Monday, October 22, 2018

H4 Visa - A Fresh Debate

I was reviewing the H4 Visa updates and the last update is when the US government for once again updated the court on revoking the H4 EAD.  Once again the time-line provided is for 3 months and the next update is due on November 19. 

In the whole case, Save Jobs USA has been asserting on an early judgement on the case. The case that they highlight here is that the H4-EAD is hurting their job opportunities.  Does that stand a ground is the question here.  I will sight out a few cases that I have observed and that I have encountered in the industry where the Jobs are identified as getting impacted - 


  1. One Network Administrator who was working with this company reached that position based on how the situations were handled by that person over a period of time. The total years of experience was 35 at age of 66 and the relevant experience was 6 years.  Education background  - high school pass with CCNA certification.  out of 6 years of relevant experience, the person in consideration was handling a store network for 3 years and based on the successful handling of the store network, gets moved to handle the Corporate Network.  A review of the overall work provides quite an interesting update - none of the older network rules ever get removed, just new rules get added and the routing rules grow over a period of time.  No route rationalization and not route updates.  This person was aligned with an H4 EAD holder for Network modernization and the H4 EAD is a Computer Science Graduate, 10 years of experience of Network Administration with CCNP certification in tow.  The case become aggravated as this Network Administrator starts with Social Media stating his job is in Danger due to a H4 EAD situation.  The question here is - How is the job in danger? is it due to the lack of knowledge in the field or lack of understanding of the overall technology?
  2. One Security Administrator, Veteran at age 58 years, 32 years of experience, only 5 years experience of Information Security, In-charge of firewalls.  An H4 EAD was hired to work with the Security Administrator to help with Next Generation Firewalls and UTM devices. Starts showing the concern of Job loss due to the overall situation of H4 EAD. Why??
  3. One 70 year old Contract Employee assisting the Organization for SoX Compliance, put under an H4 EAD along with other Compliance Analysts to move the overall Organizational Compliance Efforts under Unified Compliance Framework. Shows dissent and fear of Job loss. Where and Why??
There are similar other cases tons of them, where the main hue and cry round Job loss is more of a concern rather than actual case.  The whole situation is boiling out to be what it is because of the availability of higher skilled resources who right now are untapped due to the way Visa is constructed. Consider it that there still is a deficiency of high skilled resources in the field of IT and Cyber Security.  Consider that by 2020, the Demand and Supply gap for the Cyber Security Professionals would grow to almost a million and I the organizations are not going to address that gap by tapping the available pool of resources trapped under the condition of H4 Visa, there would be serious repercussions.  

Consider that skills are not something that are grow with age, it is important to have that exposure to the latest and best knowledge source and the capability to absorb it at the right time.  Not just in IT, but in other professions too, tapping the right skills is an important requirement for organization success.  

My Question to Save Job USA is - Why don't you bring the Manufacturing jobs back to USA? When Most of the products available in US markets are produced in other countries, doesn't that hurt the US Jobs and US economy?  

I support the Buy American motive as I believe that would boost the economy with more employment being created locally.

My request to the Save Jobs USA would be to address the concern holistically rather than just being aggressive against just a high skilled resource pool that was being brought out to the mainstream and support the US business and economy.

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Amritsar Dussehra Tragedy

With my deepest condolences to the lives lost and the families who suffered due to the loss of their near and dear ones, I would like to call out for action against the Organizers as well as the Local and District Administration who should be held responsible for the tragedy.

Though the leading media reports are highlighting the cause of tragedy to be "the train running over the people celebrating Dussehra"  specifically the way headlines on Economic Times read - Train runs over people celebrating Dussehra near Amritsar, over 60 dead. How irresponsible is that to simply sensationalize the news and implicate the railway department to this tune.

Did anyone ever think about the following aspects:
  1. Why didn't organizers take safety measures to create fencing around the location of Celebration to ensure that crowd doesn't spill over the Railway tracks?
  2. Why did Administration not deploy security personnel near the Railway tracks to ensure that crowd doesn't spill over the Railway tracks?
  3. Why didn't organizers and administration inform the railway officials to ensure that they could issue caution notice to the train drivers and deploy a 20-40 rule while crossing the celebration area?
From what I reviewed on the videos available, I couldn't place the responsibility of accident on the Railway department as I found it to be the total mismanagement by the Organizers and the Local as well as District Administration teams.

One more thing that I would like to highlight is the Law that prohibits Walking, Crossing or doing anything on Railway tracks that is the property of the Railway department.  It is a punishable offense to either stand, sit, cross or walk on the railway tracks.  So, certainly, Railway Department is NOT responsible for the tragedy from the perspective I look at.

It indeed is a saddening misshape that cause loss of valuable human life and it would require a lot of understanding and common sense to prevail.  Media also should behave responsible to not write headlines that would prove to be provocative in this case.  

One headline that can be called a responsible reporting - 

Overall, action must be taken against the Organizing committee as well as the Local and District Administration to this effect for their responsibilities. It is their failure that lead to this tragedy and that cause loss valuable human life.