Group Capt Pramod Bhasin
By Techgirl

On September 3, 2010, the Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal P V Naik conferred the honorary rank of Group Captain to cricket genius and everyone’s hero Sachin Tendulkar.

We Indians love the great man.  And so every TV channel and every newspaper and every sports blog did an in-depth report on IAF Group Captain Sachin Tendulkar.  Our hero got another well deserved honour.

But it seems that some in NASSCOM (which represents our IT-ITES sector) were not quite happy that Indian IT and BPO CEO’s were being denied this honour from the armed forces.

Regular readers of Techgoss are well aware that a large number of our articles are crowd sourced.  People send in tips, story ideas and even articles. Many of our contributors have full times jobs in IT-ITES, and so prefer using a pseudonym.  A Techgoss Tipster who works at NASSCOM and prefers the pseudonym ‘Nosey NASSCOM’ (like deep throat) sent us this Tip last night

“
Greetings from the paradise that is the NASSCOM retirement village.  As always, there is not much work to do here and so the whole day we sit around, talk, eat, talk, watch TV and organize junkets. And just like a wealthy retirement village, we hear stories about the old days ‘when I was a CEO….’.

Just in September, we have organized a number of junkets to keep everyone busy and to make it seem we work.  On Sept 14, we are having a workshop in New Delhi, then a Management Services Summit in Bangalore on Sept 15 and then (the best) a ‘delegation’ to Africa.  On Sept 28, we are having the CNBC IT User Award.  Lots of chicken, whiskey and fake air kisses and small talk.

I digress.  I am sending in this Tip to tell Techgirl that a few key NASSCOM players were not happy that the Defence Ministry and Air Force only thought about conferring an officer’s rank on Sachin Tendulkar.  Most feel that the CEO’s of Indian IT-ITES have done more than Tendulkar has done for India. He may have scored runs but we have earned billions for the country.  To this end, NASSCOM is sending a delegation to meet Defence Minister Anthony to see if he could give 3 honorary ranks to NASSCOM members every second year.  Possible names for honorary ranks are Genpact founder and ‘Father of the Indian BPOs’  Pramod Bhasin being given the same rank of Group Captain as Sachin Tendulkar.  NASSCOM is also keen that Infosys HR boss Mohandas Pai be at least be made a Colonel in the India Army preferably in the division that trains Black Cat commandos  that guard Manmohan and Sonia..  A number of wannabe officers from TCS, Wipro, Mindtree, WNS are also being considered for being nominated to honorary ranks in the Indian armed forces.

As NASSCOM is a club where each big IT/BPO company gets a turn to ‘run the show’, there is much lobbying for such honorary ranks in the Indian air force, army and navy.

Everyone is so pumped up in our NASSCOM office that they are singing: “Nanhaa Munnaa Raahii hoon, NASSCOM Kaa Sipaahii hoon. Bolo Mere Sang, Jay hind, Jay hind, Jay NASSCOM”

- Sepoy Nosey NASSCOM
“

Could this Tip to Techgoss be true?  Or is someone pulling a belated April Fool joke on me?  Just the thought of Colonel Pai in the Indian army and holding a machine gun gives me the shivers.

Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog http://techgirltalk.blogspot.com