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Now, Virtual Tickets accepted by Indian Railways – No need of physical printouts!

Arun Prabhudesai — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 07:05:47 +0000

It is nice to see that Indian Railways is making life easier for Railway commuters – as well as for our environment. Imagine the number of trees that would have been needed to cut just for the Ticket Reservation printouts that lakhs of consumers carry on daily basis when they set-off on Indian Railways journey.

According to the announcement on IRCTC website – Commuters can now carry their Electronic Reservation Slip (ERS) virtually. What this essentially means is you can just show a screenshot of your e-ticket on any device and it will be treated as Valid.

Indian Railways calls it “Virtual Reservation Message” or VRM. So, if you have a mobile with camera that should be enough to create a VRM. Book your ticket online, take a snapshot using your mobile camera of the e-ticket and show it to Ticket Checker along with your Valid Identity Proof.

If you are carrying a Smartphone, it is even easier – you can login to internet and show your e-ticket itself!

Couple of months back, Indian Railways had also announced that it will launching a Mobile application that will make it possible for commuters to book the tickets on mobile itself. Once booked, the SMS sent out by the app will serve as a ticket itself and can be shown to the Ticket Checker along with your personal identification!

Personally, I am super-delighted with this development like millions of other Indian Railway Commuters. I travel Pune-Mumbai quite frequently on Deccan Queen. It has always been a pain carrying a printout. But now with a mobile in my hand I don’t have to worry at all!

Have you taken advantage of this “Virtual Reservation Message” or VRM already? If not, you should for your next train journey!

India Drops in Global Competitiveness – Swiss Tops!

Arun Prabhudesai — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 04:38:59 +0000

It is strange, but looks like India is not able to keep up with world when it comes to competitiveness – For 3^rd straight year, India has fallen on competitiveness rankings. In 2009, India ranked 49^th amongst 142 global economies in competitiveness, in 2010 we fell two places to 51 and this year witnessed even bigger fall of 5 places to 56^th most competitive economy in the world.

Global Competitiveness Rankings

For a country, which is being talked about as an emerging superpower, this is something that needs to be looked into seriously. And as usually is the case, the biggest culprits for such low rankings are India’s infrastructure, corruption & bureaucracy.

China, on the other hand has been consistently making progress over past decade and has been rising on competitiveness index and is currently ranked 26^th in the world. If you compare China with India, the gap between them is widening – the score difference between the two economies has increased six fold between in last 5 years alone!

One can argue that India being a democracy, and a very large one at that, it is a very difficult and slow process – but it cannot afford to be left behind its peers. It is quite telling when India is ranked 3rd in the world for its market size, but 105^th out of 142 countries when it comes to Macroeconomic Conditions.

Lowest Competiveness Areas for India [out of 142 countries]

Ranks 123rd for “Business costs of Terrorism”
Ranks 112th for “Quality of Electric Supply”
Ranks one of worst (139th) for “Inflation, annual % change”
Ranks 114th for “Infant Mortality”
Ranks 108th for “Secondary Education Enrollment”
Ranks 124th for “Total tax rate, % profits”
Ranks 128th for “ Trade tariffs and percentage duty”

Highest Competiveness Areas for India [out of 142 countries]

Ranks 3rd for “Domestic market size”
Ranks 4th for “ Foreign market size”
Ranks 12th for “Available airline seat kms/week”
Ranks 15th for “Gross national savings, percentage GDP”
Ranks 15th for “Financing through local equity market”
Ranks 14th for “Local supplier quantity” in Business Sophistication
Ranks 20th for “Legal rights”
Ranks 21st for “ Availability of scientists and engineer”

So, we do rank well in a few areas, but our ranking in majority of areas are far from ideal and the worst part is that they are falling further!

You can read the entire WEF Global Competitiveness report here for 2011-12.

Twitter Updates lets you know #powercuts across India!

Arun Prabhudesai — Mon, 16 May 2011 14:28:21 +0000

Power cuts in India are so common, that if you have un-interrupted power for a week, you are one of the chosen lucky ones! By now, Indians are so used to it that power-cut is a must-consider item before you plan any functions or a major event! And, this is the situation in urban cities – In rural areas, you are lucky if you have uninterrupted power even for a single day!

Indian Government had promised couple of years back that, by 2012, there will be power to all, – it still looks like a distant dream!

Probably the power of new-age media may help Government authorities to understand how serious the power problem really is in India ! A new initiative has been launched by Indian Twitterers (Shefaly Yogendra & Ajay Kumar) that plans to collate upto-the-minute information on power cuts through out India – and How are they doing it ?

By use of Twitter #Hastags and Google Maps!

Twitter users across India are encouraged to tweet about power cuts in their area with Hashtags #powercutindia . Here is how a tweet can be sent –

#powercutindia (street, city – location name/pincode) #from (time) #planned or #unplanned (if its a scheduled load shedding or unexpected outage). Also report with #powercutindia #back when it comes back. You can refer to detailed and other format guidelines here.

How to report power cut through various mediums

Twitter – by using the hashtag #powercutindia.
Mobile Browser – The website is mobile web accessible up to an extent. So you can view/send reports or browse the site using any internet enabled phone with a browser.
Web – using the Submit Report form on the website http://fmi.me/power
Smartphone App – iPhone/Android users can download the Ushahidi app from their App stores and add the site URL in its settings as http://powercuts.in/ and start reporting.

And what do you get when you report these power-cuts – You get a super-awesome mashup of this data together on Google Map of India!

So, here is an appeal to all twitterverse – Get together and show the power of collective and help this initiative grow!

3 Indian Projects amongst top 100 most interesting Infra projects globally !

Viral Dholakia — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:22:27 +0000

One of the biggest hurdles in India’s ability to play a catch-up with the scorching pace of growth logged by China has been its infrastructural bottlenecks. In order, to tackle with this problem – India needs to fasten up its infrastructure investment dramatically.

It is estimated that the Infrastructure sector in India would require an investment of around $500 billion by 2012. The finance requirements for these infrastructural projects can be supported through various funding options such as project finance, corporate finance or even the larger debt market.

Over here, I want to highlight that, though India still needs to consolidate on the infrastructural front, smaller strides have already been made in terms of various public-private partnership (PPP) models across the country.

Additionally, a transparent and secure environment for business and foreign investment has prevailed over the last many years. And, that India’s fate no longer lingers at the sole anvil of the governmental push to the infrastructure – though it still remains a major contributor to the infrastructure investment in the country.

Here is a distinguished news on this front: Three Indian projects – KG-D6, Mundra power project and Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport, New Delhi – have featured in the KPMG’s list of 100 most interesting infrastructure projects that are at different stages of development, across the world.

KG-D6

For the uninitiated, Krishna Godavari (KG) basin is India’s largest gas field situated in the Bay of Bengal on the east coast with a high production potential.

The D-6 block of the KG basin is operated by Reliance Industries on its discovery of the biggest natural gas reserves in India. The KG-D6 gas field is one of the top five largest deepwater gas projects globally. New domestic supplies from the KG basin have visible positive impact at the macro level and are expected to give a fillip to gas-consuming industries.

KPMG said,

“KG-D6 project not only sets new standards in integrated gas infrastructure projects but it also launches an innovated approach to the sale of transportation of energy, helping to accelerate India’s economic growth.”

In a major achievement in country’s energy security, the gas production has helped prime utility industries such as power and fertilizers. The gas supplied to power units has helped in generating additional power at a reduced cost and revived stranded power plants in many instances, thus leading to optimum plant load factor. Consequently, Government has also also been able to save subsidies on urea production.

Mundra Power Project

Another mega-project that has found its mention in the elite list of 100 infrastructure projects by KPMG is Mundra power project. Mundra is the flagship plant of Adani Power, an ancillary of the Ahmedabad-based Adani Group. It is the country’s largest and world’s third largest super-critical technology-based thermal power plant.

More recently, the company has successfully synchronized the third unit of 330 Mw at its Mundra with the grid – which has led to achieving of power generation capacity of 990 Mw. The first unit of 330 Mw became operational last year and the second one at the beginning of this year.

All the three units are the part of Adani Group’s 4620 Mw coal-fired power project at Mundra – which is core to India’s plans towards continuing economic development through energy efficient plants. Mundra power project is one of the nine ultra mega power projects to be initiated in India.

The UNFCCC has certified the coal-based thermal power plant at Mundra as the first Clean Development Mechanism project in the world. Super-critical coal-fired power plants are highly efficient compared to prevailing lot of sub-critical ones being operated in the country.

IGI Airport

Lastly, even the IGI Airport Expansion at New Delhi, delivering a world-class facility, has notched a place among the top 100 infrastructural projects globally in terms of their sheer scale, complexity and innovation.

The new integrated Terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi International Airport boasts of being the 6^th largest passenger terminal in the world, equipped to handle 34 million passengers annually. The new terminal will cater to over half of Delhi’s air traffic.

The in-line baggage handling system has a capacity to handle 12800 bags per hour. The swanky new terminal-3 of the IGI airport was built in a record 37 months at the cost of $3 billion. The T3 would provide seamless connectivity to the international and domestic passengers with world class experience, once the full service carriers shift their domestic operations at this month end.

A multi-level car parking facility, with a capacity of 4300 cars, in front of the terminal building will enable the authorities to keep at bay the airport’s parking woes – this, over and above a separate surface parking area for 2200 cars. The new complex terminal has six common check-in islands, 168 check-in counters, 63 elevators and 34 escalators.

“The IGI Airport Expansion in New Delhi was upgraded and modernised while still functioning, delivering a world-class facility, which is also being turned around in record time,” KPMG said.

Finally Government doing something for Broadband penetration in India

Arun Prabhudesai — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:07:20 +0000

Internet Penetration in India is one of the lowest in the world – more so of the broadband. It is ironical that even though India is one of the biggest Software services hub in the world, yet we rank so lowly when it comes to ICT (Information and communication technologies).

However, Government seems to have woken up to this fact, and taking steps to increase internet / broadband penetration in India. One of the major impediments for growth of Internet has been the infrastructure and Government seems to precisely addressing this fact.

Indian Government is planning to form a Special Purpose Vehicle, to roll out 5 lakh route km of optical fiber network to connect all gram panchayats in the country.

And if you are thinking that it will take ages for Government to execute this plan, worry not – Government will be using existing fiber optic cables laid down by various Indian PSU’s like, RailTel, which has about 36,000 route km of cable running along the Indian Railway track or PowerGrid Corporation which has about 26,000 km of cable running through-out India. In addition to this BSNL also has over 5.5 lakh route km of cables connecting about 1 lakh villages that will utilized for purposes of Broadband connectivity.

It does not stop here – to boost Internet adoption in villages, Department of Telecom has proposed to offer a slew of freebies to attract the villagers. This includes giving three broadband connections to every Gram Panchayat free of charge for three years along with free installation of computer and printer; three telephone connections and one cable TV connection without any charge.

It is not only villages, last year Indian Ministry of Human Resources had announced free 1GB internet connectivity to every University (Government as well as Private) in India. These gigabyte lines are now already operational in most of the large universities in India.

It is really good to see Indian Government taking efforts to improve ICT infrastructure, as it is going to play a key role for future growth of India.

Woohoo…Automated Toll system coming soon!

Arun Prabhudesai — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:55:19 +0000

I am sure most car owners have faced this one time or the other – waiting in queue of very slow moving cars at a toll booth. I drive quite frequently from Pune to Mumbai and back – and one of the things that I seriously hate is seeing long queue of cars lined up at the Toll collecting stations. What is even more frustrating is the inefficiency of people collecting Tolls – they seem to be never in a hurry. Long queue’s don’t bother them at all.

Here is the good news – These long Toll station queues will soon become history (atleast thats what it looks like). Road & Transport ministry have announced that India will soon implement a uniform electronic toll collection system on its national highways, increasing the revenue, curbing leakages and ensuring smooth travel across the country.

The new proposed Toll collection system will use RFID ( radio frequency identification ) technology. Once implemented, a person can now travel from Kashmir to Kanyakumari without stopping even once for Toll..wow !

Another reason that I am very optimistic about this becoming a reality is because Indian government had constituted a committee headed by former Infosys chief executive and Unique Identification Authority Chairman Nandan Nilekani for this purpose.

How the new electronic toll collection system will work.

Every car will be given a RFID tag (costing about Rs.100) which will be stuck on the windscreen of the car, while the Toll booth will have a RFID card reader. When any vehicle with RFID tag passes through this booth across the country, the appropriate toll will be debited from the account.

The RFID tag will work similar to mobile prepaid card – where the vehicle owner will have to recharge the card.

This new technology will help in so many ways – There will not be any exchange of cash at Toll booth counter, so no leakages in Toll collection. Additionally, it can serve as a platform for vehicle identification and prove effective in tracking stolen vehicles.

This is a fantastic development – I just hope that it is implemented on time, the deadline for which is set for May 2012.

Your views ?

Top 5 Sectors to Invest in FY 2010-11

Viral Dholakia — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 09:26:22 +0000

New financial year 2010-11 kicks-off much on the back of pompous global recovery witnessed during the second half of the FY 2009-10. And, equity markets are no laggards in terms of catching these cues before hand.

However, the markets have remained largely range bound since June 2009 to March 2010 within the range of 4500 to 5300 on the Nifty index. This range bound movement can be termed as a broad based consolidation after a scorching pace of market recovery from its recessionary trough levels.

Now, that markets are again back at Nifty 5300 levels, it is on the verge of a likely breakout. Hence, it would be a prudent idea to have a check as to which sectors and industries would it be worthwhile for the investors to plough their hard earned money. Investors would be keen to know which sectors are placed better to be among winners for the FY 2010-11.

1) Power Sector

With the rising population and growth story of India, the need of fast paced growth in power generation is increasingly gaining importance. Energy is one of the major contributors to the economic development of a country.

The government has targeted electricity for all by 2012 by the end of 11^th Five Year Plan. The demand of electricity is growing exponentially. And, herein lays the opportunities for investors to plough their money in public and private sector companies both.

At present, coal based thermal power plants accounts for almost two-thirds of the energy needs of the country. However, the government is increasingly becoming aware about the benefits of generating power through cleaner nuclear power plants.

More recently, during the Budget 2010 announcement, the government has also laid emphasis on the development of non-conventional energy resources such as Solar and Wind Energy. Rural electrification is also a significant initiative by the government to allow access to electricity in remote regions in India.

Stock Picks: NTPC (Power Generation), Power Grid Corporation (Power Transmission), Tata Power (Power Generation) and Rural Electrification (Power Sector NBFC) and BHEL (Power Equipments).

2) Food Processing

As the growth of the economy chugs forward and consequently generates more employment and raises the standard of living of the middle class population; the demand for dynamic and processed food products will witness a manifold rise.

The processed food comes with enhanced food life and value added services to the raw form of food products. It also provides boost to the farmers as increasingly modern techniques goes into production of food and other activities involved thereafter. As per an estimate, Indian food industry is expected to grow to $280 billion by 2015.

The food processing treatment can be spread across various food products like products with low shelf life such as fruits and vegetables, dairy products & grain processing and storage among various other fields related to food products.

The upcoming years are likely to witness a fast growth in ready-to-consume food products like health drinks, frozen food products for low-shelf life food articles, readymade Aata (flour), fruit juices, ready-to-cook meals, quicker snack products like noodles and pastas, etc. with increase in percentage of working couples and busy life style.

The total plan allocation to the food processing industry has gone up sharply from Rs.650 crore during the 10^th Five year plan to Rs.4030 crore during the 11^th Five year plan.

Stock Picks: ITC, Ruchi Soya, LT Foods and REI Agro.

3) Banking & Finance

Banking industry is said to be a mirror of an economy’s health. A Sound banking system serves as a significant trade enabler to the country. During the recent global crisis, Indian banking industry came out with flying colors on the back of stringent stipulations laid down the Central bank.

With the opening up of the sector in early Nineties by the government, the industry has received a significant boost by the emergence of the private sector banks which increased competitiveness and enhanced the level of banking facilities to a top notch level.

However, during the recent global recession, even the lagging public sector banks have made a big come back on the back of large up gradations to suit the hi-tech services provided by the private sector and foreign banks.

For a sustained economic growth for the country, unmatched banking and financial services is a must in order to facilitate the increasing need of swift and hassle-free transactions. Banking sector is an enabler to the economic growth.

Stock Picks: HDFC Bank, SBI, ICICI and Bank of Baroda.

4) Infrastructure

The economic development of a country is directly linked with the infrastructural status of the country. Infrastructure not only acts as a enabler to higher growth but also generates employment and serves the social needs of the people of the country.

If the economy is an emerging one like India which is a laggard on the infrastructural front, the growth in the infrastructure industry gains all the more importance. High transaction costs arising from inadequate and inefficient enabling infrastructure can go a long way in stunting the growth rate of the economy.

The broad term of infrastructure can cover a wide range of infrastructural facilities from ports and road, rail, transport, aviation, water needs, mining and construction among other fields of operations. Better infrastructure can lead to faster enabling services.

Stock Picks: L&T, Patel Engineering, IVRCL Infrastructure, Hindustan Construction (HCC and Thermax.

5) Oil & Gas

One sector that has disappointed until now is Oil and Gas sector. The prospects of the sector have witnessed a lagging demand as the global economy is still to witness a complete recovery. The recent crisis has stolen a huge chunk of the demand of oil and gas which is needed to stoke the growth engines of every major economy.

Most of the large companies were building new capacities before the breakout of the recession. This new capacities led to excess supply and falling demand at a time when the demand was hit on account of slowdown and crisis. This led to plunge in the operating margins of the refiners who were stuck with excess supplies of crude products.

However, with the recent advent of a recovery on the horizon, there is a gradual pick-up in the global demand for oil and gas, as economies are back to pump money for higher capacity utilization of their resources in order to meet increasing demand of goods and products. Demand for petro products is expected to improve over next one year.

Stock Picks: Reliance Industries, Gail, Essar Oil and Cairn India.

Note: With so much of buzz going around in the Education sector, I was inclined to include this fast growing industry in the above article. However, the above article is created taking in to consideration the prospects of equity market returns for investments in FY 2010-11. Whereas, education and healthcare industry holds great prospects in India but from longer time span of more than just one year.

On which sector are you betting the most?

Disclaimer: The above content/report is only for the educational purpose of the readers. It does not qualify as any advice or recommendation to Buy/Sell securities. The author and the blog are not responsible for the reader’s decisions based on the above report.

Is The Reverse Brain Drain Really Happening?

Ankit Agarwal — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:25:05 +0000

Brain Drain has been one of the prime reasons why India has not been able to establish itself as an R&D hub. We pat our back on being the Outsourcing giants and expanding India’s global footprint. However, ever since 26/11 happened and later with the U.S. economy recession, a new trend was cited to be emerging-Reverse Brain Drain.

A major feature of which was that Foreign Students in the U.S. especially from India and China are keen to return to their native countries and contribute.

It is heartening to know since Reverse Brain Drain is a boon to any developing country like India. We get access to our own people who have been trained in one of the best institutes in the world.With their qualifications and international exposure, it is no doubt that they can contribute to the nation.

However, it still remains a little sketchy if the reverse brain drain is indeed happening.According to WSJ , the foreign students holding Ph.D.s are indeed staying in the U.S. after completing their degree.According to the released data,

62% of foreigners holding temporary visas who earned Ph.D.s in science and engineering at U.S. universities in 2002 were still in the U.S. in 2007.

Of those who graduated in 1997,60% were still in the U.S. in 2007.

Now, post the 26/11 it has been expected that the number of Ph.D.s willing to stay back in U.S. declined after the 26/11 attacks but has rebounded and it is expected to rise.Foreign nationals account for more than 40% of the total Ph.D candidates in the U.S. and there has been an 8% increase in the same in the 2009.

Img Source

There has been a lot of reverse brain drain in the middle management levels where 35 something managers have relocated to India.Now, this no doubt is a promising trend but for us to become the next R&D destination, we need creators more than the managers.We need top of the class Ph.D researchers who can foster innovation and creation.If this data seems to be correct, the Ph.D crowd ain’t coming back to the native country.

As much as I would like to support the reverse brain drain, I am going to play the devil’s advocate here.The Ph.D.s and the master degree holders will need access to state of the art laboratory infrastructure.Now, until we can create a conducive platform for them to deliver results, how do we expect them to relocate to India.There is a serious dearth of quality education/research institutes and even though infrastructure is being ramped up , it still is below par.It’s worrisome that a premier education body of the stature of IIM is finding it difficult to maintain its standards in its new branches.

Yes, we need the Reverse Brain Drain to happen but we need the right platform to leverage the expertise and the skill set of those individuals.A razor sharp focus on providing the required infrastructure and a dedicated financial support for supporting R&D investments will go a long way in increasing the reverse brain to a great extent.

What do you your thoughts on this? Will we see an increasing trend of Ph.D degree holders from abroad making the journey back home.

SFO helping Bangalore to be the next valley ?

Ankit Agarwal — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:37:44 +0000

Bangalore, the next Silicon Valley? Now, the community has always been divided on this one. With its early mover advantage and it being home to probably the highest technology companies in India , some say Bangalore is ‘the’ contender to become the next Silicon Valley. A certain section of the community is very clear that Bangalore does not have what it takes to become the Silicon Valley of India.

As was pointed out in this post on The Next Silicon Valley – Pune or Chennai or ? , Bangalore has become the hub for IT service companies and it is too late for the city to change to a creator of new products. The reason is well founded to a certain extent and there are probably many more reasons to ponder if Bangalore really has the where wit-halls to take on the Silicon Valley.

One crucial factor where Bangalore (which is true for all other cities as well) seems to losing the battle is Infrastructure. The city has been expanding at a break neck speed with IT companies, hotels, shopping malls etc without paying heed to proper planning. The traffic management has deteriorated, public transport has not scaled up accordingly and as some say, the city is nearing saturation.

Things might change for good soon though for Bangalore. The true Silicon Valley has lent a helping hand to Bangalore city which could change the fortunes of Nemma Bengaluroo. San Francisco has chosen Bangalore to its be its Sister City in a bid to promote co-operation and understanding between the two cities.

San Francisco has singed 7 MOUs in areas ofÂ health care, water and sanitation, education and research, art, museum and culture, trade and commerce and fashion.

The Sister City arrangement is seen as a symbiotic relationship wherein,

Bangalore will benefit from San Francisco on solid waste and traffic management, while the former will pitch in to help the latter bring down its high cost of public healthcare.

San Francisco has a mandatory goal of 75% recycling of waste and Bangalore could definitely use their expertise in improving its waste management system. Another area that Bangalore could really benefit is the kind of entrepreneurship mind set that San Francisco could bring in it via cultural and education exchanges.

Bangalore needs to break out of the IT Services stigma and make giant steps in becoming an R&D and a technology hub. San Francisco is looking to reduce it exceptionally high health care costs by possibly patterning with the Biocon.

The alliance could very well be the breakthrough that Bangalore needs to become the next Silicon Valley.

What are your thoughts on this alliance? Would this Sister city arrangement with the real Silicon Valley prove to be the stepping stone or Bangalore has gone too far to accommodate entrepreneur minds?