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Shit, at 10.5 percent sales tax here in Chicago, I'm thinking about moving to Bangalore, too.

You think they don't have sales tax in India? I'd suggest doing some research before packing your bags. You might realize how lucky you are.

http://www.indianembassy.org/newsite//doing_business_in_india/fiscal_taxation_system_in_india.asp#4a

If you really want to avoid sales tax, try moving to Oregon.

We can't pay for Iraq and Afghanistan on our own now, how could we possibly be a threat to China with no money, no credit, and an insane cost on all imported goods?

While much of what you say is true, there's at least two problems with China doing anything. One is if the US economy tanks not only would all those bonds and notes the Chinese are holding become just as valuable as toilet paper but China's economy could very well tank as well. The US imports a lot of Chinese goods, if Americans were no longer able to afford to buy Chinese goods Chinese exporters would be very unhappy. A second risk is inside China. China has never been a single unified nation before the communists took over. Instead China is made up with a bunch of different ethnic groups, some who had their own nation states. China recognizes 56 ethnic groups. One is the Uyghur, who are a Muslim people who oppose the Han Chinese takeover of their homeland. Some of them have turned to terrorism. Muslims in the Xinjiang province of China support the Taliban. Taliban extremism can easily spread there. Bush's "War on Muslim Terrorist" benefits China.

"Because of a permanent underclass of slaves and near slaves the developers get all their needs for housing, food, clothing etc met dirt cheap"

Where did you get that drivel from? I've grown up in India and I have several dozen friends who work there in the technology sector, and I've yet to meet or hear of this "permanent underclass of slaves or near slaves".

"If India ever outlaws child labor.."

Child labor is already outlawed in India. [Official policy][Unofficial report] It's a huge country and child labor does happen occassionally in city underbellies or in far flung rural regions, but no one can legally do it, and it is not a prevalent phenomenon.

"In actually a plummer gets just as much money as a code monkey if not more and your job is not likely to be outsourced. Think about it"

Plumbers will make as much money as code monkeys only in an economy where there is a shortage of plumbers. In a country like India where there is no shortage of skilled labor, plumbers will never be able to charge the big bucks that the average American plumber can. Think about that.

Mod the parent DOWN.
It only shows he knows nothing of the Indian President. Here are some facts so people can see for themselves:

Some of his speeches

A description of a personal encounter

His own website describing his aspirations

A few of his accomplishments

Finally, for those REALLY interested, here's his auto-biography

pure FUD.

Here is some information..

Shows how much you know about India and outsourcing, moron!

I don't what you're smoking, but most countries do not willingly extradite criminals

"Extradition shall be granted for an extraditable offense regardless of where the act or acts constituting the offense were committed."

Don't we remember what happened when the former soviet union relied a bit too much on outsourced technology

Why do I say this? Because your fucking contry is way more of a pain in the ass regarding visas than the US is. Including with fucking transit visas.

Stay away, moron!

Yes, they do.

But ofcourse, laws are bent where money is concerned.

I don't know what your source of information is, but according to the Indian government they have been a nuclear power since 1974. That jibes with my own recollections from when the tests were first publicly announced. That is, if I can do math correctly, over 30 years ago, not just 3 or 4 years ago. They tried to produce these weapons for even longer than that.

When the most recent round of negotiations between India and Pakistan broke down, there were people in both countries that felt they could survive an all-out nuclear war between each other. The people in key leadership positions however knew better and chose a more diplomatic route to resolve the issues.

What doesn't get mentioned in the whole nuclear arms debate is that there is a size limitation on what national resources it takes to maintain a nuclear arsenal. Building a nuke in the first place is somewhat difficult, but keeping them armed and available at a moment notice (the only real reason to have them as a deterant) is incredibly expensive. You really need the resources of a major nation to do that effectively. The current issue is mainly that some countries have figured out how to reduce that cost, and hence it is more affordable for more countries than it was in the 1950's.

Still, it takes more than a few people with PhD level of knowledge of nuclear physics that are also loyal to your government to even maintain a single nuclear bomb. Also not acknowledged is that there are a number of ways to trace nuclear bombs after they have been detonated. The country that supplied and manufactured a detonated nuclear bomb should be held financially, diplomatically, and militarily responsible for the results of its use. I think it would also be clear that any nation that used nukes would be an international parriah, even the USA. It could be argued that some nations are upset at the USA precisely because of that fact.

Iran is indeed large enough and has enough talented people that it can likely obatin nuclear weapons without any outside help. In the case of North Korea, between what the USA and China have both supplied with some very schrewd negotiations to keep those two countries from knowing their (North Korea's) real intentions have given them the infrastructure to build nukes. I'm not convinced though that North Korea can maintain them by getting new fissionable material, security safeguards (to keep themselves from getting wiped off the map if the nukes get misused), or even the delivery systems necessary to get the bombs where they need them the most (like Seoul in the case of North Korea). All of these costs substantially increase and even grow per bomb as you get more bombs, so an overall arms race ends up being self-defeating. In other words, there is no economy of scale on the production of nuclear bombs.

Terrorist groups would necessarily have to obtain nukes from a nation-state. Unlike RPG's or even plastic explosives, this is not something you can make in your basement for crude versions of these weapons. I would not want to be the country that supplied such a weapon.

On the other side of the equation, however, a terrorist group isn't so concerned about the security and maintainence aspects of nukes. The intention is to use it nearly immediately after it is built or obtained. The problem there, however, is that it is easiest to get nukes in places where nukes would be of little use, and transporting a nuke across international borders is going to get whomever is doing that capital punishment, even in anti-capital punishment countries like France or Germany. I would dare anybody, particularly a French citizen, to keep from tearing up anybody who brought a nuke into France without the French governments authorization. I would personally kill with my bare hands anybody who tried to bring a nuke into America, or donate to the defense fund of anybody who kills, maims, or disables anybody doing so on American soil.

O

Don't subject the rest of the Slashdot crowd to the talking out of your ass. Employment visas for India are available to Americans as well. It's the companies who don't want to employ Americans in India because they sure as hell will end up raising the wages in India and reducing the cost advantage of offshoring jobs.

I read somewhere that American citizens were not allowed to work in India for an Indian owned company. Is this true?

This is Completely FALSE. American work visa system is much more restrictive and requires more minimum qualifications versus Indian system. A commpn aspect of both American and Indian work visa system is that you need to find an employer (job offer) to sponsor your work visa application. Everything else is much more restrictive (like in US, the H1-B worker has to have a bchelor's degree and has to be paid at least the prevailing wage for that kind of job).

I would urge you to do a thorough study of requirements for work visa in US versus work visa in India. You will notice that requirements are much more restrivtive for US work visa.

Try this website for Employment Visa to work in India.

Another website has details (read the "Points to note" section at the bottom of page) of taking employment visa in India.

You are wrong. There were other Muslim presidents before him. Presidents of India

You apply for a Visa with Indian Embassy in Washington, DC. The letter is one of the supporting documents (photo ID, etc) required for the application.

More details can be found at their website.

Geez. For people so obsessed with Microsoft/SCO FUD, Slashdot seems to have no problem generating FUD of its own!

Employment Visa
Search for Employment Visa

EMPLOYMENT VISA: An appointment letter, contract letter, applicant's resume and proof that the organization is registered in India are required. Duration of visa would depend on the period of the contract.

One of the problems I have with getting Bangalored is the fact that I can't go over there and work but they can steal my job with no problem. In a fair market I have no problem with competition as long as it is on a level playing field.

I did a google search and it seems that you can go work in India in a very similar way as Indians come to work here.

You need to get employment visa for India like Indians get employment visa to come to work here.

Here are a couple of links:
See the Employment Visa section

More Details on getting Indian Visas (read till the end of page)

1. Before you start beating up on Indians, remember that it's American managers that do the outsourcing, and the ones that benefit the most.
2. If the Tata company didn't hire him in US because he was American, he could (and should) take legal recourse.
3. You can work in India as an American. Thousands of other Americans do, even in high tech jobs. You need to :
a. Get a job in an Indian company. Like Intel :-)
b. Apply for a 'business visa for employment at your local Indian embassy/consulate
And go.

The economy sucks, but that doesn't mean you put the blame on other people who like you are trying to work for a living.

Linux makes quite a bit of practical sense in India. No indian can really afford to pay retail for software. Even the $40 that is the (rumored) cost of windows to PC OEMS is something most people just cannot pay in addition to the huge price of a computer. The OS and the office suite are thus mostly pirated, and usually include a plethora of free viruses...Ditto for the development environments. Everyone who is serious about learning comp/programming realizes sooner o\r later that instead of trying to pirate each and every tool one needs for a dev environment, its just better to move to linux.
In addition to that, there are magazine like PC Quest which have distributed free linux distro CDs (and include loads of good linux articles) with the magazine since around 1994. These CDs are how i got hooked on linux. That helps...
In my college, the IITs linux has long been the OS of choice in comp labs. They would rather buy a few more PCs than spend the huge ammount on WIN+DEV STUDIO, (even after the educational discount), and even when i was there, 5 years back, students, even non power users clearly preferred the linux systems over the NT systems...to the end where they migrated the NT ones to linux too.
blah...i thought i had a point here...DAMN ADD :P Ghoul2

No it doesnt. There are a bunch of Americans working in Bangalore (ok, in management roles) in US based companies. I am not an expert in Indian immigration/visa laws, but you could get help from the Indian embassy or in your local Indian consulate.
There are even international schools in Bangalore so your kids can study stuff they do in US.. plus Bangalore has a lot of great pubs!

(disclaimer: I'm an Indian)

About 10 years back while I was still in Engineering college we had a great "scandal" about Russia being arm twisted by the USA to not provide India with cryogenic rocket engine technology to launch remote sensing satellites. It was feared that India would develop missile technology and perhaps ICBMs.

So the problem is this. No engine. No rocket. No satelite aka no space program. And on top of that no Crays to model simulations etc. The man who said "screw this" was Dr. Kalam. The man that threw caution to wind and aligned the bureaucratic/lazy govt agencies to do this.

- Develop an indigenous super computer

- Develop a liquid fuel rocket

- Put a satelite in orbit

Some years later CDAC developed PARAM supercomputer followed by ANUPAM. These inexpensive machines were put to task to solve whole bunch of vibration related problems that used to send test rockets crashing into Bay of Bengal. Quote from a news item "Likewise, the PSLV too failed on its first ever launch on September 20, 1993. The then ISRO chairman, Dr U R Rao, said this was because of a software error in the pitch control loop of the on-board guidance and control processor." There were still more problems with the re-entry stage etc.

The supercomputers enabled some new materials research and first success was almost 10 years later
PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle). India then proceeded to deploy remote sensing satellites in orbit without depending on the French Ariane program at 1/7th the cost.

Out of this came the four Indian missiles long-range Agni (fire), medium range Akash (sky), surface-to-surface Prithvi (earth) and anti-tank Nag (cobra) and the now infamous nukes.

The satellite deployment capability bothers EU and Australia because it is clearly the loss of some "easy money". India has not yet offered satellite launching services, but for those prices even Jamaica can put a bird in the sky. At the moment ISRO toils at the GSLV (Geo Synchronous Launch Vehicle). So far they have not had any success.

This new announcement of moon shot is exciting and a cause of concern. While India has put enough weather satellites it still is ransomed by abnormal weather patterns drought, floods et al Nonetheless it's a matter of pride or rather amazement for me to witness any govt dept doing anything straight over there. Dr. Kalam is now the president of India. President of India is as we call a ceremonious office quite like the Queen of England. So I am sure the Hindu fanatic party leading the govt now is not any progressive but I am optimistic that a secular govt will be elected soon and our rocket man is in the right place trying to crack a tougher cookie. Maybe it's time for the land of zero, decimal and exponent to earn some Karma.

Legalities are nicities that we all talk about to deal with civilian misbehavior during peacetime. During wartime (I hope I'm not shattering your worldview) groups of people systematically plot to go find groups of other people and commit what would otherwise be called first degree murder - not only without "representation", without even a trial!.

In war zones, enemy combatantants are lucky to be merely detained. In the real (third) world, they are quite often quietly and unceremoniously killed. Only first-world armies such as the US actually follow the Geneva convention.

The thing that really gets me is automatically assuming that the Taliban are terrorists. They were a government that the US was prepared to deal with, and supply money to (search one of the major news sites, it was early september 2001).

Now even if you think the afghans should have handed Bin-Laden over without the US presenting evidence (think if it had been the other way arround, see below), the US invaded.

I can't blame some one for defending their country. If some other country landed troops because GWB refused to hand over a war criminal, would you pick up a gun and defend your country?

Does that make you a war criminal to?

Interesting links. If you want information, search for Union Carbide in you favorite news site

summary of India-US extradition treaty

An article on court procedings. How can some one refuse to be extradited?

Articly critical of the indian governments handeling

Let's not be hyperbolic here.

famine n.

1. A drastic, wide-reaching food shortage.
2. A drastic shortage; a dearth.
3. Severe hunger; starvation.
4. Archaic. Extreme appetite.

plague n.

1. A highly infectious, usually fatal, epidemic disease; a pestilence.
2. A highly fatal infectious disease that is caused by the bacterium Yersinia (syn. Pasturella) pestis, is transmitted primarily by the bite of a rat flea, and occurs in bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic forms.