Indian inflation rises to double digits / The 123 agreement - a revisit

The Wholesale price index (WPI) - a key measure of inflation was at a 13-year high last week. It is only predicted to increase. What does inflation do? Well, in simple terms and without getting into the jargon, it increases the price of your commodities - everything from a simple cup of tea to the groceries to a house purchase (rising interest rates) to investments and deposits in the bank. The value of money gets eroded away. This is why gold is considered as a hedge against inflation since its value remains largely unchanged during inflationary times. Paper currency does not have much value and if it does, it only deteriorates gradually as the inlation figures creep up.

Its not just the inflation that is giving sleepless nights to the seasoned politiico’s cum economists - Mr. Manmohan Singh (our PM) and Chidu (our FM).

They are also facing politcal backlash from the left, right and center - for their decision to go-ahead with signing of the 123 nuclear agreement with the USA.

These are interesting and worrying times for India’s political top brass and its to be seen how it pans out. I will be observing the developments closely.

One year PG Diploma in Intellectual Property Rights Law - NLSIU

Before I begin this post, this is my mantra since the last few years when I have been exposed to this: I have a fondness for IP creation or Intellectual Property creation and this blog probably stands testimony to that fact! Which better place than to study IPR law from India’s topmost institute - National law school of India University (NLSIU).

I have written about this earlier too: http://ecofin.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/captive-product-units/

Procured my new DELL Notebook - the Vostro 1200 (mini notebook)

I finally received my DELL Vostro in 7-days flat since ordering it last Friday. I am a true DELL fan and as you would find on earlier posts have read up every book and article on DELL’s strategy of Direct sales to consumers/businesses and the Direct model. I admire Michael DELL’s guts to take on the established players such as IBM, Lenovo, HP etc. who used to go through distribution channels. All my systems on the last 3 years have been DELL branded - my DELL Inspiron 6000 that I bought from Texas in 2005, my DELL Vostro desktop that I bought in 2007 or my latest acquisition - my DELL Vostro 1200 mini notebook!

A re-look at consulting

I did some look n feel changes to my blog appearance because I was tired of the old design. I also changed the tagline from “The economic rationale of the 21st century” to “Consulting|Technology|International business” as this is what we want this blog to serve in future posts.

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.

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!

Rising inflation/tax rates/purchasing power parity

I chose three distinct topics for this post because all these are affecting those living in India one way or the other:

Book review — Harvard business review — Finding and keeping the best people

Makes sense for me to read this since this is something I need to do at work day in and day out.

Will post a detailed review once done.

2008-2009 Budgetonomics on globonomics!

http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2008-09/ubmain.htm

http://indiabudget.nic.in/ub2008-09/bh/bh1.pdf - this link summarizes the entire budget. Overall, PC has kept the elections in mind and when I spoke to my CA, he said it was a budget that had something in it for everyone!

Texas Instruments - BA II Plus Professional Financial calculator acquired!

I bought this advanced financial calculator (the Texas Instruments BA II PLUS Professional) for all my complicated calculations and to manage my portfolio of assets. Actually, this is primarily used only by CFA’s and CPA’s as its one of the only two authorized calculators for their examinations etc. Its cool!