The trend is spread across all departments, say members of the IIT Delhi faculty who are happy with this brain drain reversal at a time when the faculty crunch is at its peak. Says Prof B.N. Jain, deputy dean, faculty, IIT Delhi: "In the recent past, we have seen a growth in the number of people returning from abroad and opting for teaching at IIT as a career option. The institute is playing a very proactive role in attracting these people. If the government expects us to grow at 54 per cent, then the faculty has to grow at the same pace." Among the initiatives taken by IIT Delhi is the Outstanding Young Faculty Fellowship where the institute tops the pay package by Rs 10,000 per month for five years.

"Even though the amount is very small, it is an initiative taken to encourage and recognise these highly talented pool of people," says Jain.

Now a part of the system, these new faculty members are addressing various issues varying from a shortage in the number of students opting for PhDs and the Union HRD ministry introducing caste-based reservation for faculty. "There is a distinct lack of faculty. The shortages have gone up and will go further up. There is a problem with the small number of people opting for a PhD," says Prof Amitabh Bagchi, who returned to IIT Delhi to teach structural properties of networks, algorithms and data structure after studying at the Johns Hopkins University. There are many industry tie-ups that professors like him are working on whereby students will be paid high salaries by the industry to do research work at the Institute.

At an event hosted by the World Economic Forum at Stanford university earlier this month, participants were asked to speculate on how high-tech clusters like Silicon Valley, Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park and Bangalore will evolve in coming decades. Two teams were formed to come up with contrasting projections: a positive and a gloomy scenario. The team working on the positive scenario highlighted the role of the Indians returning to contribute to the knowledge pool.

In a paper, 'Bangalore In 2025: Global Innovation Hub or Backwater?' later published by Harvard Business Publishing, researcher Navi Radjou lays much hope in the returnees of the future--thousands of US-resident Indians with PhDs and mbas who, from 2012 onward, will return to Bangalore to launch startups and run research institutes. These "returnees", he predicts, would be instrumental in accelerating the inflow of scientific knowledge, business acumen, and VC capital from the US to Bangalore. They will "help forge strong social networks both in India by scaling up their clean tech and bioengineering startups into multinationals. By 2025, they will become India's Bill Gates and serve as new role models for the Indian youth."

At the IITs, the reversal has begun much sooner than anyone could have predicted. And those who are coming back to India seem to be a happy lot despite not-so-impressive salary packages. Many of them say they just want to contribute and the IITs are providing them a perfect platform to do just that.