It seems outsourcing -- and her proximity to Indian business houses like the Tatas -- is going to be the litmus test for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the run-up to the 2008 United States Presidential elections.

Fellow Democrat and fellow Presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama's campaign office had a go at Senator Clinton not too long ago, calling her a 'Democrat from Punjab' -- for her friendship with the New York-based Chatwals and pro-outsourcing stand.

Though Obama apologised for it later, putting the blame on a campaign official, it signalled that the issue of Americans 'losing jobs' due to outsourcing was going to be an issue, just as the war in Iraq is.

Now, a Los Angeles Times report cites the outcome of a pet Hillary project in Buffalo, upstate New York, as proof that the issue of outsourcing is far from dead.

'To many labor unions and high-tech workers, the Indian giant Tata Consultancy Services [Get Quote] is a serious threat -- a company that has helped move US jobs to India while sending thousands of foreign workers on temporary visas to the United States,' begins the Los Angeles Times report.

It then details how Hillary announced in 2003 that TCS would set up a software development office in Buffalo and how Ratan Tata had said his company might hire 200 people.

'�the event signaled that Clinton, who portrays herself as a fighter for American workers, had aligned herself with Indian American business leaders and Indian companies feared by the labor movement,' writes LAT staff writer Peter Wallsten.

The report goes on to note that wealthy Indian Americans -- 'many of them business leaders with close ties to their native country and an interest in protecting outsourcing laws and expanding access to worker visas' -- have thrown their weight behind Hillary. The Chatwals' fundraiser for Hillary is also mentioned, without the New York hotelier's name.

And it underlines that the Buffalo deal, a sort of showpiece achievement for Hillary, who stresses that globalisation (read outsourcing) helps everyone, has generated just 10 jobs.

'As for the research deal Clinton announced with the state university, school administrators say that three attempts to win government grants with Tata for health-oriented research were unsuccessful, and no projects are imminent,' the report adds.

Senator Clinton, it seems, is aware of the criticism. 'Outsourcing is a problem,' the Los Angeles Times quoted her as saying during a Democratic candidates' debate in June.

The LA Times report adds that a report by two American Senators named Tata as one of the biggest users of foreign-worker visas in the US -- proof, the Senators said, that Tata was pushing American jobs to foreign workers.