India Complains to WTO Over US H1B Visa Policy Change

India has recently complained to the World Trade Organization against the United States over changes to visas for skilled workers that Republican presidential candidates have targeted for elimination, according to a report in the UK's Financial Times.

The WTO revealed that India had requested consultations with the US over moves by Washington to raise fees for L1 and H1B working visas and also restrictions on the number of those visas awarded. The move is the first step in initiating a dispute at the WTO.

India's WTO complaint:

India's WTO complaint is over an increase in fees on H1B visas that the US imposed on companies with workforces comprised of more than 50 percent foreign workers. A provision included in last year's federal spending bill added a new $4,000 fee for each H1B, which India argues is discriminatory to the country under its trade agreement with the US.

Meanwhile, the annual gold rush in Silicon Valley to file applications for H1B visas has just begun, as the federal government began distributing some of the 85,000 H1B visas it is authorized to issue this fiscal  year, according to Vice News.

Indian Body Shops Infosys, TCS and Wipro Topped H1B Sponsor List in 2013


Why the Complaint?

Why is India complaining? There are two main reasons:

1. India's overall exports have suffered 18th consecutive monthly decline in February 2016, according to India's Economic Times. Exports from India amounted to US$264 billion in 2015,  down -12.4% since 2011 and down -16.9% from 2014 to 2015.

2. Most of India's IT exports to the United States are made up of wages of H1B workers brought to the United States by a handful of Indian body shops like Tata Consulting Services (TCS) and Infosys.  In 2014, 86% of the H1B visas for tech workers were granted to Indians, according to available data. Given India's heavy reliance on H1B workers for its IT exports earnings, it is natural that the Indian government gets very concerned whenever there's even a hint of the US possibly limiting H1B visas or making them more expensive.

Excluding the Indian H1B workers' pay,  such exports drop to about one-twentieth of the the amount reported by the Indian government as IT exports, according to a 2005 study by US General Accounting Office (GAO).

Cumulative Stock of H1B From 2007-2012: 775,957. Source: DICE


Indian Body Shops:

The Indian body shops like Cognizant, TCS and Infosys that rely on the H1B visa program in the US are "the shining star" of the Indian economy, and the country's largest export, according to an Indian-American professor Ron Hira who is a strong critic of the abuses of H1B program. By complaining, the Indian government and firms that rely on the program are trying to "build up a firewall so that no other reforms can come through and constrain the program in any way."

Indian Code Coolies:

H1B workers brought in by Indian body shops are described variously as "code coolies" or "H1B slaves". Some call them "indentured servants", like the ones from India who replaced slave labor after the British empire abolished slavery.

“’Indentured servants’ is a pretty accurate term because in many cases that’s exactly what’s going on,” said Phillip Griego of San Jose’s Phillip J. Griego and Associates. Over the years, Griego and his law partner, Robert Nuddleman have represented several H-1B workers in lawsuits against body shops.

Summary:

India has complained to the World Trade Organization about changes to the US H1B that mainly benefit India's body shops like Cognizant, Infosys and Tata at the expense of both US and Indian workers. US workers lose their jobs while Indian workers are exploited as wage slaves. India uses the wages of Indian H1B workers to inflate its IT export earning by as much as 20X. Proposed changes  to H1B visa program like higher fees and lower numbers threaten India's export earning which have declined for 18 months in a row.  The ongoing election debate over whether the H1B program is hurting American workers rose to public consciousness amid the Republican primary debates this year. The election outcome has the potential to negatively impact Indian H1B exports earnings.


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Comments

Riaz Haq said…
Annual race for 85,000 tech #H1B visas is under way. #India body shops in front. http://on.wsj.com/1M5H6mF via @WSJ


Many H-1Bs are issued to offshore outsourcing companies, especially from India, which have U.S. subsidiaries that bring in foreign labor they subcontract to American banks, retailers and others. Critics say those foreigners displace U.S. workers because they are often paid lower wages.

As the presidential race has thrust immigration and job displacement center stage, demand for foreign skilled-worker visas coveted by tech companies is expected to far outstrip supply again this year, likely prompting the government to hold a lottery.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the federal agency that oversees the H-1B visa program, begins accepting applications Friday for fiscal 2017.

“April 1 isn’t so much as a start date, but a starting gun for the furious race by U.S. employers to secure skilled labor,” said Adams Nager, economic policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a tech policy think tank.

U.S. companies can sponsor 65,000 foreigners with at least a bachelor’s degree from any university. An additional 20,000 visas go to individuals with advanced degrees from U.S. institutions. Universities and nonprofits, which aren’t subject to a cap, also use H-1Bs to hire many workers each year.

The 85,000-quota is expected to be exhausted in a matter of days for the third consecutive year despite announcements by some tech companies of layoffs, according to federal officials and immigration attorneys who file petitions for companies.

Employers pay fees to the government and lawyers to apply for the visas.

“I marvel at the fact that employers are willing to pay thousands of dollars just to get a chance to be subjected to a random lottery,” said Los Angeles-based Rita Sostrin, among many attorneys who said their H-1B business has grown significantly this year.

Ms. Sostrin predicted that individuals competing for a visa in the regular “skilled” category, for people with a bachelor’s degree, will have less than a 20% chance of being selected in a lottery. Those with advanced degrees will have less than a 50% chance, she said.

“The tech industry is not slowing down here that I have seen,” said Gregory McCall, an immigration attorney in Seattle. Based on his caseload, “there are plenty of companies going like gangbusters.”

Arguing that it faces a shortage of specialized workers, the U.S. tech industry has for years lobbied to expand the H-1B program—and counted on support from the business-friendly Republican establishment. The 2016 presidential race has altered the picture.

On the campaign trail, the program has been blamed by some candidates for enabling employers to hire cheaper foreign labor at the expense of U.S. workers.

At rallies, GOP front-runner Donald Trump has featured tech workers who said they were replaced by foreigners. At a recent debate, Mr. Trump briefly disavowed his opposition to the visa program, saying such foreign workers were needed. But a short time later he switched back to opposing the program.

Republican rival Ted Cruz, who supported the program’s expansion in 2013, has called for a moratorium until it is reviewed. Democratic contender Bernie Sanders also is a critic; Hillary Clinton is a supporter.

“This is the first time the H-1B program has entered a presidential campaign. As a result, it’s received more scrutiny than it has in the past,” said Ron Hira, a Howard University professor who studies the program.

Mr. Hira, a critic of the program, said the Obama administration has failed to protect U.S. workers’ interests. “The not so subtle message to American workers is ‘tough luck’—you should be replaced by a cheaper H-1B guest worker.”

Many H-1Bs are issued to offshore outsourcing companies, especially from India, which have U.S. subsidiaries that bring in foreign labor they subcontract to American banks, retailers and others. Critics say those foreigners displace U.S. workers because they are often paid lower wages.
Riaz Haq said…
China tops the list of world's 10 largest industrial producers. It is followed by the US, Japan, Germany and South Korea, according to United Nations Industrial Organization (UNIDO).

India ranks 6th in the world in terms of total manufacturing output in 2013, up from 9th place in 2008,

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/indicators/india-jumps-to-sixth-place-in-top-10-manufacturers-list-report/articleshow/51663535.cms

India's manufacturing value added (MVA) per capita of $161.7 in 2013 (in 2005 US$) is among the lowest in the world. It's up from $131.9 in 2008.

In fact India's 2008 MVA per capita of $131.9 was lower than Pakistan's $141.1. Since 2008, Pakistan's MVA per capita has slipped to 139.1 in 2013 while India's has increased to 161.7 in this period.

Bangladesh's MVA per capita has jumped from $82.2 in 2008 to $118.3 in 2013.

On UNIDO’s industrial competitiveness index, most industrialized countries lost ground in the last three years. Among the five most competitive are four high-income countries (Germany, Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United States), along with China ranking fifth. The four are among the world’s most industrialized countries and, with China, account for 59 percent of world MVA.

https://www.unido.org/fileadmin/user_media_upgrade/Resources/Publications/EBOOK_IDR2016_FULLREPORT.pdf
Riaz Haq said…
#India can’t find buyers for its offshore rupee "masala" bonds. #Modi #BJP http://on.wsj.com/1Tswobt via @WSJ

India’s attempt to diversify and deepen its corporate debt market has fallen flat, thanks to lack of demand and bad timing.

Last fall, Prime Minister Narendra Modi indicated to a gathering of 60,000 people at London’s Wembley Stadium that after James Bond, and Brooke Bond tea, a new type of bond was coming to markets: bond, rupee bond.

Looking for ways to help Indian companies take on more debt, invest and create jobs, the government last year allowed them to issue rupee-denominated bonds overseas.

Asia’s third-largest economy is looking to mimic China’s success with its yuan-denominated, “dim-sum” bonds which have raised more than $100 billion for Chinese and other companies since they were launched in 2007, according to data from Dealogic.

However, despite Mr. Modi’s high-profile quips, plans to issue more than $1.5 billion from so-called masala bonds have yet to raise a rupee.

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The holdups are hampering India’s efforts to spread the use of the rupee as an international currency, diversify its source of funds and reduce its dollar liabilities.

The outlook for masala bonds “is not very optimistic,” says Lin-Jing Leong, an investment manager at Aberdeen Asset Management Plc, which manages $4 billion in Asian debt.

Unrestricted by Indian regulations, global financial institutions like International Finance Corp., Inter-American Development Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, have issued rupee bonds outside India for more than a decade. Around $3.8 billion worth of rupee bonds are outstanding offshore, versus $64 billion worth of yuan-denominated bonds, according to Dealogic.

Masala bonds are an attractive source of funds for Indian companies as investors bear the foreign-exchange risk. Many Indian companies are struggling as the amount of rupees they have to pay to service their dollar and euro debt has ballooned as the South Asian currency has depreciated over the past year.

The masala-bond market was opened to companies late last year just as global interest in emerging markets was on the decline. The rupee has been volatile since then, adding to investors’ concerns about the downside of an investment in the currency.

Indian companies are also reluctant to pay the higher yield that investors want to compensate for the risk.

“Liquidity is going to be quite bad offshore; I would obviously require some premium with regard to yields,” said Ms. Leong of Aberdeen.

“The pricing we are getting [in masala bonds] would be a little higher than the cost at which we could raise money in the domestic market,” said Keki Mistry, chief executive officer at HDFC.
Riaz Haq said…
#US #university in #Kentucky, Recruiting Students from #India to Fill Seats, Not to Meet Standards. #highereducation

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/20/us/recruiting-students-overseas-to-fill-seats-not-to-meet-standards.html

At Western Kentucky, 106 of 132 students admitted through the recruitment effort (in India) scored below the university’s requirement on an English skills test, according to a resolution adopted last fall by the graduate faculty council, which raised questions about the program. “The vast majority either didn’t have any scores or there wasn’t documentation of their language skills,” said Barbara Burch, a faculty member of the university’s Board of Regents.


“Hurry Up!!!” the online posting said. “Spot Admissions” to Western Kentucky University. Scholarships of up to $17,000 were available, it added. “Letter in one day.” The offer, by a college recruiter based in India, was part of a campaign so enticing that more than 300 students swiftly applied to a college that many had probably never heard of.

More than 8,000 miles away, at Western Kentucky, professors were taken by surprise when they learned last fall of the aggressive recruitment effort, sponsored by their international enrollment office. Word began to spread here on campus that a potential flood of graduate students would arrive in the spring 2016 semester.

The problem — or one of them — was that many of the students did not meet the university’s standards, faculty members said, and administrators acknowledged.

Western Kentucky’s deal with the recruiting company, Global Tree Overseas Education Consultants, is a type of arrangement that is becoming more common as a thriving international educational consultancy industry casts a wide net in India and other countries, luring international students to United States colleges struggling to fill seats. The university agreed to pay Global Tree a commission of 15 percent of the first year’s tuition of students who enrolled, or about $2,000 per student.

But as colleges increasingly rely on these international recruiters, educators worry that students may be victimized by high-pressure sales tactics, and that universities are trading away academic standards by recruiting less qualified students who pay higher tuition.
Riaz Haq said…
The Feud at #India’s Central Bank. RBI's Rajan's straight talk upsets #Modi ministers. #BJP - a @WSJ op-ed http://on.wsj.com/1UjEaoD via @WSJ

Is Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan on his way out? Earlier this month, a comment to a reporter by the head of India’s central bank drew fire from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party. Mr. Rajan played down talk of India as a bright spot in the global economy by citing an Indian proverb: “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman quickly declared that she “may not be happy” with Mr. Rajan’s choice of words. Junior Finance Minister Jayant Sinha echoed his colleague’s sentiments: “We are the shining star. I don’t agree with what the governor said.”

Senior Indian officials don’t usually admonish each other in public. That Mr. Rajan’s comment—an innocuous warning against premature hubris about high growth—drew ministerial backlash suggests trouble between the governor and the Modi administration. It could signal that Mr. Modi will refuse to extend Mr. Rajan’s tenure when his three-year term expires in September.

Picking a central-bank governor he likes is, of course, the prime minister’s prerogative. But letting Mr. Rajan go would be a mistake.

The governor, who was appointed by the previous Congress Party-led government, adds global credibility to India’s economic management. His candor and perceived sense of independence are strengths, not weaknesses. Mr. Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley would be foolish to overlook this.

In India, where Reserve Bank governors are usually drab, the 53-year-old Mr. Rajan cuts a dashing figure. When he was appointed three years ago, the gossip columnist Shobhaa De called him “seriously hot.”

Indian media cover Mr. Rajan like a celebrity, chronicling his fondness for old Hindi movie songs, his penchant for running half-marathons, and his use of “dosanomics,” a reference to savory pancakes popular in southern India, to explain the dangers of high inflation.

Unlike most of his predecessors at the 81-year-old bank, Mr. Rajan earned his reputation overseas before returning to India. In 2003, the International Monetary Fund appointed Mr. Rajan, a professor at the University of Chicago at the time, as its youngest-ever chief economist, and the first from a non-Western country.

Two years later, Mr. Rajan warned of a financial bubble at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual policy conference at Jackson Hole, Wyo. When the global financial crisis struck in 2008, many observers hailed Mr. Rajan for his prescience.

Four years ago, Mr. Rajan returned to India to serve briefly as chief economic advisor to then-Finance Minister P. Chidambaram before taking over at the Reserve Bank.

To some in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Mr. Rajan is tainted by his appointment by the Congress Party. Nor did he help his own case by coming up with a sketchy index in 2013 that appeared designed to show that the western state of Gujarat, then headed by Mr. Modi, was not among India’s most developed.

Since Mr. Modi’s election two years ago, Mr. Rajan has been pressured to boost growth by cutting interest rates. Traditionally, India’s central-bank governors haven’t enjoyed as much independence as their American counterparts, but Mr. Rajan has guarded the bank’s mandate, established last year, of taming inflation.

He met the bank’s target by bringing Consumer Price Index inflation below 6% in January. At the same time, over the past 15 months, the Reserve Bank cut interest rates by 150 basis points to 6.5%, its lowest in five years.

Some also disparage Mr. Rajan’s tendency to speak about issues outside his area of responsibility, in ways that can appear critical of the government. In a speech last year, the governor warned against fetishizing strong governments by evoking Hitler.

During a national debate about rising intolerance, Mr. Rajan lectured students at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi about the country’s “tradition of debate and an open spirit of inquiry.”
Riaz Haq said…
#Indian workers chasing dreams and dollars: #India and the #H1B visa http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Chasing-dreams-and-dollars-India-and-the-H-1B-7382822.php?t=2af45939e7&cmpid=twitter-premium … via @sfchronicle

On the outskirts of the city, an ancient temple, surrounded by a buzzing market with food and flower stalls, rises on the banks of the Osman Sagar Lake. It is barely 8 a.m., but for hours already, the temple has been surrounded by a swirling mass of petitioners. Hundreds circle it quickly but silently, praying to the Hindu deity Balaji to grant the wish that has brought them here: to obtain a guest worker visa that will allow them to take their high-tech talents to America.

The Balaji Visa Temple is among a handful of such shrines that have sprung up in recent years, offering Indian workers hope of divine help in obtaining a temporary U.S. specialty-occupation visa, familiarly known as an H-1B. Those who receive them can spend three to six years working in the U.S. — a ticket, they believe, to a better, more financially secure future.

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Those who are successful face other concerns: Navigating a system in which their employer controls their visa, and thus their legal status, leaving some feeling like indentured servants with no power over working hours or conditions. Having wages sometimes shaved through fees assessed by sponsoring companies, who may contract them out for other work.

And increasingly, being pointed to by critics of the H-1B program, including GOP presidential candidates Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, as a threat to American workers.

Still, they come in waves to cities like Hyderabad and shrines like the Balaji temple, eager to vie for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Some have seen their applications put forward year after year without success, putting off marriage or finding a permanent home in hopes that this will be the year they get to America. To jobs that will boost their careers and pay far more than they can earn here. To a few years of adventure in the land of Hollywood and Disney World.

Every year, thousands of Indian workers from Hyderabad alone get H-1Bs, while Indians overall make up more than two-thirds of those working on H-1B visas. Their growing presence has spurred calls for reform of the system on both sides: those who want the limited number of visas expanded and those who say the system has gotten out of control.

The number of visas available, however, has always been limited. Since 2004, the cap has been set at 85,000 new H-1Bs annually — 65,000 for foreign workers with at least a bachelor’s degree, another 20,000 reserved for those with advanced degrees from U.S. universities. Trade agreements reserve up to 6,800 of those visas for skilled Chilean and Singaporean workers.

Exempt from the cap are skilled workers employed in higher education, nonprofit research or government research. Also not counted in the cap are extensions of an H-1B for a second three-year term.

Since 2013, the huge demand for H-1Bs has prompted a computerized lottery to dole out the visas. That has spurred growing criticism of India’s multibillion-dollar outsourcing industry, which supplies legions of workers for U.S. companies every year. In fiscal year 2014, the most recent year data are available, 67 percent of H-1B visa recipients were from India, the highest proportion in at least 18 years.

Indian companies, including Tata Consulting Services, Wipro and Infosys, submit tens of thousands of visa requests on behalf of U.S. clients each year. Critics say they are effectively gaming the lottery — depriving smaller companies of the chance to fairly compete for H-1Bs and taking visas that could go to more highly skilled, higher-paid workers for low-level, lower-paid programmers.
Riaz Haq said…
Why #India’s construction slowdown threatens to increase #poverty #Modi #BJP http://scroll.in/article/807702/why-indias-construction-slowdown-threatens-to-increase-poverty … via @scroll_in

The construction sector in India, which employed more than 44 million people at the end of 2010 (the last date for which official data are available), is witnessing a slowdown, affecting millions of people moving from farming to the construction sector.

Constituting 7.8% of India’s gross domestic product in 2013-14, the real-estate sector was buffeted by domestic and global slowdowns, with growth decelerating from 7.6% in 2012-13 to 6% in 2013-14.

As India tries to move its people away from agriculture – which contributes 15% of the GDP but employs 263.2 million or 54.6% of the working population – a majority of those leaving are finding employment in construction.

While agricultural employment declined 5% between 2005 and 2010, construction saw a growth of nearly 70%.


The construction sector is now India’s second-largest employer after agriculture, the trend coinciding with India’s high-growth phase and decline in poverty levels.

India’s poverty rate declined from 37.2% in 2004-05 to 21.9% in 2011-12; 269.7 million Indians now live below the official poverty line, down from 407.2 million in 2004-05. Construction has played a major part, both in rural areas (through the 10-year-old Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which provides jobs building ponds, roads and other infrastructure) and urban areas (through real estate and infrastructure).

Construction is a $126 billion (Rs 8.39 lakh crore) industry – larger than pharmaceuticals and gems and jewellery sectors, for example – attributed to the infrastructure sector, industrial activities, residential and commercial development.

India’s urbanisation might also explain the expansion of rural infrastructure and non-farm jobs in rural India. India’s urban population rose from 286 million in 2001 to 377 million in 2011, a growth of about 32%, according to Census 2011. These are estimations; the actual figures may be higher.

How rural and urban construction benefits from the declining interest in farming is evident in this 2005 survey from the National Sample Survey Organisation, which found that about 40% of 51,770 farm households surveyed would quit farming if given a chance.

A more recent study released in 2016 by the Centre for Study of Developing Societies in Delhi confirmed this trend, revealing that 76% of youth are not interested in farming.

“The process of diversification of employment away from agriculture has … accelerated… and a large share [of diversification] has gone to services and construction,” said the 2014 The India Labour and Employment Report by the Institute of Human Development, Delhi.

With a 9% decline in jobs over five years (2004-05 to 2009-10), manufacturing – which in China and Southeast Asia offered employment to those moving off farms – is not an option, threatening what has been touted as India’s demographic dividend, the benefits of having the world’s largest working-age population.

This will hit job creation and potentially stall the fall in poverty levels.

Several million of those lifted out of poverty continue to hover just above the poverty line (officially described as the ability to spend Rs 47 person per day in urban areas, Rs 32 in rural areas), in danger of slipping below it when livelihood opportunities slow down.

While the current government’s thrust on infrastructure – building 30-km of highways per day, the promise to connecting all villages to roads by 2019 and 44,000 low-cost houses per day –could boost construction, the economic indicators do not currently reflect such activity.

The sectors that can absorb construction labour are slowing, as the fall in credit growth, in infrastructure and roads, respectively, indicates, according to Reserve Bank of India monthly data.

Riaz Haq said…
#Modi Bolsters #India’s Ties With #America as #Trump's Vows to Limit immigration Worry Indian officials. #Obama #H1B

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/us/politics/narendra-modi-us-india.html?_r=0

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Another reason Washington and New Delhi have grown so close is the increasingly testy relationship between the United States and Pakistan, India’s longtime rival. Although Pakistan is formally an ally of the United States, American officials have made clear that India has displaced Pakistan in American interests and hearts.

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“We have much more to do with India today than has to do with Pakistan,” Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said in April. “There is important business with respect to Pakistan, but we have much more, a whole global agenda with India, agenda that covers all kinds of issues.”

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The two sides also announced that they intended to complete a deal in which India will buy six nuclear reactors from Westinghouse by June 2017, fulfilling an agreement struck in 2005 by President George W. Bush. The price is still under discussion, but more difficult issues like liability have been resolved.

“We continue to discuss a wide range of areas where we can cooperate more effectively in order to promote jobs, promote investment, promote trade and promote greater opportunities for our people, particularly young people, in both of our countries,” President Obama said in the Oval Office during the meeting.

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“The United States is well aware of the talent that India has,” Mr. Modi said in Hindi. “We and the United States can work together to bring forward this talent, and use it for the benefit of mankind and use it for the benefit of innovations and use it to achieve new progress.”

Mr. Modi has made clear that he intends to set aside decades of standoffishness — rooted in India’s colonial experience — to cement closer ties with Washington, in part because the next American leader may not share President Obama’s enthusiasm for India.

The news media in India has extensively chronicled comments by Mr. Trump that critics have said were racist, his “America First” views and his unorthodox campaign. While Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has said little about India, his vows to tighten immigration policies worry Indian officials.

“Modi wants to get as much as he can out of Obama’s last months in office,” said Ashley J. Tellis, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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Mr. Trump has vowed to “cancel” the Paris climate agreement if elected, something Mr. Obama is eager to prevent. Once the accord enters into legal force, no nation can legally withdraw for four years.

“If the Paris agreement achieves ratification before Inauguration Day, it would be impossible for the Trump administration to renegotiate or even drop out during the first presidential term,” said Robert N. Stavins, the director of the environmental economics program at Harvard.

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The two sides also announced joint efforts for the United States to invest in India’s renewable energy development, including the creation of a $20 million finance initiative.

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The two countries finalized a deal that allows their forces to help each other with crucial supplies, and the United States formally recognized India as a major defense partner, which should allow India to buy some of the most sophisticated equipment in the United States arsenal.

India’s increasing willingness to form military partnerships with the United States is, in part, a result of its deepening worries about China. Recent patrols by Chinese submarines in the Bay of Bengal have unnerved New Delhi, and a 2014 visit to India by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, did nothing to soothe Indian sensibilities, as Chinese troops made an incursion into border territory that India claims as its own.

China’s refusal in the months since to resolve the territorial claims at the heart of the standoff has quietly infuriated Indian officials.

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Riaz Haq said…
How Much Longer Can India's IT Sector Hide? Bloomberg View

Companies such as Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) grew into global behemoths precisely because they sprung up in Bengaluru -- far from the watchful eye of Delhi-based bureaucrats. The tech industry fell into a regulatory blind-spot, unhampered by red tape and the labor laws that strangled other sectors. As one Indian minister noted over a decade ago, Indians do well “in IT and beauty contests, the two areas that the government has stayed out of." States like the one Bengaluru is in continue to exempt IT companies from especially suffocating regulations.

These firms offered businesses around the world an efficient, low-cost way to outsource their in-house IT work. Building and maintaining enterprise-specific IT infrastructure for overseas clients provided a steady stream of income. India could beat the competition for this work because of its large pool of trained, low-cost engineers.

Once wildly successful, this model has now begun to run into a whole host of problems.

First, slowing growth in the West means that many companies have cut down on the discretionary spending that once went into outsourcing contracts. Second, more restrictive visa laws in the West are making it tougher for Indian companies to get qualified engineers into their clients’ offices.

Third, that pool of Indian engineers isn’t inexhaustible. Salaries have begun to rise, threatening a business model based on generating relatively little revenue per employee. As far back as 2013, the Economist quoted one IT executive as saying that, for IBM, “the total cost of its employees in India used to be about 80% less than in America; now the gap is 30-40% and narrowing fast."

Fourth and most importantly, the technological landscape is shifting dramatically. Companies could once draw clear distinctions between the core of their business and extraneous IT work that could be outsourced. Now, with the shift to digital services and cloud computing, more and more companies view IT as integral to the transformation of their overall business. They're looking for higher-value services and more innovation than Indian IT companies have traditionally provided. Infosys's struggles with its core consulting revenue led to it declaring disappointing results last Friday.

Bengaluru's flagship companies are hardly unaware of this. Infosys has begun training its employees and board in “design thinking" -- a buzzword for prototype-driven innovation -- hoping this will help prepare them for a future in which they have to serve as all-around advisers for clients seeking to make their businesses fully digital. TCS says its revenue from such work is growing at 10 percent annually.

The problem is that these kind of projects don't require masses of low-priced engineers. TCS is hiring fewer people and laying off some.

A wave of job cutbacks could attract the baleful glare of the state. In a hangover from India's socialist past, the government has traditionally been overprotective of workers in the formal sector. While the roughly 3 million people who work in the IT industry are a tiny drop in India's billion-plus population, they account for a huge chunk of the organized labor market -- almost a quarter of the formal work force.

How will politicians and bureaucrats react to IT champions radically changing their operations, perhaps shrinking or even trying to move offshore? When some Indian airlines, as part of a necessary restructuring, tried to trim bloated bits of their work force a few years ago, the government pressured them into retreating. It's reasonable to fear that similar meddling might be in store for Indian IT.


http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-17/job-cuts-could-bring-unwanted-attention-to-india-s-it-sector
Riaz Haq said…
#Tata Boardroom Battle: 3 Tata execs quit adding to uncertainty at #India's congolmerate http://reut.rs/2dX8Kls via @Reuters

Three senior group executives at India's Tata Sons have resigned, people close to the matter told Reuters on Saturday, as management woes appeared to deepen at the $100 billion conglomerate following the stunning ouster of its chairman.

The three executives were members of an executive council disbanded after Tata dismissed chairman Cyrus Mistry on Monday. The council, comprising five senior Tata group executives and Mistry, was tasked with creating long-term value for stakeholders and boosting returns on investment.

Those who quit are group human resources chief N.S. Rajan; group business development and public affairs head Madhu Kannan; and group strategy executive Nirmalya Kumar.

Reuters could not reach any of the three for comment. Tata did not respond to an e-mail request for comment on Saturday.

Reuters reported earlier this week that the other two council executives, Mukund Rajan and Harish Bhat, would take on senior level responsibilities within the Tata group.

One person close to Tata said there was no certainty all the positions would be re-filled as the group's structure is likely to change with Mistry's exit. Another person, however, said replacements could be named as early as next week, though there was no management crisis as each Tata company has its own team of public affairs and business development executives.

But some governance experts say the resignations of senior executives risk increasing the sense of uncertainty at Tata.

"In the short term, obviously there'll be some disruption at the group level" said Shriram Subramanian of InGovern, a shareholder advocacy group. "People leaving at senior levels shows there's a lack of confidence between the two sides, and that needs to be reinstated at the earliest to contain any longer-term damage."

--------

In a leaked letter to the Tata board, Mistry has said he was opposed to Tata's aviation partnerships with Malaysia's AirAsia Bhd and Singapore Airlines.

In the case of Air Asia, a forensic investigation had found "fraudulent transactions" of 220 million rupees ($3.29 million) involving "non-existent parties", he alleged.

That prepared the ground for a "probe into the allegation of mismanagement of funds," said an official at the national Enforcement Directorate, on condition of anonymity.

The agency was not immediately available to comment. Tata did not respond to Reuters questions on this matter. An AirAsia India spokeswoman said she had no immediate comment.

India's capital markets regulator is already looking into Mistry's allegations related to violations of corporate governance rules at Tata.

Riaz Haq said…
After pink slips, #UCSF tech workers train their foreign replacements from #India. #Trump #Jobs http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/03/after-pink-slips-ucsf-tech-workers-train-their-foreign-replacements/ … via @mercnews

In a move that could spread to other universities, about 80 information tech workers at UC San Francisco are facing layoffs and have begun training their replacements — lower-paid tech workers from an Indian outsourcing firm.

The outsourcing, laid out in a $50 million contract with Indian employment firm HCL Technologies, is unusual among public institutions, experts say. The school expects to save $30 million over five years.

“I don’t know of any other university that’s done this,” said Ron Hira, a Howard University professor who studies immigration and outsourcing. “At some point, you start to cross these ethical lines.”

The majority of the outsourced work will be done in India. Additional IT staff may be brought to the UCSF campus from overseas on H-1B visas, according to public documents.

Employees and advocates are criticizing the move, saying it will leave the university and the UCSF Medical Center staff with inferior service and could endanger medical data. The UCSF workers, due to lose their jobs in February, are training their replacements, sometimes via videoconferencing to India.

U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren on Tuesday asked University of California President Janet Napolitano to reverse the decision. Lofgren wrote that replacing some of the workers with H-1B visa holders would be a misuse of the visa

“I think it is proper to expect our major public institutions, such as the University of California, to comply with both the letter and the spirit of the law,” Lofgren said.

---

“They can replace just about any IT job with H-1B workers,” he said. “It’s obviously a major issue.”

UCSF offers graduate degrees in medicine, nursing, dentistry and pharmacy and has a $5.4 billion annual budget, with about two-thirds earmarked for employee salaries and benefits. Administrators say the university faces fiscal challenges.

“We’re under a great deal of pressure,” Joe Bengfort, chief information officer at UCSF, told employees at a staff meeting earlier this year, according to a video of the meeting. “Outsourcing is not a silver bullet and we don’t treat it as such, but it’s probably the most difficult thing we’ve done.”

The cuts amount to almost 20 percent of the university’s IT staff and fall heavily on back-office operations, according to a presentation made to employees.

The school has also contracted with cybersecurity firm FireEye and Dell for other IT functions.

In a statement, the university said the new contracts “will not only increase savings but also strengthen cyber security and enhance IT quality and consistency.”

---
The move is similar to layoffs at Disney and Southern California Edison last year, where employees were forced to train their lower-paid replacements. Disney laid off about 250 IT workers, although some were brought back in different roles. Southern California Edison planned to pare about 500 workers through layoffs and attrition to outsource its operations.

More than a decade ago, the UCSF Medical Center contracted out its medical transcription. In 2003, a Pakastani transcriber threatened to post confidential patient records unless she received more money. The threat was eventually withdrawn.
Riaz Haq said…
Donald #Trump’s H-1B visa stand may hit #Indian tech companies. #Modi #BJP http://toi.in/bUXzJb via @timesofindia In an apparent reference to the current hot-button case against Disney World, Trump told an Iowa rally, "We will fight to protect every last American life. During the campaign, I also spent time with American workers who were laid off and forced to train. Foreign workers were brought in to replace them. We won't let this happen any more." Among his first actions after winning, Trump played a proactive role to keep air conditioning company Carrier from relocating to Mexico.
India has come in for special mention not merely by Trump but by successive presidential candidates over the past decade, with the word "bangalored" becoming an acceptable verb. The 1990 H-1B visa programme allows US employers to import up to 65,000 foreign workers with "highly specialised knowledge". However, US studies have said the top users of the H-1B visa were outsourcing companies, mainly from India.
Trump can reduce the cap on H-1B visas or raise the fees or auction them. He could also order that H-1B workers have to be paid higher wages which would make Americans more competitive.
Riaz Haq said…
#India's tech graduates fear #America may shut them out. #Trump http://cnnmon.ie/2lnKkq1 via @CNNMoney

http://money.cnn.com/2017/02/26/technology/india-engineers-immigration-h1b-trump/

Ayush Suvalka has a lot going for him. He's about to graduate from one of the best engineering colleges in India and has already secured a job with the Bangalore branch of JPMorgan (JPM).
The 21-year-old computer science student isn't planning to spend his career in India's version of Silicon Valley. He hopes the big American investment bank will move him to its U.S. headquarters after a few years.
"It's always been America because the companies, all the big companies, are there," Suvalka said. "The life there is... really amazing."
President Trump and his desire to put "America First" could throw a wrench in those plans.
Related: Tech industry braces for Trump's visa reform
The Trump administration is looking to make changes to a host of visa programs, including restricting the H-1B visa that allows thousands of Indian techies to work in the U.S.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said last month that this may be done "through executive order and through working with Congress."

That could spell the end of the American Dream for Suvalka and many of his peers.
"Probably America is now out of the picture," he said.
Efforts to restrict foreign workers through legislation are already in progress -- multiple bills seeking curbs on the H-1B program have been introduced by Republican and Democrat lawmakers this year.
Dr. Savita Rani, head of career counseling at the Ramaiah Institute of Technology where Suvalka studies, says jobs at outsourcing companies are in high demand because of the potential to move to the U.S.
But the possibility of America's doors slamming shut is already sowing confusion among students.
"They were shattered and they did not know what to do," Rani said. "At this juncture, America has got a cold and India is sneezing."

-----------

In Bangalore, meanwhile, Suvalka is already sketching out a Plan B.
"I'm thinking of Canada or New Zealand," he said, mentioning two countries whose immigration websites saw a huge surge in traffic as Trump closed in on his election win last November.
"Canada is a bit cheaper than America and it has amazing job opportunities," the young engineer added. "You can get a visa easily."
Riaz Haq said…
Are H-1B visas being "hijacked" to lower labor costs?
Author of the H-1B visa bill is "outraged" over corporations that he says have "hijacked" it to outsource American jobs and lower labor costs

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/are-h-1b-visas-being-hijacked-to-lower-labor-costs/

Former Rep. Bruce Morrison authored the H-1B visa bill in 1990 to allow American corporations to recruit the best foreign talent for emerging engineering and scientific jobs. But now Morrison says he is outraged by the way companies are abusing loopholes to outsource jobs to low-cost foreigners -- and sometimes even pressuring the displaced American workers to train their replacements. Morrison talks to Bill Whitaker for a report on the H-1B visa program to be broadcast on 60 Minutes Sunday, March 19 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Originally intended to help fill gaps in the high-tech workforce with highly skilled employees in situations where there aren’t enough Americans, the congressional framers of H-1B promised to protect U.S. jobs. Yet today, nearly every Silicon Valley tech company has brought in foreigners on H-1B visas and argue they can still use more because there are not enough Americans to fill those jobs. Morrison is mad. “There are a lot of qualified American workers, but companies will do better financially if they hire the foreigner worker,” he tells Whitaker. “I’m outraged. The H-1B has been hijacked as the main highway to bring people from abroad and displace American workers.”

One loophole H-1B companies are taking advantage of allows them to outsource jobs without even looking for Americans, if those jobs pay approximately $60,000 or higher. Many hi-tech jobs typically pay double that. Saving money on labor was never the bill’s intent. Says Morrison, “It’s really a travesty that should never have been allowed to happen.

Adding insult to this travesty is the practice of pressuring displaced employees to train their replacements, usually through a modest financial incentive. The practice was called “knowledge transfer” at Northeast Utilities, says Craig Diangelo, who along with some of his colleagues at the company were let go. He says they were replaced with Indian workers being paid half his salary with no benefits. “I didn’t get laid off for lack of work, I got laid off because somebody cheaper could do my job,” says Diangelo.

Diangelo and his fellow workers were also financially incentivized to remain at Northeast Utilities, now called Eversource, to train their replacements. During the process, he and his fellow staffers placed small American flags outside their offices as a quiet protest. A flag came down as each worker left the company after training a replacement. Diangelo’s flag came down last. “I went in and took the last picture. There were no more flags left,” he tells Whitaker. “You have a queasiness in your stomach...and you’re saying, ‘This can’t be possible. This didn’t happen.’”
Riaz Haq said…
Software engineers' salaries

Source: Glassdoor

https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Salaries/index.htm


Pakistan Avg Rs 500,0000 ( US$4,770) Min Rs 240 K ($2,290) Max $1.08 million ($10,302)

India Avg Rs. 450,000 ($6,875) Min Rs 327,000 ($4,125) Max Rs. 519,000 ($7,930)

China Avg RMB 150,000 ($21,760) Min 80,000 ($11,605) Max 246,000 ($35,687)

USA $95,105 Min $67,000 Max $132,000

UK British Pounds 37,469 ($46,786) Min 26,000 ($32,465) Max 61,000 ($76,168)

Canada C$72,000 ($53,853) Min C$51,000 ($38,146) Max C$95,000 ($71,057)

Germany Euro 54,000 ($58,144) Min 42,000 ($45,223) Max 70,000 ($75,372)

France Euro 42,000 ($45,223) Min 34,000 ($36,610) Max 55,000 ($59,221)

Australia A$83,968 ($63,963) Min 62,000 ($47,229) Max 116,000 ($88,384)

Israel Shekel 240,000 ($65,717) Min 126,000 ($34,501) Max 319,000 ($87,350)
Riaz Haq said…
#India's #IT giants are laying off employees. And the worst is yet to come. #H1B #Wipro #Infosys #TCS http://www.dailyo.in/politics/it-sector-unemployment-layoffs-cognizant-wipro/story/1/17146.html … via @dailyo_

The $150-billion Indian IT sector has not just been an important contributor to the country's GDP and global exports, but has also been at the vanguard of white-collar job creation in an otherwise jobless growth of the past two decades.

For years, campuses across India have relied on the mass hiring by the likes of Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Cognizant, etc as the placement hub for India's large crop of engineers. But, of late, the sun has stopped shining on the sector. Major recruiters like Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant have been seen significant reduction in their workforce. The bad news though is that the worst is yet to come.

For various reasons, we may see massive layoffs in the IT sector. Here's why:

1. The rise of automation

Over the past few years, automation has gathered pace and, in the coming time, it promises to replace many jobs, especially of repetitive and mundane nature.

The competitive advantage in favour of automation has been increasing with technological advancement reducing cost, improving performance and wider applicability becoming possible. The Indian IT sector faces a serious challenge from automation as the nature of most jobs here is "mundane". Besides, human discretion and intelligence are low enough to be easily replaced by automation.

2. 'Freeze' on hiring Indians abroad

India's abundant labour force had made it less expensive to hire Indian expats for projects abroad. But the tide has turned against this trend with US proposing to raise the minimum income requirement for H1B visa to $130,000 from existing $60,000. Australia, Singapore and many other popular lucrative markets too have introduced procedural changes making life difficult for Indians. Getting a work visa has been made both time-consuming and costly.

This will affect one of the most lucrative opportunities that our IT workforce enjoyed, and make it more difficult to employ middle-level employees whose higher salary expectations are difficult to fulfil within India in an industry, where mass hiring at the bottom (to keep the cost low) is the norm.

3. Rises of protectionist politics in US, Europe

The rise of protectionist politics in advanced economies has increased the pressure on companies there to outsource contracts to local companies, instead of firms in India. This is making growth prospect more difficult for Indian IT companies.

The proposed reduction in corporation taxation in the US as well as France will also further incentivise more of the IT big shots to shift back some, if not a major portion, operation back to the US. All this again doesn't bode well for jobs in the Indian IT sector.

4. Corporate governance and Indian IT brands

Indian IT's fabled rise was built on the foundation of outstanding corporates who won the trust and respect of their stakeholders at home and abroad through admirable corporate governance.

But even as the industry needs the goodwill in these difficult times, the Indian IT bellwether have had a rather tough time negotiating corporate governance troubles.

While TCS has seen Tata Sons being mired in a dirty and ugly boardroom struggle, Infosys, after years of being led by unsatisfactory successors to its founders, found a decent performer in Vishal Sikka. But the respite seems short-lived as the current leadership has been engaged in a power-cum-perception struggle against Infosys old guard, notably Narayana Murthy, who has levelled and repeated some serious charges against the present leadership.


5. Sluggish global economy and low demand

As such, the big ticket projects are far fewer in number now with the global economy slowing compared to the initial decade of the millennium when Indian IT sector came of age.
Riaz Haq said…
McKinsey: #India #technology sector to lose 200,000 jobs a year for next 3 years as #Trump’s #H1B policy tightens

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/23/indian-tech-sector-downsizes-heavily-as-trumps-h-1b-policy-creates-uncertainty.html

Technology companies in India are in the midst of a massive restructuring drive that has both employees and industry analysts worried over the future of the sector.

Information Technology companies like Infosys, Cognizant and Tech Mahindra have announced redundancies this year and some analysts have said that this string of layoffs are expected to continue for the next two years.

A recent report from McKinsey India says that at least 200,000 software engineers in India will lose their jobs each year over the next three years.

According to local media reports, tech giant Infosys had earlier announced its plans to lay off about 1,000 employees at senior levels based on performance-based processes, the company also then announced its plans to hire 10,000 Americans over the next two years – a move many analysts have said will please U.S. President Donald Trump. Following this move, other companies such as Cognizant announced their plans to cut 6,000 jobs.

"With the majority of their business coming from US-based clients, it seems like a natural step for Indian IT companies to expand and strengthen their client offering in a market that promises sustained growth. This will undoubtedly benefit U.S. workers and sing to the tune of Trump's America First strategy," Af Malhotra, co-founder of Bangalore-based IT firm GrowthEnabler, told CNBC via email.

U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda and focus on curbing immigration especially around the much-sought-after H-1B visa policy may hurt India's massive information technology sector that forms a strong base for the country's economy.

Indians top beneficiary of H-1B

Data from Goldman Sachs estimates that Indians accounted for nearly 195,257, or 70.1 percent, of all beneficiaries of the H-1B visa program in 2015. And hence, President Trump's decision to steer his policies towards "America First" is clearly going to hurt these professionals as well as Indian software companies. But there are divergent views on whether the redundancies in India by major IT companies have anything to do with Trump's policies.

"It does not seem like Indian companies are laying off in India so they can hire in the US," an IT-professional based in the U.S. told CNBC on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the topic. "The IT sector has been struggling, these companies have been having poor disappointing earnings/lower guidance for a few quarters now and that is probably the primary driver."
Riaz Haq said…
After #IT #outage, #BritishAirways union blames outsourced IT jobs in #India for problem #Modi #BJP http://toi.in/ea7ePZ via @TOIBusiness


NEW DELHI: British Airways' GMB union has reportedly blamed the airline's decision to outsource hundreds of IT jobs to India last year for the IT failure related problems on Saturday.
The GMB website says the union had on February 29, 2016 warned against BA outsourcing IT jobs. The website quotes Mick Rix, GMB national officer for aviation, as saying then that a march will be held "in protest as the company plans to outsource and offshore work to one of the biggest IT majors in India.

The GMB website says "the affected job losses at Heathrow in West London is around 700 people and around 100 in New Castle and other locations."
The Indian IT major "will need to carry out work in the UK and they will bring workers from India to fill the jobs of the ex BA workers," the website adds.

Riaz Haq said…
#US #lawmakers urge #Trump to press #India's #Modi on #trade, #investment. #ModiMeetsTrump #H1B http://reut.rs/2tHbrAR via @Reuters

Leading U.S. congressmen have called on President Donald Trump to press Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to remove barriers to U.S. trade and investment when they meet for the first time on Monday.

The lawmakers, from the Republican and Democratic parties, said in a letter to Trump that high-level engagement with India had failed to eliminate major trade and investment barriers and had not deterred India from imposing new ones.

"Many sectors of the Indian economy remain highly and unjustifiably protected, and India continues to be a difficult place for American companies to do business," they wrote, noting that a 2017 World Bank report ranked India 130th out of 190 countries for ease of doing business.

The lawmakers - Republican House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady and Ranking Member Richard Neal, and Republican Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch and Ranking Member Ron Wyden - said the bilateral economic relationship "severely underperforms" as a result of India's failure to enact market-based reforms.

They said the barriers covered multiple sectors and included high tariffs, inadequate protection of intellectual property rights, and inconsistent and non-transparent licensing and regulatory practices.

Among U.S. goods affected were solar and information technology products, telecommunications equipment and biotechnology products, they said.

The lawmakers also pointed to limitations on foreign participation in professional services, restrictive foreign equity caps for financial, retail, and other major services sectors and barriers to digital trade and Internet services.

"The list is long and growing," they said.

Modi is due to meet with about 20 leading U.S. CEOs in Washington on Sunday before his first meeting with Trump on Monday at the White House, when he will seek to revitalize ties that have appeared to drift, in spite of the priority they were afforded under former President Barack Obama.

While progress is expected in defense trade and cooperation, Trump, who campaigned on an "America First" platform has been irritated by the growing U.S. trade deficit with India and has called for reform of the H1B visa system that has benefited Indian tech firms.

Other signs of friction have included Trump accusing New Delhi of negotiating unscrupulously at the Paris climate talks to walk away with billions in aid.

Indian officials reject suggestions that Modi's "Make in India" platform is protectionist and complain about the U.S. regulatory process for generic pharmaceuticals and rules on fruit exports to the United States.

They stress the future importance of the huge Indian market to U.S. firms and major growth in areas such as aviation which will offer significant opportunities for U.S. manufacturers.
Riaz Haq said…
#Indian #Technology Workers Worry About a Job Threat: Technology. #H1B #ModiInUS

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/25/business/india-outsourcing-layoffs-automation-artificial-intelligence.html

PUNE, India — Last month, Sudhakar Choudhari took the company bus as usual from his one-bedroom apartment to the suburban offices of Tech Mahindra, a major employer of workers in India that powers the global technology machine behind the scenes. Then a manager took him into a conference room and asked him to resign.

“It was a terrible scene for me,” said Mr. Choudhari, 41, who had been with the company for 11 years and most recently maintained software for a British client. As the manager spoke, he thought: “I have an 11-year-old child. My wife is not working. How to pay the home loans?”

Mr. Choudhari is one of a number of Indian technology workers who have lost their jobs in recent months as many in India debate whether an industry that has long served as a gateway to the middle class is preparing to shed jobs en masse.

India’s information technology industry grew at a breakneck speed over the past two decades thanks to the trend commonly called offshoring. The industry and related businesses generate more than $150 billion in annual revenue and employ about four million people to build and test software, to enter and analyze data, and to provide customer support for American and European companies looking for relatively inexpensive labor.

But the global tech industry is increasingly relying on automation, robotics, big data analytics, machine learning and consulting — technologies that threaten to bypass and even replace Indian workers. For example, automated processes may soon replace the kind of work Mr. Choudhari was performing for foreign clients, which involved maintaining software by occasionally plugging in simple code and analyzing data.

“What we’re seeing is an acceleration in shedding for jobs in India and an adding of jobs onshore,” said Sandra Notardonato, an analyst and research vice president for Gartner, a research and advisory company. “Even if these companies don’t have huge net losses, there’s a person who will suffer, and that’s a person with a limited skill set in India.”

Such job losses could be politically damaging to the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who won an electoral mandate in 2014 on the promise of development and employment for a bulging youth population. In January, near the three-year mark of his administration, an economic survey reported that job creation had stalled.

So far, the scale of the impact is not clear. T. V. Mohandas Pai, a longtime industry figure, estimates the cuts will encompass up to 2 percent of the work force by September, mainly from culling underperformers. A 2015 study released by the National Association of Software and Services Companies, the Indian technology industry trade group known as Nasscom, and McKinsey India found that 50 to 70 percent of workers’ skills would be irrelevant by 2020.

Of course, new technologies will create new jobs. The impact of automation and artificial intelligence still is not clear, and they could open up new areas that simply shift tech work rather than eliminate it.

But some in the Indian tech industry worry that many of the new jobs will be created outside India, in places like the United States, in part because President Trump has pledged to tighten visa laws that allowed many Indian nationals to go to that country to work. The subject is likely to pop up on Monday, when Mr. Modi is scheduled to visit the White House.

The Indian government has rushed to reassure the public that job losses will be minimal. Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Indian minister who oversees the technology industry, recently denied that major layoffs were occurring even as he encouraged the industry to speed up development.
Riaz Haq said…
The great Indian trade-off
Sluggish exports leave India needing to curry favour with investors
Perennial domestic weakness, and America’s recent protectionist turn, make it hard for India to sell more abroad

https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21742008-perennial-domestic-weakness-and-americas-recent-protectionist-turn-make-it-hard

In the 12 months to March 2018, $303bn of Indian goods ended up overseas. That was up on the previous year, but still short of the $310bn achieved in 2014, when the Indian economy was a quarter smaller. Imports, meanwhile, have increased to $460bn, pushing the merchandise deficit to $157bn last year, up from $109bn in 2016-17 and its highest level in five years. A surplus in services such as IT outsourcing helps reduce the overall trade deficit by around half, but even there imports are growing faster than exports.

The shortfall is swollen by the rising price of oil, lots of which India imports (and some of which is also sold on as refined products). The surge from around $30 per barrel in early 2016 to over $70 now goes a long way to explaining the rise in India’s current-account deficit, which is expected to reach 2% of GDP this fiscal year, triple last year’s reading. Gold imports, used for saving or jewellery, have their own unpredictable rhythms, but also deepen the deficit.

The current trade lull extends beyond gold and oil, however. Exporters across the economy are being squeezed by the poor implementation of a goods-and-services tax that came into force last July. Perhaps 100bn rupees ($1.5bn) of refunds due to exporters once they can prove they have shipped their wares abroad is being held up by sclerotic administration. That is working capital which small-time exporters cannot easily replace.

Worse, a $2bn suspected fraud by a diamond dealer in February has resulted in regulators banning certain types of bank guarantees that exporters use to ensure they get paid promptly, exacerbating their funding problems. These snafus come as many firms are still recovering from the ill-advised “demonetisation” of November 2016, when most banknotes were taken out of circulation overnight. The move snagged local supply chains, giving foreign rivals opportunities to fulfil orders that would have gone to hobbled Indian firms and to gain market share in India itself.

Those woes come on top of perennial frailties. Crippling red tape means most Indian firms are small: the country lacks the mega-factories hosting thousands of workers making T-shirts or mobile phones that are common elsewhere in Asia. All but a few firms lack the heft to participate in global supply chains. A relatively strong rupee in recent years has not helped.

Unwilling to enact labour and land-acquisition reforms that might foster larger firms, the Indian government is instead shielding its industry from foreign competition. In recent months it has imposed tariffs on a dizzying array of goods, from mobile phones to kites. Though those will no doubt help stymie imports, it is just as likely that trade measures imposed by other governments will hobble India’s exports.

For it is India’s misfortune that Donald Trump’s America is its biggest source of trade surpluses. Mr Trump’s administration has multiplied the salvos against India, whether decrying supposed export subsidies, making it harder for Indian IT workers to get visas or accusing India of artificially weakening its currency. Unlike many American allies, India has not been exempted from imminent steel tariffs.

India would be seriously damaged by any further escalation in trade conflicts. It needs hard currency from exports not only to finance imports and economic growth, but also to repay external debts. These have swelled to around $500bn, or roughly a fifth of GDP, more than 40% of which is due in less than a year.
Riaz Haq said…
#WTO says #India violated global #trade rules by providing $7 billion in #export subsidies to its companies, after #UnitedStates had challenged #NewDelhi’s incentive schemes. #Trump revokes trade preferences for #imports from India. https://www.ft.com/content/66e5b84e-fc06-11e9-a354-36acbbb0d9b6 via @financialtimes


The decision was hailed by Robert Lighthizer, the US trade representative, as a “resounding victory” that would allow American companies to compete “on a level playing field”, despite the fact that the Trump administration has questioned the effectiveness and fairness of the WTO’s dispute settlement system. 

India’s ministry of commerce and its embassy in Washington declined to comment on the ruling and whether it would appeal. 

The Trump administration launched its case against India’s export subsidy programmes in March 2018, alleging that India gave prohibited, rapidly expanding support in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, textiles, steel and technology products.

New Delhi said it was entitled to pursue those policies under exemptions allowed for developing countries, even if they were transitioning away from that status. The panel rejected the claim. The WTO urged India to withdraw the export subsidy schemes within six months. If it fails to comply, it could eventually face punitive tariffs from Washington. 


The WTO ruling comes at a tricky time in US-India trade relations. This year, the US administration said it would revoke preferential tariff treatment given to Indian imports, amid rumblings that Washington might launch an investigation into unfair trade practices similar to the one that forms the legal basis for its tariff war with China.

But good relations between Donald Trump, US president, and Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, have staved off any serious escalation in tensions between the countries. 

Although the Trump administration has been vigorously litigating cases at the WTO and trumpeting any decisions to its benefit, Washington has blocked the appointment of judges to its appellate body after disagreeing with its methods and some of its rulings. By December, the appellate body will not have a sufficient quorum of judges to continue operating, throwing a spanner in the works of global trade dispute settlement.

The US has called for reforms of the system, but officials in Geneva, where the WTO is based, said there had been little progress towards a solution.

The EU, Canada and others have been working on developing alternative dispute settlement regimes while the WTO appellate body is frozen.
Riaz Haq said…
#India's #IT industry head accuses #US of discrimination over
#H1B work visas. In last-ditch lobbying effort ahead of #Trump visit to India this month, Debjani Ghosh, president of #NASSCOM, has sought to meet Trump. #technology
https://www.ft.com/content/4afae768-4f0c-11ea-95a0-43d18ec715f5 via @financialtimes



Nasscom, which has nearly 3,000 companies, including leading IT companies such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro, argues that the move has disproportionately affected Indian companies.

“We’re at a loss trying to figure out why we’re seeing the kind of discrimination when this is actually benefiting the US,” Ms Ghosh said, arguing that Indian workers help to fill a vital skills gap in the country.

Critics had long complained that the IT firms were using the visas to hire cheaper Indian employees instead of Americans. Indians make up about 70 per cent of workers on H-1B visas in the US. 

But Nasscom counters that most H-1B visas are actually taken by US firms such as Microsoft or Amazon, and that they enjoy higher approval ratings than the Indian companies. Around 80 per cent of H-1B applications from the likes of TCS and Infosys are approved by US immigration authorities, far below approval rates of as much as 99 per cent for the American tech giants.

Stricter H-1B rules have already dented profits for Indian IT firms, with brokerages Kotak saying last year that the additional US visa costs were likely to weigh on earnings before interest and taxes. 

Nasscom is lobbying the two sides to treat the movement of skilled Indian workers under the H-1B scheme as a trade issue, asking that it be separated from the president’s broader concerns about immigration to the US.

“We just have one request to [our] government, which is — talk to him, make him understand the importance of high-skilled talent mobility,” Ms Ghosh said. “We have to ensure that he understands that this cannot be treated the same way as immigration — they’re two different things. That’s our biggest ask.” 

But her pleas are likely to go unheeded. The US and India are negotiating a limited trade package to resolve market access issues for goods such as dairy and medical devices, but a spokesperson from India’s trade ministry confirmed that visa issues have been excluded from the talks. Observers expect that a limited deal could be signed during Mr Trump’s visit to India. 

Ms Ghosh also argued that lingering stigma around Indian workers is misplaced, as the country’s companies have altered their business models away from lower-value outsourcing to higher-skilled tech work, and have started hiring more locals.

“It was about cost arbitrage in the past, where people would send jobs to India for cheaper cost, but that has completely changed,” she said. “People haven’t realised the change that the industry has gone through, the contribution that it’s making to the US.”
Riaz Haq said…
#US court rejects challenge to #Trump administration's requirement for #IT service companies (aka #Indian body shops) to file more evidence when hiring #H1B workers. 70% of 85,000 workers each year come to the #UnitedStates from #India. http://toi.in/ugtlTa72/a24gk via @timesofindia

-------------------------

Trump to Visit India as Trade Fight Overshadows Strategic Ties. #Trump removed #India from preferential #trade program, cut #H1B visas, then went further, and removed India from another program that shielded low-income countries from #US trade reprisals

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/us-court-sets-aside-plea-it-service-companies-will-need-to-file-more-evidence-when-hiring-h-1bs/articleshow/73549070.cms


India and the United States hope to reach a limited trade agreement in time for U.S. President Donald Trump’s first visit to the country this month, but experts question whether the larger strategic relationship both sides have cultivated for more than a decade is being sacrificed to Trump’s niggling trade demands.

On the one hand, U.S. administrations beginning with George W. Bush and continuing under Barack Obama have indicated they need India as a strategic partner to help counter China’s growing influence. On the other hand, under Trump, Washington is now publicly browbeating India over the price of walnuts and Harley-Davidsons.

“The administration does not have an integrated policy toward India or anyone else for that matter,” said Ashley Tellis, an India expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

U.S. national security officials have their own view of India’s place in America’s Indo-Pacific strategy and have built on the Obama administration’s efforts with closer defense cooperation, especially in the navy, and through increased arms sales. But U.S. trade officials, obsessed by trade deficits, have their own narrow agenda focused on prying open parts of the Indian market—a view entirely divorced from the bigger picture.

“The fruits of a schizophrenic policy are becoming evident,” Tellis said.

Ahead of Trump’s big state visit on Feb. 24-25, U.S. trade officials led by Robert Lighthizer have been trying to secure a tiny trade breakthrough with India that will give Trump some sort of trade victory with a country long known for hardball negotiations and a reluctance to open its market.

The trade talks are the culmination of three years of escalating tension between the United States and India, which kicked off when the Trump administration levied tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from India (and many other countries, especially allies). India eventually responded with higher tariffs on agricultural goods and restrictions on U.S. medical devices—prompting the United States to retaliate by removing India from a decades-old preferential trade program that gives developing economies a chance to export on favorable terms to the world’s biggest market. Just last week, the Trump administration went further, removing India from another program that shielded low-income countries from U.S. trade reprisals.

The Trump administration’s approach to trade talks with India, like those with China, Europe, and others, is driven by the president’s obsession with the trade balance: Countries that export more goods to America than they buy in return, he feels, are cheating the United States. India is a top 10 trading partner for America, and the United States runs a trade deficit of about $25 billion—a small fraction of the huge trade gap with China.

To remedy that, U.S. trade officials have tried to force open the Indian market to more U.S. exports, including farm goods, medical devices, and dairy products. The mini trade deal taking shape this month appears to include some Indian concessions on agricultural tariffs and a slight reduction in tariffs on industrial goods like motorcycles—but is a far cry from any sort of comprehensive trade agreement that would address big underlying issues like India’s penchant for protectionism or its treatment of data and e-commerce.

Riaz Haq said…
Supply Of Services Outside India By "Intermediaries" Not Export, And Hence, Subject To IGST: Gujarat HC [Read Judgment]

https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/supply-of-services-outside-india-by-intermediaries-not-export-and-hence-subject-to-igst-gujarat-hc-160843

"Only because, the invoices are raised on the person outside India with regard to the commission and foreign exchange is received in India, it would not qualify to be export of services, more particularly when the legislature has thought it fit to consider the place of supply of services as place of person who provides such service in India", stated the bench.

https://www.livelaw.in/news-updates/supply-of-services-outside-india-by-intermediaries-not-export-and-hence-subject-to-igst-gujarat-hc-160843


The Gujarat High Court has ruled that supply of services outside India by "intermediaries" in India is not an export, thereby continuing their liability.
Riaz Haq said…
#Facebook fined for hiring #H1B workers, mainly from #India, while #SiliconValley #Tech giant “routinely refused” to recruit, consider or hire #American citizens & permanent residents! https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/10/19/facebook-paying-fine-over-us-worker-discrimination-lawsuit/8526034002/

Facebook is paying a $4.75 million fine and up to $9.5 million to eligible victims to resolve the Justice Department’s allegations that it discriminated against U.S. workers in favor of foreigners with special visas to fill high-paying jobs.

Facebook also agreed in the settlement announced Tuesday to train its employees in anti-discrimination rules and to conduct more widespread advertising and recruitment for job opportunities in its permanent labor certification program, which allows an employer to hire a foreign worker to work permanently.

The department’s civil rights division said the social network giant “routinely refused” to recruit, consider or hire U.S. workers, a group that includes U.S. citizens and nationals, people granted asylum, refugees and lawful permanent residents, for positions it had reserved for temporary visa holders.

Facebook sponsored the visa holders for “green cards” authorizing them to work permanently. The so-called H-1B visas are a staple of Silicon Valley, widely used by software programmers and other employees of major U.S. technology companies.

It is the largest civil penalty and back-pay award ever recovered by the civil rights division in the 35-year history of enforcing anti-discrimination rules under the Immigration and Nationality Act, officials said. The back pay would be awarded to people deemed to have been unfairly denied employment.


The government said Facebook intentionally created a hiring system in which it denied qualified U.S. workers a fair opportunity to learn about and apply for jobs that it instead sought to channel to temporary visa holders.

“Facebook is not above the law and must comply with our nation’s civil rights laws," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke told reporters in a telephone conference.

Facebook also agreed in a separate settlement with the Labor Department to expand its recruitment for U.S. workers and to be subject to ongoing audits to ensure compliance.

The company based in Menlo Park, California, said it believes it met the government's standards in its practices. It said it agreed to the settlements to end the litigation and move ahead with its permanent labor certification program — which it called an important part of its “overall immigration program.”

“These resolutions will enable us to continue our focus on hiring the best builders from both the U.S. and around the world, and supporting our internal community of highly skilled visa holders who are seeking permanent residence," Facebook said in a statement.

The lawsuit was filed against Facebook last December by the Justice Department under the Trump administration.

A $4.75 million fine and $9.5 million in back pay are a trifle for a company valued at $1 trillion with revenue of nearly $86 billion last year. But the announcement comes at a time of intense public discomfort and scrutiny for Facebook.

Public allegations and testimony to Congress from a former Facebook data scientist that the company disregarded internal research showing harm to children have raised a public outcry and calls for stricter government oversight of the company. The former employee, Frances Haugen, accused Facebook of prioritizing profit over safety and being dishonest in its public fight against hate and misinformation.

Riaz Haq said…
A US Recession Will Also Come to India’s Tech Hub
Analysis by Andy Mukherjee | Bloomberg

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/a-usrecession-will-also-come-to-indias-tech-hub/2022/07/25/0e4e899e-0bd6-11ed-88e8-c58dc3dbaee2_story.html

Look closer at the financial results of IT firms, and you’ll see signs of stagflation in plummeting profitability. Infosys managed to boost rupee earnings by just over 3% from a year earlier in the June quarter, even with nearly 24% revenue growth. A 20% EBIT margin — earnings before interest and tax as percentage of revenue — is a 3.6 percentage point drop year on year. In fact, it’s even worse than what the bellwether outsourcing firm was garnering immediately before the pandemic gave a big lift to the business.

At Infosys’s traditional Bengaluru rival, Wipro Ltd., the EBIT margin fell to its lowest since the September 2018 quarter. Partly that was because it signed up 15,000-plus net new employees, including 10,000 fresh graduates in three months through June 30. (Infosys bumped up its headcount by more than 20,000 during the same period.) But then again, competitor HCL Technologies Ltd., which hit the brakes by slashing quarterly net hiring by almost four-fifths to about 2,000, also saw a lower-than-expected EBIT margin of 17%, a multiyear low.

The margin at Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., the biggest Indian IT vendor, was better at 23.1%, but it was still 2.4 percentage points narrower than for the June quarter of 2021. TCS management has indicated that $7 billion to $9 billion worth of quarterly deal wins could be a sustainable rate. That’s “flattish” from a year-on-year growth basis, Nomura says.

Profitability might remain under pressure for the rest of this year — both because of a slowdown in the West, and the way the industry is structured in India. Offshoring is profitable, but the people it employs won’t stay on their jobs forever without onsite postings at client locations and dollar wages. With the pandemic over, travel and visa expenses are adding up. But the Indian vendors will struggle to get paid more — customers will cite the near-7% drop this year in the rupee as a reason to not bump up the dollar price of contracts. The exchange-rate advantage, however, will be insufficient to make up for the rising pressure of rupee costs.

For one thing, salary increases can’t be skimped on: TCS employs more than 600,000 people, but its attrition rate is almost touching 20%, more than double from a year earlier. Employee retention appears to be even more challenging at Infosys, where attrition surged past 28% in the June quarter. Startups that target India’s local e-commerce or fintech markets compete for the same programmers as the software exporters. While small, private-equity-funded firms are turning cautious about burning cash on payroll, an employers’ market for coding talent is perhaps a story for next year. With India’s domestic inflation rate at 7%, IT services firms have little scope for belt-tightening on wage costs.

Ultimately, all of them will resort to “pyramiding” to protect their margins. It basically means putting a lot of inexperienced code-writers under an experienced project manager and hoping that the client will still come out happy. But since rookies’ productivity has its limits, the more complicated programming will have to be sub-contracted to smaller vendors. The costs of doing that are rising as well.

Riaz Haq said…
For US Visa, Over 2-Year Wait For New Delhi, Just 2 Days For Beijing
There's an appointment wait-time of 833 days for applications from Delhi and 848 days from Mumbai for visitor visas.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/us-visa-appointment-wait-time-the-shocking-difference-for-indians-3387535

Indian visa applicants require a wait-time of over two years just for getting an appointment, a US government website showed, while the timeframe is only two days for countries like China.

There's an appointment wait-time of 833 days for applications from Delhi and 848 days from Mumbai for visitor visas, shows the US State Department's website. In contrast, the wait-time is only two days for Beijing and 450 days for Islamabad

For student visas, the wait time is 430 days for Delhi and Mumbai. Surprisingly, it's only one day for Islamabad, and two for Beijing.

Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, who is in the US, yesterday raised the issue of visa applications backlog with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The top US diplomat said he's "extremely sensitive" to the issue and that they are facing a similar situation around the world, a challenge arising due to Covid.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/wait-times.html
Riaz Haq said…
Layoffs in the Silicon Valley are proving to be exceptionally problematic for Indian Techies. Most them were working on H-1B visas & now have just a 60-day grace period to find another job.

https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-the-impact-of-silicon-valley-layoffs-on-indian-techies-534175

------------------

Layoffs at Amazon: Many Indians impacted, have limited time to find a new job
Amazon is said to cut nearly 10,000 jobs globally this week. While the tech company hasn’t revealed any information about layoffs yet, impacted employees have taken to social media platforms like LinkedIn to share their distress.

https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/technology/news/story/layoffs-at-amazon-many-indians-impacted-have-limited-time-to-find-a-new-job-2297970-2022-11-16
Riaz Haq said…
#US #tech #layoffs: #Indian #H1B workers face painful exit from the US. Companies have not released India-specific numbers but #SiliconValley-based immigration attorney Swati Khandelwa says "it's hurt the Indian community particularly hard." #Amazon #Meta https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63658535

Layoffs across the tech industry, including at firms like Twitter, Meta and Amazon, have affected a significant number of Indians working in the US who are on visas like the H-1B. California-based journalist Savita Patel speaks to workers who are facing the prospect of being forced to return to India if they don't find another job.

Surbhi Gupta, an Indian engineer working in the US since 2009, was surprised that she was laid off by Meta this month. "I was performing well at work," she says.

On 9 November, Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced it would cut 13% of its workforce - the first mass lay-offs in the firm's history which resulted in 11,000 employees losing their jobs.

"None of us slept that night," Ms Gupta says. "At 6am, I got the email. I couldn't access my computer, nor the office gym. It felt like a break-up."

Ms Gupta is likely to be a familiar face for Indians. Winner of the 2018 Miss Bharat-California contest, she was featured most recently in the Netflix show Indian Matchmaking.

Now she is among thousands of educated and skilled immigrant workers fired by US tech companies this month.

Most of them work in the US because of the HI-B visa. It's a non-immigrant visa that allows firms to employ foreigners for up to six years in positions for which they have been unable to find American employees.

It also allows holders to apply for permanent residency in the US and buy property in the country.

Ms Gupta says she worked very hard to build a life in the US for "over 15 years".

Her visa now hinges on finding her next job.

Worldwide, more than 120,000 tech workers have lost jobs as a result of cutbacks by US tech companies, according to the Layoffs.fyi website, which tracks tech job cuts.

While companies have not released India-specific numbers, San Jose-based immigration attorney Swati Khandelwa says "it's hurt the Indian community particularly hard."

"We saw an uptick in calls for consultation," she says. "Everybody is anxious, even those who have not been laid off fear that they might be [fired] later."

For Indian tech workers, the layoffs do not just mean seeking new employment but also finding employers who are willing help them continue with their work and pay for the associated legal costs.

"If a new employer is unable to transfer your visa petition in 60 days, the remedy is for people to leave [the US] and re-enter for work after the paperwork is complete," Ms Khandelwal says.

"But the practical aspect is that people will get stuck in India as there are not many visa stamping appointments available in consulates," she says.

Wait times for a visa appointment at US consulates in India have reached 800 days in some cases.

This is why the layoffs have come as an unwelcome surprise for Indian workers.

Sowmya Iyer, a lead product designer at the ride-sharing app Lyft, says she was part of a team that "had internally taken steps to maintain the fiscal health of the company".

But Ms Iyer found herself among hundreds who were laid off at the company this month. "We had not expected it to hit us," she says.

The mass layoffs feel like a "tech pandemic," she explains. "Both my friend and his wife lost their jobs on the same day. Everyone is in the same boat - reaching out, exchanging condolences."
Riaz Haq said…
#India's #visa temples attract #Hindu devotees aspiring to go abroad. These temples can be found in almost any Indian city with a #US consulate – 104.5 WOKV

https://www.wokv.com/news/world/indias-visa-temples/UL6DOVPCITX7RTECQF2UXUBURE/


CHENNAI, India — (AP) — Arjun Viswanathan stood on the street, his hands folded, eyes fixed on the idol of the Hindu deity Ganesh.

On a humid morning, the information technology professional was waiting outside the temple, the size of a small closet – barely enough room for the lone priest to stand and perform puja or rituals for the beloved elephant-headed deity, believed to be the remover of obstacles.

Viswanathan was among about a dozen visitors, most of them there for the same purpose: To offer prayers so their U.S. visa interviews would go smoothly and successfully. Viswanathan came the day before his interview for an employment visa.

“I came here to pray for my brother’s U.K. visa 10 years ago and for my wife’s U.S. visa two years ago,” he said. “They were both successful. So I have faith."

The Sri Lakshmi Visa Ganapathy Temple is a few miles north of the airport in Chennai (formerly Madras), a bustling metropolis on the Coromandel Coast in southeast India -- known for its iconic cuisine, ancient temples and churches, silk saris, classical music, dance and sculptures.

This “visa temple” has surged in popularity among U.S. visa seekers over the past decade; they can be found in almost any Indian city with a U.S. consulate. They typically gain a following through word of mouth or social media.

A mile away from the Ganesh temple is the Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Navaneetha Krishnan Temple, where an idol of Hanuman – a deity who has a human body and the face of a monkey — is believed to possess the power to secure visas. Also known as “Anjaneya,” this god stands for strength, wisdom and devotion. In this temple, he has earned the monikers “America Anjaneya” and “Visa Anjaneya.”

The temple’s longtime secretary, G.C. Srinivasan, said it wasn’t until 2016 that this temple became a “visa temple.”

“It was around that time that a few people who prayed for a visa spread the word around that they were successful, and it's continued,” he said.

A month ago, Srinivasan said he met someone who got news of his visa approval even as as he was circumambulating the Anjaneya idol — a common Hindu practice of walking around a sacred object or site.

On a recent Saturday night, devotees decorated the idol with garlands made of betel leaves. S. Pradeep, who placed a garland on the deity, said he was not there to pray for a visa, but believes in the god's unique power.

“He is my favorite god,” he said. “If you genuinely pray – not just for visa – it will come true.”

At the Ganesh temple, some devotees had success stories to share. Jyothi Bontha said her visa interview at the U.S. Consulate in Chennai went without a hitch, and that she had returned to offer thanks.

“They barely asked me a couple of questions,” she said. “I was pleasantly surprised.”

Bontha’s friend, Phani Veeranki, stood nearby, nervously clutching an envelope containing her visa application and supporting documents. Bontha and Veeranki, both computer science students from the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh and childhood friends, are headed to Ohio.

Both learned about the visa temple on the social media platform Telegram.

Veeranki said she was anxious because she had a lot riding on her upcoming visa interview.

“I’m the first person in my family to go the United States,” she said. “My mother is afraid to send me. But I’m excited for the opportunities I’ll have in America.”

Veeranki then handed over the envelope to the temple’s priest for him to place at the foot of the idol for a blessing.

“We’ve been hearing about applications being rejected,” she said, her hands still folded in prayer. “I’m really hoping mine gets approved.”

If she and Bontha make it to Ohio, they want to take a trip to Niagara Falls.

“I’ve always wanted to see it,” Bontha said.
Riaz Haq said…
An Indian-origin Google employee lost job after 11 years of service.
The Google employee says it is difficult to express the pain after layoff news.
The H1B visa holders need to leave the country after 60 days if they job.

https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/indian-google-employee-with-h1b-visa-lost-job-after-11-years-of-service-says-countdown-begins-to-leave-us-2327310-2023-01-27

Google laid off thousands of employees and the process was not as smooth considering many were locked out of their systems without any notice. While the news of layoff is disheartening for many, the most impacted ones are the employees who got the job on an H1B visa. An Indian-origin employee with an H1B visa who worked at Google for more than 11 years also lost his job and found out about layoff news out of nowhere.

His wife also got locked out of the system and discovered in the morning that her access to any internal resources on the laptop was blocked. He penned down an emotional note on LinkedIn about his good and bad experiences at Google. He wrote that they were in disbelief after finding about the job they lost at the biggest tech company, even after giving many years to the company.

“Two out of the 12,000 Googlers were staring at each other in disbelief in that room while our 2-year-old daughter slept peacefully not knowing (thankfully so) what just hit her family. It’s hard to explain what this feels like, especially when you’ve spent a third of your life at a place that’s given you so much and more that it becomes an integral part of your identity. I spent 11.5 amazing years at Google - staying loyal and committed to its mission and believing in its “do no evil” motto,” he said on LinkedIn.


The laid-off Google employee with an H1B visa also expressed his pain of leaving the country after about two months if he doesn’t get a job in the US, where he is currently living. “The dreaded H1b countdown has begun and I’m starting to look for roles,” he said.


For those who are unaware, H1B visa holders or we can say immigrants, who get a job in the US, are not allowed to stay back in the country for more than 60 days if they lose a job. The H1B visa workers will have to find a new job in about 60 days or they will have to leave the country. The visas are typically issued for three years, and they can get extended depending on the employment.

Google did fire as many as 12,000 employees across globe, but the company has also promised to offer severance pay to the affected workers. The laid off Google employees will get 16 weeks of salary, two weeks for every additional year at Google, and at least 16 weeks of GSU vesting. Google will also pay 2022 bonuses and remaining vacation time. The sacked employees will also be entitled to receive six months of healthcare, job placement services as well as immigration support.

Riaz Haq said…
India has no "software exports". India's forex tech earnings come from tech services provided to foreign firms by H1B type work visa workers on the payrolls of Indian body shops like Infosys, TCS, Wipro etc.

Glassdoor, a company that reviews employers, calls all of them body shops.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Infosys-RVW36839425.htm


https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Wipro-RVW23275846.htm

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Tata-Consultancy-Services-RVW2307652.htm
Riaz Haq said…
India's Infosys tumbles 15% on downbeat revenue outlook

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/indias-infosys-tumbles-15-on-downbeat-revenue-outlook


BENGALURU, April 17 (Reuters) - Infosys Ltd INFY.NS shares slumped nearly 15% on Monday and dragged stocks of peers, after the IT services exporter's dismal revenue outlook highlighted the impact of banking turmoil in major markets, the United States and Europe.

Infosys' outlook followed a disappointing quarterly report from larger rival Tata Consultancy Services TCS.NS, highlighting worries for the sector which earns more than 25% of its revenue from just the U.S. and European banking, financial, services and insurance sector.

The collapse of two mid-sized U.S. lenders in March had left the financial ecosystem shaken and driven an extraordinary government effort to reassure depositors and backstop the system.

Infosys saw its biggest intraday percentage drop since October 2019, and dragged other IT stocks, with the Nifty IT index .NIFTYIT dropping as much as 7.6%.

India's second-largest IT services firm on Thursday said it expects revenue growth of 4%-7% for the fiscal year ending March 2024, well below analysts' expectations of 10.7% growth, as clients deferred spending due to growing fears of a recession. The previous slowest growth was a 5.8% increase in fiscal 2018.

"Given the uncertain environment in the near term, growth can be back ended for Infosys, in our view," PhillipCapital said in a note.

The Bengaluru-based company's net profit of 61.28 billion rupees ($748.21 million) in the January-March quarter also missed analysts' expectations of 66.24 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv IBES.

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