Hot Business Gossip - News (accept credit cards ...) (debt consolidation ...) (political news ...) (job news ...)=>IPod Portable Video Player launched by Apple Computer Inc . It is an IMac G5 computer with a built-in video camera and ITunes online music store where you can download music videos, TV shows and songs . This latest Apple gadget has a 6.35cm colour screen with a storage capacity of 15000 songs, 25000 photos or over 150 hours of video . It is available in 2 models - one with 30 Gb memory, 14-hour battery for $299 and another with 60 Gb memory, 20-hour battery for $399 . With the combination of excellent technology and great content, Apple, ABC, Walt Disney will enable the viewer to watch each episode of 'Desperate House Wives', 'Lost', 'Night Stalker', 'That's so Raven' and 'Suite Life of Zack and Cody' online while he/she is travelling .
=>Top 5 online retailers for Consumer Electronics -
(internet rankings based on price, product selection, product quality, service, information quality, return policies)
=>Crutchfield.com
=>Amazon.com
=>Costco.com
=>J&R.com
=>Buy.com
=>HP's "gesture keyboard" - a digitized pen and pad packaged with handwriting - recognition software - will enable Indians to quickly note down words in Hindi script on the digitized pad that transmits them to a desktop computer screen. Indians can use it to type a report, chat on instant messengers or search the Web.
=>$10 million is the grand prize to develop Hydrogen as an alternative fuel in America.
=>Bill O' Reilly (FoxNews journalist) earns $10 million per year in TV, radio and print.
=>In 2006, a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl cost advertisers $2.5 million. Between 90 million and 130 million people were watching this American football Sunday sports event in Detroit, Michigan on February 5.
=>Largest ad market in the United States is Television advertising - $74 billion compared to Radio ad market of $20 billion and Internet's $8 billion.
=>Domain name - Business.com sold in 1999 for $7.5 million, Sex.com sold in 2006 for $14 million, Porn.com sold in 2007 for $9 Million and Ireport.com sold in 2008 for $750,000.
=>World's 15th largest rough diamond (603-carat) was sold for $12.4 million to South African Diamond Corp. (subsidiary of British gem seller Graff Jewelers).
=>Indian-American student Madhavi Pulakat Gavini (16) was among three top young scientists who received the $50,000 Intel Foundation Young Scientist Scholarship at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), the world's largest pre-college science competiton.
=>Crorepati Club of Foreign Brands in Indian Market -
=>Maybach car - Rs 6 crore
=>Rolls Royce Phantom car - Rs 5 crore
=>Bentley and Continental car - Rs 3 crore
=>Aston Martin, Jaguar, Ferrari - other luxury cars in the range of Rs 1 crore
=>Macleoad 1954 distilled single malt whiskey (700ml bottle) - Rs 3 lakh
=>Glengoyne 1977 single malt scotch (700ml bottle) - $250
=>Isle of Skye 1955 blended scotch whiskey (700ml bottle) - $1000
=>India's stock market index Sensex breached the 12,000 mark for the first time in its 131-year history on April 20, 2006.
=>Enron stock is a penny stock listed as ECSPQ.PK . It was $90/share before the Enron scandal but is now 15cents/share. After the Enron bankruptcy, its stockholders lost $60 billion in market value, the long term employees lost more than $2 billion in pension money and 5600 people lost jobs.
=>Lakshmi Niwas Mittal is the 3rd richest man in the world with a net worth of $25 billion after Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and the richest in India . He is a London based industrialist who translated his family business into a global steel business empire . The steel tycoon promised to invest 50 million pounds in the reconstruction of Long Beach, Mississippi (American town damaged by Hurricane) . Mittal is also famous as the buyer of the most expensive house in Britain .
=>India's richest person is Mukesh Ambani (net worth of over Rs 70,000 crores), second richest is Azim Premji (net worth of about Rs 64,700 crore) and third richest is Anil Ambani (net worth of over Rs 61,000 crore) .
=>Kryvorizhstal (it produces 20% of Ukraine's entire metal output) steel mill was sold to Mittal Steel for 2.7 billion pounds at an auction
=>Textile maker OCM was sold to US billionaire investor Wilbur Ross for $37 million in an all cash deal
=>Overseas acquisitions by Indian companies - Tata Group has acquired Singapore's NatSteel, Britain's Tetley Tea, U.S. telecom network operator Tyco Global, Daewoo Commercial Vehicles, Boston's Ritz Carlton hotel, Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus Group, $11.3 billion bid for British steelmaker Corus Group and bought a majority stake in Millennium Steel, a Thai company, Aditya Birla group has acquired Canada's Minacs Worldwide (Total acquisitions of 307 companies worth $20 billion)
=>Wal-Mart Stores, the world's largest retailer, will pay $78.5 million in damages to current and former Pennsylvania employees for forcing them to work "off the clock" or during rest breaks (between March 1998 and May 2006) and violating Pennsylvania labor laws
=>Sabeer Bhatia sold Hotmail, the free e-mail service, for $400 million to Microsoft
=>$100 laptop computer is being developed for developing countries with the backing of Google Inc. at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Under another non-profit global project One Laptop Per Child, cost of this low cost PC has been put at $175 and it runs on Microsoft's operating system, Windows XP Starter Edition.
=>Intel will launch laptops for less than $400 by the first quarter of year 2007 for developing countries
=>Alex Tew, a 21-year-old British entrepreneur made more than $1 million in five months, by selling 10x10 or larger blocks of advertising space for a $1 per pixel to businesses. This enabled them to place their logos and links on his site - MillionDollarHomepage.com - to promote their business on a high traffic internet space for a low price. (Alex is also launching Pixelotto where he will sell each pixel for $2 and hold online lottery where the winner who clicks the right advertisement will win $1 million) (Sunaina Bansal has started Crorepatipage.com which is the Indian version of MillionDollarHomepage.com and is selling 1 million pixels for Rs10 each) (Peter Sauer has created OneYearForSale.com where businesses can buy time instead of space. Advertisers buy a minute (or many minutes) of the year for a dollar each, and for each minute they own their large advertising message will be displayed)
=>How India's Affluent Class (average monthly income of Rs 73,000 or more) spend their money -
=>75% - Stocks and bonds
=>62% - shell out more money for quality
=>60% - to keep up with latest technology
=>56% - buy well-known brands
=>54% - buy new products for enjoyment
=>49% - to treat themselves to anything special
=>24% - be first to buy latest products/gadgets
=>14% - Forex investment
=>4% - Laptop/notebook computer
=>2.06% - Offshore accounts
=>Big Budget College Festivals in India -
=>Mood Indigo (IIT Powai) - Rs 52 lakhs
=>Rendezvous (IIT Delhi) - Rs 30 lakhs
=>Oasis (BITS Pilani) - Rs 11 lakhs
=>Antaragni (IIT Kanpur)
=>Malhar (St Xavier)
=>Fall in prices of HIV drugs in India -
(after ART - anti-retroviral therapy was introduced in India in 2000) =>20-fold drop - $778 per month to $100 per month to $33 per month in 2003
BestSeller Books -
=>The Da Vinci Code (by Dan Brown) - 2,50,000 copies
=>Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (by JK Rowling) - 1,60,000 copies
=>Who Moved my Cheese ? (by Johnson and Blanchard) - 4,00,000 copies
=>The Argumentative Indian (by Amartya Sen) - 25,000 copies
=>Maximum City (by Suketu Mehta) - 10,000 copies
=>"Mission Ek Crore" by Sahara One is a TV game show with Sanjay Dutt as the host where you enter the contest with a lump sum amount in hand and your mission is to spend it all to be declared a winner
=>Crorepati CEOs in India -
(annual compensation package of 2005-06)
=>Mukesh Ambani (chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries) - Rs 24.51 crore (Rs 245 million)
=>Brijmohan Lall Munjal(Hero Honda Chairman) - Rs 11.80 crore (Rs 118 million)
=>Pawan Munjal (Hero Honda Managing Director) - Rs 11.57 crore (Rs 115.7 million)
=>Harish Kumar Mittal (Mercator Lines - CMD) - Rs 10.07 crore (Rs 100.7 million)
=>Atul Agarwal (Mercator Lines - Joint Managing Director) - Rs 10.07 crore (Rs 100.7 million)
Bollywood's (including Tollywood, Lollywood) highest paid stars -
=>Rajnikanth - Rs 40 crore (400 million) per film
=>Hrithik Roshan - Rs 12 crore (120 million) per film
=>Aamir Khan - Rs 10 crore (100 million) per film
Bollywood endorsement of brands only for lakhs and crores ...
(per year rates for 2004)
=>John Abraham - Rs 60 lakh
=>Preity Zinta - Rs 75 - 80 lakh
=>Rani Mukherjee - Rs 75 - 80 lakh
=>Aishwarya Rai - Rs 1 crore
=>Saif Ali Khan - Rs 1 crore
=>Shahrukh Khan - Rs 4 - 5 crore
=>Amitabh Bachchan - Rs 5 crore
=>Aamir Khan - Rs 5 - 6 crore
=>Famous and Rich Saas-Bahus of desi soaps -
(Salary paid per episode of Television Serials)
=>Nandini Singh - Rs 10,000 paid for "Kesar", Rs 10,000 paid for "Kkavyanjali"
=>Mona Vasu - Rs 10,000 paid for "Millie"
=>Shilpa Sakiani - Rs 7,000 paid for "Kyunki", Rs 15,000 paid for "Kkusum", Rs 16 lakh paid for "Nach Baliye"
=>Dolly Sohi - Rs 16,000 paid for "Bhabhi"
=>Gauri Pradhan - Rs 18,000
=>Smriti Irani - Rs 35,000 paid for "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi"
=>Niki Aneja - Rs 20,000 paid for "Astitva"
=>Mona Singh - Rs 28,000 paid for "Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahi"
=>Sakshi Tanwar - Rs 25,000 paid for "Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki"
=>Shweta Tiwari - Rs 20,000 paid for "Kasautii"
=>Global Weapons Race ...
=>USA(seller) - $12.4 billion
=>Russia(seller) - $6.1 billion
=>UK(seller) - $3.2 billion
=>India(buyer) - $5.7 billion ($7.9 billion ...last 4 years)
=>China(buyer) - $10.4 billion (last 4 years)
=>US Senate has voted on 16th March 2006 in favour of allowing the national debt to swell to nearly $9 trillion, preventing a first-ever default on U.S. Treasury notes. This represents about $30,000 debt for every man, woman and child in the United States.
=>Concorde (supersonic plane) is run by Air France and British Airways and has stopped operating for more than a year due to security issues that arose after a major air crash . In Paris, Concorde crashed into a hotel in 2 minutes after take off when its bottom glazed a metal object lying on the airport runway, and all the passengers on board including the aircraft crew and pilot died instantly .
=>Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (worth $440 million) is chairman and MD of Biocon, a biotech firm . She is rated among the Top 50 world's most powerful women in business of Fortune magazine
=>Top 5 most generous philanthropists (as listed in Business Week) -
=>Gordon and Betty Moore - $7.046 billion
=>Bill and Melinda Gates - $5.4 billion
=>Warren Buffet - $2.622 billion
=>George Soros - $2.367 billion
=>Eli and Edythe Broad - $1.4 billion
=>Nimbus Communications offered BCCI (Board of Cricket Control in India) $25 million (now $30 million) for 12 ODIs (One Day Internationals - cricket matches) against Sri Lanka and South Africa from October 25 to November 28, 2005 .
=>Satellite TV channels screeing cricket matches involving the Indian cricket team will have to share the feed with the state-run terrestrial broadcaster as per the Indian Government ruling
=>Property Prices jump by 25% in South Delhi (reported by Cushman and Wakefield) -
Top floor (roof top) apartments (condomium/penthouse) - Capital value for a posh South Delhi colony is Rs 14,000 to Rs 22,000 per sq. feet .
=>Gulmohar Park (2000 sq. feet roof top condomium) - Rs 2.8 crore
=>Panchsheel Park (2000 sq. feet roof top condomium) - Rs. 3 crore
=>Defence Colony (2000 sq. feet roof top condomium) - Rs. 5 crore
=>Phil Harvey runs Adam and Eve, America's biggest X-rated mail-order businesses that sells adult material ranging from porn movies to sex toys . Adam and Eve annual sales are around $70 million .
=>Tyeb Mehta's painting called "Mahishasura"
sold for an
unbelievable amount of $1.584 million (Rs.7 crore) in
New York (USA) . It was the first Indian contemporary
piece of art to cross the $1 million mark in the global
market . The painting was bought by an NRI on phone at
the Christie's auction of Indian art through bidding .
Tyeb Mehta, a resident of Mumbai, defines "Mahishasura"
as a karmic origami in red, black, white expressing the
spiritual transformation of evil after union with the devine .
=>M. F. Hussain's painting called "The Last Supper"
sold for
a whopping price of $2million (Rs. 9 crore) on the internet
to an NRI corporation in London . The online sale was finalised
by an NRI Bengali (representative of Bedros Assets) .
The magnificent piece of modern art depicts a roughly hewn table
held up by a devil and an angel at both ends .
In the middle, sits Jesus Christ, a haloed figure with an open
book in front of him, his torso shaped like a dove .
On his left is a woman in robes and headgear, her hand cupping a
candle . On his right, are an old bearded man and the imposing
frame of an African woman .
The focal point of this strange tableau is an empty white bowl .
The famine in the bowl and the dominating presence of Africa, a
continent ravaged by hunger, is M. f. Husain's artistic opinion
on the global political status of food . "The empty bowl
signifies betrayal," he said .=>World's Most Expensive Paintings...
|
Garçon à la Pipe (Boy with a Pipe) by Pablo Picasso ($104,100,000)
Dora Maar with Cat by Pablo Picasso ($95,200,000)
Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent Van Gogh ($82,500,000)
Bal Au Moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir ($78,000,000)
Massacre of the Innocents by Peter Paul Rubens ($76,700,000)
Portrait de l'Artiste sans Barbe by Vincent van Gogh ($71,500,000)
Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier by Paul Cézanne ($60,500,000)
La Femme aux Bras Croisés (Woman with Crossed Arms) by Pablo Picasso ($55,000,000)
Le Reve (The Dream) by Pablo Picasso ($139,000,000)
Portrait de Angel Fernandez de Soto by Pablo Picasso ($60,000,000)
Irises by Vincent Van Gogh ($53,900,000)
Les Noces de Pierrette by Pablo Picasso ($51,670,000)
Self-Portrait: Yo Picasso by Pablo Picasso ($43,500,000)
Nude in a Black Armchair by Pablo Picasso ($45,102,500)
Woman Seated in a Garden by Pablo Picasso ($49,500,000)
Still Life with Curtain, Pitcher, and Bowl of Fruit by Paul Cezanne ($60,500,000)
Courses au Bois de Boulogne by Manet ($26,300,000)
=>Amrita Shergil's painting "Village Scene" sold for - Rs 6.9 crore (at auction house Osian)
Atul Dodiya, Anju Dodiya, Subodh Gupta, Jagannath Panda, Jitish Kallat, Shibu Natesan, Manish Pushkale are other contemporary Indian artists whose paintings sell for 1 crore or more in international auctions.
=>"Fulla" is the Middle Eastern version of Barbie that wears black abaya (white head scarf) and a long coat . It is named after a type of Jasmine that grows in Levant .
=>Zizzle is a Chicago startup that manufactures toys based on latest blockbuster Hollywood movie scenes for Disney. This company's signature toy, is iZ, a peculiar-looking musical creature and a toy for the iPod generation. When moved different ways, all its body parts create music that the toy's creators say is different every time. Inside is a high-quality audio speaker, and with a standard stereo cord, iZ will accept music from a CD player, PC, or MP3 player such as Apple's iPod, which causes iZ's eyes to bounce and its nose to light up and change colors, all in time with the music .
=>These authors are paid mind boggling advance (that is 50 per cent royalty on the first print run) for their yet to-be-released books -
(any renowned writer receives a first cheque of Rs. 14 lakh for selling 20,000 copies)
***Vikram Seth : 1.3 million pounds for "Two Lives" .
***Arundhati Roy : Rs. 4 crore for "The God of Small Things" .
***Salman Rushdie : for "Shalimar the Crown" .
***Ashok Banker : Rs. 10 crore for "The Ramayana Series" .
***Hari Kunzru : $1.25 million for "Impressionist" .
***Thrity Umrigar : for "Space Between" .
***Kiran Nagarkar : for "God's Own Soldier" .
***Manju Kapur : for "Home" .
***Sudha Murthy : for "Old Man and His God" .
***Upamanyu Chatterjee : for "Weight Loss" .
***Edna Fernandes : for "Big Warriors : The Battle for India" .
***Vishwanathan Anand : for "The Champion Next Door" .
***V. S. Naipaul
***Vikram Chandra
***Kaavya Viswanathan : $500,000 for "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, And Got a Life" .
***Jhumpha Lahri
=>Kiran Desai (daughter of Anita Desai) has won the Booker Prize 2006 for her novel "The Inheritance of Loss" (youngest winner besides Arundhati Roy). This is the world's most prestigious literary award with a 50,000 pound prize money. "The Inheritance of Loss" is an exploration of postcolonial chaos and despair in Kalimpong and Manhattan that took Kiran eight years to write .
- Video=>Suzuki Motor Corp (Japan's largest mini-car maker) will invest $770 million in India to set up new production facilities and develop a new line-up of midsized sedans to take on rivals Honda and Toyota .
=>Alternative to Automobile Fuel (may last another 20-25 years) -
=>CNG
=>LPG
=>Biofuels
=>Electricity
=>Ethanol
=>Biodiesel
=>Big Three - Ford, GM, Daimler Chrysler spend more on health care and and retiree benefits per vehicle than steel (Medical care adds $1308 to cost of American-made vehicles)
=>Best sellig Toyota car till date has been "Prius" with mileage estimate (mpg city/highway/combined) of 60/51/55 with a price tag of $22,175. It is equipped with hybrid technology called Hybrid Synergy Drive® that integrates its gas engine with an emissions-free electric motor to achieve the amazing fuel economy
=>Head of Russina Buddhist region of Kalmykia may spend $1 million to set up a new home to the embalmed body of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin
=>World's most expensive island is Fiji's Vatu Vara currently priced at $75 million
=>Sony Pictures will release its first 50GB Blu-ray disc of movie "Click" — which can store twice the amount of data of an average disc
=>Market Capitalization of American Companies...
ExxonMobil (oil) - $416 billion
General Electric - $367 billion
Microsoft (computer software) - $279 billion
Wal-Mart (retail) - $214 billion
Cisco (networking) - $147.5 billion
Google (search engine) - $145 billion
IBM (computer software and hardware) - $139.5 billion
Intel (computer hardware) - $123 billion
Hewlett-Packard - $109 billion
DaimlerChrysler (automaker) - $54 billion
eBay (internet auction) - $45 billion
Yahoo (internet) - $32 billion
General Motors (automaker) - $20 billion
Ford (automaker) - $15 billion
Amazon (e-commerce) - $14 billion
=>China has a surplus of $1 trillion in its budget (it made this money in foreign currency by selling almost everything from t-shirt to tv to rest of the world). Largest owners of US treasury in January 2007
Japan $648.8 billions
China $353.6 billions
United Kingdom $249.3 billions
=>Iran is paying $20 to American travel agencies to entice average Americans to visit Iran as tourists and $10 to travel agencies from other countries
=>Vodafone (world's biggest UK based cellular opeartor) will pick up 10% stake in Bharti Tele-Ventures (India's larget private telecome operator) for Rs 6,700 crore ($1.5 billion) at Rs 351 per share in cash . This deal includes 5.65% stake of New York based Warburg Pincus . The other 4.4% comes from its investment in Bharti Enterprises, the promoters
|
=>$1-a-year CEOs are - Google's Eric Schmidt, Capital One's Richard Fairbank, DreamWork's Jeffrey Katzenberg, Apple's Steve Jobs
=>Counterfeiting and piracy costs the global economy $100 billion every year according to Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation
=>Maurtius, Seychelles, Switzerland, Monaco, Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Cyprus are tax havens (places where certain taxes are levied at a low rate or not at all)
=>Automotive X PRIZE will offer $25 million to anyone who can design and build a super-efficient, commercially viable car that gets 100 miles per gallon (over 42 km per litre)
=>Top 10 US banks (companies ranked by their assets in billions)
Citigroup $1,626.6
Bank of America $1,445.2
JPMorgan Chase $1,328.0
Wachovia $682.4
Wells Fargo $499.5
HSBC $466.0
Washington Mutual $350.9
U.S. Bancorp $213.4
Countrywide Financial $195.0
SunTrust $181.1
=>Countries that are part of the trillion-dollar club -
| Country | GDP in Dec '06 ($ billion) | First crossed $1-trillion mark on |
|
United States |
13,458 |
31/12/1969 |
|
Japan |
4,464 |
31/12/1980 |
|
Germany |
2,890 |
31/12/1987 |
|
China |
2,554 |
31/12/1998 |
|
United Kingdom |
2,358 |
30/09/1990 |
|
France |
2,227 |
31/12/1989 |
|
Italy |
1,841 |
31/03/1990 |
|
Spain |
1,217 |
31/12/2004 |
|
Canada |
1,273 |
31/12/2005 |
|
Brazil |
1,067 |
29/09/2006 |
|
Russia |
975 |
N/A |
|
India |
1,000 |
25/04/2007 |
=>Average real household disposable income in India will grow to Rs 3,18,896 (per year) by 2025 from Rs 1,13,744 in 2005
=>America as a country is unbelievably charitable and there is no comparison (of donations) between Americans and people from any other country (this is due to cultural difference). Evidence of data on charitable giving says Americans give per year 7 times more dollars than average Germans and 14 times more $ than average Italians. US donates quarter trillion dollars a year which is more than the national income of Sweden or Denmark or Norway. Though America's wealthy people are most generous than of any other country, its working poor give more charity than the rich who in turn are more generous than the middle class Americans.