http://www.samachar.com/showurl.htm?rurl=http://headlines.sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14315826&headline=IT~majors~go~on~a~hiring~spree

"The country's top-five club of IT players — TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Satyam Computer and HCL Technologies added a total of 27,583 employees to their payrolls in the July-September quarter."

(sidenote-this does not include other MNCs such as IBM, Accenture, Cognizant, etc.)

One of our family friend has her son entering final year computer science in one of the private eng. colleges near chennai. A few months back he got placement in one of the major software companies with a starting salary of Rs.15,000 p.m., pending performance in his final year. On top of that he has now received a jump to Rs.27,000/- p.m. even before he has started his work !! His mother a bank officer with almost 30 years experience just manages to clear Rs.25,000/-

-----------------------------------------------------------------