The Ponzis and the Scapegoats - I!!

Year back, a regular customer of our medical store asked me to invest a small amount into a private investment scheme. He also mentioned that he too would be benefited form my investment but I was not in mood to oblige him. He was quite unhappy with my decision even told me that he being a regular customer and he is taking medicine worth thousands rupees every month and I should return a favour against it. I was quite taken aback and amused as if he was doing a favour to me by paying thousand bucks against the medicine of same amount he used to purchased. During that period whenever he met me he never hid his unhappiness and I was least bothered by it. After some time the said investment scheme collapsed and now he realised the mistake but only after losing some undisclosed amounts.

We are living in a messy epoch and  investment is the only way to grow our money. We need more money, as the life expectancy is more than what it used to be and lifestyle too is more complex but investment not mean to throw my hard earned money to a dustbin and wait for a return. What happened in Bengal with Chit Fund is shows that people need to be educated against this scamsters. In rural India people still not familiar with the banking system and only the rude banking officials should be blamed for it. These unregulated investment scheme reach out to the poor and make a merry with their hard earned money. The chit-fund business continues to flourish in West Bengal despite the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) initiating action against two companies for misusing the regulator's name to invite deposits from the public.  Before, it happened with Sanchayita scheme and now it is with Shradha group.

These scheme also known as Ponzi scheme. The scheme gets its name from an Italian American called Charles Ponzi who in 1919 ran an investment scheme in  Boston, which promised to double the investor’ s investment in 90 days. This was later cut to 45 days. At its peak the scheme managed to collect around $40 million and had nearly 15,000 investors.

The Scam and the Scamsters

Stock Guru

 Ulhas Prabhakar Khaire, 33, and his wife Raksha J Urs, 30 had floated a company, Stock Guru India, promising to double investors' money in six months. They had launched a high-profile promotional campaign and even roped in celebrities. Masters of disguise, the couple had changed their names to Lokeshwar Dev Jain and Priyanka Dev Jain while running the company and disappeared with the investors' money. Delhi Police nabbed the couple from Ratnagiri in Maharashtra, where they had opened another fake investment company. Police said the couple changed their looks and assumed new names based on stolen identities for each of their fraudulent operations. The scam came to light around April last year after investors complained to the police. In Delhi alone, cops have received 14,303 complaints from investors who had put in money ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 60 lakh in Stock Guru India.

Sanchayita

in the early eighties when several investors and agents committed suicide. Sanchayita collected more than Rs 120 crore in 1980 before its offices were raided and it folded up with only a handful of people getting back a minuscule amount of money. Two main promoters of the group were arrested with one of them Shambhu Maukherjee committing suicide and Swapan Guha being declared insolvent by the court. Another accused Biharilal Morarka is still at large. As for investors and agents there are reports of several committing suicide and a handful pinning hope against the hope with a criminal case dragging on in court for more than 30 years now.

!!!The safe way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket. -  Frank McKinney!!!

To Dust!

In the memory of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, only writer who own both Oscar and Booker. She always stayed away from limelight and lived a quite life.

Ruth Prawer was born in Cologne, Germany to Jewish parents Marcus and Eleanora Prawer. Marcus was a lawyer who moved to Germany from Poland to escape conscription and Eleanora's father was cantor of Cologne's largest synagogue. The family fled the Nazi regime in 1939, emigrating to Britain.

During World War II, Jhabvala lived in Hendon in London, experienced the Blitz and began to speak English rather than German. She became a British citizen in 1948. The following year, her father committed suicide after discovering that forty members of his family had died during the Holocaust. Jhabvala attended Hendon County School and then Queen Mary College, where she received an MA in English literature in 1951.

In 1951, Prawer married Cyrus H. Jhabvala, an Indian Parsi architect. The couple moved to Delhi, India, and they had three daughters: Ava, Firoza and Renana. Her three daughters are living in three different countries, India, the United States and England. In 1975 Jhabvala moved to New York and divided her time between India and the United States. In 1986, she became a naturalised citizen of the United States.

In 1963, Jhabvala was approached by filmmakers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant to write a screenplay of her 1960 novel The Householder. The film, The Householder, was released by Merchant Ivory Productions in 1963 – this began a partnership that would produce over 20 films. She had no previous film making experience. The next Merchant-Ivory project Shakespeare Wallah (1965), was a critical success, and it was followed by a number of other collaborations between the three, including an adaptation of Jhabvala's novel Heat and Dust, (1983); the docudrama The Courtesans of Bombay (1983); A Room with a View (1985), for which she won her first Oscar; Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990); Howards End (1992), her second Oscar win; and The Remains of the Day (1993), for which she was nominated for a third Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, though she did not win. Her screenplays are often less comedies of manners than profound struggles over the souls of young women.

She also own a  Booker Prize for Heat and Dust and only writer to own Oscar and Booker.

Jhabvala died in her home in New York City on 3 April 2013 at the age of 85. Jhabvala is survived by her husband and three daughters.

one day, everyone have to go and there is no escape from death, Socrates, left behind this beautiful quote.

!!!The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better only God knows. – Socrates!!!

The Real Iron Lady!

James Brown wrote ‘This is a man's world, this is a man's world But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl’. However, there were women who lived life their own term and not only with a tag as ‘woman of desire’. They end up ruling their own state with more conviction than their male counterparts. Golda Meir, Sirimavo Bandaranaike (the first woman prime minister), Indira Gandhi were the few who once perfectly filled the slots. Margaret Thatcher, definitely the other name that will crawl into our mind. She also known as ‘Iron Lady’, Britain’s first woman prime minister and ruled the country over a decade. A few facts from her life are scribbled in this page.

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher was born in Lincolnshire, on 13 October 1925. Her father was Alfred Roberts and her mother was Beatrice Ethel. She spent her childhood in Grantham.  Her father was active in local politics and the Methodist church, serving as an alderman and a local preacher and brought up his daughter as a strict Methodist.

Margaret Thatcher attended Huntingtower Road Primary School and won a scholarship to Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School. Her school reports showed hard work and continual improvement; her extracurricular activities included the piano, field hockey, poetry recitals, swimming and walking. In her upper sixth year she applied for a scholarship to study chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, but she was initially rejected and was offered a place only after another candidate withdrew. She arrived at Oxford in 1943 and graduated in 1947 with Second-Class Honours in the four-year Chemistry Bachelor of Science degree. She became President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1946. After graduating, Roberts moved to Colchester in Essex to work as a research chemist for BX Plastics. She joined the local Conservative Association and attended the party conference at Llandudno in 1948, as a representative of the University Graduate Conservative Association.

Officials of the association were so impressed by her that they asked her to apply, even though she was not on the Conservative party's approved list: she was selected in January 1951 and added to the approved list post ante. At a dinner following her formal adoption as Conservative candidate for Dartford in February 1951 she met Denis Thatcher. In the 1950 and 1951 general elections, she was the Conservative candidate for the safe Labour seat of Dartford, where she attracted media attention as the youngest and the only female candidate. She lost both times to Norman Dodds, but reduced the Labour majority by 6,000, and then a further 1,000. She married to Denis Thatcher in December 1951. She was selected as the candidate for Finchley in April 1958 and elected as MP for the seat after a hard campaign in the 1959 election. In October 1961, Thatcher was promoted to the front bench as Parliamentary Undersecretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in Harold Macmillan's administration. Mrs. Thatcher won the Conservative Party leadership election of 1975, defeating Heath by a good margin. A woman had never held any of the highest posts in British politics before. Thatcher was subsequently appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Education and Science. After nine year in 4^th May 1979, Thatcher became Prime Minister of UK. Thatcher's popularity during her first years in office waned amid recession and high unemployment, until economic recovery and the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her re-election in 1983.

Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987, but her Community Charge (popularly referred to as "poll tax") was widely unpopular and her views on the European Community were not shared by others in her Cabinet. She resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership. After retiring from the Commons in 1992, she was given a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher, of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire, which entitled her to sit in the House of Lords.

Margaret Thatcher Quotation :

"If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman."

"Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope."

"Pennies don’t fall from heaven - they have to be earned here on Earth."

Indian Penny-Spinner League!

The Indian Premier League (IPL) for Twenty20 cricket championship  was initiated by Lalit Modi in 2008. Modi, served as the league's first Chairman and Commissioner. It started with eight team and currently contested by nine, consisting of players from around the cricketing world. The birth of IPL is a result of an altercation between the BCCI and the Indian Cricket League.

The brand value of IPL is estimated to be around US$2.99 billion in fifth season. However, the league has been engulfed by series of corruption scandals where allegations of cricket betting, money laundering and spot fixing and controversies.

IPL, believed to be the world's "richest cricket tournament".

In 2012 the naming rights for the series was awarded to Pepsi. Two eligible bids were received, with Pepsi winning over Airtel with a bid of  Rs. 396.8 crore.

Winners

Season I [ 2008 ]

The inaugural season of the tournament started on 18 April 2008 and lasted for 43 days with 59 matches. The final was played in DY Patil Stadium, Nerul, Navi Mumbai. Rajasthan Royals defeated Chennai Super Kings in a thriller and emerged as the inaugural IPL champions.

Season II [ 2009 ]

 Deccan Chargers defeated Bangalore Royal Challengers in a thriller and emerged as the second IPL.

Season III [ 2010 ]

The final was played between Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. Chennai Super Kings won by a margin of 22 runs.

Season -IV [ 2011 ]

In season four, two new teams from Pune and Kochi was added to the IPL for the fourth season and number of matches increased from 60 to 94. Chennai Super Kings won their second consecutive title after defeating the Royal Challengers Bangalore by 58 runs in the final.

Season -V [ 2012 ]

The fifth season featured nine teams after the termination of the Kochi franchise. Towards the end of the league, the season faced various hurdles including a spot fixing case, which allegedly included 5 players caught on a sting operation carried on by a local news channel. The final of the season was played at the Chidambaram Stadium on 27 May, where the defending champions Chennai Super Kings played against Kolkata Knight Riders. Kolkata Knight Riders won the match in the last over.

Season -VI [ 2013 ]

The sixth season opened in February 3, 2013 with the auction for players and it was broadcasted on Sony Six. 108 players were on offer but only 37 players were sold. Deccan Chargers were ousted from the league instead, Sunrisers Hyderabad will play from the 2013 season onwards on behalf of them as they have almost all the players from the Deccan's 2012 team. The tournament will run from 3 April to 26 May 2013 with Kolkata and Chennai hosting the playoffs. Kolkata's Eden Gardens will host the first match as well as the final as they were the champions of the 2012 season.

While these  money spinner  tournaments like IPL, BPL, Big Bash and list is growing by every year, it is obvious that test cricket will die its undue death. Happy that we relish it for long and will do so than watching the mockery of the sports in the name of the cricket. However, comparing it with various European football premier league is a good joke.

!!!There is enough in the world for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed. - Frank Buchman!!!