All Stories

With the US in recession, India's call centres have opened a new outsourcing frontier: India.

The shift is a sign of how India's flagship export industry is shifting from providing services to the developed world to catering to its own, quickly growing market. The Indian economy grew 6.7% for the fiscal ended March 31.

"We cannot deliver and make money in the same way we make money for an international market," says Ananda Mukerji, chief executive of Firstsource Solutions Ltd, a Mumbai-based outsourcer.

In April 2007, his company opened a call centre in Hubli, a city of 800,000 people 370km northwest of Bangalore, India's outsourcing capital. Hubli is best known for its cotton and peanut farms.

But it is also a place where wages and rents are half of those in major cities such as Mumbai. A call centre worker who gets roughly $500 a month in Mumbai would earn $250 to $300 a month in Hubli.

source: Live Mint India's call centres take calls from home

The intensity of the syndrome could become severe when a team member working on a project is benched or sent out, a leading psychiatrist said.

"It's a mental situation where IT professionals who of late have seen their colleagues, who are often friends, too, being laid off," B.N. Gangadhar, professor of psychiatry at the premier National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) here, said.

"First, it is the anxiety that the axe may fall upon them the next time and, secondly, a sense of remorse, with a tinge of guilt that they have survived, whereas their colleagues sitting next to them have lost jobs," Gangadhar said.

Two million people were employed in the Indian IT and BPO industry in 2007-08, according to the IT industry body Nasscom. The BPO sector employed more than 7 lakh persons.

"These are bad times. Recently two of my colleagues, who are also close friends, were fired. I am feeling terrible after the episode," said Sundar Gopal working with a reputed Indian IT company.

UNITES-Professionals (Union of Information Technology-Enabled Services Professionals), says there is no clear estimate of the job loss in these sectors in the wake of the global economic meltdown.

Source: The Tribune Pink slip fear drives techies to docs

A few continents away, the New York-headquartered Lehman Brothers had just posted record revenues and profits, and was handling assets of over $275 billion. At that time, Vegi was sitting on multiple job offers. One was from American outsourcing giant EDS and the other from Wipro, India's second largest IT company. Both offered to pay him substantially more than what he was earning at TCS. But EDS was willing to pay a little more than Wipro.

Multiple job offers and generous pay hikes were nothing unusual in the IT industry. Talent was hard to come by. Companies had to pay plenty in cash, bonuses, perks and stock options to retain existing employees, and attract new hires by the thousands. New contracts from US clients were flowing in easily and IT companies had a simple formula for success: they could grow as much as they could hire. They often behaved like sharks in a feeding frenzy. They hired indiscriminately.

Vegi chose to accept Wipro's offer ahead of EDS. "I thought my job would be more secure with an Indian company," he recalls. Soon after, on September 14, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. In three months, the bank would be just a footnote in financial history. When Vegi heard the news, he was in Vizag for his housewarming ceremony. "Good I moved out of that account," he thought. But he had no inkling of the catastrophe awaiting him the next day.

On September 15, Vegi was summoned to his supervisor's cabin. He had been a part of Wipro's `free pool' (the bench, IT industry lingo for people without any work to do) for a few months. "The supervisor asked me to resign as there were no projects," recalls Vegi. If Vegi were to be assigned a project during his notice period, the supervisor promised to reinstate him. The supervisor then pushed his laptop across the table and asked Vegi to type out his resignation letter. Flustered, Vegi asked for time.

Source: business.outlookindia.com IT Layoffs: The Fall of the Software Professional

Barely four months after dropping its proposal to force TV channels to show only “authorized” feed during security emergencies, the government is now seeking to censor news portals and other websites, that too even at normal times.

Draft rules released this month empower a designated Central government officer to block public access to any information on the Net for wideranging reasons of security and national interest.

One glaring infirmity in the draft rules prepared by the department of information technology is that they make no stipulation for a prior hearing to the affected website. This is despite the fact that the web host who does not comply with the direction to remove the offending information is liable to be punished with imprisonment up to seven years.

Times View: The desire to curb the media’s freedom seems to run deep in the government. How else do you explain that while the draft rules give sweeping powers to officials, no attention has been paid to a basic thing like a hearing first? Babus tend to be quick in dubbing things as anti-national or compromising national security. Why should their ‘‘request’’ always be heeded? Also, what will these babus do if the web host is located outside India? Will the domestic media, therefore, bear the brunt of this potential abuse of power? The government should think this through before it finalises the draft rules.

Website gag: IT Act amendments not final Government had made an abortive attempt to gag TV channels through a draft notification amending the cable television network rules, but the sweeping power to control the content on websites is being fleshed out in the rules drafted under the recent amendments to the information technology (IT) Act.

Though it was passed by Parliament in December and the Presidential assent to it came in February, the IT amendment Act 2008 will not come into effect till the various rules drafted under its provisions, including the one on blocking public access to websites, are finalized.

Under the draft rules framed under section 69A of the IT amendment Act, every state or Central government department will be empowered to decide whether a certain news item, article, blog or advertisement relating to its jurisdiction is safe to remain on the Net.

Once somebody sends a “complaint” against any information displayed on the Net, the department concerned will take a call on whether the matter in question affects any of the six concerns mentioned in section 69A: interest of sovereignty or integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order or incitement to commit any cognizable offence relating to the other five reasons.

If it is satisfied about the need to pull the challenged information out of the public domain, the department concerned will send a “request” in the prescribed form to the “designated officer” at the Centre chosen by the secretary of the IT department. An interministerial committee headed by the designated officer will recommend whether the request to censor the web site should be accepted or not.

If the IT secretary approves the committee’s recommendation to take action, the designated officer will direct the intermediary or web host to block the offending information within the stipulated time. In the event of non-compliance, the designated officer can initiate criminal proceedings under section 69A, which imposes a maximum sentence of seven years on the web host.

The only remedy provided by the draft rules to media organizations is that a review committee will meet every two months to check whether the directions to block information have been issued in accordance with the IT Act.

Source:Times Of India Website Gag: IT Act Amendments Not Final, Govt Arming Itself To Censor News Websites

• Caught In The Web; Draft Rules Stir A Hornet's Nest: From Business-Standard

The verdict could be a step toward helping music and film companies seeking to recoup millions of dollars in lost revenues from filesharers, though analysts said they doubted it would stem the tide of illegal downloading.

"The Stockholm district court has today found guilty the four individuals that were charged with accessory to breaching copyright laws," the court said in a statement. "The court has sentenced each of them to one year in prison." Companies including Warner Bros., MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI were also asking for damages of more than 100 million crowns ($12 million) to cover lost revenues.

The court also ordered the defendants to pay over 30 million Swedish crowns ($3.58 million).

The men linked to The Pirate Bay Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom were charged early last year by a Swedish prosecutor with conspiracy to break copyright law and related offences. Lundstrom's attorney Per Samuelson told journalists he was shocked by the guilty verdict and the severity of the sentence.

"That's outrageous, in my point of view Of course we will appeal," he said.

"This is the first word, not the last. The last word will be ours." The group that controls The Pirate Bay launched in 2003, has maintained that since no copyrighted material is stored on its servers and no exchange of files actually takes place there, they cannot be held responsible for what material is being exchanged.

Industry specialists were not convinced the verdict would have a lasting effect. "Every time you get rid of one, another bigger one pops up. Napster went, and then up came a whole host of others ... The problem of file-sharing just keeps growing year on yeal and it's increasingly difficult for the industry to do anything about it," said music analyst Mark Mulligan of research firm Forrester "Pirate Bay was brilliant at self-publicity, but the reality is there are lots of other torrent-tracker sites," said Dan Cryan, senior analyst at media research firm Screen Digest. "The closing of the one that shouts the loudest won't make any difference."

Last year, Swedish prosecutors filed criminal charges against four men they say violate the country's copyright law by operating the Pirate Bay. The file-sharing site has long been one of the top Web destinations for people seeking access to pirated movies, games, books and business software. The site, which says it has 22 million users, is based in Sweden, where the government has taken few steps to curtail piracy until recently.

The four men--Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom--have denied the charges, arguing that they merely provided an index of content and didn't control what other people did with it.

Arguments have finished, and a ruling is due Friday.

The men face up to two years in jail, although the prosecution has asked for sentences of one year. Entertainment companies, including Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., EMI Group Ltd. and Sony Corp.'s Columbia Pictures, are also seeking a total of 117 million Swedish kronor ($14.2 million) compensation for lost revenue.

Source: Live Mint Court Nears Decision On File­sharing Site

Having identified critical sectors that could be vulnerable to cyber attacks, the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology has issued security guidelines to all ministries and government departments asking them to set up 24x7 cyber control rooms, implement information security best practices, deploy information security experts, formulate their own information security policies and ensure background checks of all personnel employed in IT divisions. Henceforth, the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) headed by the Cabinet Secretary will also be monitoring all national-level cyber crises.

SOurce: The Indian Express Govt gets real on cyber terror

एक जैसी रुचियों और पसंद वाले लोगों को एक प्लैटफॉर्म पर लाने के लिए शुरू हुई ऑनलाइन सोशल नेटवर्किंग अब कम्यूनिकेट करने और जानकारियां शेयर करने का सबसे सुविधाजनक, सस्ता और आसान जरिया बन गई है। दुनिया में करोड़ों लोग सोशल नेटवर्किंग वेबसाइट्स से जुड़े हुए हैं और इनमें रोजाना हजारों-लाखों नए नाम जुड़ रहे हैं।

सोशल नेटवर्किंग साइट्स के इस बढ़ते नेटवर्क पर आईटी कंपनी क्यूबिट टेक्नॉलजी के एमडी संजय शर्मा कहते हैं कि टेक्नॉलजी को आप रोक नहीं सकते और न रोकना चाहिए। वह सोशल नेटवर्किंग साइट्स की तुलना टीवी से करते हुए कहते हैं कि जिस वक्त टीवी शुरू हुआ, गिने-चुने चैनल और प्रोग्रैम थे लेकिन आज सैकड़ों ऑप्शन हैं। ऐसे में आप क्या चुनते हैं, यह आप पर निर्भर करता है। इसी तरह सोशल नेटवर्किंग वेबसाइट्स की भी बाढ़ आ गई है। लेकिन इनका इस्तेमाल आप अपने फायदे के लिए किस तरह करते हैं, यह आप पर निर्भर करता है। वह जोर देकर कहते हैं कि ये वेबसाइट्स आपको प्रफेशन में आगे बढ़ाने में बड़ी भूमिका अदा कर सकती हैं।

प्रफेशनल यूज भी : असल में, इन दिनों सभी सोशल नेटवर्किंग साइट्स ढेर सारे प्रफेशन और कमर्शल ऑप्शन उपलब्ध करा रही हैं। इन पर नौकरियों और कारोबार से जुड़े न सिर्फ विज्ञापन हैं, बल्कि लोग एक-दूसरे को सीधे अवसरों की जानकारी मुहैया कराते हैं। जिन्हें अवसर की तलाश है, वे भी यहां मौजूद हैं और जिनके पास अवसर या उससे जुड़ी जानकारी हैं, वे भी यहां हैं। सीधा संपर्क होने की वजह से यहां बननेवाले प्रफेशनल संबंध ज्यादा सटीक और गहरा होते हैं। फिर जितने ज्यादा मेंबर, उतने ही अवसर भी ज्यादा मिलते हैं। ये तमाम चीजें मिलकर एक मजबूत मार्किटिंग सिस्टम तैयार करती हैं, जो आपके ब्रैंड, प्रॉडक्ट और सर्विस को प्रमोट करता है।

• भारत में करीब पांच करोड़ सोशल नेटवर्किंग यूजर हैं।

• सोशल नेटवर्किंग साइट्स पर यूजर औसतन 25 मिनट बिताता है।

• भारत में इंटरनेट यूजर्स में से एक-तिहाई सोशल नेटवर्किंग साइट पर हैं।

The BJP on Saturday unveiled an ambitious "IT Vision" document that it vowed to imple ment if voted to power in the next elections "setting the stage for the next IT revolution in the country". NDA prime ministerial candidate L K Advani, who unveiled the document, said with IT in governance, the Government delivery mechanism would be improved dramatically. "Every Indian would get to know where every single rupee spent on him by the Government goes."

The document vowed a "golden IT quadrilateral" that would take IT to villages, "making IT as ubiquitous as electricity"; talked about making the parameters of broadband connectivity at par with that in the western world; and to make IT an integral part of the literacy drive across the country. "This would also help create as many as 1.2 crore IT-enabled jobs in rural India," said Advani. He said "IT would be used to make national security more robust and expand education and health care services, "especially in telemedicine".

The BJP said if voted to power, the poor would be provided with laptops at Rs 10,000 each. Interestingly, it said manufacturers would have to set up plants in India for this "that would boost the hardware industry in the country".

Interspersing his speech with anecdotes like his first use of the Casio digital diary in early 80s, and a visit to the Microsoft office in the late 90s ("where Indians constituted the one-fourth of the workforce"), the BJP leader said: "A BJP led Government will create a new policy climate where we use technology mainly for India's and indeed Bharat's sustainable development.

Advani, who during his tenure as Union Home Minister, had mooted the idea of national identity cards, also felt that IT could be effectively used to make national identity cards for the citizens. The party also promised to increase mobile phone penetration in five years from 40 crore to 100 crore subscribers.

On the occasion, BJP president Rajnath Singh launched its redesigned website. A host of BJP leaders, including Jaswant Singh, Arun Shourie, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley were present on the occasion. Sudheendra Kulkarni and Prodyut Bora helped prepare the Vision document.

Today many politicians are embracing the internet (blogs, websites, social networking and other social media forums) to reach out to voters. But so far they have not been very successful in engaging the Indian population in a dialogue with them about their own party's platform or their personal stands on issues of public importance.

One of the major reasons is that the efforts so far by politicians have been only marketing campaigns rather than efforts to organize the community, or to translate the population at-large into reliable vote banks. A party having or not having a website cannot be the major reason for people to choose party affiliations, but having a good and interactive website it can cause people with a certain party preference to articulate their support for that party more strongly. And articulation of the support in public can motivate them to stick with that stand till election time, and also cause more people to speak up in support and identify themselves with the political party.

Many current initiatives by the political parties, and BJP seems to be the more determined to use the Internet in a big and systematic way, are bound to fail as they are just copying Western ideas of running political campaigns into an Indian environment. And the difference in the Indian environment from the Western environment is not only in digital penetration or techno-saviness of the masses, but the difference lies in the very nature of how power flows in the Indian Society and the inefficiencies in its flow compared to the Western societies. For example, the funds for a politicians campaign in the United States are collected from the citizen and there upper limits to the amount that can be contributed by a citizen/corporate, and all of this must be publicly disclosed. So, to raise more money politicians have to reach out to more and more people, and like Obama/Hillary/McCain  get people to contribute  $5, $50, etc. Thus, their approach in the US elections was a marketing and fundraising campaign. This does not hold true for India, and the reason for an Indian Politician to make a website cannot be his/her intention to collect contributions from the public.  

Another example of the difference in the US and Indian milieu is the notion of access to the politician or his office. Access to a politician in India is almost impenetrably guarded by a circle of people around the politician and his/her office in contrast to the politicians in the US. So, having "discussion forums", or "feed back" links are misleading on an Indian politician's website as they signal that a website visitor can just by tapping the keyboards get the attention of the politician - which due to the layer of people around the politician is not true. And if you can't get access to the politician, or can't find out a reasonable path by which to access the politician from the website, then what good is this electronic outpost for most citizens?    Hence, to succeed websites of Indian politicians must be grounded in Indian realities and not mere copies of websites of Western politicians.

Despite the growing number internet users today, many Indian politicians and political parties are reluctant to tap the growing number of Indian Internet users. One clear hinderance to the adoption of the net by the Indian politican is that most cannot figure out the basic tradeoff that they face - what do I want from my website for the citizens, and what am I willing to give in return to the citizens for getting what I want. Without addressing this basic issue of access, aggressive marketing campaigns like that being down by one of the major political parties may be shooting at the wrong target in the Indian context. There is a plethora of direct mail and there is a huge amount of graphic ads of the party's Prime Ministerial candidate's portal on thousands of websites across the web - there is a very intense online marketing campaign going on. Surely almost every one knows about the PM candidate, and to expect people to go and read about his bio, daily adventures, etc is not rational. And hoping that as more people know the PM candidate has his own website they will vote for him is also not realistic. So, what is it that the visitor should be provided when he visits the website? The visitor shoulf be provided access to the candiate or access to people in his circle and influence. The question that becomes most important for the candiate to decide, and infact for every Indian politician aspiring to create a website is - "in this new electronic channel and platform that is created, what do I want to flow to the people, what do I want to flow from the people, and what is that can flow amongst people on the platform that I create?"

The problem is complex not only in Indian context but in US also. Of interest is as to how Mr. Obama will transform his website meant for campaign to a website meant to govern. The way in which his free-flow conversations on websites as  a candidate are tempered to match the staid conversations of  the POTUS office, the way in which he will get his administration to respond to concerns raised by citizens, etc will help guide Indian politicians. Indian politicians should learn lessons not from Obama the candidate's website, but from Obama the President's website. The restrictions and realities of Obama the president's websites are more akin to the need of the Indian politician.

A lot of Indian politics plays out in the shadows. The relationships are not clear, the stands are ambigious, and their positions can change based on political realities. As long as a website is considered by politicians as a place where they have to declare information, and then be held acountable to it, they will hesitate. All they will be willing to provide is general banalities, which is not enough to make a successful website.

There is a lot of criticism about the current internet initiatives by politicians as many feel it won't work in India because the penetration of technology is restricted to urban India. But, this is wrong. Penetration of technology is only a restriction if you consider a website as a marketing effort. Otherwise even a basic mobile phone has sufficient technology to connect to the electronic presence (or website) of the Indian Politician. Further, the material on the website can be picked up by the mainstream press, and mass media, and that can reach the rural areas. The real question for the Indian politician is not really as to who all can you reach via your website, but the question is what will you do when someone does reach your website. Once citizens know the value proposition that the Indian politician offers on his/her website, they will find a way to connect with him/her - even if only briefly.

All social media forums from social networking site like Facebook, Orkut to websites to blogs to twitter have a role in the Indian Politicians website, but the politican will have to identify and create a space in it for each of these communication technologies. And it is important to note that these social media forums involve a give and take, i.e. that is what makes it social. So, the politician has to decide that what he/she wants to take, and what he/she or other people in his social network are willing to give on his/her behalf. All the social media sites are used to find people who have a preference for a party or politician, and this is a form of targeted marketing. And twitter, blogs, etc are just a form of communicating effectively. Twitter technology just means sending sms to a huge group of people - just like group sms messaging. But the twitter marketing means that only people who have expressed a need to hear from you get the sms - that is how it is different from group/bulk sms messaging. Further facebook, orkut, etc are important because of the marketing that happens amongst people with certain declared preferences, and the possibility that your message will be heard mostly by people willing to listen to you in the first place ...

Despite websites or blogs or social networking sites, online supporters and voters seemed pretty disappointed by the weak response of leaders to their requests, pleas and comments.  They are disappointed, because the access that seems possible when you visit the website turns out to be illusionary when tried in practice, and hence is a big disappointment. What sort of bonding needs to be done is the toughest of the questions that has to be decided by the individual politicians, as it is according to their needs that they must cultivate their website and bonding. At the least the politican must spell out clearly on the website the clear and fair path according to which they citizen can gain access to the politician, even if it involves layers of heirarchy.

There are many challenges to adapting the internet and communication technologies in the 2009 general elections. Two to 3 months is too short a period in which something dramatic can happen.  It is true that each day is an eternity in a political campaign, but the Indian politican has not yet gotten a solution to the tradeoff - "what do I want from my website for the citizens, and what am I willing to give in return to the citizens for getting what I want." The more there is in the website for the citizen, the more will it give back to the Indian Politician. The more the website empowers citizen, the more the website will empower the Indian Politician.

One of the ways to empower citizens is to help them peek into the corridors of power, and then provide them tools to be able to make those in power more transparent and accountable. The RTI Act of 2005 is the most powerful tool that the Govt has given to the citizen, and will someday be used by many politicans to help people seek administation transparency and accountability, and knowing that their actions are also open to RTI will make them more proactive about the use/abuse of power. The judicious use and spread of information obtained by RTI Act will make the websites of Indian politicians more meaningful and eventually lead to websites being important tools in the fight between political parties.

To be a really effective tool, there must be something that is being leveraged. A website that uses the leverage of information (transparency) and access (accountability) is going to be effective and powerful tool in the political battles ....

that allows ordinary people to take a close look at most parts of the world on their computer screens, using satellite images and maps.

The Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) is planning to launch a similar Web-based service that will allow users to check everything from the exact location of the new restaurant where they have booked a table for the evening to the state of flood-ravaged villages in Bihar.

The new mapping service will be called Bhuvan, which is the Sanskrit word for earth.

"The content generation is taking time. We are doing first (the) internal evaluation and then the (public) launch," said V. Jayaraman, director of the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) an Isro unit in Hyderabad that specializes in satellite image processing and distribution. He did not specify a launch date. Earlier, in November, the space agency had set a March deadline for Bhuvan to be operational.

The Indian space agency will use images taken at least a year ago by its seven remote-sensing satellites in orbit around the earth, including Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2. These satellites shoot images as small as a car on the street, to build a three-dimensional map of the world. Details such as roads and soil patterns on the maps would be available only for the Indian region, however.

Bhuvan, which uses highresolution images, will comply with India's remote sensing data policy, which does not al low online mapping services to show sensitive locations such as military and nuclear installations. High-resolution images are those that show locations of 1 sq. m or less on earth.

Source: Live Mint Bhuvan: Isro's answer to Google Earth

Technology for these small devices have been developed by IISC, Bangalore and IIT Madras.

"But lot of testing has to be done to ensure that the technology works properly. Once the testing is over, the computers will be made available on commercial basis. The target is to make it available in six months time," Higher Education Secretary, Ministry of HRD, R P Agrawal told reporters here on Thursday.

The computer will be a small equipment with expandable memory, LAN and Wi-Fi facilities. The government will also produce e-content on every subject which will be made available free of cost.

A prototype computer has been designed which is being tested now.

"Its cost will be $10. If the parents want to gift something to their kids, they can easily purchase this item and gift them," he said.

Students can get the e-content feed and load them in their computers and take advantage of the materials. The government will provide these computers to educational institutions at a subsidised price, Agrawal said.

The government is in the process of consultation with different agencies for production of these computers and are seeking collaboration with them. These computers can run at two WT power.

"The ultimate target is to have a Virtual Technological University," Agrawal said.

The low-cost computers are being developed under the central scheme -- National Mission on Education through Information Communication Technology (ICT).

The ICT scheme envisages providing broadband connectivity to about 20,000 institutions, including 100 central educational institutions, in the country.

Source: msn news Govt set to market PCs@ Rs500 in 6 months

The role of social networking sites has moved beyond staying in touch with old classmates and sharing photographs. They are swiftly becoming platforms to discuss serious issues, opening up a new and effective theatre of protest.

Before the Mumbai siege came to an end, a community called `In memory of all those who died in the 26th27th November Mumbai massacre' was created on Facebook.

In 24 hours, it found over 15,000 members, and a month later it has over 85,000 members from over 25 countries.

And it was started by a 14year-old.

Anyone can lead protests on the Internet. "I didn't expect so many to join," said Shubham Kanodia, a Class 9 student from Santacruz, Mumbai, who started the protest page.

"Many from Pakistan on the community have condemned the attacks and there are comments on apathy of politicians," he said.

A similar community on Facebook is called `I'm a fan of the great hero who hit Bush with his shoes in Baghdad'. It has 1,04,000 members already. Sura Alani from Iraq, who created the community, said she had not originally started it as a serious endeavour. "We have Arab and American youth not only discussing Iraq but also making an effort to understand each other," said Alani. "Social networking websites are the place where questions can be raised without any fear of consequences." Comments made on both the communities are representative of how these websites are helping people reach out to each other. "America is still full of amazing people. Please don't see us as our President [Bush]. The only way we'll ever eternally love each other is if we learn more about each other," wrote Marcus Acosta from the United States.

Another user, Claire Singleton from Sheffield, wrote:

"I live in the UK and my boyfriend is from Baghdad. What we see on TV in UK is totally different from the reality of what Bush and Blaire have done to Iraq." The fact that people on these Internet sites don't know each other helps them be more open.

"Social network sites may be more appropriate than newsgroups, listservs, blogs and chat rooms for some political discussions as social network profiles give you plenty of information on the user you are communicating with...," said Nicole Elli son, a media and information studies expert at Michigan State University in the US.

There are some who feel that the Net is the most appropriate space for future activism since it is convenient and peaceful.

Take for example the case of Maxwell Pereira -- who was once the Capital's most dreaded traffic cop. His online address book contacts were surprised when they got an email from saying he had found a rare painting but did not have the money to buy it. The email asked for money to be wired to an account in Nigeria.

The catch was that Pereira never sent that email.

"The scamster found and changed my password so he could operate under my name. He had access to 2000 people from my address book," Pereira says.

Girdhar Rathi, a retired journalist, is another victim of cyber fraud. He spends all his free time at Delhi home. But an email sent from his account claimed he was stuck in Spain and begged for money to travel back home.

"A few days before that I had got an email that had a Yahoo logo. It asked for my user name and password. I didn't think and gave it to them," Rathi says.

Luckily no one sent Mr Pereira or Professor Rathi any money as they had warned all their friends about the scam. But if your friends get such an email and respond -- they'd be sending a lot of money to a smart hacker abroad.

So here's what you can do to stay safe: Ignore or carefully check any email that asks for your personal details. Always use separate IDs and password for official and personal mails and change them often.

Never respond to suspicious mails, like those that promise lottery prizes and don't reveal your personal details on social networking sites as they're prime hunting ground for hackers.

Remember Internet security can only be as strong as the weakest link in it and that weakest link is you. Exploiting your trust is easy. So be careful and don't fall for these cons.

"Vendors are offering up to 40% discount on software applications, and up to 25% for IT infrastructure products," Suvanjay Kumar Sharma, vice-president of corporate strategy at Yes Bank told ET. "This is a good opportunity to buy IT products and solutions at a discounted price," he added. Yes Bank spends around Rs 60 crore annually on IT.

During year-ended March 2008, Indian companies spent around Rs 26, 544 crore ($5.6 billion) on buying IT services, according to research firm Frost and Sullivan. Companies selling software for running and integrating business processes, including SAP and Oracle, are also offering discounts to their customers, according to Forrester Research.

"As you may know, discounts depend on the size of a deal, but for deals above $1M in value, we are seeing bigger discounts than before," said Forrester Research vice-president Ray Wang. "We can see discounts that start from 50-70%, especially in this last quarter," Mr Wang added.

However, some customers such as Arun Gupta, who is the group chief technology officer at Shoppers Stop, say the vendor discounts have happened even in the past, when the economy was doing better.

Based on feedback from traders across the country, the study says the worst-hit would be footpath sellers, especially those who sell garments and household articles.

Also, during Dussehra and Diwali, white goods and bullion trade would in all likelihood not be as impressive as it was last year because little discounts to attract customers are being offered by consumer durables manufactures due to higher input cost. Inflation and loss of property and lives as a result of terror activities at various places have completely dampened the purchasing enthusiasm of common investors towards gold and silver.

According to feedback received by the Chamber secretariat in the past 10 days on buying trends, it has been found that because of security reasons e-shopping is going to grow by nearly 180 times in various metros including large townships like Lucknow, Chandigarh, Dehra Dun, Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai, Udaipur and Jaipur.

ASSOCHAM Secretary-General D. S. Rawat said through e-shopping in the month of October-November 2007, shopkeepers in major hubs of economic activity effected sales of number of articles to an extent of Rs.5,500 crore. Since, one keeps a record of e-transactions as these take place through the established banking mechanism, the figure is realistic and cannot be described as exaggerated. The ASSOCHAM expects this to go up between 175-180 per cent to touch levels of over Rs.15,000 crore, Mr. Rawat said.

Just as Delhi e-shoppers' population was 30 per cent in 2007-08, in Mumbai it was 28 per cent with maximum e-shopping taking place in electronic gadgets, apparel and design purchases, railways and gift items. The number in percentage increase for e-shoppers in 2008-09 would touch at least 50 per cent in case of Mumbai while in Delhi it is expected beyond 60 per cent. Products that will gain popularity in e-sale could include gems and jewellery, books, accessories, apparel, gift products, music and movies, hotel room besides tickets for transportation.

His first stint as a blogger lasted all of three months.

Prasad blogged on a range of issues--the Gujjar community's agitation in Rajasthan, inflation, the Indo-US nuclear deal--but found that irrespective of his subject matter, the debate he sought to start would inevitably end up in complaints about the Indian Railways or the government.

"Dear Laluji, sadar pranam (salutations)!" read a comment on his post on the Gujjar agitation. "My husband Baba Sidhaye, (an) ex-western railway employee, is the first and only deaf and dumb by birth international cricketer in the world from India among 110 crore of Indian population. I would like to know: What your railway ministry has done to recognize his exemplary services to the nation and Indian Railways? I think that he is eligible for all the awards of government of India..." On 25 July, Prasad wryly remarked, "I would like to thank all those who have posted their comments on my blog. It has come to my notice that most of the comments are related to the functioning of railways, where people have pointed out various deficiencies in the services. We are studying all the suggestions and will try to implement them." He has not written since, though he may return to blogging later.

Prasad's blog is a case in point about why Indian politicians and political parties are reluctant to tap the growing number of Indian Internet users to further their agenda. As of September 2007, India had 49 million Internet users, according to a study by the eTechnology Group of IMRB International, a South Asian market research firm.

Access to a politician lies at the root of this reluctance, says Sanjay Sharma, managing director of QuBitTechnologies Pvt. Ltd, which has been running the official website of Indian Olympic Association president and Congress politician Suresh Kalmadi (www.skalmadi.org), the unofficial website of minister of state for information technology and communications Jyotiraditya Scindia (www.jyotiraditya.com) and an unofficial Congress party website, www.congress4india.com.

"The problem comes up when there is a flood of small and big requests. When you open up access to a politician, this happens and it is difficult to manage. Politicians have a group of handlers who restrict access and act as filters," Sharma says. "But when access is opened up, the equations get topsy-turvy and there is a fundamental conflict. The politician just wants to say things and find a way to filter access to him." Congress party's computer department chairman Vishvjit P. Singh, agrees. "The problem with interactivity is not only the bandwidth requirement but also that anyone can say anything they want." `Intolerant people'?

While the ministry of corporate affairs is working out the modalities of the proposal, it is understood that emails would be an accepted means of communication between a company and its shareholders.

The far-reaching proposals which has found mention in the new companies law Bill, is expected to introduce an era of next-generation company management where board meetings could be held at the click of a mouse. Officials say the proposals would ensure that crucial company meetings are not cancelled because of the absence of the requisite number of officials.

Welcome to the new e-age classroom. In a few schools in India, the Intel's classmate PC (CMPC) programme is revolutionizing teaching as well as learning. In some schools it's at pilot stage while in others the actual rollout has started.

The class starts with the teacher uploading a small video on the topic she is teaching. She keeps on adding her inputs during the video session which plays on each child's laptop via a WiFi (wireless fidelity) connection. The students are required to take the PCs home and bring them back fully charged.

After the lecture, the teacher gives a small group exercise and forms their groups electronically. Students needn't sit together to perform the group task. They can interact via chat windows. Each one can see what the group leader is doing on his PC and add inputs.

During the class, some students start talking. Immediately a message pops up on their screens in bold -- `keep your mouth shut!' Meanwhile, Amit tries to surf the internet for the latest cricket score. Instantly, a message pops on teacher's master PC and she disallows Amit's PC's from doing anything but the exercise.

In fact, the teacher's master PC's monitor is nothing but an interactive white board placed on the wall instead of a blackboard. The teacher uses the interactive white board to draw or write. And for that she does not need a chalk or pen. She can do it with her fingers. At about Rs 13,900 for a Linux-based PC and Rs 15,500 for a Windows XP-based PC, each student is equipped with a small, blue coloured notebook PC with a 2 GB or a 4 GB memory.

In the pilots for the Millenium School, Intel provided 1,500 CMPCs. "Initially it was challenge for teachers to transit from the traditional mode of teaching to a new method but the turnaround happened in a month's time and the results have been great," says Abhinav Dhar, president, K-12 initiative, Educomp.