Monday, November 29, 2010

Beautiful Story of Appreciation..............

Friends,
I have got an email wherein I got this wonderful story.Whether that actually happened or not is another thing but it is TRUE depiction of what someone is doing for us an how we need become so ungrateful.....

Read on:This is really nice, hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did.
One young academically excellent person went to apply for a managerial position in a big company.
He passed the first interview, the director did the last interview, made the last decision.
The director discovered from the CV that the youth's academic achievements were excellent all the way, from the secondary school until the postgraduate research, never had a year when he did not score.
The director asked, "Did you obtain any scholarships in school?" the youth answered "none".
The director asked, " Was it your father who paid for your school fees?" The youth answered, "My father passed away when I was one year old, it was my mother who paid for my school fees.
The director asked, " Where did your mother work?" The youth answered, "My mother worked as clothes cleaner. The director requested the youth to show his hands. The youth showed a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect.
The director asked, " Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes before?" The youth answered, "Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books. Furthermore, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.
The director said, "I have a request. When you go back today, go and clean your mother's hands, and then see me tomorrow morning.
The youth felt that his chance of landing the job was high. When he went back, he happily requested his mother to let him clean her hands. His mother felt strange, happy but with mixed feelings, she showed her hands to the kid.
The youth cleaned his mother's hands slowly. His tear fell as he did that. It was the first time he noticed that his mother's hands were so wrinkled, and there were so many bruises in her hands. Some bruises were so painful that his mother shivered when they were cleaned with water.
This was the first time the youth realized that it was this pair of hands that washed the clothes everyday to enable him to pay the school fee. The bruises in the mother's hands were the price that the mother had to pay for his graduation, academic excellence and his future.
After finishing the cleaning of his mother hands, the youth quietly washed all the remaining clothes for his mother.
That night, mother and son talked for a very long time.
Next morning, the youth went to the director's office.
The Director noticed the tears in the youth's eyes, asked: " Can you tell me what have you done and learned yesterday in your house?"
The youth answered, " I cleaned my mother's hand, and also finished cleaning all the remaining clothes'
The Director asked, " please tell me your feelings."
The youth said, Number 1, I know now what is appreciation. Without my mother, there would not the successful me today. Number 2, by working together and helping my mother, only I now realize how difficult and tough it is to get something done. Number 3, I have come to appreciate the importance and value of family relationship.
The director said, " This is what I am looking for to be my manager.
I want to recruit a person who can appreciate the help of others, a person who knows the sufferings of others to get things done, and a person who would not put money as his only goal in life. You are hired.
Later on, this young person worked very hard, and received the respect of his subordinates. Every employee worked diligently and as a team. The company's performance improved tremendously.


Conclusion:
A child, who has been protected and habitually given whatever he wanted, would develop "entitlement mentality" and would always put himself first. He would be ignorant of his parent's efforts. When he starts work, he assumes that every person must listen to him, and when he becomes a manager, he would never know the sufferings of his employees and would always blame others. For this kind of people, who may be good academically, may be successful for a while, but eventually would not feel sense of achievement.
He will grumble and be full of hatred and fight for more. If we are this kind of protective parents, are we really showing love or are we destroying the kid instead?*
You can let your kid live in a big house, eat a good meal, learn piano, watch a big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let them experience it. After a meal, let them wash their plates and bowls together with their brothers and sisters. It is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but it is because you want to love them in a right way. You want them to understand, no matter how rich their parents are, one day their hair will grow gray, same as the mother of that young person. The most important thing is your kid learns how to appreciate the effort and experience the difficulty and learns the ability to work with others to get things done.

My Comments:
Well, the writer has put onus on parents.I differ here a little bit.Why not the children don't understand it in time?
But the bottomline is, where you are, you have been standing on someone's shoulder .Someone has helped you.It can be mother, it can be father, it can be sister, it can be brother, it can be friend,it can be someone unknown( and that is I say, GOD) .
It is all someone who did somewhere for you in whatever little way and if one feels it then one need to be grateful for that.
I have seen people saying , I care for NONE.Well, that is fine but then no one cares for you as well.That other person has the same liberty not to care for you and if all people in the world starts thinking like that imagine how the world can be?
Well, I have seen successful people always having that feeling that they did it .They planned it.They are the architect of what they are now?But I ask again , is it true?
To me it is BIG NO.Why Warren Buffet and Bills Gates has to do the philanthropic work?Can anyone tell me ?They can say, why I should help someone?Who helped us?We did on our own?Why we have to help anyone?Let them do on their own?
But still they are helping others and that too not in their own country but in other countires like Ethopia, India and many more.
According to me, if your prosperity is just staying with you and is not percolating to first your relatives , then friends and then the society then becoming rich and sucessful makes no sense.
Life is just not ME.It is bigger then that.
I have seen people giving donations to bulid Hospitals.Donating for good cause.Are they MAD?Why are they doing this?They got the money wrong way and hence trying to make up for that?
No, they have understood that in LIFE, their success is GOD send.You are a GOD chosen child and hence you have to help others.
If someone wants to become an Actor can anyone do that?No....why?Why if someone wants to become an actor he/she can't?If anyone wants to become a singer, can he/she do it?NO.Why is it so?
Can there be many Lata Mangeshkar?Can there be many Moh Rafi?NO.Why is it so?
These talent comes from birth.You got it from your birth.In 1947, Geeta Roy( Dutt) was given 6 out of 9 songs of the Film named "Do Bhai".It was S D Burman who put so much of faith in that teenage girl.
Geeta Roy(Dutt) was just 17 at that time and she was not even a singer and the song, "Mera Sundar sapna beet gaya" became instant hit.She became an immidiate superstar in just few months and that happened when some great singers were already there like, Noorjahan , Suraiya, Shamshad Begum,Raj Kumari etc etc.Geeta Roy( Dutt) was an instant hit.She sang a song in Gujarati film as well in 1949.She was just 19 at that time and mindwell at that time she even didn't know Hindi properly actually not at all .She use to takes notes in her language( Bengali) and sing and still her pronounciation were excellent.Let us even try to pronounce a single line in other language then our mother tounge?Will we be able to do that?Then?This is a whole song and that too at the age of just 17, as that time she knew only one language and that is Bengali...and she sang "Mera Sundar Sapna Beet Gaya"! That is MAGIC.She created a MAGIC. A new different voice has arrived.She sang in Gujarati at a very tender age of 19.......Geeta Roy was par excellence.Her voice was one of a kind and no one can match it.
If one can hear her in Kagaz Ke Phool, "Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam tum rahe na tum hum rahe na hum....." only Geeta Dutt can bring that pain and agony in the voice.......or her mischivious voice in Mr and Mrs 55, "Thandi Hawa kali Ghata a hi gayi jhoom ke"..............Geeta Dutt was versatile.The only things that happened bad , according to me was, she sang only for Guru Dutt films and hence after marrying Guru Dutt, her songs were limited to just what her husband Guru Dutt will produce.She sang only for Guru Dutt and what she got for that?That is a different story to tell.....

The film in which she sang in Gujarati film was "Mangal Fera" where in Nirupa Roy, our favourite mother of Hindi Film acted as Heroine and if one hear the song of that Gujarati Film sung by Geeta Roy( Dutt) and A R Oza, Rakh na Ramakada, one will never believe that Geeta Roy( Dutt) was not knwoing the language.She was perfect in Gujarati pronounciation.
Geeta Roy married Guru Dutt and hence her last name changed from Roy to Dutt.
If someone wants to hear that SONG , one can write , Rakh na Ramakada , in YOU TUBE , and one will be able to hear it.And I would suggest to hear that song who understand or knows Gujarati.
Now that is talent.It is GOD Gift.
Can anyone do it if anyone wants to?NO.That was a GOD gift to Geeta Dutt.Her voice.
The charismatic smile of yesteryear super star Rajesh Khanna.Did Rajesh Khanna developed that smile?He got on his face.He got from GOD.In film Ind your face plays very important role and then comes the talent.We have seen many beautiful face becoming successful even though they have no acting talent.Now here someone is becoming successful only because he/she has got beautiful face, what we will tell it?Where he got this face?He himself got it?He developed it or he planned it ?No planning ,no hardlabour, nothing works when luck works and in film Ind , only luck works.Worst of the film made becomes a huge success and best of film get flopped.We have read that the best film critic said has flopped.Why that happens?
Have anyone ever heard the name of  Uttam Singh?Scratching your head.He is the Music Dir of the film "Dil To Pagal Hai".The music was a super hit.Every songs were superhit and that's it.
After that Uttam Singh was never  able to create that magic.What is that?Now no one remembers Uttam Singh.His work in Dil Top Pagal Hai.
Same O.P Nayyar who gave hit after hits from 1952,lost his touch and he himself took exile from Music around 1970.
Why someone lose a touch?It is a talent , how one can lose it.It was not so that he became wayward and hence that happened.No.
But the time was over.O.P.Nayar himself spoke in one music occassion on ZEE Tv that he was knowing that his time is now ending.What is that TIME?That is LUCK.That is Destiny.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Manganese Ore India Ltd...........IPO..Another Navratna on Sale.....

Friends,
I am not going to write all those that comes on different sites.
One can always read it there.
I would just wite here that after Coal India Ltd(CIL) this is another  GEM coming out from our government and one should go all out for it and apply.............
Nothing more  and nothing less.....

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

MFIs similar to moneylenders, says Reddy ............

 The man who protected India’s economy during the subprime crisis raises red flag, bats for stricter curbs on micro lenders Gayatri Nayak MUMBAI
YAGA Venugopal Reddy, former Reserve Bank of India governor credited with saving the nation’s financial system from the 2008 meltdown, has said what many finance experts believed, but did not have the courage to admit publicly: microfinance is India’s subprime. “Ultimately, it’s something like subprime lending,” Mr Reddy told ET in an interview ahead of his book release. “The same incentives are operating here... it was securitisation and derivatives that operated in the US. Here it is the priority sector lending by banks.”
Subprime lending refers to loans extended to people with poor repaying ability that ultimately led to defaults.
The 25,000-crore microfinance industry is facing tumultuous times ever since the biggest, SKS Microfinance, created a controversy two months ago by sacking chief executive Suresh Gurumani. There was a confluence of woes for the sector when the Andhra Pradesh government came up with legislation curbing their operations. Banks pulled back on lending as some of the institutions were behaving more like moneylenders and in some cases drove borrowers to suicide. INDIAN banks such as SBI, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank are estimated to have lent 16,000 crore to micro lenders. ICICI’s lending is at 2,000 crore, SBI’s at more than 1,000 crore and Sidbi’s at 4,000 crore, according to data from rating company Care.
The financial magnitude may not be the same with the Indian microfinance industry being tiny compared with the subprime lending crisis that led to more than a trillion dollars of losses and sank many venerable institutions. But there are similarities such as opaque practices, high salaries and commissions inducing unethical business, and leverage.
The current practices may create systemic problems too, unlike moneylenders who operate with their own money.
“If it is profit and if there is lending, aggressively, then it’s just moneylending,” said Mr Reddy, who was criticised before the credit crisis for his conservative approach to policymaking. “Also, if you look at it, the resource is leveraged, it’s not just moneylending business. The moneylender normally lends out his own money, whereas here the MFI is actually borrowing money from depositors and lending the money. So essentially, he is a moneylender, but a leveraged moneylender.”
Many admit to the fact that the industry has gone astray with the lure of superlative returns as private equity investors such as Sequoia Capital smelt an opportunity. But that did not mean that its role in financial inclusion could be discarded.
“Yes, I agree with Mr Reddy when he says a lot of perverse incentives got aligned,” said Vijay Mahajan, chairman of BASIX, a micro lender, and head of Microfinance Institutions Network. “Here perverse incentives got aligned like in the US and in two years the sector went from helping the poor to preying on the poor.”
These institutions are no more the not-for-profit ones as envisioned by Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus, so regulations are essential, says Reddy. Bangladesh-born Yunus had seen micro lending as a vehicle to lift people out of poverty rather than enhance returns of wealthy investors in private equity funds.
“The idea that MFIs should be treated like banks but given soft regulations is dangerous,” said Mr Reddy. “We had a somewhat similar experience with urban co-operative banks.”


(With inputs from Ruchira Roy in Mumbai)

My Comments:
Readers were asking about what can be fate of MFI's in the present circumstances when AP governmnet has put restrictions on MFI's?
I would like to write here that ,the trend is not good looking at now when it is seen that all types of tricks are used to get the money back which is resulting in sucide of borrowers.That is a very bad situation and this can hurt the MFI  as a whole.
As Dr.Reddy rightly pointed put that the same intention what Nobel Luareate Mohamad Yunus was upto is not there.When there is profit , then it is money lending and when the practice to get the borrowed money is offensive which leads to sucides then one have to think on the rules and regulations and that will come eventually and that will hinder the profit margins of MFI's.
It is good that all these has come out before it became too late.
I would write that this will have negative effect on MFI Co's like Arman Finance, Capital Trust ,SKS Finance and other unlisted Cos which are thinking of coming out with IPO's.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

$462,00,00,00,000...that is $462 bn..! Mother of all black money figures...

ZEROING IN ON BLACK MONEY

$462000000000
India Drained Of 20 Lakh cr During 1948-2001: Study
Binoy Prabhakar NEW DELHI
IN A season of swindles, kickbacks and scams, here is some more on the mother of them all. Black money — the popular moniker given to the billions seeded by dirty deals and whisked away abroad from the taxman’s prying eyes — has received much attention in recent years.
The opposition never tires of screaming foul at the government. The government, for its part, is at pains to say it is doing all it can to track down the illegal stash.
Despite the cacophony, an estimate of the scads of black money in secret bank vaults overseas has long been one big unknown, resulting in a great deal of speculation and glib talk around the subject. Finally, some help is at hand.
A new study by an international watchdog on the illicit flight of money from the country, perhaps the first ever attempt at shedding light on a subject steeped in secrecy, concludes that India has been drained of $462 billion ( 20,556,848,000,000 or over 20 lakh crore) between 1948 and 2008. The amount is nearly 40% of India’s gross domestic product, and nearly 12 times the size of the estimated loss to the government because of the 2G spectrum scam. The study has been authored by Dev Kar, a lead economist with the US-based Global Financial Integrity, a non-profit research body that has long crusaded against illegal capital flight.
Mr Kar, a former senior economist with the International Monetary Fund, says illicit financial flows out of India have grown at 11.5% a year, debunking a popular notion that economic reforms that began nearly two decades ago had tempered the creation and stashing away of black money overseas.
Outflows accelerated after reforms
IF CAPITAL outflows were a child of the independence era, the problem came of age in the years after the reforms kicked in. Nearly 50% of the total illegal outflows occurred since 1991. Around a third of the money exited the country between 2000 and 2008.
“It shows that reforms seem to have accelerated the transfer of black money abroad,” says Mr Kar, whose study titled ‘The Drivers and Dynamics of Illicit Financial Flows from India: 1948-2008’ sifts through piles of data on the issue over a period of 61 years. The study, which Mr Kar says is the most comprehensive one yet on illicit financial flows from India, will be made public on Thursday.
His report comes amid a renewed government push in recent months to pursue black money stashed abroad. In late August, the government signed an agreement with Switzerland — its banks top a list of usual suspects — that will enable exchange of information on tax evaders. New Delhi is also in talks with at least 20 tax havens, particularly Mauritius, to extract similar information.
The government is also attempting to gain a measure of the total unaccounted money circulating in the economy. The finance ministry last week approached the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy to get a fix on such money.
But M Govinda Rao, director of the institute, says his think-tank is yet to decide on going ahead with the exercise because it is not an easy task. “A study on this subject is a huge challenge because one is dealing with a very big problem that covers hordes of money from many sectors,” he says.
Black money turned into an election issue during the 2009 general elections, with the BJP harping on the issue throughout its campaign. Its leader LK Advani has been the most vocal critic of the government on this issue, time and again questioning the government’s resolve to chase illegal funds. Mr Advani recently urged the government to publish a white paper on the issue.
While Mr Advani was unavailable for comment, the government’s detractors on this issue say there is more talk than action to address this issue.
“Everybody knows about the gravity of the problem, but the government has not shown the political will to bring the money back to India,” says Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).
The government has, however, received praise from Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which has been at the forefront of the fight against tax evasion. OECD, whose relentless offensive is largely credited with lifting the veil of secrecy over umpteen tax havens, hailed India’s efforts to crack down on tax evasion and sign information exchange agreements earlier this year.
These are but short-lived answers, say experts, adding that an overhaul in the global financial system is central to a lasting solution. New tax havens will spring forth when pressure mounts on existing ones.
That is not to say there are only a few tax havens out there. Indeed, at least 91 such hotspots flourish across the globe. Asian countries, particularly Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau, too are emerging as new destinations for parking illicit funds.
Besides Switzerland and Mauritius, Indian money is also said to end up in Seychelles and Macau. Due to the illicit nature of these deposits, pinpointing the journey’s end of the bulk of India’s black money is tenuous at best.
The GFI study gives a measure of the amount of money that the government is chasing, but it is only a fraction of the $1.4 trillion that the BJP claims is the illegal stash.
GFI acknowledges as much, saying its figure is conservative and hasn’t taken into account smuggling and certain types of trade mischief. It also admits to gaps in available statistics, lamenting the lack of data on the consolidated fiscal balance with the government, which has hampered research. If these indicators were counted, India’s total illicit outflows would well be half a trillion dollars.
But Mr Kar says the $1.4 trillion figure was an “estimate”, while the numbers in the latest report are based on real data.
Still, GFI says that by no stretch of imagination is its calculation insignificant, more so when viewed against the country’s existing external debt at nearly $230 billion.
“It means India could not only have contracted less debt or even paid it off, but another half would also have been left over for poverty alleviation and economic development,” says Mr Kar. “There is no question that this huge loss of capital has set India back in its struggle to eradicate poverty and illiteracy.”
The study has based its findings on the World Bank Residual Model that tracks illicit outflows by measuring the disparity in a country’s recorded source and use of funds. It also delves into IMF’s ‘trade-mispricing’ model that compares a country’s recorded imports to what the world says it exported to the country as well as the recorded exports against its global imports. The gaps tell the story.
The perpetrators of illicit outflows, says the study, are wealthy individuals and private companies. Black money is also abetted by the existence of an ’underground’ economy that emerged out of illegal activities and assets spawned by such activities.
The unabated growth of slush funds is borne out of a growing affinity of culprits for offshore financial centres, or tax havens, at the expense of banks in developed countries such as the US, France and the United Kingdom. The study finds that the share of deposits in offshore tax havens grew to 54.2% in 2009 from 36.4% in 1995.
The study is as much an indictment of feckless government action as it is about shedding a light on the nature of illicit financial flows. “The sharp rise in illicit flows means that tax evasion (which is part and parcel of such flows) is also increasing sharply,” says Mr Kar.
“In the absence of good governance and poor institutional oversight, the desire for the hidden accumulation of wealth drives more of such transfers,” he adds.
Though India cannot end its black money problem alone, there are challenges it must address by itself, says the study. Legal institutions and procedures need to be strengthened and streamlined. The guilty should be punished --the architects of the Commonwealth Games scam, for example -- swiftly. And tax policies must be rationalised.
“Sure, black money is there in most countries but if it worsens poverty, robs human rights and drives centrifugal forces such as naxals, it becomes a problem that can no longer be ignored,” says Mr Kar.


And this is another Clip:A Raja still allotting Spectrum overruling Ministry Decision! What an aduacity!And Congress is unable to deal with anything!.........making money doing nothing at its BEST........Madhu Koda( 900 cr CASH in Bank), Sharad Power ( Sugarcane scam)and now A Raja....

ON TROUBLED WAVES

Raja’s kingdom of spectrum ran till his last days
Ex-Minister Tried To Allot Airwaves To 3 Telcos, Overruling Ministry Decision ( Uski himmant dekho, see his courage.....he is not at all bothered of anything......)
Joji Thomas Philip & Rohini Singh NEW DELHI
IN THE midst of the 2G spectrum controversy, and just days before his resignation, the telecom ministry (DoT) under A Raja was pushing for the allocation of airwaves to three companies — Tata Teleservices, Uninor and Videocon—in Delhi, overruling its own decision of not issuing fresh 2G spectrum until a new allocation methodology was finalised.
The move to allot spectrum to these companies also contradicted sector regulator Trai’s recommendation that airwaves be given first to existing operators in a circle, and companies that don’t have operations in a city should be the last in the queue for getting spectrum. Trai’s recommendations were endorsed by DoT’s legal wing as late as last month.
But documents accessed by ET show that on November 10, the telecom department was pushing for awarding airwaves to Tata Teleservices, Uninor and Videocon. “Since defence has released 8 MHz of spectrum recently ..., we may allot initial 4.4 MHz to Tata Teleservices in Delhi… Since total available spectrum is 11.6 MHz in this service area, including already available spectrum of 3.6 MHz, we may consider allotment of 4.4 MHz to Datacom (Videocon) and balance 2.8 MHz to Uninor, subject to acceptance of the same by Uninor,” the telecom department’s assistant wireless advisor said in an internal note endorsed by top ministry officials on November 10.
Uninor and Videocon were among the new companies that were controversially granted mobile permits by Mr Raja in 2008. Tata Teleservices is awaiting GSM airwaves in Delhi and many other circles. The telecom department had so far been unable to award start-up GSM airwaves in Delhi, the most lucrative circle in the country, to these three companies as it had exhausted all spectrum in the National Capital Region. Following the recent vacation of airwaves by the armed forces, the government now has about 11.6 MHz to allot in Delhi, but existing operators such as Reliance Communications, Bharti, Vodafone Essar and Idea have first preference over this resource, as per Trai recommendations. The government is yet to take a call on Trai’s recommendations, as the empowered group of ministers headed by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee has not met on this issue. In June, the Prime Minister’s Office had asked the telecom ministry to refer all issues related to Trai’s proposals, including the methodology for addition of 2G airwaves, to the EGoM.
DoT’s earlier attempt failed
THIS is not the first time the telecom department has tried to allot spectrum to new entrants, despite the freeze on spectrum allocation. In September, DoT had sought to place new entrants such as Tata DoCoMo and Uninor, which are yet to receive start-up airwaves in many circles, first in queue for airwaves, but the move failed since the department’s own legal advisor refused to endorse it.
Mr Raja, who was at the centre of the 2G spectrum allocation scam, resigned on Sunday night. On Tuesday, India’s chief auditor, in its report tabled in Parliament, said Mr Raja flouted almost every rule in the book, ignored advice from the prime minister down and indulged in blatant favouritism while awarding mobile licences to mostly undeserving companies, causing a loss of nearly 1,77,000 crore to the government.




My Comments:
Now what is the meaning of this?$462 bn! That is HUGE Amt and I just read in ET that A Raja still went on as seen in today ET which I have pasted here........
WHAT THESE POLITICIANS ARE GOING TO DO WITH THE COUNTRY? WILL SOMEONE ASK THEM?........YE SAB KAHAN TAK JAYEGA?....WILL THERE BE ANY END TO THIS OR NOT?
These money are need to go to the POOR people of India.These are their money.These money needs to be used for electricity and water and canals in distant villages where there is no electricy and no water for miles togather.Woman has to go to 4-5 miles OR EVEN MORE to fill a pot of water on head and come back to home and then cook something.
These are the money that are to be used for poor people residing in rural part and very interior part of India where the India growth story has not reached.In the remote area people are starving without FOOD and dying and these politicians are having field day.
CBI needs to check all a/c of their friends , relatives of all politicians.The questions still arises how much INDIA  can depend on CBI as well?
What is the meaning of helps and grants we get from the Philanthropic Institution like Bill Gates?Bill Gates need to tell INDIA  that untill INDIA  don't bring down corruption there can be no HELP FOR POOR IN INDIA.
WHAT A SHAME FOR INDIA!
FOR EVERYGROWTH OF INDIA THERE WILL COME MORE AND MORE OPPORTUNITY FOR POLITICIANS TO MAKE MONEY FOR GIVING LICENCES FOR VARIOUS PROJECTS ETC.......

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

We aren't still ready?PE investors? Are u listening?

Taken from today's ET.

WIDE ANGLE
Hunger for new ideas, impatience is still missing
By ANIL GUPTA PROFESSOR, IIM AHMEDABAD

A GREAT deal is said about the strengthening of innovation ecosystem in the country but somehow I still find the hunger for new ideas, the impatience with inertia and a desire to make an imperfect beginning missing. I find really innovative pioneers still suffering neglect and sometimes even contempt. But then the situation is not completely gloomy, some signs of hope are visible. But the alarm bells first.
Having been involved with innovators in informal and formal sector, primarily individuals but also companies, I have realised that great damage is sometimes done by paradoxically lowering the bar, reducing the expectations and being too critical at the same time to promising new ideas. If you wish to have a meeting with a colleague and discuss the issues across the table using a laptop, what options do you have, if you don’t have a projector. Sitting on same side of the screen and looking sideways, bending your neck and later getting it (neck, not the screen!) massaged for all the pain.
1)But Dr Janardan Reddy, a cardiac surgeon who had done more than ten thousand surgeries and has invented a double-sided screen displayed at several innovation meetings including that of Computers Society of India along with Mr Narayanan, a bio-engineer in Chennai, would not get a small support of Rs 45 lakh or a crore, not withstanding the self-proclaimed tribe of angel investors or public programmes meant to serve such individual professional innovators. ( There is no 45 lacs or 1 cr for this one?, PITY, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala , are you reading this? )

2)Abhijit, a former army officer, analysed thousands of pages of digital text in Indian languages and calculated statistical probability of which letter is likely to come after which other letter while typing. He devised a wonderful Indian language light software which does not need a dictionary to ease the typing on mobile is still awaiting funding to scale up his dream.
What is his aspiration? That all mobiles operators and manufactures must enable typing in Indian languages obligatory in various handsets. One would expect that the community of scholars, industrialists and policymakers would jump at such an idea, take it up for rigorous testing and mobilise support for him right away. But no, when I posted it on a list having who’s who of the IT industry involved with this subject, not one colleague responded even with a sceptic remark. What does such silence imply?

3)Another young innovator, Hemanth from Bangalore has developed a software which goes a few steps beyond YouTube and can search in videos, by converting speech or slides into OCRtext and then searching in those words. Doordarshan, IGNOU and many other private and public agencies should jump at it. Sristi will be using it to analyse the videos of village walk, shodh yatras covering more than 4,000 km of distance over last decade and more as a part of Honey Bee network engagement with grassroots creativity. But he is still struggling.

Why don’t we develop a system which responds with alacrity, empathy and genuine desire to produce global and national signatures? Tell me, I must be naive, is not it? Why are weeding out the really creative voices?

My Comments:
My view again come to the fore that we do not supprot innovation.Legpulling is our ideaology.....


What to say here!

Graft grounded Tatas’return to skies

Ratan Was Uncomfortable With ‘Bribing’ Minister
Our Bureau & Agencies MUMBAI
THE main reason why the Tata group failed to start a private airline about 15 years ago surfaced on Monday when chairman Ratan Tata said a bribe demand had scuttled the venture.
Speaking at a function in Dehra Dun on Monday, Mr Tata said he didn’t re-enter the airline business, which was to be in a joint venture with Singapore Airlines, as he was not comfortable with the idea of bribing 15 crore to a minister.
“We approached three prime ministers also. But an individual thwarted our efforts to form the airline,” Mr Tata said, recalling how he spurned the suggestion. “A fellow industrialist had said: ‘You are stupid people. The minister was asking for 15 crore. Why didn’t you pay the money?“
CM Ibrahim was the aviation minister in 1996, when the Tatas had initiated plans to re-enter aviation. Mr Tata’s predecessor, JRD Tata, had set up the first commercial airline in India, called ‘Tata Airlines’, in the 1930s, which was taken over by the government in the 1950s and renamed Air India.
Ibrahim clears the air, says won’t file defamation case
THE Tata group’s difficulties with Mr Ibrahim are well known, but none of the protagonists has spoken about the matter in public.
India allows foreign investors such as private equity funds to own 49% of a domestic aviation company, but investment by foreign carriers is banned, a rule many consider bizarre. The ban was introduced in the mid-1990s.
Though the events Mr Tata was describing occurred many years ago, the remarks created a minor media frenzy when television channels — which have been gorging themselves on the alleged misdeeds of former telecom minister A Raja — started ‘flashing’ the news.
A key minister in Deve Gowda’s government, Mr Ibrahim responded to Mr Tata’s allegation by saying he had stopped the Tata project as it would have resulted in a loss to the government.
“It would have meant gifting away 4,000 acres of government land to the Tatas at a low rate,” Mr Ibrahim told television channel TIMES NOW. His remarks appeared not to be directly related to the aborted airline. Instead, he was talking about an alleged offer by the Tatas to build a new airport in Bangalore.
The Tatas had supposedly wanted to build the airport under the build-operate-own model while Mr Ibrahim says he preferred an alternative method known as build-operate-transfer. In the second case, the airport’s ownership eventually reverts to the government.
In other interviews, Mr Ibrahim attributed his blocking of the Tatas’ aviation plans to the presence of Singapore Airlines. Coming from a family of freedom fighters, he wanted to keep foreigners away from the aviation sector, he said.
\Mr Ibrahim also clarified that he was not filing defamation charges as Mr Tata had not named him as the bribe-seeker.
In a statement issued on Monday evening, an external corporate communications agency representing the Tata group clarified that Mr Tata was merely recounting a conversation with another industrialist. The 72-year-old head of the Tata group was not describing an actual episode and was not accusing anyone of asking for a bribe, it added.
“Mr Tata in no way was in agreement to the fact that he was asked for a bribe by any minister,” the a statement said. The figure of 15 crore was the personal opinion of the industrialist whom Mr Tata did not name.
The much-publicised alliance with Singapore Airlines to form a private airline from a group that had given India its first aviation company suffered a setback when the Tatas walked away from the deal citing long delays.
The Tata decision had raised questions then, with many senior group executives offering varying reasons for the aborted venture.
Jet Airways, one of India’s top private sector airlines, has long opposed investment by foreign airlines in the aviation sector. Two Gulfbased airlines once held 40% of Jet’s equity, but had to divest their stake after the government banned FDI by overseas carriers. Mr Ibrahim, nor anyone from Jet, has ever been investigated or charged in relation to the failed Tata bid to enter aviation.
Responding to questions about how he succeeded without compromising ethics and values after delivering a lecture on ‘India in 21st Century: Opportunities and Challenges’, Mr Tata said: “I did not want to go to bed knowing well that I set up an airlines by paying Rs 15 crore.”
After taking over control of the group, Mr Tata had tried thrice to enter aviation, but in vain. The group approached the government in 1995, 1997 and in 2001, but could not get an approval.
In 2001, the BJP government was in power when the Tatas and Singapore Airlines withdrew as sole bidders for their joint bid for Air India, the state-run airline, citing political opposition. Earlier in 1995, and subsequently in 2000, the consortium had made concerted efforts to take a stake in Air India, but the controversies surrounding the disinvestment process and unions’ opposition prevented the process.

My Comments:
What to say here! A very very reputed business gr like Tata is taken for ride then what to say about the beurocracy?Tata tried in 1995,1997 and 2001 and they were not suceesful.That is the irony of India.
Tata is a gr who always thinks ahead of others and that we can see here that Ratan Tata tried 3 times but FAILED.
I had always felt that it is the business-man who are making us proud with the Cos like Infosys, Wipro,Ril Ind,TCS, Tisco, Tata Motors , Sterlite Ind and many more .............
With all these type of bottlenecks they have made inroads and chattered their own path of success and Kudos to them for doing it with all the constrainst which keeps on coming moving up.
Many must have given bribe and many must have done without doing it but they kept flag flying of India in Internatioanl arena and these business-man needs all accolades for that.
Can anyone think, with such a poor political background we can prosper what we have been?No way! All credit goes to Industrialist doing their job even after all drawbacks.
Just imagine, if we want a simple copy of documents(7-A and 8-12) of a house or land and we go to the talati's office then wehave to give few hundreds rupees to talati otherwise he will say he has no time and he will have to look at records which are very old and will take time and once you give few hundreds rupees you get it immidiately.
I have seen and heard that even the name of the holder gets changed if we bribe someone and the house or land or property names gets changed............
If Mukesh Ambani has built the biggest and most expensive house in Mumbai, he still derserve it as he gives employment and earn billions of dollar of exchequer for the country.But what these politicians gives to country?They just take bribes and makes money while doing nothing.
I have already written on Madhu Koda and Sharad Power case and now A Raja case has come up which IT people says government has lost Rs 1,76,000 cr in revenue!
That is HUGE...........

Monday, November 15, 2010

What is happening at Sical Logistic?

Friends,
I don't understand why M.A.Chidambaram gr wants to exit from a wonderful Co so cheap?Sical stake is offloaded for just Rs 200cr?I can't believe this......V.G Siddharth is getting it damn cheap.....and the M.A.Chidambaram gr is going out from the sector which is most sought after.Amazing........
Here are the two examples of cash crunches.One I gave earlier of Tata Motors and one is of Sical.
While Ratan Tata was able to get funds while selling stake of his other Co to Tata Sons, here Mr.Muthiah is not able to do that and hence has to sell  it cheap.......



Mumbai/Bangalore: Cafe Coffee Day retail chain owner V.G. Siddhartha has ventured into the logistics business by acquiring majority control of Sical Logistics Ltd for around Rs200 crore, thus effectively ending the logistics run of one of Chennai’s oldest business families, the M.A. Chidambaram Group.

Tanglin Retail Realty Developments Pvt. Ltd, a group company of Coffee Day Resorts Pvt. Ltd, which operates close to 1,000 Cafe Coffee Day outlets across India, will acquire majority control of Sical Logistics through a combination of a direct stake purchase from the promoter Ashwin C. Muthiah, a preferential issue of shares and through an open offer, a person familiar with the development said.
The buyer will initially purchase a 15% stake in the company through a preferential allotment at Rs76 a share and follow it up with an open offer in accordance with India’s takeover law. The deal will lower the promoter’s stake in Sical to around 15%. Ashwin Muthiah, Sical’s promoter, currently holds 42.66% of the company. Edelweiss is the exclusive adviser to the deal.
The preferential allotment of 16,08,0010 shares to Tanglin was cleared by Sical’s board on Saturday, it said in a statement. Tanglin also informed the stock exchanges on Saturday that it had acquired 39,52,000 shares in Sical on 12 November through a block deal.
Siddhartha is flush with cash raised in April 2010 from three private equity funds—Kohlberg Kravis Roberts India Advisors Pvt. Ltd (KKR India), Standard Chartered Pvt. Equity Ltd and New Silk Route. They invested Rs960 crore for a 25% stake in the company, which also owns a private equity fund, Global Technology Ventures, three resorts in southern India under the Serai brand and Terra Firma Pvt. Ltd, a waste-management business.
The acquisition will give Siddhartha access to logistics services such as stevedoring, port terminals, customs house agency, shipping agency, trucking, railroad and warehousing facilities that Sical built over the past decade as trade boomed in the world’s second fastest growing major economy.
Sical handles around 26 million tonnes of bulk cargo and 500,000 standard cargo containers a year. The firm
reported a net profit of Rs26.36 crore on revenue of Rs537.23 crore in the year to March 2010.
Sical’s delivery network includes an exclusive walk-in berth at Chennai port for ships carrying bulk cargo; a container terminal at Tuticorin port; 225,000 sq. ft of storage across 17 warehouses(What can be the replacement cost of such a big land?); owned and regularly contracted fleet of more than 1,000 transport vehicles and container freight stations at three locations across India.
Apart from being an attractive investment opportunity, Sical will also cater to the in-house supply chain requirements of the diversified group with interests ranging across production and export of coffee, hotel properties and furniture. It currently relies on multiple service providers for its supply chain requirements.
Significantly, IDFC Private Equity (PE) sold its 13.28% stake in the logistics company for Rs43.8 crore on the National Stock Exchange through a bulk deal last week. IDFC PE took a haircut on its three-and-half-year-old investment of Rs116 crore made in March 2007—it sold the stake for Rs83.4 per share against its acquisition price of Rs222 per share.
The entire stake was acquired by Jupiter Capital Pvt. Ltd, a Bangalore-based investment company promoted by entrepreneur and lawmaker Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
Though IDFC PE had two board seats on Sical, an executive at Jupiter Capital said that it was not interested in assuming the board seats because the stake purchase in Sical was in the form of a portfolio investment.
“We have no plans to raise our stake in Sical either,” said Sudhakar Gande, a director at Jupiter Capital.
Several people Mint spoke to said that Ashwin Muthiah, the chairman of Sical, has come under pressure to sell his holding in the company because he was strapped for cash to fund a $50 million (Rs223 crore) foreign currency convertible bond (FCCB) redemption coming up in March-April 2011.
“The FCCB holders would not convert because the prices are ruling very high,” said a second person familiar with the development who did not want to be identified. Muthiah also faces hurdles in raising funds from the market for redeeming the FCCB because banks and financial institutions would be wary of lending money to him due to the financial troubles surrounding Southern Petrochemical Industries Corp. (Spic), the parent company’s flagship fertilizer unit at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu.
Sical demerged its non-logistics businesses into a separate company in 2007 in a bid to focus exclusively on end-to-end multimodal integrated solutions for the logistics of bulk and containerized cargo. But things did not pan out well for the firm.
Around the same time, Sical divested its non-core businesses—palm oil, refractory, auto, drums, agri-bio products, specialty chemicals and flexible shafts—to position itself as a pure play integrated logistics provider.
“Today, Sical is hard-pressed for cash,” the second person mentioned earlier said. To tide over the liquidity crunch, Ashwin Muthiah has been selling some of his assets.
In late 2009, Sical Logistics sold its only platform supply vessel, or PSV, to Norwegian shipping firm Farstad Shipping ASA for around $24.8 million or 150 million Norwegian kroner, effectively turning its back on a three-year-old strategy to expand into the lucrative global offshore logistics market.
A PSV provides offshore logistics such as supplies and cargo transport for deepwater oil and gas drilling operations.
The strategy had been flagged off in September 2006 with the acquisition of Singapore-based Bergen Offshore Logistics Pte Ltd, a provider of specialized logistics for offshore oil and gas exploration, for $96.9 million. The acquisition gave Sical access to the PSV, which was purchased by Bergen Offshore for $31.3 million.

That is Ratan Tata...........

Friends,
I just went through this article in Today's "Live Mint" e paper and I was facinated to read the whole story......I like reading such stories even though I am not a business man.I like people who makes miracles.I like people who turns around loss making Co in a profit making Co.
The bet of buying JLR was misfired according to the analyst and see the turnaround! From a mere 22 cr profit same time last year it jumped to 2230 cr this year in a single quater! Wow!....$500 mn !......That is what I call atitude.That is what I call character.That is what I call a regirous invovlement to be successful.
Well, reading this can also makes us take some decision good.Read and learn.
That is Ratan Tata for US.We are proud of Ratan.He is in real sense Ratan for India.......

Read on:

When Tata Motors Ltd bought Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) for $2.3 billion in 2008, it quickly became appar- ent that the Indian auto maker couldn't have chosen a worse time for an acquisition of that magnitude.

The collapse of the mortgage market in the US had set off a financial crisis and no one with cash was in any mood to lend it.
Amid talk of the UK govern- ment contemplating a bailout of JLR, Tata Motors' market value plunged to `6,503.2 crore, with the stock hitting rock bottom `126.45 on 20 No- vember 2008. The market capi- talization was less than what it had paid Ford Motor Co. for the legendary British marques.
In the fiscal ended March 2009, Tata Motors posted its first annual loss in at least sev- en years after sales at the luxu- ry unit plunged amid the glob- al slump.
The consolidated net loss was `2,500 crore in the year ended 31 March, compared with a profit of `2,200 crore in the year earlier. The JLR unit made a pretax loss of `1,800 crore as unemployment and the financial crisis damped sales in the US and Europe.
Only two years later, howev er, JLR has turned around spectacularly. With JLR ac counting for more than half o Tata Motors' business, the company posted a 100-fold jump in profit in the three months to 30 September. The UK subsidiary has been gener ating a cash profit for the las four quarters.
Favourable external factors including currency move ments and a rebound in de mand for the luxury marques may have aided the turn around, but JLR's comeback i more than a result of fortuitou circumstances. The foundation for the transformation was be ing laid even during the pain ful months of struggle that fol lowed the acquisition.
Mint chronicles the story o the turnaround, how an Indian company that specialized in cheap small cars on the one hand and trucks on the othe succeeded where an iconi auto maker, and others before it, had failed.


In the summer of 2007, before Tata Motors Ltd took over Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Ratan Tata and Ravi Kant embarked on a trip through the US. Their objec- tive--to gauge whether the leg- endary British marques still evoked enough passion in the biggest market for the vehicles to justify the acquisition.
The Tata group was among those that Ford Motor Co., which owned JLR at the time, had approached earlier in the year to discuss a possible sale.
Among the people that chair- man Tata and Kant, then man- aging director of Tata Motors, met were the long-suffering dealers of the two brands. De- spite the dismal performance over the past few years, the dealers still kept the faith, the Indians were heartened to learn. A few months later, when Kant did the rounds of dealers in the UK, he met with much the same response-- they still believed in the brands.
But when the $2.3 billion (`10,258 crore today) deal took place the next year, it was quickly apparent that Tata Mo- tors couldn't have picked a worse time to make an acquisi- tion of this magnitude. The collapse of the mortgage mar- ket in the US had set off a fi- nancial crisis and anyone who had cash wasn't in the mood to lend it.
Two years and a few months since then, JLR's contribution has helped Tata Motors post a steep rise in profit in the quar- ter to 30 September. So how did an Indian company that specialized in cheap small cars, on the one hand, and trucks, on the other, succeed where an icon- ic auto maker, and others be- fore it, had failed.
The top ex- ecutives at Tata Motors, usually most reti- cent, opened up for the first time about the JLR story at an exclusive interaction in Bom- bay House, the Tata group's headquarters. Those present at the meeting included Carl-Pe- ter Forster, managing director of Tata Motors group, Ralf Speth, chief executive officer of JLR, and a top group execu- tive who was intimately associ- ated with the turnaround saga, but insisted that he remain un- named as he wasn't directly associated with the unit any longer.
Soon after the acquisition in 2008, Tata Motors found itself saddled with a debt of `21,900 crore, an uncomfortable posi- tion for a company that had been virtually debt free.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, through 2008 and the early part of 2009, Tata Motors was also involved in developing and launching the world's cheapest car, Nano, a project that was fraught with its own melodramatic ups and downs. But that's another story (see WEF special supplement).
Hard times At JLR, the product wasn't moving and Bombay House was beginning to feel stretched.
Amid talk of the UK govern- ment contemplating a bailout of JLR, Tata Motors' market value plunged to `6,503.2 crore, with the stock hitting rock bottom `126.45 on 20 No- vember 2008. The market capi- talization was less than what it had paid Ford for JLR.
“The global slowdown put the company under tremen- dous pressure because the management of JLR had just separated from one big organi- zation and was attaching itself to another not-so-big group and they were not yet kind of experienced living indepen- dently,“ said the Tata executive mentioned above. “We were bleeding.
Banks were not giving any money, they were not avail- able, they were closed. And we needed mon- ey.“
That's when Ratan Tata came through for Tata Mo- tors, with the parent pumpparent pump- ing in capital, driven by the be- lief that the JLR acquisition was right and would work. While the turnaround, when it took place, came as a surprise, Tata Motors saw it three-four quar- ters in advance.
But before that, in the fiscal ended March 2009, Tata Mo- tors posted its first annual loss in at least seven years after sales at the luxury units plunged amid the global slump. The consolidated net loss was `2,500 crore in the year ended 31 March, com- pared with profit of `2,200 crore in the year earlier. The JLR unit made a pretax loss of `1,800 crore as unemployment and the financial crisis damped sales in the US and Europe.
Cash remained “priority No.
1“ as JLR was haemorrhaging money and the company sought outside help.
As JLR didn't have a cash management system of its own, Tata Motors turned to consult- ants KPMG, Forster said.
For the next few months, “cash started to be managed on an hour-to-hour basis-- what cheque was going out, what cheque was coming in“. KPMG declined to participate in the story. Around the same time, in the spring of 2009, Munich- based Roland Berger Strategy Consultants was brought in to keep a tab on costs. The man- date to Roland Berger was sim- ple: make JLR profitable.
Cash management “A three-tier model was de- veloped,“ said Wolfgang Bern- hart, partner, Automotive Competence Center, Roland Berger. First, a short-term goal to manage liquidity with the assistance of KPMG was put in place.
Then came a mid-term target to contain costs at various lev- els and the formation of 10-11 cross-functional teams, Bern- hart said. A number of man- agement changes, including new heads at JLR, were made.
Finally, a long-term goal that runs until 2014 was drawn up, focusing on new models and refreshing the existing ones.
The key aims--cash manage- ment and checking costs.
When Roland Berger added up the money that could be saved, the company was aston- ished at how high the figure was.
A team of young managers was put in charge, in an ap- proach similar to the one fol- lowed in the 2003 restructuring at Tata Motors, with reviews on a daily basis.
Tata Motors also embarked on a plan to divest stakes in group companies to raise cash: In September 2008, it sold a 1.3% holding in Tata Steel Ltd to holding company Tata Sons Ltd for a total `485 crore. In November 2008, the board ap- proved a `4,147 crore rights of- fer, which was completed in June this year.
All proceeds were chan- nelled into Tata Motors to make JLR profitable. Crucially, Tata Motors was able to keep product development plans go- ing, which has paid off with the global economy reviving and customers returning to JLR showrooms.
The programme also saw the workforce being trimmed since July 2008 by around 11,000 from a gargantuan workforce of 27,000 at JLR. According to chief financial officer C. Ram- akrishnan, who spoke to analysts after announcement of the September quarter results, the workforce was trimmed by an- other 1,800 to 16,000.
JLR's turnaround has been aided by external factors. In a 9 November earnings call with analysts, Ramakrishnan said margins had benefited from fa- vourable currency movements, widening by one percentage point to 16.6%, over the first quarter of 2010-11. However, the extent of the turnaround can be gauged when margins are compared with corre- sponding quarter of previous year. Margins rose by a whop- ping 1,370 basis points or 13.7% from 2.9% in 30 Septem- ber 2009-10, reflecting the changed dynamics of the com- pany as sales rose sharply on the back of new product launches and improved market sentiments. About half the firm's turnover is dollar-linked while one-fifth is linked to the euro. The rupee has strength- ened against both currencies this year. Since January, the pound has strengthened 4.9% against the dollar and 7.7% against the euro.
The turnaround Sales are buoyant thanks to the introduction of newer, more fuel-efficient and con- temporary models coupled with the revival of demand in the firm's key markets such as the UK, the US and Europe.
Despatches of JLR models to dealers globally rose to 115,508 units in the six months to Sep- tember from 80,252 in the year ago. The new Jaguar XJ has been especially successful, with 8,700 of them having been sold since the model's launch in mid-May.
With JLR accounting for more than half of Tata Motors' business, the company posted a 100-fold jump in profit in the three months to 30 September.
The debt-to-equity ratio is down to 1.6 times at the con- solidated level from from 4.5 times at the end of 31 Decem- ber 2009. That's high but com- fortable given surging volumes.
The share has risen to a re- spectable `1,302.15 at close on 10 November on the Bombay Stock Exchange, taking market capitalization to `79,573.08 crore ($18 billion).
The first real contact be- tween Tata and Ford took place in early 2007 when Ratan Tata got “an informal brief“ on JLR.
Tata asked Kant and other se- nior Tata Motors executives if the acquisition made sense.
When he got a positive answer, Tata Motors began a nine- month due diligence process.
There were five key issues that persuaded Tata Motors to go ahead. While Jaguar had a mixed reputation, both were still “great brands“. Ford had pumped in a great deal of cash to improve quality and it was just a matter of time before this made a difference. Second, JLR had very good automobile plants. Third was the steadfast- ness of the dealers despite loss- es over the past four-five years.
Jaguar cars had already start- ed moving up the ranks of the annual JD Power customer sat- isfaction rankings. Besides that, there was a crop of great new models in the pipeline, among them the Jaguar XJ and XF and the upcoming Land Ro- ver, which convinced Tata Mo- tors that JLR was on the cusp of change.
Ultimately, Forster says, it boiled to down to this: JLR had a good engineering base and “a very passionate and committed group of people wanting to cre- ate new products.
“So if you put it all together, we have a recipe for success,“ said the Tata executive cited above. “What else can you ask for? At least there was no doubt in Mr Tata's mind and my mind that we should go for it with a single-minded focus and we went for it.“ Union backing One of the early endorse- ments that Tata Motors got was from the unions, though they gave the firm a grilling.
“We had this meeting (in late 2007) with the union, a very difficult one for three hours. It was eyeball-to-eyeball. Dave (Osborne, Unite's lead negotia- tor for the car industry) and Tony (Woodley, Unite joint general secretary) were asking very tough questions. We didn't have too much hope,“ said the Tata executive. “But somewhere in my heart I felt the meeting had gone well. We came out very transparent, sin- cere, and honest.“
The union leaders told the media after the meeting that their preference was for the In- dian company.
While Tata Motors seems to have done all the right things up until now, making the ac- quisition fit with Tata's strategy of developing low-cost cars for emerging markets won't be easy.
“Tata has done a good job in a difficult period,“ said Prashant Kale, professor of strategy at the Jones School of Management at the Texas- based Rice University. “But to me, this is more of a stan- dalone turnaround of JLR until now,“ said Kale, who works with some Tata group compa- nies “On the face of it, there seem to be limited operational syn- ergies between JLR and Tata Motors' remaining passenger car business, given the differ- ence in the primary segments they cater to and the underly- ing value chain or business models of the two. How Tata Motors is able to leverage those synergies would be interest- ing.“
Forster is of the view that more than synergy, the group will stress on entrepreneurial spirit.
While Speth says it is time to enjoy the fruit of the invest- ment made in 2007-08, Forster, careful not to appear compla- cent, says seeds “are being sown to be reaped in 2014.“
Tata Motors plans to pump £800 million-1 billion (`5,728-7,160 crore) into JLR in the next three-four years for product development, technol- ogy upgradation and capital expenditure needs. The UK subsidiary, which contributes two-thirds of Tata Motors' con- solidated revenue, has been generating a cash profit for the last four quarters. In the three months to September, JLR made a cash profit of £351.9 million, up 12% from the year earlier.
With an eye to the future, JLR is setting up manufacturing as- sembly units in India and Chi- na, the markets touted as the fastest growing in the world.
The Freelander, the cheapest of the sports utility vehicles from the Land Rover stable, will start rolling out from the old Tata-Mercedes assembly plant near Pune next year. JLR is also in advanced negotia- tions to set up a joint venture in China, Speth said, adding that this will allow the compa- ny to reduce prices by 35%, making the vehicles more com- petitive.
“We can rethink our aspira- tions in China (a market with a size of 17 million cars) through this JV,“ Speth said.
Since the Tata Motors acqui- sition, JLR has been looking at the Bric (Brazil, Russia, India, China) nations with greater in- terest, he said. These nations account for 31% of sales and the company wants to raise that to 37%. Speth expects Chi- na to account for 16% of the company's total sales over the next few years.


Sunday, November 14, 2010

Some insights of what needs to be looked while investing.....

Friends,
I have written many times but seems readers don't follow it properly.Someone asked me though Arman Finance nos are excellent then Capital Trust why Arman is lagging and Capital Trust is firing all cylinders.
Well, this reader is not a new reader of this blog and still do not understand why this is happening even though I have written many times that in stock market it is never 1+1 = 2.
If it is that easy then everyone can make money and all CA's should become a billioner reading the BS or AR.
I have written many times, I rarely reads AR or BS because they are of past year.It doesn't says what is happening this year.Ofcourse management do discuss future plans in AR but not all management will do it.
So reading BS or AR makes no sense to me all the time.
Now coming back to Capital Trust which I recomended at 70 odd along with Arman Fin in MFI space, Capital trust is going up and made a new high while Arman Fin has not moved an inch.
That means that market is knowing more then what we are knowing.
This is a very simple equation one should always keep in mind.
In case of  Capital Trust, market is knowing what is future plans of CT and what will be the earning if that will happen and hence giving it a thumbs up to the stock on the street.
Had anyone seen Delta Magnets Ltd recently?It is going up and up without any correction.That happened in Sujana Towers which raced away from 52 to 208 in couple of months.Those who sold to book profit never able to buy it again low.
Now Delta magnet is the same gr Co of Delta Corp where big starwarlts like RJ, RD, RKD etc has taken stake and is firing all cylinders.Delta Corp is 1 paid up and is at 136 , means Rs 1360 and 10 paid up.
If someone look at the balance sheet there one will find nothing.Then why that is happening?Why market is giving so big a discounting to Delta Corp and now Delta magnets?
There is one Co of same gr , named Arrow Textile which I discussed with someone in reply and Arrow Tex is also in buyers circuit last week.
Remember one thing.Market always knows better and earlier then us and when one sees a stock running ahead of fundamentals it means we are not knowing what market is knowing.One may call it insider trading.
What I am doing here is trying to figure out what is coming up way before market participants realise it and write it much much early then it starts moving and hence the wait is always long but once my picks start moving they goes in circuits for weeks togather.
One more readers wrote about my call on Arihant Superstructure which I gave a call recently at 74 and was in upper circuits last whole week and is Rs 90.When I wrote about it many or almost all readers barring couple of them didn't understand why I recomended it.
But what I was seeing is coming out true as it has started moving.
One readers asked me about Compact Disc about his concerns.His concerns are good but that is the reason a Co is available at 1 p/e! CD has an eps of 50 and is available at 60.
One other wrote about saying he gave a negative view and I gave him the reply that what you think is not negative as these raids etc keeps happening everywhere.
These are not negatives.If you feel the Co is good then this type of things is not a problem.
We have seen that in Venus Remedies.I gave a call on Venus at 220 and then the news came that they are not able to pay the FCCB money and hence the lender has gone to court to close down the Co.
Even after such news came out Venus never went below Rs.200.What does that mean?Market knows that these are a temporary thing and it will be sorted out and that happened and now Venus is at 300.
The things one need to understand is what market thinks, we need to understand that .How market works is very important to know.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

SUNIL HITECH ENGINEERS LTD..cmp Rs174.15...excellent Infrastructure Co...

Friends,

I am talking today on SUNIL HITECH ENGINEERS LTD.
This is an excellent Infrastructure Co which is lying low due to bad results for one qr.
But I like this Co very very much.I remember I gave call on Mcnally Bharat at 50, Marg Ltd at 50,Gayatri Project at 160,JMC Project at 80 from my mmb days,Man Ind at 55 and many more in contruction sector like Shreeram EPC below 100,Madhucon project below 100 and 10 paid up etc etc....
SUNIL HITECH ENGINEERS LTD. is one of such Co which will give excellent returns in LT.


As of now the Mcap is 213 cr and sales is 728 cr last year and hence we can say that we get a 730 cr odd Co at 213 cr ! It is cheap.Go for it...


The AR report boast as under:


1) 11,245 MW
Through the complex complement of domain software with hardware.
At Sunil Hitech, this is the customer portfolio size we created in over a decade.
2.) 8 percent This percentage represents the proportion of India’s power generation capacity addressed by Sunil Hitech.
3) 21 Percent is the business adderessed by Sunil Hitech as a proportion of India's projected 11th plan wattage.
4) Sunil Hitech have 45 operational sites.
6)10,000 people works there.
7)13 Indian states in which Sunil Hitech enjoys an embedded presence.
8)11,245 Capacity commissioned by Sunil Hitech (megawatts).
9)30 The size of the first EPC-based multi-fuel power plant (in megawatts) that Sunil Hitech constructed for Gangakhed Sugar and Energy Limited (GSEL) in 2009.
10)18 The record time (in months) in which Sunil Hitech commissioned a 6,000-tpd-cane-crushing facility, 60,000 litres per day ethanol unit and a 30-MW power plant for GSEL.( This shows they plan the contract and execute it well in time......I like such Co)
11)487 The first large balance-of-plant (BoP) order (in Rs. cr) Sunil Hitech bagged from Mahagenco,covering 250 MW in March 2010.

Well after looking at the above parametres , I don't think I have to write more on this Co.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Obama Visit fetched $15 bn and 72k new jobs for USA.......

Friends,
Obama visits to India is over.He has been able to garner $15 bn worth of business and from that 72k new jobs will be created in USA.
Well, I haven't gone through all the views and experts says on his visit but what I was able to gather was some were not satisfied and some were not very much satisfied.
Well, India is trying to pressurize USA to do something on the extremist attack which is taking place from our neighbour.Why USA will tell them?It has different relation with them and that is never going to happen.
Everyone has to fight his own battle.Be it a country or be it individual.Whatever comes across us, we need to fight it out at our own.No one can do nothing.
Sabko apni ladai khud ladni hai.Doosra kya karega?
If India cannot fight it out itself then we need to sit and observe it like a coward.
That's all I will say here nothing more.
Obama was under very tight rope at home and naturally he was here to boost his economy.There is nothing wrong in it.If a person like US president think that way, what is wrong?Don't we think of terrorism and seek help from America?I donno, what we keeps on thinking.Mentality needs to get changed.Attitude needs to get changed.
"Otherwise we will be still there even  after 50 yrs because even if we grow from hereon for 50 yrs, world by that time have moved many times more then what we would have done in next 50 yrs."
Try to understand what I am saying.It is complex to understand what I have written up but once understood , one will be able to understand what I am saying.
We can't afford to remain like what we are doing now......at this pace we will be no where in next 50 yrs.
Can you Imagine what would have happend to Indian Telecom sector  if "Sam Pitroda" would have not been brought by Rajiv Gandhi from USA ?Just imagine.........
Let me first explain things in International arena.What is what and who is who.
We have NSC.Nuclear Security Council (NSC) and the member who are there have the permission to look at other countries nuclear capabilities.
Obama has promised to see that India gets seat in NSC.That is a big thing. Due to the detonating of Atom Bomb , India has been debarred from any use of nulcear capacity and that was an obvious reaction by the world as we have got the knowhow of detonating the Nuclear Bomb which world has seen in 2nd world war in Nagasaki and Heroshima in Japan.
And hence we can't use the dual N-technology for our ISRO and others plants in Karnataka etc.
We don't have Uranium.I am even not sure whether we have the knowhow to enrich the Uranium to be used in Civil Nuclear power?Due to those contrainst no one in the world sell us Uranium for peaceful purpose as we needs more of it to use it in a Power project and we don't have that much wiht us.
The question arises is what we have?What knowhow we have to show to the world?Culture?What can we do from that?We are ZERO except in Information Technology.
I read sometime back that a scientist made a sucide because he was not let do what he wanted to.Some innovation, something new.
That is the mental attitude in India.If someone is doing something new, he will never get the support.Be it an Institution or parents.Every parents wants their children to become a Doctor or Engineer.Students makes sucide.
We should actually thank Prez George Bush to have the nuclear power plant before his tenure ended and he made it sure that it is passed in senate even though we were having sanction on such use.That was the biggest moment and biggest step USA has taken and here in India critics keep on saying that USA is trying to take advantage of India?
Hamare pas hai kya jo America hamare se lelega?koi batao bhai....
What we have?Except for population, growing population and thus growing demand what we have?Had anyone seen China?Shanghai etc?They started just recently a new train whose speed is 550 km /hr.So if I say,considering Mumbai and Gujarat.....between Mumbai and Ahmedabad the entire KM is 550 km and that takes atleast 12 to 13 hr for the train that runs and if the train China has, runs here, it will take just 1 hr!
Can anyone be able to tell me when will this happen in India?China open the doors for USA Co to bulid their Infrastucture and China is reaping the benifit of that.When China does that what is the problem with India?China being a Communist country can open up so much then why can't India?
What I have observed of India is, we think of  what someone is going to get from the business with us.We never see what we are  going to get.How much other will get .We start calculating what profit he will get.We never count what we will have.
That is a knid of a KNOT in mind and that KNOT needs to get dissolved.We will have to dissolve it.We have to make effort for that.No one can do it for us.But here the first rule is, we need to know it that we have a KNOT in our mind and then we need to have that understanding that we need to take it out or unfold it for our good.
Even in our daily life , wee always think what someone will get with our relation.That is a very bad attitude of life.Why we have to think what he will get.Let him make 10 times from our business untill we make what we want and if we feel that the product we are selling is much cheaper then  go to the world and sell yourself.It is that simple.
I read that Ril Power made a contract with GE for something worth Rs 10,000 cr , means $2.5 bn.Why Ril Power has to go to GE?Because we don't have the capacity to produce those equipment in time Ril Power wants it.
Just try to see, all great Cos are in USA.GE, IBM, MS,CaterPillar  and many more.These are Eng Co and they are huge.They can produce in big quantity and that too with quality.The standard remains the same.They can do big projects and completes it in time.
I was in India in July and I has to go byroad to reach my house .The works on highway keeps going on and there diversion keeps on coming and the road that take from diversion is worst.
How we are  going to come up?While coming back to Mumbai Airport , I started from my home at 12.30 pm as my plane was at 12.20 AM and I have to be there at Airport 2.3 hrs before that time, means by 10 pm .
The road were so bad , due to heavy rain , that I just was able to reach the Airport in time .As soon ass I reached Airport I checked in.
Now if I would have started just couple of hrs late what would have happened?I would have missed the plane.
India has to openup the gates for US CO for helping us bulid Infrastructure.That is the need of the hour.Bottlenecks needs to be dealt with.Beurocracy should take back sit.No bribe.
If we do not do that then I am not sure even after 50 yrs or 100 yrs we will be able to match China,leave USA in Infrastruture.
I liked what Shankar sharma spoke in that episode.Tell China to give us their Infrastructure and take our growth.
Untill the growth doesn't reach the poor , the growth makes no sense.Government need to look at it.
American companies are rich with latest technical knowhow.We need those technicality.We needs to join hands with them.
India....open up....open up......
India has to open up doors for American Cos.They will have to collobarte with them.Well , they are technical rich and if we wants those things it will come at a price.We will have to embrass the American Co.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

I WISH A VERY HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR TO ALL MY READERS...


MAY THIS NEW YEAR BRINGS ALL  PROSPERITY TO EVERYONE IN THE WORLD.

With passing of time and market moving up and up it is becoming very hard to find good funndamentals stocks still going abegging.

Off late Apar Ind has also started moving so I think PSL Ltd is now the only stock that as not moved at all or rather given a negative return.
I would like to reiterate THREE STOCKS HERE AND THEY ARE  ALL MY OLD CALLS :

1) Vishnu Chem Ltd..cmp..Rs 117

2) Srei Infra Ltd...cmp Rs 137

3) Ennore Coke Ltd....cmp Rs.122

These stocks still looks excellent even at this valuation.Let us see where these 3 stocks will go by next Diwali ...along with other stocks.
Sujana Towers and Spanco has moved much higher in a very short period and they both have moved in such a manner that if someone wants to sell high and buy low, they never get a chance to buy it again because the price which they were sold never came back.
So those who tried to trade in it lost the delivery.
Well , one of my friend told me that Shankar Sharma gave recently an interview in which he said that he is bearish on Tata Motors and is short in it.
Yesterday I read RJ's interview as well and he says he is bullish on Tata Motors and he has holdings in Tata Motors .
These two persons has always has a fight whenever they came in TV and seems that the business channel do not want them to come again this time to avoid any hotup scene so we saw Raakesh giving an interview alone and Shankar Sharma giving interview somewhere else.
I love Shankar Sharma as much as I love Rakesh Jhunjhunwala.
Because without Shankar Sharma and other experts , retail participation will never have been so low.They always gave reason , valid reason according to them, to show that market will not make a new high.
I have been writing again and again here that market will make a new high and this can happen in this year as well and that has come true.
I have been critisized for giving such predictions but I still wrote what I was able to foresee and I am glad that my predictions has come true.
Coming back to SS and other expert , they kept on giving cautious advice and kept investors out for the whole year.They themself didn't buy nor let anyone buy anything.These expert needs to understand that when they speak in public , investors hears them and believe them so when they can see that they are proving wrong then they need to accept the defeat and stop giving same view of market is overvalued again and again.
Actually , after getting wrong again and again , they needs to be ashamed to come out and speak on market.Instead they keeps on coming again and again to prove wrong!
Being an expert in the market they need to understand that they are proving wrong again and again ,means they are not able to read the market or macro or micro economics signs and hence proving wrong.......These are the basic understanding one needs to have...It is very simple to understand these.But that simple understanding is not seen with best of experts.
I have seen that education alone is not enough to take correct decision.You needs to be level headed.If one is not level headed it makes no sense what degrees you have acquired.
I have always written here, History never repeats.....because if history repeats then there should be way to stop it before it happens but that is not the case.Everytime market comes out with new reasons.One can see that even all expert were bearish market made a new high and it will go up much further to touch 31k by end 2011 which also I have predicted much much earlier , if someone is reading me from Jan 2009.
Market will go much higher even then 31k.....
Market is headed high and the type of correction expert are expecting will never come.Stock keeps on surprising on upper side.One think that it has runup too much so needs to correct but that may not happen as is seen in the case of Sujana Towers and Spanco Ltd.
Well, let me give you one clue.While reading Rakesh , he said, he will sell his entire stake in Titan Ltd not less then $1 bn ,means at Rs 4400 cr .Investment in a single stock will fetch him Rs 4400 cr! Now if someone can see how much he holds now ,means shares, and try to find out at what price these holding will fetch him Rs 4400 cr or $1 bn then one can come to the price what he is expecting in future for Titan Ltd.
What is the sense of saying market is overvalaued at 10k and at 14k and at 18k and even at 21k?
It means that when they spoke of market is overvalued at 10k, they were wrong as it went to 14k.At 14k they felt market is overheated but market tocuhed 18k, so at 14 k also they went wrong and that means market was not overvalued at 14k and now from 18k market has made all time high at 21k and still they feel that market will come down and they will get a chance to buy?
They keeps on giving lower targets and they keeps on going wrong.I have seen Shankar Sharma always giving bearish call on Ril Ind and L&T.He always spoke that both should come to around 500 as the fundamental is not such to have that price.But L&T is making new highs and I have been recomending this stocks since long that L&T is the stock of the DECADE.
Those who have bought must be sitting on excellent return and it has long way to go.
I have recomended Seimens when analyst were bearish and see where Seimens is now.I have recomended Sesa Goa when expert were bearish and see where it is now.I gave a call on Coal India for applying and some readers told me some experts are not advising to apply and see where Coal India is listed.
Some people says they like Shankar Sharma because he has guts to speak against market view...that is utter rubbish.After going wrong again and again he keeps on speaking same thing is not GUTS but ARROGANCE or STUBORNNESS.... THAT IS NOT GUTS....when I see such view for Shankar Sharma I feel that what thinking that person is having ......that he is calling Arrogance as GUTS! It means they themselves do not know what is arrogance and what is guts....they are not able to differentiate between the meaning of Arrogance and Guts....

I think that interview came in NDTV Profit along with Ramdeo Agarwal, Sanju Verma and Jayaram.See , if anyone can give me the link......I would like to see it.....

Friday, November 5, 2010

E-Payments Could Save India $23 Billion a Year.........

India could save enough money every year to cut its fiscal deficit by 20%, lift the income of those living in poverty by a fifth, boost welfare spending by 25% or feed every hungry person in the country without selling a single share in MTNL, BSNL, Air India or any other state-run company, according to a report released Monday by McKinsey & Co.



All the country needs to do to save one trillion rupees, or about $23 billion, per year is stop paying people with cash and checks and start paying them electronically.


In a report entitled “Inclusive Growth and Financial Security: The Benefits of E-payments to Indian Society,” the consulting company outlines how a new e-payments system could theoretically pay for itself within its first year of operation. A national network of computers in government offices, broad-band connections and transaction points in every village would only cost around 700 billion rupees, or $16 billion, to build, the report says.


“Delivering government payments electronically to the poor will not only pay for itself but will also connect households to a formal and secure financial grid,” the report’s authors say. “The basic infrastructure and connectivity this provides will also create an attractive business proposition to encourage private players to enter this space and provide services to the poor”.


The Indian government has failed miserably at bringing its hundreds of millions of poor citizens into the formal, modern financial world. Only around 40% of Indians have access to bank accounts, 10% have access to life insurance and only 1% have access to non-life insurance.


The failure of the government and mainstream banks to provide basic financial services to the poor is one of the biggest reasons the microfinance industry, which hands out tiny loans to village entrepreneurs, has flourished in India (although it is facing a backlash now, at least in one part of India).


While much of those billions in savings are from all the time and effort (and signatures and stamps) required to move cash and checks around, the lions share of the savings would be from reducing what McKinsey has euphemistically labeled “leakage.” A better word to describe the billions a year that “leaks” out of the hole-riddled physical delivery system is theft, usually by government officials or at least with their collusion.


McKinsey estimates that around $18 billion a year is stolen from the government through over-invoicing, false recipients and other means. Those holes in the system could be plugged by e-payments, the report claims.


Mckinsey’s is the latest in a long line of grand plans that suggest the right technology could solve India’s problems. It fails to address what to do about the country’s power leakage problem which leaves much of India without power for most of the day and would make e-payments difficult.


It also fails to suggest how you would get the new network approved and built, when the people in charge of doing that are probably the ones who benefit most from the old, leaky system.