Indian IT Industry

[RamaY]

This is not SCRUM or Agile, this is only a short waterfall of 2 weeks or 4 weeks. Agile methods insist that testing happens together with the code development. So there is no way that developers are resting and testers are testing. Both are part of development team and should be working together

BTW, I havent figured out the way on how to do it in my project

Apart from S/W industry, any other industry uses Agile? What is the result? Can we travel in a car / plane developed thru Agile?

Sir I was writing why/how scrum/agile fails.

[ArmenT]

One more reason for Agile failures is it assumes that programmers are fungible and therefore interchangeable with one another. What happens in reality is that the most talented person in the bunch (if he/she is motivated enough and a team player) ends up covering for the least talented. Things go well until the most talented person decides to take a vacation and then the team suddenly falls apart and doesn't complete even ONE task in the sprint. Or the most talented person gets over-stressed from the deadlines and decided that he/she has had enough and finds another job. In theory, the other team members should be able to complete the tasks in the sprint. In practice, they often don't know what to do. And this is because programmers aren't fungible.

[RamaY]

ArmenT ji,

I agree there are great programmers/engineers but no one is indispensable. Valuable employees leave companies all the time and that hardly stops the world.

It doesn't matter what S/W methodology you use when important and knowledgeable team members leave. Attributing it to the methodology is nothing but chickening out.

Symontk garu - that is why any/every methodology advises to break the work in to meaningful chunks. In Agile eight 1 point stories are much productive than one 8 point story; eventhough they both result in same velocity. When you have eight 1 point stories in an iteration, you will have them completed starting from day 1 or 2 so the QA team can complete the verification at the same time. You can combine Test-driven development approach to get your s/w quality more tangible.

Many mission critical s/w systems are developed using Agile methodologies. Your plane might not have developed using agile (the h/w part; which I can say is agile from one point of view) but the s/w that controls the flight mechanisms can be developed using Agile. If your read the LCA story book, you can see the traces of these methodologies.

Again, when a team approaches a methodology for its intended purpose and not from personal conviniences or from organizational politics perspective, the team gets the most out of the methodology, be it agile or otherwise.

[SaiK]

err.. there is no agile bijnej pojible for embedded systems and real time systems. either they work to spec in one shot, or never.. the reason, many advanced systems - example LCA control laws, or for that matter jet engine FADEC controls, largely depends on software-hardware strong tie ups.. software can no way be delinked when the controls are tightly coupled.. there is no agile bijnej here.

[schowdhuri]

One of the big problems in IT proj mgmt is that activity is assumed to be progress. So, if there is lot of activity, PM will write something like 80% complete. Unfortunately, lots of activity does not mean lots of progress - it may not even mean little progress. Agile (done properly) is supposed to break that. If you have done activity you are supposed to show progress.

[VikramS]

Agile is an attempt to convert software development of complex systems to an assembly line process.
The biggest gain is visibility: both in terms of the progress of individual contributors and also the issues faced by different team members. This should lead to greater accountability, and less last minute surprises.

I feel that the more successful engineers are the once who have been following agile practices even with complex projects, before they became buzz-words. During the pre-agile days, the not so great producers could hide behind layers of opaqueness, and then deliver something which works but marginally. Agile gives them less time to party, and foces them to deliver on much shorter time-cycles. The involvement of QA etc., much earlier than before means that you can not wait till the last moment.

And it is wrong to say that complex systems can not be developed in an agile manner. In fact I feel that even research/experimental projects would benefit from the style of tracking and task assignment followed in properly run Agile Teams. When working on open-ended problems, you can spend a lot of time pursuing dead-ends if you do not synch up often with the rest of the team.

But I have seen Scrums getting converted to a one hour daily meeting as all kind of issues are bought up. It is hard to break old habits; the scrum-master needs to be firm in managing the scrum.

[Vayutuvan]

Saw it on /. (but
s/Computer Scientist/Software Engineer/g
)

A great king summoned two of his advisors, and showed them both a shiny metal box with two slots in the top, a control knob and a lever. "What do you think this is?"

One adviser, an engineer, answered first: "It is a toaster," he said.

The king asked, "But how would you design an embedded computer for it?"

The engineer replied, "Using a 4-bit micro-controller, I would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow white to coal black. The program would use that darkness level as the index to a 16-element table of initial timer values. Then it would turn on the toaster and start the timer. At the end of the time delay, it would turn off the heat and pop up the toast. Come back next week, and I'll show you a working prototype."

The second adviser, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the danger of such short-sighted thinking. He said, "Toasters don't just turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles. What you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. As the subjects of your kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand more capabilities. They will need a breakfast food cooker that can also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A toaster that only makes toast will soon be obsolete."

The adviser suggested a future-oriented embedded computer innovation, with a forward-ready platform: "Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with multiple inheritance. Of course, users don't want the eggs to get cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required, too.

"We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food lacks versatility and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won't want the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface.

"Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform for the implementation phase. An Intel 80386 with 8MB of memory, a 30MB hard disk and a VGA monitor should be sufficient. If you select a multitasking, object oriented language that supports multiple inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the program will be a snap."

The king had the computer scientist thrown in the moat, and they all lived happily ever after.

[vivek_v]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/che ... 112765.ece

While other companies have deferred the joining dates of fresh candidates HCL seems to be conducting another round of exams for their freshers selected from campus before even training. Looks like only one in six managed to clear the exam.

During my time we used to be lucky if only 10%-15% of the class managed to get placed in Campus , now when i recently visited my college about a year ago only 10% to 20% of all batches did not get placed in campus. In some these colleges there was direct selection if the grades were good with just an HR interview, no technical round. The good times would not last for ever and now in the downturn it is showing. At-least if this means better quality of candidates for the IT domain and more productive set without every one tying to jump ship every year for better prospects, it would be nice.

[Sachin]

At-least if this means better quality of candidates for the IT domain and more productive set without every one tying to jump ship every year for better prospects, it would be nice.

+100. If HCL is doing it, I guess they are on the right step. Our Co. has now brought in B.E graduates by the truck loads. It is also believed that they have passed a stringent training programm. And seeing their performance I can for sure say that it is bakwaas. These folks are taught syntaxs and keywords of various software languages, and an objective type on-line exam is used to evaluate their memory power. So these folks come out with a feeling that they are now software pundits and act all uppity from day one. Given them one peice of business requirement and ask them to prepare a flow chart, they all sit there with their mouths wide opened. We had a chap who said he is a Java programmer, and so does NOT know how to make flow charts or explain business process flow using the same.

PS: If this trend continues I am seriously planning to go back to my programming days, perhaps as a consultant.

[RamaY]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/che ... 112765.ece

While other companies have deferred the joining dates of fresh candidates HCL seems to be conducting another round of exams for their freshers selected from campus before even training. Looks like only one in six managed to clear the exam.

During my time we used to be lucky if only 10%-15% of the class managed to get placed in Campus , now when i recently visited my college about a year ago only 10% to 20% of all batches did not get placed in campus. In some these colleges there was direct selection if the grades were good with just an HR interview, no technical round. The good times would not last for ever and now in the downturn it is showing. At-least if this means better quality of candidates for the IT domain and more productive set without every one tying to jump ship every year for better prospects, it would be nice.

The process of selection became the process of rejection over a period of time. The switch happened in 1999-2000 time frame.

Imagine how much time and energy has to be spent if an organization hires a 10-15000 people every year. It is like building a new company every year.

Nowadays the selectors come to the college they selected, have a quick test and select everyone who passes it. And since IT companies hire from non-IT engineering streams, often these exams are on analytical and test of reasoning type questions.

Another issue at the time of recruitment is that you do not know who is going to which project, to know the technology skill requirements in advance. So you end up generalizing the selection process.

On the other hand, the techies in companies know whom they are hiring and go deep in interview process.

[subhamoy.das]

One more reason for Agile failures is it assumes that programmers are fungible and therefore interchangeable with one another. What happens in reality is that the most talented person in the bunch (if he/she is motivated enough and a team player) ends up covering for the least talented. Things go well until the most talented person decides to take a vacation and then the team suddenly falls apart and doesn't complete even ONE task in the sprint. Or the most talented person gets over-stressed from the deadlines and decided that he/she has had enough and finds another job. In theory, the other team members should be able to complete the tasks in the sprint. In practice, they often don't know what to do. And this is because programmers aren't fungible.

The simple motto of Agile is "deliver user ready working product every few weeks". Now that requires very capable teams who are well experienced in the domain, motivated, disciplined etc etc etc. So failure happens not due to agile but due to a non agile team tying to practice agile. Agile failure also has nothing to do with the class of software - embeded, web etc.

[subhamoy.das]

Agile is an attempt to convert software development of complex systems to an assembly line process.
The biggest gain is visibility: both in terms of the progress of individual contributors and also the issues faced by different team members. This should lead to greater accountability, and less last minute surprises.

I feel that the more successful engineers are the once who have been following agile practices even with complex projects, before they became buzz-words. During the pre-agile days, the not so great producers could hide behind layers of opaqueness, and then deliver something which works but marginally. Agile gives them less time to party, and foces them to deliver on much shorter time-cycles. The involvement of QA etc., much earlier than before means that you can not wait till the last moment.

And it is wrong to say that complex systems can not be developed in an agile manner. In fact I feel that even research/experimental projects would benefit from the style of tracking and task assignment followed in properly run Agile Teams. When working on open-ended problems, you can spend a lot of time pursuing dead-ends if you do not synch up often with the rest of the team.

But I have seen Scrums getting converted to a one hour daily meeting as all kind of issues are bought up. It is hard to break old habits; the scrum-master needs to be firm in managing the scrum.

You are right on the dot. All good programmers were practicing agile informally for many years. It is now getting formalized and recognized as a way of bringing manufacturing principle(s) into software engineering.

[PratikDas]

Apologies for cross-posting myself from the Indian Telecom Folder thread.

We're going to see website names ending with .कॉम soon. See prioritization number 26.

ICANN: New gTLD Current Application Status

[krishnan]

Apologies for cross-posting myself from the Indian Telecom Folder thread.

We're going to see website names ending with .कॉम soon. See prioritization number 26.

ICANN: New gTLD Current Application Status

83 संगठन Public Interest Registry US - - Mr. Bri

[Vipul]

Home-grown cyber products to secure vital installations.

Sensitive and strategic installations that are vulnerable to cyber attacks will now be secured with indigenously-made products protecting their electronic networks.

Public sector major Electronics Corporation of India on Friday unveiled a suite of secure devices that will thwart, detect and alert against intrusive and destructive malware that can stall operations of some key organisations.These are developed for the safety of information networks of power plants, refineries, nuclear, defence and space installations over the past one year, said ECIL Acting Chairman and Managing Director Major General (retired) Sanjeev Loomba.

In the coming years, the new set of home-grown high speed routers that enable Internet connectivity on computers, products such as ECIL’s Secure Net Access System and Integrated Threat Management Appliance, he said, were expected to be preferred in large numbers to some of the imported MNC products that tend to allow cyber intrusions.

These have been developed in technology tie-ups with Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, IITs and the Chennai-based SETS.

The Advanced Carrier Ethernet Switch Router developed by IIT Professor Ashwin Gumaste was tried in RailTel this month and the National Knowledge Network used by defence units expects to “ride it”.“A major problem facing us is that we may be pierced, our networks may be intruded upon from anywhere. There is a tremendous amount of utility for these routers which are very secure and extremely power efficient besides being fully indigenous,” Maj. Gen Loomba told The Hindu during the company’s Bangalore roadshow.

“In the last 10-15 years, a lot of intrusions have taken place in the cyber space that can shut down systems. Today, the demand in the country is for secure products,” he said.As part of a major government initiative taken up over the last four years by apex agencies, ECIL, he said, had come up with half-a-dozen secure products to address this need.

Another security aspect was CCTV-based surveillance systems on the premises of VVIPs, courts, markets and key installations and the proposed Smart City projects in Delhi and Mumbai, scanners at airports and radiation detectors.

Next on the anvil was facial recognition system.

As many as six routers were produced in November last year and the advanced version would follow soon. The routers would mean a business of Rs. 100 crore for ECIL in two years.“If our products move forward as we expect them to, we could save foreign exchange in the next two years,” Maj. Gen. Loomba said.

The cyber security products now formed a small 5-10 per cent of its turnover of Rs. 1,700 crore but looked set to treble in five years.

[Vipul]

Government shuts out top global network vendors from Rs 21,000 crore fibre optic venture.

Leading global telecom equipment vendors have been barred by the government from supplying gear for the communications ministry's Rs 21,000-crore broadband venture involving the rollout of a national fibre optic network (NOFN) that will take high-speed internet to the hinterlands, top executives aware of the development said.

Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei and ZTE are missing from the telecom department (DoT) certified list of vendors eligible to supply Gigabit Passive Optical Network, or GPON, which is the chosen fibre technology for this project.

DoT has said that 100 per cent domestic sourcing is mandatory for the project by 2014-15, and its list of certified vendors includes — Himachal Futuristic Communications (HFCL), ITI, Tejas Networks, C-DoT, VMC Systems, Prithvi Infosystems, Sai Systems, United Telecoms and SM Creative. The project is overseen by a new entity called Bharat Broadband Network (BBNL) and is being executed by BSNL and MTNL.

"We will comply with DoT's network security guidelines and norms to promote domestic manufacturing of network gear and will invite bids by mid-February," a top BBNL executive told ET. The latest developments come barely three months after research body C-DoT had urged the telecom department to keep Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE out of "sensitive government projects on security grounds", citing a recent US Congressional report that had claimed both companies were a threat owing to their alleged links with the Chinese military.

The government appears to have gone a step further by excluding all foreign vendors. C-DoT already has GPON technology transfer pacts with six of the certified vendors — ITI, Tejas Networks, VMC, Sai Systems, United Telecoms and SM Creative. The Indian units of Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Huawei, ZTE and Alcatel Lucent declined to reply to ET's specific queries on whether they were upset over their exclusion from the list of eligible GPON suppliers, but people close to these companies did not mince words.

"It is difficult to understand how the suggested levels of domestic sourcing for GPON equipment have been defined when they are yet to be launched or reach a certain level in terms of economies of scale in India," said a top executive with a leading international telecom gearmaker, adding that the deliverables are improbable to comply in the absence of a ready eco system.

Another executive, who also declined to be named claimed that "the government may end up paying a higher amount for GPON gear as there was a 22 per cent cost disadvantage for electronics manufactured in India compared to imports".

[Sachin]

Regarding Vegetable Oil.Co
Property tax arrears: BBMP ‘drums up’ Rs 5 crore from Wipro
Civic body "applies thought" to force Wipro to fork dues (I like the head line )

[subhamoy.das]

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tec ... 123900.cms

India's 100b IT vertical has maxed out.
I donot agree but read it anyway

[Aditya_V]

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tec ... 123900.cms

India's 100b IT vertical has maxed out.
I donot agree but read it anyway

+1, we have scope to grow here.

[svinayak]

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tec ... 123900.cms

India's 100b IT vertical has maxed out.
I donot agree but read it anyway

For India the world market is bigger than the US market

most of the Indian companies are tied to US market

[jamwal]

Internet tax, a flawed idea
One more reason why I hate telcos, specially super greedy ones like Airtel

“We’ve become the bad gatekeepers,” lamented Sunil Mittal, CEO, Bharti Airtel. “When somebody watches YouTube on a mobile and ends up [with a] big bill, he curses under his breath at telecom operators. But YouTube is consuming a massive amount of resources on our network. Somebody’s got to pay for that.”

What Mittal suggested at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last year, and is gaining rapid popularity with service providers around the world, was an “inter-connect charge”, an effective Internet tax that would force companies such as Google and Facebook to pay network operators a levy similar to the termination fee that networks pay one another to complete a voice call.

This growing clamour for an Internet tax was obliquely backed by the Government at a U.N conference, held last month.

The advantages for both telecom operators such as Airtel, and the Government (which too might look to levy a similar tax) are immediate and obvious. Telcos, which dole out huge investment for spectrum and network infrastructure, will be able to get a bigger slice of what goes to companies such as Google. This is exactly the new source of revenue that operators, which are suffering from shrinking revenue and rising costs, have been waiting for.

Gated highway

If this is put into practice, service providers would be able to essentially prioritize certain types of traffic, and the “sending party”—Facebook, YouTube— would have to pay Airtel and BSNL for the privilege of reaching consumers.

It’s glaringly obvious to see where this idea, where the “sending party must pay”, originates from however. Data inter-connections in the phone world work this way— where if Rajesh in America, a customer of AT&T, wanted to call Lata in India, a customer of Airtel, Rajesh would first pay AT&T. AT&T would then pay Airtel a little for their efforts in connecting the call. The principle of allowing the ‘sending party’ to pay is a good, and natural fit for the way phone networks work.

This will not work on the Internet though, for the simple reason that 99.5 per cent (OECD statistics) of the exchange of traffic between Internet networks typically happens for free. This method, which is known as the ‘peering system’, has benefited both content providers and telcos.

It is also what has directly led to the rapid growth of the Internet over the past fifteen years — if a telephony inter-connection model would be imposed on the Internet, it would create big problems; for content networks and ISPs would have to use massive resources to bill each other. A customer would also have to think twice before jumping onto Google to make a quick search, lest he rack up his bill too much.

Other disadvantages would surface – unregulated markets for Internet service have proved to work exceedingly well. Even in places with limited broadband competition, for instance, the amount of bandwidth that consumers get for their money has increased at rates far beyond those of any other industry.

[Varoon Shekhar]

Some good news from the supercomputing area - can't think of another place to put this in! One of my silly questions: why don't we ever hear of a supercomputer being developed by Iran, North Korea, Brazil or South Africa? Do they simply import their HPC's, with restrictions in place, a la Cray, or do they simply do without these machines?

http://www.cdac.in/index.aspx?id=pk_pr_prs_rl210


February 8, 2013
Pune

Shri J. Satyanarayana, Secretary, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Govt of India launched PARAM Yuva - II, the new 500 TeraFlop version of its earlier PARAM Yuva at C-DAC Pune, today. Shri Satyanarayana dedicated the new and powerful supercomputer to the High Performance Computing (HPC) user community in the country. With this launch, C-DAC also becomes the first R&D institution in India to cross the 500 TF milestone. The launch of PARAM Yuva II was conducted as part of the Workshop on National Mission on Supercomputing being organized by C-DAC, Pune. Also present on the occasion were Prof. N. Balakrishnan, Associate Director, IISc, Prof Rajat Moona, Director General, C-DAC, Dr Pradeep K Sinha, Sr Director (HPC), Dr Hemant Darbari, Executive Director, C-DAC, Pune, Dr Sarat C Babu, Executive Director, C-DAC, Bengaluru and other senior officials from R&D institutions across the nation.

Speaking on the occasion of the launch, Shri Satyanarayana congratulated C-DAC for achieving the 500 TF compute power, and reiterated the support of the Indian government to “establish India’s place as the primary destination for advanced R&D across the global landscape. While the Indian IT sector has always been at the top, the dynamics of the market especially in the light of financial meltdowns force us to take a relook at juggling our priorities. Advanced R&D in emerging areas can be a major interest area for India as nations struggle to find viable solutions within budget constraints. Computational infrastructure and trained manpower will be the initial pre-requisites to take the initiative forward. The Government of India has always been in support of the R&D community and with institutions like C-DAC leading the way forward, the future certainly looks bright for the nation”

PARAM Yuva – II provides more than half a Petaflop of raw compute power using hybrid compute technology with compute co-processor and har...

[Vipul]

India launches new supercomputer, Param Yuva II.

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) unveiled India's fastest supercomputer, named Param Yuva II, at its facility in Pune, Maharashtra, on Friday.

The new supercomputer will help in more precise weather forecasting, faster tapping of natural resources in the sea, and designing customised drugs for individuals, said J Satyanarayana, secretary in the department of electronics and information technology, while inaugurating the machine.

The supercomputer has been upgraded to 524 teraflops, about 10 times faster than what is available at present. With an investment of Rs16 crore, it was developed in a record three months, Satyanarayana said.

Developing research-based applications will take less time than before and complex problems will be solved in a simpler way. For instance, if it takes about 18 to 20 years to discover a new drug now from designing to testing; Param Yuva II will help reduce this time to 15 years.

The supercomputer would also help in reducing the time-frame in weather predictions. Researchers currently collect satellite data to predict the conditions for a six-km region; now the supercomputer could help cover a wider region, possibly up to 10 km.

About 300 people from the C-DAC team were involved in the making of the supercomputer, which also promises to be energy efficient with a 35-per cent reduction in energy consumption as compared to the earlier machines.

Satyanarayana said, "The facility is a stepping stone for the petaflop version of the supercomputer that India has envisioned. What we need to do now is speak to users, researchers and scientists and take feedback from them on the issues relating to usage of the facility and help them in accelerating their research work for the benefit of common man."

C-DAC director general Rajat Moona said, "Although we initiated the project in June 2012, we only intended that it to upgrade the facility. However, we later realised that it could be upgraded to half-a-petaflop (524 teraflop) and we achieved this within three months."

"The list of the top 500 supercomputers in the world is released twice in a year, in June and November. Had we launched Param Yuva II in November, it would have been in the 62nd position," he said.

[manish.rastogi]

Guys,
I was reading about Autonomic Computing as I am presenting my technical paper on it.

Anyone who has a fair bit of idea or experience about this, please reply!!
I need some help!!

[Vayutuvan]

Rs. 16 cr is about $3 million. That is inexpensive. Good.

[ArmenT]

Guys,
I was reading about Autonomic Computing as I am presenting my technical paper on it.

Anyone who has a fair bit of idea or experience about this, please reply!!
I need some help!!

Why are you writing a technical paper on a subject that you don't seem familiar with? Why not pick a topic that you are more comfortable with?

[manish.rastogi]

Umm, I do have a good bit of idea about the topic, I have read quite much about it but then I have some doubts!

Its basically the help needed to clear the doubts and to make sure I don't miss any important point in the topic!!!

[krishnan]

if you have good idea then you would have known what is important and what is not

[Vayutuvan]

Guys,
I was reading about Autonomic Computing as I am presenting my technical paper on it.

Could you please describe what it is for those of us who do not know what it is? Please try to go beyond wiki - assume UG CS knowledge and include references. Then answer any questions we ask you. You have to research further if you do not know how to answer the questions. Think of it as the process of peer review.

Added Later (as I typed the above on an iPod):

Please make sure to include von Neumann's Celluar Automata, John Conway's Game of Life and how the rules of evolution are shown to be Turing Complete (first you also have to describe the term, of course which means a concise description of Turing Machines), outline of fast algorithms to simulate Game of Life, review the work A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram, and Langdon's Ants at least. There is also a survey paper A Brief History of Cellular Automata by Palash Sarkar of ISI in ACM Computing Surveys, Vol. 32, No. 1 March 2000 which gives a construction of a minimal self-reproducing automata.

There are several views of what is Autonomic Computing and IMHO the above references and other references therein would cover most of the theoretical foundations of the area and what has been done until 2000. I do not follow the area currently so my references are more classical. If you have done all that reading already, then you probably know more than most CS UGs (which is the minimum to understand the concepts involved).

Others who have done MS/PhD recently may be able to help you if you start off posting an abstract and some questions.

[Vayutuvan]

followup on the above: (if you are still interested)

At some point, I was looking at the collected works of Turing and it had a paper of his ca. 1951 on morphogenesis. Looked interesting but I was distracted by something else and never finished reading that paper. Just today, I was looking at something else and found an on-line version of the paper - here is the link and it is worth following as this paper is considered today as the start of Chaos Theory and how order arises out of chaos.

Turing, A. M. (1952). "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 237 (641): 37–72. doi:10.1098/rstb.1952.0012. JSTOR 92463.

The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis PDF

[vivek_v]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/che ... 479649.ece

Was reading the morning paper when i came across the above link. Looks like Freshers who did not clear the HCL's FRP test are being placed in HCL Infra and the disgruntled candidates did a protest in front of HCL's office.

This was to be expected when companies do bulk recruitment while having only an aptitude exam + a HR round. The market is still very good for any level of experience for people who can program really well or technically sound.The main issue is that doing Civil, Mech or Electrical engineering and landing a Software job without full idea of basic S/W engineering concepts is becoming more difficult in the current scenario. Whether this increases the number of quality engineers available for other Industries is anyone's guess. Then again quality engineers in any domain do tend to find a job in the Software industry. Also hopefully it puts an end to the bulk recruitment and on-demand hiring picks up which also means more quality candidates for mid level IT companies and no candidate takes campus placement for a given.

Finally i really do not understand the protesting candidates believing that an IT company promise to call especially if the initial deadline was changed and when the market is challenging. It is like the promises being made by our neighbor to the west.

[Sachin]

This was to be expected when companies do bulk recruitment while having only an aptitude exam + a HR round. The market is still very good for any level of experience for people who can program really well or technically sound.

As I see it, next 1-2 years may be a time when the IT Majors (and colonels & brigadiers) go for a "flab cutting" excercise. The new comers (especially campus recruits who land up by truck loads) are coming with lots of hopes and fantasies. I dont think many of them would be happy people now. And it is sad that even now companies assess "aptitude" using tests which again would get cleared by folks who learn by mugging up. "Attitude" is never checked. Perhaps it is time to check how each IT company hires people. That may give an indication as to who may survive. Some companies have taken up so much folks from the college, that a 10+ year old experienced techie is considered redundant/replacable. Such companies may go for projects which these junior folks can execute.

I do get a feeling that now the time has come for the IT industry to do the levelling. The hype has long gone. Profit margins are decreasing day by day. Quality of engineers/managers available is another problematic area. To all my relatives who are in colleges, one advice I give these days is to keep away from IT.

[svinayak]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/ ... aud_scheme

News
Federal complaint outlines H-1B fraud scheme
Would-be workers shared housing and got little or no pay until clients were found

By Patrick Thibodeau
June 19, 2012 02:56 PM ET
32 Comments.

CareerJournal - Federal investigators have ended an H-1B fraud scheme in which people in India and in the U.S. were recruited for full-time jobs that did not necessarily exist.

According to a federal complaint detailing the scheme, job applicants were led to believe they were being hired for $50,000-to-$60,000-per-year development and analyst jobs. But once hired, they either weren't paid consistently or they were "benched" -- left temporarily unemployed.

One employee, a graduate of a U.S. college on a student visa, shared a company-owned apartment with four or five other workers after being promised a job that paid $50,000 a year. Roommates changed when new "batches" of employees arrived, according to the complaint.

The employee, who was able to work under the optional practical training program, wasn't paid during a two-month training period. He volunteered for "in-house" projects that involved client website development, but he was told that he would not receive his full pay until he was placed at a client site. His first H-1B application was denied, but a second one, filed by another company that was also part of the scheme, was approved.

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The person charged with running the operation is Srinivas Doppalapudi, 45, a citizen of India with permanent legal residency in the U.S. Doppalapudi pleaded guilty last week in federal court in Wilmington, Del., to charges of visa fraud and money laundering, according to U.S. Attorney Charles M. Oberly in Wilmington.

Doppalapudi, according to the government's complaint, incorporated five computer consulting companies in Delaware and had filed employment-based visa petitions for both H-1B visas and employment-based green cards. One of the companies identified in the complaint is Technosoft, in Newark, Del.

Technosoft filed 335 visa applications, and on 33 occasions fraudulent records were submitted, according to the complaint.

Most of the aliens in whose names Doppalapudi requested H-1B visas were in the U.S. on student visas that were about to expire, the government said

A person who answered the phone at Technosoft declined to answer any questions. "We are only employees of this company," the person said.

Doppalapudi has been in jail since last week's plea deal, he said.

Investigators said Doppalapudi had transferred more than $1 million from his business bank accounts in the United States to India.

Doppalapudi faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He had been on house arrest with electronic monitoring for 11 months since his arrest. The defendant's attorney argued against incarceration, but the judge granted the government's motion and detained Doppalapudi without bail, pending sentencing in September.

[Sachin]

Mean while HCL v/s "potential" recruits fight goes on...
HCL recruits stage protest

Later, after an hour of explaining their problems to the police, the campus recruits allegedly left in the lurch by HCL Technologies, found support and guidance from the police who summoned the HCL Human Resources representatives to “sort out” the issue.

A day after protest, HCL remains evasive

When the police called the HCL office to contact the HR, they found that the HR person, who was part of talks initiated by the police on Monday, was on leave. Police sources said the company then promised to send HR persons from Chennai or Noida for negotiations by 7 p.m., but it did not happen. They also said no formal complaint had been lodged barring a memorandum the protesters had submitted.

Looks like HCL is clearly playing the game of hide & seek. I really dont know of if the police has a local standi here, because as I see it I dont think there was any criminal activity. I dont think HCL would have given a blanket recruitment offer. It may be full with lots of "ifs and buts". So unless the students can find some aspect of cheating here, what can the police do. Perhaps that may be the reason why the police is also not using their more powerful tactics. I certainly know that the Bengaluru Police if they really want can make a person come to the police station even if he is on leave in his company . And he can spend the rest of the day waiting for the senior officers to arrive. Their standard HR dada-giri in the IT company may not work here.

But the students should emulate the BBMP in this. Get the drummers available in the city. Raise some good eye catching placards and stand at the main gates and drum away to glory. This tactic of "name and shame" have made IT Vity Majors, Colonels etc. pay up their dues on the spot .

[Gus]

The pyramid base is so big. I wonder how the new kids rise up...and so much office politics and so on. After r2i, I used to be a little envious at the new kids going to swanky offices with smartly dressed women where were a lot forward than what I saw 10 yrs back. Not anymore. Glad I don't have to run this race now.

[Sachin]

Sachin, HCL could just pay them termination pay and let go the entire lot.

To be honest even I don't see much happening here as well. The kids any way cannot force any thing on HCL. But what gets noticed here is that HCL does not know how to forecast its demand for people, or that HCL is not getting enough business to recruit these folks. All clearly sending out a picture that the company may be not in very good situation at the moment. I know another company which does recruit people and ask them to clear a test (with 70% as cut-off) within a few months of joining. The people who does not clear it are drummed out citing "lack of performance". They do it purely to keep their name intact. Never wanted to show an image that they really dont have enough work for every one, and cannot sustain such a large work force.

PS: The name and shame tactic, was partly in jest and partly serious. These IT-Vity Majors (Cols. & Brigs.) have been strutting around as one gang of ethical business men. Time that halo is broken. Vegetable Oil Co., was highly ethical that it paid of Rs.5 crore dues immediately when the dreaded drummer gang turned up at the gate .

I wonder how the new kids rise up...and so much office politics and so on.

I think this would lead to a grand levelling of the IT industry. Dont think these companies can get the same profit margins for ever. So they - the service companies - would for sure opt for such type of projects which can be executed by low-cost employees. The work is junk, but finally it is not the share holders who would do this. They would still get their share of the profit. What may be really happening is that many of the 10+ year folks (both technical or management expertise) would find themselves irrelevant. Any way the kids joining in are also in their own fantasy world of iPods, fancy mobiles etc. At their age, the pay they get does allow them to have a luxurious life style.

[Gus]

but big ticket items are inflated heavens high - marriage, car, house. Everywhere bachelors and bachelorettes are rooming in crowded areas. There are about 7 or 8 guys in next house, all look like 30+ and been there for 2 or 3 years like that.

[subhamoy.das]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tec ... 954902.cms

TCS main sponser of NY City event

[SriKumar]

... Profit margins are decreasing day by day. Quality of engineers/managers available is another problematic area. To all my relatives who are in colleges, one advice I give these days is to keep away from IT.

Am curious about why this advice. It is still a vast field with many companies/projects and more on the way.

[Gus]

I haven't told anybody to 'stay away'. I have spent a lot of time with relatives kids' in school to find out what they like and have a goal of excelling in it.

Other fields have plenty of opportunities these days, for the talented. There is a dearth of half decent civil engr's for ex (wife is HR in one and complains about the good ones jumping to IT). Her company offers about the same starting salary for a fresher as an IT company. If you are a good civil engr, you will be better off here were you can rise up quickly and also love what you do, instead of being a 'one in 50,000' in a big IT company and slug it out in the trenches with a stressful life.