Accenture lays off 98 at Reston office
Accenture is laying off nearly 100 employees at its Reston office. The New York-based consulting giant, located at 11951 Freedom Drive, will cut 98 workers Jan. 2, according to a notice filed by the company with Virginia. Combined with its D.C. office, Accenture employs around 3,000 in the area and works with many federal departments and technology corridor clients in area.
After bagging Tata's small car project, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today taunted the country's IT industry to come out with a 'Nano' model for the masses asking it to reinvent itself and emerge from the "comfort zone" of providing low-end services.
"With all the abundance of Indian Information Technology (IT) talent available, when is it that we will come out with a 'Nano' of IT, with holistic and accessible solutions for the mankind", the Chief Minister asked speaking from the IT Capital of India.
A majority of the revenue for the Indian IT industry continues to come from low value addition jobs like manpower provisioning and low-end support services, Modi said at the ICT event Bangalore IT.biz.
"The industry should come out of this comfort zone and engage itself in creating value for the company and also adding value to the manpower which is working for it", he said, inaugurating the exhibition of the three-day event, in which Gujarat is the partner State.
Modi stressed that the IT industry has to reinvent itself, focus on innovations and on systems rather than being comfortable with services.
"It must invest in R & D. It must develop sustainable products. While services may offer marginal advantage over costs, the payoffs against the product development are huge", he said, adding, "it was understandable till the industry was trying to stand on its feet, but now having grown healthy, it must show foresight."
"Why cannot we develop MS Windows in India, or a Google or a Yahoo ? If an Indian can develop Hotmail and given that 30 per cent of Windows developers may well be Indians in any case, the task does not look all that difficult. What is required is a leap of faith, a paradigm shift", he said.
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It was a flurry of pink slips at IT major Satyam Computers on Tuesday when it axed over 100 employees from its rolls in Chennai. According to the employees, they received a call from the human resource (HR) department on Monday asking them to meet HR managers who informed them that they were being fired.
"There was no intimation and the company officials didn't even bother to listen to us when we asked for an explanation," said Vasanth (name changed) who has been with Satyam for over two years. Apparently the US recession cost them their jobs, he said. "They gave us a letter, which said our services had been terminated. We approached the company officials to provide us the option of voluntary resignation. Then we were given relieving letters," lamented another employee, on condition of anonymity. He also said that they were not given any compensation.
When contacted, S.V. Krishnan, HR head, Satyam Computers, ruled out any move to retrench employees due to the economic slowdown. He said the company had a rating policy wherein bottom performers were asked to leave. "We concluded our appraisal process a few weeks back. The employees might have left voluntarily or due to bad performance," he said. He noted that Satyam has been consistently adding more employees to its rolls. "There is growth, but at a slow pace," he said. Employees from the company said more layoffs are expected in the next two weeks.
Satyam is notorious for its HR policy; hardly any Ex-Satyam would be proud to have worked there!!!
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From a small-time community worker to the most powerful man in the world, Barack Obama's victory in the US Presidential polls marks a huge political transformation in a country with a racist past that will have a Black occupy the top post for the first time.
A votary of strong ties with India, the 47-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer and a Democrat reached the White House exactly 45 years after the Black civil rights leader Martin Luther King challenged Americans to embrace his "dream" of equality.
Barack Hussein Obama, whose father was a Kenyan and mother a White American, himself has had no misgivings on the herculean task he faced in getting elected as President because of his race and name.
This was reflected by his recent comment that getting elected to the White House would be a "leap".
Undertaking his campaign with a catchy slogan -- 'The Change We Need' -- Obama presented himself to America as a fresh face with the knowledge and mettle needed for the White House.
He emerged victorious after a gruelling and bitter 21-month-long campaign in which he overcame the challenge from high-profile fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton and Vietnam War veteran Republican nominee John McCain.
Born on 4th August, 1961, in Hawaii, Obama will be the first Black President, a development that demonstrates a major change in America, which has witnessed bitter racism for centuries before the social evil was abolished about 200 years ago.
Obama's first tryst with power came in 1996 when the low-paid community organiser on Chicago's south side was elected to the state Senate of Illinois.
He made it to the federal Senate in 2004 after a landslide electoral victory.
While many have scoffed at Obama's experience as a community organiser saying community work experience does not count in the making of a US President, analysts feel that it has helped the black American leader to reach out to individual voters during his campaign.
Obama became a media darling and one of the most visible figures in Washington, with two best-selling books to his name - 'The Audacity of Hope' and 'Dreams From My Father'.
For the Democrats, who were out to wrest the Presidency from the Republicans after eight years, Obama's nomination was a gamble.
But Obama defeated Arizona Senator McCain handsomely in the election which was dominated by frequent controversies, mostly related to his race and religion.
Obama, whose first name Barack in Arabic means 'the blessed', was hard pressed to fend off rumours that he is a Muslim and said he is a practising Christian.
During the campaign, the advocate of strong partnership with India has made a number of comments and gestures, including lending support to the civil nuclear deal though he initially had reservations on it.
He has also made it clear that India posed no threat to Pakistan and that the latter rather faced the danger from militants within.
At the same time, he also talked about discouraging outsourcing, a move, if implemented, could have an adverse impact on India.
"....Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America," he said during campaigning.
Obama, who broke all records for fund-raising, had said that his victory would be a "defining moment" for the nation which abolished slavery 200 years ago but was still battling the scourge of racial discrimination.
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Chandrasekhar had just come back to Chennai from his on-site assignment in Europe last week when he heard that several colleagues were being asked to resign. The domain consultant, employed by one of India's top IT companies, was discussing the news with a friend over phone when he was called into his boss' office.
"I did not know that I was going to be sacked," he says. "I was just told that 'You are not fitting our requirement. Why don't you put in papers by tomorrow evening?'"
Rather than issuing the dreaded pink slips which can turn into a public relations fiasco, his company is forcing employees to resign citing a variety of "flimsy" reasons, says Chandrasekhar, who was lucky enough to find a new job.
At another of the IT majors, at least 12 employees were forced to resign at one go two weeks ago. Those with families in Chennai were asked to transfer immediately to a remote location, while another with a health problem was moved to the night shift with immediate effect. Faced with such "arm-twisting", they had no option but to quit, says a colleague. Even project managers were not exempt!!!
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"It has been barely three months since I moved here, and we have been asked to present our projects for review," a TCS employee, posted in the US, said. The present mood among onsite employees is that this means a review of the essentiality of the project so as to decide whether it can be moved offshore, benched or done away with.
Candidates joining the IT profession on hopes of becoming global citizens may soon have to motivate themselves differently as data shows IT companies have been moving more employees offshore in the last few quarters that may mean moving more operations home for better margins.
As the chart shows, while differences in the onsite-offshore ratio may not be significant between quarters, there is a noticeable shift from one year to the next. As most IT majors have the capacity to bench resource for when projects come up, they should have no immediate trouble decreasing their onsite count, a TCS employee says. This means that the danger of job cuts is not immediate. TCS has so far followed a 70:30 ratio between its offshore and onsite count.
"It's true that we keep hearing about projects being closed down or sent to India; but it has not happened to my project, which makes me think keeping a project depend only on the relationship we build with the client," a Cognizant employee working in US said.
Announcing their Q2 results recently, Polaris officials said that the company is looking at offshore growth in previously unexplored areas and functions, despite its reasonably strong pipeline of projects in its strongest market–the US TCS employees posted onsite, in US as well as UK, have been asked to present some of their projects for review, so as to decide which ones are capable of being carried out offshore, or done away with "It is a logical outcome, really. At a time when cutting flab is the norm, it makes sense to follow this simple strategy," said KPMG IT advisory head Akhilesh Tuteja.
Frost & Sullivan's ICT practice deputy head Kaustubh Dhavse added, "While the revenue per employee is almost the same onsite and offshore, the cost per employee is lesser offshore, so it gives companies better margins."
For example, a company could get Rs 12,000 of revenue per employee from an onsite location where the cost would be Rs 10,000. But, in the case of offshore model, while the revenue is the same, the cost per employee could come down to Rs 5,000.
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Motorola, the largest US mobile phone manufacturer, announced on Thursday the job cuts just hours after reporting a quarterly net loss of nearly USD 400 million
and said more than two-thirds of the layoffs would be in the handset division.
The Schaumburg, Illinois-based company said it suffered a net loss of USD 397 million in the third quarter of the year after reporting a net profit of USD 60 million for the same period last year.
Motorola lowered its forecast for the remainder of the year but said its cost-cutting moves would result in annual savings of some USD 800 million next year.
The ailing company had 66,000 employees worldwide at the end of 2007 and the latest job cuts bring the total number of layoffs since January 2007 to 13,000.
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Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Friday announced the decision of the Union Cabinet, which met on Thursday night, to table a comprehensive bill to amend various laws relating to the insurance sector and among other things seek to raise the FDI cap to 49 per cent from 26 per cent now.
The Left parties criticised the decision as one that will demolish institutions that helped India withstand the impact of global financial crisis.
However, private sector insurers hailed the decision to amend the Insurance Regulatory and Development Act, 1999 to raise FDI limit in insurance from 26 to 49 per cent which would enable them to enhance capital for business expansion.
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TCS and Infosys have clarified that they would not lay off any of their employees and their future recruitments would continue, Ashok Kumar C Manoli, principal secretary for information technology, biotechnology and science and technology of the Karnataka state government told reporters
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It was in mid 1990s, the Andhra Pradesh government suddenly went into an introspection mode. The mission was to find out the reasons for not many IT companies willing to set up their offices in the state and they were all queuing in Bangalore for office space. The findings after a thorough research were interesting. The non-availability of human resource was one of the key reasons for companies not moving to Hyderabad despite the government willing to allot land either free or at nominal cost apart from various other incentives like concessions in power tariff. The power that be in the state government realized that the neighbouring state had several private engineering colleges and students from Andhra Pradesh too moving to the state for pursuing their engineering and finding an IT job in Bangalore. The migration of students coupled with the engineering pass-outs from Karnataka itself helped the state attract IT majors to Bangalore to set up their facilities. This helped the garden city get the distinction of being the Silicon Valley of India.
The Andhra Pradesh government too quickly moved in that direction and opened the gates for private engineering colleges and took several bold decisions to open up the state for a sort of education revolution. The information technology boom took shape in Hyderabad in 1999-2000 with the setting up an exclusive 146-acre Hitec City. The government's move was timed at making the HR readily available to the companies willing to explore the opportunities in Hitec City. And it worked. Today, the state has over 300 popular engineering colleges offering a wide range of courses including MCA. This boom in engineering education has encouraged IT and ITeS companies to shift their facilities to Hyderabad and today it estimated that the total number of companies operating in IT and ITeS space would be about 1,200 including the small and medium companies. About 2 lakh people depend directly on this sector in Hyderabad alone while the indirect employment would be about eight lakh.
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The growth of the IT sector in Karnataka has slowed down, lost jobs to other states and would lose more jobs in the days to come. Courtesy — the global meltdown and more importantly the apathy of the state government.
Infosys Technologies CEO S Gopalakrishnan and director (HR) T V Mohandas Pai said this on Thursday during the consultative meeting on "the implications of the global financial crisis on the state's economy'' convened by the state government.
According to Pai, the state has lost 45,000 jobs during the current fiscal year to places like Chennai and Pune. "Next year (2009-2010), around 30,000 to 35,000 jobs would be lost, if things don't change,'' he cautioned.
He compared employment generation in the IT sector in the previous year to the current year and predicted what would happen in the next financial year. "During 2007-08, 50,000 jobs were added and this year it would probably be around 35,000 jobs. But, in the next year, 30,000 to 35,000 jobs will be lost, if things don't change,'' said Pai. He said the IT industry provided direct employment to 5.5 lakh people and its exports from Karnataka stood at Rs 60,000 crore.
Gopalakrishnan admitted the IT sector had slowed down and it would affect recruitment. "IT sector will not be 'a best employer' for the next two years. Graduates in the next two years would be hit due to this. They won't find the IT sector attractive,'' he said.
What are the reasons? "IT is still growing and growth requires expansion. Growth is happening in other states, but not in Karnataka. It is this lack of growth which has impacted us,'' Gopalakrishnan said.
Pai blasted the government for the prevailing situation. He was of the view that Karnataka has a bad reputation for investments and multinational companies are not coming forward to invest here.
Both of them were of the view that clearances and regulatory mechanism was the biggest hindrance for investments. They wanted the government to remove bottlenecks, simplify procedures, including SEZ regulations, and make single window agency attractive.
Economist Sudipto Mandal said the meltdown would hit IT industry, garment exports and manufacturing industries.
Former IT secretary Vivek Kulkarni said lot of IT companies had lost money. He said technology companies with lot of intellectual property rights were not getting funds.
Mandal urged the government to spend on infrastructure and social sectors. Kulkarni felt there should an improvement in the employability of graduates and the government should come out with a policy on SMEs, spread financial literacy and speed up projects.
FICCI president Rajiv Chandrashekar said government should create infrastructure and jobs and must diversify the economy by attracting sectors that have not set shop here.
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Assembly Elections for Madhya Pradesh 2009 Dates Announced
elections will be held in Madhya Pradesh on 25th November
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In the last decade, blasts have become part and parcel of Indian Life. One day in
The best solution lies with the common public. We need to be aware of our surroundings, who comes in and who goes out. Watch out for strangers, have an eye on neighbours with suspicious behaviour. Terrorists are not from outside territory, coming for a vacation - plant fifteen bombs and return. They are in our neighbourhood in disguise of students, hawkers, rickshaw drivers, salaried professionals and even as professors! We need to report any suspicious activity to Police (of course, keeping media in the loop).
Media on their part should portray Terrorists as cowards who kill and maim Children and Women. They should also reduce the publicity given to Human Rights Activists when they hinder with country’s security checks. Politicians should refrain from making communal sensitive statements. It is sad that terrorism, counter-intelligence are not debated in parliament and tough laws enacted. Madarasas should be brought under central agencies scanner and foreign students should be screened.
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Aura is a subtle field of luminous multicolored radiation surrounding a person or object as a cocoon or halo.[1] An aura may be held to represent or be composed of soul vibrations or chakras, and may reflect the moods or thoughts of the person it surrounds.
Long ago, people were able to see Auras. Advanced spiritual people such as Buddha, Christ and their immediate students were painted with golden haloes around their heads, because some artists could actually see Auras. In Australia remote West Kimberleys you can find prehistoric cave paintings (bottom left), many thousands of years old, depicting people with golden haloes. (photo courtesy G.L.Walsh) Nature gave us ALL we need to see Auras. All is required is the knowledge how to use your senses together with your conscious effort. If you decide not to try, you will NEVER see the Aura. On the other hand, when you SEE something for yourself, no longer will you need to rely on believing someone. You will KNOW. And you can use your knowledge to learn more.
Many great people in the past complained that "we have eyes and we do not see". Further in this document you will discover what they meant.
ANYONE can see auras to some degree. Rather than create an aura of mystery around my newly acquired skill, my approach is to show everyone what their eyes are capable of. When nearly everyone (including children) sees a similar thing, I consider this a part of our Nature and I say that it deserves our attention
The monk in the picture is a poor guy; he has used 100 watts Bulb to make an aura around him. Hope someone tells him that he is better illuminated without bulb.
Is Chiranjeevi Afraid of Comming to Politics
Megastar Chiranjeevi, undoubtedly numero uno in Telugu cinema is in news for
treading late Mr NTR's path to politics. Is he really interested. He has
never spoken about his new party, only his over-enthusiastic brothers and
fans are spreading the message.
If Chiru (as Chiranjeevi is fondly called) is really interested why this much
delay? Initially the party was supposed to be started on Diwali, then New
Year, Sankranti followed and Ugadi also went.. there were rumors of him
leading the BSP; but Mayawati blasted 'cinestars in politics' and closed that
lid.
Is he really afraid of losing elections? Is he afraid of Income Tax raids? Is he afraid of becoming a caste-actor (he belongs to Kappus a dominant caste in Coastal Andhra) ? Is he afraid of losing fans from Telangana? Is he afraid of the money losses ?
Not all cine stars have succeeded in politics ..
Amitabh Bachhan, Sivaji Ganesan were great losers.
According to a close confidant of Chiru told that 'Annaya is looking at all options; whether he will start party or not he will be there to serve the people'
Hope all ends well for Chiru.
Name of Chiranjeevi Party
Rumours are loud that Chiranjeevi's party name would be LokRaksha (Saviour of All). Symbol of the flag is yet to be decided.
Do you have any suggestions?
Chat about link
building at the link building forum.
Will Chiranjeevi move close to BJP?
Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) without any charsimatic leader in the Andhra Pradesh, would be jubiliant to welcome Chiranjeevi to its fold. But will Chiru join? Chiru and BJP are natural allies with Chiru strong in Andhra and BJP in telangana.
Will Chiru's good friend and BJP supporter Rajinikant mediate and make the alliance happen
Chiru's Family - Boon or Bane
Many of Chiranjeevi's family members are in public life as artistes.. Pawan Kalayan, Naga Babu, Allu ARvind, Allu Arjun etc. They are the ones who create the hype about the party. Are these members a boon (of course Pawan & Allu can attract people and can be star campaingners) or bane ( will shoo away strong political leaders from joining the party)
Voice your support or concerns!!!
| Chiranjeevi | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 | |||
| Born | Konidela Siva Shankara Vara Prasad August 22, 1955 Narsapur, West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh  India | ||
| Other name(s) | Mega Star, Chiru, Annayya | ||
| Occupation | Actor | ||
| Years active | 1977 to present | ||
| Spouse(s) | Surekha | ||
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Chiranjeevi (Telugu: à°šిà°°ంà°œీà°µి), born as Konidela Siva Shankara Vara Prasad on August 22, 1955, also known as Mega Star is a three-time Nandi Award-winning actor in the Telugu cinema industry. He is also a recipient of the Padma Bhushan Award.
Contents[hide] |
Chiranjeevi is the eldest son born on 22 August 1955 in Narsapur, a Town on the Banks of River Godavari in the West Godavari District in Andhra Pradesh, to Sri Venkat Rao and Smt Anjana Devi. He spent his childhood in native village with his grand parents, while his family was else where because of his father's occupation.[citation needed] He has two sisters and two brothers; his younger brother, Nagendra Babu is a film producer and a film actor, his youngest brother, Pawan Kalyan is also a Telugu film actor. Chiranjeevi is Andhra's famous theatre icon.
After his graduation at Y.N. College in Narsapuram, Chiranjeevi moved to Chennai to seek a career in acting. He joined an acting school in Madras. After struggling for some time, he began appearing in small roles in films like Pranam Kareedu and Punadhi Rallu.
Chiranjeevi has appeared in primarily Telugu language films. Several of his films have been dubbed into Hindi and Tamil.
His first film, Pranam Khareedu, was released in September 1978. After 10 years he filmed his 100th. film, Trinetrudu which did not do well, released in September 1988.
Khaidi was the first film to catapult Chiranjeevi into the big league.
Chiranjeevi married Surekha, the daughter of veteran actor Padma Sri Allu Ramalingaiah. The couple have three children - two daughters Sushmita and Srija and a son, Ram Charan Teja, who now is also an actor. In October 1998 he started a charity called Chiranjeevi Eye and Blood Bank and Charitable Trust . The charity has saved hundreds of lives and nearly 1,600 people have received donated eyes.[citation needed]
In January 2006, Chiranjeevi received the Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award in India because of his contributions to the Telugu Film Industry and for his social work.[1]
In November 2006, Chiranjeevi also received honorary doctorate by the Andhra University for his services to the Telugu film industry and for his social work.[2]
