Hello Friends, Here comes a special Independence Day edition of Good to Great 13 …this special edition is peppered with little bit of Independence day thoughts, quotes, joke, rare photos, etc. As always the other features include Management fundas, Inspirations, Home tips, etc…Read on and Enjoy.

This weeks special thanks and credits are to Mithra, Rajesh, Yogita, Dev, Ramesh, Thanuja, Ram, Vidya.

(Click on the picture to get a enlarged view)

As always, to share interesting articles, puzzles, thoughts, views, and feedback...jus mail them to balajineela@gmail.com (Or leave feedback in the Blog itself)

Contents:

1. It's all for YOU….Concentration..B/f Angelenaa, Priya

2. Proud to be an Indian B/f Angelenaa

3. Jokes Corner….B/f Vidhya

4. Thought for the Week….B/f Ram

5. Lateral Thinking... Focus on Problem Vs Solutions…Guru Prasath, Venkat
6. Management Thirukkurals… T S Rajesh

7. Management Fundas…. Why cant we do this? R Mani
8. Tip for this week….Phishing

9. Home tips..Murali

10. SMS Thathuvam No 007..Murthy

11. Creative Advts….Save the Girl Child..b/f Anand, Dev

12. Inspirations…..Priya

13. Food for thought : Oil revenues: bonanza for Russia..B/f Ramesh
14. Closing thoughts

1. It's all About YOU……..Angelenaa, Priya
Life ends when U stop dreaming,

Hope ends when U stop believing,

Friendship ends when U stop sharing.

Have wonderful week ahead and

let your light shine in even the darkness of nights and enlighten the path in front of you with your knowledge and sensibility........

2. PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN . JAI HIND

Gandhiji Addressing people Aug. 15, 1947: Mountbatten swears Nehru in as Prime Minister of India

3. Jokes…Wedding invitation…

~Shree Khaa Naa Ya Namaha~

Mrs. and Mr. Sambhar Chatni

Request the pleasure of the company of

Mrs. & Mr. Idli

On the occasion of the Marriage of their grandson,

SADA DOSA

( Son of Mrs. & Mr. Masala Dosa )

to

PANI PURI
( Daughter of Mrs. & Mr. Bhel Puri )

on 30th September 2008, 12.00 a.m. at

Dahi Wada Hall, Samosa Building,

Cham Cham Road , Opposite Papad Theatre,

Haldiram, Mumbai Rasgulla 400 000.

Res. : "Nariyal ka Chatni", Paneer Rd.
Chola Bhattura Avenue , Mumbai Dhokla 400 111.

Tel. 91-22-25618241

email id: Stomach_upset@indigestion.com

NO GIFTS PLEASE, ONLY PRESENTS.

Best wishes from : Mr. Ghee roast dosa and Mrs. Dahi puri

4. Thought for the Day…Ram

Australian cricket is all about enjoying each other’s success, about doing the little things right, helping each other out and if needed, going out of the way to have a word with somebody who is struggling.

The whole lots of us back passion and try and see things from other people’s perspective rather than just look at it from one’s point of view all the time. Really, it is about caring for each other.

– Steve Waugh

5. Lateral Thinking... Focus on Problem Vs Solutions
One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soapbox, which happened in one of Japan's biggest cosmetics companies.

The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soapbox that was empty. Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department.

For some reason, one soapbox went through the assembly line empty. Management asked its engineers to solve the problem.

Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high-resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soapboxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty. No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent a whoopee amount to do so.

But when a rank-and-file employee in a small company was posed with the same problem, came out with another solution. He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line . He switched the fan on, and as each soapbox passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problems. Always focus on solutions & not on problems.

6. Management Thirukkurals…

Always remember those who serve. In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table.

A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?" he asked.

"Fifty cents," replied the waitress.

The little boy pulled is hand out of his pocket and studied the coins in it.

"Well, how much is a plain dish of ice cream?" he inquired.

By now more people were waiting for a table and the waitress was growing impatient.

"Thirty-five cents," she brusquely replied.

The little boy again counted his coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said.

The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away

The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left. When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table.

There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies.. You see, he couldn' t have the sundae, because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip.

7. Management Fundas…. Why cant we do this?

It was a sports stadium. Eight Children were standing on the track to Participate in the running event.

* Ready! * Steady! * Bang!!!

With the sound of Toy pistol, all eight girls started running.

Hardly have they covered ten to fifteen steps, one of the smaller girls slipped and fell down.

Due to bruises and pain she started crying. When other seven girls heard this sound, stopped running, stood for a while and Turned back, they all ran back to the place where the girl fell down.

One among them bent, picked and kissed the girl gently and enquired 'Now pain must have reduced'.

All seven girls lifted the fallen girl, pacified Her, two of them held the girl firmly and then all seven joined hands Together and walked together and reached the winning post.

Officials were shocked. Clapping of thousands of spectators filled the stadium. Many eyes were filled with tears and perhaps it had reached the GOD even

! ******WHY CAN'T WE DO THIS*******

The sport was conducted by National Institute of Mental Health. All these special girls had come to participate in this event and they are Spastic children. Yes, they were mentally retarded Challenged. What did they teach this world?

Teamwork?

Humanity?

Equality among all?????

Successful people help others who are slow in learning so that they are not Felt far behind.

8. Work Tips…Phishing

Beware of fraudulent e-mails (Phishing attacks) which request your security information.

The modus operandi followed by the fraudsters is to send an email which claims to be from your bank.
It may ask for your security details or it may ask you to follow a link to a site where you will be asked to provide your security details like login-id, password or pin.

Clicking on this link takes you to a fake site, which though looks like your banks site, is operated by a fraudster.

Fraudulent e-mails and websites can be very convincing.

Treat all unsolicited emails with caution and never click on links from such emails and enter any personal information.

If you receive any email asking you to enter your ebanking password/PIN etc, do not open the link or
give your login id / password / PIN lest the same may be misused.

Banks never send emails to customers asking for their login id, password or PIN.

9. Home tips

Ants Problem: Keep the skin of cucumbers near the place or ant hole.

To get pure and clean ice: Boil water first before freezing.

To make the mirror shine: Clean with spirit

To remove chewing gum from clothes: Keep the cloth in the freezer for an hour.

To whiten white clothes: Soak white clothes in hot water with a slice of lemon for 10 minutes 10.

To skin sweet potatoes quickly: Soak in cold water immediately after boiling.

To get rid of mice or rats: Sprinkle black pepper in places where you find mice or rats. They will run away.

10. SMS Thathuvam

"Laziness is our biggest enemy" -Jawaharlal Nehru.

"We should learn to love our enemies"- Mahathma Gandhi.

Which one to follow?... Great confusion.

11. Creative Advts….Save the Girl Child..

12. Inspirations…..IIM A Topper = Vegetable Vendor…!!!

He is perhaps the smartest vegetable seller around with his IIM degree…!!!
Kaushilendra, the 2007 batch topper of the IIM, Ahmedabad, became a vegetable vendor "to earn money and ensure quality prices to farmers and quality product to citizens".
His light pushcart is made of fibre, can carry 200kg and keeps vegetables fresh for six days, for it is ice cool.
It has computerised weighing machine that "guarantees a proper calculation." Even the customers are impressed. "Computerwaala taraaju dandi nahin mar sakta (A computerised machine is not exposed to manipulation)," a woman told this reporter.
Encouraged by the initial response, Kaushilendra is now the owner of 50 such carts that are selling vegetables in "right measurement and right rate".
"I plan to buy more (carts) to spread the business. This is just the beginning. My venture will spread in the entire country in the years to follow," Kaushilendra said with enthusiasm so infectious that one would want to believe him.
His fascination with the vegetable trade is understandable. Born to modest vegetable farmers' family in central Bihar's Ahmad Nagar village (Nalanda), Kaushilendra received his education in a rural government school while assisting his family in farming. Nalanda, incidentally, is known as the "vegetable bowl" of Bihar. "Though a bright student, Kaushilendra loves working in the field," says father Narendra Prasad.

He moved to Navodaya Vidyalaya in Nawada to complete his high school.
Then, he cleared CAT to enter IIM, Ahmedabad, after passing intermediate from Patna Science College.
"I am and have been fascinated with farming since my childhood," the IIM topper said.
Initially, the family was perplexed by their boy's decision. "Now I am receiving all the support from them, my customers and the state."

Really Hats Off to Him!!!

13. Food for thought: Oil revenues: bonanza for Russia

The mind-boggling oil revenues have driven Russia’s impressive economic growth. Ten years ago, it was a $200-billion economy; this year it has crossed the $1.4 trillion mark.
As India and other energy importing countries struggle with runaway oil prices, Russia is basking in an unprecedented windfall of petrodollars. Hold your breath: while you read this story, Russia will earn $2 million from the export of oil and gas. This year, hydrocarbons are expected to bring Russia more than $300 billion in export earnings.
Russia’s per-capita gross domestic product has quadrupled to nearly $7,000. Today Russia is the eighth largest economy in the world in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), according to the World Bank. By the end of the year, it will overtake France to become the world’s sixth largest. Last year, foreign investment surged by a factor of 2.5, touching $100 billion — a record growth for any of the world’s 15 leading national economies.
However, not all Russians have been rolling in the oil wealth. The oil industry was the prime target of a sweeping privatisation drive launched by former President Boris Yeltsin after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Economically, it made little sense to sell off the country’s most profitable industry but the urge to get rich was overwhelming. Hydrocarbons and other mineral riches were instrumental in transforming Russia from being the world’s first and largest land of socialist equality into a nation of glaring capitalist contrasts.
A crooked scheme was concocted in the mid-1990s to hand out the most lucrative oil and other extracting assets to Kremlin-connected insiders for a fraction of their real value. The financially strapped Russian government placed the most valuable state companies under trust management with oligarch-affiliated banks and financial institutions in exchange for loans to the state.

Then the government defaulted on these loans to enable the creditor-trustees to buy the mortgaged assets at rigged auctions. Would-be Russian oligarchs Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, for example, gained control of the Sibneft oil company for $100 million. Three years ago, Mr. Abramovich sold Sibneft to Gazprom, the state-controlled natural gas monopoly, for more than $13 billion. Another Russian oligarch, Mikhail Potanin, acquired the Sidanko oil major for $130 million. Ten months later, he sold a 10-per cent stake in the company to British Petroleum for $571 million.

Even though oil prices in the 1990s were one-tenth of what they are today, hydrocarbon exports brought Russia revenues comparable to what the Soviet Union used to earn at the peak of the oil boom in the late 1970s — about $30 billion a year.

It was an awful lot of money for Russia, considering that its population was half the size of the Soviet population. Yet, a majority of Russians did not benefit from the oil windfall. The Russian government failed to do for its people even a small part of what the Soviet Union did with its petrodollars. The Communist leadership of the Soviet Union was justly criticised for misusing oil revenues to prop up its Eastern Bloc satellites and ideologically-friendly regimes elsewhere but it also spent the oil funds to improve the social sphere and to buy grain and foreign-made consumer goods for selling in the domestic market at heavily subsidised prices. Post-Soviet Russia rejected socialism and embraced the brave new world of free-for-all capitalism in which petrodollars enriched only the new tycoons and corrupt government officials.

Oil tycoons in Russia made huge fortunes faster than anywhere else in the world, pulling strings to win tax breaks and using the gaping loopholes in the tax legislation to pay far below the standard 24 per cent corporate rate. According to the Forbes 2008 list of the world’s wealthiest people, Russia has 110 billionaires; only the United States has more. Russia’s chief auditor admitted that the country had too many billionaires. “Russia has the world’s second largest number of billionaires; this does not measure up to the size of the economy and the level of the country’s development,” Audit Chamber Chairman Sergei Stepashin told a news conference earlier this year.

The Russian superrich have emerged as the new leaders of conspicuous global consumption. Oil magnate Abramovich, who is worth over $24 billion, owns the Chelsea football club, an armada of mega-yachts, including the world’s largest privately owned yacht, “Eclipse”, and a string of multi-million-dollar castles and housing estates in Britain, the U.S. and other parts of the world.
It took President Vladimir Putin four years to consolidate his grip on power to take on the oil oligarchs. In 2004, Russia introduced a stiff tax regime in which the government takes about 80 per cent of the oil revenues. The arrest of Russia’s richest man, oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, on tax evasion charges in 2004 helped to improve tax collection further .

With the oil wealth trickling down to the other sectors, about 30 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the last 10 years. Average earnings grew by about 20 per cent a year recently, fuelling an unprecedented consumption boom. Mega-malls crammed with goods from all over the world are mushrooming in Russian cities. Russia has overtaken Germany this year as Europe’s biggest car market, and demand outpaces supply: Russians sometimes have to wait for 12 months and more to get a car of their choice.

However, the oil-driven gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen despite the general improvement in living standards. About 19 million Russians still live below the official poverty line. Ten per cent of the richest Russians today earn 16 times more than the poorest 10 per cent. In fact, social contrasts appear starker today in Russia than in India: the global Gini Index places Russia 13 positions behind India in the inequality of wealth distribution.

The Russian government now plans to use petrodollars to bridge the glaring rich-poor gap that they created in the first place.

14. Creativity

(Tin Cans neatly arranged as a snake in a shopping mall)

15. Closing Thoughts….

This is our 60th Independence Day!
Freedom is not a Right but a Feeling!
Let's be proud to feel the Freedom!
Let's say loud we are INDIANS!!!

Let all of us get to-gather &
Let's Celebrate Our Freedom!

It is our duty to preserve this Freedom!
Carry this forward to the future!
We did, We do, We will do!!!

Set the celebration on Air, Share your Joy,

You're Free to do it, Send this to every Indian,

to say Vande Mataram!
Jai Hind