Godmen

Whenever I read about the scams about "Gurus", I am surprised by the fact that why do so many people blindly worship them when there are so many real Gods around us. Yes, it is true, I have seen the GODS around us in current world who never said they are gods. Let me quote some examples:

In the year 1976, Dr. K Venkataswamy a retired doctor from the Government Medical College, Madhurai spent all his savings and built a 11 bed hospital with the help of his family members. He never got married, he raised all his family members, he is the only doctor from his village, he suffers from rheumatoid arthritis (that forced him to retire from Army), he was practically bedridden for sometime and with great will power he was able to hold the surgeon's scalpel and joined Government service as eye surgeon. Post his retirement, he started Aravind Eye Care with only one mission, “Eradicate needless blindness, restore to these people the precious gift of sight, and provide compassionate and high quality eye care for all”.

Aravind Eye Hospital treats the maximum number of free patients in the country or probably all over the world. All the employees of Aravind Eye Hospital including the doctors, paramedics share the same service attitude towards any patient - paid or free. In my opinion, Dr. V is God in human form.
If you want to be a devotee, if you want to reach heaven after death, if you want solutions for your depressing life, if you want short cuts to your problems, if you want peace of mind, if you want to live for a purpose then reach out to people like Dr. V.

How much black money overseas?

The Hindu reported yesterday that our Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh will ensure the return of black money deposited in foreign banks. Click here to read the news. The news says, "While no official data is available on the quantum of slush funds, it is estimated that such black money stashed away by Indian nationals in tax havens overseas could be worth nearly $140 billion."

That amounts to approximately 10% of our GDP.

Fat Wallet Syndrome

Achtung to all those with a fat wallet in their back pocket !

Did you guys know that if you are really lazy to clean up your wallet and grows fat, you still keep it in your back pocket, it could potentially cause "Piriformis Syndome" aka "Fat Wallet Syndrome".

So, whats up with that syndrome? This syndrome puts pressure on "Sciatic Nerve" that descends down from lower thigh to the leg. When you keep your wallet in the back pocket, you are putting pressure on this nerve and this can cause lot of problems such as "Pain in the buttocks" or numbness, not able to stand for long time etc.

Dear fells, hence take care not to keep fat wallets in the back pocket.

Atleast let me sell some...

So, he said, economy is picking up (has already picked up) and let me sell the remaining plots or apartments at a premium, I will give you your cut and till then just delay the process.

A vegetarian chinese place?

What? Is it? Where? In Bangalore?? This was my reaction when my friend told me about it. Like how Superman, Spiderman and beautiful intelligent IIT .... dont exist in reality, I also thought Pure Vegetarian Chinese cuisine does not exist, until my friend told me about this place in HSR Layout in Bangalore.

On one sunny Sunday I thought of visiting this place trying to recollect the directions my friend told to reach this place. He told me that this place is in a lane right opposite to FoodDays on 27th Main, HSR Layout in the right side corner after we turn right into the lane. I did not take a turn but took a peek into the lane, but failed to notice that place. So I went to PapaJohns.

Last week I took my friend along so that I will not miss this place. I found this place right after taking the turn into 27th Main on the right side. One can happily park the car on the road as there is ample space now due to wide road and one way restriction (you can go into it, but cant come out).

I learnt that the owner is Indian born Chinese and they are Budhists. Luo Han translates to Budha and they follow vegetarian diet (basically low-impact living, which is a great idea in my opinion, considering Global warming). I had Luo Han Delight soup that contained lots of vegetables including Broccoli (very healthy ingredients) and Honey Sauce Potato as a starter. I liked the soup very much simply because it did not give me the non-veg flavor that we typically get in a mixed Chinese restaurant (including the upscale Mainland China in Domlur). And ofcourse Potatoes taste good to me in any form.

We got Dragon Rice for main course. This is a mix of vegetables, rice and some gravy. Excellent dish, no oil or very little oil and not so spicy. I got Hakka Noodles packed for home and I was surprised (rather delighted) to see that it did not contain pouring oil (unlike the one you get from Dummas on Sarjapur Road or elsewhere). The best thing I liked finally is this whole food is gentle on stomach.

Main course can be shared by two if you take starters. Main course is in the range of Rs. 75 to 100 Rs and starters cost about Rs 45-80. Also gentle on Wallet I think. :-)

Niche marketing

Best recipe for internet success is to choose a hard-to-find product that customers don’t need to see and touch. Niche marketers aim to understand their customer’s needs so well that the customers willingly pay a premium.

Anand sweets at home for Diwali and then...?

Anand sweets advertised heavily in Bangalore for Diwali to order sweets from them for homes and corporates. I was really wondering how will they be able to scale up their production capacity to meet all the demands of corporates and homes. Unfortunately, our company also ordered sweets from Anand sweets and were delivered on Friday afternoon to our respective locations. Outside the box, it said consume milk sweets within 24 hours, but the box failed to indicate when these sweets were manufactured or packed in it.

When I opened the box to thank our company and savor these sweets, I was suspecting the smell. This is not the usual Anand sweets quality. Either they outsourced the production or ignored quality to meet the scaled up demands. I only had a small bite to save myself from any consequences. After I reached home, I gave the sweets to my security guard and the next day morning he reported sick to work. It was none other than one piece of Anand sweets I gave him that caused diarrhea. I did not know how to feel.... thanks for not eating them or sorry for giving them to my security guard who suffered from it !!!

A search engine syndrome?

Or something else? The readers of my blog, please help me. I am suffering from the following syndrome. The symptoms are... I dont memorize things purposefully which can be quickly found on the web with the help of a search engine. Any docs watching this blog? Help me out to get rid of this. For example, my friend told me about Gurucharan Das recently and two books he wrote that were quite popular - you see... I already forgot the book names because I know the keywords to describe the books. I know that he wrote this popular book that has a word Elephant in it, and another one that took examples from Mahabharata, relates human qualities to characters in Mahabharata. Since I know all these keywords, I just dont want to remember the names of his popular books. I think its really really bad on me !!

by the way, checkout his blog: http://gurcharandas.blogspot.com/ .

Man... I need to overcome this syndrome. Alright, his popular books are: Difficulty of being good: on the subtle art of Dharma, India Unbound, The Elephant Paradigm.

GDP and GNP

Following post is a courtesy from the text book Macroeconomic Policy Environment by Shyamal Roy.

We all know that GDP is Gross Domestic Product. It is a measure of economic activity in any country. GDP is simply calculated as sum total value of all goods and services produced in that country. It is usually measured every year, but of late due to volatilie economic conditions, it is measured every quarter. Ofcourse, more than the absolute number, the rate of change in these numbers every quarter is what makes interesting for stakeholders.

Now, what is Gross National Product (GNP)? GNP is simply the total value of goods and services producted by the residents of a country, irrespective of their geographic location. For example, people employed in Infosys India, goes abroad and earns money will be counted in the GNP of India, but will not be part of GDP of India. Let us say this employee is working in USA, his income will be part of US GDP and GNP of India. Now, you might say is it true for NRIs? No, the GNP is calculated only for resident Indians. So, obviously if this employee is staying beyond 180 days, his income will not be part of India's GNP.

Let us consider one more interesting number called, Net Factor Income from Abroad (NFIA). This number is very easy to derive (theoratically). Just take all the income earned by residents of India from rest of the world and subtract the income earned by non-residents of India in India. Currently this figure for India is negative, which means the income earned by foreigners in India is more than the income earned by Indians in outside India.

Do you now see the link between GDP, GNP and NFIA? Can we say, GDP = GNP - NFIA? Do you want to think how? Comment me if you dont get it.

Are you serious? Do you really want to blog that way?

check it out...

http://www.ted.com/talks/yossi_vardi_fights_local_warming.html

Whats Local Warming?

Get a mac campaign..

Youtube has become increasingly popular among corporates as a new medium of their marketing and advertising. Check out the new Get a Mac campaign in You tube.. few ads that I could not stop myself laughing out loud are..

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrJTiAwpM6I - ask what you can give to Vista, not what vista can give you

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNnX6XRQBec&NR=1 - movies made on a PC

Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection

Economists refer to this term 'Moral Hazard' as someone's behaviour is not observed, then it affects the probability or magnitude of the payments. For example, if your car is fully insured, then you are less likely to be careful while driving. Or if you house is fully insured against theft, you will be less diligent about locking doors or installing an alarm system.

Adverse Selection is a form of information asymmetry. For example, in used car market, the seller of the car knows much more information than the buyer. When making a purchase, buyers view all cars as 'medium quality', in the sense that there is an equal chance of getting a high-quality or low-quality car. Because of such asymmetric information problem, low-quality goods drive high-quality goods out of the market. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the lemons problem. Another example is, how insurance companies sell premium. They hope that there are more healthier people taking policies than less healthy people so that the costs are averaged for Insurance companies and they can make some money too.

New Drug for a Pharma company

Did you know that under guidelines established by US FDA (Food and Drug Administration), no drug could be sold in the US market until it underwent three stages of successful clinical testing and sruvived a rigorous approval procedure?

Only one in 20 trail-phase drugs was eventually approved for public use and even successful candidates often took 10 years and 50,000 pages of documentation to win FDA approval. The total cost of this process was reported to be between $500 million to $880 million.

Now do you know why someone sells an antibiotic for 300 rupees a tablet?

Would you buy imported Apples or Domestically grown?

If you are a sensitive Global citizen caring for climate change, consider answering this question. Lets say you live in Bangalore, Would you buy a domestically grown Apple or buy an imported apple while staying sensitive to the climate? If you answer Domestically grown apple would have less impact on climate, you could be wrong. The producers store domestically grown apples in cold storage warehouses for long duration (could be 3 to 6 months based on summer) and this energy would have resulted in more carbon emissions than the ones due to transportation of imported apples.

Wal-mart's Annual IT budget

Here is another 'amusing' fact - Did you know that WALMART's IT spending is only second to Pentagon? With sales of around $253 billion, WALMART spends roughly $4.5 billion on IT. Though this figure is not publicly available, this is derived from the usual percentage terms (1.8% of sales) of retailers.

BMP Property Tax

Last week I paid the property tax for the assessment year 2009-10 via online. Its so cool. All you need is last year's application number (that you paid under new UAV scheme) and you are all set to go. Once you give the application number, the system shows how much you owe and just pay that amount online. This site also gives you the facility to inform BMP of any mis-calculations that occured during previous filing. I found it very cool and convenient. Just search for BMP Online in google and click on Online Tax Payment.

Air Express: Document Carrier

Another post in my 'Did you know' series. Air Express service, in other words the courier service that air ships your documents or non-documents which weigh below 50 KGs check in the collected consignments as excess passenger baggage. :-) In a normal case, any cargo beyond 50KG goes as air cargo in cargo planes. But this has certain limitations such as timing, synchronizing flight connections, safety of documents etc. So, courier companies became innovative and they actually carry your documents or small boxes that you want to ship by air, either domestic or international with the help of passengers. There are some intermediate companies that are into this business of 'supplying' passengers who just tag along the baggage of courier companies and 'travel' with them. Once they reach the destination, the courier company's baggage is taken over by the respective local office. The passenger has absolutely nothing to do with the baggage.

Now do you know how Scotty and his friend Cooper flew from Ohio to England for just $18? ;-)

Carbon Capture

We all know how serious the threat of green house gases (GHG) these days is. There have been considerable discussions, awareness and activities worldwide to reduce carbon emissions and to look for alternate energy sources more actively. Many nations are planning to cut their carbon emissions or GHG emissions or try to offset them by purchasing carbon credit. One way to reduce carbon emissions is not to use fossil fuel like coke or oil. But the problem is for the industries to switch to alternate energies, it would take sometime (could really be a decade or more). This is not an immediate solution.

Few nations are trying for some alternate ways of reducing emissions. One such method is, CCS Carbon Capture and Storage. In this method, the carbon is captured at the source and pumped underground. Such a method is expected to reduce CO2 pollution by 40% according to oil major Shell. Ofcourse such a method can shoot two birds with one bullet. Shell is providing this services to companies that want to reduce carbon emissions. Shell makes money from these companies by helping them reduce carbon emissions and guess where do they pump this gas? They pump this gas into oil fields so that the oil that could not be extracted from the normal levels can now be extracted because due to the pressure created by CO2 in these oil fields, the oil levels raise above. :-)

Did you know series

Oflate I am getting lot of gyan. So, I thought of putting them in my blog under the theme 'Did you know?'. I will label them as 'Did you know'.

Hillary wants emission cuts from India

The carbon foorprint of US is 22.2% of the world and that of India is 4.9%. India is one among the few countries who is expanding the forests to offset carbon footprint. And Hillary is asking India to commit on the emission reduction?

By the way, China I think has gone past US in terms of Carbon Emissions.