Infosys offers job to 18,000 engineering graduates

Infosys has stepped up its campus hiring this year and has issued some 18,000 offers to engineering students, 40 per cent more than the previous year.

“We have visited 1,000 of the 1,700 engineering colleges and made some 18,000 offers,” said T.V. Mohandas Pai, Head of Human Resources, Infosys Technologies.

The engineering students, to whom the offers are made this year, are expected to join the company in mid-2008.

Infosys had issued some 13,000 campus offers last year, of which 9,700 of them had taken the offer and joined the company this year. “Of the 18,000 offers made this year, we expect 13,000-14,000 to join the company next year,” he said.

The company expects to recruit 40 per cent of its employees from the campus and would depend on lateral hires for the rest. It is incurring a training cost of $175 million this year, he said.

Campus Connect

Infosys added 8,453 employees on a gross basis during the September quarter and continues to invest in creating a strong training and recruitment engine. “Our Campus Connect programme to enhance the quality of engineering talent in colleges has been extended to 360 colleges with the participation of more than 31,000 students,” Pai said.

“Consequently, we have seen a qualitative change among our new employees. Along with Project Genesis, which is aimed at college graduates for our BPO business, Campus Connect will deepen the talent pool. We have so far trained 1,217 faculty in various engineering and other colleges,” he said.

Rise in attrition rate

Infosys reported a slight increase in its attrition rate to 14.2 per cent from the earlier 13.7 per cent for the September quarter due to seasonal factors, wherein the junior employees leave the job to pursue higher education.

http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14541974

Why are foreign tourists overcharged in India?

Foreign tourists in India often find themselves paying higher entry fees than local people at historical monuments.

While a foreigner pays Rs 250 at World Heritage Monuments like the Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra and the Qutab Minar here, the fee for an Indian is just Rs 10. Similarly, at monuments like Hawa Mahal, where Indians pay Rs 5, foreigners are charged 20 times the amount.

"I am a guest in this country, so why am I being charged high prices at every place I visit," asked Joseph Ramos from the Philippines who was visiting the 13th century Qutab Minar monument. It was his first trip to India.

A German tourist, Heidi Blum, said she had to shell out Rs 30 for a samosa but found out that the snack was available for as little as Rs 5 in most places.

"I can't believe I gave six times the amount that local people pay. This is not right," she said.

Some shopkeepers justify the high prices saying in terms of dollars or euros, it does not amount to much for a foreign tourist. But the fact remains that there is discrimination.

The issue needs to be addressed at a time when the high voltage Incredible India campaign is on to bring more visitors to the country. Nearly 4.5 million foreign tourists came calling last year.

Anshu Vaish, director general of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which is responsible for the upkeep of monuments in the country, has an explanation: "The reason for charging more from foreigners and less from Indians is because our national heritage belongs to us and locals should not pay more. But making or changing policy (on entry fees) is not in our hands."

Vaish also pointed out that entry to many monuments in India was free.

"Out of 3,667 monuments in India, an entry fee is charged at only 150 monuments. The rest have no entry fees for Indians as well as foreigners," she added.

Sudhir Kumar, a tourism official, justified the higher charges for foreigners. "The reason we charge them more is to better maintain the tourist spots and their surroundings," he maintained.

As for exorbitant prices charged by curio shops and eateries near monuments, Vaish said the ASI had no control over it.

"We only take care of the monuments and their surroundings. We don't know who the final authority for (licensing and controlling) the shopkeepers and vendors is," she said.

Leena Nandan, joint secretary in the Tourism Ministry, echoed Vaish's views. "We take care of tourist spots and promote culture. We're not responsible for the licensing of shops near the monuments," she said.

"The sale and purchase of goods from these shops is a matter between the seller and the buyer. It has nothing to do with the Ministry," Leena added.

As for police, they seem to turn a blind eye to foreigners being overcharged.

"I have never heard of any shopkeeper charging more than the printed price of goods. No foreigner has complained to us about it," said a policeman posted at Qutab Minar.

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More Indians want small family: Survey

Indian families are shrinking, thanks to a constant decline in the fertility rate. According to the latest data from the National Family Health Survey-III, an increasing number of couples want a maximum of two children. This has caused the fertility rate to drop from 2.9 in 2000 to 2.7 in 2006.

Urban women have already achieved replacement level fertility — a maximum of two children per couple. They have recorded a total fertility rate of 2.1. Over 10 states, mostly in south India, have also reached replacement level or below replacement level fertility.

However, the TFR among rural women is still too high and stands at an average of three children per family. It is specially the case in eight states and is particularly high — 3.7-4.0 — in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

S K Das, additional director general (statistics) of the Union health ministry, told TOI, "In our National Population Policy of 2000, we set a goal of achieving replacement level fertility of 2.1 children per woman nationally by the year 2010. This will help India’s swelling population to stabilise. NFHS-III findings show we are well on track."

In another exciting finding, the survey has found an increasing desire to have a girl child. Even though a son is still preferred, over 62% of women with two daughters and no sons said they wanted no more children.

In the NFHS-II survey conducted in 2000, 53% women wanted a third child hoping to have a son.

Senior gender specialist of Macro International Sunita Kishor said, "The preference of a son continues to exist but there is clear evidence that women who already have two children, even if they are girls, don’t want a third child even if it for a son."

Experts are attributing the declining fertility to women’s increased use of contraception. For the first time ever, more than 56% married women are using some method of contraception. The overall contraceptive prevalence rate is much higher in urban areas (64%) than in rural areas (53%). A rise in the average age at marriage is also contributing to the drop in fertility.

Over 45% of women aged 20-24 were married before the legal age of marriage of 18 years, compared with 50% seven years earlier.

This has influenced the median age at first birth, which increased by six months to 19.8 years.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/More_Indians_want_small_family_Survey/rssarticleshow/2450994.cms

Drawing pen*s and puss*…(Video)

India's hungry poor dominate latest health survey

India is still struggling to properly feed its children even as its economy booms, according to a survey of its citizens' health and development on Thursday.

While many development indicators are improving, including literacy and child mortality rates, malnourishment is by some measures getting worse, according to the survey by the health ministry with the help of several multilateral aid agencies.

The wealthy, mostly urban Indian middle class enjoying the fruits of an economy growing annually at near double figures, seem all but invisible in the new data.

Instead, hundreds of millions of poor, undernourished, under-educated agricultural workers dominate the picture.

The same groups continue to be the worst off: girls and women, people born into the bottom of the Hindu caste system and those from tribal communities.

The two-thirds of Indians living in its villages are starkly worse off than those living in cities.

A representative sample of around 200,000 people were interviewed for the survey. Here are some of the main findings of the 2005-06 National Family Health Survey:

NUTRITION

- Nearly a quarter of infants are wasting (have low weight for their height), up from a fifth of all infants found by the last survey in 1998/99. Nearly half of all children under 3 years have stunted growth, a sign of prolonged undernourishment. That figure was 51 percent in 1998/99.

- Nearly 80 percent of infants now have anaemia, up from 74 percent in 1998/99. The condition can damage mental development in young children. More than half of all women are anaemic.

- Three percent of all women are obese, as are one percent of all men -- most of them live in cities.

MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN

- Nearly sixty percent of women were married -- illegally -- before their 18th birthday. However the median age of marriage is creeping up -- among India's latest generation of young women, those now aged 20 to 24 years, the median age was just over 18. Less than 12 percent of these young women were already married on their 15th birthday.

- The average women has 2.7 children in her lifetime, down a little from 2.9 in 1998/99.

- Seventy-four in every 1,000 children die before their fifth birthday, down from 95 children in 1998/99.

LITERACY, EDUCATION AND CHILD LABOUR

- Just under half of all women -- 45 percent -- cannot read. Among women aged 20 to 24 years, illiteracy drops to a third.

- Around 83 percent of children aged 6 to 10 years are going to school. Most children leave school by the time they are 15.

- Fifteen percent of boys and 18 percent of girls between 12 and 14 years are child labourers, either working for their family or outside the household.

HOUSING AND LIFESTYLE

- More than half of all Indians are forced to use a field or other outdoor space as a toilet.

- A third of all households have no electricity. Around 60 percent use wood or animal dung for cooking fuel.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

- A little over half of all Indian men think hitting or beating their wives is acceptable in certain circumstances, particularly if she disrespects the in-laws. A smaller number think bad cooking or refusing sex are reasons enough. Nearly 55 percent of women think wife-beating is sometimes acceptable.

- Just over a third of married women said they had been pushed, slapped, shaken or otherwise attacked by their husband at least once. One wife in ten said her husband had forced her into sex on at least one occasion.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/071011/137/6lttx.html

Bomb kills two at Ajmer Sharif dargah

Enlarge Photo

- A small bomb exploded just after evening prayers outside the famous Ajmer Sharif shrine in Rajasthan on Thursday, killing at least two people and wounding eight, according to police.

The blast occurred at around 6.15 p.m. just outside the shrine, or dargah, just before the end of the Ramadan fasting month.

Hundreds of people were in and around the shrine at the time, many breaking their fast after prayers.

"A big crowd had gathered outside the main shrine to break their fast," Lalit Maheswari, additional police chief for Ajmer told Reuters. "The bomb was placed in a bag."

"We have recovered some mobile instruments, so we think some sophisticated device was used, but an investigation is going on."

Television pictures showed a man being stretchered from the site with his clothes apparently torn from his body and what appeared to be a corpse with his eyes open.

The shrine, which contains the tomb of the Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisty, is one of the most important pilgrimage sites for Muslims in India.

Shortly afterwards, in disputed Kashmir, at least two suspected Muslim militants stormed a police camp in Srinagar, firing guns and throwing grenades, police said.

The gunbattle was still continuing and there were no further details, they added.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/071011/137/6ltth.html

Indian Railways to sell perfumed tickets

Now train tickets will be a treat for your nose.

The Railway Ministry is in talks some consumer goods companies which are keen to advertise their products like soap, shampoo and perfume on train tickets.

"The modalities are being worked out for dispensing perfumed tickets. To begin with, it may be introduced for monthly tickets and then for other select categories," said a senior railway ministry official.

While Northern Railway alone sells 50 lakh monthly tickets, Western Railway monthly tickets sale are about 30 lakhs.

"There is a technology available to embed the perfume in the ticket. Whenever one touches the ticket, it emits the perfume. The Department of Posts have already launched scented stamps using the same technology," said the official.

"We have an approved policy for advertising on reserved and unreserved tickets. Besides tickets, advertising space is also available on ticket reservation charts as part of the additional revenue generation plan," said the official.

The size of the ticket has been increased from 15 cm to 18 cm to make space for ads. "The aim is to recover the printing cost the cost of the paper on which the ticket is printed.

For companies, it is a major medium for advertisement given the fact that everyday about 1.4 crore passengers travel by Indian Railways, said the official.

According to the guidelines, advertisements should not be socially offensive and should be in keeping with public morality.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Indian_Railways_to_sell_perfumed_tickets/rssarticleshow/2448455.cms