Desicritics Category: BizTech: Jobs

What Do You Do For A Living?

Deepti Lamba — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:57:43 EDT

So, what do you do for a living?

Ah!! you're a homemaker...

Yeah, that's the end of the conversation with me.

Back in Delhi when I bumped into an old school acquaintance I decided to tell the truth that I was a writer and quite a lot of my stuff was published. Where? Skin mags!!

The babe looked flustered and shocked and I was smug. It sounded better than stating a flaky - I am a homemaker

Recently I blurted out the truth in a more creative fashion - I am retired and since I am a woman of means I don't need to work. Thanks to my husband I am lucky enough to be able to devote time to my passion and my family.

The individual who asked me What do you do for a living? spluttered and was left speechless .

Most people are unable to earn money from their passion. Most people are unable to devote time to their passion. Come to think of it, a majority of people don't even know what they are good at. They work because they have to, not because they want to.

Few people are eager to go to work on a Monday morning. The few who do look forward to their work are generally self employed or enjoy great deal of autonomy at their work, others crib about their work environment , their bosses, colleagues and the list goes on.

All that is discussed after I am politely ignored for leading an 'idle life' and I find myself wondering time and again whether my 'stress free life' ( yeah, even I had a boss yelling at me at one point) isn't better than dealing with the egoistical bosses and bitchy colleagues.

When they compare their stressful lives with each others I remain quiet. My stress is different from theirs- I go sleepless at night because I write late into the night not because I have a presentation or assignment to finish. I get up at crack of dawn because I have tiffins to pack and chores to do and not because I have to drive from one end of the city to get another to work. Basically I am the mistress of my own time and of my mind.

Sure, I have to deal with people who think I am a lazy babe without an identity; some even called me a doormat. Doormat and me? Just because I don't get a pay cheque at the end of the month?

I'm already working but I don't have to prove my worth to anyone.

The way I see it- when I am on my death bed I am not going to regret that I didn't have a nine to five job but reminisce more about relationships gone sour or dreams left unfulfilled.

Related Article : What Do You Do By Mark

The Benefits of Joblessness

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:56:40 EDT

Now here's a surprise for you. I quote:

The proportion of 16- to 24-year-olds without a job is higher than when Labour came to power in spite of government efforts to reduce unemployment among the young.......blamed the rise on the failure to raise the skills of many youngsters. The New Deal scheme to reduce youth unemployment by providing training, subsidised employment and voluntary work had also failed to maintain its initial success.

What are the solutions? And this is where I disagree:

The OECD said policies such as raising the age to which youngsters must remain training to 18 needed “fine tuning”. It called for increased support for free nursery education; a three-month limit for 16- and 17-year-olds to find work with part-time learning, after which they must return to full-time education or training; more involvement for trade unions in development of apprenticeship schemes; and an expectation that youngsters working under New Deal stay in a job for at least 26 weeks.

See, this is an issue of taking a horse to water but cannot or being unable to make it drink. And here's the actual problem, and I further quote:

One in five youngsters who found work under New Deal held a job for less than 13 weeks, leading to “short employment spells with benefit dependency”.

What these gits do not understand is that for entry level jobs and basic jobs, the difference between the salary and benefits enjoyed is marginal, and in many cases, negative. So what's the point of me dressing up, going to work for a boss who treats me like a coprolite, doing soul destroying work and then ending up after working 10 hours with an amount which is lesser than what my friends earned by sitting at home smoking and drinking and bonking?

Benefit dependency is the issue, link the continued employment to the continued benefit and you will see that economic incentives do work. If you do not work, you do not get the money. And all the kings horses and men, like this whiney article, says, will not make humpty dumpty go back to work again.

Take a look at what Polly is celebrating. She is looking at an estate of 7300 people, and I quote: This vast estate, in much disrepair, had 7,300 residents but virtually no community life, voluntary or council-run. It did have crack houses, prostitution, rubbish tips and violent crime. It did have exceptional numbers of the old, the sick and single mothers.

This is the problem, it was the state's mistakes, the centralised planning, the benefit dependency, the bad public service delivery and the like which landed the estate of Clapham Park in this mess. So Polly is basically saying that the state mucked up, and then the state tried to fix it, and then it again failed. Erm. yes, obviously it will fail, you silly girl, because it was not done by the residents, but to and for the residents by people who never stayed in there. And she is asking for more public money to fix it, keep it going and worse of all, to extend it to other estates and counties where the state has spectacularly failed. Dont you think you should stand back and let the citizens do it themselves?

But here is the problem which goes back to the benefits issue. This state has made a vast swathe of the populace dependent upon benefits and is therefore unable to shift them off it. Take a look at this by-election coming up in Glasgow East. Trace the history of the constituency back and you will see that it has been managed by Labour going back to 1922. Ok? Now let me bring some interesting statistics to bear.

1. From the Spectator:

Nick Clegg drew gasps at a reception in Westminster by observing that there are parts of Glasgow where life expectancy is the same as the Gaza Strip and North Korea. If only this were so. Glasgow City, as a whole, has a male life expectancy of 71 years which is actually lower than the 72 years of both Gaza and Pyongyang. But this includes its lush suburbs. Those in the welfare ghettoes of Glasgow East can only dream of such longevity. The life expectancy of its sink estates is worth recording here. A boy born in Camlachie is expected to live to 64.5 — the same as in Uzbekistan. In Parkhead it is 62, the same as Bangladesh. Just outside its boundaries lies Dalmarnock where the figure is 58 — lower than Sudan, Cambodia or Ghana. The lowest is Carlton, where the figure of 54 is lower than even Gambia’s equivalent.

2. BBC:

Figures for unemployment are also higher, with the rate for men over 25 about 10%, rising to 25% for women.

This year, NHS statistics showed that the east end of Glasgow had Scotland's highest rate of alcohol-related hospital admissions.

3. Blog:

Look beneath the lies, damned lies and statistics, and factor in the number of people on incapacity benefits, and we discover that around 50% of the adult 'working' population is unemployed.

4. Spectator again:

When you look at Scotland on any statistical dataset, it is one big horror story. Welfarism, health deprivation, drugs, drink – there are reams of data about what a socioeconomic nightmare the country is.

5. Financial Times:

Male life expectancy is 63, which is 14 years below the UK average. Unemployment runs at 25 per cent and about 40 per cent of the constituents live on benefits. About 40 per cent of the children live in workless households. Sadly, "household" is not always the most appropriate term. The teenage pregnancy rate is 40 per cent above the national average.

And this is from a city which, and I quote: Yet just a few generations ago Glasgow was the greatest industrial city of the British empire. At one time it produced half the world's ships and a third of its railway locomotives. It could be argued that many people in the UK enjoyed a prosperity that was in part built on the gargantuan efforts of industrial Glasgow.

6. The Times: male life expectancy is 14 years below the national average, 38% of constituents are welfare-dependent, 46% live in social housing, 60% of households have no access to a car, and deaths from heart disease among the under 75s are 83% above the national average.

Now yes, I agree that you cannot be up all the time, just look at Detroit, but hey, look at California, it reinvented it. And it did not do it by handing out benefits by the ton. The problem is that people are now accustomed to living by the state. So now why would you be surprised that the people will keep on voting Labour? As the quote goes, a government which promises to rob peter to pay Paul will always count on the support of Paul.

If you want to get people employed and productive members of the staff, you need to help them but just like pain killers, do not make them addicted to it, otherwise you will end up with estates like Clapham or Glasgow East. (Incidentally, the SNP and the Labour party are both the same, whosoever wins in this by election will do sweet sod all. Here's a prediction, 5 years time and the statistics will be worse! and I am very happy to be proven wrong).

Technorati Tags: Unemployment, United Kingdom, Welfare, Scotland

Book Review: One Night @ The Call Center

heartcrossings — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 11:50:01 EDT

By when you make it to page twenty of Chetan Bhagat’s One Night @ The Call Center, you see a Bollywood screenplay pretty much writing itself. Had I been more Bollywood-savvy I would have figured the entire cast - a younger Rahul Bose seems perfect for Sam, the narrator. I don’t say this is a demeaning way at all. In the right directorial hands, this is a story ripe for being Bollywood-ized.

The material is fully ready waiting merely a couple of item numbers to be shoe horned at the right spots. There is love, sex, heroes, villains, vamps, God (though God knows why) and a long suffering Indian wife who catches her husband cheating on her even as she slaves to make the perfect Badam Milk for his mother. Plot elements are borrowed from sources on cyberspace and elsewhere – probably a natural thing for something that has Bollywood stamped all over it.

Though the God element in the prologue was intriguing, I did not get the point in the end - especially in the epilogue. Other than that the story is quite readable actually – just like some Bollywood flicks are entertaining and watchable. Some of the stereotypes about the average American customer calling 800 numbers are rather lame - but then that is the nature of most stereotypes.

At any rate, Bhagat warns the reader very early not to expect a work of Naipaul or Rushdie. That is a very useful disclaimer as it turns out. Talk about excellent reader expectation management. Whether or not Bhagat is a writer, he is a salesman par excellence. Reading the Wikipedia entry confirms my first instinct : Bollywood has been quick to snap up the rights.

The World Congress of Information Technology 2008, Malaysia

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 13:28:10 EDT

I had the honour of attending and speaking at the WCIT 2008 conference in Malaysia and here are some rather disjointed notes that I had while listening to the speakers. I tried to clean it up, but again, apologies for not being able to make this very professional indeed.

Monday

The conference center is big! And I got lost in the exhibition hall. Quite an impressive setup. So then finally managed to extricate myself from poking into the guts of various exciting electronics bits, went looking to find the plenary hall, and found myself sitting in the hall looking at an ant hill of activity. I could not imagine how on earth will they manage to fit 3200 people and assorted volunteers and managers into this hall but they sure did.

Typically, there was the media scrum when a Prime Minister arrives....We were welcomed by 40 children welcoming us in 40 languages representing 90 odd countries here, but the language used through out the conference is English. Curious, no? the prevalence of English in the world?

He also said that UK and South Korea are behind Malaysia in the World Competitiveness Index, and I can well believe it. Although checking the Global Competitiveness Report here seems like the results are different. Perhaps he is talking about this report. Anyway, mere quibbling. And now the PM has left and literally the front 1/4th of the hall has emptied! Some more speeches about WITSA.

Then Dr. Craig Bennett, Chairman of Intel, started talking about how we have a billion people on the Internet and now we have to get the next billion on the Internet as well. He said that four factors are important for knowledge based economic development

Physical access to technology
connection to internet and connectivity
content targeted at local population
education on how to use the tool

He said that a well educated teacher is the magic and not the PC in the classroom. He showed a video about a Nigerian school which has embraced technology but said technology again is not really the only answer.

He talked about taking a holistic viewpoint, what's the point of giving a $200 PC while the monthly connectivity costs are $250 per month in many countries, 100kb monthly cost in Japan is 6 cents, 50 cents in USA and more than 80 dollars in Sub-Saharan Africa. Now you can get an idea how tough it will be to get these people on the intranet or to roll out the broadband revolution to them (more about the exception being that of India later on).

He talked about how Pakistan is being used as an example of pushing broadband and network connectivity out into the sticks. 60mm dollars is the budget, rolling out in untouched areas in Pakistan, he invited a Pakistani chap to the stage who is the CEO of the public company which is helping to push this (didn't catch the name). Connectivity is a challenge. Satellite is way too expensive. Fiber is the only way. Rolling out fiber is tough, so tehsils where its not remunerative for private companies, this company gives money and offers seed capital, it helps to improve the business case for the private firm. This was a good step. The Pakistani chap said that Govt should not be involved that much in this business, put power to public private consortiums or just private firms, give them a stake in the business and then it will work. But I am not holding my breath, I want to know whether connectivity actually helps or would more investment in say better teacher training help?

He video conferenced a doctor from Brazil into us, how location differences for patients versus diagnostics versus doctors versus care had disappeared, and this tele-medicine actually is helping far more people than medicine and doctors were previously. Then there was some corporate stuff with some kids brought on stage and it ended. It was a bit too slick and the questions with the kids was too obvious and that left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Such a senior chap shouldn't need such kind of gimmicks to play around with such an important topic, we are all adults, you don't have to take us to be children or idiots to play that game.

I was a bit impressed with what he had to say, but what he had to say was crucial (leave aside all the silly posturing and even more silly marketing of Intel stuff). His point was, throwing money at technology and expecting better performance from students was wrong, the idea is to teach the teachers to be better, that will provide better results than thousands of PC's and laptops.

Nothing much to note for the next few sessions. The post lunch session for the Ministerial panel was a bit interesting. Mainly because you could see how various governments approached this entire idea of information technology. You know what was the most disappointing? It was the Philippines MP. She came across as a complete Neanderthal, saying that in many parts of her constituency, there is no electricity power anyway, forget about PC's, and it was a whine. The Philippines government should really have thought that through. The Malaysian government minister and other ministers were smart, they obviously were pushing their countries and with due reason, telling us, the corporate folks, what we wanted to hear..., but Philippines? Pathetic. She is a blot on that country's face.

The next wireless broadband session made me go to sleep. Pure and simple, those two Romanian scientists, bright as they were, made me doze off specially when they started talking about antenna design, and specially after that excellent lunch.

Woke up to an excellent presentation by Professor Takenaka. He talked about how he was made the Minister for Finance in Japan by a certain Lionheart PM of Japan. Fascinating tale of how he took on the entrenched might of bureaucrats and financial institutions and won. And I well believe him, given some down sides, generally that time was brilliant, it still shows that even in a consensual driven society such as Japan, you can still have mavericks who hire mavericks who really make a huge difference! Brilliant fellow. Unfortunately he was not allowed to fulfill his destiny and do all that he wanted to do but there you go, he literally broke the back of the Japanese economic stalemate. I was personally quite impressed but I suspect that quite a lot were not as he was talking more about economics and finance than IT. The IT piece came way afterwards, a little bit and as an after thought.

Then we had Bill Gates in a hologram talking about Microsoft and then Dr. Zhang also, not very clear about what, was flagging badly by that time.... and then we went off back to the hotel, did some more emails and then some calls back home and then off to dinner, again, dinner was brilliant, and pigged out and came back and went to snore, i mean sleep.

Tuesday

The day started with perhaps one of the most interesting panel discussions I have ever attended. It was to do with how to produce innovation and creativity and what can be done to enhance it. These were the people there.

- Arnold Gay, Anchor, CNBC - Moderator
- Kamil Othman, Vice President, Multimedia Development Corporation
- Fritz Attaway, Executive Vice President, Motion Picture Association of America
- Terry Thoren, Chief Executive Officer, Rocket Fish Studios

You cannot get a better collection of people talking about the most creative of industries, motion pictures and a very educational and interesting debate happened. Terry said that the world is changing, Malaysia has twin towers now while USA no longer has it. Who knows what's going to happen in the future? He has severe distaste for politics but great admiration for tech, people, process, creativity, etc

Kamil went into deep details on how to build an innovative industry? Animation in Malaysia. Disappointing take up, long way to go, to make a Walt Disney, you need to start with one million children drawing in grade 8. You cannot create a flash laboratory, shove people in there and wait on the other side of the Lab waiting for Toy Story or Cinderella to drop out of the other side. It has to be started from the very basic levels, people cannot look down on the arts which they do at this moment.

Monetisation of opportunities and content is a challenge, how do you do it? look around you, all countries are pushing people to get educated and into the knowledge sciences, but not all people are thus inclined. Many people simply do not like mathematics or technology. Some people want to study arts, or paint or simply do not have the mathematical skills. What do you do to them? Those who want to write poems? How does he get paid? or fed?

There were conversations around how to create a movie or animated film, quite interesting to see how Hollywood and Silicon Valley literally took decades to develop, you cannot do that just by throwing technology at it. Quite thought provoking indeed. Perhaps one could question whether it is possible to force people to become creative? Or can you just provide the infrastructure and let them get on with it? or is it just let people be, and trust in them to come up with the goods?

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The next session had more ministers but I was quite interested and taken by A Raja, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, India. I have to admit, I was quite cynical at first knowing about Indian politicians, but was very impressed to see what he had to say about it all, how they are powering ahead with the licence's, what mistakes they made, how the process of governance is happening, who gets to approve what? and so on and so forth. Pretty good and well, I will think that what he is saying is right, because I have experienced the mobile phone revolution in India.

As usual, it has to be different. Rest of the world goes through scientific revolution, industrial revolution, then wars then dial up then broadband and mobile, India starts off with revolutions in 3000 years BC, then has fun, then goes into decline, then starts off with a revolution in Y2K and then the next revolution is mobile and mobile internet and mobile commerce is bigger now, how strange and unique... Very curious, loads to think about there. The technology trajectories of these two countries, based upon what Dr. Jiren of China said, are so different. One wonders what will happen in the future.

Incidentally, there was a gentleman from Saudi Arabia who made me think of the previous session. He spoke on about how much money has been pumped into the industry in Saudi Arabia, the emergence of knowledge cities, and the like. Not impressed at all. Not at all impressed. Setting up a knowledge city and throwing money at it does not solve the problem of creativity or having knowledge industries. For that, you need to have creativity at the school level. They have to inquire and challenge everything. Can you imagine something like that happening in Saudi Arabia? Which is the reason why I couldn't take it any more and went outside to grab a coffee. Perhaps the organisers should have kept coffee on tap, this was crazy, they dont want the participants to keep awake? dont they know we drink coffee by the gallon?

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The next topic was rather dry, Dr. Mobius talked about where the next hotspots will be. And I lost my notes on this lecture so this part is a bit vague. I remember him showing loads of graphs about where and when returns are made. It was an asset management view, so was a bit dry. Still, was a bit interesting, specially around the returns of the various sectors in the Asian economy. That is much that I remember... if and when I get my hands on his slide deck, and have time to read it again, will comment...

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For the next session, I went to the "Asia, the destination of choice for Shared Services and Outsourcing" session.

- Dato’ Narayanan Kanan, Senior Vice-President, Multimedia Development Corporation – Moderator
- Michael F. Corbett, Chairman of the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals
- Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman, NASSCOM
- David Wong, Chairman, Outsourcing Malaysia
- Stephen Braim, Vice President Governmental Programs, IBM Asia Pacific

Very interesting, Michael spoke about the impact of the US elections on international outsourcing. I was, frankly a bit puzzled by that kind of emphasis. For two reasons. The first aspect is that the actual number of jobs which are dependent upon the classical aspect of outsourcing is reducing, and the second aspect is, did he really think that the elections will make a tiny bit of difference? Obviously yes, but I am rather disappointed that it was more American rather than International. Also, I was a bit saddened that there was no discussions about international aspects, taxation, technology which allows remote working, etc.

But overall, it was quite interesting, there was discussion about education and how that will help in various countries. What Malaysia is trying to do. What the IBM view was from the perspective of government initiatives and education and so on and so forth. But also, I was a bit disappointed that most people's perspective was the next 8 - 12 months, not more. Still, lets go to lunch, was feeling quite hungry now.

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Over lunch, we had a speech by Dr. Rowe, where he was talking about how the worlds of virtual reality and real life reality meet and how they work together. Quite an interesting topic and he spoke quite a lot about his own personal experiences and the like. But not much about real life applications. I then sent him an email afterwards, and this is what I said to him.

At ABN AMRO, we used Second Life to actually recruit, it was very challenging and interesting but it ultimately failed because of lack of regulatory frameworks. Ended up with 5.5 FTE dedicated to Second Life but then scaled back.
We also used a virtual world to help mentoring. Such as when we have just 2 IT employees in Uzbekistan, then how do I get the junior chap mentored? So we setup a virtual world where mentors and mentee's can congregate in a persistent state across the world. This helps in knowledge capture and better employee retention.
My friend from BP is using a virtual world to track every employee in complex and potentially dangerous plants. This location tracking and graphical display of every employee is used for fire, safety, evacuation and training purposes.

Second life and other virtual lives have become really challenging world and are throwing up some seriously challenging questions for us, again which have not been fully explored just yet.

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Unfortunately, I missed the next slot because we had to go and get powdered up for our session at 3. Not much to speak about in there, check out the slide deck. Also managed to miss out a large proportion of the next presentation from Dr. Pachauri because we were supposed to be in a room answering questions. But did manage to catch snippets of his talk. Quite interesting.

I had to take an office phone call so managed to miss out on the next one as well. So that was that. Nice dinner, watched a charity auction, observed some very nice and lovely looking ladies. This lady was standing 2 feet away from me. Very fragrant. Nice hair even.

Wednesday

This day was going to be challenging, specially since it was also the Champions League Final day.

The day started with me taking breakfast in the Trader Hotel Lounge, where I had been put up, its just next door to the KLCC so very convenient indeed. So took some pictures from the 34th floor lounge while having breakfast.

Here are the twin towers, at the base you can see the gigantic 6 story mall with two wings. It is absolutely stonkingly huge, that mall. Anyway, the twin towers, and the very well landscaped park around the buildings. The building on the left of the twin towers is the Mandarin Oriental where many other guests were also put up.

Then the day started with two debates on the future of the Internet. A deep discussion erupted over the net neutrality issue. To be honest, I have never really thought about it till I was forced to sit and listen to these two debates. Not that I have really firmed up my thoughts but the question is, who pays for the internet? It is my firm belief that nothing is free in this world, somebody will ultimately pay, either the taxpayer, stockholder, consumer, today you or tomorrow in the form of your child. Somebody has to pay. So this idea that the net is free is frankly stupid and more worryingly, it shows a childish view of the world.

Also, the idea that a communications network will or should be free is against human history. Do you think that the pigeon post was free to everybody? or the pony express allowed everybody to send stuff over? or how about the fact that letters still cost to send stuff to each other? Or the fact that we have public and private ownership over the postal system? Or the fact that we have regulations governing what can and cannot be sent over the posts? Or how about the fact that online classifieds are killing newspapers? Or how about the issue that emails are killing the postal system? So when we do not have any issues over that, why do we suddenly end up having an issue over the net neutrality aspect? Here is a good overview article. Very complicated matter, but I suspect it will end up like we have the health service. A Universal service provision which will provide some kind of a basic internet, which is slow and unreliable, while a paid for internet which is better and faster. Pretty much common compared to other industries, if you ask me.

Then there was a discussion about Silicon Valley, it started in 1940's, it took 10 years to know, 10 years to come, 20 years to investment, etc. etc. Takes a heck of a long time to start developing an industry. See what Taiwan did, took them decades to get to it but get to it they did. Now they are the champions, and almost every PC in the world has some Taiwanese components in it.

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Next session I had to miss, then popped into the Mexico session for a few just to realise that they were talking about near shoring. I mean, d'oh, get on with the programme, people are now in the 5th generation of out sourcing and we are still in the terminology of the 1st generation. Crikey! that made me so depressed that I went back to the room and started my calls. Also had a quick bite to eat in the room itself, couldn't’get out of the calls but went back to catch the next great debate.

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Not much to report on other than the fact that one of the guests (I told you, lost all my notes because my stupid My Documents folder decided that it wants to forget all about my previous history and start afresh to synch...). said that the adoption of energy efficiency standards by California means that the energy usage per citizen has now leveled off compared to other states. But if you think about it, the lesson from this is to start imposing energy standards more and more, get people challenged to be smarter about their energy usage. So while the usage will rise, but it will level off at some point!, interesting, no?

So I went looking for some data. What does this tell you? Well, it did make me go hmmmm. We are actually seeing a dip in the energy consumption per capita in North and South America, albeit from a relatively high level. Delving deeper into North America, Canada and Mexico are showing an increase while, very surprisingly, USA is dipping down and decreasing. How curious. 40 countries out of 134 countries actually showed a dip in energy consumption between 2000 and 2003. Some of them were obviously banana republics which were facing economic downturns such as Zimbabwe, or contractions such as Argentina, Ivory Coast, Bolivia, Eritrea, etc.

But what explains this reduction for countries as varied as Belgium, Brazil, Australia, Chile, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, UAE, United Kingdom and USA? Can it be that despite increasing populations, their energy efficiency is improving? Dont take my word for it, check out the data. It is from the IEA even, so would be ok as well. Population information from the United Nations.

The next topic was the most interesting one, so I will put up another dedicated post for it. Came out to grab a coffee before going back in and saw that the sky was cloudy, the KL Tower was nearly hidden under clouds. Unfortunately, all the photographs with the top of the tower hidden did not come out, but hope you can make out the onion dome in the back being hazy in the mist.

One of the living legends of the internet age, Dr Vinton Cerf, Vice-president & Chief Internet Evangelists, Google, spoke on the topic of "Tracking the Internet into the 21st Century". This was the final presentation of the WCIT and the entire hall was absolutely crowded, people were standing on the aisles waiting to hear that great man.

He talked about the future of the internet. Said that the internet penetration around the world is strange. Asia, Middle East and Africa are bad or low or both. Only 20% of the world is connected. He used the World Population Reports from the UN about the 2300 figures and displayed them, some interesting rises and dips. I presume he is talking about this report. See the graph on page 19 of the report. High scenario shows a horrifying 36 billion people on the planet, with a medium one of less than 10 billion. Bloody interesting report but this is not the place to go into it.

He talked about how only 20% are connected to the internet and more will grow. Incidentally, I found it much easier to observe him up on the main screen rather than watch him on the far left. Which begs the question, if this was webcast, then I wouldn't have traveled to Malaysia.... (theoretical question...). Which made me go off into a different train of thought.

My facebook, orkut, myspace, etc. accounts are nothing but very primitive clones of myself. I cannot be everywhere, so my primitive clones operate on my behalf. Just like my email system does and my voicemail system does. As a matter of fact, my home is also a sort of a clone. It has an address which is independent of me. People can communicate with me on an asynchronous basis and I can get back to them whenever. So when people are writing something on my facebook wall, are they communicating with me? or with my clone?

Say I have an active Second Life account. Is that me or is that my clone? Or both? I feed those clones with information and they act/react based upon my preferences. So I can be in another place via my robot/clone and get back information to me when it is convenient to me. I do not have to be face to face with you to get information. You can email/voicemail me and I can pick it up at my convenience.

If I communicate with my son online in Second Life via both our avatars while we are both across the world, am I still his father? to what extent? How about love? Can I show my love to him? via that medium? How does he know that it is me? Or if I was seeing Dr. Cerf across the world on a webcast, how would I know it is him? Just because somebody said so? identity problems galore. Does this mean that more friends you have, more your identify is confirmed? Like an amazon or ebay seller, more positive recommendations, the better is the identity and better is the trust. What do I do when I am dealing with a financial institution? Curiously, microcredit or microfinance rests on this premise, it lends money to people on the basis of guarantors from their community. So a person has to be social and know people and be trusted by them in order to get money. Bit different from my neural network Kohonen map based credit scoring model, eh? But I digress.

He talked about IPv6 (a network address for every device on this planet and then some, even some for your socks..), better search engines. He said something that I will come back to, he said that the monetisation and earning potential online will be less and the current business models will have to change.

He also talked about BIT rot, how on earth will you manage to open a Powerpoint 1997 file in Windows 3000? Forget about that old a problem, here is my problem. I wanted to dig out some research that I had done way back in 1990. I did not have the files here in London so had to wait till I got back to home and went to poked through my old cupboard. Besides the nostalgic kick, I finally found the floppy disks. 5 1/4 inch floppy disks to be precise. I have also operated the 8 inch floppy disk but well, the data that I had was in two formats, Lotus 1-2-3 and dbase. I remember sitting back on my haunches, looking at the dusty pile of floppies, and thinking back to those hours and days that I spent in typing in the financial data of the companies and did the basic analysis. Do you know, I even managed to calculate multiple regression on the damn things in there? Anyway, for all purposes, that data is now lost to me. I do not have a floppy drive anywhere near me, none of the 4 home pc's have it. I have an old laptop which has a floppy drive but it is 8 1/2 inch drive, not the older 5 1/4th inch drive. So I am stiffed.

Fast forward today. Financial institutions are supposed to keep data for up to 10 years. So your transactions and your records are supposed to be kept nicely and carefully within the firm for 10 years. Now the transactions are processed, on an average, via 10 odd applications. There can be many more depending upon the country and product but just think about it, 10 applications, multiple operating systems, multiple upgrades, multiple hardware requirements, multiple network systems, multiple servers, so many different types of technology stacks, and we have to maintain a record of this. Within 5 years, it becomes a major issue to keep up to date with technology, we are talking about 100's of years? No bloody way.

Museums are now struggling with electronic art. I could have taken those disks to a museum but they are also facing problems. Here's a great paper written in 2001 and the problem has become even worse now.

He also talked about the inter-planetary internet. That just blew my mind away but it needs much more thought before I can write more about it, its not fully comprehended yet. Anyway, he got a standing ovation at the end. I ran to attend his Q&A after getting distracted by an email, but still managed to get to the hall to ask him a question. I asked him, you have talked so much about what will happen in 2035 and 2300, the physical shape of the internet, the devices, the penetration rates, and and and. What do you think would be the value system, the monetary framework, the price formation or who will pay for it all? It was obvious that I had asked a wrong question immediately because it did not go anywhere fast. I did ask some follow up questions, but he is a great man, he had to rush off to meet somebody else.

This is my problem. I am supposed to think about what's going to happen in 5 years time in the financial world. This is what I am seeing currently. People who are in the 15-25 years of age category, the great unwashed herd who will be our future employees and customers, are not that well versed in value creation online. And why would they be? Look at what kids do online these days. He watches movies, plays songs, plays games, chats with people, participates in joint coding, and so on and so forth. Almost all of this is free or stolen. His email is free, his programming language is free, songs and movies are free, his video is from YouTube, his chatting is free via text and messenger, his voice is free over VoIP. So all these assets that these kids are using, they are all free at this moment.

So I am most certainly not surprised that they do not know the value of online assets. So when you ask them, how much are you worth? or how much will you work for? or how much do you wish to charge for your ideas? or how much funding will you need for your great online idea? no idea. And that is the issue that I am struggling with. In 5 or 10 years, the link between physical work, money and online assets will be inextricably broken. So how much would I pay a coder? How much would Microsoft pay a programmer when most online assets are free?

My son said something to me today that completely blew me away. He said that he will go create some online jewels and armour in World of Warcraft as birthday gifts for his friend who lives 5 houses down. No money, no nothing, just pure and simple virtual asset formation, entertainment and happiness increased but with no reference to money at all. Deeply worrying.

So to go back to Dr. Cerf, on what basis will anybody pay for a book in 2300? or a share in the company making Windows 3000? or the ability to write code? Or to create a powerpoint presentation? I do not have an answer, but I didn't get one either. I will be struggling with this as part of my job as well, but I am seriously not sure what the answer is. We saw some amazing valuation modeling during the internet boom. But they did put a value on an intangible asset, no? It was a bad value, but a value none the less. Also goes to the heart of what Mark to Market is all about. If this is all too philosophical, think about this, my son is happier getting a World of Warcraft spell rather than an intricately carved wooden box which I got for him.....Should I have gone to the local electronic fair in Kuala Lumpur and bought a user-id/password for him instead? How would I judge what is a fair amount to pay? I have no idea whatsoever. No reference points at all.

That brought me to the end of the conference. The last day, Thursday, was a trip to Cyberjaya and Putrajaya, the IT and administrative hubs of the country, but dont think that fits in here, so you can see some pictures here. I have also written another essay on my observations on Malaysia and that should be published soon as well. End of the day, fascinating indeed and perhaps it was appropriate that that brought my professional career stint with technology to an end, now its moving back into the front office. But technology will remain with me, either with my shareholder, customer or employees. Food for thought, will try to attend the next one in 2010 in Amsterdam.

Technorati Tags: Technology,Internet,Web 2.0

Attrition And New Recruits

Tanay Behera — Sun, 1 Jun 2008 10:26:44 EDT

Attrition is a growing concern for many the firms across various sectors in different corners of the world but today the pain is felt more in India. This bruise gets highlighted more in an Indian context because of the growing gap between the growing economy and the engines which are partners in this ride to deliver. Because of employee attrition few initiatives are put on the back burner. The HR managers are having a tough time locating a suitable replacement with required experience and ability, to fill up the vacancies created on account of exit of key employees.

The points that I mention here as to why employees, especially new joinees leave the firm, a little after the embryonic stage of their job career cycle are from what I have seen in the real world corporate dynamics, heard about experiences from friends and few from the learnings and readings from various articles, journals and blogposts. These points are mostly centered around those who have spent their time and energy in the industry (mostly IT/Tech/Tech Services/Engineering) from a range of one year to four years after their graduation from an engineering school or a technical institute. Even few of the points apply to those who don a much higher number of years experience hat. The points mentioned below are not in any order of significance or priority and is just a compendium of views.

1. Opportunities available: The present economy has opened up the doors of opportunities. If a person is skilled, smart and is an inventory of ideas, s/he is like an appetizing cake, waiting for the market to react. Present day progressive forward looking youth aspire to see their career advancement as well as improvement in his financial earnings in the shortest possible time. Demand for smart talent is always there, so when an individual doesn't find his/her present place of work to offer a hotfooting atmosphere, there are other avenues to explore may be in another firm, a start-up or a similar place.

Thanks to his own ambition, and to the Indian outsourcing boom, he escaped. He gained admission to the best engineering school in India, then landed a job that he could hardly have dreamed of as a child: writing software for Oracle, the U.S. technology giant.

"I fell in love," he said, recalling his first visit to Oracle's campus in Bangalore.

But Jain's zest eventually fizzled under the repetitive rigors of the Indian back office. So he did what a parade of burned-out functionaries in Bangalore have begun doing: He quit outsourcing to create his own start-up - in his case, designing cellphone software that blocks calls from telemarketers.

2. Incorrect picture painted in campus placement talks: Many global firms work as different legal entities/operating units but under one global brand umbrella in India. To make things clear, let’s take a fictitious firm 'Desicritics Corp', which has under it many legal entities such as ' Desicritics R&D Center', ' Desicritics Software Services Center', ' Desicritics Consulting Team', ' Desicritics Technologies', etc. In most campus placements, ' Desicritics' would go as a single team for hiring but the offer letters are delivered by the different groups under its canopy. To a campus recruit, who is not aware of all these internal corporate crosswords everything appears to be the same. But after working in the industry for a year or two, when s/he realizes that s/he was offered a cozen pill, looking for opportunities elsewhere is the most pragmatic option.

3. Big names don’t matter much anymore: Today big brands in job market do not draw as much awe as it used to few years back. Big names are subtly occupying increasingly lower positions in a candidate's priority list. Individuals are perfectly fine working with small and mid tier firms because it's a known fact that sometimes the biggies cannot match the salaries offered by successful second-rung companies which functions to an extent on a start up blueprint. More so many big firms have even now withdrawn ESOPs, which were the main draw a few years ago. In contrast smaller companies are able to offer profit-sharing plans, interesting projects and more responsibility at an early stage in the candidate's career. This is like a ready made dish for a candidate working in a big firm shrouded with global policies, indefinite/infinite processes, layers of politics, and most important lack of visibility in a big crowd.

In just 3 short years, the world has changed. When I wrote this column for rediff.com in June 2004, it was still a big deal to join one of the Big Five. Except, perhaps at an IIT.

With the rising aspirations of fresh grads the same jobs have lost their sheen. The net has to be spread wider and wider, to tier 2 and tier 3 colleges, which would not be on the recruitment map at all a couple of years ago.

At a lesser known college it is a matter of pride that 'Infosys picked up 6 students'. The feeling is that of having 'arrived'.

But next year when 60 join, and then 100, the same 'we are being recruited like alu and pyaaz' feeling sets in.

Bottom line is: 'Aapne kaam se maatlab raakho, yeh big brand maain rakha kya hai'.

4. Company and personal goals clash: Many of the smart recruits in many local and global firms are hired through campus placements in engineering schools during the pre-final year days. Placement talks are like major brand shows and each of the hiring firms tries to outshine others in the fray by attractive presentations in diverse formats. Company goals and visions are put forward to candidates and these tastes like the best recipes to accelerate one's career. The message that is sent is: 'With the company's goals, all measures are taken for an employee's personal development also'. I am not denying the fact that there are companies who do orchestrate company's goals and employees' personal goals but the number is less. Come to the work place, the real world is not that hunky dory. This is completely out of phase, of WYWPIWYG assurance (what-you-were-promised-is-what-you-get). In short most of the cases of attrition thrive on the thread that firms place their priorities ahead of employees' goals, without understanding the employees' basic aspirations resulting in friction.

Although their HR depts claim that they have systems which ensure a smooth induction, training and deployment onto projects that isn't quite the case for everyone.

An interesting post related to this ishere.

5. Change in mindset, among individuals and society: Gone are the days, when one stuck to a job even though it was not satisfying, solely on grounds of monetary benefits. The present young generation wants money, no doubt about that, but it's just not money, it has to be enwrapped with stimulating job assignments and responsibilities that tickles one’s tastes. More often than not, the most heard verdict among individuals is.

Besides, they soon learn, the job is not really about programming at all... One such dude sums up the average IT career path on a Pagalguy forum:

There is not much of a ladder is S/W industry as such. For most life is quite typical. One or two years in a company. Then a chance to go onsite and see some money. Then back home. Another 2 years and then one becomes an analyst and after 5-6 years, a manager. And your engineering branch is the last thing that would matter here.

Even parents and family members, do not evaluate much when they realize that their children are not very happy with their professions and wish to pursue something that is completely out-of-the-box and divergent to their present occupations. These parents stand as pillars supporting their individuals realize their dreams. I know of few people who have left their regular 9 to 5 jobs in tech firms to work full-time for a NGO, to practice as a freelance photographer, to run a restaurant, etc. The attrition resulting from this is miniscule but it is happening these days. This case is more like pre-caution is better than cure. So when one realizes that s/he had boarded an in-correct ship that would never reach the destination s/he had sculpted in their mind, so better get down in the initial phase before it’s too late.

6. Higher studies plan: A sizeable number of campus recruits move to the U.S. or other countries to pursue higher studies and explore more attractive career opportunities after working in the industry for a year or two after their graduation. They form a small pool of the attrition camp. Few go abroad for their Masters degree, few for their PhDs and few others stretch their stay in India to apply later for an MBA program abroad later. It's not that foreign lands are the only destinations, these days many prefer to go for a Masters program in the IISc, IITs, NITs, or even BITS in the engineering and tech stream and to the coveted IIMs and other top ranked B-Schools after clearing the CAT in the domain of business management. Even ISB with its global tag in business education along with many other private schools in India partnered with other western schools of Business Management is an irresistible destination for many who wish to put their lives on a fast track road. Every year just before the admission season, many managers wait dumbfounded to see how many of the ambitious wickets would fall.

7. Manager-employee Relationship: A smart manager is one who can understand the aspirations of his/her employee and can harness the true capabilities and potentialities to the last drop, brusquely pointing the areas of improvement among the team members. Now that appears as a picturesque and cheeky definition never to be realized in reality because a greater chunk of IT related work in India is service and maintenance oriented, which in turn is purely dependent on margins and numbers. More often than ever, a manager can't do justice to both numbers and fulfilling aspirations and finds him/her self in a Catch-22 situation. For some inflammation or misunderstanding arising at work, involving the manager and employee, mostly the bosses chalk up the tension to a personality clash. There is a tendency, according to management experts, to think that personality is the cause of organizational discord rather than perhaps an effect of it.

Ben Dattner, an associate at Dattner Consulting executive coaching firm, believes that personality conflict might be a symptom of a larger organizational issue. "When I work with my clients, I often try to get them to see how it is not just a conflict between two people. I try to get them to see that it is also potentially a conflict between two visions, two agendas, two constituencies or two visions for the future."

The most applied remedy in this case by young employees is to nip off the problem at its root, just leave the job and find a job elsewhere that suits to one's personal liking in most aspects. Quite a number of exits happen in many firms because of the above mentioned reason.

8. Team one works for: Fresh out of engineering schools, many graduates have a swelled head for being a product from a top school in India. This is very much human and expected behavioral pattern that this crowd aspires to be a part of best of the available work/assignments in any organization in the initial days of his/her career. But since most of the IT industry in India is doused in services and maintenance layer of the entire business cycle as stated in Point. 7, easy to follow processes are defined to streamline the execution segment with élan and efficiency. After doing the same work in repetitive cycles, it's no rocket science and even a normal graduate can tackle that in the most cost effective way without necessitating the presence of smart engineers who demand higher pay checks for the same job.

This air of exclusivity and clannishness lingers in the minds of many for the initial few years. Unfortunately if they happen to belong to a team that is of a different clan/tribe than their's in many vistas, they connect with their friends and settle in zones that match their bandwidth. A sizeable number of exits in many firms fall under this category.

As I mentioned here, the points stated above are my personal views and are collected from various sources. This is definitely not intended on any organization, firm, group or for that matter anybody and everybody. This is an open post and would love to hear other diverse views, if you have any.

Recovery Agent : Evolution of the Gentleman Goon

Shantanu Dutta — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 03:23:55 EDT

In India, the term recovery agent or debt collector throws up chilling images of unnerving phone calls, bounces landing up at the door, goons intercepting your car at a traffic signal and throwing you off as they repossess in mid traffic and all of that. So unsavory have the tactics been that the courts have often been asked to intervene and codes of conduct have been laid out as to how banks will go about the business of collecting bad debts.

But according to the New York Times, India’ s “ability” to recover debts is some thing that attracts American companies very much and it might b the next big thing, that might be out sourced to India. It seems according to the NYT report that in recession hit USA, consumers are finding it hard to keep up their payments on time and this is exactly the scenario, where India’s famed recovery agents are just equipped to step in and ring in the coins.

“India will be the only place we grow this year,” said J. Brandon Black, the chief executive of the Encore Capital Group, a debt collection company based in San Diego. India is the company’s largest operating area, with about half the company’s collection force of more than 300. Although the stereotype of a collector may be “some guy with chains and a cut-off shirt,” Mr. Black said, collectors in India are “very polite, very respectful, and they don’t raise their voice.” He added, “People respond to that.”

Of course those in dialogue with India’s debt collectors would be best placed to respond to The Encore CEO’s comments that Indian debt collectors are very polite, very respectful and don’t raise their voice. Possibly he is right and the collectors don’t need to. Who ever said that a deep, coarse and gravelly voice was necessary to send your spine tingling and your mind twirling!

So are debt collectors going to be India’s latest export? It would seem to be so, though it does not look that the business model that the US companies are adopting would see them sponsoring Indian recovery agents for an H1B visa just yet. But the ubiquitous call center executive is swiftly evolving to perform one more function - the sweet talking tele caller who will coax and cajole though not threaten delinquent customers into agreeing to pay at least a minimum amount an earn bonuses for managing to do so.

Given that the call center based recovery agents would not have the luxury of dropping into some body’s house and bull dozing them into payment promises – both for geographical reasons as well as legal, the collection agents’ methodology is dependant very heavily on through study and home work of the clients’ profile and behavior patterns. Encore is for instance coaching its staff bout the intricacies of the IRS refunds- the refund season beginning in May and the caller might know based on their study and research, just how much refund a particular lien is likely to get.

One thing to ponder here is that in this system, although there is a lot of psychological pressure and implied threats of “further action” –meaning law suits, there is no physical violence involved. The tele recovery agents essentially depend on their wits and the eventual might of law suits to get the reticent clients to pay up. Does this mean any thing for India? Will these global best practices in debt recovery which Indians are using to service debt across the oceans get adopted in their own country or the Indian experience will continue to be that of hoodlums and goons and people howling in newspaper columns and consumer courts? Let us wait and see and in the meanwhile, not wanting to take any chances, not run up any unpaid debt at all!

Foreign Investment Causes Child Labor?

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:34:54 EDT

It is almost a truism in the modern day and age that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is bad, and one way that the negative effects manifest is that it causes child labour. What nobody sees is the impact on the child itself (see here for an interesting email discussion that I partook in). Blame the foreigner for making our children work, while we are quite happy to have children work as servants or not to provide any other economic way to allow the children to actually study. But its better to kick out the foreign investor, no?

Here is a study which checks what is the impact of FDI on child labour. The authors find that FDI is negatively correlated with child labour and even after controlling for per capita income, the effect totally disappears. Nothing, no impact, zilch, zero, nada.

Another very interesting conclusion that the authors come to is and I quote, "A key policy implication of this finding is that policies that increase the income effects of FDI may be especially useful in combating child labour. Such policies include payroll tax reductions that encourage multinationals to increase employment and wages. Thus, rather than interpreting these findings as an indication that FDI has no effect on child labour, we believe that our results point towards the need for nuanced policy that exploits these indirect effects."

This was a very curious conclusion to draw. I can understand concluding that dont swear at FDI, guys, if nothing, there is no relationship to child labour at all. But why talk about income effects? How will reducing payroll taxes actually help improve child labour? Well, the fact remains that child labour exists because of a variety of factors, not least because their parents are not gainfully employed. Get their parents into employment and you will lop off a very large number of children having to work. Which parent would want to see their children work when they could be playing and studying? But, all those payroll taxes do is to make it difficult to increase employment.

Ronald B. Davies and Annie Voy, The Effect of FDI on Child Labor, Journal of Development Economics In Press.

Technorati Tags: Childrens Rights,Employment,Labour

H-1Bs, Immigration Policies and US Jobs

Ms. Anona — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 02:58:09 EDT

Bill Gates recently testified in front of Congress that the cap of 65,000 on H-1B was far too small. He went on to say that if more highly skilled foreign students are not permitted to work in the country after they graduate from U.S. universities, American high-tech companies would lose their ability to develop innovative products. India, of course, supplies the bulk of this highly skilled productivity, but little is known to those outside of the IT world the legalities, and oftentimes corrupted practices taking place right here in the USA.

On the surface, policies such as the one Bill Gates is advocating for would seem like a win-win situation for both U.S. companies and foreign immigrants, but of course it is much more complex than that. We all know very well the debate against more immigrants working in the U.S., i.e. the loss of jobs to Americans and brain drain in foreign countries. This is all very well documented and I do not wish to engage the reader in such a debacle. I wish to speak of something less spoke of, dare I say, ‘secret’ of the IT world, this being the fraudulent role of small mostly Indian-run recruitment firms. The lawless and unethical practices are something only desis or those working higher up in IT seem to know about, and it would shock typical Americans the way it surprised me when I was let in on the secret.

The Process: Although there are some very big and respectful recruitment firms out there that supply legitimate human resources to big companies specializing in IT, most of them in one way or another resort to smaller privately owned recruitment firms to supply them with links to highly-skilled staff. These smaller firms recruit fresh graduates from U.S. universities or bring over foreign citizens who have been working in IT abroad. The agencies then train the recruits in a specialized area, either concentrating on a specific software, application, or industry. When they are done training, the recruitment firms will assist in the placement of jobs in the specialized area and will take a portion of their salary thereafter. Along with the percentage taken out of their paycheck, the recruits may have to pay a flat-fee for this service and the fee may be quite substantial if the company is filing for the recruit’s H-1 status or any other INS document on their behalf.

The Problem: Although there is nothing illegal outright defined in the above process, the system allows for a plethora of infringements to take place. The first is that the majority of these small firms persuades and even push their recruits to design fraudulent, or fake resumes, giving the applicants five or more years of experience in the specialized field they are applying for when really they have next to none. The companies that hire these recruits mostly frown upon this process and claim they are not at fault as they attempt to successfully sift out these sort of applicants, however I have spoken with a broad range of immigrants that were able to obtain jobs in this way. This seems to be more the norm than the exception leaving in its wake unethical hiring standards throughout the whole of the IT industry. To my knowledge, faking resumes and lying to potential employers is not actually illegal unless it is for the federal government, but there are bound to be traces of illegal activities, such as fraudulent tax forms and false promises to the employees that must occur to maintain the system.

The system unfairly promotes non-citizens because citizens cannot be trusted to maintain the integrity of the fraudulent system. If the immigrants do not oblige in giving potential employers what their recruiters want, they may be sent back to their country, or, per their contract, may be fined. New immigrants rarely have the time or patience to get engaged in the legal system and are mostly pleased to find an easy access to corporate America. One of the extreme cases I have been confronted with was a friend of mine who was entitled to pay $500 each month to his recruiter even though they were not finding him a job. The company that had hired him was an Indian-run company and had found it more profitable to ‘virtually enslave’ their employees while they waited patiently for their green cards. His only option was to leave the country or oblige, as per the INS guidelines, he could not change employers until first receiving a paycheck.

Another contact of mine came here from abroad and returned shortly thereafter. He was brought here under false pretenses from his recruiting agency and was unwilling to lie or beef up his qualifications to find a position even though he had more relevant experience than any other of the recruits. This system rewards lying and unethical behavior and can even leak into national security measures. When these kinds of recruits get a position, they may have access to materials and documentation that they should not be privy to because they do not actually have the pre-determined experience and have instead created a fraudulent persona.

The Solution: When I find fault in something America does, the first thing I do is look over the pond. Europe is much more advanced at socialized systems and maintains more government control over processes such as this one. America has decided on many issues to circumvent government oversight in favor of lower taxes. In many European countries, there is a national board, such as the U.S’ Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which regulates issues on employment and can bar recruits if they are found to be fictitious in nature.

The EEOC’s role in the U.S., however, does not go much beyond making sure discrimination does not occur in the hiring process. The reason the U.S. may not want to initiate this type of oversight seen in Europe may have to do with the fact that the U.S. would have to open up certain employment sectors to foreign nationals. Contractors for many government agencies in the U.S. right now require their employees to be U.S. citizens, for example. Also, at this moment, foreign nationals having extensive experience overseas are not given any type of preference over those with the same or lesser experience obtained in this country. These things would have to change and would create a more even playing ground for foreign nationals in these sectors.

One thing for sure here is that desis are incredibly resourceful when it comes to Information Technology and they will find a way to dominate this field, legally or otherwise. I am not against more H-1 visas permissions any more than I am against recruiting firms in general, but I don’t believe in corrupt systems that promote lying and unethical behavior. I also believe that U.S. educational institutions are partially to blame for these trends. Most universities and technical colleges in the United States do not have enough competitive edge to supply their students with the most up-to-date technology that is directly translatable to the workplace.

Access To Credit Should Be Recognised As Human Right

Dr Bhaskar Dasgupta — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 02:46:49 EDT

This post made me think. Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus of microcredit fame has said that access to credit should be recognised as a human right. Now, there are two aspects to this argument

1. That the state has a right or a duty to provide credit to its citizens which is something that I do not agree with. This habit of looking to the Government for everything and handouts is wrong. This is at par with the argument that there is a fundamental human right to employment. No, there is no human right to employment. Nobody owes you anything for employment, that is your own responsibility. That is not to say that people who are clearly unable to work should not be helped (such as physically disabled...) but generally, there is no right to work. Similarly, there is no right to credit or even access to credit. But the flip side is true and more on that at the bottom

2. That credit is the only thing which is stopping people from leading economically productive lives which is again debatable. Just having the credit available does not mean that people will take the credit and suddenly become entrepreneurs. That is not necessary, to be economically active, you can rely on somebody else having credit, or loaning out credit or relying on your own energy and being self sufficient.

But overall, it does make sense not because of the call for the right but because what I know that poor people are poor because of governments and not despite them. Governments actively connive in removing access to credit to their citizens. That is actually true. Let us look at the ways it is done. First by giving subsidies and deficit financing, they soak up funds in the market which can be given as credit to needy people.

Second by having inefficient means (such as corruption, bureaucracy, etc. ) even well meaning ways of passing on credit are bad (such as rural work schemes or forcing state owned banks to make loans cheaply such as in Iran). Third is by not having good land and other asset registries (like patent systems) or good land based infrastructure (such as rural markets, good deep secondary patent and land markets, good legal systems where land and asset rights can be protected, exchange and markets where these can be traded..... (see for example, work done by Hernando de Soto)

But, food for thought indeed! Giving people credit is a laudable aim and Governments can do worse than do that. Specially for countries like Iran, Bangladesh and India, the dead hand of the state has to be removed or at least made efficient in asset discovery and credit generation.

But then, remember that you CAN go too far. For example, see this. Well, you have a very simple way of getting credit, just send a text message and in 15 minutes, about $500 will land in your account. And when credit is that easy, it creates problems on the other side. I quote, "Swedish authorities, who are so concerned about the out-of-control debt build-up among some young and low-income Swedes that they in January banned interest payments superior to the cost of the initial loan.The main danger of the new lending system is that it gives people "the possibility to get money very, very quickly, which is stimulating impulsive actions without thinking," Also lets not forget the sub prime crisis where funds were lent to people who were clearly unable to repay the loans

So yes, credit should be available but not too easily.

Technorati Tags: India,Iran,Bangladesh,Financial Markets,Financial Products

Activism - The Forgotten Facet of Being American

Ms. Anona — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 11:01:51 EST

The importance of community service and activism in the history of the United States is one of the staples of our society that has the potential to bind even the least fortunate among us. Alexis de Toqueville first expounded on this thinking as early as the 1800’s when European settlers were still fleeing oppression, and Jane Addams again in the early 1900s during the Great Depression. Philanthropy remains active in our society employing and utilizing the ‘third sector’, a reprisal to the public and private sectors.

Today you will find all sorts of non-profits, foundations, community organizations, and development corporations serving nearly every demographic in the United States and beyond. The potential for unorthodox citizen participation is growing and encouraged by most. Immigrants of late, in particular, can taken advantage of this system and utilize it as another avenue to achieve their communal goals. Groups dealing with immigrants from the Indian Diaspora, however, although highly organized amongst themselves, greatly lack the knowledge and desire to participate on a national, or even regional scale. They prefer to remain insular and see other groups as a threat to their traditional and family orientated way of life. Although a desire to assimilate fully to the American capitalist system is apparent, this community seems mostly unable to think ‘outside the box’ on these issues and resorts to a preference of being governed exclusively by market forces.

Most contemporary writings on immigrants in this genre have in one way or another focused on the influx of Hispanics that have assimilated, while Indian-Americans have been overshadowed and mostly ignored. This may gradually shift as the US receives more new Indian migrants, per capita, than from any other country except Mexico. It’s been over forty years since the Immigration Reform Act of 1965 ripped open the floodgates allowing a new wave of migrants from Asian countries to enter the US. The time is upon us where both naturalized citizens and children born of Indian- born parents are able to vote and enter the political arena. The potential for this group to unite amongst themselves and with other disenfranchised groups is enormous.

This nation is built and run by immigrants of today and yesterday. Will Indian- Americans step up to the plate when it is time for their defining moment, or let themselves be defined by, and perhaps victim to, capitalistic endeavors alone?

For the past year or so, I have been working on a project having to do with the loss of affordable housing in the main desi community in Chicago, more affinitively known as Devon Avenue. In short, this area is considered a major entry point for new Asian immigrants. Lately, housing has been absorbed by condo conversions, or new owners (mostly not immigrants) pushing out the renters and less economically viable (the immigrant groups). Housing is a highly contestable debate of its own, but after dealing with the Indian community groups, namely the Federation of Indian Association (FIA), I realized that there were all kinds of issues that were being masked and can possibly come up to bite this community in the bum and is inevitably against their long-term goals.

I also realized quickly that for me, a non-Indian, education was not enough to bridge any gap when community organizing meant a bunch of old guys getting together to sip a highly auspicious cup of tea. I don’t expect to be welcomed with open arms, but at least offer some avenue where my services can be employed. The FIA’s main event is the Indian Parade in August. After that, all the board members close up shop for four months as they travel back to India or continue with their businesses. Who is doing research or reaching out to the community besides on a superficial basis???

I could gripe longer, but let me just say: Will someone please employ me?!? I’ll work for free, just give me some datasets and I’ll get you your grant money already!!!