Along with the software gurus migrating to India's tech hubs as part of what some call a reverse brain drain, an unexpected lot -- young, single Indian women -- are heading back to India too.
While it is difficult to gauge just how many Indians are returning to India each year, a popular joke at parties these days is that the acronym NRI no longer stands for "non-resident Indian" but for "newly-returned Indian."
According to the technology industry body NASSCOM, about 40,000 returned in the five years from 2001 to last year to work in technology jobs in India. But they represent only the most visible face of a larger phenomenon in a wide range of sectors as India's economy booms.
PHOTO: AFP
A couple of years ago, Sumana Boothalingam, 30, finally took the step that she had been mulling for years. After five years working in public relations in New York City, she bought a one-way ticket to India and switched to journalism.
"New York got kind of boring," said Boothalingam, adding that the atmosphere in the US also changed, becoming less open after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
But women who move to India without the protective shield of a husband and children can find that everything from renting an apartment to taking a walk is a challenging experience.
Boothalingam went from living with a roommate in New York City and taking the metro at all hours to living with her retired parents and worrying about how she would get home at night in a city considered very unsafe for women.
"I definitely had that deer-in-the-headlights look my first weeks here," recalled the wavy-haired Boothalingam, who has lived very little in India since moving at 16 with her family to England.
For women with few ties in the city, the logistics of finding a place to live are just as difficult.
"Basically they think a single woman is sort of a woman of ill-repute, like she'll have a stream of men coming back and forth," said Anita Jain, 32, a financial journalist, who looked at 40 places before landing an apartment.
In marriage-centric India, working women in their late 20s and 30s who work and live on their own are still viewed with curiosity, and sometimes with suspicion.
By virtue of leading lives that many in India would consider "alternative" -- centering around work and friends rather than marriage -- many have found it hard to befriend Indian women in their age group.
More "modest, down-to-earth people" lack experience in common with her, making it hard to truly relate to each other, said Vaneeta Ahuja, a teacher at the American Embassy School who was raised in California.
Yet, for all its difficulties, many of the women who have moved to Delhi said they had no regrets.
For Jain, India provided a sense of homecoming.
"I was drawn to a social intimacy people might have here or warmth that I didn't feel I had in the United States. I definitely did find that," she said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese