"No man's genius, however shining, can raise him from obscurity unless he has industry, opportunity and

also a patron to recommend him." PLINY, the Younger The term 'Brain-drain' has recently come into vogue for describing the flight of talent from our country to another. Often, it is loosely employed to describe all migration of educated and talented persons to countries abroad in search of better careers even though their services may be badly needed in their native land, and thus, this exodus of talent, depletes a country's intellectual resources and tells on national life. However, the problem of 'Brain-drain' is not peculiar to the present age of ours. It existed even in Medieval times when great conquerors carried away not only hoards of gold and rich treasures from the vanquished countries, but they also took away men of talent and genius as a matter of right. The only difference we see today is that now the talented and educated persons migrate of their own accord, attracted by the glitter and glamour of better emoluments and amenities. Today, the problem of Brain-drain is a product of the revolution in science and technology inspired by the Second World War and speeded up by the discovery and use of the nuclear energy. After the war, the stupendous advance made by U.S.A., U. S. S. R., Great Britain, Germany etc. in the field of scientific research began to attract men of science and talent from other Countries. This accounted in the main for the

flight or defection or let us says migration of talent from the underdeveloped countries to these advanced nations. One striking feature of this problem of Brain-drain is that it is a global phenomenon, affecting almost every country. India, too, has been facing this problem and it is discussed from time to time in a rather casual and cursory manner. It is revived with afresh momentum when some Indian repatriate in another country achieves some distinction in his field of work. It caught the headlines when Dr. Jayant Narlikar discovered his Hoyle-Narlikar Theory, when Dr. Hargobind Khurana was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1968, and also when the famous India-born U.S. astrophysicist Dr. S. Chandrashekbara came to India to deliver the Second Nehru Memorial Lecture in New Delhi. Similarly, Dr. Lars Onsager, Norway-born U. S. citizen was awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1968. Cases like these provoke and set in motion 'long drawn debates on the subject of Brain-drain. But these discussions, except for blaming these men of genius for lack of patriotic telling and sense of duty to their land of birth and for cupidity, do not yield any results because (i) such cases are only exceptions and not the general rule, (ii) the distinction and achievement these men of genius secured in their land of repatriation could not have been possible, or of much value, in their land of birth, and (iii) the loss of one single country is a colossal gain to the world at large. Let us also analyze the reasons which prompt such people to leave the land of their birth for foreign shores. Is it merely the enchantment and glamour of life in more affluent countries, or is it the search for a more satisfying professional career. An overwhelming majority of such repatriates go abroad as students seeking academic, scientific or

technological education which is sadly lacking in their own countries. More often than not, such advanced courses of training are designed to benefit the host country. Naturally, such an education has no market in their native countries, and quite obviously, they cannot be accommodated there. So they are forced to seek voluntary exile to settle in .the country of their learning. One more factor deserves consideration. After a promising young-man has completed his training, he usually expects work which should not only bring in enough money and other emoluments but also give him sufficient professional satisfaction. But a greater contributing factor to this problem of Brain-drain is the unimaginative handling of the issue by the most callous and unimaginative bureaucracy of the country. The research workers and men of genius are men out of the ordinary and their work is of an extraordinary nature. But bureaucracy fails to cope with such people for it lacks the intellectual equipment and sensibility needed to handle such volatile human material. Very often, this becomes the main deciding factor for the emigrant, with other factors acting as catalytic agents. In India, the pattern of Brain-drain has caught the public eye very recently. Facts and figures are put forward to emphasize the terrible loss being caused to the country as a result of this phenomenon. The Scientific and Technical Personnel Division of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (GSIR) issued in 1962 the 'Indians Abroad Roster' which gives an approximate figure of 29,000 skilled scientists, engineers, doctors, teachers and technical personnel migrating to foreign countries. However, this statistics is not factually accurate, and

so, this does not reflect the magnitude of the problem, the Brain-drain coming to about 3 per cent of the skilled personnel available in India. But what is really alarming is the information that the average age of migrants is between 20 and 40 years. This means that India is losing the cream of the intelligentsia at the most productive period of their life. The Government of India set up the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, partly with a view to meeting the problem of Brain-drain. The C.S.I.R. installed in 1958 the scheme of scientists' pool as a device for bringing back highly qualified Indian nationals from abroad. On papers this scheme has been doing some service but in actual practice the scheme has flopped owing to various simple reasons viz., a yawning discrepancy in salary and emoluments and a severe lack of research-cum- workshop facilities for the highly skilled and specialized scientists. The problem of Brain-drain should be tackled at national and international level on a broad-based and rational pattern, for it is a global issue. On the national level, a country like India, should ameliorate the working conditions of scientists and equip the laboratories with latest technology. Internationally, the country gaining by Brain-drain must compensate the losing country by sending her scientists in return.

Brain Drain is not a saying that one hears commonly these days, not in India and not in the West. It is not that the number of students or young professionals who leave India has come down. On the contrary, in 2005 the number of Indian students joining universities in the United States reached an all time high at over 80,000. India for the first time became the largest source of foreign students to the U.S., overtaking China in the process. The same may be true generally of the United Kingdom, Australia, etc. And yet neither side suspicions extremely about either the brain drain or being overwhelmed by this flow. Why? The answer lies in the changing dynamics domestically and globally. And it is a dynamics that is as yet unfolding. The worries about the brain drain were a phenomenon of the 1970s and the 1980s and quite legitimate from a national point of view. The best and the brightest from the IITs, to name the most premier category in the outflow, migrated in droves to the U.S. It is understandable that this was deemed a loss at a societal and national level. Here were these elite institutions, built and operated as a national project with substantial resources and obligation, attracting the competent after a vicious competition, and producing world class engineers and technologists as products of quality education, at virtually a nominal cost.

And the result? It was rewarding for the individual no doubt, but questionable for society. "When one joins the IIT, after the first year it is only the body that is in India; the heart and the soul is already sold to the U.S.," it was said with some justification, though this was a sweeping generalization and there were many honorable exceptions. According to one figure, there are more than 30,000 ex-IITians in the U.S. Medical professionals migrating to the West followed a more complicated route and yet, according to one estimate, there are more than 70,000 doctors of Indian origin in the U.S. alone. Similarly, there are large numbers elsewhere in the West, and not only in the West. Many thousands found greener pastures in the not-so-green desert in the Gulf. Today, the Indian Diaspora all over the world is estimated at more than 20 million but there does not seem to be a figure for professionals as such. However, the outflow of Indians with talent, training, and technical skills has been a notable feature in the country's recent outward migration pattern. If we have stopped talking of this phenomenon as a "drain," and are beginning to see it as a more complex reality of Indian society, it is for a number of reasons. To start with the mundane and the material, even in the heyday of the talk about the brain drain (not all that long ago), there was a counter argument that the country benefited from the remittances of the then precious foreign exchange such NRIs sent. It is doubtful whether India gained significantly from remittances from NRIs in the West. In fact, the substantial remittances were from

our workers in the Gulf rather than from the professionals saving or investing their money in the developed world. There was the more tenable argument that there were better opportunities for such an elite in the West than in India and that in terms of their professional development they were better off being productively engaged in the West than facing frustrations in India. It was also believed that with our abundant endowments in "human resources" and the existing infrastructure in education, India would always have enough and more from the pool that produced such professionals and could thus afford the outflow. In an empirical sense this has turned out to be the case, though an economist may have an alternative perspective on how the state has subsidized our educated elite, a section of which has contributed to another society and not ours, Besides all this is a basic fact, which is not stated but has to be accepted: we are simply not the type of polity or society that can either control or regulate the outflow of talent in search of opportunities outside if they are deemed better. We are just unable of any such regimentation. Irrespective of the qualities or the demerits of the above arguments, the point being made here is that the picture has been changing since the 1990s in a number of ways and the loss-gain calculus is more complex. The psychological and the sociological impact of the Indian success story abroad on India is perhaps yet to be analyzed. In the last two decades, as many Indian professionals and entrepreneurs did really

well, they contributed to changing perceptions about India and Indians in an international context. The value of this for India cannot be quantified but is nevertheless very real. Indian professionals in that sense teachers, doctors, engineers or accountants were instruments in changing the image of India. This process took a quantum jump with our success in the Information Technology sector, which does require a special mention as today it has become synonymous globally with India's changing profile. The substantial presence, profile, and accomplishments of Indians in the Silicon Valley have also gradually led to replication of some of the business models in India, leading to our own much heralded success in this area. Another word about the IT success may be in order. Is it exaggerated and blown out of all proportion? It is fair to say that the IT sector is a microcosm, employs a minuscule percentage of the workforce in the Indian context and should not lead, us to the illusion of India shining everywhere. However, there are other qualitative aspects. Irrespective of the numbers, the IT success has given us a confidence to compete and excel with the best in the world, has imbued many young people with a "can do" attitude, and, equally importantly, has changed the image of India. Equally importantly, in real terms it has changed the notion of the locale and the workstation and has given us some early advantages in

being plugged into a global system where national boundaries are getting blurred for an increasing number of knowledge workers. Seen in another way, the flows in work, revenue, and travel are going to get more complex and multivectoral than before. This picture has been changing more rapidly since 2000. With our sustained economic growth and the increasing opportunities in India for the skilled and the competent, distant shores may not shine as brightly as before. The rising remuneration levels in India, the exciting and energizing work environment, the spread of outsourcing and off shoring to India by major global corporations, the emergence of world class Indian companies that compare favorably with the best in the world to attract and retain talent these are only some of the factors that will change the paradigm of brain flow in one direction. In fact we are already witnessing bright engineers from the U.S. wanting to intern or work in India as it will look good on their bioprofile; some long-term residents in the West returning for reasons of more attractive opportunities or better quality of life; leading Indian companies hiring more foreigners for diversity, etc. Being close to the Silicon Valley, this writer sees all this as a part of his day-to-day professional work. It is not the contention here that the brain drain has been reversed or that India can be complacent with regard to its technologically trained manpower or that we can even meet our own requirements. (A recent study by the National Association of Software and Service Companies

[NASSCOM] for instance demonstrates how we will have shortages even in fields such as IT where we have strengths.) There are many issues to be addressed. But it is important to realize that it is an increasingly shrinking world, especially for the "brains"; what we need is a more sophisticated understanding of the nationalinternational dynamics at work, at the workplace.