اخبار 1

Remember Psy and the megahit video Gangnam style ?  Yeah, I know, two years is the equivalent of a full Jurassic Age in pop music circles, but still ..... While you were trying to prance about like a horse, did you wonder what Gangnam style really meant ?? Gangnam is actually a suburb in Seoul, inhabited by the mighty and wealthy. The song was a parody of the lifestyles of those mighty men and women. Today Gangnam district came back into the news, with a property deal that raised my eyebrows so much that they vanished into my hairline (such as it is !). A 79,000 sq metre plot was up for sale. Thirteen bidders emerged, including two of Korea's biggest corporations , Hyundai and Samsung. Hyundai won it ; apparently they want to build their corporate headquarters there. The price tag ? A cool $ 10 bn. If you do the math , that is $126,000 per sq mtr. Or if you are an Indian, preferring ancient British metrics, Rs 7.6 lakhs per sq ft !!! What sort of a crazy world do we live in where ...

Which is India's most admired company ?  The results of Fortune's 2014 survey released recently, reveals a surprising name at the top. It is ITC. For those unfamiliar with Indian business, ITC is primarily a cigarette company. In the good old days, it stood for Imperial Tobacco Company. Today it runs its cigarette business quietly. It has diversified into a conglomerate - Hotels and Consumer Goods being the most visible elements of its business. It does a lot of good work, especially in the agricultural sector. Its work with farmers in various parts of the country is legendary. Its has a great management team and wonderful strengths. It has been there for decades and has been a proven success over a long period of time. Growth in revenues and market capitalisation over the years has been outstanding. Yet, and yet, there must be some feeling of unease of it being the most admired company. It sells cigarettes and still makes most of its money from cigarettes. Is that right ? ITC ...

It's a sign of the times that a rumour that Microsoft is planning a preview of Windows 9 in end September is being met with a huge yawn. Remember when Windows itself came after DOS. And the launch of Windows 95 ? Each of them was a landmark event in the history of computing. Now, of course, technology has moved on and Microsoft has been left standing still. Who cares about Windows now anyway ? Actually a lot care. Windows is now largely a corporate product - almost every company uses Windows as the operating system for the millions of computers its employees use. And every upgrade of the Windows operating system, is hugely expensive. Coupled with Office, Microsoft is omnipresent in the corporate world. There every such new version is met with fear and dread by the IT folks - for , a huge bill is coming. This is also why Microsoft remains a highly profitable company. The rate of change in the tech industry is so fast that it seems almost impossible to create and nurture a brand in t...

How do you price a drug ?  Its a question almost impossible to answer without vehement and justifiable criticism, whatever your answer may be. Nothing typifies this better than the absolute storm raging over Sovaldi. Sovaldi is a new drug introduced as a cure for Hepatitis C, which was hitherto very difficult to cure. Almost a miracle drug with something like 90% success rate.  In six months it has already become the largest selling drug in the world. In these six months, it has clocked sales of $5.7 billion. Its maker, Gilead, has seen a 50% jump in share price.  Fantastic, you would think. The only fly in the ointment is that each pill costs $1000 in the US. Or Rs 60,000 if you prefer. You need to take the pills for a six week period, twice a day. That's a bill of $ 84,000. In the rupee equivalent it sounds even more expensive - Rs 50 lakhs. A veritable storm of accusation and counter argument has arisen. $ 1000 a pill ?? That is criminal argue the opponents. The big bad corporat...

Thomas Greisa is an ass. Thomas who , you might ask. This specimen is a Judge of the Southern District Court of  New York. Why should you bother about the "Southern District Court of New York", you might want to know. Unfortunately, the state of the world is that, we have to. For the USA is back to its old game - imposing its laws on the rest of the world. The problem is Argentina. Remember the many times I have railed against Argentina, here , here and , on the same matter, here . This time my sympathies are entirely with them. It all stems back to 2001 when Argentina defaulted on its international loan obligations. As is usual in such cases, an agreement was reached with most of the creditors , rescheduling the interest and repayment obligations. The operative word is "most". A few funds simply sold  their debts at a deep discount to whoever was willing to buy them. Up stepped a bunch of hedge funds, whom we shall justifiably call "vulture funds" as th...

Entrepreneurship is all about ideas. If you have an idea for a great product or service, capital, talent and profits will flow to you. You will become a multi millionaire. In recognition of all the patience you dear readers have shown, this blogger now offers an idea for free - a product from which you can make millions ! The idea is, well, an old fashioned one. The product I suggest to you is the typewriter !! Before you groan, consider the following facts. The country (to its eternal credit) which is completely fed up with the antics of the NSA is Germany. Even in the erstwhile East Germany the extent of snooping and surveillance probably did not go this far. When revelation after revelation brings home the extent of NSA spying (even to the extent of tapping the phone of Angela Merkel), the Germans have become angrier and angrier. And businesses, and government, have started to react in the only way possible - ditch the computer ! Back comes the good  old fashioned typewriter. German...

I think it has. Nothing but madness can explain the awfulness of the last few days. The downing of the Malaysian Airlines plane over Ukraine is one of the sorriest events to ever happen. Two bunch of loonies are fighting over God knows what - yes Russia is meddling in Ukraine, which as a country has almost ceased to exist and everybody is bent on killing everybody else. But to shoot a civilian airliner that was simply overflying the country ??? What sort of a nut case or , in reality a group of nut cases wants to shoot that down ? For what ? What did the poor people who just had the misfortune of being in that plane do to deserve this. Reports say a large number of them were actually flying to Australia for an AIDS conference. Some of the leading AIDS researchers have been lost to the world. What a senseless tragedy. Consider the situation of Malaysian Airlines. What have they done to deserve the double whammy over the last few months. It is now difficult for them to even survive. And ...