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Here is the son of an ex government employee from Shalimar Bagh of Delhi, who currently owns a house in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, one of the tallest building in the world. However, this is not one of the magnificent stories of a middle-class man becoming very successful. It’s quite something else on the whole. Amit Bhardwaj, a former software developer with Infosys and stock broker, is suspected to have fled to Dubai after conning an estimated amount of Rs 2,000 crore through a Ponzi scheme based on bitcoins, the mostly unregulated digital ‘cryptocurrency’ that has been became popular with its sharp spike in value. Bhardwaj, whose businesses are reported to have a turnover of millions, now faces fraud cases in a number of states, with investigative agencies struggling to get him back to the country. The ‘scam’ As of April 1’s evening, one bitcoin was valued at just over Rs 4.26 lakh. But in 2017, the value exceeded Rs 10 lakh. Under Bhardwaj’s scheme, an investor purchasing o...

r Recently, the thought of the H1B visa is being extremely scrutinized in the public square of the world's most sparkling IT hub. Anti-H1B posters have been put in famous Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART) train stations, which travel through the centre of San Francisco Bay Area. The posters will remain there for no less than an entire month in the midst of the new H1B filing season which opens 2 April through an advertisement campaign worth of $80,000. BART is one of the busiest rapid transport systems in the US with an average of around 425,000 everyday passengers and approximately 124 million yearly passengers in the 2017 financial year. As per Bay Area newspapers, at least three stations — Civic Centre, Oakland's 12th Street and 19th Street are marquee locations. Sponsored by Progressives for Immigration Reform, this anti H1B advertisement campaign is setting off the fumes among the sentiments of anti-immigrants that put Trump into the White House. Twit...

H-1B woes have heavily affected the Indian techies trying to migrate out of the country for work. The IT professionals are increasingly heading to Canada.  The data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) suggests that over 4,400 applicants have registered under Global Skill Strategy Program that was launched on June 12 last year. IRCC agency is responsible for issuing work permits to the foreign nationals.  The global skills strategy was launched to make it easier for Canadian businesses to attract the local talent. The initiative was launched last year to boost attract global marketplace. Businesses in Canada want to bring global talent to scale-up and grow. Out of 4,400 applicants that were granted work visa in Canada, 33% are Indians. Lindsay Wemp, the spokesperson of IRCC said, “In the global race to attract the investment of innovative companies, competitors in the European Union, as well as the United States, have considerably larger p...

NEW DELHI: Indian companies are the eighth most optimistic lot globally in terms of  hiring  intentions for April-June with 16 per cent of employers likely to add more staff during the period, while Croatia topped the pack, says a survey. ManpowerGroup  interviewed 58,000 employers in 43 countries and territories and noted that Croatia, where employers were surveyed for the first time, reported healthy hiring intentions based on unadjusted survey data. According to the survey released today by staffing firm ManpowerGroup India, workforce gains were expected across all four regions and seven industry sectors including services, finance, real estate, manufacturing, among others. The survey, conducted among over 4,600 employers across India in various segments of industries, noted that although the hiring pace will slow, few staff reductions are expected. Croatia with a net  employment  outlook of 29 per cent topped the list of being most optimistic i...

Everybody is talking about DevOps and agile practices. Enterprises that implement DevOps and agile practices together have observed significant business success. A survey released by CA Technologies and Freeform Dynamics covers 1300 executives from various organizations. 75% of the organizations have fully embraced DevOps and agile practices. These organizations report 60% higher rate of revenue and profit growth. Only a small proportion of the organizations believe that the need for consistency, breadth, and depth needs to be high. Enterprises that adopt DevOps and agile in a comprehensive manner are usually non-traditional in nature. These organizations are forward-thinking, open to innovation and participative. The organizations that really need a good dose of DevOps and agile are not adopting these practices in the manner that they should. The uninspired companies are assuming that they don’t first go out of the business. In order to avoid being disrupted, they ma...

There are plenty of concerns about the impact of AI and automation on the IT industry. The Indian companies are worried about losing quality revenue due to emerging automation technologies. Indian IT industry heavily relies on Business Process Management (BPM) services that require low skilled professionals. However changing nature of BPM and IT industry, evolving skill profiles and cyber security have created new opportunities for the IT firms. Keshav Murugesh, CEO of Mumbai-based WNS Group believes that companies need to adopt disruptive delivery models to retain the customers. People think that all traditional IT businesses will fall off the cliff and BPM companies will go down. But by adopting disruptive delivery models, BPM companies can still impress and interest new clients. WNS Group operates from 13 countries and employee 35,000 employees. The company is trying to get clients outsource work that is strategically done. New-age competition According to Muru...

It is no news that IT workers are looking at AI and automation as a big threat. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi thinks that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can solve a number of problems in the country In his monthly ‘Mann ki Baat’ radio broadcast, he emphasized on how AI can solve a number of issues in the country. He deliberately focused on how ‘Artificial Intelligence’ can help the country in solving problems like differently abled persons, tracking natural disasters, assisting farmers and extending health services. PMO Modi is keen on learning more about the real-world use cases of AI and automation. If artificial intelligence is harnessed and implemented in a right way, it can add a huge benefit to the society. With the large population and digital literacy, India has a great pool of data that we can use for creating highly-advanced AI technologies. He said, “It was interesting to know about the ongoing miraculous accomplishments in the field of science. Artifi...

Speaking at the two-day-long Uttar Pradesh Investors' Summit 2018 in Lucknow, Reliance Jio chairman, Mukesh Ambani, on Wednesday (February 21) expressed his support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "dream" of transforming the state. During his speech at the summit, which aimed at showcasing investment opportunities and potential across various sectors in Uttar Pradesh, Ambani said that ensuring Uttar Pradesh's development is his "patriotic duty", and promised increased investment in the state.  Here are the key takeaways from his speech: Jio to invest Rs 10,000 crore in infrastructure: Reliance Jio became one of the biggest telecom operators in the country overnight after Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Jio invested Rs 2.5 lakh crores in setting up a state-of-the- art 4G network. However, a major chunk of this investment was used by the company to make inroads into the most populous state of the country - Uttar Pradesh. However, despit...

Demand is off the charts for blockchain talent, and the capital is waiting to back it up. More than $3.7 billion has been raised through ICOs in the United States alone. Blockchain-related jobs are the second-fastest growing in today’s labor market; there are now 14 job openings for every one blockchain developer. And as Nick Szabo, the developer who coined “smart contracts,” pointed out, there is an extreme “ $/knowledge ” ratio in the blockchain space, where capital by far outpaces talent. Today,  Toptal , a marketplace for on-demand tech talent, is publicly launching their  blockchain engineering talent vertical  out of private beta. In today’s software development landscape, Toptal represents about 50 percent of on-demand engineering labor by revenue. Requests for on-demand blockchain talent are skyrocketing. Last year, freelance talent marketplace  Upwork  saw blockchain rise to the fastest-growing skill out of more than 5,000 skills in terms of free...

The 2018 Data & Analytics Global Executive Study and Research Report by   MIT Sloan Management Review   finds that innovative, analytically mature organizations make use of data from multiple sources: customers, vendors, regulators, and even competitors. The report, based on   MIT SMR ’s eighth annual data and analytics global survey of over 1,900 business executives, managers, and analytics professionals, explores companies leading the way with analytics and customer engagement. BIGGER HARVESTS, BETTER RELATIONSHIPS For many U.S. farmers, improving agricultural productivity while meeting consumer demand to reduce the use of pesticides and chemicals on crops became a goal during the 2000s. To help farmers manage pests, plant diseases, weather conditions, and yields, dozens of startups emerged to offer apps and data services — part of a precision agriculture boom. Many of these companies failed or struggled as data alone proved insufficient; farmers also ne...