/* add.c
* a simple C program
*/
#include <stdio.h>
#define LAST 10
int main()
{
int i, sum = 0;
for ( i = 1; i <= LAST; i++ )
{
sum += i;
} /*-for-*/
printf(“sum = %d\n”, sum);
return 0;
}
Forwarded by Savitha
November 22, 2007
Can u get rid of this bug in the code below?
November 21, 2007
Pet trainer
A family adopted a stray cat but, to their distress, the cat used their new sofa as a scratching post.
“Don’t worry,” the husband reassured then, “I’ll have him trained in no time.”
For several days, the husband patiently taught that cat a lesson by quickly depositing him outdoors whenever the cat scratched the sofa. The cat learned quickly.
For the next twelve years, whenever he wanted to go outside, he would add another scratch to the sofa!
November 20, 2007
Sawaariya: Review
Sawaariya is one long song with some breaks for dialog. And by dialog I mean girly giggling by the chic and some punch-me-in-the-face expressions accompanied by pig-like grunting by the hero. One wonders if all the actors are the props and the set is the real star in this movie. I came really close to concluding that the bridge-over-the-fake-river is the central star of the movie, because everyone of the other actors looks like they were made of rock. And the rocks had moss growing over them. And the rocks were painted blue
To say Saawariya is a crappy movie would not be correct. Horrendously Ridiculous comes close, but it doesn’t really capture the essence of the absurdity that this movie is. After watching this movie I felt like tying up Sanjay Leela Bansali alone in a room, forcing him to watch a cockroach chase a spider round-and-round a water fountain for 3 hours. That too in blue light. Because seriously, that’s what this entire movie is. It’s two grossly untalented kids, who probably got kicked out of college for lack of attendance and ended up on this set to spend the rest of the day. And for the love of God, I can’t figure out why the whole movie is in blue! Maybe the director was trying to get every frame half-black half-blue so that the WinZip compression would work better to save some electrons, what with all the global warming and all. That’s the best explanation I could come up with, because nothing else can explain the lack of daylight (or plain light, for that matter) in this movie.
- Forwarded by Payel
November 19, 2007
Promoter’s Warrants Issue
In India it is very common for the promoters to sell substantial stake in the company when the price is right. Then immediately after that do a preferential allotment to themselves or kins and relatives.
Often this preferential allotment is made in form of warrants. Promoters, who subscribe to such warrants, are required to pay upfront only a small portion of the warrant issue size and pay the balance amount in 18 months. Promoters, in most cases, exercise the option of converting these warrants into shares only if the share price of the company is higher than the pre-fixed price of the equity warrant.
By law each and every investor is an equal partner in any company. So why were the common investors not allowed to subscribe to this issue?
The management of all Indian companies are always rewarded generously for their efforts. They are given huge salaries, bonus, perks and even stock options (ESOS) I am OK with that, but these warrants are embezzlements. They dilute the holdings of the common investors at a throw away price and wipe out all the profits which we had expected. What hurts me the most is that most people are oblivious to this malpractice.
One of the biggest problem faced by Indian stock market is that even though by law, the investors are an equal partner, in the promoter’s minds, it still belongs to him.
November 18, 2007
Thinking small: Entrepreneurship in India
Here is an extract of an interview with Amar Bhidé of Columbia Business School.
How do high-growth Indian firms compare to their counterparts in the United States?
I interviewed the few high-growth firms that I could find in Bangalore. These were high-growth firms by Indian standards, but not by U.S. standards. Interestingly, firms in both the United States and India start with roughly the same amount of capital: $10,000 in the United States and about $8,300 in India. So compared to local incomes, it seemed to take a lot more money to start a business in India than in the United States. Moreover, the U.S. firms grew in five or six years to revenues that were 378 times their initial capital, whereas the Indian firms grew to only about 20 times their initial capital.
And there are other noteworthy differences. In India, there’s virtually no ability to use external equity; there’s a much greater use of debt. In the United States, young firms try to have as few assets as they can and to subcontract as much as they can. In India, it’s the opposite: tiny firms integrate forwards and backwards as quickly as they can. Similarly, these firms are trying to become mini-conglomerates before they’ve reached any scale.
Indian entrepreneurs have much higher working capital requirements. A U.S. entrepreneur can at least hope to collect on receivables in about 30 days. In India, they extend receivables to 90 days or longer. In the United States, virtually every entrepreneur I studied used rented offices. In India, almost the first thing they do is to acquire the property they are housing their businesses in. Someone might have 80 percent of his capital tied up in real estate and only 20 percent in his business.
This combination of things provides a first-level explanation as to why there are so few firms that grow and why their growth rates are low. There seem to be several things in the environment that have caused this pattern. High on the list is the tax system. India relies much more heavily on indirect taxes than does the United States. These indirect taxes can add up to 32 percent to your cost of goods sold. But small businesses are exempt. So you’re better off running 10 businesses, each under $10 million, rather than having one big business. There’s a similar story with labor. Once you get above about 20 people, you can have non-wage costs that add up to 50 percent of a worker’s salary.
Another factor is the unreliability of supplies from both government suppliers and private suppliers. Because you can’t count on the electricity supply, you have to have your own generator. Naturally, this ties up capital. Similarly, if you tried to run a virtual business, there would be critical links in the chain that simply would not deliver. Why people invest in land instead of in their business is puzzling. Maybe it’s because the businesses themselves are not that profitable. The physical infrastructure is horrible. That means that instead of having one national market of a billion people, you have many little local markets because it’s so hard to move stuff from point A to point B. So all these things contribute to creating a disincentive to grow large.
The full detailed interview can be obtained at Columbia University website.
November 17, 2007
Essar Oil
Essar which was earlier planning to delist all its companies from the stock market pulled a rabbit out of the hat. Today it announced a mega 6 Billion Dollar refinery plan. It also plans to issue a 2 Billion Dollar GDR issue at 200/- a share.
Since I had earlier recommended my friends to buy Reliance Petroleum (at 65/-), a couple of friends were asking what do i think about it.
One word… Stay away from it….. don’t even think about it.
Essar are a bunch of cheats. I do not know how they do it, but all its companies always end up in bankruptcy while its promoters flourish. They have never ever made any money for their shock-holders or returned the money borrowed from the banks. Neither in my father’s generation, nor in my generation.
Crisil downgrade Essar Bonds from C grade to D grade.
They even managed to use their political clout to reduce the Coupon rate (interest) on their bonds.
Do you think that such a company can ever again raise fresh capital from the market?
This January they arbitrarily announced that they intend to delist Essar Steel and Essar Oil. They even offered to buy back the shares from the public … as usual at far below the market price… Hence trying to cheat the share holders of the fair value of their much deserved investments.
They indulge in insider trading, artificially manipulating the prices… Best example is that Essar Oil, which never traded above 70/- (and was trading at 61/- on 7th November) suddenly shot up to twice its value a week before the news was public? and not to mention that for the past couple of months the promoters have been buying stock like crazy.
BTW SEC has very stringent listing and compliance norms. The director of the company is personally liable for criminal charges in case of misreporting/insider trading. I am 100% sure the Essar group promoters are not foolish enough to list the company and then spend the rest of their life behind bars.
Its all noise, filter it out.. and if you can short sell the shares, then do it….. (UPDATE: I did short sell this stock on 2nd Jan .. when the stock was trading at 350/- and made quite a killing)
No investor Foreign or Indian will ever pay 2billion dollars at 200/- a share for a share of a company that consistently makes losses (even though refinery margins are at the highest levels ever) and has a meager revenue of a few tens of millions USD.
