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GeoJournal (2007) 68:131140 DOI 10.1007/s10708-007-9078-8
From brain drain to brain gain: reverse migration to Bangalore and Hyderabad, Indias globalizing high tech cities
Elizabeth Chacko
Published online: 26 May 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007
Abstract This paper assesses the mutual impact of returning Indian-origin skilled workers on the cities of Bangalore (Bengaluru) and Hyderabad, which have emerged as Indias leading tech cities. During the 1970s and 1980s, there was concern that India was losing its educated workforce to the West, particularly to the United States through a phenomenon known as brain drain. More recently, there is evidence that reverse brain drain is occurring, as U.S.-trained Indian professionals are returning to their home country in increasing numbers to take advantage of new growth and employment opportunities. The effects of this skilled, transnationally active labor force on various sectors of the economy, on the social and physical infrastructure of Bangalore and Hyderabad and in forging and solidifying trans-national linkages between India and the United States are explored in this paper. This study also investigates the reasons why successful US professionals of Asian-Indian origin are returning to their home country via a series of personal interviews. The paper offers Bangalore and Hyderabad as worldwide leading cities with a niche status in the global Information Technology (IT) sector.
Keywords Reverse brain-drain India Bangalore Hyderabad Transnational migration
The cities of Bangalore (also known as Bengaluru) and Hyderabad gained recognition recently as leading centers of high tech industry and high level services. Located in the Indian states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh (AP), they are Indias 5th and 6th largest cities respectively (Census of India 2001). Regional capitals that lagged behind more established industrial, nancial and commercial hubs such as Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad catapulted to their present status as modern metropolises of national and international signicance in the 1990s. These cities are linked to the global economy through rms that develop software and hardware, call centers that meet the needs of rms located in the United States and in Europe and superior educational and research institutions (Heitzman 2004; Nair 2005; Ramachandraiah and Bawa 2000).
The transfer of nancial capital and knowledge, and the political will of state and city governments to attract the assets necessary to...