The Global Indian

By Emily Bazar, USA TODAY

It wasn’t the U.S. economy that convinced Tao Guo to leave the USA. It was the Chinese economy.

After 24 years in the United States, the 46-year-old naturalized citizen moved to Shanghai in December to take a high-level position at WuXi AppTec, which does research for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

He’s among a growing number of highly skilled immigrants who are leaving the USA to take jobs in their native countries, particularly India and China. The International Monetary Fund projects that China’s gross domestic product will grow by 7.5% this year and India’s by 5.4%. In the USA, the GDP is projected to contract by 2.6%. (more…)

Chicago-born Yale graduate Chetan Kumar came to India on a Fulbright scholarship to study Kannada theatre. He stayed on, travelled, unlearnt many concepts, taught and learnt from children before making his mark in Kannada films. But between shoots, he continues to visit children at his family-run school near Mysore. He claims he doesn’t just teach, he also learns and unlearns many notions. And that, for him, is the essence of education.

Source: Times of India. July 7, 2009

She was born in the US, but her dream of doing something for the girl child brought her to India. Pharmacologist and medical researcher Vimala Seshadri moved to Chennai in 2000 and has been bringing up 10 underprivileged girls, aged 4-20 , in a small home in Injambakkam since then. The younger girls study at a nearby school; the older ones have started working. The girls live with her through the year and visit their parents during holidays. Vimala gets by with help from some donors it costs Rs 5-6 lakh a year to run the centre. She believes every city should have at least one home based on her model. With a little money, you can do a lot, she says. You just have to give each person one-on-one attention.

Source: Times of India. July 7, 2009

Chicago-born Sumeet Nagar (standing), MD of Malabar Investment Advisors, spends weekends coaching underprivileged kids from education NGO Akansksha and playing Pictionary. Once, a ninth grader sought help for a physics exam. Only, her textbook was in Marathi. The formulae were the same, only the technical terms were different, says Nagar. So he recalled the English terms and explained them in Hindi, and his student came up with the Marathi words, making for two-way learning. I may not be the best physics teacher, he admits, but as a mentor you have to go beyond your comfort zone.”

Source: Times of India, July 7, 2009

WASHINGTON: As many as 100,000 Indians and an equal number of Chinese will return to their native countries in the next three to five years, a move that will greatly boost their economies and undermine technological innovation in America, a new US study warns.

 The study on immigration by a team at Duke, Harvard and Berkeley universities led by Vivek Wadhwa, an Indian-American technology entrepreneur turned academic, says “America’s loss is the world’s gain”.

Click here to read the complete article 

The U.S. economic magnet is losing some of its power to retain skilled immigrants from China and India, many of whom have come to Silicon Valley to study and work, according to a survey released today of more than a thousand returnees. A powerful combination of career, family, culture and rapidly growing economies in their home countries is drawing them back, threatening U.S. supremacy in an increasingly competitive global environment.

Click here to read the complete survey results from SiliconValley.com