China, India and the land between By Michael Vatikiotis
Mar 4, 2006
SINGAPORE - Strategic analysts often regard China's extraordinary rise as a direct challenge to the primacy of the United States as the sole global superpower. But sometimes lost in the debate about the pros and cons of China's emergence is the political and economic significance of India's concomitant rise onto the global scene.
A Pentagon strategy report issued in January clearly identified China as the greatest potential threat to the US military. Certainly a new Cold War revolving around US-China strategic rivalry would be bad news for the rest of Asia, let alone the world. But it is just as likely that China will pursue its regional interests peacefully, as it has over the past decade, and that a warming trend between China and India will pay huge dividends for Asian security and economic development.
For Southeast Asia, long under the United States' political and economic influence, the future of India-China relations will arguably have a bigger future impact on the region's stability and prosperity. In the historical long view, India and China were the two most important influences on the commercial, cultural and political development of early Southeast Asia. Hinduism and Buddhism came from India and helped forge the early state systems; people and goods came from China, helping to establish a vibrant network of commerce that made Southeast Asia an attractive prize for European colonizers.
Lying between India and China has therefore always been Southeast Asia's principal geostrategic asset. Colonial intervention obscured this natural geographic advantage, distorting local trade patterns and aligning the region economically with Europe. The restoration of China's and India's power makes this historical synergy relevant again. For all the distortion of time and space that globalization and technology would have us imagine, there's no stronger influence on human behavior than hard geographic facts.
China and India are often cast as antagonists because of a short war they fought in 1962 over the contested territory of Ladakh, with China initiating the military action. However the legacy of mistrust was less about the month-long military campaign that ended in a stalemate, and more about India's sense of betrayal at the hands of China.
India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had lent crucial support to the isolated new revolutionary regime in Beijing after 1949. He saw the communists as an important bulwark against resurgent Western imperialism. This past notion of China and India supporting each other as emerging Asian powers lies very much at the core of new strategic thinking in New Delhi and Beijing that transcends the 1962 war and envisages the former rivals building a broad political and economic partnership.
China and India have recently laid down clear markers signaling a closer relationship. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao made an official visit to India last year, the first by a senior Chinese leader in a decade. This year President Hu Jintao will visit Delhi, possibly in May, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will make a reciprocal visit to Beijing later this year. Indian President A P J Abdul Kalam told a Singapore audience in February that the wounds of 1962 had healed. Indeed, the two countries have formally declared 2006 Sino-Indian Friendship year.
Trade and investment are skyrocketing. Bilateral trade in 2005 was up almost 40% from the previous year at US$18.7 billion, and China is soon expected to overtake the US as India's largest trading partner. India's high-tech companies, such as Infosys and Satyam Computer Services, are flocking to China, where there are opportunities for applying research and innovation in cost-effective ways. Infosys recently established a new software development center in Shanghai, employing more than 200 local engineers.
China's manufacturers, meanwhile, increasingly view India as a potentially vast market for its manufactures, particularly appliances and cars, as well as the steel that is used in their production. Political leaders are cheering the trend. Speaking in Shanghai in early January, Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said India and China "are too big to contain each other or be contained by any other country". He spoke of both countries fashioning a "strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and prosperity".
Peaceful rivals Diplomatic niceties aside, India and China appear to have put their bitter past behind. But the world's two most populous countries will no doubt continue to regard each other as competitors in terms of power and influence, and neighboring Southeast Asia with its mature and increasingly lucrative consumer markets will be the arena where they compete head to head.
China has always had a strategic interest in Southeast Asia, where it supported communist insurgencies and governments across the region during the Cold War. More recently China has arguably taken a more diplomatic approach in pursuit of its strategic interests, although it is widely criticized for propping Myanmar's autocratic regime, where it maintains strategic listening posts aimed at India. Now with India's "look east" policy initiated in the 1990s, India is beginning to assert its influence and interest in Southeast Asia in more forceful ways.
Militarily, India and China both go to great lengths to avoid the forward-basing of military assets in Southeast Asia that would threaten each other's boundaries or develop a coercive advantage. Both countries maintain they only aim to develop their economic and political clout in pursuit of building regional alliances and partnerships, rather than forging competitive spheres of influence.
Consider, for instance, the diplomatic way in which India successfully inserted itself into the East Asian Community unveiled last year in Kuala Lumpur, which China had originally envisaged as its own exclusive preserve. China has been busy in recent years sewing up strategic partnerships with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members that include elements of security cooperation and agreements that ensure they do not take sides in any conflict with China. For its part India has started flexing its military muscle and offered to help patrol the Malacca Strait, ostensibly to ward of terrorist and pirate attacks.
China in turn has rather neatly entered into the South Asian power equation. At last November's South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit, China enlisted help from Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan to force India to accept China as an observer and dialogue partner in the regional body.
The quest for oil is a strategic priority for India and China, both of which rely on crude-il imports for 70% and 40% of their needs, respectively. Competition for overseas supplies has already seen some ferocious bidding wars, most of which China has won. This year CNOOC Ltd - of the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp - beat out India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp to buy a 45% stake in a Nigerian oil and gas field for $2.3 billion. In the past two years, China has trumped India in Kazakhstan, Ecuador, Angola and, most recently, Myanmar.
With stakes so high, the two countries have agreed to cooperate rather than compete. In January, Indian Oil Minister Mani Shankar Aiyer signed an agreement to cooperate with China in securing crude oil resources overseas. The landmark deal is aimed at preventing fierce competition for oil driving up the price of assets.
"It is clear to me that any imitation of the 'Great Game' between India and China is a danger to peace," Aiyer said. "We cannot endanger each other's security in our quest for energy security."
Perhaps this agreement reveals something of how Asia's new emerging superpowers intend to behave.
Comfortably in the middle What can, and should, Southeast Asia do to influence the competing agendas of these two Asian leviathans? Probably very little, but the region's leaders would serve their interests well by seeking to balance the new yin and yang of Asian power. Over China's initial objections, India was accommodated in the East Asian Community last year, helping to offset concerns in some ASEAN countries that the arrangement was too China-centric.
Apart from regional talk shops, India and China are expected to avoid any head-on confrontation. Both countries' leaderships arguably share a new sense of pragmatism, which understands the risk confrontation poses to economic progress. The best demonstration of this has been with regard to Pakistan. China has long backed Pakistan, using significant military and financial aid, to prevent India's northward and westward hegemonic extension. Yet Beijing's ties with Islamabad have, perhaps surprisingly, not proved a big obstacle to the recent improvement of India-China relations.
China stays out of the Kashmir quagmire, in return for which India doesn't play games in Tibet - although the Dalai Lama still maintains his headquarters-in-exile in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala. Beijing is notably backing India's candidacy for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, although partially as a ploy to scupper Japan's bid for permanent membership.
Southeast Asia stands to gain in a number of ways from growing Sino-Indian cooperation. For one, geography conspires to make Southeast Asia the easiest access route between the two powers. In the next few decades, bankers and businessmen expect to see burgeoning infrastructure development paving the way for more China and India trade.
China has already started to build a network of roads and pipelines running south through mainland Southeast Asia to help connect Western China to the sea. Along the East-West axis there is a strong strategic desire to build pipelines so that oil and gas can be piped into China and avoid passage through the Malacca Strait. China's leaders have said this is less a question of cost and more about enhancing the security of China's energy supplies, notably from a possible US naval blockade.
Southeast Asia is in a prime position to play the middleman. With large communities of overseas Chinese as well as overseas Indians, the region is a natural meeting point for corporations from both powers. And although direct foreign investment from China and India into the region may still be relatively small, all indications point to rapid future growth.
There are few cultural obstacles for both countries, and if anything Southeast Asia represents neutral ground. Both New Delhi and Beijing have recently laid stress on exploiting their respective ethnic diasporas in more developed societies such as Europe and the US, driven mainly by their mutual desire to acquire technology. At the same time, Indian and Chinese companies are starting to tap business and investment opportunities in Southeast Asia's comparatively more developed markets, particularly in manufacturing and banking. And there already is a growing market for Indian and Chinese entertainment, which will soon rival Hollywood for command over the eyes and ears of young Southeast Asians.
Western jealousies What could go wrong? There is always the risk that China and India will allow pretensions to power and national pride overcome their current tendency toward engagement and cooperation. More worrying is the potential for the US or Europe to drive a wedge between the two historic rivals, playing one off the other to achieve their own political and economic interests. Both are nuclear powers and both have a history of flexing their nuclear weaponry as a bargaining chip with both allies and foes.
There are plenty of potential hotspots. What's to stop India, for instance, from using its membership on the UN Security Council - if it transpires - to block China's interests? Both powers, in hot pursuit of new energy sources, could be enlisted by Russia as a contiguous and potentially disruptive ally as part of any energy deal
US President George W Bush's current four-day visit to New Delhi underscores Washington's recognition of India's growing strategic importance, politically and economically. The United States could just as likely complicate the move toward a new regional balance of power by pressuring India to forge a China containment strategy. That's already happening in Japan, with Tokyo hastily attempting to shore up ties with India as a hedge against what it regards as a more aggressive China.
Such superpower scenarios are all reasonable and historically borne out, but they are grounded in Western-oriented assumptions about the behavior of large powers. The 21st century could just as likely see the rise of two Asian powers drawing as much on their historical traditions of diplomacy and engagement as on the past century's Western antecedents of competition and conflict
The Asian tradition has arguably placed greater emphasis on trade and diplomacy, with war conducted only on a limited scale and in extreme circumstances. Nandan Nilekani, chief executive officer, president and managing director of Indian software giant Infosys, told global leaders at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos that it was time to "change the perception about India and China being a zero-sum game" and instead presented them as economies that offer complementary opportunities.
The United States, Japan and Southeast Asia would do well to support Sino-Indian rapprochement, which will produce economic benefits for the wider region and ideally promote a more peaceful 21st century.
Michael Vatikiotis is former editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review. He is currently a visiting research fellow at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Other navies would include Japan and India both being urged by Bush to contain China. Note Hainan’s proximity to Philippines, unenthusiastic host to American troops.
Interestingly, US President George W Bush has clearly said that the US was involved in helping India "become a world power" - which could be a sign of Washington's gradual acceptance of an embryonic multipolarity in Asia. However, US fundamental interests in developing better relations with India are the necessary containment of China, and New Delhi's help in the war against militant Islamic groups - a need that is growing stronger due to the unstable political landscape in Pakistan. #msg-7044350
According to sources in Taiwan, Japan, India and China, the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is building a new focus for its strategic nuclear forces: Hainan Island in the South China Sea. The new hub would reflect China's expanding naval power projection capabilities and greatly increase the possibility of confrontation with other navies.
The strategic shift most likely involves basing some of the PLAN's new Type 094 Jin-class nuclear strategic missile submarines (SSBNs) at a new facility either within or near the existing South Sea Fleet base at Yulin on Hainan Island.
Since 2002, Jane's has interviewed several Asian government officials on China's efforts to build a new nuclear submarine base on Hainan. At first this was described as an underground submarine base, similar to the PLAN's underground pen to support its single North Sea Fleet nuclear submarine base at Huludao on the Bohai Gulf.
In late 2004, however, a serving People's Liberation Army officer who confirmed the existence of a new base also noted that it was not to be an underground facility. Further evidence of a base in some form came in early 2005 when internet source photos documented the visit of a single Type 091 Han-class nuclear attack submarine (SSN) to Yulin. In late 2005, an Asian military source noted that the Hainan facility would be able to host up to eight submarines and might even be scheduled to begin operations in 2006. http://www.janes.com/defence/naval_forces/news/fr/fr060224_1_n.shtml
Hainan is located at south end of China, and occupies an area of 35,000 square kilometers (13,510 square miles). Its administrative regions are Hainan Island, Xisha archipelago, Zhongsha archipelago and Nansha archipelago. Its neighboring countries are Philippines towards the east, Malaysia and Brunei towards the south, Indonesia (Natuna Islands) towards the southwest, and Vietnam towards the west. The surrounding sea area totals 2,000,000 square kilometers (772,000 square miles). Due to the mild climate and favorable environment, Hainan is regarded as a long life island. The young often travel to Hainan seeking a return to nature and the old would rather live there to enjoy their lives. Hainan now has a population of 7.11 million, among which about one million are ethnic minorities.
In fact, several Indian analysts view India's security perimeter - its "rightful domain" - as extending from the Strait of Hormuz to the Strait of Malacca from Africa's east coast to the western shores of Australia. #msg-9958483
-Am
Saturday, March 04, 2006
* Offers India advanced fighter aircraft * Bush defends controversial N-pact with India * Sees US-India partnership transforming world
By Iftikhar Gilani
NEW DELHI: The United States is committed to transfer an amphibious defence transport ship to India early next year as part of the durable defence partnership deal signed after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s talks with President George W Bush on Thursday.
The US Defence Department hailed the new accord aimed at helping meet India’s defence needs. It also cited the US commitment to providing India with modern fighter aircraft.
It said that American firms will compete with contemporary technology in the Indian Air Force’s upcoming tender for multi-role combat aircraft, adding that a US firm is already competing in the Indian Army’s commercial tender for a new lighter helicopter.
The US Defence Department’s statement said that an agreement would be signed in the near future on logistics support. It cites defence trade and technology cooperation as a vital component of the relationship because it helps “build ties among our defence establishments and industries and to develop interoperability among our armed forces”. An American delegation will visit New Delhi soon to discuss US plans related to the recently issued Quadrennial Defence Review on the joint humanitarian action by the Indian and US armed forces.
Meanwhile, the India-US Framework for Maritime Security Cooperation released on March 2 commits the two nations to a “comprehensive cooperation in ensuring a secure maritime domain”. The US also offered to sell India advanced fighter aircraft.
“The US is committed to providing state-of-the-art fighter aircraft in response to India’s requirements for a multi-role combat aircraft,” the Pentagon said. “We have indicated our intention to offer both the F-16 and the F-18, both combat proven aircraft,” it said.
Meanwhile, Bush defended the nuclear agreement with India against criticism from Democrats in the Congress who say the deal rewards New Delhi for bad behaviour, Reuters reported.
AFP adds: Bush said on Friday that a strategic partnership launched with India could transform the world and urged New Delhi to take a lead in spreading freedom and democracy.
The world’s most powerful democracy and its most populous democracy would rally global efforts to push for democracy, fight terrorism and break down trade barriers, Bush said in a keynote address at the end of a three-day visit. “The United States and India, separated by half the globe, are closer than ever before and the partnership between our free nations has the power to transform the world,” he said.
Bush said the Iranian people were held hostage by Islamic clerics who foster terrorism.
“In Iran, a proud people are held hostage by a small clerical elite that denies basic liberties, sponsors terrorism and pursues nuclear weapons,” he said. He urged India to play a world role in a global struggle for freedom.
“India’s leadership is needed in a world that is hungry for freedom. Men and women from North Korea to Burma, to Syria, to Zimbabwe, to Cuba, yearn for their liberty,” he said. “We must stand with reformers and dissidents and civil society organisations and hasten the day when peoples of these nations can determine their future and choose their own leaders.”
VARANASI, India (AP) - A series of coordinated bombings rocked a packed railway station and crowded temple Tuesday in Hinduism's holiest city, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens in an attack that raised fears of communal violence.
Cities across India were put on high alert as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appealed for calm, said his spokesman, Sanjaya Baru.
"Stern action will be initiated against all those found involved," said Mulayam Singh Yadav, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the state where Tuesday's blasts occurred.
The attacks came only days after Hindus and Muslims fought in the streets of Lucknow, leaving four people dead, during a visit to India by President Bush. The next day, angry Hindus looted Muslim shops and burned vehicles in the coastal resort of Goa in a dispute over a mosque demolition.
It was unclear whether Tuesday's bombings were the work of anti-government or anti-Hindu militant groups or were connected to Bush's visit.
At least 10 people died in what appeared to be two bombings at Varanasi's train station, and five others were killed in another blast at the temple on the banks of the holy Ganges River, said Alok Sinha, a senior state official. However, since the bodies were counted at the mortuary, he could not be sure how many died in each place.
Another senior official, Kamlesh Pathak, said two unexploded bombs _ one hidden in a pressure cooker and the other in a backpack _ were found at Varanasi's Godowalia Market and defused by police.
The Press Trust of India news agency, meanwhile, reported that security officials found four unexploded bombs at a bathing platform on the banks of the Ganges, a few miles away.
The blast at the Sankat Mochan temple went off near dusk, when the shrine was crowded with Hindus making special Tuesday offerings to the monkey-god Hanuman, said police inspector Madan Mohan Pande.
At least 22 people were wounded in the temple blast, police official Mohammed Hashmi said.
Televised footage showed a man, his face bloodied, lying on a stretcher. An old woman lay on the floor, holding up her arms to helpers, who pulled her away. Debris, body parts and blood covered the temple floor.
Most witness accounts of the blasts at the city's crowded railway station said one bomb went off either in or next to a train car and the other near the ticket counter in the waiting room.
At least 40 people were injured there, 22 of them seriously, Pathak said.
One witness, Sunil Yadav, described a scene of confusion, with people running and screaming.
"It was a high-intensity blast," a man identified only as Pradeep told the CNN-IBN television station. "After the blast people were running like anything."
Varanasi, 450 miles east of Delhi, is Hinduism's holiest city and ordinarily is filled with pilgrims visiting temples and bathing in the holy waters of the Ganges, which runs through the city.
It also is a popular spot with foreign tourists, especially backpackers.
Home Secretary V.K. Duggal said Tuesday's blasts were similar to Oct. 29 bombings in New Delhi that killed 60 people.
Like those blasts, blamed on Islamic militants fighting to wrest predominantly Muslim Kashmir from India, the Varanasi explosions occurred within 10 minutes of each other, Duggal said, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
While Varanasi is a largely Hindu city, it also has a sizable Muslim population.
Police and paramilitary troops fanned out in Varanasi after Tuesday's explosions, and political leaders, among them top officials for the Hindu nationalist opposition, headed for the city.
The attack on the Hindu holy city came days after Muslims and Hindus battled each other in two other Indian cities, raising fears of a repeat of Hindu-Muslim violence that rocked western India in 2002 after 60 Hindus pilgrims were killed in a train fire initially blamed on Muslims.
That rioting left more than 1,000 people dead over three months. Human rights groups say it was encouraged _ and at times outrightly directed _ by politicians.
Although officials have not yet said who they believed was behind Tuesday's attack, many in India clearly suspected Muslim extremists.
On Friday, there were clashes in the nearby city of Lucknow after Hindu shop owners refused to respect a general strike called by Muslim leaders to protest Bush's visit to India. Four people were killed.
On Saturday, hundreds of Hindus rampaged through a town in coastal Goa, storming a police station, beating officers, looting Muslim shops and burning vehicles and buildings. The violence came after Muslims demonstrated to protest the demolition of a mosque by suspected Hindu extremists.
It also quoted sources as saying China may deploy its aircraft carrier fleet near the energy fuel supply route in South China Sea where warships are now being deployed.
This energy fuel supply route would be the Malacca Strait.
The Malacca Strait is transited by about 60,000 ships each year, and about one third of the world's trade and half of the world's oil pass through the strait on the way to countries such as China and Japan. #msg-7475760
The United States has armed India to contain China and if things continue on their present course India and China may meet one day in the Strait of Malacca.
In fact, several Indian analysts view India's security perimeter - its "rightful domain" - as extending from the Strait of Hormuz to the Strait of Malacca from Africa's east coast to the western shores of Australia. #msg-9958483
-Am
Report: China plans to build carrier
Associated Press
HONG KONG (Kyodo) — The Chinese military is currently planning to build an aircraft carrier, a pro-Beijing daily in Hong Kong reported Friday.
”The Chinese army will conduct research and build an aircraft carrier and develop our own aircraft carrier fleet,” People’s Liberation Army Lt. Gen. Wang Zhiyuan was quoted as saying in the Chinese-language Wen Wei Po.
”An aircraft carrier is a very important tool for big countries defending their interests in the sea. China is a big country with a long shoreline. An aircraft carrier is necessary to defend our interests in the sea,” he said.
It would be China’s first aircraft carrier and would likely be deployed to join other warships currently in the South China Sea, the newspaper said.
Wang said the carrier fleet will not be complete for another three to five years.
The newspaper said aircraft fit for the carrier and auxiliary warships and submarines are either being built or completed.
It also quoted sources as saying China may deploy its aircraft carrier fleet near the energy fuel supply route in South China Sea where warships are now being deployed.
The barriers for China to build its own aircraft carrier include technology advancement, hardware and software support, building and maintenance costs and political pressure from overseas over China’s becoming a military threat in the region, the newspaper reported.
Pramod Bhasin, president & CEO of Genpact, one of the pioneers and major players in the global outsourcing arena, is aggressive and confident. And he is moving at top speed to keep his rivals in awe all the time.
Bhasin expects Genpact to cross the $1-billion mark in annual revenues by 2007-2008 and employ a global workforce of 30,000 in countries like China, Ireland, etc.
At the Asia Society Conference 2006 in Mumbai, Managing Editor (National Affairs) Sheela Bhatt caught up with Bhasin for an interview. Excerpts:
What do you think is the future of the business process outsourcing industry?
Excellent! It's a great business and we have great advantages in India. It's a new industry and it will continue to grow.
* India Rising! Asia Society Conference 2006
What about the image problem?
The image problem is only in the Indian media. It's certainly not with the overseas press. Globally, this industry is 50 to 100 years old and India is just discovering it. And the Indian media is discovering even later!
I will be very blunt with you and say that 90% of the media's views on BPO industry are incorrect. People just don't understand the type of work we do, the value-addition we are doing, the reengineering we are doing, and the type of high-end processes we are conducting. It's too new to them and they haven't studied it as much as they should.
Internally, and with our customers, we have no image problem. If media has a problem they will have to deal with it themselves.
But your company is employing more and more people in China. . .
We employ everywhere around the world. It's not China versus India.
We will grow globally, like any global company does. IBM, Accenture, and other global majors and companies like us are growing at the rate of 25 to 35 per cent a year. Yes, we are employing people in China. But we are employing many more people in India. This year, we will be hiring 10,000 people, out of which 2,000 will be in China, and 6,000 to 7000 in India.
Do you think Americans are still sensitive about the outsourcing issue?
Anybody would be sensitive about losing jobs to other country. Who won't be? What will happen in India if we lost jobs to China? There will be riots in the street. It's naive to think that people won't be sensitive. Of course, they would be!
Even in developed economies this will happen. At the same time, the United States is producing more jobs every month and that holds it in a very good stead because America has ability to reinvigorate itself in a way that very few countries have.
When the Japanese came to the US everybody said, 'Oh, my God, its over!' But it's not quite over yet.
Do you find enough talent in India?
I think there are enough people. Are they trained enough? That's a different question.
Are they well trained?
No. We do a lot of training and we will enhance our training. Are the right people trained for right jobs? Are they meeting the right companies they should work in?
No. I don't think so. The tragedy is our education system is not just good enough. I think our education system badly needs to be upgraded and urgently needs to be upgraded. And the government should get out of it.
Will China become India's competitor in the BPO industry?
Of course, they will! Why not? Why not? See, this is how the world works. Any country, if it sees the good opportunity, will jump at it. This is how we should work. This is called competition.
We have a small base in China. If you are looking for global talent its harder to find in China. But if you are looking for great responsiveness from the government and local authority, it's much easier to work in China.
They are fantastic, they are superb and there is no comparison between China and India. I recommend all of you to go to China, make one trip. Pay for yourself. You must go to China once and you will stop asking these questions.
Is India gearing up for the competition?
It is not. When China announces that it will put up 40 Harvard-level management institutions they will not get to the Harvard level, but if they get 20 colleges at a half of Harvard level it will be better than our 5 IIMs!
In India, in the second year (of graduation), colleges students don't show up, teachers do not attend classes, marks are poor, training level is poor, the teaching level is poor. . . so when they come out of colleges we retrain them completely. A simple thing like you have to come to work on time is a new idea to them!
English is our plus-point. Also, Indian education is a low-cost issue. But China produces more graduates than India does. In India we need training, education and infrastructure for IT companies. We have to provide our own cars to employees, we have to provide security. Should I be doing this?
We have to keep triple back-up of power. Should I be doing that too? Every time we employ a person we need to retrain him. But India still works well. Because we have energy, passion and people are creative and they want to learn. India has always survived in spite of its governments.
To what extent has the tag of 'cyber coolies' stuck with India?
To an extent, everyone is a coolie. You are a coolie, I am a coolie. It's a ludicrous allegation. Media baffles me. They don't do any homework, they don't want to read. We are closing books of American companies while sitting in India. We are running treasuries. Yes, we are doing low-end work, but every Indian company is doing low-end work also, even your company can't survive without doing low-end work.
If you get an exclusive audience with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh what will you tell him?
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