Happy 2008

Wish U 'n Ur Family A Very Happy 'n Prosperous New Year

Personal Finance

Here is a split tip on how to plan our personal finance. Think about using it (yearly basis)...

• 25% - House/Utilities
• 04% - For all relatives/friends
• 01% - Charity
• 33% - Savings
• 05% - Leisure/Travel/Pleasure
• 05% - Unavoidables/Misc/Vehicles
• 08% - Family Purchases & Shopping
• 13% - Medicals/Healths/Emergencies
• 04% - Major Purchases
• Left out is 2%...

And ofcourse, we just need to be ready for short term & long term expenses too.

Thought for the day

"Man is working day & night without taking a day off to make this world a worse place to live in"

- Movie dialog?

Stones

After visiting the "Green" Hanuman at Dundigal, there was no one in the temple too who can clarify the English term for Maragatha. Here is a quick clarification of all 9 stones (Navrathna) - The Tamil & English Names.

• Vaira - Diamond
  
• Maanikka - Ruby
  
• Maragatha - Emerald
  
• Vidruma - Coral
  
• Muthu - Pearl
  
• Neela - Sapphire
  
• Gomedagaa - Garnet
  
• Pushparaaga- Topaz
  
• Vaidurya - Cat's eye

There is some other info available about the stones here.

Coming Around Hyderabad

There are quite some places to be seen in & around Hyderabad...

Carrying History:

• Nizam Museum
• Chow Mallya Palace
• Charminar
• Salar Jung Museum
• Golconda Fort (& light show)
  

Fun:

• Jala Vihar
• Snow World
• Dolaare Dhani
• Ramoji Film City
• Runway 9

Site Seeing:

• Hussain Sagar Lake & Buddha Statue
  
• Lumbini Park - Laser Show
• Lumbini Park - Cruise
• NTR Gardens
  
• Nagarjuna Sagar Dam
  

Religious:

• Mecca Mazjid
• Saangi Temple
• Shirdi Sai Baba Temple
  
• Film Nagar Temple
• Birla Mandir
  
• Iskcon
• Secunderabad - Kaanchi Mutt
  
• Chilkur - Venkateshwara
  
• Dundigal - Maragatha Aanjaneya
  
• Srisailam (& dam)
  
• Mantralayam - Raagavendrar
  
• Vijayawada - Kanaka Durga Temple
• Mangalagiri - Paanaga Narasimhar temple
• Amaravati - Shiva
• Dwaraka Thirumala - Venkateshwara (Chinna Thirupati)
  

Shopping/Entertainment:

• Shilparamam
• IMax & Prasadz
• Hyderabad Central & PVR cinemas
• City Center Mall (& many others upcoming malls)
  
• Just drive from Jubilee Hills to Panjagutta, Banjara Hills Road# 1, 2

May be there are many other which I have missed.

Merry XMas

Wish U A Merry Christmas

Thought provoking...

This ad sure is thought provoking and has got attention of quite some "literates" around me.

We all read, study & learn about our rights & responsibilities to our country, but we always look for personal benefits and never complete our duties to our country to full. Just put the following words to a deeper thought...

"If I include CITY, COUNTRY, WORLD as part of me & my family..."

MF This Month

We don't see much changes in the MFs which we need to opt for. Still Infra & opportunities are coming on top of my cut off.

• Infrastructure
  
• Opputunities
  
• Other Equity - Stan Chat Prem, Focus, Comma, RSF, Power

Escalator In India Railway Station

Well... I happened to make a "religious" roam around near Vijayawada. With one of my friends staying there, he had given me pre-notion that the town is not too big and it is just a "small" town. When my train entered Vijayawada station early in the morning like around 4:45AM I could sense busyness all around me. When I got down from the train, I realized that I'm in one of the important junctions (I mean, in Indian railways the term 'junction' itself has a special meaning).

For a fact, the railway station seems to be a true junction with so many lengthy platforms, lengthy & wide overhead bridges, the number of shops, the number of boards giving directions to passengers, the number of plasma TVs, the information displayed getting updated at real time, the entertainment provided in those TVs (which also includes some of those funny YouTube videos, the AFVs, "good" email forwards), the enquiry bench always answering questions over speaker, ... everything seems customer friendly and I'm already questioning my friend's message of 'small town'. The operation of escalator inside an Indian railway station took my surprises to the heights. That is just more than believable.

The customer satisfaction at Vijayawada railway station is sure more because the place stands far ahead compared to any other such junctions in South India. Later when I enquired about it to my friend, he confirmed that Vijayawada is still a town & not a major city but the town is having the busiest railway junction in south. Many of passengers' concerns in such a busy place seems to have been rightly addressed...

Electronic Retailers

Who is making the difference for all the US Electronic retailers? The major set back which surprised me was the closing of CompUSA - For me, it was something that is improbable to happen but it's business & someone has got all businesses out of CompUSA.

The latest news about the third quarter loss from Circuit City is yet another shocker. I don't think Circuit City is losing its business but it is more to do with customer satisfaction and other soft factors which are making people move away. The alternate choice now seems like only Best Buy & we got to wait to watch how Best Buy can thrive against the universal WalMart which is making up all its losses from cheaper electronic items with other market segments & products.

But recently Dell's announcement of putting their brands on Best Buy's showrooms is one different move which changes the core Dell's strategy of marketing & supply chain. Likewise, it is one major boost for Best Buy's recognition in electronic retailer segment.

Grandness

Grand Canyon is a natural beauty & is for sure an art of God. The hugeness, beauty & the grandness is impossible to be captured in eyes, heart, mind but...

Seeing Grand Canyon in the grand IMAX is for sure a pleasure, a gift, the moments to be enjoyed on. I guess I had seen it couple of times before when we do those package trips to Vegas & Canyon. May be when you see the natural beauty and also try to see it in IMAX while being tired & exhausted, the visuals couldn't be appreciated I guess.

But today when I watched Grand Canyon, The Hidden Secrets yet again it was more than a thrill. The visuals were more than involving... Just watch it to realize.

Merging Flights

Why would KingFisher & Air Deccan merge with each other? What are their options right now?

Aren't both of them addressing different market segments? So after this merger will the expensive customers taking KingFisher will slowly move towards Air Deccan?

Will Air Deccan customers get the same benefits which Mallya's passengers are getting now? Probably Air Deccan will never own the flag of budget carrier from now onwards.

It is going to be a bit complex because both of them are bleeding and they are more in debt rather than have surplus. It is not something which the market will welcome.

National Anthem

Such a good one that it is becoming more & more famous - The talk of the town.

Astrology... Believe or not?

I never had any belief in astrology. May be because how astrologers actually give prediction about the events that are going to happen in someone's life - Because I have witnessed quite some events when the astrologers would have predicted the best things to happen & the worst things would end up happening... People who know me know how & what I have undergone. Even one of my friend was convinced by his astrologer that his marriage should happen in couple of months. But what happened is he lost both his mom & dad within a month...

But recently I heard from someone about this Guru Peyarchi (Jupiter transition) & I was advised to just look around me - at people, relatives & at my friends. With nil knowledge about their birth details or their horoscopes, I can't even predict anything - if some good or bad is going to happen. But all I have to do is wait for some news to come.

To my surprise, after this Guru peyarchi I have heard so many news about changes in people's lives. Many good news - Marriages, engagements, new assets & property acquisition, job promotions, awards, new jobs, pregnancy, babies born & what not... I know about some new health problems too which people are facing around me... & there may be other daily problems too but we won't get to hear about all these from everyone.

So, you see, I just don't know if i got to believe astrology or not. At this stage, all I'm doing is see if I can link these happenings to any predictions given. Haven't got much clue yet either from Sun Signs or the Start Signs!!??

Reviving Postal Funds

I had been wondering for quite sometime about the Postal savings because it is very obvious that they are not able to meet the interest rates provided by the banks. Most of last year & this year, the bank deposit interest rates were reaching their peaks which was good for all small time investors but was not good for the postal saving schemes.

With the new set of investment benefits, postal savings are almost on par with that of banks. 5% bonus for 5 year deposit is what is making this new similarity. Also, the additional benefit is these savings can be declared under S80C for tax exemption. Likewise, is the case for PO Senior Citizen SS.

So, can we expect the tax exemption bracket to be increased from INR 110000? Can we expect deposit rates from banks increased or atleast more that .5% increment in the case of Sr. citizens?

MBBS for 6.5 years?

After completion of SSLC or Matric, students just blindly select the top group like Math-Biology to keep their options open for both engineering and medicine. When students make decision about their career especially on completion of their +2, many give a second thought about taking a medical course. From my times till now, I haven't seen much attitude difference in this aspect.

One main criteria or constraint that comes to picture is the length of the course work - 5.5 years and immediately after that too they cannot guarantee a good living. They need to struggle more or probably go for higher studies to make a mark in the medical system. All these will itself make people take a step back initially.

Now with Ramadoss, the union minister proposing one more year increase for the course work will make students just avoid the medical science as a whole. Though the proposal seems to be good that all students should go for an year of practicing in village conditions I think it would be better if the same can be reduced to 6 months and that too to be done in the any semester in last 1.5 years of the current 5.5 years itself. (I'm not too sure about how the course work is actually
framed...)

Hope the minister will see the actual issues via 'Marry me Minister' protests and make a systematic decision...

A Joke?

SantaBanta.com originated this joke - "What is the difference between a Sardar (Sikh) and a donkey? Answer: a tail."

Does the above have any kind of joke sense? The heights of it is this is published by Reliance mobile to its subscribers as joke of the day (One97 is the provider of such jokes). I'm not a sikh & I have read Sardarji jokes just like Blonde jokes. But I don't really see the above as funny at all. In fact it just irks me & makes me uncomfortable.

Businesses directly reaching customers should have all public sense not to affect their sentiments in any way and especially not to touch them religiously or racially...

Things were in order...

India then ... On those days when I have had got passport, we were supposed to be in front of the Passport office very early like 5 AM so that we can have some assurance about our application getting processed that day.

India now... Computers are coming handy and for sure they atleast help many immensely in such governmental offices. All we need to do is fill in our application online, book our appointments online, print it out & submit it with all additional documents. No huge queues, no hassles, no paying of 'additional' fees, no need to take service of others and when paying the amount the application form bar code is cross verified with details in the database. Sweet...

I think they can improve it some more just like how PAN applications or foreign Visa applications are being processed. The customers would have to pay ahead of time so that they won't miss (or mess with) their appointments. Atleast that'll reduce one more small queue & the waiting time for the same...

Did Sudan over react?

So, the Briton primary class teacher is back home. All is happy now.

But to start with, did Sudan government over react? Should this incident have got such a huge attention so that two big governments have to come to talks & make negotiations? Does this incident really deserve such huge public outcry & demonstrations?

For all those Qs, I would say NO. It is just a matter of clarifying with the teacher & making sure that such things won't happen any more. Embassies getting involved are all too much of drama for nothing. Seriously, Sudan could have downplayed this...

Google Ads

Is the strategy behind displaying Google Ads in websites changing? Because the ads are supposed to address things related to the site contents. Isn't it?

Recently I see a lot of 'Stress Management' related Ads here in my blog and I see no relevance from the ads to my contents. I'm just trying to analyze why such ads are placed here. Is it may be because of the mention of the name Sri Ravishankar? Or may be because of the words in my profile... I need to see this for a week or so to conclude.

Recently, there is a sudden surge in the visitors count for this page & there is also quite some clicks happening on the ads. Hmm... Are people clicking on 'Stress Management' related ads?

On a side note, thank you for visiting & clicking on ads.

Chillin' Video

Emergency Numbers

I was reading in one of the dailies about creation of a medical emergency number like 108 in India. This is a surprise because I thought we at India should already be having such numbers or atleast in some cosmos. At the least I'm not comfortable at all calling different emergency numbers at different places inside India after living a "secure" life in USA - 911 the emergency number for universal help - Cops, Fire, Medicals...

Things are sure yet to improve a lot in India by providing one such number for all India, linking all medical facilities at any place etc. The exponential growth in mobile technology & usage should be put into proper use. I have already been a victim of not having such a facility - losing one of my closest ones with no doctors ready to attend at house, no ambulance available immediately etc...

Value Of Money

It can also be called as inflation I should say.

Today I happened to attend a grand celebration organized by one of the electronic retail showrooms here. It is marked 'grand' because of the arrival of the state governor & a cabinet minister. And this function is for selecting one lucky winner - As simple as that. All customers who have bought electronic item from the retail shop during the celebration season of Navrathri & Diwali had the chance of winning.

From Oct 12 to Dec 1, the total sales by this electronic retailer is like around INR 450,000,000. The lucky winner gets INR 25,00,000. That ain't a bad figure but that ain't is going to get a good 2 BHK apartment in today's cosmopolitans. But as it can be seen, that sure is a huge figure if we rewind our time to say 25 years. People were taking their life insurance policies for one lakh or so. As can be seen from Om Shanti Om, film producers were putting up sets for Rs. 40,00,000 and today the figures from Sivaji stands like 85,00,00,000.

25 years down the line, I think INR 50,00, 000 will stand equal to today's INR 10000 or much worse.

Vishva Rupa...

I know there are too many disciples for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Couple of years back when he conducted the world conference in Bangalore so many foreigners from US, Europe had visited. I was traveling back to US when I happened to see so many of the Americans & Europeans returning back from the conference and carrying so many photos & photo albums of Sri Ravi Shankar. For one moment, I felt like may be there are not many people in India like me who haven't recognized him & his 'power'... Just like Buddhism is not being followed in India but in other countries though Buddha is from India.

Anyways, recently I happened to hear his speech & there were as questions from audience too. One question was like 'When are you going to show us your vishva rupa like how Krishna showed Himself to Arjuna?' That is when i realized that people are considering Sri Ravi Shankar as an avatar of Lord Vishnu.

Personally, I can accept a human being scholarly, elderly, knowledgeable who can give you his blessings & advice but cannot accept him/her to be God...

Remixes...

The new cine songs in Tamil films are getting into the trend of doing remixes of all those hit dance tunes of 70's & 80's. The best part is, the tunes are proving to be really all-time hits. Everything seems to get synch'ed very well..

Song selection, mixing, voice selection, music - Vasantha Mullai, Eai Aatha, Engeyum Eppodhum, ponmagal vandhaal.

BTW, don't we have any copyrights for all those tunes?

Wireless...

After I have landed back in India, at last I found sometime to set up my Wireless router (with 220V to 12V adapters for the US modem which has its 120V power supply etc). Felt so good to set it up and now I want to access things wireless using the laptop which I have.

The one I have is provided from the company & is Dell Latitude D600 with Intel Centrino Mobile. As I used to do before, I thought this'll also be a very smooth process - MAC, WPA, Access List, Static IP, Modems etc. Everything is ready except the Wireless properties under 'Local Area Connection' properties or the wireless icon in system tray. So, after some initial analysis & setting up things in bios, I'm still not able to get my notebook connect to my router.

Fn+F2 is also not working. Rather I'm not sure if it is working or not. And the best thing is there is quite some references in internet about this but nothing really useful. I also tried the Dell Support site but in vain. Still trying...

CNN Heroes

I have been a great admirer of Sri. S. Ramakrishnan and I guess, I have written about him couple of times.

I recently came to know that he, the founder & president of Amar Seva Sangam, Aiykudi, has been selected by CNN as one of their heroes. The program on him is to be telecast on AC360 on 30th November at 10PM(ET) or 11PM(ET) or both.

Well, me being in India will miss it but no complaints because I keep talking to the HERO himself every now & then.

Mobile in Emergency

An email which I ran into today... Maybe useful.

"We all carry our mobile phones with names & numbers stored in its memory but nobody, other than ourselves, knows which of these numbers belong to our closest family or friends.

If we were to be involved in an accident or were taken ill, the people attending us would have our mobile phone but wouldn't know who to call. Yes, there are hundreds of numbers stored but which one is the contact person in case of an emergency? Hence this "ICE" (In Case of Emergency) Campaign.

The concept of "ICE" is catching on quickly. It is a method of contact during emergency situations. As cell phones are carried by the majority of the population, all you need to do is store the number of a contact person or persons who should be contacted during emergency under the name "ICE" (In Case Of Emergency).

The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when he went to the scenes of accidents, there were always mobile phones with patients, but they didn't know which number to call. He therefore thought that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognized name for this purpose. In an emergency situation, Emergency Service personnel and hospital Staff would be able to quickly contact the right person by simply dialing the number you have stored as "ICE."

For more than one contact name simply enter ICE1, ICE2 and ICE3 etc. A great idea that will make a difference!

Let's spread the concept of ICE by storing an ICE number in our Mobile phones today!

It really could save your life, or put a loved one's mind at rest .

ICE will speak for you when you are not able to!"

Thanks
Vardhini

Vocabs Mean Donation

Such a simple idea but will make some difference for someone in this world. If you are good at your vocabulary then you may want to try it out and see how good you are. The website is FreeRice.

It is entertaining, fun, improving your vocabs and ofcourse it gives you satisfaction because of the underlying cause and the amount of rice - well not that much but it sure can make a difference - you are donating. Hope it is truthful to its cause.

Quick Tips on Investment

I have started writing more on finance now a days - No idea why. So, being in a flow - here are a few quick tips on investment

• Do your own research. It's all your funds.
• Ask questions & get things clarified.
  
• Plan, proceed & make decisions. If you are not too sure, you don't take your step forward or do take your step backward before you lose much more. Don't make haste decisions.
  
• Always learn from your mistakes.
• Make things long term instead of daily trades.

Electric Two Wheeler

The new 2 wheeler introduced in India, Hero Ultra is making news. Why?

• Because it is being run in electric. That reduces the cost by 1/10th compared to petrol driven.
• It is less priced.
• It can give like 70+ mileage per charge.
• You don't need RTA registration.
• You don't need pollution testing.
• You don't need a driving license to drive it.
• Your maintenance cost is reduced drastically.
  

The only thing that can pull its sales back is, we can go only max of 25km/hr speed.

Google News - Biased

Google News has really grown up on me for its information, coverage, how we can personalize the page and some others. But...

The top stories in the first page are mostly say 90% about US. I mean, today's headlines should have been about the terror attack in UP, India but still that hasn't occupied the top. It is all about how Arab countries are handling US dollar fall, oil pricing, Iran etc. So, even when we see top stories in India, yes I can see the news about blasts but the headline is still from 'Voice of America'. So, you see what I mean by biased?

I think the links are listed based on their popularity and how many people read such news items. As a news site, they should change on how the links are being provided taking the actual news itself into consideration and how crucial it is. What say, G?

BTW, the site has too much of refresh issues recently and it has got nothing to do with Firefox 3.0 (Beta).

Are Bucks In?

That LSU loss to Arkansas today should have been a great thriller. What else you need - The #1 BCS team game, home game and still the team couldn't get themselves a win, that too a crucial game which turned out to crush their National Championship title game.

Now, turning to the next set of teams in the BCS - Kansas(2) & Missouri(4) - The Big12 leaders game. I feel it;s Missouri's game and hence Kansas should go down in rankings.

West Virginia(3) has still 2 games to go on to decide their fate. With Kansas also down WV will be at top spot and as per this year's trend they need to lose a game:)...

So, it all boils down to Bucks & Missouri... How weird?

Titanic Revisited

So, the news of yet another Cruise ship getting hit by an ice berg and is now being in the verge of sinking reminds us only of Titanic. Though now, there are no dying passengers as reported and everyone is safe enough.

But even after such a long time from Titanic, do we conclude that people haven't learnt a lesson about such tragedies? The whole cruise ship is sinking because it is taking water into it & the hole is because of ice berg. Can't technology find some simple solution which can look out for such items around the ship's circumference, cut them through if needed?

MFs in US

When I think about the Mutual Funds in US the global funds have been in the top when compared with other sector/diversified funds. Especially the Latin American funds are topping the chart for may be for past 3-5 years. Brazil should be the one which is driving such good results and it is quite visible from Brazil's stock market index. Also, Mexico effects can't be overseen it seems...

It just proves yet again that BRIC with other Emerging economies are more likely rocking the world and even grown economies like US are much influenced. BTW, Head of Morgan Stanley's Emerging Markets Strategy is cautious on India & China when compared to Brazil, Russia, Taiwan & Turkey... Some new developments.

Why SIP?

When we know for sure that the market is having an upward slope why should we go for a SIP? We are actually increasing the risk rather than averaging it out.

Especially like the Indian Market which is driven now a days more & more by the large cap segment, there is no point in using SIP for large cap funds. Our SIPs are going to get less & less units on a monthly basis as the NAV keeps increasing. Probably, the same should be considered on small caps & mid caps which are more oscillating and not really seeing the growth which the market "seems" to show.

One time investment is best for now but should we wait for correction because the NAVs are at their new peaks & still increasing. Even a correction will be in small scale and the market shows no signs of decline. So, my take is even now is no bad time. Use SIP if you are left out with no option...

Best Warne Delivery

Someone reminded me of Warne's best spin ball. Here it is...

Global Warming

With too much of attention from all quarters of the world on the global warming especially UN submitting the final reports from the research done by some 2500 scientists, what are the leaders from countries gonna do about the same?

The best thing that is going to initiate some attention from everyone is carbon emission taxes for all levels of daily life including business organizations, business leaders, political leaders to a common man. The 'some' attention will turn to be a 'huge' factor if the tax is heavy compared to all others.

Also, things should happen voluntarily - products should come up with information on how much carbon emission is it going to do over the years of its life - like people looking for expiry dates, like now a days look into 'saturated fat' level for edibles, we should start looking for carbon emissions.

A small change should tickle the right emotions of every human being and that'll put in a revolutionary change - Something like the mask in 'V for Vendetta'.

Losing War

Bush keeps asking the congress for more funds to tackle all problems in Iraq & Afghan. How many ever times he keeps asking, he already know that atleast the Iraq war was an unasked one and a huge blunder which he initiated... which is becoming more of an expense with no ends seen.

With no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the basic reasoning behind the war is void. With no sight of Bin Laden & not much of progress in Iraq, he doesn't want to pull any strings on Iran. The only thing he is doing good now is, as a leader he is still motivating his troops to get things to an end.

End?? But where is the plan? Are there any fruitful progress?

Infrastructure Funds

All indications are still very strong for investing only in Indian Infrastructure funds. My analysis on equity MFs gets me back almost all the infras as consistent performers.

• ICICI Prudential Infrastructure
• UTI Infrastructure
• JM Basic
• DSPML TIGER
• Canara Robeco Infrastructure
• TATA Infrastructure
• Couple of opportunities & sector based funds
  

BTW, how is DSPML Technology alone always leading the Tech sector and is still giving positive returns in spite of decrease in dollar value?

No profits... From 'Sivaji'

The word is out from most of the distributors of the movie that Sivaji, the movie from Rajni has not met up to their expectations. I already wrote that the movie is nothing but any other Director Shankar's movie with similar story line but the spending has been more than lavish. Hype, AVM-Shankar-Rajni-ARR combo are only the factors.

The timing of the movie release is also like the movie got to occupy the theaters for 150 days which will end during the Diwali time frame. Ofcourse, the combo pack would have made enough profits but same is not the case with the middlemen.

What More in a Mobile?

Yesterday I was seeing Nokia N95 and was having discussions with my friends on what more...

• To start with, N95 can be just upgraded only to 4GB. When iPod's are having 60GB we can't accept only 4GB upgrades. Cell phones should come to a level to replace external hard drives in short.
• Battery life need to be increased considerably.
• Along with GPS, it should start acting more like Satellite phone.
• We should be able to watch live television programs by directly linking it to satellites.
• Cell phones should in short replace laptops.
• They should have bio-thumb scanning, voice scanning, eye scanning to be accessed.
• An in built mirror
• Projector
• A credit card storer - initially to store those external credit cards & get back the ones which we need. But later the cell phone should itself become credit cards - Just store the codes to act as Visa, Mastercard, Amex or whatever. The customer selects what he wants to swipe/scan and that happens.
• An compact optical disc custom built for mobiles only which stores info, videos, movies...
  
• Looks like I can patent some of them:)
  

Deal or No Deal

Here is the game... & I guess many people would have watched it. It is a sure craze from NBC channel at US.

My question is, what is the calculation behind it. In simple words, it seems like the banker's offer is some percentage of the expected value. So, all I did is played the game once to determine the expected values and the percentage offers made by the banker. Then I played once again and seems like the values tally. Here is how the calculation goes...

• When we have 20 boxes (after opening 6 boxes), offer is 10% of the expected value
• With 15 boxes left, offer is 30% of the expected value.
• With 11 boxes, it is 75%
• With 8 boxes, it is 83%
• With 6 boxes, it is 95%
• From this point onwards only one box will be opened before the next offer is made.
• We'll get 100% of the expected value from here...

So, now the question that stands is, why only those specific percentages are offered every time instead of directly offering the 100% of the expected value?

IRS Wanna Return

Just couple of days back only I had written about Indian tax returns filing and how they are delaying the refunds they have to send.

At the other end of the world in US where I have had only good experiences till now obviously there will be people who wouldn't have got their refunds from Feds on time. Well, here is a good news about how the IRS are willing to give back the pending refunds. The best thing is, a person can search to know if he really has some balance to be obtained... Hope, India too turns all those documents & ledgers into bits & bytes.

Cloned Monkey

Guess today's hottest headline from the medical field is the cloned monkey. When monkey can be cloned we are obviously very close to cloning humans but as always it is a question to be answered if this is going to be a good development. As far as human cloning & related stem cell growth are gonna be used for curing diseases and other such medical advancements we can be in the right path.

Have you watched the movie 'The Island'? The concept was great - cloned human beings who live a real life are basically available as medical insurance for rich actuals. If the 'actual' lose a limb, then the respective clone's limb will be used as a replacement hence extending the life of humans by double & more. So, if humans are cloned then we may probably be getting into such cases...

By the way, is Kamal's 'Dasaavathaaram' based on human cloning?

Public Inconvenience

If you drive in a Indian National Highway at night time, you sure can feel the burning sensation in your eyes because of all those glaring lights ahead of you. Today as I was coming back to house driving through the city, I felt the same way... This is because the street lights are all switched off and the streets & roads are too dark. I was in fact cursing people for not switching on the street lamps.

But I realized that it is not the switchman issue today but because of a political party which has organized a public meeting that too not in a ground but in its head office itself which is in fact located at one of the good spots of the city.

No wonder there is too much of crowd, too much of darkness, too many vehicles, too many traffic jams and all power supply only for that meeting. Why the leaders always want to be a public nuisance?

Automation but from outside

To my understanding about the Process Industries automation market, Invensys really has some of the best products in the sector. No other HMI product is even close to that of Invensys. Also, many other products for data collection, logging & reporting from plant floor are also available in Invensys under different sub-groups.

But what turns out to be a surprise is, why Eurotherm has opted to go out of the organization to look for a similar product from ODS. I guess anyone can make a good justification - Eurotherm could have become an internal customer to one of Invensys' sub-group itself. This could've been really cost effective.

Footboard Travelling:)

Avoid footboard travelling...:)

-Thanks to Anil

Thirukkural not on net?

A quick Google for Thirukkural in Tamil and its meaning in English/Tamil is not yielding any positive result. Most of the references lead to what Thirukkural is & who Thiruvalluvar is. There is also couple of locations which gives us all the Kurals but not the complete picture.

How different? Is there no place in net to give explanations for the verses?

Optimizing Business Efficiency

When I used CPlex for deciding the number of part-time & full-time resources to be employed during the four climatic seasons for the accounting department of Huntington Bank and that too with Mixed Integer programming, I didn't find a big deal of it. Because once I was able to clear off the variables, constraints, assumptions, inputs and the optimization equation CPlex was more like using any other tool or language to put my requirements into equations to get the answers which I need.

So, how far CPlex 11 is going to be more useful? Does it have it's own library functions? Are there in built equations which we can tweak for our needs?

ERP to ECS

Though there is quite some good market that can be catered with ERP systems, organizations which are very much stable now with their existing ERP are looking to move forward. The shift is quite visible in the process industries who are moving from ERP systems to Enterprise Control Systems - The system where the ERP will be integrated with real time data collection & reporting from the plant floor environment so that the top management get better visibility...

IPS & SAP are working closely on this. A new terminology at the classes of Operations Management & Supply Chain Management in B Schools:)

HCL - Out of the box

HCL one of the IT outsourcing companies from India is recently being talked about a lot - not for how the company is performing in market but - for the management's approach towards employees. This article in Business Week throws some light on the same.

So, do we get to see our seniors' ranking at any point of time? Will there be a day when the management says 'Employees first! Customers second'. I doubt that!

Also, the brief detail about Nayar is quite encouraing...

"Tall and forthright, Nayar, 45, didn't arrive at the top of HCL Technologies easily. Plunged into poverty in his teens after his father's death, Nayar and his two brothers took turns working, so the brothers not working could study. After seven years as an engineer at HCL, he was tapped to run an internal startup, where he tested out some of his ideas. Nayar can be something of a management iconoclast, unafraid of making provocative statements."

Tax Returns

After quite some years I filed my tax returns at India. I was quite positive because the returns are getting filed online and you also have the option to auto-credit the balance amount from the federals to your bank directly.

Being in US for few years, I was really expecting the returns to come back to me like in may be a week. I know, it is ofcourse too much to ask and that too in India - So, I extended my expectation to say 2 months. But Indian government officials and the organizations never plan to improve or increase their efficiency even after so much of computerization. From the start of April till now, there is no hint about my money coming back.

Looks like I can't keep waiting like this forever. May be I need to take actions to speed up the process of getting back my money. Any experiences? Will I be pulled in for corruption? Is this going to be a smooth process? Or can we reliably wait?

Sriperumbadur...

Hmmm... I happened to go to Sriperumbadur - The place known for Rajiv Gandhi's assassination - recently. People have had been talking about so much of industrial developments happening in that place - Like Hyundai factory, Dell factory, today Samsung announcing its manufacturing facility, SIPCOT promoting the place like anything and so on. Actually, Chennai is thinking about its new expanded international airport in that locality.

With so many things going on what I realized out there is, there is no increase in land value or for real estate investment in that locality. Sriperumbadur is more like becoming an extended Chennai and actually my expectation was that more of human settlements will happen around the locality to take advantage of the industrial developments happening. But the areas seem like they are made just for industries with very few houses coming up. Any reasoning?

Twins

If it is tough to digest a fact like this news for me or for you, just imagine the plight of her parents, how the baby would have undergone such a huge operation at 2 years and the 30 surgeons' condition.

Parents will ofcourse be happy if they know that they are going to have twins. But because of different multi-birth issues which we are seeing in the media the parents should also be prepared for such unwanted tensions & any extreme conditions.

Air Conditioner Criteria

I happened to run a quick research on Air Conditioners and how to select one of them... But the number of criteria seems to be a lot. So just look for the following if you are making a decision.

• Brand
• Price
• Window or Split
  
• Dimension (in door, out door)
  
• BTU (Ton) - This depends on your room capacity. 12000 BTU = 1 ton. And the products range from 8000 to 36000 BTUs. Also, remember to select the BTU based on the total volume that'll be empty in the room, how much will be the usual temperature in the room, how many people & how often do they access the room, which floor the room is in if you are staying in multi-storied building. (Check reference)
  
• EER (represents energy saving) - Move closer to 10.78
• Noise Level - Products range from 25 to 50
• Type of compressor - Rotary (is preferred with less noise) vs Reciprocating
  
• Digital (non-analog)
  
• Fan Speed settings (how many)
• Air direction
• Types of filters - Anti-Bacteria, deo-odorizing (Some new varieties are Plasma etc)
• Ease of cleaning filter
  
• Dehumidification
• Auto restart, Timer, Energy Saver - Really helps in saving energy
• Warranty
• Remote Control
• Preferable - Fast cooling, Child lock
  

Beggars

For quite sometime, I have been counting the number of beggars I'm bumping into (I'll explain the reason down). But from start of yesterday evening till today morning when I was traveling in a train I ended up counting 20.

For sure we won't be seeing so many beggars everyday but such a big number really makes me feel pity for the condition of India. It is ofcourse a very sad feeling but that is not something which makes me feel sympathetic towards those beggars. I'm someone who'll strongly discourage the act of begging.

At the same time, I would like to encourage the act of serving the society by all those charity based NPOs - They also depict the bad state of many individuals and in turn, our country. So, linking the above two - The number of beggars will be converted to a factorized currency amount for charity donation.

Life...

There are other topics on which I had some discussion in past couple of days... May be we can call it a bit philosophical because ultimately the discussions ended up unanswered and the pending questions are like...

• Can we control the functioning of our body? I mean the internal parts like heart, digestive system etc do function on their own and till now we haven't found a way to control them using our brains. Why can't we treat them as our external organs like hand, leg etc?
• Why do we live? Our life span is so short like for 80 years when compared to that of the universe which has been existing for ever but 80 years is no short time for a man. So, what is our life purpose?

Whatever it is... Just enjoy life, those feelings & every single moment - Because life is to be lived.

Indian Majority...

One of my discussions recently went in the direction of how the 'Majorities" (compared to Minorities) are being treated and why they are not gaining enough attention from media and others. There were so many issues put forth and I was more a listener because I never have had thoughts in that direction...

• What happened to all those victims from 1984 Sikh massacre? Did they really receive some compensation?
• What happened to all those who got burnt in 2002 at Godhra? They were just pilgrims returning from a holy trip and they were all burnt to death with petrol & closed train doors. Did they receive enough attention and justice? But why the Muslims alone who died because of Hindu leaders alone becoming a burning issue after 5 years?
• How could Karunanidhi make a call that there is no Ram god? Can he do the same against Christians or Muslims?
• Why is Rizwan's (the husband of Priyanka) death alone getting so much of attention? Aren't such things being committed against Hindus too?
• The beating of Taslima Nasreen in Hyderabad on her articles against Muslims gained more attention...
  
• And so on & many more...

Aren't Hindus not properly being represented in their home land? Or have Hindus become emotionless...?

Indian Business Market

As I was travelling around during Diwali, I happened to know that one of my relatives is working for Honeywell contols at Chicago and it seems, has been trying to get back to India for quite sometime. To my surprise he has lost faith in getting a good break in India as he is not getting the job he needs after a try for like 5 years. That is in fact surprising in such a booming economy like India.

So, are the developments happening only in software & IT sectors in India? And as we can always hear now a days, are the Reliances & the Ambanis the only people from large cap & from sectors other than IT who are driving the Indian markets? May be it is true, because my relative revealed another truth that Honeywell has their development center at Madurai and not in any of the major IT hubs in India. And that is one of their primary strategies to reduce their costs. Everyday, many leaders in IT sector keep discussing about India not being an cheap labour place any longer, but the reality is still the IT jobs are being pushed into India to only reduce the costs.

Well, at the other end yet another relative was telling me how the textile market has always been on the boom. Most of the branded clothings at US can be seen to be made at Asian countries like Pakistan, India, Thailand & Indonesia. My relative is at one of the top posts at a factory meeting more than 40% of Victoria Secrets demands... How surprising - Those luxury lingerie niche market being catered by Limited Brands is mostly from India?

Lights

WISH U ALL A VERY HAPPY, SAFE & PROSPEROUS DIWALI!!!

Can all traditions be followed?

There are many traditions in Indian & Hindu culture and they have been followed blindly by our ancestors, parents & even by us. But can all of them be followed as they are?

This topic is out here because of Jaswant Singh's recent controversy of serving diluted opium as per a tradition in Rajastan for an occasion. Jaswant being a senior BJP leader, one of the ex-Foreign minister & ex-Finance minister should definitely have had given this some thoughts.

This issue is getting enough recognition that this'll sure set an example for everyone from committing such blind crimes... What say?

Slump...

With effects of US subprime crisis still lingering, European markets are facing hardships. The latest news is about CitiGroup CEO stepping down.

But what is going on in the slow moving Industrial Automation market? When the whole European market is in slump, Invensys has gained. Heard from Ulf Henricksson CEO that actually the firm is going back to acquisition formula starting with Cimnet & its 'Factelligence' technology. But seems like the firm is actually reorganizing itself - like that of APV sell-off, the recent news on takeover talks in the controls segment and the heavy concentration on Railways... Wait n watch...

2 Q's for Today

• Why is Pakistan cricket team asked to continue their tour in India in spite of their nation being in Emergency? Is it possible for an individual to concentrate on things when his home country is under military rule?
• Why is Gold price increasing non-stop and is beating some 8 year old records? Is it because of USD value declining?
  

Emergency...

George Bush has always been keeping US people under fear of terrorism and attacks and Musharraf is no different.

He has also been trying to keep Pakistan under his control - now with things all going against him and not able to stop the violences - he is imposing emergency in the whole of Pakistan. My guess is the Supreme Court decision on his running for Presidency as Military chief should be going against him. The rule always applies - "Never ever take a military ruler or a dictator for goodness of a country".

US should first stop funding Pakistan & supporting Pervez. That'll probably initiate to put a full stop for his dictatorship...

Auto Strike

I still can't understand the reason behind all these auto rickshaws in strike at Hyderabad. There are two good things that are happening now...
1) All autos compulsorily need to have digital meters. This is just not a change but for sure it is going to help public. Not like in other places like Chennai where autos do have digital meters but the prices are still on bargain basis. Here in hyderabad, auto drivers do respect meters mostly but the only problem is many autos do have tampered meters. So, can you understand my doubt? These people still want analog meters so that they can tamper and exploit the passengers. The basic reason behind the strike is itself invalid.
2) The next action which the Andhra government has proposed is just like Mumbai - To move away from autos to taxis & cabs in few years. This is just to reduce and avoid traffic congestions it seems. Though I still am not able to find the logical reasoning behind this, but still may be a good move. Because the government is providing additional benefits for the auto owners & drivers who would come forward for this transition.
Hope things will be settled soon and public will reap the benefits soon.

Happy Days

No other big budget, hyped up - Chiruta, Adithi, Tulasi - movie are able to stand this low budget 'Happy Days'. With an increased curiosity I watched it and it does meet all your expectations. Actually speaking, this is about college days - seniors, ragging, friendship, love - and so there is not much of a story... The movie stands out because of screenplay, dialogue delivery, expressions & ofcourse a great music. I had always had the opinion that Telugu crowd goes for those colorful masala commercial story with lots of actions, songs & dance. But just like the other film Anand, Telugu fans have yet another time appreciated the well made story.

If you get a chance & if you still are young at heart, you just want to check this movie. Triggers all those sweet memories from your college days...

Trains' open toilets

I guess India is the only country which has trains with all those open toilets. Just imagine how many trains, how many couches, the number of bathrooms, the number of people traveling... And everyone is contributing to a public health disaster in all those tracks which are the basic infrastructures connecting the nook & corner of the country. I with my mom, have been traveling very often now a days in trains and whenever I use the toilets I feel for the country and all those rural people who stay near the railway tracks. I guess, everyone will have that feeling...

With World Toilet Summit 2007 happening in India now, I guess Lalu should get ideas from the same, put his surplus funds from the railway ministry into use and take an initiative to put an end to this health hazard (as noted in The Hindu daily)

Translate

Such a nice editor from Google - You just type the localized words in English as you speak or as you are used to typing in your IM windows and you'll see them right away getting converted into the localized script with the PERFECT spelling. And the best part is it supports some of the important Indian langs like Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam & Kannada.

Just check it out!

Before All?

Sometimes we get to know the hot news from someone else before we actually hear it from THE person.

This has happened some times for me but I always wonder how people do get inside information about a company & the proceedings there before even the employees get to know the actual news. One website which has always amazed me like this is Jim Pinto's. He has always come up with the latest sensational news in the industrial automation industry - be it Siemens, Rockwell, ABB, Invensys - before even the CEO decides to make the announcement to the public. Like today's event of APV sales or Mike Bradley's stepping down...

The problem zooms in when the stakeholders get to know such info from such third parties.

Soap...

I feel most of us will accept what soaps or mega-serials really stand for - Something that represents slowness, sadness and only sadness by playing with feelings of so many nicely built families. They generally give ideas on how to spoil the goodness in a family environment and I always wonder how people consider them as good entertainers.

For me an entertainment should be something that will give you happiness, give positive feelings, make us forget our worries when we are seeing the same and that also represents out lives. I hadn't longed for a different soap which can provide all these, but there is one mega-serial in Tamil called Kanaa Kaanum Kaalangal which meets all my requirements. If you have been missing this, I'm not asking you to start watching it because even I don't know how things in the same will change tomorrow. But if you get a chance, do watch it till now & then continue watching from now.

I think Vijay TV (Tamil) is a major trend setter for new varieties of programs. Every other channel comes next with a blatantly copied very same type of program. If other channels can also copy mega-serials just like how Kanaa Kaanum Kaalangal is made, that'll be great.

Black

I guess many people do like Black color like me and that is one of the reasons for designing this blog page with that color. But that isn't the primary reason though.

It seems using black color in a web page is going to reduce the amount of energy consumption when the same is visited. A small service from my end for all those people who visit my blog. To my surprise, I recently ran into this website Blackle and glad that it is also designed on the same logic - No doubt, that can save a lot of energy...

Blood...

I haven't found an answer for couple of questions related to blood donation till now.

• Why the prescribed frequency of blood donation per individual in US is more than those in India? Like in US, a person can donate blood every 56 days (8 weeks) while in India a person can donate only after 90 days (or say 13 weeks).
• Also, a person in India can donate blood just by proving that he is healthy and doesn't have any disease. But that in US, when we keep answering those 50 interview questions before giving blood, we'll end up knowing that we can't donate blood if we haven't stayed in US for one complete year. They have placed countries like India as malaria prone and hence, if I have been in India within last 1 year then I'll become ineligible for donating blood in US. I had always felt very much discouraged because of this restriction. With all those medical advances and that too in US, why can't they just test the blood to get confidence of using the blood?

When I walked into a blood bank recently in India for blood donation my enthusiasm was turned down because it seems they had surplus of blood in all groups including mine. Though I felt a bit dejected, I guess anyone will be equally happy too when you come to know of the greater public knowledge about blood donation and their increased voluntary participations...

Value of Life

Pity those who died in those 2002 Gujarat riots & Pakistan blasts on Bhutto arrival. Why is it so bad that the politicians are not valuing the life of humans?

One of Benazir's relative allegedly blamed Bhutto herself as planning the attack. Who knows? May be she did just to create importance for her arrival back into Pakistan...

And the Tehelka-Headlines Today expose of Narendra Modi and other Shiv Sainik, VHP leaders on the 2002 Gujarat riots. How can they call themselves as leaders? A mass murderer, after killing like 10 people & ripping open a pregnant woman's stomach calls up Home Minister to take care of the situation. Dirty politics has grown its roots into Devil politics and it affects every single Indian. All these just shows how the largest democracy is being run - Some leaders of the country are mo more than mass murderers.

Think Big & Long

I'm sure everyone in the world think about savings and investments but there is always a tendency for the people to think about short term gains. I won't say it is bad if the gains we are making are really based on need. But with sound justifications & analysis, we sure can reap greater benefits if we are thinking about longer terms.

When we think about say Fixed Deposits in India, ICICI bank is giving as much as 10% ROI and that too for Senior Citizens for a period of 390 days. I wrote about NFO's in Mutual Funds. Is it the same scenario? After say an year of investment in a NFO for Rs. 10/- per unit, are you going to be satisfied with Rs. 12 per unit where you feel you have made 20% returns against a 10% return in Term deposits.

So, why not we start thinking big? How about a 1500% to 2000% returns after say a period of 10 years? Everyone knows that the markets are a bit risky, with a sound base risks will give good returns. Instead of just stopping at term deposits, a real-estate investment and that too on a loan for say 15 years, we should start allocating our funds for longer terms making sure that we can get greater benefits than a mere 15% or so.

I guess, we have lots of lessons to learn from all those investors who would have put their funds in say Infosys long long ago and have waited for such a long time to become crorepati's. Market is like a river - Just make sure you take water out of it when there is surplus.

Cars' Onstar

There was a day in US when I went for an auto show and I did get a chance to drive any car I like. There were so many options that I had to run for next choice because I had that only day to drive the best & the luxurious cars of today.

In that auto show, I had my first experience of OnStar technology in one of the GM cars. I was in the car which was central locked. On press of the OnStar button, a customer service rep started conversing. I asked about the location of the car and they could tell that. So, now I really wanna test them and so asked them to unlock the car & start the ignition. Voila! The next moment all doors showed unlock & the car started. How nice!

And now the technology has taken one more step further by controlling the speed of the vehicle. As of now, they have taken this to a level where a stolen car can be stopped (by not allowing fuel to flow to the engine) from remote location, ofcourse after getting confirmation from the car vehicle owner & the cops.

I think this technology should become more sophisticated where if the car exceeds the defined speed limit in the location by more than 5Miles/Hour, then warning should be shown to the driver and if the driver continues to do the mistake for more than a specified time, the car should automatically start slowing down and go to auto cruise at the defined speed limit. And we can take this a lot more further...

Center Storm

It looks like the storm is taking position and soon it may be rocking the whole of India. Wonder what? What else... Left & UPA are not able to come to a consensus on the 123 N-Deal. The only problem is, the meetings are not transparent. Atleast the public should know what is being discussed.

If Left has a valid point, can't the UPA refine some details in the agreement going back to US? If it is vice versa, then it is an issue. If these people are not able to resolve such internal conflicts smoothly, how far will they ever go in solving the Kashmir issue?

Anyways, we can see bright prospects for the elections on its way. Agree?

Sandal Forest

The heading is the translation of the Tamil word 'Sandhana kaadu'. That is the mega serial name which is going to be screened in Makkal TV from Oct 15th. And all it is going to talk about is the slain sandalwood smuggler Veerappan's life.

Just because he had the support of the villagers in & around his locality, that doesn't make him a big hero or a Robin Hood. Does it? In either case, he is still an anti-social element and I really don't feel we should make a big reel-story about him. Why is the TN Govt or the court allowing this?

Killer Buses

People dying in accidents in India is very common but why is that the accidents involving Blueline buses at Delhi is creating a big hype? The worst case is almost every 2 months we keep hearing about them.

After all these and after today's incident, the NewDelhi CM reacts saying people should cross roads after seeing left & right. Are we talking about one or two people here? In total there are 7 deaths and couple injured - What an irresponsible remark!!

I seriously wish the public transport vehicles in India are also responsible enough like the ones in US. They always be in the rightmost lanes in normal city roads, if needed take the car pool lanes in freeways, always maintain the speed limits, the drivers give all help to old & disabled, give importance to pedestrians and the way they stop for sure before rail crossings...

Saturday Games...

American College football fever is at its peak this year with many top ranked teams losing their first games of the season - Kentucky, Florida, Wisconsin, Texas, Georgia and the best one (or rather the worst) USC.

Who would have imagined Stanford will throw away the #2 ranked in the last minute and that too at their ground itself bringing an end to a 35 home game winning streak? Being a Buckeye, I'm glad that things are working in the right direction towards the championship game after defeating Purdue today.

And in F1 it is all coming to Brazil grid to define the champion - Hamilton, Alonso or Raikkonen. Well ofcourse I didn't expect Hamilton to just go away without finishing the Shanghai circuit, after taking pole.

TA...

In one of the recent issues of MoneyLife, there was an article on Technical Analysis (TA). There was a blunt & out right rejection of this technique in analyzing stock prices to forecast the future. If so many finance related professors from big MBA instituitions have done analysis using the same besides Fundamental Analysis & Random Walks then are their researches worthless? Is there no value for Resistance & Support terminologies?

I'm atleast an ardent believer of data and information. I'll probably end up doing data analysis on my own & see what can be proved.

Fund Manager...

If you are thinking about Mutual Funds investment, this is one of the important things to know - Fund manager. But are we really investing on the Fund Manager? To some extent YES.

• Fund Manager is like a CEO. In many cases, he makes the decision on where to invest and in which direction a particular fund should move on.
  
• Then there are all these analysts who work for the AMC & the Fund Manager, who keep guiding and advising on where to go. May be to some extent the board of directors...
• And then the AMC itself and their maturity in MF.
  

If a Fund Manager moves on or comes in, you better be aware of this and make some informed-sound decision about your investments.

The question to be asked is, what kind of permission does the AMC give to the fund manager? If the Fund Manager has all the say to make, then it is dangerous because when the Fund Manager leaves the whole direction for the Fund itself leaves. There is a very chance that the fund will fall from say 50% returns to 1% returns or so.

So, just don't go by highly attractive fund names but go with the AMC, their Fund policies, the fund's past performance and to some extent, Fund Manager. But remember - All these come to picture after you have defined your portfolio.

Sharing..

Think twice before you download songs from internet because this copyright & file sharing lawsuit has favored the recording industry. As can be seen, the fine amount is also not in pennies. But who is to blamed - Is it the uploader, the provider or the downloader?

And in India, it is not a long way to go when all these copyrights issues come to foreground and the first thing that will be looked on to is internet.

ULIPs

Are ULIPs just better than normal Life Insurance? I just took the details from LIC.

In first case, I took Jeevan Surabhi for 20 years with insurance for Rs 2 Lakhs. The website says that we got to pay like Rs 18000/- per year for next 15 years as premium and hence, at the end of 20 years we get Rs. 2 Lakhs plus whatever bonus is applicable say in total Rs. 4.5 Lakhs.

It seems, LIC all over the nation went crazy on March 31st with uncontrollable number of Money Plus account registrations. So, doing similar calculations with Money Plus -

• Rs. 18000 payment for 15 Years
• Complete term as 20 Years
• Returns coming at the range of 5% to 25% per year (randomly generated)

- we are essentially looking into returns of Rs. 18 Lakhs plus Rs. 1.8 Lakhs of insured sum. Quite possible and quite some good returns compared to just a Life Insurance. Agree?

Columbia Prez

Is the invitation by the President of University of Columbia or by the dean of International & Public Affairs school doesn't matter. What matters is, president of Iran has been invited and Ahmedinejad has also come in after accepting the invitation. Bollinger, President of the University should atleast have come into the picture when decision to invite was made.

Now after the Iran leader has walked in, why to make all those derogatory comments right on the introductory speech itself? Is that a way to prove to the whole world that Bollinger is not interested in having Iran President in his campus. Would he have made such comments against North Korea leader or China leader? I feel - A person on campus for a speech after invitation should be treated with dignity.

Quotes from Bollinger & Ahmedinejad...

Jodi #1...

I haven't been checking out this year's Jodi #1 program in Vijay TV - Well, I did somewhat last year when the season finals came by - as am no more interested. But when I saw yesterday's ad on the same about the upcoming events I felt I should just write about it or rather on the people who are involved.

Prithvi is someone who will fall on top of my list of hated actors. So, when I saw him dance which in fact had no dance movements I was sure the program is worthless.

Then comes Simbu who has in fact climbed on the ladder of acting & performances only because of his own efforts. As always, he talked a lot and was very straight forward in criticizing Prithvi. Well, it was good that both had some heated discussions.

But, ultimately both started crying, became emotional and Simbu calling himself to be eliminated. Ohh... What a sensational turn!!! For me, it was more like what a crap!!?? Somethings are unexplainable like I don't understand why would people watch two MEN cry for no reason... Two Thumbs DOWN from me!!!

The Markets...

At one end, there is way too much inflow of foreign funds into India and that is making the Sensex reach 1000's within matter of 3-4 days. With lingering around 18000 - that is like 3000 increase in 3 months - every small & retail investor should be very cautious to play as the Finance Minister has put forth. Just a quick look gives us the idea - The hype hasn't reduced for infrastructure & real estate. All Basic/Engg, Cement, Construction, Metals and ofcourse the Financial services are all the key players.

While at the other end, INR is knocking doors of Rs39/$, and it is seen to end at Rs.37.5/$. Many small Cos, BPOs, Exports & especially IT industries are already affected and it's gonna get worse. Likewise, the importers are becoming strong competitors 'coz of their reducing costs for the domestic manufacturers. And obviously, NRI don't want to sell their currencies in loss.

It's 2 different ends driving the Indian market today.

Politics - Never Trust

We all know Indian politicians are all opportunists. Likewise, they only use the things in their favor and after that, who cares.

As Yashwant Sinha rightly put, T20 form is much famous in Indian politics before the cricket version. The 20 months of sharing power between JD(s) & BJP in Karnataka. Well, the only thing that should be remembered is, this is not cricket but politics. Never trust.

At this point, it seems like Kumarasamy has taken advantage of BJP's trust for past 20 months and is not ready to pay back. Typical Indian politics...

Be Positive...

The latest Oct 11th edition of MoneyLife magazine has a page on 'Positive Thinking' (Author - Ms. Sheth). Nice 5 points which will sure add value to life.

• Be a hopeful person
• Drawing cheers from others
• Making others around you positive
• Staying confident during a crisis
• Letting optimism linger

All we need to do is put our thoughts together for being positive and that's gonna bring change.

Mahatma's day

I think this is just a flow of thoughts on India's improvements...

• Roads to every nook & corner of India
• Improve road conditions for daily work commutation - All those stagnant waters & pot holes
• Improve tourism
• Corruption & Bribery - What a shame...
• Basic level of education to every Indian kid & citizen
• Improve Health Care system - Reach needy, the emergency times when an ambulance doesn't reach you
• Child employment - Just remove it...
• Infrastructure - Not only in metros & cosmos. All those small cities, towns & villages
• Usage of public transport as much
• Obey traffic rules, regulations & safety
  
• Increase pride in our culture - Well, maintain them
• Cleanliness in every place
• Those posters on walls...Just stop them
  
• Small scale industries development
• Why every farmer is not seen as an Indian - All these fights of sharing river water & dam constructions - Better to connect Indian rivers
• Improving legal system
• Improving faith in Police system
• Media is more powerful than ever. Need to put them for better use
• Address security concerns in public places
• Bring out talents from individuals
• Recognize & increase sports participation in international level
• Increase R&D, bring out enterpreneurs
• PAN# usage like SSN - How about requirement of PAN for every transaction above Rs5000, for every savings account created... Probably use cell revolution to this advantage. Every cell holder needs a PAN... Every PAN number should file tax returns
• More & more computerization in man's daily needs, encourage electronic transactions
• Sales Tax/Value Added Tax - Bill for every shopping purchase
• Rain water usage & harvesting
• Improving drainage water system
• Eradicate prostitution
  
• Encourage people to invest
• Helping rural - Like the Aam Aadmi Bhima Yojna scheme getting introduced today
• Encouraging humanitarian charity based NPO
• Moving away from caste based reservations and towards reservations on financial basis

Looks like this is not gonna stop.
So, the responsibility falls on every common man to the whole government system.

Home Loan Cuts

Those are very positive signs coming up from the banks for the festive season. Well, after the Sub Prime crisis, it can be seen that Indian banks don't want to take chances and really want to put money in circulation.

Why not, because for last 4-5 years the number of housing loan requirements were huge and presently the number increase should have been cut by say one-fifth. After HDFC announcing 75 BPs, SBI has also hinted on the same. Going by the trend from BoB, Allahabad Bank & so on, can the existing customers be positive about reduction in their floating rates? Increments will happen for everyone simultaneously, but not the other way around.

A very good housing loan customer who keeps paying back on time, can never expect such a rate reduction to happen. Obviously, the customer should move out or atleast threaten to move out. Ain't not?

Global Funds

Well, ofcourse there is a surge in the number of Global funds in the Mutual Fund market in the recent months, but do we really need to invest in them? Before taking a step forward here are all the points to be considered.

1. All funds are new to the market & may be in a year they'll all change from Rs.10 to Rs12. If you are going to be satisfied with 20% returns then you have green. But if you are looking into long term, then let's wait till the funds perform for some time.
2. If you are thinking for diversification, then this is not the right choice because most of the funds are giving 65% equities from Indian market. The remaining are also from similar markets like Emerging, Chinese, South east asian countries. So, essentially we are not looking into diversification. But, we can probably consider Birla Sunlife Intl. Equity Fund Plan A.
3. In longer term , think about the currency value change and the risk we are taking because of the same. The profit may become a loss.
   
4. I did some more research on FoF terminology and realized that these funds deposit money in global mutual funds and they are not going to invest directly in foreign equities. It is only double fund management expense from the customer end which goes hidden in NAV.
5. Atlast, the AMCs are so immature in global funds.

So, my point - Sit back, relax, watch it out & then go for them.

Mushy Rules

After all the hype, Musharraf is still ruling Pakistan and he will hold his post of Military Chief when he is running for the post of President.

At one end, an election says that Pakistan is once again moving back to democracy but who has control over the military, not the President but the military chief. In either case, Musharraf will hold Presidency & select a military chief of his own choice or he'll retain the post of military chief, if he is defeated in election.

So, ultimately after a democratic election Musharraf will have good control of almost everything in Pakistan. Is it not?

Climate Look

You got any idea why Bush is backing climatic stuffs and want actions against Global warming suddenly after all these 6 years of in power? Well, obviously he & his government are under pressure for not taking any actions on that side.

For all these years he has been always behind the oil business and that in fact has increased the "emission" rate... Should be, agree? But what is to worry is, he hasn't made any proposals for immediate actions and stringent measures that can help. It is all voluntary & a call to nations to join voluntarily. But, glad that he has atleast touched this point at this point of time which has got some wide spread attention & will starting waking up things...

Restart...

It is ofcourse time for me to restart things & be a bit more regular in writing here. I'll sure give it a shot.

Let's start with Sivaji-The boss. Man... That's like very thin line story from a good director and the lavish spending for nothing, lots of comedy sequence and the extravagant settings for the songs... Nothing more can I recall in that. I just heard that the car stunt sequnce in the drive-in theatre drank like more than 3 crore rupees... Not worth it.Whatever...

BTW, I think I'll start sharing some details the invenstment options available at India and may be put some points on how we can make our hard earned money work a bit harder for us. Hmm.. Let's start with MF - First piece of advice - Past doesn't represent Future. I'll continue...hopefully.

'Thomas' Recalled

1.5 Million is a lot and that too all those products purchased from 2005 to 2007.

Thomas is a real craze for kids in US and I see almost every other kid playing with 'Thomas & his friends'. This is bad - what we are seeing as recall is because of toxic lead as one of the ingredients in the paints used and that sure is not a good sign when it comes to the kids. Hope all the parents are listening...

And what'sup with the False Colgate toothpastes? Is there anyway a consuler manufacturer can give a confidence that we are buying their products only?

Team Work

Fight till the end!

Amazing Audio

Electricity... W/o Wires...

Who would not look forward to this - Wireless way of transferring electricity?

I have always wanted this to happen, & atlast a news on the same. Hope, this comes reacheable soon for daily use.

Infra...MFs

India has been growing like anything and ofcourse, the growths are visible by the so many infrastructural developments going on in any big & smaller cities you take.

I just don't understand this. With all these developments being compulsorily taken care of, especially the flyovers which are becoming more & more essential as lands are becoming unavailable for widespread expansion, why there are very less Mutual Funds which are concentrating on this area. I just see only 5 of them and they have come up in the past 1 year or so.

Are they being cautious that such developments are temporary? Even any common man can see that such developments are gonna be temporary inside the cities, any new improvements and city planning in the outskirts now a days starts with such infra structural developments first, just like the case with US... Hmmm...

Extradition...

So, it's more than a month for me to scribe things... Well, that really explains how busy I have been. Hope this busyness will ease out in the coming months...

Well. It's been more than a decade that Indian CBI has been trying to extradite Quottrocchi & still they don't have proper evidence to show to any government. This time it is Argentina and few years back like in 2002, it was Malaysia.

So, what have these guys been doing all these years without collecting proper evidence? That too, if we think this to have great political affinity the BJP government should have pushed for getting all the details against Q... When I'm always proud of how the system works at any common man level in India, I too have very low feelings at the other end when it comes to the corruption and how the system fail to work at all these high profile level in India...

Just Simple...

If you are lost, or if you need information on anything, you just need to dial a number. The 'Just Dial' business is as innovative as Google's Web Ad business is.

I just gave it a try and am quite impressed with the promptness of the service & the correctness of the details they have provided me. Ofcourse, they also propose or rather market for the registration of any customer's business with them... the Funders besides the back end investors. Check the article, which the company is proud of to send out to their customers.

Illusion

Hype...

Well, after Tyson & Holyfield, I have got no idea on what has been happening in the Boxing front...

But, today obviously things are different, because for the past 2 days I have been hearing & seeing a lot about the much hyped up fight at MGM grand, Las Vegas on May 5th evening.

A real good hype... I think, by now the fight between Oscar & Floyd would have started and I'm already eagerly looking for the results at ESPN & FoxSports:)

The Link

Till now, though I have photos at Flickr too, I'm more of a Yahoo photos guy. And from the time I read the news that Yahoo Photos is closing, I just am looking for the ways to move the photos to a different site. Well, the details from Yahoo Photos are promising.

Select from among the photo sharing services offered (Flickr, Kodak Gallery,
Shutterfly, Snapfish, and Photobucket) and they will move the photos for you.
You’ll need to verify your Yahoo! account information and either create a new
account or login with an existing account at that other service, but beyond that
they’ll take care of the rest.

But, where is the link inside Yahoo or Flickr to transfer the photos? I have been searching for that one click transfer option... God, why can't these people make things simpler? They want Happy Customers - Word Sake?

Prayers...

I just can't imagine the grief my good friend Chris Coble will currently be undergoing because of his personal loss.

Dear Chris,
My prayers to God for you and your family to give enough strength and be with you during these hard times...

That Bad?

Spiderman 3... With the hype & the trailers, I had a good intention of watching thinking this should be a 'can't be missed' sequel.
With all the reviews coming out as, this is no different from the previous releases, this is with over-dose of characters, villians & the black/dark side of a Spiderman shows just human feelings, I'm not even feeling worth to walk into a theatre for this... What say?

"Responsible"

"Responsible" is the word that has been used by US President Bush for the funds the has urged from the congress for the continued war spending on Iraq & Afghan. I think, everyone of us will get this question - Does that mean, till now all the tax paid money hasn't been spent responsibly?

The past talks for future and how can we reliably say that now by Oct 1, most of US troops will be withdrawn from those sands... which the latest plan boasts for. With the present situation, can we atleast expect all the troops moving out by March 2008? From the time Bush took over Presidency for the second time, the plan is on for pulling out troops... but we are already thinking about the next presidential election.

The most powerful man from the world's influential nation is making plans & plans, provided too much of funds & still asking for more, many have left offices & many new faces have turned in, but ultimately things are not materializing:(

New24.com reports

"At the same time, he warned that if radical Islamists take control of Iraq,
they would have control of a nation with massive oil reserves, which they could
use to fund their ambitions and spread their influence."

I wish & hope, that the oil reserves will be in the hands of Iraq & their government... Not with radicals or with US...

And here is something more to the concerns...

The 'Wal' Rocks

The lines in a BW article read

The fallout is evident: After closing 70 stores in February, Circuit City Stores (CC) on Mar. 28 laid off 3,400 employees and put its 800 Canadian stores on the block. Tweeter Home Entertainment Group (TWTR), the high-end home entertainment store, is shuttering 49 of its 153 stores and dismissed 650 workers. Dallas-based CompUSA is closing 126 of its 229 stores, and regional retailer Rex Stores (RSC) is boarding up dozens of outlets, as well as selling 94 of its 211 stores.

And all these are attributed to "WalMart Effect". We all know, they strive for the lowest prices but... WalMart is making disastrous differences. They are not only stopping the producers & manufacturers from deciding the prices and reaching out the customers, but now even the other retailers are not finding ways to stop WalMart.
Well, the above fall is attributed to the slashing of prices by WalMart in the Plasma & LCD TV segments.
Can 'Warehouse' based stores make some difference in this so that the 'Wal' can be made weak?

Banned?

Not sure why this got banned...!

Bad Use of Gun...

What an end to an employee's year end review...

If you have performed bad for one full year & if the manager makes a point about the same at the year end appraisal, it is not right to take weapons to end the life of the manager... I really didn't expect at the least, that to happen at NASA in Houston.

BTW, when is US policies going to change with respect to usage of Guns at domestic levels. We have already heard lots of times of school children using gun at school & now, within a span of 10 days we have heard of 2 more bad examples.

Peace... at a common man's community is more than sufficient. Ain't it?

Red @ Pole...Once again

So, after the Australian GP ending up with Raikkonen, now its time for Massa to be in the pole position at Malaysia. So, it is going to be a Red Ferrari once again today or is Alonso going to take over from 2nd pole?

I wish I can follow these a bit more closer.

Bangla Rocks

I guess after shocking India in the Cricket World Cup, now its the time for the Proteas to get the shock from the same Bangladesh Cricket team in the Super 8.

I guess, the one thing to which I should attribute this success of Bangladesh is to the present coach Dav Whatmore - Guess I spelt him correctly... He is striving to bring success to whichever team he is coaching and if he continues his coaching for the Bangladesh team for some more time, that team will get its own competitive identity...

Debate on Master...

Atlast a debate all over India on the retirement of senior players and especially on Sachin Tendulkar's form, his performances lately, his way of playing only matches & not match winning innings... Thanks to Ian Chappell.

But Sachin will take his own time to retire & sure, there are wide & better oppurtunities awaiting him - What else, a coach for a big team which will pay him more than his current cricket salary...

The Hour of darkness

The line that attracted me in the article from Sydney Morning Herald is
"...the Coca Cola sign at Kings Cross was switched off for the first time since it was illuminated in 1974."

It is called 'Earth Hour' - A campaign of its own kind to switch off all the lights and other unused electrical appliances for an hour from 7.30PM to 8.30PM on 31st March 2007 in the whole of Sydney, Australia.

Not sure if it is a political stunt or if this really stands for reducing the Sydney's carbon emission, but sure it'll aid in some consumption of electrical power:)

Ad Campaign

Here is one of those Blue Billion Ad campaigns from Pepsi co.

And the great Indian huddle failed miserably in the World Cup, and with that goes all those ad campaigns from Pepsi based on Indian cricketers... Nothing Official about it, Ooh Aah India, Blue Billion, Ladega Toh Jeetega... A campaign worth INR 350 crore.

So, what next? What else for Indians & that too from Pepsi... Back to movie stars - Shahrukhs, Priyankas, Suryas & Maddys - Looking forward to...

Peanut Butter?

Do you remember - There was one news around 8 months back saying that a girl died after kissing her boy friend because she is allergic to peanut & the boy friend happened to have peanut butter before he kissed her?

Well, who knows! It may be because of the new name making rounds starting from World Health Organization to Korean & Chinese markets called Salmonella - Bacteria that can cause food poisoning & typhoid fever. The news is peanut butter brands Peter Pan & Great Value are contaminated with the said bacteria...

Rats...

So, what's up with these bunches of Rats marching into Fast Food Centers at New York? That is just a small view of what things have been hiding from normal public eyes. "Disgusting..." is the comments from most of the people.

More than disgusting, it is much more serious. For sure, food at most of the food establishments are "rat healthy" - Better to take actions than to wait, because its people's lives & health...:(

He Remembers...

--Thanks to Charanya

And A Beautiful Smile...

(Have a mild volume)

Laughter...

Where is Adam Air?

It is already 5 days over and still people are trying to find the Adam Air flight which went down with 102 people on board in Indonesia.

With so much of technological advancements, people are thinking and talking about tracking every single car, every person, every single component, advancements like RFID etc. Here in another corner, people are not sure about the location of a vanished plane?? Atleast, the plane's emergency locator should have been detected? Satellite pictures?

Looks like US team have arrived to help. Let's hope, we hear some news on the plane...

Lend Your Support...

'Sulochana Gardens' - The place where you'll be welcomed by the smiles of hundreds and for sure, your heart will melt on those smiles.

If you get a chance, visit Amar Seva Sangam. I being a frequent visitor & a regular donator for the same, would like to request your support for this organization. If you feel you wanna do something for humanity, I can guarantee that this is THE place.

Why don't you start now? This is just the apt time as the Sangam is getting ready for their yearly Mumbai Marathon.

LG 'n Warner - Better DVD Choices...

What I See...: Next Gen DVDs & their Early Adopters!
What I See...: A War on DVD!!

Warner Bros & Paramount are coming up with the DVD disc format called Total Hi-Def, which can be played in HD-DVD or BluRay DVD players. That's super cool. I guess, every other production firm will eventually end up doing the same. GM, 20th Century Fox, Disney, Universal - You guys need to help the consumers, I guess!

Well, at the other end LG is opening up a DVD player which can play both the HDDVD & Blu Ray formats. Now, that truly is a great business strategy. I'm just hoping LG will find better market than Sony, Hitachi, Philips or Toshiba. Instead of a consumer buying one format or the other DVD Player, the major group will feel to be on the safer side by buying LG's new upcoming model. So, does this LG's model play Total Hi-Def format?:)

One in a Lakh Person!

Every day in the walk of our life, we do meet different persons and the difference is in their characters.

Around 2 months back, a person named Mr. Ganga Raju walked into my life. I just wish I can thank him in better ways than by just saying that word THANKS and here is one - A place for him in my Blog:)

Why is he one in a lakh - Because, he doesn't expect anything back for all the extraordinary services he does for all the people around him.

He goes out of his way for others, spends days just for the sake of others, takes others around to different required places in his own car, provides his office time and space for others to do their activities & business, provides all types of contacts from his network to others, uses his influence/knowledge in getting things done for others and does, everything with utmost sincerity taking personal interest as if he is doing everything for his OWN sake.

After all these, all he needs is well-wishes & blessings from others and nothing more. I'm not sure if I'll walk into another such a person in my life. I'm not sure, if I can be like that...