Google Picks Indian-American CEO

Silicon Valley tech giant Google has named Indian-born IIT-educated Sundar Pichai to head its search, ads, maps, Play Store, YouTube, and Android businesses as part of a major reorganization announced by the company. Current Google CEOs Larry Page and Sergei Brin have kicked themselves upstairs to lead Alphabet, a new holding company which will include Google as well as affiliated companies like the life-extension project Calico and a drone delivery venture called Wing, according to media reports.

FOBs and ABCDs:

Pichai and other Indian-born individuals in Silicon Valley are often referred to as "FOBs" (Fresh Off the Boat) by American-born Indians. FOBs return the "affection" by calling American-born Indians "ABCDs" (American Born Confused Desis). For those unfamiliar with the Indian vernacular, Pichai's first name Sundar means beautiful. All joking aside, it's a matter of great pride and joy to Indians and other immigrants for one of their own to be picked to head an iconic Silicon Valley tech giant.

Google Revenue Growth Slowing



Google Revenue Growth:

While Google continues to generate billions of dollars in cash, its revenue growth is clearly slowing. Google's revenue growth has halved in a year-- from 22% annual growth in Q2/2014 to 11% in Q2/2015. The trend is clear: High growth can not be sustained as new social media competitors like Facebook and Twitter grow to target the same ad market.


Boston Consulting Group's Market Share vs Growth Matrix



Cash Cow Management:

It seems that Google founders Brin and Page have decided to delegate the tending of the cash cow called Google to Pichai.  This will free up the founding duo to focus on investing in new ideas to grow other large high-growth tech businesses in the future as Google's ad revenue growth continues to decline. It's a well-known concept first documented by Boston Consulting Group in a matrix with four quadrants: Stars, Dogs, Cash Cows and Question Marks.

Difficult Transition:

Other high-growth tech companies have found this transition from a cash-cow to new high-growth products very difficult. Apple did well with the PC business but almost failed with its decline until Steve Jobs returned with iPod, iPhone and Tablets to reclaim its high-growth trajectory.  Intel and Microsoft continue to struggle since the growth of Wintel PCs flattened. It will be a big test for Google founders to manage this major transition.

Summary:

Major reorganization announced by Google today is a recognition of the difficult transition its founders face. With all its talent, Google probably has as good a chance as any tech company to meet this challenge head-on. Brin and Page must continue to focus on hiring and retaining the top talent to pull it off.

Related Links:

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Indian-American Satya Nadella Appointed Microsoft CEO

Minorities Are Majority in Silicon Valley

Pakistani-Americans in Silicon Valley

Pakistani-American Shahid Khan in the Richest South Asian in America

Google, Hezbollah and Taliban

First Pakistani-American Tech Billionaire

Comments

Riaz Haq said…
Excerpts from New York Times Sept 2013 when Microsoft picked Satya Nadella:


“It is very hard to be a broad-based tech conglomerate,” said David Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School.

“It makes it harder to manage, which is a challenge for Microsoft (applies to Google as well) no matter who the successor is,” said Mr. Yoffie. Long before Mr. Ballmer announced his retirement, he and Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman and co-founder, had both quietly acknowledged that identifying a new leader for Microsoft would be hard. A person who spoke to Mr. Gates several years ago on the subject of succession recalls the Microsoft chairman saying he would support replacing Mr. Ballmer if he could think of someone who could do a better job.

------------

Mr. Sherlund has speculated that Microsoft could give Facebook, with which Microsoft has an existing partnership, control of Bing, in exchange for a share of revenue from the additional traffic it would drive to Facebook’s site. Mr. Sherlund estimates that Microsoft has accumulated losses of more than $17 billion in the search and online business.

Still, while it has sold off or spun out smaller businesses in the past — the travel site Expedia originated at the company in the late ’90s — Microsoft has shown no interest in jettisoning major products.

In its defense, Microsoft notes that its long line of products yields many synergies. Xbox uses a variation of the Windows operating system, while Bing provides search services that are tightly integrated with Windows, Xbox and the Windows Phone mobile operating system.

Further, it could be argued that Microsoft’s competitors are recognizing that, like Microsoft, they need to develop products in areas once considered outside their expertise. Google bought Motorola Mobility to help it get into the hardware business. Apple has been on a start-up acquisition binge to improve its online mapping service. And Amazon, once entirely focused on consumers, has become an important supplier of cloud services to businesses.

Even with those changes, Mr. Yoffie of Harvard said Microsoft’s big rivals are still more focused than it is. “I think the fundamental question for the next C.E.O. of Microsoft,” he said, “is, what is his vision of Microsoft?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/technology/worries-that-microsoft-is-growing-too-tricky-to-manage.html?_r=0
Riaz Haq said…
#Google Executives See Cracks in Company Success. Many are worried that #tech giant is suffering from its #Indian-#American CEO Sundar Pichai's leadership style. His slow deliberations feel like a way to play it safe and arrive at a “no.” #SiliconValley https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/technology/sundar-pichai-google.html?smid=tw-share

The executives, some of whom regularly interacted with Mr. Pichai, said Google did not move quickly on key business and personnel moves because he chewed over decisions and delayed action. They said that Google continued to be rocked by workplace culture fights, and that Mr. Pichai’s attempts to lower the temperature had the opposite effect — allowing problems to fester while avoiding tough and sometimes unpopular positions.

A Google spokesman said internal surveys about Mr. Pichai’s leadership were positive. The company declined to make Mr. Pichai, 49, available for comment, but it arranged interviews with nine current and former executives to offer a different perspective on his leadership.

“Would I be happier if he made decisions faster? Yes,” said Caesar Sengupta, a former vice president who worked closely with Mr. Pichai during his 15 years at Google. He left in March. “But am I happy that he gets nearly all of his decisions right? Yes.”

Google is facing a perilous moment. It is fighting regulatory challenges at home and abroad. Politicians on the left and the right are united in their mistrust of the company, making Mr. Pichai a fixture at congressional hearings. Even his critics say he has so far managed to navigate those hearings without ruffling the feathers of lawmakers or providing more ammunition to his company’s foes.

The Google executives complaining about Mr. Pichai’s leadership acknowledge that, and say he is a thoughtful and caring leader. They say Google is more disciplined and organized these days — a bigger, more professionally run company than the one Mr. Pichai inherited six years ago.

During his time leading Google, it has doubled its work force to about 140,000 people, and Alphabet has tripled in value. It is not unusual for a company that has grown so large to appear sluggish or unwilling to risk what has made it so wealthy. Mr. Pichai has taken some steps to counter that. In 2019, for example, he reorganized Google and created new decision-making bodies so fewer decisions needed his signoff.

Yet Google, which was founded in 1998, is dogged by the perception that its best days are behind it. In Silicon Valley, where recruiting and retaining talent serve as a referendum on a company’s prospects, executives at other tech companies said it had never been easier to persuade a Google executive to forgo a stable, seven-figure salary for an opportunity elsewhere.

Mr. Pichai, a former McKinsey consultant, joined Google in 2004 and quickly demonstrated a knack for navigating a company teeming with big egos and sharp elbows.

In 2015, when Google became part of Alphabet, Mr. Pichai took over as Google’s chief executive. He was promoted again to oversee the parent company as well when Larry Page, a Google co-founder, stepped down as Alphabet’s boss four years later.
Riaz Haq said…
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal's Old Tweets Shared Without Context
In the now-controversial tweet, Agrawal quotes comedian Asif Mandvi from The Daily Show by Jon Stewart.

https://www.thequint.com/news/india/old-parag-agrawal-tweet-shared-without-context

After Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down as the microblogging website's chief executive officer (CEO), the company announced that Parag Agrawal, who was the chief technical officer, would take Dorsey's place at the helm of the company.

Shortly after the news broke, an old tweet from Agrawal's verified Twitter account started doing the rounds on social media, which appeared controversial in its nature.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal's Old Tweets Shared Without Context
In the now-controversial tweet, Agrawal quotes comedian Asif Mandvi from The Daily Show by Jon Stewart.


After Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down as the microblogging website's chief executive officer (CEO), the company announced that Parag Agrawal, who was the chief technical officer, would take Dorsey's place at the helm of the company.

Shortly after the news broke, an old tweet from Agrawal's verified Twitter account started doing the rounds on social media, which appeared controversial in its nature.

In the tweet, Agrawal states, "If they are not gonna make a distinction between muslims and extremists, then why should I distinguish between white people and racists. (sic)"

Agrawal's tweet was shared across social media platforms, where Indian users criticised him for being "woke" in their posts.

The tweet was picked up by many right-wing outlets in the United States (US) and a few members of the Republican Party quote-tweeted Agrawal criticising him.

But we saw that Agrawal's now-controversial tweet from 11 years ago had quotation marks around it and looked for more context around the tweet.

What Was Agrawal Talking About?
We looked at Agrawal's Twitter timeline, filtering using Twitter Advanced Search to obtain more tweets from around the same time – October 2010.

By doing so we came across a reply from Agrawal's account around 12 minutes after the said tweet, where he noted that he was quoting comedian Asif Mandvi from The Daily Show.


We also came across a tweet by CNN journalist Andrew Kaczynski, who noted that Agrawal had quoted a "Daily Show segment that aired that night about stereotypes." The tweet further stated that it was a joke on absurd stereotypes and wasn't a factual statement.

The full episode of 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart', which aired on 15 October 2010, discussed the firing and Williams' statement where he said that he is 'little scared when he saw people dressed in 'Muslim garb' on airplanes.'

Around the nine-minute mark in this video, Mandvi remarks on having fun with discriminatory treatment on airlines and says the following, which is a near-match for Agrawal's now-controversial, out-of-context tweet:

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal shared a quote from a segment from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart nearly 11 years ago, where comedian Asif Mandvi was commenting on the unfair treatment that Muslims (or people of colour) are subjected to while travelling by air in the US.

The tweet is being shared by people across social media platforms to claim that Agrawal is a racist person, and a section of users are of the opinion that such a person should not be put at the helm of a public platform.
Riaz Haq said…
#Indian-#American Vishal Garg, CEO of #California-based mortgage #fintech Better.com fires 900 employees en masse over Zoom video call. Garg cited difficult market conditions, sloppy productivity and poor performance http://toi.in/ZsFh3a7/a24gk via @timesofindia

An Indian-American CEO has caused shock waves and outrage in the American workplace by summarily firing 900 employees in a Zoom call citing difficult market conditions, sloppy productivity and performance on their part despite a $750 million cash infusion into the company from investors.
Video clips of mortgage company Better.com CEO Vishal Garg terminating employees en masse are being widely shared on social media to illustrate what workers said was a heartless approach ahead of Christmas.
Garg, 43, began the Zoom call with the warning, "I come to you with not great news" before telling them, “If you’re on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off. Your employment here is terminated, effective immediately."
“This isn’t news you are going to want to hear. But ultimately, it was my decision and I wanted you to hear it from me. It’s been a really, really challenging decision to make. This is the second time in my career I’m doing this and I do not, do not want to do this. The last time I did it, I cried. This time I hope to be stronger,” Garg says.

As he continues to explain the reasons for firing, shock and agony can be heard from fired workers constituting what the company officials said was 9 per cent of the 10,000 strong firm.
“This is not real. Oh my god, I can’t believe this. This is not real. Oh no, this can’t be happening,” the person can be heard saying in one clip.
Garg, an alumnus of the New York University's Stern School of Business and a father of three, founded Better.com in 2013 after his wife and he found it hard to get a mortgage to buy a home in a process most Americans find complicated and bewildering.
"I couldn’t find a single mortgage lender able to offer a pre-approval online without antiquated paper and phone-based manual processing. None could work on my schedule. And none gave me the peace of mind that they were not only the most efficient, but that they also had my best interests at heart," he explained in a founding note in which he disclosed they were still renting a home, even though he is now said to be a billionaire.
Having founded the company aimed at ending "3 weeks of brain damage and phone tag" and introducing a process "where you could get a pre-approval on your mobile phone in about 3 minutes," Garg claimed in the June 2021 note that "Our team has tripled in size (we’ve outgrown two offices in Manhattan) and we’re only continuing to add talented, passionate people who believe in our mission...And we’re just getting started."
Evidently, it was too much too soon. In the Zoom call, Garg explained that the market had changed and the company had to move with it in order to survive.
Better.com has back offices in India and it was not clear how many of the sacked workers are in India and how many in US. Garg said all the US-based employees laid off would get four weeks of severance, a month of full benefits and two months of coverup for which the company would pay the premium.
According to market reports, the mortgage lender received a $750 million cash infusion last week, mainly from Softbank, ahead of going public through a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC).
Riaz Haq said…
What’s the secret behind India’s IIT, which produced Twitter chief Parag Agrawal and other tech titans?
The Indian Institute of Technology is an elite network of 23 engineering schools which boasts the ‘the most difficult admission exam on the planet’
‘IITians’ include Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, Micron Technology’s Nikesh Arora and Sun Microsystems’ Vinod Khosla


https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3160906/whats-secret-behind-indias-iit-which-produced-twitter-chief?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article&campaign=3160906

Above the imposing main entrance of the first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), which opened back in 1951, is the motto “Service to the Nation”. For years, as many graduates of the country’s elite network of engineering schools headed off for greener pastures in the US, the joke among Indians was “which nation?”.
Twitter’s new chief Parag Agrawal recently joined a long list of talented IIT graduates who have become tech titans in Silicon Valley, including Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, Micron Technology’s Nikesh Arora and Sun Microsystems’ Vinod Khosla to name just a few.

By global standards, IIT – which has grown to 23 campuses around India – is way down the academic league tables, according to the widely used QS World University rankings. IIT Bombay fared best of all Indian educational institutions in 2021, coming 177 out of the leading 200 universities in the QS global rankings. By contrast, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was in top position. While IIT scores well on employer reputation, with 70 out of 100 points, it loses heavily on its lack of international students and faculty.
Riaz Haq said…
Why Brahmins lead Western firms but rarely Indian ones

https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/01/01/why-brahmins-lead-western-firms-but-rarely-indian-ones


what do the chief executives of Adobe, Alphabet, ibm, Match Group (which owns Tinder), Microsoft, OnlyFans (a subscription service featuring content creators in various stages of undress) and Twitter have in common? All seven happen to be of Indian origin. That is not surprising considering the abundance of subcontinental talent drifting into Western companies: in recent years Indians have been granted well over two-thirds of America’s h-1b visas for highly skilled workers.

But these particular bosses share something else, too. They are all top-caste Hindus. Four are Brahmins. Traditionally associated with the priesthood and learning, this pinnacle of the caste pyramid’s 25,000-plus sub-groups makes up just 50m or so of India’s 1.4bn people. The other three ceos come from castes traditionally associated with commerce or “scribal” professions such as book-keeping. These groups account for a similarly slim section of the pyramid’s capstone: the 30% of Hindus that the government classes as “forward” castes, as opposed to the 70% who fall among such categories as “backward” or “scheduled” castes (Dalits, formerly known as untouchables) and “scheduled tribes”
Riaz Haq said…
Dalit Diva
@dalitdiva
(Thenmozhi Soundarajan)

In the grand silicon valley tradition of white cismen passing the torch to Brahmin cismen Jack Dorsey is stepping down and Parag Agarwal is the new CEO of Twitter. Will he also remain silent about Caste? #casteintech

https://twitter.com/dalitdiva/status/1465358123640655875?s=20

Remember Microsoft went from Steve Ballmer to Satya Nadella & Alphabet from Larry Page to Sundar Pinchai. These companies still have caste discrimination while having leadership that is racially diverse but caste priviliged. DEI is the need of the hour. #Casteintech

https://twitter.com/dalitdiva/status/1465358125616152581?s=20
Riaz Haq said…
#India's #IIT professor says 'ghosts exist', claims to have driven out 'evil spirits' via chants. Behera teaches Electrical Engineering. He has a PhD from IIT #Delhi. His specialities include #robotics and Artificial Intelligence (#AI) #Hindutva #BJP #Modi https://www.timesnownews.com/the-buzz/article/iit-mandi-director-prof-laxmidhar-behera-says-ghosts-exist-claims-to-have-driven-out-evil-spirits-via-chants/849746

KEY HIGHLIGHTSProfessor Laxmidhar Behera, Director of IIT Mandi, said that "ghosts exists"In a video, he claimed that he went to Chennai in 1993 to drive out "evil spirits" from his friend's house and familyHe said that he chanted holy mantras in his apparent act of exorcism

A video of the newly appointed Director of IIT Mandi, Professor Laxmidhar Behera, talking about his apparent act of exorcism to get rid of "evil spirits" from his friend's house by chanting holy mantras has surfaced online.

In the five-minute video, Behera recalled the 1993 incident when he travelled to Chennai to help a friend who was in distress as his "family was affected by ghosts".

The professor said that he had started "practising the thoughts and wisdom in the Bhagavad Gita" along with chanting the 'Hare Rama Hare Krishna' mantra. He said that he had decided to help his friend to "demonstrate the potency of the holy name", The Indian Express reported.

"So I took two of my friends and reached at 7 pm. He was in a research scholar apartment. After 10-15 minutes of loud chanting, we suddenly saw his father, who was a very short... person, absolutely old, barely able to walk, and suddenly his hand and leg was... he was creating such a ghastly dance and his head is almost touching the roof. You could feel that he is being completely devoured by the evil spirit," Behera said in the video.

He added that the mother and wife of the friend were later "possessed by the evil spirit'. It took them around "45 minutes to an hour" of loud chanting to ward off the "evil spirit", he said.

The video was posted seven months ago on a YouTube channel named "Learn Gita Live Gita". The tagline of the channel is "Project by IITIANS who live Gita."

Behera told IE, "I narrated what I said. Ghosts exist, yes."

Behera is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. He has done PhD from IIT Delhi and his areas of speciality are robotics and Artificial Intelligence.
Riaz Haq said…
Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy says IITs have become victims to rote learning due to coaching classes


https://www.timesnownews.com/business-economy/companies/infosys-founder-nr-narayana-murthy-says-iits-have-become-victims-to-rote-learning-due-to-coaching-classes-article-95545869

As more and more students leave India for higher studies, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy proposed that governments and corporates should “incentivise” researchers with grants and provide facilities to work here. “The 10,000 crore per year grants for universities under the New Education Policy will help institutions become competitive", he said.


https://youtu.be/2vzSwExIoNg

Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy on Tuesday expressed concern over India’s education system saying that even the IITs are becoming a victim of learning by rote due to the “tyranny of coaching classes.” Murthy suggested that our education system needs a reorientation directed towards Socratic questioning.
The Infosys founder, who himself is an IIT alumnus, batted for Socratic questioning in the classroom in order to arrive at solutions to real-world issues. “Many experts feel that (in) our country, (there is an) inability to use research to solve our immediate pressing problems around us… (this) is due to lack of inculcating curiosity at an early age, disconnect between pure or applied research," he said.

As to what could be done to solve this, the 76-year-old suggested that the first component is to reorient teaching in schools and colleges towards Socratic questioning in the classroom to solve real-world problems rather than passing the examinations by rote learning. Socrates was a fifth century (BCE) Greek philosopher credited as the founder of Western philosophy.
Speaking at the 14th edition of the Infosys Prize event in Bengaluru, Murthy said that the nation’s progress on the economic and social front depends on the quality of scientific and technological research. Research thrives in an environment of honour and respect for intellectuals, meritocracy and the support and approbation of such intellectuals from society, he noted.

Riaz Haq said…
Neither Indian nor Pakistani universities make the top 100 world rankings. 


All Indian-American CEOs here have studied in the US and earned advanced degrees in America without which they wouldn't advance. 

I bet these CEOs are a lot more rational than most of the Indian grads from IIT or anywhere else in India. 

These CEOs wouldn't make it to the top in America if they spewed the kind of hate and bigotry that is the norm in India.
Riaz Haq said…
India is about to surpass China as the world's most populous country.

India has overtaken China in terms of the US F-1 student visas issued.

Graduate programs in STEM and business fields at US universities are dominated by Indian and Chinese students.

100,000 Indians and 56,000 Chinese students have been issued US F-1 visa in 2022.

Most Chinese students go back to China while the vast majority of Indian students stay in the US for employment after graduation.

So it makes sense that some of the top Indian students graduating from US universities rise to become CEOs of tech companies.

Riaz Haq said…
Hiring for top positions occurs mostly from within the company.

People like Parag Aggarwal, Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai rose to these positions after working at Twitter, Microsoft and Google for many years.

All of them came to the US to study before being hired to work at these tech companies.

The probability of such promotions is a lot higher if there are lots of Indians coming out of US grad schools and working for these companies.

Currently, there are 199,182 Indian students and just 8,772 Pakistani students enrolled in US universities.

https://opendoorsdata.org/data/international-students/leading-places-of-origin/
Riaz Haq said…
A third of India's most sought after engineering graduates leave the country

https://qz.com/a-third-of-indias-iit-graduates-leave-the-country-1850522071

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w31308/w31308.pdf

Banaras Hindu University saw a 540% spike in immigration among graduates after it was turned as an IIT in 2012

One-third of those graduating from the country’s prestigious engineering schools, particularly the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), migrate abroad.

Such highly-skilled persons account for 65% of the migrants heading to the US alone, a working paper (pdf) of the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) has concluded.


Nine out of 10 top scorers in the annual joint entrance examination held nationally for admission to the IITs and other reputed engineering colleges have migrated. Up to 36% of the top 1,000 scorers, too, have taken this path, according to the paper published this month.

In the US, there is a long list of IIT graduates now leading executives and CEOs. However, most immigrants move to the US as students and eventually join the US workforce. The NBER paper found that 83% of such immigrants pursue a Master’s degree or a doctorate.

“...through a combination of signaling and network effects, elite universities in source countries play a key role in shaping migration outcomes, both in terms of the overall propensity and the particular migration destination,” the report said.

India has 23 IITs across the country. The acceptance rates at most these hallowed institutions are lower than those of Ivy League colleges, especially at the most sought-after IITs at Kharagpur, Mumbai, Kanpur, Chennai, and Delhi. In 2023 alone, 189,744 candidates registered for the JEE, competing for only 16,598 seats.

Global economies are keen on highly skilled Indians
The US graduate program is a key pathway for migration, to recruit the “best and brightest,” the NBER report said.

Similarly, the UK’s High Potential Individual visa route lets graduates from the world’s top 50 non-UK universities, including the IITs, stay and work in the country for at least two years. For doctoral qualification, the work visa is for at least three years.

Fresh IIT graduates looking to move abroad are helped by a network of successful alumni and faculty already settled abroad, the report said. Some even provide access to particular programs where they have influence over admissions or hiring decisions.


The interesting case of Banaras Hindu University

In 2012, the century-old Banaras Hindu University (BHU), also India’s first central university, was accorded IIT status. The institute located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, was elevated without any changes to its staff, curriculum, or admission system.

The NBER report studied 1,956 BHU students who graduated between 2005-2015 with a BTech, BPharm, MTech, or integrated dual degrees. It found a 540% increase in the probability of migration among graduates after the grant of the IIT status.

“...the quality of education/human capital acquired by the students in the cohorts before and after the change remained constant, while only the name of the university on the degree received differed,” the report said.



Riaz Haq said…
Brain drain: Two in three Indian emigrants are highly educated

https://scroll.in/article/1021175/brain-drain-two-in-three-indian-emigrants-are-highly-educated


Indians have been leaving the country in droves because of better job and education opportunities.


The world’s largest source of immigrants also ranks high in terms of their education levels. And here is why that is a problem.


Nearly two-thirds of those migrating out of India seem to be highly educated, having received academic or vocational training. This is the highest for any country, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

This brain drain is a “consequence of an education system designed for ‘selecting’ the best and brightest in an economy that is still too controlled and cannot create opportunities for its best and brightest”, according to economist Shruti Rajagopalan.

Unemployment crisis
In India, unemployment levels rise with education, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. As of December 2021, one in five college graduates was unemployed. Besides a lack of jobs, there are also the problems of a skills-opportunity mismatch and corruption to deal with in the country.

Additionally, gender and caste discrimination still wreak havoc. These problems exist in the west as well but are not as acute as they are in India.

Opportunities abroad
Indians have been leaving the country in droves because of job opportunities with better pay and work hours. In the United States and United Kingdom, for instance, professionals in the healthcare and science, technology, engineering and math fields are in high demand.

Further, international students are a great source of income for universities abroad. For Indian students, it is not only the quality of courses but the diversity and holistic set-up in those campuses, too, are a huge draw.

An added attraction is the opportunity to stay on after graduation. Post-study visas, like the H-1B in the US, have mostly gone to Indians. Western countries have also etched out categories for startup founders and innovators.

No wonder then that the number of Indians studying abroad is set to grow from 7.7 lakh in 2019 to 18 lakh in 2024.
Riaz Haq said…
TOP TALENT, ELITE COLLEGES, AND MIGRATION:
EVIDENCE FROM THE INDIAN INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY
Prithwiraj Choudhury
Ina Ganguli
Patrick Gaulé


https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w31308/w31308.pdf


We study migration in the right tail of the talent distribution using a novel dataset of Indian high
school students taking the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE), a college entrance exam used for
admission to the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT). We find a high incidence of
migration after students complete college: among the top 1,000 scorers on the exam, 36% have
migrated abroad, rising to 62%for the top 100 scorers. We next document that students who
attended the original “Top 5” Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) were 5 percentage points
more likely to migrate for graduate school compared to equally talented students who studied in
other institutions. We explore two mechanisms for these patterns: signaling, for which we study
migration after one university suddenly gained the IIT designation; and alumni networks, using
information on the location of IIT alumni in U.S. computer science departments.

------


Highly skilled immigrants make important contributions to innovation and technology in
the United States. Often, they study in elite universities in their home countries before getting
advanced degrees abroad. For example, many successful Indian immigrants in the technology
industry—including Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet Inc./Google, and Arvind Krishna, the
CEO of IBM—are undergraduate alumni of the selective Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).
Similarly, Chinese students in U.S. Ph.D. programs overwhelmingly come from a set of highly
selective Chinese universities (Gaulé and Piacentini, 2013).
In this paper, we study migration in the very right tail of the talent distribution for high
school students in India, focusing on the extent to which elite universities in their home country
facilitate migration. We focus on the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). The IITs are
prestigious and highly selective technical universities with lower acceptance rates than Ivy League
colleges, particularly for the original five IIT Campuses.
1 Admission to the IITs is solely through
the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE), where nearly one million exam takers compete for less than ten
thousand spots. Desai, Kapur, McHale, and Rogers (2009) document anecdotal evidence related
to the role of elite institutions in India, such as the IITs and the All India Institute of Medical
Sciences, in facilitating skilled migration to the United States. IIT students have even been
described as “America’s most valuable import from India” (Leung, 2003).
Emigration is often difficult to observe from administrative datasets, and few surveys have
been conducted with a focus on top talent that are not selected on future success or mobility.
2 We
were able to overcome these challenges by leveraging the unanticipated public release of the names
and scores of JEE exam takers in 2010, combined with an intensive manual collection effort on
exam takers’ outcomes. The result is a novel dataset of high school students who took the JEE
exam, linked to college attended and later career, education, and migration outcomes. The data
provides individuals’ scores received on the exam and their national ranking. An important feature
Riaz Haq said…
Why #Indians don't want to be Indian #citizens anymore? More than 1.6 million Indians have renounced their Indian citizenship since 2011, including a whopping 225,620 in 2022 alone, averaging around 618 per day. #Modi #BJP #Hindutva
#chaos #anarchy
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/migrate/why-indians-dont-want-to-be-indian-citizens-anymore/articleshow/101418122.cms

"The principal reason why people migrate is economic well being. Everyone wants a better life and their hope is that they would find it in another country," Amit Dasgupta, former Consul-General of India in Sydney, told IANS.

"In sociology, this is referred to as 'the push factor'. You are pushed out to a place which offers better prospects," Dasgupta said.Many Indian students who go for higher studies abroad also end up settling there as these countries provide them better jobs with attractive pay scales.According to the latest Education Ministry data, more than 770,000 Indian students went abroad to study in 2022 -- a six-year high.

Also, many Indian students find it tough to find jobs after returning home, which is why they apply for permanent residency in their country of study.

More than 90 per cent of the students do not wish to come back to India, say estimates.When it comes to India's rich, they want to swim in foreign waters to diversify their fortune, set up alternative residencies, conduct business and pursue a better quality of life even though India continues to be an attractive environment for business activity and corporate growth.

A 2020 Global Wealth Migration Review report said that among many reasons why people make the decision to migrate to other countries is safety of women and children, lifestyle factors like climate and pollution, financial concerns including taxes, better healthcare for families and educational opportunities for children, and to escape oppressive governments.A low passport score of a country can also make individuals emigrate.

A higher passport index ranking ensures one gets better access to travel visa-free to many countries.The Indian passport registered the largest global fall in the Passport Index 2023 -- ranking at 144th position this year with a mobility score of 70.

This means Indians can travel to 21 countries visa-free, and need a visa for 128 countries.In contrast, a Greece or Portugal residency card provides Indians visa-free travel across all Schengen countries.

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