Raja's Blog Site

2010's Supersonic Car

2010-07-23T17:48:00.003+05:30

Believe it or not, a jet-propelled vehicle is almost set to break the land speed record, that too at an incredible 1,050 mph. A life-size replica of the Bloodhound supersonic car (Bloodhound SSC) was on display at the Farnborough International Airshow, Hampshire on Monday, July 19.
The car will be powered by both a Eurofighter Typhoon jet engine and a rocket engine, generating a combined thrust of 47,500 lb. (or 212 kN of force), the equivalent of 180 Formula One racing cars.

The Bloodhound is about 42 feet long, nine feet high and two feet wide, with a wheelbase of about 29 feet and a mass of more than 14,100 pounds.
The current land speed record is held by ThrustSSC, a twin turbofan-powered car which broke the sound barrier, reaching 763 mph at Black Rock Desert, Nevada on October 15, 1997.

Universe's biggest star discovered

2010-07-23T17:47:00.000+05:30

London, July 22 (IANS) The biggest star, with a mass 320 times greater than the sun's, has been discovered at the edge of our galaxy by British astronomers.
Scientists at the University of Sheffield found the stellar giant - named R136a1 - using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile and data from the Hubble Space Telescope.
The star is located in the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small 'satellite' galaxy which orbits the Milky Way, the Telegraph reported.
Previously, the heaviest known stars were around 150 times the mass of the sun, and this was believed to be close to the cosmic size limit.
As stars get more massive, the amount of energy created in their cores grows at a faster rate than the force of gravity which holds them together.
The torrents of energy produced eventually become so powerful that the stars are torn apart, says the latest issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
This is known as the 'Eddington Limit', after the British physicist Arthur Eddington who, in 1919, proved Einstein's theory of relativity by showing that light is bent by gravity.
It was believed that the Eddington Limit was reached at around 150 solar masses.
However, R136a1 has been measured at 265 solar masses. Since heavy stars rapidly lose mass as they grow older by converting it into energy, R136a1 has already lost 20 percent of its mass in its short million-year life. It is believed originally to have been a colossal 320 solar masses.
The sun, by comparison, has been burning for 4.57 billion years, and has converted only 0.03 percent of its mass into energy.
The chief researcher and professor in the Sheffield team, Paul Crowther, told 'Astronomy Now': 'Because of their proximity to the Eddington Limit they lose mass at a pretty high rate.'
This means that they are incredibly bright and hot - R136a1 is believed to have a surface temperature of more than 40,000 degrees Celsius, and is 10 million times brighter than the sun.
Among the largest known stars previously known were the Pistol Star, between 80 and 150 solar masses, and Eta Carinae, around 100 solar masses.
The Pistol Star radiates as much energy in 20 seconds as our sun does in a year. However, both are utterly dwarfed by the vast new discovery.
According to 'Astronomy Now,' R136a1 gives off more energy than all the stars in the Orion Nebula, and if it were in our solar system it would be as much brighter than the sun as the sun is than the moon.
Crowther suspects that this is about as big as stars can get. 'Owing to the rarity of these monsters, I think it is unlikely that this new record will be broken any time soon,' he says.

Math World

2009-05-28T12:10:00.003+05:30

Pretty good site for Mathematics. I got this for my spouse's M.Phil preparation. From school to organizations, great help can be got.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/

BoonEx - Community Software Experts

2009-05-20T17:00:00.001+05:30

Control your website code, database, design, content, everything. Built-in forum, video chat, video IM, video player, blogs, events, groups, tags, polls, classifieds, articles, page builders, friends and much more from Dolphin 6.

www.boonex.com

Filip Kulisev's Photography

2009-05-20T16:53:00.002+05:30

Pretty good photography by Filip Kulisev from all over the world is here. You can view it through

http://www.amazing-planet.com/en/home

100s of downloads

2009-05-20T15:49:00.001+05:30

You can download 100's of free software & freeware for Windows XP & Vista from the site http://100-downloads.com/

James Nachtwey Pictures

2009-05-20T15:25:00.001+05:30

"I have been a witness, and these pictures are

my testimony. The events I have recorded should

not be forgotten and must not be repeated." - James Nachtwey

http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/

Smallest Linux Computer

2009-05-20T15:23:00.003+05:30

The picotux 100 is the world's smallest Linux computer, only slightly larger (35mm×19mm×19mm) than an RJ45 connector. More information can be found here.

Big Pictures

2009-05-19T17:50:00.003+05:30

Some good pictures I came around is added here.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/05/hubbles_final_servicing_missio.html
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/04/human_landscapes_from_above.html

Wonders of the World

2009-05-19T17:47:00.003+05:30

The site http://www.hillmanwonders.com/ contains much valuable information about the wonders in the world, top 100 / 1000 and more. Even you can find guides to different countries in the world.

Van Gogh - Starry Night

2009-05-19T16:56:00.001+05:30

This image is a photomosaic of the famous painting 'Starry Night'. The image is made with over 210.000 tiny photographs and a total size of over 1.500.000.000 points in other words it is a 1.5 Gigapixel Image. Click over the image (Zoom In) until you start to see the tiny images.

Link: http://www.andreaplanet.com/mosaic/starrynight/

Tata delivers A-GPS Service

2009-05-04T15:29:00.000+05:30

TeleCommunication Systems Inc (TCS) (Nasdaq:TSYS), a provider of wireless communications technology, announced on Monday (27 April) its location-based infrastructure and Xypoint software are used by Tata Teleservices Limited, a service provider in India, for its QUICKFINDER A-GPS (Assisted Global Positioning System) service.

The location-based service will be available exclusively to Tata Indicom subscribers and will also utilise Qualcomm's (Nasdaq:QCOM) QPoint solution and gpsOne technology integrated into Qualcomm chipsets

Great Indians

2009-03-19T10:46:00.000+05:30

Majority of Indians favour smoke-free workplaces

A near unanimous majority of Indians - 99 percent - favour a prohibition of smoking in public places, including workplaces, restaurants and bars, and demand stringent enforcement of rules to check smoking in offices, a survey has found.

According to the survey released by Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI) Tuesday, majority of people agree that "all workers in India should be protected from exposure to second-hand smoke in workplaces".

A randomly selected sample of 1,026 respondents in four metros of the country - Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata - were interviewed in December last year.

"Majority of Indians support prohibition of smoking inside public places, including workplaces, restaurants and bars and an overwhelming 99 percent of Indians strongly favour enforcement of smoke-free rules in work places in order to provide comprehensive protection from second-hand exposure to tobacco smoke," the survey found.

Further, as many as 92 percent of respondents stated that exposure to second-hand smoke constitutes a serious health hazard for non-smokers.

In India, smoking in all public places, including workplaces, restaurants and educational institutions, is prohibited according to a regulation by the ministry of health which came into effect Oct 2, 2008.

Commenting on the results of the survey, Bhavna B. Mukhopadhyay, senior director of VHAI, said: "These concerns translate to the very strong belief among Indians that it is the right of customers and employees to breathe smoke-free air in workplaces and public places."

S.S. Shastri, head, department of preventive oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, said: "India has always been faced with the rampant use of tobacco across all sections of society. The general consensus achieved by the survey is a very positive indicator of the sentiments of the public."

"It is very heartening to know that Indians recognise the fact that second-hand smoke is a major health hazard, and feel that the ban on smoking in public places should be more strictly enforced," said Shastri.

Source: Indo-Asian News Service

Fastest Browser

2009-03-19T10:32:00.001+05:30

Microsoft's IE 8 browser - The Fastest

Internet Explorer 8 is the fastest browser.

According to the bloggers and a bench mark test conducted recently, Microsoft's IE 8

was declared the fastest browser with 12 sites.

A white paper published recently, by Microsoft based on benchmark testing conducted in a Microsoft lab, states that in a ‘real world’ test on browser speeds, Microsoft's team compared the performance of IE 8 (currently available as Release Candidate 1), Google Chrome 1.0 and Mozilla Firefox 3.05.

Microsoft has made available a video on the study as well as a whitepaper, "Measuring Browser Performance: Understanding Issues in Benchmarking and Performance Analysis".

Microsoft used 25 popular Web sites, based on a comScore ranking, for benchmark.

The results clearly showed that IE 8 was the fastest browser at 12 sites, followed by Chrome (nine sites) and Firefox (four sites).

Microsoft also added that in addition to the exceptional page load performance, Internet Explorer 8 is also optimised to speed up the things that many users do day in and day out such as mapping an address, emailing links to friends, checking the weather, monitoring eBay auctions, etc.

Internet Explorer 8 can perform these tasks using anywhere from 10-50% fewer steps than other browsers.

Samsung releases 12 MP Camera

2009-03-19T10:29:00.000+05:30

Samsung might take the megapixel war in camera phones to a new level at the upcoming Mobile World Congress with the announcement of a 12 megapixel camera phone.

According to fresh reports, we have just two weeks till the Korean giant fires its next salvo. Samsung already has the 8 megapixel Innov8 in its arsenal, which competes with the C905 CyberShot from Sony Ericsson. In 2006, the company had also showcased a 10 megapixel camera phone (which was then thought to be an insane attempt), the SCH-B600; it, however, was limited to the Korean market.

Post the unveiling, production is set to commence by the end of February. As of now, we have no details about the interface, the platform, or the looks. It was earlier rumored that Samsung might also introduce a camera phone with 4X optical zoom. Will it see the light of day with its new 12 megapixel sibling? We'll' get to know soon!

Source: Techtree.com

Triple SIM Phone

2009-03-19T10:26:00.001+05:30

Introducing, a very rare Triple SIM handset! Ok we're not sure if this is the first one but this one's got to be rare! The unnamed handset from UAE based manufacturer QiiQ can devour three SIMs at one go. Thats correct, this one can hold three separate SIM cards if you found dual slots insufficient. Well, while some might think this is more if an overkill, there seems to be a sizable amount of people who would love to have three numbers instead of having to lug around three different phones.

The catch is that at a time, only two lines will be active. As for the spec sheet, this might not sound impressive. The phone is enabled with (900/1800/1900) and dual (900/1800) GSM connectivity, a 2 megapixel camera, 2.4 QVGA display (2.6 touch panel) and a rather huge 2000 mAh battery

Source: Techtree.com

BPO

2009-01-19T18:26:00.000+05:30

BPO Demystified

Shift of Jobs by Verticals

By the year 2015 an estimated 3.3 million US jobs would have moved offshore, a whooping 3000% increase from the year 2000.

Number of U.S. Jobs Moving Offshore
Sl.No	Job Category	2000	2005	2010	2015
1	Management	0	37,477	117,835	88,281
2	Business	10,787	61,252	161,722	48,028
3	Computer	27,171	108,991	276,954	72,632
4	Architecture	3,498	32,302	83,237	84,347
5	Life Sciences	0	3,677	14,478	36,770
6	Legal	1,793	14,220	34,673	74,642
7	Art, Design	818	5,576	13,846	29,639
8	Sales	4,619	29,064	97,321	26,564
9	Office	53,987	295,034	791,034	1,659,310
	Total	102,674	587,592	1,591,101	3,320,213
Source: U.S Department of Labour and Forrester Research, Inc.

Skills required for BPO verticals

SEGMENTS	SKILLS
Call center	Good communication and language skills, accent understanding team leadership, basic computing skills
Remote customer interaction	Language and accent understanding
Date search, Integration	Computing, language and analytical skills
Human Resource Services	Country specific HR policies, rules and regulations
Remote education	Subject knowledge, computing and language skills
Engineering and design	Technical and engineering design and computing skills
Translation, medical transcription and Localisation	Language understanding, basic computing (word processing knowledge) and understanding of various medical terminologies
Animation	Drawing and creative skills, computer graphic skills
Finance and accounting	International/ country specific accounting rules
Market Research	Understanding statistical sales and marketing concepts
Network Consultancy and management	Understanding different network configurations and support equipment, technical/ computing skills

Global geographical distribution of BPO Providers

India ranked first in the survey on where financial services companies' BPO providers are located with 21% . Russia is next with 10% followed by the Philippines (9%) and Eastern Europe (8%). The United States, Mexico, and Israel tied at 7%. (source FSOoutsourcing.com)

Attrition Rates in Indian BPO industry

A useful comparison of attrition rate of BPO employees vis a viz employees in other industries. This is arrived at by mapping the time an employee has spent in the same organisation.

Sr.No	Sector	0-3 years	4-7 years	8-12 years	13+ years	% change from 2006 to 2007	Expected increase in 2008
1	Pharma & Chemicals	25.00%	10.00%	5.00%	2.00%	-5.00%	6.00%
2	Manufacturing	8.58%	2.46%	2.46%	3.00%	5.00%	-3.50%
3	Financial Services	20.00%	20.00%	20.00%	20.00%
4	Hospitality	35.00%	25.00%	20.00%	7.50%	13.00%	20.00%
5	Ad & Media	40.00%	35.00%	20.00%	15.00%	17.00%	22.00%
6	BPO	40.00%	30.00%	20.00%	10.00%
7	Automobile	7.00%	3.00%	2.00%	2.00%	No visible	14.00%
8	Auto Component	12.00%	15.00%	20.00%	12.00%	5.00%	6.00%
9	Banking	10.00%	5.00%	2.50%	2.50%	2.00%	2.00%
10	Infrastructure	16.00%	11.00%	7.00%	11.00%	9.00%	20.00%
11	IT & Telecom	32.00%	25.00%	10.00%	5.00%	5.00%	9.00%
Source: Emmay HR / BusinessWorld, 4 Feb 2008

Offshore Outsourcing

2009-01-19T18:25:00.000+05:30

Offshore Outsourcing

Offshore outsourcing is the business process of hiring an external organization to perform a business function in a country other than the one where the products and services are actually developed. It is contrasted with offshoring, in which the functions are performed in a foreign country by a foreign subsidiary.

There are four basic types of offshore outsourcing:

ITO- information technology outsourcing
BPO- business process outsourcing covers things like running call centres
Software R&D- offshore software development
KPO- knowledge process outsourcing covers processes that require a higher degree of specialization and skill sets.

The driving factor behind the development of offshore outsourcing has been the opportunity to cut costs while the key enabler is broadband Internet.

Some of the countries that provide such services are (in alphabetical order)

Argentina	Web & Software Programming, Game Development, IT Support, Network Solutions, Offshore Outsourcing Service
Bangladesh	Web & Software Programming, Game Development, IT Support, Network Solutions, Offshore Outsourcing Service
Belarus	Programming, R&D
Brazil	Web & Software Programming, Game Development, IT Support, Network Solutions, Offshore Outsourcing Service
Bulgaria	Programming and R&D
China	Programming, Data Entry, Customer Support, F&A
Egypt	Customer Support and Programming
India	Full Spectrum Services
Indonesia	Programming, Data Entry, Customer Support
Malaysia	Customer Support and R&D
Nepal	Programming, Customer Support
Philippines	Customer Support, IT Support, Programming, Animation, Transcription
Philippines	Programming, R&D, Data Entry and Customer Support
Romania	Programming and IT
Russia	Programming and R&D
Pakistan	Programming, Customer Support
Panama	Programming, Customer Support
Ukraine	Programming and R&D

Offshore outsourcing has propelled several countries to prominence in the global business map. At the same time, it has also worked against the offshoring-worthiness of some destinations due to increasing wages. In Moscow, IT wages have increased by 50 percent in the past three years. Banking industry IT turnover in some cities of India has exceeded 30 percent. Hiring talented IT professionals is seen as one of the biggest challenges for firms.

Gartner’s ranking of offshore outsourcing ‘hot spots’

Asia Pacific:

Americas:

Europe, Middle East and Africa:

Knowledge Process Outsourcing

2009-01-19T18:19:00.000+05:30

Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO)

What is Knowledge Process Outsourcing?

Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) is the outsourcing of high-end business functions in an organization. These functions include both core and non-core activities.

How it is different from Business Process Outsourcing

KPO Value Chain examples

	Low-end	High-end
Business Analytics	Back office support, Data Collection, Data Entry, Secondary Research	Analysis and Statistical Modelling	Synthesis/Reports/Presentations
Legal	Data Entry, Transcription	Patent Search, Contract Drafting	Litigation Support, Legal Research

What functions does it cover?

KPO being a nascent segment, there is no universal consensus on the processes that can be classified within the ambit of KPO. Currently, the following knowledge functions are outsourced to varying extents.

Segment	Segment breakdown	Key skills requirement
Legal Services	Patent search, contract drafting, legal research, litigation support, secretarial work, legal coding, transcription	Proficiency with English, knowledge of the client country laws.
Engineering Services	2D and 3D modelling, conversion, finite analysis, value engineering, dynamic analysis, etc.	CAD/CAM, drafting, modelling, product design.
Content Development & Publishing	Data warehousing, content planning, proofing, pre-press production, writing, editing, designing, etc	English writing skills, journalism/editing experience, knowledge of design tools and more.
Market Research & Data Analysis	Primary research, surveys, secondary research, statistical modelling, report writing, synthesis.	Analytical skills, knowledge of statistical tools, presentations, MBA, Econometrics.
Financial Research & Analytics	Industry research, company valuation, equity research & analysis, due diligence, financial reporting, risk assessment	Knowledge of financial markets, statistical tools and a masters in finance – CFA, MBA finance, etc.
Biotech/Pharmaceuticals	Clinical research, gene mapping, drug discovery, etc.	Masters in science, medicine etc.
Education & Training	Instructional design, courseware development	Subject matter expertise, teaching experience.

How big is the sector globally? How big will it get?

There are varying estimates on the growth of the global KPO sector. These estimates range from $10 billion (ASSOCHAM) to $17 billion (Evalueserve), by 2010. Given below is an estimate of the growth of various segments within KPO in India.

Segment	Revenue (2006-07)*	Expected Revenue (2010-11)*
Banking, Securities & Insurance Research	$175	$600
Data Management, Search & Analytics	$590	$2500
Business & Consulting Research	$125	$450
Human Resources - Research & Analytics	$25	$120
Market Research & Comp. Intelligence	$175	$460
Eng. Design & Architecture, CAD	$315	$950
Game-design & Animation Services	$245	$900
Legal, Paralegal & Intellectual Property	$95	$500
Scientific & Medical Content Publishing	$165	$100
Remote Education. Publishing, Tech. Writing	$300	$1,000
Contract Res. Orgs, Biotech Services	$580	$2,500
Translation and Localization	$75	$360
Marketing & Sales Support, Answering RFPs	$20	$150
Remote Logistic services & Procurement	$40	$160
Network Optimization & Analytics	$125	$450
TOTAL	$3,050	$11,200
In millions Source: Evalueserve*

India – the most preferred KPO destination

India is expected to corner a lion’s share of the overall KPO market. By 2010, India is expected to account for almost 70 percent of global market. India’s dominance – though imminent in the near future – could be severely tested by some of the emerging destinations such as the Philippines, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, China, South Africa, Singapore, Ireland, Australia, Canada and Wales.
Key Issues in the KPO sector

Skills Acquisition and Retention
One of the decisive factors for the growth of any destination will be the ability to acquire the right kind of talent and retain it. For India, it will be a major challenge with high annual churn rates and wage inflation playing dampener. In fact, UK based research firm RocSearch has tempered the optimism with its findings that the Indian KPO market may only grow up to $10 billion by 2010 as opposed to the industry estimates of $12 billion. The corresponding number of professionals employed in this sector will be only 100,000 as opposed to the predicted 250,000.

On the other hand, destinations such as Australia and Canada have a substantial pipeline of skilled talent waiting for the opportunity. While it is true that outsourcing of knowledge processes relies more on intellectual arbitrage more than cost arbitrage, a high wage inflation rate and turnover may ward off clients.

IP Management & Data Security
Outsourcing high-end functions to an offshore location involves the exchange of confidential information, especially in segments such as financial services and biotech. In such a situation, vendors need to have stringent internal measures to prevent any misuse or trading of sensitive information. The government on its part should come down heavily on any IP or data theft or infringement.

Training and Development
Knowledge processes require a high degree of specialization. In addition to the required educational degree, professionals also need to be abreast of the laws or methodologies governing the process in the client destination. Be it legal processes, pharma outsourcing or financial services outsourcing, any knowledge process requires familiarity with the concerned domain as it exists in the client country.

Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO)

2009-01-19T18:16:00.000+05:30

Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO)

What is Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO)?

Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) is one of the value added BPO services which involves legal work that companies outsource to more economical offshore destinations. Legal outsourcing has gained tremendous ground in the past few years in the US. LPO firms, primarily from India, have had success by providing services such as document review, legal research and writing, drafting of pleadings and briefs and providing patent services.
What functions does it cover?

Legal outsourcing consists of various processes which can be classified into low skilled quantitative tasks or high end qualitative tasks. Low skilled quantitative tasks includes paralegal services and legal coding, corporate secretarial services, legal memo development, transcription, document management, litigation support and data entry.

High end qualitative tasks include intellectual property rights (IPR), patent search and application drafting, trade mark and copyright registration, legal research, document review and analysis and intelligence services.
How big is the sector globally?

In the past three years, the legal outsourcing industry here has grown about 60% annually. According to a report by research firm ValueNotes, the industry will employ about 24,000 people and earn revenue of $640 million by 2010.
The India advantage:

Law firms across the globe can greatly benefit from offshoring legal services to India. Along with saving, a great number of dollars each year, it will also provide easy access to highly skilled legal professionals in India.

LPO firms in India have reached a higher maturity level. Currently many tasks like IP processes, legal research, pre-litigation documentation, document analysis, preparing software licensing agreements is outsourced to India. Professionals are providing patent related services with a resulting fee as little as $2000 as against $8000-$12000 charged by US firms.

The Indian legal system is similar to the legal systems of the UK, US, Canada, and parts of Europe.

Indian litigation and dispute resolution methodologies are well founded on the classic Constitution of the biggest Democratic Republic in the world and are understood universally. Indian legal system is one among the most researched and informed legislations which ensures uniform and practical interpretation of the legislation throughout the breadth and depth of this land of unique diversity.
Challenges in legal outsourcing to India

Along with a wide range of advantages listed above, legal offshoring also brings some major challenges, which must be taken into account before law firms embark upon outsourcing legal work at full-scale to India.
-- Cutback in the domestic legal jobs in the US and UK
-- Risk of loss of maintaining an attorney
-- Client confidentiality
-- Initial cost of training the respective Indian lawyers to maintain quality
-- Regulatory Scrutiny under varying privacy laws
-- Malpractice / Practice law without license
-- Conflicts of interests and ethical considerations
-- Very difficult to determine when the LPO vendor has the liberty to accept work from any client
-- Unpredictability in regular flow of work
-- High attrition – Many firms switch at last minute due to minor changes in fees
-- Complete quality assurances from firms are difficult to get
-- Performance and quality issues while delegating work to somebody who is more than 10,000 km away in terms of monitoring and control

iGATE in top employers

2009-01-19T18:06:00.000+05:30

iGATE, the integrated technology and operations company has been ranked the second best employer in India across all industries in the Business Today-Mercer-TNS Best Companies to Work for Survey.

This follows iGATE's recent recognition as India's number one IT employer in the 'DQ-IDC 20 Best IT Employer Survey 2008'. IGate surged up two notches in 2008 from 2007’s number six position. The company employs 6,500 employees.

Source: bpowatchindia.com

Best National Anthem: INDIA

2009-01-19T18:04:00.001+05:30

Recently UNESCO, announced the Indian National Anthem is the best of all National Anthem in the world.

Wanted: 18,000 qualified Independent Directors

2009-01-19T18:02:00.001+05:30

Mumbai: India Inc needs nearly 18,000 qualified Independent Directors (IDs) to ensure good corporate governance which has assumed a critical importance following the Satyam fiasco.

"The role of Independent Directors is very crucial now in the post-Satyam period. The country needs nearly 18,000 Independent Directors (IDs) to ensure good corporate governance," Founder Director of upcoming Indian Institute of Independent Directors (IIID), C S S Rao said.

The institute, to be set up in Bangalore aims at addressing the increasing shortage of qualified Independent Directors in Indian Inc, Rao said.

The government has estimated that corporate India will need 3,000-4,000 'Independent Directors' within the next few months to comply with Sebi's listing requirements. Nearly 18,000 people would be required to work as independent directors in about 4,500 listed companies.

"The IIID to be established through the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) will train nearly 3,000 Independent Directors every year," Rao said.

A Rs 600-crore investment has been earmarked for the project and 200 acres land has been identified for it. The cost involves acquisition of land, building, creating the educational infrastructure and campus for students, Rao said.

The project is likely to take-off in three months, subject to approvals from the Human Resources Development Ministry and Sebi.

The institute will be operational in 18-20 months and the first batch of can be taken in 2011 for the two-year post graduate courses, leading to an award of a Masters Degree -- Certified Professional Director (CPD)-- with specialisation in chosen fields.

The minimum qualification is that a candidate should be a graduate or a professional having a minimum of five-years experience in a responsible position in any organisation.

When commissioned, the institute with the status of a deemed university, will rank as the world's first autonomous body to train, certify and licence professional directors, provide placements, oversee their performance and conduct in accordance with stringent norms and maintain their high professional and ethical standards.

The oldest Institute of Directors was founded in London in 1903, but this plays a very limited and perfunctory role. Similar bodies exist in Europe and North America. In India, there are two similar institutions, one in Delhi and Chennai.

The rapid growth of corporate sector in India and its projected future size and scale and the emerging legislative amendments, underline the need to equip aspiring professionals with specialised knowledge, skills and ethical values so essential to successfully manage companies, Rao said.

The massive fraud by the promoters of Satyam Computers shows that the country's monitoring and regulatory systems covering the corporate and financial sectors have grave shortcomings, which need to be seriously addressed and rectified with enduring solutions, he added.

Courtesy: PTI

IPod in Park Avenue Blazer

2008-12-15T18:54:00.002+05:30

Now Park Avenue and QIO Systems has launched a blazer with iPod controls, wherein you can put your iPod and control it. Available in ParkAvenue showrooms.

Paper Bottle

2008-12-15T18:52:00.002+05:30

Brandimage (Desgrippes and Laga), a brand and design company, has created the 360 Bottle made of paper, which is 100% renewable. These paper bottles are good for just about any liquid - not just water.

No TeleMarketing

2008-09-18T18:04:00.003+05:30

You can register your telephone or mobile number in the site https://donotcall.gov/default.aspx, to avoid telemarketing receiving in your phone.

Wire Transfer

2008-07-30T14:39:00.003+05:30

(Source: Wikipedia)
Wire transfer is a method of transferring money from one entity to another. A wire transfer can be made from one entity's bank account to the other entity's bank account, and by a transfer of cash at a cash office.

A bank wire transfer is effected as follows:

The sending bank transmits a message, via a secure system (such as SWIFT or Fedwire), to the receiving bank, requesting that it effect payment according to the instructions given.
The message also includes settlement instructions. The actual transfer is not instantaneous: funds may take several hours or even days to move from the sender's account to the receiver's account.
Either the banks involved must hold a reciprocal account with each other, or the payment must be sent to a bank with such an account, a correspondent bank, for further benefit to the ultimate recipient.

Bank-to-bank wire transfer is considered the safest international payment method. Each account holder must have a proven identity. Chargeback is unlikely, although wires can be recalled. Information contained in wires is transmitted securely through encrypted communications methods. The price of bank wire transfers varies greatly, depending on the bank and its location; in some countries, the fee associated with the service can be costly.

Wire transfers done through cash offices are essentially anonymous and are designed for transfer between persons who trust each other. It is unsafe to send money by wire to an unknown person to collect at a cash office.

Transfer Methods:

1. Western Union

One of the largest companies that offers wire transfer is Western Union, which allows individuals to transfer or receive money without an account with Western Union or any financial institution.

2. SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication)

Most international transfers are executed through SWIFT, a co-operative society, founded in 1974 by seven international banks, which operates a global network to facilitate the transfer of financial messages. Using these messages, banks can exchange data for funds transfer between financial institutions. The society also acts as a United Nations–sanctioned international-standards body, for the creation and maintenance of financial-messaging standards.

Each financial institution is provided an ISO 9362 code, also called a Bank Identifier Code (BIC) or SWIFT Code. These codes generally are eight characters long.^[7] For example: Deutsche Bank is an international bank, with its head office in Frankfurt, Germany, the SWIFT Code for which is DEUTDEFF:

DEUT identifies Deutsche Bank.
DE is the country code for Germany.
FF is the code for Frankfurt.

Using an extended code of 11 digits (if the receiving bank has assigned extended codes to branches or to processing areas) allows the payment to be directed to a specific office. For example: DEUTDEFF500 would direct the payment to an office of Deutsche Bank in Bad Homburg.

European banks making transfers within the European Union also use the International Bank Account Number, or IBAN.

Recipe: Chocolate

2008-07-29T19:00:00.002+05:30

Its pretty good site for finding recipes for preparing various categories of Chocolate.

http://www.chocolatemonthclub.com/recipes.htm

Music Search Engine

2008-07-29T18:52:00.004+05:30

I found a new site http://songza.com/ which can search the world music servers and display the list of results. If you click on the search result link,you have the options, SHARE, PLAY, RATE.

Its really great.

To visit http://songza.com/

Microsoft Dancer - Scooby Doo

2008-07-21T16:32:00.002+05:30

Microsoft Dancer - experience the fun of entertaining dancers that groove to beats of the music that's playing on your desktop Plus! Dancer LE is a free trial version of Plus! Dancer that will enable you to experience the fun of entertaining dancers that groove to beats of the music that's playing on your desktop. Microsoft Windows dancer works best with Windows Media Player. But you can also use it with Winamp, RealPlayer, iTunes and etc.

Unlocker Assistant 1.8.7

2008-07-21T16:26:00.003+05:30

Unlocker Assistant 1.8.7: Software

How often have you tried to delete or rename a file or folder and got "Cannot delete xxx: It is being used by another person or program." ? Unlocker is a tool which will help you overcoming this scandalous Windows bug.
Simply right click the file or folder and select Unlocker. If the fileor folder is locked then a window will appear with a list of processeslocking the file or folder. Select the locks and click Unlock and you
are done.
It is recommended to Unlock wisely and to close open processes locking files or folder if any, but if only Explorer.exe is the culprit, do not hesitate!

FormatFactory - Multifunctional media converter

2008-07-09T15:19:00.003+05:30

FormatFactory - multifunctional media converter

You can download from www.formatoz.com

Provides functions below:
All to MP4/3GP/MPG/AVI/WMV/FLV/SWF.
All to MP3/OGG/WMA/M4A/WAV.
All to JPG/BMP/PNG/TIF/ICO/....
Rip DVD to video file.
MP4 files support iPod/iPhone/PSP format.
Source files support RMVB.

FormatFactory's Feature:
1 support converting all popular video,audio,picture formats to others.
2 Repair damaged video and audio file.
3 Reducing Multimedia file size.
4 Support iphone,ipod multimedia file formats.
5 Picture converting supports Zoom,Rotate/Flip,tags.
6 DVD Ripper.

Weekend Purchase

2008-07-07T11:26:00.002+05:30

போன வாரம் சென்னை பெரியமேட்டில், இரண்டு சூ வாங்கினேன். மொத்தம் ருபாய் 2000. ஒன்று வார நாட்களில் உபயோக படுத்த, மற்றொன்று, வார கடைசியில் உபயோக படுத்துவதற்கு.

Valuable Sites

2008-06-28T13:30:00.002+05:30

Visitors,

Some of the sites, I found valuable are listed below.

www.photoseek.com - for world photo search
www.imagesbazaar.com - for biz photos to be added to company site
www.allposters.com - for all type of photos that can be framed and imported
www.reshade.com - for enlarging the small photos without losing the quality
www.ebooksbay.org - for e-books
www.openoffice.org - for free Office documents editing software
www.sendspace.com - for easy, free upload of files to share with friends
www.mailutilities.com - for mail related tools
www.findsounds.com - for searching sound files of type WAV, MP3, AU, AIFF etc of any size

More to come...

WinXP SP3 Tested / Released

2008-06-28T12:48:00.000+05:30

I have downloaded the WinXP SP3 and installed to my new machine. It have pretty good updates. For more information, visit http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=68C48DAD-BC34-40BE-8D85-6BB4F56F5110&displaylang=en