Telecom Equipment Project by the Chinese for Taliban after 9-11

The Statesman ^ | December 9, 2001 | Raju Santhanam

[honway]

http://www.ipcs.org/archives/12dec2001/cr-dec01.html

Link

Revelations that the Taliban was working on a telecom surveillance equipment with the help of the Chinese in a Bangalore-based project actually cleared by the Government of India has caused red faces in the country’s security establishment.A senior government official in fact said that India did not want to upset the Chinese government but conceded that India might ask 300 Chinese software engineers to leave the country. Official sources said that since all the requisite permission had been obtained there was no question of “deportation”. The official agreed it was a serious security lapse given the developing situation in Afghanistan.The tip-off apparently came from Western Intelligence sources but it was later verified by Indian Intelligence agencies. A final view on how to deal with the situation is yet to be taken.

The Chinese telecom software company had brought in the telecom engineers from China in September on six months’ visa to ensure total secrecy over the project. No Indian apparently is directly involved in the project.

[Betty Jo]

Just imagine.....no computers,no phones,no electricity,no natural gas,no 911 callls,no radio,no TV,no planes.....

Bios released,radsreleased,dams broken,fires raging,suicide bombers,Black Muslim terrorists siezing the central cities.....

Every modern method of survival gone,every defense gone.....

But hey, keep on letting in millions of illegals, keep sucking up to every potential enemy,keep the $$$$$$$$ deals going with all people in all countries.

[AmericanInTokyo]

People might consider you an alarmist, but in my book, you are right on target sister.

The biggest fear IMHO at the senior levels of our defense and intel. establishment as I write is a so-called "1-2 combi punch", i.e. first hit the Homeland from overseas with a massive cyber attack where vulnerable and critical infrastructure systems are shut down, and then the physical attacks orchestrated from within by sleepers and other illegal entrants, i.e. WMD delivery, more hijacked airliners or NukeBiosChems on subways or in crowded areas or anthrax puffed about here and there. Or vice versa. Does'nt matter.

The pandemonium would be horrendous. It would be every man, woman, and family for themself.

[honway]

After seeing the jubilation in China and the Islamic world after 9-11, there is no question the terrorists have the will to wreak total havoc on the United States.
The only question is, do they have the capability?
The information on this thread should make an alarmist of everyone.

[Wallaby]

WAR IN CYBERSPACE
Indian Express
May 31, 2002

Pakistan is not restricting itself to pushing terrorists across the border to India. It is active in other manners, both overtly and covertly, to cause disturbances in India. Some of the overt means are the fanning of communal tension across the country and training terrorists from regions as far as Northeast India. Among the covert activities, it has most significantly started supporting and funding groups involved in cyber attacks on Indian networks. Such cyber attacks have been directed against the Indian government and corporate networks. These cyber attacks get intensified when the physical skirmishes and tensions escalate between the two nations. During the Pokharan nuclear blasts in 1998 and the Kargil conflict in 1999, many such attacks were witnessed. These attacks have stayed and increased in incidence and vigor ever since.

The present tensions could also have renewed attacks from Pakistani cyber forces. How concerned and prepared are we to thwart such attempts? Just after September 11, the Institute for Security Technological Studies at Dartmouth College, USA, issued a predictive analysis paper which dwelt on the possibility of cyber attacks in the context of the War against Terrorism. In that Analysis, it has been mentioned that cyber conflicts immediately accompany physical attacks. This trend has been witnessed in many of the existing conflicts in the world and the India-Pakistan cyber conflict was also shaping up quite steadily.

Cyber incursions by Pakistan on Indian networks has been on for sometime now. Since the introduction of the Internet in Pakistan, there has been enough instances of false and misleading propaganda by Pakistan-based and Pakistan-supported groups against India through various websites. Most of these initial offensives were vituperative campaigns against India and a few sites used to post morphed pictures showing brutality by Indian soldiers to incite sentiments. After the 1988 vandalism of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) website and critical data stolen, ISI understood the advantage of the virtual space and emerging tactics and started funding a few select group of hackers. Since then efforts have been more organised and today there are regular attempts on the key Indian nuclear research institutions like the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Nuclear Science Centre (NSC) and BARC to break past the firewalls.

Cyberspace happens to be the domain of conflict where no casualties and exchange of fire take place. Hence, it is a non-risky job for many of the activist groups. While psychological advantage could be perceived by staging such attacks, the overall impact of an actual terrorist strike can never be realised. Thus the direct use of cyber tactics by the Pakistani Army and ISI is ruled out. Unlike China, which is building up a fourth arsenal totally consisting of cyber warriors, there is no credible belief to suggest Pakistan is also contemplating such a step.

Most of the Pakistani cyber attacks today are from hacker activist groups, organised and unorganised in their design of execution. Some of these groups are Anti India Crew (AIC), G-Force, Pakistan Hackerz Club (PHC), Kill India and Death to India. There have been reports of Osama bin Laden funding some of these groups. The Canadian CERT had issued warnings of such influenced attacks last year.

Till date no lasting damages have been done, although the hacking of BARC website and the subsequent stealing of sensitive data have raised concerns. The hacking of the Central Board of Excise and Customs website carried out in April this year by AIC by giving sufficient notice and challenging patriot hackers from India to prevent such an attack is worrisome.

The reported clubbing of the three main anti-India hacker groups, AIC, G-Force and PHC, as a coalition under the banner 'Al-Qaeda Muslim' needs to be taken seriously by India. While G-Force targets websites with massive readerships, AIC focuses on government networks and PHC attacks the bigger names and networks, including those of large corporate houses.

Most of the cyber attacks by these Pakistani forces are carried out by planting deadly viruses, inflicting denial of service attacks, hacking into websites, snooping into e-mails, stealing confidential scientific and strategic data and posting malicious mails and propaganda.

It is imperative to assess the threat perspective and do a risk analysis of all such possible cyber attacks on the Indian networks, particularly in the face of our extreme dependence on cyber infrastructures in the day-to-day government and business functioning. Protection of our critical infrastructures has to be seriously understood and defence mechanisms need to be in place.

While there are separate efforts by the Army and respective government networks to secure themselves, considering the regular threats, such defence mechanisms should be organised under one command and the National Security Council should be entrusted the role.

While firewalls, anti-intrusion software and anti-virus products are available commercially for protection, these versions are not always effective in the face of such organised attacks. Moreover, most of the latest versions of these US products are embargoed for countries like ours till a reasonable period of time. This is quite surprising and under the newly formed Indo-US Joint Task Force on cyber terrorism, this matter should be resolved and recent software and services made available for the Indian government. The recent visit by the US team under Lincoln Bloomfield, Chair of the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure has spelled out the need for effective co-operation between the two nations to combat cyber attacks. This could be an immediate step to set the partnership rolling.

It is pertinent to mention that many of these Pakistani cyber groups have hacked into the US critical sites by even using Taiwan-based computer systems as platforms recently. The present situation raises many questions about attacks and false propaganda by Pakistan using the cyberspace.

While anti-cyber attack technologies have improved significantly, hackers have also matured and become organised. In the absence of international laws to punish such transnational cyber attackers and the surreptitious belligerence of the Pakistani forces in the cyberspace, the best possible answer is to remain vigilant and ready.

The writer is vice-president, Argus, and chairman, Task Force on Cyber Security, Assocham, India

[Nita Nupress]

I hate to bring this up once again, bu-u-u-u-u-t.......

China could very easily have copies of the source code of our FAA, military, and other government computers.  The implications here are enormous.  

 

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/cyberspace/july-dec99/y2k_7-27.html

FIVE MONTHS AND COUNTING... 
July 27, 1999

Economics correspondent Paul Solman of WGBH, Boston, provides an update of the Y2K and potential computer problems. 

JIM LEHRER: Our economics correspondent Paul Solman of WGBH-Boston has the Y2K story.

PAUL SOLMAN:   .... we wanted to talk to those sober souls who are trying to solve the Y2K problem, the people whose job it is to get inside the old computer systems, find the Y2K bug and fix it. And what they told us was genuinely surprising. Before the surprise, though, a quick cram session on Y2K for those who still don't get it. At Primeon outside Boston, Carl Giallombardo showed us an actual line of computer code. 

(snip)

PAUL SOLMAN: So Y2K could benefit US companies, communities, and also, some experts now say, the work force, because the US, already ahead in computer innovation, has used Y2K to speed the recruitment of the globe's top high-tech talent.

SPOKESMAN: Let me show you some of the programming staff that works here at Primeon. Robert Yang has a Ph.D. from Chinghua University and was a professor at Chinghua for ten years. Jason [Zhicheng] Shi is the manager of year 2000 development. Jason has two Ph.D.'s. Lu Sun is a project manager, has a Masters in Computer Science from Cinghua University, and ended up number two in his class. His wife ended up number one. 

PAUL SOLMAN: Primeon itself was founded by Fred Wang, a member of China's crème de la crème Class of '77, the first class to enter the reopened colleges after Mao closed them during the cultural revolution and sent students out into the fields. Wang scored higher than-- get this-- some 200 million potential college applicants. Just to get his spot at one of China's top engineering schools, he was one in 10,000. He has recruited his fellow best and brightest. 

PAUL SOLMAN: This really the very smartest of the computer people in china that have you here? 

FRED WANG: Yes, I'm sure. Yeah, we have about ten Ph.D.'s and professors. Yeah, it's a very, very-- I mean, they are like a superstar. 

PAUL SOLMAN: Superstars like Fred Wang and his top classmates. 

JAMES DONOHUE, Vice President, Human Resources, Primeon: Getting people of Fred's quality to do this kind of work in the US is just about impossible. Y2K is not a glamorous business. The Internet's the glamorous business these days. And to go in and basically spend your time cleaning up "other people's messes" when you could be working on Internet and E-commerce type of situations may put you in a big competitive disadvantage. You can't hire people of that quality to do Y2K. 

PAUL SOLMAN: Americans won't do it? 

JAMES DONOHUE: That's right. 

PAUL SOLMAN: But the Chinese will.

JAMES DONOHUE: That's right.

PAUL SOLMAN: To most economists, immigrants are a huge plus for the US economy.

LESTER THUROW: There is no question about it, if you look at immigrants, they've got more get up and go because we know that, right? They got up and went. It's a big advantage when, hey, you can get a fully trained, let's say, computer software engineer to migrate to the United States. That's a plus-plus, right? We don't have to pay for the education and we get the benefits. 

---

FAA Faulted for Security Lapse
 The Associated Press
AP-NY-01-04-00 2037EST

WASHINGTON - The Federal Aviation Administration failed to conduct security checks on dozens of foreigners hired to fix Y2K problems in sensitive computer systems used for air traffic control, congressional investigators said Tuesday.

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said it found the FAA had violated its own security policies by allowing its contractors' foreign employees, who had not received background checks, to be involved in repairing 15 of 153 critical computer systems.

Citizens of Ukraine, Pakistan, Britain and Ethiopia were given access without proper checks, as well as 36 Chinese who performed Y2K reviews on eight critical systems, including one involved in air-to-ground communications.

``By not following sound security practices, FAA has increased the risk that inappropriate individuals may have gained access to its facilities, information or resources,'' said Joel C. Willemssen, the GAO's director of civil agencies information systems, in a report to the House Science Committee. The panel had asked the GAO to investigate the extent to which the FAA relied on foreign nationals for Y2K preparedness.

The nation's air traffic systems were at greater risk to people wishing to insert faulty or deliberately harmful changes to the computer code, Willemssen said. One of the systems reviewed by the foreign citizens helps manage the flow of air traffic across the nation.

(snip)

The FAA's policy requires background checks of all FAA and contractor employees. The agency's Y2K Program Office told the investigators it didn't know about the requirement, the GAO said. The FAA also was unaware of whether the agency or the contractors had performed background checks on any of the contractor employees, including foreigners.

The contractors, Primeon and Computer Generated Solutions Inc., were not given direct access to the FAA's computers. Instead, the FAA sent them copies of the program codes on computer disks through express mail, the investigators said. The contractors had to sign agreements requiring them to return or destroy all copies of the program codes.

But the investigators warned that ``copies of the code could be sold and/or reviewed to identify system weaknesses that could later be exploited.''

(snip)

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the House Science Committee, sent a letter to National Security Adviser Sandy Berger on Dec. 20, expressing concern that other agencies might have violated security rules while rushing to repair Y2K problems.

In a statement on the FAA, Sensenbrenner said, ``The extent of access unscreened individuals had to the air traffic control system merits serious attention by the White House and others responsible for ensuring the security of sensitive computer systems on which we all rely.

---

[honway]

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/043002/met_9278005.html

Blacked out Nearly all 355,000 JEA customers left without power

About 4:30 p.m., two large electric lines heading east out of the Brandy Branch Generating Station near Baldwin shut down when circuit breakers tripped on both lines. It's unclear why those trips occurred, but the breakers are designed to shut down portions of the lines to prevent further faults from the actual point of trouble.

When those lines shut down, electric lines heading west out of Brandy Branch picked up the load along with other electricity coming from Georgia and redirected that flow back into the city grid over two other lines. Electricity was still flowing freely and not overloading the grid into the city.

A short time later, there was an unexplained transformer fire at the Kennedy Generating Station north of Talleyrand and the generator at the plant shut down. Electricity generated from Kennedy had been flowing in the two operating transmission lines along with the electricity from the Northside Generating Station and the nearby St. Johns River Power Park.

[honway]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/711254/posts

Officials discount rumors of al Qaeda links in Jacksonville (and Florida)

I have no evidence confirming the power outage in Jacksonville was a cyber-attack. However, the official explanation for the outage is 100% consistent with a cyber-attack. This event is consistent with the concerns outlined in the Wash. Post article, "Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared", linked above.

[honway]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50765-2002Jun26.html

Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared

The devices are called distributed control systems, or DCS, and supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA, systems. The simplest ones collect measurements, throw railway switches, close circuit-breakers or adjust valves in the pipes that carry water, oil and gas. More complicated versions sift incoming data, govern multiple devices and cover a broader area.

What is new and dangerous is that most of these devices are now being connected to the Internet -- some of them, according to classified "Red Team" intrusion exercises, in ways that their owners do not suspect.

Because the digital controls were not designed with public access in mind, they typically lack even rudimentary security, having fewer safeguards than the purchase of flowers online

[Nita Nupress]

Because the digital controls were not designed with public access in mind, they typically lack even rudimentary security, having fewer safeguards than the purchase of flowers online.

What a comforting thought. Thanks for all your excellent research on this.

[Nita Nupress]

Just after September 11, the Institute for Security Technological Studies at Dartmouth College, USA, issued a predictive analysis paper which dwelt on the possibility of cyber attacks in the context of the War against Terrorism. In that Analysis, it has been mentioned that cyber conflicts immediately accompany physical attacks. This trend has been witnessed in many of the existing conflicts in the world and the India-Pakistan cyber conflict was also shaping up quite steadily.

Thanks for that article. IMHO, this scenario is much more likely than deliberate release of smallpox or other chembio agents.

[honway]

http://www.gertzfile.com/gertzfile/ring122101.html

China-al Qaeda nexus

China continued to supply arms to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist even after the group began the September 11 attack on America, says a senior U.S. official.

[honway]

Please see reply #46 in reference to this article. Jacksonville, Fl has been identified by Wolfowitz as an Al-Qaeda cell node:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2002/n06262002_200206263.html

Wolfowitz: Al Qaeda Is an Infectious Disease With No One-Shot Cure

By Linda D. Kozaryn
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, June 26, 2002 -- Success in Afghanistan does not mean victory in the war against terrorism, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz said today.

"Al Qaeda is not a snake that can be killed by lopping off its head," Wolfowitz told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "It is more analogous to a disease that has infected many parts of a healthy body. AFRTS Radio Report: DepSecDef updates Senate committee on military operations in Afghanistan

"There is no one single solution," he stressed. "You can't simply cut out one infected area and declare victory. But success in one area can lead to success in others."

Overall, Wolfowitz said, the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan to kill, capture and disrupt terrorists is helping to protect the American people. At the same time, the United States is helping the Afghan people ensure their country does not once again become a terrorist sanctuary.

Noting the highlights of the nation's "extraordinary military success," he said somewhat less than half of al Qaeda's top 30 leaders have been killed or captured. The United States has custody of more than 500 detainees. Law enforcement agencies in more than 90 countries have arrested some 2,400 terrorism suspects.

"Our military success in Afghanistan has contributed to that larger success, both indirectly by encouraging others to cooperate, and also more directly," Wolfowitz said. "Abu Zubaydah, one of bin Laden's key lieutenants, was driven out of his sanctuary in Afghanistan and as a result was captured last March."

Zubaydah's cooperation contributed to the detention of Jose Padilla (aka Abdullah al Muhajir), who allegedly was planning and coordinating terrorist attacks. A Moroccan detainee led law enforcement officials to two Saudi Arabians planning terrorist attacks in Morocco. A videotape discovered in Afghanistan led to the arrest of an al Qaeda cell in Singapore that was planning to attack a U.S. aircraft carrier.

"These developments are encouraging, but it is important to remember that al Qaeda is still dangerous and active," Wolfowitz said. "This network still poses threats that should not be underestimated."

Afghanistan is only one node in the global terrorist network. "A network, by its very nature is based on the idea that should one node be eliminated, the network can still continue to function," he said.

In Arabic, "al Qaeda" means "base," indicating that the entire organization is the base of terrorist operations. "It is spread throughout the world and it needs to be eliminated, root and branch," Wolfowitz said.

Al Qaeda has infected some 60 countries, including the United States, Germany, France, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines. It had critical nodes in Hamburg, Germany, and Jacksonville, Fla., as well as in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, the deputy said, U.S. and coalition forces rooted out both the terrorists and the tyrannical Taliban regime that protected them. He said the goal was to deprive the terrorists of a sanctuary where they could safely plan, train and organize. "Not only to capture and kill terrorists, but to drain the swamp in which they breed," he remarked.

Over the past eight months, he said, U.S. and coalition partners have defeated the Taliban regime, killing or capturing many of its ringleaders. Others are on the run. America's men and women in uniform have conducted operations with great bravery and skill.

Military plans were put together with remarkable speed, he said, and operations were swiftly and successfully executed. The campaign was "measured in weeks rather than months, and with relatively few troops on the ground. On Sept. 11, "there simply were no war plans on the shelf for Afghanistan."

Army Gen. Tommy Franks started "from scratch" on Sept. 20, Wolfowitz said, and less than three weeks later began military operations on Oct. 7. Two weeks after that, U.S. troops were operating in Afghanistan with Northern Alliance forces. "In many ways, it was a remarkable feat of logistical and operational utility," he said.

He also pointed out that the United States did not become bogged down in a quagmire in Afghanistan, unlike the British in the 19th century or the Soviets in the 20th century. "Nations that arrive in Afghanistan with massive armies tend to be treated as invaders and they regret it," he said. "Mindful of that history, Gen. Franks has deliberately and carefully kept our footprint small to avoid just such a situation."

"We have always viewed our mission in Afghanistan as one of liberation, not occupation," Wolfowitz said. "Afghans are an independent, proud people. We have worked from the beginning to minimize the number of our troops there and to focus instead on helping the Afghan people to help themselves in their journey to representative self- government."

[Betty Jo]

You all might like to know about a thing called "SensorNet".

It is being developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to protect the US by deploying a nationwide real-time detection and assessment of CBRN threats.

It will be part of the countrys 30,000 cell phone towers.

So, if this is implemented, and the terrorists take out all phone and cyber stuff, how will this work?

The contract is "UT-Battelle,LLC and US Department of Energy,DE-AC05-00OR22725 "

[honway]

http://www.eweek.com/print_article/0,3668,a=35438,00.asp




January 6, 2003
L1s Slip Past H-1B Curbs


By Lisa Vaas


Dec. 20 was supposed to be Michael Emmons' D-Day, the day he was to lose his contractor position.

It would have been, had Emmons not quit his post at Siemens AG's Siemens Information and Communication Networks division, in Lake Mary, Fla., on Nov. 22 rather than wait to be replaced by a worker from Tata Consultancy Services holding an L1 visa. Tata is a Mumbai, India, IT services company contracted by Siemens to do, among other things, Emmons' job: connecting Web sites to SAP R3 applications.

The story line is familiar: Large U.S. company outsources work to offshore service provider that uses foreign nationals with temporary work visas to take what could have been domestic IT jobs. What's not familiar to many IT professionals is the L1 visa. Although the L category visa has been around some 50 years, it hasn't received a fraction of the attention the H-1B visa has from legislators, the media and outraged domestic IT workers, many of whom believe companies have given their jobs to lower-paid foreign IT workers brought in on H-1B visas. While many of those resentful workers have attempted to mount political pressure to reduce the number of H-1B visas given each year, no such movement has been mounted against the L1 visa.


In some respects, however, the L1 visa is easier for employers to use than the H-1B. And there's some evidence that use of the L1 visa is rising. The latest figures released by the Immigration and Naturalization Service show that the number of L1 visas granted climbed from 112,124 in 1995 to 294,658 in 2000. But they still haven't caught up to the H-1B numbers: In 1995, 117,574 H-1B visas were granted, compared with 355,605 in 2000.

To IT workers such as Emmons who say they feel they're facing unfair competition from imported workers, statistics mean little. What matters is that they've lost their jobs, they've had to train their replacements and many of those replacements are here on L1 visas.

Although there's little evidence that it is about to overtake the H-1B in terms of numbers granted, the L1 visa has clear advantages for employers. Technically, the L1 is an intracompany transfer visa that allows U.S. companies to import employees from foreign subsidiaries, affiliates or parent companies. One big plus for the L1—at least in the eyes of employers—is that there's no limit on the number that can be issued each year. H-1Bs are currently limited to 195,000.

Another advantage is that the L1 can be used to import large numbers of workers at one time.

The L1's relative anonymity also works in its favor, experts say. "I have not seen L1 visa use increasing, but I can see why anyone would want an escape route out of the H-1B," said Carl Shusterman, an immigration attorney in Los Angeles. "[The H-1B] is the most overregulated part of immigration law over any visa that exists."

With the L1 visa relatively easy to get, it's not surprising that more domestic IT workers such as Emmons are beginning to worry about competition from companies relying on L1s. What is surprising is that some H-1B holders are also becoming concerned about competition from L1s, according to Norm Petereit, CEO and president of Analysts Express Inc., of Houston, the staffing company through which Emmons was contracting. Analysts Express, like many IT service providers, has seen its business shrink in recent years and, with it, its size. The company, which in 2000 employed 62 contractors, now has 18, 12 of whom are on H-1B visas. According to Petereit, in Stoneham, Mass., even his H-1B consultants live in fear of their contracts ending in this miserable economy, since large consultancies such as Tata can so easily bring in employees from India on L1 visas. "If [Analysts Express consultants'] contracts ended today ... their concern is they'd have difficulty getting a new contract at the prevailing wage," Petereit said.

Unless the L1 program is changed, it's likely many employers will continue to make liberal use of it. Software company Wipro Technologies, a Bangalore, India, division of Wipro Ltd., is a good example of why. According to Laxman Badiga, chief executive of talent transformation and external relations at Wipro, the company can get L1 visa applications approved four to eight weeks faster than it takes to process an H-1B visa. (And, contrary to rumor, Wipro pays the same payroll taxes in the United States on all employees, no matter what visa is involved, Badiga said.)

And that's helped Wipro, and other Indian contract IT services companies, steadily grow despite the down economy. According to Badiga, Wipro recruited about 2,300 workers between April and September last year.

To Wipro, said Badiga, the L1 is just one more tool that's helping the company prosper. To Emmons, however, it's a "nasty tool Congress created to get cheap labor for their corporations." And to a growing number of recession-scarred IT workers, the L1 visa is just one more thing to worry about.

[honway]

http://www.ciol.com/content/news/repts/102021802.asp

Huawei to double Indian investment

Huawei Technologies, is planning to double its investments to $30 million in India this year. Huawei is also the only Chinese software operation in India. The expansion plan will also see the company’s staff in Bangalore by 200.
Reuters

Monday, February 18, 2002

Anshuman Daga

BANGALORE: Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei Technologies plans this year to nearly double investment in its Indian software center to $30 million, company officials said.

"We have a long-term commitment towards India and would be investing significantly both in terms of manpower, technology and infrastructure in the next two to three years," Jack Lu, Huawei India's chief operating officer, told Reuters.

Huawei plans to expand its Bangalore staff by at least 200 this year and nearly double investment from a current $17 million, a company spokesman said.

The growth of Huawei's two-year-old software research and development center in Bangalore, the only Chinese software operation in India, is a sign of the computer hardware giant's determination to pick up software strength from India which has a vast army of programmers.

The neighboring countries have edged closer in technology, but are also seen by analysts as rivals in software programming as the sector grows in China. "While the Indians are good at software development and project management, the Chinese are good in system design and architecture," Lu said.

Lu said privately-owned Huawei, China's biggest telecoms gear maker, saw India as a leading product development center in coming years and planned to "eventually localize" staffing at the R&D center.

Out of a current workforce of around 500 at the firm's Indian center, about 100 are Chinese.

Huawei also sources software from Indian companies which include Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computer Services and Wipro Ltd.

Huawei said it awarded projects worth about $14 million to its Indian partners in 2001 and about 200 engineers from its partner firms worked on its projects in China last year. Indian software exporters, who derive most of their business from the United States, have begun to tap China's huge market, attracted by enormous growth in the hardware sector and a pool of talented knowledge workers.

Satyam last month opened a branch office in China which it said could also serve as a channel to provide services to related markets. Infosys also plans to open a branch in China.

Chinese premier Zhu Rongji suggested during a visit to India last month that China and India should combine their strengths in computer hardware and software for mutual benefit.

[honway]

From the article:

And that's helped Wipro, and other Indian contract IT services companies, steadily grow despite the down economy. According to Badiga, Wipro recruited about 2,300 workers between April and September last year.

To Wipro, said Badiga, the L1 is just one more tool that's helping the company prosper. To Emmons, however, it's a "nasty tool Congress created to get cheap labor for their corporations." And to a growing number of recession-scarred IT workers, the L1 visa is just one more thing to worry about.

[honway]

Members of the Jemez Harmony barbershop quartet surprised Bruce Tarter, seated left, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory director, with a surprise happy birthday serenade Wednesday morning in the J. Robert Oppenheimer Study Center. The University of California President's Council, which includes Laboratory Director John Browne, Charles Shank, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Tarter were meeting Tuesday and Wednesday at the Lab. The quartet is made up of Lab employees (left to right) Horton Struve of International Technology (NIS-IT), David Daniel of Advanced Computing (CCS-1), William Wilson of Nuclear Physics (T-16) and Donald Brown of Geophysics (EES-11). Photo by LeRoy N. Sanchez, Public Affairs