Approval for Plantations Workers Bill

Approval for Plantations Workers Bill

To ensure the safety of workers

 

NEW DELHI: The government on Friday approved the introduction of the Plantations Labour (Amendment) Bill, 2008 in Parliament for making amendments to the Indian Plantation Labour Act, 1951 to provide a mechanism for ensuring the safety, health and wealth of the about one million plantation workers (as per the International Labour Organisations estimates) in the country.

 

“The working conditions of labourers in the plantations have left a lot to be desired. Therefore, we have decided to set up a mechanism to provide for their safety, health and wealth,” Union Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal told journalists after a Cabinet meeting.

 

The government plans to amend the definition of family to remove the distinction between a female and a male worker and the definition of worker would also be amended by enhancing the wage ceiling from Rs. 750 to Rs. 10,000. “The medical facilities to be provided to the workers and to their families [would also be amended] making it obligatory on the State government to provide medical facilities,” he said.

 

The State government could recover the cost from the employers. “Most importantly no child shall be employed to work in any plantation.”

 

Highlighting the need for giving an impetus to the sector, he said the government would also look at the whole plantation sector because this was an area, where India was facing a lot of competition from other countries, including Sri Lanka, Kenya and Vietnam.

 

“We need to make the plantation sector more competitive,” he said adding that even the Prime Minister was looking into the issue.

Lessons from Beijing and Bundelkhand

Sudheendra Kulkarni

A successful Indian businessman—indeed, one of the most successful in the telecom sector—had this to say after his return from Beijing, where he had gone to watch the Olympics. “I felt depressed when I came back to Delhi. Beijing is a miracle city, a truly world-class city. The wonder is, all its transformation has taken place in just the last four years. In contrast, Delhi is miles behind.”

 

Just a few days earlier, I had met another businessman, a struggling but dynamic contractor engaged in building a small stretch of the national highway in Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh. “I feel depressed when I come to Delhi,” he said. “Delhi is shining by keeping places like Bundelkhand in the darkness of poverty and backwardness. Delhi grabs everything for itself, whereas our region is a picture of neglect—no roads, no hospitals, no proper schools and colleges, no industries, no employment. I sometimes feel that we Bundelkhandis, who produced patriots like Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi, should revive the spirit of 1857 and revolt against this discrimination.”

 

Two disquieting observations, but there is merit in both. Our national capital has a long, long way to go before it can match Beijing in world-class infrastructure, civic amenities, efficient local governance and global self-projection. Equally true is the fact that Bundelkhand and many other deprived and neglected parts of India are way behind Delhi in terms of even basic infrastructure and services. Of course, in recognising the disparity between Delhi and Bundelkhand, we should not be oblivious to the disparity within Delhi itself. Large parts of its newly populated areas—the Delhi of jhuggi-jhopadis where distressed farmers and other ravaged sections of the rural poor from the under-developed regions in north India have migrated to—are condemned to have poor housing, wretched educational and health services, inadequate water supply and, not the least, squalid and disease-breeding environs. This internal disparity is the stark truth about almost every other Indian city.

 

India’s development strategy should be attentive both to China’s stupendous progress and to the stultifying stagnation of the many Bundelkhands spread across our land. We must improve the global profile of our national capital and other major Indian cities. As India’s gateways to the world, they must present the picture of a nation on the rise, a proud nation of over one billion people that is confidently seeking its rightful place in the world. At the same time, with even greater zeal, we should work for the speedy and all-round development of those regions of our country and those sections of our society that have badly lagged behind.

 

Can the two priorities be pursued simultaneously? Yes, certainly. In any case, there is no alternative. There is simply no way one priority can be sacrificed for the sake of the other. Balancing the two is a difficult task, even for China. A perusal of the speeches and policy statements of China’s current crop of leaders clearly shows that they are deeply concerned over the social and geographic imbalances in their country’s development. They are aware that failure to properly address these imbalances could cause serious political and social instability. In India, we are already seeing many worrying manifestations of this developmental divide.

 

How can the twin priorities be addressed in tandem? The answer lies principally in re-awakening a strong sense of national identity, national pride and national vision. The idea that India is one and indivisible, the burning desire to see that our Motherland attains greatness and glory in the world, and, simultaneously, the deep sensitivity and commitment to ensure that every region of India and every section of our diverse society benefits from India’s development—this is what constitutes the true spirit of nationalism today.

 

China’s meteoric rise is not due to, but in spite of, communism. It is due to incandescent patriotism, an uncompromising sense of national unity and determination to surpass the advanced countries in everything—be it in Olympic gold medals, Olympic-sized airports and other modern infrastructure, the health profile of its citizens or in any other parameter of development. It is this spirit of nationalism, among all age-groups of the population, that is feeding China’s determination to become the greatest nation on the planet.

 

India has a major advantage over China insofar as we are a democracy and a free society. Democracy can yield a richer fruit of development than a totalitarian system. But India’s potential advantage in this regard has been considerably lost due to a weakened sense of nationalism, evident in the hideous din of the forces of dynasticism, casteism, communalism, regionalism, terrorism and separatism. The problem is further worsened by poor governance right from the central to local levels and the growing tendency among political parties to think only about their own narrow vote-banks. As a result, we lack an integral, robust and long-range national vision, which alone can help India attain greatness globally and address the problems of unbalanced development domestically. Chinese leaders—from Deng Xiaoping to Hu Jintao—have displayed a broad continuity of nationalist vision over the past three decades. India during the same period has seen only episodic manifestation of that vision at the leadership level. When will India have a succession of nationalist leaders who will re-unite a divided India and re-energise the entire population with a common vision and common achievement

 

TV'S LATEST CHIC GEEK

An MIT-ian challenges human perceptual limits in a new Discovery Channel show
A lot of Jeff Lieberman’s work deals with human perception. In October, the Discovery Channel will premiere Time Warp, a series that uses high-tech visual technologies, such as super high-speed video capable of recording 325,000 frames per second, to explore things that are outside of our perception. Lieberman, whose blend of art and science has already made him a rising star at MIT’s famed Media Lab, will be the host.
The handsome and charismatic 30-year-old roboticist and kinetic sculptor who doesn’t own a TV and lives in MIT housing, got offered the show in a cold call from a producer who had heard about his work at MIT’s high-speed photography lab. He took it because, he says, it fits nicely into what he calls his daily conflict between art and science.

“Every time I do art, I feel like I’m not serving utility in a direct way,” he said. “Every time I do science, I miss the spark of the creative impulse. But I’ve come to realise it’s the same. In science or art, it’s about introducing people to new truths.”
On the show, Lieberman says the goal is to find things that are amazing yet out of our perception, and bring them into a range that we can comprehend. “We’ve evolved techniques for taste and sight and sound, but we have just enough to hunt prey and avoid predators,” he said. “But when you tell someone that the rainbow actually goes farther than what you can see, they have a tough time dealing with that. This show is about using science and technology to experience deeper things, to find the deeper sources of awe.”
Lieberman’s work ranges from the cutely clever to the absurdly complex, such as “Absolut Quartet”—a giant “musical experience” he created with Dan Paluska, a fellow MIT roboticist—in which a user entered a short theme into a web page, and the machine, on display in a New York gallery this spring, generated a unique musical piece with three instruments.
“He’s able to talk about science as something that’s very hip, and he’s a great person to communicate that to a whole new generation,” said Cynthia Breazeal, his PhD adviser in the robotic life group, where Lieberman is focusing on applications of technology in artistic expression.

Lieberman is certainly having fun using visual technology to delve into heavy scientific riddles, such as how a hummingbird keeps its beak still, and simple curiosities, like what happens when you yank a tablecloth off a table. “The more I explore my work—the idea that we have perceptual limits—the more it becomes obvious that the world was not created for us,” he said. “We are part of this vast evolutionary chain of immense complexity.”
BILLY BAKER, NYT

 

Source code theft: techie's laptop seized

Source code theft: techie’s laptop seized

Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD: The first ever case of source code theft reported in Hyderabad was cracked by police on Thursday with the arrest of a software engineer K.S. Venkata Ravi Kumar.

A laptop containing several software products, including the three he had allegedly stolen from Tecra Systems he earlier worked with, was seized from him. Proposals and quotes of the company being sent to its clients, confidential documents and billing details were also found in the laptop, Hyderabad Detective Department DCP R.S. Praveen Kumar told reporters.

Kumar did his MCA and took up his first job as IT professional in Tecra Systems which had offices in Hyderabad, and Michigan in the U.S. He was sent to work in the company’s U.S. office in 2005.

By virtue of his seniority, Kumar had access to the company’s administrator software and servers. Taking advantage of this, he copied the company’s source code of three products on his laptop in 2007. Later, he quit and joined iNEK Technologies which also has offices in Hyderabad and the U.S.

Tecra Systems management grew suspicious when they found Kumar trying to sell similar products with slight modifications to other clients. They approached police who registered cases under provisions of Information Technology Act. Police found that the software products, inpresso, iBidLogik and immobile, being offered for sale by Kumar were replicas of Tecra company’s products.

 

Indian history on UK school syllabus

LONDON: Secondary school students in Britain are to be taught history of Mughal and British India and black slavery as part of the government's move to make students better appreciate modern issues related to immigration and ethnic minorities.

The two subjects, aimed at highlighting the influence of ethnic minorities, will join the two world wars and the Holocaust as periods that must form part of the history syllabus from September.

Schoolchildren will learn about the roles of William Wilberforce, the MP who campaigned for the abolition of slavery, and Olaudah Equiano, a former slave who drew attention to the horrors of the trade after buying his freedom and writing an autobiography.
They will also be taught about the origins of the empire, with one unit looking at rise and fall of the Mughals in India and the arrival of the British. Another is titled "How was it that, by 1900, Britain controlled nearly a quarter of the world?"

Key figures in Indian ethnic minority history identified in the new history curriculum include Mughal emperor Akbar, nawab of Bengal Siraj-ud-Daulah and Queen Victoria.

Kevin Brennan, the children's minister, said: "Although we may be ashamed to admit it, the slave trade is an integral part of British history. It is inextricably linked to trade, colonisation, industrialisation and the British Empire.

Mick Waters, director of curriculum at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, said: "Black history is not just about slavery - it is much broader than that. It is about the contribution that black and Asian people have made throughout history. The benefits are that pupils gain a better appreciation of the multicultural society around them and the contribution they can make."

--
Rajshekhar Bhujang
Faculty HRM
Magnus School of Business,
Bangalore
9900115053

Babies can read emotions in faces

You may be well aware that your baby recognizes your face, but a new study has revealed that the toddler can also recognize the way you smile or frown.

Researchers at the University of London have found that babies as young as four months are able to recognise emotions in faces of people - in fact, they are able to pick up on "non-verbal" signals adults use to communicate before they start talking.

According to them, infants use the same brain regions that adults do when they look at the gaze of another, a base for social interactions that often appears critical for social development.

--
Rajshekhar Bhujang
Faculty HRM
Magnus School of Business,
Bangalore
9900115053

Drugs to chemically castrate perverts with vile urges

Drugs to chemically castrate perverts with vile urges
London: A new study suggests that sex perverts can curb their abnormal sexual urges by choosing to be chemically castrated with drugs. The drugs, according to Newcastle-based criminal psychiatrist Professor Don Grubin, are part of a trail scheme for perverts who have served their sentences but have not been cured of their urges. “It is not part of the punishment. It aims to reduce the likelihood that they will need to be punished again,” The Sun quoted Grubin as saying. More offbeat stories | Science updates He, however, insisted that the treatment was a voluntary option, and no one would be forced to take it. As per the tests that have been conducted abroad, the drugs work by reducing the perverts’ testosterone levels and sex drives, cutting re-offending rates. For leading anti-paedophile campaigners, the scheme is a very welcomed option. “Anything which makes our children safer is a step in the right direction,” Claude Knights of Kidscape as saying. The most commonly used drugs include Depo Provera and Tamoxifen, and the process works by blocking brain hormones that trigger sexual urges.

 

Bangalore doctor embraces death

Bangalore doctor embraces death

SERVICE B:A distinction in postgraduation in anatomy, a teachingjob at the prestigious Bangalore Medical College and a flourishing privatepractice.All this were not enough for Dr Manjunath (40) who electrocuted himself here on Monday. In fact, Dr Manjunath, who wasto have reported to his BMC job during the day,sought to embrace death in a crude fashion: he skinned both his little fingers and bounded them with live electrical wires which were plugged into the socket at his 2nd Main, 4th Cross, Chamarajpet residence in the morning. Doctors said the method was notonly crude but did not guarantee instantaneous death.“His tissues and nerves were pumped up andcharred.” With no suicide note behind, it was not clear why Dr Manjunath chose death over an apparently successful career. He is survived by wife and oneson. The wife works as a government employee. Dr Manjunath was running a clinic, Abhilash Clinic, near his residence. He had recently resigned from his job as a lecturer in the anatomy department of Ambedkar Medical College after he got selected for a lecturer’s post atBangalore Medical College. Pharmacist Jeetendra, a close friend of Dr Manjunath,told Deccan Herald that the deceased was upset as he had not got the relieving letter from his previous employer. “We had a marathon chat on Sunday night.He was happily married.” Police, however, did not rule out marital discord being a reason in Dr Manjunath’s suicide. Classmates of Dr Manjunath,who passed out of M S Ramaiah College,said: “We have a strong feeling that he suffered from endogenous depression which is quite common among men in the 40-50 age group. That he was the only surviving male in the family whose other male members had met unnatural deaths, weighed heavily on his mind.”Stanley John,Principal,Ambedkar Medical College said: “He worked with us for one-and-a-half months before quitting on Friday last. Along with him, five others also quit and they too had to join BMC. They pressurised me for therelieving letter,but Manjunath never spoke of it. Anyway, there were no hurdles in relieving him.”

 

Govt looks at corporate pockets to fund skill development

PAY AS THE LEARN: Labour ministry proposes cess on corporate turnover for a national fund

New Delhi, August 22: To finance skill development, the labour and employment ministry has proposed a national fund whose corpus will be derived from a cess on corporate turnover besides budgetary support by the Centre and states.

In its National Policy on Skill Development, to be placed before the Cabinet soon, the ministry has estimated funding needs to the tune of 2 per cent of the GDP during the Eleventh Plan (2007-12). This translates into a staggering $4 billion a year. The expenditure on training should be scaled up progressively to touch 5 per cent of the GDP over the following 10 years.

Further, to ensure continuous availability of funds, the policy proposes a non-lapsable pool, which means that if funds earmarked remain unutilised in a particular year, they will be carried over to the next. According to industry sources, a 1 per cent cess on corporate profits itself would help the government mop up about $2 billion a year. The policy, however, calls for a cess on corporate turnover.

The policy aims at increasing women participation in training, which is very low now, to 25 per cent by 2012. For the socially disadvantaged communities, including the minorities and the poor, reservations will be strictly enforced. Additionally, a special financial support scheme will be announced for the poor and backward classes.

The policy will be reviewed every five years and revised to take into account progress in implementation and emerging domestic and global trends. A National Skills Development Authority will also be set up to implement the policy with representation from central and state ministries, employers, and workers’ organisations.

The ministry has also laid emphasis on attracting foreign direct investment for creation of job opportunities for skilled labour. The policy has placed an unequivocal emphasis on the informal sector that employs 90 per cent of the total workforce. The informal sector has registered faster growth and thrown up more employment opportunities than the formal sector. Therefore, government’s skill development expenditure will give priority to unorganised sector to pull the poor out of the poverty trap.

The policy will cover school-based training, formal apprenticeship, workplace learning, adult training and re-training, non-formal training and learning, informal apprenticeship, lifelong learning, and vocational education and training. To ensure skills up gradation, government will put in place mechanisms for providing training loans, paid leave for training and tax incentives on training costs incurred.

THE GAME OF SKILL

THE POLICY aims at increasing women participation in training, which is very low now, to 25 per cent by 2012

THE MINISTRY will invite foreign direct investment for creation of job opportunities for skilled labour

THE POLICY places emphasis on the informal sector that employs 90 per cent of the total workforce and has grown faster and thrown up more employment opportunities than the formal sector

 

Think global, act local

CHANGE PRIORITIES

 

Energy Discussion: Experts Want Shift In Focus

 

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

 

Bangalore: As skewed priorities continue to hijack the energy debate in India, there is an increasing need for the debate to get more local in context. As historian Ramachandra Guha cautioned against the obsession with global climate change, columnist Kalpana Sharma sought a shift in focus: from the overtly politicized debate on nuclear agreements to the ground reality of the cooking gas crisis.
   During a panel discussion on knowledge challenges that impact environment and development — organized by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development (CISED) — Guha also traced out how the West had been dictating development priorities in India. In the 1960s, it was the population issue; in the 1980s, it was the loss of bio-diversity and now, it’s climate change. “While I don’t deny that climate change is a serious issue, an over-emphasis on the issue obscures the real, local, every-day problems like pollution and the disposal of toxic waste, that also demand scholarly, policy-level attention,’’ Guha said.
   Kalpana Sharma, who had co-edited the first Citizen’s Report on the state of environment in India, said while the nation is glued to a debate on nuclear energy, 86% of cooking in rural India is biomass-based. In urban India, about 20% of cooking is biomass-driven. Even when the figures tell a stark story, there has been no effort to research on the implications this dependence has on malnutrition and infant mortality.
   The priorities in India continue to be misplaced in sectors like sanitation as well. “India is being projected as a huge economic power but we are a country where 665 million people still defecate in the open,’’ Sharma pointed out.
   toiblr.reporter@timesgroup.com

 

CODE OF CONDUCT

Teaching is a unique experience but it also brings with it huge responsibilities. For those turning teachers, here are some guidelines...

 

Code 1

RESPECT
It’s important to treat all children with respect and pay heed to their ideas & opinions. Also, respect their privacy. Personal information shared by them should be kept confidential. Volunteers should not take photographs of children

Code 2

PROFESSIONALISM
Volunteers need to conduct themselves in a professional manner. Expletives and profanities should not be used. Physical disciplining of the child is to be avoided. Volunteers should be aware of their function as role models and present a positive image. Arriving for a class on time is a must. The names — TOI or UN Volunteers (UNV)— should not be used by volunteers for any purpose

Code 3

NO DISCRIMINATION
Volunteers should not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, gender, caste, language, religion, wealth and ability. They should not use prejudiced language or behave in an improper manner with children during the campaign. They should be impartial

Code 4

AVOID CONTACT
Volunteers should refrain from any inappropriate physical contact with the children taking part in the campaign. It is not advisable to be in contact with the children beyond teaching hours and after the campaign period. No single volunteer should be alone with a child during the period he has volunteered to teach, except with the permission of the host NGO

Code 5

REPORT
Volunteers should report any incident of child abuse that they happen to come across during the campaign. They should also report any inappropriate behaviour while dealing with children. They should report to the TOI regional co-ordinator, UNV programme officer or the TOI HQ team. Breach of any other code should also be reported

 

In many cities, sewage is used for cultivation: study

Global study covers Chennai and Bangalore

STOCKHOLM: Cities in developing countries around the world, including at least some in India, are using untreated or partially treated wastewater for agriculture, posing serious health risks to urban consumers, a study released on Monday said.

“Irrigating with wastewater isn’t a rare practice limited to a few of the poorest countries,” said researcher Liqa Raschid-Sally, a researcher for the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). “It’s a widespread phenomenon, occurring on 20 million hectares across the developing world, especially in Asian countries, like China, India and Vietnam, but also around nearly every city of sub-Saharan Africa and in many Latin American cities as well.”

The IWMI said wastewater was most commonly used to produce vegetables and cereals, especially rice.

The study looked at 53 cities in Latin America, West Asia, Africa and Asia. In a report released to coincide with an annual water conference in Sweden, it found that 80 per cent were using untreated or partially treated wastewater. At the same time, the IWMI noted that wastewater agriculture contributes to urban food supplies and helps provide a livelihood for the urban poor.

Few developing countries reported having official guidelines for use of wastewater in agriculture and in the cases where they did exist there was little enforcement, the IWMI said.

The institute saw no quick fixes. “In the face of water scarcity generally and a lack of access to clean water, urban farmers will have no alternative except to use diluted or untreated wastewater or polluted river water,” it said.

One option is to build on local practices. In Indonesia, Nepal, Ghana and Vietnam, for example, farmers store wastewater in ponds to allow suspended solids to settle out.

Some experts said that 1.4 million children die every year from diarrhoea-related diseases and poor hygiene, and described the global sanitation crisis as “the world’s largest environmental problem.”

An increasing demand for water and food has spurred the use of sewage to water crops but in many cases is the only form of irrigation for farmers who lack clean water, the study showed.

Conference participants stressed the need to increase transparency in the water production chain. Up to 45 per cent “of costs for providing clean water around the world go toward corruption,” Transparency International global programmes director Christiaan Poorter said on the sidelines of the meetings.

In India

The 53 cities covered by the survey included Bangalore and Chennai.

As far as Bangalore is concerned the study has pointed out that as hi-tech professional demand good quality infrastructure and services, the city is not moving at the pace with which the demands have been registered.

“This has resulted in significant increase in pressure on natural resources and infrastructure and also several inadequacies.” the study on Bangalore said, pointing to the fact that the city faces several health and environmental problems.

“One such inadequacy is water resources, and the problem is compounded due to its location in the water deficit zone. In fact, inefficient urban and environmental planning have sealed off additional water potentials which would have other wise solved the city water problems in a much easier way. The use of untreated waste water in agriculture has been posing health problems to the farmers in the city region,” the study has said.

The study pertaining to Bangalore listed several policy recommendations that includes the rehabilitation and extension of sewage network in the city and its extension areas for proper and cent percent collection of all sewage water generated in the city, and its 100 per cent treatment up to the tertiary level for effective reuse in agriculture, industry, residential and commercial use. This would reduce the pressure on fresh water resources.

World Water Week is a conference attended by 2,500 scientists, politicians and officials from 140 countries. On the Net it is at http://www.worldwaterweek.org/.

 

For substantial justice, ignore delay in state appeal: apex court

Legal Correspondent

What counts is not length of delay but sufficiency of cause

New Delhi: Criticising the Delhi High Court for rejecting an appeal against discharge of an alleged terrorist in a criminal case at the threshold on account of delay, the Supreme Court has held that in the larger public interest courts can condone the delay in the state filing appeals.

“There is no presumption that delay is occasioned deliberately, or on account of culpable negligence, or on account of mala fides. When substantial justice and technical considerations are pitted against each other, the cause of substantial justice deserves to be preferred,” said a Bench consisting of Justices Arijit Pasayat and Mukundakam Sharma.

Directing the High Court to hear the appeal afresh on its merits, the Bench said: “Experience shows that on account of an impersonal machinery [no one in charge of the matter is directly hit or hurt by the judgment sought to be subjected to appeal] and the inherited bureaucratic methodology imbued with the note-making, file-pushing, and passing-the-buck ethos, delay on its part is less difficult to understand though more difficult to approve.”

Writing the judgment, Justice Pasayat said: “The state, which represents collective cause of the community, does not deserve a litigant-non grata status. The judiciary is respected not on account of its power to legalise injustice on technical grounds but because it is capable of removing injustice and is expected to do so.”

In the instant case, the High Court quashed a revision application against the discharge of the accused, Ahmad Jaan, by the additional sessions judge in a case of his alleged terrorist activities for the Jammu and Kashmir-based Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen in October 1998. The Delhi government preferred an appeal against the trial court order after six years and it was dismissed on grounds of delay. Allowing the government’s appeal against this order, the apex court said: “What counts is not the length of the delay but the sufficiency of the cause. One cannot but take a practical view of the working of the government without being unduly indulgent to the slow motion of its wheels.”

 

Privately held businesses bullish on hiring: Survey

NEW DELHI: Country's privately held businesses are still bullish about their hiring plans as around 74 per cent expect a growth in employment rate this year, even as the global recruitment drive has suffered a downtrend, a latest survey said.

"Whilst expected growth in employment globally has fallen from 45 per cent in 2007 to 33 per cent, this year, it has remained level in India (74 per cent)," according to a recent report prepared by advisory firm Grant Thornton India.

The optimism shown by the industry assumes significance as the actual reported employment growth in India was marginally lower than expected in 2007, in line with the global trend.

The International Business Report examines the attitudes, plans and trends of 7,800 privately held businesses in 34 economies.

Interestingly, availability of a skilled workforce was also cited as one of the major constraint by most businesses (38 per cent) in the country that restricts their expansion plans.

Grant Thornton in the International Business Report (IBR) further said business houses now a days are more focused on retention than those one year ago.

As many as 71 per cent of Indian businesses ensure that all employees understand the company's core values, mission and goals to aid recruitment or retention.

Besides, increased operating costs due to staff retention issues have created roadblocks according to 33 per cent of respondents of the survey.

 

IT's hurting: techies faking CVs to bag jobs

Indian IT and BPO firms, which are grappling to find and retain the right employees, are now facing the daunting task of weeding away the black sheep as a recent survey shows that one in every four CVs submitted for an IT job contains some kind of discrepant information.

A report by a background screening firm First Advantage suggests that in the IT sector, one in every four CVs has some kind of discrepant information and in the BPO sector one in every six CVs has a discrepancy.

The report said one and a half in every five persons have been found to misrepresent some information or the other in their job applications. Out of that, the BFSI sector tops the list with the maximum number of discrepancies, one in every third individual followed by the IT and ITeS sector.

"The instances of applicants securing jobs giving false information is not new but the situation has now reached new heights in the IT sector which has forced the leading IT firms like TCS, Satyam, Cognizant and others to take a tough stand," First Advantage Managing Director (West Asia) Ashish Dehade said.

The advent of a truly global workforce, complexity of multi-location operations and technological advances have led to a rise in the risks associated with candidate recruiting and contract staff/vendor hiring, he added.

Analysts feel that due to the rapid growth of IT/BPO services, overall employment opportunities have grown tremendously. On one hand their is the rising demand for talent while on the other there is a shortage of people with right skills which has put the placement agencies under pressure to identify candidates at short notices. As such, some candidates as well as recruitment agencies are faking information related to academic qualifications, experience, salary on the resumes.

 

A FACELIFT FOR THE PLANET, AT WHAT COST?M

Last year, a private company proposed “fertilising” parts of the ocean with iron, in hopes of encouraging carbon-absorbing blooms of plankton. Meanwhile, researchers elsewhere are talking about injecting chemicals into the atmosphere, launching sun-reflecting mirrors into stationary orbit above the earth or taking other steps to reset the thermostat of a warming planet.
This technology might be useful, even life-saving. But it would inevitably produce environmental effects impossible to predict and impossible to undo. So a growing number of experts say it is time for broad discussion of how and by whom it should be used, or if it should be tried at all.
Similar questions are being raised about nanotechnology, robotics and other powerful emerging technologies. “The complexity of newly engineered systems coupled with their potential impact on lives, the environment, etc., raise ethical issues that engineers had not been thinking about,” said William A. Wulf, a computer scientist who until last year headed the National Academy of Engineering. As one of his official last acts, he established the Center for Engineering, Ethics, and Society there.

Rachelle Hollander, a philosopher who directs the centre, said the new technologies were so powerful that “our saving grace, our inability to affect things at a planetary level, is being lost to us,” as human-induced climate change is demonstrating.
So far, most scholarly conversation about these issues has been “piecemeal”, said Andrew Maynard, chief science adviser for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “It leaves the door open for people to do something that is going to cause long-term problems.”
That’s what some environmentalists feared when Planktos, a California-based concern, announced it would fertilise part of the South Atlantic with iron, in hopes of producing carbon-absorbing plankton blooms that the company could market as carbon offsets. Countries bound by the London Convention, an international treaty governing dumping at sea, issued a “statement of concern” about the work and a UN group called for a moratorium, but Planktos abandoned the effort for lack of money.

Meanwhile, there is growing recognition that climate engineering, nanotechnology and other emerging technologies are full of “unknown unknowns”, factors that will not become obvious until they are put into widespread use at a scale impossible to turn back, as happened, in a sense, with the atomic bomb. At its first test, some of its developers worried that the blast might set the atmosphere on fire. They did not anticipate the bombs would generate electromagnetic pulses intense enough to paralyse electrical systems across a continent.
Bill Joy, a founder of Sun Microsystems, cited the bomb in a famous 2000 article in Wired on the dangers of robots in which he argued that some technologies were so dangerous they should be “relinquished”. He said it was common for scientists to fail “to understand the consequences of our inventions” and, as a result, he said, “we have yet to come to terms with the fact that the most compelling 21st-century technologies—robotics, genetic engineering and nanotechnology—pose a different threat than the technologies that have come before. They are so powerful they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses.”

But in an essay in Nature last year, Mary Warnock, a philosopher who led a committee formed to advise the British government after the world’s first test-tube baby was born there in 1978, said when people fear “dedicated scientists and doctors may pursue research that some members of society find repugnant”, the answer is not to allow ignorance and fear to dictate which technologies are allowed to go forward, but rather to educate people “to understand science and appreciate its potential for good”.
Hollander said, “Do we recognise when we might be putting ourselves on a negative technological treadmill by moving in one direction rather than another? There are social questions we should be paying attention to.”

 

AN UNUSUAL ROLE FOR TREES

A scientist advocates reforesting Canada with trees that have several chemical ecofunctions
Diana Beresford-Kroeger pointed to a towering wafer ash tree near her home. The tree is a chemical factory, she explained, and its products are part of a sophisticated survival strategy. The flowers contain terpene oils, which repel mammals that might feed on them. But the ash has a powerful lactone fragrance that appeals to large butterflies and honeybees. The chemicals in the wafer ash, in turn, she said, provide chemical protection for the butterflies from birds, making them taste bitter.
Beresford-Kroeger, 63, is a native of Ireland who has bachelor’s degrees in medical biochemistry and botany, and has worked as a Ph.D.-level researcher at the University of Ottawa school of medicine. She calls herself a renegade scientist, however, because she tries to bring together aboriginal healing, Western medicine and botany to advocate an unusual role for trees.
She favours what she terms a bioplan, reforesting cities and rural areas with trees according to the medicinal, environmental, nutritional, pesticidal and herbicidal properties she claims for them, which she calls ecofunctions. Wafer ash, for example, could be used in organic farming, she said, planted in hedgerows to attract butterflies away from crops. Black walnut and honey locusts could be planted along roads to absorb pollutants, she said. “Her ideas are a rare, if not entirely new approach to natural history,” said Edward O. Wilson, a Harvard biologist who wrote the foreword for her 2003 book Arboretum America. “The science of selecting trees for different uses around the world has not been well studied.”

Some of Beresford-Kroeger’s claims for the health effects of trees reach far outside the mainstream. Although some compounds found in trees do have medicinal properties and are the subject of research and treatment, she jumps beyond the evidence to say they also affect human health in their natural forms. The black walnut, for example, contains limonene, which is found in citrus fruit and elsewhere and has been shown to have anticancer effects in some studies of laboratory animals. Beresford-Kroeger has suggested, without evidence, that limonene inhaled in aerosol form by humans will help prevent cancer. David Lemkay, the general manager of the Canadian Forestry Association, a nonprofit group that promotes the sustainable use of Canada’s forests, said, “She holds fast to the notion that if you are in the aura of a black walnut tree there’s a healing effect,” Lemkay said. “It needs more science to be able to say that.”

“What trees do chemically in the environment is something we’re only beginning to understand,” said Beresford-Kroeger. A recent study by researchers at Columbia University found that children in neighbourhoods that are tree-lined have asthma rates a quarter less than in neighbourhoods without trees. The Center for Urban Forest Research estimates that each tree removes 1.5 pounds of pollutants from the air. Trees are also used to remove mercury and other pollutants from the ground. And they store carbon dioxide, which mitigates global warming. Canadian officials have announced plans to preserve 55 million acres of forestland.
Beresford-Kroeger has proposed using stock from old-growth forests for planting new forest in the hope of taking advantage of good genetics. She has 60,000 daffodils, more than 100 rare hellebores from Turkey and Iran and extremely rare peonies from China in her sprawling gardens, which are sometimes open to the public. And she grows more than 100 types of trees, including rare fir trees and Siberian cherry trees, and disease-resistant chestnuts, elms and butternut.
- JIM ROBBINS, New York Times

 

Freedom: New-age women do not give a damn

Stay-at-home-mum, homemaker - these are the stereotypes of the traditional Indian woman. But what happens when a woman chooses to stay at home and bring up the kids and not to climb the corporate ladder?

Is that freedom? Do women need to shout from the rooftop to assert their right to choose?

"It took me about a year after I had my first child to realise that my child needed me and it took me another whole year to realise how much I needed to be home with my kids. It's an intellectually challenging job. CEOs go to bed at night thinking about what the battle plan the next day is, but when I go to bed, I think about each kid," says homemaker and writer Mridula Koshy.

She's smart, she's in control and she's perhaps the new face of a rapidly changing India where freedom means different things to different people and being a homemaker can also be liberating.

Mridula's freedom of choice may come from having lived in America, or because she used to work as a trade union organiser or even because she married an American who she says grew up, very aware of women's rights.

Or meet Shobhana - completely desi and also a great believer in the freedom of choice. She gave up a promising media career soon after getting married and unlike Mridula, she doesn't have kids yet.

"Independance is not just about asserting your right to work. It can also be about the right to not work," she says.

While these voices may not be new, there's perhaps a renewed assertiveness. And a need to link it up with a more inclusive kind of feminism that perhaps wasn't visible earlier.

"I don't think people in the fifties and sixties had the freedom I have. I think women in one way didn't get to have a say in the financial matters of the household. They didn't get to decide what kind of schooling their children had. That I have. I don't have to check in every time I spend money we have a joint account and I use it as I see fit," says Mridula.

It's a changing reality that even the market is now beginning to tap. A person like Arjun Sharma, who set up one of the hippest malls in South Delhi, says his mall was built specifically around the South Delhi home maker.

"She's in control and that's the nice part of the home maker of today. And it's not just Delhi. We are getting a pulse of this right across the country. Shopping centres cannot be built just on whims and fancies. They are built around very clear demographic signals that once receive over a period of time. We are tracking data. The clear data we are looking at is the aspiring middle class data," says Arjun.

After nearly 10 years of being a stay at home mum, Mridula has recently discovered her other true calling - writing. It doesn't bring home any money but she says even in a world that revolves around money there has to be space for those who say frankly my dear, I couldn't give a damn!

High-risk, unorganised sector can now bank on govt

High-risk, unorganised sector can now bank on govt

Smita Aggarwal

Posted online: Friday, August 15, 2008 at 0058 hrs Print Email

ELECTION-YEAR move z Government to set up funds for small businesses to woo population engaged in informal sector

New Delhi, August 14: The government has decided to set up the country’s first bank aimed at providing credit to small businesses in the informal sector, considered to be high-risk and credit-unworthy, at subsidised interest rates. The bank, to be called National Fund for Unorganised Sector or NAFUS, will provide credit to around 59 million or more small businesses. In an election year, this is seen as a move to woo a large chunk of population engaged in the country’s informal sector that has attained renewed priority now.

The bank, on lines of existing development financial institutions like NABARD and SIDBI, will enable a wide array of entrepreneurs to get credit, ranging from a corner-shop paanwallah, neighbourhood kirana store-owner to a dhabha owner, for an amount as low as Rs 10,000. In what is a first, the proposed bank will also extend loans to end-users for paying interest on existing loans, borrowed from elsewhere. “The main uses of fund are for refinance, interest payments on borrowed money, promotional and developmental support, and administrative expenses,” notes the draft cabinet note, prepared by ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises. Earlier, the UPA government had made an announcement in its National Common Minimum Programme for setting up a national fund for unorganised sector.

In the first year of its operations in 2007-08, the estimated quantum of credit disbursement to such small enterprises engaged in non-farm activities, with investment in plant and machinery up to Rs 5 lakh, is pegged at Rs 132.62 billion. For larger enterprises, those with investment in plant and machinery upto Rs 25 lakh, the total credit disbursement target is estimated to be Rs 154.73 billion. In all, during the Eleventh Five Year Plan, the government is targeting total credit allocation of Rs 1461.43 billion and Rs 1919.05 billion for enterprises with an investment of Rs 5 lakh and Rs 25 lakh respectively. The proposed interest rate is 7 per cent, with government providing interest subsidy of 2 per cent.

According to government estimates, the higher credit flow from NAFUS to the informal sector would create a total of 32.5 million additional businesses in the sector and provide enhanced employment to 57.5 million during the Eleventh Plan period alone. For setting up of NAFUS, the government plans to introduce a Bill in the Parliament. The proposal was likely to come up before the Cabinet soon, said a source.

 

Prescriptions for health, of the green kind

   In a bright studio at New York University, Natalie Jeremijenko welcomes visitors to her environmental health clinic. She wears a white lab coat with a rotated red cross on the pocket. A clipboard with intake forms hangs by the door.
   Inside, circuit boards, respirators, light bulbs, bike helmets and books on green design clutter the high shelves. In front of a bamboo consultation desk sits a mock medicine cabinet, which turns out to be filled with power tools.
   Jeremijenko, an Australian artist, designer and engineer, invites members of the public to the clinic to discuss personal environmental concerns like air and water quality. Sitting at the consultation desk, she also offers them concrete remedies or “prescriptions” for change, much as a medical clinic might offer prescriptions for drugs.
   “It’s a widely familiar script,” said Jeremijenko, 41, who has a doctorate in engineering and is an assistant professor of visual art at NYU. “People know how to ring up and make an appointment at their health clinic. But they don’t really know what to do about toxins in the air and global warming, right?
   “So the whole thing is how do we translate the tremendous amount of anxiety and interest in addressing major environmental issues into something concrete that people can do whose effect is measurable and significant?”
   Visitors to the clinic talk about an array of concerns, including contaminated land, polluted indoor air and dirty storm-water runoff. Jeremijenko typically gives them a primer on local environmental issues, especially the top polluters in their neighborhoods. Then she offers prescriptions that include an eclectic mix of green design, engineering and art — window treatments, maybe, or sunflowers, tadpoles or succulents.
   “People are frustrated by their inability to cope with environmental problems in their apartments and their neighborhoods,” said George Thurston, a professor of environmental medicine at New York University School of Medicine.
   Jeremijenko, he continued, “provides a service that’s needed, educating people about what they’re up against and showing them that they can do something themselves while waiting for larger societal solutions.” NYT NEWS SERVICE

 

ENVIRONMENT-FRIENDLY DOC:
Natalie Jeremijenko at her clinic at New York University