US, Inc. jittery about India links

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 23 March 2004, 20:30 IST
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NEW YORK: Growing backlash against offshoring in the US is making the top executive American corporations concerned that any association with Indian software companies would put their employees on "red alert," a media report has said. Even an inkling that they (corporations) had a meeting with India's software giant Wipro would put their employees on "red alert," Wipro President Girish S. Paranjpe was quoted as saying. Another manager told the New York Times that the clients are so nervous in recent months about outsourcing that they had asked Wipro to take their names off its website. However, Wipro Chairman Azim Premji told the paper that Americans are unduly worried about offshoring which is their own innovation. Referring to the opposition to offshoring being witnessed in the US, he said. "We are not dealing with cold reasoning here but with emotions of Americans whose personalities have changed after 9/11 (terrorist attacks on the US) and who feel threatened by anything that hurts their security, their wealth and their jobs." Giving statistics to buttress his conclusion, Premji said India's technology industry employs 800,000 people. Against this, the American technology industry employs 10.2 million people. Similarly 300,000 people work in Indian call centers compared with six millions in the United States, he said.

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