Cost has been and continues to be the primary driver of all outsourcing from US and Europe.
BPO jobs account for most of the ITES outsourced work in India. And all of the IT and ITES sector jobs in India make up 1-2 million jobs...a drop in the bucket for a country with 1.2 billion people, most of whom work in agriculture and textiles.
About 60% of India's workforce is in agriculture. Textile industry is the second biggest employer, accounting for a fifth of India’s exports, and employs almost 10 percent of India’s workforce, or some 35 million people, and has the potential to add another 12 million new jobs --dwarfing the 1-2 million jobs created by the much-heralded IT and BPO sector, according to a World Bank report.
Haq's Musings: Agriculture and Textiles Employ Most Indians and Pakistanis
Indians (and others including Pakistanis) working in the United States are generally trained in the United States with advanced degrees from US schools. They have had the benefit of a much higher quality education and training than their counterparts in India.
Some India watchers such as Fareed Zakaria, an Indian-American who often acts as a cheerleader for India in the US, have expressed doubts about the quality of education at the Indian Institutes of Technology. In his book "The Post-American World", Zakaria argues that "many of the IITs are decidedly second-rate, with mediocre equipment, indifferent teachers, and unimaginative classwork." Zakaria says the key strength of the IIT graduates is the fact that they must pass "one of the world's most ruthlessly competitive entrance exams. Three hundred thousand people take it, five thousand are admitted--an acceptance rate of 1.7% (compared with 9 to 10 percent for Harvard, Yale, and Princeton)."
Haq's Musings: More on Quality of Higher Education in India and Pakistan