The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Britain are offering opportunities for migration to skilled persons from all over the world. This process of migration is known as brain drain. Brain drain means intellectual emigration, the emigration of skilled personnel from the developing countries to the developed countries. This is a theft of talent by virtue of the wealth of developed nations. We can understand it as a polarisation of skilled people and intellectuals in developed countries creating a vacuum in the developing nations.

The US accepts around 50,000 people every year from all over the world in the name of cultural import. The selection is termed a DV lottery programme but though one may think that this is a random selection method, the underlying truth behind it is not different from brain drain because all those who get selected from the lottery system are not permitted to migrate. It is only a method of talent snatching. When all the pre-requirements are fulfilled, the embassy interviews the person and if found suitable and up to their requirements then only will the winners be allowed to migrate.

People migrating from one country to another can be broadly classified into two categories: it is young people who travel to the West to pursue education and stay there when they get their degrees. The other form of emigration is of citizens from developing countries where they get their education and subsequently leave the homeland.

People are always in search of better life. By not finding the environment of their country very conducive to earning money, they migrate to foreign lands. Another cause of brain drain is when a country engages in a civil war, the majority of middle and low class people are victimised. Civil rights and security concerns become of least importance in such a situation. Blind copying of Western values is also a cause. There are people who are influenced by the Western way of living, their education system, scientific progress, which induce them to migrate to some Western country.

When an opportunity strikes in the form of scholarship or grants for young people it becomes impossible for him/her to resist the offer. When he or she gets the taste of the Western life he or she never understands that he has been trapped by its allure. He settles there attracted to the open culture. Frustration from the progress of ones country is an other reason while safeguarding oneself from the polluted mind of one’s own country could be another.

Developed countries provide scholarship, grants, training and cultural exchange facilities. The exodus of skilled people to developed countries will bring such an effect that the rich countries will keep on growing wealthier and poor nations like ours will always remain dependent on the grants and assistance of the developed nations. We may force a smile by bringing home more than 100 billion rupees every year as remittances from unskilled Nepali workers but we must not underestimate the negative consequences of a lack of skilled and talented people for the country.