The 10 biggest falls in Sensex history

http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/may/18spec.htm

What triggered the market crash today? 15th May 2006

"There is nothing to worry. This is a phenomenon wherein there was a crash in the commodity market as far as the metals are concerned. The markets had gone up therefore had to fall, so it fell. If you look into it in totality there is nothing to worry."

http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/may/15markets.htm

Biggest falls and gains of the Sensex

It was another Black Monday on the Indian stock markets on May 15, as the Sensex -- the benchmark 30-share sensitive index of the Bombay Stock Exchange -- plummeted by a whopping 470 points during intra-day trading.

Heavy selling by institutions and retail investors alike saw the markets plunge from 12,285 points to almost 11,800 points. The Indian markets seemed to mirror the weakness in the other Asian and emerging markets.

http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/may/15sen1.htm

Hottest Casinos

just one from the sin city?

http://www.forbes.com/2006/03/22/cx_sb_0323featslide.html

The world's tallest towers

I was quite surprised to read that 8 of the top 10 are in asia and of the 8, 5 are in China.

http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/may/08forbes1.htm

Hyundai Accent to continue?

http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/may/05hyundai.htm

With Verna stepping in sometime towards the end of 2006, the question which Accent owners or prospective Accent buyers have is "will the existing Accent continue in the market?" and as anyone would expect, the answer from the Hyndai management - "Yes".

The Ford management said the same thing prior to introducing the Fiesta, and they were not totally wrong. They retained the 1.3 Flair which happened to be their largest selling Ikon model and discontinued the others - the 1.6 Petrol and the 1.8 Diesel.

Would Hyundai want to do the same? Is their base version 1.5 L Pertol really selling large numbers? or is it their CRDI model? Hyundai cannot retain the existing CRDI model and afford to compete with the fresher Fiesta diesel, if 1.5 L pertol is not the largest selling model..would it make sense for Hyundai to retain it? It would not be possible for Hyundai to do the same to the 1.5L Accent as Ford did to the flair by keeping the model and reducing its price to boost the sales, coz it would do further damage to the already dipping Getz sales.

We've really got to wait and see what Hyundai does. Or, was this statement issued just to ensure that Hyundai manages to clear off their existing Accent stock before Verna steps in?

Laloo and the Indian Railways turnaround story

I have managed to gather a few points on a topic which I have always wanted to look into for quite some time now.

Laloo and the turnaround story of the India Railways: From almost being declared as heading towards fatal bankruptcy to a profit of 15,000 crores and today being looked at as the second most revenue generating PSU after the ONGC.

Thanks to the 19th June 2006 edition of Outlook, I have managed to assimialte the following key points:

Action # 1: The goods wagons were earlier carrying 81 metric tonnes (MT) of goods, this was increased to 91 MT.

Rationale: The wagons officially were meant to carry 81 MT but unoffically they were carrying much more, some corrupt raliway officials were making money in the process, so why not make overloading offical?

Result: This move alone resulted in an additional inflow of Rs 7,200 crores
Point to ponder: When the maximum limit was set to 81 MT earlier, this must have been done considering safety standards, pushing it to 91 MT would lead to an increased probability of accidents. The engineering group of raiways heavily opposed the move. But, Laloo's reaction "If you do not milk a cow to the fullest, it falls sick"

Action # 2: Upgrade passengers to upper class if berths are available
Rationale : The train would run full, and people who are waitlised in the lower class would be assured of a berth.

Result: Not sure of the aditional revenue inflow that happened due to this move.

Action # 3 : Do away with detailed examination of trains which have travelled short distances

Rationale: A detailed examination of the train is done after it completes a journey immaterial of the duration of the journey. A train which has run from Jammu to Kanyakumari covering a distance of 3000 kms would undergo the same 16 hours examination which a train covering a distance of 250 kms from Jammu to Amritsar would undergo. Laloo did away with the examination of the trains running on short distance and instead let the bogies run for a longer time.

Action # 4: Maintain passenger profiles so that bogies could be taken off and be added to needed trains.

Rationale: A train going towards Jaipur in summer would not be running full whereas a train running towards Dehradun would be needing extra bogies. So, move the un-needed bogies from Jaipur train and add it to the Dehradun one.

Points to ponder: Adding extra bogies to a train, would it not again lead to the same issue as that in # 1 ?

The actions which Laloo has taken were quite simple, all the data was present with the railways, but no one in the past had ever attempted extrapolating the data and make such good use of it.

The turnaround story has found admirers in IIM Ahmedabad and especially in Professor G. Raghuram who as part of the Rakesh Mohan committee in 2001 had declared the Indian Railways as an organization in a terminal debt trap and heading towards "fatal bankruptcy" if it did not opt for privatization.

Leaders who died young

Those whom the gods love...

http://specials.rediff.com/news/2006/may/03sld01.htm