The Ajanta Experience

I had a breath taking experience with Air India this time, while I was returning back to The US, after my 3 week vacation in India !
What a vacation I had !!! Lots of sweet memories about my marriage, reception ceremony !!!
My return flight was from Ahmedabad to Newark on AI-191 for date 9th Dec'07. As everybody knows, Air India has a reputation for regularly late flights. But I was in for a big surprise. The flight was scheduled to depart ON TIME ! Wow ! Is this a new Air India ? I was wondering.
This time I had an additional baggage piece, so I went to AI counter to pay $123 for the same. I gave them my VISA card, but they asked me for a cash ! I said, I don't have cash with me so please charge my card. They replied, that there was no person on duty who knew how to charge a card !!! I was shocked. What the hell ! Nobody in Ahmedabad Airport knew how to make a charge on card ? I argued with them, but it was pointless. I had to go out and ask my dad for the INR for the same.
As stated, the flight indeed took off at the right time: 3:50 am. I was in a bit sentimental mood, as the flight took off. As soon as it took off, the plane descended too much. Normally the plane does descend a bit to gain speed during the takeoff. I thought it was normal and i was afraid unnecessarily. But when i looked at the scared face of the air hostess, I knew something went wrong. Luckily, the captain controlled well thereafter and the flight was on its way to Mumbai !
We reached there at 5am. Once on the terminal, it was announced that the flight has developed some serious technical issues and that it will be delayed by 3 hours. We took off from Mumbai at 10:30am for Paris/Newark. After we travelled for about 3 hours, the captain made an announcement that the flight has developed some serious technical issues and that it was in everybody's safety interest that the flight be turned back to mumbai. We all got tensed hearing this. The flight then made a U turn for mumbai. The in flight tv screen showed that the flight was returning to mumbai on the shortest path, in a straight line. This indicated that they have asked for emergency air space clearance. The plane started catching up speed and started dumping fuel. It was a scary sight. For the first time in real life i saw mid air fuel dumping. Almost all passengers were praying for the safety of the flight. and thankfully the prayers were heard. We landed back in mumbai at 3 pm. We heaved a sigh of relief. Once landed, the captain made an announcement that, lunch will be offered in the plane, and by that time other arrangements will be made. After lunch we were out of the plane at 4: 30pm. The first thing we wanted to do is to call back home and let our family members know about this. Can you imagine, only 2 local phones and 1 std/isd phone were working !!! So there was a huge queue for this.... After this they took us to Hotel Ajanta at Juhu. People were really pissed off because the ride from airport to the hotel took 1 hour !!! It was gruelling us !!! We were told that the new flight will be taking off at midnight 1:30 am. It was not so good hotel. Not even 1 star !!! But all that matters looked small as compared to our in flight scary experience. We had but a nice dinner at 8:30pm and I went off for a nap till 2am. At 2 am the airport bus came in and it was announced that flight was about to take off at 5am.
Thankfully, it was a new plane. It was a 'Agra' and not 'Ajanta'. From then on, it was all in all an OK flight experience till Newark. This time too, Air India kept its name for late arrival. The flight was late by 40 mins. from its scheduled landing time, and 22 hours late in total !!!

I thank God, I am still fit and fine and alive !
But one thing is for sure, this will be my LAST trip by AIR INDIA.
I dont say that such incidences do not happen for other airlines. But the way the issues were handled post-incident, I swear NEVER EVER AGAIN by air india.
I purchased Air India ticket since i got it for a $1000, $300 less than other airlines. But the $300 additional expense is worth for other airlines. I now agree. Air India is the worst.
Even the food was pathetic this time round. Extremely oily food. My throat is all infected still !!!

You can travel by Air India if you :

1. do not have value for time and like being late in your commitments.
2. like pathetic oily food.
3. like continous crying of children, irresponsible parents of these children. It seems that NRI parents of these children like to boast of how mischievous our children can be.. as if there was a competition for this too......!!!
4. like disobeying the flight safety orders. Yes thats what all AI passengers do. if the captain says fasten up your seat belt for landing, passengers will be moving around for water, tea and free wafers...... its not that the announcement was only in English. Hindi announcements were made too. !!!!
5. do not have common sense, simple manners, honesty and modesty.

As for me, I will pay any amount for other airlines, but wont travel by Air India again, even if they offer me a free ticket !!!!!

Retire at 40: Here's how

It's simple, but hard. Take 20% of your gross income every month, invest it in a balanced index fund and leave it there, then retire 20 years later with enough for a lifetime. Do you have what it takes?

A young, forward-thinking man wrote and asked this simple question:

Right now, I'm 20 years old. I am willing to take a large percentage off the top of my salary for the rest of my working life in order to be able to retire very young and live off of the proceeds of my investments and do volunteer work. How many years would I have to work if I saved 20% of my income?

He went on to name a number of other specifics about his situation, but they're really not important. If you were to take 20% of your annual income starting at age 20 and put it in a fund following the S&P 500 Index ($INX), that fund continued to grow at the long-term historical rate (12%) and you received a 4% raise each year, you could walk away from your job and live off the interest at age 41 matching your current salary -- or quit at 43 and be able to give yourself a 4% "raise" each year from the interest, which is probably the better plan because it combats inflation.

Raise the amount to 25% and you're done at age 38 and able to live in perpetuity at age 40.

Obviously, some people are going to balk at this and state that it "can't" be done. The truth is that it can be done if you have the willingness to live below your means and authentically behave as if 20% of your total salary doesn't exist.

It is challenging, don't get me wrong. Let's take the case of someone who makes about $60,000 a year. He brings home a paycheck every month in the amount of $3,200. In order to save 20% of his whole annual salary ($12,000), he would have to be willing to immediately take $1,000 of that take-home paycheck every month, put it straight into an investment and not touch it at all. This takes an amount of financial fortitude and will power that, quite honestly, most Americans don't have.

My advice to this young man is that if this is truly your goal, then it is achievable, and I offer the following points of advice:

• Make that saving automatic. Figure out what exact dollar amount you need to remove from each paycheck to equal 20% of your total salary, then set things up so that amount is withdrawn automatically. Since you're planning on retiring so young, it will have to be placed into a non-tax-sheltered investment account, which is fine if you invest it right.
• Buy and hold. Buy into a very broad-based investment, such as the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VFINX), and just keep adding money to it and don't move it around. This will set you up to pay only long-term capital-gains tax when you withdraw it, meaning that your tax time in the future when you start liquidating it to live will actually be quite pleasant (just long-term capital gains tax, if that even exists then).
• Learn to appreciate frugal living. With an e-mail like that, I'm already sure that you are more likely to buy a sturdy late-model used car than a new Lexus, but it's important to state just the same: You can easily save that 20% you're wanting to save by making good lifestyle choices. You'll find that if you've made the investments automatic, you'll easily learn to live on whatever is left over

The above article is a copy from The Simple Dollar nd is meant for informational use only.

The Political Way...........

I always wondered, when our political leaders went on for a bhookh hadtal or something like that.., that how many days a human being can live without food ???
And here is what i found :

If a man does not get food he can survive for 60 days but without water he can live for a maximum 7 hours or more depending on the capacity of the person.
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Dont you think we should urge our politicians to go on pyaas hadtal ???? That makes more meaning ??? ;) What say ???

Should I eat Non Veg food ???

I was a vegetarian while at home, then became an eggitarian and now I am an Omniverous animal ! I was seriously thinking the privious day, what does my religion really have to say about eating veg-nonveg food !!!! Here is what i found :

Meat is nutritious and rich in complete protein. Non-vegetarian food is a good source of excellent protein. It contains biologically complete protein i.e. all the 8 essential amino acid that are not synthesized by the body and should be supplied in the diet. Meat also contains iron, vitamin B1 and niacin

Humans have Omnivorous set of teeth If you observe the teeth of herbivorous animals like the cow, goat and sheep, you will find something strikingly similar in all of them. All these animals have a set of flat teeth i.e. suited for herbivorous diet. If you observe the set of teeth of the carnivorous animals like the lion, tiger, or leopard, they all have a set of pointed teeth i.e. suited for a carnivorous diet. If you analyze the set of teeth of humans, you find that they have flat teeth as well as pointed teeth. Thus they have teeth suited for both herbivorous as well as carnivorous food i.e. they are omnivorous. One may ask, if Almighty God wanted humans to have only vegetables, why did He provide us also with pointed teeth? It is logical that He
expected us to need and to have both vegetarian as well as non-vegetarian food.

Human beings can digest both vege-tarian and non-vegetarian food. The digestive system of herbivorous animals can digest only vegetables. The digestive system of carnivorous animals can digest only meat. But the digestive system of humans can digest both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. If Almighty God wanted us to have only vegetables then why did He give us a digestive system that can digest both vegetarian as well as non-vegetarian
food?

Hindu scriptures give permission to have non-vegetarian food
a. There are many Hindus who are strictly vegetarian. They think it is against their religion to consume non-vegetarian food. But the true fact is that the Hindu scriptures permit a person to have meat. The scriptures mention Hindu sages and saints consuming non-vegetarian food.
b. It is mentioned in Manu Smruti, the law book of Hindus, in chapter 5 verse 30 “The eater who eats the flesh of those to be eaten does nothing bad, even if he does it day after day, for God himself created some to be eaten and some to be eater.”
c. Again next verse of Manu Smruti, that is, chapter 5 verse 31 says “Eating meat is right for the sacrifice, this is traditionally known as a rule of the gods.”
d. Further in Manu Smruti chapter 5 verse 39 and 40 says “God himself created sacrificial animals for sacrifice, ... , therefore killing in a sacrifice is not killing.”
e. Mahabharata Anushashan Parva chapter 88 narrates the discussion between Dharmaraj Yudhishthira and Pitamah Bhishma about what food one should offer to Pitris (ancestors) during the Shraddha (ceremony of dead) to keep them satisfied. Paragraph reads as follows:
“Yudhishthira said, “O thou of great puissance, tell me what that object is which, if dedicated to the Pitiris (dead ancestors), become inexhaustible! What Havi, again, (if offered) lasts for all time? What, indeed, is that which (if presented) becomes eternal?”
“Bhishma said, “Listen to me, O Yudhishthira, what those Havis are which persons conversant with the rituals of the Shraddha (the ceremony of dead) regard as suitable in view of Shraddha and what the fruits are that attach to each. With sesame seeds and rice and barely and Masha and water and roots and fruits, if given at Shraddhas, the pitris, O king, remain gratified for
the period of a month. With fishes offered at Shraddhas, the pitris remain gratified for a period of two months. With the mutton they remain gratified for three months and with the hare for four months, with the flesh of the goat for five months, with the bacon (meat of pig) for six months, and with the flesh of birds for seven. With venison obtained from those deer that
are called Prishata, they remaingratified for eight months, and with that obtained from the Ruru for nine months, and with the meat of Gavaya for ten months, With the meat of the bufffalo their gratification lasts for eleven months. With beef presented at the Shraddha, their gratification, it is said , lasts for a full year. Payasa mixed with ghee is as much acceptable to the pitris as beef. With the meat of Vadhrinasa (a large bull) the gratification of pitris lasts for twelve years. the flesh of rhinoceros, offered to the pitris on anniversaries of the lunar days on which they died, becomes inexhaustible. The potherb called Kalaska, the petals of kanchana flower, and meat of (red) goat also, thus offered, prove inexhaustible. So but natural if you want to keep your ancestors satisfied forever, you should serve them the meat of red goat.

7. Hinduism was influenced by other religions Though Hindu Scriptures permit its followers to have non-vegetarian food, many Hindus adopted the vegetarian system because they were influenced by other religions like Jainism.
8. Even plants have life Certain religions have adopted pure vegetarianism as a dietary law because they are totally against the killing of living creatures. If a person can survive without killing any living creature, I would be the first person to adopt such a way of life. In the past people thought plants were lifeless. Today it is a universal fact that even plants have life. Thus their logic of not killing living creatures is not fulfilled even by being a pure vegetarian.

9. Even plants can feel pain They further argue that plants cannot feel pain, therefore killing a plant is a lesser crime as compared to killing an animal. Today science tells us that even
plants can feel pain. But the cry of the plant cannot be heard by the human being. This is due to the inability of the human ear to hear sounds that are not in the audible range i.e. 20 Hertz to 20,000 Hertz. Anything below and above this range cannot be heard by a human being. A dog can hear up to 40,000 Hertz. Thus there are silent dog whistles that have a frequency of more than 20,000 Hertz and less than 40,000 Hertz. These whistles are only heard by dogs and not by human beings. The dog recognizes the masters whistle and comes to the master. There was research done by a farmer in U.S.A. who invented an instrument which converted the cry of the plant so that it could be heard by human beings. He was able to realize immediately when the plant itself cried for water. Latest researches show that the plants can even feel happy
and sad. It can also cry.
10. Killing a living creature with two senses less is not a lesser crime Once a vegetarian argued his case by saying that plants only have two or three senses while the animals have five senses. Therefore killing a plant is a lesser crime than killing an animal. Suppose your brother is born deaf and dumb and has two senses less as compared to other human beings. He becomes mature
and someone murders him. Would you ask the judge to give the murderer a lesser punishment because your brother has two senses less? In fact you would say that he has killed a masoom, an innocent person, and the judge should give the murderer a greater punishment.

Over population of cattle If every human being was a vegetarian, it would lead to overpopulation of cattle in the world, since their reproduction and multiplication is very swift. God in His Divine Wisdom knows how to maintain the balance of His creation appropriately. No wonder He has permitted us to have the meat of the cattle.

Wanna be Successful ? Be aware of these TRAPS

You may find a lot of articles telling you what to do to get success - as a person or as a organization ... Here is a list of 9 things which you may not do in order to get success !!! Read on...

Success leads to the damaging behaviors of a lack of urgency, a proud and protective attitude, and entitlement thinking. This leads to the tendency to institutionalize legacy thinking and practices. Essentially, you believe that what enabled you to become successful will enable you to be successful forever.

Trap 1: NEGLECT

Sticking with Yesterday's Business Model

By business model, I mean what you do and how you do it. It includes such issues as deciding what industry you will be competing in and what approaches you will use in carrying out all the processes necessary to compete in that industry. Will we manufacture something or contract it out? How will we sell our products or services?

Do we go through retail channels? How should we organize our sales force? Which segments of the industry do we want to ignore, and which do we want to compete in? What is the structure of our support staff? Which parts of the organization do we out source? What are our approaches to distribution and inventory management? What are the cost targets of the various components of the organization, like information technology costs and human resources costs? Does our model leave us satisfied with our gross margins, profit margins, and other such figures?

Organizations should be consistently reviewing all aspects of their business model, looking for areas that are weak and need to be overhauled. By weak, we mean out of date, too costly, too slow, or not flexible. In which areas of the business model are you at parity? In those areas, are there any bright ideas on how to achieve a competitive advantage?

TRAP 2: PRIDE

Allowing Your Products to Become Outdated

You may be super proud of your product or service today, but you have to assume that it is going to become inferior to the competition very soon. You need to hustle ad beat your competition to that better mousetrap, and you need to do it over and over.

The amazing thing about success is that it leads to a subconscious entitlement mentality that cause you to believe that you no longer need to do all the dirty work of getting out and studying consumer behavior in details, analyzing different sales approaches, jumping on the latest technology to generate improved products, and everything else that is required to stay ahead. The attitude is often one of believing that you have done all of that and have figured it out, and now things are going to be fine.

Until the early 1970s, typewriters were used to prepare documents. The IBM Selectric model was the standard. Then along came Wang Laboratories' word processor in 1976, providing a completely new approach. It displayed text on a cathode ray tube (CRT) screen that was connected to a central processing unit (CPU). In fact, you could connect many such screens to that CPU in order to handle many different users. Wang's device incorporated virtually every fundamental characteristic of word processors as we know them today, and the phrase word processor rapidly came to refer to CRT-based Wang machines. Then, in the early to mid-1980s, the personal computer emerged. Wang saw it coming but made no attempt to modify its software for a personal computer. PC-based word processors like WordPerfect and Microsoft Word became the rage, and Wang died. Wang fell into the trap of not updating its products, even though it basically invented the word processor industry.

We saw this behavior very clearly with the General Motors example. Its cars, while highly distinctive back in the 1970s, were allowed over time to look more and more alike, and the excitement factor for the customer disappeared.

TRAP 3: BOREDOM

Clinging to Your Once-Successful Branding after It Becomes Stale and Dull

Constantly achieving uniquencss and distinctiveness for a brand and also keeping it fresh and contemporary is hard work. Once a brand achieves some success, the tendency is to sit back and pat yourself on the back, allowing your brand to become dull and ordinary.

The Plymouth automobile was introduced by Chrysler for the 1928 model year as a direct competitor to Ford and Chevrolet. It was a sturdy and durable car that attracted a legion of loyal owners. Plymouth became one of the low-priced three from Detroit and was usually number three in sales, just behind Ford and Chevrolet. For almost two decades, Plymouth sold almost 750,000 cars per year and had a solid brand reputation in the low price range of being reliable but having a bit more flair than Chevrolet or Ford. Older readers may remember the 1957 Plymouth with the huge fins, as well as its Road Runner (beep beep!) model. Plymouth had a very clear brand positioning.

In the 1960s, the Plymouth brand began to lose its uniqueness. Chrysler decided to reposition the Dodge, reducing its price so that it was quite close to Plymouth's. Chrysler came out with low-priced compact and intermediate-size models under both the Plymouth trademark and the Dodge trademark. By 1982, Dodge, was outselling Plymouth. Throughout the late 1980s and the 1990s, Plymouth offered nothing unique. Sales continued to decline, while Dodge was quite healthy. In 1999 Chrysler announced that the Plymouth brand would be discontinued. The lesson is simple: when you allow brands to get stale, they die.

TRAP 4: COMPLEXITY

Ignoring Your Business Processes as They Become Cumbersome and Complicated

Successful organizations often reward themselves by adding more and more people and allowing processes to become fragmented and nonstandardized. This is often done under banner of refining the management of the business. It is also caused by business units and subsidiaries seeking more autonomy, which leads them to develop their own processes and staff resources. Before you know it, getting any kind of change made is very complicated.

Over and over again you read stories about organizations experiencing weak financial results, then finally coming to grips with the problem, laying off thousands of people and simplifying the organization.

We saw in our Toyota case study how aggressive that company is at constantly improving each and every process. Keeping that mindset of constant improvement is very difficult. Success usually leads to a decrease in the intensity with which you tackle such challenges. Also, success leads to a belief that since we are doing so well, we probably need to reward the people in the organization who are asking for their own building and lots of extra people to get them to the next level. Importunely, all those extra costs often lead to bloated processes and further fragmentation of how work gets done.

TRAP 5: BLOAT

Rationalizing Your Loss of Speed and Agility

Successful organisations and individuals tend to crate complexity. They hire a lot of extra people, since clearly things are going well, and those people find things to do, often creating layers of bureaucracy, duplicating capabilities that already exist in the organization, and making it very hard to react quickly to change.

Getting an organization to constantly think about retaining simplicity and flexibility is not easy. The account given in the previous chapter of Toyota's Global Body Line is a good example of doing it right. Toyota thought about agility ahead of time, and when it came time to build a brand-new car, such as the Prius, it didn't have to build a new plant or a new line. This enabled Toyota to get to market fast and save tens of millions of dollars compared with traditional approaches.

TRAP 6: MEDIOCRITY

Condoning Poor Performance and Letting Your Star Employees Languish

When organizations are successful, they have a tendency to stop doing the hard things, and dealing with poor performance is a really hard thing. It also becomes hard to move new people into existing jobs, because there is the burden of getting the new person up to speed and the perception that you are losing valuable expertise. Also, the really strong performers and to get ignored. Consequently, what happens in many successful organizations is that people are left in their jobs too long and poor performance is not dealt with as crisply as it should be. Unfortunately, this also leads to strong players not being constantly challenged.

Successful organizations are especially vulnerable to this trap, since companies that achieve success often have high morale and pride. And who wants to spoil the fun by dealing with the tough personnel issues, which is an onerous task for most managers? Any excuse to put it aside will be embraced.

TRAP 7: LETHARGY

Getting Lulled into a Culture of Comfort, Casualness, and Confidence

Success, and the resulting tendency to become complacent, often leads organizations and individuals to believe that they are very talented, have figured things out, have the answers to all the questions, and no longer need to get their hands dirty in the trenches. They lose their sense of urgency � the feeling that trouble might be just around the corner.

Considering our case studies on GM and Toyota, the contrast between their cultures is really striking. GM seems to exude pride and an attitude of "we are the real pro in the industry," while Toyota has a more humble personality that is all about constant improvement.

The leader of a group really sets the tone on this cultural complacency issue. The tendency is to become very proud of your success and protective of the approaches that got you there. It is those very tendencies that lead to an insular, confidence culture that makes people believe that they are on the wining team, while in reality, the world is probably passing them by.

TRAP 8: TIMIDITY

Not Confronting Turf Wars, Infighting, and Obstructionists

Success often leads to the hiring of too many people and the fragmentation of the organization. Business units and subsidiaries work hard to be as independent as possible, often creating groups that duplicate central resources. Staff groups fragment as similar groups emerge in the different business units. Before long, turf wars and infighting emerge, as who is responsible for what becomes vague.

Even worse, the culture gets very insular, with an excessive focus on things like who got promoted, why am I not getting rewarded properly, and a ton of other petty issues that sap the energy of the organization.

Another source of turf wars and infighting is lack of a clear direction for the organization and slow decision making on critical issues. When these kinds of management deficiencies occur, people are left to drift and end up pulling in different directions. That often leads to tremendous amounts of wasted time as groups argue to have it their way.

TRAP 9: CONFUSION

Unwittingly Providing Schizopherenic Communications

When an organization is success or stable, its managers often fall into the trap of not making it clear where the organization is going from there. Sometimes this is because they don't know, but they don't admit that, and they don't try to get the company's direction resolved. They do everything they can to keep all option open, with no clear effort to get decisions made and a plan developed. Such behaviors lead to speculation by the troops, based on comments that they pick up over time. Often those comments are offhand remarks that the leaders have not thought through. Or the troops hear conflicting statements coming form a variety of folks in leadership positions in the organization.

When employees receive confusing and conflicting messages and don't have a clear picture of where the organization is gong or whether progress is being made, they feel vulnerable and get very protective of their current activities. In late 1991, IBM's CEO,John Akes, announced that in the future, IBM would look more like a holding company and that "clearly it's not to IBM's advantage to be 100 per cent owners of each of IBM's product lines."

During the next 12 months, everybody was trying to figure out what he meant. And IBM made no attempt to start publishing separate financial information by product line in preparation for possible spin-offs. IBM also ignored Wall Street's suggestion that it create separate financial entries, with their own stock exchange symbols, for the products that were to be spun off. Employees and investors were confused. The IBM board of directors finally ended the drama in early 1993, announcing that Akers was leaving and a new CEO would be hired quickly. From 1987 to 1993, IBM shareholders lost $77 billion of market value.

Communications from the head of the organization, be it a small group or an IBM, are critical. People want to know where they are headed and how things are going. When the words and actions don't match, confusion reigns.

In the remaining parts of this book, I will discuss these traps in detail. In each part, I will give detailed examples of companies and individuals that in some cases have been hurt and in other cases have avoided these problems. My objective in each part is to provide specific actions that people can take to avoid the particular trap, or to rid themselves of the problem.

Excerpted from:

Seduced by Success by Robert J Herbold.

Robert J Herbold was hired by Bill Gates to be chief operating officer of Microsoft Corporation. During his seven years as COO of 1994 to 2001, Microsoft experienced a four-fold increase in revenue and a seven-fold increase in profits.

B H A R U C H

Bharuch is my native place, situated on the banks of river Narmada in the State of Gujarat. Here is something worthwhile to know about this wonderful historic place :


Bharuch today is a large seaport city of more than a million inhabitants and a municipality in Bharuch district in the state of Gujarat, India. As a trading depot, the limitations of coastal shipping made it a regular terminus via several mixed trade routes of the fabled spice and silk trading between East and West, so that it became known to history by various names such as Bharakuccha, Bhrigu Kaksha (the domain of Bhrigu, an ancient Indian sage), Bhroach, as well as Bhrauch.

History

Bharuch was once but a small village on the banks of the Narmada River but that rivers inland access to central and northern India and with a location in the sheltered Gulf of Khambat in the era of coastal sea travel grew and prospered as a trading transshipment center and ship building port. Until very modern times the only effective way to move goods was by water transport, and Baruch had sheltered waters in a era without weather forecasting, compasses, and when shipping was necessarily limited to coastal navigation, and the general East-West course of the Narmada gave access to the rich inland empires at the upper reaches of the Narmada, including easy caravan access to the Ganges valley and Delhi plain.

Certainly by the 500s BC, the city was known (at least by reputation, via land-sea routes reaching the Levant) to the Arab and Ethiopian traders feeding goods westwards to the Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Western Romans, Carthaginians, and eventually, the Eastern Roman Empires, and the Republic of Venice. It is likely even the Phonecians knew of it and so it has acted since antiquity as a link port to the luxury goods trade from the Far East and the interior of the Indian sub-continent to the civilizations of South-west Asia, the Middle-East, the Mediterranean basin including Northern Africa and Europe.

Mythological history

It was considered to be sacred among sages, and they would come to Bharuch and pray. In Bharuch, the celebrated Asura king Mahabali, conducted a great sacrifice. In this sacrifice, came a Bhrahmin boy named Vamana, who interfered with the king's sacrifice and put an end to his reign. A sage named Guru Shukracharya, in the lineage of Bhrigu, was the priest of king Mahabali.

Archeological history

Excavations near the banks of the river Narmada in Bharuch have revealed many archeological and architectural wonders, mostly temples. Later Bharuch was part of the Mauryas (322–185 BC), the Western Satraps and the Guptas. As part of the Sultanate of Gujarat, it was subsequently annexed by the Mughals, and finally by the British. It is also situated near a small village called halderva where two islamic priests were found performing miricles

It was known to Europeans as Barigaza (Greek) and probably had a settlement of Greek traders. It is mentioned extensively as a major trading partner of the Roman world, in the 1st century Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. The Periplus describes numerous Greek buildings and fortifications in Bharuch, although mistakenly attributing them to Alexander the Great (who never went this far south), as well as the circulation of Indo-Greek coinage in the region:

"The metropolis of this country is Minnagara, from which much cotton cloth is brought down to Barygaza. In these places there remain even to the present time signs of the expedition of Alexander, such as ancient shrines, walls of forts and great wells." Periplus, Chap. 41

"To the present day ancient drachmae are current in Barygaza, coming from this country, bearing inscriptions in Greek letters, and the devices of those who reigned after Alexander, Apollodorus (sic) and Menander." Periplus Chap. 47^[1]

Geography

Bharuch is located at 21.7° N 72.97° E^[2]. It has an average elevation of 15 metres (49 feet).

Commerce

Bharuch has always been prosperous because of its location on the Narmada River. Although water tends to be scarce in Gujarat, one never finds difficulty in getting water in Bharuch. As a result of this, agriculture and other linked commercial activities have flourished in Bharuch. Bharuch is also a central stopping point for many villages spread around its boundaries such as Palej, Valan, Vareydiya, Kamboli e.t.c. People from these small villages come to Bharuch when they want to shop for new clothes, or make a major purchase. Lately a lot of retiring expatriates have been returning to Bharuch and building new houses giving the economy a boost.

Modern Bharuch is one of the most heavily industrialized areas, not only in Gujarat but in India as a whole, with many large chemical plants producing fertilizers, paints, dyes, cotton, textiles, and dairy products. Bharuch has also advantage of Gujarat's biggest Liquid cargo terminal A very large plant of fertilizers, chemicals and IT Services-GNFC Ltd. (Company website) is also located in Narmada nagar,Bharuch City since 1976.

Large multinationals like Guardian corp, videocon, China light & power, BASF, Johnson mathey, Reliance, Tata's, Aditya Birla group, Welspun Stahl,aventis,wockhardt,rallis,pfizer,ciba, L&T,bayer,glenmark,UPL, Lupin, J B Chemicals, Gujarat Fluorochmicals Ltd. Dahej (a largest manf. unit for PTFE in India) etc. have set up Mfg. Units in and around Bharuch. Preferrably the most dense district of india in industrial terms.

Demographics

As of 2001 India census^GRIndia, Bharuch had a population of 148,391. Males constitute 52% of the population and females 48%. Bharuch has an average literacy rate of 78%, higher than the national average of 59.5%; with male literacy of 82% and female literacy of 73%. 10% of the population is under 6 years of age.

Culture

There are many religions being followed by the people of this town. Usually there is a sense of harmony and co-existence without incident. However, there have been situations in the past in which this delicate social fabric has broken down. Today the city is considered to be a great example of communal equality.

There are various avenues for leisure time activities in Bharuch, and there are a few very good parks maintained by the municipal commission. There are river banks where people go for walks and strolls, as well as a couple of libraries and a few auditoriums. The auditoriums along with movie halls make the theatrical entertainment available in the city.

Of late there has been a boom in the retail sector in the city and there are new shopping malls and multiplexes opening up all over the place.

Wonders

• The 150-year-old Golden Bridge connects Bharuch to Ankleshwar across the Narmada River.

• The crowded but fascinating bazar of bharuch

Trivia

Bharuch is one of the Indian cities which has a Martian crater named after it. The other cities/towns are Amet, Bhor, Kakori, Poona (Pune), Rayadurg, Sandila and Wer

{The contents of this article comes from Wikipedia.org and the links here in point to the related descriptions within the wikipedia}

How credit scores work, how a score is calculated

Ever wonder why you can go online and be approved for credit within 60 seconds? Or get pre-qualified for a car without anyone even asking you how much money you make? Or why you get one interest rate on loans, while your neighbor gets another?

The answer is credit scoring.

Your credit score is a number generated by a mathematical algorithm -- a formula -- based on information in your credit report, compared to information on tens of millions of other people. The resulting number is a highly accurate prediction of how likely you are to pay your bills.

If it sounds arcane and unimportant, you couldn't be more wrong. Credit scores are used extensively, and if you've gotten a mortgage, a car loan, a credit card or auto insurance, the rate you received was directly related to your credit score. The higher the number, the better you look to lenders. People with the highest scores get the lowest interest rates.

Scoring categories
Lenders can use one of many different credit-scoring models to determine if you are creditworthy. Different models can produce different scores. However, lenders use some scoring models more than others. The FICO score is one such popular scoring method.

Its scale runs from 300 to 850. The vast majority of people will have scores between 600 and 800. A score of 720 or higher will get you the most favorable interest rates on a mortgage, according to data from Fair Isaac Corp., a California-based company that developed the first credit score as well as the FICO score.

Fair Isaac reports that the American public's credit scores break out along these lines:

Credit score	Percentage
499 and below	2 percent
500-549	5 percent
550-599	8 percent
600-649	12 percent
650-699	15 percent
700-749	18 percent
750-799	27 percent
800 and above	13 percent

Currently, each of the three major credit bureaus uses their own version of the FICO scoring method -- Equifax has the BEACON score, Experian has the Experian/Fair Isaac Risk Model and TransUnion has the EMPIRICA score. The three versions can come up with varying scores because they use different algorithms. (Variance can also occur because of differences in data contained in different credit reports.)

That could change, depending on whether a new credit-scoring model catches on. It's called the VantageScore. Equifax, Experian and TransUnion collaborated on its development and will all use the same algorithm to compute the score. Consumers can order their VantageScores online at Experian's Web site for $6. Its scoring range runs from 501 to 990 with a corresponding letter grade from A to F. So, a score of 501 to 600 would receive an F, while a score of 901 to 990 would receive an A. Just like in school, A is the best grade you can get.

What's the big deal?
No matter which scoring model lenders use, it pays to have a great credit score. Your credit score affects whether you get credit or not, and how high your interest rate will be. A better score can lower your interest rate.

The difference in the interest rates offered to a person with a score of 520 and a person with a 720 score is 4.36 percentage points, according to Fair Isaac's Web site. On a $100,000, 30-year mortgage, that difference would cost more than $110,325 extra in interest charges, according to Bankrate.com's mortgage calculator. The difference in the monthly payment alone would be about $307.

Powerful little number
If you rented an apartment, got braces, bought cell phone service, applied for a job that involved handling a lot of money, or needed to get utilities connected, there's a good chance your score was pulled.

If you have an existing credit card, the issuer is likely to look at your credit score to decide whether to increase your credit line -- or charge you a higher interest rate, according to a credit scoring study by the Consumer Federation of America and the National Credit Reporting Association.

Buying a car? Most car dealers want to know your credit score when you walk in the door, says Bob Kurilko, vice president of product development and marketing for Edmunds.com, an online consumer resource for automotive issues. "They want to know how they can put a loan together for you."

The score has made it easier for many people to get credit, Kurilko says.

Before, it was up to individual lending institutions to come up with their own criteria, he says. "They would hedge their risk and tend to go conservatively. It's opened up lending to a lot more people."

Consumers' rights
Until recently, many Americans didn't even know this number existed because it was a closely guarded secret in the lending industry. In fact, lenders were prohibited from telling borrowers their credit score. The line of reasoning: The number was the result of analyzing complex financial data that the layperson would have difficulty understanding. Plus, if people knew their score (according to the industry mindset at the time), they might be able to change their behavior to manipulate the score and throw off the whole model, rendering it useless.

All that changed a few years ago, when consumers began finding out about the score and demanding to see it. In an unprecedented move in 2000, online lender E-Loan offered to give consumers their scores for free, with information explaining how the score is calculated and how they might improve it. Fair Isaac responded by cutting E-Loan off from its source of credit reports, effectively crippling its ability to lend money. E-Loan stopped giving away credit scores.

Public outcry on the possibility of people being denied credit based on bad information in credit reports led to several pieces of legislation -- and a much more open attitude about credit scores.

Fast forward to current day: Not only can consumers buy their score online from any number of sources, but everyone is entitled to a free copy of their credit report every 12 months from each of the three major credit bureaus -- Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. The program rolled out across the nation one geographical region at a time with all consumers eligible on Sept. 1, 2005.

Key factors of your score
Just what goes into the score? Everything in your credit report, with different kinds of information carrying differing weights, says Fair Isaac Corp. Public Affairs Manager Craig Watts. The FICO-scoring model looks at more than 20 factors in five categories. (The VantageScore relies on slightly different factors. The Bankrate feature "New Vantage credit score now online" compares the FICO score with VantageScore. )

1. How you pay your bills (35 percent of the score)
The most important factor is how you've paid your bills in the past, placing the most emphasis on recent activity. Paying all your bills on time is good. Paying them late on a consistent basis is bad. Having accounts that were sent to collections is worse. Declaring bankruptcy is worst.

2. Amount of money you owe and the amount of available credit (30 percent)
The second most important area is your outstanding debt -- how much money you owe on credit cards, car loans, mortgages, home equity lines, etc. Also considered is the total amount of credit you have available. If you have 10 credit cards that each have $10,000 credit limits, that's $100,000 of available credit. Statistically, people who have a lot of credit available tend to use it, which makes them a less attractive credit risk.

"Carrying a lot of debt doesn't necessarily mean you'll have a lower score," Watts says. "It doesn't hurt as much as carrying close to the maximum. People who consistently max out their balances are perceived as riskier. People who never use their credit don't have a track history. People with the highest scores use credit sparingly and keep their balances low."

3. Length of credit history (15 percent)
The third factor is the length of your credit history. The longer you've had credit -- particularly if it's with the same credit issuers -- the more points you get.

4. Mix of credit (10 percent)
The best scores will have a mix of both revolving credit, such as credit cards, and installment credit, such as mortgages and car loans. "Statistically, consumers with a richer variety of experiences are better credit risks," Watts says. "They know how to handle money."

5. New credit applications (10 percent)
The final category is your interest in new credit -- how many credit applications you're filling out. The model compensates for people who are rate shopping for the best mortgage or car loan rates. The only time shopping really hurts your score, Watts says, is when you have previous recent credit stumbles, such as late payments or bills sent to collections.

"Then, looking for new credit will be seen as an alarm because statistically, before people declare bankruptcy and default on everything, they look for a life preserver," Watts says. Also, if you have a very young credit file, an inquiry can count for more than if you've had credit for a long time.

What doesn't count in a score
The scoring model doesn't look at:

• age
• race
• sex
• job or length of employment at your job
• income
• education
• marital status
• whether you've been turned down for credit
• length of time at your current address
• whether you own a home or rent
• information not contained in your credit report

A lender may consider all those factors when deciding whether to approve a loan application, but they aren't part of how a FICO score is calculated, Watts says.

Credit scores are not perfect
The major drawback to credit scoring is that it relies on information in your credit report, which is quite likely to contain errors. That's why it's critical that you check your credit reports annually, or at the very least three to six months before planning to buy a house or a car. That will give you sufficient time to correct any errors before a lender pulls your score.

Watts says that the need for accuracy in credit files is one reason why it's good for consumers to learn about credit scores.

"There's a hope that as consumers know about credit reports and scores, they'll do more to correct errors and provide more oversight," he says. "If consumers can police the accuracy of their own reports, everybody gains."

Want to get an approximation of your score? Bankrate and FICO have teamed up to create the free FICO Score Estimator.

Thank God, India's out of Cup !

There’s a brighter side to India’s exit from the World Cup. Something that can cheer up disappointed fans and angry advertisers. Sri Lanka has done a great favour to Indian economy by ousting the cricket team from the World Cup. There are about 80 million cable and satellite viewing homes in India.

According to TAM ratings, the average viewership of all World Cup matches held till now stands at about 3%, with India vs Bangladesh touching a high of 7.25%. To reach the finals, India would have played at least seven more matches.

Considering a TV Rating of 7.25%, at least 5.8 million people would have watched the match. This would have resulted in a productivity loss of 371.2 million man hours (5.8 million x 8 hours x 8 matches), apart from stress faced by mothers during exams.

About 3% of 81 million TV viewers (2.4 million) were ardent cricket fans and would have sat through all eight hours in the remaining 28 matches. Thus overall, Indian team’s ouster would result in a productivity gain of 481 million man hours of work (28x2.4x8 man hours), if put to use.

The Sri Lankans have given a boost to the Indian economy by saving 54,902 man years of work (one year = 8,761 hours). Indians can build seven phases of the Golden Quadrilateral connecting Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai spread over 5,846 kilometres all over again, with this time saved.

A daily wage skilled labourer in Delhi earns Rs 17 per hour. If put to productive use, the 481 million man hours can produce Rs 817 crore of GDP, which is 63% more than BCCI’s annual revenues of Rs 500 crore, last year. It’s 401% more than the Rs 163 crore losses, corporate India has predicted to incur due India’s ouster.

The state electricity boards are also thanking Sri Lanka for the great favour. A TV consumes 45 watts per hour. Assuming a viewer will now switch off his TV by 12 midnight, it will save Rs 135 watts at least per viewer (not considering the electricity consumed by other appliances running simultaneously.)

This will save the electricity boards 324 million watts of electricity ( 3.24 lakh kilowatts) in just 28 days. According to estimates, SEB losses in India will touch Rs 1 lakh crore by 2008.

If disappointed viewers completely switch off their TVs for eight hours, it will save the government at least 8,64,000 kilowatts, along with many more lives — at least three Indian citizens have been reported to die due to cardiac arrest or suicide after India’s defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka.

Now are these reasons not good enough, to have a positive view of India loosing in the first round of the World Cup Tournament ?????

What do you say ????

{This article is quoted from The Economic Times March 25,2007}