[lit-ideas] IT and tech support

_http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4447833.stm_ 
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4447833.stm) 
 
(Please also see 
_http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/norfolk/3623993.stm_ 
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/norfolk/3623993.stm)  if  you 
wonder why any tech-support of any advice has been absolutely ludicrously  
unworkable lately.)
 
 
<<India's IT prodigals return home 
 
By Harsh Kabra 
BBC News, Pune  

In the 13 years that Sean Narayanan lived in the US, he earned a masters  
degree from Oklahoma University, worked with a top consulting firm and served 
at  
senior positions in technology companies.  
Three years ago, he sold off his 3,800 sq ft plush house in Virginia and  
returned to India.  
"India today offers the best of both worlds," Mr Narayanan says.  
"Global experience seems essential in the infotech industry and there's no  
better place than India to get it."  
He now works as a major division head at Cognizant, a Nasdaq-listed infotech  
services provider.  
'Brain gain'  
Santanu Paul is another Indian who spent 13 years in the US, obtaining a  
doctorate in computer science from Michigan University, working with IBM in New 
 
York and leading two technology start-up companies.  

 
In 2003, he decided to return to India to become the general manager at a  
Hyderabad-based software services firm.  
"Right now, India feels like an exciting start-up company, while the West  
feels like a plodding large company," says Dr Paul.  
Less than a decade ago, people like Mr Narayanan and Dr Paul would have been  
rare exceptions in a generation that fancied the West as the land of  
opportunity.  
Today, they are among the over 25,000 expatriate Indian infotech  
professionals estimated to have returned home in the last four years.  
That figure comes from the National Association of Software and Service  
Companies (Nasscom), the premier trade body of India's booming infotech  
industry. 
 
Around 40% of these professionals are believed to have returned last year  
alone.  
The American Electronics Association, the largest hi-tech trade association  
in the US, has described it as America's brain drain and India's brain gain. 
The  trend, it says, is challenging America's technology leadership.  
India's booming economy, promise of an affluent lifestyle, the emotional  
satisfaction of staying closer to friends and family, and the desire to bring 
up  
children closer to their roots are what is fuelling the movement home.  
Rajesh Panicker, vice-president in a Mumbai (Bombay)-based company, spent  
four years in the US.  
"It was like living in a five-star hotel, but it wasn't home," he says.  
'Breathless excitement'  
There is a pattern in the choice of companies that these professionals want  
to work with after returning.  

     India feels like an  exciting start-up company, while the West feels 
like a plodding large  company 
Santanu Paul  
 
Nasscom estimates that nearly 30-40% of them are working in offshore infotech 
 services set-ups.  
The 'reverse brain drain' is not limited to infotech alone.  
In 2002, Arjun Kalyanpur, an assistant professor at the Yale University  
School of Medicine, returned home to set up India's first company that provides 
 
hospitals with tele-radiological services.  
"There is breathless excitement in India today," he says.  
"The technology gap between the West and the East has narrowed."  
The returnees do regret the creaky infrastructure, corruption and lack of  
cleanliness back home.  
But they believe it's only a matter of time before India overcomes such  
irritants.  
As Cognizant's Sean Narayanan puts is: "It's never an apples-to-apples  
comparison."  

Story from BBC  NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/4447833.stm

Published:  2005/04/29 14:28:26 GMT

© BBC  MMV>>



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