More job cuts in India? Cognizant to expand local hiring in US

Firm to prune domestic costs through initiatives such as voluntary separation

Cognizant Technology Solutions plans to sharply increase local hiring in the US this year with increased demand for co-innovation and on-site presence from clients. The Nasdaq-listed technology services major said it would look at talent across local community colleges to big management universities to man different projects in the US.

Last month, when the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services opened the window for applications, Cognizant applied for "less than half" H1B visas compared with last year.

"We are evolving our workforce and delivery in the United States. Cognizant hired 4,000 US citizens in 2016, and in 2017 and beyond, we expect to significantly ramp up our US based workforce by hiring experienced professionals in the open market and by making more use of university programmes. We are shifting our workforce largely in response to clients' increasing need for co-innovation. But we still seek visas for highly-specialised and skilled talent...We expect to further reduce our need for these visas going forward. As part of our shift, we continue to expand our US delivery centres," Rajeev Mehta, President, Cognizant told analysts on Friday.

At the same time, the company has taken up initiatives such as the voluntary separation package, which was announced last week, for senior employees to optimise costs.

"We are looking for opportunities to further optimise cost structures...We just launched earlier this week a voluntary separation package that programme will go till the end of Q2 and we will see the benefit of that in Q3," said Karen McLoughlin, chief financial officer, Cognizant. Read more

Here is what Airtel, Idea and Vodafone are offering to counter Reliance Jio

Old telcos have sweetened their offerings considerably to take on the Reliance Jio challenge

Reliance Jio made a big announcement on Tuesday following which the road ahead doesn't look smooth for rivals Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone, among others. Although the free services provided since its launch, including 1GB data at 4G speeds every day, unlimited voice calls and unlimited text messages will be over after 31 March, the operator has introduced a new plan called Jio Prime which will allow users to avail the facilities for another year at a nominal price.

Here are the key points:

• Membership: Jio Prime membership is limited to the 100 million existing Reliance Jio users as well as those who join the network before March 31, 2017.
• Cost: All Jio members can enroll prime membership for a one time fee of Rs 99 (which is valid for one year). Additionally, to get the free mobile data and other benefits, users will need to pay another Rs. 303 per month for the next 12 months (which amounts to Rs 10 per day, approximately).
• Subscription: To subscribe, users can go to any Jio store or Jio partner store. Besides, MyJio app and Jio 4G LTE Network website can also be used.

Read more : CBFC office vandalised in Hyderabad for 'not clearing' a Telugu film

• Commencement: Users can start subscribing to the plan from March 1. It will end on March 31.
• Offers: Under the plan, unlimited mobile data for a year (1GB daily FUP limit), media and content benefits associated with the Jio apps suite are available. "There will be many other attractive deals and offers from both Jio and its partners (for) the Jio Prime members," a statement released by the company said. Like the current offer, Jio Prime will also reduce the internet speed to 128kbps after the 1GB data per day limit is crossed.
• Users who do not subscribe: Reliance Jio users who opt not to subscribe the Jio Prime membership will have to pay for data and other services, but not voice calls (including on roaming).

A quick look at the offers provided by Vodafone, Airtel and Idea: (more)

Read more : Free run ends for Jio users on 31 March but Reliance keeps goodies rolling

IT hiring at 10-year low, Infosys takes campus hires as interns

They'll be paid a stipend and assessed before taken on payrolls as it faces worst growth in a decade

Breaking News : India’s second largest software exporter Infosys Ltd is offering paid internship to campus hires before taking them on rolls, a move that that would impact new jobs across the IT sector when hiring by technology services companies is already at a ten-year low.

The Indian technology services sector is facing its worst growth period in close to a decade as they see clients reducing budgets on traditional outsourcing work, which is not being offset by growth in newer areas such as digital and cloud. In addition, routine maintenance work of customer applications or IT infrastructure, where freshers are normally deployed have been taken over by automation or robots.

With use of automation, these companies are shifting their employees from projects, where their jobs have become redundant and training them on skills to match new requirements. Infosys and its cross town rival Wipro shifted more than 8000 employees from projects to other roles due to automation during the first half of this fiscal.

“It was a surprise for us that they came with the internship roles before taking our students as trainees,” says a placement head of a college, who did not want to be named. “The job market this year has been bad. We agreed to it as we have no option.”

Infosys, among the pioneers to reach out to campuses through its Campus Connect programme says it provides a limited number of internships to students as they serve as an attractive proposition for potential employees. Read more about hiring by Top 5 IT Firms.

Arnab Goswami's new venture is called 'Republic' and it's launching on 26 January

After a short break, noted television journalist and talk show host Arnab Goswami again turned the king of social media trends on Thursday, after he announced the launch of his 'new venture'. Reports suggest he has set up a news channel called 'Republic', which will go live before the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Speaking at the 10th anniversary of IEEMA ( Indian Electronic Equipment Manufacturer's Association), the apex body for the power equipment industry, Swamy said Republic will launch on 26 January, sources told Business Standard,

He also said that Republic will be a global media venture, 'parellel to the BBC and CNN."

On November 1, Goswami had resigned as the editor-in-chief of Times Now, and announced his plans to start a venture of his own. Rahul Shivshankar has since taken over as editor-in-chief of Times Now. Reports also suggest that Goswami's core team members also resigned from Times Now days after his resignation.

The News Minute quoted Goswami as saying: “My venture is called ‘Republic’; I seek the support of the people of India.” Quoting sources, The News Minute also reported that the venture would primarily be based in Mumbai and that a media owner based out of Bengaluru, a major TV distribution network and an influential advertising and media buying group, were part of the bouquet of investors backing Goswami. Contrary to speculation, all investors in 'Republic' are reported to be Indians. Read more

Reliance Jio call drops due to its under-preparedness: Airtel

Reliance Jio call drops due to its under-preparedness: Airtel

Airtel on Tuesday blamed Reliance Jio itself for network connectivity issues and call failures, saying they are due to Jio's own "under-preparedness", insufficient testing efforts and acquiring a large number of customers at the pre-launch stage itself.

In a letter to Reliance Jio, Airtel said: "While RJIO has continued to allege huge call failure on account of insufficient number of PoIs (points of interconnect), however, we believe that the prime reason for such callfailures was on account of acquisition of a large number of subscribers by RJIO even before the declaration of the commercial launch."

The letter, sent on Monday, goes on to say that augmentation of POIs based on actual traffic, necessitates a reciprocal action from the other party also.

"It is important to note, that despite our best efforts, the POIs are still in the process of augmentation due to issues at your end," Airtel said.

Airtel said that despite the prompt and colossal effort on its part, as on date, only 2,484 E1s (interconnect ports) are live out of a total capacity of 3,048 provided, primarily due to various reasons for delay "attributable solely to RJIO's under-preparedness and insufficient testing teams and efforts".

It added: "Even these capacities could be augmented with great persuasion by Airtel teams. During the augmentation exercise, your circles had cited issues with regard to Acceptance Testing, transmission media related concerns and hence the augmentation process took much longer and even till date the complete POI's have not been augmented due to unpreparedness of your teams." Read more

Azim Premji and Shiv Nadar in Forbes list of 100 richest tech tycoons

Azim Premji and Shiv Nadar in Forbes list of 100 richest tech tycoons

Wipro chairman Azim Premji and HCL co-founder Shiv Nadar are the only two billionaires from India in Forbes' list of the world's 100 richest people in technology, ranking in the top 20 ahead of Google boss Eric Schmidt and Uber chief executive officer (CEO) Travis Kalanick.

The '100 Richest Tech Billionaires In The World 2016' list has been topped by Microsoft founder Bill Gates with an estimated fortune of $78 billion. Premji ranks 13th on the list, with a net worth of $16 billion and Nadar comes on the 17th spot, with $11.6 billion of net worth. Indian-American technology czars — Symphony Technology Group CEO Romesh Wadhwani and founders of IT (information technology) consulting and outsourcing company Syntel Bharat Desai and his wife Neerja Sethi — are also on the list. Forbes said Premji, who heads India's third-largest outsourcer, Wipro, has been on a buying spree in the past year to boost growth. Premji's son Rishad, who heads strategy and sits on the board, also oversees Wipro's $100-million venture capital fund. Nadar co-founded HCL, which is reportedly mulling a US listing, Forbes said, adding Nadar also owns HCL TalentCare, a skills-development firm. His latest venture is a $500-million fund to invest in startups and US health care technology firms.(more)

SpiceJet offers Rs 444 one-way fare

SpiceJet offers Rs 444 one-way fare

SpiceJet is offering one-way fares beginning at Rs 444 (excluding taxes and fees) in a five day sale offer till Sunday.

The base fare of Rs 444 is available on routes, including Jammu-Srinagar, Ahmedabad-Mumbai, Mumbai-Goa, Delhi-Dehradun and Delhi-Amritsar.

Discounted tickets are valid for travel between July 1 and September 30.

Fares would vary from sector to sector depending on the travel distance and flight schedules and timings, the airline said and added that limited inventory is on offer under the sale.

Tickets for this new sale can be booked across channels on airline website, online travel portals, the SpiceJet mobile app and through travel agents. Tickets under this offer are non-refundable (statutory taxes are refundable), though they are changeable with a change fee and payment of the fare difference. Discount offers (more).

Bengaluru pips Tokyo, Tel Aviv in list of innovation hubs

Bengaluru pips Tokyo, Tel Aviv in list of innovation hubs

India has emerged as a new innovation ‘empire’ of choice by global corporates. Bengaluru - the information technology and start-up hub – has surpassed many global cities as a preferred destination for innovation centres, according to Capgemini’s study on ‘Innovation Empire’.

Bengaluru that has emerged as the fifth most preferred location for housing innovation centres, overtook Tokyo, Shanghai, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Munich and Chicago, said the report titled ‘Digital Dynasties: The Rise of Innovation Empires Worldwide’. In the previous report that captured data until July 2015, Bengaluru did not figure in the list of top 10 cities.

The report said Silicon Valley was no longer the hub for corporate innovation, as global enterprises were seeking talent pools beyond established hubs.

Between July 2015 and February 2016, four global enterprises set up their innovation centres in Bengaluru, the highest in Asia. During the same period, the number of innovation centres set up in Silicon Valley and London were five and four, respectively, the report added.

Among the companies to set up their innovation centres in Bengaluru are Airbus’ BizLab and Visa, whose new technology centre aims to house 1,000 developers, accelerating development of next-generation payment solutions.

Other than global corporates opening up more innovation hubs in Bengaluru, the city also hosts several billion-dollar Indian start-ups like Flipkart, InMobi and Mu Sigma, and attracts world-class technology, talent and investments.

Read more.

RJio upbeat on trial run, launches website

RJio upbeat on trial run, launches website

As Reliance Jio gears towards upgrading its ongoing trial run of the fourth-generation technology (4G) network into a commercial operation over the next few months, it says it already has at least half a million users.

In an investor presentation, the company said, it \"launched full scale service for RIL group employees, partners, vendors and associates on December 28 and over 500,000 users are on board\". The launch is now being expanded to others, it said.

Last month, it began a Reliance Jio employee referral program for its 4G service; each staffer could invite up to 10 friends to sign up. Initial feedback on the trial run was \"very encouraging\", it said.

In the first month of the trial, average monthly data consumption was 18 GB and average monthly voice usage was a bit over 250 minutes, according to a presentation dated last Thursday.

Jio is also testing its digital applications that are to come bundled with the connection. These include Jio Money, Jio Chat, Jio Drive, Jio Play and Jio News. The company's website, Jio - Experience Digital Life, also went live on Thursday.

Read more.

The great showdown of smartphones in weeks

While a fleet of flagship smartphones are being launched in the yearly extravaganza of mobile devices at Barcelona, site of the Mobile World Congress (MWC), Indian subsidiaries of major handset makers are gearing for their launches.

Global and Indian smartphone leader Samsung, China’sGionee and Lenovo are preparing to introduce flagship devices within weeks of their global launch at MWC 2016 in the past four days. According to sources, others such as Xiaomi, LG and Intex are no less behind.