It’s not the first time that the Indian Information Technology (IT) industry has come under the US attack, and like in the past, this time too it is reacting fiercely.
Democrat senator Charles E Schumer’s reference to the industry as a “chop shop” is being taken as downright “derogatory and unfortunate” by the Indian tech firms.
In his zest to push through a bill to fund border security by reassessing visa fees, the US senator referred to “foreign companies” that outsource high-paying American technology jobs to lower wage, temporary immigrant workers from other countries as chop shops.
Schumer quoted Infosys Technologies as an example and was indirectly pointing to the $60-billion Indian software services sector, which is seen by many US politicians as one of the causes for huge job losses in the US.
Ganesh Natarajan, the former chairman of Nasscom, said the senator’s choice of word was “unfortunate and derogatory.” “We (industry) take offense to it, especially when they (US) are talking about a reputed company like Infosys and a truly global industry.”
Girish Paranjpe, joint chief executive officer (CEO) of Wipro Ltd, also felt it was not something expected from a “senior legislator” whatever the compulsions might have been. “It is definitely bad use of words,” said Paranje.
S Janakiraman, president and group chief executive officer (CEO) – product engineering and services — MindTree Ltd, blamed it on the flippant attitude of the Americans. He said the remark was best ignored. “In the US, slang words are often used casually. We should not give too much importance to it,” he said.
Nevertheless, he does not see the new bill being proposed by the senator to fizzle out. He believes the bill, which proposes to double the current visa fee on foreign companies shipping jobs to low cost centres, has a very high possibility of becoming a law due to the prevailing public sentiment in the US.
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