I travel 75 kms to work daily. This also involves something like 2 hours one-way travel in a crowded unplanned urban expansion prone city such as Bangalore. The former metric does not sound like much to anyone living outside India (say the United States, Europe, Australia etc.) but the latter figure when correlated to the former does sound alarming. Read the rest of this entry »
It looks like even without a formal Government, the administration in Karnataka is equally laggard when it comes to taking quick decisions.
This airport project has again been delayed by another 1-month (the earlier date given was end of March 2008). Moreover, there has been enough hue and cry on whether to keep the HAL airport catering to needs of domestic travel since the Devanahalli International airport is not yet well connected from the city center with the typical delays that are entrenced in any Indian social sector project. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s a caveat: I fully understand economic predictions are foolhardy and its a bunch of crap since it is not something that can be predicted. Famous investors such as billionnaire Warren Buffett etc. also share the same viewpoints about economic predictions not being practical due to the changing dynamics of economies worldwide!
I still choose to defy this and some of my predictions for 2008 are as follows. Do not worry - I will not try to state the obvious and this is a result of some tad bit of analytical analysis thrown in for it to have some meaning. Read the rest of this entry »
What are the important factors one needs to consider before one begins to blog:
1. First, get over this obsession of Google adsense. 99/100 bloggers I meet first think of making a quick buck on adsense rather than focus on quality of their blogs and its relevance towards the topic(s) chosen! This is really very disturbing statistics. Read the rest of this entry »
Here are the base specifications of this marvel that has drawn the attention of the 1 billion+ Indian population as also the global CEO’s of automotive companies to emulate this model of low cost production of people’s cars. Remember what Volkswagen (people’s car in German or Folkswagen - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen) did to Germany early in the 1900’s? The Tata’s might just as well repeat that feat multiplied by several factors in the Indian context - given India’s burgeoning population, growing disposable income and more and more looking for an affordable car that serves their needs!
Ratan’s Tata’s dream has become a reality today and almost all global have been full of commendation for this feat by TATA Motors for their latest innovation that currently does not have competitors since it is right now uncontested market space though this segment will hot up in the years to come but till then the Tata’s can count their volume sales in millions!
624cc Petrol engine (Diesel to follow soon as per Ratan Tata)
33BHP
A mileage of 20 kms to a liter and upto 26 kms to a liter on highways
A 30 liter petrol tank
A 4 door, 5-seater passenger capacity
A rear engine and a front boot
A 4 speed manual gear box
The sticker price is expected to be about Rs. 1 lacs but the actual on road price is expected to be in the region of Rs. 1.2 lacs
Front disc brakes and drums for the rear
Euro 4 compliant and has met all crash test norms for frontal impact and side impact to prove the detractors wrong!
A top speed of 90kmph
Best of all, this car has 21% more space than a conventional Maruthi 800!
Ratan Tata has made his dream a reality today! Here are some pictures of this machine that is quipped to change the entire Indian automotive landscape in the years to come!
Official production of this car will start later this year but it is to be seen as to whether the Tata’s will stick to their Sticker price or MSRP of Rs. 1 lacs (excluding taxes etc.) for this car.
Congratulations, Ratan Tata, you have made India proud!
Multi-modal transport is one of the key highlights of doing business esp. when it comes to logistics management. This is not just essential for Internal trade but also International trade so this topic is important in the context of India’s trading activities.
The golden quadrilateral project/Sagar mala projects were conceptualized by the then Prime Minister of India, Shri. Atal Behari Vajpayee.
I have been on this golden quadrilateral for almost 3000 kms of its stretch and its fantastic! It shows the power of project financing on the terms of the BOT (Build, operate transfer) basis.
The route I took in 2004 was from Delhi-Mathura-Agra on NH2. Then we took a deviation and traversed the route on NH8 from Delhi-Gurgaon-Jaipur-Ajmer-Chitorgarh-Udaipur.
The route is beautiful and the road is very scenic. There are toll highways all along the route with 4/6-lane express highways all along!
On a side note, we also undertook a recent South India tour in early 2006 to the lower half of the Indian peninsula in my Honda City.
The route we took was on NH-7 (the longest highway in India) from Bangalore-Madurai-Kanyakumari (Nagercoil district). The road is really scenic with windmills (of Suzlon fame!) stretching for kilometers together. From Kanyakumari, we took a route to Madurai and to Rameshwaram island (there is a famous bridge we have to cross there called the Pamban bridge that is built on the Bay of Bengal that connects Rameshwaram with the mainland). The road near Rameshwaram is beautiful and we went by the sea for kilometers together (the Bay of Bengal). Sri Lanka is only about 24 kms towards the south of Rameshwaram so the coast of Rameshwaram is heavily guarded by the Indian Navy.
The network of highways in India requires maintenance and improvement but it is slowly but surely becoming world-class.
