The Super-Human Within!

To Those of Us Born during 1940 - 1979 TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1940's, 50's,  60's and 70's!! We were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cots covered with bright colored lead-base paints. We had no child proof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no caps or helmets on our heads. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and some times no brakes. Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this. We ate cup cakes and other sweets made with Butter & white sugar but were not over weight. WHY? Because we were always outside playing....that's why! We would leave home in the morning, go to school mostly on foot and play all ...

Today’s ET editorial guest column featured Prof. Arvind Pangariya - Columbia Univ. taking on Indian policy making clubbing social goals. Like the current FDI policy change of allowing 100% in single brand retail but with 30% sourcing from Indian small and village industries. He had a point in asking to make separate policies for separate objectives but then I say where is the harm in uplifting the small and village industry in this manner. Ultimately businesses around the world talk about giving back to the society via philanthropy then why not do it this way. ‘Ikea’ deciding otherwise on investment plans into India could rather help the small scale local entrepreneurs to upgrade to the desired quality standards, I m sure there will be many takers and investors. But then there is no business sense to this, after all it’s not their core competency. Likewise even the Indian multinationals want the government to provide the basic infrastructure in place first and then they do the project ...

Could not resist sharing this....must read! 7 Reasons why you MUST know SALES! Posted on January 26, 2012 by Rodinhood When I was 17 years old, a real estate agent – M.M Goyal of Jaico Real Estates in Mumbai told me a Hindi dialog. He said ‘Vyaapari woh, Jo Bechta bhala’. Translated, it means “The businessman who knows how to ‘Sell’ is truly successful”. 25 years later, I couldn’t agree with him more. No matter which profession or job you are in, you have to know how to sell if you want an accelerated career. Here are seven compelling reasons I have learnt personally: 1. Sales make you believe in yourself. When I started an unheard concept of creating online contests (contests2win) in 1998, I couldn’t even explain the idea to people because the online world was alien to them. In a famous meeting I had with Gunender Kapur (GK) of Hindustan Lever (that lasted for one hour), in which I pounded the idea of online promotions for the Annapurna Brand that he headed. He finally exclaimed, ...

16 Feb, 2012, 04.28AM IST, Krishnamurthy Subramanian - "The Economic Times" Commercial MFIs can make markets work for the poor (Also check the attached photo) Commercial microfinance institutions (MFIs) are an exemplification of making markets work for the poor. Are they indeed? A recent piece of research, comparing the lending performance of for-profit MFIs with not-for-profit MFIs, shows that though for-profit MFIs serve close to three-quarters of the market, the evidence does not seem to indicate that these MFIs lend indiscriminately when compared to their peers. Supporters and critics of microfinance agree that the demand for reliable financial services is huge. However, the role of fully-commercial, profit-seeking institutions in providing such microfinance loans remains controversial. Critics argue that MFIs are nothing but brute moneylenders, the very beast that microfinance was built to root out. Supporters, however, argue that several hundreds of th...

Term of the Day Dividend Discount Model Mathematical formula used generally by stockbrokers to determine the selling price of a firm's stock (shares). Based on the discounted value of the expected future dividend amounts, it is used usually to spot firms that are undervalued by the stockmarket but have potential for high returns.   Rgds.