The LiveC Coffee Club

Impacts of COVID-19 on the Information Technology (IT) industry
The COVID – 19 Pandemic has caused drastic changes in many industries, and Information Technology (IT) industry is the major among them. The negative impacts during this situation are more compared to positive effects.
Effect of Lockdown on IT sector:
The significant weaknesses the IT industry is facing now is due to the fall in the economy, as a lot of companies are forced to ask their employees to work from home (remotely) keeping in the account of the public health concerns. Due to this, there is a massive loss in opportunity for many companies who have international dealers. For example, Apple Inc. is estimated to have at least 10% fall in its shares because of the lack of availability of iPhones in the market. The parts that are required to build the iPhones are supposed to come from China, and it is facing a major lockdown.
The spread of this deadly virus has caused a lot of tech conferences to get cancelled, which could have been a great partnership opportunity for many companies to expand their horizons. A few of the meetings were shifter to teleconferences, but this won't have the same reach, and the conference attendees will not be able to have the networking opportunity as they would be attending the actual conference. Due to the cancellation of these major tech conferences, there is an estimated loss of US$ 1 Billion.
Disguised benefits in this pandemic:
Even after all this, compared to many other industries, the IT industry is expected to have an enormous market boom from US$ 131 Billion in 2020 to US$ 295 in the next five years by 2025. The main reason for this increase in the economy for this industry is the increased demand for software and social media platforms such as Google Hangouts, WhatsApp Video call, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. All these teleconferencing tools help the people who are in quarantine to stay in touch with their family members as well as have conference meetings and work at the same time. The economy will also blossom because, during these crises, people understood the importance of the internet and technology as this is helping us stay safe and helping in the communication between the doctors and the public.
Some smart solutions around the world:
Many countries who are facing the shutdown have invested in smart city solution such as the cops in China are using drones attached with thermal sensors to identify the symptoms for coronavirus and get immediate medical help. In Australia, the government had launched a chat-bot to keep the citizens up to date with the situation and answer their questions so that they will be able to decrease the spread of misleading information and stop the panic that could be created in public. In South Korea, the local government has launched a Smartphone app that keeps the self-quarantine employees in touch with their co-workers to keep the updates to the work process and to ask any questions.
In January, in China, the telecom AHS designed a 5G powered system to enable the consultations and diagnoses of people affected by the virus by connecting the physicians at West China Hospital to 27 other hospitals in the area to treat the illness affected people. This not only helps doctors to communicate faster and come up with a diagnosis but also helps to keep track of the emergency patients who need immediate medical help and if a hospital is not able to provide that the patient could immediately be shifted to the nearest equipped hospital for assistance.
Blooming Opportunities and Threats in the IT industry:
Due to the coronavirus, a lot of opportunities opened up in the IT industry, such as the growing need for the 5th generation (5G) technology. This will help increase connections that support the primed remote interactions. This has become the top priority for many organizations due to the pandemic. Telehealth is one of the developing industries in the crises. This could help people to get diagnosed, treated and operated with the need of a physician to be physically present. A lot of apps have been built in the past few months to help achieve this. There are many patients who are in self-quarantine who need medical supervision and medical assistance every day, and these applications could help them achieve that.
There are a few threats too, such as after the pandemic is over what would happen to the IT sector? May exporters in this industry feel that it will not be able to stabilize after the downfall, unlike the 2008 global economic and financial meltdown. Back then, the central banks helped to improve the stability of the market, but now even the central banks are helpless.

India's foreign exchange reserves which crossed the $600 billion marks may be deceptive as the import cover of reserves - the number of months' imports that the reserves can finance - is expected to slip to less than 15 months' imports given the imports projection for FY'22 from the near current adequacy of 20 months' imports, an RBI research paper said.

India's central bank amassed $100 billion in just about 12 months despite the pandemic induced lockdown disrupting economic activity globally. This is the fastest pile up in reserves since the global financial crisis as the reserves crossed the $600 billion mark earlier this month. The reserves are at $605 billion as of June 4, the latest official data indicates and India is now the fifth-largest holder of forex reserves.

Even at these levels, the reserves' cushion may not be a very comfortable one. "In terms of projected imports for 2021-22, the current level of reserves provides cover for less than 15 months, which is lower than for other major reserve holders" warns a paper authored by RBI deputy governor Michael Patra and his team of economists published in the latest monthly bulletin. These are lower than other major holders of reserves - Switzerland (39 months); Japan (22 months); Russia (20 months); and China (16 months), the paper points.

The import cover at the current levels of imports and reserves as of June 04 is estimated at 19.6 months' imports. A surge in imports is factored as prices of crude which accounts for a fifth of India's import bill and other commodities are rising. India's merchandise imports grew by more than 50 per cent in May 2021 due to a low base a year ago. " As compared to the lockdown a year ago, the recent restrictions have had a limited impact on import demand" notes the paper.

Besides meeting importers' demand, forex reserves would be also needed for servicing external debt. " While foreign exchange reserves provide cushions against unforeseen external shocks, levels are often deceptive, and a better gauge of external vulnerability is an assessment of specific indicators," the paper said.

In terms of external vulnerability indicators, as of the end of December'20, reserves were 104 per cent of the total external debt of $536 billion, short-term debt in terms of residual maturity of up to less than a year are about 43 per cent and external debt to GDP is at 21 per cent. All these indicators do not cause alarm on the face of it. But the catch is that India's external liabilities far exceed its external assets."

India's reserves co-exist with a net international investment position of (-) 12.9 per cent of GDP. These factors warrant a pragmatic assessment of reserve adequacy on FX reserves, including exposure to valuation changes and market risk in a world of heightened global uncertainty" the paper said.


Reeta D
(ITES -Chennai)

Happiest-Minds-Annual-Report-2020-21_Chairmans-Letter.pdf

Chairman's Letter
On August 29, 2021, Happiest Minds will complete ten years from the date of launch.
The theme of my letter is therefore looking back at the last decade and looking
ahead to the next.
However, before that, it is my painful duty to talk about the havoc being brought by
the Coronavirus in our country. Most of the developed world has largely recovered and
their economies are back to their pre-COVID levels. Sadly, in India we are reeling under
the onslaught of the second wave which has found us ill-prepared.
The virus continues to mutate, and we must keep adapting. In the first wave,
fatalities were largely among the elderly. In the current wave, young adults in the
prime of their careers have lost their lives. We, at Happiest Minds have not been
spared. During the fortnight preceding the date of this letter, we lost 5 of our fine
young men with promising careers and 38 family members. The pervasiveness and
infectiousness of the virus in the current wave can be gauged by the fact that 8% of
our team tested positive as on 17th May, of whom 26% had to be hospitalized. We are
hoping that no effort will be spared to increase the pace of vaccinations to stem any
further resurgence of infections or a possible 3rd wave. When the pace of vaccinations
should have been increasing exponentially, the vaccination rate has been declining
every day, due to an extreme shortage of vaccines.
The low coverage of population vaccinated makes India more vulnerable to a potential
third wave which, by the looks of it, will increasingly attack young children. The scary
situation further increases the need for vaccine availability. The Central Government
On August 29, 2021,
Happiest Minds will
complete ten years from
the date of launch.
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will now procure vaccines and make them available to the States. Still, it is going
to be months before volumes ramp up, backlogs cleared and younger population
below 18 years can get a chance to be vaccinated. We can only pray India doesn't
have to face a third wave in the next six months, as that is the minimum period needed
to prepare for a new onslaught on the nation's health.
Looking back at the first decade
The highlight for Happiest Minds' first decade was our successful IPO, the first to be
filed and completed during the lockdown and completely digitally executed. The record
response by the shareholders in terms of oversubscription and appreciation of the
share price on listing day placed a huge burden of responsibility on the leadership team
and we are happy that we have been able to fulfill all our promises.
However, the IPO was only the culmination of all that we have done since inception.
This includes the investment from year one to build the organization we aspired to
become. The vibrant culture based on our SMILES Values, (Sharing, Mindful, Integrity,
Learning, Excellence and Social responsibility) which won us industry leading ratings
from Glassdoor® and innumerable recognitions from Great Place to Work® Institute
(India). It was gratifying that in the last year we broke our own record levels, getting
4.3/5.0 in Glassdoor and 92% of our team said Happiest Minds is a great place to work.
Our lives have been dedicated to achieving the Happiest Minds Mission: Happiest
People . Happiest Customers. We are grateful to our customers who have supported
us from inception. Some of them have been with us from the first year and in one case a
CTO who was also our very first customer, has been our customer thrice over, showing
his faith in our delivery and leadership teams. The evidence of our dedication and
customer response comes through in the NPS score from our customer satisfaction
surveys. This year our customers gave us a record NPS score of 57.
Thought leadership is very important in the knowledge industry and we have focused
on this from the very beginning. We proactively invested in new technologies which
in turn matured into Centers of Excellence – Analytics (Big Data & AI), Internet of
Things (IoT), Digital Process Automation (DPA). As disruptions happened in traditional
technologies, we also developed skills like Software Defined Networking (SDN),
DevOps etc. Along with these areas, we continue to invest in next-generation digital
technologies like Blockchain, Robotics & Drones and Virtual/Augmented Reality.
Many leading Industry analysts like Gartner®, Zinnov®, Forrester®, Everest®, IDC®,
ISG®, HfS®, Avasant® and our technology partners recognized our innovation in these
areas – few examples are:
• Recognized by Intel's Winner Circle Program as a Solution Plus Partner for
contributing towards the acceleration of 5G and virtual network transformation
• Leading Product Engineering & Digital Transformation Analyst organization ranked
and recognized us in multiple areas like ER&D Services, Product Engineering Internet
of Things Engineering & Services, RPA etc.
Our lives have been
dedicated to achieving
the Happiest Minds
Mission: 'Happiest People .
Happiest Customers'.
We are grateful to
our customers who
have supported us
from inception.
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Mindtree Foundation Wins The 2020 Golden Peacock Award For CSR

Mindtree Foundation Wins The 2020 Golden Peacock Award For CSR – Mindtree Foundation has won the 2020 Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Social Responsibility. The yearly Golden Peacock Awards are viewed as a benchmark of corporate greatness around the world. A jury led by Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah, previous boss equity of India, executive of the National Human Rights Commission, and top of the National Commission for Constitution of India Reforms, declared Mindtree Foundation the winner of the esteemed honor out of 319 nominations and 119 finalists.

Mindtree Foundation, the CSR arm of the worldwide innovation counseling and administrations organization Mindtree, is centered around assisting social orders with prospering by aiding the oppressed with their essential necessities, and setting out business open doors.

"We are glad to be honoured with a Golden Peacock Award for CSR. The honor is a demonstration of the sincere endeavors put in by us all at Mindtree to have an effect to society by aiding the individuals who need it the most. We will keep on putting forth a valiant effort in aiding change the existences of the unfortunate ones and making an effect that resonates across networks and ages," said Paneesh Rao, Chief People Officer at Mindtree.

Read more CSR News on India Frontline.

 Why php continues to be popular...

In a time when elite organizations are using rather intimidating, large-scaled tech stacks for their backend, many people still can't believe that PHP can be employed for big, successful projects.

But you'd be surprised. What do rising Fortune 500 tech startups and corporate giants such as Facebook, MailChimp, Slack, and Etsy all have in common? They're companies that use PHP in their end-to-end computing infrastructure.

Whether it's Lyft using PHP to run one of the world's largest ride-sharing databases or Slack deploying PHP for the majority of its server-side application logic, PHP provides world-class support for building small-large mobile and web products.

SEVEN GLOBAL WEBSITES USING -PHP
Facebook
Wikipedia
Tumblr
Slack
MailChimp
Etsy
WordPress

NEW UPDATE-PHP 8
PHP 8.0 is a major update of the PHP language. It contains many new features and optimizations including named arguments, union types, attributes, constructor property promotion, match expression, nullsafe operator, JIT, and improvements in the type system, error handling, and consistency.

HOW MUCH FASTER (PHP 8)
PHP 8.0 is the clear winner here, proving to be 18.47% faster than PHP 7.4. And if you compare it to PHP 7.0, it can handle 50% more requests (or transactions) per second.

It is hardwork for developers to upgrade their websites running on older versions, but in view of the security and technology, it makes it worthwhile to spend extra time to upgrade.
Most hosting accounts have also started offering php8 on their servers, while retaining backward compatibility with php5.6 and php7.2.

LiveC website started with php3 and in tune with technology has been upgraded to php7.2 .

Visualizing Data:
Yes, you can get data or process data. That's easy. But do you know how to read that data? Or to how to explain it to others so they can use it? If you can visualize the data, you'll be able to, and that's what employers want you to be able to do. You'll be able to tell the CEO and the public what your findings mean – and that's invaluable.

Creativity:
Gone are the days when business and creativity didn't mix. Now, everyone wants the free-thinking creative force on their team to be able to look at problems in new, unique ways to solve them with fresh perspectives. Employers also find this a great professional skill in demand because it helps them find people who can dream up fresh ideas for products and services.

Emotional Intelligence:
Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, refers to how we relate emotionally to people. A high EQ shows you can relate to your own and clients' emotions and respond accordingly. This, again, shows you're more capable of relating to people well, instead of being cold and robotic.

Complex Problem-Solving:
Here are other professional skill employers find humanity students are better at solving problems. This relates to creativity, yes, but also to how we process factors such as conversion and argumentative dialogue into our reactions to issues. Playing video games and solving crossword puzzles can help improve your complex problem-solving skills, too.

Cognitive Flexibility:
This one doesn't refer to your gymnastic prowess but rather your ability to tailor your conversational approach to the people you interact with. In other words, do you know how to speak and conduct yourself differently with the CEO than with the custodian? Do you customize your sales approach to each client? You must, as employers consider this an in-demand skill.

People Management:
Gone are the days of computer management. Employers want to know you can deal with people. Really talk to and motivate them. Get them going, producing and contributing. Feeling wonderful about their teammates, you and the company. Do you comprehend how to do these things? Great! You have this professional skill everyone wants this year and in the future. If you can create happy employees, you'll be a happy employee to your superiors!

Visualizing Data:
Yes, you can get data or process data. That's easy. But do you know how to read that data? Or to how to explain it to others so they can use it? If you can visualize the data, you'll be able to, and that's what employers want you to be able to do. You'll be able to tell the CEO and the public what your findings mean – and that's invaluable.

Creativity:
Gone are the days when business and creativity didn't mix. Now, everyone wants the free-thinking creative force on their team to be able to look at problems in new, unique ways to solve them with fresh perspectives. Employers also find this a great professional skill in demand because it helps them find people who can dream up fresh ideas for products and services.

Emotional Intelligence:
Emotional Intelligence, or EQ, refers to how we relate emotionally to people. A high EQ shows you can relate to your own and clients' emotions and respond accordingly. This, again, shows you're more capable of relating to people well, instead of being cold and robotic.

Complex Problem-Solving:
Here are other professional skill employers find humanity students are better at solving problems. This relates to creativity, yes, but also to how we process factors such as conversion and argumentative dialogue into our reactions to issues. Playing video games and solving crossword puzzles can help improve your complex problem-solving skills, too.

Cognitive Flexibility:
This one doesn't refer to your gymnastic prowess but rather your ability to tailor your conversational approach to the people you interact with. In other words, do you know how to speak and conduct yourself differently with the CEO than with the custodian? Do you customize your sales approach to each client? You must, as employers consider this an in-demand skill.

People Management:
Gone are the days of computer management. Employers want to know you can deal with people. Really talk to and motivate them. Get them going, producing and contributing. Feeling wonderful about their teammates, you and the company. Do you comprehend how to do these things? Great! You have this professional skill everyone wants this year and in the future. If you can create happy employees, you'll be a happy employee to your superiors!

Negotiation:
Another people skill like emotional intelligence that robots lack, negotiation is at the heart of business deals, so it's vital professional skill employers look for. Negotiation requires excellent communication and debating skills, so brush up on your interpersonal skills.


Author Courtesy : https://www.simplilearn.com/top-professional-skills-to-get-hired-for-job-article?source=frs_author_page

An interesting write-up...

https://www.madridsoftwaretrainings.com/top-10-trending-technologies-in-the-world

Tamil Nadu is all set to become the new hub for manufacturing Apple products for the global market. The state cabinet, which met on Friday evening, cleared 34 industrial projects entailing investments of Rs 52,257 crore that includes component manufacturers for Apple such as Tata Electronics, Pegatron Corporation, Taiwan, and Luxshare of Taiwan. The investments will result in creating employment for around 94,000 people in the state.

"With Tamil Nadu already hosting manufacturing facilities of Foxconn and Salcomp, the clearances for investments from Tata Electronics, Pegatron and Luxshare will ensure that the entire ecosystem of manufacturing Apple products will be housed in Tamil Nadu," a senior state government official told TOI. The cabinet also approved the New Industrial Policy of Tamil Nadu, which will be unveiled in February.

Tata Electronics will invest Rs 5,763 crore and create 18,250 jobs in Krishnagiri district for making mobile phone components. Pegatron will invest Rs 1,100 crore in the first phase and create more than 14,000 jobs in its proposed unit to make mobile phones in Mahindra World City in Chengalpet district, about 60km from Chennai. Pegatron is the second largest contract manufacturer of Apple phones.

Luxshare of Taiwan is investing Rs 745 crore and will create 4,000 jobs. It will make electronic components and wearables. It is taking over Motorola's defunct manufacturing unit in Sriperumbudur near Chennai.

Greeting from Live Connections...⁠
⁠
"Heartfelt birthday wishes to an awesome person who always inspires us with determination and unbeatable energy! Wishing you another year of great accomplishments! Happy birthday!"
⁠
#liveconnections #livec #live_connect #connections #weplacepeoplefirst #birthdaywishes #teamsprit

Greeting from Live Connections...⁠
⁠
"With warm wishes for a very happy birthday and sincere thanks for your hard work throughout the year.
#liveconnections #livec #live_connect #connections #weplacepeoplefirst #birthdaywishes #teamsprit