Ranchi, June 4: Forgive Ranchi its swagger. From a city used to losing its best brains to metros or countries abroad, it is now the preferred workplace of many top-notch professionals.

With world-class cradles Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Ranchi and National University for Study and Research in Law (NUSRL) off the ground, some of the best brains of Jharkhand and eastern India are opting to teach semesters, deliver guest lectures or settle down permanently in the state capital.

Take Shivendu, a professor in University of California, Irvine, who used to be an IAS in Jharkhand. “He’s visiting his wife Mridula, also an IAS, and parents in Ranchi, and we roped him in to teach business and governance here,” smiled IIM-R director M.J. Xavier. Other Jharkhandis who offered guest lectures included Maneesh Kumar of Edinburgh University and Vikas Kumar of Dublin City University. “They want to see IIM-R grow,” Xavier pointed out.

It’s not just combining work with a holiday. Jharkhand’s Manoj Chandra and Subir Verma, who taught at Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, and MDI, Gurgaon, respectively, are coming as IIM-R’s permanent faculty. “Ranchi is now a magnet for some of the best brains hailing from eastern India. They’re people who have attained stature in institutions the world over and want to come back,” Xavier said, adding that of the seven permanent faculty members, two each are from Jharkhand and Bengal.

“We don’t want to pack this IIM with everyone from the east as it’s a national institute and should have the stamp of diversity. There are faculty from Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, too,” Xavier pointed out.

So while Andhra couple Chandrashekhar and wife Hemalatha Chandrashekhar, both fellow at IIM-Lucknow, are gladly moving in to Ranchi, so are Bengalis such as Arun Nandy, with stints at National University of Singapore and Institute of Management, Goa, and Madhuri Deb, with a CV that boasts IIT Kharagpur and Narsee Monjee Institute of Management & Higher Studies, Mumbai. There’s also Amit Sacham from MDI Gurgaon.

All of them will join IIM-R this month or in July, said Xavier.

“We’re connecting with people with a Jharkhand or eastern India connect through Facebook,” Xavier said.

Legal experts with roots in Jharkhand and eastern neighbours are also flocking to NUSRL, the prestigious law cradle inaugurated on April 26, 2010, on BIT Mesra campus. It’s dean (faculty), A.K. Gupta, is from Patna. “When we invited applications to recruit faculty for our five-year integrated course, BA-LLB, we got over 100 applications, many from abroad. Most had origins in Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa or Bengal,” he said.

Gupta earlier worked at Jodhpur University, Rajasthan. “Of the seven faculty members on rolls, two are originally from Jharkhand, and chose to come back from metros such as New Delhi and Bangalore. Two are from Bihar and one each from Uttar Pradesh and Orissa. Only one person has stayed in Ranchi throughout,” he said.

“Nimesh Dasguru and Poonam Kumari are from Jharkhand. Dasguru taught at National Law University, Delhi, while Kumari had studied at National Law School of India University, Bangalore.”