Battle over visas

One area of life that is surely not being transformed by the Internet is politics. Indian information technology professionals have watched with frustration the games politicians in Germany and the US play with visas for high-tech personnel. Careers are put on hold, employers become increasingly impatient and enterprises languish while the politics is played out. It took months and some nasty sloganeering before ruling and opposition parties in Germany sorted out their differences and agreed to issue an additional 20,000 visas for foreign IT professionals, a majority of whom, as it happens, will be Indians. It should be self-evident that German enterprises need skilled personnel and the sooner they get them the better for the German economy. Good sense prevailed in the end but not before a high pitched and ridiculous campaign was run suggesting that giving jobs to Indians took away opportunities from German children.

Considering the limited pool of IT professionals worldwide and the competition for them the UK is to start a fast track work permit system in the hope of recruiting some 100,000, it was thought the US Congress would clear the way quickly for 5000 extra H-1B visas this year. But that was to underestimate the politician8217;s appetite for politics. The name of the game is elections and so, as this paper reports, getting more H-1B visas out of the US Congress in this season is like trying to squeeze water out of a rock in midsummer. Democrats prefer to focus on the claims of half a million illegal Latino and Cuban immigrants who want their status regularised; critics say there are more votes for the Democrats there than in visas for high-tech professionals. The Republicans are playing hard ball on H-1B, according to critics, in order to raise campaign funds from high-tech enterprises looking to hire foreign professionals. Even so, when the doors eventually open, all will probably be forgiven. America, which has anestimated 73,000 Indian IT professionals already employed there, is the preferred destination for Indians. Language is one reason why Japan, Germany and Korea who also woo Indians come out second best. When it comes to encouraging innovators, the US scores especially high; the growth not only of Internet start-ups but of venture capital companies is proof of that. Finally, a one-million strong Indian community is a unique advantage.

With the success of Indian IT professionals abroad, the inevitable question is, can India itself afford to lose so much talent and skill. When Finance Minister Yeshwant Sinha was asked about that this week in San Francisco, he said rather lamely India gets the professionals it needs. The truth is that as of today even though India is the supplier par excellence of IT talent to the world, the country itself scores very low in capacity to make use of Internet opportunities. The number of PC-users is absurdly small for such a large country and although e-business appears to be booming it will soon, if it has not already, come up against the constraints of numbers and of technology lack of broadband bandwidth, for example. The first Internet revolution in India produced a brilliant array of professionals whose skills are sought after in advanced economies. A second revolution will be needed to deliver computers and the Internet to millions of Indians.