Indian Technology/IT News

[Guest]

<b>Satyam to exercise cost-cutting; to relocate onsite staff</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->“As a policy, the pre-sales, solution architect, delivery and operational support personnel will be located in the low-cost countries. All units have to sharply reduce (by more than 60 per cent) non-billable domestic and international travel,” Satyam CEO A S Murty said in an address to employees.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Chandrababu shares Satyam documents with Advani</b>
Pioneer News Service | New Delhi
pioneer.com
Telugu Desam Party chief N Chandrababu Naidu called on NDA’s Prime Ministerial candidate LK Advani here on Thursday generating lots of interest in the political circles. BJP sources confirming about the meeting said Naidu met Advani to discuss the Satyam scam and <b>shared with him certain documents that highlight the involvement of Andhra Chief Minister YSR Reddy in the country’s biggest corporate fraud. </b>

The Lok Sabha is expected to discuss the Satyam issue on February 25 and Naidu is learnt to have sought NDA’s support to put Congress in the dock as the party is heading the Governments at the Centre as well as in the State.

However, political observers feel the meeting could have more than what meets the eye. Nadiu who provided outside support to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government and later snapped ties with the NDA has been attempting to bring non-Congress forces under one roof<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<b>TCS may cut 1,300 jobs</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->This decision comes close on the heels of the company's CEO S Ramadorai declaring that the company would review the variable pay component and increase the working hours.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<b>CBI takes Satyam accused into custody</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Satyam's founder Ramalinga Raju, his brother Rama Raju, Satyam's former CFO Vadlamani Srinivas, besides suspended partners of PricewaterhouseCoopers S Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas, would be in CBI custody till March 17<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<b>IT sector may layoff over 1 lakh by Sept</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The Indian IT services sector may see up to five per cent layoffs -- amounting to more than one lakh job cuts -- over the next six months as companies focus more on cost-cutting due to persisting weakness in global demand, experts say.

Companies may reduce workforce in this fiscal, mostly based on stringent performance criteria, experts added.

"We expect the knowledge industry (IT) to see 3-5 per cent non-voluntary exits in the first two quarters of the financial year mainly in senior and middle levels," Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Senior Director (Management Consultancy Services) P Thiruvengadam said.
.........<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<b>TCS to relocate workers abroad into India</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The company, which tried out its relocation in January-March this year, gained significantly in the last quarter of 2008-09. In Q4, the company brought back its US staff to India resulting in a cost saving of Rs 121 crore. The company did not give any figures on how many staff were brought back.

<b>The relocation of staff could be in thousands, he said. At the same time, the company would be hiring more people numbering 24,855 in India. It would hire 250 freshers in the US and a few in China</b>, Chandrasekaran said
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<b>IT firms try to push out benched staff</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Excluding trainees, <b>Infosys </b>[Get Quote] officially agrees their bench strength is <b>3,500-4,000 people</b>. This will increase once the <b>8,000 people </b>undergoing training join in the next two months. Besides, the company has issued joining letters to around <b>16,000 campus recruits</b>, who were given offers last year.

To mitigate such pressures, Infosys has already announced an increase in the current training duration from the three months to almost six months.

<b>Wipro </b>[Get Quote] has already given an option to its bench resources to <b>work for only two days a week and take a 50 per cent cut in their salary. Close to 1,000 employees</b>, including senior managers and project managers, have availed of this offer so far, according to the company.

In some cases, the company is encouraging the bench resources, including managers, <b>to come to office 10 days a month at a stretch and take a cut in salary</b>.

The company is also encouraging some employees to take a sabbatical for six months or more to go for higher studies.

About <b>10-12 per cent of Wipro's employees with the IT services business are said to be on the bench now</b>. "We want to keep our efficiency level fairly high. We don't want to create laxity there. It is not just the question of a bad economic situation, but working habits, too, get spoiled by doing so. It is better to keep a tight bench and keep everybody fairly engaged," says Girish Paranjpe, joint CEO of Wipro's IT business.

<b>HCL Technologies</b> [Get Quote] has urged its benched employees to take a pay cut of 25 per cent. It is also asking them to find opportunities inside the company on their own, failing which they may lose their jobs.

<b>TCS </b>[Get Quote], India's largest IT firm, which added 32,000 employees last financial year, including close to 25,000 freshers, says it is very important to ensure <b>utilisation is at least at 74 per cent</b>, though the company claims the increasing bench is not much of a problem.

It, however, says the plan is to increase the training period of new recruits
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[acharya]

<b>Before the whining drowns it out, listen to the new India</b>
Arun Shourie
Twenty to twenty-five years ago, even 10 years ago, few of us had heard of Information Technology. Today, exports from this industry are worth $10 billion � that is, over Rs 45,000 crore a year. That figure is 20 per cent of our total exports.

In spite of the fact that each of the markets to which we supply IT software and solutions has been in the trough of recession for years, IT exports have grown by 26 per cent this year.

Infosys had not even been born 25 years ago. Wipro was a company selling vegetable oil. Indeed, other than the ��Tata�� in Tata Consultancy Services, there is scarcely a name in the IT industry that was known then.

And guess what the average age is in the industry? Just 26 and a half! These 26/ 27-year-olds have changed the world�s perception of India. It�s not just a country of snake-charmers, it�s a country against which protectionist walls have to be erected. Of course, we can also charm snakes.

And not just, to pluck a phrase of Malcolm Muggeridge, snakes in snakes� clothing!

And these 26-year-olds are changing India�s perception also of itself: that India can; that, therefore, we should face the world with confidence.

That is the situation in activity after activity. We lament the fact that, while we are ahead in software, we have lost out to China in IT hardware. That is true � as of the moment. We shooed away firms like Motorola when they approached us in the early 1990s for facilities to set up manufacturing operations in India. China welcomed them, it wooed them, it created every conceivable facility for hardware firms from Japan, of course, but also from Taiwan, a country at which 400 of its missiles are aimed. It has thereby leapt ahead.

But the game is hardly over. That world-class hardware can be produced in India is evident. How many of us would have heard of Moser-Baer? Located in unprepossessing Noida, it is the world�s third largest optical media manufacturer, and the lowest-cost producer of CD-Recorders. Its exports are close to Rs 1,000 crore.

The firm sells data-storage products to seven of the world�s top 10 CD-R producers. And it produces them so efficiently that, to shield themselves, European competitors had to file an anti-dumping case to stop and penalise its exports to Europe. Moser-Baer fought on its own. And won.

A firm most of us have not heard of. A firm that is manufacturing products at the cutting edge of technology. A firm exporting Rs 1,000 crore of products that require the utmost precision and technological sophistication. A firm that European firms fear.


And equally important � the very international fora that our ideologues shout are instruments of exploitation hold against European firms, and in favour of this Indian firm.

There is more. Moser-Baer has acquired Capco Luxembourg, a firm that owns 49 per cent of a Netherlands-based CD-R distributor. And it has set up Glyphics Media Inc. in the United States�for markets in North and South America. And here we are being made to shiver at the thought that foreign firms are about to swallow us!

Heard of Tandon Electronics? Its exports of electronic hardware are close to Rs 4,000 crore!

At a moment�s notice, my friends Amit Mitra of FICCI and Tarun Das of CII send me particulars of firm after firm, in sector after sector, that has broken new ground. A sample:

* Fifteen of the world�s major automobile manufacturers are now obtaining components from Indian firms.

* Just last year, exports of auto-components were $375 million. This year they are close to $1.5 billion. Estimates indicate they will reach $15 billion within six to seven years.

* Hero Honda is now the largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world�with an output of 17 lakh motorcycles a year.

* One lakh Indica cars of the Tatas are to be marketed in Europe by Rover, one of the United Kingdom�s most prestigious auto-manufacturers under its � that is, Rover�s � brand name.

* Bharat Forge has the world�s largest single-location forging facility � of 1.2 lakh tonnes per annum. Its client list includes Toyota, Honda, Volvo, Cummins, Daimler Chrysler. It has been chosen as a supplier of small forging parts for Toyota�s global transmission parts� sourcing hub in Bangalore.

* Asian Paints has production facilities in 22 countries spread across five continents. It has recently acquired Berger International, which gives it access to 11 countries, and SCIB Chemical SAE in Egypt. Asian Paints is the market leader in 11 of the 22 countries in which it is present, including India.

* Hindustan Inks has the world�s largest single stream, fully integrated ink plant, of 1 lakh tonnes per annum capacity, at Vapi, Gujarat. It has a manufacturing plant and a 100 per cent subsidiary in the US. It has another 100 per cent subsidiary in Austria.

* For two years running, General Motors has awarded Sundaram Clayton its �Best Supplier Award�; the volumes it sources out of India are growing every year.

* Ford has presented the �Gold World Excellence Award� to Cooper Tyres.

* Essel Propack is the world�s largest laminated tube manufacturer. It has a manufacturing presence in 11 countries including China, a global manufacturing share of 25 per cent, and caters to all of P&G�s laminated tube requirements in the US, and 40 per cent of Unilever�s.

* Aston Martin, one of the world�s most expensive car brands, has contracted prototyping its latest luxury sports car to an India-based designer. This would be the cheapest car to roll out of Aston Martin�s stable.

* Maruti has been the preferred supplier of small cars under the Suzuki brand for Europe. Suzuki has now decided to make India its manufacturing, export and research hub outside Japan.

* Hyundai Motors India is about to become the parent Hyundai Motors Corporation�s global small car hub. In 2003, HMC will source 25,000 Santros from HMI�s plant in India. By 2010 HMI is targeted to supply half a million cars to HMC.

It was only in 1999 that HMI got its first outsourcing contract and already, in 2003, 20 per cent of its sales will be what it supplies as an outsourcing hub. It is exporting cars to Indonesia, Algeria, Morocco, Columbia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.


* Ford India got its first outsourcing contract in 2000. Within 3 years outsourcing accounts for 35 per cent of its sales. Ford India supplies to Mexico, Brazil and China. The parent Ford is sourcing close to $40 million worth of components from India, and plans to increase these in the coming years.

Ford India is already the sole manufacturing and supply base for Ikon cars and components. These are being exported to Mexico, China and Africa.

* Toyota Kirloskar Motors chose India over competitive destinations like Philippines and China for setting up a new project to source transmissions as this option proved more economical.

* Europe�s leading tractor maker, Renault, has chosen International Tractors (ITL) as its sole global sourcing hub for 40 to 85 horsepower tractors.

* Tyco Electronics India bagged its first outsourcing contract in 1998-99. So successful has it been that components and products others have contracted from it already account for 50 per cent of its total sales. It supplies to the parent, Tyco Europe.

* TISCO is today the lowest cost producer of hot-rolled steel in the world.

* TVS Motor Company has been awarded the coveted Deming Prize for Total Quality Management. Many of the largest of organisations, even American ones�like GE�have not managed that recognition yet!

India�s pharmaceutical industry has come to be feared as much as its infotech industry. It is already worth $ 6.5 billion and it has been growing at 8-10 per cent a year. It�s the fourth largest pharmaceutical industry in terms of volumes and 13th in value. Its exports have crossed $2 billion, and have increased by 30 per cent in the past five years. India is among the top five manufacturers of bulk drugs.

Even more telling is another figure. We are always being frightened, ��Multinational drug companies are about to takeover.�� In 1971 the share of these MNCs in the Indian market was 75 per cent. Today it�s 35 per cent!

There�s another feature we should bear in mind: India�s strengths are becoming evident across the technology spectrum:

* We are among the three countries in the world that have built supercomputers on their own, the US and Japan being the other two: two months ago, the fourth generation PARAM super-computer was inaugurated in Bangalore.

* We are among six countries in the world that launch satellites. We launch some of our own satellites of course; we have launched satellites for others too, among them such countries as Germany and Belgium. We have the largest set of remote sensing satellites. Our INSAT system is also among the world�s largest domestic satellite communication systems.

At the other end:

* India is one of the world�s largest diamond cutting and polishing centres. CLSA estimates nine of every 10 stones sold in the world pass through India.

* Trade of Indian medicinal plants has crossed Rs 4,000 crore.

Here is proof positive that liberalisation has indeed worked. ��By opening the economy before giving it a chance to become competitive, we have thrown our industry to the wolves,�� it used to be said. Quite the contrary. The success in exports, in fields such as IT in which competition is fierce, in which technological change is fast as lightning, success in auto-components, in pharmaceuticals shows that our industry has fought back, it has become competitive.

Remember all that shouting about Chinese batteries a year ago? ��Markets are closing down, thousands are being thrown out of their meagre businesses, factory after factory has shut down.�� That was the shouting just a few months ago.

Where are those batteries from China? Yes, trade with China has grown�by 104% in the past year. But according to figures of the Chinese Government, in the first five months of 2003, India has amassed a surplus in its trade with China, a surplus of close to half a billion dollars.

And China is just an instance. Exports as a whole, and in the face of an unrelenting recession in the West, have grown by 19 per cent in the year. In a word, what committees upon committees with their piles of recommendations would not have achieved, being actually exposed to actual competition has.

Our foreign exchange reserves are at an all-time high�$82 billion. We have announced that we will not be taking aid from a string of countries.

* We are giving aid to 10 or 11 countries.
* We are pre-paying our debt.
*We have just ��loaned�� $300 million to the IMF!

How distant the days when we used to wait anxiously for the announcement about what the Aid India Club meeting in Paris had decided to give us.

But there is the other side�equally telling. Why is it that so few among us know even the elementary facts about these successes? Why is it that so much of public, specifically political, discourse, when it is not whining is just wailing?

Indian Express
August 15, 2003

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>CBI focuses on overseas accounts of former Satyam chief Raju</b>
pioneer.com
PTI | New Delhi
The CBI, probing the multi-crore rupee financial scam in Satyam Computer, is likely to approach the US, Mauritius and some European countries to seek details of bank accounts of the firm's tainted founder Ramalinga Raju and his kin in those nations.

While the agency was preparing documents for sending a Letters Rogatory to the US, CBI sources said a similar exercise would be undertaken for countries like Mauritius and a few tax havens in Europe.

A letters rogatory is a request for judicial assistance.

Sources said that the money was routed back to India through some banks in the United Kingdom and the remittances to these banks were made from these tax havens.

The sources said that Raju had likely converted money in several salary accounts into fixed deposits in four banks and transferred them to banks in Mauritius.

This money was ultimately routed through Lakeside Investments and Lakeview Investment companies to front companies including Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties.

<b>CBI sources said the process of sending the Letters Rogatory to the US Justice Department seeking details of Raju's accounts in Bank of Baroda's New York branch, besides seeking the American authorities' help to obtain the details of Raju and his kin's accounts, believed to be in Bank of America, is on.</b> <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Congress B of Investigation babus will get a chance to collect frequent flier miles and more shopping trips.

[Capt M Kumar]

Analysts also had a warning for Google, cautioning the company's executives against letting their foray into the PC desktop distract them from the company's core search and advertising business, where Microsoft is making progress.

Bing, launched June 3 to generally positive reviews, handled 8.23 per cent of US Web searches in June, up from 7.21 per cent in April, according to Internet data firm StatCounter. "They have been making all these attempts at Microsoft. They have been doing nothing with their search," said Fred Hickey, editor of the High-Tech Strategist Newsletter.

http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiearti...how/4757741.cms

[Guest]

<b>Ramalinga Raju suffers heart attack, shifted from jail to hospital</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Satyam Computers founder B Ramalinga Raju, who is in jail for the past eight months in connection with a Rs 8,000 crore corporate fraud,<b> suffered a massive heart attack </b>and was admitted to NIMS hospital tonight, jail and police sources said.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Now YSR had gone, who will rescue him. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->

[Capt M Kumar]

Still, in many households, internet usage rose 70% to 15.7 hours a week from a year earlier, a pointer to the growing popularity of social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter.



“Proper laws governing cyber cafe industry will promote further adoption of internet in the country,” says Amrita Choudhary, Director at Cyber Cafes Association of India.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/info...703745.cms

[Bharatvarsh2]

Check out Pranav Mistry's presentation on his sixth sense technology:



http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_t...ology.html

[Capt M Kumar]

NEW DELHI: The world’s most-used internet browser, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, is on a steady decline in India, reveals a study by Irish metrics firm StatCounter. IE, as it’s known, has lost almost 20% market share in India in the past two years, even as Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox make great strides.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/arti...730207.cms

[Capt M Kumar]

BANGALORE: The revival of economic fortunes is leading to a new wave of job creation with companies stepping on the expansion pedal. Four of the world's leading tech and telecom firms — Accenture, Oracle, Nokia and Capgemini — are expanding operations at a rapid pace, as leasing deals for office space of close to 15 lakh sqft in Bangalore have been signed for in the past two months. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india...911104.cms

[Capt M Kumar]

<img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':o' /> There are more than four billion combinations. But the proliferation of networked devices means soon that will no longer be enough. In a way, IP addresses are like phone numbers, which need to be entered correctly if a right connection is to be made. So the ability to uniquely identify everything in the computer world is essential.



The shortage means that every web server, every iPhone, every router and everything else — possibly billions of devices — will need to be reconfigured or upgraded.



Computers now use IP version 4 and have since the 1980s. Its replacement is version 6, known as IPv6. For humans, little will change. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Home/...946725.cms

[Anouchka]

An article by Dr. Ramesh Mashelkar, about Innovation and an award function that honored some of the best innovations in India. Innovation Led Growth, Innovation Led Recovery, Innovation Led Competitiveness are not mere slogans, they are a hard reality. The power of innovation to create social and economic transformation has been well recognized all around the world. India is no exception.



On 3 January 2010, during his Science Congress address, Prime Minister Dr. Man Mohan Singh declared 2010-20 as the decade of innovation for India. Soon thereafter the National Innovation Council was set up under the unique leadership of Sam Pitroda. We are fortunate that Sam Pitroda is gracing the Innovation for India Awards 2010 function.



Whereas the nation is embracing innovation in a serious way now, it is a matter of pride that Marico Innovation Foundation set up an agenda of fuelling innovation in India in as early as 2003 itself. The Foundation has come a long way through its several initiatives. First, the Foundation decided to see innovation not as a narrow technocratic discipline but as embracing cultural and social issues as well. Second, it recognized the unique characteristics of innovation in India, which has thrived on the backdrop of India’s challenges of scarcity, poverty, diversity and scale – but tampered with huge aspirations.



As an example, the brilliant research made it possible to bring out a unique book ‘Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen : 11 Indians who pulled off the impossible’. It is a best seller today with over 25,000 copies sold. Several other initiatives like Challenger Research, Institute Alliances, scholarly studies on subjects ranging from product innovation to social innovations have constituted the essence of an exciting journey for the Foundation.



However, the pioneering Innovation for India Awards tops Foundation’s activities in terms of importance and impact. The intent of the awards is to salute those Indian innovators, who have made a real difference to the nation.



‘Inclusive globalization’ or ‘inclusive growth’ will not take place without ‘inclusive innovation’. This year’s selection of awardees shows the very best face of Indian inclusive innovation. This year the awardees range from Innovative Indian companies, the large-scale social Innovations to the big impact innovations in public service. There is a strong common thread of Innovation for Inclusive Growth among these awardees which cover innovations focused on environment conservation, to radical breakthroughs in education and energy sectors. The magnitude of impact of some innovations has been felt across India, and will continue to influence society at large scale. There are others which have strategically made a niche in unchartered territories, by working in a unique space, with one initiative of turning uncultivable land into crop- growing soil. Some of these initiatives are first to world which makes these innovations even more commendable.

Over the past couple of years, new buzz words are emerging in the innovation landscape, such as ‘inclusive innovation’,’ reverse innovation’, ‘frugal engineering’, ‘Gandhian engineering’, etc. All of them represent a unique way of getting ‘more from less for more and more people’ rather than just getting ‘more from less for more and more profit and more and more value to the shareholders’.



It is a matter of pride that Innovation for India Awards 2010 presents a strong echo of the leadership that India is creating in this space as we march into our exciting journey into the 21st century.



R.A. Mashelkar

[Capt M Kumar]

In the UK, the online forum Mumsnet is so powerful in terms of influencing government policy the British press dubbed the May polls the "Mumsnet election".



Alex Brooks, executive editor of Kidspot.com.au, one of Australia's leading parenting forums, calls the site a "virtual" mothers' group.



"People come for all the same reasons they used to go to an offline mothers' group, but they find that online really suits their situation. It means you've got access to advice at any time," The Daily Telegraph quoted her, as saying. http://news.oneindia.in/2010/07/25/meett...+-+News%29

[Guest]

[url="http://www.hindustantimes.com/IT-dept-goofs-up-shuts-sites/H1-Article1-597396.aspx"]IT dept goofs up, shuts sites[/url]

Some lewd remarks made against Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil published on a website has led to blocking of hundreds of websites in India since August 9 causing inconvenience to lakhs of people. This happened apparently due to wrong interpretation of a Mumbai court for blocking the offending website http://donotdial100.webs.com by the Department of Information Technology (DIT).

Instead of blocking particular website, the DIT blocked the IP address :- 216.52.115.50 that hosted the offending website, resulting into blocking of hundreds of other websites hosted by webs.com as well.



Though the order mentions technical details of the offending website including the IP address, it talks of blocking only http://donotdial100.webs.com and not the domain server of webs.com.



Several website owners and Jerry Weinberger Director, Service and Retention webs.com have written to the Mumbai Police Cyber Division and to the DIT for rectifying it but nothing has been done.



Director General, Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) in the DIT Gulshan Rai said: "This is a judicial order and I have requested the Mumbai Police and the website users to approach the court and get an appropriate order."



...

But since the order also mentioned the I P address, the department also chose to block webs.com, an international hosting service provider for individuals, groups and organisations that are interested in building a website.

What kind of morons are these guys?

First they are stomping on Freedom of speech

Second, pinheads are blocking IP address.

third, they better hire IT guys to right order, these IAS/IPS officers are just useless.

[Capt M Kumar]

Microsoft will share with the HRD Ministry its “dream spark” software series, which offer software licensing programmes for students and faculty engaged in science, technology, methods and design. Certification for these softwares will be available inherently, said AICTE chairman Dr SS Mantha, adding that the availability will change the way students learn technology.



“Now if you want to show a student how an automobile works, you can actually assembly each of its components and display to your class,” he said. http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20101017/main4.htm