South Asia Investor Review

The Biden administration has proposed a number of significant changes to how the H-1B temporary work visas are issued to high-skilled foreign workers. These changes are the result of the government finding earlier this year that companies, particularly Indian body shops, had colluded to try to increase their chances of winning a coveted visa by gaming the visa lottery system. This has helped Indian workers win as many as three quarters of all H1B visas issued in recent years.  H1B Visas Issued in India. Source: Visagrader.com Every year, applicants sponsored by Indian body shops claim the lion's share of H1B visas. In 2022, Indian nationals received 166,384 new H1B visas, accounting for nearly three quarters of all such visas issued by the US government. The figures reported as India  IT exports  include the wages earned by millions of Indian H1B workers in the United States.   Public interest groups have been complaining about the behavior of Indian body shops ...

Responding candidly to a question in the Indian capital New Delhi,  OpenAI  CEO Sam Altman said: "The way this works is we're going to tell you, it's totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models you shouldn't try, and it's your job to like try anyway. And I believe both of those things. I think it is pretty hopeless." This occurred at an event organized by The Economic Times where Altman answered a question by Rajan Anandan, a former Vice President of Google in India and South East Asia and current venture capitalist.   OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in India Altman in Delhi:  Sam Altman, the young CEO of OpenAI, the company that recently launched its revolutionary Generative AI app ChatGPT, was in India as part of a six-nation tour to discuss AI regulation.  ChatGPT has been trained on massive amounts of data and text from the internet, textbooks, newspapers, magazines and academic journals. It can write computer code and carry on sophisticated...

What is Ramadan all about? Is it only about abstaining from food and drink in the daylight hours? What is the key message for this Ramzan ? Isn't respecting Huqooq-ul-Ibad (human rights of others) as important as observing Huqooq-ul-Allah (Duties to Allah such as prayer and fasting) for each Muslim? What must Muslims do this Ramzan to fulfill all of their obligations to Allah and His creation? What does the Economic Survey of Pakistan say about Pakistan's GDP, per capita income, infrastructure development, education and other important indicators? What must Pakistani leaders do to ensure greater focus on and investment in education and not just in infrastructure ? What is the size of and the key priorities in Pakistan's budget for 2017-18? Should some of the $20 billion (out of the $50 billion budget) for infrastructure be allocated to education to boost Pakistan's stagnant literacy and school enrollment rates? Why is India losing IT jobs at a rate of 200,000 ...

What are the implications of the split Pakistan Supreme Court verdict recently announced in Panama Case filed against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif by PTI Chief Imran Khan, JI Chief Siraj ul Haq and AML chief Shaikh Rasheed? Why did 3 out of 5 judges not vote to disqualify Mr. Sharif from holding office under Articles 62 and 63 of the Pakistan constitution? Has the Prime Minister not committed perjury, a felony in Pakistani law, by offering multiple conflicting explanations for the source of funds used to buy London flats? Does the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) appointed by the Supreme Court have the independence and the skill set to find credible evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Sharif? Will Nawaz Sharif survive the JIT and serve out his term scheduled to end in mid-2018? Why has President Donald J. Trump tightened H1B temporary work visa requirements with an executive order calling for "Buy American, Hire American"? How will it impact India, the biggest beneficiary of th...

A segment of  CBS 60 Minutes , top rated American newsmagazine on television, has recently brought sharp focus on H1B visa abuse. It alleges that the H1B visas are being misused by  Indian body shops  to bring low-cost Indian software engineers to the United States to replace higher-paid American workers. H1B Visa Abuse: The visa category was originally intended to help fill gaps in the high-tech workforce with highly skilled employees from abroad in situations where there aren’t enough Americans. Instead, it has given rise to body shops that bring in workers from overseas, mainly from India, to replace higher-paid American workers. Recent examples of the firing of American IT workers and their replacement by Indian workers at UC San Francisco and Walt Disney and Co have received a lot of media attention. What has particularly incensed the American public is the practice of forcing the American workers to train their replacements. Labor Cost Savings: A loophole ...

Silicon Valley is hurting. Intel, Microsoft, and other high technology giants are announcing tens of thousands of layoffs. Unemployment in Silicon valley hit a new high of 7.8% in January, 2009. Many of the high-tech companies rely on foreign-born technologists, particular those from India, China, Israel, Pakistan, Philippines, and other nations. Thousands of these workers are facing the ax, with the H1-B workers particularly fearing the worst. When times were good, the high-tech companies lobbied for and got over 100,000 yearly H1-B visas approved by U.S. Congress. The largest number of workers who were hired with the H1-B visas were of Indian origin. Some of them suffered abuse at the hands of their employers and the intermediaries who helped place them. "H1-B slavery" was the term used to describe their situation. Things have changed dramatically in the last few months. And they are going to get much worse in 2009. In a letter addressed to Microsoft, U.S. Senator Charl...