The Journey of an Inspiration

Free Google home Mini Deal

2017-11-27T11:13:00.004-08:00

Step1 – Use this link to register at topcashback site

https://www.topcashback.com/ref/member107528519520

Step 2 – Activate your topcashback account ( a confirmation would be sent to your email id )

Step 3 – Activate the 5$ Walmart bonus ( https://goo.gl/bcxJu3). Valid only on 11/27/2017 ( 9am to 3 pm pst )

Step 4 – After activating login to your topcashback account and click get cashback. It will take you to Walmart.com.

Step 5 – Search for google home mini and purchase it. Take pick up at store option, it will to total 31.68$

Step 6 – Now go to your topcashback account and click tell a friend and refer yourself at different mail id. It will give you 10$ referral bonus.

Step 7 – Again create a new topcashback account with your own referral link generated by tellafriend ( like this )–

Step 8 – Activate the 5$ Walmart bonus ( https://goo.gl/bcxJu3). Valid only on 11/27 ( 9am to 3 pm pst ).

Step 9 – After activating login to your topcashback account and click get cashback. It will take you to Walmart.com.

Step 10 – Search for google home mini and purchase it. Take pick up at store option, it will to total 31.68$

Step 11- Once you activate both google home mini and add Walmart account with your google express account, you ll get 25$ credit at google express. It can be used to purchase any store items.

Details - https://www.walmart.com/cp/Google-Mini-Google-Home/6378575

Google Shopping Express Coupon Details*

Buy any Google Home product from Walmart and get up to $25 off a Walmart order through Google Express. Available in the contiguous United States only. Device must be activated and Walmart and Google accounts linked between October 4, 2017 and January 15, 2018 to qualify. Coupon expires January 31, 2018. Coupon will be automatically issued after Walmart account is linked to Google, and the offer is claimed in the Google Home app. Valid only for Walmart orders on Google Express. Only two coupons total per household. Unused coupon amount doesn’t carry over. Exclusions apply. See terms.

Deal total –

Transations	Amount	Amount
Google home mini	31.68
Google home mini	31.68
topcashback referral bonus		10
topcashback possible walmart bonus		10
google express credit		50
Total Spent	63.36
Total Cashback		70
Total Deal		6.64

Financial Planning - Tax saving Instruments- Public Provident Fund (PPF)

2014-05-03T01:03:00.000-07:00

Hi Friends,

Most of us are not aware of tax planning or tend to give a low weightage towards this. I have seen lots of my friends who have messed up with their tax planning and end up giving generous tax to Govt at the end of financial year closing. In the era of single digits hikes, it’s prudent that we save most of the hard earned salary by proper financial planning.

Hence it’s beneficial that you know some good investment horizons to save your hard earn Money. When we talk about tax planning, 1^st option that comes in our mind is PPF. But we hardly know all Good things and technicalities about PPF. Here are some of the things you should know about your trusted tax saving instrument.

Account Opening

The Public Provident Fund (PPF) is one of the most popular tax-saving schemes, which can be opened in a post office or designated bank branches (SBI/ICICI).

Interest Rate

The interest rate offered on the PPF is no longer fixed, but linked to the market. It is 0.25% above the 10-year government bond yield. This does not mean that the rate will change on a day-to-day basis. It will be announced every year in April, based on the average bond yield in the previous year. For the current financial year, it is 8.7%.

How does the interest accrue?

This is very Important part that you should aware of. The interest on your PPF balance is compounded annually, but the calculation is done every month. The interest is calculated on the lowest balance between the fifth and last day of every month.

For Example, If you have Rs 1000 in your account from 1^st to 5^th day of the month, You ‘ll get the interest on 1000 rs only even if you credit any amount after 5^th to End of month. You will get interest on lowest balance between the fifth and last day of every month.

Hence it’s advisable to credit your PPF account between 1^st and 5^th of every month and If possible make the entire deposit during 1-5^th April of every year to get full year interest. I know it’s tough to get 1 Lac investment during start of financial year, hence you can deposit every month as well to get maximum benefit. If you can’t invest 1 lac amount at the start of the financial year, you can start the SIP for it and invest 5-10k monthly as per your capacity.

Tax Benefit and Min/Max investment-

It’s and EEE investment, hence your final amount after 15 years is tax free. You are eligible for tax benefit under 80C as per you tax bracket( Max 30%). You can invest maximum amount of 1 lac only. You have to put in at least Rs 500 in your PPF account in a year. You will be levied a penalty of Rs 50 if you fail to do so.

Prior withdrawal/ Loan

If you need money, you can withdraw after the sixth year, but it cannot exceed 50% of the balance at the end of fourth year, or the immediate preceding year, whichever is lower. You can also withdraw only once in a financial year. You can also take a loan against it, but this cannot exceed 25% of the balance in the preceding year. The loan is charged at 2% till 36 months, and 6% for longer tenures. Till a loan is repaid, you can't take more loans.

Maturity-

It matures after 15 Years, but you can extend the tenure in blocks of five years after maturity and continue to get the normal rate of interest.

What are the nomination rules?

Don’t forget to nominate someone. Nomination is available in the name of one or more persons. Nominee cannot continue account of the deceased subscriber in his/ her own name.

Sample Investment and Returns-

Investment – 1 lacs/year ( on 1^st April )

Current Rate- 8.7%

Duration- 15 Years

Returns- You will get approx 31 Lacs after 15 years of your investment that too tax free.

An IRR return of approx 13% for the highest tax bracket person.

Happy Investing.. :)

Infrastructure Bonds: To Invest or Not - An Analysis

2011-12-10T06:10:00.001-08:00

Most of us are not much aware about our tax planning and ends up with some tax saving investment with poor return at the last moment. So it’s important that you know about the options available for our tax planning. For tax planning we Have limit of 1 lac above 1.8 lacs limit from the govt. For this saving we invest in some of the tax saving instruments Like PF, PPF, ELSS, Life insurance, Pension, NSC, 5-year Bank FD, etc.

Apart from this govt has provided us an option of having tax saving above 1 lac limit in form of investment in Infrastructure Bonds up to 20,000 under Sec. 80 CCF. So we have this option available to save our taxes. But most of us are not sure if these infra bonds are worth investing. Here is an analysis after which you can decide if it’s for you or not.

I have taken example of IDFC Infrastructure bond for this analysis. This issue is available from 21^st Nov- 16^th Dec 2011. Key features of this Bond are as follows..

IDFC Infra Bonds: Issue Highlights

Issue opens:	Monday, November 21, 2011	Interest Rate:	9% p.a.
Issue closes:	Friday, December 16, 2011	Tenor:	120 months from the Deemed Date of Allotment
Issue Price:	Rs.5000 per Tranche 1 Bond	Rating:	"(ICRA) AAA" from ICRA "Fitch AAA (ind)" from Fitch
Listing on:	NSE and BSE	Issuance:	Dematerialized form or Physical form.
Issue Type:	Long Term Infrastructure Bond	Tax Benefit:	Additional tax benefits of Rs 20,000/-Over and above the permissible deduction of Rs.1 lakh under Section 80 C
Registrar:	Karvy Computershare Private Limited

SPECIFIC TERMS FOR EACH SERIES OF BONDS

Particulars	Series 1	Series 2
Frequency of Interest Payment	Annual	Cumulative
Buyback Facility	Yes	Yes
Buyback Amount	Rs. 5,000 per Tranche 1 Bond	Rs. 7,695 per Tranche 1 Bond
Buyback Intimation Period	The period beginning not before nine months prior to the Buyback Date and ending not later than six months prior to the Buyback Date
Tenor	120 months from the Deemed Date of Allotment
Interest Rate	9% p.a. (Series I)	N/A
Minimum Application	2 Bonds and in multiples of 1 Bond thereafter
Maturity Amount	Rs. 5,000 per Tranche 1 Bond	Rs. 11,840 per Tranche 1 Bond
Yield on Maturity	9%	9% compounded annually
Yield on Buyback	9%	9% compounded annually

These bonds are rated AAA by ICRA and are considered as stable ones. Now if you consider the actual return of these bonds. The returns are as follows for the investment of INR 5000, which gives you INR 7695 after 5 years.

	TAX SLAB
	I - 10%	II - 20%	III - 30%
Tax saving	500	1000	1500
Actual Return	2695.00	2695.00	2695.00
Actual investment	4500.00	4000.00	3500.00

Percentage return( Before Tax)	11.33	13.98	17.07

Tax on interest received	269.50	539.00	808.50
Return After Tax	2425.50	2156.00	1886.50

Percentage return( After Tax)	10.54	12.34	14.49

These are the calculations based on the fact that we are using the buying back option after 5 years. So by using this option it makes sense to invest 20k in this infra bond. Because it’s giving you the effective return of 10- 14.5% respectively for 10-30% tax bracket folks.

Some Cons-

Strict lock-in period (at least 5 years till buy back option).
Even if a bond gets listed on the exchange, the liquidity will be poor. That is, when you want to sell your bond and get the money it "may" be difficult to find a buyer.
Buyback option is not available in all bonds offered. Hence be careful before you invest.
Interest earned is taxable.

My Take- It’s more beneficial for folks falling in tax bracket 20-30% and who are ready to get invested at least 5 years. So take the decision carefully. Happy Investing :)

The B-School Competitions- Untapped Opportunity for B-School Graduates

2011-07-31T05:37:00.000-07:00

In India no.1 portal for B-School aspirants is www.pagalguy.com , It brings the unique platform for B-School and the aspirants too. But it missed this huge business opportunity of tapping the B-School Competition Market.

Thus it made the way for the new venture www.dare2compete.com which grabbed the opportunity from both hands. D2C started in 2009 and became a big hit in B-School community in very short span of time.

There are more than 1000 B Schools in India. Most of these B Schools conducts their Annual B-School Event, which constitutes no of competitions to be won. But the Money on Offer is also very lucrative for the students. The best part of the story is that it’s a multimillion $ industry in itself.

A glimpse of the B-School Competitions Market—

Let’s take only top 50 B-school Competitions in the country –

On Average the Prize money

1. 6 IIM’s- More than 12 Lacs each ( Easily) à Total comes approx 72 LACS+

2. Next Top 10 (Fms, IMT, MDI,XLRI, SJMSOM,NMIMS,SIBM,SCMHRD Etc.)- 8 Lacs Each
3. Next 20 Colleges- Approx 5 Lacs Each

Total Comes Approx- 72+ 80+100= 252 Lacs+

These are some of the approximated values of the competition prizes at stake. So one can imagine the opportunity offered to the students in these competitions. Apart from these monetary benefits the B-School Competitions offer lot of experience to the students, some of the key benefits from these competitions are-

1. Exposure to the students of other B-School in the country

2. Exposure to the real world business problem

3. Excellent Networking

4. Lucrative Prizes

5. Awesome opportunity for budding entrepreneurs to test their business model in Bplan competitions.

6. Brings value to the CV that helps in Placements

The Season kicks off in style from July itself. But the big one’s start with SJMSOM-Avenues in October, then the November- January is the prime period for these completions.

Most of the IIMS conduct their event @ this time itself (Ex. IIMA’ Confluence in Nov, NITIE-LAKSHYA, SCMHRD- NEEV, ISB-Metamorphosis).

The season ends on high note with the events of SYMBIOSIS Colleges in Feb- March ( SIBM- Transcend, SIMS- ORION).

These Competitions form a key role in the learning opportunities for B-School Graduates. All the Graduates must utilize these opportunities to the best of their ability and make the most out of it. Because After 2 years of your MBA you won’t get these opportunities of learning and fun again..:)

An Awesome Experience of Annual Business Fest "TRISHNA 2010" at ICFAI Business School Hyderabad

2010-12-23T22:18:00.000-08:00

Well we ( Team Czars- Devesh Shukla & Bishwajeet Ghosh) were working on our Business plan for last couple of months and won the second prize also @ Sydenham Institute of Management ,Mumbai in Feb 2010. As we were still in progress to update our Bplan,we made it to the final round of Bplan competition of TRISHNA 2010 @ ICFAI Business School Hyderabad.

We arrived at Hyderabad on 9th dec around 11 O'clock in the night. But the organizers were having a great arrangements for us. Aamir came 2 receive us @ Secunderabad station. We arrived in campus @ around 1.30 in the night. After some registration formalities we got our room keys and ya Mr Ghosh got the famous Hyderbadi Biryani from Amir. Next day on 10th the event started : It was a good speech By Mrs Rashmi Bansal ( writer of stay Hungry Stay Foolish) in the inauguration ceremony.Later in 2nd half of the day we decided to participate in the event of "Carbon Trading". As the entries were on the spot. We gave the prelims and made it to the final round. Final Round started and the bidding was fun in the process. we got our desired products with low carbon emission. Our MMC ( Money Matters Club ) was very helpful. Finally we won the event by good margin. Our final score was in the range of 27000 nd the runner ups were in 22000..So that seems 2 be a good margin to beat other teams. We were awarded by cash prize of INR 9000.

On 2nd day we met our neighbors from IFMR Chennai...Rajeev and Venkat. Rajeev got the cool trick to get wifi though his laptop in our rooms. So we were able to access net in our rooms.

We were waiting for the flagship event of the fest The Bplan Competition. we had a tough challenge from the teams of IIMK, TISS, MICA, LBSIM,GIM etc . our slot came at 111 o'clock in the morning. We gave the presentation to the panel( 2 VC's and 1 founder of Way2sms).They were impressed by the idea and the presentation.later when we saw MICA folks got their demo product also for the presentation we thought they 'll easily win the competition. But when the results came TISS got the runner up position and we won the 1st prize in this flagship event. We were awarded the cash prize of INR 30000 for this event.later we had the DJ night.Enjoyed lil bit in the absence of our friends.
On the third day Bishhwajeet won the 1st prize in the supply chain event" Somvyapar" and awarded INR 5000.After this we had the closing ceremony where the chief guest was MD Dr Reddy Labs India. While giving the certificate he whispered that My brother in laws name is Devesh too..the we both smiled and he congratulated us again. After Award ceremony we had the fashion show. Its was really good to see the good performance. we enjoyed that it and ya IBS Crowd rocks. :-)

Overall it was a nice experience to be a part of such a well organized event and its feels good to win the prizes too.Looking for some more events in coming months as well.

:)
Cheers!!!

Bright Side of the Coin: CommonWealth Games2010 NewDelhi

2010-09-29T11:21:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of chaos about the preparation of New Delhi's Common Wealth Games 2010.But I believe that this is just a matter of negative branding that is been done by the media.they are not showing the positives of the work done by the game authorities.Authorities must be able to pitch this opportunity to show the world the ability of India to organize the games of this magnitude.The positive branding of such a big event is essential for the success of the games and its future implications in terms of various investments in India.

I came across the pics of CWG games 2010 venue.These pics show the caliber of India to mage the best CWG games ever. Just have a look of these pics and you will have only one feeling about the preparations-----JUST WOW!!!!

P.S.- There are 2 sides of a coin..Its up to you which side you want to see..Well as far as I am concerned I have chosen the bright side..Now its your turn..

Unique ways of differentiating your Brand.

2010-04-27T05:03:00.000-07:00

This is a very tough task now a days for brand managers to differentiate their brands. In such cutthroat hyper competition market the marketers need a unique way to differentiate their brands to make it more competitive enough as compare to its rivals. For tackling these issues of differentiating the brands brand manager must go for ingredient branding.

Through ingredient branding strategy brands will be able to create niche space in the hearts and minds of the consumers.This can be done in two ways-

1. The first type is where the ingredient belongs to other companies.

Ex. Intel is a pioneer in ingredient branding it has successfully built ingredient brands like pentium , celeron, atom and now intel i series..

2. Second type of ingredient branding is when ingredient belongs to the company itself.

Ex. Bajaj has successfully done this kind of branding where they have DTSI brand in their part.

Apart from Bajaj, Maruti Suzuki is also doing the ingredient branding of second type where they promote their K series engine as a superior engine that satisfies all kind of emission norms. hence they are now slowly planning to bring all their vehicle based on k series Engine.

Hence its very important for the companies to emulate these examples of ingredient branding to differentiate their products in the market.

Business exercise in sims on 13th june.

2009-06-13T06:08:00.000-07:00

Here comes the beautiful Experience of business exercise in the orientation period @ sims pune.we were devided in teams .in my team there were 3 members i ,deepak nd risha.we were asked to get 1 day paid job without spending a single penni. we got the locations as tilak road, Bajirao road ,Mukund nagar nd Satara road.we left the colllege @ 10 am exact got the lift in a maruti upto e square.then got it again in a Maruti 800.then the 3rd time got the lift in toyota corrola upto tilak road.

there we gave the 1st try in fiat showroom.but didn't work out.then we went to a stock broker firm and a restaurant .but all in vain.then we saw a vodafone outlet over there nd asked them for a 1 day paid job.he said that that there ws no proper authority over there to gives us the job.so we missed there too .finally we saw IIJT institute .we reached there about 11.30 there we met the operations head .he ws very helpful .he ws very much interested by us.so he said tat he don't have the job 4 today but will surely manage tommorow .but we asked him tat sir we have to give this task today only .so he said ok just have some water i m coming after some time till then just write down the areas u aspires to work for.he finally gave us the job after a long discussion.we were given a task of make a marketing strategic plan of the the new educational products of the institute.he showed us all the details of the product and provided the internet access. then we started the job .nd in between asked him for lunch and coffee also.we got the free lunch and coffee.we get our job done by 4.30 pm .then we presented it to the operations head.he appreciated our efforts nd also adviced many good marketing skills. he aslo offered the certificates by mail.

finally we got our pay in the account section.the lady came up with a Brand new RED PAPER ."1000 BUCKS".we were too hapy to get paid for our hard work .then we left for the paravati temple.there to we got lift in AUTO.these pune guys were so helpful.then we got the lift again to get back to hostel.the uncle left us to the E sqaure.he was the father of a XL guy. his son had a package of 18 lacs in mumbai.he also prasied symbi .said that his son always use to talk about the symbi ..then we got the next lift upto college.
In the end i realised that the symbiosis Brand name in the market.So overall it ws a very nice experience to have.

lets c wat good things ahead in Symbi!!
Symbi Rock Guys!!

Introduction

2008-01-29T12:34:00.003-08:00

Hi,
let me intoduce you myself .
i am devesh shukla.

Introduction

2008-01-29T12:34:00.002-08:00

Hi,
let me intoduce you myself .
i am devesh shukla.