End of Easy Exit?

As global mobility tightens, India’s real test is creating an innovation ecosystem where staying, returning and building at home becomes the smartest professional choice

- SHISHIR PRIYADARSHI

The real question is no longer how to help Indians go abroad, but why so many still feel they must

For two decades, India’s most talented engineers, researchers and founders have treated the United States not merely as a destination, but as a default upgrade—better pay, better labs, better odds of success. That bargain is now changing. Washington is steadily raising the financial and procedural cost of mobility through tighter visa rules, higher employer fees, and greater uncertainty around pathways like the H-1B.

‘This moment should worry India—but it should also concentrate minds. Because the real question is no longer how to help Indians go abroad, but why so many still feel they must.

India needs a two-track strategy. The first is diplomatic and tactical: push back against increasingly restrictive mobility regimes and diversify pathways for short-term assignments, research postings, and project visas. ‘The second—and far more important—is domestic: build such a compelling innovation ecosystem at home that going abroad becomes a choice, not an escape route.

‘That second task is harder. It requires India to fix career economics, research depth, firm-building friction, urban quality of life and workplace culture in one integrated package. Half-measures will not work.

What India is doing—and why it still falls short

To its credit, the government has begun investing in frontier technology capacity. Al centres of excellence at IIT Delhi, Ropar and Kanpur, the IndiaAl Mission with its promise of shared compute and foundational models, and national missions in quantum technologies and semiconductors all send the right signal. They tell young researchers and entrepreneurs that the state understands where the future lies.