Indian IT Industry

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 27 May 2009 08:29

can you post a couple of samples? I could use them in coming months.

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 27 May 2009 09:15

Sure. I have plenty.

For fresher, who has shown some interest in microprocessors:

Explain the mechanism of executing the following program sequence:

MVI A, AAh
MVI B, BBh
ADD B

Then I evaluate how she goes about it. There are certain fundoos that only someone look for the behind-tech would look for and understand. For example:

1. Instruction is first fetched using a memory read, and then executed in another clock cycle.
2. The "immediate" instruction means TWO memory reads, one for the instruction, and one for the data byte.
3. How the memory read happens, ie sequencing of address, ALE, RE etc.

If she mentions that the Carry Flag will be set after the ADD, HIRE HER!

You can also ask to explain the mechanism of subroutine call.

For people with a bit of network related exposure, I always ask to explain the mechanism of PING, and then go into the folowing:

1. First thing is to verify if the IP is in the local subnet. Subnet mask is for that.
2. If she says the IPs are ANDed with the subnet mask and compared, HIRE HER.
3. If it is local, you need to find the MAC of the IP, and ARP is used to do that.
4. ARP is broadcast, and only the host with the IP responds in a unicast.
5. If she explains that PING is an ICMP message, and its expansion is Internet Control Messaging Protocol, HIRE HER.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 27 May 2009 09:48

if s/he mentions about gratuitous ARP - hire her!

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 27 May 2009 10:29

With sign-on bonus

(Because I didn't know about that myself till I wrote the IP Config manager for my product)

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 27 May 2009 10:40

I recently tried to help a girl with her mini-project. She is my sis's neighbour and close friend of my niece. Academically brillint girl, great marks in 12th, good rank in entrance and got into a good college here. The project involves a 555 timer.

Lady had absolutely no clue how the RC timer works. She knows the 555 design formula, and calculated the R and C, but the little detail of HOW it works totally and completely missed her. I had to do downhill skii fast to avoid crushed egos.

In our SDRE college, thanks to one professor, you wouldn't pass your lab without clearly explaining how your circuit worked. Everyone HATED him then, but I am sure he holds a very revered place in the hearts NOW. At least I do.

When I used to train the new recruits, much of the activities revolved around understanding/figuring out how things actually worked. Once you get the mind into the groove, you can take up pretty much anything.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 27 May 2009 11:32

I had to recently fix some really difficult issues with

arp + multihomed host + internal linux bridges + vlans + linux bond driver bugs + no stp

did learn about arp through the usual solution of "reaching into the snakepit" and getting my shirt torn and a$$ bitten in half. but managed to corral and kill them all one by one.

this was one:
http://linux-ip.net/html/ether-arp.html ... -arpfilter

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 27 May 2009 11:52

Did I hear some one mention the 555 timer? ....that was the 'brains' of all the chip chap electronics kit projects

Also featured in a short column in the current IEEE Spectrum issue (with the cover feature on Bob Dennard).

Dileep,

Actually one can argue that the 2 sample questions you have posted seem to fall in the same category of questions which rote-masters excel in. They are essentially asking for explanation of processes which have already been well-defined and can be mugged (with all their little details) by rote-masters. They do not seem to challenge the creativity of the interviewee and require solid fundamentals which cannot be learnt from reference books onlee. For that the question has to be open ended though I may be wrong.

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 27 May 2009 12:17

Hakim RB Saab, it is not the question that matters. It is only a starting point. It is the journey you and the candidate takes from there what matters. The "HIRE HER" is just rhetoric. You can easily catch the "muggers" there.

It also depend upon the type of job for which you interview. In-depth understanding of how something works, and then building upon that was a key requirement in my job. I find that someone who took the pains to understand the uC, while that was not really necessary to score in the exam, would do good on the job. We had pretty high success rate there.

How can you innovate when you don't care about how the darned thing works in the first place?

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 27 May 2009 12:19

Singha, your daddy can beat up mine any day, and yours is bigger than mine.

I agree

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 27 May 2009 13:06

If candidate doesn't care about what he/she studied then the problem goes much deeper than rote-learning. In case of India it can probably be traced to everybody jumping on the ITvity bandwagon regardless of whether their original interests were in English, Chemistry or Pol. Sc.!

I basically follow that funda that if you cant teach it to others then you dont know the topic.
Usually when I interview candidates I take them out on a Alice-Bob-Charlie analogy type of description of some relevant technology omitting references to most tech jargon. That usually weeds out the fellows who remember processes by associating them with keywords and familiar names instead of being able to visualize the thing in their minds and knowing how it actually works (I guess its sorta like a "describe to a 3 year old" type of attempt in a way).

- In my case I am more interested in how they think and not how good their retention memory is. Funny how even the TFTA fall for that but then the key is how they crawl back and build their answer from scratch while straining the brain. Anybody can look up reference books and learn and they should....but thinking for oneself is what cannot be looked up or learnt. MSFT and Google interviews used to be famous for those type of questions though lately both of them have degenerated into mindless code-fests.

manish · Post by **manish** » 27 May 2009 13:23

Huawei overtakes ALU in mobile networks
Tanaji called it right back in March itself on this very thread, and even I felt the same. AlcaLu may soon be history at this rate. That won't be good for their staff in India. Many are predicting that Huawei may snatch #2 overall industry spot from NSN this time, no wonder NSN is mighty p*ssed about losing out on the BSNL contract.

manish wrote:
Tanaji wrote:The next 6 months should see interesting things happening: someone will buy Nortel assets and I predict AlcaLu to be in dire straits soon.
Saar, even IMVVHO, I think the same and I think you are right on the money there - AlcaLu's days seem numbered - their traditional strongholds are caught in the downturn, India(their non-functional tie ups with ITI notwithstanding) and China hotly contested by everyone + their uncle - things seem really bleak for them. Plus, the Chinese may want to preserve and grow the homegrown upstarts Huawei/ZTE in the upcoming massive Chinese 3G rollout if the downturn threatens their chances elsewhere. .....
....
...

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 27 May 2009 13:29

Well, most of the kids have interest in NOTHING. Years of going with the flow, mugging up the text books, did it to them. English, Electronics, Entomology or Eritrean History, all are things you read and reproduce the strings and bitmaps. Not something you to have an "interest" in. You go to ITVty because it pays good money, and your dad told you so.

Hell, even supposedly things to be "interested", like vitalstatistix of starlets, or filmography of Monkey Khan, or even the tech specs of the new Cell Gizmo are immaterial now. Google shows them, and you cut&paste. Right?

In a previous post, I claimed changing the questions would help, but then I realized that the next year, S. Chand will publish a guide book by some A. B. Mairappa giving all the answers.

Good thing is that the Chinese also do it the same way.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 27 May 2009 13:35

a decent network question would start with "can u trace out what happens when you type http://Iampamperedlittlepoobrat.com/" ?

so it would go through dns, tcp, ip, arp, ethernet...

then introduce some failure cases like what happens if somone pulls the ethernet
plug, some upstream dabba fails etc etc...

one can lead people up the garden path using such openish questions...

the mugger can easily be sorted from the "right stuff" give enough time - I hate it
when some HR person comes and says u need to finish in 40 mins! duh

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 27 May 2009 17:48

What is scary is that a lot of Indian syllabus still deals with outdated (and non-standard) tech. I get a lot of Indian fresh-out-of-college types who think Turbo-C 1.0 or 2.0 is the begin and end all for C compilers and can't understand why writing to a text segment causes a program crash in modern OSs. Unfortunately, a lot of the kids are taught to regurgitate memorized stuff and don't really understand concepts.

True Story: This company I worked for many moons ago used to write software used by several large corporations in a particular industry and also support it. One major customer asked that on the support side, we should have a special help desk dedicated just for them and also we should have at least two certified MCSEs on their help desk. So, the company dutifully hired two MCSEs, both yindoo wimmens who had recently passed the necessary exams and got their certs.

My first intimation of trouble was when I came in one fine morning and noticed that I was off the network (our section had moved into new premises recently). No problem, I figure. The previous evening, there were workmen constructing stuff in the next room close to where all the networking gear was present, so I figured one of them must have knocked a cable loose. So I dutifully noted down the number next to my wall jack and walked over to the other room to see if my cable was connected or not. That's when one of the celebrated MCSEs walked by and asked what I was doing. I said "I'm looking at the switches to see if my cable is connected or not". Her reply chilled me to the bone. Her exact words, as I recall it were, "Oh, so that's what a switch looks like!"

adityaS · Post by **adityaS** » 27 May 2009 19:40

ArmenT wrote:What is scary is that a lot of Indian syllabus still deals with outdated (and non-standard) tech. I get a lot of Indian fresh-out-of-college types who think Turbo-C 1.0 or 2.0 is the begin and end all for C compilers and can't understand why writing to a text segment causes a program crash in modern OSs. Unfortunately, a lot of the kids are taught to regurgitate memorized stuff and don't really understand concepts.

One of the problems leading to this is the recommended textbooks that sneak their way into colleges along with the syllabus. These are usually authored by some of the profs themselves - nothing wrong with that - and aim to have just enough stuff in them to fit in one semester. From what I've seen of the local VTU books, they are not precisely the best, and appear to follow this method. And if these are the books from where exam questions appear, even the most motivated student would rather do just the minimum work to get through exams whose subject matter appears to be of dubious use -- particularly since he thinks he is competing with people who are quite capable of learning the book and its examples verbatim, when the competition is something else entirely.

I should not get started on the idiocy of having more pages devoted to worked examples than to the subject in the textbook itself, since that is far OT.

Does anybody have experience with using take-home problems as part of the interview? The idea is to give some not-so-simple programming task, tell the candidate they have some limited time to solve it and mail back code. It simulates the effects of a deadline

lets you see how the candidate writes code (borrowing a spare laptop and using it in the interview was vetoed, but for better reasons) and allows some leeway around the limited time for interviews. There is the problem of them being able to google up a solution and mail it in, but I guess that cannot be helped.

sum · Post by **sum** » 27 May 2009 19:47

Usually when I interview candidates I take them out on a Alice-Bob-Charlie analogy type of description of some relevant technology omitting references to most tech jargon. That usually weeds out the fellows who remember processes by associating them with keywords and familiar names instead of being able to visualize the thing in their minds and knowing how it actually works (I guess its sorta like a "describe to a 3 year old" type of attempt in a way). - In my case I am more interested in how they think and not how good their retention memory is

Doctor sahib,
Could you also please post some sample Q you ask just like Dilip-guru did?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 27 May 2009 20:09

Good thing is that the Chinese also do it the same way.

I have heard tales of chinese students in US univs organizing efficient 'group study'
and 'question banks' to ace all exams. they are also willing to slog to any extent
if thats what it takes. no amt of shouting by professors has any impact on them,
they just smile and pretend not to fully understand english...eventually the prof
gives up and lets them do it their way.

but there must be some very good students too among this unruly mob.

sum · Post by **sum** » 27 May 2009 20:15

There do seem to be quite a lot of good brainy Chinese around but the general impression of them seems to be of slogging mugpots....

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 27 May 2009 20:40

ArmenT wrote:True Story: This company I worked for many moons ago used to write software used by several large corporations in a particular industry and also support it. One major customer asked that on the support side, we should have a special help desk dedicated just for them and also we should have at least two certified MCSEs on their help desk. So, the company dutifully hired two MCSEs, both yindoo wimmens who had recently passed the necessary exams and got their certs.

My first intimation of trouble was when I came in one fine morning and noticed that I was off the network (our section had moved into new premises recently). No problem, I figure. The previous evening, there were workmen constructing stuff in the next room close to where all the networking gear was present, so I figured one of them must have knocked a cable loose. So I dutifully noted down the number next to my wall jack and walked over to the other room to see if my cable was connected or not. That's when one of the celebrated MCSEs walked by and asked what I was doing. I said "I'm looking at the switches to see if my cable is connected or not". Her reply chilled me to the bone. Her exact words, as I recall it were, "Oh, so that's what a switch looks like!"

Not surprising have seen plenty of ITvity abduls and ayeshas who claim to be good in unix but cant go beyond ls and cd

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 27 May 2009 20:42

it seems netz has laid off even MS NCH (new college hires) in last round. something very unusual. everyone loves new coll hires as they are willing to slog 24x7 to get the h1 sponsorship.

meantime, magazine subscriptions quietly terminated for the breakrooms. only newspapers, powder coffee and one type of teabags remain. paper cups might go shortly and everyone would get a
tihar jail type tin mug perhaps.

btw there have been instances of CCIE question paper leakage and wholesale cheating.
I believe it was found with the connivance of the place administering the exam.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/37018
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/25581

Sriman · Post by **Sriman** » 27 May 2009 20:58

Singha wrote: meantime, magazine subscriptions quietly terminated for the breakrooms. only newspapers, powder coffee and one type of teabags remain. paper cups might go shortly and everyone would get a
tihar jail type tin mug perhaps.

Already happened at my place

And contractors don't even get that. We bring our own mugs

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 27 May 2009 21:03

since we already have powerful health faucets in the toilet, the paper rolls might not be replenished often next as a way to coax people to use the faucets.

Akshut · Post by **Akshut** » 27 May 2009 22:48

.
It took enlightened techies 10 posts to reach the moot point of my Quad-core argument. What I meant was that apart from pushing students to cram basic diagrams of 8085, students should be shown(make known to) some working of technologies that are actually in use. I know in IT a Ferrari launched today will be a vintage junk in 6 months, but that doesn't mean students should only be let to copy paste the diagrams and definitions of centuries old architectures ONLY. Bookish knowledge-100%. Practical knowledge- naught.
.
This is not just the case with CSE but with every other branch of engineering, or for that matter, any graduation course in India.
.
Non-IIT, non-IIM graduates here on this board must know that.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 27 May 2009 23:41

sum ji,

I don't have any fixed set of such questions and construct them on-the-go (usually with the candidates help

) on the whiteboard. The underlying tech is something which the candidate claims to have done. Say for example, I get a UCB chappie/chappette who has done wireless sensor networks and is as usual mighty proud of it. In that case I might for example construct with him a question where one needs to track some phenomena (to make it more interesting, one which is exhibiting non-deterministic shape and motion) and instead of saying sensors I might replace it with a crowd of people each allergic to say, some specific gas which makes them cough. A person coughs when the gas he/she is allergic is present around his head. His neighbors can hear him cough but they all have only 1 ear and can hear only one cough at a time. Now using this get him to describe a way of detecting and tracking the phenomena (here it is hypothetical gas cloud) in a distributed way. Next we can move on to more interesting scenario, what happens if some people while coughing have a fit and die...now how to still detect and track....what is the robustness of his solution....now some persons are chained to the ground while others are free to move on their two legs...how can that be exploited, etc. etc. So many ways to spin the yarn

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 27 May 2009 23:43

The subject of syllabi being out of date and impractical for the real world, and the requirement that a syllabus cram in the latest technology are *different* issues.

Absolutely, rote learning of 8085 block diagrams and code for standard practical experiments is absolutely pointless. This matter refers to the first issue, i.e. the impracticality of the syllabus.

But this is not the same as the second topic, i.e. your 'Quadcore argument' - wanting to study the latest technology, particularly at the undergraduate level. Your undergraduate education is a foundation. It should not entail a superficial coverage of the chic N languages and M processors of the day. What do you hope to learn about quadcores without first having a rigorous understanding of scalar/superscalar/out-of-order cores, multilevel caches, coherency protocols and memory consistency models ?

I personally think computer languages are not a topic that can be effectively taught in a formal classroom. It would be far more beneficial to teach the art of effective programming and leave it to the student to learn languages of choice themselves and apply those lessons.

If you wanted to get into an advanced field like processor design, your BE/BTech does not make you a finished product, and you really do need to learn more. If you just want to be a coder, your degree is probably an overkill - you could learn all the languages you want on your own in much less than 4 years, with a foundation of general programming theory.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 27 May 2009 23:46

Akshut wrote:.
It took enlightened techies 10 posts to reach the moot point of my Quad-core argument. What I meant was that apart from pushing students to cram basic diagrams of 8085, students should be shown(make known to) some working of technologies that are actually in use.

Akshut, you missed the point of what was being said here. The point being made is instead of pushing students to cram basic diagrams of 8085, students should be given practical exposure to how the 8085 works. The point you seemed to be originally making is why look at the 8085 and why not jump straight to Quad core shiny technology. Learning how the 8085 works is still fundamental to learning how a processor works that's why. It is a crawl, walk, run process otherwise one will only gain superficial knowledge with latest buzzwords (like a lot of YumBeaAyes) and no in-depth knowledge [runs away and hides from vina

].

negi · Post by **negi** » 27 May 2009 23:55

Akshut miyan syllabus is meant for just introducing the fundamentals and invoking interest in the subject by actually explaining how and why things work in the physical world ; this can be achieved only by taking simple examples (in this case 8085 is an ideal example when it comes to MPs) ; infact that is why they teach semiconductors in 12th std followed by the details of the electron hole mobility in a pn junction in First year of Engg then RTL logic and operation of GATES , designing of an adder/subtractor with GATES > Accumulator and finally the 8085.

If you know the above you would know how a flip flop > GATE works , finally designing a counter and a register and then you would appreciate the general bus operation of 8085 or 8086 in diff modes .

I am very pleased to learn that you have interest in 'Quad or Nth core processor ' however did it ever occur to you that if your fundamentals are strong and you actually do understand the working principle of 8085/86 or X86 family (which they do teach across Engg colleges in India) ; you would be able to google up and at least understand the basics of the Quad Core processor; infact this is what the colleges do or rather should try to do i.e. encourage students to do some soul searching in terms of finding and nurturing one's interest in a given field.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 28 May 2009 00:02

intel publishes a wealth of docs. so does amd.

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 28 May 2009 00:50

Raja Bose wrote:sum ji,
I don't have any fixed set of such questions and construct them on-the-go (usually with the candidates help ) on the whiteboard. The underlying tech is something which the candidate claims to have done. Say for example, I get a UCB chappie/chappette who has done wireless sensor networks and is as usual mighty proud of it. In that case I might for example construct with him a question where one needs to track some phenomena (to make it more interesting, one which is exhibiting non-deterministic shape and motion) and instead of saying sensors I might replace it with a crowd of people each allergic to say, some specific gas which makes them cough. A person coughs when the gas he/she is allergic is present around his head. His neighbors can hear him cough but they all have only 1 ear and can hear only one cough at a time. Now using this get him to describe a way of detecting and tracking the phenomena (here it is hypothetical gas cloud) in a distributed way. Next we can move on to more interesting scenario, what happens if some people while coughing have a fit and die...now how to still detect and track....what is the robustness of his solution....now some persons are chained to the ground while others are free to move on their two legs...how can that be exploited, etc. etc. So many ways to spin the yarn

Bose mian you are very creative .... looks like you have written plenty of research proposals

Ah using a CSMA/CA based sensor network for detecting and tracking swine flu

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 28 May 2009 02:20

Well since moi in Arnoldistan and swine flu is the latest fashion here hence, humko zamaney ke saath saath kadam milakar chalna chahiye. This question was just an example which I made up on the fly for the post onlee...it will need to be threshed out and made more chankian for halaling hapless abdul during actual interview.

andy B · Post by **andy B** » 28 May 2009 05:42

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/sto ... 06,00.html

Local Satyam chief bows out

I never thought I quite had ze brains

to post in this thread...but here I am...

sum · Post by **sum** » 28 May 2009 09:25

Thanks a lot, Bose-ji....

Could any of the tronics whizzes here please post some sample questions of what a Board/System design guy with a working knowledge of HDLs( useful in coding FPGAs on the board) can expect?

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 28 May 2009 11:02

Singha wrote:it seems netz has laid off even MS NCH (new college hires) in last round. something very unusual. everyone loves new coll hires as they are willing to slog 24x7 to get the h1 sponsorship.

The current bunch of freshers in the firm where I work, seems to have lots of attitude problems. Most of them get shunted into Support projects, where people have to work on shifts. Preparing the shift roster has become a nightmare for many of the leads. These chaps come up with a line that they would only have to work from 9 to 6 (without any one questioning their 1 hour tea breaks and 2 hours lunch breaks etc.). Girls also have an additional option. Shout "personal security" when ever booked for an early morning or late evening shift

.Our co also sends in a fair amount of chaps on H1, but that does not seem to have any effect here.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 28 May 2009 22:30

pgbhat wrote: Not surprising have seen plenty of ITvity abduls and ayeshas who claim to be good in unix but cant go beyond ls and cd

I did this interview recently where I asked the candidate as to what a Thread Dump is. To this he replied "I know what a thread is and I know what a dump is, but I have never heard of thread dump, anyways should I come across it in work I will always google and find out".

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 28 May 2009 23:08

thats not too bad a answer imo. atleast he showed the drive to reach out and learn what he didnt know and had a strategy for that. a insulting answer would be "I dont want to know about such boring stuff" or "I had started to read it one day but then my hot gf called me for a coffee to barista" or "only fat old dinosaur engineers with hairy bellies learn such dull stuff, we gen-n learn python and java onree"

AkshayM · Post by **AkshayM** » 28 May 2009 23:54

There is undue pressure to join engineering in India. The hierarchy usually is medical --> engineering --> doesn't matter.

It is important during that age, especially when there is no clear picture about future, to do what you really love. May be at that point lot of kids don't know what they love but it is important for them to have the room to decide without parents/friends/relatives piling on the kid to try "x" admission first and then "y".

I had this young guy in a business class and he was saying he had no interest in eng by the time second year began in eng. But did it due to pressures.

It is crucial to have graduates in non-engineering especially economics, political science, accounting, finance, liberal arts (not JNU type). My pet peeve is to convert 12+3 curriculum undergraduate to 12+4 to make it standard with 16 year undergrad studies.

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 29 May 2009 00:21

Singha wrote: a insulting answer would be <snip> or "I had started to read it one day but then my hot gf called me for a coffee to barista"

come on Singha saar that could be a valid excuse. You should ask for her photo and then judge

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 29 May 2009 00:42

Yogi_G wrote:
pgbhat wrote: Not surprising have seen plenty of ITvity abduls and ayeshas who claim to be good in unix but cant go beyond ls and cd
I did this interview recently where I asked the candidate as to what a Thread Dump is. To this he replied "I know what a thread is and I know what a dump is, but I have never heard of thread dump, anyways should I come across it in work I will always google and find out".

You made my day.

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 29 May 2009 00:49

AkshayM wrote:There is undue pressure to join engineering in India. The hierarchy usually is medical --> engineering --> doesn't matter.

It is important during that age, especially when there is no clear picture about future, to do what you really love. May be at that point lot of kids don't know what they love but it is important for them to have the room to decide without parents/friends/relatives piling on the kid to try "x" admission first and then "y".

I had this young guy in a business class and he was saying he had no interest in eng by the time second year began in eng. But did it due to pressures.

It is crucial to have graduates in non-engineering especially economics, political science, accounting, finance, liberal arts (not JNU type). My pet peeve is to convert 12+3 curriculum undergraduate to 12+4 to make it standard with 16 year undergrad studies.

It is all about putting food on the table.
The most neglected subject is however PT. Without regular exercise the body start to decay and numerous health problmes pop up.
Physical preformance should make up a part of the university/IIT exam criteria.Test the ability to run 100meters/5000meters/Pushups/ etc. And let the results count for 5% of the total score. That should put youngsters on the racing track.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 29 May 2009 01:09

There is undue pressure to join engineering in India. The hierarchy usually is medical --> engineering --> doesn't matter.

It is important during that age, especially when there is no clear picture about future, to do what you really love. May be at that point lot of kids don't know what they love but it is important for them to have the room to decide without parents/friends/relatives piling on the kid to try "x" admission first and then "y".

All this is due to the fact that on average most kids are not taught to be independent early on in life in India. Having said that, I will also say that even this inefficient system did put out kids who knew exactly what they wanted to do by the age of 17. If majority of that age does not know what they want to do in the current age of instant information, it is their loss alone. Absolutely, no sympathies

for this pampered generation.

My pet peeve is to convert 12+3 curriculum undergraduate to 12+4 to make it standard with 16 year undergrad studies.

It is not going to make much of a difference. Lot of things can be covered even in 3 yrs like they already do with Honours level course work for non-engg and non-medical types. This was true for the sciences, cannot say how it works for liberal arts degrees.