due to fall in wages world wide or general slow down in economy...
true, and there is nothing wrong in bright graduates going abroad, when they become influential in the foreign land, it has benefited India... plus IIT grads are made for industry not research, and we got enough talent for our industries.
Brain drain is better than brain in drain as they say(and India had not much to offer these guys in 70s to 90s)
The wages have not fallen much at entry level if you think of exchange rate(abroad), but many more companies in India to choose from... so going abroad is not a obvious default choice.
 
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