India plans to demand compensation
for effect of brain drain
20 May 1999 (See Nature Volume 399 page 194)
[NEW DELHI] India's delegation to the World Conference of Science (WCS) in Budapest plans to argue for compensation for the loss of trained manpower from developing to developed countries, according to Valangiman Ramamurthi, secretary of the Department of Science and technology.
He says that the delegation will also lay stress on the need to protect unwritten traditional knowledge systems, and seek funding from Unesco for critical areas of science of economic importance, as well as for regional networking of existing facilities.
The government of India, like many in the developing world, including China, has long been concerned about finding ways to limit, or be compensated for, the brain drain of its scientists and doctors. Compensation for brain drain was among the priority issues to emerge at the WCS preparatory meeting that took place at the NIAS earlier this year (see http://helix.nature.com/wcs/a07.html ).
The idea of a compensation fund is one of two alternatives. The other choice is a tax that would be levied by the government on researchers who fail to return home following a PhD or contract research position abroad.
India's expatriate academics, while sympathetic to the government's concerns, are in general opposed to the idea of a tax, and are more likely to favour a compensation fund, says Sunil Shastri, a lecturer in Coastal Management at University College Scarborough in the United Kindgom.
Shastri, who was educated in India, says that doctors in particular, will oppose any tax. He says that most feel that they have already paid their debt to society by being required by the state to work in rural areas for up to two years immediately after qualifying. He adds that a tax will also be difficult to collect, particularly in large countries such as the United States, where the whereabouts of expatriate researchers is hard to trace.
The idea of a compensation fund is also unlikely to be welcomed by foreign governments, particularly the United States, where many Indian-educated academics now live. Governments, for example, are likely to perceive it as a tax on an individual's freedom to live and work where they choose, says Partha Dasgupta, professor of economics at the University of Cambridge.
Dasgupta, who will be one of the keynote speakers at the World Conference, says that there are strong arguments for a tax on academics who received most of their school and college education at the Indian state's expense, although not on those who paid their own way. "For most liberals [the idea of a tax] is an unthinkable question," he says. "But I don't see it that way. If society pays for someone like me to become a doctor, and I walk off to another country, it should be compensated in some way,"
Given divided opinion on the issue, Roddam Narashimha, director of the National Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Bangalore, believes it is premature to bring this issue to international attention at least until more thought is given to how such a scheme will operate in practice.
The Budapest conference will be attended by an eight member official delegation from Indian ministries of education and science, led by science minister Murli Manohar Joshi. "We expect the non-official delegation -from science academies, universities and private organizations -will be much bigger," says Ramamurthi.
Despite the Indian government's unhappiness with the NATO bombing of Belgrade and the United States' handling of the Kosovo crisis by the United States, officials in New Delhi say that this is unlikely to influence their participation in the conference.
"We in the science ministry have been preparing seriously for this event and planning to play an active role in the conference," says
Ramamurthi, adding that the Indian strategy at the meeting will be finalized next week.
He adds that India is pleased that some of the suggestions made at a preparatory meeting in Bangalore had been included in the latest revision of the proposed Framework for Action, to be adopted at the end of the conference.
K S JAYARAMAN & EHSAN MASOOD
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