"Know Yourself, Control Yourself, Give Yourself"

- Greek philosophy

Visiting IIT Madras

Today I was lucky to visit IIT Madras Ocean Engineering department and see the facilities.

I saw how a miniature model of the ship is tested with a towing tank and how test data regarding speed, torque, thrust, resistance etc are taken. Similar photos are shown in IIT Madras home page - See Photo gallery.

I went with Unni, my wife's cousin who is working as a design consultant for Ship manufaturing. They have outsourced to IIT-M measuring of these parameters. Its good to see IIT madaras in touch with Industry. Prof. Anantha Subramanian was running the show there with his intelligent and enthusiastic students. Unni's client also came along and he was also there.

The professors, Unni, his client (Raju) all were malayalees and importantly all are from CUSAT.

The professors who taught Unni and Raju were facing questions from them! Good.

Rising Corpus - Good or Bad ?

There is a article in ValueReserachOnline on whether Rising Corpus is alarming or not - Read the artcle.

I had this in my mind for some time... Always MF experts refer others for some 4-5 funds... and their fund is rising.. Huge money to manage, may become disadvantage sometimes...

They say for funds who have majority allocations in high-cap funds will not face problems. But for mid-cap concentrated funds, when market goes down, there may be not much buyers for mid-cap funds which can be trouble some..

For some of the high performing mid-cap funds like Reliance Growth and Sundaram Select idcap Fund - the corpus is rising very much. Let us watch how those funds perform in difficult times..

I had only one funds which was mid-cap oriented - Pru ICICI Tax Plan - My value for those dipped by 20% in last week.. Mid-cap funds earn you more.., but they are more riskier!

Plagiarism

Malayalee bloggers are protesting against Yahoo India for shamelessly lifting stories from their blogs sites - Read the story here

It seems my favourite blog writer - silverine has also been a victim of plagiarism.

But i dont know which side i should take ? i have been shamelessly lifting google images for all my posts! ( except for lachu's pictures!!!)

Perhaps I should be creating my own images from now on.

My new car

Got LKG admission -St.Johns, Besant Nagar

Lachu got selection in St.Johns School.

The process was smooth.... First there was verification of the records... Then lachu and me went to play - in see-saw and climbing bars etc etc...

When we were called for interview... she was in no mood for that.. and started crying for forcibly taking her out of the play area...

We entered the teacher's room... crying and crying.. But they told her she can go and play.

After meeting the teachers - rest of formalities were done in a minute.

Had to take lachu using force out of the school. She now dont want to go to Abhyaas playschool and want to go to the BIG school.

best investment

Insurance is not for investment...

But I can feel.... the best investment in this point of time seems to be a "term insurance" of 1 crore.

feeling my health, i may need to pay only few premiums!

*Touchwood* hope it does not happen

Sri Sankara School, Adyar, Bad example

Today I went to Sri Sankara School Adyar. lachu's name is not even in the waiting list.

I dont know what is the criteria of selection.

We were called to school at 10am... and we were called for interview only at 12, and then the child failed at the interview (?)

They could have
- called only those who were shortlisted based on some criteria
- or could have done first-come-first

Chettinad Vidyashram school follows first-come-first.

St.Johns where lachu has got admission letter selects based on the following criteria
- location preference
- Parent's job ( eg:defence personnel has highest priority)
- girl child preference
- Parent's education etc

Whether the other criteria are good or not --- a selection based on interview for LKG students is STUPID!

There have been cases and judgement against this sort of practice in recent time - see reports

Now wait and see for St.Johns! Good luck to me!

lachu - first things first - morning starts

St. Johns

Lachu has got a call for admission from St.Johns...

Now we have a choice!

LKG interview

Today lachu had LKG interview at Sree Sankara.

Her token number was 97.

It was a long wait of 2hrs before her turn came.

They asked several questions.., she did not tell anything in return.

When they finally said bye.., she said BYE BYE BYE!

Now i have to go and look on 20th.., and see if her name is in the list....

You Are a Social Blogger!

Your blog is more of a semi-private affair for your friends.It's how you keep in touch... sharing stories, jokes, and pics.

Rest in Pieces!

Yesterday something was not working.

Today Nothing is working..

I dont want anything..

Let me Rest in Peace

Workplace

Excitement at work!!!

"This also did not work"

Health Renewal

spondelolythesis ( recommended daily exercise ) - 2000
sinus (recommended operation ) in 2001

Now in 2007!

Nothing done yet...

OPtion 1:
---------
1. eat pankaja kasthuri daily ! ( mohan lal says so)
2. do daily exercise

Option 2:
----------
?????????

I will be in trouble ..!

Sensex dips, Paper profit dips

Sensex dipped by 348 points, and my paper profit down by 17%.

Good!

I am targetting only 2050... ! Let India.Inc recover.

Blogs at work place

Most MNC's are promoting official blogs with personal touch as a way of PR exercises and better interactions with customers.

The company which uses blog to the max seems to be Microsoft.

All these guys were active in newsgroups and forums, have now turned to blogs..

Nortel guys also have started blogging...

In late ninetees in our group.., our boss had advocated active participation in groups like NTDEV, and always said we should use our official ids and signature in the communication..

The active participation happened.., but we were only interested in promoting us, and not the company we were working for :)

Now should we try blogs... I have a networking blog... but there i note down the things i come across.. but i dont put much effort to make that readable for others..

Index funds vs diversified equity

The very few investments I have in equities is (all) in - diversified equity mutual funds.

Diversified equity funds invest fully in equities, except for the cash reserves Fund managers keep. By investing in all sectors, and various companies in sectors they average out the risks. Also their investment philosophy allows the manager to find out the most under-valued stocks.

Recently only i enquired about Index funds. Index funds are passive funds which follows the market. Index funds invest in the companies that feature in the benchmark index and in the same proportion. So as indexes rise, the fund value will automatically rise.

It is said that in matured markets like US index funds are more popular, as it is difficult to beat the market ( why ? - things are stablized there ?)

Here the index in 1993 and 2003 was around 4000. so after investment of 10 years, it would have been a no-rise in the value... But now in these 4 years sensex has reached 14500 points..

Any guess on the value in 2050 ?

Index funds will be attractive because of
- low risk ( but in a emerging market like india , it means low returns, but nearly equal to benchmark indexes)
- low cost ( no active fund management needed )

So should take an eye on Index funds also..!

Passport Story

Got new passport... so third book...

If you are giving application to cochin office.., then:

1. the application form has to be filed in a file with colur code of district. So even if you have filled application form, consult with a authorised member outside the passport office to double check the form.
2. I submitted
a. old passports
b. copy of first four and last four of the two passport books i had
c. copy of valid visa
3. they gave me the old passport back after submitting the application, and asked me to come one and half week later ( on Feb 6th, 2-5pm)
4. They call ur names "Anoop Govindan nair".... during 3-5pm... so we have to be present before 3pm.
5. And i got the passport

Other things:

Ernakulam North is full of mosquitos. I reached there at 3am. had a room at Pannaickal tourist home, just opposite North stn. The mosquitos almost killed me. I also had my revenge. I killed all the ones who bite me from 6am to 7am, once i woke up.

So i had Odomos on my way back... so in railway station all others except me were dancing and running away from mosquitos... i was sitting , watching and enjoying.. Odomos is great!

I dont like auto drivers... They charged me 40Rs, 50Rs and 60Rs for the same routes... I will keep an option of "No Deal" with them next time.. I will better take taxi.

---

So i do have a passport with me now.....

Trading - Clueless

"Invest in what you know"

- Peter Lynch
Despite being acting as an MF expert, i am clueless about how the trading happens inside.

Just looked at the equity side, and i am clueless how to "fill in the blanks" of the buy sheet of equity shares.

Need to study the basics at this old age :)

I am not going for investing directly in equity, but would like to know what is the basics of buying and selling... from where i will get all the paper profit and why ?

Is it real ?

Productivity

"The top software developers are more productive than average software
developers not by a factor of 10X or 100X or even 1000X but by 10000X"

- Nathan Myhrvold, CTO, Microsoft

Google earth

Google earth has agreed to blurr pictures of key indian sites...

There was a discussion in the past in one IEEE discussion forum we had...

Some points discussed were:

1. we should have indian Google.... US Google may not be in our national interest.. An argument against this was, now all indian information will be contained in one consolidated point making it easy for anti-indian elements.

2. Does terrorists look into google earth and attack.. they may have their own satellites..

3. Does india have a map or photos stating its key positions... in the event of any any natural or man-made calamity, it will be necessary... now atleast we have google earth...

i dont know...

Power of compounding

It may be surprise for people who knowing me for years, that currently i am fascinated by the power of compunding ( of money).

still i am not really fascinated by money, i like the power of compounding aspect only.

when i had my IIM K PGCPM course, i took my Demat account and my first MF investment ( still my investments are small only in MFs), but only recently i am hooked to it.

I have started investing 5K per month into diverisified equity funds through SIPs ( systematic investment plans).

Today i gave a deal to my wife also... i will give 8% minimal interest if you invest 1000Rs per month in MF. If the MFs are in better state after 3 years, let it be there. She has agreed. It is bad disclosing personal things through web. But i rarely disclose anything :)

2007 is a year of volatity. But as i learnt.., its not the time of market, but the time in market that makes the difference.

Reliance Vision / Fresh

After seeing Guru i immediately had an investment in Reliance Vision. I was impressed by Abishek Bachan's performance, if not Ambani.

Now there is a small Reliance Fresh vegetables outlet near Tiruvanmiyoor market. Was surprsied by the location, it is not in the main road where the spencers and other chains are located, but near market. Its always rush there. But i did take a look there today. The shop is small and but there are more than 20 people to serve inside... Plastic wrapper bags can be taken from the round kept here and there, the vegetables and fruits look very fresh. You can take whatever quantity you need, and a weighing machine is there at the counter.

They have issued a Reliance Once card also , where you can get points and get redeemed when it reaches 25.

I purchased for 99Rs in the A/C outlet. The man at the counter asked me to take a toffee for 1Rs, as i will get a pack of sugar ( Rs 13 wrth) if i purchase for 100Rs. I took a perk, and had the gift also...

The Reliance Card offers 50000Rs accident insurance also.. and the card is valid at any of the reliance fresh outlets..

I liked the shop..

But what about small vegetable shop owners who are there in every corner... seems it is inevitable that these guys will take the market. If not reliance then some walmart..

In chennai they will not have Achuthanathan;s to help them..

Prakash raj in Muruagan's Idly shop

Met Prakash raj yesterday at Muruagan's Idly shop, Besant nagar. I did not had a camera phone with me. Damn my LG low cost mobile.

I was afraid of going and talking with him.

So i silently went away after getting my parcel of Idlys..

Even if you dont see Prakash raj's often at Murugan's idly shop, still its worth going to eat the Idly's.

Growth or Dividend option

I was initially confused - where to invest - on growth option or dividend - For Mutual Funds.

In dividend schemes - Fund manager books profits by selling, and gives the profit to the investors. Since money is being withdrawn from fund, the NAV fails.

In growth schemes - Money is in fund itself. I have found this a better option, as I dont need income from MFs, and i see that as a long term option only. So let my money be in better hands.