Yeah, HR is just a tool of management.
Sometimes the economic pressure is so great that companies have to eat their seed corn to stay ahead of the competition, especially when the competition has advantages like offshore labor that works cheap. Not a good thing.
When I read the second article, I thought Murthy could be the guy in AGM's excellent book:
http://irishtechnews.net/ITN3/chaos-...ries-and-more/
But no, that's Murthy Nukala, different guy.