Preventing a leading killer: Drowning

According to the World Health Organization's Global Report on Drowning 2014, drowning is a serious and neglected public health threat claiming the lives of 3,72,000 people a year worldwide.

In order to prevent us from drowning WHO recommends the following preventive measures.

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It's raining placements at IITs this year

Oracle, Google and Microsoft offered plum international offers to students at leading IITs in the country.

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) saw a better performance on the first day of the final placements this year as compared to the last year.

The IITs, which started the first leg of the final placements on Tuesday, said job offers have gone up 20 to 30 per cent this year as against last year.

This year, the number of days of placement has been reduced to 10 against 15 to accommodate the upcoming Inter-IIT Sports Meet, hosted by IIT-Madras and scheduled from December 14.

The second leg of the placements will begin in January.

At IIT-Guwahati, Oracle made the highest international offer of $140,000 (approximately Rs 93 lakh), excluding employee stock options and other components, said institute sources.

The average domestic compensation package on the first day was Rs 25 lakh.

Barring the last slot for the day, which would see 14 firms participating, IIT-Guwahati saw about 25 companies making close to 100 offers, with 67 being made in the first slot.

The day saw 16 international offers. WhatsApp emerged as the highest international recruiter with 12 offers for jobs in Singapore. Oracle and Microsoft followed with two offers each.

Uber was a first-time recruiter.

IIT-Madras began its placements with a graveyard shift, for job offers abroad.

The five companies that booked slots for this shift were Microsoft, Oracle, VISA, Google and Bloomberg -- the news and data company being a new entrant for the session.

"Overall, the placements appear to be very good with a fantastic response for the graveyard session," said Babu Viswanathan, advisor, training and placement, IIT-Madras.

"We've had 300 companies register with us offering over 420 profiles, despite a smaller window of number of days."

The graveyard shift saw six international offers being made, including Microsoft (3) and Oracle, Google and VISA making one offer each. Day-one also saw management consultancies and computer science companies.

The institute said 266 companies participated, offering 391 profiles, against 221 companies last year.

Start-ups have been slotted for the second day.

One hundred and twenty-nine start-ups have registered this year, against 56 last year. These offered 198 profiles, against 85 last year.

IIT-Madras is seeing first-time recruiters such as Dahlberg, Roland Berger, Wrig Nanosystems and FinMechanics.

In its first slot, IIT-Roorkee saw nine companies on campus with a whopping 74 offers, said N P Padhy, professor-in-charge, training and placement office.

Microsoft gave 19 offers. Salary packages were between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 25 lakh.

International offers were given by Oracle (2), Google (2) and Microsoft (1).

Padhy said they saw a 30 per cent rise in salaries and number of offers.

The IIT-Kanpur saw close to 18 companies, primarily software and technology ones, in the first slot.

The 10 year old who saved the lives of 850 passengers

'I was not scared. I have seen trains every day of my life. I only wanted to stop the train.'

Siddesh Manjunath, who averted a major rail mishap, speaks to A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com

On March 15, the Harihara-Chitradurga passenger train was passing through Avaregere village in Davangere district, Karnataka. The locomotive driver saw a young boy running towards the train on the track waving a red cloth vigorously. The driver applied the brakes and stopped the train.

The boy, Siddesh Manjunath, 10, may have saved the lives of about 850 passengers on that train.

Siddesh told Rediff.com that after breakfast he decided to go to his father's tea shop. To get there he had to cross the railway track.

When he neared the track, he had to wait as there was a train passing by. "I regularly cross the track here and I am familiar with the sound that the train makes on the tracks. I noticed that the train was louder than it normally was."

"After it passed I examined the tracks and saw a big gap on one track. I ran to my father's shop which is nearby.

His father Manjunath along with a few villagers came back with Siddhesh to check the track.

They all agreed that it was a risky gap and were discussing what to do.

While they were talking among themselves they heard the sound of another train approaching. One of the villagers suggested that they should wave a red cloth to try and stop the train.

"It was luck that I was wearing a red T-shirt that day," Siddhesh tells Rediff.com "I immediately took it out and started running towards the train."

"I waved the T-shirt vigorously and held it high while I ran. I was not scared. I have seen trains every day of my life. I only wanted to stop the train."

"My father and the other villagers were running behind me. The locomotive driver saw us and stopped the train," he adds.

"I am very happy with my only son, he has made us proud," says Manjunath who has studied only up to Class 5, but would like his son to get a proper education.

Last week, the Karnataka government presented Siddhesh a bravery award on Children's Day

Wipro to acquire Germany's cellent AG for Rs 518 cr

The all-cash deal is expected to close in the March 2016 quarter.

India’s third largest software services firm Wipro on Wednesday said it will acquire German IT consulting firm cellent AG for 73.5 million euros (about Rs 518 crore).

The all-cash deal is expected to close in the March 2016 quarter, Wipro said in a filing to the BSE.

"Wipro has signed an agreement with Landesbank Baden- Wuerttemberg (LBBW) to acquire cellent AG for 73.5 million euros... The shares are being acquired through Wipro's subsidiary Wipro Cyprus," it said.

The acquisition will provide Wipro with significant scale in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) and prime customer relationships, especially in the manufacturing and automotive domains, NS Bala, chief executive, manufacturing and hi-tech, Wipro said.

Founded in 2002 in Germany, cellent (a subsidiary of LBBW) has offices in Germany (eight), Austria (two) and Switzerland (one). Its service portfolio includes SAP consulting, software development, managed services and infrastructure services.

The privately-held company had revenues of 87 million euros in 2014 and has over 800 consultants

Naval air station near Chennai to be temporary base for commercial flights

With the Chennai airport closed till December 6 following heavy rains and flood, the nearby naval air station at Arakonnam is likely to be turned into a makeshift airport for commercial flights from Thursday.

In the run up to the possible new arrangement, national carrier Air India landed an Airbus A320 carrying passengers from Hyderabad at the Rajali naval air station at Arakkonam at 2047 hours on Wednesday.

"We are hopeful of passenger flights landing there from tomorrow," defence ministry sources said.

Airports Authority of India has decided to keep the Chennai airport closed till December 6 due to the flooding of the operational and the surrounding area.

No flight has taken off from or landed at the Chennai airport since 8 pm on Tuesday.

National Carrier Air India carried out a test landing at Arakkonam Naval Base off the Chennai airport, an official statement said.

AI A320 Aircraft VT-EXA took off from Hyderabad and landed at MAA Arakkonam NAVAL Base at 8.30 pm on Wednesday. The flight made a safe and successful landing, it said.

Chennai rains may impact IT firms in December quarter

Chennai is the second largest base for IT companies in the country.

In a quarter with fewer working days for information technology (IT) companies, owing to the long holiday season towards the year-end, the rain deluge in Chennai is an added woe.

Though most of the companies have business continuity plans, primarily to staff projects requiring round-the-clock support, a majority of the works have been impacted by the flooding of campuses in the city.

Chennai is the second largest base for IT companies in the country.

It houses almost all the top-tier IT service companies, beside global ones like IBM and Accenture.

There are umpteen numbers of small and midsize IT and business process outsourcing entities with a base in the city, owing to easy availability of talent and relatively cheaper real estate.

“In view of the situation resulting from incessant rain in Chennai and the meteorological department’s forecast of more heavy rain, Cognizant offices in Chennai are closed today (Wednesday). However, there is no disruption to work on critical projects and 24x7 operations support. We have activated our business continuity plan and continue to closely monitor the situation,” said a spokesperson. Nasdaq-listed Cognizant alone has around 60,000 employees across 11 facilities in Chennai.

“In light of the rains and flooding in Chennai, Infosys campuses in the city were closed on December 2 and we have also declared a holiday on December 3,” said the country's second largest IT services company.

Infosys has two facilities in Chennai, one at Sholinganallur and another at Mahindra World City which employs around 17,000.

“Our business continuity plans have been activated and we have taken necessary action to ensure client commitments are met, which includes managing work from other locations,” the company added.

For India’s export-driven IT service companies, which primarily earn their revenues by billing global clients on a per-employee, per-hour basis for the software coding services they offer, loss of a business day impacts performance.

Most of the top-tier companies in the sector, including Infosys and Wipro, have sounded a caution for the October-December quarter, in anticipation of extended client furloughs and less working days.

Besides, the Q3 (Oct-Dec) quarter has also been traditionally weak for Indian IT services entities, as clients start evaluating their budgets for the next year, expecting a delay in project kick-ups and completion.

Apart from ensuring business continuity, the IT companies are also taking steps to ensure facilities to those either stranded in offices or having preferred to stay back, by providing food and accommodation.

“IT companies tend to have a business continuity plan which ensures work does not get affected because of natural calamity. In many of the contracts, clients are accommodative for (such) events...There could be some minimal impact in a quarter which is already getting affected due to lower number of working days,” said Shashi Bhusan, senior vice-president at IDFC. “If the rain and flood continue for a longer period, the impact can be assessed over the next five to 10 days.”

“We are closely monitoring the evolving situation in Chennai. Our staff at Sholinganallur have taken complete ownership to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our employees and assets. In addition to accommodation in hotels, special boarding arrangements have been made for those employees who have opted to stay back at the campus. Food and other essentials are being provided,” stated Wipro.

HCL Technologies has around 30,000 employees in Chennai across eight offices.

It said the company was giving utmost importance to employee safety and security. “(We) have well- defined business continuity processes...we continue to monitor the on-ground situation closely,” the company said.

India's 100 richest are all billionaires; Mukesh Ambani tops

For the first time, the 100 richest tycoons in India are all billionaires with Mukesh Ambani topping the league for the eighth consecutive year, according to Forbes. 

 

Mukesh Ambani, chairman Reliance Industries

Rank: 1

Net worth: $23.6 billion

With businesses spanning from oil and gas-to-petchem-to retail, Mukesh Ambani, chairman RIL has it all.

Sitting on a cash pile of over Rs 85,000 crore (Rs 850 billion), Ambani is always keen to explore new business opportunities. A very good example of it would be his recent acquisition of one of the renowned media firms called the Network18 Group.

Photograph: Adeel Halim/Reuters 

Dilip Shanghvi, founder Sun Pharma

Rank: 2

Net worth: $18 billion

Shanghvi’s firm Sun Pharmaceuticals is considered to be the most valuable pharma companies with a market cap of over Rs $25 billion.

The firm was in news after it acquired loss making pharma firm Ranbaxy at around $4 billion. Also, he is betting big on Ranbaxy’s huge presence in India and emerging markets.

 

Azim Premji, chairman and CEO, Wipro

Rank: 3

Net worth: $16.4 billion

Premji is known to have transformed a $2 million hydrogenated cooking oil company into the $7.3 billion revenue IT, BPO and R&D Services organisation with a presence in 54 countries.  

 

Pallonji Mistry, chairman, Shapoorji Pallonji Group

Rank: 4

Net worth: $15.9 billion

Chairman of Shapoorji Pallonji Group, Pallonji Mistry’s saw a huge rise in wealth this year.  

Shapoorji Pallonji Group owns Shapoorji Pallonji Construction, Forbes Textiles and Eureka Forbes Limited.          

Pallonji Mistry’s son Cyrus Mistry is Chairman of Tata Group.

 

Photograph: Warren Little/Getty Images 

Lakshmi Mittal, chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal

Rank: 5

Net worth: $15.8 billion

Lakshmi Mittal is the chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmakingcompany.

“Mittal created the world's largest steelmaker (MT) by pursuing a decades-long, impossibly audacious plan of consolidation -- working with governments, powerful labor unions, and other constituencies to rewrite the rules of the old steel industry in tough times,” says Fortune magazine.

 

Hinduja Brothers

Rank: 6

Net worth: $13.3 billion

Hinduja Group Chairman Srichand P Hinduja, along with brothers Gopichand, Prakash and Ashok run the Hinduja Group of Companies.

Srichand P Hinduja is the eldest son of Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja, the founder of the Hinduja Group.

Gopichand P Hinduja is the Co-Chairman of the Hinduja Group of Companies. Prakash P Hinduja is the Chairman of the Hinduja Group of Companies in Europe.

The youngest brother Ashok P Hinduja is Chairman, Hinduja Group of Companies (India).  

 

Shiv Nadar, chief at HCL Technologies

Rank: 7

Networth: $12.5 billion

The biggest gainers amongst Indians include Shiv Nadar, who added Rs 31,100 crore (Rs 311 billion) to his wealth from 2013.  

Under the leadership of Shiv Nadar, HCL has evolved into a $6.3-billion global enterprise with over 100,000 professionals.  

 

Adi Godrej and family

Rank: 8

Net worth: $11.6 billion

An inspiring business leader, Adi Godrej is known for modernising and revamping his family business into one of India’s largest conglomerates.

 

Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman, Aditya Birla Group

Rank: 9

Net worth: $9.2 billion

Kumar Mangalam Birla was instrumental in raising the group's turnover from $2 billion in 1995, to $40 billion today.  

Birla has restructured the businesses to emerge as a leader in the sectors.  

 

Sunil Mittal and family

Rank: 10

Net worth: $7.8 billion 

Under Sunil Mittal’s leadership, Bharti Enterprises has emerged as one of India’s leading business groups with interests in telecom, retail, realty, financial services and agri-products.