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Vantagetrade.com: Simplified Technical Analysis for Stock Market trading
2008-05-22 11:48:00
2008 has not been too good for Indian stock Market s. Thousands of investors and traders have lost crores of rupees in recent bloodbath. What should investors do in such a volatile market? Should they stay away or take advantage of low stock prices? According to me, right now is the best time to put money into stock markets. The only important aspect is one has to be very careful and stock specific while investing. One needs to look at not only the fundamentals, but also do some amount of technical analysis. Most of the professional traders and investors use technical analysis to do their stock picking, but it seems to be too complex for part-time investors like you and me. Simply put, technical analysis is the examination of past price movements to forecast the future price movements based on number of factors and calculations. This is where Vantagetrade comes into picture. It does all the hard work for the investor and throws up exactly what he wants to know in a simple language...
More About: Stock Market , Technical , Analysis , Trading

Indian B-School teachers lack basic awareness
2008-05-21 11:26:00
This may come as a shocker to you, but nearly 90% of the faculties imparting business programs at India n B-School s are not aware of the basic facts about the national and the global economy such as GDP growth rate numbers. If this is what is the intellectual plight of MBA teachers, think about the level of knowledge our MBA students will have. While Indian business institutes are increasingly getting popular internationally, this revelation by ASSOCHAM Business Barometer (ABB) Survey comes as a shocker ! The ASSOCHAM Study on “Faculty Awareness ” surveyed 258 faculty members (except top 30 B-schools) of various institutes imparting Masters in Business Administration (MBA) across the country. Here are some of the highlights of the survey carried out by ASSOCHAM Business Barometer: As many as 89 per cent of the teachers were unable to tell the GDP growth rate scaled by the Indian economy in the financial year 2006-07. Hardly 6 per cent of the lecturers surveyed r...

Indian Mobile user?s Internet Usage
2008-05-20 14:59:00
Mini Opera is one of the best and most widely used mobile web browser available in the market today. Their latest update has been a big hit with users. Since its worldwide launch in 2006, more than 44 million people have downloaded and used Opera Mini. More than 11.9 million people used Opera Mini in March 2008. Opera mini has surveyed anonymous traffic of more than 44 million cumulative Opera Mini users worldwide to see where mobile users chose to spend their time when using the Web on their mobile devices. The figures released have India centric data as well, which throws up interesting numbers and sites.
More About: Internet , Mobile , Indian , User , Usage

Always be careful of what you write on the web !
2008-05-20 10:14:00
Orkut user Krishnakumar Vaid has learnt this the hard way ! He stands to to be imprisoned for nearly 5 years and fined upto 1 lakh rupees if found guilty. Here is the news: Google has issued a statement regarding sharing the user data and IP address of Krishnakumar Vaid (22), who posted vulgar content about Indian National Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The search engine major said that they complied with Indian Legal process and gave the information regarding the Orkut.com user to police. Google spokeswoman said in a statement that Google is committed to protect user privacy, but the company complies with local laws. As the information was required to trace the user for further investigation, Google helped the police to find the user from his IP. The accused user was using Bharti Airtel’s internet services.
More About: Write , Careful

myPOPKORN.com - Videos that cannot be seen !
2008-05-20 08:50:00
Thanks to bad broadband connections in India, watching streaming videos on the net can be one of the most frustrating things. But most of us beat the problem by pausing the video and seeing it after it is fully buffered. But how about a video site that presents with you hundreds of videos but they can never be streamed. Introducing myPOPKORN.com, a video site that launched recently and promises you lot of video goodies but never delivers anything. MyPopkorn.com is owned by Digital Media Convergence Ltd (DMCL), a part of the Essel Group, which also owns Zee Turner Ltd and DishTV. It is a website which showcases three minute videos of soap operas and other TV shows, news and movie clips. The idea and concept behind the site is actually quite good. If you have missed any of the Soap Operas or want to watch the latest news headlines it (supposedly) brings to you the content in condensed format enough for you to get the gist of the whole thing.
More About: Videos

Finally some respite for Real Estate buyers
2008-05-16 14:58:00
The real estate prices have been touching the skies for sometime now. ET now reports that things are cooling down. The real estate prices in some regions have come down as much as 25%. Land prices in the national capital region (NCR), Mumbai suburbs, Bangalore and Hyderabad have corrected by up to 25% as property developers slow down their land purchases. Poor sales and lower availability of credit at higher cost have prompted property developers to end the mad rush to acquire land. Some of the developers have even backed out of land deals which were agreed upon as the slowdown hit the sector. Prices have come down by up to 25% in Mumbai’s distant suburbs, including Thane and Belapur, and pockets of Hyderabad and Bangalore, according to property consultancy firm Knight Frank India. This is really a very good news for average middle class Indians who have been sitting on fence for a very long time in hope of property prices coming down. I hope this situation replicates in other cit...
More About: Estate , Real Estate , Real , Finally , Buyers

Event: Ideacamp Pune
2008-05-16 14:37:00
Collaborative thinking and collective intelligence can lead to great solutions and innovations. And thats what is the basis of Ideacamp, Pune . Ideacamp is a self-organized gathering to share ideas and see them shape by applying divergent thinking. The objective of the camp is to get people from different roles like designers, entrepreneurs, financiers, creative minds, technology evangelists, product managers and marketers together to bandy ideas from everyone’s viewpoint. Ideally by end of the gathering we should have ‘proof of potential’ for our ideas. Details What: Ideacamp Where: PERSISTENT SYSTEMS LIMITED Pingala - Aryabhata, 12A/12, off Karve Road, Erandwane, Pune 411004. When: 17th May 2008 (9:00am to 7:00pm) Potential Ideas There is no restriction to what ideas you come up with except that it should make business sense and is useful to at least a group of people. You can share with the community how your idea solves an identified problem or serve any observed need. You ...
More About: Event

Is Amitabh the highest paid blogger in the world?
2008-05-16 13:40:00
Just came across this news - Amitabh Bachchan is being paid Rs. 100 crore for writing on his blog - that is nearly 25 million dollars ! Now thats a HUGE sum to be paid to write a few paragraphs daily, even if it is from an iconic figure like Amitabh Bachchan. I have been an ardent admirer of Amitabh not only for his acting skills, but more so in the way he has conducted himself off-screen through-out his illustrious career. It is tough being in public eye constantly for more than 35 years and he has handled the media glare exceptionally well. Never has he stirred up controversy, always keeping mum and never really criticizing or putting down his fellow actors. However, since he has started blogging, things seem to have taken a total U turn. Nearly every post he has written have been controversial and widely covered by Indian media. I have read some of his posts and I can’t believe that Amitabh can write this controversial stuff. Take an example of this post where he compares t...
More About: Blogger , World , Paid , The World

The Five Most Important Things About Growth in India
2008-05-14 13:16:00
This post has been written by Bruce Greenwald and reproduced here with his permission India n growth is going to depend overwhelmingly on what happens locally in India. The reason India and China went from being peripheral players in the world market in 1980 to the powerful forces they are today didn’t have to do with changes in the global market. It had to do with local changes in India and China. In places where these changes haven’t taken place — in Russia for example — you see their participation in the global economy is what it always has been: just as a supplier of raw materials. The reason so many Chinese goods now sell around the world is not because the demand for those goods has suddenly materialized, but because productivity growth in China — and it’s the same in India — enabled it to provide goods and compete successfully in global markets. This trend is going to get more — not less — important in the future. I...
More About: Business , Indian , Growth , Things

Outsourcing gone too far !
2008-05-14 12:30:00
Now this one will make you laugh till you cry ! Yes, outsourcing stuff works really well in most cases and I am all for outsourcing, but this is probably the extreme if outsourcing. See it to believe it... Report: Many U.S. Parents Outsourcing Child Care Overseas Hope you had a good laugh :)

Do you prefer a male boss over female at your workplace?
2008-05-14 11:36:00
More than 68% men and women prefer male bosses at their work. This is the conclusion of recently concluded survey - "Preference of Boss es in Emerging Corporate Culture" - held by ASSOCHAM (The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India ). I am not sure whether to agree or disagree. In my 12 years of experience I have had only one female boss and I would rate her as one of my top bosses I have ever worked with. Although, it may not be the yardstick with which one can come to a conclusion, I was always under the impression that women make better bosses. Contrary to my belief, 68% of the survey respondents expressed that "males are faster in taking decisions, quicker in disposing off their assigned jobs and much more focused and straight towards their work and at the same time passionate in awarding their subordinates with functional autonomy to completely let them enjoy their work".
More About: Business , Female , Workplace

Internet Poll Verdict: Indian Broadband connections are expensive?but why ?
2008-05-13 09:13:00
I had set up a poll a fortnight back on this to understand why India n Internet penetration is lagging behind so much so that a country of size of Hong Kong beats India, even when we out number them in population by over a billion people. Obviously, one of the basic reason is that more than 70% of Indian still live in villages and are dependent on farming with no need of internet as yet what so ever. But what about urban Indians? India has more than 250 million people living in cities, then why is it that we have only 3.5 million broadband connections to show? Here is the Poll Verdict: Out of total of 156 poll participants around 44% felt that Internet connections are expensive. I feel so too.
More About: Broadband , Analysis

TasksEveryDay.com: On demand virtual assistants for busy professionals and
2008-05-12 15:43:00
Most of us have heard about Elance, getafreelancer or guru where users can outsource work to freelancers on project to project basis. These services are quite popular number of individuals and small business earn their livelihood through these sites. One of the main drawback of this service is that while quite a few do a good job and leave their clients satisfied, equal number of people perform their work quite unsatisfactorily. One can frequently see complaints and disputes between the freelancer and client. Now a new India based start-up called TasksEveryDay.com gives a new twist to this freelancing and targets a particular niche of people. They provide busy professionals and Business people in U.S, Canada, U.K and Australia with virtual assistant service at a fixed low rate of $6.98 per hour.
More About: Indian , Doing business , Virtual

Advocatekhoj: Present your case, get a lawyer, Win your case
2008-05-10 11:21:00
No, the last part of the title is stretching it up a bit too much. But this new startup AdvocateKhoj helps users to find well qualified lawyers to fight out your case. A good lawyer is half battle won ! Legal system in India is overloaded will millions of cases and more than 3 million cases are still pending in Indian High courts. This gives Advocate Khoj a readymade market to target. AdvocateKhoj communication platform bridges the gap between clients and advocates by providing an avenue for talk. Anyone who needs legal assistance can present a case (answer some simple questions about their legal situation) "free of cost" on the AdvocateKhoj website without revealing his or her identity. Then, member advocates by AdvocateKhoj decide whether to respond to your legal issue after reviewing your presented case. Once you get a reply from an advocate, you are able to view the advocate's qualification and experience so that you can make an informed decision on which advocate to hire. W...
More About: Lawyer , Case , Present

Dollar winning the battle against the rupee
2008-05-09 15:24:00
I have been following the rupee dollar battle since I started this blog last year. It had been one sided battle through out last year. Last year was won by Rupee hands down. Rupee was valued at nearly 45 rupee at the start of last year and by December 07, it had reached the highs of nearly 38.5 against dollar. Importers were rejoicing and exporters were crying. The trend seems to have reversed since start of this year. From highs of 38.5 against dollar, the rupee has had a big slide and has touched the lows of 41.77. The rupee is hitting this level for the first time since May last year. Experts have largely blamed this slide to the sky-high global oil prices which touched a record $122 per barrel yesterday. Last year around same time when I was in US, I had filled up gas for around $1.80/1.90 per gallon whereas today the gallon prices are nearly touching four dollars.
More About: Dollar , Battle , Winning

Are Indian blog readers comment shy ?
2008-05-09 13:56:00
I came across an interesting comparison done by Saad Mohammad on his blog oodami. Saad rightly points out that very few Indian blog readers actually leave quality comments. He makes his point by mining the comment statistics from 5 different Indian blogs and compares it with RSS subscribers and post count. Here are the comparison charts. A great job done by Saad to make his point !
More About: Readers , Blogging , Blog , Comment

desiwiki:The wiki for Indian Startups
2008-05-09 13:02:00
Do you know what are the biggest pain points faced by entrepreneurs while starting their new venture? It is the lack of knowledge in legal, financial and company incorporation areas, especially if you are an online startup. I am saying this from my personal example. The amount of frustration that I have been through over last couple of months cannot be described in words. Just getting the company incorporated was a big project in itself. And if by any chance the startup is getting invested from outside, the formalities and paperwork involved turns into a nightmare (I can vouch for it). However, like I mentioned, problems are more due to lack of knowledge than anything else. Yes, there are plenty of resources online, but they are scattered all across the web. If you are a US/ UK based startup, you will find plenty of resources online that will really help you out in understanding the whole process in a streamlined fashion. In India though, the ball game is all together different....
More About: Indian , Wiki , Startups

Surprise, Surprise, Indian citizens are most environment friendly!
2008-05-08 13:39:00
We hear so very often our western counterparts blaming India and China for global warming and being one of the most polluted countries in the world. While that may or may not be a fact, a survey conducted by National Geographic says that Indian s and Brazilians have the most environmentally friendly lifestyles based impact of individual consumer behavior. The National Geographic Society today unveiled "Greendex 2008: Consumer Choice and the Environment —A Worldwide Tracking Survey" which brings this fact to the light. What this survey did was rather than measuring each nation's environmental impact, it compares the behaviors of individuals in four key areas: housing, transportation, food, and consumer goods.
More About: Friendly

Advertisement India: Online classifieds for offline world
2008-05-08 13:06:00
In this web2.0 age we are increasingly getting used to online classified sites, however, even in today's world, offline newspaper classifieds have more than 90% of the market share. Online ads do not generate even fraction of a response comparatively. Here is an example, I was looking for a office for my startup here in Pune. I did post online classified ad in no less than 5 different portals. The only site that gave me couple of responses was Kijiji. Other than that, I did not receive a single response. For lack of options, I decided to give a newspaper classified ad for my rental office requirement. Although finding the nearest place that accepts newspaper classified was a big pain, I did finally manage to get my ad published in a well circulated daily in Pune. It sure was worth it. On the day ad appeared, I had no less than 25 responses and more options to choose from, than I needed. Essentially, three hundred rupees spent on newspaper classified was well worth it. Today, I...
More About: India , World , Advertisement , Offline , Classifieds

The new rules of Business Blogs
2008-05-06 16:17:00
Just came across this wonderful free E-book by Linas Simonis called "The new rules of Business Blogs ". This short and concise e-book explains how business owners and managers should act in blogosphere if they want to make maximum utilization of this new communication channel. This e-book explains how the today's business blogging rules have changed compared to the ones that have been traditionally followed since early blogging years.
More About: Blogging , Rules

Google now allows English to Hindi Translation
2008-05-05 16:27:00
No..No..I have not changed the default language for this blog. I am in no way conversant in written Hindi ! The heading you see is thanks to the automated translation service provided by Google . The heading you see above has been automatically translated by Google engine. The original heading I had given was "Google now allows English to Hindi Translation ". Pretty darn accurate I must say ! Hold on...Don't get too happy. The translation is good only for small and simple sentences. Read the whole paragraph written above in translated Hindi. Not sure if it makes sense. ?? . ?? . ???? ??? ???? ???? ?? ????? ?? ??? ???????? ???? ?? ??? ??? ?? . ???? ?? ??? ??? ??? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ???? ?? ! ?? ?? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ??????? ?? ???????? ?????? ???? ???? ?????? ?????? ?? ?? ?? . ?? ?? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ???? ??? ?? ???? ???? ?????? ???? : ???????? ?? . ??? ?????? ???? ??? ?? ??? " ???? ?? ???????? ?? ????? ?????? ?? ?????? ???? ?? " . ????? darn ????? ?? ??...
More About: Google Translator

Tales of Indian real estate and the common man
2008-05-05 08:04:00
I have been having some very interesting comments to my articles I have previously written on India n real estate specifically targeting the Pune market. However, the situation seems to be common across most upcoming cities and Metros in India. The comments left actually reflect the reality of present Indian real estate situation. Majority of people have been waiting in the wings in anticipation that the prices will come down since last 2-3 years. In the meantime, prices have more than doubled and it is out of reach of even people earning a fat salary. Here are few selected comments from the article I had written late last year on how I made a fool of myself about prediction of real estate prices:
More About: Estate , Money , Real Estate

Want to know where your competitors are advertising? Try (!)Yureekah
2008-05-02 13:56:00
mb.gif" style="border: 0px none " alt="yureekah-logo" border="0" height="37" width="209" /> Yureekah can be a real boon to online media and advertising professionals as well as publishers. Lets take an example: Lets say Cleartrip an Indian OTA wants to know where its competitors are advertising. They just go to Yureekah, carry out a brand search for their competitors. They are presented with list of ads along with the URLs where the competitors' ad appears. This makes it very easy for Cleartrip to plan their ad campaign and decide on which web properties should they target.
More About: Advertising , Competitors

Trak.in Blog celebrates its First Anniversary
2008-05-01 12:25:00
WOW ! Today Trak.in blog is One year old. It was officially launched on 1st May, 2007 (although a few posts were published in April end). Looking back, it has been one of the best years of my life and lot of the decisions I have made were influenced by this blog. Two most important things have happened - I moved back to India and have taken a plunge into entrepreneurship. One of the biggest accomplishment for me is that this blog has enabled me to network with hundreds of new people over last one year. Something that would have been nearly impossible for me otherwise. Having said that, I have also had my share of ups and downs. Blog ging is tough, especially when you have regular readers coming to your blog with expectations of finding something useful. There have been numerous occasions when I just could not write for days together and ended up writing some really poor quality posts. But positive comments and mails from my regular readers have kept me going through all these to...
More About: Anniversary , Funding

Youtube India! What should you expect from it?
2008-04-30 15:30:00
ContentSutra has just reported that YouTube is planning to launch an India site on the 7th of May. Although, the news does not seem to be formally confirmed, there are strong chances that it might be true. Youtube had bought out (through dispute resolution) youtube.in domain from one Mr. Rohit Kohli who had registered the domain. Currently, youtube.in has a blank page, but what makes me believe this news is that even a blank page is showing youtube favicon. Last year, youtube launched 9 country specific sites - Brazil, France, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Ireland and they currently have around 18 country specific sites.
More About: Expect

How cheap can your mobile tariffs get?
2008-04-28 16:43:00
Way back in late nineties when I procured my first mobile phone (a.k.a brick), I used to think more than 10 times before making a phone call from my cellular. Do you know why? Each minute of a outgoing call used to cost me a whooping 16 rupees a minute. It was huge ! The phone was used only for ultra urgent and important calls. Fast forward ten years and an outgoing call now costs around 50 paise for a local outgoing call - nearly 30 times lesser. Now-a-days, even if I am at home, I prefer using a cell phone to make a call rather than my landline. It turns out cheaper. No wonder India has become the second largest Wireless network in the world. The only time I am careful while making calls is when I am traveling out of station. The STD and roaming charges can really make a dent in your pocket. According to research, close to 70% of STD users in India do not use this facility for more than 5 minutes a month. Also close to 80% of users switch off their mobiles while roaming. Howe...
More About: Mobile , Money , United Kingdom , Telecommunications

South Indians are the leading Beer guzzlers!
2008-04-28 14:12:00
During my visit to Chennai this January for Proto.in, I was really surprised to know that Chennai does not have restaurants that serve Beer or alcoholic drinks. Not only that, it does not have any pubs or Disco's. If you want to go out and enjoy a couple of drinks, the only place would be 4 or 5 start hotels. Now thats a real dampener for person like me who really enjoys going out and having evening drinks with friends. However, it seems that outside of Chennai, South India ns seems to have a huge appetite for Beer. According to the latest figures released the growth was mainly led by the key guzzlers down south, with the largest market Andhra Pradesh vaulting 15.4%, Tamil Nadu 11.6% and Karnataka 24%. Another big market, Maharashtra, however, witnessed sedate growth of 5-6%, with Mumbai city recording a minor dip.
More About: Indians , Asia , Haryana

India overtakes U.S to become 2nd Largest Wireless Network in the world
2008-04-26 14:31:00
This was on cards - India has become the second largest wireless network given the exceptional growth in Mobile subscribers in India. According to latest release by TRAI (Telecom Regulatory authority of India), the total wireless subscribers base stood at 261.09 million at the end of March 2008, compared to 255 million subscribers in U.S. A total of 10.16 million wireless subscribers have been added in the month of March 2008 as against 8.53 million wireless subscribers added in the month of February 2008. Another landmark that march saw was reaching a total telephone connections to 300 million (wireline+wireless). The overall tele-density is pegged at 26.22% at the end of March 2008 as against 25.31% in February 2008.
More About: Business , United States , Wireless , World

Mumbai gets smartcards for local trains and BEST buses
2008-04-25 16:40:00
During my train travels from New Jersey to New York via Subway, I used to always think of how it would be to have a similar ticketing system for journey in crowded Mumbai local trains. The first thing that came to my mind - it was just not possible given the logistics and tracking involved. For those who are not aware, in US and UK (specifically for Subway trains and Tubes), the traveler has to just go to nearest vending machine before entering the platform, get a pass of standard denominations and swipe it before entering the train platform. Every time one swipes the card, certain amount is deducted toward your journey. No waiting in lines ! Now, to my surprise, even Mumbai seems to be moving towards similar system. The Central Railways (CR) launched "Go Mumbai" smart card - a first-of-a-kind travel card which works like a pre-paid telephone card, and can be used for travel on the local Mumbai trains and BEST buses. Source
More About: Hardware , India , Buses

Invest in Indian stock Markets the Happionaire way !
2008-04-24 08:36:00
2008 has not been too kind for stock market investors and traders. The Indian stock market has shed as much as 25% since the beginning of this year. Investors have lost money in tune of thousands of crores. I have been an investor in Indian markets since last couple of years and have seen the crash of May last year. However, the current situation seems to be far more worse as it is coupled with global downtrend in Economy. So what should investors do in such circumstances? Should they stay away from the markets or do they still have a chance of making money? I suggest you pick up a copy of "Invest the Happionaire way" book by Yogesh Chabria. I must admit that I have just skimmed through the pages, but what ever little I have read, it comes across as a fun and interesting way of creating wealth through the Indian stock markets.
More About: Business , Investment , Book Review , Markets