Fraud job syndicates target Reliance, Tata groups

Two of the country's biggest business conglomerates -- Cyrus Mistry-led Tatas and Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Group -- have become the target of fake job syndicates making fraudulent employment offers to gullible jobseekers in lieu of money.

After coming across several instances of such fraudulent job offers being made in their name, both the groups have warned of initiating strict civil and criminal actions against these fraudsters and have also issued separate public notices in this regard.

According to senior executives at some leading human resource consultants, they have been also approached by certain people claiming to be representatives of these groups and had asked them to arrange for potential candidates for numerous vacancies.

However, they got suspicious after they got to know that certain cash deposits were being demanded from the job applicants and they directly approached the internal HR departments of the respective groups, said head of a leading HR consultancy.

Subsequently, it was discovered that the job offers were being made by some fake employment syndicates looking to make quick bucks by promising lucrative postings at leading business groups like Reliance and Tatas, he said, while adding that the HR consultants have now become more vigilant for such frauds.

Previously, mostly IT companies have been hit by such frauds, which seek to take advantage of the people desperately looking for job offers.

Salt-to-software conglomerate Tata group, which has more than 4.5 lakh employees across its about 100 companies, said in its public notice that it has already lodged a complaint with the Delhi Police and Mumbai Police about such fraudulent actions.

Reliance Industries, which had a total workforce of 23,519 employees and 29,462 temporary as per its annual report, casual or contractual staff as on March 31, also said it would take possible civil and criminal actions "against such persons who indulge in such illegal activities and are responsible for causing such disrepute to RIL and its group companies".

The notice, issued by by RIL's HR Head, said that Reliance Industries and its group companies have come to know about some unauthorised persons making false and frivolous job offers at RIL and its group firms by demanding cash deposits in specified bank accounts.

The group said that such offers are "purportedly made to bring disrepute to RIL and its group companies" and asked the job seekers not to be misled by them.

At the same time, the RIL group also made a disclaimer that "RIL and its group companies shall not be responsible or liable for any loss that may be caused to any member of the public on account of their indulging into any sort of actions with such unscrupulous persons".

Tatas, in their notice, said that Tata Sons and other Tata companies have deployed a merit-based employee selection practice.

"We do not charge/accept any amount or security deposit from job seekers during the selection process or while inviting candidates for an interview.

"We have noticed that fake job offers in the name of companies like Tata Motors, Tata Consultancy Services and Tata AutoComp Systems and certain other Tata companies as well as fictitious entities like 'Tata Groups Limited', 'Tata India Limited' have been circulated by some unauthorised persons/fraudsters.

"Some fraudsters are using the names of Tata companies to solicit job applications and require the job seekers/ applicants to pay processing fees or deposit amount by sending false e-mails or by making fraudulent telephone calls."

Tatas also asked the jobseekers not to respond to any unsolicited or fraudulent job offers against payment of money.

"We shall not accept any liability towards the representation made in any fraudulent communication or its consequences and such fraudulent communication shall not be treated as any kind of offer or representation by any Tata company," Tata group said.

Suggesting some precautionary measures, Tatas said: "On receipt of an interview call for any job in any Tata company, the candidate may take some measures such as visiting the official web site of the concerned Tata company to get the contact details and enquire with the human resources department of such company about the interview details and other relevant information."

In another notice, Tatas said they have also come across instances of spam e-mails are being sent in the name of Tata Sons and other Tata companies with the intention of committing fraud and illegally obtaining confidential information and/or money from people.

Source : ET

  New visa restrictions of AUS to hurt Indian IT companies

Australia has followed the United States and Canada in tightening up its work visa programme, hurting Indian IT firms who now cannot place workers using the visas at client sites and must advertise in Australia to prove there is a genuine skill shortage.

Nomura expects the new rules to affect Indian IT companies' time and materials contracts and increase the amount of planning and time taken to obtain a visa. The companies will have to justify the number the number of visas required and provide workers on the visas with employment terms and conditions similar to those offered to Australian workers.

Infosys and Satyam, owned by Tech Mahindra, have the highest exposure to Australia, with about 8-9% of invoices coming from the continent, Nomura analyst Ashwin Mehta said in a note to clients.

Tata Consultancy Services has also been dragged into a visa row in Australia. A former employee was quoted by a local TV channel ABC as saying that TCS abused that country's work-visa scheme by not making an honest attempt to hire qualified local citizens, and instead bringing in Indian engineers on visa. TCS said those allegations were "completely false and inaccurate" and that it was fully compliant with the visa rules.

Australia moves mimic similar steps in Canada. The Canadian government also requires employers to pay employees on work visas at similar levels to Canadian employees and suspended the fast-track visa approval programme in April.

The Canadian government also increased its authority to suspend or revoke work permits and significantly increased visa fees.

US-headquartered IT servicing firm iGate, which receives 12% of its revenues from the Royal Bank of Canada, will be hit by the rule changes, Nomura said.

But those visa rule changes are a small matter compared to massive overhaul being contemplated in the Indian IT firms' largest market. Last week, the United States Senate approved several provisions that could completely change the IT firms' business models and slash their margins. IT firms have been hoping that the US House of Representatives version omits those provisions banning outplacement and sharply higher visa costs.

Nomura, which has a "reduce" target on Infosys and TCS, said it does not see the stocks pricing the rising risks from the US bill into their valuations.

The brokerage said it prefers HCL Technologies, Cognizant and Wipro on greater revenue and margins surety, less severe impact from the immigration bill and more reasonable valuations.

Things what Infosys, NIIT are doing to retain talent

The tough macroeconomic environment has prompted companies to enhance their focus on people in an attempt to retain and engage top talent. Companies like Citi India, Infosys, Maruti Suzuki, Essar Group, RPG, and NIIT, among others, have focused increasingly on innovative rewards and recognition, talent development, workplace bonding initiatives and family connect programmes to tide over the uncertainty and boost employee morale.

Citi India has redesigned its performance management strategies, in addition to introducing new career planning interventions and employee assistance programmes. Besides assessments of regular training sessions and workshops for managers, Citi made their online training programmes more robust.

It also introduced initiatives like 'career week' and a 'leader-teach-leader' series whereby senior executives coach employees through experiential learning exercises.

"We continued to invest in our leadership curriculum and also have created a reward strategy based on long-term goal achievements," says Anuranjita Kumar, country human resources officer, Citi India.

Last year, Infosys introduced an initiative called Pathfinder Next, an internal internship programme. Employees work on internal assignments that enable them to have access to opportunities across technology, business domains, service lines and support functions, choose opportunities that suit their career interests and have a platform to innovate and build new skills.

"The focus was on enhancing resource efficiencies and bridging skill gaps," says Richard Lobo, AVP and head - employee relations at Infosys. The re-skilling of employees has enabled companies to reduce cost and dependency on external hiring. Companies have implemented most of these measures over the past one to two years, even though the strategising has taken place over aperiod of time to address needs emerging out of the prolonged slowdown that started in 2008.

"The rigour in framing these policies and managing people went up manifold during the period starting 2009, because the penalty of making a mistake was much higher compared with the gain in being successful," says Nischae Suri, head, people and change practice, KPMG India.

Companies like Essar have consciously started using mentoring and reverse mentoring to address the needs of a multi-generation workforce of the future. "Creating a burning desire in minds of the young where they believe they have something significant remaining to be achieved, really makes people go for their goals," says Adil Malia, group president (HR), Essar Group.

Maruti went in for a change in strategy and decentralised its HR function, with dedicated HR teams attached to individual verticals. "This speeds up decision making, helps in evolving customised solutions and ensures faster feedback," says SY Siddiqui, chief operating officer, administration. Last year, the company enhanced focus on a programme called 'Parivaar Milan' where family members of employees visit their factories in groups, mostly on a Saturday.

Employees are invited to accompany their families during the day, wherein they show off their workplaces. Later, the heads of manufacturing, HR and other areas talk to the families about the company's plans and achievements in an informal setting.

RPG looked at organisational structure and head count for some of their key businesses through an internal taskforce, and made changes that resulted in a better economy for the company.

In one of its engineering businesses which was not doing well, for instance, the company set up a task force that suggested a complete overhaul of strategy. This included a look at new business areas, customer segment to target, and even the entire structure of the organisation (the HR aspect), says Arvind Agrawal, president - corporate development & HR, RPG Enterprises. Accordingly, certain divisions were merged and people were moved to where they were required and the roles they suited best in the new structure besides training people in new areas of expertise and hiring people wherever required.

The implementation has taken place over the past four to five months, and yielded a 15% to 20% reduction in people cost.

NIIT brought in the concept of Learning Cliniques, which includes handholding participants to help them make positive change in behaviour based on classroom learnings. Greater focus on leadership development has also been brought in, and talent mobility within the organisation became an important area of focus. It took up internal job postings on a war footing.

"We leveraged the multi-business nature of NIIT and were able to show long-term career paths to most NIITians within the company itself," says Shampi Venkatesh, chief people officer. The company also facilitated senior leadership connect and conversations with teams.

Source : TOI

  Defence ministry's new rule may hurt IT companies

A new defence ministry rule could slam the door shut on contracts worth billions of dollars between software companies and global arms manufacturers. Worried by the prospect, information technology firms are lobbying with the government to limit the damage that could be caused by the rule, which was introduced in May.

Ostensibly, the new rule was conceived after a defence procurement scandal allegedly involved funnelling kickbacks through fake contracts with software companies. Investigators in Italy and India claim that nearly Rs 400 crore in bribes were routed through IDS Infotech and Aeromatrix under the pretext of mandatory contracts that foreign defence suppliers must award to Indian firms. The main deal involved the Indian purchase of $600 million (Rs 3,600 crore) worth of AgustaWestland helicopters from a subsidiary of Italian company Finmeccanica.

"We fully understand the government's concerns that there is a need to track value addition in software because services are by nature intangible," said Som Mittal, the president of software industry grouping Nasscom. "We are working with the authorities to set up processes to track value-addition within software and services." On May 23, the defence ministry issued a memo holding all services-related offset in abeyance.

The defence ministry memo prevented companies from counting research and design, software testing and training as part of their offset requirement. The memo is apparently also aimed at promoting the indigenous Indian defence industry. It applies not just to software but all services.

The Indian IT industry could feel the pain severely because of tepid demand in its major markets — the US and Europe. "It's going to have a huge impact on Indian IT and engineering companies. Providing software and engineering services is really where India has made significant progress in the research and development value chain," said Dhiraj Mathur, executive director at consultancy Pricewaterhouse-Coopers. Mathur, who considered the memo a "bad idea" and "overkill", said it will take out the high end of the value chain from work that is eligible to be counted as a mandatory offset contract.

According to offset rules, any foreign company winning a defence contract over $60 million must spend at least 30 per cent of the contract value in procuring services or supplies from India as a means of encouraging transfer of critical technology to the country's fledgling defence sector. For companies such as Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies, Infotech Enterprises and Rolta, this represents an opportunity of about $10 billion (Rs 60,000 crore) this year, according Deloitte. It is forecast to increase to $18 billion by 2020.

While the controversial memo places all services-related offsets in abeyance, IT services companies said they have been assured that it affects only select contracts and not future deals. "Our understanding is that only contracts signed in 2011 will be in abeyance, and that contracts signed this year will not be affected," said BVR Mohan Reddy, chief executive officer at Hyderabad-based Infotech Enterprises, whose clients include Boeing.

Infotech is in talks with Dassault to become a technology partner for engineering, defencerelated business processes and IT services. The French company's Rafale jet has been chosen as the frontline combat aircraft for Indian Air Force. Reddy, who said Nasscom executives met defence ministry officials to present their case, hoped the issue would be resolved "in the next few months". Mittal, the president of Nasscom, declined comment on the meeting.

Defence ministry officials did not answer phone calls and emailed requests for views. Reddy said the ministry is looking at ways to monitor and value services that form part of the offset contracts. "Currently, firms only need to give an invoice. But they (the ministry) are looking at asking companies to provide more documentation of the work done. So you have to back up the invoice with proof of work."

A senior executive at HCL Technologies said the new regulation would have a negative impact on dealmaking. "In this kind of market, every bit counts."

Source : TOI

LinkedIn has brought out some reasons as to why employees may be hating their job,

LinkedIn has brought out some reasons as to why employees may be hating their job, the Huffington Post reported. A recent study by Dale Carnegie Training showed that nearly 75% of workers are not fully engaged at their jobs.

One of the major reasons is that an employee's friends are having an amazing experience at another company, which makes them envious. The transparency of employee benefits and perks at other companies can sometimes lead them to dream about working elsewhere.

Another reason could be that the workers believe that he/she is not valued.

A person also feels dissatisfied with his/her job if they find no room for advancement. Many workers feel stuck in their company, which often leads to job hopping.

Being paid less than what is deserve also leaves employee disenchanted with their work.

Rules can also ruin a team, as it becomes frustrating when an employee is not able their own decisions.

The passion's also vanishes sometimes, as there is a huge difference between living to work and working to live.

One of the primary reasons why people hate their job is that their boss sucks. Poor management can make even the most passionate and well-paid workers hate their job.

Source : TOI

New banks to increase inclusion, create more jobs: Survey

The Reserve Bank's decision to allow new players in the banking sector would result into improvement in efficiency, increase in capital base to meet the credit needs of the economy and generate huge employment opportunities, says a survey by industry chamber Ficci.

According to the survey which drew responses from existing banks, NBFCs, corporate and industrial houses and other stakeholders, the setting up of new banks is considered significant in view of the fact that only 35 per cent of the country's population have formal bank accounts as compared to an average of 41 per cent in other developing economies.

Eighty-eight per cent of the respondents felt that RBI's condition for an applicant applying for a licence to set up at least 25 per cent of its branches in unbanked area with a population of less than 9,999 will play a significant role in expansion of banking services and hence help in increasing financial inclusion.

Nearly 70 per cent of India's population lives in villages, it said, adding that a vast majority of approximately 6.5 lakh villages do not have a single bank branch thus leaving a huge chunk of rural population in the hands of money lenders.

The total number of branches in rural India stood at 37,471 and the total banking outlets in villages after taking into account the branches, business correspondents and other modes was just 1,81,753 (as on March, 2012), it said.

The survey notes that they can bring in the new processes and technology and will play a significant role in driving competition.

First of all, it will also encourage existing players to improve efficiency. Secondly, new players with sound financial base will bring in the much needed capital that is required to support the credit needs of the economy and they will generate huge employment opportunities, it said.

Sixty-nine per cent of the respondents felt that corporate or industrial houses should be given licences, while the remaining 31 per cent felt that they should not be allowed to operate as banks.

Irrespective of the fact that the new banks will help in consolidation of the banking sector, 58 per cent of the total respondents felt that new banks should start afresh completely while only 42 per cent of the respondents felt that new banks should acquire existing smaller banks and grow.

As many as 30 per cent of the respondents felt that the time line for reviewing a new bank application should be 6-12 months.

Source : TOI

recruitment and hiring process

Freshers Please Understand recruitment and hiring process to get your desired job

Are you looking for a new job and don't know where to look, what to do and who to speak to? After having exhausted your professional and personal networks, it's likely that you would have approached head hunters and recruitment consultants.

With no results to show for your efforts, you are probably ended up depressed, and clueless. Here is what you can do to make the recruitment market work for you.

Be found

First things first. If people do not know you, you cannot get a job. So, make it easy for the recruiters and companies to know and find you when they need to. Post your resume on leading job portals like Naukri, Monster, Shine, and TimesJobs. Upload your profile on professional networking portals like LinkedIn.

These are the first places that a prospective employer or a recruitment consultant will search. Make sure that your cell number and e-mail ID are updated even on networking portals. Do not fret about sharing your cell number since these portals are rarely the source for telemarketers.

On job portals, make changes to your resume at least once every three months. When a recruiter searches for an accountant in Mumbai, the recently updated profiles figure on top of the search.

Include industry jargon and technical words related to your role in your resume since searches are based on keywords relevant to the role. Compare your profile with online ones of similar professionals.

On networking portals, make friends and connect with people in your industry. Encourage people to post recommendations of your work. All of these make it easier for recruiters to find you when they have job opportunities.

Understand the CV

Your CV or resume does not get the job offer; it only helps you get shortlisted for an interview. However, it can cost you the job offer if any information provided in it is found to be incorrect during the background verification process.

Thus, the focus of a good CV is to be truthful and convince the recruiter to shortlist you for the first interview. Think of it as a marketing tool, whose primary aim is to appeal to the customer, the HR manager in this case.

Since every job that you apply for is different, you cannot have a one-size-fits-all resume. Tailor it to the job description provided by the recruitment consultant and use words that are same or similar to this description while referring to your work experience.

Choose a standard layout borrowed from any leading job portal since the recruiter is used to scanning a resume in a few seconds to determine a fit for a role. Do not make it an autobiography spanning six pages.

The best resumes are often one page long obtained by compressing or cutting out portions that are not relevant to the job. Get inputs from at least two people before sharing your resume. They will help you increase the impact and eliminate inadvertent grammatical and spelling errors that could cast you in a bad light.

Master the communication

Whenever you receive an e-mail from a recruiter, respond within a day and always include your resume. Do not start a new e-mail thread otherwise it will not be read. If you are initiating a conversation, make sure that the subject line of the e-mail should contain the position you are interested in. Again, attach the CV.

Source : EC

Why Infosys is losing momentum in every vertical

Infosys's overall revenues dropped below that of Cognizant last year. But what must be worrying the IT company more is its loss of momentum in almost every vertical. And in both its flagship verticals - BFSI (banking , financial services & insurance ) and manufacturing - its rank has dropped.

In BFSI, Infosys's revenue in the March quarter of fiscal 2011 was $571.9 million and this grew modestly to $657 million in March 2013. But Cognizant's revenue grew from $570 million to $855 million in the same period , pushing Infosys to No. 3 in that space. In fact, Cognizant surpassed Infosys in this vertical in the June quarter of fiscal 2012.

In manufacturing, Infosys used to be No. 1, but in the September quarter of fiscal 2013, TCS's revenue ($402 million) crossed that of Infosys ($397 million) and has remained ahead since then. In retail, Infosys and TCS's revenues were similar in the March quarter of 2011, but by March 2013, TCS had grown its revenues to $407 million, while Infosys's rose to just $298 million.

This loss of momentum and ranking puts the company at risk of losing mindshare among customers in the long run. "It is critical for you to protect your flagship growth engines. Today, being No.1 or No.2 in a vertical is important for companies because they are known for their specialized offerings. If you think of Maruti, you would associate it with 800 or Alto, not with its big cars. Likewise, HCL has created a niche in infrastructure services , and Cognizant in healthcare and BFSI," said an industry analyst who did not want to be named.

Some experts say that clients are not concerned as much about relative rankings as about whether the IT vendor can demonstrate scale, stability and incremental value . "The IT vendor's credibility , past experience and delivery capabilities become a priority while contracting work. It's on auto pilot mode once these are factored in," said Sanjay Dhawan, leader for technology in consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) India.

Siddharth Pai, partner and president of Asia Pacific in advisory firm Information Services Group (ISG), said an IT company should have a large enough presence in a vertical and that was more important than the relative position.

But in Infosys's case, the problem is that it has been weakening, relatively, in the areas that it was once seen to be experts in. "The big question is will they be in a position to demonstrate incremental bandwidth to clients? Infosys has no doubt managed to add new clients, but they are not necessarily growing them across the sub $10 million accounts," said Sudin Apte, CEO of IT advisory firm Offshore Insights.

"Infosys had set the tone in terms of market perception and brand value for others to follow. But they didn't read the market too well when competition took the lead and widened the gap, making it hard for them to catch up," said Sridhar Vedala, CEO of IT sourcing advisory firm QS Advisory.

Source : TOI

ns 2 Network Components

Network Components

This section talks about the NS components, mostly compound network components. Figure 6 shows a partial OTcl class hierarchy of NS, which will help understanding the basic network components. For a complete NS class hierarchy, visit http://www-sop.inria.fr/rodeo/personnel/Antoine.Clerget/ns.

Figure 6. Class Hierarchy (Partial)

The root of the hierarchy is the TclObject class that is the superclass of all OTcl library objects (scheduler, network components, timers and the other objects including NAM related ones). As an ancestor class of TclObject, NsObject class is the superclass of all basic network component objects that handle packets, which may compose compound network objects such as nodes and links. The basic network components are further divided into two subclasses, Connector and Classifier, based on the number of the possible output data paths. The basic network objects that have only one output data path are under the Connector class, and switching objects that have possible multiple output data paths are under the Classifier class.

Node and Routing

A node is a compound object composed of a node entry object and classifiers as shown in Figure 7. There are two types of nodes in NS. A unicast node has an address classifier that does unicast routing and a port classifier. A multicast node, in addition, has a classifier that classify multicast packets from unicast packets and a multicast classifier that performs multicast routing.

Figure 7. Node (Unicast and Multicast)

In NS, Unicast nodes are the default nodes. To create Multicast nodes the user must explicitly notify in the input OTcl script, right after creating a scheduler object, that all the nodes that will be created are multicast nodes. After specifying the node type, the user can also select a specific routing protocol other than using a default one.

• Unicast
- $ns rtproto type
- type: Static, Session, DV, cost, multi-path
 
• Multicast
- $ns multicast (right after set $ns [new Scheduler])
- $ns mrtproto type
- type: CtrMcast, DM, ST, BST

For more information about routing, refer to the NS Manual located at http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns/ns-documentation.html. The documentation has chapters talk about unicast and multicast routing.

Link

A link is another major compound object in NS. When a user creates a link using a duplex-link member function of a Simulator object, two simplex links in both directions are created as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Link

One thing to note is that an output queue of a node is actually implemented as a part of simplex link object. Packets dequeued from a queue are passed to the Delay object that simulates the link delay, and packets dropped at a queue are sent to a Null Agent and are freed there. Finally, the TTL object calculates Time To Live parameters for each packet received and updates the TTL field of the packet.

• Tracing
In NS, network activities are traced around simplex links. If the simulator is directed to trace network activities (specified using $ns trace-all file or $ns namtrace-all file), the links created after the command will have the following trace objects inserted as shown in Figure 9. Users can also specifically create a trace object of type type between the given src and dst nodes using the create-trace {type file src dst} command.

Figure 9. Inserting Trace Objects

When each inserted trace object (i.e. EnqT, DeqT, DrpT and RecvT) receives a packet, it writes to the specified trace file without consuming any simulation time, and passes the packet to the next network object. The trace format will be examined in the General Analysis Example section.

• Queue Monitor
Basically, tracing objects are designed to record packet arrival time at which they are located. Although a user gets enough information from the trace, he or she might be interested in what is going on inside a specific output queue. For example, a user interested in RED queue behavior may want to measure the dynamics of average queue size and current queue size of a specific RED queue (i.e. need for queue monitoring). Queue monitoring can be achieved using queue monitor objects and snoop queue objects as shown in Figure 10.

Figure 10. Monitoring Queue

When a packet arrives, a snoop queue object notifies the queue monitor object of this event. The queue monitor using this information monitors the queue. A RED queue monitoring example is shown in the RED Queue Monitor Example section. Note that snoop queue objects can be used in parallel with tracing objects even though it is not shown in the above figure.

Packet Flow Example

Until now, the two most important network components (node and link) were examined. Figure 11 shows internals of an example simulation network setup and packet flow. The network consist of two nodes (n0 and n1) of which the network addresses are 0 and 1 respectively. A TCP agent attached to n0 using port 0 communicates with a TCP sink object attached to n1 port 0. Finally, an FTP application (or traffic source) is attached to the TCP agent, asking to send some amount of data.

Figure 11. Packet Flow Example

Note that the above figure does not show the exact behavior of a FTP over TCP. It only shows the detailed internals of simulation network setup and a packet flow.