Happy New Year !

 

Happy New Year ! Hopefully this will be the year things change for the better. For me, 2016 was bad. 2017 was worse. But it was also the year many things changed positively in my life. After being left behind for years, I now feel I am on the fast track. And it was mostly due to resolutions. New Year resolutions.

Now I have never been a fan of resolutions. Maybe it was the lazy pessmistic in me. But it does work. Some years ago I took the resolution to change to a healthier lifestyle. It did work to an extend. My resolution for 2017 was to migrate outwards. I was getting fed up of the tech scene in India. It was why I left my last company.

And it worked, because I am typing this up in Australia.

 

This new year, my resolution will be to settle down to a healthier , more active lifestyle here. And to explore Australia as much as I can.

So once again, wish you a happy and prosperous New Year !

 

It all works out in the end, mate

Turbulent year

 

A few more hours to go, and hopefully it will all end. It has been another turbulent, problematic year. I would say 2017 was another year of dirty politics. The news was constantly littered with nations threatening nations, people protesting, and revolts. More Indians will harmed or killed in the name of religion, or just for being women. The joke of GST played out hurting businesses.  Natural disasters hurt the country, which as usual, was unprepared.

But personally the biggest impact I directly saw was the loss in jobs in Indian information technology industry. India’s $160 billion IT industry laid off more than 56,000 employees this year. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, two of India’s largest IT companies and once leaders in job creation, reduced their headcounts for the first time ever. Around 6,000 Indian employees at Cognizant reportedly lost their jobs to automation. Mumbai-based Tech Mahindra implemented a cost optimisation plan of increasing automation and reducing manpower. It turned ugly in July when the firm made headlines over a controversial audio clip that featured an HR personnel purportedly coercing an employee into quitting by 10am the next day, or risk being fired.

Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House only made matters worse for India.The criteria for computer programmers to apply for the H-1B visa became tougher. In March 2017, the US government stalled the premium processing of this visa category.

The trepidation is unlikely to end anytime soon. By next year, automation will put nearly 70% of the roles in the Indian IT workforce at risk, according to analysts.

Indian IT companies have known for years that the party will end at some point. But instead of preparing early , they are now left to pickup morsels to continue.  After years of job creation in developing economies ,developed economies will be creating jobs for their own citizens in the foreseeable future,

Everyone forgot what happened today

 

Today is December 16. Five years ago, on Dec. 16, 2012, Jyoti Singh, a 23-year-old physiotherapist intern living in New Delhi, was headed home after watching the movie Life of Pi with a male friend. They got on a bus. Six males were on board, including the driver.

In the moving bus, all six assaulted the couple. Singh was gang-raped, and her friend beaten severely. She died days later.

I checked the news today, and there are absolutely no articles on Indian media about the anniversary of this incident. Everyone forgot.

The only article I did find, was in the US. On NPR. Unbelievable.

Read this fantastic piece about a physcologists attempt to study the mind of convicted rapists.

This line stood out

But she did say she saw a pattern of "cognitive distortion" — they had created their own version of the crime that allowed them to justify their actions.Most convicted rapists presented themselves as nonrepentant and attempted to justify their crimes

 

As long predicted, now tax on Bitcoin

 

The taxmen are coming. For your Bitcoins. Saw this on Indian media today. Indian Income Tax officials have begun raiding bitcoin exchanges across the country.  Multiple teams of tax sleuths yesterday, investigating virtual currency Bitcoin's investors and transactions, conducted raids at nine cryptocurrency exchanges in Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Kochi, Hapur and Gurugram.

 

Bitcoin was created as a virtual currency not under the control of any government. But now it seems that definition no longer holds. Exchanges operating in bitcoin will be expected to pay tax just like any other company. And their customers too.

But I think the anonymous miners are still …well, safe. Wondering how they will be taxed.

Does quikr , olx work ?

 

After all the buying online, it was finally time to sell something online for me. I was moving, and wanted to dispose off some things second hand , which were in fairly good condition. Being in the tech city, it was obvious the answer was online. So I installed apps of the two top reselling apps in ‘demand’. And tried my hand on trying to make a little profit instead of giving things away for free.

Well, it did not work. Some did. But mostly not. Instead of what I thought were  intelligent, careful buyers who would ask questions about what I was selling, I was greeted by a horde of deal jumping numbskulls with quick fingers. The only question they asked were: can you reduce the price to zero ? Something very low. You get the point. I had success selling a steel cupboard when I reduced the price to 50% of what I had paid originally. But for everything else, the buyer wanted the product for free. Even when I asked them to come over and inspect the goods to check its quality , to justify my asking price, they flatly refused. All they were doing were judging the quality of the goods on sale looking at the picture. And thats it.

This poses a problem. What you sell must be in good condition, or it will be returned. But if it is in very good condition, you wont get a good price for it. So basically, you can only sell off things in good condition for throw away prices. Basically its a market to dispose of good things at near zero prices.

Some years ago I was building a top CRM product for eBay. You know, the online auction company ? The site which started the whole online auction and marketplace business, now left for dust. I could see production data were customers were debating the quality of items sold. Some customers had clearly been cheaten, sellers sold a box of bricks packaged as UPS batteries and electronics. But there were also lots of complaints of ‘bad condition’ and ‘poor quality’ in them. In most cases, eBay policy meant reversing the sale, and they were loosing money taking care of the logistics expenses. Thankfully I was not a case agent, I was just building the CRM system for the agents. But I could see that they had a lot of work cut out for them, even with all the automation we built for them.

Sites like quikr and olx are quick ways to dispose off your good condition stuff you no longer need. But for dirt cheap prices. Don’t expect to make money off them, specially after their sale commissions.

Well, coming back to my problem, I found success somewhere else. Another new second hand furniture service called gozefo. These guys buy your funiture and appliaces, refurbish and sell them. They will still offer you less, but before arriving at the final price, they send an agent over to inspect the goods. The technician verifiies the goods are in good condition and then quotes a value. They take away the goods in 24 hours, and sell it refurbished via their online marketplace.

Its a much better service, if you want to talk some more sane buyers.