There is an article on reverse immigration trend among Chinese-Canadians in Saturday’s Toronto Star (11/2/06). It makes one wonder about similar trends gaining momentum among Indians as well who migrated from India in the past decade or even more. Going back a generation or two, moving out of India to the West was a no-brainer decision. Today, it certainly is a much harder question to answer. Will it be a no-brainer decision for next generation to return to India for a better life and brighter future? Only time will tell.
If the answer is yes, then are we the in-between Generation?

Global trends and statistics overwhelmingly indicate that the 21st century is bringing the Asian revival faster than expected. Many may agree that this is just the beginning and India may need a sustained high growth rate and development efforts to bring it at par with the developed world, but if the current 8+% growth rate is sustained for decade or so India wont be far behind the rest of the developed world. And as the baby boomers enter the consumer market in the next few years, India will be the world’s most important and largest consumer market for western products and services along with China and rest of South Asian region..
The telecom revolution is already changing lives in the way Indians work and live even in rural areas, a sharp contrast to the 5 year waitlist for getting a landline in 80s. As it stands today India’s telecom system is more consumer friendly and flexible when compared to the best in the World. Other mega projects like laying a countrywide network of highways, connecting major rivers, revamping airports will further strengthen self reliance and make India behemoth world power in the next 10 to 15 years. Today, the already strong service and manufacturing industry is adjusting to the sudden influx of international business interests, but in the next 10-15 years Indian industry will be well established in the world markets and will product major Industry giants in a wide spectrum of industries. The world’s next version of Jack Welch, Bill Gates or Trump will very likely be from India or Asia. Today’s King of Steel world is already from India and this is just the infancy of India’s emergence.

The panic is slowly setting in the West and it is getting more and more widespread in different industries and levels of government. The writing is on the wall and we come across it everyday in different ways, last week Time magazine published a cover page article on the mess with Science and Math’s education in US and how India kept its education focus. US President mentioned India and China as the next Economic challenge to US in his State of the union address and the students from top 10 business schools in US are competing to get a summer internship in an Indian company. These are all very loud indication of coming era of Indian dominance in the world economy. These are just a few instances among many that we are getting accustomed to seeing in our daily lives.

One would hope that economic revival would also bring huge improvement in social values, corruption levels and law and order. Say in the next 15 years if all the reasons for which we left India are gone, would we then not say.. ” Yeah, I wish we could go back to our own country, culture and people.”?

It is also just a matter of time that in the next 15-20 years the demography of the population in the Western countries would have a majority of Senior citizens relying on the tax dollars of new minority working class. Do we want our kids to be a part of a minority working class or a part of the newly developed and booming era of Indian and Asian revival ? International professionals and executives are already beginning to show interest in working in India, and if the trend grows then wouldn't the next generation of professional look at india as the most sought after destination to work?

Just as our parents thought about our future and encouraged and motivated us to work hard and go west for a better life, don’t we owe it to our next generation to plan for a better life for them ? While we, stuck in the in-between generation may keep debating to go or not to go back, but those of us with kids should prepare to answer their kids when they grow up, why we should not go and settle in India?

We may not live to see how the 21st century ends but the next generation surely will, and we owe them an answer.

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What can be imagined, can be achieved.

Good article.

Two things I would like to see on a personal level that's already mentioned in the article:

1. India - Improvement in the areas of corruption, beauracracy and red tape to get anything done through the Govt.

2. Canada/US - Reduced emphasis on high school graduations and strong emphasis on the importance of an undergraudate degree. This, I believe, would foster higher expectations and might strengthen the educational background.

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Dimple2001

U touched a sensitive topic most NRIs try to avoid to even think.

Sometime last year, I had posted abt a book that discussed future outsourcing and changing demographics. I cant remember the name of the book (I could do a search in charcha?). Anyways, in the next 15-20 yrs thousands of jobs would move to Asian countries due to labor costs. If a job that does not require day to day human contact, that could be done remotely from a far off location. Due to rapid improvements in communication, working from India/China is not a big deal anymore. Biggies like IBM are chopping off jobs and reducing benefits. Canada is slow to join the outsourcing bandwagon, but eventually catch up.

As you mentioned, western executives are looking at India for lucrative jobs (Europeans are already working in call centres). IMO, our kids will have to look for jobs in India.

DIO

Interesting articles.

The Population in Canada is nearly stagnant or is very very slow in terms of growth.

refer to the following table of population statistics

http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo02.htm?sdi=population

There seems to be a huge "Population Turnover" in Canada.
That means People are coming as migrants, getting citizenship and then they are leaving the country as well for x,y,z ..... reasons.

The effect of this is stagnant population.

Your thoughts ??

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Orginally posted by dimple2001

1. India - Improvement in the areas of corruption, beauracracy and red tape to get anything done through the Govt.

>>>Agreed. On the other hand if the Indian govt becomes efficient like the west, then many jobs will go to India too quickly.

2. Canada/US - Reduced emphasis on high school graduations and strong emphasis on the importance of an undergraudate degree. This, I believe, would foster higher expectations and might strengthen the educational background.
>>>Society plays a big part in individual lives (abt 70%). When there are few jobs and hundreds are competing for it, guess who will get them? Locals or immigrants?

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Society plays a big part in individual lives (abt 70%). When there are few jobs and hundreds are competing for it, guess who will get them? Locals or immigrants?

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Dimple2001

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Orginally posted by dimple2001

Irrespective of what the skin color is, what saddens me is the fact that these youngsters put in more emphasis on game playoffs, concerts, celebrities, etc etc while interest seems to be waning on pursuing technical education. And I guess this will continue to contribute to the decline of Science and Technology superiority as the original article suggested.

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