Obama should care about creating jobs in Bangalore: Jerry Rao

Bangalore is probably the most pro-American city outside the United States, he added

Given the India-US strategic relationship and strong business ties between the two countries, US President Barack Obama should care about creating jobs in both Bangalore and Buffalo and not only the latter, former NASSCOM chairman told an American federal body.

"In reality, the US should care about creating jobs in Buffalo and Bangalore - truly a win-win approach," former NASSCOM chairman and former CEO of MphasiS Jerry Rao said in his testimony before the US International Trade Commission (USITC), which yesterday held a hearing on "Trade, Investment and Industrial Policies in India: Effects on the US Economy."

Testifying before the USITC, Rao referred to the remarks made by Obama a few years ago wherein he had referred to moving jobs from Bangalore to Buffalo.

"We believe that, back in 2009, President Obama's speechwriters got it wrong when they wrote that business should be supported in Buffalo rather than Bangalore," Rao said.

Indeed, one month later, the Technology CEO Council released a study revealing that the proposed changes to tax policy would result in a job loss for as many as 2.2 million Americans, he said.

Besides affecting jobs, investments in plants, equipment and property in the US could fall by as much as $84.2 billion, according to the report by former Clinton administration economic official Robert J Shapiro and Aparna Mathur, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, he said.

"Today, Bangalore is probably the most pro-American city outside the United States. Texas Instruments, HP and many other American-based companies flourish there and are well positioned to take advantage of India's growing needs for IT products and services," Rao argued.

"If you visit Bangalore or Gurgaon, you will see millions of square feet of office space filled with US-branded IT equipment, as well as other imports," he said in his testimony.

The fact is, he argued, the US and India's IT sectors have decades of history in mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship benefiting both nations.