The World's Biggest Exercise in Democracy

New York Times reader comment on India going to the polls, "The world's biggest exercise in democracy" April 15, 2009 It is truly the greatest show on Earth, an ode to adiverse and democratic ethos, where 700 million + of humanity vote, providing their small part in directing their ancient civilization into the future. It is no less impressive when done in a neighborhood which includes de-stabilizing and violent Pakistan, China, and Burma. Its challenges are immense, more so probably than anywhere else, particularly in development and fending off terrorism – but considering these challenges and its neighbors, it is even more astounding that the most diverse nation on Earth, with hundreds of languages, all religions and cultures, is not only surviving, but thriving.

The nation where Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism were born, which is the second largest Muslim nation on Earth; where Christianity has existed for 2000 years; where the oldest Jewish synagogues and Jewish communities have resided  since the Romans burnt their 2^nd temple; where the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile reside; where the Zorostrians from Persia have thrived since being thrown out of their ancient homeland; where Armenians and Syrians and many others have to come live; where the Paris-based OECD said was the largest economy on Earth 1500 of the last 2000 years, including the 2nd largest only 200 years ago; where 3 Muslim Presidents have been elected, where a Sikh is Prime Minister and the  head of the ruling party a Catholic Italian woman, where the President is also a women, succeeding a Muslim President who as a rocket scientist was a hero in the nation; where a booming economy is lifting 40 million out of poverty each year and is expected to have the majority of its population in the middle class, already equal to the entire US population, by 2025; where its optimism and vibrancy is manifested in its movies, arts, economic growth, and voting, despite all the incredible challenges and  hardships; where all the great powers are  vying for influence, as it itself finds its place in the world.

Where all of this is happening, is India, and as greater than 1/10 of humanity gets ready to vote, it is an inspiration to all the World.

 

 

 

Why do we read Bhagavat Geeta?

 

Why do we read Geeta, even if we can't understand a Sanskrit word???

This is beautiful story - if inspired pls. forward else keep it can't say when it might inspire you!

Story:

An old Farmer lived on a farm in the mountains with his young grandson. Each morning Grandpa was up early sitting at the kitchen table reading his Bhagavat Geeta. His grandson wanted to be just like him and tried to imitate him in every way he could.

One day the grandson asked, "Grandpa! I try to read the Bhagavat Geeta just like you but I don't understand it, and what I do understand I forget as soon as I close the book. What good does reading the Bhagavat Geeta do?"

The Grandfather quietly turned from putting coal in the stove and replied, "Take this coal basket down to the river and bring me back a basket of water."

The boy did as he was told, but all the water leaked out before he got back to the house. The grandfather laughed and said, "You'll have to move a little faster next time," and sent him back to the river with the basket to try again.

This time the boy ran faster, but again the basket was empty before he returned home. Out of breath, he told his grandfather that it was impossible to carry water in a basket, and he went to get a bucket instead. The old man said, "I don't want a bucket of water; I want a basket of water. You're just not trying hard enough," and he went out the door to watch the boy try again.

At this point, the boy knew it was impossible, but he wanted to show his grandfather that even if he ran as fast as he could, the water would leak out before he got back to the house.

The boy again dipped the basket into river and ran hard, but when he reached his grandfather the basket was again empty. Out of breath, he said, "See Grandpa, it's useless!"

"So you think it is useless?" The old man said, "Look at the basket."  The boy looked at the basket and for the first time realized that the basket was different. It had been transformed from a dirty old coal basket and was now clean, inside and out.

"Son, that's what happens when you read the Bhagavat Geeta. You might not understand or remember everything, but when you read it, you will be changed, inside and out. That is the work of Krishna in our lives."

"Celebrate Life. Care for others and share whatever you have with those less fortunate than you. Broaden your vision, for the whole world belongs to you."

 

 

RATAN TATA - WHY NOT ON FORBES LIST

 

Here is a Real Story of Ratan Tata.
So many people around the world want to know that "What is the Net
Worth of Ratan Tata"?

TATA Group is running 96 businesses and out of which 28 Companies are
publically listed on the various stock exchanges.
Tata Group is world's top 50 Group according to Market capitalization
and Reputation.

Have you ever thought why Ratan tata's name is not in the list of
billionaire's club? why Ratan Tata is not a billionaire on the Forbes
magazine list of billionaire people of the world?

The reason is that, TATA Group's 96 companies are held by its main
Company "TATA Sons" and the main owner of this TATA Sons is not Ratan
Tata but various charitable organizations developed and run by TATA
Group.

Out of which JRD TATA Trust & Sir Ratan Tata Trust are the main.
65% ownership of TATA Sons which is the key holding company of the
other 96 TATA Group Company is held by various charitable
organizations.

So this 65% ownership ownership of Tatasons Limited is not reflected
on Ratan Tata's personal Financial Statement but on the various
charitable organizations. and this is the reason why Ratan Tata is not
in the list of Billionaire club.

if we put this 65% ownership of Tata Sons in Ratan TATA's own personal
financial statement then Ratan Tata's Net worth can become more than $
70 billion. and that's much more than the Warren Buffet's Current Net
Worth of $ 62 billion, the world's richest person according to Forbes
magazine 2008.


However, it doesn't mean that Ratan Tata is poor. In one interviews he
had told the reporter that, "I have my own Capital". He is the
chairman of Tata Group so obviously he earns lots of money every year
as a bonus, remuneration and salary. However, Ratan Tata's Net worth
is not $ 1 Billion.

He is not a billionaire on paper. but in reality he is the richest
person of the world. His net worth in reality is more than Bill Gates
and Warren Buffet.
SO the good thing about Tata Group is that, They do Charity out of
their Money...

And that is the reason TATA Group has generated so much of Goodwill
over last 5 generations.

:)

Some beautiful sayings

Never tell your problems to anyone…20% don’t care and the other 80% are glad you have them. -Lou Holtz

Never explain yourself. Your friends dont need it and your enemies wont believe it. -Belgicia Howell

Forgive your enemies, but never, never forget their names.-John F. Kennedy

You must experience and accept the extremes. Because if the contrast is lost, you lose appreciation; and when you lose appreciation, you lose the value of everything. –Philippos

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. -Ann Landers

Being sad with the right people is better than being happy with the wrong ones.-Philippos

Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too. -Will Smith

If your problem has a solution then…why worry about it? If your problem doesnt have solution then…why worry about it? -Chinese Proverb

Laugh when you can, apologize when you should, and let go of what you can’t change. Kiss slowly, play hard, forgive quickly, take chances, give everything and have no regrets. Life’s too short to be anything but happy

The ultimate measure of man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Pain never really goes away; you just elevate and get used to it by growing stronger. –Philippos

You have to take the good with the bad, smile with the sad, love what you’ve got, remember what you had, learn from your mistakes, but never regret, people change, things go wrong, but remember life goes on!

Always put yourself in the other’s shoes. If you feel that it hurts you, it probably hurts the person too.

Sometimes the people who hurt us the most are people who were hurt more than us. –Philippos

Our tears are what happens when it rains deep inside our hearts and we cannot hold the rain any longer. –Philippos

I like to pretend that everything’s alright. Because when everybody else thinks you’re fine, sometimes youforget for a while that you’re not.

“Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.” -Thomas Paine

The things that made me stronger are the ones that didnt let me sleep at first. -Anonymous

:)

 

 

 

Oh!! City overheats as temp touches 40°C

 

 

Gearing up for another torrid summer of discontent is a routine grudgingly treaded by Mumbaikars every year, but to have the temperatures shoot through the roof much earlier than normal is a tragic double whammy.

 

On Wednesday, the maximum daytime temperature recorded at Colaba was 34.5C while Santa Cruz scorched with a maximum of 40.6C. Officials at the weather bureau admit that the temperature over the past few days is a good four degrees above normal. "But this is not unusual for summer. March too saw days when the daytime temperature rose up to 40C in the city," said Dr RV Sharma, deputy director general, Regional Meteorological Centre, Colaba.

 

If April is so hot, how terrible will May be?

Email in Indian languages

Email in Indian languages

3/30/2009 04:50:00 PM

It's hard for me to imagine going without email for a day. It's such an easy and convenient way to communicate with my friends and family. However, there was one limitation that bothered me: my family members and friends who prefer to communicate in Hindi did not have an easy way to type and send email in their language of choice. I am extremely happy to announce the launch of a new feature in Gmail that makes it easy to type email in Indian languages.

When you compose a new mail in Gmail, you should now see an icon with an Indian character, as the screenshot below shows. This feature is enabled by default for Gmail users in India. If you do not see this function enabled by default, you will need to go the "Settings" page and enable this option in the "Language" section.

A Message...Sure to be followed in the current situations

I love being Mukesh's wife: Nita Ambani

 

Source : DNA

 

Mumbai: It's almost four when we approach Sea Wind, the Ambani family's residence, amidst heavy security, which includes a sniffer dog. Understandable post the Mumbai terror attacks last November, and given the family's status.

Nita Ambani strolls in 10 minutes later. Dressed in jeans and an emerald green top, the educationist/philanthropist is now even slimmer than when we met her last. Pleasantries over, we are informed she has to rush off for a meeting in an hour. So, we get right down to it....

What's the best thing about being Mrs Nita Ambani? Without a pause, she says, "I love being Mukesh's wife!" The warmth with which she talks about one of India's most powerful men is unmistakable. "He is my soul mate; I love being the mother of his kids, and playing every role that I have to being his wife."

In December, she and Mukesh complete 25 years of being together. Ask her, in this age of affairs and divorces, how the two have managed to keep it together and she reveals, "First and foremost, we are great friends. Both of us have very different operating styles, but we value each other's opinions. We are willing to listen to each other, which I think is very important in a relationship."

Mukesh, she says, enjoys watching her perform bharatnatyam. "He loved my performance at my mum-in-law's (Kokilaben Ambani) birthday recently. I like to do things that he likes. He likes Indian art and culture, and I make it a point to take interest in those things," she adds.

And while we assume there will be big celebrations, given it is their silver anniversary, Nita says, "We'll probably go off to the jungles and relax there."

Even their three kids -- Akash, Eisha and Anant -- love wildlife, and in fact they have more than 100 stray dogs at their Jamnagar property and a few pets (including two snakes!) at this home in Cuffe Parade.

"All our vacations arespent in the jungles, roughing it out. We have the best time of our lives there," she says.

Sunday is family time at the Ambani home, which includes an elaborate Gujarati meal, a walk at the US club in the evening with dogs in tow and, as Nita puts it, "lots and lots of homework with the kids."

A trip to Mysore Café at Matunga is also often on the cards. "It's a treat for Mukesh and the kids to go there. You know, Mukesh is one of their oldest customers...he used to go there since his chemical engineering days in the '80s. They have a picture of him on their menu, and the children get most thrilled seeing that!" she smiles.

And while lots could be written about her accomplishments, Nita says she would like to be remembered as "a good mom first, and then a good human being who tried to make a difference."

 

Sent wrong email? No sweat, just recall

 

 

 Now, recall is possible. And you've got to thank Gmail for that.
Sending an email with a bunch of expletives may be your online equivalent of exploding in a fit of rage. Or absentmindedly sending spicy gossip about a person to that very person. The after-effects often have to be dealt with later, causing enough embarrassment to make you cringe a long time.

Giving an email a second read can avoid many such goof-ups. Google's Gmail now gives users an "Undo Send" feature for exactly such situations. Introduced in Google's email programme, this feature holds a message for five seconds before sending it. Gmail's sent mail confirmation message now includes an "Undo" link. Clicking it will return a message to its draft form.

The feature does not allow users to recall a message that has already been sent. "It holds the message for five seconds so you have a chance to hit the panic button," Google said in its blog post on Thursday announcing the feature.

Last year, Google introduced a feature, "Mail Goggles", designed to prevent users from sending drunken emails by forcing users to solve five simple math problems in less than a minute.

 

 

Just wanted to share it with everyone :)

 

 

Quite a feet!

 

A disability is never a handicap. There is always a way out,” says 15-year-old Nadeem Shaikh as he flips the pages of his drawing book. 

Born without hands Nadeem, an SSC student, wrote all his papers using only his feet. Though he could have asked for a writer, Nadeem chose to answer his papers on his own and expects to score over 60 per cent.

Nadeem, a student of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Hindi school, Worli carries his notes and reference books to school in a bag slung across his chest. But unlike other students, he sits on the bench and writes his exam with his right toes.

The Worli resident manages everything — from writing, to holding up books and even eating and combing his hair — using only his feet. “I never thought that I lacked anything, or was inferior to others.

I cannot wear clothes on my own, but can do everything else using my feet. I didn’t ask for a writer for my exams as I wanted to learn to write on my own. I love making portraits and sketches. And I wish to become a famous artist when I grow up,” he said.

“Nadeem is usually engrossed in making portraits and sketches. He is a very supportive and understanding boy. 

He was born without hands, but has never complained about anything. He has made his disability his strength and we are proud of him,” said Noorjahaan, his mother.

 

An authority at Nadeem’s school said, “He moved to our school two years ago from Agripada’s SEC Day Handicap School. Since we had heard about such a case for the first time, we were sceptical about admitting him to the same class as others his age. But after assessing his reading and writing skills for two days we decided to admit him. He is a very talented boy.”

 

 

'123456' is world's worst password used on the Internet

 

 '123456' is the most common password used by people on the Internet.

Obscenities, names of fast cars and even ncc1701 - the ship number for Star Trek's Starship Enterprise, have made it to the list of top 500 worst passwords of all time.

Compiled by Whatsmypass.com, the list features passwords most commonly used by Internet users.

And topping the list of the most common password is 123456, followed by "password" in second place.

Other popular password choices were first names, repeated letters and numbers, pop-culture references.

Even batman, bond007 and cocacola made it to the list, reports the Courier Mail.

The website said that almost one out of nine people use at least one of the passwords mentioned on the list, and one out of every 50 people use one from the top 20.

In fact, a study commissioned by digital communications agency @www found that an average adult had as many as 15 passwords to remember.

But 61 per cent of people used the same passwords for as many different accounts as possible in order to make life easier. 

 

Train availability calendar..really amazing!

 

 

                                                                ;

 

R u searching for train availability??? Here s an easy way to find Seat
availability of all trains in a single hit..


Found this site useful - Train availability calendar - Authorized site

 

http://www.cleartrip.com/trains/calendar


  Do check it out..  it's amazing!

 

 

 

Online Crosswords

 

 

 

 

 

No points for guessing what a site is about when it’s called www.onlinecrosswords.net. Still, the streamlined interface is worthy of note.

 

Divided into simple tabs, it’s self-explanatory: ‘Play’ lets you solve free puzzles; ‘Stuck?’ offers a few clues; and ‘Solutions’ will answer what stumped you.

 

And yes, there are even options to print the crosswords and create your own, using templates. All in all, a great resource for those who love their word games.

Gods Pharmacy

It's been said that God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals and  fish...  All before making a human.   He made and  provided what we'd need before we were born.  These  are best & more powerful when eaten raw.     We're such slow  learners...  God left us a great clue as to what foods  help what part of our  body!   God's Pharmacy!  Amazing!   A  sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The  pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye... And YES, science now shows carrots  greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the  eyes.  A  Tomato has four chambers and is red. The  heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research  shows tomatoes  are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart  and blood food.  Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound  heart and blood vitalizing food.  A  Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums.  Even the wrinkles or folds on  the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen  neuron-transmitters for brain function.  Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.  Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak.  These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.  Avocadoes,  Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this?  It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).  Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow.  Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.  Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.  Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries    Oranges, Grapefruits, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.  Onions look like the body's cells. Today's research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

Smart investors switch to long-dated Nifty options

With profits becoming tougher to generate, savvy investors are increasingly switching to more cost-efficient trading strategies to bet on Indian equities. 

Over the past few months, these investors, mostly foreign investment banks, have been using trading combinations of long-dated Nifty options to achieve this objective. 

The steady rise in activity in long-dated options (option contracts which expire many months from now) over the past few months can be attributed to increased use of these strategies, broadly referred to as synthetic forwards, said market participants. 

"Bulk of the activity in long-dated options of late are for synthetic forwards...its use for volume trades are much lesser," said Ashish Maheshwari, derivatives head at Antique Stockbroking. 

A synthetic forward is a combination of long and short positions involving financial instruments, having a similar risk-reward profile as another instrument. 

Through long-dated options, these investors aim to replicate the exposure of index futures by creating positions in call and put options of identical strikes and expiries. So, if an investor wants to imitate the exposure of long Nifty futures, he would buy a long-dated Nifty call and sell a long-dated Nifty put with similar features. 

Conversely, he would sell a long-dated Nifty call and buy a long-dated Nifty put, if he wants to mimic short Nifty futures. 

Analysts said the synthetic forward positions through options have the characteristics of Nifty futures with longer expiry, which is not available as a product. 

In these trades, the investor is using the money that he has received as premium from selling options to finance buying the options, as part of the trading strategy. 

A key advantage that the investor gains from such trades in long-dated options is that he saves on costs such as rollover and brokerage, which he would otherwise incur in options that expire within every three months. 

Market players said the pricing of these strategies are mostly negotiated between parties involved, with premiums demanded for long-dated options being relatively steep. 

"The cost-effectiveness depends on to what extent can the parties negotiate because buying of long-dated options do not come cheap," said Dolat Capital V-P (derivatives) Vijay Kanchan. 

The total number of contracts traded in long-dated options over the last four months to February has trebled. In February, the total number of contracts was 90,531, against 77,692 in January, 56,260 in December and 30,929 in November.

Do You Love Chess

If you love playing Chess then this is for you...

http://flashchess3.com/

How Infosys is cutting costs

Source Rediff.com

Grappling with falling sales and a dropping bottom line, companies have had no alternate but to put cost-cutting measures in place.

Here are some of the measures that one of India's most valued, and most respected companies, Infosys Technologies, has implemented.

Save $10 - It is asking all its employees to go in for a one-time cost savings of $10 each. This initiative is expected to help the company, which has over 100,000 people on its rolls, log in a cost saving of $1 million (around Rs 5 crore).

An internal mail from the company's CEO and MD S (Kris) Gopalakrishnan to the employees said, 'If each one of us is able to identify a savings of even $10 -- not just per day or per month -- but $10 as a one-time effort from each one of us, that would translate to a saving of close to $1,000,000. I urge each one of you as a key stakeholder of the company's success.

Log in on time - It recently announced an initiative as per which if an employee reaches office before 8 am throughout a month, he will get a cash award of about Rs 500.

The move is aimed at increased utilisation of its transport services and to beat the traffic, which will result in higher productivity for the company. The company operates several buses to transport its employees. This is to make sure that the buses are full. 

Discretionary spend slowdown - Discretionary expenses have been drastically reduced across the company. The Infosys senior management and board members have already offered to cut down their discretionary spends.

Travel economy - Infosys has asked its staff to travel on an economy-class ticket if the flying time is less than four hours.

Chief mentor Narayan Murthy recently flew to Sri Lanka, and he flew economy.

Variable pay cut - It is looking at slashing the variable pay component of its employees' salaries.

Time for a sabbatical? - Employees have been issued letters stating they could opt for a one-year sabbatical to engage themselves in philanthropic activities. They would continue to draw 50 per cent of their salary during the period.

Smaller pay hike - Employees may get pay hikes below 10 per cent this year

Ideas, anyone? - Infosys has set up a portal where employees can submit ideas that could range from ensuring all computers and lights are switched off at the end of the day to bigger business ideas which could be incubated.

So far the company has apparently received over 1000 such ideas which it is in the process of evaluating.

 

6 yr-old Indian-American boy's IQ

An Indian-American boy has an IQ greater than that of Albert Einstein at the tender age of six.

Pranav Veera has an IQ of 176, while Einstein's IQ was believed to be about 160.

The little boy can recite the names of the U.S. presidents in the order they served in office, and is able to say the alphabet backward.

Given a date back to 2000, Pranav can even tell which day of the week that was.

He is highly competitive at playing Wii video games, and likes to play outside.

Pranav's parents have revealed that he seemed unusually intelligent while playing with alphabet sets, when the boy was just four-and-a-half years old.

He could even recall which letters were certain colours, they say.

"That kind of puzzled us. You have to have not a normal memorization, but some other means of recall," the Chicago Sun-Times quoted his father Prasad Veera as saying.

The little boy's mother, Suchitra Veera, has revealed that he presently loves all kinds of alphabets.

"He loves to collect them, like different colors, different sizes, different materials," she said.

Pranav's parents decided to have his IQ tested at Powers Educational Services in Hyde Park three months ago

"I said, 'Let's try it out, because he seems to do a lot of stuff kind of not quite normal for his age. He tested 176," his father said.

Pranav's teacher Marci Taylor, at McCormick Elementary in the Milford School District, calls him "an amazing child".

"He knows so much, yet he's probably more excited about learning than any child I've ever seen. He shakes with excitement," she said.

What she finds impressive about Pranav is the fact that he knows so many incredible things at the age of 6.

"He loves to go play at recess and climb on the monkey bars," Taylor said.

When asked what he wants to be when he grows up, Pranav says: "An astronaut."

Markets today...

Indian markets are likely to open firm on the back of positive global cues & on the back of very strong closing witnessed on Friday which saw indices bouncing by nearly 5%, a biggest rise in last three months.

 

Wall Street rallied at the end of a choppy session Friday as investors pushed the stock market's gains to four days in a row - its best stretch since late November. While the four-day advance is a confidence-booster, investors will be tested next week to see if they can extend the rally. Next week also brings reports on manufacturing, housing, wholesale and consumer inflation that could really test Wall Street. On Friday Both Dow Jones Industrial Average & Nasdaq gained 0.8% & 0.4% respectively.

 

Asian markets are also trading higher at this point in time with Hang Seng & Nikkei up 2.0% & 2.4% respectively. Indian ADR's were largely up with Tata Communications being the biggest gainer up by 9%. Financial stocks continued to rally upwards with both ICICI Bank & HDFC Bank registering gains of 3.7% & 6% respectively. Tech ADR's however were bit subdued with the exception of Wipro which was up 2.8% while Satyam & Infosys ended the day marginally lower. Sterlite & Tata Motors were also up by 3.8% & 2.3% respectively.

HiTask

HiTask is a simple and FREE web-based task management application suitable for keeping personal to-do lists, and managing your team or project.

Perfect for organizing your life and work

HiTask allows you to plan your day in the easiest and most effective way. It is simple to use, and it looks great – you'll find it hard to tear yourself away from your cool new to-do list! 
With HiTask you can create and manage your to-do lists at the click of a button, and sort and arrange them with your mouse. You can even organize your tasks into projects and group them with tags. 
Get your friends together on the HiTask and you will be able to assign tasks to your team-mates just by dragging and dropping tasks onto their names. 
Free up thinking space for important things and let HiTask take care of the rest!

Anil Ambani lost most, Bloomberg gained most

One in every 18 richest people in the Forbes list of world's billionaires witnessed their fortunes increase with New York City's mayor Michael Bloomberg emerging as the biggest gainer.

In the global list of 793 richest people, 44 billionaires added to their net worth. Moreover, there are 38 new billionaires in the list, even as there was steep decline in stocks and real estate prices last year.

"While 83 per cent of the world's 793 billionaires saw their fortunes decline, 44 managed to increase their net worth. . . Mostly by cashing out in the nick of time, making contrarian bets or catering to budget-conscious consumers," the magazine said.

Forbes said that Anil Ambani's fortune dropped by $32 billion as shares in Reliance Communications fell by two-thirds.

The list of world's billionaires released by American magazine Forbeshas thrown out some interesting set of facts and figures. Here are some of them:

$2 trillion (Rs 10,000,000 crore) is the total loss for all the billionaires in the world in a year's time.

The world is now left with 793 billionaires, down from 1,125 billionaires a year ago.

The number of billionaires in the world has declined for the first time since 2003.

The average wealth of billionaires is down to $3 billion, from about $3.9 billion a year ago.

Presence of Indians, both resident and non-resident, is down to 25 from 53 last year.

The new richest person in the world, Bill Gates, has a net worth of $40 billion, down from Warren Buffett's $62 billion a year ago.

The richest Indian in the world, Mukesh Ambani, has a fortune of $19.5 billion, down from last year's topper Lakshmi Mittal's $45 billion.

There are four Indians -- Anil Ambani, Lakshmi Mittal, K P Singh and Mukesh Ambani -- in the 10 biggest losers from across the world. These are the same four Indians who figured among the world's 10 richest persons last year.

Anil Ambani, the biggest gainer of last year, is now the biggest loser.

Michael Bloomberg, the New York City Mayor, is the biggest gainer with his wealth rising by $4.5 billion to $16 billion.

There are only 44 billionaires in the world who saw their fortunes soar higher over the past year, while 656 of them took a hit on their net worth.

The losers predominantly comprise those making a fortune out of finance or investments, while the gainers are those catering to budget-conscious consumers, predicting the crash or cashing out in the nick of time.

38 new members have joined the world billionaire club, while three former billionaires have made a return.

Only nine of the new billionaires inherited all or part of their fortunes; rest made it on their own.

New York has taken over from Moscow as the billionaire capital of the world, 12 months after it lost the crown to the Russian city. New York is now home to 55 billionaires, down from 71 last year, while Moscow's tally has dropped from 74 to 27.

Americans now account for 44 per cent of the total billionaire wealth and 45 per cent of their total number.

Out of the 50 richest persons in the world, only two reside in India.

There are 73 women among the world's billionaires, down from 99 a year ago.

The collective net worth of the world's richest people stood at $2.4 trillion, a decline of $2 trillion from a year ago.

Bloomberg has emerged as the biggest gainer, adding $4.5 billion to his net worth. The 67-year-old mayor with fortunes to the tune of $16 billion is ranked 17th.

"The year's biggest gainer is New York City's mayor, whose net worth climbed 28 per cent in the past 12 months because of a revaluation of his financial data outfit, Bloomberg LP," the report added.

Meanwhile, the magazine said 38 new billionaires from 11 countries were added to the list. Out of them, only nine inherited all or part of their fortunes.

"It's been a dismal year for the world's wealthiest. Offering a glimmer of hope: 38 new billionaires from 11 countries who were added to the list despite massive declines in stocks, real estate prices and currency devaluations against the US dollar.

"Only nine of the new billionaires inherited all or part of their fortunes. The rest made their own luck in businesses ranging from hospitals to fertiliser to illegal drugs," it said.

On the other hand, American fund manager George Soros has also seen his net worth increase by $2 billion. Ranked 29th, he has a wealth of $11 billion.

The magazine said that Soros steered his $20 billion Quantum Endowment into 'positive territory' last year with bearish bets.

Others who added to their net worth include Japan's Tadashi Yanai and family who added $2.4 billion to their fortunes. With a net worth of $6 billion, they are ranked at the 76th spot.

Forbes noted that among the more notable new billionaires are Mexican Joaquin Guzman Loera, one of the biggest suppliers of cocaine to the US and Wang Chuanfu of China, whose BYD Co began selling electric cars in December.