MphasiS restores shift allowance for apps staff

MphasiS has restored the day-shift allowance of Rs 300 per day for employees at its applications delivery division with effect from June 11. The EDS-owned company had withdrawn this allowance from June 1 following a review of its shift policy sometime last month.

This allowance was being given to applications delivery employees at levels 1-7 (those with up to seven years of work experience) doing the day shift beyond 10 pm everyday.

The shift allowance of Rs 500 per shift for employees working between 10 pm and 6 am remains untouched. The company had also spared on-call allowances given for shifts undertaken on weekdays and weekends/holidays for applications and infrastructure technology outsourcing staff.

An employee is expected to work for a minimum of six hours to be eligible for shift allowance. The spokesperson for MphasiS could not be reached for comments.

The move to revoke the day shift allowance had attracted criticism from many employees in the company's applications development and delivery division, who felt that they would lose Rs 1 lakh (Rs 100,000) or above in earnings every year. Shift allowances have been a key incentive for many employees joining the company.

MphasiS has been keen on cutting down variable costs in its operations, though margins in the third quarter 2008-09 have been 'satisfactory,' sources said.

About 75 per cent of MphasiS employees are understood to be working on different shifts.

Under the current rules, employees who extend their work hours because of an operational emergency, are eligible for shift allowance. Shift allowance is also provided to employees in production and operations, while those in training, parallel operations, knowledge transfer and on the bench do not qualify for this benefit.

The company's applications development and business delivery division has around 15,000 employees. The application business represented about 63.80 per cent of MphasiS' total revenues in the second quarter of fiscal 2009. The ITO business fetched 18.70 per cent of total revenues. MphasiS has a total workforce of around 34,000 people.

For the second quarter ended April 30, MphasiS reported a 219.10 per cent growth in profit after tax at Rs 224.50 crore (Rs 2.25 billion) from Rs 70.30 crore (Rs 703 million) earlier.

Total revenues for the year crossed Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion), with consolidated top line at Rs 1,048.50 crore (Rs 10.49 billion), increasing 52.30 per cent from Rs 688.40 crore (Rs 6.88 billion) in the same period fiscal 2008. The company hired 3,822 people, including 117 freshers, to support growth during the quarter.

How can the common man own a house?

Back in 2000, the average Briton could hope to buy a house with four years' salary. By the middle of the decade, as real estate prices rose, the Britisher needed seven years' earnings to pay for a typical house; and in 2007, at close to the height of the housing boom, a government-backed housing body warned that a house could cost 10 years' salary--making home ownership an impossible dream for many.

So is there a link between income and house cost? If we assume there is, what should the relationship be? Research by a United States non-profit body that looks at housing issues says that affordability should be defined as a house that costs about three years' salary--assuming 10 per cent down payment on the house and 28 per cent of the salary going towards the mortgage payment.

HDFC says that the multiple that operates for housing in a Mumbai suburb is between 4.5 and 5.25 times annual salary.

If 85-90 per cent of the cost of a flat is taken as a loan, and a 15-year loan has a monthly repayment instalment that is 1 per cent of the loan amount, then simple arithmetic tells us that 40 per cent of income is needed to pay back the loan.

Now, the average (or median) Indian family earned about Rs 1.31 lakh (Rs 131,000) last year, or Rs 11,000 a month. Can it afford to pay Rs 4,400 every month on a housing loan, for a modest one-bedroom flat that costs Rs 6.5 lakh (Rs 650,000)? Probably not.

But if it could, or if it had a little more income, would it get a flat for Rs 6.5 lakh? Not in the big cities. The Delhi Development Authority, which is not known for quality work, sells a one-bedroom flat (450 sq ft) for Rs 8-10 lakh (Rs 800,000 to Rs 1 million); the open market rates are at least twice as high.

So it is easy to see why most middle-class Indians see home ownership as a distant dream.

But hold it; flats are now being offered for Rs 4 lakh (Rs 400,000) by Tata Housing (covering 280 square feet, which may mean a room plus kitchen). A 450-square foot (one-bedroom) flat would cost the magical sum of Rs 6-7 lakh (Rs 600,000-700,000).

Jerry Rao, the banker-turned-IT entrepreneur-turned-housing evangelist, has set up a housing company that will offer flats for Rs 7 lakh--with construction cost in the region of Rs 700 per square foot. These entrepreneurs seem to be dropping the total cost from Rs 2,000 per square foot to Rs 1,500.

If they are successful, others are bound to follow their lead. And housing might then become affordable for the average Indian, if not quite the aam aadmi that the politician has in mind.

The big real estate companies, which have been focusing on housing that costs Rs 4,000-6,000 per square foot and more, have seen the light--in part because they have found no takers in today's real estate slump. So they have slashed prices, in some cases by a half, and have been rewarded with a rush of buyers.

The problem in India is that much of the cost of the roof over your head is on account of the land beneath your feet--which has been kept hopelessly expensive by the politician-builder nexus.

This has prevented more land from coming into the housing market, which is why upscale flats in Delhi and Mumbai rival the costs of those in Manhattan (where the typical flat costs Rs 6 crore -- Rs 60 million).

If more land were thrown into the market, home ownership would not remain a dream for the majority, it would become reality.

'Booing by Indian fans fired us up'

England captain Paul Collingwood and his men were fired up to win their crucial Twenty20 World Cup Super Eight match at Lord's after they were booed by Indian fans during and prior to the game.

"A lot of English supporters were there (to watch the game) but we got booed at the home of cricket by the Indian fans. It felt bit strange to be dealt so on our own home ground at the home of cricket. So that gave us a bit of motivation," Collingwood said after his side's three-run win.

"We were also booed during nets while coming off nursery and it hurt a few people (in the team). Our performance showed how much we wanted to do it," he added.

Collingwood could not hide the glee that their plan to pepper Indian batsmen with short-pitched stuff actually paid off.

"We were conscious (of Indians' vulnerability to short-pitched ball). We know our plans against India at best of times. To bowl short balls in Indian conditions is very hard to do. We had an opportunity to do it here and we gave it our best and tried to get it up there.

"We have excellent seamers. We have guys who can bowl 90 miles an hour and that's a great weapon to target teams with. Our seamers are versatile, have the skills to do it and could hold their nerves even against best hitters like Yusuf Pathan and Dhoni," he said.

Collingwood said he was sure of a victory at the end of 17th over as India required 39 from the final three overs.

"I had an over each from Anderson, Broad and Sidebottom left. I was confident because they are steady under that kind of pressure," said the England skipper.

He admitted the stumping of Yuvraj Singh by wicketkeeper James Foster played a big part in the game turning towards his side's favour.

"The excellent catches in the deep, the brilliant stumping by James Foster off Yuvraj played a vital role," he said.

Tamil Nadu sanctions Rs 550 cr for Chennai Metro

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government has sanctioned Rs.550 crore for the first phase of the Chennai Metro Rail project, Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said here on Wednesday.

"For the phase one of the project, the state government has sanctioned Rs.550 crore and the central government Rs.13 crore," Stalin told reporters here after inaugurating the piling work for building an elevated viaduct for the Rs.14,600-crore project.

The rapid transit project, which is expected to go on stream by 2014-15, is being implemented by a special purpose vehicle Chennai Metro Rail Ltd.

Stalin said 59 percent of the project cost will be funded by a concessional loan from the Japanese government.
The central government will contribute 15 percent as equity and 5 percent as debt, with the balance being funded by the state.

The first phase of the project consists of two corridors with a combined length of 45 km.

The 23.1-km long first corridor will run from Washermanpet to the Chennai airport via Anna Salai, while the the second one will run from Chennai Central to St.Thomas Mount via Koyambedu.

A five-member consortium led by Egis Rail SA of France have been appointed as general consultants to assist Chennai Metro Rail in design, supervision, quality control and safety of the project.

Learn our ways or leave Oz, Facebook group tells migrants

Social networking website Facebook has been creating quite a stir across the world on various social and political matters. First, there were groups against the Iran President that made the government of Iran ban Facebook; now a new group that is asking immigrants to leave Australia is making news. Others with similar undertones also exist. The rapidly growing group, which says Australia is 'full' and urges immigrants to 'learn the language' or enjoy their 'right to leave' has attracted nearly 64,500 members. Indian students have been facing unrelenting attacks Down Under, the latest being a 24-year-old Indian student from Gujarat who was attacked by a group of men in Melbourne. Hardik Bipinbhai Patel, who hails from Surat, was attacked by three people while he was about to enter his car on Friday night. Earlier, concerned over the on-going attacks on its students in Australia, India issued guidelines for those wishing to study there which included immediate registration with the Indian High Commission or Consulate and seeking details of local security situation. India also emphasised that Australian government should ensure that such attacks are stopped as it was its primary responsibility and noted that Canberra was doing "more than they can" in this direction. The attacks have Australian leadership worried also. Australia's top diplomat in India has admitted that the spate of attacks on Indians in his country has "damaged" bilateral ties and fears that the upcoming free trade talks may remain 'quarantined' among other things as a fallout.

It's end of the road for 10,000 Satyam staff

HYDERABAD: It was a pink Friday at Satyam Computer Services, as over 10,000 employees of the beleaguered IT firm were preparing for an unhappy holiday. Over one fourth of Satyam’s workforce was a part of the virtual pool, an exercise implemented by its new owner Tech Mahindra to downsize the excess staff.

The Pune-based IT firm had announced a plan to send the excess staff on a sabbatical to address higher staff costs, which account for more than half of the company’s expenses currently. The pool constitutes of about 14,000 associates, who were on bench for the last three months.

The usual din at the Satyam headquarters was replaced by an unusual silence as anxious employees paced in and out of the campus.

ET spoke to associates from various bands categorised under the virtual pool. In a mail to the employees, the Satyam management asked to them to pursue other interests for the stipulated timeframe. These employees will now have to come to the company with a prior appointment even on a day-to-day basis.

All the associates are classified under bands with the ascending levels being S, T, B and I. “The management is not clear on the criteria for the classification. I was on the bench for the first time since I joined the company three years ago. We are left with no choice, as the job markets continue to remain cold. Not only this, we will not be able to bargain better salaries despite our experience,” said an employee from the T band.

Most of the virtual pool employees are under the S and T band. “It’s just a sugar-coated way of asking us to leave the company. We are now worried about our personal financial obligations. With the reduced salary, we will not be able to meet any of them,” said another employee, who was with the company for six years.

However, when contacted the company spokesperson said the virtual pool programme gives employees an opportunity to come back depending on the business demand. They will continue to be a part of Satyam and have to resource for their skill enhancement programmes from home, he said. Under the virtual pool, an associate can draw about 40% of his current salary, including medical insurance and provident fund for a period of four to six months.

“In spite of drawing a merit rating in the performance assessment, the virtual pool initiative was imposed on me. It comes as a shock,” said a Satyam employee.

Not just them, but associates, who have not yet been given the lighter shade of pink slip, are jittery about their future. “Many employees are currently dismayed as the future is uncertain. I can also be on the hit list in the next couple of months,” said a senior executive.

Few employees also retaliated that a much stronger move in line with the public sector units would have saved the employees. “A public sector unit will never pass on the losses to the staff. Though it’s hard to expect the IT sector to work in these lines, a staff union in place would have helped us,” said an agitated employee.

For most Satyamites, the virtual pool programme means the end of an ambitious and illustrious career at the firm that was India’s fourth largest IT exporter.

Knives banned in Chennai jails

How do you prevent prisoners from attacking each other with deadly weapons? The solution partly lies in the kitchen! A day after a life convict `Welding Kumar` was stabbed to death by another inmate in Chennai`s Puzhal Prison with a kitchen knife, jail authorities are planning to outsource cut vegetables.

Often kitchen utensils and other implements are used as weapons in prison gang wars.
Interestingly, the prison manual says only boneless chicken and mutton can be served to non-vegetarian prisoners because bones can be used as weapons! Even fish is not allowed because the fins can be used as sharp objects!

Says DGP (Prisons) R Nataraj: "Apart from kitchen knives, there are also garden implements that could be used as dangerous weapons."

Two jail officials have been suspended. Another interesting fact is that most fights among prisoners take place in the afternoon when they are relatively idle.

"We now need to keep them occupied in the afternoons and also beef up our security during afternoon sessions," Natraj says.

A common joke is that sure shot places to get drugs are our prisons!

The Tamil Nadu prison department may soon set up a counter intelligence wing to indentify jail staff who help prisoners smuggle in banned items.

Dismal job market for graduating U.S. students

BOSTON (Reuters) – Facing the worst job market in a generation, students graduating from America's universities say they are willing to do just about anything for work.

Some are taking unpaid internships, publishing blogs to document their troubles, applying to nonprofit organizations instead of more lucrative private-sector jobs or even moving back with their parents.

Mike Rubino, who studied public relations at Boston University, had never considered a career as a teacher. But as the end of his final year of college neared with the U.S. economy in a tailspin, he had a change of heart.

After watching his classmates scramble for the same limited pool of jobs, Rubino sent his resume to Teach for America, a nonprofit AmeriCorps program that enlists graduates to teach in low-income rural and urban public schools for two years.

He got the job a month before graduation.

"I realized how lucky I was that I had a guaranteed two-year salary," he said.

Only 43 percent of employers in a survey by online job website CareerBuilder.com intended to hire new college graduates this year, down from 56 percent in 2008 and 79 percent in 2007. The site surveyed about 2,500 hiring managers and human resource officials from February 20 to March 11.

The survey also showed that one in five employers plan to reduce starting salaries for college graduates from what they were last year.

"A lot of students think, 'I may not get the job I want right now so I might as well do this and put that other job on hold,'" said Dick Leger, director of Boston University's career services office.

Rubino is not alone. More than 35,000 people applied to Teach for America jobs this year, up 42 percent from last year, said Teach for America spokeswoman Kerci Marcello Stroud. Even graduates from America's most elite schools applied.

Eleven percent of all seniors at Ivy League schools such as Harvard University and Yale applied to the program.

Nationally, less than 20 percent of graduating college seniors who applied for a job this year have one, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. That's down more than 30 percent from two years ago when more than half of those who applied for a job had one by the time of graduation.

'NOT GOING TO LAND MY DREAM JOB'

University of Missouri journalism graduate Carrie Bien has taken an innovative approach to youthful joblessness by documenting the trials of finding work on a blog, "The Final 30 days," that illustrates a big shift in expectations among many graduating American students.

"I have now come to terms with the fact that right out of college, no matter how hard I worked in undergrad, I am not going to land my dream job," she wrote in one entry.

The blog gives her a platform, however, to demonstrate writing skills to prospective employers in her chosen field -- corporate communications and public relations.

"Not only can I submit a writing sample but I can submit this blog for them to check out that's live and updated regularly," she said in an interview.

The shrinking pool of jobs has also made internships, even unpaid, more attractive, giving new graduates a chance to make contacts that could lead to jobs when the economy improves, said Jennifer Grasz, who conducts CareerBuilder's job survey.

"It gives them a foot in the door, helps them network and lets them see if there is an opportunity to work on a more permanent basis within that organization," she said.

If past downturns are a guide, the recession could inflict long-term harm to budding careers, according to research by Lisa Kahn at Yale University who has studied the effects of recessions on wages and job prospects for graduating students.

For each percentage-point rise in the unemployment rate, those who graduated in the early 1980s U.S. recession earned 7 percent to 8 percent less in their first year out than comparable workers who graduated when the economy was better.

And the recession-era graduates earned 4 percent to 5 percent less by their 12th year out of college, and 2 percent less by their 18th year out.

"Our whole lives our parents and everyone around us said 'shoot for the moon', you know, all those cliche things," said Bien, the blogger. "You're always told you can be anything you want to be."

"The truth is we still can, but I think we expect to have it right away, we don't necessarily expect to do the leg work at the beginning."

(Additional reporting by Jason Szep; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

The death of merit

Less than a week after the state govt of Tamil Nadu put in place a system to curb the collection of capitation fees by privte medical colleges, the investigation has caught the officials of two leading medical colleges demanding money to admit students.

Medical Council of India (MCI) on Jun 3 sought report on capitation scam in private medical colleges after a joint investigation of TIMES NOW-Time of India exposed the system of pvt medical colleges collecting capitation fees from students interested in taking admission into Medicine and Bachelor of Dental Science (BDS). The TIMES NOW expose has created a major impact in TN with the state govt now ready to issue showcause notices to both the private medical colleges.

Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry has also taken note of the expose into the capitation scam. It has promised action after studying the transcripts of TIMES NOW's expose.

In one of the most reputed deemed medical universities in Tamil Nadu, Sri Ramachandra University, TIMES NOW has learnt that the price of a seat here is anything between 40 and 75 lakh rupees. But TIMES NOW found out that is just the money to secure a seat. The advertised tuition fees of 18 lakh rupees is over and above this.

This is not just a one-off case. At another medical college in Chennai that belongs to a minister in the union cabinet, the story is no different. TIMES NOW has learnt that the going rate in Sree Balaji Medical College, Chennai is 20 lakh rupees for a seat and another 19 lakh rupees as tution fees. The Chairman of this college is S Jagathrakshakan. MoS I&B.

Court raps taxmen who snoop

The tax authorities have been rapped by the Delhi high court for attempting to snoop on some companies, including Maytas, although they were not the suspected evaders.

Terming a search and seizure operation conducted by the Income Tax department as a 'serious invasion of the privacy and freedom of the citizen,' the Delhi high court has said that such exercises cannot be a 'roving or fishing exercise' by the department.

The case pertains to a search and seizure operation conducted by the department on the EMMAR MGF group in September 2007, when I-T officials seized two laptops of the auditing and accounting firm of the company.

But it so happened that the laptops of the accounting firms also had information pertaining to other clients, including Maytas promoted by the kin of Satyam Computer Services [ Get Quote ] founder Ramalinga Raju [ Images ].

The tax department insisted that accounting firm S R Batliboi and Company should give it 'total and unrestricted access to the laptops' so that it can peruse the information.

S R Batliboi and Company, however, refused the same.

The court also said that since by the exercise of the power 'a serious invasion' is made upon the rights, privacy and freedom of the tax-payer, the power must be exercised 'strictly in accordance with the law' and only for the purposes for which the law authorises it to be exercised.

Coming down heavily on the I-T department for gaining access to two laptops of a 'third party' seized during a search operation, a bench of justices Vikramajit Sen and Rajiv Shakdher ruled that an 'indiscriminate seizure deracinates the personal liberty and privacy of the citizen and is anathematic to law'.

The I-T department also sent the laptops to the CFSL to crack the passwords but it failed, following which the accounting firm filed a writ petition in the Delhi high court requesting it to prevent the department from 'forcibly gaining or securing access to the data' contained in the laptops.

The court, in its order on May 27, directed the tax department to return both the laptops without any information being accessed by I-T officers.

The accounting firm contented that an unbridled access by the tax department into the laptops would 'tantamount to grave professional misconduct and would be contrary to the code of ethics applicable (upon them) as well the obligations contained in Chartered Accountants Act, 1949'.

The court rejected the department's argument that by virtue of section 153C (of the I-T Act) the departments 'dominion is extended over any money, bullion, jewellery. . .or book of accounts or documents seized by them even if it belongs to a third party.'

The court said that 'if this is applicable to all and sundry it would infract and nullify the fundamental rights of the citizen (third or unconnected party) concerned'.