Bush wants more young Indian minds in US

[Contrarian]

Bush wants more young Indian minds in US

WASHINGTON: President Bush on Wednesday invoked the young Indian scientist to call for a hike in the H1-B visa programme which allows skilled foreign workers to come to the United States.

In a speech on energy issues before workers and executives at a Dupont facility in Delaware, Bush pressed for both free trade and freer movement of skilled professionals, saying they could help meet America’s energy challenges, and summoned the Indian example in both cases.

"We've got to expand what's called H1B visas...I feel strongly about what I'm telling you. It makes no sense to say to a young scientist from India, you can't come to America to help this company develop technologies that help us deal with our problems," Bush told the Dupont gathering.

The H1-B visa program is currently capped at 65,000 and efforts are on to expand it to 115,000 to meet what high-tech industry executives say is a worrisome shortage of high skilled people. A bill to this effect was rejected in the last Congress but it is expected to be introduced again in the 110th Congress.

Opponents of the program say there is no such demand and inviting more foreign workers will just displace American workers and drive down salaries.

Bush also invoked the booming Chinese and Indian economies to argue for free trade while warning Americans about the impact of their growth on oil prices.

"We're in a global economy. And so when the Chinese economy grows, or the Indian economy grows -- which we want it to do, by the way -- it provides markets for your products. So it's in our interests that we trade," Bush said.

But their economic growth can also cause the price of oil to go up in the U.S, which meant Americans had to devise ways to wean themselves of oil imports, which is where foreign talent was needed, he explained.

While the Indian story in Silicon Valley and the medical field is well chronicled, Bush evidently had in mind the significant Indian presence in the scientific sphere, including in automobile engineering and renewable energy areas.

In 2002, Bush awarded a National Medal of Technology, the highest honour bestowed by the President to America's leading innovators, to Dr Haren Gandhi of Ford for research, development and commercialisation of automotive exhaust catalyst technology which resulted in vastly improved mileage.

While Gandhi and many others Indian scientists and engineers have contributed in significant ways to the American economy, there are growing indications that not only is there a slowdown in the number of scientists and engineers coming to the U.S, but even established and mid-career professionals are returning to their home country.


Precise numbers are not available, but within the automobile sector itself, the best known example in the Indian context is Pawan Goenka, a former General Motors engineer, who returned to India some years back to help design Mahindra and Mahindra’s Scorpio.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ds_in_US/articleshow/msid-1461553,curpg-2.cms

 

[A.Rahman]

What is India going to do about Brain drain?!

 

[Contrarian]

What is India going to do about Brain drain?!

More and more Indians are now staying back in the country. I'l give you a rough statistic. 10 years back 90% of IIT'ians went abroad. Now its around 1%.
Since the economy is growing, most of the people are now staying here. I myself will probably go to the US after 2 years, but i intend to come back to India to work, simply because the same salary will be offered to me here. Earlier, the salary offered here was wayy below what was offered in the west, now the same multinationals give roughly the same salary in India. They obviously offer less than what they do there, but the costs of living here are much lower, and people are willing to forgo a small amount in lieu of staying in their country.

I'l post some articles.

 

[Contrarian]

For IITians today, home is where the moolah is

MUMBAI: 'One leg of an IITian is in India, the other in Air India' went a popular wisecrack of the late 1980s and early '90s. No longer. The brain drain from IITs has diminished to a trickle, with only 21 out of 3,980 BTech graduates going abroad in 2006.

About two decades ago, over 80% IITians hopped on to a plane for foreign shores, the preferred destination being the US. The 'IIT route' was a BTech from IIT, an MS (Masters) from USA and a dollar job. Much has changed since then, and brains that used to be siphoned off by developed nations are now preferring to stay back home.

In the early 1990s, 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 IITians and other professionals leaving the country — this, it said, could earn the government over $1 billion (about Rs 4,400 crore) per annum. Today, if the government decided to adopt this, it would earn only crumbs.

A quick look at statistics shows that in 2006, only three of IIT Kanpur’s 273 BTech students and two from the five-year MSc integrated course went abroad. All the others — 267 MTech students, two-year MSc grads and MBAs — stayed back in the country. At IIT Delhi, of the approximate 1,000 job-seekers, only one student went abroad to join CapitalOne, a financial consulting firm.

The slowdown is evident even at the older IITs. At IIT Mumbai, 95% of the students were placed in India while at IIT Madras, only two BTech students went on to join Lehman Brothers at the Tokyo office.

"There was a time when I had to set aside days to write recommendation letters for students wanting to go abroad, either to study or work," says Ashok Misra, IIT-B director. ‘‘Now, because good jobs are available to BTech students, not many opt for post-graduate courses abroad. Only about 15% students go overseas for higher studies and approximately 5% take a job outside India."

Ratnajit Bhattacharjee, faculty in-charge (training and placement) of IIT Guwahati, says corporate giants still opt for IITians but prefer to recruit them for their India operations. Bhattacharjee attributes the phenomenon of "almost zero brain drain" to the fact that MNCs have not just entered the country in a big way but are also looking at greater expansion here.
"British Telecom used to regularly hire IIT Guwahati students,’’ he says. ‘‘It does today also, but for its Bangalore operations."

Deepak Phatak, former head of the computer science department at IIT Bombay, who conducted exit interviews with students from 1991 to 1994, remembers almost everyone then was flying to the US.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...oolah_is/articleshow/msid-1054987,curpg-2.cms

 

[Contrarian]

Oh also, the huge population of India that goes to other countries also play their part. The remitances sent over by the Indian diaspora all over the world is HUGE, it is their money that saved India from financial collapse in the early 90's when the India development etc bonds were issued specifically for them.

Now the Indian diaspora has also matured, they no longer look at the money earned in foreign countries as an end, they are increasingly looking at how to help their motherland. Since both in US and UK the Indian community is the single most succesfful one and are there is huge numbers, they have started actively participating in politics, and wielding their clout to get favourable policies for India.

The Indo-US nuclear pact was a watershed in these aspects. The pact WOULD NOT have passed without the support of the NRI's. They have single handedly delivered many congreessmen to the Deal. They made them vote in favour of the deal. This will only increase with time, it has only just started.

So having a huge population in foreign countries helps in many ways in the long run, and is bad in the short run.

There is also the case of Indians returning home for work. As the countries economy grew, there was a boom in many sectors, and a LOT of Indians have returned from other countries to work here.