New Delhi, Sept. 30 -- India's $250-billion IT industry has become a perpetual hostage to American electoral politics. Every few years, a new administration discovers that tweaking H-1B visa rules makes excellent political theatre, leaving India's most strategic sector scrambling to decode Washington's latest signals while stock prices crater and careers hang in limbo.
While American domestic politics drives this behaviour, India has also made a strategic error by treating what is essentially a diplomatic challenge as purely a corporate problem. As a result, despite powering much of America's digital infrastructure, it has failed to secure predictable access for its talent.
Indian companies have compounded this through poor messaging. ...