Reverse Brain Drain

 * Himanshu Tyagi, 32, an IIT-Delhi graduate who earlier worked for Intel in the US, is an assistant professor at IIT-Ropar.
* Ashish Ahuja, 31, also from IIT-Delhi, who was earlier working in Paris, is a visiting faculty at IIT-Ropar.
* Sanjiv Gupta, 35, a Yale University alumnus, teaches Mathematics at IIT-Ropar.
These are just a few of the many young professionals who have quit successful corporate jobs and research careers abroad to return to India and teach at the Indian Institute of Technology-Ropar, the first of the eight new IITs to start classes on its own campus.
“We have a faculty strength of 45. Of these, over 30 are in their early and mid-thirties who did their masters from abroad and were pursuing their careers in foreign countries. In fact, every single faculty member in our computer engineering department has a PhD from a foreign university,” says Professor M K Surappa, director of IIT-Ropar.
The trend has been noticed in IIT-Mandi too, which will be starting classes in its campus from this session. While its direcor, Professor Timothy Gonsalves, is busy conducting interviews for faculty recruitment, the institute’s Registrar, A K Srivastava, says: “Majority of the applicants are in their early thirties who are working in well-known firms.”


Friends, I am excited to see this. I wanna see India excel in the R & D map of the world and these young professionals are my hope in achieving this.  I am willing to start a R & D fund with like minded people. The fund will be utilised for research in areas such as Harnessing Solar Energy and Wind energy. I am going to decide the modalities of the fund soon. Your suggestions are most welcome.