India is at the centre stage. It cannot get much better than this for young Indians. Today’s teens have the best to look forward to. If they are consumers, they have the best of goods and services available right here for them. They can help the economy by mercilessly spending all their resources and still be able to borrow for more. If they are investors, the blooming economy is buzzing with great opportunities for them. As co-owners of healthy Indian enterprises, their future will be as strong as the foundations of ‘India Incorporated’. Either ways, they are crucial to the future of India Inc. They will have to take their position sooner or later. Sooner the better.

If this video can reach out to the millions of young Indians, it could make some change in their investment habits. The older generation wouldn’t let go of ‘post office savings’, ‘fixed deposits’ and ‘gold jewelry’ even if inflated currencies continue to be pumped into the market. I just hope they let their children understand equities and encourage them to start investing in India Inc.

Would you agree that predictable people turn out to be less spontaneous in life, quite passive about relationships and less fun to be with? I am not sure about my take on this. But I have been reminded many a times on how predictable people can be boring. It is quite natural to find such people follow a logical path to any good decision. If they can think ahead and take decisions based on facts and experiences, why would they leave everything to chance and intuitions? Making calculated moves comes naturally to them. I think that is the reason why they are so predictable. Their moves are always calculated.

When playing chess, it is possible for you to predict your opponents moves before you make your next move. This is because your opponent can ONLY make certain moves and all his options depend on just one thing – your next move. All the time, your brains would be working for one goal. To predict your opponents moves and work at giving him LESS options. When your opponent’s options depend on your next move, how can you leave it to chance or intuitions? This is what you would see if you peek into a ‘predictable’ person’s mind.

Next time you find someone you think is ‘predictable’, remember there is a reason why he is so. He would know what you are thinking and what you’d be saying before you know it yourself. Wonder how? It is because he had made his moves already and he leave you not too many options to come back at him. When you think he is predictable, he is actually thinking a few moves ahead of you.

Now on a lighter note, its interesting to see how programmers react to unexpected results which came in as a consequence of their very calculated logical moves. Here is a list of some very common replies that you can get from a programmer when his product shows ‘abnormal behavior’ or a ‘fatal error’.

“Thats wierd” (He is buying time to wear his thinking cap.)
“Its never done that before” (He can’t believe it really crashed.)
“It worked yesterday” (He doubts you.)
“How is that possible?” (He doubts you while he runs for the thinking cap.)
“It must be a hardware problem” (Hardware is not his domain. As long as its not the code, he is safe.)
“What did you do to make it crash?” (He has lost hope in the code and you, the user.)
“There has to be something funny in your data” (Yeah. He never expected you to come up with that.)
“I haven’t touched that module in weeks” (He is not gonna work on it anymore. Thats it.)
“You must have the wrong version.” (He doesn’t have time to send you the latest patch all the time.)
“It is just some unlucky coincidence.” (Now he started thinking outside the box. Fate? Chance? God?)
“I cant test everything.” (He feels defeated.)
“This can’t be the source of THAT” (I love this one. He can’t believe he wrote that crap.)
“It works but it hasn’t been tested.” (You better leave him alone till he gets back to you.)
“Somebody must have changed my code.” (He wants to escape. Can’t accept defeat.)
“Did you check for a virus in your system?” (Its not his code. Its your system that is the problem.)
“Even though it doesn’t work, how does it feel.” (My favorite. He must have spent time with the UXD team.)
“You can’t use that version on your system.” (He thinks you are stupid. He wants to prove it right now.)
“Why do you want to do it that way?” (Why don’t you leave me alone?)
“It works on my machine.” (He must have ran for the thinking cap already.)

Soon the SMS picked up momentum as it caught interests of the mobile value added services (mVAS) industry which used them for multimedia content (like ringtones), mobile payments, web search, tele voting and the likes. Today SMS is widely used by airliners, hotels booking sites, financial institutions and enterprises that have systems that connect with the customers (Application to Person SMS services)

But now it seems like person to person SMS services is gaining less popularity. Data dependent applications like WhatsApp and Nimbuzz are cutting into this large yet relatively simple market. Mobile operators who are already loosing on the average revenue per user is now challenged by such applications that provide free text messaging services to users. Research firms have accounted a loss of 14 billion USD in 2011 owing to the sharp decline of SMS usage.

While the SMS will be the choice for online trade and booking confirmations and bank updates, it will soon loose its place as a person to person messaging service. SMS as a technology enabled service declined primarily because the telecom operators who where the only people who had a chance to innovate on its core systems failed to do so. But this is not the case with the messaging “App” developers who are already charging forward with features like one to many texting, image sharing, video sharing, presence notifications, mood/status notifications etc.

I would like to see some form of convergence in the instant messaging service. If only WhatsApp, Nimbuzz, Facebook, Gtalk and all new entrants stuck to XMPP (jabber) or something that fits the purpose, we could witness better growth in this area. Soon we might see services built over such systems and technology enablers invest in building an ecosystem around such messaging services. It will be an exciting ride and at the end of it, the good old SMS will Rest in Peace.

Its always good to set goals, especially when it comes to personal finance. Lets assume that you are not a millionaire yet and one of your goals is to become one. A million dollars is just about 5Cr Indian Rupees. Inheriting this kind of wealth or inheriting assets that add up to 5Cr is a different story. But to generate that kind of money, you should stop working for money and make money work for you. If that is a lot of money today, it will not remain the same a couple of decades from now.

If you work for your money, you might work for a lifetime and yet not achieve your financial goals. What you have to do is make your money work for you. To make your money work for you, all you have to do is invest them where they grow. Money works best when its used in businesses. How do you put your money in businesses ? You purchase your share of growing businesses or let a fund manager do that for you by buying mutual funds. But either ways, you need TIME for the money to grow. If your money should grow, the businesses should grow and it takes time for businesses to grow.

If you are patient and disciplined with your investments, the power of compounding will work with time to grow your money. Coming back to the million dollars question… If you can invest just 4000 Rupees a month on any fund that can give you just about 20% return a year, you would end up with more than 6Cr Indian Rupees in less than 30 years.

If you are a 25 year old and you start investing your monthly 4000, then you’d have your 6Cr when you retire at 60. But if you are just 20 and you do the same kind of investment, you would have a whooping 15Cr by the time you are 60. During that 5 years you only make an additional investment of Rs.2,40,000 But that 5 extra years makes a HUGE difference in your wealth accumulation.

Money can work for you. All it needs is TIME.

I have spent some time reading about this and I’d like to share some points that might help. Compulsive hoarding is a condition that referrers to seemingly normal people who indulge in collecting stuff that are of little or no immediate value and not being able to throw them away, resulting in unmanageable clutter that takes away space.

Such people bring in a lot of stuff and fail to discard any of it. The amount of clutter interferes with everyday living. When floor space shrink they turn to the walls without snapping out the process. “Compulsive hoarding is challenging to treat because many people who hoard don’t see it as a problem, or have little awareness of their disorder and how it’s impacting on their life. However, it’s really important to encourage a hoarder to seek help, as their obsession can not only cause loneliness and mental health problems, but poses a health and safety risk, too. If not tackled, it is a problem that will most likely never go away.” (Source : http://www.nhs.uk/ )

Why someone may become a hoarder?
The reasons why someone becomes a hoarder are still not fully understood. However, the problem tends to persist because:
the person finds it difficult to discard things
they may have problems with order, organisation and decision-making
they acquire more things than they throw away

The person will also have unhelpful beliefs, such as:
“I may need this some day”
“If I throw this away, I won’t be able to cope with the feelings of loss”
“If I buy this, it will make me happy”
Attempts to discard things often bring up very strong emotions that can feel overwhelming, so the hoarder tends to put off or avoid making decisions about what can be thrown out. Often, many of the things kept are of little or no monetary value, and may be what most people would consider rubbish. The person may acquire several of the same items because they are unable to find what they need, or they may have stockpiled food or clothes “just in case”.

A person is more likely to become a compulsive hoarder if:
there is a family history of hoarding
they have experienced deprivation
they grew up in a cluttered home
they have another mental health condition, such as anxiety, depression or social phobia
they are struggling to cope with a stressful life event
they have a history of alcohol dependence
they are lonely (hoarding brings comfort)

Typical profile of a compulsive hoarder :
may keep or collect items that are of no value, like junk mail and carrier bags, or items they intend to re-use or repair
finds it hard to throw anything away, and just moves items from one pile to another
finds it hard to categorise or organise items
has difficulties making decisions and struggles to manage everyday tasks, such as cooking, cleaning and paying bills
becomes obsessively attached to items, refusing to let anyone touch or borrow them
does not socialise with other people
Some studies suggest that hoarding often starts in the teenage years (as early as 13 or 14), where broken toys or school papers may be collected. The hoarding then becomes worse with age.

( Source : http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/hoarding/Pages/Introduction.aspx )

It has been quite some time since I did any major changes on roshin.com I really wanted to treat myself with a brand new website design this new year. But I couldn’t figure out a good layout and a the right design that would match my current state of mind. Finally I found some time to work on this website and I should agree, I am happy and content ! I think the new design is quite simple and yet stunning. And its responsive. I am really excited about the fluid design and its ability to fit into browsers of all kinds. Check out this website on a mobile device and you’ll know what I mean.

I have been reading through those blog posts. Most of them are just too silly to be here. I thought I should delete at least some of them. But I leave it there for me to look back some day and say “I have grown up”.

An automobile is one of the fastest depreciating assets that you can own. A brand new car can loose at least 60% of its value in the first 5 years. Most of the time, you’ll see that the market is flooded with newer models from multiple brands that will make you want to swap your car for a newer one.

Recently I read an interesting blog where the author argues on the idea of buying only used cars after the loss of depreciation is already taken by the first owner of the car. Buying a 3 year old used car and keeping it running for 5 to 10 years will be a wise thing to do. But how many of us do that ? ‘Attractive’ EMIs and the ‘affordable’ luxury gimmick steers our thought process.

The author of the blog advices not to buy a car that costs more than 1% of your net worth. According to him, you should by a 10Lac Car only if your net worth is more than 1Cr. I bet at least 50% of average Indian upper middle class spend over 10% of their net worth on an automobile. It is sad but true.

Now I know why its good to put my money on Automotive stocks.

100 million people flocking around in a tiny city is an amazing thing by itself. What awes me more is how the city could manage such a crowd. Urban planning, civil engineering, governance, infrastructure, law and order … that’s part of a long list of extremely challenging tasks that has to be taken up by the authorities. All these come in and fall in place as a city develops over time. Time that will be anywhere between 3 to 4 decades (eg: Dubai) to thousands of years (eg: Rome)

I was curios to know how they do it and how researchers and urban planners could study this. It seems there are plenty of them researchers are social anthropologists, who camp there to follow key officials during the Mela. They research on the processes that allow efficient and rapid decision making. I read somewhere that the festival is a laboratory setting that scientists of all sorts constantly look for. One particular group is studying the cellular networks (or the lack of it) that manages the millions of cellular phones that are active in the area.

The Maha Kumbh Mela would definitely be one large sample for any social experiment. How they gear up the city to support the big event is only a part of the challenge. By the end of February the 100 million people would have moved out of the city like its the end of one long rave party. How the city adapts to the void is a greater mystery. India is truly Incredible!

The every growing use of touch screens will continue its explosive growth with more ‘touch’ phones and tablets in the market. But consumer electronic shows around the world are buzzing about larger touch screen devices or ‘slates’ taking the center stage. Lenovo’s ‘Horizon’ is a 27-inch touch screen that runs Windows8. Microsoft’s ‘Surface’ came with a buzz but failed to catch any attention.  It seems like Microsoft’s Windows8 is a step forward to change user interaction with computing devices. Once the first mover paves a way forward, we are sure to see a lot of new developments on this front. I am betting on Ubuntu for mobile devices to grow into a strong contender in this domain that has Windows8 and Android already advancing forward.

Apple claims to have topped in the apps market with 40 Billion downloads. Software developers move from desktop applications and web applications to mobile applications as consumers move away from the desktop to mobile devices. But this year we will see a lot of these ‘apps’ finding its place in appliances. Samsung has its ‘smart tv’ series that connects to its own apps market which has plenty of apps like YouTube and Skype that has extended to appliances. Samsung is also launching its T9000, a refrigerator that will have an LCD screen that will come pre-loaded with kitchen friendly apps like Evernote. Even cars would come with HUDs that will connect to the apps market.

Long ago when the Barter system began to show signs of inefficiency, people started using bits of gold in exchange of goods and services. Gold being rare and precious was good enough as a currency until people realized that it was too precious to be exchanged for goods and services. When it was no longer safe to walk around with gold, people started ‘depositing’ them with gold smiths in exchange of ‘bills’ for the gold that served as a guarantee. Now that they had the bills, it was very convenient for them to exchange these bills for goods and services. They were the first currency notes. It is important to note that every note was backed by real gold making each note have an intrinsic value of its own. Anybody could exchange the note with the gold smith for the gold that was deposited in lieu of the note. All was well.

But not for long. Things got out of hand when gold smiths started giving notes for goods and services when they did not have gold to back it up. Since they always had reserve gold, they could give such notes for purchase of assets and services. If people came back with their notes for gold, they had enough reserve to take care of them. It was highly unlikely for all the people to come back with the notes for gold as everybody was happy with the paper currency. Now that a system was in place, the gold smiths could print notes whenever they wanted to purchase assets or enjoy services. And this they did with no limits. They printed notes in bulks and flooded the market with notes. Ultimately the notes began to loose its value as they were just inflated bills without any gold reserve. The world witnessed inflation for the first time.

Now it was time for the governments to take charge of the system as it started creating a havoc in the economy. The government took charge of the system and started ‘regulating’ the production of currency. The objective was to bring back the value of the currency by backing it up with gold and not to inflate the currency by just printing them without a gold reserve. That was the birth of modern Gold Standard. All was well for the second time.

But it never stayed so. By the beginning of 1900s, some of the governments liked to see their national currency accepted and used as world currency which would eventually help them have strategic advantage over smaller economies with unstable markets. The United States of America thought that there was a greater ‘demand’ for the US dollar that had to be met with a good ‘supply’ of US dollar bills. They decided to chuck the modern Gold Standard and print US dollars like newsprint. “THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE”. That is what you read on a US dollar bill which is supposed to be guaranteed by the Federal Reserve Bank of USA. This is just like the gold smith’s guarantee. The US dollar is backed up by nothing. Year after year they print US dollar bills inflating their currency and pushing the world economy to the tip of a free fall.

As long as the the global markets buy and sell for US dollars the free fall gets pushed for a later date. When people start pondering into the value of any US dollar bill, they all realize that it is nothing more than green paper with the picture of some old dead man. If only nations decided to trade for gold or some currency with any intrinsic value, the free fall would begin. But who will let it happen ?

While the USA is struggling to wriggle out of the deep shit, they pull in all those economies that are connected with them by trade. Its high time people realized the true worth of their cash holdings and accumulated assets that has some value.