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EDITORIAL:
WAKE UP CALL FOR INDIAN BPOs The furious hue and cry over breach of confidentiality following leaks from Indian call centers has hit headlines pretty much all over the world. No surprise there. With resentment over the flight of jobs, call centers are the favorite whipping boy for some in the West, so when the London tabloid Sun or the Australian Broadcasting Corporation revealed that confidential personal information can be teased out by a little bribing in the right place, the story resonated in the West. Of course, identity theft is not restricted to India alone, it is a worldwide problem. But that should not in any way exculpate Indian companies which have allowed this breach to happen. A lot of hope and expectation are riding on business process outsourcing, and a lack of goodwill, if allowed to deteriorate, could begin to spell doom. Our cover story takes a close look at the challenge and what the Indian government and business is doing about it. The commission’s scathing indictment of the culpability of the erstwhile Congress government in organized pogroms, particularly in Delhi, brings back harrowing memories for the hapless Sikh community who watched in shock, horror and disgust as some of their countrymen went berserk and looted and killed at will as law enforcement agencies remained mute spectators and those in power, instead of clamping down on the carnage going on before their very eyes, were party to orchestrating it. In this issue we carry the poignant, sobering reminiscences of one survivor of that terrible time who was a young Sikh college student in Delhi at that time. His reminiscences bring vividly to the fore the heart wrenching toll that event has taken on a community’s psyche, leaving painful emotional scars that still endure. The aftermath of the tsunami raises serious concerns about ecological safety in the Bengal Basin and neighboring areas due to possible breach and subsequent pollution of deep aquifers. COVER STORY:  Call Center Scandal: Security Breach in Indian BPO - By Siddharth Srivastava Scandals over the lack of security of personal information at Indian call centers has rocked the Western media at a time of rising antipathy of job flight to India. The Indian government is now planning to clamp down with stiffer penalties and NASSCOM is mulling tighter regulation. It couldn’t come a moment too soon, writes Siddharth Srivastava. It is the kind of attention that India’s burgeoning BPO — business and process outsourcing — industry could have done without, given the angst in the West against jobs being shifted to low cost economies. The Mphasis heist in April this year was the first of its kind in India and many hoped the last for some time to come. Employees at Mphasis, a leading outsourcing firm located at Pune, fraudulently accessed secret passwords and codes of Citibank customers in the U.S. and transferred close to half a million dollars into fictitious accounts in India. Quick action was initiated against the employees by the police as well as the company. Industry observers were hoping that leading BPO companies in India would be able to plug the loopholes and check aberrant employee behavior to prevent such occurrences. But matters do not seem to have turned out very well as more instances of fraud are coming to light. In the latest serious allegation, the Australian Broadcasting Corp has said that employees of a Gurgaon-based call centre are illegally selling personal information of thousands of Australians for as little as 10 Australian dollars (less than $8) per person. ABC TV claimed that its reporters were offered names, addresses, telephone numbers, birth details, medicare numbers, driver’s license numbers, ATM card numbers and even passport information of 1,000 Australians. Earlier, in June this year, the British tabloid Sun, following a sting operation by one of its reporters, claimed that Karan Bahree, an employee of BPO unit Infinity e-Search, divulged personal details of over 1,000 Britons for $5 per head. Predictably, the two latest insinuations have generated a lot of disquiet in the incipient Indian BPO industry, which has grown robustly in the last few years. Today Indian BPO players number over 400, employ more than 400,000 people, growing at over 30 percent; India’s export in this segment in 2004-05 has touched $5.2 billion and the projection for this year is over $7 billion. According to a U.S. Federal Trade Commission study in 2003, 27.3 million Americans have been victims of identity theft in the previous five years, including 9.9 million people in 2002 alone. The survey estimates that identity theft losses to businesses and financial institutions totaled to nearly $48 billion and consumer victims reported $5 billion in out-of-pocket expenses during 2002. Speaking on behalf of the Indian BPO industry, National Association of Software and Services Company president Kiran Karnik has said: “I haven’t seen the ABC program but it just seems to be a follow-up of the Bahree case rather than being a fresh incident. But let me also assure you that India is among the safest processing hubs around. I can assure every Australian customer whose data is being handled in India that in a comparative sense at least, this is among the safest places.” Following the MphasiS and Bahree episodes, there have been several reports that Indian BPOs are putting in place elaborate checks to prevent data theft and fraud. One recent report talks of BPO employees at a Bangalore outfit swiping ID cards, “emptying their pockets and bags and stuff cell phones, PDAs, and even pens and notebooks into lockers as a dour security guard watches.” Staffers ending their shifts have to shred notes of conversations with customers. Even visitors have to sign a four-page non-disclosure agreement. According to cyber lawyer Pawan Duggal: “There is a heightened emphasis on information security and legal compliances, and BPO companies are increasingly looking at how to address the concerns of the clients. Companies today need to work towards establishing appropriate practices, procedures and policies so as to ensure that there are no data breaches of any kind. I believe that the Karan Bahri case may ultimately benefit the Indian BPO industry since it has woken the sector up to the various emerging challenges ahead.” Manmohan had stressed the need to maintain high quality, confidentiality and reliability in the data processing business. ‘‘Indian professionals have built for themselves an enviable global reputation through hard work, dedication and commitment and the occasional misguided acts of some individuals should not be allowed to damage the high reputation of all professionals,” he said. The government is now in the process of changing the Information Technology Act, 2000, with draft proposals ready. The amended Act, with 18 revisions, will include laws against a new range of computer crimes to cover areas like privacy, information protection and harming computer systems through viruses. The whole Section (66) in the IT Act 2000 is proposed to be renamed “Computer-related offences,” taking it beyond the current scope. One of the proposals in IT Act’s Section (72) aims to check the “breach of confidentiality and privacy” with compensation up to $60,000 to the person whose privacy has been infringed by any intermediary (telecom service provider, Internet service provider, cyber cafes et al), without his “consent and with intent to cause injury to him.” Another arena which is being ramped up is quality of personnel. Unlike the IT sector where the skills require to be honed over a period of time through tough degrees obtained from engineering institutes, the skill-set for entry into the IT-enabled sector is rudimentary. A working knowledge of English is often considered sufficient, though India is now seeking to move up the value chain (the term is knowledge process outsourcing) to offer specialized services, such as in accounting, reading medical reports, financial planning, data processing and more. As a response to the Mphasis and Bahree cases, NASSCOM has signed up an agency to prepare a national database of the employees of the IT and BPO industry, who number over a million. A pool of blacklisted people will be created and updated. Existing managers will be retrained. NASCOM has also mooted a GRE-like centralized testing and certification system for BPO employees. The attempt is to protect employers against frauds with regard to educational and professional qualifications of potential employees. Apart from identifying the skills of each individual, the examination will also widen the net of employees which is mostly limited to the four metros of the country There is a lot at stake. India’s export revenues from IT and IT-enabled services are expected to cross $25 billion. A McKinsey report on the IT enabled sector has revised the previous figure of $17 billion to $21-24 billion for India by the year 2008. This is 25 percent of the offshore market with the U.S. the largest source providing 60 percent of business. It would be simply suicidal to allow a few malcontents to kill off the goose that lays golden eggs. - Siddharth Srivastava is the India correspondent for Siliconeer. He is based in New Delhi. |TOP|
SUBCONTINENT: Hussain Haqqani’s Advice: ‘Get Real, Pakistanis - By Ras Siddiqui Journalist, scholar, writer, diplomat and Pakistani political figure Husain Haqqani says Pakistanis must start taking a less defensive and more introspective view and should at least start analyzing mistakes honestly, writes Ras Siddiqui.  Pakistani political analyst Hussain Haqqani (left) wants Pakistanis to take a frank, honest look at themselves. (Right) A Pakistani 50 rupee bill with Bangla text to ease frustration of erstwhile East Pakistani Bengalis: too little, too late. (Top) Two Pakistani girls celebrate Independence Day.  Journalist, scholar, writer, diplomat and Pakistani political figure Husain Haqqani, who certainly wears many hats, was recently on an author’s tour in the San Francisco Bay Area when he took the opportunity to talk with this writer. Haqqani had just completed his speech at a leading area policy institute and had also been received quite well at the prestigious World Affairs Council of San Francisco, where he spoke the day before. He was in the area to promote his new book “Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military” which reflects his passionate interest in the country’s history and more importantly its future. I had started to prepare myself for a standard question-and-answer session with the visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and associate professor at Boston University who has served as advisor to the civilian governments of Benazir Bhutto, Nawaz Sharif and Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi in Pakistan. But it was not to be, because informality set in and he was more comfortable having an open one-on-one discussion. This article will highlight just some of our verbal interaction, which was dominated by his sharp intellect and grasp of the facts from the point of view of an insider. In other words, it was difficult to corner him on anything even though I thought that I was well prepared. “Pakistanis must start taking a less defensive and more introspective view of Pakistan and current developments. What I mean is that we tend to gloss over or totally deny facts. For example, we have not come to terms with what happened in 1971. It is important to recognize that mistakes have been committed. Instead of blaming individuals, parties or groups, we should at least start analyzing the mistakes honestly. It is time to deal with that and Inshallah we will have a good future,” he said. “No other country has gone through some of the traumas that we have gone through but refuse to acknowledge them. And the moment that somebody starts to acknowledge or analyze these things people turn around and say kay ji our image is going to be destroyed. I think that we need to stop worrying about image and start worrying about substance.” Second, I think that Pakistan is a very important country in the world. But we have to get over things that we are emotionally driven by. A sense of proportion is required. For example we tend to stick together. We want to create a glass bowl and in that we want to become the big fish. There is a great big world out there in which we need to keep things in perspective. There is no denying Pakistan’s significance in the global order. But that significance should neither be exaggerated nor underestimated,” he added. “And last but not least Pakistanis must understand as a nation, we all must face the critical issues of global systems,” he said. Haqqani was very critical of the “glibness” of Pakistanis and their immediate denial of problems associated with them. He called for a national self-criticism to balance the criticism that (sometimes unfairly?) comes from outside, especially around the topic of extremism. He stressed the need for Pakistanis to join the global mainstream of ideas. “Our contribution to the global mainstream of ideas is very limited,” he said. He pointed out that it was unfortunate that criticism emanating from Pakistan is often not well thought out and that blaming others limits other healthy exchanges. He pointed out that one Pakistani newspaper’s calling the New York Times the “Jew York Times” does not help matters. “That is not the way to become a part of the global mainstream. We need to go beyond these fantasies of Zionist-Hindu conspiracies in everything,” he added. “The global mainstream of ideas is ideas about politics, it is ideas about society, it is ideas about economics. It is ideas about religious tolerance,” Haqqani said. The author of “Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military” commended the work of Dr. Akbar S. Ahmed here in the U.S. for his efforts. “He is trying to connect with the other Abrahamic faiths,” he said. Haqqani suggested that such an effort by a Pakistani-Muslim scholar like Dr. Ahmed was the need of the times in the global mainstream of ideas. “It is time to stop being inward looking,” he said. “The problems of Muslims and Pakistanis are not problems that we can blame on the rest of the world,” said Haqqani. Pointing out that America had not abandoned Pakistan, he gave examples such as 1971 when America had tried to help but Pakistani rulers themselves created the crisis. “Why are Pakistan’s literacy rates so low?” he asked. He said that outsiders cannot be blamed for that. He compared statistics on literacy rates in Pakistan with its neighbors before revisiting his main point. “It is time to face global realities,” he said. “That is the theme of my book.” - Ras Siddiqi is a Pakistani American community activist and writer. |TOP| NEWS DIARY: August Roundup  India New Auto Hub | BANGLADESH: Bomb Blasts Rock Nation, Unnerve Government | India Renews Historic Ties with Afghanistan | Military Regimes Illegal | Mumbai Collapse Sparks Evacuation | Post-election Muddle | Sri Lanka Bids Tearful Adieu to Lakshman Kadirgamar | Mittal Offers $11.4B Plant | Rebels Making Porn | No to Monarchy | Meeting with ‘Spy’ | Red Army’s Ghosts | Prisoner Accord | Border Trouble India New Auto Hub An increasing number of global car makers are outsourcing their R&D and engineering requirements to India to take advantage of the country’s improving capabilities and low costs.
Global automakers like BMW and the German auto-maker Volkswagen AG, are moving their manufacturing operations to India. Czech car manufacturer Skoda also intends making its Aurangabad plant in India as its manufacturing and export hub for the South Asian region. General Motors also plans to make India an export base. Pusalkar said experts estimate that the Indian capacity to meet global auto component needs is more than $30 billion but the industry needs an investment of $50 billion in capital equipment and infrastructure. “The government needs to be a major catalyst by providing excellent infrastructure setup and transparency in government-related transactions and interfaces,” he added. For Hyundai of South Korea, India is the exclusive hub for exports of its Santro. Maruti Udyog has been a sourcing base for Suzuki Motors for a long time.
Two ministers made very different statements. While Industries Minister and Jamaat-e-Islami leader Moulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, said India’s Research and Analysis Wing may be responsible — drawing a sharp protest from New Delhi — Foreign Minister M. Morshed Khan, of ruling coalition leader Bangladesh Nationalist Party said Nizami’s views were those of Jamaat-e-Islami, not the government. Meanwhile, foreign diplomats are surprised they have not been briefed. “Usually after any major incident they’ll call all the heads of mission into the foreign ministry to reassure them, say ‘please don’t alter your travel advice, please don’t tell your investors not to come’, one diplomat in Dhaka told the BBC. “This time they have not done that. Read into it what you will.” Opposition Activists have protested against the bomb attacks while police have detained over 160 people, some of whom have confessed to links with Jamatul Mujahideen. Opposition activists are demanding the resignation of either one of the two ministers who have made statements that contradict each other, breaking the principle of collective responsibility of the cabinet. Now reporters are having a hard time getting hold of any minister, including Home Minister Lutfozzaman Babar. Mohammed Jehangir, of the Centre for Development Communication, says: “The government is confused about what position they want to take. “Our government is a coalition government, so it is very difficult to take a position against fundamentalists or extremists, because the fundamentalists are with them. “If they say extremists are responsible, members of the coalition will be angry and they will have internal problems.”
“Afghanistan is very keen on Saarc and hopes to be a contributor and receiver (from) that organization,” Karzai told The Hindu newspaper. Singh has used the visit to emphasize Delhi’s commitment towards rebuilding Afghanistan’s economy, infrastructure and democratic institutions. India is Afghanistan’s biggest donor in the region. It has spent over $500m in Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taleban in 2001. Much of this money has been spent in rebuilding Afghanistan’s infrastructure with regular contributions in sectors like education, health care and power. India has also helped in other areas like transportation, aviation and telecommunications. Delhi is also involved in the training of Afghanistan’s civil servants, diplomats and police officers. Singh’s trip is the first visit to the country by an Indian prime minister for 29 years. However, Delhi has been working hard to develop its ties with the new Afghan regime following the overthrow of the Taleban in 2001. It moved swiftly to establish diplomatic posts in the country, hoping to counter the influence of its long-standing rival, Pakistan. Indeed, land-locked Afghanistan placed strategically between Central and South Asia has long been a backdrop for a Cold War-style Great Game between the two nuclear neighbors. Now with this verdict, the rule of Khandker Mushtaque Ahmed, Abu Sadaat Mohammad Sayem, and Maj General Ziaur Rahman become unlawful. The ruling comes as a morale booster to the Awami League-led opposition and as a setback to the Prime Minister Khaleda Zia and her coalition partners, some of whom are accused of being collaborators in the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of the nation. The court noted that history couldn’t be altered and made it clear that the constitution did not permit anyone to assume power by any means other than the ones mentioned in it The verdict came upon a decades-old writ petition filed challenging the Martial Law Regulation 7 of 1977, issued to legalize all illegal acts of the martial law government prior to that time. The High court has however stayed the operation of the judgment to allow the government to file an appeal. Eminent jurist Dr. M. Zahir said, “The judgment has come too late, it should have come earlier.” He however described as admirable the court’s observations on the question of the constitution and the principles.
According to one estimate, there are some 19,000 tall buildings in Mumbai that are “old and dilapidated.” Authorities in Mumbai have ordered an evacuation of dangerous buildings after the second fatal collapse in a week. Almost 900 tenants in 80 buildings deemed dangerous in southern Mumbai will be moved to holding camps within a week, authorities say. The move follows the death of six people in the collapse of a three-storey building on Aug. 28 night. Eleven people died a week before that when a four-storey building came down. It is not uncommon for poorly maintained buildings to collapse during the monsoon rains in Mumbai. Monsoon rains have already caused the deaths of more than 1,100 people in Mumbai and Maharashtra.
“This election was the last straw,” Liaquat Baloch told the BBC news Web site when asked to explain the boycott decision of the country’s main religious alliance —the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal. Baloch is a senior MMA leader. “It convinced us that democracy and all the processes that go into it simply cannot flourish for as long as General Musharraf remains at the helm. The secular opposition grouping ARD — the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy — has also expressed a complete lack of confidence in the ability of President Musharraf’s government to hold free, fair and impartial elections. The ARD leaders are meeting in Islamabad to decide on their final response to the conduct of local elections. Now the Supreme Court has weighed in with another spanner in the works — a new judgment bars elected candidates armed only with degrees from unregistered madrassas from holding public office. “The Supreme Court’s decision is vague and confusing,” says Senator Professor Ghafoor Ahmed of the MMA. “Are all madrassa qualified winners automatically disqualified? Or will they get time to pass additional subjects such as English, Urdu and Pakistan Studies? “If yes, will their seats remain vacant till they pass these subjects? What will happen to the local councils in the meantime?”
Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee and External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh joined delegations from 11 countries to attend the last rites of Kadirgamar. Brushing aside security concerns, President Chandrika Kumaratunga made an appearance where the pyre of the slain leader, born a Tamil Christian, was lit by his sons, Ajitha and Ragee, amidst multi-faith prayers, capping a mile-long funeral procession when national flag draped Kadirgamar’s body was taken in a hearse. Mukherjee and Natwar Singh were seated next to Kumaratunga when the last rites were performed in the presence of cabinet ministers from six countries, including Pakistan, Norway and Bangladesh, and members of Kadirgamar’s family. Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse said September 11 in New York, July 7 in London, the brutal slaying of Rajiv Gandhi and Lankan President Premadasa and assassination of Kadirgamar in Colombo “were events of same magnitude in that they threatened the very fabric of civilized society. “All countries of the East and the West, of developed and developing worlds must and surely will join together to wipe out terrorism and strengthen the norms and values of a democratic life,” he said.
According to a government source, Mittal Steel had submitted a draft memorandum to the local government in the mineral-rich state of Jharkhand. Mittal officials were not immediately available for comment, but in July chairman Lakshmi Mittal had said his company was hopeful of signing a deal with the Jharkhand government in two weeks. Local media reported an agreement was delayed because Mittal Steel had insisted on exporting part of the iron ore, from the mining rights the firm would be given for the venture. Politicians and domestic steel firms had earlier opposed a proposal by South Korea’s POSCO to export iron ore from its proposed mine and steel project in the eastern state of Orissa. Jharkhand’s top bureaucrat, Chief Secretary P.P. Sharma, said the government would not allow exports of iron ore. “We want value addition to happen locally and we have made it very clear to all prospective investors,” he told Reuters. POSCO, the world’s fifth-largest steel maker, signed a deal in June to set up a $12 billion steel project. It was granted 30-year mining rights by the Orissa government to supply 600 million metric tons of iron ore to the new plant. After much dithering, Orissa also allowed the company to export up to 30 percent of high grade iron ore consumed by the Indian plant in lieu of import of low grade ore, which POSCO said was necessary to make high-quality steel. “POSCO deal and the opposition it created are fresh in everybody’s mind, another government official said. “Why should we allow ore exports when we have many Indian companies willing to set up plants?” Former NLFT guerrillas have told police their leaders not only sexually abused tribal girls recruited into the rebel army but also used them — and some male guerrillas — to produce scores of porn films, officials say. “The films were found to be dubbed in Burmese, Bengali, Thai and Hindi, suggesting they were being marketed to many countries in the region,” Ghanshyam Murari Srivastava, Tripura’s police chief told the BBC. He said police have recovered scores of pornographic DVDs featuring young women and men from various parts of the state, including remote areas such as Amarpur and Gandacherra. Such pornographic DVDs have also been recovered from NLFT bases inside Bangladesh after they were raided by the Bangladesh army, the police chief said. Video production houses in Tripura confirm police allegations. “We do get orders to process raw porn shot in remote tribal areas from time to time,” the owner of a video production company in the state’s capital Agartala told the BBC. He did not want to be named. “We get a lot more money , much above our normal rates, to process these films and deliver a sleek final product.” “We know the insurgents are behind these films. When we process their raw stock, we can see boys standing around with automatic rifles and revolvers pulling in girls but we are supposed to cut all that out and just concentrate on the sex,” the owner said. The latest pornographic video that has become sought after by young men in Tripura is Hamjagoi Tongthoklaima, or Our Experiences. Like a feature film, it runs a full cast of “heroes” and “heroines.” Initially it appears to be a love film with boys and girls holding hands and walking past lakes and trees. But soon the video starts featuring close-up shots of the actors undressing and having sex. The king sacked the former government in February, saying it failed to tackle the Maoist uprising. The top executive body of the Nepali Congress, led by four-time former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, announced its intention to drop its traditional support for constitutional monarchy. The Nepali Congress has supported constitutional monarchy in Nepal since its inception 60 years ago. But now it is a key player in the seven-party opposition alliance against King Gyanendra. There has been a widening rift between the king and Nepal’s political parties since he seized power. The king appears to be anxious that Nepal’s political deadlock could benefit the rebels, who are seeking to replace the current system with a communist republic. The opposition grouping has ruled out an alliance with Maoist rebels, but its leaders have not ruled out holding talks with the rebels. King Gyanendra likened the dispute between the monarchy and political parties to the relationship between a husband and wife, saying that the closer they are the more they quarrel. He said he was ready for talks with the political parties, but insisted that they first had to promise commitment to good governance, fiscal discipline and a fight against terrorism. He also accused the former elected government of failing to address social problems. He said that if the government had addressed some of the demands the Maoists had put to the authorities nine years ago, Nepal would not have plunged into a “ditch.” The king said that his administration was now addressing some of these issues, such as the uplift of lower castes and women.
The rare visit came as officials from the two sides, trying to nudge a slow peace process forward, ended talks to curb terrorism and drug trafficking and said they would exchange dozens of prisoners next month. Manjit Singh was convicted of spying and involvement in bombings in Pakistan that killed 14 people, and the Supreme Court this month upheld the death penalty handed to him in 1991. But the decision triggered an outcry in India where Singh’s family says it is a case of mistaken identity and he is a farmer who wandered into Pakistan while drunk. Pakistan agreed to let diplomats meet Singh as a first step to confirming his identity after members of his family threatened to commit suicide if he was executed. Two diplomats met Singh at Kot Lakhpat Jail on the outskirts of Lahore in the presence of Pakistani jail authorities and interior ministry officials. When the last Soviet tank of the departing Red Army rolled back across the Oxus river in February 1989, leaving Afghanistan for good, they left behind some Cold War ghosts. In the hills of northern Afghanistan, there are still men with pale skin who talk Russian when they are together. Until 1981, Nasratullah was a soldier in the Red Army called Nikolai. Together with two others, now known as Rahmatullah and Aminullah, he survives from a total of five Soviet soldiers known to have been captured and converted to Islam. They went on to fight against their old comrades with the mujahideen. Russia says 13,000 Soviet soldiers were lost between 1979 and 1989. An estimated 1.3 million Afghans, mainly civilians, also died. Nasrullah remains close to the men who first captured him. “We captured Nasratullah during an ambush in Kaligai village in 1981,” recalls his white bearded former commander, Sufi Payda Mohammed, eyes rimmed with kohl. The mujahideen commander remembers “a very terrible fight” during which they killed around 20 Soviet soldiers. Nikolai was the sole survivor, captured after he exhausted his ammunition and hid in a drainage ditch under the road. Nasratullah says he witnessed a massacre of more than 70 civilians at Kaligai. “We swore in the Russian army on the sword and the Bible to help society. It was against the law what was done,” he says. In horror and disgust, he says he simply turned and walked away from his unit. Both sides also agreed to provide better consular access to prisoners, notify each other of arrests and join forces to stamp out terrorism, according to a joint statement. The announcements came after two-day talks between home secretaries from both sides. These decisions came ahead of a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in New York on Sept. 14 on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session. Bangladesh, however, says that Indian troops opened fire without provocation on workers who had been lifting sand from the Shalda river on the border. India is constructing a barbed wire fence along the border to keep out what it describes as illegal immigrants. The two countries have had several border skirmishes in recent months. A spokesman for the Indian Border Security Force told the BBC that nearly 100 Bangladeshi nationals had been found trying to enter Indian territory at Kamthana in the north-eastern state of Tripura. S.K. Mitra said that the Bangladeshi nationals had opened fire on BSF troops when they were challenged. ENVIRONMENT: Tsunami’s Wake: The Disaster and Its Effects - By Dr. Rash Bihari Ghosh Former Cal EPA scientist Dr. Rash Bihari Ghosh presents the scientific background of the devastating tsunami in December last year and warns about some long-term dangers it has presented.  Hundreds and thousands of people have been killed during the last one century due to tsunamis. According to the U.S. Geological Survey the historic 9.0 magnitude earthquake that caused the tsunami disaster Dec. 26 last year is among the five most powerful earthquakes recorded since 1900 and left an estimated 290,000 people dead or missing from Thailand to Somalia. There is one destructive tsunami in every seven years. According to National Geographic the tsunami wave can be as high as high as 100 feet and some historical data and information indicated it could be much higher than 100 that. AAmerican scientists have begun to investigate the historical environmental adversity that occurred in Indian Ocean with the goal of gaining insight into possible consequences if an event similar to the tsunami of December 2004 occurred in California or Florida or anywhere closer to the U.S. |
The predominant opinion has been that frauds of the kind that have afflicted the Indian BPO industry are quite common, rather rampant internationally. However, given the strong anti-outsourcing voices abroad, it is very important for India to ensure that the services available from here are better than the best and more secure. This is the only way to stamp out competition as well as political opposition of the kind that was witnessed during the run-up to the presidential elections in the U.S. last year. 
However, apart from the changes being brought about by individual companies, many observers have said systemic improvements that apply to the entire sector have to be implemented. It may be recalled that following the Bahree incident Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had called for changes in cyber laws to strengthen the Indian Information Technology Act, 2000, making illegal transfer of data a punishable offence and also ensure data secrecy. 
