English Poem - A Runaway Soul

A Runaway Soul

Far somewhere a dense forest

Where day could not reach

And night ruled;

A SOUL LIVED

In a dark cave

In a world of its own

With darkest stories sown

In its life...

ENTER A FAIRY

With a ray of light

And Herculean might

THE FOREST LIT UP

The night trembled

The cave dawned and

The soul saw all

In the sparkle of

Doll's gleaming eyes

LAY THERE, WAS LIFE !

As a Bee, she

Hummed around

And the forest turns garden

The night recedes,

The cave enlightens,

and the soul sees-

Plants of hope

NOW AND EVER.

God bless you, Angel

For it was you who dared

And with passion, you shared

Soul's 'boring' story with you

Gems are there, but few

Match your -

Purity-Transparence

Exuberance-Tolerance

and BRILLIANCE !

Deprive me never

For a friend in deed,

Is a friend you need.

Through whose eyes

I see green pastures

On whose shoulders

I can rest forever

For whom 

I MAY LAY MY LIFE

Lord, do not take away my friend

For without whom..

I die unnoticed

I live exiled

I hate genuine

I love wrong

I AM ORPHAN

FOREVER.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Book Notes - VAULT CAREER GUIDE TO INVESTMENT BANKING

VAULT CAREER GUIDE TO INVESTMENT BANKING

Chapter 1

1. What is investment banking? Is it banking? Is it investing? Really, it is neither. Investment banking, or I-banking, as it is often called, is the term used to describe the business of raising capital for companies and advising them on financing and merger alternatives.

2. Generally, the breakdown of an investment bank includes the following areas;
a) Corporate Finance (equity)
b) Corporate Finance (debt)
c) Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A)
d) Equity Sales
e) Fixed Income Sales
f) Syndicate (equity)
g) Syndicate (debt)
h) Equity Trading
i) Fixed Income Trading
j) Equity Research
h) Fixed Income Research

3. The bread and butter of a traditional investment bank, corporate finance generally performs two different functions: 1) Mergers and acquisitions advisory and 2) Underwriting.
On the M&A advising side of corporate finance, bankers assist in negotiating and structuring a merger between two companies. The underwriting function within corporate finance involves shepherding the process of raising capital for a company. In the investment banking world, capital can be raised by selling either stocks or bonds (as well as some more exotic securities) to investors.

4. Sales is another core component of any investment bank. Salespeople take the form of:
a) the classic retail broker
b) the institutional salesperson, or
c) the private client service representative

5. A trader plays two distinct roles for an investment bank:
a) Providing liquidity
b) Proprietary trading

6. Research analysts follow stocks and bonds and make recommendations on whether to buy, sell, or hold those securities.They also forecast companies’ future earnings.

7. Syndicate - the hub of the investment banking wheel, the  syndicate group provides a vital link.

between salespeople and corporate finance.
Syndicate exists to facilitate the placing of securities in a public offering, a knock-down drag out affair between and among buyers of offerings and the investment banks managing the process.

Chapter 2

1. Commercial Banking vs. Investment Banking - A commercial bank takes deposits checking and savings accounts from consumers while an investment bank does not.  

2. A commercial bank may legally take deposits for checking and savings accounts from consumers. The federal government provides insurance guarantees on these deposits through the FDIC.

3. Commercial banks make money by taking advantage of the large spread between their cost of funds and their return on funds loaned.

4. An investment bank does not have an inventory of cash deposits to lend as a commercial bank does. In essence, an investment bank acts as an intermediary, and matches sellers of stocks and bonds with buyers of stocks and bonds. Note, however, that companies use investment banks toward the same end as they use commercial banks. If a company needs capital, it may get a loan from a bank, or it may ask an investment bank to sell equity or debt (stocks or bonds). Because commercial banks already have funds available from their depositors and an investment bank typically does not, an I-bank must spend considerable time finding investors in order to obtain capital for its client.

5. Private Debt vs Bonds - ...in a bond offering, while the money is still loaned...it is actually loaned by numerous investors, rather than from a single bank. Because the investment bank involved in the offering does not own the bonds but merely placed them with investors at the outset, it earns no interest - the bondholders earn this interest in the form of regular coupon payments. The investment bank makes money by charging the client a small percentage of the transaction upon its completion. Investment banks call this upfront fee the ‘underwriting discount.’ In contrast, a commercial bank making a loan actually receives the interest and simultaneously owns the debt.

6. Legally, most bonds must first be approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The investment bankers guide the company throughout the SEC approval process, and then market the offering utilizing a written prospectus, its sales force and a roadshow to find investors.

7. Investment banks underwrite stock offerings just as they do bond offerings. In the stock offering process, a company sells a portion of the equity (or ownership) of itself to the investing public. The very first time a company chooses to sell equity, this offering of equity is transacted through a process called an IPO of stock. Through the IPO process, stock in a company is created and sold to the public.

8. Glass-Steagall Reform - The famous Glass-Steagall Act, enacted in 1934, erected barriers between commercial banking and the securities industry. A piece of Depression-Era  legislation, Glass-Steagall was created in the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent collapse of many commercial banks. At the time, many blamed the securities activities of commercial banks for their instability.

9. The framers of Glass-Steagall argued that a conflict of interest existed between commercial and investment banks. The conflict of interest argument ran something like this: a) A bank that made a bad loan to a corporation might try to reduce its risk of the company defaulting by underwriting a public offering and selling off the bad loan.

Chapter 3

1. Almost everyone loves a bull market.

2. A bull market occurs when stock prices move up. A bear market occurs when stocks fall. More specifically, a bear markets generally occur when the market has fallen by greater than 20 percent from its highs, and a correction occurs when the market has fallen by more than 10 percent but less than 20 percent.

3. The most widely publicized, most widely traded, and most widely tracked stock index in the world is the DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE. The Dow was created in 1896 as a yardstick to measure the performance of the US stock market in general. Today the Dow is made up of 30 large companies in a variety of industries and is measured in the thousands of points.


Chapter 6

1. An IPO is the process by which a private company transforms itself into a public company. The company offers, for the first time, shares of its equity (ownership) to the investing public.
2. The primary reason for going through the rigors of an IPO is to raise cash to fund the growth of a company and to increase the company’s ability to make acquisitions using stock.
3. From an investment banking perspective, the IPO process consists of these three major phases: hiring the managers, due diligence, and marketing.
1. Hiring the managers

                                                              i.      The first step for a company wishing to go public is to hire managers for its offering. This choosing of an investment bank is often referred to as a ‘beauty contest’. The primary manager is known as the ‘lead manager’, while additional banks are known as ‘co-managers’.

1. Due diligence and drafting
2. Marketing

                                                              i.      Investment banks earn fees by taking a percentage commission (called the ‘underwriting discount’, usually around 8% for an IPO) on the proceeds of the offering.

1. A company that is already publicly traded will sometimes sell stock to the public again. This type of offering is called a ‘follow-on offering’, or a secondary offering. Another reason that a company would issue a follow-on offering is similar to the cashing out scenario in the IPO.
2. When a company requires capital, it sometimes chooses to issue ‘public debt’ instead of equity. Almost always, however, a firm undergoing a public bond deal will already have stock trading in the market. (It is relatively rare for a private company to issue bonds before its IPO.)

Chapter 8

GOING PUBLIC

1. Phase 1 – Hiring the Managers
1. Pitching / Beauty Contests
2. Selecting the Managers in the Deal
2. Phase 2 – Due Diligence & Drafting
1. Organizational Meeting with All Parties
2. Due Diligence
3. Drafting the Prospectus
4. Meeting at the Printer and Filing the Prospectus
3. Phase 3 – Marketing
1. Designing the Roadshow – Slides & Presentation
2. Amend the Prospectus – Per Comments from the SEC
3. Managers Set Up Roadshow Meetings
4. Roadshow Begins
5. Roadshow Ends & Stock is Priced
6. Stock Begins Trading the Next Day
4. COMMONLY USED RATIOS
1. SOLVENCY RATIOS

   Quick Ratio = Cash + Accts Rec / Total Current Liabilities	Shows the dollars of liquid assets (convertible into cash within 30 days) available to cover each dollar of current debt.
   Current Ratio = Total Current Assets / Total Current Liabilities	Measures the margins of safety present to cover any possible reduction of current assets
   Current Liabilities to Net Worth = Total Current Liabilities / Net Worth	Contrasts the amounts due creditors within a year with the funds permanently invested by owners. The smaller the net worth and the larger the liabilities, the greater the risk.
   Current Liabilities to Inventory = Total Liabilities / Net Worth	Compares the company’s total indebtedness to the venture capital invested by the owners. High debt levels can indicate greater risk.
   Fixed Assets to Net Worth = Fixed Assets / Net Worth	Reflects the portion of net worth that consists of fixed assets. Generally a smaller ratio is desired.
   EFFICIENCY RATIOS
   Collection Period = Accounts Receivable X 365 / Sales	Reflects the average number of days it takes to collect receivables
   Inventory Turnover = Sales / Inventory	Determine the rate at which merchandise is being moved and the effect of the flow of funds into a business
   Assets to Sales = Total Assets / Sales	This rate ties in sales and the total investment in assets that is used to generate those sales
   Sales to Net Working Capital = Sales / Net Working Capital	Measures the efficiency of management to use its short-term assets and liabilities to generate revenues
   Net Working Capital = Current Assets – Current Liabilities
   Accounts Payable to Sales = Accounts Payable / Sales	Measure the extent to which the supplier’s money is being used to generate sales. When this ratio is multiplied by 365 days, it reflects the average number of days it takes the company to repay its suppliers.
   PROBABILITY RATIOS
   Return on Sales (Profit Margin) = Net Profit After Taxes / Sales	Reveals profits earned per dollar of sales and measures the efficiency of the operations.
   Return on Assets = Net Profit After Taxes / Total Assets	This is the key indicator of probability for a firm. It matches net profits with the assets available to earn a return
   Return on Net Worth (Return on Equity) = Net Profit after Taxes / Net Worth	Analyzes the ability of the firm’s management to realize an adequate return on the capital invested by the owners of the firm.

   
   
   
   Glossary
   
   Consumer Price Index (CPI) – The CPI measures the percentage increases in a standard basket of goods and services. The CPI is a measure of inflation for consumers.
   
   Convertible bonds – Bonds that can be converted into a specified number of shares of stock.
   
   Derivatives – An asset whose value is derived from the price of another asset. Examples include call options, put options, futures and interest rate swaps.
   
   Dividend – A payment by a company to shareholders of its stock, usually as a way to distribute profits.
   
   Equity – In short, stock. Equity means ownership in a company that is usually represented by stock.
   
   Leveraged buyout (LBO) – The buyout of a company with borrowed money, often using that company’s own assets as collateral.
   
   Mutual Fund – An investment vehicle that collects funds from investors (both individual and institutional) and invests in a variety of securities, including stocks and bonds. MFs make money by charging a percentage of assets in the fund. 

Notes: These are my notes from the book that have been shared. This is not a book review.

हिंदी कविता - अंततः

अंततः

अंततः यही तो होना है,
सुन्दर पहनना और अच्छा खाना,
दुनिया के रंग में रंगते जाना
अंत में चिता ही बिछोना है.

और हाय यही विडंबना है,
वह किसी का अपना है और,
किसी का वह सजना है
किसी का वह जन्मा है
उसका भी एक सपना है
फिर भी यही विडंबना है
अंततः चिता ही बिछोना है.

अरे लाश..कुछ तो मुख खोल,
अब जरा सुनु गर्व भरे बोल,
अब दिखा हेकड़ी, जमा अब गोल,
हो गया तेरा भी मोल-तोल,
और हाँ यही विडंबना है,
अंततः चिता ही बिछोना है.

कल बड़ा चहकता था तू,
आती होगी बस तुझमे बू,
और अब तेरी विडंबना है,
अंततः चिता ही बिछोना है.

कल तक तूने बहुत कमाया,
तन पर आज कपडा ना जुराया,
आँखें खुली या है पथराया-
मौत सी सीना तान ना पाया,
समझा? तेरी यही विडंबना है,
अंततः चिता ही बिछोना है -
अंततः चिता ही बिछोना है.

संवत १९९० में अयोध्या के सरयू नदी के घाट पर ठिठुरती जाड़े की रात में जलती किसी लाश के किनारे बैठ कर कुछ सच देखे थे, कुछ गर्माहट पायी थी. कलम ने उन  राख के कुछ टुकड़ों को कागज़ पर ढलवाए थे.

English essay - Life Value of Money

MBA is a great science. It is fanciful and marketable. For last decade or so, MBA has become fashionable. There must be a study about how many MBA one can find out of a sample population while walking in New York, London, Tokyo, Melbourne, and other world cultural and industrial capitals. It evokes passion to hear about someone MBA from Ivy league and other ranking colleges. MBA is truly Sexy and mainstream. It fascinates me to relate to concepts taught at these curriculum with daily life events and extrapolate a new insight. One such concept is "Time Value of Money". It states that money in hand today is more valuable than in hand tomorrow. Then 'cash is king' and 'liquidity crunch' are talk of the W Street and all the media surrounding or surviving on it.

So then what is this "Life Value of Money" that struck me while talking to my impressively suave colleague at office?

Life Value of Money which I will sweet-cut to LVM, is the thinking and harnessing the value that money has on our lives. Since time is said to be the most precious thing (touched and untouched combined) on this earth, it is actually a set of scheme oblivious to many who think it follows a watch. Now, scientists and mathematicians can define 'Life' and 'Time' with all proof that a common human believes or believes because it does not alter the usual way of things interrelated.

No scientist can explain money. Mathematician can count and formula-coat money but cannot define it. These two together cannot explain the relation between 'Life' 'Time' 'Money' and their sum total with 'Value'. So now we have following combinations:

a) Life Time Money (LTM) - every one has kind of estimate for it for himself / herself.

b) Time Value of Money (TVM) - property of MBA curricula.

Now see stark clear - Life and Value are disconnected whenever Time and Money are associated. Both Time and Money are notional subjects. Please argue that Value is also notional.

Only Life is real.

So now this real thing called Life needs pseudo help from notional subjects - our friends, mentioned above. Pseudo because general thinking says its essential for Life to play on with the rules of Time and Money. For most, it is true like a transparent glass. There cannot be perfect symphony between real and notional, or even perfect synergy. All that can happen is 'perfect balance', seen from the eyes of the juggler who in turn can make it believable (thus achievable) to his followers or circle of influence.

During the ancient and medieval periods, life flourished and perished in almost equal ratios. Though we have data of great famines, epidemics, fire and wars/battles of known history, not much is known about the population growth during the same period. But these centuries are filled with achievements those having the strength of changing course of communities and countries. Arts flourished equally along with science. Though development of science in medieval ages is debatable, its discoveries and inventions cannot be pushed as mediocre.

What is more evident during these times is the human depiction of values of life through centuries when countries were not demarcated and communication was exclusive. The art, paintings, structures, literature, and science flourished together. Human race, across the globe could identify with Machu-Pichu, Indus valley civilization, Arab invasions, and Pyramids. Time waited for the masters and their master pieces. Time was important but timing was not. It had its daily value which was consumed with great passion. And when daily life is lived with passion, time can be tamed. The monie valuations of those centuries are not known and that adds to the mystic of historical ages. Imagine finding the GDP of Europe or Americas during 1000, or 1100 year and also connected GNP, Trade Deficits and all other wall street benchmarks with MBA college gyan! History will loose its sheen if this happens.

Today we can't imagine living without these 'cooked up' data. These were created to measure the businesses and they have invaded our personal well being.

Then Life was celebrated, now Money is celebrated and exalted.

Desires are 'in thing', Life is achieved 'Just Once', This is 'Just One Life'; all this half baked quarter understood statements are now used to rotate the capitalistic money. We all get hooked. Communism is dead, long live Lenin & Marx. Newspapers look like product and sales catalog. Advertising is a big and deep thing. Look for your deepest personal spaces and you can see an advertisement for a product asking you to 'charge of your life' by buying it and then showing it. 'Flaunting' is the user interface of urban and up-market masses. 

LVM can balance this tilt. Every penny that you spend, do spend a minute of thought in terms of LVM. The real challenge is to teach children and youth on this. Both thrive on raw energies. My TV is better than your TV or My car is steamier than yours makes the whole equation of TVM go for a toss. Envy sets in early and lives longer than our lives.You can say LVM is an angle of detached living or alternate living; where you live, consume, enjoy, buy, sell, splurge at times, yet you enjoy each atom of it in peaceful state of your mind.

I encourage my reader patrons to share their thinking on this and think of practicing LVM. 

Enhance the elixir of life by living it your way, garnished by larger social ways.

SHAHRUKH KHAN @YALE, Success Nuggets

When you fail…fail well enough to succeed the next time. Don’t be afraid…facing your fears and failures.

My hope is “that you never cease to dream exciting and inspiring dreams”.

My hope for all of you is that you retain a lifelong love of learning.

Overcoming some of my failures has made me discover that I have a strong will…and more discipline than I suspected.

Failure also gets you to find…who your real friends are.

Repeated failure has taught me to stop pretending I am someone else.

Failure also gives me an incentive to greater exertion…harder work…which invariably leads to later success in most cases.

It’s not the absence of failure that makes you a success…it is your response to failure.

If you aren’t scared enough of failing, you are unlikely to succeed.

I believe the true path to success is through the fear of failure.

I don’t want as much to succeed as much as I don’t want to fail.

Talking [success] is a waste of time…whatever happened to me happened because I have always been terrified of failure.

Success is a wonderful thing, but it tends not to be the sort of experience that we learn from.

Whether we like it or not, my life has also been in constant play with what the world calls ‘success’.

Happiness…lies in the things you will never be able to count.

Your age is the age when we most confuse happiness with gratification.

Do not be afraid to be hungry. Do not be afraid to walk alone if necessary.

Do not be afraid to destroy systems that kill art and your souls.

Do not be afraid to defy conventions.

Do not try to feed your stomach with creativity, it is food for your soul, not for your stomach.

Your fulfillment will always lie in your creative expression not in its products.

Creativity is your gift to the world. It was never meant to be barter for anything, not even appreciation.

Becoming cynical about your life is single most destructive thing you can do to it.

Learn to laugh at yourselves too. Never become cynical about yourself and your life.

Life as a creative person is like being on a tight rope.

The world will be unkind to you…not be able to see you. You must learn at such times, to be able to see yourself.

There is only one thing you can do to survive – hang on to who you are inside.

So [art] comes from your gut…and it is put out there for others to accept it or throw it in the gutter.

At the same time & quite paradoxically, a man becomes distinct from his creation…the moment it’s…in the public domain.

A good artist cannot be separate from his creation. Good art is honest art.

However I look at it, in its eventual analysis, my life has centered around my creativity.

I have understood that the measure of m life lies in the expanse of my heart’s experience.

I don’t have a place to arrive, I just keep doing what I know how to do the best that I can do it.

I will tell you the story of me but I’ll tell it in my own way. In the language of my perceptions…beyond fame & success.

As for my destination, I don’t think I ever knew one. I walk, I run, in the direction of my dreams.

I am here to share ‘experience of my life’s journey’ about survival, happiness, creativity, success.

[Shahrukh Khan is conferred with Chubb fellow of Yale University, USA.]

Collated from Twitter handle:
@iamsrk #YaleSRK

हिंदी 'बेबी' कविता

राह कठिन है, चाह नहीं,
काम कठिन है, वाह वाह नहीं,
इंसानी ज़ज्बा चक्रवात है,
सामने जिसके, कोई आह नहीं.
(७-मार्च-२००८)

हिंदी कविता - "..................."

"............................................................."

[वर्ष: १९९६]

भोर के धुंधलके में
पानी भरे बादलों के नीचे
हरे भरे खेतों के बीच से
मेरी आँखें दूर दूर तक
नयनों की सीमाओं तक दौड़ रही हैं
तुम कहीं नहीं हो और
यहीं कहीं हो
यही मेरी विवशता है
मेरी बेचैनी है.

बरसात का असर दिख रहा है
क्यारिओं बागों में दिलों पर
मैं अकेला चकोर
तुम्हें सूनेपन में आवाज़ देता हूँ
तुम नहीं सुनती, बस
हवाओं में तुम्हारी धड़कन
सुनाई देती है मुझे

तुम्हारी महक मेरे संसार में सर्वश्रेष्ठ है
काले जामुनी मेघ बिखर जाने को बेताब
बिलकुल मेरे समान जैसे मैं सदा तुम्हें
अपनी बाहों में भर, तुम पर न्योछावर
हो जाना चाहता हूँ,
अपनी आत्मा के साथ.
.............................................................................................................
मुझे नाम दे दो.....
मध्यमवर्गीय सोच पीछा नहीं छोडती मध्यमवर्गीय लोगों का जीवन भर. १९९६ का वह साल करियर के लिहाज से अच्छा ही था पर मालूम ही नहीं था की एन्त्रेप्रेंयूर्शिप क्या चिड़िया होती है. धंधा, बिजनेस, कारोबार, व्यापर, जैसे कुछ शब्द होते थे तब जो कि उस समय के उत्तर प्रदेश में मध्यमवर्गीय लोगों के लिए डरावने रास्ते होते थे. सिर्फ नौकरी और उसमे भी सरकारी, की पूछ होती थी. कुछ साल पहले ही मेरी ज़िन्दगी ने बड़ी करवट बदली थी और आने वाला साल एक और करवट बदलने का इंतज़ार कर रहा था. यह कविता किसी यात्रा के दौरान लिखी गई थी पर आश्चर्य होता है कि इसका शीर्षक क्यों नहीं रखा मैंने उस समय...
इस कविता को नाम की जरूरत है. क्या आप मेरी मदद कर सकते हैं इस कविता का नाम चुनने में..?

Video: TIEC Social Entrepreneurship Forum

On a cold saturday afternoon on 14-November-2009, Tokyo International Exchange Center held the coveted event '29th TIEC Research and Presentation'. This event focussed on the subject "Needs, Challenges & Opportunities for Social Entrepreneurs in Asia". It was well covered by media and Internet.


For the first time, a video is available of the event.

Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD2vUArWOn0&feature=channel

(open this link in new window/tab. if it still does not open, do type "TIEC Social Entrepreneurship Forum" in the youtube video.)

Trust you will be moved and motivated.

For the ease of viewers, I provide some factual details of the video, speaker names and where you can see and hear them in the video. This is due to the fact that the video is lengthy.


Video Length: 1:59:09

Facilitator: Todd Porter (Curator, Innovators Greenhouse and TEDxTokyo)Welcome speech: Naoki Muto, Director TIEC


Panelists:
Peo Ekberg (Environmental Consultant)
Sandeep Casi (Director, TiE Tokyo)
Yasunobu Hotsuki (CEO, WisePocket)
Daisuke Miyoshi (Japan Chief Coordinator, Grameen Communications Global Change Makers Program)

Hear the change making stories here:->

Arvind Panwar, India - 5:40 - 12:18

Peo Ekberg, Sweden - 12.30 - 57:50
Story: Sustainability calling upon future change makers, One World Network

Dr. Suresh Munuswamy, India - 58:05 - 1:05:36

Phan Huu Viet, Singapore - 1:05:53 - 1:12:43
Story: New life for street children in Vietnam

Kieng Paiboon, Thailand - 1:12:45 - 1:18:21
Story: Zero to ‘Amata’: It is Possible

Anika Schulze, Germany - 1:18:23 - 1:26:18
Story: Dialog in the Dark

Yuki Higuchi, Japan - 1:26:20 - 1:35:26
Story: MotherHouse

Sitesh Shrivastava, India - 1:35:28 - 1:47:45
Story: Mumbai Dabbawala - Mumbai Bento Boys

Kwang Naeyong, Korea - 1:47:47 - 1:58:32
Story: Social Enterprises evolving in Korea

Oana Rocka - Master of Ceremony


Photostream at Flicker:http://www.flickr.com/photos/44856437@N04/show/with/4124107529/


Write-up has been alive on following links so far:
http://tiecgreenproject.blogspot.in/2009/11/tiec-social-entrepreneurs-forum.html

http://www.jasso.go.jp/tiec/koryukenkyu29_e.html

http://tsaj.org/smf/index.php?topic=4869.0;wap2

TIEC
Tokyo International Exchange Center (TIEC) is part of Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO). JASSO operates events in Japan and overseas to provide the newest and correct information on Study in Japan to all students aspiring to study in Japan for their successful studies.
http://www.jasso.go.jp/index_e.html
http://www.jasso.go.jp/tiec/index_e.html

Use these links if you wish to study in Japan or refer someone about studying in Japan.

हिंदी कविता - द्वन्द

द्वन्द

मै तुम्हारा हूँ - इसका माँगा है
प्रमाण तुमने - नित्य नवीन
कैसे बोलूं वह भाषा असीम?
प्रेम तो व्याख्या रहित है.
शब्दों से उसे नाप नहीं पाउँगा..
नयन अभिव्यक्ति नहीं कर पाएंगे
शारीर कभी ना कभी ठंडा हो जायेगा,
और रह जायेगा प्रश्न यथा का यथा..
नित्य नवीन प्रमाण कि व्यथा.

अन्यथा क्या तुम्हारा ना रहूँगा?
प्रेम जल तुम्हें छल जायेगा?
या अग्नि में सपना तुम्हारा जल जायेगा?

वस्तुतः प्रेम मात्र भ्रम है,
मायावी है - छलावों का क्रम है.
प्रेम पाश है - उसकी तलाश है
जो कभी नहीं मिलता;
जहाँ चाहो वहां नहीं मिलता,
जहाँ मिलता है वहां अपनाया नहीं जाता.

धिक्कार है विधाता बता,
यह जीवन किस प्रयोजन
ना निगलते बने ना उगलते.
मुगालते में प्रेम के सुलगते;
रहे अब और कितना ??
.................................................................................
मुंबई में नयी रंगीन दुनिया कि तलाश में १९९८ में कदम रखे थे. मुंबई पहले पहल डराती धमकाती है, और जांचती है कि उसके प्रेम में कितनी शिद्दत है. फिर जकड लेती है अपनी बाहों के घेरे में. वो घेरे जिनके अन्दर प्यार भी है और प्यास भी.
प्यार और प्यास के उस अनबुझ वर्ष में कलम ने वो मोम उगला जो दिल में पिघला था. वह अब तक बहता है.
...............................................................................

Book Notes - Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

Rashmi Bansal

When I had started out my career, all such books *I am not sure to which genre they belong* were coming in from the west. Be it Jack Welch, Stephen Covey, Edward de Bono, Philip Kotler and the likes were cramming for the shelf spaces in Indian book stores - whether in a shop or on a railway platform. I could then find out two great books about Indian entrepreneurship by home grown author Gita Piramal, and it struck immediately to me that to succeed in India, one needs to study Indian businessmen and entrepreneurs. Then there were Shiv Khera, Shakuntala Devi etc. These industrious authors brought the much needed contemporary Indian writing from the days of R.M. Lala. I would rate this book by Rashmi Bansal in the same league. It has taken the enterprising Indian youth by instilling the thought that while in India; do as Indians do.

Here I bring you my notes from this perennial book:

Venkat Krishnan, GiveIndia

1. Nothing shapes your future as much as the house in which you are born.

2. When you go to convent school, you actually don't see the whole spectrum of people. It will be middle class dominated.

3. Books influenced- Communist Manifesto, George Orwell's 'Animal Farm'

4. I see myself as an instrument or tool that is available to society. And my choices should be guided by maximising the returns that i will give to the society. So i will not do something just because I like it, but because that is the best use of my time for the society's benefit.

5. Whenever you look beyond business, into the things that make a difference to the quality of our lives, we somehow think there's no need to apply scientific thought.

6. I think if there is passion in the environment, people pick it up.

7. It is the middle class who were the authors of the freedom struggle, not the rich, not the poor. Gandhi was spot on. I cry everytime I think of 15th august when all were celebrating freedom and he was in the middle of a village near Calcutta saying, 'Now is not the time to celebrate freedom. Now is the time to fight the next enemy that we have, which is religious intolerance'. What courage it takes for a guy to think like that!"

8. The poorest people give the most, as a percentage of income. This is true all over the world.

9. Why is that the tax rupee does not get used effectively? Because most of us look at taxes as a license to exist. We are paying taxes and telling the government, 'I don't care whether you are doing anything with this money or not, leave me alone'."

10. My advice to 'would be' entrepreneurs- nothing is perhaps a greater truism than the '3 year rule'- if you are able to hang in and survive for 3 years, you'll be up and able to hang in and survive for 3 years, you'll be up and running and by the fourth year, you will be better off as an entrepreneur than you'd have been in a job.
For '4 yrs+ old entrepreneurs'- I want advice FROM you on how to take yourself out of an institution and leave it better off without you than it is with you.
My advice for IIMA alumni- the IIMA qualification is the best possible 'income insurance' you can get in India today. So if at all there is anyone who can take risks with a low downside, it has to be you.

Anand Halve, Chlorophyll

1. Somebody else is going to run the agenda as long as you are not driving it.

2. Mohammed Khan of Enterprise said,"if you have pots of money, you don't need good advertising. You can just hurl enough advertising rupees at the customer, until almost in sheer panic, the customer gives up and says okay, I surrender".

3. Jay Chiat of Chiat Day (the agency which produced commercials for the likes of Apple and Nike) once said: "How big can we get before we get bad!"

4. Madan Bahal once said: 'you don't make big money by doing more work. You make big money by selling companies'.

5. Instead of per capita billing, we use 'per rupee manpower'. How productive is each rupee of manpower?, we ask.

6. Every decision is driven by the satisfaction levels as well as lifestyle desired by the entrepreneurs. It's a space they have created where they can just be, not forced to be.

7. We use three yardsticks and we know it is very unlikely that any project will fulfill all three. But let's hope for at least two in every project. If it's only one then it better be superlative on that one dimension. And the dimensions are: it must give us money, or it must give us fame, or it must give us great joy.

8. Reporting to your own conscience is the highest and most rewarding form of servitude. And you can even make a good living out of it.

9. Advice:
Goals-
-follow your heart. (The brain can do many things, but only the heart can answer the meaningful questions of life)
-Think of intangibles you value first- and let them determine the tangibles. Steve Jobs and Michael Dell are driven by different intangibles... Figure out who you'd rather be.
- Don't defer your joy at a beach today, for some imagined future weekend in Acapulco- by the time that happens your diabetes may not let you enjoy the pina coladas.

Money
- Money is not an end in itself. (Anu Aga, ex chairperson, Thermax, once said: "Profits are important but not the only thing... Without breathing, you and I can't live, but if you ask me what is the purpose of my life and if I say breathing, it is such a narrow way to define it.")
-create love and affection in your workplace. (Peope give up their lives for what they love but no one will do it for an EBITDA)

People and values
-Surround yourself with like minded people. You can't plan together, if the guys at the table are Gautam Buddha and Genghis Khan.
-Define your Do's and Don'ts before you start. Post facto, any act can be justified.
-No deal is worth losing your self-respect

The last word
-Finally, if you don't laugh enough, your busibness model is probably wrong.

SB Dangayach, Sintex

-It pays to push an idea ahead of its time if you genuinely believe it addresses a pain point with your customer.
- An entrepreneur must constantly play the role of 'trinity'. One one hand you have to realise which products are not working or declining and eventually get rid of those lines. Simultaneously you need something which can be big in the future.

Vijay Mahajan, Basix

- a space is where 'nothing is happening' is actually just what you need to do some serious soul searching.

- single most important quality you need to have and cultivate further is to get up and walk everytime you fall down.

- One has to persist in terms of operational difficulties.

- ...equally important ability one needs to cultivate is the ability to learn- from experience, critics, competitors, failures, summer trainees, mothers-in-law and from regulators. Expert knowledge is useful but increasingly has shorter shelf life. So what is permanent is the ability to understand a new situation and respond appropriately, using both learning from the past but also a fresh appreciation of the situation.

- Entrepreneurship Is widely misunderstood to be a personal trait. It is so, to some extent. But entrepreneurship is a social construction - it is a phenomenon where certain behaviors get expressed in certain individuals, due to the support of their 'eco system' - colleagues, family members, investors, regulators, competitors and customers. All of these interactions, cooked in the skull of the entrepreneur, make for the heady mix that all of you are after. So nurturing this eco-system and interacting with it are extremely important.

Deep Kalra, makemytrip.com

Deep's story tells you that the path of entrepreneurship is a crooked one. You never know what lies around the next corner.
- Growth is a hydra headed monster with an endless appetite.
- Why take money from so many different people? Because different guys bring different things to the table. They also help to manage competitive pressures. Of course, managing so many investors is definitely a challenge in itself. Deep's investor philosophy is simple, "I have only taken in capital from guys who I think can add value to us. My litmus test is, would I take this guy on my board if he wasn't giving me money? As an independent member? We have refused money from bigger 'brands' where I don't think the partner in question would add value to my board."

Advice to Entrepreneurs

- Choose your field very carefully- there must be a 'huge' (large is not good enough) market potential. If you don't have personal expertise in this field, get a team of domain experts locked-in, preferably as partners or co-founders.
- plan your funding very carefully
- ideally raise as little cash as possible in the pre-revenue stage as you end up diluting too much equity. Try raising the first round from angel investors as it is most time-efficient and typically you will get the best terms. However, for later rounds, never risk starving your company of cash.
- it's all about people
- hire the best folks in the business. Don't hesitate to hire people better than yourself in that specific area. Colleagues who challenge and make you feel uncomfortable are your best friends and the 'yes men' are your worst enemies!
- don't focus too much on exits (especially not too early in the game). Concentrate on building a solid business, the rest will take care of itself.

Rashesh Shah, Edelweiss Capital

- I realised that when you want to hire people, having an office with a computer, fax machine and receptionist matters a lot. People want to work for what looks like a real company. They don't want to work for ideas.- when we started, we had an offer from an industrial group for a 15-20% JV. It was a very attractive offer, this extra capital. But one valuable advice from Narayana Murthy was: 'Give capital to people who add value, or to strategic partners. Don't go for capital for the sake of capital'.
- Fixed compensation at Edelweiss has been more reasonable though the variable compensation is aggressive. This helped keep costs under control. "it's an owner mindset rather than 'employee' mindset.
- "there is something known as an intensive and extensive approach to a thing. Should we go more deep into one area or should we be more broad bases? Historically, India has been a very large market, but more broad than deep," says Rashesh. And hence it makes sense to drop many different anchors to keep your company in place.There is an example of Reliance which started with petrochemicals, then got into trading yarn, fibre manufacturing, refining, exploration and now, even retail. This is what you call growth through 'adjacent markets'.
- "you go on changing only one parameter, either the product or the client parameter and you keep on growing in the adjacent market," says Rashesh. "very often you will try something and find it difficult, competition hai, and you go to the adjacent market. But going to the adjacent market because of that is not a good reason."
- when you are the CEO and shareholder, you want to avoid raising money because your equity goes down. When you wear only the CEO's hat, all you want is to grow as fast as possible.
- We always differentiate between a plan and an aspiration. There is always a short term plan, but there are always long term aspirations.- i believe that entrepreneurship is not all about assets, it is about emotinal energy as aspirations.
- As human beings, as entrepreneurs, all of us overestimate the short term and grossly underestimate the long term.
- ...you sacrifice Glamor and build an institution. Advice to entrepreneurs- cash flow is underestimated by most people- the amount of cash flow. If its possible, be a little overcapitalized. Being financially savvy is a part of the business.
- Never have equal partners. You start off as equals, but the one does more, one does less, one is the public face, the other is not, and then slowly the whole thing disintegrates. So there should be a 'first among equals', who has a slightly higher equity share. Thats what Mr Narayanamurthy advised us.These days I advise people- two or four partners is okay, but ideally not more.- have the emotional staying power.

Nirmal Jain, India Infoline

Opportunity is about putting two and two together.
- if you are an artist like MF Hussain or a player like Tiger Woods your individual skills only matter, and not how good a team player you are or how good a team you can build. The analogy applies to business as well. Do you want to be Tiger Woods, the golfer or captain of Team India?
- you don't have to shy away from taking on the 'big boys'. The mouse is always more agile than the elephant.
- one aspect is managing growth at different levels.When compamies are 10-15 people, that is one size. Another size is 50-100 people, then 500-1000 people. At every size you haveAdvice to Entrepreneurs- entrepreneurship is risky. So you should have a mindset, should be prepared to fail. If you are not prepared to fail then this is not your cup of tea.- you should have the ability to build a team of the right people and not people you like.- whatever the number of partners, there has to be one leader. Whether it is an army or a country or a company there has to be one person, one leader in charge.

Vikram Talwar, EXL Service

In life, timing is the single most important thing.
- ...it has to be an inner drive to succeed in what your objective is. And it cannot be money in my mind. If you want to get into entrepreneurship to make money, I don't think you will be as successful.
- ...you need ability to share or you can never build a company of size and scale. Today Vikram owns 6% of EXL. And he never owned more than 12%. How about Azim Premji then, who owns 80% of Wipro?"yes, but it was a family business much before they got into IT. There is very big difference between rich young men going to become entrepreneurs and middle class, non-moneyed individuals becoming entrepreneurs. Would I call Mukesh Ambani an Entrepreneur? The answer is absolutely no. He is a good businessman, not an entrepreneur. Sunil Mittal is an entrepreneur. That's the difference.
- you could get into entrepreneurship on a whim or a fancy like I did. But if you want to plan how to be an entrepreneur, get some solid experience- how companies work, how people are managed, what finance is all about.
- If you do start a business, select your partner very carefully. Its tricky. Working with a partner requires a huge amount of sacrifice, understanding and tolerance. Its like a marriage at the end of tbe day. I mean, worse than a marriage. Advice to entrepreneurs- don't be an entrepreneur without very good financial knowledge. Or have a trusted partner who knows all about this.

K Raghvendra Rao, Orchid Pharma

If the capital was hard to come by, could he not have downsized the project?
- it is not a question of cutting the cloth to suit your size. Without that kind of a minimum critical mass, that project would not be viable. The cost and technology were not in favor of downsizing the project.
- MBAs who take up entrepreneurship are generally attracted to knowledge based industries, or services. Few venture into large, manufacturing projects.
- we started as public limited company right from day one of the organisation. Because I went and told them, I am committed to this, this is my pan and this is what I have.-wherever I worked, even when I held zero shares, my attitude towards the work and the project has been absolutely the same.
- I have always felt that you should take a niche segment, go deeper and broader into that, create a nucleus and reach a critical mass so that you become one of the low cost producers. And add value. You then replicate that in other therapeutic areas. So by design, yu wil limit competition. Even if others try to replicate it later they will be less efficient because they will be trying to catch up with you.
Attracting Talent- I used to market to them my 'five year plan'. In fact I always carried the five year plan book with me I would say, with or without you, I plan to do the.
- ...the price of ambition is a tremendous strain on the balance sheet.

Advice to entrepreneurs
- think either big or niche.
- there is no dearth of capital to back right ideas and entrepreneurs. Aim to create lasting value.


Jerry Rao, Mphasis

Jerry Rao does not mix emotions with entrepreneurship. Being attached to the company you create, is 'moha', he says.You have to do what's best for the business and if that means selling out, so be it.
- in America, if you look at it, people are much more cold blooded about their companies. At the right time, the CEOs resign, retire, sell out. India I think, the first generation entrepreneurs get very attached to their companies. Not in rational market related terms vut in very irrational emotional terms.
-...in the initial days you have to spend a lot of time with customers. It cannot be delegated to junior people.
- ...if you are a small company, you have to be extremely transparent and honest.
- ...research has shown that transparent companies have a lower cost of capital.
- ...plans are okay, but if you don't have the courage to make mid-course corrections and changes, particularly in highly changing environments like technology space, you will get into trouble.
-don't create overheads you can't sustain.
- I talk about passion, not emotion. They two are different words. Emotion is what you feel for your children.
- You can't postpone your whole life to the future.

Advice to Entrepreneurs
- in your sales pitch, the first point should be about your weaknesses, not your strength.


Shivraman Dugal, ICRI

Remember IIMs have weakness. They teach you marketing, finance. And systems but they don't teach you how to raise money.You open a shop and say, I must know where every penny is going.The control freak will remain a dukaandaar.

Shankar Maruwada, Marketics

Culture is set of daily behaviors exhibited by an organisation. The senior guys walk the talk, others will follow. Because an organisation, especially in the beginninh, is nothing but the reflection if the founders.We will have globally delighted clients who will benefit from us being the world's best professionals in what we do. In doing so we will have fun and get rich.When you want to expand, there is a window of opportunity. If you don't utilise that, you will get left behind. Do you want to stay happy but small or do you want to grow? These are two different paths and you have to choose one. Don't jeopardise your company's future by confusing what is good for you as a person with what is good for the company. When money is no longer the motivation, life can be pretty good. We got what we deserved. What we gave to others, they deserved. Advice more than VCs, an entrepreneur needs an angel at start up stage. VCs should ideally come in once you know what you want, the model is proven an d you think the best way to scale it up is to get their investent

Ruby Ashraf, precious formals

As an entrepreneur you don't say that 'I have to reach a particular place in 5 years' you just keep doing whatever you are doing. As a designer I woukd like to design only expensive clothes. But as a strategy you have to see where the market is going. There are customers for everything. Its a delicate balance. You dont want to make very cheap clothes, because then you have to sell too many to make money. And you dont want to keep them so expensive that people get intimidated or do not appreciate.You start with a strategy, but you have to change it at so many stages along the way. Markets change, buyers change, you have to change with it.

Advice
You can achieve beyond your dreams, so its OK to dream and make an action plan to turn it into reality.


Deepta Rangrajan, IRIS

While we are not starving, we are not tremendously greedy, we don't constantly compre our net worth with somebody else. Having said that, it is fantastic to create wealth. Because often, it is not only an endorsement of the fact that you have done well, it gives you tremendous opportunity to do other things as well.The service and consulting business is people dependent. The more you grow, the more people you need for it. Whereas once you develop products, you profit from your IP and go beyond working for specific clients and projects.You need to keep the sails open and then wait for the wind to blow.

Cyrus Driver, Calorie Care

Its good to be a consumer of the product you are planning to launch.

Sanjeev Bikhchandani, naukri.com

As an MBA from IIMA, we all have a hunger for multinational companies. Because its prestigious. But to my mind, it is false prestige. You are a prisoner of your visiting card and the logo on it, a prisoner of your EMIs...We got the money just before the market meltdown. So we dint get time to spend it foolishly. We just put it in fixed deposit.The very act of becoming an entrepreneur is contrarian to 'middle class values'; study hard, get a good job, be happy with secure income and steady salary.I could have quit anytime in the first 10 years, and I would have been a failed entrepreneur. Why did I keep going? Because I wasn't chasing money. And if you choose something long enough, sooner or later you will get lucky.You see, there is no such thing as a failed entrepreneur. You are a failed entrepreneur only when you quit. Until then, you are- Simply not successful...yet.

Advice to Entrepreneurs
Be early. You can make your mistakes while it is cheap to make them, when there is no competition.Do not exaggerate your business plan. Undercommit and overdeliver.Get great people- sell them the vision, the idea and share the wealth, be generous with offering stock.If you are starting a business to make money, dont do it. Chances are that you will fail, because there will be hard times. And if your motivation is not something beyond money, those hard times will test you. You will quit and go back to your job. But if you are doing something other than money, you will rough it through. If you are in enough places, enough times and long enough, you get your breaks in some form or other. You just have to be smart enough to take them. Scaling up is also a lot about letting go. Get smart people. Keep in mind that every choice you make impacts the family.

Shantanu Prakash, EDUCOMP

You don't need any capital to start, you can start with zero capital. If you have capital, great. If you don't, it does'nt mean you can't start.When you are an optimist some of the external environment stuff does not really bother you.The trick is to identify the DNA in a person, where he or she wants to do something different, and wants to be differently incentivised. It means not just a big fat salary cheque, but things like stock options, feeling of partnership, being part of a start-up organization, fast growth, all of that. More than the monetary sacrifice, it is really the sacrifice of time when you are an entrepreneur. And that is a much more expensive sacrifice than money.

Advice to Entrepreneur

The risk reward equation is completely in favor of the entrepreneur. There is no way that you will be economically rewarded lesser for being an entrepreneur than by taking up a job.

Vinayak Chatterjee, Feedback Ventures

Money is a by-product. Business growth, turnover, bottomline is a by product of what your heart and head want you to do. So if you follow that, money will follow. Woh Gandhi waali baat hai. 'Find purpose and the means will follow.'

Advice to Entrepreneurs

What i find is many people hear that inner voice but just don't have the conviction to act upon it. Don't get too concerned about peer pressure. You may be succesfiul, you may be unsuccessful, but in the philosophical market, what is success and what is failure? At least you will have pleasure when you face yourself in the mirror to say "I did what my inner voice told me! Koi phikr nahi hai, tu apna kaam kar!I don't want to put a premium on entrepreneurship. It's not a fad or fashion to follow. Remember Narayana Murthy's quote "It has taken me 25 years to become an overnight wonder."

Ashank Desai, Mastek

The IT industry is lime sitting on a tiger. You have to keep reinventing yourself. When you are sitting on a small market, you have to be good at many things. Smallness adds to the complexity of operations.Ultimately when you are running a company, you have a risk you have a responsibility to make it successful. So the buck stops at you. So to that extent, there is a difference between an executive and and the owner.

Advice to Entrepreneurs

Everyone does not need to build a 100 crore or 1000 crore company. Small vs big vs superbig is a choice that an entrepreneur makes himself or herself depending upon the ambitions, value and what he likes doing.

R Subramanian, Subhiksha

Entrepreneurship is an itch. The only ointment that soothes it is work. Lots and lots of it. And it must be interesting, intensive and audacious. If we would have known how difficult retailing is, we would have never got into it. Operationally it is very challenging business, the pain factor is very high. That's what makes it so difficult for competition to come in very easily. Retail has two main costs- space and people. In the developed world, retail happens outside cities, where space is very cheap. Everybody has a car, so they drive down and shop. And in most of those parts of the world, people are very expensive. So what they try to do is have 'very low staff, large space' formats. In places like India, people are much cheaper, but space inside the city is incredibly expensive. And you have to locate in the city because no one will sit in a bus and spend two hours to travel outside the city and reach your store. You need a smaller space but an 'overmanned' kind of format. And to compete with the thousands of local retailers, you have to deliver the best prices and have amazing supply chain management.

The consumer saves money because Subhikhsa exists. "so as long as consumers save money and we make money and we don't destroy value for ourselves, it's quite okay."
You will sell out it the business is not doing well. Or the business is not likely to be well in future.

Advice to Entrepreneurs

The way we look at it, there are two worlds - the real world and the virtual world. The virtual world is something which the financial types operate. The real world is where lot of us slog to physically do work.

Narendra Murkumbi, Shree Renuka Sugars

Entrepreneurship is about 'jugaad'. And a period of struggle is when that quality really comes to the fore. Your core business is not making money.
In every business, the more you know about the grassroots, the better.
"I think the drive to start off something on your own, once you have it, you will continue to have it. If something is running well and smoothly, you will look for new challenges. And in India, there are so many opportunities, that I think it doesn't make sense to stick to one business."
"I think the old philosophy that we all learnt even on the campus, or core competence, of doing one thing world class, it no longer holds in this country. The more successful entrepreneurs at the moment have successfully been able to jump into new opportunities. And also scale up those opportunities." And each new business is a challenge but it will never be as tough as the very first one.
If there was a moral to the Shree Renuka story it would be summed up like this - there is no old business. There is only old ways of doing business.
"Everything that we do, everyday, is innovative. It's not that you have to dream of something that nobody has ever done. All my ideas have been done by others. We have done only two things. One, we have done better than the guy who got that idea. And second, we have scaled those ideas up."
The limits are in your own thinking. The impossible is what you believe cannot be done.

Chender Baljee, Royal Orchid Hotels

'Pyar kiya to darna kya. Business kiya to ab socho karna kya.'
"The easiest thing is to make a spreadsheet but assumptions are on paper only."
"When things are tight you monitor every expense. Only when business is doing well inefficiencies creep in."

Advice to Entrepreneurs

If you love the business you take up, you will definitely make a success of it.
Learn the business you want to get into for a couple of years. Raising money is not so difficult today. There are VCs, or at least angel investors. There is even lease financing, for example.

Madan Mohanka, Tega Industries

"If you take a new product, which has not been tried out before, at least plan for 50% or double the investment you envisage. Otherwise you will be in trouble. When your project fails, and you have no money, people treat you like a dog. And you are like a beggar asking for money and help."
"If you believe in the product, and if you believe in the business, don't give it up. Never give it up."
"You need a lot of patience to handle people in government."
"It was very difficult for us to convince them that we can supply as good a material as you are buying from Europe or America. Give us a chance! So I had to take a very hard decision. I hired and Englishman and brought him to India to look after the export market for us. His salary was almost equal to the salary of the entire company. Now there are two ways to look at it. If I don't grow, the company will remain small and die over a period of time. And if I fight and if this man does a good job, the company will fly. So I would rather take a risk and die than not take a risk and die. It was the second hard decision in my life - to bring that man. But when he went out for exports, we found nobody asked him any questions - how big the company is, how small the company is, can you supply, not supply? We just started booking orders."

Advice for Entrepreneurs

There is a lot of scope in manufacturing. In India our manufacturing base is only 37%, whereas in all advanced countries, the manufacturing base is 65-75%. If any economy has to become strong in long term, it can become only with the manufacturing base, not the service base. Service base is only temporary. This will not create long term employment and if the economy has to become strong, it has to go into manufacturing.

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This book can read and re-read for its sheer simplicity of narration. There is also a dedicated site for this book. You can find some more excerpts of this book and make your own notes. If you have not read this book yet, do grab it today; from your friend, nearby bookstore or roadside vendor, libraries so to say the least.

http://www.stayhungrybook.com/

Over the years, I have strongly believed that if some "Desi" wishes to startup his/her own business or even is enthusiast about the entrepreneurial subjects, he should have a balance of reading between the western success stories and Indian success stories. I observe that our corporate and university libraries are full of stories from the western world / developed world.
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