Nasscom

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), the main trade association for "the IT software and services industry in India."

On its website NASSCOM states that it has "over 1100 members, of which over 250 are global companies from the US, UK, EU, Japan and China" and that its members are involved in "the business of software development, software services, software products, IT-enabled/BPO services and e-commerce."

Lobbying Ahead of the US 2008 Election
"As the 2008 U.S. election starts to sizzle, the Indian outsourcing firms have returned to win Washington over as veritable insiders, slicker and better connected than ever," reports Anand Giridharadas in the International Herald Tribune.

Nasscom has hired Robert Blackwill, a Barbour, Griffith and Rogers lobbyist also working for former Iraq prime minister Ayad Allawi. Indian executives have "met with aides to all the major presidential hopefuls," while their lobbyists have met with more than 100 U.S. Congressional offices. The Indian outsourcing firms are working "with research firms like the Brookings Institution to generate sympathetic research," and are "waging proxy battles through local front organizations, which spare them from appearing to be foreigners with an agenda. They provide facts, figures and arguments to trade groups like the Information Technology Association of America and to Indian-American political groups. Then they watch as those groups arrange for seemingly neutral voices to champion their causes in the newspapers or before Congress."

Contact Details
International Youth Centre Teen Murti Marg Chanakyapuri New Delhi - 110 021 Phone: 91-11-2301 0199 Fax: 91-11-2301 5452 Email: info@nasscom.in Website: http://www.nasscom.in/