Sunday, March 23, 2008

powered, empowered

India Today recently released the list of “power people”. This list comprising 50 names, tells us that of all the millions of people living in our country, these are the people who matter, or rather, matter most. Not to their families, or employees or communities alone, but to the whole nation! What these 50 people do daily, directly or indirectly affects our lives.
I tried to envisage what they must have felt in that instant when they saw their names on that list? A smug smile? Or a drive to work harder? Satisfaction? Or redoubled ambition? Or maybe they just don’t have the time to give it a damn! 

Well of course politicians wield d maximum power. But this list has people from various areas of the economy. Predictably, there is a huge presence of the entrepreneurial giants responsible for the meteoric rise of corporate India. Half the list comprises businessmen and industrialists. Ratan Tata gets the numero uno position, closely followed by the Ambani bros. in quick succession (u know which bro comes first!).The rest follow.

We also have media barons, re-iterating the cliché that ‘pen is mightier than sword’. Umm, Television media too is included, we have Mr. n Mrs. Pranoy Roy. And yeah we do have Shah Rukh Khan also, at no.6. and Aamir n others, portraying the power wielded by the entertainment industry in our celebrity-obsessed nation... then cricketers and all…

So well the power list… what makes these people stand where they are? (Apart from the fact that they don’t sit around and waste time writing blogs no one will read anyways! :p). They dared to dream, and also they put their backs into it and DID what they had to. Yeah, we all dream, but it’s the latter where most of us fail.

I’ve read so many such articles, stories n stuff which is supposed to be ‘so very inspirational’, but the fire frizzes out in a jiffy. So these days nothing inspires me anymore. Well, guess it’s time to stop observing and start doing. None of those ‘self-help’ books (there are loads lying partially-read on my shelf) are going to do you any good, until you do something about ur life.

So now stop reading useless blogs ( no, I’m not talking about mine!) and get going. Go and achieve all the glory that you know in your heart that u can achieve!.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

vrooooomm!

Finally, finally, finally, I’ve started taking driving lessons. I’ve been dying to grab the wheel and drive around for quite some time now..
And when I look around, I’m not the only one who’s in this auto-frenzy. The whole world’s going car-crazy!





The Nano episode of course. One man’s dream, a company’s triumph-Tata Motors’ success story. The engineers have achieved the near-impossible, and the marketing teams are at work to figure out the strategy to market this miracle machine.
With one hand cradling this baby, Tata motors’ other hand is inching towards acquiring moving monsters Land Rover and Jaguar from the German king Ford.And the German company Bosch, which had a hand in the manufacturing of the Nano, is now eyeing the small-car market in India.

Umm, all these small cars are cute, they conserve space and all, but personally prefer monster machines. As with bikes, the bigger, the better!

Mahindra & Mahindra is all set to roll out 10 new vehicles in the next 3 years. The company which already boasts of Scorpio and Bolero( my favs, by the way) will be launching 4 new platforms including a multi-utility vehicle Ingenio(now that’s a bad name! ) and a new version of Scorpio.



Tata Indica, the original small car, is getting an all-new avatar with plenty of rear saet comfort and leg-room. it looks familiar to eh original version, but all its features, including the engine, have been changed.

And Fiat is reinventing itself with the Linea,Grande Punto and Palio Stile.
Maruti Suzuki is now increasing the mobile service centers to ramp up the customer experience. Seen that new advertisement?

Too many boring facts? Well I just started to drive an automobile for the first time in my life! So I’m obviously interested! Vroooooooomm!

Saturday, January 26, 2008

see it to believe it!!

you gotta see it to believe it…
I was watching ‘gadget guru’ on NDTV this afternoon, and this particular thing rendered me speechless. “Just awesome!”

A coffee table that can revolutionize your world. Imagine this- you place your digital camera on the table and images come spilling out onto the table. Images you can rotate in any angle, and enlarge by just moving your fingers, and upload them into your mobile by dragging them to it-just like that! Dragging and dropping virtual content to physical objects! Incredible!! All this and more is possible with the Microsoft Touch Surface Table and that with no cumbersome cables, or extra peripherals.




You can look at pictures, videos and just any data, share it with people, upload it, and compare features of two physical devices by just placing them on the table--all in a cool play of fingers!



The Surface machine is networked and infinitely flexible. You could use it to order food in a restaurant. While you wait, you could play games or surf the Internet, and then eat off its surface. And every table in the joint could be a jukebox, a television or a billboard for advertising----an INCREDIBLE experience!!

You can do LOT more things using this amazing, amazing ‘table’.
Check this out:Microsoft Table Video

learn more

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

jvs all the way

I was reading 'the economic times' the other day, and all the top news (it was before the 'nano' episode :) ) was about various joint ventures by different top-notch companies.
A joint venture, according to wikipedia, is an entity formed between two or more parties to undertake economic activity together. The parties agree to create a new entity by both contributing equity, and they then share in the revenues, expenses, and control of the enterprise.

JVs have become the new mantra of the economic world. The in-thing today is to join hands with your competitor and become larger. Ambitions are sky-rocketing and expansions on a global level are what companies are looking at. They are now aspiring to leave no land untouched. The corporate appetite is becoming insatiable as new markets are springing up the world over.

And where foreign markets are finding it difficult to enter a territory, they enter into a JV with the local players. Just like Wal-Mart did with Bharti. And in an unprecedented move, Carrefour, a French retail giant intends to enter into a tie-up with Reliance retail, which has no previous history of entering partnerships.
RIL and carrefour
Reliance, which holds a cache of prime real estate and an undeniable clout with the govt., is the perfect choice for Carrefour, which has been trying to enter the indian market for a while.

The other major JV i've heard of is the one between Tata Steel and he state-run Steel Authority of India Ltd for coal mining. And of course, the much publicized Nano had been manufactured with a lot of components made by other major players in the automobile industry. tata sail

And German motor king Ford intends to enter into a partnership with Tata motors for promoting Land Rover in the Indian markets.

well the list will just keep on growing. Bottom line is.. united they stand.. and they know it! the strong players are growing stronger.. and the weaker ones.. well they'll join forces too i guess..