Cyber security: Kapil Sibal seeks global cooperation

NEW DELHI: India has stressed upon the need for greater cooperation and exchange of information among nations to enhance cyber security and to address issues related to the management 

of the internet.

"No nation can fight cyber-crime or secure its cyberspace in isolation. Increased and focused cooperation among key players, governments, industry and international bodies, is essential to create a secure cyber space," said an official statement quoting Communications and IT Minister Kapil Sibal's speech at global event on Internet.

Sibal is in Baku, Ajerbaijan for a High Level Ministerial Meeting at the Internet Governance Forum.

He said cyber security is a critical challenge being faced by stakeholders while exploiting the potential of the internet is cyber security.

Sibal proposed measures which included agreements on international technological standards and exchange of security related information across nations in order to achieve interoperability between Information and Communication Technology platforms.

"In the absence of global interoperability, critical data and information will not be available to all nations, when they require it most. Secondly, devising standardized and coordinated response strategies, in areas of cyber intelligence, generating alerts and execution of coordinated response in the event of cyber attacks," he said.

Sibal said that an informed response to a cyber attack is highly critical in case of crucial services infrastructure such as telecom, energy, finance, power and e-Government.

"Thirdly, devising a comprehensive Cyber Security Strategy, which harmonizes national criminal laws, ensures cyber justice to users and providers of cyber services, and enables cyber courts with international jurisdictions and to provide cyber justice in near real-time," he said.

The Minister said that internet provides a platform to empower human beings as never before in the history of mankind as it provides opportunities to the voiceless to be heard, communicate to the government and voiceless to connect among them.

"We are now on cusp of a new social contract which embraces all human beings. As a tool it enables empowerment of people. We will fall short of the optimum if this potential is not utilised," Sibal said.

The meeting was attended by global leaders including UNDESA's Under Secretary General, Wu Hongbo, ITU Secretary- General Hamadoun Toure, UNESCO Assistant Director-General Janis Karklins, ICANN Chief Executive Officer Fadi Chehade, as well as Ministers from Ajerbaijan UK, Japan, Tunisia, Egypt, Lithuania, Afghanistan, Albania, Slovenia among others.

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India, China likely successors to Silicon Valley by 2016: Survey

WASHINGTON: Close to half of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) leaders worldwide see India and China to be the likely successors of Silicon Valley as the globa

l technology innovation center within the next four years, a new survey has revealed.

More than two in five technology executives surveyed for KPMG's Technology Innovation Survey 2012 believe Silicon Valley is on the way out as the global technology hub, in which a plurality of 44% expect China to replace it by 2016.

However, if Silicon Valley does cede its position as the technology innovation capital but it isn't to China, it's most likely to be India that takes over, after it ranked second in the survey as the 'most likely new Silicon Valley', with 22% of the vote, followed by Japan (10%) and South Korea (9%).

The report notes that Asia is "leading the charge in mobile communications and commerce, skipping past the PC generation of the west."

According to Ho Wah Lee, KPMG Singapore head of advisory, part of the reason that China has emerged as a force to be reckoned with in global ICT is the government's financial and policy support for the nation's technology sector.

"The Chinese government is encouraging significant investment in three key areas - shared services and outsourcing, payments and cloud computing. The [government's] 12th Five-Year Plan is also driving innovation in these key areas," Ho said.

China has perhaps the strongest cloud potential of any market, which is already nearly ubiquitous in the nation. The Chinese Government has additionally allocated 154 billion dollars to boost the cloud industry over the next few years, and has designated five Cloud Computing Service Innovation Pilot Cities-Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuxi and Hangzhou, the survey said.

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Wanted: Ethical hackers

Recently, the website of Ankit Fadia, a well-known ethical hacker, was hacked by another group that goes by the name Team Grey Hat (TGH). The “hactivist” group entered Ankit Fadia’s official site and exposed his c

redentials, including sensitive data, student details, database credentials (like name, user name & password). In a blog message, TGH also rubbished Fadia as a hacker and his courses.

Industry watchers, however, claim that the small (but growing community) of ethical hackers in India usually do not parade their skills against each other. “This incident of hacking into Fadia’s website is more out of the need to rubbish someone’s claims and not to show off skills against one another,” points a security expert, who do not wish to be identified.

Ethical hackers are fast becoming a valued tribe in India. According to data from Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-In), in November last year more than 800 “.in” websites and nearly 700 “.com” websites in India were defaced by miscreants. A good number of Indian sites, including a few government ones, are hacked by cyber criminals every year. This has spurred the demand for security professionals and white-hat hackers.

Global market intelligence firm IDC predicts the requirement of 188,000 security professionals by 2012. At present, the number of certified security professionals in India is estimated at 22,000 by Cyber Security and Anti Hacking Organization, while another report by Nasscom says that India needs about 77,000 ethical hackers every year.

As corporations and government organizations turn to ethical professionals who think and act like their black-market counterparts, there’s a steady rise in professionals like Mumbai-based Yash Kadakia, who started his experiments with ethical hacking in junior college. The 24-year-old though has not done any college or degree course on ethical hacking went on to launch Security Brigade, an IT security solutions company, in 2006.

Professionals like Kadakia are called blue-hat hackers, typically from outside the company like a computer security consulting firm that bug test a system or software looking for exploits so they can be closed.

The industries most vulnerable to cyber-attacks, according to security experts, include BFSI, telecom, IT services and e-commerce which have started hiring ethical hackers. “Many organizations are being forced by their clients to take security more seriously. Security is a very dynamic industry and the solutions need to be constantly tweaked. There is nothing known as a 100 per cent secure system. You may be very secure right now, but that does not mean you are always going to be secure,” says Fadia, who came into limelight when a classified intelligence agency sought his help to break an encrypted message sent by one of Osama Bin Laden’s men in 2001.

K K Mookhey’s Institute of Information Security, for example, has clients from banking and financial institutions, insurance and investment, software, telecom and even petroleum. Some of them include Axis Bank, Bank of India, Bharti Airtel, Wipro, BPCL, ICICI Prudential and Tata AIG and Standard Chartered.

“Though BFSI sector hires more ethical hackers than others, because of the nature of transactions other sectors have also started having small teams. The teams usually consist of four to five people or even more, depending on the size of the company. This is because cyber attacks have become more prominent now,” said another security expert.

Becoming an ethical hacker is a multistage process. Interested candidates need to have a network background, either a vendor certification or experience working in a networking environment.

Shomiron Das Gupta, founder member of Netmonastery, a company that provides solutions for monitoring and networking network attacks, acknowledges that the domestic market for ethical hacking has evolved over the years. “Yes, while only a few names like Ankit Fadia have come out in the public domain because of some good work accomplished at a very young age but the importance of this industry can be gauged by the fact that even the Indian government now recognizes this field,” he says.

Security experts like Vijay Mukhi emphasize the lack of awareness around corporate data espionage that is hurting ethical hacker as a profession. “Most Indian corporations do not even register cyber crime cases. As a country, data gets lost at several points in India, but cases are not registered against the offenders. I believe that most individuals interested in ethical hacking are moving out, as there is neither a market nor any money in this profession in India,” he reasons.

The Institute of Information Security run by K K Mookhey and Cyber Security and Anti-Hacking Organization offer short term courses in ethical hacking for both corporations and students. Besides, Ankit Fadia also runs certified ethical hacker programmes and PG Diploma courses in cyber security.

Quality is what is lacking in the industry, according to industry experts. Dominic K, director, Technitics Consulting, a Delhi- based information security training and consulting firm says, “There is tremendous scope for information security professionals, penetration testers and other computer security specialists in India. But for that we need to produce a much better quality of certified professionals across various domains of information security.”

Gupta of Netmonastery also adds that information security is one of the hardest industries for a long-term career, because of the need to be always on the front edge of whatever technology curve there is.

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“Don’t be an Idiot, you can’t do business here”

This is the exact statement supposed to have uttered by Nandan Nilekani’s uncle when he announced that he and six others will start Infosys way back in 1981!!!!

I am just done with “Imagining India” by Nandan Nilekani. This book in a way has nothing to do with his experience of Infosys nor anywhere does he discuss about the same. I might have come across the term Infosys may be just few times in single digit in a book that spans 531 pages, and completing this book really tests your perseverance :-)

This is not a must book for upcoming entrepreneurs but definitely a book worth reading to get a complete perspective of India in possibly all different angles right from historical, to humanitarian, to financial to demographics to politics to green to almost every possible perspective you can think of. The coverage is so comprehensive that you wonder where Nandan found time to do this!!!

I strongly recommend this book for those who dream for a better India, Indian entrepreneurs to get a different perspective, and definitely all those who dream a slot in politics and Indian civil service. To be honest, the book is very interesting in few patches and a drag in few but then again all depends on your own liking of the subject I guess. (It took me almost three months to finish this book and no book has taken that long but at the end I am very happy that I did finish it).

I really liked some of the tidbits which I read in the book and will try and reproduce here, such as a politician telling Nandan that “I don’t see much upside talking to you – you’re neither good for notes nor votes” J His admission of being an accidental entrepreneur “I console myself that I am but an accidental entrepreneur, who if he had not walked into the office of the charismatic N.R. Narayana Murthy in late 1978 in search of a job would probably have at best languished in a regular nine-to-fiver while living in New Jersey suburb, taking the daily train to Manhattan”. Many such books and biographies I have read of successful entrepreneurs talking about an incident which made them one, an accidental entrepreneur. He also shares his fool hardy venture of creating Infosys as “When founders contemplated the idea of Infosys in 1981, I had no shortage of friends and relatives trying to dissuade me from joining such a foolhardy venture. Don’t be an idiot an uncle of mine told me. A start-up will find it impossible to do business here. Two decades later however I was feted as a first generation entrepreneur!!! “

Some of the learning’s for me has been great from this book. Such as how demographics of countries can in particular way drive the country’s growth. People say there is a 4-2-1 population structure in China – four grandparents, 2 parents and one child and prediction is that will create a huge gray population and less working population which can create a havoc in the future growth of the country. How English language played a significant part in the career growth of some of the elite people in the 60’s,70’s and 80s which he says as “the role of English as a career language in independent India remained for a long time as one of the unspoken truths in our politics”. He strongly stresses to adopt (learn) to English as a career language. He also argues that English has grown so much within our culture that it may be too much to get rid of it. He notes that the language (English) gained a foothold in India as a result of the outsourcing of government jobs from Britain in 1844 (Now we know you started the whole business of Outsourcing first J).

By the way, one of his quotes really stuck me – “Europe at the time was considered so backward that exiles from the Mughal Empire were sent to that Continent, into the wilderness, among the barbarians-as punishment”. Few facts I learnt are interesting and would like to share here such as “China attracts more foreign direct investment (FDI) than Foreign Institutional Investment (FII) and is less entrepreneurial than India. Two thirds of China exports are by foreign Multinationals or Joint ventures mainly owned by Taiwanese, Hong Kong, Japanese and US companies (now you wonder who gets affected most by Obama’s tax bill – Not Bangalore so much so as Shanghai I guess !!! Mr. President you got your cities Wrong J).

The funniest comments I came across are from an employer telling in the hay days that “Give me two hands, I don’t care if a brain is attached. To an entrepreneur of an ice-cream parlor who taught English for his employees to serve customers better, actually quitting him and joining BPOs, to one of the academics during Mandal issue telling that this is not Democracy but democracy.

There is a whole section which talks about our political system, history of it and way elections are conducted and he laments that India is getting on the wrong almost irreversible path because of the subsidies and says that our elections are virtually defined subsidy promises.

He talks about how the global economy and the flat world like a potluck where every country has to get something to the table. He also quotes about Tom Friedman saying “I don’t think that this century can belong to a country that censors Google”.

He touches the today’s hot topic too – recession and his take is that crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Crisis often gives countries a chance to innovate and make a fundamental change in our approaches to the economy, resulting in productivity leaps, sorter growth paths and development models that are superior to the existing ones.

He also talks about how an average Indian is shy of the stock market and how in a way is hurting our economic growth. The book says that “Our over-reliance on foreign flows holds us hostage to global trends. We should instead be making sure that our markets reflect our strong domestic fundamentals, by bringing our domestic savings in them. We have foreign capital hugely benefiting from our stock market, while Indians are being forced to invest in low-return government bonds. Even after steep falls in September 2008, a fund that had invested money in 2004 would have turned in good returns (compared to government bonds).

Coming to the green revolution, he states that India sustains around 17% of the world’s population, but accounts for only 2.4% of the world’s surface and 3.5% of the world’s fresh water resources, and our forest cover averages at 1/3rd that of US. He also states that “development which destroys the environment eventually destroys itself. I was really shocked when I read that Israel uses far less water than we do per hectare and still surpasses us in agricultural productivity. Shows how much water we use and worse with the absence of pricing for ground water, and pretty much free power (because of subsidies) to pump those ground water, most water is wasted. India is just 1/3rd canal fed and rest depends on ground water. Anyone can easily put one and one together. Good thing about India is, highly entrepreneurial and one where development has been bottom-up rather than China’s top-down, state driven model.

Talking about Power Energy or lack of it, he says it would be economically destructive for India to go all the way up in our oil consumption, and then be forced to come down. According to him India is facing a challenge that the developed world never did – of driving our growth around an entirely new energy model. Great thing about India opening up in the energy sector is that India’s private companies have discovered more gas in the last decade than the government did in the past sixty years. Also he points out that India has a unique advantage as it sits in the middle of a natural gas triangle, with Iran in the west, Russia in the north and the Indonesia gas fields in the east. In today’s economy, getting more value for every unit of fuel is very critical. India should build habits of efficiency into the fabric of the economy, and into the consumer behavior even as it develops. At the same breath he cites that the majority of Indian cities lack mass transit systems, the most energy efficient form of travel (I am hoping when our own Bangalore Metro will start and will junk my car for sure as soon as it starts!!!!). He also suggests about getting rid of subsidized fuels and imposing additional taxes and top it off with carbon tax. That way we can fuel the growth of more economical and more environmental friendly alternative energies. He suggests that from India’s perspective, biofuel remains one of our most promising alternative energy sources, especially for India’s rural sector.

He concludes with a high positive optimistic note about India’s growth despite all the negative trends that comes with our country. “It is a country that is young, impatient, vital, awake – a country that may finally be coming close to its early promise”.

The book is filled with such facts and figures, great quotes and lessons and advices from the experts in the given fields; some of the facts are startling. Great thing about this book is not just Nandan talking about India but he quotes from many experts from each of the filed he discusses which gives you a totally different perspective of every issue that is concerning with the development of our country, Unfortunately I cannot quote everything nor state every fact I came across, nor is the right idea either. Overall I feel a must read for those who genuinely believe that India is the country of this century and if they believe that they can make a difference in this regard. So pick up your copy, and read it – who knows you might be the person and the reason, for a better India tomorrow. 

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The Future of Indian Technology

The Indian technology industry got its start running call centers and doing low-level IT work for western firms. Then, in the 2000s, it started taking on higher-level IT tasks, offering management consulti

ng services, and performing sophisticated R&D. Now there is another transition happening, one far more significant: a transition to development of innovative technology products. Instead of providing IT services as the big outsourcing companies do, a new breed of start-ups is developing high-value products based on intellectual property. The Indian industry group NASSCOM estimates that in 2008, the country’s software product revenues totaled $1.64 billion. It forecasts that this will grow to $11 billion per year by 2015.

I attended the NASSCOM Product Enclave in Bangalore, this week, and gave several talks to the 1000+ entrepreneurs in attendance. I was surprised at the changes that are powering the new transition: its tech workers are leaving high-paying jobs in IT services, and kids out of school are ignoring social taboos against failure and defying marriage customs to become entrepreneurs. A few Americans are also joining the fray, starting their ventures in India rather than in Silicon Valley. Though in China, returnees from the U.S. are fueling the entrepreneurship boom, they aren’t as important in India. Sadly for my Indian friends in Silicon Valley who are looking to return home, returnees—formerly in high demand and treated like rock stars—are out of vogue and now treated like rocks.

Why are highly paid workers in an industry that does lucrative contract work for multinationals jumping ship? It’s the same dynamic as you observe in the United States. Entrepreneurs start their companies when they are, on average, 39 years of age. They have 10 to 15 years of work experience and ideas for products that solve real customer problems; they get tired of working for jerk bosses; and they want to build wealth before they retire. So they defy their fear of failure and take the plunge into entrepreneurship.

India’s outsourcing industry is about 20 years old and has hundreds of thousands of workers with 10 to 15 years of experience and ideas for innovative products.

At the NASSCOM event, I met dozens of tech-service industry workers who had become entrepreneurs. A surprisingly high proportion weren’t developing products for their former customers, but were instead looking inward to solve India’s problems. The one who impressed me the most was K. Chandrasekhar, of Forus Health.

Chandrasekhar learned that that the vast majority of the 12 million people in India who are blind could have maintained their sight if only their problems had been diagnosed and treated on time. The diagnostic equipment for a single hospital cost at least US$60,000—which put it out of the reach of most regional clinics—and required ophthalmologists to perform the diagnosis. Chandrasekhar and Forus co-founder Shyam Vasudev decided to leave their jobs as senior executives at NXP Semiconductor (an offshoot of Philips) to create an affordable, all-in-one intelligent pre-screening device that is non-invasive and can be used by minimally trained technicians in rural India. The device provides an indicative report in 10 minutes for five major eye-related problems, including diabetic retina. This frees the doctor up to treat patients rather than administer tests. The product costs less than $15,000, and Forus expects the price to drop to half that in volume production.

Another impressive entrepreneur at the NASSCOM event was Vishal Gondal. In youth entrepreneurship, Gondal is the Bill Gates of India. He dropped out of college to start his first company when he was 16, and launched his big success—Indiagames—when he was 23. He sold part of his company for a multimillion dollar sum 2005. He now mentors young entrepreneurs and invest in start-ups via his fund called Sweat & Blood Venture Group.

But college-dropout tech entrepreneurs like Gondal are extremely rare in India. Most make the wise choice to complete their education before joining a start-up. So far, the biggest inhibitor of youth entrepreneurship in India has been the social stigma associated with failure and the low social esteem bestowed on start-ups. In the arranged-marriage system—which is still the norm in India—a young male who joined a company such as Infosys or IBM would command the best marriage proposals, and those who took the start-up path risked trading down. No longer. All of the young entrepreneurs I met said either that they had told their parents that they would find their own partners, or that their parents supported their decision.

It also used to be that nearly all the graduates of India’s prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) would join investment banks or take senior positions in the outsourcing industry. Given the huge salaries these workers commanded, entrepreneurship was out of the question. Yet I met dozens of entrepreneurs who had left these institutions and were now risking it all on entrepreneurship. Two such are Pavan Thatha and Rakesh Thatha.

After completing his MBA from IIT-Bombay and working in the outsourcing industry for four years, Pavan Thatha persuaded his brother Rakesh, an IIT-Madras graduate, to leave his job at Computer Associates India and start a security-software firm called Arrayshield. That was in May 2010. By October 2010, they had hired two more IITans who left new jobs at Oracle India and John Deere. The new recruits took 75% paycuts. The recruits received intense pressure from their family not to take the risk. Their parents couldn’t understand why they would leave prestigious, high-paying jobs to risk it all. But they were determined to be part of the journey of the brothers, who has set out to do something to make a difference and change the world.

And it isn’t just the Indians who are seeing opportunity in India.

Valerie Rozycki had always wanted to be an entrepreneur and was keenly interested in emerging markets while a student at Stanford University. She believed India’s growing economy would provide great opportunities for someone like her. She had an idea to build a mobile engagement platform based on dialing numbers or “missed calls” (most Americans are not familiar with the concept of “missed calls”, but in the developing world, they are a common way of sending a short message: “I’m on my way home”, “pick me up”, “I love you”, etc.). So, in February 2010 she started a company called ZipDial, in Bangalore. The company leverages “missed calls” in marketing campaigns—to log votes.

Valerie clearly has many great opportunities in Silicon Valley. When I asked her what a (white) gal like her was doing in a place like Bangalore, she smiled and said, “when all of the action is in Bangalore, who needs Silicon Valley?” 

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US continues to face shortage of IT skills: Nasscom

BANGALORE: As Barack Obama was re-elected US President, India's IT industry body Nasscom said opposition to outsourcing in the US is actually targeted at the manufacturing sector and no

t IT services.

"Every time there is anti-outsourcing topic, we always take it as it's for our industry (Indian IT services industry)", Nasscom President Som Mittal told reporters.

Actually, it's targeted at manufacturing sector, he added. "Many of the jobs (in the manufacturing sector in the US) have moved (to China)", he said, adding, the election dynamics (anti-outsourcing rhetoric) is different from ground reality (in the US).

Mittal said the US continues to face shortage of IT skills, and expressed hope that there would be comprehensive changes in immigration policy.

He said the Indian IT services industry actually works for the US economy in many ways, adding that "We are solution to many of the problems that US faces. There is a realization (in the US) that we are part of the solution".

Meanwhile, Nasscom said, India and the US need to partner together to foster economic growth, develop an educated and skilled workforce and create jobs in order to find solutions to balance the current global situation.

"Rapid recovery in the US will benefit the entire global economy and consequently, our (Indian IT services) sector," the industry boday said in a release.

"Nasscom shares many of the same economic and diplomatic goals outlined by President Obama and specifically, we agree on the shortage of STEM professionals in the US and support expanding the visa program so that highly skilled workers can help companies lead the way on innovation and contribute additional jobs and economic growth in the United States," it added. 

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India’s 8 richest tech czars

Hurun Report, a China-based research house, recently released a report on the richest Indians in 2012, in conjunction with GyanMagnus Associates. Here we list the eight richest Indians in technology and telec

om sectors as on September 22, 2012, as stated in the report. 

Azim Premji
Personal wealth: $12.3 billion
Company: Wipro
Age: 67
Azim Premji has led Wipro since the late 1960's. Then a $2 million hydrogenated cooking fat company, Wipro Limited is today a $7 billion revenue IT, BPO and R&D Services organization with presence in over 50 countries.

Shiv Nadar
Personal wealth: $5.7 billion
Company: HCL
Age: 67
Shiv Nadar was born and raised in mofussil Tamil Nadu, in an India awakening to its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru's "Tryst with Destiny". Nadar was part of the elite DCM management trainee system and left DCM in 1976, along with seven others, to create HCL in a Delhi barsati.

Sunil Mittal
Personal wealth: $5.7 billion
Company: Bharti Airtel
Age: 55
Sunil Bharti Mittal, the founder, chairman and group CEO of Bharti Enterprises, started his career at 18 after graduating from Punjab university in India in 1976 and founded bharti. Today, at 52, he heads a successful enterprise which employs over 30,000 people and has market capitalisation of approximately US$ 25 billion.

NR Narayana Murthy
Personal wealth: $1.4 billion
Company: Infosys
Age: 66
NR Narayana Murthy founded Infosys in 1981, served as the CEO during 1981-2002, and as the chairman and chief mentor during 1981-2011. He is currently the chairman emeritus of Infosys.

S Gopalakrishnan
Personal wealth: $1 billion
Company: Infosys
Age: 57
S Gopalakrishnan (Kris), along with NR Narayana Murthy and five others, founded Infosys in 1981. Kris served as director (technical) and his initial responsibilities included the management of design, development, implementation, and support of information systems for clients in the consumer products industry in the US.

Nandan Nilekani
Personal wealth: $1 billion
Company: Infosys
Age: 57
Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder of Infosys, was appointed as the chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, in the rank and status of a cabinet minister for an initial tenure of five years in 2009. Nilenkani also heads the Technology Advisory Group for Unique Projects, a body under the Government of India.

Bhupendra Kumar Modi
Personal wealth: $1 billion
Company: Spice Group
Age: 63
Bhupendra Kumar Modi is the global chairman of Spice Group and was appointed to the board on April 24, 2010 as non-executive director and chairman. About his ventures, he says, "I want to ensure that people everywhere enjoy the highest levels of personal productivity. And today the mobility of the internet will drive this more than any other phenomenon."

SD Shibulal
Personal wealth: $650 million
Company: Infosys
Age: 57
SD Shibulal (Shibu) is the co-founder, member of the board, chief executive officer and managing director of Infosys. He was instrumental in the development of Infosys Global Delivery Model, a standard for the delivery of outsourced IT services and helped set the stage for the company's evolution into a leading multinational business consulting and IT services provider.

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Job portal for disabled people launched

MUMBAI: In an effort to help the millions of disabled in India earn a livelihood with dignity, Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD), an International NGO that supports disabled people 52 countries has designed a unique portal dedicated to facilitate recruitment for persons with disability.

The portal named Jobability.org will cater to people with visual, hearing, speech, loco motor and mild-intellectual disability. The portal is not only for the highly educated and the highly skilled, it will serve as a forum where people with disability can showcase their capabilities, discuss their issues, take advice and meet others in similar situations.

Commenting on this unique Portal developed by LCD, Aruna Rangachar, National Director of CDT said, "Our aim is to use technology and reach out to the under-served communities, break down the barriers that can hinder the access to employment and the professional growth rate of persons with disability. This is a good start to creating an inclusive society which is our ultimate aim, through placing disabled people in mainstream jobs. We need to create visibility for this portal for more and more people with disability to join and find a new career scope through Jobability. We also encourage progressive employers to register themselves and start using Jobability to recruit untapped People With Disability (PWD) talent"

The website targets leading companies in the country to offer jobs by going through the uploaded resumes of the candidates and by registering vacancies which persons with disability can apply to. The website will also provide information related to the livelihood opportunities

This unique portal, which has accessibility features for employment was conceptualized and developed by Leonard Cheshire Disability (UK), as an exclusive job portal for persons with disability from South Asian regions and is currently registered in India by Cheshire Disability Trust (CDT).

CDT is promoting www.Jobability.org to persons with disability and potential employers through its Livelihood Resource Centers across India. 

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Indian IT has failed to support the growth of its own inventions

NEW DELHI: Despite making landmark advances, the Indian software industry has failed to support the growth of its own inventions, Infosys founder Narayana Murthy said today, asking students to reinvent their idea of education to end this anomaly.

Speaking to engineering students at the annual convocation of the Indrprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi, Murthy pointed out that the much famed Indian software sector ends up importing every innovation from the West despite the fact that the country produces a large number of software professionals.

He said emphasis solely on passing examination and enormous focus on rote learning rather than on learning and using fundamentals was partly to blame for this state of affairs.

"Unfortunately, almost all of the advances in the Indian software industry - other than the Global Delivery Model and 24-hour productive day - in software engineering, quality, productivity, security, and user interface design have come from the western nations.

"... every book, we use, has been written by people who work abroad. Every gadget we use and every invention that we see around us have been invented abroad. Why is it so?" asked Murthy, who founded the Indian software major in 1981 along with six friends.

Suggesting a change in the way students' approach their education, he said the idea that education ends with passing the last examination in the college should be done away with, and professionals should continue the learning process all their lives.

"Making education purposeful is a key aspect of gaining recognition for our education system. No wonder then that there is no Indian institution of higher education in the top 200 in Shanghai rankings," he said.

Murthy exhorted students to imbibe fundamentals of education as instruments to solve problems around them and continue to evolve with rapidly changing technology.

The convocation function was also attended by former Nasscom chief Kiran Karnik and IIT-D Director Pankaj Jalote.

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10 free tools to manage your files on Windows

1-Instant Search: Everything
With huge hard drives being the norm, searching for any document on your PC can be a painstakingly slow exercise. This is because every time you search using the default tool in Windows, it has to scan each and every folder till it finds the file. Everything, on the other hand, helps you locate any document almost instantl

y.
The first time you install the software, it indexes the contents on your hard drive. The program then sits unobtrusively in your system tray till you double-click its icon. To search, simply type the name of the file you are looking for, and the software will serve it up to you - no wait whatsoever. You can also search by file extension and add strings for custom searches. For example, use 'office\invoice' to search for filenames with the word 'invoice' in your 'office' folder, or 'Beatles! Love' to exclude the term 'Love' from your search. www.voidtools.com

2-Better File Copy: TeraCopy
The default copy tool in Windows is bothersome if you deal with huge files. If there's an error while copying multiple files, it'll abort the whole job. Also, there's no way to pause and resume a transfer. And did you know that Windows doesn't actually copy files at the fastest rate possible?
TeraCopy to the rescue. The software features full shell integration, which means that it replaces the default Explorer copy tool so you don't have to start the program each time you are copying files.
While transferring, if there is an error, TeraCopy will try multiple times to copy that file - and if that doesn't happen, the file is skipped and the rest of the data is copied. At the end of the process, you can see which files posed a problem and try copying them again.
What's more, you can even pause and resume the process if you need to run a more resource intensive program alongside. And yes, the software is optimized to get the fastest possible transfer speed on your computer. codesector.com/teracopy

3-Tag Files: Elyse
Sometimes, the same file can fit in different folders. For example, a photo can find place in a folder for profile pics, the party it was clicked in, or by date. Instead of keeping multiple copies of the file, Elyse brings a smart 'tagging' system.
The idea is to store your files anywhere, but classify them with tags to find them easily. Just point Elyse to a folder and then you can start creating as many tags as you want.
After that, just drag-and-drop files to the tag. It's handy for office use (different projects that use the same documents) as well as personal data (tagging photos or videos). It's not easy to use initially, but once you get accustomed to it, Elyse works splendidly. silkwoodsoftware.com

4-Folder Lists: Filelist Creator
When a friend asks you to send him a list of the MP3 songs you have, it would be downright ridiculous to sit and type the name of each file. If only there was a way to make a list of all the files in your folder. Well, meet Filelist Creator. Point the program to the folder to start. You can choose to search all sub-folders if you want.
Next, select which parameters of the files you want to be included: name, format, file size, path, date, etc - all of which can be seen live in the preview window. Filelist Creator lets you choose formatting options too, such as the header, spacing, grouping and the order of the columns as well. Once you've had your pick, choose whether you want a text file, CSV, HTML or image and save it. www.sttmedia.com/filelistcreator

5-Delete Forever: File Shredder
When you "delete" a file in Windows, it's not entirely erased from your hard drive.
The Delete function simply hides the file till the space it occupies is overwritten with new data. Still, specialized file recovery software can retrieve these files easily (see Recuva). So how do you get rid of a sensitive file permanently?
File Shredder is a simple tool that gets the job done by 'writing' over the files multiple times with random binary data. Start the program, select the files and shred them with a button. Simple.
In the Settings tab, you can choose the type of encryption you want to use to shred the file. There's also an option to Shred Free Disk Space. As we said, a file isn't completely gone when you delete it; which means it's still occupying some space. File Shredder purges this data by rewriting over it as well.www.fileshredder.org

6-Smart Backup: Copy Changed Files
If you routinely back-up your files to an external hard disk, then you might want to install Copy Changed Files. The tool allows you to compare the contents of similar folders in two different locations - and then, only copies the files that have been modified. First, select the 'From' and 'To' folders. Then, choose the method to compare files: Date-time and file size is faster, but can have errors, while the binary compare method is slower, but more accurate. You can choose to filter what to copy by file type or size. And that's it. Hit the copy button.www.copychangedfiles.com

7-Discover Duplicates: Anti-Twin
Sometimes, you have the same file stored in different folders or hard drives. So how do you find these and delete the duplicates? Say hello to Anti-Twin. It's a super-simple interface. First, select a folder as the basic comparison point - you can either search within this folder for duplicate files, or compare this folder with another.
For the comparison criteria, you can go by the filename, minimum or maximum file size, extensions, and even the content (by bytes or pixels). Once Anti-Twin finds multiple copies, you can choose to let the duplicate remain where it is, move it, or delete it and, in that folder, leave a link to the original. www.anti-twin .com

8-Batch Rename: Metamorphose
If you are constantly required to rename large groups of files on your computer, then you must install Metamorphose.
The tool is fairly simple to use: First, select the files you want to rename by browsing to them in the 'Picker' tab.
Then, in the 'Main' tab, you can pick whether the operation acts on the name, the extension or both. You can add a prefix or a suffix to each filename; and even search for text in the name and replace it with something else. You can also modify the length of the filename, add date, time or numbers, and even insert characters in any place in it.
The best part is that every change you make is instantly previewed in a pane at the bottom, along with the original filename next to it, so you know exactly what changes you've carried out.
Metamorphose is a fantastic tool to have with you when you are organizing your music or media collections, or sorting your photos. File-folder-ren.sourceforge.net

9-Secure Files: Encrypt On Click
Want to keep a file or a folder protected from snooping eyes? Encrypt On Click is here to help. Start the program, select the file or the folder that you want to protect, key in a password and you're done - the file is now inaccessible to anyone without the password.
Encrypt On Click is tightly integrated with the Windows OS, so you don't need to run the program again to access the file. Double-click a protected file and the software auto-starts, prompting for a password.
Also, you can right-click any file or folder and choose to 'Open With Encrypt On Click' to immediately lock it with a password.www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/ freeware-hub .html

10-Undelete Data: Recuva
Deleted a file by mistake? Unfortunately, there's no 'undo' button for that. But don't worry, it's not completely gone. Unless you used a shredding tool (see File Shredder), the file can be recovered with a nifty program called Recuva.
When you run the program, you are prompted by a pop-up to choose the type of file you're looking to 'undelete', whether pictures, music, documents, etc. Next, choose the drive where it was located or the whole PC itself. Before finishing, you will be asked whether you want to perform a 'deep scan' - check this option only if Recuva is unable to find your file in the first try. Files found in the scan are marked either green (easy to recover), yellow (difficult to recover) or red (permanently deleted). Sometimes, the file's name might not be identifiable, but you can try the thumbnail preview or use your own judgment to figure out whether that's the file you were looking for. Once you locate your file, click 'Recuva' and save it to your hard drive.www.piriform.com/recuva

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