India

August 11, 2010

• A branding lesson from Ramayana

  Interesting topic?
  Let me get straight to the story -
  Here is an extract (super summary!) and synopsis from one of the chapters (Yuddha Kand i.e. the ‘War Episode’, which describes the war between Rama and Ravana) of Ramayana.
  Having received Hanuman’s report on Sita, Rama and Lakshmana proceed with their allies towards the shore of the [...]

August 31, 2009

• Seeders – Angel fund and incubation for the tech startups!

  I had precisely three envelope entrepreneurial ambitions! I call them envelope as each of them encompass several small ambitious projects. All three are aimed to change the world in my small way and make it a better place:

  To build a successful Internet technology company which can enable millions of businesses
  To bring mass scale change in [...]

• India – supremacy or oblivion?

  I have always felt that India today stands at the cross road of supremacy and oblivion. The final result may not be as dramatic as the two superlatives I have used, but they will surely have a major impact on the world.
  The main reason for this paradoxical feeling is its education system. A proper education [...]

March 27, 2009

• Braving the downturn – More recession strategies

  I recently shared few ideas with fellow IT companies about braving the downturn in a NASSCOM event.
  The takeaway from the presentation was -
  Stick to fundamentals. Business is simple. If we complicate it for the sake of some buzzwords, we will see more such tough days!
  Here is the presentation for you:

  Earlier in the day, our Industry [...]

March 12, 2009

• Technology is as good as its implementation

  There are so many people working to get a new technology out to masses – a new invention to make things better. However, in my experience I firmly believe that:
  Technology is as good as its implementation.

  Many a time, little imagination is put into implementation of the technology which is existing. If the existing technology is [...]

February 9, 2009

• The entrepreneurial pledge

  I have recently taken an entrepreneurial pledge led by National Entrepreneurship Network (nenonline.org).

  Please go ahead and take this pledge at http://nenonline.org/eweekPartner.do?method=fetch&businessFn=eweekPartnerRegister

January 27, 2009

• Slumdog Millionaire – a sadistic satire

  The hype around Slumdog Millionaire hit me and I ended up in the theater to watch the Anglo-Indian movie which bagged the Golden Globe and is nominated in several categories (ten nominations to be precise) for the Oscars. To be honest, I went with high expectations. But it turned out to be a sadistic satire. [...]

January 14, 2009

• Implications of the Satyam fiasco

  Satyam fiasco was a shocker for me. I have been closely monitoring it for quite some time as a scam of this magnitude can have a ripple effect in the Indian IT industry. There has been thousands of reactions from all over the world. I logged in to twitter to see how the story unfolds, [...]

December 4, 2008

• Kolkata on terror radar

  As per latest news Kolkata is up on the terror radar.
  But I feel Kolkata is relatively safe from a mass scale terror attack. Two reasons that come to my mind –
  Reason 1:
  Kolkata is a safe heaven for terrorists operating from Pakistan and Bangladesh. They come here to lay low till the next assignment [...]

November 13, 2008

• HR review of IT Industry in India – An environment of mistrust

  I was reflecting upon last one year and how IT industry has changed in this duration from HR perspective. Among many thoughts, the most visible one (and the most concerning one as well) was the all-time-low employer-employee trust level.
  One year back, we were looking into an industry where attrition was the biggest concern. Even the FAB5 [...]

September 12, 2008

• Will you like to save a child’s life?

  I will not wait for your answer. I know you cannot see a child die when he can be saved with medical intervention.
  But the fact is that millions of newborn infants die worldwide due to Congenital Heart Defects (CHD). These are a lethal constellation of birth defects of the heart. Eight of every 1000 [...]

August 13, 2008

• Abhinav Bindra wins first ever individual olympic gold for India

  Today, Abhinav Bindra won the 10m air rifle gold and became the first ever individual from India to win a gold medal at Olympics.
  I think this is the most joyful event in the history of Indian sports. More so because, it was a painful thought that a country with more than 1 billion people [...]

July 3, 2008

• Demands of top Human Resource Management Professionals

  Today was an interesting day at the NASSCOM HR Summit 2008 in Chennai.
  There was a session on HR Leadership: Paradigm shift from process recruiters to business leaders. When the Chairperson of the panel, Mr. Pratik Kumar (EVP HR, Wipro) asked the speakers as what would they like to request from their business leaders, we [...]

March 1, 2008

• India’s Union Budget 2008 – Preparing for Lok Sabha Election 2009

  Today, Finance Minister P.Chidambaram presented the Union Budget for FY 2008-2009. A full copy can be downloaded by clicking here.
  Some highlights of the budget are listed below with my comments:
  Revenues

  New tax slabs for Income Tax: No tax for earning less than Rs. 150,000, 10% for Rs. 150,000 to Rs. 300,000, 20% for Rs. 300,000 to [...]

January 13, 2008

• Offshore outsourcing in India – going through a tough time.

  Offshore outsourcing – a concept that made IT & India synonmous with each other in the first decade of 21st century is loosing its glamour quotient consistently. It seems that by 2010, hundreds of software companies will run out of steam as they loose their competitiveness in the ever changing industry, since their business model has [...]

• SEZs are not good for Small & Medium sized IT Enterprises

  With the uncertainty over the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) scheme after the union budget, a mad rush towards Special Economic Zones (SEZs) is very much expected. I have been studying about SEZ or last three weeks and two things are very clear -

  The SEZ Act is under constant change. So whatever is stated there [...]

September 29, 2007

• Effectiveness of online candidate search databases offered by job sites

  IMHO, online candidate search is a great service. I currently use two such websites and shell out almost $5000 per annum for the same. I always do a solid cost / benefit analysis and I have found that I am saving almost $15-$20K on my recruitment cost alone.
  We manage to find decent candidates. However there [...]

September 24, 2007

• The Hari Sadu advertisement – Instilling the right culture?

  Everyone who watches television in India must have come across the "Hari Sadu" advertisement aired by Naukri.com. This ad became very popular for its creativity and also won the award from the Advertising Club Kolkata. Here is the full story board followed by the video of the ad.

  There has been a lot of controversy around the advertisement [...]

September 10, 2007

• Is “joining bonus” a right tradition?

  I have noticed that several companies offer joining bonus to a prospective employee to join early (or shall I say "immediately").
  I was wondering if this is a right tradition? Is this ethical?
  I see it this way –
  A guy is working in Company A and he has a notice period of 30 days. if he [...]

August 20, 2007

• Reliance & Naukri steps into social networking marketplace

  Reliance’s BigAdda, Rediff’s iShare and Naurki’s Brijj.com are the latest dotcoms to hit the Indian social networking marketplace. It may trigger the next dotcom explosion with many more mindless dotcoms in line with these me-too networking sites by public listed biggies of India. Soon, we will forget why the first dotcom boom wave came down crashing [...]