An Indian now owns East India Company

With just around a month to go for the re-launch of the East India Company - the world's first multinational whose forces once ruled much of the globe - its new Indian owner says he is overwhelmed by "a huge feeling of redemption".

It's been a long, emotional and personal journey for Sanjiv Mehta, a Mumbai-born entrepreneur who completed the process of buying the East India Company (EIC) in 2005 from the "30 or 40" people who owned it.

Acutely aware that he owned a piece of history - at its height the company generated half of world trade and employed a third of the British workforce - Mehta, now the sole owner, dived into the company's rich and ruthless past in order to give it a new direction for the future.

With a $15-million investment and inputs from a range of experts - from designers and brand researchers to historians - Mehta is today poised to open the first East India Company store in London's upmarket Mayfair neighbourhood in March.

And then there is the inevitable - and daunting - task of launching in India, a country whose resources, army, trade and politics the company had controlled for some 200 years.

It's a task that Mehta has not taken lightly, he told reporter in an interview. "Put yourself in my shoes for a moment: On a rational plane, when I bought the company I saw gold at the end of the rainbow.

"But, at an emotional level as an Indian, when you think with your heart as I do, I had this huge feeling of redemption - this indescribable feeling of owning a company that once owned us."

The formal start of the East India Company is usually dated back to 1600 when Britain's Queen Elizabeth I granted a group of merchants a charter under the name 'The Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies.'

With its own Elizabethan coat of arms - now owned by Mehta - the company was made responsible for bringing tea, coffee and luxury goods to the West and trading in spices across the globe.

By 1757 the company had become a powerful arm of British imperial might, with its own army, navy, shipping fleets and currency, and control over key trading posts in India - where it was known variously as Company Bahadur and John Company. In 1874, the British government nationalised the company, opportunistically blaming the 1857 uprising on its excesses. But the East India Company army, brought under the command of the Crown, retained its all-powerful presence in India.

"When I took over the company, my objective was to understand its history. I took a sabbatical from all other business and this became the single purpose in my life," said Mehta.

He travelled around the world, visiting former EIC trading posts and museums, reading up records and meeting people "who understood the business of that time".

"There was a huge sense of responsibility - I didn't create this brand, but I wanted to be as pioneering as the merchants who created it."

"The Elizabethan coat of arms stands for trust and reassurance, but we are not repeating history. It took me four years to do the brand positioning and put up the milestones."

The 'relaunched' company, with its headquarters on Conduit Street in Mayfair, is set to open a diverse line of high-end, luxury goods in London in March and in India some time this year.

EIC products in India will include fine foods, furniture, real estate, health and hospitality.

"India is the spirit of the East India Company in many ways - it evokes a huge amount of connectivity and emotions," Mehta said. "It's also a major ambition to bring Indian products to the rest of the world. Today there is no single brand name from the East that can stand alongside, say, Hermes or Cartier from the West.

"The East India Company has that ability."

We are people, not programmed devices

Your Dimension Of Greatness

Your Dimension Of Greatness

No one can know the potential,
Of a life that is committed to win;
With courage - the challenge it faces,
To achieve great success in the end!

So, explore the Dimension of Greatness,
And believe that the world CAN be won;
By a mind that is fully committed,
KNOWING the task can be done!

Your world has no place for the skeptic,
No room for the DOUBTER to stand;
To weaken your firm resolution
That you CAN EXCEL in this land!

We must have VISION TO SEE our potential,
And FAITH TO BELIEVE that we can;
Then COURAGE TO ACT with conviction,
To become what GOD MEANT us to be!

So, possess the strength and the courage,
To conquer WHATEVER you choose;
It's the person WHO NEVER GETS STARTED,
That is destined FOREVER to lose!

do you see a poisonous snake?

It was said that once upon a time, there was a farmer who had a farm not far from Savatthi city. One day, a group of thieves had gone into the city and stole a big sack of money from a wealthy family. While fleeing, the thief who was responsible for carrying the sack of money had thought of a cunning plan to cheat his friends out of their equal share and had taken some money out of the sack and had placed a handful of it into another smaller bag and had hidden it in this particular farmer’s field. The thief had thought that he would come back to collect the bag after he had met up with his friends to split what he had left in the sack.

That morning, the Buddha had already foreseen the events that would occur and also the deadly consequences it was to have on the farmer and so, with Ananda (one of his attendants) had set out early that morning to help the farmer. When the farmer had seen the Buddha, he dually paid his respects, before carrying on with his work. The Buddha had not said anything to the farmer in regards to the incidents he had foreseen, but before leaving, he had pointed at the bag of money that was lying on the ground and said to Ananda, “Ananda, do you see a poisonous snake?” in which Ananda replied, “Yes sir, I do”.

In hearing this remark, the farmer was astonished. He himself had been working in the fields since the early hours and yet, he had not seen any snakes. And so taking with him a stick as a weapon, he had walked over to the spot where the Buddha had pointed and there behold, he saw the bag of money. In wanting to hide it within his field, he quickly covered it up with soil before carrying on working.

At the same time, back in town, the wealthy man had reported the robbery to the officials who had begun their search for the thieves. After a thorough search, they indeed came across the bag of money buried in the farmer’s field and therefore, had the farmer under arrest and sent to court to be sentenced to death by the order of the King. The farmer was traumatized and did not know what to do. Fearing for his death, the farmer had told the story of how he had come across the bag of money and the conversation that had taken place between the Buddha and Ananda - “Ananda, do you see a poisonous snake? Yes sir, I do.”

In hearing this, the executioners doubted his story and so reported it to the King. The King therefore called the farmer for further interrogation and took him to see the Buddha so that he may verify the story. At the end of which, the Buddha became a vital witness to the farmer; an alibi that saved him from execution.

After the trial, the King said to the Buddha, “Lord Buddha, if you had not been the witness for the farmer, and offered him an alibi, he would definitely not have escaped death. The Buddha had replied, “Your majesty, the moral of this case, is to beware of actions. I always express in my teachings to people to beware of thy actions; that action which will lead to suffering, should be avoided, while on the other hand, those actions which will lead to no suffering, should be done.

The farmer, in hearing these words, had contemplated on his own actions. The fact that he had canceled the bag of money by covering it up with soil has lead to his conviction. He became to understand the law of “Causes and Effects” and thus made a promise to himself that he would never act in the same way again.

This story teaches us not to let greed consume us in our lives. We should instead learn to realize that certain things are improper or wrong and if we do it, it may lead to suffering sometime in the future. If one is careful of all actions in the present, one will be free from the hands of evil. In English there is a saying, “See a penny, pick it up, all day long, you'll have good luck.” After reading this story, it may give us some idea; when we see something on the floor, we should not naively think, “Lucky me”, because if we did, then we may turn ourselves into a thief and become just like the farmer in the story.

-- Source http://www.buddhapadipa.org/pages/dhammacorner_afarmer.html

Spare 4 min of your time to watch this video and you will start loving your life the way it isNo Arms No Legs No Worries

No Arms No Legs No Worries

Have Breakfast... or...Be Breakfast! By Y. L. R. MOORTHI

Who sells the largest number of cameras in India ?

Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not cameras but cell phones.

Reason being cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone cameras. Now, what prevents the cellphone from replacing the camera outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sonys and Canons are taking note.

Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India ? You think it is HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes (that play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies make by selling music albums (that run for hours).

Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service provider with the largest subscriber base in India . That sort of competitor is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the time you have identified him he has already gone past you). But if you imagine that Nokia and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you can't be farther from truth.

Nokia confessed that they all but missed the smartphone bus. They admit that Apple's Iphone and Google's Android can make life difficult in future. But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If these illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is not so much about mobile or music or camera or emails?

The "Mahabharat" (the great Indian epic battle) is about "what is tomorrow's personal digital device"? Will it be a souped up mobile or a palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that big battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question - "who is my competitor?"

Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It says "What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak, explain?" The smart ones get the answer almost immediately. Sony defined its market as audio (music from the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to encroach into their audio domain. Come to think of it, is it really surprising? Apple as a computer maker has both audio and video capabilities. So what made Sony think he won't compete on pure audio? "Elementary Watson". So also Kodak defined its business as film cameras, Sony defines its businesses as "digital."

In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn between going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in both. It had to. It did not ask the question "who is my competitor for tomorrow?" The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented it from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared "internet is a fad!" and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to bury Netscape. The point is not who is today's competitor. Today's competitor is obvious. Tomorrow's is not.

In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India ? Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines and others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and telepresence services of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to use videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in 2008. ( India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to think that the airlines will be back in business post recession is something I would not bet on. In short term yes. In long term a resounding no. Remember, if there is one place where Newton 's law of gravity is applicable besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and 1991 the prices of the now dead VCR (parent of Blue-Ray disc player) crashed to one-third of its original level in India . PC's price dropped from hundreds of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands. If this trend repeats then telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of airlines then. As it is not many are making money. Then it will surely be RIP!

India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were distinctly different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag. The filmi gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other Khans who followed suit). That was, when cricket was fundamentally test cricket or at best 50 over cricket. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly an IPL match was reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film's competitor. On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex owners requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls to hang on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket, as it is likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not clash with IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what in India are called 3 hour "tamasha" (entertainment) . Cricket season might push films out of the market.

Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a fountain pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the above is "I don't remember!" For some time there was a mild substitute for the typewriter called electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then came the computer and mowed them all. Today most technologically challenged guys like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters per se are nowhere to be seen.

One last illustration. 20 years back what were Indians using to wake them up in the morning? The answer is "alarm clock." The alarm clock was a monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every day to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it woke you up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were sleeker. They were much more gentle though still quaintly called "alarms." What do we use today for waking up in the morning? Cellphone! An entire industry of clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big watch companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush your competitor is hiding!

On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for authors? Joke spewing machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole, tagged a Polish joke telling machine to a telephone much to the mirth of Silicon Valley ). Or will the competition be story telling robots? Future is scary! The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about the animal called competition. He said "Have breakfast ...or.... be breakfast"! That sums it up rather neatly.

---- Dr. Y. L. R. Moorthi is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore . He is an M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and a post graduate in management from IIM, Bangalore

[ Management Views from IIMB is an exclusive column written every two weeks for
india.wsj.com by faculty members of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore .]

Life Has Changed A Lot. And The People Too.

Life Has Changed A Lot. And The People Too.
But The Thing Is That We Don’t Want To Accept It!
I Want To Go Back To The Time

When INNOCENCE Was NATURAL,
Not FAKE.

When GETTING HIGH Meant On A SWING,
Not PROMOTIONS.

When DRINKING Meant RASNA ORANGE,
Not BEERS Or WHISKEYS .

When DAD Was The Only HERO,
Not DEPP Or TOM.

When LOVE Was MOM’S HUG,
Not The GIRL-FRIENDS’.

When DAD’S SHOULDER Was The HIGHEST PLACE On The Earth,
Not Your DESIGNATION.

When Your WORST ENEMIES Were Your SIBLINGS,
Not Your MANAGER.

When The Only Thing That Could HURT Were BLEEDING KNEES,
Not The TEARS Falling Down Your Cheeks.

When The Only Things BROKEN Were TOYS,
Not The DYING HEARTS.

And When GOOD-BYES Meant TILL TOMORROW,
Not For YEARS & YEARS .

Is it love story? Check out the Love story of Ravaleka and Venkat

This is a story of Ravaleka and Venkat. Ravaleka , a 25-year old workaholic who is working in a software firm. Ravaleka ’s came to office at 9 or 10 in the morning and left at 11 or 12 at night. Even on weekends she would come down to office. She had no social life, no friends. The only people she use to be with were her project mates. But there was no assurance that she would be having her lunch or tea with them. Basically she was all a loner. There was no love life in her life and she had no time for love. All her time was devoted to work

Venkat, use to be a workaholic like Ravaleka 2 years back. But now things had changed. He was no more workaholic but still he use to stay in office. Office had become home for him.

One night while Ravaleka was all alone and working at the office a mail popped up in her mailbox. The name of the sender was Venkat . She had not met him, never heard about him. Just out of curiosity she checked his mail. The content of the mail was



Hi Ravaleka ,

I see you every night sitting in the office till very late. Don’t you have friends? Don’t you feel like talking to your roommate?
You should not sit very late in the office. this is a genuine advice from me.

Thanks,
Venkat


After reading the mail, Ravaleka was very angry on the sender. She simply deleted the mail and said to herself “who is he to give me any advice?”. She again got back to her work.

After that night, every night Venkat would keep sending her mails and Ravaleka would simply delete them without even reading the content of the mail. But one fine night the subject line attracted her and she had to open the mail. The subject line of the mail was “Hi Gorgeous”


Hi Gorgeous,

Yes today you are looking very gorgeous in this red saree. I know you don’t read my mails as you don’t like the advices I give you.
So today I wont give you any advice, I will just say that I am love with you. You know you are very beautiful and if you take care of yourself many men will fall in love with you.

I am sure someday you will also fall in love with me. And then we will go out for a date.

Oh before I end the mail I must tell you that the best thing about is that smile. Or is it those intense which needs some sleep at the moment.

Take care dear.

Love you.

Venkat .




After reading the mail she was shocked. A person she had never met, never seen, never spoke to was saying that he was in love with her. She started thinking was this always in his mind. How did he get her id? Where had he seen her? Many questions like this came in her mind. Finally she thought of giving a warning and replied to his mail.




Hi Venkat,

I don’t want to spoil your career but if you don’t stop sending me mails I will raise an ASHI against you.

Thanks and Regards,
Ravaleka




After this mail, the mails from Venkat stopped coming in Ravaleka ’s inbox. She thought that finally Venkat has got scared and wont be mailing her again. After several nights, Ravaleka was resting on her chair and her eyes closed. When she opened her eyes she saw Venkat’s mail in her mailbox.




Hi Gorgeous,

With your closed eyes you were dreaming about me, right? Oh sorry for not sending any mails in the last few days.
I was a little busy. I am sure you would have missed me a lot.

One more thing before I forget I want to say that I am not scared of ASHI. An ASHI cant be a reason to stop loving you.

Love you.

Venkat


Ravaleka was twisting her hair and putting them behind her ears. At that moment itself another mail came from Venkat,



Now stop playing with your hair and leave the office. it is very late.

Love.

Venkat



Ravaleka was shocked as to how did this person know what she was doing on her desk. She got up to check whether anyone was there in her floor but could find only empty cubicles. She thought maybe he made a wild guess and decided to leave the office. before leaving she saw another mail from Venkat.




Hi Ravaleka ,

Searching for me??? You have started falling in love with me. J

Love you.

Venkat


Ravaleka was shocked and scared to hell. She simply switched off her machine and ran outside the office. in the next few days she would not open any mails sent by Venkat. One night a mail with subject line “Don’t be scared of me” came to her mailbox. First she thought to ignore the mail then she thought lets see what has Venkat written this time.




Hi Ravaleka ,

Don’t be scared of me. I can say that you are scared of me because of the way you ran out from the office the last time you read my mail.

I know few minutes back you had gone to have coffee. You are thinking how I know this because I can feel you around me.

Only once you also start feeling me you will know that I am near to you. Very near. Just sitting next to you.

I will wait for the night when you start having the same feelings for me.

Will always love you.

Venkat


Now Ravaleka started thinking was Venkat really in love with her? What he was saying was it true? But how could he know so much about her? How could he say what she was doing and what not? Ravaleka thought lets give a try and see whether Venkat is always in love with her or not. From that night she also started replying to his mail.


Hi Ravaleka ,

Do you feel bad if I call you gorgeous?

Love you.

Venkat


Ravaleka ’s reply:


Yes Venkat. I don’t like this word.

You can address me as Ravaleka , isn’t it short and simple. and I love my name a lot.

Thanks and Regards,
Ravaleka


Venkat’s reply:


Point noted Ravaleka . But when I am happy, excited I would call you with some special name at that time.

Tomorrow you have your certification so all the best for that.

Love you.

Venkat


Ravaleka was again shocked as to how does he know about her certification. She had never told him. She replied


Venkat,

Who is the person who is giving you details about me? I had not told you about my certification how do you know it?

Thanks and regards,
Ravaleka

Venkat replied back to her


I know it because I in front of you. Cant you see me? Cant you feel me close to you?

I also know that after 3 days you have your appraisal. Now this you have not told anyone. Just your PM knows about it.

Do you think your PM will give me all these details?

Love you.

Venkat



Ravaleka not sure of the answer. She knew her PM would not have told Venkat all this but how did Venkat know so much about her was a mystery for her. Finally she thought she will talk to her PM, Jaikey .

Next day, she went to her PM’s desk. “Hi Jaikey . I wanted to ask you something”.

Jaikey :- “Sure Ravaleka . Are having any issues?”

Ravaleka :- “No. actually I wanted to know about a person named Venkat .”

Jaikey was shocked on hearing that name. PM:- “How did you come across this name. has anyone told you about him?”

Ravaleka :- “No one has said anything to me about him. Few days back he started sending me e-mails. First I ignored but then he would give such details which I did just few minutes back. He even knows my appraisal date.”

Jaikey :- “Are you sure you got mails from Venkat only?”

Ravaleka :- “Yes very much. But why do you looked shock?”

Jaikey :- “Because Venkat died 2 years back. He use to sit at the same place where you are sitting. How can a dead person send mails to you.”

Ravaleka was shocked. She didn’t know how to react to this.

Jaikey :- “If you don’t believe me then you can try finding his name in the telephone directory. Maybe someone told you about him and because of work stress you started imagining that he is sending you mails.”

Ravaleka :- “I am not imagining anything. He has really send me a mail. I can show you in my mailbox.”

Jaikey :- “Okay Ravaleka I believe you but still I think you should take a break and go home.”

Ravaleka was still in shock with the news she got from Jaikey . She just did a search on telephone directory for a name with Venkat and page returned no records. She again checked the mail id and employee number details. She did a search many times that day by putting various combinations but the search page displayed the same message “No matches found for the given search criteria”. She could not believe that someone could hack the system and send mails to her from an non-existing id. She attached the mails sent by Venkat and sent it to Jaikey as a proof that she was not dreaming.

On seeing the attached mails even Jaikey was in shock. He came to Ravaleka ’s desk. Jaikey :- “I think by mistake his id has not been deleted and someone who knows about it is playing with it.”

Ravaleka :- “But I checked the details on telephone directory there are no records available for this id.”

Jaikey :- “Talk to the CCD people and see what they have to say.”

She called up the CCD people. They took control over her system and looked at the mail sent by Venkat . The mail was sent from the from the same computer which Ravaleka was using. The time stamp at which the mails were sent Ravaleka had logged in. Also there was no evidence that a remote desktop connection was made or mail was sent through web mail. Even the CCD people were clueless as to how a mail has been sent from a non-existing id and from Ravaleka ’s system itself. There were no viruses or torjans or any other kind of threats on Ravaleka ’s system. Her anti-virus was upto date. The whole day was gone in finding a loophole as to how did Ravaleka get such a mail in her mailbox. Ravaleka was tierd from the day’s happening and so she decided to leave early from the office that day.

The next day when Ravaleka came back, she saw a mail from Venkat . She didn’t know whether she should delete that mail or read that mail. She was scared to open the mail. Somehow she gained some courage and opened the mail. The context of the mail was:-




Hi Ravaleka ,

Good to see that you left the office early tonight. I know Jaikey told you about my death.

I was also a workaholic like you. I would sit late in the office, even when no one was around me.
I just being at office. I had no friends, no social life. Even on weekends I would use to come to office.

I missed all the fun in my life. Even my death happened at office while I was working.
My dead body was found by the house keeping guy and the security guard at the reception.

I took a lot of work stress which my conscious mind could not bear that day. I ignored all the health problems I was having.
And finally on that night (20. 10. 07, 11:24 PM) all these reasons became responsible for my death.

Now you know why I am not scared of ASHI.
But yes if I was alive then also I wont be scared of ASHI because I have really fallen in love with you but we cant be together until your death.
Now the choice is yours whether you will kill yourself on your own or whether I need to do the honors.

Waiting for your death. Love you always.

Venkat

Knowledge about India

If we don't see even a glimpse of that great india in the india that we see today, it clearly means that we not working upto our potential and that if we do, we could once again

Remember to 'PUT THE GLASS DOWN TODAY!

A professor began his class by holding up a glass with some water in it.


He held it up for all to see; asked the students,' How much do you think this glass weighs?'


'50gms!' .... '100gms!' ......'125gms' ......the students answered.


'I really don't know unless I weigh it,' said the professor,'but, my question is: What would happen if I held it up like this for a few minutes?'


'Nothing' the students said.

'Ok what would happen if I held it up like this for an hour?' the professor asked.


'Your arm would begin to ache' said one of the students.


'You're right, now what would happen if I held it for a day?'


'Your arm could go numb, you might have severe muscle stress; paralysis;


Have to go to hospital for sure!'ventured another student; all the students laughed.


'Very good. But during all this, did the weight of the glass change?' asked


The professor. 'No' the students said.


Then what caused the arm ache & the muscle stress?'


The students were puzzled.


'Put the glass down!' said one of the students.


'Exactly!' said the professor.' Life's problems are something like this.


Hold it for a few minutes in your head; they seem OK.


Think of them for a long time & they begin to ache. Hold it even longer & they begin to paralyze you. You will not be able to do anything.


It's important to think of the challenges (problems) in your life, but


EVEN MORE IMPORTANT to 'put them down' at the end of every day before you go to sleep.


That way, you are not stressed, you wake up every day fresh & strong & can handle any issue, any challenge that comes your way!'


Remember to 'PUT THE GLASS DOWN TODAY!

Great Indian Media

Great Indian Media... These are giving more importance to salman khan ki shaadi than the Arunachal Pradesh controversy. Google maps showing Arunachal Pradesh in 3 forms. Even in Global Google maps, it is showing Arunachal Pradesh is a disputed region. Check out the graphics of Google maps

Windows 2010 Telanagan Version

Hello Friends

Check out the Windows 2010 Telangana Version.
Dont miss the last word, ERRORS.

Aman Ki Asha, an Indo-Pak Peace Project

For more information search times of india with the key word aman ki asha.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/amankiasharticleshow/5411328.cms