The Risk Factor

There was a small item over at NASA Watch that references a Times of India story that states that "12% [of the] scientists and 38% [of the] doctors in the US are Indians, and in NASA, 36% or almost 4 out of 10 scientists are Indians."

The story goes on to say, "If that's not proof enough of Indian scientific and corporate prowess, digest this: 34% employees at Microsoft, 28% at IBM, 17% at Intel and 13% at Xerox are Indians."

These statistics were presented by Indian government minister D Purandeshwari, Minister of State for Human Resource Development on Monday to the Rajya Sabha or Parliament of India.

No stats on the percentage that are in the information technology & systems business, but according to Bill Gates, probably not enough. Gates warned Congress today that the U.S. needs to raise the cap on H-1B visas for skilled foreign nationals.

If not, Gates said, then "U.S. companies simply will not have the talent they need to innovate and compete," and all those foreign students receiving their education at U.S. universities will have to leave, to the detriment of US high tech companies.