SATYAM fiasco, what next with India – IT ?

Yes, the alarm bells are all ringing hard and continuous again for the Indian IT Sector but this time it’s not due to rupee depreciation or US economic recession or financial crisis in the world. This time it’s a fraud, India’s 4th largest IT Company Satyam Computer Services is hit by a US$1.5 billion fraud induced by company’s founder and chairman R.Raju by manipulating and inflating profits of the year with “fictitious” assets and non-existent cash.
The Satyam fraud has shocked the world as fiercely as it did to India inc. Not only it has raised the question on the image of “Brand India” in the world but also shifted the focus of the world to the Western Audit Company PwC which Satyam Computer Services hired for the Audits. Most notably in this respect, Satyam employed a Western auditor using an international accounting mechanism yet to be introduced widely in India, one that ironically was meant to give investors more transparent and accurate information of the financial state of the company. This claim now has clearly punctured all the hopes on the method and shown the hollowness as the "best practices" that advocates in the West of "free markets".
Satyam debacle has not just rocked the sentiments of the 53000 employees working around the world for the company but also the faith of foreign multinational companies in Brand India’s capability due to corrupt corporate governance.
But if the sources around the world to be believed India Inc. will be meagerly hit by the post satyam attack and would still be the hottest cake for the IT/ITES outsourcing. Yes, but the analyst’s across the world do believe that outsourcing might not get impacted despite of satyam shocker but it’s the Local Indian companies which might have to convince their customer that Satyam incident is not associated with the country’s image or all the IT companies across the nation but a matter totally related to a single company or caused by a certain individual for which whole country cannot be doubted.
It is also seen that a company’s failure is going to bring fruitful results to its rival companies like Infosys, TCS and Wipro. But two names which are really sounding to cash-in on satyam scam are ACCENTURE and IBM. The main reasons for sounding these names very bold at the moment are – Both these companies are having huge India operations so therefore, they can offer the same services to the clients at the same competitive prices and secondly, both these companies are Non-Indian, which will make the reluctant foreign customers a little more attractive to them.
Nevertheless, Satyam’s fraud of such a huge number and impact has already crowned the company with the most unwanted title of the world - - “India’s Enron”. Even though the CEO and Founder of the company is arrested and all the Satyam board of directors are being sacked, yet there is dilemma on the faith of Satyam’s future and more so with its 53000 employees who are having a feeling of cheat and even more of fear with their jobs at stake.
In a condition as worst like this and impacting so many of a service class people, it’s the need of an hour for the government to come up with a life saver plan with the help of the other major IT companies in the country and the great entrepreneurs and IT gurus should volunteer to help the government with the all kind of support for the risk free implementation of the plan for saving the 50000+ jobs of the people of Satyam family and bringing back the Indian IT System on the track. Its high time when we realize all the loop holes and corruption in our corporate sector and come up with plans and methods to make it more honest and transparent to the investors.
Hoping for a better situation soon and not wanting, to see the end of the IT dream of a company.

Is India The Most Racial Country in the World ??

India is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the largest democracy in the world.

Languages spoken:
India is a multilingual society with 22 principal languages recognized by the constitution. Hindi is the language of a large percentage of people (38 per cent), while English is the preferred business language.

Major religions:
Majority are Hindus, with a significant number are Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and others.
India is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the largest democracy in the world.

Individual mother tongues in India number several hundred; the 1961 census recognized 1,652.

India is a federal republic of twenty-eight states and seven Union Territories.

If anybody in the world see all these staggering facts and figures, would say – “O MY GOD”!!!
Leave the whole world aside together on one side and we have India on the other, the Mother of all, which is huge and vastly diverse.
I m sure every single Indian is as proud as me of all these astonishing figures and facts about India’s diversity and most importantly, this is how we project ourselves to the outside world. We showcase, we are the most diverse country of the world where we have such a huge multicultural and multi-lingual pool of people, which you cannot find in any other country in the world.
India is undoubtedly, the flavor of the world where every 100 kilometers you will find yourself in the different heaven. You will not just find the changes geographically but you will witness a difference in the language, the clothing, the food, the architectural changes in the buildings/housings and the people. If someone decides to go from northern most tip of India towards the southern most end of India, he would have so much to narrate to his grand children’s that even this life will be short for him.
But this is how whole world look to us, this is how India is known at the highest level but how about this--->
Whenever a south Indian moves to the north of India, he becomes the cynosure of jokes, mockery and vice-versa it’s the same. Why at the work place we try to find people from our native to form our group or friend circle? Why we discriminate each other on the basis of religion, languages and geographies? Why we try to show our culture more superior to the others? Why we want our local language to gain the heritage status as comparison to other languages? Why we say that we are only going to give jobs to the people of our state and we will beat the hell out of the others?

Well, I can give hundreds of such reasons which had made me think in the contrary i.e. the very fact of being the Most DIVERSE country in the world which used to make me proud is now becoming the curse of my country. I know, we have this habit of moving away from all things by putting the blame on the politics and on our great political leaders but come on, its us who are selecting them, we are the largest Democracy in the world, isn’t it ??
It’s really a sad fact that India’s National Language is Hindi and the official language is English. Ok leave both of these languages and taking all other languages into account, is there a single language on which we can be dependent and go anywhere in our country with people understanding it? Sadly the answer is BIG NO!!
Politics and corruption has got so much into the system, that shameful incidents like what has happened in Maharashtra took place where we started ourselves discriminating not on the basis of Hindu – Muslims which has been our story since 1947 but now its within Hindu’s itself, only Marathi’s can work there. This awful state of our politics could be because of the bad politicians but you have to see the fact that with every good or bad politician there is always an ample amount of support, who is none other than the COMMON MAN of India.
The corruption has increased so much in our system that a police man will ignore a person not wearing a helmet having a vehicle of same state but will stop the outsider, in the hope of getting bribed. But again who bribe them, it’s us again.
The whole country has been divided in so many criteria’s that it has become tough sometimes to find the reason of conflict.
We have to inculcate the feeling of integrity and only “INDIAN-NESS” in ourselves. We have to work together with each other with only one feeling i.e. of “ONE NATION AND SAME PEOPLE” rather than ONE NATION AND DIFFERENT PEOPLE.
It’s the time when we wake-out of this sinful era of trauma and discrimination, be it on the basis of gender, religion, caste, culture or region. If we want ourselves to live a peaceful happy life and grow, than we have to mature with the feeling of “ONE INDIA”….and may we wish our nation to be a world super power soon….because country’s people are its strength.

Only Mantra to success -SELF MANAGEMENT

Today, when I see life, I can find two ways of looking into it. First one is a life which is free of worries, less of hard work, full of short term joys and filled with uncontrolled happenings. But the other one, which is the tougher of its kind in existent, is filled with dedication, full of hard work, ample of self control, a lot of sacrifices and demands a huge amount of planning and the most important factor called self management. On contrary, the second one which looks like a more dracunian side of life is actually the kind of life which brings more warmth of joy, long term success and most importantly, the feeling of immense satisfaction above which nothing counts.

I seriously have realized it that to be successful in one’s life it demands no less than a good amount of self criticism, a large self control, a strong self belief backed with strong will power for hard work and a well planned self managed life. The rule is simple and its universal, which says – “There is no short cut to success”. I remember while I was in my school, just outside the main building there was a big green lawn and a board was kept there with the words,“There is no short cut to success”, encrypted over it. At that time I use to understand it in an offensive way and use to think if that’s a trick by the gardener to not let everybody through the beautiful lawn. But with the growing age and maturity, and with a better vision and understanding, I have understood the meaning of that boarding completely.

Today when I see success, I only try to find the path what it took me or somebody who became successful to attain it and unanimously I found out that for none it was a cake walk and for all it was a sheer hard work, dedication, passion and their self implemented self managed life which took them not just a step but good 100’s of miles ahead of the competition. I think each individual is alike and unique in all aspects of life. Be it the nature or intelligence or anything, every human is so different that one cannot just copy the way other person in their lives have traced the golden path to success. Also, I believe only it’s the individual itself who can only chalk out its plan and go ahead with it. Yes, of course there is no harm in deriving the ideas of the most successful people in this world or of your role models but what is utmost important is how you can chalk out your best plan which suits you the best? Its only us who knows ourselves the best and only we can handle ourselves the most appropriate way so its require to plan accordingly and manage yourself best to the task you are up to.

I have a strong belief that all the B-schools in the world besides making all the B-school grads industry polished, most strongly work on inculcating the best Self Managing techniques within the individual so that an individual can attain an ability to everything in their life. Of course, the one who has done everything in life will be on the more happier side of life because the individual will have a feeling that he has not missed out on anythingJ. And logically, if an individual is not a good Self Manager then how can we expect the individual to grow as successful manager or a great leader.

One has to chalk out his or her plan of life better sooner than later if at all they want to be successful. It’s the Self Management which can only lead them to life which they dreamt of and an individual has to believe that “The Juice is worth a squeeze”.

Duckworth/Lewis method explained

Well believe it or not this method is something been cricket's hidden mystery for long and never ending puzzle for both the cricket followers as well as cricketers themselves. So, i found some source on how it works in brief.Have a look at this strange yet so popular way fo getting results in the Rain-cut/delayed ODI's.


The Duckworth-Lewis method, which is used for revising targets in abridged ODIs, is an intricate solution — certainly the best at the moment — to a complex problem. The Hindu attempts to throw light on it by answering some of the key questions:

What principle does the method work on?


The D/L method works on the basis that teams have two resources to make runs with: the number of overs to be bowled and the number of wickets in hand. From any point in an innings, a team’s ability to make further runs depends on a combination of both resources.

When a match is shortened, the resources of one or both teams are affected. The D/L method sets targets based on the relative resources available to the teams.

Why does the team batting second sometimes have to score more runs than the team batting first in the same number of overs? Why for instance was England chasing 198 in the fourth ODI at Bangalore and not India’s 166?
Duckworth and Lewis, who have answered a series of frequently answered questions on the ICC’s website, say: “When the interruption occurs during the first innings, so that the match is shortened to one of fewer overs per side than it was at its start, Team 1 (side batting first) are usually more disadvantaged than Team 2 (side batting second). Before the stoppage they had been pacing their innings in the expectation of receiving say 50 overs and would not have taken the risks of scoring as fast as they would have done had they known their innings was to be shortened.

“Team 2, on the other hand, know from the start of their innings that they have the reduced number of overs and can pace their entire innings accordingly. Team 2 are set a higher target to compensate Team 1 for this disadvantage.”

Why does the team batting second sometimes have to score fewer runs than the side batting first in the same number of overs when the first innings is interrupted?


Duckworth and Lewis say that their method “makes appropriate allowance for the comparative resources lost by the stoppage” during first-innings interruptions. They explain with the following example: “Suppose Team 1 started well in the style of the renowned Sri Lankan 1996 World Cup winning team but the wheels fell off and they were 150/9 in 30 of the 50 overs. On average Team 1 would be all out shortly, leaving Team 2 to score at the rate of around 3 per over for their full 50 overs.

“If rain interrupted play at this point and 19 overs were lost per side, then on the resumption Team 1 would have only one over to survive and their run rate would then be close to 5 per over. By all the ‘old’ methods, for 31 overs also, Team 2 would have to score around 150, around 5 per over, to win — in other words Team 1 would have been greatly advantaged by the rain interruption changing a required scoring rate of 3 per over to 5 per over for Team 2.

“By the D/L method, this advantage to Team 1 would be neutralised so that the target for Team 2 would be well below 150 in this circumstance, and fairly so, which maintains the advantage Team 2 had earned before the stoppage.

“In other words, and quite logically, Team 2 have to get fewer runs than Team 1 scored to win in the same number of overs.”

Is a computer needed to determine targets in international matches?


The Standard Edition of the D/L method — in use before 2004 — needed no more than a calculator and a set of tables that listed the resources remaining. The calculations required to arrive at the target were performed by consulting the tables.

A criticism of the Standard Edition was its use of a quantity known as G50, the average score in a one-day match. Critics claimed that G50 would differ from ground to ground. The Professional Edition, which is used in international cricket these days, doesn’t have the G50. But it requires a computer program.

For more information on the D/L method, including worked examples of revising targets, visit http://icc-cricket.yahoo.com/about-icc/rules-regulations.html. To read Duckworth and Lewis’s FAQ, go to http://icc-cricket.yahoo.com.Special Reference from TheHindu.com.

--Vivek Nanda

Is Performance No More A Criteria For Promotions??

This is one trend which i m noticing in the industry for sometime when i joined my very first job that is seeing people not getting promoted even after working so hard and performing very good.At initial part of my professional life i was wondering that perhaps there is more expected out of them to get to the most expected fruitful promotion or there is a stiff competition which has left them out this time and next time it will be there day of glory.But soon i have felt these decisions taking in alot of factors in the notion to device the most wanted path for promotion for an individual other than PERFORMANCE.I believe there are multiple parameters on which a person should be rated and then only with successful evaluation he or she can be promoted or given a hike but within these all parameters the "P" word, yes the "P" for "PERFORMANCE" should be the main word in the individual's evaluation sheet.Sadly, i have seen a bit too much around me here and there which is diminishing my confidence that the most wanted-- "Performance" is loosing its sheen.There are multiple reasons why we see this in industry some people must see them as justified but mostly will feel bullied with it.

No, i m not at all blaming to the good old classical reason of all this mishaps called "Politics" somehow this has become a very known factor and the mother of all reasons which causes the unavoidable surprises of injustice.But for the moment with the discussion over here i m just keeping it aside and would want to discuss other curses in the path of promotions.The most significant reason which the firm's are taking into account is to retain the employee, to cut down the attrition.I would clearly agree there is alot of attrition in the IT sector but companies should never ever try to retain all of its employee which also includes the non performing lot. The black cloud of attrition on the firms head should not hide the low performing employees and the firm should strickly not try to retain such people. Thats a good thing that company is not firing every now and then but at the same time firms need not be overcautious of giving good hikes or promotions to non-performing people.I seriously have felt that in a team if at all the managers are not awarding the promotions to the actual result oriented people of the team, the team starts dis-integrating. If at all the manager have moved away from the "PERFORMANCE" factor in delegating his budget for hikes than its the team in the first place who gets to know that its not the performing people who have got the hike.Once, such trend is induced in the team even the non-performing member of the team starts expecting it because he knows that its not just performance.Its a clear cut fact, a manager cannot promote or give good hikes to all his team members at once but this wrong feeling being inculcated has set every members sight on manager's only positive feedback.Its a human nature everybody knows about himself or herself that how much contributions they are making with the real work, even a lier knows that even though he might be saying that he did work but deep inside he knows there are other people who have done well and they deserve it.If he does not get good hike as compared to those people thats pretty much acceptable.

The old experience enriched folks in the team are the major pillars of the team since their experience lends great support to the team. But a manager should never make them the curse of their teams as and when they start becoming non-performing, managers need to show them the red flag.Since its a team and everyone has to do their part. All members of the team cannot perform at equal scale of efficiency but everyone atleast is required to fulfill their alloted stuff.Some bad playing managers have developed a strategem of playing on the patience of the employee working under them.The strategy is to find the happy go lucky or never complaining but working people of the team and not giving them good hikes or promotions to them until they get frustrated with it and make a foul cry to their manager.Frankly, speaking this is the worst play in industry despite performing and performing consistently, is not assuring success or promotions.The effects of this are only bad for the manager and the firm.
--Vivek Nanda