Namma Bengaluru.

Note: All the statements below are only my personal feelings.

Bangalore / Bengaluru : Silicon valley of Asia, Garden city of India.
I recently changed my job and moved from Pune to Bangalore. I was in Bangalore for couple of months some time in 2003. I was in rainy season I guess... anyways I felt ok that time even after considering the traffic, pollution, weather etc. In the New Year 2009 I decided to move to Bangalore as I got much better offer, and came. I could see lot of difference as any other city lot of increase in flyovers, traffic, pollution but the main difference I notices and many people feeling is the change in weather conditions of Bangalore. Now the summers are not as better as earlier. It was really pleasant even in summers before 5 yrs. I felt the same in case of pune. It was much better in all ways before 5 yrs. What could be the cause of this change?
Nobody is worried about the changes happening near by?
The small things happen near to us make this difference? if yes what are they ?
Bangalore is famous as garden city, but in the recent past many people noticing that many trees are disappearing from roads near to their office or home or on the way they go every day.
The day before one of my team member was going back to home and on the usual turn to his home noticed something missing on the road and realized after few seconds..... The big banyan tree on that turn is not there.
Similar experiences are there with almost all people in Bangalore.
This could be the main reason behind the increase of Bangalore summer temperature. The traffic and vehicles are increasing day by day and the trees are decreasing, which can absorb the carbon dioxide.
What is the need to destroy these trees? The corporation people has reason to say – ‘to improve the infrastructure and roads of Bangalore.’
I don’t know what all we could do to prevent our lives from pollution. May be we need to start some ‘Chipko’ movement again to prevent trees from cutting. This was a movement initiated by some female peasants in Uttarakhad, India where these people used to ‘Chipak’ ( to Stick in Hindi) to trees when somebody tries to cut a tree. This was a social awareness they tried to develop in the un educated people, but nowadays educated people don’t have time to even think about these kind of things even after knowing the effects of destroying trees.
I think after some years this city is going to be a silicon city only instead of Garden city of India.
Let’s think about it at least…. This is not the problem of only Bengaluru, the whole India is facing this problem.

15 Aug - Independence Day

Indian Independence Day !!!

We are going to enter into 61 st year of Independence. How are you going to celebrate this day?
Are you happy to celebrate this day? or afraid of celebrating this day, because this could be the day the terrorists target the India to destroy? and there could be a bomb anywhere near to you.
Even if you don't care about these things would you tell me the answers to the below Questions.
What are the reasons you want to celebrate this day?
What are the five things you think India gained progress in these 61 years of Independence?
What all things you still want to purge from India?
What things you could address as an individual to the country?

These are the simple questions I would like to ask every citizen of India. If you ask me these same questions I would like to say the answers as below
Yes I wanted to celebrate this day particularly this year as India's growth is tremendous since independence in lot of sectors like Agriculture, Medical Products, Information Technology, Communications exports.
After all I would give you the best example for celebrating my independence day -

"When we were young kids growing up in America, we were
Told to eat our vegetables at dinner and not leave them.
Mothers said, think of the starving children in India
And finish the dinner.'

And now I tell my children:
'Finish your homework. Think of the children in India
Who would make you starve, if you don't.'?"
Thomas L. Friedman
NY Times Columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner

I think now I need not give you any more explanation about the celebration of my day of Independence.

Jai Hind !!!!.

Life Security in India a Joke?

Is human life in India a Joke?

These are the list of bomb blasts since 2005 in India I could remember.
July-2006 - The serial blasts in Mumbai in local train.
Dec-2005 - Professor killed in IISC campus in Bangalore (IT hub of India)
Aug - 2007 - 5 serial blasts in Hyderabad
May-2008 - Blasts in Jaipur caused 60 deaths

Yesterday - July - 2008 - Serial Blasts in Bangalore killed 6
Today - July - 2008 - 6 serial Blasts in Ahmadabad

Hi, be prepared now,
are you in India? and going in a Bus or train ?
or in a park playing with your kids?
or eating a spicy chat with your friends and sharing thoughts ?
or watching a movie in the theater?
Now you must be prepared for a bomb blast anytime around you.
Do you have special bomb proof jacket with you ?

Yesterday when I was fixing a production bug, somebody told me that Hey, do you know there were 7 serial bomb blasts in B'lore? I was worried and stopped my work and opened a new browser and opened rediff.com to see the news highlights. I quickly read the article by opening the first link and realized that all the blasts were low intensity and only 2 people killed and all the area names blasts happened where no friends or relatives of mine stay. huh....I gave a relaxing sigh and went back to my bug fixing in PROD as I have to fix it as soon as possible. I have no time to call my friend or relative in Bangalore to ask if they are safe.

Today I came to know that there are serial blasts in Ahmadabad. what could I do? I just read the article in the same rediff.com felt sad for couple of minutes and started writing this article because as a busy software engineer what else you could expect from me?

When there was a blast of WTO in US they made a super big issue as they lost 3000 lives in their history because of Terrorism and they declared a war against the Terrorism and ruined Iraq like anything for Bin Laden but we(Indians) are now very used to for the bomb blasts of these bloody terrorists.

Why don't Indian government do something like this and declare a war against internal terrorism at least? we don't do this because we boast about the World Peace all the time which is a way to support the inefficient politics in India. What the heck the politicians in India are doing? Do they really feel for the people and the lives of the people? I don't think so they must be thinking that this is a best way to reduce the population of India as most of them are illiterates or not completed their X standard. They can't think more than this.

As India is blowing like this the Indian national government itself has to prove their strength in parliament a day before Hon.President. This situation is caused because of the Nuclear-Deal by America for Nuclear weapon production and testing for which Left parties were in opposition.
So, this is what is the status of India today. Now what would I say, we need Nuclear power to destroy the terrorism in India? Is this the most important thing to deal with despite of these terror threats through out the country today.

What these bloody politicians does? They visited the victims and distributed fruits, granted 20K for the people lost their lives and 10K for the injured. They put a Inquiry commission on this issue and hands it over to CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) and they are done.
This commission will take some long years to find the by the time people almost forget about the blast itself.

The Indians are really great in this regard, they forget the things very quickly. Usually I know they forget the promises by politicians while campaigning for votes. But even they forget the bomb blasts in which they have lost their relatives, friends? I am realizing now.

Americans remember Sep 11 every year and lit up candles for those who lost their lives on that incident of terror. but in India we don't even remember the dates and years of these incidents as we do have a lot. If we start lighting up candles we might need millions of candles too.

Where is the security for Life of human beings? Can we call it the failure of the government and the intelligence burgeau which couldn't figure out before they get blast? whatever is the reason in each blast many innocent lives are gone.
Why is it happening with India? I have no clue as of now..... is it happening in India only or any other country in the world?
If you have any thing to share in this regard please do.....

Saving electricity is my national duty

I came across some site which throw light on very basic things we do which will save a lot of power.Most of us usually we think what my small amount of electricity would make difference in the country’s utilization. Even I was thinking the same till today.

But today I came to know that each unit we consume matters to the nation. How many of you shutdown their office system daily after work?

At least monitor?

At least on the weekend?

How many lights will be running at your home daily?

Are they the regular old kind of bulbs?

Do you switch of the TV with your remote and leave it or switch off the plug switch?

Because experts says that everything you leave above without switching off makes difference in some units and if every home take care of this it will become some kilo watt and mega watts.

So please consider these points.

But even I analyzed the points about the government’s end.

If we keep these small savings of electricity a side and try to figure out the big numbers, Because this has to begin with the government itself. I came to know that the 6% of electricity is getting wasted in the transmission because of using the cheap material and not fixing the problems immediately and many more facts like 8% of electricity is getting robbed by us I mean the proud Indian citizens by paying bribes to the officers. And there are many more things govt. has to take care. If we could save all this power and utilize properly we would really make difference and move ahead in the world.

Below is the pledge given by Bureau of Energy Efficiency

It has to be followed by every Indian.

Saving electricity is my national duty.
I shall try essentially to save electricity.
I shall always try to save electricity in my home and in the vicinity.
I shall switch off the electrical appliances when not needed.
I shall switch off the appliances wherever the electricity is consumed without reason.
I shall not utilize appliances like heater or oven that consume much electricity.
I shall use CFL, 14 W, 18 W Compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) instead of 100 W, 200 W bulbs.
Thus today I pledge to carry out successfully the National Campaign of electricity.

Comments on Indian Traffic by Mike (My Manager in US)

Recently my Manager from United States office visited India office for a month and I would like to share some of the magic moments we shared in India.

Me and my team mate went to Mumbai to receive this great personality from the Chatrapati Shivaji Airport and when we were waiting for him outside the gate my team mate said how is Mike going to look so that he could recognize him, as I know him well and seen him for couple of months in US office I asked him how are you expecting him?

My team mate was expecting that Mike would be wearing a suite or a jeans with a formal shirt etc. I know that how he is going to look when he come out. He came out with a thin T-Shirt and Shorts as I told my mate earlier.

After initial introductions we started our journey from Mumbai to Pune, as he noticed the surroundings of Mumbai airport while landing he told could guess how India is going look like. But still it was a big surprise for him as he never expected the kind of traffic he could see just out side the airport and the same way it was till end of Mumbai.

He told me in the cab that he already visited 5 continents of the world and most of the countries in even in Asia like Malaysia, Japan, and Singapore etc as his girl friend belongs to Japan, but no where he saw the traffic like this.

He was very much afraid of when somebody (Bike or Car) came very close to our cab in any of the traffic signals. Our driver enjoyed this episode very well. Driver used to ask us many questions as he was unable to understand Mike’s accent.

Finally, we reached Pune some time around 2’o clock. He was hungry and want to have food but he wanted to have a shower before he want to have food. So we took him to our company guest house. After that we had to take him for lunch on my Bike as we all only has Bikes but no cars.

Then he almost started shouting when I was driving in my slowest speed 40 kmph. First of all he was unable to sit on my bike as he has no practice of sitting on bike and he used to for car. Then he was straight away exposed to sun and it was 36º C on that day again the traffic was same.

In this Drive he asked me a interesting questions as below.

Q. Since how many years you are driving your Bike?

A. I am driving from last 6 years on Pune roads.

Q. How many accidents you met with?

A. I didn’t have any major accidents so far in my driving.

You know what was his conclusion, It doesn’t mean you are the best driver…You are lucky enough in this traffic you didn’t met with accidents. He added that nobody is a perfect driver but even if I send the perfect driver in this traffic where nobody follow the traffic rules he could met with accident.

So, how many of you are lucky and didn’t have any accidents?

Is it necessary to think about this now? As educated and working professional are you following the traffic rules?

Just think about it …… this is how India right now…….

Letter Writing an Art!!!

How many years back you got a letter for you?

I don’t even remember getting a letter from anyone other than bank statements, credit card bills or marriage invitations or a Rakhi from my sister.

If you do remember any other occasion that could be a letter from your beloved.

But I don’t remember any other occasion. I could remember my last letter from post is my birthday card from my family.

In my childhood my dad used to write at least 2 letters a day and in response he used to get 2 letters a day. But gradually it happened that all of my relatives took telephones every and they started talking to each other in phones, still my dad was reluctant and don’t wanted to take telephone as he believe that letter writing is an art and he said still people write letters even people start talking on phone. Even this time he was getting some letters every week.

After a year or so, this number of letters reduced dramatically as most of the people have phones at their home by this time and many relatives told my dad to buy a telephone and letter writing is no more an art and he has to agree with the fact some day.

After some years I noticed people even trying to remove their old land line connections and taking new mobile numbers as there is a telecommunication system improved in India.

Now even people don’t want to waste money on mobile phone bills. I myself want to talk to my friends on Google talk or on Skype for free as I am already paying for Internet anyway.

This has to happen someday and this is the revolution in communication industry.

Why is India Special?

If somebody ask what is India? And what makes it special?

What will you say about India, “The Knowledge Super Power” or “The Silicon Subcontinent” or “World’s twelfth largest economy” or “World’s fourth largest in Purchasing power” or “Incredible place to visit!!!” or “Country of people” etc.

But what makes India special?

I think all these things above makes special. There are many things there in India the other world doesn’t has.

We have a culture which has a history of hundreds of year, different languages in the same country, different weather conditions, dance styles, variety of poetries, martial arts, paintings, sculptures what not. Even though we have these many different religions and cultures, languages we are united for these many years. That makes us special.

That makes India special.

Indian economy is growing and it stood at fourth place in the world. If we compare our economy growth with the rate of our population it is really has to appreciate it.

India is getting into technology and improving the standard of living of the general public is very high than any other country I guess.

India export many more things than earlier not even to the nations backward in their economy and to the powerful nations like US and UK.

India kept trying since many years to increase the power of itself and show what it is to rest of the world and I think India is successful in doing it.

I know there are many people criticize their own country and say that we could have grown to much more than it is right now, but no one in them contribute anything for the development of the country.

India is successful though it has many burning problems like Population, corruption, politics in all sectors and infrastructure and many more.

I think this is what makes India special.

If you read some of the articles mentioned below are the real examples of the India growing.

Reference: INDIA

India: Next knowledge Superpower

India: The Silicon Subcontinent

Do the job fairs useful?

Last week in my company our HR called a meeting with some people. This meeting was regarding my company wanted to participate in some Job Fair and they wanted to discuss the strategy they wanted to follow to get the good candidates through Job fair. They want us (Technical Panel) to help them out with this.

From the Employer point of view:

I was wondering what could be the reason they wanted to participate in the job fair instead of filling the positions from either referral or through consultants.

The reason was simple; they wanted to cut down the cost of recruitment by participating in job fair. It was a success from the company point of view as they got around 300 resumes of the expected expertise with the relevant experience people they are looking for. If they get these resumes from consultant that would cost them much more money than participation in the job fair.

From the Employee point of view:

Here we do have two different groups in the employees.

First one Fresh out of college who don’t have any experience in the software industry.

Second category would be those who have some years of experience. For fresh graduates I saw that most of the companies would not take in through job fair, because we already discussed above about their targeted professionals. I could see very less number of experienced professionals turned up for a job fair with the specific skill set the companies looking for.

So, I was unable to figure out are these job fairs useful at all?

Who organize these job fairs?

Usually these are organized by the big consultant firms and job portals like Naukri, Times jobs etc.

Are these consultants making money and publicity out of these job fairs they organize?

It seems like all these are open Questions.

All your comments would be appreciated.

What all you can do with a blog?

We know for sure that we can write anything we want and publish it for free.

We can share our views with the world and we can invite comments from the people who read our blog or views.

What else we can do with a Blog?

We never thought of earning money from a Blog, have you ever thought of this?

Even I was like you, I often share my ideas with the people through my personal blog but I never tried to research what I can do for earning through my blog.

But recently I read some articles where I came to know the details like we can earn through bogs, Hurray!!!!

How is it possible?

1: Add Dynamic content to your Blog

You can add lot of dynamic content to your blog by using feeds which will give you all latest information about anything you want. For Eg: if you want to share all latest information about Cricket you can add a cricket feed to your blog which will get all latest info for cricket and put it in your blog in the allocated space.

2: The Ad sense API

Google provides an API which we can manipulate and get the Ad sense to your blog. All you need to do is login to follow the easy steps by Google. For more details please go through the video and notes given. https://www.google.com/adsense/

Adsense Wiki.

3: Factors that effect in Google Ranking

Below are the important factors depends for your earnings.

- The popularity of the blog .

- How many RSS unique subscriptions there are to the blog.

- Links from blog directories.

- Number of blog directories/ search engines pinged per post.

- Relevant content in the blog, this is the key to your page rank.

- Number of views of the blog which will add value to calculate Page rank.

4: Referrals on the blog

These are very similar to ad sense but their pay out would be little more and you will be knowing the payouts before hand and you can choose the products which are very relevant to your content on the blog.

5: Other blog sites

BlogExplosion.com

Blogmad.com

Is Software No.1?

Today if I ask anybody who entered software industry, most of those people tell I was a Engineer in Mechanical, Electronics, Communications, Production and some of them say IT or computers and of course some might have done Masters in computers as well.

But one question I have from long time is that …. “Why software is the first choice of all Engineering students?’

Anybody of you have any idea on this?

I could think of the below points why Software industry comes first in comparison with the other fields.

- Compensation is too high compared to any mechanical or civil job

- Five days working a week and they can enjoy the weekend of two days.

- Facilities like pick n drop

- Medical claims till 1-2 lacks for self and dependents.

What else you could think of?

Do only these things matter to people to pick software as their profession? Or they have any other reasons too?

Looking for a change?

We do here a lot about the attrition. Particularly in software industry.

What is attrition?

Dictionary.com says as "A gradual reduction in work force without firing of personnel, as when workers resign or retire and are not replaced."

In Dilbert’s words –

Below are the figures of attrition in one Quarter of this year.

Satyam - 18%

i-flex - 19%

HCL - 14%

Wipro -17%

Infosys - 12.4%

Mindtree – 12%

Dr Reddy's – 16%

Sapient – 18%

Covansys - 18.81% and an average of 16% attrition in IT. (Source)

Is the attrition rate is high in only software industry?

I have to say sorry because if you see the figures below for other fields like banking, insurance, HR etc. you will realize that the software is doing much better than some of these industries.

Insurance sector overall attrition 25-30% (Source).

Banking sector overall attrition - 10-15% (Source)

HR&Finance Executives - 20% (Source)

Why do a software professional look out from the current employer?

I could give you some reasons which I felt before in my carrier, I am not sure how many people agree with me but these are my feelings.

Any software professional looks for the below things

- Kind of Work

o Most people are curious about the work they are going to get in the new company. This also involves the technologies, project types whether a maintenance, support or a development project. But here they are not going to get the 100% whatever they are looking for as I experienced many times.

- Compensation

o Here many people are strict about their remuneration as they would be expecting industry standard 30%hike from the current remuneration. Here they might get whatever they expected but still they will come to know that it is not going to suffice their needs with in a month or two.

- Work Environment

o Some of the people think about the environment and they go for Branded companies with a CMM level5 tag on them. This might be easy to get these days as we do have enough number of level 5 companies as a choice.

- Facilities

o Some people think about this thing too as they don’t want to drive and want a company pick and drop and subsidized food in the canteen etc will save their money, secure them from pollution. Most of the companies are providing them too to attract these kind of people.

- On-site opportunity

o Even I noticed people do ask about their onsite chances if they get into this company, but this is where the big companies (HR) play with the people. They always say that we do have lot of onsite opportunities for all experienced candidates but once you join the company you will not even meet that HR again, I was even didn’t see any HR in my 2 yrs the HR I met at the time of joining. Whom will you ask that they have promised an onsite to you?

In my experience I noticed most of the professionals look at the above points before they take offers or join the Employer.

Of course you might have thought about the only above points before you moved from your previous employer but I would suggest the people to think about the below points too as they matter a lot for your future.

- HR policies

o These are the policies you might get benefited of in long term like contribution of the Employee PF. I know that many companies collect their share of 12.5% also from the employee. Even some companies design the Packages so well to give the employee most benefits. Most of the companies now a days providing Medi claims but still some companies don’t bother about such things. This is definite advantage if you have dependents on you.

- Role offered

o Many people don’t bother about the Role they are going to play in the new job. I mean what responsibilities they are going to handle instead of worrying about the type of project (Maintenance, development or Support). This you would need to check if you have definite long term goals and where you want to see yourself in the next future.

- Carrier Growth

o The growth of your carrier is proportional to your manager’s growth.

Let’s say you are a fresh developer or QA joined in a company and want to become a Team Lead. What do you think the ideal number of years you have to spend in that company? I know that there is no definite answer for it, but approximately 3-4 yrs as we all know. Provided you have done lot of hard work and have good relationship with your manager. If your lead gets a promotion as manager in 6 months there is a fair chance for you to become a Lead. I hope now understand my first statement now. So, you have to be very careful about this point when you are switching your job.

- Management

o You also need to know about the management of the company before you get into it, which will give you idea about the carrier growth you can expect for that company. If possible try to talk to the higher level managers before you move in as it will give you a vision about that company and you can predict some points, may show you the path you are looking for.

I hope this little rant helped you recalibrate your path to success and see through the dark fog that's been put in front of you.