Immigrants Vs Natives

This problem is nothing new in any free country. America has its own share from mexico. Australia from east asian countries. India from Srilanka and Bangladesh.

But Immigrants bring with them a lot of new things to the native society.Their culture in food, clothing, social bonding etc. This add more spice to life. Societies and nations have progressed with the mix of immigrants.

And i do agree that there should be some policy to limit the percentage of them getting into your country, But extrapolating this to local level is little uncomfortable to think off. This is exactly what is happening in mumbai now.

With political parties demanding preferential treatment for local when compared to immigrants, i suppose we are moving towards a more regressive society. This essential means that the immigrants have brought in lot of skills and made the market more competitive. A free market economy should be free to draw its resources based on its own requirements rather than based on origins.

The political parties should rather be trying to upgrade the skill level of the natives comparable to that of the immigrants there by creating a competitive environment. This can be achieved with the help of the immigrants itself, creating an inclusive society. Once the natives skill level are comparable to that of other immigrants, the market will have enough resources within the native population itself and will be more willing to employ them. More over the immigrants will rather face the heat of competition and the benefits of immigration will be lot lesser for them in this case. This would be one of the ways forward.

Recession , IT Companies & Employees

I feel its time to write the Part 3 in this series. Part 1 we saw how the indian IT companies were hedging to minimize their losses due to rupee appreciation. Part 2 was the continuation of the same. Companies forced by the ever demanding investors to re-think their corporate strategies including employee benefits. Now we are in stage three.

With the US Recession being very much real and Global economic slow down IT companies are forced to act again. This time they have taken up the time tested weapo "Lay Offs".

• Yahoo Lays off 700 in Jan 2008
• TCS cuts slack by 500+
• IBM shows the door to 500

Many more unpublished stories are there about small companies asking their employees to re-sign or take leave without pay.

If you are in a niche segment in the industry then dont worry you wont loose your job, people with average skill sets have to upgrade and differentiate themselves or else there is always an chinese and philipino ready to take up your job. No time to be complacent. Time to act. Anyone listening?

For a Greener India

Recently paris the french capital won the environment award for its green initiatives. The most significant among them is the "Paris Cycle Scheme" . Where citizens can travel short distance within the city in bi-cycles and park them in their bays. How does this save the environment?

• First, Right away it takes few cars(small or big) from the already congested roads.
• Emission from these vehicles is avoided.
• Parking space problems are reduced considerably.
• Of course keeps the citizens healthy and reducing the health cost the government has to pay for these people
• and lots more.

Commuting by car to office is the most inefficient way of travelling unless you are car-pooling. A single individual travels in a car designed to transport four people. If you think small cars are an alternative that makes the matter still worse with more emissions. So why not replicate the same model as paris.

I was thinking why not we try these in Indian Metros, especially in Bangalore where a one hour commute at peak hours takes almost 3 hours. Already Infosys is having this initiative within its campus. But why not extend to larger areas of the city. Create dedicated cycle bays and parking slots. This w

Obviously one can the problem of theft coming into picture. we can completely avoid that by using technology. Embed each of those cycles with RFID tags . Make the tags hard to remove and the only way to remove them should be to destry the cycle, there by making the whole idea of stealing the bi-cycle pointless. These tags will also enable the police to nail the culprits right away. All to these alloy tweels instead of just wheels, you avoid the problem of puncture because of bad roads.

This will reduce pollution and traffic congestion at important places. If anyone of you have a different opinion or any better suggestion leave your comments. :)

Google Search Bug

Even google seems to have some bug once in a while. Look at the picture below with the search box and button below extending for quite a distance.