Thread: Bush defends India job outsourcing

By Tabassum Zakaria and Palash Kumar
25 minutes ago



HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Friday defended job outsourcing to India during a whistlestop tour of an Indian technology city as Muslims clashed with police in protests against his visit.

Bush's five-hour trip to the southern city of Hyderabad came a day after he sealed a landmark civilian atomic cooperation deal with New Delhi that recognizes India's status as a responsible nuclear power.

"People do lose jobs as a result of globalization. And it's painful for those who lose jobs," Bush told an entrepreneur during a discussion at Hyderabad's Indian School of Business.

The United States would counter it by educating people with the skills needed to be employed in jobs emerging in the 21st century rather than discouraging outsourcing, he said.

"The United States will reject protectionism. We won't fear competition. We welcome competition, but we won't fear the future either because we intend to shape it through good policies," Bush said

"People in America should, I hope, maintain their confidence about the future," said Bush, whose job approval ratings have been tumbling in part because of concerns about the U.S. economy.

Outsourcing and software exports are forecast to earn India more than $20 billion in the fiscal year ending March, with about 60 percent of that coming from U.S. companies.

As Bush spoke, hundreds of Muslim youths fought pitched battles with policemen outside a mosque about 16 km (10 miles) away in the city's old quarters, throwing stones and bricks as they protested against his visit.

Four people including two policemen were injured as police caned the demonstrators, an officer said.

"Allah-u Akbar (God is Great)," the youth, many of them wearing prayer caps, shouted as they rushed out of the mosque and tried to breach a police cordon in the street.

"Bush Enemy" read a black banner on the wall of the mosque.

FARMING, CATTLE

Traffic was very sparse in the usually choked streets and bylanes of Hyderabad's old quarters as markets and businesses shut down in protest.

"Osama is our ideal, we can die for Osama," shouted some Muslim engineering students as they marched through the streets carrying posters of al Qaeda leader bin Laden.

"He is a freedom fighter. He is our leader. We love him more than our parents," said Mohtassin, a 19-year-old student who gave only one name.

Protests were also staged in the capital New Delhi, the northern city of Lucknow and Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, India's only Muslim-majority state.

Earlier, Bush visited an agriculture university and toured the seed research area where women in sarees bent and tended to green patches where peanuts and soybeans had been planted.

The university began collaborating with Cornell University of the United States in 2004 to develop Indian agriculture.

Bush was also shown a huge, black Indian buffalo and university officials wanted a farmer couple to milk the animal with their hands in front of the visitor but the U.S. president was apparently not keen to see it, officials said later.

Security for Bush in the region has been stepped up.

In Pakistan, the president's next stop, a suicide bomber killed an American diplomat and two others outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi on Thursday.

Bush said terrorists would not stop his Pakistan visit, where he is due to hold talks on Saturday.

The nuclear deal, which would make U.S. nuclear fuel and technology available to New Delhi despite concerns in the United States, put the seal on Bush's India visit.

But it still needs to be endorsed by the U.S. Congress and, in an indication of possible rough water ahead, a leading Democrat called the pact a "historic failure."

(Additional reporting by S. Radha Kumar in HYDERABAD and Steve Holland and Kamil Zaheer in NEW DELHI)

Email Story IM Story Discuss Printable View RECOMMEND THIS STORY
Recommend It:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&c ... india_dc_5

"People do lose jobs as a result of globalization. And it's painful for those who lose jobs," Bush told an entrepreneur during a discussion at Hyderabad's Indian School of Business.

Yeah, too bad we didn't fire him as a result of globalization when we had the chance.

The United States would counter it by educating people with the skills needed to be employed in jobs emerging in the 21st century rather than discouraging outsourcing, he said.

So that is why you are allowing 1,000,000 plus illegal aliens to sneak across the border every year? So that we can take them all and their families from a 3rd grade education to nuclear physicists and biotech researchers overnight (and then export those jobs too). Exactly what jobs are emerging in the 21st century anyway, Jorge? Is everybody supposed to have the ability and desire to be an OWO/NWO administrator?

"The United States will reject protectionism. We won't fear competition. We welcome competition, but we won't fear the future either because we intend to shape it through good policies," Bush said

That makes no sense, Jorge. How can "we" fear or welcome anything when your obvious goal is to dissolve our borders resulting in there being no "we". And, Jorge, you wouldn't know a good policy if it bit you in the ....

"Allah-u Akbar (God is Great)," the youth, many of them wearing prayer caps, shouted as they rushed out of the mosque and tried to breach a police cordon in the street.

Actually, they were probably rushing out to get the H-1Bs and green cards Bush was handing out. Importing workers from India to here while exporting jobs from here to India doesn't seem like good long term policy. And where are we supposed to put all your imported workers? -- like maybe the North Pole after all the ice melts?

If they were shouting allah-akbar, I can assure you they weren't after green cards. And those people are PAID to protest.