Happy New Year : Resolutions Reloaded

.........2008.

Somebody said "It was the year of terrorism",

Some other said "It was the year full of bears",

Few said "It was the year for stars that shone down ",

No matter, whoever says whatever,

I say "not only, It was the year that taught me to stand right up to the problem ",

I can say "It was the year that honed my skills to complete my personality",

No matter, anyone perceives it in anyway,

2008 said "It was the year of challenges to put best work out of you"

2008, also, reminded us "Be ready, a long way to go & wishing the best to all of our efforts in that long way, so called, ....2009".

There were many more best as well as worst moments in my life happened in 2008. But, all of my best moments of my life belongs to 2008. 2008 gave me chances to prove my self, sometimes i succeeded. But, many times i failed. Those 'sometimes' gave me ultimate satisfaction. I would like to share some of them:

- There were unforgettable 15 days between 28th march '08 to 14th march '08. 28th is the day of filing the nomination for M.Tech councilor post and 14th was winning day celebrations. These days, I worked a lot as i hadn't done earlier. Especially,  my speech on 4th March to rule out my rival in internal elections of mechanical engineering gave me a lot of confidence.

-14th of December, this is the day, when my dreams as mechanical engineer were materialized. I got job in General Motors. It is a core job related to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD).

Not that i don't have sour & sorrow moments. like:

- On my way of IIT Life, I hardly concentrate on Technical matters. In this regard, I ashamed of myself not being strong at technical subjects which was my primary objective at the time of my joining.

-Few times, I handled multiple tasks at a time. some times i couldn't manage to do. In those situations, it was happened to neglected my project. This brought hell like of scoldings from my guide(professor).

-My job as a placement coordinator, I performed it better than many others. but not to the best. It may be because of so many constraints.

These were some of the golden moments of my life in 2008. Of course, I owe so much to my college IIT-Madras which gave me all these chances to improve myself.

Professionally, the year 2009 could be dangerous to me. The problem lies with existence with GM. I don't want to be a permanent employee of a temporary company.

My ultimate goal in the life is to set-up company of my own. I'll be happy if i ended up with a kirana shop rather than settled in lakhs paying job :)  :) :) .Whatever resolutions i make, will go around this Dream

Wanted to be proficient at CFD by April, Getting "A" grade in M.Tech project, Investing 10,000 by April ending and 50,000 by November ending, Getting a score of 600 in GMAT in Dec'09 are my Strong Resolutions of this year.

Lets hope year-2009 brings prosperity and happiness into our lives. Once again, Wish you a happy new year.

[caption id="attachment_174" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Its time for Party-2009,happy new year"][/caption]

Infy proved Infosys can save $25 millions/year

It happened few days ago. One of my friend, named Yogesh, working currently in infosys, had come up with his plan to suggest infosys that it can save around $50 million/yr.

[caption id="attachment_152" align="alignright" width="195" caption="Infosys buulding at kuwait..Yet to come"][/caption]

All business plans are so simple and have simple architecture. So, is this plan. This idea completely based on his keen observation on operations in infosys.

There are many factors, which i shouldn't explain here. But, few simple logics were mentioned here.

First Factor: This plan is a practical application of a subject "Operations Research". He found that employees are spending few minutes unproductively during lunch. Its mistake neither with company nor with employees.  During lunch break, employee need to take a coupon for which every one is spending 3 minutes on an average. That can be either reduced or eliminated using digitization of the process.

Second Factor: All infys are required to mention their login details in a particular site. They need to fill up a form in which they need to switch off 3 pages. For switching off from one page to another page takes few seconds. Instead, putting all of them in a single web page saves those few seconds. These few seconds may be negligle, but if u look at them for 1 lakh times(no. of employees), it matters much.

The simple statastics of it are as follows:

His broad analysis shows that non-value added work is 10 minutes per infy per day, at least. Here, i am showing some rough stats. (just as an example)

So, in total, total 10 lakh minutes are being wasted.

Means, 16666.666 man hours per day are gone wasted, unknowingly.

One can calculate these man hours per year to 5000000 man hours. A normal fresher to infosys is paid with INR25000 for his 25 days work. Suppose there are 10 working hrs per day, above man hours equals to  INR500000000. So, infosys is loosing USD12,500,000. These figures didn't consider other breaks like BF, Dinner, Tea breaks. If at all, Infosys can put new measures of reducing unproductive time, it can save all these bucks.

Yogesh had written a paper, precisely, with all these facts and submitted to his HR manager. This paper is now with high end managerial team that works with CEO of the company as well.Lets wish his work will see some practical implementations.

It may be difficult to save 10 min/person, but if u look at as Infosys its loosing a lot. I don't know how much practical this plan is. But, his approach and initiative deserves appreciation.

Any one could have proved it, if one thought as yogesh considered infosys. I knew him very closely since our UG, before he got placed in that software gaint, he started dreaming about this company. May be, his passion and love for organisation would have done this all.

Placements in IITs...Companies Perspective has to be changed about IITians for mutual benifit.

Here is the brief scenario of how placements are going in IITs especially IIT-Madras. At out set, I can state that "Economical Crisis is making few corrections in the industry regarding distribution of students"

The number of students that are getting placed has been down drastically. Statistically, around 700 outof 1050 students got placed at the same time by the last year. In this year, by now, only 500 out of 1050  students got placed.  Its not at all possible to achieve 100% placements at any year at any effors. The reason is 'Nothing is perfect'.  Last year, 95% in B.Tech, 87% in M.Tech and 26% in Ph.D got placed.  You no need to consider Ph.D in placements due to several reasons like their uninterest, their research profile.

The question is "How many will get placed by the end of this academic year?"

[caption id="attachment_141" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Its a big challenge for IITians and companies too."][/caption]

Before answering this, let me explain what is the problem with placements in this year. There are somany factors where we can look of like No. Of companies, Companies intake, economical crisis, Companies perspective about IITians.

Last time, 270 companies visited out IIT-madras. Out of these, approximately 170 have been turned up this year. During placements, out of these 170 about 25 companies bounced back. Still, there are about 225-250 companies are coming this year. Why.... The reason is there are about 90-100 new companies have been visiting. Again, what is the problem with placements. The problem comes here. Last year, for example,  a company 'X' came and recruited about 15 members. The same company came this year also, but intake was about 5 members.

Right now, we can't say anything. But by the end of january-2009, may be 65% students will get placed. This is because of certainity about companies that we have till jan-09, But what is the condition from Feb. ?????? So many uncertainties.

So, there are lots of lots of chances for few intelligent students to be left without being placed. Till last year, any student especially from B.Tech & Dual preferred financial companies, consultancy companies to core comps. Whereas, M.Tech do prefer Core at any situation. As there are no finance/ consultancy companies, these Dual students became competition to M.Techs. This is one of the reason for not having good placements for Masters.

So lot of masters, few duals, few btechs are left. Companies can turn up to these guys.  As, they can be recruited with low salaries. This will be benificial to companies also. At the same time, student will look forward to join in the organisation as there are no other big chances. Chance for going higher education is also less. Because, only those who are 9 or 10 pointers will go to pick up other options like Ph.D.However, Ohers cann't and don't.

It is the opportunity for the companies to energise its man-power for bringing in brilliant future to the company  in the days to come, especially for medium size companies. If companies realises the situation, as few companies did, it will take no longer for 100% placements.

Zardari's hand in Mumbai Attacks

I don’t think there was an involvement of pak’s civilian government on Mumbai’s 26/11 attacks.

Let me come to direct reasons that i have to support it:

1) The future policies of a nation, many times, depend upon the way the first prime minster/president thinks. India’s socialism, secularism & democracy are following in a way Nehru thought them. Similarly the methods of china follow the ideas of Mao. The same applicable to Pak. Pak was originated on the basis of religion. A nation, whose policies depend upon factors like religion and language and race, will never develop. It falls down in a vortex called “Instable Government”. The same is happening in pakistan and srilanka. Religious believes of people made some Muslim Extremists. These people want to destroy regions like India. They don’t want to see the people in the authority, who oppose that destruction. Those extremists want to show that these authorities are incapable at executing the decisions.   In my openion, Zardari doesn’t have any control over these extremists” organizations. That is the reason for why zardari couldn’t satisfy many swears that are made recently? For instance, he promised that he would send ISI chief in interrogating Mumbai blasts. After sometime, he couldn’t send him to India. There are so many instance which shows that Zardari is not only the controlling power in Pak. These powers don’t want zardari in his seat.

2) The pakistan government is effectively encountering Taliban in its afghans’ border. The only way taliban are having is to divert pak military troops to some other locations. Talibans wanted to divert them to india just by provoking the bad relations b/w India & Pak. So, violent attack was made by Talibans, with which may make india to attack pak. Here, we may get the doubt that terrorists involved in attack are from pak but not from talibans. Yes, terrorists are from pak. In this regard, i think that some pakistani people were trained and MOTIVATED by terrorist organizations. Those pak people thought that this programme was a real Zehadi movement, but of course which was not.Now, pak will shift its entire military to its north eastern border thinking the possibility for indian strike. Thus, talibans attack on India works in their favour.

3) Its the desire to get power that does all the nasty things. Most of the time in past, military of Pakistan ruled the state. So, some people in military might have thought to create some perturbations in govt to make it more unstable in order to grab the power to their hands. I think these people are collaborating with Muslim extremists and madrases to get more momentum to this movement, which was named as ‘Zehadi’, which in turn misleading many innocent Muslims like Ajmal Amir Kasab, who are turning into dangerous terrorists.

I strongly think, there is no way to eradicate this terrorism as such now, because terrorism in pakistan is completely mixed with their system. The way that has to be taken up is to start destroying the “Terrorism Infrastructure”.

Its not at all possible to eradicate terrorism by having some discussions among some countries like US, India and others. Because, the final link in the chain is Pakistan which has to execute the decisions. The decisions/demands taken by other nations like India/US can’t be executed by Pak as it is not under full control of its civilian government.

If at all we want to stop terrorism, we have to support civilian govt of Pak. This is a long term project. Not a short term one. US/ India can’t expect pak to stop terrorist activities in its territory by now itself.     On the other way, all countries have to start helping pakistan in terminating terrorist infrastructure before terminating terrorist organisations.