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    The Questions About Its IPsoft Partnership That Infosys Was Afraid It Would Have to Answer

    Back on April 25, I was contacted by a PR firm in Boston about an upcoming announcement of a partnership between Infosys and IPsoft that would offer clients a strategic combination of outsourcing and autonomics. I was invited to conduct an interview with Chetan Dube, IPsoft’s CEO, and Chandrashekar Kakal, senior vice president and global head of business IT services at Infosys.

    It was a shock, to say the least. I’ve sent numerous requests for comment on my blog posts about the Jay Palmer whistleblower case and the U.S. government’s subsequent visa fraud investigation to Danielle D’Angelo, the Infosys media contact in New York, all of which have been ignored. And now they were offering to put me in touch with one of Infosys’s most senior corporate executives?

    I wasn’t certain whether this was some sort of olive branch, or if the PR rep who invited me to conduct the interview had simply failed to do her homework. I immediately accepted the invitation, and the PR rep enthusiastically set about arranging the call. That’s when things started to get weird. The PR rep began stalling, and it soon became clear that the plug was pulled on the interview. There indeed appeared to be a homework problem.

    But rather than just acknowledge the goof and let us all move on, the PR rep, along with a managing partner of her firm, strung me along for three weeks before finally admitting that the interview wasn’t going to happen. If you’re interested, I’ve posted the full, play-by-play account of the foot-dragging.

    I emailed D’Angelo to apprise her of what had happened, and to request an explanation. Once again, I was ignored.

    Had I gotten the chance, I would have liked to ask questions along the lines of these:

    • I understand this partnership is all about improving operational efficiencies. Will these improved efficiencies enable Infosys to decrease the number of H-1B workers that it brings over to the U.S.?
    • I know that some Infosys customers are concerned about Infosys filling positions at their companies with workers on B-1 visas, which is a violation of U.S. visa law. Can these autonomic services be tapped to help companies track and monitor the visa status of Infosys employees working at their sites?
    • Can these autonomic services be tapped to help Infosys better track and monitor its compliance with U.S. employment and visa laws to avoid some of the problems it’s had, like the Department of Homeland Security’s finding that there were errors in a significant percentage of Infosys’s Forms I-9?
    • Mr. Dube, are you aware of the U.S. government’s ongoing multi-agency investigation of Infosys for alleged widespread visa fraud? Has that situation given you pause in agreeing to form this partnership with Infosys?
    • Mr. Kakal, several former Infosys employees, including three whistleblowers and an HR employee, have testified under oath that Infosys knowingly and systematically sent employees to the United States on B-1 visas to work at client sites, in willful violation of U.S. visa law. What role did you play in formulating and carrying out that practice?

    Note to Infosys and IPsoft: Come to think of it, those are some pretty darn good questions. If you’d care to respond to any of them, I would be happy to publish your responses.

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