September 18, 2007
Future Group to list second company
Future Group is all set to get its second company listed. The company is expected to raise around Rs 2000 crore from the initial public offer. The nature of the company to be listed is not yet known but the group’s capital or the logistics businesses are most likely to be the ones.At present, Pantaloon Retail is the Rs 4,000 crore group’s only listed company that operates in six verticals: retailing, capital, brands, space, media and logistics. In the retail business, Pantaloon Retail is complemented by group companies, Indus League Clothing - which owns apparel brands Indigo Nation, Scullers and Urban Yoga - and Galaxy Entertainment, which operates Bowling Co, Sports Bar, F123 and Brew Bar. Pantaloon Retail, the group flagship, has nine subsidiaries, eight partnerships and 10 retail chains such as Food Bazaar, Big Bazaar and Central. Recently, the group launched Future Money, a consumer credit and financial supermarket format, and plans to offer insurance products through a joint venture with Italian insurance major, Generali. Future Group will also launch KB’s Fair Price, a chain of discount stores where goods would be cheaper by 10 to 15 per cent. The shops will sell FMCG products, essentially Future Group’s private labels. The stores are expected to cater to the urban poor and will be non-AC stores for lesser operation costs.
August 23, 2007
Air travel Today- the domestic traveler’s ordeal
Chaos, delays, large crowds… this is how one would typically describe air travel, in India, today. With several airlines and growing traffic at domestic airports, it is essential for airline and airport authorities to train their staff to the highest standards possible.
Just yesterday, I was booked on Jetlite, a subsidiary airline of Jet Airways, with a fully paid e-ticket from Bangalore to New Delhi. On arriving at the check in counter, I was requested to go on a later flight with Jet airways as the flight was overbooked, to which I insisted on flying on the current flight as I was not okay with the delay. The check-in manager, in an attempt to convince me, lied that my flight was delayed by 15 minutes anyway, so it will arrive at the same time. Turning down his offer, the check in staff issued me a boarding pass on the same flight.
I hadn’t seen my baby girl for over two weeks, so every minute of the wait to seeing her was like passing an hour! Alas I was pleased that despite the overbooking, I was on the same flight.
After the long uneventful security check, and the never ending line to the departure gate, the airline staff asked me to step aside and informed me that I was booked on a flight five hours later. It turned out that the check in staff had wrongly entered a flight number in my boarding pass.
I was taken all the way back with all my hand luggage unchecked and my boarding pass cancelled. After what seemed like a ludicrous joke between the staff, I was led to the Jet Airways counter and was given a seat on the flight to which I was not okay with. No sympathies, no apologies…and back into the security check line.
One can only imagine how much longer it took for me to see my baby girl that day. All due to a poor airline that overbooks its passengers requests them to reallocate to another flight and has a staff that is prone to error and shows no courtesy or value for a client’s time.
Just yesterday, I was booked on Jetlite, a subsidiary airline of Jet Airways, with a fully paid e-ticket from Bangalore to New Delhi. On arriving at the check in counter, I was requested to go on a later flight with Jet airways as the flight was overbooked, to which I insisted on flying on the current flight as I was not okay with the delay. The check-in manager, in an attempt to convince me, lied that my flight was delayed by 15 minutes anyway, so it will arrive at the same time. Turning down his offer, the check in staff issued me a boarding pass on the same flight.
I hadn’t seen my baby girl for over two weeks, so every minute of the wait to seeing her was like passing an hour! Alas I was pleased that despite the overbooking, I was on the same flight.
After the long uneventful security check, and the never ending line to the departure gate, the airline staff asked me to step aside and informed me that I was booked on a flight five hours later. It turned out that the check in staff had wrongly entered a flight number in my boarding pass.
I was taken all the way back with all my hand luggage unchecked and my boarding pass cancelled. After what seemed like a ludicrous joke between the staff, I was led to the Jet Airways counter and was given a seat on the flight to which I was not okay with. No sympathies, no apologies…and back into the security check line.
One can only imagine how much longer it took for me to see my baby girl that day. All due to a poor airline that overbooks its passengers requests them to reallocate to another flight and has a staff that is prone to error and shows no courtesy or value for a client’s time.
pls forward this in an attempt to improve domestic travel experiences
August 21, 2007
Sanjay Dutt Free
Sanjay Dutt, is a free man...if only for a while. On an interim bail, I am sure he along with family, friends and fans are desperate to see him out of jail, even though it may be short lived.Despite being an admirer of his recent work and his conduct in general, I fail to understand why alot of us seem to be confusing him with "Munna Bhai", the character from 'Munna Bhai MBBS' and its sequel.
Sanjay Dutt is not Munna Bhai and Munna Bhai is not Sanjay Dutt.
What we as the public feel for is the character in the movie. What the film community feels is for a respectable peer and friend to some.It should not be about who your father was, who your sister is, and what ordeal you have gone through in your life that gains sympathy of the public vote. Alas, we find ourself in a position where as Indians, we are driven by emotion and not intellect.
Though the judicial system may be considered harsh, they should be fair and decide for him, how they will decide for a common man.
My prayers are with the actor. May his judgement be fair.
QUOTES ON INDIA
"We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made!"
Albert Einstein
"If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India!"
French scholar Romaine Rolland"India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most astrictive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only!"
Mark Twain
"So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds। Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked."
Mark Twain
"She (India) has left indelible imprints on one fourth of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries। She has the right to reclaim ... her place amongst the great nations summarizing and symbolizing the spirit of humanity. From Persia to the Chinese sea, from the icy regions of Siberia to Islands of Java and Borneo, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales, and her civilization!"
Sylvia Levi
"India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border!"
Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA
"Civilizations have arisen in other parts of the world. In ancient and modern times, wonderful ideas have been carried forward from one race to another...But mark you, my friends, it has been always with the blast of war trumpets and the march of embattled cohorts. Each idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood..... Each word of power had to be followed by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows. This, many other nations have taught; but India for thousands of years peacefully existed. Here activity prevailed when even Greece did not exist... Even earlier, when history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of that intense past, even from until now, ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it. We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live....!"
Swami Vivekananda, Great Indian Philosopher
"If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India"
Max Mueller
"India was the mother of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages. She was the mother of our philosophy, mother through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother through Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother through village communities of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all."
Will Durant"In India, I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it, inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything, but possessed by nothing"
Apollonius Tyanaeus quotes (Neo-Pythagorean)
Albert Einstein
"If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India!"
French scholar Romaine Rolland"India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most astrictive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only!"
Mark Twain
"So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds। Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked."
Mark Twain
"She (India) has left indelible imprints on one fourth of the human race in the course of a long succession of centuries। She has the right to reclaim ... her place amongst the great nations summarizing and symbolizing the spirit of humanity. From Persia to the Chinese sea, from the icy regions of Siberia to Islands of Java and Borneo, India has propagated her beliefs, her tales, and her civilization!"
Sylvia Levi
"India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border!"
Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA
"Civilizations have arisen in other parts of the world. In ancient and modern times, wonderful ideas have been carried forward from one race to another...But mark you, my friends, it has been always with the blast of war trumpets and the march of embattled cohorts. Each idea had to be soaked in a deluge of blood..... Each word of power had to be followed by the groans of millions, by the wails of orphans, by the tears of widows. This, many other nations have taught; but India for thousands of years peacefully existed. Here activity prevailed when even Greece did not exist... Even earlier, when history has no record, and tradition dares not peer into the gloom of that intense past, even from until now, ideas after ideas have marched out from her, but every word has been spoken with a blessing behind it and peace before it. We, of all nations of the world, have never been a conquering race, and that blessing is on our head, and therefore we live....!"
Swami Vivekananda, Great Indian Philosopher
"If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India"
Max Mueller
"India was the mother of our race and Sanskrit the mother of Europe's languages. She was the mother of our philosophy, mother through the Arabs, of much of our mathematics, mother through Buddha, of the ideals embodied in Christianity, mother through village communities of self-government and democracy. Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all."
Will Durant"In India, I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it, inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything, but possessed by nothing"
Apollonius Tyanaeus quotes (Neo-Pythagorean)
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