Last Updated:November 20, 2025, 15:48 IST

After the news broke out, people began reacting to it. While some criticised the move, others turned it into a meme-fest, with some even suggesting solutions to the problem.

IT giant Cognizant is reportedly set to introduce a new monitoring system to track employee activity on company-issued laptops and PCs. The company has begun training select managers on using tracking tools such as ProHance, which will monitor mouse and keyboard usage to gauge productivity. It will flag users based on inactivity levels.

Employees may be marked “idle” after 300 seconds of inactivity and tagged “away from system” if their device remains inactive for 15 minutes. Such tracking tools generally reveal login times, open applications and time spent on tasks, offering a minute-level breakdown of the workday. The company has told staff the data will be used to understand workflows and improve utilisation, not to evaluate individual performance at this stage.

What Was The POV Of Cognizant?

A Cognizant spokesperson said, as quoted by the Mint, “We occasionally use various productivity measurement tools, a common industry practice, in select business process management or intuitive operations and automation projects, at the request of customers. The purpose is to help better understand the client process steps and related time metrics to assess process design inefficiencies.”

“Also, the tools are used only after obtaining the consent of employees and it is made clear that these are not used for performance evaluation. Additionally, these tools have no impact on the composition of teams engaged in these projects and any suggestion to the contrary is incorrect,“ they further mentioned.

And The Memefest Aftermath…

After the news broke out, people began reacting to it. While some criticised the move, others turned it into a meme-fest, with some even suggesting solutions to the problem.

One user shared a short clip, which showed the mouse tied to a table fan with a swing, and wrote, “My Dear @Cognizant bandhua Majdoors, here is a great Indian jugad to keep your mouse busy.”

A video recreated the ‘Arey Baap Re’ viral meme showing how the employees are getting reminded that they forgot to ‘show themselves’ active while having lunch.

The Internet also took a sly dig at Narayan Murthy, whose work-life balance comments had created a stir back in 2023, showing that, after all this time, he has found a worthy competitor.

Creativity went into another level when the Internet users were reminded of the ‘office hack’ scene of Vivek Oberoi from Grand Masti where he uses gram seeds and calls pigeons who come to his keyboard and start eating them. If not seen, one might feel that someone is typing on a keyboard constantly.

Amid all this, it will be interesting to see how the Cognizant employees settle with this new regime of work they will be going through in the upcoming days.

Do you think this is a good decision, or should authorities at the workplace be a little more lenient?

Buzz Staff

A team of writers at News18.com bring you stories on what’s creating the buzz on the Internet while exploring science, cricket, tech, gender, Bollywood, and culture.

A team of writers at News18.com bring you stories on what’s creating the buzz on the Internet while exploring science, cricket, tech, gender, Bollywood, and culture.

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Seoul: South Korea’s auto exports decreased 10.5 per cent from a year earlier in October, largely due to fewer business days caused by the extended Chuseok holiday, data showed on Thursday. 

The value of outbound shipments of automobiles came to $5.5 billion last month, compared with $6.2 billion the same month last year, according to the data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources, reports Yonhap news agency.

The value of accumulated auto exports from January to October, meanwhile, reached an all-time high of $59.6 billion. The ministry said October exports were weak due to the fall harvest Chuseok holiday that fell in early October, unlike in 2024 when the traditional holiday fell in September.

Auto exports in September jumped 16.8 per cent on-year, the ministry said earlier. By destination, exports to the United States plunged 29 percent on-year to $2.12 billion in October, apparently due to the 25 per cent import tariffs imposed on Korean cars by the Donald Trump administration.

The Trump administration is expected to lower the tariff on Korean cars to 15 per cent as agreed in its trade deal with South Korea after the Seoul government submits a special bill to the National Assembly on the country’s planned $350 billion investment in the U.S. under the bilateral trade agreement reached late last month.

Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol said Wednesday the government plans to submit the bill before the end of this month, which he said would allow local automakers to enjoy the reduced tariff rate retroactively from the start of the month of its submission.

Shipments to the European Union dipped 2.1 per cent to $746 million last month, and those to the Middle East contracted 13.5 per cent to $403 million. On the other hand, exports to Asia jumped 42 per cent on-year to $802 million, while shipments to Latin America advanced 23.7 per cent to $290 million.

By type, exports of eco-friendly cars, such as electric vehicles (EVs), hybrid cars and hydrogen cars, gained 0.9 per cent from a year earlier to 64,427 vehicles last month, amounting to a combined value of $2 billion.

In detail, shipments of hybrid cars climbed 3.9 per cent to 42,683 vehicles, and EV exports inched up 0.3 per cent to 19,247 units. Exports of plug-in hybrid cars dropped 30.8 per cent to 2,492 units.

At home, sales of automobiles went down 12.8 per cent on-year to 127,000 units in October.

Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Thursday thwarted an attempt by an Afghan national to travel to Europe using a forged residence card, intercepting the passenger at Islamabad Airport and taking him into custody.

According to FIA officials, the traveller identified as Janat Gul Niazi was scheduled to fly to France on flight PK-749 when immigration staff detected that he was carrying a fake Greek residence card.

Niazi, who hails from Afghanistan, was immediately offloaded from the flight after the document was found to be counterfeit.

The suspect has since been handed over to the FIA Anti-Human Trafficking Circle, Islamabad, where further investigation and legal proceedings are underway.