how much does this paperboy earn??

take a guess

i am pretty surprised by the answer. if anyone comes across this boy, it will be great to reconfirm the amount which is in this story here.

ps: i this boy takes his enterprise public , i will surely want to invest.

Dr Prahalad and top of the pyramid!

we indians have the great ability to poke holes at the works of successful people. this is no such attempt but something i genuinely feel . dr prahalad is certainly a great management guru and peter drucker says his work is seminal.

i had purchased the book "fortune at the bottom of the pyramid" a long time ago but never got down to actually reading it. i have been reading rave reviews about it everywhere and seen it feature regularly among the CEOs reading picks in many business magazines.

i picked up the book and leafed through the pages and saw the innocuous pencil mark of the pricing - Rs 500. it really hit me hard. why would somebody who preaches the merits of the bottom of the pyramid price his book at rs 500. wouldnt it be better if he had priced it at rs 20 for a pdf version on the web. couldnt it be priced so low that it can be found with every management student and those associated with the profession in india and abroad. wouldnt this be a larger market? i only have such questions and i think it will be difficult for me to get convincing answers even if i ever read the book.

Citi never sleeps but forgets that i do!

I got another call from Citibank for my mom, while i was having my siesta in the afternoon, and it proved enlightening as usual. it goes something like this.

citibank: can i speak to ***, we are calling from citibank to offer a value added service.
me: you can explain it to me, i am her son
C: can u give me the DOB and address
Me : ***
C: we are offering a draft facililty for rs 4.5 lakh.
Me: I dont want a loan
C: why do you want it. the rate is only.....
Me: Honestly, my mother does not have the capacity to repay the loan. she has no source of income.
C: then why cant you take the draft in your name.
Me: (pretty stunned to reply. It is the first time i have come across a bank offering a loan to someone who admits that they dont have the money to repay!)
C: see, the rate of interest is 7.5 % and you can easily invest it elsewhere at 8%



my thoughts on the converstation later.

dinesh dalmia - a profile

i can across this link while googling for information on dinesh dalmia. it is funny , to say the least.
also, it is a pointer to that fact what we write today can look so stupid tomorrow. this blog certainly included.

the interpol red alert for DD is available here, so if u see him pl. call the police!

dinesh dalmia wanted by interpol

dinesh dalmia is wanted by the interpol and i read about it here. it was news to me but i realised that i had not been reading the papers carefully for a long time or may be enough has not been written about it.

about five years ago, dinesh dalmia's companies were at the peak. DSQ software shares were at the peak trading at rs 2300 and the m-cap should have been atleast 10,000 crore. DSQ biotech also announced grandoise plans. mr dalmia had a shady past especially with respect to dsq biotech, and everybody who knew something, knew it.

DSQ software was a though company to evaluate. the promoter was a crook but the company had some solid operations and very good middle management team and some managerial talent was brough in the top.

so, mr dalmia was able to market his company well. journalist wrote pages about it. foriegn investors flocked to it.

while the rise of mr dalmia had been penned in great detail, his fall has gone rather unrecorded, except for some writing of ms sucheta dalal and a few other stray articles.
after regulators started clamping down on his listed outfits, he began to focus on some of his unlisted companies in the BPO space, again with big plans.

this is an old story and perhaps badly retold. but the reason for putting it out is that we forget such events in bull markets like these or think they wont happen again.

sadly, markets dont change much and crooks are always out to make money and those operating now, i fear, could make mr dalmia look small. it is impossible to protect the lay investor against himself.

tailpiece: mr dalmi was holding an agm in chennai a couple of years back while the economic offences wing in calcutta had a warrant out for him. hope the interpol has better luck!