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Archive for March, 2010
Indians better than British students, even in English
Mar 29th
LONDON: It’s official. Indian students are better than their British counterparts in schools, even in subjects like English.
Government figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families have revealed Indian and Chinese students get top grades than British children in every school subject at the secondary examination.
Thirtyone per cent of Indian students and 55 per cent of Chinese pupils who took General Certificate of School Education exams last year achieved an A, according to the new figures released.
Among white British pupils the figure was 16 per cent. For black African pupils it was 14 per cent, for Pakistani 13 per cent and black Caribbean 8 per cent, leading newspaper the ‘Daily Mail’ reported.
The figures also show that, as well as forging ahead in maths, Indian and Chinese pupils outperform white British pupils in English.
The Chinese pupils were most likely to get As, with 29 per cent getting the top mark in English, compared with 21 per cent of Indians, 15 per cent of white British, 11 per cent of black Africans and 9 per cent of Pakistanis.
Significant differences in achievement are also seen in geography, history, chemistry, biology, physics, French and religious education, the statistics have revealed.
Bristol University researchers suggested the attainment differences were down to contrasting attitudes to education between ethnic minority and white communities.
Dr Deborah Wilson pointed to high aspirations among immigrant communities, who “almost by definition” are “keen to get on in life”. “With qualifications linked to social progress, it makes sense to focus particular effort at that point,” she said.
[Original story published here]
Babies dumped at birth in Pretoria
Mar 16th
Three babies a week are found dead on Pretoria’s Onderstepoort rubbish dump by waste recyclers, who are confronted by the sight of the bones of many other infants, crushed by waste-compacting machines.
Police and non-government organisations report an alarming increase in the numbers of illegal, late-term abortions, concealments of birth, and even the murder of babies in poor areas around Pretoria North.
The police believe that the dead babies come from areas including the suburb of Wolmer, the informal settlement of De Klerk’s Oord, and the townships of Mabopane, Soshanguve, and Mamelodi.
Neville Manjiama, a member of a community project who sifts through the landfill site for recyclable material, which he sells, says the sight is horrific.
“The recyclers often find bits of broken bones. And we find at least two to three babies here a week,” he said.
When asked where the newborn babies are found, he points to black refuse bags that have been through rubbish crushers but have not been compacted into the landfill site. [Read Full Story]
Mukesh Ambani, Mittal among world’s richest
Mar 11th
WASHINGTON: Indians Mukesh Ambani and Lakshmi Mittal figured among world’s top ten billionaires as Mexican tycoon Carlo Slim Helu beat Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the wealthiest person on earth.
Besides fourth ranked Reliance Industries chairman Ambani and fifth placed steel czar Mittal, four other Indians were among top 50 in 2010 Forbes list of the World’s Billionaires released Wednesday with as many 49 Indians joining company with the planet’s 1,011 richest people.
With his fortune swelling to an estimated $53.5 billion, up $18.5 billion in 12 months, Slim surged ahead of Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, who had held the title of world’s richest 14 of the past 15 years, the US business magazine noted.
Gates, now worth $53 billion, is ranked second in the world. He is up $13 billion from a year ago as shares of Microsoft rose 50 percent in 12 months. Buffett’s fortune jumped $10 billion to $47 billion on rising shares of Berkshire Hathaway. He ranks third.
Eleven countries have at least double the number of billionaires they had a year ago, including China, India, Turkey and South Korea.
Fourth placed Mukesh Ambani with a fortune of $29 billion has global ambitions, Forbes said. So has his younger brother Anil Ambani ranked 36 with a $13.7 billion fortune.
Fifth ranked Lakshmi Mittal with a fortune of $28.7 billion is “looking to expand in his native India; wants to build steel mills in Jharkhad and Orissa but has not received government approval,” Forbes noted describing him as “London’s richest resident” who oversees ArcelorMittal, world’s largest steel maker
Azim Premji with a fortune of $17.0 billion was ranked 28. “Software czar chairs $5.5 billion (revenues) Wipro, country’s third-largest software exporter. Reported jump in net profits in last 2 quarters, signaling a rebound for US-dependent outsourcing giant.”
Shashi & Ravi Ruia brothers took the 40th spot with a fortune of $13.0 billion. Their “$15 billion (revenues) Essar Group has weathered downturn and embarked on an expansion drive in all its businesses, including steel, oil and power.”
Last among the Indians in top 50 was Savitri Jindal, ranked 44th, with a fortune of $12.2 billion. She took over as head of OP Jindal Group after her husband died in a helicopter crash in 2005.
Among other Indians on the billionaires list were Kushal Pal Singh (74), Kumar Birla (86), Sunil Mittal (87), Anil Agarwal (113), Adi Godrej & family (148), Shiv Nadar (201), N.R. Narayana Murthy & family (616), Rahul Bajaj (880) and Vijay Mallya (937).
Original article – Times Of India
.NET MEGA Walkin interviews and on spot offers at Birlasoft Noida
Mar 4th
Headquartered at Noida, India, Birlasoft has 4,000+ employees across US, UK, Germany, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore and India. The Noida centers of the company have been recently assessed at PCMM Level 3 for its HR practices.
If your profile is matching to the skills mentioned below, kindly come for an in person discussion with Birlasoft on Saturday 6th March 2010 at the following venue:
Birlasoft India Ltd.
H 9, Sector 63
Noida. (India)
Assessment timings is between 9.30 AM (IST) till 5.30 PM (IST), do carry a copy of your resume, also drop a confirmation mail regarding the same.
.Net Job Description:
- 2-8 years of experience
- Experience in .net 2.0 and 3.5 (C#, ASP.net, VB.Net) . Minimum resource should have experience in .net 2.0
- Experience in WCF, WPF, XML, JavaScript, WebServices
- Database: SQL Server or Oracle
- Good Communication Skills
Desirables:
- Exposure to Silverlight or Cloud Computing a big plus
- Sharepoint
- Biztalk server
Would request you to send your detailed profile at abhinav.prakash@birlasoft.com along with the following details:
- Total IT Experience
- Current Company
- Current Salary
- Expected Salary
- Joining Time
- Contact Number
How to pass InitParameters to Silverlight in HTML object control
Mar 3rd
There are three different ways in which we can pass parameters to Silverlight from the HTML side:
1. Pass parameters using the HTML object control.
This may be the case using pure HTML page to call silverlight control in it or may be the simple ASp.Net page as usual.
<object width=”100%” height=”100%”>
<param name=”source” value=”ClientBin/SomethingFunny.xap” />
<!– you can pass InitParameters to it. Pass anything like EndPointURI, EndPointName or Even StartPage –>
<param name=”InitParameters” value=”startPage=UnRegisteredLandingPage, EndPointURI=http://www.sehajpal.com/testservice.svc” />
</object>
2. Using ASP.Net page to call silverlight control in it, we can easily pass parameters to it in anyway. One of the old tricks is to have an asp-literal control on the HTML side i.e. MarkUp side, and set its text to the desired HTML output fom code behind.
In the markup:
<asp:Literal ID=”litParam” runat=”server” />In the code behind:
this.litParam.Text = String.Format(“<param name=\”ParamInitParameters\” value=\”{0}\” />”, sInitParms);
3. Using asp-silverlight control to host Silverlight application in an ASP.net website as usual. This is pretty neat approach in terms of playing around with parameters and properties of control hosting the Silverlight app.
In the markup:
<asp:Silverlight ID=”SLControl” runat=”server” Width=”100%” Height=”100%” />
In the code behind:
SLControl.InitParameters = “EndPointURI=” + endPointURI + “,EndPointName=commonservice, UserCredentials=” + CredentialString;
Hope it works for you in different scenarios.