NAVI'S BLOG

ABOUT LOVE

2007-08-12T07:13:00.000-07:00

Hello friends

When you love someone what is the most important thing you keep in mind that you never hurt your partner

but what if your partner still doesnt understand you

what i learned from my life is that love is very beautiful if your partner also love you but i tell you are left alone by your partner you are really sad

please try an understand me

LOVE BEGINS WITH SMILE , GROWS WITH TIME AND ENDS UP WITH TEARS

this is what i have learned with time

i love someone i dont know what kind of misunderstanding is there but that really made me sad and i am really upset about that so i hope anyone see my website please do pray to god that everything is ok between me and her please i really wanted to be with her so please do pray for me thanks

this is all i can ask on the name of love from you guys thanks

LOVE SOMEONE WITH A SMILE AND NEVER LET THAT PERSON CRY OK

Some good news for homemakers

2007-06-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

BY Kairav Shah
Insurance is normally meant for the income-earner of the family. This is because the earning capacity of the head of the family decides the insurance coverage that his family would require, in case of his demise.

However, insurance for housewives does not get that much importance as she is not an income-earner. So how does the insurance sector define women? They are broadly divided into three categories including:

Working women, who have their own incomes are treated on par with the males. Women, who have sizeable income by way of interest, dividend, rent and other streams that attract Income-Tax are also given life insurance without any extra premium or restrictions.

However, for housewives, the income of the husband is taken into account for life insurance purposes. That is, since the housewife does not earn an income, it is the husband whose income comes into focus here. As a result, the amount of insurance is often smaller. Here are some of the policies that such women can have.

Personal accident policy

Insurance companies provide compensation in the event of death or disability directly due to accident. This policy offers compensation in case of death or bodily injury to the insured person, directly and solely as a result of an accident, by external, visible and violent means.

The policy operates worldwide and is a 24-hour cover. Different policies are available ranging from a restricted cover of death only, to a comprehensive cover covering death, permanent and temporary disability. In case of a housewife, the maximum coverage has a cap of Rs 100,000 or 50 per cent of the husband's sum insured, whichever is lower.

Health policy

A normal health policy (by general insurance companies) can also be bought. The maximum sum assured here is Rs 500,000. One could also take two health insurance policies of Rs 500,000 each as the maximum limit for the non-salaried person is Rs 10 lakh (Rs 1 million).

This policy takes care of financial worries in case of hospitalisation. This policy also provides for cashless hospitalisation in India for the treatment of any illness or disease or accidental injury suffered during the policy period.

Critical illness policies

Housewives can also get themselves covered under critical illness policies. In a critical illness plan, one can insure oneself against the risk of serious illness in much the same way as one insure one's car and one's house.

It gives the same security of knowing that a guaranteed cash sum will be paid, if the unexpected and the unfortunate were to happen. A host of critical illnesses like cancer, multiple sclerosis, paralysis, coronary artery bypass surgery, major organ transplant, primary pulmonary arterial hypertension, first heart attack, aorta graft surgery and kidney failure are covered under this. There are no limits to the amount that one can take through these policies.

Overseas travel insurance

When they are travelling abroad, housewives can get themselves insured. The limits are different for different sectors. For instance, the minimum limit is $25,000 for whole Asia except Japan sector. For the rest of the world, it is $50,000. This policy covers medical expenses while travelling abroad for holidays. The premiums are payable in rupees and claims settled abroad in foreign currency.

Another policy, which is not directly meant for housewives is the insurance of risk during child birth and care policy. These policies are available from Rs 50,000 up to Rs 200,000.

This policy covers defects, deformity, malformation, congenital abnormality of any kind whatsoever at the time of delivery of the new born. Even if such a condition manifests itself within 200 days of the date of delivery, or before the expiry of the policy, whichever is earlier, is covered as long as it is of congenital nature.

However, there are exclusions that include post-delivery complications, still-born child, death of the mother, miscarriage, infanticide and any defect, which is not congenital, malfunctioning of any organ defect, which manifests itself after 200 days of the delivery.

Though there aren't many options at present, but housewives should use the ones that are there and get themselves insured adequately.

The writer is head of financial planning at Sykes & Ray Equities

The genesis of corruption in India

2007-06-25T15:34:00.000-07:00

They laugh at [Railway Minister] Lalu Prasad. They mock [Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister] Mayawati. They heckle [former chief minister of Tamil Nadu] Jayalalithaa. They taunt virtually every politician in India; for that matter every institution, secular or sacred. They have nothing but unadulterated scorn reserved for our leaders in public life.

Before the reader come to any other conclusion, let me hasten to add that this article is not about politician-bashing, or, indeed, supporting the politico.

Rather, this piece in is all about the declining morality of the elite Indian (not all, but a significant number of them) -- comprising lawyers, chartered accountants, doctors, management graduates and, of course, the media. In short, it is about all those who make, mend and mar every public debate, discourse and decision in India.

They usually have a view -- a lowly view on everyone -- except on others of their ilk for whom they reserve a holy view. Being rich, articulate and connected, they virtually terrorize everyone in public. They would always point at the problem in our systems, never to offer any solution. And precisely for that reason you can never argue with them, nor can you reason with them.

Naturally, when it suits them they would point out to the excellent traffic management abroad and when it doesn't suit them they would simply jump traffic signals in India. If caught they would flaunt their purse. If the policeman is unimpressed, they would flaunt their connections. Morality is always for others, for them it is flexible morality.

What is startling about them is the fact that the stench would be overwhelming should you dare to have a mere peek into their functioning. A former chief vigilance commissioner once remarked that corruption is respectful in India because people in respectable professions indulge in it. Despite their lack of morality, strangely, their opinion matters -- from Marx to markets -- in every public domain.

Consider the following:

The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) in the first week of June suspended senior advocates R K Anand and I U Khan, days after a sting operation by a news channel showed them purportedly colluding to influence a witness in the sensational BMW hit-and-run trial.
The SCBA had also issued show-cause notices then to the two criminal lawyers asking them to respond by July 20.
On June 19, the SCBA revoked the suspension of these two senior advocates. The suspension was revoked by its Executive Committee after considering a report by a three-member subcommittee, which said that "prima facie" it did "not find anything corrupt and/or offensive" against both the advocates.
Strangely everyone has greeted this development, including the television channel that originally exposed the two lawyers through a sting operation, with a thundering silence. If instead of lawyers the chief protagonists were MPs, would our reactions been as muted as it is now?

Did we not as one man seek suspensions for our MPs based on similar circumstances and evidences in a scam recently? Is it because of the fact that those MPs were not as educated or articulate as these gentlemen are that our decisions were swayed? Do we expect only our MPs to be punished based on such evidences while we extend the benefit of the doubt to others in similar circumstances? Or is our bias against the polity blinding us to the morality of the elite?

At an abstract level, Caesar's wife is above suspicion

What is amusing to note here is that professional bodies such as the Bar repeatedly harp on the maxim that Caesar's wife must be above suspicion. But that is at the abstract level, where everyone pontificates perfectly. However, when such majestic positioning is put to the simplest of tests, as in the present case, we have seen arguments getting stretched, technicalities invoked and benefit of the doubt getting extended to the maximum.

In such circumstances what is often forgotten is the 'fundamental requirement' from Caesar's wife.

This instance merely provides the contextual reference to a larger debate. What has been outlined through the revocation of these suspensions merely foretells the fate of the show-cause notices issued and the action that would follow by the SCBA.

Banks go belly up, yet no one is punished

The decision of the SCBA merely reflects the national character of compromise, especially when the elite of the country are involved.

As a case in point, let me highlight yet another classical instance of how morality becomes flexible in cases concerning the elite in my profession (i.e. accounting), too.

Readers may be aware of the disciplinary mechanism of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) to ensure complete compliance of the professional ethics and Code of Conduct prescribed by it.

The provisions contained therein are one of the most stringent when compared to any other in the world. Naturally, actions taken by the ICAI against errant members have also been on similar lines. There have hardly been any cases where Indian courts have prescribed a tougher punishment against such members than what was originally proposed by the ICAI. On the other hand, there are a number of cases where the courts have reduced the punishment prescribed by the ICAI.

But this fact hides something more than what it reveals. In a report published in December 2004 by the World Bank, titled 'India Report on Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC) - Accounting and Auditing,' it is mentioned: 'In one case, a private bank that failed in July 2004 was accused by the Reserve Bank of India [Get Quote] of misreporting its net worth and assets in 2001-02 and 2002-03. The RBI accused the auditor of providing an inappropriate auditor's report and referred the case to the ICAI disciplinary committee.'

Obviously, the World Bank was referring to the collapse of the Global Trust Bank (GTB) that went belly up then. Poor World Bank, even in December 2004 it was unaware of the constraints with which institutions in India operate -- especially when it involves the elite of this country. The obfuscation had begun immediately as the bank collapsed.

When institutions begin to protect the elite

According to a Hindu Business Line report, dated July 29, 2004, even the RBI's letter alleging 'misconduct' by statutory auditors of GTB did not constitute a formal complaint as far as the ICAI was concerned. "We have received the letter from RBI stating that there has been misconduct by auditors in the GTB case. The letter is not a complaint as far as the institute is concerned. But we will act on this information from the central bank and seek information from all relevant parties," the then ICAI president told the media.

Nevertheless, he also pointed out that the Chartered Accountant Act and Regulations requires a form (Form-8) to be filled along with the requisite fees and evidence to support the complaint.

"There is a procedure for complaint against a member. Even if such a procedure is not adhered to, we can act on information provided to us," he is reported to have said.

While one is not sure (the disciplinary proceedings of ICAI are confidential) as to whether and how this complaint of RBI was registered by ICAI or if RBI was forced by ICAI to resubmit its complaint in the prescribed forms, one is yet to hear the final word on this issue even three years after the bank had collapsed.

But a simple reading of the statement of the then president clearly indicates how the ICAI reacts to cases involving the elite.

Another fatal flaw in the systemic functioning of ICAI is that one of the partners of the firm accused of alleged misconduct in the above-mentioned case is an elected Council member -- the apex body that governs the ICAI functioning. While one does not wish to speculate the ability of a Council member in influencing his colleagues in the Council on the case involving his firm, the fact of the matter is that even after three years of the bank going belly-up, things remain gloomy.

Crucially, look at the duplicity of our elite. While we expect our MPs and MLAs to resign when they are charge-sheeted by the courts, on a similar footing, we do not expect our elite to be penalised when confronted with similar charges.

Readers may recall as to how more than 100 senior audit firms were blacklisted by ICAI in the aftermath of the financial sector scam that rocked the country in early 1990s. A senior chartered accountant and a former Council member tells me that virtually all those auditors were exonerated as no case was made out against them as 'appropriate evidences were not forthcoming from other institutions.'

Simply put, ask ICAI and it would blame RBI. Ask RBI and it would blame ICAI. And jointly both of them would blame the system -- a euphemism for the lack of will to nail the culprits. And in all such circumstances, the beneficiaries are the elite who escape scot-free. Obviously, the losers are you and me.

The (Im)-Moral of the story

According to Indian scriptures, we sacrifice the goat, but never the horse or an elephant and definitely not the tiger. Paraphrasing the same, the former chief vigilance commissioner remarked that it is always the small fry who is sacrificed in any scam, the elite are never caught.

Indian democracy is fast turning into by the elite, for the elite and of the elite.

Mkts flat amid low volatility, RIL, ICICI down

2007-06-25T02:52:00.000-07:00

The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark index Sensex opened lower by over 26 points Monday on emergence of profit selling by retail investors.

The Sensex traded lower by 26.75 at 14,440.61 in the first five minutes of trading. The National Stock Exchange's index Nifty was also down by 11.30 points at 4,240.75.
The markets were trading flat in the red zone amid low volatility since opening. All the key BSE indices were in marginal green except the BSE bankex, which was down over 50 points. Volumes were low however the breadth was nearly 2:1.
At 10.24 hours IST, the Sensex was down 17.07 points or 0.12% at 14,450.29, and the Nifty down 2.40 points or 0.06 per cent at 4249.65. About 1067 shares advanced, 536 shares declined, and 33 shares remained unchanged at 10:24 hours IST.

Top gainers on the Sensex were Reliance Energy at Rs 601.50 up 1.91%, BHEL at Rs 1,459.90 up 1.37% and ONGC at Rs 920.50 up 1.30%.
Top losers on the Sensex were HDFC at Rs 1,858 down 1.15%, ICICI Bank at Rs 945.50 down 0.87% and Maruti Udyog at Rs 758 down 0.52%.
Most active shares on BSE were Reliance at Rs 1,698 with 1,20,504 shares, Educomp Sol at Rs 2,337 with 69,033 shares and Praj Industries at Rs 478 with 2,65,856 shares

Reliance, ICICI Bank, L&T, HUL, Satyam, Tata Steel, Sterlite Industries and ITC were down in the opening trade.
Asian Markets: Asian markets were trading mixed today following sharp US losses, Japan's Nikkei plunged 0.51% or 92.49 points at 18,096.14, Singapore's Straits Times was down 0.44% or 15.91 points at 3,599.47, However, Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted surged 1.63% or 144.02 points at 8,956.93, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.04% or 9.72 points 22,009.63 and South Korea's Seoul Composite rose 0.48% or 8.54 points at 1,779.52.

Market cues:
FIIs net buy USD 402.5 mn in equity on June 21
FII's June 21 includes money from DLF IPO

MFs trade figure for June 21 not reported yet
NSE F&O Open Interest up by Rs 1,270 crore (Rs 12.70 billion) to Rs 75,711 crore (Rs 757.11 billion)

Satyam eyes $75 mn from pact with Nestle

2007-06-25T02:50:00.000-07:00

Satyam has signed a three-year agreement with Nestle. The company is partnering with Nestle to roll out a global template across 85 countries worldwide.
The IT bellwether expects to generate revenues of around $75 million over next three years from this contract.
New York-listed Satyam said it would provide services ranging from software development, maintenance and support to infrastructure management.

"As a result of this agreement, the number of Satyam consultants working for Nestle is expected to grow close to 500 over the next year," it said.

Satyam Technologies has now found place in the Information Technology 100, BusinessWeek's ranking of the top tech performers in the world.

The IT major is a top ranker among the top IT 100 companies of the world, according to the financial data from Standard & Poor's Compustat.

The company’s revenue have grown beyond USD 300 million over the past 2-years

TCS limits salary hike to 12-15 pc

2007-06-25T02:46:00.000-07:00

The wages of Tata Consultancy Services employees would rise to 12-15 per cent in April-June, the fiscal first quarter, but the rise in the wage bill, including new recruits, would be closer to 15 per cent, Chief Financial Officer S Mahalingam has said.
Mahalingam said that the company had the ability to neutralise the impact of higher wages through measures like cost-cutting, containing the wage bill relative to growing revenue, and at times replacing experienced workers with younger recruits.

"Fundamentally the business operates on sound principles. There is an appreciation of rupee, which will definitely have an impact, which the market has priced," Mahalingam said.

He said that the company's margins were usually the lowest in the fiscal first quarter, when salaries were reviewed. “The company was also cutting costs to ease the impact on margins by balancing the need to cut travel costs with the need to visit potential clients to boost business,” he added.

India’s largest software export firm TCS sees strong demand for software services but it is not likely to sustain last year's 41 per cent revenue growth in part because of the rising rupee. TCS shares, which have fallen nearly 10 per cent in the last three months, closed 0.4 per cent lower at Rs 1,140 , the lowest finish this year.
Mahalingam said, “The operating margins of TCS would shrink by 2 percentage points in the current quarter compared to the January-March period due to the wage bill. Rupee appreciation was likely to have a similar impact.”

The rupee has risen about 8.5 per cent against the dollar this year, to be Asia's best performing currency. It closed at 40.77/ 78 per dollar.
"In the short term, maybe because we have so much money coming in, the rupee may go to 39 or so, but we will gain from hedging," Chief Financial Officer S Mahalingam told the media.

“India's largest software services exporter was not likely to repeat last fiscal year's revenue growth of 41 per cent,” he said. Revenue in the period was Rs 186.85 billion ($4.6 bn).

"The demand environment is good but certainly on a bigger base we can't repeat those high percentages," he said. Mahalingam added that he expected pressure from the appreciating rupee to ease over time.

India's low-cost, English-speaking workforce has attracted foreign firms like IBM, the world's largest technology services company, and helped local rivals including Infosys Technologies and Wipro to grow.
Mahalingam said, “India remained an attractive place for software firms despite rising wage costs and the appreciating currency. "You can still develop a lot of intellectual property in India and be able to command much better prices. So pricing becomes a driver," he said in an interview at his office overlooking the Arabian Sea.

India, computer world's next big thing

2007-06-25T02:32:00.000-07:00

Next month, Dell will open a factory in the southern Indian city of Chennai, the U.S. company's first foray into manufacturing in India

Compared to giant tech complexes in China operated by electronics manufacturers such as Hon Hai Precision Industry or Flextronics International, companies that employ tens of thousands of employees at factories producing all sorts of machines, this Dell plant will be modest in scope.

The company has invested just $30 million in the Chennai plant and only has plans to employ about 400 workers to make desktop computers.

Still, this latest addition to Dell's manufacturing team has significance far greater than its small size. According to Stephen J. Felice, Dell senior vice-president and Singapore-based head of Asia-Pacific for the company, India is emerging as one of the most important markets for Dell.

"India is Dell's largest-growing country in the world," he says. Sales amount to $500 million now, Felice says, adding that the company predicts ". . . 50% to 70% year-on-year growth in the foreseeable future."

The Chennai factory is the clearest sign yet that India is emerging as the Next Big Thing in the global PC world. In 2006, there were over 22 million computers in use in India, compared with just 9.5 million in 2003.

That's only one for every 50 Indians. Still, with the number of machines more than doubling in three years, this is a "a watershed era in the history of the Indian PC market," says Kapil Dev Singh, country manager of market research firm IDC, in a recent press statement.

China Slowing, India Gaining

It wasn't too long ago that India was an afterthought for many people in the computer industry. For years, the country took a back seat to China. For good reason: China has quickly grown to become the world's second-largest PC market, after only the U.S., and it's likely to become No. 1 in the next few years.

This year, Chinese are likely to buy 33.6 million desktops, notebooks, servers, and other computers, according to projections from market research group Gartner. For Indian computer buyers, the number is just 8.8 million.

But the market in China is slowing down just as India is accelerating. Both countries will enjoy growth between 16% and 18% this year, says Martin Gilliland, Asia-Pacific research director for Gartner. But next year India will move ahead, he says.

While China's PC market will still enjoy respectable growth of 14%, India's computer sales will grow at a rate higher than 20%. And it won't be a one-year rise. Growth that fast will continue "to at least 2011," says Gilliland.

Until now, Dell hasn't been well positioned to take advantage. In market share, it's in a tie with Acer for fourth place, far behind the market leader Hewlett Packard. Local champ HCL [Get Quote] is No. 2, and Lenovo, thanks to the Indian operations it acquired in its 2005 takeover of IBM's (IBM) computer division, is No. 3.

More Choices Available

That's largely because India's tax structure makes it difficult for companies to import computers, with a price tag that has grown by some 10% thanks to import duties. Not surprisingly, HP, HCL, and Lenovo all put together PCs inside India, while Dell has been importing its machines from its manufacturing center in Malaysia.

"If you are importing finished goods, you can be uncompetitive because of duties," says Gilliland. For a company such as Dell that doesn't yet manufacture in India, having to pay import duty "totally blows you out of being competitive in a bid."

Nonetheless, Felice disputes the suggestion that Dell has been an Indian also-ran, pointing out that Dell is No. 1 among large corporate customers in the country, with more than 40% market share among such big buyers. The new Chennai plant will enable Dell, he says, to diversify its customer base.

"Now we can start to really go after the consumer and small-business" markets, he says. The Chennai factory will produce desktop PCs when it opens next month, but Felice says that by the end of the year Dell workers in Chennai will also make notebook PCs. This will enable Dell to provide more choices for local would-be buyers.

Will Its Model Work?

Dell's choice of Chennai is no coincidence. The city has some of India's best infrastructure and is home to other electronics manufacturers such as Nokia, Flextronics, and Hon Hai.

Nissan and Samsung Electronics are among the other multinationals that have chosen Chennai for their Indian manufacturing base, prompting some people to predict that the southern Indian city can become the country's answer to Shenzhen, the southern Chinese manufacturing hub.

Felice says that Dell based its decision in part on the local government's pro-business policies. The local government, in addition to offering the usual types of incentives, also helped the company find a location and work with local villages to ensure that the investment went smoothly.

The politicians won't be able to help too much with the next big challenge, which is making sure that Dell's business grows smoothly. The new factory -- and the new commitment to the Indian market that it represents -- should provide Dell with a boost.

But Dell will face some challenges in India where credit card usage is low and people are not accustomed to buying directly over the Internet. Those facts of life should make it more difficult for Dell to pursue its direct-sales model in India.

But Gartner's Gilliland believes that the challenges are not insurmountable. Indians "have some suspicions" about making purchases online, he says. "But that will go over time." In the meantime, he says, "I see the potential for a massive opportunity" in the Indian PC market

TCS among 10 most profitable cos

2007-06-25T02:30:00.000-07:00

Tata Consultancy Services [Get Quote] has been ranked among the leading global IT companies by global magazine BusinessWeek, besides being the only Indian entity to be listed among the world's top 10 profitable firms.

BusinessWeek in its '2007 Information Technology 100 listing' has placed TCS on 23rd position among world's leading IT companies.

TCS was the only Indian company ranked among the top 10 most profitable companies with a return on equity of 46 per cent, a TCS release said.

According to BusinessWeek, ever since TCS went public in 2004, the Mumbai-based company has been on a tear. It's growing rapidly with 41 per cent rise in revenues to $4.3 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31.

Of all of the Indian tech-services outfits, TCS has the largest network of delivery centres outside of India.

In Latin America alone it employs more than 5,000 people, most of them locals, and it just announced a new service delivery centre in Mexico.

TCS CEO and MD S Ramadorai said: "TCS is focused on delivering the best results for our global customers. This recognition from BusinessWeek is testament that our dedication to customers is helping to fuel our global growth and success."

Infosys may review its dividend policy

2007-06-24T08:30:00.001-07:00

Infosys Technologies Ltd chief mentor, NR Narayana Murthy has hinted that the company’s board may look into the dividend policy, if the circumstances change.

“I think the board will have to obviously decide about the dividend every year. If the circumstances change, we will certainly look into it,” Murthy said on the sidelines of the company’s 26th annual general meeting.

Murthy’s reply was in response to a Mumbai shareholder seeking a review of the company’s policy, which limits dividend up to 20 per cent of the net income.
“As a growth company, as a high-tech company, we have taken a decision that we will distribute dividend up to 20 per cent of the net income in a year. So we have stuck to that,” said Murthy.

“In the USA, high-tech and growth companies don’t give anything (read dividend) because they want to plough back all that into the business. As there is a tradition of giving out dividend in India, we have decided to have a policy of 20 per cent,” Murthy pointed out.

Earlier, Murthy told the shareholders that the dividend policy dictated that the company would limit any dividend to 20 per cent of the net income generated during the year.

What makes Prez poll 2007 the dirtiest election ever

2007-06-24T08:26:00.000-07:00

The presidential poll of 2007 will probably be remembered as one of the dirtiest and most political election to Raisina Hill.
While choosing India’s first citizen was never a simple process anyway, this year the contest has been reduced to mere political mudslinging.

Murder and financial impropriety charges against the next possible first citizen, a people’s president who appears to have political ambitions and a vice-president playing to his own tune - how did it come to all this?
In a special show Kaun Banega Rashtrapati CNN-IBN Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai conducted a debate on the big questions plaguing the election to India’s highest office.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad, MP and General Secretary of Samajwadi Party Amar Singh and Tuglaq Editor Cho Ramaswamy were among the panelists to discuss the issue.

Pratibha Patil formally entered the race for presidency when she filed her nomination as the UPA-Left candidate on Saturday. And not surprisingly, the entire Cabinet including Congress president Sonia Gandhi was present to cheer the chosen one.
"She was not UPA's first choice. Why choose this woman when she is going to be rubberstamp?" - Cho Ramaswamy.

Saturday might have been Patil's big day but ironically, it’s only been a time when the past has returned to haunt her.
A story broken by CNN-IBN on loan defaults by a co-operative of which she was once a chairperson have raised several embarrassing questions for Patil.

Is Pratibha Patil the right choice for President?
When Pratibha Patil was chosen by the UPA-Left combined a week ago the Congress said she was a candidate who exemplified honesty and decency in public life. The last 48 hours there is now a question mark on the issue of property.
Reacting to the charges against Patil, Singhvi said, “I think there is no question mark at all. If you have a set of facts which are unrelated and do not convert to any conclusion it does not become a question mark. Here is a person who resigned as director and chairman well before she became even governor of Rajasthan. Seventy-six societies of a similar kind are sick in Maharashtra. Twenty-six of them have been issued notices under the securitisation act. No single notice to her and no personal guarantee, “ he added.

But the fact remains she was also the founder president of that co-operative. She took the loan in 1994, the loan was taken from farmer cultivators and was not paid back.

Singhvi ran to his party’s candidate defence and said every society and sugar factory in Maharashtra started with a loan and hers was not an exception. He also pointed out that all the 76 factories were sick. “Twenty-six of them have notices issued on normal cause. She had nothing to do with the whole issue. She has been associated with an entity that entity is in the process of dealing on a securitisation notice. What is the moral issue here? “ Singhvi questioned.

Strongly reacting to Singhvi’s statement, Ravi Shankar Prasad insisted it was indeed a moral issue considering the sanctity of President’s office. “It’s a question of the highest constitutional office in the country something of a constitutional propriety and moral question has come from there. There were 70 or 75 companies but there directors are not in the race to become the president of India that is the most important feature. Here as you rightly pointed out she took the loan she remains the life member of the society. Her brother today is the chairman of that society. All this makes involvement of public money.”

5 GREAT money mantras

2007-06-24T05:54:00.000-07:00

We have already discussed the analogy between a financial planner and a doctor.

Most people I meet have had a bad experience with their previous financial planner, albeit, their reasons are different.

I am citing one such incident.

Midway through a meeting, my prospective client who was a doctor confided in me that her experience over the past five years had taught her, that most financial planners were not concerned about their clients.

I asked her to share her experiences.

Dr Priya: I wanted to invest in IPOs, but never got the information from my advisor. He always recommended products that were either too risky or with no returns at all. He did not try to advise me personally.

He categorised me, as a client who expects less returns and has little risk appetite. We never discussed my goals; he never pushed me to invest in products that were apt for me.

Me: I have not met a good doctor so far. The last time I suffered from fever, I bought a tablet. I was told to have it thrice a day for three days and was assured that I would be fine once the course was over.

On the second day, I discovered I developed an allergy to the tablet and my condition got worse.

It took me a total of 15 days to recover, which could have happened in three days had I been given the right course of medicine.

Dr Priya: You should have considered going to someone who could examine you and prescribe the right treatment, which would be effective and take care of your allergies.

Me: I am tempted to repeat the same comments as far as your finances go.

Dr Priya understood my train of thought.

We are now working on her financial plan where she is setting her goals and prioritising her needs.

She has now realised that the onus is not only on the financial planner but also on her as a client, to make her voice heard.

It is important that she subjects herself to a complete financial check up, so that her financial advisor can prioritise her goals and help her achieve financial independence in her golden years.

This can only happen if she invests in the right products that suit her risk profile and are in line with her financial plan.

Money matter mantras

Financial planning is the ideal way to start investing.
The sooner you start working towards your goals, the easier it gets.
Inform your Financial Doctor of all symptoms, allergies and aims.
Treat your FP like you would your doctor, and see how it work.
Trust him (or her)!
The author is a Certified Financial Planner and Managing Director of International Money Matters Pvt Ltd.

10 myths about Systematic Investment Plans

2007-06-24T02:56:00.000-07:00

SIP is a method of investing a fixed sum, regularly, in a mutual fund. It is very similar to regular saving schemes like a recurring deposit.

An SIP allows you to buy units on a given date each month, so that you can implement an investment / saving plan for yourself. Once you have decided on the amount you want to invest every month and the mutual fund scheme in which you want to invest, you can either give post-dated cheques or ECS instruction, and the investment will be made regularly. SIPs generally start at minimum amounts of Rs 1,000 per month and the upper limit for using an ECS is Rs 25000 per instruction. Therefore, if you wish to invest Rs 100,000 per month, you may need to do it on 4 different dates.

As is customary, I started with describing the concept of an SIP.

Let us break some myths on SIP now.

Investment in equity mutual funds or unit linked insurance should always be done in SIP mode: I remember in 1999 when Templeton Mutual fund would talk about SIP � the market looked at it skeptically. And it took a lot of convincing for customers to accept it. Now, life has come a full circle. Everybody wants to (always) invest using an SIP. If you have the maturity and calmness to realize that equities are for the long term and are willing to give your funds about 10 years, and you have a lump sum, you can afford to give the SIP route a pass. However, if your horizon is less than five years, you must do an SIP.

I do rupee cost averaging in a single equity � that is a kind of SIP is it not? This is a question I face every day. No, a rupee cost averaging in a single scrip cannot be equated to an SIP. When the market brings down the price of a single scrip, it is giving you information. You need to react to that.

Let us take two examples - Lupin Laboratories - has moved from a high of Rs 700 to Rs 100 and back to Rs 700. The question to ask here is not whether an SIP would have worked. The question to ask is whether you would have had the stomach to continue the SIP through this period.

Silverline Technologies moved from Rs 30 to Rs 1300 to Rs 7! In this case, if you had started an SIP at a price of Rs 1300, today you would be licking your wounds. SIP works in a portfolio, not in a single scrip.

You cannot invest a lump sum in the same account in which you are doing an SIP: Many people assume that if they are doing an SIP in a particular fund, and suddenly they have a surplus, they cannot put that lump sum in that account. Fact is, in case you are doing an SIP of Rs 10,000 per month in an equity fund, and suddenly you have a surplus of Rs 100,000 and clearly you have a 10-year view on the same, then you can just push it into your SIP account. SIP is just a payment mode, not a scheme!

If I miss investing for a particular month, will they prosecute me? Now, this is the fear of EMI that people have. In an SIP you are buying an investment every month (or quarter), there is no question of prosecuting you for missing one investment. As a matter of discipline, you should not miss any month; however, missing one month's investment is not a crime!

When you have a surplus (accumulation stage of your life) you should do an SIP and during retirement you should do a SWP: No. You should ideally keep your withdrawals only from an income fund or a bank fixed deposit. You should sell an equity fund on some other basis, say deciding to sell 20 per cent of your portfolio in a year so that the return is 4 times the 30 year historic return. SWP, by definition cannot work in an equity fund! (Also read - 7 good reasons to invest in SIPs

SIP works for everybody, but does not work for me: Another myth. SIP works in a well-diversified equity fund in the long run. When people put forth arguments that it does not work for them, they have either not chosen a good fund or are looking at a 12 month horizon.

SIP is only for small investors: Nothing can be farther from the truth. I have a client who has invested Rs 32.66 lakhs using SIP, starting from January 1998 till date. Obviously, he has invested much more in later years as his income went up and the funds together are worth Rs 97 lakhs (Rs 9.7 million), substantially higher than his provident fund.

Market is at very high level to start an SIP: I have heard this when the index was 3000 also. I have no clue where the market is headed, but I know SIP works!

All fund houses are now charging a full load on the SIP, so now SIP will not work Why not time the market? Introducing an entry load was expected to happen and it has happened. What actually hurts the retail investor is the asset management charges � 2.5% in most cases is a bigger threat to compounding!

If I do an SIP in a tax plan, can I withdraw all the money on completion of 3 years? Another regular question almost! Every installment has to be with the fund house for 3 years. The lock-in comes from the Income tax rules, which say that a tax saving scheme should have a 3-year lock-in. You cannot escape that by doing an SIP!

Indian economy overheating? Bah!

2007-06-24T02:53:00.000-07:00

Several international and domestic economists, policymakers, and journalists, and including prominently The Economist, offer one explanation after another to justify their predetermined, ideological (?) and/or confused conclusion that the Indian economy is overheating, and/or that the rupee is mismanaged (read that it should be allowed to appreciate).

The list of distinguished economists (both Indian and foreign) within and outside India is large; can they all individually and collectively be in error? I believe so; so bear with me as I go through the arguments offered. At the end, you can't take both sides and conclude everybody is right; one view is "right", the other "wrong" even within the bounds of two-handed economics and multi-faced research.

So here goes. First, what does overheating mean? For most honest brokers, it means an unsustainably high rate of acceleration in economic growth. How does one know that the acceleration is unsustainable? By noting that the rate of inflation has also increased to a high and undesirable (even if sustainable) level. There is a third parameter--trade deficit--whose pattern can also reveal overheating.

However, the trade deficit may indicate other factors at work, most importantly the exchange rate. Ordinarily, a rising trade deficit can indicate overheating, but this is often misleading.

For example, if one went by the rising trade deficit view, one would be forced to conclude that the US economy was overheating, even as it accelerated to a growth rate below 2 per cent per annum. And, equivalently, one would be forced to conclude that the Chinese economy was spiralling towards a recession as its trade surplus reached beyond 10 per cent of GDP.

Analogously, the rate of growth of credit expansion can also be misleading--it can either mean an overheating economy or an economy moving towards a higher growth path, or an economy becoming more monetised (more transactions in the formal sector).

Perhaps the least useful indicator of anything, let alone overheating, is the rate of growth of money supply. In a closed economy, it had meaning, but even the wisest of the overheating aficionados acknowledge that India is not the closed economy it was five years ago, let alone the super-closed economy it was in the late 1980s.

There are three major determinants of growth--investment (capital), labour, and productivity. While the growth rate of employment has accelerated to a long-run average of now close to 2.5 per cent per annum, the unemployment rate has not budged, as labour force growth has also increased to this average (powered by increases in the labour force participation rate of urban women).

So no signs of overheating here. Just five years ago, India was saving and investing about 23 per cent of GDP. Since then, the savings rate has increased by at least 10 percentage points and in 2005-06 was more than 32 per cent of GDP and in 2006-07 is likely above 34 per cent (Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, please note: If conspicuousness has increased, it is in the arena of negative consumption, i.e. savings).

But savings do not determine growth, investment does. And the rate of investment is close to 36 per cent plus of GDP, up some 13 percentage points over just a few years ago. This translates into a rate of growth of capital of 10 per cent per annum, compared to a 5 per cent growth rate before.

Not too many of the sceptical growth experts have argued, either, that this increase in investment is a spike and therefore unsustainable, nor have they argued that increased investment financed mostly by increased savings is a sign of overheating (not yet, anyway, but who knows what they will say in order to "save" their ideological beliefs).

Simple and conservative calculations suggest that these extra inputs into production will yield an extra growth rate of 2.8 per cent per annum. Take almost any time-period post 1980 and India's GDP growth rate has been close to 5.6 per cent. Thus, one reaches the conservative conclusion that the expected, sustainable, non-inflationary GDP growth rate in India is 5.6 + 2.8 = 8.4 per cent per annum.

These calculations do not factor in the increased productivity growth that comes in from a step jump in investment spending. This is easily at least 1 per cent per annum. So look out for GDP growth above 9.4 per cent to even begin thinking about an overheating India. And forget 7 or even 8 per cent per annum as the non-inflationary trend rate of growth.

What about all the extra inflation, the other favourite of the (confused) naysayers and/or the present government? Isn't the high inflation we are experiencing a sign of an overheated economy? There are several indicators of inflation available, and one can choose the consumer price index to make the point that for a brief period, supply-side factors (a steep increase in the price of cereals and oil) did cause the inflation rate to jump by 2 percentage points.

But these indicators are outdated (in terms of "base" year) and restricted (only sample either industrial workers, or agricultural workers). The GDP deflator is an accurate indicator of trends in inflation. Since 2003, this indicator has not wavered much beyond 4.3 per cent per annum, and in the last problematic year (2006) registered 4.6 per cent.

This trend is supported by the WPI--an inflation rate in 2006 equal to that in 2005 at 4.7 per cent per annum. So far this calendar year, seasonally adjusted inflation is running at a 3.5 per cent rate. Overheating, anyone?

Given this freely available data and reality, why do the overheating protagonists blissfully parrot this grossly inaccurate line? Does the hugely increased investment spending not add to any extra GDP growth? As a forecaster, one should always remind people of when one is right--and quietly change one's opinion when one is wrong.

Some quotes of Keynes that will help those in error to correct themselves. "It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong". Or "there is no harm in being sometimes wrong--especially if one is promptly found out" and finally, "when facts change, I change my mind. And what do you do, Sir?"

Simplest way to make money in stocks

2007-06-24T02:48:00.000-07:00

Though his salary may run into six digits, the average young executive would wait for that annual discount sale to buy his favourite brand of clothes, shoes and accessories.

A well-heeled housewife would probably squeeze the last paise out of the corner vegetable vendor, before deciding to buy her daily quota. You will probably haggle for those ten rupees with the porter before handing over your luggage , even if you are traveling first-class by Rajdhani.

But when it comes to stocks, we prefer to buy the ones that are rising and shun those that are falling. A slight fall in value of stock reduces the number of investors who would want to invest.

We are not discussing the professional trader or a pock-marked technical analyst, who is seasoned enough to know when to run and when to bail out. We are discussing the common investor, who sells when a stock falls and buys when it rises. We are not discussing the trader who has no capital to take delivery and must square up in case stocks plummet.

Those who sit in front of the screen get carried away by the wild swings of the markets. Those who are glued to their TV sets and mobiles will also commit these mistakes.

The main reason for this behaviour is the lack of conviction in the stock, which stems from the fact that the stock has probably been bought in a jiffy on some hot flying tip.

A factor helping this phenomenon is the ease with you can buy and sell stocks. When have you seen someone booking a loss in his house, if the price falls from the levels which he has bought? But an investor will sell Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) worth of stocks at a loss if he sees the prices stumbling.

As investors, we should see market sell offs and corrections as an opportunity to buy rather than panic and sell. It is akin to a sale. When the stock is available at a massive discount to the recent prices, there are no takers.

Going back to our example of garment sale, the clothes in the sale may be export rejects, seconds or with other manufacturing defects, whereas in the stock sale, the stocks are the same class-1 shares. In fact, lower prices means locking of a higher dividend yield also.

If we have fundamentally liked the stock at a particular level, when the price drops 20 per cent lower, we should like the stock even more, if there has been no adverse fundamental change meanwhile. But investors tend to sell on weakness.

In order to see whether this theory holds true, I backtracked the Sensex for the last 17 years and studied its movements since January 1, 1990. In these 17.5 years there have been 43 instances when the Sensex has dipped 10 per cent or more, in terms of swings.

If an investor were to invest after all the 43 falls, he would have got positive returns in 34 of the instances, within three months. In nine instances there would have been negative returns.

On average, counting for the losses, his returns would have been 11 per cent in three months, non-annualised. And if you hold on for another three months in eight of those nine loss-making cases, the losses turn into profits.

But you don't have to wait for the Sensex to lose 10 per cent to start investing. Sometimes, individual stocks correct with in a broader market up-move. Unless there are fundamental reasons to believe that you should avoid the stock, dips are good opportunities to enter the stock.

Then there are other opportunities that come your way. When an analyst recommends a particular stock on television, you may find the stock doing an Indian Rope Trick. If you like the argument, do not run after the stock concerned. Give it some cooling time and it will be back at the same or even lower levels in a few weeks. That is the time when you close in on your prey.

The easiest and the simplest way to make money in the markets is to buy low and sell high. Keep that in mind for a sound sleep and a fatter wallet.

SANIA MIRZA

2007-06-24T01:34:00.000-07:00

Birthdate: November 15, 1986
Age: 20 years
Height: 1.71m (5' 7 1/2")
Birthplace: Mumbai

Highest Singles ranking: No. 31
Highest Doubles ranking: No. 28
Status: Pro (2003)
Current coach: S Narendranath
Former coaches: Vasudeva Reddy and C G K Bhupathi

Personal:
Sania was born in Mumbai but now resides in Hyderabad. She began playing tennis at age 6 and was coached by her father, Imran Mirza. She has one sister, Anam. She is the first Indian to break into the top 50 WTA rankings. Tennis legend Steffi Graf is her idol. Ocean's 11 is one of her favourite movies, as are actors Brad Pitt and Hugh Grant.
She loves listening to hip-hop, rap and Hindi remixes and likes playing cricket and swimming. He favourite colors are red and black.

Career highlights:

2006 - Second straight Top 100 finish in season highlighted by one SF run, at Tier III Kolkata (as No.5 seed, d. No.4 seed Rezai 64 75 in QF, having trailed 4-1 second set; l. to top seed and eventual champion Hingis) and four QF, incl. Cincinnati (l. to Schnyder 76(7) 75, after holding set point during first set tie-break) and Seoul (d. No.8 Hingis 46 60 64 in 2r for first Top 10 victory of year, third of career; l. to Ruano Pascual 76 third set);

Roland Garros and Wimbledon; impressive doubles results, claiming second and third career Tour doubles titles at Bangalore and Kolkata (both w/Huber; pairing is now 12-0 when playing in India, having also won 2004 Hyderabad together); three-time doubles runner-up as well, with different partners; withdrew from Rome w/low back and wrist injury.

2005 Japan Open: Reached the semi-finals of women's singles and doubles. Shahar Peer of Israel was her partner in doubles. Also reached her highest doubles ranking -- 114.

2005 US Open: Lost in 4th round to top seed Maria Sharapova. Voted 'Best Player of the day' on the 3rd day for winning her 2nd round match despite bleeding toes.

2005 Forest Hills Women's Tennis Classic, New York: Reached second WTA final but lost.

2005 Acura Classic: Lost in the third round to Akiko Morigami of Japan. By beating 8th-ranked Petrova, she broke into the WTA top 50 for the first time.

2005 Dubai Tennis Championships: Upset reigning US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in 2nd round to reach the quarter-finals.

2005 Hyderabad Open singles: Won the tournament defeating Alyona Bondarenko of Ukraine in the final and became the first Indian woman to capture a WTA singles title.

2005 Australian Open singles: Became first Indian woman to reach the 3rd round of a Grand Slam tournament.

2004 Hyderabad Open doubles: Won the tournament partnering with Liezel Huber to become the youngest Indian to win a WTA or ATP tour title and the first Indian woman to capture a WTA tour title. Entered the singles as wild card but lost in the first round to the eventual winner, Nicole Pratt.

2003 Wimbledon Championships Juniors doubles: Won the tournament partnering with Alisa Kleybanova to become the youngest Indian and the first Indian woman to win a junior Grand Slam title.

2003 Afro-Asian Games: won four gold medals - Women's singles, Mixed doubles (with Mahesh Bhupathi), Women's doubles and Women's team events (the last two golds in partnership with Rushmi Chakravarthy) [5]

FEW FACTS ABOUT GOOGLE ADSENSE

2007-06-23T18:35:00.000-07:00

Actually to know about adsense is little difficult but still i am telling you some ideas of them here so may be that will help or else just go to google adsense helpdesk
AdSense publishers are permitted to click on link unit topics on their web pages, provided that they do not click on any Google ads on the resulting page.

AdSense publishers are paid for clicks on the ads that are linked from link unit topics, but not for clicks on the initial topics themselves.

Participating in Google AdSense does not affect your site's rank in Google search results. While Googlebot does crawl content pages for the purpose of targeting ads, this crawl is not associated with the main index crawl.

If you are unable to save custom color palettes, make sure your browser is set to allow cookies and JavaScript is enabled. Clear your browser cache and delete all cookies before attempting to save your color palettes again.

You may notice that after you place the AdSense ad code on a web page, you do not receive the most relevant ads. The relevancy of Google ads on your pages will improve over time.

AdSense for search top queries are the top 25 queries performed on your AdSense for search box within a given date range. Only queries that receive two or more hits will be displayed in the list of AdSense for search top queries. If your site has a low volume of traffic, you may not see any top queries listed because each query is unique.

The border color of image ads can be customized using your color palette options. The border color will be the same as the border color that you have selected for text ads.

If you see a Google image ad that you feel is inappropriate or misleading, please click the Feedback: Ads by Google link below the image ad.

Public service ads may be served to your first ad unit if targeted ads cannot be served. In this case, the second and third ad units on the page will display as transparent boxes.

The AdSense program uses geotargeting to serve Google ads to your pages - ads are specific to a user's region and language, based on their IP address.

A user viewing a page with 3 ad units and 1 link unit will log 4 ad unit impressions, but only 1 page impression.

Google Adsense customer support doesn't have a telephone number.

If you are not yet 18, you may have a parent or guardian submit an application using their name as the payee name.

Google doesn't allow you to open Google ads in a new browser window.

Reports on impressions and clicks are usually updated every fifteen to thirty minutes.

The multiple ad units system serves ads to each ad unit in order of their appearance in your HTML code.

The eCPM column in your reports will display the effective CPM of your combined CPC and CPM activity.

CPM ads can be either text or image ads, and are always site-targeted. CPM text ads will expand to take up the entire ad unit.

You can choose to run ad units that will display only image ads by selecting the Image ads only option when generating your ad layout code.

If the AdSense code is placed on pages with content primarily in an unsupported language, Google may show public service ads or ads in another language.

Clicks deemed by Google monitoring system to be invalid will appear in your reports. However, since advertisers are not charged for clicks deemed to be invalid, publishers do not receive any revenue for these clicks.

To change the email address associated with Adsense login, publishers should write to Google with 'Login change request' as the subject.

If you believe that another site is illegally copying the contents of your site, you may send a notice of alleged infringement by following the procedure at http://www.google.com/dmca.html. When you have sent the notice, please notify Google and they will take appropriate action.

Most of the information here is available in the extensive Google Adsense online help manual (google.com/adsense/online-help).

High attrition rate hits services sector

2007-06-23T17:43:00.001-07:00

Increasing opportunities and employee aspirations induced by robust economic growth have led to an unhealthy attrition rate, exceeding 20 per cent for India Inc, with services sector facing the maximum brunt, a study shows.

An Assocham Business Barometer Survey on 'Attrition problem in a growing economy' has revealed that attrition rate at 40 per cent is alarming in the services sector, while the same in manufacturing was 20 per cent.

Maximum attrition is taking place among employees in the age group of 26-30 years, while those with an experience of 2-4 years are most vulnerable to job-hopping, the survey covering 160 HR heads noted.

Interestingly, women employees were less prone to job changing compared to men.

"For every 10 males jumping the fence there were only two females crossing over. Even if women face the pressure of balancing the management of their families and workplace, they tend to be more stable than their male colleagues," 52 per cent of HR managers surveyed said.

With India joining the globalised world of business, the movement of workforce across national boundaries has also added to the rising level of employee turnover, according to 72 per cent of the ABB respondents.

The immediate gains in salary package was found to be responsible for job change in 61 per cent of the cases, growth potential was also rated quite high as an important reason.

Almost 90 per cent of the respondents said recruitment is an ongoing process throughout the year. The average increase in salaries offered with new placement ranges between 25-30 per cent depending on the salary structure and individual strengths.

Companies that are in the process of expanding face higher attrition rates compared to established firms, going by 65 per cent of the respondents.

Emergence of online job portals such as Timesjobs.com, naukri.com, monster.com and clickjobs.com have contributed to higher employee turnover, as agreed by 68 per cent of those surveyed.

Wipro introduces eco-friendly computers

2007-06-23T17:41:00.000-07:00

Wipro Infotech, an arm of Wipro Ltd, today launched its eco-friendly range of desktops, claiming it was the first Indian company to do so.

The new range of products called Wipro GreenWare, which include desktops and laptops, is compliant with RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) directive, thereby reducing substantial e-waste.

“At present, eight products - five desktops and three notebooks - are 100 per cent RoHS-compliant. By year- end, we want to ensure that the entire product range of laptops and desktops is RoHS-compliant,” Ashutosh Vaidya, vice-president, Wipro Personal Computing, told reporters here.

Wipro has set up its e-waste management process called Wipro Green Computing, which spans across its product’s life cycle i.e. from designing and manufacturing to the final disposal.

Secret to finding work-life balance

2007-06-23T17:28:00.000-07:00

Whenever Jay Reddy takes a vacation, he sends his PDA and laptop on one too.

"I leave them somewhere inaccessible to keep me from constantly checking e-mails," says Reddy, the founder and CEO of ProLogic, a Fairmont, W. Va.-based technology-services firm.

Despite the temptation to stay connected with his business -- and a growing number of high-tech tools to do just that at anytime from anywhere in the world -- Reddy says he's still able to make a clean break with his family for several weeks every year. "In the first three years after I launched the business, I don't think I took a single day off," he says.

Most aren't so lucky. Like a growing number of entrepreneurs, Karen Say, the CEO of Saybr Contractors in Tacoma, Wash., never really leaves her workplace behind, whether she's at home or on vacation. "I'm a business owner, so I'm always connected with my business," Say says.

That means occasionally spending weekends in her home office, or taking her Blackberry along on holidays -- and everywhere else she goes.

When it comes to taking a break, small-business owners are finding that advanced information technology and expanding communication networks that provide round-the-clock access to e-mail, business data, and other systems can be a double-edged sword.

While offering greater flexibility in schedules and access, they're also quickly blurring the lines between the work and play. Within the ramped up competition of a 24/7 business cycle, they say, downtime is fast becoming a four-letter word.

In a recent survey in the United States of more than 600 small-business owners by OPEN from American Express, nearly half considered downtime a guilty pleasure. In continually keeping track of their businesses, many said they were forced to routinely make sacrifices in their personal lives, including less time with family and friends, and even less attention to their health.

It's hardly surprisingly, then, that fewer small-business owners are planning to take vacations this summer -- just 59 percent compared to an average of 67 percent over the past four years, a separate OPEN survey found.

Even among those that manage to get away, the vast majority will be taking their businesses with them. Seventy-five percent said they would check in by phone or e-mail, some as often as once every hour.

In a recent survey of 1,000 small-business owners by Discover, 59 percent said a "day off" meant they were still available for calls and e-mails, and included working a full day from a remote location. Nearly half said they worked through most official holidays.

"Small-business owners are optimistic by nature," says Alice Bredin, OPEN's small-business adviser. "But when they're not in the driver's seat, even if for a few days, they often can't relax."

So what are they so worried about? Most of the business owners surveyed by OPEN said they were concerned customers weren't getting the same level of service from staff while they were away. That, and employees making poor judgment calls or just plain slacking off.

When Mary Derby took her first vacation in three years from pullUin, her Vermillion, S.D., software firm, it happened to fall in the middle of a protracted contract dispute with a client.

"I kept checking in the entire time and it would put a damper on the whole day," Derby says. "It pretty much ruined my holiday," she says.

Now, to get the time off she needs, Derby has officially barred herself from checking any work-related e-mail or voicemail during a vacation. She also lets her staff know there isn't anything that can't wait for her attention. And like Reddy, she now leaves her cell phone and PDA behind. "I found that it's been better for me and for the business," Derby says.

However they manage it, Bredin says it's crucial that business owners recharge their batteries and creativity now and then by taking a clean break.

To do that, Bredin suggests walking employees through the work process and discussing step-by-step instructions to solve issues that might arise while they're away. They should also prepare employees for the worst with viable solutions, while giving them the resources they need to handle day-to-day business affairs, such as key contact information for support resources from your technology providers.

Say adds that it's important to plan ahead for leisure time, even months in advance, rather than wait for a window of opportunity.

"You just have to schedule it," she says, "or it won't happen."

Rowling reveals Harry Potter ending

2007-06-23T17:17:00.000-07:00

J K Rowling has leaked the ending of the eagerly awaited last book of her Harry Potter series - to her husband.
Speculation has been rife about who dies in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows since British author Rowling announced last year that at least two characters would be killed off.
She has given no clue as to who they were, and even Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who plays boy wizard Harry in the Hollywood adaptations of the books, has been kept in the dark ahead of the publication of the seventh instalment on July 21.
"None of us get a preview," Radcliffe told a news conference on Friday to promote Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth in the film franchise.
"I think only J K Rowling's husband has recently found out what happens. I don't think anybody else knows,” he added.

The 17-year-old has previously said he hoped Potter would die at the end of the final book, but he was more cautious this time around.

"A couple of years ago I said I would like Harry to die because I think that is a conclusive ending. But I'm going to steer away from that now because the next day the headlines were 'Radcliffe Wants Harry Dead'," he said.

"I do think it would be fitting in a way, because when you consider the prophecy that was made about him and Voldemort, one of them has to go. I think he might, but that's based on absolutely nothing."

In the latest movie, Harry discovers he and his evil nemesis Voldemort cannot both survive, raising the possibility that one, or both of them could die in the end.

ICE CREAM VAN Publishers have gone to great lengths to protect the contents of the last Harry Potter book until its release, which promises to be one of the biggest events in publishing history.

More than 325 million copies of the first six books have been sold, and the four movies released to date have amassed around $3.5 billion in worldwide ticket sales.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix hits cinemas in early July. Earlier this week, a computer hacker posted what he said were key plot details that he gleaned by breaking into a computer at London-based Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

The publisher declined to comment on the claims. Radcliffe said he was aware of the claim, but that he had not read the posting and would only read an original copy. Emma Watson, who plays Harry's schoolmate Hermione Granger, said she hoped her character would survive.

"I'm sort of thinking that she's going to make it," she said. "I don't know why, but I think she's going to make it. I hope so." She, Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, who plays Ron Weasley all said they hoped to continue acting once the Potter movie series was over, probably in 2010.
But Grint said he had a backup plan if his career on screen and stage failed. "Recently I got an ice cream van," he said. "If it doesn't work out I've still got the ice cream van."

How to look good? Hear it from Katrina

2007-06-23T17:13:00.000-07:00

From being arm candy to actor Salman Khan, to carving an identity- Katrina Kaif has finally been noticed.

This year, she will have quite a few films releasing starting off with Apne and then Partner. CNN-IBN chats up with her on her latest projects.

Archita Kashyap: You are doing a lot of films now, with Apne, which is a family drama and Partner, which is a comedy film. How do you assess yourself today?

Katrina Kaif: There will be certain films where the film will be beautiful though it may not take you ahead but there will be certain films where you will be appreciated. So there is a balance of that. So you have to see each film individually. Partner is a laugh riot while Apne is a beautiful family film. It’s been a long time since I’ve come to a film like this that is made with quality of such a level.

Archita Kashyap: You have got the support of the best directors: Ram Gopal Varma, Comedy King David Dhavan and others. Do you feel fortunate or have you fine-tuned yourself to come so far?

Katrina Kaif: It’s a mixture of both. You learn from the people you work with and directors and see how you can do better.

Archita Kashyap: Katrina Kaif is always extremely well turned out. A lot of people think you are far more beautiful than Aishwarya Rai. What do you think about that?

Katrina Kaif: I have never heard that so I don’t know what to say.

Archita Kashyap: Do you take special care when you are out in public or is it inherent?

Katrina Kaif: If you are going to a function representing the Indian film industry on an international stage, you should make an effort. It’s not going to be nice if you turn up looking scruffy in jeans and a t-shirt.

WHY NOT TO TALK ABOUT SEX IN SCHOOLS EDUCATION

2007-06-23T10:21:00.000-07:00

Its something which most of us do, sex - make love sometimes use a condom. But is sex for pleasure or is it just for reproduction. In Madhya Pradesh there is a serious debate on that. A condom with a vibrating ring is now making the entire state machinery see red.
The Indian society is opening up perceptions about sex and condoms are changing - but is it really true?

Are Indians hypocritical about matters of sex? That was the talking point on CNN-IBN show India 360 conducted by Bhupendra Chaubey with a panel comprising Prafull Goradia ex-BJP MP, Kailash Vijayvargiya Madhya Pradesh PWD Minister and television personality Tarrana Kapoor.

When asked about what the objections against the condom, Kailash said, “First thing its not condom its sex toys. They are selling sex toys inform of condoms. Condom is used for family planning and to prevent AIDS. As per my knowledge it’s not the condom it’s the sex toys which is being sold in the market.”

Reacting about the sex toys being sold openly in the market Tarana said, “I honestly have no idea why they are objecting to something that is obviously a contraceptive and could also give you pleasure so you have fun while doing sensible thing. I have lot of colleagues and friends in a big city like Mumbai and everybody travels abroad and everybody has list of fun sex toys to bring back.”

“So what’s the big deal if they openly being sold here because ultimately the cause is right. It is for to prevent AIDS to basically not have unwanted children. So what’s a big deal in it,” she added.

Why we have this double standard, why we have this hypocritical attitude towards matters related to sex. Whether a condom is used for pleasure or its use for family planning the fact is are we not just comfortable with the idea of sex.
Answering the questions Goradia said, “I think what has happened is that the Hindus in India are confused about their tradition. The Muslims and the Christians are generally clear whether we agree with them or not. The Hindu problem is that the ancient India had its Jaganath temple entirely covered with lot of sex so did the Konark temple so do the famous Khajurao temple. Similarly Kamasutra is written which obviously means that sex was also for pleasure in the Hindu context. “
So why this controversy then and would you agree with the decision which has been taken by the MP government.
“No I don’t agree at all. I think they are on the wrong track,” Goradia said.
Responding to Mr Goradia Kailash said, “What I am saying is that government’s job is development of the society. From next day if some people of society or some doctors say that if someone is weak in sex they should watch blue film so is the government going to show everybody blue film? Is this government’s job to sell these kinds of sex toys? Government’s job is to give sex education.”
Tarrana said that sex toys can’t be correlated to pornography and both are different entity.

you really cant associate pornography with a sex toy something gives you pleasure but the basic purpose behind a condom is to protect you either from a disease or an unwanted pregnancy and you have fun along with it. It certainly nothing to do with the blue films. There is absolutely no correlation between the two,” Tarrana said.

In our country when it comes to matters which are related to display of affection whether its holding hands, kissing in public hugging now sex – we always seem to have a problem. Why do we just want to be a pleasure-less society?

Goradia answered, “We have forgotten our values what was supposed to be at the Hindu priority. As I said the temples today have plenty of these example which distinctly show that sex was pleasure and there need not be any secret about it.”

Talking about the double standard regarding the sex Goradia said, “We are confused by a set of different imported values. We have forgotten our ancient culture.”

Is that a valid assessment is that a correct statement to make that in India its seems that to be happy to gain pleasure is almost like committing cardinal sin. So don’t hold hands in public don’t kiss in public because someone is going to be offended.

Tarana said, “I think its been grilled into lot of youngsters head that pleasure is not really good and you should be thinking about other people that anything gives you pleasure that seems wrong in the eyes of the society its something that is taboo and you shouldn’t be doing it. Hence everybody is doing sex. I know lot of people having sex at a much younger age than my generation and still we will not educate them in school we will not tell them about what condoms are really for.”

TCS, Infy profits hit by rising rupee

2007-06-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd and Infosys Technologies Ltd are among Indian computer-services providers whose earnings will be less than expected because of the Indian currency's appreciation, Morgan Stanley said on Friday.

The rising rupee is hitting software and BPO companies so much so that most companies might not be able to stick to their earnings guidance.

The issue stands crucial because 70 per cent of overall IT exports are earned in dollars. That means a 7-8 per cent rise will eat half a billion dollars of the industry's earnings.

Earnings on a per-share basis will be Rs 52.30 ($1.28) for the year ending March 31 for Tata Consultancy, less than a Rs 53.90 previous estimate, Anantha Narayan and Ashish Jain, analysts at Morgan Stanley, said on Friday in a note to investors.

Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy is India's largest software exporter.

Earnings for the full year will be Rs 81.10 per share for Infosys, India's second-largest software-exporter, Morgan Stanley said on Friday.

The previous estimate was Rs 83.60. The analysts also reduced their earnings-per-share estimates for Wipro Ltd and Satyam Computer Services Ltd.

The new forecasts are based on the assumption that the Indian currency will be at Rs 41 to the dollar, the analysts said.

Blair meets Pope to stoke conversion speculation

2007-06-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

Prime Minister Tony Blair held private talks with Pope Benedict on Saturday, stoking speculation he might convert to Catholicism after he steps down next week.

Blair's gift to the Pope were original photographs of John Henry Newman, a 19th century Anglican leader who was one of Britain's most illustrious converts to Catholicism.

Blair, on the final leg of his farewell world tour, spoke privately with the Pope for 25 minutes in the pontiff's study and the talks were then enlarged to include Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, head of England's Roman Catholics.

A Vatican statement made no reference to the issue of possible conversion of Blair who is Anglican. Blair's wife, Cherie, and their four children are Catholics.

Cherie accompanied Blair to the Vatican and was introduced to the Pope with the British delegation at the end of the private talks. She wore a black dress and a black veil.

Pope and Blair discussed the international situation, Europe and the Middle East, the statement said. The Vatican welcomed Blair's intention to work for Middle East peace and inter-religious dialogue after he steps down on Wednesday.

In an interview with the Times Magazine on Saturday, Blair indicated his conversion may not be just around the corner.

Asked if he would convert, Blair said: "I don't want to talk about it. It's difficult with some of these things. Things aren't always as resolved as they might be."

The Blairs gave the Pope a frame containing three period photographs of Newman, who died in 1890. One was signed.

Newman converted in 1845 and was later made a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1991 he was declared "venerable", putting him on the road to Roman Catholic sainthood.

The Guardian newspaper cited informed sources on Friday as saying Blair had been prepared for conversion by a Royal Air Force chaplain who had said private mass for his family for the last four years.

Blair is believed to have taken communion from the late Pope John Paul during a visit to the Vatican in 2003, although the Vatican has never confirmed this.

After the Pope welcomed Blair into the study, the prime minister told him he had just flown in from the European summit in Brussels where European Union leaders clinched agreement on a mandate to overhaul the 27-nation bloc.

"I heard it was very successful," the Pope told Blair.

"Yes, but it was a very long night. We finished up at 5:30 in the morning," Blair said

DNA test shows it's Daddy Murphy

2007-06-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

Eddie Murphy is the father of the former Spice Girl Mel B's baby Angel, according to reports.

The singer gave birth in April and named the American comedian as the father on the birth certificate.

He has never publicly admitted paternity but it's claimed a DNA test proved he is Angel's father.

Eddie's spokesman has refused to comment.

Eddie and Mel had a brief relationship last summer.

The 32-year-old singer is expected to be part of a Spice Girls reunion later this year.

PARIS HILTON

2007-06-23T07:34:00.000-07:00

Sobbing Paris back in slammer

2007-06-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

Judge hauls Paris Hilton back to jail for full 45-day sentence, ending her one-day prison break; heiress in tears, cries out for her mom.

A judge ordered a weeping and trembling Paris Hilton back to jail Friday to finish a sentence for probation violation, overturning a sheriff's decision to let the celebrity heiress serve out her time under home arrest.

Hilton, 26, was led out of the Los Angeles courtroom wailing, "Mom, Mom. It's not right," as she was driven away to serve the remainder of a 45-day sentence for violating her probation imposed for a reckless driving conviction.

It was not immediately clear exactly how many days Hilton, who has has become a symbol America's celebrity culture, would serve.

She had been removed from jail for unspecified medical reasons on Thursday and transferred to house arrest, where she was ordered to wear an electronic monitoring device on her ankle.

She had served only three days of an expected 23-day sentence for violating her probation by driving her Bentley on a suspended license.

The decision caused national outrage and accusations of favorable treatment, although Hilton's original sentence was considered by many to be excessively harsh for the crime.

The slender, blond Hilton, dressed in drab gray sweatpants a far cry from her usual designer fashions, shook and cried quietly throughout the brief hearing but broke into sobs when the judge ordered her back behind bars.

Celebrity Web site TMZ.com said Hilton's lawyer was planning to appeal her sentence as soon as possible.

She turned up at court two hours late after confusion over whether she would testify by video from her Hollywood Hills home, or in person.

Los Angeles city prosecutors had demanded that Hilton be returned to jail and that the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, which runs the jail system, be held in contempt for violating the sentencing order, which expressly barred electronic monitoring of Hilton.

Los Angeles city attorney Rocky Delgadillo said Friday's decision "sends the message that no individual, no matter how wealthy or powerful, is above the law."

Los Angeles Superior Court judge Michael Sauer said in court on Friday he had not been given details of the medical condition that prompted her release. Speculation has ranged from a rash to a nervous breakdown. The judge said he was told that a psychiatrist had visited her in jail but did not go into details.

Photographers and cameramen laid siege to Hilton's home and news helicopters buzzed overhead waiting for the star of The Simple Life reality TV show to emerge from her home.

She was handcuffed and placed weeping into a sheriff's car for the trip to court and later driven back to jail, trailed again by news helicopters.

Hacker claims Harry Potter's alleged ending on Web

2007-06-23T07:10:00.000-07:00

The mystery surrounding the end to fictional British boy wizard Harry Potter's saga deepened on Wednesday with a computer hacker posting what he said were key plot details and a publisher warned the details could be fake.

The hacker, who goes by the name "Gabriel," claims to have taken a digital copy of author J.K. Rowling's seventh and final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," by breaking into a computer at London-based Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

For months now, leading up to the book's July 21 release, legions of "Harry Potter" fans have debated whether Rowling killed Harry or one of his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, in the final book.

Gabriel has posted information at Web site InSecure.org that, if true, would answer that question.

"We make this spoiler to make reading of the upcoming book useless and boring," Gabriel said in the posting.

"Harry Potter" publishers have taken great pains to keep the conclusion a secret and preserve the multibillion-dollar entertainment enterprise surrounding the boy wizard.

A Bloomsbury spokesman declined comment on the hacker's claims.

Kyle Good, a spokesman for U.S. distributor Scholastic Corp., would not say whether the posting was accurate, but did warn readers to be skeptical about anything on the Web that claims to have inside information on the book's plot.

"There is a whole lot of junk flying around," she said. "Consider this one more theory."

David Perry, a spokesman for computer security company Trend Micro, said there was a good chance Gabriel's claim could be a hoax.

"We've had hypes like this on the last couple of Harry Potter books," he said. "There is a very high level of spurious information in the hacker world."

But if true, it could be a problem for Bloomsbury. The "Harry Potter" books have been global best-sellers with fans buying some 320 million versions worldwide, and anticipation for "Deathly Hallows" is high.

In April, U.S. retailer Barnes & Noble said advance orders for the book had already topped 500,000 copies, setting a chain record. Scholastic plans to release a record 12 million copies of "Deathly Hallows" to meet demand.

A stolen copy of the sixth Harry Potter novel, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" surfaced in Britain about a month before its official release in July 2005. Two people were charged after reportedly trying to sell a copy to the London tabloid the Sun.

Four "Potter" movies made by Warner Bros. film studio, a division of Time Warner Inc., have brought in $3.5 billion in global ticket sales, and a fifth film is due in theaters in early July.

(Additional reporting by Bob Tourtellotte in Los Angeles and Kate Holton in London.)

The coming collapse of the US dollar

2007-06-23T07:01:00.001-07:00

The skew in the global financial system -- commonly called 'global imbalance' -- seems to be fast spiralling out of control.

For some time now economists have been engaged in the mother of all debates: whether the US dollar would collapse by as much as 40% when compared to other currencies (some are even betting on the US dollar going belly-up) or whether there would be an orderly devaluation -- that is, a gradual revaluation of other currencies vis-�-vis the US dollar.

In effect, the question that is confronting us is not 'whether' but 'when' and by 'how much.'

This global imbalance can be understood in economic terms by simply examining the massive size of America's twin deficits -- trade and budgetary. Put modestly, Americans have been living way beyond their means, consuming much more than what they could possibly afford and, in the process, borrowing far beyond their capacity for too long.

This was facilitated by a policy of maintaining weak currencies across the world, notably in Asia. This policy of maintaining a competitive exchange rate for their currency to boost exports has resulted in a race to the bottom amongst various countries.

Nevertheless, this arrangement suited countries, both Asian (with a huge unemployed population) and American, (as it provided cheap imports for its huge consumption binge).

While the going was good, everyone profited and expected the arrangement to continue indefinitely. Unfortunately, linearity as a concept has limited appeal in real life, much less is global macroeconomics.

No wonder, of late, countries are discovering that this arrangement has its limitations. The current account deficit of the United States translates into current account surplus of exporting countries. To cover this deficit, US borrows: this corresponds to the forex reserves of exporting countries. The crux of the issue is that no other country, barring the US, has such a huge consumption pattern and an ability to absorb this huge export surplus.

In substance, countries are producing their goods, exporting it mostly to the US, and parking the resulting export surpluses with the US to facilitate US to finance its imports!

Clearly, the global imbalance is a by-product of this mindless competition by various countries to devalue their own currencies and the reckless consumption in US. Naturally, it is indeed tempting to blame US consumption for this crisis. However, one must hasten to add that the emerging economies -- notably Asian countries, especially after the1998 currency crisis -- with their fixation for weak currencies, are equally to be blamed.

The net result? Well, consider these facts:

By mid-May 2007, the US National Debt stood at approximately at mind-boggling $8.85 trillion -- i.e. approximately $28,000 for every American.

The basic structure of the American economy is that the deficit of the US government is 4% of the GDP and the household sector 6%, which are offset by a domestic savings of 3%, largely from corporates, leaving a substantial national deficit of 7% to be covered by the capital flows from the rest of the world.

The current account deficit of the United States for 2006 is estimated to be in excess of $850 billion. This approximates to 7% of its GDP. Surely, even for the US, this is unsustainable.

In order to ensure that this money is routed into America and to sustain its gargantuan borrowing programme, the US has repeatedly raised its interest rate to its current levels of 5.5%. While the very size of the US debt makes any further increase in interest rates virtually impossible (as it would make borrowings uneconomical), any cut in interest rates to stimulate its economy and make it competitive would mean that the US may not get the money it requires to sustain itself.

On March 28, 2006, the Asian Development Bank [Get Quote] is reported to have issued a memo, advising members to be ready for a collapse of the US dollar.

Since end March 2006, the US Federal Reserve has stopped publishing the quantum of broad money (that is the aggregate of US dollars circulating in the entire world -- technically called 'M3') in the US economy. This is the worst possible signal that the US Federal Reserve could have sent to the world.

Suspended sense of disbelief

Obviously, what aids and sustains the US dollar is a 'suspended sense of disbelief' amongst countries about the value of US dollar. Yet, common sense tells us that the excess supply will obviously result in a fall in the value of any product. The US dollar is no exception.

Late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was fully aware of this paradigm. Seeking to exploit the inherent weakness of the US dollar, Saddam wanted to trade his crude in Euros, which would have lead to a lower demand for the US Dollar and thereby triggered a dollar collapse. And those were his 'weapons of mass destruction -- WMD.'

And if some analysts are to be believed, Venezuela and Iran too possess the very same WMD. Naturally, it requires some specious arguments and military intervention to protect the US dollar. Never in the history of mankind has a national army protected the national currency so vigorously as the US Army has done is the past decade or so.

What is bizarre to note here is that despite the fact that crude is produced mainly in the Middle East; officially it can be purchased in dollar terms from one of the two oil exchanges situated in New York and London. Obviously, should Iran carry out the threat to commence oil trade in Euros or better still an oil exchange, the US dollar would come under tremendous pressure.

The US dollar is akin to the promissory note of a defunct finance company. It is common knowledge that a currency, when not backed by anything precious is just a piece of paper. When US abandoned the Gold Standard in early 70s, countries habituated by then to the US dollar under the Bretton Woods arrangement continued to accept the US dollar as an international currency without demur as the world was not prepared for any other alternative. Else, the global economy would have collapsed by 1971.

But the diplomatic silence did not solve the problem. It merely postponed it and it has come back to haunt us.

Post gold standard, by a tacit approval of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and strategic manoeuvring, the US had ensured that its currency is implicitly backed by crude, instead of gold. This explains the American 'geo-political and strategic interests' in the Middle East.

But over time even this was found to be insufficient and consequently the oil standard of the 70s gave way to an implicit multiple commodity standard of today. Naturally, commodity prices -- including crude prices -- have soared in the past few years. Unfortunately, this arrangement too is failing the US. No wonder, the US dollar increasingly resembles a promisory note of a defunct finance company.

It is no coincidence that global trade in most commodities, including oil, is denominated in US dollars as the respective international exchanges are located in the US. To what extent are the prices of these commodities manipulated to protect the US dollar is anybody's guess.

However, it may not be out of place to mention that a barrel of oil which cost less than $10 to produce is sold approximately at $70 in the international market.

But as commodity prices go up it has lead to inflation across the globe. No wonder, countries are forced to increase their interest rates to fight inflation.

This has triggered an interest rate hike across continents and the US is finding it extremely difficult to sustain its current borrowing programme: it hardly has any elbow room to manoeuvre.

Doomed if it does, damned if it doesn't

Meanwhile, countries are increasingly realizing that the value of the US dollar that they are holding is fast eroding, whatever be the 'officially managed exchange rate.' And if fewer people want the US dollar -- as for instance when oil is traded in Euro the demand for the US dollar will fall -- it would trigger an avalanche.

No wonder, the US Fed is unwilling to make public the M3 figures, as it does not want the holding position of the US dollar to be publicised.

Interestingly, in such a doomsday scenario, some economists are still betting on central banks of other countries to defend the US dollar. It would seem that the US has 'outsourced' even this sovereign function to the central banks of other countries. After all, should the US dollar collapse, the biggest losers will not be the US but those who have US dollar-denominated forex reserves.

Naturally, countries holding US dollar reserves are caught on the horns of a serious dilemma -- should they seek to correct the global imbalance, it could result in the imminent collapse of the US dollar, and should they continue to defend the US dollar, they would be a long-term loser as the current arrangement has seeds of self-destruction.

While every central banker is conscious of this fact and thereby seeks to postpone the inevitable while nervously looking for his counterpart in any other country to break ranks and thereby trigger the collapse.

Surely, the emperor is without any clothes. There are only two possibilities from here on: Either we are witness a global meltdown of the US dollar, or allow controlled US dollar devaluation (read, revaluation of other currencies). If it is a global meltdown the global economy is doomed, if is an orderly devaluation, it is damned.

Beware! Viruses can wipe out companies

2007-06-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

The start of the Atlantic hurricane season has traditionally prompted small-business owners to undertake an annual review of their disaster preparedness plans.

Yet the growing need among businesses of all sizes for round-the-clock access to customer, marketing, and financial data, along with other enterprise applications, is making disaster planning a far less seasonal concern, experts say.

More simply, a company is far more likely to be wiped out by malware than Mother Nature -- and business owners finally seem to be taking notice.

Nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina slammed in the Gulf Coast, impacting as many as 125,000 small businesses across the region, a national survey of more than 1,000 employers by AT&T found that 82 percent ranked computer viruses, worms, and other network disruptions as the biggest risks to their businesses.

By contrast, natural disasters were cited by just 1 percent, ranking them last among all potential hazards. Of the 73 percent of business owners who reported having disaster plans in place, nearly every one focused those efforts on Internet security, backup servers, and other network protections.

This shouldn't be mistaken for arrogance in the face of recent severe storms. What's happening, market watchers say, is that the increased reliance on 24/7 access to enterprise applications is leading business owners to treat hurricanes and malware as posing essentially the same risks to network uptime.

How? By rolling disaster-planning efforts into ongoing data-storage protection and business continuity systems with an eye to keeping operations online -- whether or not their physical workplace is submerged under floodwaters or under attack by a malicious virus.

This more centralized approach has big economic advantages, says Sonia Lelii, an analyst with Aberdeen Group, a Boston-based market research firm.

"Ultimately, this should weed out inefficiencies that occur when business continuance, high availability, and disaster recovery are treated as three separate initiatives," Lelii says.

It's also driving an expected boom in the network continuity and recovery services market. Last year, U.S. businesses spent just over $15 billion on network continuity and recovery services, according to Frost & Sullivan, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based business consulting firm. By 2012, they're expected to spend up to $23.3 billion by 2012 as even more Web-based enterprise applications are adopted, the firm said in a study released in April.

"The need to minimize financial repercussions associated with network outages and applications downtimes are driving an increasing number of small, medium, and large enterprises to pro-actively plan for business continuity services," says Imran Khan, a Frost & Sullivan program manager.

It's perhaps telling of this shift that IT managers now place a higher priority on disaster planning than any other company executive -- including the boss.

A recent Harris Interactive survey of 500 executives found that 71 percent of IT mangers identified disaster recovery and continuity as "very important" to business success, compared to just 49 percent of those on the administrative and business side.

"Business executives may not fully understand the interdependencies between corporate processes -- like CRM [customer relationship management] and supply chain -- and the back-end systems responsible for keeping these critical systems available during an unexpected outage or disaster," says David Palermo, vice president of marketing for SunGard Availability Services, a Wayne, Pa.-based software firm that commissioned the survey.

Despite the discrepancies, both groups agree that e-mail, back-office applications, customer service, and telecommunications are among the top systems that would impact the bottom line if they went dark.

Both groups also agree that more than five hours of downtime is unacceptable, regardless of the type of disaster that strikes. Yet they disagree on what applications were the most crucial. Only 29 percent of IT respondents said the CRM applications are a priority, compared to 40 percent of business executives.

Generally, business mangers are more concerned with outages of external, or customer-facing systems, while IT mangers were worried about internal infrastructure.

Palermo says he believes that could have an affect on the types of investments made towards managing disaster planning and recovery processes.

"IT executives may be resigned to 'making do' with the resources that they have, even though there are growing pressures to decrease downtime," he says.

They may consider switching on the Weather Channel at the next budget meeting. Storm experts are warning of another active hurricane season this year, with climatic conditions leading to intensified storms closer to the coast. Three weeks ahead of the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season -- from June 1 to Nov. 30 -- the National Weather Service issued its first storm warning of the year for Subtropical Storm Andrea, which was packing winds of up to 45 mph off the southeastern coast on May 9.

That should have more residents and business owners alike in hurricane-prone areas stocking traditional emergency supply kits with drinking water, flashlight batteries, and other traditional provisions -- let alone worrying about network downtime, says Tim Harden, a network services president for AT&T's Southwest region.

"When it comes to disaster preparedness, there is no such thing as being too prepared," Hardin says.

ABN Amro plans fund with Chindia flavour

2007-06-23T04:44:00.000-07:00

Chindia, the new-age word coined to denote China and India, has breached diplomatic circles to enter the realm of funds, courtesy ABN Amro Mutual Fund, which has planned an equity product aimed at investing in Indian, Chinese and other global markets.

The proposed ABN Amro Chindia Fund, which will invest a minimum 65 per cent of its assets abroad, will aim at generating returns primarily from an actively managed portfolio of transferable equities of companies that are domiciled in, or derive the predominant part of their revenues or profits from, China and India.

The fund will identify companies that may benefit from the anticipated long-term growth of the two Asian giants, the offer document filed with SEBI has indicated, adding that direct investments in Chinese and Indian companies may involve specific risks.

As for investments in Chinese and Indian securities, a few beliefs hold good, it is mentioned. Both economies are growing rapidly, driven by structural change and reforms. Their consumption growth is led by positive demographics. Incidentally, Chindia's GDP growth has been twice the global rate over the past 20 years.

ABN Amro Mutual's latest move is in line with the current trend displayed by the asset management industry: funds with marked international exposure. In recent days, two offer documents have been filed - Franklin Asian Equity Fund and Birla Sun Life International Equity Fund.

SEBI notice on ADRs/GDRs

It may be mentioned here that SEBI today issued a circular related to investment in ADRs, GDRs and foreign securities as well as overseas ETFs by fund houses. This may be seen in the context of enhancement in overseas investment limits by RBI - funds can now invest within an overall cap of $4 billion. There will be a sub-ceiling for individual funds, not exceeding 10 per cent of their net assets as on March 31 of each year and subject to a maximum of $200 million per mutual fund.

Birla Sun Life MF launches new capital protection scheme

2007-06-23T04:41:00.000-07:00

Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund, on Tuesday announced the launch of Birla Sun Life Capital Protection Oriented Plan, a capital protection oriented scheme.

Objective

The objective of the scheme is to invest in high quality fixed income securities maturing in line with the tenure of the scheme and seeking capital appreciation by investing in equity and equity-related instruments.

The fund's portfolio will comprise of high quality debt instruments that would mature to the initial value of investment. The rest of the portfolio would be invested in a diversified basket of growth stocks.

"Birla Sun Life capital Protection fund is an apt fit in the low to moderate risk-taking investor's portfolio (investors who look at investing primarily in fixed deposits or small savings), said Mr Mukul Gupta, CEO, Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund.

The fund offers two plans with 3-year and 5-year investment horizons respectively. The 3-year plan can invest up to 16 per cent of its corpus in equity/equity-linked instruments while the rest (84-100 per cent) will be held in debt and money market instruments.

Conversely, the 5-year plan can invest up to 23 per cent of its corpus in equities/equity-linked instruments and the balance 77-100 per cent in debt and money market instruments.

The new fund offer closes on July 6 and the minimum invest amount will be Rs 5,000 and in multiples of Re 1, thereafter.

Dividend tax on MFs investing in money markets raised

2007-06-23T03:47:00.000-07:00

The Union Budget has marked up the dividend distribution tax (DDT) on mutual funds investing in money market and liquid markets to 25 per cent for all investors.

The Finance Minister said the funds enjoy concessional tax rates allowing for huge arbitrage opportunities.

According to mutual fund managers, though this provision may shift a few to the long-term bond market, investors will still enjoy higher tax benefits vis-a-vis fixed deposits of banks.

Post-tax returns of investors in liquid and money market funds will be hit by the dividend distribution tax rate going up from 22.44 per cent to 28.32 per cent (including surcharge and cess) for corporates and from 14.03 per cent to 28.32 per cent for individuals. However, for non-liquid funds, the dividend distribution tax remains the same.

"This should encourage investors to shift towards long-term debt schemes as compared to liquid funds," said Mr Sanjay Prakash, Chief Executive Officer, HSBC Investments in India.

However, the returns, even after the increased tax on dividends, would go up to 5-5.5 per cent post tax, while that on deposits in banks would fetch around 2.5 per cent. This clearly shows money market and liquid funds still offer better returns, said Mr Ramanathan K., Head - Fixed Income, ING Vysya Mutual Fund.

The move is negative say fund managers. "It will impact sales to some extent and the post-tax returns of customers will be hit," said Mr Ajay Bagga, CEO, Lotus India Mutual Fund.

Fund managers said liquid funds are still the best option for investors placing funds in bonds of short duration (less than a week) as they do not have any other alternative. "Money will continue to flow from investors keen on the short term," said Mr Mahendra Jajoo, Vice President, Head-Fixed Income, ABN Amro Asset Management.

"In the longer term, we believe cash funds and bank deposits play different roles and have their own place in treasury portfolios," said Ms Ashu Suyash, Managing Director and Country Head, Fidelity Fund Management Pvt. Ltd.

Brad Pitt pictures

2007-06-23T02:54:00.000-07:00

Mariska Hargitay pictures

2007-06-23T02:50:00.000-07:00

Kimberly McCullough

2007-06-23T02:47:00.001-07:00

ANNE HECHE

2007-06-23T02:43:00.000-07:00

Review of Ocean’s 13

2007-06-23T02:37:00.000-07:00

In this tiresome summer of tired sequels, it’s a distinct pleasure to be able to tell you that the latest “three-quel” is a terrific comedy-thriller. “Ocean’s 13,” the third Danny Ocean adventure, is a whirlwind caper about taking down Willy Bank (Al Pacino) the egomaniacal Las Vegas high roller who has cheated Danny’s mentor, nice guy Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould), out of his half-ownership in the most glorious new hotel-casino in the town’s history.

When Reuben has a coronary as a result, Danny (George Clooney) and Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) get the old gang back together to exact a fitting revenge from Bank, by ruining his “5-Diamond” reputation and by breaking the bank of his casino on its opening night.

To accomplish that, they’ll need to manufacture magnetic dice, rig all the machines, don a zillion disguises and, of yes, create a real earthquake on the Vegas Strip! Of course, since this is a lightning-paced caper movie, most of the fun is in guessing how all the bits and pieces we’re shown will fit together, to bring down Banks with the help of Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon), Frank Catton (Bernie Mac), Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner), Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle), Virgil Malloy (Casey Affleck), Turk Malloy (Scott Caan), plus a few more co-conspirators.

All they really have to do is outsmart a super-smart villain and a super-computer that can think for itself, which should be no problem for a gang whose sense of style and, more importantly, sense of humor have no equal.
While it doesn’t all make sense, “Ocean’s 13″ has so much fun getting us to the inevitable payoff that it easily steals our attention while it also steals 4 1/2 tickets out of 5 on the Mr. Movie Scale.

REVIEW ON CHEENI CUM

2007-06-23T02:31:00.000-07:00

HELLO
Advertised as a “sugar free romance” Cheeni Kum – Balakrishan’s directorial debut, is not entirely without sweetness. A film to enjoy with one’s parents, it provides some light humour and ample charm but leaves no aftertaste – it’s just a little too bland.
Buddhadev (Amitabh Bachchan) – a 64 year old NRI chef and confirmed bachelor, meets a vivacious 34 year old career woman from Delhi (Tabu) and they fall in love. Some of the dialogues between the couple are beautifully executed by the actors and stylishly shot. However the screenplay is inconsistent, relying too heavily on gimmicks and easy solutions so that the end product looks good but lacks flavour.

In some respects stereotypes have been avoided. Bachchan’s character – Buddha, has a dry humour and crustiness that make him an interesting choice for a romantic lead. Tabu’s Nina has an intelligent, playful wit which is uncharacteristic of the love interest in Bollywood films. Although female leads in Hindi movies tend to be sweet and innocent and can even be feisty and bold, they are not generally, worldly or amusing. The coup though, is Buddha’s mother played brilliantly by Zohra Sehgal. As is often the case, it’s the life experience one brings to a viewing experience which shapes perception. Buddha’s mother with her eclectic TV viewing tastes and argumentative streak reminded me of my own rather eccentric but wonderfully warm grandmother so I really enjoyed the character. It’s just a pity that these potentially entertaining individuals aren’t given enough scope in the course of the winding 140 minute film. The gossamer thin story is stretched to breaking point and is only held together by the collective charisma of its stars.

The tension in the first half of the film does not grow out of the interaction between the leads. It is grafted on by way of a sub-plot. Buddha has a friendship with a sweet child (here is the sweetness!) who is suffering from leukaemia. The little girl is of the type that is often described as having “an old head on young shoulders” and her discussions with Buddha are supposed to deepen our understanding of his fears and insecurities. This technique works initially but collapses because developments in the child’s life impinge on the relationship between Buddha and Nina; they even detract from Nina’s role in the film. At these points the story is both predictable and contrived so that the resulting emotional outpourings are just a lot of hot air. Nina’s father – Om (Paresh Rawal), who is 6 years younger than his prospective son-in-law, is also largely there as a ploy. He acts as a foil to Buddha’s character but, like the little girl, doesn’t seem to exist in his own right. Om is a buffoon whose function is to bring on laughs. However, his actions DO become pivotal to the plot; they feed into the “real” human drama that’s unfolding. But sadly – because the character is so superficial, there is nothing substantial to which the leads can respond.

In many good Bollywood films songs deepen our understanding of relationships. If the song element is clipped to the point where a Bollywood film resembles a Hollywood film, then there has to be more done to enhance the story-telling technique. The screenplay needs to be stronger and the editing – tighter. Illaiyaraja’s tuneful score has been used effectively but in a film of this duration, it could have played a more significant part in fleshing out the relationship between the leads. There is an absence of physicality where the couple is concerned which makes their relationship seem almost platonic. I guess I’m a traditionalist and miss the fantasy of song picturization as means of describing the emotional terrain that lovers must navigate. It’s what drew me to Hindi movies in the first place so I feel its absence profoundly.

Cheeni Kum is definitely a vehicle for Amitabh Bachchan and this where the emphasis of the film is wrong. It should be a vehicle for the relationship between the characters portrayed by Tabu and Amitabh Bachchan. Other actors should not exist merely to showcase the star; they should be there to contribute to the internal logic of the narrative. As it is, they retreat alarmingly into the background as the spotlight falls yet again, upon the legend whose histrionics are not supported by clear motives and meaning.

REVIEW OF JHOOM BARABAR JHOOM

2007-06-22T22:51:00.000-07:00

hello
My expectations were soaring from JHOOM BARABAR JHOOM. The movie reunites Abhishek Bachchan fresh from the success of his blistering performance in GURU with director Shaad Ali Sahgal after the success of SAATHIYA and BUNTY AUR BABLI. The rest of the casting with Preity Zintaa, Lara Dutta, Bobby Deol and Amitabh Bachchan in a guest appearance was also fresh. The energetic promos were a visual treat for the eyes, and the music was superlative, so does JHOOM BARABAR JHOOM live up to expectations? In my humble opinion, YES….! The movie is a full-fledged fun-filled ride with little in the way of a story yet like his previous film BUNTY AUR BABLI he has managed to make an immensely entertaining and intermittently likeable film which leaves the viewer with a big smile on their face right from the very start till the very end…paisa vasool!
The story of JHOOM BARABAR JHOOM was for the majority kept a secret until its release, and that’s mainly because there isn’t much of one at all. The writer Shaad Ali has constructed a film that relies less on story, and more on the charm, charisma and sheer madness of its cast and their comic timing. Ali takes one oldest clichés in Indian cinema yet manages to pack it into a fresh and rather appealing romantic-comedy. Ali’s ability to maintain a fine line between the technical finesse of Hollywood while maintaining the earthy soul of “Bollywood” is evident here again after BUNTY AUR BABLI. But JHOOM BARABAR JHOOM is not a con-caper by any means, yes it does feature yet another “twist-in-the-tale” like Abhisheks previous release Rohan Sippy’s BLUFFMASTER, but here the focus is more on the romance than anything else. The axe in Ali’s story comes from Screenplay writer Habib Faisal who manages to “stop” the movie for certain periods relying entirely on the charm of its stars to take the movie forward (or to the next song!!). Ali’s penchant for putting on a musical score is simply magnificent here yet again after BUNTY AUR BABLI. In-fact, Ali and Faisal turn the movie into a musical for 30 minutes before going back to the story which is a masterstroke of creativity as it elevates to something better than it was, and from there-on the movie really picks up. Post-interval the movie rocket launches into a zany and insane world of two very colourful people which merged with Ali’s creative instinct really propels the movie into pure madness. If KAJRA RE was then, JHOOM BARABAR JHOOM is now, the impact of the song is simply devastating to say the least, and the audience seemed to be loving it!

The movie has no doubt been designed to showcase the various talents of its cast in the movie entertaining way as possible. Amitabh Bachchan’s Sutradhar act started out rather weak for me despite the addictive title song, but as the movie progressed the film started turning more into a showcase for Abhishek Bachchan who along with Bobby Deol, Preity Zinta, Lara Dutta, and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy delivers the goods in the second half. The entire dance competition song with the various infused versions of “Jhoom Barabar Jhoom” catapult the movie into something that can only be called the higest usage of OTT that one can imagine. At times the movie is prepoustously OTT which works in the films favour. The entrance of Amitabh Bachchan in the song just before it ends works like a charm as well, for some strange reason quiet a few people happy to see Amitabh in his get-up which was funky, but all said and done I certainly would’ve loved to see Amitabh in a full-fledged role here, heck I didn’t even mind the get-up after a while.

Abhishek Bachchan delivers yet another sparkling performance! After his Award-Worthy performance in GURU earlier in the year, the Box-office predictions were offcourse already ranging in the 50+ category, but I certainly didn’t expect Abhishek to deliver such a commandingly confident performance, and yet again a defining one. His comic timing is just brilliant here, and it would be an understatement to say that Abhishek Bachchan doesn’t live up and make use of his Rikki Tuggral persona. Right from his entrance, his dialogues, his delivery, and his body language to his eye movements as well as the smashing dance sequences Abhishek delivers the goods…again! One must thank Shaad Ali for managing to retain a sense of Abhisheks “con-man” persona again after BLUFFMASTER and BUNTY AUR BABLI. Folks, this is VERY MASSY stuff, and Abhishek’s confidence in his charm to pull of the role works like a dream here to say the least. Once again this is a performance that will cause the Media something to write about as Abhishek shares quiet a lengthy kiss with Lara Dutta in the movie, sweet revenge for wifey Ashwariya for DHOOM 2? However this doesn’t overshadow anything from Abhishek’s performance which is very much another “moment” for Abhishek after GURU.

Preity Zinta as the leading lady is in fine form again after her rather “serious act” in Karan Johar’s KANK. And lets just say between Rani and Preity…Preity got the better deal. This is the kind of performance that has become the Preity Zinta trademark! Lively, bubbly, spirited, and just generously charming throughout. Theres something so brutally honest about Alvira Khan that you cannot help but laugh, and it would be unfair to say Abhishek dominates the first half alone as Preity matches him step for step throughout. It’s the chemistry between the two which keeps the movie going unlike GURU where the movie turned into a full fledged Abhishek show. The sequences with Lara and Bobby all merged into together well, and both actors make a striking “comeback” of sorts.

A special mention must be made of the chemistry shared between Abhishek and Preity, they’re the perfect foil for each other. Their natural chemistry and level of comfort with each other is evident all the way.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen Bobby Deol in true masala form. He’s the kind of actor who can be at times effective depending on who the director is at helm, and in this case Ali knows what he’s doing. His entry infact livens the proceedings in the second half and Bobby manages to surprise with his comic timing, and dancing! His entry in the second half is simply magnificent, and Shaad has made good use of Bobby’s history as well as the movie shares a priceless moment where Rikki and Satvinder(Steve or even Sattu as he gets called in the movie) ride on a bike similar to the ones their father did, and the homage is captured perfectly. Unfortunately Abhishek and Bobby don’ get too many scenes together, though Bobby does manage to match Abhishek all the way in the “musical” dance competition.

Lara Dutta gets to play a rather “crude” character in the second half of JBJ in which she delivers a dazzling act of impressive comic timing. Her French accent in the first half got a bit over-bearing after a point, but her short skirts and cleavage is more than enough to keep the male audiences happy…she look HOT!

A special mention must be made of the utterly delightful Piyush Mishra as

As a director Shaad Ali is in terrific form in my view. Not everyone take extract such brilliant performances from a talented cast, and the manner in which he merges it with his impeccable comic style is just amazing. The movie is laced with so many in-jokes throughout that the movie indeed turns into a “homage” of sorts, this time to the Bachchan family on the “whole” rather than just a homage to his “era” which BUNTY AUR BABLI was. His first movie was a Remake of a Tamil Classic which proved to be successful in Hindi too. Obviously it does help that Yashraj is backing the film, but Shaad Ali’s remake was one that even director Mani Rathhnam approved of, and he was credited with the story and screenplay. His venture was more creative and slightly zany, but with BUNTY AUR BABLI he was lucky enough to have a sound story, here his story (or lack of) does the film slight damage as it does turn into a “showcase” after a point, rather than a movie and though some critics will call this “indulgent crap” I’d beg to differ, the movie is innovative and creative and Ali manages to construct it in a efficient manner. Right from the rather witty and blisteringly funny interactions with Abhishek-Preity in the first half to the completely AWOL second half where Ali lets completely loose with his creative inhibitions completely loose.

Habib Faisal’s dialogues are in sync with what the movie is trying to achieve and have been carefully crafted keeping the actor in mind. Abhishek no doubt gets the best lines in the movie, and Abhishek proves his worth as a Comedian by playing completely to the galleries. This is the kind of performance one usually expects Akshay Kumar to play with-out a hitch, and to see Abhishek proving equally worthy in the genre with his own style is impressive.

It’s been a while since Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music was put to such good use. I wasn’t a huge fan of the song picturisations in DON, and the picturisations in KANK was dull. Here the songs are a focal point, and there were times where I found myself waiting for the next song to elevate the proceedings, and they did. Ali’s indulgence is evident in the second half as he relies entirely on a 30 minute song festival where he splashes colours, stars, money and music around like crazy!

The title track which comes on initially sets the pace going right from the start. TICKET TO HOLLYWOOD and KISS OF LOVE are well merged into the story. The best track in the movie is no doubt the JHOOM BARABAR JHOOM title song which appears in various forms merging various musical elements and styles into one. Pure stroke of genius right from Gulzarji’s ever innovative poetic lyrics to to the outstanding singing by Shankar Mahadevan, Neeraj Shridhar, Alisha Chinoy, Zubeen Garg, Rahet Fateh Ali Khan, Mahalaxmi Iyer, Vishal Dadlani, Vasundhra Das, KK and offcourse Sukhvinder Singh.

Technically the movie is as expected from a Yashraj film, exceptional! Ayanaka Boses’s lens captures the song, dance, mood, flavour, atmosphere and ambience of JHOOM BARABAR JHOOM like a true staged spectacle, and she deserves a standing applause! The absolutely stunning locales of London and France too are mesmerising. The song picturisations, merged with Vaibhavi Merchants mesmerising dancing makes this a true treat for the eyes and ears.

Another standing ovation is on order for Costume Designer Aki Narula who brings an array of staggeringly creative and stylish costumes which again add immensely to the entire “farce” nature of the film.

JHOOM BARABAR JHOOM is fun, refreshing, and more importantly entertaining film, and Shaad Ali once again deserves full-marks for presenting the viewer with something a little new, but still preserving the old as Ali is no doubt at his indulgent best here, and combines so many elements together (as infrequently as they are) that he turns JHOOM BARABAR JHOOM turns into a visual spectacle of homage’s painted onto celluloid by an extremely talented, and creative team.

REVIEW OF BHEJA FRY

2007-06-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

Vinay Pathak and Ranvir Shourie of the “Great Indian comedy Show” fame, appear in this off-the-wall comedy as Income tax officers with penchants for music and cricket. Both are excellent actors and while Vinay holds good as the main character, Ranvir adds his own special quirks in his short screen time. The film’s story is of music industry businessman Thadani (Kapoor) who along with his friends recruit talent to entertain them on their Friday night get-togethers. When Thadani comes across voluble IT clerk Bharat Bhushan (Pathak) who dreams of making it big with his music compositions, he decides to invite him as the “talent”. Of course Bhushan has no idea that he is an object of ridicule.
However as it happens Bhushan lands up at Thadani’s house, when Thadani has hurt his back and his wife (Sarika) has left him over a dis-agreement. In their efforts to bring back the wife, Bhushan proves himself a helpful, but bumbling fool and invites over Thadani’s nymphomaniac ex-girlfriend (Goswami) (and her dog), Thadani’s wife’s ex-lover (Soman) and honest Income Tax officer (Shourie) among others, thus creating the proverbial mountain out of the molehill. Thadani may never be able to get out of this one . . .

While not absolutely engrossing, this is a new genre of comedy for Hindi films, since it actually relies on situations and some intelligence. The characters are decently fleshed out; I especially liked the small touches – Bhushan’s carrying around the photo-album neatly wrapped in a plastic bag, and tied with a string, which he undoes EVERY time. Add to that his slicked back hair and the safari suit, and you had a perfect mascot for desi babu-dom.

Rajat Kapoor is quite an effective actor, but seems to lose his edge here. Shourie’s caricature-ish portrayal of a Muslim IT officer, if intentional, was beautifully done. Sarika is very good as Thadani’s singer wife. Milind Soman looks quite the music director with his overgrown beard, and has improved on his acting skills too. Tom Alter and Bhairavi Goswami have small roles with little impact.

This film is not in the same league as say, a “Khosla ka ghosla” but is a good effort nevertheless. Besides some laugh-out-loud lines, the film has you enjoying the discomfiture of the characters, and amused at the comedy of errors that can unfold from simple mistakes in life. This might be a remake of the French film “The Dinner Game” but it’s a good one. Truly avant-garde for a desi film, this is the kind of cinema I look forward to.

Priyanka To Lead India Day Parade In New York

2007-06-22T22:38:00.000-07:00

Top Bolywood actress Priyanka Chopra is all set to lead the 27th India Day Parade as Grand Marshal in New York in August to celebrate the country's 60th Independence Day. The annual parade, which will be held Aug 19, is organised in Manhattan by the Federation of Indian Associations (FIA) and attracts thousands of people every year.

Announcing details of the parade at the Indian Consulate in New York, earlier this week, FIA president Shobhana Patel said that comedian Johny Lever would be the chief guest. The theme of the parade would be "Women's Shakti" (power), Patel said.

Music composer A.R. Rahman, who is on a concert tour of the US, was present at the function

TIME IS MONEY

2007-06-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

MY FRIEND TOLD ME TIME IS MONEY AND HERE I EXPLAIN HOW TO RETAIN IT
Why do we lose money? Why are we generally not happy with our financial decisions? Why did it have to happen to me? Why did it happen when I invested my money?

The answer is really simple but it is going to be very hard to digest. Either we are complacent with what we have or it is just that we do not want to take the effort.

This is a plain cold fact. If I had to put a number to this divide a reasonable estimate would be 10 per cent v/s 90 per cent that is 10 per cent people are just complacent while 90 per cent just do not want to take the effort.

What makes things worse is that this 90 per cent people want short cuts. Just quickly give me an investment tip, what’s the best investment, what’s new these days, where can I get the maximum returns, what is safe but can give very high returns?

I have got so and so investment, what are the prospects, what is the future? These are normally the questions most people want to ask. Everyone wants a quick fix and no one is really interested in spending time or effort.

Remember there are no shortcuts and nothing worthwhile in life is ever free. The next time you get something for free just pause to think if there is really much value, commitment and credibility if you were to act upon that piece of information.

Free offerings may be all right in case of groceries and consumables as that is part of promotions but consequences of acting on short cuts and free information in financial matters can be grave.

In my view if you want something you have to work hard for it. Plain and simple! Then you have to spend time and money. There is no other way.

For example, if you want to do things yourself, you have a lot to learn first. Spend money in educational courses, buying software, books, magazines etc.

This is a lot of hard work. Get involved in the process and don’t depend on friendly neighbourhood advice or the advice of your friend’s friend who is a broker or an agent.

Just think if you had to buy vegetables for 50 rupees you would check prices with three vendors. But you would not blink to invest 50,000 on a hot tip!

Now if you don’t have the time and patience to do things yourself the least you can do is invest time in searching and hiring a good financial advisor.

Basically, if you can hire lawyers, chartered accountants, doctors etc for their service why do you want to risk your hard earned money?

Invest time to talk to 10 or 20 or 30 experts if you want but finally choose the one you like and you feel most satisfied and comfortable to work with.

Don’t waste your time with agents and brokers who are merely product distributors.

To do this is also a lot of hard work. But it will be worth all the time spent. Is that too much to do for a lifetime of peace and financial control? Just invest this time once. This is a shortcut you can afford to take.

Do you see why we lose money or are not happy with our financial decisions? For something that we want the most in our lives that is, money and more money we spend the least amount of effort and time.

We want to enjoy spending money but do not do enough to ensure that we have enough of it forever. We are not prepared to work hard; we are not prepared to seek the right advice.

These days information is so easily available and geography is irrelevant. All one needs to do is take the first small step that is to decide to invest time & effort for personal financial matters.

If you don’t take care of money, money will never take care of you. It’s that simple

Common investment mistakes to avoid

2007-06-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

hello friends

The other day I got a call from a friend. He wanted to know my opinion on ‘Stock A’, which was proposed to him by an old hand in the stock market. He was told that the stock would double its amount in a few months and the person who had recommended the stock also had bought some. I told him that this stock was crap and unless an operator was running the stock, I did not see strong reasons on why this stock would double. I said this not because I have the ability to spot stocks that will double in very short periods of time, but because I am yet to come across people or experts who can do this feat every time.

So in a nutshell I told him to stay away from this stock. Nevertheless he went ahead and took some exposure in the stock, as the seduction of making quick bucks was very high. Exactly 3 days down the line this stock is 18% down with 10% being knocked off in 1 day. He was now skeptical about making equity investments with the losses suffered in a couple of days. He blamed the stock markets as well as others for his misfortune, but at the same time wanted to participate in the growth of the Capital Markets and our economy.

However, never ever did this friend ponder over the mistake he had committed. I bet there are plenty of people who are guilty of committing the same mistake or others, but never get down to really understand what went wrong and try to learn from their mistakes.

So what are the important lessons for people wanting to create wealth through equities? The cardinal rule is to make as few big mistakes as possible.

Though the list can be pretty long, here are seven common mistakes people make when investing in equities and that you should stay away from.

Mistake No 1: The first and biggest mistake is not to admit making a mistake

People stubbornly hold on to stocks where they are making sizeable losses in the belief that they can exit when the price reaches their buying price. Most of the minds are not trained to acknowledge the fact that they have made a mistake and probably the best thing is to move on. There was this gentleman who had bought a “penny stock” at Rs. 9 following a tip and hoping that it would double in a few months.

The stock first rose by 20% and then declined by almost 40%. He was unwilling to let go of the position with the belief that he will do so only when the price reaches his buy price and it will happen sometime soon. The gentleman is still holding on to the stock and the stock has lost a further 40%. He could have exited the stock with a loss of just 28% initially (considering the appreciation of 20%). Now his losses are around 56% and he is still holding the stock. This happened in October 2005. Even several blue chip stocks have actually doubled or tripled since then.

Brief History Of Insurance Sector In India

2007-06-22T16:28:00.000-07:00

hello read this
The insurance sector in India has come a full circle from being an open competitive market to nationalization and back to a liberalized market again.

Tracing the developments in the Indian insurance sector reveals the 360-degree turn witnessed over a period of almost 190 years.

The business of life insurance in India in its existing form started in India in the year 1818 with the establishment of the Oriental Life Insurance Company in Calcutta.

Some of the important milestones in the life insurance business in India are:

1912 - The Indian Life Assurance Companies Act enacted as the first statute to regulate the life insurance business.

1928 - The Indian Insurance Companies Act enacted to enable the government to collect statistical information about both life and non-life insurance businesses.

1938 - Earlier legislation consolidated and amended to by the Insurance Act with the objective of protecting the interests of the insuring public.

1956 - 245 Indian and foreign insurers and provident societies taken over by the central government and nationalized. LIC formed by an Act of Parliament, viz. LIC Act, 1956, with a capital contribution of Rs. 5 crore from the Government of India.

The General insurance business in India, on the other hand, can trace its roots to the Triton Insurance Company Ltd., the first general insurance company established in the year 1850 in Calcutta by the British.

Some of the important milestones in the general insurance business in India are:

1907 - The Indian Mercantile Insurance Ltd. set up, the first company to transact all classes of general insurance business.

1957 - General Insurance Council, a wing of the Insurance Association of India, frames a code of conduct for ensuring fair conduct and sound business practices.

1968 - The Insurance Act amended to regulate investments and set minimum solvency margins and the Tariff Advisory Committee set up.

1972 - The General Insurance Business (Nationalization) Act, 1972 nationalized the general insurance business in India with effect from 1st January 1973.

107 insurers amalgamated and grouped into four companies viz. the National Insurance Company Ltd., the New India Assurance Company Ltd., the Oriental Insurance Company Ltd. and the United India Insurance Company Ltd. GIC incorporated as a company.

Life insurance cos aim at health segment

2007-06-22T16:25:00.000-07:00

HELLO
Health insurance is a young sector which is predominately dominated by the public sector general insurance companies. It is also one of the fastest growing businesses for them.

As on March 31, 2007 these companies accounted for nearly 63 per cent of the health business and the segment grew by about 44 per cent that is almost double the growth witnessed by the entire non-life business in the same period.

To cash in on this boom, life insurance companies are looking at entering the segment.

Though the public sector players have enjoyed the dominant role in the segment, they are receiving stiff competition from private players. ICICI Lombard General Insurance was the most aggressive in the segment and recorded a 168.1 per cent growth at Rs 735.85 crore compared with Rs 274.46 crore in 2005-06.

On the other hand, New India Assurance grew only by 14.34 per cent in 2006-07 fiscal to Rs 765.29 crore from Rs 669.28 crore in the previous fiscal.

Private players

According to Rahul Aggarwal, Chief Executive Officer, Optima Risk Insurance Services, 'Both private and public sector insurers are growing their health insurance portfolios at a healthy pace. Reliance General Insurance, ICICI Lombard and Bajaj Allianz are looking at this segment seriously among the private insurers.'

Aggarwal said general private insurers were able to show better results because retail financial distribution required strong and well-defined processes to minimise human intervention and discretion.

'It is in this area that the PSU insurers lag behind and are ceding ground to private insurers in metros and large cities. However, they are growing because of their distribution spread in many small towns and villages where private insurers do not have a presence,' he said.

Big push

The current fiscal is likely to see a major push from both the private as well as public sector companies.

Delhi residents to pick power suppliers

2007-06-22T16:23:00.000-07:00

From July next year, commercial users will be able to choose their power supplier much like they choose their telephone services. From next month, Delhi consumers who utilize up to 5 megawatts of power will be able to buy it from the provider of their choice.

“We are confident that we will be able to retain customers. We look at open access as an opportunity,” said Lalit Jalan Chairman, BSES.

In fact one of the customers happens to be Delhi's chief minister. “Shall I be frank with you? I will choose NDPL any day,” said Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

However middle-class households might find migration a dead choice because they happen to be in the lowest consumption bracket. “The first premise of open access is that it must relate to the cost of supply,” said Anil Sardana Former CEO, NDPL.

From July, next year a block of apartments will be able to choose their supplier. Open access as it is called is enticing but people may not want to switch for the same reason that they do not change their cellphone services supplier. There are compatibility issues, but over time they might yet vote with their feet.

The distribution networks are currently not compatible with each other. They will also need huge investments, which might materialise with the commonwealth games.

“I have asked the distribution companies to upgrade their network for the commonwealth games when we will require 10,000 MW of power. If that happen, open access will be possible,” said Rakesh Mehta Principal Power Secretary, Delhi.

That will be the day when reforms could be said to have not only brought abundant power to the city, but also empowered the Delhi consumer who was at the mercy of the state owned monopoly just five-years-ago.

Must-knows about education loans

2007-06-22T16:20:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS PROBLEM IN EDUCATION LOAN READ THIS
You can use ULIPs and Mutual Funds, PPF and gold as investment tools for your child’s education. But let's not look at education loans as a means of funding the same. There is fierce competition to finance just about every activity of your life – be it buying a house, planning a vacation, lifestyle related expenses, insurance or your child’s education.

Though these options may seem viable, you should not lose sight of the fact that these are all a part of the ‘Great Indian Debt Trap’ where you end up committing your future earning towards your expenses every month.

The good part is that it helps you in funding your child’s education expenses because you did not plan saving for their education appropriately at the right time. Nevertheless the bottom-line is good education for your child.

Here are some options:

Unit Linked Insurance Plans: Almost all insurance companies in India offer one or more options to plan your child’s education. The question is: what should you buy and what should you be careful of, while selecting the plan.

a. Administrative charges: These are charges deducted from your contribution towards sales/ advisors/ agent commissions, administrative and other fixed costs to be covered to serve the policy throughout the policy term.
The best way to find the total charges on a policy is to calculate a future value. If you invest over a period of time, use the projected rate of per cent and deduct the maturity amount given in the illustration provided by the company from it.
The difference is the total charges deducted by the company for the policy. Make sure your rate of calculation and the company's projected rate of growth are the same.

b. Annual fund management charges: Every company offers a basket of funds. Based on this, the fund management fees will vary. Remember, a lower fee does not mean a better product; a higher fee guarantee also does not guarantee a better performance. Typically, a fund that requires active management will have higher fees, while funds that are predominantly bond or liquid funds will have lower charges.

c. Switching cost: The basic rule of investment: book your profit from time to time. When markets are bullish, you need to book your profit by switching returns on your investment to funds, which are primarily for capital conservation.

Compact Disc turns 25, still rules

2007-06-22T02:46:00.001-07:00

ENJOY
It's time to wish the compact disc happy birthday as CD turns 25! It all began with Abba's The Visitors, which was released in CD format in 1982. That marked the beginning of the end of vynil era and transformed the landscape of musical formats.

"At that time, even experienced engineers told us 'this will never work'. And we learned one should never say never. We knew that we were working on a completely new, exciting technology. However, we did not know at that time that the CD would grow to that magnitude," says Hartmut Loewer of Bayer AG.

Offering unprecedented sound quality and optimum data capacity, CD has not only changed forever the way people listen to music but also marked the beginning of the digital age.

For the first time, music was in the palm of our hand. By 1994, re-writable CDs had brought the instantaneous transfer and duplication of files to living room computers worldwide.

Every year, the world produces roughly 90,000 originals on CD, billions of copies of which are sold globally. And today CDs have carved a very important space for themselves in our lives.

And despite the advent of Internet downloads, the CD will definitely reign supreme for many more years.

Sehwag taking the long road back

2007-06-22T02:42:00.001-07:00

ENJOY
The Indian team is in Ireland for a long tour ahead, and one man must surely be missing the action - Virender Sehwag - who has been dropped after five long years.

Virender Sehwag turned out for a club side in the Capital. The man who had bludgeoned his way into the hearts of Indian fans is now fighting a battle to find that place back.

"His natural way is to hit the ball, and he is trying to do that and trying to rectify within that, which is a very good sign. I think he is going to be back in the Indian side soon," former India spinner Rahul Sanghvi says.

Sehwag has played 22 one-dayers this season scoring 389 runs at an average of 24.77. His highest score of 114 came against Bermuda in the World Cup. His Test statistics, too, are nothing to write home about. In three Tests, he has scored 89 runs with 51 being his highest score.
"He is playing a lot of matches, scoring a lot of runs and is looking very good. He is very sincere and very focussed. So I think he will come back in the team very soon," off-spinner Sarandeep Singh says.

"He was out of form, everyone knows that. But he has been working hard in local tournaments. It's just unfortunate that he has been dropped and there is no first-class season going on," Sanghvi says.

For years now, Sehwag has been a regular face in the Indian dressing room. Unable to find his swashbuckling form, he finds himself sweating it out in the Delhi heat, while the rest of the team is in Belfast.

India can reach 4th spot in ODIs

2007-06-22T02:40:00.001-07:00

FRIENDS
Currently languishing at the sixth place, thanks to their World Cup flop show, the Indian team can move up to fourth in the ICC cricket rankings with a clean sweep in the forthcoming One-Day series against Ireland, South Africa and Pakistan over the next fortnight.

Rahul Dravid's side, which reached Belfast on Wednesday on a 80-day tour of UK, will leap-frog Sri Lanka and Pakistan if they win each of their five matches during the tour of Ireland and Scotland.

A clean slate would put India on 111 rating points, just two behind New Zealand in third position and one ahead of Pakistan, who would drop to 110 rating points.

Any reversal, however, might see India drop below England to seventh position, which would be the lowest it has been in the ODI Championship since April 2005.

With just 14 rating points separating New Zealand in third position and the West Indies in eighth, there are opportunities coming up for several other teams to make their impression on the LG ICC ODI Championship.

The West Indies will overtake England if they win 2-0 or 3-0. England, meanwhile, will have their sight set on sixth spot with a good showing there.

England can rise further still as it is set to play seven ODIs against India in August and September, according to an ICC statement in Dubai on Thursday.
Australia still tops the log, six rating points clear of South Africa in second spot but Jacques Kallis's men can reduce that gap to four by beating Ireland once and India three times in Belfast.
If the Irish can pull off victories at home to India and South Africa, it will gain 14 rating points, putting real pressure on Bangladesh in ninth spot.

Individually, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, in his first series as vice-captain, will want to keep up his recent run of fine form, and a good showing in the trip to Belfast and Glasgow would put him ahead of Mike Hussey and at third spot in the rankings for ODI batsmen.

There is also a chance for Kallis to get back into the top-10 while there will also be opportunities for the likes of Dravid, South Africans Herschelle Gibbs and AB de Villiers and West Indians Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Chris Gayle to make further advances in the top 20.

De Villiers is now ranked at the 18th position, having been 77th just one year ago so he will want to make sure that trend continues while his absent captain Graeme Smith will not have the chance to improve on his position of seventh as he is still recovering from a knee surgery.

World prays, Atlantis stuck in space

2007-06-22T02:34:00.000-07:00

THIS NEWS FROM IBN
Rain and low clouds prevented Atlantis from returning to Florida as scheduled, but mission managers were hopeful the space shuttle would be able to touch down on Friday, even if it meant landing in California.

During Atlantis' two chances to land on Thursday, showers were within 34 miles (55 kilometers) of the landing strip at Kennedy Space Center, and clouds hung below an altitude of 8,000 feet (2,400 meters), both violations of flight rules.

“We looked as hard and long as we think is reasonable and the rain showers and (cloud) ceilings are going to keep us from making it into Florida today,” Mission Control told Atlantis' seven astronauts.

Mission managers on Friday will activate the shuttle's backup landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California. There will be three chances for the shuttle to land at Edwards on Friday, although winds were expected to be too strong for the last two.

The shuttle has five chances on Friday to land in either Florida or California, the first at 1418 hours EDT (1818 GMT) in Florida and the last at 1859 hours EDT (2259 GMT) in California. If the weather spoils all those opportunities, mission managers would activate another backup landing site in New Mexico and try for Saturday.

Atlantis has enough power for its systems to orbit until Sunday, but managers want the shuttle to land by Saturday. The flight would be extended to Sunday only if there were technical problems that needed to be fixed.

NASA managers prefer landing at Kennedy, which would make it easier and cheaper to prepare Atlantis for its next mission in December. It would cost $1.7 million and take up to 10 days to bring the shuttle back to Florida from California aboard a jumbo jet.

During the crew's 14-day mission to the international space station, the astronauts installed a new truss segment, unfurled a new pair of power-generating solar arrays and activated a rotating joint that allows the new solar arrays to track the sun.

Originally scheduled for 11 days, the mission was extended by two days to give astronauts time to repair a thermal blanket that had peeled up during the June 8 launch. Astronaut Danny Olivas stapled it back into place during a spacewalk last week. An extra day in orbit was added after the weather in Florida prevented a landing on Thursday.

The shuttle's visit to the space station was complicated by the crash of Russian computers that control orientation and oxygen production.

Atlantis helped the station maintain its orientation until the computers were revived several days later when cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov used a cable to bypass a circuit board. Astronauts also conserved the shuttle's power in case they needed to spend an extra day at the station.

The cosmonauts at the space station on Thursday attempted to power the Russian computers without using the cable bypass, but it was unsuccessful.

Why US must let in more skilled workers

2007-06-22T02:27:00.000-07:00

FRIENDS THIS ARTICLE IS FROM BUSINESS WEEK

Deepa Singh's journey to the U.S. began as a classic tale of the American dream. She left her native New Delhi in 1999 at the age of 23 and received a master's degree in computer science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York state.

After graduating in 2001, she took a job as a computer analyst at computer maker Sun Microsystems, weathering a stormy period of layoffs as the dot-com bubble burst. In the heart of Silicon Valley, she began thinking about starting her own company, developing a plan for a social-networking Web site for working women, and drawing offers for funding from venture capital firms.

That's when the dream died. She's in the U.S. on a temporary work visa, known as an H-1B, and Sun is sponsoring her for permanent residence. But the wait for a green card is six or seven years, and her visa prevents her from leaving Sun to start her own company.

So at age 30, she's making plans to depart for Australia. "I expected that if you work hard and play by the rules that it would work out for me in America," says Singh. "I am eager to start my own company, but it turns out I don't have the option. I have wasted five of my most productive years just waiting."

As Congress prepares for a new round of debate over immigration reform, Singh is just one example of how the current policies in the U.S. may be undercutting economic growth. She is one of more than 300,000 skilled workers who have come to the country on temporary visas and are stuck in line for green cards.

Would-be Entrepreneurs Frustrated

Now, as these waits have stretched to years and opportunities in China, India, and other countries have improved, many of the most motivated are turning their backs on the U.S.

"Increasingly, they're getting fed up and going home," says Vivek Wadhwa, a professor at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. "There are dozens of people I've talked to in the past year alone who have gone back to India because they are frustrated."

The situation is particularly troublesome for would-be entrepreneurs such as Singh. People who start companies typically end up hiring others, creating jobs, and stimulating the economy. But they need to move quickly in launching their businesses, especially in fast-moving fields such as technology, so others don't jump out ahead. Waiting five or more years is out of the question.

"Within six months, an idea gets stale," says Wadhwa.

Rather than making the situation better, Washington now risks making the situation worse. As early as this week, the Senate is expected to take up once again the debate over how to reform the country's immigration laws, but the chances of any legislation appear to be fading.

Priority for Business Creators?

The most controversial point has been what to do with the undocumented immigrants already in the country, an estimated 12 million people. The disagreement over these low-skill workers may also eliminate any chance of improving the plight of high-skill workers.

There's a relatively simple solution. In fact, it may be the one easy fix in the country's immigration policy: Let in the people from other countries who are most likely to create new businesses.

Wadhwa recently completed research that provides something of a road map for this.

After studying hundreds of companies founded by immigrants, he discovered that the most likely people to start companies are those who receive master's and doctorate degrees, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. He also found that it's not just people who graduate from top schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Stanford University who start companies.

"What was surprising is that it doesn't really matter which schools they come from," he says.

Seeking Policy Fit for the Economy

To many experts, such evidence suggests that the U.S. should overhaul its policy approach and do much more to attract highly educated workers such as Singh. One proposal that has been floated in Congress is to let in all the foreign-born students who get advanced degrees from U.S. schools.

Right now, those students must line up for temporary visas and green cards like everyone else -- and only a limited number are allowed in each year.

"We need an immigration policy that adapts to the changing economy -- and one that not only helps fill jobs, but one that welcomes innovators who create jobs," says Robert Hoffman, a spokesman for Oracle and co-chair of Compete America, a tech coalition pushing for immigration reform. Other members of the group include Motorola, Texas Instruments, Intel, and Hewlett-Packard.

The wait for immigrants such as Singh, with promising careers, is growing because of a fundamental mismatch between temporary visas and permanent papers. Each year, some 65,000 people are allowed into the U.S. on a temporary work visa known as an H-1B (and in some previous years, it was even higher).

Many of the people who receive those visas decide to apply for green cards, which offer permanent residency.

Green-Card Backlog

But green cards are currently capped at 140,000 per year, and only 7% of that total, or 9,800, can go to citizens of any single country. That means vast countries such as India and China have extraordinarily large backlogs as tens of thousands of visa workers enter the U.S. each year.

The U.S. government does not provide data on the size of the backlog, but the advocacy group Immigrant Voices estimates that a net 90,000 to 100,000 people are added to the queue each year. "It's unfair to the community [of those waiting for green cards], and it's unhealthy for the U.S. economy," says Jay Pradhan, a vice-president of Immigrant Voices.

A handful of groups do oppose more green cards for the highly educated. Kim Berry, president of the 1,500-member Programmers' Guild, argues that giving green cards to the hundreds of thousands of people in the backlog will displace Americans and drag down wage levels.

He points out that employment in the tech sector has been largely stagnant since 2000, adding only a net 262,700 jobs since then to bring the total to 3.7 million.

Tradition of Foreign Founders

Adding in another 315,000 people from the green-card queue would flood the market with labor, he says, with many of the newcomers willing to work for less. "For a young programmer coming from India, a $40,000 salary might be fine," says Berry. "But it's not going to be enough for an American trying to raise a family in San Jose."

But many other experts and legislators see the long, rich history in the U.S. of immigrants founding important companies -- creating jobs, rather than taking them.

In his research, Wadhwa has estimated that one-quarter of the technology and engineering companies founded in the U.S. between 1995 and 2005 had at least one key founder who was foreign-born, and those companies generated sales of $52 billion and employed 450,000. Among the more prominent companies with immigrant founders are Sun Microsystems, Intel, eBay, Yahoo, and Google.

Forced to Underachieve

Still, as the current immigration policies create years-long waits for admission, and Congress seems unable to solve the problem, foreign-born workers are growing more frustrated.

Vineet Agrawal, a 32-year-old who works as a systems consultant in Princeton, N.J., has been in the U.S. for four years on a visa and is waiting for his green card. He has developed a computer systems integration program, and he wants to start a consulting company to take advantage of his innovation.

If he doesn't get his green card by next year, he figures he'll have to leave the U.S. "The processing is endless," says Agrawal, who did not want to reveal the name of his employer. "I'm part of a class that wants to be productive and contribute more, but is being forced to underachieve."

Deepa Singh, meanwhile, says that she simply doesn't hold out hope anymore that things will change in the U.S. "I'll be starting all over again in Melbourne," she says. "But I don't have a choice. I don't just want to do a job anymore. I'm eager to start my business."

Shopping in Delhi

2007-06-22T02:14:00.000-07:00

Delhi has always been among the most significant trading centres of India where you can always find localities which served as the markets for Delhi in the medieval era. Today, they are part of the metropolitan city – Delhi. Now, some of the areas serve as wholesale markets whereas some other areas serve as retail markets. Every market has its own ambiance and style through which they attract their customers. In fact exploration of the markets of Delhi are one of the best ways of knowing the city. There are places in Delhi where the shops are tidily put together in a very neat order so that you may find things that you want easily. Then there are places where the shops may not follow a particular order, yet they look attractive all the same. Though it seems somewhat exaggerated, it can be safely said that shops of Delhi offer almost everything that can be sold and purchased under the sun. Most of the tourists visiting Delhi have a things-to-do list in which shopping is a top priority. There are some of the best shopping malls of India in Delhi, where you can easily spend your entire day and money and still get the feeling that you have only skimmed the surface. These attractions are also among the best places to relax or hang out with your friends and family.

Popular Shopping Spots »
Connaught Place : Connaught Place is the horse shoe shaped market of Delhi which was designed by Robert Tor Russsel and W H Nicholls and was named after the Duke of Connaught। It was the largest in India at that point of time and is still among the most premier shopping destinations of Delhi where you can find a number of restaurants, food joints, shops, emporiums and cinema halls। There are two main parts of Connaught Place – Inner Circle and Janpath। All the international brands and the finest of shops are found in the Inner Circle whereas Janpath is considered to be a reasonably priced market। The Palika Bazar at Connaught Place is an underground super market where a huge variety of electronic goods and clothes can be bought at reasonable prices।
» Chandni Chowk : Located in Old Delhi, Chandni Chowk is a market with its own distinct ambiance where the congested markets of the place have served the city for more than three centuries. There are historical landmarks galore in the market and the narrow streets continue to throw surprises, though you are also allowed to throw surprises at the shopkeepers by striking some of the best bargains by dealing tactfully with the shopkeepers.
» Dilli Haat : Located opposite the INA market, Dilli Haat is a Food and Crafts Bazaar which aims to serve as the one stop shop for the tourists visiting Delhi by offering them with a variety of art work and handicrafts of India as well as ethnic Indian cuisines.
» Other Shopping Spots : The list of popular shopping spots of Delhi do not end here. There are other important markets as well such as the Greater Kailash Market which, it is said, is a market for the rich. The M Block market here is renowned for the designer wear, accessories and and cosmetics. Exotic imported fruit from other parts of the world are also available here. The N Block market is famous for ethnic Indian wear, furnishings and crockery. Another market that is said to cater to the high and mighty is the South Extension part I and II and it has the showrooms and outlets of almost all the top international brands. Karol Bagh is also a buzzing commercial centre which is famous for its cotton yarn and embroidered garments, fashion stores and food joints.

LIVING COST IN INDIA COST OF LIVING IN INDIA

2007-06-20T06:07:00.000-07:00

Category
Item
Low
High
Comments

House
rent
9000 rs
30000 rs
2bhk-3bhk. 9K will get you a single building apartment with no amenities. 30K will get you a posh society with swimming pool, security and plenty of kids J

Water
500 rs
1000 rs

Electricity
800 rs
2000 rs
A/C, Geysers etc. determine the range. Living with parents will have two geysers on in the morning hence high electricity bills

Domestic Help
700 rs
2500 rs
Rs. 700 Simple cleaning and vessel cleaning. Rs. 2500 Full day 9-5 maid

Car
2.3 Lacs
20 Lacs +
In most cases, upto a range, is paid by the company as part of your compensation with choice of company lease or annual expense.
Low end Maruti is 2.3 lacs. High end Hondas and Toyotas are 20 +

Fuel
5000 rs
For Avg office distance –office of 8-9 kms
Diesel(37 rs)-Petrol (51 rs).
Unless you have bike, in which case the cost goes down to < 1K.

Grocery
Fruits
400 rs
600 rs
2 kgs of apple anytime of year about 90 /kg, 2-3 pomengrantes(60/kg), grapes-25-50/kg, orange/musambi-25-50/kg, banana-12-25/kg) / or juices to replace the original stuff which sells @ 70/ltr

Milk
500 rs
1000 rs
Curd – 7.5/0.5kg , 15/kg

Atta
210 rs
260 rs
Annapurana branded stuff

Rice
125 rs
150 rs
25rs/kg – high end rice (range from 16 -25)

Raggi/Jowar
60 rs
60 rs
2 kg

Pulses
400 rs
500 rs
40 * 5 *2 - 50 * 5 * 2

Idli rava
40 rs
60 rs
2 kg

Upma
40 rs
60 rs
2-3 kg

Avalakki
30 rs
50 rs
1-1.5 kg

Sabbakki
40 rs
60 rs
2-3 kg

Peanuts
50 rs
100 rs
1.5 – 3 kg ( can be spread over 2 months)

Sauce/powders
400 rs
600 rs
Sauces/powder/soups(great fav now at house) depending on consumption

Pooja Items
150 rs
300 rs
(daily flower – 150, dhoop agarbatti, camphor – delivered to your door-step.

Gas
320 rs
620 rs
1-2 cylinder/मोंथ
Connectivity/Entertainment

Cable
100 rs
250 rs
Satellite stuff is cheaper and does not get shut down during bandh.
Cheaper for Apartment complexes than single family homes.

Phone
500 rs
2000 rs
(cell phones are better deal, combo deals are coming)

Internet
250 rs
1000 rs
Basic cookie cutter stuff.

Movie
500 rs
1000 rs
Weekdays – 100 rs
Weekends – 160 rs
Boutique (with private cabin and served dinner) - 1000 rs

Subway burger
75 rs
150 rs
1-2 people

Pizza
250 rs
1000 rs
Very expensive but very tasty

Eat Out
250 rs
2000 rs
Leela Palace Brunch – 2000 per person.
Good ambiance restaurant – 250 per person (Not including drinks)

Idli
8 rs
9 rs
Darshini (2 idlis)

Coffee/tea
4 rs
6 rs
Darshini

Travel
Air
2500 rs
15000 rs
Per person air ticket depending on how you bought it, airline, how early etc.

Bus
200 rs
600 rs
500 kms by red bus vs Volvo

Car rental
400 rs
1000 rs
Day rental (ford ikon)

Hotel
Stay
800 rs
15000 rs
Depends on place/name, Bangalore is expensive but one night stay hotel varies – 15k + is norm in Bangalore/chennai due to shortage in 5 stars – normal places will charge you 1500/2500/night. A holy place will have decent night stay from 500 rs+/night (example from kukke). Assumption is family(parents/wife etc are present)

Jungle lodges
1500 rs
2100 rs
Good idea for per person/day cost at one of those place
For Pune - Divide by 2
For Mumbai - Multiply by 3 (Especially the rent)
Cost of living...part trois

Travel
Air
2500 rs
15000 rs
Per person air ticket depending on how you bought it, airline, how early etc.

Bus
200 rs
600 rs
500 kms by red bus vs Volvo

Car rental
400 rs
1000 rs
Day rental (ford ikon)

Club Mahindra
1200 rs
2000 rs

Medical
Generic
500 rs
2000 rs
80-100 rs for simple visit to doctor
Hospitalization is costly – manipal being the 7 star place – where appendicitis operation+stay resulted in 75 k for 5 days !!! (Covered by company insurance though). Company insurance also covers your parents.

Lipid test etc
500 rs
2000 rs
Yearly stuff (high end stuff is for * hospital)

Dental
500 rs
4000 rs
Simple stuff –replacement/crown/surgery , bridges etc are 15-25k – can not claim unlike us

Vision
800 rs
25k
Checkup/specs on lower side – cataract operation with high end lenses

Electronic stuff
Refrigerator
8000 rs
17000 rs

Microwave/oven
5000 rs
15000 rs

Gas range
2000 rs
25000 rs
Italian stuff is costly

DVD Player
2000 rs
5000 rs

TV
8000 rs
1,00,0000 rs
Small tv – lcd/plasma is on higher side

Interest
Banks – 1 yrs deposit+ 9 %
PPF – 8.5 %
PostOffice – 9 %

New stuff
VAT – 12%
Service tax is norm – 4%+

CRICKET: Current and forthcoming series:

2007-06-20T05:17:00.000-07:00

2007 West Indies in England
Date Match Venue
Sat, May 12 - Mon, May 14 Somerset v West Indians - Match drawn Taunton
Thu, May 17 - Mon, May 21 First Test London
Fri, May 25 - Tue, May 29 Second Test Leeds
Fri, June 1 - Sun, June 3 MCC v West Indians - Match drawn Durham
Thu, June 7 - Mon, June 11 Third Test Manchester
Fri, June 15 - Tue, June 19 Fourth Test Chester-le-Street
Thu, June 21 England A v West Indians Worcester
Sun, June 24 Derbyshire v West Indians Derby
Tue, June 26 PCA Masters XI v West Indians Arundel
Thu, June 28 First Twenty20 international London
Fri, June 29 Second Twenty20 international London
Sun, July 1 First ODI London
Wed, July 4 Second ODI Birmingham
Sat, July 7 Third ODI Nottingham

Pakistan and Sri Lanka in Abu Dhabi
Date Match Venue
Fri, May 18 First ODI Abu Dhabi
Sun, May 20 Second ODI Abu Dhabi
Tue, May 22 Third ODI Abu Dhabi

Afro-Asian Cup
Date Match Venue
Tue, June 5 Asian XI v Africa XI, Twenty20 ODI Bangalore
Wed, June 6 Asian XI v Africa XI, 1st ODI Bangalore
Sat, June 9 Second ODI Chennai
Sun, June 10 Third ODI Chennai

India and South Africa in Ireland
Date Match Venue
Sat, June 23 Ireland v India Belfast
Sun, June 24 Ireland v South Africa Belfast
Tue, June 26 India v South Africa, 1st ODI Belfast
Fri, June 29 Second ODI Belfast
Sun, July 1 Third ODI Belfast

Bangladesh in Sri Lanka
Date Match Venue
Mon, June 25-Fri, Jun 29 First Test Colombo
Tue, July 3-Sat, Jul 7 Second Test Colombo
Wed, July 11-Sun, Jul 15 Third Test Kandy
Fri, July 20 First ODI Colombo
Sun, July 22 Second ODI Colombo
Tue, July 24 Third ODI Colombo

India in England
Date Match Venue
Sat, July 07 - Tue, July 10 Sussex v Indians Hove
Fri, July 13 - Sun, July 15 England A v Indians Chelmsford
Thu, July 19 - Mon, July 23 First Test Lord's
Fri, July 27 - Tue, July 31 Second Test Trent Bridge
Fri, Aug 03 - Sun, Aug 05 Sri Lanka A v Indians Leicester
Thu, Aug 09 - Mon, Aug 13 Third Test The Oval
Thu, Aug 16 Scotland v Indians, ODI Glasgow
Sat, Aug 18 England A v Indians Northampton
Tue, Aug 21 First ODI Rose Bowl (D/N)
Fri, Aug 24 Second ODI Bristol (D/N)
Mon, Aug 27 Third ODI Edgbaston
Thu, Aug 30 Fourth ODI Old Trafford (D/N)
Sun, Sep 02 Fifth ODI Headingley
Wed, Sep 05 Sixth ODI The Oval
Sat, Sep 08 Seventh ODI Lord's

Australia in India
Date Match Venue
Tue, Sep 25 Australia team arrival
Sat, Sep 29 First ODI Bangalore
Tue, Oct 2 Second ODI Kochi
Fri, Oct 5 Third ODI Hyderabad
Mon, Oct 8 Fourth ODI Guwahati
Thu, Oct 11 Fifth ODI Baroda
Sun, Oct 14 Sixth ODI Nagpur
Wed, Oct 17 Seventh ODI Mumbai

Pakistan in India
Date Match Venue
Fri, Nov 2 Pakistan team arrival
Tue, Nov 6 First ODI Faridabad
Fri, Nov 9 Second ODI Mohali
Mon, Nov 12 Third ODI Kanpur
Thu, Nov 15 Fourth ODI Gwalior
Sun, Nov 18 Fifth ODI Jaipur
Thu, Nov 22 - Mon, Nov 26 First Test Delhi
Fri, Nov 30 to Tue, Dec 4 Second Test Kolkata
Sat, Dec 8 - Wed, Dec 12 Third Test Bangalore

BCCI's do's and don't's for Team India

2007-06-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS

The Board of Control for Cricket in India on Tuesday appealed to its players to come up with a good showing and reinstall the faith of the country's fans before the team left for the twin tours of Ireland and England [Images].

Every member of the 15-member squad, led by captain Rahul Dravid [Images], was issued a list of do's and don't's for the 80-day tour.

The BCCI hoped that the players would rebuild the confidence of Indian cricket fans after the disastrous showing in recent months, which also included a first round exit from the World Cup.

"Indian cricket is passing through a difficult phase after our poor showing in the World Cup and along with the BCCI the players have also gone through some tough time," the BCCI said in a two-page letter, given to the players on the eve of their departure for the United Kingdom.

"You have an opportunity to rebuild the confidence of the people in Indian cricket and we are sure that you will do your best on this tour," the letter added.

There was also an important point on discipline.

Former India coach Greg Chappell [Images] had openly criticised the behaviour of some of the team members during the World Cup in the West Indies [Images].

"You are representing the country where all actions of yours will be closely followed and we have to impress upon all the members of the squad to be disciplined at all times both on and off the field," the letter said.

It also asked the players not to leak out dressing room talk, which so famously became part of the daily media diet after the shocking World Cup exit.

"Please ensure that all the talks in the dressing room and in team meetings is extremely confidential and always respect this."

Some important points from the letter are listed below:

DAILY ALLOWANCE:

At Ireland: Pounds 50 per day
At Glasgow: Pounds 50 per day
For England Tour: Pounds 47.50 per day

MEDICAL EXPENSES:

All the members of the team are insured for medical needs particularly for any major expenses on the tour.

PRIZE MONEY:

All prize monies in foreign currency including individual awards must be immediately handed over to the manager who will submit the same on return to India

MEDIA RELATIONS:

The team management will decide the player who would be expected to talk to the media on practice days. On match days the performer of the day must be available for the media briefing.

Captain and manager will meet the media at the per and post-match media briefings.

All the players have to extend co-operation to the official broadcaster of the England Cricket Board for headshots and interviews during the match when called upon.

Dress code for the media interaction:

ONLY THE OFFICIAL CLOTHING WITH LOGO OF SAHARA AND NIKE TO BE USED. PLEASE DO NOT GIVE ANY INTERVIEWS WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF THE TEAM MANAGEMENT

TEAM DISCIPLINE:

You are representing the country where all action of yours will be closely followed and we have to impress upon all the members of the squad to be disciplined at all times both on and off the field.

Please ensure that all the talks in the dressing room and in team meetings is extremely confidential and always respect this.

INDIAN CRICKET IS PASSING THROUGH A DIFFICULT PHASE AFTER OUR POOR SHOWING IN THE WORLD CUP AND ALONG WITH THE BCCI THE PLAYERS HAVE ALSO GONE THROUGH SOME TOUGH TIME.

YOU HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO REBUILD THE CONFIDENCE OF THE PEOPLE IN INDIAN CRICKET AND WE ARE SURE THAT YOU WILL DO YOUR BEST ON THIS TOUR.

Can fast food be actually healthy?

2007-06-20T02:41:00.000-07:00

Hello friends
Fast food from McDonald's is healthiest in Denmark and worst in the United States, a Danish study comparing levels of the deadliest kind of fat, trans fatty acids, showed on Friday.

The study, conducted by researchers at Gentofte University Hospital in Denmark and published in this week's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, compare meals bought at McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken in 20 countries around the world.

A large meal of chicken nuggets and French fries at McDonald's in the United States contained 10.1 grams of trans fatty acids, while the same meal in France contained 5.9 grams and just 0.33 grams in Denmark, Steen Stender, who headed the research project said.

"Many people think that wherever you go in the world you get the same thing at McDonald's, but in fact that is not the case," Stender added.

The low Danish levels are the result of low-fat legislation introduced in the year 2004. Under the new law, no more than two per cent of fats in foods sold to customers can be industrially produced transfats (trans fatty acids).

Food producers violating the law risk two years in prison. For a meal of chicken nuggets and potato wedges at Kentucky Fried Chicken, the lowest level of trans fatty acids was registered in Germany, with 0.4 grams, compared to the highest level in Hungary, which had 24.1 grams.
Trans fatty acids clog the arteries and are linked to increased risk of heart disease. "Studies show that five grams of transfat per day increase the risk of heart disease by 25 per cent," Stender said.

Fast food passe, time for slow food

2007-06-20T02:39:00.000-07:00

hello friends
A slow food movement is taking the world by storm. Satisfying tastebuds with fast food is not how the trend goes. Now, savouring genuine tastes that also saves the environment is what everybody is talking about.

It's a food revolution that won't really surprise too many people in Indian Kitchens. But the rest of the world is finally talking of the slow food movement.

The slow food brigade is also pushing the message that whatever we eat should not only be tasty, but also nutritious and healthy. Which in turn will be good for the planet and good for the people who produce it
The message being propagated is to eat healthy and eat responsibly.

"We have to explain and convince people that we are eating too much. We have to make them realise that we are eating bad and make them understand that may be if we try to rediscover local and fresh food traditions and incorporate them in our eating habits, we will progress towards a better health. Not only will it suffice our pleasure needs, but at the same time it will be beneficial for our environment and for the conditions world over today,” says Paolo Di Croce of Slow Food.

People in Genoa are serving up a tasty alternative. Recently, a three-day slow fish festival was celebrated in the port city of Genoa which brought many fish lovers together. Everyone who loves to eat fish, cook fish and catch fish tried to be a part of the festival.

Slow food is the buzzword even in the kitchens of big restaurants. London chef Stuart Gillies says he enjoys the challenge of cooking according to the slow food principles when he prepares a two-course meal.

"I think they're buying junk because they're buying things that don't contain any nutrients, vitamins and minerals. These things are produced too fast in a way that looks good aesthetically. It's kind of easy food. On the other hand, slow food is completely the opposite: It takes a long time to produce," he points out.

The slow food movement started 20 years ago. Slow food activists say they aren't against McDonald's in particular, but they want to make sure people have a choice and understand the difference between the kind of fish you just saw and a sandwich like the one known as a Mcfish.
Slow food fans are keen to spread this concept around the world. The movement now counts more than 80,000 members in almost 50 countries. The movement aims at reaching out to maximum number of people, giving practical advice about food habits and helping them adapt their lives to a healthier, less frenetic pace.

Filmy Fiscal: Rajini's Sivaji rules BO

2007-06-20T02:37:00.000-07:00

hello friends

Don’t get fooled by advertisements for films that call itself, say, superhit because Filmy Fiscal comes to you straight from the box office.

How much moolah did the films that released last weekend rake in? Was it a hit or a miss?

Navi gets you the box office report and the right figures on which film is doing good business and which isn’t.

Last week was quite interesting because of two releases Jhoom Barabar Jhoom and the Rajinikanth-starrer Sivaji. Rajini’s magic worked for sure, but what about Yashraj’s magic?
If you thought Yashraj films could only get better after Ta Ra Rum Pum, you were wrong. Jhoom Barabar Jhoom is out in cinema halls we guess only to prove that Ta Ra Rum Pum is not their worst.

The Abhishek-Preity starrer Jhoom Barabar Jhoom was not well received and the weekend collections were just about 60 per cent.
Why the drop in collections? Well, Yashraj’s recent releases have all been disappointing.

MOVIE NAME - Jhoom Barabar Jhoom

Opening : 60 per cent
Reason? All show, no script

And on the other side was magic, Rajini’s film Sivaji got a 100 per cent opening all-India. Even though Rajini was enough to pull the crowd, this film had a line up of the best talent with Shankar directing it and AR Rahman contributing to the music.

MOVIE NAME - Sivaji

Opening : 100 per cent
What worked? Rajini's magic

It seems it was difficult to sit through Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. What about those who have to watch every film start to finish? Let’s see whether the critics liked it or not.

Critic's Verdict: Jhoom Barabar Jhoom

Trade Guide: 1.5 / 5
Asian Age: 2.5 / 5
Sunday Mid-Day: 2 / 5
CNN-IBN: 2 /5
And what does the film-o-meter say this week? The Train is a Flop.

Apple's iPhone has a rival

2007-06-20T02:29:00.000-07:00

hello friends
Omnifone is all set to break Apple's hold on digital music. Its software Musicstation is estimated to run on millions of mobile phones in Europe and Asia.

Omnifone has decided to take on Apple's music-playing iPhone, weeks before its launch in the USA.
Musicstation software, which has already started being loaded in mobile phones in Europe, is estimated to be in 100 million mobile phones in Europe and Asia in the next 12 months.

Omnifone's CEO agrees that there are a billion mobile phones selling in the market with fantastic support, logistics and manufacturing.

“We want to turn 75 per cent of those music devices where you can access the whole world's music over data networks and access as much as you like for a small weekly fee,” he said.
Big mobile phone operators and all music majors have signed up to Musicstation.

All the company wishes to do, is to break Apple's hold on digital music and they believe mobile phones are the way to do it.
The advantages of a Musicstation over the iPod and iPhone is that music can be downloaded anywhere, without a computer needed.
Musicstation will also work on a range of handsets offered by mobile phone operators.
Compared to the Rs 25,000 iPhone, the songs will be stored on a server and not on the phone that can get lost or stolen.
So it implies that the songs are rented not bought. As long as one will pay the subscription, one can access the music.
The only drawback seems to be the fact that people who own CD’s may not want to pay for songs again, or the one’s already on their iPod’s.

Paid for playing games all day long

2007-06-20T02:15:00.000-07:00

hello friends

Do you spend hours playing games? Is gaming a passion for you? If the answer is yes, you could make a career out of it.
Pramod, a graduate in information technology and a commerce graduate Vivek are among many, who have chosen this career for themselves. Their job is to play new games and test them for flaws. In technical terms they are the game testers.

" We used to play the game first to understand it. After that, we started as a tester, so we have dual roles to play. As a player first and also as a tester,” says Vivek.
Over 300 companies are a part of the 150 million dollar gaming industry in India. Many companies make games for their overseas clients. But before their commercial launch, the games need to be tested and certified. And that's why game testers are critical to this industry.
Presently the Indian gaming industry needs 8,000 to 10,000 game testers, but all the companies, put together, have less than 500 people for this job.

To bridge this huge gap, the companies are now planning to start game lounges throughout the country, where people would be invited to play for free. And those with good gaming skills will be offered a job.
"You're paid to work in some other companies, here you are paid to play. And that's critical. So, anyone who wants to build a career in game testing should have passion for games. And he must enjoy playing games on a 24/7 basis,” says Games Shastra, CEO, Prakash Ahuja.

The Indian gaming industry is growing at a rate of nearly 100 per cent a year. In the next five years, it is expected to be a billion dollar industry. And on offer would be more than one lakh jobs. So in the coming future we will have many more games, thanks to all the game testers playing hard at work.

Taj among top 3 world wonders

2007-06-19T15:43:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS

The pristine, white marble monument of Taj has suddenly left great architectural cousins like Statue of Liberty, Great Wall of China and Angkor Vat far behind in the race for the seven new wonders of the world.

With less than three weeks to go before the final results of the worldwide poll are announced, the Taj has finally broken into the top three, overtaking even the Statue Of Liberty and the Great Wall of China.

Only 10 days back, the Taj Mahal was nearly grounded in the banks of the Yamuna as netizens were not giving enough votes for the Taj. Neither did enough SMSes flow in.

It seems that with just 17 days to go before the New Seven Wonder Foundation comes up with the final list, Indians are finally using their demographic strength.

The foundation told CNN-IBN on Tuesday that Machu-Pichu, the Inca monument in Peru, the Acropolis in Greece and the Taj were three frontrunners at this moment. They have not disclosed the exact order though.

The Taj could even be number one if Indians show their love for this monument of love and keep SMS-ing and voting till the last hour. Who knows the Taj could emerge wonderfully the first.

Dream jobs of tomorrow

2007-06-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

Disease Mapper
Salary range:$40,000-$150,000

Experience/skills: A Ph.D. or master's in a tech field, plus expertise in a particular disease.

Perks: Flexible hours and travel to exotic locales

Who's hiring? Universities, governments, the United Nations, some consultancies

Early in his career, Andy Tatem became so proficient at analyzing fuzzy satellite images of English farms that he could tell wheat crops from turnip fields by studying the way the sun reflected off each.

Interesting stuff if you're a farmer, but not sufficiently inspiring for Tatem. Then came a call last year from Simon Hays, an Oxford University researcher who was developing a global map of malaria that could explain current outbreaks and help predict future ones.

Today Tatem, a 29-year-old Ph.D., is among a new class of researchers using the latest satellite imagery, cheap computing, big databases, and free tools like Google Earth to show how epidemics spread around the globe.

It's a new twist on a very old concept. When cholera and yellow fever spread during the 18th century, "medical geographers" drew maps to show infected areas but had no way of knowing where an epidemic would strike next. Tatem pulls data from NASA satellites to plot a picture of rainfall, temperature, vegetation, and other variables in regions where malaria has struck. He correlates it with infection rates and hospital reports to create a map of the disease and its projected spread.

Robot Programmer
Salary range: $40,000-$100,000

Experience/skills: Associate degree in a technical field and extensive training. People skills also come in handy.

Perks: Lots of travel, helping clients customize each machine to a particular task

Who's hiring? ABB, Fanuc, Motoman, Panasonic, Toyota

Back in 1990, Matt Zeigler was pulling 12-hour shifts as an arc welder for a forklift manufacturing firm in Indiana when a technician in a white lab coat came into the factory to work on a new $85,000 robotic welder. "I said, 'Why aren't I doing that?'" Zeigler recalls. Self-training eventually got him out of blue-collar work and into a top robot programming position at Motoman in Dayton, Ohio, one of a growing number of industrial robot manufacturers that train humans to make sure their products perform as advertised.

Industrial robots, once a fixture in the auto industry, now are doing everything from analyzing blood samples to mixing cocktails. The latest innovations include multi-armed robots with vision systems and enough machine intelligence to read labels and pick out the parts they need from nearby bins.

Zeigler, 35, spends most of his time behind a PC and a custom hand-held controller, calibrating the robots' moving parts to be in just the right place at just the right time. He is also on the road a lot, acting as salesman, engineer, and installer for Motoman's customers. "I wear a lot of hats," he says.

Far from eliminating jobs, Zeigler says robots are "creating better jobs and better-paying jobs. They're just more technical and not as repetitive."

Information EngineerSalary range: $70,000-$120,000

Experience/skills: Data analytics, network administrator experience, writing skills

Perks: Stock options, free food

Who's hiring? PayPal, Slide, and other Web 2.0 startups unable to stay on top of the data

Every Sunday the three 20-something founders of Meebo, an instant-messaging startup based in San Francisco, meet to talk strategy and almost always end up wanting new data before making any decision. "We'd walk away wanting to know things like where is our churn rate the greatest, or how are the users in Brazil different from those in India with regard to how they navigate the site," says CEO Seth Sternberg.

So Sternberg created a new position--"information engineer"--dedicated exclusively to digging up the answers. The first person to fill it: Bob Lee, 34, a former network engineer at Apple, who now sits in front of three monitors poring over an estimated 200 gigabytes of data every day from more than 5 million users. It's Lee's job, using a combination of networking chops and statistical analysis, to point out trends, explain network hiccups, and reveal what new features are hits or duds.

Other Web 2.0 companies, like PayPal and Slide, have begun adding similar positions to answer queries that off-the-shelf analytics tools can't handle, such as calculating churn rates. "There's all this data available to help make decisions," Sternberg says. "But it takes someone really focusing on it to get the benefit."

Radiosurgeon
Salary range: $200,000-$800,000

Experience/skills: Certified radiation oncologists must take three-week training course.

Perks: A broader base of patients and a long-term source of high-margin revenue

Who's hiring? Large hospitals, universities, pioneering small medical practices

For years San Diego radiation oncologist Donald Fuller relied on the standard tools of cancer therapy: radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery. But late last year, Fuller and several partners invested $4 million in a high-energy linear accelerator fixed to a robotic arm. The CyberKnife zaps radiation beams with submillimeter precision at tumors inside patients' bodies. After as many as five, one-hour treatments, tumors can disappear in a matter of days.

So-called radiosurgery has been used for years to treat cancer in the brain, where conventional operations are usually too risky. The CyberKnife--manufactured by Accuray and approved by the FDA in 2001 to treat tumors anywhere in the body--is only now reaching a broad population of patients with early-stage lung cancer, spinal tumors, and other cancers.

But it's turned Fuller, 49, into an entrepreneur. If he can treat 150 patients a year for the average insurance reimbursement of $19,000 each, he'll break even on his radiosurgery business by the end of 2008. Afterward, he could be looking at as much as $2.6 million a year in new revenue. "This is the way we are heading in medicine," Fuller says. "It's the way technology is taking us."

Second Life Lawyer
Salary range: Too early to say

Experience/skills: Software and intellectual property law expertise

Perks: The freedom to be talking to a client while getting a beer out of your home fridge

Who's hiring? Programmers looking to patent their code

Of the 2 million or so Second Life members, more than 25,000 are aspiring entrepreneurs. Most are buying and selling land, designing homes and clothes, or creating products, from jewelry to virtual pets. The stakes are small, but they're rising fast: According to Linden Lab, creator of Second Life, only 116 members made more than $5,000 in February, but that number is triple what it was six months earlier.

Count Stevan Lieberman among the virtual world's earning elite. Instead of trying to practice purely virtual law--which few if any lawyers have turned into real money--Lieberman has taken a hybrid approach, using Second Life as a meet-and-greet area for new clients, who then take their real-world legal needs offline. And since he took in $7,000 in fees in the first two weeks after hanging up his virtual shingle, he's optimistic: "I fully expect to keep getting more business this way."

So bullish is Lieberman that he's helping to set up the site's first "law island," a place for other members' practices and legal entities to do business. The American Bar Association and the FBI have asked him to help them set up their outposts too.

Cars, gadgets that 'hear' your voice

2007-06-19T07:43:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS

Voice-recognition technology is no longer stuttering - and that means huge opportunities for established players and newcomers alike.As man-vs.-machine classics go, it had the crucial elements: The brash young champion. The new-and-improved computing powerhouse. That the champ was 17-year-old Ben Cook, anointed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's fastest text messager, and the machine was not a supercomputer but a cell phone, didn't detract from the drama - at least not to the crowd gathered at an Orlando voice-recognition software conference last fall.

Which would be faster at converting an elaborate sentence into text: Cook's flying thumbs or the elegant algorithms of new speech software from Nuance Communications? The harrowing test phrase - "The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human" - flashed on a screen. Cook thumbed furiously. A Nuance staffer calmly dictated the phrase into a cell phone. It was a blowout: Nuance's software converted the phrase flawlessly in 16 seconds. Cook trudged home in 48 and was left mumbling in a dazed tone, "I don't know how you do that."

Loud and clear: TuVox VP Martin sells her system by showing call centers the flaws in theirs.

They did it with Nuance's recently launched Mobile Dictation software, which will be available through carriers as early as the first half of this year. There's also a broader explanation: Voice recognition, long ridiculed as one of those perpetually just-around-the-corner technologies like the personal jet pack or the Dick Tracy wristwatch, has finally arrived.

Advances in processing power, new software algorithms, and even better microphones have enabled established players like Nuance and a raft of startups to design systems that work - often at near 100 percent accuracy rates. And they're creating explosive potential for growth in markets for everything from handheld dictation devices to mobile phones to auto parts to battlefield translatorsThe overall market for voice-recognition technology topped $1 billion for the first time in 2006, a 100 percent increase in just two years. Within that broad market, there are numerous subsectors that are likewise surging: The market for server-based voice-recognition technology to power call centers and the like reached nearly $600 million in 2006 and is expected to double by 2009, according to Opus Research.

The market for speech technology embedded in devices such as phones and auto dashboards - worth about $125 million in 2006, according to research firm Datamonitor - is expected to quadruple to $500 million by 2010, powered by the rapid spread of voice-command features on phones and cars with increasing levels of "talking electronics," from music players to navigational systems. Ultimately, some experts say, voice-recognition systems are likely to be built into almost every gadget, appliance and machine that people use.

The surge in demand is already triggering investment from established voice players and newcomers alike. In 2006 bought Dictaphone to enhance its presence in the health-care industry, even as Nuance's sales grew 20 percent to more than $300 million
Microsoft's (Charts) new Vista operating system comes with voice technology that, after suffering embarrassing glitches, is now winning kudos from reviewers. Google (Charts) has said that it's studying technology to enable search-by-voice. Venture capitalists, meanwhile, are lining up to fund entrepreneurs with voice-recognition ideas all over Silicon Valley and beyond. "Speech technology," says Datamonitor analyst Daniel Hong, "is finally transitioning from a cool technology to a business solution."

The next generation
Voice-recognition technology dates to 1952, when Bell Labs researchers cobbled together a primitive system that could recognize numbers spoken over a telephone. Progress since has been halting, but with the advent of far more powerful computing components and years of plain old trial and error, systems today have finally reached the point where they can cope with innumerable accents, dialects and quirks of speech.

VoiceBox Technologies, a startup in Bellevue, Wash., in 2004 unveiled a prototype whose components had to be carried in a steamer trunk. Today roughly the same system fits on a device the size of a credit card and could be the brains of Toyota's voice-command dashboard systems (see correction below).

VoiceBox systems are now so sophisticated that they can analyze context to, say, figure out if the command "traffic" refers to road congestion, tunes from Steve Winwood's old band or a dope-smuggling film starring Michael Douglas.

Today's systems also have powerful capacity to essentially teach themselves. Tellme Networks, a startup in Mountain View, Calif., makes voice-recognition software used for corporate call centers and telecoms' 411 information systems. Tellme's platform captures some 10 billion utterances annually and constantly analyzes them, improving the system's precision literally every day. "Voice recognition is all about pattern recognition," says Tellme executive Jeff Kunins. "The more data you have, the better the recognition gets."
And the more valuable voice recognition becomes as a customer tool. Call centers and customer service departments are notorious for the infuriating "Press or say 1" purgatories that older speech-recognition technologies created, but customer outrage isn't the only penalty: The average call-center call costs $5 if handled by an employee but 50 cents with a self-service, speech-enabled system, according to Data-monitor.

Online brokerage E-Trade Financial uses Tellme to field about 50,000 calls a day; half never go to an E-Trade employee. The company says Tellme's system is saving it at least $30 million annually.

Startup TuVox is also racking up customers in the call-center and corporate markets. Its VP for marketing, Azita Martin, has her team dial a call center and record the typically torturous, multistep efforts to, say, reach the billing department. Then they create an audio file that reveals what the interaction could sound like if Martin's target used TuVox's software for routing calls with advanced voice-recognition technology. She e-mails the two interchanges to the CEO of the company using the call center. The contrast has helped Martin sign up numerous clients during the past few months - one reason TuVox's annual revenue is growing at double-digit rates and its customer base has quadrupled in 12 months. Telecom New Zealand, one of its new customers, reports a tripling of call-center customer satisfaction since it installed a TuVox system.

While call centers and autos are expected to continue to be growth markets for voice recognition, the real bonanza will likely come in improved systems for all manner of mobile devices. Start with cell phones: Telecom companies think consumers will pay for a host of additional services such as dictating e-mail or searching for a restaurant if there's an easy-to-use voice interface on mobile phones. Indeed, Opus Research says telecoms expect to earn an additional $5 to $15 per month from every customer who opts for a voice-enabled phone.

Numerous startups are scrambling to provide that technology, including Promptu. Founded in 2000 by speech-technology veterans, the Menlo Park, Calif., startup has developed a package of voice-recognition features that will be offered through several carriers later this year. "The telecoms are calling us now," says Brady Bruce, a Promptu senior vice president. "I love that." Real

Creative uses
Other startups are developing voice features for everything from MP3 players to handheld GPS devices to laptops. Pluggd, founded last February by former Microsoft and Amazon engineer Alex Castro, has created a search engine that combines speech recognition with semantic analysis to, for instance, find the exact spot in a cooking podcast where soufflé techniques are discussed.

Vocera Communications, whose founders grew up on Star Trek reruns and named the conference rooms at their Silicon Valley headquarters after Capt. Kirk and other characters, got some attention two years ago when it unveiled a communicator badge inspired by the show that combines voice-recognition and wireless technologies. The device produced some snickers at the time but has found a growing following; among its customers are medical workers, who use it to search through a hospital directory by voice and find the right person to help with a patient problem or look up medical records.

Vocera expects to turn profitable early next year. VoxTec International's Phraselator, a handheld gadget about the size of a checkbook, listens to requests for a phrase and then spits out a translation in any of 41 specified languages; it's currently being used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to provide on-the-fly translations in Arabic, Pashto and other local tongues. The Annapolis, Md., company, whose technology was originally developed for the Department of Defense back in 1997, won't disclose specific figures but says sales are way up.

Many experts expect voice technology to become almost ubiquitous someday, as speech recognition supplants typing, tapping, texting and touching as the primary interface with our machines. Rob Chambers, head of Microsoft's voice-recognition efforts, even foresees a day when the technology becomes powerful enough to correct mistakes in word choice or grammar - a kind of spell check for voice.

That may be decades away, but the technological improvements are nonetheless coming fast and furious, as was driven home in Orlando last fall.

The Nuance software that dusted the champion texter is roughly 25 percent more accurate than the company's best versions from a year ago, and Nuance researchers say next-generation products due to hit the market in just one year could produce 20 percent fewer errors than today's best systems. "Ben Cook is pretty incredible in how quickly he can type on his phone," says Nuance VP for worldwide marketing Peter Mahoney. "But this technology is just going to continue to get better and better."

Yahoo's woes run deeper than Semel

2007-06-19T07:32:00.000-07:00

Investors welcome co-founder Jerry Yang as the new chief executive of the No. 2 search engine, but can he save Yahoo? Fortune's Adam Lashinsky weighs in.

The market cheered Terry Semel's departure Monday as chief executive of Yahoo. But when investors take a deep breath, however, they might realize that getting rid of just one guy may not actually cure the company's ills.

Yahoo's stock rose 3 percent early in the day on rumors of Semel's departure and then rose nearly another 5 percent in after-market trading on the news. The stock changed hands after hours at around $29.50, still down 32 percent from the January 2006 price of $43 - the peak during Semel's tenure.

Wall Street cheered after Terry Semel stepped down as Yahoo's CEO.

Yahoo co-founder and new CEO Jerry Yang says he won't sell the No.2 search engine.

More from FORTUNE
Yahoo's woes run deeper than Semel

Shopping to stop global warming?

Dark horse in the Dow Jones fight

But are the changes at Yahoo enough? First, there is Semel's replacement, company co-founder Jerry Yang.

The 38-year-old Yang hardly represents an injection of fresh blood, as Semel himself did when he was hired in 2001. As Rob Cox, of the Web site breakingviews.com, wrote wittingly of Yang's appointment: "He hasn't spent the past few years in an ashram. As a director, and, presumably, as chief Yahoo, he's been involved in Semel's strategic decisions."

That's an understatement, actually. Yang has been a permanent presence at Yahoo (Charts, Fortune 500) for its entire history, preferring not to have an operating role but willing to play emissary to various Yahoo constituencies.

That Yang hasn't been willing to step up until now certainly could be viewed as a sign that he's finally ready. But one wonders if simply watching first the zany Tim Koogle and then the Hollywood operator Semel has prepared Yang to be a chief executive of an 11,000-person company.

Steve Jobs ran Apple (Charts, Fortune 500) before being fired and then returning. Bill Gates ran Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500) for decades. Yang's entrepreneurial zeal, much praised in favorable press reviews Monday, is rather beside the point.

Yahoo subtly drove home one salient point about Yang: He's an engineer. Google (Charts, Fortune 500) famously is run by engineers. Google has beaten the pants off Yahoo in the technology department.

Yahoo hasn't been run by entrepreneurs.

On the contrary, Semel, who increased Yahoo's presence in Los Angeles and hired the television executive Lloyd Braun (a culture clash from start to end), is an entertainment guy who surrounded himself with entertainment guys. (Will Semel acolytes Jeff Weiner and Toby Coppell, both promoted to new positions recently, stick around?) In announcing the move, Yahoo chose to quote the one director on its board with serious technology chops, former Cisco (Charts, Fortune 500) executive Ed Kozel.

No word from supermarket magnate Ron Burkle or airline vet Gary Wilson or videogamer Bobby Kotick, the board's "presiding director." Message: Yahoo will get its technological house in order under its new engineer-CEO.

It's also puzzling that investors ignored what essentially was a negative pre-announcement from Yahoo, which said Monday that second-quarter results would settle toward the low end of its previous projections. And for the worst of reasons: Weakness in display advertising, Yahoo's bread and butter business. The quarter is nearly over - it ends June 30 - so Yahoo left little mystery that relatively speaking, it wasn't a good one.

So what will Jerry Yang actually do as CEO? He says he doesn't want to sell the company. Fair enough. Yahoo clearly wasn't interested in selling to Microsoft, and if it had been, deal-guy Semel would have gotten it done. Yang could clean house, but promoting former CFO Sue Decker to president is another sign that Yahoo plans to stay the course Semel set.

Had Yahoo's board not replaced Semel immediately, or had it named Yang an acting CEO, it's possible investors could have inferred that the company was planning a truly radical move, like killing Panama (the ad-search platform) and reverting to syndicating search ads from Google. That idea is blasphemy in Sunnyvale - huge acquisitions of Inktomi and Overture plus a massive investment in Panama would be wasted - but everyone knows it'd be an immediate shot in the arm for Yahoo.

From my discussions with the dissatisfied foot soldiers - and a few officers - who've left Yahoo in recent months, one of the chief criticisms is that Yahoo is focusing so much energy and resources on search advertising that the rest of the business is starving. Decker in particular, a former Wall Street analyst who insists on delivering on bottom-line promises to investors isn't likely to reverse this trend.

Last summer, just after the first time Yahoo's new ad-search platform was delayed, Yahoo held a one-day show-and-tell extravaganza at a swanky San Francisco hotel. The good times were right around the corner, Semel and his management team seemed to be saying.

Benjamin Schachter, a UBS analyst who has been bullish on Yahoo's stock for a regrettably long time, wrote Monday night: "This move means that 2007 will be a turnaround year and we will not likely see the results until next year."

Unfortunately, that's what everyone thought last year.

How to increase your take-home salary

2007-06-19T06:51:00.000-07:00

Hello friends

When Priya Trivedi, a marketing manager in a fast moving consumer goods company, changed her job, she confided to her friend that the new salary package was fabulous. She giggled about the 50 per cent plus hike that she had garnered from her new employers. But her happiness was rather short-lived. The first month's salary itself gave her the shock of her life. The take home portion had gone up by barely 10 per cent.

She immediately went back to the 'salary break-up' part in her appointment letter. And unable to understand it, took it to her chartered accountant who explained that most of the packet had been designed to give her perks for performance and other bulk payments.

For instance, an amount Rs 300,000 was assigned under leave travel allowance. She went and wagged the letter in front of the company's human resource, which calmly said that she should have taken a look at the salary break-up properly before signing. She is still fuming from this experience.

But this is not a uncommon experience. In fact, this happens even in case of salary hikes after appraisals. Though you may have been given a good hike (say 20 per cent), the actual take-home salary would increase by less than 10 per cent.

While 'cost to company' is what the organisation is worried about, your take-home pay is what matters to you. Besides immediate liquidity, it also impacts your loan eligibility to a great extent. That is, when you go for a home loan, your loan eligibility is a function of your take-home salary and not the gross number. So we do need to know a bit more about this all important 'salary structure'.

As we all know your salary consists of basic pay, dearness allowances and other allowances. Some allowances are taxable under the head salary, while the others are either fully or partially exempt.

Further, there are retirement benefit contributions like provident fund in which both employee and employer contribute and the superannuation fund. Earlier, this contribution was taxable as fringe benefit tax, but now a contribution up to Rs 100,000 into a superannuation fund is not taxable under FBT.

In the Union Budget 2007-08, the finance minister has raised the basic exemption limit from Rs 100,000 to Rs 110,000. But the salaried taxpayers with high income are at a disadvantage as the education cess has been hiked by one percentage point to 3 per cent. Further, for income above Rs 10 lakh (Rs 1 million) there is a further surcharge of 10 per cent on income tax.

Let us take four salary slabs and how one can increase the tax benefits. But before that, let us take a simple example of take-home salary calculation. For this, from the gross package one has to deduct professional tax, income tax, mediclaim premium, investment in tax saving instruments and provident fund contribution from the total salary (See Tax Burden).

Tax burden:
Scenario: I II III IV

Total salary (Rs) 500,000 10,00,000 15,00,000 20,00,000

Professional tax(Rs) 2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500

Mediclaim premium(Rs) 15,000 15,000 15,000 15,000

Investment U/S80C(Rs) 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000

Income tax(Rs) 20,703 179,375 380,722 550,332

PF contribution exceeding Rs100,000 - - 5,600 56,000

Take home pay after
tax and investment (Rs) 361,797 703,125 996,178 12,76,168
% of actual salary 72.36 70.31 66.41 63.80

Here we assume that for investment under section 80C, the employee will take into account his provident fund contribution. He will invest in tax saving instruments over and above this contribution, if necessary. Therefore, in the case of salaries over Rs 15 lakh (Rs 1.5 million) (scenarios III and IV), the employee does not have to make any other investment. The employee has contributed more than 100,000 in provident fund, so for calculation of take-home pay, we deduct this contribution, which is in excess of Rs 100,000.

Rs 5-10 lakh bracket

You can make the following changes:

Ask for telephone reimbursement instead of telephone allowance. The former is fully tax exempt, the latter fully taxable.
Send your children to employer-owned educational institution as you can get a tax benefit of Rs 1000 per month instead of Rs 100 that you would get otherwise.
Go for paid vouchers or coupons instead of a lunch allowance, as it is fully taxable. The former is-tax free up to an amount of Rs 50 per day.
Opting to provide bills of travel from home to office and vice versa, which are completely tax exempt instead of going for transport allowance which limits your tax exemption to Rs 800 per month.
Rs 15 lakh

Besides the above, you can also add:

A free car facility over conveyance allowance
Servant allowance, if being used for official purposes
Rs 20 lakh

Besides the above, you can add:
Free bungalow/apartment (taxed only at 10 per cent of fair rent paid for such accommodation)
These are a few measures that you can take to increase your take-home salary.

5 habits that can make you rich

2007-06-19T05:11:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS
The Indian consumer has never had it so good -- what with easy consumer loans, credit cards and an ever-expanding choice of branded goods and retail outlets.

The flip side is that it has never been easier to have your spending spiral out of control and your finances in a mess. Here are five tips to get your finances in good shape.

1. Record your spending habits

It's a simple enough strategy, but it can make a huge difference when it comes to getting your spending under control. The very act of writing down your spending will make you more aware of your habits.

If you wish to curtail your spending later, it's much easier if you have a written record to scrutinise. You should make it a point to examine your spending every few months and to cut back on items that aren't really worth the money
You can record your spending using pen and paper, or you might prefer to use an application like Excel which provides you with several useful analytical tools. Today, there are even mobile applets which will allow you to keep track of your spending on your cell phone.

2. Do your research

When it comes to big-ticket items like consumer electronics, cars and so on, it's very important to carefully research the product before making a purchase. This has gotten a lot easier with a number of online resources which provide product reviews by professionals and ordinary users as well as price information.

For every product category, you should try to find what reviewers call the 'sweet spot' -- this is where you get the maximum features for the money. This is generally not the most expensive or cheapest product, but one that is somewhere in the middle. Often when, say, a phone company introduces a new top-end product, the earlier top product will become cheaper and very attractive in terms of value. You should be alert to such opportunities.

3. Be flexible and patient

Very often, you can save quite a lot of money by waiting a little or by buying a different brand to your usual one. For example, if you go to a supermarket there will be a different set of brands on sale every week in each category. If you buy the items that are on sale, instead of sticking to your regular brand, you can save quite a bit of money.

Similarly, if you are planning to buy consumer electronics, you might want to wait for a sale. Make sure you keep track of the 'sale' ads in the papers and, before long, you may get a great deal on the product that you are interested in. Likewise, if you are prepared to wait, then you can also get attractive deals on books at one of the many book fairs that are held every year.

4. Look at the big picture

Quite often, we end up overspending on small things like coffee and cigarettes, which don't seem expensive but add up to a considerable amount over a long period.

That money could be better spent on something truly important like a retirement fund or something that would give us genuine satisfaction like a car or a trip abroad.

As an exercise, examine one of your habits and see how much money you spend on it over the long run. For instance, if you are a smoker, add the money you spend on cigarettes every month. Then, use a savings calculator to see how much it will add up to by the time you retire. You might be surprised at how large the amount is.

5. Save and invest every month

Saving and investing in a disciplined and regular manner is a very important aspect of managing your finances properly. Start investing as early as possible and get the power of compound interest to build yourself an adequate retirement fund.

Based on your salary and expenses, figure out a savings target. Make it a point to save that target amount at the beginning of every month. The best investment for the long run is probably mutual funds; you should invest in several funds covering the main sectors of the economy and the different types of companies

How a diploma in engineering can earn you a degree

2007-06-19T05:04:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends

Are you one of those students who was a Science aspirant, but could not gain admission to a good college? Or are you the kind who aced Math and Science, but lost out on overall percentage because of comparatively lower grades in other subjects like languages and Social Studies?

For such students, who have made up their minds about pursuing the Science stream of education, and are further interested in taking up engineering, a diploma course is the first step towards that dream. Most of the state technical boards offer a diploma course in engineering; diploma courses in architecture and pharmacy are popular too.

What a diploma course in engineering entails

A diploma course in engineering involves:

~ The learning of fundamental engineering concepts.

~ It offers all the basic specialisations, such as electrical engineering, electronics engineering, civil engineering, and computer and IT engineering, just like a degree course does. Students can then pick the subject that interests them.

~ It is a professional course, planned so that students can take up a job in the engineering field once they earn their diplomas.

A number of students enroll themselves in a diploma engineering course only because it allows them a transfer to the second year Bachelor of Engineering degree course, which is why it is also referred to as the 'backdoor to degree engineering'.
In effect, a transfer like that means:

~ The students may not have to take Class XI and Class XII exams. Instead of a '2 years (junior college) + 4 years (degree engineering course) = 6 years' approach, the same qualification is achieved in the same amount of time with a '3 years (diploma course) + 3 years (direct second year transfer, 3 year degree course) = 6 years' approach.

~ The student also by-passes the need to pass engineering entrance exams like the Common Entrance Test (CET).

How the diploma-to-degree course transfer takes place

A certain percentage (10 percent) of the total seats in the second year of the Bachelor of Engineering course are reserved for diploma students, depending upon the kind of diploma course they have opted for.

Upon completion of the third year of a diploma course, a merit list of all students seeking admission to the second year of the degree course is prepared (based upon their performance in the third year diploma examinations). Then a centralised system of admission takes place, wherein depending upon your rank on the list, you are allowed to choose which degree college you would like to attend.

In other words, the list topper gets first preference to choose where he/ she wants to pursue an engineering degree. The lower your rank on the list, the less likely it is that you will gain entrance to the college of your choice -- you will be left with very limited options if you don't do well in your diploma exams.

Depending upon the pattern of the engineering board exams and the number of times they are conducted in an academic year, engineering diploma courses are of two types:

~ Yearly pattern: In a diploma course following this pattern, the engineering board exams are conducted only once a year. This is a three year course and students of such courses get an eight percent reservation in the second year of a degree course (a degree course with a capacity of 100 students, for instance, needs to reserve eight seats for these diploma students).

~ Semester pattern: In a diploma course following this pattern, the board exams are conducted twice a year. It is a four year course -- three years of study, and one year of industry internship. Students from this course get a reservation of two percent in the second year of a degree course (a degree course with a capacity of 100 students, for instance, needs to reserve two seats for these diploma students).

Out of the reserved seats for yearly and semester-wise diploma courses, half are merit seats, and the other half are paid for. Thus for a yearly pattern course of 100, out of eight reserved seats, four will be merit seats, and the other four will be paid for. For a semester pattern course of 100, on the other hand, out of two reserved seats, one will be a merit seat,and the other will be paid for. The fees charged for fully paid seats is considerably higher than the fees charged from merit candidates.
The cost of an engineering diploma course in each state is decided by the technical education board of the state in question. Thus, you will find that the cost of undertaking an engineering diploma course varies in different parts of the country.

An engineering diploma course can also be divided into two types, depending upon the basic entrance qualification required:

~ Post SSC diploma course: Here, students with basic SSC qualifications are accepted into the course.

~ Post HSC diploma course: Here, the minimum qualification for entrance is an HSC passing certificate.

Issues with engineering admissions this year:

Most of the yearly pattern diploma courses have been switched to the semester pattern. This is because of a ruling which states that instead of assigning eight percent of degree seats to the yearly pattern and two percent to the semester pattern, a total of 10 percent reservations will be allotted to both courses jointly.

Moreover, there has been a discussion regarding the allowance of BSc students directly into the second year of engineering. As to whether these students will have to share the 10 percent reservation with diploma course students, or will have additional reservations is not clear.

The policies described above are the ones followed by the Maharashtra and Karnataka State Boards. The admission procedures of other states, their regulations, lists of their institutes, and dates of admission for the current academic year of 2007-2008 can be accessed from the links specified below:

To know if your state offers engineering diploma courses, and to obtain a list of institutes offering the same, log onto the website of the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE),www.dte.org.in.

To access news, changes, amendments and rules of an engineering diploma course and the diploma to degree second year transfer, log onto www.aicte.ernet.in.

For students in Mahrashtra, the examination conducting body -- the Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education (MSBTE) -- runs its own website, which can be accessed at www.msbte.com.

5 great lessons on buying stocks

2007-06-19T03:26:00.000-07:00

hello friend there are lot of queries from investors across the country. Here's a sample:

'I bought this scrip last week and it is down. Should I sell?'
'The markets are trading at a peak. Is it right to invest now?'
'I want to make maximum returns in minimum time. Suggest some stocks.'
'Which are the stocks worth buying with price less than Rs 50?'
'When will the market correct? I want to invest in some good shares.'
This kind of approach to investing in equity is a recipe for disaster.

There are some serious problems here. Let's pick up some important lessons.

Lesson 1

The moment the prices of scrips drop, say, by 5-10 per cent, we get worried. In that anxiety, we want to sell and get out.

Let's say the Reliance [Get Quote] share you bought last week is down 10 per cent. So what? Will Reliance business close down? Or will Mukesh Ambani run away with your money? No.

The movement in stock prices has no impact on the business. Reliance will continue to make profits and grow. Mukesh Ambani will continue to build world-class projects. If that is the case, Reliance shares will see new heights in future. Why bother about these falls, which likely will only be temporary?

The problem is, we buy stocks, not businesses. The Tatas and Birlas have been around for over 100 years. Hundreds of successful companies have run for decades and continue to grow irrespective of the stock market volatilities.

Yes, some businesses succeed, some fail. There are ups and downs. That is the inherent nature of a business. But, in the long run, they will make profits and grow. That is where management counts. Good managements run profitable operations.

Second, that's why we diversify. Even if we lose money in a few stocks, we will still make lots of money in others.

Moral: Buy businesses, not stocks.

Lesson 2

Recently, I read that if you had invested Rs 100,000 in Infosys [Get Quote] at the time of IPO, it would be worth about Rs 64 lakh (Rs 6.4 million) now. But how many people made that kind of money? None, I guess, except the employees and a lucky few who bought the shares but forgot about it.

Answer honestly: wouldn't you have sold the shares when it doubled or tripled or became a ten-bagger? How many of us would have had the patience to hold on?

The problem is, we watch stock prices, not businesses. If people had kept track of the business, they would have seen the company had the potential to grow at 30-40 per cent per annum. Then they would have never sold their shares.

I know many people who got out at 10,000 Sensex levels, thinking the markets will correct and they will re-enter at lower levels. They are now ruing their decision. The problem: they were so obsessed tracking the Sensex that they didn't see strong economic and business growth.

Moral: Watch business growth, not rise in stock prices.

Lesson 3

The moment people buy a stock, they expect it to double soon. They see the stock ticker 10 times a day. They call their broker a couple of times daily to find out what is happening.

I have one question for such people. Can you set up a steel plant in one day? Can you build a power plant over the weekend? Can you start a mobile company and expect to have 1 million customers on Day 1? No.

Businesses take time to set up, acquire customers and generate profits. Only when the companies increase their profits will the share price also increase.

Therefore, having bought a good business and good management, give it time to prosper. If you don't have the patience, you might as well go to a casino or call-up Shah Rukh Khan at KBC.

Moral: The stock market is a serious long-term business, not a make-money-overnight casino.

Lesson 4

Another interesting aspect is the stories we hear in local trains, buses, parties, offices, of how so-and-so doubled/ tripled his money.

We end up feeling like fools not to invest in the market. At the first opportunity, we buy a few stocks without proper research and understanding.

I am not saying they are lying. But I would like to ask them about their other investments too. More often than not, for every successful investment, they would have made five other poor investments and lost money. They won't tell you about those.

The point is, when our investment is motivated by others' half-truths, we never have the patience and discipline required for successful equity investing.

Moral: Don't be fooled by others' so-called success stories.

Lesson 5

As I mentioned earlier, people sold looking at the Sensex levels and lost out on the huge potential profits. There are many waiting for the Sensex to fall to the 'right' levels to enter the market.

There are two points here. I highlighted one earlier: watch the economy not the Sensex.

Second, timing. Given that humans can switch from irrational exuberance to extreme pessimism and back in a matter of days, I believe even God will find it difficult to time the markets.

Moreover, I bet not even 1 per cent of you will enter the markets if they started crashing from tomorrow. The Dalal Street [Get Quote] was totally deserted during the historic crash of May 2006, which was actually a great time to buy.

So I suggest let's get over this fixation with timing the markets. Let us look at business potential and invest with a long-term perspective.

Moral: Time in the market is more important than timing the market.

Discipline and patience - that is the mantra to creating wealth on the stock markets. Unfortunately, both are in short supply. If you have them, you make your riches. If not, you could be in trouble.

I am not very sure how many would agree with the above lessons or even follow them. Such is human nature: guided by greed and fear, than by reason and logic.

Are these the Google killers?

2007-06-19T03:23:00.000-07:00

In April 2002, The New York Times anointed Google "the king of search." It's impossible to argue with that today. Google, which is headquartered in Mountain View, California, conducts 48 percent of all online searches in the United States, compared with Yahoo's 28 percent.

And although Google's sales growth has slowed ever so slightly, it is beyond impressive for a company that is already huge. In the most recent quarter, Google reported revenue of $3.2 billion, a 67 percent increase over the same period in the prior year.

Yet despite Google's dominance, there are dozens of companies working to bring new search tools to market. Last year alone, 68 search-oriented firms raised venture capital, according to VentureOne, and countless others have been self-funded or backed by angel investors.

Yahoo and other members of the old guard are also showing signs of life.

What's behind the renewed competition? The upstarts believe there is more than enough opportunity to go around. The market for search advertising is expected to hit $11.1 billion by 2011. And Google's reputation has taken a pounding. Keyword prices for valuable terms (example: "medical malpractice") are skyrocketing, crowding out smaller advertisers.

Those who can afford keywords can be the victims of click fraud, by which they are charged for meaningless traffic. They must also compete for traffic with sham websites called sportals, splogs, and flogs, which divert users to irrelevant sites.

To fight these scam artists, Google constantly tinkers with its algorithms, but that can sometimes frustrate the legitimate efforts of advertisers to optimize their rankings.

Besides these shortcomings, some competitors sense that Google is increasingly distracted by its ballooning portfolio of products. There's the plan to scan the world's books, the digital medical records, the no-frills office software, and even a map of the moon. Viacom's $1 billion YouTube lawsuit, filed in March, is seen by some rivals as a portent of headaches to come.

In public, Google is sanguine about the rise in competition. "We've always said that small companies should be buying ads on Google and other search engines," says Sheryl Sandberg, who oversees the company's online advertising sales. "But we think we offer the highest quality of information to our users."

Few would argue that Google is set for a fall anytime soon. Still, the bets being placed against it offer a fascinating menu of options for business owners in any industry who want to upset the status quo. Here's a look at five ways of taking on Google.

Latest news in health

2007-06-19T03:20:00.000-07:00

Here is a look at the latest health news.

Depression linked to sibling relation

If you didn't get along with your sibling when you were young then you might be at a higher risk of suffering from depression.

That is according to a recent study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. The study was conducted over 30 years and found a link between depression in adult males and the kind of relationship they shared with their sibling.

But a man's relationship with his parents had little to do with depression.

Gastric Bypass Increases Alcohol's Effects

If you have undergone a gastric bypass surgery don't be surprised if you get drunk quicker and take longer to get sober.

In a study inspired by a discussion on the Oprah show researchers at Stanford University found that the procedure commonly used to tackle obesity heightens the effects of alcohol.

The levels of an enzyme used for metabolizing alcohol declines because of the much smaller stomach size after the surgery.

Researchers compared the effects of alcohol on 19 gastric bypass patients and 17 people who had not had the surgery.

Beat the heat stroke with these tips

2007-06-19T03:19:00.000-07:00

Summer time brings with it tall icy drinks and light playful clothes but when the heat is on, there is no respite.

The season also brings with it, the scorching summer sun that can give you more than just a tan.

This blazing ball of fire can give you a heat stroke.

Exposure to the summer sun, humidity and over exertion can lead to a heat stroke, which can cause the body's heat-regulating mechanism to break down.

A heat stroke can cause high fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and even seizures.

Says Senior Physician, Ganga Ram Hospital, Dr Sunil Jain, "Children, older people and people who suffer from chronic diseases are more prone to hreat stroke for they are not able to cope with extremes of any type."

"People who are on anti-depressants, diaretics and anti-parkinson pills can also get the stroke easily," says he.

Anyone suffering from the symptoms needs to be moved to a cooler spot. Their clothes should be loosened and given cool water.

People suffering from a heat stroke should be given a cold water sponge and their palm and feet rubbed for better blood circulation in the body.

And of course, call the doctor!

To avoid a heat stroke, one should let children play in swimming pools or have long cooling baths frequently in the day. A body immersed in water and hydrated has less chances of getting a heat stroke.

And for those, who believe that prevention is better than cure, drink a lot of water, binge on lemonade, buttermilk, juice and even coconut water. Avoid coffee and alcohol and heavy exercises.

What you should know about heat stroke

2007-06-19T03:16:00.000-07:00

Your body works best at 37.5 degrees Celsius, and that is preferably in the shade. However, you can't ignore the weather.

The mercury rose up to 45 degrees Celsius this season putting you at danger of heatstroke, especially if you find yourself outdoors during the day.

And heat stroke is not something to be taken lightly. It is a medical emergency that can prove fatal.

“Heat stroke can be quite similar to a heart attack, but it may also include nausea, vomiting, fatigue, weakness, headache, muscle cramps, dizziness and confusion,” says Internal Medicine, Apollo Hospital, Dr Suranjit Chatterjee.

So how can a heat stroke victim be assisted?

The first thing to do is get a victim of heat stroke to cool down. Move the victim to the shade, loosen the clothing, and try and spray them with cool water.

Dehydration also leads to heat stroke, so make sure you get heat stroke victims to drink some water. And of course it is essential to call a doctor for help.

But what can you do before it gets to this stage? After all, you can't always stay out of the sun.

The doctors recommend that you're outdoors and at risk of heat stroke, don't forget to drink lots of water, nariel pani, and juices. But stay away from alcohol, colas and cold coffees, which may lead to dehydration.

Why did the stock markets crash

2007-06-19T03:15:00.000-07:00

Market has lost further ground and has slipped deeper into the red. Selling is seen in scrips across sectors.

Among the major losers are stocks from auto, bank, oil & gas and metal sector. The only BSE sector index in green was IT. Broader markets have also slipped in red.

This is the biggest single-day point fall since April 27.

Top losers on the Sensex are Tata Motors down 3.87 per cent, ONGC down 3.05 per cent and HDFC down 2.4 per cent.

Markets have been hesitating to make new highs correcting over the last couple of days and now there is a concern that new highs may some distance away.

Portfolio Manager P N Vijay agrees that there is some concern, because the markets are quite listless. There seems to be a lack of buying interest.

He says, “One reason for that could be, that we had so much happening in April and May on the corporate front, inflation etc, which is why people are taking it easy”.

Despite all the positive news flow, strong GDP numbers, steady US markets, smooth rollovers and monsoon arrival, markets could not breakout last week.

This means there could be selling pressure at higher levels and therefore any global reaction can lead to a fall in the markets.

Gautam Shah of J M Morgan Financial Services says, “I think the battle lines are clearly laid – 4,200 is turning out to be a strong support level for the bulls and at the same time 4,300 is turning out to be a huge resistance to surpass for the Nifty. And in the extreme short-term, we might just see a little bit of selling pressure coming in that could lead to a small correction.”

While, T S Harihar of Karvy Stock Broking says, "It is difficult to pinpoint any reason, because fall has come in the light of two things. First, it rallied sharply over the last three months and 4,300 has been a psychological resistance."

So, he reasons that when a market fails to breach this mark after repeated attempt, there will be a bout of selling.

"The weak hands are getting out of the market and it is resulting in a very much-needed distribution of positions in the market," said Harihar.

But, at the end of the day, markets don't move up beyond a level. Anand Tandon of Gryffon Investment Advisors says, "And if it could be explained why markets continue to go up day after day, the logic could be reversed to explain this fall."

There are issues cropping up, in terms of a very large number of IPO pipelines building up.

"At some stage the markets have to turn direction, whether just one more scare before which it starts to go up again, only time will tell," Tandon said.

But, as a prudent investor you will be better off taking some money off the table.

Support swells, but Kalam likely to say no to IInd term

2007-06-19T03:13:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS

President A P J Abdul Kalam will not get involved in the presidential election and is unhappy that his name has been dragged in, sources have told CNN-IBN.

The Third Front, an alliance of eight regional parties on Monday, announced that they would request Kalam to fight for a second term but he is going to decline the alliance leaders when he meets them on Wednesday.

Kalam has a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday evening and is expected to announce his decision.

Support for Kalam is strong though. Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who is part of the opposition NDA, has said that Kalam was her “first choice” for the President’s post.

"Kalam is our first choice for Presidential election. When I attended a meeting of the NDA about a month back, I had said this," Banerjee told PTI in Kolkata.

"We want a person like Abdul Kalam who is impartial and has a stature," she said. "If President Kalam contests the presidential poll, we will support him. Even presidential candidate Bhairon Singh Shekhawat has stated that he would be happy if consensus can be achieved on the candidature of incumbent A P J Abdul Kalam."

Kalam’s no would leave two candidates in the race: UPA’s Pratibha Patil and Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, who has the NDA’s support.

Pratibha Patil home, almost

In an electoral college of 10,98,882, the UPA, Left and the BSP's tally of votes comes to 5,70,000. So Pratibha Patil is well ahead of the halfway mark.

The BJP-led NDA's votes come to 3,54,689. Out of this, the Shiv Sena commands 22,950 votes. So far, indications are that the Sena might actually go along with UPA nominee Pratibha Patil because she comes from Maharashtra. In that case, it could be a bigger setback for Shekhawat.

The Third Front, which includes the AIADMK, the Samajwadi Party, the Telugu Desam, the Indian National Lok Dal and the Asom Gana Parishad, has 1,06,281 votes. This group also has the support of former PM Deve Gowda’s JD (S) party.

Patil is therefore set to sail through.

Pics: Shilpa gets kissed

2007-06-19T03:09:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS

She literally took the world by storm following her win in the UK reality show Celebrity Big Brother, and has been in the news ever since.

From talking about India's vastness and diversity to highlighting the increasing problem of HIV/AIDS in India, a cause that she is closely associated with, Shilpa Shetty has done it all.

However this time, the actress may receive less of bouquets for talking about HIV/AIDS, and get more brickbats for being kissed by Hollywood actor and AIDS activists Richard Gere.

At a function, held as a part of the ongoing Seena Taan Ke campaign by the Truckers Corporation of India Foundation (India's largest surface transport organisation) to reduce unsafe sexual practices among the trucking community, Gere hugged and kissed Shilpa during the event Delhi on Sunday.

The act by Gere and Shilpa hasn’t gone down well with most of the Indian audience, and they demand an apology from both the actors.

Also present on the show was Bollywood actor Sunny Deol, who joined hands with Gere and Shilpa to instill in truckers a sense of pride in their work, raise their self-esteem and encouraged them to adopt healthy behaviour.

Warrants against Gere, Shilpa

2007-06-19T03:07:00.001-07:00

The infamous kiss between Hollywood star Richard Gere and actress Shilpa Shetty at a public function in Delhi earlier this month has landed the two in legal trouble.

A Jaipur court on Thursday issued arrest warrants against the duo for their public kiss, which had evoked strong protests in several cities.

Jaipur city Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Dinesh Gupta issued the warrants on the basis of a complaint filed by Jaipur resident Poonam Chand Bhandari.

The controversial incident, which the organisers later described as an unplanned and harmless dance-and-kiss spoof, took place at an AIDS event organised by philanthropist Parmeshwar Godrej.

During the function, Gere jokingly grabbed Shilpa and planted several kisses on her cheek, to howls of appreciation from an audience, which mainly comprised lorry drivers.

Parmeshwar Godrej herself tried to play down the episode, saying the focus on the Shetty-Gere episode had two very important fallouts.

Parmeshwar and "good friend" Gere have been successfully working on such causes in India for a while now.

“It saddens me to see that all the effort and the purpose put up for such a cause went unnoticed because of the outburst. It has detracted from and undermined the value and success of the event, which was concerned with creating AIDS awareness and promoting AIDS prevention among truck drivers, a segment of society highly vulnerable to the dreaded disease," she said.

Members of the Shiv Sena and other Hindu nationalist groups, however, objected to the episode and burnt effigies of Gere on the streets of Varanasi, Bhopal, Kanpur, Indore, Delhi and Mumbai.

They also burnt effigies of Gere and Shetty to give vent to their anger over the actor's act on stage at the programme in Delhi, calling it indecent behaviour.

The protesters demanded that Gere leave the country immediately or apologise for his 'indecent conduct'.

While the protesters saw the act as an outrage against Shetty's modesty and Indian culture, Shetty dismissed the outrage as an 'over-reaction' that made India look silly.

According to Parmeshwar Godrej, the hue and cry that typically followed the incident diverted attention from the wonderful service that the Hollywood actor has been rendering. "Gere has been a committed, undaunted and tireless worker for the cause and his efforts have been acknowledged worldwide," she said.

Kiss row: Shilpa skips court

2007-06-19T03:05:00.001-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS

Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty and five TV news channel owners on Tuesday failed to appear in a court in Ghaziabad in connection with the controversy surrounding her kiss with Hollywood star Richard Gere at a public event.

Chief Judicial Magistrate Beena Chaudhry took note of the fact that the summons were not received by the respondents.

The case was deferred till May 21.

The court had issued the summons to them on May 2 on a PIL by a local lawyer that alleged the kiss was an "indecent representation of sexual activities" in a public place.

The petition was filed by Rookan Pal Singh, former president of the Ghaziabad Bar Association, on April 17 demanding action against Shetty and the news channels that aired the incident.

Gere had kissed the actress at an AIDS awareness function in New Delhi last month evoking protests by some sections who alleged it to be an affront on the Indian cultural ethos.

Activists, mostly of Hindu organisations, in Varanasi, Bhopal, Kanpur, Indore, Delhi and Mumbai had burnt figures of Gere and Shetty in effigy and a PIL was also filed in a Jaipur court, the hearing for which is due on May 26.

Ready to retire RICH?

2007-06-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

hello friends

Do you think the money you earn today will leave you financially self-sufficient in the years to come? For example, will the Rs 20,000-Rs 40,000 (or, for that matter, any amount) you earn per month today be sufficient to take care of your 'golden' years?

Perhaps not.

Which is why you need to plan for your retirement now, when you are earning and have the ability to earn more in the future.

You might wonder: why plan for retirement today when it is still many years away? Well, if you plan right now, you will be able to spend your 'golden' years without having to bother about money.

With increased life expectancy, a shortened work life and no social security, ensuring a financially secure retirement should be a matter of concern for all of us. The irony, however, is that, while retirement is inevitable, rarely do we plan for it. The habit of putting things off till they become a huge problem will only make things worse for you.

Many of us draw decent salaries but are busy buying fancy mobile handsets, consumer durables with the latest technology and spending heavily on nightclubs and parties, etc. Living life to the fullest is the mantra of the day; thinking and planning for retirement can wait.

"Retirement? Oh, it's years away. I will take it up later on." This the common refrain that I hear from many of my young friends. Slowly but surely, this approach is going to make it tougher for you to live life to the fullest during your retirement years.

It is always better to plan as early as possible for something which will ultimately happen. For those of you, who are serious and really want to make an attempt towards planning and investing for the future, here's what you can do:

Let's say a salaried individual aged between 25 and 35 years wishes to plan for her/ his golden years. Here is what s/ he can do about it.

Assumptions

Retirement age
58 years

Inflation assumed
6 per cent

Life expectancy assumed
80 years

Returns on retirement corpus (after retirement)
8 per cent

Case 1

The table looks at someone who is 25 years old and has a current annual expense of Rs 1,20,000 (column C). Assuming inflation grows at 6 per cent per year, you will need Rs 8,20,870 (column D) per by the time you retire at 58.

If you have a life expectancy of 80 years, you will have to manage the increasing expenses every year (due to inflation and medical needs) for the next 22 years.

The table below illustrates how you can reach the target of your retirement amount in two different ways:

~ By investing Rs 87,946 per annum for 5 years or by investing Rs 38,969 for 33 years if you are 25 years old today

~ By investing Rs 254,207 per annum for 5 years or by investing Rs 118, 724 for 23 years if you are 35 years old today

For both the investment periods and amounts a return of 12 per cent per annum is assumed if you have to reach the desired financial goal (column E).

Current age = A Retirement age (Years)= B Current annual expenses = C Expected expenses at 58 = D Retirement corpus needed at 58 = E No of years investments need to be made = F Annual investment needed to achieve retirement corpus = G Expected return on investment = H

A B C D E F G H
25 years 58 Rs 120,000 Rs 820,870 Rs 14,945,454 5 Rs 87,946 12 %
25 years 58 Rs 120,000 Rs 820,870 Rs 14,945,454 33 Rs 38,969 12 %
35 years 58 Rs 120,000 Rs 763,950 Rs 13,909,106 5 Rs 254,207 12 %
35 years 58 Rs 120,000 Rs 763,950 Rs 13,909,106 23 Rs 118,724 12 %

This table shows that you will need a retirement corpus of Rs 1.49 crores (column E) at age 58 to meet your expenses till you are 80 years old. Big task, isn't it?

The good news is that it is not too tough if you plan it right now. All you need to to is start putting money aside right now.

An annual investment of Rs 38,969 (column G) till retirement -- with an expected return of 12 per cent (column H) -- will be sufficient to help you achieve your retirement corpus. A mere Rs 3,350 approximately per month for the next 33 years can do the trick for you.

Again, if you do not want to commit for so long, you may invest Rs 87,946 per year for five years (column F) and reach the desired retirement corpus. The assumption made here (and this is easily achievable) is that your investments are growing at 12 per cent per year.

Note: These investments can further reduce (Rs 39,969 per year for five years and Rs 19,553 for 33 years) if you can generate a return of 15 per cent per year.

Case 2

Assuming you are 35 years old, here's what you need to do:

If your current annual expenses are Rs 2,00,000, then they will increase to Rs 7,63,950 when you are 58.

You will need a retirement corpus of Rs 1.39 crores to sustain your cost of living till you are 80 years old. In order to achieve that, you will need to invest Rs 2,54,207 annually for the next five years or Rs 1,18,724 annually for the next 23 years.

Note: Assumptions about inflation and return on investments remain the same as in the first case.

Now that you have decided to invest for your retirement, the next thing is to identify the schemes that can generate a return of 12 per cent.

No debt investment (investment in fixed deposits, maturity plans of mutual funds, etc) can provide such returns. As such, with time in your hand, you can zero-in on systematic investment plans (SIP) in equity mutual funds. While the returns will be volatile, an expectation of 12 per cent returns look reasonable over the long term, that is, 20-25 years, in this case.

Annual reviews are important to make necessary changes and keep things under control.

Surely, a lot of things will change during this long journey. Inflation rates, returns on investments, major events in life, risk appetite, etc. However, a smart beginning today will ensure happy golden years.

It's your retirement, it's your choice. All the very best to all of you and a happy retirement planning.

Clear your doubts on Mutual Funds

2007-06-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS

Mutual funds have come a long way in India. From being a single player industry for almost 23 years, it has 32 players today. Investors have a wide variety of schemes as well as fund houses to choose from.

In fact, it will not be wrong to say that mutual funds are fast emerging as an ideal investment option for investors with different risk profile, investment objectives and time horizon. The only thing an investor needs to do is to pick a few funds of the shelf and achieve his investment objectives, both short-term as well as long-term.

Today, mutual fund industry manages assets worth Rs. 3,50,00 crore. If one were to compare it with the bank deposits, the industry has a long way to go. At the same time this gap signifies the potential that this investment vehicle has to grow going forward. As making money grow at a healthy real rate of returns i.e. returns minus inflation becoming increasing difficult through traditional instruments, more and more investors are likely to adopt the mutual fund route for investing in various asset classes.

Though mutual funds have proved their worth the world over, there are certain perceptions that have stopped investors from investing through this wonderful investment vehicle. Let us analyze some of the reasons due to which investors have failed to entrust their hard earned money to mutual funds and also discuss as to how these common mental hurdles can be overcome:

I don’t have the capacity to take risk of investing in mutual funds

Though over the years mutual funds have expanded their product line to suit just about any and every type of investors’ needs, a section of investing public still feels that mutual funds invest only in equities and hence are a risky proposition. The fact, however, is that mutual funds offer many options for conservative investors too.

2007-06-18T06:45:00.001-07:00

Mutual funds can now invest globally

2007-06-18T06:42:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS

Indian investors can now invest into global markets by buying foreign funds through their domestic portfolio. The Reserve Bank of India is simplifying its guidelines for investing abroad through local mutual funds.

Mutual funds will now be able to invest in existing international funds as RBI's latest circular has paved way for launching feeder funds, which will raise money in India and invest in existing mutual funds abroad. HSBC mutual fund is planning to launch a feeder fund in next few months while Kotak mutual fund has tied up with T.Rowe price to launch feeder funds. Other fund houses too are gearing up for the opportunity.

“We have chosen one of our Asian fund which is managed by Prudential which is a fairly well performing fund and we could complement our investors portfolio. So we have filed and received approval from SEBI for an Indo-Asian equity fund,” said Nilesh Shah CIO, ICICI Pru MF.

Recently RBI has allowed Mutual Funds to invest in international mutual funds that invest up to 10 per cent of their assets in unlisted securities. Earlier funds were allowed to invest only in listed securities abroad.

Currently the 3 funds that offer International equity in their portfolio have invested about $350 mn abroad.

However among these only Principal Global equity Fund has invested upto 98 per cent of its portfolio in equities overseas. Templeton Equity Income Fund and Fidelity International Opportunities fund can invest only upto 35 per cent in international equity.

The new guidelines will be particularly advantageous to funds with foreign operations

“We think international investing is important for Indian investor because it offers diversification. We think Fidelity has a pre-eminent position as an international provider so we would like to see innovation in international investing,” said Richard Wastcoat MD, Fidelity Investment Intl.

Currently MF overseas investment limit stands at $4 billion. Individual fund houses can invest up to $200 million or 10 per cent of their assets broad. Mutual Funds are hoping that with years this limit would be enhanced and they will be able to play the international markets with good volume.

Make money, invest smartly

2007-06-18T06:38:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS
Many of us delay the process of investing either for the fear of choosing the wrong investment option or thinking that we do not have enough money. First of all, it is important to know that investing is a process, not a one-time activity.

Therefore, it is not necessary to have a lump sum to start investing. Thankfully, there are smart investment options like mutual funds that not only allow you to begin your investment programme with a modest sum but also provide you the best in terms of variety, liquidity, flexibility, tax efficiency and professional management of your hard earned money.

Besides, by investing regularly over a period of time, you can build up capital as well as reduce the impact of short term volatility. Remember, investing is a very simple process that requires planning, perseverance and time. However, if you want to be a successful investor, you need to follow certain Do’s and Don’ts. Here are some of them:

Always plan your investments

Most investors start the process of investment without determining their investment objectives and deciding the right mix of equity and debt. There are three simple steps that can help determine an action plan. Firstly, you should make a list of personal and financial goals in the short, medium and long-term.

For example, in the short term, you may want to buy a car; in the medium term

you may aim to provide for children’s education; and in the long run, retirement funding could be an objective.

Secondly, you need to assess your current position in the financial lifecycle. Thirdly, you must decide as to how much risk you are willing to take while investing. This is particularly important as different financial objectives require different investments.

Take help from professionals

It is quite common to see investors making wrong investment choices as they do not consult professionals. It is vital to deal with a professional and qualified advisor who has the knowledge and expertise to offer the best solutions in terms of working out investment plan as well as selecting the right investment options for you. In addition, a professional can ensure that you remain on course of achieving your investment goals. Make sure you spend time to find a right advisor for yourself before you begin investing.

Buying car? Now is the right time

2007-06-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS:

With car sales dropping, car makers are having to play the discount game along with cutting production. So is this a right time to buy a car? It is, if you are looking for Maruti’s various models and versions, say experts.

The country's largest car manufacturer is playing the tried and tested discount game to boost June sales. Discounts ranging between Rs 5,000 to Rs 35,000 are being offered across various models starting June 15. The smaller models like the 800 and Wagon R are cheaper by about Rs 15,000 while Alto and Versa by about Rs 10,000. Esteem enjoys the maximum discount of Rs 35,000 while good demand has ensured a small discount of Rs 5,000 for Swift.

“The time is good for farmers who are ready with cash after harvests. So along with schemes and discounts we have panchayat schemes also to reach the villagers,” said Veer Singh Maruti Car Dealer.

This being lean season, most car manufacturers shut shop for annual maintenance. Maruti will see a plant shutdown from June 17th to 24th. Sources say low sales have forced most auto majors like Tata Motors, Ford and others to resort to production cuts. Discount List
M 800 Rs 15,000
Omni Rs 6,500
Alto Rs 10,000
Zen Estillo Rs 15,000
Wagon R (Petrol) Rs15,000
Swift (Petrol) Rs 5,000
Esteem Rs 35,000
Versa Rs10,000

When contacted Tata Motors, denied cutting production. The company says Tata Motors has not curtailed production of its passenger vehicles in any unusual manner. Though sources within the component industry tell us the company has sent vendors a revised supply schedule and has asked them not to stock up on raw materials.

Also from June 1st to 15th, there is a period called aadik mass during which it's considered inauspicious to buy new things especially in the northern and western parts of India.

Analysts say a recovery could be expected in the second half of the financial year. Until then, carmakers will have to find ways to lure buyers in this lean season.

WRITE BLOG AND EARN LAKHS OF RUPEES SAYS IBNLIVE

2007-06-18T03:31:00.000-07:00

HELLO FRIENDS

Blogging isn't just a fun hobby, it can also be highly profitable. 21-year old Eklavya was the key speaker at this year's Blogcamp 2007 held in Pune. He made his way to the podium through sheer hard work. A professional Blogger Eklavya earns around Rs 1 lakh every month by reviewing gadgets.

"Companies ask us how they can better engage their audiences. Be it consumers or perspective buyers. Our clients include gaming portals, social networking portals and other tech related websites that offer information on gadgets, ipods, mobile phones and lap tops—mainly the latest ones available in the market,” says Eklavya Bhattacharya, professional Blogger.

The ever-expanding ‘blogosphere’ has become a potential platform for gadget companies to market their products. These companies employ expert bloggers who help them market their products on the net.

And the best part is, you need not be a professional blogger to make all that great money. A casual blogger too can earn well. The trick is to blog-vertise or advertise your write ups and the fame is all yours.

Sakshi Juneja never imagined that simply by writing blogs on Shilpa Shetty and the famous Big Brother controversy could earn her $800. All that she had to do was allow advertisements on her blog. The advertisement company in turn paid Sakshi for exposing the ads to her blog readers.

"Money is good when you have good traffic coming on to the site. Traffic is directly proportional to money because there is more possibility of people clicking on the ads. So basically the blog did good for both Shilpa Shetty and me,” said Sakshi Juneja, blogger.
But do not be blinded by all the glamour and money that lures blog writers. Your popularity as a blogger can invite trouble from Spam bloggers. Bloggers often report abuse from readers, which makes future blogging difficult for many.NEWS FROM IBN CNN(http://www.ibnlive.com/ 17 june 2007)