The Ongoing IT Revolution and Security Implications for Pakistan

sadhana #217

I am not doing it solely because the numbers favor me. Numbers favor me to discriminate against lot of people you will surely agree. I am doing it

because i want the people sitting in ivory towers to feel the heat and do

something to influence the politics of their country.

Exactly. It is a dishonor, to all the people who worked hard

for equality, to discriminate against innocent people. But dont you

discriminate against dumb people, arrogant people, irresponsible people,

obnoxious people,..etc in one way or the other? If you dont how will

they ever learn to be decent people? That is just an example. I am

not blaming anyone of the above qualities.

Discrimination (vichakshana) is also a byproduct of wisdom.

Be wise who do you do business with. I just wish India is left alone so

that it can improve the quality of life for the 500 million people living

below poverty line. It is a humongous task and on top of it we are

adding population equal to Australia`s every year. Wont you feel happy

if all of them have decent living? Every human should feel sorry for them and

should help in whatever way they can. I dont understand what kind of people

go to war with countries already saddled with such burden of humanity on such scarce resources. I dont like the polocies of such countries and I am trying

my bit to influence them through my peaceful means.

Long-Distance Outsourcing Companies: Look to India -Alex Daniels, Washington Techway

http://www.washtech.com/news/internet/3474-1.html

But running an Indian outpost presents technology executives with a number of hurdles. While it`s true that workers in another time zone complete tasks while Americans slumber, it`s just as true that locals cannot call their Indian counterparts during our business day - they`ll all be asleep.



And cultural differences can be difficult to overcome. For some, the thirst for additional tech workers trumps such challenges. The demand for foreign-born high-tech workers is well documented. This year, for instance, all 65,000 H-1B visas set aside to let skilled foreigners into this country were snatched up by the end of March.



``People are going to go where the workers are, if they`re not here,`` says Tom Stohler, a lobbyist for the American Electronics Association.



Groups such as Stohler`s - along with the Business Software Alliance, the Information Technology Association of America and the U.S.-India Business Council - have not kept tabs on the exact volume of work U.S. companies send to India. But Indian government officials and industry representatives clearly see their country as an emerging IT powerhouse.



India exported software to 95 countries last year, with almost 62 percent of exports heading to North America, according to India`s National Association of Software and Service Companies. The group says software exports, which totaled $4 billion in 1999, have grown by more than 50 percent each year for the past three years.



India`s National Taskforce on Software & IT Development says more than 160 Fortune 500 companies outsource computer tasks to workers in that country. The government-run group is promoting policies such as privatization of the country`s telecommunications services that members say would boost software exports to $50 billion a year by 2008.



Zubair A. Talib, chief technology officer for i411, an 11-employee startup in Chantilly, says communication can be a problem when dealing with workers halfway around the world. Over the past two years, the company has contracted with teams of programmers in India to help develop tools that allow i411 to distribute and filter content on wireless networks. ``There are some cultural differences you have to get used to,`` Talib says. ``Sometimes when things are going badly, there`s a hesitation to communicate that right up front.``



``Any time there`s a gulf between people, there`s a challenge,`` agrees Nirmal Jain, CEO of Tata Infotech, a software developer and systems integrator in India. Jain says it is about 34 percent cheaper to produce software in India, where the majority of the company`s 4,000 employees reside.



Tata Infotech, with expected revenues of $100 million this year, employs about 25 people in its McLean office and for good reason. More than half the company`s revenues come from sales in the states. But Jain says when he e-mails his U.S. employees, communication is difficult because body language isn`t transmitted via the Internet. The key, says Jain, is to spell out every request and document everything so workers in distant locations know what is expected of them.



Amir Hudda, an Arlington entrepreneur who earlier this year sold his company, Entevo, to Houston`s Bindview for $125 million in stock, first started employing Indian workers five years ago. When he set up an Entevo subsidiary there in 1995, he benefited from huge savings on salaries. ``We used to pay someone fresh out of school there $15,000,`` Hudda recalls. In the Washington area, he says, the same position would have demanded four times that salary.



But with the cost savings came major headaches. Hudda says it was important to tailor business procedures to his overseas unit. For instance, he had to cut off the Indian subsidiary, which largely consisted of engineers and programmers, from his U.S. marketing e-mail lists. Messages passed on those lists often included requests from customers that should have been handled by the marketing staff, not code writers a half a world away. ``They might be over enthusiastic about fixing it when it might not really be a problem,`` Hudda says.



What`s more, corporate culture is different in India than it is here, Hudda says. Five years ago, ``the concept of flex time didn`t exist,`` he says. Hudda, who is now developing a new wireless applications company, Withphone, says he tried to recreate the American entrepreneurial atmosphere in India by instituting flex time and granting all employees stock options.

vsn #216
When you are not made to suffer from the effect of being a minority(a immigrant Indian among resident Americans) what exactly justifies your capitalizing on `numbers` when it favors you?

Not only that, you are dishonoring people who came before you and struggled and made your reception easier like Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Nobel Prize winner in Physics, who back in the `30s wouldnot get students and classes to teach because of prejudice about his Indian origin. If you are lucky to have a good work environment and fair opportunity, its due to the work ethic of those who came before you.

So if you profess to be worried about karma, you ought to be REALLY WORRIED.

Sadhana

It is elementary, srimaan tahmed: #215

Employee-Employer relationship is mutually benificial - both make money

off each other. It is a win-win situation.

When we are dealing with paki applicants we are dealing with a

small pool and the loss of access to that pool is nominal to the

employers. (About 2% of H1B professionals in US are from pakistan where

as almost half of them are from india.). So a paki employer would

suffer more from a lack of access to indian programmers than vice versa.

Similarily when we are talking about access to employers for a job applicant,

loss of access to indian owned or managed companies would be more severe.

(Fully 1/4 of all high tech companies in silicon valley are either owned

by or operated by indians or chinese). And most of the interviews would

also involve peer feedback from future team mates. I will leave that

as an excercise for you to figure out who will benifit from peer feedback.

vsn #209 Your logic is fascinating: when the IT guy is Pakistani, it is a buyers market and the Indian recruiter is in the driver`s seat; when the IT guy is Indian, it is a sellers market and the Indian is again in the driver`s seat.

Against such logic, I accept defeat.

Urstruly #204

Actually, no, I didnot understand your example. Its fine with me either way if you believe or disbelieve me personally or find me consistent or inconsistent, thats your own judgement, please do use it.

btw, here is the reference I mentioned, you may be interested in looking it up,
http://www.brook.edu/comm/transcripts/20000313.htm
Search on word `Kargil`.

Sadhana

First of all, I agree with Feroz appeal thta we should refrain from name calling. Personal attacks never help in convincing others of your perspective. The discusssions should be made with an unemotional, and receptive mindset.

Secondly it is true that India before Kargil is not the same as India after it. With the body of soldiers killed in Kargil returning to their native place almost everywhere in India there was an unprecedented nationalistic fervour. Right from the school kids to the professionals I saw everyone busy in contributing towards the war victims with unmitigated zeal. The spirit of unity and responsibility that dawned on people was amazing. All the government officials decided to give one day of their salary to the victims voluntarily. This wave of patriotism seemed to cross the national borders and NRIs all over the world donated generously towards Indian cause.

The consummation of ten years of terrorism into Kargil war turned the indifference of many Indian youth into hatred towards Pakistan. This youth was the generation which spearheaded the IT revolution in India. A natural consequence was that during Kargil war and after many Indian people started boycotting anything Pakistani. If there was a schism between both the countries prior to Kargil there is a vast chasm now. I do not know whether any perceptible change in the attitude of Pakistanis occured after Kargil but the Indian mass opinion definitely has hardened.

In any foreign land, take US for example it is painful to see that the people who are similarwith respect to language, mass culture or appearence bear so deep rooted hatred against the other. But this is a reality and we have to live with it. Unless there is a big shift in the policy of Pakistani military rulers,I dont see any hope of reconcillation in the near future. Indian politicians have developed a distrust towards Pakistan in general, and it is futile to expect them to take any new initiative towards conflict resolution.

Cheers

All right, it appears that you have to whip up paranoia of anything Indian to get Pakistanis going. Because Pakistan != India.

Kargil most definitely ruined Indians` perception of Pakistan and Pakistanis. There`s no way to get around it.

In this context, it makes immense sense that an employer would not wish to introduce discord in an office by hiring a Pakistani amongst a large number of Indians.

What seems to be the problem?

http://www.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/technology/2000/0908/tech.net.html

``India is still not an open and competitive market,`` says Masood Tariq, Nortel Network`s Asia-Pacific president. Even if the bureaucracy were to disappear tomorrow, domestic economics make infrastructure projects a gamble, Tariq says. ``There is a dire need for basic telephony,`` he says. Fewer than three Indians in 100 have telephone service, compared to the world average of 15 per 100. The government estimates that it needs $60 billion in investments to extend service to six out of 100 citizens, yet ``there aren`t enough people who can afford even basic POTS [plain old telephone service]`` to make big construction projects feasible, Tariq says.

Look at these Paki intellectuals trying to be holier than thou with regards to vsn.

They (Pakistanis) have a country based on religious descrimination. TNT Separate Nation for Muslims. I mean on one hand it is okay to ``exchange populations`` for Islamically righteous reasons (read throw minorities in the dustbin) while it is wrong for vsn to throw a resume in the dustbin.

I bet they hire Muslims if they can. It is their nature.

Muslim is a brother and everything else is kafir. Use & abuse kafir when convenient (IT talent).

Afterall, a lot of them are raging capitalists like us (and vsn in this context).

same old story no sequel.

Mr . SAC what about the US & Israel`s prowess in IT ? What does that brood for THE MUSLIMS ?

sleep well.........

sri tahmed #201

-Thank God we shall never fall to your petty level. And thank God there is enough work to go around for those willing to apply themselves that no one needs to work for a creep like you.

This is not a pissing contest between you and me about whois a better creep.

The questions I asked are beyond you and me and are about the surival of

pakistanis and pakistan. I am trying to analyse the behavior of the groups

at macro level and their implications.



-My brother (who heads a successful independant operation in the US) keeps a number of Indian IT types busy in the US and in India writing programs.

Incase you are under any delusion, the indians at your brothers company are

doing him a big favor. In future they may not be willing to work for him at any cost. Did you consider the implications? If indians dont work for him in IT, dont

you think he will be in trouble? I have to ship lot of work offshore to India

as I cant get any people here. And if I have to hire indian programmers, they

ask me my 5 year plan for the company and I have to sell myself to them before

they even consider.

And keep your `holier than thou attitude` personal like you keep your religion.

popcorn....#199...

````Tu Hindu banega na musalman banega,

Insaan ki aulad hai Insaan banega````

very well said. but ts such a pity the not many people bother to remember this.

``And if you wanna really do something for your country, then try and improve the lot of poor back home, you would all be doing a great service to humanity as well as your respective nations. Why waste time and energy on a place like chowk, where each for you fools definitly help increase the already existing high levels of hate.``

very well said again. but popcorn,.....u see...most of the boss log`s (including me too, i must admit) here, whether indians or pakistanis are so busy trying to gain the upperhand in an arguement, that many of them forget that they are from nations whose majority of the population doesn`t get even one time meal. but u see our enlightened people here feel that arguing about kashmir and religion is much more important than the millions of hungry and naked people back home.

forget this....most of the people here are not even in their countries, and i`m sure not many of them have a willingness to go back home. if they do, and i sincerely hope they do, then possibly they will see the true state of their homelands and realise crap they were arguing about is not the real issue.

OK I am wasting too much time here. People are sidelining the

Issue. I am not racist, petty minded. That is beside the point too.

Everyone agrees that Indians by and large are law-abiding people

when they are outside India. And they are successful and increasingly

becoming influential and powerful as a group. Whether you like it

or not Pakistan’s policies will ferment some kind of resentment

towards Pakistani people in Indians all over the world. They might

chose not to cooperate with you (legally of course, don’t jump on me!).

Why are Pakistanis blind to that? Aren’t you good businessmen? Don’t

you want good opportunities for you and for your kids? Or do you

have the sucidal, self-destructive jihadist mentality too? If I were

the paki physician association I would be lobbying to get Pakistan

change its Kashmir policy, appease India and cooperate with it

in all fields and reap the benefits by touting my Indian ancestry.

You belong to the Indus region as much as we do and you have claim

to the fame of belonging to the same ancient civilization. If I

am a good marketer I would show how I am so similar to the mainstream

Indian - how we come from the same vedic land and develop the ancient

temples and monuments in Pakistan into tourist attractions. It is not

always a question of choosing this ideology or that ideology. We are increasingly

becoming multi-cultural and we chose whatever works for our people.

If today India is all the rage, you tout your Indian qualities. And if

tomorrow Arab culture is popular you tout your affinity towards them.

You don’t have to necessarily put down one for the other. You can embrace

all of them and benefit from all. You can get oil from middle east and

IT from India:) Anyway you get the point - just celebrate the multi

cultural being you are and reap the benefits.

Now my question is since I don’t see the above behavior in Pakistanis in US,

which in my opinion is rational, , is it because they believe Indian

resentment is no big loss for them? I expect to see the same rational behavior

from educated people in Pakistan too. My belief is over time the Indian resentment would marginalize Pakistanis all over the world if they don’t do something

about it just as their country is marginalized by antagonizing India.

Lot of people may think that it won’t affect them - they are sitting far from

the action and may even derive a vicarious pleasure in fermenting more trouble.

Well in this connected world what goes around comes back and you reap

what you sow.

Now please don’t talk nonsense about discrimination, racism, petty mindedness, etc.

Talk about the following points:

1) Will there be resentment?

2) If there is, Will it affect Pakistanis significantly?

3) If it affects the pakis, is it a bearable cost compared to their

Long-term objectives (whatever they are)

4) Even if there is no significant loss due to resentment, are you

foregoing significant benefits because of lack of Indian goodwill?

As for burden of proof, many companies throw out resumes if they are not from Ivy League schools or don`t have certain minimum GPAs...they have not and will never need to prove anything to anyone. As for the hoohaa about getting vsn in legal trouble, good luck!! Law firms, Wall St, consulting firms, etc. have been getting away with rejecting black candidates for years and no one`s been able to do anything about it. Laissez faire when it comes to business in America....

Re: Urstruly #202

Thank you sir for recognizing honesty and straight-talk, good or bad. I appreciate hamidm`s rantings more than the Umairr`s of the world who try to hide behind veils. As for happy-one, I`d just leave him alone. How do you converse with someone who`s having difficulty differentiating between chucking resumes and gas chambers....

RE: Sadna # 203

Your head spinning post just reminded me of the ``Cretan liar paradox``. Allow me to elaborate it by an example; a man comes up to you on the street and says, ``Whatever I tell you is a lie.`` Is he telling the truth?

Anyway, lets take your post at the face value and forget about our past interactions. No, there was nothing personal and therefore there is no need to apologize- I never ever take these things personally and never ask or expect someone to apologize (except fairdinkum).

Thanks

PS. BTW I am not calling you a liar. The mention of the Cretan Liar Paradox was to elaborate a point I hope you will understand.