Prime Minister Narendra Modi may have unwittingly invited his greatest competitor as chief guest for the 2015 Republic Day parade.

The same day he exultantly tweeted that the US President had agreed to "grace the occasion", as we are wont to say in India, US President Barack Obama announced a radical overhaul of immigration laws.

Almost overnight, an honoured guest has, quite unconsciously perhaps, thrown down a challenge for Modi in the high stakes race for global talent or Human Capital, if you will.

The clue to this lies in Obama's prefatory remarks. "Are we a nation that educates the world's best and brightest in our universities only to send them home to create businesses in countries that compete against us or are we a nation that encourages them to stay and create jobs here," he asked with his practised soaring rhetoric.

Mr Modi could ask the same questions in his aggressive thrust to deliver his millennial vision of achche din in ten years.

src:sify.com