Trillion dollar war

It has been 5 years since the invasion of Iraq. Has anything been at all achieved over these 5 years. Its a trillion dollar question. Why? Beause it is estimated that the cost of the war (both direct and indirect) so far has been around 3 trillion dollars. And also there is the human losses which amounts to thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, millions displaced due to ethnic tensions and American soldiers killed during their patrols.

The main reason for this war according to the US president was that Saddam Hussein was possessing weapons of mass destruction and that there was link between him and terrorists. All that was proven wrong and it was actually after the invasion that Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorists.

Had this war been not fought the money ould have been used for useful purposes in the US and for providing aid to other poor countries in tha African continent.

The burning issue of climate change could have been better tackled using this money by allocating funds to make greener technlogy.

But President Bush does not want to look at it this way. His only aim was to invade Iraq and defeat Saddam Hussein no matter how much the cost of the war. His economy is now running on a huge budget deficit. His legacy would be passing on the ruins of Iraq war and giving the nation a huge budget deficit

Tibet – More questions than answers

The recent developments in Tibet has been a cause for concern both in India and around the world.The Western countries are also looking at the option of using the Olympics as a weapon to makeChina involve in a political dialogue with the Dalai Lama. So what really is the problem between Dalai Lama and the Communist Chinese regime.

There have been talks between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities for well over a decade.The contentious issues between the two have been the demands made by the Tibetan governement living in exile in India

The first demand is that Tibet be granted greater autonomy with the idea of “One country two systems” which the Chinese government has rejected categorically. According to China it is astatus uniquely provided for Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao. It grant that same status to Tibet

The second and the most pressing demand is the idea of “Greater Tibet”. This involves carving outcertain regions of China which ethnically is dominated by Tibetans. It is a demand that any country will reject and China did the same. So is there any middle path that is acceptable for both the sides. At present the certain answer is no. With the violent protests in Lhasa and other Tibetan ethnic regions China is in no mood to talk with the Dalai Lama.

The whole world is watching the situation with their fingers crossed hoping for an amicable solution between the two

123 Agreement – Necessary?

I would like to share my views about the 123 agreement that the Indian Government is so keen on signing before the Bush regime changes in December. First of all nuclear energy is not that cheap as it is being hyped about. The cost involving research, operation cycle and the nuclear waste disposal makes it much more costlier than the conventional coal-powered reactors in our country.

The nuclear reactors are offering the electricity at 270 paise per kWh whereas Reliance is currently offering it at 230 paise per kWh. Also the costly nuclear reactors which are to be bought from the US and other NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) a cartel lead by US has to use the fuel supplied by these countries, which makes the Thorium abundantly available in our country useless.

Moreover the time to construct these nuclear reactors is of great contention as the US has not constructed a single nuclear reactor for its domestic market since the 1970s and the Russians who are building the Koodankulam nuclear reactors are already behind the schedule by 2 years. The Russians are building a older version of their nuclear reactor in India whereas their somestic markey has moved to a newer version

And also the fact that the Indian government is saying that the nuclear agreement can be signed by only the Bush government is also not true. On the contrary, it has to be agreed by both the Democrats and the Republicans in the Senate.

Considering so many hurdles to the agreement is it really necessary to sign on the agreement. Instead of buying those costly nuclear reactors with no real timeframe for it to get delivered, the government can spend that money on technology that can use Thorium as the fuel. Its time to think out of the box for the Indian government and concentrate on the development of technology

Private Equity Demystified

What exactly is private equity and why there is so much buzz around it. Private equity emerged in the 1980s with the KKR group. These PE firms provided cash for companies to go private. Going private helped the companies to run it the way they wanted. The PE firms were run run by investment bankers who brought considerable expertise to these companies.

There is also another concept called Ventue Capital (VC). Here smaller companies which are cash trapped and are too small to list in the exchanges are helped by VC firms by taking a stake in the comapny and help them towards a growth path. Thus providing them both with the cash and the technical expertise

In India private equity is relatively young. It started with the IT boom towards the end of 90s. In recent years a number of these companies have come up due to stock market boom and the growing Indian consumer market. Global firms such as Blackstone and the Carlyle Group have a presence in India and are scaling up their operations.

Indian players like ICICI Venture are also growing rapidly in this market space. The next big question is how do these firms make money?

Essentially, PE funds raise money from high net worth individuals and financial institutions, for a period of 7-10 years and then invest in opportunities as and when they arise. The firms valuate companies and take a stake depending on how much is the company actually worth, how the company will grow etc.

Post stake taking, day-to-day monitoring and growth plans are monitored by the fund, with a senior director taking a seat on the company’s board. Since the target is also to exit the investment in a few years and return money to investors, the deal team also constantly monitor the capital markets for suitable times to do an Initial Public Offering (IPO) or find a strategic investor to sell to

Trillion dollar war

It has been 5 years since the invasion of Iraq. Has anything been at all achieved over these 5 years. Its a trillion dollar question. Why? Beause it is estimated that the cost of the war (both direct and indirect) so far has been around 3 trillion dollars. And also there is the human losses which amounts to thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, millions displaced due to ethnic tensions and American soldiers killed during their patrols.

The main reason for this war according to the US president was that Saddam Hussein was possessing weapons of mass destruction and that there was link between him and terrorists. All that was proven wrong and it was actually after the invasion that Iraq has become a breeding ground for terrorists.

Had this war been not fought the money ould have been used for useful purposes in the US and for providing aid to other poor countries in tha African continent.

The burning issue of climate change could have been better tackled using this money by allocating funds to make greener technlogy.

But President Bush does not want to look at it this way. His only aim was to invade Iraq and defeat Saddam Hussein no matter how much the cost of the war. His economy is now running on a huge budget deficit. His legacy would be passing on the ruins of Iraq war and giving the nation a huge budget deficit

India Inc’s Growing Influence

Reliance Power’s Black Magic

We are witnessing a tremendous influence of India Inc worldwide. Few of them are Tata’s acquisition of Corus Steel and Jaguar, Suzlon Energy acquiring Hansen Group and Dr. Reddy’s Labs’ acquisition of Betapharm to name a few of the big acquisitions.

To add to this growing list Reliance Power (the flagsip of ADAG) has a deal worth 1,000 crores with one of the coal mines in Indonesia. The coal mine is estimated to have a reserve of 2 billion tonnes. Whereas, the largest reserve of coal mines in India which is Gevera in Chattisgarh has a resrve of about 1.2 billion tonnes.

Reliance Power’s Krishnapuram power project will be fed by the fuel form this acquisition. The fuel from this project will also be used for other power projects in the country.
Given the amount of money spent in acquisitions and the returns earned from them,
one thing is sure “India Inc is growing and growing fast”

Great books – review

Hi all, I just wanted to share some knowledge about the best books I have read. I wouldn’t call it a review, just an information for those book lovers who are looking for good books to read

The book that tops my list is Prey by Michael Crichton. I basically had no interest in reading english novels. The book that changed my opinion was Prey. It was a science fiction book dealing about Nano technology.
The author made me to feel each and every situation in the book and for a first time reader it was a fantastic experience. A review of this book can be found in the below link
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/popus/crichtm.htm
Its a must read for all those science fiction book lovers. If you want to download an electronic version of the book you can do it on
www.esnips.com
The next one on my list is Holcroft Covenant by Robert Ludlam. Wow!! was the only word that came out when I finished reading that book. It was a fantatic written book by one of the greats Robert Ludlum.
It is a story about a person named Holcroft who finds himself in a position to fulfill his father’s will written some 50 years ago. What comes next was purely unexpected. When some people try to pursuade him against fulfilling the will, they mysteriously die.
Its a nice plot with the hero portrayed as timid and the villain with great skills. A complete review can be found in the below link
http://www.mouthshut.com/product-reviews/Holcroft_Covenant___The_-_Robert_Ludlum-925051466.html

Some of the other books I really enjoyed were

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (Fiction)
Mega Living by Robin Sharma (Motivation)The Alchemist by Paul Coelho (Motivation)
Hope you read these books and enjoy as much as I did. Have a great time reading

Israel-Palestine conflict

One of the conflicts in the world that has been going on for over six decades and will continue at least for a few more decades to come is the Israel-Palestine conflict. A brief history about this conflict can be viewed in the below link
www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm

Some of the atrocities committed by the Israelis during the formation of Israel were brutal and terrible to say the least. Susan Kozma, a Hungarian holocaust survivor, explains Israel’s reign of terror in Palestine and beyond in the following link
http://terrorism.suite101.com/article.cfm/a_voice_against_israeli__terror_
But Israel continues its reign of terror over the palestinians, how? It is because of the support of its ally the US which turns a blind eye on human rights violations when it comes to Israel. The reasons for the support of US for Israel are many and is explained in the following link
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1991to_now_israel_us_support.php

There can be peace in the middle east only when Israel stops using its heavy handed tactics against the Palestinians like creating new settlements in the West Bank, killing innocent civilians in the name of military action against terrorists, isolating Gaza from the rest of the world keeping it as a virtual prison for millions and start a peace process that involves all the parties affected. It includes Hamas, Syria whose land has not been returned since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and also various other parties involved

Links about Arab-Israeli war

http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-06/2007-06-05-voa7.cfm?CFID=283497718&CFTOKEN=36485347
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0856668.html

Peace can be achieved only through dialog and not through violence

Online data entry jobs

Hi there,
Hope everyone is fine. I would like to share my experience about searching for an online job for my friend which will help him earn money from home. First of all i tried searching through google for anything that might be useful.

But for my disappointment nothing was useful to me as every job listed was either for residents of USA, Canada or the UK. I did manage to find some sites that offer online jobs in India. But they all wanted a registration fee to be paid upfront.

One such site which offered an online data entry job was
http://www.365jobs4u.com/india/

It was a nice job site for both offline and online data entry jobs as well as other internet jobs. But as most other sites in India it also asked for a registration fees of Rs. 2000 for beginners and Rs. 3500 for experts in data entry.

Also for any other type of internet jobs they asked for an initial registration fees. Anyone who is interested in paying the sum and work at home can visit the above site for more details.

There are also sites that allow you to make bids for the projects that are available from companies. The problem with this type is that you have to bid against people from other countries whose bidding rates are really low. One such site is
http:\\www.elance.com

The fact of the matter remains that online data entry is very much debatable as the companies involved can do it themselves.
Why would these companies pay money for a job which they themselves can do. So be very careful about paying any huge amount for such jobs

You can try to find your online jobs through google or yahoo by typing online-data-entry jobs and then pressing the search button. Do not forget to include the hyphen symbol. Hope you find your matching online job

State of Indian hockey

The failure to qualify for the Olympic Games for the first time in eight decades is the story of the decline and fall of Indian hockey. Historically, no other hockey-playing country can rival India: eight gold, one silver, and two bronze medals in 18 successive appearances since 1928. Six of the eight golds came without a break in Olympic Games held between 1928 and 1956. Pakistan was the main challenger until 1972, when Germany upset the South Asian applecart and ushered in the era of European dominance. Indian hockey’s present plight has been long in the making. There was a failure to read the early signals of a paradigm shift in hockey, which were clear enough by 1976, a year after India won the World Cup at Kuala Lumpur. The game went through a revolution with the introduction of the synthetic pitch but instead of embracing it Indian hockey officials buried their heads in the sand. They viewed the artificial surface as an enemy — something designed to downgrade the status of sub-continental teams, masters of natural grass. The effort to project the International Hockey Federation (FIH) as a villain — out to create problems for India by altering the rules and insisting on unaffordable synthetic surfaces — was a historic blunder. It was compounded by a mindset of deflecting criticism by attributing the string of poor performances to the pitch, rules, and umpiring.

Little was done to restructure the system, or evolve a plan to reorient coaching. Suggestions that foreign coaches be hired were dismissed as degrading in principle. The frequent change of coaches and the constant shuffling of players were demoralising. The result was that, in the era of artificial pitches, no Indian hockey team has figured in the semi-final of a major competition (if the win at the truncated 1980 Moscow Games can be excluded). The FIH stepped in to create a special project in 2006 under the Olympic Solidarity Programme, roping in the Australian stalwart, Ric Charlesworth, to fine-tune coaching. Joaquim Carvalho, the chief coach who resigned after the debacle, has observed sensibly that “not qualifying for the Olympics is not the end of the road” because “there is still plenty of talent in India.” This talent can be developed and set free only if the hockey administration is compelled to change its archaic governance. Domestic competitions like the national championship must be put on a much stronger basis, a special scheme launched to nurture the pool of junior talent, and progressive measures adopted to generate interest in schools. The failure to make it to the Beijing Olympic Games 2008 should be converted into an opportunity to set Indian hockey on a systematic road to recovery

Article source: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/13/stories/2008031355581000.htm