To those of us who are immigrants, the bill seems simply to legitimize a policy surreptitiously implemented by U.S. industry for nearly four decades -- namely, stealing brains from the third world.

In general, the "21st Century Technology Resources and Commercial Leadership Act," which Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., brought to the Senate in late 1999, is designed to keep the U.S. high-tech industry on top by filling the need for skilled technology workers. One provision of the bill states that, among non-immigrant visa applications, the state should give preference to foreign nationals with secondary degrees in math, science, engineering or technology. Such a provision would provide "temporary skilled personnel" in those fields.

During the 1960s and 1970s, politicians in my native country, India, used to brandish the slogan "Stop Brain Drain" -- a reference to the fact that the cream of India was leaving for the lucrative shores of England and America.

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Like every Indian of my generation, the one born after independence, I was raised to believe that science and technology were to perform miracles for "third world" countries like ours. We talked of the "green revolution" that was to feed a hungry world. We spoke of nuclear power so cheap we would not need to meter it, of nuclear medicine and nuclear vehicles.

So we studied science. During finals, our parents lighted charcoal stoves at midnight to make us tea so we could propel not only ourselves, but our families, toward a better future. Those of us who made it into the Indian Institutes of Technology, built by American and German and British aid, became heroes in our communities.

I was one of those students. Awestruck by a visit to the Bhabba Atomic Research Center and the Apsara Reactor in Bombay during the late '60s, I worked hard to become a nuclear physicist.

When India exploded its first atomic device in 1974, my friends and I cheered. After centuries of subjugation, India had entered the world stage, on its own terms. Thousands of years of thought -- philosophical, metaphysical and mathematical -- had culminated in this spectacular demonstration.

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