What stopped Narendra Modi from raising H-1B?

Bengaluru: Many expected Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring the issue of H-1B visa up during his maiden meeting with US President Donald Trump, but the discussion between the two leaders didn’t go quite as expected. Mr Trump, who has been promoting “Buy American and Hire American”, had signed an executive order to strictly look into the existing work visa policy.

However, the discussion around H-1B visa didn’t figure during the Modi-Trump meet. “Since it’s a very sensitive political issue and his (Donald Trump) whole election campaign was on protecting the domestic workers, it will be politically unpalatable for Mr Modi to make public statement on the H-1B visa issue,” said the former Infosys CFO and an IT industry veteran V. Balakrishnan.    

He said that the government has set up a committee to look into all the H1B visa issues. “We perhaps have to wait for the outcomes and recommendations of the committee,” he said. Ms Sangeeta Gupta, vice-president of the IT industry body Nasscom, said that they were not expecting H-1B issue to be on the table.

But Mr Ashok Soota, executive chairman of Happiest Minds Technologies, said that nothing dramatic related to H1B has happened in the country so far for the PM to discuss about it.