Karthik Writes..

IPL this three letter word has chang ed the fortunes of many cricketers and non cricketers. Why non cricketers ?.Its because of the involvement of the Bollywood and Corporates this time. The eight teams are owned by them and they run business with them. For more info visit www.iplt20.com IPL 2 has been made a great one especially for the man who was been behind this - Lalit modi . Its actually a great guts move to have the tournament shifted from India which is what the "I" in IPL stands for to South Africa. A move against the Politicians of India. The tournament was on the verge of being Cancelled due to the elections during the same time. But it was the business man in Modi and using his good offices made the move of shifting the tournament itself and thereby giving a nose cut to the politicians. That two in a very short span of time .Really great Ability. IPL has been more of a smash hit last year when it gained a huge fan following. It also brought to light...

Singh is king...this is not about the Akshay starter movie, but about out very Dr. Manmohan Singh who has been given the mandate to rule the country for the second term. Manmohan singh was criticised as much as possible by the opposition as being weak or a puppet etc . etc. But the people have reestablished the trust on Manmohan Singh. Manmohan Singh may not be a great orator and cannot Woe people by taking, but ha has his own way of governing and it was spotted by none other than the late Rajiv gandhi who made him the Finance minister in 1990. Manmohan Singh opened india to the world and thus brought in the Globalisation which by far has more positives than negatives. Considering the Present scenarion when corruption and caste rule the political arena Manmohan Singh appears to be a man not associated with these. The BRAND Manmohan Singh is something which the comman man can associate with himself and has rightly done so. Never under estimate the man in Manmohan Sing...

Its election 2009 and after the D Day its time for Horse trading. We have seen this happening time and again and this is the same scenario that the Common man has to encounter after he has done his job. What else can he do after Elections. These days I believe people are slowly losing faith in the whole system. Elections have been mar ed with Violence, Cash for votes, Cast clashes and every year the voter turnout seems to have decreased . This year too Elections are No different. Alliances are made and broken in a jiffy. Some parties are always in power no matter if its NDA or the UPA is at power. So in these cases we really doubt if they really have any stand for themselves and the most obvious thing is to mint money. Come Elections and only those who are very keen on voting are the first time voters. No doubt they are excited in exercising their franchise for the first time ever . Their hopes or short lived and they are made to feel as to why have they voted. I strongly feel tha...

Though there were lot of compliments to the Film  " Jodaa Akbar" one of the Asutosh Gauriker's film  the fact that it was a period film kept me away from this for some time. Even though I had a moderate liking for History and the Mughal dynasty which ruled India for long, a Hindi film set at this outset was not on my list. Having seen the other two Asutosh Gowrikar's films namely " Swades " and " Lagaan " and being a favourite of really well made films,I was still not sure whether I should see this Classic on little known Jodaa , a Rajput Prince until my friend said it was really good and even went to the extent of saying its a "not be missed" category. I started my hunt for the DVD of this Film and met with failures in my first few tries. Luckily I got hold of a copy in the next few weeks and started to watch the film with very less expectation and also with a neutral mindset. On completion here I am writing this blog. In all it...

Every Indian news Channel , started following the Oscars with keen interest this year, more so because this year we have an Indian(?) film the Slumdog Millionnaire being nominated for a whooping number (10 ?) of Oscars. Getting nominated for Oscars is certainly not a new thing for Indian film in recent times going by Lagaan and another film by Mira nair I guess which went into the Academy for nomination. But strangely I am really puzzled by the sense of Pride that we show towards this Award. This is really an American award given BY the Americans, FOR the American films and TO the American film world( Thanks to Kamal Hasan who coined this phrase in line with democracy definition) which has excelled as per their knowledge of best workmanship in line with their culture. Of course their is one Award in the Category of best Foreign film What according to me should change is that the point that only if it is recognised by the American world , should be think that film or artist t...

As I sit down to write this blog after a month when my father was critically ill and was hospitalised, I still could not hide behind the kind of commercialism that had come into the medical field. Also the doctors whom I met no longer do this as a service but as a means to their end and also to the extent of accumulating and reserving for their heirs.  There was one old doctor I had to encounter whom I met on a night in the wake of emergency due to my fathers health condition who after treating him as slowly as possible(I was really frustrated with the slowness he exhibited in dealing a emergency case) was grossly engrossed in counting the cash collected for the day after instructing his nurse.  Also when asked again and again on the health condition replied that he can be admitted if I want to do so.(He left it to my discretion !!!) Again the next morning as there was no signs of improvement I had him admitted.  Later during the day when this doctor came for his rounds when asked on s...

Keep insurance and investments separate A N Shanbhag We have often pointed out and will do so once more - we are not in favour of any plan from whichever insurance company that seeks to combine insurance and investment. Such a blend, without exception, tends to be sub-optimal. It is always better to keep insurance and investments separate. All endowment, whole life policies and ULIPs are examples of combination insurance plans. On the other hand, a term insurance plan has no cash payout at the end of the term. This means if the policyholder were to pass away during the term of the policy, his family will get the sum assured. However, were he to survive he will not get a single rupee. In other words, term cover is pure life insurance and has no cash or surrender value. If this is indeed the case, why do we favour term insurance as against a traditional endowment or whole life policy which, at least pays, at the end of the day, no matter what, either the sum assured or the maturity value...