According to a recent Economic Survery results, the fast growth in the economy failed to produce as much growth in employment market, during the 10 year period till 2004, the Economic Survey said.
"Based on the current daily status (unemployed on an average in the reference week) in 2004 for men was at 9 per cent (up from 5.6 per cent in 1993-94) in the rural areas and at 8.1 per cent (up from 6.7 per cent in 1993-94) in urban areas," the Survey presented in the Parliament said.
Unemployment rates for women also increased from 5.6 per cent to 9.3 per cent in rural areas and from 10.5 per cent to 11.7 per cent in urban areas during the review period, the Survey said citing National Sample Survey Organisation figures.

Highlights of Economic Survery 05-06:

• Savings rate up at 29.1 per cent of GDP
• Investment rate up at 31 per cent of GDP
• Industrial growth at 7.8 per cent (April-December)
• Fiscal and revenue deficit targets to be met
• Tele-density increases to 11.3 per cent
• Economic growth projected at 8.1 per cent in 2005-06
• Agriculture growth at 2.3 per cent
• Foodgrains output up by 5 million tonnes to 209
• Inflation rate projected at 5 per cent in current fiscal
• Forex reserve down by a few billion US Dollars

Accoridng to an MOU between JNTU (Jawaharlal Nehru Technological Univ. ), Cisco will be providing Networking Academy cources to the students of JNTU. The highlights of the program are as below:

• To provide training up to 25,000 students every year
• Cisco will help setup labs, and provide web based curriculum and online course material.
• Up to 70% subsidy on CCNA Certification exam fee (currently it is 125 to 150 US Dollars.
• This will be one of more than 100 academies that Cisco has set up in India so far.
• Regional academy status to JNTU colleges situated in Anantapur, Kakinada, and Hyderabad.

It would be good opportunity for Cisco as well as the JNTU students. Hopefully, other networking products companies will also set up the learning centers in India.

Few related links:

http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/netacad/

http://routersimulator.certexams.com/network-simulator-designer.html

http://www.examguides.com/cisco-ccna.htm

This is just to provide a glimpse of power situation in the city of Bangalore. The electrical power is supplied by BESCOM (Formerly Karnataka Electricity Board) to the city. The stats below show the power interruptions during different periods as recorded by APC UPS:
This Week:
Blackout:2 times
Under Voltage:Never
Over Voltage:Never
Electrical Noise:1 time
4 Weeks:
Blackout:10 times
Under Voltage:Never
Over Voltage:Never
Electrical Noise:1 time
12 Weeks:
Blackout:32 times
Under Voltage:Never
Over Voltage:Never
Electrical Noise:3 times
The system is located in one of the reliable parts of the city (Koramangala). Ofcourse, here almost all the companies use backup power generators to cater to power blackouts. Note that the stats are for normal week days (9am to 6pm).

Google has established offices in Bangalore, and Hyderabad last year. Now, they are opening their presence in two more cities, Delhi and Mumbai. The main thrust at these centers will be to get local advertising from leading multinational, and Indian companies. Google's present advertisers in the country include Citibank, Monster India, Bharathmatrimony.com, Spicejet, ICICI bank, Ebay India and Birla sunlife. Currently, Google employ several hundred people at Bangalore, and Hyderabad, and all set to increase the head count. Google, USA counterpart, Yahoo! has presence in India already. We see Yahoo! ads in the city of Bangalore at several traffic junctions.

The BSE sensex crossed a historical 10,000 mark today. Though it settled down at close to 9980 at the end of the day. The sensex movement is very steep, considering that it was as low as 5683 on 6th Feb 2004, and 6535 on 7th Feb 2005. It is about 52% increase in Feb. 2005 to Feb. 2006, and 15% increase during the period Feb. 2004- Feb. 2005. The GDP growth remains close to 7%. The reasons are likely to be:
1. Foreign firms are now allowed to invest in real estate sector, and
2. Recently, India has relaxed retail sector, and retail majors like Wal-Mart, USA are planning to setup shops in India.
However, the Sensex growth appears to be unrealistic and some corrections may be expected during the coming months.

Bangalore, 3rd Feb.2006: According to the news reports in local news papers, several IT companies in India have either secured, or expecting shortly outsourcing deals from General Motors, USA. The following companies are said to have already secured the deals:
Wipro Technologies: 350 Million US Dollars worth of outsourcing contract
Satyam Computers Services: 150 Million US Dollars worth of outsourcing contract.
GM is will be concluding a 10 year contract with EDS and offering 5 year contracts, starting June 2006. Others that secured outsourcing contracts from GM include HP, EDS, and IBM.

According to a news item in Time Of India today, many Indian IT companies are hiring software professionals for thier potential capabilities rather than any current requirement (or assignments). In a pre-emptive hiring spree, it appears Indian companies are betting high on the future orders or assignments from overseas customers. With US growth rate at lowest levels during the last quarter of 2005, it needs to be seen how the Indian companies perform during the year 2006.
The article can be found at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1398598,curpg-1.cms

President Bush spoke about the excessive dependence on unstable, conventional sources of energy, and called for development of alternative energy sources. Though it came a little late, this is a wakeup call for the industry and research institutes engaged in the development of alternative energy sources. Some of the known energy sources are:

• Wind energy
• Ocean energy
• bio energy, and others.

Though there are some commercial production of alternatives to oil and other conventional energy sources, they are no where near the production levels of conventional energy. Markets like India, and China are among the best places to experiment alternate energy sources due to their fast growth, and increasing energy demands. It is required that developed nations, and others take the American Presidents (and ofcourse other nations too) call seriously and do something during coming years.