Germany Diary

Tough immigration laws that simply do not allow the easy import of Indian information technology personnel like in the US as well as the expiry of the 8216;8216;Green Card8217;8217; scheme for these software entrepreneurs in July have been on top of the agenda in Berlin and Munich.

Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha are lobbying hard, while the CII and FICCI have sought to persuade Germany that it would be in its own interest to allow easy access. CII president Anand Mahindra pointed out to Germany8217;s Economics 038; Labour minister Wolfgang Clement that India8217;s 78 billion reserves have had such a powerful impact on the minds of domestic industry that they are ready to curry competition in the West. Mahindra offered the example of British Telecom which saved a whopping 150 million simply by outsourcing to Indian IT professionals. Why couldn8217;t, he implied, Germany follow suit?

Still, the Indo-German IT roller-coaster has been on quite a high at least since German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer visited New Delhi a couple of years ago. With the 8216;8216;Kinder statt Inder8217;8217; slogan pretty much the backdrop of that visit, German journalists seemed terribly surprised then to find that Indian IT professionals were spurning 8216;8216;racist8217;8217; conditions in Germany in favour of the US.

Suddenly, India wasn8217;t as much a land of disease and poverty, but a software superpower which picked and chose its destinations. But with the US software bubble having burst since September 11, somewhat deflating India8217;s boomtown mood, the need to diversify IT exports has grown more emphatic. That8217;s why the importance of the current business negotiations.

8226; Meanwhile, the Indian mission in Berlin has decided to add both zing and panache into India8217;s traditional exports tea, spices and precious stones with the sale of Hindi film distribution rights to German producers.

Evidently, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham has been quite a hit here and distributors have been queuing up. Just the whole family high drama is a cut above the soap operas that dominate local TV, the Germans say. The Indians agree. In fact, there is some talk now of Indian fashion shows being used as the foil for film shows.

8226; If you8217;re wondering about the secret of PM Vajpayee8217;s free and easy public speaking over the last couple of days, the answer is that he8217;s been liberated from the tyrannies of the English language. All the Prime Minister8217;s men have always known that Vajpayee is truly only comfortable in Hindi and so they decided to experiment with doing away with English in Germany.

Next step was to look for a good Hindi-German interpreter and they found her in Anya Malhotra. The tall, lithe woman was brought along on board Air India One and has since been wowing German audiences. Her performance at the Vajpayee-Schroeder press conference was especially masterly, as she looked the Chancellor straight in the eye as if daring him to challenge her German.

Clearly, the Anya Malhotra experiment shows that the secret to deciphering messy tongue-twisters is not by creating a whole new Interpreters Service, as the Foreign Office has fitfully tried 8212; and failed to do 8212; but hiring the best people for the job. With the PM now all set to sail for St. Petersburg, the memory of the Indian translation of Russian president Putin in December last year still embarrasses the mind. Henry Higgins, where are you?