Software is only the more prominent half of India's IT bonanza. A glimpse of other big new line of business can be found at Selectronic Equipment & Services, a three-year-old New Delhi company where young Indian workers are paid to watch American Programs like ER and Chicago Hope. They have more rigorous duties as well. Selectronic hires stenographers to transcribe medical records for doctors in California, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Without the Internet, the vast distance was unbridgeable; with the Net in place, a whole range of labor-intensive work — or "IT-enabled Services" can be done anywhere on the globe. Ireland and the Philippines have also caught on, but India is becoming the country to beat.

Selectronic's business works like this: doctors in the U.S. to protect themselves in malpractice suits, have to keep detailed notes of all consultations but don't want to hire stenographers at U.S. wage rates. Indians charge far less - and the Internet has brought them within reach. A doctor in the U.S. simply dials a toll-free number and dictates case summaries into the phone. Those recordings are transmitted via satellite to New Delhi, where they are typed up by Selectronic's 200 transcribers.

Founder Veer Sagar, who quit a computer company to get into the business, says it has even more potential than software because it can employ Indian with non-specialized educations. "With our huge pool of educated, English-knowing workers," says 56-year-old Sagar, "we have a chance to be No.1 in the world for the IT-enabled services." Some 100 Indian companies are doing medical transcription already, and Selectronic operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year — a claim that even Indian power companies and telephone exchanges can barely make. There are challenges to the job. Speed is a must; the company promises a 24-hour turnaround. So, too, is accuracy, and that poses challenges for Indians dealing with American English, which is why those U.S. TV programs are part of the training program. One worker couldn't understand a case history that involved a patient having eaten a tortilla - so the company imported restaurant menus from the U.S. for study. "India is in the same position Japan was in during 1960s." Says Sagar, "if we capitalize on our human resources."

Gurgaon, India - Richa Singh and her classmates have sat through a lecture on cardiology, a video on heart disease and a rerun of "E.R." Ms. Singh is training for India's new knowledge economy. She isn't a medical student; in fact the 27-year-old is already a dentist. Instead, she's vying for a highly competitive job transcribing dictation from doctors in the U.S., which she believes will offer better career prospects. India is experiencing a boom in offshore clerical services thanks to rising labor costs in the West, satellite communications and time-zone differences that allow transcriptionists to work while doctors in California sleep. The next morning, they awake to a hard copy of their patients' records.

Such commercial links helped pave the way for President's Clinton's visit to India next week, says Richard Celeste, U.S. ambassador in New Delhi. For America "India was always the blank spot on the other side of the globe. Today, it's the place where we do the other 12 of hours of our business," he says.

- Jonathan Karp contributed to this article.

If it happens, it will be companies like Selectronic Equipment and Services that deserve the credit. Selectronic employs 250 young men and women, who work in an obscure suburb of New Delhi, doing overnight transcription of patient reports for American doctors. Veer Sagar, the company president, says his costs are between 25 and 35 percent lower than an American service's. And he thinks his business, whose current sales are about $750,000 a year, is just in its infancy. 'I could see us extending the service to billing, payment follow-ups, bed management, inventory control,' he says."- Newsweek, september 27, 1999. (Growing Smartly - page 38)

"Cultural fusion is another common feature. Since these companies are outposts of American or British firms and adhere to their standards, they must master not only unfamiliar terms but also the mind-set behind them. At Selectronic, a six-month training course in American medical terminology is supplemented with group viewing of Chicago Hope and ER, accompanied by take-away pizza. Yet in some ways the atmosphere remains resolutely Indian. These dataworkers are not rootless part-timers, as their American equivalents might be. Many expect their employers to treat them like family members, providing transport to and from work, company cricket games and jobs for life. Indian law makes it hard to do anything less."

"Selectronic recruits from its lower-middle class Delhi neighborhood. Its employees may speak English less fluently then GE's, but Selectronic compensates with rigorous training and a checking process that vets every one of the 1.3m lines of transcription the company produces monthly". - The Economist, january 16th-22nd 1999. (Spice up your services-page 63)

"India's vast diaspora of professionals working in the U.S. and other developed countries may also be an advantage. About 32,000 Indian doctors practice in America, creating a network of contracts for Indian medical-transcription services, a high-growth field. Delhi-based Selectronic Equipment & Services employs 300 workers to transcribe patient histories from voice recordings sent by U.S. doctors over the internet. Within eight hours, text versions are back in physicians' hands, says Selectronic President Veer Sagar."

- Review, september 2nd 1999. (Catching The Bus - page 11)