Posted on 07/07/2007 7:09:07 PM PDT by BornInASmallTown
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is wooing wealthy entrepreneurs with ties to India, seeking to tap the growing political clout of Indian-Americans in California's Silicon Valley.
Clinton spoke by live video feed from New Orleans to nearly 4,000 businessmen attending the annual alumni conference of the Indian Institute of Technology.
Clinton, the only Republican or Democratic presidential candidate to accept an invitation from the IIT, reiterated her call for more H-1B work visas for highly educated immigrants.
It is an issue of deep concern to the Indian and Indian-American executives and engineers in the audience.
But she did not shy from characterisation of the pain of offshore outsourcing, the exporting of technology jobs to low-cost workers in countries such as India, China and Russia.
The United States has sent tens of thousands of high-paying computer programming and engineering jobs to developing countries in recent years.
''Workers in the United States are concerned about outsourcing, and I think they're right to be, but so should all of us who value the bilateral relationship between the US and India,'' Clinton said.
''If the US continues to outsource jobs to India large numbers, people will increasingly feel insecure and increasingly seek protection.''
Her appearance comes less than a month after rival Barack Obama's campaign sent a sarcastic memo to reporters criticizing Clinton's ties to India.
The memo characterised the New York senator as the ''Democrat from Punjab'' - a reference to a joking introduction of Clinton by Rajwant Singh, national chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education.
Prominent Indian-Americans immediately demanded an apology from Obama. Within days, the Illinois senator conceded that their concerns over the campaign memo were ''entirely justified.''
Clinton's courting of Indian-American voters comes as the 2.3 million-member community in the US exerts more influence in the 2008 presidential election.
In May, Indian-Americans in Silicon Valley raised $200,000. In April, New York hotelier and restaurateur Sant Chatwal claimed that Indian-Americans could raise at least $5 million for Clinton's campaign.
According to the US Census Bureau, although they make up for less than one per cent of the US population, Indians living in the United States have the highest average income of any racial group.
Dont many indian women wear red dots?
Why should that get me a visit?
Dont answer.
don’t ya know that the piaps is actually a hindu name for underworld evil of the giant cankles!!!
LOL! That was my first thought, too.
Someone needs to put together a little "reminder" and release it on YouTube. Right along with that little remark about "We are going to take some things away from you for the common good"...
HAHAHHAA...Good One .... don’t doubt it my friend.
No, only Hindu women wear dots. My mom and no body wears it, though they wear Saris. In general, all Indian women dress based on the culture of the region.
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