I believe the Rupee is still a closed currency tightly controlled by the RBI. Their government is very protective and negotiate mostly one sided deals. Unlike the US, India requires controlling interest in business ventures to remain Indian. Agricultural land can not be foreign owned. I think they are still stinging from the British. They appear to have the largest call centers and BPO operations. These were once entry and mid level US Jobs... Really hard for US workers and companies to compete.
When working in a large U.S. software company nearly all the resumes we got from India made the candiates appear stellar. When these characters showed up in the U.S. after being hired by the Indian buddies - they had none of the skills listed on their resumes. In one example, there was a recruiting firm in India sending us resumes that were basically photo-copies except for the name being changed. The skill set for these candidates was obviously a fraud but the U.S. company still hired them.
Actually the quality of the University system in India varies widely. Some of the top schools are excellent and on par with top U.S. Engineering schools. Many of the universities in India however are in the same tier as "diploma by mail" schools in the U.S. The "Masters" degrees from these particular institutions (and there are many of them) are not worth a two year degree in the U.S. We had one software engineer who came over to the U.S. from India - he had earned both a undergraduate and masters degree in two years. Because he obviously had no skills - I could only assume that the University program in India was a joke, not that he was so brillant that he did five years worth of education in two years.
Actually there are many brillant software engineers in the U.S. that came from overseas and invented great things. The issue we have over the past 10 years is the flood of completely unqualified 'software engineers" who are taking American jobs simply so large corporations can pay lower salaries. Greatly increasing the number of allows H1B visas and allowing total abuse of the program has not helped the US economy or innovation.
Recognize that most of the advertisements posted for Software Engineers in newspapers and trade publications are only being posted because the company wants to hire a H1B Visa candidate and needs to make a case that no workers in the U.S. are available with the necessary qualifications. Companies are required to post an advertisement at least twice to get resumes from U.S. workers. This is also why you see ads with long lists of technical requirements or obviously fraudlent requirements (more years of experience than a lanquage has existed). It is all so the U.S. company can screen out U.S. candidates and say there is no one in the U.S who fits the qualifications for the job. Never-mind that the H1B candidate from India does not really have any of the qualifications listed in the advertisement either.
I can confirm this. I worked for one of the two companies listed below in softwre development. Whenever I brought in highly qualified candidates fromn the U.S., I was was told from my managers (who were Visa holders) that the candidates were not a good fit. Whenever we interviewed candidates who were Visa holders from the same country of the manager - we were told that they were a great fit and our feedback did not matter. It was basically a chain of people who would only hire people who came from the same country as themselves.
Cisco Appoints Padmasree Warrior as Chief Technology Officer Do HIB Indians make more loyal employees?
I have visited the high tech center of Bangalore in India and it is exactly as you described it. The line between wealth and poverty was shocking. The minute we stepped off our pristine corporate campus, the streets were filled with impoverished people with trash and feces all over the place. And this was the top end example of a tech center city in India.
H1B Visa employees do make more loyal employees because they CAN NOT go to another job in the U.S. The H1B Visa locks you into the employer that sponsored you. One obvious solution to this issue is to issue H1B Visas that allow workers to work for any employer within the time frame of the Visa. This means that companies would have to pay H1B Visa holders competitive salaries or they will walk down the road to another company that pays a better salary that is in-line with the free market. H1B Visa holders are basically financial slaves who are bound to the sponsoring company. It it time the U.S. eliminated this type of servitude.