With CAT going online, all aspirants are set to gain. First and
foremost, by giving a 10 day window, the aspirant can choose the
convenient time and day to take the test. Secondly, the test
environment is going to be same for everyone and hence quality of test
center issues will be taken care of. Moreover, the current generation
is tech-savvy to a large extent and hence working with computers is
not a new thing for them. Also, some of the graduation level entrance
exams are already online so it won’t be much of a change for them.
Since, the notification has come 6 months in advance; aspirants will
get ample time to practice too. Online exam also eases the process of
center-change for taking exam which is not a possibility right now.
Most importantly, the test conducting agency is a global veteran,
teething problems won’t arise. Moving forward, the test can be
conducted in centres outside the country maintaining the test-taking
time window. This will give people abroad to take CAT/GMAT both for
admissions to the IIMs and other institutes.
Online CAT was long due and it’s good to see it coming finally.
P.S. – Business standard newspaper liked it so much that they decided to hand me out a reward of Rs. 500 for this! Check out the edition dated May 11, Page 15 on the top right hand corner :)
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Arbitrage at its best
It has been over 5 weeks since I arrived in Thailand and there is no doubt that electronic items are definitely cheap as compared to India when it comes to laptops, medium and top end mobile phones, cameras and TVs.
I recently went to the Bangkok International Airport to drop someone who was going back to Mumbai. At the Bangkok International Airport, even a non-passenger can enter the airport building, can reach the check-in areas of airlines, roam around inside the airport and is stopped just before the immigration check. Nevertheless, both of us went to airline check-in counter. Next to us was the check-in counter for the Calcutta flight for the same airline. And I saw a big group of about 30 people there, each carrying a set of LCD TV! Now, this amazed me that how on earth can one need so many TVs back home?! I carried my curiosity back to my place and forgot about it.
After having a chat with someone here, I came to know about this “arbitrage” which is going on here. This is how the arrangement works. Same model of LCD TV costs around INR 75,000 in India and in Thailand it is around THB 30,000 (~INR 42,000; 1 THB (Thai Baht) = 1.4 INR approx). people buy TV here, pay a minimal duty of 2,500 in India, take this to “grey” market in metro cities of the country and sell it there for around INR 60,000 and receive cash for the same. The difference is almost sufficient to get a Bangkok return ticket from India! The dealer in India can easily sell the same set at a better margin now :)
Now that explains those 30 TVs being taken checked in :P
I recently went to the Bangkok International Airport to drop someone who was going back to Mumbai. At the Bangkok International Airport, even a non-passenger can enter the airport building, can reach the check-in areas of airlines, roam around inside the airport and is stopped just before the immigration check. Nevertheless, both of us went to airline check-in counter. Next to us was the check-in counter for the Calcutta flight for the same airline. And I saw a big group of about 30 people there, each carrying a set of LCD TV! Now, this amazed me that how on earth can one need so many TVs back home?! I carried my curiosity back to my place and forgot about it.
After having a chat with someone here, I came to know about this “arbitrage” which is going on here. This is how the arrangement works. Same model of LCD TV costs around INR 75,000 in India and in Thailand it is around THB 30,000 (~INR 42,000; 1 THB (Thai Baht) = 1.4 INR approx). people buy TV here, pay a minimal duty of 2,500 in India, take this to “grey” market in metro cities of the country and sell it there for around INR 60,000 and receive cash for the same. The difference is almost sufficient to get a Bangkok return ticket from India! The dealer in India can easily sell the same set at a better margin now :)
Now that explains those 30 TVs being taken checked in :P
Spoilt For Choice – Online Airline Bookings
I always thought that searching for a house is one of the toughest activities to undertake but now I am not sure about it. Something which gives a close competition to house-hunting process is…online airline ticket booking.
The reason for this is that virtually every day we have new travel portals coming up and offering some wonderful discounts. Add to that the older players like www.makemytrip.com or www.cleartrip.com or www.yatra.com. They also offer great packages on airline booking. The issue complicates when they also offer discounts. Now, even with the discounts are on some airlines when booking is done with some particular credit card on some routes and other trillions of conditions applied.
Furthermore, all airlines have their individual website which also give out offers. For example, SpiceJet offers discount on return booking, just like international carriers. Indian Airlines also gives a flat 10% discount if a ticket is booked 30 days in advance. (These offers were on when I am writing this :D) And for reasons unknown to me, GoAir does not figure in any of the travel portal searches. Since, they don’t fly to Calcutta, which they might now given that they are flying to Guhawati and Bagdogra now, I don’t really need to check their offerings. Else, I need to check their site as my experience has been really good with them in the past.
So, when I had to plan my travel from Kolkata for some places, I had to take the plunge in the vast ocean of websites. I started with travel portals and checked out the timings of available flights. Moved to individual websites of the airlines to compare fares and they were much lesser as opposed what was being offered by portals. I chose to compare fares being offered by some of not so popular portals like www.ezeego1.co.in and www.travelocity.co.in and much to my amazement, the latter one was offering tickets less than what airlines themselves were offering! I chose the last one for my booking finally and I am quite sure of getting the best deal possible on the day of booking for my travel dates.
Moreover, in the end I would strongly recommend that please do check airlines websites as for some strange reason some of the flights are not shown in the search results of the travel portals. For example, there is a 1450 flight from Calcutta to Delhi (which suited me best and finally booked this) which was not coming in the search result of some but I got to know about it from the JetLite website. Also, please do see the breakup of the fare being offered by any website. Some of them charge for insurance, which is not needed and also charge if one blocks seat at the time of booking!
No doubt going online has eased the process of booking airline tickets, it also calls for a lot of prudence and site-searching.
The reason for this is that virtually every day we have new travel portals coming up and offering some wonderful discounts. Add to that the older players like www.makemytrip.com or www.cleartrip.com or www.yatra.com. They also offer great packages on airline booking. The issue complicates when they also offer discounts. Now, even with the discounts are on some airlines when booking is done with some particular credit card on some routes and other trillions of conditions applied.
Furthermore, all airlines have their individual website which also give out offers. For example, SpiceJet offers discount on return booking, just like international carriers. Indian Airlines also gives a flat 10% discount if a ticket is booked 30 days in advance. (These offers were on when I am writing this :D) And for reasons unknown to me, GoAir does not figure in any of the travel portal searches. Since, they don’t fly to Calcutta, which they might now given that they are flying to Guhawati and Bagdogra now, I don’t really need to check their offerings. Else, I need to check their site as my experience has been really good with them in the past.
So, when I had to plan my travel from Kolkata for some places, I had to take the plunge in the vast ocean of websites. I started with travel portals and checked out the timings of available flights. Moved to individual websites of the airlines to compare fares and they were much lesser as opposed what was being offered by portals. I chose to compare fares being offered by some of not so popular portals like www.ezeego1.co.in and www.travelocity.co.in and much to my amazement, the latter one was offering tickets less than what airlines themselves were offering! I chose the last one for my booking finally and I am quite sure of getting the best deal possible on the day of booking for my travel dates.
Moreover, in the end I would strongly recommend that please do check airlines websites as for some strange reason some of the flights are not shown in the search results of the travel portals. For example, there is a 1450 flight from Calcutta to Delhi (which suited me best and finally booked this) which was not coming in the search result of some but I got to know about it from the JetLite website. Also, please do see the breakup of the fare being offered by any website. Some of them charge for insurance, which is not needed and also charge if one blocks seat at the time of booking!
No doubt going online has eased the process of booking airline tickets, it also calls for a lot of prudence and site-searching.
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