Government calms down fears about loss of IT jobs

The government has asked people to calm down and not believe rumours surrounding job losses in the IT sector.

Secretary for IT and telecom Aruna Sundararajan said that the Indian IT industry is maintaining its growth rate of 7 to 8%, and the government was in "close coordination" with the US authorities on the ongoing H-1B visa issues.

Asked about the global malware 'WannaCry' ransomware cyber attack and its effect on India, she said that the government has set up a multi-agency team which would continuously monitor and assess the situation.

"Since March the government of India has been on high alert," she said. "We have installed the necessary security patches as far as government key networks are concerned. We have not got any reports of widespread infection."

As per Cert-in, the agency under the ministry of IT and electronics which is responsible for tracking computer security in India, apart from five or six isolated instances, the malware has affected very small, fragmented, and isolated machines in the country.

Further on the H-1B visa issues that Indian IT companies have been facing, the secretary said that she was certain of US considering the value add that Indian companies provide.

"There have been no steps or actions taken which curb the number of visas by individual companies, so I am sure as and when US government does a review, they will take into account what has been the value added by Indian companies," she said.

(Image source YouTube)