Call America Online's technical support, and a customer will likely get a phone agent with a name like Steve, or CJ, or Shane. They are all American-sounding names, but the agents are all Indian. One named "Jason" acknowledged his real name was Jitu. He was at a Mumbai (formerly Bombay) call center, working the graveyard shift at around 3 a.m. The alias was for customer satisfaction surveys: "Americans don't remember our names," he explained.

For all the hard hours, Jitu's is the kind of job that is swelling India's middle class and growing the country's $17.2 billion outsourcing industry. Such jobs may offer about $200 a month and plush office buildings with pingpong tables, gyms, free food, and rides to and from work. The jobs are helping to make India's economy one of the fastest-growing in the world, expected to expand about 7 percent this year. But while globalization brings the good life to millions of Indians, millions more—pinned down by the Hindu caste system—are simply watching it zip by.

(Source: http://www.worldmag.com/articles/11318 )