The Pravasi Bharatiya Divas should become more action oriented, feels Srichand P Hinduja, chairman Hinduja group of Companies, and one of the most prominent Global Indians who spoke at PBD 2006 in Hyderabad.

“PIOs and NRIs should be given a greater opportunity to speak and communicate at an event like this. Moreover, the event should be more an action shop rather than a talking shop,” Hinduja said. He also felt that rather than discussing politics, an event where NRIs and PIOs are the main participants, should focus on the economic agenda.

Hinduja had his own recommendations which he presented to the finance minister P Chidambaram on reversing brain drain for India.

“We need to turn our attention to the scientific community of Indians overseas, and get them engaged in the development of India. For India to succeed in the coming decades, it needs to transform itself from being merely the ‘shop floor’ or ‘back office’ of the world to an owner of intellectual property and technology,” Hinduja said.

The vast pool of scientific Indian manpower in foreign lands can be channelled to constitute the cutting-edge of technology for solving India’s many social problems - such as drinking water and sanitation, felt Hinduja. “This pool of expatriate scientific talents can propel India into the forefront of the new age with alternative sources of energy or with biotechnology,” he said.

“We, therefore, need to create research institutes or special zones in India having extensions abroad with state-of-the-art facilities and appropriate compensation levels so also tax exemption for a period of ten years to start with and to be reviewed thereafter,” Hinduja said.

His plan envisages that overseas Indian specialists may visit the institutes or zones for 2-3 months in a year and train the Indian scientists for developing cutting-edge technology solutions, both for use by India and for sale in world markets. “Only then will we be able to harness the talent of Indian scientists and technocrats overseas for our country’s full benefit, upgrade our intellectual capital and reverse brain drain,” he said.