Business digest september 2013 edition

Page No. 1September 2013

Price ` 20Licence No. KL/EKM/637/2012-’14

Read our online edition at www.businessdigestmagazine.org

Vol. 20 Issue 9 Kochi September 2013 R.N.I. Registration No. 62545/94

Rupee Depreciation:A blessing for NRIs

KELSA: District Judge

Mohandas speaks

/BusinessDigestMagazine /BusinessDigestM

B.R. Ajith: Promoting a

new school of thought

K.P. Padmakumar on Muthoot Finance NCD issue

George Jacob:Touching new heights

Business Plan and Product Design competitions

Onam Special

September 2013 Page No. 2

A Difficult Onam

Owing to unprecedented price rise, Onam cel-

ebrations will be very diffi-cult this time. Compared to last year, most of the es-sential commodities cost 3-4 times more. Prices of some commodities, like onion saw 6 time increase. Banana, an essential item for Onam costs `65 per kilogram.

The intervention of the State government in the market through Supplyco and Consumer fed was not successful. These agencies were ill-equipped to satisfy the needs of the consumers. The pa-ralysis in the governance due to Solar scam and the resultant opposition protests also affected the government preparedness against price rise.

Onam shopping mar-ket was apprehensive this time as a result of price rise. Sale of consumer appliances saw no much growth as expected by the electronic- home ap-pliances companies. Car dealers were the most unhappy lot.

As a result of rupee devaluation and the US intervention in Syria oil prices will keep increas-ing, which would fur ther make things very difficult.

The rupee devaluation has been the main villain. With the eroding rupee hit-ting the oil marketing com-panies, they keep pressure on the government to hike prices. The rupee has depreciated 16% since March this year. Earlier high inflation was the only problem. Country’s eco-

nomic growth was good. Now growth has come down sharply. High infla-tion, low growth, large fiscal deficit and sharp rise in current account deficit will make things complex.

The rupee devalua-tion has been hur ting the Country in many other ways. The steady deval-uat ion meant that any long term foreign inves-tor would have to factor in losses in the value of currency in any invest-ment decision. This makes India a far less investment destination for FDI than most of its competitors. This trend was evident in the crashing of India’s stock market. In a singles day (2nd September 2013), investors lost `1.63 crore as Sensex slipped 651 points.

Escalating conflict in Syria is of great concern for India, which is already combating sharp currency depreciation. As such, the factor driving crude oil prices is not concern of a disruption in supply from Syria, but fear that if the conflict grows any bigger, there is a significant risk to other assets produced in the region. The outbreak of the Gulf War in Iraq in August 1990 almost resulted in the undoing India’s macroeconomic balancing act, with a 125% rise in the price of Dubai grade crude in just two months posing a serious challenge from the balance of payment perspective.

Editorial

- Madhavan Anidil


GEN

ERA

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GB.R. Ajith: Promoting a new school of thought in the field of architecture

- Sreejith Kaippilly -

B R Ajith, Chairman and Managing Director of M/S

Ajith Associates, Kochi has don a new role as Guru (mas-ter or coach) of the young and aspiring architects. Recently, after celebrating his 60th birthday, he asserted, “Now it’s time for me to preach and pass on to the younger generation whatever I have learnt from the industry, but with a difference in thought through the ASADI (Asian School of Architecture and Design Innovation).”

The name of the school connotes ‘freedom’ and the vision of the institution is to churn out the best architects with a human touch for the development of society, he elaborated.

Ajith is a reputed architect who commenced his journey selflessly in 1978 with the objective of promoting the green building concept in the construction field. Currently, he is a consultant architect to various prestigious orga-nizations such as the KHSB, Department of Tourism, Gov-ernment of Kerala, Indian Airlines, Karnataka Housing Board, Army Welfare Housing Organization, Kairali Housing Cooperative Society, Cochin Por t Trust, Nor th Malabar Gramin Bank, Gold Souk, Cochin Marina, Infopark, Kinfra, Dream Hotel as well as various municipalities.

He was elected chairman of the Cochin Chapter of the Indian Green Building Council in January 2009. He is also the resource person and expert architect to the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Depart-ment of Power, Government of India as well as advisor to the State Planning Board for sustainable buildings.

He has received several awards like the Rajiv Gan-dhi National Unity Award, Udyog Excellence Award, Hind Rattan Award and the Rotary Foundation Citation for Meritorious Service. In 1999-2000, he was also the recipient of Rotary In-ternational’s highest honor for individual Rotarians – the Service Above Self Award. He has also received the award for Energy Efficient & Eco Friendly Building Designer/Developer for 2011-12.

Having demonstrated his skills in the architectural field, Ajith’s vision of development is quite different. For him, developing does not always mean transforming a city into a big metro; it can also be about developing a city into a small, beautiful and serene place well-equipped with all the modern infrastructure amenities.

Emphasizing that the problem with Kerala or India is our people’s inability to

understand the real meaning of development, Ajith says, “I believe in satellite townships having good water as well as excellent air and road-rail connectivity.”

Ruing the normal practice of a group of people drawing up a plan and commencing construction without thinking of the resulting repercus-sions after 50 years, he says, “When Kerala is being touted as God’s Own Country, why do we want our state to be developed like Shanghai. If our aim is to attract tourists then we should think differ-ently. We should draw up a plan aimed at making Kerala much more attractive than Shanghai – not by building tall buildings, marathon roads, huge malls or massive bridg-es, but by developing parks, sidewalks, water transport, flower gardens, rock gardens, etc. Though Kochi is graced with lot of water ways and we hardly think of that.”

Ajith believes that an ar-chitect should be able to see life in everything around him and should not be money-minded. Though he was born into an aristocrat family, Ajith is a self-made man and is an example of someone who transformed his passion into his profession. Ajith recalls his directional skills during college days, which enabled

him to win the National Best Director Award for two con-secutive years at Mardi Grass organized annually by IIT, Madras.

Stating that his new ven-ture ASADI is not a business enterprise, Ajith says, “It is time for me to lead the life of a Sanyasi and preach the new generation the art of making the world a better place. Here the entire system of education is different.”

At ASADI, the Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch) course is imparted through the an-cient Gurukula system where individual attention is as-sured and each student will have an individual mentor with hands-on experience all through his education. Cur-rently, ASADI has premises of 14,000 square feet area with all modern facilities, but within one year ASADI will have its own campus with a built-up area of 42,000 square feet.

Revealing that architec-tural education cannot be imparted in the ambience of a

closed classroom, Ajith says that architecture is something that needs to be experienced personally and that too from the masters.

“At ASADI, we strongly believe that every aspiring architect needs to be specifi-cally molded in the manner he himself desires to. Our school will stress on this point and ensure that every student who passes out from here will be a strong proponent of his own school of thought.”

Stressing on the impor-tance of sustainable living to overcome stress and the need for mentors in life, Ajith says, “At ASADI, a single mentor will be there for five years. He will understand the capabilities of each student and guide accordingly.”

He firmly believes that good architecture is all about rhythm and he aims is to build ASADI as a campus with rhythm. Supported by his daughter Ammu who is the CEO of ASADI, Ajith is all set to create a new school of thought for architecture.B.R. Ajith: Another novel project

The perfect family: Ammu Ajith, Devi Ajith and B.R. Ajith


Dr. Ernest Bower hails Narendra Modi for attracting huge investments

Dr. Ernest Bower, Senior Advisor & Sumitro Chair

for Southeast Asia Stud-ies, Centre for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), Washington D.C. hailed the initiatives taken by Chief Ministers of few states who encourage business with USA and specifically pointed towards Narendra Modi’s involvement in bringing in a huge business from the Ford group. While speaking on ‘Prospects of ASEAN in India’s Look East Policy’ organised by the CPPR Cen-tre for Strategic Studies in Kochi, Bowel stressed on the high education standards of a state like Kerala and is shocked why the high po-tential of the state remains untapped. He looks forward for business proposals from Kerala that will strengthen US ties with Kerala.

Referring the pitfalls in USA’s post-cold war strate-gies, Dr.Bower mentioned how in the current scenario it was crucial for USA to build deep ties with ASEAN as well as countries as-sociated to ASEAN such as India. He also expressed his

apprehension about the poor impact President Obama’s November 2009 trip to China the reasons for which he suggested could be USA’s weak financial situation, po-litical divide, outside focus as well as issues related to withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. He emphasized how US has re-strategized its approach to an ASEAN Centre approach to a great extend initiated by Mrs. Hilary Clinton. The United States looks forward for mutual understanding, re-spect and co-operation with ASEAN primarily in terms of economic affairs seconded by security affairs.

Interestingly, Dr. Bower mentioned how they talk more about ‘Indo-Pacific’ than ‘Asia-Pacific’ and how the Southeast Asia and East Asia concept has become quite blurred. He repeatedly emphasized on the need to have frequent honest dis-cussions between India and the US so as to understand better what India’s interest would be in Indo-ASEAN engagement and how US could align with India and

work together. To relate to he mentioned how Vietnam speaks directly to USA and is a promising partner in terms of the knowledge sharing process on China as well as ASEAN. He said they expect similar ties ensuring ‘Strate-gic Trust’ with India.

Also, Dr. Bower repeat-edly disagreed to questions that pointed towards USA’s concerns about China ris-ing to the status of a su-per power. However he did frankly mention how US will be killing the ‘golden goose’ if it spoils its relations with China as it will affect the trade flow via the South China Sea that accounts for 2/3rd of the world’s trade flow.

The event star ted with the introductory welcome remarks by Dr D. Dhanuraj, Chairman, CPPR who men-tioned the need for a focused research approach so as to identify and resolve exter-nal and internal challenges faced by countries specifi-cally India.

The official launch of CPPR Centre for Strategic Studies was done by K.C. Abraham, Academic Direc-tor, CPPR.

David Gainer, Publ ic Affairs Officer, US Consulate introduced the chief guest for the day, Dr Ernest Bower,

Remarks were made by P.K. Hormis Tharakan em-phasing that India is priority is Security issues and eco-nomic concerns are sec-ondary.

Venture Nursery invites applications for Acceleration Program–Season 4VentureNursery,

India’s first an-gel-backed star t-up accelerator, is invit-ing applications for its for thcoming 13-week Acceleration Program that begins October 1, 2013.

Applications by early stage start-ups can be submitted online at www.venturenursery.com until August 31, 2013.

VentureNursey will re-view applications and short-list star t-ups for video or personal interaction. Ven-tureNursery’s will select up eight star t-ups in its fourth acceleration program. The selection process will take 4 weeks and final candidates will be announced by Sep-tember 2013 end.

VentureNursery’s set a new milestone in the start-up ecosystem when over 500 very early stage applicants from over 40 Indian cities responded to the previous three programs. Of the 500 applicants, six star t-ups graduated post acceleration process in Season 1 and 2. These graduates are driving operations of 5 star t ups with 4 having raised Seed money.

The six start-ups accel-erated by VentureNursery are -- affordable and standard-ized accommodations pro-vider Oravel.com; recruiting

solutions provider to firms engaged in large scale hiring, InterviewMaster; a social discovery and curation tool for e-commerce KLIP; online word of mouth platform for new product enthusiasts SmartSample, Shopveg and The Venturator.

Ri tesh Agar wal , co-founder of Oravel, which was among Season 1 of star t-ups at VentureNursery won the prestigious 20 under 20 ‘Thiel’ fellow award to “pursue innovative scientific and technical projects, learn entrepreneurship from the ground up, and begin to build the innovative companies of tomorrow.” Over two years Ritesh as Their Fellow will receive $100,000 and men-torship from the very best in minds in entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The Season-3 includes Perspective.ly, Catapooolt, iLeathergraph, Peter’s Pan and Trelta.

Inviting new applicants Apoorv Sharma, Executive Vice President, VentureNurs-ery said, “We are witnessing

an amazing contrast in the Indian Start-up ecosystem. At one end, professionals with very high op-por tunity cost are taking chances and reaching us to create next Googles of the world, on the other hand, young college

students in their early twen-ties are reaching out to us with big dreams in their eyes. It looks like the ‘Golden Age’ of Indian start-up ecosystem has just kicked off.”

Shravan Shrof f, Co-founder, VentureNursery added, “Though these new age entrepreneurs come with exceptional passion, high en-ergy and a vision to change the world, in most cases they fail in planning aspect, completely. The fact that they are open to accept the gaps augurs a good beginning.”

VentureNurser y was launched in early 2012 by Shravan Shroff, Founder, Fame Cinemas and Ravi Kiran, Head of Starcom Me-diaVest for South East Asia and South Asia, They were joined by 10 Individual angel investors and 2 Institutional investors to form country’s first Char ter Angel group dedicated to an accelerator.

VentureNursery’s main aim is to develop exceptional entrepreneurs who can go on to create great companies.

Gauri Jayaram’s ‘Wise Enough to be Foolish’ releasedA captivating, candid and hilarious narrative of a young Indian woman’s life

Mother of two, amateur athlete, global traveler,

professional, entrepreneur and now author - each of these may independently describe Gauri Jayaram, but they don’t do her enough justice. Her debut book, Wise Enough to be Foolish,is a narrative of a young wom-an’s journey in search of a meaningful life. Set in urban India, it is the bildungsroman of a woman’s transformation from an insecure child to a confident woman. From a difficult relationship with her parents to deep friendships, her journey from childhood to independence is full of ups

and downs. The true story of a woman’s life with all its drama – love, God, money, betrayal, relationships and hope - this could be the tale of any Indian girl. Written from the hear t, it is both enter taining and thought-provoking.

Puneeth Rajkumar, ac-tor, heralds the book with an encomium, “Wise Enough to be Foolish is an engaging and daring story of a young Indian woman… one that in-spires as well as entertains.” In another first, a part of the proceeds from the book will go towards Tata Memorial Hospital’s Women’s Can-

cer Initiative (WCI) through Pinkathon. Pinkathon, an all women’s running event organized across India by actor and model Milind So-man to create awareness about women’s health and in particular breast cancer. So-man adds, “It’s a charming, unputdownable read about an empowered India woman – one that both men and women should read.” The book unveiled for Bangalore by Puneeth Rajkumar along with Arjuna Awardee Reeth Abraham.

When asked about her real-life experiences that inspired this book, Gauri

said, “Nobody’s life will ever be perfect, and this story endorses the fact that we are all at liberty to make choices that can make us happy. I made choices, whether right or wrong, and the risks I took made my life far more wor-thy than it would have ever been had I taken the safer route. This book is about this journey”

Wise Enough to be Fool-ishis published by Jaico Publishing House. Priced at `225/-, this book is available at www.jaicobooks.com , at leading bookstores all over India and other online stores.

Gauri Jayaram lives in Bangalore with her husband Uday and daughters Apra-jita and Gayatri. She works with Globus & Cosmos,the

Puneeth Rajkumar along with Arjuna Awardee Ms. Reeth Abraham releasing Ms. Gauri Jayaram’s debut book, ‘Wise Enough to be Foolish’ in Bengaluru.

world’s largest escor ted touring company and is the woman behind The Active Holiday Company. She is a little bit of many things and still not satisfied!. She frequently combines her love for long distance running with rock music. For more about the author and the book visit www.wiseenough-tobefoolish.com


>> To page 15

Even business disputes are settled in KELSA- Sreejith Kaippilly -

District Judge Shri Mohan-das, who is the Member

Secretary of the Kerala State Legal Service Authority (KEL-SA), is a quiet, unassuming and energetic kind of person whose doors are always wide open for the benefit of the poor and the needy of our society. During the last four years, he has rendered exemplary service to the legal system of Kerala by settling large number of cases that may take long years in the civil court.

While speaking to Busi-ness Digest recently, he lu-cidly delineated the social face of the Indian judicial system for the benefit of the common man. Excerpts from the interview:Q. What is the exact role and objective of the Legal Service Authority (LSA)?

After understanding that legal justice is not equitably distributed to all sections of the Indian society, our par-liamentarians formulated the Legal Services Authorities Act in 1987 with a view to provide free and competent legal service to the weaker sections of the society who are not capable of bearing the relevant expenditure. The ser-vices rendered by the Legal Services Authorities include appointing a lawyer in case the person is a defendant in a case and periodically orga-nizing Lok Adalats (People’s Courts) for out-of-court and amicable settlement of dis-putes.

The law was written in the constitution during the emergency period in 1977, but only after 10 years the special law was enacted in the parliament. But the sad-dest part is even though the law was amended, it was not implemented till 1998. Q. What is a Legal Service Authority?

National Legal Service Authority is the apex body headed by the Chief Justice of India Honorable Shri P Sathashivam, who is the Chief patron, and the next senior Honorable Justice Shri Singhvi is the executive chairman who implements

the operations. Presently all 28 states and seven union territories have Legal Service Authorities attached to the re-spective state’s High Courts. Each State Legal Service Authority is directly monitored by the Chief Justice of the concerned state who is the chief patron and next senior judge of that High Court is the executive chairman. For implementing the activities, each state has a Member Secretary who is the senior District Judge. All the petitions and negotiations are handled by the Member Secretary under the due concurrence of the Executive Chairman.

In Kerala, the Patron is Honorable Chief Justice Dr Manjula Chellur and Execu-tive Chairman is Honorable Justice Shri K M Joseph.

In Kerala, Legal Service is there in all the 14 districts and 63 talukas with all powers vested with the executive. Q. What is your core re-sponsibility as the Member Secretary?

Unlike other District Judg-es who are the sitting judges in the court, I am exempted from handling the court mat-ters. But I am responsible for the coordination and imple-mentation of KELSA activities in entire Kerala. Now we have appointed sub judges as full time secretaries in seven districts. The law says there should fulltime secretaries in all the 14 districts. Presently, Thiruvananthapuram, Allapu-zha, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Kozikode and Kan-nur have fulltime secretaries. I am currently monitoring all the relevant activities of LSA in Kerala.Q. What type of cases does the LSA handle?

LSA takes up all kind of cases except non-com-poundable criminal cases like murder, rape that cannot be settled at a legal forum. There are certain cases called com-poundable with permission of the court. Kelsa can take up such cases after getting the approval from concerned cour ts where the case is pending. Besides this, LSA can also take up pre-litigation

cases – the case not filed in any courts. Q. What is the procedure for submitting petition before LSA?

There is no specific for-mat or strict guidelines for submitting petition to KELSA. The Legal Service Author-ity was formed to help the weaker sections of society. Right from drafting petitions to filing cases, KELSA helps the petitioner free of cost. Even the Legal Service Au-thority has Supreme Cour t advocates who appear on behalf of the petitioner for a very nominal cost that is paid by the Government. But ma-jority of the advocates render this service free of cost.

Q. Is special preference accorded to any section of people?

Section 12 of the LSA Act categorizes people who are eligible for free legal aid. The highest priority goes to women, children, victims of human trafficking, mentally sick and retarded, physically challenged people as well as industrial workmen & disas-trous victims. For all these categories irrespective of their financial background or social status, they are eligible for free legal service.

Not only that any person whose income is less than Rs. I lakh are also eligible for free legal service

Even if a woman holds

a top government position, she is eligible for free legal aid through the Legal Service Authority in any court in India.

The other important revo-lutionary clause as amended in the LSA is that even an in-dividual in police custody (ar-rested), is eligible to get free legal aid through LSA, if he so requests. When the clause was amended, there were arguments why should it be done if the government itself is prosecuting and defend-ing the case. But this shows the power of our country’s judicial system where even a single individual is not denied justice in democratic India.Q. How far we can rely on the advocate who is appear-

ing in the court on behalf of victim?

As far as the non-com-poundable cases mediated in the LSA are concerned, we can assure you cent per cent transparency and dedication in settling the issue. But yes while getting free legal aid from an advocate appointed to appear before the court on behalf of victims, there could be certain arguments lead-ing to raised eyebrows with regard to the commitment of lawyers. In every profession there will be money-minded people and erosion in values, but we cannot judge the eth-ics and service mindedness of the lawyer community as


Federal Bank wins Banking Technology Excellence Awards

Federal Bank won two Awards for Excellence in

Banking Technology 2012-13 for Best IT Team and Best Mobile Banking in the small bank category. These Bank-ing Technology Excellence awards were instituted by the Institute for Development & Research in Banking Technol-ogy (IDRBT) to recognize and reward the efforts of banks in the country. IDRBT was established by the Reserve Bank of India in 1996 as an Autonomous Centre for De-velopment and Research in

Banking Technology. The award to Federal

Bank for the Best IT team is in recognition of Bank’s compe-tence in building up an IT team capable of delivering complex and multiple projects, bringing in greater levels of technol-ogy absorption and improved levels of customer service and satisfaction through innova-tive use of technology.

The award for Best Mobile Banking is in recognition of the superior security features, ease of use, range of ser-vices, level of popularity and

handset-compatibility of the Mobile Banking facility.

On 2nd August 2013, in a specially convened meeting at Hyderbad, Dr D Subbarao, Governor, Reserve bank of India gave away the awards of excellence in various disci-plines of banking technology to bankers in India. The bank is relentlessly moving forward in harnessing the sophistica-tion in technology to provide the best of services to its customers ensuring integrity, security and confidentiality of information.

Shyam Srinivasan, MD & CEO, Federal Bank and K.P. Sunny, DGM and Head – IT and Operations, Federal Bank receiving the awards for Excellence in Banking Technology 2012-13 for Best IT Team and Best Mobile Banking in the small bank category at the hands of RBI Governor, Dr. D. Subbarao. These twin awards are the latest of a long series of regular wins Federal Bank had with IDRBT.

UAE Exchange wins two prestigious Awards

UAE Exchange, Ind ia bagged two prestigious

awards in the recently con-cluded 4th Asia’s Best Em-ployer Brand Award and 4th CMO Asia Awards for Excel-lence in Branding & Marketing. UAE Exchange got the awards for Excellence in Training and Best In-House Magazine. The awards were received at a glittering ceremony on July 31, 2013 at Singapore.

4th Asia’s Best Employer Brand Award was hosted by Employer Branding Institute, World HRD Congress and Stars of the Industry Group and endorsed by Asian Con-federation of Businesses and 4th CMO Asia Awards for Excellence in Branding & Mar-keting was hosted by World Brand Congress.

The links below provide images related to the news:

http://blog.uaeexchan-getravel.com/wp-content/up-loads/2013/08/Award-CMO-Asia-Xpressions112.jpg

http://blog.uaeexchan-getravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Award-Asias-Best-Employer-Brand-Training22.jpg

UAE Exchange is the pay-ing agent of the instantaneous “Xpress Money” and “Money Gram” that helps to receive money from anywhere in the world in a secure manner. It provides Domestic Money Transfer to anywhere in the country through its innovative product, XPAY. Foreign Ex-change operations are carried out by virtue of UAE Exchange

being an Authorized Money Changer approved by the RBI.

UAE Exchange Travel Ser-vices is a passenger sales agent, approved by Tourism Ministry and IATA. The fast

growing financial house pro-vides Gold Loan and Vehicle Loan for two wheelers. Round the clock customer service at the finger tips -1860 3000 1555.

Corporation Bank organizes SME Expo at Aluva

V S Kar tikeyan, General Manager, Corporation

Bank inaugurated the SME EXPO organized by the Bank’s Zonal office at Aluva.

Corporation Bank Deputy General Manager and Zonal Head A.M.M.G Nair and M Chandrasekar, Vice-Presi-dent, Care Ratings were also

V.S. Kartikeyan, General Manager, Corporation Bank inaugurating the SME EXPO organized by the Bank at Aluva. M. Chandrasekar, Vice-President, Care Ratings and A.M.M.G. Nair, Deputy General Manager, Corporation Bank are also seen

present. The Expo, focused on

the facilities available to the MSME sector from the Bank as well as from other gov-ernment agencies. The Bank and various government organisations like ECGC, NSIC, New India Assurance Co., Coir Board had put up stalls to explain the loan products as well as the sup-port and incentives available to MSME entrepreneurs. Exist ing MSME custom-ers of the Bank and major vehicle dealers Ashok Ley-land, Eicher, Maruthi & Nis-san had also put up stalls in the Expo.

SIB honours one of its oldest customers

In connection with the re-dedication its renovated

Ernakulam Banerj i Road Branch, the South Indian Bank, hounoured the old-est customer of the Bank, Mrs. Rejeena Joseph. She has been banking with the branch from its inception in 1971.

Dr. V.A. Joseph, MD and CEO of SIB, who steered the Bank to new heights, with a whopping Rs 75,000 crore business inaugurated the renovated branch. In his in-augural speech he noted that SIB can be successful even in places, over-populated by bank branches, owing

to the excellent customer service rendered by its staff.

Bank Executive Director Abraham Thariyan, General Manager and Regional Head Abraham K. George and Asst. General Manager and Branch Head Mrs. Smt. Biji S.S. also spoke on the oc-casion.

Dr. V.A. Joseph, Managing Director & CEO, South Indian Bank inaugurating the Renovated Premises of the Ernakulam Banerji Road Branch of the Bank. Biji S.S., AGM & Branch Head, Mrs. Rijeena Joseph, oldest customer of the Branch, Abraham Thariyan - Executive Director and Abraham K. George - General Manager & Regional Head are also seen.

KFC hands over `16.46 crore dividend to the State Government

Kerala Financial Corpora-tion (KFC), the pioneer

industrial financing institution of Kerala, has handed over the dividend cheque of `16.46 crore to the Government of Kerala. Finance Minister K.M. Mani received the cheque from KFC CMD P Joy Oom-men.

KFC had declared a divi-dend of 8% to its shareholders in its Annual General Meeting. The Corporation had posted a highest ever profit of `66.83 crore for the FY 2012-13 with 46.38% growth. The Corpora-tion is the only State Financial Corporation of the country paying dividend continuously to its shareholders.

With improvement in all operational areas, KFC has increased the quality of its assets and reduced its net NPA to 0.36%. KFC also registered record growth in

critical operational areas like Sanction, Disbursement, Re-covery, Interest income, etc for the financial year ended 2012-13. The net worth of the Corporation has increased to `383.76 crores with 17.77% growth. The Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) is at a level of 24.94 % which is far above the minimum norm of 9% prescribed by the RBI

KFC has recently come out with innovative schemes to provide financial assis-tance upto 90% of the proj-ect cost for modernising manufacturing units at ef-fective interest rates of 11% for manufacturing sector and 12% for service sector. Corporation also mobilised low cost funds recently from the market by raising `200 Crores at an interest rate of 8.72% p.a. by issuing Non SLR Bonds.

KFC CMD P. Joy Oommen handing over the dividend cheque to Finance Minister K.M. Mani

Peter Sebastian & K.U. Balakrishnan re-elected

Peter Sebastian and K.U. Balakrishnan were re-

elected as President and Secretary,respectively, of Bankers’ Club, Greater Kochi.

Other office bearers are:

M.C. Maya, C.R. Ananthana-rayanan, Suryanarayanan, S.R. Kamath (Vice Presi-dents), Akhilesh Padavetty, P.P. Jayaprakash, Thampi Paul, C.P. Unnikrishnan (Joint

Peter SebastianPresident Bankers’ Club, Greater Kochi.

K.U. BalakrishnanSecretary Bankers’ Club, Greater Kochi.

Secretaries), John M. Ja-cob (Treasurer) and P.M. Jyapher(Joint Treasurer).

V.P.Anil ,Radhakrishna Rao, Ramesh Babu, U.P.Jose, Sreedevi S. Nair, P.V. David, K. Sasidharan, P.G. Sivadasan, Jerome Babu,V.M. Rajeev, Siva Shanmugham,V.J. Jo-seph, Sreenivasa Bhat, Arun Kumar Trivedi, P.P. Suresh, Udayakumar Thampi, A. Ravi, P. Jayakumar, L.R.R. Warrier, Aneesh Mohan, N.B. Viswan, N. Vijayan Nair, Suresh Jacob. S. Udayakumar and K. Jaga-deesh also were elected to the Executive Committee.

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George Jacob: An adventurous business man with a clear vision

- Business News Service -

George Jacob (38), Chair-man & Managing Direc-

tor of Dubai- based Syscon Group is genius.

Born at Kizhakkambalam in Ernakulum district, Kerala, George Jacob began his career as Hardware Engi-neer in Wipro. He reached Turkmenistan in 1996 as representative of the con-sultancy company, Group Travancore. At the age of 26, George started own business in Turkmenistan, a par t of former Soviet Union country, realizing the sheer potential for business in consumer electronics retail business in the region. Over time George grew the business to other countries in the region under the name Syscon.

In 2004, the company entered the Gulf region with operations centered at the

headquar ters in Dubai. Within a shor t span 12 years, the com-pany expanded its operations in to 21 countries and has achieved a turnover of ̀ 3000 crores. Syscon g roup , sp r ead across d iverse sectors such as Agriculture, Pe-troleum, Advertis-ing, Media, Realty has a thousand plus employees. George’s vision

and charismatic leadership has grown Syscon within a short span of time to become one of the largest distribu-tors of the world’s leading brands.

Throughout h is l i fe , George has displayed strong spirit of adventure in busi-ness such as; at the age of 29 he expor ted petroleum products to a war-torn Af-ghanistan from the Gulf.

The prestige of being the official corporate represen-tative holding the London Olympics 2012 flame also came to this 38 year old business man. George is the only Malayalee who could proudly hoist the flame during the London Olympics.

Syscon Group has start-ed its operations in India, recently, by tying up with Samsung. Syscon has

been the partner of Samsung Brand Shop in the Country. 6 such Brand Shops were already opened in Kerala at NH Bye-pass, near Oberon Mall, Kochi, Thoppumpady, Kochi, Kozhikode, Palakkad, Thrissur and Kollam.

“Syscon has initially invested ̀ 150 crore here and is targeting a total 21 Brand Shops in Kerala during this fiscal”, says, George Jacob.

Syscon runs the largest retail chain in the CIS sector today. The company enjoys a market share of over 90% in this market with the network of numerous showrooms, warehouses and outlets in this region. Initially concen-trating its business on whole-sale, Syscon has entered into the retail distribution through Galaxy.

Since 2007, Syscon has been in catering to the dis-tributors in Libya and Iraq with products from world’s leading brands.

In 2012 year, Syscon launched operations in Africa. Today the company operates full-fledged across the coun-tries Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Gabon, Cameroon, Senegal, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Djibouti.

And now, Syscon is en-tering India’s competitive consumer electronics market with Samsung Brand Shops. In the first phase, the com-pany will be investing around `150 crores in India.

The largest Samsung Brand Shop in South India opened in KochiSamsung Senior Vice Pres-

ident (Consumer Elec-tronics), Sueng. Koo. Kim has inaugurated the largest Samsung showroom in South India at NH Bye- pass, Padi-vattom, Kochi. This Samsung Exclusive Showroom located near Oberon Mall will be run by Syscon Group. Another

showroom the city of Kochi was opened in Thoppumpady.

These shops will offer all technology products, includ-ing Mobile phones to home appliances and IT, under one roof. Samsung is opening its Brand Shops across the country aims to augment sales by coming closer to its

customers. The showroom will be manned by profes-sionals who will be trained to provide answers to all customer queries, offer bet-ter service and care. These showrooms will also be the launch-pad of new products from Samsung. Samsung will

>> To page 17


Choosing the Right Portfolio mix for InvestmentsSince time immemorial, In-

dians are known for their huge investment appetite for Real Estate and Gold. Though India’s saving rate has been well above 25% of GDP since 2005, majority of the house-hold savings are invested in Real Estate & Gold which absorbs almost 70% of the total savings.

Remaining Investments in Financial assets are yet again skewed towards Bank Depos-its & Life Insurance products.

Channelizing the Domes-tic savings into growth ori-ented investments has been a tall order in India. In any country, domestic savings are the major source of invest-ments and they tend to move in tandem.

Despite being a country with very high saving habit, we are unable channelize the domestic savings into more productive investments.

Reason being, lack of awareness among common man about various other financial products available in the market and the inability assess the risk involved in each of these products. It is shocking to learn that only 40% of the adult population in India has access to banking facilities. The telecom revolu-tion has happened quickly and very deeply into every part of our country, but the much needed financial lit-eracy is still in its formative years.

One cannot expect a not-so-financial-savvy investor to

be in a position to understand and construct a right basket of financial products on his/her own. He is not even aware about the Real-interest-rate scenario!

The Financial Intermediar-ies must play the crucial role of being a guide and facilitator for every investor and enable him to choose the right basket of financial products.

The complex process of asset allocation is a combina-tion of art and science. Un-derstanding the right priorities of a particular investor being an art and quantifying them and finding the right invest-ment product to achieve these goals being a science.

The “Need-based-selling” should not be confined to the text books as mere jargon, but need to be practiced in the true spirit.

Making an ordinary in-vestor aware about the his-torical return on various asset classes in this country could be a real eye-opener for most

of them. A simple evaluation meth-

od to identify and quantify the financial goals of the investor is the first right step to be tak-en, without which any invest-ment activity would be a futile exercise. Thereafter, based on the risk taking ability, available resources and time horizon, a suitable basket of assets should be created.

The journey of wealth creation does not end here, it is only the beginning. Fre-quent monitoring of the over-all progress of the entire portfolio and taking correc-tive measures as and when required are part and parcel of this long journey of wealth creation.

(P.R. Dilip is the Founder & Managing Director, Impetus Wealth Management.Impetus Wealth Management a SEBI Registered Portfolio Manage-ment company established in 1994. [email protected] +91 98200 48225 www.impetusindia.in)

Weak global demand may bring down Rubber prices

- C.P. Krishnan, Whole Time Director, Geojit Comtrade Ltd.

Tight supply crunch due to extreme climatic condition

propped up rubber prices domestically pushing RSS4 grade rubber near to a one year high in the initial weeks of this month. Due to suc-cessive heavy rains in major growing areas in Kerala halted the entire tapping activities lead to deficiency in supply. Natural rubber production in India during June and July dropped significantly. Ac-cording to the Rubber Board, output stood at 38000 tonnes and 46000 tonnes in June and July respectively. Unlike previous years, in this mon-soon season, the use of rain guards has been on the lower side as growers desisted from rain guarding the trees due to a subdued trend witnessed during the initial months of the quarter. However, conditions are now suitable and plant-ers have restar ted tapping though it is yet to resume its full swing.

The NMCE rubber futures corrected lower from its multi-month high of Rs.19800 per 100kg and are now trading around Rs 18200 per 100kg. Meanwhile in ready mar-ket, RSS4 prices are quoted around Rs 186 a kg. Until two years back, rubber prices in both domestic and overseas markets were held firm but renewed concerns over the

global growth outlook forced the commodity into negative territory. Besides the US and Euro zone, economic de-velopments in the emerging countries are also affect-ing the commodity broadly. Mounting inventories and weak demand outlook are the major price drivers in the overseas market. Huge inven-tories have been reported in Chinese warehouses. Mount-ing stocks at China’s bonded warehouses in Qingdao, the closely watched and make up the bulk of China’s inventory are placed well above its usu-al levels of 250000 tonnes. Due to burgeoning inventory, imports to the top consumer China have plunged signifi-cantly also threatening the prices. In the April - June quar ter, impor ts from the country fell 21 percent com-pared to a year ago levels. In the mean time, in Thailand, rubber stock bought from the farmers under its market intervention scheme stood at 210000 tonnes. As per

International Rubber Study Group, the global natural rub-ber production is seen rising nearly four percent to 11.88 million tonnes in 2013 while consumption is seen at 11.59 million tonnes. According to their studies natural rubber surplus for 2013 is likely to be at 92000-284000 tonnes.

Recently, the ongoing supply crunch and high lo-cal prices prompting tyre manufactures to import from other countries where rubber is available more economical. Indian RSS4 continued to trade on a premium to Ma-laysian SMR20, Thai RSS4 as well as Indonesian SIR20 grades and the gap recently widened significantly after the recent jump in prices in the domestic market. Existing wide gap between domestic and overseas prices too en-courage them to make use of imported rubber. Natural rub-ber imports to the country in July jumped 39.2 per cent to 29311 tonnes on year on year basis according to the Rubber Board and are anticipated to rise in coming months. Apart from the monetary advan-tage, the quality of the ribbed smoked sheets available is also a reason why the tyre manufacturers relied heavily on imports. However a weak rupee making imports costlier and imports less attractive.

Till Diwali, Gold & Silver may remain bullish

Gold on MCX near month futures had tested an

all time high of `35376 per ten grams, but now prices have corrected slightly and are trading at `33550 levels. The recent one-sided move towards nor th in bullion is not only accompanied by a similar move in the major international markets but also in a feeble domestic currency. Indian currency so far has depreciated about 23 per cent against the US dollar this year. Uncertainties over a possible US led military strike against the Syrian government lifted gold’s safe haven appeal tak-ing prices to its three month high levels in the international market providing firm support to overseas bullion.

Looking ahead, as long as the rupee depreciation persists, bullish sentiments in domestic bullion would be seen. `38000 per ten grams would be the immediate re-

sistance in futures platform that traders keenly watch out for. Anyhow, till this Diwali, gold and silver are expected to trade firm without major corrections, CP Krishnan, Whole Time Director, Geojit Comtrade Ltd. Further weak-ness is likely only on a close below `26000 per ten grams which is least anticipated in the immediate run.

What are the investment options? Can one invest in these metals looking at current scenario?

Investments in bullion at current levels are not rec-ommended as it is trading at extreme high levels. Gold is trading at its record peak level whereas silver is trad-ing at multi-month highs. A sharp correction in domestic currency or tapering of US Federal Reserve’s bullion friendly bond buying scheme may trigger sharp selling in

bullion. Measures from the central government to re-duce volatility in Indian rupee may not be ruled out in the immediate run. However in international prices, $1180 would be an ideal level of in-vesting as cost of production of the commodity matched to this level. What are the reasons for the price hike in gold?

The major factors cur-rently influencing the precious metals area: Geopolitical tensions with

Syria and Egypt: Ongoing uncertain political tensions in Syria and Egypt raising gold’s safe haven appeal.

Holdings of ETF has been stable for the last couple of weeks: As per the latest re-port, holdings in Exchange Traded Funds, the barom-eter of investor interest in gold remain unchanged indicating encouraging investment interest.

IT, pharma & metal stocks may perform well in September

Stock Market

- Murty Garimella -

We saw and experienced a turbulent stock mar-

ket during entire August. It started with a kind of agony by Nifty opening at 5778 on 1st August. It then slipped to a month’s low of 5119 on 28th August before recover-ing to 5472 at close on the last working day of August 2013. It was thus a bumpy road throughout August with a slight relief at the end of the month.

Bank Nifty took the worst hit during August. It opened at a high of 10165 on 1st August and slipped to 8367 on 28th August – its lowest point during the month – before recovering to 9049 on 30th August – the month’s last trading day.

The Indian rupee ruled the markets and sent shivers across the economy and the markets too. This gave the Opposition Par ty in Parlia-ment an oppor tunity to go hammer and tongs against the ruling dispensation. The

FIIs and even the domestic investors have star ted los-ing confidence in the Indian economy and have star ted pulling out their funds from the Indian markets and are now diverting them to the US markets. Thus, the markets have significantly tumbled during August.

If the Indian rupee sta-bilizes and recovers, it will give much-needed support to the markets. This being a very critical situation, the government and the regula-tors realize that short-term steps will not suffice; instead they need to take very prag-matic measures to contain the depreciating rupee and also to strengthen it in the near term. Only then will the confidence of the domestic investors and FIIs get restored.

In the current scenario, more thrust has to be given to exports. Simultaneously, the country’s dependence on imports has to be reduced. Our country has abundant

resources, but as of now these resources are not prop-erly utilized either because of lack of political will or due to rampant corruption. There is an urgent need to bring down the Current Account Deficit (CAD) by taking all the requisite measures.

If our Government can bring back the black money held by Indians in their foreign bank accounts, then that money would fund the numer-ous infrastructure projects, help in generating employ-ment and give a big boost to the growth of the Indian

>> to page 19

INV

ESTM

ENT

IP.R. Dilip


In the digital world, in-novation is the name of

the game and iBall - known for its innovative and latest technology products is at the front of the face. Al-ways having had the young professional at the hear t of its new product effor ts, iBall has launched its latest product, which would make all of them go ‘Why didn’t anyone else think of this before?’ The latest in line -

the Hybrid pen drive with its dual connector is bound to make news with its arrival.

Th is dua l connector f lash dr ive comes wi th standard USB 2.0 on one side and Micro-B connec-tor on the other. While the latter is the latest need - the smaller por t goes into mo-bile phones and Tablet PCs of today. It can work on Mo-bile Phones or Tablet PCs supporting OTG (On-The-Go

iBall launches dual connector Pen-drive: First time in India

Arise India enters television market

Arise India Ltd, a major player in electrical goods

with market standing of more than 25 years and an annual turnover of more than `855 crores, has opened up a new vista in television viewing with the launch of its Spectra LED Television range .

Targeted to the emerg-

ing consumers in Tier II & III markets of the country, Arise India’s latest Spectra LED television range is specially engineered to enable longer duration of television view-ing. It’s revolutionary Eye Protection Technology (EPT) safeguards eyes from grow-ing irritation due to longer

Avinash Jain, Managing Director, Arise India, Ekta Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Imran Khan and Amit Jain, Director, Arise India at the launch of LED televisions in New Delhi

television viewing, and keeps eyes safe from harmful elec-trical emissions.

Ar ise’s Spectra LED Range includes a total of 8 models in various television sizes, namely – 16”, 20”, 22”, 24”, 32” (i), 32” (ii), 42” and 50” priced at a bracket of `7490/- to ̀ 79,990/- (MRP).

McDonald joins Abu Dhabi’s Volvo Ocean Racing team as Performance Director

Highly decorated sailing veteran, British Olympian

Neal McDonald, is to tak-ing the helm as Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s Performance Director in the team’s second bid for Volvo Ocean Race glory next year. Emirati star, 24-year-old Adil Khalid, has re-signed as an Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing crew member under the leadership of skip-per Ian Walker.

Six-time Volvo Ocean Race legend McDonald, from Brighton in the UK, has com-pleted more than 200,000 nautical miles in the race over a nearly two decade long offshore career. Alongside Walker, he will lead Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s technical programmes, training camps and crew development to streamline the team’s victory pursuit in the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race, star ting next October in Alicante, Spain.

Meanwhile, Adil Khalid, who during the last race be-came the first Arab sailor to compete in and complete the

global event, joins the team this week in the UK for his competitive Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing return, taking part in the Aberdeen Asset Manage-ment Cowes Week’s Big Boat Races (6-8th August) before crewing the team’s defence of its Rolex Fastnet Race record next week (11-13th August).

Joining his fellow coun-tryman, 27-year-old Butti Al Muhairi, also returns to Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, on the shore team, after a suc-cessful stint in the previous race. Al Muhairi, Khalid’s re-serve, will guide a core group of young Emiratis working across the shore-side opera-tions.Al Muhairi will be led by America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race specialist, Guy Barron, who joins as Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s Shore Manager. With more than 25 years professional sailing under his belt, Barron will use his vast experience to optimise all shore-side opera-tions throughout the 39,000 mile global event.

Function). And of course the standard USB 2.0 is the port we all have been using all long in pen drives to con-nect and transfer or copy data from PCs and Laptops.

This Hybrid gadget is a boon for busy professionals who use multiple gadgets in their day and have much to transfer regularly. Weighing just 10 grams, it promises to be your key to conve-nience at office or home.

Hyundai launches the Grand i10

Hyundai Motor India Lim-ited (HMIL), the country’s

largest exporter and the sec-ond-largest car manufacturer launched the much awaited Grand i10 in Kerala.

S p e a k i n g a t t h e launch, Sanjay Pillai, Vice President(HR & GS), HMIL said, “The Grand is a world-class product developed for the Indian market. The Grand symbolizes Hyundai’s com-mitment to Indian customers by offering high standards of quality, durability and reliabil-ity. It offers an ideal urban mo-bility with a complete package from style to performance creating a new benchmark in the Compact High Entry Seg-ment. We expect Grand with its excellent value proposition and its unique features, will serve wide range of custom-ers in India.”

Reacting to the queries from the media,Sanjay Pillai said that “the Indian au-tomobile industry is going through a tough phase, and it will register negative growth this year.”, On the impact of

slowdown, fuel price hike and the rupee depreciation, he said the market has declined around 25 to 30 per cent.

Pillai added the current slowdown has affected Hyun-dai in terms of volumes in the first seven months, but it succeeded in improving market share. From January to July this year, Hyundai lost volumes by 7 per cent, but its market share increased from 18.2 per cent to 20.4 per cent in the passenger car segment, he said.

“There are no plans to cut production at two Hyundai plants in Chennai, which has a total capacity of 6.40 lakh units per annum. Last year, the company exported about 2.50 lakh units and under 4 lakh units were sold in the country.

“This year the compa-ny expects a five per cent growth. Sixty per cent of its cars are sold in the domestic market. From January-July this year, exports have gone up by nine per cent,” Pillai added.

The company plans to come out with a couple of models next year and hopes to launch new models up to 2016, including compact SUVs. “We are working on something in the near future. We will not be going unrep-resented in any section,” he said.

The Grand will be avail-able with two engine options the 1.1 litre advanced 2nd generation U2 CRDi diesel and 1.2 litre Kappa Dual VTVT petrol offering a combination of optimum performance and best-in-class fuel economy.

T h e a d v a n c e d 2 n d generation U2 CRDi diesel delivers 71PS@4,000rpm of maximum power and 16.3kgm@1,500~2,750rpm of peak torque with best-in-class mileage of 24.0 kmpl (ARAI figure). This environ-ment friendly U2 CRDi diesel engine is Euro V ready with low emission and NVH lev-els. The U2 engine operates at a high pressure of 1,800 bar and generates high low end torque resulting in lesser gear shifts in city driving conditions. The linear power delivery and flat torque over wide range of rpm’s ensure smooth and jerk free drive. The diesel engine is mated with a 5-speed manual trans-mission offering higher driv-ing pleasure with enhanced fuel efficiency and refinement.

The all-aluminum 1.2 litre Kappa petrol engine comes wi th Dual VTVT mechanismdelivering opti-mum engine per formance w i t h 83PS@6,000 rpm of maximum power and 11.6Kgm@4,000rpm of peak

Sanjay K. Pillai, Vice President (HR & GS), Hyundai Motor India Ltd. and Y.S. Lee, Zonal Sales Manager - South at the launch of Hyundai Grand i10 in Kochi.

torque with best-in-class mileage of 18.9 kmpl (ARAI figure). The petrol engine offers the choice of 5-speed manual transmission and Automatic Transmission.

The Kochi Ex-showroom prices of Grand i 10 pet-rol models ranges from `437543 and `557538 and diesel models from `533010 and `653007.

M.P. Sreejith, Area Sales Manager, Hundai Motor said that Grand has been designed at Hyundai European design centre in Germany using design cues of Hyundai’s globally acclaimed ‘Fluidic Design’ theme. The Grand has been developed for the Indian market to cater to the needs of the evolved Compact High Entry buyers who val-ues, style, space, economy and technological features. Hyundai Motor India Ltd. and Hyundai Motor Company Namyang R&D Engineers have worked closely from the conceptual stage to the final product development.

The Grand showcases a Modern, Spor ty, Trendy and Progressive styling. The slopping roofline along with integrated roof rails gives a sporty and aerodynamic feel while the elongated sharp headlamps, sleek wrap-around tail lamps and seg-ment unique 2 tone diamond cut alloy wheels lend a pre-mium and sporty feel to the Grand.

Y.S. Lee, Zonal Sales Manager- South and Ms. Devdatta Mulchandani, Dy. General Manager(External Af-fairs Team) were also present at the press conference.

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Asian School of Architecture inaugurated

K. Babu, Minister for Fish-eries, Excise and Ports,

Govt. of Kerala inaugurated the Asian School of Archi-tecture & Design Innovation (ASADI) at Thomson Chm-bers, Pallimukku, Kochi.The

institute, affiliated to M.G. University, Kottayam will have a student strength of 40 in the beginning.

According to B.R. Ajith, Chairman of ABR Founda-tion, which promotes the

institute, at ASADI, the Bach-elor of Architecture (B.Arch) course is imparted through the ancient Gurukula system where individual attention is assured and each student will have an individual mentor

K. Babu, Minister for Fisheries, Ports and Excise inaugurating the Asian School of Architecture and Design Innovation (ASADI) in Kochi. Dr. G.P.C. Nair, T.P. Sreenivasan, Executive Vice Chairman of Council for Higher Education Kerala, Dominic Presentation MLA, B.R. Ajith, Chairman, ABR Foundation, Mrs. Devi Ajith, ASADI Chief Executive Officer Ms. Ammu Ajith and Prof. Althaf Ahmed, Director of Measi Academy of Architecture, Chennai are also seen.

V.M. Fazal Ali joins the Academic Council of AISAT

V.M. Fazal Al i , Ex-

ecutive Di-r e c t o r o f Kochi-based B a v a s o n s C o n s t r u c -

tions (P)Ltd, has been nominated to the Academic Advisory council of AISAT (Albertian Institute of Sci-

ence & Technology), Kal-amassery.

Fazal Ali, presently, Managing committee mem-ber of Builders Association of India, earlier, served as the State Chairman of the Association. He was also the President of the National Institute of Technology, Calicut Alumni Association.

with hands-on experience all through his education. Cur-rently, ASADI has premises of 14,000 square feet area with all modern facilities, but within one year ASADI will have its own campus with a built-up

Aiswarya Prasannakumar, who passed M.Tech (Computer Science) from Hyderabad IIT with first rank. She is the wife of Manu Mohan (Engineer, Bengaluru) and daughter of P.N. Prasannakumar (Journalist, Kochi) and Prof. V.K. Rejani.

area of 42,000 square feet. B.R. Ajith presided over

the inaugural function. MLAs Dominic Presentation, Hibi Eden, Executive Vice Chair-man of Council for Higher Education, Kerala T.P. Sreeniv-asan, Director of Measi Acad-

emy of Architecture, Chennai Prof.Althaf Ahmed, Director of Mcgan’s School of Archi-tecture Prof. Soloman Veda-muthu, Dr. G.P.C. Nair, K.L. Mohana Varma N.V. John and Ms. Ammu Ajith also spoke on the occasion.

The creativity of ASADI students


Malaysia Airlines adds Kochi as new destination

Malaysia Airlines added Kochi as a new desti-

nation to its ever-expanding network after Dubai to further expand its regional network.

The Malaysian national carrier has introduced flights between Kuala Lumpur and Kochi daily in both directions. The Kuala Lumpur- Kochi flight will be mounted daily via MH118 depar ting from Kuala Lumpur at 10.30 pm and arriving in Kochi at 12.01 am while the Kochi- Kuala Lumpur return route will be escalated via MH119 depart-ing from Kochi at 12.50 am and arriving in Kuala Lumpur at 7.40 am.

This comes in conjunc-tion with the colorful state festival Onam. With Malaysia Airlines, passengers can fly out with their families and be part of Onam celebration while enjoying a host of ben-efits with the award-winning services.

The recently-added route will be operated using the new and improved 160-seater B737-800. The B737-800 aircraft with a configura-tion of 16 business and 144 Economy seats, provides quality travel experience with an on-demand in-flight en-tertainment system at every seat.

Malaysia Airlines Re-gional Senior Vice President, South Asia & Middle East, Azahar Bin Hamidsaid, “With the growing competition and demands of the market, Ma-laysia Airlines has decided to add new destinations and increase the frequency of its flights. Kochi is a strong market for us and we see it as a relevant destination to add to our overall network. We are delighted to add Ko-chi to outspread our reach and strengthen our presence further.”

In addition to the intro-duction of service to Kochi in Kerala region of India, Malay-sia Airlines is offering incom-parable promotional fares that start from only INR 14,301 for an all-inclusive Economy class return travel. Business class starts from INR 66,503 for an all-inclusive return journey. This is following the airlines’ re-introduction to Dubai which came into effect on 5 August 2013. The Kuala Lumpur-Dubai return service is mounted daily via MH162 and MH163.

Kerala Tourism launches new Gesture-Controlled website

People from around the globe browsing the inter-

net for a peep into Kerala’s pristine destinations may not need a mouse, track pad or keyboard hencefor th to navigate through the pages – mere gestures would be enough.

In yet another first, the Kerala Tourism has launched a new website (http://when-it-rains.com) with gesture-controlled features to help its users. The website, the first by a state tourism board in the country, introduces a user to the rain-washed plains, misty hills and the majestic backwaters of Kerala through a gesture-based interface.

Launched as a part of the monsoon campaign by Kerala Tourism, the new website is one of the few tourism websites in the world to use the gesture-controlled tech-nology. Visually stunning images of the monsoon shot by Facebook fans of Kerala Tourism are used in the new website, developed by Stark Communications, the official marketing and communica-tions agency of the Kerala Tourism Department.

The website tracks move-ments and gestures made by a user in front of a webcam and responds to them, giving

a user-friendly experience to those browsing it.

We are proud to present an innovative new website to people around the world who can now sit in front of a computer or with a smart phone and enjoy the multifari-ous experiences of the mon-soon in Kerala even before they arrive in the state, said Kerala Tourism Secretary Shri Suman Billa.

The new technology avail-able today like the gesture-controlled feature on our new website plays an important role in linking destinations with the people, Shri Billa added.

Kerala Tourism Director Hari Kishore described the gesture-controlled website as yet another step in extending to the world the many experi-ences that Kerala can offer to a visitor. Interestingly, the new website is a combination of innovative technology and the fascinating experiences of the fans of Kerala around the world, Kishore said.

The social media was quick to embrace the Kerala Tourism’s new gesture-con-trolled website. Since its launch on 28th May 2013, the new website has already rece ived over 100,000 visits.

M&B Switchgears changes company name to Ujaas Energy Limited

M and B Switchgears Ltd that effective 19th Au-

gust 2013 the Company’s corporate name has changed to UJAAS Energy Limited. The need for the name change is to more accurately and cat-egorically define the nature of its business.

“Ujaas, which means in local language - “Light at the Dawn”. The entire solar spectrum in India has started taking shape just like after a dark night the sunlight starts radiating light at dawn. The Solar Power will become one of the biggest contributor to India’s huge appetite for power which is must for a ever growing shinning India.

The company is the First to generate & sell Solar REC in the county from its solar power plant of 2 MW com-missioned in March 2012 at

Rajgarh (MP). On this occasion Vikalp

Mundra, Joint. Managing Director, Ujaas Energy Lim-ited expressed confidence that, “the Company would continue on the growth trajec-tory with the same passion and zeal that it has displayed since its inception. As of today, there are around 136 MW of Solar PV Capacity installed in the country under REC mechanism expected to generate around 204825 So-lar RECs. With the encourage-ment and support provided by the SERC’s there is expected to be tripling solar PV capacity under REC mechanism in the country in FY 2013-14 and will keep on increasing as per the increasing demand of the solar REC’s in the country and may reach over 1000 MW by next 3-4 years”.

Shreyas opens East -West corridor for containerised trade link

Shreyas Shipping & Lo-gistics Limited , Mum-

bai based leading shipping and logistics providers, an-nounced addition of two new services in coastal shipping. With this, Shreyas becomes the first company to link all key ports of India for contai-nerised trade. Significantly, India now also has a seam-less link connecting eastern and western coasts for con-tainerised shipping of cargo.

This also marks an in-auguration of a new era in domestic surface transport where the cargo can be shipped between any key port within the country. Linking of India’s ports for movement of cargo domestically will also help Vallarpadam terminal, Mundra etc. to be promoted as a transshipment hub. Shreyas now has five ves-sels focused on providing this nationwide network. The two new services will commence operations from 15th August and connect Mundra-JNPT-

Hazira and Kolkata-Vizag-Chennai-Cochin sectors.

Elaborating on the impact of a robust east-west cor-ridor, Capt. V. K Singh, CEO of Shreyas said that efficient transportation infrastructure by sea has tremendous social and economical benefits for the nation

According to S. Ramak-rishnan, CMD, Shreyas, India has a decent infrastructure for moving cargo in north-south corridor. With these services, Shreyas has made our hum-

ble contributions in network-ing all key por ts and thus provide cleaner, more viable and more efficient alternative for domestic movement of cargo via the sea-route

Shreyas also declared the financial results for the first quarter of the current finan-cial year. During this quarter, the top line has increased by about 30% to `113.10 crores over the correspond-ing quarter of the previous year. Profit after Tax stands at `2.87 crores.

Prestige Group launches Prestige Royale Gardens

The Prestige Group un-veiled Prestige Royale

Gardens in Yelahanka, Ban-galore. The new project is a luxury development and promises to enhance the quality of living in fast grow-ing North Bangalore.

Irfan Razack, CMD, Pres-tige Group adds, “We are happy to announce the launch of our next major project in the city, one that has been carefully designed to suit the dynamic needs of the segment today. A luxury de-velopment demands that each and every project aspect is well packaged with features

and amenities to qualify as a true luxury proposition. Every offering needs to be holistic, ranging from the comfort the place offers, to aesthetics, and to the specifications of each unit including the common areas… everything needs to be meticulously planned and Prestige Royale Gardens offers just that.”

Spread across 22.5 acres of lush green landscapes, Prestige Royale Gardens is lo-cated in Yelahanka, at Dodda-ballapur Road with well-ar-ticulated, just 1696 premium apartments for the select few. The project includes 1BR,

2BR, 2BR+Study & 3BR apartments that come with a host of features including a Club House, Large Format Swimming pool, Exercise Room, a Children’s Park and more. Apart from this, the de-velopment also offers beauti-ful landscaped gardens that not only add to the scenic beauty of the place, but also offer greenery and fresh air for many activities like walk-ing, jogging, yoga etc.

Apar tments in Prestige Royale Gardens are available at very attractive prices start-ing at `28 lakh for the studio apartments.

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Handset revenue grows 14.7% to touch `35,946 crore

- Sanjiv Kataria -

The Indian mobile handset market posted revenues

of `35,946 crore in FY 13 compared to `31,330 crore in FY12 showing a growth of 14.7%. This was mainly due to the increasing uptake in Smartphones by the Indian consumers. The 18th annual survey ‘V&D 100’ covered over 30 mobile handset com-panies doing business in India across categories like feature phones, multimedia phones, enterprise phones and Smart-phones. Both multi-national and Indian mobile phone firms were surveyed for this report.

The biggest surprise of the year was Korean electronics maker Samsung dethroned Nokia from the top position. The Finnish handset maker had been holding the fort for over a decade. Samsung’s rise in the Indian market is attributed to its rich product por tfolio that was able to cater to customers of all budget categories. Samsung handset prices range from `1,500 to ̀ 50,000. Samsung mobile handsets come in varied screen sizes. These two factors helped the com-pany grabbing customer’s

attention, besides the product quality and new features. Samsung ended the year with revenues of `11,328 crore compared to `7,891 crore in FY12 showing a growth of 43.6%. The company also became the market leader with 31.5% market share.

The former king of Indian mobile phone market Nokia dropped a rank to be placed at No. 2 in the Voice&Data survey with 27.2% market share with a significant 18% drop in revenue. In the 12 months ended March 2013, Nokia revenues from Indian operations were placed at `9,780 crore compared to `11,925 crore in FY12. The revenue loss at Nokia has been staring at Nokia world-wide in view of a few strategic missteps. Nokia’s drop in market share star ted when the company failed to sense the need of a dual-SIM phone for the Indian consumer, and the same was tapped by the Indian players years ahead of global players like Nokia. On a global ground, not embracing the most popular and most accepted operating system – android - for its Smartphones,

gives its potential customers very little choice. Nokia’s Lumia series phones that witnessed huge growth glob-ally in the initial phases could not draw much attention in India. “The rise of smaller local players like Micromax, Karbon, Lava, and Zen is a clear indication that consum-ers want cheaper feature rich phones. The next phase of mobile penetration in the bottom of the pyramid India will be driven by these com-panies”, says Ibrahim Ahmad, Group Editor of Voice&Data.

Homegrown handset company Micromax captured #3 position among V&D100 Top10 mobile handset brands for the year 2013. Though it performed pretty badly in FY12 and the first quarter of FY13, through some smart thinking and innovative prod-ucts, the Gurgaon headquar-tered phone maker grew by 58.6%. By the end of the last fiscal, the company posted revenues of `3,138 crore compared to `1,978 crore in FY12. With this Micromax en-joys a market share of 8.7%.

Closing in next is Karbonn Mobiles, the company among the Indian handset players that grew most consistently. In FY13, Karbonn grew by 73.1% to register revenues of Rs 2,297 crore compared to Rs 1,327 crore in FY12. IN FY 2013 Karbonn grew by 32%. With this the Bangalore based UTL Group and Delhi based Jaina Group Joint-Venture Company, Karbonn captured a market share of 6.4% and is placed at #4 position in the table. Last year they were placed at #5.The most exciting entry into the Voice&Data Top10 table in the handset space is the iconic Apple that grew a mammoth 417.2% to post revenues of `1,293 crore in FY13 compared to ̀ 250 crore a year back. Though India was never a focus market for the Cupertino based smart device maker till Steve Jobs’ era, in the last two years Apple has star ted making inroads, though slowly.

In the last fiscal, the com-pany made some disruptive changes in its sales strategy which paid off. Appointing Ingram Micro and Redington as the national distributors for their entire sales, and offering EMI schemes to the consum-ers to buy the most coveted Apple product changed the game for them. The com-pany now enjoys 3.6% mar-ket share in India with the smallest number of handset models in its portfolio.

Seminar held on Value Added Tax

Indian Chamber of Com-merce and Industry (ICCI),

Cosmoplolitan Association of Professionals (CAP), Kerala Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samithi were jointly organised a one day seminar on “Value Added Tax” at Hotel Highland Park, Thiruvananthapuram.

A.Ajit Kumar IAS inau-gurated the seminar and delivered key note address. ICCI Director Dr.Baiju Ra-machandran presided over the inaugural session. CAP

Chairman Dr.K.Thulasidharan Nair has delivered welcome address and CAP Treasurer P.Elango proposed vote of thanks. Classes were handled by Dr.N.Ramalingam, Associ-ate Professor of Gulathi Insti-tute of Finance and Taxation and Thyagarajan, IT Expert in Kerala Commercial Tax De-partment. Sessions covered on various aspects of VAT with special emphasis on eRegistration and eFiling and ePayment.

Real estate developers appeal for rationalisation of regulationsProjects of over `1 lakh crores stuck across India due to ambiguity of laws

There is an urgent need to rationalise the rules

and regulations governing the real estate sector. Large portion of the inconsistencies emerge from archaic laws, guidelines that conflict with the development agenda of the economy, disparity in incentives given to larger projects as against the same given to smaller projects. Also, the current FDI norms also make it difficult for smaller developers to access capital easily. This echoed by Navin Raheja, President of National Real Estate Develop-ers’ Council (NAREDCO). As an apex industry body that has a representation by the government and policy mak-ers, NAREDCO is spearhead-ing cause of a unified view on issues which are impacting the growth of the country.

While appreciating some of the steps taken by the gov-ernment Navin Raheja men-tioned that, “the Real Estate Regulation and Development BIll 2013 is a hugely positive step in this direction. But this can address the issues only in a limited way. The industry would be more than happy to coordinate with the government to iron out the inconsistencies prevalent in

the system. While the indus-try welcomes the positive intent of the government, we believe that the momentum gained should be utilised to iron out some of the issues. This will not only help to unlock projects worth over `10,000 crores, it will also catalyse the economy with more vigour and vibrancy.”

Elaborating this fur ther, Sunil Mantri, Vice President of NAREDCO mentioned that, “environment clearances take a long time and hence escalate costs, the current regulations on foreign in-vestment make it difficult for small developers to access low-cost capital. Currently the approvals of building plans by the planning author-ity or a municipal corporation result in abnormal delays. These are the issues that can be easily managed by a little more imaginative think-ing by the government and policy makers. As a sector, the builders and developers are accused of resor ting to corrupt practices. As a sector, we believe that the germination of corruption occurs in prevalent systems and procedures.”

Sunil Mantri also appre-ciated the seriousness dem-

onstrated by the government in promoting newer tech-niques and innovations in the construction sector. Accord-ing to him, “our delegation’s visit to Dubai next month under the leadership of Smt. Girija Vyas, Hon’ble Minister of Housing and Urban Pov-erty Alleviation, would help us understand the way we can streamline our rules and regulations. It is critical that we understand this and work closely with the Government. A more efficient sector will impact many aspects of our economic growth.

Mantri further added that “The objective of the tour is to study and explore the possibility of import of new construction technologies and foreign direct invest-ments, including investments by NRIs, for speeding up construction and financing of housing and real estate projects in India, besides studying their Real Estate Regulation Act and Project Approval Procedures. “Dubai has one of the fastest ap-proving and decision mak-ing authority which gives clearance such as high rise, environment, heritage, and other clearances within the shortest possible time.”

INK raises the curtain on Fellows 2013INK, a physical and digital

platform for sharing innova-tive ideas has announced the list of 24 names of achievers and path breakers of tomor-row under the INK Fellows Program 2013. In its fourth edition, the program wit-nessed 700 applications from 45 countries, with exper ts from diverse fields helping in selecting the final group.

The selected are: Dr Krithi Karanth,conservation biologist, Bangalore, Neville Mars, architect & urban re-searcher, Shanghai, China, Vandana Srinivasan, musi-cian, Chennai, Girish Ram-das, entrepreneur, New York & Chennai, Andrea Colaço, INK-MIT Media Lab Fellow, Goa & Boston, PS Jalaja, visual artist, Keezhillam, Ker-ala, Anu Sridharan, Founder CEO of NextDrop, Bangalore, Snigdha Manchanda, tea sommelier, Mumbai, Shruti Ganguly, producer & direc-tor, New York, Alicia Souza, illustrator, Bangalore, Robin Chaurasiya, activist,Mumbai, Anand Gandhi, filmmaker

& Screen writer, Mumbai, Elishai Ezra, bio-engineer, Jerusalem, Israel, Tushar Vashisht, health entrepreneur, Bangalore, Pushpa Basnet, social worker, Kathmandu, Nepal, Sunil Khandbahale, linguistic enabler, Nashik, Sanvar Oberoi, agricultural entrepreneur, Mumbai, Param Jaggi, eco-innovator, Plano, Texas, USA, Isha Sharvani, dancer, Thiruvananthapuram, Balazs Gardi, photogra-pher, Budapest, Hungary and Oakland, Rohan Dixit, meditation neurotechnolo-gist, San Francisco, Kelli Swazey,anthropologist, Yog-yakarta, Indonesia, Anirudh Sharma, INK-MIT Media Lab Fellow Boston, & Delhi and Karthik Reddy, Blume Ven-tures, Mumbai.

As a Civil & Environmental Engineer, Anu Sridharan is passionate about providing

more reliable government services to citizens. NextDrop began by tackling the problem of erratic water supply – in most of urban India, water is available only a few hours at a time or a few times a week, but residents have no way of knowing when. Working with operators in the field, Next-Drop sends text messages 60 minutes before water arrives in your tap, while also offer-ing utility boards the tools to better manage and track leakages in water supply. Anu has also been selected to the Forbes “30 Social Entrepre-neurs Under 30” list.

These INK Fellows, be-sides becoming youth icons, would get an opportunity to share the stage with eminent speakers and showcase their compelling work to a global audience at INK’s flagship annual event, the INK Confer-ence in association with TED, which is to be held at Le Me-ridian Kochi between 25th and 27th October, 2013 aimed at influencing the influencers in the state of Kerala.


SUSE strengthens APAC team with appointment of Principal Technologist

SUSE announced the ap-pointment of Peter Lees,

principal technologist and field product manager for SUSE, Asia Pacific.

SUSE powers thousands of organisations around the world including Sony, Hong Kong Jockey Club, Pernod Richard Pacific, and more than one third of the top 100 supercomputers in the world.

Lees joins SUSE from NetApp, having worked as a

senior consultant across the Asia Pacific region, enabling partners to develop solutions on NetApp technologies. Prior to NetApp Peter spent eight years at Sun Microsystemsin both Asia Pacific and global roles as a senior solution ar-chitect. Peter holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Computing from Charles Sturt University.

“SUSE has a long and dis-tinguished history as the first enterprise Linux provider and I’m very pleased to join the company in this next phase of growth following its ac-quisition by The Attachmate Group. SUSE has developed and invested in some excel-lent products and I’m looking forward to introducing how our customers can make use of these to achieve their business goals,” said Peter Lees, principal technologist and field product manager, APAC, SUSE.

Sonalika plans to invest `500 crore in Hoshiarpur plant

Sonalika International Trac-tors plans to enhance the

capacity of tractor units at its Hoshiarpur plant in Punjab by investing Rs.500 crores. In addition Rs.200 crores will also be invested in its equip-ment division to expand its production.

A.S. Mittal, Vice chair-man, Sonalika group, in a press statement said that by December next year will the capacity at the Hoshiarpur plant would be doubled from the present 75000 to 1.5 lakh units.After the completion of the expansion Sonalika shall become India’s largest integrated tractor plant under one roof.

It can be possible only due to Punjab’s peaceful and pro- industry pro atmosphere in the whole country, he said. State Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who had laid down the foundation stone of Sonalika Tractors decade ago has been encourag-ing throughout and con-tinuously supporting this industry. Sonalika Tractors has emerged as a key player in the tractor market and became one among the top four players, after crossing John Deere last year.

Mittal said that Sonalika Tractors are being exported to 65 countries around the world, that includes most de-veloped European countries, Like Germany. The direct em-ployment after the expansion by next December, shall be more than 5000. Again about 10000 may be employed, indirectly, through ancillaries. The group employs presently more than 3000 direct work-ers and engineers and another 5000 through its Ancillary and component suppliers.

Mittal further stated that

the chief minister is passion-ate about farm mechanization techniques. In his heart and heart, he is still a farmer.

He fur ther said that growth oriented new indus-trial policy of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhvir Singh Badal has been a great inspiration not only for Sonalika Trac-tors but also for other indus-trial units in Punjab state. It is necessary to mention here that the Deputy Chief Minister took special initiative to intro-duce Punjab made Sonalika tractors to Pakistan during his visit and offered tractor technology from Punjab to the Pak industrialists.

Sobha Developers enters Kozhikode market

Sobha Developers Limite, known for its unique value

systems, outstanding quality, timely delivery and excellent customer service announced the launch of its Sobha Bela Encosta Villa Project in Ko-zhikode.

Sobha Bela Encosta Vil-las are poised to fulfill the growing need for world-class homes in Kozhikode offering quality and class beyond compare, supported by the architectural expertise honed by years of Sobha experi-ence in both global and local projects.

Expressing his happiness on Sobha’s foray into this new market, P Ramakrishnan, Deputy Managing Director, Sobha Developers Ltd., said, “We are highly delighted to enter the Kozhikode real es-tate market with our landmark Sobha Bela Encosta project. This is our second endea-vour in the state of Kerala, after having built world-class Sobha City in Thrissur. Be-sides, we also have our CSR initiatives in Kerala.”

“Kozhikode will get to witness a whole new stan-dard of luxury living from the stables of the highly re-spected Sobha brand that has redefined luxury and fine living. Head quartered in Bangalore, Sobha Developers today has evolved into a lead-ing delivery focused organiza-tion with proven credentials. It has delivered more than 56

million sq. ft., 85 real estate projects and 230 contractual projects across 23 cities in India.” added RamakrishnanSobha Bela Encosta

Sobha Developers pres-ents its first project in Ko-zhikode- BELA ENCOSTA - a Villa township - inspired by Portuguese architecture and landscape.

Located close to Palazhi, in a scenic hill side, Bela Encosta is close to promi-nent health and educational institutions.

“Bela Encosta, which means ‘Beautiful Hillside’ in Portuguese is where architec-ture blends with nature to give you the Lifestyle that’s 100%. The innovatively planned gated estate offers 113 villas set in 25 acres with 5 living options ranging from 3600 to 4800 sq ft.”, said Ramak-rishnan

Bela Encosta will be the first-of-its- kind offering in Kozhikode - with luxury living spaces and open wide roads which welcome one to a new experience. Each villa comes with covered car parks and a designer landscape.

As one enters the villa, the spacious and well lit living room greets them. The large Dining room and Bedroom share the view of a well landscaped courtyard. The terrace offers a place to enjoy quiet evenings.

“The residential enclave has a 13000 sq ft clubhouse, located conveniently in the hear t of the community. It offers amenities like gaze-bos, water body, swimming pool, basketball, tennis, table tennis, badminton cour t, billiards room, gymnasium, amphitheatre, convenience store, multipurpose hall and children’s play area. The green parks and playfield pro-vide ample recreation for kids and adults alike.” highlighted Ramakrishnan

Sobha Bela Encosta is a tribute to Malabar, to Ko-zhikode and the people of the region.

With a legacy of monar-chial palaces, presidential suites, hotels, villas and over 120 international projects,

P N C Menon founded Sobha Developers Ltd. in the year 1995 with a mandate to ‘transform the way people perceive quality’.

Head quartered in Banga-lore, Sobha Developers today has evolved into a leading delivery focused organization with proven credentials. It has delivered more than 56 million sq. ft., 85 real estate projects and 230 contractual projects across 23 cities in India. It went public through its initial public offering in December 2006. This issue went on to create a record of its own by getting over subscribed by 126 times.

Sobha’s conviction to create world class projects in India has brought for th its culture of commitment to the finer subtleties which translates into a great living experience. A highly process driven organization, Sobha lays strong emphasis on environmental management, water harvesting and high

safety standards. Perhaps the only back-

ward integrated real estate company, Sobha Developers has expertise and infrastruc-ture for designing, structural engineering, manufacturing of interior, metal & glazing and concrete products. This means that the company has all the competencies and re-sources ‘in-house’ to deliver a project from conceptualiza-tion to completion.

To create these life spaces which are no less than a work of art, Sobha Developers also has the unique distinction of training and producing skilled technicians in-house, at Sobha Academy.

Sobha has been honoured with the ‘Most Reliable Real Estate Developer’ (voted by customers) 2012 at the na-tional level at the CNBC Real Estate Awards and has been the recipient of over hundred other prestigious awards from different institutions of repute.

Sobha is an organiza-tion where quality meets excellence, technology meets aesthetics and passion meets perfection.

Trafalgar showcases the spectacular landscapes of Australia & New Zealand

Trafalgar announced the launch of their 2014 Aus-

tralia and New Zealand bro-chure, featuring stopovers in tropical Fiji. With 8 fully guid-ed holidays, 16 independent mini-stays and 24 day-trips, Trafalgar’s 2014 South Pacif-ic brochure offers a number of travel options that include the brand’s exclusive Insider Highlights (restricted to guid-

ed holidays), like Authentic Accommodations, Local Specialties and Be My Guest dining experiences. Several itineraries now also feature Included Choice, a selection of sightseeing activities that guests can choose within a specific destination, such as playing a round of golf or taking a Thunder Jet ride in Queenstown.

A.S. Mittal Vice Chairman, Sonalika Tractors


What a Business Lawyercan do to protect Intellectual Property

- Matthew Brennan -

When it comes to pro-tecting your business’s

intellectual proper ty in the online marketplace, it’s im-portant to have internal pro-tocols in place.

For instance, your em-ployees should understand what concepts are labeled as trade secrets, and what business ideas should not be shared. Certain employ-ees will continuously come across proprietary informa-tion that is integral to the day-to-day operation of your business. They need to un-derstand that that information is not to be shared outside the company.

Some of these secrets and ideas may even have more value than the products or services that your business sells. Any documents should be labeled with the words confidential on them.

Sometimes businesses do all the right things and still end up having trouble protect-ing this type of information. A business lawyer can help when all else fails.

Catching the people who steal this type of information and then prosecuting them is an extremely difficult job. Re-trieving the stolen information can be nearly impossible in certain situations, but having professional help can drasti-cally increase the chances of a better outcome for you and your business. Publishing Content Online

Another type of intellec-tual information is all the copyrighted content that is posted online. Your business has the rights to any website content, pictures, ar ticles, web page copy or blogs that it posts online.

Businesses are sharing more and more of this type of information in the digital marketplace. It’s a great way to increase your bottom line and find new customers. It’s important to understand that when you publish it online, you still have the rights to original content.

The copy as written, pho-tographs and any other form of content is yours. Just because computers make it easy to steal, doesn’t mean it’s legal. Pursuing the theft of this type of intellectual property can quickly become overwhelming, and may re-quire direct requests to oth-ers to remove it from their

marketing. It is best to know when to leave that type of ef-fort to someone experienced in dealing with the law.

This form of copyright infringement can be another area where a business lawyer can protect your interests. Protecting Your Ideas

Your ideas don’t need to come to fruition to be protected. Let’s say that an engineer with your company comes up with an innovative way to increase production, or to make your product better.

It doesn’t matter what stage of implementation that idea is in – even if he just stepped out of the shower. It still constitutes intellectual proper ty, and needs to be protected. If it were to fall into the wrong hands, it could become a costly matter.

This is another area a business lawyer can help.Conclusion

While intellectual property

Patent protection for software in India

- Adv. V.R. Gopu -

Introduction

Patentability of the software- related inventions are very

controversial in these days. In early 1960s and 1970s uniform response was that software was not patentable subject matter. But in subse-quent years United States and Japan expanded the scope of patent protection. But several countries including Europe and India are reluctant to grant patents for computer program for the fear that technologi-cal progress in this volatile industry will be impeded. Proponents for the software patenting argue that patent protection will encourage, and would have encouraged, more innovation in the software industry. Opponents maintain that software patenting will stifle innovation, because the characteristics of software are basically different from those of the innovations of old Industrial, e.g. mechanical and civil engineering.Patent

A patent is granted for an invention. An invention is defined as a new product or process involving an inventive step and capable of industrial application.

A patent is granted as an exclusive right by the Govern-ment for an invention for a limited period of time (now for twenty years in India ) in consideration of disclosure of the invention by an applicant. A patentee enjoys exclusive right to prevent a third party from an unauthorized act of making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the patented product or process within the country during the term of the patent. A patented invention becomes free for public use after expiry of the term of the patent or when the patent ceases to have effect on account of non-payment of renewal fee. Protection for software -related innovations

A software related /com-puter implemented invention mean any invention the per-formance of which involves the use of computer, computer network or other programma-ble apparatus, or an invention one or more features which are realized wholly or partially by means of a computer pro-gramme/ programmes.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) defined the term computer program as: “A set of instructions ca-pable, when incorporated in a machine readable medium, of causing a machine having information processing capa-bilities to indicate, perform or achieve a particular function, task or result”.

Software/ computer pro-gram can be protected either by copyright or patent or both. Patent protection for software has advantages and disad-vantages in comparison with copyright protection. There have been many debates concerning patent protection for software as information technology has developed and more software has been developed. This caused mainly due to the characteristics of software, which is intangible and also has a great value. It needs huge amount of re-sources to develop new and useful programs, but they are easily copied and easily trans-mitted through the internet all over the world. Also due to the development of e-commerce, there is urge for patenting of business methods.

Computer programs re-main intangible even after they have actually come into use. This intangibility causes dif-ficulties in understanding how a computer program can be a patentable subject-matter. The questions of whether and what extent computer programs are patentable remain unresolved.

More than half of the 176 countries in the world that grant patents permit the patenting of software-related inventions, at least to some degree. There is a worldwide trend in favor of adopting patent protection for software-related inventions. This trend accelerated follow-ing the adoption in 1994 of the TRIPS Agreement, which mandates member countries to provide patent protection for inventions in all fields of technology, but which stops shor t of mandatory patent protection for software per se.

The most widely followed doctrine governing the scope of patent protection for soft-ware-related inventions is the “technical effects” doctrine that was first promulgated by the European Patent Office (EPO). This doctrine gener-ally holds that software is patentable if the application of the software has a “technical effect”. The EPO law regard-ing patentability of software tends to be somewhat more liberal than the individual laws of some of the EPO member countries. Indian patent act

Like in Europe, in India also the doctrine of “technical effects” governs the scope of patent protection for software-related inventions. The patent Act of 1970, as amended by the Act of 38 of 2002, excludes patentability of software per se or as such. Section 3(k) of the Patent Act states “a math-ematical or business method or a computer program per se

or algorithm” is not patentable invention. The computer pro-gram products claimed as “A computer program product in computer readable medium”, “A computer-readable storage medium having a program recorded thereon”, etc are not held patentable for the claims are treated as relating to soft-ware per se, irrespective of the medium of its storage .On the other hand “a contents display method for displaying con-tents on a screen”, “a method for controlling an information processing apparatus, for communicating via the Internet with an external apparatus”, “a method for transmitting data across an open communica-tion channel on a wireless device that selectively opens and closes a communication channel to a wireless network, and each wireless device including a computer platform and including a plurality of device resources that selec-tively utilizes a communica-tion channel to communicate with other devices across the network” are held patentable though all above methods utilize computer programs for its operation. But computer program solely intellectual in context are not patentable and can be protect only by copyright.Conclusion

In India software per se is not patentable. The inventions relating to the application of the computer program or soft-ware is held patentable under the Indian Patent Act, 1970 when claimed in combination of hardware and software components of a computer which provides a “techni-cal advancement” over the prior art. It is necessary for the applicant to describe the “technical contribution” to the prior art when the invention in-volves software. The technical problem, which needs to be solved by the invention, should be sufficiently described as to how the hardware is controlled by the software to overcome the previously described prob-lem. The “technical character” of the invention should be brought out clearly in the claims.

(V.R.Gopu M.A, LL.M (U.S), IPR & Corporate Consultant of KALPAFILES Legal, Kaloor, Kochi-17. Email:[email protected] Ph: 09388465537)

may fly around a little freer in the online world, it still needs to be highly guarded. Make sure that your company still values the intellectual prop-erty that gives it an advantage in the marketplace.

Don’t let your business fall victim to thieves out look-ing to become rich on the very things that your business worked so hard to implement. Once you have all the internal protocols in place, and your employees are educated, it’s time to make sure that you have adequate protection from a business lawyer.

(Matthew Brennan is a marketing writer based in the Chicago area. He regularly writes about content market-ing, blogging, and engaging with your audience. He has been published on ProBlog-ger, Soshable, and Busi-ness2Community. Connect with Matthew on his website, www.matthewlbrennan.com, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+)

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a whole. I personally know many lawyers who charge lakhs of rupees for one sitting, but provide dedicated service to LSA absolutely free of cost. Q. Can any group or associa-tion approach LSA seeking justice?

Any individual, corpo-rates, trust or association can approach the Legal Service Authority before filing a case in the court (pre-litigation). Even when litigation is going on, with permission from the respective court, a case can be referred to the LSA. Either the LSA can request the court to refer the case or the petitioner or respondent can request to refer the matter to the LSA. Sections 19 and 20 of the LSA Act have the provi-sion for such a reference.Q. Can the LSA take up busi-ness disputes?

The Legal Service Au-thority is the social face of our Indian judiciary. So any case mentioned earlier – ir-respective of whether it is an individual case or B2B or business-to-customer – the LSA is bound to take it up. Now-a-days, majority of the bank loan repayment issues, builders’ non compliance of construction agreements, etc are handled by LSA.

There have been cer-tain important amendments that people are not aware of with regard to the service of LSA. In 2002, Section 22 ABCD was amended and separate forum was formed in the name of Permanent Lok Adalat headed by a retired District Judge along with

two other members selected by the State Legal Service Authority.

The forum will handle only special cases related to public utility like electricity, transportation of goods and passengers through air, water and road transport; not rail, telephone, water supply, sani-tation, insurance and hospital treatment.

In cases, where a patient suffered permanent disability or death because of negli-gence of hospitals, earlier people used to file a civil suit for damages and it used to take years to get the final verdict. In this forum, both the par ties (including doc-tors) are immediately called for conciliation, if it fails and negligence is found, compen-sation amount will be passed on merit which cannot be challenged in any cour t of law. It is a very powerful body and from morning 10.00am till 5.00pm the Permanent Lok Adalat remains open for the public.

The petition can be sub-mitted in a white paper and no lawyer is required for the same. Permanent Lok Adalats are currently func-tioning in three regions of Kerala: Trivandrum, Cochin and Kozhikode.Q. What is your advice to our young lawyers?

Law is a highly dignified profession. Every advocate should keep aside a small portion of his official working hours for the service of the weaker section of society, which will give him more satisfaction than monetary benefits.


Kerala Sahitya Academy Chairman Perumbadavam Sreedharan releasing the book “Saakshara Keralathinte Navothanamoollyangal” written by Fr. A. Adapoor by handing over a copy to Dr. Paul Manelel, at a function held at Lumen – Jyothis, Kochi. Newman Association President Mathew Joseph Moozhayil, Fr. Joseph Kalleppallil, Pro. M.K. Sanoo, Fr. Adapoor and Dr. Muse Mary George are also seen.

Entrepreneurship Cell of IIT Kharagpur to conduct Business Plan and Product Design competitions - The last date for submission of ideas is 30th October 2013 -

Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharag-

pur is a student organisation estab-lished with the aim of fostering the spirit of entrepreneurship among college students in India. Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur is one of the most successful entrepreneurial organisations in the coun-try with over 25 star t-ups incubated within 6 years of inception. As a part of its activities the Cell is conduct-ing 2 flagship competitions namely Empresario and En-vision open for students all across the globe

Empresario is its annual Business Plan competition. Business Ideas in all fields ranging from Product and Service to Social get equal opportunity to win the prize and incubation money to the tune of INR 2.5 crore. Last year Empresario was launched in as-sociation with Dell Social In-novation Chal-lenge. The total p r i ze fo r the winners were 6 lacs INR. Also the best 3 entries in the social category got a chance to participate directly in the semi-final rounds of Dell Social Innovation Challenge.

For the first round of Em-presario, participants have to fill up a questionnaire asking in brief about their Business idea and submit it. This questionnaire can be found at the website www.ecell-iitkgp.org/empresario. Deadline for the submission is October 30th 2013.

E-Cell, I IT Kharagpur being based in a technical university also conducts an annual product design com-petition Envision. As a part of Envision the Cell invites new innovative products in following background:-

Mechanical: Do you think your design can beat the “Nano”? Do you have a de-sign for the next generation

biped robot? Then this path is for you.

Electronics & Electrical: Is the idea for the next iPod floating in your

head? Do you dream about circuits in your sleep? Follow your heart, follow your path!

Information Technology & Software: A path much treaded upon, but there is still a lot of scope for innova-tion in this field. Animation, business analytics, process automation, IT is just getting started.

Life Sciences & Biotech-nology: Does your product promise a greener tomor-row? Do you have the solu-tion for the ever increasing oil prices? Well what are you waiting for, start moving.

Miscellaneous: Select this path if you are in a query over which path to select.

To participate just send a technical write-up of your

product design to [email protected]

“We provide our shor t-listed entries immense help in terms of mentorship and our winners also get a much sought after chance to pitch their ideas in front of some of India’s biggest VCs and investors. Our mentor pool is rich and varied and has distinguished people from across different fields to help with every aspect of starting-up”, the office bear-ers of Entrepreneurship Cell, IIT Kharagpur stated.

The Cell conducts its flagship event - Global Entre-preneurship Summit (GES), the largest collegiate entre-preneurial summit in India every year in January. The final rounds of Empresario and Envision will be held during GES’14.

Some of the past winners of empresario and envision

are :-Clenoventions - a start-

up by students of IIT Kharag-pur, offers a unique product “SolarEX”, which harnesses the entire spectrum of the light giving an efficiency 44% compared to 10-12% in Solar PV and 25% in CSP technology. It also provides safe drinking water along with power generation, making it of utmost utility in rural India where millions of dollars are spent by Government every year for kerosene subsidy and safe drinking water. They were also semi-finalist at DSIC and finalist in Rice Busi-ness Plan Competition.

Roof For Two - A startup by a team from Massachu-setts Institute of Technology, is a unique concept that can help solve the age-old prob-lem of two-wheeler riders who ride daily through rain, sun and the cold. Roof for Two eliminates travel irritation

with an affordable and stylish riding canopy. The prod-uct is a detachable, co l laps ib le and lightweight motor-

cycle accessory compat-ible with most popular two-wheeler models now. With a growing two-wheeler market in India and an even faster growing middle class, the product promises to change the way India rides.

Social Cops - a star t-up by a Team of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore is a web and mo-bile platform uses technology to bring together different community stakeholders- citizens, NGOs & local admin-istration to solve civic prob-lems ranging from uncleared garbage & potholes on the road to leaking drainages & dangerous electric poles. They were the winners at INDIAFRICA - A SHARED FUTURE Business Venture Competition and Runners up in Microsoft Imagine Cup 2012, Singapore.

Team Exyle- a start-up by

the students of IIT Kharag-pur aims to mission is to apostrophize the never be-fore addressed issues in the Minerals and Metals Industry.

It was also one of the Kairos 50 startups held at New York Stock Exchange

Wavemac- A startup by the students of IIT Kharagpur

is reinventing the way people interact with computers. Gesture controlled product for PCs and laptops. www.wavemac.com


The department of A gri-culture, govt. of Philip-

pines announced to start 5% biodiesel blend with coconut oil by October 2013. Philip-pines is increasing the blend to 5% from

The National Biofuels Board (NBB) is now finalizing the data from the 25-day road testing of the blends in seven jeepneys and from public consultations conducted in Davao, Leyte, and Metro Manila this month.

“We are just waiting for the final decision of the Na-tional Biofuels Board on the results of the road testing of the B5 (5% blend) to public utility vehicles. We are con-fident that we can start the implementation by October,” Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala said.

However, the Department of Energy’s (DoE) Renewable Energy Management Bureau Director Mario C. Marasigan said that the implementation of the increased biodiesel blend does not rely only on the road testing and pub-lic consultations.“No. There were numbers of parameters involved, and all were pre-sented during the public con-sultations, including tests and technological studies. The fi-nal decision and approval will be in the form of a department circular,” Marasigan said.He also said that the DoE is set to discuss the results of the tests with NBB on Sept. 10.

Alcala stated that he hopes the road testing will yield positive results. He also said that various studies before have shown that the increased mix in bio-fuel has no negative effects on the vehicle’s engine.

The agency, in coordi-nation with the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA), In-dustrial Technology Develop-ment Institute (ITDI), National Power Corp. (NPC), Philip-pine National Oil Co. (PNOC-

ERDC), and the Department of Science and Technology (DoST), conducted studies in 1983 on the use of coco biodiesel as fuel.

The DA and PCA also launched in May 2001 the Biodiesel Development Proj-ect, which measured the viability of coconut biodiesel as engine fuel and resulted in at least 50% reduction in smoke emissions.The NBB also awaits the results of a study by the National Eco-nomic and Development Au-thority (NEDA) that looks at the possible impact of price spikes on diesel prices.Ac-cording to the 2012-2030 Philippine Energy Plan, the DoE aims to implement the 5% blend by 2015, 10% by 2020 and 20% by 2030.

“This aims to reduce the dependence on impor ted fuels with due regard to the protection of public health, the environment and the natu-ral ecosystems, consistent with the country’s sustain-able economic growth that would expand opportunities for livelihood,” PCA Admin-istrator Euclides G. Forbes said.Forbes also said that the use of the new biofuel blend will strengthen the domestic market for coconut, which can create up to P19.6 bil-lion of income and save as much as P15.5 billion on fuel displacement.

The PCA official noted that about 1,099 coco methyl ester plant workers, 13,183 coconut oil milling workers and 23,070 farm workers will be hired to support the indus-try.PCA Deputy Administrator Carlos B. Carpio noted that the B2 blend has also brought benefits to the country’s coconut industry.“When the B2 blend was implemented in 2007, we guaranteed domestic market for coconut worth P7.978 billion, and the country saves P6.19 billion annually,” Carpio said.

Philippines to start 5% biodiesel blend with coconut oil in October

Mata Amritanandamayi’s60th birthday celebrations on Sep 26-27

Flurry of charity at

A range of ambitious hu-manitarian and ecological

initiatives will unveil for the benefit of common people across India in end-Septem-ber as devotees of world-renowned spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi Devi are celebrating her 60th birth-day, turning Amritapuri into a festive venue of spiritual and socio-cultural activities.

The two-day festivity will see the launch of a wide array of new social welfare programmes and expansion of several existing services before its conclusion on Sep-tember 27 — the birthday of the “hugging saint”, fondly called Amma by her followers in India as well as abroad.

The event, named Am-ritavarsham60, will be held at the university campus of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham adjacent to Amma’s ashram in Kollam district, according to a spokesperson of humani-tarian organization Mata Am-ritanandamayi Math (MAM). “We estimate a crowd of no less than five lakh people,” he said.

MAM will announce new educational endeavours, con-fer cultural awards, release spiritual books and conduct an international summit aimed at uplifting India’s ru-ral villages, the spokesperson added.

MAM’s super-specialty hospital — the Amrita Insti-tute of Medical Sciences (also known as AIMS or Amrita Hospital) in Kochi — will pro-vide Rs 50 crore worth of free kidney transplants, cardiac surgeries and cancer treat-ments to the poor throughout the country, he said.

As a member of the United Nations Billion Tree Campaign, MAM, along with Amma’s other organisations across continents will embark on a go-green mission. “To-gether, we will plant six mil-lion saplings within one year. Of this, more than 600,000 would be planted in Kerala,” the spokesperson said.

MAM will launch new programmes designed to empower and uplift women living below the poverty line. Also, Amrita Centre for Nano-sciences and Molecular Medi-cine will introduce several cutting-edge technologies it has developed. “These in-clude an implantable beating-heart patch for heart-attack victims, a nano-medicine that treats drug-resistant leukemia and a drug-delivering polymer wafer to prevent recurrence of brain tumors,” he said.

In the field of energy, the Math will introduce integrated nano material-developed so-lar cells and batteries that are 500 times more efficient than the existing technology and have much larger power densities. The project is being done jointly with the Amrita University School of Engi-neering in Amritapuri.

MAM is also arranging an educational symposium to cap a get-together of 59,000 beneficiaries of its social welfare pensions to widows, mentally and physically chal-lenged individuals and other victims of poverty throughout India.

There will be a two-day international summit of sci-entists, social leaders, aca-demicians, entrepreneurs and administrators focused on uplifting India’s rural village communities.

Fur ther, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, MAM’s five-campus university, will launch a new department focused on research, education and proliferation of India’s vast spiritual tradition.

MAM will bestow its pres-tigious ‘Excellence in Cultural Literature’ award at both the international and Kerala state levels.

A three-day-long ritual-istic prayer for world peace, Mahachandika Homam, will be conducted in Amritapuri Ashram, involving 50-plus traditionally trained priests. The event will also see per-formances by internationally-acclaimed musicians, singers and dancers from around the world, across ar tistic

cultures and styles. Critically acclaimed director Shekhar Kapur will film Amritavar-sham60.

“Amma will conduct a marriage ceremony for doz-ens of impoverished couples. MAM will provide all the req-uisite items for a traditional Indian wedding, including clothing, gold jewellery and post-wedding feast,” the spokesperson said.

From September 1 to 7, Amma’s centres around the world will conduct various social service activities, in-cluding cleaning drives, tree-planting and feeding of the poor. MAM will also release new books by Amma’s devo-tees and disciples, presenting and explaining Amma’s spiri-tual teachings.

“As for the free medical care programme, people liv-

ing below the pover ty line will be given top priority,” the spokesperson noted. “Those interested could contact, by mail or in person, MAM’s headquarters or any of our recognised branch ashram.”

Families seeking trans-plants have to arrange their own organ donors, he said, noting that MAM had provided free care to more than 26.2 lakh poor people throughout India since 1998.

The spokesperson said MAM has already assisted more than 100,000 women in starting more than 6,000 self-help groups in India. “We have been providing them education, star t-up capital, marketing assistance and access to microcredit loans and micro-savings accounts from government-regulated banks,” he added.

also give preference to these showrooms for their premium brands and products.

Large range of products including Mobile phones, Smar t phones, Laptops, Monitors, Camera, Refrig-erators, Washing machines, Microwave ovens, Television etc are available at the Sam-

sung Brand Shops. Samsung has promised its customers major offers during this Onam festive season through the Samsung Brand Shops.

Syscon, the largest elec-tronics distributor in the cen-tral region are the partners of Samsung for their exclusive brand showrooms in India.

Samsung Senior Vice President (Consumer Electronics), Sueng Koo Kim inaugurating the largest Samsung showroom in South India at NH Bye- pass, Padivattom, Kochi. Ms. Elsy Chacko, Ms. Laalitha Elen Noor, Director, Syscon and George Jacob, CMD, Syscon are also seen.

Syscon partnered Samsung Brand Shops are already functioning in Kozhikode, Palakkad, Thrissur, Kollam and Thoppumpady. Syscon has plans to set up a wide network of 21 new outlets and plans to expand to other regions across South India soon.

>> from page 7Samsung Brand


Multiple login feature of Email.biz to revolutionize email experienceEmail.biz, providers of

premium & personalized email services announced the addition of a unique new feature called multiple login. Multiple login will facilitate users access all their existing accounts like Gmail, Yahoo etc. in the same window, thereby completely eliminat-ing the hassle of switching and logging in different web-sites. Users can add multiple mail accounts to their email.biz mail account; and check, reply and forward mail from the same window. In addi-tion to this, registered users of Email.biz can continue to take maximum advantage of existing services like unlimited storage, sms alerts for every new mail received, unmatched security, world’s shor test email address ([email protected]) and an attachment size of 500

MB. At present, there are over 1.5 lakh active Email.biz users registered with this pioneering email service.

“We are a premium ser-vice provider, where users can customize their entire email experience, from email domain name to the features they want in their inbox. With the multiple login feature, we have become a one stop solution wherein you can ac-cess all your email accounts from any webmail service in a single window. Our aim is to provide limitless advantage to our burgeoning number of users through constant inno-vation and this latest offering is a step towards that goal”.

Email.biz offers a unique email of your choice includ-ing single and double letter domains, round the clock customer support, multiple

tab option, 20GB of mail storage and much more. With Cloud based Login and Multiple Login System, Email.biz will give a safe and secure access to users’ POP / IMAP email accounts. Registered users can access their email with any Web Browser, PDA or Mobile phone from anywhere in the world. Users get en-hanced security features and their email will be protected with EV SSL certificate, which ensures that there is never an intrusion into their account or information. The creators of this unique service have ensured optimum safety of data as none of the mails or information is stored on their servers.

For more information, and making your own premium email account log on to www.Email.biz

Google selects LPU students as Google Ambassadors

American multinational Google Inc launched

Google Student Ambassa-dor programme as search for talent, and to make its latest products available among students. This year, around 1,750 strong candi-dates from 200 educational institutions from across India par ticipated. They vied for the coveted Google Stu-dent Ambassador (GSA) title for the academic session 2013-14. Amidst strong competitors, two engineering students of LPU got selected after clearing aptitude test and an interview. Recently, these students, Khageshwar Ijardar and Bishal Sapkota (both from B Tech Hons CSE program), attended the Google India Community Summit-2013 in Goa. This biggest summit was or-ganised by Google Country

Outreach team. The summit brought to-

gether Google Business Group (GBG) Managers, Google Developer Group (GDG) Man-agers and Google Student Ambassadors (GSAs) from across India. All gathered for an intensive four-day train-ing program on community management, best practice sharing and product knowl-edge. Being GSAs for one year, both the students will get opportunity to participate in various Google training ses-sions to be held in 2013-14. Presently, encouraged at the summit, both are working on the first project ‘Vanity URL to LPU on G+ Page’.

Sunil Rao, Google Coun-try Head-Outreach Programs, who invited both the students for the summit, informed: “In today’s fast changing technology setting, programs

LPU students Khageshwar Ijardar and Bishal Sapkota in a jubilant mood post their selection as Google Ambassadors.

Tharoor awards10 business schools for best practices in management education

Union Minister of State for Human Resource Devel-

opment Dr Shashi Tharoor awarded 10 Indian business schools for best practices in management education at 4th Indian Management Conclave held in New Delhi. The awards, instituted by MBAUniverse.com, docu-ment and recognize the most successful initiatives by man-agement institutes to enhance the value of their MBA pro-grams.

NMIMS School of Busi-ness Management, Mum-bai, Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, Jaipuria Institute of Manage-ment, S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, Indian Institute of Management, Kashipur, T.A. Pai Management Institute, Manipal, Goa Institute of Management, Goa, BIM-TECH, Greater Noida, : IFIM Business School, Bangalore and Institute for Technology and Management (ITM), Navi Mumbai were the winners in the competitions.

Dr Tharoor applauded the winners at the award cer-emony attended by over 250 MBA educators including di-rectors from B-schools from

India, China, USA, Singapore and Canada.In his valedictory keynote Dr Shashi Tharoor said, “Indian management education has contributed significantly to the Indian and global industry over the last 60 years. Today’s B-Schools need to prepare managers and leaders with sensitivity for larger national goals.”The Minister, who has authored a dozen books, hoped that the case studies by the winning schools will help B-schools instill the spirit of inquiry and excellence to produce MBAs who are better equipped to address the challenges facing business and industry.

The awards instituted by MBAUniverse.com re-ceived over 50 entries from B-schools and departments of management of Universi-ties across India.

Del iver ing the open-ing keynote address HCL

Technologies Vice Chairman Vineet Nayar said, “India can be the hot bed for research-ing and developing the next big management ideas and theories. Indian B-schools and educators must play a proactive role in identifying, researching and document-ing big ideas from India.“The American business schools are taking a lead. I hope Indian Management Conclave pro-vokes and energizes them,” said Mr Nayar who is known for advocating the radical idea “Employees First, Customer Second” when he took over as the CEO of HCL Technolo-gies in 2005

Amit Agnihotri, Convenor, Indian Management Con-clave said, “With the excep-tion of Top 100 B-schools, the remaining need signifi-cant improvement in cur-riculum, education process management and absorp-tion in the talent pool.“Well researched best-practices from among the 50 leading B-schools presented dur-ing the Indian Management Conclave would benefit 3500 plus B-schools in India,” Agnihotri, who also serves as Chairman of MBAUniverse.com, added.

that bridge gap between what is taught in colleges and what is sought by industry are im-portant. Google facilitates one such partnership through its Google Student Ambassador (GSA) program – where we par tner with academia to promote the use of technol-ogy in everyday lives. GSAs are liaison between Google and the students’ university/college.”

Congratulating the stu-dents, LPU Chancellor Ashok Mittal mentioned: “It is a mat-ter of great pride that Google, which is world leader in tech-nologies, has selected our students. However, they have shouldered great responsibil-ity, and they will have to prove how much creative and ex-ceptional they are.” Mr Mittal added: “Google platform will definitely give the students a right spring board to excel in the career ahead.”

Bishal, who is an interna-tional student at LPU from Ne-pal, said: “As an ambassador, I will organise various Google sponsored programs like apps developing competition and other technical events on my campus. I and Khagesh-war feel that we were right in joining LPU covering many thousand miles distance. At LPU, we have got great opportunities for our shining career ahead. We will indeed prove ourselves to be a great part of technology revolution, and also experience what Google communities are all about!”

economy. I personally believe that our government should initiate a voluntary disclosure scheme wherein the citizens who have black money can deposit the same into des-ignated bank accounts for long periods ranging from 20 to 25 years and take it back on maturity at an interest rate of 2-3%. This step will help India to bring back all the ac-cumulated black money into the mainstream.

During September, Infor-mation Technology (IT), phar-maceutical and metals shares are expected to perform very well. Banking stocks will still witness very wild fluctuations as the Indian rupee will keep influencing them very much. As I foresee the Indian rupee stabilizing in the near future, I expect a corresponding recovery in banking stocks in due course. The Nifty may move between 5200 and 5700.

So far this year, the mon-soons have given great relief to our farmers. Now we will have to see how the new RBI governor, who is said to be a very dynamic economist, performs. As the markets are likely to gain stability to some extent in the next few weeks, I am hoping to see some

improvement in the indices by the end of September as compared to August. I recommend the following shares for investments with a holding period of 30 days. Wherever the investor or trader gets 8-10% returns on their investments, it is wise to book profits without looking for further appreciation.

I stress the point of re-en-try for all scrips as I feel there is no point in booking losses at the stop loss levels and getting rid of the respective scrips. But it would be wise to wait and make a re-entry at the given rates to see that you are not losing your capital unnecessarily as everyone knows that the downfalls are as temporary as the uptrends.

ONGC: BUY: `242-247; Target Price: `280-300; Holding Period: 10-20 trading days; Stop Loss: `236-236.50; Re-entry Price: `228-231

GLENMARK PHARMA-CEUTICALS: BUY: `505-515; Target Price: `560-580; Holding Period: 10-20 trading days; Stop Loss: `495-496; Re-entry Price: `475-485

CADILA HEALTHCARE: Buy: `645-655; Target Price: `710-725; Holding Period: 10-20 trading days; Stop Loss: `631-632; Re-entry

Price: `610-620Bharat Petroleum Corp

Ltd: Buy: `265-270; Target Price: `300-325; Holding Period: 10-20 trading days; Stop Loss: `258-259; Re-entry Price: `247-251

Infotech Enterprises: BUY: ̀ 179-183; Target Price: `210-225; Holding Period: 10-20 trading days; Stop Loss: `172-173; Re-entry Price: `162-166

INFOSYS LTD: BUY: `3050-3085; Target Price: `3350-3400; Holding Period: 10-20 trading days; Stop Loss: `2990-2992; Re-entry Price: `2900-2930

The entry time for all the above scrips is between Sep-tember 2 and 10, 2013.

The above are purely my personal views and I request all investors and traders to consult their financial advi-sors before taking all invest-ment and trading decisions. And the above views are based purely on normal mar-ket conditions.

(Mur ty Garimella is an independent Technical Analyst based in Mumbai. He can be contacted at his mobile phone number +91-91675-47273 or via e-mail at [email protected]. And his website is www.track2trade.net)

>> from page 8IT pharma

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Dr. K. Promodu receives

Dr. K. Promodu, Director, Clinical Psychologists

and Sex Therapist of Dr. Pro-modu’s Institute of Sexual & Marital Health, Kalamassery has won the Outstanding Service Award instituted by Council of Sex Education and Parenthood ( International) for his contribution to the field of sexology.

Dr. Promodu received the Award from Council Chair-man Dr. D. Narayana Reddy and Organising Secretary Dr.G. Venkata Ramana at the 29th national conference of the Council of Sex Educa-tion and parenthood held at Hyderabad from 23rd to 25th August 2013.

Dr. Promodu is a pioneer

in the field of sexology and has various national and international publications to his credit, authored nu-merous ar ticles in various magazines and news papers, and presented television pro-grammes on sexual health. He is the founder Managing Director of PISM, Kochi, a super specialty hospital for sexual medicine with Sex Therapy, Andrology, Gyne-cology, Clinical Psychology, allied depar tments and re-search. From January 2006 to January 2013 the hospi-tal has successfully treated 10977 patients with sexual problems. The Institute plans to start postgraduate course in Sexual Medicine.

Dr. K. Promodu, Director of Dr. Promodu’s Institute of Sexual & Marital Health, Kalamassery receiving the Outstanding Service Award instituted by Council of Sex Education and Parenthood from Council Chairman Dr. D. Narayana Reddy and Organising Secretary Dr.G. Venkata Ramana.

Abbott named ‘Best Company to Work For’ in the Pharma & Healthcare Sector

Also named one of India’s ‘Most Admired Companies’ by Fortune Indiacareer growth prospects, financial compensation, work life balance, per formance evaluation, stability and other HR practices. The complete rankings, individual sector rankings and a feature story are available online in the August 4, 2013 issue of Busi-ness Today.

In addition to the Business Today ranking, Abbott was also recognised as one of India’s “Most Admired Com-panies” by Fortune India in the Pharma & Healthcare sector.

“Abbott is proud to help our employees grow with challenging and rewarding career oppor tunities,” said Bhasker Iyer, divisional vice president, Abbott Established Pharmaceuticals, India. “It is a great honour to be recog-nised as one of India’s best employers.”

Business Today, a part of the prestigious India Today group, is India’s No. 1 busi-ness magazine by reader-ship counting some 400,000 readers per the latest In-

dian Readership Survey. The magazine started publishing in 1992.

“The Best Companies To Work For” is an annual survey conducted by Business Today and PeopleStrong HR Ser-vices that aims to understand the perceptions and aspiration of India’s talent across indus-tries. It gives a great insight into how industry at large and in specific verticals can align their employer brands to how the workforce of India is aspiring and thinking.

OutstandingService Award

Abbott was recognized by Business Today as

“The Best Company to Work For” in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector. The global healthcare company was also listed in the Top 25 of Business Today’s “Best Companies to Work For” among Indian businesses in all sectors.

The prestigious Business Today annual ranking is based on a detailed survey in which employees rank their em-ployers on criteria such as

HEA

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Infection through food & waterMany infections such as

cholera, typhoid, botu-lism, gastroenteritis, dysen-tery, etc may get transmitted through contaminated food and water. Hence, such dis-eases are called food-borne or water-borne diseases.

In our country, normally a good number of people who live in thickly populated areas are found infected with loose motion, which contain blood and mucous. This type of in-fection is known as dysentery.

Dysenteries are of vari-ous types. One of them is amoebic dysentery, which is very common. In many cases, this disease can be prevented if the masses are made aware of the mode of infection.

Amoebic dysentery is a parasitic infection. It is caused by a micro organism known as entemoeba hystolytica. It is a protozoa that comes under the rhizopoda class. It appears in two stages – active form as well as inactive form. Active form is responsible for producing various signs and symptoms. It causes ulcer in the large intestine and lives there. The blood, tissue and

other tissue particles act as food of this para-site. Due to the irritation r e s u l t i n g

from poison produced by this germ, patients may suffer from various problems such as mild fever, abdominal pain, passing of loose stool, etc. The stool may contain blood and mucous.

The cyst, which is in ac-tive form, is responsible for transmission of infection from patient to healthy persons. If the eatery of the cyst into the body of the healthy person can be prevented, the disease can be prevented to a certain extent.

The diagnosis of the dis-ease can be done in a clinical laboratory by conducting examination of stool under a microscope. This test is known as stool microscopi-cal examination. If the case is positive, vegetative form of amoeba can be detected. If the infection is not treated at an appropriate time, the disease may affect other systems.

This is a very dangerous con-dition. If required precautions are taken against transmission of such infections, the disease can be prevented. Hence, it would be advisable to follow the below-mentioned instruc-tions carefully.1. Always take warm food2. Always drink boiled water3. Wash hands with soap

and water before taking food

4. Ensure good sanitation in the house

5. Never pass stool in open space

6. Cut or trim nails regularly7. Fruits and vegetables

that are normally con-sumed without boiling them should be washed well with large quantities of water

8. The surroundings of the house should always be kept very clean and neat

9. As house flies are a major cause for spread of this infection, always strive to keep the house free of these flies

10. Cooked food should in-variably be kept closed to avoid contact with germs.

HLL launches disposable, eco-friendly limb immobilisation device

HLL Lifecare Limited, a leading public sector

global healthcare company has launched a new product in the orthopaedic segment – HiCARE LIMO in the presence of Prof. K.VijayRaghavan, Secretary, Depar tment of Biotechnology (DBT), Minis-try of Science and Technolo-gy, Government of India; Prof. R. K. Shevgaonkar, Director, IIT-Delhi and Dr.M.Ayyappan, C&MD, HLL Lifecare Limited.

HiCARE LIMO is a novel, low-cost device for “Limb Im-mobilisation Device”, aimed at temporarily immobilising injured limbs in trauma pa-tients for pre-hospital care. It is a simple, disposable and cost effective device which temporarily immobilises the lower limbs of the patients for up to six hours till de-finitive care is provided. The device has been developed to address the unmet Indian clinical need in a cost effec-tive manner.

HiCARE LIMO is a prod-uct developed under a flag-ship program of the De-par tment of Biotechnology implemented at AIIMS and IIT, Delhi in collaboration

Prof. K. Vijay Raghavan and Dr. M. Ayyappan at the launch of the HiCARE LIMO in Delhi.

with the Stanford Univer-sity, USA and par tnership of Indo-US S&T Forum. The aim of this programme is to create medical technology innovators/leaders in India by involving IITs, leading engineering institutions and partner medical institutions.

This prestigious pro-gramme is spearheaded by Dr. Balram Bhargava, Prof. Cardiology, AIIMS and Prof. Alok Ray, Head, Centre for Biomedical Engineering, IIT-D. The Department has au-thorised Biotech Consortium India Limited (BCIL), New

Delhi for management of this programme including licens-ing out of the technologies developed/being developed under this programme.

The limb immobiliser is made up of cardboard with multiple creases for better encapsulation of different leg gir th sizes, hip support section and multiple belts for immobilising joints at dif-ferent locations. It is a single free-size device for right/left limb with better “wrapping ef-fect” and its unique strapping mechanism immobilises for a good 6 hours.

Smoking: Implement COTPA effectively, recommends study

The first-ever study on the incidence of tobacco use

in India, even while signal-ling caution and determined action, has recommended effective implementation of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), 2003 to tackle the worrisome inci-dence of tobacco use.

The study conducted in rural areas of Thiruvanan-thapuram district brings out that while 21.1 percent of young men (15-24 years) are prone to the smoking habit, 22.2 percent of men between the ages of 55 and 64 gravitated towards smoke-less tobacco products over seven years.

The findings of the study have been summarised in an article titled ‘Incidence of Tobacco Use Among Adults (15-64 years) in Rural Kerala’ published in a recent edition of Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Health. Dr T Sathish, Dr Srinivasan Kannan, Dr P

Sankara Sarma and Dr KR Thankappan of the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology here are behind the study.

The cohort study evalu-ated the incidence of current smoking and current smoke-less tobacco use over a sev-en-year period in a sample of 452 males and females aged 15 to 64 years using the World Health Organisation’s STEPS approach. The STEPS approach is an instrument of chronic disease risk factor surveillance and has three steps, viz., questionnaire, physical measurements and biochemical measurements.

At the start of the study in 2003, of the total of 452 persons, 385 were current non-smokers and 402 were current nonusers of smoke-less tobacco. A follow-up conducted in 2010 showed that 14.3 percent and 14.2 percent men became cur-rent smokers and current

smokeless tobacco users respectively.

Current smokers and cur-rent smokeless tobacco users are defined as those who had used any of these products in the last 30 days. Smoking products include cigarettes and bidis while smokeless tobacco products included in the study are snuff, betel quid with tobacco, gutkha or khaini.

Incidence of smoking or the measure of risk of acquiring the habit has been obtained by dividing the num-ber of new current smokers at follow-up by the number of current nonsmokers during baseline. A similar process was followed to understand the incidence of smokeless tobacco use. Incidence of current smoking and current smokeless tobacco use is of initiation and/or relapse.

The study also throws up the trend of smokeless tobacco use among women; 9.7 per cent of older women (55-64 years) became cur-rent smokeless tobacco us-ers.

While there is seen a shift of preference from smok-ing to smokeless tobacco among men; it does not however translate itself to total abstinence from smok-ing. A high 45.5 per cent continued smoking even when they took up smoke-less tobacco use.

NephroPlus introduces “Holiday Dialysis’Travel is one of the most

refreshing and loved vaca-tion ideas. However, people on dialysis dread to travel due to the various hassles involved. Realizing the com-plexities involved in travelling for a dialysis patient, India’s leading dialysis provider net-work NephroPlus has intro-duced ‘Holiday Dialysis’.

The unique ‘holiday di-alysis program’ will help dialysis patients travel with ease. Through the program, NephroPlus will provide as-sistance to dialysis patients’ right from flight or rail book-ings to hotel bookings to dialysis sessions at its own units. In the initial phase, NephroPlus has introduced the program in Cochin/Al-leppey, Delhi/Agra and Banga-lore/Coorg and going forward, the services will be offered at various tourist destinations like Goa, Mahabaleshwar etc. and other places where

NephroPlus has its own cen-tres.

Speaking about the ini-tiative, Kamal D. Shah, Co-Founder and Director, Pa-tient Services, NephroPlus said, “Most of the tourist destinations in India are not patient friendly. In fact, a majority of them do not have dialysis clinics making these destinations out of bounds for dialysis patients. We at NephroPlus have always strived to provide quality care and enable patients lead an almost normal life. The concept of holiday dialysis is an extension of this vision.”

Interestingly, Shah is a dialysis patient himself and has been on dialysis for the last 16 years. Despite being a dialysis patient, Mr. Shah travels regularly, has visited the US twice after getting on to dialysis and he has even got dialysis on a cruise ship in Alaska! “At NephroPlus, we

strive to ensure that patients are not denied a normal life. Our Holiday Dialysis program enables them to enjoy the joys of travel without the ac-companying hassle. With a single point-of-contact for all aspects of the trip, patients can simply decide the dates and we take care of the rest!”

Equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and experi-enced professionals, Nephro-Plus centres offer regular dialysis as well as innovative modules like nocturnal dialy-sis (dialysis done at night) and short daily dialysis. Following the highest quality standards, the centers are monitored by NephroPlus’ highly ef-fective remote monitoring system. The unique remote monitoring system monitors dialysis units including the machines and RO plants, and proactively manages health outcomes thereby ensuring ZERO cross infection.


March 2013 Page No. 14

Gold & Two Wheeler Loan

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After objecting the Sri Lankan cricketers play-

ing in Chennai for IPL teams, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Ms. Jayalalithaa opposed the Tamil GAIL running its Kochi-Bangalore natural gas pipeline across agricultural land in the State.

Speaking in the Tamil Nadu assembly, Chief Min-ister made it clear that GAIL should align the pipeline along highways to avoid farm-land and habitations, remove pipeline-related structures from the fields and restore them to original condition, and compensate farmers for the loss.

The pipeline runs for over 310 km in Tamil Nadu, covering Coimbatore, Tirup-

pur, Erode, Namakkal, Sa-lem, Dharmapuri, and Krish-nagiri districts. The State Government’s stand stalls the ` 3,263-crore project, with a planned length of 6,126 km of pipeline, carry-

Jayalalithaa opposes GAIL gas pipeline as well

P Chidambaram, Union Minister for Finance, Govt. of India speaking at the “India for Investment”, an investors meet held at Dubai by Barjeel Geojit Securities. Dr. Arvind Mayaram, Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India, Lokesh, Indian Ambassador to UAE, Sanjay Verma, Indian Consul General in Dubai and Sheikh Sultan Soud Alquassemi, Chairman of Barjeel Geojit Securities and C J George, MD of Geojit BNP Paribas are also seen. This Investors Meet was hosted by Barjeel Geojit and Geojit BNP Paribas.

ing 16 mmscmd of gas. The project has been aligned as a cross-country line under vacant and agricultural land taking the ‘shor test pos-sible route’ as provided by the Petroleum and Minerals Pipeline Act, 1962, a Central legislation.

In India, of the 12,000 km of pipeline for various projects, just about 25 km is aligned along highways as a last resort. Globally too, this is the approach to gas pipe-lines as a highway alignment will mean more populated areas will be included. Re-garding the GAIL pipeline, as provided under the Act, the company acquired the Right-of-Use of a 20 metre breadth of land along the pipeline alignment under the Act. Once the line is laid the farmers get their land back with minimal restrictions. They are only not allowed to construct any per-manent structures along the 20-m breadth of the pipeline.

On the status of the proj-ect in Tamil Nadu, about 20 km length has been graded and 10 per cent of the pipes transported to the sites and pipeline materials have been procured. Each pipe is about three tonnes and 11 metres long. The pipeline laying con-tract has also been awarded. A change in the alignment will mean the cost will treble as the project will need to

be redesigned to bring in a different class of pipes. Also, the project planned to be completed in about a year will be delayed by more than three years. Also, the con-sumers – essentially industry which needs the fuel – will end up bearing the costs. It is a clean fuel and feedstock in demand across range of industries.

The project had met with some resistance in Kerala and parts of Karnataka where compensation was hiked as appropriate.

As the gas pipeline proj-ect can only proceed with the cooperation of State Govern-ments, Gail is worried that Tamil Nadu’s stand could set a precedent in other States.

C J George elected as Chairman, CII Kerala

ARMS & AMMUNITION DEALERS / REPAIRERSShenoy’s Jn., Near Arrow, Narakathara Road, Ernakulam, Cochin 682 035.

Phone: (O) 0484-2371598 0484-2353589

Air Pistol & Air RifleLicence not required

Stockist: Cochin Airguns, Ph: 0484-3228069

C J George Shyam Srinivasan

C J George, Managing Director, Geojit BNP

Paribas Financial Services Ltd was elected as the Chairman of CII, Kerala State Council for the year 2013-14.

C J George, has been closely associated with the CII and was the Vice Chair-man and Convenor of the Membership Services Panel of Kerala State Council for the year 2012-13 and involved in many activities and initiatives of CII.

Shyam Srinivasan, Man-aging Director & CEO, The

Federal Bank Ltd was cho-sen as the Vice Chairman of CII, Kerala State Council for the year 2013-14.

Shyam Srinivasan has taken charge as the Man-aging Director & CEO of the Bank with effect from 23rd September 2010. He joined Federal Bank after having worked with leading multinational banks in India and overseas across Middle East, India and South East Asia, where he has gained significant experience in retail lending, wealth man-agement and SME banking.



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NCD issue of Muthoot Finance: A golden opportunity for investors

Muthoot Finance Lim-ited, the largest gold

financing company in India in terms of loan por tfolio, has announced a public is-sue of secured, redeemable, non-convertible debentures and unsecured, redeemable, non-convertible debentures (NCDs) of face value of `1,000 each aggregating upto `150 crore with an op-tion to retain oversubscription upto ̀ 150 crore, aggregating to a total of upto `300 crore.

The NCD issue with eleven investment options and effective yield of upto 12.55% (per annum) opened on September 2 and closes on September 16, 2013, with an option for early closure as may be decided by the NCD Public Issue Committee sub-ject to necessary approvals. While the face value of each NCD is ̀ 1,000, the minimum application has to be for ten NCDs (`10,000) (for all op-tions of NCDs, namely Option I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI either taken individually or collectively) and in multiples of one NCD thereafter.

According to K. Padma-kumar, Executive Director, Muthoot Finance,the NCDs offered through the prospec-tus are proposed to be listed on BSE Limited and they have been rated ‘CRISIL AA-/Nega-

tive’ by CRISIL and ‘[ICRA] AA- /Negative’ by ICRA.

Ten investment options for secured NCDs are as stated below:

Option I: The maturity date is 24 months from the deemed date of allotment and the interest is payable monthly. The coupon rate and effective yield is 11.50% p.a.

Option II: The maturity date is 36 months from the deemed date of allotment and the interest is payable monthly. The coupon rate and effective yield is 12.00% p.a.

Option III: The maturity date is 60 months from the deemed date of allotment and the interest is payable monthly. The coupon rate and effective yield is 11.50 % p.a.

Option IV: The maturity date is 24 months from the deemed date of allotment and the interest is payable annually. The coupon rate and effective yield is 12.00% p.a.

Option V: The maturity date is 36 months from the deemed date of allotment and the interest is payable annually. The coupon rate and effective yield is 12.25% p.a.

Option VI: The maturity date is 60 months from the deemed date of allotment and the interest is payable annually. The coupon rate and effective yield is 12% p.a.

Option VII: The matu-rity date is 400days from the deemed date of allotment and the effective yield is 11% p.a.

Option VIII: The maturity date is 24 months from the deemed date of allotment and the effective yield is 12% p.a.

Option IX: The maturity date is 36 months from the deemed date of allotment and the effective yield is 12.55%p.a.

Option X: The maturity date is 60 months from the deemed date of allotment and effective yield is 12% p.a.

The investment option for unsecured NCDs is stated as stated below:

Option XI: The maturity date is 72 months from the deemed date of allotment and effective yield is 12.25% p.a.

The funds raised through this Issue will be utilised by the Company for various financing activities including lending and investments, to repay existing liabilities or loans and towards busi-ness operations including for capital expenditure, working capital requirement and other general corporate purposes, after meeting the expenditures of and related to the Issue and subject to applicable statu-tory/regulatory requirements.

The Lead Manager to the issue is ICICI Securities Limited.

Talking to Business Di-gest, K.P. Padmakumar, Ex-ecutive Director, Muthoot Finance Ltd stated that the NCD issue will be a golden opportunity for the investors. Excerpts from the interview:Please explain your com-pany’s track record in NCD issue?

A: The track record of our company in issuing NCDs has been very comfor ting and beneficial to our customers, We are the leaders in the gold loan sector backed by a good credit rating of AA from ICRA & CRISIL, with a net worth greater than 4000 crores and having the highest AUM of 25,000 crore por tfolio. The company has 60 million active gold loan customers with more than 1,00,000 gold loan transactions done every day through its over 4200 branches across India. How can you ensure added benefit to the investor?

A: Our NCD issue offers a substantial high return of interest up to 12.25 % annu-ally, with lucrative investment option period ranging from 400 days to 6 years. One can also opt for doubling the investment in 6 yrs time, The debentures available in a Demat form has the benefit of no income tax is deducted at source. The investors will receive the interest and prin-

cipal directly credited to their bank accounts on due dates.

In addition to this, we have a wide spread of over 4200 branches across pan In-dia whereby every customer who walks in is provided a personalized service which makes it a very user friendly investment option for our customers. How can you offer such an attractive return of 12.25% to the investor?

A: Our average return on asset is about 4% and our average yield on advance is 21% as against cost of funds of about 12.5%. This good spread enables us to offer the attractive interest of 12.25% .Liquidity is avail-able for the investor whereby partial or total disinvestment of the amount could be done through Muthoot Finance branches and the proceeds will be credited to investors account in 72 hrs. Why are you going for NCD issues frequently?

A: The funds ra ised through this Issue will be utilized by the Company for lending against gold orna-ments and others. NCDs are important source of liability for us to fund our over 24,500 crores of advances.

Federal Bank launches Electronic PassbookFederal Bank introduced

FedBook, an electronic version of the traditional bank passbook - a first-of-its- kind customer-centric initiative in the banking industry. Customers can freely download and install the application on their smart devices. Accessible through a simple registra-tion process, FedBook can be carried in one’s mobile or tab and it helps custom-ers to view all the transac-tions in their multiple bank accounts online and even offline on a 24 X 7 basis. At present, the Bank has made it available on the Android platform and FedBook for other mobile platforms will be released shor tly. The

application is user friendly, secure and enables real-time access to transactions, which frees users from the restrictions of business-hours and bank holidays. Speaking at the launch, A. Surendran, GM & Head – Retail & International Busi-ness, Federal Bank said, “Federal Bank has been leveraging technology and always believed in offering customer-centric and in-novative solutions. With the launch of FedBook, bank-ing will become handier and add a new dimension to mobile based banking solutions. This innovative product will provide a fillip to the Bank’s existing array of products and services.”

K.P. Padmakumar


Why NRIs can rejoice when rupee depreciatesBy Suresh R Menon

The Indian rupee depre-ciated by almost 26%

against the US dollar during the first eight months of 2013. From `54.68 on January 1, 2013 it slumped to a record low of ̀ 68.85 to the dollar on August 28 and since then has been hovering in the range of `65 to `68. And Goldman Sachs predicts it to touch `72 per dollar within the next six months.

This unprecedented fall in the rupee has been a major cause of concern for many. While some are worried about the rising prices of essential commodities and also of imported goods like petrol, diesel and gold, others who have to travel abroad are anxious about the restric-tions being imposed by the RBI on taking money out of India. Furthermore, the weak rupee aggravates the burden of those who have children studying abroad as now they have to shell out more in rupee terms.

While the falling rupee is bad news for the Indian econ-omy, for the Non Resident Indians (NRIs) it comes as a boon and they can rejoice for the following reasons:(i) Majority of the NRIs have

gone abroad with a view to earning more than what they were making while they were working in India. After this steep depreciation, their salary in rupee terms has gone up proportionately. So

they get a feeling of déjà vu as it is like getting an increment in the middle of the year.

(ii) For those NRIs who are planning to repa-triate money to India, this slump in the value of rupee gives more bang for the buck. One UAE dirham or US dollar remitted to India now fetches them at least 25% more value than what they could have got a year back.

(iii) For NRIs who have loans to repay in India, the outgo on EMIs of such loans comes down sig-nificantly in terms of the dirham or dollar equiva-lent. Furthermore, if they now decide to prepay their entire outstanding loan in India at one go, because of the rupee slump the total outgo would be much less than what they had bargained for.

(iv) NRI deposits that used to earn less than 4% two years back are now fetching more than 9% annually. After the RBI deregulated interest rates on NRI deposits and the rupee star ted depreciat ing, Indian banks have hiked NRI deposit rates to attract more funds. For exam-ple, The South Indian Bank Ltd (SIB) recently hiked its interest rates

to 9.25% and 9.50% on NRI deposits of 2 and 3 years respectively.

(v) As interest rates charged by most foreign banks are much lower than the rates offered by Indian banks on their NRI deposits, they can think of availing personal loans from banks over there and putting that money in fixed deposits in their Indian banks as the cost of such borrow-ings works out much cheaper. Thus, they can reap windfall gains.

(vi) For NRIs who have been planning to buy proper-ties or invest in new or upcoming real estate projects in their home-town, rupee depreciation marks a great invest-ment opportunity.

(vii) Investing in equity mar-ket is also an attractive proposition at present as many scrips are trad-ing 40-60% below their year-ago prices. More-over, it is a good time to invest in equity mutual funds as their net asset values are much lower than last year.

(viii) As treasury bills and government securities are also trading at over 8% yield, they can in-vest in these securities indirectly through debt mutual funds.

However, rupee deprecia-tion does not always work in

favour of the Indian diaspora as can be seen from the two instances mentioned below.

When the rupee falls, NRIs stand to lose if they repatriate their rupee invest-ments to the country where they stay. The rupee slump also proportionately erodes the value of all the existing NRI investments within India.

Prominent NRIs share their views on the issue:

S. AshrafTechnical Manager Al Fut-

taim Tarmac, Dubai “The depreciation cur-

rently being witnessed in the value of rupee is an op-portunity for NRIs to remit their earnings into India. The information technology (IT) companies and other export-ers are also immensely ben-efiting from this rupee slump. But due to the resultant price hike in all the commodities back home, our extra earn-ings are likely to get wiped out soon.”

Sunil MenonChartered Accountant,Dubai

With the falling value of the Indian rupee, investing in real estate is proving to be a more viable option. With the falling rupee, NRIs have the option of using the extra money on exchange to their advantage by investing in the real estate segment in India which has always been a priority for most of them. As the real estate offers returns of 200-400% appreciation par ticularly in markets like Mumbai this additional money will spur the real estate activ-ity in India.

Ajith Kumar G.(worked in Saudi Arabia and UAE for 21 years;

Director, I Care Solutions)Of course the NRIs and

their families will be happy with the current fall of Rupee.This crash will boost the remittence from NRIs. How-ever India is one of the safest country to invest. Hope the Rupee will recover very soon.

Anwar AmeenMD, Regency Group, Dubai,

Yes there is a panic situ-ation in India and we are positive about an immediate resolution for the same. But I think, presently, it is a boon for all labour class Indian’s in middle east to invest and save more money.

Mohamed Ali KalliyathSenior Engineer, NCR,

London“Depreciate the value

of Indian Rupees is befit to us who send money from abroad, it’s value for money, but at same time the Price goes up in India. More money will be coming in the country as every one wanted to send as much as they can, to their loved ones and family. Those who had money stacked away other than banks, they will loose out as the value has gone down. Over all, the economic strength of the country will go down. The only solace is if the things continue like this we will be getting more value for the English Sterling (£)”

(Suresh R Menon is a business writer and can be contacted via email at [email protected])


Edited, Printed and Published by P.V. Radhamani, Printed at Printers Castle, Kochi - 16. Published at Journalist Nagar, Thrikkakara P.O., Kochi - 21. Tel: 98471 78836, 0484-4025403/3240781. Fax: 0484-2357581

E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Web: www.businessdigestmagazine.org

Business digest september 2013 edition

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