26/11- a Black day of Indian history

On the night of Mumbai terror attack almost everyone went beyond the call of duty, some with arms and some with plain courage. One such person was former chief security officer (CSO) for The Oberoi Hotel, Commander S Nagmote. His presence of mind saved many lives that night.

"I got a call that there is a blast, the person who called didn't realise that it was a gun fire initially," said Nagmote.

He entered the hotel minutes after the first round of fire.

"There was blood near the bell desk. I could see blood near the elevator because I think one of the Japanese guests was shot at by the terrorist at the bell desk area. He was pulled by his colleague at the elevator so I could see the blood stains on the floor, the blood of somebody being dragged," he said.

"What I really wanted was that I should have had a weapon like AK47 and I would have gone after these guys," he added.

Nagmote may not have managed to control the two terrorists, but he pledged that he would not allow any further collateral damage to the people or the property.

Two things that became a priority for Nagmote were managing the fire panel and conserving water to combat any fire and for those injured and stranded. He was aware that he was exposing himself and risking his life in the process. It was then that he saw water leaking down from the higher floors where the terrorists were hiding.

"I thought I must conserve water. So I went up to the 12th and 13th floors. Thereafter, I gave up because I didn't have a life jacket. I only knew the terrorists were on the top floor. I thought they were on the 21st floor. I knew the number of terrorist. I knew it from the CCTV camera footage that there were two terrorist," he said.

Nagmote put a list together of all those present at the hotel and called every guest to ensure that they felt safe. He made a 1,000 calls but forgot to dial one number of his worrying wife and daughter at home.

"The touching moment was when I switched on my cell phone and I had a SMS from my daughter saying that 'at least please call us and tell us that you are ok,'" he said.

The man who saved many lives lost one closest to him, his childhood friend Anti Terrorism Squad Chief Hemant Karkare.

"Personally the thing that moved me was the loss of the lives of the guests and of my employees and colleagues," he said.

"My dad came back home and saw gifts laid on the table and he asked what is going on? I told him it's my birthday. And him coming home was the best birthday gift," said his daughter, Suma Nagmote.

On completion of one year, please pray for the immortal soul of the brave soldiers, who made our country proud.

Source- IBN

Price war- Bharti Airtel Vs TATA DoCoMo

The equal competitors are coming up with their new tariffs, plans ,special packs and their varying services to prove themselves to be much competitive and trying to anchor them firmly in this mobile sector. Still many new operators are yet to launch their services in days to come but existing ones don’t seem to leave a bit of it.

They convinced the people by their VAS plans and tariffs too. Currently the Tata Docomo came up with its services with an all new tariff scheme of pay per second which has brought out a massive revolution in the market. DOT’s mandatory urged every operator to go with pay per second scheme.

On 30th Oct the leading mobile service provider Bharti Airtel launched their much awaited “Pay Per Second” tariff all throughout India.The tariff comparison with Airtel and TATA Docomo is as follows,

* Airtel with its inception on 2001 renders number of customers but their tariff, call rates to different network makes confusion and remains unstable. But Docomo’s 1p/sec throughout India makes consumers to keep track of their account and controls expenses.

* Airtel has kept different SMS charges even in their Pay Per Second plan with local sms being charged at Re.1 and National SMS at Rs.1.50, whereas Docomo introduced SMS charges based on the number of characters. No recharges are needed to opt for per second calling after one year.

* Package activation of Airtel ranges from Rs.64 to Rs.99 and varies from circle to circle. Docomo’s does not charge anything extra for activating the per second pack since the tariff plan by default is on per second basis.

* The Airtel tariff calculation is hard ranging from 1p/sec to 1.2p/sec , but 20% higher to other operators whereas A2A calls are kept at 1p/sec and that to other operators are charged at 1.2p/sec. But Tata Docomo is offering a limited period offer of STD calls at 1p/sec.

* Post paid customers are abandoned from VAS, IVR calling, etc .Docomo is quite opposite to this post paid subscribers enjoy those services.

* But Airtel is older than Docomo so it has compact network links than Docomo , so this is the place where Docomo has to establish itself.

Meanwhile it is found that Docomo with both GSM and CDMA network added over ‘4 million’ subscribers in September, beating market leader Bharti Airtel yet again. Airtel had 2.5 million new users in September.

The battle has just begun as new operators are still to join the war.

Source- Call bharat

Future in Life Insurance

The Indian life insurance industry is expected to grow by about 15 percent in the current financial year to touch a total premium income of Rs. 2,55,000 crore in 2009-10.

"Despite the slowdown in the economy, life insurance industry has continued to grow as policyholders are realizing the value of insurance. We continue to be optimistic about the future of the insurance business in India and expect the industry to grow about at 15 percent," Life Insurance Council Secretary General S.B. Mathur said in a statement.

As per the industry body's estimates, the target for total premium at Rs. 2,55,000 crore for this fiscal would be achieved, he added. The industry had garnered Rs. 2,21,688 crore of total premium in 2008-09, the statement said. In the first six months of this fiscal, the insurance industry has already mopped up Rs. 1,01,976 crore of premium registering a growth of 18 percent over the year-ago period, reports PTI.

As per the industry body, total renewal premiums for regular Unit Linked Insurance Plans (ULIPs) witnessed a growth of 40 percent in April-September period at Rs. 25,950 crore compared with Rs. 18,506 crore in the same period last fiscal. New business premium increased by 13 percent to Rs. 38,985 cores from Rs. 34,529 cores for the corresponding period in 2008-09, it said. In the first half, total benefit paid to policyholders stood at Rs. 28,373 crore as against Rs. 23,070 crore, up 23 percent, the council said.

India's workforce unskilled? Only 5 percent certified

Pointing out that enhancing the skill sets of the workforce in the country is a challenge, President Pratibha Patil regretted that large chunk of workforce in India did not have skill certification, contrary to the developed countries.

As reported by the Indian Express, the President said, "Only five percent of the workforce in India has some kind of certification. This is in contrast to over 85 percent in the developed countries. Encouragement of work-integrated learning followed by examination, certification and accreditation through distance education will be of help. However, to make it effective there would be a need for active two way collaboration with industry and other players." Participating in the silver jubilee celebrations of the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), Pratibha Patil said that the open university system being flexible and innovative can be useful for a wide section of society and should help in improving skill sets.

The President also said that the spread of education among women is very important. "By spreading education amongst them, not only is an individual educated, but rather the seeds of progress of the next generation are planted," she added.

Moreover, Pratibha Patil said that the gross enrollment ratio (GER) in India in higher education is very low as compared to the world average. She pointed out that strenuous efforts are required to reach our goal of enhancing the GER in India to 20 percent by 2020.

Richest Man of country

While the rest of the world has been struggling with the worst recession in decades, India's economy has glided serenely through the crisis, registering 6.1 per cent GDP growth to date in 2009 and enriching its top earners to such an extent that the number of billionaires in the country doubled last year. During that time the Mumbai stock market has soared by three-quarters to the joy of India's super-rich elite.

Forbes Asia magazine released its annual rich list yesterday, and there were 52 dollar billionaires on it, up from 27 last year. In pride of place at the top of the table with $32bn was Mukesh Ambani, the 52-year-old chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, India's largest private sector conglomerate.

Ambani took over the family firm, of which he owns 48 per cent, from his father Dhirubhai, and is currently locked in a bitter legal battle with his brother Anil over a business deal. Mukesh is the owner of the Indian Premier League team Mumbai Indians, for which he paid $111.9m.

Nestled behind Ambani in second place, with just $2bn less, is Lakshmi Mittal, the chairman and CEO of steel giant Arcelor-Mittal. Confusingly Mittal, 59, is also considered to be the richest person in the UK, where he maintains a house in Kensington that he bought from fellow tycoon Bernie Ecclestone in 2004. He paid £57m for the 12-bedroom mansion – breaking the world record at the time for a single property. He also owns a stake in Queens Park Rangers football club alongside Ecclestone and disgraced Formula 1 team principal Flavio Briatore.

Between them, the 100 richest Indians are valued at $276bn, almost 23 per cent of the country's 2008 GDP of $1.2tr. The growing inequality in the nation - where more than 800m people live on less than $0.50 a day - has prompted calls from academics and government ministers for action. Ambani sensibly saw the way the wind was blowing and cut his annual salary by 66 per cent to just $3.2m.


By Seth Jacobson

Economic Terms.

Whether you are a student of Economics or Management,Whether you are a working professional or a layman.Reserves play a important role in your life.Reserve Ratios or Required Reserve Ratio or Cash Reserve Ratio effects the market and the life of a common man directly.

Now you may be thinking what exactly is it??????

So let us see it in details.

The Reserve Requirement (or Required Reserve Ratio or Cash Reserve Ratio) is a bank regulation that sets the minimum reserves each bank must hold to customer deposits and notes. It would normally be in the form of fiat currency stored in a bank vault (vault cash), or with a central bank.

CRR:-

CRR Rate in India

Cash reserve Ratio (CRR) is the amount of funds that the banks have to keep with RBI. If RBI decides to increase the percent of this, the available amount with the banks comes down. RBI is using this method (increase of CRR rate), to drain out the excessive money from the banks.

Relation between Inflation and Bank interest Rates

Now a days, you might have heard lot of these terms and usage on inflation and the bank interest rates. We are trying to make it simple for you to understand the relation between inflation and bank interest rates in India.

Bank interest rate depends on many other factors, out of that the major one is inflation. Whenever you see an increase on inflation, there will be an increase of interest rate also

What is Inflation?

Inflation is defined as an increase in the price of bunch of Goods and services that projects the Indian economy. An increase in inflation figures occurs when there is an increase in the average level of prices in Goods and services. Inflation happens when there are less Goods and more buyers, this will result in increase in the price of Goods, since there is more demand and less supply of the goods.

Deflation

Deflation is the continuous decrease in prices of goods and services. Deflation occurs when the inflation rate becomes negative (below zero) and stays there for a longer period...

What is a Repo Rate?

Whenever the banks have any shortage of funds they can borrow it from RBI. Repo rate is the rate at which our banks borrow rupees from RBI. A reduction in the Repo rate will help banks to get money at a cheaper rate. When the Repo rate increases borrowing from RBI becomes more expensive.

Marketing Concepts ...

A Professor at one of the IIM's was explaining marketing concepts to the Students: -

1. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say: "I am very rich. Marry me!" - That's Direct Marketing

2. You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you say: "He's very rich. Marry him." - That's Advertising

3. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and get her telephone number. The next day, you call and say: "Hi, I'm very rich. Marry me." - That's Telemarketing

4. You're at a party and see gorgeous girl. You get up and straighten your tie, you walk up to her and pour her a drink, you open the door (of the car) for her, pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her a ride and then says:"By the way, I'm rich. Will you marry me?" - That's Public Relations

5. You're at a party and see gorgeous girl. She walks up to you and says:
"You are very rich! Can you marry me?" - That's Brand Recognition

6. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say:
"I am very rich. Marry me!" She gives you a nice hard slap on your face. - That's Customer Feedback

7. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say:
"I am very rich. Marry me!" And she introduces you to her husband. - That's demand and supply gap

8. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before you say anything, another person come and tells her: "I'm rich... Will you marry me?" and she goes with him -
That's competition eating into your market share

9. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and before
you say: "I'm rich, Marry me!" your wife arrives. - That's restriction
for entering new markets

So, Dear Friends hope it is clear by now

Source: Club Jam- By Journeyman