“In the last six months, I got more grey hair than I had in the last five years,” said an IT engineer who asked to go by the pseudonym Pankaj, fearing he would lose potential opportunities in the IT market if he revealed his identity.
“I live and breathe mental tension. What I see in front of me is just darkness, no light at the end of the tunnel,” he told Arab News, almost sobbing.
The 46-year-old was forced to resign from one of the top IT companies in the western Indian city of Pune in February after working there for six years.
He headed a team of six people, and was labeled a “high performer” for five consecutive years.
It was a comfortable life, and he was planning to buy a high-end car at the end of the year after his promotion.
But his 20-year career in IT and his dream came crashing down when in mid-February, he was asked to resign with immediate effect. He resisted for a few days but could not hold out for long. He has been jobless since.
Thousands of IT professionals in India are facing the same existential crisis. Most are middle-aged men and women.
An IT engineer who asked to be called Anil said he was suddenly removed from a project and asked to leave.
“It’s unethical and criminal to lay me off without giving me any explanation,” the 36-year-old, who has 15 years’ experience working in Europe and America, told Arab News.
“I still don’t understand what my fault was, where I erred. The company is performing well, so why this sudden removal?
This question is troubling many in Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, the major IT hubs in India.
On Saturday, more than 100 professionals gathered at a lawyer’s house in Pune to seek legal remedy.
For them, this is the last resort as they got nowhere with the government or with top management in the IT industry.
The workers came together and formed the Forum for IT Employees (FITE) in various cities in India.
Every weekend, the group meets and chalks out a strategy to fight its cases. The group consists of employees from almost all the IT companies, big and small.
They do not want their identities revealed or their activities to be noticed by IT companies, fearing the loss of job prospects.
FITE also attracts those who are still employed. “I haven’t received any notice from my company, but I’m really worried with the way things are moving in the industry,” Dheeraj, 31, told Arab News.
“What I hear is that there’s a list in every IT company. Hundreds and thousands are being forced to resign in the name of cost-cutting and automation.”
This fear claimed the life of a young IT professional in Pune last month. He jumped from a terrace, and his suicide note read: “In IT there’s no job security. I’m worried a lot about my family.”
Industry watchers say in the last year, at least 100,000 people from different parts of the country have lost their jobs.
“There are 600,000 jobs that are at stake in the IT sector today,” Elavarasan Raja, one of the main coordinators of FITE, told Arab News.
“We’re getting more and more calls every day related to forced resignations and terminations from different parts of the country.”
He said companies are not listening to anyone, and “it’s high time the government intervenes before the crisis goes completely out of control.”
When asked about the reason for this crisis, Raja said: “It’s the greed and cost-cutting that drive the IT sector to take this kind of inhumane step.”
He also blames US President Donald Trump’s protectionist measures and restrictions in giving H1B visas to Indians.
“If Trump can make rules that benefit his own citizens, what’s our government doing to protect the interest of the Indian people?” Raja asked.
Economist Arun Kumar told Arab News that the Indian government is not in a position to do much.
“The IT industry is a specific case where external demand is a problem,” said Kumar, who teaches in New Delhi’s premier educational institute, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
“Protectionist measures adopted by some governments in the West have impacted the industry here. The Indian economy isn’t creating enough jobs.”
An economic survey released by the government last week cited rising protectionism, restrictive trade measures and risks in people’s mobility as concerns for India’s exports and economy.
The website of New Delhi Television (NDTV) quoted Arvind Subramanian, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s top economic adviser, as saying: “Indian service companies gained scale over the last decade as the disrupters, creating the modern offshoring industry, but they are now the incumbents, challenged by a slew of specialized and niche start-ups bred in this new environment.”
The website added that Subramanian expressed concern that growing anti-globalization tendencies, expressed in the last US election and in Brexit, threaten Indian jobs.
Bangalore-based analyst Deepak Kumar said the market situation is responsible for the crisis in the IT industry.
The founder of company B&M Next told Arab News: “The economy runs on demand and supply. Demand for services generated by Indian IT service providers has come down, so there isn’t much need for the supply of people. The present situation reflects that reality.”
Some economists believe the IT sector’s contribution to India’s economy is hyped. Dhanmanjari Sathe of Pune University told Arab News that the crisis is “a blessing in disguise,” adding: “Finally, we may start thinking that it’s in the manufacturing sector where India’s natural strength lies.”
According to the Indian Brand and Equity Foundation, a trust established by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the IT industry employs about 10 million people.
The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) said the IT sector’s contribution constitutes 7 percent of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate.
India’s IT industry is at a crossroad, as is Pankaj. It is a question of survival for both of them. “For me it’s a desperate situation,” he said.
“I have housing and car loans to pay, besides taking care of two kids. How will I manage all this?”
Crisis in India’s IT sector amid mass layoffs
Crisis in India’s IT sector amid mass layoffs
Floods displace 122,000 people in Malaysia
- The number surpassed the 118,000 displaced during one of the country’s worst floodings in 2014
Kuala Lumpur: More than 122,000 people have been forced out of their homes as massive floods caused by relentless rains swept through Malaysia’s northern states, disaster officials said Saturday.
The number surpassed the 118,000 displaced during one of the country’s worst floodings in 2014, and disaster officials feared it could rise further as there was no let-up in torrential downpours.
The death toll remained at four recorded across Kelantan, Terengganu and Sarawak.
Kelantan state bore the brunt of the flooding, accounting for 63 percent of the 122,631 people displaced, according to data from the National Disaster Management Agency.
There were nearly 35,000 people evacuated in Terengganu, with the rest of the displacements reported from seven other states.
Heavy rains, which began early this week, continued to hammer Pasir Puteh town in Kelantan, where people could be seen walking through streets inundated with hip-deep waters.
“My area has been flooded since Wednesday. The water has already reached my house corridor and is just two inches away from coming inside,” Pasir Puteh resident and school janitor Zamrah Majid, 59, told AFP.
“Luckily, I moved my two cars to a higher ground before the water level rose.”
She said she allowed her grandchildren to play in the water in front of his house because it was still shallow.
“But if the water gets higher, it would be dangerous, I’m afraid they might get swept away,” she added.
“I haven’t received any assistance yet, whether it’s welfare or other kinds of help.”
Muhammad Zulkarnain, 27, who is living with his parents in Pasir Puteh, said they were isolated.
“There’s no way in or out of for any vehicles to enter my neighborhood,” he told AFP.
“Of course I’m scared... Luckily we have received some assistance from NGOs, they gave us food supplies like biscuits, instant noodles, and eggs.”
Floods are an annual phenomenon in the Southeast Asian nation of 34 million people due to the northeast monsoon that brings heavy rain from November to March.
Thousands of emergency services personnel have been deployed in flood-prone states along with rescue boats, four-wheel-drive vehicles and helicopters, said Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who chairs the National Disaster Management Committee.
China coast guard says it conducted patrols around Scarborough Shoal in South China Sea
- Tensions between China and the Philippines over disputed areas of the South China Sea have escalated throughout the year, particularly over the Scarborough Shoal
BEIJING: China’s coast guard said it had conducted patrols around the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea on Saturday to safeguard China’s territorial rights.
The coast guard has continued to strengthen law enforcement patrols in the territorial waters and surrounding areas of Scarborough Shoal since the beginning of November, and “resolutely safeguarding the country’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” it said in a statement.
Tensions between China and the Philippines over disputed areas of the South China Sea have escalated throughout the year, particularly over the Scarborough Shoal.
13 more killed in Pakistan sectarian fighting
- Fresh fighting broke out last Thursday when two separate convoys of Shiite Muslims traveling under police escort were ambushed, killing more than 40
Peshawar: Sectarian feuding in northwest Pakistan killed 13 more people, a local government official said Saturday, as warring Sunnis and Shiites defied repeated ceasefire orders in recent conflict claiming 124 lives.
Pakistan is a Sunni-majority country, but Kurram district — in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, near the border with Afghanistan — has a large Shiite population and the communities have clashed for decades.
Fresh fighting broke out last Thursday when two separate convoys of Shiite Muslims traveling under police escort were ambushed, killing more than 40.
Since then 10 days of fighting with light and heavy weapons has brought the region to a standstill, with major roads closed and mobile phone services cut as the death toll surged.
A Kurram local government official put the death toll at 124 on Saturday after 13 more people were killed in the past two days.
Two were Sunni and 11 Shiite, he said, whilst more than 50 people have been wounded in fresh fighting which continued Saturday morning.
“There is a severe lack of trust between the two sides, and neither tribe is willing to comply with government orders to cease hostilities,” he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Police report that many people want to flee the area due to the violence, but the deteriorating security situation makes it impossible,” he added.
A seven-day ceasefire deal was announced by the provincial government last weekend but failed to hold. Another 10-day truce was brokered Wednesday but it also failed to stymie the fighting.
A senior security official in the provincial capital of Peshawar, also speaking anonymously, confirmed the total death toll of 124.
“There is a fear of more fatalities,” he said. “None of the provincial government’s initiated measures have been fully implemented to restore peace.”
Police have regularly struggled to control violence in Kurram, which was part of the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas until it was merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2018.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said 79 people had been killed in the region between July and October in sectarian clashes.
The feuding is generally rekindled by disputes over land in the rugged mountainous region, and fueled by underlying tensions between the communities adhering to different sects of Islam.
Schools shut as heavy storm approaches India coast
- Cyclonic storm Fengal is forecast to make landfall in Tamil Nadu state with sustained winds of 70-80 kilometers an hour
- The forecast urged fishing crews to stay off the water and predicted surging waves of one meter that posed a flood risk
BENGALURU: Schools in India’s south were shut and hundreds of people moved inland to storm shelters ahead of a powerful cyclone storm set to hit the region on Saturday.
Cyclonic storm Fengal is forecast to make landfall in Tamil Nadu state with sustained winds of 70-80 kilometers an hour (43-50 mph) in the afternoon, India’s weather bureau said.
The forecast urged fishing crews to stay off the water and predicted surging waves of one meter (three feet) that posed a flood risk to low-lying coastal areas.
Schools and colleges in numerous districts across Tamil Nadu were shut and at least 471 people had been moved to relief camps, the Economic Times newspaper reported.
Cyclones — the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the northwestern Pacific — are a regular and deadly menace in the northern Indian Ocean.
Fengal skirted the coast of Sri Lanka earlier this week, killing at least 12 people including six children.
Scientists have warned that storms are becoming more powerful as the world heats up due to climate change driven by burning fossil fuels.
Warmer ocean surfaces release more water vapor, which provides additional energy for storms, strengthening winds.
A warming atmosphere also allows them to hold more water, boosting heavy rainfall.
But better forecasting and more effective evacuation planning have dramatically reduced death tolls.
Thailand flooding kills nine, displaces thousands
- ‘Very heavy rain’ could continue to affect some areas of the country’s south through next week
- The government has deployed rescue teams to assist affected residents
BANGKOK: Flooding driven by heavy rains in southern Thailand has killed nine people and displaced more than 13,000, officials said Saturday, as rescue teams using boats and jet skis worked to reach stranded residents.
Local media footage showed residents wading through murky, chest-deep water and cars submerged in flooded streets.
“Flooding across eight provinces in southern Thailand has affected 553,921 households and claimed nine lives, prompting agencies to mobilize urgent assistance,” the country’s disaster agency said on its official Facebook page.
More than 13,000 people had been forced to flee their homes, with temporary shelters set up in schools and temples, it added.
Nampa, a resident of coastal Songkhla province, told state broadcaster Thai PBS she was concerned about the dwindling food supplies.
“We are doing fine now, but I am not sure how long can we stay in this condition,” she said.
Two hospitals in nearby Pattani province suspended operations to prevent floodwaters from damaging medical facilities.
In neighboring north Malaysia, the rains have forced the evacuation of at least 80,000 people to temporary shelters this week, with disaster officials there saying at least four people have been killed.
The Thai Meteorological Department has warned that “very heavy rain” could continue to affect some areas of the country’s south through next week.
The government has deployed rescue teams to assist affected residents and designated 50 million baht ($1.7 million) in flood relief for each province.
Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said Friday on social media platform X that the goal was to “restore normalcy as quickly as possible.”
While Thailand experiences annual monsoon rains, scientists say man-made climate change is causing more intense weather patterns that can make destructive floods more likely.
Widespread flooding across the country in 2011 killed more than 500 people and damaged millions of homes.
