Conviction of Mind

Andhra Pradesh is a state that was formed on linguistic basis as having people speaking Telugu. Telangana, Royalaseema and Coastal Andhra were part of Andhra Pradesh. Telengana is fighting for its own statehood for a long period of time. Today, Congress Working Committee (CWC) announced the approval for the formation of a new state called Telengana state. Hyderabad would be a common capital for both Telengana and Andhra Pradesh for atleast next 10 years. The new state will be formed after the resolution is formed in the parliament, probably, in the next 4-5 months. Are Telengana people excited? Mostly, Yes. But they would be really excited if Hyderabad was made their capital and Andhra Pradesh was made to create its own capital. Are other Andhra people happy? No. They still think this should not have happened. They are worried about the future of their people in Hyderabad and the future of Hyderabad as such. Is this really true? Everyone agreed? Yes. Its hard to believe. But i

CRISIL is the leading credit rating company in India. It researches other companies and gives rating to IPOs, other financial debt and equity instruments. It is completely debt free and is one of the best mid to large cap company one can invest in. It also has a good management team and reporting profits year after year. It has always enjoyed being the pioneer in the industry and had good valuations. Now, McGraw Hill Asian Holdings would like to increase the promoter shareholding in the company through an open offer priced at Rs. 1210/-. The open offer period is from July 24 to August 6, 2013. So, the price would be stabilized around Rs. 1210/- till the end of the offer period and then goes back to the real valuation from the market. McGraw Hill Asian Holdings currently hold 52.77% and would like to increase another 22% through this open offer. What does it really mean when a company is making an open offer? If a company is making an open offer, it actually believes in the busines

There are about 520 engineering colleges in Tamil Nadu that are affiliated to Anna University. Most of the parents wants their children to become a doctor or engineer. The counsel ling for all the engineering colleges affiliated to Anna University started from 21-Jun-13 and happening till 26-July-2013 as per the schedule in  here .  Because of sheer number of colleges and the number of students coming out every year, the engineering stream has completely lost its sheen for those students coming from average colleges. Most of south Indians invest heavily on education of their children. There should be some amount of analysis that should be put in as college is one of the important phase in everyone's life. Students should understand their needs and check if the college satisfies everything that they are looking for. Some of the important parameters that can be used for analysis is provided below. This is no particular order and the priority differs for each student based o

The "lump-sum" may mean different amounts to different people. Even for the same person, the "lump-sum" can mean different amounts according to his life stage. These kind of lump-sum amounts are parked mostly for shorter term with a particular goal in mind. The goal can be anything from Buying a car, House, Children's education, marriage, retirement etc., The tenure is important to be identified before considering the investment avenues. Also, the importance of reaching the goal on time also should be considered.  Let us assume, Raj is looking for investing 10L in some investment avenue for best returns in 2-years time frame. He expects the best returns possible during this period. What should he do? The options for him may be., (1) Direct Stock investment (2) Mutual funds (3) Post Office savings schemes (4) FD (5) Purchasing land (6) Corporate bonds/debts (7) Insurance linked Annuity-plan (8) Chit funds (9) Multi-Level Marketing (

Most of them would have seen a ever-standing long queue near Gemini Bridge in Chennai. You can see the location of U.S.Consulate through this map  http://goo.gl/4t4Z2  . There are different kind of Visa(s) that you can apply to reach U.S. For quick reference, please refer to the below F.A.Qs Why do I need Visa? Most foreign countries require approved Visas for the people from other countries to visit their country. The norms vary from country to country. This U.S. Consulate is responsible for issuing Visas for people visiting "The United States of America" only. Can I apply for any Visa here? The Visa interview happens here. For application and other such details refer to  http://www.ustraveldocs.com/in/index.html  . The visa interview for all the type of Visa for U.S. happens here. The usual schedule now is to record your finger-prints in  OFC  and visa interview in the U.S. consulate on the next day. I had the OFC (offsite Facilitation Center) appointmen

Motherly love is beyond comparison. There is a saying that - "God cannot be there for all of them. So, he created mom". There is a great truth in that. All the mothers in the world love their children and want to give whatever they want. My mom is so special. She gave love, provided care and taught good and bad. She was really fun-loving and enjoys comedy a lot. She laughs and make others laugh with her words. She is a role-model in many ways. She gets up even before the sun rises and gets all the required things for us on time. She knows where things are in the house and helps everyone - from my father to my brother in getting their things.  She was kind and lived for us. There are no words to explain her love. My mom is so special. When my father had Jaundice (Manjal Kamalai), my mom helped him to recover faster. During my campus interview days, I told, I am planning to move out of Chennai for my job. My mom immediately said "you need to move places far away a

If you can live with 90% of your income, it is possible for you to make a choice of saving or investing for the remaining money. If you can't live with 90% of your income, you need to concentrate more on your career to increase the income. As a rule of thumb, it is better to live with 90% of your income. I mean, it is better to spend less than what you earn and its even more better if you can save at least 10% of your income.  Once you make sure you are living within your means, the next step is to invest as little as you can. Saving just makes the money safe but won't grow the money beyond the inflation numbers. If you are investing, it grows your money and gives you better return. Please read  Begin Investing  for more information. Why should one invest early? Investing early gives more time for you to grow your money.  Lets take a small example. John and Joe are childhood friends and of same age. They earn the same amount of money. John invests Rs. 20000 every

Everyone understands investing the money is really important. If not, understand that investing is expected to give more returns than inflation. On the other hand, saving money would give depreciating returns compared to inflation. Primarily, investing everything in one asset class (debt, equity, gold, real estate,  liquid funds, cash etc.,) is a bad idea. Based on your current age, the asset allocation should be done. Most of them are over-exposed in real estate. The rule of thumb is to reduce the exposure on risky investments (equity, mutual funds, ULIP etc.,) and increase the exposure on safe investments (PPF, PF, debt, gold etc.,) as your age increases. Also, the amount in each asset class should be less than 70% ideally. There needs to be some emergency cash always available for unforeseen emergency need. This would be typically around six months of your expenses. The primary reason for asset allocation is to diversify and thereby reduce the risk of losing the entire investmen

In this year's budget, the tax slabs are unchanged and Rs. 2000/- tax credit has been introduced. The tax slabs as such remain the same For both Men and Women in India, Income                       - Tax slab upto 2 Lakhs              - Nil 2-5 Lakhs                  - 10% 5-10 Lakhs                - 20% Above 10 Lakhs        - 30% This Rs. 2000/- tax credit is not for all the tax-payers. It benefits 1.8 crore people in the income group of 2-5 lakhs. Essentially people who are getting less than 2 Lakhs (tax would anyway be NIL) and more than 5 Lakhs have their tax rates unchanged without any tax credit. For those who are under 2 Lakhs will not be credited Rs. 2000/- The individuals less than 60 years of age will be paying Rs.2000/- lesser if their income is between 2.2 and 5 lakhs. If they are earning more than 2 lakhs and less than 2.2 lakhs, there will be no tax for them. Similarly for the senior citizens, if their income is between 2.7 and 5 lakhs, they can reduce t

There are many things to look for when you are buying/renting a house. While buying a house, you may have some priorities and check-list. Also, while renting the house, you will have an eye on the rent and other agreement details. In common, there are many things to look for when buying or renting a house and I have listed the top 5 things, I think, here. (1) Good Locality       It is important to see whether it is in good locality. It reminds different things for different sort of people. Good locality can mean one or many of the below      (a) good residential place to live in      (b) few good schools and hospitals around      (c) friendly people nearby      (d) Good roads, have office nearby      (e) departmental stores and hotels nearby          The choice of above things depends on the sort of the people and the life-stage they are in. (2) Ample ground water supply      Water is a essential commodity and we require water for many things in our life. There should be a

Customer experience is the experience of the customer from the period they came to know about the existence of the product until they finish using the product. For a hotel like Saravana Bhavan, the customer experience is from the point they came to know about its existence (the day they started) until they are associated with that particular customer (probably, forever for Saravana Bhavan but it depends on each of the customer). For a typical brokerage firm, it is all about how easy it is to open the account and the experience until the customer closes the account. For BSNL or Samsung, it is from when the customer gets to know about their products (the point when they want to buy it) until the time they stopped using it. Customer service is also part of it. Its all about the customer service, once the customer has become the owner of the product. Most of the times, I have seen, the Customer Experience is great until one procure the product or service and after that, because of t

Couple of years back, the word "Samsung" always reminded me of the beautiful Home Appliances (read TVs, Air Conditioners and Fridges). But, it has also become one of the market leaders in Mobiles, Accessories and also Laptops. This leadership in other avenues have always come along with their prime home appliances growth as well. About three months back, I wanted to upgrade my 5 years old desktop. And I was in a shock to find most of the accessories had the option of Samsung in it (except the mother-board and processor, of course). When I tried to find the best option for internal hard disk, Samsung has created a good presence there. After the Samsung Galaxy series came into existence, it has grown to market leadership in India. The recent S4 as per the release has many good features and is comparable to iPhone. Nokia, once a leader in India, has completely lost the battle against Samsung in recent times.  One of the main reasons on why Samsung is preferred over o

Google has always been the front runner on creating new and exciting products. Even though they come up with lot of good products, I believe they sometimes close down some of their good products unnecessarily. When Google search came with a bang and captured most of the search market, it innovated many other new and better products not restricting itself to search engine alone. This gave way to them as a market leader in innovation (probably, Apple and Google fight here for the throne). Google has a bad habit of forcing the change on customers. Gmail, one of the best mail available in the market today, has always changed itself according to the company's vision. It would have been better if Google had provided the 'customize' option on Gmail to have it configured according to what they like by giving some options. On a funny note, one should be happy that, at least, its alive. Google announced its going to phase out Google Reader from July 1, 2013. Feedly is the perfe