Indian Students in Places Like Ukraine
I came to know of the number of Indian students studying in China only when the Wuhan lockdown happened. Ditto for the number of Indian students in Ukraine – I got to know the number only now when Russia attacked it. How come there are Indian students in these places? Sure, there must be some who go to either settle abroad, or because of genuine interest in a topic, but that can’t account for the destination being China or Ukraine… Milind Sohoni’s article provides the big picture answer. Turns out there are 8 lakh Indians studying abroad. The biggest reason is, of course, the lack of jobs for a graduate in India. Sohoni shows this via back-of-the-envelope maths. A college grad would usually work for a company that deducts tax at source, i.e., he would be a tax-payer. There are only 3 crore tax payers in India. Assuming two-thirds of them are still working, and that people work for 20 years (which is low), he arrives at the figure of 10 lakh new jobs per year (this figure wou...