Bangalore: With the markets soaring towards recovery, IT companies have started hiring again. A quick survey of the recruiting trends has revealed that amidst the hiring spree Java programmers are gaining the edge over .Net professionals. Though, this trend has been present in the market for quite some time, the cost-cutting factor has led companies to prefer Java programmers more. “Java is more in demand because it is open source, which is comparatively cheaper than using .Net, so companies have started adopting Java,” says Anuj Agrawal, Director of Zyoin.

The flexibility that Java brings through its open source framework, has made it more popular. .NET in its complete form can only be installed on computers running a Microsoft Windows operating system, whereas Java can be installed on computers running any operating systems such as Linux, Solaris, Mac OS or Windows.

Rishi Das, Co-founder and CEO of CareerNet Consulting feels that the increase in the number of online startups is also fueling the demand for Java programmers. “Java is in demand because there are more companies developing user interface and web applications for their clients. The rise in popularity of software as a service (SAAS) model is also giving the edge to the Java professionals,” he says. Das also adds that only major players like Dell, Sapient, Citrix and MindTree are hiring .Net professionals because they have been using the Microsoft platform for a long time now.

Though, the trend shows that Java programmers are gaining over their .Net counterparts, there are some who feel that there are verticals where .Net has its own advantage. “Though there is an equal demand for both Java and .Net programmers, our clients in verticals like BFSI and telecom still prefer .Net,” says Namitha Vyas, Team Integrator at an IT recruitment firm.

Bangalore: After the recent attempt by a Nigerian terrorist to blow up a U.S. plane, it has been brought to light that almost half the educated terrorists have studied engineering. The terrorist suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, earned a degree in mechanical engineering from University College London in 2008, just over a year before he tried to demonstrate his skills by detonating an explosive device aboard the Detroit-bound plane, reports Sphere.

In a study published this year, European sociologists Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog researched more than 400 known violent jihadists since the 1970s, including the 25 men involved with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Nearly half were known to have received some level of higher education, and of those, 44 percent were engineers – including eight of the 9/11 plotters and hijackers. Engineering was by far the most popular field; the percentage of terrorists who had pursued it was more than twice as high as the second-place field, Islamic Studies. “The bottom line is that while the probability of a Muslim engineer becoming a violent Islamist is minuscule, it is still between three and four times that for other graduates,” Gambetta wrote in an article in the New Scientist that summarized the pair’s findings, which were published in August in the European Journal of Sociology.

Al-Qaida and other terrorist groups are always on the look out for recruits who can make bombs and engineers fit this criteria pretty well. Their study found that engineers serve the terrorist organizations they join in many capacities than making or deploying explosives. A significant number held higher-level posts that didn’t directly involve their engineering training at all.

The authors conclude that the phenomenon is explained by a combination of mindset and professional circumstance. Citing studies finding that engineers as a group are more politically conservative than other professions, Gambetta and Hertog write that engineers by nature are more likely to be drawn to the kind of rigid, hierarchical worldviews that radical Islam provides: Their governing mentality “inclines them to take more extreme conservative and religious positions everywhere.”

Engineering community in U.S. however declines any connections. “There’s got to be some big difference between what goes on in the U.S. and what goes on in other countries,” said Larry Jacobson, the Executive Director of the National Society of Professional Engineers, which counts about 45,000 members across the country. Jacobson agrees with the notion that engineers are a politically conservative bunch, but not the type of conservative that tips over into radicalism. American engineers, he said, “just don’t take risks. … The hard-wiring of engineers makes them very cautious.” Defending the profession’s contribution to national security, Jacobson also noted that engineers across a range of specialties “become the government’s first defense against terrorism.”

Jacobson does give credit to Al-Qaeda for its logic and HR strategy. “If I was to recruit terrorists, engineers would be the first guys I’d want,” he said.

Following are some facts about the Nobel Peace Prize:
  * The 2009 winner was selected from a record 205 nominees.
  

* The 2009 prize was awarded to US President Barack Obama for his efforts “to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”.
* Mother Teresa refused to attend a Nobel dinner in Oslo when she went to collect her prize in 1979, saying the money would be better spent on the poor. The banquet was cancelled.
* The International Committee of the Red Cross is the most successful winner, with prizes in 1917, 1944 and 1963. Red Cross founder Henri Dunant of Switzerland shared the first award in 1901.
* Protesters threw snowballs at the US ambassador in Oslo when he arrived to collect the 1973 prize on behalf of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for brokering an unsuccessful deal to end the Vietnam war. North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho turned down the joint award, the most controversial in the prize’s history.
* Past nominees have included Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and Soviet dictator Josef Stalin .
* Hitler banned Germans from accepting Nobel prizes in disgust after the 1935 award went to pacifist anti-Nazi writer Carl von Ossietzky. The ruling affected three German scientists awarded prizes for chemistry and medicine in the late 1930s.
* The 2008 prize was won by Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president, for his efforts on several continents and over more than three decades to resolve international conflicts.
* The 2007 prize was won by former US Vice-President Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for raising awareness of the risks of global warming.
* The 2006 Peace Prize was won by Bangladeshi economist Mohammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded for their work to help millions out of poverty by granting tiny loans, pioneering a global movement known as microcredit.

India accounts for the second highest number where child labour in the world is concerned. Africa accounts for the highest number of children employed and exploited. The fact is that across the length and breadth of the nation, children are in a pathetic condition.

Children in Danger:

According to recent estimates almost 60,000 children are employed in the glass and bangle industry and are made to work under extreme conditions of excessive heat.
Of the 2,00,000 labour force in the matchbox industry, experts claim that 35% are children below the age of 14. They are made to work over twelve hours a day, beginning work at around 4 am, everyday.

While experts blame the system, poverty, illiteracy, adult unemployment; yet the fact is that the entire nation is responsible for every crime against a child. Instead of nipping the problem at the bud, child labour in India was allowed to increase with each passing year. And today, young ones below the age of 14 have become an important part of various industries; at the cost of their innocence, childhood, health and for that matter their lives.

What can we do ?