Although India's low cost talent is a definite plus (an average university-graduate in India draws roughly 12 per cent of his US equivalent), the bigger concern is the number of such people.

According to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute, while India has a population of 1.1 billion people, the number of 'suitable' young professional engineers was just 130,000 in 2003, a figure that is much smaller than the United States' 540,000 on a population of under 300 million people.

Even China has more engineers than India, at around 160,000. The reason for this, McKinsey says is that half of India's graduates study in cities that have no international airport.