You can't hide when you write

Isn't it superfluous or just plain lazy to write to someone that you don't know something. You know, like I don't know who or what Kaiser Soze is or which is the 10th closest star from the earth, or just where do we get hing (asafoetida) from?

Or when someone writes "You, noob!" on chat, you can't just reply, "I don't know what you mean". That will make you more of a noob


You know, if you are writing, then you are either on email or chat (who writes on the paper anyway, apart from the devil printers) And in that case, you can easily find out the information for yourself - google is at your fingertips. So, why can't you not know?

It doesn't matter that you didn't know stuff, and it doesn't matter that you don't know stuff when you talk to real people. But when you write, you are all-knowing. You can be a wise erudite info-whore.


NB - Does excessive pursuit of knowledge make you a wikipedo-phile?

Paisa hi paisa. But remember paisa hi

I wish everyday is a claims settlement day. The flush of happiness that floats over you on seeing an mail with the Subject, "Your reimbursement claim has been processed", can only be matched by a dear one affectionately cooing, "You dirty simian". Though no one calls me that, I think the simile still works.

I am loaded with reimbursed money and the salary is still due. So, if you want to ask for some cash, don't hesitate. I can lend you a penny or two. I mean it - the lending bit as well as the denomination.

Good article about blogging

I kept coming back to the idea that I had a right to say whatever I wanted. I don't think I understood then that I could be right about being free to express myself but wrong about my right to make that self-expression public in a permanent way.

Good article about blogging

Why we should all die at 30

When I was 15 I was at the zenith of my rebellious phase. I raged against everyone and everything: My parents, my teachers, organised religion and on many occasions, even my friends, whom I regarded as rather naive and in need of mass herding. I did everything a human being was not supposed to - at least according to a few popular ancient books.

I completely agree. And I so wish my daughter would have seen me operate when I was younger. My agility - physical and to some extent mental, is going. The back, the neck, the shoulders, they ache. The body is a creaking prison.

Again, not that I am unhappy, but there is absolutely no point holding off sex till after marriage. Either you get married early, or have loads of sex in college.

The exuberance, the passion, the vitality of youth brings a lot to the table (when young, its the table, when old, its the bed), and that is something not to be wasted. The middle-ages exist to revel in a different kind of pleasure, but the pure carnal desires have an important place of their own.

Indian Workforce unhealthy

Indian Workforce unhealthy

All work and no play is making Indian professionals unhealthy. A study conducted by the World Health Organisation to gauge the health of India's workforce has made some startling revelations.

trends in BI

A perfectly good article on the trends in BI.

Trained to wait

York to Nottingham - distance - 86.5 miles
York to London - distance - 204.5 miles

York to Nottingham - Train duration - 2.10 hours
York to London - Train duration - 2.10 hours

The bitter truth in the UK is that, all lines lead to London. If London is not your source or destination, be prepared for slower trains, numerous changes, and time wasted on platforms waiting for the next one. This is even true if you are travelling between other country capitals (Cardiff and Edinburgh) and county capitals. There just isn't frequent and quick service.

I wish York was in Bihar and Laloo Prasad was the Railway Minister of UK

Juno why it won the Oscar for best screenplay?

Juno pissed me off. Oversmart characters deliver wise-cracks which are more crack than wise, Ellen Page drawls painfully through the whole thing. It is as if Diablo Cody didn't know when to stop and kept on stuffing more tasteless, profane, loud stuff in an attempt to sound cool. It ends up being incongruous and gets on your nerves.

There were a few deft touches, but overall, the writing and Ellen's acting hammed big time.

Lets soften the show

More of those, people. More of those.

Wipro Infotech merging with Wipro Technologies?

Wipro Infotech seems to be merging with Wipro Technologies. According to an Organizational Announcement

APAC Geography has had a great performance last year with ASEAN and Australia both growing above 93% in Revenue and PBIT over 265%. The respective teams have done a great job on all counts - farming of large accounts, adding new accounts, adding new Lines-of-Business in existing accounts and over-achieving the revenue and profit targets.


This performance and the market growth have prompted us to provide it a greater growth lever - by moving it to Wipro Technologies. We hope with this movement APAC will grow more aggressively in the future.


This movement would mean that all employees in Wipro Infotech (whether in India or at an overseas location) in APAC accounts would eventually move into Wipro Technologies, albeit in a phased manner...


The new structure makes perfect sense, now that the growth is not coming from the West. Wipro Infotech and Tech operated as different companies and offered no perceptible leveraging of their individual strengths as they cross-employee movement was restricted. The integration will greatly enhance their services across geographies.

Article Published - How the Indian IT Industry can cope with the US recession

My article - How the Indian IT Industry can cope with the US recession - has now been published in three widely read publications

1. CIOL
2. IT ToolBox
3. Web Buyer's Guide

And the sun will set for you.

Recession is good for the IT industry. Too many crap people have got into software - people with zero aptitude. Brains the size, content and color of mushy peas. Ability to speak like a baby toy with corrupted speech program ("I put here the document")

They drag you down, waste your time, destroy your piece of mind, and reduce you to an insensitive, grouchy, nervous wreck.

The bad times should swallow such invalids and help restore some sanity (literally) to IT.

Wipro is hiring freshers

Bangla se aaya mera dost.

Booking for 'Maitree Express' begins on Friday.

A train between Dhaka and Kolkata.hmm.... Probably, they should soon extend it to Mankhurd, where the biggest Bangladeshi community resides.

Bangladeshi immigrants should not be required to change so many trains to get to their karmabhoomi

No time to stand and stare

"Life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us".
Compelling read

Meru Redbus

Cool to find that there are more hassle-free options for public transport these days.

Meru cabs provides on-call and internet booking. This is especially useful for people in suburbs where cabs don't ply that frequently, and there aren't any taxi stands worth their engine-oil.

The Meru cabs look comfortable, well-maintained, and especially suited for corporate types. They give you receipts, which is a must for claiming the fare back. And such corporate types are not worried if the fare is a bit higher. After all, you are reimbursing it.

Update - I used it while travelling to the airport, good service, and the fare is economical. However, they don't have enough luggage storage. They use LPG based engine, which takes up a lot of space of the boot. Also, they allow only 2 pieces inside the car. So, if you are carrying a lot of luggage, Meru probably is not your best option.

Redbus is a site where you can book bus tickets online. The site is sparse, clean, and fast. Good choices amongst various operators. Really, the founders need to be congratulated for the initiative and creating a market that wasn't serviced at all.

If both could mash it with some mapping tools - so you could see your route - then it would certainly add some pizzaz to the site. Not to mention making to even more useful.

Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi -redux

Saw Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi again and it still packs a wallop. Some amazing writing has gone into the making of this masterpiece.

Not to forget the delectable, glad-she-is-back Chitrangada Singh.

Google News sucks

I had earlier written about my dissatisfaction with Google News. I never find the most relevant news within the first 3-4 news items displayed in each section. Also, I don't quite comprehend the logic for showing me news in the recommended section. Does it do some profiling of my web behavior to produce that list? Well, I would want to remove the recommended section altogether, but can't. right now. And it wastes the most previous space on the web-page.

Anyway, here is the screenshot from Google News India today. Enjoy.

How the Indian IT Industry can cope with the US recession

The US downturn is slowly but surely redefining the Indian IT paradigm and if the Indian IT companies are not watchful, they may lose the outsourcing advantage soon.

The signs are for all to see. US employment fell for the first time since 2003, manufacturing declined 5.3%, first time house buying - a good proxy for economic health - plunged 8.1 percent in December. Technically, it might not qualify as a recession, but according to Warren Buffet, “by common sense definition”, the U.S. economy already is in a recession.

A December, 2007 report on the Indian tech sector by Morgan Stanley says the uncertainty in the United States may delay tech spending in the first half of 2008. Margins are already under tight pressure due to the weakening dollar. With Indian IT salaries rising 10-15% a year, the overall operating margins have been reduced to 6%. The major crisis in the US financial markets has had a ripple effect on all sectors and it might be a while before things start looking up. As Lakshmi Narayanan, Nasscom chairman and V-C at Cognizant said, "The current situation is not temporary. It is the new baseline. The industry will have to learn to operate under the new parameters." Anecdotal evidence suggests that fewer development projects from existing clients are coming through. The sales cycles have increased and winning new customers has become increasingly difficult.

If there was a major watershed in the Indian IT Industry post Y2K, this is it. After the dizzying growth of the last 10 years, it is time to pause, reflect and realign strategies. If the industry has to survive, then it needs to adapt to the changing market scenarios quickly. Talk of a software upgrade.


Diversify Globally

For far too long, Indian IT industry has focused on the US. Yes, US accounts for about 60% of the total IT spending. However, IT spending of American companies is slipping. It’s also been a long time since US firms embraced the outsourcing model, so further growth seems very limited. With that in mind, the Indian IT firms need to focus their attention on the other markets, especially Europe. Using UK as the base, software firms can branch out onto mainland Europe. There will be a certain amount of language and cultural resistance in countries like France, Germany, and Netherlands, that Indian firms will need to grapple with. Language training and cultural orientation should form a big part of the foray into Europe.

The potential of nearshoring – supporting the the clients from offices located geographically closer to them - in the context of IT, also needs to be tapped fully. Customers are looking for IT service providers who are located closer and culturally similar. With respect to Europe, the East European countries satisfy both these criteria. Moreover, East Europe has a large number of skilled software programmers. According to Arkadiy Dobkin, CEO of outsourcing powerhouse EPAM, the so-called "Soviet heritage" of traditionally strong engineering education is responsible for the region's large pool of trained professionals. The cost advantage of India over such locations is also significantly diminished as salaries in Eastern Europe are not significantly higher than those in India.

The need for nearshoring is especially highlighted by the fact that many UK IT service providers have recently invested in 3 global delivery centers in Eastern Europe (others are in Morocco and China). Such nearshore locations will be able to service EMEA and South East Asia region, and their capabilities cannot be replicated by similar centers in India. Many global firms want to continue offshoring, however they are looking at non-India based partners as a way of addressing the issues of talent shortage, salary hikes, and high turnover which are becoming more acute in the Indian IT sector. Such firms are even willing to back development centers run by Indian giants elsewhere, purely from the standpoint of flexibility, business continuity, and seamlessness in global operations. Hence, Indian IT companies should establish a strong presence globally through delivery centers in emerging regions, so as to maintain its existing business and gain a bigger portion of the IT revenues pie.


Local Foray

With the rupee gradually strengthening against the dollar, it makes imminent sense to enter the local markets decisively. Indian IT market is growing at a compounded annual rate of 21%. Indian companies have been traditionally slow in embracing IT, but are now adopting technology at a breakneck speed. A few large multi-million dollar contracts like the Bharti-IBM, Dabur-Accenture and SBI-TCS deals should make the rest of industry sit up and recognize the potential of the Indian market. Some of these deals have been jaw-dropping huge – TCS’ $140 million deal with BSNL, Wipro’s $80 million and $60 million deal respectively with HDFC and Dena Bank equal, if not exceed, deals of similar nature with international clients. The opportunity is not worth ignoring.

South East Asia is another region where IT big-wigs can focus their energies. China, Korea, Japan, Australia are big markets, and Indian firms should make a firm thrust in capturing them. The region can not only be tapped for local markets, but also be used as satellite facilities to support their Indian counterparts.


Tighten Recruitment and Retention Processes.
Since the last few years, the composition of IT resource pool has undergone a substantial shift. Earlier, many reputed companies only recruited engineers through campus placements. These placements were also carried out in Tier 1 colleges. The selection process was tough - base criteria was first class academic qualification, followed by test of GMAT style logical questions, and a rigorous interview process. Only the top few got through.

However, the demand for Indian IT services kept getting bigger. Post dot-com bust and 9/11 tragedy, business conditions in the US became tougher, and companies wanted to focus on key operational and strategic functions and outsource technical application development and support to the experts. India as an IT destination offered notable cost advantage, better flexibility, 24/7 support and improved accountability.

To cater to the rising demand, there has been a mad rush to recruit more people. No longer is a 4 year engineering degree a de-facto selection criterion for recruiting candidates. Now, companies have started hiring from non-engineering colleges. Recruitment cells are covering lower ranked colleges during campus placements. Consequently, the quality of new recruits has gone down noticeably. Figures suggest that only 25% of the total graduates in India have employable ‘production-worthy’ skills. With the recruitment net thrown far and wide, the statistics about production-worthiness is reflected quite closely amongst the new joinees. Not only are the much celebrated analytical skills poor amongst such fresh hires, but even basic communication skills are a cause for great worry.

Fewer contracts in a sluggish economic scenario would automatically drive down the break-neck speed of recruitment. However, instead of a complete stop to all recruitment, the IT industry should use this period for a meaningful introspection and a substantial realignment of its hiring and retention processes. The employees who have demonstrated continuous below par performance need to be put on notice. They must be mandated to undergo training programs to hone and upgrade their skills – technical as well as inter-personal. In the absence of any significant improvements, they should be let go. At the same time, campus and lateral recruitment of high performing individuals needs to continue. It will help restore the balance in favor of a more productive workforce.


Address the Skills Shortage

Concurrently, this quiet period needs to be used to get the existing resource pool ready for the next big wave. Most programmers are too caught up in the daily quotidian tasks to catch up on the latest technical advances, and appreciate the breakthroughs that will sweep the IT world. To address this gap, workshops and technical trainings to educate the workforce should be held at regular intervals. Similar sessions on soft-skills and cultural orientation programs should be conducted to make the people more customer-centric.

Service Oriented Architecture, Software as a Service, Cloud Paradigm (or desktop virtualization) are emerging as some of the biggest IT trends. Additionally, platform consolidation is the biggest IT change that many CIOs have on their radar. Much of the work coming along will be governed by these trends. The software designers should be brought up to speed on these new trends, and the programmers trained on the technologies that underline these trends.


Improve Productivity

Addressing the skills shortage amongst the existing employees will partly lead to better productivity. But a concerted effort is needed for flexible and savvy use of the existing resources. The recent growth of IT has left many organizations with massive shortage of middle level managers. To fill the gap, untrained software engineers have been promoted to managerial roles - far too quickly, in my opinion. At the same time, the inter-operability found in foreign tech heavyweights– where senior staff continues to be technically hands-on even after 5-10 years – is not to be seen. In India organizations, such resources tend to be entirely devoted to administrative tasks and managerial reporting.

Resolving this can be fairly straight forward. Technical tasks should form a sizable portion of a project lead’s tasks. Technical advancement through training and project work should be an integral part of a manager’s appraisal criteria. For smaller projects, senior resources need to be encouraged to code themselves, thereby reducing the overheads.

Simple tools like word and excel, if used effectively provide fantastic productivity gains. Trainings on such desktop tools need serious thought.

Some Indian IT organizations have world-class in-house systems. But there is still a tremendous scope in making these functions quicker and simpler. What better time to get those things fixed than this slack period? Programming is one of the most intense and focused activities, and any hindrance to it – availability of software, training material, access issues – should be resolved speedily through a system that exists to support the programmer more than anyone else. There is a sense that the rapid and reflexive adoption of security management controls like BS7799 has done more harm than good by cramping creativity and adventurous spirit of the computer programmer. An elaborate review might be in order.


Upside down in a Flat World

Cut-throat competition from global players and the falling dollar has squeezed the margins for typical run-of-the-mill work. Yes, consulting is a niche that eventually all Indian IT companies would want to get into. But basic factors like maturity (dearth of experienced consultants), perception (image of Indian IT firms as application developers and implementors) and location (failing of global delivery model in primarily client based work) will hinder any real inroads into the consulting space.

The trick is to innovate – not necessarily do different things, but do things differently. In that regard, the focus on innovation of some of the top Indian companies is a step in the right direction. Wipro’s Applied Innovation Framework lays down a roadmap for systemic change to deliver sustainable business benefits. An illustrious case in point is Wipro’s transformational engagement with Credit Suisse. In this trailblazing flex-sourcing model, three primary ownership models (captive, outsourced, co-managed) have been employed together, in effect to cater to different business requirements. It is a risky manoeuvre which has paid off handsomely, as evident from the remarkable growth of the Credit Suisse account within Wipro.


Summing IT up

This is indeed a tricky time for the Indian IT industry, but there’s no real reason to panic. The IT guns showed great character and resilience during the years following the dot com bust. They are wise enough to read the signs and realize that change is in order. With a slight course correction and an unswerving view on the long-term, the India IT industry can emerge stronger and bigger.

Update - CIOL has put the article up in the features section. It's edited haphazardly, but still, feels good

Olympic Torch Relay

Aamir Khan should as well