The weekend brought thunder from across the Atlantic, shaking India’s IT industry to its core. The US—its biggest market, accounting for more than half of $224 billion (Rs 19.9 lakh crore) in tech exports—moved to shut the door on foreign software engineers with a prohibitive H-1B visa fee hike. Announced on September 19 by US president Donald Trump, the new fee for each H-1B visa application filed from September 21 would be $100,000 (around Rs 88.6 lakh), nearly 70 times higher than the previous fee, which ranged from $1,500-4,000 (Rs 1.3-3.5 lakh). While the H-1B visa has long been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration, which wants to curb visa ‘abuses’ that allegedly ‘displace US workers and undermine national security’, the confusion that accompanied the proclamation has sent the industry into a tizzy.