Reflections

Tell Me Why is the name of a rare gem of a magazine from the house of Manorama... it is indeed unfortunate that it is not more popular... but more about that later First, the magazine itself. It is a monthly issue which gives 100+ facts about one single chosen topic every month. Sounds very drab and boring, doesn't it? It is, in fact, anything but drab. The beauty is in the presentation as well as the content. The presentation is very slick, upmarket, printed on quality paper, the layout very brisk and to the point with full colour features on every single page. That alone makes it sound interesting. If you add to it the content, it becomes a superb magazine. So much so, that while we throw away the other magazines - this is one that is carefully stored away as a future reference material, fun reading and most importantly reading material for our son when he is old enough to understand. The real beauty is in the content: it is simpe in its wording, the facts mentio...

http://www.empireofthemoghul.co.uk/authors.html About the Author Alex Rutherford is the pen name of Diana and Michael Preston About the Series This is the first book in a five-part series of Historical Fiction novels based on the Mughal Empire - how it was established under Babur, moving on to the tribulations of Humayun in the second book followed by the golden era of Akbar in the third. The fourth and fifth books deal with Jehangir and Shahjahan respectively The Concept of the Historical Fiction Novel This series has been categorized as a historical fiction novel, which means basically that it is based on historical fact, is generally true to events, especially the major events; includes all principal characters and stays true to established history. The historical basis is on documented Autobiographies of Mughal Emporers, third party accounts of visting Europeans as well as other established historical documents. The fiction part comes in 2 f...

I have penned some 3 posts on Retail so far, and forwarded the following assumptions: Organised Retail will not kill the Kirana Format The two can co-exist I had occasion to visit the market today to stock up on provisions, and I decided to cross-check my personal hypothesis by talking to a Reliance Fresh Outlet and a couple of my regular Kirana Stores. These are almost next door to me, and more importantly, are less than 100 yards from an EasyDay Superstore The Kirana Owner was pretty candid in his analysis. He said "Dhanda kam hone kaa to sawaal hi paida nahi hota sir. Peheli baat to har cheez ke daam badh rahein hain, doosri baat hum graahak ke baju mein hi baithhe hain. Pichhle teen saal mein humaaraa dhandaa to badhaa hi hai, ghataa nahi. Itnaa zaroor hai ki kisi din 5000 ka maal biktaa hai to kisi din 3000 kaa. " Translation: Business has gone up in the past 3 years. I asked him about the past 3 years simply because it has been around 3-5 years since...

We can glean a few pertinent observations from the categorywise break-up of the current status of Organised Retail. I have surmised in my earlier blog post that the Kirana Stores threat does not exist. The key drivers of business in the Organised Retail sector can be said to be: Clothing Footwear Consumer Durables Home Appliances and Equiments Furnishings, Utensils, Furniture Watches Jewellery - new Entrant A simple observation of the shops on offer in various malls, organised retail chains will throw up the above categories that are present as major drivers. We can list a number of competitors in Clothing, or Footwear. A simple observation of our - and our family and neighbours' purchasing habits will prove my point. In Clothing, we have Fashion Bazaar, Westside, Peter England, Vishal MegaMart, Koutons, ITC, Benetton, Raymond to name but a few.  In other Categories, you have Vijay Sales, Welspun, FabIndia, Lotus, Next, DigiWorld etc etc. The point is the current vo...

This current train of thought has been triggered by India's seventh straight overseas loss - personally I am prepared for 8-0, and expecting 16-0 abroad - but it did bring my mind around to the terrible run India is having as a nation. For the past 2 years, we have been buffeted like never before! On a lighter note, one has to wonder how much longer is this pluperfect run of bad luck going to continue. (Lets hope the use of the the past-perfect grammer as in "pluperfect" can turn things around...) Wondering what the hell I am talking about? Well, just go through the bullet points below! I hope this train of thoughts has just been triggered by India's cricket loss, and is a figment of my imagination, a hallucination if you will, brought about by a bout of depression!  It all started in 2008, with the stock market crash Cash for votes scam Satyam November 2008 - Mumbai. Need I say more on this?  Satyam continued in 2009 Mining scam 2G Scam Adarsh Housi...

A chance telephone conversation with a friend of my childhood days reminded me of this timeless classic I had forgotten about... Amar Chitra Katha, the comic collection that was my passion during my childhood days. Those days I would consider trips to the railway station to be a joy- not because we were going on a journey, or I was getting an outing - but because I would get to purchase a couple of titles of Amar Chitra Katha comics. If my Dad was in an expansive mood, I might even get to treat myself to more than 2! It was always an occasion for me - I would get to read something on a priority, I would get to be the first to touch and open it! My brother would have to wait for his turn... The comic book series is unique since it carries tales of Indian Culture, History, Fables, Religion, Humour, Biographies and Heritage, sporting titles like the ones below: In retrospect, I now realise that I learnt a lot from the Amar Chitra Katha Comic Series. I learnt abou...

'via Blog this' http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article2796285.ece?homepage=true State performs well in polio eradication - The Times of India : The article that enlightened me https://apps.facebook.com/wpsocialreader/me/channels/trending/content/p3kU5 India has completed one full year without a single polio case... a tremendous achievement by India! Let us all rejoice in this great news! India was recording between 50000 and 150000 cases until as late as 1995 - and in 17 short years, this has been reduced to ZERO! Tremendous! We are used to calling the government names for non-performance, corruption et al, but this is once that our government has delivered - so let us give them their due. And it was a superb campaign- not a single avenue of contacting people was left untouched. Television, Magazines, Vernacular language newpapers, handouts, brochures, doctor's pamphlets, banners, hoardings, movie theater ads, direct people contact right till the l...