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PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
 Although India has hit the headlines all over the world with its prowess in information technology — and currently in its skill in attracting back office work and call centers — it’s easy to forget amid the hoopla that the beneficiaries of this boom are a tiny sliver of India’s privileged and English educated. Then what of the vast millions who live in India’s villages or, for that matter, city slums? Are they going to fall by the wayside as the Indian IT juggernaut merrily moves along? Educator and researcher Sugata Mitra has come up with an exciting model to bridge the digital divide: Just give the kids a computer and let them learn on their own. His own study shows that in a matter months, even illiterate kids can teach themselves basic skills of computers without any sort of adult supervision at all. He must be on to something, because the World Bank has jumped on the bandwagon, providing him with financing. Now, 75 computers serve 7,500 kids in free public kiosks. Our cover story this month has details. MAIN FEATURE: Hole in the Wall: Computers for Kids - A Siliconeer Report When the idea of educating underprivileged kids comes up, most people are thinking basic reading and math skills. Not Sugata Mitra. This scientist believes communities can go a long way towards bridging the digital divide by simply exposing kids to a computer. Mitra has set up public kiosks for kids with state-of-the-art computers which kids can explore completely on their own with amazing results: In nine months an entire group of children in a village can reach the level of an office secretary, which means they can drag and drop files, they know downloading, they can play video and audio and they can surf the Internet. A Siliconeer report.
“Groups of 6 to 13 year old children do not need to be ‘taught’ how to use computers,” says the Web site for the innovative project “Hole in the Wall.” “In experiments conducted in India since 1999, it has been shown that children can self-instruct themselves to operate computers.” Mitra says the kids can do it regardless of their educational background, literacy levels in the English language or any other language, social or economic level, ethnicity and place of origin or geographic location. He calls it Minimally Invasive Education. After his initial experiment, currently 75 computers are serving 7,500 children. Computers have been made available in free public kiosks in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra and abroad in Alexandria, Egypt, and Cambodia. The World Bank has pitched in, with funding from the International Finance Corporation. Mitra, who works at NIIT’s Center for Research in Cognitive Systems, began the experiment in Kalkaji, New Delhi. The experiment later continued by CRCS and through a company, Hole-in-the-Wall Education Limited, set up in 2001 for this purpose. HIWEL is a joint venture company between NIIT Limited and the International Finance Corporation, the industrial financing arm of the World Bank. Mitra said his studies show that an estimated 100 children can learn to do most or all of the following tasks in approximately three months, using the “hole-in-wall” arrangement with a single PC:
“However, we do not know yet, if these latter effects are universal and evident in all children,” the Web site cautions.. So how does this work? According to the Web site: “One child explores randomly in the GUI (Graphical User Interface) environment, others watch until an accidental discovery is made. For example, when they find that the cursor changes to a hand shape at certain places on the screen. “Several children repeat the discovery for themselves by requesting the first child to let them do so. “While in step 2, one or more children make more accidental or incidental discoveries. All the children repeat all the discoveries made and, in the process, make more discoveries and start to create a vocabulary to describe their experience. “The vocabulary encourages them to perceive generalizations (“when you right click on a hand shaped cursor, it changes to the hourglass shape for a while and a new page comes up”). “The group divides itself into the ‘knows’ and the ‘know nots,’ much as they did into “haves” and “have nots” in the past. However, they realize that a child that knows will part with that knowledge in return for friendship and exchange as opposed to ownership of physical things where they could use force to get what they did not have. “A stage is reached when no further discoveries are made and the children occupy themselves with practicing what they have already learned. At this point intervention is required to introduce a new ‘seed’ discovery (“did you know that computers can play music? Here let me play a song for you”). Usually, a spiral of discoveries follow and another self instructional cycle begins.” However, for the project to work, certain conditions are import0ant: The computer should be in an outdoor, public, and safe location. Children, and often their parents, are apprehensive of enclosed spaces such as closed rooms or “clubs.” “Locating computers indoors, even inside a school, is associated with regimentation, control, “studying” and other negatives associated with formal schooling. Locating a computer in a school playground, on the other hand, is ideal,” said the Web site. “Children should use the computer in heterogeneous groups. Since the MIE process depends on exploration and discovery, working in groups is essential. Collaborative constructivism is the main paradigm of MIE. Children teach each other very effectively and are also effective at self-regulating the process. That is how over 100 children are able to use one computer. “There should be no adult intervention or supervision. Adults should not use the kiosk. All activity should be monitored remotely to ensure that the kiosk is being used for the right purpose.” It costs about $1,900 for every computer put into a village, and Mitra believes it is worth it. The relatively high cost goes in maintenance as the technology has to withstand a tremendous pounding from the elements and the users. Of course, not everybody is convinced. Economist technical editor Tom Standage is skeptical of such projects. But after a trip to a village in Rajasthan, BBC Radio Four producer Mark Rickards found that the new computer for kids had children engrossed, and parents weren’t complaining either. “The Internet is the future,” says one elder, “and our children have dreams.”
INFOTECH INDIA  India’s Biggest Supercomputer... Cisco Eyes SMB Market ... $6 Billion Deal for Boeing ... HCL BPO to Employ 40,000 ... Bharti Launches Service in Salem ... Israeli Firm, IndiaGames, Sign Accord ... Nanotech Center in Madras Varsity ... CARTOSAT-1 Launched ... TRAI Order Quashed ... New Asian Era — Here is the latest on information technology from India India’s Biggest Supercomputer The Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology has decided to set up the country’s biggest super computer with 4 Tera flop peak capability making way for India to join the world’s top league in life science supercomputing. “IGIB — a constituent laboratory of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research — has decided to set up country’s biggest super computer with 4 Tera flop peak capability with the help of Hewlett Packard,” IGIB director Professor. Samir K Brahmachari told reporters here April 28. With the powerful 4Teraflops HP Cluster Platform supercomputer, the institute will get a boost to conduct research which could lead to the development of new technologies in various areas of life sciences, he said. “The platform provides a scalable architecture that allows us to complete large simulation experiments such as molecular interactions and dynamics, virtual drug screening and protein folding in far less time,” he said after signing an agreement with Hewlett Packard. The platform allows the researchers to quickly develop complex bioinformatic algorithms, facilitates easy sharing, pinless adoption and joint collaboration with the best tier institutions, CSIR director Dr. R.A. Mashelkar said. Under the strategy, Cisco will develop sub-vertical specializations such as networking solutions for SMBs in textiles, engineering, auto-components, he said. Dalal said Cisco’s “go-to-market strategy” was aimed at tapping the fast-growing sectors of auto component manufacturing, retail, textile and garments. “SMBs in these sectors are finding an increased need to adopt advanced inter-networking and telecommunication technologies such as VoIP (Internet telephony), IP-based video conferencing and Internet applications to stay competitive. “At Cisco, we are looking to tailor-make solutions that suit the business needs of these verticals, thus customizing our approach in every market,” he said. Dalal said Cisco was concentrating on 50 towns and cities in India, whereby its officials would identify re-sellers of networking technologies to SMBs in these places. The 777-200 LR medium capacity ultra long range aircraft will seat 250 in a three class configuration and is presently undergoing test flights while the 777-300 ER medium capacity long range 350 seater is in service with several airlines. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner with 25 percent fuel efficient engines will seat 250 in a two class configuration and is expected to enter commercial service in 2008. On the controversy generated by Airbus regarding alleged changes made after the issue of the request for proposal, Air-India said no changes whatsoever were made after issue of the RFP. Among the 40,000 people, only about 3,000-4,000 employees will be working outside India and the remaining staff will be based at Indian cities. Addressing an international conference on “Emerging Opportunities in Infrastructure for IT/ITES Services,” organized by Infratech Infrastructure services, he said revenue of the BPO arm is expected to grow by nine times by 2009. The current revenue of HCL BPO is $100 million. Quoting a McKinsey report, he said the BPO sector was expected to employ about 800,000 people in the next 3-4 years and about 120 million sq ft of space would be created for IT/ITES sector. “Last year we added about two lakh ft of space and this year we will add three lakh sq ft,” he added. “With the launch of services in Salem, Airtel broadband and services has expanded into eight cities in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry,” said Deepak Pande, chief operating officer, Bharti Infotel Ltd. In Tamil Nadu, Airtel broadband and telephone services are currently available in Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Tirupur, Vellore, Hosur and Pondicherry. “Airtel has redefined paradigms in all its regions of operation and with a range of customized and comprehensive communication solutions, Salem will be no different,” he said, in a press release here. In Salem, the broadband and telephone service operations will be offered in Fairlands, Four Roads, Shevapet and Bazaar areas,” the release said. Pande said Bharti has partnered with telecom majors like Siemens, ECI, Lucent and Duraline for its network. The attraction of the Israeli company’s offering lies in the multiple user aspect of each game, the report said. Indiagames is one of the leading global mobile content publishers and develops and markets computer games designed for a range of platforms like the Internet, PCs, palm computers, game consoles and cell phones. A proposal to this effect was awaiting clearance from the Tamil Nadu government, university vice-chancellor Dr. S.P. Thyagarajan told reporters. The centre would offer post-graduate and doctorate programs in this area, he said. Referring to the memorandum of understanding entered with two other oldest universities in the country, Mumbai and Kolkata universities, he said the nanotechnology and sciences program there would be a collaboration between the three universities. The three universities April 27 signed an MoU in the presence of President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Thyagarajan said under the collaboration, Madras University will concentrate on nano-biometrics, Kolkata on nano-chemical materials and Mumbai on nano-nuclear materials. He said joint degree program between Mumbai and Madras universities would commence from academic year 2005-06, while joint programs between Madras and Kolkata varsities would begin from the next academic year. As part of the collaboration between the three universities, which would complete 150 years of existence in 2007, the first initiative was starting of a tele-education program for which Rs. 50 million each as the first installment has been granted by the University Grants Commission. The 1,560-kg CARTOSAT-1 along with 42.5 kg HAMSAT was launched by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from the newly set up state-of-the-art second launching pad at Indian Space Research Organization’s Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh May 5. India’s 11th remote sensing satellite, CARTOSAT-1, a Rs..2.5 billion project of ISRO, will be used for cartographic applications and the data from CARTOSAT-1 is expected to provide enhanced inputs for stimulating newer applications in the urban and rural development, land and water resources management, environment impact assessment and various other geographical information system applications. HAMSAT is expected to meet the long-felt need of the amateur radio operators in the South Asian region who possess the required equipment and operate in the UHF/VHF band based satellite radio communication. This is the first time ISRO launched “two Indian satellites” in one mission. The new second launch pad at the SDSC has been constructed at a cost of Rs.4 billion. It has been built to accommodate all the vehicles of ISRO, including the advanced launch vehicle to be built in the next decade and beyond and it is expected to increase the annual satellite launch frequency. TRAI had lowered international bandwidth prices by up to 70 percent projecting that the move would help tariff reduction of Internet and broadband services besides boosting their penetration. Setting aside TRAI’s order, TDSAT asked the regulator to have a re-look at the entire exercise and share the full facts and basis of calculation with VSNL in a transparent manner. VSNL, a major bandwidth provider, had challenged the order saying international bandwidth prices cannot be looked at in isolation and questioned TRAI’s methodology on arriving at the price ceilings. According to VSNL, the price ceiling set by TRAI was below the basic cost of the company. When contacted, D.P.S. Seth, member, TRAI, told reporters, “We shall study the order once we receive it and take appropriate action.” In a joint statement signed April 29 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and visiting Japanese Premier Junichiro Koizumi, the two leaders said both sides would take several measures for tapping the complementarities of the two economies and enhance bilateral trade. India, the largest recipient of official development assistance from Japan, confirmed that the ODA will continue to be utilized to support the country’s efforts at accelerated economic development, particularly in infrastructure. The two leaders directed the India-Japan Study Group, which is to be launched by June this year, to submit its report within a year, focusing on measures required for a comprehensive expansion of trade in goods, services, investment flows and other areas of economic relations between the two countries. The two countries also called for a roadmap for increased ICT cooperation, including the idea of an IT databank.
CINEMA
Cannes Tribute: Honoring Satyajit Ray - By Dilip Basu  Clockwise from top left: Filmmaker Satyajit Ray; Scences from "Pather Panchali" Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali will kickoff the Classics Series in Cannes this year. Ray aficionado Dilip Basu reflects on how this came about and ponders on some darker moments of this timeless classic. Pather Panchali, Satyajit Ray’s trailblazing first film, returns to Cannes this May. It will kick off this year’s Cannes Classics series May 12. A fresh-cut restored print, with English and French subtitles, will screen at 5:00 p.m. at Salle Bunuel on the fifth floor of the Palais de Festivals. The Classics series was introduced by Thierry Fremaux, the artistic director of the festival, and Van Papadopopoulo, the director of Cannes Classics, in 2004 to showcase rare and classic films on its prestigious spotlight. This year Cannes Classics will focus on the preservation mission of the Film Foundation established in New York by Martin Scorsese along with Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, Sydney Pollack, Robert Redford, Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman and Clint Eastwood. Their mission is to restore and preserve works “so as to assure the future of the cinema of the past.” Representing this mission the two films chosen for screening are Pather Panchali (1955) and Jean Renoir’s The River (1951). Both have been restored at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Archives. The choice of Pather Panchali for the special honor is obvious enough: it is its fiftieth anniversary; it won its first international award in 1956 in Cannes; it is regarded by film buffs as one of the world’s greatest. Ray aficionados the world over will greet and rejoice the news of its selection with pleasure and pride. The celebratory moment should not obscure the darker side of the story of the making of the film, and its near extinction.
Satyajit Ray’s reputation further surged with the completion of the Apu Trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito and Apur Sansar) (1959). By the time of his death in 1992, he had made some 29 features and 7 documentaries and shorts. A few weeks before he passed away, he was honored at the 64th Academy Awards with a Life-time Achievement Special Oscar, a rare honor for a director. I was appointed a consultant for Satyajit Ray Remote by the Academy for producing Ray’s Oscar acceptance speech from his hospital room in Kolkata. It was shocking to the producer of the Academy Awards show as well as to Audrey Hepburn, who was asked to do the honors for Ray, that very little material was available on Ray’s impressive oeuvre that could be included in the montage on Ray’s films for showcasing on the Oscar night. Ray’s films were clearly a prime candidate for a major restoration project. I was invited by no less a person than Audrey Hepburn to help facilitate it. In brief, with the help of the Ray family and Ray admirers in India, The Ray Society in Kolkata was established in 1993 and its “sister” in California where I live and teach — the Satyajit Ray Film and Study Collection (Ray FASC). The Ray Society invited Ismail Merchant to become a trustee. Merchant offered to restore six Ray films and obtain rights to show them in North America. He got the original negatives, took them to a London Lab for restoration where tragically they burned to ashes in a major film fire. These films included the Apu Trilogy.
The print that screens May 12 at Cannes is the most recent upgrade at the Academy done by Michael Pogorzelski, the AMPASA director and Joseph Lindner, the coordinator of its Ray restoration project . I continue to coordinate the restoration project among The Ray Society and The Ray FASC and AMPASA. Tom Luddy, my good friend and director of the Telluride Film Festival, connected me to Thierry Fremaux, artistic director of Cannes. Fremaux liked the idea of showcasing Pather Panchali during its fiftieth anniversary. However, he wanted to be assured of the quality of the print. He came to California in early April and we arranged a special screening of select scenes of the restored print at AMPASA. He was pleased with what he saw. Fortune favored Pather Panchali soon after it was released in Kolkata. Satyajit Ray later recalled that a giant owl perched itself on the window sill of his study a day after the release of Pather Panchali and continued to stare at him for several days on end. The owl is goddess Lakshmi’s pet and Lakshmi is of course the goddess of wealth. In its fifty-year odyssey, there is little doubt that Pather Panchali has enormously benefited from Lakshmi’s blessings .It still remains India’s biggest never-ending foreign exchange earner among films. |TOP| Outsourcing Digest: Siliconeer presents of the latest news from the world of outsourcing.  Outsourcing Losing Luster? Dell to Employ 10,000 Pesticide R&D More High-end Work Now, Even Hollywood eBay Mulls Outsourcing Outsourcing Losing Luster? Very few organizations have realized the benefits of outsourcing with companies now returning projects back in-house, according to a new study by Deloitte Consulting. The study, “Calling a Change in the Outsourcing Model,” surveyed 25 large organizations with combined outsourcing contracts valued at $50 billion. A whopping 70 percent reported negative outsourcing experiences and many companies are now taking a more cautious approach to future projects. Even more drastic is that the study found 25 percent of respondent companies have taken outsourced functions back in-house with nearly half claiming the practice hasn’t delivered the cost savings anticipated. “Outsourcing as we know it will increasingly lose luster,” the report concludes. For outsourcing to really make sense and deliver savings, Deloitte senior strategy principal Ken Landis said companies need to be far more strategic. Management can also be a big problem, the study found, with 62 percent of the companies surveyed saying that outsourcing was a larger management drain than expected. Last year, Dell had shifted back some of the technical help services to the U.S. from India, giving boost to the anti-outsourcing campaign. “It was a failure to manage and service our rapidly growing resources in India. That was read by some as a lack of confidence in India. It was an over-reaction.... But we are happy now,” said Dell president and chief executive officer Kevin Rollins, at a press conference in Bangalore April 29. Rollins added: “The talent base here (India) is great and second to none. We will be 10,000 strong in the country by end of this year. We also look for having presence in more cities.” Currently, Dell has manpower of 7,000 spread across Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chandigarh, offering multiple services to various company’s business segments, including sales, customer care, technical support, e-mail support and shared services. The centers are part of Dell’s global network of about 50 contact centers around the world. With the WTO’s patent regime coming into force, “several multinationals want to put their research and development centers in India,” said Salil Singhal, chairperson and managing director of the Rs 3.25 billion PI Industries. “Syngenta, an agribusiness major, has already announced plans and a few others are following suit making good use of Indian scientific talent,” Singhal told the agency. Set up four decades ago, PI Industries has two production units in Rajasthan and Gujarat. They conform to global standards with a major focus on custom manufacturing for outside sources. The company invests around Rs. 200 million annually on research and development activities. “Several Indian companies are working with multinationals to develop their molecules in India. We are one of them,” said Singhal, who is also chairman emeritus of Crop Care Federation of India, an industry body representing over 90 pesticides companies. The estimated Rs. 40 billion Indian pesticides industry is currently exporting Rs.25 billion worth of products to about 120 countries including U.S., Japan and the E.U. With the Bangalore centre becoming operational, it would be GSK’s seventh after two groups in U.S., two in the U.K. and one each in Canada and Italy. “The India centre will not service country (India) needs but will service the parent company’s global work,” said Penny Clarke of Biomedical Data Sciences GSK. GSK plans to house both the CDMCI and Biomedical Data Sciences India in Bangalore as the city has a huge number of statisticians, biometricians and clinical data reviewers and scientific writers, said Ashwini Mathur, general manager, GSK pharmaceuticals. Barrie M. Osborne, who also produced The Matrix, said here that he was in touch with some Indian studios working in the field of animation and digital special effects for undertaking specific works. “We might collaborate with some of the Indian studios in the near future for doing digital visual effects and animation work,” Osborne said. Osborne is visiting India for the first time “I think the talent is here. The artistry and rich cultural heritage of India offer a great opportunity for the Indian animation industry to work for Hollywood,” Osborne said. Expressing the hope that full-length three dimensional (3D) animation films would be produced in India, Osborne said with the huge talent pool in the subcontinent it was possible for international productions to take work from them to produce great films. According to industry estimates, the Indian animation sector has the potential to generate about $1.5 billion annually. N. Madhusudhanan, the national award winner in the visual effects category for the Tamil film Alavandan, said the Indian animation sector had the potential to replicate the success of the IT services sector. “It will not be long before we can start seeing most of the Hollywood work moving to India. We have already started doing some work for Hollywood films,” Madhusudhanan said. “In the next few quarters, we will initiate some process,” Avnish Bajaj, country manager of eBay India, formerly Bazee.com which he headed before being acquired by U.S.-based world online marketplace e-Bay, told reporters. eBay was aware of the benefits of India’s talent pool and it was evaluating the “best functions” (to outsource from India), he said. eBay India currently employs 120 people. Bajaj said last month Baazee’s technology platform was integrated with eBay’s platform, giving access to Indian users to eBay global marketplace.. CYBER CRIME: Digital Heist: The MphasiS Swindle By Siddharth Srivastava  Sweet-talking crooks in India, in concert with corrupt former U.S. bank associates, stole half a million dollars from unsuspecting U.S. account holders in one scam, writes Siddharth Srivastava.When you thought the reputation of Indian call centers couldn’t sink lower in the U.S., that’s exactly what happened. On top of the hostility to these establishments — business process outsourcing is the official term — is the new and real fear of privacy security. These fears were given a big fillip by a remarkable case of what could be called a digital swindle. A group of Indian call center employees sweet-talked American customers into disclosing what should be a well-kept secret — codes and passwords for their credit cards and bank accounts. The swindlers then opened fictitious accounts where money to the tune of half a million dollars were transferred. The plan was executed by former employees and a woman worker of MphasiS, a leading business and process outsourcing provider with help from former bank employees in the USA. The money was transferred into fake accounts from cyber cafes in Pune (a BPO hub in Maharashtra), before the police, following up on a complaint by Citibank account holders in the U.S. that was forwarded to Mphasis, swooped in. Crooks these days use two methods to get confidential personal information. The technique used by the call center executives is called “social engineering,” a fancy name for plain, good, old-fashioned sweet talk wherein the customer is befriended and critical information unsuspectingly garnered. The other method is called “phishing,” a digital route wherein bogus e-mails are sent to an account holder asking him to fill in details about his account and passwords for verification. People have become more wary about the digital format due to frauds in the past. MphasiS vice-chairman Jeroen Tas said in a statement: “There is no evidence of a breach or audit failure in the processes or systems employed by MphasiS and its client as it appears to be a case of password/PIN sharing and compromise. However, in the light of this incident, we are conducting full external audits on processes and compliance.’’ Interestingly, the heist was not committed by nerds out on an ego trip to achieve a technological feat considered impossible to achieve, the way it is with virus writers. There was no infringing of firewalls or decoding encrypted software. The crooks simply identified the right personnel to execute the job smoothly and share the booty after the passwords were accessed. The crime was perpetrated by young people, both Indian and American (former bank employees), some with MBA degrees, who coaxed sensitive information out of unsuspecting clients. The five who have been caught are under 30, with three of them below 25, from middle-class families with no criminal backgrounds. These youngsters who form the core of the young Indian BPO industry, are given to flashy lifestyles and are at the vanguard of the consumerist culture pervading urban India. Recently two young BPO workers committed suicide (one shooting himself and a girl on a drug overdose) in New Delhi, the reason ostensibly being the inability to cope up with stress of work and matching lifestyles. Indeed, the MphasiS-heist is the kind of attention that India’s BPO could have done without, given the antipathy that exists in the West against India’s back end office operations. The last thing that India needs is digital fraud as a further tool in the hands of the implacable enemies of outsourcing. Financial frauds happen across the world to the tune of billions of dollars every year, so it would be unfair to pin down the Indian BPO industry only. Earlier this month hackers stole details of 1.4 million credit cards of a large U.S. retail chain. The police in New Delhi recently arrested two people in possession of details of thousands of credit cards. But this is the first instance of such fraud in the still incipient Indian call center and outsourcing industry. The MphasiS crime been labeled by the Indian media as the country’s “first outsourcing cyberfraud.” India needs to be extra cautious, with a strict deterrent mechanism in place. In times of excessive competition, image counts for a lot apart from protecting consumer/customer interests. “Credit card fraud is a worldwide phenomenon but because it happened in India, which has emerged as the most preferred BPO destination, this incident was a bit over-hyped,’’ an MphasiS spokesperson has said. A prominent voice from the Indian BPO industry, requesting anonymity, said: “We need to create a robust framework of processes which ensures that minimal needed information access is given to the minimum number of people.” There is a lot at stake. A recent McKinsey report on the Information Technology enabled sector has revised the previous figure of $17 billion to $21-24 billion by the year 2008 with India slated to garner 25 percent of the offshore market, with the U.S. the largest source providing 60 percent of business. Estimates suggest that 200,000 to 400,000 jobs have moved from the U.S. since the outsourcing trend began in the 1990s, which is still a fraction of 138 million jobs in the U.S. The most high-end projection is by Forrester Research—a loss of 3.3 million jobs by 2015, including 1.7 million back-office jobs and 473,000 IT jobs. The ultimate protection, however, is for the customer to be vigilant, whether in India or abroad. Giving out private information without checking out who is asking for it is simply asking for trouble. Whether it’s a Western twang or Indian accent, one has to guard against danger that can lurk behind the sweet voices stationed anywhere in the world today. - Siddharth Srivastava is India correspondent for Siliconeer. |TOP| CULTURE: The Big Bangla Bash: Second Indo-Bangla Awards - A Siliconeer Report A virtual who’s who of artists from Kolkata and Dhaka performed in two U.S. shows. A Siliconeer report.  Usha Uthup (2nd from l) sings as other Kolkata stars cheer her.The two events were a Bengali’s dream come true. It’s as if a virtual who’s who of Bengali performing artists had been airlifted into California, that too from both Kolkata and Dhaka. Bay Area based Kala Music and Play hosted two mammoth events for the International Indo-Bangladesh Kala Music Awards April 23 in Hollywood for films and April 24 at Chabot College in the San Francisco Bay Area for television and music. This was their second, expanded version of the event they started last year in New York. Never ever have so many Bengali stars been brought together in one stage, not even in West Bengal or Bangladesh.
From Kolkata came the likes of Mithun Chakraborty, Rupa Ganguly, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Chiranjeet, Mamata Shankar, Indrani Halder, Gautam Ghose, Sandip Ray, Usha Uthup, Arati Mukherjee and Indrani Sen, from Dhaka came Runa Laila, Subhash Dutta, Kumar Biswajit, Syed Abdul Hadi, Gazi Mazharul Anwar and Chashi Nazrul Islam. The events themselves tried to recreate some of the glitz of big American awards ceremonies—dance acts were an East-West fusion with special lighting effects, nominees/ nominations were announced with brief audio visual introductions projected on a movable screen preceded by pretty snazzy graphics and music. |
“We know that in nine months the entire group of children in a village would have reached approximately the level of an office secretary, which means they know dragging and dropping files, they know downloading, they can play video and audio and they can surf the Internet,” he told the BBC. 
The much delayed fleet acquisition plan for eight Boeing 777-200 LR (long range), 15 Boeing 777-300 ER (extended range) and 27 Boeing 787, which is under production and due to be flown in 2008, was based on the recommendations of the in-house techno-economic committee appointed for examining the bids, an Air-India statement said here.
“The BPO arm started with 30 people in 2000 and today the division has grown into a 5,000 people organization. By 2009, the total strength of the BPO arm is expected to touch about 40,000,” HCL BPO chief operating officer N. Ranjit said. 
Bharti Tele-Ventures April 30 launched Airtel broadband and telephone services in Salem and said it would invest Rs. 210 million to roll-out these services in Tiruchirappalli, Tuticorin and Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu. 
