By Anantha Krishnan M
Bangalore: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) is hit by a strange phenomenon. Often in the news for delayed and derailed projects, the DRDO top brass are now on Cloud 9, with hundreds of non-resident Indian (NRI) scientists making a beeline to be part of India’s gen-next defence projects. Confirming this reverse brain drain trend to Express, DRDO chief V K Saraswat said requests are pouring in from NRIs from the US, Canada and UK. Last year, we hired 40 NRIs and 400-plus are waiting to get in.
DRDO is also in the process of recruiting 2,000 more scientists and hopes to get the nod by the beginning of the 12th Plan. DRDO needs mighty brains to work on its big-ticket missile projects, including the Medium Range Surface-to-Air Missile (MR-SAM), and the Short Range Surface-to-Air Missile (SR-SAM). The MR-SAM project is worth around `10,000 crore, while the SR-SAM sits on a whopping 30,000 crore.
