Outsourcing Delivers Hope...to India

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9439-2004May7.html


Outsourcing Delivers Hope to India
Young College Graduates See More Options for Better Life
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 8, 2004; Page A01


CHENNAI, India -- In the traditional Brahmin neighborhood where he lives with his aging parents, Shyam Natarajan begins his day with a trip to the family prayer room. He daubs vermilion powder on his brow, lights incense and an oil lamp and chants Sanskrit verse to a portrait of Surya, the sun god, before heading out the door to work.



A few hours later, in a hushed, air-conditioned sanctuary behind a door marked "Great Minds at Work -- Do Not Disturb," Natarajan sits in front of a computer screen and prepares to change the life, in a small but beneficial way, of a police officer and his wife in Kansas.

Fortified with several cups of strong South Indian coffee, Natarajan evaluates the couple's request for an $18,000 home equity loan, poring over application forms, credit reports and other data supplied by E-Loan, an Internet-based lending company headquartered in Pleasanton, Calif. Fifty minutes later, satisfied that the applicants are a good risk, he recommends the loan for approval.

Natarajan, 24, a slender, goateed vegetarian who likes volleyball and Led Zeppelin and expects his parents to find him a suitable bride, is one of the thousands of young Indians who have profited from the boom in outsourcing of service jobs by U.S. firms lured by India's low labor costs and large pool of English-speaking talent.

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Glad we could help.

:argh:

needs to wise up alot.

OK, what happens when Pervez Musharraf is deposed by a hard-line militant Islamic coup? With the nukes he's stashed away and hundreds of al-Qaeda operatives running about the place, the first order of business is to bring the Sword of Allah to India whether Allah likes it or not. One small nuke found anywhere near the state of Uttar Pradesh (where India's tech industry makes its home) and offshoring to India ends within 24 hours.

Both America and India should be worried about this, but since Bush seems to have looked into Musharraf's soul and deemed it holy, a lot of people are looking the other way.

A radicalized, nuclear-armed Pakistan is a nightmare in the making. At that point, outsourcing will be the least of our worries.

--bkl

workers elsewhere, will he feel so happy when he loses his house, job, car and lifestyle? I don't think so. He will feel cheated (as he has been) just like American workers. We made these damn companies what they are, and they would dump us all if they could.

The man asked for my wife. I asked him who's calling. He said it was a courtesy call from Deliver Bank. I told him we won't do business with Deliver Bank. My wife concurred.