Posts

Debt mutual funds - salient points to consider

-
When it comes to investing, there are primarily two classes of assets - equity and debt. Among the characteristics to differentiate them one which is frequently abided by is the year of tenure. Normally one invests in equity for the long term and debt for the short term. But due to government policies with respect to taxation and other factors suitable to it this philosophy got turned on its head in that people are comfortable with investing in debt for long term and equity for short term. Debt is really complicated and to avoid the hassles of identifying good debt instruments of varying tenures  one of the vehicles provided to invest is debt mutual funds. Contrary to some impressions debt mutual funds carry some amount of risk (one must remember the recent Franklin fiasco), so primarily to make investors aware SEBI has classified debt mutual funds across various categories based primarily on risk and tenure. It must be borne in mind that risk is dependent on the underlying papers (whe
Post a Comment
Read more

Why do we really worry about US H1B regulations?

-
 Whenever there is any news circulating of US tightening its H1B visa norms, we seem to be feeling much pain and heartburn. NAASCOM especially routinely issues statements as to how these tightening will be bad for the US sometimes making one wonder does this really warrant that much attention than it should. Why should we not see this in a positive light for India?? Some light years ago, towards the end of the dot com bust I happened to land in US (New Jersey to be precise); the times then can be considered similar to what the current pandemic situation is right now where jobs are being taken away from people, so the country shout it worry about its naturalized citizens and green card holders first or looking after the plight of H1B visa holders. I arrived at this perspective during my stay there and realized that I have better opportunities in my own country and the long and short of the story is within 4 months I convinced the consulting company which sponsored my visa to send me bac
Post a Comment
Read more

Seeing a glass half full or half empty

-
Times are now such that pessimism outweighs optimism as far as one’s outlook is concerned that this really reflects on his/her attitude towards his current sphere of work. One tends to shy away from taking daunting and challenging tasks in the event there be some catastrophic failures.  I work in the IT field and I find that in the age of the pandemic and also organisations thinking towards digitising it’s business and the changes being advanced at a fast and furious pace with constant up spilling and relearning being the norm, this is the best time and space that an IT professional can dream of.  So this then begets the question: How does one keep pace and get on top of the continuous voluminous amount of learning being required of us? The answer lies in following certain time age principles YAGNI - Be aware of it especially the what, the context in which it can be applied, the pitfalls that might arise but delay getting deep into it till it is required.  KISS - Keep things simple. AG
Post a Comment
Read more

Innovate!! Need of the times

-
In organisations nowadays innovation is the buzzword but what we are finding is we are struggling to innovate. This is because rather than overcome the fear of failure in trying out new things what we are concentrating on in the name of innovation is to find ways to optimise on existing operations. The prime concentration towards innovation efforts is in the area of cost rationalisation, how to gain on profits optimising on existing operations. For business to survive in the long run there should always be constant endeavour to seek out unchartered territories besides maintaining the moat around its existing operations. This requires coming out with innovative ideas that typically might not be associated it. I happened to get rumbling on this by sampling recent products from Amul. Amul being associated with dairy products took me a bit by surprise when I found it had diversified into providing for ready made patties that can be had with burgers, ready made pizza crust that can be now b
1 comment
Read more