Computer professionals, beware!

I WANT to warn all those young people who dream of going to the USA as a software professional. What started a couple of years ago in South India has now engulfed Punjab, the ambitious people’s state. Some fraud software companies (in fact, they don’t have any software work/project to do) are reaching Punjab, advertising that they would first train the selected candidates, give them real-life project experience and then send them to their so-called reputed clients in the USA.

Such companies have very strange way of selecting candidates. Anyone who is ready to pay them lakhs of rupees (between Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh) is selected for the training. Bond papers are signed on some mutual agreement, again the candidate is unaware of the loopholes favouring the company.

Now the real drama starts. Training is of low standard, faculty is not good, but the candidates’ performance evaluation tests are such that they are not able to get through. If they protest they are told that they are not working hard.

Sometimes things are different. A B.Sc. or M.Sc pass candidate who is there just because he/she wants to go to the USA and has agreed to pay the money is not able to understand the complex programming and the sophisticated software technology that demands a B.Tech or M.Tech in computer science as the basic qualification. But these company people are fooling the candidates. So the end result is that the candidates do not become competent enough to do the job. If some are there, they are told to wait for a long time because, according to the company, the US embassy is creating some trouble which is out of the domain of the agreement.

My purpose to explain all this is to warn those young people (mainly struggling engineering graduates) who get lured by such bogus companies. Recently I met some young people who were asked to come to Delhi and join training after some company had advertised in Punjab. Within a couple of days of coming here and paying the hefty sum they came to know of the reality. Most of them felt so cheated and embarrassed that they were finding it tough to go back home. Fighting the company was also tough as the company had protected itself well in the agreement.

I am a software engineer in the ITTI. I have done my B.E. from Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh.

ARVIND AJIMAL
USA

CTBT debate

I couldn’t stop my temptation to write this letter after watching the US Senate’s CTBT debate.

The USA was the first country to sign it and is first to kill it. In the meantime, the USA pressurised everybody to “follow” it.

The reason used in favour of signing the treaty is not because it could be the first step towards “non-discriminatory total nuclear disarmament”. It is just to “lock in” the US lead in nuke technology and it can test in the laboratory itself.

The reason used for opposing is not that the treaty is bad. It is the USA’s lack of faith in other countries. The USA thinks it will honour the treaty, but others are bound to cheat. It doesn’t even want to believe the 30-nation committee which will inspect the suspected sight. The USA wants to be able to verify “independently” if it has to ratify, an argument never used when it was ratified in the UK and France. It just highlights the US suspicion at everyone else.

The Pakistani coup has added spice to the debate. It has been cited to show how dangerous the world has become and hence the need to “strengthen nuclear deterrence”.

The reason the USA is not willing to accept for India’s “minimum credible nuclear deterrence”. Washington dubs it as a “step in the wrong direction”.

VENKAT SELLAPPAN
Bloomington (USA)
(Received in response to The Tribune’s Internet edition).