From the "applied physics" department of John Hopkins university in Baltimore (last stronghold of the JASONs) south to Virginia and the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina you will find people who know things about practical NLP systems that aren't in the open literature. They could tell you about it but they'd have to kill you.

Around Mumbai I know there is a crew that can really use UIMA, and there are other Indians I know who do intelligence and defense work.