US Firm’s Hoardings Outside IIT-Delhi Give Hope to Indian Tech Students

Engineering students in India were left dismayed after the Trump administration intensified crackdown on immigrant visas and tightened the rules for approving visa renewals and issuance of new visas. The hike in the H-1B visa fee to $100K has pushed the US firms also into trouble forcing them to temporarily halt their recruitment process or revise their policies for sponsoring the specific visa holders.

The crackdown dashed the aspirations of numerous students in India but now they see a flicker of hope on the hoardings outside their institutions, in the heart of India’s capital. Huge banners of an AI recruitment firm adjacent to IIT-Delhi rekindle hopes of students pursuing engineering not just in the reputed institute but also to others in the area as they read “We still sponsor H-1Bs” and “$100K isn’t going to stop us from hiring the best.”

According to a report in Bloomberg, several such hoardings are visible not in the nation’s capital but at other leading engineering institutions across India. With several Indian-origin techies like Sundar Pichai, Arvind Krishna, Amar Subramanya rising to prominent roles like CEOs of tech giants like Google, IBM and Apple, there are more engineering graduates in the nations dreaming to pursue their careers in the US.

Several US firms have also been trying to encourage the students and youths seeking jobs in America by establishing technology centres in India. Major corporations like Microsoft, Amazon, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs have been running their technology centres in the nation for the last few years. In addition, the startup ecosystem is also receiving encouragement from the government.

Following these positive and optimistic measures, several talented Indians could return to their home country. However, Trump’s crackdown led to a 14% decline in applications from Indian students to US educational institutions, since the beginning of this year when Trump assumed charge as US President. It has to be seen if there would be a shift in the applications from Indian students to the US institutions in the future due to the ‘hopeful hoardings’.