Brand India
One of the recent spate of articles on the I-lost-my-job-to-an-Indian-programmer theme.
Wired Magazine 12.02: The New Face of the Silicon Age
Paraphrase of a quote I read,
"In the 80s when the blue collar workers lost their jobs to manufacturing being outsourced to China and Taiwan the white collar 'intellectuals' were not really concerned. Now that they find that their neighbours are now out of jobs they are really concerned."
The Wired article quotes the Bhagwad Gita. I wonder why every foreigner writing about India has to get some stereotype or the mystique and magic of India. This was more surprising since this was a technical article.
It makes 4 strong points and my comments on them follow.

The Four points
1. India's Answer:
Translation: We're not just cheaper, we're better.
2. The American Response:
Her solution is simple: America first. Support American firms. Put Americans back to work. And only then, after we reach full employment, will outsourcing be an acceptable option. "If we can't take care of our own first, we shouldn't be looking to take care of other people around the world," she says. "If you're a parent, you don't take care of everybody on the block before you make sure your own children have their basic needs met."
3. The Most Likely Future of Jobs in the US
White-collar jobs with any lasting potential in the US won't be classically high tech. Instead, they'll be high concept and high touch.
4. Future of India in Software
"Someday," Janish says, "another nation will take business from India." Perhaps China or the Philippines, which are already competing for IT work.

1
This is fact that i am most proud of. Despite the fact that is the bottom pile of work that gets outsourced. We have climbed the ladder up really quickly and at the same become globally competitive. See the graph on the wired magazine. We score highest on performance and cost. This is going to be quite unbeatable for some time.
2
While the Indian economy is experiencing a huge boom, here in America the economy shows signs of picking up but has not really picked up. Atleast the job market. In this election year, there could be more populist legislation that could stop the current trend of outsourcing as the example in the article. Most economist have written that this would be a step backward but does the public ever listen to reason? This issue exposes the duplicity of America. They want their cake and want to eat it too. Despite whatever legislation occurs more jobs are going to be outsourced (see 1), but not at the projected rate of growth. It won't be that dramatic. So I am skeptical of large revenues shown far out in say 2015.
3
The article claims in an oblique sort of way that Indians won't really develop great products or design the latest and greatest sometime in the future. I disagree. This is a period of growth. Indian companies are doing whatever is required right now. Yet I dont have concrete examples, but I suspect that companies are creatively thinking and want to develop products. If we moved up ladder so quick. America we can reach the top too!
4
Another reason to skeptical of forecasts is that other Asian countries will catch up in 5 years. At this time almost every Chinese is learning English with zealous passion. Phillipines which I was not aware is also quite competitive, but its a small country which might not make too much of a dent. The major competitor is still China.