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VOLUME 14 ISSUE 12 DECEMBER 2015
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Editorial MAGAZINE
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The latest hero to hit the headlines is Prashant Kishor, the man who is said to have single-handedly defeated BJP, and won the battle for Nitish Kumar.
Managing Editor Jason D Pavorattikaran Editor John Antony Director (Finance) Ceena Senior Editorial Coordinator Jacob Deva Senior Correspondent Bina Menon Creative Visualizer Bijohns Varghese Photographer Anish Aloysious Correspondents Bombay: Rashmi Prakash Hyderabad: Iqbal Siddiqui Delhi: Anurag Dixit Director (Technical) John Antony Publisher Jason D Pavorattikaran
For long a Modi strategist – starting from the 2012 Gujarat assembly elections – Prashant Kishor shot to limelight after Modi’s thumping victory last year. But not as famous as he has ended up now, as unlike Modi, Nitish Kumar was quite generous in his appreciation of Kishor, as his public hug with the strategist soon after the election shows.
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If you are in doubt whether the real kingmaker Lalu is also in approval of Prashant Kishor’s role, look no further – media folklore has already reported that Lalu is calling Kishor as Panditji, and that the veteran leader has asked his sons to turn to him for advice, when Papa is not around. There is no limit to media’s need for hero worship. But only one hero at a time. The rise of Kishor and the decline of the men who took all the credit until now, Modi and his right-hand, Amit Shah, occurred in one simple stroke.
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let us give ourselves some credit...
Though nobody will ever come to know what transpired between Modi, Kishor, & Shah after the Lok Sabha polls, media has already chronicled a postelection meeting between Kishor and Shah, in which Kishor asked “What
after June?” and Shah quipping “After June, there is July.” The reference obviously is to Kishor’s ministerial ambitions, and Shah’s absolute opposition to this, probably with Modi’s approval. How can a rank outsider like Prashant Kishor be accommodated in a cabinet that has no qualms in missing BJP’s best-in-breed like Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, even while including Arun Jaitley who lost the elections and obedient people like Smriti Irani? The folklore surrounding Prashant Kishor is increasing day by day. Everything carefully leaked to a crazyfor-heroes press to create the expanding aura. The chemistr y between Nitish and Kishor is described as such – Kishor got Nitish’s glasses changed, while Nitish got Kishor’s attire changed from jeans and t-shirt to that of a politician. Maybe true too, as one of Kishor’s basic requirements has been that the strategist will live only in the palace of the king that he is advising. So it was with Modi, and so it was with Nitish. There is no doubt that Prashant Kishor played a significant role in Nitish’s success and BJP’s failure in Bihar. He is a good strategist, as his strategy to remove Manjhi from Chief Ministership, well before the election reveals. Even Nitish was reluctant to
bank
do it, but Kishor put it as a first necessity to win the election, and it was probably true too.
total silence on it? Do you think the Indian electorate is not intelligent enough to repay for it?
Kishor is also good at social media promotions, especially Twitter, and it goes to his credit that he forced Nitish – who had once mocked Modi’s Twitter as just a chidiya – to get an account there, and have a reasonable digital presence through that.
What about Modi’s glossy projections of ‘Acche Din’ and his failure to live up to that, so far? Didn’t the Bihar electorate judge him for that?
Kishor is also good at PR, OOH, design, colour sense, 3D holography, commonsense, and the list gets elongated day by day. And all these qualities are probably true too. But, what is the exact role that such a strategist played in the win of Mahagatabandhan and the rout of BJP? Can anyone put a number or percentage on Prashant Kishor’s role? Is it 70%, or 60%, or 50%, or 40%, or 30%, or much much below that? Media’s need-for-heroes seems to put the numbers upward of 70%. But commonsense says that though he played a significant role, it is downward of 30%. Because, if we are attributing such a high percentage for Kishor’s abilities, we are in fact putting a very low percentage on the intelligence of the people of Bihar, and by extension, of the whole Indian people. What about the negative energy unleashed throughout India, in the runup to the Bihar election, by extreme right-wing elements against everything from beef-eating to SRK, and Modi’s
What about Nitish Kumar’s aboveaverage governance that almost everyone – except those in NDA – endorses? Let us give credit where it is due, as in any election in the world, anti-incumbency wave is the most potent. Nitish has survived that. At the end of the day, Kishor’s abilities can be summarized into two words – public relations – or may be even to a single word – marketing. He is a professional at that, but with no value system preventing him from strategizing for anyone who compensates for it. The easy renaming of his NGO, when he shifted camps, from BJP to Nitish, is ample proof for that.
Further proof comes from his reported comments that even Congress Party’s fortunes can be revived, as the party still enjoys 20% vote share in this country. There is no untouchability even towards the Congress who was systematically decimated in the online space by Kishor’s sophisticated cyberhenchmen and trolls, citing mammoth corruption, during the run-up to the Lok Sabha polls. Are we saying that the wide and deep Indian electorate can be swayed by the strategies and public relation tactics of such a person? It seems so, as ever yone from Karunanidhi to Rahul Gandhi is understood to have met Prashant Kishor in recent days to explore youknow-what. Which all assignments will Kishor take up? The best guess is that only those assignments where the numbers are stacked in his client’s favour. Apart from self-promotion, this guy is pretty good at maths. It is no secret that what accelerated BJP’s fall apart from its right-wing jingoism was the fact that three of the strongest parties were united this time. Let us not forget that Arvind Kejriwal had an even more rocking win against the BJP a few months back, with no strategic help from Prashant Kishor. Let us give ourselves some credit, even if media is not willing to give us. John Antony
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CAN NATION NAVIGATE NURSING DEFICIENCY?
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GOOGLE, GOPI, AND THE GOSPEL OF SELF ACTUALIZATION A first ever book by Gopi Kallayil, Chief Evangelist for Brand Marketing at Google, ‘The Internet to the Inner-Net’, is destined to make waves, because this is not a book by a selfactualization theorist, but by a practitioner. Will he end up taking on the mantle of late Dr. Wayne Dyer? Seasonal Magazine caught up with Gopi Kallayil on the sidelines of TiECon Kerala 2015, to get his views on a wide range of topics:
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NATION
Indian Government's Sidelining of Nehru & Indira Backfires During Indo-African Summit Even as the Narendra Modi government refused to acknowledge India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's and his daughter Indira Gandhi's historic contribution to building ties with Africa, the leaders of the nations on the other side of the Indian Ocean proved that they were not so quick to forget.
n the final day for the IndiaAfrica Forum Summit, leader after leader from Africa heaped praise on Nehru, acknowledging him to be the architect of the India-Africa partnership, even as Modi silently looked on. "Jawaharlal Nehru was an early inspirational figure not just in India but also for Africa," Zimbabwe's 91-year-old President Robert Mugabe said, praising the Indian National Congress "for showing the route of passive resistance". Mugabe is also the 1989 recipient of the international award named after Nehru, conferred by the Indian government to those who promote international cooperation. As The Telegraph put it: "Leader after leader from Africa today heaped praise on Nehru just after Modi had spoken. The Prime Minister listened, then swivelled back and forth on his chair and finally left for bilateral meetings planned along the margins of the Africa summit." SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Interestingly, this played out even as Congress boycotted the event, protesting against the Modi government's alleged exclusion of Nehru or the Congress party's contribution to India-Africa ties. According to reports, aside from photographs of Nehru displayed in the plenary hall, the organisers made no mention of the leader, with both Modi and external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj giving him a miss in their speeches. But leaders of the African countries remembered. "We would like to recall the historical ties that bind us over the last century, emphasising particularly the role of two of your visionary prime ministers, Jawaharlal Nehru and his daughter, Indira Gandhi," said South African President Jacob Zuma, acknowledging the former PM's role in the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia on Afro-Asian unity as well as a founding member of the 1961 Non-Aligned Movement.
Zuma also praised Nehru's daughter, and India's fourth PM - “Indira Gandhi, in her first 11 years in office from 1966 to 1977, changed India’s Africa policy through the introduction of the AfricaIndia Development Cooperation and India’s support for liberation struggles in Africa, including South Africa.” “The actions of these two Indian visionaries have created the base of strong solidarity between African member states and India,” he added. Moroccan King Mohamed VI noted that his grandfather and "great" Nehru
worked together in anti-colonial struggle in Africa. Others who referred to Nehru in their speeches included Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, as well as Ghana President John Dramani Mahama, Mauritius Prime Minister Anerood Jugnauth, and leaders from Mali, Sao Tome and Principe. This is not the first time BJP has allegedly tried to "erase" or dilute Nehru's name from the country's history. The BJP government has announced it's decision to modernise the Nehru museum by adding other historical names that will be showcased in the building, in addition to the first PM's, a move that Congress has termed "diabolical". It also emerged recently that India has quietly got rid of Nehru's name from new initiatives under the Fulbright scholarship.
(Credit: Indrani Basu for HuffPost India, and PTI)
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COVER STORY
Gopi Kallayil SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Google, Gopi,
and the Gospel of SELF ACTUALIZATION A first ever book by Gopi Kallayil, Chief Evangelist for Brand Marketing at Google, ‘The Internet to the Inner-Net’, is destined to make waves, because this is not a book by a self-actualization theorist, but by a practitioner.Will he end up taking on the mantle of late Dr. Wayne Dyer? Seasonal Magazine caught up with Gopi Kallayil on the sidelines of TiECon Kerala 2015, to get his views on a wide range of topics: ne of the huge imbalances in life is the disparity between your daily existence, with its routines and habits, and the dream you have within yourself of some extraordinarily satisfying way of living,” wrote Dr. Wayne Dyer who unfortunately passed away 10 weeks back.
Gopi Kallayil has also been a champion of self-actualization, since his childhood. Otherwise, there is no reason why this guy from simple roots – a simple rural village in Kerala – would end up as Google’s Chief Evangelist for Brand Marketing, overseeing the internet behemoth’s accounts with the world’s top 250 brands.
Dr. Dyer was undoubtedly one of the most effective contemporary evangelists for self-actualization, a higher ideal defined by legendary psychologists like Kurt Goldstein, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow in the 20th century, but which was always there since time immemorial in the teachings of almost all the spiritual Greats, though in a hidden way.
Gopi has put Chittlancherry, his native village in global focus more than once, thanks to his masterful speeches at various TED conferences over the years. Only one other son of Chittlancherry comes even close to this fame, it being none other than noted writer and former Indian minister Shashi Tharoor.
Maslow defines self-actualization as “the desire for self-fulfillment, namely the tendency of the individual to become actualized in what he is potentially. In other words, the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.”
Nearly 30 kms away from the nearest city, Palakkad, this village is noted for its paddy fields and unadulterated agrarian life. As Gopi has joked in one of his TED talks, he was a child prodigy as he could memorize the entire telephone directory of Chittlancherry – the fun being that there were only three landline numbers in the village, SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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each of two digits! That a boy coming from such a background could come to command the marketing of tech empires like Android to AdWords, speaks of only one fact – self-actualization. A good student always, Gopi took his Bachelors in Electronics Engineering from NIT, Trichy; and his two MBAs from IIM Kolkata and The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League institution. Gopi began his career in India, then moved on to Hong Kong, and then to the US. Prior to joining Google, he had worked in McKinsey and in two VC-funded startups in Silicon Valley.
After his BE, Gopi desired to go abroad for postgraduation, but opted out as he was not willing to indebt his parents. He worked for Uptron for a year before opting for his IIM MBA, which landed him a job at Hutchinson in Hong Kong. He left India with around $20 in his pocket, and by the time he left for USA to pursue the dream MBA from Wharton, he had $7000 dollars in his wallet. Long way to come for someone whose parents had never attended college.
It has been 9 years since Gopi joined Google, and in one way it is a perfect match for both, as Google has been the quintessential underdog for much of its 17-year existence, starting out
The story of Google has many parallels. For a company that started from an investor’s cheque for just hundred thousand dollars in 1998, Google has come a long way, churning
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only in 1998, and rapidly selfactualizing to be the second-most valuable company in the world, and arguably the most influential firm across the globe.
out an average net profit of $40 million or Rs. 264 crore per day! All the while self-actualizing and proving critics wrong with incumbent-beating products like Google Search, Gmail, Android, & Chrome. Gopi’s career in Google has also been on a soaring curve, leading marketing teams for core products that make money for the tech giant like AdWords and AdSense, before becoming the Chief Evangelist for Brand Marketing. An excellent writer and orator, Gopi Kallayil has pushed self-actualization to its limits on all fronts, running triathlons and marathons, teaching yoga, hosting TV shows, and by climbing Kilimanjaro and exploring Antarctica. That is why a first ever book by Gopi Kallayil titled, ‘The Internet to the Inner-Net’, is destined to make waves, because this is not a book by a self-
Google, Gopi, and the Gospel of SELF ACTUALIZATION access, including that of mobile broadband access like 3G or LTE is coming down significantly, and that has resulted in millions of new internet users experiencing the net for the first time on their smartphones or tablets, rather than the PCs or laptops. Many companies including Google are exploring various strategies to bring down internet access cost further, or make it even free, and I believe that in the near future itself internet will be ubiquitous and free across the world. This is going to transform almost every sphere including commerce, banking, governance, professional work, education, everything. So that is another huge trend that is nicely shaping up now. And what would be the third most important trend, according to you? Larry Page actualization theorist, but by a practitioner. Will he end up taking on the mantle of late Dr. Wayne Dyer?
Seasonal Magazine caught up with Gopi Kallayil on the sidelines of TiECon Kerala 2015, to get his views on a wide range of topics: Can you brief us about 3 broad tech trends that you think will shape the world in the coming years? Is it Internet of Things, is it Automation, is it 3D Printing, or something else? I think the greatest tech trend of the near future remains (points to his Android) the smartphone adoption. If you have noticed, early this month, the number of mobile devices in the world surpassed the number of humans – 7.20 billion against 7.19 billion. But that is, of course, not because every human has acquired a mobile device. There are multiple devices for many users, multiple phones, multiple SIMs, and machine-to-machine mobile devices in that figure of 7.20 billion. Yet, I believe that surpassing the number of humans is truly an inflection point for mobile devices. Now, I will tell you why the best is yet to come. The number of unique mobile users is still only around half of the world
Sergey Brin population. So, imagine what will happen when the next 1 billion or 2 billion people get a mobile device. It is going to transform entire economies across the globe. That is why I regard the rapid adoption of mobile devices as the greatest trend out there, which has still not played out fully. And what would you regard as the second most important tech trend? The second trend, according to me, is also something very much connected to the mobile revolution, and that is the internet adoption on mobile devices. Economies of scale is making prices tumble, and today a highperformance smartphone is within the reach of many. The cost of internet
"I will tell you why the best is yet to come. The number of unique mobile users is still only around half of the world population. So, imagine what will happen when the next 1 billion or 2 billion people get a mobile device. It is going to transform entire economies across the globe.
I think it is definitely cloud computing. Not only data, but the applications, the middleware, the operating systems, the storage, everything would eventually migrate to the cloud. It is already happening. The future is not distant when even any rare piece of data or an old song could be pulled up anywhere from the cloud, without you being aware of the exact source or the protocols in getting it. And these three trends that I mentioned – mobile devices, ubiquitous internet access, & cloud computing – are very synergistic and they will feed each other in their adoption and use in all kinds of new applications. We understand that your job now involves counseling Google’s highvalue clients on brand-building using digital marketing. Can you brief us a bit more about this role? I lead the work that Google does with the world’s top 250 brands. They are very powerful brands, very experienced brands in marketing communications, and know what all to do in conventional media like print and television. But web or digital or smartphones being a new sphere, we work with them to show how they can leverage the web, search, video, apps, and so on. I lead that work, and for that meet up with the top leaders of these brands across the world. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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How do you view India’s stand on net neutrality? And Google’s role in the net neutrality debate? I can’t comment much on India’s position on the net neutrality front, as I am not updated on that. But on a global scale, our view is that net neutrality is here to stay, and we would fight for it any day. The problem with a few telecom or internet companies today is that they think they can ringfence a part of the internet for themselves for superior influence or profits. But that is a grossly mistaken view that won’t be allowed to succeed by the internet community as well as companies like Google. Such ringfencing is akin to if some wealthy guys would have thought that they could monopolize electricity distribution 50 or 100 years back. It is just not possible. Just like electricity is a resource that is distributed democratically, so will remain the internet as a public resource. How do you feel about the early mover advantage in the tech world? Don’t you think the story of Google Plus against Facebook, or Windows Mobile against Android, and many such examples reveal that fact? I think the early mover advantage is overhyped. There are many examples for it by Google itself. When Google started work on Chrome, its web browser, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer had a dominant market share of 90% or more. Only lunatics could consider developing a new web browser against Googleplex
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"I think the early mover advantage is overhyped. There are many examples for it by Google itself. In almost none of our products, be it Google Search, Gmail, Android, or Chrome, we were first-movers." IE, and that too to give away for free. But Larry Page and Sergey Brin were quite confident that Google could develop a far better browser. Within just a few years after its launch in 2008, Chrome had rapidly become the dominant browser across the world. Similar is the case with Android phones. When it was launched in 2007, Google was happy that its adoption was in tens of thousands of phones every week. But the only problem was that Nokia was selling 1.2 million phones a day. Four phones out of every ten phones sold worldwide were of Nokia. But see the situation now. Android is the dominant smartphone platform today, and I would say that in the history of technology, nothing else has been so rapidly and passionately adopted as Android. In fact, I can keep on telling more examples like Gmail, and even Google itself, which was not the first search engine or the fifteenth, but the 17th search engine to hit the market in 1998, five years after the first search engine appeared in 1993. So, where
is the early mover advantage? It is the product that matters more than such advantages that are often hyped up in the market. Well explained, but can I do a follow-up question then? Do you think that if Google+ is more compelling, that too can succeed against competition? Yes, why not. But please also understand that no company, Google or not, can be at the very top in everything it does. Google+ is also not an exact competitor to other social networks. It is a synergistic product to the core Google services and an enhancement to the Google experience for the users. You say you have time only for five broad things in life, and no time for movies or networking. Can you explain? I never said that! (Laughs heartily). Did I ever say that to you? Some journalists extrapolated my comment to mean that. I do have time to watch a movie or network with peers, if I desire so. But having said that, let me admit that my house doesn’t have a TV. I had a connection, of course, but when it was left unused for around four years, I decided to cut it. The point I am making when I say that I have time only for five things in life is this – if you want to find enough time to do five things effectively, you need to cut at least 50 other things from your life. You have written a book that has
Google, Gopi, and the Gospel of SELF ACTUALIZATION digital branding challenges. If I am not extremely fit as I am, mental performance would suffer. What kind of fitness regimen do you follow? Mainly I do a lot of yoga, and I also teach yoga whenever I can. Then I do interval training, a bit of running, and every six months or so I do a triathlon. I run half-marathons whenever there is an opportunity, and I have also completed a full marathon. And fitness is not just the training part, it is also what you eat. If you take today, I could have defaulted to the hotel’s buffet for breakfast, but I don’t yield to such shortcuts easily. Instead I skip that rich food, and carefully choose what I eat. That is also very important for being fit. Sundar Pichai attracted reasonable attention - ‘The Internet to the Inner-net’. Can you tell us what got you into writing? Well, it is not like I always wanted to write a book, and finally I did it. There were several factors, some of them purely coincidental. I have a friend with psychic powers and she was the one to predict that I would land a book deal with a major publisher within a certain period of time. She thought my ideas on self-actualization resonated with Dr. Wayne Dyer. And the actual book deal happened after one of my TED talks, when two persons from a publishing house approached me for writing a book. And the wonderful coincidence was that they from Hay House, which used to be the publisher of Dr. Dyer. You are an avid fitness enthusiast. How important is physical fitness for your job and your personal happiness? I would place fitness as very important on both fronts, especially on the career front. I hold a demanding job in that I have to travel intercontinental a lot. There will be jet lag, fatigue, and that kind of issues. Being fit helps me to a great extent in managing such issues. Besides that, after such long travel, I often have to work with top clients in finding solutions for their
What excites you there? First of all, I don’t do a lot of philanthropy as you say. But in whatever little way I contribute, my focus is whether I can bring up those whom I try to help to their full potential. They may be kids, or they may be adults, or they may be patients, but my focus is this – whether my work can get them to their true potential. Any work along those lines excites me. How important has been your Indian or Keralite roots to your success? I would say it has been very important, as it has played the most critical role in shaping me and guiding me, as it is the basic value system from which I draw inspiration.
You have written that, I've seen the future of the world, and it is Dubai. Why do you say so?
How do you view the competitiveness and longevity of tech companies in the coming years?
Yes, that was the theme of one of my articles. I say that because no other place in the world has so beautifully and seamlessly integrated the diverse cultures and backgrounds of its inhabitants. Most of them are not from Dubai or any of the Emirates, but drawn from across the world. It is a cultural melting pot and is fascinating to experience.
In the rather short history of corporate world, it is said that very few companies have survived 100 years, so far. As the decades pass by, that age is steadily coming down, to 50 years or even less. My prediction now is that it would be difficult for many companies to even stay relevant and in business for more than just two decades. The pace of technological change is that fast, you have to be a smart adapter to remain buoyant. That is precisely why, we have so many seemingly lunatic projects in Google like the driverless car, or internet access on hot air balloons. You have to keep innovating in diverse fields to stay relevant.
You are a proponent of following mindfulness in business or professional lives. Can you explain its importance? It is all about what you can control. If you observe yourself, what happened three days back may be good or bad or as per your expectations or not, but you can’t do much about it. Similarly, you can’t predict what will happen three days from now, whether an anticipated development external to you can happen or not or happen according to your wish or not. So, what we have got is only the present, today, this hour, these minutes, or now. Mindfulness is all about that. Business being the most challenging affair, nowhere else is the requirement for mindfulness or a constant state of alertness more evident. Can you explain about your significant philanthropic activities?
Does your work have any overlapping areas with Alphabet, which has become Google’s parent? Not on a day-to-day basis, but sometimes opportunities crop up. I can cite at least three recent examples, one has been a large telecom company, one Honda, and the other a large pharmaceutical brand. In all these case, I was talking with them for the core Google services, but they wanted more as they know that Alphabet is doing pioneering work in networks, driverless cars, or pharma research systems. So, I do connect such clients to our Alphabet divisions. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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BUSINESS
MEET INDIA'S FIRST (UNSUCCESSFUL) E-COM ENTREPRENEUR Remember Fabmart, Fabmall, and IndiaPlaza? If you were using Internet in India for the last 15 years, you would know. If not, realize that Fabmall is today's 'More' supermarket chain of Aditya Birla. Here is the incredible story of India's first e-commerce entrepreneur, K Vaitheeswaran, told in his own words. Was he unsuccessful due to starting out before the market had matured, or was he unsuccessful because, he was doing things more holistically, than the current breed of e-coms like Flipkart and Snapdeal and their profit-blind investors? Find out:
t was 2 am sometime around September 2013. My cell phone was going off the hook. This was a daily occurrence. The creditors were relentless and restless, calling me for dues the company owed them. A company that had other directors and investors. Yet, when things went downhill, I was all alone. For close to 18 months now, the weight of the burden was just mine to carry. For the investors, I was just another item in their portfolio they had already moved on from. All my so-called ‘friends’ (investors, relatives, and wellwishers, and anyone I knew) were all suddenly unreachable, travelling or busy. Some are still travelling. In retrospect, it’s disappointing that 14 years of my pioneering efforts didn’t pan out and today my company is not there to ride the e-commerce wave. I guess some things just aren’t meant to be. We launched India’s first e-commerce company when no one knew what ecommerce meant. Anything tried for the first time results in learning things the hard way; we had ventured into places nobody had gone before and in many ways made it easier for others to learn, copy and move ahead. I feel being an entrepreneur is very addictive. There is this thing about the entrepreneurial bug that does not allow you to get back to working at a regular job. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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K Vaitheeswaran
There is this joy in discovery and learning that cannot be gained by working in a corporate.
before walked up to me and instead of asking my name, he just asked me what my valuation was!
In a way I have been quite fortunate that through my thirty year career I have always been associated with startups. My first job in 1985 was with the Murugappa group, a large conglomerate but I joined in the electronics division as part of the first few employees.
We were riding the dot com wave; we were the flavour of the month. And then it was April 2000 and Black Friday happened. Our world changed overnight.
My next job was with Wipro in 1989 when it was still more popular for the soaps business and the computer business had less than Rs 50 crores annual revenues. I joined the peripherals division as one of the early employees, another early stage startup experience. These two assignments in small groups helped me learn early lessons in frugality, people issues, sales, marketing and operations that helped a lot later when I became an entrepreneur. In 1997, I was assigned to a special project in Wipro where I had to communicate with people across time zones. I got myself a free Hotmail account (my first introduction to email) and while I was using this email account, I remember seeing an amazon.com ad for books. I was bowled over by the fact that a company in the US could sell me books in India. At that time, I was looking for something challenging and different (joining another IT firm did not appeal to me in any way) and this was a pivotal moment – I felt here was something we could launch in India. I am not sure why but instinctively I felt that e-commerce can be big in India. And thus began the 14-year journey of Fabmart, Fabmall and IndiaPlaza.
We had raised our first round of funding from Reliance but after this nobody was interested in the world of e-commerce anymore. By then we had launched multiple categories like music, books, movies, watches, jewellery and toys, but it was groceries that worked as the next turning point in two different ways. So far we were catering to a largely male audience, but suddenly we were targeting mostly women customers. With groceries we had to introduce same-day delivery and cash on delivery payment option. This meant setting up different warehouses for groceries. We had our own pick-ups, deliveries and now warehouses. We were trying to make our little money last longer but with groceries, where we were just bleeding earlier, we were now haemorrhaging. On the other hand, groceries was also a massive opportunity as it was one of those categories that got the highest repeat rates. To ensure same day delivery and also improve margins, we started increasing our inventory. But this also meant we had huge stock. So we decided to sell groceries offline in January 2002 and launched the Fabmall supermarket stores.
In 1999 when we started, India was very different world. We lived in an era of dial-up modems and shell accounts to access the web. Mobile phones had just launched and incoming calls were charged. The first six months spent in setting up was possibly the best time of my life.
I could claim great visionary insight here, but the truth is we were just trying to get rid of extra stock and this led to a massive business opportunity. The offline FabMall supermarket stores started doing great business. Soon, Aditya Birla Group acquired the offline business in 2006 (rebranded as More chain of supermarkets) and we kept the e-commerce site going by changing its name to IndiaPlaza. We raised our Series A round of investment from IndoUS ventures (now Kalaari Capital) in 2011.
If you ask me whether we fathomed the downward spiral, the answer would be no. We were in the middle of the dot com boom and it was an exhilarating period. I remember at a party a wellknown gentleman, who I had never met
In 2012, thanks to a series of internal and external events, things just went downhill. When I look back, I know IndiaPlaza had the best story in terms of financials. We were growing well and not far off from making money.
I was keen that my company should make money but that part didn’t fly well with the investors. I got the impression that most of them were looking for a company that could take in a lot of funding and spend it quickly and raise the next round based on some future fictional far off promise but this model did not make sense to me. My views today remain the same. I was concerned that the company was raising $5 million from Series A and we were still not fully profitable. Our Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) was a little over Rs 100 crore from a run rate point of view (We always calculated GMV in the traditional way – the amount of products and services sold and the actual cash collected less returns and refunds was our GMV). Clearly, the world has changed. If Indiaplaza had succeeded in raising money, we would have become an oxymoron - a profitable e-commerce company. In those 18 months, I put my heart and soul and tried everything to salvage the business and raise money for working capital. I travelled across the country and met close to 30 investors but things did not work out. Unfortunately, everything is hunky dory till things go wrong and then a mess created by several people becomes the entrepreneur’s sole responsibility. I was left trying to clean a mess that wasn’t of my making alone. People I knew well and trusted distanced themselves. It was like I had contracted a communicable disease. And these were people who could have helped if they had chosen. It’s a feeling of deep helplessness and suffocation without any respite. It’s absurd, the entrepreneur suddenly becomes a failure because his company failed. The courage, the risks, the efforts to do something unique and different, the strength to walk on a different path, the sheer experience of starting and running a company – all goes to nought and hold no meaning. And this is the dark side of entrepreneurship in India. If we are to truly become a startup nation, then it’s important this attitude changes. We need to understand and accept that businesses may fail but not an entrepreneur.
(Credit: Sindhu Kashyap, YourStory) SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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DIGITAL MARKETING
A Recipe for Going Viral:
Permission, Entertainment, Education, Utility It’s every marketer’s dream to see a campaign go viral. However, earning the engagement of a passionate audience can be difficult for many brands, and viral successes like Volvo’s “Epic Split” campaign featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme can be hard - if not impossible - to replicate. For brands looking to get an audience’s attention, is there a recipe for success? According to Kelli Wisuri, an evangelist at Google, and Gopi Kallayil, the firm’s chief evangelist for brand marketing, there is a simple answer to that question: “Brands that meet consumers on their own terms succeed in getting greater reach and engagement.” In the following opinion piece, Wisuri and Kallayil explain why that’s so. sy was a completely unknown Korean pop star until the summer of 2012, when he released his smash hit single, “Gangnam Style.” Since then, the music video has shattered all records by becoming the single most watched video of all time, reaching more than two billion views in May 2014. Two billion is a huge number. There are more than two billion people on the entire planet with access to the Internet, so it’s the equivalent of every person on the Internet having watched this video once. Whether you find Gangnam Style endearing or annoying, the reach of Psy’s video is a unique accomplishment in the history of humanity - and it’s not just rock stars like Psy and Justin Bieber who are achieving such astronomical numbers. Home videos like “Charlie Bit Me” have earned hundreds of millions of views. Video game commentators accumulate tens of millions of followers and billions of views. Even brand marketers are getting in on the action. Last year, Volvo’s “Epic Split” campaign featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme racked up almost 75 million views. Meanwhile, the season finale of Game of Thrones, HBO’s most popular show of all time, had a total
Kelli Wisuri
Gopi Kallayil
viewership of just 18.6 million.
attention, is there a recipe for success?
Virgin Airline’s cheeky flight safety announcement video has been viewed 10 million times on YouTube, a feat that doesn’t sound impressive until you realize that all 10 million views happened not while viewers were strapped in their seats on a plane, but while they were sitting on their couches at home.
While there’s no magic formula, there is a simple answer: Brands that meet consumers on their own terms succeed in getting greater reach and engagement. ?Twitter In our experience, there are three fundamental changes in consumer expectations that digitally savvy brands understand.
Every marketer wants an engaged, passionate audience. Every marketer hopes that their next campaign magically goes viral, but successes like Volvo’s and Virgin’s aren’t easy to replicate. Which begs the question: If you are a brand trying to get your audience’s
By Invitation Only The first change in consumer expectations is that consumers want to engage with brands, but only when they invite those brands into their life. The relationship between brands and consumers is becoming more intimate as brands get physically closer to the SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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consumer. When a consumer experiences a brand’s ad on TV, that brand’s message is 15 feet or so away. On a desktop computer, the same message is three feet away from the consumer. On a laptop, the distance shrinks to a foot or two; the brand often literally sits on the consumer’s lap. And on a mobile phone, a brand’s message is inches from the consumer’s eyeball. It’s a very personal and intimate space, so it’s no surprise that consumers are saying to brands, “Do not market to me unless I invite you in!” Digital media is quickly moving us from a world of ambush marketing to permission-based marketing.?Twitter In the traditional model of brand marketing, advertisers waited for the pivotal moment in the big game or series finale to ambush consumers with their brand message, and consumers paid attention because they had no choice — if they wanted to see the rest of the game or TV show, they had to sit through the commercial break. But in the digital world, consumers have increasing control over the media they consume. Every consumer is armed with a powerful new gesture called the “swipe.” If consumers don’t like a brand’s content or ad, with a flick of the finger, they can simply swipe it away into oblivion. And this behavior isn’t limited to the digital world. Consumers may not be able to “swipe” away a boring TV commercial, but they can turn their attention elsewhere, checking Facebook on their phone or watching YouTube videos on their second screen. So what are savvy brands doing to thrive in this world of permission-based
marketing? They’re acquiring permissions from consumers.
brand communications they’re exposed to each day.
Starbucks, one of the world’s savviest digital marketers, acquires permissions in two ways. First, they’ve grown their social communities to include more than 50 million members. That’s 50 million people who have raised their hand on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube, and said, “Starbucks, I like you as a brand. I give you permission to come into my life and communicate with me.”
So what do brands need to do to earn consumer attention? The answer is simple: brands must provide value to consumers through their content, ads and campaigns. The most successful brands recognize that for consumers, value comes in three forms — entertainment, education, and utility.
Another way Starbucks takes advantage of permission-based marketing is through their mobile app. The app, which allows customers to order and pay for their lattes without waiting in line, is the most used mobile wallet app in America, beating out even PayPal. Starbucks’ app is a great way for the brand to engage with its audience, but to do so, customers must first invite the brand into their lives by downloading the mobile app. Every brand seeking to build a strong online presence should ask first ask themselves, “Do we have a strategy to gain permissions from consumers?”
Here We Are – Now, Entertain Us Just because consumers invite a brand into their life doesn’t guarantee they’ll give the brand their attention. Consumers only pay attention to a fraction of the countless messages they receive from brands via email or Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest. Why? Because a consumer’s attention can’t possibly encompass the thousands of
Entertainment Volvo’s wildly successful 2013 “Epic Split” YouTube campaign was so good at earning consumer attention that it received almost 75 million views. How did Volvo do it? After all, they’re advertising a highly technical B2B product, and the Volvo brand — which stands for safety and precision — doesn’t obviously lend itself to a viral hit. Volvo hit the attention jackpot by applying an age-old advertising rule to the new world of digital brand marketing: Entertain, and they will come. And amplify your message like crazy. Volvo created this gripping piece of content by taking advantage of the unique capabilities of the digital platform. The brand and their agency started by creating eleven roughly produced versions of their creative and publishing them to YouTube. Why? Volvo wanted to get real-time audience feedback to see which piece of content resonated best before investing large amounts of money in distribution. Data from YouTube revealed that Live Test 6 — the spot featuring Van Damme doing the splits — drove the most views, shares and buzz, so Volvo backed the campaign with additional paid media support to fuel its success. Volvo’s novel, clever use of entertainment on the digital platform not only hit the attention sweet spot but also drove bottom line business results. One month after launching the campaign, Volvo announced a 31% increase in truck sales.
Education Clinique faced a problem that’s all too familiar to most retail brands — diminishing traffic to their physical stores. How could Clinique educate SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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A Recipe for Going Viral: Permission, Entertainment, Education, Utility customers about their products if they never visited Clinique’s makeup counters? Clinique turned to digital media to solve the problem. The brand invited 10 beauty bloggers to join them in a live, online video chat with Julia Cox, a Clinique beauty expert. During the Hangout, participants had the opportunity to ask Julia questions they might typically ask at a makeup counter. Viewers willingly tuned in, devoting more than 15 minutes of their attention, because Clinique provided their audience with value in the form of education. But what’s even more interesting is what Clinique did to scale this content on the digital platform. They took the Hangout footage, sliced it into 10-15 second pieces of content, and then ran that content as permission-based, opt-in video ads. And guess what? Because those ads were educational and authentic, they received 16 times higher view-through rate and ten times higher click-through rate than official product ads advertising the same exact product feature. Here Clinique hit two birds with one stone — permissionbased advertising, and value through education — to drive real impact.
Utility Toyota recognized that the car-buying process intimidates and confuses many people, especially Millennials. So they decided to put consumers back in control of the process by re-imagining the buying experience online. The result, called the Toyota Collaborator, allows consumers to collaborate with friends online to build the car of their dreams, share their dream car on social networks, and most important, video chat with a local dealer to get their questions answered. Consumers can even take the car they’ve created on a virtual test drive using Google Street View. The Toyota Collaborator takes advantage of digital technology to solve some of the most stressful parts of buying a car: exploring features, consulting with friends or family, and making decisions — all in a highpressured sales environment.
As a result of the campaign, the time consumers spend on Toyota’s site has increased dramatically, and local dealers are clamoring to join the Collaborator pilot. The Collaborator is a brilliant and successful piece of marketing, because it’s useful to consumers. By educating, or entertaining, or providing utility brands such as Toyota, Clinique and Volvo are earning the attention of large audiences and driving real business results.
Brands Ignite, Customers Amplify In the digital world, consumers understand they have power to impact a brand’s success and reputation. If a brand delights consumers, they’re willing to amplify the brand’s message. Ziploc is a utilitarian product that’s a staple of almost every household in America. It’s a useful product, but not the type of product you’d expect consumers to engage with and talk about online. And yet, a search for “Ziploc bag” on YouTube yields more than 16,000 videos, and not a single one of those videos was made by the brand itself. Instead, all 16,000-plus videos were made by consumers talking about the Ziploc brand. You can find videos demonstrating how to make ice cream and omelets using Ziploc bags, videos reviewing the product, and even videos that use Ziploc bags as a hook for entertainment. Consumer-generated content like this is brand amplification, and it’s a tool consumers use not only to reward brands that delight them, but to punish brands that disappoint them (as Comcast recently
discovered when a disastrous customer service call went viral). So what are savvy brands doing? They’re harnessing the positive power of amplification (and minimizing the negative) by actively encouraging consumers to get involved. GoPro encourages its customers to upload user-generated content online. As a result, customers post approximately six thousand videos per day on YouTube with the word GoPro in its title or description. GoPro rewards customers for their participation by curating and redistributing customers “best of” UGC on their YouTube channel. The brand’s digital marketing prowess and deep understanding of consumer behavior online has helped GoPro become the fastest-growing camera company in the world.
The Ultimatum In the digital world, consumers don’t want to be ambushed by advertising; instead, they expect brands to advertise to them only when they grant brands permission to do so. Consumers expect brands to deliver something valuable in their messaging, whether its entertainment, education, or utility. And lastly, consumers know they have the power to amplify a brand’s message, and they expect to actively participate in doing so. The message is clear — to be successful in the digital era, brands must listen to the demands of their consumers when marketing to them: “Meet our expectations, or become irrelevant.” (Credit: Knowledge@Wharton, University of Pennsylvania) SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
A New Identity:
"Human Being, Planet Earth" Gopi Kallayil, Chief Evangelist for Brand Marketing at Google, observes that many in the new generation are finding it difficult to give a short answer to the common question - "Where do you come from?", and argues for a new identity that cuts across nationalities and ethnicities. I've seen the future of the world, and it is Dubai. The futuristiclooking ads for the city confidently claim, "Dubai, city of now." Centuries before oil was discovered, the trade center trafficked in pearls and the re-export of international goods, the population unfazed by brokers from around the world coming and going on camels and in Arab dhows. And then came the jetliners. My Wharton professor Eric Clemons taught me that geography is destiny. Dubai proves it. Two thirds of the world's population lives within eight hours flying time from the city. You can fly to 260 destinations directly from Dubai. This year, 81 million people (equal to the entire population of Germany) will fly through Dubai International Airport--the busiest airport for international passenger traffic in the world. And when they finish expanding the Al Maktoum airport, in Dubai World Central nearby, 120 million people (equal to the population of Japan) will fly through that airport. Emirates Airlines operates four of the longest flights in the world, picking you up in San Francisco, LA, Houston, or Dallas, and dropping you off almost 16 hours later inside the giant shopping mall that is the Dubai International Airport. In the airport concourse, the fascinating mix begins--Indian businessmen and Russian models, Bangladeshi chefs and Polish construction engineers, Korean waitresses and Brazilian hairdressers, English nannies and South African SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Gopi Kallayil,
tourists. In this giant experiment of global displacement, you hear hundreds of passengers, disgorged from their planes, speaking Malayalam, Mandarin, and Malay, voices rising above the din, competing with Telugu, Tagalog, and Turkish. A Burj Al Babel of biblical proportions. Lives cross in unusual ways at the airport. The princess-ling from Beijing, clutching her Hilde Palladino Gadino bag, is excitedly on her way to the Burj Al Arab, where the Royal Suite rents for upward of $13,000 a night. The English teenager from Nottingham with her $9.00 Quechua rucksack is also excited about going to the same hotel. For the next six months, she'll change linen there as an intern in the housekeeping department while she finishes her hotel management diploma. I note wryly that a hundred years ago in the outer reaches
of the British Empire on the Shanghai Bund, their great grandmothers' roles would have been the reverse. A group of Russians dressed in the pure white clothing one sees in an Indian ashram rush mindfully to catch their connection to Moscow, making sure they don't get lost, as only their leader speaks English. Indeed, they're returning from their trip in search of God at the Brahma Kumaris headquarters on Mount Abu in Rajasthan. Meanwhile, a group of Malayalees from Kerala, India, all dressed in the same travel agencyemblazoned red caps, crisscross the terminal looking for their San Francisco connection. It's their first trip to America. While this group is from the the land of many gods, spirituality is probably not their focus. Their tour guide, who is leading them with a signaling flag, will no doubt tell them that immigrants such
as Sergey Brin (Russian) and Jan Koum (Ukrainian) moved to America, later dropped out of college to start companies like Google and WhatsApp, and went on to create wealth greater than the GDP of Kerala. I'm in Dubai on a layover, transitioning between San Francisco and Kathmandu, on my way to a volunteer project with a group of my colleagues from Google and a group from Salesforce. During my 24 hours between flights, I'm riveted by my experience. In the cultural nexus of Dubai, I encounter compelling human stories of who came from where and why they've come. Orazaim, the chirpy receptionist at the Hyatt Place Dubai Al Rigga hotel, left her family behind in Astana, Kazakhstan. She says she searched on the Internet to find an employment agency that hired Kazakhs for placement in Dubai. Sibin, from Thrissur in Kerala, India, where my parents live, carries my bags to my room and banters to me in Malayalam. Kamal, the Pashtun limo driver, offers to play music as he ferries us to the 360 Degrees restaurant and bar, and responds to my request by playing Pakistani Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, remixed by the Asian underground scene in the form of Talvin Singh. Naimee, our
waitress at the Hyatt Place, came all the way from Korea. At the Dubai Mall, Murali asks me in Malayalam if I would like the butter pecan or mint chocolate chip ice cream. He speaks in the very familiar accent of Kollengode, which is right next to the ancestral paddies of my own family's roots. I take my mint chocolate chip cone and go in search of my friends, who said they'd be dining at the Mall but did not specify the restaurant. The Dubai Mall, I discover as I hunt for my friends, is a mega-city. I search among a bewildering array of restaurants--from The Texas Roadhouse to Rosa Mexicano, The Cheesecake Factory to The Noodle Factory. I cross continents as I walk from California Pizza Kitchen to Eataly to Entrecote Cafe de Paris. A global gourmet orgy. Later at the Jumeirah beach resort, two Romanian girls in short skirts and high heels agree to take our picture with the iconic sails of Burj Al Arab shimmering in the background. At the 360 Degrees bar and disco, I watch Brazilian casanovas and Italian lotharios trying to chat up the same girls. Everyone sips vodka cocktails, and converses in what I know is English but sounds more like
Russian, Portuguese, or Italian, with a hint of English underneath--a medley of lyrical accents. I start wondering about this juxtaposition of national, linguistic, and cultural identities. How Dubai is a microcosm of what the world is going to soon look like. And the time-tested introductory handshake of "Where are you from?" suddenly takes on a complex hue, often rendered meaningless. "It's complicated" is often the best answer. Dubai strikes me as unusual in two ways. First, during multiple visits, I've rarely encountered a UAE national. And even when I think I've finally met one, he or she turns out to be from Egypt, Lebanon, or Jordan. It's almost as if from out of nowhere, a city emerged in the Arab desert one full moon night and the flights started landing from Kozhikode, Kuala Lumpur, and Kinshasa, bringing in the new residents. Almost everyone I meet is in a state of continuous partial displacement. They know they'll leave one day for another place or to go back to where they boarded those flights. Everyone is in a state of impermanence and without any sense of moorings or local history. I'm reminded of Pico Iyer's "Global
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A New Identity: "Human Being, Planet Earth" Soul." I think of three people I've encountered in the past few days whom I consider true Global Souls. One, I said goodbye to back at my office. Two, I'm traveling with to Kathmandu. Aprajita Jain, not on this trip with us, is a teammate at work. She was born in Los Angeles to Indian Marwari Jain parents, who had migrated from India to Germany in the mid-'70s, when they identified an opportunity to move their diamond and gemstone trading business to a town called Idar-Oberstein, near Frankfurt. They made the trip to LA from Germany for their daughter's birth because Aprajita's maternal grandparents were settled in California, and in India, it's tradition for your first child to be born at the mother's parents' home. Culturally and linguistically isolated in Germany, Aprajita's family retreated into the comfort of the familiar-eating home-cooked vegetarian Indian food while watching Bollywood movies. To this day, Aprajita has a deep interest in Bollywood, and I often see her at the Bollywood class at the Danceplex in the Googleplex. Growing up in Germany, Aprajita led a perfectly balanced dual life. In school, she was one of the few non-German students. With German as her medium of education, she not only learned geography and math, but she rapidly learned French and English. At home, she spoke Hindi with her parents, who taught her to read and write Devanagari script. Recently, we were in a meeting with a group of senior German clients. At one point, I asked Aprajita to present a case study. I asked her in a carefully rehearsed sentence, "KÜnnen sie bitte in Deutsch präsentieren?" "Sicher," she responded cheerfully. Without skipping a beat she started explaining advanced digital business ideas in fluid German. Eyes widened and jaws dropped as the German-speaking audience tried to fit together the context of this young woman with the Indian face and polysyllabic Indian name speaking in fluid German at a tech company in Silicon Valley. I meet Shazana Manji at the Dubai Mall after I finally locate my group at the Wafi Gourmet, where they're enjoying Lebanese food. I slide into a chair next to Shazana, whom I have not met. She's SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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traveling with us to Nepal. "So where are you from?" I ask the familiar cultural slotting question. "I'm from San Francisco, but that's just where I live and work. I was born and raised in Toronto." "But where are you really from, or where are your parents from?" I press on looking for some sense of the familiar. "My mother is from East Africa but of Indian descent. My father is Pakistani and Portuguese, and they met in London." "So where do you identify yourself from the most?" "East Africa," she tells me confidently. I sit in silence and stare at this woman with the Indian face and the polysyllabic Indian name because she has not lived a single day in East Africa or even visited there. And none of my friends from Kenya, Tanzania, or Ethiopia would look at her and say, "Yes, she is from our part of the world." Amrit Dhir is one of my colleagues on the trip to Nepal. His name literally means nectar and brave. He grew up in Los Angeles, and was raised by his Punjabi parents. He spoke Punjabi until he was three years old and began school, at which point, his mother stopped speaking her native language with him because, as the story goes, Amrit ran home from school, crying that his teacher couldn't understand him when he told her he needed to go to the bathroom. After that, he spoke only English. A year-long teaching stint in New Delhi and another in Bangalore, led to a decent proficiency in Hindi, which greatly helps with his understanding of Punjabi.
Amrit studied at Maastricht University at the intersection of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, where the Meuse River meets the Jeker River. He converses in German, he's comfortable with Dutch, and somewhere along the way, he taught himself Russian and Spanish. With delight, I watched this young man with the Indian face and the polysyllabic Indian name weave in and out of conversations fluidly, speaking to the Pakistani taxi driver in Hindi; chatting with an Azerbaijani woman in Russian while checking into our hotel, reciting a silly Russian children's poem about an elephant that made her giggle; and then startling a group of Spanish tourists by asking them in Spanish to take our picture. All three of my friends, I realize, comfortably live in the gaps between cultures, neither burdened by an identity that is not theirs, nor feeling particularly rootless and castaway because they don't have one. On US government forms, where you're asked to identify your ethnicity, there are six choices--Latino, Asian, Native American or Alaska Native, Black or African American, Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and White--which is the boring government version of, "Where are you really, really from?" I can see Aprajita, Shazana, and Amrit looking for a seventh and eighth option: Sometimes, none of the above Sometimes, some of the above It may be time for the world to acknowledge that these questions are increasingly meaningless and "Human Being, Planet Earth" may be the only identifier that matters. (Credit: The Huffington Post)
HOME LOANS
MAGMA HOUSING FINANCE
Investing in the Smallest Dream Sachin Khandelwal
Magma group is almost as old as retail lending in India. Since the commencement of its financial services operations in 1989, Magma has been driven by one single goal, that of “Investing in the smallest dream”. Magma understands their “Rurban” customer’s dream and aim to be a stepping stone in them realizing it, by providing a wide suite of retail loans to help them create their very own dream home. Magma Housing Finance (MHF), one of the recent expansions of the Magma group, was founded in November 2012 by Magma Fincorp through the acquisition of GE Money Housing Finance with a vision to provide easy access of home loans to the informal segment of the society.
he innovative products & services provided by Magma Fincorp had already created a niche for itself in providing services to informal customers in tier 3 and even smaller towns, reaching out to most of the Talukas in the 20 states that the company is present in. Magma Housing Finance’s Mission is “To provide better and efficient access to all, through innovative solutions for the housing needs of the under-served RURBAN India.” Over 60% of the Indian population resides in the rural areas. Magma Housing Finance’s goal is to reach the household of such under banked consumers at the grass-root level and SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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help them realize their dream home. In the short span of little more than 2 years MHF has created a strong geographical spread of over 108 branches across India and touched the lives of more than 10,000 customers. Most of these customers are located in semi-urban and rural India. However the entire Magma group network is being leveraged to cater to this customer segment, with use of technology and all group branches being online for superior customer experience.
is designed for salaried as well, though with a much larger focus on the informal salaried income. However, largely MHF caters to the selfemployed customers, through extensive yet simple front-ended evaluation of their earning capacities. MHF’s unique preposition of doing credit assessment based total income of customer including alternate income through simple templates by
MHF also offers Loan against Residential and Commercial properties and residential project loans for small developers in emerging markets and micro markets. The housing finance company offers door step services to all our customers in remotest locations and having properties within or outside municipal limits. MHF’s exhaustive range of products SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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The focus is on the typical ‘Magma type customer” in the hinterlands, where in our strong market presence of tractor loans, more than a decade old base of small truck operators, driver-cum-owner commercial car customers and the emerging SME segment - all of whom usually have these loans for earning assets, is the focus area for MHF. These are mostly customers with not much or even no credit history, who repay their asset loans through non PDC mode at the branches, largely catered to by Tablet based collections and sales team spread across the country for door step services.
Magma Housing Finance’s Unique Value Propositions MHF offers complete range of home loan products namely home loan, home extension loan, home improvement loan, plot loans, plot plus construction loan with focus on informal income customer segment in upcountry locations.
our in-house credit team is what helps MHF to cater to this segment.
The wide network of the Magma group branches with a radial coverage of about 100 kms helps this HFC to cater to the largely under banked population based in the Talukas beyond the District headquarters, across the country.
The wide network of the Magma group branches with a radial coverage of about 100 kms helps this HFC to cater to the largely under banked population based in the Talukas beyond the District headquarters, across the country. MHF offers various insurance plans from our Group General Insurance Company - Magma HDI, and also sell Life Insurance covers through our alliance partners to cover the uncertainty risk on the life of our borrowers (optional), besides the mandatory cover for the property being financed.
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YOUTH POWER
MEET MADHAN KARKY, A YOUNG GENIUSBehind
BAAHUBALI 1 & 2 AND ENDHIRAN 2 The man with six 100-crore films under his belt works his magic sitting in a minimally decorated 400 square feet study-room in Chennai. For someone who is celebrated as a new-age wordsmith, there is not a single bookshelf at sight. There is nothing about him or his office that suggests his association with two of the most anticipated and mammoth projects of 2016 - Baahubali 2 and Endhiran 2. The amicability and warm smile catches you offguard.The name is Madhan Karky; son of poet and lyricist Vairamuthu.
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One of the youngest doctorates to emerge from the University of Queensland, Australia, Karky is several talents bundled into one an expert in robotics, avid linguist, lyricist, dialogue writer and author. In an interview, he gives a glimpse into his intriguing world of numbers and words. Madhan Karky, as a youngster, used to hate lyrics in songs. If that's not anticlimactic enough, he was not interested in reading fiction either. Well, at least, that's what he says. "As a teenager, I was very passionate about computing and systems. I wanted to become an engineer, who actually made a difference. Then it was in 1992, that I heard this song Chinna Chinna Aasai written by my dad, who finally made me look at lyrics and music in a new light. Even then, I tried to understand lyrics as mathematics, in my own simple way. After all, maths was my first love!"
Engineering to Baby-sitting Madhan's craze for computing landed him a bachelor's degree in computer engineering at the College of Engineering, Guindy. He says he was pretty much engrossed in academics as an under-grad. "Life changed once I joined post-graduation studies in Australia. I was no longer the nerd I used to be. This was the time I used to try my hand at cooking, waitering, baby sitting, composing tunes and a whole lot of exciting things in my free time. What started as a fun-time slowly got me interested in composing my own jingles, for which I wrote my own lyrics. Over a couple of years, I realized that the lyrics-part excited me more than the music. It was an exact reversal of my childhood sensibilities". Even more interestingly, Madhan admits that his stint at babysitting sowed the seeds for his linguistic explorations. "I tried teaching a couple of Australian kids Tamil by creating a fun language called Cliq with a few words. This paid off unexpectedly years later!" he pauses a bit, revels at the suspense and smiles.
Connecting with Rajamouli - on the Sets of Eega Madhan says Baahubali as an idea was sown back in early 2012 during the shoot of Eega/Naan Ee. "Rajamouli is someone who values and gives unbelievable attention to lyrics. On one such song recording, he mentioned that he liked the Tamil version of the songs better. He was particularly impressed with the lines En Ithaya Kootile..Un Ithayam Korkka Vaa, Eeruyirai Saerka Vaa...Ondraagida Vaa, and went on to write a follow-up scene where Samantha gets the idea of carving a heart within a heart in a pencil microart. After one such recording, he called me to his office, told me about his dream of filming a war-fantasy set thousand years before and asked me if I could write dialogues in chaste Tamil. I wrote a page of dialogues for a extempore scene, and both Rajamouli and his father were heavily impressed. We started the preproduction work of Baahubali, a few months after the release of Eega."
Baahubali - the Perfectly Planned Bilingual Rajamouli developed the script of Baahubali over 2 years, with the help of his Telugu writers and Madhan. "Yes, I was with him right from the conception. We developed the characters together. We have a 100 page character sketch for each of the characters in Baahubali. That's how I differentiate the tone of the characters. By now, I know how Bhallaladeva or Devasena would react to a conflict, and my dialogues would reflect their unique characteristics and crisis reactions. Even as Rajamouli narrates his requirement, he wouldn't give too much information. He lays down the crucial details, and gives the writers the freedom to develop and experiment. We worked scene by scene, developing the characters as we proceeded further. Baahubali, to my knowledge, was the most perfectly planned bilingual. Many of the dialogues in the two languages were completely different, to suit the sensibilities of the story. And more than half the scenes were first written in Tamil. The entire dialogues of the film ran to a little under 30 pages, with Prabhas mouthing 8 of those 30 pages. But, all the major actors attended a workshop on diction and pronunciation for ensuring authenticity, in addition to the regular rehearsals."
"
I tried teaching a couple of Australian kids Tamil by creating a fun language called Cliq with a few words. This paid off unexpectedly years later!
"
The Making of Kilikili Madhan says he coined the Kilikili language spoken by the Kalakeya tribe based on his experience of creating Cliq from scratch in Australia. "Rajamouli didn't want to categorize the Kalakeyas into any clan or ethnicity, but wanted to project them as barbaric brutes, who invoke endless fear. So we decided to make up our own language, giving more importance to mood based clicks and articulations. My primary aim was to translate the emotion of the word with phonetic sounds. So I came up with a little over 750 words using this template and then went on to coin 40 grammar rules for using the same. I used verbal clicks like 'tch' and 'tsk' as tense and plural markers and for forming the possessive. I also used phonetic reversals for the opposites to make my job easier (like min for denoting 'I' and nim for denoting 'you', muwa for 'love' and wamu for 'hate'). As I translated the dialogues from Tamil, if the word was in the dictionary, I would use it. If not, I would coin a new non-similar sounding word and add it to the bank. If I can't find a rule to use the words from the rule book, I will lay down a new grammatical rule. I was with the actors during the shoot for most of the scenes featuring Kilikili, helping them with the nuances. Quite an unforgettable experience, it turned out to be!"
Baahubali 2 to be More Emotional Regarding Baahubali 2, Madhan says that the film would be more grandiose, emotional, and hardhitting than the first part. "All my hard work will reflect more in the conclusion, which would be more of an engaging drama than a mere action-adventure. It is more dialogue oriented, with the first part serving as a build-up to reach this point. We have already shot footage for about an hour, and as of now, the first half of the script is locked. I am equally excited about it like the audience." (Credit iflickz.com) SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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BRAKETHROUGH
Coming Soon to a Dentist Near You: 3D Printing of Replacement Teeth The latest 3D printing innovation could change the way you think about your visit to the dentist. That’s because Dutch researchers at the University of Groningen are working on the creation of a 3D-printed tooth made of an antimicrobial plastic that kills the bacteria responsible for tooth decay on contact.
magine teeth that remain white and pristine over time, without all the accumulation of bacteria that cause dental problems. While the thought of having a 3D-printed tooth inside your mouth might not sound so great, is it really any worse than dealing with the constant toothache from a decaying tooth? For the Dutch researchers, the key step in developing the bacteria-fighting tooth was being able to find the right material to put inside the 3D printer. In this case, the researchers embedded antimicrobial quaternary ammonium salts inside existing dental resin polymers. Once this mix is put into a 3D printer, it can be hardened with ultraviolet light and used to print out 3D replacement teeth. To test the bacteria-fighting tooth in a lab environment, the researchers coated the material with human saliva and exposed it to the bacterium that causes tooth decay. The anti-bacterial tooth killed more than 99% of all bacteria and showed no signs of being harmful to human cells. However, there is still a long way to go before this 3D-printing scenario SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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becomes a reality. The Dutch 3Dprinting innovation, for example, is still not ready for clinical trials and has not yet been tested inside a human mouth. Moreover, it’s not clear how the tooth might react to brushing and the application of toothpaste. Despite these obstacles, Andreas Herrmann of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands suggests that, “It’s a medical product with a foreseeable application in the near future, much less time than developing a new drug.” There’s room for optimism because the role of 3D printing within the field of dentistry shows signs of taking off. In early March, 3D printing company Stratasys unveiled a high-end dental 3D printer, called the Objet260 Dental Selection, capable of printing out realistic teeth, gums and nerves in order to create lifelike models for dental specialists. The printer uses the company’s PolyJet dental materials, promising “gum-like softness and colour”, a “range of natural tooth shades” and even nerve canals for dental models so realistic that practitioners can
use them to model complicated dental procedures. Those are just dental models and not intended for clinical trials. However, it’s hard to deny the growing role of 3D printers in medicine and dentistry. Using 3D printers, there are ongoing attempts to “bio-print” human bone, skin, tissue and even organs (think kidneys and livers). According to research firm IDTechEx, the dental and medical market for 3D printers could grow in size to $867m by 2025. The bigger (albeit highly futuristic) context is that 3D printers are leading to what can only be called a “replacement parts for humans” model. Just as cars have parts that need to be replaced after a certain number of miles, humans also have parts that need to be replaced after a certain number of years. That’s especially true as people live longer than ever before. Think of 3D-printed teeth as just small replacement parts that can be customised for your mouth. At the March 2015 TED conference in Vancouver, there was even a suggestion that the ability to 3D-print replacement teeth within minutes - while you wait in the dentist chair - might be soon possible. Joseph DeSimone, the chief executive of the 3D printing company Carbon3D and a professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, suggested in his TED talk it might be possible to 3D-print a tooth in less than 10 minutes. He refers to this innovation as “point-of-sale manufacturing” for dentists. That’s the promise, in many ways, of an exponential digital technology such as 3D printing. As the technology improves, it’s possible to see 10 times, even 100 times, improvements in speed. What once took hours or more, can now be accomplished within the space of a few minutes. That increase of speed, coupled with the promise of being able to make perfectly fitted teeth that have been customised for each person’s mouth, makes it almost a certainty that you might one day see a 3D printer next to all the other tools and instruments in your dentist’s office.
(Credit: Guardian Weekly and The Washington Post)
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INDIA LAUNCH
Should You Buy an Apple Watch? The Apple Watch has launched in India at Rs. 30,900. Is Apple's revolutionary product - a computer on the wrist - worth the price and worth the hassle of taking up yet another tech device? Find out. ix months after I coaxed a friend from New York to bring an Apple Watch with her when she visited India, I still find it hard to explain what it is to most people. “It’s a fitness tracker, right?” they ask. “No,” I say. “I mean, yes. It is. But it actually does a lot more.” “Like what?” “You can read your email. And send text messages, and answer calls. And, um, call an Uber with it.” “Cool. But can’t you just do all that with your phone?” At this point, the conversation usually veers to “yes, but it’s on my wrist,” and usually ends with “wait, how much did you say it was again?” The Apple Watch is tough to explain because it, well, lacks focus. Unlike a Fitbit that only tracks your fitness, for instance, the Apple Watch does a bit of everything. Want to reply to a WhatsApp message without touching your phone? Sure, the Apple Watch can do it. Want to track your workout? Piece of cake. Want to see your Instagram photos? Sure, they look crummy on that tiny screen, but hey, it’s possible. The Apple Watch is essentially an entire computer complete with its own operating system and apps. It’s just like your phone, except that it sits on your wrist and doesn’t have a cellular SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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connection. It gets this by pairing with your iPhone over bluetooth. The Apple Watch comes in three models - Sport, Watch and Edition - and dozens of (overpriced) interchangeable straps that you can check out on Apple’s website. There’s a bright, super-sharp screen that’s silky-smooth to touch, but the Watch also detects different levels of pressure on the screen. This means that tapping something produces a different result than pressing down hard on it. There’s also a Digital Crown on the side that lets you scroll through text and zoom in and out of pictures among other things. The Watch, in CEO Tim Cook’s words, is the next chapter in Apple’s story. It’s a bold bet on the future, and the future, from Apple’s point of view, looks like this: the phone is no longer the hub of your digital life like it is right now. Instead, all that power lives right on your wrist, and you use your wrist to do everything from controlling the lights in your house and playing music on your wireless stereo, to hailing a cab and tracking your fitness. Your phone, well, you’ll use it to get things done like writing long emails, reading, watching videos, or playing games. Eventually, your phone might evolve into something else completely. The trouble is that this future is still a ways off, while the Apple Watch is here already. And so, it struggles. Apps run slowly and are poor approximations of their iPhone versions in most cases;
battery life doesn’t last more than a day; and the user interface could use a lot of work. These things will no doubt be ironed out with time, but right now, the Apple Watch is available at an Apple authorised retailer near you for at least Rs. 30,900, and if you’ve read this far, you’ve probably got some tough decisions to make. The Apple Watch tries to be many things at once but this is what it boils down to. When the Apple Watch hit the shelves earlier this year, CEO Tim Cook called it “the most advanced timepiece ever created.” Well, he’s wrong. As a computer that you can wear on your wrist, the Apple Watch is decidedly cutting edge. Unfortunately, it’s lousy at the one thing that dumb wristwatches have excelled at for hundreds of years: telling time. I’ll explain. On my 10-year-old Titan, all I need to do is glance down at the watch to find out if I’m late for a meeting (I usually am). But the screen of the Apple Watch is off by default (to make sure the battery doesn’t run out by lunchtime). To light it up, I need to bring up my arm up to my chest in a sweeping, deliberate motion to activate the sensor that will light up the display and tell me what time it is. If this doesn’t sound like a big deal, try doing it when you’re commuting on the Delhi metro at rush hour without hitting someone’s
back, arm, side, chest or nose. Worse, the Watch is finicky about the exact movement of your arm. If your wrist doesn’t move by just the right amount, the display won’t light up at all, and your only option is to repeat the exercise or use your other hand to tap the Watch screen. The effect is jarring, like being yanked back to the 20th century. When you do manage the requisite callisthenics, however, seeing your Watch tell you the time is sheer delight. Depending on the watch face you choose, you’ll see flowers bloom gracefully, or a split-second time lapse of your favourite city (mine’s New York – but only because Apple doesn’t offer Pune as an option). If you’re hyper-organised, you can also choose a face that will show your next calendar appointment, the weather, battery level, and your fitness levels among other things, all in one place. For everyday use, I find this face best,
and heck, if I’m going to strap a smartwatch to my wrist, I want instant access to all this information without having to poke through menus. On weekends or when I’m on vacation, I usually switch to one of the dreamy faces with flowers or floating jellyfish. You can also set a photo from your iPhone as your watch face.
Despite its many flaws as a wristwatch, wearing an Apple Watch for a few months actually managed to break my habit of pulling my phone out of my pocket to see what time it was. I now (automatically) bring my wrist towards me to tell time. And if I’m not wearing the Watch, I feel a strange pang.
Apple Watch also offers a cool feature called Time Travel, which lets you spin the Digital Crown forward to see upcoming calendar events, projected weather, estimated battery life, and other time-sensitive things hours ahead (spin it backwards to see how your day has been).
Can you use the Apple Watch to monitor your fitness? That depends on how hardcore you are. If you’re an athlete, the Apple Watch won’t really suffice as a fitness band, no matter how many muscular bodies Apple shows off in Watch ads. That’s because it doesn’t really do the pro-level stuff – measuring your blood-oxygen levels and keeping track of your heart rate through the day – that most serious athletes need. You can’t even take it swimming, because it’s not water-proof, although it is waterresistant (splashes are OK).
When you finally set the Watch down to charge at night, it shows the time and date in a large, green font. Apple calls this the Nightstand Mode, although I think a real bedside clock would stay on the whole night and not just light up when touched, like you need to do with the Apple Watch.
The Watch as a fitness tracker
If you’re an amateur fitness buff, or even if you don’t exercise at all, however,
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Should You Buy an Apple Watch?
the Apple Watch is one of the best trackers you can buy right now. You can use Apple’s built-in Workout app to manually monitor a range of workouts, including indoor and outdoor running, cycling, and rowing, and the Watch will show you your stats - calories, distance, time, and more, depending on the type of workout - in real time on your wrist. It will also show your heart-rate, thanks to a monitor on its back that hugs your wrist at all times. That heart-rate monitor, by the way, is frightfully accurate. Last month, I had a chance to put the Apple Watch headto-head with a medical-grade cardiac monitor in a hospital where I was admitted for dengue (right before they ripped it off my wrist and stuck it full of needles). The heart-rate reading on the Watch was always within a beat or two of the cardiac monitor. Apple’s Workout app does tend to skew towards cardio-based workouts, which means that if you’re into strength training or yoga, it’s next to useless. Thankfully, third-party apps fill in these gaps nicely. Runtastic Pro, which I’ve been using to keep track of my runs for SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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the last few years, for instance, has a really nice Apple Watch app that lets you track everything from Zumba to Crossfit sessions. If you’re a cyclist, I recommend Strava’s Apple Watch app, which gives you tons of granular data about your cycling sessions compared to Apple’s barebones Workout app. But even if you don’t get regular exercise, Apple Watch’s passive tracking is a great way to ensure that you at least hit some minimal activity goals each day. Apple’s visual metaphor to represent your daily activity is three concentric circles: the outer circle represents your daily calorie-burning goal; the middle ring is the number of active minutes you get everyday, and it accounts for all activity done at the pace of a brisk walk or above; and the innermost ring is your stand goal, which you meet if you stand for at least one minute in 12 different hours in a single day. As you come closer to meeting these goals, each ring gradually fills up. It’s a terrific way to keep track of your progress at a single glance, and is perfect for that extra boost of motivation
(“if I walk up those three flights of stairs instead of taking the lift, I can fill up my calories ring and my exercise ring!”). If you’re feeling slothful, Apple Watch helpfully prods you from time to time by telling you to stand up and move around (depending on the situation you’re in, this can either be inspiring or irritating. I’ve had the Watch telling me to stand up and take a walk an hour into a movie and I just want to tell it to shut up for a while). Meet fitness goals regularly and the Watch will award you shiny shields, which you can spin around with your finger to see your name inscribed on the back. It’s a nice touch that gamifies the fitness experience but it feels woefully inadequate compared to the robust social leaderboards that almost every other fitness app offers. I’d love to challenge my friends to races and workouts each month, for instance, and I can’t but help thinking that we’ll see these features coming in future software updates to the Watch. All your fitness data is automatically synced to your iPhone, where you can
drill down into your daily progress over weeks, months and years. The Apple Watch has been called out by other reviewers for not having a built-in GPS to map outdoor runs. It uses the GPS in your iPhone to achieve this, which means you always need to take your iPhone with you when you go running. But seriously, who doesn’t take their phone out running? If you’re an amateur fitness enthusiast like I am, the Apple Watch is a great fitness band - but it’s also much more expensive than most other dedicated fitness trackers out there, and if fitness is the only thing you’re interested in, I’d recommend looking at cheaper alternatives like the Fitbit Surge and the Fitbit Charge HR.
The Watch as a communicator Just because you can make and receive calls on the Apple Watch doesn’t mean you should, OK? You look like a complete idiot doing it. And - Dick Tracy probably forgot to mention this holding your arm up and speaking into your wrist for more than 30 seconds is literally a pain. But I’m nitpicking. I rarely answer calls on my Watch, but being able to glance at my wrist to see who’s calling is amazing. I don’t even have to pull my phone out of my pocket. It’s hard to explain how freeing this feels till you actually experience it. You can also use the Watch to send and receive iMessages and regular text messages. To reply to a message, you can choose from a list of automaticallygenerated responses - yes, the Watch parses the text of the incoming message and tries to frame appropriate responses with varying levels of success - or simply dictate a reply. Voice recognition on the Watch is fast and surprisingly accurate, although since it’s the only way to input text into the device, it damn well should be. Did I mention these weird animated emoji that you can reply with as well? I don’t know which manager at Apple approved this stuff, but I hope they’re working on something else right now. The Apple Watch also gets all email
Even though its bursting with potential, the Apple Watch is a first-generation product with too many rough edges to justify the frankly insane pricing and will have trouble appealing to anyone besides diehard Apple fans or gadget hounds. from your iPhone. At first I was skeptical – who wants to deal with email on a screen that small? – but thanks to the Digital Crown, which allows you to scroll through large amounts of text rather easily, powering through your inbox is actually a breeze on the Watch. You can also reply to email using your voice, or delete messages. But I haven’t found a way to forward an email to someone, which seems like a glaring omission from what is otherwise a fairly robust experience. At its Watch keynote, Apple made a big deal about using the Watch to send doodles, taps, and heartbeats - yes, heartbeats - to your friends who also own Apple Watches. “This is going to revolutionise the way we communicate,” gushed Tim Cook. I’m here to tell you that these features are a gimmick, because a) they’re only usable if you know someone else with an Apple Watch and guess how many people that is, b) that 2-inch screen is way too small for any serious doodling c) sending your heartbeat to someone, even if they’re a special someone, is creepy, and gets old really quickly. I wouldn’t use the Apple Watch for any serious emailing, texting or calling – and really, it’s not meant for those scenarios – but as a quick-response machine, it’s a beast on your wrist. I hate push notifications. On my phone, I disable every single one of them because I can’t stand the constant
beeping and booping. On the wrist, it’s a different story. Getting some alerts delivered right to the Watch where I can see them at a glance and act upon them with a single tap is dead useful. I use Watch notifications for breaking news alerts, instant messaging, and email from a few important people like my boss and my wife, in addition to phone calls and texts. It’s amazing how little I need to look at my phone with all these turned on - and since it’s on my wrist, I never miss a thing. To alert you about new notifications, the Apple Watch uses something called a Taptic engine, which means that it doesn’t really vibrate with each notification but “taps” your wrist instead. It’s a subtle, delightful sensation that’s inaudible to everyone except you, and it’s one of those tiny things that puts the Watch in a class of its own.
Wait and Watch That’s a lot of things for a block of metal that’s less than 2-inches in size and sits on your wrist to do. And I haven’t even talked about some other features like Siri, Apple’s voice-recognition-based assistant, who is a joy to talk to on the Watch, or Apple Pay, which isn’t available in India yet but lets you use the Watch to pay for things in supported countries. But that’s kind of the point with the Apple Watch. The list of things it can do is too long and will only get longer with time. Which brings us to the million dollar question: should you buy it? I’d say hold off for now. The Apple Watch is already six-months old at this point, which means that if Apple sticks to its cycle of updating its products every year, we should have a new one around March or April. Even though its bursting with potential, the Apple Watch is a first-generation product with too many rough edges to justify the frankly insane pricing and will have trouble appealing to anyone besides diehard Apple fans or gadget hounds. Hold off for now. There’s a lot coming in the years ahead. (Credit: Pranav Dixit, Hindustan Times) SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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PRECIOUS METALS
Did Volkswagen Make Platinum Cheaper Than Gold? Growing supply and slowing demand due to the Volkswagen crisis too are weighing on the price of the metal. ooking for an engagement ring or stepping out to buy a wedding band? You no longer have to restrict yourself to the boring yellow metal; the classy platinum in now within reach. Prices of platinum have been declining steadily and are down about 50 per cent over the last four years. The best part is, platinum is now cheaper than gold. Platinum trades at about $1,000/ ounce while gold quotes at $1,164/ ounce. It moved to a discount to gold in February. Platinum has always sported this exclusive aura and commanded a premium because it is rarer than the yellow metal. But sometimes, due to unfavourable demand-supply dynamics, the metal trades cheaper for months together. For instance, when platinum prices moved to a discount to gold in 2011, it took 16 months for it to recoup its premium to the yellow metal. Of the several issues that have been hurting the metal’s price, the most recent has been the Volkswagen’s emission scandal. The German automaker was found to be using a test-evading software on its diesel vehicles to bypass pollution tests in the US. Platinum derives over 40 per cent of its demand from auto catalysts, which are devices that curb pollution SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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from diesel cars. The 11 million cars of Volkswagen which faked the emission control test are estimated to have used about 1.8 million ounces of platinum. This formed a chunk of the annual demand for platinum that ranges between 7 and 8 million ounces. The Volkswagen scandal hurt sentiments and investors began shorting platinum futures fearing that diesel cars will lose market share to gasoline cars. About 3 per cent cars in the US and 50 per cent in the Europe are powered by diesel engines. While the pessimism over diesel cars may subside, the bigger worry for this enchanting metal is the growing supply and slowing demand.
Increasing supply Last year, a strike by mine workers in South Africa — the country which accounts for 70 per cent of the global mine output, hit platinum supplies. But in 2015, mines’ supplies have recovered. In the recent June quarter, the World Platinum Investment Council says that the global platinum deficit shrank by more than 65 per cent to 55, 000 ounces, thanks to increase in mine supply (up 12 per cent over the March quarter) and a small increase in
recycled platinum jewellery. What helped boost mine output is the improved operational efficiency of miners due to a weaker rand. The South African rand has fallen about 12 per cent against the dollar this year. The country’s miners have thus seen costs reduce substantially. So, despite lower platinum prices, miners have been increasing output as the strong dollar has improved their margins. Platinum supplies from South Africa are likely to climb nearly 20 per cent this year, the largest annual gain since 1993, according to estimates by Johnson Matthey Plc.
Thin Chinese demand Besides excess supply, weak demand is also weighing on platinum. In fact, the rout in the South African currency was triggered by fears of an economic slowdown in China. South Africa and China are trade partners. The dragon country imports significant amounts of coal, iron ore, copper and platinum that are mined in different parts of South Africa. With China seeing a deceleration in growth, demand for the resources of South Africa, including platinum, is withering. In the June 2015 quarter, while platinum supply grew in double digits, its demand, mainly from the
Platinum derives over 40 per cent of its demand from auto catalysts, which are devices that curb pollution from diesel cars. The 11 million cars of Volkswagen which faked the emission control test are estimated to have used about 1.8 million ounces of platinum. Traders began shorting platinum futures fearing that diesel cars will lose market share to gasoline cars. About 3 per cent cars in the US and 50 per cent in the Europe are powered by diesel engines.
automotive sector and jewellery, declined. Consumption demand, as represented by those buying jewellery, was down by a sharp 11 per cent. Until the 2008 recession, European auto catalysts made up for most (about 25 per cent) of the demand for platinum — at about 60 tonnes on an average annually. This was double the demand from Chinese jeweller. But by 2012, Chinese platinum jewellery demand grew to an annual 60.7 tonnes (accounting for a fourth of the total demand) while European demand for auto catalysts fell to 41.8 tonnes. Today, China still continues to dominate the platinum market. Over two-thirds of all the demand for
platinum jewellery is from China. Though the leading retail jewellery chains in the country such as the Chow Tai Fook are expanding, footfalls have not been growing. This behaviour of the Chinese consumers is in contrast to 2009, when they had doubled their purchase of platinum jewellery even as the metal price crashed sharply. India is the fourth largest consumer of platinum jewellery. Retailers are betting big on the growing preference for light weight platinum jewellery by younger women. But given that 60-70 per cent of the jewellery demand in the country is from weddings, and people still look for gold accessories to adorn on family occasions, demand for platinum is relatively small.
It is not just platinum, but other precious metals such as gold and silver have also been in a bear market for the last few years.
Slammed by dollar This can be explained by only one factor — the US dollar. Prompted by expectations of rate rises in the US, the dollar has been rallying sharply. If rates go up, it would be more attractive for investors to put money in bonds and other interest bearing securities rather than in platinum or gold. Demand for platinum coins/bars and ETFs fell by 80 per cent in 2014 and made up just 2 per cent of overall demand for the white metal. (Credit: Rajalakshmi Nirmal for Hindu Business Line) SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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AFFORDABLE HOUSING
HOW CAN WE ACHIEVE HOUSING FOR ALL BY 2022? R. Nambirajan, Managing Director, DHFL Vysya Housing Finance Ltd., and a noted authority in the housing finance business shares his comprehensive views on affordable housing as well as housing finance for this underserved category.
Our Hon’ble Prime Minister has announced an ambitious program of housing for all by 2022. Affordable Housing is the largest component of the ‘Housing for all by 2022’ initiative, be it Urban or Rural housing. Here is a look at the challenges as well as solutions to achieve this ideal goal.
RURAL SCENARIO
There are 6 lakh villages in India. Two third of India’s population lives in Rural Areas. (73% live in rural areas according to the latest Socio Economic & Caste Census (SECC). One out of three families living in Villages is landless and depends on manual labour for livelihood. Census 2011 reveals that 11.62 crores rural households (70%) do not have a latrine within their premises.
RURAL HOUSING SCENARIO
The shortage in Rural Housing is enormous and with population increase over the next 10 years, it will increase multifold. The shortage figures estimated by NHB for the period 2007-12 were: Excess of Households over houses 40.00 lakhs Replacement of non serviceable kutcha houses 60.00 lakhs Obsolescence and Congestion 30.00 lakhs Ungradation of existing Kutchas/ puccas houses 200.00 lakhs Additional Housing requirements 220.00 lakhs Total Housing shortage 550.00 lakhs 90% of this shortage pertains to BPL families.
R. Nambirajan, Managing Director, DHFL Vysya Housing Finance Ltd. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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It can be mentioned that the shortage stood for the period 2002-07 at 577 lakhs and it has come down to 550 lakhs over a period of 10 years. The maximum reduction was only in Replacement of non-serviceable kutcha houses from 116.00 lakhs to 60 lakhs. Otherwise, the shortage continues as it is. The shortage as on 1-4.2001 was 240 lakhs only and it
has increased over the years, due to the simple reason of increase in population and in spite of migration to cities. From the statistics of housing shortage in rural areas, a major chunk of 200.00 lakhs katcha houses require upgradation. As per Census 2011, 1.08 crore households live in dilapidated houses. Acccording to Socio Economic & Caste Census (SECC) 73% of India’s population live in Rural India, and out of this 74.5% earn below Rs.5000 p.m., and about 17.18% earn between Rs.5000 to 10,000, and around 8.3% earn above Rs.10,000 p.m. (possibly these are the group owning irrigated land) This will give an idea about affordability of this section of Society, and their affordability in the income group upto Rs.5000 will be nearly NIL. Now let us discuss something about Affordability: Approximately 30% of the population in India is living below poverty line, and as per the above latest statistics 73% of our total population live in Rural India i.e. 90 crores. Out of this 74.5% living in Rural India i.e. 70 crores earn below Rs.5000 p.m. Affordability for this segment is almost Nil. Which means that they will be requiring Govt. help fully for acquiring a living place. They cannot come under any Financial proposition for owning a living place. Further about 17% living in Rural Areas are said to earn between
Rs.5000 to Rs.10,000/-. Their affordability for owning a living place is negligible. They also will depend on Govt. Social Schemes for getting a living place. About 8% of the population in Rural areas are having income of above Rs.10,000, and possibly these are the persons owning some land and getting income from the land. They would have already constructed their living place in the Rural areas, and if they had not so far, they can avail the financial services from banks or Financial Institutions for getting the necessary loan according to their income level.
INDIRA AWAZ YOJANA
The Government floated the Scheme of Indira Awaz Yojana for helping the people in Rural villages. It is a subsidy based program started in 1985 as a sub-Scheme of the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Program (RLEGP), under which subsidy is provided to rural BPL families for constructing dwelling units on their own. Under this Scheme assistance worth Rs.70,000 in plain areas and Rs.75,000 in difficult areas is provided for construction Indira Awas Yojana helps BPL families who are already owning land. Recently the Scheme has been modified by a New Scheme called National Gramin Awass Mission (GRAM). The assistance amount payable is estimated at Rs.
1,50,000 per house . A target of 3.20 crore house are planned to be covered in a period of nine years with an annual target of 25 lakh houses with fund requirements of Rs.27,300 crore. One out of three families living in Villages is landless and depends on manual labour for livelihood. Surplus lands in Rural areas can be allotted to landless BPL families and they may be allowed to avail the benefits under Indira Awas Yojana for construction. However, the ownership of land should remain with the Govt., and the allottees should be permitted to own the land by paying the consideration amount predetermined within a period of 10 years. The Govt. should float an Interest subsidy Scheme for Construction of houses in Rural Areas also, like the one floated for Urban Poor, with the same eligibility crieteria. This will help people in Rural Area also to avail the interest subsidy Scheme, and build their own houses. Now coming to Urban housing shortage, there is a shortage of 17.84 million units in urban area under EWS and LIG as on 2012. It may increase in the coming years, due to migration of people from Villages to Urban areas. A study has revealed that Housing is the 5th Priority item list for EWS group, i.e. Food, clothing, education, health and then 5th comes Housing. A good SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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amount of Incentive will only induce the EWS group to go for housing jumping the priority list. According to the report of the technical group of 11th Five year plan Housing shortage for Economically weaker Section people with monthly per capita expenditure of 0-3300 is 21.78 Million, and for low income group with per capita monthly expenditure of Rs.3301 to 7300 is 2.89 million and the shortage in the group of Mid income and High income groups are very negligible. (with monthly per capita expenditure from 7301 to 14,500 and above) As such, for AFFORDABLE HOUSING, the cost of the project should be kept low at around Rs.20.00 to 25.00 lakhs. (The Central Bank stipulates that the cost of a house in affordable housing project should not exceed Rs. 65.00 lakhs in metros and Rs.50.00 lakhs in non metros, and affordability of such a cost will be for high income group,
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where the shortage is very minimum) According to a latest report (Economic Times Editorial 29-6-15) The present housing shortage nationwide is put at six crore units and rising, but with growing urbanisation, the backlog is likely to increase to 11 crores dwelling units in seven years. The cumulative investment requirement is put at $2 Trillion and further that 1.7 lakh hectare of land is likely to be required for urban residences – much of which would need to be affordable for low income groups. In addition addl infrastructure towards provision of roads, water, Electricity, transport etc. are to be provided, which will add to this cost. We find the phrase “affordable housing” being used very frequently and by all, WHAT AFFORDable means: MGI (Mckinsey Global Institute) report says that affordable housing is the threshold of financial
burden that an individual household will bear – about 30 to 40 per cent of his income. For below poverty line group, the affordability can be taken as NIL, and hence it should be covered under social Scheme by the Government. Though different countries have different definitions for affordable housing, it is largely the same i.e. affordable housing should address the housing needs of the lower or middle income households. Affordable housing becomes a key issue especially in developing nations where a majority of the population isn't able to buy houses at the market price. Housing that is reasonably adequate in standard and location for lower or middle income households and does not cost so much that a household is unlikely to be able to meet other basic needs on a sustainable basis. In short we should not put people into houses that they cannot afford. In the simplest of terms,
affordability of housing refers to the amount of capital one has in relation to the price of living space to be obtained. Disposable income of the people remains the primary factor in determining the affordability. As a result, it becomes the increased responsibility of the government to cater to the rising demand for affordable housing. The Government of India has announced a challenging task of providing shelter to all by 2022 It is just more than a personal inconvenience experienced by individual households who cannot afford resort to living in slums without proper infrastructure. From the above, it may be concluded that For below poverty line group, the affordability can be taken as NIL, and hence their cases should be covered under social Scheme by the Government. As conveyed above, the shortage in housing in Urban Areas is for EWS and Low Income Group. Migration towards cities will further aggravate the problem, and increase in the shortage. The affordability cost will be very low in Rural areas, where land is available in plenty (non agriculture land or Tharisu or Punjai land). Excess Govt. land should be allotted to houseless people – the area to be sufficient to take care of other activities of livelihood. Here also the ownership should continue with the Government and right to own it by paying the price at a later date should be permitted. If the allottee is not living there/migrates to cities, it should be surrendered to the Government and allotted to another person. The task of providing shelter to all 2022 can be solved in three ways i.e. i) Free Goods ii) Subsidized goods and iii) commercial goods models. i.e. i) giving a small living place free of cost to those, who have no affordability ii) Giving subsidy to those who have very less affordability, like the EWS in urban poor iii) Increase the availability of finance at a reasonable rate for those, who have the affordability. In short this model can be called “ Free , subsidized and commercial .” Under the Free goods model, It can be a fully social security measure by
the Govt. where, the govt.(State & Central Govt) provide houses to specified eligible households whose income is not affordable and whose needs are not met by the market (below poverty line households). It can also take the form of subsidized goods, where the household income is sufficient to contribute towards margin and financing is arranged by the households within his affordability. To help them a portion of interest is subsidized by the Govt. urban poor viz.Ews and LIG. The last category would be purely a Commercial transaction for Urban and Rural Households who have affordable income, and who can avail bank finance at a reasonable interest rate by providing margin, if the houses/flats are made available at a fair price. It should be a commercially and financially viable project. (Commercially for the Builder and Financially for the Banker and affordable for this group)
one is the housing expenditure to income ratio of the household and the margin money he has. In developed countries the income ratio is restricted to 30%, and in India, Banks and HFCs go upto 40%. (50% for higher salaried cases). Small houses (with plinth area of 300 to 500 Sq. feet are not available in and around the cities and builders are reluctant to go for this – reason commercially not viable proposition (Land inside cities availability is almost nil and cost is more). The problem is common to all countries. Since, the population figure in Western Countries is low, they were successful in providing houses to maximum people. Whereas in India, the day by day increasing population pose a problem of never ending solution. The Present Government has decided to provide housing to all by 2022 and to achieve this difficult task peoples’ participation is required. The prevalent practice in some of the other countries are as follows
Affordability has two main factors: The first one is the price and the second
In Australia. The Household can purchase their own home with the SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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help from the Department of Housing with a Shared Start Loan through Govt. Lending Provider. With shared ownership the initial cost of buying a home is reduced, as the Dept. retains upto 30% of the property and the Dept. share depends on the borrowing capacity of household, the size and the location and the type of property. At a future date the buyer may have the option to purchase the full amount or sell the home back to the Dept. In short, the margin money is provided by the Department. China is also experiencing a gap. Prior to 1980 it was free dwelling produced and allocated by the State Fund System. It was gradually transformed from a “free good” to a “subsidized good” and eventually to a “Commodity”, the price of which reflects true production costs and a market profit margin. Municipal Governments responded to the calling for increase in housing supply to middle and low income families and provided housing (60 to 110 Sq. meters) at affordable price @ 50-70% market price. Local Government identified state owned land and gave to real estate developers, who are responsible for the finance and construction of the flats/houses. The profit to Real Estate developers were controlled to be less than 3% so as to keep the price of housing at the affordable level. In recent years, due to funding problems, the program has been decreasing and in many cities ineligible high income households own affordable housing units whereas many qualified families are denied access. (The problem which India also now facing). In U.S, mortgage interest tax deduction is one of the incentive allowed by the Government, in addition to subsidy programs for lower income households. (In India also this is allowed in Income tax by way of deduction up to a specified amount, i.e. Rs.2,00,000/- In addition, the Federal Government encouraged rental projects also for lower income households by allowing . Tenant based subsidies given to an individual household known as Section Program. Project based subsidies also given to the owner of housing units that must SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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be rented to lower income households at affordable rates an Public Housing which is usually owned and operated by the Govt. In spite of steps being taken for the past several years, NLIHC’s analysis of the 2013 American Community Survey shows that there is a national shortage of 7.1 million affordable rental units to renter households with incomes at or below 30% of area median income. The Spotlight goes on to stress how difficult it is for renters with the lowest incomes to find housing they can afford across every state and major metropolitan area in the country. In U.S. households are commonly defined in terms of the amount of realized income they earn relative to the Area Median Income or AMI localized AMI figures are calculated annually based on a survey of comparably sized households within the geographic ranges: i)Moderate income households earn between 80% & 120% of AMI. ii)Low income households earn between 50% and 80% of AMI. iii) Very low income households earn no more than 50% AMI. The Federal Government supports Fannie Mae and Freddie the two institutions catering to affordable housing goals. Fannie Mae purchases the mortgage portfolios of banks & Financial Institutions, even if the loans have been given to borrowers with lower credit scores, and also up to 97% loan to value (KLTV ) Ratios, and with low mortgage insurance. The Lenders are also allowed to use the unemployment benefit as a “source of income”.
SUGGESTIONS FOR RURAL HOUSING
The Central Government has announced the National Gramin Awaas Mission (GRAM), applicable in the Rural Areas and considering increase in the amount of grant to be paid for construction of living place,/ addl. Construction of place/bath room lavatory etc. to Rs.1,50,000/-. This will enable upgradation of existing Kutch/ pucca houses where there is a shortage of 200 lakh units in Rural Areas. Under this Scheme, Rural houses
requiring urgent attention has been estimated at about 4.00 crores and it has been assumed that 20% of house holds living in such houses can provide resources to build a house and the remaining 80% i.e. 3.20 crores households would require assistance from the Government. The identification of such household will be through a participatory process involving the Gram Sabha and PRIs. Since there are huge landless labourers living in Rural villages, allotment of land to them should also be considered, so that they can construct a living place on this land with the assistance from the Govt. under the above Scheme. This will partly take care of the Addl. Housing requirement of 220 lakh units in Rural Areas. The Government (Central and State Governments) should continue the free allotment of small living space (up to 300 Sq. feet) to people with income below poverty line and the quantum should be increased. While allotting the ownership should continue with the Government and the allotee may be given right to own by purchasing it at a pre determined price after 5-10 years. Till ownership is acquired, the allotee should continue to live in the same house allotted or surrender it to the Government in case if he is leaving that place. There are 6 lakh villages in India and the 500 Smart Towns being proposed/ planned by the Govt, along with existing cities can create a strong HUB and SPOKE model with around 1000 villages linked to each of these cities. Sanitation, housing and construction, skills development and financial services are the sectors that are driving the rural economy (Sanitation alone is a USD 20 billion opportunity, and construction sector is now the second largest employer after agriculture ahead of the total employment in the Corporate sector). In the current decade 350 Million rural youth need to be skilled in a variety of occupations to create an employable work force, and Manufacturing can happen in the 500 smart towns and with rural man power getting skilled over these years, labour can come from surrounding villages on their two wheelers.
URBAN HOUSING:
We have already discussed that 90% shortage in Urban Housing Is in EWS and LIG Segment. The Govt. has already announced Int. subsidy upto 6.5% to be paid upfront on discounted value in respect of EWS and LIG, groups, called URBAN POOR. Availability of land within a reasonable distance from the center of the cities is a problem and State Government should make available land and entrust the work of construction to the builders. Now, transport system is improving in all cities and this will help to locate land in areas within 50 to 70 km radious, and the EWS allottees should be allowed concessional monthly/weekly tickets/ pass for commuting. Now that 100 high tech cities are being developed, this should be kept in mind. When developing new cities, sufficient land should be earmarked for housing for EWS and Low income groups in almost all areas within the city limits. The subsidy can also be by way of participation by giving margin money, say 25%, and the allotee should be permitted to purchase this portion at his convenience, and till 100% ownership is acquired, he should be prohibited from selling the property. The State Governments should ensure availability of affordable houses, (for middle income groups) with plinth areas upto 600 to 800 Sq. feet in and around the cities and in order to ensure reasonable price, the stamp duty and registration charges should be substantially reduced - It should be around 3% for flats upto plinth area of 800 sq. feet. The State Governments should make available land at cheaper price within a radious of 50 kms in cities to Builders for construction of flats with plinth area of 500 to 800 Sq. feet. This will help the middle income group to go for this, with bank/HFCs loans. Under this option, availability of housing loans at a reasonable interest rate will help more individuals going for this. If the interest rate itself comes down, well and good. Otherwise, the Government’s Refinance agencies like NHB, RBI, and HUDCO should be permitted to borrow under ECBs and make available finance at lower rates. This will not be a burden on the Government since it is linked with
repayments by the HFCs and Banks. NHB should play the role of Fannie Mae in India, and should purchase the mortgage portfolios from HFCs, particularly loans given to the middle class and lower middle class Sector under Affordable Housing, ( upto Rs. 15.00 lakhs) convert them into mortgaged backed securities (MBS) stock and sell in the open market. The Govt. Treasury can also consider buying such preferred (in case if it is required) Stocks, to replenish funding requirement of NHB, like the Federal Reserve in USA funding Fannie Mae. Authorising the NHB to take up the above task with funding from the Govt./Reserve Bank of India, or floating a separate Financial Agency for this purpose will help to develop MBS stock and sale thereof. (which will be a good and cheap source of funds to the HFCs). This will encourage HFCs and banks to lend more to the Affordable housing Sector, generate the portfolio and transfer it to the NHB. The above will be in addition to the regular Refinance facilities being extended by NHB. Public Private partnership can play a vital role. While allotting land for industrial purposes and other commercial activities including under SEZ areas, a condition must be placed for building EWS/small houses for the workers in about 10% of the space allotted. Vast area of land have been owned by builders / individuals / companies inside the city in every city, and it should be acquired for building affordable and EWS houses. Since, land inside a city is a scarce commodity, it should not be allowed to remain unutilised and 25% of the land should be acquired for building houses (to house Ews and/or urban poor labourers etc.) Builders should have easy access to ECB which will enable them to control the cost of the projects. HFCs should also be allowed to have access to ECW for financing builders. The Real Estate bill which is in the offing will go a long way to control and monitor the working of Builders.
OTHER SUGGESTIONS
Builders should be encouraged to build affordable houses (with plinth area 500 to 800 Sq. feet by allowing
more built up area (FSI) – as a package while sanctioning plan for housing project in land area of 1 acre and +. There should be a centralized Agency which should cater to Plan sanction and other NOCs to be obtained from Various agencies like Fire Service, Airport Authority etc. and the period of Sanction of Plan should be fixed around 30 to 60 days. Builders should be allowed to go for ECB where the project land is more than 3 acres. National Housing Bank can play an increased role for financing Builders directly for constructing Ews and small houses with built up area upto 500 Sq. feet by obtaining ECB and lending at reasonably low interest to the Builders, in order to reduce the cost of the house. They can avail the services of HFCs in the particular areas for processing and supervision of the project financed. National Housing Bank should also make Refinance available for all housing finance companies under Rural Housing Fund and Urban Fund irrespective of a limit being sanctioned for Refinance. This will help all HFCs to involve themselves in the Nation Building and freely participate in the Rural Housing and Urban Poor Housing Schemes. Some States have their own Schemes which enable them to extend coverage to a much larger group than is possible under IAY. This should also be continued – with further assistance from the Central Govt. for construction of Toilet under the newly announced Scheme by the Central Govt. Credit Risk Guarantee Fund Scheme should be extended upto a loan amount of Rs.10.00 lakhs in rural areas irrespective of the Schemes and Rs.15.00 lakhs in Semi urban and urban areas. This will help the Financial Institutions to come forward in an increased measure. Availability of long term funding at a reasonable interest rate for the HFCs. I have already recommended for easy access of ECB. In addition, Adequate refinance should be made available through NHB (upto 8 times of the net owned funds of an HFC, which will be a safe limit, since HFCs can borrow upto 16 times of their net worth.) on easy terms and conditions. The risk is taken by the HFCs, and whether the installments are received or not, HFCs will be repaying to NHB regularly. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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HEALTHCARE
Can Nation Navigate Nursing Deficiency? Going by current trend, around half of private hospitals and most of government hospitals in the country will have to close down in the next five years because of an acute shortage of nurses. o all the ills afflicting healthcare in India, here is one more. The acute shortage of nurses in the country (across states supply of nurses is a good proxy for overall health outcomes) is likely to get worse with the UK determining that it has a shortage of nurses. Many nurses from non-European countries, significantly India, who were fearing having to
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leave will not have to do so. Plus, visa applications from nurses will be processed faster. While the impact of this on overall supply will be at the margin, what is much more serious is the underlying deep-rooted problem. India has a phenomenal 2.4 million shortage of nurses. The shortage in developing countries generally is linked to inadequate training facilities, but in
India seats in nursing colleges are increasingly falling vacant and the annual supply of nurses is dwindling. Furthermore, those who are qualifying are eagerly looking for better paid jobs in richer countries. Devi Shetty, health entrepreneur and founder of Narayana Health, has painted an alarming picture recently in the Economic Times. In 2009 India had 1.65 million nurses, now it has 1.56 million. Admission to nursing colleges has come down by half and around half of the nursing colleges in the south, key suppliers, are closing down. Going by current trend, around half of private hospitals and most of government hospitals in the country will have to close down in the next five years because of an acute shortage of nurses. Why is the supply of nurses falling? Career prospects for them are bleak so the profession is becoming increasingly unattractive, says Dr Shetty. Contrary to what is allowed in other countries, in India even a nurse with 20 years' ICU experience cannot administer a simple painkiller or give an injection unless a doctor is
There is also considerable fiscal space (public expenditure on healthcare is only 1.3 per cent of GDP) for the government to pay nurses more.
around. In the US, anesthesia is administered in 67 per cent of the cases by nurses, but in India they cannot do so. India has reduced its nurses to a pair of hands only capable of giving "sponge baths". Dr Shetty's solution? The health ministry and the Indian Nursing Council should create speciality courses to train nurse practitioners, nurse intensivists and nurse anesthetists. This will enable them to earn higher salaries for which they go to West Asia. The solution does not lie in FDI. A 300-bed speciality hospital can be constructed in six months; it takes eight years to train a nurse to manage a child on a ventilator. From this it would follow that the key culprit is wrong attitudes and lack of foresight among policy makers. The buck ultimately stops with them but more is needed to complete the picture. Since the root cause for poor supply is poor pay, private hospitals (the future of their business is at stake)
can immediately raise nurses' pay even for doing the same work. This will cover a large chunk of healthcare delivery in India where 68 per cent of expenditure is private. There is also considerable fiscal space (public expenditure on healthcare is only 1.3 per cent of GDP) for the government to pay nurses more. But where will private hospitals find the money? Surely not by getting patients to pay more. It is the doctors, the specialists, who can be asked to earn a little less, which will be a much smaller proportion of their income than the percentage by which nurses' pay will go up. However, this will not be a long term solution. That will have to follow the path outlined by Dr Shetty. But here also doctors have a role to play. They, through their lobby, the Indian Medical Association (IMA), have over decades zealously guarded the space available to them. When Dr Shetty outlined similar solutions in an article in Forbes India earlier in the year, it
prompted a doctor to comment that the article had called "a spade a spade" but also add, "our IMA may not be able to swallow the suggestion of nurse practitioners, physicians and anesthetists." It is also a historical fact that India has not had the kind of "barefoot doctors" that China devised at one stage in its development because India's doctors and their lobby vehemently opposed the introduction of truncated courses to churn out rural practitioners. Finally, there is a cultural bias against nursing as a profession among Hindus. Hence Christians are over-represented among nurses with Kerala and Goa accounting for 40 per cent of India's nursing schools. So to overcome the nursing shortage, attitudes have to change across the board - among policy makers, doctors, hospitals (private and public) and the public at large.
(Credit: Subir Roy, Business Standard) SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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MEDIA
Inside the Chronicle of CAPITALISM JOHN MICKLETHWAIT
TOOK OVER AS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF THE $9-BILLION BLOOMBERG GROUP THIS FEBRUARY. FORMERLY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AT THE ECONOMIST, HE OVERSEES EDITORIAL CONTENT ACROSS NEWS, NEWSLETTERS, MAGAZINES, TELEVISION, RADIO, DIGITAL AND RESEARCH SERVICES AT BLOOMBERG. VANITA KOHLI-KHANDEKAR OF BUSINESS STANDARD INTERVIEWED HIM IN NEW DELHI EARLIER THIS WEEK. EDITED EXCERPTS:
Editorially, what is the relationship between Bloomberg's terminal business and its media business? (Note: 325,000 Bloomberg terminals offer stock market, analysis and other information to corporate subscribers who pay $24,000 a year for it. This brings in more than 80 per cent of Bloomberg's revenues.) Quite a lot of the news that goes on the terminal also goes on the website (after a 15 minute lag). A lot of the big news stories are put straight on the website. But there are a lot of stories say on breaking merger and acquisition deals - that will go first on the terminal. And, usually, the website stories work well on the terminal and vice-versa. Our advantage is the 2,500 journalists and research staff and 150 bureaus we have in 73 countries. Whether something is happening in Frankfurt or Mumbai, we can go straight to the scene. We are now beginning to take more advantage of that. What role ownership structure plays in bringing out a good editorial product? The beauty of both The Economist
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(where he worked earlier) and Bloomberg is an independent ownership structure and financial profitability. Bloomberg's business structure is oriented towards the terminal business. The proprietor (Michael Bloomberg) keeps out of the journalism. Other brands don't always have that luxury. People who are trying to chase clicks are drawn into conflicts. If the terminal business subsidises the news, doesn't that give rise to conflict, too? Not really. Editorially, there are some things on the terminal that are not on the website. For instance, Bloomberg Intelligence is only a terminal product. There is a lot of journalism we do on
" We do that more on the terminal, get rid of stuff that is not working. Imagine a piece on distress debt in the Mumbai property market read by 150 people or one on Narendra Modi or Pakistan which has 10,000 hits. If a few people read and saved thousands of dollars because of the distress debt piece it is of incredible value.
"
the website, too. But that is consumer oriented. The terminal has a lot of complicated financial stories. What do you notice on what audiences consume across media or geographies? The main thing that comes across is quality. If you break news of an interest rate change three seconds ahead, the impact is straight forward. But the less obvious one is the story that suddenly does well. About 80-90 per cent of the stories that do well on the terminal, do well on the website. Something like video that just works on the website sometimes does well on the terminal, too. We have in the past few months put a greater emphasis on our purpose - being the 'Chronicle of Capitalism'. This means focusing on building our core areas - business, finance, markets, economics, technology and power (politics and government) for the reader who is in a hurry. And after that, we can do interesting stories. For example, we did one on a weird kind of nut in the Amazon or how big game is going to hunt genetically-engineered species. But people come to Bloomberg because it is the Chronicler of Capitalism. You are across so many disparate media, is there a unifying editorial goal? How do you measure performance? We look and see what sticks. We do
that more on the terminal, get rid of stuff that is not working. Imagine a piece on distress debt in the Mumbai property market read by 150 people or one on Narendra Modi or Pakistan which has 10,000 hits. If a few people read and saved thousands of dollars because of the distress debt piece it is of incredible value. So, while one measure is circulation or audience numbers, the other is the impact. The challenges of operating a global media brand in India‌ I met Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi over the weekend. This might not have happened 10 years ago because Bloomberg was smaller. So, in terms of access it works well. Our coverage is done by an excellent blend of people drawn locally and from outside. And even if it was a small market (revenue wise), we would still invest because of its size. (Note: The China section of The Economist was launched under Micklethwait's editorship.) How important is democracy and a liberal media market from a coverage perspective? Democracy and free speech help reporting. India has the strictest censorship of maps, far worse than China or Pakistan. But it is very good on free speech. Financial journalism usually goes through three phases. The first is driven by public relations. In the second phase, anything goes as competition increases. The third is when quality begins to push through. Indian financial journalism is well ahead of China, but not at the same level as some Western countries. But isn't China a big outlier in the argument that democracy, a liberal media and economic growth go hand in hand? I have written a book on this (The Fourth Revolution). The Chinese model worked at a stage, it is a more international model than the Soviet one. The Chinese learnt the advantages of meritocracy. And the one disciplining thing is of always changing power at the top. Therefore, there is more democracy and merit to its model. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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UPCOMING ISSUE
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Seasonal Magazine’s Annual Rankings of Building Material Brands - 2015 Seasonal Magazine’s upcoming issue will feature the Annual Rankings of Building Material Brands – 2015. Here we present a snapshot on major players who are in the race, and on what parameters they will be assessed for the ranking. As an innovation in the ranking process, we are not considering just the product features or brand strengths alone, but additional parameters like environment policies, CSR impact, management quality, operational efficiency, corporate governance, balance sheet quality, shareholder returns, and lots more. So here are the major players who are in the race, and on what metrics they will be evaluated for the rankings.
RANKING PARAMETERS PRODUCT DESIGN DESIGN VARIETY PORTFOLIO BREADTH TRENDSETTER FEATURES TECH ENABLED PRODUCTS BRAND HERITAGE & LEGACY BRAND RECALL PRODUCT QUALITY TROUBLE-FREE PERFORMANCE LONG-TERM RELIABILITY PRODUCT SAFETY COMPREHENSIVE WARRANTY AFTER SALES SERVICE CUSTOMER FRIENDLINESS EMPLOYEE TEAM SPIRIT ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLINESS WATER POSITIVITY AFFORESTATION PROGRAM CARBON CREDITS CSR IMPACT INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP RISING MARKET SHARE SALES GROWTH CORPORATE STABILITY DEBT LEVELS OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY BALANCE SHEET QUALITY CORPORATE GOVERNANCE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT SHAREHOLDER RETURNS RETURN ON EQUITY RISING MARKET CAPITALIZATION PREMIUM VALUATIONS
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RANKING PARAMETERS PRODUCT DESIGN DESIGN VARIETY PORTFOLIO BREADTH TRENDSETTER FEATURES TECH ENABLED PRODUCTS BRAND HERITAGE & LEGACY BRAND RECALL PRODUCT QUALITY TROUBLE-FREE PERFORMANCE LONG-TERM RELIABILITY PRODUCT SAFETY COMPREHENSIVE WARRANTY AFTER SALES SERVICE
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 2,315.54 Profit: 102.94 Return on Equity: 7.69% Market Cap: 4,193.76 Valuation (P/E): 42.32
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 8,569.43 Profit: 385.42 Return on Equity: 21.19% Market Cap: 16,154.96 Valuation (P/E): 33.74
CUSTOMER FRIENDLINESS EMPLOYEE TEAM SPIRIT ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLINESS WATER POSITIVITY AFFORESTATION PROGRAM CARBON CREDITS CSR IMPACT INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP RISING MARKET SHARE SALES GROWTH CORPORATE STABILITY DEBT LEVELS OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY BALANCE SHEET QUALITY CORPORATE GOVERNANCE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT SHAREHOLDER RETURNS RETURN ON EQUITY RISING MARKET CAPITALIZATION PREMIUM VALUATIONS WEALTH CREATION SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 837.43 Profit: -119.33 Return on Equity: NA Market Cap: 178.32 Valuation (P/E): NA
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 2,526.99 Profit: 186.31 Return on Equity: 20.28% Market Cap: 6,185.76 Valuation (P/E): 34.05
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 1,980.62 Profit: 85.44 Return on Equity: 6.45% Market Cap: 2,056.83 Valuation (P/E): 18.04
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 2,449.09 Profit: 198.66 Return on Equity: 15.70% Market Cap: 3,670.54 Valuation (P/E): 18.53
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 9,999.67 Profit: 1,486.50 Return on Equity: 14.76% Market Cap: 30,603.42 Valuation (P/E): 29.30
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RANKING PARAMETERS PRODUCT DESIGN DESIGN VARIETY PORTFOLIO BREADTH TRENDSETTER FEATURES TECH ENABLED PRODUCTS BRAND HERITAGE & LEGACY BRAND RECALL PRODUCT QUALITY TROUBLE-FREE PERFORMANCE LONG-TERM RELIABILITY PRODUCT SAFETY COMPREHENSIVE WARRANTY
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 6,453.57 Profit: 426.30 Return on Equity: 16.71% Market Cap: 40,988.78 Valuation (P/E): 98.44
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 1,566.74 Profit: 124.23 Return on Equity: 25.54% Market Cap: 2,226.58 Valuation (P/E): 15.65
AFTER SALES SERVICE CUSTOMER FRIENDLINESS EMPLOYEE TEAM SPIRIT ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLINESS WATER POSITIVITY AFFORESTATION PROGRAM CARBON CREDITS CSR IMPACT INDUSTRY LEADERSHIP RISING MARKET SHARE SALES GROWTH CORPORATE STABILITY DEBT LEVELS OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY BALANCE SHEET QUALITY CORPORATE GOVERNANCE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT SHAREHOLDER RETURNS RETURN ON EQUITY RISING MARKET CAPITALIZATION PREMIUM VALUATIONS WEALTH CREATION SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 841.49 Profit: 14.50 Return on Equity: 5.10% Market Cap: 379.39 Valuation (P/E): 25.30
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 24,348.96 Profit: 2,098.34 Return on Equity: 11.02% Market Cap: 74,195.62 Valuation (P/E): 35.75
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 1,745.92 Return on Equity: 18.72% Market Cap: 2,656.60 Valuation (P/E): 34.26
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 821.67 Profit: 67.66 Return on Equity: 19.23% Market Cap: 2,399.32 Valuation (P/E): 33.40
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 2,186.89 Profit: 175.60 Return on Equity: 23.31% Market Cap: 6,873.67 Valuation (P/E): 33.99
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 4,322.06 Profit: 264.70 Return on Equity: 21.01% Market Cap: 15,395.21 Valuation (P/E): 54.15
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 1,588.44 Profit: 148.97 Return on Equity: 38.41% Market Cap: 3,892.00 Valuation (P/E): 21.79
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 11,738.79 Profit: 1,161.82 Return on Equity: 14.13% Market Cap: 24,859.21 Valuation (P/E): 30.64
CORPORATE STATS: Sales: 2,030.95 Profit: 34.25 Return on Equity: 11.27% Market Cap: 804.81 Valuation (P/E): 16.59
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HOUSING FINANCE
Manage Your Sluggish Real Estate Through Home Loan Balance Transfer Real estate is among the most complex asset classes and can have an asymmetric payoff during good times. Besides pride of ownership, buying a house is also seen as one of the most effective ways to make money. Stories of multiplying money and/or lost investment opportunities in dream projects abound. A good price appreciation on your property is the biggest opportunity to gain, by far. Additionally, you can save on taxes, on interest repayments on an ongoing basis. On the other hand, it’s fairly common to have people think of money paid on rent as wasted money and hence ownership allows you to ‘save’ that. fter having a dream run for over a decade, residential property prices hit a rough patch over the last couple of years, stagnating in most top cities mainly due to a combination of factors such as plenty of supply, high interest rates on home loans and slower economic growth. And, people don’t seem very sanguine about the near future either. In a study of over 5,000 users of BigDecisions; Buy or Rent tool across 7 cities in India, between 60% and 80% of them expect an under 10% appreciation per annum in property prices for the foreseeable future. This is lower than the cost of the loan. As the price slump continues, a bit of rethinking is in order. Does it really make sense to invest or even be holding onto a property? Should you be continuing with the existing home loan with a high rate of interest?
Some of our learnings from the same study: 1) At the stated expectations of price appreciation, it may take anywhere from 9 to 14 years for a purchase decision to pay off. If the consumer has a shorter time horizon than this, makes it advisable to rent the property. 2) With expectation of appreciation higher in smaller or tier 2 and 3 cities being higher than their metro counterparts, it might be advisable to rent a house in the city one works in SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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(typically one of the larger cities) while buying a home as an asset in a smaller city, possibly even one’s hometown where it’s highly likely for prices to be lower (making a property more easily affordable) and expected appreciation higher. A better way to save would be to transfer your home loan to another lender at a reduced interest rate. Ever since the RBI mandated that banks cannot charge pre-payment or foreclosure charges on variable (or floating) interest rate loans, switching to the lowest cost lender is a very real customer opportunity. To understand this opportunity, let’s take a look at the table below. On Rs 1-crore loan, you save more than Rs 80,000 per year if your interest rate is reduced by 1%. This will add up to a total saving worth Rs 16.12 lakh over the entire loan tenure (assuming it to be 20 years). How many opportunities to save this kind of money exist in today’s day and age? Additionally, you can top up or borrow the “paid back” amount resulting in the cheapest possible personal or business loan. For example, if your home was valued at Rs. 70 lakh at the time of purchase with a loan of 80% of the value that is Rs. 56 lakh, after 3 years, the price of the house might have become, say, Rs 80 lakh. At this point of time, if you opt
for a refinance (loan transfer), considering the outstanding loan amount to be about Rs 53 lakh, the new lender would give you 80% of Rs 80 lakh (existing market price), which is Rs 64 lakh. Even after clearing the outstanding balance (Rs 53 lakh), you would be left with an extra cash of Rs 11 lakh. This money has a cost of 10% per annum. Given that most business or working capital loans come at rates ranging from 14 to 24%, money at 10% could be hugely beneficial. Mathematically speaking though, the ideal way to save the most amount of money, is to prepay a certain portion and reduce the tenure of the loan. This reduces the interest burden while still giving the same amount of tax benefit. Essentially, the interest outflow is minimized by doing two things: 1) Reducing the amount owed to the lender 2) Reducing the amount of time the money is borrowed for. Of course, EMI minimization cannot be the goal in such cases. Often, reducing the tenure even at a lower interest rate might actually increase your EMI but if overall savings is the ultimate goal and you can afford to pay the increased EMI, it’s worth it.
(Author is Co-Founder & CEO of Bigdecisions.com and an expert in property and insurance matters)
SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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FRAUD
Why Business Textbooks May Replace Enron Case Study with Volkswagen's? Remember the Enron scandal? Yes, that very audit failure that led the energy company go kaput in what was America's largest bankruptcy case. The company's bankruptcy led to more than 5,000 people losing their jobs as well as estimated USD 2.1 billion in pension plans. The scandal is now taught as a case study of a massive financial fraud in most business schools across the globe. So why the trip down memory lane?
ecause the recent Volkswagen scam may just be murkier than Enron filing for bankruptcy nearly 15 years ago. In a report, Financial Times has highlighted that not just fines, but VG's lawsuits too are likely to surpass Enron in both scale and scope. German Volkswagen, whose name translates to 'the people's car', recently admitted that it had rigged its 11 million vehicles and fit them with devices that could activate pollution controls during tests but covertly turn them off when the car would be on the road. "Volkswagen’s potential liability to Environmental Protection Agency fines is USD 18 billion. Add to this fines in most or all of the 50 US states and class action lawsuits by buyers and car dealers who have seen the value of their cars and franchises diminish overnight and you have a massive legal bill," FT highlights. While this expensive fine could be more than covered by the 21 billion euros (USD 24 billion) the company now holds in cash, the scandal has raised fears of major job cuts. The company's manipulative devices were fitted in diesel engines that are lesser than 5 percent passenger vehicles in the United States, but account for over 50 percent market in Europe. This, otherwise admirable, market share was a result of car makers lobbying hard for the governments to promote the adoption of diesel engines as a way to reduce carbon emissions. A niche player in the US, the company did a lot to promote its image as a green company. Infact, until the SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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scandal broke, it was running ads that showcased Volkswagen rally driver Tanner Foust and Top Gear USA host driving elderly women in a TDI Volkswagen. Given that the company touted its "clean diesel" technology, no US jury is likely to be lenient with it, especially given that the technology on board served to hide the fact that particulate emissions were up to 40 times greater. While the ads that were meant to dispel myths regarding diesel as a fuelthat it was dirty and created a lot of noise- have been removed from the automaker’s official YouTube channel, the people's car is finding itself at the wrath of environment authorities, users, activists and government alike. FT says even "if it does turn out that
other European and Asian car manufacturers, who have invested heavily in diesel technology, did not commit such brazen fraud, the scandal will probably re-establish the perception of diesel engines as dirty after two decades of concerted effort to change that view." While the silver lining in this situation could be the boost to develop other cleaner fuel alternatives, atleast for the short term Europe will have to face a major chill wind. But the Volkswagen scandal is worse than Enron's financial fraud as it impacts the health of millions. FT states," The high levels of nitrogen oxides and fine particulates that the cars’ on-board software hid from regulators are hazardous and detrimental to health, particularly of children and those suffering from respiratory disease." Once any scandal breaks, it is almost immediately reflected in its stock price. The stock collapse in the past few days may merely be the tip of the iceberg that's shook the foundation of very many offices in Europe. FT argues that while Enron was a young company, the renowned 78-year old Volkswagen may face a potential irreparable reputational damage apart from a crisis of confidence and massive legal liabilities. The scandal, Profesor Elson University of Delware believes , " was an accident waiting to happen ," highlights the autocratic manner in which the company was run, red-flagging massive governance issues. The company, it is said was governed though an odd combination of family control, labour influence and government ownership. While the long-term survival is a real question, Elson says he wouldn't be surprised if the German government will have to bail Volkswagen out. (Credit: FT & Moneycontrol)
TREND
WHY MICROSOFT'S NADELLA IS USING AN iPHONE With growing concerns over security of emails and mobile phones, technology giant Microsoft said it is working on ways to rid tech users of their worries over passwords.
ne of the biggest security issues is passwords. One of the things that we are working on is a world where passwords are not going to be the ones that you know can get hacked but you really have other biometrics that really help us secure our computing interfaces," Microsoft Corporation chief executive Satya Nadella said in Mumbai. He was delivering keynote address at 'Future Unleashed: Accelerating India', Microsoft's largest ever customer conference here, celebrating 25 years of the Richmond-based company's in the country. Hyderabad-born Nadella said the company has a sense of purpose that is about empowering every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more. "We had a mission of putting a personal computer PC on every desk SEASONAL MAGAZINE
in every home, but in retrospect that was a goal... Our mission was to empower every individual and organisation. That's really what I look at as we go forward," said Nadella, who has completed 25 years at Microsoft. Nadella, who runs an average of 5 km a day - even today despite 16 hours of jetlag - and reads 10 books on weekends, said that with changing world and technologies, the company has more ambitions to reinvent productivity and business processes.
"
I like to somehow refer to this as iPhone Pro because it has got all the Microsoft software on it...there is Word, Excel, Power Point.
"
"Our first ambition is about reinvention of productivity and business process. We want to make sure that work no longer is a place you go to. Work is about making things happen and getting things done wherever you are," he noted, adding that the purpose of Microsoft is to to build an intelligent cloud. He unveiled the new cloud start-up initiative to empower the smart cities. Nadella also spoke about the tools which he uses daily to make decision, to have discussion across his team and harness the information inside the company. Talking about one of his personal phones, an iPhone, he said, "this is not my phone, but it is an iPhone. I like to somehow refer to this as iPhone Pro because it has got all the Microsoft software on it...there is Word, Excel, Power Point." He also added that he uses his own phone - a high-end Lumia.
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GLOBAL
CHINA'S STRATEGY TO FIGHT SLOWDOWN:
1 MILLION ELECTRIC CARS, NEW HIGH SPEED TRAINS, INTERNET SERVER BUSINESS
CHINA HAS PLANS TO ACCELERATE THE ROLL-OUT OF ELECTRIC VEHICLES AS THE VANGUARD OF ITS INNOVATION BASED ‘NEW NORMAL’ ECONOMY TO COMBAT THE SLOWDOWN IN ITS LOW-TECH MANUFACTURING AND DROP IN EXPORTS. hina’s State Council or Cabinet wants one million ‘green cars’ to hit the domestic market by 2020. Over the next five years after that, market share should jump to 80 per cent, when three million electric vehicles are produced, according to plans. The ambitious shift away from conventional fuels follows the ‘Made in China 2025’ campaign. Unveiled in May this year, it aspires to transform the face of the Chinese economy, by moving in the direction of innovation based hi-end production and services, buttressed by a growing appetite for domestic consumption. In pursuit of this domestically-driven economy, Beijing has already issued guidelines that would ensure rapid absorption of the new eco-friendly vehicles. Local governments are being directed to ensure that more than 30 per cent of the vehicles in their order list are fired by new energy. Penalties for noncompliance are painful. Provincial governments, which deviate from the new norms, risk losing subsidies on fuel and operating expenses. Among the new purchases, the share of greenenergy vehicles should rise to 30 per cent. While encouraging usage of electric vehicles, authorities have a formidable task of providing battery-charging posts, which will make the shift from hydrocarbons unproblematic. “It’s like with phone chargers, it’s a bit all over the place,” said Zheng Zhajie, SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Deputy Head of the National Energy Administration. “Everyone has a pile of different chargers and a pile of batteries. Now we’re trying to improve things, moving towards unifying and standardising,” he told the State-run Xinhua news agency.
lower price tag. It is estimated that the Chinese charge $17 million per km for a high-speed train running at 350 km per hour. In comparison, European companies’ prices are anywhere between $25 million and $39 million per km.
Apart from electric and hybrid-vehicles, nine other core items feature on the futuristic “Made in China” list. Highspeed railways are one among them. If everything goes according to plan, China should capture almost one-third of the global market by 2020 and 50 per cent by 2025. Hong Kong media is reporting that the Chinese are in talks with 30 countries for developing rapid rail systems.
The Chinese have also identified information technology as another domain for significantly expanding their footprint. The State-run China Daily is reporting that planners want Chinese servers to capture 90 per cent of the domestic market in the finance and telecommunications sectors within a decade. It quotes analysts as saying that this would further squeeze the markets of overseas vendors such as IBM Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. The daily pointed out that “IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems Inc. and many other technology giants are feeling the pain from a tightened grip on data security standards and checks”.
After signing a deal in the U.S. to construct the Los Angeles to the Las Vegas high-speed corridor, the Chinese are now expected to pitch for the London-Birmingham-York line in Britain — a country that President Xi Jinping is expected to visit shortly, following his recent visit to the U.S. Analysts say that Chinese have become frontrunners in the high-speed railway business because they offer quality at a
Other priority areas, to shift the economy to the next level, include manufacture of computer numeric control (CNC) machines, robots, biomedicine, aerospace industry, ocean engineering and shipping. The poor manufacturing numbers along with the turbulence in the stock market have added urgency to the proposed economic reforms. Chinese manufacturing shrank for the second successive month in September. In late August, the stock market had nosedived to record lows, drawing international focus on the future of the Chinese economy.
MEDICAL TOURISM
Can India be the Most Preferred Medical Value Travel (MVT) Market?
In a bid to leverage the inherent comparative and competitive advantages as a nation and position India as the most preferred healthcare destination, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has made wide-ranging recommendations to capitalise on the available opportunities in the Medical Value Travel (MVT) market. he FICCI has recommended a 16-point agenda in this regard which includes simplified and relaxed medical visa regulations for patients including visa on arrival; multiple entry medical visa to facilitate follow-up treatments; promotion of MVT by Indian embassies; medical facilitation desk at Indian airports for medical visa holders to eliminate the problem of touts; faster immigration facilities at Indian airports; and an advisory or checklist should be provided at the time of grant of medical visa. The list of recommendation includes access to put ambulance and stretchers at airports; fiscal laws to be relaxed for genuine foreign patients, allowing them to transfer money to India, in case of additional requirements; nodal agencies need to be created to regularly meet and discuss ways to promote and improve the Indian MVT. Representatives from the government, public and private sectors need to participate; single consultative platform, representing all the ministries involved in medical tourism, is required to aid endorsement and facilitation of medical tourism at national level; and process to be expedited for a nationally authenticated/recognized health portal by the government, with all the required information related to various healthcare options available, credible healthcare service providers as well as ranking of facilities. Besides, the 16-point agenda for action
includes extensive PR campaign, by the government, to promote India as the preferred MVT destination on the same lines as “Incredible India” and also to spread the word that Indian healthcare providers are accredited by credible and internationally recognized authority (NABH); proper training of nurses as they form the back-bone of any treatment requiring hospitalisation; there is requirement for Indian doctors to conduct OPD’s/ procedures outside India. This is often a lengthy and tedious process; improving basic infrastructure, such as roads and airport facilities, in the medical hubs of the country; and promote NABH platform globally. The current concerns of the Indian MVT industry are that it attracts only 3
per cent of MVT traffic, there is absence of effective marketing strategies, strict and lengthy visa process for foreign patients, lack of credible information, non-availability of insurance portability, highly unorganised sector, non-availability of direct flights from several countries, supplying a major chunk of medical tourists and the presence of a large number of middlemen operating in the sector, the FICCI said. Earlier, the FICCI had set up a Working Group on Medical Value Travel to conduct a background study and develop a framework on which a multi-stakeholder Medical Value Travel Council can be created. The overall aim of the Council was ‘to position India as the most preferred healthcare destination’. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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IN-FOCUS
MIOT INTERNATIONAL
THE APPROACH MAKES THE DIFFERENCE Are superspeciality hospitals converging to similarity or are they diverging to unique value propositions? Ask average patients, and the responses are likely to be mixed, with more of them stating that superspeciality hospitals are becoming more similar in their approach. Nothing surprising in that as the uniform corporate management style, and the frequent movement of specialists between hospitals have ensured that most modern hospitals come across as the same. But some patients would tend to differ, and they are the kind of patients who have experienced and benefited from the unique approaches of hospitals like Chennai based MIOT International. IOT International is led by its Founder & M e n t o r , PadmashriProf.Dr. PVA Mohandas; Chairperson Mrs. Mallika Mohandas; and Managing Director Dr. Prithvi Mohandas, who have together formulated a unique approach that distinguishes the hospital from others. This approach, with five core elements to it, is practiced by everyone in the MIOT family without exception. But before getting into the intricacies of this unique approach, there is one key aspect about the top management that should be mentioned. The three members of MIOT’s topmost leadership are hands-on leaders. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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While Founder Prof. Dr. PVA Mohandas is still the Chief Surgeon in Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Managing Director Dr. Prithvi Mohandas also serves as the Director of Hip Arthroplasty. Chairperson Mrs. Mallika Mohandas is the energy that drives this sprawling 1000bed facility that delivers care across 63 specialities. The unique approach at MIOT International begins with what it calls a ‘definite diagnosis’. At its heart is the long held conviction that it is the disease that should
be treated, and not just the symptoms. Care at MIOT begins with an accurate and precise diagnosis, by harnessing the latest medical technology to pick up what the doctors’ eyes don’t see and ears don’t hear. While scans on some of the world’s most advanced imaging systems detect the smallest anomalies and note obstacles in treatment, intricate studies by pathologists at their world-class laboratory reveal the disease at a cellular level. This depth of information makes diagnosis definitive at MIOT. But definite diagnosis is not about the accuracy of the machines alone. It is about the doctors’ experience, and the level of teamwork they bring to the skilled task of diagnosis. Dr. Prithvi Mohandas has cited a recent example for how ‘definite diagnosis’ works at MIOT. A patient was referred to him with a painful hip, and severe, persistent pain in her abdomen.
She had been advised by other hospitals to have an immediate total hip replacement. What baffled Dr. Prithvi Mohandas, was that though her scans and MRI clearly showed malignancy in her hip joint which needed hip replacement surgery, none of the reports explained the abdominal pain. The experienced surgeon in Dr. Prithvi Mohandas suspected that
While Founder Dr. PVA Mohandas is still the Chief Surgeon in Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Managing Director Dr. Prithvi Mohandas also serves as the Director of Hip Arthroplasty. And Chairperson Mrs. Mallika Mohandas is the energy that binds everything together in this sprawling 1000-bed facility delivering 63 specialities.
the origins of her disease lay elsewhere as she also had an enlarged spleen, which could indicate some type of blood cancer. He consulted the Haemato-oncologist at MIOT, who concurred with his view. However, it would only be confirmed with a biopsy of the tissue, which could be obtained during the replacement surgery. The patient and her husband agreed and the biopsy that followed affirmed their suspicions. Luckily for her, it was a curable form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma which was treated successfully under the care of MIOT’s experienced Haemato-oncologist. In this case, doing the hip replacement alone would not have been a permanent solution. The second core element of MIOT’s unique approach is its ‘collaborative and customized care’. MIOT’s specialists are fulltime doctors and surgeons who
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work in tandem, relying on each other’s expertise and knowledge, to ensure the best outcomes for patients. This is easier said than done, as it requires huge investments and coordination. For instance, MIOT can pursue this second element of collaborative care only because it has invested heavily in attracting the best medical talent and in retaining them. The best doctors look for hospitals that are at par with the world’s best, and MIOT has steadily worked towards being such a hospital. In pursuing collaboration between its specialists, MIOT has drawn inspiration from the words of Dr. Charles H. Mayo, founder of the Mayo Clinic, that “No one is big enough to be independent of others.” Dr. Mayo believed the human body to be so complex that it requires a team of physicians, specialists, medical professionals and scientists all, working together, to provide the best medical care it needs. No two patients are similar, and nor are two cases with the same disease similar. Collaboration between specialists ensures that each patient’s requirements are adequately met by MIOT. The third core element of MIOT’s unique approach is perhaps what has made the hospital famous not only in India, but across the world. MIOT refers to it as ‘Keeping windows open’. In the medical world, second opinions and consensus are easy when it comes to difficult cases. “It is untreatable,” most doctors or surgeons would concur, when confronted with challenging cases that have not been attempted in developed countries. Not at SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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MIOT, where specialists are constantly updating their knowledge banks and the hospital continually embraces innovation in treatments & techniques. MIOT’s specialists regularly face such complex, difficult, or practically untreatable cases. They
Success in almost-impossible cases are a direct result of MIOT’s policy of ‘Keeping windows open’, and it is no wonder that such whatever-ittakes attitude has spread the hospital’s fame to most parts of the world, making it a top medical tourism destination. Patients from 129 countries have been treated at this superspeciality facility so far, thereby proving its full name ‘MIOT International’ very true.
have succeeded despite the odds, by doing whatever it takes to cure such patients. An apt example from recent times would be the case of an open heart surgery done on a 38-year old haemophilia patient. Haemophilia is a rare genetic disorder that affects 1 male in about 5,000 births. This is a condition in which the clotting substance called Factor VIII is absent or significantly reduced, which causes patients to bleed into joints or other places very easily. Even a small surgery can be fatal to a Haemophiliac! This patient had a large aneurysm of the ascending aorta and a leak in the aortic valve. Since the aneurysm was life threatening, he was seeking a surgical solution. Having been turned away by several other hospitals as the risks with his Haemophilia were too great, he’d approached MIOT as a last resort.
MIOT INTERNATIONAL THE APPROACH MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
The highly experienced cardiac team at MIOT, was cognizant of the multiple challenges in this case. For one, doing such a complex surgery on a haemophilic patient using a heartlung machine was unheard of in medical history. Secondly, to remedy a haemophilic patient’s valve problem, the doctors cannot use an artificial valve made of metal as that would require blood thinning tablets for the rest of his life, which can cause bleeding and death in haemophilic patients. Even a biological artificial valve is not possible in such patients as it will last only for 10 to 12 years and the patient will need another operation after such a period. So the only option for the MIOT cardiac team was to repair the patient’s own valve along with the complex aneurysm surgery! And that is what they did. By preparing themselves for every eventuality at the detailed
planning stage itself, the Cardiothoracic Surgical team accompanied by the Anaesthesia team and the Haemato-Oncologist along with a team of skilled perfusionists, nurses and technicians, pulled off in 7 hours what the medical world had till now termed ‘impossible’. This is not an isolated case of a world-beating achievement at MIOT. In fact, even more recently, a child with the rare genetic kidney disorder, cystinosis, underwent a successful kidney transplant at MIOT in what was India’s second such surgery ever. While the boy’s father donated a kidney, it is very difficult to place a large-sized adult kidney in the small child. Again, MIOT’s famed teamwork came into play, and the Nephro surgical team performed a successful surgery, with expert support from the paediatric and anaesthetic teams.
Unsurprisingly, India’s first such transplant operation was also done at MIOT itself, 5 years back, on another boy who has since then recovered fully, gaining significant height and weight. In yet more examples of ‘keeping windows open’, MIOT’s team of Interventional Cardiologists rewired a man’s failing heart completely without open surgery but with detailed Electrophysiology studies at the Centre of Interventional Cardiology, restoring it from 20% function to over 70% function! MIOT International has also pioneered Mechanical Thrombectomy to treat acute ischaemic strokes in India, which completely reverses damage to fully restore patients. Success in these near-impossible cases are a direct result of MIOT’s unwavering conviction that there is always a way- it just has to be SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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MIOT INTERNATIONAL THE APPROACH MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
found. It is no wonder, then, that news of the hospital’s whateverit takes attitude has spread to most parts of the world, making it a top medical destination. Patients from 129 countries have been treated at this superspeciality facility so far, thereby proving its full name ‘MIOT International’ very true.
air across .Intelligent sensorbased technology maintains a 99.9% bacteria-free environment in state-of-the-art modular operating suites and adjoining surgical ICUs. The hospital is also noted for its impressive housekeeping staff which is on a constant drive to keep every visible surface germ free.
The next and fourth attribute of the approach that makes MIOT unique is its vigilant war against germs, which the hospital terms as ‘Fighting the unseen enemy’.
MIOT provides all patients requiring blood transfusions with leuco-depleted blood components in order to eliminate the risks of infection and rejection. While the 100% infection-free, HEPA-filtered wards play a crucial role in the recovery of their Transplant patients, the sophisticated Automated Central Sterile Supply Unit ensures that there is zero manual handling of materials used in their operation theatres, ICUs and patient rooms.
MIOT’s success can also be attributed to its all-out efforts in maintaining an infection-free environment that match the most stringent international standards. In fact, MIOT is today one of India’s safest hospitals with a certified infection rate of 0.06%. It has the latest Laminar airflow systems and sophisticated air conditioning which keep treatment areas germ free and ensure constant supply of fresh SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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The fifth and final aspect to MIOT’s distinct approach is not
about medical expertise or technology, but about the ‘human touch’. They call it ‘Care that doesn’t quit’. It is a work culture that radiates from the highest echelons of the organization to the equally critical support staff. MIOT puts the well-being of the patients first in everything that they do, and this is most evident from the testimonials of numerous satisfied patients from all across the globe. MIOT International is structured as 7 Centres of Excellence, with the hospital being equally famous for 24 key specialities. The Centres of Excellence are MIOT Institute of Orthopaedics, MIOT Institute of Cardiac Care, MIOT Institute of Nephrology, MIOT Institute of Cancer Cure, and MIOT Advanced Centre for Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases, MIOT institute of Neuro Sciences and MIOT centre for transplant surgeries.
Rs. 50
VOLUME 14 ISSUE 12 DECEMBER 2015
Bahrain BD 1.50 Kuwait KD 1.50 Oman OR 1.50, Saudi Arabia SR 12.00 UAE DH 10.00 UK ÂŁ 3.00, US $ 3.00
Building world-class campuses, hiring top-notch faculty, and getting the bestavailable talent pool among students are only half the battle for private universities. Increasingly, three core dimensions of performance are dictating whether a private university will continue to deliver better and better, and elevate itself to the stature of a Centre of Excellence, comparable to the best in the government-funded sector. These dimensions are Placement Performance, Global Academic & Industrial Tie-ups, and Research Initiatives. Having concluded one more year of good performance on the admissions and placements front, Seasonal Magazine covers the private university sector once more through this compilation on Placement Performance, Overseas Tie-ups, and Research Initiatives of leading institutions.
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TOP PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN
PLACEMENTS, TIE-UPS, & RESEARCH
Alliance University Outclasses Itself in 2015 Placements While some private universities are struggling to cope up with the new dynamics in the placements front, driven by tectonic shifts in automation based outsourcing, Alliance University has adapted itself rapidly, to wrap up yet another year of outstanding placements for its graduates and postgraduates. he success of Alliance on the placements front can be attributed to two of its two robust initiatives – Career Advancement & Networking (CAN) and Centre for Industry Interaction (CII). CAN organizes itself into sectoral groups like Core, BFSI, Services, Technology, Consumables, International etc, as the industry needs are specific in each segment. The relationship building by CAN is not just on requirement basis, but is an year long affair, and it progresses through student advisories and industry internships before getting into the final placements round.
Alliance University is one of the rare private universities promoted by a thoroughbred educationist of international repute. Dr. Madhukar G Angur scaled the pinnacle of his career with the Lifetime Achievement Award of David M French Distinguished Professorship at University of Michigan‘s Flint School of Management. Of even more impact is the fact that
Over the years CAN has built up a commendable database of thousands of companies in almost all sectors, and the data is regularly updated. Alliance University’s Center for Industry Interaction (CII) on the other hand provides an interface between the academic and the corporate world through interactive sessions organized at Alliance University. This calendar year itself Alliance CII has brought in numerous industry stalwarts for focused seminars. These include topmost level executive leaders from cutting-edge multinational organizations like EDS, Virtusa, Grant Thornton, ANZ, Honeywell, Schneider, Juniper, IBM, Capgemini, Fidelity, and HP, apart from leading domestic companies and educational institutions like IIMs. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Madhukar Angur, Chancellor
Dr. Angur is a noted international corporate consultant on strategy as well as a successful entrepreneur in his own right. While Alliance University offers a broad range of courses, its main hallmark has been the rigorously updated and modern curriculum across all the streams. AU is also noted for its impressive academic infrastructure, like its 50,000 sq ft Central Library.
Its students across engineering, management, sciences, law etc also benefit from AU’s strategic academic alliances with many reputed universities worldwide. Bangalore based Alliance University had made more and more focused efforts in building relationships with its various recruiting partners, in recent years. Alliance set on a challenging course of preparing its students to meet the newly risen challenges that the global economy witnessed during the past couple of years. Alliance spent more time in networking with their recruiting partners and taking their inputs too in building and revising their curriculum, course structure, and final grooming of students. Alliance University is already known to invest heavily in updating its curriculum by hiring internationally renowned experts in each subject. Nearly 30% of recruiting companies that visited Alliance University this year, did so for the first time, which is quite a feat in a time when campus recruitment levels are yet to bounce back in the industry. What is even more, around 6% of recruiters visited Alliance more than
once this year as they were greatly impressed by this new age university’s talent pool, finally resulting in enhanced intakes.
Across all these segments of recruiters, the maximum surge was felt in sectors like FMCG, Pharma, Consulting, Manufacturing, & Banking.
Needless to say, almost all of Alliance University’s existing recruiting partners came back with a greater number of requirements across various functional areas.
A few of the recruiters at Alliance University for 2015 include Aon Hewitt, Acer, Akamai, Axis Bank, Bosch, Citibank, CRISIL, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, FedEx, Grant Thornton, Goldman Sachs, HCL Tech, HDFC Asset Management, IBM, ICICI Bank, KPMG, Oracle Consulting, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Vodafone, and Zinnov, among many others.
Even a few of Alliance recruiters who had frozen their hiring last year, visited the university this year and have recruited talented graduates.
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TOP PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN
PLACEMENTS, TIE-UPS, & RESEARCH
JK LAKSHMIPAT UNIVERSITY, JAIPUR
JKLU REPEATS 100% PLACEMENTS, NOW GUIDED BY A RENOWNED VICE CHANCELLOR
While JKLU has achieved another year of 100% placements with better packages, its parent the JK Organization is leaving no stones unturned to take the university to world-class standards, with the latest example being the induction of renowned scholar Dr. RL Raina as its Vice Chancellor. Led by JK Organization’s President Bharat Hari Singhania as its Chancellor, the new Vice Chancellor is ably complemented by Directors Dr. Swapan K Majumdar leading its Institute of Management, and Prof. Dr-Ing. Anupam Kumar Singh leading its Institute of Engineering & Technology. aipur based private university, JKLU has continued its sterling performance on the placements front in 2015 too.
This is the third year in which JK Lakshmipat University is repeating this feat, and the top package so far at JKLU has been as high as Rs. 11.52 lakhs per annum. Meanwhile, the university promoted by JK Organization, one of India’s oldest and largest industrial conglomerates, has appointed a new Vice Chancellor, Dr. RL Raina.
from his academic and research prowess, which are commendable, Dr. Raina is a proven achiever in some key fields of university management like placements, corporate communications, student affairs, and alumni affairs. There is no doubt that under Dr. RL Raina’s leadership, JK Lakshmipat University’s placement records are not only going to be repeated, but bettered, with more multiple offers, and rising CTCs.
A noted institution builder, Dr. Raina who also worked as Dean (Planning & Development) at IIM-Lucknow led the establishment of its state-of-the-art academic infrastructure, including its noted learning resource center. Though JKLU is already known for its good supporting infrastructure and exceptional academic infrastructure, there is little doubt that Dr. Raina’s expertise will come in handy as and when JKLU plans and implements new
The University’s Board of Management is led by Bharat Hari Singhania, who also became the President of the JK Organization a few months back. Other Board members include senior academicians from institutions like IIT, JNU, IIM, MDI, Singapore Management University, McGill University, and several leading industrialists and business leaders, apart from key leaders from JK Organization as well as JKLU. The new Chancellor Dr. Roshan Lal Raina was formerly Professor of Communication at IIM, Lucknow. Apart SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Bharat Hari Singhania, Chancellor
Dr. RL Raina, Vice Chancellor
THE NEW CHANCELLOR DR. ROSHANLALRAINA WAS FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF COMMUNICATION, AND DEAN (PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT) AT IIM, LUCKNOW. DR. RL RAINA IS AN INSTITUTION BUILDER, RESEARCHER, AND A NOTED TRAINER & CONSULTANT IN THE CORPORATE AND ACADEMIC WORLDS IN INDIA AND ABROAD. departments and facilities. A highlight of JKLU’s academic infrastructure has been its commendable Cloud Computing Lab with Thin Clients, which many IITs & NITs are yet to have. When it comes to core academic performance of its students too, the new VC’s experience and expertise are likely to make a marked difference at JKLU. A renowned author of 6 bestselling books and 70 research papers in national and international level peerreviewed journals, the scholarly Dr. Raina has also presented 118 papers in national and international conferences and seminars. Not only just a scholar, Dr. Raina’s expertise in his favourite subject of ‘Communication for Management’ has made him a highly sought after trainer and consultant in both the corporate as well as academic fields. His assignments in academic, research, and corporate worlds have taken him to countries like USA, UK, France, Germany, & Canada, often on the support of cutting-edge sponsors like Fulbright Foundation, British Council, Max Mueller Bhawan etc, and he has consulted for assignments awarded by prestigious organizations like Canada's IDRC, USA's John Hopkins University, and India's DRDO and MHRD. His unique exposure and expertise will enable JKLU faculty and students to make new inroads into academic
excellence in professional education, which is getting more and more research-driven. JKLU has been making all the right moves in recent months by way of policies and events. Among all private universities of India, it has been an early adopter of CAT, and now the newer management test, NMAT by GMAC. To deliver the prestigious Hari Shankar Singhania Memorial Oration, JK Lakshmipat University this year brought the renowned India-born British Economist Lord Meghnad Desai. Noted for his outspoken criticism of conventional thought processes in both economics and politics, Lord Desai who is also a Labour Party politician, stressed the importance of accommodating differences for a politically alive society, which was a timely message for the whole of India. More is in store by way of conferences and seminars at this leading private university of Rajasthan.
THIS IS THE THIRD YEAR IN WHICH JK LAKSHMIPAT UNIVERSITY IS REPEATING THE FEAT OF 100% PLACEMENTS, AND THE TOP PACKAGE SO FAR AT JKLU HAS BEEN AS HIGH AS RS. 11.52 LAKHS PER ANNUM.
Between 16-18th of December 2015, JKLU will host the ISG-ISRS National Symposium. The Indian Society of Geomatics (ISG) and the Indian Society of Remote Sensing (ISRS), are the two premier professional societies dedicated to promotion and dissemination of GIS & RS in India. This will provide excellent opportunities to the scientists, teachers, and students for presenting their research findings, updating their knowledge base and interacting with experts and peers. In 2016, the first major program that JKLU has lined up is the 4th International Conference on Growth, Globalization, & Governance. Scheduled for January 22nd, the university is partnering with Szechenyi Istvan University of Hungary and St. Cloud State University of USA for this mega conference. JK Lakshmipat University (JKLU), set up in 2011, has clearly benefited from the expertise of its sponsor, the 125-year old JK Organization whose footprint spans six continents, 100 countries, and 22 manufacturing facilities across India. JK Organization is also active in education, running 14 educational institutions across India, including schools and colleges. JKLU is currently focused on its Institute of Management and Institute of Engineering & Technology. Institute of Management is led by its Director Dr. Swapan K. Majumdar, a distinguished professor and researcher in management with international experience, including in UK. JKLU’s Institute of Engineering & Technology is guided by its Director Prof. Dr-Ing. Anupam Kumar Singh, a hardcore researcher who has studied and researched in Germany. Both these leaders serve in JKLU’s Board of Management and Academic Council, together with Vice Chancellor Dr. RL Raina, and a highly respected group of academic researchers and industrialists led by Bharat Hari Singhania. With the university in the safe hands of such experienced professionals, JKLU appears set for a sterling performance on the long haul. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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TOP PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN
PLACEMENTS, TIE-UPS, & RESEARCH
OP JINDAL GLOBAL UNIVERSITY
JGU IS MILES AHEAD OF COMPETITION, IN PLACING ITS BUSINESS & LAW STUDENTS JINDAL GLOBAL BUSINESS SCHOOL (JGBS) AND JINDAL GLOBAL LAW SCHOOL (JGLS), TWO OF THE LARGEST CONSTITUENTS OF SONIPAT BASED OP JINDAL GLOBAL UNIVERSITY, ARE PERFORMING BRILLIANTLY ON THE PLACEMENTS FRONT THANKS TO THE PROFESSIONAL AND WORLD-CLASS SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES THAT ARE IN PLACE RIGHT FROM ADMISSION, TO TEACHING, TO INTERNSHIPS, TO FINAL GROOMING. INDUSTRIALIST AND CHANCELLOR NAVEEN JINDAL AND VICE-CHANCELLOR AND NOTED MULTIFACETED SCHOLAR PROF. DR. C RAJ KUMAR ARE EXTENDING ALL THEIR SUPPORT TO MAKE PLACEMENTS A HUGE SUCCESS AT JGU.
reated by the Jindal Organization in memory of their renowned industrialist founder OP Jindal, this private university is unique in other ways too. Its Chancellor is Naveen Jindal, who is a former MP and also the Chairman of the group’s flagship Jindal Steel & Power, which is the third-largest steel producer of the country behind SAIL and Tata Steel. An alumnus of University of Texas at SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Dallas, (which has renamed its Business School after him), Naveen Jindal has used his network effectively to forge tie-ups for OP Jindal University with international heavyweights like Harvard, Yale, Oxford, & Cambridge. Due to its focus on non-engineering streams, the student strength of the university is relatively smaller than larger private universities, thereby enabling it to give one-to-one attention to its students in various
streams like law, business, international affairs, public policy etc. Professor (Dr.) C. Raj Kumar, who has been the Founding Vice Chancellor of OP Jindal Global University (JGU), has academic qualifications from the University of Oxford, Harvard University, University of Hong Kong, University of Delhi and Loyola College. Professor Kumar is also a Member of the National Legal Knowledge Council (NLKC). He was
NAVEEN JINDAL, CHANCELLOR
PROF. DR. C RAJ KUMAR, VICE CHANCELLOR
a faculty member at the School of Law of City University of Hong Kong, where he taught for many years.
each batch’s student specializations like Marketing, Operations, HR, Finance etc.
He was a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, UK, where he obtained his Bachelor of Civil Law (B.C.L.) degree; a Landon Gammon Fellow at the Harvard Law School, USA, where he obtained his Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree and a James Souverine Gallo Memorial Scholar at the Harvard University. He was awarded the Doctor of Legal Science (S.J.D.) by the University of Hong Kong. He also obtained a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree from the University of Delhi, India; and a Bachelor of Commerce (B.Com.) degree from the Loyola College of the University of Madras, India.
Internships are given great importance, as it is a natural steppingstone to final placements. Jindal Global Business School (JGBS) has been successful in coordinating placements for its students in almost all core industry sectors like Banking & Finance, Education, ITES, Healthcare & FMCG, Infrastructure, Supply Chain, and Manufacturing.
Jindal Global Business School’s placement initiative is spearheaded by a unique structure of a Placement Committee comprising of two toplevel administrators in Corporate Relations, and around 3 to 6 Student Coordinators per batch. For the benefit of future employers, core details of each year’s batch are transparently mentioned on the Business School’s website itself. These include each MBA batch’s student backgrounds like whether BTech/BE, BBA/BBM, BCom, BPharm/BSc, or BA. Also included are
Internship providers included heavyweights like Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Grasim, Nestle, Reliance Life Insurance etc. Final placements were also quite successful with maximum candidates being absorbed by the manufacturing sector (57%), followed by banking (20%), IT/ITES/Digital (9%), and Facility Management (14%). Largest candidate roles were in Finance (33.50%), followed by HR and Sales/ Marketing (each at 28.5%), and Operations (9.5%). Final recruiters included MNCs and leading corporates like Xerox, Deloitte, Samsung, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, iGate, Fortis, Havells etc. Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) offers three programs viz. 5-Year BA LLB Honours, 3-Year LLB, and a 2-Year
LLM, which has three specializations – International Trade Law, Corporate & Financial Law, and Intellectual Property Rights. From its first batch onward, JGLS has been a high performer in placements. While there is a high percentage of placements overall, the number of placements into Big Six law firms is also very high. In fact, Jindal Global Law School is rubbing shoulders with heavyweight public institutions like NLSIU Bangalore, Nalsar Hyderabad, NUJS Kolkata, and NLU Delhi, when it comes to placing its young lawyers. A big reason for JGLS’ performance in final placements is due to its sharp focus on legal internships that form a major part of a young lawyer’s experience and final grooming. JGLS law students are regularly getting internships from a wide variety of organizations employing lawyers like International Law Firms, Indian Law Firms, In-House Legal Departments of Corporates & LPOs, Judicial Clerkships at Supreme Court & High Courts, Law Offices and Chambers, International Non-Governmental Organisations, Indian NGOs, Statutory Bodies, Agencies and Research Institutions etc. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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TOP PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN
PLACEMENTS, TIE-UPS, & RESEARCH
Ashoka University onipat based Ashoka University
to raise Rs 300 crore in the next five years from its
boasts of tie-ups with the Yale
backers. Those contributing Rs 10 crore and above
University, University of California at
are counted as founders and join the board of
Berkeley,
College,
trustees. Some prominent trustees include Ashish
University of Michigan and King’s College,
Dhawan, founder, Central Square Foundation;
London among others. Yale has been shaping
Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Naukri.com;
Ashoka’s curriculum and infrastructure in the
Vineet Gupta, MD, Jamboree Education; Puneet
major areas of admissions, development, student
Dalmia, Managing Director, Dalmia Cements; Jerry
and faculty. The privately funded institution,
Rao, founder, MPhasis, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala,
which has raised Rs 200 crore from its 40
Investor, Radhakishan Damani, Investor and
founders, has an intake of 350 students for its
founder, D-Mart; Dilip Shanghvi, Founder Sun
three-year graduate program out of 3,000
Pharmaceuticals. Out of the 40 founders of Ashoka
applications. The self-financing university aims
University, 14 are part of the board of trustees.
Ashish Dhawan, Founder
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Carleton
TOP PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN
PLACEMENTS, TIE-UPS, & RESEARCH
Shiv Nadar University
reater Noida based Shiv Nadar University has tied up with Duke University and Babson College among others. Founded by billionaire IT entrepreneur Shiv Nadar, the university follows the innovation streak of its founder. Nadar who was instrumental in creating India’s first PC, as well as companies like HCL Infosystems, NIIT, & the now high-flying HCL Technologies is worth more than Rs. 66,600 crore in personal wealth. Shiv Nadar University as well as his other educational ventures including schools are said to be a philanthropic activity of Nadar, created on a 10% donation of his personal wealth. The Gautam Buddh Nagar based private university is said to follow a
Shiv Nadar, Founder
‘need-blind’ policy regarding admissions. What this means is that if the University’s board is convinced that a student is eligible to join the university it will pull out all the stops to ensure that the student is enrolled, whether he can afford it or not. This is to attract the best students and ensure diversity on campus.
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TOP PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN
PLACEMENTS, TIE-UPS, & RESEARCH
AISECT UNIVERSITY
In today's tough job market, something more than ordinary is needed to succeed on the campus placements front. Bhopal based AISECT University has come out as a high-flyer in this regard, thanks to some of its unique initiatives as well as it parent AISECT’s deep industry linkages and knowledge at the grassroots level in the skills development arena. hose private universities that are capable of delivering the kind of graduates that industry is demanding today, are the ones who are definitely in the limelight. Raisen, Madhya Pradesh based AISECT University, a noted private university in Central India for its ICT & Skills Development programs, has a successful strategy in ensuring employability of its graduates. Some of the major companies and MNCs that have recruited students from AISECT University include IBM, Oracle, Airtel, HCL, Hexaware, ICICI, L&T Infotech, Tech Mahindra, Patni, and Reliance ADAG.
During the year, AISECT University had also conducted a mega job fair with participation by many corporates of repute. Promoted by AISECT, which is arguably the largest rural ICT training organization in India with over 12,000 centres, the university strives to make a difference, starting with its better qualified faculty. AISECT University has several PhD holders from IITs and NITs in their teaching staff. Its parent AISECT having developed its own core competencies in ICT based learning systems, such unique models are also employed at AISECT University.
This self-financing university’s Chancellor is none other than noted social entrepreneur and AISECT founder Santosh K Choubey. An award-winning visionary who forfeited his IAS and IES careers to create a social platform like AISECT, the university’s students also benefit from the parent organization’s achievements in employability skills development, placement networks, egovernance etc. With AISECT as its sponsoring body, the University has access to the various industry linkages of its parent organization which has a market experience of 28 years in placements. This means that AISECT University
Some of the major companies and MNCs that have recruited students from AISECT University include IBM, Oracle, Airtel, HCL, Hexaware, ICICI, L&T Infotech, Tech Mahindra, Patni, and Reliance ADAG.
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students will get a complete exclusive placement access to the top corporate and IT conglomerates.
Santosh K Choubey, Chancellor
AISECT's unique stature is enhanced by the fact that National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has elected AISECT as a nodal organization. Through this partnership with NSDC, AISECT has a mandate for providing skills-based education to over 1.3 million people within the next 10 years. Under this partnership, around 100 ICT-based diploma and certificate programmes have been introduced at over 20,000 AISECT Centres nationally. AISECT had recently undertaken the 2015 edition of its annual nationwide Kaushal Vikas Yatra in partnership with NSDC. Launched on 28th September, the Yatra was conducted till 15th October across 270 districts in 16 states through which nearly 450 locations across the country were covered and over 30,000 students mobilized for the Government’s Skill India Mission. The AISECT-NSDC Kaushal Vikas
With AISECT as its sponsoring body, the University has access to the various industry linkages of its parent organization which has a market experience of 28 years in placements. This means that AISECT University students will get exclusive placement access to the top corporate and IT conglomerates. Yatra 2015 covered 16 major states including Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, West Bengal, and Sikkim. A panel of experts who were a part of the convoy lectured on AISECT’s various endeavors in the skill development space including the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna (PMKVY), Digital Literacy Mission, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan etc.
With such credentials for its parent in the non-formal side, it is no wonder that AISECT University too has geared up admirably for its campus placements program. In order to enable each of its students to explore and investigate potential majors and careers, the University provides dedicated counseling facilities. AISECT University believes that mere interest inventories and career tests without personal consultation are not adequate for successful placements. The University advocates proper guidance on a one-to-one basis in which a complete review of the results along with instructions on how to experience and investigate those careers that interest the students are imparted. To guide the students towards their specific careers of interest, the training and placement cell of AISECT University grooms the students with the necessary skills and knowledge required for a rewarding professional future. The students are equipped with skills that make them industry ready and help them to rise above the ordinary through specialized training in communication skills, group discussions etc. AISECT University has also joined hands with IT giant Microsoft for its Platinum Ed-vantage Academic Partnership Programme with the objective of training the University’s students in technological skills required to compete effectively in today’s workforce. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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TOP PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN
PLACEMENTS, TIE-UPS, & RESEARCH GALGOTIAS UNIVERSITY
THE UNIVERSITY FOR CRAFTING ALL-ROUND WINNERS
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Chancellor Suneel Galgotia and CEO Dhruv Galgotia have together created a commendable culture of encouraging and facilitating their students to aim for the world’s best, and achieve the impossible.
here is no dearth of competition among private universities especially when it comes to dimensions like academics and placements. But in a country that is fast becoming the start-up capital of the world, academics and placements don’t tell the whole story. Next generation leaders would be those excelling equally in extracurricular and co-curricular activities, apart from academics. Here is where the value of a new generation private university like Galgotias comes
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into focus. The Greater Noida based institution as well as its older sibling, are making great strides in the overall development of their students. There are examples galore for this unique approach. Recently, a student team from Galgotias could visit NASA in USA, the cradle of cutting-edge space research in this globe. They also participated in NASA’s Human Explorer Rover Challenge 2015. On the other hand, GU’s Finance & Commerce students could visit a facility of Bombay Stock
Suneel Galgotia, Chancellor Dhruv Galgotia, CEO
Exchange (BSE), India’s largest as well as one of the world’s oldest equity exchanges, to understand its complex day-to-day working. MBA students from Galgotias’ School of Business, on the other hand had somebody important visiting them for a guest lecture. Nationally and internationally renowned management expert, Dinesh Kumar Khare conducted a guest lecture on the topic of “Emerging Trends in Indian Economy”. Khare is a business leader with 35 years of experience and has worked with India’s largest organizations and MNCs in both public & private sectors such as L&T, NTPC, and SAIL. His experience also spans countries and regions like South Africa and the Middle East. An engineer cum management expert Khare taught students on how to bridge the vital gap between theoretical knowledge and practical applications in industry. Galgotians have also proven their mettle in various sports, ranging from badminton to auto racing, apart from achievements in dance for which the university dance club is quite famous. A beauty of GU’s achievements in co-curricular and extra-curricular activities is that, the university and its students achieve this without sacrificing academic performance. Galgotia students have come as toppers in GATE 2015, and its placement performance this
year too has been exemplary. Almost complete batches (98% to be precise) of its five CS-IBM programs were placed with over 120 top global corporates including Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro, and Tech Mahindra, with many receiving multiple offers. IT giant IBM has partnered Galgotias University's CS programs in the domains of Cloud Computing & Virtualization, Open Source Software & Open Standards, Business Analytics, Telecom Informatics, and in Mainframe Technology. IBM has set up labs at Galgotias University and has co-created syllabi and pedagogies in addition to contributing to teaching processes and faculty training. But placements at Galgotias are not too much of the same type, with a recent example being a GU student getting absorbed by a top NGO based in United States. GU is also a model to follow for other private universities in that it organizes numerous events and competitions for students from all over the country. Recent examples include the National Seminar on Energy, Economy, & Environment, and the National Legal Essay Competition. GU is also offering the best amenities for students who come from all over India and abroad, with a noted feature being its excellent canteen facilities that dishes out healthy and tasty food. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
Page No: 85
TOP PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN
PLACEMENTS, TIE-UPS, & RESEARCH
Symbiosis International University ymbiosis
International
University,
headquartered at Pune is a leader in international tie-ups with universities and colleges of stature. These tie-ups are spread the world over, with notable examples being with Michigan State University of USA; Munich University of Applied Sciences of Germany, Dauphine University of France, University College Dublin of Ireland, Carleton University of Canada, Deakin University of Australia, University of Dundee of UK, Masstricht University of Netherlands, Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, Unitec Institute of Technology of New Zealand, La Gran of Colombia, and lots more. Tracing its roots back to 1971, Symbiosis is perhaps the oldest group of self-financing institutes that turned into a deemed university. SIU is mind-boggling in its size too - with 9 campuses, 7 faculties, 43 institutes, and 107 programmes. SIU is the brainchild of Dr. SB Mujumdar and is run under the able leadership of Dr. Vidya Yeravdekar.
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S. B. Mujumdar President and Founder Director, Symbiosis.
TOP PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN
PLACEMENTS, TIE-UPS, & RESEARCH
Raffles University
affles University’s School of Law has an MoU with Lisbon University of Portugal for student exchange and faculty exchange. Raffles students who undergo research at Lisbon University are awarded due credits. Raffles University has a tie-up with University of New Hampshire’s Franklin Pierce Center for Intellectual Property, which is a world leader in IPR. Raffles’ Law School represents Franklin Pierce Centre in India. IPR being a core emerging area of Law studies, Raffles students may gain from this initiative. Raffles University is the result of the unique vision of one towering individual Late Vinod Kumar Gomber, a Harvard Business School alumnus who was the Group CEO of Emaar Properties, the Dubai based construction and realty conglomerate. While at Emaar, Gomber was instrumental with
Vivek Gomber, Chairperson
Emaar Chairman Mohammed Al Abbar in planning and constructing Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower. Raffles University’s Alabbar School of Management is named after and follows the business vision of Mohammed Al Abbar. Raffles University has a well-planned 75 acres campus in the beautiful Japanese Zone, along NH-8 in Neemrana, of Alwar District of Rajasthan. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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TOP PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN
PLACEMENTS, TIE-UPS, & RESEARCH
MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences angalore based MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences (MSRUAS) has been active in forging ties with various overseas universities as well as leading multinational companies. Delegates from R&D team of ABB had visited MSRUAS to discuss regarding capabilities and collaboration opportunities to pursue high-end research. Similarly, a team of professionals from Mann + Hummel has visited MSRUAS. Dr. Martin J. Lehmann, Director-Simulation Filter Elements and Dr. Florian Keller from Germany
proposed the possible areas of research collaborations and modalities adapted by their Company. A Mexican delegation led by Mr. Miguel Angel Landeros Volquarts, Chairman, COMCE Noreste has also visited MSRUAS to explore the possibilities for collaboration. MSRUAS has signed an MOU with Scientific Research Institute ASONIKA of Russia. As part of international collaboration, a delegation from St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering of Russia had also visited MSRUAS. MS Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences (MSRUAS) was created by the coming SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Dr. M. R. Jayaram, Chancellor
together of MS Ramaiah School of Advanced Studies (started in 1999), MS Ramaiah College of Hotel Management (started in 1993), MS Ramaiah College of Pharmacy (started in 1992), MS Ramaiah Dental College (started in 1991) and the MS Ramaiah Advanced Learning Centre (started in 2012) - all full-fledged and reputed institutions of their own merit. While Chancellor and MS Ramaiah’s son, Dr. MR Jayaram has been leading the group's foray into private university space, the university is academically led by its Vice Chancellor Dr. SR Shankapal.
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SRM University hennai headquartered SRM University, which is already known for its overseas tie-ups has achieved a coup of sorts when it successfully tied up with Carnegie Mellon University, USA to offer the Master of Science in Information Technology - Embedded Software Engineering (MSIT-ESE) degree program. The collaborative plan allows students to spend two semesters at SRM University in Chennai before relocating to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh to complete the remaining two semesters of study. Carnegie Mellonis a global educational leader and a forerunner in technology trends. CMU has participated in the launch of nearly 1,000 companies, thereby creating jobs across the U.S. and the world. Anthony J. Lattanze, current teaching professor with the Institute for Software
TR Pachamuthu, Chancellor
Research (ISR) at Carnegie Mellon, visited SRM recently in support of the ongoing collaboration. SRM is the brainchild of its Founder and Chancellor TR Pachamuthu who has built it into a sprawling university with five ultra-modern campuses, 1500 faculty, and 20,000 students.No effort has been spared to create one of the most extensive educational infrastructures. Its main Kattankulathur Campus in Kancheepuram near Chennai is a 250 acres affair.
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Integral University Integral University based in Lucknow has been eyeing many overseas tie-ups. It has already hosted several visits from topranking academics and government dignitaries from a variety of countries including USA, Malaysia, & Turkey. Prominent visitors to the university from USA include Dr. Vipin Gupta from California State University, Dr. Tauhidur Rahman from University of Arizona, and Prof. David Dilcher, Professor Emeritus at Indiana University. Chief Minister of Sarawak, Malaysia, has also visited Integral University. An official delegation from Turkey has also been visitors. Founded in 2004, Integral University of Lucknow has grown to a remarkable size steadily, with even full-fledged medical and paramedical courses. Run by Islamic Council of Productive Education, this self-financing state private university is professionally led by Chancellor Dr. SR Azmi Nadvi and Vice-Chancellor Prof. SW Akhtar. Separate residential facilities are available for boys and girls, and the campus recruiters include TCS, Bosch, & HDFC Bank.
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Dr. SR Azmi Nadvi, Chancellor
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BML Munjal University BA Students at Hero Group’s BML Munjal University will get a chance to study at London’s Imperial College Business School. One among handful of institutions to have been granted this opportunity, its business programmes are also being mentored
Sunil Kant Munjal Chancellor, BML Munjal University.
by the Imperial College. Founded in 2014, BML Munjal University is one of India’s youngest, and offers only BCom (Hons.), BBA, BTech, & MBA, as of now, but more is destined to come. This private university of Haryana, located near Gurgaon, is taking industry partnerships seriously, with its first visible example being the on-campus Siemens Centre of Excellence. All key leaders of Hero Group are co-founders here, while its President is young Akshay Munjal, who studied at University of Bradford, UK, and Pepperdine University, USA. Hero Group is one of the Top-10 business conglomerates in India and India's largest 2-wheeler manufacturer, with a turnover in excess of US$ 5 billion.
Akshay Munjal, President, BML Munjal University
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Nirma University Nirma University based at Ahmedabad has been forging overseas tie-ups for years now, thanks to its high profile annual international conferences by its constituent institutes. The most famous and longstanding among them is the Nirma International Conference on Management (NICOM) an annual international management conference organized by Institute of Management, Nirma University. The conference has been an annual affair since the last 18 years. It attracts participation from academicians and researchers from across the globe. Nirma University International Conference on Engineering (NUiCONE) is a leading multi-conference event of the Institute of Technology, Nirma University. This conference has seen successful organization of four national conferences and four international conferences in previous years. Another emerging high profile international conference by Nirma University is the The International Conference,
NIPiCON which aims a knowledge sharing experience in various areas of pharmaceutical sciences with emerging trends and innovative approaches. Nirma university was founded by one of India’s most illustrious entrepreneurs, Karsanbhai Patel, who founded Nirma Group. While Karsanbhai Patel serves as NU's President, it is professionally run by its Vice President Ambhubhai Patel, a veteran banker, and academically by Dr. Anup K Singh, Director-General and Chairman of Academic Council as
Karsanbhai Patel, Founder well as Finance Committee. Dr. Singh has been trained at University of Allahabad, University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and Harvard University, and has taught at leading B-Schools, and done corporate training for several leading corporates and organizations. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Azim Premji University
angalore based Azim Premji
Azim Premji, Chancellor
University has collaborated with the Michigan State University on important touch-points like faculty visits, course development and joint workshops. Unlike most other private universities in the country, Azim Premji University has a sharp focus on only a couple of core sectors like education and development. In fact, when it started out in 2010, these were the only two streams available, and only postgraduate programs were offered by this self-financing university. Promoted by Azim Premji Foundation set up by billionaire businessman Azim Premji of soap-to-software major Wipro, the university has evolved from the deep experience of his foundation in running teachers’ training programs for years. However, in 2015, the university is finally shedding its narrow focus and launching undergraduate programs in sciences and humanities, as well as a postgraduate program in Public Policy & Governance. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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NITTE UNIVERSITY’S RESEARCH INITIATIVES ARE SPEARHEADED BY 5 CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE
Mangalore headquartered Nitte University, headed by its Chancellor N Vinaya Hegde is sticking to its roots as a health sciences university, when it comes to furthering its research initiatives too. Four out of its five Centres of Excellence are in the fields of healthcare and associated fields. They bring together collaborations with renowned universities like Oxford and Cambridge, and specialized institutes and researchers from developed nations like Japan, Korea, & United Kingdom. The focus of research at Nitte is on how to benefit the Indian population by leveraging international expertise. itte University’s research initiatives in the health sciences field are in cuttingedge areas like Neurology, Genetics, Animal Experimentation, and Stem Cell Research & Regenerative Medicine. Additionally, it also has a research initiative in Science Education & Research, with a special emphasis on various factors affecting human health. Nitte University, owned and run by Nitte Education Trust, has been the brainchild of one of India’s foremost leaders in Judiciary and Legislature, Justice KS Hegde. A former Chief Justice of India’s Supreme Court, he also served the nation as the Lok Sabha Speaker. Making his mark in both these key estates of the Indian administration, Justice Hegde would later focus more on his Mangalore headquartered Nitte Education Trust, which would later give birth to Nitte University.
N. VINAYA HEGDE, Chancellor SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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This deemed-to-be university recognized by both MHRD and NAAC at A Grade, has been focusing more on teaching various health science courses, from its inception. Under the leadership of its Chancellor N Vinaya Hegde, a noted entrepreneur and multifaceted leader of Karnataka, the university has made great progress in grooming health sciences graduates,
these disorders in India. The major histocompatability complex (MHC) associated alleles and single nucleotide variations (SNV) associated with these autoimmune disorders have been evaluated in the largest cohort of patients from southern India. Environmental factors particularly the role of childhood infections, nutritional status and sun exposure have been evaluated through in house and validated questionnaire. Vitamin D levels and remote infection with Epstein Barr virus and Helicobacter pylori have been studied. Currently the focus has enlarged to include development of cell based assays for sensitive biomarkers that help to diagnose some of these disorders.
postgraduates, and PhD researchers of great acumen. Nitte University’s popular health science courses include MBBS, MD/MS, B.Sc (Medical Imaging Technology), B.Sc (Operation Theatre Technology), B.Sc (Bio-Medical Science), M.Sc (BioMedical Science), M. Sc. Food Safety & Biotechnology, M. Sc. Marine Biotechnology (MMB), MPH (Master of Public Health), Medical Lab Technology , BDS, MDS, Ph.D, GNM, Post Basic B.Sc Nursing, B.Sc (Nursing), Post Basic Diploma in Critical Care Nursing, Post Basic Diploma in Orthopaedic and Rehabilitation Nursing, Post Basic Diploma in Operation Room Nursing, Post Graduate Diploma in Dialysis Nursing, M.Sc Nursing, B.Pharm, Pharm.D, M.Pharm, BPT and MPT. In the field of health sciences research, Nitte University offers PhD programs in various streams including in dentistry and pharmacy. But Nitte University is also more than a health sciences university, as it has been successful in crafting highly sought after courses in non-medical fields like Journalism and Architecture. Nitte has been running its BA and MA programs in Journalism & Mass Communication for some years now, and it has recently launched Nitte Institute of Architecture (NIA).
However, Nitte University’s greatest claim to fame in the near future is likely to be from its 5 Centres of Excellence in health sciences and science education. These are Centre for Advanced Neurological Research (CANR), Genetics Research Laboratory, Nitte University Centre for Animal Research and Experimentation (NUCARE), Nitte University Centre for Stem Cell Research & Regenerative Medicine (NUCSReM), , and Nitte University Center for Science Education and Research (NUCSER).
Centre for Advanced Neurological Research (CANR) CANR is a centre set up exclusively to research complex neurological disorders in 2006. The centre has state-of-the-art facilities for neurological research and is supported both by Nitte University and External Funding agencies including Indian council of medical research (ICMR), Department of Science and Technology(DST) and Department of BioTechnology (DBT). The primary focus is on demyelinating central nervous system disorders including multiple sclerosis, Neuromyelitis optica and atypical demyelinating disorders. Focus of research has been to understand the genetic and environmental factors contributing to disease susceptibility for
These research outputs have supported high impact publications in premier scientific journals and have contributed new knowledge to the understanding of these complex disorders in the Indian context. The center is supported in all its endeavors by the Mangalore demyelinating disease registry, established in 2007, in the department of Neurology, KSHEMA. It is the largest in the country and has currently nearly 750 patients from southern India, who are under dedicated follow up and subsidized medications. Since inception, the centre has had collaborations with International and National research centres including Cambridge University, Imperial College London, Oxford University, and Bombay Hospital of Medical Sciences.
Genetics Research Laboratory The objective of this department is to provide qualitative Molecular DNA diagnostic services to this region at an ethical price. We hope to grow from providing diagnostics for simple and common diseases to rare and complex ones as time progresses. Several diseases and syndromes can now be diagnosed with the aid of molecular genetics as these have their etiology in the DNA that we inherit. This becomes a valuable tool to determine the course of treatment and prognostication, not only for the individual concerned but for the family SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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at large. DNA diagnostics is now the gold standard to determine the diagnosis of certain hereditary diseases and their implications. There is a wealth of knowledge that is being generated every single day in the field of molecular genetics. To use this knowledge for the service of society is the ultimate aim of science and one to which this set up is aimed towards. Apart from this, this Centre also has major research initiatives in Clinical and Molecular Cytogenetics.
Nitte University Centre for Animal Research and Experimentation (NUCARE) NUCARE provides quality service for drug evaluation and testing on laboratory animals by abiding the principles and concept of 4R’s – Refinement, Reduction, Replacement and Rehabilitation of laboratory animals. Facility is designed as per the guidelines to maintain clean and dirty corridor separately. Other facilities include automatic light and dark control facility, air cycle change with HEPA-filter, animal rooms with controlled temperature and humidity, quarantine room, Surgery room etc. NUCARE is capable to cater the needs of pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries by drug evaluation, testing, and report preparation as per the guidelines. NUCARE facility has been approved by Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) for breading and conducting experiments on small animals. The Centre is capable of conducting toxicological profiling of a drug molecule. NUCARE is also capable of screening and evaluation of drugs in small animal models.
Nitte University Centre for Stem Cell Research & Regenerative Medicine (NUCSReM) SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Stem cells and cell-based therapies have tremendous potential in curing the millions of adults and children suffering from incurable diseases and medical conditions. With the objective of harnessing the immense potential of stem cells in regenerative medicine, Nitte University started the Centre for Stem Cell Research & Regenerative Medicine (NUCSReM), in 2013. NUCSReM has been set up by using thexperience and expertise of biomedical engineers belonging to BenC-ChangJo Engineering Company, Republic of Korea. With state-of-the-art equipment and facilities, the NUCSReM envisaged not only to further advance the understanding of basic stem cell biology but also to facilitate the clinical application of stem cells to treat patients with various disorders or injuries. The centre is presently headed by Prof. (Dr.) M. Shantharam Shetty, renowned Orthopedic Surgeon of the country with four other internal members comprising of stem cell researchers and orthopedic surgeons, and two adjunct professors,
Prof. (Dr.) A. Ananthram Shetty, Chair of Orthopedics and Director of Research from Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent, United Kingdom and Prof. (Dr.) Seok Jung Kim, Director of Cell Therapy Centre, Orthopaedic Surgeon from The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea. The primary focus of the centre revolves around isolation, in-vitro culture, differentiation and autologous transplantation of patient specific stem cells, specifically for orthopedic applications. Further expansion of research aims to develop and utilise the patient specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) based regenerative medicine technologies for the better treatment of various disorders and diseases. The centre also offers Doctoral programme (PhD) under the faculty of Allied Health Sciences. The research activities in the centre adheres to the National Guidelines for Stem Cell Research-2013 jointly formulated by ICMR and DBT, Govt. of India and it strictly follows the national and
Nitte University Centre for Stem Cell Research & Regenerative Medicine
(GNU), Jinju, Republic of Korea; National Research Centre for Child Health and Development, Tokyo, Japan; and DiponEd BioIntelligence LLP, Bengaluru.
Nitte University Center for Science Education and Research (NUCSER)
international standards of good manufacturing practice [GMP & current GMP (cGMP)] for production of cells under the highest assurance of sterility, quality and documentation. NUCSReM’s academic and research collaborations include those with Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent, United Kingdom; The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea; GyeongSang National University
NUCSER is an interdisciplinary teaching and research centre established in 2013. The centre at present has 14 scientists with expertise in diverse areas of biological sciences and is led by Dr. (Mrs) Indrani Karunasagar, an internationally renowned scientist in the field of Medical and Marine Microbiology. The activities of the centre are divided into two arms; teaching and research. Under the teaching program, the centre is offering niche degrees keeping in tune with the emerging trends on career in research. At present it has four programs, namely: B.Sc. and M.Sc. Biomedical
Nitte University Center for Science Education and Research
science, M.Sc. Food Safety and Biotechnology, and M.Sc. Marine Microbiology and Biotechnology. All these programs are first of its kind in Karnataka and are designed keeping in mind the job opportunities in the field of research. The centre also offers PhD in specific areas of biological science. The students develop skills in various high end molecular techniques and tools used in research and development. The research activities in NUCSER focus on issues related to human health and disease, be it genetic, food, or environmental. Understanding human health through an interdisciplinary approach with focus on diagnosis, molecular mechanisms, and treatment strategies is the vision of the centre. The research activities in the centre are classified into six groups, namely Division of Infectious Diseases, Division of Cancer Genetics and Molecular Medicine, Division of Food Safety and Nutrition, Division of Bio-resource and Biotechnology, Division of Bioinformatics and Computational Genomics and Division of Environmental Health and Toxicology. The thrust areas include study of human pathogens, mechanisms of antibiotic resistance, role of bacteriophages as therapeutics, molecular study of rare bone marrow failure diseases and cancers such as lung and breast cancers, small molecule screening of anti-cancer drugs, in silico and bioinformatics based approaches for drug designing, aspects of food safety, and study of environmental pollutants and toxicants. The centre has several ongoing externally funded research projects from premiere funding agencies such as DBT, DST, ICMR, and SERB. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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JSS UNIVERSITY'S
PL ACEMENT INITIATIVE DELIVERS BIG
JSS University, being primarily a health sciences university, didn't have the need for a huge placements wing. But even in the medical and paramedical fields, the employment dynamics were changing rapidly, and being a pioneer and fast mover, JSS University had went in for a full-fledged placement wing that has quickly reaped huge gains.
ysore based JSS University is one among a handful of self-financing health sciences universities in the country. JSS University is promoted by JSS Mahavidyapeetha, arguably one of the largest educational groups in the nation. JSS Mahavidyapeetha is an initiative of Sri Veerasimhasana Math at Srikshetra, Suttur, near Mysore, led by its 24th pontiff His Holiness Jagadguru Sri Shivarathri Deshikendra Mahaswamiji. JSS University's Training & Placement Cell has many unique features that differentiate itself from its peer group universities. Firstly, it is deployed as a fully online initiative, whereby students, college officials, and companies come together to interact, liaison, and work together to achieve their common objectives. Set up as a paperless office, students are encouraged to go online and enroll. In a similar way, companies SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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can approach the placement cell for recruiting the aspiring candidates. Besides this the cell focuses on the talent development and acts as a hub for the companies to visit and look for the promising candidates. The site focuses on recruitment, training, and internships for all the students of the University. The results have been astounding to say the least. Recent recruiters from JSS University include healthcare majors like Strides Arcolab, Micro Labs, Abbott, Aurobindo, Biocon, Himalaya Herbal Healthcare, Dr. Reddy's Labs, Medreich, Sciformix, Icon, Semler Research Centre, Synowledge, @ris Global, Quintiles, BioPlus Life Sciences etc., apart from major IT recruiters like Tata Consultancy Services. With more than 300 educational institutions under its fold, ranging from nurseries, schools and polytechnics to colleges. JSS Mahavidyapeetha once counted among its visiting faculty, Late Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, which was a rare
Sri Shivarathri Deshikendra Mahaswamiji, Chancellor
honour. JSS University, being a primarily health sciences university, is the height of achievement for JSS Mahavidyapeetha. The achievements by the Training & Placement Cell are due to its dedication to provide all possible assistance to its graduates in their efforts to find employment. This commitment is demonstrated by the preparation of its students which enabled them to secure lucrative and esteemed positions in recent years. The Training & Placement service operates year round to facilitate contacts between companies and graduates. Staff is available to respond to student's question and concerns of all kinds. This may include advice on placement procedures, help with preparation of applications and resumes, as well as practice for interviews.
future educational and industrial trends. Every effort is undertaken to create opportunities for our students to get placements. JSS hopes to reach maximum placements level in the years to come in all its core areas like Pharmaceutical Sciences, Dentistry, and Medicine & Allied Sciences. The cell is also responsible to collaborate with industries on projects to develop innovative formulations, medical devices, and to support Pharmaceutical and Health Care Industry in the areas of new product development, regulatory filings and Dossier Development.
Chancellor Sri Shivarathri Deshikendra Mahaswamiji takes personal care in the well-being of JSS University. BN Betkerur IAS (Retd.), Executive Secretary of the entire JSS Mahavidyapeetha empire is also the Pro Chancellor of JSS University. While these two leaders are from the sponsoring society, JSS University in itself has an array of professional leaders including Dr. B Suresh as Vice-Chancellor. Apart from the medical and dental colleges in Mysore, JSS University has two more constituent colleges, which are both pharmacy colleges, one in Mysore itself and the other in Ooty.
The aim is to ensure that students have the information and skills necessary for an effective job search. Those considering careers in education or in related fields are also offered detailed career guidance at the Training & Placement Cell. All advice is based on up-to-date placement statistics and a vision of
Dr. B Suresh, Vice-Chancellor.
BN Betkerur IAS (Retd.) Executive Secretary
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FOOT BALL
Pete Jaison
English Premier League 2015-16:
CHANCES OF EACH TEAM
he English Premier League 2015-2016 season has witnessed a rather surprising start. Although this season, just like all its previous editions, has had its fat share of gleeful cries, angry outbursts and raised eyebrows, there is little doubt that it qualifies as one of the most open seasons being played.From the unprecedented fall of the defending champions to the resurgence of Manchester City, the current edition has all that it takes to achieve a phenomenal climax, which is sure to keep the nerve-wracking fans on the edge of their seats. With at least a quarter of the season having elapsed, clubs are eager to give their fans’ bragging rights after the international break when the high-octane action resumes. In a season that is poised to make predictions difficult for the pundits and bookies, Seasonal Magazine provides an in-depth analysis on the various ups, downs and the main title contenders of the most popular football league in the world.
CHELSEA: Chelsea has had its worst ever start to the Premier League, losing 7 of their 12 league games this season. Manager Jose Mourinho, who has never lost more than 6 league matches per season is under fire for his side’s lackluster performances and is tipped to be replaced by Diego Simeone if the poor run of the Blues continues. Chelsea stormed to clinch the title last season following a solid start(winning 10 and drawing 2 matches) but failed to replicate the rich form this time around. The pressure is on current EPL Player of the year, Eden Hazard and the rest of his teammates to turn things around. Reports of rifts between the management and the players had leaked out earlier this month, although both sides denied any sort of conflict within the club. However, in the midst of such turbulent times, midfielder Willian who has been in outstanding form, remains the lone bright spot for the defending champions this season. The ‘UP’: Midfielder, Willian has arguably been Chelsea’s shining light this season as the difficult campaign SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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for the Blues continues following a 10 loss to Stoke City at the Britannia stadium on Saturday. The ‘DOWN’: Chelsea is currently enduring a horrendous start to the season that has left a cloud of uncertainty over Mourinho’s capability and is in a battle to avoid relegation.
Possibility of a title challenge: No way, Jose.
MANCHESTER UNITED: The Red Devils have fixed their defensive fragilities that disabled the team last year, but the lack of goals up front is still a cause of worry for manager, Louis Van Gaal. The decline of captain Wayne Rooney is a major concern too for the Red Devils. However with critics and former players all accusing Van Gaalof instilling ‘boring’ football tactics in the United team, they sit comfortably at the fourth position only 2 points below table-toppers, Manchester City and Arsenal. Chris ‘Mike’ Smalling has emerged as one of their most consistent performers, starring in
every match played by his club. Anthony Martial, a 36m pound signing from Monaco has given the club a new attacking dimension and is tipped to lead the United frontline, ahead of captain Wayne Rooney. Van Gaal might be too over confident if he’s talking about a genuine title challenge but a couple of signings in the winter transfer window will surely make them contenders. The ‘UP’: Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard have been phenomenal for the Red Devils , but this might be a highlight due to the underperformance of Rooney. Chris Smalling has also gone to establish himself as a trustedcentre-back for the Red Devils for years to come.
The ‘DOWN’: Many supporters are increasingly getting fed up of Van Gaal’s ‘sideways’ football and are talking about a replacement if this problem persists (however unlikely it sounds). The Wayne Rooney of old too hasn’t come to the occasion , with the dynamic striker continuing to toil hard but has borne meagre results.
Possibility of a title challenge: Although it is ridiculed that United are genuine contenders , they are off the top spot by only two points going into the international break. The arrival of a speedy winger in the winter transfer window will undoubtedly lift their chances and make them a real threat for the other challengers.
ARSENAL : The Gunners as usual had their initial hiccups but after a strong run of consecutive victories they remain joint top leaders of the English Premier League 2015-16 along with Manchester City of course. The biggest concern for Arsene Wenger will be whether his side can avoid the injury ghost that quite frequently plagues his team. Alexis Sanchez along with MesutOzilhave been their usual star performers but the signing of Ex-Chelsea goalkeeper,PetrCech has been the masterclass move by Wenger so far. Theo Walcott along with Oliver Giroud has been lethal up front for the Gunners. If they can sustain their form and be injury-free for a good part of the season, the
Gunners can retain their long lost Premier League crown. The ‘UP’: Most of the Arsenal stars are in rich form and the signing of Cech from Chelsea has provided the ‘X Factor’ that just might drive them to the EPL crown.
The ‘DOWN’: Arsenal historically remains a highly injury prone team. If injuries start to pile up by the second half of the Premier League , then the chances of them reaching the summit are very slim.
Possibility of a title challenge: High. As of now, Arsenal look well poised to claim the title if they continue their good run of form, provided they remain clear of injuries. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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MANCHESTER CITY: Manchester City bolstered their talented squad even further with the signings of Kevin De Bruyne ,Raheem Sterling , Nicholas Otamendi , Fabian Delph etc. After a relatively mediocre season, City is currently the front runner to retain the Premier League 2015-16. Manager, Manuel Pellegrini , whose position in the club was under scrutiny after a 4-2 loss to neighbours Manchester United, looks to have regained the trust of the management. Raheem Sterling in particular has been absolutely phenomenal after his bigsigning move from Liverpool and has already bagged a handful of goals including a hattrick against Bournemouth. Star striker, Sergio Aguero too has been more than handy for the opposition defenders in the limited number of matches he’s played. Currently perched in the top position along joint-leaders Arsenal, City have fared better than rest of the English clubs in the UEFA Champions League as well. The odds as well as the form are on City’s side to clinch their 3rd Premier League trophy in six years. The ‘UP’: The new signings haven’t wasted any time settling in the Etihad outfit. All players are in top form and they still remain the team to beat. The ‘DOWN’: Although City haven’t had much negatives in the first twelve matches , the fitness of striker Aguero
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will be a cause for concern. Aguero who on his day can be devastating is also injury-prone and a long absence from the game might have a negative impact on him as well as City’s scoring charts.
Possibility of a title challenge:
According to the bookmakers, EPL 2015-16 isCity’s title to clinch. And it’s only a matter of time before they do.
LIVERPOOL : The appointment of former Borussia Dortmund manager ,JurgenKlopp has raised the level of expectations for the Reds. Following a disappointing season in which Liverpool lost their Champions League spot, Brendon Rodgers was sacked as manager after a 1-1 draw to Merseyside neighbors,
Everton. The new era of Klopp started off in a somewhat low geared fashion but spirits and hopes soared as Liverpool came from behind to beat defending champions, Chelsea 2-1 as Philippe Coutinho provided them with two moments of absolute brilliance. But these hopes came crashing down after a defeat to Crystal Palace. Although Liverpool might not be favorites to win the trophy, a top four finish (reclaiming their champion league spot) is easily within their reach. Exciting times are back for the Kopites !(or the Kloppites as they call themselves now) The ‘UP’: The newly appointed manager JurgenKlopp is a highly motivational figure with excellent man management tactics as well as a highly intelligent footballing brain. It will be no surprise if he drags Liverpool back to the peak of English football in the next couple of seasons. But only time will tell. The ‘DOWN’: However capable and intelligent their manager is, the same cannot be said about their squad. Liverpool is maybe four to five star players away from actually competing for the Premier League title. Possibility of a title challenge: Not this season, but a top four finish is surely achievable for the Merseyside team. They will be true challengers only after a highly productive transfer window.
SOCIETY
India's Shocking Wealth Disparity:
95% of Adults' Wealth Below Rs. 6.5 Lakh Each, 2080 Adults' Wealth Above Rs. 325 Crore Each A Credit Suisse report finds that poverty continues to be a concern despite the strong rise in wealth. This is obvious from the fact that 95 percent of the adult population has wealth below USD 10,000. easured in rupee terms, wealth has grown rapidly in India since 2000 except during the global financial crisis, says Credit Suisse's Global Wealth Report 2015. "Annual growth of wealth per adult in rupees has averaged 8 percent over 2000-2015. Prior to 2008, wealth also rose strongly in US dollar terms, from USD 2,040 in 2000 to USD 5,100 in 2007. After falling 26 percent in 2008, it rebounded to reach USD 5,300 in 2010, but then fell 13 percent in 2011 due to adverse exchange rate movements. Depreciation of the rupee has continued since, so that wealth per adult has not regained its previous peak and was just USD 4,350 in mid-2015," the report says. But India has as many as 254,000 members of the top 1 percent of global wealth holders, which equates to a 0.5 percent share. Credit Suisse estimates that 2,080 adults have wealth over USD 50 million and 940 people own more than USD 100 million. However, poverty continues to be a concern despite the strong rise in wealth. This is obvious from the fact that 95 percent of the adult population has wealth below USD 10,000, Credit Suisse says. Also, a very small proportion of the population (just 0.3 percent) has net
worth over USD 100,000. Personal wealth in India — like in many other developing countries — is dominated by property and other real assets, which make up 86 percent of estimated household assets, the report states. On a global perspective, the report essentially centres around middle class growth, which it states grew at a slower pace this year than wealth at the top end. This despite the wealth of the middle class growing strongly in all regions and in almost all countries almost throughout the century. " "Still, the middle class will continue to expand in emerging economies overall, with a lion's share of that growth to occur in Asia. As a result, we will see changing consumption patterns as well as societal changes as, historically, the middle class has acted as an agent of stability
and prosperity," Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane stressed. Another aberration has come from China outpacing the United States in terms of the number of people belonging to the middle class. The Chinese middle class now counts 109 million adults, well ahead of the 92 million adults part of the American middle class, the report states. Global wealth is likely to continue to grow at an annual rate of 6.5 percent in the coming years, reaching 345 trillion US dollars in 2020, 38 percent above the current level of wealth. Both China and India are likely to post annual growth rates above 9 percent in the five coming years. "They have together managed to double their share of global wealth to 10.5 percent over the past 15 years," the report says. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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CORRUPTION
WHY ONL Y SOLUTION ONLY TO BL ACK MONEY IS BLACK BANNING CORPORA TE CORPORATE FUNDING OF ELECTIONS After the close of the compliance window for disclosing foreign assets on September 30, Finance minister Arun Jaitley now wants to go after black money stashed right here in India. Part of this exercise, Jaitley said, would involve screening large-value cash transactions by stipulating Permanent Account Number (PAN) of the parties involved. n reality, all big value transactions channeled through bank accounts are monitored even now, including with the use of PAN number. This has been in practice at least for the last 15 years. According to an August 2002 RBI circular, customers should affix their PAN number in all transactions exceeding Rs 50,000. Further, banks and other financial institutions have to immediately report very high value transactions (more than Rs 10 lakhs) and any suspicious transactions to Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the government. According to FIU rules, all series of cash transactions ‘integrally connected to each other which have been individually valued below Rs 10 lakh or its equivalent in foreign currency where such series of transactions have taken place within a month and the monthly aggregate exceeds an amount of ten lakh rupees or its equivalent in foreign currency'. The point is the root of the problem lies in dubious financial transactions taking place almost every other day in real estate deals and other benami transactions with the blessings of politicians. Tackling this would require immense political will, which would be absent until the time political funding for elections (both for general election and local bodies) is made state-funded. Corporate lobbies, especially in real estate, operate hand in glove with local politicians and this is the key reason why political-corporate nexus SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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wouldn’t die easily. The work to cleanup the economy from the ills of black money should thus begin with breaking the back of this give-and-take relationship. This can happen only if political funding is made state-funded. Unfortunately, the Narendra Modi government has been so far silent about this crucial part. If at all corporations are interested in funding elections, the money should be routed through an independent, transparent trust under the surveillance of the Election Commission of India
(ECI) and investigative agencies. According to SY Quraishi, former chief election commissioner of India, “State funding will free the parties from dependence on — and clutches of — the corporate houses who feel tempted to run the government by proxy.” If necessary, Quraishi says, an Election Trust Fund could be created, to which corporations can make donations. The fund could be administered by an independent Trust or Election Commission. The allocation of funds will be based on the actual
performance of parties, whose accounts will be audited by an independent auditor on the ECI approved panel or by CAG. A study of ‘Political Finance Regulations around the World’ by the International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Stockholm (2012), showed that this system is working well in over 70 countries, including most European countries (86 percent), Africa (71 percent), North and South America (63 percent) and Asia (58 percent). In fact, the world is already moving into such a mechanism. In September, Brazil banned corporate funding in elections. The Brazilian Supreme Court about three weeks back voted 8-3 to allow election donations from individuals but not from companies. The decision had rendered unconstitutional a bill passed by the country's Congress allowing corporate funding for political parties, a report by Reuters said. The Brazilian court’s ruling came in the wake of a corruption investigation into bribes and political kickbacks on contracts with state-oil company Petrobras. The funds allegedly went into the pockets of dozens of politicians in President Dilma Rousseff's governing coalition. In India, the scenario is equally worrying, if not worse. According to Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch for 2013-14 that analyses the details of political funding received by various political outfits, there is a lot of explaining most of the leading parties, including the ruling BJP has to do. At present, about 75 percent of the sources of funds to political parties remain unknown. This is in contrast to the system in place in many other countries such as Bhutan, Nepal, Germany, France, Italy, Brazil, Bulgaria, the US and Japan, where the complete details of the donors to political parties are publicly available.
6 Lesser Known Facts About Titanic 1) Not a single engineer made it off the Titanic: they stayed and kept the power on so others could escape. True heroism is shown by ordinary people when they have to make last choice. 3) There was a Titanic survivor who dressed as a woman to gain access to one of the last lifeboats. Back in 1912, “women and children first” was a rule men followed primarily because doing so was a social imperative, it was not a prescription of a maritime law. 5) The Titanic’s lookouts couldn’t see the iceberg because of a cold water mirage. They simply didn’t see the iceberg, what they saw was a cold sea.
2) A priest on the Titanic refused a lifeboat and instead, stayed behind to hear confessions and give absolution to those on the ship. It was a parish priest from Essex whose name was Roussel Davids Byles. 4) On the real Titanic, the band actually did stay on the ship, playing music as it went down — They all died. It’s improssible to imagine what those musicians felt in their last moments… 6) The Titanic wasn’t described as “unsinkable” until after the ship sank. In fact it was less “unsinkable” than another ship built over 50 years earlier.
The big question is when one of the biggest beneficiaries of unrecorded financial transactions are political parties themselves, how do one expect politicians to act honestly to put an end to black money dealings in the domestic economy? There is no escape from this evil unless the root cause of the problem is addressed. Once political/election funding is made transparent and free from clutches of big corporates, the incentive for politicians to guard vested interests will cease to exist and the corporate-political nexus that generate blackmoney will begin to break. That’s where the government should act.
(Credit: FirstPost) SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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ADDICTION
WHY INDIA IS CRACKING DOWN BIG ON COUGH SYRUP MISUSE AND SMUGGLING Indian regulators are privately pressuring major drug firms to better police how they sell popular codeinebased cough syrups to tackle smuggling and addiction, a move that is reducing supplies of a medicine doctors say is an effective treatment.
risks versus benefits," said an official at the federal drugs controller in New Delhi.
RISING COSTS According to an industry executive, the likes of Pfizer and Abbott, who control most of the $103 million market for the drug, face a "significant" increase in costs as plants run well below capacity because of changes demanded of them. And the regulatory regime could get tougher. According to minutes of a July meeting of state and federal drug regulators, there was a recommendation to ban the sale of the syrup altogether because of "rampant misuse and its illegal exports to neighbouring countries." "A large number of regulators were in favour of strict control," said Akun Sabharwal, drugs controller for southern Telangana state, who attended the meeting. The federal drugs official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said an outright ban would not be easy to impose, given the medicine's importance. Abbott estimates roughly 60 million people suffer from regular dry cough in India.
ndia's Cipla stopped making the product last year owing to regulatory demands, and U.S.based Abbott Laboratories and Pfizer have had to reduce batch sizes by up to half, cutting how much medicine their factories can produce. But they are pushing back against other demands, a Reuters review of correspondence between companies and regulators showed, including selling one batch to only one buyer and printing labels that specify where the drug would be sold. Regulators want to make it easier for law enforcement agencies to track cough syrup abuse in the country and bottles smuggled to neighbouring Bangladesh, where it was banned in SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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the 1980s but is still sought by addicts. Retailers worried about liability from potential abuse by people addicted to the opiate codeine are in some cases refusing to stock the cough syrup, said J.S. Shinde, president of pharmaceutical lobby group All India Organization of Chemists and Druggists. Sales of the drug in India fell 4 per cent to 121 million bottles in the year through August, and 15 per cent in the year before, according to IMS Health, a healthcare statistics provider. For drug regulators, the challenge is to strike a balance. "Any non-therapeutic usage is a concern, but you have to weigh the
Pfizer's India unit said in a statement the company takes all steps to maintain the highest standards of regulatory compliance, including supply-chain audits. Abbott India said they believed existing Indian drug laws were adequate to control the abuse and the company had taken steps to support enforcement agencies.
RUINED LIVES Last year, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) billed the abuse of medicines containing narcotics and their smuggling from India among the "greatest drug-related challenges" facing South Asia. About 83,000 bottles of codeine-based cough syrups were seized in India in the six months through March. In meetings with companies, Indian
China Witnesses 10,000 New Startups a Day! More than 10,000 startup firms are being set up everyday in China as part of new reforms initiated by the Chinese government to halt the slide of the economy. China sees more than 10,000 firms born every day amid government support for entrepreneurship and so far about six million new startups have been setup, Xin Guobin, vice minister of Industry and Information Technology said. Most of the firms are small enterprises. regulators called the "menace of abuse" a "growing concern". Abuse is particularly common in Bangladesh. At a treatment centre in the capital Dhaka, tales abound of ruined careers and family struggles. A 40-year-old former banker at the Bangladesh Rehabilitation and Assistance Center for Addicts said his addiction was so bad he felt he loved cough syrup more than his four-yearold son. "I felt I must recover from this menace," he said, requesting anonymity because of the shame associated with addiction. The regulatory crackdown in recent years appears to have curtailed smuggling. About 750,000 bottles were seized in Bangladesh in 2014, 24 percent lower than 2013, the INCB said. Still, a fifth of Bangladesh's estimated 4 million drug users are addicted to such syrups, said Sayedur Rahman, a professor at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University. Inside Bangladesh, the cost of a bottle has more than tripled, indicating scarcity. Still, drug officials say the problem is underreported and more should be done.
INCREASING PRESSURE The latest crackdown on companies dates back to at least February 2014,
the review shows. Indian narcotics officials told companies to take several measures, including reducing batch sizes and printing where it would be sold on the label. They also asked them to sell drugs from one batch to one stockist only, a measure the executive said was impractical. That summer, regulators temporarily held back Cipla's allocation of codeine, manufactured solely in government factories, after the company failed to inform the government about steps it had taken to comply with the directive. Cipla said it never received the request for information. A Cipla spokeswoman said the company stopped making the drug last year after "considering the business environment ... and the fact that this product was regulated by multiple agencies." At another meeting in October, government officials again pressured pharmaceutical companies to comply with their demands. In August this year, regulators sent a letter asking for updates on further steps they had taken, an industry executive said.
(Credit: Thomson Reuters 2015)
Data was collected last March through the end of August this year and about six million firms were registered during the period, he said. The government has been cutting taxes and fees, helping small firms save about 48.6 billion yuan (USD 7.93 billion) in the first half of the year, Xin said. Lending to small firms stood at 16.2 trillion yuan (USD 2.7 billion) at the end of June, up 14.5 per cent from last year, Xin said. However, he admitted small firms are facing challenges amid economic slowdown, slumping product prices, rising costs and production overcapacity. The new startup campaign has been initiated by the government as the economic slowdown is causing big job losses all over China. The startups, were expected to revitalise the economy taking advantage of the booming e-commerce. The campaign was also expected to boost government's drive to boost the domestic consumption changing the orientation of the economy from export dependent to that of the one based on domestic consumption. Chinese economy is currently hovering around seven per cent. According to IMF, China's growth is expected to slow from 7.3 per cent in 2014 to 6.8 per cent this year and 6.3 per cent in 2016 as the country struggles with its shift from export to consumptiondriven economy. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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WEARABLES
Next Gen Wearable Fitness Trackers for Thighs, Feet, Head, Ears, Torso, and More The moment someone says 'fitness tracker', you likely think of a device mounted on the wrist, whether it's a band that only tracks fitness, or a smartwatch. It is true that wrist-mounted fitness devices are the most popular gadgets in the category, with at least 160 wrist-based fitness trackers in the market. ut we've also heard some people mention that they don't want to wear something like a Fitbit because they already wear a watch all the time, and so they don't want another thing to keep on their wrists.
Fitness Trackers for Head Fitness headgear is fairly limited, but there is an interesting smart cap from a company called Spree. The cap looks like a normal cap, and won't look out of place whether you're running or playing a game of tennis.
If you are someone who'd rather keep his wrists free, but still want to be able to track your fitness, we've got a bunch of options for you:
Fitness Trackers for Feet Everyone likes a good pair of shoes. And wouldn't it be great if your footwear could be your fitness coach? LeChal footwear has something similar in mind. What started as a company to improve navigation for the visually impaired people, is now one of the most innovative fitness solutions. LeChal uses what it calls 'pods' that can be clipped to your shoes to measure movement. They can snap into the shoes or LeChal insoles. At 22g these pods are pretty lightweight and they connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth. They are compatible with phones running Android 4.3 and above, and iOS 7 and above. Apart from normal features like step
counting and tracking calories burned, LeChal also has the capability to navigate you turn by turn via haptic feedback. It even works when you're not connected to the Internet. Another interesting feature is group journeys, to guide people to the same location from different starting points, using the pods. LeChal's solution starts from Rs. 5,999 (for insoles and pods), or you can buy shoes and pods starting from Rs. 8,999. Many 'dumb' pedometers can also be tied around your ankle, or clipped to your shoes, but if you're looking for something more specialised, then there is the Catapult, which is used by athletes. Used by football teams like Newcastle United, these are specialised gadgets that allow tracking of a number of different inputs, and combine with other sensors from the company to provide a complete analytics package that coaches can use to help their athletes reach their peak performance.
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The cap includes a module that the company calls a Performance Optimisation Device. It connects to your smartphone (both Android and iOS) over Bluetooth and gives you eight hours on a single charge. What you get is a 3-axis accelerometer, and a plethysmograph for body axis essentially, it can track your posture. It also includes a temperature sensor, and this is used to make the calorie readings more accurate. The Spree smart cap will set you back by $199, or around Rs. 13,000, plus
shipping and taxes/ duties that may be levied while importing from the US.
Fitness Trackers for Torso For more advanced users, getting fitness trackers built right into your workout clothes is a nice idea - there's no device to mount, and the tracking is usually extremely accurate too, as these kinds of devices can do more than just measure steps walked. Athos is an apparel company that integrates the fitness tracker with your daily fitness wear; you buy the (washing machine safe) workout pants and the tracker is built right in. The unique feature of Athos is that it tracks your muscle movement, heat and contraction. The real-time feedback application shows you what specific muscles were exercised the most during your workout. This is great for the serious fitness buffs as most of the trackers are just built for step counting and movements. Athos gives you the insights of each set performed in the gym or at home. Athos shorts and shirts have a total of 12 and 16 sensors respectively. These sensors include muscle activity sensors, heart rate sensors, and breathing sensors (just for the shirts). All of these sensors talk to a Bluetooth central core that connects to your smartphone via a companion app. The shirt costs $398 (approximately Rs. 25,000) while the shorts will cost $348 (approximately Rs. 22,000), and this includes the Bluetooth core as well.
Fitness Trackers for Ears The new crop of smart watches allows you the luxury of voice commands while you're running. But let's face it, most of the times they can't listen to
what you are saying because of environmental disturbances. FreeWavz is a set of Bluetooth wireless earphones that are dust and water resistant, and include heart rate and motion trackers, making them a great workout companion.
Leo supports Android, iOS and desktop apps, with smartwatch support coming soon. Right now Leo is only available for the early backers on Indiegogo, but in future the device is expected to be priced at $299, or approximately Rs.19,000
Data from these can be accessed via a companion app, but aside from that, the FreeWavz can of course also be used to listen to music, make calls, and reply to texts through the built-in microphones. The headphones have apparently been designed after consulting ENTs to fit your ear perfectly.
Fitness Trackers for Other Body Parts
The FreeWavz are not available yet, but can be pre-ordered right now, for $219, or around Rs. 14,000. Another notable product in this category is the Dash earbuds. These have the same features, but a much more compact design, and a built-in MP3 player. However, priced at $299 (approximately Rs. 19,000), they're also more expensive, and have a battery life of just about 3.5 hours.
There are some specialised trackers that can be worn anywhere on the body or slipped into your pocket. For instance Fitbit Zip and Fitbit One are some of the lightest and most easy to use clipon trackers, though they are a little limited. You should also check out Oxstren gloves which are launching this December, and promise to identify your exercise automatically, measure heart rate and grip force, and even evaluate your form when lifting weights.
Fitness Trackers for Thigh While walking, running or playing sports, one of the most common injuries is a muscle pull or a hamstring injury. Leo is a band worn on the thigh to track multiple parameters of your body constantly. Leo tracks muscle intensity, muscle fatigue to help you avoid injury, dehydration to help you keep hydrated throughout the day. It even suggests you muscle-targeted exercises. And there are also advanced measures like lactic acid measure, balance, and technique analysis. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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HISTORY
Secrets of 1962's Indo-China-(Pakistan) War Revealed Was it American and British posturing due to Nehru's secret request that made the surprising Chinese retreat, and prevent Pakistan from launching an opportunistic attack in 1962? A new book by a former CIA official claims so. It was already speculated that Nehru had turned to Kennedy in panic, after his trusted ally Soviet Union denied help in forcing China to withdraw. ormer Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had sought American assistance and wrote to the then US president John F Kennedy to provide India jet fighters to stem the Chinese tide of aggression during the 1962 Sino-India war, according to a new book. The main objective of Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People's Republic of China, to attack India in 1962 was to "humiliate" Nehru who was emerging as a leader of the third world, it said. "India's implementation of the Forward Policy served as a major provocation to China in September 1962," Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official, wrote the book titled 'JFK's Forgotten Crisis: Tibet, the CIA and the Sino-Indian War'. "Mao's focus was on Nehru, but a defeat of India would also be a setback for two of Mao's enemies: (Nikita) Khrushchev and Kennedy," Riedel wrote. As India was losing its territory to China fast and suffering heavy casualty, Nehru in a letter to Kennedy in November 1962 Bruce Riedel
said India needed "air transport and jet fighters to stem the Chinese tide of aggression."
telegram to the White House giving the President an advance notice that such a request was coming from Nehru.
"A lot more effort, both from us and from our friends will be required."
In the letter, Nehru asked for 12 squadrons of US air forces, Riedel told the Washington audience during the preview of the book at an event organised by the Brookings Institute a top American think-tank yesterday.
Nehru wrote another letter to Kennedy in quick succession, Riedel writes. This letter written by Nehru in a state of panic was hand delivered by the then Indian Ambassador to the US B K Nehru to Kennedy on November 19. "Nehru was thus asking Kennedy to join the war against China by partnering in an air war to defeat the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army of China). It was a momentous request that the Indian Prime Minister was making. Just a decade after American forces had reached a cease-fire with the Chinese Community Forces in Korea, India was asking JFK to join a new war against Community China," Riedel wrote in his book. Ahead of Nehru's letter, the then US Ambassador to India Galbraith sent a
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Bruce Riedel
"A minimum of 12 squadrons of supersonic all weather fighters are essential. We have no modern radar cover in the country. The United States Air Force personnel will have to man these fighters and radar installations while our personnel are being trained," Nehru wrote in the letter, which has been quoted by Riedel in the book. In addition, Nehru also requested "two squadron of B-47 Bombers" to strike in Tibet, the author says quoting the letter. In the letter, Nehru assured Kennedy that these bombers would not be used against Pakistan, but only for "resistance against the Chinese".
The stakes were "not merely the survival of India", Nehru told Kennedy "but the survival of free and independent Governments in the whole of this subcontinent or in Asia". Riedel said in the second letter Nehru was, in fact, asking Kennedy for some 350 combat aircraft and crews: 12 squadrons of fighter aircraft and crews: 12 squadron of fighter aircraft with 24 jets in each and two bomber squadrons. "At least 10,000 personnel would be needed to staff and operate jets, provide radar support and conduct logistical support for the operation," Riedel said adding this was a substantial forces, large enough to make it a numbered air force in the American order of battle. The British Prime Minister received a similar letter from Nehru, the American scholar writes. Referring to the subsequent instructions passed by Kennedy to his administration, Riedel described them as the one that of a president preparing for war. But before the US would take further steps, China announced unilateral ceasefire. After making major advances and being in a strong position to annex entire of North East and reach as far as Kolkata, the Chinese leadership surprised the world by announcing a unilateral ceasefire fearing that both Britain and the United State were getting ready to provide material support to India in the war. "Of course, we will never know what the specifics of American assistance to India would have been if the war continues," he wrote in the book set to be officially released in the first week of November. "We can be reasonably certain that America, India and probably Great Britain would have been at war together with China," Riedel concludes. The book also notes that Kennedy played a "decisive role" in "forestalling a Pakistani attack" on India, even as Islamabad then was clearly capable of initiating war with India and taking advantage of the situation New Delhi's vulnerability. Nehru, Riedel argues, ignored the advice of his general on the scene and instead
listened to the top brass in New Delhi. "This was a serious mistake. Having surrounded himself in New Delhi with 'courtiers' who told him 'only what his top military advisors believed he wished to hear', Nehru took their bad advice," he wrote. Riedel writes that Mao probably finalised the decision to go to war in a meeting in Beijing on October 6, 1962 with his senior generals. Mao told them that China had defeated Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalists Imperial Japan, and the United States in Korea, he wrote. Responding to a question, at the Brookings panel discussion, the former CIA official said, "The People s Liberation Army was ordered to impose a 'fierce and painful' blow on India and expel India from the territory of China claimed in Kashmir west of the Johnson Line and in NEFA South of McMahon Line." According to Riedel, on October 8 the Chinese Foreign Minister informed the Soviet Ambassador in Beijing that a massive attack by Beijing was eminent. "Because the Soviets were engaged in their own high-stakes gamble in Cuba, Moscow did not discourage the Chinese, despite Khrushchev s close relationship with Nehru," he said in the book. " At the same time defeating India would answer the question Kennedy had raised in his 1959 speech in the Senate about which country, democratic India or communist China, was poised to win the race for great power status in Asia. For Mao the conflict with India provided a surrogate for his rivalry with Moscow and with Washington," Riedel wrote in his book. "On October 28, 1962, the day before Nehru asked for American military help, the US Ambassador in Pakistan, Walter McConaughy met with the then Pakistani ruler Ayub Khan. "The Ambassador urged him to send assurances to Nehru that Pakistan would not take advantage of India s war with China," he wrote. In response Khan proposed that "the Americans and Pakistanis work together to to seek the surrender of Indian territory just as Chinese were grabbing land". This the US considered as "blackmail", Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru Riedel said. Galbraith immediately sent an "alarming telegram" to Washington and Karachi "asking for God s sake that hey keep Kashmir out" of any American message to Pakistan, Riedel said in the book, adding that Washington sided immediately with Galbraith on Kashmir. At the advice of the US, Nehru then wrote a letter to Ayub Khan. "Pakistan was clearly capable of initiating war with India, but decided in 1962 not to take advantage of India s vulnerability," Riedel writes. According to Riedel, the Americans played a decisive role in forestalling a Pakistani attack on India. "Kennedy s message to Ayub Khan, reinforced by similar message from Prime Minister Macmillan, left little in doubt that the United States and the United Kingdom would view a Pakistani move against India as a hostile and aggressive action inconsistent with the SEATO and CENTO Treaties. The Americans told Pakistan that the Chinese attack was the most dangerous move made by Mao since 1950 and that they intended to respond decisively," he wrote. Riedel, a well-known American expert of South Asia and advisors to four successive US presidents including Barack Obama, is a senior fellow and director of the Brookings Intelligence Project. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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HOME LOANS
KHUSH HOUSING FINANCE
FINANCING PEOPLE, NOT PAPER Amit Magia nurtures both ideals and profitability hand in hand. The housing finance company that he has crafted with a slogan of ‘Khushiyon bhari Udaan’ is one of the latest HFCs to get a housing finance license from the sector regulator, National Housing Bank. A Chartered Accountant and a Harvard Business School alumnus, Amit Magia’s entrepreneurial venture Khush Housing Finance is all set to commence operations within a month’s time. The Mumbai headquartered firm is eyeing the huge growth potential in serving home loans to the EWS and LIG categories of customers, who are totally neglected by the banking system and conventional HFCs. While banks cite the lack of formal income – read income proof on paper – as the deterrent for giving these customers home loans, Amit is all set to turn this logic on its head, by announcing that he is financing people, and not paper. Khush Housing Finance would be assessing the real income of real people without relying on paper proofs, and enabling them to have that coveted roof over their heads. An idealist at heart, Amit says that what drives him is not just the hunger for profits, but the satisfaction that he gets from helping thousands of customers escape from the vicious trap of moneylenders. Seasonal Magazine interviews Amit Kirit Magia, Founder, MD, & CEO of Khush Housing Finance. Can you brief us about how you became attracted to serving home loans to the underserved categories? I am a Chartered Accountant. While I was practicing on my own, around 15 years back, I used to do a lot of home loan advising. I was quick to realize that there were many deserving aspirants for home loans, to whom the banks and HFCs were not willing to lend. And I made a note to myself that if I were to be an entrepreneur in the SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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financial sector one day, delivering home loans to the underserved would be my area of choice.
Did it take 4 years for Khush to get a license from National Housing Bank?
But did it take longer than you expected, to get into housing finance?
No, we applied only in March 2015. I would say that we got the license from NHB very fast. Before applying, we had to do a lot of ground work and we also had to infuse the necessary funds. The business structure had to be created and there is also a lot of paperwork associated with the license application process.
Not really. During these intervening years, I continued my CA practice, tried different things, and attended Harvard Business School too. It was only in 2011 that I left my last job and finally decided to seriously pursue housing finance as a business venture.
What is the kind of funds that you have infused into the company, and from what sources? NHB has a minimum requirement of Rs. 10 crore for considering an applicant for a housing finance license, and that is the sum we have invested. As of now, we have not taken any debt or external equity, and everything is own funds only. But you can leverage by a few times over your own funds, isn’t it? Yes, of course, we can leverage on net owned funds. But we will be doing this at only a later stage, as our focus being on small-ticket housing loans, we have room for growth with own funds itself. Will you be looking at attracting PE/Venture funds for future expansion? Yes, definitely we will be looking at such opportunities in the future to scale up, but as of now there are no such plans. When are you planning to commence operations? Within a month’s time we hope to be fully operational. When you say underserved categories of homebuyers, who all will fall into this definition?
Amit Magia
“If there is no paper proving your income, even if you have real income, the banks wouldn’t give you any loan. Today, the situation is such that EWS and LIG persons are even afraid of entering a bank, let alone request a loan from them. We want to build confidence for such customers.“
Basically, these customers belong to the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) or Low Income Group (LIG) kind of customers to which banks and HFCs don’t extend housing loans, citing the reason that their incomes are informal. What would be your average ticket size, and the maximum limit to which you will lend? Our plan is to limit the average ticket size at around Rs. 10 lakhs. The upper limit would be Rs. 25 lakhs. What would be your average retail lending rate? We are starting with rates pegged between 12% to 15%, and we hope to bring it down, together with the industry, as and when the cost of funds come down due to rate cuts and its transmission into the system. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Do you think the Governments should do more to promote affordable housing and housing finance for the underserved? The Central Government has recently acted on a major front, which is the introduction of the Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme, which can facilitate home loans to EWS and LIG segments at around 6.5%. This can be a gamechanger, but there is always room for more reforms from the part of central and state governments. Are you planning a project-led or branch-led expansion? Both models will be there, but when I say project-led it doesn’t mean that we would provide developer loans of any kind. We would undertake only retail lending to homebuyers. But we plan to identify good affordable projects and tie-up with them for the benefit of our customers. Focusing more on your branches, what will be your expansion plans? We are starting with two branches now. We have a robust plan to scale up, which would be very systematic. The pace would be like starting a new branch every two months. As a new player, that too in the time-consuming underserved segment, how confident are you about your planned Turnaround Times? To start with, we will be targeting a TAT of 10 to 15 days, and we are confident of achieving it in most cases. We already have the resources in place to achieve that. But as we mature in this business, definitely we would target better turnaround times. Do you have the requirement for a guarantor or a co-applicant for a home loan to be sanctioned? It won’t be a critical requirement in most cases. But we would encourage women of the homes to be co-applicants as it will give them a deeper sense of ownership. We would encourage even housewives to do that, as I believe that such homemakers do the hardest works without demanding any remuneration. Man works for 8-10 hours a day whereas woman works for 24 hours. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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“Profits are important, especially for the sustainability of a venture, but at the end of the day what would give me satisfaction is the realization that we have enabled thousands of households in having a home of their own, without falling into the vicious trap of moneylenders.”
What would be the geographical reach of Khush Housing Finance? We are beginning with our full focus on Maharashtra. After the first six months of operation, we would branch out in Gujarat and Rajasthan, and after one year, we will enter other key states one by one, including South Indian states like Tamilnadu and Kerala. Speaking more about Maharashtra, which all cities and regions would be your initial targets as a loan provider to the underserved class? Well, as you know, there is a total dearth in supply of affordable homes, when you consider a Tier-I city like Mumbai. So, in such cities, we would be focusing on regions that are more than 50 kilometres from the city centre. But in cities like Pune, Nashik etc we would be serving home loans in much nearer city suburbs. Will you start offering the newer product of Group Housing Loans that is based on the microfinance architecture? We would like to explore housing microfinance at a later stage, especially in Tier-II and Tier-III cities and their suburbs. Though it is too premature to speak about your asset quality, how confident are you about maintaining a reasonable asset quality?
A lot of thought and preparation have gone into creating our business structure and processes, and we are pretty confident that we can achieve an asset quality that is at par or better than the other players who are focused on the underserved segment. Khush Housing Finance is your first financing business. At the end of the day what would give you real satisfaction? Profits are important, especially for the sustainability of a venture, and serving the underserved category of homebuyers give you the added advantage of steady scaling up in revenue and profits. But at the end of the day what would give me satisfaction is the realization that we have enabled thousands of households in having a home of their own, without falling into the vicious trap of moneylenders. As a new organization set for sailing soon, what is your management philosophy? The happiness or khushi of the customer is paramount. Khush customers makes Khush employees and Khush stakeholders. In fact, our tagline is “Khushiyon bhari Udaan.” As a promoter, I have created a very open style, and anybody here including a peon can come and speak with me directly. What would be the real USP of Khush Housing Finance? There is a tremendous demand for the services of HFCs like us, only because banks and large HFCs are looking at papers and not the people. If there is no paper proving your income, even if you have real income, the banks wouldn’t give you any loan. Today, the situation is such that EWS and LIG persons are even afraid of entering a bank, let alone request a loan from them. We want to build confidence for such customers. We want to tell them that “You too can” , and build a relationship based on that. So we have coined a slogan for ourselves, which reads as “Finance people, not paper.” This focus would be our USP.
AUTO
MARUTI LAUNCHES BALENO TO CATCH UP WITH HYUNDAI I20 AND HONDA JAZZ Maruti is eyeing leadership in the premium hatchback segment with the 99% localised Baleno. The car is expected to be priced from Rs 5.5 lakh onward close to the base variants of the Hyundai Elite i20 and the Honda Jazz.
he Baleno, the premium hatchback from Maruti Suzuki that was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show last month, had recently made its global debut in India. It will be the second car to be sold through the company’s premium sales channel, the Nexa, and will primarily compete with premium hatchbacks such as Hyundai Elite i20, Honda Jazz and Volkswagen Polo. “We are eyeing leadership in the premium hatchback segment with the Baleno,” RS Kalsi, executive director, Marketing & Sales, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, said. He added that the number of Nexa showrooms will increase to 80 by the end of the month when the Baleno is launched. The bookings for the Baleno had opened just before the launch. MSIL and its vendors have together invested Rs 1,060 crore in the development of the Baleno over four years and it is the second product, after
the now-discontinued A-Star, which will be made in India for the world. “The Baleno will be manufactured at the company’s Manesar facility and will be exported to over 100 countries,” Kalsi said, adding, “We will start Baleno exports in a couple of months.” As far as domestic market is concerned, he said that the company’s production facilities are geared up to supply whatever the market demands. Maruti, which has a vast network of 1,702 dealers, is also hopeful that selling the Baleno only through the Nexa will not limit its sales numbers. “The 80 Nexa showrooms that we will have by the end of the month are owned by such dealers who, on an average, have three Maruti showrooms each. And customers going to those 240-odd showrooms will be indirectly exposed to the Baleno. Thus, we will have a catchment area of 320 (240+80) sales outlets to begin with.”
The Baleno will get two engine options—the 1.2-litre VVT petrol and 1.3-litre DDiS 190 diesel. While the company-claimed fuel-efficiency for the petrol is 21.4 kmpl, that for the diesel is 27.39 kmpl, which is second only to the company’s Celerio Diesel. It gets various first-time features for the segment, such as Apple CarPlay, UV Cut glasses which reduce ultraviolet rays by 85%, and a multi-information speedometer display. The Baleno also gets safety features such as dual airbags, antilock braking system (ABS) and electronic brakeforce distribution (EBD) as standard across variants. It is the first hatchback from Maruti to be offered with the Continuous Variable Transmission (CVT) fully automatic gearbox. The Baleno, which has high localisation levels of 99% to begin with, is expected to be priced from Rs 5.5 lakh onward — close to the base variants of the Elite i20 and the Jazz.
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GADGET
Why This High-end Phone is Incredibly Cheap, But Made Hard to Buy Less than two years ago, the OnePlus One redefined the level of quality one can expect from a budget smartphone, a $300 device that compared (sometimes favorably) to flagships twice its price. It also redefined frustration with an arcane, invite-based ordering system. The new OnePlus X pushes that value proposition even farther. The invites are back, too — but for a good reason, as a small company has no other way to offer such a grand phone at this price point, without risking its entire existence! irst, the phone, a $250 device with the look and specs of if not an iPhone or Galaxy S device, something on the very next rung. It’s got 3GB of RAM, a 5-inch, 1080p AMOLED display, and a 13MP rear-facing camera. On balance, that’s roughly comparable to Google’s shiny, new, $380 Nexus 5X, itself an aggressive value play. From there, you settle for a ho-hum Snapdragon 801 processor and 16GB of storage, somewhat balanced out by expandable microSD storage, a nearextinct smartphone feature in 2015. It also runs OxygenOS, an operating system that looks and feels like Google’s version of Android (it even uses Google apps) but is built by OnePlus from the ground up, which isn’t so much good or bad but interesting. All of this would make the OnePlus X a steal, even if it were housed in a plastic brick body. It’s not. The OnePlus X is a looker. Its build quality looks like it could have come straight out of Cupertino, though not in an imitative way. It has a glass backplate, for heaven’s sake. “If you look at the specs, they are still pretty powerful specs,” says OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei. “But we have come to a time where incremental SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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increase in clock speed doesn’t add to the user experience as much as a better camera, or much better build quality, or better design does.” It’s clear that OnePlus has focused its efforts on the latter. There’s even an extremely limited-edition ceramic version of the OnePlus X that’s literally “fire-baked” at 2,700 degrees, for 28 hours, as part of the manufacturing process. It sounds like something you’d find from a gaudy ultra-lux shop like Vertu. It costs just a little over $400. “This is a very big step for us as a company,” explains Pei. “We are trying to reach a broader audience. Maybe not the mass market, but maybe people who care more about the design of a product” than the early adopter crowd that gave OnePlus its early success. Now the bad news: While the OnePlus X will be more available than the OnePlus One and OnePlus Two were at their respective launches, it’s still not going to be easy to get one. A broader audience, after all, means fewer devices to go around. Still, some OnePlus adjustments should make invite acquisition slightly less labyrinthine. Besides which, it turns out there’s a very good chance that you’d miss them if they were gone. Invitation Only Here’s how the OnePlus X invite process works: For the first month that the phone is available, you can sign up to be placed on a reservation list. From that list, a select number of people will be offered an invitation to purchase the phone. The initial run of invites comprises 5,000 apiece for the U.S., Europe, and India (Apple sold 13 million iPhone 6s and 6s Plus units in just the first three days of sales). So far, so simple, even if the numbers are a bit daunting. From there, it becomes much less so. The reservation list isn’t the only way to get an invite; you can also get one through OnePlus social media promotions, or at one of a few pop-up shops. After the first
“If you look at other smartphone makers, and hardware and consumer electronics companies, inventory has been a much bigger pain than a lack of sales,” Pei notes. “More companies go bankrupt because they keep too much stock, versus companies who can’t sell enough.”
month, invites will be available once a week on a first-come, first serve basis. That window will always be the same day of the week, but could start at different times on that day. They’ll initially be an hour long, but could expand based on, well, who knows? Also, people who do buy a phone can pass an invite along to a friend. Oh, and the OnePlus X won’t be available in the U.S. until November 19. Europe and India went live on November 5. Eventually, the company has said, the OnePlus will be available invite-free. Until then, though, you’ll probably have better luck catching fireflies with a slotted spoon. That’s a key trade-off, though, to having something so good come so cheap. “We know that the invite system limits the speed of our growth, but it also gives us more security in how we run our business,” explains Pei. “We might be trading off some short-term growth opportunities in exchange for a more long-term, more healthy business.” The invite system isn’t ideal but the two alternatives, as Pei sees them, are even worse. He could produce enough phones to cover his most ambitious sales estimates, and risk being stuck
with a major write-down — remember, Amazon got stuck with a $170 million Fire Phone bill just last year. Or he could charge a lot more to help mitigate any potential losses, but get lost in the ever-expanding sea of perfectly adequate, $400 Android handsets. Instead, OnePlus is pursuing a strategy that it knows isn’t perfect, but beats becoming anonymous — or worse. “If you look at other smartphone makers, and hardware and consumer electronics companies, inventory has been a much bigger pain than a lack of sales,” Pei notes. “More companies go bankrupt because they keep too much stock, versus companies who can’t sell enough.” It’s better, in other words, to have a delayed OnePlus X than risk having no OnePlus X at all. Pei remains open to other sales strategies, and says the company has learned a lot since the rocky launches of the OnePlus One and OnePlus Two. He also knows they haven’t figured it out quite yet, and that the stakes to do so are higher than ever. “Over the last two years, we grew much faster than we thought we would,” says Pei. “Now there’s a lot of people who want to buy our phones, but they’re becoming more and more frustrated by how hard the phones are to get - It’s too difficult of a process.” Part of the solution is availability, and part of it is process. The larger volume of invites should help with the former. As for the latter, despite its gloss the OnePlus X uses more off-the-shelf components than its predecessors did, meaning it should be easier to ramp up when needed. We’re still pretty far from the day buying a OnePlus X is as simple as offering the company your money and receiving a good in exchange. To pass the time until then - or until you score an invite — just remember that the OnePlus X is absolutely a bargain. Your end of it is patience.
(Credit: Wired) SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Jaeger-LeCoultre presents the Reverso a Eclipse: a tribute to Vincent van Gogh
Forevermark and Chow Tai Fook unveil an 104 carat diamond Heritage Full Bloom Chow Tai Fook 104 carat Forevermark diamond The largest Forevermark diamond in the world has been unveiled by long-standing Forevermark Diamantaire and Authorised Forevermark Jeweller, Chow Tai Fook. The spectacular 104-carat diamond was expertly cut and polished by master craftsmen at Chow Tai Fook, with the meticulous process taking three years to complete. It is a ‘D’ colour, internally flawless (DIF), round brilliant cut diamond with the highest possible cut grade of 3-Excellent.
Bvlgari launches Bvlgari Man All Blacks Limited Editions With raw power and ancestral pride, Bulgari allies with the All Blacks New Zealand rugby team to create two limited editions: Bvlgari Man in Black and Bvlgari Man Extreme All Blacks 2015 Editions. Hailing the Roman gods who reigned for centuries, Bvlgari Man All Blacks Limited Editions possess a strong olfactory signature, dramatically characterized by a raw sensuality that recalls Vulcan, the charismatic Roman god of fire. Thus the New Zealand All Blacks, with their charisma, performance and excellence that have made them the best rugby team in the world, are the natural partner of
Set in platinum and 18k yellow gold mounting, this one’s a 75.54-carat fancy vivid yellow radiant cut diamond ring.
2015 marks the 125th anniversary of the death of Dutch post-impressionist painter, Vincent van Gogh. To commemorate this occasion, Jaeger-LeCoultre and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam are presenting a limited edition of the Reverso à Eclipse watch featuring Van Gogh’s iconic Sunflowers on the dial. Painted in 1889, the original Sunflowers canvas dates from the final period in Van Gogh’s life and is owned by the Van Gogh Museum. The watch is a result of collaboration between JaegerLeCoultre and its Dutch partner Gassan that wished to create a remarkable piece that had to combine three components: craftsmanship, art and heritage.
mythical Bvlgari Man. Bulgari and the All Blacks share common values. With passion for their fields, they are simply the best at what they do. Rugby is New Zealand’s game; design defines Italy’s soul. Together they are opulent and powerful, individually, they are unique and bold.
Rare and flawless gem from the fabled Hope Collection to be sold at Bonhams Resurfacing after many years, a rare gem from The Hope Spinel collection is going to be auctioned at Bonhams. The Hope Spinel was part of one of the world’s greatest gem collections until its owner – London banker Henry Philip Hope – died in 1839. It has not been offered for sale since 1917 when it went for £1,060 – the equivalent of £80,000 in today’s money. Bonhams, now, is expecting bids in the region of £150,000 to SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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£200,000 for the treasure. Set in a 19th century silver and gold brooch, the huge 50.13 carats octagonal-cut stone is the size of a small plum and of similar colouring with a splendid rose hue. A spinel is a gemstone sometimes confused with ruby because they’re found in the same rock formations, are chemically similar and often have a beautiful pinkish-red colouring. But very large specimens are often more transparent - that is freer from inclusions or “flaws” - than ruby.
Burberry launches its Scarf Bar and two new Trench Coats Burberry has expanded its two iconic products to launch The Burberry Scarf Bar and two new trench coats. The Burberry Scarf Bar offers customers an expanded range of classic and lightweight cashmere designs, all made in Scotland. Launched with a new range of colours and prints as well as a variety of thread colours for monogramming, customers can choose to create their own Burberry scarf exactly the way they want it, for the first time. The Burberry Scarf Bar, in-
store and online, features a selection of over 30 colours, in classic and lightweight cashmere, including the iconic heritage shades – Camel, Stone, Charcoal, Navy and Parade Red. The monogramming service allows personalisation of the expanded range of scarves with embroidery in over 30 shades of thread with up to three letters, in two font sizes. If buying the scarf online, customers can use their responsive online monogramming tool for the purpose.
Honeymooning with James Bond Striking off the stereotypical honeymoon destinations, Austria-based Chalet überHaus are offering something more adventurous and mystical to honeymooning couples. From offering flights in private helicopters and driving on bustling streets in Aston Martins, the travel firm has introduced a James Bond-style vacation for you and your spouse.
Qatar Airways offers Giorgio Armani and Missoni products to First Class and Business Class passengers
Qatar Airways is offering exclusive amenity kits from Italian brands Giorgio Armani Fragrances & Beauty and sleeper suits from Missoni, to reiterate the airline’s commitment to delivering five-star indulgence in the sky. Every element of the new Giorgio Armani Fragrances & Beauty amenity kit has been given a signature touch. The exclusively designed kits ensure passengers are kept refreshed and relaxed throughout their journey. Included are Giorgio Armani Fragrances & Beauty products
from the mythic ‘Acqua di Gio’ and ‘Armani pour Homme’ together with Armani men skincare products, and the new feminine Giorgio Armani fragrance ‘Si’ range and ‘Crema Nera Extrema supreme reviving cream’, as well as eyeshades, socks, earplugs, a nourishing lip balm by Rituals Cosmetics and a hair brush for female passengers. First Class passengers on overnight flights will also enjoy stylish and luxurious sleeper suits designed by Italian fashion house Missoni paired with Missoni slippers.
Chanel launches Le Weekend de Chanel Edition Douce Le Weekend de Chanel Edition DouceOctober 28, 2015: Chanel’s technology of ‘resynchronizing skincare’ is the first of its kind to compensate the effects of an intense lifestyle on the skin. It is composed of three rhythm-setting skincare products with innovative formulas that work to put skin back in sync with your lifestyle: Le Jour De Chanel, La Nuit De Chanel, Le Weekend De Chanel. Chanel is also the first cosmetics brand to create a specific skincare product for the weekend. Le Weekend De Chanel resets the clock and focuses on the skin’s fundamental needs: balance, hydration and soothing comfort. Chanel has now launched a second version: Le Weekend De Chanel Édition Douce, with a skin-loving formula in a different texture, specifically developed for sensitive skin and adapted to its needs. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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Festive winter collection launched by Ri Ritu Kumar Ri Ritu Kumar, the bespoke label by Ritu Kumar, has launched its new Festive Winter Collection for 2015 with a beautifully crafted story that weaves through the festivities surrounding a wedding. Conceptualized by her son, Amrish Kumar, and photographed by Farrokh Chothia, the collection has been shot in Sujan Singh Palace, Jaipur. The collection portrays the cast of the most important women in an Indian wedding, the bride, mother of bride, the mother of groom, sisters of the bride and groom. The collection aims to be a testimony to the repertoire of the Ritu Kumar design house - which has been worn by generations of Indian women. In true Ritu Kumar aesthetic, the collection is elegant and beautiful without being loud. The images have been laced with a quirky tongue in cheek humor which almost coaxes you to imagine the dynamics between these women.
IWC Schaffhausen Pays Tribute to Swiss Air Force Renowned Swiss watch manufacturer IWC Schaffhausen pays homage to the skilled Patrouille Suisse, the team of aerobatic squadrons of the Swiss Air Force, with the launch of a special edition watch named after them. Patrouille Suisse has been amazing people at international air shows with
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their outstanding flying skills and aerobatics. This watch, called the Big Pilot’s Watch Edition “Patrouille Suisse”, is inspired by the design of the manufacturer’s 52 T.S.C. Big Pilot’s Watch produced in 1940. Only 250 such watches will be produced.
IWC Schaffhausen launches a Big Pilot's Watch Edition "Patrouille Suisse" Watch manufacturer IWC Schaffhausen is paying tribute to Patrouille Suisse with a special edition for 2015. The pilots of the Swiss Air Force display team have been wowing international air show crowds for decades with precision and perfection of their formation flying. And so, IWC is recognizing the exceptional flyers of the Swiss aerobatics squadron with a Big Pilot’s Watch Edition “Patrouille Suisse”, a special version of the iconic watch first produced in 1940 which will be limited to 250 watches. This special edition is presented in grey with a case of blasted stainless steel. The 51011 calibre – the largest automatic movement manufactured in-house by IWC Schaffhausen – combines all the features that have proved their worth in the history of IWC. Within no time at all, the spring-mounted rotor and Pellaton pawl-winding system build up a power reserve of over 7 days, and after exactly 168 hours the movement is mechanically stopped by an ingenious train in the power reserve.
Chopard’s Happy Sport Watch Gets an Elegant Facelift Two decades later, one of the most iconic timepieces from Chopard — the Happy Sport — gets an elegant and compact makeover that will surely enthral women across the world. The journey of the Happy Sport watch began in 1993 when Caroline Scheufele, Co-President and Artistic
Director, Chopard, designed a sporty watch with steel and diamonds. Soon, it became a symbol for Chopard. In 2013, the Geneva-based brand celebrated 20 years of this timepiece with the introduction of the Happy Sport Medium Automatic.
Legend Coats iPhone 6S in Precious Metals
Topshop and Topman Make Their Way to Indian Shores Topshop and Topman have earned a reputation as strong fashion brands across UK and the world. They now launch in India to add to the glory of fashion in the country. British fashion labels Topshop and Topman have been in the news for collaborating with wellknown designers and super models such as Christopher Kane and Kate Moss. With over 300 stores across the
world, the brands have now made their way to India. The brands will launch in the country and showcase their autumn winter 2015 collections. Inspired by the royal British style, the Topshop collection encapsulates a bohemian, 70s-inspired mood with laidback pieces. On the other hand, Topman apparel and accessories are influenced by the 90s, travel and military trends.
Ranveer Singh is the New Official Face for Adidas Originals in India
Apple iPhone is considered as one of the finest smartphones the world over. But true connoisseurs of luxury might want a bit more for their gadgets. Legend launches gold and platinum draped Apple phones for its discerning audiences. High-end Finnish luxury electronics company Legend has been creating precious metal plated Apple products for a few years now. Their bespoke smartphones have been the premier choice of the elite. Now, you can pre-order
the custom-made iPhone 6S holding 128 GB memory. The Classique iPhone 6S model features 87 VVS1 grade diamonds studded into the precious metal logo and the thickest layer of gold plating in the industry - 10 microns. Buyers can choose from 24k gold, rose gold, platinum and black rhodium. There is also an option of ordering the Momentum model that comes with special hand engraving. You can customise your phone further by adding initials or designs as per your choice.
Leading sportswear brand adidas Originals recently roped in the über stylish Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh as their brand ambassador in India. Coupling their luxe streetwear style with Ranveer’s laidback, subtle yet elegant styling, it seems almost certain that the brand has made a smart move well
in time, what with the actor’s ever-growing popularity. Their plan of setting up a powerful base in India—expanding to leading metros across the country—recently witnessed a new twist with a celebrity association. Leading Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh is announced as the brand ambassador for Ger-
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Bottega Veneta Mallow Intrecciato Nappa Messenger Bag Price: INR 1,03,000/Available at Bottega Veneta boutiques in New Delhi
Michael Kors Black Sedgwick Smooth Calf/Embossed Mary Jane Price on request Available at Michael Kors boutiques in New Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai
Hommage á Claude Monet Collection
Price on request
Christian Louboutin Tucsick 120 Patent Glitter Mini Opaline Gold
Available at Gucci boutiques in New Delhi and Mumbai
Price on request
Hommage á Gustav Klimt 24kt gold-plated watch bangle and ring
Gucci GG blooms supreme canvas backpack
24kt gold-plated royal bangle and small half-moon pendant.
Available at Christian Louboutin boutiques in Mumbai and New Delhi
Emporio Armani men’s tie in ruby Fendi green and pink Paradeyes sunglasses Price: INR 35,600/- Approx Available at Fendi boutique in DLF Emporio Mall, New Delhi
Tod’s Cloud bag Price on request Available at Tod's boutiques in DLF Emporio Mall, New Delhi
Louis Vuitton Run Away sneaker anthracite Price on request
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Price: INR 12,000/Available at Emporio Armani boutiques in New Delhi and Mumbai
The pricing for the BMW C 650 GT and C 650 Sport are expect to start at $9,990 (approx. INR 6 lakhs) and are likely to hit markets by October, 2015.
Available at Louis Vuitton boutiques in New Delhi and Mumbai
Giorgio Armani textured square logo belt Price: INR 27,500/Available at Giorgio Armani boutique in New Delhi
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BMW motorbikes and cars have been popular choices for auto enthusiasts, but the brand’s maxi scooters have also created a buzz amidst those seeking adventure travel and urban cruising.
Stefano Ricci trolley Price on request Available at Stefano Ricci boutiques in Mumbai and New Delhi
The highlight of the SUV is its Terrain Response System which offers an amazing off-road credibility. The Terrain Response System is a four-wheel drive system which allows the SUV to go over different surfaces.
The All New Limited Edition Ferrari F12 TdF The prancing horse finally unveils the F12 TdF, which was created as a tribute to the Tour de France. It is an endurance road race from the 1950s that comprised cars with maximum performance. The race demanded competitors to drive for hundreds of kilometres a day over difficult roads and circuits.
Audi A6 Matrix 35TDi - The Near Perfect Luxury Saloon Cruise the roads of Mumbai and it’s hard to not notice the sheer number of SUVs that bear the famous four rings on its grille. However, the market share that Audi commands in the mid-level luxury car segment pales in comparison to the significant chunk it occupies in the luxury SUV space. But the carmaker plans to change this positioning. We spent a few days with the latest weapon in its arsenal with which the Ingolstadt-based carmaker plans to embed the characters ‘A6’ firmly in a world dominated by its other models such as ‘E’ and ‘5’.
Explore Your Limits with the SeaXplorer by Damen Ever fantasised about how it would be to vacation in the extreme conditions of Antartica? Seems distant right? Well, no worries. Dutch shipyard Damen has something to turn your dream into a reality–the SeaXplorer super yacht. This is available in three vessel sizes – 65, 90 and 100 meters long. Take a look at the stunning new SeaXplorer by Damen and its extravagant features.
The Mean Machine: Porsche Cayman Black Edition The first half of 2015 saw a surge in luxe Porsche cars. In fact, the brand introduced the Black Editions of the 911 Carrera and Boxster. And now, the Cayman Black Edition is here to complete the noir trilogy! We’ll tell you more about this swanky dark Porsche.
Inside Tankoa’s Newly-Crafted Italian Mega Yacht Genoa-based boutique ship manufacturers Tankoa recently unveiled a 69 metre long luxury yacht in association with the luxury yacht charter company Yacht-Ology. Called the SUERTE Tankoa S693, the vessel integrates the ship building company’s superior quality and avant-garde technology. Here's a walk-through inside the contemporary mega yacht. This is what we loved about the new S693. SEASONAL MAGAZINE
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CELEBRITIES & THEIR LOVE FOR ABU JANI SANDEEP KHOSLA COUTURE With around three glorious decades behind them, designer duo Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla have revolutionised Indian fashion. From Hollywood to Bollywood, celebrities cannot get enough of AJSK’s classic style with a couture touch. We round up our favourites from the world of glamour who have donned royal designs from the duo on red carpets and other events. From top actresses such as Deepika Padukone and Alia Bhatt to socialites like Pinky Reddy and Twinkle Khanna, celebrities cannot seem to get enough of AJSK’s elegant weaves. Take a look.
World’s Most Expensive Perfume Set: The Royalé Dream
Your Wardrobe is Incomplete Without Gucci’s Dionysus Bag Taking the universe of bags bars higher, Gucci recently unveiled its latest collection of bags–Dionysus. From cute honey bee emblazoned bags to the floral motif inscribed ones, the inspiration comes from the Greek god Dionysus himself. The bags feature a textured double tiger-head closure at the front and a sliding chain strap which can be worn in multiple ways, alternated between the shoulders or as a top handle bag. The design is refers to the myth wherein the Greek god transformed himself into a tiger to carry a nymph named Tigris across the river. Don’t bother if you haven’t heard about this story, there are plenty other reasons to love this extravagantly attractive range.
Wealth truly has a unique scent, and the The Royalé Dream is a classic example of that. With three exquisite fragrances, this one is the world’s most expensive perfume set. Luxury perfumer Cuarzo The Circle and World of Diamonds Group join hands to create one of the most powerful scents that cost a fortune. The treasure chest of perfumes has three fragrances – one for men, one for women and a natural unisex one. The masculine scent uses the most expensive oil in the world, exuding a base note of pure Oud oil, stored in a bottle with 10 diamonds weighing 0.41 carats. Ladies will enjoy notes such as lotus, water lily and violet contained in a bottle with six pink diamonds. The unisex one has 24k gold flakes floating in the liquid.
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The Dionysus bag collection has a number of versions offering a choice in material selection like suede, python and crocodile. Each bag in the collection has a distinctive creature or flora embroidered on it. The figures are handembroidered on the bags using thin strips of brass wrapped in silk thread. The price of the collection starts at INR 1,32,000 approximately.
Roger Dubuis launches the Velvet Collection of watches Roger Dubuis, Swiss manufacturer of luxury timepieces, has presented the fabulous Velvet Collection, embodying glamorous design and stunning mechanism. An absolute stunner resplendent in pink gold, the Velvet High Jewellery is a veritable vision of beauty and style. The exquisite timepiece is fully paved with diamonds.
1 Hotel Central Park unveiled in New York SH Group, the hotel brand management arm of Starwood Capital Group, has announced the opening of 1 Hotel Central Park. This is the second property for the recently launched 1 Hotels, and the first in New York City. Known for his innovations, the SH group CEO and Chairman Barry Sternlicht developed the brand with a socially and environmentally conscious platform in celebration of the beauty and preservation of nature.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars enters Czech Republic
Gehna Jewellers launches Bejewelled Tuskers Collection Jaeger-LeCoultre launches the Master Ultra Thin Squelette collection Jaeger-LeCoultre’s new Master Ultra Thin Squelette collection, comprising four watches, have become the cause of quite a few admiring gazes. The collection follows in the wake of the Hybris Artistica collection, embodying the inventiveness and alliance of 180 fine skills safeguarded by JaegerLeCoultre under its roof. Ultra-thin horology has been a longstanding
Considered to be a royal icon in India, Gehna Jewellers has paid a tribute to this magnificent animal through the new Bejewelled Tusker Collection. The collection is unique and has creatively depicted the king sized animal in various forms. The heart warming collection comprises of rings, cuffs and bracelets encrusted in precious and semi precious stones. Available at: Gehna Jewellers Store, Kakad Palace, Turner Rd, Bandra West, Mumbai, India
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars has announced plans to appoint the CarTec Group as an official dealer to be based in the Czech Republic. The new dealership is to be officially named Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Prague. Work on the new showroom, in the fashionable street in the Czech capital, Parí•ská, has begun – it will be located at the gate to the luxury shopping street and open officially in spring 2016.
Montegrappa unveils The Genio Creativo Khalil Gibran pens Montegrappa has collaborated closely with the Gibran National Committee (GNC), and renowned Lebanese artist Katja Traboulsy to create homage to Gibran’s legacy. The GNC was established in Bsharreh, to protect and continue his legacy after his death, and Montegrappa is supporting the Gibran legacy through this project with a donation to the GNC for each pen sold.
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EXPENSIVE LOOKING BUT AFFORDABLE WATCHES
Laurels Watches This is your perfect weekend watch when you are planning to meet your friends to enjoy food and drinks after a hectic week at work. These trendy watches with bright coloured straps match rightly with your casual attire.
Imported Emporio Armani AR1410 Men's Ceramic Black Chronograph Watch This Armani is a symbol of fresh fashion. It is meant for today’s youth who live on the edge. Whether you are at work or having a fun time with your friends, this watch will perfectly compliment your casual as well as formal avatar.
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Casio Beside 506 Men's Watch
Guess W0247G3 Rigor Watch
Guess W0111L4 Dual Tone Watch
6 Casio Ef-556SG7AVDF Chronograph Watch
The elegance coupled with the functionality of the chronograph are what sets this timepiece from others. The versatile design of this watch goes well with both your formal and casual attire.
Every man who is style conscious must own this amazingly stylish watch. The metal strap along with rose gold finish bezel looks perfect at parties with your rich formal attire.
This superb timepiece comes with a perfect blend of blue and rose gold plated metal. The silicone strap and angular design of this watch makes it ideal to wear it on casual occasions.
Add sophistication to your personality with this Casio Chronograph watch. This watch is ideal for men who don’t settle for anything they get. You can choose from a wide range of Casio watches online.
7 Casio Chronograph Watch
World renowned Ski racer and friend of the brand, Wendy Holdener posed for a shoot sporting the classic white Carl F. Bucherer Patravi ChronoDate timepiece.
Here is another chronograph variant that is both durable and stylish. The look of watch is quite versatile and would look good on both casual and formal outfits. The brilliant mix of black and copper colour on this watch makes it really trendy to wear. Celebrating the spirit of the campaign ‘Don’t Crack Under Pressure’, Bollywood King Shahrukh Khan unveiled the new Tag Heuer Aquaracer 300M Automatic Chronograph at an high octane event in Mumbai.
8 Casio 539D1AVDF Men's Watch If you are looking for a watch ideal for everyday wear, this sturdy one is the right choice. Whether it is just another day at work or an outdoor trip, this watch is just what you need!
A Unique Limited Edition Timepiece Inspired by Benjamin Franklin One of the founding fathers of United States Benjamin Franklin has been an inspiration for a range of innovative ideas and gadgets. Now, MeisterSinger pays a tribute to Franklin with a beautiful limited edition watch.
Indian brand Ambassador of Rado, Lisa Ray recently unveiled the brand's diamond-studded Diamaster collection. She also wore the timepiece at a press event for the brand in Lucknow.
Featuring an exclusive manually wound Jacob & Co JCAM02 skeleton caliber, Epic X White is a 44mm racing timepiece made using Grade 5 Titanium with white neoralithe inserts. Celebrating Saif Ali Khan’s royal lineage, luxury watch Jaegar Le-Coultre created a unique Reverso Grande Taille engraving the Pataudi symbol on it.
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Don't Sleep Less, Don't Sleep More, To Ward Off Diabetes & Kidney Disease A Harvard University study claims too little or too much sleep puts older women at a risk for diabetes.
lder women who get too little or even too much sleep are at greater risk of diabetes, new research suggests. The study suggests that chronic short sleep duration of six hours or less, or increasing average sleeping time by two hours or more over a period of several years, increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in middleaged and older women. Researchers concluded that increasing sleep duration by two hours or more increased the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 15 per cent - even factoring in variations in diet, physical activity, snoring, sleep apnoea, depression and bodymass index (BMI). Previous research has shown that too much or too little sleep increases the risk of diabetes, with the lowest risk shown for those who sleep between seven and eight hours per day. The new study, published in the journal Diabetologia, involved more that 59,000 women aged 55 to 83 in the Nurses' Health Study - a long term study of current and former nurses from the US - without diabetes in 2000. Change in sleep duration was recorded as the difference between self-reported 24 hour sleep duration in 1986 and 2000. Diet, physical activity and other factors were updated every two to four years. Self-reported diabetes was confirmed
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and then computer modeling used to evaluate the changes in relative risk of diabetes related to the amount of sleep. Those sleeping six hours or less, as also those who experienced an increase in sleep duration of more than two hours per day, were associated with modest increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. However, after adjustment for BMI, associations of chronic short sleep duration with diabetes became "nonsignificant" while associations of increases in sleep duration with diabetes persisted. The research showed women who increased their sleep duration were more likely to have been short sleepers to begin with, suggesting that the adverse influence of short sleep duration in mid-life may not be compensated for by later increases in sleep duration. Study leader Doctor Elizabeth Cespedes, of Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health said: "Chronic short sleep duration and increases in sleep duration are associated with increased risk of diabetes. Decreases in sleep duration have modest, adverse associations with diet quality and physical activity, while increases in sleep duration have modest, adverse associations with weight gain. Ongoing trials will provide further insight as to whether changes in sleep
duration influence energy balance." Another study released recently says shorter sleep duration can lead to a more rapid decline in kidney function. Many of the body's processes follow a natural daily rhythm or so-called circadian clock that is based on regular sleep-wake cycles. The study found that kidney function may be compromised when this natural cycle is disrupted. Researchers led by Ciaran Joseph McMullan from Brigham and Women's Hospital analysed information on 4,238 participants from the Nurses' Health Study with kidney function measurements on at least two occasions over an 11-year period. The researchers found that shorter sleep duration was significantly linked with a more rapid decline in kidney function. As an example, women sleeping for five hours per night had a 65 percent increased likelihood of experiencing a rapid decline in kidney function compared with women sleeping seven to eight hours per night. "This is the first prospective study to find that shorter sleep duration is associated with a more rapid decline in renal function," said McMullan. "The findings of this paper coupled with research from others suggest that renal physiology may be adversely effected by disruption in sleep, including sleep restriction," McMullan added.