IT or a time to get LIT?

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Interesting article. Good to get an inside view of what is going on. If you don`t regret what you are doing, and are surviving, then that must mean you are profitable. In which case, things may not be as bad as you have indicated. They definitely need to be better, however. I hope the direction is correct.

At the very least, S&T has a budget now, and has a scientist as its head. Rather than the stud farmer and landlord Abida Hussain, who was the minister of S&T under NS. So some progress is being made :-)

I have heard Pakistani infrastructure is better than India`s. So infrastructure cannot be the main problem. And India has notoriously been more beaurecratic than Pakistan. So that cannot be the problem either. So the problem is something else.

I have started spending time studying Wipro, Infosys and Satyam. It is better than studying Accenture, KPMG etc. if one is going to do an off-shore business from Pakistan. Similar situations, and a lot of success. Even within India, there are certain companies that make it big, and many that don`t in the off-shore business, due to the reasons you mentioned. So what do the companies that make it big have? That is what needs to be figured out.

Correct me if I am wrong, but in Pakistan, two companies are on the Nasdaq: NetSol and Align. Both with large off-shore offices in Lahore, I believe. They have gone down with the stock market, but they are still there, hanging on, the former with the skin of its teeth.

I think the IT industry of Pakistan will be driven by the same factor that drives most IT industries. And that is not going to be anything from the govt., apart from universities. Some universities will produce bright IT graduates. Four or five of them, will somehow or the other form large successful companies. And these companies will define the direction of the Pakistani IT market.

I would be interested in finding out from our Indian colleagues, out of the thousands of IT companies in India, how much of the export is generated by the top five. My own guess would be around 50% of the IT export revenue is generated by the top 5 companies. Is this a correct guess?

So, stick to it. You are doing a great service to Pakistan. I may join you in a couple of years. Before that, of course, I would like to spend a few years in the US offices of Wipro, Infosys or Satyam. Rule no. 1: if you want to get an apartment, buy a car, or set up a business, always consult a South Indian (not a North Indian, not a Pakistani, not an American, but a South Indian; and the longer the last name, the better). Rule no 2: if you are trying to get a date, never consult a South Indian....

Remember great entrepreneurs never emerge due to the government beaurecracy. They always emerge despite the government beaurecracy.

Shakir, I`m glad that you did not hold back much.
Had a chance encounter with Pak Minister Dr. Attaur Rehman last year at TIEcon. Seemed like a very sharp individual and much driven towards improving the IT business climate in Pakistan.
As far as:
``On one hand the Government is asking software companies and global corporate entities to outsource their projects to Pakistan, and on the other hand institutions like the State Bank are handing out multi-million dollar projects to companies abroad.``
There lies Pakistan`s main problem, something that even improved infrastructure cannot correct.
Hang in there and wish you luck.

Ras

Dear Author,
Things aren`t too different in India it seems. For eg, I remember someone once saying that the VSNL(Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited, govt. agency reponsible for communications uplinks)was the most hated entity among s/w companies. This inspite of operating within something called `software technology parks` which were the government`s own contraptions for offering shelter in the bureacratic jungle to export-oriented s/w ventures.
Hang in there.

{{Rule no. 1: if you want to get an apartment, buy a car, or set up a business, always consult a South Indian (not a North Indian, not a Pakistani, not an American, but a South Indian; and the longer the last name, the better). Rule no 2: if you are trying to get a date, never consult a South Indian....}}

ROTFL

Romair:

Check out http://www.nasscom.org/Default.asp for details on India`s IT industry (stats, etc.)

Re: Romair

``...I would be interested in finding out from our Indian colleagues, out of the thousands of IT companies in India, how much of the export is generated by the top five. My own guess would be around 50% of the IT export revenue is generated by the top 5 companies. Is this a correct guess?...``

The number is less than 28%. Here is how -- according to NASSCOM, the top 5 Indian IT (software+services) exporters sold a total of $1.77 bn last year. These companies, in order of decreasing exports, are: TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, HCL. The total Indian IT market is about $8.7 bn.

source: http://www.nasscom.org/it_industry/top20_exporters.asp

Hmm the sad lamentations of the returnee expat hoping to make a difference...old story..but always sad to hear:P

I definitely agree with you, about the out sourcing bit, look what PIA did with Sabre..transferred all their ticketing service abroad!

That the EPB and others are staffed by incompetents is a well known fact as well

Your comment about the total ineptness of regulatory authorities is also very true, cas ein point the move to setup a Natioal Gateway to filter net data, and even better PTCL`s decision to stop access to internet telephony, without even bothering to ask PTA..the PTA in most cases is staffed with PTCL people, who see PTCL and protection of it`s interests as it`s sole purpose and not the protection of consumer interests, the same though applies for other reguklatory authorities which lack any enforcement power when they do want to make a difference,

Monopolies and the uncompetitive environment are mostly to blame. The lack of access to alternatives causes the frustration which you express; and even more so globally..although that`s a another story.

Posted at 10:20 p.m. PST Saturday, Feb. 2, 2002

Back to India for tech worker

Recession steals his job and American lifestyle

http://www0.mercurycenter.com/front/docs1/046478.htm

BY JENNIFER BJORHUS

Mercury News

MUMBAI, India -- The rice maker, blender and bread maker went to charity.

The dining room table, the television and the leather couch they had carefully picked out together, they sold. Niranjan and Sandhya could not afford to get sentimental.

Still, Sandhya had forbidden her husband the engineer from selling the glass-encased clock her co-workers back in India had given her when she went away. It held the spot of honor on the entertainment center in their Fremont apartment, a piece of home marking the days of their new life.

``I promised her a lot. I said jobs are plentiful,`` the 29-year-old Niranjan says.

Four months after getting a pink slip from his San Jose employer, Niranjan`s big dream of starting his own software company had come to this: a one-way ticket back to India, the day before Christmas.

With tech`s fortunes slumping, laid-off programmers like Niranjan have been streaming back to India. ``The Global Indian`s in Reverse Exodus,`` heralds a New Year`s Day paper in New Delhi. There`s even a Web site to help with the re-entry (www.return2India.com).

No one knows how many of the estimated 250,000 Indians working in the United States on special H-1B visas have headed home since the technology bubble burst and recession set in. H-1B visas allow foreigners to stay in the United States for six years as long as they`re employed by a sponsor company. With no job, it`s either find a new sponsor or leave.

The U.S. government doesn`t track H-1B exits. H.H.L. Viswanathan, India`s consul general in San Francisco, guesses that at least 2,000 H-1B visa workers from the Bay Area have headed home in the past year. Raj Desai, president of the Indus Entrepreneur, figures it`s more like tens of thousands.

The reverse exodus illustrates the undertow of economic globalization -- people caught in the storm, as globalization-watcher William Greider puts it, of an economic revolution that`s rewriting psychological boundaries and norms of business.

The story of Sandhya and Niranjan -- they asked not to be identified further -- is about this storm. It`s a tale of opportunity and bottom-line shakeouts, of excitement and pain, of two homes and the upheaval in between.

It`s also about a fairly new concept for people like Niranjan: no job security like back home.

Uncertainty and fear

Niranjan was highly paid, even by U.S. standards, reflecting globalization`s premium on certain skills. Still, not unlike migrant laborers in orchards and kitchens, this elite group lives with the uncertainty and fear that for many go hand in hand with globalization.

``It puts them right into the same pot as the factory worker in Michigan,`` says Antonia Juhasz at the International Forum on Globalization in San Francisco. ``Companies have protection. The only way workers can protect themselves is if the company has long-term roots in the community, or they have unions and contractual agreements.``

Others focus on what they see as a silver lining in the storm cloud.

``We`re sort of seeing a shift from `brain drain` to `brain circulation,` `` says AnnaLee Saxenian, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley and expert on transnational communities.

To her, Niranjan and Sandhya are part of an accelerating back-and-forth of Chinese and Indian emigres between the United States and their homelands. Such an exchange will benefit both economies in the long run, she argues.

What`s unique about India`s overseas tech workers, Saxenian notes, is that there`s largely two streams. Less-experienced code-writers may have been exploited by so-called body-shoppers who illegally underpay workers or intimidate them, for instance, by holding passports.

The other stream frequently is the cream of India`s best schools. Many quickly became part of the Silicon Valley elite, enjoying material comforts they could only dream of at home, and even beyond the reach of most Americans.

``They`re becoming one of the most powerful groups in the global economy right now in terms of access to capital, ability to travel and political influence,`` Saxenian says.

Beyond stereotypes

Niranjan is proud to be an ``engineer ambassador`` for his homeland, showing people an India beyond the stereotype, as he puts it, ``of snake charmers and roaming elephants.`` Indian culture taught him the concept of ``Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam,`` he says: ``The world is one family.``

The story of Niranjan and Sandhya`s American odyssey began in Bangalore in 1998.

A lush tropical city in southern India with fiery hot cuisine and frequent rain showers, Bangalore is the heart of India`s burgeoning tech industry. India`s Silicon Valley, it`s called.

Niranjan was just 25 then, an adventurous young engineer writing code for a large German company. He earned good money by Indian standards -- about $4,300 a year. The company had even sent him for a year to Germany, where he tasted the wealth outside his poor country.

By 1998, the Y2K and Internet business was heating up. Recruiters were scouring India for engineers. Body-shoppers would cold-call Niranjan at his office, promising interviews in Singapore or the United States.

It was a world Niranjan knew little about. He did not come from a wealthy family -- his mother was a science teacher, his father taught Hindi and art in a quiet town just outside Kolhapur, an industrial city of 700,000 in the tobacco and sugar cane fields of southwestern India.

His most direct exposure to U.S. culture were the hippies who hung out in Kolhapur. He knew the United States as a superpower with impressive scientific achievements. He had heard the success stories of Indians who had gone to the United States and become doctors.

Niranjan ignored the recruiters in Bangalore. But when he saw an ad for a Silicon Valley telecommunications start-up, he went for an interview. The work sounded interesting, the pay princely: $57,000 a year.

Four months later, with his H-1B visa, Niranjan was off to America. Everyone, it seemed, was leaving.

``It was really a mass exodus,`` he recalls. ``We were having parties and everything. Everybody was happy.``

May 9, 1998. It was raining when Niranjan stepped off the plane in San Francisco.

Everyone can afford cars, he remembers thinking. He was surprised to see so many Indians.

Niranjan dove into his new life with gusto. He went to work for a Newark start-up writing code to route telephone calls. He loved flying down the freeway in the new Volkswagen Passat he bought -- his first car. He also took up a different kind of flying -- paragliding. On weekends, he soared like a bird over the hills off Highway 1.

Work was good at first. His green card, which would allow him to stay in the United States without a company sponsor, was being processed. Still, much of the job was routine maintenance -- not what he had expected. ``Donkey work,`` he called it.

Lucrative offer

In December 2000, a San Jose optical-networking start-up offered him more creative work at a far bigger salary, with stock options. Niranjan grabbed it, even though the job-hopping would set him back in getting his green card. The work meant that much to him, he says.

It was a classic valley tale -- right down to the job-hopping.

But for all his embrace of ultra-modernity, Niranjan has one foot planted squarely in tradition. Back home, his parents were arranging his marriage.

A month after switching jobs, Niranjan flew back to India to meet a young woman he had never before seen. Grabbing his childhood friend Umesh for moral support, he and the family trooped over to her house for tea. There was Sandhya, a pretty young woman with thick cropped hair in a pink sari, her father, who helped manage a mining company, and her mother.

Niranjan was nervous -- but he immediately liked Sandhya`s independence and intelligence. She had a degree in computer science and did programming for a firm in Kolhapur. He didn`t want a traditional homemaker.

``She also thinks the modern way,`` Niranjan says.

Two days later he asked Sandhya to dinner -- and to marry him. They walked home that night, holding hands for the first time.

Six months later they married. After a quick honeymoon in Switzerland, they flew to California and moved into their new Fremont apartment to live out their dream.

A self-described tomboy, Sandhya loved the California outdoors. The couple filled weekends with ski trips, hiking and ice skating. They loaded up on stuff from the mall.

Still, Sandhya was homesick. She put statues of Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu god of wisdom and good fortune, around the apartment. The glass clock was a prominent reminder of home.

Because Niranjan didn`t yet have a green card, the law said Sandhya couldn`t get a job. So, with Niranjan`s long hours, she found herself alone much of time.

Then, last August, it happened: Niranjan`s company was struggling. After buying another firm the company was over-staffed. It cut about 100 software developers.

Niranjan remembers how his group forced smiles as they trooped into a room to collect their termination letters. He called Sandhya. Don`t worry, she said, you`ll get another job.

But without another company to sponsor him, Niranjan wasn`t even sure he was in the country legally. He was scared. He kept trying to find work, but doors closed, he said, when the issue of his visa came up. A lawyer told him he could stay a maximum of six months without another sponsor. Particularly frustrating, he said, was seeing his old co-workers at his first job get their green cards.

Niranjan was angry. Not at Silicon Valley or his company`s managers, but at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service for what he saw as the indiscriminate system of distributing green cards. Many employers won`t hire people on H-1B visas, for legal and political reasons.

``It`s like we`re migrant labor,`` Niranjan says. ``I really feel very bad. It`s not my decision to go back. It`s something that was forced on me. I have contributed so much to the economy and everything.``

Layoffs may be routine in the United States but they`re a new phenomenon in India with its quasi-socialist history. Companies historically retain employees even in tough times. There are no pink-slip parties.

``People hide here,`` said one 31-year-old engineer in Hyderabad who quit his job in Phoenix before what seemed like an inevitable layoff. ``It`s a prestige issue.``

The United States is the ultimate destination of any self-respecting software engineer, says R. Murugesh, chief executive officer of Assure Consulting Services, a recruiting firm in Bangalore. For many people, the U.S. job was a source of tremendous pride not just for the engineer but for the whole family.

``Everybody looks at the family with new awe and respect,`` says Shikha Bhatia, Assure`s associate editor.

She estimates Assure gets as many as four inquiries a day from people who have lost their jobs in the United States but who keep going to work without getting paid. Returning to India is a last resort.

``It`s seen as some kind of failure in a brave new world,`` Bhatia says. Adding insult to injury, computer engineers are even commanding less on India`s marriage market these days.

But in a sign that ``brain circulation`` isn`t just a catchphrase, Niranjan landed a job outside Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) even before he and Sandhya moved back. He`s at a start-up -- he asked not to name it -- run by an Indo-American in Silicon Valley.

At $24,000, his annual pay in Mumbai is a fraction of what he was earning in California. Given the difference in cost of living, however, it puts them squarely in India`s upper-middle class.

The new year has Sandhya busy furnishing the two-bedroom apartment they found in a good neighborhood. High in a tower with a view of the hills and the rising sun, the apartment has polished white granite floors.

Tech doing OK

Despite the flood of returning engineers, those with solid experience at U.S. companies will find jobs, recruiters say. India`s young tech industry has largely weathered the recession better than expected.

With exports and foreign investment still a tiny part of its income, India is insulated from some of globalization`s storm this time. It may be able to dodge the global recession altogether, some economists say.

Kiran Karnik, president of Nasscom, India`s top technology association, describes his nation`s tech downturn as a ``speed breaker.``

For Niranjan, Sandhya and many others, it means starting over.

It`s not easy.

They had never planned on living in such a huge city. Mumbai`s filthy air gives Sandhya fevers. The tremendous crowds and traffic mean no quick weekend getaways like the ones they relished in California. Struggling to explain what was so special about the United States, Sandhya says it let free her adventurous spirit. And she misses their Fremont apartment near Lake Elizabeth, where they would stroll in the evening.

Niranjan is holding fast to the dream of his own software company. Resolute, he insists their story will have the happy ending they want.

When it came down to the wire in December, he didn`t sell everything. He put the computer, the VCR and the Passat into storage in San Jose.

There it all sits, waiting, along with Sandhya`s glass clock, marking the time until the couple returns to claim it.

``I`m going to come back,`` Niranjan says. ``See you in the Bay Area.``

With more than 200000 largest influx of Code coolies from India ,there is a dramatic difference in immigrants of 60,70,& 80s who are stable citizen by now & never knew alphabet soup of visas J-H1b- L- Fiance visa what not .But never before 200.000 came in 2-3 years period of time.

The immigration game just changed & rule is EASY COME EASY GOES ...or Last one in First one to Go ...or somthing like that

Posted at 10:20 p.m. PST Saturday, Feb. 2, 2002

Back to India for tech workerRecession steals his

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

job and American lifestyle

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

BY JENNIFER BJORHUS

Mercury News

MUMBAI, India -- The rice maker, blender and bread maker went to charity.

The dining room table, the television and the leather couch they had carefully picked out together, they sold. Niranjan and Sandhya could not afford to get sentimental.

Still, Sandhya had forbidden her husband the engineer from selling the glass-encased clock her co-workers back in India had given her when she went away. It held the spot of honor on the entertainment center in their Fremont apartment, a piece of home marking the days of their new life.

``I promised her a lot. I said jobs are plentiful,`` the 29-year-old Niranjan says.

Four months after getting a pink slip from his San Jose employer, Niranjan`s big dream of starting his own software company had come to this: a one-way ticket back to India, the day before Christmas.

With tech`s fortunes slumping, laid-off programmers like Niranjan have been streaming back to India. ``The Global Indian`s in Reverse Exodus,`` heralds a New Year`s Day paper in New Delhi. There`s even a Web site to help with the re-entry (www.return2India.com).

No one knows how many of the estimated 250,000 Indians working in the United States on special H-1B visas have headed home since the technology bubble burst and recession set in. H-1B visas allow foreigners to stay in the United States for six years as long as they`re employed by a sponsor company. With no job, it`s either find a new sponsor or leave.

The U.S. government doesn`t track H-1B exits. H.H.L. Viswanathan, India`s consul general in San Francisco, guesses that at least 2,000 H-1B visa workers from the Bay Area have headed home in the past year. Raj Desai, president of the Indus Entrepreneur, figures it`s more like tens of thousands.

The reverse exodus illustrates the undertow of economic globalization -- people caught in the storm, as globalization-watcher William Greider puts it, of an economic revolution that`s rewriting psychological boundaries and norms of business.

The story of Sandhya and Niranjan -- they asked not to be identified further -- is about this storm. It`s a tale of opportunity and bottom-line shakeouts, of excitement and pain, of two homes and the upheaval in between.

It`s also about a fairly new concept for people like Niranjan: no job security like back home.

Uncertainty and fear

Niranjan was highly paid, even by U.S. standards, reflecting globalization`s premium on certain skills. Still, not unlike migrant laborers in orchards and kitchens, this elite group lives with the uncertainty and fear that for many go hand in hand with globalization.

``It puts them right into the same pot as the factory worker in Michigan,`` says Antonia Juhasz at the International Forum on Globalization in San Francisco. ``Companies have protection. The only way workers can protect themselves is if the company has long-term roots in the community, or they have unions and contractual agreements.``

Others focus on what they see as a silver lining in the storm cloud.

``We`re sort of seeing a shift from `brain drain` to `brain circulation,` `` says AnnaLee Saxenian, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley and expert on transnational communities.

To her, Niranjan and Sandhya are part of an accelerating back-and-forth of Chinese and Indian emigres between the United States and their homelands. Such an exchange will benefit both economies in the long run, she argues.

What`s unique about India`s overseas tech workers, Saxenian notes, is that there`s largely two streams. Less-experienced code-writers may have been exploited by so-called body-shoppers who illegally underpay workers or intimidate them, for instance, by holding passports.

The other stream frequently is the cream of India`s best schools. Many quickly became part of the Silicon Valley elite, enjoying material comforts they could only dream of at home, and even beyond the reach of most Americans.

``They`re becoming one of the most powerful groups in the global economy right now in terms of access to capital, ability to travel and political influence,`` Saxenian says.

Beyond stereotypes

Niranjan is proud to be an ``engineer ambassador`` for his homeland, showing people an India beyond the stereotype, as he puts it, ``of snake charmers and roaming elephants.`` Indian culture taught him the concept of ``Vasudhaiv Kutumbakam,`` he says: ``The world is one family.``

The story of Niranjan and Sandhya`s American odyssey began in Bangalore in 1998.

A lush tropical city in southern India with fiery hot cuisine and frequent rain showers, Bangalore is the heart of India`s burgeoning tech industry. India`s Silicon Valley, it`s called.

Niranjan was just 25 then, an adventurous young engineer writing code for a large German company. He earned good money by Indian standards -- about $4,300 a year. The company had even sent him for a year to Germany, where he tasted the wealth outside his poor country.

By 1998, the Y2K and Internet business was heating up. Recruiters were scouring India for engineers. Body-shoppers would cold-call Niranjan at his office, promising interviews in Singapore or the United States.

It was a world Niranjan knew little about. He did not come from a wealthy family -- his mother was a science teacher, his father taught Hindi and art in a quiet town just outside Kolhapur, an industrial city of 700,000 in the tobacco and sugar cane fields of southwestern India.

His most direct exposure to U.S. culture were the hippies who hung out in Kolhapur. He knew the United States as a superpower with impressive scientific achievements. He had heard the success stories of Indians who had gone to the United States and become doctors.

Niranjan ignored the recruiters in Bangalore. But when he saw an ad for a Silicon Valley telecommunications start-up, he went for an interview. The work sounded interesting, the pay princely: $57,000 a year.

Four months later, with his H-1B visa, Niranjan was off to America. Everyone, it seemed, was leaving.

``It was really a mass exodus,`` he recalls. ``We were having parties and everything. Everybody was happy.``

May 9, 1998. It was raining when Niranjan stepped off the plane in San Francisco.

Everyone can afford cars, he remembers thinking. He was surprised to see so many Indians.

Niranjan dove into his new life with gusto. He went to work for a Newark start-up writing code to route telephone calls. He loved flying down the freeway in the new Volkswagen Passat he bought -- his first car. He also took up a different kind of flying -- paragliding. On weekends, he soared like a bird over the hills off Highway 1.

Work was good at first. His green card, which would allow him to stay in the United States without a company sponsor, was being processed. Still, much of the job was routine maintenance -- not what he had expected. ``Donkey work,`` he called it.

Lucrative offer

In December 2000, a San Jose optical-networking start-up offered him more creative work at a far bigger salary, with stock options. Niranjan grabbed it, even though the job-hopping would set him back in getting his green card. The work meant that much to him, he says.

It was a classic valley tale -- right down to the job-hopping.

But for all his embrace of ultra-modernity, Niranjan has one foot planted squarely in tradition. Back home, his parents were arranging his marriage.

A month after switching jobs, Niranjan flew back to India to meet a young woman he had never before seen. Grabbing his childhood friend Umesh for moral support, he and the family trooped over to her house for tea. There was Sandhya, a pretty young woman with thick cropped hair in a pink sari, her father, who helped manage a mining company, and her mother.

Niranjan was nervous -- but he immediately liked Sandhya`s independence and intelligence. She had a degree in computer science and did programming for a firm in Kolhapur. He didn`t want a traditional homemaker.

``She also thinks the modern way,`` Niranjan says.

Two days later he asked Sandhya to dinner -- and to marry him. They walked home that night, holding hands for the first time.

Six months later they married. After a quick honeymoon in Switzerland, they flew to California and moved into their new Fremont apartment to live out their dream.

A self-described tomboy, Sandhya loved the California outdoors. The couple filled weekends with ski trips, hiking and ice skating. They loaded up on stuff from the mall.

Still, Sandhya was homesick. She put statues of Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu god of wisdom and good fortune, around the apartment. The glass clock was a prominent reminder of home.

Because Niranjan didn`t yet have a green card, the law said Sandhya couldn`t get a job. So, with Niranjan`s long hours, she found herself alone much of time.

Then, last August, it happened: Niranjan`s company was struggling. After buying another firm the company was over-staffed. It cut about 100 software developers.

Niranjan remembers how his group forced smiles as they trooped into a room to collect their termination letters. He called Sandhya. Don`t worry, she said, you`ll get another job.

But without another company to sponsor him, Niranjan wasn`t even sure he was in the country legally. He was scared. He kept trying to find work, but doors closed, he said, when the issue of his visa came up. A lawyer told him he could stay a maximum of six months without another sponsor. Particularly frustrating, he said, was seeing his old co-workers at his first job get their green cards.

Niranjan was angry. Not at Silicon Valley or his company`s managers, but at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service for what he saw as the indiscriminate system of distributing green cards. Many employers won`t hire people on H-1B visas, for legal and political reasons.

``It`s like we`re migrant labor,`` Niranjan says. ``I really feel very bad. It`s not my decision to go back. It`s something that was forced on me. I have contributed so much to the economy and everything.``

Layoffs may be routine in the United States but they`re a new phenomenon in India with its quasi-socialist history. Companies historically retain employees even in tough times. There are no pink-slip parties.

``People hide here,`` said one 31-year-old engineer in Hyderabad who quit his job in Phoenix before what seemed like an inevitable layoff. ``It`s a prestige issue.``

The United States is the ultimate destination of any self-respecting software engineer, says R. Murugesh, chief executive officer of Assure Consulting Services, a recruiting firm in Bangalore. For many people, the U.S. job was a source of tremendous pride not just for the engineer but for the whole family.

``Everybody looks at the family with new awe and respect,`` says Shikha Bhatia, Assure`s associate editor.

She estimates Assure gets as many as four inquiries a day from people who have lost their jobs in the United States but who keep going to work without getting paid. Returning to India is a last resort.

``It`s seen as some kind of failure in a brave new world,`` Bhatia says. Adding insult to injury, computer engineers are even commanding less on India`s marriage market these days.

But in a sign that ``brain circulation`` isn`t just a catchphrase, Niranjan landed a job outside Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay) even before he and Sandhya moved back. He`s at a start-up -- he asked not to name it -- run by an Indo-American in Silicon Valley.

At $24,000, his annual pay in Mumbai is a fraction of what he was earning in California. Given the difference in cost of living, however, it puts them squarely in India`s upper-middle class.

The new year has Sandhya busy furnishing the two-bedroom apartment they found in a good neighborhood. High in a tower with a view of the hills and the rising sun, the apartment has polished white granite floors.

Tech doing OK

Despite the flood of returning engineers, those with solid experience at U.S. companies will find jobs, recruiters say. India`s young tech industry has largely weathered the recession better than expected.

With exports and foreign investment still a tiny part of its income, India is insulated from some of globalization`s storm this time. It may be able to dodge the global recession altogether, some economists say.

Kiran Karnik, president of Nasscom, India`s top technology association, describes his nation`s tech downturn as a ``speed breaker.``

For Niranjan, Sandhya and many others, it means starting over.

It`s not easy.

They had never planned on living in such a huge city. Mumbai`s filthy air gives Sandhya fevers. The tremendous crowds and traffic mean no quick weekend getaways like the ones they relished in California. Struggling to explain what was so special about the United States, Sandhya says it let free her adventurous spirit. And she misses their Fremont apartment near Lake Elizabeth, where they would stroll in the evening.

Niranjan is holding fast to the dream of his own software company. Resolute, he insists their story will have the happy ending they want.

When it came down to the wire in December, he didn`t sell everything. He put the computer, the VCR and the Passat into storage in San Jose.

There it all sits, waiting, along with Sandhya`s glass clock, marking the time until the couple returns to claim it.

``I`m going to come back,`` Niranjan says. ``See you in the Bay Area.``











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One Indian thinks I.T. is one more exclusivity of the priviliged class with land money & therefore education to continued reign on the 80% disenfranchised for whom Gandhi bled!

It`s the old Brahminical instinct. Colonise knowledge, build four walls around it, and use it to your advantage. The Manusmriti, the Vedic Hindu code of conduct, says that if a Dalit overhears a shloka or any part of a sacred text, he must have molten lead poured into his ear. It isn`t a coincidence that while India is poised to take her place at the forefront of the Information Revolution, millions of her citizens are illiterate. (It would be interesting, as an exercise, to find out how many `experts`—scholars, professionals, consultants—in India are actually Brahmins or from the upper castes.)``

Which famous acclaimed award winning Indian said this in the 21St Century ?

Shankar #5: I hope ROTFL means Rolling on the Floor Laughing, and not something abusive.

I have learnt my lessons through hard experience. My partner/accountant in my tiny consulting business is a South Indian. I never make any of the major decisions, regardless of how much he asks me to. South Indians have an uncanny ability to filter out the static and logically point out the core of a problem. This is why people cannot figure out how so many South Indians can run companies, when many of them can barely speak two words with confidence. Their talent lies in decision making based on logical analyses.

The reason for this is either their diet, or their genes. My own theory is that they are related to Vulcans. If you look at their ears, they are bit pointier than most. Based on this, my experience has been that Pakistanis and Indians, on average, individually are on the same plane as far as IT is concerned (I don`t think Indians are any better than Pakistanis; although many people think so). However, South Indians are at a different plane from both Pakistanis and non-South Indians.

At the same time, a lot of South Indians don`t seem to have very good execution skills. I once interviewed with the CEO of a small US consulting company run by a South Indian. He spent two hours trying to explain exactly what he was doing. At the end, he was so tongue tied and his speech so confused, that I came out of his office with a headache. Yet every project the guy put his company into was a success. It was amazing. The contract was a few months long. He made all the decisions for the projects, and I did all the talking. It worked out quite well.

Similarly with my partner, he decides which projects we will take, and which ones we will reject. I then go and actually try to get the contract. He decides for both of us which car to buy, and I go talk to the salesman. If it was vice-versa, we would both end up buying the wrong cars and paying a couple of thousands dollars too much for them.

The ideal South Asian CEO would have a South Indian mind, a Sikh sense of humor, Afghani looks and Pakistani leadership skills (haven`t met enough Indians in IT from other parts of India to form any opinion about them yet).

Since you seem to be in a mood for humor, answer the following:

Why shouldn`t South Indians play sports?

``Yet as entrepreneurs we are expected to compete with international companies with no electricity, no phone lines, and bad infrastructure. This is exactly like expecting the Taliban to win against the might of the American war machine``

Are you implying that the Taliban should not be expected to win against the American war machine ? Do you have no faith brother ? Have faith brother. Rely on Allah and don`t think so much about business and making money because your reward lies in the hereafter.
The trouble is nobody gives the Taliban time to accomplish anything. Wars take years atleast- give the Taliban some time and they will win the war and turn Afghanistan (and then Pakistan) into 6th century Muslim empire ! golden age of Islam :) Insha allah :)

Reply Romair

Romair, that`s as good an argument for a South Asian confederation as I have ever heard.

Ham thaiyaar hain. We have Chidambaram poised and ready for deployment.

Zafar

PS I will warn you that I will work against appointment of Bangladeshi to deal with culture since I loathe Robindra Shongeet. Apart from that, I can see your CEO`s ``star quality``, you have a free hand as far as I`m concerned.

There are fundementally two problems:

(a)Shakir has identified one - why go outside when you have home grwon talent. There is a need to build up expertise. Without that you can shout from the roof tops and didly happens. People say that govt should be out of the loop. SUre it should, but the real help comes in developing the expertise in the country - and that comes by providing project and hence funds for developing this expertise.

(b) there is a telling article in the frontierport by Yattu and I quote

``We have neither the institutions, nor the teachers, nor the students available, neither in number nor in quality. So what kind of IT professionals would we produce? Competing with India just for the sake of competition is plain absurdity.

Perhaps our policy makers are not aware of the fact that India is one of the few countries outside the West and America that has knowledge-based industries.

The same is true about China.

They need IT for inside much more than outside. ``

Note the last line. Now that is a telling line in the article. It is asociated with point one. You have to develop it in house - generate and create expertise then you will have the exports.

Else it is like putting thecart before the horse.

Romair,

{{Why shouldn`t South Indians play sports?}}

umm...lemme guess...their brains use up most of the calories, so none remain for the body. But I`m sure you got a funnier answer.

BTW, have you dealt with any Bombayites? Bombay is the most Westernised city in India. In my experience, Bombayites adapt to the US culture better than most Indians. Ahem..we have the best qualities of both, the North & South. In a sense, we are just like NYorkers--we curse Bombay constantly, but just cannot live in any other part of India, other than Bombay:)

90% of the Indian docs in my town are from the South. Very intelligent, with highly successful practices. They`ve even begun to buy out American doc`s practices! Amazing, cos they cant speak English to save their lives! They will use their entire vacations to go to India--EVERY year!

Their wives, though very sweet, are extremely clannish. They wont socialise with any Americans; primarily because they have an inferiority complex. Their children, who are by now in colleges are usually extremely bright & get into some of the premier Ivy league schools. I`m beginning to see a lot of clashes between the 2 generations.

My wife, also a Bombayite, came to the US in her early teens. She cant STAND going to Indian parties. These ladies will start a conversation with her--& in mid-sentence, revert to their S.Indian language & start babbling amongst themselves. She`s totally ignored & feels like she`s a fly on the wall. After a few years, she refused to go to any of their functions. So, by & large, we socialise primarily with Americans. Most of my classmates are in Chicago--boy, if we want to have a good time with Indians, we fly down to the windy city.

The Indians who have the BEST business acumen, by far, are Sindhis & Gujeratis. Marwaris are superb too, but very few of them go abroad. Sindhis & Gujjus have colonised the whole world & made millions. I have a soft spot for Sindhis, because most of my classmates are Sindhis. Their parents left Pakistan with just the clothes on their backs. In just one generation, their per capita income is probably several times that of an average Indian. Even in the US, my Sindhi classmates started investing their meager Intern`s salary in the stock market. Today they are multi-millionaires many times over--even when the market is down.

Bottom line..if you want a good partner AND want advice in getting a date---try a Bombayite.....esp a Sindhi..but make sure you keep youre hands on youre wallet all the time:))