Investment in gold

Today, everyone is aware that either you need to invest in gold or land to overcome the inflation. But the ever increasing price of gold makes it unreachable for a common man. Therefore, it is high time you start thinking of the alternatives which would make you buy gold eventually at the same time not getting succumbed to the market volatility. Many jewelers have come up with various schemes to invest in gold. As an investor, it is very important to select the right jeweler with good record and name in the market. And selecting the right scheme is the next important thing to do.

There are schemes where your money is right away invested in gold and the gold is accumulated in your account every time you pay. This scheme therefore reduces the risk and gives full value for the money invested. For example, ‘GRT Golden Seed’ scheme lets you accumulate Gold. Whereas, there are jewelers who offer schemes which accumulates money periodically and at the end of the period invests the accumulated money in gold. In addition, there may also be incentives along with this scheme. The jeweler may a month’s installment to your accumulated money and let you buy gold. For example, you have paid Rs.5000 every month for a period of 15 months your accumulated money would be Rs.75,000 and the total money to be redeemed for gold would be Rs.80,000. ‘GRT Gold tree’ is this kind of scheme.  But again, this would be profitable only if the price of gold go down at the time of redemption. In my opinion, I would recommend investors to accumulate gold instead of cash. After all, low risk grade and high return would be the only requirement for all isnt it?

Many other features like No wastage charge, nil VAT and flexible deposit should also be taken into consideration while selecting the schemes.  While some jewelers let you buy gold coins and diamond jewelry at the time of redemption, others don’t. So it is important you compare the schemes of different jewelers before investing.

Start investing and beat the inflation!

Good dayJ

The Pasta bar Veneto, T.Nagar

I visited this place 2 months back and I thought it is worth sharing with all of you. Located in T.Nagar, Pasta Bar Veneto is a perfect hangout if you are a lover of Italian food. The ambience of the place is too good and people who work there seems to know about the food unlike many places. The restaurant is built like on the perimeter letting the sunlight fall in the middle which I would say as something different.

Coming to the food part, we ordered Potato wedges and Garlic bread as starters and Pasta, Lasagna and Pizza as main course. The food was very fresh, tasty and flawless. Loved their Lasagna and Pasta was kind of different with less cheese but it was good. Pizza was of thin crust and was also good. After the scrumptious food I ordered cheese cake as dessert which was yummyumm and also free of cost. :D (Yea, there was an offer stating that if we had food for Rs.500 or more, dessert would be free). The place is totally cool with the best food I ever had in ages. I would definitely recommend this place to my friends and readers.

Some of the things that were slightly disturbing were that the place is not very suitable at hot days since sunlight falls inside the restaurant. And the Italian music was too loud. But they reduced it immediately after we raised it as a concern. Very friendly and customer service was awesome J. We also felt they had little varieties of food to choose from for which they responded saying that their menu was being designed again with more varieties than it is at present.

If you are foodie, then this place would make your dayJ

Give it a try and let me know your comments.

Happy blogging!

TRIP KALASA, KARNATAKA:

I reached Central at 9 0’ clock for the 10.30 Bangalore Express train. Waiting for my friends to arrive, I was sitting amidst the hundreds of fellow passengers in the huge hall. After boarding the train, the usual chit chats started which continued till 12 and then we all slept. We reached Bangalore at around 5.30 AM. While we were sipping our morning coffee, our cab had already arrived. We noticed that the Innova had the capacity to accommodate only 6 and we were 7 of us. So we waited for an hour until the next Innova with 7 members capacity(i.e no partition in 3 seater in the middle row) arrived. From there, we set off on the isolated yet amazing roads to KALASA. It took around 7 hours from Bangalore to reach the resort we had booked including the time we spent for breakfast and coffee.

We had already started moving up on the hill and we wanted to reach the “Silent Valley Resort” as soon as possible. So we didn’t stop anywhere for lunch and reached the resort by 5 PM hungrily. The resort was very friendly saying lunch was available even at that odd time. Appreciate their hospitality.  Lunch was reasonably good with decent amount of varieties. The resort was located on top of the hill giving beautiful view of the mountains, mist and forests surrounding it. Different kinds of accommodations are present - cottages, villas and tree houses widely spaced from each which gives us more space to walk around and take pictures.

We started from resort the next day morning to tea plantation and hanging bridge. The hanging bridge was a perfect scenic spot as it hung between two mountains separated by river below.  Many places were devoid of any tourists – maybe because we didn’t go in the right season. After taking pictures on the isolated bridge we decided to walk down to the river through a slope. It was kind of steep but we made it. The river was very shallow and transparent giving us a view of the stones, pebbles and fishes underneath. Seeing a rock in almost middle of the flowing river, we decided to sit on that rock for a while and take pictures. Crossing the river was fun. Water was chill and clear (and sweet – you can actually taste the water), stones were slippery enough to let u fall down. Careful not to step on the stones and just walk on the pebbles one by one to the rock in the middle was at times hurdled by the small fishes in the river which kept biting the feet. No harm though! Pedicure for free of cost: PAnd then we reached the rock successfully. After a while we climbed up the slope and got back in the car. 

Then we set off to Hanumanagundhi falls. Stepping down to around 800 steep steps beneath through the mountain, you can’tfail to notice your legs shivering and you will desperately want to sit. But the view is worth the pain. The falls has a level where everyone can get down. But there are places where tourists need to careful failing of which might prove fatal. Thankfully we happened to find many tourists there. But there were no ‘signs of danger’ kept for tourists’ guidance. If walking down the steps was difficult, you can imagine how it is to climb back up.

By then it was lunch time and we headed back to our resort. After finishing our lunch, we stopped to visit a place which was once a dam but now it is not being used. Till our eyes could reach, there were only dryness and scorching heat wanted us to leave the place soon. Probably, a bad season! Made me wonder how such a place could exist in the midst of mountains. On the way, we found some interesting places like lake view and valley point. We stopped there to take pictures and then returned back to the resort by 4.30 PM.

We again set off from the resort by 5.45 to have a view of sunset which is said to be famous from a viewpoint. The viewpoint was hardly within a kilometer from the resort.  Already being tired because of the steps in Hanumanagundhi falls, we found it difficult to again walk fast through a steep and longmuddy slope to get to the viewpoint. So we started slow and by the time we reached the top of the slope, the sun had already set and the moon hadrisen :D (We cant be blamed).  But I must mention that the slope was really haunting since it was through the mountains with no proper fencing to prevent animals (if any) getting in the tourists’ way. To top it off all, the slope and the viewpoint were all deserted and we were the only tourists up there. So we decided to descend down the slope before it gets too dark to avoid any danger. There, another reason how I ended up getting muscle pull in my legs for the next 2 days L

Tired and exhausted, we reached the resort and spent some time in camp fire. Dinner was great and there was no restriction in food consumption. We kept having desserts on and on till 12 and they were only happy to keep serving us till we were done. Very customer friendly and their hospitality wasadorable. We checked out of the resort next day by 12 PM and got in the cab and started our return journey to Bangalore which will take around 7 hours. By 7.30 PM we reached Bangalore. After our dinner, we boarded the bus from Bangalore to Chennai and we all reached back safe by 6 AM in the morning.

Bottom line is Kalasa was a place worth to be explored.

Some pictures for you:

                                                              View from the resort

                                                              Hanging bridge

                                                              View from Hanging bridge

                                                                    Valley Point

                                             View of hanging bridge from the river below

                                                                  Hanumanagundhi Falls

Hope this helps!Let me know what you think through comments :)

Happy Blogging!

The Shiva Trilogy - freakin awesome

Being an avid lover of historical fiction I found it difficult to restrain myself from “The Shiva Trilogy”. The first book “The Immortals of Meluha”  is a definite page turner. Trust me, you don’t have to be a Hindu to understand the story. Though the story is woven around known characters like Shiva, Sati, Ganesh, Karthik and Nandi who are worshipped as gods in Hindu religion today, it is not spiritual or religious in anyway. Turns out to be Amish Tripathi's masterpiece with adequate twists and turns keeping readers glued to the book.

Synopsis:

Meluha is a land which can be described as something that each and every one of us want our society to be like. Located in Kashmir, Meluha is an epitome of heaven on earth for it serves as a model for righteousness, laws, cleanliness and discipline. You could not stop wondering how it would be if we exist in such a society! Meluhans believe for ages that when evil rises a Mahadev would emerge and save them. Shiva, a normal human being of flesh and blood unknown of what his destiny would be is brought to Meluha only to unravel many new and hidden secrets.

Shiva falls in love with Sati whose has been living a doomed life for years. What stood their way of love is a mystery which Shiva solves. Somras is said to be a divine medicine which gives mortality for those who consume it. And Meluha has been manufacturing Somras which their so called enemies try to stop. Who are the enemies and who their allies are and what are their reasons for doing so are very sensibly demonstrated at a very good pace.

Characters like Nandi,Veerbhadra,Brahaspathi, Dhaksha,Parvateshvar, Parshuram, Kali did ring a bell while reading the book.  On the other end, the author gives us a glimpse about Nagas(the cursed people) and their deeds leaving the readers to judge them. What connection exists between them and Meluhans are portayed in the second book of Shiva trilogy “The secret of the Nagas”.

The second book for all you know might shatter whatever the reader has imagined. “The secret of the Nagas” bringsKarthick, Ganesh and Kali into picture which I would say was simply brilliant. The way each character is mould into the story is spellbound. War strategies used, engineering establishments, honesty and dutifulness are all well expressed and was mind blowing. The author really deserves whatever highest award that is given for a writer. Because, Shiva Trilogy is the one book which has equally matched some of the greatest historical fictions written in Tamil :O. Impressed :D

Hats off to Amish Tripathi and those who helped him publish the book in every single way. You really deserve a standing ovation.

The third and final book in Shiva Trilogy is “The Oath of Vayuputras” which Iam dying to read it ASAP. If you are a passionate reader, do not have second thoughts in reading this trilogy.

My rating: 5/5

Happy reading!

Poda Podi - Review

The much awaited movie starts with the sensational "Love panlama venama" song followed by Simbu(Arjun) nailing Varu Sarathkumar(Nisha) projecting that he is very rich. Nisha is a salsa dancer working hard to win a dance competion but Arjun is a possessive and a male chauvinistic boyfriend who is irritated to see his girlfriend practicing with her dance partner. Desperate to stop her from dancing, he tricks her into family life. How Nisha wins the favor of her husband for dancing is the rest of the story.

Though Arjun acts like a male chauvinistic maniac in the first half, he becomes a cute father and husband in the second half of the movie. How he overcomes an emotional breakdown and wins Nisha back is touching. The couple's chemistry has worked well. Good to see Shobana again on big screen. Varu Sarathkumar is such a natural- Given that Poda Podi is her first movie, the actress has done a fantastic job deserving an applause. Dialogues in few places get the audience's full attention and acceptance which could be seen from the whistles and claps. But there are places where dialogues were too lousy. Simbu's acting was flawless with his sense of humour soaring up as usual. 

The frequency of songs in first half of the movie is annoying.  Ganesh Janardhanan could have have been utilized well. And Varu's dancing skills could also have been projected well. The funny part is that what Simbu does for a living is not shown till the end of the movie. 

The opposite poles not only attracted but lived through many sorrows and pain and yet with full of love!

On the whole, Poda Podi is worth watching once! 

My Rating: 3/5

Good day!

The Krishna key

As i was sipping my coffee on a Sunday morning, I was lazily flipping through the pages of literary review supplement on The Hindu. Review about "The Krishna key" by Ashwin Sanghi on one of the pages caught my attention and I started reading it briskly.

As Da Vinci Code dealt with symbols, churches, path that leads to The Holy Grail and quest for the living descendant of Jesus Christ, so is The Krishna Key dealing with symbols, temples and Lord Krishna. India as a vast land has gone through innumerable changes through rulers, religions, beliefs from times immemorial. We have come all this way and what is left today is not even half the wealth India had as its own decades earlier. The Krishna Key basically emphasizes the facts which the world has forgotten(or misused) and portrayed it wrong.

The story begins with Anil Varshney handing over four identical seals to four of his friends - Ravi Mohan Saini, Nikhil Bhojaraj,  Rajaram Kurkude and devendra Chhedi. What is the significance of these seals ?What do they represent? What happens when they are united? Who seeks it? This is what The Krishna key is basically about. I do not want to spoil the suspense by writing it here. Some of the other interesting characters are Priya Ratnani, Radhika Singh and Taarak Vakil.

The Krishna key is a story with historical background intertwined with scientific proofs and with suspicious murders. I was spellbound by the facts written in the book and it left me sleepless at night. The story of Mahabharata in snippets before each chapter is really a good touch. The author has obviously worked the hell out in putting all the pieces of facts together in making a sensible plot.

But way too many facts that might sometimes be very heavy to digest.The lengthy conversations are capable of losing the audience. The author could have saved some of it for his future works. Other than this, the work is definitely a masterpiece!

Digging out the past, verifying with the data in hand, cross checking with ancient records and plotting a story is not an easy task though. This is indeed a one of a kind book and it needs to be read by every Indian.
Hats off Ashwin Sanghi!
You have written a remarkable story.

My rating - 7/10

Happy Blogging!

Online Shopping Sites

Shopping has become more fun like it never used to be before. Staying indoors and getting your favourites delivered to your doorstep is what everyone would want in this fast moving world. But beware of the spams too. Double check if the transaction you make is secure or not. I was browsing through a couple of sites and found them interesting with their attractive discount offers and coupons.

Here are some of the online shopping sites worth checking out.

1. Fashionandyou.com

2. Snapdeal.com

 

3. Bagittoday.com

 

4. Jabong.com

 

5. Myntra.com

 

6. Ebay.in

7. Homeshop18.com

8.Freecultr.com

9. donebynone.com

10. flipkart.com

11. bagskart.com

12. Fetise.com

                                           

Buying a share through ICICIDirect

Steps to buy shares through ICICIDirect:

      Assuming you have the demat account, login credentials for ICICIDirect and that you are all set for trading, lets go on:  Goto Equity tab and Click on “Modify Allocation” link. In order for you to trade you should first have 

1. Goto Equity tab and Click on “Modify Allocation” link. In order for you to trade you should first have the fund required in your Demat account. In this page you can see that your ICICI savings account number is linked. Choose your type of investment say, Secondary Market Equity, ETF -> Add the amount you wish to set aside for trading from your savings account. If you give Rs.10000, it means you set Rs.10,000 for trading purpose and the amount will be deducted from your savings account. The gross allocation and Net withdrawal balance will be displayed below.
2. Assuming you wanted to “Cash buy”  10  IOB shares which is around Rs.80 each, you need to    

i)                    Select “Product” as Cash.

ii)                   Select an “Exchange”-> NSE or BSE

iii)                 Enter INDOVE. If you are uncertain of the exact name click on “Find Stock Code” and the select the required stock.

iv)                 Enter 10 in “Quantity”.

v)                  Select “Order Type” as Limit

vi)                 On the right side, Click on “View your limit” and the box will be populated with the amount you allocated. In our case it would be Rs.10000.

vii)               “Limit Price” is when you specify the time when your share can be bought. For eg: You say “Buy this IOB share only when it is Rs.85 or more”.  In that case, you enter 85 against Limit Price. Limited Price should be greater than “Stop Loss Trigger Price”.

viii)              “Stop Loss Trigger Price” is  the least value of amount below which you do not want to trade. In our case SLTP could be 78. Also note that, you can mention SLTP based on ‘previous day’s close’ value only. To know this, click on “Get Quote” and this will show you the rate which you should be giving it as SLTP.

3. Click on Buy now

     

4. Click on Proceed and you can see the stock request being sent to the Exchange.

5. Click on “Order Book” link to see the status. Once the status changes from Ordered to Executed, the stock will get delivered to your demat account in mostly 2 days.

Note: If the performance of the stock for the day does not go beyond the ”Limit price” you specified, your request will get rejected at the end of the day. Not your fault though. You can try the next day accordingly.

6. You can goto “Cash Projections” link to view your accumulated stocks(only the ones in executed status).

Hope this would be useful for newbies.

Do write back for any clarifications and I’d be happy to help you.

Happy Trading :)

Cards versus Payback:

ICICI customers, did you know that your debit cards are capable of helping you in many ways than just getting swiped?  Not only do you buy things for the money you earned, you also get to buy things for the money you spend. This is almost like recycling. Most of the banks offer this facility only for credit cards but ICICI has been providing this for debit cards too for a long time now.

Payback, formerly known as imint is in collaboration with ICICI. The money you spend either by swiping or through net banking is accumulated as points in Payback which has a number of gifts that can be redeemed against your accumulated points. Say you have 4000 points, Payback has a number of gifts categorised for you to choose among them. The categories of gifts in Payback are home & Decor, Electronics, Apparel, Accessories etc. Choose your desired gift and click “Redeem points”. And there, your gift reaches you in about a week well packed and well notified.

You can also plan for a higher price gift and keep aiming for that product by accumulating the points. Or, if you are not interested in the gifts that is listed there or if you think that your accumulated points is not worthy enough for the gifts present, you can go for the vouchers. They offer Fabindia, Addidas, Lifestyle gift vouchers worth Rs.1000 for 4000 points. Certainly these are the best selling ones.

All you need to do this is to check if your payback card is linked with your account. If not do it right away. I recently noticed that ICICI site has included “Reward Points” tab through which you can view the points accumulated in your Payback account till now.

Other banks offer this type of redemption facilities through their credit cards. I have gone through the Citibank redemption catalogue and found it interesting. Most of them are gift vouchers. 

Guess that was useful!

Happy spending, Happy swiping! :)

SCJP 1.6 preparation

I recently took my certification for SCJP (which is now OCJP) and I cleared it 89%. If you are looking forward to get certified in Core Java I would recommend you to study the SCJP Sun Certified Programmer for Java 6 by Kathy Sierra. I found this really helpful to understand the concepts in a better way.

One thing which you should be considering before taking the exam is that dont aim for a 100 % score byhearting the answers from dumps. Because dumps may not always help you and Sun/Oracle can always change the questions set. So please do not rely on dumps alone. Another reason is that if you luckily get a 100% you indirectly tell the recruiter who is viewing your resume that you scored only with the help of the dumps. And you also give him a chance of proving his theory right by cross questioning you. I have seen many of my colleagues who recruit people do this.

So get to know the concepts in the best way possible and try relating each of them to a real time example. I would also recommend to watch some videos of the concepts available in youtube. Because, more than reading, visualization has a stronger effect to let you understand them. But there are instances where you may want to know the pattern of the questions that would be appearing on your exam. After your preparation for the exam, try out some mock tests available in the internet which might give you a fair idea about the pattern. Important : There are many versions of exams available. Make sure you are on the right track.
Here I share a material which I went through post preparation and found it highly useful.
SCJP material.

You need to purchase the voucher from any one of the prometric centres like Everonn, NIIT or Sysadmin in the first place. The validity of the voucher depends on the availability of them. I bought a voucher for Rs.5845 from NIIT, Adyar which had a validity of 6 months.

Rock the exam!

Down Under, Egmore

                                Amazing place to hang out with your friends and have fun playing games. Located underground, this place is a chill out among youngsters. Snooker, Billiards pool, Snow Bowling, Video games and Foosball are the games they have. First reason why most people prefer this place is that it is relatively cheap to afford. It also has a canteen which is mostly like a living room with bean bag, couch and TV. And yeah that makes the atmosphere cool. Relax for a while watching cricket matches and start playing again.

There are people who spend their whole weekend in “Down Under”. It really is a stress buster and a great refreshment after a whole week of tiring work. This is definitely a must visit if you are a fun loving person and who wish to spend a weekend which will relieve you off your work stress.

The Big Bang Theory

I could not wait for the whole of How I met your mother - season 7 to get released so i started downloading file by file. I was disappointed after watching 6 episodes of it. Maybe season 6 made me so curious and made me expect more fun. While rest of the season was downloading I was browsing through my hard disk and found "The Bing Bang theory" Season 1. I started watching it and man, its damn cool and I love it. Very different from those that belong to the typical  "love/ romance/comedy" genre.

This show features four socially awkward characters. Of them, Dr. Sheldon Cooper steals the show. Leonard and Sheldon are theoretical Physicists and they talk mostly not in English but only in Physics.

Sheldon role has been well played - his robotic movements, geeky communications, his pride about his brilliance and his strict rules for himself and others make the audience laugh hard.
Penny lives across the hall of Leonard and Sheldon's apartment and freaks out being around Sheldon. Howard and Rajesh are the co scientists working with Leonard and Sheldon.

The season 1 of  Big Bang Theory kept me hooked up. If Barney Stinson is for HIMYM then it is definitely Sheldon Cooper for Big Bang Theory. Im sure you will love it.:)

Have fun watching it!

An insight into Share market - part4

Whoa !! My 100th  post. Thanks to all my readers for your continuous support.
I promise to keep you posted.

I have been researching more time on fixed outcomes on investments lately and I thought I should pen it down here. We can risk half our money provided the other half is safe. Thus the fixed income come into picture.
Unlike investing in equities and mutual funds which yield returns that is fully dependent on the market value there are a few ways where you can ensure that you get fixed outcome of returns before you start investing.
Say there is a policy which says "You invest Rs.15000 p.a for 7 years and after 15 years we return you get around 4 lakhs though your accumulated amount is around 1 lakh". Hmm, quite a good deal right?
Thats what you call it as fixed outcome of returns on your investment.

Like I said there are several ways of fixed outcome of returns:

1.Public Provident Fund (PPF):
                          Government aided. Can be categorized under Small Savings Scheme.
Below is the screenshot of PPF sheet. Interest rate used to 8% earlier. Now I found that it has increased to 8.6% as on Dec 2011. Minimum investment is Rs.500 p.a and maximum is Rs.1,00,000 p.a Lock in period is 5 years. The policy matures after 15 years.  Very flexible and a rewarding one if you are looking for a long term investment







2. Fixed Deposits:
                Not that this is very unknown to anyone. I have been searching for banks which offer higher interest rates for shorter period of time. Many private banks give interest rates upto 9%. But is there any bank which gives interest above 10%? Yeah I stumbled upon a few.

Tamilnad Mercantile Bank and Bharat Cooperative offers 10.25% of interest rate p.a. for less than 15 lakhs.
Check it out.

3. Company Deposits:
                   Like the way you deposit in banks you could also deposit in companies which gives you higher interest rates. Below screenshot might be useful to you.





4. Bonds:
                 This term is often heard in the investment world. Well, for newbies here goes the definition. The company that issues the bond holds a debt and promises to repay the lender with interest and  principal at maturity. In simpler terms, you lend a company some amount and the company pays you the interest every now and then as specified in the bond. After a period of say 5 years or so, the company has to repay the principal to the lender.
For now I have only started with Bonds. So im leaving this with here.

I have written here what I browsed through. Hope it helps you harvest your money better in future.

Awaiting your comments :)
Happy investing!