Schlagwort-Archive: USA

„Indian IT cos in US paid $15 bn taxes in last 5 years“

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„The Indian IT industry in the US has contributed $15 billion in taxes alone in the last five years“, according to India’s Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai.

According to a report appearing in the Economic Times (Feb. 8, 2012):

NASSCOM estimates that Indian industry employs over 100,000 in the US up from 20,000 six years ago, he said adding it supports 200,000 other jobs, including indirect ones, apart from enhancing the competitiveness of some the US industries.

„Most Indian companies are setting up development centres. Indian IT industry contributed $15 billion in taxes over the last five years. This success story should not be set back by stringent visa regulations which act as a non-tariff barrier,“ he said.

„According to a back of envelope calculation – Indians paid over $200 million in visa fees. Perhaps $30-50 million has been taken from young aspiring Indians working in businesses whose US visas were rejected. The pink slip has become a greenback!“ Mathai said.

Source: The Economic Times, online, 08.02.2012

Report: „Indians 2nd largest foreign student population in US“

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According to a news item by Nida Najar of NYT News Service appearing in the Times of India (15.10.2011):

Indians are now the second-largest foreign student population in America, after the Chinese, with almost 105,000 students in the US in the 2009-10 academic year, the last for which comprehensive figures were available. Student visa applications from India increased 20% in the past year, according to the American Embassy.

Although a majority of Indian students in the US are graduate students, undergraduate enrolment has grown by more than 20% in the past few years.

The most interesting, and probably a worrying part of the whole story for the national innovation system is that those school students passing out with marks well over 90% are unable to get an admission in top-leauge colleges and universities in India. It cites the example of a Delhi girl who has „received scholarship offers of $20,000 from Dartmouth and $15,000 from Smith. Her pile of acceptance letters would have made any teenager smile: Cornell, Bryn Mawr, Duke, Wesleyan, Barnard and the University of Virginia“. The same girl was however denied admission by the top Delhi colleges for having scored „only“ 93.5% in her final board exams (12th standard), according to the report.

The report continues:

American universities and colleges have been more than happy to pick up the slack. Faced with shrinking returns from endowment funds, a decline in the number of high school graduates in the US and growing economic hardship among American families, they have stepped up their efforts to woo Indian students thousands of miles away.

Representatives from many of the Ivy League institutions have begun making trips to India to recruit students and explore partnerships with Indian schools. Some have set up offices in India, partly aimed at attracting a wider base of students.

The report, mercifully, also takes on the ills ailing the Indian education system without mincing words:

American universities have now become „safety schools“ for increasingly stressed and traumatized Indian students and parents, who complain that one fateful event – the final high school examination – can make or break a teenager’s future career. […]

But for some students, it is not merely the competition that drives them to apply to study in the US. It is also the greater intellectual freedom of an American liberal arts education. India’s educational system is rigid, locking students into an area of study and affording them little opportunity to take courses outside their major beyond the 11th grade. […]

Also see similar reports or slightly varying versions of the same report in other publications:

NDTV: Squeezed out in India, students turn to US

Hindustan Times: Exodus of Indian student to America continues

Economic Times: As Indian students rejected at home are lapped up by Ivy League institutions; HRD Minister Kapil Sibal says India doesn’t have quality institutions

 

Mauritius top destination for Indians investing abroad; Germany loses attraction

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By: Rajnish Tiwari

According to a recent report appearing the Hindu Busines Line (6th Sept. 2011) Mauritius has emerged as the top desitination for Indian foregin direct investments. The official data suggest that Indian FDI outflows to Germany have gone down by as much two-thirds…

„Mauritius has again emerged as the hot destination for Indian corporates investing abroad. The US and Singapore seem to be loosing their attraction.

„The Finance Minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, said that Mauritius, the US and Singapore have regained the top three places in attracting Indian capital but with one difference. Mauritius has registered very healthy growth, but investment in the US and Singapore has come down in comparison to the previous year. United Arab Emirates (UAE) has also registered positive growth, but investment in the Netherlands has come down to half while to Germany it is down to nearly one third.“ […]

(Read the complete report on the Hindu Business Line)

It must, however, be noted that a significant portion of outward FDI projects of Indian firms takes place by roping in subsidiaries already located aborad so that those investments are not necessarily captured by official data. Moreover, it is not improbable that a significant portion of the FDI to Mauritius is actually routed further to other countires in order to take advantage of favourable taxtaion treaties. Nevertheless, we cannot deny that Indian investments to Germany have, in recent past, neither kept pace with the overall development of Indian outward FDI nor with the growth level of the Indo-German bilateral trade relations. Nonetheless, the investment activity has remained encouraging, the offical figures not withstanding.

On the issue of recent developments and challenges in Indian outward FDI to Germany also see:

Tiwari, R. (2011): Investment Destination Germany: Chances & Challenges for Indian Firms, in: Business Guide Germany India 2011/2012, pp. 96-97, Berlin: Wegweiser.