Question

Article on brain drain????

Answer 1

 The main reason for this brain drain is that our man power planning has not kept pace with employment opportunities.  We have a large pool of scientific and technical manpower that is waiting for respectable assignments.  Several thousand engineering graduates are waiting for employment.  Some feel that they are under-employed, so they migrate to countries wherever they find better opportunities.  It is also the grievance of some of them that they do not have adequate facilities and a congenial environment for work or research in this country.  In fact, the situation is no different in many other countries too.  They are the victims of academic colonialism which is an aspect of today’s neo-colonialism.According to a UN definition, the flight of talent that is required for a country’s development to another country is called brain drain.  We have been experiencing this problem ever since we won out freedom.  It was with great effort and high hopes that we set up our institutes of higher education. It is unfortunate that thousands of our doctors and engineers are leaving the country every year.  More recently, the malady has affected the field of oil exploration, nuclear energy and agriculture also.  A poor and developing country like India cannot afford this big brain drain.

The government has every reason to feel concerned about this problem because the number of scientific and technical personnel leaving India has increased in recent years.  Measures taken to persuade our scientific and technical man power to return have not yielded results.  The fact is that even now it is difficult to find suitable jobs for those who would like to return.  Whenever some of them return and are given higher placements in an organisation on account of their qualifications and experience, the locals in the organization resent it and make the working environment for them uncongenial and hostile.  They also complain or lack of job satisfaction due to the near absence of innovative research.  We do hear of the government toying with the ideas of science cities, pool scientists and technological parks to attract talent, but a lot of all this remains on paper or in files only.

                Indian workers, scientists, doctors and engineers have already made their mark in several countries.  In America alone, more than 25 per cent of the doctors, engineers and technical personnel are from India.  Big part of the economy of this richest country in the world depends upon those who have migrated to this country from India only.  Indians working in fields, factories, hospitals and commercial units are known for their sense of duty and dedication.  They form the back bone of the whole economic system in that country.

                The human resources department of the government has laid stress on the evolution of suitable mechanism to bring back and woo talent from other countries.  It has proposed that lecture assignments, consultancy in industry and assistance in setting up of pilot projects in India should be considered.  The administrative procedures should be made more flexible.  The areas of bio-technology, micro-electronics etc. offer significant potential for our technical personnel.

                In fact what we require is a proper planning of our requirements.  Students should pursue only those fields that are called for.  They should not run after highly specialized courses which have no relevance in the country’s economic development.  An awareness should be brought amongst those intending to go abroad that it is their moral duty and sacred obligation towards their country to serve their motherland first and foremost.

The government must think in terms of instituting a compulsory national service for a limited period of time for those science, engineering and medicine graduates who are desirous of going abroad.

The basic facilities congenial for research and education should be provided in the institutions so that our technical graduates do not feel ill-at-ease in their own set-up.  Let every graduate realize that he has a duty towards the country that educated him and that his leaving the country in a lurch is nothing short of a treacherous betrayal.