Smile smile smile, One more time, It's a bright Bright BRIGHT sunshine day

It is not an easy job to write something readable keeping the curiosity and continuity elements. It is equally or more not easy to capture the attention of genuine readers and casual readers and passive browsers. You all know it well as I have tested it too well. Welcome once again to read through a weekly round up from Team 1.

Onam



Traditional Onam Sadhya



The week gone by was one of celebration and festivity for all Malayalis. Onam 2007 was celebrated with fervour and festivity. Looking at the various functions held here during the past few days, I felt, people show more unity when they are out of their own home state. At one such function held here at a labour camp which I participated, the Onam Sadhya served was very sumptuous. The elaborate varieties of dishes prepared by the bachelors included the traditional Sarkara upperi (banana chips fried and then coated with mix of jiggery syrup and dried ginger). It brought a lot of memories. Gone are the good old Onam days where children wake up early in the morning and pluck flowers and arrange beautiful flower arrangements (pookalam). Gone are the days where the eldest member from the family (karanavar) gift all the others with new set of clothes. Gone are the days when after a sumptuous meal, men and women play traditional games. Gone are the days of Kummatti and Pulikkali. Now everything is packaged. Children does not really know the meaning and value of Onam. For that matter, even the adults are glued on to the TV set watching various programmes. It is an admitted reality that in search of modernisation, we all tend to forget our tradition and culture. For that matter this is the case with every tradition now. We do not have time to pass on the much needed knowledge transfer of our cultural and traditional values, which our ancestors, with patience and wisdom passed on to us. It’s time to wake up.

Attitude

Thinking about this reminded me of some new found attitudes. I would wish to bring on here display of two such incidents which I had to witness in the past one month. One was an incident at a highway coffee shop, where I found a well dressed gentleman with an expensive T-Shirt, shouting loudly at the restaurant waiter for taking time to serve him. The counter was full with at least 6 to 7 customers in front, all asking for various items at the same time and due to which the waiter was finding it difficult as he was the only one around. Our friend, well dressed and projecting an intellectual and knowledgeable look started fuming around and finally got himself out of control to the extent that he abused the poor guy even racially. Every one around was watching and no reactions. You know what was written at the back of his T-Shirt. In bold and colourful letter a graffiti saying “NO FEAR”. May be he was trying to promote his attitude with this poor worker.

Another case, I had to watch with astonishment, happened at the Delhi airport. Near the conveyor belt, while waiting for the baggage to arrive, I found two well dressed and highly placed government employees, on their way back from a foreign tour – obviously government sponsored and intended to learn and study the developments abroad – fighting out to grab a trolley, which was the only one available at that point. They forgot all what they have seen, learnt, and wanted to introduce from their tour and returned back to their village level in their language usage. Here too, everyone was silent spectators. None to comment, none to control or react. Here again, there was a group of school children on their educational tour to learn India and it’s culture was there as spectators witnessing their first on hand Indian experience, straight out from their airplane. As I wrote earlier and as I repeatedly write here and will write again, we all react or respond only when something is pointed towards us or affecting us. All other happenings are to be silently watched.
Movie reviews

A few more things happened during the week passed by. Two of them are about contemporary movies – Chak De (in Hindi) and Arabikadha (in Malayalam). Both movies were released here in the Gulf and doing well. Both touched sensitive subjects in different ways.

Chak de (Do well) In Chak De was Sharukh Khan with a group of talented young actors visualising the life of the captain of Indian Hockey Team after he hit a crucial penalty during a world cup finals out of the goal post. Labelled cheater and detractor, he and his family was isolated from the society and he goes in to a retreat. The resurrection in to the national level after a period of seven years as the coach of the women’s hockey team, which no one really believed will reach to any higher stage of the game was his for take. With a bunch of young girls with different attitudes, personality and regional politics, Sharukh as the Coach, portrayed his character very well. All the girls enacted their roles superbly and other supporting actors too played their part to perfection making this movie worth watching. There are several reviews written about it already, praising the management theories embedded in the story line. However, I would like to touch the emotional part of it. Where Sharukh as the team captain who did not manage the winning stroke, and accusations, pointed fingers, criticism from all corners and insults to him and his family. With no real friends or supporters he decides to leave his village watched by all including children. Even during the period as coach of the national team for women, he was not spared of insult by his own wards and how he controls his emotions clearly depicts the toughness of life when one really experiences how the clock stands still in his/her life. The determination and dedication to come out of this and come up, was portrayed excellently by the actor. All the actors did justice to what was expected of them. However, the photography and camera work could have been raised to a higher level, especially during the match sequence, where although the director was trying to project a fast paced and nail biting game, the camera did not catch up with his intentions. Overall, a very good movie, worth watching with family, especially children.

Arabikadha (Stories from the Arabian land) was a movie conceived for a longer time and finally happened. Intended to touch the intricacies of life of expatriate workers in the Arabian gulf, especially UAE, the story revolves around a hard core communist party worker Mukundan (enacted by veteran actor Sreenivasan) who had to leave his native village due to political problems. Forced and foxed to come to the gulf in the pretext of cementing the party roots among the labour force working here, he lands straight in to the harsh realities of a middle class, moderately educated expat’s life where one has no experienced job or language skills to acquire a proper job. Cheated first by his own party comrades (to come to gulf whereby his associate utilises the opportunity to join with the industrialist and become a minister), and then by his own roommate and all those whom he come across, because of his straight forward nature, Mukundan, bump into a Chinese lady who makes her living by selling pirated cds. With Russian and Chinese idealism, Mukundan thinks that this is his girl for life and goes out of his way to help her during her difficulties and the movie takes twists and turns and finally comes up with a good ending. The short sequences of treacheries happening in financial dealings and job front was very well conveyed. For many this may be a reminiscence of what happened to them or what they went through at some stage of their stay here in the Gulf. Although Sreenivasan did his role well, the story and screenplay could have been done much better with more meaningful role to the three dronacharyas of Radio revolution in the UAE, namely Mr.Albert Alex, Mr. K P K Vengara and Mr. Moideen Koya. The amount of selfless service and reward less hours these three veterans have put in, because of which the Radio industry in UAE and Gulf all over, in particular the FM movements progressed is worth mentioning here. At least the producer and director made an effort to remember them and cast them in small roles shows their unavoidable importance among the middle class work force, whom they connect between each of the small corners of their native villages and the GULF through various regional programmes. It could have been nicer to have seen some of their memories enacted rather than casting so many lifeless characters to fill the volume. The new actor, Mr. Abdulla, who played the role of the restaurant owner, out performed everyone. Through this performance malayalam movie world has one more talented performer to do meaningful roles. Although a small cameo role,Mr.Satheesh Menon also did his part well and hope it will give him the long awaited break he is looking for in the silver screen. Hope some of the Bollywood or Kollywood Directors gets to see this movie and extend offers in fitting roles to him as many movies are being produced in Dubai these days. The movie also projected the way politicians uses the gulf countries to do their back door dealings. The camera work failed many times, especially when Jayasurya driving a car was quite visible that he was on top of a car parked on a recovery pick up. Arabikadha, on the whole did not achieve the finer points what originally it was intended to portray.

I think both Chak De and Arabikadha are now available on DVDs with English language translations and worth watching.

Indian Football


India for the first time in the history of Nehru Cup Football won the trophy beating Syria (1-0) with a superb goal from striker Pradeep. Labelled as a tournament with mediocre teams, Indian players did very well to display excellent football throughout the tournament. For the first time the team had players who were able to produce outstanding long range shots and passes, due to which the team played unstoppable football and won the trophy. However, Football is not Cricket and except some initial few line coverage in the front page of newspapers, neither the team or the players got any mentioning or coverage for what they achieved. So, forget about the rewards and receptions. I don’t think the entire football team got rewards that a C grade Indian cricketer gets for one match he plays. Even if continuously losses in matches, we worship cricket and create criketing gods after each and every series.

Sports Miscellaneous - Indian Hockey & Sania Mirza
Whether it is due to the Chak de movie influence or due to some other cosmic influence, Indian Hockey is having an excellent run in the ongoing Asia Cup Hockey matches being held at Hong Kong. Let us hope they keep continuing the momentum and wins the Asia Cup Trophy and prove that India can do well in sports other than Cricket.
Sania Mirza is on her winning ways these days. The superb form has taken several places up in the ranking. However, the extreme demand required to keep one fit in level of sports is taking toll on her and showed in her 3rd exit at the US Open. Pairing with Mahesh Bhupathi, she is still in contention for a World Title for India. Let’s hope for an impossible to happen.

Cricket

A weekly round up without any mention about Cricket will be unpardonable. The ongoing series between India and England is getting into a tight situation with England leading 3-2 currently. A win in the match tomorrow will level the series and makes it even more interesting. However, it is to be seen how we will get there. With fielders dropping all the catches, and the batsmen yet to learn to run the singles, and bowlers performance not guaranteed, it is a tough task ahead. Again, questions are in plenty as to the resource usage - players like Robin Uthappa and Rohit Sharma not being given a chance to play and remained within the dressing room. Promising bowlers like Sreesanth were not even given a chance and how can they improve and prove until and unless they get to play? The formation of Indian Cricket League and the chain reactions associated going on in the other cricketing countries because of players joining ICL is another fun aspects we get to see during the coming days. The 20-20 World Cup is also round the corner. So, once again, it is eat cricket, breath cricket and hell with cricket (of course only if India losses).

Abu Dhabi Taxi situation

Since the schools started after the summer holidays, The taxi users in Abu Dhabi are experiencing severe shortage of taxis. The situation remains the same today also, there are several people waiting on the road. A look at any taxi stops, you will find several men and women on their way to office waiting for taxis and the expressions on their face, reminds of a goalkeeper waiting for a penalty shoot, or a rugby player getting ready for a home run. I strongly feel that your newspaper is not giving the right coverage about problems of commuters here in Abu Dhabi (although I admit, when compared to those in Dubai and Sharjah - this is very minor). However, this requires attention as this can be solved very easily - 1st by placing a Q system and barriers in the Taxi waiting area and 2nd by introducing a Circular Bus route in the Abu Dhabi with more bus frequencies.

I am trying my small bit of effort to influence and convince the authorities to introduce either one of these suggestions. How far the media supports me and authorities listen to me, will wait and watch. Both ways, we do not want our work force to get training on the road to become an expert goalkeeper or rugby/football player early in the morning on their way to work.

Teacher's Day

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
- William Arthur Ward

September 5 is Teacher's Day in "India". It is the birthday of second President of India and teacher Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan. When Dr. Radhakrishnan became the president of India in 1962, some of his students and friends approached him and requested him to allow them to celebrate 5 September, his birthday. In reply, Dr. Radhakrishnan said, "Instead of celebrating my birthday separately, it would be my proud privilege if September 5 is observed as "Teachers Day".

This is not a holiday in India. It is considered a "celebration" day, where teachers and students report to school as usual but the usual activities and classes are replaced by activities of celebration, thanking and remembrance. At some schools on this day, the responsibility of teaching is taken up by the senior students as an appreciation for their teachers. The idea is to let teachers sit back just for a day and let the students have a glimpse into the life of a teacher. It is an occasion when a token or appreciation in the form of presents are given to teachers by students to show their love and respect.

Traditionally, people in India have given tremendous respect and honor to teachers and hold teachers in high esteem. An old Indian saying (usually taught to children), ranks teacher in the third place, even before God: "'Maata, Pitha, Guru, Daivam'", meaning Mother, Father and Teacher is God.

There is a difference between the spiritual teacher and a material teacher. For spiritual teacher, who causes to remove all the illusions from the mind of his disciple and makes him feel the precence of God, there is another saying in the form of a couplet (doha), which goes, "Guru Govind doou khare kake lagon paai? Balihari guru aap ki Govind deeo batai," Meaning "I am in a fix whom to salute first: the teacher or the God. I shall choose the teacher as he is the one who is instrumental in me knowing the God". Further, a central piece in Hindu scripture reads "Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnu, Guru devo Maheshwaraha - Gurussaakshaath param brahma tasmai shree gurave namaha," which translates as "The Guru (Teacher) is the Lord Brahma (the Creator), the Guru is the Lord Vishnu (the Preserver), the Guru is the Lord Shiva (the Destroyer). The Guru is the Supreme Brahman (Ultimate Reality) visible to our eyes. To that Guru we offer our salutations"

There were always some confusions between a spiritual teacher to a material teacher. But these two are not at the same level and one must make sure that how to treat them individually.

And this is what an eminent educationalist and well respected Teacher Mrs. Abha Sahgal, Principal of Delhi Private School Sharjah had to say this morning: "A perfect school is a happy school, where there is no prejudice and no petty rivalries". It is our duty to develop the student during his formative years to be a good citizen who stands apart in the crowd and who know his right and his duty towards his family and the society.

Pranams, best wishes and greetings to all Teachers and Gurus whose feet I touches before initiating any thing small or big.

89.1 Radio 4 FM

I get to listen to the radio only for a few minutes in the morning while driving to office. This is a disadvantage I have over my friends in Dubai, who, because of heavy traffic get to enjoy at least one hour of radio time while driving to work and one hour plus while driving back. During these few minutes, I switch on to one of my favorite radio channel, i.e. 89.1 Radio 4 FM and listen to DJs Charu and Siddharth. What a bunch of Positive minded people!. Continue your efforts and keep every one positive in your own way. You are doing a great job, as all others at 89.1 through out the day. But the initial start is of great importancde and no wonder the theme song - "Smile, smile, smile, One more time, It's a bright Bright BRIGHT sunshine day".

Passing it to you and wishing you all a wonderful week ahead.

God Bless,

Ramesh Menon
05092007

Balance your liabilities

Balance your liabilities
26 Aug, 2007, 0441 hrs IST,Aman Dhall & Dheeraj Tiwari, TNN

If you thought getting a good deal for a home loan is the end of journey, then you may be missing out on a lot of action. Of course, getting a loan on a competitive interest rate is the first step, but if you’ve made regular payments and created a good credit record, you can use that to your advantage.

For those not in the know, this concept is known as balance transfer (BT), wherein the unpaid portion of your home loan is transferred to a new HFC at a lesser interest rate. We at SundayET find out what to look out for before you decide to go ahead with a BT.

Today, banks (read housing finance companies) are looking out for customers from whom they can benefit in the long run, and if you are looking out for a better deal, it’s not a bad idea to approach a housing finance company (HFC) to refinance your loan on a more economical interest rate. That’s not all. Banks such as ICICI, IDBI and SBI also offer additional benefits such as payment of your pre-payment charges or processing fee.

But there’s a catch here. On the face of it, the picture may look rosy. But if you don’t read between the lines, you can end up in a debt-trap. Take the case of Abhishek Shekhar, a 35-year-old doctor. He took a home loan of Rs 20 lakh at an interest rate of 10% two-years ago from Bank X. The tenure of the loan is 20 years. Now, recently he checked out with Bank Y, and after some negotiations, the latter offered him an interest rate of 8.5%. Now, let’s check out the financial gains of this deal:

On paper, such a calculation looks attractive. But what you need to check out is whether the bank has added the pre-payment amount to your overall loan principal. In fact, some banks hide this clause, thus increasing your loan amount by a considerable sum, plus the effect of compounding interest. Warns Kartik Jhaveri, a certified financial planner and a chartered wealth manager:

“You need to check out what all benefits you may get. The important points you should keep in mind before opting for a BT are — how will the bank handle your pre-payment charges, what other features you’ll get such as mortgage insurance and whether the bank calculates your interest on a monthly or annual basis.”

Jhaveri has a pulse on the problem. In fact, owing to competitive rates across the industry, there are not too many balance transfers happening as of now. Customers are also reluctant to opt for it due to the cumbersome documentation involved and the gains are not too big at the moment. “That’s a major reason why there aren’t any special rebates with reference to processing fees or rate of interest being offered to balance transfer cases. Although we have a facility where we can include the pre-payment charges to the principal outstanding balance, to be paid to the existing bank/ NBFC,” explains Sujan Sinha, senior VP, AXIS Bank.

On their part, the banks are trying to place their offers in a more positive light. “We generally have two kinds of options — ‘Simple Balance Transfer’ and ‘Balance Transfer with Top-up’. In the second option, along with balance transfer, a customer can avail of top-up loan amount based on the vintage of the loan,” says Rahul Mallick, general manager, ICICI Bank. The key levers for making a customer switch from one HFC to another is processing fee and preferential interest rate on balance transfers. “Typically, the new interest rate will be 200 bps lower than the existing loan rate. However, a lot depends on the customer profile and tenure of loan,” he adds.

So before you opt for a balance transfer, it is necessary to check with your housing finance company about the current rates. If you’ve made timely payments, it’s quite possible that the HFC can offer you a better deal. Also, compare that if you go ahead with a BT, will the cost be higher than repayment and switching to another housing finance company. “Balance transfer is not a good move if you’ve only five or less year of repayment left. But otherwise, it is a very easy process,” says Sanjeet Shukla, GM, SBI Personal Banking.

Small steps such as finding out the paperwork required, and if the new bank, will be using the original EMI cheques or fresh ones, can save you from further hassles. Balance transfer need not mean saving money, you can also utilise the same for investing in different options. After all securing a home loan is not the end of journey.

Tackling your anger

Anger is a letter short of the word - 'Danger'. Ask where your anger is coming from. What is it that makes you mad? Try to tackle it at it’s root cause. Recognising situations that spark your fuse can make it easier to avoid or work through them.
Relax


Simple relaxation techniques such as deep breathing and meditating can help calm you down.
Think out-of-the-box


Your thinking becomes confused and exaggerated, when you’re angry. Most situations do not portend the end of the world, so try to put happenings in perspective.

If you slow down, you might find a way to solve the problem. The world is not out to get you, even though it may seem like it.

Thinking logically might not alter the reality of the situation, but may keep your anger from exaggerating the problem.
Solve


Channelising your anger towards solving the problem or trying to cope with the situation is the way out.

You can't stop it from raining, but you can open your umbrella and stay dry.

Listen


Listening (though that is the last thing you want to do!) what the other person is as important as getting your point across. In fact you may sound exaggerated, hurtful, or aggressive. Say what you want the other person to hear-they may already know you’re angry. Then, listen carefully to the response.

This will help you stay calm-not to mention you improve your chances of resolving the problem.

Change your environment
<

Move out of the milieu you were in. Try indulging yourself in any activity that will give you some time to cool down. A calm, rational mind and body will make better decisions.

Learning to manage and control your anger will surely make you healthier and happier for the rest of your life.

Islamic history exhibition to be held in Abu Dhabi

Islamic history exhibition to be held in Abu Dhabi
Compiled from WAM and staff reports / GULF NEWS Published: September 04, 2007, 00:37

Abu Dhabi: The capital will host an exhibition on Islamic history and heritage. The "Walk into Islamic history" exhibition will be held under the patronage of General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and is organised by the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation at the premises of the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage.

Free treatment for children with cerebral palsy

Free treatment for children with cerebral palsy
By Dina El Shammaa, Staff Reporter / GULF NEWS Published: September 04, 2007, 00:37

Abu Dhabi: Children with cerebral palsy (CP) can now benefit from updated technology, physiology, physiotherapy and phonation treatment.

The symptoms for CP are mainly developmental delay. The Health Authority in Abu Dhabi (HAAD) announced the launch of the free treatment programme at Shaikh Khalifa Medical City (SKMC). The programme has been established in association with the Special Needs Centre at Mafraq Hospital and the Zayed Higher Organisation for Humanitarian Care.

"HAAD has formed a committee to monitor the medical rehabilitation services available in the emirate and provide recommendations for their development as well as to assess the need for setting up new specialised rehabilitation according to the highest international standards," said Saif Al Qubaisi, Director of the Health Provision Sector at HAAD.

Dr Khalid Mohammad, Senior Consultant in Pediatric Neurology, SKMC; fellow of the Royal College of Pediatrics and British Pediatric Neurology Association, UK spoke to Gulf News regarding CP.

"CP is a common cause of disability in children worldwide and affects around three children in each 1,000 births," he said.

Project management body launched at Knowledge Village

Project management body launched at Knowledge Village
Compiled from staff reports / GULF NEWS Published: September 04, 2007, 00:37

Project management body launched at Knowledge Village

Dubai: Dubai Knowledge Village has announced the launch of an independent Professional Project Management Association based in its premises. The announcement was made at a project management event held at the DKV Conference Hall on September 1. It was sponsored by DKV and SUKAD. The event was an occasion for project management professionals to share their experience and know-how on the strategic importance of this management discipline. Dr Ayoub Kazim, Executive Director of Dubai Knowledge Village and Dubai International Academic City, spoke of the growing awareness in Dubai and the region about project management as a special skill and competency. Hasan Makansi, Partner Development Manager, assured support to the association aimed at developing and promoting industry and professionals.
Innovation unit established

Innovation unit established
Dubai: The Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) has announced the establishment of its innovation unit that will engage in future studies and aid in creating a better educational future for youth. Dr Abdullah Al Karam, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director General of KHDA highlighted the need for the unit saying that the it is necessary for the authority to forge ahead.

Eurostar targets Paris-London train speed record

Eurostar targets Paris-London train speed record
(Reuters) / 4 September 2007

PARIS - Eurostar plans to set a Paris to London rail speed record on Tuesday on the first train to use UK’s long-awaited high speed track at over 186 miles (299.3 km) per hour.

The service carrying journalists and officials from Paris will make its inaugural run down 68 miles of British track known as High Speed 1, arriving for the first time in London’s St Pancras International station rather than the existing Waterloo terminus.

‘We want to establish a record today... to see just how quickly we can get from Paris to London,’ Eurostar Chief Executive Richard Brown said over the intercom as the train left Paris Gare du Nord.

The official switch to St Pancras takes place on Nov. 14, and the station will eventually link with the site of the 2012 Olympics at Stratford in east London.

The journey time will be cut from the usual 2 hours 35 minutes to 2 hours 15 minutes on the new route.

Brown said food trolleys had been stripped out and the train was running half-full to save weight on its record attempt. Within 20 minutes of leaving, the train had clocked 192 miles an hour, according to the GPS navigating device of one journalist on board.

Eurostar carried its first passengers in 1994 after the delayed opening of the $15 billion Channel Tunnel.

But while trains have cruised swiftly across France on high speed track at up to 186 miles per hour, they have been forced to throttle back on the British side where they mingle with commuter services heading in and out of London.

‘The High Speed 1 timetable will for the first time enable UK business travellers to reach the centres of Paris and Brussels before 9 a.m., ready for a full day’s work,’ Brown told people at a reception in Paris late on Monday.

‘Leisure passengers will benefit from later evening departures, allowing them to stay later on their visits,’ he added.

Eurostar’s faster service arrives at a time of booming demand for rail travel in Britain after a series of foiled terrorist attacks have led to tighter security and delays at UK airports.

Eurostar also says it has been helped by people switching from plane to train due to concerns about the environment.

Environmental statistics put the CO2 impact of aviation anywhere between four and 10 times that of rail on short-haul journeys.

‘Eurostar will offset CO2 emissions that it cannot eliminate ... making it the first train company in the world to offer carbon neutral journeys,’ said Brown.

Eurostar services are handled by France’s SNCF railway and Belgium’s SNCB on their own territory.

On the British side this is done by the ICRR consortium, comprising National Express Plc, SNCF, SNCB and British Airways Plc

Shaikha Lubna among world's most powerful women

Shaikha Lubna among world's most powerful women
BY A STAFF REPORTER / Khaleej Times 4 September 2007

DUBAI — Shaikha Lubna Al Qasimi, the UAE Minister of Economy, is one of the five women in the Middle East considered by the US-based business magazine Forbes to be among the world's 100 most powerful women.

The Forbes article credited Shaikha Lubna with creating more transparency and corporate governance in the UAE, and recognised her effective negotiation skills and intensive trade relations programme that sees her travel to four countries each month to promote the UAE.

The announcement comes only days ahead of Shaikha Lubna's visit to Italy, where she will be the first Arab woman to be awarded the 'Stella Re' prize by the Italian Foundation, Sandretto Re Baudengo. The prize is awarded to only one woman every year. A special committee selected Shaikha Lubna for the Stella Re prize, which will be presented during an awards ceremony in Turin later this month.

No work visa for visitors

No work visa for visitors
By Ahmed Abdul Aziz / Khaleej Times 4 September 2007

ABU DHABI – The Ministry of Labour (MoL) will not approve work visa applications for workers who have entered the UAE on visit visas, according to Saleh Al Jabri, head of the Firms Department in the MoL. “It is a clear violation of the Labour law as visitors are not allowed to work on visit visas,” he pointed out.

Al Jabri told Khaleej Times that any company desirous of employing an expatriate should obtain a temporary work permit or employment visa, not visit visa.

In case of violation, the employers would risk Dh10,000 fine and suspension of transactions for six months.

Sources at MoL said that the ministry had recently rejected an application that had been initially approved by the Abu Dhabi Naturalisation and Residency Department (ADNRD) because the company had sought to hire employees on visit visas.

Using Fear To Your Advantage

Using Fear To Your Advantage
Facing your fears can help you achieve successes you never knew were possible

A friend of mine worked for a large Indian telecommunications company. After about six years of working there, he found that the initial excitement had died down and that his learning and growth had plateaued. That was when he received an offer to start up operations of a new entrant. The initial meetings clearly indicated to him that the role would be exciting. In fact, this was just what he was looking out for. There would be many challenges, especially since the company was new. At the same time, there would be tremendous learning.

However, after about three long months of discussions, my friend decided not to accept the offer. The reason he gave me was ‘fear’. He loved the job description but was afraid. He was afraid of stepping out of his comfort zone, of losing himself in unfamiliar territory, and of starting something entirely new. Fear made him flee from a great opportunity.

Fear happens to all of us and most of us normally react in one of two ways. We either flee, wherein we try to run away, or we hide and freeze, where we do not know what to do and are paralysed. These make people let their fears play on their minds and allow them to reach uncontrollable levels — leading to anxiety and pessimism. Like my friend who decided to give up on his opportunity, they continuously tell themselves, “I do not want to take risks. I do not want to do anything that I fear. It does not matter whether I am growing or learning, as long as I am safe in this old place where I have no fear.” But the problem is that, with time, your fears only get worse. You even begin to start fearing things that have absolutely no risks attached to them. You end up losing out on all the great opportunities in life.
How Do We Tackle Fear?

As the lines of a recent television commercial go, ‘at the end of fear, there is success’. The commercial shows two youngsters who are excited by an opportunity to tackle their fear. They react by fighting it, and enjoy every moment of the experience. Can we do this? Yes, of course. Think about adventure parks and horror movies where we pay good money to be scared out of our wits. We find this fear exciting. We deliberately trigger automatic reactions of fear in order to experience the thrill.

Like any other emotion, fear has both positive and negative aspects. Negative fear is debilitating. Positive fear is exhilarating. Life is boring without fear. Successful leaders constantly search for new, risky ventures. They even consciously focus on doing things that other people are afraid to do; go places where others fear to tread. Counteract the discomfort of fear by focusing on the positive side — the learning and the growth that every event generates. See events in a positive light that would give you power to overcome your fears and help you accomplish what you want to do.

People think that fear is paralysing and reduces your potential. Actually, the opposite is true. Fear can generate super-human feats. Have you not heard stories where normal people fought valiantly to save their friends and family from grave danger? Facing fear is empowering for leaders. It gives you strength you never knew you had. Fear is only damaging when you run away and do not confront it.

People avoid fear in order to preserve independence. Fear is only enslaving when someone else is purposefully trying to be fearsome and controlling. But the fear of reality — the possibility of missed opportunities — can motivate you to get to where you want to be. Rather than being afraid about losing security, comfort and predictability, start fearing about losing out on opportunities; start fearing about getting nowhere in life. Be afraid of being mediocre. Be afraid of waking up one morning and saying to yourself: “Why did I waste my life?” Use fear to your advantage. Fears accompany you until the threshold. Beyond that there is no fear, just success.


ON LEADERSHIP: SANGEETH VARGHESE for Business World.

The author is a leadership scholar from the LSE and founder of LeadCap. His book, Decide to Lead: Eight Decisions That Can Make You A Leader, will soon be published by Businessworld. will soon be published by Businessworld. He can be contacted at sangeethv@leadcap.org

Use More To Have More

Use More To Have More

The more you use your abilities, the more you will be able to benefit from them.

We often wonder why people who are already capable are blessed with more, while most others live average lives. How can a Jack Welch also be a successful speaker, author and columnist? And how could Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space programme, simultaneously be a successful physicist, businessman, educationist and statistician? How could he possibly create institutions as diverse as the Indian space research organisation (ISRO) and the Indian institutes of management (IIM)? Are people like Welch and Sarabhai blessed with extraordinary talents, or does something else tip things in their favour?

Human capabilities can be divided into two broad sorts: Obvious capabilities are those that we are conscious about. We exhibit and utilise these every day. Our obvious capabilities are pretty much on display all the time. Or they could be discovered with very little effort. They are embedded in our basic tendencies. For example, from an early age, Bill Gates had always showed a deep interest in computing. When he set up Microsoft with co-founder Paul Allen, Gates knew that his strengths were in computing and that was where he invested his time and money. How a college drop-out used his passion to become the richest man in the world is plainly visible to everyone.

Hidden capabilities are different from obvious capabilities. They can be developed only by wilful determination, requiring some amount of effort before their discovery. To discover your hidden capabilities, you would have to boldly embrace opportunities, even when you are not sure. This requires you to be aware of the new opportunities you are exposed to. By being at the helm of the world’s largest software corporation, Bill Gates was constantly thinking about the future of technology to give his company a competitive edge. That led him to the broader realm of how technology could change the world. His thoughts were no longer limited to emerging technology, but he was now imagining the future. He was constantly building and improving it. He was no longer just a computer geek, but a management guru —evangelising the latest management techniques. A futurist — defining the way things would be. An author — writing about how things are changing and even a world reformer — driving projects that were changing lives for the better.

How can you improve your obvious capabilities and discover hidden capabilities? The basic law regarding your hidden and obvious capabilities is the Law of Use and Possess. According to this law, if you use more, you have more; if you use less, you have less.

Use more to have more: Very simply, the more you exploit opportunities around you, the more you will come across them. If you utilise the immediate, short-term opportunities that you come across rather than wait for that perfect situation, you will receive more long-term opportunities. If you did not start out on the first conquest, you would never have had the opportunity for more. That one initiative told you about your warring capabilities and your leadership qualities; and legions fell before you. If you had instead chosen to stay put and deal with your kingdom, you would never have gone out and made the whole world your kingdom. The more you use your capabilities, the more you reveal about yourself, to yourself.
Use less to have less: You could also choose to destroy your capabilities by running away from situations; by never learning or by never making an effort. You squander away your capabilities — and they are never again able to regain their original shape. The less you use your capabilities, the less you will benefit. Slowly, you will lose all that you had once owned.

As a leader, choose more. When situations demand, face them by investing your capabilities wisely. As you develop them, more doors will open up for you. Only in this way would you improve your existing capabilities and discover more hidden ones.


ON LEADERSHIP: SANGEETH VARGHESE for BUSINESS WORLD

The author is a leadership scholar from the LSE and founder of LeadCap. His book, Decide to Lead: Eight Decisions That Can Make You A Leader, will soon be published by Businessworld. He can be contacted at sangeethv@leadcap.org

Catch Them Young

Piggy banks are for new-borns. And in this jet age, all kids know that money certainly doesn’t grow on trees. On your part, you may have invested in the right options and charted out your short or long-term investment plan, but the benefits that you may reap from making your kids financially aware cannot be quantified in monetary terms.

In fact, in this era of pay cheques, it becomes even more important to make your kids understand the concept of fiscal accountability. After all, it’s you who has to take the ultimate responsibility? That said, making your kids aware about dollar and dimes (in our case rupees and paise) is no miracle.

SundayET spoke to captains of different industries to find out how they have planned to secure the financial future of their kids. Besides encouraging habits such as sharing, understanding the value of money and even charity for the overall development of the child, they highlight a step-by-step journey on how to introduce your child into the financial world....

Budgeting

Although he hates to call Jetlite a budget airline, the habit of budgeting is what Jetlite CEO Gary Kingshott emphasised to his kids. “Budgeting is the first step of sound investment planning. You should know the resources that are available and accordingly you should allocate and spend them,” he says. According to Kingshott, from the very beginning, he inculcated this practice in his kids.

“I did two things. I set up a limit of $100 a month. And I gave them an option that either they can take the whole yearly amount or ask for it per week. In this amount, they had to manage their expenses such as buying presents for their friends, partying or others. This not only gave them a real-life experience about money, buying and selling but also taught them to make their own decisions whether to spend or save or on different things,” he muses.

Kingshott believes that this also generates interest in children and makes them responsible. “But you’ve to play smart. Set the terms of the allowance and make it clear to your children at the outset, otherwise they’ll always find an excuse to ask for some more amount,” he cautions. Today, he feels that the habit of budgeting has helped his children not only to manage their finances but also in their personal lives.

Open an account

Vikas Vasal, director, KPMG India, advises firms on issues which can turn around their fortunes. As a director of one of the world’s leading advisory firm, it’s not easy to miss on the numbers. “Numbers are important for your kids too,” he says. He has two children — seven year-old Chahat and five-year-old Muskan.

“Recently, I opened a bank account for my eldest one. I made her go through the terms and conditions just to make sure that she understands the purpose of opening a bank account. She did make some childish inquiries but that was the purpose of her going through the content. I also made her fill the form and wherever she was at sea, I bailed her out by explaining the financial literature in simple and easy manner,” he says.

Vasal feels that since the child’s account is linked to the parents, you can make sure that your kid deposits a part of his/ her monthly allowance in the bank. “ Later on, you can gradually introduce your child to the entire range of banking services, such as ATM cards, net banking, debit cards and even statements,” he adds. For young adults, Vasal suggests that the parents can set a spending limit for the card and keep a track of the money that the child spends every month.

Mutual fund SIP

An expert on financial matters, Reliance Money CEO Sudip Bandyopadhyay feels that when it comes to teaching your kid the nuances of growing money, there’s no difference between an adult and a child. “To inculcate investment habits in my children, I have introduced them to mutual funds through systematic investment plan (SIP). With micro SIPs available in the market, you can get your child started with an investment of as low as Rs 50 per month,” he says.

According to him, the charm of managing money is exciting for youngsters and seeing the money grow only adds to the confidence of the child. “Your children would be on their feet, literally. Once you get them going, they would start inquiring about any financial product they are exposed to, with you,” asserts Bandyopadhyay.

He believes that making your child invest in SIPs involves a two-pronged approach. “Not only they’ll use their allowances for making investments but it will also help in future if they wish to pursue higher studies,” he adds. Bandyopadhyay feels that you should involve your child as much possible as in the decision-making process.

“For instance, whenever we are planning for holidays, I take suggestions from my children on how can we efficiently budget our travel plan. At the end of the day, your children should realise that they are growing up and are part of the think-tank of their family,” he reasons.

E-banking

Insurance is subject matter of solicitation. And the same stands true if you really want your kids to be financially aware, believes Nitin Chopra, CEO, Bharti-AXA Life Insurance. “You’ve to generate a curiosity among your children so that they ask for details.

Most parents forget that any young adult would love to take on responsibilities, provided you give him space. In my case, from the very start, I made sure that my daughter, Vidita, was aware of my financial transactions. And in this Internet age, I made sure that she learnt almost everything about banking on the Net. Today, she advises me when it comes to handling accounts,” he laughs.

Chopra feels that today parents don’t have enough time for their kids. But taking out some time and imparting the right lessons can help in shaping their future in a much better way. “I went along with my daughter to the US at the time of her college admissions but she needed little help from me.

She was confident and filed all the papers, including opening an account, all by herself,” he remembers. According to Chopra, ‘e-banking’ is the future and if kids have a basic understanding, it will help them in the long run. “Today, you can do anything and everything on the net and if you are comfortable with it nothing is better,” he adds.

Money games

He may be dictating terms to his subordinates on how to bargain in the wholesale market while sourcing fruits and vegetables for Food Bazaar outlets, but when it comes to educating his kids, Pantaloon Retail Food Business CEO Arvind Chaudhary believes that playing money games is the best way to teach the secrets of a good deal.

Now be it the game of monopoly or learning the bulls and bears of the stock market over the Internet, “I encourage them to play lot of money games. They really help sharpen their mind and bargaining skills,” says Chaudhary. The Chaudhary family, in fact, assesses every family member on the last weekend of a month on how efficiently he/ she bargained for goods. “Negotiating ability should be inculcated in a child right from the beginning. It gives them a broad picture about the importance of money,” he feels.

Chaudhary also tries to involves his children in daily financial matters. “If I am making some payments through cheque, I ask them to cross-check whether I have filled up all the relevant details. Similarly, I ask them to keep a track of the due date of an insurance premium,” he reveals. Chaudhary believes playing stock games over the Internet has made his children more aware of how actually the stock market operates and this will help them in future.

Taxi shortage and Passenger Sense!

I think it is time to present the problem of lack of taxis in Abu Dhabi and the lack of sense among road users while waiting for or boarding a taxi.

Most of the schools opened yesterday and people are back from their summer holidays, the scene in Abu Dhabi street is worth watching. At each of the taxi stands, I could see at least 15 to 20 passengers waiting. With no sign of taxis around, it was like a game of musical chairs, where each of the passengers was trying to stand in front of the other, and hoping to hop into the first arriving taxi. The one who was speedier and faster managed to get in, as and when a taxi arrived.

The situation remains the same today also. There are several people waiting on the road. Some may be for more than 15 to 20 minutes. A look at any taxi stops, you will find several men and women on their way to office waiting for taxis and the expressions on their face, reminds of a goalkeeper waiting for a penalty shoot, or a rugby/football player getting ready for a home run.

The question is, where have all the taxis gone in the morning? It is time to introduce more taxis or replace the cancelled taxis with new Taxi Services. Alternatively, it would be helpful if the public transport systems are strengthened, by starting a chain service or a circular service connecting all the major streets of Abu Dhabi (ie, Hamdan street, Khalifa street, Electra street, Salam street, Passport Road, Airport Road etc) in the morning, during lunch hours, and in the evening.

A general awareness campaign should also be initiated to educate or remind the general public who regularly uses taxi service to form a Q while waiting for the taxi. I sincerely hope to see a favorable response and wish to see the vehicle less Abu Dhabi work force going to office with a smile and bring more productivity to their offices and to this beautiful country.

While I admit that the traffic problems of Abu Dhabi when compared to those in Dubai and Sharjah is very minor, this requires immediate attention as it can be solved very easily - 1st by placing a Q system and barriers in the Taxi waiting area and 2nd by introducing a Circular Bus route in the Abu Dhabi with more bus frequencies.

Hope, a small spark of thought I ignited and aided with the wind of Khaleej Times, will spread a wild fire of thoughts and schemes within the planning structure of the relevant authorities and also among the taxi users to self discipline themselves to wait till the earlier passenger who arrived before him to board the taxi.

I hope through my columns, my readers add value to these words by supporting this initiative through their own methods.

Ramesh Menon
03092007

The Practical Side of Leadership

Leadership as you see it:
Leadership, at the end of the day, boils down to taking the right decision at the right time. A leader needs to set the direction, get buy-in from the team, and then align the company to achieve the goals. Helping set the balance between short-term and long-term goals, between achieving day-to-day numbers and teamwork is also important.

In addition to leading the team, it is important to have skills in change management, have a more participative style of management and being able to build relationships at all levels. You have short-term and long-term relationships; you have strategic and operational relationships. A leader should be able to identify and manage each one of them. I learnt how to juggle between short-term and long-term relationships, between managing our growth goals, and also investing in long-term and high impact projects like Shiksha for school education and Bhasha for enabling technology in major local languages. One needs to have leadership at various levels — operational and strategic. Operational leadership is about here and now. It is about producing short-term results that are visible. Strategic leadership is broader and is more at a change level. An organisation requires both of these.

Leadership in the US and India:
In my experience, I have noticed US companies focusing a lot more on the excellence of their middle management. Middle management is the layer that ensures operational excellence — the visible results that we were talking about. The top management formulates the vision, sets the direction with clear goals, and helps drive change. Mid-management operationalises the vision and makes the changes a practical reality. People at this level tend to have been in the company for a long time compared to junior management, who are relatively new, and hence the mid-managers tend to get taken for granted. They can get jaded and demotivated easily. It is very important that any organisation focus on them and make them effective.

Another observation I have made is that, in India, we don’t tend to differentiate between types of leaders themselves. Most of the time we rely on people who have already done well in large organisations to drive incubations or start-ups. But this will not always work. Running and producing results in an already established company is a different ball game compared to starting up a new entity or division. One needs the right type of people for the right type of job. The right type of leader can determine the difference between success and failure.

Leadership style:
I demand excellence, I demand stretch results. I am very involved with my team, whether it is a three member team or a 300-member team.

How do you demand excellence? There are two ways. Giving the team highly challenging assignments and goals is one way. Another way is to take a small number of good people and give them really crazy assignments. Give them a very tough and nasty job. There is a risk in the second method that I will lose some of them in the process. But I will definitely get to stretch and derive excellence from the rest. This produces great leaders. Both approaches work well.

I have a high amount of humility, focus on team building and focus a lot on communicating and reaching out to all levels in the organisation.

The excitement of being a leader:
The fulfilment and satisfaction derived from the hard work, the frustrations and the challenges, the success and, eventually, seeing your team and institution grow and create a broad impact, is tremendous. Being a leader in tough, challenging situations brings out the best in me. You give me a choice of assignments and I will gravitate towards the one in which I will learn the most, usually the toughest. This definitely brings many challenges. But I, for one, would rather die trying than not try to make the impossible possible. I will do things that I have not done before. I will go to places where I have not gone before. You give me the charge of a $1 billion company and ask me to grow it to $1.5 billion in the next 5 years. No doubt it has its own challenges, but I will not find that as exciting, as the things are mostly in place. But give me a company with lots of problems — operational, cultural, strategic — I will take it; for the learning, for the challenges.

Development of a vision:
When the company (Microsoft) decided to back me up for Project Shiksha in 2002, we were struggling as to what to do in the educational field. Some team members from Redmond were conducting focus groups to understand the needs better. As I went through the results, I realised there was a big gap in what was required in India and what was being done. That helped me formulate our vision for Shiksha — seeing a better future for India and then betting on it. The idea for Project Bhasha came up while Bill Gates was visiting India for the first time in 1997. We were passionate about a software localisation programme. People were really apprehensive about making software in Hindi. But Bill Gates could see our vision and, according to him, Microsoft is not here in India to serve just the creamy 2-3 per cent. We need to be broadbased and reach out to more people. Once that was agreed, I wanted to do all languages — 14 of them. I tried selling it to the headquarters and they thought I was crazy. But at the same time they saw the passion and agreed. So, vision is really about seeing the shape of the future and betting on it. It is also about keeping your ear close to the ground and watching out for early trends.

Handling the change agents of technology and leadership:
I love technology. I use technology as a great tool to help me lead from anywhere, anytime and at all levels, help me respond rapidly to our customers, partners and my team.

I am very adaptable and a quick learner. Throw me into a new environment and I learn quickly and ramp up fast. I am also highly optimistic and can see the positive opportunities in most situations. These qualities help a long way when dealing with change.


Author: Rajiv Kaul (for Business World)
Rajiv Kaul became the managing director of Microsoft India when he was just 31, at an age when most of his peers were in middle management positions. At Microsoft he saw the dot com boom and the subsequent bust. He also conceptualised and implemented projects like Shiksha and Bhasha, which continue to have a high impact on Microsoft’s future. In his last assignment at Microsoft, Rajiv was at the software giant’s Redmond headquarters leading the emerging markets group. Currently Rajiv is excited about his new move, as a partner in Actis, a leading private equity investor in emerging markets. Rajiv looks forward to using his skills and knowledge in each of the regions that Actis operates.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY - Powering The Future

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY - Powering The Future

The next growth wave is here. Wind, solar and other renewables are transforming India’s energy horizon.

VATSALA KAMAT WITH P. HARI IN SAN FRANCISCO for Business World

When we began working on this story, a usually helpful source at the Ministry for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in New Delhi did not reply to an e-mail. When we called to ask why, this was the reply: “So sorry! Problem is, we had no power yesterday.” It’s a telling Indian paradox that the ministry responsible for spearheading former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s call for national energy independence itself remains powerless. But across the country, small islands of hope are using alternative energy technologies to create environmentally clean and affordable power, igniting talk of a coming revolution in the energy industry.

Once dismissed as kooky ideas spawned by impractical environmentalists, alternative energies are now part of the energy plans and policies of most nations. “Governments all over the world recognise the importance of renewable energy as fossil fuels are finite,” says Prakash Karnik, investment manager of IDFC Private Equity, a Mumbai-based institution that is now aggressively planning investments in renewable energy projects. “Worldwide, the renewable energy industry is growing at 20-30 per cent per annum. Demand exceeds supply in some sectors such as wind energy, and companies are generating returns in excess of their cost of capital.”



Fifteen European Union nations, including Spain and Germany, who are world leaders in renewables, have committed to generating 20 per cent of the energy using alternative technologies by 2020. India has also put in place several renewable initiatives and the country is now the world’s fourth-largest generator of wind energy with an installed capacity of 7,093 MW.

The lone wind turbine whirling gently in the breeze at the headquarters of the Centre for Wind Energy Technology set amidst the waters of the fragile Pallikaranai wetlands 22 km south-west of Chennai, is a testament to officialdom’s embrace of alternative energy. Now, these once-quixotic windmills are set to become ubiquitous national symbols because the private sector has also begun investing heavily in alternative technologies. For example, Citigroup Venture Capital International and UTI Ventures recently invested Rs 250 crore and Rs 40 crore, respectively, in a biomass venture run by Hyderabad’s Ind Bharat Power , and Barings Private Equity has committed $50 million (Rs 200 crore) to Auro Mira Energy, a biomass and mini-hydro player in Chennai. Higher up the food chain, Tulsi Tanti’s Suzlon Energy has become the world’s fifth-largest wind turbine maker, and Tata BP Solar, one of India’s first solar panel makers, has seen its revenues jump to Rs 450 crore a year.



New Delhi-based Ravi Khanna, CEO of Moser Baer Photo Voltaic, says entrepreneurs are venturing into solar power because of the phenomenal growth potential. “India struggled for 20 years with land lines but has beat China to become the fastest growing mobile telephony country in the world today,” says Khanna, who believes energy-starved India will leap-frog into alternative technologies. He, and Warburg Pincus which owns 35 per cent of his company, are betting big on this and Khanna expects the firm’s revenues to touch the billion-dollar mark by 2010.

Khanna’s optimism is rooted in global trends. The United Nations Environment Programme Report (2007) states that renewable energy projects received a record $100 billion (Rs 4,40,000 crore then) in investment in 2006, up from $80 billion (Rs 360,000 crore then) in 2005. Interestingly, venture capitalists are now some of the biggest investors in alternative energy, and their track record of almost single-handedly creating the computer and bio-technology industries is also boosting the industry’s prospects. Consider this. John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, who nurtured Google, Netscape and Amazon, has earmarked $100 million for the alternative energy sector, and Vinod Khosla, who co-founded Sun Microsystems, is funding two dozen renewable energy companies.

Triggers Of Change
Daniel Yergin, chairman of the US-based energy consulting group Cambridge Energy Research Associates, says this surge of interest in alternative energy is mainly driven by fears of global warming. “When compared to five years ago, the climate change issue has made a huge difference for the renewables market,” says Yergin, whose Pulitzer-prize winning book The Prize: The Epic Quest For Oil, Money and Power chronicled the birth of the ‘oil age’ (see ‘Wind Stands Out As Most Competitive’ on page 32). With glaciers melting, weather patterns changing and the hole in the ozone layer getting larger, western public opinion is increasingly pushing politicians to search for greener energy. In Asian countries such as India and China, there are also more mercantile reasons to follow suit.

India currently produces 130,000 MW of energy a year and this figure will need to double within the next decade. The cost of building the mostly coal-fired plants slated to produce this energy will be a staggering Rs 5,34,000 crore. The environmental and health costs will be even steeper. India is already the world’s fifth-largest polluter, and hospitals across the country are reporting sharp increases in lung and breathing problems, from asthma to cancer.

New Delhi’s oil bill has also shot up from $7.5 billion (Rs 26,250 crore then) in 1996 to a whopping $50 billion (Rs 2,20,000 crore). By 2010, when Indian consumers are estimated to own 15 million cars, the country’s oil consumption will be twice today’s 2.1 million barrels a day, the US Energy Information Administration says. With global oil production barely 1 million barrels over the global consumption rate of 81 million barrels a day, the surge in demand from India (and China) could eventually lead global demand to outstrip supply, causing fuel prices to shoot up to $100 a barrel, Stephen Roach, chief economist with Morgan Stanley has said. This could cause India’s oil bill to quadruple to $200 billion a year by 2025! More significantly, India will be the only major economy in the world other than Japan importing 90 per cent of its oil needs, a strategic lacuna.

Less Is More
Where Timbaktu? In the drought-prone Ananthpur district of Andhra Pradesh. Here, Timbaktu Collective is home to a 100-strong community that works with landless farmers from what was once 32 acres of wasteland. They use no modern irrigation, chemical fertilisers, or electricity from the state grid. Says co-founder Bablu Ganguly, “It’s not what we use but what we don’t use.”

At Yelahanka, 15 km north of Bangalore’s hypertensive traffic jams, 51 homes stand in 13 acres of quiet greenery in one of Biodiversity Conservation’s (BCIL) ‘zero emission development’ project. BCIL homes have sun-baked soil-stabilised bricks, refrigerators with a glycol-based centralised system, custom-made air-conditioners consuming 46 per cent less power, solar heaters and biodiesel gensets. BCIL expects to earn a revenue of Rs 60 crore in 2007-08.

At Gual Pahari on the outskirts of Delhi is TERI’s Retreat, a solar-powered ‘sustainable building’ with ‘passive’ designs such as skylighting, insulation, double-glazed windows, and underground tunnels into which air is sucked and distributed, not unlike ancient underground cellars that were cool in summer and warm in winter. The complex saves 40-50 per cent of energy costs incurred by conventional buildings. In Rajasthan’s blisteringly hot Ajmer district is tiny Tilonia, home to Bunker Roy’s Barefoot College, the only fully solar electrified campus in India. Training the rural poor in water engineering and solar electrification in 13 Indian states, the college has also enabled solar electrification of 136 remote Himalayan villages. Such efforts share many things in common with Christina Victoria Prabhu, a resident of Bangalore, who uses a solar heater and saves around 20 per cent on the electricity bill.

This is already leading to a race between India and China to acquire oil fields across the world. India has already invested an estimated $5 billion-6 billion (Rs 20,000 crore-24,000 crore) in global exploration ventures and has said it will continue to spend $1 billion a year on more acquisitions. China, which has already invested about $15 billion in foreign oil fields, is expected to spend 10 times more over the next decade. Experts have likened this face-off to the “Great Game” of the early 1900s, when European powers battled for supremacy in Central Asia. But this is a game India can neither afford nor risk, because the costs of mis-calculation could even be war. In fact, the Indian Navy and Air Force consistently defend their annual multi-billion dollar purchases by saying India increasingly needs to secure its oil supply lines.

The Governing Dynamic
So why hasn’t the alternative energy revolution already happened? Until, recently, the technology just wasn’t there and the cost of producing a MW of wind or solar power was up to five times that of fossil fuels. Now, the costs are evening out, but the challenge for the alternative energy industry is to achieve the scale necessary to become competitive. Standing in the way of this is the powerful oil and gas lobby, which has consistently tried to tie down the alternative energy industry like a bonsai tree. As Hermann Scheer, a member of Germany’s parliament and a renewable energy crusader, says, renewables need government subsidies to bloom, but these are often opposed by the fossil fuel industry. Yet, subsidising alternative energy makes sense, says Scheer, because there are only two ways of combating the environmental and human cost of using fossil fuels. “If the government levies an energy tax, like a tax on the pollution caused due to use of conventional energy, it can then try to cover the (environmental and human) cost,” says Scheer. “This is a rational option but not a social one, as the common man will suffer. The alternative is to provide renewable energy a privileged market: no taxes, zero interest rates, and a new tariff law.”

The logic of this has led New Delhi to offer the renewables industry broad concessions, such as 80 per cent depreciation on alternative energy equipment, a 10-year tax holiday for windmill companies and import concessions. Alternative energy companies also get concessional loans from the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency and public sector banks. Industry players are also asking for feed-in tariffs, where power fed to the grid can be metered and the company can raise carbon credits for it, says Suzlon’s Tanti.

But all this pales in comparison to the direct and hidden subsidies most countries, including India, China and the US, give the fossil fuel industry, which is a huge contributor to political parties. According to US media reports, the Bush administration, after a series of meetings with a group of energy industry representatives and lobbyists, drew up a controversial National Energy Plan, which doled out $33 billion in public subsidies and tax cuts to the oil, coal, and nuclear power industries. In India, the privatisation of oil exploration has also created a huge anti-alternative energy lobby led by oil companies such as Reliance, Essar Oil and Videocon, in cahoots with auto companies. A sign of their power came when New Delhi recently withdrew a Rs 1 lakh per car subsidy it was about to give the Reva, India’s first electric car.

More importantly, supporters of alternative energy insist that the “full cost” of using fossil fuels is hidden — and could even be higher than the cost of many alternative technologies — because the health, environmental, and defence costs associated with using fossil fuels are not built into their purchase cost. For example, The US-based International Center for Technology Advancement says a gallon of gasoline in the US that costs consumers about $3 (Rs 120) would end up costing the nation about $15 (Rs 600), if the full cost of the medical costs associated with treating people suffering from pollution-related illness, the economic costs of the days lost at work because of people ill with pollution-related problems, the cost of cleaning up the environmental damages caused by fossil fuels and astronomical defence costs associated with oil security were added up. By not doing this and not pricing fossil fuels at their “full cost”, governments are reducing the incentive to shift to alternative fuels.

The IT Parallel
Given the oil and auto industries have more than a trillion dollars in revenues and have planned investments of nearly $50 billion by 2010, this is unlikely to change soon. Governments also worry that hurting these industries could dampen growth and damage other industries, such as shipping and ports, to paint, steel, petrochemicals, auto ancillaries, and rubber. But supporters of alternative energy, such as previous US Vice President Al Gore, say these losses would be balanced by the totally new industries renewables would create, in the same way that the IT revolution initially cost jobs and killed some industries, such as answering services, but went on to boost global growth.

But for now, the power of the fossil fuel industry and auto companies is keeping New Delhi, and indeed most capitals, from supporting alternative energy in any greater measure soon and this is angering many. “The barriers to accelerate renewable energy technologies need to be addressed,” says G. M. Pillai, director-general of World Institute for Sustainable Energy in Pune, which is urging the Indian government to put forth a Renewable Energy Law to ensure time-bound implementation of renewable energy efforts.

As things stand right now, says J. Gururaja, a former advisor to the MNRE and the UN, the official policy is just short of where it should be. “There is no platform for coordination and implementation,” he says. “The butter is spread too thin,” A host of ministries from agriculture to petroleum to rural development are all involved with no single point responsibility for this cause.”

Significantly, with renewable energy technology maturing and awareness rising, many consumers are sidestepping such policy conundrums and turning into early adopters of these technologies (See ‘Less Is More’). Still, no alternative energy technology is even close to fulfilling its full promise. The reasons, discussed in greater detail in the stories that follow, are not insurmountable, but very real. More than technological changes, consumers will have to change their attitudes and habits before alternative energy can become what it should — the only energy. Imagine mankind powered by infinite renewable energy. The benefits are driving governments, businesses and individuals all over the world to follow that dream. They know there is no real alternative.

With inputs from Nelson Vinod Moses
http://www.businessworld.in

It’s sillier to upset yourself by yourself

It’s sillier to upset yourself by yourself
1 Sep, 2007, 0019 hrs IST,Vithal C Nadkarni , TNN

There is someone who knows and understands your every thought and feeling,” says an SMS doing the rounds of mobile networks.

“This is someone who understands your pleasures and pain, the joys and the sorrow, who perceives your deepest needs and longings of your heart.” No prizes for guessing who this can be: It’s you and you alone who’s privy to all your thoughts and innermost feelings. Remember that the next time you feel overwhelmed in the essentially lonely battle of life. For no matter how much you care and however much you try to reach out to those whom you love (or even hate) across your somatic barrier, you and your inner ‘skull cinema’ remain strictly out of bounds to the world.

No matter what psychics tell you, no one else can get in there. ‘You’ as a self-conscious voice trapped inside your skull-tower are born alone and die alone. That doesn’t mean you’re destined to feel desperately lonely and unhappy. Being alone inside ourselves is the reality we share with everyone else. Existentially, we are all in the same soup: but the key to your deliverance from self-perceived alienation lies in your hands.

This was something the Greek philosopher Epictetus pointed out two thousand years ago from a different angle: you do have the power to change and control yourself to a remarkable extent. What you don’t have is similar power to control the behaviour of others (we aren’t talking about fatwas or political diktats). “No matter how wisely you may counsel people, they remain independent entities and may — and indeed have the right as individuals — to ignore you completely,” says the late Albert Ellis, founder of Rational emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT), in Accepting Reality.

“If, therefore, you get unduly aroused over the way others act, instead of paying closer attention to how you respond to their actions, you upset yourself over an event that is beyond your control. This seems akin to tearing your hair because a jockey, a prizefighter, or actor does not perform the way you would like. Very silly business indeed!”

Conversely, it’s sillier to upset yourself by yourself, since you do have control in the way you behave and the things you do. Thus, says Dr Ellis, by the proper cultivation of your emotional garden, the most harrowing things that happen will not perturb you too much. As the Bhagvad Gita says, Atmevah atmano bandhu (you alone are your own brother).

Networking helps Tata Motors improve efficiency

Networking helps Tata Motors improve efficiency
1 Sep, 2007, 0151 hrs IST,Irshad Daftari, TNN

MUMBAI: When Tata Motors suffered a record loss of nearly Rs 500 crore in 2000, it searched for ways to become a more efficient operation. An online customer relationship management system and a dealer management system were among the ideas that came up, and the first took off in 2003.

Recently, Tata Motors connected the 1,000th dealer to its online integrated Customer Relationship Management-Dealer Management System (CRM-DMS). This milestone, coupled with the monitoring of the service to more than 25,000 customers, makes it the largest implementation of a CRM program in the automobile industry anywhere in the world, according to Siebel and Tata Motors.

Says Shyam Mani, vice-president for sales and marketing at Tata Motors, “We were clear that we would drive CRM more as a tool, and the primary benefit had to come to customers.” But that wasn’t the way CRM was envisaged worldwide by the auto industry. When the CRM-DMS was first mooted in 2002, KR Sreenivasan, the project head, found virtually no global precedent. He says, “Globally, CRM was largely restricted to ‘lead management,’ or follow-ups to enquiries for purchasing a vehicle.” Tata Motors now has nearly 1,200 dealers connected online, and will scale this up to 1,600 in a few months. At the dealer level, Tata Motors monitors both finances and inventory, and at the customer level, it monitors services, spares, replacements etc. The project has cost Tata Motors in excess of Rs 35 crore to date.

Tata Motors has derived some clear benefits from this initiative. Mr Mani says customers like the online solutions to their needs and are quite happy with the service levels they receive at workshops. SM Bafna, chairman of Bafna Motors, and the first dealer to hook up to Tata Motors’ system, says: “We think that nearly 65-70% of our existing customers come back, either to replace their old vehicles or to buy new ones.”

Since all dealers and factories are on the same platform, the inventory costs get reduced significantly, for both dealers and company. A few years ago, Bafna Motors, in Nerul, had to work with an inventory of nearly 100 days. After the implementation of the CRM, the maximum inventory that Mr. Bafna holds today is a 16-day stock. He says, “I can just put in a requisition to any part of the country if I’m running short on a particular model of truck, and I can order it from the factory or dealer that has it.” For both company and dealer, time lost due to such non-availability is a loss of revenue, albeit notional. For Mr. Bafna, cutting down inventory means there is less money and resources tied down to it. Moreover, the turnaround time for trucks has reduced from 6 hours to just two, since monitoring has become better.

For Tata Motors, it also provides rich data by region and by brand instantly, rather than at the end of a month or a quarter. Says Mr. Mani, “I know that there is a high sales activity in Pune, so it makes sense for me to set up a stall and do some promotional activities near.” On-ground activation, coupled with analytics and information about the competition has worked out to be far cheaper than advertising - for a few thousand Rupees, Tata Motors could potentially reach their target customer, according to Mr. Mani.

One of the project’s objectives had been to reduce operating costs by 10%. Though the company managed to meet that target, both Mr. Sreenivasan and Mr. Mani insist that it’s a function of an overall increased efficiency rather than directly attributable to the CRM-DMS. In another two years, Tata Motors wants to scale up the total number of dealers on the system to 2,000.

Waste not, want not

Waste not, want not
Gulf News/Published: September 01, 2007, 23:35

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. The call to the public made by municipalities and others concerned with refuse disposal. But it is no longer such bodies alone, as environmentalists are now keen to see an end to the profligate wastage that occurs, more often than not resulting in harming the environment. This is especially true when it comes to disposing of electronic consumer durables like computers, mobile phones and similar such products.

Many modern-day electronic items contain chemicals that are difficult, if not harmful to dispose of, unless by professionals who are aware of the correct procedure. This is why there are an increasing number of locations where proper discard of unwanted items can take place. The Dubai Municipality has set up areas where old computer terminals and monitors can be dropped off, for recycling by their experts, if possible, and reuse, most often by some needy charity. There are also facilities in Dubai where mobile phones can be similarly discarded, knowing that in their disposal they will cause least harm to the environment.

All it needs now is for members of the public to get into the habit of using these facilities, rather than finding excuses why they should not.

L&T: It’s all about Imagineering

L&T: It’s all about Imagineering
2 Sep, 2007, 0028 hrs IST,Moinak Mitra, TNN

Anil Manikbhai Naik has a lot on his head, even at 65. At an age when most retire and reap the fruits of their income, Naik’s 18-hours-a-day regimen is baffling even to his children, who often prod him to apply the brakes. As chairman of L&T, India’s gritty Rs 18,000-crore engineering company, that’s not possible. Not yet.

Today, L&T is a complex animal with 62 different businesses, which are undoubtedly difficult to manage. And A M Naik is determined to explore new business opportunities through separate companies with independent CEOs and boards. “The idea is to create several MNCs within L&T, with footprints across nations,” he says.

And that’s in keeping with the turnover of Rs 30,000-crore the company aspires to achieve by March 2010. Restructuring at L&T is on in full swing. It’s all about sniffing new pastures, grooming new talent and projecting the new company credo — ‘It’s All About Imagineering’. That’s just about how L&T is kissing the good old economy good-bye.

For one, IPOs are planned as the company is poised to unlock shareholder value across a gamut of businesses. In just four years, the stock price of the company has zoomed more than 12 times, creating multi-millionaires across the stakeholder fraternity. L&T now is heavily into branding, which until recently, seemed like a distant dream. The construction of an IT firm is also high on people and grooming young leadership is the buzzword within.

To gauge just how L&T is transforming itself, standalone instances won’t suffice. It’s worth the while to take a walk down memory lane, revisit change agent Naik’s role in the overhaul, take a peek at the organisation after it divested from its significant cement business in 2003 and analyse the emergence of the first Indian old economy MNC.

In the late nineties, the macro environment was not very inspiring with stagnant revenues and low margins and L&T’s core strength, its engineers, were being constantly weaned away by the fast-growing software sector. So the general comment around the bourses was about the credibility of the company: L&T is a good company but its stock price, for some reason or the other, is fixed at the Rs 140-210 band. So the company had to change by keeping its core intact.

As a senior executive remarks: “L&T was perceived to be un-sexy and we had to create a new buzz around the campuses.” The metamorphosis must echo through a whimper, not a bang. Even before the company divested its cement business in 2003, which accounted for 25% of its total sales, there were years of incremental and low visibility organisational moves towards a new L&T.

At a 52-week high of Rs 2,735, the L&T scrip today looks dapper, a far cry from the nineties when the stock price was in a state of flux. Much of the change started as a ripple way back in 1999 when Naik took over as the CEO. He visited employees at all levels across the organisation and asked them what it took to transform the company.

The insights were mapped and implemented. “None of our employees thought we build shareholder value. They thought we build monuments,” the chairman reminisces. The focus on people became stronger and formed the basis of the restructuring. It became the first old economy company to provide stock options to its employees.

When Naik came to the helm, he set upon himself a 90-day transformational agenda. Portfolios were reviewed and a vision clearly chalked out. He drew up a simple brief — L&T has to be a multinational company and it has to deliver shareholder value at any cost. At the end of 90 days, between July 22 and July 24, 1999, the company launched Project Blue Chip, which essentially fast-tracked projects.


The moot point was to complete all projects by February of the new millennium. Strategy formation teams were formed, portfolios reviewed and structures were optimised. Young leadership was brought to the fore and the business streamlining process kicked in.

Notwithstanding the promise Blue Chip came with, it also presented some glitches. From 2001, the economy took a nosedive and the company hardly received any new orders. “I wrote off a large number of bad debts and had to clean up the balancesheet completely,” says Naik. The investor landscape had changed too with far more analysts in the system. Alongside, there was the additional challenge of pushing an HR policy that prodded young leadership to bloom, and an ageing employee base had its reservations here.

But first things first. From 1999-2001, L&T went about de-bottlenecking its cement plants. They were modernised and capacities were raised from 12 million tonnes to 16 million tonnes annually, with minimum costs. The mantra really was to grow the business and then divest it as cement fell in the non-core category.

So in September 2003, L&T sold its cement business to the Aditya Birla Group, which resulted in the company’s Economic Value Add (EVA), an important indicator of the financial health of the company, swinging from a negative Rs 350-crore to a positive Rs 50-crore immediately. The move also enabled L&T to reduce its debt-equity ratio from 1:1 to 0.2:1. Analysts took a positive view of the demerger and re-rated L&T as AAA from AA+ in 2004.

From then on, followed L&T’s transformation into a lean and mean machine. In 2004, the company envisaged a growth curve for the next five years. This marked the beginning of Project Lakshya, which was centred around people, operations, capabilities and new ventures. The company set out with over 300 initiatives in hand, and also placed a rigorous risk management system. For instance, any project above Rs 1,000-crore needed the signature of the chairman. Project Lakshya is known for targeting and selecting the right projects.

By now, the Indian economy had started witnessing unprecedented boom and despite divesting the cement business, the L&T turnover scaled the Rs 10,000-crore mark. Alongside, the lucrative Middle East market was beckoning and L&T forayed into six countries in the Gulf with joint ventures. “The idea was to develop a mini-L&T in the region,” observes a senior company executive. The company also set up manufacturing facilities in China to leverage the cost structure. Exports in 2007 constituted 18% of net sales. With soaring revenues and operating margins, L&T started benchmarking itself with the best in the world. Suddenly, the notion of an Indian MNC became a reality.

But L&T had to tackle the next big challenge of identifying its next line of leaders. The company recently increased the retirement age for CMD from 65 to 70 years, and from 62 to 67 years for the other directors. Experience is necessary but grooming young leaders is critical if the company were to make any impression in emerging businesses. So it is now getting in tune with the mindset of its young people. “If young professionals are given challenging roles, they get excited.

Today, it takes six-seven years for an employee to become a manager, unlike 11-12 years earlier. Further, in our treasury department, the average age bracket is 23-32 years,” says YM Deosthalee, CFO of L&T. It has taken both internal and external initiatives to carry out succession planning. The company collaborated with the US-based Hay Consulting to chart out a clear succession plan. Says Barbara Darling, practice leader, Hay Group, “We need to identify the mission critical and key roles and form a pool of talent.”

The issue of managing 62-odd businesses of the company is looming large too. The plan is to unlock value by listing L&T subsidiaries over a 5-10 year horizon. ET learns that L&T Infotech will be the first to go on the bourses by the second half of 2008, and then it will be the turn of L&T Infrastructure Finance as well as L&T Power. “If we list an entity, it has to be robust, and there has to be a clear focus on revenues and profits. So at the moment, we will keep significant shareholding in each subsidiary until independent business models are strong enough to deliver on their own,” says Deosthalee.

The huge infrastructure potential that India holds has actually gone in favour of L&T, which has amassed an order book of 48% to nearly Rs 37,000 crore. Alongside, emerging opportunities in nuclear power, defence equipment and railways are being considered. The company is also further segmenting its two key businesses — power equipment and ship-building. “We are following an integrated approach to India’s infrastructure requirements with a combination of construction, development and project finance routes,” says Deosthalee.

L&T is now in the process of building a perspective plan for 2015, which will align its mission with national interest. It will also address the issues of succession planning and weathering an economic downturn.

You are destined to have free will!

People spend more time arguing about whether they are driven by destiny or acting out of freewill than doing what they should do. They forget that they waste their time of their own accord, their own sweet free will!

There is no such thing as future. Future does not exist till you create it in your present moment, here and now. We all waste our time regretting or savouring what happened in the past and speculating about what would like in the future. Neither is of any productive value. There is nothing we can do about the past, it is gone; it is history.

There is nothing that you can do thinking about the future; you have to act now to make your future. Your future is in your hands, and your hands only. Trying to fashion your future based on past experiences is like driving car looking at the rear view mirror. All you will meet is disaster!

We are comfortable being told that we are destined to do certain things. We are relieved when we learn that our sins and problems are because of our past karma, because then we can disown responsibility.

Be very clear, there is no such thing as karma, the way you understand it. Your unfulfilled desires shape your actions and this is karma. As of now your future is driven by your fantasies, your unfulfilled desires, and what you do not have. When the product arrives, you ask, who ordered this, not I!

Start being comfortable with what you have. Enjoy what you have acquired instead of hankering after what you do not have. Spirituality is not about renouncing in the sense of what you understand. There is nothing that you have now that you need to renounce. Nothing at all. Just renounce what you do not have, your fantasies. You will see your life change in front of your eyes.

When you focus on enjoying what you have now, you will have to focus on the present instead of wasting time speculating and regretting. Your entire mindset will be on action. Because this action is not tinged with regret and speculation, you will automatically fall into what Krishna refers to in the Bhagwad Gita as the action without expectation.

When you learn to stay in the present, your freewill destines you to be a true Yogi, one who is truly uniting material and spiritual life. You will be in eternal bliss.

IT capital makes way for the rosy capital

IT capital makes way for the rosy capital
30 Aug, 2007, 1600 hrs IST,Tapash Talukdar, TNN

AHMEDABAD: India Inc’s shopping list isn’t restricted to the world’s top car and mobike companies, Scotch and tea labels, hotels and steel factories—a bunch of roses too could make up for the necessary pleasantries.

Bangalore-based Karuturi Networks has acquired Dutch floriculture major Sher Agencies in a e50-million ($69 million) deal to become the world’s biggest rose producer.

After the takeover, the company’s top line will bloom from Rs 100 crore to Rs 400 crore. Karuturi’s rose-producing capacity will also grow from about 150 million stems to around 650 million.

Incidentally, Sher Agencies FC, a top Kenyan football club based in Naivasha, which was being promoted by the Dutch flower major, has also come as part of the deal.

Prior to the deal, Karuturi was among the four largest rose producers in the world, the others being Sher, James Finlay of Hong Kong (which originally owned what is now called Tata Tea) and World Flower. Karuturi now plans to invest in building capacity in Bangalore and Ethiopia, where it is already present, as well as in Kenya, where it will get Sher’s floriculture business. “We will produce 1 billion stems of roses and become a Rs 1,000-crore company by 2010. We are well on course,” Karuturi MD KS Ramakrishna told ET, confirming the deal. He said all formalities of the deal will be completed in the next 2-3 weeks.

Karuturi plans to raise $70 million through a mix of qualified institutional placements, foreign currency convertible bonds and external commercial borrowings, Mr Ramakrishna said.

O God, I'm so sorry

O God, I'm so sorry

K. Khuptongs / HINDUSTAN TIMES New Delhi, August 31, 2007

This year could be my luckiest year, passing out from university and enlarging my circle of friends like never before.

But this week I have committed such a big blunder unknowingly that I have to share my feelings with you in Inner Voice.

It is amazing how life exists outside education.

Recently, I happened to meet my childhood friend after ten years. From that day on we rebuilt our friendship steadily. We went out and enjoyed ourselves, we chatted and gossiped about our past school life.

I came to know that both her parents had passed away three years ago, which really touched me. Though such a sad thing had happened to her, she was still trying hard not to give in, giving all her effort to smile and enjoy life.

She promised me a gift from home for Raksha Bandhan day. I restlessly waited three days for the D-day. But I was surprised on Tuesday by her reaction. I argued about this and that most of the time but there was no sign of argument on her side. Instead she said she would treat me to dinner, overlooking my inability to treat.

So we had a heavenly dinner outside, really filled our stomachs and got back each to our place. I called her to thank her for the dinner. But she sounded a bit different on the phone, as if she was weeping. It was only then that she told me that it was her mom's death anniversary.

O GOD. Had I known earlier, I would have reacted to show my care instead of joking and arguing. She really did try to act strong but obviously needed some friendly company, which is why she asked me to have dinner with her.

God, I am really sorry. I did not know. How could I know? How does one guess these things? I wish I had been nice to my friend when she was missing her mother. Please help me be kind always, for who knows what pain someone is hiding?

To protect your credit card, erase the CVV no

To protect your credit card, erase the CVV no
31 Aug, 2007, 0835 hrs IST,S P Ketkar,

Mr A, a young call centre executive had just obtained his first credit card, when another bank’s direct sales agent (DSA) approached him and explained the benefits of carrying two cards. The new card was for 'free' and the only document required was a photocopy of the first credit card.

Mr A felt proud for the power of his first card and in his enthusiasm to quickly get another one in his wallet, he photocopied both sides of his card and handed over to the DSA executive. At around same time, Mr B, who teaches history at the city college, was impressed by the tele brand advertisements on TV and recently obtained an ATM-cum-debit card to be used for mail and telephonic orders.

A few successful transactions later, he found one of his orders was not getting accepted even after repeatedly punching of the numbers as guided by the voice prompt. After making few attempts, he nearly gave up, before he realised that it was the last day to avail of the 'best offer'. He, therefore , decided to take the help of a tele agent and read out to her the card number, validity date and the last three digits on the signature panel of the card for urgent processing of his order.

Prima facie, both the above stories sound mundane, which none of our friends above found anything disturbing either. However, Mr A and B were all shocked to see what they found in account statements of their cards the following month. They found their card had been misused and found items of online shopping transactions, which they never did.

As on date, transactions in card-not-present with the merchant (CNP) environment such as online ticket booking, utility bill payments , purchase of books or any Internet, telephone or mail orders, merely require the users to enter their card number, card validity month/year and a code called credit verification value (CVV) or card validation code (CVC) that is available on the card itself.

CVV is a three-digit code typically imprinted at the end of signature panel on the reverse of the card (or a four-digit code little above the end of card number on front side) and is meant to serve as authorising code for CNP transactions. In short, CVV number in CNP transactions is a key to your card account , just the way the ATM PIN is for accessing your bank account.

However, unlike the PIN for ATM use, CVV code is printed on the card itself and is rarely protected by the users. This exposes all credit and debit card users to the risk of their cards being misused for online shopping. Banks, when contacted, remind you of the standard terms and conditions for issue of cards and say you are advised to protect your cards all the time. You must ensure that your card is swiped strictly in your presence and no one is making a note of your CVV for fraudulent online usage.

They further tell you, in case you suspect that your card details are exposed, you must get a fresh card issued with new CVV and then protect that card well. Under these circumstances, the only way to protect your debit or credit card from fraudulent CNP transactions is to memorise the CVV and then put a small opaque sticker on it or simply erase it from the card.


CREDIT CARD WOES

CVV is a 3-digit code typically imprinted at the end of signature panel on the reverse of the card and is meant to serve as authorising code for CNP transactions.

CVV number in CNP transactions is a key to your card account, just the way the ATM PIN is for accessing your bank account.

In case you suspect that your card details are exposed, you must get a fresh card issued with new CVV and then protect that credit card well.

Unlike the PIN for ATM use, CVV code is printed on the card itself and is rarely protected by the users.

(The author is an alumnus of IIMB. Views expressed are personal.)