How Indians are like?

We Indians are like this only. So true , so very true .........
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1. Everything you eat is savored in garlic, onion and tomatoes.
2. You try and reuse gift wrappers, gift boxes, and of course aluminum foil.
3. You are Always standing next to the two largest size suitcases at the Airport.
4. You arrive one or two hours late to a party - and think it's normal.
5. You peel the stamps off letters that the Postal Service missed to stamp.
6. You recycle Wedding Gifts , Birthday Gifts and Anniversary Gifts.
7. All your children have pet names, which sound nowhere close to their real names.
8. You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house.
9. You use plastic to cover anything new in your house whether it's the remote control, VCR, carpet or new couch.
10. Your parents tell you not to care what your friends think, but they won't let you do certain things because of what the other "Uncles and Aunties" will think.
11. You buy and display crockery, which is never used , as it is for special occasions, which never happen.
12. You use grocery bags to hold garbage.
13. You keep leftover food in your fridge in as many n umbers of bowls as possible.
14. You carry a stash of your own food whenever you travel (and travel means any car ride longer than 15 minutes).
15. You live with your parents and you are 40 years old. ( And they prefer it that way).
16. You don't use measuring cups when cooking.
17. You can travel only if there are 5 persons at least to see you off or receive you whether you are traveling by bus, train or plane.
18. You make long distance calls only after 11 p.m.
19. If you don't live at home, when your parents call, they ask if you've eaten, even if it's midnight .
20. You call an older person you never met before Uncle or Aunty."
21. When your parents meet strangers and talk for a few minutes, you discover you're talking to a distant cousin.
22. You have bed sheets on your sofas so as to keep them from getting dirty.
23. It's embarrassing if your wedding has less than 600 people.
24. All your Tupperware is stained with food color.
25. You have drinking glasses made of steel, not of glass.
26. While bargaining, you will start by quoting a floor price of Rs. 100 for a hanging art with quotation of Rs. 800.
27. You have really enjoyed reading this mail.
28. You are an Indian, by birth or by heart.
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Source: Fwd by http://in.f322.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=vinodnatesan@yahoo.com&Subj=

Rajkot One Day/ Bihar and Litchi

In the last three overs if you have four wickets in hand and 18 runs to get, very few teams will engineer their way to defeat. India did. Yesterday. At rajkot. I was, with my sisters, a witness to it. But the things changed so quickly that very few of the 25000+ crowd could understand before it happened.

For appi-anni, the high time of watching their first international cricket match came when Sachin and Ganguly managed to steer india to a comfortable situation with their fifties. Dhoni and Karthik also provided spectators with display of some solid batting. But the good catches by Srilankan players and some poor play by Indian tail-enders led India to defeat.
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Bihar is under developed as compared to Gujarat. With downward spiralling effect of lack of infrastructure - financial, support services, processing and marketing- its agriculture is heavily based upon mercy of rain-gods (flood et al). But Bihar has good soil quality to support Litchi, Mango, and Banana.

Monsanto says Bihar and Jharkhand is the best market for its non-cotton hybrid seed (Jowar, Paddy, Wheat, Corn, etc). Cargill has its special focus on Bihar as emerging market.

Muzaffarpur has a National Research Centre on Litchi supported by Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) working on the scientific improvement in production and processing techniques of Litchi. It is also working on establishing/ improving the commercial positioning of the place and the commodity.

Just for records, Muzaffarpur produces 72% of world's production of SHAHI Litchi, the best known variety of this seasonal and very delicate fruit.

White vs Black!!

The art of appraising a credit request is quite tricky. There are simple premises that need to be defined. For example, what u consider as income available for repayment - the present or the projected income? What shall be given priority - the track record of the borrower or the valuation of security being offered for mortgage? The declared income or the undisclosed inflows....... And the payoff is majorly defined in terms of overall picture emerging out of combination of all these factors.

We have an interesting case - A borrower with more than sufficient cash flow - he has cash worth Rs. 400 Lakhs with him, but all in black. Now, he needs to repay installment on our loan (Rs. 4 Lakhs only). He says he can't, till he gets some white entry. He is offering to pay penalty, but we will have to be patient.

What do the CAs do, if the black market is omnipresent and perhaps bigger than white market economy!!

What the moral of that story is?

An ex-colleague of Mine at CINI, Kolkata experienced this.... She is from US and was on one year internship in India. (margarette is her name). As she says, Don't know whats the moral of the story? Read for urself.
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So I’ve been holding off on writing this because I know a certain number of people will begin to fear for my safety, while certain others may feel the desire to assault the man in the story. Before people get huffy I ask two things.
1-Remember this happened back in October 2006. So there is no reason to get upset now
2-Read the whole thing before you pass judgment.

When I arrived here and was still staying at the field office/campus I placed my extra USD, Passport and Plane tickets home in the safe at the safe there. Around Mid-October I had run out of my stipend and needed to cash my travelers checks and since the CINI office people take their jobs very seriously and wouldn’t allow anyone else who was going between the two offices to bring my things, I was forced to make a mid day journey out and back.

To get to Poilan (where the CINI I campus is) One generally has to walk up to the main intersection of Gariahat (about a 5-7 min walk), take an auto-rickshaw to the Behala bus stand (about a 20-30 min ride) then take a bus to Poilan (another 30 min ride or so) and finally walk down the block to the CINI I campus. Or at least this the way I tend to go in the mornings, there are several other stops and buses one could take, but I prefer a minimal amount of changes. There are also 2 buses that run the whole way (76 and GL-3), but their running times are difficult to predict.

So I jump into an auto and (as always) turn on my shuffle and settle myself for the long ride. The back seat of the auto is about the size of a small loveseat and three people generally sit there. I generally wear Salwar Suits or a Kurta and trousers to the office, but when I’m going toward the field I definitely make an effort to dress more traditionally. I get less attention that way. But I hadn’t really planned to be at Poilan I was dressed fairly western, a full-length flare skirt and a t-shirt.

So I’m sitting in this auto and there’s some guy next to me who I’m pretty much ignoring. Then I realize that there is a hand on my breast that is not mine. As the auto is pretty cramped I give him the benefit of the doubt and re-cross my arms so that my hand serves as a barrier. At which point he re-adjusts so that he is again touching my chest and starts caressing me. I, not trying to make a scene, re adjust so that my hand is between his and my chest. So he decides to hold my hand. Just as I’m about to be loud and call this guy out. The auto arrives at Behala and we get out.

I take out my wallet hand the driver a 20-rupee bill and wait for my change a bit agitated and still kinda pissed at the audacity of the guy next to me. As I’m waiting for my change I see the bus that I need starting to leave. So I grab my change and my skirt and bolt after the bus. I do the characteristic Kolkata leap onto the bus while it’s still rolling and find a place to stand inside. At that point I look down at my wallet and realize my license, my other Ids and anything that was in the outside two sections of my tri-fold are gone. Because my wallet was open everything fell out while I was running to the bus. Someone handed the conductor two of the things from my missing pockets and they turned out to be my CINI-ARC card and a card from one of the food courts here.

Slightly upset but counting my blessings (My ATM cards were in the middle section and survived the run), I began to try to figure out how to go about getting new Ids. Suddenly the bus stopped and the creepy guy who was next to me in the auto gets on the bus and hands me all of my Id’s and cards that I dropped. He saw them fall, collected them and then ran to the next stop so that he could give them back to me. He gave a sort of wave and got off the bus again.

So I proceeded to CINI I got my things out of the safe and got back to CINI-ARC with no further adventure.

I’m still not sure what the moral of that story is. - Margarette J Shegogg.

How long does it take for KLI Policies to break even?

Natukaka Had Invested Rs. 3 Lakhs in March 2006. Now, his portfolio is valued at Rs. 3.12 lakhs. Investment in policies with 27% load and expense factor. Return of 4% p.a., on the overall investment (borrower's point of view). Returns were 42% (31 on 73, total returns 104)-fund manager's view.

Borrower, if at this moment, is not explained the intricasies, may opt out. But if he stays put, a return of 42% (conservatively 20%) awaits him.

Fresh Start

Its after six months that I am writing again.

Bought a new Laptop, and have broadband connection at home. Hence, am able to.

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A cash Credit facility of Rs. 2 Crores @ 10.50%, against security of Life Insurance Policies. The commission on policies is Rs. 10 Lakhs. What will be the IRR for one year period?

Answer: 15.77%

A new E-magazine called "EnterFace"

I am thinking of starting an e-magazine. I have tentatively named it "EnterFace". Idea behind the magazine is to project (write about, and enter) those everyday faces which have something to tell. We all have a story, a story of our own. And in the aapa-dhapi of life, we seldom pause and read these stories. (Yahan Kiska chehara padha karun, yahan kaun itna kareeb hai!!). Many of us write about the issues that we face today- terrorism, reservation, love, hate, cricket, poverty, development, career, ....... I want to write about people, the people I laugh with, people I cry with, people I work with, people I travel with, studied with, go to film with, take grocery from, buy vegetables from, eat food cooked by, wear clothes ironed by, drink water brought by, repair bike at, ...... I want to write about the small things that is important in their life- our life. An attempt to 'enter a face' as an interface between big world with inner world- a duniya that is ours and yet we forget to pause and think about it.

Am i getting in flow. Perhaps. But this magazine won't. It will be positive, it won't talk about pain. It will talk about the brighter side of our life...... I will define and refine the purpose more in future. But writing it and sharing it does help. Please post ur comments. - Anshul

Anshul's Diary: An alternative to reservation

Anshul's Diary: An alternative to reservation

An alternative to reservation

The idea of helping the backward classes is admirable and must be followed. But rReservation is a bad way of putting it. If the incentivisation is done bsed upon the perceived weightage of backwardness, it might help. But reserving the seats totally may not. Let me explain.

The reservation means dividing the seats in parts, wherein select candidates from General Category (GC) can not compete for specific seats. So, it is reverse discrimination. The discrimination becomes anti democratric when the seats remain unavailable even if the candidates from other than GC are found unsuitable for the reserved seats. The seats will go vacant, but won't be filled in by any other.

Now, consider an alternative. The reservation is not given on seats. Instead, the candidates will be given additional marks based upon their social (Caste and religion), economic (economic status), geographical (accessible and inaccessible areas), physical (physically challenged), gender (girl/ boy) and cultural background (tribes). Everyone competes for each seat, with few who belong to backward community getting additional marks for their backwardness. The main examination may carry 80% weightage, with 20% coming from the background.

So, if I am a well-to-do physically-fit brahmin boy from Delhi I will get zero additional marks. If I am a poor physically challenged tribal girl from Bastar I will get 20 marks (other will lie in between). If the boy gets 61 out of 80 marks in main exam, and the girl gets 42 marks, the girl qualifies. If girl gets 40 marks, the boy qualifies. There is no reservation of seats, just an incentive provided for cross-nullifying the effect of reductory factors in one's background.

Another argument is- If reservation is brought to 50%, does it mean that rest 50% goes to GC. NO, it is not so. The moment a non GC candidate gets qualifying marks equal to a GC candidate, he/ she moves on to occupy a non-reserved seat. This is nothing else but punishing the talent.

More on reservation in next blog.

How Banks do credit? Ahmedabad

Banking, and specially credit is a specialised function. After having worked on around 15 proposals in last 40 days I can say with confidence that when the non-bankers find it hard to grasp what banking is all about, we must sympathise with them. I mean, Banking has been made so jargon led and regulated that a lay man will get in to the trap.

For example, a person undertands simple interest rate and compounding interest rate. One can also make sense of flat interest rate. But what is "interest rate at monthly rests"? It is a mix of simple interest rate and compounding interest rate. In otherwords, it is the simple interest rate compounded monthly.

Another example- There is something called processing fee and file charge. The borrower bears one or both in each case (in case of term loans, there may not be such income for bank in case of cash credit proposals, but that depends on client's profile). So, customer pays 1-2% as processing fees/ file charges. Then comes the valuation report and title clearance expenses, which may be anywhere between Rs. 20,000/- to Rs. 50,000/-. This is also borne by the borrower. Last one is the mortgage registratioon charges, which fluctuate between 0.25% to 1.50%, depending upon the state statutes.

If the loan is disbursed (i have doubts, and keep the reservation intact till the time payment reaches the borrower), there will be Pre-EMI generated by the SYSTEM. Then there will be late charges on registration fee, the cheque bounce charges if something goes wrong (like, if there is an extra dot in the signature, if account is under funded, etc etc - please note that ETC means end of thinking capacity). God forbid if the borrower is late in repaying installment, there will be penal interest charged @36% per month. There is generally a pre-payment charge also, charged @ 3% of the prepaid amount so that the borrower is discouraged to repay in advance.

So, Banks take care of every way that the borrower can default and have put some restrictions by way of financial charges.

Will write more on the way I am being modeled in looking at credi proposals in next blog. On the personal front, I am working with Kotak mahindra Bank, Ahmedabad. I came to this city on 10th April 2006 and I am staying with Harsh and Gandhiji.