The Indian Premier League (IPL) - economics

Today is the final cricket match between the Chennai superkings (led by M S Dhoni) and the Rajasthan Royals (led by Shane Warne)!

Redefining cricket has once again been attempted with great pomp and flourish deacades after the great Kerry Packer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerry_Packer) introduced the world series cricket in Australia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_overs_cricket).

Please also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cricket

Lalit Modi (the scion of the $2billion, Modi enterprise) has done just that with the fusion of India’s icons – the cricketers themselves who are auctioned, the owners of the teams (each IPL cricketing state has been bought out by the bigwigs), the Bollywood actors, the large # of spectators and of course, the television viewers in millions of viewers across over 100 countries.

Its been a success – without doubt, but is this the key to the future of world cricket?

A year later — a sneak preview / status of the Devanahalli airport and Bangalore real estate sector

We are still stuck there though things are looking better this year. Though real estate activity in and around Devanahalli area has heated up (the government has raised the guidance value per acre to almost Rs. 7 crores in main Devanahalli township) but any large projects are yet to see the light of the day. There is a huge water shortage in Devanahalli - its basically barren land and our guide from L&T had told us the same thing last year too. So, things have not improved on that. But, if Dubai can improve by building an Oasis in the middle of a desert, our politicians can tear a leaf out of the Dubai story and make Devanahalli better indeed.

McLaren driver Heikki Kovalainen emerges unscathed after a 240 kmph accident!

It appears every season, Formula 1 just gets more safer. While it is still a very risky sport (given the speeds involved), McLaren driver Heikki Kovalainen managed to suffer just a minor headache and a stiff neck after what appears to be a McLaren confirmed 140 kmph impact with the tyre wall. He lost consciousness as soon as he hit as you would expect (given he experienced a 29G - 29 times his own body weight impact). The HANS device also played its part. HANS is acronym for Head and neck support device that became mandatory in 2006 for all F1 cars.

But the carbon fiber monocoque of the F1 car stood true to its testimony as track medical team and marshals quickly and safely removed him from the car, shifted him to the track medical center and to the waiting helicopter as Heikki gave a thumbs up sign to indicate he was ok. It brings grim memories of what we saw on 1st May 1994 during the infamous Ayrton Senna death in a Williams car at Imola, Italy.

The F1 car of 2008 is probably the most safest vehicle to drive on the road with the stringent FIA safety standards laid down. Robert Kubica should know better. He escaped a near fatal crash in 2007 June at Montreal, Canada when hardly anything remained on his BMW.

I salute the safety of the modern F1 car!

Ecofinglobe.com and its statistics from an year ago

I was chancing to look upon my blog’s readership and it has skyrocketed in last few months. To give you an idea of how much the readership for http://www.ecofin.wordpress.com has gone up by, Alexa rating has shown a consistent rise in my webpage ranking (it currently stands at 755139 worldwide and its India ranking is better at 58137. Furthermore, my year old blog stats shows my blog to have averaged 9999 hits way in May 2007. The current count stands at 77791.

Above means nothing if people don’t read posts. Simple page views/hits serve no value absolutely. The most important indicator that indicates the health status of a blog is its post:comment ratio. My blog’s average post:comment ratio is at about 1:2. This means, for every post I put up, I get double the # of comments. This ratio was about 2:1 last year at about the same time and it had not even reached breakeven. So, it is a satisfaction that my blog is a success in terms of these critical metrics.

Thank you, all for making this blog readable! Its only my readers who can turnaround this blog and I hope to keep you as repeat readers so the value of this blog is enhanced further!

Keep visiting back - you know where to look for me: http://www.ecofinglobe.com!

Impact of commuting on productivity - travelonomics!

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.

Another delay in the Devanahalli International airport opening!

http://ecofin.wordpress.com/2007/04/28/a-visit-to-the-devanhalli-international-airport/ 

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.

Lalunomics on Globonomics!

Source: Wiki

http://www.indianrail.gov.in/

http://www.indianrailways.gov.in/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Railways

This has been the single biggest turnaround in recent days of the Indian PSU sector! Indian Railways making a cash surplus (before dividend) of Rs. 25000 crore for 2007-2008 with an operating ratio of 76%.

Some macro economic predictions for 2008

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.

Blogging guidelines - my two cents

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.

Specifications of the Tata 1 lac car

Source: CNN-IBN photo gallery (http://www.ibnlive.com/photogallery/633-14.html#view_start)

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!

http://ecofin.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/the-tatas-1-lac-car-the-nano-officially-lauched/