Why MBA?

Dr. Radhamma Sankhavaram
Professor

The Educational Institutions are the gardens where the beautiful flowers blossomed always- beauty of nature, the beauty of human work and achievements and above all the beauty of character, which is seen on the face. What ever we look like depends on how we have lived, what we have thought and what we have done.
Education is a channel, a process or a device to develop the potentialities of the individual to enable him to grow into a decent citizen. Education guides to meet challenges of life with courage and with humor. In specific, a job-oriented education made the students capable of seeking a job according to his aptitude, ability and competence. The Master of Business Administration, one of the professional educations is the best-known management qualification throughout the world. It can accelerate individual career, prepare him/her for promotion, and help him/her to have a complete career change.
NEED FOR MBA:
As the environment of an organization-including economic, political, competitive, regulatory, and cultural factors becomes more complex, there is an increased demand for managers with the necessary skills, understanding, courage, and energy to tackle the difficult demands facing organizations of all kinds.
To be a successful manager, an individual need skills in decision-making, financial analysis, and interpersonal relationships. He also needs the ability to apply those skills in a context of constraints, opportunities, and alternatives.
Professional management programs are based on the premise that people can learn to manage all types of business situations more effectively. MBA programs not only help their students to develop skills that are highly valued by many employers, but the programs also present a theoretical context for solving many business problems.
MBA – YOU:
The purpose of an MBA education is to provide training in the theory and practice of business management. An MBA is an effective tool to,
..........o To change your career
..........o To start your own business
..........o To gain the competitive edge in a competitive world
..........o To develop technical expertise and business savvy quickly
..........o To advance your career
..........o To gain valuable networking resources
..........o To enhance your financial position
..........o To enjoy greater job security
..........o To enjoy greater job satisfaction and self satisfaction
..........o To become a leader in an emerging field
..........o To develop your personality as a whole.
MBA - JOBS:
An MBA with different specialization streams prepares an individual to meet the greater demands of tomorrow's advanced industrialization. Some examples are given below.
Executive Jobs:
Whether you are seeking CEO jobs, CFO jobs, CIO jobs or other C-level jobs, an MBA is supreme to a career managing companies.
Management Jobs:
Senior Management job - Senior Management jobs are awarded to candidates and employees with applicable baccalaureate degrees and a master's degree in business such as an MBA.
Banking Jobs:
Consumer banking jobs deliver financial services to individual customers.
Commercial banking jobs deliver financial services to businesses.
Human resources jobs manage employee placement, salaries, and training
Bank administration / accounting job - Bank administration / accounting jobs handle the banks internal operations
Finance Jobs:
Corporate Finance jobs help company find money, grow the business, make acquisitions, plan for it's financial future and manage any cash on hand
Money Management job - Money Management jobs manage stocks and bonds for institutional clients and are on the buy side of Wall Street
Insurance jobs help individuals and business manage risk to protect themselves from catastrophic losses and to anticipate potential risk problems
Real Estate jobs cover field such as title insurance, construction, mortgage banking, property management, real estate appraisals, brokerage and leasing, and real estate development
Accounting Jobs:
Public and Managerial Accounting jobs focus on preparing financial statements and recording business transactions including computing costs and efficiency gains from new technologies, participating in strategies for mergers and acquisitions, quality management, developing and using information systems to track financial performance, tax strategy, and health care benefits management.
Marketing Jobs:
Product Management jobs have responsibilities including marketing and development of products of all types.
Advertising jobs cover every media outlet including newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, and the Internet.
Retailing jobs includes store management, buying, and merchandising.
CONCLUSION:
A Full-Time MBA costs Rs.6-8 lakhs and takes Two Years time duration. Is this investment is reasonable? Is this course suits to all individuals?
For a period of 2 years, MBA students strive sleeplessly over assignments, presentations, projects, group exercises and reports. This gives them good grounding for the nature of work they will eventually perform.
Before concluding this article, I would like to mention about the fact of MBA graduates at present. In the words of Robert Brown, Director of Recruitment and Management of Head Hunters Grant Thornton " I would venture to say 70 to 80 percent of the MBAs are not worth considering." In 1999, an article 'Why CEOs Fail by Henry Mintzberg and Joseph Lampel was published in Fortune. Holders of MBAs ran some 40 percent of the 100 largest companies. On examining failed CEOS, the authors found 38 had 'flopped' because of 'poor people skills' or 'bad execution'. (Tasmac Management Review March 2004) Recently Infosys Chairman and Chief Mentor N.R.Narayana Murthy expressed the opinion that 'our graduates are ill equipped. India today has over 5.3 million graduates even as industries face shortage of skilled labour '(Deccan Herald dated 16.1.2006) He also expressed an opinion that ' 75 pc of engineering graduates are incompetent and unfit to be employed in IT firms. (Deccan Herald dated 4.1.2006)
So, if you are an MBA aspirant, try answer the question sincerely- 'Is an MBA degree appropriate for ME?' ' Is the investment made on MBA is related to growing abilities, developing character, gaining education and training?' Evaluate your alternatives. Include factors such as the nature of job, job satisfaction and preferred sector of employment. The critical analysis certainly guides to take a right decision.

Google vs Microsoft

Google announced an operating system to compete with Windows, while Microsoft announced that Office 10 will include free, online versions of its four most popular software programs — a shot at Google’s suite of web-based office applications.
Microsoft unveiled its new search engine Bing which it hopes will steal market share from Google and finally make it real money online.
From the news of it, it’s a full-blown tech battle.
It is, however, not a death match — it’s more of an fight to see who will be the King of Technology, since both companies pull in their billions through completely different siphons and are unlikely to severely wound one another any time soon.
Google pulled in $22 billion in revenue in 2008, 97 percent of which came tiny text ads bought by the keyword and placed next to search results or on pages around the web. Google makes a negligible amount of money bundling its online apps for businesses, charging $50 a head annually — but mostly it just gives its online text editor, email and spreadsheet programs away.
By contrast, Microsoft sold $14.3 billion worth of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and other business applications over the last nine months, making a profit of $9.3 billion. It made a further $16 billion in revenue in 2008 through sales of its operating systems, which range from XP installations on netbooks, to Vista, to Windows Mobile to its server software.
Google now plans its own range of operating systems, starting with Android, an open-source OS for small devices like smartphones, and Chrome OS, a browser-focused, open-source OS that will run on notebooks and desktops.
Clearly top executives at each company look over at the others’ pots of gold and dream of ways to steal them, or at least make it harder for the other guy to make money.
In fact, they even dislike each other enough to spend money to make the other one lose revenue — take for example, Microsoft’s behind-the-scenes campaign to scuttle last year’s proposed Google-Yahoo advertising deal or its ongoing attempts to derail the Google Book Search settlement.
But in reality, the competition is really about creating universes or ecosystems that it hopes consumers will want to live their technology lives inside. And it’s about ego — a fight to be recognized as the world’s most important technology company.
Microsoft would love for everyone in the world to be using its Internet Explorer browser to search through Bing to find a story from its MSN portal to email via Hotmail or Outlook to a friend. Add in a smartphone running Windows Mobile and an Xbox in the living room for the kids, and you have a Microsoft family. And though it is much joked about, Microsoft is the dominant platform for software developers of all types, whether they are making small business software, massive online role-playing games or photo-editing utilities.
Google’s ecosystem looks different. It starts with a Google Chrome browser (oddly running only on Windows) with a default homepage set to Google News or a customized Google homepage. From there you might go to Gmail and then click on a Word document sent to you as an attachment which Google will quickly — and safely — open for you in its online word processor.
But most importantly, Google wants you to search and travel around the web, hitting web pages that run Google-served ads and Google tracking cookies. You might think that Google is a really cool company to give away all this free technology, while never thinking about the persistent and silent data collection Google is undertaking to profile you in order to deliver you to advertisers for a premium.

So How Do The Two Stack Up in Four Key Areas of Competition?
Browsers:
Internet Explorer in all its variations still retains close to 70 percent of the market (depending on who is counting and how). That dominance remains, even though Microsoft’s latest offering IE8 lags behind all the other major browsers in features and advanced web capabilities.
Firefox, Opera, and Apple’s Safari have all driven browser innovation over the last five years, but most people have not been convinced to leave IE behind, despite other alternatives being safer and more advanced. Why does it matter? Well, IE installations come with a default home page, don’t they?
Google’s Chrome browser, on the other hand, is a handsome, whiz-kid of a browser. It’s sleek and nimble, and it revolutionizes how tabs are handled. The address bar is the search box (Google as default, naturally). Each website opened runs as its own browser instance and has very low permissions to read and write to files. The sandboxing of tabs means that if a single website hangs or crashes, the rest are unaffected. Meanwhile, lower permissions make it harder for a hacker to bust into your computer through your browser.
Chrome also has less than 2 percent of the browser market share.

Online Search: Google’s name now means search to most users. Google’s search engine means money to Google. In June, it delivered 78.5 percent of search results pages delivered to U.S. web users. In the first three months of 2009, Google pulled in $5.2 billion in revenue, a majority of which came from AdWords, an auction-based service that triggers ads based on the keywords in a search query.
Microsoft recently debuted Bing, a new search engine it hoped would fare well in comparison to Google. It’s got some fine innovations, and shows the company is thinking very hard about better ways to present information to users by finding ways to synthesize data, rather than just retrieving links. Still, despite these improvements, a $100 million ad campaign, and generous press coverage that treats Bing like an underdog, Bing gained only a point in June to get Microsoft 8.2 percent of all searches.

Operating Systems: Microsoft has been making operating systems since 1979 and has spent 28 years perfecting MS-DOS and Windows NT, the frameworks that Windows have been built around. Microsoft is estimated to run on about 90 percent of all laptops and desktops in the world. By copying its competitors’ best features, leveraging questionable licensing arrangements and using its base of accustomed users to buy it time against innovators, Microsoft has held on to its lead in the OS market for almost 30 years. That’s despite challenges from Digital Research, Apple and IBM.
Microsoft’s newest version, Windows 7, is available. Early reviews say the OS boots quickly and sleeps fast, and avoids much of the confusing interface decisions that have made many dislike Vista, the successor to Windows XP. Microsoft also dominates in the business world, where nearly every medium to large company standardizes around Microsoft Office. Microsoft is also at work on version 6 of its operating system for handheld devices, which it first launched in 2000.
Its OS advantages are immense. It has millions of users who know nothing else and who like Windows. There are millions who are attached to games or the thousands of desktop apps that are only available on Windows. Thousands of devices just plug in and work on its hardware. And familiarity with Microsoft software is a requirement for a huge number of office jobs.
By contrast, Google first stepped into the OS game in 2007 when it announced its Android operating system for small devices. Google estimates that some 18 phone models will be running its system by the end of the year. Last week, Google announced, but did not show off, a new OS to compete with Windows, dubbing it Chrome OS.
That name signifies that Google’s OS will be for the web and browser-based. It hopes to convince developers to write software that runs inside a browser, instead of on top of the OS as developers for Windows and Apples’ OS X do. It will also let web developers extend the power of their websites by expanding the capabilities of the browser, allowing websites to lean on the browser for storage and processing help.

Advertising: Google is largely powered by its innovative auction-based text ads on its own site, but then expanded into serving ads on other people’s sites with the Adsense program. It bought the ad-serving and behavioral-profiling giant Doubleclick in 2007 for more than $3 billion, and has ventured into mobile, print, radio and television ads.
Microsoft has struggled to replicate Google’s online advertising success. Despite owning MSN.com — a portal that is second only to Yahoo as a destination — Microsoft has not made money on the internet. To turbocharge its ad delivery technology, it paid more than $6 billion in cash in 2007 for aQuantive, a full-service online advertising concern.
Instead, Microsoft’s online ad business lost $1.2 billion in 2008, double what it lost in 2007. The company expects 2009 revenues to be higher than the $3.2 billion it took in last year, but has not said it would make a profit.
Contrary to what some might have you believe, the benefits of the Google-Microsoft competition are immense.
Microsoft had largely grown complacent until Google came along to shake up categories. Gmail’s massive online storage capability and fancy programming made Microsoft hustle to upgrade its popular, though not user-friendly, web e-mail service. Google Maps led to Microsoft’s Live Maps, which now bests Google’s efforts in some ways.
Google has been winning the fight for the last few years, showing that it is still nimbler than the software giant from the Northwest. But the pendulum may be slowing, or even poised to swing the other way. With the innovations in Bing and the promise that Microsoft’s online Office offerings will be free and more fully featured than the Google equivalent, Microsoft is taking on Google where it matters for users: on the field of innovation.
And that will make for an interesting race, no matter which horse you prefer to ride.

Infographic: Wired.com/Dennis Crothers — Browser market share as of May 2009. Source: Net Applications

Stress Test and Stress Management Tips

Stress test and stress management tips? That is what I want to share to you today. For a simple stress test just follow two steps. First, be aware and check your breathing every now and then during the day. If you feel it was shallow, you are tensed; if it seems labored you are exhausted; and if you are breathing evenly, that is good news because it just means you are feeling good and relaxed. Second, listen to your body. Most of us know if our body is reacting to stress – stomach hurts, you suddenly feel headache or become irritable, and, or your neck tensed up. So simple stress test, right? It was meant to be simple for you to easily check if you are under stress so you can quickly take steps to deal with the stressful situations and be more religious to your stress management.
Here are my simple stress management tips for you:
Always find time for exercise or some vigorous physical activities at least 30 minutes a day. Exercise release anti-stress hormone from the brain.
Take some time to relax.If you have given some time to face stressful situation then you need to follow it with time for relaxation. For those who have sedentary jobs and feel exhausted from mental fatigue, sports like swimming, volleyball, badminton, tennis and other sports that requires you to be on a group is the best anti-mental exhaustion reliever. Family exercise is the best example for it. Then, bored your mind into relaxation. Sit down then close your eyes and do nothing. Few minutes from doing this, you will be on relaxation state.
Meditation or repeating a focus word is a great way of relaxation too. Find a quiet place, sit down, close your eyes then relax your muscles. Keep your breathing slow and natural then concentrate on it. Discard stray thoughts that comes into your mind. Start repeating a focus word or phrase with each relaxation.
Find some ways to slow down. Get up 30 minutes early for you to have extra time to sit and read the paper or an inspirational book before leaving for work. Then, when you get to your job, take some time to sit in the car for an extra two minutes to prepare yourself for the day’s work.
Share and experience love daily. It is not enough that you know you love your family, friends and co-workers. Show it to them by sweet smile, touch and some caring acts. This actions will come right back to you.

India... under monsoon

ABSTRACT

India is suffering from monsoon fever means monsoon effecting our Indian economy and its citizens.

We all Indians are praying for the rain and wishing for heavy rail fall but this is not take place which causes staid problem not only the farmers but the whole citizens of the country.

According to some survey and calculation by weather forecast department in India the actual rainfall for the country as a whole is 38.5 mm against a normal of 71.5 mm with a shortage of 45%. Out of the 37 metro subdivisions, rainfall was surplus/ normal in 7, while it was lacking/ scarce in 27 subdivisions.

Brittle monsoons have yet again appeared as a leading jeopardy for the economic expansion as well as price raise. Weak monsoon and the famine in numerous division of the country spoil economic recovery and damage the prospects for higher economic expansion this year.

Strict rainfall (South-Western monsoon) shortage of 26.5% attached with global economic brake could brunt India's GDP turn down to 4.7% in FY 2009.

Rainfall has a prominent connection (more than 61.5%) with agriculture yield and domestic demand(More than 40%), a brutally deficient monsoon could impact India's GDP by 2 percentage points.

India is still surrounded by the countries in the world with a sound growth rate. The growth rates linger decent compare of two repeated distress in the gap with a reduction of 9 months universal liquidity crisis. It is a sign of the stretch of the Indian market and a compliment to its strapped rudiments.

HOW RAIN EFFECT ON ECONOMY OF INDIA:

India is agricultural based country as compare to other countries in world. In which the significance of agriculture as a proportion of GDP has diminished in excess of the precedent slight decades from last many years. In India monsoon is still has the vital function to engagement in recreation in the economy of India as approx 70% of the whole population depends on agriculture. Yet these days 70% of the agriculture is rainfall.

REACTION OF STOCK MARKET DUE TO WEEK MONSOON

The vital perception in opposition to downpour, drought, &flood that it has been seen that if good quality of rain fall maintain the stock market in fabulous frame of mind. If there is under standard precipitation or drought like circumstances the stock market reaction will be severely exaggerated. The influence will be high up because most of the investor's cheerfulness is extremely fragile. Growing value of commodities will make the increases in price, which will make the awareness in the economy to awake. This will manipulate the investment and consumption as well as demand.Splendid monsoon is not merely excellent for Indian economy but also for production, GDP, firms &Industry as well as demand in stock market and commodities and retail markets in India.

WEAK MONSOON MAY INSPIRE INDIA FOR INFLATION.

Weak monsoon in India inspire for inflation because it's entirely outcome in the manufacture units & production of crops due to which production of grains are not up to the score.

The fragile monsoon this year pretense peril to India's development, growth and price rises and decrease in agricultural production may result in privileged dilemma in India and its States effected by rainfall.

CONCLUSION

India's feeble monsoon has get worry economists & citizens, who is panic and might pull down the nation's economic growth.

India's monsoon rain is the most important resource of irrigation for the nation's approximate 230 million farmers, were 28 percent deficient as in month of July and August which intimidating yield of crops such as sugar cane and rice.These are major commodities for export by India to other countries due to which income/revenue of India is affected and it's also effect on GDP of our country and food-price inflation.

(source : internet)

The Swine flu effect

(source: internet)

SWINE FLU EFFECT

As we the global economy is about to come out of the menace of recession it is now being hit with a series of swine flu cases that is yet to be contained. The outbreak has the origination from Mexico where about more than 100 people(now the number have changed) has lost their lives. In India till now 163 (BBC)cases of H1N1 flu were reported.
Many have likened the economic impact of swine flu to that of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) back in November 2002 to July 2003, which delayed the post-dot-com recovery by several months.

What is Swine flu?

Swine flu is a respiratory disease. WHO says it is caused by influenza type A which infects swine, or pigs. The infection is undergoing constant mutation or change and there are several types of swine flu.

How does the swine flu spread?

The flu spread most likely through coughing or sneezing. The symptoms are quite like that of any other flu. These include fever, cough, sore throat, body ache, chill and fatigue.Treatment for swine flu:Till now there is no vaccine for the treatment of swine flu. Oseltamivir and Tamiflu are the generic drugs that can be used for the treatment.

ECONOMIC EFFECT OF SWINE FLU:

1. The major outbreak of swine flu could be increasing the cash strapped Indian government thereby increasing the fiscal deficit.

2. FII outflow will bring the stock market down.

3. Due to the massive capital outflow rupee is likely to depreciate further.

4. Industries could be affected as it will disrupt the supply chain.

5. GDP is expected to take hit due to decline in economic activity.

INDUSTRIES LIKELY TO BE AFFECTED BY THE SWINE FLU:
1. TOURISM INDUSTRIES: Tourism Industry which has already been hit by the global economic slowdown is now scared that if the swine flu is not controlled by the time of tourism peak season i.e.; October, it will take a toll on the tourism industry.
2. AIRLINE: As the swine flu is likely to slow down the movement of people across the country and within the country, it is likely to bring down the occupancy rate of the airline thereby hitting the top line and bottom line.
Other industries will not see a direct impact from the pandemic. But economic slowdown caused by the disease will restrict production and economic activity. This will hit their profitability.

COMPANIES THAT WILL BENEFIT FROM SWINE FLU:
1. CIPLA: Cipla has the capacity to manufacture up to 1.5 million doses of Oseltamivir. It is expected to benefit if any outbreak happens because of the huge production capacity.
　

..........................Q4FY2008....................Q4FY2009
NET SALES........Rs1142.76 crore...........Rs1366.74 crore
NET PROFIT......Rs179.45 crore.............Rs252.92 crore

2. RANBAXY: Ranbaxy has the production capacity that can produce and supply Oseltamivir at very short notice.
　
................................Q4FY2008...............Q4FY2009
NET SALES.............Rs996.72 crore........Rs822.13 crore
NET PROFIT..........Rs103.42 crore.........Rs 777.78 crore
　

SEZ in India

Special Economic Zones in India
By Dr. Mattapalli Naga Raju

Introduction :
Many developing countries including India are facing the problem of regional imbalances and capital scarcity. Vast and untapped commercial resources of an underdeveloped area can be utilized by establishing special economic zones. A Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is a geographical region that has economic laws that are more liberal than a country's typical economic laws. India was one of the 1st Asian countries to establish an EPZ in Kandla in 1965 with a view to bring expertise for the country's export sector. In April 2000, the SEZ policy was announced as a part of the Export-Import (EXIM) policy of India to overcome the shortcomings on account of absence of world class infrastructure, unstable fiscal regime, multiplicity of controls and clearances. A SEZ bill was prepared after extensive discussions with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and many other senior officials and eventually SEZ Act was passed in Parliament of India in May 2005, which received presidential assent on 23 rd June, 2005. The SEZ Act in India came into force on 10th February 2006.

The main objectives:
- generation of additional economic activity
- promotion of exports of goods and services;
- promotion of investment from domestic and foreign sources;
- creation of employment opportunities;
- development of infrastructure facilities;

Incentives for Development of SEZs:
Many lucrative incentives are provided by the SEZ Act to attract investments. Few amongst them are: 100 percent tax exemption for industries on export profits for first five years, 50% for next 5 years thereafter and 50% of the ploughed back export profit for next 5 years; provision of 100 percent foreign direct investment in industries under automatic route; duty free import/domestic procurement of goods for development, operation and maintenance of SEZ units; exemption from central sales tax and service tax; exemption from minimum alternate tax under section 115JB of the Income Tax Act; external commercial borrowing by SEZ units upto US $ 500 million in a year without any maturity restriction through recognized banking channels; exemption from state sales tax and other levies as extended by the respective State Governments; single window clearance for central and state level approvals.

Amendments:
In the Special Economic Zones Rules, 2006 in rule 5, in sub-rule (2), for clause (a) clause had been substituted, namely:-
A Special Economic Zone for multi product shall have a contiguous area of one thousand hectares or more but not exceeding 5000 hectares; Provided that in case a Special Economic Zone is proposed to be set up in Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Sikkim, Jammu and Kashmir, Goa or in a Union territory, the area shall be two hundred hectares or more:
Provided further that at least fifty per cent of the area shall be earmarked for developing the processing area."

Response from Industry:
The overwhelming response to the SEZ scheme is evident from the flow of investment and creation of additional employment in the country. The SEZ scheme has generated tremendous response amongst the investors, both in India and abroad, which is evident from the list of Developers who have set up SEZs namely: Nokia SEZ in Tamil Nadu , Quark City SEZ in Chandigarh , Flextronics SEZ in Tamil Nadu, Mahindra World City in Tamil Nadu, Motorola, DELL and Foxconn, Apache SEZ (Adidas Group), Divvy's Laboratories in Andhra Pradesh, Rajiv Gandhi Technology Park, Chandigarh, ETL Infrastructure IT SEZ, Chennai, Hyderabad Gems Limited, Hyderabad.
Exports from SEZs:
Exports from the functioning SEZs during the last three years

...................Year..................Value (Rs. crore)...................Growth Rate(over previous year )
............ 2005-2006.................... 22 840........................................ 25%
............2006-2007.....................34,615.........................................52%
............2007-2008.....................66,638.........................................92%

Criticism:
The issue of SEZ has been a "hot cake" of controversy especially in politics. Some consider SEZ to be important for India's economic growth others criticize it as an official tool used by big industrialists to grab lands from farmers for making money. The protests in Nandigram and Singur against establishment of SEZs have created a lot of political turmoil. Similar protests can be seen from millions of people from the states of Haryana, Orissa, Maharashtra and others for not giving their lands for SEZ projects. Such protests are supported by important personalities, social activists, politicians and many NGOs. The threat of massive displacement from agricultural areas has been the main focus of these agitations..Most of the fertile and agricultural land is being covered under SEZs to build buildings, malls and supermarkets. Establishment of SEZs also causes huge revenue loss to the country as it encourages the tax paying businesses to shift to tax free zones.

Type of Ships - (i)

Civil ships

This major group is divided into types and subtypes depending on what the ship is going to be used for. 1.Troop-ships - their purpose is to carry freight and passengersa) freighters (also cargo ships)- As the name suggests, this category includes ships carrying both dry (general-cargo and specialized ships) and liquid cargo.
General-cargo ship
General-cargo ships - Once the most popular type, nowadays general-cargo ships are still built but in small quantities. Their carrying capacity is 4,000-6,000 t on average and may reach 16,000 - 20,000 t. General cargo includes items which are packed (boxes, barrels, bags, packages) or not packed (pipes, bricks, machinery, rolls of wire). They usually have spacious holds which occupy the larger part of the hull. Refrigerator chambers to keep perishable foods, tanks for carrying vegetable oils and air-conditioned systems for furs needing special care are being provided on modern vessels. However, the disadvantage is that loading and unloading takes a long time which causes delay. Ships for general cargo may sail on a fixed route (that is, making regular voyages between two ports) or may supply cargo wherever merchants want them to. The latter are also called trampers because they do not have a specific route. Trampers usually transport coal, timber, ores, cotton, etc.
Specialized ships - the cargo is carefully distributed according to its type and requirement of special conditions:
Reefer
Reefer - they transport perishable foods such as fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and dairy, having a carrying capacity of 8,000 - 12,000 t. They sail at a speed of 18-22 knots which is higher than that of the common general-cargo ships because these perishable goods require faster delivery. Foodstuffs are kept in holds with good heat and freezing insulation at a temperature varying from -25 C to +13 C depending on the type of cargo. Reefers are equipped to carry not only frozen stuff but also goods which first have to be refrigerated to a specific temperature for transportation.Timber carriers - one-decked ships designed to carry logs and beams; carrying capacity - 5,000 - 20,000 t, speed - 13-15 knots.

Containership
Containerships - carrying capacity - 8,000-15,000 t on average and 25,000-30,000 t for big containerships;These ships are classified as unit-load ships because freight is carried in huge boxes of standard size (units), usually from 10 to 40 t. Actually these are the same we see on trains and trucks proving one of the advantages of containerships and those boxes: the delivery can be transported to the recipient using the link wagon - car - ship with least damage of cargo. Containerships are said to have made a revolution in the history of water transport. The higher speed (of 20-26 knots) and shorter port stay are a few of their advantages over other types of ships. The boxes, also called containers, may carry anything - fruit and meat (in special refrigerator containers), chemicals and acids, textile, instruments and metals, TV sets, radios and computers, even cars and ships! Containerships tend to have a large hatch on the deck just above the hold in order to avoid moving boxes horizontally along the deck to the hold to save time and effort. Due to this peculiar ship design and method of units, loading and unloading is done much faster.Records for the fastest work have been set, the recent one being an unloading of 104 containers per hour (Hong Kong, 1982). Usually loading procedures are performed with cranes ashore at special places called "terminals" but smaller containerships have their own cargo-handling gear.


Barge-carrying Ship
Barge-carrying ships (lighter ships) -This type of ships pertains to the category of containerships but the principle is slightly different. Cargo is carried in floating containers, also referred to as barges or lighters, each with a carrying capacity of 375 t - 1050 t. As these barges cannot sail on their own, they need to be tugged or towed to the ship. There, they can be loaded aboard in different ways depending on the type of lighter ship. For example, LASH (Lighter Aboard Ship) type has a high-capacity crane at the stern which lifts the barge, moves it horizontally over the deck and arranges it. SEA BEE type has a platform at the stern which is just like an elevator - it takes the lighter on and lifts it up to the deck. From then on, another device carries the barge to its place. The "integrator" lighter ship has its hull divided into sections so that the tug can move the barge straight into its compartment. Unloading is done in the same way on the following principle - lighters are unloaded from the ship, let in the water and tugged to the pier.The advantage of this type of ships being that cargo can be carried in separate barges to and from smaller ports through a series of rivers and canals that are inaccessible for big ships.
Ro-ro Ship
Ro-ro ships - used for transporting motor vehicles and other wheeled equipment. Ro-ro is short for roll-on roll-off ships and is thus called because cargo is carried on wheeled containers or trailers. Ro-ro ships sail at an average speed of 22 knots. Roughly speaking, their shape is "boxy". Ro-ro ships usually have 2-6 decks and look like huge parking lots with stern openings and lifting platforms to sort out trailers. Needless to say, loading and unloading is quite speedy. A common "representative" of ro-ro type is the car carrier (car-loading.jpg) which usually has cars directly loaded on the ship without putting them in containers. Modern car carriers are capable of carrying about 6,500 automobiles.

Bulker
Bulk-carriers (bulkers) - designed to carry loose goods which constitute about 70% of all the shipments carried by sea; speed - 14 - 16 knots, carrying capacity - varies (there are ships with 30,000 t and others with 150,000 t); Bulkers are usually one-decked, with an engine room in the stern and a deckhouse above it. The holds are constructed with longitudinal and cross walls (called "bulkheads") and the cargo is easily stowed according to them. Bulk-carriers do not have cargo-handling gear aboard and have their goods loaded/unloaded by means of port devices. That's why all the space before the deckhouse is vacant to make load operations easier. There is an exception for some bulkers that work on a self-unloading principle. Bulk cargo is a wide term. Heavy bulk-carriers usually transport ore , coal and coke, building materials, such as cement and gravel. Light bulkers carry grain, salt and sugar. Unfortunately, goods such as ores and grain cannot simply be dumped in the hold of the ship without taking any precautions. Any careless maintenance of this cargo may result in damage of the ship. Just to give you an example - grain may ignite under particular conditions. Bulkers can also be all-purpose i.e. they may export bulk cargo and import oil or vehicles. This type tends to have many holds. An example of this type is the oil-ore carrier which may have a carrying capacity of 280,000t.
Ore ship

Heavy-cargo ships - designed to carry cranes, oil drills, machinery for factories and power stations, equipment for heavy industry and other cargo weighing 700-1000 t.
Heavy-cargo ship

Cattleships - as the name implies, these ships transport cattle

Swine Flu

Protect yourself and your family from SWINE FLU

Swine influenza virus is causing an epidemic among humans in Mexico and has spread to neighboring United States and Canada. Swine flu is transmitted from human-to-human by infected particles in the air and is not transmitted by pigs.

Influenza A virus subtype H1N1, also known as A (H1N1), is a subtype of influenza virus A and the most common cause of influenza (flu) in humans. Some strains of H1N1 are endemic in humans, including the strain(s) responsible for the 1918 flu pandemic which killed 50–100 million people worldwide. Less virulent H1N1 strains still exist in the wild today, worldwide, causing a small fraction of all influenza-like illness and a large fraction of all seasonal influenza. H1N1 strains caused roughly half of all flu infections in 2006. Other strains of H1N1 are endemic in pigs and in birds.

The root cause of this flu is yet to be known, so it’s highly recommended not to have red meat.

Symptoms
Fever, cough, sore throat, diarrhea, vomiting and difficulty in breathing.

If you detect such cases in your family or neighborhood with history of travel to affected countries in last 10 days, immediately consult a doctor.

DO’S
· Cover your mouth and nose with a handkerchief or tissue while coughing or sneezing.
· Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly with soap & water, before & after touching your nose, eyes,

mouth.
· Avoid crowded places.
· Keep at least an arm’s distance from people.
· Sleep well, stay physically active and effectively manage stress
· Drink plenty of water and eat nutritious food.

DON’TS
· Do not be close to affected persons, as far as possible.
· Do not take medicines without consulting physicians.

Facets of Training

Ms. J. Indumathi

INTRODUCTION
The training is an important aspect which is needed for an organization before commencement of any work. Training is gaining an importance in today's business world. In the past days the organization does not give much importance for the training programs. But now a day they separate department for training in the organization. The training is given to all level of employees.
MEANING
Training is that a program which is conducted by the company for the employees to improve their knowledge and efficiency for the job in which they are indulged. Training is defined b various authors in different ways and the methods of training also differ.
NEED FOR TRAINING* Training is provided to the employees in order to increase their efficiency.* It also helps them to increase the skill and their knowledge.
OBJECTIVE OF TRAINING
When the need for training is identified, objectives should be set. Each and every process has its own objective.

* They should predict what types of problems may occur.

* The proper and correct teams for training have to be selected.

* The employees who need training must be selected.

* The supervisors must be given proper training to communicate and handle he employees.

* Refresher courses on safety procedures must be provided.
METHODS OF TRAINING
The training is given to all levels of employees in an organization. There are certain types of training which are being given in most of the organization. Training may be classified as follows.

I. On- the job training

II. OFF THE JOB TRAINING

I. On the job training

this type of training is conducted when the employees are in the job. It helps the employees to know the effects of the training easily. It also provides good knowledge. It is used primarily to teach workers how to do their current jobs in an effective & efficient manner. It can be further classified into

1. Job Rotation

In this kind of training the employees is moved from one job to another. It automatically helps the employees to gain more experience and also trained in all type of job. This training can only be done when the employees are in the job situation. They may not get bored with their jobs.

2. Apprenticeship training

these types of training may cause a good technical knowledge to the employees. Mostly it is suitable for only certain employees. It may be suitable for the fields like plumbers, carpenters, electricians.

II. OFF- THE JOB TRAINING

In this type of training the employee is separated from the job situation and his attention is fully focused on the training. The employees can concentrate on a whole in the training program so that he may learn easier.

1. Vestibule trainingthe work situation is being setup, inside a class room. The materials and equipment for the training is being provided to the employees. The actual job performance of the employees after the training is being calculated. This helps the organization to improve their employees and make them to work efficiently than before.

2. Lecture methodthis method is the oldest and traditional method. Lecture method is done by giving a lecture he gives the materials to a group of people who ever attends the lecture. For this a specialist is appointed because the lecture must be effective. This can be done for a large number of people at the same time.

3. Conference / discussion approach.This type of training is as closely related to the lecture method. The trainer gives training to the employees through lecture method. They are allowed to clear their doubts by asking their questions to the trainer. It may be even through video conferencing and audio taping etc.

CONCLUSIONThe organization should plan the type of training which have to be given to the employees. The training chosen must be based on the requirement of the employees in the organization.

New Success Mantra - RPCD

'Success is a matter of attitude. If you think you can, you are right. Just be passionate about what you think' - Arindum Chaudhari

There is general saying that you cannot measure success. But first question is what success is. Is it name, fame, money or recognition? The next question arises how can we measure and get success? Everyone in this World is carving for success, but only some of them are actually working for getting it.

Success is never same for everyone. It is always positive realization of worthy goal. The first thing to get what you want is to know what you want. So, firstly you have to define success in your own terms. You have to carefully look at what you want to achieve whether it is personal or professional. Goals of the one person can't be same that of other. So, after deciding what you want then you have to make a plan for achieving the goals by applying these four parameters RPCD which I am going to talk below so that you will get what you want. If it has been already decided then just apply these parameters. All the parameters are interlinked and every one is important for success.

The first parameter is Responsibility. It means you have to be completely responsible for all your actions, behaviors and decisions. You have to take responsibility for your inner values, prioritizing the time and happiness. Whatever the goals you have decided, you have to take responsibility for achieving it. Responsibility does not only mean that you have to take it for yourself but you have to take it for your moods, relationships, friends and treating with others. A person who is not responsible cannot achieve success. So, you have to make others know that you are responsible person. People trust only those who are responsible. Getting the trust and help of others is also pre-requisite for success.

The second parameter is Passion towards your goals. There is general saying that 'If you love your work and you are passionate towards it then it is easy to get it done. Passion comes only when we are responsible and committed for our goals. The most have of successful person in the World succeed because they have burning desire to achieve the success and by this passion comes into their life. So, be passionate whatever you think and whatever you do. Let other people feel that you have lot of energy to do something and by your actions show them your passion.

The third parameter is Commitment. Commitment is kind of word which has its great value. In this World, people very easily broke their commitment when they give it to others as well as to themselves. First commitment is towards the GOD and then it comes to you and after it comes to all others. Be committed towards firstly towards yourself and whatever you have decided just do it. You goals must be dealt with full commitment. To others, whenever you give commitment do your best and try not to lose it at any cost. If you think that you will not be able to fulfill commitment then don't give to others.

The fourth and last parameter is Discipline. It is the most important parameters than all above three. All above parameters like responsibility, commitment and passion comes only we are disciplined. You have to be well discipline inner as well as outer towards the goals what you want to achieve. Discipline is a parameter which is most encouraging as well as most difficult to get. You have to win over your mind and lot of effort to inculcate it. But you inculcate it in yourself, and then you can achieve anything.

The other writers have written wrote a lot about the other parameters. But according to me, these are the most important parameters for getting success, Success is only consistency regarding the fundamentals but the important thing is fundamental must be cleared. So, decide firstly what you want to achieve and then apply these RPCD parameters for getting what you want. These principles are not only applicable to business only it is also applicable for your person life and relationships. Apply these parameters in your life and you will be successful. Amit Sethi

Boost your personality

If you want to make the most of your body your have to eat healthily and exercise healthily. One thing you should always bear in mind that healthy eating and healthy exercise doesn’t mean punishing yourself with a spartan diet, or driving yourself into the ground with a fearsome exercise regime. Health comes from moderation, and that means moderation in all things. Too much of anything is not good for you, and too little is also not good for you! Virtually everyone knows that eating healthy food will not achieve very much if you don’t combine it with a good exercise regime, the trick is knowing how to do that.

With the mountains of conflicting advice that are thrown at us in various publications it can be difficult to know what is best. There are a few simple tips and guidelines to help you make the most of your diet/exercise routine so that it enhances your quality of life and does not become a burden. Which will apply to you depends on the type of exercise routine and diet suits you.

If you are doing exercise that involves a lot of ‘muscular effort’ such as working out with weights you should make sure that you eat plenty of protein, particularly from lean meats such as Chicken and Turkey, soya protein is also good as are nuts and pulses as well as red meat in moderation. When you exercise in this way, the muscles suffer many small tears and need a good source of protein to help repair and strengthen them.

If you are intending to do an intense workout, or undertake any heavy exercise you need to make sure you eat appropriately. You cannot do demanding exercises on either an empty or a full stomach. You should make sure you have eaten at least an hour before you start and not more than three hours. If your intend to lose weight, then you want to use more calories that you take in with your meals but it is not advisable that your body relies only on fat reserves for energy. This will make you feel weak and tired and is not healthy at all. If you plan a concentrated exercise session, plan a suitable healthy meal to support your body.

Proper hydration is critical. It is only of recent times that we have realized just how important. Fluid should be an important part of your normal everyday diet, water is ideal but you may want to consider special hydrating sports drinks if you will be working out intensely and sweating a lot. When we sweat, we lose minerals and salts as well as water, and we have to replace these in our bodies. Without the correct salt and mineral balance your body won’t be able to use the water and you will suffer potentially serious side effects.

Set yourself a schedule, not a punishing one, but one that you can keep to easily and that fits in with your lifestyle. Both meals and exercise should be included in the plan so that you make sure you eat an appropriate time before or after a workout session. You must not underestimate how important it is to your new regime that you set everything so that your normal life continues without too many changes or self imposed pressures. If you don’t, you won’t be able to stick to it and that is a huge disappointment.

On a very practical basis if you have not done any exercise for a long time, or you intend to dramatically increase your levels of exercise please consult your Doctor first. It only takes a short time to get a quick check up to make sure your plan is suitable for your current state of health. Your Doctor is also an invaluable source of information and guidance on both healthy eating and healthy exercise.

It's the Time to be Greedy

The bullets of the U.S hosing market, has destroyed the economy all over the world. The greed and fear of Wall Street investment bankers suddenly changed the lives, lifestyles across the social spectrum and careers of millions investors.

The financial crisis in the U.S market diffused into global economy that has caused 'flu' across the financial markets in the world. This financial flu caused unemployment with shrinkage in lifestyle of many people.

TRACING THE BACKGROUND:

"ROME IS NOT BUILD OVERNIGHT"
Likewise, the financial crisis does not arise overnight. It went through several stages,
STAGE 1:
The U.S banks issued loans for housing purpose which clicked very well in the market. These loans were bought by Lehman brothers (U.S investment bankers) and converted into CDO's (Collateral Debt Obligation).
STAGE 2:
The CDO's are converted into multiple funds based on the return, vale, tenure of the loans. These packages were sold in the market as like shares, which was 'hot cake in the market'.
Generally, home loans go on for 20- 30 years and it would take long time for the bank to recover its money.
STAGE 3:
Bank expected defaulters to be 2-3% and convinced AIG (American Insurance Groups) to invest in CDO's as a safety measure. Even, if some one fails to pay EMI, the homes can be ceased and sold for higher price.
STAGE 4:
The market expanded for traders and investors buying and selling their shares happily forgetting the underlying risk.
STAGE 5:
More people defaulted, more houses came on the market and prices went even down with no buyers. The "Financial Flu" started distributing the economy of US.
STAGE 6:
Wall Street firms stopped buying home loans from the local banks. This had a divesting effect on the small banks and finance companies which had borrowed money from large banks to issue more home loans.
STAGE 7:
The interest rate for home loans started raising from 2004-2006. People started selling homes in order to get back the minimum investment.

INVASION OF "FINANCIAL FLU" INTO WORLD ECONOMY
The global financial cob web built around mortgages on the brink of collapse. The financial bubble busted and shattered the dreams of millions of customers.

CONCLUSION

"Be fearful when others are greedyBe greedy when others are fearful"
The market is facing a very big downfall, investors are messed up and getting away from the market. But, the global experts view is that, "It is the right time to invest and it's the time to be greedy", as the major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 years from now.

India - Time to lose virginity

Anshul Arora

India, for decades, has been identified as a country with huge fiscal deficit which signifies that we (Government) tend to spend more than we can supply. We become very happy when we see that our economy is following the ill conceived notion that it's a good omen for a developing country to have deficit than surplus. We Indians, because of our huge unproductive population, tend to spend more than we can earn. If we continue to be such people, I am afraid whether we can become a developed country ever.

Reason is simple. Expenditure being greater than income means our demand being more than supply, causing inflation. This serpent of inflation stings the people at the bottom of pyramid the most and thus hissing and jibing at our dream of inclusive and non-inflationary growth. Mind it "inclusive and non- inflationary.'

We take great pride in the fact that Indian economy is driven by its domestic demand. I agree. But it's partially also because that we are still not good enough to channel our product in international market. Take the example of China. Though it sitting on the 'heap of explosion' of US $ 1.8 Trillions of Forex reserves (as on 29th Sep, 08) with the match box of" Full Capital account convertibility", one can still bet on the growth of China because of its high productivity. We boast of beating China on the basis of IT Industry. Mind it Chinese IT (Hardware & Software is more than three times that of India.

I am not a pessimistic and I also truly believe that our growth model is much holistic and sustainable than that of China and wish a day will come when India will again drive the engine of world trade. But that can happen if Indian brainy economists don't let themselves paralyzed by the malady of politics.
REER (Real Effective Exchange Rate) of India has continuously been suppressed to appreciate. What are the various methods which govt. has sought (or it can sought) over the past decade to carry with this honeymoon?
Kill growth: Slowing down the productivity growth and thus avoiding the rise in the prices of services (non- tradable goods) and avoiding inflation. It leads to sacrificing growth for inflation. Example- raising interest rates for corporate lending
Restraining Capital Flows: Stringent norms and rules for capital mobility and thus keeping the nominal exchange rate low. Sacrificing growth but does make sense.
Sterilization: Buying dollar and selling rupee to keep the rupee's supply fictitiously high. It can work up to a limit. But excess of it will once again lead to excess domestic liquidity causing inflation which our government can never allow to happen. Mind it government and not the political parties. Issuing MSB (Market stabilization bonds) is more or less the same concept.
Reducing the interest rates: Making Indian market less attractive for foreign investors but boosting the inflation which again is seen as a problem.
First two don't make any sense to a rational person and second two to government. Question baffling my mind is 'is the appreciating REER really a problem or hindrance in the path of India to become a developed country.' Let's assume it is. Then what shall we do? We shouldn't let it appreciate. How? Either by letting our currency depreciate or by reducing inflation. Both of them are contrasting to each other and striking a balance means accepting that India is contented with its pervasive poverty. Moreover, let's recognize that in the coming 20-30 years, appreciation of Rupee against the currencies of developed country is inevitable. Nothing can be farther away from realty than the illusive hope that we can have a lower inflation than that of developed economies like USA, even in long term. Hence, REER has to appreciate and better we stop carping about it. However, we can always manage the manner and timing of REER appreciation, to certain extent. Then what is the way to escape? As per RBI, it is ensuring a balance between inflation and growth where inflation side should win.

I think central bank of a country has two tasks to do. Let take the secondary one- Managing the inter-twisted Trio of monetary policy, exchange rate and capital mobility. Now taking this trio as a tool, deciding is it the growth or inflation which should dominate. There should be no space for a beguiling mission such as 'striking balance' RBI always gives preference to inflation over growth with the logic that 'Aam Admi' should not suffer. My question is 'To what extent it is right to keep the prices low while snatching the job opportunities of up- coming 'Aam Admi, I mean youth? Or is it right in the first place itself? I think the answer should be 'No.'
We think that our competitive advantage is low cost labor that can contentedly rather merrily continue to clean the backyards of MNCs (Back Office job). My answer is 'No, our competitive advantage is huge young labor and to become a developed country we need to make this labor a skilled one and not a low cost one. If we keep worrying about inflation, then where will be the job opportunities for 550 million people below the age of 25 (WEF- India Risk)?

Do we want to be a developing country or become a developed one? The only way, India can continue its unprecedented growth story is to create continuous job opportunity for youth and if it comes at the cost of inflation, it's not a bad deal. The moment Indian population puts up the habit of living with the inflation rate of 6-9% or rather government makes them understand and live with it, India will make a paradigm shift from developing country to developed one.

God is great and so are we!!! All the best…

The Satyam scam: separating truth from lies

The Hindu
The scam at Satyam Computer Services, the fourth largest company in India’s much showcased and fiscally pampered information technology (IT) industry, has had an unusual trajectory. It began with a successful effort on the part of investors to thwart an attempt by the minority-shareholding promoters to use the firm’s cash reserves to buy out two companies owned by them — Maytas Properties and Maytas Infra. That aborted attempt at expansion precipitated a collapse in the price of the company’s stock and a shocking confession of financial manipulation and fraud from its chairman, B. Ramalinga Raju.
What is ‘known’ as of now is that over an extended period of time, the promoters decided to inflate the revenue and profit figures of Satyam. In the event, the company has a huge hole in its balance sheet, consisting of non-existent assets and cash reserves that have been recorded and liabilities that are unrecorded. According to the ‘confessional’ statement of Mr. Raju, the balance sheet shortfall is more than Rs.7000 crore.
Why did a leading company in one of India’s most successful industries of recent years need to inflate profits? After all, the revenues of India’s IT industry have grown at a scorching compound annual rate of almost 30 per cent in the past eight years, driven by exports. This is remarkable, assuming that revenue and profit inflation have not excessively overstated performance. With cheap skilled labour having shored up profits that were lightly taxed when compared with the norm, net profits must have been substantial and rising too. Why then did the fourth largest IT company choose to take the criminal route of falsifying accounts and indulging in fraud?
One possible cause could be the desire to drive up stock values. The benefits derived by promoters from high stock values are obvious, allowing them to buy into real wealth outside the company and giving them the ‘invasion money’ to acquire large stakes in other firms. This tendency was epitomised by the benefits derived by America Online when it merged with Time Warner. Although the latter had more assets, revenues, and customers, AOL’s higher market capitalisation led to that company and its chairman, Steve Case, getting more out of the deal than did long-time giant Time Warner.
There is some suspicion that Mr. Raju and his family may have sought similar benefits. The family chose to build its shareholding in Satyam Computer Services and shed it when required. For example, in year 2000 Satyam Computer merged with a related company, Satyam Enterprises. Raju’s cousin, C. Srinivasa Raju, who held 800,000 shares, or 19 per cent, in Satyam Enterprises, was reportedly allotted an equivalent number in Satyam Computer, leading to criticism that relative prices did not justify the 1:1 swap.
But the original promoter’s share held by the Raju family and their subsequent acquisitions were not for keeping. Though the precise numbers quoted vary, according to observers the stake of the promoters fell sharply after 2001 when they held 25.60 per cent of equity in the company. This fell to 22.26 per cent by the end of March, 2002, 20.74 per cent in 2003, 17.35 per cent in 2004, 15.67 per cent in 2005, 14.02 per cent in 2006, 8.79 in 2007, 8.65 at the end of September 2008, and 5.13 per cent in January 2009 (Business Line, January 3, 2009). The most recent decline is attributed to the decision of lenders from whom the family had borrowed to sell the shares that were pledged with them. But the earlier declines must have been the result either of sale of shares by promoters or of sale of new shares to investors. According to audited balance sheet figures (if they are to be trusted) available from the CMIE’s database, the paid-up equity in Satyam Computer Services rose from Rs. 56.24 crore in March 2000 to just Rs. 64.89 crore by March 2006 and further to Rs. 133.44 crore in March 2007. Overall, the number of shares held by the promoter group fell from 7.16 crore (22.8 per cent) to 5.8 crore (8.6 per cent) between September 2001 and September 2008.
This points to a conscious decision by the promoters to sell shares, which may have been used to acquire assets elsewhere. The more inflated the share values, the more of such assets could be acquired. It is quite possible that the assets built up by the eight other Raju family companies under scrutiny, including Maytas Properties and Maytas Infra, partly came from the resources generated through these sales. If true, this makes Raju’s confession suspect, since he stated that “neither myself, nor the Managing Director (including our spouses) sold any shares in the last eight years — excepting for a small proportion declared and sold for philanthropic purposes.”
This may not have been the only way in which resources were transferred out of Satyam Computer Services into other arms of the expanding Raju family empire. Money could have been siphoned out through opaque transactions with beneficiaries who were paid sums not warranted by their business profile. Satyam’s business strategy did involve unusual transactions. One example was the acquisition in 1999 by group company Satyam Infoway, which was the largest private Internet Services Provider in the country at that time, of IndiaWorld Communications, for a sum of $115 million. The acquired company operated popular portals such as samachar.com and khel.com that had no clear revenue model, and was the principal beneficiary just as in the AOL deal. According to reports, the owner of IndiaWorld was himself charged with intellectual property violations by his erstwhile employer IndiaWorld.com, an Internet services company managed by U.S.-based ASAP Solutions Inc. Satyam Infoway’s position was that it was aware of the claim being made by ASAP Solutions, but that its interest was not in IndiaWorld.com but was “limited to the URL indiaworld.co.in and the other portals under its banner,” for which it had of course paid a huge sum. There is reason to suspect that this acquisition delivered little to the company, raising questions about the motivation.
Mr. Raju’s confession is also suspect for another reason, which has been widely discussed in the media. Even if he and his colleagues were inflating revenues and profits, the actual revenue earning capacity of the company, as confessed by him, seems to be extremely low. He claims that the huge difference between actual and reported profits in the second quarter of 2008-09 was because the ratio of operating margins to revenues was just 3 per cent rather than the reported 24 per cent. But even if Satyam Computer Services was cooking its books, it was engaged in activities similar to that undertaken by other similarly placed IT or ITeS companies and it too had a fair share of Fortune 500 companies on its client list. It is known that many of these companies have been showing operating margins that are closer to the 24 per cent reported by Satyam than the 3 per cent revealed in Mr. Raju’s confession. Thus in financial year ending March 2008, the ratio of profits before tax of Infosys was 32.3 per cent of its total income, that of TCS 23.1 per cent, of Satyam 27.8 per cent, and that of Wipro 19.2 per cent.
This suggests that either Mr. Raju is exaggerating the hole in his balance sheet or there is some other, more complex, and more disturbing explanation. But whatever it is, the difference between 24 per cent and 3 per cent seems too large to be the industry standard.
Despite indicators of these kinds, which could raise suspicion, Satyam Computer Services remained a leading player with substantial investor support for many years. The promoters continued to hold control over the company despite the small share in equity they held and built an empire with land assets and contracts for executing prestigious infrastructural projects. And despite its award-winning reputation for corporate governance, its impeccable board with high-profile independent directors, and its appointment of big-four member PwC as its auditor, this still mysterious accounting fraud occurred. The full truth, it appears, is not yet out.

Subprime Crisis

The term "subprime" refers to the credit status of the borrower, which is being less than ideal. Subprime lending is a general term that refers to the practice of making loans to borrowers who do not qualify for the best market interest rates because of their deficient credit history.Subprime lending is also called B-Paper, near-prime, or second chance lending. Subprime lending encompasses a variety of credit instruments, including subprime mortgages, subprime car loans, and subprime credit cards, among others. A subprime loan is offered at a rate higher than A-paper loans due to the increased risk.Sub-prime mortgage crisis begin when housing prices began spiraling upwards in the US in the early years of this decade and continued through mid-2006, with the borrowing and lending rates extremely lower which helped boost the demand for and supply of new and existing houses. Many institutions offered home loans to borrowers with poor or no credit histories by requiring higher than normal repayment levels, creating what is now referred to as “sub-prime mortgages”, attracting investment banks and hedge fund owners to bet big on this emerging aspect of the US economy.
Subprime Crisis: Impact on Equity Markets
At the global level, especially in advanced markets such as US, UK, France, Germany and Japan, the linkages between markets are strong. Pricing and participant linkages are strong. As interest rates have risen and sub-prime has affected risk appetite (investors are now showing appetite for lower risk), equity markets have been impacted. As FII flows and hedge fund investments have been significant factors in emerging markets, the developments in the US have spread the low risk appetite to other markets and lead to high degree of volatility in prices and price weakness.The sub-prime and credit market crisis is not likely to have an impact on the fundamental story in India. It is likely to have an impact on sentiment and liquidity flows. This could lead to high volatility and corrective phases. It does not change our long-term outlook and our view on likely trends in medium term in the markets. RBI: According to the reports, the banking system has the ability to cope with the situation arising out of any adverse development and a strong domestic growth will continue to have a positive impact on the balance sheet of the banking sector.

stress management

This stress management section of Mind Tools helps to survive the intense stress that comes with a challenging career.
The first articles helps to understand stress and what causes it: This is an important starting point for effective stress management. They introduce the three main approaches to stress management, and then shows how one can identify the key sources of stress in normal life.
We then look at range of stress management techniques. Unlike some other approaches to stress management, the Mind Tools approach is, where possible, to tackle stress at source. This means that not only do we show you how to deal with the symptoms of stress, we show you how to deal with the underlying causes as well.By the end of the section, one should have a clearer understanding of stress and the importance of managing it. You should be able to analyze the points of pressure in your life, and plan to neutralize them. You will also have access to a range of different stress management techniques. Also remember, as you work through, that if you have have particular issues in bringing balance to your life, this is where our coaches can help.
Stress Management Techniques :Much research has been conducted into stress over the last hundred years. Some of the theories behind it are now settled and accepted; others are still being researched and debated. During this time, there seems to have been something approaching open warfare between competing theories and definitions: Views have been passionately held and aggressively defended.What complicates this is that intuitively we all feel that we know what stress is, as it is something we have all experienced. A definition should therefore be obvious…except that it is not.
Definitions:“stress is not necessarily something bad – it all depends on how you take it. The stress of exhilarating, creative successful work is beneficial, while that of failure, humiliation or infection is detrimental.” Since then, a great deal of further research has been conducted, and ideas have moved on. Stress is now viewed as a "bad thing", with a range of harmful biochemical and long-term effects. These effects have rarely been observed in positive situations.This is the main definition used by this section of Mind Tools, although we also recognize that there is an intertwined instinctive stress response to unexpected events. The stress response inside us is therefore part instinct and part to do with the way we think.Some of the early research on stress established the existence of the well-known “fight-or-flight” response. Some work showed that when an organism experiences a shock orperceives a threat, it quickly releases hormones that help it to survive.In humans, as in other animals, these hormones help us to run faster and fight harder. They increase heart rate and blood pressure, delivering more oxygen and blood sugar to power important muscles. They increase sweating in an effort to cool these muscles, and help them stay efficient. They divert blood away from the skin to the core of our bodies, reducing blood loss if we are damaged. As well as this, these hormones focus our attention on the threat, to the exclusion of everything else. All of this significantly improves our ability to survive life-threatening events.Not only life-threatening events trigger this reaction: We experience it almost any time we come across something unexpected or something that frustrates our goals. When the threat is small, our response is small and we often do not notice it among the many other distractions of a stressful situation.Unfortunately, this mobilization of the body for survival also has negative consequences. In this state, we are excitable, anxious, jumpy and irritable. This actually reduces our ability to work effectively with other people. With trembling and a pounding heart, we can find it difficult to execute precise, controlled skills. The intensity of our focus on survival interferes with our ability to make fine judgments by drawing information from many sources. We find ourselves more accident-prone and less able to make good decisions.There are very few situations in modern working life where this response is useful. Most situations benefit from a calm, rational, controlled and socially sensitive approach.In the short term, we need to keep this fight-or-flight response under control to be effective in our jobs. In the long term we need to keep it under control to avoid problems of poor health and burnout.
These skills fall into three main groups:
• Action-oriented skills: In which we seek to confront the problem causing the stress, often changing the environment or the situation;
• Emotionally-oriented skills: In which we do not have the power to change the situation, but we can manage stress by changing our interpretation of the situation and the way we feel about it;
• and Acceptance-oriented skills: Where something has happened over which we have no power and no emotional control, and where our focus must be on surviving the stress.In the rest of this section of Mind Tools, we look at some important techniques in each of these three groups.This is a much-abridged excerpt from the ‘Understanding Stress and Stress Management’ module of Managing Stress for Career Success, the Mind Tools Stress Management Masterclass. As well as covering this material in more detail, it also discusses:
• Long-term stress: The General Adaptation Syndrome and Burnout
• The Integrated Stress Response
• Stress and Health
• Stress and its Affect on the Way We Think
• Pressure & Performance: Flow and the ‘Inverted-U’
These sections give you a deep and robust understanding of stress, helping you to develop your own stress management strategies for handling unique circumstances. Click here to find out more about the Stress Management Masterclass and here to visit the Stress.MindTools.Com site, which has many more articles…Stress can cause severe health problems and, in extreme cases, can cause death. While these stress management techniques have been shown to have a positive effect on reducing stress, they are for guidance only, and readers should take the advice of suitably qualified health professionals if they have any concerns over stress-related illnesses or if stress is causing significant or persistent unhappiness. Health professionals should also be consulted before any major change inWe all know the feeling of sickness in our stomach before an important presentation or performance. We have all experienced the sweaty palms, the raised heart rate, and the sense of agitation that we feel as these events approach. We have probably all also experienced how much worse this becomes when things go wrong in the run up to an event. The Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking and Positive Thinking technique that we look at later may be enough to help you manage the fears, anxieties and negative thoughts that may arise in a small performance.For larger events, it is worth preparing a Performance Plan. This is a pre-prepared plan that helps you to deal effectively with any problems or distractions that may occur, and perform in a positive and focused frame of mind.To prepare your Performance Plan, begin by making a list all of the steps that you need to do from getting prepared for a performance through to its conclusion.Start far enough in advance to sort out any equipment problems.
List all of the physical and mental steps that you need to take to:
• Prepare and check equipment, and repair or replace it where it does not work;
• Make travel arrangements; • Pack your equipment and luggage;
• Travel to the site of your performance;
• Set up equipment;
• Wait and prepare for performance; and
• Deliver performance.
• Everything that could reasonably go wrong at each step with equipment Work through all of the things that could go wrong. Look at the likelihood of the problem occurring. Many of the things you have listed may be extremely unlikely. Where appropriate, strike these out and ignore them from your planning.Look at each of the remaining contingencies.
These will fall into three categories:
1. Things you can eliminate by appropriate preparation, including making back-up arrangements and acquiring appropriate additional or spare equipment;
2. Things you can manage by avoiding unnecessary risk; and
3. Things you can manage with a pre-prepared action or with an appropriate stress management technique
For example, if you are depending on using a data projector for a presentation, you can arrange for a back up projector to be available, purchase a replacement bulb, and/or print off paper copies of the presentation in case all else fails. You can leave earlier than strictly necessary so that you have time for serious travel delays. You can also think through appropriate alternatives if your travel plans are disrupted. If you are forced to wait before your event in an uncomfortable or unsuitably distracting place, prepare the relaxation techniques you can use to keep a calm, positive frame of mind. Research all of the information you will need to take the appropriate actions quickly, and ensure that you have the appropriate resources available.
Also, prepare the positive thinking you will use to counter fears and negative thoughts both before the event and during it. Use stress anticipation skills to ensure that you are properly prepared to manage stress. Then use thought awareness, rational thinking and positive thinking skills to prepare the positive thoughts that you will use to protect and build your confidence.
Write your plan down on paper in a form that is easy to read and easy to refer to. Keep it with you as you prepare for, and deliver, your performance. Refer to it whenever you need it in the time leading up to the event, and during it.
Summary:
Performance Plans help you to prepare for an important performance. They bring together practical contingency planning with mental preparation to ensure that you are fully prepared to handle any situations and eventualities that may realistically occur.
This gives you the confidence that comes from knowing you are as well prepared for an event as is practically possible to be. It also helps you to avoid the unpleasant stresses that come from poor preparation, meaning that you can deliver your performance in a relaxed, positive and focused frame of mind, whatever problems or upsets may have occurred.
Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking and Positive ThinkingQuite often, our experience of stress comes from our perception of the situation. Often that perception is right, but sometimes it is not. Often we are unreasonably harsh with ourselves or instinctively jump to wrong conclusions about people’s motives. This can send us into a downward spiral of negative thinking that can be hard to break. Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking and Positive Thinking are simple tools that help you to change this negative thinking. We have already mentioned that the most common accepted definition of stress is that it occurs when a person perceives that “demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize.” In becoming stressed, people must make two main judgments: First, they must feel threatened by the situation, and second, they must judge whether their capabilities and resources are sufficient to meet the threat. How stressed someone feels depends on how much damage they think the situation can do them, and how closely their resources meet the demands of the situation.Perception is key to this as situations are not stressful in their own right. Rather it is our interpretation of the situation that drives the level of stress that we feel.Quite obviously, sometimes we are right in what we say to ourselves. Some situations may actually be dangerous, may threaten us physically, socially or in our career. Here, stress and emotion are part of the early warning system that alerts us to the threat from these situations.Very often, however, we are overly harsh and unjust to ourselves in a way that we would never be with friends or co-workers. This, along with other negative thinking, can cause intense stress and unhappiness and can severely undermine self-confidence.One approach to it is to observe your stream of consciousness as you think about a stressful situation.
Do not suppress any thoughts:
Instead, you just let them run their course while you watch them, and write them down as they occur.Another more general approach to Thought Awareness comes with logging stress in your Stress Diary. One of the benefits of using the Stress Diary is that you log all of the unpleasant things in your life that cause you stress for one or two weeks. This will include negative thoughts and anxieties, and can also include difficult or unpleasant memories and situations that you perceive as negative. All of these can be looked at using the techniques in this module. By logging your negative thoughts for a reasonable period of time, you will quickly see patterns in your negative thinking. When you analyze your diary at the end of the period, you should be able to see the most common and the most damaging thoughts. Tackle these as a priority.Thought awareness is the first step in the process of managing negative thoughts, as you cannot manage thoughts that you are unaware of.
POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING:
“You are what you think. You feel what you want.”
Why Think Positively?
All of our feelings, beliefs and knowledge are based on our internal thoughts, both conscious and subconscious. We are in control, whether we know it or not. Aim high and do your bestWe can be positive or negative, enthusiastic or dull, active or passive. The biggest difference between people is their attitudes. For some, learning is enjoyable and exciting. For others, learning is a drudgery. For many, learning is just okay, something required on the road to a job. "Most folks are about as happy as theymake up their minds to be." -Abraham Lincoln Our present attitudes are habits, built from the feedback of parents, friends, society and self, that form our self-image and our world-image. These attitudes are maintained by the inner conversations we constantly have with ourselves, both consciously and subconsciously. The first step in changing our attitudes is to change our inner conversations.One approach is called the three C's: Commitment, Control and Challenge.
Commitment:Make a positive commitment to yourself, to learning, work, family, friends, nature, and other worthwhile causes. Praise yourself and others. Dream of success. Be enthusiastic. Keep your mind focused on important things. Set goals and priorities for what you think and do. Visualize to practice your actions. Develop a strategy for dealing with problems. Learn to relax. Enjoy successes. Be honest with yourself.
Challenge:
Be courageous. Change and improve each day. Do your best and don't look back. See learning and change as opportunities. Try new things. Consider several options. Meet new people. Ask lots of questions. Keep track of your mental and physical health. Be optimistic. Studies show that people with these characteristics are winners in good times and survivors in hard times. Research shows that,"... people who begin consciously to modify their inner conversations and assumptions report an almost immediate improvement in their performance. Their energy increases and things seem to go better ..."
Commitment, control and challenge help build self-esteem and promote positive thinking. Here are some other suggestions.
7 Suggestions for Building Positive Attitudes
• In every class, look for positive people to associate with.
• In every lecture, look for one more interesting idea.
• In every chapter, find one more concept important to you.
• With every friend, explain a new idea you've just learned.
• With every teacher, ask a question.
• With yourself, keep a list of your goals, positive thoughts and actions.
• Remember, you are what you think, you feel what you want.
[b]How to Be a Successful Student Good News! Even small improvements in study skills pays big dividends. Success in any field creates a positive feedback loop that increases motivation and performance, which encourages more success. Positive thinking means admitting into the mind thoughts, words and images that are conductive to growth, expansion and success. It is the expectation of good and favorable results. A positive mind anticipates happiness, joy, health and a successful outcome of every situation and action. Whatever the mind expects, it finds. Not everyone accepts or believes in positive thinking. Some consider the subject as just nonsense, and others scoff at people who believe and accept it. Among the people who are conversant with this subject, not many know how to use it effectively in order to get results. Yet, it seems that more people are becoming attracted to this subject, as evidenced by the many books, lectures and courses about it. This is a subject that is gaining popularity. It is quite common to hear people say: "Think positive!", to someone who feels down and worried. Most people do not take these words seriously, as they do not know what it really means, or do not consider it as useful and effective. How many people do you know that ever stop to think what the power of positive thinking means? Positive and negative thinking are both contagious. All of us affect, in one way or another, the people we meet. This happens instinctively and on a subconscious level, through thoughts and feelings transference and through body language. People sense our aura and are affected by our thoughts. Is it any wonder that we want to be around positive persons and shun negative ones? People are more disposed to help us if we are positive. They dislike and avoid anyone broadcasting negativity. Negative thoughts, words and attitude bring up negative and unhappy moods and actions. When the mind is negative, poisons are released into the blood, which cause more unhappiness and negativity. This is the way to failure, frustration and disappointment. In order to turn the mind toward the positive, knowledge and training are necessary. Attitude and thoughts do not change overnight. Read about this subject. Meditate about its benefits, and persuade your mind to try it. The power of thoughts is a mighty power that is always shaping our lives. This shaping is usually done subconsciously, but it is possible to make the process a conscious one. Even if the idea seems strange give it a try, as you have nothing to lose, but only to gain. Ignore what others might say or think about you if you change the way you think. Always visualize only favorable and beneficial situations. Use positive words in your inner dialogues or when talking with others. Smile a little more, as this helps to think positively. Disregard any feelings of laziness or a desire to quit. If you persevere, you will transform the way your mind thinks. Once a negative thought enters your mind, you have to be aware of it and endeavor to replace it with a constructive one. The negative thought will try again to enter your mind, and then you have to replace it again with a positive one. It is as if there are two pictures in front of you, and you choose to look at one of them and disregard the other. Persistence will eventually teach your mind to think positively and ignore negative thoughts. In case you feel any inner resistance when replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, do not give up, but keep looking only at the beneficial, good and happy thoughts in your mind. It does not matter what your circumstances are at the present moment. Think positively, expect only favorable results and situations, and circumstances will change accordingly. It may take some time for the changes to take place, but eventually they do. Another method to employ is the repetition of affirmations. It is a method which resembles creative visualization, and which can be used in conjunction with it. It is the subject of another article on this website. The other articles at this website, about the power of concentration, will power, self-discipline and peace of mind also contribute to the development of a positive mind, and are recommended for reading and practicing. Positive attitude is a real power, which is well worth to develop and maintain. It is a positive state of mind, which manifests in the way one thinks and acts.
The power of positive attitude is a real power, which can make great changes and make life happier, brighter and more successful.
Positive attitude expresses itself in the following ways:
The expectation of success
. Positive thinking
. Constructive thinking
. Creative thinking
. Optimism
. The motivation to accomplish your goals
. Being inspired
. Choosing happiness
. Not giving up
. Looking at failure and problems as blessings in disguise
. Believing in yourself and in your abilities
. Displaying self-esteem and confidence

. A positive attitude leads to happiness and success. It possesses the power to change your whole life. When you see the bright side of life, your life becomes filled with light. This light affects not only you and the way you look at the world, but also your whole environment and the people around you.
The benefits of a positive attitude Achieving your goals and attaining success
. Success achieved faster and more easily
. More happiness
. More energy
. Greater inner power and strength
. The ability to inspire and motivate yourself and others
. Fewer difficulties encountered along the way
. The ability to surmount any difficulty
. Life smiles at you. People respect you
. Negative attitude says: you cannot achieve success
. Positive attitude says: You can achieve success.

If you have been exhibiting a negative attitude, or expecting failure and difficulties, it is now the time to change your attitude. It is time to get rid of negative thoughts and behavior and lead a happy and successful life. Why not start today? If you have tried and failed, it only means that you have not tried enough. How can you develop a positive attitude, which will lead you to happiness and success?
• Choose to be happy.
• Look at the bright side of life.
• Have faith in yourself and in the Power of the Universe.
• Associate yourself with happy people.
• Read inspiring stories.
• Repeat affirmations that inspire and motivate you. • Visualize only what you want to happen.
• Learn to master your thoughts.
• Learn concentration and meditation. Even one single step toward manifesting a positive attitude will bring more light into your life!