India, Sept. 10 -- A new US Senate proposal, the Halting International Relocation of Employment (HIRE) Act, threatens to upend India's USD 224 billion IT export market. With a proposed 25% excise tax on American firms' outsourcing payments to foreign providers, Indian IT companies, their employees, and entire ecosystems built around Inidan IT hubs face great uncertainty. While analysts doubt the bill will pass in its current aggressive form, its chilling effect is already visible in boardrooms, stock prices, and household anxieties.

However, speaking on the sidelines of the Karnataka GCC report launch yesterday in Bengaluru, Priyank Kharge, Minister for Electronics, IT & BT, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, Government of Karnataka, s...