

India Calling: The "brain drain" becomes "brain circulation." - ksvs
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/weekinreview/23anand.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=all

======
terpua
Thanks for the article because I was beginning to feel lonely.

I moved to the Philippines from Silicon Valley in 2003 (during dotcom bust) to
check out high-tech scene back in my homeland.

Was supposed to stay only for a couple of years but turns out there are more
than a few dreamy-eyed hackers (which I hooked up with) turning their backs on
Microsoft, HP and the BPO industry. The bureaucracy is numbing and the
corruption sucks but generally happens to businesses that don't want to pay
taxes (personal, corp, custom, etc.).

I have since setup operations for Friendster and am working on my startup.

The PH gov has setup a special economic zone (5 year corp tax holiday) if your
product serves a mostly (50%+) foreign customer (great for startups).

With so much local talent, a modified YC model would contribute greatly to
innovation and more startups. If you're interested, ping me.

------
patio11
My day job (central Japan, if you were Japanese you'd have heard of it)
figured we'd get the best of both worlds: bring cheap Indian engineers to
Japan. Pay them cheap junior Japanese wages for a year while bringing them up
to something approaching our quality standards for domestic labor. Return them
to India so that they can spread what they learned among the rest of the
engineers who cost 25% of engineers in central Japan.

Not sure if it will be successful or not but I can't say I mind, as I'm
employed precisely because the company sees the rest of the world as being
full of opportunities.

On a tangentially related note, my previous job (also in central Japan)
involved working with another Indian. At the time we were both translators.
After leaving that job he took a job at the rubber company. After two years of
training they sent him back to India to be the assistant to the Japanese head
of their Indian factory -- I think his actual title is VP, but his real job is
right-hand-man. The company pays him every single yen of a Japanese manager's
salary (except in rupees), and my friend, quote, lives like a king such as one
does not hear about except in fairy tale books.

So yeah, there is something to be said for brain circulation. Which makes me
wonder -- when I go back to America, do I count?

------
ChaitanyaSai
I would be more appreciative if he weren't a journalist by occupation (and an
aspiring novelist by extension) Emerging markets (or ex-commonwealth)
literature is now trending upwards and the recent Man Booker prize was awarded
for an Indian expat's debut novel (The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
[http://www.amazon.com/White-Tiger-Novel-Aravind-
Adiga/dp/141...](http://www.amazon.com/White-Tiger-Novel-Aravind-
Adiga/dp/1416562591) )

So it isn't really a brain circulation as much as one individual's canny
career movie for someone whose profession is writing. And it did work, he got
published in the NY Times!

If I were more uncharitable, I'd call this "artistic slumming" for a new
experience fix.

~~~
jyothi
If the circulation happens only for the brains in drain elsewhere and are
looking for opportunities here with the key designation being an NRI - it
doesn't help much!

------
flashgordon
yeah actually i had hoped to see some insight in the article, but didnt find
anything new in there.

Again I wanted to see something like info on more favorable climate for
entrepreneurs (which, is getting better).

------
eterno
Total Fluff

------
FraaJad
fluff piece

