infizia

10 Stupid Mistakes That Completely Changed The Course of History

2017-12-21T16:08:00.000+05:30

If you're thinking about living abroad, the best people to ask for tips might be the people who have already done it: expats.

InterNations, an expatriate network and global guide, put together a list of the best cities for living and working abroad, according to expats they surveyed.

To compile the data, InterNations surveyed 7,985 expats living in 40 countries. A city had to be mentioned at least 45 times to be included. City rankings were determined based on the quality and cost of urban living, quality of work life and finances, and ease of settling into the city.

Here are the best overall cities for expats in 2017:

27. Stockholm, Sweden

Cost of living compared with New York City: 12.8% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,406.43 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $74.58

Commuter pass: $98.96

Cappuccino: $4.33

Domestic beer: $7.15

26. Cape Town, South Africa

Cost of living compared with New York City: 59.1% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $716.30 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $58.33

Commuter pass: $24.20

Cappuccino: $1.62

Domestic beer: $2.07

25. Kampala, Uganda

Cost of living compared with New York City: 65.4%

Monthly:

Rent: $234.87 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $51.57

Commuter pass: $29.90

Cappuccino: $2.10

Domestic beer: $1.10

24. Munich, Germany

Cost of living compared with New York City: 21.8% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,057.55 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $257.57

Commuter pass: $75.83

Cappuccino: $3.36

Domestic beer: $4.43

23. Zurich, Switzerland

Cost of living compared with New York City: 36.4% higher

Monthly:

Rent: $1,842.98 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $167.61

Commuter pass: $84.36

Cappuccino: $4.93

Domestic beer: $7.03

22. Vienna, Austria

Cost of living compared with New York City: 25.8% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $922.85 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $195.74

Commuter pass: $52.51

Cappuccino: $3.64

Domestic beer: $4.20

21. Seoul, South Korea

Cost of living compared with New York City: 17% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $824.89 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $149.51

Commuter pass: $49.11

Cappuccino: $4.10

Domestic beer: $3.13

20. Hamburg, Germany

Cost of living compared with New York City: 23% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $854.88 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $259.92

Commuter pass: $102.92

Cappuccino: $3.34

Domestic beer: $4.43

19. The Hague, Netherlands

Cost of living compared to New York City: 18.7% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $987.94 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $149.17

Commuter pass: $81.67

Cappuccino: $3.10

Domestic beer: $4.67

18. Berlin, Germany

Cost of living compared with New York City: 29.7% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $874.85 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $270.39

Commuter pass: $94.49

Cappuccino: $3.06

Domestic beer: $3.62

17. Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Cost of living compared with New York City: 28% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,882.28 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $172.85

Commuter pass: $66.66

Cappuccino: $4.45

Domestic beer: $10.67

16. Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

Cost of living compared with New York City: 8.8% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,610.99 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $268.13

Commuter pass: $46.67

Cappuccino: $3.71

Domestic beer: $5.83

15. Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Cost of living compared with New York City: 34.5% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,816.94 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $103.92

Commuter pass: $21.78

Cappuccino: $4.90

Domestic beer: $9.53

14. Auckland, New Zealand

Cost of living compared with New York City: 17% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,208.88 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $131.34

Commuter pass: $138.01

Cappuccino: $3.11

Domestic beer: $6.04

13. Budapest, Hungary

Cost of living compared with New York City: 52.2% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $499.23 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $180.43

Commuter pass: $35.56

Cappuccino: $1.51

Domestic beer: $1.68

12. Muscat, Oman

Cost of living compared with New York City: 48.5% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $755.79 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $59.87

Commuter pass: $25.97

Cappuccino: $4.39

Domestic beer: $7.79

11. Mexico City, Mexico

Cost of living compared with New York City: 62.8%

Monthly:

Rent: $482.29 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $39.07

Commuter pass: $15.70

Cappuccino: $2.02

Domestic beer: $1.57

10. Frankfurt, Germany

Cost of living compared with New York City: 21.2%

Monthly:

Rent: $1,059.52 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $242.30

Commuter pass: $101.23

Cappuccino: $3.28

Domestic beer: $4.67

9. Basel, Switzerland

Cost of living compared with New York City: 29.9% higher

Monthly:

Rent: $1,351.15 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $208.64

Commuter pass: $80.30

Cappuccino: $5.29

Domestic beer: $8.03

8. Bangkok, Thailand

Cost of living compared with New York City: 45.8% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $636.70 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $83.45

Commuter pass: $30.25

Cappuccino: $2.18

Domestic beer: $2.01

7. Johannesburg, South Africa

Cost of living compared with New York City: 56.9% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $480.83 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $68.83

Commuter pass: $34.50

Cappuccino: $1.67

Domestic beer: $2.07

6. Barcelona, Spain

Cost of living compared with New York City: 34%

Monthly:

Rent: $990.58 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $153.77

Commuter pass: $58.35

Cappuccino: $2.00

Domestic beer: $3.27

5. Amsterdam, Netherlands

Cost of living compared with New York City: 16.1% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,646.41 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $179.19

Commuter pass: $104.92

Cappuccino: $3.18

Domestic beer: $5.25

4. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Cost of living compared with New York City: 55.6% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $540.08 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $52.45

Commuter pass: $29.85

Cappuccino: $2.53

Domestic beer: $3.58

3. Madrid, Spain

Cost of living compared with New York City: 35.2%

Monthly:

Rent: $919.92 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $138.04

Commuter pass: $63.65

Cappuccino: $1.97

Domestic beer: $3.26

2. Prague, Czech Republic

Cost of living compared with New York City: 49.5% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $703.08 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $184.45

Commuter pass: $25.09

Cappuccino: $2.12

Domestic beer: $1.60

1. Manama, Bahrain

Cost of living compared with New York City: 42.1% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $940.43 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $84.00

Commuter pass: $39.74

Cappuccino: $4.59

Domestic beer: $9.27

27 CITIES AROUND THE WORLD WHERE EXPATS ARE HAPPY, RENTS ARE AFFORDABLE, AND JOBS ARE PLENTIFUL

2017-12-21T14:47:00.002+05:30

If you're thinking about living abroad, the best people to ask for tips might be the people who have already done it: expats.

InterNations, an expatriate network and global guide, put together a list of the best cities for living and working abroad, according to expats they surveyed.

Here are the best overall cities for expats in 2017:

27. Stockholm, Sweden

Cost of living compared with New York City: 12.8% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,406.43 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $74.58

Commuter pass: $98.96

Cappuccino: $4.33

Domestic beer: $7.15

26. Cape Town, South Africa

Cost of living compared with New York City: 59.1% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $716.30 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $58.33

Commuter pass: $24.20

Cappuccino: $1.62

Domestic beer: $2.07

25. Kampala, Uganda

Cost of living compared with New York City: 65.4%

Monthly:

Rent: $234.87 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $51.57

Commuter pass: $29.90

Cappuccino: $2.10

Domestic beer: $1.10

24. Munich, Germany

Cost of living compared with New York City: 21.8% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,057.55 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $257.57

Commuter pass: $75.83

Cappuccino: $3.36

Domestic beer: $4.43

23. Zurich, Switzerland

Cost of living compared with New York City: 36.4% higher

Monthly:

Rent: $1,842.98 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $167.61

Commuter pass: $84.36

Cappuccino: $4.93

Domestic beer: $7.03

22. Vienna, Austria

Cost of living compared with New York City: 25.8% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $922.85 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $195.74

Commuter pass: $52.51

Cappuccino: $3.64

Domestic beer: $4.20

21. Seoul, South Korea

Cost of living compared with New York City: 17% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $824.89 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $149.51

Commuter pass: $49.11

Cappuccino: $4.10

Domestic beer: $3.13

20. Hamburg, Germany

Cost of living compared with New York City: 23% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $854.88 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $259.92

Commuter pass: $102.92

Cappuccino: $3.34

Domestic beer: $4.43

19. The Hague, Netherlands

Cost of living compared to New York City: 18.7% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $987.94 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $149.17

Commuter pass: $81.67

Cappuccino: $3.10

Domestic beer: $4.67

18. Berlin, Germany

Cost of living compared with New York City: 29.7% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $874.85 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $270.39

Commuter pass: $94.49

Cappuccino: $3.06

Domestic beer: $3.62

17. Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Cost of living compared with New York City: 28% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,882.28 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $172.85

Commuter pass: $66.66

Cappuccino: $4.45

Domestic beer: $10.67

16. Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

Cost of living compared with New York City: 8.8% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,610.99 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $268.13

Commuter pass: $46.67

Cappuccino: $3.71

Domestic beer: $5.83

15. Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Cost of living compared with New York City: 34.5% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,816.94 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $103.92

Commuter pass: $21.78

Cappuccino: $4.90

Domestic beer: $9.53

14. Auckland, New Zealand

Cost of living compared with New York City: 17% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,208.88 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $131.34

Commuter pass: $138.01

Cappuccino: $3.11

Domestic beer: $6.04

13. Budapest, Hungary

Cost of living compared with New York City: 52.2% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $499.23 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $180.43

Commuter pass: $35.56

Cappuccino: $1.51

Domestic beer: $1.68

12. Muscat, Oman

Cost of living compared with New York City: 48.5% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $755.79 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $59.87

Commuter pass: $25.97

Cappuccino: $4.39

Domestic beer: $7.79

11. Mexico City, Mexico

Cost of living compared with New York City: 62.8%

Monthly:

Rent: $482.29 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $39.07

Commuter pass: $15.70

Cappuccino: $2.02

Domestic beer: $1.57

10. Frankfurt, Germany

Cost of living compared with New York City: 21.2%

Monthly:

Rent: $1,059.52 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $242.30

Commuter pass: $101.23

Cappuccino: $3.28

Domestic beer: $4.67

9. Basel, Switzerland

Cost of living compared with New York City: 29.9% higher

Monthly:

Rent: $1,351.15 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $208.64

Commuter pass: $80.30

Cappuccino: $5.29

Domestic beer: $8.03

8. Bangkok, Thailand

Cost of living compared with New York City: 45.8% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $636.70 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $83.45

Commuter pass: $30.25

Cappuccino: $2.18

Domestic beer: $2.01

7. Johannesburg, South Africa

Cost of living compared with New York City: 56.9% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $480.83 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $68.83

Commuter pass: $34.50

Cappuccino: $1.67

Domestic beer: $2.07

6. Barcelona, Spain

Cost of living compared with New York City: 34%

Monthly:

Rent: $990.58 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $153.77

Commuter pass: $58.35

Cappuccino: $2.00

Domestic beer: $3.27

5. Amsterdam, Netherlands

Cost of living compared with New York City: 16.1% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $1,646.41 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $179.19

Commuter pass: $104.92

Cappuccino: $3.18

Domestic beer: $5.25

4. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Cost of living compared with New York City: 55.6% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $540.08 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $52.45

Commuter pass: $29.85

Cappuccino: $2.53

Domestic beer: $3.58

3. Madrid, Spain

Cost of living compared with New York City: 35.2%

Monthly:

Rent: $919.92 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $138.04

Commuter pass: $63.65

Cappuccino: $1.97

Domestic beer: $3.26

2. Prague, Czech Republic

Cost of living compared with New York City: 49.5% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $703.08 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $184.45

Commuter pass: $25.09

Cappuccino: $2.12

Domestic beer: $1.60

1. Manama, Bahrain

Cost of living compared with New York City: 42.1% lower

Monthly:

Rent: $940.43 for a one-bedroom in the city center

Utilities: $84.00

Commuter pass: $39.74

Cappuccino: $4.59

Domestic beer: $9.27

People Who Found Success Despite Failures

2015-01-22T21:58:00.000+05:30

1. Walt Disney

Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star in 1919 because, his editor said, he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”

2. JK Rowling

She got fired when working at the London office of Amnesty International because she would write stories on her work computer all day long.

3. Michael Bloomberg

Bloomberg was let go when he was working as a partner at Salomon Brothers, an investment bank. Specifically, it was after the company was bought out by the company that eventually became Citigroup in 1998. His severance check is what he used to jumpstart his career, which has now led him to become the 18th richest person

4. Anna Wintour

While a junior fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar, Wintour did lots of shoots, but apparently Tony Mazalla thought they were too edgy, and so she got fired after 9 months. After which she became fashion editor at Viva.

5. Madonna

She dropped out of college, moved to new york, and took a job at Dunkin’ Donuts in Times Square, where she apparently didn’t last a day. What sealed the deal was when she squirted jelly filling all over a customer

6. Oprah Winfrey

She was an evening news reporter and apparently got fired because she couldn’t sever her emotions from her stories. Eventually she was fired from the producer of Baltimore’s WJZ-TV.

7. Jerry Seinfeld

He was fired after a poor performance on his very minor role on the sitcom Benson. Apparently no one told him he had been fired and he only found out about it when he showed up for a read-through and discovered his part was missing from the script.

8. Truman Capote

He dropped out of high school to take a job as a copy boy for theNew Yorker. He was eventually fired by the New Yorker, not because he was a bad employee, but because two years after being hired he went to go see Robert Frost read and, deeply sick, Capote left in the middle of the performance. Apparently Frost was deeply insulted and, knowing where Capote worked, demanded that he be fired. Which he was.

9. Howard Stern

He was fired by NBC when he was working as a DJ on WNBC. Then he found XM and the rest is history.

10. Elvis

After a performance at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry, Elvis was told by the concert hall manager that he was better off returning to Memphis and driving trucks (his former career).

11. Thomas Edison

He worked at Western Union where he used to secretly conduct experiments. Then, one night in 1867, he spilled some acid and it ate through the entire floor. He was fired and subsequently decided to just pursue inventing full time.

12. Kerry Washington

Before making it on Scandal, she had done two pilots. The shows of those pilots got picked up, but unfortunately Kerry was replaced in both shows by a different actress.

13. Steve Jobs

Jobs was fired from his own company.

14. Lady Gaga

When she was finally signed onto a major record label, Gaga was dropped and only after three months of being signed.

15. Wilco

When Wilco released Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in 2001, an album that wasn’t quite in line with their previous music, their label Reprise Records refused to release the album and dropped Wilco from its roster. Wilco ended up streaming the album on their website for free and it was eventually given a commercial release in 2002.

16. Bill Gates

When he dropped out of Harvard he started a business with Paul Allen called Traf-O-Data, which flopped. Luckily, they tried their hand at business again and this time Microsoft was born.

17. Albert Einstein

He didn’t speak until he was four and didn’t read until he was seven. He was subsequently expelled from school and was not admitted to the Zurich Polytechnic School. Long story short, he came around.

18. Charles Darwin

Darwin was not hell-bent on becoming a scientist his whole life, thanks to his dad, who called him lazy and too dreamy. Darwin once wrote, “I was considered by all my masters and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.”

19. Isaac Newton

Sure Newton was a wiz at math, but he did not excel when it came to other subjects. He never thrived in school and when he was once put in charge of running the family farm, he failed terribly. That was when he was sent off to Cambridge and the rest is history.

20. Socrates

He was a visionary but at the time he was living, his innovative ideas labeled him an “immoral corrupter of youth” and lead him to his death sentence. Despite this, he persevered until the moment he was forced to poison himself.

21. Abraham Lincoln

When Lincoln was young and entered war, he entered as a Captain but came back as a much lower Private. Later on, he tried to start up a ton of businesses, all of which failed, and before becoming president, he lost several runs for public office

22. Lucille Ball

Before her iconic show I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball was considered a failed actress, a B-list actress. So much so that her drama instructors urged her to try another profession.

23. Marilyn Monroe

When she was trying to start her career, modeling agencies told her she should consider becoming a secretary.

24. Vincent van Gogh

It’s hard to believe, but during his lifetime Van Gogh received hardly any acclaim for his work. While alive, he only sold one of his paintings, and that was to a friend for a very small amount of money. Despite this, he continued working throughout his life, never seeing success himself, though his paintings now are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

25. Emily Dickinson

Though loved now, Dickinson was not so during her waking hours. In fact, while alive, less than a dozen of her poems were published out of about 1800 complete works.

26. Steven Spielberg

Ironically, Spielberg was rejected from the University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television three times. He was eventually accepted by another school, a school which he dropped out of to pursue directing. In 2002, Spielberg finally completed his BA.

27. Stephen King

King’s most renowned and first book, Carrie, was rejected thirty times. King decided to toss the book, which his wife then went through the trash to rescue and convinced him to re-submit it.

28. Claude Monet

While alive, Monet’s work was mocked and rejected by the artistic elite, the Paris Salon.

29. Michael Jordan

He was cut from his high school basketball team. He once said, “I have missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the gam winning shot, and I have missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

30. Babe Ruth

His home run record is 714 during his career. But he still had a total of 1330 strikeouts. At one point, he held the record for strikeouts. He once said, “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”

31. Don Imus

The talk show host on MSNBC was fired in 2007 because he referred to Rutgers University women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos.”

32. Stephen Glass

He was fired in 1998 from associate editor of The New Republicbecause he fabricated all or parts of twenty-seven reported pieces

33. Robert Redford

He was fired from his job as Unskilled worker for Standard Oil in 1954 because he was found asleep in an oil tank he was supposed to clean.

34. Rudyard Kipling

He was fired as his role as contributor to the San Francisco Examiner in 1889 because he was told by an editor, “I’m sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”

35. Henry Hudson

In 1611, he was fired from his role as Commander of the Discovery while exploring the New World because he was suspected of favoritism and food hoarding. Apparently the crew members rebelled, setting him, his son and others off in a skiff in what is now the Hudson Bay.

There is no success without failure

Decide what is important to you and take huge steps everyday even though it doesn't seem like it's working. Success doesn't happen without failures. It's reality.

Deal with it.

How bad do you want to achieve your goal? It better be so bad that rejection won't derail you.

How much do you believe in what you're doing? Colonel Sanders did despite 1009 rejections!

"Fall down seven times, get up eight." - Japanese proverb

Let these examples inspire you every day.

The Art of Reading Faces

2014-12-09T22:48:00.000+05:30

For centuries, people have tried to understand aspects of a person’s character just by looking at their face. The ancient Chinese believed that your face was a reflection of your inner spirit. In Medieval Europe, beauty was considered to be synonymous with virtue, and ugliness was sometimes considered a sign of evil. Even in more recent times, phrenology — the study of the shape of the skull — was used erroneously to identify the guilt of suspected criminals. As recently as the 19th century, this remained a popular school of thought.

While these once fashionable ideas have been disproved by modern studies, there are still aspects of the face that may allow us to make a judgment on somebody else. This was made more popular by the TV show Lie to Me, in which Tim Roth played a man who is an expert at reading faces to discover what is really going on with that person. We don’t claim this to be an exact science, and it may be worth putting it in a similar bracket to things like astrology and palm reading. There are apparently over 100 points on the face that can be analyzed, but we aren’t going to tell you about all of them. However, for anyone who has an interest in what their face may be revealing to others, you may just find a kernel of truth somewhere in here.

Face shape

Round: A person with a round face is considered to have a more emotional personality and may be sensitive and caring. Apparently, you guys have very strong sexual fantasies and enjoy being in stable, long-term relationships.

Oblong: Oblong types are considered to be very practical, methodical and with a tendency to overwork. You are most likely to have a muscular or athletic physique, which some equate to narcissism and may lead to problems in relationships.

Square: A square face is linked to fire and you may appear as aggressive, ambitious or domineering. You have a sharp, analytical mind and are decisive.

Triangular: These face shapes are traditionally associated with a thin body and an intellectual persuasion. Chinese face readers associate this face with creativity and sensitivity, as well as a fiery temperament.

The Forehead

A wide forehead is supposedly a sign of cleverness and practicality, as well as being idealistic and someone who has many ideas. If your forehead is flat, it indicates someone who is pragmatic, logical and expresses themselves through facts. If you have an "exaggerated" forehead, it references a dreamer, someone who needs a firm plan of action to go alongside their ambitions.

The eyes
How to tell if someone might be lying:

Made famous by Richard Bandler and his ideas of Neuro Linguistic Programming, the idea is that where someone looks as they speak is an indication of what they are thinking. If you ask someone a question and they look up to their right (your left), it means they are accessing their creative brain, which indicates a visual construction. Up to their left indicates they are accessing a visual memory and are likely to be telling the truth. Similarly, looking directly to their right indicates an auditory construction (a lie), and to the left is an auditory memory (the truth).

The shape of the eye may also be revealing. There is a lot of detail here, but we will just cover some of the basics. Prominent eyes that glitter brightly are preferable to small, shifty eyes that display a nervous temperament. Unevenly set eyes suggest a person who looks at things from different perspectives, and often have startling insights into problems thanks to their ingenuity. Eyes that slant upward denote somebody who is an opportunist and are people who know how to get what they want. Many supermodels have this look — as do cats. Finally, deep-set eyes belong to people with an intense, possessive (but observant) nature, and are often associated with writers and creative types.

How widely set your eyes are may also be revealing. Narrow set eyes suggest a narrow view of the world, while wide set eyes are more tolerant and broadminded. They may also have scant regard for authority figures.

Finally, be aware of what is described as "the look." While this is something that cannot be expressed in words, it is something we can instinctively detect when we look at someone. The eyes are the window to the soul, and being able to detect whether they are cold, cruel, warm or amorous is something we all get a feeling for just by looking at someone.

Eyebrows

Weak or fine eyebrows are believed to suggest someone who is quite indecisive and sometimes lacking in confidence. Conversely, people with bushy eyebrows value assertiveness and tend to have quite strong personalities. Having a unibrow signifies an intense personality, which may be prone to jealousy and possessiveness. These are people who think an awful lot, which may suggest an introspective personality.

The Nose
The ideal nose has a high, straight, full and fleshy tip with gently flared, but protected, nostrils. The fleshy tip indicates cordiality and warmth of personality and deep empathy with others. These types set high standards for themselves and are good mannered. An oversize nose tip results in violent tendencies. The larger the nose tip, the more prone they are to an act of violence. An Aquiline nose portrays strong will, independence and enterprise, while an upturned nose suggests luck in social circumstances and a love of mixing with people.

Mouth
The mouth is linked to communication and sensuality, and the shape of the lips can be quite revealing. A thin top lip and a full bottom lip may indicate someone who cannot reciprocate in a relationship. The opposite arrangement suggests someone who may be overly giving. Full round lips convey a caring and sensitive nature, while small lips are indicative of a mean and self-centered personality. Downward curves suggest someone who will be very hard to please, while upward curves indicate an optimistic character.

Jaw line
A strong jaw indicates someone who has a very strong value system and may judge you very quickly. The stronger the jaw line, the greater someone’s stamina and endurance. These people may also be considered stubborn.

In contrast, a weak or receding jaw would suggest somebody who has a weaker willed personality and may be susceptible to the influences of others.

Finally, a jawline that is wider than the ear line denotes someone who is incredibly competitive and hates losing. They do not brook competition.

Wrinkles

Crow’s feet (the wrinkles around the eyes) are said to be "joy lines." They are said to be a sign of an open heart and someone who spreads joy as they go. The vertical frown lines that appear between the eyes reveal a very logical person — someone who works hard and can be very decisive. The lines that extend from the nose to the mouth are called purpose lines. The emergence of these lines are said to denote people who are moving along the right life path.

An open book
While we can’t say for sure whether these facial characteristics genuinely reveal aspects of a person’s character, they may be worth considering when you meet people — in case they do offer you any small insights. Maybe they will keep you away from that potential bunny boiler.

Chinese e-commerce giant - Alibaba Group

2014-12-02T11:23:00.000+05:30

Alibaba.com is an e-commerce site that connects Chinese suppliers with buyers at home and abroad. Today, Alibaba Group is involved in a variety of Web businesses. Its most important elements are its online retail sites: Taobao Marketplace, a large commerce site; Tmall, an online marketplace for name-brand retailers like Apple; and Juhuasuan, a daily deals site similar to Groupon. The company is also affiliated to mobile payments service called AliPay, and it has investments in online video, mobile messaging and cloud computing, among other businesses. The company that started in 1999 by Jack Ma, a former teacher from his apartment in his hometown of Hangzhou, now employs 24,000 workers at its headquarters in Hangzhou and elsewhere, with 25 separate business units.

Alibaba Products:

Alibaba has built a massive e-commerce business without selling even a single pair of jeans, washing machine, or book. What it sells instead are consumers, and it sells them in groups to retailers who pay for clicks, keywords, ad views, and sales.

Unlike Amazon, Alibaba itself does not sell and ship items to customers. Instead, it acts as a kind of online bazaar where merchants as small as local vendors and as large as Nike can sell their wares. Alibaba makes money mainly by convincing these sellers to place search ads on its website to reach more potential customers through keywords (like Google) or by charging a commission on some transactions (like eBay). The company also makes money by selling premium memberships, cloud computing services and access to analytics data.

How does Alibaba make money?

Alibaba has already been called so many things–the Amazon of China, the biggest IPO of all time, the harbinger of a new Internet era—that it can be hard to pin down exactly what Alibaba does and how it makes money.

A recent Forrester Research report called Alibaba ―the world’s biggest digital ecosystem.‖ That description provides a pretty good indication of its sprawling operation. About 84% of the company’s revenue comes from its China commerce businesses, such as Taobao and Tmall sites. International commerce accounts for 12% of the top line, while cloud-computing and Internet infrastructure represents 1.9%.

On the consumer side, Alibaba operates Taobao, which works much like eBay, and Tmall, which brands like Apple and Uniqlo use to reach out to an estimated 302 million online shoppers in China. Taobao, which does not charge transaction fees, makes money mainly through advertising purchased by traders who use the site. Many traders spend money on advertising to make their products more visible, because there are more than 800 million pieces on Taobao. While almost anyone can become a seller on Taobao with little cost in advance, Tmall is the most exclusive site. Trademarks and authorized distributors pay the deposit to open storefronts after going through a stringent verification process.

It runs AliExpress, a site to connect consumers outside China with exporters, and a group shopping site, Jujuasuan. Its flagship site, Alibaba.com, handles wholesale business-to-business commerce, a huge market that neither Amazon nor eBay yet dominates online. It has a small business-to-small business marketplace, 1688.com. And it offers cloud computing in the style of Amazon Web Services. Alibaba is also tied to online payments giant Alipay and is used for buying products across Alibaba’s sites.

Success Mantra:

Chinese are tight-fisted. So Alibaba made all the basic services it offers free to both buyers and sellers. It earns money through online advertisements and extra services it offers clients, such as website design. The second is that many Chinese are reluctant to trust strangers. So Alibaba has provided tools to build trust. One is an independent verification service through which third parties vet the claims made by sellers; the sellers pay for the process. Another is the Alipay payments system, which takes money up front and puts it in an escrow account. Vendors can be sure that payments made through it will be honoured.

Number Games:

But don’t just believe the rhetoric. Believe the numbers. The Wall Street Journal has reported that the combined transaction volume of Taobao e-commerce marketplace and Tmall reached $240 billion last year. That’s triple the size of eBay Inc., and more than double the size of Amazon.com Inc.

Sales across Alibaba’s consumer marketplaces were $296 billion over the past year. By comparison, eBay in 2013 sold $76.5 billion in merchandise, only about $5 billion more than Alibaba sold on mobile devices alone. Total payment volume on Alipay in 2013 was $519 billion, more than double PayPal’s total of $180 billion in the same year.

Data Driven:

The sheer volume of commerce moving across Alibaba’s many platforms means the company likely has the most comprehensive and most detailed picture of consumer behaviour in the largest consumer market on the planet—a market whose spending power continues to grow. With great depth and breadth of visibility into consumer behaviour, Alibaba will be able to assemble a highly detailed profile of its consumers — which allows it to become much smarter and sell far more.

Global Perspective:

Alibaba does a huge amount of business—and compared to Amazon, it does business much more efficiently. Unlike Amazon, Alibaba doesn’t own its own inventory. Its marketplaces handle the selling, not the stuff itself. Even Alibaba’s logistics operation exists to coordinate deliveries, not to make them. Through its cooperation with 14 strategic delivery partners, Alibaba uses more than 950,000 delivery personnel. It also has more than 980,000 cloud computing customers. The company also has more than 342,000 small businesses taking out loans from the company.

Alibaba has so far managed to achieve profit margins. In its most recent fiscal year, Alibaba’s net profit margin—net profits divided by revenue—was greater than 44 percent, a figure that has climbed steadily over the past few years. Amazon’s net profit margin in 2013, by comparison, was less than 1 percent. Net margins at Google and Apple last year hovered at just above 20 percent.

Conclusion:

Jack ma’s vision of making Alibaba reach its pinnacle of success can be estimated when he states that ―There were three reasons why we survived. We had no money, we had no technology, and we had no plan. Every dollar, we used very carefully.‖ The company’s breakneck growth in China shows no signs of abating, and Alibaba also has plans to compete on U.S. shores. In September, 2014, Alibaba launched its IPO. The company raised $21.8 billion when it priced its IPO at $68 per share, making it the largest offering in U.S. history. That opening price puts Alibaba’s overall valuation at almost $230 billion, more than Amazon and eBay’s valuations combined.

Many questions still dog Alibaba, like concerns about corporate governance, China’s uncertain regulatory environment, and competition from other Chinese internet behemoths. But what works in Alibaba’s favour is the depth and breadth of data that puts it in the same league as the biggest U.S.-based tech platforms.

Digital India Initiative

2014-12-02T10:51:00.000+05:30

What is it?

It has long been Modi’s dream to serve India via e- governance. The Digital India initiative aims to connect rural regions and remote villages ensuring that they too have high-speed Internet services. With this ambitious project, villagers will not have to travel long distances to the concerned departments.

The Digital India programme is a transformed version of the already running National e-Governance Plan. The project aims to provide thrust to nine pillars identified as growth areas. These pillars include - broadband highways, everywhere mobile connectivity, Public Internet Access Programme, e-Governance, e-Kranti (which aims to give electronic delivery of services), information for all, electronics manufacturing, IT for Jobs and early harvest programmes. The project is expected to be completed by 2019.

Budget

The Union Cabinet has approved the Digital India project, which has a total overlay of Rs 1 lakh crore. Among the multiple projects that come under the Digital India initiative, the national broadband plan will cost the most with Rs 500 crore allocated for it.

The national information infrastructure will provide all necessary e-governance services at a cost of Rs.15, 686 crore and be ready by March 2017. The plan will also ensure universal access to mobile phones to 42,311 villages in the country that are still unconnected by June 2015 at a cost of Rs.16, 000 crore.

The plan also talks of creating five new electronic manufacturing clusters in the next five years. The plan will also create skill development centres to produce a workforce of 400,000 for the electronics sector in the next five years at a cost of Rs.575 core.

Monitoring:

The plan will be monitored ensure smooth implementation including the ministers of finance, communications, rural development, human resources development and health as members under Narendra Modi’s chairmanship.

The new posts of 'Chief Information Officers' (CIO) would be created. Besides, a Digital India Advisory Group (DIAG) would also be created. It will supervise the implementation of the programme and advise the government on policy issues for accelerating the implementation of Digital India Programme.

Digital India Advisory Group

Digital India Advisory Group will be formed and will be chaired by the Minister of Communications and IT. There will be an Apex Committee which will be chaired by the Cabinet Secretary and the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) or Committee on Non Plan Expenditure (CNE).

Advantages:

Digital India aims to bringing existing initiatives such as the Ebiz project, E-kranti, virtual classroom, e-visas and the National Optical Fibre Network project under a single umbrella. Government is also planning to enhance mobile connectivity in areas affected by left-wing extremism. When implemented Digital India will connect 2.5 lakh villages by broadband and phones, decrease import of telecom imports to zero and create 1.7 crore direct and 8.5 crore indirect jobs.

Citizens will be able to easily access government services in real time on mobile phones and online, in Indian languages. Department of Telecom is planning to make Wi-Fi hot spots in cities with population of over 10 lakh and in tourist centers under the Digital India program.

Silicon Valley Players:

US technology giants are eager to get involved in Digital India and Smart Cities projects. U.S.-based global technology giant IBM expressed keen interest to participate in the initiative.

After Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg is the third CEO of an internationally known corporation who has visited India. The queue of American technology giants seeking to collaborate in the Digital India drive reflects the growing confidence in investor sentiment in India. Amazon, Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and eBay have also shown interest to expand their operations in the e-commerce space and participate in the government’s ‘Digital India’ programme.

Why digital India?

As a rapidly modernising India embarks on a drive to move governance online, bridging the so-called digital divide is essential.

In two years, 150,000 post offices will be transformed into multi-utility centres (providing a range of government services, banking for instance, and not just postal services). Some 250,000 government schools will get broadband and free Wi-Fi and all schoolbooks will have e-versions.

For the government, the digital push could bring immediate benefits in terms of cost savings in delivery of public services. The digital drive is also integral to the government’s plan to create 100 smart cities. Under the plan, all cities with a population of more than a million will get public Wi-Fi hotspots. All government communication will move to a universal secure email client.

Conclusion:

Prime Minister Modi is certainly right in prioritising Internet access and digital infrastructure but running a race without knowing the finishing line is a losing game. The idea of Internet penetration is one to be hailed. This initiative is widely welcomed since the government is working towards it but is this really the need at the moment? Is internet penetration the answer to the million problems that grips this country? These are some questions that need to be answered.

Why Marketing Needs More Introverts

2014-10-13T16:18:00.000+05:30

Susan Cain’s book “Quiet” has provided wonderful insight to me, because I am an introvert. Cain’s core premise is that western culture overvalues extroverts and under-utilizes introverts. Introverts prefer less stimulation and quiet concentration. We listen more than we talk, think before we speak, and focus on relationships. Introverts focus on the meaning of events around us, while extroverts focus on the events themselves.

If I had to bet, the best marketers of tomorrow will likely be far more introverted than the average marketer is today. I would even argue that marketing needs more introverts—people who will spend more time listening than talking, reflecting deeply on meaning, and building fewer, deeper relationships.

Three fundamental trends will drive this.

First, as power continues to shift to the consumer, listening becomes a more valuable asset. Consumers have more products, brands, and retailers to choose from than ever. Pricing is much more transparent. And it is far easier to complain and talk back to brands, thanks to social media. According to Nielsen, nearly half of U.S. consumers use social media for that purpose. How leaders react to feedback is now paramount. The authors of a 2010 HBR article shared two test situations with introverted or extroverted leaders and tested how they reacted to proactive suggestions from employees. The introverted leaders performed much more strongly and yielded better business results—14% higher profits and 28% higher productivity in the two test situations. In a world where consumers are increasingly proactive, introverted marketers may have the edge.

Second, advertising will continue to shift from advertiser monologues to dialogues–and even reverse monologues—as highly engaged consumers showcase their creativity and love for certain brands. Since introverts listen more than extroverts, it makes sense that introverted marketers will be more willing to loosen their control of their brands and listen to consumers for inspiration. As Cain recently noted, “An extrovert can quite unwittingly get so excited about things that they’re putting their own stamp on things and other people’s ideas may not bubble up to the surface.”

Finally, super consumers—the top 10% of highly engaged consumers who can drive 50% of category profit—will continue to increase in importance and determine which brands win and which don’t. Super consumers have always been important, but finding them is easier than ever via traditional marketing, digital marketing, and geographic/local marketing. This creates more time to engage in a deeper conversation with a few key consumers, something that introverts by nature prefer. Reflecting on fewer, deeper discussions increases the likelihood of uncovering emotional and life aspirational insights—the ones that create real pricing power.

Time will tell if I am right. But the more I have considered Cain’s praise for introverts, the more I have realized that during my career, some of the best marketers I have worked with have been introverts. One marketing vice president at a former client launched a new product quietly in a few select markets that came up as a result of quiet reflection as he listened to super consumers, retailers, and his R&D staff. It grew to nearly $100 million in sales with minimal advertising support. This marketer eventually left the corporate world because he couldn't stand the pontificating, posturing, and politics that are sometimes required in corporate world—behaviors that are probably due to the prevalence of extroverts in that world. He’s now a happy, thriving, and self-employed options trader—a profession that better suits his personality.

I also know of a crew of very talented marketers with a strong track record of success who left traditional marketing jobs for new roles within retail. They have found it to be an introvert’s paradise. They spend more time launching new brands and products than lobbying for resources. They spend more time listening and responding to their shoppers’ and consumers’ feedback about their new products in real time than telling them about the products in the first place. One of the telltale signs of success is that they built a $300 million new brand in a fraction of the time it would have taken elsewhere.

Of course, the conclusion is not that extroverts can’t be great marketers or that all introvert marketers will succeed. But hopefully the marketing departments of corporate world will become increasingly introvert-friendly. Introverts have traits that will be even more valuable for success in tomorrow’s world—and I, for one, am tired of seeing them leave marketing.

European Debt Crisis

2014-10-08T10:28:00.000+05:30

What is European debt crisis? It is the failure of Euro, the currency that unites together 17 European countries in an intimate but flawed manner.

Over the past 3 years, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain have all fallen down to the brink of collapse, threatening to bring down the entire continent and the rest of the world. How did it happen?

For most of Europe's history, it's been in a war within itself. Countries at war with each other tend to do less business with each other. Europe was always a continent of trade barriers, tariffs and different currencies. Doing business across borders was difficult. You needed to pay a fee to exchange currencies, and you needed to pay tariff fee to buy and sell to the companies in other countries. That tendered to stifle economic growth.

Then came World War 2, which devastated Europe. Because the situation was so worse, the fastest way to rebuild Europe was to begin to remove these barriers. Steel and coal tariffs came down, so that the steel mill in one country could sell to a builder in another. This gave the survivors an idea - "A unified Europe". A union across the continent that would end all future wars. Countries began to bend towards this goal, bringing down trade barriers, lowering the cost of doing business. One of the last barriers to fall was the Berlin Wall. With a united Germany, Europe was ready.

27 countries signed the Maastricht Treaty and created the European Union. This made doing business across borders easier. But there was still one major obstacle - different currencies. A decade later they had won. The Euro launched on January 1st, 1999. The countries adopting the Euro, called the Euro area, discontinued their own currencies. They also discontinued their own monetary policies, giving control to the newly formed European Central Bank, commonly referred to as the ECB. The Euro area had one unified monetary policy, but it still had many different fiscal policies, a key reason for the debt crisis.

Monetary policy controls the money supply, literally how much money there is in the economy and what the interest rates are for borrowing money. Fiscal money controls how much money a government collects in taxes and how much it spends. A government can only spend as much it collects in taxes. Anything above that amount it has to borrow. This is called deficit spending.

Before the Euro, countries like Greece not only had to pay high interest rates to borrow, but they can only borrow so much. Lenders weren't comfortable lending them too much money. But now as they were part of the Euro area, the amount they could borrow sky-rocketed. Smaller countries had access to credit like never before. Greece and other countries which previously could only borrow at rates around 18% could now borrow at the same rate as Germany.

Joining the Euro area is lot more like sharing a credit card, Germany's credit card. Lenders now believed that if Greece was unable to repay its loans, Germany and other big economies of Europe would step in and repay them because they were now bound by common currency. With a new abundance of cheap credit, Greece and other European countries were able to adjust their fiscal policies and increase spending to previously impossible levels.

Some countries embarked on huge deficit spending programs, primarily for politicians to get elected. They made promises such as more jobs and generous pensions, all of it paid for by the new money they could now borrow. The governments of Greece, Portugal and Italy accumulated huge debts. However, they were able to repay these debts with more borrowed money. As long as the borrowing continued, so did the spending and the unbalanced fiscal policies. In Ireland and Spain, cheap credit fueled enormous housing bubbles, just as they did in United States.

Credit flowed, debt accumulated and the economies of Europe became tightly intertwined. Companies began opening factories and offices across Europe. German banks lending to French companies, French banks lending to Spanish companies, and so on and so forth. This made doing business incredibly efficient, but at the same time tying together the collective fate of the Euro area. Things continued this way as long as credit was available, and credit was available until 2008.

Spread by a collapse in US housing market, a credit crisis swept the globe, bringing borrowing to a halt everywhere. Suddenly, the Greek economy couldn't function. It couldn't borrow money for all the new jobs and benefits it created. It couldn't borrow new money to pay its old debts. This was the problem for Greece, but because of the unified monetary policy, it was also the problem for all of the Europe. Much of the Europe had been on a spending spree and borrowed more money it could ever repay. But the problem is somebody has to step in or else every country in the Euro area will suffer. Since the countries that ran up the bill couldn't repay, everyone looked at Germany.

As the biggest and the strongest economy in Europe, Germany reluctantly agreed to help bail out the debtor countries. In other words, Germany agreed to repay the bills, but only if the debtor countries agreed to implement strict austerity measures to insure that will never happen again. Austerity measures meant sucking it up, cutting the spending, borrowing less and paying back more debt. This sounds like a simple solution. It's not!

First of all, nobody wants austerity. Austerity means cutting government spending and since the government is, by far, the biggest spendor in any economy. When government cuts spending, it cuts the earnings of many of its citizens. People lose jobs, they get angry, they riot in the streets and austerity doesn't automatically balance the country's budget. The government collects taxes based on people's earnings. So when earnings are reduced, the government collects less in taxes, they still can't pay down their debts. On top of this, there are huge cultural differences within the Europe.

Germany is very financially responsible. Ever since the terrible hyper inflation the country experienced after World War 1, it has been extremely inflation averse and incredibly careful about spending and borrowing. In general, Germans work hard. They expect little state benefits, and meticulously pay all of their taxes. Many Greeks, on the other hand, enjoy generous state benefits and don't pay taxes. Greece has a terrible problem, it has never collected majority of the taxes it imposes on its citizens and it has always been this way. Joining the Euro just amplified it. The German view is, that doesn't work. If you want our money, you need our morals.

As the debtor countries headed towards the fall, the whole continent of Europe was in danger. Even though the economies of the debtor countries are relatively small, they posed a huge threat because the European financial system is so interconnected, precisely, because of the Euro. The debtor countries borrowed money from banks, investors and other countries throughout Europe. As the debtor countries get closer to default, everyone who lent them money becomes weaker, and everyone who lent those lenders money also becomes weaker, and so on and so forth. A problem in country could reverberate across the whole continent, triggering a chain reaction of default. If Greece defaults, then Spain will default, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, then France, then Germany. Pretty soon, it could spread not just across Europe, but across the world.

The problem is even if the debtor nations adopt austerity measures and even if the bail out from Germany and the stronger countries helps them pay down their debts and avoid the immediate crisis, there is no system in place to prevent it from happening again. This brings us back to the fundamental division of monetary policy and fiscal policy. Ultimately, the Euro area requires a fiscal union to match its monetary union, or neither. That is, there must be a political organization with authority to set fiscal policy within every Euro area country. It must have the power to cut spending, raise taxes and set laws. A fiscal union like this could actually prevent excessive borrowing and spending.

However, this is an enormously complicated and unpopular notion. It means surrendering sovereignty to a higher power. In essence, a United States of Europe. Yet without a centralized fiscal union, countries will continue to run deficits, accumulate debt, degrade the value of the Euro, and threaten the stability of Europe. Can Europe take the necessary steps and create a fiscal union alongside the monetary union, or will the monetary union break up and may Euro disappear?

An On-Offline Revolution

2014-09-20T14:57:00.000+05:30

A successful retail supply chain must manage the flows of information, product and funds effectively. Retailers want to show customers all the product variety they have to offer, and customers, in turn, gain from knowing if a specific product is available in stock. While an online retailer can help online customers search through a wide variety of products, it cannot access customers who are not online.

Using the online channel, it also cannot provide sensory information that is only available once a product is seen, touched and felt. In contrast, a small local retailer cannot carry a wide variety of products and is often forced to convince customers to buy what is available.

Imagine a future where the local retailer carries the most popular variants of product, while its online partner carries all the others. The local retailer is linked to the online retailer’s website through a simple store computer. The combination of the local and online retailers is able to provide all the information a customer desires.

Pull Down the Wall

Online players in India have had to work hard to access customers who either do not have a credit card or are reluctant to use it online. To access cash payments, online players have had to create infrastructure, at least part of which is available with local retailers. The development and acceptance of phone payments make the combination of channels even more effective.

But it is in the era of product flow where the complementary strengths of online and local retailers can together make the biggest gains. The online channel can offer a wide variety of products while keeping all costs other than transportation quite low.

A comparison of the 2013 financials of online diamond retailer Blue Nile and brick-and-mortar retailer Zales highlights the strengths of the online channel. While Blue Nile offers over a lakh stones on its site, a typical Zales store carries well below a thousand. Blue Nile is able to offer this wide variety while turning its inventory more than 10 times per year. In contrast, Zales turns its inventory just over once a year.

Blue River Strategy

Blue Nile’s low investment in physical infrastructure allows it to obtain about $44 of revenue per dollar invested in its property, plant and equipment. In contrast, Zales generates around $17 of revenue per dollar invested in property, plant and equipment. Further, the large number of personnel that Zales employs at its stores increases its selling, general and administrative expenses to over 48% of revenues. In contrast, the centralized operations of Blue Nile lower its selling, general and administrative expenses to about 15%.

The only cost where Blue Nile loses is the cost of shipping. This cost is, however, low, given the high value of the product being shipped. In other words, the online operation allows Blue Nile to achieve a low-cost model to deliver a wide variety of slow-moving – especially high-value – products. For slow-moving products, the brick-and-mortar channel is profitable only if it adds value in a way that the customer is willing to pay a higher price (such as Tiffany).

A review of the 2013 financials of Costco and Amazon indicates that the former has lower selling, general and administrative expenses (9.6% vs 26.2%), higher inventory turns (11.6% vs 7.3%) and comparable revenue per dollar invested in infrastructure (7.6% vs 6.8%). How does Costco achieve lower costs despite a brick-and-mortar infrastructure? The key is that it sells a small variety of fast-moving products. For these products, Costco has very low costs. Amazon has to incur high transportation costs, which in 2012 amounted to over 8% of revenues.

Brick-and-mortar supply chains have lower costs when it comes to selling fast-moving products that have high shipping costs relative to value. Parle-G glucose biscuits would be a classic example of a fast-moving, low-value product of India. No online player can compete with local retailers on cost here.

Iron Out the Wrinkles

Consider a product like an iron to press clothes. A cursory view of the Flipkart website on July 14 showed well over 300 choices, with some selling at just over Rs 400. While Flipkart can effectively provide the wide variety at low cost, it may be more effective if a few of the popular variants were carried by local retailers in partnership with Flipkart. In fact, Flipkart could suggest the merchandize mix its local partner should carry based on the variants particularly popular in the neighborhood.

Flipkart and its local partners could now offer a complete omni-channel experience and serve a wide variety of customers. Local customers who want to pay by cash and do not have internet access can come to the local store, where they can buy the local variants immediately. But they can also access the over 300 variants that are not carried at the store but are available online. If they chose a variant not available at the store, they can have it delivered at home, or pick it up at the store, once it is delivered from the Flipkart warehouse.

In developed markets such as the US and Japan, retailers are working hard to create an omni-channel experience that is both responsive to customer needs and profitable for retailers. India offers a unique opportunity to take advantage of existing assets in the form of local retailers to create this future. A lot of work will have to be done both on terms of policy changes by the government and investment in improved information and fund-flow infrastructure by small retailers.

Rather than think of the new and the old as engaged in zero-sum game, we should work to create a future with both that grows the size of the pie that the two can share.

Indian Politics Reshaping International Business

2014-08-26T01:45:00.003+05:30

With the ongoing slowdown destroying entire generation’s chances of living at developed nation levels of income, the newly-elected Modi government seems to be well-prepared for the challenges to be thrown in his path of revival of Indian economy. Fast-tracking the decision making process by government has so far supported that so-called “good days” might not be too far for the Indian population.

The huge investments as well as mergers & acquisitions going on in all the sectors indicate the returning faith of various business houses on Indian economy. Government’s plan of stake sales in public sector companies like SAIL, CIL and ONGC for increasing the participation of private companies in Indian economy shows Narendra Modi’s confidence on private sector. A lot of major foreign players are highly interested in entering the Indian market. The government has taken a large number of initiatives to make India a business friendly nation.

Multinational companies (MNCs) are finding it tough going in China. Last month, Beijing launched a dramatic investigation into Microsoft’s allegedly monopolistic practices by raiding four of its offices. A few days before, KFC and McDonald’s were in the spotlight. Starbucks, Nestle, Volkswagen, Jaguar, Google, Mitsubishi… the list of companies finding themselves at the sharp end of the stick is growing.

Coming on top of slowing economy, rising costs, growing infringement of intellectual property and regional tensions, this pattern of harassment is creating consternation in the boardrooms of many western and Japanese companies. These firms are beginning to worry about their exposure to China, which remains a hugely important market. This anxiety is India’s opportunity.

Japanese contribution to China’s spectacular economic development has been immense, with Japanese companies providing both capital and technology on a massive scale. China’s emergence as a major power with expanding economic and military capabilities is beginning to change the contours of the economic and security architecture in the Indo-Pacific region. On the economic front, China is already a central component of a region-wide trade and investment network. On the security front, it competes with a still pre-eminent United States and would prefer to inherit the dominance that the latter has enjoyed for the past several decades.

Neither India nor Japan view the prospect of a China-centric Asia as compatible with their own long-term interests, and see merit in working together and with other concerned powers to actively shape the emerging architecture towards an open, an inclusive, a transparent and, above all, a balanced structure.

With West Asia in turmoil and a growing cold war between Russia and the West, rising nationalism in China may be just the opportunity for India. Russia’s souring relationship with the West provides India the opportunity to grab a slice of the Russian market in items that have been traditionally supplied by Western countries.

Setting up a $100 billion development bank by the BRICS emerging market nations is a clear indication of their agenda of reshaping the Western-dominated international financial system.

With nearly 15 million young people entering the workforce every year and creaky pre-Independence era infrastructure, India cannot progress without massive infrastructure investments and a global manufacturing sector that employs millions. Narendra Modi’s visit to Nepal for reducing China’s grip over Nepal by offering a $1 billion concessional loan will be a huge boost for Indian infrastructure companies.

India’s desire to increase nuclear capacity 3-fold from the present level by 2024, Rs 100,000 crore deal with France for fighter jets, naval activities with US and Japan, raising FDI limit in defence sector are all directed towards making India a self-sufficient nation in terms of national security, in case tensions build up with China or Pakistan. The recent development of strong ties with Bhutan places India in a stronger position than before.

To become even a middle-income country, India must take its place besides China as the world’s factory and that means making India a competitive location relative to other hungry nations such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and Mexico that are all vying to take business away from China. It also requires that we integrate ourselves with the global trading system.

Yes, opening up FDI limits in insurance and defence represents progress. But the budget fell short of many expectations.

The PM appears to be focusing his energy on improving execution which is, of course, critical. But there is little evidence yet of substantive policy shift. This is why many global CEOs, while hopeful, are still taking a ‘let’s wait and see’ approach to investing in India. At such a moment, India’s shocking behavior at WTO, euphemistically called “tough diplomacy”, is not going to help. There is a difference between taking a tough stand and irresponsible behavior.

To be taken seriously, it is essential, but not sufficient, to have a strong economy. India must also be seen as a responsible global citizen on matters of trade and security. Bringing WTO to the brink on the grounds of self-interest is not responsible.

There will be many issues where our self-interest conflicts with the existing international system. Take climate change or the matter of pharmaceuticals where intellectual property protection must be balanced against affordable access to life-saving drugs. In all these matters, India must take a principled stand, create alliances and seek win-win situations rather than take a unilateral decision.

Destiny has given India a reprieve. Security concerns, geopolitics and a strong reform-minded prime minister are converging in India’s favor. If we play our cards right, India can be the next China. It’s important to not blow this opportunity. We may not have another for a very long time.

How To Non-Awkwardly Greet People From Different Countries

2014-08-14T02:48:00.000+05:30

Cultural norms are confusing, but it's even worse when they're embarrassing: nobody wants to be that tourist who asks for cheese at dinner in Italy or forgets a gift in Japan.

We know how to "shush" people already, but before that, how do you greet someone in a new country? One kiss, two kisses, three kiss or none?

The rules change by region in certain countries, and they can vary between family, friends and new acquaintances -- so be prepared for anything. But if you know the basics and pay attention to your surroundings, you'll be ready to adapt when your time comes for an introductory smooch.

Avoid that awkward head swivel with this simple guide.

ITALY, SPAIN AND MUCH OF EUROPE

Go for two quick cheek kisses: first on the right, then on the left. And if you don't know someone well, they may settle for a handshake. This is the standard for most places in Europe.

FRANCE

The bise (yes, it's notorious enough for a name) is complicated: Offer your right cheek as a starting point. The ensuing number of kisses will vary by region, anywhere from one kiss in certain areas to five kisses in huge swaths of the north. Just go with it.

GERMANY
The cheek kiss remains common here, but you'll usually get only one, on the left. Ever the stoic sort, some Germans have recently called to abolish the kiss, which they say snuck its way into their culture from other countries (ahem, France).

THE UK
Fancy folk might go for the kiss, inspired by the fancy European nations which surround them. But unless you want your buddy to "recoil in horror," just stick to a handshake.

THE NETHERLANDS
The norm here is precisely three kisses, always performed right-left-right. Vague acquaintances won't kiss, and neither will two men.

GREECE
Shake hands for acquaintances, but hug and kiss with someone closer. A two-cheek kiss is almost always accompanied by a back "clap," which can tend to come out more like a well-choreographed slap.

BRAZIL
Women greet with a kiss more often than men do -- two kisses will get you by in Rio, but the official number can vary from one to three depending on where you are. Single women have been known to toss in a third kiss, even in regions where two is the norm.

ARGENTINA
The South Americans are known to be touch-y, even to new acquaintances. Go in for a casual hug (but not a full-on embrace), with a single kiss on the right cheek.

AUSTRALIA
A handshake and "G'day" are the standard for your first meeting, but closer friends might issue one cheek kiss.

THAILAND
Press your palms together in a prayer pose, and bow your forehead to touch your fingertips. It's called the wai -- the higher your hands are, the more respect you're showing.

INDIA
People know to shake hands with Westerners, but if you're meeting a local and want to issue a typical greeting, place your palms together in prayer position, tip your head forward (but don't do a full bow), and say "Namaste."

CHINA
The cupped-hand bow has gone out of style in favor of the more modern handshake. In formal situations, though, lower your head to show respect.

THE UNITED STATES
A good ol' handshake will do. Or a fist bump, because they're less germ-y, and because Obama gives us permission.

23 Insanely Clever Products You Need In Your Life

2014-07-29T01:36:00.000+05:30

1. A bag re-sealer.

For those rare times you *don’t* finish a bag of Cheetos in one sitting.

2. A shower wineglass holder.

Because the only thing better than shower beer is shower wine.

3. A safe with a timer to help you avoid temptation.

Or at least control it.

4. Spice containers that automatically measure out exactly how much you need.

Unless you enjoy mistakenly drenching your soup with paprika, of course.

5. A thermometer that works through your smartphone and provides treatment advice.

It even helps you track illnesses going around in your area and records every bit of information for future check-ups.

6. An atomizer for your citrus.

So instead of cutting open and squeezing a lemon or lime to get the juice, you can just stick this tap in.

7. A beach bag with a mesh bottom.

Sand will never invade your precious tote again. (There’s also a more masculine version, a clutch, and a backpack.)

8. A magnetic wristband to keep screws, nails, and needles close by when you’re working on a project.

It also makes a very bold fashion statement.

9. A cooler that does literally everything.

It’s got wireless speakers, lights, a charger, a bottle opener, multiple storage compartments, and a rechargeable blender.

10. Combo scissors/tape.

Make gift-wrapping a breeze.

11. A highlighter that uploads scanned text to your computer.

Great for taking notes on the go.

12. A cake mold for individual slices.

Life’s too short to choose between chocolate and vanilla.

13. A dustpan that cleans your broom.

So you’re not just shuffling debris around your floor.

14. A microchip-activated pet food bowl.

So Cuddles can’t eat Frankie-Pants’ food again.

15. Sheets that actually tell you how to orient them.

So remaking your bed three frustrated times will become a thing of the past.

16. An LED faucet that makes hot water look red and cold water look blue.

Perfect for young children (and easily entertained adults).

17. A dual shower-head/wireless speaker.

So you can belt to your Frozen-loving heart’s content.

18. An inflatable pillow tie.

So you can sneak naps in between meetings.

19. A freestanding badminton net.

Impromptu Badminton is, incidentally, DJ name.

20. A hook that makes carrying a ton of bags way easier and more comfortable.

Whether you’re hauling grocery bags or luggage.

21. A portable laundry pod.

Perfect for traveling or small spaces sans laundry rooms, this isn’t large but it’ll take care of your delicates handily.

22. A hands-free book holder.

Because why should e-book enthusiasts have all the perks?

23. A razor pod that protects blades and keeps them sharp.

So you don’t have to fork over half your life savings on new blades (and can save it for this stuff instead).

The Internet of Things

2014-07-28T01:59:00.000+05:30

The Internet of Things probably already influences your life. And if it doesn’t, it soon will, say computer scientists

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a vision. It is being built today. The stakeholders are known, the debate has yet to start. In hundreds of years our real needs have not changed. We want to be loved, feel safe, have fun, be relevant in work and friendship, be able to support our families and somehow play a role - however small - in the larger scheme of things. So what will really happen when things, homes and cities become smart?

The result will probably be an tsunami of what at first looks like very small steps, small changes. The purpose of Council is to follow and forecast what will happen when smart objects surround us in smart homes, offices, streets, and cities.

Back in 1999, a technologist called Kevin Ashton pointed out that almost all the information available on the internet–a mere 50 petabytes at that time–had been captured or created by humans in the form of text, photos, videos etc.

Ashton suggested that this was likely to change in the not too distant future as computers became capable of generating and collecting data by themselves, without human oversight.

The technologies required for this are relatively simple–RFID tags for tracking objects, low-power sensors for gathering data on everything from temperature and air quality to footsteps and motion detection, and finally low power actuators that can switch anything on and off–things like lights, heating and air conditioning systems, video cameras and so on.

Ashton called this system “the Internet of Things” and began a number of companies and initiatives to kickstart it.

Since then progress has been seemingly slow. Consumers have been underwhelmed by the idea of remotely controlling a toaster over the internet and disbelieving of claims that their fridge could reliably order milk before it runs out.

But today, Arkady Zaslavsky and pals at Australia’s national scientific research organisation, CSIRO, reveal how the enabling technologies that Ashton imagined have rapidly matured and that the Internet of Things is finally poised to burst into the mainstream.

They say this is creating a new generation of challenges. The huge volumes of data that the Internet of Things generate will have to be routed, captured, analysed and acted upon in timely relevant ways. Working out how to do this will be no easy task.

These problems are already being tackled in innovative ways that show off the capability of the Internet of Things. Each year in Australia, for example, biologists plant a million or so plots of different types of grain to see which grow best in a wide variety of conditions. These plots are situated all over the country and create a logistical nightmare for the relatively small team who must monitor both the environmental conditions and the rate of growth of the plants.

Their solution is a wireless sensor network that monitors what’s going on and sends the data back to the High Resolution Plant Phenomics Centre in Canberra which runs the experiments.

These sensors are currently deployed at just 40 sites and generate some 2 million data points per week. But the widespread adoption of this kind of technology looks set to revolutionise this kind of testing. What’s more, various cloud-based services are emerging that are designed to help manage these kinds of sensors and the data they produce.

Other examples abound. Various cities have kitted out their transport networks with sensors that broadcast the position of buses, trams and trains and make this data available to the public.

Various innovative apps now give commuters real-time updates on the position and likely arrival time of their next ride. Other sensors monitor traffic conditions allowing real-time optimisation of traffic flow.

Another example of the emergent Internet of Things is the widespread adoption of sensor technology to monitor sporting performance. Nike+ and Fitbit sensors collect data about workouts, send it to a central server which users can then access to analyse their performance. The collection and transmission happens largely without any human intervention.

Then there are the emerging applications aimed at everyday life. Ninja Blocks is an Australian start up that is developing the technology that allows anybody to monitor and control their homes remotely over the internet. They plan to ship their second batch of devices in March.

The message from Zaslavsky and co is that the Internet of Things is coming of age and growing at an exponential rate. If it doesn’t already influence your life in a way you recognise, it soon will.

Two interesting examples of things already on the market:

"Here's a live example. GlowCaps – pill bottles that know when you're supposed to take your medication – are on sale in the US. Fail to take a pill and they'll glow, then beep, then beep louder, then they'll call you on the phone. They'll even issue you and your doctor a weekly update on your progress. Continue to mess up and they may very well escalate things all the way to the President. These are just pill bottles – each one only costs a few bucks – but they're knitted together in a network of things with intelligence and connectivity, creating something we couldn't have done before...."

"Or think about the new Ford Mustang. It comes with two keys – stick one in and the car behaves normally; use the other and it becomes a racing beast. Each key animates the car differently. But add some connectivity and the car could tune itself in response to road conditions or the price of fuel or whatever some crazy race-tuning specialist mechanic has shared on the unofficial networks. Because if something's got software in it, it's going to get cracked. The hackers have already race-tuned iRobot's Roomba vacuum cleaners – Mustangs can't be far behind."

6 Factors That Influence Exchange Rates

2014-07-20T17:10:00.000+05:30

Aside from factors such as interest rates and inflation, the exchange rate is one of the most important determinants of a country's relative level of economic health. Exchange rates play a vital role in a country's level of trade, which is critical to most every free market economy in the world. For this reason, exchange rates are among the most watched, analyzed and govern-mentally manipulated economic measures. But exchange rates matter on a smaller scale as well: they impact the real return of an investor's portfolio. Here we look at some of the major forces behind exchange rate movements.

Overview

Before we look at these forces, we should sketch out how exchange rate movements affect a nation's trading relationships with other nations. A higher currency makes a country's exports more expensive and imports cheaper in foreign markets; a lower currency makes a country's exports cheaper and its imports more expensive in foreign markets. A higher exchange rate can be expected to lower the country's balance of trade, while a lower exchange rate would increase it.

Determinants of Exchange Rates

Numerous factors determine exchange rates, and all are related to the trading relationship between two countries. Remember, exchange rates are relative, and are expressed as a comparison of the currencies of two countries. The following are some of the principal determinants of the exchange rate between two countries. Note that these factors are in no particular order; like many aspects of economics, the relative importance of these factors is subject to much debate.

1. Differentials in Inflation

As a general rule, a country with a consistently lower inflation rate exhibits a rising currency value, as its purchasing power increases relative to other currencies. During the last half of the twentieth century, the countries with low inflation included Japan, Germany and Switzerland, while the U.S. and Canada achieved low inflation only later. Those countries with higher inflation typically see depreciation in their currency in relation to the currencies of their trading partners. This is also usually accompanied by higher interest rates.

2. Differentials in Interest Rates

Interest rates, inflation and exchange rates are all highly correlated. By manipulating interest rates, central banks exert influence over both inflation and exchange rates, and changing interest rates impact inflation and currency values. Higher interest rates offer lenders in an economy a higher return relative to other countries. Therefore, higher interest rates attract foreign capital and cause the exchange rate to rise. The impact of higher interest rates is mitigated, however, if inflation in the country is much higher than in others, or if additional factors serve to drive the currency down. The opposite relationship exists for decreasing interest rates - that is, lower interest rates tend to decrease exchange rates.

3. Current-Account Deficits

The current account is the balance of trade between a country and its trading partners, reflecting all payments between countries for goods, services, interest and dividends. A deficit in the current account shows the country is spending more on foreign trade than it is earning, and that it is borrowing capital from foreign sources to make up the deficit. In other words, the country requires more foreign currency than it receives through sales of exports, and it supplies more of its own currency than foreigners demand for its products. The excess demand for foreign currency lowers the country's exchange rate until domestic goods and services are cheap enough for foreigners, and foreign assets are too expensive to generate sales for domestic interests.

4. Public Debt

Countries will engage in large-scale deficit financing to pay for public sector projects and governmental funding. While such activity stimulates the domestic economy, nations with large public deficits and debts are less attractive to foreign investors. The reason? A large debt encourages inflation, and if inflation is high, the debt will be serviced and ultimately paid off with cheaper real dollars in the future.

In the worst case scenario, a government may print money to pay part of a large debt, but increasing the money supply inevitably causes inflation. Moreover, if a government is not able to service its deficit through domestic means (selling domestic bonds, increasing the money supply), then it must increase the supply of securities for sale to foreigners, thereby lowering their prices. Finally, a large debt may prove worrisome to foreigners if they believe the country risks defaulting on its obligations. Foreigners will be less willing to own securities denominated in that currency if the risk of default is great. For this reason, the country's debt rating (as determined by Moody's or Standard & Poor's, for example) is a crucial determinant of its exchange rate.

5. Terms of Trade

A ratio comparing export prices to import prices, the terms of trade is related to current accounts and the balance of payments. If the price of a country's exports rises by a greater rate than that of its imports, its terms of trade have favorably improved. Increasing terms of trade shows greater demand for the country's exports. This, in turn, results in rising revenues from exports, which provides increased demand for the country's currency (and an increase in the currency's value). If the price of exports rises by a smaller rate than that of its imports, the currency's value will decrease in relation to its trading partners.

6. Political Stability and Economic Performance

Foreign investors inevitably seek out stable countries with strong economic performance in which to invest their capital. A country with such positive attributes will draw investment funds away from other countries perceived to have more political and economic risk. Political turmoil, for example, can cause a loss of confidence in a currency and a movement of capital to the currencies of more stable countries.

Conclusion

The exchange rate of the currency in which a portfolio holds the bulk of its investments determines that portfolio's real return. A declining exchange rate obviously decreases the purchasing power of income and capital gains derived from any returns. Moreover, the exchange rate influences other income factors such as interest rates, inflation and even capital gains from domestic securities. While exchange rates are determined by numerous complex factors that often leave even the most experienced economists flummoxed, investors should still have some understanding of how currency values and exchange rates play an important role in the rate of return on their investments.

What, Exactly, is Business Development?

2014-07-15T01:19:00.000+05:30

“I do biz dev.”

Few times in history have more ambiguous words been spoken. Ask ten “VPs of Business Development” or similarly business card-ed folks what is business development, and you’re like to get just as many answers.

“Business development is sales,” some will say, concisely.

“Business development is partnerships,” others will say, vaguely.

“Business development is hustling,” the startup folks will say, evasively.

The assortment of varied and often contradictory responses to the basic question of “what, exactly, is business development” reminds me of the way physicists seek to explain what, exactly, is the universe. With conflicting theories on the nature of black holes and bosons, the ultimate goal for those scientists is a Grand Unified Theory, a single definition that can elegantly explain how the universe itself operates at every level.

Lacking any concise explanation of what business development is all about, I sought to unite the varied forces of business development into one comprehensive framework. And eureka, for I have found it - the Grand Unified Theory of business development:

Business development is the creation of long-term value for an organization from customers, markets, and relationships.

There is elegance in simplicity, but perhaps this definition leaves you wanting more. At its heart, business development is all about figuring out how the interactions of those forces combine together to create opportunities for growth. But a theorem requires a proper proof, so let’s break that statement down:

Long-Term Value

First, what do I mean by “long-term value?” In its simplest form, “value” is cash, money, the lifeblood of any business (but it can also be access, prestige, or anything else a company seeks in order to grow). And there are plenty of ways to make a quick buck for you or your company. But business development is not about get-rich-quick schemes and I-win-you-lose tactics that create value that’s gone tomorrow as easily as it came today. It’s about creating opportunities for that value to persist over the long-term, to keep the floodgates open so that value can flow indefinitely. Thinking about business development as a means to creating long-term value is the only true way to succeed in consistently growing an organization.

Customers

The “customers” portion of the definition may be slightly more obvious – customers pay the bills. They are the people who pay you for your products and services, and without them you won’t have any business to develop. But not everyone is a natural customer for your business. Maybe your product doesn’t have the features I’m looking for. Maybe your product is perfect, but I don’t even know your company sells it. Or maybe you’re not reaching me because you’re not knocking on my door.

Markets

That’s because customers “live” in specific markets. One way to understand markets is by geography – if I only focus on selling in the U.S. but you reside in London, then you are currently unavailable to me as a customer as I do not currently reach the European market. But customers also “live” in markets that are defined by their demographics, lifestyles, and buying mindset. Identifying opportunities to reach new customers by entering into new markets is one important gateway to unlocking long-term value.

Take for example the Pet Owners market. The customers who live there, of course, are people who own cats, dogs, fish, etc. Petco is a company that clearly sells to customers who live in the Pet Owners market. I, on the other hand, do not have a pet. I don’t live in the Pet Owner market. So what if Petco wanted to sell something to me? Then they’d need to find a way to enter into a market where I do live. For example, I have red-hair and pale skin and as such, I am prone to spontaneously combusting when exposed to the sun. Therefore, one market that I “live” in is the Sunscreen Buyers market. If Petco wanted to sell something to me, perhaps they can find a way to enter into that market by offering sunscreen, hats, or sun-reflecting aluminum foil suits. Now, determining whether that’s a good idea or not for Petco to do so is a job for the business development team – and another story for another blog post.

Relationships

And then there were “relationships.” Just as the planets and stars rely on gravity to keep them in orbit, any successful business development effort relies on an underlying foundation of strong relationships. Building, managing, and leveraging relationships that are based on trust, respect, and a mutual appreciation of each other’s value is fundamental to enabling the flow of value for the long-term. Relationships with partners, customers, employees, the press, etc. are all critical to the success of any business development effort and as such they demand a bold-faced spot in any comprehensive definition of the term.

So, is business development actually sales? Is it partnerships? Is it all about hustling? Well, frankly, yes. It’s all of the above and as we’ll see in future posts, it’s much more. It’s a complicated and fascinating discipline that deserves a clear understanding, so that we can marvel at the beauty of a well-done deal as much as the stars.

India's Union Budget 2014

2014-07-13T21:12:00.000+05:30

Here are the highlights of Union Budget 2014:

* Tax proposals on indirect tax front would yield Rs 7,525 crore.

* Indian Custom Single Window Project to be taken up for facilitating trade.

* Clean energy cess increased from Rs 50/ tonne to Rs 100/tonne.

* Additional 5% excise tax to be levied on aerated drinks with added sugar (cold drinks). Tobacco products also to get costly as excise duty hiked to 72%

* Government announces reduction in excise duty for specified food package industry from 10% to 6%.

* Excise duty on footwear reduced from 12% to 6%

* Government announces measures to encourage manufacture of LCD/LED panels of TVs.

* Housing loan rebate to raised from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh.

* Net effect of direct tax proposals is revenue loss of Rs 22,200 crore.

* Government proposes to increase investment limit under Section 80C from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh.

* Tax exemption limit for small and marginal, and senior tax payers changed from Rs 2.0 to Rs 2.5 lakh. For senior citizens, no tax for income up to Rs 3 lakh per annum.

* No changes in tax rate.

* PPF limit to be raised to Rs 1.5 lakh: Jaitley

* Rs 100 crore for training of sportspersons for upcoming Asian Games.

* Government announces Rs 150 crore for communication needs of Andaman and Nicobar islands.

* Government announces Arun Prabha channel for northeastern region; will be 24/7 channel.

* Rs 1000 crore provided for rail connectivity in northeastern region.

* Programme for displaced Kashmiri migrants with Rs 500 crore to be started.

* Rs 100 crore set aside for project to link rivers.

* Government announces Rs 100 crore for development of Archaeological sites. Gaya to be developed as world class tourism spot.

* Rs 5000 crore set aside for defence outlay over and above amount provided under interim budget.

* National Police Memorial to be set up. Rs 50 crore set aside for this purpose.

* Rs 100 crore set aside for development of Technology Development Fund.

* Rs 100 crore War Memorial at Princess Park, India Gate.

* Policy of One Rank One Pension to be adopted for defence personnel.

* RBI will create framework for licenses of small banks.

* Government aims to provide all households with banking facilities to empower the weaker sections; there should be atleast 2 bank accounts in each household.

* Urgent need to converge current Indian standard with international accounting standards: Jaitley

* Rs 37, 800 crore allotted for National Highways.

* Revision of rate of royalty on minerals to be taken up on request from the states.

* In order to complete gas grid, 15000 km of additional pipeline to be developed through PPP mode.

* New and renewable energy deserves high priority; ultra modern power projects to be taken up in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Ladakh with Rs 500 crore.

* Rs 4200 crore set aside for Jal Marg Vikas project on river Ganga connecting Allahabad to Haldia , over 1620 km.

* Scheme for development of new airports at tier II and III cities through PPP mode.

* Rs 200 crore set aside for 6 more textile clusters in Rae Bareily, Lucknow, Surat, Bhagalpur. Rs 50 crore set aside for Pashmina Production program in J&K.

* MSMEs are the backbone of the economy; to be revived through a Committee to examine and report in three months.

* 6 more textile clusters to be set up.

* Industrial Smart Cities to come up at 7 cities.

* All govt departments and ministries to be integrated through E-platform by 31 December this year.

* Rs 100 crore set aside for Kisan Television to provide real time information on various farming and agriculture issues.

* National Industrial Corridor to be set up. Rs 1000 crore set aside for this.

* Rs 5000 crore short time rural credit refinance fund for 2014-15.

* Rs 50 core set aside for indigenous cattle breed and blue revolution for inland fisheries.

* Propose to provide finance to 5 lakh landless farmers through NABARD.

* Govt will initiate scheme to provide a soil health card; Rs 100 crore set aside. Rs 56 crore for soil testing labs across the country.

* Agriculture University in Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, and Horticulture University in Haryana, Telangana; Rs. 200 cr set aside by the government.

* Slum development to be included in Corporate Social Responsibility activities.

* Govt announces Rs 100 crore for modernization of madrassas.

* Govt announces development of Metro rails in PPP mode; Rs 100 crore set aside for metro scheme in Ahmedabad and Lucknow.

* Rs 100 crore set aside for Community Radio Centres; 600 new and existing ones will be supported.

* National Rural Internet and Technology Mission; Rs 500 crore set aside.

* Govt proposes to set up Center of Excellence in MP named after Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan.

* 5 more IITs and 5 IIMs to be set up .

* Propose to set up four more AIIMS; Rs. 500 crore set aside for this. Six new AIIMS started recently have become functional. Four new AIIMS will be set up in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Vidarbha and Purvanchal.

* Govt proposes National Housing Banking programme; sets aside Rs 8000 crore for this program.

* Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana has a massive impact on rural development; Govt sets aside Rs 14,389 crore for this scheme.

* Crisis Management Center for women at Delhi; money to be provided from Nirbhaya fund.

* Govt announces Beti Padhao, Beti Badhao Yojana; sets aside Rs 100 crore for this.
* Safety of women of prime importance.

* EPFO will launch a unified account scheme for portability of Provident Fund accounts.

* Schemes for disabled persons in the country. 15 new Brail presses to be established and revival of 10 existing.

* Rs 50,548 crore proposed for Schedule Caste development.

* Govt committed to providing 24/7 power supply to all homes. Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojna for electricity supply to rural areas.

* Rs 200 crore for 'Statue of Unity' of Sardar Vallabh Patel.

* Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sichayin Yojana to be started for irrigation.

* We will examine proposal to give additional autonomy to banks and make them more responsible: Jaitley

* E-visas to be introduced at nine airports in India in phased manner.

* FDI in insurance to be increased to 49%

* FM announces FDI in defence up from 26 to 49 % with Indian management and control

* Transfer pricing is major area for litigation; proposes changes in transfer pricing regulation: Jaitley

* I propose to strengthen authority for advance ruling in tax: Jaitley

* Aim to achieve 7-8 per cent economic growth rate in next 3-4 years.

* We wish to provide an investment friendly taxation system: Jaitley

* This govt will not ordinarily change policies retrospectively which creates a fresh liability.

* GST will streamline tax administration and result in higher tax collection for center and states.

* A new urea policy would be formulated.

* Considering that we had two years of low GDP growth, a large subsidy burden, target of 4.1% fiscal burden is daunting: Jaitley

* We must address the problem of black money: Jaitley

* Iraq crisis leading behind an impact. Inflation has remained at elevated level: Jaitley

* We have taken up the challenge in the right ernest; will create a vibrant and strong India: Jaitley.

* The task before me is very challenging. We need to introduce fiscal prudence. there is an urgent need for more reforms.

* The steps I will announce are only the beginning of the journey we wish to take for macro economic stabilization: Jaitley

*People below poverty line anxious to free themselves: Jaitley

* Green shoots of recovery seen in world economy.

* We look forward to lower inflation: Jaitley

What goes up, down

What goes up
Cigarettes
Cigars
Tobacco products

Gutkha and pan masala
Jarda scented tobacco
Aerated drinks containing added sugar
Some telecom products
Radio Taxi
Imported electronic products
Portable X-ray machines
Half cut/broken diamonds

What goes down

Mobile phones
Imported computers components
Smart cards
Footwear
Colour picture tubes
Small LCD TV

Precious & semi-precious colour stones
Diamond
Readymade garments
Flat copper wires
Soaps
Oil

Sports Gloves
Branded petrol
Matchbox
Life micro insurance policies
HIV/AIDS drugs and diagnostic kits
DDT insecticides
RO based water purifiers
LED Lights, fixtures and lamps
E-book readers
Machinery and equipment of solar energy powers
Machinery and equipment of food processing and packaging
Machinery and equipment of compressed biogas plants

6 cities that know how to party

2014-06-29T19:12:00.000+05:30

These six party hotspots know how to throw a shindig in the after-hours. From glitzy multi-level clubs to the craziest underground parties, they cater to your every hedonistic desire.

Credit: Reuters

New Orleans
This American city can be likened to a rebellious teen that never grows up. From the famously touristy Bourbon Street, littered with jazz clubs, restaurants, strip joints and bars, to Mardi Gras - there's never a dull moment in Orleans. Even a hurricane can't disrupt the party. Hurricane parties, in fact, are something of a tradition here - they started out as a way to make the best of a storm during lock-ins, and have turned into house-parties, thrown just about any place where people can get together and eat, drink and be merry. No doubt, N'awlins sure knows how to let its hair down.

Photo by: re:publica, Creative Commons Attribution Licence

Berlin
Berlin is to Germany what NYC is to the US. Spearheading the cause of European hedonism, the city stays open till as late as what would be considered breakfast time elsewhere. Get ready to down a few Jagerbombs and dance the night away.

Photo by: Maarten_G / GreenPic, Creative Commons Attribution Licence

Amsterdam
No surprise here. Amsterdam is the one place where you can have yourself a good time all year round. However, there's more to the city than the Red Light District, or the neon lights of Leidseplein - alternative bars have DJs spinning their beats, while bar crawls have been known to last all through the night. Amsterdam also hosts some world-class festivals and events, including the Amsterdam Dance Event, the Lowlands Festival, and Queen's Day on April 30th, when 800,000 people dance, drink and smoke their way through the streets.

Photo by: The Next Web Photos, Creative Commons Attribution Licence

Warsaw
Warsaw is one of the best cities to party in. Offering a super choice of music (and style), you can opt to go to a fancy club in the city centre or hop across Wisla River to chill out at one of the less mainstream places. Best of all, the Poles are open-minded, and always up for a good time.

Photo by: Diego Torres Silvestre, Creative Commons Attribution Licence

Buenos Aires
South Americans are passionate about partying. This incredibly fashion-conscious and uber-modern city boasts massive nightclubs by the waterfront, stylish bars and underground grunge venues tucked away from the tourist spots. The party starts only after midnight and lasts right up till sunrise.

Photo by: Francis Bourgouin, Creative Commons Attribution Licence

Montreal
Canada's second-largest city is widely regarded as the country's party capital. With an effervescent nightlife scene, it is the undisputed hub for late-night revelries. Montreal has several multi-level bars, where each floor is dedicated to different tastes, as well as a thriving complex of dance clubs featuring the biggest local artists and best international talent. The city's laws are liberal, so don't worry about getting in trouble.

The Life Lessons Travel Teaches You and Why It's Important to See the World

2014-06-19T15:55:00.001+05:30

What's sitting at the root of so much that we do wrong in this world? Prejudice, ignorance and bigotry.

How does this state of mind manifest in us? By being insular, lacking empathy, allowing ourselves to be only familiar with our little corner of the world.

An antidote? Travel.

When you push yourself out of your comfort zone and take the time to really see a different culture, you start to sip at the antidote of life's poisonous attitudes.

Travel exposes you to different perspectives, experiences, history, culture, religions and ultimately, a better self.

In this video feature below, from the words of the well-travelled, I explore why people travel and what it teaches them.

Perhaps, you may relate.

Three things travel will teach you, each and every time

1. To really feel alive

We're always told that to seek happiness, you need to try and live in the moment. And it feels almost impossible to do this in the process of your nine-to-five job and in the midst of routine. You've seen it all before, so your mind moves in a habitual motion just passing it all by. But when you travel, your mind is there, you experience so much for the first time that without any effort, you're present in the moment. It's no wonder so many people become addicted to travelling. It's a constant rush of adrenaline and adventure. The perfect way to reinvigorate yourself, and can be a great way to shake-up your life.

2. To become less ignorant

I've never come away from a trip, without an preconceived idea, a prejudice, completely shattered. No matter how hard we try, we only know how to believe, think and act within the parameters of what we've been taught. So although we may try to enter into a new culture with what we think is an open-mind, we can walk away realizing just how closed it actually was. You don't know until you're educated. And the best way to educate yourself about another culture, religion, another countries politics or way of life, is by putting yourself right... there... in it.

3. To find a better self

You're constantly challenged when you're travelling. You're forced to challenge preconceived ideas, to learn how to communicate when no one in the conversation speaks the same language, to speak-up when you need to meet new people. You're challenged by stepping out of your comfort zone, by navigating your way around a new town. When you're running out of money but need to keep going, and when you find yourself somewhere so unfamiliar in every regard, that you feel a sense of fear, and you know the only way to overcome it, is by opening up your mind. If you face all of these challenges, it's inevitable that you will come away a better person. Not least because you're just simply, more empathetic.

FIFA World Cup 2014: Five reasons it went wrong for Spain

2014-06-19T09:17:00.000+05:30

Spain became the fifth holders to be eliminated from the World Cup at the first stage after their 2-0 defeat by Chile at the Maracana on Wednesday.

We have a look at five reasons why it all went wrong for the holders in Brazil.

- Sticking with the old-timers

After the 5-1 defeat against the Netherlands, coach Vicente del Bosque was forced to react and chose to drop both Xavi Hernandez and Gerard Pique, replacing them with Pedro Rodriguez and Javi Martinez. However, it would appear that the rejuvenation of the Spain squad should have begun sooner. A player like Atletico Madrid midfielder Koke, full of energy and desire, was introduced to the side too late.

And the decision to keep faith in Iker Casillas proved to be a mistake. The captain of the great teams of the recent past he may be, but he has not been playing regularly for Real Madrid and Del Bosque has enough alternatives in the goalkeeping department, even in the absence of the injured Victor Valdes.

- Porous defence

If the fingers of blame are being pointed in his direction, Casillas might respond by saying that the defenders in front of him deserve criticism too. After all, Spain's success in 2010 and at Euro 2012 was based first and foremost around their watertight defence.

The inspiration of Carles Puyol has been missed. Pique and Sergio Ramos worked in the past as a centre-back pairing, but not this time, and Javi Martinez did not prove to be the solution against Chile.

Against both the Netherlands and Chile, Spain came up against sides playing unorthodox formations and couldn't cope to the extent that seven goals were leaked in two games.

A Spanish soccer fan holds her head is disappointment. AP

- Selecting Diego Costa

Once Del Bosque had persuaded Diego Costa to represent his adopted country rather than his native Brazil, it was inevitable that the Atletico Madrid star would have to be brought into the starting line-up.

However, Spain have not done enough to help the bruising centre-forward fit into their style of play. He needs balls into space if he is to have an impact, but too often he appeared utterly marooned against Chile and their three central defenders.

He looked ill at ease too, and Brazilians unhappy that he snubbed the Selecao greeted him with loud jeers both in Salvador and in Rio de Janeiro.

- Failure to adapt

In general, Spain have been guilty of keeping too much faith in a system that worked so well in past campaigns. La Roja's way of playing has been built around the Barcelona way that delivered them so much success under Pep Guardiola.

But Barcelona's recent fall from grace and the way in which Guardiola's Bayern Munich were ripped apart by the pace and power of Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-finals in the spring have indicated that the days of 'tiki-taka' may be numbered.

Again on Wednesday, Chile's pace and pressing unsettled Spain, forcing them to regularly mis-place passes and preventing them from holding possession, their forte in the past.

- Playing in South America

It was always going to be a challenge for a European nation to win the World Cup on the American continent, something that has never happened before. The beginning of the end for Spain came at the Maracana a year ago, where they lost 3-0 to Brazil in the Confederations Cup final, and the decline has continued.

Every South American side in this World Cup has received formidable backing from their huge travelling supports. Spain's 5-1 loss to the Dutch left them needing a result against Chile, but the majority of the Maracana crowd were behind Jorge Sampaoli's side, making it like a home game for them.

How Much Do Ads on YouTube Cost?

2014-06-18T23:20:00.000+05:30

YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, trailing only Google. There are over 2 billion YouTube videos streamed every day, and advertisers want a piece of this viewership pie.

So how much does it cost to run an ad on YouTube?

YouTube advertisers pay per view of their ad, with an average cost-per-view ranging between $.10 – $.30. The views also count toward your overall YouTube views.

On YouTube there are four standard types of ad formats:

In-search – an ad shows up above the YouTube search results.

In-slate – an ad shows up in the suggested videos after your video ended.

In-display – an ad shows up on the suggested videos beside the video you are watching.

In-stream – an ad plays before you can watch your video.

The pricing varies slightly per ad unit, with in-display ads ranging towards the higher end ($.30) and in-search toward the lower end ($.10).

Advertisers can target viewers by age, gender, location or by what types of videos they like to watch on YouTube. Generally, advertisers pay incrementally more for focused target audiences.

For example, if the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) wanted Utahns to learn how to drive a new type of intersection in Salt Lake City, it would only want to target men and women 16+ years old within a 10-mile radius of Salt Lake City. It would probably select more in-stream video ad units so the locals could watch how to drive the intersection, as well as in-search for anyone searching for driving tips in the area. At an average cost-per-view of $.20, UDOT would pay around $2,000 to educate 10,000 people how to drive the intersection.

Overall, YouTube ads are an excellent means of boosting your web presence at an affordable rate. For most ad units, potential customers actually CHOOSE to watch your advertisement. Also, the overall boost in views gives more credibility to your company and gives it a better chance of showing up organically in YouTube or other search engines.

Parallax in Web Design: Turn Scrolling Into Engagement

2014-06-16T09:20:00.000+05:30

The internet has never been more beautiful. What began as a rudimentary “network of networks” for exchanging information has grown into the sprawling digital ecosystem that many of us call home. Like any other home, we care about how comfortable it is, how well it’s designed, how we have it decorated. In recent years, the internet has seen a tremendous growth in design quality as more attention is paid to priorities like information architecture, user friendliness, and aesthetic beauty in the development of new sites.

Among the more notable trends in modern web design has been the emergence of a technique known as parallax scrolling. Even if you don’t recognize it by name, you’ve probably seen it in use before. But what is it and how does it contribute to a site’s design?

What Is Parallax?
The word itself refers to an optical effect whereby the apparent position of an object changes depending on your perspective. In the real world, we encounter this effect all the time and think nothing of it.

For example, imagine that you’re on a bus, riding to work. As the bus drives down a road, you stare out the window and look at the things passing by. Other cars zip past in the adjacent lane, while in the distance you can spot the tall skyscrapers of the city.

From your perspective on the bus, the objects nearest to you—cars, lampposts, pedestrians—appear to be moving past you very quickly. Those skyscrapers, on the other hand, are farther away, so they seem to be scrolling by more slowly. Something even farther, like the sun, may appear totally stationary.

This difference in the perceived degree of motion is what we call parallax, and it works even if you’re standing still. An easy way to demonstrate this is to hold your finger against your nose and then open only one eye at a time. When your left eye is open, your finger appears to be covering one portion of your field of vision, while having your right eye open makes it look like a totally different area is covered.

Dynamic Scrolling
If you’re wondering how all of this applies to web design, then consider the following: what is the primary means of interaction with modern websites?

It used to be clicking, but nowadays it is scrolling.

What the web 2.0 era of button animations did for clicking, parallax aims to do for scrolling. With more and more sites adopting a single-page design, scrolling has become the heart of our experience with websites. As a result, many of the trends in today’s web design space have to do with making this experience feel more dynamic and engaging.

Parallax is the most obvious of these, and it’s most often implemented through the use of different background layers that move at different speeds as you scroll. Sites like NASA Prospect or one of the first examples, Ben the Bodyguard, use parallax to tell a story.

An Evolving Idea
While parallax in web design is most often a simple matter of layers with different scroll speeds, some designers have worked hard to take this concept to the next level, implementing many layers into complex animations that evolve as you scroll.

Sites like the one for Sony’s Be Moved campaign offer an incredible example of this idea’s potential.

While this departs from the dictionary definition of “parallax”, it serves the same purpose: turning scrolling into an exciting experience, and drawing the user into the site by making them an integral participant. By simply scrolling, visitors become creators, whose actions cause the site to unfold and evolve before their eyes.

Used together with more basic parallax layers, sites like Make Your Money Matter convey information so vividly that they entirely shatter the notion of what a website can be. Instead of a static page of information, you get an interactive visual experience that effortlessly captures our attention and invites us to explore.

This kind of engagement was not only impossible, but unthinkable only a few years ago.

Parallax’s Role in the Future of Web Design
While many of the above examples are extreme, they represent the natural experimental phase of any new trend, where designers seek to push boundaries and expectations in order to see where the practical limits lie.

While it’s true that one-page designs in general suffer from certain SEO limitations and possible performance issues during initial loading, these are considerations that must be balanced against the tremendous improvement in user experience and perceived production value that parallax effects can bring to your site.

For more standard web design applications, it might be easy to dismiss parallax as a passing fad, but to do so would be to miss out on its potential for subtly enhancing even a business site’s appeal. After all, web design is about presenting information accessibly and beautifully, in a way that’s tailored to the audience.

Examples like Bentley’s New Flying Spur page, or Interac’s Make Cash & Cheques History demonstrate that even high-end brands and banking corporations can make tasteful use of modern web techniques like parallax.

Working With Parallax Scrolling on Your Own Sites
It’s easy to imagine that such techniques are only available to web projects with huge budgets, but thanks to the increasingly low barrier to entry for web development, even cutting-edge trends like parallax scrolling are now becoming available to the masses.

Powerful web development platforms like Webydo, a pioneer in the code-free web design movement, are the first of their kind to provide the code-free solution for designers to create, host, and maintain modern websites without worrying about the usual limitations of having to manually write code. Designers are free to implement whatever ideas they need, including parallax scrolling as of just a few weeks ago. Clients can even use the intuitive CMS (Content Management System) to easily modify their site’s content once the design is established.

Whether or not to use parallax scrolling is a discussion worth having with your designer. As the internet evolves to reflect our more sophisticated needs and discerning tastes, our website designs should too, and parallax is one of many valuable tools that modern web designers can draw from when crafting their next big project.

Who was worth the money

2014-06-12T15:52:00.000+05:30

A look at the best and the worst buys from the auction based on players' performance in IPL 2014

Yuvraj Singh made news during the auction for being the most expensive purchase of the IPL, at INR 14 crore, while Pravin Tambe - one of the leading wicket-takers in this IPL - received no bids from other teams before being retained by Rajasthan Royals with a right-to-match card that depleted their purse by only INR 10 lakh. How did these buys fare for the teams? Who ended up being the most profitable purchase of the IPL? Which team spent their purse money most productively? This piece makes an attempt at answering such questions.

Performance on the cricket field is not easily quantifiable: it cannot be measured purely by the runs scored by a batsman or the wickets taken by a bowler. A quickfire 30 in a crunch situation of a chase may turn out to be of greater value than a 60 earlier in the innings. A wicket of an in-form opposition batsman might carry more value than the wicket of a tail-ender. And there is the question of how to value wicketkeepers' contributions, fielding efforts, catches taken etc. Surely, the catches taken by Kieron Pollard and Chris Lynn would be worth a few crores, if not more?

This piece aims to give the readers a reasonable idea about who were the top buys and the worst punts in this IPL season. To this end, only the runs scored, strike rates, wickets taken, and the economy rates have been taken into account to come up with a return on investment value for each player and thereby, for each team. The context in which the batsmen scored their runs and bowlers took their wickets have not been taken into account, and neither have been their fielding contributions.

An aggregate of 17922 runs were scored from the bat in this IPL and 606 wickets were taken by the bowlers - an average of 29.57 for each wicket. Roughly translated, each wicket that a bowler took in this IPL was worth 29.57 runs. A total of INR 468.1 crore was spent on buying players in this IPL, which means that every run scored was worth INR 1,30,594 and every wicket taken was worth INR 38,62,211. Each batsman earned value (or generated returns) based on how many runs he scored and at what strike rate. If his strike rate was less than the overall tournament strike rate, the number of runs scored by him were weighted down to a value lower than the actual runs he scored and vice versa. Similarly for bowlers, the number of wickets were weighted up or down based on the economy rate.

For example, Shakib Al Hasan scored 227 runs at a strike rate of 149.3. His strike rate was a good 20% better than the tournament's average strike rate of 129.0, so he is credited with more runs than he actually scored, which works out to 256. This multiplied by the value of each run - INR1,30,594 - means he generated a batting value of INR 3.34 crore. Similarly, Shakib took 11 wickets at an economy of 6.68, which was much better than the tournament economy rate of 8.01 runs per over. So his 11 wickets are weighted up for his better economy and get him returns equivalent to 12.8 wickets. The bowling value he generates is 12.8 multiplied by the value of each wicket, i.e. INR 38,62,611, which works out to INR 4.95 crore. The total notional money he generates for his team is the sum of his batting and bowling values - INR 8.30 crore. This minus the price at which Shakib was bought by Kolkata Knight Riders will give the gains made by the team by investing on him. This figure works out to INR 5.50 crore.

Kings XI Punjab's Akshar Patel leads - by some distance - the list of players who generated the maximum gains for their respective teams. He took 17 wickets at an excellent economy rate of 6.14, which boosted the total value he generated for his team to INR 8.97 crore. Kings XI bought him for a sum of INR 75 lakh and made a profit of INR 8.22 crore - the most any team profited from a single player. Six bowlers make it to the top ten of this list. Lendl Simmons - cost to the team assumed at his base price of INR 50 lakh - and Glenn Maxwell are the only players who make the top ten based purely on their batting performance. Shakib and JP Duminy take the remaining two places in the top ten on the back of their all-round show.

TOP TEN AUCTION INVESTMENTS IPL 2014, IN INR CRORES
Player	Runs	SR	Batting Value	Wkts	Eco	Bowling Value	Total Value	Cost	Returns
Akshar Patel	62	103	0.63	17	6.14	8.34	8.97	0.75	8.22
Mohit Sharma	1	33	0.00	23	8.40	8.25	8.25	2.00	6.25
Pravin Tambe	5	56	0.02	15	7.27	6.22	6.24	0.10	6.14
Shakib-Al-Hasan	227	149	3.34	11	6.68	4.95	8.30	2.80	5.50
Sandeep Sharma	2	40	0.00	18	8.81	6.15	6.15	0.85	5.30
Lendl Simmons*	394	135	5.26	1	11.33	0.27	5.53	0.36	5.17
Yuzvendra Chahal	1	100	0.00	12	7.02	5.15	5.15	0.10	5.14
Bhuvneshwar Kumar	1	25	0.00	20	6.66	9.04	9.04	4.25	4.79
JP Duminy	410	134	5.43	3	7.27	1.24	6.67	2.20	4.47
Glenn Maxwell	552	188	10.22	1	12.00	0.25	10.47	6.00	4.47

* Lendl Simmons' auction price has been assumed at his base price of INR0.5Cr

Knight Riders' skipper Gautam Gambhir was the most unattractive buy of this season, given the high price at which he was retained for by the team. His 335 runs in the tournament came at a strike rate of 114.33, well below the average for the tournament, and generated only INR 3.78 crore. India internationals Dinesh Karthik, Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan went for INR 12.5 crore each, but couldn't generate enough value for their teams, thus ending up at the bottom of the table. Chris Gayle - who was retained for INR 9.5 crore and failed to come good for his team - rounds off the bottom five. Yuvraj, the most expensive player of this IPL, just escaped being in the bottom five. His performances created notional money worth INR 6.84 Crores for his team, but his high auction price meant that he ran a deficit of INR 7.16 Crores, ending up at the seventh place from the bottom.

BOTTOM FIVE AUCTION INVESTMENTS IPL 2014, IN INR CRORES
Player	Runs	SR	Batting Value	Wkts	Eco	Bowling Value	Total Value	Cost	Returns
Gautam Gambhir	335	114	3.78	0	0.00	0.00	3.78	12.50	-8.72
Dinesh Karthik	325	126	4.04	0	0.00	0.00	4.04	12.50	-8.46
Virat Kohli	359	122	4.32	0	0.00	0.00	4.32	12.50	-8.17
Shikhar Dhawan	377	118	4.39	0	0.00	0.00	4.39	12.50	-8.11
Chris Gayle	196	106	2.06	0	0.00	0.00	2.06	9.50	-7.44

While the above two tables give us a sense of who the most profitable and unprofitable purchases in the auction were, these may not be the best and the worst players this year. The players can control their base price, but can't control the upper limit, which depends on the dynamics of the auction. So, it makes sense to see who generated the most value (made the most money for their teams) without penalising them for their auction prices.

This list is led by Glenn Maxwell. His 552 runs at a strike rate of 187.7 - almost 59 more than the tournament average - meant that he was one of two players to cross the INR 10.0 crore mark. Sunil Narine, with his 21 wickets at an economy rate of 6.36, was the only other player whose performance was worth more than INR 10.0 crore. This year's top runscorer Robin Uthappa slots in at No.5 in this list and is one of the three players - along with Maxwell and Dwayne Smith - to weigh in purely on his batting performance.

TOP PEFORMERS IPL 2014, BY VALUE CREATED (IN INR CRORES)
Player	Runs	SR	Batting Value	Wkts	Eco	Bowling Value	Total Value
Glenn Maxwell	552	188	10.22	1	12.00	0.25	10.47
Sunil Narine	10	71	0.07	21	6.36	9.94	10.01
Bhuvneshwar Kumar	1	25	0.00	20	6.66	9.05	9.05
Akshar Patel	62	103	0.63	17	6.14	8.34	8.97
Robin Uthappa	660	138	8.97	0	0.00	0.00	8.97
Ravindra Jadeja	146	133	1.91	19	8.15	7.02	8.93
Dwayne Smith	566	136	7.59	4	9.50	1.27	8.86
Shakib-Al-Hasan	227	149	3.34	11	6.68	4.96	8.30
Mohit Sharma	1	33	0.00	23	8.40	8.25	8.25
Suresh Raina	523	146	7.51	1	7.44	0.40	7.92

And finally, a look at how the teams themselves fared in terms of the returns they got from the purse money they invested in building their teams. Not surprisingly, Kings XI Punjab made the most profitable buys, getting a whopping 52% return on investment (ROI). The other finalists, Knight Riders were a distant second in this list with an ROI of 12.9%, followed by Chennai Super Kings at 11.8%. Mumbai Indians got to the playoffs despite their negative ROI of 6.3% and, in line with their shocking exit from the tournament, Rajasthan Royals failed to make the playoffs in spite of an ROI of 4.6%. The other three teams returned negative ROIs, with Delhi Daredevils being the most unprofitable of the lot, at a ROI of - 28.1%.

TEAMS AND THEIR ROIs
Team	Auction Costs (INR Cr)*	Value Created (INR Cr)	Gains (INR Cr)	ROI
Kings XI Punjab	52.60	79.73	27.13	51.6%
Kolkat Knight Riders	57.90	65.37	7.47	12.9%
Chennai Super Kings	59.58	66.60	7.01	11.8%
Rajasthan Royals	53.85	56.32	2.47	4.6%
Mumbai Indians	59.70	55.96	-3.74	-6.3%
Sunrisers Hyderabad	57.70	50.74	-6.95	-12.0%
Royal Challengers Bangalore	60.00	50.65	-9.35	-15.6%
Delhi Daredevils	59.42	42.71	-16.72	-28.1%

* Auction costs might vary slightly from the actuals owing to replacements during the tournament

It's Brazil's World Cup to loose - World Cup Predictions

2014-06-10T10:20:00.000+05:30

Looking for a World Cup favorite? All you really need to know is this: The World Cup gets underway Thursday in Sao Paulo, and it’s really hard to beat Brazil in Brazil.

The table below calculates every team’s chances of advancing past the group stage and eventually winning the tournament. The forecasts are based on the Soccer Power Index (SPI) — a system that combines game- and player-based ratings to estimate a team’s overall skill level — to calculate odds of each country’s performance during the two stages of the World Cup. SPI has Brazil as the heavy favorite, with a 45 percent chance of winning the World Cup, well ahead of Argentina (13 percent), Germany (11 percent) and Spain (8 percent).

True, Brazil is the betting favorite to win the World Cup — but perhaps not by as wide a margin as it should be. The team’s price at the betting market Betfair as of early Sunday evening implied that it has about a 23 percent chance of winning the World Cup — only a little better than Argentina (19 percent), Germany (13 percent) and Spain (13 percent).

US Job Market's Five-Year Recovery

2014-06-10T09:53:00.000+05:30

Six-and-a-half years after the Great Recession began — and five years after it officially ended — the U.S. has finally surpassed its pre-crisis employment peak. But the job market is far from fully healed.

U.S. employers added 217,000 jobs in May, bringing total non-farm employment to 138.5 million – 113,000 more than the 138.4 million jobs that existed in December 2007, the first month of the recession. It took 76 months to regain the nearly 9 million jobs lost in the recession, making this by bar the slowest jobs recovery since World War II. (If any of this sounds familiar, you’re right: Private-sector employment returned to its pre-recession peak in March.)

Getting back to square one isn’t much to celebrate, however. There are more than 6 million more working-age Americans today than when the recession began. Adjusting for population growth, we’re still millions of jobs short of where we were 6½ years ago — and have seen hardly any jobs recovery.

That chart makes things look worse than they are. The aging of the population would have pushed down the overall employment rate even without the recession. But even controlling for demographics, the trend has been grim. Young people have been hit especially hard, but so-call prime-age workers — those between ages 25 and 54 — have also seen a big drop in their rate of employment since the recession began. Older workers, meanwhile, have held onto jobs.

Moreover, while employment has, at last, returned to pre-crisis levels,unemployment isn’t even close. There are still nearly 10 million unemployed workers in the U.S., more than a third of whom have been out of work for more than six months. The good news is that the ranks of the unemployed are no longer growing: Layoffs are back to normal, and short-term unemployment has returned to its pre-recession level. But long-term unemployment remains a crisis: There are 2 million more long-term job seekers today than when the recession began. What’s worse, their prospects have hardly improved in the recovery: Barely one in 10 find jobs each month, and few of those jobs prove stable.

The recession and slow recovery have been harder on some groups than on others. Women fared better than men in terms of employment, in part because they were less likely to work in sectors such as construction and manufacturing that were particularly hard-hit in the downturn. Men have experienced a stronger rebound in the recovery, but only slightly. As a result, women returned to pre-recession levels of employment last summer, while men remain hundreds of thousands of jobs in the hole.

Similarly, better-educated workers were less likely to lose their jobs in the recession and have regained them more quickly in the recovery. In fact, the least-educated workers didn’t even start regaining jobs until late 2012.

Even those who do find jobs aren’t necessarily finding good ones. More than 7 million Americans are stuck in part-time jobs because they can’t find full-time work. Part-time employment has trended down in the recovery: Over the past year, full-time employment is up by 2.4 million, and part-time employment is down by 500,000. But part-time employment remains elevated by historical standards.

Earnings, meanwhile, have been stagnant. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, average hourly wages are lower now than when the recession ended. Weekly wages haven’t done much better, in part because companies aren’t increasing employees’ hours.

One reason that wages and hours have been so slow to rebound is that many of the jobs that have been added in recent years have been in industries like retail and food-service, which employ lots of part-timers and low-wage workers. Meanwhile, industries that provide middle-class jobs, such as construction and manufacturing, have been slow to recover. There are exceptions. Health care has been a consistent driver of job growth in both the recession and recovery. The oil and gas sector has seen huge gains due to the fracking boom, although it makes up only a tiny fraction of overall employment.

One reason the recovery has been so weak is that the government, which added jobs in the recession, cut them during the recovery, even as the private sector was struggling to gain momentum. The private sector has added nearly 200,000 jobs per month on average over the past three years, but the government has cut more than 7,000 jobs per month over the same period.

3 Days in Paris

2014-06-06T13:00:00.000+05:30

Ah, Paris. Paris is... a lot of different things to as many different people. A home for some of the world's greatest art, a centre of fashion, place scarred with history, or just a pretty city on the way to somewhere else—Paris has as many guises and disguises as its citizens. Paris—city of light, city of love, city of art...city of lots of stuff, but many of people swing though on the way to or from somewhere else, catching a glimpse of the city each time they do, which is a good way to do it—because Paris is the kind of city you'll want to keep coming back to. There are so many things to see and do in Paris that just walking around can be an experience, but if you choose your route carefully you can swing by some of the main events as you do. This itinerary is for the beginner, who knows they're coming back.

Day 1

The first question to ask yourself as you're boarding your plane or train Paris bound is how much of my time do I want to spend in art galleries?

Paris has so many that if you're only there for a short time you're going to have to make a difficult choice, and if you haven't been before that choice is probably going to be between the Louvre, with its bigger-than-Jesus star the Mona Lisa and glass pyramid glowing invitingly, or just across the river the Musee d'Orsay, with works by Degas and Manet. This is not an easy choice but it can be a case of do one well of swing quickly though both. If you haven't made your decision by the time you're checked into your hotel give yourself a bit of extra thinking space while taking coffee on a cruise along the Seine, which will help get you a feel for the layout of the city. Get off by Notre Dame and make your decision... Then absorb as much as you can before closing time spits you out into the now glowing city. If you skipped the Louvre stroll by now admiring the pyramid in what photographer's call the magic hour, where architecture is at its most photogenic. Then catch the same magic at Notre Dame.

LOUVRE MUSEUM
Address : 75001 Paris

The Louvre Museum, with its spectacular glass pyramid, is an icon of Paris and one of the world's most-visited cultural sites. Its vast and rich collections encompass all ages-from antiquity (the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory) and the Renaissance (the Mona Lisa, works by Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Titian) to 19th-century French masterpieces. The Louvre-Lens project, now under way, will see more of the enormous collection out of storage and on display at a second site in north Paris. The museum was originally the main Royal Palace in Paris, and was built on the site of an earlier royal fortress, whose remains can be seen on the ground floor. Napoleon, who preferred the Palace of Fontainebleau, turned the Louvre into a repository for all the artworks he looted from throughout Europe—and it remains today one the top three museums in the world, alongside the British Museum and the Hermitage.

MUSEE D'ORSAY
Address : 1 Rue de la Légion d'Honneur 75007 Paris

This Left Bank museum is housed in a beautifully converted Belle Epoque train station. It features painting, photography and sculpture, primarily by French artists from the mid-19th to the early 20th centuries. A small section is devoted to a display of Art Nouveau furniture. However, the museum is best-known for its excellent collection of Impressionist painting.

RIVER SEINE

If you've only got a couple of days in Paris, a cruise on the Seine is an obvious choice. How else can you admire the Louvre at enough of a distance to take in the whole, magnificent thing, inspect the ornate Alexander III Bridge and the elegant Pont Neuf, gaze on the Gothic island glory of Notre Dame, marvel at the full railway-station length of the Musee d'Orsay, see the giant obelisk of Luxor pierce the sky above the Place de la Concorde and feel tiny beneath the tower held together by two-and-a-half million rivets in an hour? But there's so much more to it than that. Paris is full of an adaptable type of romance - for couples on their dinner cruises, yes - but also for the solitary traveller watching from the stern of a bateau mouche, or the children excited just by being on the water. How can anyone fail to find themselves in their own art-house movie, silhouetted against a sunset-soaked skyline of such beauty, surrounded by the fairground lights of passing paddle steamers? And there's always a stranger waving from the middle of at least one bridge...

NOTRE DAME DE PARIS
Address : 6 Parvis Notre-Dame - Place Jean-Paul II,75004, Paris

If you're a church go-er you should consider for a minute what it would be like to attend services in one of the most famous churches in the world. People beside you snapping away as you sing hymns and others joining in at the back, not really sure how to conduct themselves properly, but their hearts in the right place. Well that's what happens in Paris's Notre Dame, visitors are still allowed though while services are held. Nice for visitors, but it's hard to imagine what it would be like to be a parishioner.

As a visitor it means you're able to listen to the wonderful singing of the choir followed by some words of wisdom (in a mix of French and Latin from what I could gather), and smell the powerfully traditional scent of incense burning on the alter, which makes a visit all the richer - I just hope it's not too bad for the regulars.

Notre Dame is open to the public from early 'til late and people press through all day past the series of chapels and alcoves for the saints which line the walls. Gold paint and marble have that aged, mottled sheen to them, slightly coloured by years of candle smoke and loving worship. It's wonderful to feel it being in use though - churches empty of prayer are strange, cold places, but even on a November evening Notre Dame is warm and rosey inside, as well as being serious and formal.

It's hard to feel the power of a place if you're surrounded by a crowd snapping photos but if there's a service about to start as well and incense permeates the famous ceiling and chapels then it's far easier to remember what this building was built for.

Outside it's been beautifully cleaned and lit, you can see the twin towers with their retinue of gargoyles and saints and lattice of buttresses for several blocks before the elegant town houses swallow it up.

Visit during the 'magic hour' cameramen love when the late afternoon's natural light gives everything a beautiful glow rather than a golden bath - to make the most of both the beauty of the rose windows and of the lighting once you've filed though and outside.

Day 2

The second question to ask yourself is do you want to see Paris laid out before you in the day or lit up with lights in the evening? Le Tour Eiffel will keep popping into view as you turn a corner, tempting like a siren, so you should make a date with this iron lady. The cheap date involves walking up 650 stairs to the second level, and the expensive involves paying for a lift to that height or higher. Plan to see her at the beginning or end of your second day so as not to keep her waiting too long.Paris is best seen on foot so the rest of your second day should be spent seeing the sights. Visit old Paris at Pere Lachaise, then walk though to the Opera, the Arc de Triomphe and shop for perfume at Sephora on the Champs-Elysees. For the total Parisian experience consider booking a dinner and floor show sitting next door at Le Lido.

ARC DE TRIOMPHE
Address : Place Charles de Gaulle 75008 Paris

Napoleon's Triumphal Arch - echoing the arch of Constantine in Rome - was not finished by its due date, when his new bride Marie Louise of Austria arrived in town after her proxy marriage to him in Vienna. The finished it in canvas, and so it remained until it was finally finished after his death, in 1836.

Climb for the alternative bird's eye view of Paris - the experience of crossing the road without using the underpass (not recommended by the way!) is worth the trip alone, as is the pattern of streets radiating from the rond-point you get from the top. The traffic behaviour of the local residents is fascinating.

Don't miss the small but interesting Napoleonic museum on the way up - most visitors breeze right past, but they've got his camp bed, map cases and other stuff.

EIFFEL TOWER
Address : Champ de Mars 5 Avenue Anatole France 75007 Paris

Originally built for the 1889 World Fair, this structure was designed to incorporate the advancement of metallurgy in construction, meaning that an engineer could have a more fundamental role than the architect. In this case, Gustav Eiffel was both engineer and architect, and for 40 years it was the tallest building in the world. The metal latticework is the defining feature of the spire, made from very pure structural iron, so it is very light and able to withstand awesome winds. What is original about the tower is that you do not get the feeling of being in a building - the latticework allows you to look to other floors and at all views with little obstruction.

CHAMPS-ELYSEES

The Champs-Elysees, or 'Elysian Fields' as translated into English, is perhaps the most famous thoroughfare in the world, more famous than Picadilly or Park Avenue. This wide 2 km long tree lined street is spectacular for the fact that it links a view of the Arc de Triomphe at one end with the Place de La Concorde, and beyond that the Tuileries Gardens and the Louvre, at the other - so the view is amazing, especially at night with the red and white tail-lights of the cars. Tourists risk life and limb to run across to the island in the middle of the Place de la Concorde to get this shot. The street is lined by those stores who can afford the astronomical rent - car showrooms, cinemas, Louis Vuitton, Disney, all major world brands, and the famous Lido night club. The upper stories are all offices - only about nine people actually live on this expensive street.

It's also the location of France's military parades and other great events - the most famous of which have been De Gaulle's re-entry into Paris in 1944 (see the image on the right) - and France's World Cup victory party in 2000, when 1m people thronged the Champs-Elysees. Oh, and the President lives in the Elysee Palace near the bottom end of it.

PARIS OPERA HOUSE
Address : 8 Rue Scribe, 75009 Paris

In the eclecticism and the liveliness of its decoration, the Paris Opera House is one of the symbols of French Imperialism, an ornate building richly decorated with friezes, columns, winged statues and elaborate decoration. This richness continues inside with velvet, gold leaf, and nymphs and cherubs. Due to the diversity of materials used, you are immediately struck by a full range of colours, right from the facade that opens into the fairy-tale world of the Opera House. The stairs are decorated in marble and onyx, the lobby with Venetian mosaics. Two small rooms, one dedicated to the Moon, the other to the Sun, lead to the main foyer, a gallery of gilded luxury filled with mythological characters.

PERE LACHAISE CEMETERY
Address : 16 Rue du Repos 75020 Paris

This is the largest cemetery within the city of Paris and a beautiful, very well-kept one, and aside from being the final resting place of hundreds of ordinary Parisians, its 118 acres contain the cherished remains of some of the world's greatest literary, artistic, scientific and political minds.

Honore de Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Georges Bizet, Maria Callas, Frederic Chopin, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde and Marcel Marceau are just a few of its revered occupants, and there can be few who would not be enraptured by the idea that one or two of them might return to the world of the living on occasion.

There are several days' worth of graves to explore here and a ghost story is attached to many of them. One of the best known is that of Marcel Proust and Maurice Ravel, whose ghostly forms are said to rise from their graves by night to seek one another, since their love was despised in their lifetimes and they were not allowed to be buried together. The red roses on Colette's grave are supposedly replenished by the spirit of Colette herself.

Some concentration camp victims are also remembered at Pere Lachaise, nameless but known worldwide for the suffering they endured. Their bodies were never recovered but their ghosts are nevertheless believed to haunt the peaceful memorials.

Day 3

If you're in Paris for a long weekend then this is the perfect Sunday. Rise early to get over to Sacre Coeur and experience the church as it should be before climbing the stairs into the dome for another opportunity for a view over Paris. Film fans will want to breakfast in the same cafe as Amelie works in before wandering though the meandering preserved alleyways of the Marais and indulging in some day dreaming about living there, or at least taking an artistic lover who lives in a garret here. Shop for painstakingly blended teas and nougat made by nuns before having a big meal and spending a couple of hours in the Musee Picasso, not forgetting to admire the building as well as the art. Head back into central Paris via the Pompidou Centre before saying your au revoir on a final walk along the Seine.

BASILICA DU SACRE COEUR
Address : 35 Rue du Chevalier de la Barre 75018 Paris

For the aesthete: So perfectly and carefully constructed, Sacre Coeur sits on Paris's highest point, held up as surely one of it's most lovely tributes to god. We're supposed to find love with symmetry and here Sacre Coeur delivers, white, delicate and intricately matched columns, pillars and graceful (not over done) arches and three domes light up my eyes more than the heavy grand grey of more famous Notre Dame. Inside is one of the largest and surely, most beautiful, mosaics in the world.

For the historians: Built for Jesus' Sacred Heart in the aftermath of the Paris revolts over the Franco-Prussian war in the 1870's, the church is built of the spot where the uprisings took greatest force and where the army massacred many of the protesters but is supposedly a memorial to those who died in the war. Enjoy the quiet (except for the subtle splash of the fountains) gardens and climb the stairs for a peak out of the domed roof over all of Paris.

AMELIE'S CAFE
Address : 15 Rue Lepic, Rue Cauchois, Montmartre, Paris

This is a great film and Paris is a unique place to visit, especially the film's director's manor, Montmartre, so I was very disappointed to hear that most of the internal locations were shot in a German studio. The externals are all real though, and you can go to the Cafe des Deux Moulins where Amelie works and have a cognac and a creme brulee , it just doesn't look how you want it to look. The metro station Amelie escorts the blind man from is Lamarch-Caulaincourt, you'll know it for the double flights of staris, and the carousel from where Ameile leaves a trail for Nino is located at Place St. Pierre near the Basilica of Sacre-Cour. To help you get into the feel of things bring your orange tinted lenses and positive attitude.

THE MARAIS

Sidewalk cafes, antique shops, and an eclectic group of some of the most individual little boutiques set the mood as you stroll down the Marais area of Paris on a sunny day. Come here to get away from the hustle and bustle of larger, department type stores with trendy fashion. The Marais is a mix of Greenwich village and SoHo fashion shops, with small art galleries sprinkled between. Walk in and out of the shops at your own pace, admiring handmade trinkets and fabulous bohemian handbags. There are many up and coming designers who are featured on Rue de Rosiers that are definitely worth a look, as well as Satellite, on Rue de Francs- Bourgeois, a beautiful jewelry boutique. Fresh scents and eye-catching decorations fill each shop and invite you to taste the fun and funky fashions that each shop offers. For a bite to eat, Miss Manor on 87 rue Saint-Antoine offers delicious Viennese bread and buns, hot drinks, croques, paninis, delectable salads, and other treats that will satisfy all taste buds. Although some may find the shops at Marais a little too quirky, the differences are a refreshing change of pace. The main streets of Marais are Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, Place des Vosges, Rue de Turenne, and Rue des Rosiers. You can easily access this smart neighborhood by taking either the Metro Saint Paul (Line 1) or Hotel de Ville (Line 1,11). Alternatively stay in one of an increasing number of chic hotels in the area.

Shop for: Bohemian and vintage fashion

Cafe Stop: Miss Manor

How to get here: Line 1 or 11

Best sales: For about six weeks after Christmas and six weeks in the summer

PICASSO MUSEUM
Address : 5 Rue de Thorigny 75003 Paris

An elegant mansion in the Marais, housing the definitive collection of works by Picasso ' thousands of paintings, drawings, sketches, sculptures and other artworks. They span the artist's career and show the development of his style. The museum also shows Picasso's own collections of paintings (Cezanne, Rousseau, Braque, Derain, and Miro) and African tribal art.