September 27, 2007 • 4:00 am 0
I am told that September 27 is Stop Abuse Day. Since I have stopped abusing tobacco, let me encourage others to do so.
Since I quit on July 4, 2003, Quitnet informs me that I have stayed quit for 1545 days, 21 hours, 35 minutes and 34 seconds !
The website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a fund of useful information on the dangers of smoking and how to go about stopping the habit.
Their Factsheet is a good place to start.
Filed under: Executive Health
• 3:44 am 0
The Indian magazine Dataquest in partnership with IDC publishes their list of the Best Employers in India’s tech companies.
The top 5 rankings for 2007 in their 7th annual survey:-
TCS was also ranked No. 1 last year. RMSI has fallen from rank 2 to rank 4. HCL Infosystems has improved from rank 3 to rank 2. iGate has moved from rank 29 to rank 3. Synechron was not in last year’s list.
Filed under: Best Employers
• 3:12 am 0
India’s top 6 IT players increased their share of the global IT Service market from 0.5 % in 2001 to 1.9 % in 2006.
The Economic Times reports that the global top 10 IT services firms, also increased their market share from 22.8% in 2001 to 26% in 2006.
IBM, EDS, Fujitsu, Accenture, and Hewlett Packard are the Top 5 Global players with IBM alone having 7.2 % of the market share.
India’s top 6 were TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, Satyam and HCL Tech. India’s leading player, TCS ranked 36 in the global rankings while HCL Tech ranked 86.
Filed under: Indian Economy
• 2:58 am 0
Enewss, the India blog aggregator, lists Today’s Top Blog Hits on a daily basis.
I am delighted to find that the Most Popular Outgoing Link and the 2nd Most Popular Outgoing Link in Enewss, today are my posts on Indra Nooyi ( September 16) and Connecting India ( September 25) respectively.
Although a late starter who began blogging a year ago at age 55, I derive a lot of satisfaction from this interest quite irrespective of the number of people who follow my blog.
Filed under: Blogs
September 26, 2007 • 2:44 pm 0
Here is interesting insight from Indra Nooyi , Chairman & CEO of PepsiCo. who says she is a mother first, then a CEO and then a wife.
Asked about her priorities in life, the 51 year old CEO, of the $ 35 billion plus convenient foods and beverage giant which employs 168,000 people world wide, said “The order is mother, CEO and wife,”
Ms. Nooyi was participating in a discussion on “Women and Global Leadership” organised at the Yale Club of New York city as part of the ongoing Incredible India @ 60 celebrations.
Filed under: Work Life Balance
• 4:20 am 0
Quality education was and will always remain expensive. In recent years, education has become a big item in the expenditure basket. Primarily due to the huge increases in real estate, it has become much more expensive to establish and administer schools, especially in the big cities. The unbridled increase in school fees even led to the intervention of India’s Supreme Court which decreed a cap in school fees.
In this context, The Economic Times estimates that it would cost an average of Rs. 21 lakhs – at today’s prices- to educate a child through school till college.
Filed under: Personal Finance
• 3:57 am 0
There is already a controversy on the recent visit of Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Columbia University. President Leo Bollinger’s opening remarks to his guest included his saying “Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” adding, “You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.”
Whether such remarks befit a welcome to a guest is debatable and a matter of culture. I am not supporting Iran’s President in any way. Bollinger possibly thought it right to surface issues and deal with them upfront. His supporters would credit him with the courage to raise issues.
Others would question his stand and say that if he was so much against Ahmadinejad he should not have invited him in the first place. In certain cultures there is nothing more offensive than berating your guests.
The debate will rage for a few days. A thought: How would the US media and people have reacted if President Bush was given such a reception at Tehran University?
Filed under: Trends
September 25, 2007 • 5:00 am 0
Young Mahender Singh Dhoni demonstrated excellent leadership when he led India to triumph in the inaugural ICC Twenty20 World championship.
“Young Blood in a Billion Hearts” an article in today’s Indian Express speaks of his charismatic leadership.
His leadership is characterized by his willingness to back his players fully, take risks and lead by example. A refreshing change from the past is his showing no fear for reputations .
India beat England, South Africa , Australia and Pakistan in a row to win the World Cup. A feat that thrills a billion hearts.
Filed under: Sports
• 3:33 am 0
The mobile phone revolution is on its way to transforming life in India. The Government expects 500 million phone users by 2010.
India registered more than 8 million new connections in August alone, taking the total number in the country to over 200 million, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Despite the surge in mobile users, the growth is still largely confined to cities. Telephone penetration in urban India is around 25 per 100 people but just 1.6 per 100 in rural areas.
In the urban areas, every one and his uncle seems to have a mobile phone. In affluent homes, hiring domestic staff like chauffeurs, maids, cooks and the like means having to give them mobile connectivity. Independent artisans like masons, carpenters and painters who are in great demand have mobiles for greater accessibility.
The mobile phone has revolutionised the way we work and live in India.
Filed under: Trends
• 3:16 am 0
Does the way your brain work influence your leadership? Are your visionary strengths reflected in the way you use your brain?
“Yes” seems to say Prof. Pierre Balthzard of the Arizona State University. He and his team seek to prove that visionary leaders think differently from those who have lesser visionary capabilities.
His team mate, Mr. Thatcher a neuroscientist who’s worked on EEGs and behavior for 35 years, sifts through the data from sessions looking for brain-wave patterns.
They say preliminary analysis of 50 brain maps shows some big differences in activity between managers who rate high on a psychological test of visionary leadership, and those who rate low. The visionary leaders had more efficient left brains, which deal with logic and reasoning, and better connected right brains, which are responsible for social skills.
Filed under: Trends
