Brain Drain

I remember writing essays on 'Brain Drain' as a child while at school. Funnily, 90% of that class, is now abroad, chasing their dreams. The question back then, was how much damage would brain drain cause to the Indian economy, that was within the first decade after the Government liberalised the Indian economy.

The dictionary meaning of Brain Drain is, "the emigration of highly trained or qualified people from a particular country"

Many Indians have been migrating to different parts of the world over the years. Taken as slaves/workers to countries like Fiji, Sri Lanka, Malayasia, South Africa, etc., many of their descendants are now in high positions in those countries and also run successful business. While their hardwork and guile took them places, quite literally, many of these migrants, never lost touch with their mother land. Many Heads of State of Indian origin, have reiterated their firm commitment to fostering ties with India. These relations have helped India earn much needed foreign exchange.

The Information Technology industry picked up in the 90's and by now India has stamped its presence in the sector, so much so, that there are many Indians working in the sector in the USA. The story of the rise of the Silicon Valley is incomplete without this narrative. Many Indian Americans now hold positions of power in the US.

Having seen economic growth through the remittances sent to India by the migrants, India is now able to pull its weight in international forums. However, the question is, have we lost our talents to other countries? There has been a lot of reportage on the number of patent applications filed and received by Indian Americans. Patents truly recognise the inventor and the country of origin. Most people, peg that American patent laws are inventor friendly, hence the exceedingly large number of applications that the country churns out. The question on my mind is considering that many Indians file for patents, has India lost out on the services of these talents?

This question led me to meet Mr.Badri Seshadri. Badri, is a first generation entrepreneur, born to a school teacher in Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu. Having completed his schooling in Tamil Medium, he went on to complete a Bachelor's in Engineering from the hallowed precincts of the IIT, Madras. From there, he moved to Cornell University to work on his doctorate, upon completion of which he decided to return to India. While at Cornell,h e was working on a cricket blog with a couple of other students from across the world which was led by Dr.Simon King, a British researcher who was then associated with the University of Minnesota. The blog, cricinfo.com, has now revolutionised the cricket world. Badri, upon his return to India, was a part of the India operations until 2004. He felt that he needed newer challenges and set out out to enter the world of vernacular publishing, especially Tamil by launching New Horizon Publishers (Kizhakku Pathippagam in Tamil). Considering his background,I decided to interview and speak at length with him about 'brain drain'

Badri, at the very outset mentions that the concept of Brain Drain is redundant. He then goes on to trace the paths taken by his contemporaries, and we shall use them as the base generation for this post. The year in which he graduated was the year when the then PM of India, Narasimha Rao and his able Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh set out to open the economy after the infamous Balance of Payments controversy that India was facing. The IT revolution that India was witness to also led to many Indians to the US, both for higher education as well as for work. The first decade saw a surge in the number of engineers seeking to work in the US and the tide has not been stemmed. Higher education, argued as the best in the world is characterised by high quality research and scholarships, which has produced exceptional graduates.

From the Indian standpoint, the remittances sent from abroad has been a catalyst for industrial growth and has contributed to the growth of the start up culture in India. Badri points out that Indians shouldn't worry about the patents filed by Indian Americans in US, since if these talented scientists worked in India, they wouldn't have been able to produce the same amount of patent applications. He seeks a correlation between self interest and national interest by drawing an interesting analogy. He says that by seeking to serve their self interest's, Indians move abroad, and send money home for varied purposes, and this money is channelised as investments in various forms. Since, some amount of the money does flow back into the Indian economy, we are in a position to better our country's prospects. This self interest becomes a shared interest, when the money is invested and hence there is a national interest.

He then goes on to add that India must now take one step forward and introduce a scholarship to encourage the talented students in India to pursue higher education in countries hitherto unexplored i.e China, Brazil, South Africa etc. His reasoning is that by studying/working in newer countries, India's softpower increases and it also allows for learning from these countries. He is also in favour of opening FDI in Higher Education in India.

'Brain drain' as a concept has evolved thanks to the flattening of the world through modern technology.