For white collar roles, salaries tend to be significantly lower in Pakistan compared to India. A good rule of thumb I use is comparing competitive civil service starting salaries, as the civil service remains the most popular option in most of Asia due to its stability and privileges, thus putting pressure on white collar salaries in the rest of the labor market. The starting salary for Pakistan Administrative Service (BPS-17) is around $4,000 a year, but the starting salary for the Indian Administrative Service (Pay Level 10) is around $8,500. A better comparison for white collar salaries in India would be ASEAN, China 10 years ago, or Ukraine before the war.

Also, salaries in the Indian tech industry are bimodal - you’ll have mass outsourcing companies paying horrible wages ($3,000/year) because outsourcing/BPO was a race to the bottom, and then you’ll have product oriented companies or the Indian teams of US companies paying around $10-20k starting with mid career potentially reaching $30-50k. Like everything else, you got to pay for talent. Most HN commentators complaining about outsourcing quality are probably working with the former type of companies instead of the latter.