...it's a classic!

It wouldn’t be too wrong to mention that sportsmen live like an "Alice in Wonderland"...Every move, every act, every word is tracked and finds its way to morning breakfast tables...If this pressure is real, then we have super humans living amongst us in those great sporting heroes...Pressure often is not for the performance, rather for a reputation, pride of a nation, or simply the unwillingness to lose...

Whatever it maybe, we have a new bunch of 11 young kids hailed as the new "guardians" of Indian cricket!
Cant bet on the number of legends in the making from the current playing 11, but what it does is create an amazing “competition” now for full fledged 50overs ODI game.!

What is more important, are the games that followed before the “theatrics” of the final. The manner in which the Ranchi guy, rubbed salt on wounds of many.

It was the game versus England that set it all up. How many times you have the over reading 6-6-6-6-6-6 in international cricket?! For the record it has been done only 4times in world cricket in over a century of history.! It just sets up the tone of the game, and the ones to follow! And out of the corner of your eye, you can see the new Anglo-Indian rivalry in the making!

Beating South Africans in their own game was something special! The chokers stood so strong to their reputation! South Africa is an unfortunate side, since they have perhaps the best team combination for every major series in world cricket, everytime led by an outstandingly courageous skipper who is always at helms of their affairs.

As Harsha Bhogle put it, India out ”fielded” South Africa! These are brave words, but there is no reason to see it otherwise…

Aussies came as they always do…tough on everything and seriously can make world class bowlers look ordinary. I have always rated Australia as the strongest batting lineup in the past decade. This is even above our “decorated” middle order! Putting the Aussies out of match, where they couldn’t chase a target is something not done too often for long now. An aging side? I dont think so, considering the fact that Matt Hayden still ended up the highest run getter! And chasing in T20 was considered easier! I believe Aussies got it wrong in their bowling throughout that tournament (ok SriLanka was a freak game)...I am sorry Ian Chappel, but taking wickets is not always the best way to win...its not that 1 magic ball, but the remaining 23 on the perfect spots, that gets you there...

Spare a thought for Mr.Misbah! That flick was almost finding its way over Shri’s head to the boundary rope. Its one of those “fairytale” classics, which this young lad will have to live with. Wonder, if he will get a chance to redeem himself!

For the time being, its Chak de India!

How about our farming?

It has been some time since I last read about anything spectacular about Agriculture in this country..

"Economic Times" usually does the round around the end of summer to predict the rainfalls and hence the Farm Produce. Politicians keep crying foul on the need to improve the condition of Indian Agricultural conditions and its "sustainability"...and then there are suicides...and the figures so easily seem to fluctuating as if it were an exchange controlled scrip price.

Is Agriculture as a sector in India headed towards something gloomier than it is now?

Or is it just a phase, where most of us seem to have taken for granted that the "food grains" will be kept supplied irrespective of how much attention we paid to it as a country? Only to wake up one day, when the import bill would have become over the roof?

There was a discussion posted on apnirai.com suggesting Agriculture being India's key to growth and this piece of writing is basically in response to the same. Can India's "agriculture" be treated at par with IT and Manufacturing as one of the pillars of our GDP?

Most bearcats in public life talk only about Self-Sufficiency when it comes to the Agri Industry as such. Terming the industry as a potential "out performer" for this country would seem as irrelevant and vague as talking about Indians learning to play baseball... For those who think India should look up to on "Agriculture" to boost and become a sector as IT and Services to be a dominant part of our GDP, please have a look ..

India and Brazil have much in common, (except the people off course) and hence are comparable at most times. China is perhaps the next tall boy of Global Economy while the US still remains as on date the largest one to Benchmark.

• India's share of Agriculture in our GDP interestingly is the highest amongst the four. Standing at 18.3% its contribution is significant. Well that's sometimes obvious, since we need to feed a 6th of the World's population. And we are traditionally an Agricultural dependant Economy (off course not anymore!)


• China has a higher produce (nearly double!) to feed another 6th, and off course end up having a huge surplus and command a cool 3.5% of World Agricultural Export Trade.


• US has a marginal 1% of its GDP as Agricultural Produce and is almost equal to that of India's Produce, which gives you an idea how big the US economy is.


• The US ends up commanding an alarming 10% of World Agricultural Trade. Even though there are huge imports into US, but that shows how much balance of trade the US maintains.


• We have given up most land for Agri Purpose, which is as high as 60%, the highest amongst the comparison countries.


• Off course, we hardly export Agri Produce, least amongst the competition.


• We have an alarming lowest Per Capita Agricultural Produce, being at 1/4th of the US!! 1/3rd of Brazil!! ½ of China!! That’s our efficiency for you!

India’s key is to reach Self Sufficiency, and then begin to target Agriculture as a significant GDP component again. Rising population is keeping the pressure on the demand, while huge development projects meaning giving away land for Infrastructure.
And off course, our systems ensure huge surplus being wasted in Warehouses further diminishes hope of making money on the food we produce.

We seriously getting nowhere with 3% increase in Agri Produce while sustaining a whopping 2.13% increase in population!!

For all those who think, India has a good outlook for Agriculture being a dominant part of our booming economy, think again!

Method in the Madness...

Isn’t it interesting to note that how often the ignorance of not knowing an art is as justified as it were a few chapters you deliberately skipped during school!

Strange enough, there is a "particular" art, rather a skill, often regarded as being anti-social. People possessed with this art being so popularly labeled as manipulators, operators, riggers! If it still doesn’t ring any bells, well then, I am talking about of the "art of investing in Stock Market"

Those bulls and the bears stories. Playing in these “bourses” is like being a “matador” in those Spanish bull fights. For those, who possess this art, “happy investing”, for those who don’t, might as well read on...
What is the Sensex? and what does it really indicate? Sensex (Sensitive Index) was formed in 1979 with a base of 100 and always governed by 30biggest companies as per Market Capitalization (MCAP), taken across the board of all sectors.

MCAP? That is the number of shares of the company multiplied by the share value. In short, if you were to buy any company, that is amount of money, you have to pay.

But that is not all. There is something called as Free-Float in the market. This is amount of shares which can traded on the exchange.

Because off-course, shares held by Directors, Owners, Preference Share Holders are never traded on the exchange. These are held by them and never traded by "matadors" in the bull ring..! Only those shares which are alloted to the public to raise the initial amount of money are traded on the exchange. So now you have Free-Float MCAP.

The Free-Float MCAP of 30 biggest companies was then considered and taken as base in 1979 and the index was given a base of 100...And the weightage of each company on this index depends on their individual MCAP.

So when a share price of any of these companies increase, so will the MCAP and so will the Free Float MCAP. But what about the index figure?

It’s a representation of how much that “100” has grown into today! If MCAP of 30largest companies then was 100, today it 15,000!

In practical sense, if you put 1lakh Rs. in Sensex then, today you would have made 1.5Cr.Rs.!

So, there could be a mixed day, when Reliance share will charge 5%, and say reliance contributes 10% weightage to the index, the Sensex will move up by 0.5% due to Reliance, and so on for the other 29 largest listed companies.

For the number game though, today the Sensex has a Free Float MCAP of around

1.03 Million Crore Indian Rupees!

1 point swing means roughly around 65 Crore Rupees of liquid cash on the line!

Tequilla Vs Scotch Whisky

...who ever has ever had a few shots of tequila down the throat will know what I am talking about...more than the alcoholic kick, the whole process of having it, there is a feeling of being "raw"..having the "shotz" is something like a wild act...
...come down to having a fine scotch of 12-18years, and suddenly realize that its all about being classy...rich with spending a lifetime maturing in those barrels before flowing magically through your gullet...

...the very reason for drawing a comparison of this nature on Sachin Tendulkar, past and present, is the fact that both are absolutely enjoyable, thoroughly effective and each capable of delivering a punch! ...what differs is the mood..
you associate a 'scotch on the rocks' in your coach of your living room, perhaps so because you would know the elements of the drink only when you concentrate on it rather than gulp it down like you would do with a shotz of tequila...

Sachin Tendulkar no longer is the 'Superman' of cricket, rather the adjective could justified as the 'Lord of the Rings'...If there cricket were truly a "Hindu Religion", he would have been the "Shankaracharya"...

He is an epitome of batsmanship in cricket, whos legends will be recalled decades down the line...would be rightly said that he is the 'Soul' of Modern Indian Cricket...But is the 'Mortal' withing slowly being revealed? Just when he began to show glimpses of what he had been, slowly unearthed cruel reminder...

the little man seems aging...the reason I say it seems, is not for his age, but for the time he has spent in the middle...I wonder what playing 600 something International Innings actually mean with 25,000 something runs off that willow!! would be a mind boggling figure if someone were to estimate the number of times a cricket ball has hit sachin's bat!

...as Harsha Bhogle rightly pointed out instantly after Sachin's pull shot, something didnt seem right about it...the innings truly characterized a sort of an "enigma" around Tendulkar...he probably has the same "engine" beneath but somewhere the tuning has been changed...
Sachin has alot of to give to the game as yet, and I wouldnt be suprised if he were to hang around for another 2 years, post the current series..the man is good enough to be in any World XI, truly by the instinct he has, but somewhere he seems dragging his muscles too far...

...maybe still trying to gulp down tequilas, when he knows he can do no more than couple of pegs of fine Scotch..

Finally here..

blog (n). (blŏg)
intr.v. blogged, blog·ging, blogs
an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog, Web log

...I dont quite think, this word existed a decade ago...should be one of those "new entrants" into the English Language Dictionaries, being modified from eternity..to be honest, I would have been looking for a dictionary myself if asked for such a kind of a "word" less than 3years ago..

I guess, this is the Orkut age and that kind of time seems like a mini-generation..trust me on this again, that I would have struggled to reach to this precise "dictionarized" meaning , had'nt I read the above..

ahh, but didnt we engineers always feel, its more important to know the concept rather than the formulas..! So what's in the dictionary meaning, I always knew its some kind of individual writings's on the Web..

Just wanted to make sure, the "equations" are in place, before I set out writting the concepts..