Feb
6
Paypal has been reversing payments made to Indians since February 1, 2010 . Though the email they send says
Hello ***,
Your payment of xx.xx has been sent back to the sender of the payment.
We reversed this payment because we have stopped allowing personal payments to be sent to or from India.
If this was a payment for a purchase of goods or services, and not a personal payment, then you may contact the buyer and have him or her resend the payment as follows: (a) click the Send Money tab, (b) select “Goods,” and (c) provide a shipping address.
If this payment was a personal payment such as a gift, then we have requested that the sender find another payment method until we restore personal payments to and from India.
We are trying to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and we’re sorry for any inconvenience.
Thank you,
PayPal
They claim that only personal payments are affected, but payments sent by Paypal Masspay to verified business and premier accounts are also getting reversed. Paypal Masspay is used by most advertising and affiliate networks to make payments to their publishers
Some of the networks whose Masspay payments are being reversed are:
Infolinks
Chitika
RentaCoder
Freelancer / GetaFreelancer
Reviewme
TLA
Adsdaq
Adengage
Inpostlinks (formerly PayperPost)
Netline/Revresponse
Forbes publisher
The worst affected are freelancers and sellers of digital products who receive small payments from a number of customers, who will find it difficult to get their money back.
Bank transfer requests have not been completed even after 10 days, and could take up to 30 days. New transfer requests have status as pending. If your balance is negative after the transfer request, the transfer will be canceled.
Feb
4
There has been a delay in withdrawal of funds from Paypal to Indian bank accounts and Paypal has sent this mail.
Dear ***,
We are currently experiencing an issue processing withdrawals to Indian bank accounts. As a result, there may be some delay in withdrawals from your PayPal account to your bank account.
We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused, and are doing all we can to resolve the issue.
Thank You,
PayPal
From forums, it appears that Paypal withdrawal requests from 27th January 2010 have not yet been credited. Last year (2009), there was a similar delay and funds were credited after 15 days in some cases.
Also refer to : http://www2.ebay.com/aw/in/200903061108272.html
Dec
27
Interesting report on social networking and productivity, loss of productivity by 12.5%
http://www.assocham.org/prels/shownews.php?id=2265
In the many non IT sectors like engineering, employees do not need internet access at work except for email, so it would have been better if the report had specified the industries covered.
Dec
18
India’s largest companies by turnover for Financial Year ending March 2009
(Amount in Rs crore)
Top 6
Indian Oil – Rs 290,946 crore – Oil and Gas
Reliance Industries – Rs 153,128 crore – Oil and Gas
Tata Steel – Rs 147,595 crore – Steel
BPCL – Rs 137,993 crore – Oil and Gas
HPCL – Rs 129,979 crore – Oil and Gas
State Bank of India – Rs 113093 crore – Banking
Others of interest
11 NTPC – Rs 47,647 crore – Power generation
13 Larsen & Toubro – Rs 41,055 crore – Capital goods
Tata Consultancy Services – Rs 27,386 crore – Infotech
Infosys – Rs 22,166 crore – Infotech
Bharti Airtel – Rs 37,504 crore – Telecom
Hindustan Unilever – Rs 16,848 crore – FMCG
Approximate figures (from Outlook issue referenced in an earlier post)
Bennett Coleman & Company (Times of India group) – nearly Rs 5000 crore
Dainik Bhaskar Group (Publisher of Dainik Bhaskar, the largest circulated daily and DNA) – Rs 1400 crore
Having worked in Larsen & Toubro as a project engineer for 5+ years (mainly for the experience as I do not want to do a job ever again in my life) and with many of these big companies as customers while working as a project engineer, some general observations:
- Have very good systems in place
- Except the software and banking companies, they do not have too many employees, but have investments of thousands of crores in machinery and infrastructure
- Difficult to displace these companies in terms of turnover due to the investment made.
For employees,
Plus points
you work with experienced people and learn from them, so you make fewer mistakes
Very professional work environment, with little blatant discrimination on the basis of gender
Handle high value projects valued in crores, monitor profits closely, manage risk
You get very good exposure to people from different social and economic backgrounds, treat them fairly, do not discriminate because they are not your “friends”
Secure job, all payments, including dues made on time
Learn to deal with customers and vendors , both good and bad.
Decisions are made on the basis of facts and numbers, not gossip and false rumors.
Transparency – you could ask customers and vendors anything and get an answer and vice versa.
Negatives
salary is average
growth is slow (one promotion every three years)
little flexibility
Dec
16
Interesting information on how ISPs selling the surfing history of their consumers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040304052.html
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2007/03/your-isp-may-be-selling-your-web-clicks.ars
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/03/does_your_isp_s/
In USA, an ISP makes $5 per month per user. Recently I have received emails and other information related to the websites I surf. I wonder what the going rate every month is for my surfing habits. Some alternatives to get rid of this problem is to use encryption or get your own ISP.
Dec
16
From http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?263241
Indian media doesn’t do introspection. We recommend it to others—MPs, political parties, militants, judges, scientists…. They are all advised to look deep inside their own trade and clean up the rot. Meanwhile, the rot creeping into the fourth estate is studiously ignored or airbrushed, usually by organising a “studio discussion” in which the citizen is asked: Does the media need to be accountable? Discussion over. Issue over. Fortunately, even that stratagem is wearing thin. The chicanery is conspicuous.
After some time, it is easy to recognize a genuine story and some thing that has been paid for. The rate varies from Rs 50000 to Rs 2.5 Lakhs or more.
Dec
11
This article on women in the IT sector
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/jobs/TCS-Wipro-Infosys-go-all-out-to-check-high-female-staff-attrition/articleshow/5324809.cms
has some interesting numbers.
At the entry level, the male / female ratio is almost 50: 50 , but at the senior level at Infosys, women constitute less than 2 % ( and many of them will be HR and similar departments)
As mentioned, with a female boss ” Often male employees, are not too cooperative in the team”. So even if you are extremely good at your work, if you are woman employed in any organization (however progressive it may claim to be ) , you will rarely get a fair deal.
In other sectors like engineering (infrastructure) it is worse, engineers are expected to spend time outdoors in the sun, girls are told at some campus interviews ” Girls are like flowers to be kept in a vase, if they go outside they will wilt, so please don’t sit for campus interviews”
Nov
29
Creating really useful and accurate content takes a lot of time and money. If the content creators don’t make much money, they will not be able to continue for a long time.
http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/11/24/is-the-murdock-bing-deal-really-just-about-the-wall-street-journal
If one party is at an unfair advantage, the other party will search and move away as soon as they find a better deal.
Nov
22
There is a big gap in the salaries in urban and rural areas. In small towns and villages, even today a salary of Rs 3000 per month (less than US$60) is considered adequate for a white collar job. The cost of living is also lower.
BPO salaries in rural India
Nov
15
If leads and affiliate sales are a major source of revenue, it is important to find reliable businesses/ websites to work with. Very often, your affiliate commission gets stolen, if the minimum payout is $25, you do not have a single conversion for months once you reach $24. And when you remove the affiliate link from your website, the affiliate manager starts frantically emailing you.
Lead generation is better, you can atleast forward the same lead to another company / competitor and also warn the buyer about the supplier who has cheated you. An example of what people do when promises are not kept.
http://www.david-carter.com/wp/2009/11/the-real-power-of-domain-development/
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