Roemer allays fears over Ohio outsourcing ban

NEW DELHI: The United States on Friday sought to downplay the ban on outsourcing clamped by Ohio. US ambassador to India Timothy J Roemer said Ohio's ban on outsourcing of IT related work would not have any bearing on Indo-US business ties, and asserting that the partnership between the countries is "indispensable"."I would referyou to statement by Infosys and other Indian companies which recently had saidabout Ohio action that they had very little, if any, impact on US-Indianbusiness," Roemer told reporters here when asked to comment on the ban after hismeeting with Union home minister P Chidambaram.Chidambaram onThursday also strongly condemned the plan of an American pastor to burn copiesof holy Quran to mark the 9\11 attacks. Roemer said he conveyed to Chidambaramthe US did not subscribe to the action of pastor Terry Jones, whose announcementsparked worldwide outrage."I certainly expressed to Chidambaram thatthe US is strongly condemning any action to burn Quran. This is disruptive,divisive, disrespectful and also this does not represent American values inshape and form. The minister and I talked about this," he said. Theambassador said Indo-US relations have reached a new stage, which now includescounter-terrorism, green partnership, apart from trade andcommerce.Referring to the outsourcing issue, Roemer said somesimilar actions from certain other states in the US — passing resolutionsbanning outsourcing in 2005 — also did not affect Indo-US relations.