Describing as "not fair" the recent United States Federal law banning outsourcing of jobs to other countries, including India, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Wednesday said there should be open competition in the information technology-enabled services sector.

"Some countries are bringing laws to ban outsourcing. This is not fair," he told a gathering in Jhajra (Dehradun), without directly referring to the Federal law voted by the US Senate last week.

Pointing out that developed nations earlier used to ask developing ones to liberalise their market economy, the prime minister lamented such laws were being enacted at a time when Indian youth were creating their niche in IT and software sector worldwide.

But, he said this is an era of competition and "only the best would survive," (pratiyogita ka zamana hai, jiska maal achcha hoga, wahi bikega).