Why is Congress so hysterical about outsourcing to India? Why this "kolaveri?"

Manikandan is a twenty-year old final year college student in the southern Indian city of Chennai.  His father drives an autorickshaw (a three-wheeled vehicle for hire) and his mother cleans four different homes.  Neither parent has completed high school.

Before attending college in the evenings, Manikandan works for a courier company, in order to earn whatever little he can in order to help pay for the family's expenses. With his college program nearing the end, Manikandan has started applying for employment and has been called for interviews.  He is looking for an entry-level job in any one of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms in the city, at a starting salary somewhere in the neighborhood of about 10,000 rupees, which, at current exchange rates, is about $200.

Yes, a job that pays the equivalent of about $200 per month is a dream job to an overwhelming number of Indians who, too, wish to have a decent life.  This is, after all, a country where the per capita monthly income is just about $120, without adjusting for purchasing power.

Even a fifth grader in Jeff Foxworthy's TV show will know very well that nobody in the US will work for a monthly pay of $200.  As I would joke with students in my classes, $200 can barely get us a cup of coffee at Starbucks anymore!

But, to Manikandan here in Chennai, $200 is a phenomenal opportunity to be gainfully employed and to help his sister and parents.

Of course, a call center is merely one type of outsourcing activities.  Many kinds of work are often contracted out—from engineering designs for complex projects, to scanning documents and data entry.  India's economic growth has resulted from extensive outsourcing operations, similar to how China has become the world's factory.  So much so that on the last trading day of 2011, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) became the largest Indian company in terms of market capitalization.

Investment analysts and commentators continue to place their bets on the leading Indian BPO firms: TCS, Infosys, and Wipro.  As Thomas Friedman acknowledges in his bestselling and influential book, “The World is Flat,” it was the remarks of the founder of Infosys, Narayana Murthy, which catalyzed Friedman to think about the changing global economic geography.

Thus, given the importance of the BPO activities, Indian companies and the government are closely following the political rhetoric in the US over outsourcing.  India's ambassador to the US, Nirupama Roy, noted that "we are currently making a detailed analysis of the impact of the bill on the BPO industry."

In a recent interview, Phaneesh Murthy, who is the CEO of one of the leading BPO firms, operating from the US, emphatically observed that "India should lobby aggressively that the offshoring of BPO business has created jobs globally and has boosted the global economy and made the U.S. corporations more profitable. It is important to realise that this has also created high-value jobs in the U.S., including consulting jobs."

At the end of it all, it makes no sense to me why politicians in the US and the US Congress felt it was the nation's priority to worry about outsourcing and to consider HR 3596 (the U.S Call Center Workers & Consumer Protection Act.)  Under the guise of consumer protection, the bill is nothing but a variation of that tired old theme of "buy American." 

The eventual outcome of the bill itself is not as important to me as much as my worry over the misguided and populist approaches to end the prolonged slump in employment creation in the US.

At the ground level, the bill and related populist rhetoric do not project a positive image of the US. Instead of focusing on creating jobs led by advancements in science and technology, as my adopted country has done in the past on its way to becoming the global economic superpower, the US now comes across as a selfish rich person trying to slam the doors on the young and promising, but poor, people like Manikandan.

As a popular "Tanglish" song, which has gone viral, asks, "why this kolaveri?"

For want of three rupees! Customer (non)service :(

I walked to the other end of the Egmore Station in Chennai in order to get "platform tickets."  Non-passengers who want to enter the railway station in order to say bye to their folks, are required to purchase platform tickets.

I was the fourth person in line when the guy at the head of the line was turned away because he didn't have the exact change for the ticket.  He stepped to the side and waited.

The board advised those in line to have the exact change of three rupees per ticket.  I knew I did not have the six rupees I needed for two tickets and worried that the woman at the counter would behave like Seinfeld's Soup Nazi and deny me the tickets as well.

It was my turn.  But the female clerk turned her attention to the guy who was waiting, and yelled at him: "If you stand here, you won't get any change.  Go out to the stores and get change, and then come here."

It will be a terrible understatement to write that I was shocked at such a rude behavior.  It was bizarre.

I looked at him.  Compared to me, he was immaculately attired, with a trim haircut and looked about 25 or 30.

"Two tickets, please" I said as I held out a ten-rupee note.

She looked at the currency bill and paused.  I was sure the Soup Nazi would ask me to step aside.

She looked at me.  And then, grabbed the bill, gave me two tickets and the change.

As I stepped aside, I asked the guy who was rejected, "how much change do you need?"

"I have a twenty."

"Ok, how many tickets are you buying" I asked him.

He wanted one ticket.

"Just one ticket?" I asked him.  He nodded a yes.

I gave him a two rupee coin and a one rupee coin.

"Thank you very much" he said.

I started my walk back to the platform.  Halfway through, he passed me at quite a speed walking of his, but paused for a second and said "thanks."

I hoped that what I had witnessed at the counter was not representative of customer service in India.

Roses are red, violets are blue, ... boogers are black?

An old joke about boogers is this:

Q: What is the difference between boogers and broccoli?
A: Kids hate broccoli

Well, I am not sure whether that will be true anymore--kids might equally hate boogers too, given how black my boogers are here in India :)

Perhaps agencies like the EPA need not waste enormous time and money to monitor PM2.5 or any other pollutant, and can instead provide daily bulletins on booger colors reported by people!