Need for better technical education

Today there is need for high quality technical education in India than ever before. It is quite evident that there is big deficit in the talent pool and fast growing IT and manufacturing sectors are in dearth of well qualified professionals. Talking about qualification and our engineering, the latter has unfortunately got the image "passport for a quick job"...well it may indeed be as easy as it sounds, but the fact is its not just a quick job but also a cheap job...yup if you took your studies easily and made it into some software company X speaking all "blah blah blah" during the interview, it is most likely that the work they have chosen you for is something which people in abroad detest to do.....but we never realise that and sadly feel elated about how we fooled the interviewer(s) and how we managed to grab fat packages in the MNCs....the truth is we are being fooled...whatever we get paid is by no means comparable to what our counterpart in US would get...

Getting back to remark i made about the lack of qualified professionals, it may sound surprising, isnt it ??? We are producing more than 2-3 lakhs of engineers every year and they are qualified definitely with a BE/BTech or ME/MTech...still there is a shortage ?? Yes, there is shortage of employable engineers...Our engineering college standards have reached abyssmal levels, that even toppers passing out of those colleges remain unemployed..Even if they manage to get employed somehow (thanks to the placements concept, where the employer comes with an intention to pick you up, unlike in off-campus, where they would try to reject you), most of them are least interested in the jobs they are doing and dont have any respect for their work...It should be evident from the fact that almost 70% of the two and half lakh students who appear for CAT every year are engineers...the number is high not because students in India have management bent of mind or they are all most capable future enterpreuners...the reason for such a high number (trust me most of that 70%are people with work ex) is simply because, these engineers are frustrated to do the work they are doing, they just wanna get out of it and MBA provides an easy option to switch....No wonder with the kind of education our engineering colleges provide and the quality of work the infosyss and TCS's of India make them do, these candidates are left with no other option...

So the bottomline is there is an urgent need for quality education, well qualified professors, state of the art infrastructure and knowledge hungry students...which our neighbouring country and competitor China has recognised quite early and has been working on it meticulously.

Do we need politicians ?

Well, while i ask this question, i dont really know what my answer itself is...i may say we dont need them...no thanks... but who are the alternatives??

but i got enough reasons why i should hate them

-They are the most selfish souls on the planet. Inconsolable pains and intolerable troubles faced by aam aadmi doesnt even seem to bother them. If at all there is anything for which these creatures exist -- It is to gaurd their seat for the next tenure and to heap up millions of black money...
- They raise hue an cry over the pettiest of things just to seek attention of particular community and in the process forget about the worst of problems that pose a threat to the future of our country
- Everything seems to wait for these babus, from road constructions to departure of flights.
-It doesnt matter to them if the quality of students in premier institutes takes a hit, all they want is major share of vote bank..
the list simply doesnt end...

Stock Markets -- On a lighter note

How Stock Market Works!!!!!

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to thevillagers that he would buy monkeys for Rs10.The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to theforest and started catching them.The man bought thousands at Rs10 and as supply started to diminish, thevillagers stopped their effort. He further announced that he would now buyat Rs20.

This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again.Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back totheir farms. The offer rate increased to Rs25 and the supply of monkeysbecame so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alonecatch it!The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at Rs50! However, since hehad to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy onbehalf of him.In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers. Look at allthese monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell themto you at Rs35 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell it tohim for Rs50."The villagers squeezed up with all their savings and bought all themonkeys.Then they never saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!! !Welcome to the "Stock" Market!!!!!


(have received this as a forwarded mail....too gud)

The IPO and NFO fever

There is a sudden craze for investments in equities. Whether it is because of sky rocketing sensex that has created new hopes in stock markets or surplus cash with the educated middle class, companies are able to raise huge amounts. IPOs are creating records in terms of market cap raised one after the other. DLF followed by ICICI and now Reliance Power. Junta is not thinking twice to invest in securities. The returns are definitely high and more than in any other form of investment. The present market price of the ICICI or DLF or NTPC are more than 3-4 times their initial selling price. Clearly returns of 200-300%.

The present Reliance Power and Future Capital IPOs have created a new demand for demat accounts and it is not surprising that broking companies have ran out of stamp papers and forms. Any new request or a service request for an exisiting account is taking too much time. Stock brokers are coming up with innovative ways to help the investors buy shares even without a demat account(they allow people to subscribe by giving random DP Ids and by the time shares get allotted, demat account will be opened). Within few hours of the start date, Rel Power is subscribed four times..God knows how much it will be by 18th Jan.. Eventhough the chances are very unlikely (1 among 10 may be allotted shares) that every investor gets the amount of shares he subscribed for, there is no hesitation in peoples mind.

It is not just with IPOs, even in case of mutual funds, the investments have seen a rise of 25% over the last two years. Any New fund is making a killing with investors trying to put their money in diversified portfolios and thus reducing the risk of any loss. Also the tax saving advantage that some of the mutual funds carry is definitely the best option for a long term investment which returns back with dividends from time to time and good amount of tax benifit.

Definitely peoples risk appetite has increased and every has a dream to become a Warren Buffet.

Kudos to Ratan Tata and the team behind Nano

Everyone including the experts and a man on the street alike laughed at the idea of one lakh car and stated such a thing is impossible..but it is been proved from time to time, that nothing beats determination. Very few people have the conviction to fight all odds to realise the dreams they dreamt of. Ratan Tata is one such man and to describe the latest wonder from his production house in his own words

"since we started the project four years back, there has been a steep increase in input costs,but a promise is a promise " . YES SIR, you delivered what you promised. KUDOS to you.

No doubts, the most attractive thing about Nano is its cost, but what is appreciable is the engineering teams' ability to still provide superb features within the budget.

623 cc engine, 20-22 Kmpl, Nice looks, Good interiors, environment friendly and more space...what else..just everything that is needed.

It is indisputably one of the major technological achievements in the recent times by any of the Indian companies. All of us should learn a lot from the Nano story and work with re-newed energies to accomplish even more significant innovations.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I wish all the readers and the visitors to my blog a VERY HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR.
Also as we welcome 2008, this blog enters into its third year of succesful existence, I thank every one of you for your encouragement.

My new year resolution is to blog more regularly about more useful topics.

HAPPY READING