India has been blessed with the presence of many great religions living in relative peace and harmony.  And this mix of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and other great religions have given us strengths unique in the world.   Sometimes, in the country the line between religion, politics and money is very thin indeed.  Not quite what the gods, saints and prophets intended.  Now an Islamic investment company is promoting some tech stocks as halal. More...

Ms. Kiran Bedi has always been news in India. She is a PhD, and a recipient of the Ramon Magsasay Award; acted as Police Advisor to the UN, has been voted the most popular woman in India and been an Asian Tennis champion. She has founded two NGOS which do a lot of philanthropy in a real sense. As the first and highest ranking woman officer of the Indian Police Service, her constant skirmishes with the yes men in the government machinery; got her an almost iconic status among the commoners in India. More...

Ravi Krishna Reddy is a disappointed man. A goof up by the authorities may cause him to lose the election which he was contesting to the Karnataka State Assembly from Jayanagar, Bangalore. Reddy was allotted the election symbol of the ‘nagara’ or the drum. The campaign in India is usually focused on the symbol, and Ravi too went round appealing to the voters of his constituency to vote for the ‘nagara’. A few techies had volunteered to be with him and they had gone round till the last moment appealing for the ‘nagara’. More...

There is some good news for India, which has long been struggling with the problem of brain drain. The reputation of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) coupled with India’s technology visibility is attracting talent back into the country.  IIT graduates are credited for their leadership role in establishing the booming Indian tech industry. More...

It is an open secret that a handful of India-based IT companies and body shops have used every legal trick in the book to use the American working visa system (aka H-1B) to their advantage.  The idea was to corner the H-1B working visas, import skilled but competitive priced Indians, and make huge profits for the owners of such companies.  The American Government this month fined iGate Mastech Inc $45,000 for publicly placing online job ads asking only H-1B visa holders to apply. More...

The lobby in America pushing for more working visas (aka H-1B) pants a picture that without more tech workers on such visas, USA would loose its competitive edge.  And that these ‘best and brightest’ on H-1B visas help America keep its leadership position in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. More...

His website proclaims great words by Gandhiji and Abraham Lincoln, including ‘be the change you want to see in the world’. He is doing exactly that. Ravi Krishna Reddy, a computer science ME, had a ‘decent’ (his definition) techie job back in the US for over 6 years, and has left it all to plunge into politics back home. Reddy is contesting as an independent candidate from the Jayanagar constituency in Bangalore to the Karnataka state assembly. More...

Although telecom secretary Siddharth Behuria has ruled out an immediate ban on Blackberry services, it could still be enforceable if the issue is not resolved soon. The issue on hand is that Blackberry has to allow Government of India security agencies to access the information, whether email or SMS. Currently, all Blackberry emails and text messages are encrypted and the information is hosted in the US and North America, the company does not grant anyone access to it, citing consumer privacy. More...