Avatar 3D is a definite cinematic event of this decade. It is about celebration of next level of animations, celebration of nature-loving in a grand style and reminding of war over resources should have resulted in.
Kudos to James Cameron!!!
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Jai Ho!!!
Somehow we Indians are crazy about Oscars, though Oscars are not meant for Indian movies. I am not sure how many people notice the national awards announcement every year. I personally feel winning Indian film national awards are harder when one takes movies from different language, different region. National award panel would consist of people from different region – they should be convinced of other region films and approve the credentials . Like Kamal Hassan repeatedly tells “Oscars should not be ultimate aim for Indian movies because Oscar is not a recognition body of international movies” - Oscars are for films released in English, produced by westerners and heavily marketed to the academy awards jury panel. Juries will not look at each and every film released in English but movies should be marketed in such a way that it would be noticed by Jury members. Screening in international film festivals or box-office hit is required for the film to get noticed.
But now we got a chance to realize the long waited dream thru our own A.R Rahman. This is because he is part of an english movie. I was in cloud-nine when Rahman got three nominations in original background score and songs categories. Now it is the time for westerners to get the feel of Rahman's individualistic music. A.R. Rahman, a true sufian who loves and lives in music, will get a chance to celebrate his unconquered position in music world. Many argue that Rahman has got better music in Indian movies compared to the one nominated for academy awards. I would say this is the first time Rahman's got a chance to score music in a movie that can be noticeable by Oscar juries. I believe this recognition is a long pending and first in line.
Let's congratulate A.R.Rahman for the nominations and wishing him all the best for winning academy awards!!!
p.s - Last week, I heard A.R. Rahman's interview from NDTV.com – it was the most personal interview i've heard from A.R. Rahman. Click here to listen to the interview
But now we got a chance to realize the long waited dream thru our own A.R Rahman. This is because he is part of an english movie. I was in cloud-nine when Rahman got three nominations in original background score and songs categories. Now it is the time for westerners to get the feel of Rahman's individualistic music. A.R. Rahman, a true sufian who loves and lives in music, will get a chance to celebrate his unconquered position in music world. Many argue that Rahman has got better music in Indian movies compared to the one nominated for academy awards. I would say this is the first time Rahman's got a chance to score music in a movie that can be noticeable by Oscar juries. I believe this recognition is a long pending and first in line.
Let's congratulate A.R.Rahman for the nominations and wishing him all the best for winning academy awards!!!
p.s - Last week, I heard A.R. Rahman's interview from NDTV.com – it was the most personal interview i've heard from A.R. Rahman. Click here to listen to the interview
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Hey There!!!
This is my first post since US presidential elections. So we'll continue from there. America got new commander-in-chief, Barack Obama. Obama's election to office was just like a fairy-tale. Nowhere to president in just 2 years gives hope to everyone that clear vision, willing to work and able communication will put everyone on top. Obama's executive orders are interesting, in-line with what he's promised. We have to see how his stimulus package plan is going to work, though simple glance over the fund allocation doesn't give right sense.
Personal life has been little bit hectic these days after slow down in economy. Resource ramp downs, offshore movements added more responsibilities. Looking back, I realize I went little overboard in work or worrying about lot of work. This is the right time to bring some life back to track, set some order. I believe my blog will see more update in coming days.
will be back soon!!!
Personal life has been little bit hectic these days after slow down in economy. Resource ramp downs, offshore movements added more responsibilities. Looking back, I realize I went little overboard in work or worrying about lot of work. This is the right time to bring some life back to track, set some order. I believe my blog will see more update in coming days.
will be back soon!!!
Monday, November 03, 2008
Thanks, November 4!!!
US Presidential campaign has been exciting, tired and boring at end. One candidate is a junior senator with two year of national politics and two years of campaign politics; and other candidate is labeled as war-monger, being part of DC politics over two decade. I felt interesting at the start to see decent campaigning and debates; but campaign was different just in the way they are conducted – otherwise they were same old attacking, petty political campaigns wasting hundreds of million dollars.
While watching a news show, one journalism-student asked the channel to add more spice in covering the campaign as he was working on presidential campaign assignment. That student must have scored full marks in assignments if he watched the campaign coverage in all news channels. Nothing was left out in the coverage – there was even a discussion on whether the candidate should have risen his eye brow or not while other candidate was answering.
Whatever, American public must be happy to see the campaigns ending – at least it will stop candidate bad mouth each other while saying they would reach out across party line; it will stop hundreds of million dollars expense while they emphasize cutting government expenditure as their policy.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Too small to fail
Moderately opened economy has proved always good for India - be it Asian Economy Meltdown or Current Credit Mess. Here is an interesting insight on how India could be less affected in the current global economic crisis (Courtesy: Economis.com).
How India could benefit in the long term
The global financial crisis has hit Indian stockmarkets hard. By October 13th the country's benchmark indices had fallen some 50% from the record heights they scaled in early January 2008. India's second-largest lender, ICICI Bank, has suffered a sharp drop in its shares following rumours that it is over-exposed to toxic US and UK assets. Equity outflows from foreign institutional investors (FIIs) during 2008 so far are a net US$9.9bn, compared with net inflows of US$17.4bn in 2007.
This painful erosion of investor wealth and confidence is not the only fall-out in India of the global panic. The rupee has been depreciating rapidly against the US dollar, owing to the global dollar liquidity shortage, heavy outflows from FIIs looking to transfer funds home, and purchases of dollars by Indian banks to fund their overseas operations. By early October the rupee had slumped to a six-year low, negating the recent fall in crude oil prices and keeping India's oil-import bill high. The continuing depreciation means that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI, the central bank) must keep up its heavy intervention in the foreign-exchange market to stop the rupee from falling too sharply.
To do that, the RBI sometimes sells as much as US$2bn in a single day through state-owned banks. But this is creating a different problem: it is sucking out rupee liquidity from the system, despite the RBI's stepped-up daily repurchase operations to inject funds into the market. Equal pressure comes from high government borrowings, sustained credit demand and the RBI's frequent recent interest-rate hikes aimed at controlling inflation. As a result, local liquidity has tightened and rates in the cash market rose to an 18-month high of 17.5% in the first week of October.
Government response
The government has acted decisively to try to mitigate the situation. On October 6th the Securities and Exchange Board of India removed its year-old restrictions on participatory notes (offshore derivative instruments that allow unregistered foreign investors to invest in Indian stockmarkets). The next day, external commercial borrowing rules were liberalised to include the mining, exploration and refining sectors in the definition of infrastructure. That raised the cap on overseas borrowing for companies in these sectors from US$50m to US$500m—although there may be little international money to borrow.
On October 6th the RBI also unexpectedly cut the cash reserve ratio (CRR, the amount of deposits that banks must keep on reserve with the RBI) by 50 basis points to 8.5%, effective October 11th. The temporary measure was intended to release Rs200bn (US$4.2bn) into the banking system and to ease liquidity. However, that money will be sucked up by the RBI's foreign-exchange interventions and by government bond auctions, rendering the cut more of a confidence booster than much real help. As cash rates soared to 20% and the rupee continued its fall, the RBI increased the CRR cut to 7.5% on October 10th.
Although the government has said that it stands ready to take further measures to ease liquidity, regulators have an opposing but equally urgent priority: the need to contain inflation. Wholesale price inflation touched a 13-year high of 12.6% in early August, driven by higher oil and commodity prices globally, although it fell to under 12% by late September and is expected to moderate further. Record inflation has already prompted the central bank to raise key rates repeatedly.
Economic fall-out
High interest rates and resulting higher costs—coupled with high oil prices, decelerating global growth, slowing export markets and the global financial turmoil—have taken their toll on India's economy. GDP growth in the first quarter of fiscal year 2007/08 (April-March) was the slowest in over three years, at an annual 7.9%. The government maintains that the economy will grow by almost 8% during the current fiscal year and recover to 9% in 2009/10. Most independent estimates, however, are far less optimistic. The Economist Intelligence Unit expects India's economy to expand by 6.5% in each of the next two fiscal years. This relatively sombre view seemed to be confirmed by the unexpectedly poor industrial production numbers for August released on October 10th.
India may not have escaped the global contagion, but it's not all bad news. After all, GDP growth of around 7% would still put India among the world's fastest-growing economies. Many of India's fundamentals remain sound. During April-August 2008, exports rose 35% in dollar terms, while imports rose 37.7%, indicating sustained demand. Capacity is being added in numerous sectors, including power, steel, oil and cars. Foreign direct investment during April-August 2008 was a record US$14.8bn (a 114% rise over the corresponding period of the previous year), although this could turn very quickly, just as portfolio inflows by FIIs already have. Finally, India's banks are well-capitalised and well-regulated, there is no domestic bad-loan crisis, and Indian banks have only a marginal exposure to overseas credit markets.
Ironically, the current global situation is also making India's measured pace of economic reform look wiser than before. At a time when Western countries are frantically nationalising banking assets, the Indian government's reluctance to sell more than 49% in its state-owned banks—which control some 70% of banking assets—now seems reassuring. In addition, India has not yet introduced full capital-account convertibility, which protects its currency, while its careful control of foreign borrowings by domestic companies limits dependence on the global financial system. Regulators have also periodically introduced curbs to slow the formation of potential asset bubbles, such as higher provisioning and prudential requirements on real-estate lending.
Outlook
All of this might mean that once the dust settles, India is likely to re-emerge as an attractive investment destination. At least in the short term, growth in India's flagship IT-services sector is likely to slow because of the financial-sector crisis. But the rupee's depreciation will help to shore up the profitability of IT and other exporters. More importantly, Indian IT companies, as well those in other industries, are stepping up acquisitions. Strong growth in the past few years has given Indian companies the financial muscle for large acquisitions, just as the global slowdown is putting good international companies on the market. For example, in October 2008 HCL Technologies (India's fifth-largest IT-services firm) outbid Infosys Technologies (India's second-largest IT company) for UK-based Axon. This will be the Indian IT sector's largest outbound merger. At home, meanwhile, India's biggest IT company, Tata Consulting Services (TCS), announced that it would become India's second-largest business-process outsourcing (BPO) company by buying US-based Citigroup's captive Indian BPO, Citigroup Global Services, for US$505m. TCS also agreed a multi-year, US$2.5bn contract to provide Citi with outsourcing services.
Both Indian companies and regulators recognise that India cannot escape the global meltdown. However, Indian companies are looking for opportunity in the crisis, while regulators remain on standby to ease conditions as much as possible. That, perhaps, is as much as anyone can do in the current situation.
How India could benefit in the long term
The global financial crisis has hit Indian stockmarkets hard. By October 13th the country's benchmark indices had fallen some 50% from the record heights they scaled in early January 2008. India's second-largest lender, ICICI Bank, has suffered a sharp drop in its shares following rumours that it is over-exposed to toxic US and UK assets. Equity outflows from foreign institutional investors (FIIs) during 2008 so far are a net US$9.9bn, compared with net inflows of US$17.4bn in 2007.
This painful erosion of investor wealth and confidence is not the only fall-out in India of the global panic. The rupee has been depreciating rapidly against the US dollar, owing to the global dollar liquidity shortage, heavy outflows from FIIs looking to transfer funds home, and purchases of dollars by Indian banks to fund their overseas operations. By early October the rupee had slumped to a six-year low, negating the recent fall in crude oil prices and keeping India's oil-import bill high. The continuing depreciation means that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI, the central bank) must keep up its heavy intervention in the foreign-exchange market to stop the rupee from falling too sharply.
To do that, the RBI sometimes sells as much as US$2bn in a single day through state-owned banks. But this is creating a different problem: it is sucking out rupee liquidity from the system, despite the RBI's stepped-up daily repurchase operations to inject funds into the market. Equal pressure comes from high government borrowings, sustained credit demand and the RBI's frequent recent interest-rate hikes aimed at controlling inflation. As a result, local liquidity has tightened and rates in the cash market rose to an 18-month high of 17.5% in the first week of October.
Government response
The government has acted decisively to try to mitigate the situation. On October 6th the Securities and Exchange Board of India removed its year-old restrictions on participatory notes (offshore derivative instruments that allow unregistered foreign investors to invest in Indian stockmarkets). The next day, external commercial borrowing rules were liberalised to include the mining, exploration and refining sectors in the definition of infrastructure. That raised the cap on overseas borrowing for companies in these sectors from US$50m to US$500m—although there may be little international money to borrow.
On October 6th the RBI also unexpectedly cut the cash reserve ratio (CRR, the amount of deposits that banks must keep on reserve with the RBI) by 50 basis points to 8.5%, effective October 11th. The temporary measure was intended to release Rs200bn (US$4.2bn) into the banking system and to ease liquidity. However, that money will be sucked up by the RBI's foreign-exchange interventions and by government bond auctions, rendering the cut more of a confidence booster than much real help. As cash rates soared to 20% and the rupee continued its fall, the RBI increased the CRR cut to 7.5% on October 10th.
Although the government has said that it stands ready to take further measures to ease liquidity, regulators have an opposing but equally urgent priority: the need to contain inflation. Wholesale price inflation touched a 13-year high of 12.6% in early August, driven by higher oil and commodity prices globally, although it fell to under 12% by late September and is expected to moderate further. Record inflation has already prompted the central bank to raise key rates repeatedly.
Economic fall-out
High interest rates and resulting higher costs—coupled with high oil prices, decelerating global growth, slowing export markets and the global financial turmoil—have taken their toll on India's economy. GDP growth in the first quarter of fiscal year 2007/08 (April-March) was the slowest in over three years, at an annual 7.9%. The government maintains that the economy will grow by almost 8% during the current fiscal year and recover to 9% in 2009/10. Most independent estimates, however, are far less optimistic. The Economist Intelligence Unit expects India's economy to expand by 6.5% in each of the next two fiscal years. This relatively sombre view seemed to be confirmed by the unexpectedly poor industrial production numbers for August released on October 10th.
India may not have escaped the global contagion, but it's not all bad news. After all, GDP growth of around 7% would still put India among the world's fastest-growing economies. Many of India's fundamentals remain sound. During April-August 2008, exports rose 35% in dollar terms, while imports rose 37.7%, indicating sustained demand. Capacity is being added in numerous sectors, including power, steel, oil and cars. Foreign direct investment during April-August 2008 was a record US$14.8bn (a 114% rise over the corresponding period of the previous year), although this could turn very quickly, just as portfolio inflows by FIIs already have. Finally, India's banks are well-capitalised and well-regulated, there is no domestic bad-loan crisis, and Indian banks have only a marginal exposure to overseas credit markets.
Ironically, the current global situation is also making India's measured pace of economic reform look wiser than before. At a time when Western countries are frantically nationalising banking assets, the Indian government's reluctance to sell more than 49% in its state-owned banks—which control some 70% of banking assets—now seems reassuring. In addition, India has not yet introduced full capital-account convertibility, which protects its currency, while its careful control of foreign borrowings by domestic companies limits dependence on the global financial system. Regulators have also periodically introduced curbs to slow the formation of potential asset bubbles, such as higher provisioning and prudential requirements on real-estate lending.
Outlook
All of this might mean that once the dust settles, India is likely to re-emerge as an attractive investment destination. At least in the short term, growth in India's flagship IT-services sector is likely to slow because of the financial-sector crisis. But the rupee's depreciation will help to shore up the profitability of IT and other exporters. More importantly, Indian IT companies, as well those in other industries, are stepping up acquisitions. Strong growth in the past few years has given Indian companies the financial muscle for large acquisitions, just as the global slowdown is putting good international companies on the market. For example, in October 2008 HCL Technologies (India's fifth-largest IT-services firm) outbid Infosys Technologies (India's second-largest IT company) for UK-based Axon. This will be the Indian IT sector's largest outbound merger. At home, meanwhile, India's biggest IT company, Tata Consulting Services (TCS), announced that it would become India's second-largest business-process outsourcing (BPO) company by buying US-based Citigroup's captive Indian BPO, Citigroup Global Services, for US$505m. TCS also agreed a multi-year, US$2.5bn contract to provide Citi with outsourcing services.
Both Indian companies and regulators recognise that India cannot escape the global meltdown. However, Indian companies are looking for opportunity in the crisis, while regulators remain on standby to ease conditions as much as possible. That, perhaps, is as much as anyone can do in the current situation.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Summer @ Chennai, Winter @ Kashmir !!!
Doesn't this title sound horrible? This horrible story is happening to me. I suffered at Jackson, Mississippi all thru the summer. Now I've moved to St. Cloud, Minnesota into winter session. St. Cloud is one-stop drivable distance from Canada, so max effect of snow can be felt here.
Somehow countering my friends like 'Who am I? We are the type of people who meet the lion in it's cave? - I met the sun @ Jackson in summer and going to meet winter @ St. Cloud in December”. Let's count like Vadivelu how much suffer this body can take?
Minneapolis – St. Cloud jet which I took had only six passengers. The guy who got the first class ticket was made to sit on the last seat to balance the wait during travel; he was given a consolatory word of 'we are giving you a seat with more leg space' :)
St. Cloud is a small town 70 miles north of Minneapolis – St. Paul twin city; incidentally this city is a highly populated area in central region. Farming and Fishing are the major activities around this city – no wonder in the land of 10k lakes.
Unlike my stay in Jackson, I am staying close to the office with decent bus facility and close to another big city, Minneapolis. One more good thing is lot of my colleagues are working in this office and staying the apartment complex. Few east-west coast friends were telling that we could meet while they travel to Minneapolis.
'I heard a gun shot recently' from my one of the clients welcomed me in Jackson, 'Guns are banned in office' board welcomed in St. Cloud.
Will keep you posted on COUNTS!!!!
Somehow countering my friends like 'Who am I? We are the type of people who meet the lion in it's cave? - I met the sun @ Jackson in summer and going to meet winter @ St. Cloud in December”. Let's count like Vadivelu how much suffer this body can take?
Minneapolis – St. Cloud jet which I took had only six passengers. The guy who got the first class ticket was made to sit on the last seat to balance the wait during travel; he was given a consolatory word of 'we are giving you a seat with more leg space' :)
St. Cloud is a small town 70 miles north of Minneapolis – St. Paul twin city; incidentally this city is a highly populated area in central region. Farming and Fishing are the major activities around this city – no wonder in the land of 10k lakes.
Unlike my stay in Jackson, I am staying close to the office with decent bus facility and close to another big city, Minneapolis. One more good thing is lot of my colleagues are working in this office and staying the apartment complex. Few east-west coast friends were telling that we could meet while they travel to Minneapolis.
'I heard a gun shot recently' from my one of the clients welcomed me in Jackson, 'Guns are banned in office' board welcomed in St. Cloud.
Will keep you posted on COUNTS!!!!
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Contrarian view on Inflation
Inflation in India touched 13 year high and even government reports suggest that there will not be any sign for de-acceleration in next three month.
Here is a contrarian view on high inflation -
Increase in commodity prices or inflation is good. Japan is struggling with deflation from more than 10 years, inflation is good for us (it helps some set of people making good profit), more the inflation it is much better (money power shift will be faster). Look at it as the shift of economic power or money flowing from commodity consuming to commodity producing countries.
Let us take an example, Petrol prices has gone up, so we will start controlling our expenses, is it not good? In case if we pay more to petrol producer then he/she will make good money and ultimately that money will come back to economy. It is like zero sum game, we lose they gain and when they lose we gain. So, just be happy and start investing.
Indian stock markets during last 5 years were in Bull Run not due to MF or domestic investors but due to FII. Who are these guys? They are from far west countries like US/UK etc. So, if oil is boiling what it means, Oil producing country will become reach and sooner or later they will deploy their profits where they can get better return. Hence money will come back to India/China or country with high GDP growth.
Any engine which is running fast need to take a pause or slow down before it moves further. And it is better that our markets are cooling down so that we can move further.
Even if we take a conservative $100 as the average price for crude oil, we are talking of $2 trillion worth of foreign exchange reserves being generated this year for oil producing countries. A maximum 10 per cent of this can be invested in the local economies, if they have to achieve a GDP growth rate of 10 per cent without over-heating their respective economies.
This means that $1.8 trillion worth of additional liquidity is expected to be generated in the world over the next year or so. By all estimates, whatever the losses of US sub-prime mess (which some say will be in the neighborhood of $3 to 4.5 billion — equivalent to about three months of oil selling), the incremental liquidity of $1.8 trillion should flow into world markets.
Source: hbjcapital
Here is a contrarian view on high inflation -
Increase in commodity prices or inflation is good. Japan is struggling with deflation from more than 10 years, inflation is good for us (it helps some set of people making good profit), more the inflation it is much better (money power shift will be faster). Look at it as the shift of economic power or money flowing from commodity consuming to commodity producing countries.
Let us take an example, Petrol prices has gone up, so we will start controlling our expenses, is it not good? In case if we pay more to petrol producer then he/she will make good money and ultimately that money will come back to economy. It is like zero sum game, we lose they gain and when they lose we gain. So, just be happy and start investing.
Indian stock markets during last 5 years were in Bull Run not due to MF or domestic investors but due to FII. Who are these guys? They are from far west countries like US/UK etc. So, if oil is boiling what it means, Oil producing country will become reach and sooner or later they will deploy their profits where they can get better return. Hence money will come back to India/China or country with high GDP growth.
Any engine which is running fast need to take a pause or slow down before it moves further. And it is better that our markets are cooling down so that we can move further.
Even if we take a conservative $100 as the average price for crude oil, we are talking of $2 trillion worth of foreign exchange reserves being generated this year for oil producing countries. A maximum 10 per cent of this can be invested in the local economies, if they have to achieve a GDP growth rate of 10 per cent without over-heating their respective economies.
This means that $1.8 trillion worth of additional liquidity is expected to be generated in the world over the next year or so. By all estimates, whatever the losses of US sub-prime mess (which some say will be in the neighborhood of $3 to 4.5 billion — equivalent to about three months of oil selling), the incremental liquidity of $1.8 trillion should flow into world markets.
Source: hbjcapital
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