US Republican Party outsources fund raising to India

UPDATE 10 September 2001 See also our later stories about this affair. US Republican party threatens to sue the INQUIRER and US Republican Party denies it's outsourcing to India Both of these stories have links.

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. µ

L'INQ
Gurgaon
Business Standard