Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. These are the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in New York. But ironically, those who go there are not the poor and the wretched but the skilled and highly qualified doctors, engineers, scientists, nurses and technicians, from other countries including India.

The urge to go to the West has become compelling in India in post-independence years. Both world wars and political upheavals like civil wars and revolutions, spawned large migrations during the first half of this century. The migrations in the latter half stemmed from economic motivation. People in power like scientists and skilled persons have, from the very beginning, played a key role in international migration. The conscious policy to encourage migration of high-quality manpower from other regions and countries is related to the positive contribution made by the immigrants to their country of adoption, resulting in a net advantage to it.

The earnings and remittances from the Indians settled abroad or their eventual return, are poor compensation for the lasting and serious loss inflicted by their outflow. The specific objectives of the anti-brain drain policies, within the framework of independent development, are to bring back to a limited extent, the lost talents and skills from abroad and reduce the outflow in the short run and finally end it, except that necessitated by genuine, multi-lateral international dependence.

Brain Drain means professionals going abroad to work. This is not good because nowadays all the good brains are going out to work for other countries. If they had efficiently utilised their brains in this country, India could have been a better country. America has become a developed country because their maximum number of employees consists of Indians only. So if those employees had worked for India, India would surely have become America. So Brain Drain is not good from an economic point of view.