Category: India

Happy Thanksgiving Id

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Adha

Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى‎ ‘Īdu l-’Aḍḥā) or “Festival of Sacrifice” or

“Greater Eid” is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims

worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to

sacrifice his son Ishmael (Isma’il) as an act of obedience to God, before

God intervened to provide him with a ram (uncastrated male sheep) to

sacrifice instead.[1]

The meat is divided into three parts to be distributed to others. The family retains one third of the share, another third is given to relatives, friends and neighbors, and the other third is given to the poor & needy.

Eid al-Adha is the latter of two Eid festivals celebrated by Muslims, whose basis comes from Sura 2 (Al-Baqara) Ayah 196 in the Qur’an.

 

The incident with Abraham and God is also mentioned in Old Testament

1431 (Islamic Calendar): November 16, 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac

The Binding of Isaac, in Genesis 22:1-24 is a story from the Hebrew Bible in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah.

The narration is referred to as the Akedah (עקדה) or Akedat Yitzchak (עקידת יצחק) in Hebrew and as the Dhabih (ذبيح) in Arabic. The sacrifice itself is called an Olah in Hebrew — for the significance of sacrifices, especially in Biblical times, see korban.

Thanksgiving

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving#cite_note-Encyclop.C3.A6dia_Britannica-0

Thanksgiving Day is a harvest festival celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada.

Thanksgiving was a holiday to express thankfulness, gratitude, and appreciation to God, family and friends for which all have been blessed of material possessions and relationships.

Traditionally, it has been a time to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. This holiday has since moved away from its religious roots.

Note from Ajay-

Goats are slaughtered on Id and Turkeys on Thanksgiving

Happy Holidays to you.

Related Articles-

https://decisionstats.com/2010/09/18/happy-yom-kippur/

http://www.oyate.org/resources/shortthanks.html

(Id is  a holiday in secular India as we celebrate Minority Festivals-by constitutional law )

Hey Americano- outsource your job here

Mystiq (Raphael-Raven Darkholme). Art by Tom G...
Image via Wikipedia

Yup Yankee Doodle. Welcome to India. Ancient Land of Mystique. Modern Land of taking your job.

Let me give you how many jobs we created in India from you.

“Generation of employment

The rapid growth in IT-BPO industry has created large number of jobs for the expanding employablepopulation. The employment provided by the industry increased more than 8 times over FY2000-2009and reached 2.2 million in FY2009.”

Thats stratight from the horses mouth  from http://www.nasscom.in/upload/68924/Impact_Study_2010_Exec_Summary.pdf

2.2 million jobs. Assume 50% of jobs catered to US. Thats 1.1 Million . Assume lower productivity by Indians of 10%.

That’s a million jobs, Americano. Thanks for nothing.

Thats 1 million people who went from taking a paycheck and spending it (on Chinese manufactured good) to 1 million welfare checks.

Comprende?

Now I wish we could drink more Coke, buy more Levis, or even more Fighter Aircraft using our 250 $ billion reserves, but we follow China the leader.

See

http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/newsandcomingevents/t20101021_402677638.htm

”

6. Foreign trade grew rapidly and trade surplus was reduced to some extent. The total value of imports and exports for the first three quarters of this year was US$ 2,148.7 billion, up by 37.9 percent year-on-year. The value of exports was US$ 1,134.6 billion, up by 34.0 percent, and the value of imports was US$ 1,014.0 billion, up by 42.4 percent. The trade surplus was US$ 120.6 billion, a decline of US$ 14.9 billion over the same period last year.”

Thats a lot of money employing a lot of Chinese, maybe even more than the 1 million American jobs that went to India.

From http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/bp260/

The computers, electronic equipment, and parts industries experienced the largest growth in trade deficits with China, leading with 627,700 (26%) of all jobs displaced between 2001 and 2008. As a result, the hardest hit Congressional districts were located in California and Texas, where remaining jobs in those industries are concentrated, and in North Carolina, which was hard hit by job displacement in a variety of manufacturing industries

NOTE- Thats also a very sensitive area in terms of security cyber et all

Anyways, thats all now. Thanks for the jobs Yankee boys

(written by an Indian who dislikes job losses anywhere)

 

Related Articles

Happy Diwali /Google Music

happy diwali, google music

Listen to some nice Bollywood music on Google India

http://www.google.co.in/music

 

 

 

 

and on that note-

Happy Diwali folks and may you have a prosperous new year.

China biggest threat to Indian Software in 5 years: Indian Tech CEO

The Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest, Temple of...
Image via Wikipedia

An interview with a noted Indian Software CEO, mentions China the possible biggest threat in next 5 years at  http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/10/13/stories/2010101353180700.htm

 

China could be the biggest threat to India in next five years, positioning itself as the lowest-cost manpower supplier in the IT sector by 2015, according to Mr Vineet Nayar, CEO, HCL Technologies.

“I believe it (China) is the biggest threat in the next five years that we are going to face…So India will have to up its game,” he told reporters on sidelines of ‘Directions’, the company’s annual town hall.

Terming China, as both “threat and opportunity”, Mr Nayar said that India will have to find alternate “differentiators” than the ones it currently has. Despite issues of language and the purported inability to scale-up, China has sharpened its technological and innovation edge, he added.

“Look at the technology companies from China…how does that fit in with the assumption that they (China) do not understand English or technology. They are producing cutting edge technology at a price which is lower than everyone else,” he said.

Manpower

By 2015, Mr Nayar said, China will be the lowest cost manpower supplier in IT sector to the world

——————————————————————————————–

I wonder how he did his forecast. Did he do a time series analysis using a software, did he peer into his crystal ball, or did he spend a lot of time brainstorming with his strategic macro economic team on Chinese threat.

China has various advantages over India (and in fact the US)-

1) Big pool of reliable scientific manpower

2) State funded education in higher studies and STEM

3) Increasing exposure with the West-English speaking is no longer an issue. Almost 50 % of Grad Students in the US in STEM and certain sectors are Chinese and they not only retain fraternal ties with the motherland- they often remain un-assimilated with American Culture mainstream. or they have a separate interaction with fellow American Chinese and seperate with American Americans.

Chinese suffer from some disadvantages in software-

1) Communism Perception- Just because the Govt is communist and likes to confront US once a year (and India twice a month)- is no excuse for the hapless Chinese startup guy to lose out on software outsourcing contracts. unfortunately there have been reported cases where sneak codes have been inserted in code deliverables for American partners, just like American companies are forced to work with DoD (especially in software, embedded chips and telecom)

If you have 10000 lines of code delivered by your Chinese partner, how sure are you of going through each line of code for each sub routine or call procedure.

2) English- Chinese accent is like Chinese cooking. Unique- many Chinese are unable to master the different style of English even after years (derived from Latin and Indo European class of languages)

Sales jobs tend to go to American trained Chinese or to Westerners.

In Indian software companies, accent is a lesser problem.

———————————————————————————-

The biggest threat to Indian software in 5 years is actually Indian software itself- Can it evolve and mature to a product based model from a service only model.

Can Indian software partner with Chinese companies and maybe teach the Indian government why friendship is more profitable than envy and suspicion. If the US and China can trade enormously despite annual tensions, why cant Indian services do the same- if they lose this opportunity, US companies will likely bypass them and create the same GE/McKinsey style backoffices that started the Indian offshoring phenomenon.

3) Lastly- what did the poor American grad student do to deserve that even if devotes years to study STEM (and being called a Geek and Nerd) his job will get outsourced to India or China (if not now- in his 30s or worse in his 40s). Talk to any middle aged IT chap in the US who is middle class- and India and China would figure in why he still worries about his overpriced mortgage.

Unless the US wants only Twitter and Facebook as dominant technologies in the 21 st century.

Amen.

 

 

 

Related Articles

India to make own DoS -citing cyber security

After writing code for the whole world, Indian DoD (Department of Defense) has decided to start making it’s own Operating System citing cyber security. Presumably they know all about embedded code in chips, sneak kill code routines in dependent packages in operating system, and would not be using Linus Trovald’s original kernel (maybe the website was hacked to insert a small call k function 😉

as the ancient Chinese said- May you live in interesting times. Still cyber wars are better than real wars- and StuxNet virus is but a case study why countries can kill enemy plans without indulging in last century tactics.

Source-Manick Sorcar, The great Indian magician

http://www.manicksorcar.com/cartoon33.jpg

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/software-services/Security-threat-DRDO-to-make-own-OS/articleshow/6719375.cms

BANGALORE: India would develop its own futuristic computer operating system to thwart attempts of cyber attacks and data theft and things of that nature, a top defence scientist said.

Dr V K Saraswat, Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, said the DRDO has just set up a software development  centre each here and in Delhi, with the mandate develop such a system. This “national effort” would be spearheaded by the  Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in partnership with software companies in and around Bangalore,  Hyderabad and Delhi as also academic institutions like Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and IIT Chennai, among others.

“There are many gaps in our software areas; particularly we don’t have our own operating system,” said  Saraswat, also Director General of DRDO and Secretary, Defence R & D. India currently uses operating systems developed by western countries.

Read more: Security threat: DRDO to make own OS – The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/news/software-services/Security-threat-DRDO-to-make-own-OS/articleshow/6719375.cms#ixzz1227Y3oHg

 

Related Articles

Bollywood 101

If you like a taste of Hindi songs- or have 5 minutes to see some ones-

Here are two famous Hindi Videos with subtitles- one happy/one sad.

Song on Train

Song by Strings

Economic: Indian Caste System -Simplification

I am often asked by Western and non Indian people regarding the caste system. It trips me a lot trying to explain the complexity, necessity and current scenario given the history.

Here is an effort- The Indian /Hindu caste system was primarily an economic system to divide labor. In the original Manusmriti ,named by the King Manu- it was flexible.

A son of blue collar worker could become a warrior if he was brave etc.

A couple of centuries later – the top castes primarily the priests decided to make it rigid. No more social intermingling or marriage between castes, and no more migration of occupation regardless of merit.

This led to a lot of lower caste people leaving Hinduism to join religions like Islam ( post 1000 AD, Muslim Invasions and Mughal Rule) and Christianity ( post the arrival of English).


Post 1947 , many of “lower castes” preferred to remain within Hinduism but adopted Buddhism as their primary worship mechanism.Also India‘s leaders in the 1940’s , many of whom were educated in UK as lawyers ( including Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Jawahar Lal Nehru) decided this system had weakened the nation state and divided the energies of India, besides being obviously inhumane and degrading.

The Constitution of India was shepharded in 1950  by an assembly led by Dr. B R Ambedkar , one of the very first educated lower castes ( also called Harijan , after Mahatma Gandhi’s name for them, literally Hari -Jan people of the Lord).That Cosntitution endures as India remains the finest example of a Democracy in the non Western world.

The Indian constitution established 7.5 % jobs reservation in Government jobs and educational institutes at a college and masters level only for lowest and most educationally backward castes ( hence called scheduled castes), 15 % jobs reservation in Government jobs only for tribal people ( hence called scheduled tribes). The provision is renewed every 10 years. Think of it as a constitutionallu bound affirmative action.

In 1990, another 27.5 % of jobs and educational seats were reserved for castes that were socially okay but educationally backward. This caused some riots, delays, political actions, but was finally implemented by 2007.

Opponents of the new affirmative action say that this is like doing two wrongs to make a right. Supporters say data proves that reservation has led to social advancement ( especially in the State of Tamil Nadu).Rollback of the new system is a political impossibilty thanks to unity among hitherto repressed classes.

As an upper caste Hindu ( embarassingly enough my caste is both a warrior and a kingly royal caste , which gives me zero benefit in 2010 AD)……..

In God we Trust..All others must bring Data.

Unfortunately, when it comes to politics the same data is either hidden, partially hidden, or interpreted in different ways especially with regards to projecting sampling error or decisions.

Phew…!! That was an analytical layman definition of the Indian Caste System over 2000 years.

Note- The Indian soldier caste is Kshatriyas not Kshatritas..