August 12 Pages 27-40

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Indo American News • Friday, August 12, 2011

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IndoAmerican News

Business IndoAmerican News

STOCKS • FINANCE • SOUTH ASIAN MARKETS • TECHNOLOGY

In Dark Kashmir Valley, A Ray Of Light Emerging from India’s Economic Surge

uS Downgrade: Deven Sharma Becomes an Instant Hero & Villain in Cyberspace NEW DELHI (TOI): Deven Sharma, the man who downgraded US debt has emerged as an instant hero for Indians and the expatriate Indian community on social networking sites but is also facing a volley of hate messages for

in Dhanbad proudly set their status on Facebook saying: “The man behind striking off “AAA” ratings of US is a Nobilian from Dhanbad.” Sharma did his schooling from De Nobili School in the coal belt district of Dhanbad. Sharma and his brother Ravi studied at De Nobili School, Dhanbad. It was on the request of their father, R N Sharma, once chairman of Bharat Coking Coal Ltd and then of Coal India that De Nobili School opened its first branch school, in Sijua, the website of the school said when Sharma was appointed president of S&P in 2007. “It is indeed a good news. I Sharma said that “some of the plans” to still remember Deven. cut the U.S. deficit could bring the nation’s He was a wonderful debt “in the range of the threshold for AAA student,” the school ratings,” And while the U.S. “debt burden website had quoted one does need to be addressed,” a drop from of the oldest servicing a AAA to AA rating doesn’t mean his teacher at the school analysts predict default, just that the risk as saying. “Awesome is predicated to be higher p e r s o n a l i t y, ” s a i d Photo: Lawrence Jackson another another message “destroying the global economy.” on Facebook. Sharma, president of ratings But along with praise Sharma has agency Standard & Poor’s, was been at the receiving end on cyber one of the key players behind space as well. “The S&P and Deven the historic downgrade which Sharma want to destroy your wealth has rattled global markets and and future,” read message on triggered talks of a prolonged Twitter. “Now waiting for the US global economic slowdown. A to make the downgrading a racist page on Sharma has appeared on issue,” said another post. “The most Facebook and it is getting a steady important man on Earth not the stream of messages from proud Pope, not Obama, not even Putin Indians. “ Expect the Unexpected” .... He is Deven Sharma, president read the caption of a wall photo on Standard & Poor’s,” wrote Philo the Facebook page. Ribeiro on Twitter. “You will be a big contributor, But there were some harsh words if the US is able to reduce massive from Indian Americans as well. debt...the world is going to benefit “This Deven Sharma has really from it in the long term,” read spoilt it for the rest of the Indians a message on Sharma’s wall on and the great American dream. He Facebook. just made the Americans hate us Several students from his school more,” a post on Twitter said.

Co mi ng

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SRINAGAR (IE): In a cheerful hall humming with voices, rows of young men and women handle calls from irate cellphone subscribers in eastern India in perfect Hindi. It could be an outsourcing centre in Bangalore or Hyderabad. But this

beginning, given the opportunities exploding in one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Indeed, planeloads of India’s upwardly mobile middle classes have visited the picture postcardperfect Kashmir Valley this summer,

head of the Srinagar call centre sitting in his office as a steady stream of people arrive looking for work, sometimes young girls accompanied by their father or a brother. My hiring costs are zero. No advertisements, no headhunters. It’s just word of mouth. I get walk-ins every day and most are graduates. A brief training session follows, including in Hindi, and the young man or woman -- hired at a monthly salary of Rs 7,000 rupees -- is ready to take the first call. Yes we get abusive customers, but that is what our job is about, we have to tackle them, says Tahoor, a team leader, smiling as she listens in to the conversations of her colleagues watching A traditional Kashmir shop where two men talk business. Kashmir is now for mis-steps. Some of the callers are recovering from its 15 year political and extremist turmoils. Outsourcing centers and other points of business are opening up in an insurgency-scarred not even literate, such as Kashmir giving a chance for its nearly 48 percent of unemployed youth. a street-side vegetable seller in a small town in is insurgency-scarred Kashmir. making it the busiest tourist season eastern India, part of the country’s As call centres go, the 230-seat since the armed revolt began in massive mobile phone market, office in a run-down industrial 1989. which adds more than 15 million quarter of Kashmir’s summer Hotels and the famed houseboats subscribers a month. capital, Srinagar, is small compared on the mirror-calm Dal lake framed It is still too early, and the gains with offices that pack in up to 3,000 by snowcapped mountains are could be wiped out just as quickly workers in India’s big cities. booked for weeks even though if there is a renewed bout of unrest, The centre, run by Essar Group’s new ones such as the Taj chain’s but the signs that Kashmir’s business processing arm, AEGIS, is luxurious Vivanta have opened. economic isolation is ending are the first of its kind in the region. The streets are blocked with unmistakable. But if the steady stream of 25 to traffic, the shops are filled with It’s not just not information 30 youth who show up at the office customers bargaining for everything technology that is cracking open each day looking for jobs is any from carpets to walnuts. the Valley. gauge, the rapid growth of India’s Kashmir cannot it seems, In a report last week, Mercy giant economy is finally exerting escape the power of India’s $1.6 Corps, an international agency a pull on the troubled Kashmir trillion economy growing at 8 seeking to light an entrepreneurial Valley. percent despite severe problems fire among Kashmiri youth, Over the next few months of governance that have taken documented stories of young men AEGIS will add another 270 seats, the shine off the country as an and women who have launched employing up to a thousand shift investment destination. business ventures in the past few workers. Its executives, many of We are here because it makes years, meeting India’s hunger them Kashmiris who have worked absolute business sense to be here, CONTINUED ON PAGE 30 in India and abroad, say it is only the said Omar Wani, the operations

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INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, AuguSt 12, 2011• online edition: WWW.indoAMeRiCAn-neWS.CoM


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