If USA goes bankcrupt, India will suffer big time.

So, following info is related to India…

Who has been guarding the Vault (US Treasury / Our Money)?

Goldman Sachs guys were and still are in charge:
Neel Kashkari (in charge of TARP giveaway)
Jashua Bolton (former GS – appointed Paulson)
Henry Paulson (former GS CEO; deregulation Champ first + Secretary of Treasury)
Robert K. Steel (made Wachovia’s CEO by Paulson)
Edward C. Forst (former GS – worked on TARP giveaway)
David G. Nason (former GS – Treasury + former SEC)
Edward Liddy (GS Board – made AIG’s CEO by Paulson)
Steve Shafran (Treasury – capital injection to Goldman)
Robert Rubin (former GS – created Timothy Giethner)
Dan Jester (took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac)
Jon Corzine (former GS CEO)
James Johnson (former CEO of Fannie Mae)
Ken D. Brody (chairman Export-Import Bank)
Stephen Friedman (former director of National Economic Council; Head of Board of New York Fed)
John C. Whitehead (former GS CEO – insturmental on making Geithner the Head of Fed Reserve in NY)
Susan Nora Johnson (former GS – AIG Board Member)
Robert Zoellick (former GS – Pres. of World Bank)
William Didyly (former GS – oversees New York Fed)
Gerald Corrigan (former GS – hired by Geithner for Risk)

Make your own conclusion.

Scheduled my time for the show (From India),
The best maintained website gives opportunity to Global listeners also, Thanks to On Point, I am listening Radio courtesy Internet and you after a gap of some 40 years,
Tom Ashbrook deals extraordinary topic in extraordinary way,
President Obama has highlighted and stressed as father too, the urgent need to clear 10th standard, the importance of education for Americans,
Infosys is an Intellectual company, one point if can be discussed, what will be the impact of grass root education on long term base for economy,

Wow, it will be nice to hear Nilekani with Ashbrook on NPR. By the way I’m a big fan of Mr. Narayanamurthy (Nilekani’s ex-colleague/boss and one of the founders of the Infosys).

Go Infy (infosys), go!!!

It would be interesting to hear what Mr. Nilakani thinks India should be doing to maintain its global edge, especially in these tough times. For instance, China has launched major national initiatives in health care, education and infrastructure. What is India doing to make sure that it is prepared for a world changed by this global recession?

He says sending jobs to India creates jobs in the US, too!??? Ridiculous. Shipping jobs to India creates jobs in India and takes them from other countries. Have him explain ‘how’ it creates jobs on both sides. The “World is Flat” is code for a two class world: Mega-Rich and starving.

Tom, you are way too easy on this guy.

We all know about off-shoring of good jobs. Fine.

But in addition to shipping our jobs off-shore, this company regularly abuses US visa regulations to bring thousands of low paid workers on L-type ‘transfer; visas to the United States to replace well-paid US workers in high tech.

Thus, the jobs that can’t be off-shored are still eliminated. There is NO CAP on the number of L-type visas issued.

The West, and in particular USA has enjoyed a quality of life that has been disproportionately high for decades (if not longer).

Name the 3 most populous nations in the world. All are in Asia. They also have a relatively lower quality of life. There is no way to stem the tide of jobs flowing there. Indeed, I don’t think it is ethical to do so. As the quality of life rises in India, China and Indonesia, jobs will flow away from those countries and to other countries. That is globalization.

What the USA lacks is sufficient innovation. We can and should control innovation. This requires a very high standard of education. We should not hope to hold onto service sector jobs that can be outsourced.

This is in reference to the wage issue that a caller raised. He mentioned that jobs shouldn’t be shipped overseas just because of lower wages. Most people think that just because someone gets lower wages it means that person is less productive. Anyone with a couple of classes in Microeconomics will know this is fundamentally wrong. The wage paid to a person in a competitive market is essentially a funciton of the worker’s producitivity and the price the product will fetch in the market. So if price levels are lower in India than in the US, an Indian worker with the same productivity as his counterpart in the US will receive a lower wage. Globalisation allows you to lower your costs without sacrifiing on quality.

In any case, for call centers, it is difficult to imagine that quality of workers will really differ across borders especially when both nations have English as a standard language.

Hi,
I worked for Infy several years ago – and I’m proud to have been part of this legendary company.
Quick question for Nandan – I’ve heard from friends in India, that people, including business visitors, apparently feel that by watching “Slumdog Millionaire” and reading the novel “The white tiger” they are “ready for India”. What does Nandan feel about this image of India, and what message would he have for people visiting India after seeing the movie?

As a consultant I sit side by side with InfoSys employees at Fortune 50 companies so I am understand the reality of onshoring and offshoring. All of these technology contractors are brought in through loopholes in the H1B and L-1 visa programs. They are rented from InfoSys because they cost one quarter of what it would cost to employ an American.

It is not protectionism to regulate the influx of workers into your economy. If the demand for basic IT staff was so great that we needed to go to the rest of the world to fuel our needs we would see this in the basics of supply and demand. We don’t. US wages in these sectors have fallen due to the influx of cheap labor. Congress turns a blind eye because business wants to cut its costs anyway it can. Offshoring is a reality we need to accept but bringing replacement workers into the US under a visa program makes no sense. Comments about innovation are off the mark. These are not innovators being imported into the US — they are your everyday developers and IT staff.

A couple of comments:

Firstly, innovation as Nandan rightly pointed is a factor of geographic/regional/national needs and so Indian innovation will continue around what is required locally. In contrast, most innovation in the west/USA have never lost sight of how that particular product or service will get globally commercialized and exploited to the hilt. The Indian psyche doesn’t work that way and, therefore, it is highly plausible that India will continue to remain the back office of the world and not its Head office.

Secondly, companies such as those run by Nandan have contributed sparsely – besides the token gestures – in the uplift of Indian masses and I am not talking about rural India. Even in high tech cities where these companies are headquartered, fair investments have been lacking in improving the general infrastructure. A look outside the sprawling campuses of ANY of these Indian superstar companies will offer an insight into the minds and priorities of their leaders. I am unsure how many, if any, of these companies have creditable R&D allocations.

Bottom line: For USA to remain the leader in innovation, we will have to reverse and significantly increase our R&D outlay.

Tom

It was a fascinating talk that touched on very hot issues in the general context of India.

On the question of minorities and rich diversity that India is bestowed with, your guest kept emphasizing that India is a place of cultural fusion. I do agree
to some extent.. but to a certain extent there have been witnessing horrendous pogroms against hapless minority Muslim populations in various parts of India.

Most glaringly the Gujarat 2002 pogroms stand out. It was a pity when another caller “Guy” raised the question of the treatment of Christian minorities, your guest sort of explained away that question but it was your SOLEMN DUTY as a host to push a little and ask Nandan about the plight of Muslims in India… so at that moment I thought of asking that question and called into the program..

My questions ( which still stand and were approved by your screener, but we ran out of time )

” Mr Nilekani, do you feel satisfied with the efforts the Indian Government might have taken to ensure situations like the Gujarat pogroms of 2002 against the Muslim minority of Gujrat do not happen again for that matter anywhere in India ? Also do you feel the guilty have been brought to Justice ? ”

The truth is there only have been token arrests and token sentences in a scant few of the cases. A huge number of cases have eaten the dust and never seen the light of justice.

The whole system the whole government of Narinder Modi has ensured they won’t come to surface. Narinder Modi the author/CEO of these pogroms was RE-ELECTED the chief minister of Gujarat after this pogrom. If he is all clean why would the US State Department deny his visa application.

In fact an independent news organization in India Tehelka.com launched a sting operation and gleaned very incriminating evidence against the perpetrators.

Tom..how could a learned journalist like you not know about this ?
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107gujrat_sec.asp

As for me I am an Indian Muslim and have been living in the United States for almost a decade now.
I am not a separatist. I wish well for India and the subcontinent as a whole. I am sick of these festering India-Pakistan festering conflicts. And I pray and wish there is PEACE everywhere.

We have been holding Pakistan accountable ( and rightly so )for its part..

Is anyone holding India accountable for its systematic and low intensity suppression of its largest minority community ? Don’t forget that India is the second most populous Muslim country in the world and Indian Muslims have a rich past and have contributed
so much to India’s heritage, its modernity and nationalism !

But those who forget the past are orgot the Riots against Muslims of India in
–Gujrat pogroms 2002
–Mumbai pogroms 1992-1993
– and ountless others .. you just have to scratch the surface !

Jai-Hind ( Long Live India )

Tom

It was a fascinating talk that touched on very hot issues in the general context of India.

On the question of minorities and rich diversity that India is bestowed with, your guest kept emphasizing that India is a place of cultural fusion. I do agree
to some extent.. but to a certain extent there have been witnessing horrendous pogroms against hapless minority Muslim populations in various parts of India.

Most glaringly the Gujarat 2002 pogroms stand out. It was a pity when another caller, Guy, raised the question of the treatment of Christian minorities, your guest sort of explained away that question but it was your SOLEMN DUTY as a host to push a little and ask Nandan about the plight of Muslims in India… so at that moment I thought of asking that question and called into the program..

My questions ( which still stand and were approved by your screener, but we ran out of time )

” Mr Nilekani, do you feel satisfied with the efforts the Indian Government might have taken to ensure situations like the Gujarat pogroms of 2002 against the Muslim minority of Gujrat do not happen again.. for that matter anywhere in India ? Also do you feel the guilty have been brought to Justice ? ”

The truth is there only have been token arrests and token sentences in a scant few of the cases. A huge number of cases have eaten the dust and never seen the light of justice.

The whole system the whole government of Narinder Modi has ensured they won’t come to surface. Narinder Modi the author/CEO of these pogroms was RE-ELECTED the chief minister of Gujarat after this pogrom. If he is all clean why would the US State Department deny his visa application ?

In fact an independent news organization in India Tehelka.com launched a sting operation and gleaned very incriminating evidence against the perpetrators.

Tom..how could a learned journalist like you not know about this ?
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main35.asp?filename=Ne031107gujrat_sec.asp

As for me.. I am an Indian Muslim and have been living in the United States for almost a decade now.
I am not a separatist. I wish well for India and the subcontinent as a whole. I am sick of these festering India-Pakistan conflicts. And I pray and wish there is PEACE everywhere.

We have been holding Pakistan accountable ( and rightly so )for its part..

Is anyone holding India accountable for its systematic and low intensity suppression of its largest minority community ? Don’t forget that India is the second most populous Muslim country in the world and Indian Muslims have a rich past and have contributed
so much to India’s heritage, its modernity and nationalism !

But those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it..
Just consider..
–Gujrat pogroms 2002
–Mumbai pogroms 1992-1993
and countless others..you just have to scratch the surface !

Jai-Hind ( Long Live India )

To Sally and Technology,

I really understand your view upon the companies “exploiting” the L-1 and/or Outsourcing Jobs from US to countries like India.

In my opinion this is a Global Economy and the two factors that have largely brought the US into the condition of “exploitation” of this “trend” are:

1. Ultra-Pseudo-Expensive Higher Level Education System (thanks to the For-Profit Universities and Colleges)

2. Ultra-Pseudo-Expensive Healthcare system

These two “parasitic” conditions are preying upon the Middle Class population of the US where many pioneers lie (did anyone know Larry Elison or Bill Gates et al?) and more and more families are crushed under the present situation that if something doesnt change, truely US will loose its place as a Global leader.

India, on the contrary doesnt have an ultra-inexpensive healthcare or education system BUT, they have HUGE population of young adults that can really take the advantage of the present situation and come out of colleges equipped with degrees like cars coming out from the assembly lines, and along with the relatively inexpensive cost of living (1 USD ~ 50 INR) its really really “beneficial” for any of these Tech companies to deploy/employ more people in India, Sri Lanka etc.

So, lets stop blaming others and lets start to work together to make US a better Global Leader!

God Bless America!!

Mr. Nilekani, was far more patient than I would have been with the callers. The U.S maybe in a bad position but India has had the same level of unemployment that the U.S has currently for the past decade and that was during a time of economic expansion. People in the U.S need to get beyond themselves and realize that are many many people through out the world living in very desperate conditions and that for those people to come into the 21st century we might have to cut back a little.

Great dialog. I came here almost 20 years ago to pursue the great American dream. It was also to get away from Indian corruption and red tape. When I look back I wonder about my decision and also really feel proud of people like Mr. Nilekani who decided to stand firm in India and brought India to where we are now. As he mentioned, we need to work together. Protectionism won;t help any country in the current global crisis but smart collaboration will go a long way.

I dont know why the callers blamed Nandan and Infosys for outsourcing. Outsourcing was the commodatization of software and call centers. If not India it would have gone to another country. The movement of jobs was being pushed by American companies looking to push their cost structure down. Indian companies made use of it. Now Indian companies drive. The gross profits from the products sold eventually stays in the US.

This is similar to the electronics products that moved to Japan and Korea (which started as cheap manufacturing centers).

[...] … here’s the link to the program Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)HOW INDIA WILL SURVIVE THIS RECESSIONEthical [...]

Only the cream of the society can get a job in infosys. Interviews are strict and tough. i remeber attending these 5 rounds interviews along with 100 thousand other student during my college days. it was my dream to work in infosys but i guess i was not of sufficient standard.

May I kinly suggest that Infosys is not the prOblem…no country is recession proof, no one is imperveous to the consequences of the US crisis but some introspection might be helpul:
-what about running your airlines like Indians do?
-what about training your human capital as to give it pride, competence and effciency , always striving for better quality as Indians do?
-what about realizing that there are other countires outside of your borders and that ignorance and protectionism won’t get you anywhere?
-what about revisiting an incestuous relationship that provides the cheap goods you are happy to buy?

I’ve worked in the IT industry for most of my life, and some of the most professional, and polite programmers, were from India. They were all very open in discussing their country and answering questions concerning their religion and traditions.

I also believe with the guest speaker that the world economy is a two-way street. Americans benefit from buying many items from around the world at a cost that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. I never hear these same people complain when they buy these products, so I think its two faced to complain when other countries and trying to benefit from the world market, even if it is in the form of jobs in the United States. Do you really believe that Americans don’t hold jobs in other countries, get a clue.

It’s a global economy, get with it. There are some things that one country will do better than others, and visa versa, it’s petty and self defeating to want your cake and eat it too. Learn and embrace from others in the world.

It is time to stop the adulation of people like Mr. Nilekani and ask them some hard questions. Yes, they have created new jobs. Thank you. But they are not building a new India. Sorry.
1. Why are people like Mr. Nilekani and similar others content with doing what is essentially the “blue-collar work” of the IT age? Why is there not more innovation from India? Why does Mr. Nilekani not build companies that are at least a fraction, in terms of innovation, of Microsoft and Google and Cisco? Why are PhDs is India paid less than a second-rate under-graduate engineer doing work which most American graduates will shun as not being intellectually challenging enough? (World famous professors are paid less than the average EE/CS student staring out in the IT industry – I cannot believe that this is good for the country.) Why are our best students being attracted to these second-rate jobs rather than being encouraged to go to graduate school, as is the case in most of the developed world? Why don’t people like Mr. Nilekani address these issues rather than concentrate on easy sources to money? I find the comparison with Bill Gates or Steve Jobs purely ridiculous. If there are people who deserve that, they are the people toiling in start-up companies in Bangalore and Delhi (some of them do really great work) or researchers in India’s top labs and universities, and many NRIs working in similar professions abroad. These are the people working against great odds and they will be the ones who will raise India’s standing ultimately. This fascination with outsourced jobs is a very short-term trend. India needs to be self-sufficient. We need to develop products that will be the pride of the world.
2. The Indian govt. also needs to wake up. Why is there not more investment in healthcare, education and infrastructure so as to make these widely available? India probably has developed the most ruthless capitalistic system with no protetions for the poor and the weak. Indian leaders and its upper middle-class needs to realize that this recession will change the world economy. Somehow our leaders seem to think that the status quo will continue.

I am an Indian American living in Boston and I have some comments to share with.

1. Please do not compare MIT and IIT. IIT is comparable to MIT for undergrad engineering discipline. But Masters and Ph.D. program in IIT have not yet produced any big innovation. I think the main reason is that all these IIT grads come to USA for higher education and become entrepreneurs here. Secondly, India does not have the capital (like USA and Europe)to invest in cutting edge research.

2. Infosys is not GE. Its just a IT service company. USA produces knowledge, Infosys trains their employee to learn this new knowledge related to IT and offer them as service to clients all round the world.

3. Infosys, Wipro and TCS are not just back office and call centers, they are competing with IBM to provide leading high end IT services to global companies. Thats why IBM and HP are hiring more Indians in India.

4. Not all Indians coming to USA are “Creme da la creme”.

5. Call centers and back office operations are cheap, but high end mission critical consulting from Infosys is not. US company can hire engineers locally for that and still save money rather than outsourcing to Infosys. The truth is there are less qualified engineers in USA, hence Global companies are forced to go to Infosys. Why can’t more Americans be software engineers or just learn programming as a hobby and challenge Infosys?

Kumar Shiva

Regarding India – why isn’t anyone addressing the massive corruption, caste system, daily violence against the lowest segment of the population (Dalits), lack of education/health services, and the lack of religious freedom/violence against many Dalits. I must agree with the comments of Amit.

I truly believe in the point Nandan made that innovation and entrepreneurial-ship is global. Intelligent, Smart and Hardworking individuals and companies exists everywhere in the world. Individuals with open and easy access to the latest technology are a resource for companies in the US to generate cutting edge technology. Individuals with graduate level education, global awareness and willingness to work hard are a resource for companies in India. To be blessed by the MIT is NOT a requirement or a right of passage for SUCCESS.

In regards to the comment stating that both countries speak English, there are different degree’s of English fluency, I’m sure anyone who has had to contact “infosys” or any of it’s counterparts over seas for technical support with there laptop computer could attest to. Also, I believe it is very easy for Mr. Nilekani to say that protectionism is not the correct way to go, much of, if not all his, success has come from American companies giving him the work that in my opinion should be taken care of in the USA by other American’s that speak “perfect English” that we can all understand.

Best to all in these hard times.

-Alex

“I’m sure anyone who has had to contact “infosys” or any of it’s counterparts over seas for technical support with there laptop computer could attest to”

@Alex Sogliero: Might help a bit if you actually read up something about the company you are so dismissive about. You really think Infosys is only a call-center? Maybe that is what the problem is all about – people commenting about things they hardly understand, nor take the trouble to read up on.

Also @Alex Sogliero: “Best to all”/ “with there laptop”/ “American’s”? And you really think you speak perfect English? Or does your perfect English grammar and vocabulary appear only when you speak and not when you write?

Some ways India made America better:

1. Customer service improved. When we called computer and credit card companies, don’t people remember how horrible it used to be waiting for hours on the phone, listening to automated answering services and really rude call center workers?

2. Y2K averted. What a economic nightmare that would have been if no Indians were available to fix our systems.

3. Science slaves. PhD and Masters students and graduates from India and China helped drive innovation at our universities and companies when American kids chose Wall Street.

4. Online Indian tutors. They are more affordable than American ones and wont American society benefit on the whole from better educated youth than from having a few well paid tutors.

5. Medical tourism. Last hope for un/underinsured sick Americans.

6. Indians owning and operating convenience stores/motels even in risky neighborhoods. They need customer service assistance but so what when we can get milk and gas at 2am.

7. Indian doctors/nurses filling scarcity in rural/inner city hospitals and clinics. This is how our family came to America.

We need to think of more ways to help each other into the 21st century instead of fighting. Our government should enforce visa rules properly so the American workforce is not destroyed in the process of filling a void.

Tom, Nandan

I still have to hear from Nandan Nilekani what he feels about a country where a person like Narinder Modi is re-elected.

A report by Philip Reeves:

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=17295332&m=17295309

Ashoo, it’s called democracy – get used to it. Let the law take its course regarding Modi – trial by media when journalistic standards are the pits is not a hallmark of liberal democracies, and neither of enlightened and fair citizens. Do your homework and use your grey cells before simply repeating what the media tells you to repeat.