The report recently published by USA of a commission of Congress, demand in the ability of the secret services before 11 September 2001, brought together from the files of various agencies of the U.S. Intelligence Community information on the situation in September 11. More important elements of this compilation are as follows:

June 1998: “Osama bin Laden planned attacks in the USA. The plans are available for attacks in New York and Washington. Information mentioned above, an attack in Washington, probably against public places. It is probably a high priority the implementation of attacks in the USA. ”

September 1998: “Osama bin Laden’s next target might be with an explosive charge of theft of an airplane at the airport and the USA detonating it.”

October 1998: “Al-Qaeda attempts a cell operating within the continental USA to strike in the heart of the interests of USA.”

December 1998: “Plans to remove the aircraft to the USA is progressing well. Two people have managed to circumvent the registration airport protection in NY.

Spring 1999: “Bin Laden planned an attack against a government in Washington DC.”

August 1999: “Bin Laden organization has decided, the president of the United States, Foreign Minister, the Minister of Defense and DCI [Director, Central Intelligence].”

September 1999: “Ben Laden and others were planning a terrorist act the USA, perhaps against some tourist sites in California and New York City.”

With an enormous, young workforce (the median age is 25) living in the largest democracy in the world, India is poised to become one of the global economy’s newest powerhouses. Since India opened its markets to foreign investment in the early 1990s, its economy has grown at an impressive average 8 percent annual rate, and the nation is now projected to become the world’s third-largest economy (behind China and the United States) within two or three decades, according to global investment banking and securities firm Goldman Sachs and other economists.

Most of the nation’s job and economic growth has been generated by family-owned Indian enterprises and multinationals in industries such as information technology (IT), telecommunications, business process outsourcing (BPO) and pharmaceuticals.

Maintaining high growth rates is a high priority for these industries because they face increasingly stiff international competition, most notably from China. But sustaining growth may be difficult, due–ironically–to a lack of qualified people.

Despite the fact that India has a population of more than 1.5 billion people, and a workforce of 422 million, its literacy rate is a low 59.5 percent (compared with 99 percent in the United States). Further, only about 48 million people–less than 12 percent of the entire workforce–are college graduates. And those who do hold college degrees often don’t possess the skills needed by the nation’s surging industries.

The human capital challenges facing some of India’s hottest sectors are similar to the skills shortages that some employers in the United States face today–and that more may encounter in the future as vast numbers of baby boomers retire, legal immigrant labor grows scarcer and America’s educational system continues to struggle to produce qualified new workers. (For more on these factors, see the cover story in the March 2005 issue of HR Magazine.)

But while similar challenges face both nations, the stakes are higher in India. For many companies in highly competitive sectors, a lack of talented workers constitutes a “make-or-break” HR issue, which makes the value of good HR management readily apparent to top executives. The profession, as a result, is gaining both respect and attention–the kind that comes from being on the hot seat.

The results from HR are mixed, however, with some observers complaining of large-scale failures and others pointing out high-profile successes.

The HR Agenda

With the national economy growing rapidly and with growth in such industries as IT and business process outsourcing more than doubling, HR challenges are coming fast and furious.

“It’s like building an aircraft while you’re in the air,” says Marcel R. Parker, president of human resources at the Raymond Group of Companies in Mumbai, a leading Indian organization in textiles and retailing with 18,000 employees.

Faced with growth at record levels in some industries and skyrocketing attrition, HR professionals say they’re spending upward of 80 percent of their time on recruitment.

Compounding the problem is the fact that, for personal or family-related reasons, half of all the women they hire will opt out of the workforce by age 30, according to Anita Belani, Country Head for Watson Wyatt India in Mumbai. That’s a potentially significant problem since women make up about 20 percent of the workforce in urban areas, and far more in certain fields.

Most important, finding workers with the right skills is a problem. Even hot industries that can attract college graduates from the top-tier business schools are being forced by market conditions to inflate salaries and lower job expectations.

“People who normally would be viewed as entry-level workers and paid accordingly are commanding much higher salaries and responsibilities,” says Philip Felando, senior director of human resources at Skyworks Solutions Inc. in Irvine, Calif. Felando, who is responsible for 4,000 employees worldwide, including 300 engineers at a design center in Hyderabad, India, says: “You’re a hot commodity regardless of your ability to perform.”

In 1992, Vikram Achanta was briefly before the end of his MBA at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. After months of meetings, presentations by companies and fill the forms and waiting periods for short lists, Achanta took on the scene to interview Cadburys.

But how was the degree of stress, a nervous wreck. “I watched quite psyched if I entered,” said the entrepreneur 30-something.

“So Rajeev Bakshi (currently, MD, Pepsico, then India for the recruitment of Cadbury) asked me to relax and take a cup of tea.” Achanta still remember that the gesture of what he describes as one of the periods of stress in his life.

Thirteen years after the line, if Achanta were again IIMC, he finds that not much changed. The PPTs (pre-mediation talks), lists, Line-Up by GDS and interviews - the intense pressure.

During talks Achanta free - perhaps because he is an entrepreneur - most of the former refuse IIM, go to the minutes of their experiences. After the conversation with a cross-section (under the condition of anonymity) is what we found.

The process is begun with a number of pre-placement discussions - a selling point by companies to students about four months before the placement week. Students, then send your applications and you can expect short lists.

Finally, the placement during the week of companies fighting companies and students are fighting students to realize their desires. It is increasingly stressful and here, as there is always worse.

The coveted status One Day in 1990, is over. IIMC Day had a less during the year 2004, while IIMA offered 48-hour pitches from the first day “Zero Two.

Position the week is now divided into slots, so that the high priority day may be all the greater number of companies as possible, because everyone wants at this site, any day it really is .

Instead of three or four companies in the 1990’s, there are now 10-12 in the first slot and 30-odd in each of the following locations.

If a student met three or four interviews in one day today, it is common that seven to eight GDS and interviews will succeed one day.

Any emphasis on the placement of a cargo of 100, sometimes more than 200 in less than a week is an hour, asks his tribute to the students in the form of stress, and as regards companies which are not enough time for a candidate to be evaluated.

This is best illustrated by the fact that a very high percentage of students leave the offer acquires, by investing campus in the first year.

While nobody has an official record of such information, most HR and students agree that this trend is on the ground. In the case of a consultancy firm in India, rented eight-B-School graduates in the year 1999 for their office in New Delhi, almost all left within 18 months.

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec. 17. TOURISTIK is an area of high priority for the state and government would make every effort to stimulate the growth of tourism in the State and hotels, said KC Venugopal, Minister of State for Tourism.

At a seminar on “Kerala Tourism - Scope and Challenges”, organized by the India-South Association of hotels and restaurants in the city, he said, that the hospitality industry must do their best to ensure that Kerala is a high quality tourist destination. All members of the hospitality sector must work towards improving the quality standards, especially in areas such as waste management, he added.

Past, which will deliver a speech on the challenges facing the tourism industry of Kerala, Mr. MR Narayanan, Managing Director, Poovar Island Resort, said, lower taxes on the hospitality, infrastructure improvements and the establishment of a Tourism Board to coordinate activities between government and the private sector are few among the measures that the state government to facilitate the growth should be to the tourism industry.

Ensuring the availability of low-cost projects for tourism and the improvement of air connectivity with other tourism-oriented places such as Goa and Rajasthan are other areas where the government can help, at he added.

Similarly, the hospitality industry should also focus on improving standards in this sector through better training programs and also by setting up a training institute for world-class people who are in the tourism sector, he said. Kerala’s tourism industry should also in the design of innovative products and tourism, a new technology for placing on the market, he added.

Mr. M.P. Purushothaman, president of the India Association of South-hotels and restaurants, has appealed to the government for revenues luxury hotels in Kerala and working in the structure Bar hotels charge for more than three stars. It urged the government to the tourism industry in comparison with the manufacturing sector on issues such as pricing of electricity.

Addressing the gathering, Kerala, the Finance Minister Vakkom Purushothaman said that tourism is crucial for the development of the State. Mr. E.K. Bharat Bhushan, Principal Secretary Tourism, Kerala and the Government of Mr. Sooraj, Director, Department of Tourism, were among those who spoke on the occasion.