IT TAKES THE CAKE IN EDUCATION FRAUDS

Bangalore, October 10, 2008
The Economic Times (Delhi edition)

Education-related discrepancies among the employees in the Indian IT industry increased during the second quarter of the current calendar year when compared to the first quarter, according to report by First Advantage.

The IT industry has experienced the highest increase (almost 3.5 times) in education-related discrepancies compared to Q1 of 2008, First Advantage said in its second quarterly report ‘Background screening trends-India.’

First Advantage managing director (West Asia) Ashish Dehade said, “Background screening acts as a first line of defence against potential fraud and security breaches. More sectors taking it up actively would employ fewer candidates misrepresenting information and thus, concurrently, fewer likely to engage in frauds or security breaches.”

However, this is not limited to just the IT sector alone as educational qualification-related discrepancies in the banking and financial services (BFSI) sector was the highest in the last quarters. First Advantage said all the key industries tracked have shown an increase in education-related discrepancies. The report said that maximum discrepancies in educational qualifications were related to institutions in Northern India at 34%, followed by Southern India at 30%. Almost half (48%) of all fake university cases came from Northern India; followed closely by Western India (43%). Pune topped the city list for education-related discrepancies, followed by Mumbai and Delhi.

 

53% WORKING WOMEN IN INDIA FEAR FOR THEIR SAFETY: ASSOCHAM

New Delhi,October 10, 2008
Mint

About 53% working women feel insecure, especially during night shifts in all major hubs of economic activity across the country. Most of them are employed in the BPO/ITeS, hospitality, civil aviation, medical and textile space. Their concern is that safety norms set up by their respective establishments are not adequate and given the increase in crime, their insecurities and fears are only going up.

According to the Assocham Social Development Foundation (ASDF), an assessment was carried out revealing that 48% of women who are engaged in the small-scale sector are extremely worried about their safety and nearly 26% in the medium sector and 23% in the large-scale establishments are scared to step out after the sun sets. .

Key Findings

- 34% women in the low skilled category are worried about their well being; 29% in the moderately skilled section and 8% among high skilled workforce

- The fast growing BPO/ ITeS, hospitality, civil aviation industry has generated parallel employment for cab drivers who have often been responsible for rash driving, accidents, eve teasing, rape and even murder

- 86% women on night shifts face commuting problems because of lack of adequate transport arrangements by employers. Those working in Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune face maximum commuting hurdles while those in Delhi, Hyderabad and Ludhiana the least

- In Bangalore, 75,000-95,000 women work in night shifts. There are around 2,200 IT firms in Bangalore, of which 1,600 are registered with the Department. In Bangalore, around 56% women respondents in a survey carried out amongst women working in night shifts in the IT, aviation, hospitals and BPO sector feel unsafe. Delhi topped the list with 65% of women followed by 35% in Hyderabad, 28% in Chennai and 26 % in Mumbai

- BPO/ITeS is not the only sector with post-sunset shifts. Women nurses have been doing night rounds as also those working in media, airlines, hotels and other service industries

Recommendations

- Companies to have an internal code to ensure security of women employees and to take measures to ensure they discharge their job in a secure atmosphere

- Governments to make it mandatory for companies to install Global Positioning System (GPS) in cabs, not only in call centres and BPO’s but all industries which engage women in night shifts

- Other measures that can be taken include providing self defense training to women; installing safety devices at the work place; undertaking police verification of cab drivers, security guards and peons who are deputed on night shifts and setting up efficient complaint redressal systems

 

DELHI MOST UNSAFE FOR WOMEN WORKING AT NIGHT: SURVEY

New Delhi, October 10, 2008
The Economic Times  The Tribune  The Times of India  

The national capital, infamous for crime against women, has been polled in an industry survey as the most unsafe city for the fair sex working in night shifts with companies in IT and ITeS, aviation and media sectors and hospitals.

A majority of 65 percent of women in Delhi interviewed said they felt insecure working in night shifts, while the figure was the least for Mumbai at 26 percent, according to a survey by industry chamber Assocham.

The study comes nearly 10 days after, Soumya Vishwanathan, a scribe working with a television news channel, was murdered while driving home from office in the wee hours of September 30. Police investigating the case have so far drawn a blank in the case.

Bangalore is the second most unsafe place for working women with 56 percent of those polled expressing a sense of insecurity, the survey said. In Hyderabad and Chennai as many as 35 percent and 28 percent respectively shared similar feelings, it added.

The survey-covered women working in companies engaged in business process outsourcing, IT firms, airlines, hospitals and media. It said the safety concern related to the movement outside their office premises and most of the women expect their employers to make security arrangements.

The chamber has suggested strong measures to improve security for women, especially those who move at night.

"Government should make it mandatory installation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in cabs used not only by BPOs but also other industries employing women at night shifts," Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat said.

Female employees in the small scale sector are more vulnerable to security risks than their peers in bigger units, the survey said. As much as 48 percent of them in small firms were found "extremely worried" while the number was smaller at 23 percent for those employed in big companies.

It also showed that women employees are the most vulnerable and prone to both physical and non-physical attacks.

Due to inadequate transport arrangements by employers, 86 percent of women face commuting problems at night. In Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune, women face the maximum commuting problems compared with those in Delhi, Hyderabad and Ludhiana who face the least, the chamber said.

 

Cincom Systems Adopts Channel Route for SMBs

By Yogesh Gupta

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 12:00:00 AM IST

Cincom, which delivers software and services to simplify complex business processes, is fixed on adopting the channel route. The global software provider has signed ASM Technologies as its first channel partner in India to resell Cincom's Quote-to-Order(QTO) offerings. “We are open to aligning with more channel partners to tap the widespread SMB market. We wish to encompass around four or five partners each in western, southern and northern India within a year. We will later explore the eastern Indian market,” said Pantulu Avasarala, Director, Cincom Development Center, Cincom Systems India. To address the huge geographical expanse of the SMB market, the company has decided to adopt the channel route instead of its popular direct model. “Our partner ASM will strengthen its product portfolio and help offer richer breadth of offerings to its ever-increasing list of customers propelling our QTO offerings for complex manufacturing verticals. The other offering, the ‘Call Center Solution’, that targets brokerage, healthcare and insurance for enterprises, will be offered to SMBs through partners,” he said. Pursuing a ‘direct-to-user’ model, Cincom has empowered many clients worldwide to outperform the competition by providing ways to increase revenue, control cost, minimize risk, and achieve rapid ROI. India is one of the first countries where Cincom has decided to leverage the technical expertise of  the channels, he said. Detailing the channel strategy, Avasarala revealed, “We are looking to appoint service providers as our partners, who have excellent knowledge to showcase the value of our products to the customers. Operating in niche software offerings space, we will initially appoint partners vertical-wise for effective market penetration and channel profitability.” To lure the SMBs, Cincom, apart from license model, will also pursue revenues-based, subscription- based and hosting-based options through partners. “Our SMB offerings are scaled-down versions of enterprise offerings that enable SMBs to scale up as their organizational activities increase in the future,” he added. Cincom's QTO Product consists of knowledge-based applications covering product configuration, sales configuration, estimating & bidding, quote management,  knowledge-based application studio and enterprise integration with existing back- end ERPs,” said Avasarala. Cincom will continue to sell directly to large enterpises. Revealing the next product line for Indian markets, he said, “We are launching ‘Business Intelligence ‘solutions by next month for SMB verticals like manufacturing, insurance, healthcare and finance. The documentation management is a growing market. We plan to offer first-of-its-kind ‘Document Generation’ solution in the second half of the next year, which would lead to mass generation of customized documents depending on the needs of an enterprise.”At present, almost 80 percent of India revenues emerge from enterprises for Cincom. “With a sizeable number of potential partners within the next few months, we intend to change the landscape. We expect the ratio balancing at 50:50 for enterprises to SMBs within the next couple of years,” said Avasarala. This article is originally published at:  http://channelworld.in/news/index.jsp/artId=5636427

 

GOVERNMENT NORMS LIKELY TO COMPULSORILY SECURE WIFI LINKS

Joji Thomas Philip & Harsimran Singh, New Delhi, September 15, 2008
The Economic Times | The Hindu Business Line | 

 

In the wake of the terror emails being sent from unsecured wireless fidelity (WiFi) networks, the government is examining the possibility of issuing new norms that will make it illegal to leave such Internet connections open. The new norms may also put the onus on telcos and Internet service providers (ISPs) who sell WiFi connections to educate their customers of keeping them secure.

The department of telecom will work with the home ministry and intelligence agencies to put in place steps to secure WiFi Internet connections, which are increasingly being used in homes and offices across the country. WiFi networking companies may also be asked to limit WiFi signal right down to a defined radius by installing access points around the signal.

However, Internet service providers (ISPs) say that it is customer who is to blame. “Internet service providers are taking steps on their own to secure WiFi connections. All ISPs are installing AAA servers and firewalls. But, if you look at the terror mails, they were sent from hacked or open WiFi accounts – there is nothing we can do about this.

When people take a broadband connection, then take routers and make their homes and offices WiFi enabled, and then leave it open, there is nothing ISPs can do about it,” explained the president of the Internet Service Providers Association of India’s president Rajesh Chharia.

Industry experts say that regulations will not help much since most home and corporate users use minimal security to lock their WiFi networks making them an easy target to hack into.

Security experts suggest that WiFi users should never broadcast their SSIDs (service set identifiers) and change their access passwords. “Most routers which come in the market have a password 1234 and login id – as admin. One should immediately change it after installing. Also one should block the router’s SSIDs from broadcasting the WiFI networks and allow only particular machines to access it,” says Aujas Network Founder and COO Sameer Shelke.

Generally a WiFi router is configured to advertise its SSID to all neighbouring WiFi devices. One can block the SSID from advertising so that only by typing the name, the particular WiFi network appears.
The Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) connection of a Mumbai based power company was hacked into by suspects in Chembur, who sent the e-mail to news organisations while the serial blast continued in the capital which killed about 25 people and left about 100 injured on Saturday.

Experts say that digital forensics still holds the key to catch suspects who have even challenged security agencies to catch them.
Accessing the WiFi router or the wireless access point’s log files (present in Mumbai’s Kamran Power Company in this case), one can find out the MAC (Media Access Control) address of the WiFi card which accessed the WiFi point of that company.

Each WiFi adaptor card manufactured in the world has a unique MAC address. Identifying that MAC address would mean identifying the manufacturer of that particular network card. The manufacturers are generally based in Malaysia, Taiwan and China, global hubs of electronic manufacturing.

A high level protocol with Chinese or Taiwanese government can help the investigating agencies get hold of which factory that particular card was shipped to and when. It can also identify the bar code number of that card. Each PC or laptop maker like Dell, HP, Lenovo or Acer tags the barcode numbers of the card before assembling them into the machines.

This information can be used to find out which dealer sold that particular laptop in which part of the world and to which buyer, which in this case can be the suspect. Identifying the digital footprint can thus help trace the culprits.

US-based Meru Networks’ India head Giridhar Java says: “We can also configure a network to operate only in a particular radius. All signals going outside a particular periphery can be blocked. Another way is to throw junk to an outside receiver trying to connect. We can easily jam his or her WiFi card but that’s not legally allowed in most parts of the world.”

The easiest way to secure is to provide a password for accessing WiFi but y experts say that too is penetrable. “Basically WiFi operates in the 2.5 GHz frequency and one can still access your WiFi network by special frequency scanners but that is tougher.

 

INDIA INC GOES SLOW ON HIRING AND FIRING

Ashish Agrawal
The Economic Times (Delhi edition)

Despite recording turbo-charged growth over the last few years, India Inc’s top firms are not accelerating their recruitment drive. According to an ETIG study on employee data for more than 450 listed companies, the firms added 1.63 lakh new people to their rolls in FY08 against 1.64 lakh during the previous year. The manufacturing sector, for instance, added 12 percent less than FY07. For IT sector too, hiring came down by 13 percent. However, the sector still continues to be the top recruiter, accounting for about half of the new jobs added.

While banking sector as a whole continued to hire with nearly 40 percent increase in employee intake, the numbers have swelled because of large-scale recruitment by few private sector banks. If we exclude them, there is actually a decline in hiring. Among the companies, which have seen significant hiring include HDFC Bank, Axis Bank besides the pack of IT firms Infosys, TCS, Satyam and HCL. The study does not include data for ICICI Bank and Wipro who are also likely to figure among the top recruiters last year.

The silver lining is that employee retrenchment at an aggregate level also dropped by about 20 percent from about 44,000 people during FY07 to 36,000 people leading to a 6 percent net addition in employee base.

Among the sectors, while manufacturing firms decreased the number of people they hired they also went soft on pruning jobs. Retrenchment in the sector came down from 25,000 to 19,500 last year. Among the firms, SAIL, TVS Motors, Tata Steel and Bata were the top companies who cut their flab. For TVS Motors, the reduction in manpower represents almost 24 percent of its manpower base. Similarly for banking, the retrenchment came down from 18,500 to 15,000. The only sector, which added people across the board last year was other services (excluding financial services and IT). These firms—which would include those engaged in healthcare, transport services, telecom etc—stepped up hiring by about 21 percent. However, since their total contribution is quite low at about 6 percent of the employee base, the impact was only marginal.

 

IT SPEND TO TOUCH $110 BILLION BY 2012, SAYS GARTNER

New Delhi
Business Standard | The Hindu Business Line | The Hindu | The Times of India | Financial Chronicle | 

IT end-user spending in India is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.8 percent from 2007 through 2012 to touch $110 billion (Rs 484,000 crore) by 2012, says research and advisory firm Gartner.

In the current year, IT end-user spending is on way to reach $64.7 billion (Rs 2,98,345 crore), a 17.2 percent increase from 2007.

This prediction, supplemented by a robust gross domestic product (GDP) averaging 8 percent growth from 2007 to 2012 means, the Indian market continues to represent a significant growth opportunity for IT vendors.

“Indian businesses continue to invest in IT in order to drive operational excellence and innovation. Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) will drive the growth of various IT-related industries, with the critical involvement of value added resellers, distributors and retailers,” said Naveen Mishra, senior research analyst at Gartner.

Moreover, the report notes that India’s domestic IT services market is the fastest growing in Asia-Pacific with a CAGR of 20.2 percent in these five years, reaching $11.8 billion (Rs 53,690 crore) in 2012.