What is 3G – A Quick Look

3G is here or will be here! Much awaited spectrum has been auctioned and service providers are gearing up to launch their services.

Even the mobile phone manufacturers are excited too. 3G has been around for a while in Europe and East Asia and has been refined to work efficiently there.

International Telecom Union (ITU) tracks the evolution of the mobile communicationsystems. Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) from GSM world and CDMA2000 from CDMA world were given status of 3G.

According to ITU a 3G system should provide faster communications services, including voice,fax and Internet, anytime and anywhere with seamless global roaming. ITU hasn’t mandated any data speed for 3G but a minimum data rate of 2 Mbit/s for stationary user and 384 kbit/s for a user in moving vehicle is expected.

Moving forward from UMTS are HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) and HSPA+ which are further referred to as 3.5G and 3.75G. GSM operators in India currently support GPRS/EDGE, which is 2.5/2.75G technology, which gives around 300Kbps speeds.

Next upgrade from EDGE is UMTS, but HSPA or HSPA+ should be the most preferred technologyin India. HSPA is supposed to deliver 7 Mbps in downlink and around 2 Mbps in uplink depending on the network traffic conditions. Wait and watch!

Transition from GPRS to EDGE simply required a software upgrade on network and on mobile phone but 3G is an entirely different technology from 2G. Though the core network looks similar but the air interface technology is totally different, which means there is need for new antennas to be put up everywhere.

This incurs heavy costs the core network components are to be made more robust so as to handle high data speeds. More over the deployment scenarios are to be looked at and networks need to be refined. There is just so much work to be done but thanks to 3G deployments in other countries, service providers should be able to learn quickly.

During the first phase of 3G don’t expect the services to be next to God. Don’t expect your 3G mobiles to show continuous stream of videos without buffering fevers. The service is definitely going to be bad and there shall only be pockets of 3G deployed.

While you are outside you may experience a 3G network but once you are inside home or office the service might fall back to 2G. And with internet on mobile revolution catching up in India it’s going to tough time ahead for the network and service providers.

It’s interesting to note that how India has missed entire internet revolution on computer and started catching it up on mobile phones. In few days people who never operated a computer shall start viewing videos on youtube. This is quite a revolution considering how people learnt using internet on mobile in rest of the world.

3G should be big relief to the enterprise customers as their blackberries will be beeping faster with increase in incoming email rate due to high speeds. Another market to look at is net-books. With 3G technology and net-books being cheap the combination will work excellent for students and for people who are on the move.

There will be a whole new era of prepaid internet soon. All this at what expense is the question. Unlimited plans, limited plans, all you can eat plans, fair usage policies! There shall be a whole new trend in India in next few months. Hope things turn out good.

Planning a Tour Abroad? Visa procedures are Not as Cumbersome as you Think!!!

Today’s article is a bit different – it is for people who want to go for vacations abroad, but don’t dare to do it just because most of them think, there are too many hassles involved in travelling (like visa, paperwork etc.).

However, the reality is that except for small number of countries (like U.S & U.K), it is just like going from one state to another in India. Many countries consider India as a more developed nation than theirs and allow Indians to visit their nations without the hassles of too much paper work in visa processing.

Let me explain the procedure to you in simple language – I will divide the requirements into three categories:

1. Visa not at all required in visiting some countries.
2. Visa is required but no procedure, just fly there and you get visa on arrival at immigration desk.
3. Visa is required to be taken prior to booking of a ticket.

Just because some country is allowing us, we don’t flock to that country. If you are travelling with tourism perspective, check if the destination country has any places of interest to you; if you a business visitor – check what economic opportunities await you there. Also keep a tab on your budget dynamics.

First category: Visa not at all required

The first category countries treat Indians at par with citizens of the USA, UK or any wealthy country. We just have to fly there or cross over the boundaries to reach there, simply holding our passport. We get in! It’s that simple. However we need to evaluate the requirement. The first country that comes to mind is Nepal. You can go there for tourism, business or visiting relative or any other reason. Or you can choose modern Hong Kong which do not require visa to stay for 14 days.

Second category: Visa is required but will be issued on arrival

The countries that come under this category have a system whereby they issue visa to every one (probably for their statistical record purposes), but they don’t harass you. You don’t have to visit their embassies in India. Just take your passport, buy a ticket, fly there and the immigration desk at airport will issue you a visa on arrival. No questions asked!! (Of course, they do ask you what the purpose of your visit is. Just say tourism!).

The most famous (rather infamous) example is Thailand. You get a 14 day visa on arrival. Just imagine visiting the infamous Sukhumvit area in Bangkok, the once again infamous walking street of Pattaya or the world famous flower capital of the world Chiang Mai, Thailand.

You can as well simply think about visiting one of the ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ – Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Or want to visit World famous African Safari in Savanna – Tanzania or Mozambique? Just arrive and get visa!! We are Indians after all, Not some poor other nationals :) !!

Third category: You need to get visa before you start.

You have to approach the Embassy in India, fill form, attach required documents, apply and get visa in a day to a week. Singapore and Malaysia are some of the examples.

In all, around 60 countries (out of the total 200 countries) fall in the first two categories. So, dear fellow Indians!! Don’t limit yourselves to homes. Now with the development of the country, you have disposable incomes, visit the places God has created for us, enjoy the beauty and praise the God for giving us so much.

The point I am trying to make by this posting is that travel always does not have to mean expensive countries (like Europe or the US). You can find some real gems of places going unnoticed in many places. Just do a little search on net and you will be surprised to find that with very little budget, you can bring smiles to your family or some times alone as well ;)

I have tried to put across the point that it’s not cumbersome to travel abroad.

Emerging Markets lead Global recovery [Report]

Fast emerging market of China saw its official purchasing manager’s index rise in March, beating expectations and pointing to brisk first quarter growth. Strong export growth and continued factory sector expansion points to an acceleration in industrial production. South Korea’s reported March exports rose 35.1% from a year earlier.

Coming to India, combined domestic passenger vehicle sales rose by 19.3% in March at 195805 units. Car sales have picked up pace since mid-2009 as the emerging market economies felt the first wave of optimism from the global recession.

China is back to high growth rate very near to double-digit percentage growth witnessed before the crisis. China is certainly leading the global growth as major western countries still reel under the pressures of economic slowdown.

According to the Grant Thornton IBR 2010 Report,

“A balance of +57% of privately held businesses (PHBs) in 14 of the world’s leading emerging markets indicated that they were optimistic about the prospects for their country’s economy in the year ahead. At the same time, a balance of just +2 per cent of businesses in mature economies indicated that they were optimistic. These figures compare with a global average of +24 per cent.”

According to the report, the prospect of economic recovery in emerging markets led by China and followed by India and other emerging markets, looks bright.

Economic Outlook over next 12 months

Russia comes third on the back of the abundance in its natural resource wealth. The growth rates over the next two years in emerging economies are forecasted to be double than that of mature economies.

The survey points out that China leads the way on the back of its huge consumer market, increasingly open economy and trade growth. The report also links a lead from emerging markets like Mexico and Brazil after China, India and Russia. Mexico’s appearance reflects from its substantial international trade and its relatively high standard of living.

Top 15 Countries with most opportunities of growth

China and India still stand out as the emerging markets with best opportunities, due to their GDP and population size. However, the survey states that poor access to finance and lack of highly-skilled workers can put a check on the growth prospects of emerging market economies.

TATA Crucible 2010 Hyderabad Edition

TATA CRUCUBLE 2010 HYDERABAD PRELIMS

1. Which car introduced in India was at that time Japan's largest selling car and was launched with the slogan "a car full of ideas"? MARUTI SUZUKI WAGONR

2. Which famous car from ford that created the 'pony car' has a horse as its logo and is compared with mustache? FORD MUSTANG

3. Identify the photo FORBES

4. Which aircraft company has been ranked by the Guinness World Book of Records as the producer of largest no. of aircrafts ever in the world since inception CESSNA

5. In 2003, Bunge ltd. acquired which iconic brand from Unilever? DALDA

6. Logo of FABER CASTELL

7. Which magazine is founded by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden TIME

8. The affluent society was a landmark book written by an American economist GALBRAITH

9. India's Politics: A view from the Back Bench is by BIMAL JALAN

10. Ad of BOROLIN

11. Image of Preetha Reddy: The enterprise she Heads APOLLO HOSPITALS

12. what was founded in 1952 by pacific mills & later became part of Kayser Roth and then gulf and Western Industries and now it is owned by Doald Trump? MISS UNIVERSE

13. What was the name of the plan which was set up in 1950 for cooperative economic development in South and South East Asia? COLOMBO PLAN

14. PNC is owned by PRITISH NANDY\

15. Which country is OPEC's largest oil exporter? SAUDI ARABIA

16. Ad of GARNIER FRUCTIS

17. Which organisation motto is "Service above self" and its secondary motto is "they profit most who serve best" ROTARACT

18. Which city is known as de facto " World Diamond capital" for handling 70% of Diamond trade? a) Dubai b) Antwerp c) Surat ANTWERP

19. Created in 2001 by a merger of Arbed(Luxemborg), Aceralia(Spain), and Usinor (France)

ARCELOR

20. Identify the Producer of the Movie "ALL THE BEST" AJAY DEVGAN

6 finalists were from SSIM: Sarkar, Rahul Kumar

Vasavi: Harsha Prasanna

NIT W: Krishnan, Shyamal Mishra

ISB: Bhargava & Sohail

VNR: Joice & T Shankar

IBS: Raja Satish & Angana Deb

With the changing rules and format of the quiz Pick Brain made the quiz so exciting and the teams on the stage were too close in the scores which made the quiz as interesting as an IPL match

And the winners were the ISB, runners IBS

IPL Toons

Union Budget 2010 Highlights

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee presented his career’s fourth budget and second straight budget for the UPA government this afternoon in the Parliament with a clear signal that India has notched a respectable growth coming out of the global recession.

At the same time, he stressed that now India needs to get back to the basics and ensure that the fiscal deficit is tamed and rolled-back to 5.5% in 2010-2011 and 4.8% and 4.1% in 2011-12 and 2012-13 respectively.

In the budget, the FM announced 46% of the plan allocation to be set aside for the infrastructure, stressing the need for the economy to meet inclusive and broad based growth.

Important Announcements of Union Budget 2010:

1) Aam Aadmi is Top Priority

Contrary to expectations, the FM has announced a major relief in tax slabs for the Indian middle class public at large as follows:

• No tax limit up to income of Rs.1.6 lakh.
• For income between 1.6 lakh to 5 lakh, the tax liability will be 10%.
• For income between 5 lakh to 8 lakh, the tax liability will be 20%.
• Individuals with income of above 8 lakh will have tax liability of 30%.

The government would allow of up to Rs. 20000 for investments in long-term infrastructure bonds in addition to exemption under Section 80C of IT Act. This measure of tweaking direct taxes in favor of tax-payers will ensure increased funds in the hands of public consequently leading to increased spending towards various goods and services.

2) Further Disinvesting stake in PSU

The government has managed to accumulate a whooping Rs.35000 crore by the way of disinvestments in public sector companies in the current fiscal. Further, the government aims to accumulate another Rs.25000 crore in the upcoming financial year. Slowly but steadily the government is moving forwards towards its plans of disinvestment and unlocking value in favor of country's economy in meeting its various social-sector demands.

3) No Oil Deregulation Yet: Excise Duty on Fuels

The FM has levied an excise duty of Re.1 per litre on petrol and diesel both and partial roll-back of excise duty on fuels to 10%. There was no policy announcement as to government’s stance of deregulation of crude oil prices as discussed in Kirit Parikh report. However, FM said that a decision would be arrived on the same in due course.

Breaking News:

Petrol prices to go up by Rs.2.71 per litre from tonight and Diesel prices to go up by Rs.2.55 per litre !

Interestingly, the news of fuel hike comes just within few hours of budget announcement by Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. Was FM not willing to disclose all oil-related sensitive issues in front of the Parliament?

Why this Cat and Mouse Game??

4) Delay in Implementation of GST

The Government has promised the implementation of GST and Direct Tax code by April 2011. The earlier scheduled date of GST implementation was April 2010 which hints at a substantial delay for a major goods and service related reform which in turn would phase-out other major taxes like excise duty, VAT, service tax, etc.

5) Rise in Excise Duty

While FM retained the service tax at 10%, he raised the excise duty by 2% to 10% on all non-oil products as a part of the effort to withdraw stimulus and create sources of funds to bring down the extent of fiscal deficit situation. Consumers will have to spend more on products like fuels, cars, televisions, cigarettes, and tobacco on account of increased excise duty. Even precious metals like Gold and Silver were not spared by the proposal to hike import duty.

6) Banking Licensing for NBFC

RBI will issue more banking licenses for setting up banks in the country to Non-Banking Financial Companies which fulfill the eligibility criteria. Non-banking companies like Reliance Capital, IDFC, Indiabulls Finance, and IFCI are some of the non-banking companies which are likely to benefit by this big reformist initiative by the RBI and the government of India.

7) Nominal Hike in Defense Budget

The government hiked the allocation for defense budget from Rs.141703 crore to Rs.147344 crore. This nominal hike may not be enough with rising chances of terrorist threats over the country and infiltration from neighboring countries. Last year the government had allocated over 35% increase in funds allocation to defense industry.

8) Timely Aid to Exporters

The FM has proposed to extend the interest subvention of 2% for one more year for exports covering handicrafts, carpets and leather, handicrafts, hand-looms and SMEs. With the global economy witnessing a sharp recession recently and a subsequent stabilization signs, it may not be as bad an idea to give extended support to export oriented units for some more time to come.

9) Rise in MAT

While exporters benefited from interest subventions scheme announced by the FM, the IT industry remains negatively impacted export-oriented outsourcing firms as the much anticipated extension of STPI benefits did not come through. That apart, the rise in MAT from 15% to 18% will more so impact the small and mid-size IT companies.

10) Beyond the Realty

FM announced concessions to developers for seeking tax concessions on existing projects and relaxed norms for built-up area. I feel rather than allowing real estate players in sustaining the high property pricesby allowing concessions, the government should ask them to bring down property prices and increase their sales in the bid to clear-up over-supply in real estate market.

11) Healthy Allocation

The government allocated Rs.22, 300 crore for the health sector for the upcoming financial year 2010-11, a 13.5% hike since last year’s allocation to the growing needs of fast emerging health sector. The FM said that the country was set to conduct a national health survey next fiscal.

12) Rise in Education Funding

Pranab Mukherjee announced a rise of about 15% in allocation to the expenses related to Education at Rs.31, 036 crore as against Rs.26, 800 crore previous year. However, the minister confirmed that a major part of this funding would go in to implementation of the Right to Education Act.

13) Allocation towards Developmental Plans

Centre has allocated Rs.40, 100 crore towards spending on National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme which finds only a nominal rise from allocation in the previous year. Allocation for urban development has been upped 75% from Rs.3062 crore to Rs.5400 crore. Allocation for Bharat Nirman is announced at Rs.48000 crore.

Thus, a subdued effort by the government in upping the incremental spending in social sector programs (except urban development and power utility) shows FM’s concern towards high fiscal deficit which needs to be tamed at the cost of social sector schemes.

14) Service Tax Exemption for News Agencies

Finance minister announced the exemption of service tax for the specific news agencies like for instance the accredited news agencies which provides news feed online thus providing yeoman services of disseminating news. This will give a boost in the arm for genuine news agencies involved in loyal news distribution.

Other Important Highlights of Union Budget 2010

1. UID authority given Rs.1900 crore.
2. Funds for power allocation raised from Rs.2232 crore to Rs.5132 crore
3. Government to facilitate 20000 MMW of solar power by 2022
4. Government to provide Rs.300 crore for agriculture impetus.
5. Nutrient based fertilizer subsidy scheme to come into force from April 1.
6. Five mega food parks to be set up.
7. Rs.500 crore for Clean Ganga mission.

What got Expensive & what’s Cheaper Now?

Imposition & Roll-back of Excise duty has made certain products expensive while leaving others products cheaper than before. Let’s have a glance at the products which have been hit and benefited by measures announced by FM:

Cheaper than Before:

1. Mobile Phones
2. Agricultural Equipments
3. Set Top boxes
4. Toys
5. Books
6. Medical Equipment
7. CFL Bulbs
8. Compact Disc (CD)

Dearer than Before:

1. Consumer products like TV and AC.
2. Large Cars, SUVs and MUVs.
3. Petrol and Diesel
4. Cigarettes and Non-smoking Tobacco
5. Gold and Silver
6. Flying by Air

Union Budget and Stock Markets

The FM has managed to allay fears of the stock markets & Foreign Institutional Investors on account of rising fiscal deficit at 6.8% of GDP (add off-budget subsidies) by announcing that the deficit would be brought down to 5.5% next fiscal and further lower to 4.8% and 4.1% in couple of years following there after.

The equity markets gave a standing ovation to the government in seeking to address the long term concerns of the economy with transparent targets and measures needed for next few years. The BSE Sensex recorded a smart 175 points rally on the bourses today, to close at 16430, up 1.08% as compared to yesterday’s price.

• Reliance Capital, IFCI (Up 8%) – NBFC looking for banking license
• Moser Baer (Up 7%) – Compact Discs getting less expensive
• Hanung Toys (Up 3.5%) – Toys getting cheaper
• Bata India (Up 13%) – Leather products to get cheaper
• REC (Up 5%) – Doubled power sector allocation with rural bias.
• LIC Housing Finance (Up 4%)- Governmental thrust on housing finance.
• GMR Infra, L&T (Up 2-3%) – Governmental thrust on Infra Spending.
• Suzlon Energy, Websol Energy (Up 5-7%)–Budget’s thrust on renewable energy.
• All 2 and 4 Wheelers (Up 4-6%) – Increased spending capacity in hands of consumers

Indian Temples Getting ISO Certified !!!!

Temples are seeking professionalism. Nope, they are not asking for prayers to be professional, but as sacred as ever. In fact, they are willing to provide certain standardized, transparent and devoted services to the people in the name of the God.

Three well-known Temples from Chennai- Parthasarthy temple in Triplicane, Dhandayudhapani temple in Vadapalani and Kapaleeswarar temple in Mylapore- have applied for ISO 9000:2008 certification on account of being well-maintained temples from the city. The three temples have included their fixed assets, accounts and strict adherence to rituals for scrutiny for ISO.

The cleaning and mopping of Kapaleesswarar and Parthasarathy temples have been outsourced to a private firm. A popular hotel chain ‘Saravana Bhavan’, maintains the Vadapalani temple free of cost.

ISO 9001:2008 is a document of standards for quality management systems maintained by the International Organization for Standardization and is administered by accreditation and certification bodies. Some of the requirements in ISO 9001:2008 include:

1. A set of procedures that cover all key processes in the business;
2. Monitoring processes to ensure they are effective;
3. Keeping adequate records;
4. Checking output for defects
5. Regularly reviewing individual processes
6. Facilitating continual improvement

Even before these three famous Chennai temples applying for ISO certification, the temples to have already joined the band wagon for this professional certification are Lord Ganesha’s Siddhi Vinayaka Temple in Coimbatore which is, surprisingly, just a 16×16 square foot temple.

A 180-years-old temple of Shri Ram Mandir in Madhya Pradesh boasts of ISO 9001-2008 certification for its exquisite idols and wonderful ambience for the devotees for offering prayers. The Golden Temple in Vellore is also ISO certified temple.