Tata of India to open call center in RP
By Abigail L. Ho
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:15:00 06/30/2009
Filed Under: business process outsourcing (BPO), Investments, Economy and Business and Finance
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Close this MANILA, Philippines—Giant conglomerate Tata Group of India is setting up call center operations here, with an initial capacity of 250-300 seats.
According to Jonathan de Luzuriaga, executive director for industry affairs for the Business Processing Association of the Philippines, the Indian group was currently conducting a due-diligence study in the country.
“They’ve been badly burned by the talent shortage in India, so they’re looking at the Philippines as a new location,” he said of Tata and many other Indian business process outsourcing firms. “A lot of Indian BPOs are really looking at setting up shop here.”
For Tata’s call center facility, he said the group was looking at areas in the Visayas and Mindanao.
“The trend of site-hunting now has tipped. It’s now Mindanao first, Visayas second, and Luzon third. They know that Metro Manila is already very congested, so they’re looking at the ‘Next Wave Cities’ for their investments,” he said.
The Commission on Information and Communications Technology yesterday launched its Cyber Corridor Roadshow, a 10-city tour of local areas best suited to BPO operations.
The roadshow would also be done simultaneously with BPAP’s Talent Caravan in the so-called Next Wave Cities.
Included in the roadshow and talent caravan are Metro Laguna, Metro Cavite, Iloilo, Davao, Bacolod, Angeles-Clark-Mabalacat in Pampanga, Baliuag-Marilao-Meycuayan in Bulacan, Malolos-Calumpit also in Bulacan, Cagayan de Oro, and Lipa in Batangas.
While focusing on the BPO sector and the career opportunities that it offered, CICT chair Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua III said the roadshow also aimed to make residents of these cities aware of the overall benefits of ICT.
The roadshow, in particular, aimed to spread awareness about e-government, human capital development, information infrastructure, and cyber services, he said.
“The industry still has a lot of potential. This roadshow is not limited to job generation alone. We also want to focus on education, (small and medium enterprises) and local government units,” he said in an interview yesterday.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Lightning kills 35 in eastern India
1 day ago
PATNA, India (AFP) — At least 35 people including eight children were killed after they were struck by lightning in the adjoining eastern Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand, officials said Monday.
Around 18 people were killed late Sunday by bolts of lightning across Bihar, including six children, State Disaster Management Minister Devesh Chand Thakur said.
"The children were playing in the pre-monsoon showers when lightning struck them," Thakur told AFP from the state capital Patna.
Twelve others who were injured were hospitalised, he said.
Torrential rains accompanied by strong winds uprooted trees, damaged houses and brought down power cables across the impoverished state on Sunday night, he said.
In neighbouring Jharkhand, 17 people including two children were killed by lightning strikes, also late on Sunday night, a disaster management spokesman said in the capital Ranchi.
Lightning strikes during the June-September monsoon season are common, with villagers housed in bamboo-and-grass huts most at risk of death and injury.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
1 day ago
PATNA, India (AFP) — At least 35 people including eight children were killed after they were struck by lightning in the adjoining eastern Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand, officials said Monday.
Around 18 people were killed late Sunday by bolts of lightning across Bihar, including six children, State Disaster Management Minister Devesh Chand Thakur said.
"The children were playing in the pre-monsoon showers when lightning struck them," Thakur told AFP from the state capital Patna.
Twelve others who were injured were hospitalised, he said.
Torrential rains accompanied by strong winds uprooted trees, damaged houses and brought down power cables across the impoverished state on Sunday night, he said.
In neighbouring Jharkhand, 17 people including two children were killed by lightning strikes, also late on Sunday night, a disaster management spokesman said in the capital Ranchi.
Lightning strikes during the June-September monsoon season are common, with villagers housed in bamboo-and-grass huts most at risk of death and injury.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
30 Afghan Teachers Undergoing Training In Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR, June 29 (Bernama) -- Beginning today, 30 teachers from Afghanistan will attend a three-month teachers training programme here.
The aim of the programme is to enable them to master the English language and Islamic teachings.
The 27 male and three female teachers will undergo the stint at the International Languages Teacher Training Institute in Lembah Pantai for the English language, and at its Bangi campus for Islamic teaching.
"This programme will help the teachers to increase their knowledge, exchange experiences and enhance the development of delivery in teaching," said Education Ministry Teachers Professional Development Sector deputy director-general Datin Asariah Mior Shaharuddin.
The teachers are here under the auspices of the Malaysia-Australia Education Project for Afghanistan (MAEPA), a collaborative programme involving the education ministries of Malaysia, Australia and Afghanistan Education Ministry, to train teachers from Afghanistan and develop their country's education system.
The MAEPA programme is the outcome of a meeting between former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd during his inaugural visit to Malaysia on July 10, last year.
-- BERNAMA
KUALA LUMPUR, June 29 (Bernama) -- Beginning today, 30 teachers from Afghanistan will attend a three-month teachers training programme here.
The aim of the programme is to enable them to master the English language and Islamic teachings.
The 27 male and three female teachers will undergo the stint at the International Languages Teacher Training Institute in Lembah Pantai for the English language, and at its Bangi campus for Islamic teaching.
"This programme will help the teachers to increase their knowledge, exchange experiences and enhance the development of delivery in teaching," said Education Ministry Teachers Professional Development Sector deputy director-general Datin Asariah Mior Shaharuddin.
The teachers are here under the auspices of the Malaysia-Australia Education Project for Afghanistan (MAEPA), a collaborative programme involving the education ministries of Malaysia, Australia and Afghanistan Education Ministry, to train teachers from Afghanistan and develop their country's education system.
The MAEPA programme is the outcome of a meeting between former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd during his inaugural visit to Malaysia on July 10, last year.
-- BERNAMA
Notes from a slaughter.
Three dozen Taliban said killed in Afghanistan PrintAir strikes and ground battles killed three dozen Taliban and two civilians while an insurgent suicide bombing on the border claimed two more lives in Afghanistan, authorities said Tuesday.
The US military said it had called in air strikes in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan overnight and killed more than a dozen Islamist militants in bunkers.
A local official said 22 men were killed, many of them foreign nationals.
The strikes in the eastern province of Khost were called in against senior commanders of the Haqqani network, a Taliban outfit that is linked to Al-Qaeda and accused of some of the most sophisticated attacks in Afghanistan.
"Coalition force aircraft were called in and destroyed a pair of command bunkers, killing more than a dozen militants," a US statement said.
The statement described the network as one of the "most lethal Taliban organisations" and said it operated out of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area just across the border.
The network is said to be behind several attacks in Kabul, including one on a five-star hotel in 2008 and the attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai in April last year.
The strikes were in a border district called Waza Khwar and 22 Taliban were killed, said district governor Abdul Wali Zadran.
Zadran claimed the dead were all foreign nationals but there was no way to confirm this. An Afghan media report said some were Arabs.
Also on the border with Pakistan, a suicide attacker blew himself up at a checkpoint, killing a policeman and a 12-year-old child, a provincial government spokesman said.
The attacker struck near a room at the Torkham border post used for searching women travellers, Nangarhar province spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told AFP.
Three policemen, a policewoman and six civilians were injured, he said.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack but most similar bombings have been claimed by insurgents from the Taliban militia that was ousted from power in late 2001 by a US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
In the northern province of Baghlan, a clash erupted Monday after Taliban had demanded a "tax" from farmers, which the locals refused, police said.
The locals called the police and fighting lasted into the night, provincial police spokesman Jawaid Basharat said.
"In the clashes 15 Taliban were killed and another 13 Taliban were wounded. Two locals who also took part and were fighting the Taliban with policemen were killed," he said.
The Taliban-led insurgency has intensified this year as Afghan and international troops launch operations to clear them out of hotspots ahead of the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections.
There are concerns the violence may derail the elections and Afghanistan's partners are sending in thousands of military reinforcements.
This year has seen a 43 percent increase in the monthly average number of security incidents compared to last year, according to the United Nations.
The UN mission in Afghanistan recorded 800 civilian casualties to the end of May, a 24 percent increase over the same period in 2008, it said in a report delivered to the UN Security Council last week.
Most of the deaths were caused by anti-government elements and 33 percent by international and Afghan forces, while the remainder could not be attributed to any party, it said.
Three dozen Taliban said killed in Afghanistan PrintAir strikes and ground battles killed three dozen Taliban and two civilians while an insurgent suicide bombing on the border claimed two more lives in Afghanistan, authorities said Tuesday.
The US military said it had called in air strikes in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan overnight and killed more than a dozen Islamist militants in bunkers.
A local official said 22 men were killed, many of them foreign nationals.
The strikes in the eastern province of Khost were called in against senior commanders of the Haqqani network, a Taliban outfit that is linked to Al-Qaeda and accused of some of the most sophisticated attacks in Afghanistan.
"Coalition force aircraft were called in and destroyed a pair of command bunkers, killing more than a dozen militants," a US statement said.
The statement described the network as one of the "most lethal Taliban organisations" and said it operated out of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area just across the border.
The network is said to be behind several attacks in Kabul, including one on a five-star hotel in 2008 and the attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai in April last year.
The strikes were in a border district called Waza Khwar and 22 Taliban were killed, said district governor Abdul Wali Zadran.
Zadran claimed the dead were all foreign nationals but there was no way to confirm this. An Afghan media report said some were Arabs.
Also on the border with Pakistan, a suicide attacker blew himself up at a checkpoint, killing a policeman and a 12-year-old child, a provincial government spokesman said.
The attacker struck near a room at the Torkham border post used for searching women travellers, Nangarhar province spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told AFP.
Three policemen, a policewoman and six civilians were injured, he said.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack but most similar bombings have been claimed by insurgents from the Taliban militia that was ousted from power in late 2001 by a US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
In the northern province of Baghlan, a clash erupted Monday after Taliban had demanded a "tax" from farmers, which the locals refused, police said.
The locals called the police and fighting lasted into the night, provincial police spokesman Jawaid Basharat said.
"In the clashes 15 Taliban were killed and another 13 Taliban were wounded. Two locals who also took part and were fighting the Taliban with policemen were killed," he said.
The Taliban-led insurgency has intensified this year as Afghan and international troops launch operations to clear them out of hotspots ahead of the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections.
There are concerns the violence may derail the elections and Afghanistan's partners are sending in thousands of military reinforcements.
This year has seen a 43 percent increase in the monthly average number of security incidents compared to last year, according to the United Nations.
The UN mission in Afghanistan recorded 800 civilian casualties to the end of May, a 24 percent increase over the same period in 2008, it said in a report delivered to the UN Security Council last week.
Most of the deaths were caused by anti-government elements and 33 percent by international and Afghan forces, while the remainder could not be attributed to any party, it said.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Pakistan militants abandon peace deal
Shah Khalid
Pakistani paramilitary soldiers observe area from a rooftop of a checkpoint at Abbato Karaz village near Chaman, a town in Pakistan, southwest along Afghanistan border, Sunday, June 28, 2009. Pakistani authorities beefed up security and vigilance to nab Taliban militants fleeing neighboring Afghanistan.
By ASIF SHAHZAD; The Associated Press
MIR ALI, Pakistan --
Taliban militants in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan say they're scrapping a peace deal with the government.
The decision by insurgents in North Waziristan raises the prospect of wider unrest now that the army is stepping up offensives against the Taliban.
The peace pact was reached in February 2008, but few details have been publicly released about it. It was struck with a Taliban faction led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur.
The pact appeared to keep things more peaceful in North Waziristan than neighboring South Waziristan, where the army plans its next major offensive.
Bahadur spokesman Ahmadullah Ahmadi said Monday that U.S. missile strikes and army operations prompted the Taliban faction to end the accord.
Shah Khalid
Pakistani paramilitary soldiers observe area from a rooftop of a checkpoint at Abbato Karaz village near Chaman, a town in Pakistan, southwest along Afghanistan border, Sunday, June 28, 2009. Pakistani authorities beefed up security and vigilance to nab Taliban militants fleeing neighboring Afghanistan.
By ASIF SHAHZAD; The Associated Press
MIR ALI, Pakistan --
Taliban militants in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan say they're scrapping a peace deal with the government.
The decision by insurgents in North Waziristan raises the prospect of wider unrest now that the army is stepping up offensives against the Taliban.
The peace pact was reached in February 2008, but few details have been publicly released about it. It was struck with a Taliban faction led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur.
The pact appeared to keep things more peaceful in North Waziristan than neighboring South Waziristan, where the army plans its next major offensive.
Bahadur spokesman Ahmadullah Ahmadi said Monday that U.S. missile strikes and army operations prompted the Taliban faction to end the accord.
From the Aussie Age
Afghan police chief killed in KandaharJune 29, 2009 - 7:29PM
The police chief of Afghanistan's province of Kandahar is among 10 policemen killed in a shoot-out with local security guards employed by US forces, the head of the provincial council says.
It was not clear what sparked the shoot-out outside one of the offices of the attorney-general in the city of Kandahar, Ahmad Wali Karzai said on Monday.
"In a shoot-out between Afghan private security guards and police, 10 policemen including Kandahar police chief Mutaiullah Khan Qateh and the criminal investigation police chief, have been killed," said Karzai.
He had earlier said that seven policemen including the two commanders were dead. The guards had been trained by US soldiers, said Karzai, a brother of President Hamid Karzai.
"This is preliminary information and we do not know as of now what exactly caused the shoot-out," he said.
Witnesses confirmed the exchange of fire and said US soldiers were also at the scene but it was not clear if they were involved.
The US military spokesman in Kabul, Colonel Greg Julian, confirmed to AFP there had been an incident but he did not immediately have details.
"I am not sure which unit was involved," he said.
"It does appear that there were some Afghan police casualties."
© 2009 AFP
The police chief of Afghanistan's province of Kandahar is among 10 policemen killed in a shoot-out with local security guards employed by US forces, the head of the provincial council says.
It was not clear what sparked the shoot-out outside one of the offices of the attorney-general in the city of Kandahar, Ahmad Wali Karzai said on Monday.
"In a shoot-out between Afghan private security guards and police, 10 policemen including Kandahar police chief Mutaiullah Khan Qateh and the criminal investigation police chief, have been killed," said Karzai.
He had earlier said that seven policemen including the two commanders were dead. The guards had been trained by US soldiers, said Karzai, a brother of President Hamid Karzai.
"This is preliminary information and we do not know as of now what exactly caused the shoot-out," he said.
Witnesses confirmed the exchange of fire and said US soldiers were also at the scene but it was not clear if they were involved.
The US military spokesman in Kabul, Colonel Greg Julian, confirmed to AFP there had been an incident but he did not immediately have details.
"I am not sure which unit was involved," he said.
"It does appear that there were some Afghan police casualties."
© 2009 AFP
I think we've made the baby Jesus cry.
Rising toll at US military hospital in Afghanistan
By JASON STRAZIUSO and EVAN VUCCI – 4 days ago
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AP) — The urgent call came in: Roadside bombs had ripped through two Humvees and wounded eight or nine U.S. soldiers.
Medevac helicopters immediately hit the air to ferry the soldiers to the main U.S. military hospital. But when they arrived, they carried only five patients.
The other four were dead.
With 2009 expected to be the bloodiest year since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, medical personnel at Bagram's SSG Heath N. Craig Joint Theater Hospital say they've already seen an increase in casualties and expect more. The flow of dead and wounded puts enormous strain on the soldiers and the medical staff who must face it head on.
"Everything I've experienced is boredom or terror," said Air Force Maj. Adrian Stull, a 36-year-old emergency physician from Beavercreek, Ohio. "And if I have to choose between the two, I'd have to choose boredom, because everyone goes home with all their fingers."
June 1 was a day of terror.
It started when two roadside bombs hit the same convoy of 10th Mountain Division soldiers only a couple of miles apart in Wardak, a province west of Kabul. The damage was so severe that one of the Humvees split in half.
By the time the helicopters arrived, four men were already dead. Their comrades loaded them into body bags, tense with anger and grief.
In the meantime, the emergency room prepared to move from zero to a thousand miles per hour — "organized chaos," as medical Tech Sgt. Carol Granger put it.
Then the stretchers arrived.
Three of the soldiers had open fractures in their legs, raw and bleeding. The one being treated by Air Force Capt. Shannan Corbin was in his early 20s, with open leg wounds, dental contusions and a bleeding head.
Wounds from blasts and explosive devices are considered the hallmark injuries of the Afghan war. Because armor covers the body's core, injuries to arms and legs are common.
As the medics worked, with the American flag in the background, they sweated. The heat was turned up because critically injured patients cannot regulate their own body temperatures.
A soldier screamed, so loudly that emergency room physician Capt. Travis Taylor couldn't tune it out. The soldier, who had an open fracture, had just learned one of his buddies was killed.
"That one was tough," Taylor said. "He was really screaming, and it snapped me out of my focus on the patient I was with."
Another soldier, Pfc. Anthony Vandegrift, had broken both legs. His left eye was swollen shut. The two soldiers in the front of his Humvee were killed, along with the gunner who had been standing halfway out the top.
He called his father while still on the emergency room table.
"I said, 'Hey dad, remember how you told me not to join the infantry? Well, I don't regret it, but I got blown up,'" Vandegrift, of Mililani, Hawaii, said.
Recalling the blast, he said it was "like a video game almost."
"You're going along and everything goes black. I could hear everything but I couldn't see everything," Vandegrift said. "Everything went black and I just remember 'boom.' Not sure if I passed out or not, but when I was able to move around I was upside down. My chunk of the Humvee was blown off from the rest."
Doctors at Bagram say there is nowhere in the world — except other war zones — where physicians face such severe wounds day after day. That constant stream takes a toll.
Granger, who is stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, said she tries not to personalize her work.
"We have to process it later on, but at the time you have a job to do. We've seen a lot ... and I hope we can handle it when the time comes," she said.
Corbin says home bases try to prepare the medical staff "mentally, emotionally and spiritually" for the deployment, but she's not sure it works.
"You can see pictures. You can hear people talk, but I don't know that anything really prepares you," said the 39-year-old nurse from Biloxi, Miss. "We hope emotionally and mentally that it's just another string of events. But I don't know how we can walk away from this as just another string of events."
In the intensive care ward nearby, Vandegrift lay beside the one other soldier in his Humvee who survived. The soldier may be paralyzed.
Holding a guitar, Vandegrift strummed a song for his friend: "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Rising toll at US military hospital in Afghanistan
By JASON STRAZIUSO and EVAN VUCCI – 4 days ago
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AP) — The urgent call came in: Roadside bombs had ripped through two Humvees and wounded eight or nine U.S. soldiers.
Medevac helicopters immediately hit the air to ferry the soldiers to the main U.S. military hospital. But when they arrived, they carried only five patients.
The other four were dead.
With 2009 expected to be the bloodiest year since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, medical personnel at Bagram's SSG Heath N. Craig Joint Theater Hospital say they've already seen an increase in casualties and expect more. The flow of dead and wounded puts enormous strain on the soldiers and the medical staff who must face it head on.
"Everything I've experienced is boredom or terror," said Air Force Maj. Adrian Stull, a 36-year-old emergency physician from Beavercreek, Ohio. "And if I have to choose between the two, I'd have to choose boredom, because everyone goes home with all their fingers."
June 1 was a day of terror.
It started when two roadside bombs hit the same convoy of 10th Mountain Division soldiers only a couple of miles apart in Wardak, a province west of Kabul. The damage was so severe that one of the Humvees split in half.
By the time the helicopters arrived, four men were already dead. Their comrades loaded them into body bags, tense with anger and grief.
In the meantime, the emergency room prepared to move from zero to a thousand miles per hour — "organized chaos," as medical Tech Sgt. Carol Granger put it.
Then the stretchers arrived.
Three of the soldiers had open fractures in their legs, raw and bleeding. The one being treated by Air Force Capt. Shannan Corbin was in his early 20s, with open leg wounds, dental contusions and a bleeding head.
Wounds from blasts and explosive devices are considered the hallmark injuries of the Afghan war. Because armor covers the body's core, injuries to arms and legs are common.
As the medics worked, with the American flag in the background, they sweated. The heat was turned up because critically injured patients cannot regulate their own body temperatures.
A soldier screamed, so loudly that emergency room physician Capt. Travis Taylor couldn't tune it out. The soldier, who had an open fracture, had just learned one of his buddies was killed.
"That one was tough," Taylor said. "He was really screaming, and it snapped me out of my focus on the patient I was with."
Another soldier, Pfc. Anthony Vandegrift, had broken both legs. His left eye was swollen shut. The two soldiers in the front of his Humvee were killed, along with the gunner who had been standing halfway out the top.
He called his father while still on the emergency room table.
"I said, 'Hey dad, remember how you told me not to join the infantry? Well, I don't regret it, but I got blown up,'" Vandegrift, of Mililani, Hawaii, said.
Recalling the blast, he said it was "like a video game almost."
"You're going along and everything goes black. I could hear everything but I couldn't see everything," Vandegrift said. "Everything went black and I just remember 'boom.' Not sure if I passed out or not, but when I was able to move around I was upside down. My chunk of the Humvee was blown off from the rest."
Doctors at Bagram say there is nowhere in the world — except other war zones — where physicians face such severe wounds day after day. That constant stream takes a toll.
Granger, who is stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, said she tries not to personalize her work.
"We have to process it later on, but at the time you have a job to do. We've seen a lot ... and I hope we can handle it when the time comes," she said.
Corbin says home bases try to prepare the medical staff "mentally, emotionally and spiritually" for the deployment, but she's not sure it works.
"You can see pictures. You can hear people talk, but I don't know that anything really prepares you," said the 39-year-old nurse from Biloxi, Miss. "We hope emotionally and mentally that it's just another string of events. But I don't know how we can walk away from this as just another string of events."
In the intensive care ward nearby, Vandegrift lay beside the one other soldier in his Humvee who survived. The soldier may be paralyzed.
Holding a guitar, Vandegrift strummed a song for his friend: "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
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