The EconomicTimes of India announced that India will ask for the yearly H-1B cap to be raised. India seems hell bent on pushing for more H-1B visas, even though the cap still hasn't been met for 2010. The last update given by the UCIS as of 9/25/09 announced that 46,700 petitions towards the cap have been accepted and all 20,000 for advanced degree exemptions.

At the time of this writing there seems to be nothing about this meeting in the U.S. media or at the USTR website. The Indian press is a whole different story — you won't have any problem finding articles in their media touting the meeting.

In order to get verification of this meeting outside of the Indian media I resorted to using a Communist Chinese press release. The Chinese got their jab at the end of the article by reminding us that the U.S. trade deficit with India was 8 billion dollars in 2008, which seems like chump change compared to our $268 billion deficit with China.

So, here is the news: U.S Trade Representative Ron Kirk will meet with Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma for the U.S.-India Trade Policy Forum (TPF) meeting in India scheduled for Oct. 26. According to Wikipedia Kirk is a NAFTA supporter, so it's probably fair to say that he will get a receptive audience in India.