Globonomics!

Earth hour initiative I had participated in 2008 and 2009

Other personal initiatives undertaken by me in past

With the Copenhagen summit on climate change and reducing carbon emissions making front page headlines for the last so many days now, I wanted to shed some impact of this on my personal paperless habits: Read the rest of this entry »

The exterior of an India Post office

Update: 8th September 2009

Today’s papers carried the news of Accenture being awarded the contract to operationalize and install a single software in all branches of India Post. India Post also says they have 9000 vacancies that would be filled by youngsters. Furthermore, India Post’s GPO at Bangalore has a brand new look and they have almost 4 planes catering to their needs.

Let’s see the net effect this would have on the financial equation of India Post this time next year when we do the revenue-cost analysis again.

http://ecofin.wordpress.com/2007/06/11/india-post-the-road-to-recovery-2/

I had written about this some years back on the road to recovery for the India Post and the efforts they are making in creating a new brand image. I had also written on how they compare with their US counterpart – the USPS. Coincidentally, I read up an article on the progress made by the USPS recently and even they are ailing due to the current economic recession in the US and are set to post a whopping $ 7 billion loss for the fiscal year.

Source: http://www.indiapost.gov.in/Report/Annual_Report_2008-2009.pdf

Source: http://www.usps.com/

Read the rest of this entry »

IIFT EMIB 2004 - 2006 (Source: http://www.iift.edu)

It’s been exactly five long years since I joined for my EMIB (Executive Masters in International business) from the prestigious Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), New Delhi! I joined it on 9th August 2004. Time flies! But can say for sure that this degree has been my best investment made on education till date. With zero opportunity cost (it was held only on weekends – non stop for one and a half years) and the schedule was honestly grueling with no respite and kept us busy on weekdays with assignments, quizzes every weekend, mid-term exams, classes and of course, the end terms. Read the rest of this entry »

There is no point criticizing the Government, the public offices, the institutions, the politicians etc. if you don’t exercise your fundamental right and cast your vote. So, get up and vote – for a change. Let’s make India a better place to live in!

It appears this correlation appears to be quite high. The last economic crisis hit in 2001 with the dot com and telecom bubble burst and that was instantly followed by 9/11 and then the SARS crisis in South East Asia and the Anthrax cases in USA. Read the rest of this entry »

The Indian general elections -First off, please VOTE, Second, Vote for a change

I got my new voter id card (I had an old one issued in 2005 as well) yesterday. The process is quick and painless but the queue isn’t. I had to make my way through a long serpantine queue for almost 3 hours – thankfully, the saving grace was the sun had set and this made it bearable to stand in the cool of the summer night.

On a side note, what makes this election special from a Voting economic perspective? Read the rest of this entry »

Is the reduction in purchasing decisions/actual purchases made a good thing or a bad thing during recessionary times. While technically, India is still motoring along at over 5.5% GDP growth and is tipped to be the 2nd fastest growing economy in the world for 2009 (a miserable year for other world economies), should the discerning consumer cut down on his purchases of items? Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2008ar/2008ar.pdf

You can’t be mistaken when you are reading from the greatest punters in the Financial space – Warren Buffett. The Chairman’s letter to shareholders did not dissappoint me. It was filled with the usual interesting titbits on his insurance ops and business, the concept of insurance ‘float’, his profit margins, the stake he took in Goldman Sachs, GE etc. during the troubling cashflow starved times of late 2008, the usual caveats on on the derivatives business and the future of Berkshire! Oh btw – there was no mention of “fruit of the loom” as marketwatch said there would be!

As I have said many times before, I am a self proclaimed protege of Warren Buffett and anything he does interests me. His annual reports are always looked forward to by much ado and this time was especially different to get the views of the man who I consider is king in stock market investing alongwith with his mentor Ben Graham and associate, Charlie Munger.

He is the ultimate modern tech savvy Blackberry wielding Mr President of the United States of America. For once, I see genuine hope in the way the US will go about sorting out its financial mess and it’s foreign policies.

Checkout: http://www.whitehouse.gov

As with most Americans and millions from other countries and their citizens, I did not miss his swearing-in ceremony that was held in Washington DC on 20th January 2009 on television – that marked a new era in world history!

Good luck – President Obama. May god be with you in all your endeavours! We have hopes on you to revitalize the world and of course, with it, the United States and my country, India!

Brand Obama is sure flying high!

One of the jewels of the 1990’s boom in the telecom sector, Nortel networks Corp. (NYSE: NT) filed for bankruptcy as quoted by Marketwatch.

I have watched this stock closely alongwith it’s peer, Lucent (now, Alacatel-Lucent) then in 2001 and have seen them in their glory days before the bust of the dot com and telecom bubble in 2001 when I used to follow the coverage by CNBC America live then in 2001.

This just shows how deeply engrained the financial mess has been in the system and even behemoths with stock prices of over $500 a share then at their peaks have come to penny stocks with a value of not more than a few cents a share.

Saddening but that is life!