Singapore experience- after 3 years again

Got a chance to travel again by Singapore airlines on my way to US. Singapore airlines has been rated best airlines globally and it truly reflects in their services, right from the way they make passengers board the aircraft to their in-flight services.
Had a connecting from singapore so enjoyed my time at Changi airport, which once again has won best aiport award many times and it truly deserves it.Spend some time at their ineresting internet kiosks and then some shopping at attractive duty-free shops.And how can such an interesting trip be completed without somethng interesting. So, I did made some blunder which ofcourse I cant mention here, but was lucky to get over it.
Even got a complimentary singapore trip for 2 hours from SIA,which made me remembered my time which I had in Singapore some 3 years back। Truly a global city.

Google Blog - Ab Hindi may bhi

गूगल कि यह नयई करामात.
अब हम हिंदी में भी blog कर सकते है!!!

बस्स फिर इंतज़ार किस बात का.... जय गूगल :)

Bheja Fry - Review

Great piece of comedy, with Rajat Kapoor planning to call an idiot for friday dinner and then the real fun starts.

Every actor besides Milind has really done wonderful acting. Comedy timings in movie is perfect.
Vinay pathak and Shorey are again at their best with great chemistry. I just love ranvir way of acting....he s in one guy!!
Will give 4/5 with ' Must watch' label

Experience- Fire in the next building

weekend went kinda exciting and with difference.Enjoyed this hilarious flick ' Bheja Fry' - Must watch, believe me you surely gonna have good laugh!!
Then sunday formula 1 race, though I had to entertain a friend of mine so could not catch up with it till chequered flag.It was just an hour after I came back home at 11pm,I heard screams from outside. When I peeped out from window it was actually a real movie drama.Neighbouring building was on fire and seconds after I heard explosion of cylinder. Rushed outside and called 101 and then 100 for bire brigade. I was really surprised to connect with them in just one ring.After 1 hour of firefighting ,people got the fire off and then like typical hindi movie fire brigade came( after 1 hour) ringing bells. They can't change ;)
Anyways, luckily no casuality happened.
Good nite!!

Hamilton rocks at Bahrain - McLaren...!!

The fairytale start to Lewis Hamilton’s Formula One career continued in Bahrain on Sunday. His second place made him the first driver in history to finish his first three Grands Prix on the podium. Not only that, he also took the joint lead in the drivers’ championship standings

Money transfer as next killer application

You surely must have read about even seen data transfer from one mobile to another using bluetooth or infrared but this time technology is showing somethng new.

Umm!! What about tranfering money from one mobile in US to another in India and getting it encashed at nearest certified outlet. ???

Believe me that is possible now.
This is expected to be next killer application for telcos and surely going to give Money transfer banks sleepless nights.Currently, services like Western Union charges $24 for tranfering $100 thats roughly 1/4th the amount,but using mobile transfer service like Vodafone's MPESA, it will be merely $8 and that is big difference.
M-PESA is a pilot project run by Vodafone. On similar lines, Bharti, cellular operator in India too have launched M-Wallet services and now mChek
As per figures, roughly $260 bn is transferred from migrant workers back home globally.

Data services surely is lucrative for increasing ARPU but this money transfer business will definately smell more cheese to operators soon.

Formula1 2007 season began today

It was all new machines with teams...changed colors and sponsorship.

Melbourne grand prix:Pole position- Raikkonen.. No doubt since its a combo of machine + driver
Followed by McLaren's Alonso and Hamilton.... Alonso truly is an expert driver who could thrust McLaren engine... Merc has best tech in terms of V6 engines, but team Mc needs to work little more to get Alonso on pole position in coming sessions
Most interesting event was 360 degree turn which Renault's driver performed ;) and he managed to zoom back too ...funny indeed
Vodafone replced by ING as main sponsors and Bridgestone boards by V-Power.Also was seen Kingsisher on Toyota car.
I wonder how is ING taking its sponsorship for F1.!!!I am not able to corelate a bank trying to map with a segment which signifies speed.
Maybe you can help me a bit on this!!

Chinese govt all set to check population

Yesterday on BBC ( http://www.bbcworld.com I watched this documentary on how China is keeping check on its growing population and at the same time taking care of citizens.
The documentary covered one aspect featuring incentives given by chinese govt to people who have girl child. In China, it is law to have only one child. People who go for second child are not given any incentives. On other hand, people who get girl as their first child are allowed to go in for second child. The reason being most of China is base on agricilutre and rural areas, where parents support in their old age from their son.Govt funds education of girl chidl till she grows up to look after her parents.
The second aspect showed how young people are moving towards big cities like Beijing to work and earn more money.They covered one family whose boy has moved to Beijing to work as labour and earn $4 a day from which he saves money and send it back to its family in village.

With Olympics due in 2008, China is moving fast with its infrastructure and development.
China surely catching up fast with global economy... India any lessonss??

Stock Market turbulence across globe

27th Feb saw turbulence across stock markets globally.
With Chinese market witnessing selling, and a drop of 8% the effect was reflected across asian markets including Japan, Thailand, India, Singapore moving further to Dow Jones.
Dow Jones dropped by percentage which is lowest after 9/11. However, the stocks seems to be moving up positive now
As about Indian market, Sensex need to build more fundamental growth than just money inflow one.Most of Indian stock are measured by multiple factor wherein stocks should be measured by growth weight.The moment there is change in sensex, its fall as in bottomless pit like it happened on 23rd May,2006.
India quikly needs to keep stringent check on inflation and Real estate price.Too much money coming as FII, can lead to Bubble in real estate market.
Key sectors to gain money in stocks would be Infrastructure, IT and Telecom

West -- Outsourcing is globalisation;Accept it

Outsourcing is no more sales pitch of Chindia. It is globalisation.West started the phenomenon to save cost in IT leveraging Indian IT skills, and now when Indian companies are developing new innovative models, wherein they are providing customers ways to provide better services to their customers.

SO, ultimately it is people in west who are getting the advantage.And it is not just service advantage, but even employment in countries like US/Europe will increase. If companies will gain through better efficiencies, they in turn will hire more people to cater to their growing business.

Budget 2007 - Nothing new in the store

It is something which every comman man of India look forward to in, Annual Budget .2007 was no exception though it did not came with what was expected.
Finance Minister P.Chidambaram focussed this budget for agriculture and not for industry or middle class. THough there has been allocations done for agriculture to grow the sector, there are no such good news for salaried class.
Tax slabs remains same, exemption limit increased by 10k but then education cess increased to 3% and service tax to 20%. Now even ESOP will be taxed under FBT( though I am not getting them ;) )
Taxman!! you really have tough time ahead, geting industry to support ;)

Drive on Jaipur-Delhi Highway :)

Driving is a lovely experience specially when you get a chance to drive on routes like Pune-Mumbai , Delhi-Jaipur.

My latest one is from Delhi to Jaipur, which is around 250kms and I covered it from door- to -door in 5 hours.
Initial stretch till Gurgaon was little bad because of construction of expressway but once we crossed Manesar, it was time to zoom accelerator.
And soon, I was driving my machine at 120-140kmhr and then it was no looking back.

This made me remember my pune-mumbai drive which I went with my friend. Only difference is pune expressway is gaurded on whole stretch so one can speed throughtout.

Jaipur highway is little different since it has villages which makes driver to be active throughout.

Anyways, it was fun driving to and fro!!

Delhi- Bird's eye view

Just another bird's eye view of Delhi :)
Thank god it was not foggy else I would have hovering over Jaipur for an hour.

Commerce Ministry to Brand Handicrafts of India

I was surprised and delighted to hear new campaign of India's commerce minister Kamal Nath.
Delighted because Commerce Ministry has started campaign to Brand Indian Handicrafts in International Market. Surpirsed!!! because after long time I heard sensible approach from politicians( Last time i was happy when Rajiv Gandhi talked about Computers)
The approach here will be to form a co-operative which will participate in various events and represent Indian handicrafts and promote them.
I think they will be coming out with a name for the campaign though I am not aware of it as of now.

Above pic are of Jaipur Sarees, 'Bhandhia' :)

Changing faces of the Pink City- Jaipur

Jaipur is well known as Pink City. Thats because one can find its heritage painted in Pink, as also seen in pic below. This picture was clicked on way to Bapu Bazaar, famous old market of Jaipur.

And above is changing new face of Jaipur, Infrastructure has improved a lot since I last visited Jaipur some 6 years back. It is new destination for next generation companies in IT, Finance. Infy, Genpact all lining to open their centres there.

Nice place with culture as its heritage which can be seen all around.

Incredible India

Incredible India(www.incredibleindia..org)

Thats Brand campaign for India.

India is just full of landscapes, the side one is bird's eye view of river Yamuna as seen on the way to Delhi.

Vodafone wins Hutch India

Yes, it is official, Vodafone has emerged as highest bidder for Hutch India with an enterprise value of $19.3 billion which comes to $794 per share.

This race for Hutch stake started a month fron now when Hutchison Hongkong showed interest to exit Indian markets.

In the race were, Anil Ambani Reliance Infocomm, Hindujas, Essar.
Though this deal of vodafone will be through partnership with Ruias of Essar, 67% stake will be controlled by Voda.
Vodafone needs to also disinvest their strategic 10% stake in Bharti as per regulation.

To mention, Bharti is top competitor for Hutch in India.

Offlate, Voda has shown a good amount of interest to enter emerging markets and have been exiting saturated market in europe, latest one being in swutzerland wherein they sold their 25% stake to swisscom.Voda has earlier also exited japan also in 2003.Winning Hutch India was very crucial for Vodafone to reduce the pressure building on their share price mainly because of reducing profitabilty and margins.

With Indian telecom market growing by close to 70-80% unlike 5% of UK, this was surely a golden chance for CEO Arun Sarin to take a stragic decision.Offlate, Sarin too have been pressure from management on falling margins with increasing competition in telecom space in UK
Voda interest in telecom can into focus when they bought stake in Bharti , with Singtel which is also having a strategic stake.
Nest step on closing the acquisition will be regulatory issues, govt clearance.Voda had a close door meeting with top official from Govt of India to discuss FDI route last month.
The biggest challenge, will be starting after the acquisition. Indian market is price sensitive market unlike Europe and what needs to be watched is how Vodafone is going to put its Red Round logo strap in neck of Indian Hutch Pug!!!!!

Before ending, just an interesing thought ;) check out this link:

http://fonearena.com/blog/what-will-vodafone-do-with-hutch.html

Peschardt's People

Peschardt's People is a BBC program wherein they interview person each time from different domains and countries .

Today on 11th febraury, they interviewed Indian writer, Shobha De.
I like the ideas and thoughts of Shobha since they are different, I have also earlier mentioned on my blog about her interesting book 'Spouse' launched in August 2005

http://priyank24.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_archive.html

Shobha's interview was focussed on her books and what she thinks about her critics.Her critics are many who says Shobha writes more on women sensuality to sell her masala books.

On being said by interviewer that Indian painting have too much of bright colours, she boldly answered, that Indian culture is unique and we dont have customised traditions or art to suit international market, accept India and cultural as it is.We will not change our traditions to suit any specific taste.
On her views on India as emerging market, she mentioned India has already emerged and that
its playing a far bigger role in world economy now.I really appreciate the way she said her points to british anchor.

Indian Steel- Making a mark again

After LN Mittal acquiring Arcenol, India has again made a mark in steel industry.

This time it is Tata's who have acquired Brasilian steel maker Corus only to become 5th largest steel maker in the world.
The bidding which went through 9 rounds saw Tatas taking off Corus from CSN at 608 pence per share. Analyst like Stan Chart have real positive view for Tatas and same is there from other analyst firms too.

The only thing is to watch for the global demand for commodities. The sudden down trends in that can spoil Tatas party. China market has huge demand due to growing economy and has major consumption.

This deal however is pursued by Tata to tap growing european market.

World Economic Forum@Davos 2007

Davis meet is usually centered around business but this time the mood is different.

The topic has revolved around global warming, politics and then ofcourse some business.
Davos has raised some serious questions on industrialisation and global warming.There has been a change in climate across globe and this is serious concerns.Though developed countries might blame it all to Asia because of the 'growth' but its not hidden that developed countries like US too are contributing big to global warming.

Today, China leading People's China quoted about chinese govt thinking to take serious steps to control warming.India, however, is yet to issue comments, though there are always statements as and when required.
Truly, business has moved juct beyond economics and marketing. It is about culture, knowledge, unrest, infrastruture, talent, policies and most important the trends.
But yeh!! Davos surely has seen good asian presence including Indian IT company Infosys's CEO Nandan Nilekani also sharing his views as speaker.