Wings and Respect...

As we step into the 96^th year of celebrating the International Women’s Day, it’s not just the piece of history of the soviet women aspiring to win respect at their textile industries exactly a century ago , or how the day is commemorated in south east Asia today . It’s a point in time to stop and ponder over and think – ‘of how far we have come in realizing this dream ’.

I am no pessimist, but series of unfortunate events develop one question and the one which does not escape my mind is,” have we learnt to respect women?” Let me be more specific here. As a fellow citizen of 120 Crore people comprising 48 percent women, can ‘they’ all call us a nation of equality?

Traditionally, India has been a patriarchal society for over 5000 years of its civilization. We now come up with statements suggesting changes and development, sugarcoated with adjectives that run “women empowerment” and of how things have gotten better. Maybe-we are all missing the point here! Statistics that speak of a rape every twenty minutes is not only shameful and agonizing ,but spells of an unimaginative bear reed character the men have displayed ever since .

Yes, not all men would be potentially the ‘rotten fruit’, but the rest should stand up and be counted in supporting the cause. when I speak of supporting the cause –it ‘simply’ means respecting the views, priorities and making a conscious effort in motivating women around us . It isn’t very difficult. Start with your mother – the yoga academy she wants to join, our sister – the skirts she fancies to college, your wife – the job she wants to take, your friend – the man she wants to chase, your colleague – the project she wants to lead. And the men – stop your father if he tries to win terms, your friend if he’s agony to his girl friend, your neighbor if he’s violence to his wife. Stop making rapists at home. Before all those decisions and statements we men make, which do sound harsh, think not once but twice if it’s going to shred the wings or give them the phoenix’s .

There is definitely more to a country than statistics that speak of violence .And for women who do not find men around to support you , stand up for yourself for everything – for education , to compete , to vote, at the workplace , to own , to contraception, to non violence , to a life . It is about you, about the respect you deserve, and if it’s not being given – demand and fight.

And like Sridevi states in the film English Vinglish ,"mujhe pyaar ki zaroorat nahin hain , zaroorat hain toh  izzat ki " . 

UN theme for IWD  2013 : a promise is a promise : time for action to end violence against women

Author of the post: Mr. Shailesh Gaikwad (Client associate - BD team, Kondwa, Pune)

Mohe Rang de........

Throughout our lives, as citizens our India, we have always been claiming our rights. We have luxuriously been enjoying the privileges of a democratic country that allows us to live a peaceful life securing and safeguarding our interests in the best of its form. Though very often, while voicing out our concerns regarding these rights, we tend to forget our fundamental duties as citizens towards this great nation.'Mohe Rang De...' was just a small step taken by iQuesters to make people realize these fundamental duties where various teams participated to perform a street play and reinforced the reason for celebrating Republic day!

Author of the post: Suraj Pathak (Sr. Executive - HR)

Ring out the old, Ring in the new.... Drunk Driving, let's all eschew...

And so another eventful year comes to an end, with lots of memories we can get ready to usher in a New Year.

Around this time, everybody’s got their minds on their‘Grand Party Plans’ for 31^st night. It’s also a time for people to think up their New Year resolutions.  These resolutions often range from simple to the exaggerated and sometimes downright absurd. For some it would be about pledging to lead a healthier life, few others might resolve to lose their virginity :-)

However the question on everyone’s mind undoubtedly would be ‘What awaits us in 2013?’ Since we survived December 21^st 2012, what now for humanity eh??

I believe things will change, there is likely to be a collective shift in conscience. We as a country are so off-balance now, the recent agitations in Delhi, the Anna Hazare movements all point to a rise in common man’s concern regarding many of the ills that our society faces today. And when you compare all these happenings, with the so called 21^st December 2012 predictions, it makes you wonder whether we human beings really need stuff like Doomsday. Every day we read and hear about things which make you wonder whether Armageddon is needed to end the world, or if left to us, elements of society will think of ways to destroy the world as we know it.

At a personal level, can we not pledge to help; bring about a little more balance to the society? Facts are unnecessary; we all know the number of lives road accidents claim every year. Many of these incidents are a result of drunk driving. Festivals and other Celebratory events often present the greatest risk of such incidents. It’s sad when you go through the newspapers on 2^nd January and find plenty of incidents of drunk driving leading to accidents. Why should we as a society devise ways to take lives, when cosmic forces have their own plans lined up? There are plenty of dates predicted for the end of the world. One by one as these dates pass us by; you cannot help think that one of these may be real. In the meanwhile we can do our best to preserve life and let nature take its course.  Events like New Year’s Eve are for celebrations, to spread happiness and joy all around. Often for some, the day turns out to be the worst of their lives.The question here is not one of abstinence, but responsibility and respect. Respect for others and your own life. All it requires is a bit of trouble to ensure that the booze, frolic and the tragic do not go together.

As the saying goes “Drinking and driving: there may be stupider things, but it's a very short list.”

So, let’s pledge not to wreck the holidays. Here’s wishing everybody a happy and safe New Year. Cheers!!!

Author of the Post: Mr. Bipratip Chakraborthy (Executive - Human Resources Department, Kondwa, Pune)

 

Wake up, before its too late..... (Continued)

One of the immediate action is waste reduction. We have to cut the amount of rubbish to be burned. Do not waste resources. Go on recycling!!! Plastic bottles, cans, and used paper are recycled through a resource recycling center. Give away old clothes to someone or remake them. Do not throw away products only to buy brand new ones, one after another. Bring your own bags when shopping to reduce waste from plastic bags. Turn off unnecessary lights. Use public transportation, ride a bicycle or walk to avoid using your car or motorcycle. When you stop a vehicle for a certain time, turn off the engine to save the fuel. Grow trees and protect forests. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.

Protecting nature and resources leads to the prevention of global warming. Slight efforts by each of us will make a big difference. So, the next time you leave your desk, remember to at least switch off your monitor, as the monitor consumes the maximum electricity as compared to any of the other parts of a computer. Remember to switch off lights, fans, air conditioners whenever you are leaving the room or leaving the house. Remember not to print unnecessarily if you can make do with a soft copy on the computer and save paper. Saved paper means saved trees.

For anybody who is interested in knowing more about global warming, there is an excellent English documentary style movie called “An Inconvenient Truth”. 

 I am sure you will enjoy it...

 Author of the Blog: Ms. Jaishree Mahalingam (Associate Team Lead, Kondwa Branch, Pune)

Wake up, before its too late.....

What is global warming? Why is everybody talking about global warming these days? How does saving electricity help cut down global warming? How does saving paper cut down global warming? Why is global warming a problem and even if it is, why should we care about it or take any steps to prevent global warming? If you have ever had any of these questions in your mind, read on and you will know all….

During the past 4.6 billion years, the Earth has gone through climate changes over and over. The Earth, a magma ocean at the beginning of its history, has alternately experienced ice ages and warm periods. It is currently in the slow-paced warming period that started 20,000 years ago.

A supercomputer shows that global temperature will increase by about 1 to 5 degree celsius. The temperature rise causes melting of ice caps atop mountains and glaciers in the north and south Polar Regions. This causes sea levels to rise. If the sea level rises, low-lying coastal areas and small islands will be submerged. That would severely affect people living there. It is predicted that a 5 Degree C increase in temperature would melt the complete Greenland ice sheet, resulting in 3-meter sea level rise over the next millennium. Not only that, it would raise sea level by about 7 meters if all the ice on the Earth melted completely. Just imagine what would happen if all the ice on the Earth melted?

Do you know how the Earth’s temperature rises? Sunlight heats up the ground. The heated ground emits infrared radiation. The ozone layer absorbs the ultraviolet radiation from the Sun and warms the atmosphere. Meanwhile, the air absorbs infrared radiation, warming up the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide (N2O), and chlorofluorocarbons exist in the air. These molecules effectively absorb infrared heat radiation and are called greenhouse gases. These greenhouse gases play an important role in keeping our planet at a comfortable temperature without which Earth would be a frozen, ice planet. To put it in layman terms, greenhouse gases are like a “blanket” around the Earth to keep it warm. The problem is an excessive increase of these gases which increases the heat levels as well. You could say it is like being covered by many layers of blankets. The Sun’s heat keeps coming, but the heat is trapped by several layers of blankets and cannot escape making it hotter and hotter on Earth.

Now, you may well ask that if these greenhouse gases already exist in the atmosphere, what can we do to reduce global warming. Many of the greenhouse gases are emitted by human activities. We have to try to reduce the human-originated gas emissions with our efforts and ingenuity. Given below is a pie diagram giving statistics of which activities cause emissions. By reducing emissions, global warming can be prevented.

 To be continued .............................................................................

To know more about the ways of preventing Global warming, please re - visit the blog.....................

Author of the post: Ms Jaishree Mahalingam (Associate Team Lead, Kondwa Branch)

How it all began....!

You know how every time that you are at work, you don’t feel like working, just want to laze around and then your boss/supervisor comes and shatters that beautiful image to say “You think your Pappa owns this company!!??!!”

Well, in my case, I can actually turn around and say “Yes!” But that is where MY beautiful image shatters! For all those who thought working in “Pappa’s” company was a piece of cake, clearly never met mine.

So when I decided to not go down the beaten path of the on-campus placements in the IT industry and do something on my own, little did I know what was in store for me. In an attempt to make me learn things myself and stand on my own two feet immediately, I was given a seemingly simple task – Open an office for iQuest Consultants in Bangalore from scratch. The reason I use the word “seemingly” is that its sounds simple to do that when you just hear it, but ground reality is very different. From deciding the size of the office to bargaining for the rent; from deciding the location of the office to deciding the seating arrangement of it; from haggling with furniture manufacturers to bargaining with computer equipment suppliers; from taking a call on the capacity of the UPS to banging my head with Airtel.. phew!! and the list goes on. But that really wasn’t the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge was actually convincing people (brokers, suppliers, candidates etc) that somebody who looks like me (for all those who don’t know how I look, let’s just say that I have been mistaken for a 16 yr old on more than one occasion) was actually interested in setting up an entire functioning office.

And thus ensued the long days that had no lunch breaks, no work timings, min 3 hrs of travelling, bike rides behind weird men, sitting alone in office watching the electrician/carpenter make the place look functional, waiting for candidates to turn up, lots of disappointment and at times, tears…

Convincing candidates who turned up for interviews about the credibility of the company was an uphill task. But I am very grateful to the people who did join us and help kick start the operations. There were days when I thought to myself “What have I got myself into!!”

Well, the end result of all of this was 1^st March, when a proud boss (and father) announced the opening, rather re-opening, of the Bangalore center of iQuest Consultants as we know it today. We have come a very long way from there and this past year has been more of a learning experience for me than my 4 yrs of engineering put together! Anyways, with a small pat on my back and big dreams in my eyes, me and the Bangalore team set our best foot forward to celebrate another year of working hard, laughing, partying, learning and living! Here’s to us and the entire iQuest family! Cheers!!

Author of the Post: Ms. Divisha Upadhayaya, (Center Head, Bangalore Branch)

iQuesters at Bangalore Branch

 

Sapling a Thought!

Dear iQuester

I find happiness in your happiness, and feel joyous in your joy

I celebrate your success with great zeal and always pray that you fly high

I strengthened our relationship, I gave you flowers

With a wish that you, always be ours

But I now realize, that the wish would die

When my flowers wither and the nature would cry

I now decide, I won’t let the wishes die

Neither will the flowers wither, nor would the nature cry

On your birthday, I now resolute

I will plant a life and let this thought root

Promise me, that you will nurture it with great care

As it will always be with you, when you have things to share!!!

(This thought of gifting a sapling on birthdays originated when we realized that the bouquets that were given were perishable and will not stay with our employees for a longer period of time. We always, wanted our employees to remember us in a form that they can associate themselves with. And this is what we ended up with. What could have been a best gift than a small shrub on their birthday! We initiated it in our head office and will implement it across all the branches of iQuest! I am sure the smile on a birthday will double after receiving life as a gift!)

Author of the Post: Suraj Pathak (Executive - Human Resources, iQuest Consultants)

Save your 'SKULL' Save your 'KAL'!!!

 “Wear Helmet, Drive Safe, Be Safe!!!”

If you've heard about “Motor cycling safety” 100 times from time to time, don't wonder why??? Coz it doesn't hurt repeating, but hurts a lot when a news comes about somebody's death or injury because of not wearing helmet. When we think about motorcycles we think about the feel of the rushing wind in our faces and our hair blowing back behind us. We think about looking cool as we speed down the road. What we don't think about is what happens to the human body when it is involved in a motorcycle collision with a car or a van. We don't think about the impact of the collision, the body being thrown clear and sliding along the road's surface until it stops on its own or until it encounters a fence or a telephone pole. So taking importance of helmets in to mind, I carried out a research in iQuest to find out that how may iQuesters have bikes and how many of them wear helmets & save themselves from those heartrending head injuries caused by the fatal accidents.

Helmet	No. of iQuesters	% age
With Helmet	26	31.46%
Without Helmet	85	68.54%
Total	121	100.00%

A great example has been shared as “My brother had a helmet but never used it. After 13 days of his marriage, once, while he was going out, I requested him to use helmet as I always use. Same day he met with a fatal accident and his right leg was crushed into pieces and his helmet was crushed into four pieces. By God’s blessings, I found my brother alive. Thanks to his helmet, due to helmet he got a second life. Till date, after 5yrs of that accident, he never forgets his helmet.” -- Nil Nayak, Associate Manager (Non IT)-Recruitement & Admin.

Your health and well-being is important to your families and close ones and I would certainly like each one of you to wear helmets at all times while riding your bikes and scooters.

 

I trust this would be taken in the spirit of social consciousness and personal safety & lets make a resolution for this new year to use helmets..... !!!

 
Author of the Post: Ms. Prafulla Char (Junior Technical Consultant, Kondwa Branch, Pune)

Research Jointly conducted by: Ms. Prafulla and Mr. Shrikant Patel (Technical Consultant, Kondwa Branch, Pune)

Transformation from Microsoft to Linux…

It was a regular fun filled Friday where one starts the day early, tries and winds up early evening so that one has an entire evening to socialize…Coming back to early winding up of work, sending reports, clicking send receive for the last time for the day hoping no more urgent mail pops up, also religiously addressing those mails so that there are no thoughts haunting over the weekends… by making sure everything has fallen in place I feel so excited to go to the bottom left extreme corner of the window which is a start button, but now to shut down my day's work. The happiness to bid everyone Bye & wishing everyone Happy Weekend is such Bliss, the exhausting week has finally come to an end a genuine smile reflects while waving off for the day. Little did I know what is in store…

I usually (if not traveling to Mumbai)catch up a new released film, have a quite dinner out with my husband , go back home, catch up some more interesting TV shows and crash on bed late night with a thought “Kal to Saturday hai, arram se uthenge”. The entire “Early to Bed Early to rise… phrase holds no meaning to me Friday night and coming two more days. These days really flies…

And I hereby get up the Monday morning thinking Gosh! A start of a long week ahead… and I start for office early. And to my dismay I reach to my work station just to find the message attached to the forehead of my Computer Screen “CAUTION: Before starting the comp, go and meet Sir along with Sanober"

(our Ops Head from the IT division). Thousand thoughts popped up Why, What did I do, How??? All my questions were left unanswered. And suddenly Swapnil (our System Admin in the Kondhwa Branch) clicks my mind, thinking he might solve the mystery. Quickly dial his extension & call him upstairs. And within few seconds I get the answer to all my uninvited Questions. It was a start of a new era within iQuest, Linux had taken over Microsoft. There were trials for few days and soon it followed with the training for all us iQuesters on Linux, Outlook has now taken over by Thunderbird, Excel to Spreadsheet. In a long run how better or at par it would be in comparison with Microsoft is still to be experienced. But yes, all welcomed it with open arms.

Author of the Post:  Ms. Shweta Rathod (Associate Manager, Non IT, Kondwa, Pune)