Q&a: Shinichi Yamada, Ntt Data

Rightly or wrongly, the outsourcing – in particular offshore outsourcing – sector in Japan has tended to be viewed as being markedly less developed than the equivalent sectors in North America and Europe. A range of contributing factors can be considered to be behind this situation – but as the global economy continues to drift through troubled waters even traditionally offshore-averse institutions in Japan are having to reassess their perspectives.

SSON spoke recently with Shinichi Yamada, of NTT Data Corp., Japan’s largest software services firm and an organization considered by many as being among the country’s foremost proponents of offshoring. A twenty-year veteran of NTT Data, Yamada is now the company’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, and played a key role in the acquisition of Pune, India-based Vertex Software, a move which NTT Data hopes will both increase its own competitiveness and enhance its credentials as a provider of outsourced services to Japanese as well as to US and European companies.

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Fear Mongering: All’s Fair?

I’m 58 years old, which obviously makes me I suppose, a “baby boomer”, for whatever that’s worth… not much I suspect! I’m also a Veteran (1967-1971). I am… a Recovering Drug Addict. I practiced my addiction for nearly three decades, losing the best years of my life to a very cruel disease. I have been in Recovery for over 13 years, and am now a Certified Counselor.

I was born in Missouri and when I was a child my family migrated from there to California. As a young teenager I lived the “Civil Rights” movement, which drew many of us into political and social awareness quite early in our lives. Thankfully we had John Fitzgerald Kennedy for a brief but very stabilizing and awakening time. I vividly remember his assassination and those of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and JFK’s brother Robert Kennedy. We survived Richard M. Nixon! This was a very disheartening time to experience but was brightened by the ending of the Vietnam War, the expansion of civil rights to minorities and women. I’ve seen America at its best and at its worst. Pres. William Jefferson Clinton brought about some of best economic times in all of my life. But then came George W. Bush, who I saw right thru from the very beginning. It’s been like the trial of the Chicago 10, but strung out for 8 long years. I’ve seen things in the Bush administration that I would never have dreamed could happen in the country that I gave 4 years of my life for. I never dreamed we would repeat Vietnam. I never dreamed we would torture people. I never dreamed we would be spied on without warrants justifying it. I never dreamed that a microscopic section of the population could steal the bank accounts of almost every Citizen, with the help of the President. I never dreamed that a conspiring, greedy, rich, Texan could bankrupt our entire citizenry. The most frightening thing so far is happening as I write, though!

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LATITUDE 28 MAKES A DEBUT AT INDIA ART SUMMIT WITH VIETNAMESE ARTISTS AND A BARODA FLAVOUR

Latitude 28

Stall no. A04,

Hall no. 7,

India Art summit,

Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.

From – August 19, 2009 to August 22, 2009.

All set to make a splash in the second edition of India Art Summit, art curator and historian Bhavna Kakar brings forth an eclectic mix of artists under her new art venture Latitude 28. With an art education background from Baroda, it was expected that the curator-turned-gallerist would choose to represent some of the most interesting young Baroda artists during her first-time participation in the summit

Baroda apart, what gives this exhibit a special place at the Summit is that it would be the only gallery showing works of the self-confessed homosexual Bhupen Khakhar whose famed portraiture work would be on display. In addition, Latitude 28 would also be showcasing Karachi-born artist and diva Nasreen Mohamedi’s pen and ink drawings on Japanese card paper, apart from bringing to India for the first time video works of three renowned Vietnamese artists.

Says Bhavna Kakar, curator & Director, Latitude 28: “India Art Summit is a wonderful platform to showcase the collection of our new venture, Latitude 28 and interact with the art fraternity. The gallery is committed to featuring evocative and challenging art in a variety of mediums and is happy to be able to introduce to the Indian art market different genres of not only Indian but international art practices. Besides showing veterans like Jogen Chowdhury, Bhupen Khakhar and Nasreen Mohamedi, our aim is to highlight new-age art by younger luminaries like Surekha and Prajjwal Choudhury.”

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