Trump Shuts the door on H-1B Visas for Indians

Is this a curse or a boon ???

“It is your way of thinking today that will decide where you will be in the future …..”

The entire country is debating this issue now , news channels are having debates about it, some referring to is as a major setback to the young generation of India who aspire to work abroad. Isnt it ironic that one decision in America wiped have 50,000 Crores of Rupees from the Indian technology giants stocks at the India stock market. Strangely I did not see any major change in Facebook’s share value when Mark Zuckerberg was denied permission by the Indian government to roll out his nationwide strategy last year. India is the country that has the second largest number of facebook users in the world, so how didn’t this decline of permission by the Indian government affect facebook shares??

We pride ourselves by honoring people like Sunder Pichai, Satya Nadella, Rajeev Suri, calling them the pride of India that has been exported to the world. Surprisingly these professionals who started their careers and education in India are now working for ‘Non-Indian” companies. Why is it important for us to measure success in the technology world only when you are working for a multinational company based in the US and Europe while in some cases you are no longer an “Indian Citizen”. Isn’t that like the farmer’s family in a village in India hoping that their young daughter will one day be married to an “NRI” from the US.

So for years we have been exporting our young generation to these countries and priding ourselves once they climb up their professional career ladders to be CEO’s of these tech giants, without realizing that we as a nation, we as a generation are losing out in this whole exercise. So where does the problem begin???

Here’s my thoughts on it……take a look at all the major tech giants we have in India ..the Wipro’s , The Tata’s, the Tech Mahindra’s..,

- Their CEO’s are always people who are close to being senior citizen’s

- Our Technology giants claim to be working on “Innovation & Best of breed” but what in the name of Innovation have they created that has set its mark in the world besides signing major contracts with western customers and outsourcing talent at cheap day rates.

- Which one of our Indian based CEO is a thinker like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and what in terms of global leadership have we shown to establish ourselves in the world

- What, in terms of industrial technology have we contributed to the planet in the last half a century

Our problem is in our industry leaders who are obviously falling short when it comes to true leadership and innovative thinking. Our problem is that we have perceived long and hard that true success is only when you lead a company like Google or Microsoft. Our problem is that our desire to succeed has always been dependent on overseas success.

My fellow Indians, maybe Donald Trump has given a chance to wake up from this Foreign invasion of our talented young generation. We need to make this “Curse our Boon”, by bringing in true leaders that can build from scratch and not follow on someone else’s design. We need to create and not read from the book of creation that was written in the west. We need to dream for ourselves, for our economy, for our nation and for a generation that will pride in us for being successful Indians in India that the globe respects and follows. We need a new generation of ‘Gandhi’s” that can create a revolution in the technology world that inspire others in the world like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela ( who followed Gandhi’s vision of freedom), to follow what we have created.

This is a rallying cry to institutions like IIT and IIM, to large tech giants like Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Tata, to start creating something that the world can follow, create environments that can give birth to great ideas by a Sunder Pichai but on our soil and not foreign land. If Donald Trump has raised the salary bar to 130,000$ a year, you raise it higher by offering our Indian youth 150,000$ to stay and work in India. We need a “Whatsapp”, “Snapdeal”, “Facebook” and “Google”, made by Indians and followed by the world. It’s not very remote a thought as China has already done that, hence our chances are far better.

I welcome the American government’s decision to bring technology jobs to their citizens, now it’s our turn to bring technology jobs to our citizens. I guess its time for the Indian government to realign its focus from their current obsession of “Demonetization” and look at the technology sector crisis which has just been looted of 50,000 Crore Rupees of Indian shareholder’s money. Like the government forced the common man to stand in ques for hours and weeks, I guess it’s time to take our technology companies and educational institutes to task by asking them to build leaders for India not USA.

And finally, once again, “It’s the way you think that decides where you will be in the future” …change the way you think India …be proud stand tall..