Fresh engineers batch 2010,2011,2012 ,2013 ! ( Hiring /Wanted)

The topic of  the post has nothing to do with the intention of this article. So, if you came into this post looking for a job, you can close this page now or else you can go ahead with this article.

Over the last decade, India became one of the largest IT service providers for the world ( Lets not talk about quality of the service now, that requires another post or one whole book rather). This made the IT service providers of various strata and tiers recruit "engineers"in masses  for providing IT related or enabled services to global clients.

Engineering colleges proliferated, campus recruitment was taken for granted . Quality of education, true engineering knowledge or skills started taking a back seat. No worries , until the "hungry" IT companies were ready to eat up a large chunk of the graduating engineers.  Students enrolled in most engineering colleges took IT jobs and "phoren" onsite opportunities for granted.( Yeah! to show off on Facebook profile and earn in some "stable" currency).

As recruitment started slowing down in 2012, the number of jobs offered by companies at campuses went down. Many placements were deferred too! Now , we have a bunch of  hopeful "engineers" left in dire. The situation may improve for these folks tomorrow. But who's to be blamed for this?. 

The passing out students cant be blamed for lack of jobs. But at least they should be blamed if  they lack basic engineering knowledge/skills or basic soft skills. Some may blame the colleges, but life is an outcome of choices you make. If your focus has been to "jump" into the "engineering" bandwagon just to land on a plum job ignoring the "quality" of the college ,Please don't blame the college. A "due diligence" on the quality of education is "our " responsibility. ( We must understand that the motto of most private colleges is to make "profits" and not to create a bunch of intellectuals).

Brushing up the skills as required by industry and willingness to try out new things , Openness to grab smaller opportunities may be a solution to the stranded engineers. Also,a positive attitude can help tide the crisis .

We shall overcome some day!

Money with PSU banks!

The NPAs of  our esteemed PSU banks are continuously on the rise. As the economy is turning down, the "true" picture is emerging.

While PSU do a fantastic scrutiny while providing loans to the normal public ( a typical home loan approval by a PSU bank takes 5X time when compared to  private banks), the PSU banks seems to be succumbing  with bad loans to "Powerful" folks.

While NPAs to a certain degree are normal in banking business, when it swells beyond a point, it is an indirect punishment to  the depositors and  other honest borrowers who pay back loans on time.

Last week, I was having a chat with a retired PSU bank executive. He had lot of tales on how the bank higher ups forced their subordinates in providing some loans to unworthy creditors. This was all the more evident when they had some superiors who had "bought" their top positions instead of "earning" them. This was one of the ways that they could get a "pay back" on their investment to get into a "posting". Sounds scary. 

Thank God that not everyone is the system is corrupt or else no one would trust our banks. But the increasing NPA trend  looks terrible  and hope we see an end to this trend.

While we cannot do much about this , the one thing that we can definitely do is "punish non-performers"

 Pull out all your money from banks that cannot control their NPAs! 

how safe are bank deposits?

IT express highway! - water woes.

OMR, as it is called was promoted as the "destination" for IT companies in Chennai in early 2000's. No doubt, this promise has turned true to some extent in attracting IT companies on the corridor.

 Ramesh, was one of the those who decided to live and work on the corridor. He bought an house , five years ago. For the last five years, one of the major problems for him has been the increasing maintenance bill. The bill has been swelling primarily  due to the growing "water supply" bill from the tankers. Most of the stretch lacks potable water ( underground water is too salty to be used for any purpose!) and so, fetching water through tanks ( owned by local politicians)is the only option for most of the flats. 

A couple of years ago, when the zone was reclassified into "City limits", residents  rejoiced considering the fact that now the municipality will take care of fixing the water woes. In reality, the panchayat water connection which was available earlier, completely stopped and the reliance on water tankers went up from 70% to 100%. Ramesh almost shells out Rs 10,000 for water almost every month now.( The amount usually goes higher up in summer). 

When the residents association of the flat represented their woes to local counsellor  ( elected representative of the ward), he demanded Rs 1 lakh a month to ensure corporation water supply ( for the 300 flat complex
). When another resident managed to get an appointment with the chairman of the "Water Board", the interview turned futile as the "Chairman" asked him , "Who asked you to buy an house knowing that there is NO water". The resident could do nothing except to shoot back a question "Who asked you to provide the approval , when water was not available". 

Net result:- Residents keep paying the exorbitant water bills apart from paying their EMIs. Traffic problems and incomplete flats are other issues on the road that require another post to elaborate. 

Whenever, government promotes a place as the next destination and the real estate prices shoot up- the middle class/ working class are definitely not the real beneficiaries!

Lesson :-Ensure  basic infrastructure  availability before you buy a flat ( easier said than done :-) )

NSEL/FT/MCX crisis

There has been a stream of articles on the financial papers/blogs about the FT/NSEL fiasco in the last week.
While a very few had forewarned investors about the fiasco, now everyone writes as though that this fiasco was bound to happen.
Blogs/ Papers which had recommended investment in e-series ( e-gold) ,etc are silent on the topic now.

Lessons from the fiasco~

1. Financial experts ( so called!) make more noise than sense most of the times.
2. No one can predict the future accurately ( at least some astrologers can :-))
3. Please understand the investment and risks associated very clearly before you put in your money.

The rule of "Buyer beware" applies to all investment products too.