Lack of quality maths teachers, PhDs

There is a serious dearth of high quality mathematics teachers and PhDs in various engineering colleges all over Bangalore, metros, Tier II and III cities in India. There is need of these professionals to improve the standards of teaching and research to match with the global standards. 

 

A professor and researcher, Rangarajan, from IISC told TOI that India was lacking behind in maths and things should improve urgently. He took stock of the status of mathematics in universities and colleges in India post-the World Congress of Mathematics held in Hyderabad. This event was an important one since it could find the areas where improvements had to be taken. To make the things better it was said that more students should take interest in mathematics. Rangarajan said that the research institutions and universities lacked proper faculty in mathematics and this was the reason that a world class research and teaching quality could not be attained. Even the engineering colleges face the same situation and moreover research activities are also not given priority by the colleges.

Talking to TOI, Rangarajan said, “There is serious lack of research mathematicians working on applied and industrial problems. There is a crying need for such persons".  

Though sufficient amount of grants are available for research work in the subject concerned, but there is a lack of student input. Special fellowships with higher stipend should be given to the PhD students in order to motivate them.  

Career prospects in mathematics are quite bright and plenty of jobs are available. The students and the parents should be made aware of these opportunities to make them interested in the subject.

 
Mathematics being an interdisciplinary subject is closely related to physics, biology and engineering sciences. Financial services, data mining companies and research labs of companies like Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, GE and GM need professionals in mathematics.

India becoming global hub for healthcare

The Executive Director of Apollo Hospital enterprise, Shobana Kamineni, in her keynote address at the annual convocation of the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) Centre for Healthcare Management said that there are number of job opportunities in the health care sector in India. Since we have a population of around a billion people, there is an expected increase in 15 million jobs in this sector.

Certificates were presented to 29 students of the third batch of PG Diploma in Hospital Management at the convocation ceremony.

In her address Shobana said, "Arogyasri has thrown up a big challenge of catering to about 4 crore people resulting in coming up of more and more private hospitals".

At the moment India needs 1.5 million doctors and 3 million nurses which hints at the vast investment potential in medical education,’’

ASCI court of governor chairman presided over the programme. He was of the opinion that the value of the programme has now been recognized by the market and hospitals. And due to this the healthcare professionals would easily be absorbed in the jobs.

As compared to the earlier times when people used to visit foreign countries to get treated, now the traffic is increasing towards our country for the medical treatment. Our medical expertise is one of the best at present.

So it is expected that India is soon going to be a global hub in the healthcare sector.
 
Source: Express Buzz

Non-techie jobs to be reserved for Indians

The Union home ministry has issued guidelines stating that non- technical jobs would be reserved only for Indians. This step is expected to keep the foreigners away from local jobs here.

A labour ministry circular was nullified by an order of the home ministry, which had given the permission to one per cent foreigners among the total workforce to work in any project with a minimum of five and maximum of 20 people.

According to the guidelines given by the home ministry, “An employment visa is granted to a foreigner if the applicant is a highly skilled and/ or qualified professional, who is being engaged or appointed by a company/organisation /industry/ undertaking in India on contract or employment basis”.

Apart from this it is stated that foreigners would not be able to get employment visa if qualified Indians are available. This also stands true in case of even ordinary jobs like secretarial/clerical jobs.

Further it has been said that the foreign national who has been sponsored for an employment visa should be getting a salary in excess of $25,000 per year.

Opposing the move a Delhi based human resources and performance support consultancy firm said that such things can work against ideals of globalization. It said that we were doing the same things as the American government which had imposed restrictions on the BPOs here.

The floor limit on earnings would not apply to ethnic cooks, language teachers (other than English) and staff working for embassies/high commissions in India.

Skilled and qualified professionals would be able to clear their visa applications by the Indian missions. Moreover managerial and technical experts would also be given visas in case such personnel are unavailable here.

The move proves that India is becoming a destination for both skilled and unskilled manpower from across the growth. All this has been made possible due to the increasing growth rate of the economy. This move is being regarded as a protective approach to growing labour movement towards India

The move is in line with international practices since U.S also gives visas only to the skilled professionals from abroad. Singapore never grants visas for unskilled workers. So the guidelines are a welcome step from the Indian perspective.

Source: Mail Today

India to see highest employee churn

The Ma Foi Randstad Workmonitor conducts a quarterly review of "mental mobility status" of employees, that is their readiness to change jobs. It was conducted amongst the workers in countries in Europe, Asia Pacific and the Americas. It is basically an index which is based on the replies on two questions regarding their intention to change jobs. The first question was about changing the present employer for a comparable job in the next six months. The second one was related to changing the current employer for some different job/profession in the next six months.   

The results of the survey show that Indian employees got better during the economic crisis. They could work differently and this revealed their innovative tendencies. The crisis in the economy served as an opportunity for Indian employees. The rate of their development is quite high, higher than what the Chinese said with a score of 64 percent.

But Chinese employees were at an advantageous position since they got the facility of a structured training last year (71%). In India this percentage was only 61%.
These studies reveal an important fact that the Indian employees could make a better use of this downturn, better than the Chinese employees. Indian employees were able to find out innovative methods to get jobs and hence they could grow professionally.

Eight out of 10 Indian employees surveyed said they were ready to move to another company which would help them in getting better and quicker development prospects.

According to the Chief Executive of Ma Foi Randstad (India and Sri Lanka), the survey shows that there is an increase in the mobility rate and people focussed more on promotion in the workforce. This shows that the working force could be contended with those organizations that are in a better position to take care of their developmental plans.  

Major hiring trends seen in Steel Sector 


The steel industry in India is witnessing a continuous growth. The production is increasing along with the price rise.


Economic Times reports that career opportunities are rising especially at the senior and executive level.


India is the second largest steel market in the world. China stands at the first place. Both public and private sector companies are coming up in our country. A job shift by the top level executives, directors and CEOs of the industry is has been witnessed recently. Some of them are Brahma Nand Singh, former CEO of Brahmani Steel; Raman Madhok, formerly joint managing director of JSW Steel; T P Rao, former executive director of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam and Bhairava Nath Singh, former MD of SAIL, Rourkela. 

There can be increased hiring too in the sector after a slump of 3 years. There can even be stock options for the existing employees.  

A lot of changes are seen in the steel industry. There is rise in demand as the exports from China have been reduced. According to the experts, the reduction in steel production in China can be attributed to the fact that the cost of electricity has risen there. Moreover many steel units have been shutdown due to pollution control measures there.  


This has benefited the steel makers here. Lowering down of the prices of raw materials and higher prices for the final product has increased the profit margins of the producers. These companies are flushing with money thus finding out ways to expand the production. All this has led to the rise in hiring trends here. There is great demand of the key talent and expertise in this sector.  


Source: Economic Times

IT India is hiring  


Nasscom has said that the software companies like Tata consultancy services, Infosys and Wipro are expected to hire more than 90,000 professionals. Last year only 20,000 professionals were hired. 

HR people are working round the clock for this biggest ever job creation spree by these IT giants. 


The staff strength was the highest in the month of September. Growth rate of this strength is over 50 percent which is the highest hiring growth recorded in the IT sector since recession. There has been an increase in IT hiring by 20-22 percent between August and September.

IT industry had suffered a serious set back due to the recessionary trends earlier which led to non recruitment of IT professionals.  

But the future seems quite promising for the IT industry and IT professionals. New projects and fresh recruitments show a promising future ahead. Skills are being stocked and training is being imparted in advance for the anticipated new contracts coming their way. 
More projects are being sent to India by the companies like JPMorgan and Citibank etc. So the companies like IBM and Accenture are hiring more and more professionals. There is kind of competition for hiring and retaining the qualified personnel now.

Innovation is seen in the hiring programmes of these companies. Infosys and EDS-Mphasis are also recruiting back the staff which they had laid off during the recession.
Some of these employees are even getting better salary as compared to the previous times. This is considered a good step by the HR managers since it would relieve them of the interviewing process. 

“Green Channel” initiative has been launched by Infosys. It is done to get applications from around 350 professionals who had lost their jobs last year. NetApp, a computer storage vendor based in California, has hired back almost half of its staff.   

Stipend for engineering, science students hiked by 33pc


Good news comes for research scholars across the country. The monthly stipend of students in the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and other central science and engineering schools would be increasing by 33 percent. This has been announced by the Human Resource Development Ministry.

All institutions have been informed this decision. This move is expected to make postgraduate studies and research in sciences and engineering become more attractive and lucrative for the students.

This significant hike will benefit the students from the IITs, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs), the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs).

A letter has been sent to the HRD ministry to the Directors of the institutions stating that these revised rates stipend would also apply to other government and government aided institutions which are given funds by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the University Grants Commission (UGC).

This stipend had now been increased to Rs.16,000 from Rs !2,000 for the post graduate students who passed B.Tech from IITs with cumulative grade point average of above 8 and those who cleared GATE exams. Also, PG degree holders in basic sciences and students who have qualified in the National Eligibility Test (NET) will now be given Rs.18, 000 a month will be given to P.G degree holders in basic sciences and those who have qualified in the National Eligibility Test. The amount will be given to them till their fifth year of Ph.D. research.

PG degree holders in engineering will also get Rs.18, 000 a month for the first two years of research. It will be Rs.20, 000 a month for the next two years. 

The 10 fastest job-creating cities in India

A study on 'Job Trends in the Four Metros' by Assocham has analysed the trend of job openings in 60 cities and 32 sectors during the period April-August 2010. This was reported by PTI.

The share of four major metropolitan cities of India in job creation was found to be 57.22 of the total sample size. 


According to the secretary general of Assocham, the jobs are being created at all levels. University placements have again started and this positive trend is expected to continue for another 6 months.

The fastest job-generating city came out to be Delhi-NCR among the four major metropolitan cities in India. It has shown a growth of 34.27 per cent in employment generation during the period of April-August this year.

As per the study NCR is the most prominent employment destination for the aspirants and has the major share of 34.20 per cent.

The top job creating sector came out to be Agriculture and allied services in NCR with a growth of 314.29 per cent since last year. At the second and third positions are Textile (159.83 per cent) and real estate (158.51 per cent) respectively. The infrastructure and aviation sectors are ranked fourth and fifth.

Mumbai stands at second place as far as total vacancies offered are concerned. Here a academics offered largest number of vacancies. Around 59.47 per cent of the openings belonged to the education sector in the last 5 months. IT sector created maximum number of jobs as compared to the four metros.

Chennai is ranked third. The IT and IT-enabled services accounted for 57.07 per cent of the total job openings, followed by IT/hardware sector. The share of IT/hardware sector has been 54.93 per cent of overall openings in four metro cities. The engineering segment has the share of 54.29 per cent in the total employment generation in the sector. This has been attributed to the rise in demand of engineering goods due to the ongoing CWG games.

Then comes Kolkata, with a share of 4.19 per cent in generation of employment opportunities. Export-import sector has shown a trend of recovery which in turn has led to the growth of manufacturing sector. But telecom, FMCG, banking and logistics sectors have marginal decline in job creation during the period.

In the Tier-II cities, Pune has emerged as the highest employment-generating city out of all the other tier-II cities of the country. It had the maximum share of 19.5 per cent of the total jobs created in all the tier-II cities. IT, banking, education and automobiles were the main sectors where employment opportunities were created.

The share of Lucknow was 14.3 percent. It came out to be the second largest in the tier-II cities for employment generation. At the third place was Pondicherry, with 10.5 percent as its share.

Among the other tier-III cities, Ranchi had the largest share of 16.8 per cent, followed by Mangalore and Mysore.

The top five sectors that created the maximum jobs in Ranchi were energy, construction, metals, electronics and telecom. Mangalore stood at the second place with 14 per cent share of the jobs. Mysore came out to be the third fastest job-creating city amongst tier-III cities. 

Rs 1,500 Crore Tech Park In Gurgaon

It is being planned by the Dutch Haryana Business Consortium (DHBC) and Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) to build Rs 1500 crore Tech Park near Gurgaon in Haryana. Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) has a stake of 10 percent in the project. 


The Haryana State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation (HSIIDC) and the Dutch Haryana Business Consortium (DHBC) signed a Statement of Interest i.e. SOI on October 10, 2006 at Amsterdam in Netherlands.  


The Haryana Investment Promotion Board has already granted clearance in 2008. It was done after a techno economic study. The project could not start because of the global recession. But now the company plans to launch the project at the earliest since the recession is over. 


Three locations have been suggested by the Haryana government for the project, which will be spread over a maximum area of 500 acres. DHBC, after technical surveys, would be giving final consent and final report will be submitted by 31st of December. 


DHBC is talking to various western European companies such as Netherlands-based processed foods manufacturer HAK Agro Foods, German telecom operator T Mobile, Royal Friesland Foods, a Netherlands-based dairy company and Royal Hass Konning, a European engineering and Design Company. It wants them to set up their units here. 


So with the coming of all these multi national companies it is expected that there will be an increase in the employment opportunities in the region with over development of the area.   

CWG all set to create over five lakh jobs 

TNN reports that Rs 4500 crores are expected to be generated as revenue during the CWG games, because of various promotional and sponsorship activities.

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) said that this could result in increasing GDP from Rs 1,17,000 crore to Rs 1,75,000 crore —i.e. an increase of 49%.
Due to the inflow of foreign tourists, revenue of Rs 540 crores are expected to be earned by Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation (DTTDC), privately owned hospitals in Delhi and NCR and Delhi International Airport. Delhi and its neighbouring states would be benefited the most due this huge revenue generation.

This is the biggest sporting event that has been hosted by our country. And thus it is also expected to generate employment opportunities for over 5 lakh people. The opportunities would come up in aviation, hospitality, engineering, medical and eco tourism sectors. Since Delhi and Mumbai have been modernized along with revamping of 35 metro airports, it is expected that additional 2.5 lakh jobs would be created.

According to Sunil Yash Kalra, the writer of the book “Road to Commonwealth Games 2010, far reaching effects would be seen in our country due to these games. Many real estate projects have been started here and Delhi’s physical landscape has been improved. All this would contribute in establishing a world class infrastructure in India.

Even the job opportunities in unorganized sector would increase. People would be able to get work in activities like ceremony hosting, dope control, image and look, legal and spectator control.

But all these positive trends should be sustainable and India should be able to reap it benefits in complete way. There would be the need of development of technical skills if additional jobs have to be created and growth rate to be sustained. 

Hiring activity by India Inc rises 22% in Sept

According to a recent report released by the Press Trust of India hiring by India Inc has increased by 22 per cent in September this year. This is has been mainly due to the improved confidence in the economy.

According to a statistics given by a job portal, the index of hiring level increased to 943 in September 2010 as compared to 773 in 2009. The hiring level was higher in Aug 2010 which stood at 956.

A constant rise in these hiring trends can be attributed to the fact that the business environment the country is showing a positive trend.

The data also shows the maximum placements have been the IT sector. The sector has moved up by 45 per cent as compared to 718 in September last year. This is just like the pre recession times, as now the IT companies are getting multiple projects both from India and abroad. All this has led to a kind of boom being witnessed in this sector. There is a good news for the qualified professionals in the software field as they have a great scope in the coming times. Things are expected to be moving in a positive direction and in their favour in the next few months.

Telecom and pharmaceutical sectors are exhibiting this positive trend too. But a decline is seen in the insurance sector and it can be taken as the highest level of decline which was around 58% as compared to the previous year. There has been fall in indices from 2% to 5% in key industries like auto, construction, oil & gas and banking.

As for the cities which have witnessed this surge are, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai. But Delhi and Pune saw a decline in the level of recruitment during the same period.

India faces huge shortage of architects

There is a huge shortage of architects in India at present. Only 50,000 registered architects are there as against the demand of 500,000. Large amount of construction work of commercial spaces is going at present but there are not enough architects.  

Although there are 170 architectural colleges all over the country but the students taking admission are quite less. Each year the number of pass outs in this field is around 3000 as compared to China which is around 1, 20,000 per year, only because of limited number of students in architectural colleges. The ratio of architects to total population stands at a low level of 5,450 to 10 million.

The experts are of opinion that this can be due to the fact that these engineers feel that they are not paid enough in this field as compared to IT and other engineers. The beginners are able to earn around only Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 per month. So they find themselves to be underpaid i.e. only 3% to 4% of the estimated cost. For a five-year bachelor’s degree in Architecture, the course fee starts from Rs 15,000 per annum in government colleges and in private colleges, it varies from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh as initial payment.

Moreover they want jobs right after passing out from the college. But this field requires a great practice before one can properly establish oneself. Some of the experts believe that people do not take it as a full fledged profession but take it up as a parallel profession. Another key factor in the lack of interest lays in the fact that architecture as subject is not introduced at the school level.

There is shortage of faculty members in the colleges too. Each college needs 15 more teachers. The quantity and quality of the training facilities is not up to the mark. Students are much aware of the profession due the fact that architectural activities are mostly concentrated around big cities and metros.

So due to all these factors the industry is facing acute shortage of well qualified architectures. And to overcome the problem the profession under discussion needs a multi-pronged approach. If we want to catch up with rest of the world we need to produce more architects. The experts say that things have started improving at present as there has been 10-fold increase in the student intake in the last 10 years. But looking the present requirement if the qualified professionals the intake needs to be increase around 30-40 students in each school. 

 
Source: Sify News

1300 Newly Passed Out Chartered Accountants Offered Jobs

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is a statutory body that is established for the regulation of profession of Chartered Accountants in India. ICAI is a premier accounting body and contributes in the field of education, professional development and maintains high cost accounting, auditing and ethical standards. ICAI is regarded as the second largest accounting body in the whole world.

The Committee for Members in Industry (CMII) of this institute is responsible for the organization of campus placement programme for the freshers. This is done twice a year. The potential employers are also given opportunity to interact with the newly passed out Chartered Accountants. All these arrangements are made by CMII. This is done to provide a cost effective mode of recruiting newly qualified professionals in the field.

This year’s placement programme was also conducted in the months of August-September, 2010 successfully across 16 cities in the country in different phases.The cities were Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Ernakulam, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi and Pune

There were 55 interview teams which represented 87 companies who sought chartered accountants for jobs. Lucrative offers were made to the Chartered Accountants and more than 1300 candidates got job offers.  

Manufacturing organizations, Public Sector Undertakings, Banks, Software, Consultancy, financial services, etc. took part in this mega event. Recruiting companies were from India as well as abroad.

Tolaram Corporation Pvt. Ltd offered a package of 21 lacs to 3 candidates for international posting. Rs. 15 lacs per annum were offered for a domestic posting by Abhishek Industries. Britania, ITC and Bharat Petroleum Corpoartion Ltd. offered the salary of more than Rs. 10 lacs per annum to newly passed out Chartered Accountants. The minimum salary that was offered was Rs. 3.25 lacs per annum. 

More and more students all over the country and the big companies are now taking part in these placement programmes. Candidates are very satisfied with the placement programme. The ICAI is constantly working hard to develop its professionals to acquire the skills that an emerging economy always needs.

Source: ICAI press release

Rules for common test to medical courses finalised

According to a report by IANS the Supreme Court has been informed by the central government about the finalization of rules and regulations for all India common entrance test (CET) meant for the admission in post-graduate medical courses.

The rules and regulations for undergraduate medical course have also been made final.
According to the Solicitor General, the aim behind holding a common entrance test was to have uniformity in standards of medical education all over the country.  A consensus now has been evolved among the private and government colleges on conducting these common entrance examinations.

The Supreme Court was informed that the Medical Council of India (MCI) had made announcement for the common entrance test but it had to be put off due to opposition from the Tamil Nadu government where admission to professional courses is given on the basis of marks obtained in qualifying exams.

But the court has told the government that it should not hurry with the notification and should be careful since it could lead to opposition from other states also.