<http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11219>
US Republican Party outsources fund raising to India Whole world's gone batty - official By Adamson Rust: Wednesday 27 August 2003, 08:49 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY is using call centres in Gurgaon and Noida in India to raise funds for itself and for its chieftain, George W. Bush. Young people at the call centres are helping robots to phone American citizens to enlist their support and money for the political party, with plans to extend the scheme if they whip up enough donations. There's a high degree of automation involved in the process, according to Indian newspaper the Business Standard, which says that HCL Eserve is handling the business for the party. India is the biggest democracy in the world, and has stayed that way since it threw off the yoke of the British Raj in 1947, courtesy of the Labour Party. The magazine claims that "human intervention" is limited because of an integrated voice recording technology which picks up on clues from people that pick up the phone. We do hope and trust here at the INQUIRER that the irony of underpaid people in Harayana helping robots to call possibly out of work Americans because of a widespread policy of corporate outsourcing is not lost on our readers. ----------------------------------------------- http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11444 US Republican Party denies it's outsourcing to India Could be another leg of the pachyderm, RNC says By INQUIRER staff: Tuesday 09 September 2003, 07:20 THE US REPUBLICAN PARTY -- which has an elephant as its symbol – is denying an Indian financial newspaper's claim that it's outsourcing fund raising to the subcontinent. The Republican National Committee, according to worldnetdaily.com has described a story in the Delhi Business Standard as a "pernicious rumor" and also claimed representatives of the other party with a quadruped icon were "gobbling up" and "running with" the story on its campaign trail. The prestigious Delhi newspaper had claimed people in call centres in Gurgaon and Noida were phoning folks in the USA to enlist their support for the Republicans. But, said worldnetdaily.com, quoting a Republican representative, that's not true. The US version of democracy requires that political parties there submit reports to an auditing committee and there are no records of funds going India's way. However, the Republican rep said that "some other" Republican entity or "conservative organization" might be using Indian call centres. The Republican National Committee put its lawyers on the case and asked the Business Standard to purge the story from its archives. But Indian hacks have behaved like refuseniks and will not down the story, said Worldnetdaily. ----------------------------------------------- --ravi
