Various events over the past 2 weeks

Lots of developments since the last post. The biggest of them all, Aman Kapoor co-founder of ImmigrationVoice.Org was on Fox News Weekend talking about the current problems in the legal immigration system for high-skilled immigrants such as can't change jobs, can't get a raise, spouses can't work and so on. Here are the video links (they're slow to load)

http://www.zippyvideos.com/513335711...30april2006-1/
http://www.zippyvideos.com/800983146...30april2006-2/
http://www.zippyvideos.com/635404091...30april2006-3/

The CIR bill is back into discussion on May 15th and yesterday illegal immigrants and their supporters organized the Great American Boycott. This has prompted a fresh round of attacks from the anti-immigration group headed by Tanrcredo (R-CO) and various conservative talk(scream) shows hosts. The chances of this Bill passing is now almost zero, so the high-skilled community has decided to look beyond for other bills that don't have the controversial illegal immigration proposals. The SKIL/PACE/TALENT bills are in the pipeline in case CIR fails.

Here's another interesting story in BusinessWeek. Saratov State University in Russia won the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest in San Antonio on Apr. 12. They solved 6 brain-teasing problems in a gruelling 5 hour contest.

Of the U.S. teams, only Massachusetts Institute of Technology ranked among the 12 highest finishers. Most top spots were seized by teams from Eastern Europe and Asia. Until the late 1990s, U.S. teams dominated these contests. But the tide has turned. Last year not one was in the top dozen.

In fact the team from Duke University had an Indian girl, Kshipra Bhawalkar. She plans to go back home after her graduation.

"In the past, people from India stayed here after they got their degrees,'' she says. "But now India is at a turning point. It's getting to be a leader.'' The foreign students have a palpable determination to succeed. Bhawalkar's role model is Srinivasa Ramanujan, an early 20th century Indian mathematician who became famous worldwide in spite of an inferior education. This year, as a Duke sophomore, Bhawalkar placed 70th among 2,500 top North American university students in the prestigious Putnam math competition. Her life goal is "to make a mark in some discipline so people will say, 'That's Kshipra. She did this.'''

It's not that foreign students are any smarter, say U.S. university leaders. They just have relentless discipline. The team at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which finished first last year and fifth this year, uses past participants to train each successive team. "We pile up experience year after year,'' says coach Yong Yu. The team practices year-round and puts in three hours a day during the months before the contest. U.S. teams typically spend much less time preparing.

The indications are quite clear. Poor immigration system, indifferent politicians and uninformed population. Hind sight is always 20/20. They'll be caught with their pants down. I have some personal friends whom I met this weekend. They're both Ph.D candidates, one in Organic Chemistry and one in Robotic Systems. They're both planning to leave by the end of this year. Whose loss is it?

Oh and by the way, China leap-frogged UK and France last year to become the fourth largest economy in the world. China was in 6th place only as far back as 2000. India is not far behind either and rapidly picking up pace.