Blog

Sunday 7 February 2016

TOWARDS A NATIONAL JOB PORTAL ?

Economic Times ( 06 Feb 2016 ) carried a news report titled :

" Labour Ministry Ties Up with Cos for National Career Portal ( www.ncs.gov.in )

THE REPORT :

Says , the Ministry has signed MOUs with :

Uber / Monster.com / Quikr Jobs / Babajob.com / Tech Mahindra / Indian Staffing Federation ( ISF )

( Strangely , I failed to find any mention of these MOUs on NCS / MonsterIndia / Babajobs web sites ! )

PURPOSE ?

" It will provide its partners with the huge Aadhar-verified database of authentic job seekers "

HOW MANY ?

" 35 million authentic jobseekers and 900,000 employers have registered on the portal so far "

WHAT ELSE ?

" The government has taken the initiative to link all 878 employment exchanges on a national platform "

MY TAKE :

This is a step in the right direction

I hope , it will lead to the creation of a SINGLE / CENTRAL database ( of jobseekers' resumes and employers' vacancy announcements ) , which can be freely " accessed " from ANY job portal of India , by anyone , any time

* By Jobseekers ,

# to search online job advts posted by ANY Employer ( Indian or Foreign ), on ANY Indian Job Portal, ANY-time

# to be able to apply against ANY jobs , directly from mobile or online

# to be able to REGISTER ( Submit Resume ) on ANY Indian Job Portal

* By Employers / Recruitment Agencies,

# to be able to post their Vacancies from ANY of hundreds of Indian Job Portals ( after registering )

# to be able to search resumes and download any number , without restriction

# to be able to shortlist candidates and send Interview Calls, directly from ANY Indian Job Portal

# to be able to conduct online Video-Interviews of ANY number of jobseekers from ANY Indian job portal

On 22 July 2015 , I had sent following email to :

* Shri Bandaru Dattatreya ( Minister for Labour ) ('bandaru@sansad.nic.in' )

* Secretary , Labour ('secy-labour@nic.in' )

* Directorate General of Training ('feedback.dget@nic.in' )

* Chief Ministers of all the States

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Sir :

On 20 July 2015 , our PM , Shri Narendra Modi-ji launched a career portal ,

www.ncs.gov.in

NCS claims to bring together on a single platform , Career Centers ( re-named Employment Exchanges ? ) / Job seekers / Employers / Career Counselors / Skill Providers / Local Service Providers etc

Whereas this is a great initiative , it seems the web site has got launched despite any number of glitches , such as :

> " Site Map " missing

> Links not clicking

> Pages not loading

> Databases missing

> Content confusing

> Naming misleading... etc

As if this is not enough , most of the Registration Forms , carried unnecessary and irrelevant data-fields , such as :

> Aadhaar Number for Employers / Placement Organizations ?

> Employer Company Executive to provide personal Aadhaar Number ?

> Employer Company Executive to provide Gender / DOB / Father's Name ?

A Local Service Provider does not need to select ( from a drop-list ) , what kind of service does he provide. But he must mention his "Affiliation" ?

A Jobseeker does not need to provide :

> Edu. Qualifications / Institute attended / Exams passed - and when

> Previous Employment History ( for experienced job seekers )

> Years worked / salary drawn / designation held , in each previous job

I suspect , there is some another form hidden somewhere , which , a job seeker will be asked to fill in later , just when he is ready to click " Apply " against a job searched after several hours !

But , these are minor defects that can be rectified soon - and without much difficulty

But here is the worst part !

Apparently the web site does NOT want job seekers and employers to get motivated enough to register !

Here is how :

# EXPERIENCING THE FEATURES

Job portals all over the World , enable any casual job seeker to be able to search the online database of posted / live jobs , even if he is not registered

But he cannot " Apply Online " , unless he is registered and logged in

It is no different than a shop-keeper allowing you to roam free thru the entire shop , without asking to see your Credit Card !

He knows that a customer gets motivated to " Buy " , only if he gets to see the goods on sale !

Ditto with a casual Employer Visitor

Job portals allow anyone to search and look at resumes

But he can download only if he is registered / logged in

Usually , job portals " hide " contact details on the resumes , when viewed online but downloaded resumes carry full contact details

This is because , job-portals , make their money from Subscriptions from Employers ( usually 95 % of the incomes of Indian Job Portals )

They cannot afford any casual visitor to reach out to the jobseekers , bypassing them !

They make their money , by acting as " Gate-keepers " between the job

seekers and the employers

I am sure , this ( making money by acting as an intermediary ) , cannot be the intention of National Career Service - since , rightly , it is FREE for employers as well !

I believe NCS intention is to ensure that no vacancy remains un-fulfilled for more than a few hours !

# JOB / RESUME ALERTS ON MOBILE

On the web site , I could not find any provision ( downloadable Mobile App ) thru which ,

> A job seeker can " pull " job alerts " matching his resume and can apply online , directly , from his mobile

> An Employer can pull " resume alerts " matching his posted job and download those resumes with just one click on his mobile

We must remember that millions of job seekers in remote corners of India have no access to a PC

But , soon , all of them will have internet-enabled smart phones !

# JOB FAIRS

On the site , there is a provision to search for info on ground-based Job Fairs taking place in different parts of India

But , for a job seeker located in Coimbatore , there is no use getting info about a job fair taking place in Kolkata !

Same with an Employer

Why have portal designers shied away from a " Virtual Job Fair " , where both , the job seekers and the employers can conduct Online Interviews , using Video ?

Not difficult , considering that all mobile phones / tablets carry a camera and Skype / Face Chat are free !

Technically , it is a simple task to create a million Interview Cabins online , which any registered Employer can " book " for a specific date / time / period and conduct online interviews

A million online interviews can take place simultaneously , with no constraints of either time / space / distance !

That would encourage even employers located anywhere in the World to conduct interviews of Indian job seekers

If , India wants to train 40/50 million youth who will constitute " Export Surplus " , as per Shri Modi-ji , then this feature is a must

# COMMON SHARED DATABASE

Today , in India , there are hundreds of job-portals , each having its own database of Jobs and Resumes

And , barring a few big ones , most of these offer FREE service to both , the jobseekers and the employers

Many have only " local clientele " ( both job seekers and employers )

But a job seeker who is registered on portal A , can search only those jobs which are posted on that portal

Same with employers searching for resumes

Neither resumes , nor jobs posted on portal B can be accessed by visitors of portal A !

Like a MTNL subscriber not being able to dial anyone other than another MTNL subscriber !

This severely limits their usefulness

NCS should enable ALL such job portals to ,

> Deliver their jobs and resumes , into the CENTRAL DATABASE of NCS

> Deliver / display all of these to any visitor of any participating partner portal

Within a short period , this feature would generate a database of millions of jobs and hundreds of millions of resumes , accessible from a thousand partner job portals

Just imagine the exponential increase of usefulness thru " Network Externality "

# MOBILE APP - " JOB-POST "

Today , NCS web site boasts of only 1684 registered employers !

India's 3 major job portals show some 50,000 + registered employers

Then there are approx 50 million MSME , who have never advertised their vacancies on any job portals !

May be because they don't have PCs / broadband connections

Let NCS web site enable them to post their jobs , using a simple Mobile App , " Job-Post "

There is no reason why their 12 million vacancies every year , should remain " Un-Announced " !

Then there are many other features that can bridge the DIGITAL DIVIDE between the jobseekers and the employers

If desired , I would be happy to share my thoughts / notes / codes etc with NCS or Ministry of Labour and Employment , drawing upon my past efforts at designing of following job portals :

RecruitGuru.com / GlobalRecruiter.net / IndiaRecruiter.net / World-Wide-Jobs.com / CustomizeResume.com / ResumesExchange.com / OnLineJobsFair.com

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hemen parekh

22 July 2015

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Make Yourself Heard

Dear Visitor :

It is time for YOU to speak up - and demand that YOU are heard

By emailing this suggestion - incorporating your OWN improvements - to the following Policy Makers

( Just multiple copy all the following Email IDs into the Recipient column of your Outlook and Copy / paste this suggestion in the Message Box ) :

narendramodi1234@gmail.com; 38ashokroad@gmail.com;ajaitley@del5.vsnl.net.in; jayant.sinha19@sansad.nic.in;piyush.goyal@gov.in;nitin.gadkari@nic.in; spprabhu1@rediffmail.com;bandaru@sansad.nic.in;smritizirani@nic.in;nsitharaman@nic.in; ravis@sansad.nic.in;sureshprabhu@irctc.co.in;prakash.j@sansad.nic.in;secy-ipp@nic.in; amitabh.kant@nic.in; shaktikanta.das@nic.in; rsecy@nic.in; adhia1981@gmail.com; ceo-niti@nic.in; atul-chaturvedi@nic.in; uma.bharati@sansad.nic.in; d.pradhan@sansad.nic.in; rprudy.office@gmail.com; rudypr@rediffmail.com; eam@mea.gov.in; mosvks@mea.gov.in; mvnaidu@sansad.nic.in; mnaqvi@sansad.nic.in; rao.inderjit@sansad.nic.in; mljoffice@gov.in; sadananda.gowda@sansad.nic.in; ministerminority@gov.in; najmah@sansad.nic.in; minister-ca@nic.in; ramvilas.paswan@sansad.nic.in; gandhim@sansad.nic.in; akumar-alpha@sansad.nic.in; jpnadda@sansad.nic.in; hm.moca@nic.in; geete@sansad.nic.in; simratbadal@yahoo.com; ns.tomar@nic.in; rmsingh@sansad.nic.in; tc.gehlot@sansad.nic.in; dr.harshvardhan@sansad.nic.in

Friday 5 February 2016

MARKETING MYOPIA

In 1960 , Theodore Levitt ( Editor - Harvard Business Review ) wrote an article titled :

Marketing Myopia

He made following points :

* If you don't make yourself obsolete , someone else will

* Businesses must keep asking of themselves : What business are we in ?

* American Railroads thought they were in the " Railroad Business " and failed to appreciate that they were really

into the business of " Transporting People "

* Along came , American Car Companies / Airlines , which transported people from point-to-point , easily and at

will , making railroads obsolete !

FAST FORWARD TO 2015 :

* Uber / Ola are telling people : Why do you need to " own " an expensive asset such as a car , if you use it only

for 10 % of the time ? At a moment's notice , we will deliver a chauffeur driven car at your door-step , to take

you where you want to go - and it will cost you far less than owning a car .

Some car companies have realized that , if Uber / Ola succeed in increasing the utilization of existing cars to

80 % , demand for new cars could fall drastically !

FASTER FORWARD TO 2030 :

* Having realized that

# No one wants to spend a good part of life in endless traffic jams , sitting in a car ( even if it is a self-driving

car ) , car manufacturers are asking of themselves : What business are we in ?

And they are realizing that they are NOT into the business of " Car Manufacture " but really into the business

of " Face to Face " interaction between people , whether for social / economic / political reasons

Those car manufacturers who did realize this, switched over to DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY , and got into AR ( Augmented Reality ) / VR ( Virtual Reality ) / Holographic Projection Devices / Hepatic Devices ...etc

Now just make a list of grossly under-utilized assets ( national or personal ) and ask :

* When will the next Indian Start Up find a method to increase the utilization % , thereby eliminating or

vastly decreasing the demand for funds to create / build brand NEW assets ?

* How about ,

# Computers / Office buildings at night ?

# Hotel rooms , vacant during the daytime ?

# Factories / Machines working in one shift ?

# 170,000 unsold flats in greater Mumbai ?

# Thousands of School buses ?

Sure , if that asset is a ball pen costing Rs 5 , feel free to have 3 , even if you use it for ONE hour in ONE year !

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hemenparekh.in / blogs

06 Feb 2016

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Make Yourself Heard

Dear Visitor :

It is time for YOU to speak up - and demand that YOU are heard

By emailing this suggestion - incorporating your OWN improvements - to the following Policy Makers

( Just multiple copy all the following Email IDs into the Recipient column of your Outlook and Copy / paste this suggestion in the Message Box ) :

THIS CANNOT BE TRUE !

WHAT ?

* RBI recommending to Finance Ministry to introduce currency notes of Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 denominations

REASON GIVEN

* Inflation has left little value in notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000

* It will be easier to carry large sums of money in higher denomination notes

* Less cost since no of notes to be printed will come down by a factor of 10

CURRENT SCENARIO ELSEWHERE

Highest denomination notes in :

* USA....... 100 Dollars

* UK......... 100 Pounds

* EU........ 500 Euro

* China..... 100 Yuan

Of course , Japan does have a 10,000 Yen note which is rarely seen

And we all know how corruption has engulfed the Russian Economy with a 500,000 Ruble note !

WHY IS THIS A BAD RECOMMENDATION ?

* Because , by facilitating hoarding / carrying huge amount of CASH in a inconspicuous manner , it will encourage

CORRUPTION through BLACK MONEY transactions , without fear of being caught

* Funding of political parties with un-accounted money will become rampant

* More money will pour into non-productive assets such as LAND and GOLD

* Hawaala transactions will flourish

* More CASH will flow out of the country

* Counterfeiters will have a hay-day !

* Terror outfits will find it easy to fund themselves

* It will slow down change-over to a CASH-LESS economy through e-payments

WHAT IS THE CORRECT STEP ?

As I have repeatedly recommended over the past year ,

* Discontinue paper-based currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000

* Introduce plastic currency notes of Rs 500 / 1,000 which are embedded with RFID sensors

* Assign to each such note, a IP V 6.0 address , linked to its unique note number

* Set up a IT-enabled Technology Platform which will constantly monitor any accumulation of Rs 500 / 1000

RFID embedded notes in excess of Rs ONE CRORE within an area of ONE square meter

I hope what I heard last evening on a TV channel was merely a rumour !

But , even if there is a remote thinking in this direction , it must be nipped in the bud !

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hemenparekh.in / blogs

06 Feb 2016

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Make Yourself Heard

Dear Visitor :

It is time for YOU to speak up - and demand that YOU are heard

By emailing this suggestion - incorporating your OWN improvements - to the following Policy Makers

( Just multiple copy all the following Email IDs into the Recipient column of your Outlook and Copy / paste this suggestion in the Message Box ) :

Wednesday 3 February 2016

SOLOMON HAS SPOKEN

Following was reported today , on NDTV web site :

Expressing anguish over growing corruption in government machinery and corporations, the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court said that it's high time citizens come together to fight this menace and can refuse to pay taxes if this "hydra-headed monster" is not eliminated.

If the same loot continues, taxpayers may resort to a 'non-cooperation movement' and refuse to pay taxes," observed Justice Chaudhari of Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court.

"Do taxpayers pay the money to the government for such kind of acrobatics? To eradicate the cancer of corruption, the "hydra-headed monster," it's now high time for citizens to come together to tell their governments that they have had enough of this miasma of corruption," the High Court observed.

Echoing public sentiment on the issue, the court observed "let the government as well as mandarins in corridors of power understand the excruciating pain and anguish of tax payers who have been suffering for over two decades in the state of Maharashtra. There is an onerous responsibility on those who govern to prove to taxpayers that eradication of corruption would not prove for them a forlorn hope."

I request Hon Justice Shri Chaudhari to take suo moto cognizance and treat my following suggestion for total elimination of CORRUPTION , as a Public Interest Litigation ( PIL ) and direct the Union Government as follows :

You shall ensure that , starting 01 Jan 2017 , all currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 , are made of suitable plastic material and are printed with a RFID sensor embedded into each

You shall further ensure that each such currency note is assigned its unique IP V 6.0 address , which is also linked to its own unique Currency Note Number

You shall further ensure that the current paper notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 , are withdrawn from the circulation from 01 July 2017 and considered illegal thereafter , making possession of such old paper notes , a non-bailable crime , punishable with a minimum imprisonment of 10 years

You shall design , install and commission , a suitable technological platform whereby the RFID sensors embedded into the plastic currency notes , shall communicate their physical location to the web servers of the Enforcement Directorate / Income Tax Department / Anti Corruption Bureau / Serious Fraud Investigation Office / Central Vigilance Commission / Economic Offence Wing / Central Bureau of Investigation / Department of Revenue Intelligence etc , in those instances where the combined value of such currency notes , within an area of ONE SQUARE METER , exceed Rs ONE CRORE

You shall also enact appropriate legislation under which the Enforcement Directorate shall have powers to cease and confiscate , any such accumulation of currency notes , which shall become the property of the State , notwithstanding the legitimate ownership of such seizure

Dear Hon Justice Chaudhari,

Even as I deeply share your anguish and sense of frustration , YOU have the power to cure the Cancer of Corruption , SINGLE - HANDED

There is no need to exhort people to stop paying taxes

Let this PIL be your JUDICIAL ACTIVISM to defeat the POLITICAL CYNICISM

Dear Ram Jethmalani / Subramaniam Swamy / Prashant Bhushan :

Will you please fight this PIL on my behalf ?

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hemenparekh.in / blogs

04 Feb 2016

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Tuesday 2 February 2016

TIME IS NOW !

Quoting from a news-report ( HT / 02 Feb 2016 ) :

At a recent World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Shri Arun Jaitley had said , India needs some additional growth engines , indicating that the focus would shift to reviving PRIVATE investments

Senior Govt officials said," The incentives could be in the nature of TAX CONCESSIONS "

DIPP Secretary , Amitabh Kant added , " For the Indian economy to continue to grow, it has to be on the back of DOMESTIC PRIVATE SECTOR investments ..... for a continuous robust growth , investments from the PRIVATE SECTOR , have to be ramped up "

Let us not keep fooling ourselves !

Prey ! From where do the so called PUBLIC SECTOR investments come from ?

It is PRIVATE MONEY ! Just re-routed by governments , using yours and mine tax money !

That is, whatever gets left ( of that tax money ) after expenses of running the government

Apart from that ,

* Re-routing tax money through PUBLIC SECTOR investments, is a very slow / cumbersome process

* Persons who manage those investments are rarely made " accountable " for profits / dividends

* Since tax-payers do not get immediate benefits from such re-routing , it gives rise to tax evasions

* Tax evasions lead to generation of BLACK MONEY and CORRUPTION

And no political party would advocate " raising of taxes " so that , on 29 Feb 2016 , Shri Jaitley could allocate

* ONE TRILLION DOLLARS ( Rs 70 lakh*crore ) each to , Piyush Goyal / Suresh Prabhu / Nitin Gadkari / Ravi

Shankar Prasad / Uma Bharati / Venkaiah Naidu / Rajiv Pratap Rudy etc

and

* TEN TRILLION DOLLARS each to , Manohar Parikar ( Defense ) and Nirmala Sitharaman ( Make in India )

WHERE CAN WE FIND THAT GROWTH-ENGINE ?

In my email ( 08 April 2014 ) , I wrote to Shri Narendra Modi :

* Create Infrastructure SPVs

* Allow people to invest in these directly and make " returns ( interests / dividends ) " , tax free

* Amnesty Scheme for funds invested in such SPVs ( no questions asked as to the source of funds invested )

* An " INVERSE TAX " regime for Personal Income Tax ( with decreasing tax-rates for each higher slab )

Later emails recommended :

* Encourage CREATION of WEALTH by total abolition of Personal Income Tax

* Decreasing Corporate Income Tax , linked to number of permanent employees

I hope Shri Jaitleyji does not treat these as POPULIST measures and keep tinkering with 80ccg / 80dd / 80ddb / 80e / 80g /80gg /80ggc / 80tta / 80u / 24b ....etc !

Time now is for embracing TRANSFORMATIONALIST measures

It is time for the Butterfly to emerge from its cocoon !

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hemenparekh.in / blogs

03 Feb 2016

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Make Yourself Heard

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It is time for YOU to speak up - and demand that YOU are heard

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Monday 1 February 2016

NEVER MORE IMPORTANT

For BJP , winning the upcoming State Elections ( West Bengal - Tamilnadu - Assam - Kerala - Pondicherry ) in 2016 , is very important

Currently , these are all non-BJP states , with a combined total of :

* 825 MLAs ( of which , only 5 MLAs belong to BJP ! )

* 52 Rajya Sabha Members

For BJP , winning is important because of the Economic Reforms getting stalled in Rajya Sabha , where it lacks a majority

As far as the citizens of all these States are concerned , having a BJP government in their States can make a big difference to their economic progress , due to much better coordination with the BJP-led Central Government

But , while campaigning , BJP cannot use this argument to win a popular mandate ! We know why !

However , of all the political parties contesting , ONLY BJP hold a TRUMP CARD !

To win , all that Amitbhai Shah would like is for Shri Arun Jaitleyji to make following Budget announcement on 29 Feb 2016 ( before the Model Code of Conduct , kicks in ) :

" Starting 01 April 2016 , Personal Income Tax stands abolished for SC / ST / OBC / Dalit and other Economically Backward Communities ( EBC = persons with annual income below Rs 5 lakhs ) "

Now , which political party dare oppose such a Poor-Friendly measure ?

If any party does , it is bound to lose the votes of these communities !

And the beauty of this " Winning Strategy " is :

Hardly any adverse impact on revenues of the Central Government !

Of some 3 crore individual tax-payers , no more than 1 crore , may belong to such communities

And together, they might be contributing no more than 10 % of the Personal Tax Revenue of Rs 2.5 lakh*crores !

Now , very likely , Shri Jaitleyji will turn around and ask Amitbhai Shah :

" Would not this lead to similar demand ( total abolition of Personal Income Tax ) , from rest of the Voters ? "

Of course , it would !

But then , Amitbhai would say :

" Right now , we have a war to be won . In love and war , everything is fair !

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hemenparekh.in / blogs

02 Feb 2016

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Make Yourself Heard

Dear Visitor :

It is time for YOU to speak up - and demand that YOU are heard

By emailing this suggestion - incorporating your OWN improvements - to the following Policy Makers

( Just multiple copy all the following Email IDs into the Recipient column of your Outlook and Copy / paste this suggestion in the Message Box ) :