US, 'huge beneficiary' of BPO: Friedman

"The issue of outsourcing is easy to demonise but what many forget is that the United States is a huge beneficiary of this practice," Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of the book, 'The World is Flat', said during a discussion at the residence of Indian Ambassador to the US, Ronen Sen. Friedman pointed out that the job of outsourcing has replaced receptionists with microchips carrying voice mail.

"It is not easy to demonise a microchip," he said. Terming India a "miracle" and a "blessing", Friedman exuded confidence that the country will get to the technical super highway as "it is moving in the right direction both in terms of pace and trajectory of change."

"It was simply a travesty that media anchors like Lou Dobbs of the CNN network are able to get away with their stances on outsourcing with not even the business community willing to take them on", the foreign affairs columnist in The New York Times, said.

Friedman was speaking with experts on South Asia, senior government officials, members of Indian American community, diplomats and media persons in Washington.