UK gives thumbs up to Indian off-shore

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script><br />LONDON: In possibly the strongest, most well-argued British defence of outsourcing to India, the country''s chief data protection watchdog has given it the thumbs-up, while Prime Minister Tony Blair has waxed eloquent about "embracing globalisation" and India''s growing assertiveness and know-how on the world stage.<br /></div> <div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="1" width="27.0%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" e6e6e6=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/584870.cms" alt="/photo/584870.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" e6e6e6=""> <div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="">Tony Blair</span></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Blair''s paean to the strength of India''s "leading biotech entrepreneurs 220,000 science and IT graduates every year," came in a landmark speech about the urgent need to defeat the "resurgent voices of protectionism," possibly across the Atlantic in the United States.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Just hours later, officials at Information Commissioner told </span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="" font-style:="" italic="">TNN</span><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">: "We have never had a problem with outsourcing to India, though some are making it into a political issue."</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">They denied receiving a huge – and rising – volume of complaints from angry British consumers.</span></div> <div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -6"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="1" width="34.7%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:=""> <div class="Normal"><span style="" color:="" ffffff="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">RELATED STORIES</span></div> </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" fbfbfb=""> <div class="Normal"><a href="/articleshow/577052.cms" target="_blank"> Outsourcing may create western jobs: Blair </a><span style="" font-size:=""></span><br /><span style="" font-size:=""> </span><a href="/articleshow/577037.cms" target="_blank">BPO may touch $1 trillion by 2006: Assocham</a><span style="" font-size:=""></span><br /><span style="" font-size:=""> </span><a href="/articleshow/568566.cms" target="_blank">Britain sees economic benefit of outsourcing</a></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Information Commission officials'' comments came just days after leading analyst Gartner predicted that British consumers would go through 2004 in an angry backlash against India-bound companies.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">The Information Commissioner''s stamp of public approval, along with Blair''s foghorn appeal to the US and Europe about Indian outsourcing, may be the strongest coordinated public boost to the ''red flag'' issue of jobs migrating from West to East.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold=""><formid=367815></formid=367815></span><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br />For several months, leading British trade unions have been running a high-pitched campaign alleging that UK firms outsourcing to India were breaching strict European Union laws, prohibiting the transfer of data to non-EU countries.<br /><br />But Lee Taylor, of IC''s policy department, insisted to this paper that IC never had a problem with outsourcing data to India so long as the company sending work overseas ensured the data was secure.He clarified that the law did not need to be changed to allow outsourcing to India and that trade unions scare-mongering was not supported by the facts.<br /><br />Late last year, British trade unions, including Amicus had created a hullabaloo over British and European individuals'' data being processed in India and the developing world, where data protection laws are not strict and properly enforceable.<br /><br />Meanwhile, in a remarkable – and apparently fervent – tribute to the pace, scale and volume of change in India, Blair told the world how deeply he was affected by his extensive visits there. "I remember sitting in a brand new state-of-the-art university complex in Bangalore in southern India, talking to leading biotech entrepreneurs, many of them women academics that had branched out into business, confidently predicting they would beat Europe hands-down in the biotech business within a few years. <br /><br />"When I returned home, people asked me about the poverty of the country, how shocking it was and so on. There is indeed still much poverty in a nation of 1 billion. But what had shocked me was how fast it was changing", he said.<br /><br />In a heavy hint to the increasingly frenzied American pre-election rant on outsourcing, Blair said "globalisation presents us with a choice: embrace it and make it work for us; or try to thwart it. This is the choice hanging over the WTO round." <br /><br />Interestingly, despite a whistle-stop campaign to whip up public anger over the transfer of data from Britain to India, Taylor confirmed that "only a very small number of letters come in from people writing to tell us they''re concerned about the issue."<br /><br /><formid=367815></formid=367815></div> </div>