Last year, when I arrived in Calcutta, I obviously took a new number. And I mailed many people informing them about my new number. And they did it without any issue.
Now, there are always some people who either ignore such mails or do not take action right away and some people are inadvertently left out from mailing list. These people asked for my number over gtalk and I gave them my number then and there.
Here, starts the interesting part. All and yes, I mean ALL of my friends who took my number over the chat got it wrong. My number ends in '336' but all of them noted it incorrectly as '366' When they tried calling and could not get through, they pinged again and asked and got it correct this time. I thought that maybe I wrote it incorrectly but that was not the case, thanks to saved chat in Gmail!
What prompted me to write this today was the time when the same thing happened again a few minutes back. A friend wanted to talk about his MBA admission and all and took my number over the chat. And ya, he got it wrong too :D
Cant think of any conrete reason for this ;)
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
CAT finally goes online!
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 :)
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 :)
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.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Catching up...
Let me inform you at the outset – This is going to be a long post, so read in leisure time :D It has been a long time since I updated my blog, owing to rigor in IIM Calcutta, a real hectic week long trip to Delhi, and a 3 week holiday in Mumbai. On top of that, no regular net connection also kept out of action for almost over a month.
Well, I completed my first year of my MBA (ya again!) and headed to Delhi to catch up with relatives and old friends. It was a week-long trip which was quite hectic, coupled with not-so friendly weather there. All in all, it was great to meet some people after a really long time in life :) And more importantly, finally got the chance to see the Akshardham Temple, near Commonwealth Games Village with some of C classmates.
Then, I headed to Mumbai for a 3-week stay there before joining my internship. Here also, I met with old friends and watch the famous play – ‘Class of 84’ being played in National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA). It was a nice play and I would recommend it to anyone who has not seen it till now. And those have seen it, would agree with me on this :)
This time, I also got a chance to watch 3 plays in the Performing Arts Festival of IIT Bombay. They were absolute brilliant performances and one cannot stop admiring the efforts put in by every student there.
In the meantime, I got the news that I will be interning in Thailand in a phosphate plant of Aditya Birla Group located in Samrong, Samut Prakan province, about 20 kms from Bangkok. I was excited to say the least :D
Finally, the D-Day arrived. All the group interns were to join by 5th April evening in ABG’s training center called ‘Gyanodaya’ in Belapur, near Mumbai. I reached around 8 in the night and was shown by room. My room partner was one of my batchmates from C only. The rooms were just WOW and so were all the arrangements.
The evening was left to us to socialize with fellow interns from other institutes. Post-dinner, we batchmates from C, caught up on lotsa things on campus talks, year gone by, internship projects et al. All of us then started playing cards and this continued late into the night.
Morning was reserved for formal introductions of all the interns, and HR professionals from the Group. All in all, there were 40 interns across 5 campuses of IIMs A, B, C, L and XLRI. We were given a lot of information about the various group companies and the activities undertaken by them. It was an informative session and made me aware of many new things about the Group. Post-lunch, we were taken through administrative formalities, getting our tickets, passport, details of stay and other rules and regulations.
We (4 of us are interning in Thailand, albeit all in different locations) were to fly Indian Airlines later in the night, so had ample time in life to chat around, sleep and watch some sitcoms :P
We departed for the airport and against all expectations, made it to the airport in just 2 hours. The check-in was smooth, and so was the immigration and security check. This gave all of us to explore and enjoy the NEW Mumbai International Airport. It has undergone major revamping and has some amazing duty-free shops now. My reference point of comparison is Dec 2007, when I last used it as a tourist to Thailand. Though, the airport is good, it’s a no match to other international airports across the globe.
The flight was on time and boarding was announced was also timely. But, I was surprised to see the aircraft was not more than 40% full. Apparently, Thai and Jet Airways were offering lower-priced tickets than Indian Airlines! I would like to mention here that IA has also undergone a sea change in level of service and cleanliness. Dinner was OK and in-flight entertainment was below average. Watched ‘Rock On!’ for some time, listened to some old hindi songs and then caught on some sleep for around 2 hours.
My sleep was broken by pilot’s (I still don’t understand why is he called a ‘captain’) announcement of landing at the Bangkok International Airport. The arrival terminal seemed familiar :P and it was a long walk to the Immigration department. Apparently, Thailand has waived off its visa fees and also it has visa on arrival. It was longgggg queue at the Visa terminal at the airport. Enroute to the immigration, I got 10 USD exchanged to Bahts as I was not sure of encountering currency exchange counter soon. Here also, immigration was smooth but customs people insisted that we should get our luggage scanned, which we did without any hiccups.
Now, when we came out, we were expecting (as told) a person with a placard; but no one to be seen. And in Thailand, English is not that famous language. After talking to some people, through sign language, we figured out that there are 3 (atleast) exits in this airport and our person could be anywhere. We started moving towards the next one and spotted one person having a placard with just 2 names! Again, there was a language barrier and we got the message that he was here to pick up only 2 of us – another intern and myself. So, there has to be another person. Making that person as a part of search, we eventually found the person who was there to pick up the other 2 :). We parted ways there and moved on towards our destination.
My place was around an hour’s drive from the airport, thanks to the traffic. Distance-wise, it was around only 30 kms odd. The other person left in some time to his location which was a further 200 kms away. I was shown my guest house and room and got to meet the caretaker also. I was glad to see the place – it’s a plant location which is self-sufficient. And everything is inside the complex. I slept for some time (flight sleep was not enough by any standards) and joined in the second half of Tuesday.
I met key people and got the drift of project. Last few days have involved meeting a lot of people, understanding current systems, my project and I am sure of one thing – its gonna be EXCITING!!!
Thursday, April 9, was festival ‘Sankrat’ (not sure of spelling ;)), which celebrated with water and white powder. It was good fun and the water part came after a pooja in the office. It was like ‘holi’ without colours :P Now, Thai New Year (Songkran) is coming up and hence it is off here. I am off to Bangkok in few minutes and will be there for next 3 days!
Well, I completed my first year of my MBA (ya again!) and headed to Delhi to catch up with relatives and old friends. It was a week-long trip which was quite hectic, coupled with not-so friendly weather there. All in all, it was great to meet some people after a really long time in life :) And more importantly, finally got the chance to see the Akshardham Temple, near Commonwealth Games Village with some of C classmates.
Then, I headed to Mumbai for a 3-week stay there before joining my internship. Here also, I met with old friends and watch the famous play – ‘Class of 84’ being played in National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA). It was a nice play and I would recommend it to anyone who has not seen it till now. And those have seen it, would agree with me on this :)
This time, I also got a chance to watch 3 plays in the Performing Arts Festival of IIT Bombay. They were absolute brilliant performances and one cannot stop admiring the efforts put in by every student there.
In the meantime, I got the news that I will be interning in Thailand in a phosphate plant of Aditya Birla Group located in Samrong, Samut Prakan province, about 20 kms from Bangkok. I was excited to say the least :D
Finally, the D-Day arrived. All the group interns were to join by 5th April evening in ABG’s training center called ‘Gyanodaya’ in Belapur, near Mumbai. I reached around 8 in the night and was shown by room. My room partner was one of my batchmates from C only. The rooms were just WOW and so were all the arrangements.
The evening was left to us to socialize with fellow interns from other institutes. Post-dinner, we batchmates from C, caught up on lotsa things on campus talks, year gone by, internship projects et al. All of us then started playing cards and this continued late into the night.
Morning was reserved for formal introductions of all the interns, and HR professionals from the Group. All in all, there were 40 interns across 5 campuses of IIMs A, B, C, L and XLRI. We were given a lot of information about the various group companies and the activities undertaken by them. It was an informative session and made me aware of many new things about the Group. Post-lunch, we were taken through administrative formalities, getting our tickets, passport, details of stay and other rules and regulations.
We (4 of us are interning in Thailand, albeit all in different locations) were to fly Indian Airlines later in the night, so had ample time in life to chat around, sleep and watch some sitcoms :P
We departed for the airport and against all expectations, made it to the airport in just 2 hours. The check-in was smooth, and so was the immigration and security check. This gave all of us to explore and enjoy the NEW Mumbai International Airport. It has undergone major revamping and has some amazing duty-free shops now. My reference point of comparison is Dec 2007, when I last used it as a tourist to Thailand. Though, the airport is good, it’s a no match to other international airports across the globe.
The flight was on time and boarding was announced was also timely. But, I was surprised to see the aircraft was not more than 40% full. Apparently, Thai and Jet Airways were offering lower-priced tickets than Indian Airlines! I would like to mention here that IA has also undergone a sea change in level of service and cleanliness. Dinner was OK and in-flight entertainment was below average. Watched ‘Rock On!’ for some time, listened to some old hindi songs and then caught on some sleep for around 2 hours.
My sleep was broken by pilot’s (I still don’t understand why is he called a ‘captain’) announcement of landing at the Bangkok International Airport. The arrival terminal seemed familiar :P and it was a long walk to the Immigration department. Apparently, Thailand has waived off its visa fees and also it has visa on arrival. It was longgggg queue at the Visa terminal at the airport. Enroute to the immigration, I got 10 USD exchanged to Bahts as I was not sure of encountering currency exchange counter soon. Here also, immigration was smooth but customs people insisted that we should get our luggage scanned, which we did without any hiccups.
Now, when we came out, we were expecting (as told) a person with a placard; but no one to be seen. And in Thailand, English is not that famous language. After talking to some people, through sign language, we figured out that there are 3 (atleast) exits in this airport and our person could be anywhere. We started moving towards the next one and spotted one person having a placard with just 2 names! Again, there was a language barrier and we got the message that he was here to pick up only 2 of us – another intern and myself. So, there has to be another person. Making that person as a part of search, we eventually found the person who was there to pick up the other 2 :). We parted ways there and moved on towards our destination.
My place was around an hour’s drive from the airport, thanks to the traffic. Distance-wise, it was around only 30 kms odd. The other person left in some time to his location which was a further 200 kms away. I was shown my guest house and room and got to meet the caretaker also. I was glad to see the place – it’s a plant location which is self-sufficient. And everything is inside the complex. I slept for some time (flight sleep was not enough by any standards) and joined in the second half of Tuesday.
I met key people and got the drift of project. Last few days have involved meeting a lot of people, understanding current systems, my project and I am sure of one thing – its gonna be EXCITING!!!
Thursday, April 9, was festival ‘Sankrat’ (not sure of spelling ;)), which celebrated with water and white powder. It was good fun and the water part came after a pooja in the office. It was like ‘holi’ without colours :P Now, Thai New Year (Songkran) is coming up and hence it is off here. I am off to Bangkok in few minutes and will be there for next 3 days!
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