According to wikipedia,
"A brain drain or human capital flight is an emigration of trained and talented individuals (”human capital“) to other nations or jurisdictions, due to conflicts, lack of opportunity, or health hazards where they are living."
And, as is clear from this definition, brain drain is a word with a bad connotation. So, it is no wonder that we hear our politicians, statesmen and intellectuals often mourning brain drain.
For example, here is the President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam on reversing brain drain:
President A P J Abdul Kalam today announced the government would encourage a ”reverse brain drain” to attract some of the brightest and talented children of India and ensure their return to their motherland.
Addressing a joint sitting of Parliament, he appealed to the overseas Indians to engage more actively in India’s development.
Indian students had little reason to learn computer coding before there was a software industry to employ them. But such an industry could not take root without computer engineers to man it. The dream of a job in Silicon Valley, however, was enough to lure many of India’s bright young things into coding, and that was enough to hatch an indigenous software industry where none existed before.
India’s valley-dwellers represent just one contingent in a much larger diaspora. According to the most exhaustive study of the brain drain, released last month by the World Bank, there were 1.04m Indian-born people, educated past secondary school, living in the 30 relatively rich countries of the OECD in 2000. (An unknown number of them acquired their education outside their country of birth, the report notes.) This largely successful diaspora is more than just something to envy and emulate. Its members can be a source of know-how and money, and provide valuable entrées into foreign markets and supply chains.
I know the brain drain is worse for a developing country like India.Actually I too feel that people should not go abroad but I know it is an emotional reaction. Every human being should have the freedom to better his life and in that sense he or she has a right to go. In any case most people will go if they find a better life there. I ofcourse feel that this better life is not worth it because of the fact that we are first class citizens here, not there, but then I have had this discussion so many times with my cousins and friends who have migrated, that I am almost convinced that its okay. They have made peace with it. I am not sure how, and I ofcourse doubt whether I can, but its very individual.
My soul lies here, my earth is here. I need to be one with my country.
And that is the point. For those who leave India and become citizens of another country, why should they remember India? If they become citizens of another country should they not be loyal to that country?
"A brain drain or human capital flight is an emigration of trained and talented individuals (”human capital“) to other nations or jurisdictions, due to conflicts, lack of opportunity, or health hazards where they are living."
And, as is clear from this definition, brain drain is a word with a bad connotation. So, it is no wonder that we hear our politicians, statesmen and intellectuals often mourning brain drain.
For example, here is the President of India, Dr. Abdul Kalam on reversing brain drain:
President A P J Abdul Kalam today announced the government would encourage a ”reverse brain drain” to attract some of the brightest and talented children of India and ensure their return to their motherland.
Addressing a joint sitting of Parliament, he appealed to the overseas Indians to engage more actively in India’s development.
Indian students had little reason to learn computer coding before there was a software industry to employ them. But such an industry could not take root without computer engineers to man it. The dream of a job in Silicon Valley, however, was enough to lure many of India’s bright young things into coding, and that was enough to hatch an indigenous software industry where none existed before.
India’s valley-dwellers represent just one contingent in a much larger diaspora. According to the most exhaustive study of the brain drain, released last month by the World Bank, there were 1.04m Indian-born people, educated past secondary school, living in the 30 relatively rich countries of the OECD in 2000. (An unknown number of them acquired their education outside their country of birth, the report notes.) This largely successful diaspora is more than just something to envy and emulate. Its members can be a source of know-how and money, and provide valuable entrées into foreign markets and supply chains.
I know the brain drain is worse for a developing country like India.Actually I too feel that people should not go abroad but I know it is an emotional reaction. Every human being should have the freedom to better his life and in that sense he or she has a right to go. In any case most people will go if they find a better life there. I ofcourse feel that this better life is not worth it because of the fact that we are first class citizens here, not there, but then I have had this discussion so many times with my cousins and friends who have migrated, that I am almost convinced that its okay. They have made peace with it. I am not sure how, and I ofcourse doubt whether I can, but its very individual.
My soul lies here, my earth is here. I need to be one with my country.
And that is the point. For those who leave India and become citizens of another country, why should they remember India? If they become citizens of another country should they not be loyal to that country?
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