FDI In Retail

Lately we have been hearing about FDI in Retail.....so why does the opposition is against it....will the FDI help the Indian economy or India as a whole..lets see

Try and think of this imaginary scenario. It’s 1991, a Congress coalition government rules in Delhi. Our economic situation is terrible — so bad that the government has had to secretly pledge its gold to keep the country’s head above water. There’s only one solution: to get out of this hopeless morass and to stop India from becoming a basket-case, Manmohan Singh and his Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee jettison the socialist economic model, so far sacrosanct, and announce a liberalised economy.

But there’s a problem. The BJP-led Opposition does what it does best: it opposes the move, notwithstanding the fact that it wanted to liberalise the economy when it ruled the country. Parliament is brought to a standstill. Slogans are shouted. The Opposition stages walkouts. The house gets adjourned every day. Finally, Singh and Mukherjee bow to the inevitable, and abandon the idea of liberalising India’s economy.

Far-fetched? Not really. Look at what is happening in Delhi now. FDI in retail is an old idea which – like economic liberalisation – has been debated and discussed threadbare for years. The NDA government wanted it in 2003; in fact, Murasoli Maran, the then commerce minister, had recommended 100 percent FDI in retail! Maran, as we know, is part of the DMK, and DMK as we know is now opposing even the 51 percent FDI proposal.

Kirana shops are really convenience stores where people from the immediate neighbourhood go. Will people trek long distances to a Wal-Mart to save money? Reuters

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that politicians and political parties do a flip-flop. But if we put aside for a moment the shameful scenes in Parliament and look at issues calmly, this is what we see:

• FDI in retail will benefit consumers

• It will benefit producers, i.e. farmers, who will then sell directly to the retailer through a contract agreement, thus cutting out the middle-man.

Does anyone — BJP, DMK, Marxists and the others — dispute this? They don’t. They are concerned about the ‘harm’ the new retail policy will do to the kirana shop owner. If you look at the overall picture, there are far more consumers and producers than shop owners, so the opposition is protecting the interests of a minority while ignoring the vital interests of the majority!

This is particularly astonishing coming from Marxists and the Trinamool Congress who espouse the cause of farmers.

As it is, I am not even sure that the kirana shop owner will be hit as badly as people imagine. Take any large city: the kind of space that will be needed by a Wal-Mart is not easily available, so these retail giants will only go to certain areas where they can find real estate.

Kirana shops are really convenience stores where people from the immediate neighbourhood go. Will that change? Will people trek long distances to a Wal-Mart to save money? The only people who will do this are shoppers with cars who might do their month’s shopping as they do now at Big Bazaar and similar outlets.

Question: Have the Big Bazaars killed kirana shops? Answer: No. Are political parties then opposed to Wal-Mart & Co only because they are foreign companies?

I remember – and I am sure you do too – the furore that accompanied the entry of Coca Cola, Pepsi, KFC, McDonald and similar Big Bad Foreigners. So what happened? They are now as Indian in India as any local company. They hire Indian managers and labour, source from Indian producers, use Indian distributors, etc. They have benefited the Indian economy in very many ways…

I wish our frothing politicians would just check this out for themselves. Where do McDonald’s get their patties from? Their potatoes? Their chickens? Where does Pepsi get the raw material for all the snack foods they make? From the US? From Europe? They don’t for the obvious reason that they aren’t crazy.

The crazies are in Parliament. They have done their best to ruin the country, and will continue to ruin it as much as they can if we let them....

Its not worth cursing the political leaders everythime....its high time that Indian Youth(Read Educated) needs to enter politics !!

A look @ the finance budget 2011-12

Following are the highlights of the budget:

GROWTH, INFLATION EXPECTATIONS

* Economy expected to grow at 9 percent in 2012, plus or minus 0.25 percent

* Inflation seen lower in the financial year 2011-12

SPENDING

* Plan expenditure seen at 4.41 trillion rupees in 2011-12, up 18.3 percent

REVENUE

* Gross tax receipts seen at 9.32 trillion rupees in 2011-12

* Non-tax revenue seen at 1.25 trillion rupees in 2011-12

DISINVESTMENT

* Disinvestment in 2011-12 seen at 400 billion rupees

POLICY REFORMS

* To create infrastructure debt funds

* To boost infrastructure development with tax-free bonds of 300 billion rupees

* Food security bill to be introduced this year

* To permit Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) registered mutual funds to access subscriptions from foreign investments

* Raised foreign institutional investor limit in 5-year corporate bonds for investment in infrastructure by $20 billion

* Public debt bill to be introduced in parliament soon

SECTOR SPENDING

* To allocate more than 1.64 trillion rupees to defence sector in 2011-12

* Corpus of rural infrastructure development fund raised to 180 billion rupees in 2011-12

* To provide 201.5 billion rupees capital infusion in state-run banks in 2011-12

* To allocate 520.5 billion rupees for the education sector

* To raise health sector allocation to 267.6 billion rupees

AGRICULTURE

* Removal of supply bottlenecks in the food sector will be in focus in 2011-12

* To raise target of credit flow to agriculture sector to 4.75 trillion rupees

* Gives 3 percent interest subsidy to farmers in 2011-12

* Cold storage chains to be given infrastructure status

* Capitalisation of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) of 30 billion rupees in a phased manner

* To provide 3 billion rupees for 60,000 hectares under palm oil plantation

* Actively considering new fertiliser policy for urea.

So in true & simple meaning we can have the following resultant from the budget that pranab da proposed in the parliament:

L Service tax on hotels charging above Rs 1000 per day

J Homeopathic medicines, steel, LED, diaper get cheaper

L Service tax imposed on diagnostic tests

J Individual to gain Rs 171 every month under new tax slab

J Customs duty on mobile phones reduced—means it will cost less.

L Service tax on air-conditioned restaurant hiked

L Healthcare to cost more due to hike in service tax

J Farm related equipments will going to cost less due to slash in tax.

J Priority home loan limit raised to Rs 25 lakh

J TV, mobile and ACs will be cheaper

L Air travel and branded clothes become expensive

L Service tax imposed for treatment in AC hospitals

J Basic customs duty on silk slashed from 30 per cent to 5 per cent

J Minimum gain for individual taxpayers under new tax slab will be Rs 2,060

J I-T exemption for senior citizens increased from Rs 2.4 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakhs and age bracket reduced from 65 years to 60 year

J New category of senior citizens above 80, tax exemption limit Rs 5 lakh

J Tax slab has been incresed from Rs 1,60,000 to Rs 1,80,000 & proposes that salaried class not to file I-T returns, employers to provide data directly to I-T

J Allocates Rs 52,057 crore for education sector, increase of 24 per cent from last year

(Rs 200 crore for development of IIT Kharagpur, To provide Rs 20 crore grant to IIM Kolkata,

Rs 50 crore grant to Aligarh Muslim University)

J Anganwadi workers' pay hiked from Rs 1500 to Rs 3000 per month

J Pension amount hiked from Rs 200 to Rs 500 for people above 80-year

J Rs 30,000 crore proposed for tax-free infrastructure bonds- for Bharat Nirman.

Emphasis on rural development

J NABARD capital base to be strengthened by Rs 10,000 crore

J Rs 100 crore to SIDBI for women

J Enhance rural housing fund to Rs 3000 crore

J Allocation to farm development raised to Rs 7,860 crore

That what we gonna have in this 2011-12 finance budget..Hope the info useful!!

Budget is coming..

Dear friends, It’s that time of the year again which individuals and corporate eagerly await for. The time when the Finance Minister opens the suitcase that affects the fortunes of millions at least for a year. Yes, it’s time for ‘The Union Budget 2011-12.

As individuals our primary interest in the budget is how much money are we going to pay/save as tax and which things are going to be cheaper or expensive. However, the Union Budget is important from another perspective as well – the effect it has on the price of stocks because of speculation on the outcome of the budget!

Every year, we see the market rise or fall leading up to the budget; once the budget is out, we again see a rise or fall depending on whether expectations were met or not. So, how does this help us Value Investors?

Remember what Warren Buffet said about investing –

“Be fearful when the market is greedy and be greedy when the market is fearful!”

And one thing you can be sure of is that close to the budget, the market is usually acting greedy or fearful – never rational!

So, the budget could present you an excellent opportunity to buy that awesome stock that you always wanted in your portfolio but could never buy because the price seemed quite high. Or it could also give you an opportunity to book profits on some of your stocks (You only earn returns when you sell your stocks remember!) and laugh all the way to the bank. This is the time when you have to put on your Value Investor’s shoes, stretch a bit and get ready to buy or sell stocks!

So pull your socks up & jump into the market, but with safety precaution (read thro research & valuation)…

Best wishes for the budget..lets see what’s in the bag??

8 Reasons to Wake Up Earlier

1. Work on you:
early morning is an excellent time for personal development. How many times you complained you don’t have time to read that self-improvement book? Read it in the morning! Quiet morning time is a god sent gift which you should use for growing yourself – professionally, emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually. Use this time to “sharpen the saw”.

2. Exercise your body:-
Do I really need to comment it? Exercise at home, go jogging or go to gym (they open early)…

3. Get ready for big stuff:-
Clean up small stuff to take it from your way to big things you plan to do during the day. Jump on that bunch of emails sitting in your inbox so it doesn’t drag your attention later in the day.

4. Increase your productivity:
If you start early, you make your day longer, you can do much more in one day than you usually do. Got a lot of work pressing on you? Wake up earlier, jump to work, you may be done by the afternoon…

5. Use morning time for thinking:
Jim Citrin wrote: “The quiet of the morning is often the time when your mind is at its clearest and most well-suited to solving important problems”. Read his article Tapping the Power of Your Morning Routine to get more insight on how valuable morning time can be. In the same article Jim reports that 80% of executives he questioned wake up at 5:30am or earlier.

6. Go with the nature:
The nature wakes up every day when the sun goes up. So should you because your body is a part of the nature! Of course it depends at what time sun goes up in your area (in some areas, it doesn’t go down for half a year , but you have got the idea…

7. Mediate:
Meditation induces well-being and emotional balance. If you start your day with meditation you will carry that balance through the day, improving your life. Morning is a better time for meditation because you are fresh, your brain is relaxed and mind is much sharper.

8. Beat the traffic:
if you spend too much time commuting to and from work every day, you can actually save time if you wake up and drive to work earlier. Even if you work fixed hours, by arriving to work earlier you can spend the extra time you’ve got on things listed above – reading, exercising, and planning, and so on. It’s free time for you, which otherwise you would waste in traffic jams.

So my dear friends wake up early coz “sleeping fox catch no ducks”!!

kites-------dnt watch it.....why?

So, the Hrithik biggie is finally here and looking all loaded. Picture this, our very own Greek god on the run with this exotic babe from the far-far-away. Together they defy an omnipotent capo and his trigger-happy son who has sworn to hunt them down.

Add a dash of breathtaking locales, adrenalin pumping action and some steamy scenes to the tale of these incongruous lovers and voila... ‘Kites’ is ready to soar at the box-office across the globe or so thinks Mr Anurag basu.

But alas, all the good things about Kites only end up on writer’s desk and what you see on screen is one confused attempt by the director who can’t decide between his Bollywood roots and Hollywood style, and ends up delivering a hackneyed wild goose chase. I mean, come on, it took three people to write a chase film so predictable?

First half, with its monotonous music and prolonged love-dovey glances, hampers the fast paced opening to the story in the sin-city where avaricious J makes his living as a salsa dancer.

As a sideline, he marries immigrant women to get them green cards. When Gina (Kangna), the rich daughter of a powerful casino owner Bob (Kabir Bedi), falls for him, J. goes along in order to marry into money.

He discovers that his future brother-in-law, the vicious, homicidal Tony (Nick Brown), is about to marry a beautiful Mexican woman named Natasha (Barbara Mori), whom J knows as Linda, the last of the immigrant women he married. Love blooms 'again' between the two and they elope by ditching the jilted brother-sister duo.

We, as not so privileged moviegoers, don’t get too see the real taste of Hrithik and Barbara’s steamy romance, which is specially crafted in the 90-minute song-less thriller for their first-world audience. Instead we get to see them as half-naked fugitives squabbling in Spanish, English and god-knows-what at an outpost and at best nuzzling at times.

Even the climax sequence, which was supposed to be the emotional highpoint of the film, evoked mirth from the audience, clearly exposing the chinks in the director’s plot.

To his credit Mr Basu, aptly goes back and forth with the narrative and gives a fine visual appeal to his project but a plot sans any major twists makes J and Natasha's love-on-the-run a non-starter.


Performance-wise, Hrithik shines in his role though, at places, it seems he is pitching a bit too hard for his case in Hollywood. Barbara Mori despite over flashing her toothy smile manages to engage the audience with her Mexican good looks and Spanish charm.

Kangna is merely doing a favour to Mr Basu in Kites with her cameo. Kabir Bedi as suave rich-daddy is a predictable replica of his earlier performances.

Nick Brown, clearly, seems to be watching wrong sort of movies to prepare for his Tony-the-wacko-brother part. If it is his natural style then I'm even more sorry him as an actor. His anger and actions are incomprehensible at times even by his own standards.

Music by Rajesh Roshan not only lacks the magic but also hampers the prospects of Kites being a slick thriller.

As for Mr Basu, he has made a very average effort in Kites. Now it’s time for him to accept the consequences like a man or as they’ll tell it in Spanish- ‘A lo hecho, pecho’, Mr Basu.

also thats the reason why rakesh roshan didn't take the direction of his production house for the first time starring hritik........

The 13 Characteristics of Successful People

hey there, today i just wanted to share a few things that i have experienced in a few years...i know a lots to come but what i known of successful people..i wanted to tell u guys.....ok, its like...

I’ve spent many years studying successful people and have tried to identified the skills, talents, and characteristics that enable them to succeed. As you look at and study these skills, talents, and characteristics, you’ll realize that you possess many of them yourself. Some of these skills and talents are more dominant than others and will play a greater part in your being, or becoming, a success in the business of life. These are the things you do well. The things you do easily and effortlessly. These are your strengths.

When you find you need a skill or talent you don’t have, just go out and look for a person or group of people with the skills, talents, and training you need. Skill and talents that complement your own. These people will become your teammates, colleagues, co-workers, professional advisors, and friends. With these combined skills and talents organizations grow, prosper, and become successful.

These are the five things you’ll find every successful person has in common:

1. They have a dream.

2. They have a plan.

3. They have specific knowledge or training.

4. They’re willing to work hard.

5. They don’t take no for an answer.

Remember: Success begins with a state of mind. You must believe you’ll be successful in order to become a success.

The following is a list of the skills, talents, and characteristics you’ll find in successful people:

1. Successful People Have a Dream. They have a well-defined purpose. They have a definite goal. They know what they want. They aren’t easily influenced by the thoughts and opinions of others. They have willpower. They have ideas. Their strong desire brings strong results. They go out and do things that others say can’t be done.

Remember: It only takes one sound idea to achieve success.

Remember: People who excel in life are those who produce results, not excuses. Anybody can come up with excuses and explanations for why he hasn’t made it. Those who want to succeed badly enough don’t make excuses.

2. Successful People Have Ambition. They want to accomplish something. They have enthusiasm, commitment, and pride. They have self-discipline. They’re willing to work hard and to go the extra mile. They have a burning desire to succeed. They’re willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Remember: With hard work come results. The joy in life comes with working for and achieving something.

3. Successful People Are Strongly Motivated Toward Achievement. They take great satisfaction in accomplishing a task.

4. Successful People Are Focused. They concentrate on their main goals and objectives. They don’t get sidetracked. They don’t procrastinate. They work on the projects that are important, and don’t allow those projects to sit until the last minute. They’re productive, not just busy.

5. Successful People Learn How to Get Things Done. They use their skills, talents, energies, and knowledge to the fullest extent possible. They do the things that need to be done, not just the things they like to do. They are willing to work hard and to commit themselves to getting the job done.

6. Successful People Take Responsibility for Their Actions. They don’t make excuses. They don’t blame others. They don’t whine and complain.

7. Successful People Look for Solutions to Problems. They’re opportunity minded. When they see opportunities they take advantage of them.

8. Successful People Make Decisions. They think about the issues and relevant facts, give them adequate deliberation and consideration, and make a decision. Decisions aren’t put off or delayed, they’re made now!

Success Tip: Spend more time thinking and planning before you make your decision, and you’ll make better decisions.

Success Tip: When you don’t get the expected results from the decision you’ve made, change your course of action. Decisions should never be carved in stone.

9. Successful People Have the Courage to Admit.They’ve Made a Mistake. When you make a mistake, admit it, fix it, and move on. Don’t waste a lot of time, energy, money, and/or other resources trying to defend a mistake or a bad decision.

Remember: When people are wrong, they may admit it to themselves. If they are handled gently and tactfully, they may admit it to others and even take pride in their frankness and broad-mindedness. But people become very defensive and angry when others try to cram their mistakes down their throats.

10. Successful People Are Self-Reliant. They have the skills, talents, and training that is needed in order to be successful.

11. Successful People Have Specific Knowledge, Training, and/or Skills and Talents. They know the things they need to know to be successful. And when they need information, knowledge, or skills and talents that they don’t possess, they find someone who does possess them.

12. Successful People Work with and Cooperate with Other People. They have positive, outgoing personalities. They surround themselves with people who offer them help, support, and encouragement. They are leaders.

13. Successful People Are Enthusiastic. They’re excited by what they’re doing, and that excitement is contagious. They draw people to them because these people want to work with them, do business with them, and be with them.

so, with these points, i think my motive "to help those who wanted to know the basics to become successful & to know about successful people" is a success!! is it guys?

* think like a genius *

think like a genius..........think different!!

"Even if you're not a genius, you can use the same strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to harness the power of your creative mind and better manage your future."

The following eight strategies encourage you to think productively, rather than reproductively, in order to arrive at solutions to problems. "These strategies are common to the thinking styles of creative geniuses in science, art, and industry throughout history."

1. Look at problems in many different ways, and find new perspectives that no one else has taken (or no one else has publicized!)

Leonardo da Vinci believed that, to gain knowledge about the form of a problem, you begin by learning how to restructure it in many different ways. He felt that the first way he looked at a problem was too biased. Often, the problem itself is reconstructed and becomes a new one.

2. Visualize!

When Einstein thought through a problem, he always found it necessary to formulate his subject in as many different ways as possible, including using diagrams. He visualized solutions, and believed that words and numbers as such did not play a significant role in his thinking process.

3. Produce! A distinguishing characteristic of genius is productivity.

Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents. He guaranteed productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas. In a study of 2,036 scientists throughout history, Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis found that the most respected scientists produced not only great works, but also many "bad" ones. They weren't afraid to fail, or to produce mediocre in order to arrive at excellence.

4. Make novel combinations. Combine, and recombine, ideas, images, and thoughts into different combinations no matter how incongruent or unusual.

The laws of heredity on which the modern science of genetics is based came from the Austrian monk Grego Mendel, who combined mathematics and biology to create a new science.

5. Form relationships; make connections between dissimilar subjects.

Da Vinci forced a relationship between the sound of a bell and a stone hitting water. This enabled him to make the connection that sound travels in waves. Samuel Morse invented relay stations for telegraphic signals when observing relay stations for horses.

6. Think in opposites.

Physicist Niels Bohr believed, that if you held opposites together, then you suspend your thought, and your mind moves to a new level. His ability to imagine light as both a particle and a wave led to his conception of the principle of complementarily. Suspending thought (logic) may allow your mind to create a new form.

7. Think metaphorically.

Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, and believed that the individual who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them together was a person of special gifts.

8. Prepare yourself for chance.

Whenever we attempt to do something and fail, we end up doing something else. That is the first principle of creative accident. Failure can be productive only if we do not focus on it as an unproductive result. Instead: analyze the process, its components, and how you can change them, to arrive at other results. Do not ask the question "Why have I failed?", but rather "What have I done?

*think new, think different*