The Expendables!!!

Labor rights and employee welfare seem to have lost all meaning. These are terms of a now Jurassic era when they meant PF, retirement benefits and performance incentives. Now these terms are synonymous with retention of productive employees, enhanced training, retraining and multiple evaluations. Somewhere it has become more structured and efficient like the computers we work on; elsewhere it has lost that human touch. Is that all there is to business? Has it no heart and life but is merely a monolith? Are we just tomatoes in a packaged tomato soup factory?

Welcome to the time of the "Live & Let Die"!!!




References:

India Satyam has 10 percent extra staff says chairman: report

`Cisco could announce 10% layoffs'

After the Layoff, Infosys Extends Training Period

The Steel / Brain That Wouldn't Die

MS would support XP till August 04, 2014!!! A job well done can not be overshadowed by subsequent newer versions and more so it refuses to accept its age. Call it Timelessness or the Limits to Innovation and Imagination!!! Something like the Mustang, VW Beetle or Citizen EcoDrive.


References:

Windows XP: the OS they couldn’t kill

XP: The operating system that refuses to die

Microsoft ends mainstream XP, Office 2003 support

The Irony of the "best" !!!

Being the best should also account for best in human interest and relations, or have I got it all up-side-down!!!



References:

Infosys fires two thousand employees

Infosys ranked top IT infrastructure; may sack 2100 employees news

Infosys postpones campus hiring from sixth to eighth semester

Heads they win, tails you lose!!!

They shall however put you on a performance improvement course and give you a chance to improve before asking you to leave!!! OR should they not tell you the truth and just ask you to leave right away. Oh No!!! that would be oppressive rather than being correct Human Resourcefully ... eh!



References:

Infosys fires 2100

2100 Infosys employees face axe

Infosys ranked top IT infrastructure; may sack 2100 employees news

Industrial Disease!!!

Now warning lights are flashing down at Quality Control
Somebody threw a spanner and they threw him in the hole
There's rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town
Somebody blew the whistle and the walls came down
There's a meeting in the boardroom they're trying to trace the smell
There's leaking in the washroom there's sneak in personnel
Somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze
'Goodness me could this be Industrial Disease ?'

Caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post
Refusing to be pacified it's him they blame the most
Watchdog's got rabies the foreman's got the fleas
Everyone's concerned about Industrial Disease
There's panic on the switchboard tongues are knots
Some come out in sympathy some come out in spots
Some blame the management some the employees
And everybody knows it's the Industrial Disease

Yea, now the work force is disgusted downs, tools, walks
Innocence is injured experience just talks
Everyone seeks damages, everyone agrees
That these are 'classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze'
On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse
Philosophy is useless; theology is worse
History boils over there's an economics freeze
Sociologists invent words that mean 'Industrial Disease'

Doctor Parkinson declared 'I'm not surprised to see you here
You've got smokers cough from smoking brewer's droop from drinking beer
I don't know how you came to get the Bette Davis knees
But worst of all young man you've got Industrial Disease'
He wrote me a prescription he said 'you are depressed
But I'm glad came came to see me to get this off your chest
Come back and see me later - next patient please
Send in another victim of Industrial Disease'

I go down to Speaker's Corner I'm thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong
There's a protest singer he's singing a protest song - he says
'They wanna have a war to keep their factories
They wanna have a war to keep us on our knees
They wanna have a war to stop us buying Japanese
They wanna have a war to stop Industrial Disease

They're pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
They wanna sap your energy incarcerate your mind
They give you Rule Britannia, gassy beer, page three
Two weeks in Espana and Sunday striptease'
Meanwhile the first Jesus says 'I'll cure it soon
Abolish Monday mornings and Friday afternoons'
The other one's out on hunger striker he's dying by degrees
How come Jesus gets Industrial Disease?

- Industrial Disease, Love Over Gold, Dire Straits (1982)

& let the disease speak for itself ...



References:

Skoda sees sales slow to single digit in 2009

Sensex crashes by 338 pts as equities plunge on global weakness ...

Rupee recovers sharply, at 50.27 vs the dollar

Auto sector weathers slowdown blues in 2008-09

Akshay completes flop hat-trick

Akshay, Twinkle will be arrested shortly

Economic crisis takes toll on health of employees: Survey

Melting Economy Renders Corporate Workforce Unhealthy: ASSOCHAM

Mayawati hits out at Election Commission

Maya has a new post for booted officer

Aamir, SRK join hands for 'Fair Rights for Friday Nights'

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran is ready to talk to 'honest' Barack ...

Thankless freeloaders Part 2 ...

Despite RBI's persuasion and surplus cash with banks, lowering of interest rates have not seen the light of day. Private profiteering? or just that PSU Banks are stupid!!!



References:

India call rates dive on surplus cash with banks

Bankers say no to lowering lending rates

RBI asks banks to ease lending rates

Real Interest rate increases with inflation dipping down

3rd World Dump ... Uranium!!!

It might be a threat of terror or might just be that fertilizer imports are used to dump uranium and other hazardous waste in unwary countries like India. This might thus be the result of more than a decade long process of covert hazardous waste disposal.



References:

India probes uranium link to disabled children

Panel to probe uranium in kids

Horrifying Presence of Toxins Found in Punjab Children

The fault is in ourselves ...

Lack of political will based upon and fueled by corporate selfish interest, holds back R&D and exploration of non-polluting sustainable unconventional sources of energy and prevents them from becoming conventional, in these dire times, demanding cure for this ailing planet. After all ...

"Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

-- Cassius, Julius Cæsar (I, ii, 140-141)

References:

KG gas to save 10% oil bill at peak

RIL surges 4% on gas output from KG basin

Nothing is impossible ... then some things are!!!

Sure as I know anything, I know this: In a year or maybe ten, perhaps even on this very ground, they'll swing back to the belief that they can make people better; and I don't hold to that.

- Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Serenity, 2005

Making things better after they have become worse is an innate desire of man, a remnant of discharging the white man's burden or Freudian guilt mechanism? Whatever that may be, but for sure this never has worked, neither in science fiction nor in real life. Lets just try not to spoil and if we do spoil, kindly leave the unspoiling to nature.




References:

Antarctic ocean test fails to get desired results

`Seeding the oceans with iron might not help to suck up carbon ...

Geo-engineering Who ate all the algae?

Thankless freeloaders ...

"There's one in every family, Sire ... actually two in mine" says Zazu (The Lion King, 1994). But its all galore in our economies, be it US or Indian. One refuses to reduce credit rates, others give bonuses. One could never do enough to please these Dalal Street / Wall St. Idiots!!! Neither their employees nor the government!!!


References:

Cabinet Secy to meet bankers in April for easing credit

Govt says interest rates must come down

Do unto others as they do unto you!!!

No wonder Islam and Hindu fundamentalists too are on expansion spree. Takes two to tango. But in these modern times calling the other's beliefs witchcraft is nothing more than barbarism and nonsecular. Thus the Pope too should be hunted down like Osama bin Laden. After all justice is the measure that weighs all in the same way and cuts through all evil alike.




References:

Shun witchcraft, pope tells Angolan Catholics

Pope warns against witchcraft in Angola

Pope urges Angolans to convert; stampede kills 2

SEBI gone EXOTIC!!!

SEBI = Speculative Endeavors Broadening Initiative



Reference:

Now, exotic derivatives in the works

Second straw ...

Harder times push for harder crime zeal and the aspirations to become richer faster. Offshoring required just this additional jolt to shake the western faith in Indian credibility. As it is we have no data security law. And now this, immediately after U.S. protectionism, this seems the apt follow up on the road to doom!!!



References:

Credit card fraudster confronted

Credit card details on sale in India: Report

Indian call centre credit card 'scam' exposed

Geographical Indications: A dead end for cheap, fake, predatory dumping?

At least GI products, especially food GIs can not be faked and dumped. They have to be bought from the real producer!!! eh!

Reference:

India may soon get Chinese nod for basmati exports

Return of what is not deserved!!!

Hope this is a beginning of a whole new area of corporate social responsibility, wherein, instead of shareholders determining bonuses, a government committee or external regulator would have the power to determine so. But it is not happening in the near future. Its just my wishful thinking. Since when did I start to think that the people had power with them; they wrote it off long time ago to the ones that earlier ruled them, and now purport to be elected, and continue to govern them!!!




Reference:

Edward Liddy asks AIG executives to repay bonuses

Complex Issue, misunderstood!!!

Only when the inflation is negative would prices start to drop. However, irresponsible press coverage says differently!!! Shows the depletion of responsible media and/or ignorance of holistic education at colleges of mass communication and journalism.




References:

Falling inflation does not mean falling prices

Inflation falls to record 3.03% on cheaper food

Make your pick: AIG Nero or Marie-Therese AIG!!!

& this happens each day in India and no one regulates, least of all even mentions it in the news!!!! Satyam is the mere tip of the iceberg. So complacent are we regarding our "plenty" that it would soon become scarce.


References:

Obama angered by AIG bonuses

AIG Faces Rising Tide of Public Anger Over Bonuses

Who art thou lest a sinner, judge me not for I am like you!

Why was the Vatican silent when India went ahead with stem cell research. Why is it only interested in US posture on the issue?

They were the ones to accept the Earth was finally round in 2004!! Now will we have to wait for another 400 years for stem cell research to be approved. What a ball and chain at the heels of development!!


References:

Obama stem cell backlash

Vatican recants with a statue of Galileo -Times Online

The world is not enough? ... or is it?

I say it is more than enough. What have we actually done for this earth that we now aim to head elsewhere at astronomical expenditures that could well be used for earth's betterment environmentally as well as socially. Otis - Gandhi belongings auction has shown this shameless dichotomy of thought and actions as no other event in history has ever spat in the face of so called torch bearers of progress. Governments are ready to spend crores of their currency on procuring what symbolizes progress and honor but actually is nothing more than vanity and in vain.

Gandhi would not have approved of such high price purchase of his belongings by the country he lived and died for when we see blatant socio-economic deprivation on the other side of the story. It is ANTI-GANDHIAN to purchase his belongings at an auction even by the richest Indian, the belongings of a man who lived simply and without wealth in a country that still is poor, no matter what its GDP or rate of growth is.

On the other hand NASA thinks it is doing good by spending trillions while US citizens suffer in the face of unemployment and burst of their economic powder-cake.

How different are we from the dark ages when Kings and Temples/Churches amassed wealth while the poor remained static. They too were the golden ages of their times as described by those rulers. Shame on us all who think we are progressing.



References:

Otis offers to donate more Gandhi items

Moon not high enough: India aims for the sun

Nasa probe to seek planets supporting life

US sheds 6,51000 jobs in Feb; jobless rate touch 25-yr high

US unemployment rate hits 8.1 percent

ISRO sun mission Aditya in 2012, to cost Rs 500 million

India should still see growth at near 7%: Kamath

Net Neutrality: A Clear & Present Danger ...

Absolute non-discrimination, is the demand by TRAI towards broadband users. There are some ISPs favoring their corporate clients to the detriment of end consumers. I surely have felt the discrimination when network speed ratios drop from 1:1 to 1:3 during peak hours.

As of now, TRAI has pronounced guidelines only on speed related net neutrality. However ,the day is not far when it would also have to dictate content neutrality guidelines as well.



References:

TRAI trying to empower broadband users in the country

Trai moves to ensure broadband speed

TRAI issues guidelines on broadband service