The Chinese have always adopted the strategy of currency manipulation with the government exercising tight control on the exchange rate so as to maintain the competitiveness of Chinese exports though recent data suggests that this may be resulting in diminishing of trade returns.

CHINA TO GIVE GROWTH A BIG PUSH

China is stepping up policy finetuning to support growth, mainly by accelerating spending commitments offering subsidies to consumers to buy goods and investment incentives, as headwinds to economic activity intensify. Data for the first four months of 2012 shows year-on-year government spending growth of 26.2%, more than twice the 12.5% growth in revenue. 

Following are the latest steps taken by Beijing to spur the economy, which is on track to see its slowest full year of expansion since 1999.

1. Beijing will soon resume offering subsidies to rural residents who trade on old vehicles for new, fuel efficient ones in an effort to rekindle domestic demand for vehicles, a government official said.

2. China's top banking regulator said it would give private capital the same entry standards to the banking industry as other capital. Private companies would be allowed to buy into banks through private share placements, new share subscriptions, equity transfers, and mergers and acquisitions.

3. China's state asset watchdog said it would encourage private sector capital to help restructure state-owned firms by making cash investment, share stake acquisition, subscription to convertible bonds and finance leases.

4. The finance ministry will allocate a total of 97.9-b yuan ($15.4 billion) for a special fund to support energy saving and renewable energy projects in 2012, compared with an allotment of 72.8-b yuan in 2011.

5. Premier Wen Jiabao said the government would bring forward key investment projects laid out under the 12th five-year plan and speed up construction in the railway, infrastructure, education and healthcare sectors.

6. Beijing said it will fast-track its approval of infrastructure investments to combat slowing growth and sluggish property sector. The government has asked various parties to submit project proposals by end of June, even those initially earmarked for the end of the year.

7. China's railway ministry said it would open the sector to private capital and encourage private investors to bid for contracts of rail projects and participate in designing railway equipment.

INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE

Pharmaceutical Company

We were formally exposed to all the possible information required by us for upgradation of our knowledge. It helped us to understand the dynamics of organisation in keeping itself growing with the competition and the importance of establishing its presence in the global market as well. Networking is the most important ladder for any success.

Also, Innovation is the key to success. It is the main essence on which the business thrives. As in the case of pharmaceutical companies there is an immense competition which makes it really tough for them to establish, maintain its presence and grow in the market.

Use of softwares and websites makes it easy to make the target audience aware about its existence. It simplifies the work.

Prohibition, Gandhi & Anna

Gandhi is the most misused political icon in India. Do anything un-Gandhian and you can get away with it just by proclaiming yourself to be a follower of the Mahatma. When we talk of Anna Hazare, it must be said that he is, at best, selective in using Gandhi's name.

If Anna has to raise a battle cry against corruption, he becomes a Gandhian; but when it becomes to enforcing prohibition, he goes against all tenets of the Mahatma. Anna has proclaimed with a sense of pride that he had turned his village Ralegaon Siddhi into a liquor free zone. But he stops short of telling his audience what methods he employed to enforce prohibition. The methods, flogging and beating, were violent, something that Gandhi would never had approved of.

Drinking is not a crime; but attracts a stigma in Indian Society. Liquor finds mention in the Vedas as 'the drink of Gods'. Jesus Christ drank wine with his disciples in his 'last supper'. Islam does not permit drinking alcohol. Yet, many followers of Islam permit drinking alcohol. Yet, many followers of Islam relish the drink.

True, Mahatma Gandhi abhorred drinking; yet, he never advocated  coercion or violence against those who drank. In deference to his wishes, the Constitution of India included a separate article on the need to work for total prohibition in the Directive Principles of State Policy. But in the 61 years of since we adopted our Constitution, prohibition could not be enforced. Gujarat is the only exception where prohibition has been in force since Independence.

There is an irony. It was an Indian liquor baron who bid for the Mahatma's pair of glasses, a pocket watch and a pair of sandals at an auction in New York in 2009 for $1.8 million (approximately 9.36 crores at the current exchange rate) to bring the precious belongings of Gandhi back home. It is altogether a different matter that Gandhi would never have approved of this. May be, the Mahatma's opinion, as he wrote in Harijan in its edition of September 21, 1947, it is criminal to spend the income from the sale of intoxicants on the education of the nation's children or other public services.

No government at the Centre or in most states can afford to enforce prohibition, for the considerable revenue liquor fetches, much as sale of petroleum products brings huge revenue to the state exchequer. Alcohol consumption is estimated to cross 19000 million litres by 2015 from the current level of 6700 million litres, growing at an annual rate of 30%. The domestic market of alcoholic beverage will increase to Rs. 1.4 lakh crore by 2015 from the current level of around Rs. 50,700 crore.

To impose prohibition in the name of Gandhi would be to upset the country's macroeconomic balance, widening the states' combined fiscal deficit and sqeezing their expenditure. Widespread corruption by those in positions of power has catapulted Anna Hazare to the current political heights, however, flogging and beating people is no way to enforce prohibition, such coercion would be a criminal act.

Drinking may be a vice if stretched to an addiction but certainly is not a crime.

Blog has to come with a bang again

Micro-blogging on social networking sites now becomes the order of the day

Blogging is a become an old hat now...
A prominent trend-tracking tool shows that blog searches around the globe have halved, while micro blogging  platforms like Twitter and Facebook have grown. Google Insights, which tracks search terms on Google search engine worldwide, shows a 50% decline for blogs since 2010 onwards. Celebrities such as Aamir Khan, Salman Khan and Ramgopal Verma haven't blogged for over six months.

The era has now changed as living in an era of short attention where even Hindi Movies have reduced to 2 hours, emails have become shorter and the books we read are becoming slimmer and faster to skim through. The move from blogging to micro blogging is just part of this larger trend.

Blogging gained popularity in the early 2000s where it required ideas to be bunched to make paragraphs. This is now becoming a history because micro blogging platforms offer a quicker and easier way of sharing thoughts, either as a few sentences or even mere fragments. Large scale businesses have also stopped maintaining blogs for their clients.

The ease factors in terms of feedback and comments has emerged as the biggest advantage for micro blogging sites. As compared to micro blogging sites, to post a comment on a blog one needs to log onto the host website, such as Wordpress.com and signing up on Wordpress.com, the popular blog host is a hassle. Also, to comment on a blog, one needs to enter name and email id.

The biggest advantage of BLOGS is the time stamp, that is, the world could know when a particluar update was posted.
Therefore, even at this stage in this competitive world where things are running and moving in micro seconds, blogs can still emerge as a powerful tool for awareness.
So, people get up and keep BLOGGING.......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Ray Of Hope

Deep into the green of the Forest,
I once walked down the lane of Greenery,
Where I realised the secret of Peace,
With so much of love between the bushes, flowers and birds.

I saw a flower in blossom,
Shining like its first day in bloom,
That was time when my eyes fell on you,
It was you shining among them,
You confronted my heart, making me come up to you.

Your sparkling innocence made me flow in the beauty of life,
Thus, keeping me away from all the worries and fears,
I sang and danced looking at you,
And spoke my heart all to you.

Tempted and pleased with all your courage and love,
With care and utmost wanting, I dug you up,
Planting you in the garden of my heart,
There you flourish, boom and shine.



From Managers To Entrepreneurs

They head a Business, but with a Difference: they are also minority owners but with majority powers.
They are called as "INTRAPRENEURS " who move from the phase of Manager to Owner.

1. Who is an intrapreneur?

A person who is asked to build a business, and is given the responsibility of a manager, and the ownership and autonomy of an entrepreneur. This person is typically, a CEO with rich experience in managing large businesses.
It's a soft landing into entrepreneurship. They earn the returns of entrepreneurship-riches and experience-without taking on commensurate risk.
They can prmote innovation and do backseat driving. For a small stake, they are spared the headache of manging the business.

     2.     WIN-WIN SITUATION

It was - and still is - a natural option for private equity and venture capital, which are strapped for bandwidth to own and run their portfolio of companies. But, increasingly, intrapreneurship is becoming a part of the thinking of promoter-driven businesses too.

example 1: "Intrapreneurship is the best way for a large corporation to be entrepreneurial" says Anand Mahindra, vice-chairman and managing director, M&M. It enables us to hire or collaborate with innovators and mavericks with big ideas who otherwise be tinkering in garages.

example 2: It also enables your full time employess to 'play in the sand pit', so to speak, said by Harsh Mariwala, chairman, Marico: This company have not begun an intrapreneurial strategy yet as it is sometimes difficult to implement in existing businesses.

example 3: One group that has lived the permutations and potential of intrapreneurship is the Adi Godrej Group. Two years ago, when sales of Banish, a home insecticide brand of Godrej Consumer Products declined, it offered a profit sharing plan to a regional manager naming: Mahendran.
Company asked him to work like an entrepreneur, giving him complete control over the supply chain, brand management, marketing and distribution.
Due to this, Banish sales went from zero to 7.5 crores in two years. Mahendran held 20% in its pest control services business.

Its a win-win: for both managers hungry for bigger challenges and payoffs, and for companies trying to compete in a marketplace and job market that is getting tougher by the day.

Major Milestones:

1. After 20 years in global enterprises, like HUL and PepsiCo, Prakash Iyer joined a B2B publisher, Infomedia which have published niche Yellow Pages and niche magazines such as Chip and Better Interiors.
He received a call from ICICI venture which was looking for someone to run Infomedia.
What made decision easy for Iyer is that PE can make you feel you own the businesses and there is a substantial ownership to cement that relationship.
Iyer joined it in 2004 and in 2007, ICICI venture sold 40% of its stake to Tv18, at a per share gain of 155%.
In 2010, Iyer was back from where he came from: at a large MNC, as managing director of Kimberly Clark Lever.

2. Rajiv Kaul spent 11 years at Micrsoft as a India Head. His life changed when he partnered with PE firm Blackstone to buy CMS Info Systems, a Rs 600 crore IT-ITES company in 2009.
Blackstone and Kaul is building CMS as adomestic focused IT-ITES company.
"I have full accountability and autonomy," says Kaul. "Both satisfaction and stresses are entirely mine."
"I was wearing only one hat at Micrsoft-profeesional. CMS makes me think like a professional, owner and stakeholder."