Edition1: News

Nobel peace prize for Obama

The choice of President Barack Obama for the Nobel Peace Prize was cheered by a global chorus from European leaders to minibus passengers in Kenya — but it also elicited criticism over the decision to break with tradition and recognize hopeful promise over concrete achievement.
Obama is seen as having changed the direction of U.S. foreign policy, reversing many of his predecessor's unilateral policies and emphasizing the need for diplomacy, cooperation and mutual respect.
Last year's prize winner, former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, said the Nobel committee wants to encourage Obama to push harder for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"Of course, this puts pressure on Obama," he said. "The world expects that he will also achieve something."
Japan an emerging market for Indian IT
It is known fact that US and Western Europe constitutes largest percentage of Indian IT exports but japan is emerging hot destination for Indian IT exports.
Systems engineers from India are making their presence felt in Japan's information technology industry. Around 22,000 Indians are living in Japan at the end of 2008, nearly double the number a decade ago.
"India is already the international standard in the IT world," say leading Japanese IT experts.
Indian engineers are sent out to Japan after studying Japanese language for five months. In addition to operation and maintenance of financial information systems, they are in charge of systems development for computers and mobile phones.
"While the number of working people is decreasing in Japan, in India the number will continue to increase until 2040. Education levels are also high. It's important for Japanese industry to work together with India," Yoshida said
In Pune we have many companies like Vertex, Sutra, Fidel, Netandroid as few companies having significant client base in Japan.

Maharashtra Govt Formation
The issue of government formation was pending for almost 2-3 weeks and on Wednesday Governor S C Jamir asked the coalition partners Congress and NCP to honour the mandate of the people.
The Maharashtra election results were declared on October 22 in which the Congress-NCP was voted back to power for a third consecutive term but deadlock continued between the two coalition partners for the allocation of portfolios with NCP asking Congress to stick to the 1999 formula.
This is what respect for Public Mandate is? All ministries are equally important in terms of public service. Does that implicate wheels within the wheels to have ‘well oiled’ ministries.
We wish all the best for new government to regain sensibilities and perform up to expectations. And we also wish opposition to meaningfully be vigilant as a pillar in democracy.

Jaipur Fire
Devastating fire that broke out on October 29 at the IOC Jaipur [ terminal, a unit that is a large storage and distribution dump. The inferno claimed 12 lives.
It is neither a manufacturing unit nor does any transformational process take place at this terminal. All it does is receive parcels of petroleum products through a pipeline and loads it into wagons or trucks.
There can be no other reason for the fire but carelessness and a disregard for basic safety norms. Jaipur terminal did have the safety infrastructure to deal with a major/minor leakage. The problem is Lack of safety culture. Why there is no safety culture? Indifference towards safety procedures was not for any selfish gain. The main reason was that safety demanded hard work.
Health safety and Environment is the first priority for industries. Let’s hope we start building safety culture at Home and work.