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BRAIN DRAIN A DECADE AGO AND NOW

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BRAIN DRAIN A DECADE AGO AND NOW

 

Firstly, we have to know the definition of Brain Drain. It is the loss of human capital, flight of skilled labour from developing countries to developed nations,  in search of better employment, and for better opportunities etc..

 

Few weeks ago an indian born techie replaced jack dorsey as a CEO of twitter, and at the same time an indian born economist was promoted as first deputy managing director of IMF. Many Indians in the home town celebrated their achievements, and some debated them. How does their success help india? Do they build brain India or lose Indian talent?

 

In 2014 23,000 millionaires flew to the foreign nations, in 2016 6 lakh Indians gave up their citizenship. India ranked No.1 in migration and the highly educated after China and Philippines. The world's 2nd most populist country has 65% of the global share of migration. Was it leading to Brain Drain in india? Or is it hurting our economic growth? 

 

Why does this happen? Mostly due to lack of opportunities and lack of health concerns. The brain drain is said to be the mass migration of skilled labour to the developed world, which gains brain gain. During the 1970 the rich and elite young indians found financially attractive jobs and they started leaving the country to develop their skills. The short-term contract workers flew to gulf nations for better financial opportunities, most of them never returned; they ended up becoming prominent entrepreneurs abroad. The 1990 s are called economic bonanza, in this year the large number of Indian diaspora who had left the nation returned to India and set up new companies which led to economic boom. But this didn't last long. In 1997 million Indians settled abroad and in 2017 it has risen to  17 million Indians working outside india. Indian brain drain still persists. One estimates that half of the first rankers in class 10th and 12th board exams between 1996 and 2015 migrated abroad , mostly to the United States of America. The brightest Indian minds are working for another nations. What explains this? It is for money. It is said that, Brains go where the money is, or other says that Brains go where the Brains are or where they are valued. Most of the Indians migrate abroad for money. But, money does not play any role, but when we look at purchasing power parity wages, between America and in India, you earn six times more in America than what you earn in India. Clearly money is the factor. And next Education. India has come a long way in the educational sector. The Article 21A tells us the free and compulsory education to all the children between 6 to 14 years of age. And for Higher education we have stellar institutions called IITs and IIMs but sadly none of them appears in the top list of the world. And a lot of good colleges in India have skyrocketing cut-offs. So, students leave abroad for high paying jobs. And when it comes to gender equality. In 2021 the gender gap in India widened to 62.5%, and most of the skilled women shifts to abroad with no intention of returning. The health sector, according to NCBI India,is the biggest exporter of Doctors. For every 1325 Americans there is 1 Indian doctor and 1 doctor for more than 24,000 indians. And some young Indians went abroad for vacation and never returned. And some feel no home and return to India after some months. If we take Canada for example, in 2016 the number of Indians who became permanent residents was 39,000 and the figure jumped in 2019 to over 80,000. India is losing its skilled workers, employees, doctors to other countries. They are questions to address as a country if you want to end the Great Indian brain drain.

 

-Gudibandi vaishnavi

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