Continued from here It is important that both the country and its citizen grow at reasonably matched pace and growth of one does not outpace the other. If a citizen's standard of living increases faster than that of the economy - s/he would be tempted to migrate to an economy/country which matches his/her standard of living creating a drain (brain drain being one of the manifestations). On the other hand, if the economy outpaces the citizen's personal growth, it may often lead to rise in economic disparities leading to social problems. Since, slow money contributes towards increase in the standard of the economy/country while fast money impacts the standard of individuals, it is imperative that both slow and fast money should coexist in the economy and in the right proportions. Also, fast and slow money should not be interchanged - otherwise it may produce bizzare results. For example: under communism the state insisted on investing slow money into business leading to setting u...

I am no economist, so I find the concepts of M1, M2 ... M4 a little tough to understand. However, based on my own thoughts, I have come up with a new kind of money supply classification - that of fast money and slow money (which overlap but are the same as private and public money). Slow Money can be defined as money kept in form of long term reserves and used for projects with long gestation periods having assured but low rate of return. Typically, this is money kept in Fixed Deposits, Savings Bonds or other forms of Government borrowings. Such money is often used by the Government or its agents to build infrastructure or institutional framework for the country. Fast money is typically investor money - invested in ventures with potentially high returns but as much higher risk and with short to medium term return cycle. Such money - as is obvious from its definition - is typically invested in equity or other risky assets like venture capital funds, usually used for ventures whose sust...

No! This is not a rant! Its just an update on this blog about my life in the past 4 months after my marriage. As expected, life after marriage has been busy marked by weekends spent either traveling to some place or playing host to parents / friends at our newly set up home. Gudi Padwa at Home Travel with my Mom-Dad to Sardar Sarovar Dam In the backdrop - Sardar Sarovar Dam Dad, Divya, Mom In the Valley near Sardar Sarovar My Brother (Abhishek), cousin (Manasi), wife(Divya) and me(Nikhil)! My In-Laws: Mom, Dad, Wife and Sis-in-law (Neha, sitting) Visit to Hanging Gardens Mumbai Visit to Nariman Point Me and Bro - Riding uphill in the trolley at Champaran / Pawagarh near Vadodara Climbing up the last few steps My Brother: While Climbing Down For more photos goto: http://picasaweb.google.com/kulkarni.nikhil/56Home?authkey=Gv1sRgCKTai57x8PT73gE#

When Google Knol first came, it was considered a competitor to Wikipedia - but looking at it now, Knol has evolved into its own type. With facilities like Citation and 'Collect this Knol', Knol has become a tool for people to write articles similar to research papers. Knols may as well be called 'informal' research papers or research papers in draft. I wrote my first Knol a couple of days back on the subject of ' Classification of tweets '. An excerpt below: It should be practically possible to build a web application / extension to twitter which will tentatively classify tweets and display them to users in say a newspaper like layout. Thereafter it should also allow users to suggest changes to the classification if they think this is not a correct classification. Read More

Well, not exactly an acquisition, but Reliance Big Entertainment (part of ADAG group and owner of Zapak Games) has acquired a 50% stake in Codemasters a leading British Gaming company. Codemasters is a big player in European gaming circuit - in the US its content is distributed by none other than Warner Brothers. Codemasters creates games for a plethora of platforms including the leaders XBox, PSP and handheld leader Wii. According to Zapak.com press release, Zapak will oversee the investment on behalf of Reliance. This is a great news for Zapak which is reaping the benefit of being a part of a larger group company. The development will have far reaching implications for the Indian gaming ecosystem. Other gaming bigwigs such as IndiaGames too may now need to seek international investment and collaboration to stay afloat We may see more international games of the PSP/X-Box/Wii family. Prices may also drop. However, the Indian gaming scene is expected to see more action on the mobile pho...

Whether the topic is technology , entrepreneurship or corporate leadership - Steve Jobs is definitely a case study worth researching. His iconic leadership style , his resounding success with technology lifestyle products as well as animation movie world and his valiant turnaround of Apple - a company which he co-founded but was kicked out from. However, Steve is also a case study for those of us interested in philosophy, self help, and spirituality. Jobs started as an arrogant, over-the-top young prodigy CEO. Everything about him was perfect from his cute boy looks to the elegant ideas he had. In those days, he looked no less than Tom Cruise. But he soon found trouble at his doors when both his personal and professional life tanked. He was officially ousted from working on his pet project - the Mac, and was later relieved of his position as the chairman of Apple forcing him to quit Apple altogether. In personal life, his history of of LSD and hippy lifestyle, his failure to acknowle...

Here's a quote from the first chapter of the book Rework (latest from the 37signals camp): Not only is workaholism unnecessary, it’s stupid. Working more doesn’t mean you care more or get more done. It just means you work more. Workaholics wind up creating more problems than they solve. First off, working like that just isn’t sustainable over time. When the burnout crash comes— and it will— it’ll hit that much harder. Workaholics miss the point, too. They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force. This results in inelegant solutions. They don’t look for ways to be more efficient because they actually like working overtime. Workaholics make the people who don’t stay late feel inadequate for “merely” working reasonable hours. Plus, it leads to an ass- in- seat mentality—people stay late out of obligation, even if they aren’t really being productive. If all you do is work, you’re unlikely to have sound judgmen...

Mahesh Murthy argues here that the budget does not matter any more - especially not to entrepreneurs. He laments that the booty being promised for special focus areas is not meant for genuine entrepreneurs but for those who are politically connected. While I may not disagree with Mahesh on the fact that most funds outlay on Govt. schemes benefits the big co's and politically connected, I don't agree a wee bit with him that the budget does not matter to an entrepreneur. For example, here's how this year's budget announcements may help entrepreneurs: Now you can hire an individual for upto 1.6 lakhs and forget anything about paying taxes to the Govt on his behalf - that's substantial admin cost savings for a small firm If you are a bootstrapper, funding your business with your salary or of a spouse/friend - you have a little more cushion for your startup If you are selling a service to end consumer, you know know that they have a little more money in their hands to i...

Budget Update:   From:  http://beta.profit.ndtv.com/news/show/relief-for-60-income-tax-payers-in-budget-27658 FM prunes tax rates: Income up to Rs 1.6 lakh - nil Income above Rs 1.6 lakh and up to Rs 5 lakh - 10 per cent Income above Rs 5 lakh and up to Rs 8 lakh - 20 per cent Income above Rs 8 lakh - 30 per cent. New tax rates would offer relief to 60 per cent of taxpayers, the finance minister said. Additional deduction of Rs 20,000 allowed on long-term infrastructure bonds for income tax payers; this is above Rs one lakh on saving instruments allowed already. Investment linked tax deductions to be allowed to two-star hotels anywhere in the country. With simplification of the Tax regime proposed above by the FM in this budget, a way has been paved for a Direct Tax Regime - which the FM has confirmed will go live from next year (April 1, 2011). What is Direct Tax Code (DTC)? .