Anna vs Government - A small collection responses by India

A collection of statements/responses from various sources on the internet on Anna vs Government episode!!! Some are funny yet thought provoking.  Some are hard hitting. 

When you are in a meeting keep your mobiles in Manmohan Singh mode

I wonder how lunchtime would be in Tihar. Raja Kalmadi filling their plates while they watch Anna fasting because of them.
- Chetan Bhagat...

Takes three years to arrest A.Raja for a 2G Scam.Takes 3 minutes to arrest Anna Hazare for a hunger strike.

Nice to see the arrogance of the powerful being challenged.

Even more nicer to see the power of non violence establishing itself.

Why do politicians think people know exactly what they are doing when they elect them but not when they protest against them?? Do u think people read every party manifesto before casting their vote but have no clue when they are marching in the streets in protest!!

Congress says US hand in Anna's movement to destabilize India. Funny. Coz the party prez is trusting the US to cure her.
- Chetan Bhagat

अब तो यह स्पष्ट है, जो जुड़े नहीं वो भ्रष्ट हैं

What is India? "A nation where Pizza reaches home faster then Ambulance or Police, Where u get car loan @ 8% but education loan @12%, Where rice is Rs. 30 but sim card is free, Where people worship Goddess Durga Ma but want to kill their girl child, Where when Olympic shooter wins gold govt. gives 3 corores but another shooter dies fighting with terrorist govt. pays 1 lakh." 

Kasab: I am not an Indian,I hate India,and I kill Indians but I am safe in India .. Anna Hazare : I am an Indian, I love my India,and I want to save Indians but I will be shot any time .

I saw this pic in facebook.  Manmohan Singh should hang himself after seeing this...

[Will Add more as I find more]

Damn the credibility. Fight the corruption...

Anna, Baba fast!!!  Government (read Congress) responds with allegations of their allegiance to RSS.  What the heck???

As a citizen of this country, I am extremely disappointed by the reaction of the establishment to the ongoing anti-corruption movement.  Instead of replying back to the people with strong confident building measures they get back with a counter allegation with a dirty old political weapon - "Anna & Baba motivated by RSS".
Though the question "What if Anna & Baba owe their allegiance to RSS? We are fighting corruption not right wing religious extremism?" comes up first, and could be a separate topic for discussion in itself, we are not oing to discuss that.  The question that we are going discuss today is "Should people who fight corruption be non-corruptible and credible?".

My answer is "NO" and this could stump anyone who reads this.  But do you think anyone in our country could be credible at all in the first place? We lose our credibility right at the time we approach a government office.

The establishment over the past 60 years have made sure nothing happens without a bribe.  And this list includes the most basic things in a democracy - Driving License, Voters ID Card, Ration card and a never ending list...

All that we need to lead a movement in this country is popularity and less of credibility.  This is what is leveraged by all popular people - Sharukh Khan to demand more money, Netas to gather more votes, Tendulkar for bigger ad-rate, TV channel to command higher TRP ratings...  This is what Anna & Baba are doing, except this time they are doing it for a good cause. 

So my dear government, forget about credibility of the people who are leading the movement and think just about the lakhs and lakhs of people who are attending the event.

And we the people should stop questioning the credibility of  Anna and Baba and support them.  Just think, for more than 60years post independence, not one person from more than a billion people in our country had the  balls to do this.  So please, stop questioning and extend your support.  This could be the last chance with us to fight corruption in a democratic framework.  Remember we don't want to be the largest democracy in the world, but the most effective democracy in the world.

Jai Hind!!!

Kalignar says "DMK is a democratic party"

 I was reading through the DMK leader Karunanidhi's interview to CNN IBN.  One question and its answer caught my attention -

CNN-IBN: Will everyone in the party accept Stalin as the next leader?

M Karunanidhi: This is a democratic party. For all those who are asking who's the next leader, I would like to say the DMK is a democratic party. This is not a party where I just name one person and say he will succeed me. This is not a mutt run by seers. For eg, Sankaracharya named his successor himself and the entire religion accepted and followed it. But this is not a religious mutt like that. This is a democratic party. Just like people elect their leaders, the party cadre and the senior leaders will collectively select a person they feel is capable enough to handle this position.

I say, how true? ;)  (That was a wink of sarcasm)

The whole interview can be found here

Q: How is Sonia Gandhi related(literally) to 2G scam?

Answer: Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law, Robert Vadra, holds a managing shares and 20 percent stake in Unitech -- one of the firms that benefited from Raja's scheme.

Source: http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-swamy-goes-after-chidambaram-over-2g-scam/20110323.htm

Now that explains why the truth will never come out regarding this scam...

Election Freebies: DMK vs AIADMK

NOTE: I changed my blog heading now... Its not anymore just DMK...

The DMK, in its manifesto, has promised (a) a concrete house worth Rs.1,00,000 (b) grant to women folk of a sum of Rs.5,000-Rs.10,000 through women self help groups (c) free mixie or grinder (d) laptop worth around Rs.20,000 or more for students (e) free bus travel to senior citizens worth around Rs.2,000 per month at current rates (f) 35 kg of rice worth around Rs.175 and (g) PMK's promise of direct cash transfer of around Rs.1,500 - which approximately totals over Rs.200,000 over the next five years per family.


Now lets see AIADMK, and how can they lag behind....



Highlights of AIADMK's manifesto:  (source NDTV)

• Fans, mixies and grinders free for all women
• 20 kg free rice for all ration card holders
• Free laptops for all higher secondary students and engineering students
• Four gram free gold for poor brides for mangalsutra
• 60,000 free cows for 6,000 villages to increase milk production

Isn't that we call a bribe????


God save Tamil Nadu!!!

Direct Cash Trasfer to the poor - What is it?

The recent budget presented by Union Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, brought in a new way of distributing subsidies to the poor.  Direct Cash Transfer.  What is it? How is it different? Will it be better than the existing Public Distribution System(PDS)?  Click http://www.valueresearchonline.com/story/h2_storyview.asp?str=16549 to find out more about it.

Why Fixed Maturity Plans are better than Fixed Deposits?

Fixed Maturity Plans (FMP) suddenly become popular during this time of the year (month of March) when the AMC (the mutual funds firms) launch a bevy of such schemes during this time.  FMPs are better than Fixed Deposits (FD) in terms of returns and tax aspects.  How?  There are a lot of reasons to it.  There are a lot of information there in the WWW to tell us this.  The following write up on FMP is sourced from www.assettreat.com.  Here it goes....

The primary objective of a FMP is to generate income while protecting the capital by investing in a portfolio of debt and money market securities. The tenure can be of different maturities, ranging from one month to five years. 

FMPs can be compared to fixed deposits of a bank. While a fixed deposit offers a 'guaranteed' return, returns in FMPs are only 'indicative'. Typically, the fund house fixes a 'target amount' for a scheme, which it ties up informally with borrowers before the scheme opens. That way it knows the interest rate it will earn on its investments, providing the 'indicative return' to investors. 

With the recent equity market volatility and rising inerest rate, it is time to think to have an appropriate balance between equity and fixed income instruments inline with one’s risk profile and time horizon of the need. 

Benefits of FMPs 

FMPs offer many benefits like tax efficiency, fixed tenure and low sensitivity to interest rates. The minimum investment amount is usually Rs 5,000, which a retail investor can easily invest. 

Capital protection: FMPs have less risk of capital loss than equity funds due to their investment in debt and money market instruments. 

Low interest rate sensitivity: As the securities are held till maturity, FMPs are not affected by interest rate volatility. The actual returns are more or less close to the indicative returns declared at the scheme's launch 

Lower cost: FMPs involve minimum expenditure on fund management, as there is no requirement for a time-to-time review by fund managers to buy/sell the instruments constituting the fund. Since these instruments are held till maturity, there is a cost saving in respect of buying and selling of instruments 

Tax benefits: FMPs score over fixed deposits because of their tax efficiencies both in the short-term as well in the long-term. 

Short-term tax advantage – Dividend option 

Mutual fund dividends are tax-free in the hands of the investor (subject to a dividend distribution tax @14.03% for retail investors and 22.44% for corporate investments), whereas the interest on a bank deposit (except where special 80C approved) is added to the income of the investor and taxed as per his/her slab. 

Long-term tax advantage – Growth option 

Long-term capital gains (investment of more than a year) enjoy indexation benefit. So if the investment is for more than a year, in the growth option one has to pay long-term capital gains tax of 20% with indexation, or 10% without indexation on debt products. 

Double indexation Benefit

FMPs investors can get 'double indexation' benefit, which is not available in case of fixed deposits and bonds. This advantage can be availed by investing in an FMP just prior to the end of a financial year and withdrawing it after the end of the next financial year. An investor can invest in an FMP before March 31 and withdraw it after April 1 the next year. 

Thus, the amount remains invested for a period slightly greater than a year. This ensures the applicability of indexation benefits for inflationary changes in two years, which can help investors, reduce the tax. 

Double indexation, in some cases, can even lead to a net loss figure, even though there is a profit, and thus expunges the tax obligation of the investors. 

The taxable amount is calculated using the following formula: 

Taxable Gains = Amount Returned – (Amount Invested x Inflation Index for Redemption Year/ Inflation Index for Investment Year) 

Illustration of Double Indexation benefits:

Illustration of Double Indexation benefits:

	Bank FD	FMP - Growth Option		FMP - Dividend Option
		With Double Indexation	Without Indexation
Amount of Investment (Rs.)	Rs.10,000/-	Rs.10,000/-	Rs.10,000/-	Rs.10,000/-
Assumed Return (annualised)*	7.50%	7.50%	7.50%	7.50%
Tenor (in days)**	400	400	400	400
Maturity Amount (Rs)	10,822	10,822	10,822	10,000
Gross Dividend (Rs)	-	-	-	-
Gross Gain (Rs)	822	822	822	822
Indexed Cost (Rs)	NA	11,470	NIL	NIL
Indexed Long Term Capital Gain / (Loss) (Rs)	NA	-648	NA	NA
Tax Rate	30.90%	20.60%	10.30%	14.1625%
Tax (Rs)	254	Nil	85	102
Post Tax Gain (Rs)	568	822	737	720
Post Tax Annualised Return	5.18%	7.50%	6.73%	6.57%

 

Corruption in India - From The Economist

Take a look at corruption in India from the perspective of a foreign publication - The Economist.  Though the situation in India is bad, it also presents some hope to the people of India.  It also points out some states where things are done differently - for instance - Bihar (thankfully after Lalu's regime) is doing itself a good job under Nitish and for all those Narendra Modi bashers - Gujarat is also mentioned for its innovative approach to tackle corruption. 

Click http://www.economist.com/node/18338852 for more details.

Google person finder for disasters

Google gives '20%' to Japan crisis: Google famously gives its engineers "20% time," allowing them one day a week... http://bit.ly/fyqS5j"

2 contradicting lives of a politician

I was browsing through the news websites today and found something interesting....

Abhishek Manu Singhvi, spokesperson of the Congress party lives two contradicting lives every day. No he doesn't become wolf by night... He does something even worse.

1st Life occurs during Day-Time: He goes to supreme court (as a lawyer) and defends his clients Aircel & Vodafone with an argument "his clients could not be compared with those who got licences in 2008 when far too many irregularities were allegedly committed." (source: http://ping.fm/4XT0M) .

Now let's see his other life.

2nd life during Night-Time:- He jumps from one tv channel to the other and tells the world (as a Congress spokesperson) that the ambit of the 2G scam should be extended to 2001 when BJP gave away 2G waves for free to operators like Vodafone & Aircel.

Phew!!! Another "Great Indian Tamasha"

Munni enters Guinness Records

"Munni Badhnam Hui" the song with the most meaningful lyrics ever, has entered the Guinness book of world records. More details at http://ping.fm/awM0

The man who made home loans a reality in India

Man who made home loans possible in India. http://ping.fm/7u8rj

Love is blind but marriage is an eye-opener

Well, I write blogs on investments, gadgets and stock markets. I like writing them. One fine day, I was thinking loudly about what to write next and my wife challenged me to write something on love and relationship. She thinks I (or any guy for that matter) am/is good with numbers and logic than with emotions and feelings. Well, being the savior of the community called Gentlemen, I graciously accepted the challenge, and here is the blog. On further conversations, I further narrowed down my post as suggestions to newly wed couple. It ideally should have come a couple of years earlier, but as they say - Better late than never.

I initially wanted to name this post as "The ten commandments for a newly wed couple" but realized I can't even come up with one and hence gave up that name :) The approach I have taken is to chronologically chronicle the events that someone about to be married would go through. I have generously borrowed a lot of jokes on marriage from the internet and used them wherever they fitted nicely into the flow of this article. Here it goes....

Courtship: Consider your wedding as a video game (say Prince of Persia) and you have to complete so many rounds to get your princess. If your wedding is arranged and after the girl and boy say OK, courtship period is the first round of the game. (If you are having a love marriage, then courtship time could be the time when you are dating and time when you are engaged). The boy/girl is expected to call up the girl/boy daily and talk about a lot of things about how their future life is going to be. But believe me, most of the time, the couple end up talking about things that are least relevant for the future. A typical conversation would be like "Hey Wassup?", "Finished Dinner?", "How was work?", "Oh my god, what else to talk?", ;) I was like "Dude don't exhaust all the topics, keep something for the rest of the life ;)". But on a serious note, use this time to get as comfortable as possible with your would-be spouse. This would probably save a lot of time in the future, by not fighting ;).

Guys, there is one more very-important reason why you should talk it out during this courtship period. Let me explain with a graph, I found on the internet (after a lot of search). Check out the pic on the left....

Now as per the common thinking that Men prefer numbers and logic, you better take this advise seriously. Very Seriously!!!





Wedding: This is the second round. This is the round where you will win easily because this is one event in which you (boy and girl) just don't have any control whatsoever. There are two times a man doesn't understand a woman, before marriage and after marriage! And marriage right in between these two times, the point of inflection, and is the time when he thinks he has understood everything required for an awesome life. Ignorance is bliss!!! I would say, don't interrupt your mind in this event called marriage. Just have fun.
Personally, in my community, wedding has a lot of religious customs associated with it and one of those customs was when my to-be-wife has to touch my feet and take blessings. I was on the top of the world and probably the last time you think you got a great deal through this marriage. Never did I realize that in the next few minutes, I would be subjected to customs like washing her feet, take her feet in my hand and keep it ahead and what not. And as I took her feet to place it ahead, I got reminded of one very famous quote on marriage - "Marriage is not a word. It is a sentence - a life sentence"

Honeymoon: This is the third round and this is the time unlike in a video game(where you get to the princess in the last round), you get to the princess much before. Most of the times, your time will be spent on posing for photo opportunities and posting updates on Facebook ;). An interesting point on your honeymoon photo albums - Have you ever noted that 90% of the photos will be like either you or your spouse poses single on the snap. Don't believe me? Dig your albums and see the truth for yourselves :)

A thousand mile journey starts with the first step. Now that the first step or rather steps are taken, here comes the real life. When I say real... I mean it. And this is the fourth round...And it goes on for ever...

Once you get married, you don't even realize how different your world can turn into. And you better be prepared for it. Small things in life that will be touched upon by change include money, family relations - in-laws, your character, identity, likes & dislikes, behavior, shopping etc etc. Now lets touch upon some of them here.

In-Laws: Lets start with something interesting. The In-Laws!!!! I think, your spouse's relatives are called in-laws because if not for the law you wont care about them :) Just kidding!!! One fine day, I was watching this movie called "American Outlaws" and asked this stupid question to my wife "What's the difference between in-laws and outlaws?" She replied nonchalantly "Out-laws are wanted! "
Well enough of the jokes. Seriously, you better be prepared for your encounter with the in-laws (which could turn out to be a totally different cultural infusion) or more importantly prepare your parents to be in-laws for your spouse. Well am not going into how we will do that, but will let the intelligentsia of the world to figure that out.

Money Matters: There is a joke which goes like this "A successful husband is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man!" and believe me its just a joke and no truth to it at all. Well now that I have saved myself with a disclaimer, lets go ahead and discuss more. ;)
A successful financial planning is an absolute must for the newly weds. And yes there is a reason why the guy has to take up financial planning seriously, since not just about the guy "yearning" for the girl he loves but more importantly because after the marriage, the "y" becomes silent :) Check out this link from economic times to plan your life for and post wedding.


The identity crisis: Someone, a very intelligent person, said, "A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change and she does." How True!!! A guy or girl getting ready to marry would be amazed at the transformation he or she has to undergo to lead a happy life. This would mean changing yourself - some call it as "The identity crisis", but most say "Smart move". For instance, in my life the change that happened is something like this "My wife submits and I obey; she always lets me have her way". Its all how you look at it. And am an optimist. Smart Move...Eh??? and above all as the graph on winning an argument portrays, I am going along with the nature's force.

Shopping: Well, no articles on life after marriage is complete without discussing shopping. Remember our talk on the financial planning for the newly weds? Shopping is the one of the biggest reasons why its needed. Well there are these very famous words by the wise man "We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops." The current times, I am sure a lot many women can afford to say the same thing about men. And hence this shopping-gender-bias should go away.

Shopping for clothes, specially, has its charm. I personally used to have a collection of 2-3 jeans and a few shirts and t-shirts for myself and that was before the marriage and now I can confidently say I have at least 50-60 added to my collection and am proud of it (well as I said before she always let me have her way ;) .

As I was researching for this section, I came across an intelligent bar chart about dressing habits of men and women. Though I am not interpreting anything with that chart, its a good chart to look at. Just a trivia you will be interested to know. :) Of course it is open to interpretation for the people reading this blog...

All is well that is well: Yes you read it right. Its "all is well that is well". The word "End" has no meaning in marriage and if there is, that is not what we are discussing in this feel good blog. In spite of all the humor and sarcasm that the world uses against marriage as a way of life, I can proudly say, its not that bad as the world projects it. In fact, its amazing. I agree there are differences, I agree there are altercations, I agree there are compromises that you have to make, I agree you have to change yourself to an extent for someone else, I agree you lose the cricket matches on TV to the cookery shows and most importantly, I agree you lose your video games :) but these are exactly the same things that make your life amazing and interesting. Cherish the romance and companionship, savor the new flavor in food, get delighted in living for someone else and that is the new challenge you have to accept and win it.

I get reminded of this movie called "Vivah" and its catch line "A journey from engagement to marriage". I agree its a journey and let me restate the catch phrase "Vivah - A journey of a life time". Its worth it!!! Don't watch the movie though. Its crap.

Well, that is all I have to write. Have a happy married life!!!!

Disclaimer: You cant get away without a disclaimer after writing a blog on life after marriage. Smart move...eh??? Here it is... This is an attempt at something I have never tried before with a lot of humor and a little bit of information. I did not mean offense to any person, any gender or anything else that can be offended. Pardon my use of first person sometimes referring to the male gender, but that is because I am a guy and this is my post. This is not a marriage advisory and hence "Don't try this at home" and more importantly "Try writing a marriage blog at your own risk".

Note: I made sure I got it reviewed by my wife before posting this on my page. I made sure she always let me have her way ;)

Make hay while the gold shines!!!

Being an Indian, the fondness for gold is natural in me. But the reasons a Indian likes gold is different (mostly) from the reason a citizen of any other country in the world likes it for. We like the gold more for its aesthetic value than its monetary value. But this is not what I am going to talk about in this posting. This blog post will deal more with gold as an investment option for the common Indian. Times have changed and gone are those days when gold was just bought for jewelery related needs. Today the common Indian is looking at gold as an alternative investment option. The curiosity has increased more so, since RBI purchased 200 tons of gold to hedge its FOREX reserved against currency volatility. If RBI is doing it, why not us? But how do I invest in gold. What are the different options available for me in this domain? Let me try to answer these questions in a more elaborate manner.

The different avenues of investing in gold are as follows:

1. Gold jewelery
   This has been the traditional mode of buying (I don't say this as an investment) gold. If you are looking for investment this is not the approach you should take. Ornament gold is not pure and is usually mixed with copper for stability in jewelery making. The purchasing cost would involve designing & making charges, VAT, and what not :) You are least interested in spending on the sundry charges if your motive is gold investment. Avoid this option for gold investment.
   
2. Gold bars/coins
   Nowadays you can walk into any bank in you area and can buy yourself a gold coin/bar from them. You don't have to wait for Akshaya Thrithaya to see the advertisements in banks. The yellow metal gets sold through out the year and you just need to inquire about it. Its not just banks but the list includes jewelers and other NBFCs as well. You can be assured of the purity of the gold sold in banks and the banks earn the money the same way they earn money in currency dealings. They just take advantage of the fluctuations and also rely on the hunch you may end up opening a locker and hence a FD with them as well. In this option, though you can be assured of the gold quality, you sure would have issues in maintaining lockers and even the subsequent liquidation of the solid gold bars/coins. Go for this option only if you have sure plan on how to safe store and liquidate the items.
   
3. Gold futures
   They operate more or less in the same way futures operate in stock markets. They are just commodity based futures and I would not go more deeply into this option for 2 reasons - 1. Don't know much about this option 2. Usually futures are dealt by people who are sure about the value flows of the underlying commodity.
   
4. Gold ETFs
   Benchmark mutual fund launched country's first Gold ETF and it was an instant hit. ETF - Exchange Traded Funds are just like stocks that you can trade in the stock market. ETFs benchmark the actual gold value and hence more or less track the physical gold's value in the open market. Advantages include facility to buy at the least granularity, 1 ETF unit = 1 gm of gold and hence conducive to minimum periodic buying, low maintenance cost, no hassles of storing gold in lockers etc Disadvantage, if any, would be to have a demat account for yourself. Demat penetration in India is still very low. Again since 1 ETF unit = 1gm of gold, and there are a lot of ETF options available in the market - BeES, Reliance, Kotak etc, which one should I buy? Go for the ETF which has the maximum liquidity and minimum tracking error in the market and we have only one answer and that is Benchmark Gold BEes.
   
5. E-Gold
   E-Gold belongs to the E-Series dealings of the Nation Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL). E-Series is an option for the investor to buy/sell gold in demat form. You need to have a beneficiary demat a/c with NSEL to trade in the E-Series. Apparently, E-Gold has given better returns than any other form of gold investment according to this ARTICLE in Business-Standard. Options of re-converting e-series contracts to physical gold (with 100% quality) is also available. Obvious disadavantage is the separate demat a/c. But this seems to be a very good option for an options trader and someone who can be involved in disciplined investment.
   
6. Gold funds
   There are not many gold based funds in the market. I can only think 2 of them right now. Can-Robeccco-INDIGO and the recent NFO Reliance gold savings fund. There is a a difference between the 2 funds and addresses 2 different kinds of investors. Can-Robecco INDIGO is for the investor kind who wants to be conservative with gold exposure. INDIGO fund will invest a maximum of 35% of its funds in various gold-ETFs and the rest in safe debt funds. The other fund is the ongoing NFO Reliance Gold Savings Fund (RGSF). This fund is for people who want an aggresive gold exposure, since RGSF can have a maximum of 100% in gold-ETF (and just Reliance gold ETF). This is more of a ploy by Reliance Mutual to improve the RGETFs trading volumes and also an intelligent way of luring investors without demat a/c to invest in gold.
   There is one more group like the AIG World Gold Fund, Quantum gold fund etc. These funds invest in gold mining companies all over the world and is only for aggressive investors.
   The advantage with gold funds are that they allow SIP options that is not available in any other form of gold investment as of now. But otherwise there are obvious disadvantages here with double taxing and double loads of the fund and the underlying schemes here.
   If you have a demat account then buy your G-ETF directly and dont go for this option.
   

What is my recommended investment strategy?
My vote would be to go for a systematic/disciplined long term plan in gold. Gold ETFs and E-Gold look interesting. Gold funds offer benefits of SIP option that is not currently available with ETFs and E-Gold. Three different options based on your liking and in my preferred order.

• If you can be disciplined with your investment schedule, then go for a systematic disciplined investment monthly in E-gold or Gold-ETF (based on what you are comfortable).
  
• A multi-year SIP on RGSF, if you prefer automated investment.
  
• Invest in AIG World Gold Fund and Can-Robecco-INDIGO in a 50:50 ratio. This is a good mix of aggressive and safe funds.

Remember the most important thing. Any gold investment should span atleast 3-5 years and every year the investment should be distributed through out the year (like in SIP) before some good profits can be achieved.

Some gold trivia!!!
Do you know European countries (even tiny ones) hold gigantic gold reserves? Popular theory tell us that these gold were looted during the colonial era. Click here to find out which are the countries with the maximum gold reserves.

Happy Investing!!! And may your life shine like gold!!!

State of affairs -

I wanted to write a blog for quite some time on the current state of affairs of Indian governance...I will take this post as a cumulative exercise adding to this post (as I find some interesting details), instead of a one time post... Here I go.

I was reading some article on Indian corruption and one statement caught my eyes. It reads like this and is a classic:
"I am not as educated as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Yet, I can run the house much more efficiently than the way they are running this country" - Dipali Mahapatra (Homemaker)

Another one reads like this...
"I would have to stop sending my 7-year-old son to school from next month as my priority at the moment is to provide food for the family" - Ram Prasad Mondal(Vegetable vendor)

Just give a moment to the above statements....

These are very serious statements from people who come from the biggest group in India - THE POORS!!!

Mr.Prime Minister, being a sensible man would listen to what these guys are saying and do something about it.

Cumulative details 1 (Added on Feb 1,2011) .....

Why the wrath of the common man cannot be left unattended for a long time? The answer lies in the current state of affairs in the Arab world. The common man was ignored for 20 something years there. The trigger - Tunisian crisis - was itself triggered by the apathy of the common man. A fruit vendor (like our own Ram Prasad Mondal as referred to above) burnt himself alive because of the high handedness of the government and its officials. And the result shook not just Tunisia but the entire Arab world - Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen....
More details on Tunisian crisis here
The lesson to be learnt by our own politicians is simple. Don't ignore the common man (we prefer to call him the aam aadhmi)..

Cumulative details 2 (Added on Feb 15, 2011)....
Dr.Manmohan Singh (MMS) - The Indian Prime Minister. Every one calls him the saint, man of integrity and what not. But is integrity without accountability? Now consider a good hearted boss not knowing how to manage his team? That is what is happening. MMS - the good guys is not able to control his team. Its ironic that the most corrupt government of post independent India is lead by the person considered to be the most honest PM in post independent India.

But the point I want to discuss here is if MMS guilty of a moral corruption here? Its not like MMS did not know about 2G scam 3 years back when whole of India was screaming about the most obvious. And MMS, dismissed it with disregard. Did not even pay heed to the scream. Now CBI, its own puppet department says the same thing, as though something new is being said. MMS indeed is the weakest PM of independent India and there is no doubt about it. It goes on to show the country that we just don't need good people but good administrators. We made that mistake once in the form of Jawaharlal Nehru, who was a good person but not a good administrator. Some of Nehru's follies, India is still repenting.

To be continued.....

The SmartPhone War!!!

Over the past few months, the world has been hearing a lot about how various smart-phone manufactures are trying different things to the top and especially how Android has been making big strides in terms of market share. This article will try to dig deep into various facts & forecasts based on various publicly availabe information and try to present a comparitive analysis and probable strategies for these orgs.

First off, lets look at facts and figures to establish the movers and shakers in the industry....

The above report can also be accessed here
Another report released by Gartner can be accessed here

Now that we have established the premise-data lets dig into how every smart phone makers are placed currently.

1. Rest of the world
Lets leave out Nokia, RIM, Apple & Google and start with the fringe players, whom I call as the Rest of the world. More or less every fringe mobile manufacturer - Samsung, Motorola, HTC etc have moved to Android OS platform. These fringe players were depended on Symbian & Windows initially, latched on to Android with open arms and successfully too. These fringe players are primarily hardware manufacturers and don't have any great inclination to deploy software teams to challenge Android or iOS. They will continue to manufacture phones with multiple OS's, with Android garnering a lions share. Some of them have already tasted success like Samsung Galaxy, HTC legend & Motorola Milestone. My view these firms will focus on maufacturing quality hardware and leave the software to the experts.

2. Nokia
It is still the leader in the market in terms of number of handsets sold and the market share for Symbian. But its an obvious loser in the high margin smart phone market. After the success of I-phone, Nokia still went on its egoistic sojourn due to its market leadership and ignored touch phones for a quiet a while. Its first serious attempt at a high value smart touch phone has been the recently launched Nokia-N8. Symbian is still the OS of choice for Nokia, but Symbian releases have not tasted success even in the non-touch market. Series-4 OS has been successful. Series-6 OS has been a failure and Nokia went back to upgrading the Series-4. Its OVI store is still a dud compared to stores of Apple & Android. It is fair to assume that Nokia has lost the mobile-OS war.

Now Nokia is in a dilemma if to become a pure play hardware manufacture and cater to multiple OS or continue to be egoistic and try to build a OS from scratch in a market that is already stabilizing. It has to act fast in an industry where innovation plays a key role and building something like a good OS from scratch at this point of time would be pointless. Adopting open source quality OS (like Android) would be prudent. Why? Free quality OS and cost cutting. If not, the other option I can think off is to sell themselves off or collaborate - most probably to/with Microsoft, who are badly in need of manufacturers for their recently launched Windows 7 Mobile OS. Time will tell...

3. RIM
RIM is an interesting case in hand. It is still in the top-3 in the smartphone OS market share (details here), but for how long? It has its command over enterprise segment mainly because of its security features, but is that enough? There is sufficient hint that iOS & I-Phone are enhancing their security footprints and Android may not be far behind. Then what happens to Blackberry?

RIM has a task in hand to make Blackberry more cool and appealing. They have to move from the enterprise segment into the mainstream. We can see some steps already in that direction through ads like the Blackberry boys. They still lag way behind in terms of applications. Iphone app-store and Android market are exploding with new apps daily. Blackberry needs more apps, more innovation and low pricing to decide its success going ahead. But its a giant task, and I can only see downside for RIM from here, but as I say time will tell the answer.

4. Apple
The leader - Apple. They have had been the de-facto leaders for the past few years. Android is their first serious competition in the past few years. I-Phones sell with the highest margin due the deadly combination of an in-house ultra cool hardware and software. Apple's pros has been its cool impression, innovative launches and a dynamic visionary at the helm. But more recently Apple has been facing tough times, be it through the antenna problems or even as simple as the liver transplantation of Steve jobs. For me the biggest problem Apple I-Phones may face could be the pricing. Android phones have a wide range of pricing starting as low as $99. Apple IPhones are still expensive.

With Android breathing fire through an array of manufacturers, what could be IPhone's next move? Could it go the I-Pod way where there is I-Pod and there is the rest? That may not happen in the smart-phones world, since a free Android and a quality hardware (like say a Samsung Galaxy) could be a win win for both Samsung and Google and customer (who gets a cheaper phone). Does Apple iOS become open source and Apple focus on hardware? That may not happen either. Knowing Apple, it would strive hard to handle its proprietary stuff as much as possible. Seeing all this, I believe Apple would go for a low cost version of an I-Phone very soon to counter the low cost Android phones.

One thing that Apple has not done well is its sales outside US and inside US(some say). For example, in India, owning a I-Phone is still cool than owning a Samsung-Galaxy-S. But markets like India are price sensitive and the same approach of selling an I-Phone through a service provider may not work. Apple has a huge opportunity outside US to expand its wings and sell more, but a location sensitive sales approach is definitely required. Inside US, AT&T has been its choice of operator and its move to include Verizon is a step in the right direction to have more I-Phones sold.

Apart from the 2 options mentioned above, Apple could very well surprise the world with a new generation I-phone with path breaking innovations that could well defy the competition in more ways than one. Knowing Apple as we have seen, this option could very well be a possibility. But as I say, time will tell.

5. Google

Google arrived with a bang. It is called the Android. It's business strategy to make money is completely different than Apple and others. Its primarily a software player with some glimpses of hardware foray through the Nexus-One and Nexus-S. But these forays are basically to showcase and popularize Android as the OS of choice than anything else. Google will make the Android stronger in the days to come and slowly move out of the hardware reseller soon. It has nothing to lose in this smart phone market, but made sure it plays a role as a mover n shaker in this segment. A lot of smart phone manufacturers are heavily dependent on Google & Android in their success and hence that explains how Google is sitting pretty in this segment. It will not be a surprise if Google announces the take over of a pureplay phone hardware player in the near future to get a share of profit by selling hardware as well - But very unlikely!!!

Google will push Android as the OS of choice with more innovations and will try to play the role of an all round player in all segments of industries like credit cards, mobile banking, ticketing etc Google services will get wider and wider and will just be a part of every humans' every day life very very soon. Google will be like the air you breathe. Just an exaggeration.

Time will Tell!!!

Notes: Feed back welcome. Consciously ignored Microsoft. Want to gauge Windows7 mobile for some more time.

Update (February 13, 2011): My first prediction on the Nokia-Microsoft collaboration comes true. Its good, with Nokia's expertise in hardware and MS's expertise in software there could be a new offering, and option for the customers. Lets wait and watch what is lying ahead of us in terms of offerings from this partnership