Nepal wants to emulate Bangalore’s IT prowess, says Prachanda

Bangalore, Nepal is keen to replicate the IT revolution in India’s ‘Silicon City’ and has sought the industry’s help in its effort to modernise its development process.

Expressing his “deep appreciation” for Bangalore, whose technology prowess has earned it global recognition, the Nepal Prime Minister, Mr Prachanda, said that his country wanted to emulate the vibrancy and commitment of the Silicon City for bringing about a change in his country in the shortest time.

Addressing members of the Confederation of Indian Industry here on Wednesday, Mr Prachanda said that his Government would soon formulate a new industrial policy to create an investment-friendly environment.

He extended an invitation to the private sector to invest in Nepal, which offered opportunities in the hydel power sector, apart from other areas of industry. He said the private sector was welcome to bid for power projects there.

Nepal was interested in seeking help for its education sector from Karnataka, a State which excelled in premier professional institutions, he said and added that the new policy would encourage mutually beneficial cooperation.

Kathmandu IT park

Earlier, in his address, Mr Binod Chaudhary, President, Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI), said Nepal offered significant investment opportunities in the IT sector.

The country had only a small IT park near Kathmandu but would like to expand the scope of the sector with the help of Bangalore’s expertise.

Mr C.P. Rangachar, former Chairman of CII (Southern Region) and Managing Director of Yuken India Ltd, said Bangalore could particularly help that country in setting up BPOs focusing on rural areas for a balanced development.

Bangalore Or Bengaluru Or Bengalooru

Bangalore, as a city, has come a long way from the time when Kempe Gowda built it in the sixteenth century and named it ‘bendakaaluru’, to the times when our local government wants to change its name from Bangalore to Bengaluru. It has seen the British invasion and also survived to see the IT revolution by building a strong economic platform which heavily depends on its name - The Brand ‘Bangalore’.

For anyone who knows about this famous city, hearing it’s name brings to mind the beautiful weather, the numerous defence establishments it has, the famous gardens (Lal Bagh and Cubbon park), the culture and warmth of its residents and the more recent IT industry.

With everything a city needed to grow, God knows how the idea of changing its name came about in the first place.

I know it definitely has nothing to do with the new trend in India of renaming its cities to remove the anglicized names. The cities that were renamed from Bombay to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai and Calcutta to Kolkata had lost their original names and the new names were the result of colonization. Even though the word Bangalore was coined during the colonial times it was always known as Bengaluru in Kannada, which means even though the entire world knew it as Bangalore it never lost it’s original name of Bengaluru which is it’s official name in Kannada.

In this way, it had joined ranks with few cities who had an English name and a different native name such as Turin(Torino in Italian), Florence(Florentia in Italian) , Venice (Venezia in Italian) and Paris (pronounced as Pari in french).

It looks like this is purely a political motive rather than something which is good and widely accepted as our beloved home – Bangalore.

44% women on night shifts feel unsafe

Bangalore ranks pretty high on the country's insecurity index for women working on night shifts. Forty-four per cent of the women feel unsafe, according to a survey carried out by the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India in 2006 and released on Tuesday.

While Ludhiana topped the list at 45 per cent, the figures are lower in other metros 18 per cent in Mumbai, 38 per cent in Hyderabad, 24 per cent in Chennai, and strangely enough, just, 15 per cent in Delhi.

Speaking on the issue at a seminar in Bangalore, Suchaitra Eshwar, regional director, Nasscom said that nearly 30 per cent of the workforce in IT BPOs were women.

'Once you make a noise, people will know' Supreme Court advocate Aparna added: "Sexual harassment is not just about women, but largely about exercise of power by someone in power or influence against those in subordination and it is the responsibility of the employer to ensure women's security."

In case of organisations where the CEO was the perpetrator, the case could be transferred to an outside agency by the management of the company to ensure fair play and true justice, Aparna said.

Sadly, instead of the perpetrator of the crime, it is often the women victim who were offered the option of a transfer, she said. A victim of sexual harassment should draw public attention when it occurs to deter further harassment.

"Once you make a noise, people will know," she said. Posters highlighting what constituted sexual harassment pasted across workplace deters males from indulging in it and makes women aware of their rights.

Refuting allegations that provocative dressing was one of the reasons for sexual harassment, she said the victim was not provocatively dressed 95 per cent of the time. She also clarified that sexual harassment is not only about touching.

National Crime Record Bureau said that one woman is molested every 22 minutes, one kidnapped every 40 minutes, one woman raped every 43 minutes and one sexually harrassed every 50 minutes.

There were others before:

In December 13, 2005: 24-year old married HP call centre employee, Pratibha Srikanth Murthy was raped and murdered in Bangalore

27, July 2006: Call centre employee Tanya Banerjee, was murdered.

November 2007: Wipro employee, Jyoti Kumari Chaudhary was raped and killed at Talegaon, allegedly by the driver.

August 6, 2008: In Chennai, a BPO employee was sexually assaulted by her colleague who apparently gave date rape drug in her drink.

August 7, 2008: A girl, employed with IBM Daksh, was allegedly gangraped by 10 unidentified persons after being called out on the pretext of company work.

Police close to first arrest in Bangalore blasts

Following the SIMI line of investigations, the Bangalore police could be on the verge of announcing its first arrest in the July 25 bomb Blasts across the city that left one person dead and eight injured.

A special police team constituted to probe the nine low-intensity blasts that preceded the Ahmedabad blasts of July 26 have been interrogating a 23-year-old student of an arts and architecture college from Bijapur over the past two days.

The police had been looking for Abdul Samee, whose name figured in the interrogations of several alleged SIMI activists arrested around the country, including in the Ahmedabad, Jaipur cases. Sources said Samee was being questioned on his presence in Bangalore around the July 25 blasts and his absence from Bijapur over the weekend of the September 13 Delhi blasts.

The Bangalore police and IB are conducting the questioning.

Samee is believed to be one of the 20 who participated in a SIMI training conclave held on the organisation’s foundation day, on April 25, 2007, at Castle Rock on Karnataka-Goa border. It was Adnan alias Hafeez Hussain, a SIMI leader from Karnataka arrested in Indore on March 23 this year with 12 other SIMI functionaries, who reportedly gave his name.

Abdul Subhan Qureshi alias Tauqeer — believed to be a key lynchpin in the blasts that have occurred around the country since July 2006 — Shahbaz Hussain, a key accused in the Jaipur blasts, and Abu Bashar, named as the mastermind of the Ahmedabad blasts, were reportedly all present at this camp.

According to sources, investigations into SIMI activities prior to the Jaipur blasts of May 13 had also thrown up Samee’s name and the Karnataka police had even zeroed in on a student of the Malik Sandal Institute of Art and Architecture. But no arrests were made after the police were told that the student’s name was Mohammed Samee and not Abdul Samee.

Sources said investigations had returned to the architecture student after his name figured in the interrogation of Shahbaz Hussain in Jaipur.

Samee’s family in Bijapur, however, say the arrest is a result of mistaken identity. His father Raj Ahmed Bagewadi has produced college records to show that his son goes by the name of Mohammed Samee Bagewadi and not Abdul Samee.

The investigations surrounding the architecture student show that the Bangalore police is also taking the same line as the Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Delhi blast cases.

Investigations into the Bangalore blasts have until now produced little results. A parallel case of dumping of a large quantity of ammonium nitrate on the outskirts of Bangalore, a day before the blasts, is also being probed.