More on Mastech

Date: Thursday, January 02, 2003 3:16 PM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

Before reading this newsletter be sure to read the previous one on
Pittsburgh.

Here are a few articles that some of the sleuths on this newsletter dug up.
The connections between Mastech and Pittsburgh are worse than you might
think.

Article 1)
India: Clinton's Corporate Entourage
Ashok K. Trivedi if you remember founded Mastech and iGate. Nearly three
years ago he went to India as part of Clinton's business development
entourage that included Enron's Ken Lay (who was developing an Indian power
plant at the time). Look at the large list of participants because this is
an example of who lobby for H-1B.

Article 2)
This material from the Mastech website is quite revealing. The most
important thing to note, besides the Pittsburgh connections, is that Mastech
has 2500 employees. The LCA database reveals: Mastech: 1652 LCAs, more than
half have 10 or more H-1Bs per LCA. That's doesn't leave much room for
hiring Americans and it's an obvious violation of the dependency law that
restricts companies from hiring H-1Bs. An H-1B dependent employer is an
employer that has fewer than 26 full-time equivalent employees in the U.S.
and more than 7 "non-exempt" H-1Bs, or an employer that has between 26 and
50 full-time equivalent employees in the U.S. and more than 12 "non-exempt"
H-1Bs, or an employer that has at least 51 full-time equivalent employees in
the U.S. of whom at least 15 percent are "non-exempt" H-1Bs.

Article 3)
New Limits on Imported Software Expertise
Waaaaaaaaaay back in 1995 the Labor Department was supposed to "CRACK DOWN"
on companies that used H-1Bs for cheap labor. They specifically mentioned
Mastech - need I say more?

Article 4)
According to this article Pittsburgh has a dire shortage of immigrants. They
stress how smart Schenectady, New York was to import a population of
Guyanese immigrants and think that Pittsburgh's political and civic leaders
should stop just talking about needing immigrants and start importing them.

The figures seem quite scary, for instance, they claim that Pittsburgh may
face a shortage of as many as 125,000 workers within a decade, which will of
course limit growth and development. They claim that the shortage could
reach 400,000 in 20 years. Why is this shortage so severe when they claim
that between 1990 and 2000, there was a 12 percent increase in the
foreign-born population, with most of the newcomers being H-1Bs from from
India, China and Korea? That sounds like an explosive growth rate that
should take care of all their worker shortages.

Guess who is thanked for their commitment to bringing in all of these H-1Bs:
iGate/Mastech of course!

Article 5)
Mastek may foray into BPO
It appears that Masteck isn't satisfied with bringing in H-1Bs to take
American jobs. They also want to outsource them back to Mumbai. Again we get
to hear the newest corporate buzzword: business process outsourcing (BPO)

Article 1

URL: http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=232

India: Clinton's Corporate Entourage

By Amit Srivastava
Special to CorpWatch
March 20, 2000

SAN FRANCISCO -- Violence in Kashmir and nuclear proliferation are
dominating the mainstream headlines on President Clinton's trip to South
Asia. And while security issues are clearly on the agenda in Clinton's
meetings with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, the press is
ignoring an equally significant part of the trip: trade. Traveling along
with the Clinton family and US officials is a large corporate contingent.
Behind the scenes of the first official state visit to India by a US
president in 22 years, more than 50 US corporate executives are meeting with
Indian officials and business representatives. The goal of these CEO's and
other executives is to gain more access to Indian markets.

The Washington, D.C. based US-India Business Council (USIBC) is hosting many
of the events for the corporate delegates in India. The USIBC's Board of
Directors includes Frank Wisner, former Ambassador to India, currently
representing the American International Group Inc. (AIG), one of the largest
insurance companies in the US. Also on the Council's board is Joseph W.
Sutton of Enron, a Houston-based natural gas giant whose power projects in
India have come under attack from environmental and community groups. Others
on the board include Peter Howell of banking conglomerate Citigroup, Dinesh
Keskar of Boeing India, Boyd Montgomery of UNOCAL and Charles Saris of
Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, to name a few.

The large corporate delegation accompanying Clinton includes former
ambassador to India Frank Wisner, Lou Gestner, IBM's Chairman, Arun
Netraveli, President of Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies, John Smith,
CEO of General Motors, Kenneth Lay, Chairman and CEO of Enron and General
Electric's CEO, John Welch.

Many US corporations have increasingly come under fire from Indian
activists, whose concerns range from human rights to the environment. Last
year, Enron, the single largest foreign investor in India, was implicated in
human rights violations in India by a Human Rights Watch report. A lawsuit
was recently filed against Union Carbide by victims of one of the worst
industrial disasters in history fifteen years ago in Bhopal, India. Warren
M. Anderson, chairman of the Union Carbide Corporation during the 1984
Bhopal chemical disaster has apparently gone into hiding to avoid a summons
to appear in a Manhattan federal court as part of civil proceedings against
him and the company.

The following is a list of participants attending events hosted by the
US-India Business Council during the Clinton visit, and includes corporate
executives from both India and the US.

Anil Srivastava, CEO and President, AcrossWorld Communication
Anat Bernstein-Reich, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development
AcrossWorld Communications
Kailash Kapur, President, India Operations Adaptive Broadband
Ashok Bhatt Kumar, President & Commissioner, AIMS Inc./Resource Soft Tech
Inc./Public Utilities Comm.
Sunil Mehta, Country Head, India American International Group
Frank Wisner, Vice Chairman, External Affairs American International Group,
Inc.
Jon Arthur Sherk, Chief Counsel, Amway Corporation
Shashanka Sharma, Deputy Geeral Manager, Amway India Enterprises
Sudershan Banerjee, Managing Director and CEO, Amway India Enterprises
Rajiv Maliwal, Director & Head, Corporate & Investment Banking Anz Banking
Group Ltd.
Dr. P.B. Ram Reddy, President, Apex Technologies, Inc.
Mohan Shah, Chairman, Appletree Group
Arun Bhumitra, CEO, Arjay.Net
Nirmal Sinha, President, Asian Indian American Business Group
Vinayak Mahajan, Managing Director, Asian Gas Ventures Limited
Virat Bhatia, Managing Director, AT&T India Ltd.
N. Anthony Wakim, International Export Sales Manager, Athey Products Corp
Arun Duggal, Bank of America
Paul Prager, President, BBI Power Corporation
Swadesh Chatterjee, President, Brandt Instruments, Inc.
Amrit Kiran Singh, Vice President & area Director-South Asia, Brown-Forman
Worldwide L.L.C.
Murray Jans, Executive Director, Canada-India Business Council
Donald Conover, President, CBay Systems
V.Raman Kumar, Chairman, CBay Systems
Hitesh Shah, Sr Director, Product Marketing, Centigram Communications Corp.
Brant Free, Sr VP The Chubb Corporation
Prem Jain, Vice President & General Manager, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Chander Mittal, President, Founder & CEO, CM Automotive Systems, Inc.
David Mengebier, VP, Gov't and Int'l Affairs, CMS Energy
Brian Corbin, Vice President and Managing Director, CMS Energy Asia PTE Ltd.
Robert Vastine, President, Coalition of Service Industries
Alex VonBehr, President, CocaCola India
Joel Peres, Legal Counsel, CocaCola India
Raj Vattikuti, President & CEO, Complete Business Solutions, Inc.
Sudipta Sen, CEO, Comsat Max
Nitin Kulkarni, Regional Director, South Asia Corning, Inc.
Raj Rama, President CSG, Inc.
Anshuman Mishra, Executive Vice President, Deepak Chopra Center
Deepak Talwar, President and CEO, Deepak Talwar & Associates Inc.
Mukesh "Mike" Patel, President, Diplomat Hotels/ AA.HOA
Vikram Rajadhyaksha, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, DLZ Corp.
Hemendra Kothari, Chairman DSP, Merrill Lynch
Davinder Dogra, President & CEO, E-Indiabiz.com, Inc.
Pankaj Vyas M.D, Eastern Carolina Medical Center
Ramesh K. Motwane, President & CEO, Eastern Contractors, Inc.
Inderjit Motwane, Chief Financial Officer, Eastern Contractors, Inc.
Edward Hoppe, General Manager, Asia/Pacific Region, Eastman Kodak Co.
Carl F. Kohrt, Assistant COO & Executive Vice President, Eastman Kodak Co.
Joseph Sutton, Vice Chairman, Enron Corporation
Wade Cline, CEO, Enron India Pvt. Ltd.
Sanjay Bhatnagar, CEO, Enron, South Asia
Kashi Memani, Chairman, Ernst & Young India
Manu Sawhne, Managing Director, ESPN Software India Ltd.
Sambhu Banik, President, Family Diagnostic and Theraputic Center
Chandulal K. Patel, Former President and Chairman, Federation of
Indo-American Associations
Sanjay Mundra, President & CEO, First American Hotels, Inc.
Prakesh Shah, Chairman, First Growth Group, Inc.
Sunil Puri, President & CEO, First Rockford Group
Jack Cotton, Regional Vice President, Foster Wheeler Corporation
David F. Wolf, President, Fremont Group
Richard Swando, President and Managing Director, General Motors India, Ltd.
Sri Palasamudram, President, Geotouch.com
Paresh A. Shah, CEO, Global Innovations, Inc.
Chacko Verghese, President & CEO, Global Market Resources, Inc.
Niranjan Shah, CEO & Chairman, Globetrotter Engineering Company
Abraham Robinson, President, Health Management Inc.
Pavan Nigam, Co-Founder, Healtheon-Web MD
Ganesh Ayyar, President, Hewlett-Packard India Ltd.
T.V. Krishnamurthy, Managing Director, Huber Chemicals India Private Ltd.
Gopal Basisht M.D., IAAFPE & The Spirit of India
Ashok K. Trivedi, President & Co-Founder, iGate Capital Corporation
Sunil Aghi, Founder/President, Indo-American Political Foundation
Prabhat K. Andleigh, President & CEO, InfoDream Corporation
Lalatendu Mohapatra, President, Infotel International, Inc.
Jay Desai, President, CEO and Founder, Institute of Global Competitiveness,
Inc.
Suresh L. Malik, Vice President, International Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.
Walter Barber, Group President, Asia, Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.
J. Bennett Johnston, President, Johnston and Associates, LLC
Bharat Raut, Constituted Attorney, KPMG Peat Marwick
Jay Kumar Patel, President, Kumar Enterprises, Inc.
Robert Ziegenhagen, Managing Director, Lever Johnson Limited
Dayanand Rachakonda M.D., Lung Institute of Nevada
Dinesh Patel, Chief of Arthroscopic surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital
Ramesh Kapur, President, Medical-Technical Gases, Inc.
Gordon Young, Senior Advisor, Merrill Lynch
Rajir Nair, President, Microsoft Corporation
Sanjay Mirchandani, Microsoft Corporation
Gopal Prasad, President, Minerals and Fertilizers Limited
Mody Mukund, M.D.
Haresh Panchal, President, National Federation of Indian American
Association
Jaskaran S. Teja, Chief Representative Director, India Nationwide Global
Craig A. Alvey, Associate VP & Director, Business Development Asia
Nationwide Global
Gary G. Benanav, Chairman and CEO, New York Life International, Inc.
Raymond Sander, Vice President, New York Life International, Inc.
Georges Ugeux, Group Executive Vice President, New York Stock Exchange
A.J. Patel, CEO Odyssey Enterprises, Inc/The Indus Entreprenuers
Kent Burton, Senior V.P., Ogden Energy
T. Srinivasan, Sales Director, Oracle
Shekhar Dasgupta, Country Manager, Oracle
Lauren Lenfest, Vice President, Oracle Corp.
Ranjan Chak, Executive Director, Oracle India Development Oracle Corp.
Krishna Srinivasa, President, PCS
Robert A. Lewis, Director International Sales and Services Pratt & Whitney,
Division of United Technologies Corporation
Neil Mehta, President and CEO, Premier Medical Corp.
Ashok Chhabra, Director, Legal &Public Affairs, Proctor & Gamble Hygene &
Healthcare, Ltd.
Arun Savkur, President, Quantum Leap Systems, Inc.
Mahesh Veerina, CEO/President, Ramp Networks
Viru Raparthi, President and CEO, RBCA Services, Inc.
Dr. Devendra Verma, General Partner, Redwood Venture Partners, III, LLC
Atul Thakrar, Managing Director, Rohm and Haas India Pvt. Ltd.
Ravi Subramanian, Chairman, Silverline Technologies Inc.
Anu Yallapragada, Regional Director, Sinclair Group
Ravi Patel, President &CEO, SREE Hospitality Group
Sudhir Parikh, President, Sudhir Parikh, M.D.
Deepak Bhagat, Director, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Anant Agarawal, Sr. Vice President, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Avinash Agrawal, Director, India Design Center Sun Microsystems, Inc.
AC Gupta, Country Manager, Swagelok Company
Kenny Desai, President, TAK Group
Ashok Mehta, President, TATA, Inc.
Hari Nath, Chief Executive Officer, Technology Planning and Management Corp.
(TPMC)
Alan Weinberger, CEO, TechnologyNet, Inc.
Shriramkumar Rajha, President and CEO, Telesis Technologies, Inc.
Suhas Patil, Former President, The Indus Entreprenuers
Kailash Joshi, Charter member, The Indus Entreprenuers
K.B. Chandrasekhar, The Indus Entreprenuers
Kanwa Rekhi, The Indus Entreprenuers
Mark J. Reidy, Partner, Thelen Reid & Preist LLP
Shan K. Thever, President, Senior Partner Thever & Associates
Kanwal Rehki, President TIE
Hasmukh R. Shah, Chairman TV Asia
Polly Holcombe, Director, Asia Pacific Unisys
Sampat Shivangi, President, US Infosystems
Nalluru Murthy, Ventue Capital and Investor
Pradeep Saraogi, Vice President of Marketing, Water Systems International,
Ltd.
N. Krishnan, Vice President of India Operations, Water Systems
International, Ltd.
Myrna K. Creek, CFO, Water Systems International, Ltd.
Howard J. Siemers, CEO, Water Systems International, Ltd.

Article 2

>From URL: http://www.mastech.com

He is a partner in Birchmere Ventures, described below:

Investment: We manage over $115 million and our investments range from as
low as $500K for seed investments to $5M over the life of the
investment. We are patient investors and are not interested in 'flipping'
companies.

Notable Institutional Investor Include:

* Silicon Valley Bank.
* University of Pittsburgh
* RK Mellon & Sons
* PNC Bank
* National City Bank
* Allegheny Technologies

* City of Pittsburgh
* Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
* The Benedum Foundation
* The McCune Foundation
* The Mary Hillman Jennings Foundation

Founders & Chairmen: Ashok K. Trivedi (President) & Sunil Wadhwani (CEO)
Founded: 1986
Went public: 1996
Number of employees: 2500
Revenues (1997): $196.0 million

Article 3

http://www.wtonline.com/news/10_1/news/9374-1.html

New Limits on Imported Software Expertise
04/13/95

Companies that hire low-cost foreign software experts may be hit by a Labor
Department crackdown and a proposed immigration reform law The Labor
Department is cracking down on companies that recruit low-wage foreign
software professionals.

The move will affect several companies around the Beltway, including Mastech
Corp., whose mid-Atlantic division in Fairfax, Va., uses several hundred
foreign software experts to complete government and commercial contracts,
and Tata Inc., an India-based software company with offices in Silver
Spring, Md. Both firms employ hundreds of foreign software experts -- often
from India -- and have U.S. revenues of roughly $100 million.
Other companies that could be hurt by the crackdown include Complete
Business Solutions Inc., based in Farmington Hills, Mich., and Syntel Inc.,
based in Troy, Mich. Syntel recently signed an agreement with the Labor
Department, under which the company must pay $77,700 to the foreign software
professionals that it hired at less than U.S. "prevailing wage." Also,
Syntel must hire 40 U.S. software experts and spend $1 million on training
U.S. programmers.

Foreign software experts are attractive to U.S.-based companies, because
they can be paid as little as $8,000 a year.

The crackdown comes as Congress prepares to reform immigration law. Among
the measures envisioned are sharp reductions in temporary work visas, used
to legally import foreign software experts under short-term contracts.

Up to 65,000 visas are allowed each year under current law. The immigration
reform is being pushed by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas.

However, the immigration reform effort may backfire, warned Mark Rosenker, a
spokesman for the Arlington, Va.-based Electronics Industries Association.
Foreign software experts "bring creative ideas... [and] help us open markets
around the world," he said.

"We are less than supportive" of the immigration reform measure, he said.

One group pushing for the changes is the Washington-based Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc., which represents the interests of
U.S. electronics engineers and software experts, who are threatened by
low-wage foreigners working in the United States.

The number of foreign engineers and scientists temporarily brought into the
United States grew from 40,000 per year during the late 1980s to more than
80,000 in the early 1990s, according to an association statement. In 1993,
10,846 computer scientists were admitted to the United States, up from 3,424
in 1986, according to an association statement.

Stricter enforcement of the Immigration and Nationality Act triggered the
Labor Department action. "We will vigorously enforce this law to ensure that
U.S. workers are not displaced by employers hiring foreign workers for less
than the wages paid to comparable U.S. workers," according to a statement
from Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

However, the IEEE and the Labor Department can't put too many restrictions
on the importation of labor for fear that U.S. companies will move more
software-development work overseas. Already, AT&T Corp., Motorola Inc.,
Texas Instruments Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. have established
software-development centers in India or China.

"It's a tough issue, so we try to take a reasoned approach to it," said IEEE
spokesman Christopher Currie.

� 2003 PostNewsweek Tech Media, a division of Post Newsweek Media

Article 4

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/search/s_109166.html

Failure to draw immigrants may threaten local economy

Photo Gallery

By Marisol Bello
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, December 22, 2002

If recent immigrants to America looking for a place to settle can be
compared to a high school dance, Pittsburgh is the pimply-faced geek with
braces and a bow tie, leaning against the gymnasium wall.

While international newcomers have flooded into many American cities over
the last decade, they are ignoring the Steel City, despite Oakland and its
university campuses.

Census numbers released this year show that of the 50 largest metropolitan
areas in the nation, Pittsburgh ranks second to last in its share of
foreign-born residents, with 3 percent of the region's population having
been born outside the United States. Only Cincinnati has fewer foreign-born
residents.

"This is a big issue for Pittsburgh," said Richard Florida, a professor of
regional economic development at Carnegie Mellon University and author of
"The Rise of the Creative Class and How It's Transforming Work, Leisure,
Community and Everyday Life."

"It's not something people here are serious about, to their own
disadvantage," Florida said. "But they need to look at the problem.
Pittsburgh is a patient in need of electrotherapy."

Pittsburgh's political and civic leaders say they want more immigrants, but
there is little, if any, action to back it up, say Florida and other labor
and economic development experts.

As a result, they say, Pittsburgh, with all its amenities and close-knit
neighborhoods, is missing out on the economic benefits that accompany recent
arrivals.

What's more, if Pittsburgh doesn't reverse the trend, the region faces a
work force crisis in the next 10 to 20 years.

A Duquesne University report released this summer says that as older people
retire and fewer young ones are available to take their place, the region
may face a shortage of as many as 125,000 workers within a decade, limiting
growth and development. The shortage could reach 400,000 in 20 years.

"Immigration is not the sole solution, but it is a big part of it," said
Silvio Baretta, director of research for the Center for Competitive
Workforce Development at Duquesne University. "Regions are in competition
for these people � and we are not doing well."

Part of the problem is that the issue is not visible, said Brian Kelley, the
economic development director for the Heinz Endowments, which work with
agencies trying to attract immigrants to the region. About a half-dozen
agencies focus on various aspects, but no one coordinates their efforts, he
said.

"The question for the region is: How painful does it need to be before
everybody wakes up?" Kelley said. "It's like the ozone layer. You can't see
it."

Kelley said other cities faced similar issues, but they saw growth because
of large numbers of foreign-born settlers.

A study of census data, released earlier this month, backs him up, showing
that immigrants account for half of all workers who joined the U.S. labor
force in the last 10 years.

Without them, regions such as New England and New York would have seen no
labor or population growth, according to the study by the Center for Labor
Market Studies at Boston's Northeastern University.

The report shows that immigration is redefining the profile of the American
work force and in some cases transforming entire industries. The study said
immigrants were overrepresented in retail trade, manufacturing and service
occupations, such as short-order cooks, barbers and nurses' aides.

But not in Pittsburgh.

It's not that the city isn't seeing any new immigrants. Between 1990 and
2000, the region experienced a 12 percent increase in the foreign-born
population, with most of the newcomers arriving from India, China and Korea.
They come through the universities or to work in technology or health care.

They are just not arriving in Pittsburgh in the kind of numbers that they
were during the first half of the 1900s, when Eastern Europeans dramatically
changed the region's industrial towns.

"I've seen it open up in the last two to three years," said Ravitej Reddy,
an information technology consultant who settled in Pittsburgh 15 years ago
from his native India.

He's in a good place to know. Jitters, the Shadyside coffee shop he opened
in 1996, has become a magnet for nearby residents, including many new
immigrants.

Reddy attributes the changes to the heavy recruiting in the high-tech
industry that has brought immigrants from around the world, particularly
India. It took time, though, he said. Back in the early 1990s, when
high-tech companies around the country were recruiting foreigners,
traditional Pittsburgh firms were hesitant. But they finally came around, he
said.

He and others point to the recruiting success of younger local companies
such as iGate, a high-tech company founded by a foreign-born resident.
Locally, more than two-thirds of iGate's 250 employees were born outside the
United States.

Reddy, who came to Pittsburgh as a student, owns Velocity Computer
Consulting, with clients throughout the tri-state area. He started a
subdivision called Velocity Healthcare, which focuses on recruiting foreign
nurses to help ease the nursing shortage crippling the health care industry.

His company has so far recruited 20 nurses from India, but none are coming
to Pittsburgh. Local hospitals like his concept but haven't committed, he
said. Larger hospitals, such as Allegheny General Hospital, are recruiting
nurses from the Philippines and other countries, but it is not a standard.

Companies in all industries, as well as local government and other
institutions, have to recruit more if Pittsburgh is to reverse its
immigration trend, Florida said. Part of the problem, however, is the area's
pervasive resistance to change, he said.

"Pittsburgh is a closed town," Florida said. "Look at the foreign-born
students � most don't stay. They don't see Pittsburgh as a welcoming place."

In short, Pittsburgh needs an attitude adjustment.

"It's a city that wants to stay in the 1950s," Florida said. "Pittsburgh
wants to recreate its glory days."

Florida said the city could learn from places such as Schenectady, N.Y.,
where the mayor of the aging town of 62,000 recruits Guyanese immigrants
from New York City, leading them on bus tours and touting the low cost of
living.

"It's a typical Northeast industrial-type city," said Mayor Albert
Jurczynski, a Republican serving his second term. "It's home to General
Electric. When I graduated from high school in �74, there were 29,000 people
working at GE. Today, there are 4,000."

The town hemorrhaged residents and home values spiraled as more abandoned
houses littered the property rolls.

Sound familiar?

Schenectady, though, had a small but growing population of Guyanese
immigrants who had fled the crowded streets of New York. The mayor
befriended leaders in the community, who asked him if he and his staff would
be willing to talk to the newcomers about Schenectady.

The talks evolved this summer into weekend trips in which busloads of New
York Guyanese residents schlepped to Schenectady for a day to hear the
mayor's sales pitch. The excursions ended with a stop at the home of the
mayor's in-laws for a taste of the homemade wines made by the elderly
Italian couple.

The mayor has immersed himself in all things Guyanese not only to make the
3,000 or so residents living in his city feel at home, but also to attract
new ones. He's visited their communities in Queens, hobnobbed with their
business leaders and sampled their famed El Dorado rum.

"They're a hard-working people," Jurczynski said. "They do not believe in
public assistance as a group, unless it's absolutely necessary. So right
away I felt good about them. What mayor wouldn't?"

Beth Osborne Daponte, a senior research scientist at CMU's H. John Heinz III
School of Public Policy and Management, says the problem in dying industrial
cities isn't a lack of immigrants. It's an unhealthy economy.

If Pittsburgh wants to attract domestic or international newcomers, it needs
to create more jobs. Businesses, universities and civic and political
leaders need to come up with a long-term effort to fuel job growth, Daponte
said.

"There's a flaw in the logic that if we had more immigrants, we would have
more jobs," she said. "Immigrants come because we have jobs.

"What I see is everyone running around like a chicken with its head cut off,
but there is no well-thought-out strategy," she said. "How we go there is a
huge conversation that I think the community is trying to have, but it gets
distracted."

If Reddy is any indication, there is hope that new immigrants will choose
Pittsburgh before the dance to find a home ends.

Reddy planned to leave Pittsburgh after graduation, but he stayed when
offered a job at a local high-tech company, deciding to see if the �Burgh
was for him.

"Pittsburgh offers a lot more opportunities than bigger cities," he said.
"You can look around, see what Pittsburgh lacks and bring it here."

Article 5

http://www.ciol.com/content/news/repts/102123104.asp

Mastek may foray into BPO

After much deliberation, Mumbai-based Mastek may soon announce its decision
to enter the BPO segment. The company is seeking advice from external
consultants to freeze a BPO strategy and, in all likelihood, will resort to
the build-operate-transfer method to implement it.

Tuesday, December 31, 2002

MUMBAI: Mastek is chalking out plans to enter the business process
outsourcing (BPO) market, the Mumbai-based software company may give an
indication of its BPO strategy when its board meets for announcing quarterly
results on January 13, 2003, sources said.

Mastek officials have yet to decide if they intend to form a separate
division or float a subsidiary for BPO services as plans are in a flux right
now. However, sources said the company is evaluating various possibilities
including partnering an existing BPO firm, buying out a running business or
setting up greenfield operations.

According to an industry source, "Mastek�s plans to venture into BPO have
been initiated by its existing top five or most lucrative set of customers
asking for BPO services."

Mastek chairman and managing director Ashank Desai said, "We have had
internal discussions on the subject but nothing has been firmed up yet.
Plans for BPO exist only at the thought level as the company evaluates
possibilities of areas that it wants to focus on."

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