Everyone has heard about Brain Drain
which is a loss to the nation of highly skilled professionals through
emigration of developed countries.
Sometime back, we also take notice of
Brain Gain when the country’s position was judged better at the global level
and over 1,000 Indian scientists working abroad had returned to India in the
last two-three years. They felt that
India is changing and they can fulfill their ambitions here also as they are
finding better opportunities in India too.
From brain drain, a scenario of brain gain was seen.
Another concept was seen of Brain
Circulation – which was a movement of skilled talent in a way that the
migration is beneficial for both the countries, that is for the destination
country and for the origin country as well.
India has witnessed a large scale of
brain drain from 1970’s to 1980’s. Starting from 1990’s, India witnessed return
of high skilled emigrants to India and their contribution to India’s
development. As of 2017, over 30 million
Indians are living abroad.
In fact, Non-resident Indians – NRIs help to
transfer advanced technology, knowledge and the best practices of education
from the country they are staying. At
the same time, a part of Indi’s success can be attributed to the Indian
Diaspora which contributed in terms of knowledge and financial investment to
India.
We cannot deny of the fact that the development
of Information Technology - IT sector in India has the contribution of
Indians returned from abroad as well.
It is said that approximately 80,000
NRIs returned to India in the past two years. Some of them established
their own firms and created lots of jobs. Still 3,05,43,419 crore
Indians are settled on foreign lands – mainly in Saudi Arab, UAE, USA, Kuwait,
Oman, Nepal, Singapore, UK, Australia, Canada, UK - out of which 1,03,08,012
crore are Non-resident Indians and 1,78,35,407 are PIO - Persons of Indian
Origin.
Push factors are still highly prevalent in India making it difficult to reap the benefits of brain gain
India is one of the top countries that
get large amounts of remittances from its citizens living in foreign
countries.
No doubt, in India, opportunities
for highly educated professionals are now improved tremendously and many
graduates and post-graduates are now prefer to work in India.
But still, during the current academic
session, it has been seen that the admissions at all the institutions –
Industrial Training Institutes, Polytechnic Colleges, Degree Colleges and
Engineering Colleges – is too less than the in-take capacity.
Now the question s as to where the
pass-outs from schools have gone? A close look to the IELTS institutes running with over capacity
in number of batches to crack the test in high bands, clearly indicate that the
youths of India are interested to go abroad for earning simultaneously with the
study where job opportunities are also available side-by-side.
On the other hand, India being one of
the fastest developing countries in the world is doing its best as a pull
factor to Non-Resident Indians. India is celebrating ‘Pravas Bharatiya Diwas’
from 2002 and is connecting to Indian Diaspora all over the world. By this way
Indian Government is encouraging NRIs to contribute to the India’s Development.
Besides this, Indian
government eased regulations for FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) to
NRIs. India provided OCI (Overseas
Citizens of India) cards to Persons of Indian Origin and made their legal
formalities easier to return and to invest in India.
Indian government is also planning to
allocate short-term research projects to Indian scientists and
Technocrats living in abroad to utilize their knowledge. These projects are
about solving local problems. To connect to young overseas citizens of India,
Indian government launched ‘Know India’ program.
Situation in other countries : Many
countries like ‘South Korea’ and ‘Taiwan’ are reaping the benefits of Brain
Gain.
Underdeveloped countries are at
disadvantage, because most of their emigrants are unwilling to return to their
home countries.
India is indeed able to turn ‘Brain
Drain’ into ‘Brain Gain’. But we have a long way to go. We cannot expect NRIs
to sacrifice their better lives for the sake of developing their home country.
There are people who do that for sure. But not all will do that and we have
look into the push factors first..
India should be able to attract the
best talent all over the world by eliminating defects such as corruption,
nepotism, red-tapism etc. Till then, India may not be able to transform brain
drain to brain gain to full extent.
Frankly speaking, no doubt, there is
difficulty in obtaining long-term work visas and slow economic growth of
developed countries are also helping India in terms of brain gain but how low
this will go on.
Talking about the negative side, still
there is large pay gap. India is offering less salary to highly
skilled professionals when compared to developed countries. Still
emigration of trained professionals is high in India.
Push factors like corruption,
reservations, lack of infrastructure, lack of investment and lots of legal
hurdles are still highly prevalent in India making it difficult to reap
the benefits of brain gain to full extent.
Favorable policies in developed
countries are attracting talented Indians. India is not giving enough
competition to attract them.
Still I hold good that that India is
producing the Engineers without making arrangements for their consumption in
the market whereas the need of the hour is of skilled-workers. Such force can
be prepared only by giving the training in short-term vocational courses so
that they are consumed in the industrial and manufacturing units.
At the same time, youths are
frustrated with the existing set-up and the factors responsible are - lack of
guidance and poor opportunity of jobs at home are told to be responsible, inclination
of youth towards IELTS and go abroad is going towards alarming side and failure
of the government to provide job
opportunities and appropriate training to youth.
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