Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Those spaceships are long lost!


The IT bubble burst long back, and with it, did many fortunes...

The last decade of 1990s was a dream run for internet start-ups, and anything even faintly related to “.com” syndrome would be lapped by investors like hot cakes, without paying much heed to what the company does or the kind of potential it holds. This was where the bubble began, and this was in itself responsible for its bursting! It began in 1995, peaked on March 10, 2000 when the NASDAQ reached 5,048.62 points before bursting... During this entire period, the stock markets of US and other western countries saw the bulls in total control, especially with regards to the Internet and technology companies. Moreover, most of the Internet companies that were aggressive during these times were financed either by VCs or IPOs. And when this bubble burst, there was mayhem at the stock markets. What triggered the burst of this bubble was a massive multi-billion dollar simultaneous sell order from leading technology companies such as Dell, Cisco and IBM. Though it is said that this initial sell-off was just a coincidence, but it was too strong for investors at the NASDAQ to handle. Between March 2000 and October 2002, the Internet and technology companies shed a whopping $5 trillion in market value!

Different analysts have their own reasons as to what led to the crash-landing. Some say that it was a result of the ‘irrational crowd behavior’ that led people to believe that there was substantial value to be made in this field of business. Others however feel that this was a result of lack of information about this new domain, and their inability to ascertain the asset value, which drove rational people to commit this mistake. According to Rob Enderle, Technology Analyst, “The Dot com bubble burst, because it was feeding frenzy on Internet stocks and investments without any adequate financial controls or acceptable business practices. Folks acted like they were going to be measured on how much money they could spend in the shortest period of time.” Another opinion points out that the business model that these Internet companies followed at that time was flawed. 


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.


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Sunday, December 9, 2012

WAR: AFGHANISTAN AND SURROUNDING AREAS

History shows Dutch have been more successful than Americans

They call themselves ‘flower strewers’, establishing themselves as a compassionate friend of the locals and targeting to isolate the Taliban influence from the region. The result has been quite encouraging with a jaw dropping black statistic – only 6 Dutch soldiers died in 2008 in Afghanistan, compared to 51 British, 32 Canadian and 155 American soldiers. The Dutch idea of ‘development engaging locals’ is reaping rich dividend. The Dutch strategy involved actually holding themselves back for a year to intellectually understand the complexities – social, economic, political, demographic etc – of the region from a distance. Consequently, when they finally occupied the region in 2008, it was without any resistance – even the Taliban restrains themselves from interference, and not surprisingly.

From opening schools in the region, raising the attendees from 12,000 to 50,000, building 100 health centres with 31 doctors (previously the figure was just 2!) and making infant mortality rate drop from 36% to 25%, the Dutch are procreating ‘socially’ like nobody’s business. If Obama needs to really get it up, we think the Dutch would have no issues giving him the blue pill.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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Friday, December 7, 2012

WORLD: FOOD WASTE

Mind your wallet if you waste...

To make the matter worse, rather horrifying, this phenomenon is not just confined to the US but can be felt and found across the globe. Consider this: half of Australia’s landfill is made out of food waste. Likewise more than 30% (worth £10 billion) of all food purchased in the UK never reaches destination (read: the stomach), 30% of total fish is lost in Africa due to discards, post-harvest loss and spoilage. If one collects all the food found in bins in the UK, the whole of Wembley stadium can be covered eight times in a year! Japan leads the race hands down by wasting 20 million tons of food annually. The other side of the story is even more interesting. The University of Arizona believes that if Americans cut their food waste by 50%, it would reduce the environmental impact by 25%, while researches in the UK estimate that if food wastage is contained, the reduction in CO2 emission would be equivalent to pulling off 20% of cars from the UK’s roads! The whole contention of donating 0.7% of GDP to developing countries will be redundant if the Hayashi Ya model is replicated all across. What an idea Hayashi Ya!


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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Thursday, December 6, 2012

It’s raining ashes in Oz...

Global Warming rears its ugly head in Australia, leaving a trail of death and destruction!

The pictures of the Australian bush fires leave nothing to one’s imagination of the most feared and dreaded place – Hell! The southwest of the island has been engulfed by the rampant infernos consuming all that comes in their scorching path and reducing it to plain ashes. Over 170 deceased, 500 injured and 5,000 left homeless; the worst natural disaster in the country’s history has already claimed 9,01,935 acres by leaving it bare and charred. The ashes and flames have rendered The Victoria state government in a state of frenzy, forcing it to scrutinise the causes of the fire and also assess the existing bush fire safety guidelines. So devastating can be the effects of global warming...

With 80% of land receiving less than 600 mm/year of rain, and potential evaporation being greater than 2,500 mm/year, the driest inhabited continent suffering from extreme heat waves and severe droughts proves to be an easy prey for these ruthless conflagrations. It’s surprising that Australia is not new to such incinerating wildfires. In fact, the increasing frequency and intensity of such mishaps is getting apparent due to climate change. Well, if that’s not alarming enough, here’s a glimpse of some facts. There have been enough early warnings through reports published by the


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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Wednesday, December 5, 2012

I just can't wait to be King!

Not a single seat won yet, but the PM candidates are ready

The final outcome of 15th Lok Sabha is still unclear, but, in his eagerness, L. K. Advani had already passed a proposal of becoming future PM six months ago in an NDA meeting and even started meeting titans of industry. However, with the assembly poll debacle in Delhi and Rajasthan; the confidence of the saffron brigade has ruptured. On the other hand, Left parties, who were aggressively pushing for Mayavati as future PM, now, feel that it is quite difficult to build a consensus on Behanji.

An internal survey by BJP and RSS reflected that the party might get 96-106 parliamentary seats in the coming Lok Sabha elections, much below the former tally of 113 seats. Even upper house members of the party were advised to participate in the coming elections to improve poll prospects. But the real drama unfolded when former VP Bhairon Singh Shekhawat showed his desire to participate in the upcoming elections.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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Monday, December 3, 2012

Next G8: Star Cruise

The summit will also include paragliding, water sports, bungee lessons

With passing time, experts now concur that French premier, and (hyper)active G8 member Nicholas Sarkozy has started looking – and behaving – eerily similar to Sylvester Stallone [Go ahead, give it a try; identify sweet Nick in the photograph]. Funnily, this behavioural similarity extends to the whole G8 belt [US, Japan, Germany, France, UK, Canada, Italy, Russia and Ethiopia... er, alright, if you caught us on this, read on, you seem to be interested], with almost every member contributing his Shylockian best to behaving like a spoilt celebrity during every summit, finally achieving nothing. So we did what we do best [no no, not that; Bush does that better] – we analysed the progress report of the past few summits to decipher what exactly has been achieved in terms of contribution to least developed nations!

G8 summit in Birmingham, England, 1998: Protesters for the first time were formally allowed to give a written letter, which requested G8 to work on the heavy debt burden of the third world. Letter accepted, case dismissed! Nothing much was discussed, leave of course the letter. Cologne, Germany, 1999: To prove that they were worried about poverty, an ‘officially’ undisclosed amount was sanctioned. According to World Bank, the ‘sanction’ was so small that it wasn’t enough to even provide five bread loaves per person per year per poor country. Okinawa, Japan, 2000: Aid amount invested in projects: Close to nil; evidently because of billions spent on militarisation of north-east Asia. Genoa, Italy, 2001: Progress on debt cancellation: Nil! Massive protests took the blame, rather than the G8 members.

Kananaskis, Canada, 2002: Among many important issues, NEPAD [New Partnership for Africa’s Development] was also on agenda. $64 billion was requested, but only $6 billion was sanctioned. The reason? Russia requested – and was presumably given – $20 billion for the upkeep of the Russian nuclear stockpiles.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.



 
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Sunday, December 2, 2012

VIRGIN FACTS

Invaluable advice, incredible truth and inspirational guide from a dyslexic

Sir Richard Branson, a man who built an over eight billion dollar conglomerate from scratch in eight different sectors, and one whose brand Virgin tried to take on world’s biggest super brands. Branson now provides a true, candid, remarkable and original guide to success both in business and life, through his book Business Stripped Bare.

As someone who never went to a University, Sir Richard has radical views on education. Committed to excellence and expertise in business, he argues in Business Stripped Bare why some University degrees can’t be finished more quickly, why students are left to their own devices much of the time without direction from tutors, lecturers, and professors, and why entrepreneurial thinking is not a part of the curriculum in universities and colleges. In entrepreneurial business, a conservative mind-set will be hamstring, defensiveness will weaken and a failure to face facts will kill. Entrepreneurial business favours the open mind. It favours people whose optimism drives them to prepare for many possible futures. Branson believes that a great deal of entrepreneurship can be taught, and that we desperately need to teach it, as we together confront the huge global challenges of the following centuries.

Sir Richard lays emphasis on innovation and illustrates how on April Fool’s Day 2008, the launch of Virgle was announced, a partnership between Virgin and Google, looking at creating a community on Mars in the next 15 years. Virgle was advertising for volunteers to travel on a one-way ticket to Mars. It was concocted over dinner at Necker and is about the creation of a human colony on Mars.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.

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