Barack Obama, one of the Democratic Party's leading candidates for nomination in the 2008 US presidential election, made headlines recently when he released a memo criticizing the Clintons' relations with India and Indians. The memo was titled "Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)'s personal financial and political ties to India". Examples of these 'ties' according to the memo are Bill Clinton accepting fees for speaking at Cisco. Now this makes Bill an Indophile because Cisco outsources jobs to India!
After a lot of criticism from the media and the Indian-American lobbies, Obama has now tried to distance himself from the memo . He now terms the incident as a "screw-up", "stupid" and a "mistake". But while he may have lost a few thousand Indian votes, he surely must have gained some respect from a lot of Americans who still see "outsourcing" as a major issue. John Kerry tried to play the same card, but thankfully he lost the elections.
Obama has been a surprise factor of this election, and could potentially spoil Hilary's party. There is tremendous interest in whatever Obama says, he has got a lot of financial backing, and he is closing in on Hilary's lead. So what does this mean for India?
In my opinion, outsourcing is not going to go away. It saves billions of dollars for American companies and makes things quite easy for them. People say that it is a win-win situation for both America and India. But I do not completely agree with that.
Outsourcing has benefited India tremendously. Thousands of engineers get employment. Take the example of Nirma. We had Infosys, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Cognizant, Accenture and HP together hire almost the entire batch. It wouldn't be wrong to say that without outsourcing, half of these students wouldn't have been placed. Also, a bulk of these companies operate entirely from India. Which means taxes, amounting to millions and billions, being added to the Government's kitty.
But has anyone thought how outsourcing might be hurting India? The work that is outsourced is mundane, boring, and far from cutting-edge. Can you tell me names of 5 applications made by Infosys, Wipro, Satyam, Cogni or TCS? Are our brightest minds made for this? This intellectual castration? These are the thousands of students who would otherwise have never thought about taking a job, but would have thought about going to US for higher studies, or would have written the GATE exam to get into an IIT, NIT, BITS. I am sure all of you must have heard about this. I don't think NASA is going to have the same percentage of Indians ten years from now.
I am trying to find out some more bad points about outsourcing. And the surprising thing is that once you start thinking, you can think about many things. What about the effect on our cities? These are thousands of young people who are going to get a lot of money. Money which can buy lots of cars, gadgets, gizmos which ultimately are going to pollute something. Look at the state in which Bangalore is. I had gone to Pune in January. It took us more than an hour to travel a few kilometers from the IT park to the main city.
But my biggest worry about outsourcing is that it is just a temporary phenomenon as far as India is concerned. Things are great right now. But we need to cash in, fast. Because this golden goose does not belong to India. It will fly to whichever country provides the cheapest services. Right now it is in India. But with the growth South American countries like Brazil and Argentina, and European countries like Czechoslovakia and other former Soviet countries, things could be outsourced there too. Besides being geographically close, outsourcing to these countries wouldn't hurt American sentiments as much as outsourcing to India does. And the Chinese are learning English too. So it is up to us to create more golden gooses. There are signs that things may be changing. Some global software giants like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Oracle have set up shop in India and do the same kind of work in India as in US. We also hear about gaming companies and animation studios started by Indians in India. The growth of Indian pharma companies and the news about various automobile giants setting up plants being set up in India is also a good sign. At least all our eggs are not in the same basket.
I may have exaggerated the drawbacks of outsourcing a bit too much. I hope I may be totally wrong about each one of those negative points.
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5 comments:
very thought provoking.
i'll give u 2.5/6 for this issue topic.. very digressing...
Yes, most of the work being outsourced is boring. But then most of the work being done on the planet is boring. That's why it's called "work". You think IT is bad? Just look at manufacturing. Heh.
Secondly... "These are thousands of young people who are going to get a lot of money. Money which can buy lots of cars, gadgets, gizmos which ultimately are going to pollute something."
Are you seriously suggesting that we should reduce how much people earn in order to reduce pollution? And secondly, if old people were getting a lot of money, would the scenario be significantly different?
(Good work overall, though. This is strictly constructive criticism.)
thought provoking for sure!
n i think u might not be wrong on all those issues :(
hmmmm interesting write-up man...the antics of Obama remind me of an old quote that floated around during the last elections 'The greatest enemy of the democrats are democrats themselves...' and this remains true yet... but thankfully john kerry lost the elections?? thats stretching it a bit too far mate...
i would see kerry in office neday rahter than a bush...but the main reason i started on this comment is because of OUTsourcing...
you say the work is mundane boring and not on the cutting edge...i agree 100% but the smart ones treat these companies as a stepping stone to further better deeds...and mate it sounds un-believable but most of the smart/IQ above 100 seniors that we know are workin today with an intel/ microsoft/cisco after a stint at tcs/infy/cogni which they wouldnt have had cause neither these companies came to our college when they were freshers...the only thing they did right was to keep their heads about them and constantly work on their techinical resume while others just fell into jobs and stagnated...The point i want to make is that the intellectual castration u talking about happens to a group of people for whom a first job is the end rather than a means...In college, we often tend to paint our entire world and life around our first jobs...but its not the case dude..step out and your nirma tag wears off after a year...for good or for bad is upto you...
on the other hand, the really worrying trend is the lack of students goin in infrastructure / regular jobs because of the lure of money...and then tend to have no clue about what to do next...as i said...only the clueless get castrated not the smart ones ;)
another point of outsourcing going to the cheapest countries... hmmm east europe is a threat...so is as u say brazil...but but the clear differentiator is the manpower we have/ the techinical proficiency we possess in IT enabling services...thankfully the indian software industry manages to squeeze out the last ruppee from a dollar and that enables us to stave off competition yet for many years...and dude the big three realises the threat of the rupee factor...and responds equally by moving up the value of service chain...and you talk about applications? its not a job of TCS , infosys to actually develop applications...thats not what they seek to do...in fact the lack of patents coming out of the hallowed IIT?NITs is more worrying and disruptive...
I do agree that outsourcing has disrupted the way we function and that in the long run the short term benefits might create a big fiasco in the future...but are the companies to blame for it? how many students you know decided to wait for a tech job? the argument is that who will risk a safe job?
well then if u decided to play safe then y crib about the lack of growth and the mundane job-profile that comes with it? you cant have your cake and eat it too...the IT job companies are a bewitching option but they no different from the eponymous government jobs of the age past...in the end u only get what u sow dude...time to introspect on what we really want to do rather than what the world offers us. Peace out.
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