Immigration and India

Ok. This is a little of Intel and a little of India.

 

Intel had this science contest in the US (which I had read about briefly on the LAN). Of course, just another science contest (though probably a big BIG one). And without going into details I can let you assume all that you know about science contests. What was interesting, (as I had already noticed in our LAN article) was the list of winners-

 

Linda Zhou, Alice Wei Zhao, Lori Ying, Angela Yu-Yun Yeung, Lynnelle Lin Ye, Kevin Young Xu, Benjamin Chang Sun, Jane Yoonhae Suh, Katheryn Cheng Shi, Sunanda Sharma, Sarine Gayaneh Shahmirian, Arjun Ranganath Puranik, Raman Venkat Nelakant, Akhil Mathew, Paul Masih Das, David Chienyun Liu, Elisa Bisi Lin, Yifan Li, Lanair Amaad Lett, Ruoyi Jiang, Otana Agape Jakpor, Peter Danming Hu, Yale Wang Fan, Yuval Yaacov Calev, Levent Alpoge, John Vincenzo Capodilupo and Namrata Anand.

 

What a diverse group! Ummm… not really! What an Indian-Chinese group! Same as what Friedman has mentioned in his column. (List is from the column) But while Friedman is concerned about US' policy on immigrants, I am thinking more about it in generic terms.

  (By the way, before I forget, I have noticed how Intel US has a good number of Indians (and in key positions -- actually they actively encourage diversity) though I am sure that would be true of most companies. I know we were supposed to know it, but sometimes it gets at you! Ok. No more company propaganda.)

So what I am thinking is - Is allowing immigrants good for a country? Yes. Obviously. And not only because new ideas, new mixture of people and all that blah. But because the guys who are ready to move on are precisely the kind of guys who can spur improvement. And I think we should ponder a little more about that one.

That being said, is allowing people to immigrate good for us? Obviously not. Like I said, we would be left with a lot that is mostly complacent (though of course there might some folks genuinely interested in development).Besides, we would be losing a good number of resources, as is usually claimed.

Point is that it is high time we thought about valuing our brainforce and giving them a healthy environment. Correction. It is high time we started respecting people who know more than us and I mean this as individuals. The problem with India is not only money. It is the environment, the politics, narrow-mindedness and lack of sensible, objective, mutual respect. I could have ended this post with the first line of this paragraph. But I think the issue here is not that India needs x or y. Issue is how many Indians, as individuals, really practice what they claim India lacks. The day, that bridge vanishes, we would have an age of rationalism in India.

And I am waiting eagerly for it ….