How real is the problem of brain drain in India?
At 17.5 million, there’s a reason the Indian diaspora is the largest in the world. “Non-residential” Indians are becoming “not-returning” Indians, and even the “reverse brain drain” has stopped. We explore the reasons why,
Brain drain leads to reduced economic growth, limited innovative capacities and a lack of skilled manpower. India is losing its doctors, engineers and entrepreneurs to other countries, it’s losing much of its professional human capital.
The situation of India’s brain drain is not new. The reasons cited by the Indian diaspora are the hope for higher returns on investment, superior standards of living, and better career prospects. Overseas university education has been a favourite among Indian students for a very long time. As of 2018, nearly 7,53,000 Indian students were studying abroad. Several news reports suggest that more than half of the first rankers in Class 10 and Class 12 examinations during 1996-2015 had migrated and were studying or employed overseas, mostly in the US.
The toppers are just the tip of an iceberg of student migration. There’s this growing sense of dissatisfaction generally, among the students that the current Indian education system is inept at preparing them for the challenges of the increasingly globalised world. The lack of innovative courses is drawing a lot of young students to leave Indian shores for better education overseas.
India ranks number one in the list of migration of the rich and educated, beating China and the Philippines which is 65% of the world’s migration numbers.
In 2018, the number was 1,34,561, while 1,44,017 renounced their citizenship in 2019, 85,256 in 2020 and 1,63,370 in 2021.
A few weeks ago, social media giant Twitter appointed Indian-born Parag Agrawal as its new CEO, prompting widespread pride and applause for the technology executive across India.
Agrawal began his career at the company as an engineer just 10 years ago and has made his way up the career ladder.
He is the latest in a long line of India-born tech CEOs, the likes of which include Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, and IBM’s Arvind Krishna.
Besides tech, people of Indian heritage in other fields have also made waves this month, including Gita Gopinath’s appointment as the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund and New Zealand Cricket’s Ajaz Patel claiming all 10 Indian wickets in the second test.
India’s praise for its champions abroad has also sparked debates over the country’s so-called brain drain, both online and within the government.
A Global Wealth Migration Review report found that nearly 5,000 Indian millionaires — 2% of all high-net-worth individuals — moved abroad in 2020 alone.
According to the UN World Migration Report 2020, India also had the highest number of migrants living abroad with over 17.5 million. The country proudly celebrates the success of Indian-origin champions abroad — from sports to the tech industry. But critics say it only highlights a broader problem of brain drain.
A few weeks ago, social media giant Twitter appointed Indian-born Parag Agrawal as its new CEO, prompting widespread pride and applause for the technology executive across India.
Agrawal began his career at the company as an engineer just 10 years ago and has made his way up the career ladder.
He is the latest in a long line of India-born tech CEOs, the likes of which include Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, and IBM’s Arvind Krishna.
Besides tech, people of Indian heritage in other fields have also made waves this month, including Gita Gopinath’s appointment as the first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund and New Zealand Cricket’s Ajaz Patel claiming all 10 Indian wickets in the second test.
India’s praise for its champions abroad has also sparked debates over the country’s so-called brain drain, both online and within the government.
A Global Wealth Migration Review report found that nearly 5,000 Indian millionaires — 2% of all high-net-worth individuals — moved abroad in 2020 alone.
According to the UN World Migration Report 2020, India also had the highest number of migrants living abroad with over 17.5 million.
India’s global CEOs:
DW profiles some of the India-born chief executive officers (CEOs), who are currently in charge of global companies, including Microsoft and PepsiCo. Google’s Sundar Pichai is the latest addition to this list.
Born in Hyderabad, India, Satya Narayana Nadella became the CEO of the US technology giant Microsoft in early 2014. After completing his Bachelor’s in India, he went to the US to pursue higher education in Computer Science. Nadella had worked with Sun Microsystems before joining Microsoft in 1992.
An Indian Institute of Technology alumnus, Pichai is the new CEO of Internet giant Google. The Chennai-born soft-spoken Pichai joined the company in 2004. Larry Page, one of Google’s two founders, said this in his recent blog about Pichai: “I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down. Indira Nooyi has been the CEO of PepsiCo – the second-largest food and beverage company in the world by net revenue – since 2006.
She has consistently ranked among the world’s 100 most powerful women. Like many others, she attended schools and colleges in India before leaving the country for higher education in the US.
Like Microsoft’s chief Nadella, Narayen is an alumnus of the Hyderabad Public School. He is the CEO of Adobe Systems. Narayen started his professional career at Apple.
Nokia’s CEO Rajeev Suri went to the Manipal Institute of Technology. He became Nokia’s boss after the sale of Nokia’s phone division to Microsoft Mobile was completed.
Ajay Banga has been in charge of MasterCard since 2010. An Economics graduate from Delhi University, Banga did his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
Another graduate of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, Menezes is currently CEO of Diageo, a multinational alcoholic beverages company.
The Indian government reassured parliament earlier this month that it had a “three-pronged strategy” to retain the best of India’s talent, after announcing that more than 600,000 people have given up their Indian citizenship in the last five years.
“The government is committed to not only retaining the students passing out of the premier educational institutions in the country but also attracting the non-resident Indians back to the country,” Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar told parliament.
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