On Dec 31st whole world would be gearing up to party while in AP the situation is gonna be tense. This is coz Sri Krishna committee will be submitting its report on dec 31st. Sri krishna committee was setup to determine the legitimacy of demand for a separate telangana state, an area in north AP.
Over the last few years, the stir for a separate state has been intensified. During the rule of YS rajasekhar reddy(YSR), he managed to keep them subdued with his leadershipa nd coercive skills. With his untimely demise in a helicopter crash ins ept 09, the state has been left without a strong leader.
K Rosaiah , aveteran politician with over 4 decades of experience took on the burden of carrying on governanc e of a state where revenue was dwindling and separatist forces were gaining popularity.
Yesterday all of a sudden, K Rosaiah stepped down citing health concerns. The new CM announced is Kiran Kumar reddy. A comparatively younger and inexperienced congressman. This will be his 1st post in the government. This might seem a heroic move and a sign of encouragement for young politicians. But deep beneath lies a different reason.
With the state heading towards tough times in december, a lot of pressure would be there on CM . At this hour AP needs a strong leader. Rosaiah with his vast experience could have steered the ship through but seems like he has hsied away form taking on the challenge. Instead an inexperienced Kiran has been put onto the high pedestal. This is for sure a makeshift arrangement coz no big leader wants to take on the helm at this time and take the risk of losing their image and credibility post dec 31st.
With such a selfish mentality, it is hard for congress to survive long in AP . Only time will tell how AP repsonds to the situations and how the inexperienced CM handles it.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Charity: losing its sheen?
Charity has been part of many a religious texts. According to dharma shastra of hinduism, charity should be anonymous and selfless. It was based on principle of left hand not knowing what right hand was doing and vice versa. Donations were anonymous and were genuine. Over the years , the selflessness and anonymity is being replaced by selfishness and publicity.
With the end of soviet era and the fall of communism, the states turned more capitalist. The global south or the 3rd world soon adopted to the western models of export led intensive growth and hoped for a trickle down of benefits to pull people out of poverty.
But the heady cocktail of corruption, redtapism and nepotism was too large an absorbent to let anything trickle down to the lower strata of society.Democracies turned into plutocracies. The result was a growing and diversifying divide. From a primitive rich poor divide, today we have the caste divide, the digital divide and so on. Humanity has been dissected and trisected according to the whims and fancies of the opportunist politicians.
All these have lead to a growingly selfish and sinful society. Surprisingly a major change is occuring in this world of narcists. One mister Gates suddenly got enlightened and opened up the gates of his bank account to let the wealth flood into the global south and help in bridging the very divides that companies like his created. Even in war torn countries like Iraq and afghanistan, the capitalists are leaving no stone unturned to publicise their brands.
Lord Blalaji of tirupathi today receives gifts amounting to crores of rupees from affluent people amidst full media glare. Donation which was once a low profile anonymous event has not become a PR event. Such has been the commercialisation/westernisation in our society.
India had assumed to itself a socialist pattern of society in 1970s , but this seems to be fast changing into a opportunist society where every activity is performed based on a cost benefit analysis.
With the end of soviet era and the fall of communism, the states turned more capitalist. The global south or the 3rd world soon adopted to the western models of export led intensive growth and hoped for a trickle down of benefits to pull people out of poverty.
But the heady cocktail of corruption, redtapism and nepotism was too large an absorbent to let anything trickle down to the lower strata of society.Democracies turned into plutocracies. The result was a growing and diversifying divide. From a primitive rich poor divide, today we have the caste divide, the digital divide and so on. Humanity has been dissected and trisected according to the whims and fancies of the opportunist politicians.
All these have lead to a growingly selfish and sinful society. Surprisingly a major change is occuring in this world of narcists. One mister Gates suddenly got enlightened and opened up the gates of his bank account to let the wealth flood into the global south and help in bridging the very divides that companies like his created. Even in war torn countries like Iraq and afghanistan, the capitalists are leaving no stone unturned to publicise their brands.
Lord Blalaji of tirupathi today receives gifts amounting to crores of rupees from affluent people amidst full media glare. Donation which was once a low profile anonymous event has not become a PR event. Such has been the commercialisation/westernisation in our society.
India had assumed to itself a socialist pattern of society in 1970s , but this seems to be fast changing into a opportunist society where every activity is performed based on a cost benefit analysis.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Tax reforms
Tax Reforms
Why tax reforms?
India after independence decided to tread the socialist path and govt took upon itself the onerous task of wiping the tears of the poor. However in its effort towards delivering services to all and ensuring equitable growth, its expenditure on social sector shot up. It established numerous public sector industries to manufacture goods right from bread to ambassdor cars. All these resulted in heavy spending. However governments revenues remained weak. One of the main source of government revenues are tax revenues. Tax revenue was alarmingly low because of the regressive tax structure we had. This called for a tax policy reform. Finally the fiscal crisis of 1990 forced us to unlash a series of reforms in our economy popularly known as LPG(Liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation) reforms.
The tax policy pre 1991 suffered from following drawbacks
• It was retrogressive ie it taxed both the poor and rich equally. Majority of government revenue was from indirect taxes. Indirect taxes like excise duty , custom duty don’t differentiate between rich and poor
• It was irrational with tax rates going up as high as 97.6%(i.e. for every 100 rs earned 97.6 rs goes to govt)!!!
• Irrational policies discouraged people from paying taxes and lead to tax evasion
• The more the rules, the more the loop holes. With so many rules in the income tax act people with help of their chartered accountants could easily exploit the loop holes and thus managed to legally avoid tax
• All this lead to a huge fiscal deficit for government which mad eit imperative on govt to undertake tax policy reforms
What were the tax policy reforms?
The need for tax policy reforms was
• To improve tax to GDP ratio
• To progressively tax people ie tax the rich more and the poor less
• To increase revenue from direct taxes
• To improve the fiscal balance of govt
• To lower tax rates and widen tax base
Keeping these objectives in view MMS formulated a meticulous fiscal policy which worked wonders for our country.
He undertook following steps
• Earlier cotton cloth was subjected to 50 different tax rates depending upon quality of cotton. Such multiplicity of rates resulted in administrative complexity. This was borugh down to a uniform single rate called CENVAT
• Earlier our tax dept spend rs 1.2 per rupee to collect Tax!!! By leveraging technology and optimising the administrative structure today the cost of collection is 6 paise per rupee
• The tax slabs were reduces encouraging more people to pay taxes. As a result the direct taxes have increased and are today almost equal to indirect tax revenues
• The cascading effect of taxes on industry was corrected by implementing the advalorem taxation system through VAT
So what next?
The next step is to simplify our tax laws. The IT act of 1961 has become voluminous and is not in sync with current demands of economy.
Hence the government is undertaking GST and DTC to put in place a simplified, transparent tax system.
A transparent tax system will lead to a situation where people would start voluntarily filing tax leading to surplus revenue with govt which could be beneficially invested in social sector schemes. This would help in achieving our goal of financial inclusion. It would encourage people to save more leading to higher savings rate and hence promoting investments. This would lead to a great thrust to our economy and will jettision us into the league of developed nations.
So the need of the hour is a swift and smooth passing of DTC and GST bill
Why tax reforms?
India after independence decided to tread the socialist path and govt took upon itself the onerous task of wiping the tears of the poor. However in its effort towards delivering services to all and ensuring equitable growth, its expenditure on social sector shot up. It established numerous public sector industries to manufacture goods right from bread to ambassdor cars. All these resulted in heavy spending. However governments revenues remained weak. One of the main source of government revenues are tax revenues. Tax revenue was alarmingly low because of the regressive tax structure we had. This called for a tax policy reform. Finally the fiscal crisis of 1990 forced us to unlash a series of reforms in our economy popularly known as LPG(Liberalisation, privatisation, globalisation) reforms.
The tax policy pre 1991 suffered from following drawbacks
• It was retrogressive ie it taxed both the poor and rich equally. Majority of government revenue was from indirect taxes. Indirect taxes like excise duty , custom duty don’t differentiate between rich and poor
• It was irrational with tax rates going up as high as 97.6%(i.e. for every 100 rs earned 97.6 rs goes to govt)!!!
• Irrational policies discouraged people from paying taxes and lead to tax evasion
• The more the rules, the more the loop holes. With so many rules in the income tax act people with help of their chartered accountants could easily exploit the loop holes and thus managed to legally avoid tax
• All this lead to a huge fiscal deficit for government which mad eit imperative on govt to undertake tax policy reforms
What were the tax policy reforms?
The need for tax policy reforms was
• To improve tax to GDP ratio
• To progressively tax people ie tax the rich more and the poor less
• To increase revenue from direct taxes
• To improve the fiscal balance of govt
• To lower tax rates and widen tax base
Keeping these objectives in view MMS formulated a meticulous fiscal policy which worked wonders for our country.
He undertook following steps
• Earlier cotton cloth was subjected to 50 different tax rates depending upon quality of cotton. Such multiplicity of rates resulted in administrative complexity. This was borugh down to a uniform single rate called CENVAT
• Earlier our tax dept spend rs 1.2 per rupee to collect Tax!!! By leveraging technology and optimising the administrative structure today the cost of collection is 6 paise per rupee
• The tax slabs were reduces encouraging more people to pay taxes. As a result the direct taxes have increased and are today almost equal to indirect tax revenues
• The cascading effect of taxes on industry was corrected by implementing the advalorem taxation system through VAT
So what next?
The next step is to simplify our tax laws. The IT act of 1961 has become voluminous and is not in sync with current demands of economy.
Hence the government is undertaking GST and DTC to put in place a simplified, transparent tax system.
A transparent tax system will lead to a situation where people would start voluntarily filing tax leading to surplus revenue with govt which could be beneficially invested in social sector schemes. This would help in achieving our goal of financial inclusion. It would encourage people to save more leading to higher savings rate and hence promoting investments. This would lead to a great thrust to our economy and will jettision us into the league of developed nations.
So the need of the hour is a swift and smooth passing of DTC and GST bill
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
India: Bullying a billion
“Whenever the Indian Prime Minister speaks, the whole world listens to him”-Barrack Obama
The statement was a shot in the arm for the visionary leaders who envisage a vision of India as a superpower by 2020. But they fail to realize that before we can claim a role of superpower, we need to empower our people. Today more than 50% of population lives on less than Rs 20 a day (official figures still show it 26%). The concept of holistic growth and inclusiveness is a far cry from the present Indian system of governance. The hasty legislations have become mere paper tigers. In the absence of proper machinery and infrastructure, many policies like the right to education and setting up of green tribunals are yet to be implemented.
The pompous inauguration of T3 terminal of New Delhi, built in record time of 37 months, lays out a red carpet welcome to all our international guests. At a time when our Human development index is nose diving, child malnutrition is on a rise, we are more worried about getting Indira Gandhi international airport into the top ten airports of the world rather than addressing the problems of the poor.
The constitutional ideals of sovereignty, secularity and democracy are in danger. In the north J&K curfews and stone pelting have become a regular occurrence. The short lived calmness in valley has ended with the mindless shooting and Killings by the paramilitairy forces. Down at Haryana, Khap panchayats are running a parallel judiciary system openly defying the laws of the land. The principles have natural justice have been thrown out of the window in the name of honour of a group of people.
Delhi is busy with arrangements for CW2010. Common wealth games in India was to project india to the world. In this regard a string of welfare and poverty allievation programs should have been taken up. Atleast an effort to alleviate poverty in NCR should have been taken up. Instead they turned a blind eye to it and went on a spending spree to pep up the city for the International event. The RTE act which has the potential to change the future of India has not been implemented owing to lack of funds. I wonder how they were able to pump in crores of rupees in City planning and beautification.
The Bhopal gas tragedy was back in news after 26 years thanks to the inconsequential judgement in Keshub Mahindra case. The government in a bid to console the people of Bhopal gifted them a toothless Green tribunal to resolve any future accidents of such sort.
AP seems to be on a downward spiral under the reign of Rosaiah. Ever since he took over after the shocking demise of YSR, the funds have dried up and its reached near bankruptcy with many welfare schemes being stalled or restricted to certain regions. In a bid to garner the necessary funds for welfare programs, govt came up with idea of selling licenses for liquor shops. What a gem of an idea! Getting funds for welfare programs at the cost of health of its subjects.
The roads of India are one of the dangerous in world. Lack of
i) lane discipline
ii) Safety infrastructure
iii) Stringent rules
have led to accidents which take away lives of 350 people a day. That is equivalent to an plane crash every day. Instead of improving the safety standards of existing roads, the road ministry is busy making up plans of laying another 43000 km of roads and thus laying more deathtraps.
For sure our economy is robust and is leading the world out of recession with its vast experience in monetary and fiscal policy making of a nation of a billion. But it is also a selfish and witty one at bullying the poor and making way for the rich to prosper.
The statement was a shot in the arm for the visionary leaders who envisage a vision of India as a superpower by 2020. But they fail to realize that before we can claim a role of superpower, we need to empower our people. Today more than 50% of population lives on less than Rs 20 a day (official figures still show it 26%). The concept of holistic growth and inclusiveness is a far cry from the present Indian system of governance. The hasty legislations have become mere paper tigers. In the absence of proper machinery and infrastructure, many policies like the right to education and setting up of green tribunals are yet to be implemented.
The pompous inauguration of T3 terminal of New Delhi, built in record time of 37 months, lays out a red carpet welcome to all our international guests. At a time when our Human development index is nose diving, child malnutrition is on a rise, we are more worried about getting Indira Gandhi international airport into the top ten airports of the world rather than addressing the problems of the poor.
The constitutional ideals of sovereignty, secularity and democracy are in danger. In the north J&K curfews and stone pelting have become a regular occurrence. The short lived calmness in valley has ended with the mindless shooting and Killings by the paramilitairy forces. Down at Haryana, Khap panchayats are running a parallel judiciary system openly defying the laws of the land. The principles have natural justice have been thrown out of the window in the name of honour of a group of people.
Delhi is busy with arrangements for CW2010. Common wealth games in India was to project india to the world. In this regard a string of welfare and poverty allievation programs should have been taken up. Atleast an effort to alleviate poverty in NCR should have been taken up. Instead they turned a blind eye to it and went on a spending spree to pep up the city for the International event. The RTE act which has the potential to change the future of India has not been implemented owing to lack of funds. I wonder how they were able to pump in crores of rupees in City planning and beautification.
The Bhopal gas tragedy was back in news after 26 years thanks to the inconsequential judgement in Keshub Mahindra case. The government in a bid to console the people of Bhopal gifted them a toothless Green tribunal to resolve any future accidents of such sort.
AP seems to be on a downward spiral under the reign of Rosaiah. Ever since he took over after the shocking demise of YSR, the funds have dried up and its reached near bankruptcy with many welfare schemes being stalled or restricted to certain regions. In a bid to garner the necessary funds for welfare programs, govt came up with idea of selling licenses for liquor shops. What a gem of an idea! Getting funds for welfare programs at the cost of health of its subjects.
The roads of India are one of the dangerous in world. Lack of
i) lane discipline
ii) Safety infrastructure
iii) Stringent rules
have led to accidents which take away lives of 350 people a day. That is equivalent to an plane crash every day. Instead of improving the safety standards of existing roads, the road ministry is busy making up plans of laying another 43000 km of roads and thus laying more deathtraps.
For sure our economy is robust and is leading the world out of recession with its vast experience in monetary and fiscal policy making of a nation of a billion. But it is also a selfish and witty one at bullying the poor and making way for the rich to prosper.
Friday, December 11, 2009
CTS placement
6th Dec:
After the hectic morning with CAT, evening was also equally busy. I had to pack up for ettimadai. I had a placement process to attend the next day. I packed the best of clothes in my wardrobe, hoping to wear them for the interview if I made it through the apti round. I was ready bu 6 PM. Left hostel by 6:30 pm for the station keeping in view the frequent traffic jams in Bangalore. I picked up my friend on the way and reached station by 7 pm. I had my dinner at comesum and waited for the train. The train arrived on time. But it left after a half hour delay. I slept around ten PM. Thanks to my sony zapper, I had a sound sleep. Later I came to know that my friends couldn’t have a sound sleep as an old lady was crying all through the night.
7th Dec:
The train reached Coimbatore at 6 AM. We got a taxi and reached ettimadai by 7 AM. I got ready by 8 and reached the panthal(a tenthouse for 1500 people) by 8.30 Am. Every participant was given a bar code. It was funny to have a bar code. Bar code is usually given to a commodity. Here we were being identified as commodities and CTS was out on jumbo shopping spree. A lady in suit and boot came up with a boring one hour long pre placement talk. It touched upon all the important points that would woo the prospective candidates. I wasn’t interested in any of them as in the first place I have no plans of taking up a job and secondly I can never work in a company like CTS spending hours together in crammed up offices. Surprisingly the presentation was without a vision or a mission!! Probably they were too interested in wooing us the students than talk about their company in detail. The talk went on till 11 Am and then we were packed off in buses to IT block. We were allotted classrooms in IT block to take up the test. Over there we had to wait for another one hour during which we were told to fill up a sheet of questionnaires. It had the following questions.
Name, tenth and 12th percentages and B.tech aggregate percentage.
Q: strengths and weaknesses
My Ans:S: Will power,perseverance, Adaptability
W:Impatience
Q: What do you think are the requirements for a software engineer?
My ans: I don’t remember the answer
Q: What are your short term and long term goals with CTS?
My Ans:
Short term goal: To continuously upgrade my skills and be part of many a successful projects
Long term goal: To consistently deliver quality services and build a strong and dynamic CTS
And a few more question which I don’t remember.
The test started at 12 PM and went on for another 70 minutes. It comprised of three sections called as
Quantitative aptitude
Verbal ability
Attention to detail
It was not all that difficult to crack but one had to be quick to go through all the questions. We were told the results would be out by 3 PM. About 1500+ people wrote it . Their claim that they would be out with results by 3 PM was impossible. We went to the mess and had our lunch and spent time at cafeteria hoping results would be out by 3 PM. We waited till 4 PM and then went back to our rooms. People had already started preparing for interviews but I was in no mood to study after the gruelling CAT prep . I went around the campus enjoying the cool breeze and scenic surroundings. If CTS recruits me it would most probably be my last trip to this beautiful campus. I still regret not taking up a course at ettimadai. The results were out at around seven thirty in the evening when we were about to leave for dinner. Long namelists(like the ones in railway waitlist) were stuck up on the hostel notice boards. There were hoards of people all around it. I could get a glance of a few sheets but I couldn’t find my name on any of those. But most of my friends found theirs and were enjoying their moment of success. I decided to check my result after dinner. After a quick dinner , we rushed back to the hostel to check if our names were up on the list. Thankfully the crowd had reduced and i could easily skim through all the lists and finally I found mine . I was on panel 29 at 8 in the morning. I was happy that I got a morning slot as I didn’t want to spend nervous moments waiting for my chance. But later I realized that I was the last one in the panel. So I had to endure the long wait. However I would have the advantage of knowing the interviewer and type of question by the feedback I got from people going before me. We got back to our rooms . I spent an hour going through the interview questions to get a feel of the questions being asked. The questions being asked were very basic and sometimes the answer was too obvious. That gave me a lot of confidence. I decided to just go through basics of the subjects which I had stated as my areas of interest.
I spent about three hours with my interview prep. I went to bed by 1 Am
8th Dec:
I got up at 5:30 AM and was ready by 7. I arranged my file ,polished my shoes and left for breakfast by 7:45. The breakfast comprised of distasteful idlis.After the breakfast we proceeded to the IT block. There were in total 50 panels for interviewing over 900 people. The interviews were going to take place in classrooms itself.
It took me sometime to find out where my classroom was. One of my classmate was also on the same panel. Each panel interviewed 9 people per slot. The interviews started 1 and half hour late. Once interviews started , all that we were waiting for was the feedback from people about how their interview was.
The first one to go in was an ECE girl from Coimbatore. She was asked about VLSI and some easy HR. I was happy that he was asking about VLSI as I was quite comfortable with that subject. Next in was an MCA guy with a red tie!! He was asked about the projects done so far. Each interview on an average lasted 10-15 minutes. By the time my turn came I got a fair idea about the interviewer and sort of questions being asked. I hoped that he didn’t change questions for me. And thankfully he didn’t. Herez how my interview went on:
Me: May I come in
(Interviewer(I) gave a slight nod with his head and I walked in as dignified a manner as possible)
He extended his hand for a shake hand.Initially I thought he was asking for my file.After the shake hand I sat down.
He went through the answer sheet and my response to questionnaires and noted down some info from that into another sheet.
I:Okay vaishnov. Tell me about your life so far ie I want to know your family background,schooling,extracurriculars,how u ended in amrita, what did u do in dese 3 years,ur projects etc.
Phew that was a really long question and I had already forgotten what were the points he wanted.
I started framing up the starting sentence.
I wanted a punchline to start with
However that didn’t happen. It was a boring start
Me:
I am from Andhra Pradesh. My dad works in an Public Sector undertaking and hence gets transferred frequently. So I got a chance to do my schooling in different parts of country like kerala,tamil nadu,Andhra and delhi. This gave me an opportunity to understand the different cultures and work with different kinds of people. Coming to amrita errrrrr happened something like this. I saw an advertisement in the newspaper and decided to apply for it and on the basis of my AIEEE rank I got a seat in Amrita Bangalore. My three years at amrita have been wonderful. I got opportunities to interact and work with great minds. I have been to many fests, seminars, workshops and recently I organized Rubik’s cube workshop. It was pretty successful with around fifty people attending it.
I:What workshop you organized?(I guess he didn’t know what a rubik’s was)
Me: Rubik’s cube sir. Its a logical puzzle involving a cube with different colours.
(I guess he didn’t understand what I blabbered)
I:tell me what subjects you studied in your previous sem
Me:Sir. In 7th sem we had subjects like Cellular, management,embedded,biomed,microwave etc.(I purposefully left out VLSI as I didn’t want him to ask any technical questions)
I: Management! What did u study in management?
Me: Sir, management course plan was something like this. It starts of with basics of economics and then goes onto analyse relationship between price demand and supply. We also learnt various HR fundamentals like motivational theories,leadership skills etc.
I: U have one more management subject next sem?
Me: Yes sir.
I:okay. I think you had VLSI last semester. Can you tell me how to detect faults ?
Me: I told all diffrnt types of faults and causes for a few of them. He seemed satisfied with my answer
I: can u explain me chip’s life cycle?
Me: (I didn’t understand what he wanted)Sir u mean the fabrication process??
I:yes yes
Me: I explained something something.
I: Where is silicon wafer used in the process?
Me:Sir, In making silicon layer on substrate.
He asked the question again and I gave the same answer
I: Okay. Now u can leave. All the best for result
Me: Thanks to you and cognizant for giving me this opportunity
I left the hall and phew! it was a great relief.
I went to mess at around 1. Couldn’t find any of my friends. Had lunch and went to my room for a short nap. In the evening went for a stroll. The results were out at around 9 PM. 541 people were selected. The registration numbers were being announced in alphabtcl order. First Amritapuri CSE,ECE,EEE,EIE,MECh. It was a really tense moment for me. Next up was BANGALORE CSE. There were heck a lot of people from CSE and my wait prolonged. Then came ECE. I had to wait a bit longer as my reg no was after 73 people. And alas my number was announced. It was a cakewalk for me as at no point of time I felt I was tested . It was just a matter of getting through the process with a cool mind. That’s how it was for me.
After the hectic morning with CAT, evening was also equally busy. I had to pack up for ettimadai. I had a placement process to attend the next day. I packed the best of clothes in my wardrobe, hoping to wear them for the interview if I made it through the apti round. I was ready bu 6 PM. Left hostel by 6:30 pm for the station keeping in view the frequent traffic jams in Bangalore. I picked up my friend on the way and reached station by 7 pm. I had my dinner at comesum and waited for the train. The train arrived on time. But it left after a half hour delay. I slept around ten PM. Thanks to my sony zapper, I had a sound sleep. Later I came to know that my friends couldn’t have a sound sleep as an old lady was crying all through the night.
7th Dec:
The train reached Coimbatore at 6 AM. We got a taxi and reached ettimadai by 7 AM. I got ready by 8 and reached the panthal(a tenthouse for 1500 people) by 8.30 Am. Every participant was given a bar code. It was funny to have a bar code. Bar code is usually given to a commodity. Here we were being identified as commodities and CTS was out on jumbo shopping spree. A lady in suit and boot came up with a boring one hour long pre placement talk. It touched upon all the important points that would woo the prospective candidates. I wasn’t interested in any of them as in the first place I have no plans of taking up a job and secondly I can never work in a company like CTS spending hours together in crammed up offices. Surprisingly the presentation was without a vision or a mission!! Probably they were too interested in wooing us the students than talk about their company in detail. The talk went on till 11 Am and then we were packed off in buses to IT block. We were allotted classrooms in IT block to take up the test. Over there we had to wait for another one hour during which we were told to fill up a sheet of questionnaires. It had the following questions.
Name, tenth and 12th percentages and B.tech aggregate percentage.
Q: strengths and weaknesses
My Ans:S: Will power,perseverance, Adaptability
W:Impatience
Q: What do you think are the requirements for a software engineer?
My ans: I don’t remember the answer
Q: What are your short term and long term goals with CTS?
My Ans:
Short term goal: To continuously upgrade my skills and be part of many a successful projects
Long term goal: To consistently deliver quality services and build a strong and dynamic CTS
And a few more question which I don’t remember.
The test started at 12 PM and went on for another 70 minutes. It comprised of three sections called as
Quantitative aptitude
Verbal ability
Attention to detail
It was not all that difficult to crack but one had to be quick to go through all the questions. We were told the results would be out by 3 PM. About 1500+ people wrote it . Their claim that they would be out with results by 3 PM was impossible. We went to the mess and had our lunch and spent time at cafeteria hoping results would be out by 3 PM. We waited till 4 PM and then went back to our rooms. People had already started preparing for interviews but I was in no mood to study after the gruelling CAT prep . I went around the campus enjoying the cool breeze and scenic surroundings. If CTS recruits me it would most probably be my last trip to this beautiful campus. I still regret not taking up a course at ettimadai. The results were out at around seven thirty in the evening when we were about to leave for dinner. Long namelists(like the ones in railway waitlist) were stuck up on the hostel notice boards. There were hoards of people all around it. I could get a glance of a few sheets but I couldn’t find my name on any of those. But most of my friends found theirs and were enjoying their moment of success. I decided to check my result after dinner. After a quick dinner , we rushed back to the hostel to check if our names were up on the list. Thankfully the crowd had reduced and i could easily skim through all the lists and finally I found mine . I was on panel 29 at 8 in the morning. I was happy that I got a morning slot as I didn’t want to spend nervous moments waiting for my chance. But later I realized that I was the last one in the panel. So I had to endure the long wait. However I would have the advantage of knowing the interviewer and type of question by the feedback I got from people going before me. We got back to our rooms . I spent an hour going through the interview questions to get a feel of the questions being asked. The questions being asked were very basic and sometimes the answer was too obvious. That gave me a lot of confidence. I decided to just go through basics of the subjects which I had stated as my areas of interest.
I spent about three hours with my interview prep. I went to bed by 1 Am
8th Dec:
I got up at 5:30 AM and was ready by 7. I arranged my file ,polished my shoes and left for breakfast by 7:45. The breakfast comprised of distasteful idlis.After the breakfast we proceeded to the IT block. There were in total 50 panels for interviewing over 900 people. The interviews were going to take place in classrooms itself.
It took me sometime to find out where my classroom was. One of my classmate was also on the same panel. Each panel interviewed 9 people per slot. The interviews started 1 and half hour late. Once interviews started , all that we were waiting for was the feedback from people about how their interview was.
The first one to go in was an ECE girl from Coimbatore. She was asked about VLSI and some easy HR. I was happy that he was asking about VLSI as I was quite comfortable with that subject. Next in was an MCA guy with a red tie!! He was asked about the projects done so far. Each interview on an average lasted 10-15 minutes. By the time my turn came I got a fair idea about the interviewer and sort of questions being asked. I hoped that he didn’t change questions for me. And thankfully he didn’t. Herez how my interview went on:
Me: May I come in
(Interviewer(I) gave a slight nod with his head and I walked in as dignified a manner as possible)
He extended his hand for a shake hand.Initially I thought he was asking for my file.After the shake hand I sat down.
He went through the answer sheet and my response to questionnaires and noted down some info from that into another sheet.
I:Okay vaishnov. Tell me about your life so far ie I want to know your family background,schooling,extracurriculars,how u ended in amrita, what did u do in dese 3 years,ur projects etc.
Phew that was a really long question and I had already forgotten what were the points he wanted.
I started framing up the starting sentence.
I wanted a punchline to start with
However that didn’t happen. It was a boring start
Me:
I am from Andhra Pradesh. My dad works in an Public Sector undertaking and hence gets transferred frequently. So I got a chance to do my schooling in different parts of country like kerala,tamil nadu,Andhra and delhi. This gave me an opportunity to understand the different cultures and work with different kinds of people. Coming to amrita errrrrr happened something like this. I saw an advertisement in the newspaper and decided to apply for it and on the basis of my AIEEE rank I got a seat in Amrita Bangalore. My three years at amrita have been wonderful. I got opportunities to interact and work with great minds. I have been to many fests, seminars, workshops and recently I organized Rubik’s cube workshop. It was pretty successful with around fifty people attending it.
I:What workshop you organized?(I guess he didn’t know what a rubik’s was)
Me: Rubik’s cube sir. Its a logical puzzle involving a cube with different colours.
(I guess he didn’t understand what I blabbered)
I:tell me what subjects you studied in your previous sem
Me:Sir. In 7th sem we had subjects like Cellular, management,embedded,biomed,microwave etc.(I purposefully left out VLSI as I didn’t want him to ask any technical questions)
I: Management! What did u study in management?
Me: Sir, management course plan was something like this. It starts of with basics of economics and then goes onto analyse relationship between price demand and supply. We also learnt various HR fundamentals like motivational theories,leadership skills etc.
I: U have one more management subject next sem?
Me: Yes sir.
I:okay. I think you had VLSI last semester. Can you tell me how to detect faults ?
Me: I told all diffrnt types of faults and causes for a few of them. He seemed satisfied with my answer
I: can u explain me chip’s life cycle?
Me: (I didn’t understand what he wanted)Sir u mean the fabrication process??
I:yes yes
Me: I explained something something.
I: Where is silicon wafer used in the process?
Me:Sir, In making silicon layer on substrate.
He asked the question again and I gave the same answer
I: Okay. Now u can leave. All the best for result
Me: Thanks to you and cognizant for giving me this opportunity
I left the hall and phew! it was a great relief.
I went to mess at around 1. Couldn’t find any of my friends. Had lunch and went to my room for a short nap. In the evening went for a stroll. The results were out at around 9 PM. 541 people were selected. The registration numbers were being announced in alphabtcl order. First Amritapuri CSE,ECE,EEE,EIE,MECh. It was a really tense moment for me. Next up was BANGALORE CSE. There were heck a lot of people from CSE and my wait prolonged. Then came ECE. I had to wait a bit longer as my reg no was after 73 people. And alas my number was announced. It was a cakewalk for me as at no point of time I felt I was tested . It was just a matter of getting through the process with a cool mind. That’s how it was for me.
CAT experience
6th Dec ’09:
After a year of start stop preparation, here I was to write CAT. My centre was RVCE. It is one of the prestigious colleges in Bangalore with state of art infrastructure. Hence I chose it as my centre. I arrived at centre at 7 AM. My dad had arranged for a cab to make my journey to the centre smooth and comfortable.
The security guard informed that entry opens at 8:30. So I spent a boring 1 and half hour in the car. I wasn’t even allowed to explore the sprawling campus. At 8:30 we were allowed to go to the computer centre where our test was going to be administered. There were four labs in which were allotted for the tests. My lab was on the first floor. After a half hour wait in queue a prometric guy allowed us to get in after checking our credentials. I deposited all my belongings at the security and moved to the lab. At the lab, there was a problem with my ID proof. I had taken my college ID as ID proof. My DOB was wrongly printed as 240588 instead of 89. This caused a problem and I was asked to get another id proof. Luckily I had my driving license to prove that I was born in 89. This brought in some nervousness . After that, I had to go through some biometrics and verification for the 3rd time!!
After the three layered check in process I was allotted my seat(S 15). I switched on my PC and there were over a dozen passwords which were keyed in by the proctor before the test interface came up flashing my photo that they took at check in. For another half hour I had nothing to do except for staring at my photo on the screen. At 9:45 were allowed to go through a tutourial video about the test interface.
At 10 Am , the test started off. We had to agree to the customary NDA before we started with our test. The first set of questions were from quant. It was a mixed bag ranging from sitters to complicated questions. It took me around 55 minutes to get throught he quant section. Next up was DI but I decided to skip it and move to verbal as I was tired of calculations that I had done in quant. But verbal gave me no respite. The RC were at its best and to make things difficult , the options were too close to eliminate. None of the options I was sure of. I had to go with a few guesses. Other than that, Parajumbles and Fill in the blanks were of moderate level giving me an opportunity to rush through and make up for the lost time in RC and quant. By the time I was done with verbal section I was left with around 40-45 minutes for DI. The DI however had a lot of sets and required much more time. I had to let go a few sets involving complicated calculations. However the remaining sets were direct and it wasn’t difficult to arrive at an option. On the whole , my CAT experience was like a roller coaster with certain highs and lows. Jan 22nd will determine what were in majority..highs or lows?
After a year of start stop preparation, here I was to write CAT. My centre was RVCE. It is one of the prestigious colleges in Bangalore with state of art infrastructure. Hence I chose it as my centre. I arrived at centre at 7 AM. My dad had arranged for a cab to make my journey to the centre smooth and comfortable.
The security guard informed that entry opens at 8:30. So I spent a boring 1 and half hour in the car. I wasn’t even allowed to explore the sprawling campus. At 8:30 we were allowed to go to the computer centre where our test was going to be administered. There were four labs in which were allotted for the tests. My lab was on the first floor. After a half hour wait in queue a prometric guy allowed us to get in after checking our credentials. I deposited all my belongings at the security and moved to the lab. At the lab, there was a problem with my ID proof. I had taken my college ID as ID proof. My DOB was wrongly printed as 240588 instead of 89. This caused a problem and I was asked to get another id proof. Luckily I had my driving license to prove that I was born in 89. This brought in some nervousness . After that, I had to go through some biometrics and verification for the 3rd time!!
After the three layered check in process I was allotted my seat(S 15). I switched on my PC and there were over a dozen passwords which were keyed in by the proctor before the test interface came up flashing my photo that they took at check in. For another half hour I had nothing to do except for staring at my photo on the screen. At 9:45 were allowed to go through a tutourial video about the test interface.
At 10 Am , the test started off. We had to agree to the customary NDA before we started with our test. The first set of questions were from quant. It was a mixed bag ranging from sitters to complicated questions. It took me around 55 minutes to get throught he quant section. Next up was DI but I decided to skip it and move to verbal as I was tired of calculations that I had done in quant. But verbal gave me no respite. The RC were at its best and to make things difficult , the options were too close to eliminate. None of the options I was sure of. I had to go with a few guesses. Other than that, Parajumbles and Fill in the blanks were of moderate level giving me an opportunity to rush through and make up for the lost time in RC and quant. By the time I was done with verbal section I was left with around 40-45 minutes for DI. The DI however had a lot of sets and required much more time. I had to let go a few sets involving complicated calculations. However the remaining sets were direct and it wasn’t difficult to arrive at an option. On the whole , my CAT experience was like a roller coaster with certain highs and lows. Jan 22nd will determine what were in majority..highs or lows?
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
BHARATH-A 20Yr Sojourn
CHAPTER:4
Cochin was a wonderful place right from people to the weather. One good thing about cochin was most of them knew English. Even a butcher knew English! Yes , kerala was truly a highly literate state.
My school "chinmaya vidyalaya" was located in vaduthala. Malayalam was a compulsory subject. However the school authorities relaxed the norms for me. I was allowed to study 1st standard Malayalam in the first sem following which I was supposed to shift over to 3rd standard Malayalam in the next two sems. The school had a semester system,where in we had 3 semsters. Each semester ended with a term exam. Once that exam was over the next sem exam didn’t test on the portions that were already tested in 1st semester. This made things lot easier. The workload was reduced to a great extent. Even the school ended by two. This allowed me to take up some extra curriculars. My dad arranged for a music teacher, though I don’t remember having any keen interest for music. We had to get a harmonium as the music master wanted that as a pre requisite for teaching.
Daily five to seven, I had music classes. It was a big bore. I just went through the moments. I learnt a few ragas and songs for a couple of months and gave up after that. One of my dad’s associates owned a theatre. He used to arrange for movie tickets on weekends. I remember seeing Jurassic park over there.
At school I was completely at ease, Thanks to the cosmopolitan nature of my class. There were people from different places in my class. I had a friend by the name of Abhishek. His father was owner of “Bheema jewelers”. He used to come in chauffeur driven fiat car.He called me amul baby as I was pretty chubby those days. One more good friend of mine was Kartika. She helped out in completing my notes whenever I was absent and helped out a lot during exams.Then there was ameena who I admired for her beauty and brains . She was the topper of the class.
One of my best friends at cochin was shankhar. My mom was strict with regards to my performances in exams. I always feared the results. It was Shankar who used to come to my rescue, most of the times making me understand that I had actually done better than a section of class and there was no need to worry. There were times when he went upto my mom and told her not to scold me. He was one nice guy I regret losing contact with.
Apart from the regular subjects we had crafts, drawing , PT and bhagvad gita. I struggled with drawing and bhagvad gita. Drawing classes were a nightmare . The drawing sheets and crayons were horrifying images for me. In craft class we made various decorative pieces which I still preserve. PT we mostly played dodge ball. Cricket and football were out of bounds for us. It was only for high school.
My mom took great pains in learning Malayalam and then teaching me. She learnt it from the doordarshan teaching channel!! And it began yielding results. I got decent marks in the first semester exams and I made a smooth transition to 3rd standard Malayalam. Bhagavad gita was really tough. There were 18 chapters and we had to by heart the whole thing and recite the ones the teacher asks. That was a daunting task.
My mom kept herself busy by teaching in a school for mentally challenged. She also learnt car driving though my dad was reluctant to let her drive. We got a sunny and my mom used to drop me at school on that. I enjoyed the drive along the railway track to school.
On independence day, I got my first opportunity to venture into extra curriculars. Having learnt carnatic music for sometime I sang well. So I got a chance to sing “Hind desh ke niwasi”. There was also a fancy dress show and I dressed up as Nehru.
I made couple of friends at HPCL quarters. But I didn’t get to spend much time over there. Occasionally we ventured to the marine drive. The scenic backwaters was a view worth a watch. There was a floating restaurant over there. My other hangout spot was driving park, where I got to drive pedal jeeps and scooters on real roads. It was like real life complete with signals and zebra crossings.
My dad made frequent trips to pune for attending training programs. He got me chocolates from the famous nathu’s sweets over there. I relished them a lot. My pet collection widened with a mini aquarium comprising of fishes and snails. My dad also got a special kind of birds which didn’t fly. We could hold it and play around and they made no fuss about it. But over a period , their wings got strengthened and they managed to fly away.
The love birds met a sad end. One of them died due to ant bites(Bloody ants..i hate them!!). After a few weeks the other one died when a cat attacked and devoured it and left only bones(sob..sob). The fishes were often attacked by the snails. The snails squeezed the fishes to the walls and the fishes died of suffocation. All these were sad moments and we decided not to have any more pets.
My dad wrote CAT and various other MBA exams. He managed to get a seat in Philippines to do MBA. But he let it go as he didn’t want to leave me(love u dad ).
Two years on there was a sudden change in mindset of my dad. Those days I was pretty dependent on my parents and I guess most of them would be at that stage. But probably I was a bit too dependent. I didn’t know how to tie lace(I still don’t know :P), how to wear a shirt and other silly stuff. This made my dad think of putting me in hostel so that I could learn to do things on my own.
One of my dad’s colleague's son was studying in 8th standard at vijnana vihar in vizag. The friend(jobless fellow!) suggested my dad to put me in the same school as it gave good value education and was disciplined.
There was an entrance exam to be written for getting into the school. And believe it or not .. there was a crash course to crack that exam!! Amazing! people make money out of every damn thing. After my fourth standard I left my great school and friends at cochin. I moved over to vizag and underwent the crash course for half a month. It was a horrifying experience. We were packed into small dark classrooms and made to attempt loads of questions from dawn to dusk. I had made up my mind to fail the test at any cost. But god had different plans I guess. As even my worst performance got me into touching distance of getting admission. I just missed the cut off. My grandfather was Assistant police commissioner at vizag. He put some influence and got me a seat in that dreadful place. I was disappointed as all my plans failed and I had to stay away from my parents for 1 year. It was something I had never imagined of.
My hostel experiences and stay at vizag shall come up in next blog
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