The violent death of a call centre worker reinforced negative views in India about jobs in outsourcing - but measures taken by Indian outsourcers have helped change perceptions, says Saritha Rai.

Last month, a judge in a Bangalore court sentenced cab driver Shiva Kumar to life for the rape and murder of a call centre employee.

On a chilly December evening five years ago in Bangalore, Pratibha Murthy, 24, an employee at HP's back-office operation HP GlobalSoft, was picked up as usual by a cab that was supposed to ferry her to work. Her body was found abandoned in an suburb the next day. She had been raped and murdered.

The murder immediately became headline news, and sent a collective shiver through India's outsourcing industry.