Apr 19, 2004: Bangalore, Osama pose threat to America  
 
The last three weeks that I spent in California’s Silicon Valley was a fascinating experience. While the US media have revelled in stories of poverty and squalor in India for nearly five decades, a sea change has now taken place in American perceptions about India.

Bangalore is today seen as being as serious a threat to US jobs, as Osama bin Laden is to American lives! With a presidential election due later this year, the Democratic Party’s presidential aspirant, Senator John Kerry, is sounding alarm bells about how the Bush administration’s policies are resulting in Americans losing their jobs through outsourcing to India.

Adding to the prevailing paranoia about outsourcing is the jingoism on this issue being constantly propagated on television by CNN. There is now a widespread, but wholly exaggerated, fear that by 2017, 3.3 million US jobs will be lost through outsourcing. The assertion is that intelligent, industrious, English-speaking Indians, with relatively low wages, will add substantially to unemployment in the US — and not merely in call services, but in value added services and research projects.
.........
...............
........................
..............................

Bangalore, Osama pose threat to America
G. PARTHASARATHY, Indian Express