Aadhaar: How to get your unique ID from govt of India

India's ambitious Unique ID project dubbed "Aadhaar", which aims to give every Indian citizen a unique number mapped to biometrics, was launched on Wednesday in the Nadurbar district of Maharashtra. The Technoholik.com team got a sneak peek at the UIDAI (Unique ID Authority of India) tech centre in Bangalore, to tell you everything you need to know about the enrolment process.

The setup
The enrollment officer (EO) sits at right angles to you and enters data into a laptop. The insight of the Aadhaar team here is that the person getting enrolled must see what is being entered. Thus there's a monitor in front of you, which mirrors the enrolment officer's screen so that you can point out spelling mistakes or other errors. If the person getting enrolled is illiterate, he or she can nominate someone to accompany and verify. There's a small laser printer behind the EO's laptop and a webcam, fingerprint reader and iris scanner account for the remainder of the hardware setup. Unless, of course, you count the light bulb hanging from the ceiling and a white "roll-up" chart behind you for the "passport photo studio" effect!

Compulsory information
Name (first and last name compulsory but middle name optional), Gender (Male/Female/Transgender) and Date of Birth are the compulsory fields. Whereas postal address is also required, it's more for the sake of mailing your UID number than strictly being a proof of residence. The EO asks you for a PIN code and the city/district fields are automatically populated. The rest of the address is entered manually.

Supporting documents
The UID team acknowledges the fact that a large number of people may not have any supporting documents to prove their identity. In this case, one is allowed to bring another resident who is already in possession of an Aadhaar number to be an "introducer" by vouching for the person seeking to enroll. Of course, there is scope for fraud either with a colluding introducer or by just using fake supporting documents. However, the whole point of Aadhaar is that one can only fake one's identity once and this prevents large-scale "ghost identity" creation, which is the bane of most Indian government schemes. The great PAN (Permanent Account Number with the Income Tax department) card scam after all involved a single person creating thousands of different PAN numbers.

Photograph
A photograph is taken of the person getting enrolled, purely for the purpose of printing it out on the enrolment receipt, so that illiterate residents have some way of knowing that the receipt indeed belongs to them. Beyond that, the photograph serves no biometric or authentication purpose.

Biometrics
First there's an iris scan where you look into a binocular-like device held up to your eyes by the EO. After that it's the four fingers of each hand, followed by both thumbs (a process familiar to those entering the US) for your 10 fingerprints.

The wait
The EO makes you review the data entered one final time before giving you a laser-printed receipt. Whereas the residents of Tembhali, the "Aadhaar village", were to get their numbers today, the rest of us won't be that lucky. We'll only get to walk away with our receipts and have to wait for the actual number to be delivered by India Post!

(Courtesy: TECHNOHOLIK.COM)

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Indian rupee get new symbol

The Indian rupee will soon have a unique symbol — a blend of the Devanagri 'Ra' and Roman 'R' — joining elite currencies like the US dollar, euro, British pound and Japanese yen in having a distinct identity


It was chosen from among 3,000 designs competing for the currency symbol. Winner will get an award of Rs 2.5 lakhs.

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Infosys, TCS, Cognizant, Wipro to stop talent poaching

From the Economic Times:

PUNE: The $50-billion IT industry may be fighting a fierce war for talent as it tries to claw back to a double-digit growth rate this year. But Pune's Hinjewadi IT park is showing that peace can prevail even among the warring companies. Twenty eight residents of Hinjewadi, including top names like Infosys, TCS, Cognizant and Wipro, that once ruthlessly poached talent from each other, have now agreed to work collectively to reduce attrition.

At their first meeting hosted at the Infosys campus in Hinjewadi last month, CXO-level representatives from all 28 companies keenly explored a no-poach agreement, but concluded it was unviable. However, they managed to seal a pact under which they will hire from rivals only after candidates have fully served out notice periods. Earlier, it was common practice for the hiring companies to pay salary in lieu of the notice period. This worked well for the hirer, but caused problems for the old employer who would not have enough time to find replacements. “We met last month and worked out a broad agenda,” confirmed Mritunjay Singh, the Pune head for Infosys and president of the Hinjewadi Industries Association (HIA). Infosys is Hinjewadi's largest employer with 42,000 on it rolls.

The companies have also agreed that new employees cannot join without a relieving letter from the previous employer. Earlier, it was not uncommon for IT professionals to desert jobs without any notice. And they would have plenty of offers to choose from.

All of this will be spelt out in a ‘code of ethics' that will be honoured by the HR departments of all these companies and by their employees. These 28 companies account for 1,00,000 of the 2,50,000 IT professionals employed in Pune. By the same yardstick, they could contribute at least Rs 19,000 crore of the Rs 48,000 crore worth of software exported from Pune last year, though exact figures are not available. These companies have been crippled by 17% attrition leading to an estimated loss of about 5% of total revenues — about Rs 850 crore — every year, says Mr Singh.

Hinjewadi may account for only 6-8% of the sector’s total revenues, but if this peace experiment succeeds, it might find more takers across other IT hubs in the country. The industry, which saw a net addition of only 20,000 people last year, is likely to add some 90,000 to the base of 2.3 million employees, according to industry body Nasscom.

Already, Infosys has reported an attrition of 16% during the past quarter, the highest in 12 months. Nearly 8,000 employees exited during the quarter, a clear sign of the simmering war for talent.

IT companies in India could be losing close to $2 billion annually to attrition, including loss of productivity and expenditure to find replacement, estimates Ganesh Natarajan, vice-chairman and managing director, Zensar Technologies, and head of the CII's IT & ITeS Committee.

“There is a price pressure from customers and also, from the competition. If we do not arrest this attrition now, our profitability will decrease,” said an official from another company, who did not want to be named as his company was in the silent period before announcing results. "Loss of an employee is loss of knowledge. Finding a replacement and getting him to be productive takes 2-6 six months, which makes it a loss of productivity, too,” Mr Singh added.

Perhaps, the Pune experiment may present the industry with a solution. “The step taken by Pune's IT companies is a welcome move and other companies too should follow them," said Sangeeta Gupta, senior vice-president, Nasscom. “We had published a report on corporate governance and ethics. Many of the steps like not buying out notice period, or not giving joining bonus, are some of the steps we had suggested.”

That's the idea the HIA is pursuing. "We have formed a core group, and separate work groups are also being formed. We have decided that all groups will meet once every month,” Mr Singh added. “Through HIA, we (the 28 companies) have collaborated successfully on initiatives in security, transport and infrastructure. So, why not collaborate even though we are competitors and collectively become better?” asks Mr Singh. When he connected with the other companies, he found they too were keen.

The Hinjewadi peace pact will have a bearing not just on lateral hires, but also on campus recruits. Existing talent in Pune has been absorbed fully. More talent has to come only from campuses. “But those that are fresh out of college have high expectations about salaries, with no seriousness about jobs. Such expectations are being set by the colleges and placement officers, who are not in sync with the developments in the industry,” says Unmesh Bathija, vice-president of HIA.

The 28 companies have formed a work group which will craft a unified communication module on the state of the industry and its talent needs. This will be used by the HR teams of all 28 companies in their interactions at campuses. In some ways, these companies are only trying to fix a problem they had created. Hard-pressed for talent, the IT industry resorted to rampant poaching during the heydays of 2007-08. This time around, as the industry looks to get back to growth, they are trying not to make the same mistakes again.

for more details click here
 [http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News-By-Industry/Jobs/Pune-IT-cos-ink-peace-pact-to-end-talent-poaching/articleshow/6169287.cms?curpg=2]

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Officially identified as Melvisharam, and commonly well-known as Visharam from small villages to public department of the states and central offices, perhaps globally. Is a small municipal residential town located in the NH-46, 120 km to the west of State capital Chennai (Madras) and 18 km from the District Headquarter Vellore. The estimated population is around 60,000 with 5% are temporarily settlers. Visharamites are known for their nationalist outlook, pious and liberal feelings.

The non-perennial Palar flows in the north and the Jawadhi Hills lies to the south. The town’s climate is always tropical throughout the year; summer arrives in the month of April and persists till June. The days are hotter with average maximum temperature going as high as 40°C. Nights are relatively cooler with a sudden drop in temperature. The relative humidity remains in the range of 40-50%. The month of June sees the onset of monsoon. Both southwestern as well as the northeastern branches of monsoons bring rains to the town. The average annual rainfall is around 700 millimeters. Winter arrives in the month of November. Days are pleasantly cool whereas nights are a bit cooler to a minimum of 15°C. The average maximum temperature remains in the range of 25°C.

The foremost occupation of the populace is trade in leather and leather products in large and small capacity of different variety followed with a small number of beedi, hardware trading, poultry, and self-employed dignified business. A large part of the population is employed to support the leather industry located in the industrial hub of Ranipet and Kathvadi, trailing with a small work force in beedi manufacturing industry within the boundaries of Melvisharam.

The golden dream of the elders of Visharam who sowed the seeds have cherished with the current ribbon of development in the town in transformation it into a splendid seat of great learning to cater to the educational needs of hundreds of thousands of blooming youths. This small town his blessed with 13 primary, 3 upper primary, 2 secondary, 3 higher secondary school, with PG/Doctorate level arts & science and engineering college and a separate women’s college. The long-established MMES and KH foundation are the lead players to quench the thirst who are in search of knowledge.

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