Barack's Bangalore Fan Club
11/04/2008
A+
|
a-
Print Friendly and PDF

Barack Obama has a growing fan base in India. They are very excited that Obama promised to make India his "top priority".

One of the groups of admirers calls themselves the "Barack Obama Bangalore Fan Club". They are a small group of activists who raised money for Obama's campaign, made phone calls, and sent emails to people in the U.S. urging them to vote for Obama. They even staged rallies in Bangalore to show their support.[Campaign outsourcing: Bangalore techies root for Obama,  Economic Times Of India, November 3, 2008]

So why the enthusiasm for Obama?

One of the reasons they adore Obama so much is that he wants to raise the H-1B cap. In a recent interview with the Indo-Asian News Service Obama made two things very clear — he wants to give amnesty to illegal aliens and he feels that we need to import more foreign workers.

I will also increase the number of people we allow in the country legally to a level that unites families and meets the demand for jobs employers cannot fill.

That quote might sound like something Bush has said many times, but according to that news service it was straight out of the mouth of Barack Obama!

Bush, McCain, and Congress tried and failed to pass a Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill to give amnesty to illegal aliens and to hand out more H-1B visas. The failure of that bill, and the political cost that came with it doesn't seem to deter Obama who seems ready to push for something similar:

I support comprehensive immigration reform that includes improving our visa programmes, including the H-1B programme, to attract some of the world's most talented people to America.

The Bangalore Fan Club is not alone among Indians that are hoping Obama wins the election. In the town of Tirupur in Tamil Nadu the knitwear union workers chant "Om Obama". Just FYI: "Om" is a Hindu word for veneration.

Still another group in India planned to present a statue of Hanuman, the revered Indian monkey god to Barack Obama. I wasn't able to find out if Obama ever accepted the monkey god.

Print Friendly and PDF