Enabling IIT grads to work for India

Over the past half century since the first of Indias 15 and especially six vintage IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) was promoted in 1950, they have established a global reputation for excellent engineering and technology education. Therefore its come as no surprise to me that IIT-Bombay is the highest ranked Indian ‘university in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2011-12, although its been awarded an unflattering non-specific rank of 301-350. More encouragingly, within the narrower category of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) higher education institutions ranked by Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd — another highly respected university rankings publisher — IIT-Delhi and IIT-Bombay are ranked among the worlds Top 50 institutions.However, its also undeniable that an estimated 35 percent of IIT graduates and postgrads press on for higher study and/or employment abroad — especially to the US — and most dont return. This phenomenon has prompted a large and growing number of academics and critics to argue that the IITs — which provide heavily subsidised world-class engineering and technology education to the brightest and best students of India — have been benefiting the US rather than Indias economy and industry. Although theres some substance in this charge, it might be more useful to discuss and debate how IIT alumni resident abroad — especially in the US — can help India, and ways and means to reduce the brain drain to the US in future. These questions need to be debated within the framework of a changed world order and the emerging global economy. Today, as testified by fully-loaded civil aircraft criss-crossing the world, national borders have become porous. Its pertinent to note that almost half the population of Ireland has emigrated to all parts of the world, especially the US. Therefore many of our youth see greater professional growth and development opportunities abroad than in India. Already 22 million Indians live overseas and of them 2.5 million live in the US. Indians who migrated to countries such as the West Indies and Mauritius many decades ago, were daily labourers. But unlike them, those who emigrated to the US were highly educated, since US laws encourage qualified professionals to migrate to the country. Over the past two centuries, this immigration policy has benefitted America tremendously. Some of Americas biggest business and technology corporations have been funded and/or grown by immigrants. These include Intel (Andrew Grove), Yahoo (Jerry Yang) and Google (Sergey Brin). Moreover, all recent Indian Nobel laureates in the sciences chose to make the US their home. They include Hargobind Khorana, Subra-hmanyan Chandrasekhar, Amartya Sen and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan. Indeed its a telling commentary on the R&D environment in India that after C.V. Raman, no Indian Nobel laureate has chosen to live and work in this country. Even some of Indias best corporate managers who head Citibank and Pepsi, are based in the US. Against this background, it is advisable to be positive and view the Indian diaspora as a national asset, particularly since most of them are ready, willing and…