Source: Outlook India
NEW DELHI, INDIA, January 12, 2003: Man Mohan Jha, 52, a manager with a steel ropes manufacturer in Patna, is counting the days until July when he will migrate to the U.S. with his wife. Jha is part of the most recent and biggest wave of migrants leaving India. The migrants are mainly white-collar professionals, students, and diploma-holders and they are destined for Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the U.S. They will make up part of the 20,000,000 Indians living abroad. According to recent statistics, 246,000 Indians migrated to the U.S. in the last two years and 85,000 skilled computer professionals are leaving India every year, contributing to an annual resource loss of US$2 billion. New Zealand received 11,000 migrant Indians in the last three years, while 5,000 Indians migrated to Canada in 2002. Of the yearly IIT graduates, 50 percent leave India, while 20 percent of the medical school graduates do so. India ranks second among countries exporting people to the U.S. and first among countries exporting students to the U.S.; 90 percent of those students never return.