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I’m a Keralite who migrated to Australia a couple of years ago and here is my story.There have been positives and negatives and ultimately each person will have their own reasons for migrating or staying behind.As I’d like to finish the article on a positive note, I’ll first list out the some areas in which the Australian experience might be different or challenging compared to the Indian experience or if comparing to another developed country.Tough to get the first job at the same level if previously at a high level in IndiaIf you were at a manager or senior manager in India, then it may be hard to get the first job in a similar position here unless having exceptionally rare skillsImmigrants are required for jobs which the locals don’t want to do or for jobs which the locals don’t have skills to do (yet)So, in IT, developers/testers (i.e., people who do the actual work) are in much higher demand compared to ‘managers’This means that cushy managerial jobs are reserved for the well connected folks at the higher levels of the Australian totem poleLow tolerance of haughtiness and low emotional intelligenceHigh emotional intelligence, humility and kindness are necessary for long term success hereLow tolerance of entitlementIn India, a person’s caste sometimes determine career progression even in the corporate workplaceIn Australia the totem pole is built differently and one may not be able to avail of the benefits they got due to privileges they had in India due to their caste or position in societyThe Tall poppy syndrome - Wikipedia is real and so again - be humble!Low chance for career progression for introvertsUnfortunately, there is a higher chance that one would be ignored or taken for granted if they are not a social butterfly and not active at forming relationships in the workplaceLower potential for employment and career progression for those less skilled in the English languageUnfortunately, one may find that people of lesser skills who are more fluent or speak English with a much better accent are listened to more often compared to those who are on the road to mastering the language and local accentI’ve seen great people struggle to move higher because they didn’t have the articulation and fluency in the language of corporate political warfareExceptions are always there in fields where there is a skills shortageOccasional racismRacism is everywhere in all countries including other countries like Canada or New Zealand which are often described as ‘nicer countries’ with ‘nicer people’One of the reasons I left India was because of regionalism and caste-ism in the corporate workplace but it now unfortunately exists in Australia too to an extent as it seems to have immigrated here too!Your experience might be different.Tips -Take the effort to fit in by working on language skills and emotional intelligenceAussies expect basic politeness and basic greetings which many Indians just don’t do and this could lead to negative situationsBe nice, graceful and and polite and take the high roadIf being nice and polite is not being reciprocated, act professionally and with grace in all such instancesLow tolerance of people who don’t adhere to dignity of labor or fair payment practicesMillions of middle class and upper-middle class Indians are used to servants and many of them treat servants like servantsThis is not tolerated in AustraliaThere are plenty of skilled professionals in Australia in the cleaning and gardening business who do a really good job and take pride in their work and their billing rates reflect the quality of work they do and enable them to live a good quality Australian middle class lifeLow tolerance for patriarchy, homophobia and feelings of enmity against people and culturesIn India, patriarchal attitudes continue to limit opportunities for women in some areasHomophobia and ‘fear of the other’ continues to limit opportunities for LGBTQ individuals even in a state which has 100% literacy and apparently has the same Human Development Index score as PortugalA lot of progress has been made but there is still a lot to doAustralia is at a much more positive level in terms of women’s empowerment and LGBT rightsLower tolerance of pessimism and negativityOne of the hallmarks of developed countries is a high degree of optimismCareful constructive criticism is appreciated instead of the crab mentalityThere are some workplaces where optimism is looked down upon with caution and distrust especially if being perceived as over-promising and under-deliveringNow, I’d like to list out the positives -Free healthcare (doctor’s appointments, not medicines) for permanent residents and citizens paid for by taxesI am on a 37% tax rate and I don’t mind paying it at all because of this.I show my medicare card at any ‘bulk-billing’ clinic to avail of itCompared to other countries I’ve lived in even with similar systems, the quality of public healthcare is pretty goodNicer weather in most cities except for a few days in summerThis is in comparison to Kerala which is hotter and more humidIt feels good to walk around in Sydney or Melbourne for a few hundred meters without sweating profusely - even on those few days in summer where the temperatures can go as high as 40 to 47 degrees Celsius.Freedom of speech, religion and pressIn saffronised bhakt-heavy India, it is easy to get death threats, attacked or even killed for speaking out or trying to make the system betterIn Australia, politicians shall be ridiculed if they are deserving of it.Higher incomesFor the same role, comparable salaries are higher in Australia but there is obviously a higher productivity and skills expectation associated with high salaries or billing ratesIT contractors typically make between 70 to 120 dollars per hour or higher for 8 hours of work in a day but there is no job securityPersonally, I envy the certified plumber or certified electrician who gets paid between 200 to 500 dollars for a few hours of workBetter work-life balance (except maybe in high salaried roles)Many Australians work reasonable hours but there are several who burn midnight oil too especially those in highly paid rolesMuch lesser pollution compared to metro cities in IndiaThis is one of the reasons why I moved out of IndiaPollution in Melbourne / Pollution in SydneyWorking garbage collection supported by local government taxes which start at around 150 dollars a month and depends on the amount of land owned by the land ownerA working system for reimbursement of solar panel generated powerI’ve got solar panels on my house and earn money from the power company for the power sent back into the grid. Typically this means much lower electricity bills or an actual credit in summer if I’m really frugal and run heavy appliances only during the dayIndia gets much more solar energy compared to Australia and such a system would have been really beneficialRule of law enforced (to a good extent)Back in Kerala, Nokku kooli - Wikipedia was a huge problem and I’ve had multiple unpleasant experiences. No such thing in Australia!However, if multiple right wing websites are to be believed, teenage troublemakers are let off with minimal punishment and there are some Australians who despise this leniencyCheaper and good quality alcohol - especially whiskey and wineI’ve bought a 700 ml bottle of Glenfiddich single malt for just 56 AUD when it was on sale in a regular store (not duty free). The same bottle will cost more than double in IndiaWhile Australian wines are not the best on the planet some are pretty decent. I’m quite frugal and so easily satisfied by the 4 or 5 dollar wine bottles I pick up from Aldi.Quality standards in food and groceriesOne of the worries I had when I was in Kerala was the pesticide ridden vegetables that were imported from Tamil NaduIn Australia, I can shop for quality vegetables and not be worried about pesticides because quality standards are enforced and complaints will be tackled by appropriate authoritiesHigh quality meat - especially beef, lamb and porkEating beef in North India is a dangerous game with sometimes fatal consequencesEven in the IT industry, college educated colleagues from North India may ostracize beef eaters from the SouthWith a BBQ tradition and massive ranches (cattle stations) the size of some countries, Australia is a meat eater’s paradiseIf you are a bit more adventurous, please feel free to try roo meat too! (Kangaroo meat - Wikipedia)Ease of doing businessThere are hundreds of thousands of immigrants who once were employees and then eventually started their own successful businessesThere is a good support framework in place for encouraging and enabling people to start their own businessGovernment benefitsPermanent residents and citizens on lower incomes are eligible for various benefits paid out to them by the government. One of them is the Family Tax benefit. Also, families with more children get more tax benefits.Negative gearingThis is a political topic, but I believe that negative gearing encourages the flow of capital into property, enables wealth creation and decent quality rental accommodation availabilityThough incentives for property investment exist in India, I believe they are not as encouraging as the system here in AustraliaLower stamp dutyThere is no stamp duty for first home buyers in many statesHigher real estate and stamp duty is one of the reasons why corruption by the way of under-declaration of actual property value is so rampant in India. This is not the case in Australia.The Roadworthy Certificate systemBefore buying a used car, one can ask the seller to supply a road-worthy certificate which somewhat ensures that the car doesn’t have critical defectsFor this, the road worthy test must be done at a reputable authorized locationSystems like these reduce instances of cheating to an extentResidential Tenancies Bond Authority and Tribunal system for tenant landlord disputesIn Australia, the tenancy bond is held by a government authority and not by the landlord directlyAlso, if there is a problem with the rental accommodation, then there are standards to be complied with and the landlord can be taken to the tribunal and asked to rectify issuesIn India, there is no such system as far as I know and sometimes tenants find it hard to get the bond / deposit amount back from their landlordsProper town planningPlanning codes and regulations are stricter compared to IndiaA typical suburb is designed for a good quality of life with enough space allocated for parks, greenery, bicycle tracks and even wetlands in some casesHaving a large amount of land is a great blessing for Australia in this regardThats all I could muster for the moment.Good luck! :)

DISCLAIMER: Individual experiences in various job 'micro-markets' and companies vary a lot. So this comment may be statistically incorrectWARNING: If you are from a moderately wealthy family and immigrated here when you were just 4 years old, your experience probably is going to be a lot different. A wealthy background can shield you from all sorts of discriminations including the racial ones.CONTEXT: Have robust software product engineering (& entrepreneurial) background, with experiences of working in Couple of US/SV product companies. PR-holder. Living in Sydney for last couple of years.Australia is wonderful country with beautiful beaches, great pub culture, fantastic outback adventure journeys, warm & friendly 'mates', great food diversity & restaurants, tropical weather (Melbourne weather is a bit mercurial :), great transportation (For example, Sydney has four modes of transportations) and road networks etc. I find Sydney as a wonderful city to live in (we'll come to macro-economic aspects of housing affordability in a minute). For people with entrepreneurial & creative bend, Melbourne may be a better option.However, IT culture and recruitments prevailing in Sydney seems a bit depressive. Yes, there are some fantastic companies (Atlassian is a great workplace), but I've seen enough bad ones. Successful immigration to a new country like Australia (esp. if you are married w/o kids) is not just about it's IT-environment. It's a complex interplay of following aspects -1. Local Experience: 'Cultural Fitness' is important for employers, but I think this whole 'Local Experience' thing have been played a bit too much. Without any racial connotation, I've seen this rule being bent often for people with European descent. While attending an interview for SDE position (from a pan-Asia recruitment) in Seattle, Microsoft never stressed on having 'local American experience' as a criteria to see 'cultural fitness'.As a fellow Quora-reader correctly pointed out, there exists an issue about quality of English spoken or practised by Asians. To some degree the complaint is justified. For example, I've observed extremely poor English (both spoken and written) standards while working with an Asian colleague holding Masters in IT from an Australian University. Again this observation mayn't be statistically significant enough to represent the entire Asian population (don't have data to justify). Understandably, Australian universities are under immense "selection pressure" as majority of the talented Asians typically choose US for their higher education due to a multitude of reasons, forcing most of the local Universities to keep the selection bar low enough to remain sustainable. Even then, at the very least, they should raise the minimum requirement (for students) of IELTS to 7. Although this suggestion may have a huge economic impact on Universities (difference between IELTS 6.5 to 7.0 may be few million dollars) and may crush dreams of many Asian students, this will certainly help to ease the communication gap, paving the way for better Cultural Integration.But unlike the innate IQ, English skills can be improved quickly as long as you spend enough time with native english speakers. Unfortunately, due to greater socio-cultural integration issues and subsequent asian-clique-formations, English skills do not improve for many Asians (even after a decade of residency).On the other side, I've worked with a Python (programming language) developer from one of the Eastern European countries. Though an excellent team-member, he didn't possess very good spoken English skills. And without having any "local experience", has been absorbed straight into a technical leadership role demanding expertise in a completely different technical stack.Technical folks (unless it's a client-facing IT consultancy or sales engineering or senior executive leadership role) typically works at back-office. And worldwide, programmers and technical folks are known to be introverts, focusing more on technology as opposed to human interactions. So quality of English doesn't matter too much as long as you communicate well in technical terms (in GitHub/BitBucket comments, algorithms, optimisations etc.) within the team. Interestingly, on average (there are outliers always), I've seen more extroverts dominating the tech-scene here as compared to other tech-hubs across the world. This dominance of extroverts in tech-scene, poor English skills observed among Asians (on average) and cultural stratification perpetuates that "local experience" requirement, perhaps.2. IT Market (Macro Economics): The overall IT market (dominated by service companies, consulting corporations) is shrinking and I know several 'Aussies' who are sailing for greener pastures elsewhere (Singapore, Valley etc.). One of the main reason for this dilapidated condition is lack of start-up funding (esp. in the Angel region of 1-10 million $) and increased tendency of bigger/mature Australian businesses to outsource IT to Asia. As a consequence, job creation (or opportunity creation) has been stalled.3. Work-Life Balance (WLB): With this economics, it's not too difficult to see why many businesses or business units have skewed the 'work-life balance' to the other, more "stressful" end of the spectrum (This again may depend heavily on the specific company or the group you are employed with). If you are into Enterprise Systems (Adobe CQ, BizTalk, Oracle etc.) WLB should be lot better as compared with roles in Application Development (.NET, Ruby Rails). But it's important to remember that too-much-WLB and tendency to "laid back" work culture serves as a fantastic breeding ground for "Mate-o-cracy" (reverse of Meritocracy)4. Recruitment Practices: Barring some exceptional companies & startups, I found the technical recruitment process has a long way to go to catch up US (& even in some cases - Asian [Flipkart, Infosys, Baidu etc.]) standards. Believe it or not, many times recruiters conduct the 'First Round' of technical interviews with an understandably rigid structure. A joke often goes like this -One door never shuts down for an unsuccessful bloke - IT recruitment in Sydney :)Most of the companies will not ask any algorithms/puzzles as part of tech interview, as the popular belief is - "Anyway you are going to develop some Web apps with some stack/framework. Why bother?", as meritocratic practices are often limited to pedantic topics like - TDD patterns, design patterns, OOP etc, number of Github repositories etc. Just because you've spotted a suitable advert in SEEK, it doesn't necessarily mean you will be given an opportunity to appear for the interview, based on merit alone. It's all about the credibility of the channel through which you are approaching to the recruiter who will represent you to the company. Except few companies like Google Australia, recruiters often have deep relationships with your future direct manager or L+2 manager. Some companies have 'preferred' staffing vendors and only way to get a 'call' for an advertised position is to get represented by a recruiter from one of those preferred staffing vendors (ex. Robert Walters). The prevalent practices rest highest faith on the maxim - "It's who you know matters more than what you know". This poses new challenges in the form of "Cultural Integration" (see below - #11) issues.May be a bit sweeping generalisation, in Australia, especially at big corporations, jobs often do not end up at company's public job portal only to be manipulated by a section of managers who have their own 'preferred' recruiters and 'preferred' candidates without actually conducting interviews - pretty horrible recruitment practices. Also racial discrimination is pretty common in recruitment (over the years racism has moved from being explicit to subtle) industry. Checkout - The confessions of a Recruiter MUST READA recruitment agency's definition of screening is.... hit "delete" with Indian / Asian applications. Sad but true!For a more quantitative approach to labour market discrimination -‘After completing TAFE in 2005 I applied for many junior positions where no experience in sales was needed – even though I had worked for two years as a junior sales clerk. I didn’t receive any calls so I decided to legally change my name to Gabriella Hannah. I applied for the same jobs and got a call 30 minutes later.’...To get as many job interviews as an Anglo applicant, an Indigenous person must submit 35% more applications, a Chinese person 68% more, an Italian person 12% more, and a Middle Eastern person 64% more applications (Source).Ref: http://andrewleigh.org//pdf/AuditDiscrimination.pdfBesides racial discrimination, according to interactions with multiple recruiters there exists another perspective which may be a bit uncomfortable to digest. It's about quality of asian students opting to study here. If you are talented enough, on average, it's hard to justify an expensive Australian university degree (There are exceptions as always. ANU, UMELB, USYD ranks pretty high. Sometimes high CoL plays a decisive role) over a quality US one. During the absorption of these students into local workforce, thus, an obviously biased impression gets formed - which in turn feeds into the prevailing racial discrimination issue, making it particularly challenging for other asian (mature-age) immigrants (especially for those having a darker skin and without an Anglo-Saxon-looking name. In fact, have been made specially aware of my darker skin-tone multiple times, since I landed here).5. Minimum Jobless Tenure: Because of the mix of above and other factors, often MJT is random. Expect it to range anywhere from 20 days to a year.6. High Tech Market Maturity: Although 'hard'-engineering is highly paid (at least through the mining-boom days) and respected, software/tech market is yet to reach to a acceptable level of maturity. Without big successes (Atlassian is an exception rather than rule) at home (successes which are also scaled to other parts of the world), software engineering is often viewed as just another commodity expenditure, unlike Sales & Marketing. In fact many multi-national companies (Including Microsoft and others) has only sales & marketing front-end here without any significant software development.7. Attire: This is strange, but attire culturally plays a strong role in schmoozing the recruiter / hiring manager, ultimately getting a job (esp. in big companies), sometimes even in career progression. As long as meritocratic practices are not completely abandoned, this is probably an 'interesting' experience. This poses specific problems for software engineers who usually rests more weight on algorithms, coding, system architecture & performance as opposed to extrinsic attire.8. Business Culture: Business Culture usually represents a microcosm of the society in general and Australia is no exception. Here, it's a deeply class-based, un-meritocratic, discriminatory culture with a gigantic display of Peters Principle, utterly ignoring any modern management practices. Interestingly the prevailing business culture affects not just immigrants (by a greater degree), but pro-innovation local talents as well. Fuelled by mining-boom-driven complacency, singular focus on "leave office by 5" and "how to avoid office work" gestated a toxic work-culture with an alarming level of corporate politics, analysis-paralysis, stupid and convolutional policies, multi-layered decision-making, nepotism and an unfounded fear towards innovation-driven technological disruption. I've heard some corporate folks here literally whingeing - "Evil Google AdWords is killing our 'golden goose' - classified business - where we used to rob our users by charging an exorbitant price. 90s, where are you ?". With total sympathy for workers who have lost their jobs, I rejoiced when many un-innovative and arrogant local businesses (talk to Sydney people about how happy they were when they discovered Uber to dodge highly arrogant and unionized local Taxis) have to give up at the advent of ruthlessly meritocratic American capitalism and entrepreneurship. It will be much more fun when the oligopolistic Australian banking sector have to forgo a substantial part of their lucrative brokerage revenues (brokerage fees are unbelievably expensive here like pretty much everything else) at the face of brilliant execution from Robinhood (Loyal3 on its way as well. Although brokerage arms of big banks are lobbying against Robinhood in order to continue to rob retail Australian investors with insane brokerage charges). Another example of encroachment - Google and Fairfax playing a different tax gameThe paradox is that Fairfax shed so many staff that it found itself sub-letting the entire second floor of its Darling Island headquarters to none other than Google.A leading bank reported following concerning statistics regarding their Directors’ credibility -less than 3 per cent of our directors have a technology background and only 19 per cent have operational experienceSomebody or something has to wake up undeserving Australian corporate leaders (and plutocratic boardroom incumbents) that world has moved on since Office Space and corporations can no longer be run by an elitist group of bankers, lawyers and privileged class (Why Australian workplaces need much better leaders). Innovators, engineers and DO-ers rule now ! It's an age of technological innovation and entrepreneurial thinking (both intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship). Much-touted Australian Work-Life balance has to have its cost, after all. Yet, focus is still on cost-cuts and BAU (Business As Usual) as opposed to new value or business creation.In a risk averse socioeconomic setup, crowded by an army of institutional and individual consultants, it’s not surprising to observe the feeble presence of production or manufacturing segments (As a Blackmore shareholder I was taken aback when some investors toured the Blackmores facility on Sydney’s northern beaches — all they could see was packaging rather than manufacturing. “It’s just a bottling operation,” one investor told The Weekend Australian) of the economy (as the massive economic dependancy to China continues). Interestingly, among these consultants, I’ve observed a strange form of institutional collusion usually seen only at the upper echelons of management or executives. Before immigration to Australia, never heard (never encountered in US directly or through various casual interactions with numerous friends and contacts) of the term - “milking company X together” - a reprehensible practice where a ‘gang’ of consultants all hired as contractors (often high value, 800$-1000$/day) to the company X, intentionally defer a specific project by months in collusion with a management executive, against the interest of the company X. Without a whistleblower this type of corruption is extremely hard to catch and particularly flourishes in a ‘laid-back’ culture where almost everything is contracted out (see. agency problem) without giving much importance to transparent corporate governance, meritocratic recruitment and fair capitalism (and it’s usual motivational bells and whistles like - Employee Stock Options Plan etc.). In fact, based on my subjective observation, ESOP seems like a “mystical” remuneration here unless you belong to the Executive Management or C-suite.9. Housing Price: With Rent-to-Income ratio close to 50%, and Affordability Ratio (median house price divided by median income) close to 12x (unaffordability is defined at 6x), Sydney housing market is in a bubble. When it will burst, no body knows. (Housing 'severely unaffordable' as Sydney price to income ratio worsens) It's difficult to bear CoL expenses with your income alone, unless you have a partner/spouse/wife working. Raising kids is a whole different story altogether. My heart goes to many middle-class Australians who can't afford houses/units of their own, without taking staggering amount of debt for a house that have a high chance of being depreciated, if the bubble finally bursts.Median US house price is almost half of median Australian house ! (even after accounting for currency conversion).At past, many had purchased multiple investment properties with LVR (Loan-to-Value ratio) as high as 90% (and above) before government made a change in regulation. Government deserves accolades for this. Sydney house prices have surged 50 per cent in just three years, sending Australia’s total real estate assets to GDP upwards to 3.8 times. This is higher than experienced at the peak of the Ireland and Japan housing bubbles. Australia now have the highest level of household debt to household disposable income in the world and the country is expected to lose more jobs and opportunities as it prices itself out of the global market. It's too expensive to take risks and too unaffordable to build startups or buy apartments. Big 4 banks of Australia are neck-deep in their exposure to property loans (Australia's banking regulator is worried about the big four's level of exposure to property). Many greedy (and rest of the bystanders are trembling under FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out) investors are still banking on the demand fuelled by steady inflow of international immigrants like you to defer the inevitable - Great Australian Property Crash.Australia needs to diversify its economy, boosting services exports - primarily tourism, education and health - rather than continuing to depend on resources and debt-fuelled property growth10. Career Progression: Compared to US, xenophobia here runs deeper and manifests often in career progression (especially higher management) subverting meritocratic practices. Barack Obama (President of US : 2009-2017), Sundar Pichai (CEO of Google), Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft), Indra Nooyi (CEO of Pepsi), Shantanu Narayen (CEO of Adobe) - all are glorious examples where meritocratic practices has been honoured dismissing any discrimination based on race, look, cast, creed or religion. I will be interested to know how many big Australian corporations or companies have a CEO with an Asian origin (preferably 1G). Overall statistics portrays a dismal picture -Australians of Asian cultural backgrounds account for nearly 10 per cent of the country’s population but they only account for 1.9 per cent of executive managers, 4.15 per cent of directors and 1.3 per cent of federal parliamentarians.Forgot to mention that, for a majority of cases, your previous Asian (technical/IT) experiences and job-seniority will be discounted no matter how relevant or awesome those experiences were. Most probably, you have to literally start from scratch or accept a demotion at the least. One smart way would be to have a - "test the waters before you sail" strategy. Conduct a reconnaissance before leaving that secure job back home.Keeping racial discrimination aside, there is another interesting aspect of career progression - 'Mate-o-cracy' - where meritocratic practices are completely disregarded. Without passing a judgement on their unfathomable diverse skill-sets, I've observed a journalist promoted as Director of Software Engineering, a successful real-estate salesman working in a High Tech Patent Firm sifting through technical RFPs (Request For Proposals) and many such blatant labour market aberrations.11. EducationOne of the obvious ways to rise above discriminations and attain greater social mobility is Education. Australia has some top-class Universities (ANU, UNSW, USYD, UMELB - to name a few) with world-class research facilities and faculties. But the problem is - absorption of these students into the mainstream local industry utilising their massive talent-pool, focusing on innovation and job-creation keeping all sorts of discriminations (which cost a lot of money to the country, BTW) at bay. Over-focus on mining and few other ancillary industries, did not help to flourish other areas of the economy especially the High Tech market. This makes talent absorption difficult (a far-cry from US). In general, based on my observations, historically education had NOT been perceived as important (social aspect of "tall poppy syndrome" is partially responsible for this) by the local industry (ignore super-niche areas like Finance and Medical Research - which are tiny in size) focusing more on work-experience and on-job-learning. Although this seems meritocratic at first glance, because of rampant discriminations and 'Mate-o-cracy' syndrome described earlier, it hinders social mobility. Although some initiatives by government (National Innovation and Science Agenda) are indeed encouraging, social perspective will take longer time to change.12. Cultural IntegrationUnless you love to stick to your own specific Asian community, it will going to be extremely challenging to integrate or "fit in" (An example - Jason Yat-Sen Li: Being Australian is not about the colour of your skin ). Probably it will take an entire generation. Children of 1G immigrants suffer more to "fit in" compared to what I've seen in US. Bullying is like an epidemic here at school level (Schools 'should be ranked on bullying' to prevent mental health problems, psychiatrist says). Of course, like everywhere else, you can teach your kids to be tough on such circumstances. A good portion of those school bullying is racial in nature and let's accept that sustained bullying is pretty bad for kids.It's shocking to discover people, psychologically, still living in the Victorian era basking in the glory of mining boom days, ignoring all sorts of disruption and democratization technology is creating. Irrespective of endless denial (denying racism is a form of racism - which is pretty common here) institutionalized by public media, you will be repeatedly judged according to your British dining etiquettes, your attire, your skin-colour, your name, your origin etc. Australians place high importance on "humour" (which is great), but often the boundary is pushed too far, bordering with the tradition of "British dark humour" and "racist funny jokes".Chronic underrepresentation of ethnic minorities in public media has justified the existence of NITV (Home | National Indigenous Television | Australian TV | NITV). However, this is not unexpected from a country which upheld highly discriminative policies like White Australia policy till 1973. By the enforcement of Racial Discrimination Act 1975, there has been an effort to declare racial discrimination unlawful, but since then it has morphed into a "subtle" form (ex - police treatments, career progression, social interactions, faux interviews, property renting etc.). Hopefully scenario will gradually improve over time. Empirical evidence validates this. Based on my own Data Journalism study (data from: http://data.gov.au/dataset?q=discrimination), here is a heatmap of the trend in racial discriminations complaints as received by Anti-Discrimination Board NSW. Even though things are getting better holistically, much more improvements are needed in the crucial Employment and Good & Services sector.(Please keep in mind that these are just numbers of complaints serious enough to be reported to ADB-NSW, a tiny sample compared to the unreported ones).BTW, Sydney is the most multi-cultural and least racially discriminative city. Melbourne < Brisbane < Perth < Adelaide is my own subjective ordering (ascending) by racial discrimination. In general, smaller population and high crime-rate do correlate with increased racism. http://alltogethernow.org.au/racism/Observed strong Intra-Asian racism especially from my 2G (second generation) or 1G (immigrated at their early childhood with predominantly wealthy parents) Asian brothers and sisters. A little bit of forgiveness, empathy and tolerance can do wonders against all such hypocrisy. Intra-Asian racism is significantly stronger in comparison with US. Because of lack of importance of meritocracy at the foundation of the society, many racially diverse but talented folks regularly gets evicted out of the country perpetuating some kind of ‘Artificial Selection’, strengthening the myth of white supremacism. Akin to the social dynamics of colonial days, you may observe many (more than what I’ve seen in US; it may change now under Trump) situations of unjustified (and downright foolish) ‘worship’ of Caucasians and exploitation of Asian folks by their own elites. This, IMO, stems from the same root issue of lack of collective belief in meritocracy.The funny part is - all these silly discriminations are causing the country a lot of money - the economic impact of this is massive, especially when Australia is standing at the edge of an impending multi-year recession. As Haas Institute has found out -Of course, you can ignore all these with a typical banter. Unfortunately you will be overpowered (depends on your sensitivity OR how much you care about cultural integration beyond Asian cliques), unless you are lucky or retract back to your Asian community. Many asians dodge these discriminations with a combination of - clique-formation, "fair" skin, wealthy background/entrepreneurship and an Anglo-Saxon-looking name. Darker-skinned asians with a non-affluent background (including me) are not so lucky.US has it's own racial discrimination issues, but over the years it has been structurally weakened by a combination of - Civil Rights Movement (1954–68), "economy-of-scale", meritocracy, diverse job opportunities, true free-market capitalism, top-notch universities, vibrant StartUp culture etc.Update:Motivated by Brexit and resurgence of other extreme (far) right-winger parties across Europe, in the aftermath of Trump’s election, right winger parties are gaining traction here as well. So, it remains to be seen how the drama unfolds across the spectrum of world politics. Interestingly people here with strongest denial of racism are turning out to be biggest supporters of Trump. Hypocrisy unveiled ! It’s extremely frustrating to observe that the repackaging of old colonial technique of “Divide & Conquer” is winning.Overall ImpressionThough Australia (executives, entrepreneurs in particular) believes - Asia and an appropriate strategy for Asia is of utmost importance to its future economic growth prospects, there exists various invisible "glass ceilings" & "glass walls" (some of them are insurmountable) thwarting career progressions of Asian people (mostly 1G, less for 2G) residing here. Check this forum thread - http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1936071If Australians, on average, would have embraced meritocracy and capitalism more than racism & socialist-tendencies, the economy could have been much much more prosperous as opposed to the current state of affairs. If you are of European descent, have an Anglo-Saxon name and suffering from winter depression this is a great country to build your career.It may be possible to focus on your hourly pay-rate while ignoring the entire spectrum of socio-cultural issues described above. Personally, I've decided to go back. Thanks to Australia, I've attained a renewed vigour to combat racial discrimination and social inequality back in my home country. Slightly digressing: we all can do better than our hunter-gatherer ancestors by declaring a crusade against racism. This Human Migration map is so unifying and inspiring -Source: The Human Journey: Migration RoutesBottom line: If you have a H1B, go to US. But having travelled to Bangalore & Singapore recently, I believe, as long as you handle the smog and congestion, the best place to be during 2015-2020 would be Asia, especially in Bangalore (lots of startups, lots of opportunities including social entrepreneurship, massive consumer-base hungry for innovative products and solutions, lots of funding from Asian and American Venture Capitalists/HNIs. Please refer to this excellent Quora answer - Siddharth Pathak's answer to What is going to be the next "big thing" in the next 5-10 years? ). West had their time; It's time for the East :) Anyway that's the content for another post.

TOP REASONS WHY CRICKET HAS BECOME A BATSMAN’S GAMEIn modern times of cricket, fans across the globe have been witnessing some great innings with masterclass stroke-play and innovative trademark shots. Power hitting has become an entertaining entity for every single spectator of the sport. The fact that it’s become lot easier to score runs these days, than in the 1970’s, 80’s and the 90’s, is clearly evident.An ODI century was rare to watch in 70’s and early 80’s. The late 80’s and 90’s started to witness 150 plus scores, however 150’s were not unusual post 2000. After making his debut, it took ten years for little master Tendulkar to get to his first 150 plus (186 against NZ in 1999). Kapil’s heroic innings of 175 in world cup’1983 remained as highest score by an Indian in ICC trophies until Ganguly surpassed this record with his stunning knock of 183 in world cup’1999. Who can forget super human knocks of Vivian Richards and Sanath Jayasuriya (both scored 189)? Saeed Anwar’s record 194 runs against arch rivals India occupied top spot in ODI’s and appeared to be an unbreakable record than.HOW EASY IT IS SCORE TO SCORE AN ODI DOUBLE HUNDRED NOW, THAN IN THE OLDEN DAYS?The 200 runs mark remained unconquered for over four decades in ODI’s. Finally it was the superman from India, Sachin Tendulkar became the first person on the planet to score 200 (in 2010). Few other guys have joined this elite club since then. In just six years after the first ever 200 was scored, six more have been scored. Out of seven occasions, Rohit Sharma alone has achieved this feat thrice, and if he continues the same momentum he would end up scoring few more. On an average 0.71 double hundred per year (in other words approximately one score of 200 was scored every one and a half year in the period of 2011-2017).The total of 250 was considered to be competitive while chasing anything beyond was close to impossible in earlier days. Thanks to Ganguly’s heroics (124 runs), India chased down the mammoth target of 314 against arch rivals Pakistan in the finals of Independence cup’1997-98. It was the highest total chased than. However scoring 300 plus these days, in no way assure you the victory. No total is safer in limited overs cricket. Australia became the first ever nation to reach 400 mark in the ODI history. The Australians joy didn’t last longer as South Africa chased down the target of 434 with the help of Gibb’s stunning 175.What may be the reasons for present day situations, where we see runs of over 350-400 scored and easily chased down on most occasions? Well, we may try to list out a few as follows:WHY CRICKET HAS BECOME A BATSMAN’S GAME? HERE’S THE ANSWER..Batting-friendly pitches are being promoted. One can witness lesser seam movement and bounce when compared to the pitches two decades ago.The shorter boundaries instill confidence and make it easier for batsmen to loft the ball and deposit them over the fence.The faster outfields act as catalyst while putting runs on the board. These days, placing the ball in the gap or clearing the fielders inside circle, will more often guarantee the boundary. This was not the case earlier where ball stopped before reaching boundary line more often.The restricted fielding rules with mandatory, batting and bowling power plays are only aiding batsmen test their hitting skills.The predominantly favourable conditions for the home side, especially tailor-made pitches that suits host team’s skill sets. The home side batsmen will be more often super heroes.The advent of the fast and furious T-20 cricket has injected power hitting skills in the DNA’s of batsmen. T20’s have encouraged batsmen to keep going for big shots.The bowlers in earlier days were fiercer. They were more aggressive and skilled to trouble the batsmen. The quality of bowling is somehow not the same these days.The techniques incorporated in making bats these days have made them more powerful. The bats used today are much more powerful than the ones used earlier.The batsmen in earlier days were less equipped with safety elements. The helmets and guards could hardly safeguard batsmen against such fierce bowlers those days. Now a days, the innovation in safety equipment give batsmen a go to hit big shots.Since the advent of Cricket, Bowlers have always been its whipping boys. In a world where every kid growing up dreams of becoming a Sachin Tendulkar, only a few would want to emulate a Shane Warne or Anil Kumble.Everyone would remember that the highest individual ODI score is an unbeaten 200 by Sachin Tendulkar, but what of Chaminda Vaas who single-handedly tore the Zimbabwe team to shreds, picking a jaw-dropping eight wickets for 19 runs. How many people know that, let alone remember it.Its not the bowlers fault, its the game's fault.And in today's day and age, the stadium has become the slaughterhouse, the umpires the butchers and the batsman, happy consumers waiting to feast on the man with the ball.A no ball which was earlier a warning to adhere to the front-line and punished with an extra ball in the over and an additional run to the batting team, has now taken a whole new turn.In another alteration to the rule clearly keeping batsmen in mind, the then cautionary no-ball has now become an ever-hovering sword on the bowler's head. the front-foot no ball now results in a free-hit, along with the additional run and the ball, that added delivery serves as a chance to the batsman to tonk the bowler to any part of the park without the fear of getting caught, bowled, trapped leg before or stumped, the only opening for the the fielding side being a run-out.And then comes the rule of the one-bouncer over!For decades, bowlers have petrified batsman with the short stuff, with the 'perfume ball' being brought into the bowling repertoire by 'Whispering Death' Michael Holding and Malcolm Marshall. A perfume ball was a delivery so steep and high that it actually went past the batsman's nose.But how could the cricketing fraternity tolerate the bowling clan attaining higher ground?Out came the bouncer rule, wherein a bowler could only bowl a single delivery reaching the shoulder.If the bouncers were the tremors, the LBW rule is its epicentre.Ever since its introduction, the governing body is till trying to iron the creases, bringing in refinements on an everyday basis.In the end, it is the bowler who is at the receiving end."The rule fundamentally states that first and foremost, the ball must, in the opinion of the on-field umpire, be going on to hit the stumps if the ball had not hit the pad of the batsman first. If the batsman plays an attempted shot to the delivery, then the ball must hit the batsman's pad in line with the stumps and be going on to hit the stumps for the batsman to be given out. If the batsman does not attempt to play a shot, then the ball does not have to hit the pad in line with the stumps but it still must be going on to hit the stumps. If the ball pitches outside the leg stump, then the batsman cannot be given out under any circumstances".So if this is what the rule states, shouldn't blocking any of all three stumps be taken into consideration?So when the line of the ball is hitting the leg stump as well, why consider that not being dismissed?Since the 1992 World Cup, the fielding restrictions put another nail into the already sealed casket of the Bowler.The field was authorised top be set in such a way, that a minimum of 4 fielders should be allowed inside the circle.Team that up with 10 over mandatory poweplays and another set of 5 over batting powerplay which can be used at the batting team's discretion, and the bowlers shall Rest in Peace!There was a time when the all famed MCG was the true test of a batsman, not only in technique, but in strength. With the boundaries stretching right back to the audience stands, the power and timing on a shot had to be immaculate for the ball to reach the fence, and if not the batsman should have iron lungs to run the four runs.Fast forward to today and top edges and mis-hits fly away to the boundary, why you ask? Because of the phenomena that is T20, the audience wants hell for leather batting, balls flying all round, so what if its at the bowler's expense? Over the years the spinners and seamers have resigned to the fact that they are just the pawns in a game of chess who are the first to get killed!1. Fearless Batting:In older times, batting had more of a conservative approach where the aim was to face more balls and occupy the crease for a long time and score runs at a gentle pace. But in the 21st century with the advent of the T20 cricket, batsmen have started taking risks on a regular basis and have made a mockery of the stonewalling tactics that once was considered to be done only by batsmen of great virtuosity with the bat. Earlier piling up 400 runs as a team was considered an improbable task but now it has become as easy as a regulation task as we have already seen 16 400+ totals. That speaks volumes of how the mindset of the batsmen has changed and how the bowlers are treated with less respect when compared to the bygone days of cricket where they were not willing to take as many risks with the bat. Hence this element the fearlessness in batting is an important reason why cricket has evolved as a batsman’s game.2. The Indian Premier League:The Indian Premier League came into existence in 2008. It is one of the key factors why the present day batsmen have resorted to the hit out or get out mindset. The compressed form of the game is the shortest of all the three and hence batters have to amass as many runs as possible in a matter of just 120 deliveries. The million dollar league showered huge amount of cash on the players and hence players were compelled to prove their worth and as a result they had to whack every ball virtually. There is very little margin of error for the bowlers these days and this new trend of the batsman’s game seems good to continue for a long time.3. Lack of quality spinners:R Ashwin. (Photo Source: BCCI)There was a man who bowled the ball of the century, there was another man who took all 10 wickets in a test innings and there was still another man who picked up 800 test wickets respectively. Yes I’m talking about the famed trinity of spin that comprised of Warne, Kumble and Muralitharan. Most batsmen dreaded the prospect of facing these three incredible bowlers. But currently, world cricket hasn’t found the replacement of these 3 legends, that’s a prominent reason why I feel that this is a relatively weak era of spin bowling when compared to the golden era of the spin trinity. The lack of top-class spinners has paved the way for the batsmen to unleash the aggressive brand of cricket against the slower bowlers.4. Dropping wickets:The flat and dropping wickets also contribute to the dominance of batters over the bowlers. There seems to be little assistance in the pitches for the bowlers these days when compared to the older times. Even pitches that traditionally favoured bowlers don’t seem to assist them any longer. Take for example, the recent India vs Australia test series. All the experts and commentators were stunned to see such flat wicket. Mathew Hayden said that that was one of the flattest wickets he had seen in Australia.Thanks for ScrollingSource: Sports Keeda and TOI…...Peace