One area which the Internet has changed dramatically, and warp speed, is the way jobs are offered and accepted. Job portals like monster.com and naukri.com are now among the most visited websites on the Internet, as employers and jobseekers hurry to get together in cyberspace.

I met up with Arun Tadanki, president and managing director, Monster (India, Singapore, Hong Kong and West Asia), to get an idea on where the online job market is headed. Monster.com is stated to be the biggest online job portal in the world. I started by asking him about numbers, ie, how many employers and jobseekers were currently online in India.

"We have 8.5 lakh live resumes, and between 15,000-20,000 resumes are added every month. Monster has over 50,000 companies in India as clients, most of them from the large cities, of course, but a lot of employers, particularly SMEs, in smaller towns are also going online to search for potential employees," says Mr Tadanki, a man from a small-town (Guntur) who graduated from IIT and IIM.

Apart from being one of the largest markets for Monster, Inc., India is also the go-to country for the company for technology. "We have a team of about 40 engineers in Gurgaon, who develop the technology to make Monster.com more user-friendly. Our team developed the clever algorithm which makes searching for jobs as simple as a search on Google," says Mr Tadanki.

Monster.com has also set up two call centres in Hyderabad, with about 250 workers, who handle sales and service in India and West Asia. "Monster India’s focus is to push the barriers in job search, and to develop the technology that will make this happen," he says. Towards the end of the interview, I asked Mr Tadanki how many journalists had their resumes alive and kicking on monster.com. "Let’s put it this way: One of our clients, a media company, wanted a demonstration of our search facility. When I typed in the search parameters, we got a total of 1,600 focused resumes," he says. Whoa!

Gallium nitride

From job search, let’s talk a bit about gallium nitride, a wide bandgap semiconductor material used in optoelectronic, high-power and high-frequency devices. Now, according to ABI Research, GaN is entering the mainstream of process technologies for RF power semiconductor devices. "Apart from some military applications and microwave communications, most of the interest in GaN is centred on mobile wireless infrastructure and WiMAX. But the economics of this price-sensitive sector may mean that it is the wrong playing field for GaN," the research firm says.

If plans for the proposed chopper service don’t run into turbulence, come Navratri, tourists can give the climb to Ambaji a pass. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed by the Junagadh Collector and a private civil aviation company for introducing helicopters on the Junagadh city-Ambaji air route.

After signing the MoU, Collector Bipin Kumar Shrimali and S H Kalara, executive director of Shree Dwarkadhis Enterprise Private Limited, said that they are now waiting for the Director General of Civil Aviation’s permission to start the service to Ambaji. At a height of 3,666 ft above the mean sea level, it is the highest peak of Girnar.

‘‘We hope to start the service by Navratri, i.e., by the end of this month or the beginning of next month. It will take a month’s time to complete all formalities,’’ said Shrimali. ‘‘The helicopter service will ply visitors from Zafar Maidan in Jungadh city to Ambaji. While a helipad is already in place at Zafar Maidan, construction of the one at Ambaji is expected to finish in a week’s time,’’ said Shrimali.

‘‘One chopper will accomodate five passengers and will cover the distance between Zafar Maidan and Ambaji in 12-15 minutes,’’ he said adding, ‘‘As of now, visitors have to either climb the ten thousand steps to Girnar’s peak to reach Ambaji or take the ropeway. With the chopper service, Junagadh will get a place on the country’s civil aviation map just like the Vaishnodevi shrine in Jammu and Kashmir,’’ he said.

A chain of events, doliwalas — palanquin bearers who carry visitors from the foot of the mountain right up to the peak — aren’t too happy with. With 200 doliwalas standing to lose their licences once the chopper service begins, they have threatened to agitate if they are not rehabilitated. The doliwalas have demanded alternative forms of employment like allotment of shops or land, said their leader, Arvind Bavaria. The palanquin bearers will go on an indefinite strike if their demands are not met, said Bavaria adding, ‘‘The proposed service will snatch away our livelihood. The government should give a thought to the problems we’ll face once the service takes off.’’

Source: Expressindia.com