1 Sentence

Once a King asked his Vizier, give me a sentence which when said in happiness makes one sad, and when in sadness makes a person happy.

After a moments thought, the Vizier answered ...

"This time will pass."

Gap between academia and the industry - A thought

Long time back one of the staff in my university administration commented that an education institution is there to impart degrees not jobs. Was he true or just candid?

Well he was not exactly aware about the processes that are in place to ensure that a graduate lands up with a decent career. There are career counseling cells, Training and Placement Officers and various other units who help a student take next steps for his or her career. There are campus visits by various companies for hiring potential freshers. However these visits are usually limited to professional courses. Educational institutions offering specialized courses attract the highest number of companies from the relevant industry, breeds of the IITs, IIMs and top notch central universities take the lions share when industry goes on a hiring spree.

My point of focus and concern are the educational institutions which lack in their expertise and vision to gear their students for their foray into the big bad world of professional industry. Is it a vision or resources that many institutions lack which result in not-so-ready-for-job graduates and companies think twice before finalizing such an institute for campus visit or simply dont-care attitude. I think latter is not true given the level of competition.

The other side of story
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Industry would love to have some degree of professional skills in the fresh graduates they hire both soft and technical. That is the reason why many companies spend much on induction programs and training sessions for the selected candidates. Big companies have a built-in mechanism for such programs oiled and in-place with time, whilst small companies prefer to hire experienced persons reducing the training cost, if freshers are hired then at a very low CTC than their big CMM level counterparts.

Being on both side of the fence, I do understand and believe that both the academia and industry have their requirements and expectations from each other. Academia would love to have more of industry participation in honing skills of their graduates so that their employability factor . Vis-a-vis industry would care for a more ready-on-the-floor type of hires fresh from college.

So where does the problem lie or rather the solution. Frankly speaking right now I don’t know, but this is a question bouncing in my mind for quite sometime.

Googling and surfing on the net has resulted in some interesting links, articles, case studies and anecdotes which did hinted at the same issue. India is on the good side of a resource pool which is youthful and educated but less employable.

I did come across some good Samaritans who are working in the same direction but with varied paths. One such set-up is co-cubes (http://www.cocubes.com/)

excerpt from their website homepage..

"The word CoCubes comes from the first two alphabets of three words, connecting colleges and companies. The idea is to bring a paradigm shift in campus recruitment by bringing all colleges, recruiters, training firms onto a single platform. We are the pioneers in online campus recruitment and currently swamped with colleges wanting to go online and corporate looking for an efficient and effective campus recruitment process. To know more about us click here "

I know there are many more such helps available and another one doing a pioneering work is http://www.siliconindia.com/ in online mentoring and making easy for graduates to interact with industry professionals.

I strongly believe that this is a need of the hour .. a bridge for the gap between academia and the industry. The more there are such bridges the better it is. Destination should be same 'Enhanced employability of indian graduates', paths can be different.

What say? Any comments.

The Great Delhi Run

Nov 1 2009
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Gearing up...

A beautiful misty morning would have not been more enthusiastic without this marathon. Presence of 30,000 odd delhites and athletes from all over the world made it look like a mini-carnival. But carnival it was, fancy costumes, drums beats, thumping music, laughter and zest were all there. It went successful beyond the imagination of even the planners of the event, people were jostling for space, but nobody was in a hurry. People had come with lots of plan, prepared well in advance for the event.

The Airtel Half-Marathon attracted around 30,000 runners (refer) who competed in one of the four races: the half marathon, the 7 km Great Delhi Run, a 4.3 km run for senior citizens, and a 3.5 km wheelchair race.

I along with my collegues participated the Great Delhi Run which started and finished at Nehru park covering the satya marg, african avenue and vinay marg. we collected at the holding area after parking our vehicles at Race course. The holding area was a huge ground where thousands of people collected and it was difficult to search for someone. A helicopter was hovering above to capture the event. All Appluads to Delhi Police and organizers of the race for such a successful event, yes indeed we delhites showed so much restraint in presenting ourselves as a great sport (in the right manner). It was an international event with people from many different countries running along side.

Check-out the Great Delhi Run Route






Not only did delhites turn up forgoing precious weekend sleep but also there were many famous personalities (like from our film fraternity Shahrukh Khan, Rahul Bose ..), delhi CM Shiela Dikshit, MTV Anchor Nikhil Chinnappa to name a few



The Great Delhi run was a 2 hour affair with race beginning at 9.30 AM and ending at 11.30 AM, but what 2 hours it had been. Great fanfare, enthusiasm and fun. It was no less than a mini-carnival. We had joined with a theme of celebrating Common Wealth Games 2010 hosted by Delhi and pitching for Olympics 2020 for which Delhi is a contender.

Finally at around 12 noon we left the race ground with a great feeling and needless to say headed for the first restraunt in-sight. Although there were many suggestions but we zeroed in on Andhra Bhavan and had a delightful lunch.








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Some more pics from the event

Be careful while choosing a company

While surfing through the net this morning I came across an interesting article on Rediff.com on layoffs right from a manager on other side of table engaged in decision making for some layoffs in his company.

For detailed article go through this link
http://getahead.rediff.com/report/2009/may/13/be-very-careful-while-choosing-a-company.htm

He writes his story and sums up with some pieace of advice as below :

My advice to any management

• Do not hire people unless you are sure about their roles


• Make long-term priorities.


• Employees should not be treated as physical assets but as living beings with emotions. If you are not able to afford them do not hire them

My advice to any youngster or an employee

• Be very careful while choosing a company.


• Small companies are becoming cheats these days by adopting American work policy of hire & fire


• Before joining a company, go for a history check.


• If an employer has the right to verify your professional background, an an employee you too have every right to verify the company credentials.


• Contact its previous or current employees and take feedback from them. You may get the real picture of the company


• While on the interview table, clarify each and every point with your employer.


• Do not hesitate to ask the HR manager to mail you the company's HR policies for its employees


• Last but not the least, do not always blame your manager for the pink slip you have received.

Nano – Changing face of Traffic

A major concern of traffic Pandits, that come Nano and traffic in some cities like Delhi will hit chaos. Traffic apart but this people’s car is surely creating waves. This is one luxury item which is going to penetrate across all segments. People in as humble as a profession like cobbler, pan-wala etc. are eyeing for this once upon a time Sahib’s vehicle. Not only the lower middle class but also the upper middle class segments are vying for Nano. One of my friends (who already owns two luxury cars) pointed out that even though they have enough cars in their household but taking a Nano would ensure you have one for any emergency when no other is available especially for ladies in the home.
Kudos to Mr. Ratan Tata for his dream project which holds the potential of making many a dreams come true. I couldn’t help but share this incidence when I visited two prominent banks and was amazed to see the crowd which was there to book a Nano. Right now banks have associated several personals and designated a counter specifically for these bookings.
What happens to fears of Traffic pundits that time will tell, but right now there is this celebrity which is getting all attention.

So much for words want to have peek into peoples car then browse through this link
http://tatanano.inservices.tatamotors.com/tatamotors/