"Of late I have been very weary of reading various books, magazines, research journals and what not on Project Management. So when I received a copy of yet another PM book, I was not at all excited. But, since I had nothing better to do, I just thought what the heck; let me take a shot at it?

Before even completing 2 chapters, I was entirely engrossed in it. The book was so fascinating, I found myself smiling quite often as most of the examples taken, were so close to my own project management experience. It made me look back and think about the various situations I had faced. The author starts each topic with a very simple and easy to understand sample and then advances the subject matters through simple examples and then illustrating them onto detailed case studies.

The biggest difference I see in this book is that the author has not written this book based on any industry standard methodology or theory. He has written this book based on his own day to day experiences in Software Project Management, which most of the project managers would like to read, share and learn.

I found that the author had addressed many complicated project management issues as well. I particularly liked the following which he had mentioned in the introductory chapter:

True professionals know their limitations, and the responsible course of action is to either configure the project in such a way that it stands a chance of success or stamp it "return to sender".

I think this is a fact that even most senior project managers forget about, or do not act upon, due to some negative impact from senior management. But in reality committing yourself to a project which you know at heart will not be successful, will create more problems for you later than convincing management on your decision on not acquiring it.

Again and again he takes real life examples such as planning a wedding in order to explain how the scope of a system can be changed (Determining Scope), and raising a kid and teaching him to walk on the road in order to explain how a PM methodology can be introduced to your organization with stakeholder Buy-in (Introducing Process component to the organization).

I recommend this book for any Project Management professional who wants to excel in their career, and would look to recommend purchasing of this book for our company project office as a resource to mentor new PMs. "

Thushara Wijewardena,PMP
General Manager - Project Office
Development Center ( Sri Lnaka)
KSNZ

You can read an entire interview with Thushara Wijewardena at The Project Management Podcast.

Podcasts

Starting 2007 Bas had a fun discussion with Dina Scott from the Controling Chaos Podcast about his book "Surprise!". Taken from her site:

"Are you a new project manager or just play one on TV? This episode is for you! Recently, I had a fun conversation with Bas de Baar, a Project Manager from The Netherlands and author of the book "Surprise! You're a Software Project Manager!". Bas wrote the book for people with little or no project management experience but are expected to manage a software development project. It is chocked full of practical advice on where to start, what to focus on and how to get through your first project! Don't let the title of the book fool you, though. This book isn't just about managing a software development project. It addresses the core concepts and skills to manage any type of project."

You can find the interview here.

Earlier, in September 2006, Bas had an interview with Cornelius Fichtner from the Project Management Podcast. You can listen to that interview here.

PDF download and 20% Discount!

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It's late Friday afternoon and you have just been told by your boss that you will be the project manager for a new software development project starting first thing on Monday morning. Congratulations! Now, if only you had taken some project management training…

This book was written as a crash course for people with no project management background but who still are expected to manage a small software development project. It cuts through the jargon and gives you the basics: practical advice on where to start, what you should focus on, and where you can cut some corners. This book could help save your project… and your job!

ENDORSEMENTS AND REVIEWS

"Bas de Baar's book rises above the sea of IT project management books. In his approach he teaches us to adopt a different mind set and focus on the people rather than on the tools. And with IT projects always being so tool centric, this is a valid lesson for any new software development project manager."
- Cornelius Fichtner, PMP, ThePMPodcast.com

"Bas has the right idea behind what project management is all about! Surprise! is a fun read but chocked full of great advice, practical process steps and tools that any budding project manager can use to manage their projects more effectively. But more importantly, Bas focuses on communication as the main competency necessary to be a successful project manager. Managing projects is really about managing communications on your projects. Bas gets that! This is a super primer that I would recommend to anyone embarking on a new project - software related or not."

- Dina Henry Scott, PMP, ControllingChaos.com

Read the reviews at Amazon.com.

"I would recommend this book to any project manager no matter whether he is in software business or not. The work reveals the pitfall all other project
management books try to avoid - the HUMAN FACTOR. I believe this manual is the link between project management theory and reality."
- Sergei Toropov, Marketing Director, VIP Quality Software

Get the book from:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Amazon Canada
Amazon UK
PDF download

"I must say: I like your writing style. I can tell you have been in the trenches of real projects (unlike some theoretical books I've read). I like the way you present topics in simple terms, using real life examples that new PM's can easily understand. Then you move to more textbook terminology."
- Jack Black, editor PMConnection.com

"The biggest difference I see in this book is that the author has not written this book based on any industry standard methodology or theory. He has written this book based on his own day to day experiences in Software Project Management, which most of the project managers would like to read, share and learn."
- Thushara Wijewardena,PMP, read entire endorsement

"Truly insightful information delivered in a fun read. A short cut to
an experience level you can only get from managing tons of projects
followed by light years of introspection. Whether you are a new PM or
have been at it for years, this book will capture your attention from
the first page."
- Terry L. Taylor, IT QA/QC Manager

"The book provides all the necessary projects basics, mixed with insights and many practical hints, which should make the first few weeks in the new role much easier than before. If your are looking for a good, practical introduction into the purpose and process of software project management, this book might be for you."
- Rainer Volz, Virtual Projects, read entire review.

"Filled with great personal experience and insight!"
- Francois Gagnon ing.jr., developer, Quebec

"The title of your book made me curious about it… could it really be that someone has written a book on how to manage a project, in a way that I can understand and apply? I've looked at quite a few other project management books, but there was so much mumbo jumbo in it, it was really discouraging… Thankfully I found your book!

Bas, you really have done a tremendous job in explaining in easy to understand terms what is needed when you manage a project. All the practical information is there, and it really gave me the confidence to take charge. Thank you so much."
- Erwin Steneker, Editor CustomerServicePoint.com

India became independent on 15th August, 1947. Since then it has been struggling through to make its stand in the world. Many new technologies were brought and many new are still are to be found. One such revolution was brought about by the introduction of the 'internet', which is till date considered as the pool of knowledge…the deeper you go in, the more you learn about your world, about yourself.

But who could think of the time when this rich source of knowledge will be misused for criminal activities. There are many such disturbing activities that occurred in past and demanded of some rules and regulations urgently, some set definite patterns that can be put forward while carrying out any business transaction over the net, ranging from a simple friendly e-mail to carrying out the whole set of your work, without which it may go wild and beyond control and it can be used as a tool for the very destruction of mankind.

It was at this point of time that the government of India felt the need to enact the relevant cyber laws which can regulate the internet in India. It denotes all aspects, issues and the legal consequences on the Internet, the World Wide Web and cyber space.

There are numerous factors that stand behind this decision of government.

1. Although India has a very well defined legal system that has been developed with the aim cover all possible situations and cases that have occurred or might take place in future, but it lacks when it comes to the newly developed internet technology. With the arrival of internet many new complex and ticklish issues cropped up which could not be interpreted (cleared) in the light of existing laws and thus necessitated the enactment of the cyber laws.

2. Also, with the growth of the internet, it became important to give some legal recognition to what is going on the internet. Internet has grown up as one of the dominating resources to carry out one's business in today's world. Most of the world fame companies prefer to outsource their business processes, which has become possible because of the internet. How come a company can carry out its business safely and securely when there is no legal validity or sanction to the activities in the cyberspace?? It is now with the emergence of cyber laws the concept of digital signatures and digital records have come up, with which a business organization can legally carry out its business process; or else even the e-mails were not given the legal recognition in the country.

3. With the growth of the internet and many associated business and friendly activities, grew the cyber crime and cyber terrorism. Here the two terms hold an entirely different meaning. While the cyber crime refers to some activity done with the criminal intentions aiming to harm or completely destruct ones workplace or something similar with or without the use of computer; cyber terrorism is defined as a premeditated use of disruptive activities or the threat thereof, in cyber space, with the intention to further social, ideological, religious, political or similar objectives, or to intimidate any person in furtherance of such objectives. The cyber criminals can employ conventional activities or could use some innovative methods and develop some new ways to achieve destroying their target places. Such crimes may include Virus/worm attack, E-mail spoofing¸ Email bombing, Salami attack or Web Jacking.

4. There were certain issues that required either the existing laws to be amended as they were outdated in the present scenario of the world or required certain new clauses to be added up in the existing cyber laws to check the various criminal activities going on the internet. Among various such cases is the MMS porn case in which the CEO of bazee.com was arrested for allegedly selling the MMS clips involving school children on its website. Then there was a case where the two actors threatened the Mid-day daily with a defamation suit when the newspaper published the pictures of the Indian actor kissing her boyfriend at the Bombay nightspot. Also Delhi Police has recently taken Krishan Kumar into the judicial custody for 6 days for illegally using the internet account of Col. (Retd.) J.S. Bajwa.

All such activities taking place around the country needed a new discipline that could provide everyone with the safe and secure environment where an illegal encroachment of some cyber criminal, as law calls it, to be prosecuted and punished for his crime. Also these laws were needed to lay the foundation of the legally recognized rules and regulations that a company or an individual must follow while carrying out his business…giving even the business processes carried out by this newly evolved (hot) media even the legal status.

Keeping all these factors in to the consideration, Indian Parliament passed the Information Technology Bill on 17th May 2000 which is known as the Information Technology Act, 2000. It talks about the Cyber laws and forms the legal framework for electronic records and other activities done by electronic means/ways.

Cyber laws are meant to set the definite pattern, some rules and guidelines that defined certain business activities going on through internet legal and certain illegal and hence punishable . The IT Act 2000, the cyber law of India , gives the legal framework so that information is not denied legal effect, validity or enforceability, solely on the ground that it is in the form of electronic records.

One cannot regard government as complete failure in shielding numerous e-commerce activities on the firm basis of which this industry has got to its skies, but then the law cannot be regarded as free from ambiguities.

MMS porn case in which the CEO of bazee.com(an Ebay Company) was arrested for allegedly selling the MMS clips involving school children on its website is the most apt example in this reference. Other cases where the law becomes hazy in its stand includes the case where the newspaper Mid-Daily published the pictures of the Indian actor kissing her boyfriend at the Bombay nightspot and the arrest of Krishan Kumar for illegally using the internet account of Col. (Retd.) J.S. Bajwa

The IT Act 2000 attempts to change outdated laws and provides ways to deal with cyber crimes. Let’s have an overview of the law where it takes a firm stand and has got successful in the reason for which it was framed.

 1. The E-commerce industry carries out its business via transactions and communications done through electronic records . It thus becomes essential that such transactions be made legal . Keeping this point in the consideration, the IT Act 2000 empowers the government departments to accept filing, creating and retention of official documents in the digital format. The Act also puts forward the proposal for setting up the legal framework essential for the authentication and origin of electronic records / communications through digital signature.

2. The Act legalizes the e-mail and gives it the status of being valid form of carrying out communication in India . This implies that e-mails can be duly produced and approved in a court of law , thus can be a regarded as substantial document to carry out legal proceedings.

3. The act also talks about digital signatures and digital records . These have been also awarded the status of being legal and valid means that can form strong basis for launching litigation in a court of law. It invites the corporate companies in the business of being Certifying Authorities for issuing secure Digital Signatures Certificates.

4. The Act now allows Government to issue notification on the web thus heralding e-governance.

5. It eases the task of companies of the filing any form, application or document by laying down the guidelines to be submitted at any appropriate office, authority, body or agency owned or controlled by the government. This will help in saving costs, time and manpower for the corporates.

6. The act also provides statutory remedy to the coporates in case the crime against the accused for breaking into their computer systems or network and damaging and copying the data is proven. The remedy provided by the Act is in the form of monetary damages, not exceeding Rs. 1 crore($200,000).

7. Also the law sets up the Territorial Jurisdiction of the Adjudicating Officers for cyber crimes and the Cyber Regulations Appellate Tribunal.

8. The law has also laid guidelines for providing Internet Services on a license on a non-exclusive basis.

The IT Law 2000, though appears to be self sufficient, it takes mixed stand when it comes to many practical situations. It looses its certainty at many places like:

1. The law misses out completely the issue of Intellectual Property Rights, and makes no provisions whatsoever for copyrighting, trade marking or patenting of electronic information and data. The law even doesn’t talk of the rights and liabilities of domain name holders , the first step of entering into the e-commerce.
2. The law even stays silent over the regulation of electronic payments gateway and segregates the negotiable instruments from the applicability of the IT Act , which may have major effect on the growth of e-commerce in India . It leads to make the banking and financial sectors irresolute in their stands .
3. The act empowers the Deputy Superintendent of Police to look up into the investigations and filling of charge sheet when any case related to cyber law is called. This approach is likely to result in misuse in the context of Corporate India as companies have public offices which would come within the ambit of "public place" under the Act. As a result, companies will not be able to escape potential harassment at the hands of the DSP.
4. Internet is a borderless medium ; it spreads to every corner of the world where life is possible and hence is the cyber criminal. Then how come is it possible to feel relaxed and secured once this law is enforced in the nation??

The Act initially was supposed to apply to crimes committed all over the world, but nobody knows how can this be achieved in practice , how to enforce it all over the world at the same time???

• The IT Act is silent on filming anyone's personal actions in public and then distributing it electronically. It holds ISPs (Internet Service Providers) responsible for third party data and information, unless contravention is committed without their knowledge or unless the ISP has undertaken due diligence to prevent the contravention .
• For example, many Delhi based newspapers advertise the massage parlors; and in few cases even show the 'therapeutic masseurs' hidden behind the mask, who actually are prostitutes. Delhi Police has been successful in busting out a few such rackets but then it is not sure of the action it can take…should it arrest the owners and editors of newspapers or wait for some new clauses in the Act to be added up?? Even the much hyped case of the arrest of Bajaj, the CEO of Bazee.com, was a consequence of this particular ambiguity of the law. One cannot expect an ISP to monitor what information their subscribers are sending out, all 24 hours a day.

Cyber law is a generic term, which denotes all aspects, issues and the legal consequences on the Internet, the World Wide Web and cyber space. India is the 12th nation in the world that has cyber legislation apart from countries like the US, Singapore, France, Malaysia and Japan .

But can the cyber laws of the country be regarded as sufficient and secure enough to provide a strong platform to the country’s e-commerce industry for which they were meant?? India has failed to keep in pace with the world in this respect, and the consequence is not far enough from our sight; most of the big customers of India ’s outsourcing company have started to re-think of carrying out their business in India .Bajaj’s case has given the strongest blow in this respect and have broken India ’s share in outsourcing market as a leader.

If India doesn’t want to loose its position and wishes to stay as the world’s leader forever in outsourcing market, it needs to take fast but intelligent steps to cover the glaring loopholes of the Act, or else the day is not far when the scenario of India ruling the world’s outsourcing market will stay alive in the dreams only as it will be overtaken by its competitors.

Offshore outsourcing to India is especially buoyant. Only last month Norwich Union, Britain's biggest insurance company, joined a host of other firms including HSBC, Barclays, Marks & Spencer and Tesco, by deciding to ship jobs to Asia . But some, including the Royal Bank of Scotland and Alliance & Leicester, have pledged to keep jobs in Britain , partly in response to the backlash that turned offshoring into a political hot potato.

With the growing fashion of the world’s biggest organizations to offshore outsource their business processes, India has emerged as the world’s leader in outsourcing industry. Although it is the most preferred destination for most of the business organizations, mainly because of being the second nation in the world to have highest English speaking population and other factors like the cheap technically skilled labor, still it looses one out of every five clients because of the country’s inability to win its client trust over security and privacy issues.

Let’s have a look at the reasons that have forced companies to pack their bags and return to their homes by compromising over their profits.

1. Even though India is through with its first cyber law, the IT Act 2000, the service providers have been unable to provide satisfactory standard security solutions because regulations, legislation, and consequently risk vary vastly between industries and geographies.

2. Apart from this the companies bear a distrust feeling due to the lack of regulatory protection in areas such as security and privacy. It is because the IT Act 2000 doesnot include any clause similar to the Data Protection Act of United Kingdoms. This naturally has lead companies to decide for their home than to outsource.

3. India till date, has not been able to achieve the recognition from European Commission, which has framed certain standards covering data protection compliance in contracts with offshore suppliers. It is because India has not been able to rise up to the laid standards. But this not the end, the country is working hard to frame up a data protection act and privacy regime that will be scrutinized by the EC in due course.

4. The extremely slow India ’s legal process in checking digital piracy which includes both, software and movies, is also one of the reasons why companies hesitate to outsource their business processes to India .
Developed nations like Hong-Kong and Singapore , on the other hand, have stringent laws for the similar crimes.

5. Further the case of an ex-employee of Geometric Software Solutions Ltd (GSSL), a Mumbai service provider, who was caught red-handed for trying to sell the source code of Solid Works, its U.S. buyer, to another U.S. based company, has brought down the country’s image in outsourcing market. Also, Companies have identified major viruses, spam and employee misconduct as the key concerns in India . With more of such cases coming into the public notice and the continual of virus problems, the business organizations prefer to scrutinize the country’s data security readiness before hand than to outsource blindly.

If it is all to influence your business policies while outsourcing to India and lets you decide to sit and relax at home with the feeling of being safe and secure with your business processes…you need to think again because there is other side of India too that has taken it to the world’s top position in outsourcing market.
The year saw high profile visits of CEOs of Microsoft and Intel, who have high stakes in India . Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer inaugurated a new campus facility of the company in Hyderabad and said the firm would hire hundreds in India and bring out MS Window in 14 Indian languages .

1. To hold their clients, most of the Indian Service providers agree to be subjected by global acts and ready to be litigated in the court of the user’s country .

2. Also, to stay in the competition and ensure security and integrity of the data, most of the leading business process outsourcing companies have implemented international standards for information security management like the BS7799 and the ISO17799. These security safeguards are ensured in many ways like:

a) Before appointing an employee, his/her background is checked.
b) The employees donot have access to internet so as to avoid Trojan horses infecting systems and monitoring data.

c) No pencils or mobile phones are permitted in the processing shop so as to prevent the incident of the data being copied.
d) The machine gets locked in a minute, if it is left idle.
e) Systems are protected by multiple-level firewalls, anti-virus and encryption software and there is a reporting mechanism in place for any violations.

Thus it can be confidently said that Indian companies follow a whole chapter on compliance while providing their services.

3. The outsourcing environment is becoming increasingly control-oriented and the need for stronger cyber laws has been increasingly felt. The government too realizes this and therefore promises to have a tighter data protection and privacy regime in place later this year. It is conducting a security audit of its 860 members and has proposed to amend the existing cyber laws of India , the IT Act 2000 so as to cover up the issues of data security and cyber crime.

4. Apart from this, the Government of India has introduced various policy concessions and initiatives to accelerate the growth of the IT-enabled outsourcing market so as to ensure that India evolves as the global hub for IT enabled outsourcing in future.

Thus it can be reputed that India is working real hard to maintain the standards in all regimes whether it is to frame up and enforce laws like Data Protection law or maintain privacy and security standards in the Business Process Organizations, all at the lowest cost offered by any other country in the world without making its clients comprise over the quality and technicality of the work; and this is what has been shown up in the results too. As per the estimates, India is poised to become a No. 1 BPO destination in the Asia-Pacific overwhelming all the so called odds .

The birth of child has been always considered as a very auspicious occasion. Right from that time, the parents and other relatives start researching in to even the very minute things, his name, his education, and much more; all those things that can affect this small little life at any point in his future.

Education, in today’s time especially, has always been a very important concern for the parents. Nursery’s to primary schools to higher schools and then graduation with finally ending up in the job is what forms one of the major ingredients of one’s life. It never ends, as it continues throughout one’s lifetime. Its not that you need to be master in some particular field and leave the rest, as life cannot go on like that. Sociology, cultural aspects, spiritual thoughts, environmental education apart from the field of your specialization are some of the other areas of education that a child learns naturally while living in his family, clan relatives, community, at his work. The knowledge gets sharpen as he gets more exposure in the world and thus it continues to grow endlessly.

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Looking back in to the rich past of the country, one can easily observe the various ups and downs that the education system of India has gone through. With the change in the rule over a territory, changed the education policies; sometimes taking the system in a positive direction while at other times, proved a curse to the society.

The pre-dominant Vedic System over India always mandated inequality of educational opportunity, while the reforms created by Buddhism and Ashoka tried to change the myths of the Indian minds and moved them in to more liberal and equal men policies. The British were also successful in partially breaking the inequality by establishing new institutions, but ultimately reinforced elite caste dominance through differentiated education and compromises made to upper caste by British administrators so as to protect their rule in the country.

Now that we have an independent democratic country, the constitution framers took the care to spread the importance of education to all Indians and looked it over as the major constituent for the growth and development of the country and included a directive in the constitution urging all states to provide "free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years". For the implementation of the same, the state and central governments have separately opened many schools in the country popularly known as "Sarvodaya Vidhyalaya" and “Kendriya Vidhyalaya” respectively. These are meant to provide the free quality schooling education to especially the weaker section of the society, those who are poor enough to afford the day meals.

There are other private as well as state combined with private schools in the country, that though have fee structure entirely different from that of the government schools where the education is entirely free, but excel in providing the quality education to the children.

Indian schooling takes basically fourteen years from child’s lifetime, starting with the nursery classes at the age of around three years, where a child learns the basic alphabets of English and other tools of the basic subjects. The idea is to develop the capability of recognizing and understanding the things around the kids. As the student gets promoted to the higher classes, he comes to know about the various aspects of our society, the history - geography of the country, our constitution, the basic science that rules nature, a bit of algebra and much more. In the last two years of his schooling, a child is made to specialize in the field which he opts to take as his career. All this time, it’s not just the books that are included in the course curriculum to develop in him the skills of being a hard working child that believes to go deep in to the concept rather than becoming just a regurgitate, sports and other cultural activities are also added up in the day routine so that the refreshment along with the development of new skills may be developed in the child. The cultural activities may range from painting, gardening, dance, photography to whatever you can think of while in sports the schools normally do cover the basic games like cricket, swimming, football, basket ball, hockey, chess, carom-board, table tennis, etc. There are schools that even have activities like horse riding included in their daily schedule.

In order to promote these, various competitions at school or state and even at national levels are held once or more in a year. The government has made reservations up to around five percent in the higher education for such students who have actually created a landmark in their sports career while studying in the school.

Indian schooling is yet to achieve that perfect state that the freedom fighters must have visualized while writing down the constitution; with each and every Indian child being able to read and write. The progress in this concern though has been slow as India’s population is expected to reach one billion in the coming up time while the number of students who will be able to proudly call themselves literate is expected to be mere one-third of the total percentage, the major part of the two-third percentage being constituted by the children of the rural areas, especially females. Most of them prefer to sit and work like their elders, thus becoming an earning hand from the very beginning of their childhood. To them studies appear as the wastage of time and this, results in dropping out of the schools by most of the students even before the fifth grade. Their dropping out nature cannot be just concluded on the basis of their lack of interest, it is also because of the poor facilities and lack of schools and efficient school teachers in these rural areas. Most of the qualified teachers prefer to stay back in the cities, while only few of the unqualified teachers opt to go to teach in the rural areas, who also end up frustratingly as there is hardly any electricity, computers and most importantly books and school buildings at times even to deliver their knowledge successfully.

Even after these obstacles, there are states like Kerla in the country that have been able to achieve literacy rate as high as 95% to 98%. It is primarily because of the state’s education policies and individual’s effort that the state has been able to develop and keep a proper pace with time.

To conclude with, it can be said that although Indian Education System has few visible flaws, the curriculum of it so very complete and well defined that it develops a hard working and dedication in the student, which keeps him at much higher ranks when it comes to judging an Indian child on global level.

Venky Harinarayan, a pass out of Indian Institute of Technology and the founder of an e-commerce software company, Junglee, became an overnight millionaire when he along with his four co-founders (also IIT graduates) of the company decided to sell ‘Junglee’ to Amazon.com for $ 180 million. One of the remarkable deals of 1998 summers, especially for all Indian pass outs.

The Indian engineers are famous through out the world for their high technical skills blended with the innovative minds which obviously make them favorite of most of the companies including the leaders of the market.

This sounds very natural when you talk of Indian engineers because of the cut throat competitions that they have to go through while they desire to seek admissions in the top Indian universities. There after they begin with building up their careers by going through the tough studies and rigorous trainings that help them to excel where ever they go in world. Their deep go approach and conceptually understanding of things is what makes the one understand the difference in the high Indian Education Standards as compared to what the other worldwide universities curriculum.

Indian Institutes like IIT’s IIM’s are famous worldwide.

It is estimated that around 50 per cent of India's graduates from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), the top 20 per cent of graduates from medical schools, and the top 15 per cent of graduates in the humanities leave the country , to work in US, Europe, Japan and other developed nations of Middle East.

The much known high-tech companies like Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Sun Microsystems, etc send recruiters across the Pacific on yearly trips to add on fresh Indian brains to their professional family.

The statistics of success of Indian graduates are sky touching. There is a substantial increase in the number of students leaving the country after completing their engineering from year to year. Mostly it is either to seek admissions in the professional courses in the universities of their choice or else to join some multinational and start with the second phase of career rather than continuing to be a part of some school. A small ratio works over to open their private companies and leave a landmark in it that sets an example for the freshers.

As per the recent statistics, there are around 305 universities and 14,000 colleges in India from which approximately three million students successfully complete their graduation every year. Those holding the engineering degrees aim generally to leave for abroad, mostly to U.S. The others try their chance in other countries like Europe , Japan and other places. Rest either get absorbed in the major corporates like Tata Consultancy, Wipro, Infosys, Hindustan Lever, Reliance, ITC etc, or prefer to continue with the masters in India or abroad.

In the period of 1995 to 1998, only 10% of the IITians contributed to the Silicon Valley population. With the time there was an increase in the emigration of Indian professionals such as doctors, scientists and humanities professors, and the time has come when a small community comprising 1.4 million Indian American has been named as the ‘model community’.

India 's education system produces around 85,000 workers, 36,000 of whom emigrate to the US , 10,000 each to Japan and Europe . Looking into it more deeply, around 75% of computer professionals and rest from other trades abandon the country in search of better future aspects. A big ratio of these have been able to successfully establish themselves as multi-millionaires in IITan entrepreneurs with companies worth more than $40 billion. A few of them have raised to be called as the world’s best programmers while others have turned up to the board rooms of companies like CitiGroup, U.S. Airways, Novell and in managing director positions at top Wall Street investment banks.

Less than 10 percent of this substantial ratio return to India , ruining the country of it’s most valuable resources; the young brains that determines the future of the country.

This happens chiefly because of the better future aspects that a student gets to find in the developed nations. The mad rush among the Indian students to get enrolled in the foreign universities is mainly due to their technological advancements. They are much ahead of Indians technically, and it is much easy to carry out the researches there. The students and employees both get to know about the latest researches being completed and the technical applications come faster in the market, while it takes a very long period to adopt the new work in practice. Apart from this, the students have the opportunity to personally meet the personalities in their areas of interest and clear their doubts and confusions, something that has hardly taken place in India .

What more drives them to abroad is the better pay scale. The multinationals value their work and pay according to the amount of hard work, innovation, etc put in by their worker. The more you dedicate yourself to their work, the more they pay you for your benefits. Thus the chances of promotion are solely based on the work criteria and hence higher. But if you settle in for some government office in India , you will end up putting in your whole life working at the same position for the income that will merely support your family. The promotion largely depends upon the amount of time you held the office and other political factors that generally look forward to hinder your progress. The innovative ideas and experiments hold no value here, and unlike foreign countries, the same old outdated system that has been continuing from the time we can recall continues to be in use even today. The high financial security, better infrastructure, and luxurious easy life that rewards you as per your work and skills is the major reason why Indians prefer to settle outside and never return back.

This tradition has had a major set back on the growth and development of the country, even though it stands on top when it comes to producing the highest quality technical labor. A National Association of Software and Service Companies report has projected that India needs 1,40,000 workers for 2000-2001 , while the country substantially lacks the number due to the brain drain. What can be worse for a nation that it stands on third rank in world for holding the technically largest pool of labors and on top in software exports, but still has nothing to hold in its own hands.

India is a big country, supporting the world’s second largest population and is on the verge to acquire the first rank leaving it’s near by competitor behind.

Its is therefore very natural to say that the life is not that simple in this developing country, and you need to fight to hold your existence like at any other place in the world. Thus, competition in every respect begins from the very starter’s level. A child has a lot of worries when he keeps his first day in the school and as he progresses to the higher classes, the issues of career and competitions take away his peace. The competition eventually grows up to much higher level.

As the classes go by and you get to attain the preliminary knowledge of the subject, you start building up the ideas of how to move ahead in your coming up professional life. Where will you start from?? What will be the stream and the area of the specialization?? These are some of the questions that get answered to certain extent with in the last two years of the Indian schooling system, where in you need to decide whether you want to be a science student specializing in the medical or engineering fields, or will be liked to be the part of business world and manager by opting commerce or finally, an artist who doesn’t like putting in much of the brains in ‘ifs buts and then’ of the science or in solving the mathematical problems, especially of the technical level. They know what is sufficient and most basic of science and math’s, and rest the nature’s beauty and their imaginations are well harmonized to hold them in this line.

Among the many options available, information technology is the one that a substantial ratio of students decide to opt for as their career. Although there are many software degree/diploma courses available in the country and are popular enough among the students, still the most common method to be a repudiated IT engineer remains the same; the children decide to opt for the three basic science subjects physics, chemistry and math’s along with the language and any other fifth subject of their choice in the last two years of the schooling. This is because the admissions to most of the engineering colleges in India are done on the basis of the entrance exams conducted by the university the college is affiliated to, wherein the conceptual objective type questions based on the above three mentioned basic subjects form the syllabus of the subject. Once you qualify the entrance exam, you are eligible to take admission in the college, provided you fulfill the other basic norms demanded by the college, and the trade or the field of your specialization is allotted on the basis of your branch, depending on your rank and interest.

Whatever college you get in for your engineering, the basic course curriculum all over the country is indistinguishable. The whole study is divided into four years, with each year consisting of eight semesters. Generally, the first two semesters are introductory in the nature and have much of what you studied during your schooling in little detailed manner. Followed by this, the consecutive semesters are more specialized in nature, that is, the course curriculum is so designed that you slowly get the deep knowledge of the chosen trade, covering even the most basic and conceptual facts. This is done in order to develop a habit of going in deep and researching in to the subject in the student rather than becoming a mere crammer.

Also, to grow up the practical insight among the students, the laboratory work form an important and un-suspend able part of the course curriculum. To further sharpen the practical skills of the students, generally it is mandatory for the students to go through a practical training of generally six weeks or more at times at the end of the sixth semester.

For more, the students have the option to participate in the technical fest of their or other colleges, or they can enroll themselves in the technical workshops. They can even submit optional technical projects during their graduation duration.

Subject like humanities and social sciences also form a major part of the course curriculum for over all growth of the students. There are colleges that have specialized departments to teach subjects like economics, history, English, psychology, and business at the undergraduate level. The other cultural activities and interactive associations, literary clubs, competitions, sport activities including tracking, rafting, etc go along with studies to lighten up the pressure of the heavy engineering course.

Thus, the course curriculum has been designed keeping in mind the apt way to grow and sharpen the skills of a student, so that at the end of his engineering tenure comprising of eight semesters, he has developed the approach of working down from the very basic and conceptual manner, even in the toughest working conditions.

Founded in 1950 by the central government, Indian Institute of Technologies, IIT’s, raised to an institution of national importance by Parliament by means of the Indian Institute of Technology Act of 1956 and its subsequent amendments. Besides receiving central government support in the early years, IIT received assistance from West Germany , the Soviet Union , Britain , the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the United States. It is because of their quality education they have acquired the status of being listed among the top technical schools of the world and thus is ranked as the most prestigious engineering college of India .

Every year around two lakh students form various cities and towns aspiring to have a successful career as an engineer appear for one of the toughest competitive exam conducted by IIT’s in order to seek admission in one of the six IIT’s, namely IIT- Delhi, IIT- Mumbai, IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-chennai, IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Gauwhati, spread through out the country. Out of these approximately 3000 students actually make up to one of these. Rest settle either in the regional engineering colleges taking up the next place in ranking order after IIT’s, or end up in the private engineering colleges. Few of them even decide to give a year more preparing for the entrance exams to be held next year or else settle down with the other courses available.

Such high quality education completed with rigorous training makes the Indian engineers, especially the IIT’ians, highly appealing to high-tech companies like Microsoft, Intel and Cisco, who send recruiters across the Pacific on yearly trips. It is estimated that around 50 per cent of India's graduates from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), the top 20 per cent of graduates from medical schools, and the top 15 per cent of graduates in the humanities leave the country , to work in US, Europe, Japan and other developed nations of Middle East. In addition, around 75 per cent of India 's computer professionals abandon the country's booming computer industry, for their brighter future prospects in the developed nations.

This has brought up India to the third position in the world for acquiring the largest pool of technical manpower. It stands at top for producing and exporting computer software’s unbeatable anywhere in the globe.