Bush drops hints of relaxing H1B visa rules

An inconspicuous banner outside the lane that led to the Indian School of Business (ISB) seems to have caught the eye of US President George Bush.

"Would you like to work in the US?" was what the banner asked. Well, Bush seems to have answered that question during his interaction with a select group of entrepreneurs at the ISB - an indication of relaxing H1B visa rules was given.

At present, the cap on H1B visas is 65,000 for knowledge workers, and India Inc has been urging the US to relax the limit.

Sashi Reddi, chief executive officer of AppLabs Technologies, said the issue of H1B visas did come up during the informal interaction, and there was an indication that the US was actively looking at relaxing the limit. Reddi was among the 16 people selected to meet Bush.

Another significant issue that came up during the discussion was about setting up a US consulate in Hyderabad. According to an ISB spokesperson, the response was, "An agreement has been reached but it's Condoleeza Rice who has to provide the funding."

Questions on the Kyoto deal were also asked and Bush is reported to have categorically stated that he totally disagreed with it.

Apart from the above, however, the sense one got from the people who interacted with Bush was that he was very "informal in his communication, down-to-earth and casual as the media was not around to take him on record."

Rammohan Rao, the dean of ISB, was visibly happy with the visit of the VVIP. "We were happy to be short-listed for his visit and this will help us to attract more international students and faculty to our school," he added.

Incidentally, US ambassador David Mulford had visited the ISB in January 2005. Although nothing was stated about Bush's likely visit to the ISB, it seems that Mulford's visit paved the way for ISB being shortlisted for the high-profile visit.

The others who met Bush at the ISB included Harsha Paruchuri, director of Pragati Offset Printers, Amar Ohri, managing director (MD) of Ohri Group, Madhavi Vuppalapati, chairperson of Prithvi Information Solutions, Anjali Patel, student at ISB, Rajesh Mishra, MD of MESA Corporation, Seshavataram Manepalli, executive director of Suryachakra Power Corporation, Sumanth Paturu, MD of Icomm Tele, Nagarjun Valluripalli, CEO of Lanco Global Systems, Siddharth Sanghi, vice-president of The Sanghi Group, Srinivas Ventrapragada, CEO of Clintox Bio Services, Satish Reddy, MD of Dr Reddy's Laboratories, Teja Raju, MD of Maytas Infra, Salman Babukhan, MD of Babukhan Constructions, Prachi Patodia, director of Knitters and Shankar Prasad Madiraju, MD of SPC Biotech.