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.

Indian companies to sponsor F1 team now :)

After making news in M&A by buying out companies abroad, its turn for Indian companies to make news by sponsoring F1 teams.
After Tata promoted Narain for driver, its none other than Kingfisher group owned by Vijay Mallya.
Kingfisher is sponsoring Toyoto team for F1 2007 for its kingfishers airlines brand.

This was announced and displayed at recently Toyota F1 launch in Germany.

Indian companies are all set to leave their mark everywhere :)

Retail chain/business moving to a new era

I am not being partial but seeing Kishore Biyani expanding his business from a kirana store in 1998 in calcutta to million dollar retail business surely deserve recognition.
Entering a new business maybe still easy for corporate with money and muscles,but I think its takes a vision to built such a business from scratch.
I have read books which talks about strategy and features of growing company and I am happy
to see those models working at company like Future group.
Biyani has surely tried to blend glocal touch with his thoughts. He hired executive from Goldman Sachs for Strategy and Business, working big time on supply chain, developing a volume based business which surely has chances to click more in India.
Although, I havent purchased anything besides a tie at Pantaloons but its surely keep updated by latest fashion and daily trends.I have realised this recently so surely Pantaloons will be worth trying next time for economical and good shopping.
With talks of FDI for retail moving towards 74%, I know Biyani group will be one which is going to be hit hardest and this shows clearly from his articles and interviews.
Recently, N R Murthy of Infosys shared views saying retail should be opened up.And my views here is that maybe its little early to open FDI In retail. The very emotional reason to support is that Indian group should be given some lead in the race to atleast grow and come to a platform to handle competition and form perfect competition in the market which are going to then benefit customers.Secondly, MNCs and retail biggies if allowed so early in market will lead to resource crunch thus moving costs up and also it will create a wave of mergers and acquisition too early in the market.

M&A is good for any market in little long run to being that correction which in turn benefit customers.But if it happens early,biggies creates a seller market which will also make it difficult for any new start up to penetrate in market.
Govt should first alllow Indian players like Reliance, Future group, Bharti, etc to set their operations and create awareness for retail market. This will also get more revenue for govt when foreign players will enter market.
Retail surely in next market to cheers after Telecom in India.

Retail going online-FutureBazaar

India surely makes a different market in terms of business models and customising approach towards customer.Retail business is the one which has started trying new models now.Today, saw huge billboard of FutureBazaar,owned by Biyani's Future group.I think they are wroking to rebrand their retail chain.
As far this futurebazaar goes, it is online retail shop. Looks like click and pay and home delivery.I still remember during my B-School days,when Me and my friend actually had discussion on such a online model in retail. And I even mentioned the idea on my blog in August 2005.

The challenge which for these retail chain in India will be modifying the business model.Such a model is visible in cities and metro wherein people are short of time.One thing important here is supply chain.Now Biyani is investing lot of money and also it has started working on its back -end,maybe they will be able to Click the opportunity.

Book Review!! Whoever Makes the Most Mistakes Wins

First of all I would like to thank my friend Rahul at ISB who get me great books to read issued from there.

Surely, ISB has good collection of books, you name it and it has :)

Now, this book which I am reading surely give some out of the box thinking.How can one win by making most mistakes!!!?
Well, like most of us I also had the same thought, until I came across this interesting book written by Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes.Authors here, have pen down a different approach and thinking as to how mistakes eventually take us more closer to success rather than taking us away from it.
The book with introduction of terms success and failure as defined by most of us, which shows that overcoming a failure is defined as success by most of us. Given a chance to quote one event of success in anybody's life, most of us would narrate an example how we came across a challenge and overcame it. Still, we always fear failures which gets us success eventually.
The next part explains how one normally fails towards success. Taking example from once daily life it can be easily seen that everyone has passed through troughs and crests of success and then failure.So, its not that success can be a repetitive phenomenon instead it is driven more from failures and what we learn from them. Authors have taken ample examples from corporate and individual world to explain that most of the innovation and discovery are results of failures.For example, widely used 'Post-It' was a result of failure of an experiment, which 3M later realized. Examples are mentioned in books of IBM, Xerox, Abrahim Lincoln and many others which shows that it is failures that is most important path to success.
Book later provides a very different approach to definition of word 'Success' which I think will make everyone sit and analyze that what we curse today by saying 'Failure' is actually a path to victory in disguise.
Although the book is of small size and just 120 pager, but every page is filled with learning and execution.I will definitely recommend this book as worth sparing some time, which not only will add a new dimension towards our approach to success but will also adopt a more optimistic approach towards failures

Top Tax saving Mutual Funds

Year Closing is back again and season to invest to save Tax!!! :)

I would recommend these tax saving mutual funds

1. HDFC Taxsaver
2. SBI Magnum Taxgain
3. Principal Tax saving
4. Birla Tax saving
5. ING Vysya Tax Saving ( little risk but good returns)


Cheers and Hppy savings!!

Accident!!

Well just relax, Its not a real accident like falling from rooftop or etc!!
Its a virtual accident ...and only one person can understand it :)

And the best thing it resemble accident because it takes 2 months to recover from your accident too..


More to follow soon on this!!

Stress and Relax- Can we do it??

Recently in meditation lecture at Patni, I observed something.

We as human being were originally having a very different lifestyle and then we observe one word in everybody life, Stress!!!

There is anxiety, health problems, hurriness,etc which most of us are facing. These are very well symtoms of stress.
Why did people in history doesnt had stress then?? or did they?

Well I wil say, they did but less since they had a balanced way of living. They had patience, balanced good diet, proper way of breating,etc.

Just look at a small baby, he enjoys life like anything..why??

Because he does things with patience, he enjoys everything he does.. playing, eating ,etc.

So one thing we should do is enjoy our present, do simple little exercise to feel fresh air and gain good diet

Sensex at 14000

2007 opened on good note for Sensex .
It traded and touched at 14000 today on 3rd Jan....

So what is in future..? I think 15K surely but correction is also on the way next.

Experience with Indigo

Recently,I flew from Hyderabad to Delhi with Indigo Airlines

Well, I really don't have anything special to write about Indigo.
I found it like yet another Low cost carrier. The only thing I will say that the aircraft are good.
As for service, they dont offer you anything except water and their seats are little cramp.

Check In and Handling is fine, in case you get a deal on ticket price, I think its worth going in for.

Overall, I will rate Indigo service as 6/10.

Nice Experience with Spicejet

Travelled on Spicejet third time till now, latest one from Delhi to hyderabad

With foggy conditions in Delhi, flights were getting delayed.
Fortunately on my travel day,sky remained clear with lots of sunshine so my flight was schduled right time. Confirmed with them and was happy to know that my flight was right time.
Spicejet Counter was crowded, but I would blame Airport authority for bad infrastructure.This lovely lady on the counter was handling the check -in quite smoothly so no Regrets ;)
This terminal of Spicejet is shared with Air-Deccan, so that made me stand in long queue for security check.
Coming to the point, my boarding was handled well and I felt cozy in confy seats of this A320 aircraft.I think spicejet has most lovely air-hostess of all low cost airlines. :)
The best part which I like while traveling with Spicejet is the cookies which they serve.I would say it has weightage of 5% for me choosing Spicejet.I can buy them from market , but it has own fun in Spicejet aircraft.
I even inquired from one of hostess Megha, where do they order it from.?The answer was Taj with a sweet smile, and "Would you like to have more of those?"She asked me about my seat number and she got me some of those wrapped nicely in napkins :)
Flight was confortable and got my luggage in time too at airport.
Overall, I will rate Spicjet 8/10 among the airlines.

86400- The connecting link between Money and Time

How is Time and Money connected together thorugh 86400??Thats a weird thought!!

True, but trust me there is something more interesting behind it which I learned today.
Patni's 'PACE' trainer Vaishnavi gave us a small assignment, If you have INR 86400,what
would you do with it?
Well, my answer too oriented towards investment,wherein my formula comprised of investing 40K in mutual funds,20K in stocks and remaining in Fixed deposit or maybe spend it.Most of participants shared same investment story,wherein they utilised all the given amount.

So, the observation was that all of us invested focusing on long term and short term basis.
But in real life, given the same precious amount in form of time, how many of us actually invest it in right way??? I bet not many..
In a given day, we have 24 x 60 x 60 = 86400 seconds.
So, if we can plan these preciuos units in right and planned way depending on our long term and short terms needs, most of our problem will be solved.If we can design ,say we are going to invest X amount of 'Time' in Y activity and than A amount in B activity, The result we will get will be great.
This was a real good learning which I got today and I will try my best to implement in day -to-day life from now on.

Time management is key to ones growth, and with pressure on work-life balance these little small tricks can make wonders

Patni PACE is oriented towards employee development wherein Patni tries to grow soft skills of Patnites and move each one of them towards excellence.
This was third such program which I attended, the other being on Business Communications and Decision Making.