call went successfully with around 50 companies participating in it. Rajiv Khanna explained the immigration trends in the last two months. He also explained how to deal with surprise visits from the regulatory authorities. He explained the nature of audits by each of the regulatory authority. He emphasized on do & don't, on what constitutes non-cooperation and what is our legal rights.

Meeting went for one hour with member companies asking questions about various practices in immigration. Meeting concluded on a note that SMEC need to organize these meeting regularly.

SMEC(Small Medium Enterpreneurs Consortium) organized IT consulting Employer's meet on Sept 2nd, 2009. Meet was successful with 45 companies participating in it. Meeting started at around 7:00 PM and went upto 10:30 PM. Guests and companies had a healthy discussion on current trends in consulting business. Here are the minutes of the meeting.

Venue Royal Alberts palace, NJ Date Sept 2nd 2009 Time : 7:00 PM to 10:30 PM Attendees 45 IT consulting companies

Guests:

• Upendra Chivakula - Hon'ble Assemblyman, State of NJ
• Patrick Papalia - Attorney, Business Law, Labor and employment and litigation
• Rohit Turkhud - Attorney, Immigration Law.

Agreed and action items:

• General agreement on a common platform and on the following four points
  • Formulate common priniciples and guidelines
  • Immediately raise money to fund the organization
  • Necessity of long term lobbying
  • Exploring Business development opportunities
• Adhoc committee was formed to raise the funds.
• One can subscribe to the following yahoogroups -
  • smec_info@yahoogroups.com - General Info about SMEC & other community activities
  • smec_businessdev@yahoogroups.com   -          To discuss business development issues
  • smec_committees@yahoogroups.com  - For various committees
  • smec_ar@yahoogroups.com       - Moderated group to discuss AR issues