Reliance Fresh.... Is it really FRESH ?

Today I happened to visit Reliance fresh store in Chennai. Once you enter the shop, you wont miss the catchy 50% off on MRP offer, anyone will try that. I went there to have a look at the offer and was surprised, infact shocked to notice it was all expired goods on display with reliance's new label, new dates and price.
The product on display was cheese of top brands like britannia, amul... The actual package date of britannia cheese was 05/11(top left in the image), and it is clearly mentioned "best before 9 months of packaged date" (bottom left in the image), so it ends on feb 2012, but the new label pasted by reliance shows packed on 15.9.22, first question is what date is this? Did they make mistake of typing 22 instead of 11? Ok assuming it was a mistake on the year, and correct date is 15.9.11. Since the date is now changed, expire date the (already expired) product is now Jun 2012.

Is reliance trying to sell this expired product by faking the date as September 2011? Which is extending the expiry by another 4 months. And to attract customers to purchase this expired product, they announce 50% offer. Who is benefiting from this scam? Is it britannia or reliance? As per retail market policy, expired goods can be returned back to manufacturer, then why reliance isnt doing this? which raises the doubt on britannia, who might have made a deal with reliance. 


Can we stop this somehow. I dont know which goverment department will take action on this? even if inform will they take action against a bigretail player? hope media will reveal this to public and create awareness for not going behind such offers from reliance fresh.

Rich Get Richer..... Audi Helps...

"Pre-budget diesel variant offer:Loan of Rs.24 Lakhs for 36 months at 0% interest*. The Audi A4 is a piece of engineering that manages to combine technology with aesthetics to create a unique automotive experience. With features like the integrated safety system with 8 airbags, the MMI for one-touch access and the Xenon plus headlights with LED daytime running lights, the Audi A4 is sporty, sophisticated and quite simply, the best that money can buy."

Benz landed in India a long time back, then came BMW, and now its Audi's turn. They have ramped up the sales in Indian market, by direct dealers in majority of Indian Cities. Today I noticed an advertisement for Audi A4, comes @ 28 Lakhs - 38 Lakhs (in rupees), ex showroom price. This is equivalent to 1000 sqft land in most of the commercial areas, ok that is a seperate topic to be discussed, lets come to the point. Anyone who is ready to buy a car at that price is obviously going to be big shot, and why this person needs a loan is my first question. I agree these are marketing strategies by the manufacturer, but they can attract customers with some other idea. Assume Audi sells around 1000 cars in India in this scheme, so 1000 Cars * 24 Lakhs = 240 Crores, which is given @ 0% interest to people who are already rich, with a simple 6% interest/pa, it approximates to 15 Crores. 


Why government does not monitor this? why are they always behind middle class families, rising tax for the small cars, which middle or upper middle class is buying ? Instead they can levy huge tax for high end cars, anyway the rich is going to pay them which they are affordable. We middle class are as-usual keep fighting for our rights, but the Government favors the rich who is getting richer and helps the ruling party to become richer.

Mistake by "The Times of India"

Two days back I was going through railway budget in Times of India newspaper... Being a top newspaper I dint expect any mistakes to happen. Sure there should be many rounds of proof checking, corrections before printing...

Surprising to see that there was a mistake on 15 march 2012 Times of India page 12, I took a snap of that, where anyone can notice the mistakes in the bullet points for Andrapradhesh, Madhyapradesh and Gujarat. The editor has just copied pasted the same text given for Kerala.

Maximum readers will just look for the bullets like me and the surprising part is how did the newspaper guys miss this... Anyways lets hope that these kind of mistakes ae not repeated.

Tax Saving Using One time Investment Plan

Its time for financial year end and all are seriously looking for investments to save tax. As per income tax policy, we have a exemption for 1 lakh investment under 80C. What all this 80C contains is a question which many ask me. Also they want to know the best plan to invest in, another group of friends ask for plans which are single time payment, because they do not want to commit to certain amount every year :) 

First  and foremost, this 1 Lakh covers Provident Fund(PF), so it is enough if you invest only the remaining amount. You can also pay the remaining amount to PF voluntarily. Here is some of investment plans which are considered under 80C and one time payment.

National Savings Certificate (Indian Post Office) - 100% guaranteed minimum returns of 8%, for every Rs.100, you will get Rs.161 on the 7th year. The interest returned on the 7th year will be taxable.

Equity Linked Savings Scheme (ELSS - Market based) - Returns are not guaranteed in this scheme, this is like investing in share market, lock in period is 3 years. The returns are purely based on market performance.

5yr Fixed Deposit - 100% guaranteed minimum returns, Interest % varies between banks. This is simple FD, but the lock period is 5 years.

LIC Bima Bachat - This is from LIC, and it covers life insurance for us. the returns are minimal, because it covers life insurance. Lock period varies and starts from 9,12,15 years. To be simple, for a sum assured amount, and the age of person insured, LIC calculates a single time premium. After every 3yrs completion, 15% of the insured amount will be returned. On maturity sum assured will be returned with loyalty bonus, if any. Note the word "if any", which is based on LIC profit performance. There are many such single premium insurance plans announced by private sectors, but I have discussed about LIC plan alone here.

Happy Investing and Saving Tax.

Kingfisher Crashes, Real reason revealed

Recent Shocking news is downfall of the castle, Kingfisher Airlines. But how did it underwent so much loss, when the liquor tycoon, Vijay Mallya, established his empire around the world holding 50% of beer market and 1/3rd of liquor market.

• Where did all the money go ? 
• Where was the actual salary paid ? 
• Who got profited from Kingfishers airlines ? 
• Now why is Government getting involved in this matter ? 

There are hundreds of question going around, judge the real reason from the pictures posted below.

Bad Time for Apple - After Steve Jobs

Motorola has won a formal injunction against Apple in Germany. The court of Mannheim informed that Apple infringed upon two of Motorola’s European patents:

• Method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system. 
• Multiple pager status synchronization system and method. 

Motorola issued the following statement: “As media and mobility continue to converge, Motorola Mobility’s patented technologies are increasingly important for innovation within the wireless and communications industries, for which Motorola Mobility has developed an industry leading intellectual property portfolio. We will continue to assert ourselves in the protection of these assets, while also ensuring that our technologies are widely available to end-users. We hope that we are able to resolve this matter, so we can focus on creating great innovations that benefit the industry.”

Apple made the following statement: “This is a procedural issue, and has nothing to do with the merits of the case,” Apple said in a statement. “It does not affect our ability to sell products or do business in Germany at this time.”

Bodhidharma - Why was he forgotten ?

Bodhidharma, buzzword recently around India, including me, because of the film 7zham Arvivum (Seventh Sense), where Suriya acted as Bodhidharma, directed by A.R.Murugadoss. Bodhidharma was not totally forgotten in India, after watching the film, I started researching, why Indians did not remember him, why we lost him, is everything true told in the film?

1. We did not forget Bodhidharma, Before this film was released, there were many reference in Indian sites which talk about Bodhidharma, Fact is he was less known in India.
2. When we remember great Thiruvalluvar (2nd century BC - 8th century AD), why Bodhidharma (5th century AD) was forgotten ? Bodhidharma did not contribute to India, his education was in India, but his medical, defence, art talents were all to China, whereas Thirukural is classic of couplets by Thiruvalluvar.
3. Did we loose only Bodhidharma ? No, Everyone knows about Siddhar Boganathar, we have him in many temples even now in South India. He is well known in China as, "Bo-Yang", "Lao-Tzu", founder of Taoism, he is frequent traveller to China to teach and spread his knowledge. 
4. Why do we still remember Bogar? its because of his contributions to Indians. Lord Murugan Status in Palani, is to be made by Bogar himself. It is also said, that Bogar helped Engineers who built Lord Brihadeeswarar Temple with his ideas to lift tons of stone to a remarkable height.

I am not against the film, but the way it is projected, as if we forgot our ancestors, which is not the case. I agree that our skills, learning are all slowly lost in this modern world, but there exist a group which is still researching on this topic to bring them back, 7zham arivu is one milestone in bringing it back. After this film, Bodhidharma will only be known as a person born in Kanchipuram and left to China, but he wont be one reason to be proud of, because we are already proud to be Indian for lot more reasons.

20 minutes is not enough to talk about Bodhidharma, some strange facts about him

• He lived for 150 Years
• He was seen alive after 3 years of his death
• He cut his eye-lid to stay awake during meditation
• He practiced meditation for 9 continuous years facing a wall
• He failed to make a favorable impression in southern china and then traveled to northern china