Le Kiosk

GVK Winner of Airport Modernization in India to list IPO

2006-02-26T12:42:00.000+05:30

GVK Power and Infrastructure, winner of Bombat Airport Modernization in India to list IPO on 27th of Feb in NSE and BSE. Offer price was Rs 310.Listing price in grey market varies. Would this be a Suzlon or a Jagran? That is the dilema for investors and punters.

Be careful while charging a mobile phone

2005-11-03T18:52:00.000+05:30

Here is flash news regarding the use of cell phones when they are on ‘Charging’ and are connected to the power:

“Don't answer a cell phone while it is being CHARGED!! A few days ago, a person was recharging his cell phone at home. Just at that time a call came through and he attended to it; with the instrument still connected to the mains. After a few seconds electricity flowed into the cell Phone unrestrained and the person was thrown to the ground with a heavy thud. His parents rushed into the room only to find him unconscious, with weak heartbeats and burnt fingers. He was rushed to the nearby hospital, but was pronounced dead on arrival. A Cell phone is a very useful modern invention. However, we must be aware that it can also be an instrument of death. Never use the cell phone while it is hooked to the mains!“

BPO and unionism

2005-10-14T19:06:00.000+05:30

Finally sanity has prevailed. BPO firms have rejected the idea of the CPI(M) backed trade union , CITU to form a trade union.
The last thing the $5.2 billion industry requires is a trade union. Well I have my reasons.

1. If the trade unions were so worried about the employees why don't they fight with the goverment and provide good roads? (Any BPO employee would welcome it)
2. How about 24 hour power supply? For every hour of generator used the cost of operation FOR THE company goes up. Money, which should have ideally gone to the employee.
3. No BPO company dare to ill treat their employee. In fact, due to plethora of options employees for every imagined slight jump jobs.
What they require last is people like Brinda Karat and D.Raja to fight for them and shut down the BPO facility.

Is it not surprising that only 2 people are advocating unionism in BPOs.
1. Communist Party
2. Gartner research institute

1. Which country would benefit the most if Indian BPO industry loses its competetive edge due to strikes? Obvious answer is China. Communist party in India would like the chinese employees to become rich but not the Indian employees. Maybe we should ask people like Brinda Karat and D.Raja to take chinese citizenship and practise their brand of communism in China. I believe within a week the Chinese authorities would brand them traitors and throw them in some gulang where they deserve to be.

Now the second supporter of this unionism is the Gartner research institute. Well what more can you expect from an American institute lobbying hard to prevent outsourcing? Or does Gartner research institute have a chinese connection?

Review of a film in The Forum (PVR Multiplex) in Bangalore

2005-10-05T17:39:00.000+05:30

A Cola can in one hand and a pop corn packet in the other, mouths agape I watched the Tamil movie Aniyan (Hope I got the spelling right) in PVR multiplex in The Forum, Bangalore. Mouth agape because such a wonderful topic has been murdered by the director. I had watched Chanakya (Kamal hasan starrer) about 15 years back and when compared to that, Aniyan was a big letdown. I could have stayed at home and watched some flick on either HBO or STAR movies and saved the cost of snack, ticket and petrol.
Besides, I had my Nokia phone in the silent mode and missed few important calls. (I did not feel the vibration and don't ask me how )
At the end of the day only happy guys were the PVR cinema owners, Cola company and the auto driver who charged a hefty premium for dropping me back home after the show.
On the positive side, the ending of the film is good but you don't get a refund for rest of the film. :)
Hope they had made me a director and I would have made a totally fundoo movie.

Picasa, A nifty photo organizer

2005-09-23T17:55:00.000+05:30

Google rolls out Picasa,a nifty photo organizer from its seemingly endless line of new applications. Picase for uninitiated in photo organiser with a host of features. Apart from the usual set of features lik password protection, croping etc, for the photography aficionades it provides heavy artillery like RGB histogram and also promises to turn photos into a movie.While the market reaction is hard to judge (I am not a market analyst :) ) one wonders what Microsoft employees are doing in their Redmond campus.These are products which should have been developed by them ions ago.Instead, all their creative talent and intelligence is being used to churn out meaningless updates to windows and msoffice.No wonder they are leaving Microsoft in droves to Google.

Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon

2005-09-12T20:06:00.000+05:30

The movie name aptly sums up the shadow boxing between India and China for Asian supremacy. Reams of newsprint and webprint have already been written comparing India and China. Some argue that India with democratic institutions would eventually win while some claim China would brush India aside.

Even I am not sure who would prevail. But what I would like to highlight is the story of
Huawei Technolgies, a chinese company with office in India.

1. India is supposed to be a low cost development center. Then how come, Huawei is rumoured to pay their Indian engineers twice the prevailing market rate?
2. If a product costs 100 rupees to sell, any company has to ensure that the development cost for that product is minimized so that profit is maximized. (simple economics). How come only Huawei is able to pay their engineer's more?
Well their gameplan is simple:
1. Use the Indian engineers to teach the Chinese engineers and then eventually boot them out.
2. Use the Indian engineers as Trojan horse to penetrate the Indian market.
An example: Recently Huawei bid for supplying Telecom equipment to India! All the communication between our Armed forces will be easily overheard by the chinese army! (The Chinese PLA would be laughing their heads off)
3. Who founded Huawei ? U won't believe this ! An ex- Chinese army officer!
4. Who are the major stock holders in Huawei ? A lot of chinese telecom companies. But who owns those companies? Chinese goverment!
5. What is the revenue and expenditure ? Where are the revenues routed to?
All this is very opaque.

In case u are skeptical , the same is mentioned in the Sept issue of Economist (US publication)
attached below.

Hopefully Indian engineers working in Huawei would be smart enough to program trap doors in the software they design and thus prevent Huawei from achieving their goal.

Incorporate a Travel or a Home Insurance to protect your dream Holiday or Home

2005-07-02T08:01:00.000+05:30

As per Murphy's law anything which has to go wrong will go wrong. Incorporate this logic into everyday life. Inspite of this a lot of people around the world don't go for "Insurance", be it "personal insurance", "home insurance" or "travel insurance".
An average upper class family would splurge on an att cellular phone,
"jewel case" or a "jewlery", silver wine corks,Chateau Palmer 1961,a parker premium or even an Rado V10K wrist watch. They would even go in for the latest intrusion detection system. May be from Honeywell for added insurance. But to protect these luxury items with a home insurance is an anathema to them. The latest att cellular phone or Nokia 6680 or its Motorola counterpart would cost a packet , but still buying a home insurance worth 1000 per month is beyond their imagination. A jewel case with De Beer diamond can be as easily ordered over the net as applying for online home insurance.
But to incorporate this logic into their brain is as hard as buying a Chateau Lafite 1797.

We shall give the family the benefit of doubt. Maybe things won't go wrong were they stay. Hence no need for a home insurance.(Incorporating their logic into the article and not mine)

But how about travel insurance? Hundrends and thousands of things may go wrong when you travel with you family to a foreign country,which could neccesiate a travel insurance. Right from Tsunami to a stomach upset. But why should you spoil your vacation or worry about this when you go for a luxury vacation? Travel insurance takes care of dental treatment, passport loss,personal injury, personal liability, Hijack releif benefit, trip cancellation to IDL loss.Various travel insurers like ICICI Lombard, Chola have various fees to take care of your travel insurance needs. Buying a travel insurance policy has never been easier before. You have various options, right from the doorstep of the travel agent to online travel insurance. Even new craze like scuba diving, bungee jumping, para sailing can be covered by this travel insurance. Obviously premium travel insurance would be available.

Hence the next time you but a jewel case or a att cellular phone remember to buy both a home and travel insurance. No point in going for a cheap holiday, if your valuables are not insured. Be that your valuable homeowners articles though home insurance or still more valuable article, your life through travel insurance.

A very easy concept to understand but a very difficult one to incorporate.Like jewlery and jewelry.

Luxury vacation and travel tips

2005-06-30T15:01:00.000+05:30

With air travel becoming real cheap it would be the best time to save on travel cost and splurge on
luxury vaction.Mentioned below are few luxurious vacation spots in exotic locations. View the striking vacation photos from google and decide for yourself.

Nature might not have been too kind on Dubai. But it has been amply compensated by petro dollars. Dubai, unlike several other foolhardy countries are building extremly luxurious hotels with their petro dollars.Check out AL MAHA and JEBEL ALI HOTEL in Dubai.
http://www.barefootluxury.com/luxurytravel-dubai.html is a good location to start.

Militant workers enabled kerala to skip industrial age and preserve its natural beauty.
A work force which contributed to the explosive growth in Middle east has indirectly helped Kerala.
Unspoilt beauty of Malabar in north kerala (remember Bombay and Bekal fort?), luxurious backwaters of central kerala (remember kumarakom and snake boat race) and the highlands of Wayanad and Munnar are still unspoilt welcoming the descerning tourist.Combined with Ayurveda and Yoga you have a killer luxury combination. For more visit http://www.incredibleindianet.com/kerala-tour.html.

Bhutan is very clear on its tourism policy. Quality rather than quantity.(unlike China) One of the few truely unspoit luxury locations in the world. The friendly Bhutan still living in 19th century would be the ideal vacation spot for any one who wants escape from the maddening crowd.Panaromic scenary and mysterious mountain explored on a bycycle is an out of this world luxury experience.
For more visit http://www.absoluteasia.com/explorer_ind/luxury_travel_india_himalayas_trans_nepal_bhutan.asp

Internet Lawyers and send money to India

2005-06-26T18:03:00.000+05:30

I have read a lot of articles of "money being sent to India". Some are through the hawala channel while rest are really above board. "Western Union Money transfer", "Citibank" and "ICICI" are some of the more established names in sending money to India.
However, while these transfer to money may be legitimate, are all transactions correct? For this I believe we require a internet or a "internet lawyer". These internet lawyer could play a major role in vetting the correctness of each transfer and prevent fraud while sending money to India. An internet lawyer would be the best person to wade through the complex maze of inter country laws.
To trace transfer of money to India requires financial understanding of the laws of India from US or UK, but also the technical tools used to carry out such transfer of money to India from USA . The best internet lawyer who can combine both the "financial" and technical acumen required to unwrap such a maze of "sending money to India" seems to be a "internet lawyer".
The finest brains in any country are generally absorbed either by the engineering or the lawyer community. Hence to get a internet lawyer who would prevent fraud while transfering money to Inida would be extremely challenging. With the recent explosion in patent filing, especially in the internet arena, the demand for internet lawyer has shot up.
Some of the best internet law firms seems to be
www.cybertriallawyer.com , www.federalcrimes.com, www.wiemeltlaw.com,www.kyroslaw.com,www.legalwebdesigner.com with the last one seeming to be firm designing website for the internet lawyers.
United States seems to be having anything and everything for these internet lawyers.

Aerospace, Aviation Policy in India

2005-06-24T23:38:00.000+05:30

In my previous post I was extremly critical about the aviation policy in India. Well their is some good and bad news.
First the good news.
1. India goverment would be investing $10-15 billions on airport and supporting infrastructure.
2. Airports in non metro and mofussil towns would now become the hub of "lost cost airlines in india" and "value carriers in India".
3. Aviation ministry would ask the "aircraft makers" to take care of maintenence.

Bad news:
1. Due to shortage of pilots mimimum flying hours required for a pilot has been reduced to 200 hours from 250 hours.
2. The distance between airline policy and practice is very vast. :)

Travel and Vacation planning

2005-06-21T23:30:00.000+05:30

While jetsetting leisure traveller the whole world would now be reachable. The sun drenched beaches of Maldives to the Rain forests of Amazon, to the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan to the Venetian backwaters of Kerala never appeared more alluring nor accesable.
Inida,with its abysmal international connectivity is one of the better placed countries to make use of chartered flights.
Top hotels like Taj, Oborai,Hyatt, Leela,Casino group and countless other travel planners have rushed in to make use of this opportunity.
The unspoit backwaters of kerala (from Kumarkom to Varkala) are far better than the Venatian backwaters.
The breathtaking snow clad mountain ranges of Leh holds more potential than the oversold swiss alps. The unexplored forests of northeast is a real winner in adventure tourism. The desert palaces of the Oberois in Rajasthan, Amarvilas, Rambagh palace have found mention in Tatler Abercrombie and Kent travel Guide. Besides, the Lonely Panet guide has been consitently ranking vacation spots in India among the top 10 vacation getaways.
However, the facilities in some of surrounding vacation spots requires lot of improvement. Also, we need to ensure that the development of the tourist spot is not at the cost of enviroment. The leisure travellers are really ecology aware and we would be killing the golden hen if we over develop a tourist location.
In this regard, a recent article mentioning that the development of a resort in Orissa would endanger Olive Ridley turles is cause for concern. This would bring the Greenpeace activists on to our backs and we will get reams of negative publicity which is not required at this stage.
Hope, we are able to balance the environmental and economic needs while planning for vacation spots all over the world.

Airline infrastructure in India on shaky grounds

2005-06-21T23:25:00.000+05:30

The recently concluded "Paris Air show" brought to light the growing might of the "Indian Airline industry". "Airbus , Boeing, Embraer etc " have been actively wooing Indian Airliners and they have not been disappointed. Indian Airliners have placed orders close to $22 billion and about 325 aircrafts.

Break Up in descending order of value of deal:
------------------------------------------------
Air india : $7 billion : 50 Aircrafts
InterGlobe Enterprises Ltd (IndiGo): $6 billion : 100 Aircrafts
Jet Airways : $4.3 billion : 40 Aircrafts (I am also getting figures of $7.5 billion)
Kingfisher Airlines : $2.5 billion : 15 Aircrafts
Spice Jet : 630 million : 10 Aircrafts
Air Deccan : 600 million : 80 Aircrafts (ATRs)
Paramount : 138 million : 5 Embraer Aircrafts

This would keep the "aerospace industry" in Europe and America humming for another decade. With "IA" and "AI" buying aircrafts from America and private airliners buying from Europe, India has done the impossible of pleasing both the dominant economies of the world!
Every "news magazine/new paper" worth its salt is praising the airline industry sky high. Just refer to the article "Of Airport cops and Aviation safety" by Subroto Bagchi in "Business World". (27th June 2005. www.businessworldindia.com).

However, I believe the airline industry in India is built on very shaky foundation and unless we highlight and take corrective action disaster is bound to happen. I have given below 3 major reasons.

1. Creaky Airports:
With the current explosion in airline traffic, Bangalore airport has started to look like a BTS bus stand. I am sure the scenario is same, if not worse in other airports across India. Are the airports designed to handle this much traffic (both passenger and aircrafts?) The answer is a big NO. Right from "passenger amenities", baggage handling to space for more "runways" there is no clear roadmap on how we can expand to handle the forecasted traffic growth.

2. ATC: ("Air Traffic Controller")
These guys monitor the airline traffic and ensure each plane lands and takes off safely. We shall go a bit technical here to understand some of their functions.

"Airways" are airspace corridor between 2 points. For example the airway between Bangalore and Mumbai will be a fixed route. Aircrafts are separated both horizontally and vertically in this corridor. Any mistake by the ATC in assigning the horizontal and vertical separation for aircrafts would lead to at best an Air miss and at worst deaths.
(If you thought this would be a rare occurrence, you could not have been more wrong. Check out http://www.faa.gov/runwaysafety/)
When an aircraft is unable to land due to bad weather or if all runways are busy, ATC places an aircraft in a "Holding Pattern". You guessed it right. Holding Patterns are similar to Airways, but their path would be over an airport. With the explosion in air traffic and consequent strain on runway infrastructure, Aircrafts would be placed like sandwiches, one above the other (separated by about 1000 ft). ATC's have to be very careful when they move the aircrafts between the layers. They need to constantly monitor their radar and communicate with the pilot and ensure that he understands the instruction clearly. Believe me, in real time this is very very difficult.
World over a major cause for accidents or mishaps are "runway incursions", when aircraft A intrudes into the runway of aircraft B. (check out www.faa.gov/runwaysafety/)
There are many new technologies like "TCAS" - Traffic collision avoidance system, "RAAS" - Runway Awareness and Advisory System, "ILS" for landing in poor visibility etc which would help the ATC perform his task more efficiently. Are we implementing these or do we wait for a tragedy to occur before we think of this?

3. "Pilots", "Maintenance Staff" and Planes:
For an airliner, an aircraft is a real estate.(actually each seat)
Faster they turn an aircraft around and make it fly again, more money will they make. Excessive pressures are placed on the maintenance staff to declare the aircraft air worthy. (Please read the anguished cry for help from a staff in "Help Tarun" job section of "Business Today" about 2-3 months back. That poor guy was being pressurized to declare an aircraft airworthy against his judgment) There is severe shortage of pilots (read "India Today" June 20) and pilots with the bare minimum hours of flying required to commander a plane (about 2500 hrs) are being handed the responsibility of flying you to safety. So much for "customer safety".

In this airline industry, there is no "swalpha adjust maadi". Even a small bolt out of place would be catastrophic.
Passengers have to be aware and need to demand better infrastructure from the government. Directorate General of Civil Aviation is the nodal agency and feel free to post your comments to " DGCA" (http://dgca.nic.in)
Next time you buy a ticket from your neighborhood "low cost carrier", remember to ask him about his pilot experience, maintenance cycle, age of the aircraft.

Remember cheap ticket does not mean cheap life (yours nor your families).

A little digression from my Boeing series 7 story

2005-06-21T23:23:00.000+05:30

While collecting material for my Boeing 7 series story, I began to notice a lot of material related to affiliate programs which the airline industry is making use of. Realising there could be potential in this story I am going to share few snippets of information I have collected so far. The boeing 7 series story and my unfinished real estate story will be continued soon.

A lot of aerospace companies large and small in world have a huge inventory of not only aerospace parts (probably in millions) but also airplanes. A lot of airplanes are parked in the Nevada desert awaiting a buyer, better times or are basically scrap metal.
Most aerospace companies charter their airplanes, either turbo prop or turbo jet for business user world wide. This charter segment of the airline busines known as Business and Regional Jet Aviation (BRGA) is highly lucrative. Several companies like embrarer, bombardier, cessna manufacture these small jet planes. Business user who place a high premium on their time, favour these chartered jet planes as they need not be bothered about airport checkin and security delays. Also,these chartered jet planes can fly easily to the nearest airport of the business user.
Now these aerospace companies use different affiliate programs to publicise their company and my assumption is that the affiliate will have very high margins on such deals. Also, as airline parts are costly and fake parts rampant, airline companies are very particular about where they source their parts. The airline supplier industry is scattered all over the globe and you require point of sale software to track each airline part sent for repair. Several terms like RMA (return material authorization), AOG (aircraft on ground), claim accuracy, claim timing etc come to my mind. These special software, point of sale has to be extremly accurate as the survival of any aerospace company (for that matter probably any retailer ?) is dependent on this point of sale software.
Another interesting thought is to go the path of application service provider (ASP) with the required software hosted in a web hosting company. Only when a aerospace company makes use of this application would they pay. This would make sense to aero companies where money is very tight. The web hosting company can maintain the data regarding the usage of this software and bill the business user only on usage of this (point of sale software ? ). This looks quite similar to satellite TV, where we pay only when we view the channels. This may be a patentable idea, or has already been patented. With so many patent lawyers in US, especially in the software segment I wonder if this would have been left alone. Anyway this article is now in the public domain and now cannot be patented by any patent attorneys.
Chartering jets however is not the sole privilege of business user. A growing tribe of leisure travellers are making exclusive of these chartered planes for vacation planning. Such travel planning seems to be the big hit with an impressive number of tourists opting for this method of Vacation planning. To explore these exciting destinations and adventures locales requires quite a bit of travel planning which is not possible when you make use of regular flights. For discerning tourist, chartering jets remains the most hassle free mode of planning their vacation. Many high calibre tourist destinations are usually tucked away in very inaccessable regions which can only be reached through entire travel and vacation planning and chartered jets.Such an easy and efficient manner of comparing various low fares and deciding on the best option is a great boon for the traveller
These discerning tourist are adding great value to the local economy as is visible in Kerala, India. However, they can be greater gobal citizens if they are aware of locations which are approved by Greenpeace (Greenpeace is a non-profit organisation, with a presence in 40 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific.As a global organisation, Greenpeace focuses on the most crucial worldwide threats to our planet's biodiversity and environment.) and world heritige. I am not sure if Greenpeace and Heritage organizations map , approve or rate any tourist destination. But it would make eminent sense if Greenpeace and heritage organizations come out with a yearly ranking of tourist destinations which are biodiversity , ecology and enviroment friendly. This would be a great value addition for the leisure traveller as they can now plan their travel accordingly. These vaction getaways would enable us to be great global citizens.
With global warming a probable occurence in our lifetime we should be very careful about our environment. The rate at which the Barizilian rain forests are depleting I am worried that along with the wild life dependent on these rain forest, human race (my ancestors would surely would have been worried) would finally disappear. It may not be too far fetched. Cute Japanese solutions like bonasai would be how our future generations be exposed to trees. (Bonsai, being the art of growing minature trees. These Bonsai trees even flower and bear fruit. Just search in ebay for a whole lot of Bonsai trees for sale in case you are interested)

adios amigos till the next post.

Bangalore : A friend and a foe

2005-06-21T23:20:00.000+05:30

There seem to be very few websites which discuss about the problems faced by citizens of Bangalore or provide first hand information about infrastructure,real estate and political problems faced by the citizens of Bangalore.
Bangalore Boyz, essentially would be highligthing my first hand experience in facing these problems in Bangalore.

The first of the two part article would be discussing about the real estate scenario in Bangalore.

With real estate prices in Bangalore sky rocketing what would be the ideal location to buy a property? For clarity, I have divided Bangalore into 5 zones. The North Bangalore (Bellary road/Hebbal flyover), South (JayaNagar/JP Nagar/Bannerghatta Road/B.T.M), West (BaseveshwarNagar/Malleshwarram), East (IndraNagar/Whitefield/Koramagala/Sarjapur/E-city) and Central Business District (CBD) (Richmond Road, Residency Road, M.G Road etc).

We would be visiting each of the regions.

West:
Plus:
1. This is a purely residential area, mostly dominated by old economy. (Lawyers, Doctors and Goverment sector employess)
Minus:
1. The land prices are very high and there is not much scope for appreciation.
2. This part of Bangalore is not populated by any major IT company.
3. Few huge malls may come up. Not worthy of investment now.

North:
Plus:
1. The land prices are quite cheap when compared to rest of Bangalore.
2. New international Airport is coming up in this area.
Minus:
1. No major IT company has set up base in this region of Bangalore.

CBD:
1. Plus: Quite a few major IT companies like Yahoo,Siemens, Satyam, Yodlee, Wipro have offices here.
Minus:
1. You need to be Vijay Mallya to rent a property here and Azim Premji to buy one.

South:
Plus:
1. Lot of IT companies like Honeywell, Delmia, Oracle, Accenture HSBC, Mindtree have offices in this area of Bangalore.
2. Filled with techies.Lot of malls. (A plus ? )
3. Lot of property developers like Mantri, L&T, Purvankara, Brigade, Shobha have started to build/built new apartments.
4. Prices are high but plenty of scope for appreciation.
Minus:
1. Banerghatta Road even after repair is a nightmare. If it rains there is always a huge traffic jam.
2. Flyover at Jayadeva hospital will not be completed for another 2 years.
3. The area may not have the ground water nor the roads enough carrying capacity for the population explosion.

East:
Plus:
1. Though certain areas like IndraNagar and Kormangala are costly, E-city, Whitefield and Sarjapur are witnessing lot of real estate activity. Prices are high but plenty of scope for appreciation.
2. Lot of techies and Malls.
3. Lots of companies have set up base. Whitefield-Outer Ring Road-Electronic City has become the defacto IT corridor for Bangalore.
Minus:
1. Vast stretches near Whitefield , Outer ring road not populated, Security a concern.

My next article would be about my experience with different real estate builders , the reason for high real estate price in Bangalore and alternative real estate location around Bangalore.

Bye till then