Fuel Price Hikes to Help Tata Nano

The recent price hikes in petrol and diesel have hit the consumers hard and with no respite on the anvil it makes more sense for consumers to choose cars with better fuel economy. As consumers become penny wise, demand for smaller cars are expected to be better than their bigger variants. Tata Nano may be one of the biggest beneficiaries. 

2012 was a good year for Tata Nano. In fact Tata Nano was the only petrol car in the 2012′s top selling cars list to post a positive year on year growth. 2013 seems to be a challenging year though, with the January sales figures not being too optimistic. But Tata Nano seems to be readying for a tough fight.

Tata Nano has been declared as the “Most Trusted Four-Wheeler” Brand in the Brand Trust Report, India Study, 2013, conducted by Trust Research Advisory. That makes a good point about customer trust and expectations. With 25 km/l of excellent fuel economy, the car is already considered best value for money to drive. And now, Nano is getting ready to get better! CNG Version of Tata Nano is expected to come out in the first half of year 2013. That is expected to provide much anticipated sales thrust. It is going to make your cheaper ride cheapest!

CNG version opens many gates of better numbers. One is the fleet taxi system, where the taxi service providers prefer CNG vehicles for better fuel economy and hence more profitability. Tata Nano is already being planned to be used as taxis in Kashmir, to make a beginning. With CNG version in the market, this trend is expected to pick up momentum.

Next come marketing and sales promotions. Here, sky is the limit. Recently UP Chief Minister announced to award top-10 sportspersons to national school games with one Tata Nano each. When prices of everything go up, Tata Nano can emerge as the choice in many other areas unprecedented. This was Ratan Tata’s vision. He wanted to make Tata Nano for the long term. In the long term, leaner and more fuel efficient cars definitely have a bright future!

Let us wait and watch Tata Nano on its splendorous journey!

- Rahul

Note: Views are personal and do not represent views of any organization associated with the author. [Detailed disclaimer]

Some Quotes

"Rapport is the ability to enter someone else's world, to make him feel that you understand him, that you have a strong common bond." - Tony Robbins, Motivational speaker

"There are few things ever dreamed of, smoked or injected that have as addictive an effect on our brains as technology" - Kelly McGonigal, author of The Willpower Instinct.

"A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." - Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize winne

"Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock." -Ben Hecht, screenwriter, novelist, director

“in the last five or six thousand years, empires one after another have arisen, waxed powerful by wars of conquest, and fallen by internal revolution or attack from without.” -John Boyd Orr

"Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known." -Michel de Montaigne, essayist

Source: Multiple on www. [Detailed disclaimer]

Sachin Tendulkar and God

Glimpses of Sachin Tendulkar and God. 

Spent 45 minutes to compile this. Inspired by the news that today, Sachin visited Tirupati Balaji Mandir.

- Rahul

A Little Gentle Dog's Tale

When we came into our current housing society, we noticed that the security guards at the main gate had kept two pet dogs. These dogs were never chained; I think these were stray dogs that the security guards had befriended may be to grant them some amusement in their unexciting jobs. I noticed that they had tied a strip with ‘ghunghroos” (metallic bells) around one’s neck, perhaps because she was a female, and a leather belt around the other who was perhaps male. Over the time I became much of a fan of these dogs!

I think these dogs were saintly men in their past life, or will be born as ones in their next. They never barked! It was not that they could not bark; but they barked only to protest when some uninvited guest of their own race tried to do a trespass in our society’s campus. For the whole day they slept peacefully. But they did not sleep in some hideous place. They made it a point to lie down and take peaceful long (endless) naps only at the main gate, thereby communicating that they were not avoiding their duty! Both had white furs and were always clean. For many months, I saw these two dogs make themselves a peaceful and happy neighborhood of our society. But something troubling happened yesterday morning!

This Sunday morning the Municipal Corporation sent some men with a van to catch local stray dogs! Two men were standing at our main gate with a big net and stick in their hands. Their van was parked at some distance from our society, with around 20 dogs in it! I looked around for our dogs and found them wandering visibly uncomfortable at some distance from these guys. They must have smelled something fishy and hence were maintaining some distance from these guys, and were no longer sleeping or relaxing. I looked out for the watchman but he was nowhere around! My heart started beating loud and I became much scared... But I saw a man who was perhaps employed by the builder; he was telling the dog-catchers, “these are good dogs; have been here for many years now… they never create any troubles…” But the dog-catchers were not convinced and were on a constant look out for our gentle dogs to lie down. At that point, I went out of the society to buy something. I saw the dogs that were already captured in the van. All were standing tall, none were fighting or even talking to each other; and were looking out of the van… One old lady was looking at them from her house, as if trying to search for her favorite street dog there… (a lot of households feed the stray dogs at some hour of the day, in purely selfless gestures…)

These unfortunate dogs won’t be knowing what would happen with them in the coming hours. I myself did not know. Will they leave these dogs at a faraway distance from the city? Or will they feed them to the lions of one foreign circus which has been stationed in our city for many weeks now? Or will they simply poison and dump them somewhere? It was not nice to think about them. But these dogs won’t be knowing what could happen to them. We human beings write down our experiences in the form of books which our children could read and know about things; these dogs must not have seen such a tragic dog-catching van in their past which could ruin their life…

I came back to the society in 5 minutes after buying something. On my way, to my great pleasure, I watched the van driving away from our locality… I anxiously rushed to see if our dogs were unharmed, and there they were! Both the friendly dogs were now standing at the main gate of our society, visibly relieved but still attentive on finding the dog-catchers leave…

When we went on shopping during the latter part of the day, I was attracted to kids section where they had put lot of soft toys in a huge basket. I found so many small dogs there (toy-dogs and toy-puppies). While I waited for my wife to buy some essential stuff, I picked these pups up and tried to read their face. Some (toy) pups were funny; some were mischievous; some were sleepy. One looked so mischievous that I felt like pulling his ears and putting a gentle slap on him; another was cute and adorable. Some were big, bulky and uninteresting too. There was one which was a mix of all good things; his face was full of fun and he smiled with mischief and amusement. His ears were bent to the front and he had brought his rear legs to the front to sit much vertically. I wanted to take this dog home and my wife obliged!

So we brought this cute little (toy) pup home and I had my favorite place to keep him – our book-shelf. So I have kept it inside the book self and he looks out through its glass door. This morning, I woke up and went to meet him there. I looked into his eyes and remembered our small niece and nephew – they will love it! But I am not going to share my dog with them; I would rather buy them different ones and more, but not this!… Like all kids, I am possessive of my possessions and this little dog is my dearest as of now!!!

:)

So this was a little gentle dogs’ tale… 100% of what happened, happened in real life yesterday…

- Rahul

Let us meet some Hindu Monks

Over the time we tend to make generalizations about everything around us. Psychologically such preconceived notions and biases help us live at peace because we no longer are “scared of surprises”. People want to avoid the suspense of discovering new things every day and have deep down fear of the unseen, unheard and new things. Hence, making generalizations and simplistic opinion about matters and things, even if prejudiced or unlearned, helps them with a psychological comfort. One of such biased generalizations is about Sanyasis, Sadhus, Yogis or whom some even call “godmen”.

Someone I know enjoys perhaps sadistic pleasures at calling all Sadhus and Yogis as “illiterates”. If we point out all the engineers from IITs, management grads from IIMs and other exceptionally highly qualified individuals who are part of ISKCON or Art of Living, my friend would definitely correct his position if he were sensible. Just a week back when I was in Bengaluru, I had heard about Nirmalanandanatha Swami who had been anointed as the pontiff (head priest) of Adichunchanagiri Mutt.

Born as Nagaraj Gowda, Nirmalanandanatha Swami completed his MTech degree in structural engineering from the prestigious IIT Chennai. He had lost his father at a tender age and completed his engineering under difficult financial conditions. He was selected as a research scholar at IISc, Bangalore, but he chose to become a monk instead! Having inspirations from Swami Vivekananda since his childhood, he approached Adichunchanagiri Mutt to embrace Sanyasa. As a monk also, he brought out an educational revolution in Kolar and other places and started numerous educational institutions! Therefore Shri Balagangadharanatha Swami chose him to lead the 1,000-year-old mutt…

Ongoing Kumbh Mela in ancient city Prayag Raj also resulted in some of such inspirational news coming up in front of us.

Swami Anandlila Giri was formerly known as Olga in Russia where she was a top fashion designer! Around 13 years ago she got a call for renunciation on the inspiration of her guru Vishnudevanandji Maharaj, the first Russian Mahamandaleshwar of Shri Dasanaam Juna Akhada (Akharas are religious orders of the Hindu religion). And now, Anandlila Giri would be ordained the Mahamandaleshwar (scholarly saint) of Juna akhada at the Kumbh mela! She would be the first Russian woman Mahamandaleshwar (scholarly saint) of the akhada and she considers it a great honor. She said, "I will try to spread the light of sanatan dharm in different parts of the world".

Swami Jasraj Puri, originally Jason from Sydney, Australia, was to become a physiotherapist and was also a hockey player. But fate had it otherwise. He took Sannyas and joined as a disciple of Swami Maheshwarananda. At the age of 42 today, he is to become the first foreign-born Mahamandaleshwar (scholarly saint) of Shri Panchyati Mahanirwani Akhara. Swami Jasraj Puri looks over schools, a 100-bed hospital and around 4-5 gaushalas (cow sheds). He also travels to various parts of world delivering discourses on Yoga and religion.

We also got to know about some more foreign-born Sanyasins, thanks to this year’s Kumbh Mela:

Sadhvi Adityananda Saraswati was a journalist based in Chicago, USA, when she met her Guru Chidanand Saraswati. She currently works with Parmarth Niketan, Rishikesh, and is handling one of the most important projects of the Niketan related to girl child.

Baba Rampuri, who had come from USA and joined the order of Naga Sadhus more than 40 years ago, has been given the title of international Shri Mahant by Juna akhara.

There is a famous Hindi phrase, “Jaat na puchho Sadhu ki” meaning “Do not ask the caste/creed of a Saint”. But I wrote about their background and nationalities only to make a point - Next time when you hear about some Sadhu or a Yogi, or see someone wearing Saffron dress, do not make a guess just like that!

- Rahul

Note: Views are personal and do not represent views of any organization associated with the author. [Detailed disclaimer]

References:

- Hindustan Times, ‘Russian woman to lead Juna akhada’; January 15, 2013 [URL] accessed on 24-01-2013

- Indian Express, ‘East & West alike, foreigners take pole positions in akharas’, January 19, 2013 [URL] accessed on 24-01-2013

- Bangalore Mirror, ‘Mutt’s new pontiff is an IIT graduate’, January 15, 2013, [URL] accessed on 24-01-2013