[raghav507]

Eyeing IIT? Do well in Class XII

NEW DELHI: Getting into IITs would become tougher from 2011 as the government has decided to give weightage to class XII results apart from the score in the JEE.

The reform is being planned within three years of introduction of the new system of JEE which also came from within IIT. But HRD minister Kapil Sibal on Monday justified it on the ground that the new system had not worked well. A three-member committee has been set up to look into the curriculum and reform in JEE.

The committee, which will give its report in three months, consists of science and technology secretary T Ramasamy, secretary, department of biotechnology M K Bhan and director general CSIR Samir Brahmachari.

Reform in admissions is being done to check the mushrooming of coaching centres for IIT-JEE as well as the tendency among students to not take the class XII board examination seriously. Right now, a student having cleared IIT-JEE should have 60% in class XII.

(read the whole news here)

[raghav507]

India heading for diabetes explosion, warns global meet

MONTREAL: India leads the world in the looming epidemic of diabetes, the 20th annual World Diabetes Congress of the International Diabetic Federation (IDF) was told here on Monday.

In its annual report, the IDF said India currently has the highest number of 50.8 million people suffering from diabetes, followed by China with 43.2 million and the US with 26.8 million. The report projected 58.7 million diabetes cases in India by 2010 - almost 7 per cent of its adult population.

By 2030, over 8.4 per cent of the Indian adult population will suffer from diabetes, thanks to the increasing life expectancy and urbanisation, the report said.

Warning Indian policy makers, the report said, "Evidence suggests that in more affluent parts of the country, the rural prevalence is higher than in less affluent rural areas, indicating that increasing economic growth will raise diabetes prevalence in India even more than these possibly conservative estimates have indicated.''

The rampaging diabetes will impose a huge economic burden on India and other countries, it added. Apart from losing billions in lost productivity, the report said, India will also be spending $2.8 billion annually on diabetes control measures by 2010.

There are estimated to be 285 million diabetes cases worldwide, accounting for seven per cent of the world's population.

Diabetes, along with cardiovascular disease, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases, accounts for 60 per cent of all deaths worldwide.

"Diabetes imposes a large economic burden on the individual, national healthcare system and economy. Healthcare expenditures on diabetes are expected to account for 11.6 per cent of the total healthcare expenditure in the world in 2010,'' the report said.

"Estimated global healthcare expenditures to treat and prevent diabetes and its complications are expected to total at least $376 billion in 2010.''

Addressing the congress, Martin Silink, outgoing president of the International Diabetic Federation, said the epidemic of diabetes will increase from 7 million new cases a year in 2007 to 10 million new cases this year.

The epidemic is getting out of control, said incoming IDF president Jean-Claude Mbanya. He said if the trend continues unchecked, there will be 435 million people with diabetes worldwide by 2030.

More than 12,000 delegates and 400 speakers from around the world are attending the congress.

[raghav507]

iPhone helps Apple profit rise 47 pc; stock leaps

SEATTLE: Apple Inc. said its net income rose 47 percent in the most recent quarter as more people bought Mac computers and gave in to the iPhone craze. The results sent Apple shares surging 7 percent in extended trading on Monday to an all-time high.

Apple unveiled a faster iPhone in June and cut the price of the previous generation of the phone to $99. That boosted iPhone sales from July through September to 7.4 million devices, half a million more than in the same period of 2008. Apple weathered the economic meltdown better than other computer companies, giving it a running start when PC sales grew in the quarter. Apple had also updated its Mac operating system and refreshed its Macbook Pro line. Apple sold 3.1 million Macs, a 19 percent rise from the same period a year ago.

As Apple's iPhone, which has iPod features built in, has grown in popularity, Apple's regular iPod music player business has suffered. The company sold 10.2 million iPods in the quarter, 8 percent fewer than last year, even though Apple unveiled a new iPod Nano with a video camera in September.

The iPod Touch was the bright spot in the media player lineup. Revenue for the gadget, which is like an iPhone without the phone, doubled from a year ago, Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said in an interview.

Apple said it earned $1.7 billion, $1.82 per share, in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended Sept. 26. Revenue jumped 25 percent to $9.9 billion.

For the entire 2009 year, Apple said its profit rose 18 percent to $5.7 billion, or $5.36 per share. Revenue climbed 13 percent to $36.5 billion.

For the current quarter, Apple said it expects to earn $1.70 to $1.78 per share, well below the $1.91 that analysts are expecting, though the company traditionally gives extremely conservative guidance. Apple predicted revenue of $11.3 billion to $11.6 billion, while analysts are looking for $11.4 billion, according to a Thomson Reuters poll.

Wall Street shrugged off the profit guidance and sent the company's shares up $13.38, or 7.1 percent, to $203.24 in extended trading. The shares had closed regular trading at $189.86, up 1 percent on the day.

[raghav507]

Yahoo 3Q profit soars despite 12 pc revenue drop

SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo Inc. may finally be pulling out of a three-year slump that cast aside two CEOs and spurred a cost-costing spree that laid off about 2,000 workers.

The purge is the main reason Yahoo's third-quarter profit more than tripled from last year to soar past analysts' relatively low expectations for the troubled Internet company.

But the results released Tuesday also showed Yahoo's revenue fell by at least 12 percent for the third consecutive quarter. The revenue rut means Yahoo still has a long way to go on its comeback trail.

Analysts, though, believe Yahoo should be able to boost its ad sales - the main source of its revenue - as long as the U.S. economy continues to heal and marketers funnel more of their budgets to the Web.

Carol Bartz, Yahoo's third chief executive since June 2007, indicated she believes the worst is over in a prepared statement. ''We had a solid third quarter that signals our major businesses have stabilized,'' she said.

The Sunnyvale-based earned $186 million, or 13 cents a share, in the July-September quarter, compared with $54 million, or 4 cents a share, at the same time last year. The average analyst estimate among analysts polled by Thomson Reuters was 7 cents per share.

Revenue for the period fell 12 percent $1.58 billion, barely an improvement from the first six months of the year when revenue dropped by 13 percent.

The earnings improvement was primarily driven by a series of layoffs that has whittled Yahoo's payroll from 15,200 employees in September 2008 year to 13,200 at the end of last month.

Yahoo shares gained 38 cents, or 2.2 percent, to $17.55 in extended trading. In regular trading earlier, shares fell 5 cents to close at $17.17

[P@GALGUY]

Are you ready for Windows 7?



Microsoft's new operating system, Windows 7, will launch tomorrow morning at events in Auckland's Queen Elizabeth Square and Wellington's Civic Square.

If, like many, you're planning on buying and installing the long-awaited replacement for ugly duckling Vista, getting your PC ready for could be the difference between a straightforward and smooth upgrade - or a chaotic IT nightmare.

Luckily, migrating to Windows 7 is relatively straightforward and it's a doddle to use. Windows 7's look and feel is not too dissimilar to Windows Vista and Vista of course isn't that different to Windows XP.
First things first however, check that your PC meets (or exceeds)

Microsoft's minimum specs for Windows 7.
Windows 7 32-bit
CPU: 1GHz 32-bit
RAM: 1Gb
Graphics: Direct X 9
Storage: 16Gb free hard drive space + DVD drive

Windows 7 64-bit
CPU: 1 GHz 64-bit
RAM: 2 GB
Graphics: DirectX 9
Storage: 20Gb free hard drive space + DVD drive

If these tech specs are blinding you with science, no worries, you can download the Microsoft Upgrade Advisor and it'll do all the hard yards and work out if your PC and peripherals will play nice with Windows 7.
Even if your PC meets these minimum specs you may still want to consider some upgrades. While Windows 7 will work with 1-2GB of RAM, 4 or more will make a massive difference to its performance.
Perhaps the single most important thing to do before you even consider popping a Windows 7 install disc into your PC's DVD drive is backing up. Preserving irreplaceable photos, music, documents and the other digital detritus you've accumulated is definitely a no-brainer.
Backing up your data can be as easy as plugging in an external USB drive and simply copying selected directories across. Should you want to be more thorough however, use backup software such as freeware SyncBack which can back up your PCs entire hard drive, or selected directories.
Upgrading from Vista is perhaps the easiest option as data and settings will remain largely unchanged. There are however some downsides.
Depending on the amount of files and applications are on your PC, upgrading to Windows 7 can some time. Uninstalling seldom-used applications and giving your PC a spring clean before upgrading with an application like CCleaner can make a massive difference to the overall upgrade time. Either way, don't forget to back up your PCs contents just in case.


If you're currently running Windows XP the good news is that you can upgrade to Windows 7, but the not-so good news is that you'll probably have to do a clean install which will wipe out your current PC configuration. Should you want to keep Windows XP, you can set up your PC to dual-boot which will require you partition your hard drive.
Upgrading from Windows XP still means you can buy the Upgrade version of Windows 7, but it'll do a complete install of Windows 7 on a blank hard drive. Either way, backing up the existing applications and valuable data makes a whole lot of sense.
Microsoft have a free User State Migration Tool that'll copy and transfer existing Windows XP settings over to a new Windows 7 installation.
This said, if you've got concerns about compatibility in Windows 7, Windows 7 does have a "Virtual XP Mode" that'll run just about any Windows XP programme under windows 7 with no issues.

At the risk of receiving several truckloads of hate mail from Apple Mac-toting fanboys, I can also say that there's little to nothing stopping curious Mac owners from installing Windows 7 on Intel powered Apple Macs with Boot Camp.
Doing so not only gives Mac owners access to a fresh operating system, but also to the massive amount of games and applications that simply aren't available on Apple hardware. There are dozens of easy to follow guides to getting Windows 7 on a Mac such as Simple Help's excellent wtep by step walkthrough.

[raghav507]

After CAT, AIEEE plans to go online

New Delhi: On the lines of the Common Aptitude Test (CAT) for management courses, the All India Engineering Entrance Exam (AIEEE) plans to conduct the exam online. The government has set up a committee of National Institute of Technology (NIT) directors to explore the possibility of making the exam online, in addition to the regular pen and paper test. The committee will submit its report by January 2010.


The committee will also deliberate on giving Class XII board exam marks weightage during the entrance exam. This came up after NIT directors said that the proliferation of coaching institutes was skewing the pattern of entrants into NITs.

Nearly 10 lakh students appeared for AIEEE for roughly 24,000 seats in engineering colleges across the country. This includes NITs, state engineering colleges, the Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs) and deemed and central universities. The number of aspirants is expected to increase significantly over the next few years and the NIT council feels that an online test would facilitate the process.

However, some members of the council felt that an online test would not be feasible considering poor internet connectivity and the non-availability of computers in the rural areas. "All students are not familiar with computers. Hence, written tests should be a part of the system," director NIT Hamirpur IK Bhatt said.

[raghav507]

Burnout? SAP India MD Ranjan Das dies of heart attack

MUMBAI/BANGALORE: Ranjan Das, managing director of SAP India, died of heart attack on Wednesday. He was at the helm of the Indian operations of the top enterprise operations maker since 2007.

Friends in the industry said Mr Das was an unlikely candidate for a heart attack and was known to exercise regularly and be scrupulous in his food habits. Nagaraj Bhargava, a former director, marketing & strategic initiatives, SAP India, who worked with Mr Das for more than 18 months, described him as a smart, intelligent and ambitious individual. “He would never miss a gym routine, come what may,” Mr Bhargava added.

“This comes as a great shock to all of us within the SAP family and is felt most profoundly by every one of us. We will be sharing more information once we have had the opportunity to further understand the family’s wishes,” Geraldine McBride, SAP’s president for Asia-Pacific, was quoted in a statement.

His funeral will be held on Thursday in Mumbai, where he was based.

The long hours and frequent travel between different time zones required by the industry have led many people to wonder if executives in this high-profile industry are more susceptible to the dangers of a heart attack. However, Nasscom president Som Mittal said it was not specific to the industry. “I don’t think it is an IT industry issue. He never looked over-stressed to me. It is very unfortunate,” he said.

In the past few years, heart attack has claimed a number of high profile victims in the IT industry starting with the former chairman of Nasscom, Dewang Mehta. His death, which came just as the software industry was gaining prominence, came quietly and unexpectedly in a Sydney hotel a few months before he turned 40.

Shortly afterwards Nasscom lost another of its senior leaders, Sunil Mehta, who was 41, to heart attack. Another well-known name in the software industry, Arun Kumar, who was chairman of Flextronics, also passed away after a heart attack.

Like Sunil Mehta, who was an entrepreneur before he joined Nasscom, Mr Das, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate and MBA from the Harvard Business School, started his own firm, Patkai Networks, in the Silicon Valley before joining SAP.

[raghav507]

Windows 7 a winner for IT vendors

MUMBAI/BANGALORE: Indian IT vendors are gearing up for significant business opportunities in IT consulting, systems integration and infrastructure management as their clients look to migrate from older operating systems (OS) to the latest version Windows 7 (Win 7).

According to industry estimates, around 80% of computer systems still run on Microsoft’s older OS - Windows XP - which was launched eight years ago, making a strong case for upgradation.

“A huge amount of technology refresh was postponed by around one-and-a-half years,” pointed out HCL Technologies VP and end-user computing services head Maninder Singh. The IT exporter is already carrying out pilots with some of its large clients and has created solutions that will help in faster deployment of Win 7.

(read the whole story here)

[dhoom_guy1]

wats up puys!! no activity in tha tread seniors please keep posting something as this is one of the threads which lot of fachhas like me are following religiously and g.k is one thing we cant mug up in a day so calling all puys lets not give up and keep posting

[vyomb]

TCS plans to bid with CMC for Rs 5K cr UID projects

MUMBAI: As India’s top tech firms prepare to bid for projects worth almost Rs 5,000 crore to set up the country’s unique citizen database, Tata
Consultancy Services (TCS) plans to bid jointly for this opportunity along with CMC, a government-focused subsidiary it acquired some eight years ago.

The world’s biggest citizen database being set up by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) will rely heavily on biometric and fingerprint information of the country’s 1.2 billion citizens, and would seek solution providers who can bring relevant expertise.

“Whether we bid as a consortium or not will largely depend on the conditions specified in the RFP (request for proposal). If they want a single point of contact, then CMC will act as a sub-contractor to TCS,” said CMC, CEO and MD R Ramanan.

On its part, TCS has been leveraging CMC’s relationships with different government agencies and departments in order to create a competitive government business, bigger than domestic rivals Wipro and Infosys. For instance, TCS worked together with CMC on winning the Rs 1,000 crore e-passport project awarded last year.

“For some of these projects, an existing capability and understanding brought by the age-old CMC helps them do better,” said a senior executive at one of the rival firms which had bid for the passport project.

“Training is one of the biggest bottlenecks in any government project-and this is where CMC proves an asset to TCS,” he added.

Experts such as Alok Shende, principal analyst of Ascentius Consulting say that CMC does provide TCS an edge over others.

“It makes sense for TCS to bid with CMC because of its experience of working on similar deals in the past. Capability is not just about having the technology do it but also the experience and the track record. This is especially important in the government sector,” Mr Shende said.

“We have worked together on all major mission mode projects such as the MCA (Ministry of Company Affairs) e-governance project and SWAN (state-wide area network) projects in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar,” said Mr Ramanan. Computerisation of State Electricity Boards (SEBs) has proved to be another area of opportunity for both CMC and TCS. By jointly bidding for these projects, TCS has, so far, bagged two out of the three projects awarded by the SEBs.





On the biometric front, CMC has already implemented a project for the Chattisgarh government. The project uses fingerprinting devices in combination with other technologies to establish the identity of a person and provide services such as issue of birth and death certificates and ration cards through citizen service centres.

For the UID project, biometric technology will be crucial to capture and validate citizen information.
“A biometric committee has already been set up and it’s working on the details,” Nandan Nilekani, chairman of UIDAI told ET in a recent interview.

A former PSU, CMC, employs close to 4,000 people who work in the areas of systems integration and solutions, infrastructure management, education and training, and IT-enabled services (ITES) such as data-entry and migration. It also employs around 1,500 people indirectly through contractors for low-end data-entry work, which is typically required for digitization of physical records.

TCS had acquired 51% stake in CMC for around Rs 150 crore in October 2001.

Meanwhile, multinational rivals IBM along with Wipro and Infosys are already preparing solutions to bid for the UID project, and like many other projects, TCS will face some aggressive competition.