Accelerating rate of Brain Drain

IBM recently was bullish about the innovations coming out of the conglomerate’s India R&D centre. This is the point at which we pat ourselves on the back for our indigenous tech prowess.

This is one element of the new brain drain. Unlike the earlier version, which saw qualified engineers and management students, many educated at government cost at top-notch institutions, head out to the West for job opportunities that would absorb their skills and offer dynamic career advancement, Brain Drain 2.0 is taking place right here in India. A blue-blooded US company such as IBM is, in effect, extracting value from India’s intellectual capabilities in India. But the commercial applications accruing from those innovations will benefit the bottom line of a company headquartered and listed in New York.

The migration of domestically developed intellectual property to foreign corporations within India reflects a standard anomaly in the demand pattern of the country’s executive job market. In order of preference, foreign companies, preferably in tech, engineering or consumer goods, top the popularity pole. The Indian private sector follows, but the universe of aspiration is extremely narrow to maybe the Tata group, Reliance, Bajaj, Mahindra and the homegrown tech giants such as Infosys, HCL and so on.

India Inc has an inherent disadvantage in this competition for talent because of its domestic focus and family-controlled culture. That is a result of the long years of economic policy which gave the easy advantages to companies in staying off global competition.

But the striking fact is that even three decades after liberalization India Inc retains the lightest of global footprints.

India’s best and brightest still prefer employment with foreign corporations, whether in India or abroad, to maximize their highly prized skills honed in the very best of Indian institutions.

Accelerating rate of the brain drain could seriously impair India’s human capital investment. That’s a reality that surely must be addressed with as much intensity as India’s status as a world power.