PRAGATHI

First time Managers - Dos and Donts !

2011-09-23T02:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Are_You_A_First_Time_Manager_Dos_and_Donts_for_You-nid-92232-cid-30.html?utm_campaign=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Subscriber

Supporting Jana Lokpal and Shri Anna Hazare - News by Pragathi Welfare Society !

2011-08-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

Andhra Jyothy 17 Aug 2011

Eenadu Guntur Rural on 17 Aug 2011

Leader @Infosys - A great Inspiration !

2011-08-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

Full text of Anna Hazare's letter to the PM !

2011-07-14T23:35:00.000-07:00

Veteran social activist and Gandhian Anna Hazare has written an open letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In the letter dated April 6, 2011, Hazare has raised many questions and sought the Prime Minister's reply.

The 72-year-old social activist, supported by eminent persons including Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal, has been demanding that the drafting committee for the Lokpal Bill to tackle corruption should include members of civil society.

He started his fast-unto-death at New Delhi's Jantar Mantar on Tuesday to demand a stricter anti-corruption law that that is being proposed by the Government.

Below is the full text of Hazare's letter to the Prime Minister:

India Against Corruption

A-119, Kaushambi, Ghaziabad . 201010. UP Ph: 09868069953

www.indiaagainstcorruption.org

Date: April 6, 2011

To,

Dr. Manmohan Singh,

Hon'ble Prime Minister of India

New Delhi Dear

Dr. Singh,

I have started my indefinite fast at Jantar mantar. I had invited you also to fast and pray for a corruption free India on 5th April. Though I did not receive any reply from you, I am hopeful that you must have done that.

I am pained to read and hear about government's reaction to my fast. I consider it my duty to clarify the points raised on behalf of Congress party and the government by their spokespersons, as they appear in media:

1. It is being alleged that I am being instigated by some people to sit on this fast. Dear Manmohan Singh ji, this is an insult to my sense of wisdom and intelligence. I am not a kid that I could be "instigated" into going on an indefinite fast. I am a fiercely independent person. I take advice from many friends and critics, but do what my conscience directs me to do. It is my experience that when cornered, governments resort to such malicious slandering. I am pained that the government, rather than addressing the issue of corruption, is trying to allege conspiracies, when there are none.

2. It is being said that I have shown impatience. Dear Prime Minister, so far, every government has shown complete insensitivity and lack of political commitment to tackling corruption. 62 years after independence, we still do not have independent and effective anti-corruption systems. Very weak versions of Lokpal Bill were presented in Parliament eight times in last 42 years. Even these weak versions were not passed by Parliament. This means, left to themselves, the politicians and bureaucrats will never pass any law which subjects them to any kind of objective scrutiny. At a time, when the country has witnessed scams of unprecedented scale, the impatience of the entire country is justified. And we call upon you, not to look for precedents, but show courage to take unprecedented steps.

3. It is being said that I have shown impatience when the government has "initiated" the process. I would urge you to tell me - exactly what processes are underway?

a. You say that your Group of Ministers are drafting the anti-corruption law. Many of the members of this Group of Ministers have such a shady past that if effective anticorruption systems had been in place, some of them would have been behind bars. Do you want us to have faith in a process in which some of the most corrupt people of this country should draft the anti-corruption law?

b. NAC sub-committee has discussed Jan Lokpal Bill. But what does that actually mean? Will the government accept the recommendations of NAC sub-committee? So far, UPA II has shown complete contempt for even the most innocuous issues raised by NAC.

c. I and many other friends from India Against Corruption movement wrote several letters to you after 1st December. I also sent you a copy of Jan Lokpal Bill on 1st December. We did not get any response. It is only when I wrote to you that I will sit on an indefinite fast, we were promptly invited for discussions on 7th March. I wonder whether the government responds only to threats of indefinite fast. Before that, representatives of India Against Corruption had been meeting various Ministers seeking their support for the Jan Lokpal Bill. They met Mr Moily also and personally handed over copy of Jan Lokpal to him. A few hours before our meeting with you, we received a phone call from Mr Moily's office that the copy of Jan Lokpal Bill had been misplaced by his office and they wanted another copy. This is the seriousness with which the government has dealt with Jan Lokpal Bill.

d. Dear Dr Manmohan Singh ji, if you were in my place, would you have any faith in the aforesaid processes? Kindly let me know if there are any other processes underway. If you still feel that I am impatient, I am happy that I am because the whole nation is feeling impatient at the lack of credible efforts from your government against corruption.

4. What are we asking for? We are not saying that you should accept the Bill drafted by us. But kindly create a credible platform for discussions . a joint committee with at least half members from civil society suggested by us. Your spokespersons are misleading the nation when they say that there is no precedent for setting up a joint committee. At least seven laws in Maharashtra were drafted by similar joint committees and presented in Maharashtra Assembly. Maharashtra RTI Act, one of the best laws of those times, was drafted by a joint committee. Even at the centre, when 25,000 tribals came to Delhi two years ago, your government set up a joint committee on land issues within 48 hours. You yourself are the Chairperson of that committee. This means that the government is willing to set up joint committees on all other issues, but not on corruption. Why?

5. It is being said that the government wants to talk to us and we are not talking to them. This is utterly false. Tell me a single meeting when you called us and we did not come. We strongly believe in dialogue and engagement. Kindly do not mislead the country by saying that we are shunning dialogue. We request you to take some credible steps at stemming corruption. Kindly stop finding faults and suspecting conspiracies in our movement. There are none. Even if there were, it does not absolve you of your responsibilities to stop corruption.

With warm regards,

(K B Hazare)

Courtesy :

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/full-text-of-anna-hazares-letter-to-the-pm/148435-3.html

5 Must Read Business Books of the year 2011

2011-07-13T22:05:00.000-07:00

By SiliconIndia, Wednesday, 13 July 2011, 14:42 IST

Bangalore: Are you planning to launch your first stepping stone in business world? And you want to be acquainted with the know how of the business strategies, its pros and cons. Then here we present you the most effective tools towards your success. We are bringing the top five must read business books which will not only make you aware of what's ahead in your business scenario, but also gets you prepared for the big bad competitive world.

Here the top 5 must read business book for our readers which are culmination of the struggles and lesson from our big business giants and gurus, and we guarantee you surely will not like to miss out on any one of them.1. I'm Feeling LuckyThe Confessions of Google Employee Number 59By Doug Edwards

There have been many fine books written about Google and its impact on the world, but all have been told from an outsider's perspective. I'm Feeling Lucky is a personal accounting of what the author felt like to be part of the company as it grew from sixty people to tens of thousands. In the book, personal anecdotes are interspersed with an explanation of the key events in Google's technical development, largely told in the words of those who actually built the systems that made Google work as fast and well as it does. Many of these individuals have remained anonymous until now.I'm Feeling Lucky is really aimed at those who are interested both in what Google did to ensure success during its formative years and how it felt to be an ill-prepared participant dropped into the heart of an exploding startup.It gives insight as to what is the Google workplace like compared to other companies and how Google dealt with user privacy issues, what were the most significant problems, what was it really like behind the scenes of the Google-AOL deal and things that people should know about Google that they do not already know. Comparing Google to an ordinary business is like comparing a rocket to an Edsel. I'm Feeling Lucky captures for the first time the unique, self-invented, yet profoundly important culture of the world's most transformative corporation.

2. Warren Buffett Invests Like a Girl

And Why You Should, TooBy Louann Lofton

Warren Buffett Invests like a Girl offers a new perspective to Warren buffets investment success. Women and Warren Buffett have something in common: They are both better investors than the average man. Women are thorough researchers, more committed to the long-term plan and better at managing their emotions, say LouAnn Lofton, author of Warren Buffett Invests like a Girl: and Why You Should Too.

The first step in investing is to recognize that investing is not that hard and great success can come from investing in companies you understand. Look at the products you know and trust the ones you use and tell friends about. These can be great investment opportunities.And if you want to learn directly from Mr. Buffett, Ms. Lofton suggests reading his letters to shareholders. Though geared toward women, Ms. Lofton's book can benefit men as well if they are willing to tap into their feminine side. A debut author impugns Warren Buffett's masculinity in a good way and asserts that feminine thinking like his is what leads to investment riches.

3. Beyond Performance

How Great Organizations Build Ultimate Competitive AdvantageBy Scott Keller and Colin Price

This book reveals the secret of achieving and sustaining organizational excellence. In an ever-changing world where only a third of excellent organizations stay that way over the long term, and where even fewer are able to implement successful change programs, leaders are in need of big ideas and new tools to thrive. In Beyond Performance, McKinsey & Company's Scott Keller and Colin Price give you everything you need to build an organization that can execute in the short run and has the vitality to prosper over the long term.

Drawing on the most exhaustive research effort of its kind on organizational effectiveness and change management, Keller and Price put hard science behind their big idea: that the health of an organization is equally as important as its performance. This book is written for those who intend to beat these odds. Based on one of the most extensive research efforts ever undertaken in the field of management, Beyond Performance shows how leaders can deliver performance today while also ensuring that their organizations stay fit for the future.

4. Solving Employee Performance Problems

How to Spot Problems Early, Take Appropriate Action, and Bring Out the Best in EveryoneBy Anne Bruce

Solving Employee Performance Problems provides the tools you need to handle the most difficult employees from the chronically late or distractingly dramatic to the disruptive, dishonest, or downright insubordinate.

Taking a heavy-handed approach to such behaviors might make you feel good for a little while but using the measured, proactive techniques outlined in this book will be better for you, your staff, and your business. With Solving Employee Performance Problems, you will learn how to take ownership of your employees' behaviors, master conversations about poor performance, conduct productive follow-ups, and ultimately generate greater engagement and ownership of work, Higher levels of collaboration and productivity, Increased loyalty and retention rates , Gainful ROI from everyone who works for you.There is a direct link between growth of individual employees and organizational growth. Use Solving Employee Performance Problems to be someone who manages proactively. It is the only way to make a positive difference in the life of your employee and make a positive impact on the future of your company.

5. School for Startups

The Breakthrough Course for Guaranteeing Small Business Success in 90 Days or LessBy Jim Beach, Chris Hanks, David Beasley

It is a Beginner's Guide to Low-Risk Entrepreneurship. If you want to start your own business, but "risk" isn't your middle name. You're not alone. Many successful entrepreneurs are averse to risk--but they have learned the tricks to working around it. And now you can too, with School for Startups.

This practical guide shows you how to build a business the smart way--without risking major assets such as your house, savings account, or health insurance.You will learn how to increase your chance of success by funding your venture without investors, Entering international markets , Taking full advantage of tools on the Web , Marketing your product or service for little or no cost , Deploying a third party to package and ship products and Taking control of an existing business or franchise.The authors present hundreds of the best ideas for new businesses, along with case studies proving the effectiveness of their approach.

Courtesy : http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/5_must_read_business_books_of_2011-nid-86167.html

why Corruption ? How to deal with It ?

2011-07-08T00:06:00.000-07:00

Permanent House for USD $300 = Rs.15,000 (INR)

2011-06-28T08:45:00.001-07:00

Vijay Govindarajan

Vijay Govindarajan is the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. His most recent book is The Other Side of Innovation.

Vijay Govindarajan

The $300 House: A Hands-On Lab for Reverse Innovation?

12:07 PM Thursday August 26, 2010 | Comments ( 159)

The $300 House:

Editor's note: This post was written with Christian Sarkar, a marketing consultant who also works on environmental issues.

David A. Smith, the founder of the Affordable Housing Institute (AHI) tells us that "markets alone will never satisfactorily house a nation's poorest citizens...whether people buy or rent, housing is typically affordable to only half of the population."

The result? Smith points to a "spontaneous community of self-built or informally built homes — the shanty towns, settlements, and ever-expanding slums that sprout like mushrooms on the outskirts of cities in the developing world."

We started discussing the issue, examining the subject through the lens of reverse innovation.

Here are five questions Christian and I asked ourselves:

How can organic, self-built slums be turned into livable housing?
What might a house-for-the-poor look like?
How can world-class engineering and design capabilities be utilized to solve the problem?
What reverse-innovation lessons might be learned by the participants in such a project?
How could the poor afford to buy this house?

Livable Housing. Our first thought was that self-built houses are usually built from materials that are available — cardboard, plastic, mud or clay, metal scraps and whatever else is nearby. Built on dirt floors, these structures are prone to collapse and catching fire. Solution: replace these unsafe structures with a mass-produced, standard, affordable, and sustainable solution. We want to create the $300-House-for-the-Poor.

Look and Feel. To designers, our sketch of this house might be a bit of a joke, but it's useful nonetheless to illustrate the concept, to get started. We wanted the house to be an ecosystem of products and solutions designed around the real needs of the inhabitants. Of course it would have to be made out of sustainable, green materials, but more crucially, it would have to be durable enough to withstand torrential rains, earthquakes, and the stress of children playing. The house might be a single room structure with drop-down partitions for privacy. Furniture — sleeping hammocks and fold-down chairs would be built in. The roof would boast an inexpensive solar panel and battery to light the house and charge the mobile phone and tablet computer. An inexpensive water filter would be built in as well.

In effect, the house is really a one-room shed designed around the family ecosystem, a lego-like aggregation of useful products that "bring good things to life" for the poor.

World-Class Design. Our next question was: "Who will do this?" We decided that it would be have to be a collaboration between global design and engineering companies and non-profits with experience solving problems for the poor. The usual suspects ran through our minds — IDEO, GE, TATA, Siemens, Habitat-for-Humanity, Partners In Health, the Solar Electric Light Fund, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Gates Foundation, Grameen. Governments may play an important part is setting the stage for these types of cross-country innovation projects.

The Reverse Innovation Payoff. Participating companies will reap two rewards. First, they will be able to serve the unserved, the 2.5 billion who make up the bottom of the pyramid. Second, they create new competencies which can help transform lives in rich countries by creating breakthrough innovations to solve several problems (scaled housing for hurricane victims, refugees, and even the armed forces).

A House of One's Own: Affordability. To move beyond charity, the poor must become owners of their homes, responsible for their care and upkeep. The model of social business introduced by Muhammad Yunus resonates strongly with us. Micro-finance must surely play a role in making the $300 House-for-the-Poor a viable and self-sustaining solution.

Of course, the idea we present here is an experiment. Nevertheless, we feel it deserves to be explored. From the one-room shacks in Haiti's Central Plateau to the jhuggi clusters in and around Delhi, to the favelas in São Paulo, the problem of housing-for-the-poor is truly global.

We ask CEOs, Governments, NGOs, Foundations: Are there any takers?

Courtesy :http://blogs.hbr.org/govindarajan/2010/08/the-300-house-a-hands-on-lab-f.html

Mayamai Potunnadamma Manishanna Vadu !

2011-06-27T19:29:00.000-07:00

CREATING AWARENESS ON LOKPALL BILL !

2011-06-27T19:11:00.001-07:00

CREATING AWARENESS ON LOKPAL BILL

Government of India has put a condition that 25 CRORES of people support is needed to implement 'LOKPAL-BILL'. For this we just have to GIVE A call (free) to the number - +91 22 61550789 from your mobile. The call gets cut automatically after 1 ring. After giving a call to this number you will receive a thanks message. Please forward this to as many to make India corruption free. Please do it once, call the number...no charges.. do it for your country. In case you do not already know this ---- See how Lokpal Bill can curb the politicians , Circulate it to create awareness
Differences between Existing System and System Proposed by civil society
Without Lokpal : No politician or senior officer ever goes to jail despite huge evidence because Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) and CBI directly come under the government. Before starting investigation or initiating prosecution in any case, they have to take permission from the same bosses, against whom the case has to be investigated.
With Lokpal : Lokpal at centre and Lokayukta at state level will be independent bodies. ACB and CBI will be merged into these bodies. They will have power to initiate investigations and prosecution against any officer or politician without needing anyone’s permission. Investigation should be completed within 1 year and trial to get over in next 1 year. Within two years, the corrupt should go to jail.
Without Lokpal : No corrupt officer is dismissed from the job because Central Vigilance Commission, which is supposed to dismiss corrupt officers, is only an advisory body. Whenever it advises government to dismiss any senior corrupt officer, its advice is never implemented.
With Lokpal : Lokpal and Lokayukta will have complete powers to order dismissal of a corrupt officer. CVC and all departmental vigilance will be merged into Lokpal and state vigilance will be merged into Lokayukta.
Without Lokpal : No action is taken against corrupt judges because permission is required from the Chief Justice of India to even register an FIR against corrupt judges.
With Lokpal : Lokpal & Lokayukta shall have powers to investigate and prosecute any judge without needing anyone’s permission.
Without Lokpal : Nowhere to go - People expose corruption but no action is taken on their complaints.
With Lokpal : Lokpal & Lokayukta will have to enquire into and hear every complaint.
Without Lokpal : There is so much corruption within CBI and vigilance departments. Their functioning is so secret that it encourages corruption within these agencies.
With Lokpal : All investigations in Lokpal & Lokayukta shall be transparent. After completion of investigation, all case records shall be open to public. Complaint against any staff of Lokpal & Lokayukta shall be enquired and punishment announced within two months.
Without Lokpal : Weak and corrupt people are appointed as heads of anti-corruption agencies.
With Lokpal : Politicians will have absolutely no say in selections of Chairperson and members of Lokpal & Lokayukta. Selections will take place through a transparent and public participatory process.
Without Lokpal : Citizens face harassment in government offices. Sometimes they are forced to pay bribes. One can only complaint to senior officers. No action is taken on complaints because senior officers also get their cut.
With Lokpal : Lokpal & Lokayukta will get public grievances resolved in time bound manner, impose a penalty of Rs 250 per day of delay to be deducted from the salary of guilty officer and award that amount as compensation to the aggrieved citizen.
Without Lokpal : Nothing in law to recover ill gotten wealth. A corrupt person can come out of jail and enjoy that money.
With Lokpal : Loss caused to the government due to corruption will be recovered from all accused.
Without Lokpal : Small punishment for corruption- Punishment for corruption is minimum 6 months and maximum 7 years.
With Lokpal : Enhanced punishment - The punishment would be minimum 5 years and maximum of life imprisonment.

India's second freedom struggle !

2011-06-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

NEW DELHI: Taking on the government, civil rights activist Anna Hazare on Wednesday went on a day-long fast at Rajghat, declaring that his agitation against corruption was the "second freedom struggle" and threatened another hunger strike from August 16 if Lokpal Bill is not passed by then.

He accused the government of putting "hurdles" in the drafting of Lokpal Bill and trying to defame the civil society members of the joint panel, such as Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan, Santosh Hegde and Arvind Kejriwal through a "discreet" campaign.

Hazare, joined by his associates and a few thousand supporters, went on the hunger strike to protest the police crackdown on Baba Ramdev's supporters during their agitation against corruption here on Saturday night, which he termed as a "blot on humanity" and attempt to "stifle democracy".

After paying floral tributes at Mahatma Gandhi's samadhi, he reached the protest site at around 10.20 am to a rousing welcome from supporters who assembled there amid heavy police presence.

"Mahatma Gandhi fought for our freedom but we are yet to achieve real independence. The second struggle of independence has started. We are ready to sacrifice our lives but will not buckle under pressure," Hazare said.

Mounting pressure on the government to quickly enact a law to curb corruption, he said he will launch an indefinite fast at Jantar Mantar here from August 16 if the Lokpal Bill is not passed by then.

Hazare's indefinite fast in April had evoked nationwide support forcing the government to set up a joint committee of civil society members and ministers to draft the bill

Narayana Murthy's journey in his own words !

2011-05-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

Narayana Murthy's journey in his own words

N.R. Narayana Murthy is the key founder of the IT giant Infosys. His clear and coherent policies have created an environment where a professional can indeed show as much commitment to the company as a founder-member. He made several interesting revelation to Infosys shareholders, in company's annual report. In his scintillating speech, Murthy speaks about his journey and life in Infosys. Here are some of the extracts from it.

It was on one of those rare nights at home during late eighties. I was huddling with my young children Rohan and Akshata, when Rohan was most mischievous child I had ever come across, asked innocently whether I loved Infosys more than him and his sister. I got away from the embarrassing situation by saying that I loved mu children much more than anything else. However, even today, when I reminisce about the incident, my children are not fully convinced that I was telling the truth. When I was busy overseeing every detail of the strategy and operations of the company-from designing the logo, the company song and the presentation materials used in every building of our campus around the world and coming home late at night- it is difficult to argue with the innocent but correct logic of my children. When I was spending 16 hour a day in the office, and was away from the home for as many as 330 days in a year, it was hard for my children to believe in my commitment to the family.

There is no doubt that the Infosys journey has been an integral part of my life. Most of my colleagues said Infosys is inseparable part of me and I am inseparable from Infosys. I have been number one actor in al

l major decision taken in the company. I have rejoiced every significant milestone of the company. I have commiserated in every false step that the company has taken. The best analogy that I can think of for this separation between Infosys and me is that of a daughter getting married and leaving her parents home. Yes, the parents will be there when she needs them and they will be happy that she is starting a new life in an exciting new environment.

Listing in India in 1993, pushed us to become leaders in corporate governance. The joy being India's first software company to be certified at Level 4 of the capability Maturity Model of the software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon was clearly what enhanced our own belief on quality.....

The inauguration of the first education center in Mysore by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and second one by Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, the President of Indian National Congress, were both reaffirmations of our long held belief in the importance of education and research......

There have been some moments of great dilemmas and sadness too. Biding goodbye to perhaps the brightest co-founder colleagues in early in the journey was disheartening. Refusing to accept unreasonab

le terms and walking away from the business with a Fortune- 10 company was a test of our resolve. Accepting the resignation of a senior colleague and dealing with the instance where our code of ethics was jeopardized were tests of adherence to our values. Deliberating all alone on the resignation offer of a co-founder is not something I would wish even upon my enemy. Being accused of violating our own high standard of business ethics recently made me lose several nights of sleep. Occasional incidents of the organization turning bureaucratic, the inability of some to our leader to take quick and firm decision, and the government-company interface becoming less business- friendly from time to time are things that make me sad. But then, this tapestry of happy and not-so happy incidents is normal and keeps life exciting......

అవినీతిపై పోరు - ప్రవాస యువతా జోహారు !

2011-04-30T02:35:00.000-07:00

HIRING IN NON IT SECTORS SURGES !

2011-04-13T23:09:00.000-07:00

Hiring in non-IT sectors surges

By Kukil Bora, SiliconIndia

Thursday, 14 April 2011, 07:13 IST

Bangalore: The year 2010-11 has turned out to be a decade of selective hiring by the big ITgiants. An incredible figure of 1,14,038 was registered by the top 5 IT companies from the quarter March 31, 2010 to December 31, 2010, as compared to 47,462 additions in the previous year. According to consulting firm Deloitte, the Indian IT industrywill add over 2.25 lakh employees in 2011 and will clock revenues of $71.7 billion by the end of the year. However, non-IT sectors are also not legging behind in hiring activities.

India's net employment outlook, an indicator of recruitment intentions, rose to 51 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis for the three-month period starting April. The same stood at just 43 percent for the first three months of this year. According to leading job portal Naukri.com, hiring activities improved in most of the sectors in the first three months of 2011. Last month, hiring trends were most bullish in the auto sector, other than IT. Telecom, BPO and banking segments also saw improving recruitment activities.

Auto:

As per a report published in the Indian daily The Hindu, Indian auto industry is likely to increase its headcount by 50 lakh by 2012. The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India has said it will hire at least 2,300 people, mainly for its upcoming two new plants in Manesar within next two years. With induction of these people, the company's workforce will expand by about 27 percent to nearly 11,000 employees.

Tata's Jaguar Land Rover will be hiring 1,000 engineers this fiscal as it looks to scale up product development in its bid to close gap with global luxury car rivals. The company employs 18,000 people globally, and it plans to increase the employee count to more than 20,000 overall by 2012.

Two-wheeler maker Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) has also announced that it will hire about 1,500 people for its second plant at Tapukara in Rajasthan, which will commence operations from July-August this year.

BPO:

According to NASSCOM, Indian BPO industry will hire about 2.5 lakh personnel including 1.2 lakh campus recruits next fiscal year. Outsourcing firm Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS) said it will hire about 2,000 people in the next fiscal to ramp up its headcount to 22,000. The company currently has close to 20,000 employees. Apart from HGS, Global IT and BPO service provider HTC Global Services also plans to hire 3,000 people by next fiscal.

Healthcare:

According to Industry insiders, hiring in the pharmaceutical industry has grown by 11-12 percent last year and the bullish trend is likely to continue in 2011. With the consistent upward trend in the healthcare Industry there is huge demand for specialist doctors and experienced Nurses in the respective specialties.

Country's leading healthcare chain Apollo Hospital announced last year that it has plans to hire nearly 23,000 people in the next three-four years. Similarly, Wipro GE Healthcare also said towards the end of the last year that it will hire up to 600 people to enhance its marketing force in the next two years, as part of plans to clock revenue of $1 billion by 2015.

This is a great Beginning for Change in India - Youth are in the positive direction !

2011-04-09T21:39:00.000-07:00

Let us support - Shri Anna Hazare's Fight Against Corruption !

2011-04-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

Please support Shri Anna Hazare's FAST AGAINST CORRUPTION and please forward to all of your friends without fail.
See my post at my blog on the corruption.
See some more posts at My facebook
Please use the web for a social change whenever you can and see at Social Change with the Web

Social Change with the Web !

2011-03-31T00:44:00.001-07:00

Indian sarpanch dazzles at UN meet !

2011-03-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

Indian sarpanch dazzles at UN meet

United Nations: There was a sense of disbelief among ministers and ambassadors from diverse nations when the chairperson of the 11th Info-Poverty World Conference held at the United Nations introduced the jeans-clad Chhavi Rajawat as head of a village in India.

For, from a distance one could easily mistake Rajawat, an articulate, computer-savvy woman, for a frontline model or at least a Bollywood actress. But she is sarpanch of Soda village, 60km from Jaipur, in backward Rajasthan and the changing face of growing dynamic rural India.

The 30-year-old Rajawat, India's youngest and the only MBA to become a village head - the position mostly occupied by elders, quit her senior management position with Bharti-Tele Ventures of Airtel Group to serve her beloved villagers as sarpanch.

Rajawat participated in a panel discussion at the two-day meet at the UN on March 24 and 25 on how civil society can implement its actions and spoke on the role of civil society in fighting poverty and promoting development.

It is necessary to re-think through various strategies of action that includes new technologies like e-services in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in an era where resources have become limited, she told the delegates of the international conference.

"If India continues to make progress at the same pace as it has for the past 65 years since independence, it just won't be good enough. We'll be failing people who dream about having water, electricity, toilets, schools and jobs. I am convinced we can do it differently and do it faster.

"In the past year alone, I and the villagers in Soda have brought about a radical change in the village purely through our own efforts. We have had no outside support - no NGO help, no public, nor private sector help," she said . Please Read More

Poverty - India's 30 year report Card !

2011-03-28T21:07:00.000-07:00

An academic study over three decades indicates a disturbing trend in India - poverty is chronic and persistent.

It takes just common sense to see why some people remain poor while others climb out.
Now there is an academic study that maps this even more closely.

Two economist, Professor Aasha Kapur and Professor Shashanka Bhide, have analysed data collected by the National Council of Applied Economic Research over three decades.

First in the 70s, then in 80s and finally in late 90s, researchers went back to the same 3,000 odd families in 260 villages across the country to find out how they had fared.

What they found was deeply disturbing. Between 1971 and 1981, 52 per cent of the poor had remained poor.

While the number came down in the next two decades (1981-1998), at 38.6 per cent it was still alarmingly high. This confirms that in India, poverty is chronic, persistent and often unshakeable.

"There are people in parts of India who have lived in poverty themselves, whose parents are living in poverty and whose children are also going to inherit that poverty. Even though poverty has declined in aggregate at the national level, but the truth is there are people who have lived and are living in poverty. The issue is how do you track people's lives and understand poverty in that context," says Professor Aasha Kapur.

Drivers: What keeps people stuck in poverty?

High healthcare costs
Adverse market conditions
Loss of assets
High interest loans from moneylenders
Social expenses, deaths, marriages
Crop failure

Maintainers: What keeps people stuck in poverty?

Casual agricultural labour
Landless households
Illiterate households
Large households with more children

Interrupters: What helps escape from poverty?

More income earning opportunities
Proximity to urban areas
Improved infrastructure
Initial literacy status of household head
Income from physical assets: cropland, livestock, house

Another important finding of the study is that while more people among the Scheduled Castes have been able to escape poverty, fewer among scheduled tribes have been able to do so.

No wonder, remote tribal areas show up as India's hunger spots.

Also, please take a look at

India's 30 year Poverty Report

Urban Poverty Report

Rs 9,000 crore share transfer: The human story behind Premji's philanthropy !

2011-02-06T01:44:00.000-08:00

Courtesy : http://www.samachar.com/Rs-9K-cr-share-transfer-The-human-story-behind-Premjis-philanthropy-lcggLGgjhgj.html

Ever since Mr Premji announced the irrevocable transfer of shares worth Rs 9000 crores to an endowment, the sole purpose of which is to improve quality of education and development for the underprivileged and disadvantaged of this country, I have been asked hundreds of questions and have received even more messages of encouragement combined with a certain sense of thankfulness.

While this event, which some have called the largest act of philanthropy in India, has unfolded in a few days in the media headlines, I have had the privilege of living through and experiencing the evolution of the thought and commitment that led to this.

I thought it was important to share my experience not to lose sight of the human story behind this big action. The first human story is of the man who made this commitment.

Premji is immensely aware of the fact that over 70% people in our country have an income of less than Rs 60/$1.5 per day. While as a businessman he understands that business has to be run in a competitive manner, at a personal level he chooses to follow the Gandhian principle of waste not, want not.

It reflects in every part of his personal and work life. Even today, he drives himself with a gruelling ninety hour work week. The few vacations that he takes are to some small places in the interiors of our country. Given a choice, he would like to drive only an Indian made car.

Whether it is minimizing the electricity usage or eliminating use of paper napkins, these are all guided by a certain philosophy of frugality in life.

His journey in the development sector was neither accidental nor a part of the CSR fad that was emerging in the nineties. It began with a deeper personal discomfort with the social scene in the country. He was very disturbed with the growing inequities in India.

While the IT services business made a few lakh people richer, the plight of the majority in the country was not changing. He was concerned with the opulence of the rich projected in mass media and the deep divides being created between the haves and the have nots.

He decided to do something deep, something long term, something that would make a difference to the vast majority of underprivileged in India, to our society. He was not bothered about getting short term & quick wins despite being a super successful businessman he knew that the social space was very different and to do something genuine it needed time.

The route to contributing towards change for a better society was chosen to be education. He felt addressing higher education without addressing the quality of school education was not practical.

To understand what organizations working in this space were already doing, he made personal visits to actual scenes of work. He went to slums of Mumbai where a large NGO was doing a great job of initiating disadvantaged children to early childhood education.

He travelled to interiors of Andhra Pradesh to visit a bridge camp carried out by another large NGO to keep children away from child labour and to prepare them to fit into mainstream schools.

In that bridge camp, Premji was moved by the story of a 10-year-old girl who ran away from home when she was forced to marry an older man. When he invited questions from the children , one of the girls asked, “What can you do for children like us?” Pat came the commitment from Premji, “First I will ensure that we don’t employ child labour in any part of Wipro.”

Within a month of our return we made sure through a rigorous process that no child labour could be involved in any of the Wipro establishments, in any way (including vendors/contractors).

All this happened in the late 90s. In the year 2000, at a dinner at his residence, he introduced me to Jack Welch and told him how he was completely committed to improving education in India and how he was going to give a significant part of his wealth for the purpose.

Not too many know that he likes to eat the mid-day meal alongwith the children whenever he visits a school. To me the real thing is that he genuinely likes it, he doesn’t do it as a duty. His human story continues to evolve. The second human story is about the organisation that Premji created.

He did exactly what he is known for. Select good people - empower them and enable them to run the organization in a professional manner. The organization knew of several challenges of working with the government but he fully supported the conscious decision of partnering with the government because that was the only way to reach a large number of underprivileged children in schools.

We did not focus on creating islands of excellence but aimed at helping make fundamental changes in the existing system.

In the organization, we have attempted to combine the good things from all sectors: government , NGO and corporate. We do not subscribe to any particular ideology, but measure our actions only by whether what we do is constitutional , ethical and is in the interest of the children and the society.

How-and why-to teach innovation in our schoo ls

2011-02-04T21:09:00.000-08:00

Courtesy : http://www.eclassroomnews.com/2011/02/03/how-and-why-to-teach-innovation-in-our-schools/

How—and why—to teach innovation in our schools

Feb 3rd, 2011 and filed under News.

Classroom practices should change to encourage inquiry and innovation, the author writes.

It’s wonderful to hear President Obama call for a nationwide emphasis on innovation, but it raises an interesting challenge: Where will all those innovators come from? Currently, we are chasing testable competency in academic core skills. It is quite a different thing to try to educate future innovators. We don’t test for that.

An innovation curriculum requires an emphasis on what I am going to call, for lack of a preexisting term, the Five I’s: Imagination, Inquiry, Invention, Implementation, and Initiative (the latter being a foundational trait that enables the other four). Here is my take on how to teach each of the Five I’s of innovation in our schools.

Imagination

Day-dreaming is discouraged in most classrooms. If a student focuses on anything except the assignment or the teacher, it is a problem that needs to be fixed. Enter discipline. Exit imagination. There was, traditionally, a peripheral home for imagination in our schools in the ancillary arts instruction that has now fallen to the budget axe in so many schools. How can we teach imagination and nurture the imaginative and the innovators?

For starters, educators must learn the skills of creative expression. We are talking about a set of practices, not some magical thing that just happens without conscious effort. I spend a lot of time designing training programs and writing how-to guides to help adults engage their imaginations with their work. It’s a relatively simple matter for people like me who work in the field (and there are many of us) to design age-appropriate learning activities aimed at training the imagination. Nobody asks us to help out, so we don’t. It’s probably time to change that tradition. Combining creativity and invention experts with master teachers might produce some rapid breakthroughs in curriculum design.

Imagination needs fuel, and the best fuel comes from bridging between apparently diverse or unrelated ideas, skill-sets, or objects. Many–in fact, most–inventions are actually innovative combinations. To make such innovative combinations, the inventor must know about more than one domain. In fact, I would hazard the claim that all leading innovators share one interesting characteristic: they gained, early in life, a fair amount of mastery in at least two separate domains or fields. This dual focus gave them rich opportunities for creative combinations and fueled them to imagine outside of the two boxes in which they were trained. We need to stimulate imagination by encouraging students to master, say, an instrument plus a science, or any other such combination of skills. (And that, by the way, is I believe the strongest argument for why we must bring the arts back into our schools.)

Inquiry

Who asks the questions in classrooms today? If the teacher asks, or even frames, most of the questions, then our educational approach discourages inquiry and innovators. It’s pretty clear that teaching people to focus on the right answer has the unintended consequence of reducing their tendency to inquire broadly and curiously about things. Research and exploration are essential innovative behaviors. Students need to ask their own questions and then poke around in pursuit of possible answers. There has been a reduction, I think, in the amount of curious research students do, rather than an increase. And no, looking up an answer on Wikipedia does not qualify!

One fairly simple way to add curious inquiry is to incorporate a question-asking module into existing curricula. For example, after running a science activity, the teacher can pause and ask students to generate questions the activity prompts them to think of. Then the students can pursue answers to their questions.

Invention

Students need to be challenged to invent things more than once or twice in their school careers. A science fair or challenge to launch an egg safely from a tall building are great examples of student invention, but they are unusual instances. Invention must be woven into the learning routine. “Can you think of a better way to do this math problem?” and “Can you apply what we’ve just learned about how the ancient Egyptians moved stones to build pyramids in some modern-day invention of your own?” These are two examples of invention challenges that students should be tackling in their weekly learning routine. Most are not.

Implementation

Innovation is creativity, applied. At least, that’s a simple working definition of it, and it reminds us that a good idea doesn’t amount to anything unless it is translated into action. Students get remarkably little practice at implementing ideas. Implementation should be linked to some of the inventing students do (see above) so as to give them hands-on experience in the challenges of making ideas work. Usually ideas don’t work the first time you try. It takes refining the plan, learning from errors, and persisting. These skills, like imagining, inquiring, and inventing, are learned. Or not.

Initiative

Initiative may be the hardest of the Five I’s to teach, because it runs against the current of centralized classroom control. Students sit in desks and work on the same learning tasks, while the teacher runs activities from the front of the classroom. Efficient, yes, but is it inventive? No.

Think of the classroom as a miniature society, and apply the widely-accepted finding that “inventiveness is more likely to occur if a society is less hierarchical since bureaucracy reduces creative activity.” This is according to “Why do some societies invent more than others?” by Scott A. Shane of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, which appeared in the Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 7, Issue 1, January 1992, pages 29-46. Using patent filings as a measure, he found that individualistic and non-hierarchical societies were more inventive than other societies.

In individualistic, non-hierarchical contexts, people are more likely to take creative initiative. How can we stimulate and exercise creative initiative in our classrooms? Clearly there are some good answers already. Activity-based learning is a component of most curricula. Research projects are right on target. However, the bulk of the curriculum hours logged in most classrooms do not meet the kind of individualistic inquiry and project pursuit that qualifies as exercising the students’ initiative. The problem, of course, is dual:

Instructors need to be coaches and mentors during initiative-based learning, and they may lack the preparation to play these roles

The school needs to support the teachers as they guide students through the messy, individualistic process of learning how to be inventors, and this means appreciating the value of guided, enthusiastic decentralization of student work (a challenge to the value systems of many administrators), plus making more resources available to make sure the facilitation is there and students aren’t just fumbling complex projects that don’t get completed at a high level of competence.

Inventive behavior is more common among people who, as adults, exhibit high agency (sometimes called self-efficacy), which means they feel in control of things and able to make a difference. Agency is both a personality variable and a context-driven attitude. People have maximum agency when they grow up doing difficult things, sometimes successfully but always with support and encouragement from those who believe they can succeed.

How many inventors do we need?

When President Obama calls for us to be a nation of innovators, does he literally mean we all should rush to our drawing boards and start inventing things? Probably not. Inventiveness is a treasured national trait, and at a basic level, everyone ought to be able to solve problems and try new things without excessive fear of failure or change. However, the reality remains that economically important innovations (as well as socially and artistically important innovations) arise from a small minority of the population. We don’t all need to be Edisons. We do need to produce more Edisons. So, does it make sense to rethink our educational approach just to increase the quality and quantity of future innovators, even if they make up, say, no more than 5 percent of the average classroom today?

There is linkage between society and its innovators. An open-minded, inquiring society encourages and supports its leading innovators, while a closed-minded society shuts them down. There are many elements to this society-innovator linkage, not all of them fully understood, but here are a few that everyone probably can agree on:

Somebody’s got to consume the results those brilliant innovators produce. It takes open-minded customers to purchase early-stage innovations, and open-minded investors to fund them. All of society participates in the nurturing and implementation of good ideas. Put another way, no inventor is an island

The collective consciousness may be important to the quantity and quality of innovations. Historians often remark on the oddity of breakthroughs coming in clusters. If one person publishes a breakthrough book on evolution, for example, you can be sure that it appears in the letters of some of his contemporaries. Similarly, a perusal of the patent records shows that Edison was not the only person working on electric light bulbs. In fact, another inventor’s patent turns out to be the one most closely related to the form of incandescent light bulb generally in use today. It may be quite important to have many people thinking about a challenge at the same time. In fact, it may be essential.

For every inventor who comes up with a great new idea or design, there needs to be a large team of people working to develop and implement it. Whether in economic or other arenas, no idea is implemented without a lot of help. In a truly innovative society, I believe that almost everyone who isn’t a brilliant inventor is helping to refine and implement some good idea. Imagine our society as a baseball team. We need the home-run sluggers, to be sure, but we don’t need or expect them to make up the entire team. The rest of us play our roles in the innovation process, too, and we all need to be good at the game.

For these reasons, I believe it does make sense to raise a nation of innovators. Then there is the added problem of not knowing who will turn out to be our heavy-hitters of the future. So far, nobody has come up with a good way to identify the next Bill Gates from a cohort of third graders. However, we do know some general things about the personalities of innovators. Primarily, we know they rate higher than average on openness to experience, which is a broad personality trait that is made up of a varied mix of inquisitiveness, creativity, adventurousness, and intelligence. It can be measured in children, and remains fairly stable through life.

However, of the, say, 15 percent of elementary school students who measure high on this openness scale, only a handful will contribute major innovations to society in future years (although most will do something innovative, creative, intellectual, adventurous, or artistic). We are playing the numbers when we invest in innovators, rather as venture capital firms do when they invest in business plans, and we cannot expect more than a few percent of creative or innovative people to produce anything that is game-changing for our society. That’s okay; we need small innovations too, but the point is that it’s impractical to single out and educate future innovation leaders separately from everyone else.

We need classrooms that encourage and enable innovation in all students, and then we need the patience to help them mature. They will sort out who will do what in the future, and some of them will rise to the top of the innovation charts, while others will play more quiet, but equally important, roles.

Alexander Hiam designs curricula for workplace leadership training and has provided creative consultation and training to hundreds of workplaces. As a parent and citizen, he is interested in shifting the focus of innovation training to younger learners, instead of only doing remedial work with adults. Hiam has authored more than a dozen books, including Innovation For Dummies (Wiley, 2010) and earlier books such as The Manager’s Pocket Guide to Creativity and Closing the Quality Gap. He currently teaches in the Independent Concentration program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has taught for many years at the Isenberg School of Business there.

An inspirational Song !

2011-01-27T02:37:00.001-08:00

ఆది భిక్షువు వాడినేది కోరేది
బూడిదిచ్చేవాడినేది అడిగేది (అది భిక్షువు)
ఏది కోరేది వాడినేది అడిగేది(2)
తీపి రాగాల కోకిలమ్మకు
నల్ల రంగునలమిన వాడినేది కోరేది(2)
కరకు గర్జనల మేఘముల మేనికి
మెరుపు హంగు కూర్చిన
వాడినేది అడిగేది
ఏది కోరేది వాడినేది అడిగేది(2)
తేనెలొలికే పూల బాలలకు
మూన్నాళ్ళ ఆయువిచ్చిన వాడినేది కోరేది(2)
బండ రాళ్ళను చిరాయువుగ
జీవించమని
ఆనతిచ్చిన వాడినేది అడిగేది
ఏది కోరేది వాడినేది అడిగేది(2)
గిరిబాలతో తనకు కళ్యాణమొనరింప
దరిజేరు మన్మధుని మసి జేసినాడు
వాడినేది కోరేది
వర గర్వమున మూడు లోకాల పీడింప
తలపోయు దనుజులను కరుణించినాడు
వాడినేది అడిగేది
ముఖ ప్రీతీ కోరేటి ఉబ్బు శంకరుడు
వాడినేది కోరేది
ముక్కంటి ముక్కోపి
ముక్కంటి ముక్కోపి తిక్క శంకరుడు
ఏది కోరేది వాడినేది అడిగేది

India నల్ల ధనాన్ని ఎలా వెనక్కి తెస్తుంది ?

2011-01-26T02:30:00.000-08:00

A good news on the Republic Day especially to the poor and neglected sections of the Society (???). Let us hope the Government get back the money and use it for the right purpose and to alleviate the poverty in the country.

Courtesy : Eenadu paper Dt 26-Jan-2011

10 things about good bosses !

2011-01-20T20:33:00.000-08:00

By Kukil Bora, SiliconIndia
Friday, 21 January 2011, 05:24 IST

Bangalore: Do you like your boss? Let's be honest, a majority of employees will definitely come with a negative answer to this question. Yes, bosses are not always there to be liked. But is there any fun being a boss who is not respected or ineffective at managing staff? Of course not, so let's have a look at what it takes to be a good boss. Below are 10 things that bosses can do to guarantee that their subordinates and co-workers will respect them.

1. Praise the staff in public, correct them in private
Good bosses know it very well that praising and encouraging the staff is the key to have a positive atmosphere within the office and it helps to bring the best in them. If someone does something well, a good boss should recognize them for their efforts. People need to know when they are doing well and that they are appreciated. However, if someone is not doing so well, speak to them privately, instead of calling them out in front of a group.

2. Pay people what they are worth
While paying your staff, don't think you are losing in extra expense. Pay your staff what they're worth. While determining annual bonuses or profit-sharing for all employees, keep in mind that if you are paying them extra, you'll certainly gain in performance.

3. Allot responsibilities, not tasksIn order to attain professional growth, it is very important for the bosses that they give their employees responsibilities and not tasks. Dumping tasks on workers can never boost productivity. Bosses should always make sure that they hold people accountable.

4. Push, but back offSometimes employees want to be challenged to do their best, and if they like their work, they will strive to give that. Good bosses always keep in mind that. Therefore, like an ideal coach, the bosses should know when to push and when to back off in order to draw out the best from the team.

5. Empower the staff to take vital decisionsIf the boss has done well in training his staff, he must have firm belief in them that they are doing their best to act in the company's interest. What if they make a wrong decision? Not a big deal. Don't shout at them. Instead, take it as yet another training opportunity. Listen to their reasons and figure out the flaws.

6. Share experiences and insightsSharing experiences and giving insights is the best way a boss can make his employees learn. To be frank, they don't need a friend. What they need is a mentor who can teach them the best ways and at the same time shows enough generosity to share his own experiences.

7. Build team spiritIn any organization a good team spirit is always important for better performance. A great team can always do better than great individuals. Bosses should take suitable steps as to create and strengthen the team spirit among the employees.

8. Treat employees as they deserveAll employees should be respected and valued. But treating each and everyone as equals with same respect is not the right thing to do. Being a good boss, you should keep in mind that an employee must earn the respect he or she wants to be treated with.

9. Be open-minded and an effective listener

Someone in the team may come up with a new and different way of looking at a problem. You may not agree with that new idea, but first listen to that and make your people know that you are willing to hear out a new point of view. It will make people more responsible by making them feel that they are contributing to the project.

10. Don't play favourites

Human beings always like somebody better than others. It's natural. But this favouritism should not have any place in the office. Being a good boss, you should find common ground with every employee, regardless of employees' hometowns, ages or ethnicities.

Top 10 websites that changed the world !

2011-01-19T02:25:00.000-08:00

Silicon India,Bangalore: Ever since the internet came into our lives, we have come across many websites in one way or the other that have influenced us a lot. They have such a deep mark in our day to day life that we can't even think of a world where they don't exist. By changing our perspective towards anything we see, these websites have made such a huge impact that they have changed the world forever. Listing here are the top 10 websites among them.

1. Google:

Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998 as an advertising company, Google today commands the largest internet search engine in the world. It has turned out to be a gigantic empire and is branching out into parts like email, news, price comparison (Froogle), cartography (Google Maps), literature (with Google Book Search), free telephony (Google Talk), and Google Earth, an incredibly detailed virtual globe. So far it has been able to have such an impact over people that its name is listed as a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary. To be honest, there is nothing much to say about Google. Google speaks for itself.

2. Wikipedia:

When Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia in 2001, he hardly thought that his creation will one day be considered as one of the most trust-worthy sources of information. What has made this free online encyclopaedia such a big success is that, it is open to everyone to read, and also to edit. Its 17 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site. Today, Wikipedia is attracting 2,000-plus page requests a second.

3. Facebook:Who thought that a site to connect students of a university with each other will become a tool that every internet user uses? But this is the story of Facebook, the most popular social networking site today. Facebook was was co-founded as a private company in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and classmates Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, and Chris Hughes. With its dynamic development system, almost any application is possible. Facebook therefor has many interesting features like Connect, the Facebook Developer Platform, Facebook Chat and so on.

4. Twitter:
Ever since its launch in July 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter has gained tremendous popularity worldwide and currently has over 175 million users globally. Who is not on Twitter today? Starting from celebrities, to politicians to scientists, everyone has a twitter account and sending and reading messages called tweets. It is estimated that Twitter is generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 800,000 search queries per day. Most businesses have twitter accounts as well to be more interactive.

5. Yahoo!:Started as a hobby by two Stanford University graduates Jerry Yang and David Filo in 1994, Yahoo! today is considered as one of the most visited and popular websites on the internet. On the back of its early success, Yahoo! branched out into email, instant messaging, news, gaming, online shopping and an array of other services. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine (Yahoo! Search), Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, advertising, online mapping (Yahoo! Maps), video sharing (Yahoo! Video), and social media websites and services. Although eclipsed by Google, Yahoo! still has its own image among the internet users.

6. YouTube:Launched in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim as a user-friendly site to upload and share videos, YouTube has become one of the most popular sites on the net today, with claiming that 100 million clips are watched every day. Starting from homemade video clips to long-lost TV and film gems, YouTube is a place where people can upload and share videos. It has also taken off as a place for amateur film-makers to show off their talents

7. MySpace:Owned by News Corporation, this California-based social networking site became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006. Although it was overtaken internationally by its main competitor, Facebook, in 2008, based on monthly unique visitors, MySpace is too effective and ubiquitous to ignore. As of June 2010, the social networking site has 66 million users all over the world. One of its interesting features is the ability to upload and listen to music, which has attracted 2.2 million new bands and artists to the site.

8. ebayebay was the website that brought the concept of online shopping and bidding industry for the first time. Ever since its launch in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar and Michael Dean Johnson, ebay has turned out to be a huge shopping mall where people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. It is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries.

9. WikiLeaks:The recent controversy associated with it and its founder Julian Assange has created a big hype and has attracted attention of the whole world. The website may not that big yet, but the impact that it had on the world is shocking. The website has faced criticism from various governmental and non- governmental organizations, but the fact that makes it so influential is that this site gives you proof and the truth.

10. Amazon:Starting with an office in a Seattle suburb with desks made out of old doors, Amazon today is the largest online retailer in the U.S. Founded by Jeff Bezos as an online bookstore in 1994, Amazon.com soon diversified, selling DVDs, CDs, MP3 downloads, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, and toys. Amazon's continued dominance rests on price-slashing which has made it one of the biggest online shopping centers with new and old items available to the users at a simple click of a button.

Social media manners? Don't ignore them !

2011-01-12T20:22:00.000-08:00

Bangalore: "I m feeeeling sooo saad :(", "I love Tom Cruise", "Looking for the best insurance policy? Contact me" - If you have ever updated your status on Facebook, Twitter or any social media site like this, you are not in the right track in terms of following manners in social media platforms. Yes, social networking sites are open and friendly, but there are and have to be certain etiquette that need to be followed by those who have an online presence. Of course, the manners you follow define you. Below are five vital social media manners that will help you avoid being a social media jerk.

Constant self-promotion is a big no no
Writing about yourself in a regular basis while updating your status may irritate others. And surely it won't be helpful for you in creating a good impression. No doubt how effective social media can be as a powerful marketing tool, but constant twitting about how great your company is, will not going to help you always. Above all, social media is about building relationships, rests come last.

Avoid posting useless information and photos
As the network of people over social media sites is growing, so is the constant chatter of people posting useless information. Many a times, people tend to post embarrassing moments and remarks that reflect badly on the sender and debase any future messages they may send out. If you are in Twitter, decide whom to follow and what to tweet. Don't auto-follow. Don't auto-tweet. Social media is about genuine conversation, not auto generated conversation. While uploading photos of others, it's always better to ask for permission. The photos you upload should not hurt other's sentiment.

Adding people to boost your number? Don't do that
Engagement is the true measure of social media success. But it doesn't mean that you add people blindly. Most of the time people don't like to see "friend requests" from someone they don't know. While on Twitter, keep your followers as a matter of choice. Adding as many people as you find will harm you more than doing good.

"Please" and "Thank You" - They really work
When you are sending any request to somebody, do send a personal note in a polite manner that includes information about why you have made the request. If the receiver is somebody who doesn't know you, tell him or her who you are. In case any people help you out, do thank them. It will help to strengthen your networking. It's always good for you to be gracious. You may have come across some rude comments at times, and you would definitely love to lash out at those. But you must resist that temptation, if you don't, it will only bring you down to the same level. Quite often people do not intend for the comment to be rude, so be cool and try to maintain a professional and open demeanor.

Venting your emotions publicly
Avoid expressing your emotions on social networking sites as they are open and public. The impression your emotions can leave on people could be negative and long lasting and sometimes lead to unwanted consequences. Recently, a public school teacher in U.S. lost her job, when she got angry with her students and posted it in her facebook wall. Obviously, you don't want to be in such a situation.

సేవకుడు కాని వాడు నాయకుడు కాలేడు !

2011-01-11T22:07:00.000-08:00

My faith is in the younger generation, the modern generation, out of them will come my workers. They will work out the whole problem, like lions. I have formulated the idea and have given my life to them. They will spread from centre to centre, until we have covered the whole of India. - Swami Vivekananda.

10 ways to make your office green !

2011-01-11T19:44:00.000-08:00

Bangalore: Everyone loves to be in an eco-friendly environment and with this spirit of going green; most of us have taken various environment-friendly steps at home. But what about doing the same at work? Taking the steps to greening your office doesn't have to cost you much. There are very simple changes that can make your work-place a better to place to be in. Check out 10 easy steps to green your office.

Use recyclable office papers

Wastage paper in offices is one of the main issues which need to be eradicated. Recycled versions of paper, envelopes, pads, post-it notes are available these days. You can buy recycled paper made from a high percentage of post-consumer recycled content.

Use of soy-based ink

Ink made from soybeans is better for the environment. It has lower levels of volatile organic compounds than ink made from petroleum. Apart from this, it makes paper easier to recycle because it's easier to remove in the de-inking process. Another key aspect of soy-based ink is that it produces brighter and sharper colors.

Use laptops instead of desktops

Compared to desktops, laptops consume less energy. Laptops run on just a third of the energy used by a desktop PC. Compared to desktop computers the components in laptops are smaller and more efficient - requiring less electricity to run and are therefore responsible for less CO2 emissions.

Monitor lighting usage

It's very important to cut down on unnecessary use of lighting in order to save electricity. Here replacing tungsten bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps can be a better option as they consume 20 percent less energy. It can also make an immediate cost savings of between 50-80 percent as well.

Put your computer and equipment on a power strip

There are many devices that consume electricity even when they are not in use. Putting a power strip between the outlet and your equipment can be very useful here as it helps you fully shut off anything that doesn't need to be running.

Turn off devices

Turn off the lights and all electrical appliances when not in use or when you are leaving office. You must set computers and other equipment to go to sleep after a period of inactivity or turn them completely off. IBM estimates it saved $17.8 million worldwide in 1991 alone by encouraging employees to turn off equipment and lights when not needed.

Go for green power

There are many utility companies that offer a renewable power option for a small increase in price. If you can make a much larger investment, you can go for installing solar panels or solar hot water at your office.

Ditch the bottled water habit

The longer you have that bottle, the more likely it is to leach gross chemicals into your water. Moreover, offices are major offenders in terms of throwing plastic water bottles. A good way out is to get a filter, and have everyone use a ceramic or glass cup.

Do away with vending machine waste

No matter how useful a coffee-making vending machine is, it is not at all good for the environment. It produces a lot of waste. If the office vending machine dispenses its own cups, it is essential to make sure they are recyclable. Apart from this, these machines use more energy than is needed to perform the task.

A green office coordinator

Assigning someone whose sole job is to keep track of office recycling and energy use would be very helpful for the attempt to make the office environment-friendly. Paying somebody to look into such matters may sound irrelevant to many, but it will worth it when you get your utility bill.

Indians who sacrificed all to make their employees, slums IT-Skilled !

2011-01-10T20:51:00.000-08:00

Bangalore: When was the last time you heard an employee being fired because of non-performance? It's an everyday issue. Now, when was the last time you heard an employer selling his own property to ensure that the employees he fired are empowered with the skills they lack? That's exactly what Mohammed Yusuf Attar did. Commonly known as 'Prof. Yusuf Attar' of Synolog Systems, a distributor and supplier of computer electronics, today, Yusuf selects and enrolls slum people to make them IT skilled - a skill which has become the new norm for any career.

The real phase behind this generous act dates back to 2002, when Prof. Yusuf and his partner Shaikh Imran Salim established Synolog Systems. "After a point of time, we went hunting for professionals in the IT institutes found a bunch of them to work for us. All of them were had 12 to 18 months Diploma Certificate. Gradually, we realized their performance is unsatisfactory and even the feedbacks from clients began to deteriorate. That was the time when we thought of firing all of them and shut the company for some time," says Prof. Yusuf. The decision did not satisfy them. "It's an increase in unemployment. How would this bunch of kids really make it to other companies?" is the only thought that disturbed the two partners. And right at the next moment, they were up with an audio-visual tool to ensure their ex-employees are in the industry with the right skills.

The unskilled employees were roped in, Diploma courses in Computer Engineering and in Basic computer application were introduced - all for free under the banner of SIIT (Synolog Institute of Information Technology). Gradually, they expanded their reach to under-privileged slum-kids in schools and orphanages. Though it's free for the society, but the two partners did have to bear the cost, which went upto 22,500 per student for a single 10-month course. It took a toll on Yusuf and Shaikh to an extent that they had to invest their own savings and even put across their properties on sale. Did this deter them? No. Infact, they expanded it to educate more from the masses. They explored 10 schools, wherein they scanned 2893 students and finalized on 223 pupils. "Not everyone has a poor background and our course is meant to uplift the underprivileged," says Yusuf. Till date approximately 925 students had benefited from their free computer education program and many among them are employed with companies like SkyTronics, Sai Sales Infotech, QLC, Accura Infotech, Radiant Technologies, Printrade Issues, Abhinav Technical Institute, Entrosys Computers, SHN Solutions, YAS Technologies and ICON System.

But such societal acts, unless is all the time boasted with different marketing tactics, hardly gets noticed. And only after six years of continuous struggle, Yusuf and his team has finally got the attention of Aishabai & Haji Abdul Latif Charitable Trust and South Bombay Charitable Trust, who helped them with a better premise and some amount of monetary support. Yusuf is quite clear on his intentions - to make all the slum kids of Mumbai IT skilled. "In India, the highest number of slums exist in Mumbai, but there's hardly any interest on this part of the society. We are primarily concentrated on the slums in Govandi, Colaba, Wadala, Bandra, Khar, Jogeshwari and Worli," Yusuf maintains. He concludes with a remark that guides every humble man - "Just do your work without any expectations, as God sees it all"

On Lord Buddha - Speech by Swami Vivekananda !

2011-01-09T05:23:00.000-08:00

In every religion we find one type of self-devotion particularly developed. The type of working without a motive is most highly developed in Buddhism. Do not mistake Buddhism and Brâhminism. In this country you are very apt to do so. Buddhism is one of our sects. It was founded by a great man called Gautama, who became disgusted at the eternal metaphysical discussions of his day, and the cumbrous rituals, and more especially with the caste system. Some people say that we are born to a certain state, and therefore we are superior to others who are not thus born. He was also against the tremendous priestcraft. He preached a religion in which there was no motive power, and was perfectly agnostic about metaphysics or theories about God. He was often asked if there was a God, and he answered, he did not know. When asked about right conduct, he would reply, "Do good and be good." There came five Brâhmins, who asked him to settle their discussion. One said, "Sir, my book says that God is such and such, and that this is the way to come to God." Another said, "That is wrong, for my book says such and such, and this is the way to come to God"; and so the others. He listened calmly to all of them, and then asked them one by one, "Does any one of your books say that God becomes angry, that He ever injures anyone, that He is impure?" "No, Sir, they all teach that God is pure and good." "Then, my friends, why do you not become pure and good first, that you may know what God is?"

Of course I do not endorse all his philosophy. I want a good deal of metaphysics, for myself. I entirely differ in many respects, but, because I differ, is that any reason why I should not see the beauty of the man? He was the only man who was bereft of all motive power. There were other great men who all said they were the Incarnations of God Himself, and that those who would believe in them would go to heaven. But what did Buddha say with his dying breath? "None can help you; help yourself; work out your own salvation." He said about himself, "Buddha is the name of infinite knowledge, infinite as the sky; I, Gautama, have reached that state; you will all reach that too if you struggle for it." Bereft of all motive power, he did not want to go to heaven, did not want money; he gave up his throne and everything else and went about begging his bread through the streets of India, preaching for the good of men and animals with a heart as wide as the ocean.

He was the only man who was ever ready to give up his life for animals to stop a sacrifice. He once said to a king, "If the sacrifice of a lamb helps you to go to heaven, sacrificing a man will help you better; so sacrifice me." The king was astonished. And yet this man was without any motive power. He stands as the perfection of the active type, and the very height to which he attained shows that through the power of work we can also attain to the highest spirituality.

To many the path becomes easier if they believe in God. But the life of Buddha shows that even a man who does not believe in God, has no metaphysics, belongs to no sect, and does not go to any church, or temple, and is a confessed materialist, even he can attain to the highest. We have no right to judge him. I wish I had one infinitesimal part of Buddha's heart. Buddha may or may not have believed in God; that does not matter to me. He reached the same state of perfection to which others come by Bhakti — love of God — Yoga, or Jnâna. Perfection does not come from belief or faith. Talk does not count for anything. Parrots can do that. Perfection comes through the disinterested performance of action.

10 worst office manners which irritate bosses !

2011-01-06T02:47:00.000-08:00

Bangalore: Most of the time it is the (poor?) employees who are seen unhappy with their bosses, sometimes bosses start smirking in their nightmares. But being an employee, have you ever thought that some of your irritating manners might also be the source of strife for your boss as well?

The boss-employee story has two sides. While one side tells about the bitter experiences of the employees with their bosses, the other side says that the employees are not the only ones having a beef about their bosses. Bosses too get sick of their employees at times. We at SiliconIndia did a survey to know what the boss's biggest complaints about staff are. Listing the Top 10 peeves below:

Arrive late and leave early:

If you one of those who arrive late at the last second, but leave early or first at the end of the day, you're not certainly in your boss's good book. It'll only show your disinterest in your job which your boss doesn't like.

Abuse of sick leave:

You are sick and taking leave, that's fine. You are not sick, but you are taking leave telling that you are sick - a really annoying thing that your boss simply hates. As per recent studies, one out of three employees who calls in sick really isn't. About 32 percent of U.S. employees called in sick when they really weren't in 2009, as per CareerBuilder's annual absenteeism survey of 4,700 workers.

Intolerable cell phone behavior:

You are in a meeting and your cell phone rings again and again. It can be the major contributor to your boss's dislike towards you. Adding to it, receiving multiple phone calls at work is never appropriate. Bosses also hate employees peeping on their cell phones while at work.

Not communicating things properly:

Proper communication between the bosses and employees is the key to success for every organization. Employees should have good communicating skills otherwise chances are there for the boss to get irritated. If you are not able to complete your task within the deadline, rather than ignoring your bosses reminder mails communicate the reason why you are not able to meet the deadline.

Lousy table manners:

Bosses obviously develop a dislike to those employees who display poor table manners during a luncheon meeting with a client. Always be very careful while you are in a meeting as a lousy table can cause embarrassment in front of your clients.

Over eagerness:

Bosses don't like those employees who are overeager. Very often people think that by showing over eagerness they can attract their boss's attention and can impress them with their new ideas. But on the contrary it is likely to generate disliking in their boss's mind towards them.

Unreliable:

Employees who say one thing, but end up doing the other and those who cannot complete the assigned task and give excuses are certainly not in their boss's good book. Very often they create headaches for bosses.

Argumentative to the boss:

If you think you should argue for your right with your boss, think twice. This could be a good incentive for disliking you. Even arguing with your co-workers can also create trouble for you. Being argumentative is a big no-no.

Clumsy appearance:

Always maintain a good hygiene while coming to office. Dress up yourself properly. Bosses don't like those employees who don't maintain proper hygiene.

Talk about personal problems:

Bosses tend to hate employees talking endlessly about their person problems to them or even to the co-workers. Stop doing that or it will create disliking in your boss's mind towards you.

Is employee hunting a challenge to Indian IT firms?

2011-01-04T01:52:00.000-08:00

Bangalore: The Indian IT firms are switching over the economic slowdown to robust recruitment mode. The top three companies like Infy, TCS and Wipro are all set to hire about 100,000 people in 2011, which is much higher than the 20,000 people they hired last year.

But the fact is that majority of the Indian companies find it challenging to get the right talent at the right time. Attrition is one of the major challenge and In September quarter alone TCS saw a 14.1 percent of attrition.
Majority of the HR managers agreed to the fact that employee hiring in the country is going through a tough time especially in hiring IT workers. Around 53 percent of them find it difficult to get the right candidates. 16 percent of the firms still find it difficult to offer a competitive salary.

Other reasons cited by the HR managers are the longer hiring cycles due to the inability to find the qualifications and skill sets required. Unemployment still remains as a major concern for the country in turn its difficult to finding local talent too. Majority of the skilled workforce are centered in certain cities and the rest of the region remain unnoticed.

In the midst of huge job opportunities majority of the youth remain unemployed. What may be the reason? The employers are trying to catch the highly skilled manpower but will they be satisfied in their hiring is something we have to wait and watch.

Top 5 non-techie skills on demand in IT industry !

2011-01-04T01:51:00.000-08:00

Bangalore: Information Technology Industry - a synonym for day to day growth and vivid sheaths of technical structure and management -- a mesmerizing world of huge data, vast chunk of employees, global players and magnificent tech parks. And there is one more feature to add to the list -- the non-IT skills which has been guiding and doing the touch up of this huge Industry and its undated manpower. The need for non-IT professionals of various expertises is expanding proportionately with the IT labor of the industry which is recharging itself from the lethargy of a global dip.

Today enterprises are identifying the need for installing extra workforce into non-IT skills in order to lubricate the gears which ensure the smooth running of the firms. So what are the slots where employees with non-technical skills fit in? Here is a look into top five of them:

Recruitment Specialists - With a global recession breezing past, hiring in IT industry is gaining momentum with IT giants hiring large number of freshers. And this time they are doing it slowly and carefully. As hiring increased, they have increased the number of recruiters, in an initiative to make the process foolproof. Some companies are bringing in more recruiting staffs with an objective of broadening the recruitment process for the coming years too.

English Language Trainers - We talked about the increased hiring rates in IT firms and to add to the fact, a major portion of the freshers or employees who get hired are from Tier 2 cities. Expertise in English language along with the desired technical savvy is a luxury to be expected from these employees at times. Since English language is inevitable in the course of an IT professional's job, English Language trainers have gained importance in the recent past. Many enterprises are bringing in a number of language trainers who also get paid well in due course.

Data Accuracy Verifiers - As the aftermath of 9/11 and other terrorist activities as well as the growing fraudulent activities in the corporate sector, background screening has gained wide importance. Fake certificates and experience certifications continue to bother companies especially while dealing with clients with sensitive data. Hence the IT industry either directly or indirectly employees thousands of data accuracy verifiers. As hiring increases the need for such professionals has also firmed up. These jobs are mainly filled in by graduates of any stream.

Foreign Language Specialists - Recession had stripped out such vacancies but as the recovery set in, there is a demand for foreign language specialist. Such professionals are hired not as translators in conferences or client meetings. In countries like Japan, Russia and Germany, writing the commands for applications/systems in local language is an imperative. In some cases, foreign language specialists are hired as Business analysts and Technical writers for writing manuals/communication documents in local languages.

Technical Writers - Technical writing or Technical communication is all about communicating an idea to particular readers in an easily understandable way. The field is gaining more importance in this current period of fast technological advancement. Companies need the help of a Technical writer or Technical communication professional, in order to translate or explain the technical usage of their products in simple language so that even a common man who could not understand the technical words and language could figure out the advantages or the operation of their products or services. In short, Technical writers specialize in writing technology for non-technical persons and finds a major scope in IT scenario today.

2011: India is new destination for job seekers !

2010-12-16T16:36:00.000-08:00

Bangalore: Next year new destination for job seekers would be in India. India has pulled ahead of China with a whopping 42 percent net hiring outlook for the first quarter of 2011. China follows close behind at 40 percent, a 2 percent decrease from last quarter. Taiwan comes in third, with a net employment outlook of 37 percent.

Next in line, after Brazil, Turkey, at 27 percent. "There are 75 million people in Turkey," Joerres notes, "more than people realize". And so, despite a lingering debt overhang, there are plenty of consumers buying stuff and driving growth and hiring. Next up after Turkey, Singapore, with a net hiring outlook of 26 percent for the first quarter.

54 percent Indians paid bribe last year in 2009 !

2010-12-09T23:12:00.000-08:00

54 percent Indians paid bribe last year

Berlin: One person in four worldwide paid bribe during the past year while 54 percent Indians say they greased the palms of authorities to get things done, says a study released today to mark International Anti-Corruption Day.

"Corruption has increased over the last three years, say six out of 10 people around the world, and one in four people report paying bribes in the last year," the Berlin-based non- governmental agency, Transparency International (TI), said.

The police are named the most frequent recipient of bribes, according to those surveyed, with 29 percent of those who had contact with the police reporting that they paid bribe.

The biggest number of reported bribery payments in 2010 is in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Cameroon, India, Iraq, Liberia, Nigeria, Palestine, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Uganda where more than 50 percent of people surveyed paid bribe in the past 12 months.

In India, 54 percent of users of services said they paid bribe to receive attention from service providers.

Almost half of all respondents say they paid bribes to avoid problems with the authorities and a quarter say it was to speed up processes.

Most worrying is the fact that bribes to the police have almost doubled since 2006, and more people report paying bribes to the judiciary and for registry and permit services than they did so five years ago, TI said.

Worldwide, sub-Saharan Africa was the region reporting the greatest incidence of bribery with more than one person in two saying they had made such payments to officials in the past 12 months.

The Middle East and North Africa was the next most corrupt regions with 36 percent of people there reporting having paid bribes.

This compared to 32 percent in the former Soviet republics, 23 percent in South America, 19 percent in the Balkans and Turkey, 11 percent in the Asia-Pacific region and five percent in the European Union and North America.

The United Nations established International Anti-Corruption Day in 2003 to raise awareness of graft and promote the global fight against it.

Look East for Economic ’Super-Cycle’ !

2010-11-20T19:29:00.000-08:00

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Look East for Economic ’Super-Cycle’

While Ireland hovers on the brink of a bailout, Greece spells out yet more cuts and Portugal lurks in the wings of the euro-crisis drama, it takes a degree of chutzpah for a European institution to proclaim that "The world is in a super-cycle once again."

But, however gloomy it currently feels in the West, there is no denying that the world is going through "a period of historically high global growth," and if that should last for a generation or more, as this one seems set to do, then that would probably constitute a super-cycle in any economist’s book.

Standard Chartered is the bank that has just produced a hefty tome documenting the scope of this phenomenon. The reason why it feels able to produce such an upbeat study at a time when Europe is beset by difficulties is perhaps not unconnected with the fact that this is a bank that has deliberately concentrated its efforts elsewhere in the world. For unlike the previous two super-cycles which it describes—the first from 1870 to 1913 and the second from 1945 until 1973—the current one is led by Asia.

That fact will hardly be a cause for surprise, given the excitement already occasioned by the rise of the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China. Nevertheless, the speed at which Standard Chartered sees this cycle racing is remarkable, for it believes that by 2020 China will have overtaken the U.S. as the world’s largest economy, significantly ahead of most projections.

This is not to underestimate the pace of progress in India: By 2030, the report estimates that Mumbai and Delhi will be established as two of the largest five global cities.

While the previous two super-cycles were restricted to the West, and the beneficiaries were a small proportion of the world population, this time round, the effects could benefit as many as 85% of the global populace. The good news for those currently contemplating the economic ills of their home territory is that the massive increase in world trade that is currently under way and set to gather steam should benefit the West.

Peter Sands, the Standard Chartered chief executive, recently returned from the business summit that ran alongside the G-20 meeting in Seoul, is optimistic about the potential benefits for some developed nations in this changing world balance. Over the 20 years to 2030, the report estimates that the 27 countries currently in the EU will average annual growth of 2.5%. China, however, is put at 6.9%, with India achieving 9.3%. Those rates will mean that the relative shares of global GDP change dramatically, with the EU almost halving, to 14% from 27%, India growing to 10% from 2% and China soaring to 24% from 9%.

The overall cake, however, will have grown and the best of the West should be able to take full advantage of the potential new opportunities. But Mr Sands’ message is that businesses that want to sell, particularly to China and to India, have to realize that "This isn’t a sprint. Relationships in these territories are built up over a long time."

That is particularly true for the financial sector. No wonder that Standard Chartered can look at the mushrooming demand for financial services in these regions and feel optimistic about the future. Prudential’s plan to buy AIG in Asia, aimed at capitalizing on just that market but thwarted by its investors, may yet be seen as one of the big lost opportunities for a U.K.-based business to enjoy the fruits of this super-cycle.

The dramatic change in the shape of the world by 2030 is illustrated in a graphic showing the growth in the middle class in the next 20 years. That of Asia Pacific expands to the extent that it way exceeds that of the rest of the world. Sheer scale of population becomes one of the main driving forces as education and innovation enable that work force to generate wealth.

There will be hiccups along the way. Although Mr Sands is confident that China’s growth will be genuine, not like the bubble-driven expansion that has characterized the past few years in the West, he accepts that growth on the scale now being experienced in Asia will "create froth" along the way. He believes, though, that the underlying growth will be solid and lasting.

While China will be the biggest beneficiary of this super-cycle, the potential benefits for parts of Africa are possibly being underestimated. China is, somewhat controversially, already gathering up vast tracts of the continent’s natural resources and Standard Chartered’s own profits from the region have been growing significantly over the past year. But while Nigeria and Mozambique, for instance, appear to have bright prospects, the social problems that still dog so much of the region will continue to limit growth.

Such drastic changes as there are set to be in the relative wealth of the world will bring problems. Mr Sands acknowledges that "Such a polarized growth dynamic creates quite a difficult political dynamic." Some of the language that has recently been heard on the subject of currency exchange rates may just be the early vestiges of that and cries for protectionism may get louder.

But the trend east is under way and has unstoppable momentum. The challenge for the West is to find the most effective means of benefitting from it. That means first putting in the groundwork, however painful, to strengthen their own economies while endeavouring to equip their businesses to compete for in these rapidly growing markets.

As the report points out, the literacy rate in China is now almost 100%, a boast that the U.K. would be hard-pressed to make with any confidence.

Sai Padma - A great example for courage and service !

2010-11-11T00:08:00.001-08:00

Wanted: Corporate honchos for nation building !

2010-10-15T00:39:00.000-07:00

Wanted: Corporate honchos for nation building

Bangalore: The question whether our political system is prepared for businessmen being inducted directly into government remains to be answered. Ever since Indian independence, many political leaders have initiated improved participation of corporate leaders in the decision making process of the country by placing them in charge of key government divisions. Although many failed to prove their corporate excellence in governance, India's overall economic prosperity, in many ways, is indebted to them. Nation building now mainly depends on the corporate honchos who are willing to render their service.

Jawaharlal Nehru had prominent businessmen like T.T. Krishnamachari, Shanmukham Chetty and John Mathai in his cabinet occupying key positions. Later, Rajiv Gandhi also had many excellent minds from the IT industry like Arun Nehru, Sam Pitroda and Arun Singh. They all had to part ways with the government due to difference in opinions.

Now as time went by, the political and corporate scenario of the country has changed. Politicians acknowledge the need for involvement of educated and successful business leaders in the development of the country and such leaders are willing to contribute their service for the country as well.

Sam Pitroda has been called back in 2005 and was first appointed as the Chairman of the National Knowledge Commission and then as the Advisor to PM on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations.

Manmohan Singh inducted Arun Maira who is the Chairman of Boston Consulting Group as a member of the Planning Commission. Arun quit the board membership of Patni Computers before joining the Commission. He also has served Tata Administrative Services for 25 years.

Shailesh Gandhi, who has been running a successful packaging firm with more than 500 employees and a clientele that included many blue-chips, had sold off his business to become a Right-to-Information activist. Few years down the line, he has been appointed as the Central Information Commissioner.

Military veteran Raghu Raman, CEO of Mahindra Defence Land Systems, a Mahindra-British Aerospace joint venture was appointed as the Mission Head, National Intelligence Grid. The government hopes that his experience both in military services and industry can be used for smooth flow of information among official agencies.

Nandan Nilekani, the former CEO of Infosys has been appointed as the Chairman of India?s ambitious UID project. He has assembled an elite group of software engineers, tech-savvy bureaucrats and biometric experts to run the show. Srikanth Nadhamuni, an engineer with 16 years of work experience with firms such as Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics and Intel, heads the unique ID technology team. Nandan?s team also includes Pramod Varma, an Infosys alumnus and V.P. Research & Chief Technology Architect at Sterling Commerce; R.S. Sharma, a bureaucrat; Wyly Wade, a World Bank consultant and Salil Prabhakar, a fingerprints specialist. Hundreds of techies with the leading IT firms have volunteered to be a part of the project.

The dream of inclusive growth can be realized only with the brilliant minds in the corporate world. The political culture has to reshape itself to accept the innovative ideas of the youth. The technological intelligence of the young workforce should be utilized aptly to make India a superpower in the next decade. If done so, then the days are not too far when the decision making body of our country will be a combination of people with political administrative expertise and corporate intelligence.

India to see Highest Employee Churn !

2010-10-13T22:23:00.000-07:00

Confident of getting another job, Indian employees are more prone to switch employers compared to others in the world, says a global work monitor survey.

Amongst the 25 countries surveyed in the Ma Foi Workmonitor survey, India has the highest index of 141, meaning that the maximum employee churn across the globe will be in India, which is followed by China and Mexico.

The mobility index is based on employees responses to two questions about their intent to change jobs. The first question was about changing the current employer for a comparable job in the next six months. The second question was about changing the current employer for a different job/profession in the next six months.

The Ma Foi Randstad Workmonitor is a quarterly review of "mental mobility status" of employees, their readiness to change jobs. The survey was conducted amongst workers in countries in Europe, Asia Pacific and the Americas.

The survey also found that Indian employees developed better during the economic crisis by working differently, revealing their innovative streak. The economic crisis was a developmental opportunity to most Indians, which is much higher than what the Chinese said with a score of 64 percent.

However, more employees in China went through a structured training programme through their employer during the past year (71 percent) compared to those in India (61 percent).

This finding suggests that Indian employees used the downturn better than their Chinese counterparts to explore innovative methods for accomplishing their jobs and hence growing professionally.

Eight out of 10 Indian employees surveyed said they would move to another organisation that promises faster and better development.

According to K. Pandia Rajan, Chief Executive, Ma Foi Randstad (India and Sri Lanka), the survey, though shows an increase in the mobility and a focus on promotion in the workforce, brings out the fact that employees would be satisfied with organisations that are better equipped to handle their developmental plans.

5 New Ways to Get Hired !

2010-10-13T22:08:00.001-07:00

Hoboken: Today's job market has become very competitive as so many highly qualified people are vying for the same job openings. The competition has reached such a level that job search techniques of yesterday like searching the want ads and sending out resumes are no longer capable of serving the purpose. Here are the five creative ways suggested by Jim Kukral in his book "Attention! This Book Will Make You Money: How to Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue" that can help you to attract employers' attention and to get hired.

1) Ramp up your resume:

At the first place, Kukral suggests to ramp up the resumes. He says that employers get lots of resumes to look through. Therefore, a candidate for the job must do something special to make his resume look unique from the others.

2) Try Facebook advertising:

Kukral suggests to try Facebook advertising as it is a useful means of networking professionally as well. Many companies have Facebook pages allowing people to make contact with their employees. Facebook also offers an advertising service that allows people to create their own target ad. Kukral recommends job-seekers to create an Facebook ad about them include their skills and qualifications and what type of job they are looking for, and then target it to the companies where they want to work.

3) Get Personal:

Next, Kukral suggests getting useful personal information about the people who are in charge of the hiring process at the company. He has advised to look them up on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and get information about their interests. According to him, it will help to know their likes and dislikes or where the candidate shares a common interest that will help him to connect.

4) Use YouTube to your advantage:

Being a great resource, YouTube can also be a cheap and easy way for a job-seeker to show off his skills, says Kukral. A job-seeker can use a video as a chance to follow up after an interview. He can also send his potential employer something he has put together that displays his creativity or a skill.

5) Think different:

Kukral further suggests job-seekers to think outside the box and to go one step ahead of the rest. "Advertise yourself in unexpected places, step out of your comfort zone, and, if you have to, invest a little money", says Kukral.

A professional speaker, blogger, and Web business consultant, Jim Kukral has helped companies like FedEx, Sherwin-Williams, Ernst & Young, and Progressive Auto Insurance understand how to find success on the Web. Jim teaches thousands of students around the globe as an adjunct professor for The University of San Francisco's Internet Marketing Program.

'I' in India is no more 'Immitation', it's 'Innovation' !

2010-10-12T23:04:00.000-07:00

Bangalore: For centuries the Indian mindset has been about following the West. Be it a new technology, literature, art, theater, culture or movies. The 'I' in India meant Imitation. India had the me-too mindset and would imitate every aspect of the west. China and Japan were the two other countries who aped America for its technology reports Sufia Tippu of EE Times.

India has realized that just imitating west cannot bring out the real innovations from Indian minds. Now 'I' in India stands for Innovation. Innovations in India are not a new phenomenon and, it only lacks due recognition also we need to keep in mind that India's infrastructure began to grow only three decades ago while other countries were already nurtured with the supporting ecosystem.

IT establishments are emerging with creative and potentially challenging ideas. Narayana Murthy, chief mentor and co-founder of Infosys Technologies said "tremendous confidence in the country among the younger generation. A lot of them are willing to take risk; they have understood the power of entrepreneurship and wealth creation."

When IT giants like Infosys , Wipro and Tata consultancy services zeroed on software business, several hundred startups followed in their footsteps, but only a few have stood out from the pack in terms of patented innovations.

India's best chances to make its mark on innovation may be in cleantech and other disruptive technologies that can improve the quality of life for the world's poor while enriching their inventors and investors.

One such invention along that vein, a low-cost, durable, prosthesis known as the Jaipur foot, has restored function to amputees the world over and is probably the best-known Indian innovation to have found a global market.

Mitti Cool, the so-called village fridge. Invented by a potter, Mitti Cool is made from special clay (mitti) and uses evaporation to cool three or more storage chambers for water, fruits and vegetables.

A micro-windmill-based mobile charger that uses wind power to charge phones and laptops. Modified lanterns that produce light equal to a 100-watt bulb but run on kerosene, diesel or ethanol. The lamp has a wick coated with high-temperature materials, such as silica; a self-cleaning nozzle; and a special glass that reduces the chances of explosion.

These innovations show that India is a talent hub. Maybe these innovations did not grab the global market but it sure did fix the common place problems and also got the attention of the Indian market.

కొలువుల వారధులు ఈ కుర్ర ఇంజినీర్లు !

2010-09-05T22:52:00.000-07:00

India unveils world’s cheapest laptop !

2010-07-24T21:02:00.000-07:00

India unveils world’s cheapest laptop !

Touchscreen computing device costing just £23 to be rolled out first to 110 million schoolchildren

Josh Halliday

Friday 23 July 2010 19.26 BST

Footage from the launch of the device Link to this video

India has developed the world’s cheapest laptop – a touchscreen device which resembles Apple’s wildly popular iPad but will cost just £23.

The prototype was unveiled today by Kapil Sibal, the country’s human resource development minister, who said 110 million Indian schoolchildren would be the first recipients.

Then, from next year, the device – designed to bridge the digital divide and boost India’s economy – will become available to students in higher education.

Sibal said: "The solutions for tomorrow will emerge from India. We have reached a stage that today, the motherboard, its chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively cost around $35 [£23], including memory, display, everything."

Past low-cost technologies produced by the country include the £1,450 Tata Nano car and a mobile phone costing less than £11. The iPad retails at about £429 in the UK – 18 times the cost of the Indian laptop.

The tablet computer, developed by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and the Indian Institute of Science in Bengalooru, will eventually be made available to the public. It will run on an open source Linux operating system with Open Office software and can be powered by solar panel or batteries as well as mains electricity. It will have no hard drive but users will have access to a USB port, 2GB of memory and a video-conferencing facility, internet browsing.

Sudhir Dixit, director of Hewlett-Packard’s Indian research division, welcomed the announcement. He said: "This is a very strong move with good potential. Previous initiatives with these aims have had laptops priced at around $100, so it is a development.

"The interesting thing is that slate devices are expected to come into the market and cut into sales of laptops and netbooks. The predictions are that slate devices will do to netbooks and laptops what netbooks and laptops did to desktop PCs. It gives people mobility.

"Access to IT in the education system is growing very rapidly. Because of the government’s great push forward in IT, every school will have computers and, at some stage, every person will have access to IT."

More than 62m PCs are expected to be sold in India this year and the figure is predicted to top 100m in 2013. The first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010 saw a 72% growth in netbook sales.

Dixit said: "This year the IT market has begun growing very rapidly after a slump last year."

The device forms part of the Indian government’s commitment to an across-the-country satisfactory standard of education by 2010. According to 2001 census figures, literacy levels in India are at 63%, lagging behind most other developing nations, including China – where the figure is 93%. There are 60 million registered internet users in India, a country with a population of 1.2 billion.

Earlier this year HP Labs India announced a move to bring tens of millions of people online in the country, enabling users of low-end mobile phones to complete simple functions on websites.

The HP innovation could potentially open the customer market for small businesses from the 60 million registered internet users to the 600 million owners of mobile phones

__________________________

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/07/23/going-for-cheap-indias-35-computer/?blog_id=100&post_id=16730

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, JULY 23. 2010

Going for Cheap: India’s $35 Computer

By Vibhuti Agarwal

From India Real Time:

India’s Tata Motors won praise world-wide for developing the world’s cheapest car, an innovation designed to put millions of Indians behind the wheel. The Indian government Thursday unveiled a computer it hopes will put millions of Indians in front of a screen.

Associated Press

A low-cost computer was launched by India’s human resource ministry in New Delhi, India on Thursday.

This new computer, aimed at students, costs the same as the country’s cheapest cell phones.

“This is real, tangible and we will take it forward,” Kapil Sibal, minister for human resource development, said at a press conference in New Delhi. The touchscreen tablet will cost about $35, or 1,500 rupees, when it hits markets by early 2011.

The device was developed by students and professors at India’s premier technological institutes, using open-source programming, according to the Associated Press. The Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, Mumbai, Chennai and Kharagpur and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore researched it in collaboration with the government-operated National Mission on Education.

The National Mission on Education is working to spread connectivity to India’s universities and colleges.

“We have made the breakthrough and are now ready to capture the market,” Mamta Varma, spokeswoman for the human-resource-development ministry, said Friday.

Ms. Varma said the government plans to roll out one million such computers for university students during the first phase, and expand later to primary and secondary schools.

Last month, Uruguay awarded the nonprofit One Laptop per Child a contract to provide 90,000 of its XO laptops for high-school students in the country. The group hopes in the future to price its durable device around $100; right now it sells for more than that.

India’s new device is an improvement over another hardy computer for the masses launched at Tirupathi in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh last year that had been criticized for its cost, among other things.

Ms. Varma said the ministry has also made open invitation to national and global manufacturers to improve upon the prototype unveiled Thursday. “If more innovations will emerge, the cost of the gadget might be further reduced to $20 or $10,” she said.

The yet-to-be-named device, which has the look of an iPad, has the option of charging by a sleek solar panel. It will have features including an Internet browser, a multimedia player, searchable PDF reader, video conferencing ability and wi-fi connectivity. It is supported by a two-watt backup source for places where power supply may be poor. It also comes with a small, 2-gigabyte memory but no hard disk.

HCL's Shiv Nadar on Bringing Business-plan Rigor to Social Entrepreneurship

2010-07-13T18:28:00.000-07:00

HCL's Shiv Nadar on Bringing Business-plan Rigor to Social Entrepreneurship

Published: June 17, 2010 in India Knowledge@Wharton

Shiv Nadar, founder and chairman of the US$5 billion Indian IT group HCL, has forayed into setting up educational institutions and attempting to bridge the country's urban-rural divide. He has designed this effort with business-plan rigor, thinking big but starting with pilot projects before scaling them. In a conversation with Wharton management professor Michael Useem and India Knowledge@Wharton, he spoke about his model of social entrepreneurship and building organizations, processes and leadership skills in students, among other topics.

An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

India Knowledge@Wharton: You have spent your career building HCL as an entrepreneur. How do you view the relationship between entrepreneurship and the social goals you are trying to achieve through the Shiv Nadar Foundation?

Shiv Nadar: I have a view on this. When a corporation grows up, when it takes up a certain percentage of its revenue [or] a certain percentage of its profit and puts it into social causes, what can be done gets fairly limited. And it'll create a very discontinuous effort. Otherwise it'll become very small. If we say that we will put in one percent of our profit or five percent of our profit, and then put it in, what happens when you do this in a year in which there's no profit? Then they all become projects. Projects are by nature discontinuous. But what [the corporation] gains is the project management and program management capabilities, which will always be inherently very strong in the corporation.

We know that the subjects where we can contribute are very many. So we encourage our employees to participate along with NGOs (non-government organizations) in many of the causes. One of the causes for which we seek their cooperation is to go and teach in a school. It's a question of how long your time is available, and accordingly, we work with NGOs which will find when our employees can go and teach in a school. We have 62,000 employees. So the number of hours they can contribute is large.

But what we have done, or what my family and I have done, is different. We have two operating companies in HCL -- HCL India and HCL Global. HCL India is about US$2.5 billion in size and HCL Global is US$2.8 billion. They have been declaring dividends since inception. HCL India was formed in 1976 and HCL Global is [the former] HCL Technologies, formed and listed in 2000. These dividends flow into a family corporation. The family corporation bequeaths a large quantum of it into a Shiv Nadar foundation. So we have found a very sustainable way of doing this. With this, we can take a long-term effort -- something which will take 10 years or 25 years, a big project. At the end of the day, what have I achieved, what have we achieved? We have built two institutions. And we know how to run them with processes and structures. So if you want to create institutions which are built to we will do them as institutions, not as projects.

Michael Useem: Let me ask you about the target of your efforts. It could be health, the arts or community services, but you have chosen to focus on education. Why education?

Nadar: Education came [about] with not much of reasoning. Because when we wanted to give something back, I looked at myself, I said, "What am I?" I'm a product of education. Education and scholarship gave me a lot of confidence. And aspirations I picked up from friends and the ambience in which I grew. If I could provide a similar ambience, it could help a lot more people. That's how we set up a college of engineering (the Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar College of Engineering), under Anna University. But we set it up [saying] that this is going to grow big, this is going to last, this is going to do many more things than just engineering. We bought a 230-acre (an acre is 4,047 square meters) campus near Chennai.

In 14 years, we did the processes right, we built the institution right. In its ninth year it's topped the state; there are 400 engineering colleges in the state. In the 10th year it ranked among the top 10 private colleges in entire India. Nine years ago, we said, 'Let's start a joint program for masters, and let's do it with the best school in the world in these fields.' So we've done that with Carnegie Mellon [University, in Pittsburgh, Penn.]. We offer four post graduate courses. In a globalized world, we believe you should study in multiple countries.

Now I'll step back and give you the reasons. China has become India's largest trading partner. It's rare to find an Indian who speaks Chinese. It's rare to find a Chinese who can speak any of the Indian languages. Neither of them at the trading level -- I want to repeat this, at the trading level -- can speak English either. All businessmen -- how do they communicate? God knows. Sign language, probably. They are our largest trading partner; they displaced the United States. We all speak English, but no one speaks Chinese. If you've ever traded with them ... they come up with a calculator and tell you, "This is the price." That's all. You always go back with the price that you want. The way they cost their materials is probably very different, [perhaps] by weight or something [else].

So now, this has to be recognized. It has to find its way into the education system. It will be good for India exchange programs, where if there's a two-year course, someone goes there, spends three months and comes back. And then over that entire period learns Chinese -- to speak, read or write. You have a problem in America where everyone speaks only English or Spanish. In India everyone speaks their mother tongue or English. [Over time], the economies at No. 2, 3, 4 and 5 will be China, Japan, Germany, India. They have to speak a different language now.

Anyway, we thought that this joint program should pick up the experience. These programs have two semesters in India and one semester in the U.S. The students are solid; most of them work for American company and go through a placement system. In the third step, we had a product of technology. We had a product of R & D. Our company began its efforts in producing computing before either Microsoft or IBM did in the personal computing area. We were one of the earliest in the '70s. We were also one of the earliest in Unix.

So we know that the way stages itself. Technology comes first. Research comes first. As a result of it (research), technology comes. As a result of it, engineering comes. If you build an engineering college, how do you connect it up with what happens before? So we started working on that. We built a research center. We got somebody from defense research. We've got great advisors who are supporting this. The people who support us include [Carnegie Mellon professor] Raj Reddy and V.S. Arunachalam (former scientific advisor to India's defense ministry). We thought we would do this as something which is inspiring. Our belief is that aspirations, meritocracy and a world class institution are the three ingredients our country needs.

India Knowledge@Wharton: How serious is the educational challenge in India and what is your strategy to try and tackle that?

Nadar: Education in India requires correction in some places, new interactions in some places and widening in some places. When my daughter (Roshni Nadar) came here to study, the first thing I insisted was: 'You live abroad for a year alone and work in a company just by yourself.' She went and worked in the communication business with Sky News (in London), completely anonymous. No one knew who she was; she got a job because she had a degree in communications. But it's great experience. One must have some alien experiences like this. Studying in one location somehow doesn't appeal to me -- not for the future.

I come from a generation in which the average life expectancy is in the 80s. They (his daughter's generation) are going to be in a generation in which life expectancy should be 100 plus. If it is so, they have more time to strengthen their education. It can be a discontinuous effort, too.

We thought that we would provide all these things and build a university. That is another project we are doing. We are not doing it in the traditional style, where we take land, then start with some courses and then build it [over time]. Not like we did it the last time. This time we are going ahead and constructing it, so that a full fledged university is what will be built. We will get to work with partners across the world and then take it from there, offering a completely different educational experience. Someone asked me what is this [university] going to look like? We don't know. It's a leap of good faith. These are two things we're doing in higher learning.

Useem: You've built the university, and yet I know you're also very interested in students of younger age at a different stage. Where have you intervened in the educational course that people follow? Why intervene at the university level? Why intervene at a younger level? A related question is, what do you think about scale or scaling? You want to intervene, but I also know you want to intervene and have a large impact on a lot of people.

Nadar: There are two things that we noticed as serious gaps. One, let me talk about my home state. My home state is not where I come from, which is Tamil Nadu. My home state is U.P. (Uttar Pradesh, adjacent to New Delhi), where we are the largest private employer, which is where we built all our businesses. We employ 20,000 people who all are in U.P. If the state were to be a country, with a population of 190 million, it will be the seventh most populous state in the world. But it has very depressing failures. The school system with 180,000 schools is not able to cope with the needs. Politically, compulsions have been such that a student will just get through class after class after class without measuring what he or she has learned.

If you take fifth standard students (aged 10-11), 45 percent of them don't know how to read. If you take second standard students, a similar percentage of students can not recognize letters. So we have a serious problem, okay? If you knew that how to correct that, they would have followed it. The state government is very sincere; I'm not blaming them. Someone needs to experiment and find an answer.

We have run some pilot models of delivering education through a non-qualified teacher. Deliver it through this medium and a telecast mode, where someone only is assisting, standing next to the student; it's almost like cooking with a television instruction. We created it, tested it and piloted it. After every hour or so, we reinforce the learning, then find gaps and close them.

The huge advantage a city-bred person has is the mother becomes a teacher. No one can replace a mother's teaching, because she will ensure that the child learns and retains what she has taught, if she can teach. That's why the urban students get to be much more competitive, particularly the bulk of what learning potential that there is. We are bringing in a control and command system through satellite, so that the most proficient of the teachers take all the students who have gaps; they're connected through satellite, and they teach and correct.

Our objective is to get 90% of what is being taught to be retained by 90% of students. The advantage of this system is if someone has a two-month handicap, he or she can join a class. You take away this mental conception of one year for each one standard. Think without those limitations. You have so much to study; it has to be paced to what you have. And in between, if you are to go away for something else, it'll wait. These are people who may drop out after the first standard or drop out after school. This is the only opportunity they have to have any foundation.

The government knows that we are fairly sincere people. We have a good reputation. We say we will do what we say we will do. And if we don't commit [to] anything, we'll say at least we'll experiment with all sincerity. So of the 180,000 schools (in U.P.), we asked them to give us the management of 200 schools. [We asked them to] just agree to be patient with us and we will correct things. We are yet to do it. But we are starting now.

They (the U.P. government) said, "Take at least 1,000 schools." There were 200 schools and we are talking about 60,000 students. So it is a very serious responsibility. I said, "Look, it's an act of faith with what you're giving. It's a leap of faith. And the least we will do is we'll follow the old method, but deliver good education to these people." These 60,000 people will take charge. Next year, we'll write in the letter of intent that we'll go up to 1,000 schools. But post that, we will program-manage this interaction over the state to the 180,000 schools. This is the largest such effort. We will work side by side with [the government.]

It's a very well-intentioned thing. And the team which is doing it is highly capable. The project is headed, you know, by a person no less than T.S.R. Subramaniam, who was chief secretary of U.P. and [Union] cabinet secretary. The team is very high-powered, and has very capable individuals. I'm personally involved in this project, which is called Shiksha. The other project is called VidyaGyan. [It addresses the urban-rural divide, which] is very sharp.

[Take] 2001, 2002, 2003. In three consecutive years, India registers nine percent growth. In 2004 there is an election and the ruling party (the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance) is defeated. And it has not come back [since then]. The problem is the [country's] 300 million poor people who go and vote, never saw the benefit of the nine percent growth. In the subsequent five years, they (the government) called it all-inclusive growth, and did partly, and promise mostly, that they would get them (the poor) the benefits. And they started seeing them.

Currently all benefits are going to urban people. How do we take it to the rural people? How do we bring them to be equals? We need to bring leadership at the rural level. Talent is randomly distributed. It doesn't look at caste, it doesn't look at creed, it doesn't look at religion, it doesn't look at where you are studying and where you are living.

India Knowledge@Wharton: How can you develop leadership at the high school level among students?

Nadar: At the level in which you develop them, because afterwards it may be late. You develop it in every stage. They get very aspirational. Aspiration comes when all of them are almost similarly qualified. If you go to 2,000 schools and take school toppers and select 200 students, they're all very similarly qualified when they come in. So you compete and then you correct yourself. In some field or the other, we make sure that they lead. If we hold a play like Ramayan (an ancient Indian epic story), 56 of the 200 students will participate. We'll make sure that in sports, they compete every week on something or other. Competition raises leadership. There are many team events in which they participate. It's a very busy life. Those kids lead a very busy life. They get up at five in the morning, they get to work at 5:45 and they get to sleep at nine or 9:30; they don't have a minute free.

To me these are projects which will take a long time. I hope I live long enough to see the results because they have to go to school, then they have to go through college, then they have to go through work life. Will they go into an IIT or IIM (Indian Institute of Technology or Indian Institute of Management)? I guarantee you, yes. Unquestionably they will be able to pick up where they want to go, anywhere in the world. I would want them to go back to IAS (Indian Administrative Service, the country's civil services cadre) or political life. Run for office. We would prepare them for it. When I was very young, they said every Kennedy was prepared to be a president of the United States. They pretty much did.

Useem: So as a business entrepreneur for many years, you developed a capacity to think strategically and to build an organization, set a direction. As you've come in now to serve as a social entrepreneur, what are the skills that have carried over from your years at HCL?

Nadar: Whatever we aspire to do has to be big to keep my interest in it alive. All our initiatives were bigger than what we thought we could do at the time we started them. The first thing we always do is to work out a plan. The plan has always been a 10-year plan. We work on financial allocations, which will be a 10-year allocation. We work out an organization structure of how we create it. We said, "First, we need a board that will guide it." We construct the board. The person who had served as the head of the IAS academy is on our board, someone who's managing the petroleum ministry is on our board. You know, we got them. For the school, we have one who is principal of Miranda (Miranda House, a residential women's college in New Delhi); the vice chancellor of Delhi University is on our board. For the engineering college, we have Dr. Natarajan (R. Natarajan, former director of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai) on the board and we have Dr. [V.S.] Arunachalam on the board. We have the previous election commissioner on the board.

The first task is to create a board that will help and then build the institution. And then build an organization structure. How do you translate a 10-year goal to a five-year goal? They have to have the aspiration. These things cannot be served by people to whom it is just not a job. In our educational institution, people turnover is pretty close to zero because they like what they do. They are compensated well and we introduce metrics for everything, because it must be measured. The topper's grade was 92.8 percent. In the school for leadership, 25% [of the students] scored about 90%.

How did they get there? It is checked out week by week. It runs with an institutional discipline. I learned that from somebody. I learned how the [Bill and Melinda] Gates Foundation works. It works like a business organization, excepting [that] its business is to meet some other objective, which are not business objectives.

India Knowledge@Wharton: How will you measure your success?

Nadar: In?

India Knowledge@Wharton: In the field of social impact and education.

Nadar: The social impact of something like an engineering institution is measurable. There are many measures to that. [But for] something like a brand new idea of a university, which will function in collaboration with universities in multiple countries, it has never been done before. So it has to be adapted. We always create an institution, an organization.

We have to keep correcting -- being the first in doing anything is nothing to go by. The only thing to go by is to keep collecting feedback to see [if what you are doing] is correct and keep checking the outcome. We have an advisory board of people who not only govern the inputs but also will be the final consumers -- it could be businesses, it could be the government, or wherever we want these people (students) to go to, such as research.

India Knowledge@Wharton: Thank you very much.

Useem: Terrific, thank you. It was very interesting

Krishnammal - A great inspiration to the Youth !

2010-06-26T20:29:00.000-07:00

HCL అధినేత - సామాజిక సేవకు 580 కోట్లు !

2010-06-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

Laptops - Using them effectively

2010-06-24T19:52:00.000-07:00

సగం ఆస్తి దాన ధర్మాలకు - బిల్ గేట్స్, వార్రెన్ బఫ్ఫెట్టే గొప్ప నిర్ణయం

2010-06-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

Veturi Sundararama Murthy - The best useful song he liked !

2010-05-31T11:55:00.001-07:00

ఆదర్శ గ్రామ శిల్పి - శ్రీ రంగస్వామి ఇలంగో !

2010-05-31T01:20:00.000-07:00

PDF in Office - gDoc Creator !

2010-05-22T20:15:00.000-07:00

Free Operating System - Ubuntu 10.04 !

2010-05-21T04:56:00.000-07:00

పేద విద్యార్థుల ఐ ఐ టి కలల వారధి !

2010-05-15T21:51:00.000-07:00

బాలలకు స్నేహ బోధన !

2010-05-12T20:09:00.000-07:00

No single teacher in 5,774 schools !

2010-05-09T07:20:00.000-07:00

Farming without Farms - పొలం లేకుండానే పంటలు !

2010-05-09T07:18:00.000-07:00

Auto Driver - Civil Services Ranker - A great inspiration !

2010-05-09T07:16:00.000-07:00

Ignited Minds: 20 innovators who are changing our lives !

2010-05-09T07:15:00.000-07:00

Sheikh Jehangir cannot read or write, hasn't been trained in any vocational skill and started working at the age of 11 to support his family. Yet, the 50-year-old car painter in Jalgaon, Maharashtra, has a patent to his name, and has applied for a second one. His latest innovation, a scooter-powered flourmill created to help his wife grind wheat even during long power cuts, inspired an invention featured in the monster hit 3 Idiots. Jehangir's shop was removed from the roadside in a cleanliness drive and even though he was promised a new one by the government, he has not received it yet. What's more, when Jehangir applied to a public sector for a loan to support his innovation, he was refused one without a collateral of Rs 15 lakh.

Is it any wonder then, that the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2007 ranking placed India 57th and China 58th on the innovation scale but predicted, that at the present rate, by 2012, China would be 50th while India would move up only one rank. China, in particular, has overtaken India in technology intensive manufacturing that includes high-tech semiconductors and microchips to become the largest producer of electronics in the world. What's more, according to data from a US thinktank, Battelle Institute, India spends 0.9 per cent of GDP on R&D while China spends 1.5 per cent.

As IIM-Bangalore professor and author of From Jugaad to Systematic Innovation, Rishikesha T. Krishnan points out, innovation in pre-liberalisation India was aimed at three things: import substitution, making use of local resources (such as Amul making milk powder from buffalo milk) and lowering costs. Post-1991, there have been innovations in various areas, especially transport and pharma, but not enough. Even though the Big Three IT giants-Infosys, TCS and Wipro-have developed the global delivery model that is a breakthrough in software solutions, India needs more innovation, especially in education and healthcare, where the challenges are to reduce costs and increase access. But there are several factors holding it back, ranging from a culture where risk-taking is not tolerated to an education system that tends to encourage rote learning. Yes, the Government has made efforts to support innovation, be it through the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) or the Technopreneur Promotion Programme. But their scale needs to be upped. Remember Leonardo da Vinci flourished as an inventor only when his father apprenticed him to the workshop of the renowned Andrea del Verrocchio at the age of 15.

By and large, innovation has remained an individualistic enterprise, invariably flowering under personal care, such as that of Ashok Jhunjhunwala at iit-Madras who heads the Telecommunication and Computer Networks Group (TeNet) or Anil Gupta at IIM-Ahmedabad who spearheaded the NIF. Innovative ideas are the enemies of restraints. So an M.S. Raju, an engineer from Visakhapatnam, can develop a camera mouse for the visually handicapped to read text messages and an Ankit Mehta from IIT-Bombay can work on an aerial device that security agencies are now planning to use. But as Gupta says, there aren't enough grassroots business incubator programmes in India. "Most of them are located at the top engineering and management schools, accessible only to a select few," he says. Ashok Khosla, chairman of Development Alternatives, a non-profit organisation that aims at creating large-scale sustainable livelihoods says, "There has always been a lack of government support, but to raise funds the innovators must also understand the market needs and invent products accordingly. If a product is not commercially viable, it's not an innovation but an invention."

How to break free of the restraint? Krishnan says there are three variables in any innovation-input, capacity and incentive. The incentives exist, as an innovator can gain monetarily, but input and capacity are still required. According to the Department of Science and Technology's 2007-08 statistics, investment in industrial R&D spending is dominated by two sectors, pharma (45 per cent) and transport (17 per cent). The rest is distributed over other sectors. This ratio has to become more equitable to encourage innovation in other sectors too. Only 26 per cent of the R&D spent is by the corporate sector, both public and private. In the private sector, a new breed of companies need to come up that are headed by young, technically qualified passionate people.

Only then can a Mansukhlal, from a small community of potters in Gujarat who has created refrigerators of clay, or Mohanlal, who improvised on marine diesel engines to make them lighter, flourish. As Peter Drucker said, "Technology is not about tools, it deals with how man works." And it's the innovator who makes the man's work easier

పల్లెల్లో వెన్నెల - Solar Energy - సౌర శక్తి !

2010-04-19T06:59:00.001-07:00

22 yr old Indian to solve cyber crimes @ mouse click

2010-03-15T23:15:00.000-07:00

22 yr old Indian to solve cyber crimes @ mouse click

Jaipur: The 22 year old cyber crime expert, Sunny Vaghela, who is also the CEO of TechDefence, an information security solution provider will take on the cyber criminals by making solutions available at a mouse click. Vaghela, who had exposed loopholes in mobile networks, social networking sites right from the age of 18, will launch a website where any complaints on cyber crime will be solved, reports Times News Network.

"This website is dedicated to solving cyber crimes and create awareness about it. All you need to do is to post your complaints on the website which will be analysed by a team of ethical hackers, mostly city-based engineering students. The team will issue a list of suggestions for police on how the case can be solved effectively," said Vaghela.

These kinds of feats are nothing new for Vaghela, who at the age of 18 exposed loopholes like SMS and Call Forging in Mobile Networks. The technology that allowed to send SMS or Make Call to any International Number from any number of your choice. At 19, Vaghela found loopholes like "Session Hijacking" and "Cross Site Scripting" in popular social networking site Orkut.

Vaghela has mastered the art of cracking codes and extracting information from servers based in different locations. He gave the exact time and locations to the police department helping them in solving several cyber criminal cases. His biggest success was tracing the origin of the terror email sent by Indian Mujahideen minutes before the Ahmedabad serial blasts on July 26, 2008 and played a vital role in investigation of the same. In a bid to prepare a force of ethical hackers to expose the web fraudsters, Vaghela has imparted training in 10 engineering colleges of the city.

Narendra Modi's Farm Miracle !

2010-03-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

There is a new mood of resurgence on Gujarat’s farms. Farm incomes have more than doubled during the past 10 years, and are likely to grow even more in the coming years. Gujarat’s agriculture is expected to grow by at least 9% year-on-year in the coming years, compared with just 2-2.5% for the rest of the country.

For the first time in India’s history, even farmers from Punjab and Haryana have been flocking to Gujarat just to see what makes the state’s farms so vibrant. Some have even begun purchasing land in Gujarat to grow crops in that state.

The roots of the agricultural revolution in the state lay in 2002-03 when Narendra Modi, Gujarat’s controversial chief minister, decided to revamp the supply of electricity to farms and to industry. Plagued by mounting power losses (caused by lines tripping and also by theft), Modi decided to supply quality power to the farms for at least four hours without any interruption — but only at night. He sold the idea to farmers thus: accessing power at night would allow them to run their pumps on three-phase electricity, thus saving them the cost of diesel-powered pumps.

This single move allowed him to authorise the switching off of power supplies to farms during the day when industry, too, could get quality power without frequent breakdowns.Moreover, since most electric pumps would work only for a limited number of hours, it saved on precious groundwater too.

The next was to allow for farmers to integrate with consumers. So in 2003-04, Modi introduced laws permitting contract farming. This helped farmers sell their produce to large purchasers at least a year in advance and also facilitated industry clients to invest in farmers on a long-term basis.

To galvanise the farming community, he began in 2005 an annual month-long event called Krishi Mahotsav (farm festival), where all government officers, vendors (of seeds, micro-irrigation — MI — equipment, fertilisers and pesticides) and even agricultural researchers and professors are required to visit each of the identified 18,600 villages.

This is when farmers meet large consumers, create marketing linkages and even consult agronomists and government officials. Modi monitors complaints from farmers personally, keeping all concerned on their toes, and creating the groundswell — a critical prerequisite for any mass movement.

He then proceeded to set up the Gujarat Green Revolution Company (GGRC) — the pivot around which Gujarat’s future agricultural growth will depend. GGRC focuses on MI. One of its moves was to extend subsidies on MI to all farmers instead of restricting it only to small farmers. The reason: big farmers are the first to experiment with new ideas. Most small farmers follow.

The GGRC masterstroke was to make the subsidy available only to vendors who could offer ongoing extension services in terms of advice on plant nutrition and protection from qualified agronomists. This move affected MI suppliers. One firm, the largest player in the country, saw its market share in Gujarat plummet from 80 per cent to 20 per cent, while an Israeli firm saw its market share rise from around 10 per cent to 60 per cent. The latter’s agronomists are more in demand than researchers from Gujarat’s farm universities.

The shift to MI is critical. Less than 37 per cent of Gujarat’s 95 lakh hectares of cultivable land is under irrigation (canal or tubewell). The rest is rain-fed. When rains fail, so does agriculture. Yet tubewells, which irrigate almost 18 lakh hectares, deplete groundwater reserves. To control this, Modi ordered the construction of check dams so that water from streams and ponds stays impounded and doesn’t flow into drains and the sea. Over the last eight years, almost two lakh check dams have been built which, in turn, have allowed groundwater levels to soar.

But even this water may not be adequate to meet Gujarat’s needs. That is why Modi has been pushing for increasing the height of the Narmada dam and for MI. MI saves on water as it allows for higher productivity using much less water and fertilizer.For example, in cotton, if rainfed land can yield 0.3-0.4 tonnes an acre, canal/tube well irrigation can yield 0.8-1.5 tonnes. But introduce micro-irrigation (which combines drip irrigation with feeding fertilizer and pesticides directly to plant roots) and yields can rise to 2-2.5 tonnes — a near three-fold increase over regular irrigation. Besides, farmers save on water, fertilizer and pesticides, too. Similar is the case with wheat, sugarcane, potato and green chillies.

In the past five years, almost 1 per cent of the irrigated land has come under MI. Each one has a success story to tell — with yields doubling, often more. The demonstration effect of these farms is beginning to catch on with other farmers, and the conversion rate is accelerating. But Gujarat’s success story is far from over.

ఎవరికీ పట్టని కంప్యూటర్ విద్యా బోధన !

2010-03-06T23:59:00.000-08:00

http://epaper.andhrajyothy.com/AJ/AJYOTHI/2010/02/28/INDEX.SHTML
Dt 28-Feb-2010 Page No. 8 Andhra Jyothi Paper

మరో మొబైల్ విప్లవం !

2010-03-02T20:07:00.000-08:00

Soon, you'll be able to surf the web at the speed of light!

2010-03-02T19:56:00.000-08:00

Washington, March 2 (ANI): Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a new infrared laser made from germanium that operates at room temperature, which has made light-speed computing come one step closer to reality.

The research removes the cryogenic cooling systems previously needed for infrared lasers and could lead to powerful computer chips that operate at the speed of light.

"Using a germanium laser as a light source, you could communicate at very high data rates at very low power," said Jurgen Michel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who developed the new germanium laser.

"Eventually, you could have the computing power of today's supercomputers inside a laptop," he said.

The creation of a new laser, even one based on germanium, is not newsworthy; more than 15,000 different lasers, some of which use germanium, have been created since the 1950s.

What makes this particular germanium laser unique is that it creates an infrared beam at room temperature.

Until now infrared germanium lasers required expensive cryogenic cooling systems to operate. The new germanium laser operates at room temperature.

To create the germanium laser, the scientists take a six-inch, silvery-gray disk of silicon and spray it with a thin film of germanium.

These same disks are actually used to produce chips in today's computers.

An electrically powered, room-temperature, infrared laser for laptop computers is still years away, however, cautioned Michel.

If and when those laptops do arrive, they will be powerful - more powerful in fact than even today's supercomputers.

The battery that powers the laptop won't necessarily last any longer, but the power it does hold will make calculations orders of magnitude faster than today.

"We need high-density, low-power solutions," said Kock.

Computer chips are constantly getting smaller and smaller, but they are approaching the fundamental limits of electron-based computing.

Light-based computing is one option to improve the speed and power of computers.

"Germanium-based optical computing is an especially attractive material for optical computing because it wouldn't require any change to the existing computer chip industry," Kock said.

The same machines that use silicon could also use germanium to make future chips. (ANI)

Courtesy: http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20100302/981/tsc-soon-you-ll-be-able-to-surf-the-web.html

Government's software detects 160 corporate frauds !

2010-03-01T18:19:00.000-08:00

New Delhi: The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) had developed an early warning system (EWS) to detect corporate frauds after the Satyam scam. Now, it has detected financial irregularities in 160 companies, out of which 30 are government, according to PTI.

"We have asked the Registrar of Companies to inspect the books of about 130 companies based on the preliminary findings of the EWS and some 30 PSUs would be referred to the Comptroller and Auditor General," an official source told media. The software-based fraud detecting system scans firms based on 10 financial parameters set by the ministry.

The sources said the EWS has detected discrepancies like fund diversions in own subsidiaries as well as other firms, irregularities in filing balancesheets, and asset-liability mismatch. "There are some blue-chip companies against which the EWS has given out alerts and we are also carrying out inspections, both invasive and non-invasive, of their books as per Sections 209 and 234 of the Companies Act," the official said without divulging the names of the companies in question.

With the early warning system, the corporate affairs ministry sources said, unusual developments are looked into by scrutinising the quarterly results of companies, their public announcements, filings with exchanges, tax returns, and media reports among others.

Courtesy : Silicon India Daily

GHMC లో చెత్త పనులకు చెక్ !

2010-02-28T20:27:00.000-08:00

Bloom fuel cell: Individual power plant in a box !

2010-02-27T19:46:00.000-08:00

Bloom fuel cell: Individual power plant in a box

By Sharon Gaudin

At a news conference attended by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Silicon Valley start-up today took the wraps off a fuel cell designed to enable individual homes and businesses to generate their own power.

Bloom Energy Corp. showed off the Bloom Energy Server , which is being billed as a game changer for the clean energy industry. The solid oxide fuel cell is built to generate electricity with a mixture of oxygen and renewable or traditional fuels -- all without creating any emissions.

"Bloom Energy is dedicated to making clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone in the world," said K.R. Sridhar, principal co-founder and CEO of Bloom Energy. "We believe that we can have the same kind of impact on energy that the mobile phone had on communications. Just as cell phones circumvented landlines to proliferate telephony, Bloom Energy will enable the adoption of distributed power as a smarter, localized energy source."

Sridhar noted that 20 corporate big hitters, including FedEx, Wal-Mart, Staples, eBay and Google already are using Bloom Boxes. Today's news conference was held at eBay's San Jose headquarters.

Google spokeswoman Niki Fenwick said in an e-mail to Computerworld that the search giant has been using four Bloom Boxes at the company's Mountain View headquarters for the past 18 months.

"The boxes are a permanent purchase," Fenwick wrote today. "We may expand our use of the fuel cells in the future, but we don't have anything to announce at this time.... We're always on the lookout for opportunities to power our operations with clean and economic power and willing to try innovative new things, and we've been pleased with our Bloom Energy experience."

She added that the four Bloom Boxes make up a 400-kilowatt installation for Google. And over the last year and a half, the project has had 98% availability and delivered 3.8 million kilowatt hours of electricity.

While Fenwick declined to say what Google paid for the boxes, Bloom Energy said each commercial-sized box costs between $700,000 and $800,000.

eBay noted today that the Bloom Boxes it's using take 15% of the campus' energy needs off the grid completely. The company has been using five Bloom Boxes on its San Jose campus for the past nine months, according to a release from the company.

"eBay believes in the power of our business model to make a real difference in the world, and that includes how we embrace innovation to reduce our carbon footprint," eBay CEO John Donahoe said. "When Bloom came to us, it was an easy decision to become an early adopter of its cutting-edge new technology. As a result, we're meeting financial and environmental goals with the project, while fueling a more energy efficient global marketplace. That's good for us, our customers and the planet."

Sridhar said he's also hoping to see Bloom Boxes become a common fixture in people's backyards and basements before 2020. He estimated the cost of systems for individual homes at about $3,000.

"This is certainly interesting technology and, at least from what I've seen, is the first fuel cell that is deployable now and not just a scaled up lab experiment," said Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group. "They cite a three-to-five-year payback on capital investment via energy cost savings, which is a great number. But without knowing the lifespan of the unit or maintenance costs, it really doesn't tell us the whole story."

Olds also noted that Bloom Energy is contending that its fuel cells have a 2-to-1 efficiency advantage over electric utilities.

"If that's true, then this could potentially be a big win for everyone," he said. "In fact, those electric utilities may be lining up to buy the first units off the production line. The capital cost alone, not to mention the environmental costs, associated with building massive power plants is massive. If utilities could use Bloom technology to add capacity cheaply and site it closer to their customers to cut transmission loss, then it's certainly something they will pursue."

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld . Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com .

Read more about hardware in Computerworld's Hardware Knowledge Center.

Original story - http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9161978/Bloom_fuel_cell_Individual_power_plant_in_a_box

ముప్పాళ్ళ మండలానికి అరుదైన అవకశం !

2010-02-17T01:32:00.000-08:00

జాతీయ స్థాయిలో ఒకే పాఠ్య ప్రణాళిక ఒకే ప్రవేశ పరీక్ష !

2010-02-16T19:29:00.000-08:00

పొలమే పెట్టుబడి - రైతే వ్యాపారి !

2010-02-15T18:42:00.000-08:00

It Takes a Village: The Rise of Rural BPO

2010-02-13T18:59:00.001-08:00

It Takes a Village: The Rise of Rural BPO

Published: February 11, 2010 in India Knowledge@Wharton

"Do you really think women can work on computers?" Men in Bagar genuinely wanted to know the answer to that question when Source for Change -- an initiative of the Mumbai-based Piramal Foundation -- set up an all-women BPO (business process outsourcing) center in this small village in India's Rajasthan state. The skepticism didn't end even after Source for Change selected 10 women from 25 applicants in August 2007. Wary men would accompany their wives or daughters to the training center and then wait around until they were ready to return home.

More than two years later, men still drop in unannounced at the remodeled house that serves as Source for Change's combined headquarters and training center. But these are not the same suspicious husbands and fathers. Instead, they are individuals hoping to find jobs for the women in their families. "They realized that we made available the two most valued symbols of social status here: English and computers," says Karthik Raman, head of business development for Source for Change. "Some of the women who work here earn more than the men in their families. They now have a voice at the table."

With state governments and industry supporting the cause, it is clear that village-level BPO is here to stay. No official numbers are available yet -- the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) is collecting data now -- but observers agree that more than 100 such units are likely operating around India, most of them less than three years old.

It's a positive development, according to Raju Bhatnagar, vice president in charge of BPOs and government relations at Nasscom. "There is tremendous opportunity for non-urban BPOs in domestic voice [i.e., call centers] and non-voice businesses, and international non-voice work." Nasscom prefers the term "non-urban" to "village" or "rural" because prospective clients may associate rural with "backward." "[It is] semantics, I know, but the change in terminology does seem to help people get over that mind-set," Bhatnagar says.

Some BPO centers are run from non-air-conditioned buildings that double as schools and marriage halls. Their employees sit on plastic, stackable chairs and rush home to milk the cows when their shifts end. Others are run from modern offices where biometric IDs are required for entry and team leaders hold post-graduate degrees. Their common element is their location far from the big cities, in semi-urban and rural communities such as Ethakota in Andhra Pradesh state, Munnar in Kerala state and Shiggaon in Karnataka state. More than half the employees are women, and all employees are from 19 to 35 years old.

The Bottom Line: Cost

Why are non-urban BPOs on the rise? "To ease some of the pain points that exist in the domestic outsourcing business around cost and reach," says Gaurav Gupta, principal and India head of the Everest Group consultancy.

Over the last few years, India's US$14 billion BPO industry seemed to have been losing a battle with rising expenses. Real estate prices were spiraling out of control. Off-the-charts attrition meant increases not only in salaries but also in training and recruitment costs. To curb people costs, many companies cast their recruiting nets further into the hinterland, but found that fewer than one in three short-listed candidates would sign on. The costs of city living did not make the move worth it for many, while family ties held back others. Raman Roy, chairman and managing director of BPO firm Quattro and a veteran industry leader, points out that BPO recruitment has changed over the last few years. "About 60% to 70% happens in smaller towns, where the BPO doesn't have a presence. And of those selected, just 20% to 27% accept; the rest don't move for [a variety of] reasons."

All of this is bad news for an industry whose existence relies on cost-effectiveness. "The main drivers of this industry have been higher efficiency, infrastructural support and available skill-sets," says Rajanish Dass, professor of information systems and strategic management at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA). "But the bottom line has been the cost savings that a BPO brings. On average, the cost savings incurred by deploying a BPO is 40% to 50% compared to the originating companies." By that token, organizations with an eye on the cost-benefit ratio will not hesitate to switch operators or even countries if expenses reach a tipping point.

Dass notes that BPO companies have the option of evolving into knowledge-process outsourcing units, tackling specialized, high-end jobs while shifting low-margin, low-skill data entry projects to rural BPO centers. And by moving jobs to rural areas, companies and clients can take advantage of significantly reduced operating costs. Land prices in India's interior are a small fraction of prices in Mumbai and Bangalore, and even in satellite towns such as Gurgaon and Noida. And salaries in rural set-ups -- about US$100 a month for an eight-hour shift five days a week -- are about half of what call centers in the cities pay. "It may not sound like much, but US$75 to US$85 a month is huge for a rural housewife, especially when it's neither project-based nor seasonal, like agricultural income," say Manoj Vasudevan, CEO of SourcePilani, which runs a 50-seat BPO center in Rajasthan's Pilani district.

Access to female employees is an important reason rural India makes sense. Not only are women equally adept at handling IT tasks, they have proved to be more loyal employees. "The already-low attrition rates can be brought down even further by employing women. They are less likely to move away to urban areas," says Raman of Source for Change.

There's the greater good to consider as well, experts note. Through job creation in villages and semi-urban areas, migration to cities can be reduced. As a result, disposable income among lower-income groups increases and villages are provided a means of sustainable development.

Ambitious Rural BPOs

Most companies setting up BPO operations in rural India operate as third-party service providers to multiple clients. A few, though, are captive back-office centers for big companies. In July 2008, HDFC Bank set up a BPO center at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh state through its subsidiary Atlas Documentary Facilitators. The center's approximately 550 employees are involved in non-core operations, such as data capturing and indexing of customer details -- work that was previously handled by more than 1,000 employees in Mumbai and Chennai. The center handles 22,000 applications a day at the rate of 100 applications a person in an eight-hour shift.

The Tata Group, meanwhile, aims to hire 5,000 people for rural BPO operations over the next few years. Called Uday, the BPO centers are an initiative of the community services arm of group company Tata Chemicals. Already, more than 200 people are employed at two BPO centers at Mithapur in Gujarat state and Babrala in Uttar Pradesh state. The Babrala call center functions as back office logistic support for Tata Indicom customers in Uttar Pradesh.

The Uday centers and HDFC Bank's BPO branch are exceptions. Typically, rural BPO outlets are small -- with 25 to 50 seats -- and don't have the luxury of big clients. Consider DesiCrew: The Tamil Nadu state-based BPO was incubated in 2005 by the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai's Rural Technology Business Incubator, and used the network created by the Indian government's Common Service Center initiative, which aims to set up one computer in each village across the country. Eight months into the project, though, DesiCrew's founder and CEO, Saloni Malhotra, realized it wasn't working. Security, professionalism and reliable infrastructure had become insurmountable issues.

Next up was a franchise arrangement under which a franchisee was responsible for the infrastructure while DesiCrew brought in the work. That didn't work, either. "It was probably an idea ahead of its time," Malhotra says. "The franchisee wanted commitments on work before investing in the business; the client wanted to see an established unit before offering work." The solution meant investing US$55,000 to US$160,000 in each center. DesiCrew Solutions was spun off as a commercial entity in February 2007 with three employees each in four units. But it didn't get its first big client until the end of that year. "We took any work that came our way, even if it was worth just US$20 or US$25," Malhotra recalls.

Since then, the company has grown to employ close to 100 people. The individual units broke even in mid-2008, and the company started making money in 2008-2009. By the end of 2010, DesiCrew plans to expand its workforce to 1,000 people and establish a pan-India presence.

Other rural BPO outfits are equally ambitious. Vasudevan of SourcePilani, for instance, wants to increase headcount to 100 by the end of the year and then sell the franchise to a village cooperative. That way, he will recover the US$100,000 invested in setting up the BPO center, and he will earn a 15% royalty from SourcePilani's future operations. "This is also a great way to bind people to the organization. With a 100-seat unit, each employee-owner should get an extra US$40 every month as their share of the profit," he says.

Surmountable Obstacles

It's not going to be easy, though. Rural BPO centers are dogged by problems that are not going away soon. Foremost is infrastructure. Power in the hinterlands ranges from erratic to nonexistent, with entire villages still awaiting electrification. So, any prospective BPO needs to budget for a heavy-duty diesel generator. To be fair, that's an expense for most BPOs even in urban locations.

Broadband connectivity is another hurdle -- though it, too, can be surmounted. "Bandwidth and connectivity are constraints if you take the country as a whole, but if you're looking to target finite locations, there will be acceptable connectivity within striking distance," says Nasscom's Bhatnagar. Besides, non-voice BPO work has a lower requirement for broadband. Periodic updates of data work are sufficient, so real-time connectivity is less of an issue.

The issue of community acceptance can also be tackled relatively easily if BPO firms partner with NGOs and local government departments familiar with an area. HDFC Bank, for instance, joined forces with the employment generation and marketing mission of the department of rural development in Andhra Pradesh to identify potential employees for its Tirupati BPO. Source for Change got buy-in from locals because of its association with the Piramal Foundation; Bagar is the ancestral village of the Piramal family. And SourcePilani had the backing of the Goenka Foundation as well as the premier Birla Institute of Technology and Science (located in Pilani) to ease its way.

Getting the right people and overcoming market skepticism are much harder problems to solve -- but they are more critical to BPO success. Managers at rural BPO centers acknowledge that recruitment is a much bigger deal for them than it is for their urban competitors. "We need really smart people so that our clients have one reason less to go elsewhere," says DesiCrew's Malhotra, who says she takes on board only one in about 45 applicants. Adds Vasudevan, "We need to get the recruiting right the first time; the community may not accept you if you goof up initially."

Naturally, training is more intensive than in urban BPO centers. What is taught also varies considerably. Source for Change's Raman recalls that some women didn't know how to turn on a computer. Most rural BPOs require basic educational qualifications, usually high school graduation. They don't insist on fluency in English, but do seek some proficiency in the language, including the ability to sound out words, even if the meaning is unclear. Where a gap exists in formal qualifications, testing for logic and abstract thinking may occur, since concepts like "file" and "folder" may be difficult to grasp for someone unfamiliar with computers. Immersion training in computer applications, English language comprehension and grammar, and speech and etiquette are now standard practice at most BPO outfits. Still, it may take two to four months before an employee is ready to tackle basic work such as data entry.

Low-hanging Fruit

Typically, rural BPO centers begin by offering basic digitization services such as data entry and data conversion. But even getting that level of business can be an uphill task. NGO connections can help rural outfits tap into extensive networks of companies willing to contract work to these centers as part of their corporate social responsibility initiatives, but it's still not easy. Companies need to constantly pitch for clients -- proving their capabilities, emphasizing their infrastructure (building in redundancies in power and broadband are, therefore, musts) and pushing the cost-value advantage.

Once clients come on board, though, BPO industry observers recommend quickly offering value-added services. Plain vanilla data work may be a starting point, but most clients will soon look for an outsourcing partner who can offer them extras such as data analysis, report preparation, and graphics and layout services. If rural BPO outfits can't build those capabilities in-house, it may be worthwhile to partner with urban centers that can offer the services. "Infrastructure and technology are seen as challenges, but these can be tackled easily. It is more critical to show clients that you have a process that can be repeated, duplicated and scaled up," says Quatrro's Roy.

Because voice work is still somewhat difficult for rural BPOs, many are experimenting with other kinds of services. SourcePilani, for instance, may be the only non-urban BPO that does medical transcription work. DesiCrew has undertaken web site content creation and validation, GIS-based mapping and transcription work. SourcePilani now also offers social media marketing services. It manages accounts for clients on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, providing regular updates on industry and company events, products and special offers. "There's a huge market for this internationally," says Vasudevan.

Source for Change is also trying out different avenues. It has done web research projects, transcription and translation work, and is now running a job web site as well. Raman is keen on pursuing Hindi-based voice work and has already done a pilot project for a client.

Will rural BPO centers succeed in India? Everest Group's Gupta is convinced they will be "relevant." IIMA's Dass says the domestic BPO business is large enough to make rural BPOs viable. So why haven't more clients signed on? Nasscom's Bhatnagar believes there may be a herd mentality at work among client companies. "No one wants to be the first [to opt for a rural BPO]. But success stories build on themselves, and there are already successes to be seen."

A beginning made in the right direction !

2010-02-12T21:36:00.000-08:00

A beginning made in the right direction

Posted by: "thiagarajan.arunachalam@gmail.com" thiagarajan.arunachalam@gmail.com

Wed Feb 10, 2010 3:39 am (PST)

Source: The Hindu (http://www.hinduonnet.com/2010/02/09/stories/2010020959100400.htm)
Andhra Pradesh

A beginning made in the right direction

Staff Reporter

Efforts to shun plastic at the NGO, individual level are commendable

HYDERABAD: They are islands of action in ocean of apathy. Some take inspiration from them, while some others find them snobbish and self-righteous. Whatever they are, they should be commended for the steadfast determination with which they hate plastic and campaign against it. Deserving first mention is Viajayaram, the famed ‘mithaiwallah’ of Emerald Sweets near Indira Park. Setting himself as example, he shunned plastic from his life and business. At his shop, customers get sweets with no colours or toxic content, and carry them home in a paper bag or a cloth one.
Mr. Vijayaram engaged ten of his workers to make bags out of newspapers and cardboard. However, the endeavour has proved to be not only expensive, but also cumbersome.
"To address this problem, I have introduced a scheme, whereby customers carrying their own bags will get a 4 per cent discount on total purchase",says Mr. Vijayaram. Also an artist, he uses the weekend drawing classes to spread awareness among children.
B. Ramakrishna Reddy, working as Auditor in State Bank of Hyderabad, is another enviro-savvy plastic-hater. Taking time from his schedule, he goes on door-to-door campaign about the harmful effects of plastic.
"I began this endeavour after reading a news item about a cow’s stomach yielding 40 kilograms of plastic", says Mr.Reddy.

Cold response

Very few people are unaware of the effort by the Exnora groups in various localities of the city. Striving towards zero waste management in the city are NGOs such as Sukuki Exnora and Jubilee Hills Civic Exnora (JHCE). Indira Lingam, the President of JHCE sounds pessimistic about people’s response in shunning plastics. Their project in Jubilee Hills of introducing paper bags, and two-bin mode of garbage disposal received a cold response, she says. On the contrary, Major Shivkiran from Sukuki Exnora that covers areas around Begumpet, sounds hopeful. He has been successful in implementing the two-bin system in about 20,000 households. Also, about 3,000 quarters in Ordnance Factory are going to adopt the zero waste management model proposed by them. Pragathi Nagar, the ISO-certified Panchayat that has done away with plastic covers is another isolated example of success.

Children - Good Food - Health

2010-02-09T19:52:00.001-08:00

IT BPO Market in Rise !

2010-02-09T19:30:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Myswaraj

2010-02-09T01:09:00.000-08:00

Myswaraj is a platform for Volunteers, NGO's/ Non-profits organizations and Individuals who are working for social cause.

A place to discuss everything and anything that makes a difference to our country. This platform is an attempt to bring together individuals/communities/organizations with the same goal of seeing a better India. We strongly believe that every one of us has a role to play and let us play our part in Nation building, let us all contribute to the India story.

Its free, start contributing at www.myswaraj.org

Spare a thought, type out an idea, give feedback, ask for an opinion, share information,make a contribution or just read what others think.

Please do spread the word! Lets Make A Difference.

Benefits by joining Myswaraj:

NGO's/ Non-profit organizations

NGO's/organizations can have a profile of there organization and even showcase there work in MySwaraj.
Organizations can post there Events, Volunteers Requirements/opportunities and Accept Donations.
Organizations are eligible to apply to be a Recipient on Myswaraj.org. Recipients can accept donations. Recipient membership is available to any Non-profit absolutely free.

Volunteers:

Volunteers can register at free of cost for Events updates/Alerts from organizations, Volunteer opportunities and for giving donations.
In Myswaraj donations are in the form of Goods and Time. "Myswaraj doesn't accept any donations related to finance".

Students make electric appliances operable via sms

2010-02-08T20:08:00.000-08:00

Students make electric appliances operable via sms

Bangalore: Your electrical appliances at home can soon be controlled by a simple SMS, thanks to a new 'low cost device' developed by the students at Zakir Hussain College of Engineering and Technology in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh.The device, which was developed by Abdullah Azhar and Kamal Gupta, both final year B.Tech students of Department of Electronics, will enable users to operate electrical appliances at their home from anywhere in the world at any time at a very low cost, a college spokesman said.

According to him, existing technologies for home automation require internet, Bluetooth and wi-fi systems, which are comparatively expensive, reports PTI. The device has also won the second prize at the international exhibition of 'Electrical and Industrial Electronics' held in Mumbai recently.

Career Counselling ..What after ??

2010-02-06T20:59:00.000-08:00

Green Living - Great Performance of Green Song !

2010-02-03T10:13:00.000-08:00

Exams Preparation - Planning is the Key

2010-02-02T20:44:00.001-08:00

Public Consultation Meeting at Hyderabad on BT Brinjal !

2010-01-30T21:33:00.000-08:00

I am blogging this while listening to the discussions of different people on BT Brinjal. Some farmers are for it and some others against it. People who are for it argue that BT Brinjal is advantageous in the sense that పురుగు మందులు వాదనవసరము లేదు. ఇది ఎక్కువ డబ్బులు తెచ్చి పెడుతుంది రైతులకు. మందులు కొట్టి కొట్టి చనిపోతున్నాము అంటున్నారు , దీనికి పురుగు మందులు కొట్ట కుండానే మంచి పంట,,ఆదాయము వస్తుంది అని వాదిస్తున్నారు.

People who are against it say that - ప్రజలు మరియు జంతు జాలం ఇవి తిని చని పోతున్నాయి మరియు జన్యు మార్పు చేసినందువల్ల భూసారము తగ్గుతుంది.
It is hard to believe that farmers are ignorant of the long term repurcussions with BT Brinjal. They just think that it would get them good money without using pesticides.To my understanding, the fertility of the soil does not last long if someone continue cultivating the Bt Brinjal. Green peace is doing wonderful job to educate the farmers and the people.
The solution which may help the farmers to avoid Bt Brinjal is - to go for organic farming(initially may not be very profitable though) which does not need pesticides and also do not affect the fertility of the soil. Surprisingly, no one farmer spoke about this kind of solution at the meeting.

Gujarat likely to say no to Bt brinjal

2010-01-30T21:07:00.000-08:00

Ahmedabad: Will the Gujarat government give its approval to the cultivation of Bt brinjal in the state? Though the state government is yet to take a formal decision in the matter, the initial indications are that it is inching towards a clear stand on the issue - saying no to Bt Brinjal if it threatens health.

The state’s forest and environment department has stated that Bt brinjal seeds will kill the biodiversity of the soil and deprive it of its natural richness. The agriculture department is waiting for scientifically prepared reports but the state agriculture minister, Dileep Sanghani, said that they will not give their approval if Bt brinjal has an adverse impact on people’s health. “We will not do anything that poses a threat to human health,” Sanghani told DNA.

Kapil Shah, an activist who has been campaigning against the introduction of Bt brinjal, says that agriculture researchers appeared to be undecided in the matter. While they approved of Bt brinjal’s capacity to increase agricultural productivity, they were apprehensive about its negative impact on human health. Gujarat health minister Jay Narayan Vyas refused to comment on the issue but he did say that we “should not rush into it”.

Gujarat’s opinion on the subject is import

ant as it is one of the few states where Bt cotton farming, the only other genetically modified crop introduced in India, is cultivated extensively.

During the public consultation meeting in Ahmedabad on Tuesday, Union minister of state, environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh, had said that the feedback from Gujarat’s farmers and activists who have had first hand experience of Bt cotton, is very important. The minister has sought opinions from all chief ministers.

Orissa, West Bengal and Karnataka are expected to say no to Bt brinjal.

The state’s principal secretary, environment and forests SK Nanda told DNA that genetically modified food crops would affect Gujaratis extensively as most people in the state were vegetarian.

“There are 180 varieties of brinjal seeds, which give the vegetable a lot of variation in taste,” Nanda said. “Moreover, the richness of the state’s soil will be lost. Uniformity will suppress diversity. We will be killing our biodiversity.”

Please watch a video to know the history of Brinjal at Video on BT Brinjal

GEAC clears BT Brinjal

Andhra Pradesh Govt opposed BT Brinjal

ఇక Village మాల్స్

2010-01-30T16:40:00.000-08:00

Solar Valleys in all over India

2010-01-13T01:07:00.000-08:00

You are the creator of your destiny !

2010-01-08T19:29:00.000-08:00

Lead India2020 - 2nd National Movement for Development

2010-01-04T04:37:00.000-08:00

Digital Library - A way to generate employment opportunities

2010-01-04T04:29:00.001-08:00

Service has no relationship with Age and Politics as a service !

2010-01-04T04:26:00.000-08:00

Employment opportunities in the year 2010 !

2010-01-01T19:42:00.001-08:00