Vishal Sikka kicks in big salary spikes at Infosys

Infosys has entered a new era of remuneration for senior leadership after promoters hung up their boots to make way for a professional CEO. In doing so, the company has stepped out of the shadows of its founder N R Narayana Murthy's philosophy of compassionate capitalism which hailed the spirit of social equity. Vishal Sikka, the first non-founder CEO brought in to put Infosys back on track, has lifted the fortunes of Infosys, which struggled to grow till two years back. In FY16, Infosys revenue rose 9.1% to $9.5 billion, but it grew 13.3% in constant currency (taking into account currency fluctuations) beating Nasscom's industry average of 12.3%. This compares well with the immediately preceding three fiscals when revenue growth stood at 5.6%, 11.5% and 5.3%, a period during which Murthy made a comeback to restore some of the glory focusing on sales effectiveness and deal wins. Sikka has also built a narrative around Infosys heralding a transition for traditional IT services in a 'software-defined everything' world. He said the turnaround story was real, and rewards followed. Sikka will take home a new compensation of $11 million beginning current fiscal. This includes a base salary of $1 million, $3 million in variable pay, $2 million in restricted stock units (RSUs) and another $5 million in stock options, which would be awarded to him based on Infosys's performance. The revision in his total compensation coincides with the company extending Sikka's tenure by another two years up to 2021. Sikka's package has gone up from $7.08 million previously, which included up to $5.08 million in annual salary, besides a stock option of $2 million. But this created a stir after some of the promoters abstained from voting on the resolution granting him a two-year extension, arguing that the new remuneration went against the company's long held beliefs. Murthy had authored an article in The Economic Times in 2012 where he suggested a ratio of 20 to 25 between the salary of the lowest level professional and the highest compensation paid in the corporation. "These are good thoughts but not always practical. Murthy may have been too idealistic," said Vivek Wadhwa, a Fellow at the Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance in Stanford University. "You have to pay people their market value and align incentives with long-term performance. When large payouts are made based on short-term performance, company opens itself to problems." The changes in Sikka's remuneration are beginning to transform the company's senior leadership compensation as well. Infosys has elevated three executive VPs as presidents — Sandeep Dadlani, head of Americas, Ravi Kumar, chief delivery officer and Mohit Joshi, head of financial services. Sources said the salaries of the new presidents are touching a new high of nearly $2 million that includes stocks and long-term incentives. Infosys said they won't share details of executives' compensation. "Increasingly, there's a sharper differentiation in compensation based on individual or business performance. Companies have recalibrated their compensation structures geared towards global standards. Also with CEO pay on the rise, the traditional ratio of CEO to CXO compensation of 2.2x is increasing," said Anandorup Ghose, partner, talent & rewards, Aon Hewitt Consulting. In FY15, according to data sourced from the last available annual report, the ratio of Sikka's compensation to the median remuneration of the employees (MRE) was 116. Sikka drew $4.56 million as salary excluding stock options and RSUs, while the median salary at Infosys was Rs 5.16 lakh and Rs 4.89 lakh respectively during that fiscal and the preceding one. (see table)In the case of TCS CEO N Chandrasekaran, who drew Rs 21.28 crore as salary excluding stocks, the differential in the MRE ratio was 416. For former Wipro CEO TK Kurien, the MRE ratio to CEO compensation was 169 after he took home Rs 9.1 crore as salary (excluding stock). Anil Singhvi, a shareholder activist and co-founder of proxy advisory firm Institutional Investor Advisory Services (IIAS) said, "I have always argued that the true cost of Infosys wage bill was suppressed because promoter CEOs with substantial holdings took lower salaries. This had a cascading effect on the salary structure, making Infosys a relatively poor paymaster in a manpower driven industry. The lower wage bill was benign on the balance sheet and boosted P/E multiples. This was good for Infosys stock and senior management stock options. It all worked very well in a different era." Source :TOI

Infosys BPO sees spate of senior execs exit

Infosys BPO has seen a number of senior level exits in the last few months. Some attribute it to changes following the assignment of a more direct responsibility for the BPO business to the company's former CFO V Balakrishnan. Others say there has been unhappiness among senior executives because the company did not give them a salary increment this year. Increments were given only to junior and mid-level staff. Suranjan Pramanik, global business head for high-tech, manufacturing and resources, and Purnima Menon, head of marketing, quit the company in the last two-three months. Pramanik was responsible for driving growth of manufacturing, the largest business unit at Infosys BPO. He previously held several leadership roles with Infosys Technologies. Raj Reddy, associate VP and head of global talent planning in Infosys BPO, moved to CSS as SVP and chief HR officer (global) in November this year. Around the same time, Ayan Chakraborty, AVP and Philippines country manager, moved out of Infosys BPO to join TCS e-Serve International as a senior VP and head of new and emerging business. Michael Wong, delivery head of BPO business in China, responsible for client relations, business development and P&L accountability, quit the company a few months back. Ritesh Idnani, COO of Infosys BPO, had left in May to join ISGN, a US-based technology firm offering software solutions to financial services firms offering mortgage. Infosys spokesperson said, " I would like to clarify that the information you have shared of exits has inaccuracies. Therefore, we believe the premise of your story is incorrect and we decline to comment on the story."

Now, Indian translation a click away

Thanks to Sampark, a machine translation system developed by the city-based International Institute of Information Technology, translating Indian languages is now just a mouse click away.

To be made available to the public in September, the machine translation system is devised to translate Indian languages online.

When fully operational, the system can translate English scripts to as many as 18 Indian languages and vice-versa.

Initially, however, the new software will support only six languages. Later, 12 more will be added to the system in the second phase.

According to Professor Rajiv Sangal, director IIIT-Hyderabad, Sampark, developed by a consortium of 11 institutions led by IIIT, offers translation of Indian languages unlike Google which focuses mainly on English.

Over 2.5 million Muslims threaten to leave Facebook: Report

Angry over the removal of certain Islamic pages from Facebook, more than 2.5 million Muslim users are likely to quit the social networking website, according to a media report.

Following the removal of four extremely popular Islamic pages from the website, the Muslim community has expressed anger and a template letter that has been pasted into numerous Facebook pages accused the website's founder Mark Zuckerberg of "ignoring the feelings of more than 2.5 million Muslims", the Daily Mail reported.

The letter reads: "Although you have attended the world's best communication skills courses you have been most successful in growing great hatred and hostility between you and Muslims around the world, but seriously this time you have caused an almost unrepairable [sic] damage."

The letter demanded not only that the pages are reinstated but that new rules are introduced which make it a violation of Facebook's terms to post anti-Islamic comments.

Apart from reinstating the four deleted pages, the letter demanded the website to ban disrespecting Islamic religious symbols and disable any Facebook page which does so.

It warned that unless its demands are met Facebook's "2.5 million Muslim users" will join 'madina.com' - a social networking site for Muslims.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said that the Islamic pages, which included "I love Mohammed" and "Quran Lovers", were taken down because they were being used to 'spam' users, which is against the company's policy.

The letter also accused Facebook of "irresponsible behaviour" for allowing to host "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" pages which sparked controversy for encouraging users to draw portraits of the Prophet.

According to the report, there is no specific ban on images of Allah or the Prophet Mohammed in the Quran but there is one line which is commonly taken to mean that it is impossible for human hands to recreate his likeness. To attempt to do so is an insult to Allah, it is believed.

Madina.com is a site set up specifically for the Muslim community. It pledges to abide by the Islamic principles and encourages unity among the community.

It also asks female users not to use their photographs in their profile.

Google Says China Has Been Renewed Its Internet License

The Chinese government has renewed the Google Internet content Provider (ICP) license, the company announced Friday in an update of an earlier blog posting.If Google had been able to renew its license, it could have meant the closure of its operations in China.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says that he expected Beijing to renew license.Google CEO Eric Schmidt told an industry gathering on Thursday in the U.S. that he was confident it would secure a license.
Google, based in Mountain View, California, has the kind of dominance in the Chinese search market, it is not in the U.S. search engine operated by Chinese competitor Baidu has about 60 percent of the market for Google’s 30 percent.
Losing the Chinese license would be a serious setback for Google, though, China will account for only a fraction of the estimated 28 billion U.S. dollars in revenue this year. China has already shown itself to be the Internet’s largest market with almost 400 million web surfers, and its use is expected to increase in coming years.
Renewal of license to provide Internet content has been in doubt because of the rocky relationship between Google and the Chinese authorities over the hacking of Gmail accounts and censorship of Google search results.
Google’s relations with Beijing have been rocky since the American search giant said it no longer wanted to cooperate with the government online censorship. The notice was prompted by the cyber attack is traced to China.

Twittilate upsets city tweeps

Tweeps the world over are now plagued by a new problem — the growing number of porn tweets on Twitter. Many young twitterati learned the pitfalls of following their favourite celebrity on Twitter when actress Eva Longoria accidentally posted a porn link to her fans on the microblogging site. While Eva’s instance could be termed an honest mistake, the social networking site has now become a haven for users posting links to adult websites and blogs under the guise of fan sites for Hollywood stars.
Explaining the shock that she got following a fan tweet for Matt Damon, Rashmi Menon, a second year student of engineering narrates, “I decided to join in one of the fan postings for Matt Damon and his movies. But to my shock, every other day, a new link that claimed to be pictures from his latest films turned out to be links to various adult websites. There is also this option called ‘twittilate’ — an X-rated extension to the microblogging site.”
Security experts say a new technology permitting the shortening of website names is the main reason for porn links flourishing on Twitter. ML Srinivasan, the CEO of Chennainet, an IT security company explains, “There’s a new shortcut called vit.ly, with which you can paste links of long-named URLs to Twitter in a matter of seconds. This even bypasses Twitter’s 140-character limitation and enables you to post long web addresses.”

Google to stop censoring China web search results soon: CEO

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said Thursday that the Internet giant is still censoring Web search results in China but that will change in a "reasonably short time from now."

"We're in conversation with the Chinese government," Schmidt told financial analysts in a conference call after releasing Google's fourth quarter results.

"Our business in China is today unchanged," said Schmidt, speaking a little over a week after the Internet giant revealed it had come under attack from cyber spies based in China.

"We continue to follow their laws, we continue to offer censored results," Schmidt said. "But in a reasonably short time from now we will be making some changes there."

Schmidt did not provide any further details. Google said last week that it would no longer censor Web search results in China even if that meant it had to shut down its business operations there and leave the country.

Schmidt said Google would like to remain in China. "We made a strong statement that we wish to remain in China," he said. "We like the Chinese people, we like our Chinese employees.

"We like the business opportunities there, but we'd like to do that on somewhat different terms than we have," Schimdt said.

The Google chief executive also said the cyberattacks on Google and other companies which targeted Chinese human rights activists were "still under investigation."

"We believe we've made the necessary technical changes to prevent such a future attack," he said.

Social Media's Role in the Job Search

The Internet has significantly changed how we carry out many everyday tasks. We don't have to receive bills in the mail or go to the bank to check our account balances. Hop online and almost everything we want to do is at our fingertips. Online job hunting has replaced flipping through the newspaper want ads to find that elusive open position.

Another significant addition to the Internet is social media. Social networking sites have suddenly put us in touch with long-lost friends or helped us make new ones. They're like class reunions and dating services rolled into one. And now they've become professional tools, too. You can use your online profile to display your work history and skill set.

As great as these advances are, some people fail to understand that new isn't always better. Sometimes older, more traditional methods are better than the newer, flashier ones. It's something that plenty of job seekers need to realize when they're looking for work and professionals should think about when using their profiles to network.

The job seeker's friend ... and foe
When looking for work, the biggest drawback to social media is the virtual paper trail you might leave. Attorney Robin Bond reminds job seekers that how you interact with friends is probably not how you interact with a boss or even co-workers, so make sure your professional side is what people see.

"Use separate sites for business and personal contacts," Bond advises. "If you were having a party, it's unlikely you'd invite all your party pals to the same event where you were entertaining your boss and work colleagues." For that reason, take advantage of professional networking sites like LinkedIn and BrightFuse for displaying your skills to potential business contacts and employers.

Keep the more irreverent profiles on a separate site and out of the hands of employers. Even then, Bond cautions against posting potentially damaging photographs because it is the Internet and nothing is entirely private.

"If you think your mom would be embarrassed by something you post, then think twice about posting it," he says.

Naturally, the visibility that could ruin your career could also be what gives you one in the first place. David Gammel, author of "Online and On Mission: Practical Web Strategy for Breakthrough Results," sees the value in social media's prominence when used for good.

"If you have posted lots of content under your identity that enhances your qualifications, it will show up high in search results and benefit how you are perceived," Gammel says. "If that content is unprofessional or otherwise at odds with the job you are pursuing, it may stop you in your tracks."

Although social media are an asset, they have yet to become the definitive way to land a position, he says.

"The best way to find a new job is still through a personal referral from someone who trusts you to someone who trusts them," Gammel says. "Social media might be used for communicating, but it won't create that trust. Good old-fashioned relationships will do that."

Remember the 'network' in social network
For professionals who already have a job, and for those who are considering a career move, social media can supplement traditional networking methods. They don't replace them, but they offer new opportunities alongside them.

"I think the biggest problem is that people treat social media and 'the real world' as if they are two separate modes of contact all too often," says Sam Ford, director of customer insights for communications agency Peppercom Inc. "The best answer is to use a combination of the two when searching for jobs, building relationships with potential employers, building out your network, etc. In my own network and in dealing with job prospects, I've found that a combination of the two makes all the difference in the world."

That amalgamation can add another dimension to an otherwise dull online experience.

"I find myself wanting to connect with people on Twitter [and] accepting LinkedIn connections particularly if we've had a strong face-to-face or phone conversation in the past," Ford says. He found that the online component enriches the relationship and wouldn't have occurred had they never interacted in a traditional way first.

Ultimately, what job seekers and professionals interested in networking need to remember is that business doesn't exist only online or face-to-face. Technology is part of everyday business and there are people behind those Tweets and profiles, so you should remember to make both new and traditional methods part of your networking practices.

source:msn

Twittering Tharoor floors city with fan following

“Call me Slushy Tharoor and I can laugh about it; but don’t impersonate me on Twitter,” said Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor at the Bangalore Twitter Meet Up on Friday as he addressed a net-savvy group of about 100 young people. “I think I have the moral right to my identity which I don’t want anyone using; but as far as jokes go, anyone knows I am a satirist myself and can laugh about a good joke,” said Mr. Tharoor, who now has 3,99,380 followers on Twitter.

In an intimate hour-long session with Twitter users, peppered with humour and wit, the Minister, who has been part of many controversies over his tweets on the micro-blogging and social networking site, rubbished all sorts of allegations cheerily amidst a seemingly starry-eyed youth following.

“I joined Twitter to demystify the processes in governance and also so for the element of accountability,” he said. “Though a lot of (misreporting) has caused me political damage, I think it can help me connect with real people,” he said, describing Twitter as “wonderfully self-limiting with its 140-character space.” He mostly tweeted during car rides and late at night. While U.S. President Barack Obama is said to be following 5,00,000 people, he only followed the few he could actually afford to follow. “All the tweets I reply to are each written by me,” he said.

As for the now infamous “cattle-class” tweet, it was a phrase thrown up in the question he was asked, and it was one commonly used in the United States. “I should have known its connotations in a multilingual country, where the word ‘cattle’ has much significance.”

The affable politician-Minister traced his journey from being an unlikely entrant into politics to finally being able to grapple with a political system, which, he says, was not necessarily built for efficiency but surely for checks and balances.

Mr. Tharoor also offered a variety of suggestions from his young fans — from making Twitter mandatory for all Ministers to being able to use it within the government set-up itself.

He ended his interactive session with a story from his constituency, Thiruvananthapuram, where a young girl lost her legs in an accident at an unguarded railway track. “I tweeted about the incident and help poured in from all directions for her surgery and prosthetic legs.”

Japanese rape games invade Indian computers

If you are worried about the effect of violent computer games on your child, here's a shocker: sex games with graphic visuals, including

those which test the player's 'raping skills', are making their way here, mostly from Japan.

Rapelay, a 3D game created by a Japanese firm, Illusion, with a storyline' prodding the player to rape a woman and her two teenaged daughters in a moving train, a park and a restroom, is among the hot picks' in the grey market. A source involved in direct marketing of foreign goods with suppliers in Chennai's Parrys and Burma Bazaar markets told TOI that he sold 20 copies of Rapelay last week to customers who had placed orders in advance and that 50 more copies are expected in a fortnight. The game is available in grey markets in other metros too including Palika Bazaar in Delhi, he added.

Microsoft redesigns MSN, adds Twitter, Facebook

Microsoft Corp. is giving its MSN Web portal a long-overdue makeover and says it hopes the new site will funnel more people to Bing, the software maker's search engine.

Microsoft is ditching the heavy blue background and stack of tiny text and menus across the top of the page that have defined msn.com for a decade.

The new site is cleaner, with a white background and simple, colorful links for "news," "entertainment," "sports," "money," "lifestyle" and "more" lined up across the top.

But it's still clearly a portal, filled with blocks of headlines. The most prominent real estate on the page is dominated by a slide show of the top five stories with big headlines and photos.

Some of what appears on the MSN home page will be picked by editors looking for top stories. They'll get an assist from new software that uses Bing to find hot topics just as they begin to simmer.

Other stories on the home page will appear based on a Web surfer's location or other details gleaned from his or her browsing behavior.

Microsoft's online services business is a money-losing venture, as advertising revenue has failed to make up for the money the software maker has poured into competing with Google Inc. in search.

Scott Moore, the executive producer for MSN in the U.S., said the site's main goal is to drive up Bing's search share. Bing, which launched in June, remains a distant third in search, after Google and Yahoo Inc.

In July, Web search became a two-team race when Microsoft and Yahoo announced that the Bing technology would be used behind the scenes on Yahoo's sites as well. That deal is awaiting regulatory approval.

The MSN redesign also shows Microsoft's growing interest in collaborating with operators of other popular sites, rather than simply trying to compete.

In a slim column on the right-hand side of the page, Microsoft displays Hotmail e-mails and status updates on Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft's own "Windows Live" service. People who have accounts on those services can log in to each to see a list of friends' updates and to post their own.

This refreshed msn.com is rolling out to a small percentage of U.S. users on Wednesday but won't appear for everyone until early 2010.

Google to launch Wave app store

The move will enable developers to write additional software, programs and plug-ins for the online, real-time collaboration tool, which is in beta and has 600,000 users worldwide.

Lars Rasmussen, one of the co-creators of Google Wave, told attendees at the Google Wave user meetup in London last week that Google would "almost certainly" build an app store for the service. "So many developers have asked us to build a marketplace, and we might do a revenue-sharing arrangement," he said.

Application stores are proving to be hugely popular on mobile devices, and Google hopes to extend this success to the desktop. Apple offers just under 100,000 applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, while Google's Android operating system is also starting to take off, with the number of apps being developed for the platform doubling between September and October this year, bringing the total number to around 10,000.

"With an app store specifically for Google Wave however, the potential for something as great, if not greater then than the iPhone app store is a distinct possibility," said Zee Kane, a technology expert with The Next Web. "Already, independent software developers have built and tested Wave applications that handle such tasks as teleconferencing and videoconferencing, but while the Apple App Store sells software only for the iPhone and touch, a Wave marketplace could stock in-Wave applications, along with desktop applications, browser extensions and a world of devices, from laptops, phones, tablets and more with built-in Wave support."

Early reviews of Google Wave have been largely positive, although some users have struggled to find a genuine use for the tool. Some gamers, involved in multiplayer online games, have used the service to co-ordinate missions and organise in-game raids.

Google has not said when the Google Wave app store will go live.

TCS bags multi-million Cardiff deal

India's Tata Consultancy Services' contract with Cardiff City Council for technology services is a multi-million dollar deal that will run over 15 years, a company source said on Tuesday.

Under the deal signed last week, Tata Consultancy will provide a host of IT services for faster and efficient delivery of services in Cardiff.

Tata Consultancy and its rivals such as Infosys Technologies and Wipro are aggressively vying for deals in markets such as Europe and Asia Pacific to cut their dependence on the US, which brings in more than half the sector's revenue.

According to Ovum's Straight Talk service, the deal is reportedly worth £150 million, spanning 15-years.
Under the deal, TCS will help drive the council's mission-critical Strategic Transformational Change Programme.

Tata Consultancy, a part of the diversified Tata Group that spans commodities autos and services businesses, last month beat forecasts with a 29 percent rise in quarterly net profit helped by demand from recession-hit financial customers.

How To Create A Group On Facebook

Facebook groups work just like any other social group member interaction and they are easy to create once logged into your facebook account, but first a little bit about why creating one is important.
Facebook Logo copyright Facebook 2009.
Everyone has interests in subjects they know in and out with great detail and so creating a group is like opening up a membership were others who like the same topics could get together and message each other about the topics, therefore having an online debate and discussion about interesting and related subjects.

But this is just one of many possible uses of a facebook group as there is the posibility of using them as a networking tool, to build up future contacts and business prospects and joint ventures, if you was into the business angle of using the group features in this way.

The pages and the groups feature work well combined together as they can promote sub topics under your main group were the pages act like mini topics for the main group subject.

The endless potential for a facebook group is limitless as there are millions of facebook members online now and loads more joining the site every single day, like Myspace it is a great place to network and find others that are interested in the same stuff as you, for business or for friendship online.

Now creating a Facebook group is very easy.

All you need is a Facebook account and it’s a good idea to build up your profile page there first, before creating a group, people will always look at the profile of someone first before deciding to join a group as it backs up the notion to join a related group.

Then look for the + create a group button, this should be under application settings and once you have clicked to create a group you come to a page that helps to set up your group, the group name, group description and the groups category all are required so enter them there, but the rest on the form fields on that page are not inmportant such as email and city/town, just leave these blank.

Click the blue button that says Create Group

Now you’ll be brought to the next step in setting up your Facebook group, the first part is uploading a photo that will be your grous avatar and one that will be associated with your group. Once you have a good photo to add check the box above the upload button to certify that your photo is yours and doesn’t vilate copyright etc, then click the upload button.

In the next box, you ave the option of adding your website if it’s related which it should be to what ever your group is going to be about, because you want to direct some traffic your way to your website.

All the check boxes you are presented with I would leave them all checked and the options like members adding photos,videos and links I would leave checked or enabled because you want to add a gret deal of interactivity to your group or what’s the point.

Acces to your group could be one of three depending on the circumstances to which you need to have the group

Open – This is the one you want, when you have the group up and ready to accept new members they can join instantly and can see all the parts of your group

Closed – This is so the admin of the group can view requests for new members to join and accept or reject them.

Secret – A useful option if you need to gather some good content first before you open your group, no one can see it while it is secret.

Now go to save, a box will appear that says you can publish, click publish!

Your group is now finished depending on one of the three options you entered in your set up.

Now lets go over what you can add to your facebook group.

Links – Adding useful and related links to your group is easy and this is important as you want to provide value to your members when they join and having somewhere to go within your group just provides a sticky point for your group, make your links highly relevant and useful.

Videos – Also the same applies to videos, the most useful and engaging videos works the best, humourous, instructional, news, insightful and any other video type can be created and uploaded, so try lots of variations.

Photos – Photos related to your sites content work quite well too and these could be tied into your links and videos and provide insights into you or some area that your group relates to.

Now when you go to your groups home page, you will have your photo as the first member of the group and then a section called the discussion board and the wall, which anyone could write anything in, but this is mainly for you to add any updates and other useful stuff, but later on this will be your communication area, where you will be kept up to date by all the other members that join your group who choose to bring discussions to you either by the board or the wall.

The only thing with groups is, you have to keep updating them and keep active in them or else people will get bored and not come back, so the trick is to be just yourself, be polite and friendly and reply to anyone who leaves a link or photo or a wall comment.

Below your groups picture you have a few options to edit your group and other features, lets go through each of them!

Message all members – This is exactly what it says, you can keep people updated with what’s going on with your group with a simple message, you could have events going on, or a newsletter or something else of great importance for your group to announce, so do it here!

Promote Group with an ad – This is where you can create a facebook ad, of course you have to pay for this, but it could be worth doing later down the road if you are serious about building up your group, a little paid promotion works wonders every now and then.

Edit Group – This is your option to change or add things to the group, mainly the name and description of your group and your group picture, also you can make members into officers within your group which mainly means adding labels to your best contributors in your group.

Edit Members – This is your chance to edit the members that you have and you can locate any one member here, get rid of the idiots and generally an admin area for the members fo your group.

Invite People To Join – You can invite others to join, maybe you have facebook friends elsewhere who may be interested in your group, this is your chance to invite them here.

Create Related Event – Here you can create a related event that may be of interest to anyone else, maybe you’ve organized a get together in person at a selected venue or an online video chat or something that relates to your group, this is the option to announce it directly to your group members all in one with specific dates and times.

Leave Group – This only applies to others really so don’t click it!

Share + – You can email or send group stuff to your profil on facebook which makes it helpful to reach a wider audience, only if you have related contacts in your groups subject.

And there we have it really, making a Facebook group is very easy and one that should’nt be stressed over, just remember to build interactivity into your groups and make them a place to go for your topic, also you could create other related sub topic groups and link them all together, making your facebook group become a super group on a topic with lots of other topics under your main one.

Facebook pages could also be added within your group for extra in depth niche marketing and group interaction.

Good luck with your Facebook groupies!!

Rs 1 lakh-bid to spend a day with Narayana Murthy

How much are you willing to shell out to spend a day with Infosys chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy? Perhaps Rs 1 lakh? That’s exactly
what Indian School of Business (ISB) students bid in ‘Shadow a CEO’ programme.

Among the 26 business leaders who participated in this programme to celebrate the ‘Joy of Giving Week’ initiated by the Give India Foundation, the highest bid was for Narayana Murthy. Sources told TOI the next highest bid was Kumar Mangalam Birla but refused to divulge the amount.

The online bidding was between September 21 and 23 and process gathered momentum with the maximum bids received in the last 12 hours.

There were totally 1,196 bids, bringing the academic, corporate and social sector together. The top three bidders for each CEO will be evaluated and a final decision will be made early next week.

Management students will be able to spend a day with a CEO of their choice.

PSLV is 16 and going strong

It was a sweet 16th birthday on Wednesday for India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The first PSLV was launched on September 23, 1993 from Sriharikota but unfortunately it burnt down into the Bay of Bengal. Old-timers recall with mixed emotions the sight of a weeping G. Madhavan Nair, the then mission director, who was hugged and consoled by Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.
“In 16 years, we had 15 successive and successful PSLV launches,” said Dr Nair. He said over the years PSLV has emerged as an internationally acclaimed satellite launch vehicle that is as reliable as European Space Agency’s Ariane, USA’s Delta and Russia’s Soyuz rockets.
That India has emerged as a global player became clear when the Isro chairman said Sriharikota could see four PSLV launches every year from 2010 onwards.

We over-hired: Infosys COO Shibulal

Infosys Technologies Ltd, India's second-ranked software exporter, said the business environment is challenging and clients are cautious in spending, although pressure for price cuts has eased. The company, which employs more than 100,000 people, is not seeing any reason to accelerate hiring at this point of time due to the uncertain business environment, Chief Operating Officer Shibulal said. "We are very honestly over-hired," he said. "There is a very slight blip of activity, but there is nothing to tell me it (a recovery) is secular in nature."

Hopes of a pick-up in demand for outsourcing, which had been hit by the global downturn, increased after major Indian IT firms including Infosys beat street estimates in their April-June earnings and announced some large deals in the recent months.

But Infosys officials said on Tuesday that decision making by clients continued to be slow. "The situation is still quite challenging," S.D. Shibulal told reporters at Mysore. "If you look at our customers, they are not really seeing any increase on their revenue side. And because they are not seeing any increase on their revenue side, they will continue to be concerned."

The head of Nasscom, India's leading IT industry lobby, said signs of recovery in the United States were yet to translate into real business growth for outsourcing firms, though a pick-up was expected in the second half of the year.

Infosys Chief Executive S. Gopalakrishnan said he expected technology spending by the company's clients to be flat in 2010 from the previous year. Ahead of the news, shares in the company valued at about $27 billion, closed up 0.9 percent, underperforming a 1.5 percent rise in the benchmark index. The company's shares have doubled so far in 2009, outperforming a 70 percent rise in the broader market.

LARGE DEALS YET TO COME

Infosys has forecast its first annual revenue fall for the year to March 2010 on demand for fee cuts by its overseas clients. Most negotiations with clients on price cuts was over and the company was not seeing a second round of such talks, Shibulal said, but large deal flows were yet to resume.

"Overall, deals above $500 million which used to be there before the downturn, they have not reappeared in significant manner," he said. Infosys and local rivals Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro last month won IT services contracts from oil and gas major BP Plc.

Shibulal said Infosys' share of the contract was worth $116 million over five years.

IT's back to business as hiring, hikes return

Six months ago, Indian IT looked like it was staring into a long, dark tunnel—one that might take at least a year to get out of. Today, however, IT there’s already a hint of a light at the other end. Information infrastructure company EMC has just announced that it will invest $1.5 billion in India over the next five years, a level of investment from a single company that the sector has not seen in close to two years.

Manpower supply company TeamLease that saw its open positions drop dramatically from 10,000 a month to 800 post the Wall Street crash, has in the past two months seen those numbers rise to 3,500. Wipro has lifted its freeze on hikes and promotions, at least for some employees.

Partha Iyengar, regional research director in Gartner India, says the number of calls the company gets from customers for directions and consulting has gone up sharply in the last 3-4 months, “indicating that a large number of IT deals will hit the pipeline in the next two quarters”.

The Indian IT industry was one of the worst hit by the recession on account of its almost complete dependence on international markets—especially the US and Europe. The freeze on IT budgets by companies around the world meant that new orders dried up. Industry association Nasscom initially forecast that IT exports would grow by 22-24% in 2008-09, but as the recession deepened, this was revised down to 16%. For this fiscal, the association has projected a mere 4-7% growth to $48-50 billion.

But optimism is making a tentative return. “That phase of drastic downturn is behind us,” says S Ramadorai, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services, India’s biggest IT company. “There’s stability now. The deal pipeline is encouraging, but the time it takes to close a deal remains long. And many customers are yet to fully open up their IT budgets.”

Ashok Reddy, MD of TeamLease Services, says employee rationalisation measures have tapered off. “Hiring is slowly returning, more so in the temporary hiring space,” he says. The badly hit banking and finance vertical now accounts for a quarter of TeamLease’s open positions. Sachi Gerlitz, CEO of IT services firm Ness Technologies, remains cautious though: “Things have improved quite a bit, but nobody has a crystal ball. Everyone is sending mixed signals. But whatever it may be, enterprises should continue to invest, to reap the benefit when markets start looking up.”

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Ash and Yuvraj are dangerous on internet

The latest annual list compiled by the Internet security firm McAfee has named cricketer Yuvraj Singh and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as the top two most dangerous Indian celebrities to search online.

Yuvraj Singh tops the list with Ash on number 2. They have overtaken Katrina Kaif, who topped the poll last year as the riskiest Indian celeb on the web.

According to McAfee, fans searching for celebrity downloads, wallpapers, photos or screen savers have a one in five chance of landing at a website that’s tested positive for online threats such as spyware, adware, spam, phishing, viruses and other malware.

So searching for the latest celebrity news and downloads can sometimes seriously damage one's computer.

The other celebrities on McAfee’s top ten list include M.S. Dhoni, Namitha, Shriya Saran, Harbhajan Singh, Sania Mirza, Asin, Bipasha Basu and Shahid Kapur in that order.

"Cricket and Bollywood are two subjects which every Indian is passionate about. It is no surprise that cybercriminals capitalise on celebrities from the world of sports and cinema to lure innocent fans to encourage the download of malicious software in disguise," said Kartik Shahani, regional director, India, McAfee Inc.