Life Insurance, Health Insurance & Investments planning you need

What aspects of life you need to plan ?

- Save Tax. You may end up paying 10% to 25% of your total yearly earnings as Income Tax. Instead of paying taxes you can invest your money in schemes that will not only save your tax but also give you high returns. So double benefit. If you you do it every year then you will have lot of saving s.

- Life Insurance: As you are an important earning member of your family or will make a family, it is must for you to secure the future of your family in case of your Death or Disability. Earlier you plan, more you save. If you are interested in pure Insurance cover for yourself I suggest to go for Term Assurance & Whole Life Limited payment policies. I believe that you should have life insurance cover of at least 10 times your average Yearly Salary though 20 times is recommended as your salary will increase in future.

- Health care - is most important planning aspect because in India Health care problems are the highest along with highest risk of accidents. Secondly in India we have so many relatives and in case of difficulty it will be almost necessary for you to contribute lot of money for their health care. Listening things like my mother or close relative has major operation etc. is very common. Even if you take care of your health, others around you may not. It is necessary to invest in health care plans like Mediclaim for yourself, your wife, children as well as parents. Many such schemes now offer Cashless treatment, i.e. in case of problem just show the Health insurance card to the hospital staff and they will carry cashless treatment if the cost is less then the insured cost. In Rs.10-15k per annum you may be able to pay for the health insurance of your complete family.

Investment - Company invest on your behalf in PF already for you but this amount may not be significant. So you need to invest more specially to meet your future bulk money requirement. Once you grow you will need to pay large sums for Children education, Marriage, Foreign travel, Valuable item purchase or emergencies. Hence if you have some investments you may withdraw them in future to meet these needs. At present investment in Tax saving Mutual Funds and ELSS (also like mutual funds) is considered best investment option. Many people think that these are risky but overall they have very less risk but better returns. More then 95% of the people who have invested in Mutual funds have benefited. All long term investors are expected to always benefit.

Sattayanarayan Bhagwan Katha (Holy Story)

Sattyanarayan (Name of God) Puja (Prayer) is part of Hindu’s life in India. Sattyanarayan Katha (a narration of true happenings heard from one generation to other) include some interesting narrations that present how important it is for everyone to do Satyanarayanan’s Puja and what can be the implications of ignoring it.

This Puja is performed by a pundit ( the Hindu Priest) or by yourself. It is firmly believed that by performing this Puja your wishes will come true and you will be prosperous.

I would like to only tell about some part of the story that i remember that i heard directly from the pundit.

Part 5 of the story:

- A Businessman visits a River, where he finds lot of people are standing, he inquire and finds that the King is doing a Puja. He asks the King as what is this Puja. Kings tells him that he is performing Sattayanarayan Bhagwan(the lord) Puja, Because he has everything in his empire like Wealth, Prosperity and Happiness but no Child. By performing this Puja he will get a Child (Santan in Hindi).

- The businessman tell the King, that he wish King will certainly get a Child from this Puja. He tells that he himself is also in need for a child and would like to learn how to perform the Puja. The King tells him the procedure to perform the Puja (it is very good to teach others how to perform puja).

- After learning how to perform the Puja, the businessman returns to his home and tells his wife Leelavati (Wife’s name) that he has learned about Satyanarayanan Puja which will certainly result in they, having a child (preferably Son). The wife is happy and tells her husband to perform the Puja.

- After reviewing the spendings for the Puja, The businessman feels, what if he did not get a child after doing the Puja. He will make a loss, so he decides that he will do the Puja after getting the Child (preferably Son).

-The lord, Sattayanarayan (The lord can see everything thats happening in this world) hearing his miserly observations, fulfills his wish to have a child. Soon a Girl Child takes birth and they name it Kalavati. The Leelavati , the wife of the businessman tells her husband to do the puja as he had promised . The businessman again reviews the cost of doing the Puja and then tell that he had asked for a Son but got a daughter, its fine but lets do puja once the daughter gets married.

- 20 years pass, and their daughter gets young to marry. The businessman sends his person to a town to find a suitable match for her daughter. Soon he gets a suitable match and the businessman do a big function and completes the marriage of his daughter.

- After marriage , Leelavati again tells her husband to do the Puja as he promised, but the businessman again ignores it. Now the lord Satyanarayanan is very unhappy with the businessman and plans to teach him a lesson.

- Soon Businessman leaves for business with his son in law, by sea to a new empire called Chandra gupt ( the name of the King). While doing business they earn lots and lots of money (Gold) and were planning to return back by the ship (small in size).

- By the curse of the lord Sattayanarayan, a theft happens in the empire of Chandra Gupt and the thieves while escaping the soldiers of the king, throw the stolen goods in the ship of the businessman.

- The soldiers of the king finds the stolen goods in the ship and catches the businessman and his son in law and take them to the King. The King without thinking on the case, due to the effect of the Sattayanarayan put them in the prison with hard work and takes away all the money (Gold) they had earned.

- The Leelavati and her daughter Kalavati become deserted to find that their husband have not returned even after very long. Also some theft happen in their home and all their money is lost. This make it necessary for the Kalavati to work as servant to earn the living.

- Kalavati while working as a servant in one Brahmin family (the priest family) learns about the Sattayanarayan Puja and tells her mother about this. Instantly her mother Leelavati, remembers that this is the same Puja that her husband had talked about but never performed.

-She immediately realize that it is due to the curse of the lord Sattayanarayan, that all this is happening in her family. She immediately collect all her resources and performs the puja with full heart and wish the lord to return her husband, son in law and her family’s prosperity.

- The lord, Sattayanarayan become very happy with her Puja, and immediately come in the dream of the King, and instructs him to immediately release the businessman and his son in law and return their wealth and if he do not do it, then the lord will destroy his wealth and kingdom.

- The king terrified with the instructions, immediately release them in the morning, give them good cloths to wear, gives them double the money (gold) that he had confiscated from them. He tells them that they got detained due to some unfortunate incident and are being released.

- The businessman and his son in law now plans to return to their home with the ship. Their ship was now heavy with lot of gold.

- The lord Sattayanarayan, now plans to test the businessman, if he has become loyal. The lord become a weak Holy man and goto the businessman to ask for some money (it is custom to give some part of the money/food one earns, to the holy man in Hindu religion), The businessman ignore him and tell that he has no money. The holy man tells him that, he will be happy with whatever he may have in his ship. The businessman tells that he has useless plants and leaves in his ship to avoid the holyman. The lord (in the form of holy man) says “Ta-thastu” (As you wish) and immediately the complete Gold in the ship becomes useless plants and leaves. The holy man leaves them and sits near the sea shore.

- The ship become light and start rising in water (as gold got converted into plants), observing this the businessman and his son in law go inside the ship to check their gold but only finds the useless plants and leaves. They immediately realize that the holyman was the lord and goto him.

- They pray him to forgive them. The lord forgive them and convert plants back to the Gold. The businessman now decides to go back home immediately. They also send the messenger to their home to tell about their arrival date and time.

- Learning that their husbands will come back, Leelavati and Kalavati plans to perform Sattayanarayan Puja again. They quickly perform the puja and Leelavati immediately leaves for the sea shore to look for the ship.

- The lord , create a storm that make the people waiting at the shore believe that the ship of the businessman has drowned.

- The Leelavati prays to the lord, as why is this happening to her , even after she performed the puja. The lord, tells the Leelavati that this storm happened because she left the Puja in between without taking the Prasad (the sweet desert served at the end of the Puja). She immediately returns to home and completes the Puja. Immediately the storm ends and her husband and son in law return back.

This is just one part (but the main and longest part) (5th part) of the complete Sattayanarayan katha. I wrote this in this blog because while hearing the Puja, a thought came to my mind, “why not write this story on the internet blog for people to read”.

I prayed to the lord Satyanarayanan to help me in expanding my internet business and I will in return write a blog on his name. (normally people will promise to do Satyanarayanan Puja) but I think by writing a blog, I will get the similar benefit by letting billions of people learn about the lord Satyanarayanan and their Puja.

I hope the lord will guide me in future to write more about his Puja and Katha. Please respect this narration and let other read it, like a holy book and avoid giving comments and exploring logic behind the story.

If you like to learn more about Sattayanarayan Katha & Puja, you are happy to contact me.

Dieting, Loosing Weight, Excercise, How to

How to loose weight & keep yourself in shape ?

This article relates to my personal experience that may relate to many Indians.

The life in India is quite complex compared to other parts of the world. We live with so many strings attached to us that actually, Life drives us instead of we driving it.

There are several key things that one need to take control on before one can Drive his life. I will discus few of them in my blogs, but here I talk about one of them which is your Weight …

- Being Fat is a big social stigma that will significantly effect how you life and taking control over it is most important. If you cannot control your weight, then forget driving your life on your own. Is is easiest thing you can do to take control over your life.

There are many ways suggested to loose weight but 2 most important ones are:

- Exercise
- Dieting

All other modes have little or no success. People who fail to use one of the above effectively try them.

Most Indian’s firmly believe that Exercising is the best way to loose weight. First generation of Indians who grew-up after independence (mainly in villages) firmly believe and utilize exercising to loose weight. They have put is well in their children’s mind that this is the most effective way to loose weight.

Also this first generation believe that dieting is the worst way to loose weight and should never be practiced. Hence second generation is well programmed to use Exercising as the best method of weight loss.

But the life style of the second generation is very different as the India developed in towns. They grewup in towns and were not accustomed to hard work, waking up early etc. during their childhood. Hence they do not have natural capacity to exercise, physical work and village type work schedule. They wake up late and sleep late. Also many of them work in call center, software companies where you just sit in a chair form moorning to evening.

The result, increase in weight.

First generation (the parents) who grew up more in villages and small towns, specially in environment where mal-nourishment was a big issue, have learned to eat oily, cheese, milky, sweet food. and they are on a mission to fill it up into their children to the max capacity possible as if these things will expire from this world like oil.

Almost all of them have no knowledge of the effects of extra nutritions in the body.

The result, increase in weight.

Now how do you fight this situation, loose weight, keep yourself healthy.

- Everyone try to exercise, but only few succeed.

- 90% of the people find it very difficult in first few days and just leave it and try some other methods.

- Some plan that they will now walk more and that will mean enough exercise to loose weight

- Some people buy a cycle and think that by sitting on cycle comfortably and paddling, they will loose weight.

- Some strong people try it for a month or two, they loose few Kgs, then they find it little difficult to continue, or they want to celebrate the success, and leave it.

- Some people regularly do it, but after doing lot of exercise one day, they think they are now eligible to eat one ice cream, cheese burger or cake. They eat more sugar and oil while they exercise and their weight actually increase instead of decreasing. Some parents encourage children to exercise and eat oily fatty diet.

- Some people get sick because of exercise and they say bye bye to it for life.

- Some people join the special weight loss programs, they loose weights. they come back and within a year they gain weight again.

- In most big towns in India, there is little space to walk . No footpaths, bad roads. So walking cannot be part of your daily life. I observed in Hong Kong, Taiwan that most people use metro trains and need to walk 1 or more miles everyday from station to home and office. No need to 2 wheelers.

- AND SOME PEOPLE LEARN THE TRICKS OF THE GAME AND REMAIN HEALTHY EVER AFTER.

What are my suggestions and experiences ?

- I too started with the exercise , i use to run or walk few kilometers and also started learning how walking will help me loose weight.

- As a firm believer in scientific approach I learned the complete calorie theory of weight gain and loss. As a person good in maths, i could see numbers of calories each food add, each kilometer of walk reduce and much more. I started doing number crunching.

- I started calculating how much I am loosing with every day walk/run/exercising, it came to just few hundred Calories (200 to 400). Due to walking and exercising I use to feel tired and normally would like to eat more food then i normally do. i would often consider myself eligible to eat more chiken and ice cream because now i walk/exercise everyday. My parents would also encourage me to eat more fatty food as they see may working hard. As most of the food at my home is oily and sweet, I could easily see by numbers that I am adding 500-600 extra calories due to extra food I am eating.

- Within few days i was absolutely sure that this way I will never be able to loose weight, and I just stopped and made new plan.

- This Plan is “The Calorie Plan”. The aim of every weight loss method finally is to reduce calorie. hence I planned to only focus on the fundamentals.

- Eating food is the only way we intake calorie, hence if i can control it, i can win the game. Hence I selected Dieting as the best method I will use.

- I learn how other diet, i found that the dieting means eating less food. So I started eating less food and avoid, oily, milky food. But i would also feel hungry and sometimes eat a lot. After doing dieting for a week, in the weekend i would feel that i can eat more, i use to drink, eat lot of non-veg and go out of eating Chinese. i could not control myself in weekends, specially because it would otherwise ruin my life, specially because i am required to eat less thru out my life to keep my weight in control.

- My number crunching immediately showed that I am eating almost the same calories every week. Also eating less during week days lead to stress and hunger that effected work.

- Now I read few more articles on dieting and then came up with a master plan, that i implemented successfully within 2 months. Few other conditions helped me a lot. My parents went to home town for few months, and there was no one to govern my eating habbits.

- MY PLAN FUNDAMENTALS

1 - EAT MORE - AS MUCH AS YOU WANT OR YOUR STOMACH CAN TAKE
2 - EAT LOWEST CALORIE ITEM ONLY - I IDENTIFIED IT AS APPLE (CHINA APPLE)
3 - TAKE MULTI VITAMIN TABLETS EVERYDAY TO COMPENSATE FOR THE LACK OF VITAMINS IN DIET.

- MY PLAN STEPS

STEP 1 - FIRST REDUCE NORMAL DIET TO HALF, AND HAVE APPLE DIET FOR THE BALANCE. TAKE ONE TABLET SUPRA DYNE AND 2 TABLETS OF CELIN EVERY DAY

STEP 2 - GO FOR FULL APPLE DIET ALONG WITH TABLETS MENTIONED ABOVE.

- I DID STEP 1 FOR 1 MONTHS AND THEN STEP 2 FOR 1 MONTH.

- I went to market and bought 10KG of china apple. I love to eat apple.

- Before breakfast i will eat 2 apples, before lunch i will eat 2 apples and before dinner i will eat 2 apples.

- Due to apple eating i will automatically eat less breakfast, lunch and dinner. Normally i skip lunch and eat good breakfast and lunch but i do not think this is correct.

- I would not feel hungry , also my stomach is normally full and i would not feel like eating non-veg etc. when i go out in week ends.

- I would also carry apples with me always, and even if my mind think of hunger i would stuff one apple in my stomach. then i may also eat what i want but as stomach is full, only small amount will go in.

- i was eating everything but , actually tasting it not really eating. I was happy.
- Vitamin dose also kept my mind healthy and i did not have any stress or issues. Vitamins dose i suggested above is somthing that i have been taking daily (often on alternate days) since my school days. These vitamins have absolutely no side effects and they help keep vitamin levels best in your body. You can consult any good doctor. I did consult doctors after reading about it in books and internet and they said i can take it without any problems.

- As my diet reduced, it would have certainly lead to lack of vitamins , hence tablets are necessary. most Indian patents do not let their childred take any tablet what so ever as they think that tablets ruin one’s body. this is something you need to handle.

- My number crunching showed me i have significantly reduced the calorie intake. Within 15 days i started seeing the weight loss.

- I also started some walking and exercising again and it helped reduce the weight more but I would not suggest any tiring exercise, as you will feel hungry and consider yourself eligible for higher fat diet. i recommend no exercise during this diet program.

- In one month i could see 5 Kg weight loss with no problems.

- Now I was bold enough to take STEP 2. Can you believe it pure APPLE DIET, I EAT NOTHING BUT APPLE.

- I would eat 10-15 apples every day. Seeing success of my STEP 1 , i tried not to eat anything else , except sometimes on weekends with strict calculations of calorie. I would plan how many extra calories i will take on weekend and will not take above it.

- OOPS CAN YOU BELIVE IT THE PURE APPLE DIET WAS DOING WONDERS I COULD HAVE NEVER IMAGINED.

- I WAS LOOSING FEW KGs EVERY FEW DAYS. I THE WEIGHT MACHINE ITSELF WOULD HAVE BEEN SURPRISED.

- I THINK MY PROGRAM SET THE PACE, MY BODY HAS NO OPTIONS BUT TO BURN THE FATS STORED ALL OVER MY SKIN. IT WOULD WAIT FOR FOOD FOR LONG, BUT COULD ONLY GET APPLES, MY BRAINS GAVE ALARM SIGNAL TO MY BODY THAT YOU CANNOT WAIT ANY MORE, YOU HAVE TO BURN ALL THE FATS STORED TO LIVE, AND DO IT EVERY DAY.

- BODY STARTED BURNING MORE AND MORE FATS, AND WEIGHT STARTED DROPPING QUICKLY.

I LOST 5 KG IN STEP 1 AND 15 KG IN STEP 2 .

i.e. 1 kg every 2 days.

- Just think of standing on the weighing machine every alternate day and see 1 kg less.

After 1 month of STEP 2, i came back to STEP 1 .

- I now eat apple regularly as part of my diet , though only 2-3 per day. but it really help be take less calorie.

I also now changed myself to sugar and milk less coffee, avoid oily food.

With above formula I kept my weight is absolute control and enjoyed my life for almost 3 years now.

But i have no control over my eating habbits on weekends, I have been drinking a lot too, Due to this i have gained 10 KG again . But I have no worry, I have a great formula that can reduce my weight within 2 months with little or no hard work.

Guys, try it and be successful

Growth, Infrastructure, Real Estate, Governance in India

Indian growth story is being talked a lot worldwide. Many compare it with China. Many point out unique strengths of India.

I would like to point out how things are happening in India and where are bottle necks..

- I have seen two growth cycles of India each of 5 years. How things go up and how they come down. Stock markets represent the growth in India to people outside. If stock market is bullish everyone say that India is growing and if its coming down everyone says growth has stopped.

- Real Estate prices go up along with the stock market and also come down with it. This is very problematic situations as in most other countries this is not so.

- Real Estate boom starts because of the real business growth in India, but is overtaken by Investment lead growth. e.g. Recently the continuous boom in IT & ITeS industry created millions of jobs and people moved to bigger cities where this industry exist. They needed cost effective homes, Good interest rates and home finance lending lead to lot of demand and the real estate industry started growing. it also lead to lot of domestic growth as new jobs created new buying power. Surely few other sectors like Automobiles, Textiles, Diamonds also created lots of jobs but such jobs had limited buying power. Telecom also contributed a lot.

- As the growth started more and more industries came up benefit from it. But soon so much FDI (foreign Direct Investment) started coming to India who started investing in every field possible by making an assumption that India growth story is starting. This investment is normally quite substantial and very lucrative for Indian businessman.

- When such investment is available easily, it completely shift the mindset of Indian businessman form the core fundamentals of growth to investment oriented growth. Where they focus how they can get more and more investment with little focus on how well they convert that investment into what Indian consumer needs.

- NRI (Non Resident Indians) investment also start coming more and more to India. as NRI take lot of loans abroad and invest in India if growth prospects are better. They may also move lot of their savings. Most of this NRI investment go into Real Estate. Lot of other Foreign money also go into Real estate indirectly.

- Due to very large amount of flow of money into Indian real estate segment, the demand quickly increases. I sometimes feel that several millions of NRIs as well as international investors are always waiting for Indian growth story to start, and as they feel it starts, all of them jump in together to cash on it.

- But India has lot of governance and infrastructure issues, due to this its not capable of taking so much investment together. e.g. Supply of real-estate and land is highly effected by government policies and planning. When demand increase the supply hardly increase .

- Political & Bureaucracy class which make all policies, normally hold lot of investments in Real estate, specially land mostly in Black (illegitimate). When they see the real estate prices rising, they are always interested in shortage to get created and their own land prices go up significantly before they sell them off. Hence they are not keen to let Demand & Supply match.

- Once the price increase significantly, they start selling their prime land and start buying land around the city. Later they change policies to include the peripheral land inside the city or under some scheme plan to provide infrastructure there and let the supply come to market, slowly.

- Most builders are affiliated with Political & Bureaucracy class and they work as per their plans. They always need land and infrastructure for their projects… This partnership ensure that the growth falls quickly into a bottleneck.

- Mainly these people are interested in cashing on the investments that come from NRI or other indirect investment. NRI and other businessman invest in high priced properties considering their price will increase and they will make quick money.

- But in this game, the real Indian worker is totally forgotten, the one who started this growth story. Who is spellbound with what is happening with the lovely growth story whose part he was. he thinks he has lost the race as other have gone far ahead. But he is very intelligent decision maker, he re align his budget, he will never buy costly properties or goods.

- All this game happen in a different way at stock markets. where industrialists forget the real growth drivers, and just start working to get more and more investments by making tall claims to achieve higher prices for their company stocks. They forget to increase salaries and make great products for the consumer who helped him become part of the growth story. on the other hand these companies start offering futuristic products that invest think is great product to launch and he is happy to give money for it.

- After lot of hip-hop one sudden day some intelligent analysts and government finds that the consumer purchases have gone down, no one is buying homes and consumer goods. Suddenly all start talking how to ensure that growth will continue and consumer will start buying again. Some intelligent and dedicated industrialists and businessman start re-aligning their products and decrease prices.

- But the big ones are still dreaming of quick bucks and paper wealth. Suddenly things look downwards, the stock market start falling. The real estate price start falling. and the complete Indian growth story that was created looks like loosing its steam. Investors pull back after losses.

- Then it takes few years of innovation, focus on Indian customers to again create a new Indian growth story…

My question is why we loose the focus on Indian consumer & Innovation. Why can’t we regulate growth to ensure it doesnot loose steam. Government has important role to play in this but when they themselves are involved in this game how can we expect them to control it.

I think that it will take several cycles of such growth may be 100 cycles to become a developed country.

But we should be somewhat happy that at least we are not going the wrong way like many other countries around us like pakistan, bangladesh, Nepal, Srilanka. and many African countries who has huge political problems and are almost in negative growth overall..

Indian Budget Shopping Malls - Ignoring security & Inventory management

I have been visiting various budget shopping malls in India like Big Bazaar, Vishal Mega Mart and recently in Home accessories like Home Town etc.

These Mall’s business model is to offer cheaper products under one roof attracting Indian Middle class for shipping. Indians are very price (as well as Brand) sensitive.

The way these malls are designed and being managed raise questions if they are taking care of the Security and inventory management. Some points of concern are …

- The design of the mall is very different where you may not need to pass thru or even near the billing counter to exit the mall. You can bill your goods anywhere in the mall and the cashier package the goods in a polythene bag (many a times open) and let you move around the mall and then exit. It is very easy for the people to pickup more product and put it in bag. In department stores in foreign countries this is not so, where mostly you exit after billing.

- Camera surveillance is not installed in most of these malls. Also at some places where its installed is insufficient. Also I do not think there is enough trained manpower available who can use CCTV to identify theft and understand consumer behavior.

- Instead of deploying cameras malls have selected to employ numerous employees (probably at very low wages) . I think these employees are on third party contracts and with low or little loyalty to the mall as they do not have any assured job with them. I think these employees themselves can be a great danger to the mall, as they will know all the loopholes and will recommend their friends how to exploit such loopholes. These employees are normally form low income families and small thefts are very common in such income class.

- Tags - Bar code Price Tags of the products are not properly mounted and easily removable. One can easily remove the bar code tag of a lower cost product and put it on the higher cost product and getting the item legally billed with very low chance of identification even if its rechecked.

- Inventory management - I do not think these malls have proper inventory management and tracking/auditing. Many boxes keep lying in the parking lots , and inventory withing the mall keep changing places.

Some events I observed:

- When Big Bazaar newly opened, I bough a jacket, after going to home i observed that the security EAS tag was there on the jacket. It took me many days to remove it. It means that the Big Bazaar security tag system was not working.

- In visual mega mart I regularly saw that they need to improve security and security checks at exit every few months. This is surely due to lot of theft that might have led them to use more and more security measures..

- Recently when I went to a leading mall to purchase Curtains, a contractor employee who stitch the curtain gave a very surprising offer. he said that instead of buying 18 meters cloth as required for the curtains, just bill for 10 meters (and pay him Rs.200 bribe in cash) and he will still get the 18 meters curtain stitched and delivered. He said he has freehand to take any amount of cloth and people deployed to monitor him does not even know how to measure the cloth. It means that the company is not monitoring its inventory…

- Many of these malls come up with astonishing offer of discounts some of them are quite complex for consumers to understand. In these situations employees are given a lot of rights to make decisions.. Also there is little track of inventory that is to be used as free gifts or included with the offers…

Some articles I read mentioned that these malls are operating with just 4% margins to increase their sales volumes..

- I think these inventory losses are at least 10%
- If they are charging 4% margin after taking case of their inventory losses, then they are charging probably 15% or more actual margin
- If they are not able to account for their inventory losses in price, they they are working in loss.
- In fast growing market they might feel good with their balance sheets, but one the downtrend start their will get hit badly by these losses. some of them start accounting for it when they see their their profitability is less and sales not rising significantly..

Need to learn more lessons …

Property Real estate Investment in India, 2008 year of fall.

Property & Real estate investment in India ? Scenario in 2008

Real estate and Property development is one of the easiest way to track the growth of the country. Without Infrastructure growth its impossible to achieve high growth year after year.

Compared to China there are numerous obstacles in Indian infrastructure growth, which clearly indicate that India will not be able to achieve same growth figure as china year after year. If china has been growing at 10% for India even growing at 8% is a challenge.

I think that Indian infrastructure can grow only at 50-60% in comparison to the Chinese infrastructure growth. Due to this Indian year on year growth figures cannot be even 80% of the china.

Hence average growth in past 5 year will remain below 8% (i think 7%). Hence if India has growth of 9% for 1-2 years, in more years to come growth may be quite less.

There are several factors that clearly indicate that India is in recession phase after 2-3 year of good growth, Its being ignored by lot of people.

- Stock market is falling and given few jerks, these are just like the tremors of earth quake before the real one. I suggest retail investors to not try their luck now.

- Few people argued that people will pull their money form the stock market and then invest in the real-estate so real estate prices will not come down. This is rubbish, real estate prices are already down by 10% across India though little less in Mumbai. In certain pockets upto 30%. I expect average fall of 25%. Real estate boom phase 1 was created with genuine buyers from IT & ITes industries and easy bank loans, but Phase 2 was powered by Investors special FDI, NRI and black money investors who also borrowed from banks. There is bust in the Phase 2 and hence a expected fall.

- But real estate market specially residential is held by people who are very sentimental about property they buy and they rarely sell at lower prices. due to this the sale as well as purchase will get hampered for many years creating lot of social problems as well. Rental may fall. Even many builders hold property for very long to get better returns. In commercial there will be direct fall as business make quick decisions and will sell any property not giving them good returns.

- But as there is entry of some large corporates in Real estate property and infrastructure, to grow and keep getting good revenues even if at low margins, they will setup large residential projects and sell them at low margins. This may ensure lot of low cost housing to be available for next few years. These corporates will be happy to even work at 10% profits unlike small builders who normally target 25-50% profits. The corporates cannot hold property, they have to build and sell every year in large volumes to remain valuable in stock markets. Also their structure ask them not to play games with consumers but offer value to them. many of them are capable of creating a complete new town and city.

- Inflation is increasing, this will significantly impact the buying power of middle class

- In retail sectors its observed that construction or planning on new retail malls has significantly reduced. Few companies will exit mall business.

- Financial markets are in turmoil , this will directly effect industries and production,

- Elections are due in the country within 1 year, which directly impact government to be populist rather then take strong decision to help industries and exporters.

Samsung vs Sony LCD TV purchase

I did lot of research on the internet before buying the LCD TV. After research I first sortlisted

Sony & Samsung as the Brands. Then in their range I did research and found that
V series from Sony and R series from Samsung are best for quality an price and are most popular with value buyers.

Both have S series which is lower end.

I finalized 2 models

- Samsung Broduex LA40R8, Rs.84000/-
- Sony Bravia 40v300, Rs.88000/-

Sony is considered better in terms of quality but Samsung had better looks due to which i selected Samsung. If this is not important then Sony is better choice.

Tatasky Dish TV Review in Pune India

Tata sky is digital satellite dish antenna receiver service for Television in India.

I was using ICC cable tv connection in India but it was not having good quality, though they chart Rs.333/- per month in Koregoan Park, Pune, India. per month. Only 30% of the channels are clear on TV upto 29inch. On TV with 42inch LCD 90% of the channels will be not clear. Though this also depend on the wiring done, wiring quality and gauge but if you ask for change of wires then they may not do it without tkaing good amount from you.

I researched about the tatasky service and dish tv (from zee group). after doing lot of research i found that tatasky offer better technology, more clarity and better service then tatasky. You may read a lot of review saying tatasky service (call center and service team) is bad but Dish TV may be even worse.

So our of them TataSky is selected and we bought the Package from Croma store in Pune. Tatasky advertise it as 1500 but they charge Rs.1000 for installation which is not justified, that take the purchase cost to Rs.2500. ideally saying Tatasky lie on TV that tatasky cost 1500 and then charge exorbitant installation charges of Rs.1000. But reason for this may be that cable tv providers also charge Rs.1000 as installation charges though zee dish tv charge only Rs.300 or so.

The service person whom came for installation demonstrated us tha tour wire in the house for cable TV is of lower strength and may not be able to carry all channels properly. We saw it using his system an then allow him to change it. it needed 3 meters extra cable costing Rs.40 per meter. They provide 20 meters free cable.

We found quality of all the channels good, all channels were clear for 42 inch LCD TV.

At the time of purchase you need to also buy Rs.1000/- coupon which is actually payment of installation charges, the service person may like to see it. But you need to yourself activate this coupon in your account by calling tatasky call center else your account will show -Rs.1000/- balance and may be deducted from your future payment. Its easier to activate this voucher form tatasky.com website, this is voucher like prepaid voucher.

After that within 14 days of installation you need to purchase the monthly coupons and activate them. you can either pay directly on tatasky website using credit card or buy coupons from tatasky dealers and then activate them.

You will need your subscriber ID, which you can also see on your TV by pressing home button on remote. I was surprised that i can also see my payments made to tatasky and due dates on the TV. i took super saver package cositng Rs.300/- per month but their Family pack of Rs.250/- per month is more then enough for all requirements.

Best Tax saving Investment option in India

If you intend to Invest your money as well as Save tax, then here is your best option

Since last 3-4 years, Investment in ELSS has been proven itself to give the best returns as well as tax savings.

SBI Magnum Tax Gain Growth Fund, is considered best and biggest ELSS scheme. In last 3 years it has given returns of 170% which is more then any other investment options even other risky options. + Add your tax savings of 30% , the total benefit is 200% in 3 years. Even 100% benefit will be considered very high.

Tax savings: Many people do not focus on Tax savings and think that all the money they need to invest to get tax savings is loss of their savings, very long term investments (10-20 yrs) and the returs will be setoff significantly by the inflation.

But this is not true if you look at ELSS. ELSS has lock in period of 3 years only, the return on investment is extremely high and inflation is negligable amount.

Investment in LIC has 2 components Insurance component and Investment component. Your premium is partly used to provide insurance and partly invested on your behalf to give returns. Due to this your returns are not high. Also sometimes for focusing into returns you may end up selecting wrong insurance policy and its very confusing. I suggest to consider insurance saperate from the Investment.

Only take pure insurance policy form LIC or other Insurance provider like Term insurance + Whole life insurance (limited payment). Riders for disability may be considered.

I suggest all people to invest in ELSS schemes in India to save tax and get best returns on investments

Home, Property, Real estate investments

Home & Property:

It is extremely important for everyone to plan a home for yourself even if you stay with your parents or relatives. And it is necessary to invest as early as possible. In case you pay rent then you may end up spending lot of money on rental, live at lower standard of life and may not be well satisfied in long term.

- Sometimes you may not be sure in which city or area you plan to stay. Many a times this may not be a choice available to you. If you think there can be delay in this then I recommend you to still invest in any suitable home property option in and around the place to stay or your relatives stay. Take Home Loan buy the property and then rent it out. This rent may compensate for the rent that you may pay for staying at other location.

- Also in future when you find a right property for yourself , you can sell this one and buy the new one. This will screen you from the increase in property prices as the property price of your existing home will also keep increasing with the market.

- if you are just planning and thinking when and where to buy home since last 1 year, then you are seriously loosing money every month without feeling it. You will feel the heat in future.

- If you find that property prices are very high, then I recommend to wait for some time for the prices to come down or goto some areas where property prices are low and buy home for investment. In year 2005-2007 the property prices have risen sharply and its expected to come down in 2008-2009 in many pockets (where lot of new residential projects come up) . so I suggest you to find right locations and buy a home.

- Loan - Loan rates are now coming down. I suggest you to buy smaller home if you are not getting enough loan. Do not think that it is always necessary to stay in the house that you buy. You can buy it for investment, screening yourself form property price hikes, and earning rental incomes.

- If you think that stock markets and mutual funds are risky, then Property market is probably with much less risk.