Go Green...... Sun is the answer

Each decade, brings in a new technology which revolutionise the way world works. Clearly the last decade, I would say belongs to Telecommunications. Internet and mobile telephony in the last decade, clearly changed the way business is done, the words like Back office, call centre, BPO, Outsourcing was unheard till late 90's. More, importantly all these made India more stronger and this made other countries to upon India with envy. Now, let's look at realitistic way of a technology which can change the world we live,


So.,, what next, whats going to be next revolution? has telecommunication reached in saturation?. May or may be not, there might be a slow down telecommunication sector. Is there going to be a high growth sector?. The one technology, which is yet to be completely tapped is green energy, the tapping of solar energy is still at a very nascent stage. Probably the reason for this is all developed countries like US, UK or Japan does not have sunshine all round the world and this might be one of the reason that world do not look at Solar energy is a great way!.

For country like India, which sunshine almost all round the year, it could be one great opportunity to harness this energy and lead in the front. In India solar energy is tapped in a small way for street lighting and water heating. When solar energy is can produce electricity, why not it be used for vehicles like motorcycles,cars and buses. This technology is already is already there, the University of Michigan had demonstrated a solar power car. If one has to think about a situation in India, where 90% of vehicles are solar powered, will India not be a best country to live in, with no pollution and more importantly saving billion of dollars year or year due to huge import bill of petroleum, which can hopefully be used for other infrastructure projects. For a common man, he may not worry about fuel price hike.

View of solar powered car
Just not the vehicles alone, electricity to houses can be through solar energy. I have a weird thinking, we all know electricity is produced from one state is transmitted to another state within India. Through similar means, if solar energy is used to generate electricity and if there is going to be a way to store and transmit to a different place, if this can lead to export of electricity produced by solar, India would be at its best with sunshine all around the year and could well be on its way to be a pretty rich country in the world.

The solar powers seems to be limitless, I was amazed to read in wiki about, a solar-powered aircraft in Switzerland completed a 26-hour test flight starting at 7 a.m. on 8 July, 2010 which ended at 9 a.m. the next day. The plane was flown to a height of nearly 28,000 feet (8,500 meters) by Andre Borschberg. During the evening, the plane slowly descended to an altitude of 4,500 feet (1,500 meters), where it remained for the rest of the night using battery power. An hour before dawn, the plane still had six hours of flying time left in its solar-fueled batteries.

Once the cost of solar panel reduces and so is the size of panel, it can create wonders, where ever electricity or battery power have been put to used.

In the coming years one has to tap the green energy... and Sun seems to be the answer, will Indian Government and Indian entreprenuers wake up and make up the best of this opportunity?.

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Compulsive spending.

Any economy is bound to grow, if there is increase in spending by the citizens rather then saving. But, over spending can create a dent in the financial health of an individual.


Recently, came about the following article in a blog .
and thought worth sharing, its about the "so called" special days, the fathers day, mothers day, valentine day, womens day and I believe there is even Ice cream day and our own Akshya tritiya, which is more towards making people to spend.

To add a point on Akshaya Tritiya,

i) It was unknown about a decade back, so did the people not prosper without buying gold on Akshaya Tritiya in previous generation?.

ii) Akshaya Tritiya symbolises with Akshaya Patra, which is a vessels which keep producing food when you keep giving. So this ideally means one have to offer help or offer food or give to others towards prosperity, however this has been completed twisted for the benefit of the seller.

The second article is about compulsive spending , both articles are almost in line with my thought on "4 debt traps to avoid" which I had posted on July 5Th.

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4 Common Debt trap to avoid

About a decade back, getting a loan had its own challenge. One has to visit bank a number of time and provide all the needed document/security before getting a loan, this has changed drastically in the last 10 years.



Most of us would get a call almost on a daily basis about loans & credit card from Banks. Its easy to get loans these days, but you need to ensure you have sufficient fund flow with you before taking up debt route to finance your needs.

Like a business man one have to effectively uses Loan (Debt) and his own funds(equity). High content of loan can get you easily trapped to the path of Bankruptcy. Lets see some of the common used loan facility.

Credit cards : A nice financial instrument, if effectively used and can be a financial killer if abused. No longer does one need to carry cash his wallet and ensure its security, if effectively used one get 45 days credit. Further these days, one get life time free card. Just paying minimum due would take you to the debt trap, plan to pay at the end of your credit period, if you feel due to commitment you would not be able to pay its better to postpone purchase unless its a necessity. Its not a wise, to pay credit card dues through a loan, unless its available at your disposal for almost negligible interest rate, if not Zero.

Home loan: The concept of Home loan has changed drastically in the last 8 to 10 years, now one can get home loans without visiting banks. Few years back, the Equated Monthly installment (EMI) was almost equivalent to the rent paid for an accommodation, hence it was wise to own house, since at the end of loan tenure the house or apartment becomes your property. The same is not true now adays, in the most cases rent is almost 1/3rd of the EMI, in case if you have opted by 85% financing through loan.

With sky rocketed property price in the last few years, one has to also take into account depreciation, if he opts for a flat. This being the case, if one calculates the total capital outflow till the end of the loan tenure vs the flat appreciated value, the total capital outflow might end up higher at the end of the loan tenure.

One might also end up paying more interest rate as compared to tax benefit available. Its better to keep home EMI 30 to 40% of the take home pay and take up decision after some home work is done.

Consumer loan: Any consumer product can be procured through loan, more particularly the vehicle loans. Considering the fact, consumer products have highest depreciation, its better to look at your needs rather than looking at the luxuries, while opting for this loan.

Personal loan:: Personal loan does not have any tax rebate and interest rate of quite high, these loan has to be used only if case of emergency. Personal loan & credit card loan are the first one which need to paid off as soon as money becomes available. The interest rate is much higher than home loan


Always keep a check on the cash outflow on regular basis and ensure some saving in form of the alternative investment is made on a monthly basis. Also, it imperative at any point of time the total of all your EMI is not beyond 50% of your take home monthly income. Though there is no hard or fast rule, its easier to save money at early age(between 20~30 years) than at a later stage(40 + years) of your life due to commitment one gets. Remember, unlike developed countries, India does not offer social security to its citizen during sunset years.

Pay check might increase over the years, but so is inflation and commitment over the years. Hence, one need to work according to a some financial plan.

Remember these days, the credit default information are updated into the database maintained by Credit information Bureau (India) Limited cibil . Hence, better not get into a debt trap, which can prove much expensive.

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Alternative Reserve Currency

Recently, read an article about Global reserve system - A Asian perspective by Asian Development bank



This seems to be in line with my thoughts, as why a weaker currency countries will continue to grow as compared to stronger currency like USD or Euro.

In the article, according to Barry Eichengreen, after World War II, when the United States accounted for the majority of the industrial production of the non-Soviet world, it made sense that the dollar was the principal unit in which exporters and importers invoiced and settled their trade, in which international loans were extended, and in which central banks held their reserves. But this situation makes less sense today when the US accounts for only some 20 per cent of the combined output of countries engaged in international transactions. Because habits die hard, the dollar continues to play a disproportionately important role. But simply because this is true today does not mean that it will be true tomorrow. Countries that trade with and borrow from the euro area will increasingly seek to hold euros as reserves. Countries that trade with and borrow from the People’s Republic of China will similarly seek to hold renminbi, if not today then in the not-too-distant future.

Somewhere, I read 18th century belonged to France/Germany, 19th to Great Britain, 20th to USA and 21st to Asia. Well, if you consider BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India & China) only Brazil, is away from others geographically. If RIC (Russia, India & China) can form a trilateral ally, then undoubtedly 21st century can belong to Asia.

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Is it Home or Farm house?

In a leading new paper in the property section there are pages and pages of advertisement about upcoming real estate property projects.



Interestingly, majority of these upcoming apartment are miles away from city even in most cases, its kilometres away from main highway. Was wondering as whether these property are to be considered as Home or Farm house for short stay?.

Even within city, when there are so much infrastructure woes, what would be in store for residents staying in such far away place?.

In developed countries, even if residential settlement are quite far away from the city, the general infrastructure will be in place, before the government provides approval for residential settlement. In India its reverse, one would find residential settlement which costs a fortune and the pricing comparable to a developed country, unfortunately you may not find the even the basic infrastructure, once you step out of these upcoming residential complex.

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Is Film industry business model up for a change?

With big budgeted movies in Bollywood failing in box office, I was wondering, is it time to rethink on film business model?.


If one looks a film industry couple decades back, film was the only entertainment for the public. TV was not a big entertainer, color TV was just venturing in and public had to content with Doordarshan, hence public did not have much options and added to it unlike now, film tickets which are are sold at Rs 150~200 plus, the film tickets were priced at about Rs 20 earlier. Naturally, people were inclined to visit theatres for entertainment.

If you look at a situation now, for family to watch a movies, a family of 4 might have to spend about Rs 1000 which includes ticket, car parking and some munching. Nowadays, TV has all features of a home theatre & a fine print DVD are available at cheaper price. Off course, one has to stop movie piracy, which is not an easy job, to me its something like asking a person to come to bank to withdraw money and to avoid using ATM.

Why not the film industry look at producing what the customer wants? I meant, can a film producer produce a short movie for 1 hour and sell it in a DVD format priced at Rs 100. There are DVD/CD copy protection encryption software, which can prevent copying and more over if it priced at Rs 100, further its may not worth the effort for coping low priced media illegally. Producer can think of getting corporate sponsorship, just like India TV serials and for sure for these movie story value and entertainment is important, rather than hero, heroine or songs or 3 unnecessary fight. Further, I don't think distribution is a challenge for DVD formatted movies, when pre-paid sim card can be sold in a small shop, why not these DVD. There need to be some marketing effort and the producers can look at some innovations, like using blogger.

If film industry want to attract public to theaters the better option is to produce movies like 'Avatar' which might not have the same visual effect when watched on TV, in which case definitely public will opt for theater.

Well, with real estate pricing having gone up by 200~400% over the last few years, the business viability of theater itself can be a question mark.

Quite recently, one of my colleague told about this funny short movie, hope you would enjoy it too, particularly if you understand Tamil. This has all the ingredient of what I was thinking about short movie and may be the producer has not sold it commercially, as embed code was available in youtube & their website.

Jakkuboys - The Movie from Scube Productions on Vimeo.

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IBM to Launch COE at 75 engineering colleges

IBM has announced that it will be establishing 75 new Centers of Excellence (CoE) at engineering colleges across 60 cities in India. Last year also the vendor had set- up over 75 such CoEs across the country. Spread across 20 states these new CoEs will be selected from the top 300 engineering colleges in India.


The IBM CoEs are aimed at creating a platform for the development of software skills among the students and to offer them an opportunity to acquire new skill sets around IBM software. Apart from providing training, certification and software which is free of charge to these colleges, IBM plans to take the CoEs to the next logical level of converting them into Incubation Centers, to bolster software skills and ensure industry-ready professionals.

IBM is looking to bring its Global Entrepreneurship Initiative (GEI) to some of these colleges. This initiative has produced around 10,000 certified candidates from the various CoEs. The number is expected to increase by 6000 certified candidates in 2010.

To me this looks to be a great intiative and an untapped sector which could produce wonders. Normally, the student would be enthusiatic to learn and can be much innovative particularly during the final year project and this could turn out to be a win-win situation between colleges and industry at a low cost. In West, most of the innovation orginates from college due to institute and industry collobaration, unfortunately, so far, this has been the missing link in India.

This will also pave way to building up entreprenuership culture. Will other corporates follow this trend?

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