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Most people in India don't seem to be bothered by a brain drain and don't treat it as a problem as such. You have to remember that India has more than a billio

Most people in India don't seem to be bothered by a brain drain and don't treat it as a problem as such. You have to remember that India has more than a billion people and struggles to find work for all of them. I was surprised to see (in contrast to other countries trying to stem brain drain) that its a stated goal by the Indian prime minister that they want to see some 50 million (more than the population of many countries?!?) workers sent abroad in the coming decade. Whether it eases their unemployment issues or if they see it as a genuinely beneficial strategy is not clear to me. A bit of both I guess. This plays into another very interesting phenomenon. Indians tend to look up to the western world a lot and I think it shows in their approach to tech. For example, if you ask most Indians who the top tech people in their country are they'd probably mention Indian CEOs of western tech companies in the US. This is in very stark contrast to say, China, where their own entrepreneurs such as Jack Ma are most influential. That is to say, rather than build their own ecosystem or companies most Indians aspire to work for Western firms and deeply synthesize their economy to them.

shagie 9y ago
Absolutely correct. The brain drain for a small fraction of a percent that get visas to work in other countries is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It's a mere trickle compared to the reservoir of people behind it. Though, its more of a next generation thing that will be interesting - the changing demographics. The US has birthright citizenship - all the children born in the US to visa holders will be US citizens. That will do some interesting things in a few places when they start needing to pay taxes in the US if they are overseas and haven't given up their citizenships (n.b. I'm not an expat and so am not completely versed in the associated tax law). Sending workers abroad and having them send money home to family outsources the social support structures needed in India and reduces the pressure for unemployment. This feeds into the growing nationalism and xenophobia in many western countries. In other countries it allows people with fewer scruples to take advantage of this labor force and essentially turn them into slaves (confiscation of passports and financial trickery). I'm not sure where this is going to come back and where the ultimate costs with this policy are going to be paid - but they're going to be paid somewhere. The Indian tech industry is certainly going for a synergy approach with western markets rather than... say, Japan ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galápagos_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galápagos_syndrome ) or China (copy and maintain behind the Great Firewall). Its going to be interesting to see how this all plays out over the years to come.

shagie 9y ago

Absolutely correct. The brain drain for a small fraction of a percent that get visas to work in other countries is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. It's a mere trickle compared to the reservoir of people behind it. Though, its more of a next generation thing that will be interesting - the changing demographics. The US has birthright citizenship - all the children born in the US to visa holders will be US citizens. That will do some interesting things in a few places when they start needing to pay taxes in the US if they are overseas and haven't given up their citizenships (n.b. I'm not an expat and so am not completely versed in the associated tax law). Sending workers abroad and having them send money home to family outsources the social support structures needed in India and reduces the pressure for unemployment. This feeds into the growing nationalism and xenophobia in many western countries. In other countries it allows people with fewer scruples to take advantage of this labor force and essentially turn them into slaves (confiscation of passports and financial trickery). I'm not sure where this is going to come back and where the ultimate costs with this policy are going to be paid - but they're going to be paid somewhere. The Indian tech industry is certainly going for a synergy approach with western markets rather than... say, Japan ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galápagos_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galápagos_syndrome ) or China (copy and maintain behind the Great Firewall). Its going to be interesting to see how this all plays out over the years to come.