The US relationship with India is such a disjointed, dynamic affair. On one hand, the US government has made it tougher for foreigners to obtain student visas to attend colleges and universities in this country. On the other hand, international students bring in about $13 billion to the US economy, between school costs and living expenses, money higher ed could really use. The US allows for export of sub-systems such as for super-computers, but restricts the export of spare parts for those sub-systems. We spend billions to purchase Indian IT services; but we place more restrictive controls on the export of high tech going to India than we place on exports heading to China. (This in spite of the fact that while India’s exports to the United States stood at $13 billion in 2003, US exports to India were only $5 billion.) A bilateral task force convened by the Pacific Council on International Policy and India’s Observer Research Foundation just published a fascinating slightly rambling report that examines how to strengthen ties between India and the US. The authors of India-US Relations consider this the first such policy study carried out on a bilateral basis, involving experts from both countries. As the report states, its recommendations are aimed at: I won’t comment on the report’s recommendations regarding nuclear technology or movie stars (not because I don’t have opinions but because they’d just be distractions). But there’s much worthy of consideration among its suggestions for strengthening ties between the two countries in areas of business, travel, healthcare and education. For example, the task force recommends several specific ways to expand commerce between the two countries: Nor does the report gloss over the shadow such an expansion could make on the working person in the US who might be at risk of losing his or her job: After the US presidential election in 2004, there seems to be a belief in business circles that the outsourcing issue has lost its emotional and political punch. This may be a premature conclusion. The impact of the long-term shift of service industry employment overseas is far from clear. And there is a need to promote public policies to ease the impact of job loss clearly associated with such shifts. Indian IT firms need to be sensitive to those concerns while continuing to make the argument for the mutually beneficial nature of IT-related service outsourcing. And the changes must come not just from the US side. India is still bogged down in “archaic” rules that restrict the free flow of activities. For instance, India has become the second largest target for venture capital investment in the world, after the US. Yet the central bank needs to approve each investment or divestment made. Boards of directors can’t be independent of shareholding. Simply leasing office space requires working through a mystifying bureaucracy. Publicly funded Indian universities need to be restructured to allow collaboration with the private sector. Look what it’s done for Canada’s higher ed schools. Plus, infrastructure spending has to rise exponentially. The report points out that total capital spending in 2002 on electricity, construction, transportation, telecom and real estate was 20% of China’s GDP, compared to 6% in India. The report makes for a good read — all 50 pages of it. I can’t speak for the Indian government; but I can speak for the US government, which presumably represents me in some small way. I hope somebody at the wheel is paying attention, because this roadmap could really lead us places. Download your copy here:
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