It gives me immense pleasure that the maiden edition of STIMULUS is going to see the light of a bright spring day. History teaches us that growth emanates from better recipes out of existing ingredients (to use kitchen metaphor), and not just from more cooking. Explore your potential for finding new ideas through multiplied possibilities. Exude the confidence of capabilities. Future belongs to those who have a reason of being unreasonable. My best wishes to the new authors and the editorial team .

Ms. Gitanjali MohantyAcademic Head

Podar World College

Directors Note

Dr. Mrs. Vandana LullaDirector, Podar World College

Dear studentsI take this wonderful opportunity to enlighten

you that you are a part of an organization that celebrates learning- make the best use of it…

Together, we need to sail forward upholding Podar’s mission, vision and goals. It is my dream that every student becomes a unique identity in their respective fields. I want each of you to dream big and believe in making your dream, a reality. Your college has provided you and will continue to provide you with numerous oppor-tunities to excel ahead- the curricular & the co-curricular activities provided at Podar transform each one of you in the global learners ready to take on the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Use every opportunity wisely.

College is, a place for learning, we aim to in-stil in each one of you the necessary knowledge and skills that will build in each one of you curios-ity and passion to have a quest for learning and a zest for life. For learning to be effective and enduring it ought to be engaging. I believe that every student has immense potential, every stu-dent is a reservoir of talents and given the right environment at Podar and impetus, will blossom

intellectually and holistically beyond my imagina-tion.

We make every effort to provide the right learning environment. My, dear students, use the opportunities provided well. Remember “work is worship” and thus all students need to be com-mitted, dedicated and persevere to enable you to achieve your goals. What we believe, we say, and what we say, we do. There is no substitute to hard work and thus students need to work with single minded devotion.

All students must have a purpose as a goal with no purpose and a dream with no purpose seems aimless. You must put in the right amount of ingredients to sail in the right direction. At times, the path ahead may seem daunting but take each step calmly and wisely which will help each of you my dear students to reach your targets.

The entire college community is behind you if you err along, thus remember that your years at Podar will always be fulfilling as the support received is tremendous. Maintain a positive atti-tude right throughout because a positive learning environment will give you an enriching learning experience.

Have big ambitions and dream big – aim to reach for the stars. Equip yourselves with all the necessary strategies you imbibe on the way and use it to the best of your ability in your latter years.

The future my students have always to be better than the past. Every achievement has in-spired us to continually set new benchmarks of excellence, year after year so that each one of you leave our portals with the right aptitude and an excellent attitude. I look forward to be con-stantly on a continuum of excellence. I am thrilled that you all are a part of this journey of ours as we strive together to be an inspiration.

Let’s work the Podar way… striving for a bet-ter future so that you ride smoothly on the cor-porate wave … My students “Be the change you want to see in the world”

From the desk of the Academic Head

Contents

Reflecting Upon a Reflection Education transcending borders

Political RevolutionsThe fight for transparency

What To Expect When You’re Expecting ChangePolicies in India and the US

“Irrational Exuberance” In The Art WorldWhy is art so expensive?

“Mind” Your InvestmentsEmotional or rational decisions?

Money Is What Money DoesThe rise of Bitcoin

Google’s Ad AuctionsThe secret to their success

Burgernomics: The Big Mac IndexBurgers and exchange rates

The Prisoners DilemmaTo fight or cooperate?

Whats(Not) In A NameLogos with hidden meanings

The Indian Identity (Crisis) Proud to be Indian?

The Underdogs The importance of SME’s

Economics Of ImmigrationA few deeper thoughts

Students SectionAndroid Smartphone War 2014Intern speak KnockoutEducation of the SelfCollege EventsStudents Of The Year

CreditsEditor in Chief Raksheta GiridharManaging Editor Rajvi ShahCreative Director Siddhant Babla

Editorial TeamHema ThakurAishwarya Deshpande

WritersSaaniya PanditVinita ManekRohit IyerRonak PolAkanksha SaletoreAishwarya DeshpandeBikramjit Singh HundalHema ThakurMeemansa BhandariRajvi ShahRaksheta GiridharPooja WadhwaAman KothariAditi Singh

We would like to thank our Director Dr. Mrs. Vandana Lulla, Academic Head Ms. Gitanjali Mohanty, Ms. Palak Rajani, Ms. Sonia Joshi, Marketing Coordinator Ms. Aarti Kumar and Course Coordinator Ms. Sunita Katkar and the visiting faculty team for their constant support and en-couragement.

Editors Note4

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Dear reader,

After all the effort put in by our students, we are proud to finally present Stimulus March 2014! This would not have been possible without the profound contributions of all the writers. We would especially like to thank our directorDr. Mrs. Vandana Lulla for supporting our initiative, and our Academic Head Ms. Gitanjali Mohanty for giving us her full encouragement with this endeavor.

The idea behind Stimulus is to encourage students to go beyond our curriculum exploring economics, finance and management further. Wayne Dyer once said; “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” We believe that positive transformation comes from evolved thinking, which stems from the ability to take on a different approach to interpreting what we know. The purpose of this magazine is thus to venture into areas beyond the confine-ment of the classroom, to enable us to think outside the box.

How are McDonalds burgers used to calculate exchange rates? How does Google really make money? How does the branch of economics called ‘game theory’ explain drug abuse in sporting events? How do virtual currencies like Bit-coin really work? These are some questions we will be answering in this issue. We are also covering other issues including current affairs, finance, and technology. At the end we have a student section with student experiences, internships, and also an interview with our national kickboxing champion.

Hope you enjoy the read.

Raksheta Giridhar, Rajvi Shah, Siddhant Babla

Editors Note

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Reflecting Upon AReflectionEducation transcend-ing borders

Saaniya Pandit

The University of Lon-don. Illustrious name, divine legacy. When you think of a student from this university, you picture an immaculate-ly dressed person with not a single hair out of place, the IQ of ten mad scientists squeezed into one enormous brain, and enough grace to charm Cinderella’s entire step-family.

I had the very same im-age.

Only now, I’m part of the same institution (albeit via the International Programmes). And the reflection in the mir-ror looks nothing like the im-age in my head.

I wonder if being associ-ated with this institution can be compared to advertis-ments for Bournville dark

chocolate, whose famous catch-phrase is: “You don’t buy a Bournville. You earn it.”

However contrary that sounds, it’s a relevant anal-ogy to consider in the case of the institution.

You can pay for enrol-ment, but for the transaction to deliver all of its potential utility, you need to allow it to consume you, as opposed to it merely being consumed by you. Knowledge consumes seeker consumes knowl-edge. Like the legendary sigil of Ouroboros, an image of a serpent eating its own tail (that in ancient cultures, stood for infinity), the loop of knowledge is never-ending. It is infinite. Where one stage of knowledge ends, another is ready to commence.

This is where the earn-ing aspect comes into play. Learning in itself is an endless road, not the means to an end, and certainly not one in itself.

Maybe the majority of us are not capable of recreat-ing the brilliance of Einstein, and we may not be able to pull off an Adam Smith in our lifetimes. But maybe the key with information is not how much of it we can produce or reproduce. Maybe it is about how much we can absorb.

According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, a third interpretation of the word ‘knowledge’ has to do with awareness, and not just a body of facts that one memorizes. The state of as-similating, though more si-lent, is by no means passive. It does not equate itself to

blind acceptance or con-formist nonresistance. Behind the incorporation of every new piece of data, there is an underlying mental vigour and active questioning of facts.

The most appropriate an-tonym for knowledge is ‘igno-rance’. Ignorance does not translate into a poor IQ score or the inability garner oneself global recognition. It is mere-ly the unwillingness to let go of the outdated, and to tran-scend previous benchmarks. To make comfort zones out of familiar opinions. To be un-able to challenge one’s own beliefs. A fertile mind, free of prejudices and biases is the best ground to cultivate and spread ideas.

Conclusively, I realize that the University of London probably knew about the importance of minds over appearances and outward displays. Hence, they came up with the International Pro-grams. So that individuals di-verse and distinctive would be connected by a com-mon, evolved thought pro-cess. And there would cease to be such a thing as a ‘typi-cal student’ of the institution, because knowledge is not an identical mask that each one of us wears. It casts it-self in the mold of its owner. Though objective and de-tached, once applied to life, it becomes an extension of personas .

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Stimlus March 2014

Aishwarya Deshpande

When the new Chief Minister of the country’s capital Arvind Kejriwal an-nounced his resignation af-ter just 49 days in office, the nation stopped and stared.

The landslide victory of the nascent and inexperi-enced Aam Aadmi Party in

the assembly elections of December 2013 thwarted all the pre conceived notions regarding regional politics. While it is true that the Bhar-tiya Janata Party margin-ally overshadowed AAP, the biggest myth buster was the piteous failure of Congress in its home ground. BJP, which has its eyes on the bigger prize, consented to allow-ing AAP to form govern-ment in New Delhi. Since his swearing-in, Mr Kejriwal has shocked the classes and masses almost on a daily ba-sis by his frankly, human-ori-ented rather than state-ori-ented decisions and actions.

The surfacing of “Nay-aks” like Mr Kejriwal is not an event that is idiosyncratic to India. Politics in recent times has faced a turnaround rev-olution across borders and

cultures. The opaque divide between the workings of the government and public awareness has gradually dis-solved due to the libertarian efforts of these movements.

The causes of revolutions can be attributed to history as well as technology. The World Wars and the Cold War changed the political dy-namics so much that each country either had to pick a side between Russia and USA, between Capitalism and Communism, between the old morals and the new, or be left out of the new world order. Formation of in-ternational economic and social organisations such as the UN, the Quad, the NATO, the EU helped fuel the elit-ist segregational tendencies and therefore altered the course of economic, na-

Political Revolutions

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tional, cultural and ideologi-cal progress. The base of the friction between the “free” countries and those un-der any kind of oppression, was the evident demarca-tion by leaders of the latter countries; causing an “them and us” sort of discomfiture.

Technology proved to be the biggest catalyst to the rising public spirit in the oppressed nations. The in-ternet boom of the 1990s al-lowed millions of intellectuals to explore the outer world on a work visa, juxtapose it the ambience back home and have epiphanous realisa-tions of the degree of suffo-cation in their motherlands. The international community became aware of the situa-tions in every country as word spread with every click of the computer mouse. A lay-man American could now camp outside the Ukrainian embassy protesting the un-fair and discriminatory visa laws that did not allow Jew-ish people to travel abroad. The sense that injustice was being doled out aplenty arose further when the US-Afghanistan and US-Iraq occupation and war stories began circling the web. All in all, the sense of disillusion-ment regarding the govern-ment and the lack of faith in its capabilities had reached its bursting point when the first revolution took place in Yugoslavia, where the lead-er was overthrown after be-ing charges with war crimes. This was to be one of the four “colour revolutions”, as dubbed by the world media.

The most eventful, icon-

ic and important revolution took place in various parts of Africa and the Middle East in the late 2000s and is still on-going - the Arab Spring. Au-thoritarianism, lack of human rights protection, corruption - the citizens began their fight against anarchy first in Tuni-sia, where the leader Ben Ali was violently overthrown and had to flee to Saudi Ara-bia. The effect of the revolu-tion snowballed into neigh-bouring countries - Jordan, Algeria, Oman, Egypt, Libya. Till date, five governments have been overthrown and democracy has been estab-lished, two civil wars have taken place, and close to 180,000 people have lost their lives, all for the sake of true freedom and liberty.

“The amount of funds spent on spying on the less than fortunate coun-try, by the influential ones could build infrastruc-ture worth a lifetime and save millions of lives.”

Why are DEMOCRACY FREEDOM LIBERTY TRANS-PERENCY such magical words? The answer is quite simple. As, Winston Church-ill the great leader who ef-ficiently navigated Great Britain out of misery in WWII, famously said, “Democracy is the worst form of govern-ment, except for all oth-ers”, the magical word of-fers what none others do - a ray of hope, and an ideal that someday, sometime, you and I will be the same, irrespective of who we are.

We live in such a time where one citizen of an af-fluent nation pays a sum of money for a cup of coffee that could purchase an en-tire week’s supply of a house-hold’s vegetables in a devel-oping one. The amount of funds spent on spying on the less than fortunate country, by the influential ones could build infrastructure worth a lifetime and save millions of lives. The aggravation result-ing from this sense of gross in-equality has led many “Kejri-wals” to finally speak out and make the public conscience mull over a few things that it may have been taking for granted for many years.

Coming back to our ini-tial conversation about In-dia’s political revolution: Let’s be clear on one stance - Aam Aadmi Party may or may not be India’s political salvation, but it has certainly ventured out into that un-known abyss of corruption and nepotism that no one in the free history of India dared to question. Mr Kejirw-al and his so called anarchist methodology of applying pressure on the babus may or may not be politically cor-rect, or even “constitution-al”, as the hot favorite word these days goes, but it has certainly exposed the moral-ly compromised and the cor-rupt in broad daylight. This might be the small ignition to light the forest on fire, and by the looks of it, it has begun.

I close my argument by stating that, out of seven bil-lion people that reside on the planet, 1.5 billion are below the age of 25, and 85% of

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Stimlus March 2014

Aishwarya Deshpande

February 3rd 2014 was a historic day for the US when Janet Yellen was appointed as the Chairperson of the Federal Reserve, succeeding Ben Bernanke, who was in the chair for eight years. Ms Yellen, a regular in the policy

maker circles (she was the Chairperson of Council of Economic Advisers, followed by a stint as the chair of the San Francisco Fed and finally, Vice President of the Nation-al Fed under Mr Bernanke for four years) is also a professor at UC Berkeley, and author of a few groundbreaking papers; a few of them were written with her Nobel Prize winning husband, George Akerlof.

Naturally, a woman’s achievement of this level gives cause to many who believe in the feminist agen-da, but, and this is a matter of complete personal opin-ion, in the race of minds, Ms Yellen has proven herself to be much beyond the triviali-ties of discrimination of any kind - gender notwithstand-

ing. The biggest point that is to be noted here, is that this is the post “Wall Street catas-trophe Renaissance” phase, where the biggest and best companies have been purged of risk-taking and the Fed’s moves will prove to be very crucial in defining the health of weak economy.

First off, will be the issue of the decline in labour force participation, which has led to the unemployment rate to soar to 7.3%. This is especially alarming for the Fed since it has a policy of tying its inter-est rates to unemployment rates. It will continue to keep federal fund rates at near-zero as long as unemploy-ment rates are above 6.5%. The short term policy will af-fect the investment decision in the near future.

What to expect when you’re expecting change

them live in developing coun-tries. It isn’t surprising that we have, and will, witness major shift in perceptions, patience levels and protests for indi-vidual rights. The fights may be manifested in different ways - WikiLeaks, slain Syrian youths, political parodies up-

loaded on YouTube, peace-ful protests in Mumbai for the unfortunate rape victim, or violent ones in Delhi for the girl that lost her life because of a few monsters - it is cer-tain that the spirit is here to stay for good. Maybe, a year later, when I ruminate

over this topic again, Korea might have a new leader, and so might Russia, and, very hopefully, India too.

In any case, the brave new world has finally arrived .

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Addressing the elephant in the room, which is the $16.7 trillion debt, will be the foremost goal of the Fed for the next few business quarters. According to the latest estimates, it is 73% of the GDP, and interest expenses alone stand up to $9.5 billion. Key proposals to tackle this will be the mass crea-tion of jobs and economic partnerships. A ray of light will be the TransAtlantic Trade and In-vestment Partnership (TTIP) treaty, which will aim at bridging the trade gap between the EU and USA. This could potentially boost the GDP by $120 billion.

The question of how long will the Fed bear the heavy QE3 cross is vital since the health of the Asian and other EMEs depends heavily on it. As witnessed by the July-Au-gust 2013 fiasco, when the Fed intermittently stopped its bond buying policy which led to the landslide depreciation of tied currencies, the effect of tapering is bound to send trem-ors in global markets. The bigger challenge will be faced when it finally decides to sell off the assets, which will lead to a contrac-tion of the economy once more.

However, our new( ly - impor ted) governor of RBI, Mr Raghuram Rajan, seems to be building a firewall of safety in case of such an announcement. One of the reasons, among others, for the rupee freefall was the gaping Current Account Deficit (CAD), which measured to 5.7% of the GDP of India. A large chunk of it is devoted to importing gold. Mr Rajan has let a helping hand to the situation by reducing the gold import tariff from $398 per tola (10 gms) to $638 per kg. The CAD is now lowering to stable sub - 3% levels as a result of drop in imports and rise in exports, overall.

The mysterious part of the story, howev-er, is the lack of inflation in the US economy. The critics of QE warned of a Depression-era level of inflation; instead, the rate has hiked only by 1.1% annually in the past five years. The answer to this is the strong hold that the Fed has on excess reserves by the banks. In a reverse situation, the Fed is instead paying them interest on the “safe and sound” de-

posits. The excess reserves have increased from $2 billion to $1.8 trillion, making it the second largest dollar reserve after China’s $3.8 trillion.

The topic of boardrooms and living rooms alike, is the rampant Indian inflation which hit its peak at 14% in the third business quarter of 2013-14. However, measures taken by Mr Ra-jan, such as introducing interest futures and savings deposits certificates to help those tackling with inflation. This has tamed the devil to quite an extent, and the recent es-timate shows that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation has dropped to 8.79% for De-cember 2013.

While it may seem that the two Central Banker Titans are battling different demons, they are actually two sides of the same coin. While Ms Yellen, who has the other devil, de-flation, to deal with, her main issue at hand remains to be unemployment. While India seems to have that under control (our un-employment rates have been consistent at

below 4% level), all thanks to the aggres-sive investment and employment policies of the centre, infla-tion seems to be a

prevalent threat for the economy.The next business quarter will prove to be

a litmus test for both the bankers due to the changes in the system. India is on the brink of a revolution on political front, which has amped the hopes of many investors, and USA is yet to come clean on the various diplomatic strifes it has found itself in. Many equations and norms will go under the ham-mer, and the cautionary pace of growth that is persisting post catastrophe will take up ro-bustness only if the imminent scholars deliver.

“Our new(ly-imported) governor of RBI, Mr Raghuram Rajan, seems to be building a firewall of safety”

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Stimlus March 2014

Raksheta Giridhar

Imagine having enough money to buy a cluster of private islands in the Carib-bean. Or 30 Bugatti Veyrons.

Would you instead buy, the painting above? One anon-ymous bidder did, last year at Christie’s auction house, New York.

Clearly, the artist is im-mensely famous, and the work has some sort of deep significance which no one but the connoisseurs are able to recognise. In 1978 Robert Hughes of Time magazine stated; “The price of a work of art is an index of pure, irra-tional desire.” To what extent does this statement actually hold true?

Andy Warhol pushed the boundaries of traditional art

and focused on media and popular culture, fuelling the “Pop art” movement. This is more than a coke bottle; it’s a symbol of consumerist cul-ture in the U.S. Undeniably there is a lot more to Andy Warhol than this brief insight, but that would in itself be a different article altogether. But at the end of the day, it’s a coke bottle which has been bought for 355 crores.

“Everything in the whole world is worth what anyone else is prepared to pay for it.” quoted artist Damien Hirst. While this statement seems intuitive, is it logical? Why

“Irrational Exuberance” in the Art World

Coca-Cola 3 (1962), Andy Warhol.Sold for:$57.2 million (Rs. 355 crores)

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is something that even you or I could scribble worth so much?

Earlier, artists were solely looked upon for their skill to render realistically. The val-ues of their paintings were directly proportional to their skill. For instance, artists were once commissioned to paint portraits. But today, we have cameras; their roles are re-dundant. Since the purpose of art has changed time, the concepts behind artworks play a greater role.

But who can understand these concepts? Only an elite community. The de-mand for art is highly de-pendent on perceptions of potential buyers and experts (alternatively, their whimsical desires). The role of the mar-ginal bidder in art auctions is also important. He might place his bid depending on how brilliant he thinks Andy Warhol’s coke bottle is. How revered Andy Warhol is in his community (while you might not even have heard of him). Or even how posh his neighbors would think he is if he owns a Warhol (his per-ceived rise in social status).

Andy Warhol died in 1987; the quantity of his paintings (and numerous other artists) is fixed. More-over, each piece of art is unique and non-replicable and thus supply of art is often very inelastic. If there were only ‘one’ of something in the entire world, you would have to pay a premium to own it.

What else could influ-ence art price? Where else could this figure $57.2 be

derived from? The auction house Christie’s, that sold Coca-Cola (3), had given it’s estimate of the painting to be between $40 to $60 mil-lion – a crucial guideline to the final selling price (the ex-pert’s opinion).

“Everything in the whole world is worth what any-one else is prepared to pay for it.”

Having said all this, are art markets really irrational? There is no direct method of calculating whether a mar-ket behaves rationally or not, and even so, we would have to define what we mean by ‘rational’ first anyway. But generally, accusations of the market being subject to “irrational exuberance” are derived from the fact that prices are excessively high and rising too fast. This would imply that art, as an asset is a bad investment as prices would be lower or fall in the future, and so returns would fall.

If this were true, it would be illogical to invest in them. One study by Michael Moses and Jianping Mei found that the average annual return on American paintings was 12.2% (based on repeat sales of auctioned paintings) and on the S&P was 12.6%, in the years 1950-2000. This actually suggests returns on art are almost the same as returns on stocks, but slightly lower. Nevertheless the non-mon-etary gains of art shouldn’t be ignored. Art is also pur-chased for its aesthetics, and the pleasure gained by

simply looking at it. As men-tioned earlier, having a well-known painting at home also increases individuals’ social status.

Thus overall gains to in-vestors in artwork might in fact be higher than inves-tors in the stock market! Al-though it is only one study, it does question the irration-ality of art markets. Perhaps art markets are in fact more much logical than they may seem.

Famous Expensive Paintings

Jackson Pollock“Number 5, 1948”, 1948

$140 million

Pablo Picasso: “Garçon a la pipe”, 1904

$104.1 million

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Stimlus March 2014

Hema Thakur

If it were all about ration-ality, golf would be a redun-dant sport. Of course, there are more rigorous models than this to hypothesize the irrationality in our daily deci-sion making processes, but what’s more intriguing is its list of implications....

Picture this: You lose a ticket worth 100 bucks on the way to a concert. The odds of buying one more are mini-malistic, because spending a total of 200 bucks on en-tertainment seems exorbi-tant. However, if you lose 100 bucks in cash be-fore buying a ticket, it won’t affect your purchase initiative - because 100’s ac-counted for miscel-laneous losses, and the other 100, for en-tertainment.

Over simplistic as the example may sound, it gives us an insight into the sci-ence which explains herd mentalities and emotional investing - behavioral finance.Theory has it that there are six steps to

investing: coming in contact with objective information, interpreting the same, pro-cessing it, deciding, activat-ing and finally, acting.

“an investor feels secure even if his investment is made on shaky grounds, as long as he presumes that there is a more ‘fool-ish’ investor than himself”

The hang-ups are what constitute the basis for re-search in the field.... And, they are most likely to arise at step two. The way we perceive information ma-jorly depends on our experi-ences - more specifically, our most recent experiences... We tend to overreact and extrapolate trends, accord-ing to research. Moreover we selectively distort, and choose to imbibe the infor-mation that conforms to our existing beliefs - Have you ever seen a lottery advert

portraying a frustrated man tearing up his ticket? No. Does that make us oblivious about the existence of such men? No. Yet, we instill our faith in the advert because, even though highly skewed, it fuels our hope and tells us what we want to hear.

Comparisons impinge the third step, which is the most crucial one - making the decision. If A has a mil-lion originally and thereaf-ter two, he’s happier than B who has 5 million originally and thereafter 4. It doesn’t stop at comparative gains or losses though... It makes its way into arriving at danger-ous conclusions about the relative value of potential in-vestments...

And finally, our actions are driven in overoptimis-tic directions by overcon-fidence, which in turn has its roots in the ‘greater fool theory’, which suggests that an investor feels secure even if his investment is made on

“Mind” your investments

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Stimlus March 2014

Akanksha Saletore

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency that has in-creasingly gained popularity since it was unveiled in 2009 by pseudonymous devel-oper Satoshi Nakamoto. The highly controversial crypto-currency lacks a central au-thority and relies instead on a “transactional ledger” that is maintained and verified by its users. Anonymous par-ticipants use the system to transact at almost zero cost circumventing the need for an intermediary such as a bank. It shot to prominence in 2012 and since then has faced wild price fluctua-tions- rising from about $15 to $266 in April 2013, falling to $70 in May and hitting $1000 in December.

Interestingly, the value of Bitcoin is strongly correlat-ed with the amount of me-

dia coverage it receives. A single post on time.com was enough to double its price in a few days. This is a serious problem if you’re trying to create a cur-rency, rather than a com-modity that is subject to speculative attacks.

W h i l e the soaring prices of Bitcoin suggests a grow-ing level of market capitalization, the number of transactions denominated in Bitcoin has not kept pace. Large blocs of the private money are being squirreled away by investors and spec-ulators, fueling what appears to be a price bubble. Hoard-ing implies that it is more of a speculative asset than a cur-rency. In fact, the variations in its price closely resemble those of dot-com companies during the Internet Bubble.

The anonymous peer-to-peer architecture of Bitcoin has made it a safe haven for libertarians, criminals, spec-ulators and gold bugs. Silk Road, an online market that sells illicit drugs, weapons, child pornography and the like in exchange exclusive-

ly for Bitcoin, was recently shut down by the FBI but has since been replaced by oth-

er forums.Proponents

of Bitcoin en-thuse about

its commit-ment to a limited supply of 21 million B i t c o i n s and view

it as an an-tidote to the

inflationary ten-dencies of central

banks. The software en-sures that it is mined at a rate that falls over time and ultimately stops altogether. However, this precaution against inflation subjects the currency to severe potential deflation, if it ever becomes widely used.

“Bitcoin has faced wild price fluctuations- rising from about $15 to $266 in April 2013, falling to $70 in May and hitting $1000 in December”

Currently, it is a means of exchange but not a unit of account. Vendors make Bitcoin available as a meth-od of payment but always

Money Is What Money Does

shaky grounds, as long as he presumes that there is a more ‘foolish’ investor than himself, in the market... We hold on to stocks during crashes in a hope that they rise to insulate ourselves from the agony of

realizing the losses, not real-izing that our inflexibility will amplify them in the long run!

The bright side: just as those big-shots who aren’t swayed by the glory of golf spend their time in more in-

genuity, those who aren’t bound by emotions have an opportunity to make the buck off those who are .

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Stimlus March 2014

Rajvi Shah

The search engine giant Google is not only well known for it’s efficient search engine but is also known for the eco-nomic models it adopts. One fascinating example of a model generated by Goog-

le’s ingenious minds is their ad auction! Google’s ad auctions are not like the tra-ditional ones, which unfold over hours or days. In fact they happen instantane-ously. Did you know that an entire auction takes place in a fraction of a second when you press the search button? Google AdWords provides a virtual marketplace in which sealed bids are submitted in advance by advertisers and winners are decided algo-rithmically. The first ad that you see on screen is the win-ners.

Google has been the pioneer to implement se-cret auctions online. This im-plies none of the bidders are aware of any of the other

bids. Also once the bid is made, it cannot be with-drawn. Thus, a person who wants to post an advertise-ment would be in a dilemma with regards to what amount

should he bid since the bids of his competitors are un-known to him.

A very simplistic model of how these auctions work is - the winner of the auction has to only pay the amount (plus a penny) of the bid from the advertiser with the next-highest offer. (If Joe bids $4,

Google’s Ad Auctions

measure its value in dollars (or euros, yen, etc) and con-tinuously change the Bitcoin-denominated price to the dollar equivalent. Even the Bitcoin Foundation, which pays its employees in Bitcoin, still sets its salaries in dollars. Bitcoin is far too volatile to be considered a store of value.

Doubtless, Bitcoin is an

interesting innovation, but blind trust in the person(s) behind it could prove to be no more sensible than blind trust in governments. History provides plenty of reasons to believe that private monies don’t work. Nevertheless, it has paved the way for a new generation of innovative fi-nancial services and its evo-

lution over the next few years will determine whether the virtual currency will become an integral part of the global financial system. Maybe, like the Internet, it will develop into a quotidian utility. It is, af-ter all, tailored for a techno-logical internet-connected world .

Bitcoin Price Fluctuation NASDAQ Price Fluctuation

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Alice bids $3, and Sue bids $2, Rob bids $1. Joe gets the top slot and pays $3.01. Alice gets the next slot for $2.01, Rob gets the next one for $1.01 and so on.) Each advertiser bids what they are willing to pay every time a user clicks their ad. The advertisers have to pay the bid amount only if someone actu-ally clicks their ad. Since, the bidders have to pay only the second highest amount if they win, they all end up overbidding (Google’s ingenious strategy to make more money)!

If there are 4 bidders and 3 Ad positions available, result of the auction would be as shown in the table.

Advertiser Max Bid

Ad Display Position

Actual Cost per click

Joe $4 1 $3.01Alice $3 2 $2.01Sue $2 3 $1.01Rob $1 - -

Google is very particular about the qual-ity of the ads and the quality score metric strives to ensure that the ads Google shows on its results page are true, high-calibre matches for what users are querying. If they aren’t, the number of clicks the ads receive will be low, the revenue will fall, the whole system will suffer, and Google will make less money. Taking into consideration the qual-ity score, the ad auction model is modified. The quality score metric generates the qual-ity score used to calculate the Ad Rank. Ad rank is calculated by multiplying the bid of the advertiser and the quality score of the

Ad. The higher the quality score, the better the ad and the advertiser with the highest ad rank wins the auction.

Addition of quality score completely changes the way the winner is decided. An advertiser with a very high bid and low quality score may lose against an advertiser with a low bid but a high quality score. Now the winner of the auction has to only pay the amount equal to closest competitors ad rank divided by his quality score (plus a pen-ny). Advertisers desperate to post their ad will end up overbidding as it would lead to a higher ad rank thinking that it may increase their chance of winning (Google’s strategy of increasing its revenue).

The result of the example in the previous table would change as shown in the table below if Ad Ranks are considered.Thus, the use of quality score and ad rank results in a much higher revenue for Google compared to the model without them.

The success of these auctions is evident from the fact that 97% of Google’s revenue comes from advertisements which summed up to a whopping $43,686 million in 2012. Since an auction occurs every time a search takes place, one would imagine millions of auctions must be taking place. Well, ac-cording to Hal Varian, Chief economist at Google, “Millions is actually quite an under-statement.” Steven Levy in his article in the magazine Wired has aptly described Google as an economy in itself and coined the term “Googlenomics” for the way this economic giant works!

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Pooja Wadhwa

How many of us truly understand the concept of purchasing power parity? Why does a slice of pizza cost more in the developed nation while the price of a Jimmy Choo is approximate-ly the same? Well, the former is probably due to difference in the prices of raw materials and labour but basically we want all the countries to be headed towards an equilib-rium in terms of the prices of a basket of goods in the long run and we are not sure that it is happening as the devel-oping countries grow.

The Economist attempt-ed to make the concept of

PPP more interesting by com-ing up with the Big Mac Index. What they did was pretty sim-ple. Let’s say the price of a Big Mac in the United States is $2 and the price of the very same in India is Rs 100. If the burger is the same, it’s value is the same, and so the price should be the same. Thus $2 should be equal to Rs 100, so the exchange rate should be $1 = Rs 50.

C u r -r e n t l y , the pric-es in In-dia and the US are Rs 95 and $4.62 respec-tively. This implies that the exchange rate should be $1 = Rs 20.6. Whereas actually, $1 = Rs 62. Thus the INR is cur-rently the most under valued currency at 67.1% undervalu-ation according to this study!

Clearly though, this is not a completely accurate guide in establishing the pur-chasing power parity, due to various reasons including dif-ferences in factor costs and dietary culture in different

countries. (Since burger pric-es should be cheaper in poor countries than rich ones.)An approach to increase the accuracy of this index was made by UBS Wealth Management. They use the amount of time it takes an average worker to earn the money used to purchase a Big Mac instead.

An extension of this idea is to compare the GDP per

capita of a coun-try to its big mac p r i c e s . In the

graph below we can see that: as the GDP per person (i.e. the income of a person) increases the price of the big mac rises. This means that we are in fact, eventually moving towards equilibrium in terms of the prices! For a given GDP per head, if you are on the line of best fit, the currency is correctly valued. Whereas any point under implies undervaluation and a point above implies over-valuation.

Burgernomics: The Big Mac Index

Why does a slice of pizza cost more in the developed nation while the price of a Jimmy Choo is approximately the same?

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Raksheta Giridhar

What do criminals, ten-nis players, and US politi-cians have in common? All of their behavior can be modeled using “The Prison-ers Dilemma”, a branch of game theory, which dem-onstrates how two individu-als might not co-operate, even though it is in their best interests not to do so. While the original framework deals with the case of two cap-tured criminals, we will look at some altered examples.

Athletes and drugs

The desire to have a c o m p e t i t i v e edge over an opponent g i v e s rise to sports players administering per fo r -m a n c e - e n - hancing drugs. In any two-play-er sport such as tennis or boxing, both play-e r s have the option to either t a k e , or to not t a k e drugs. The best pos- sible option for both is if neither adminis-

ters any drugs, so the game would be equally matched.

But each player does not know the other’s choice, just like the prisoners did not know each other’s deci-sions. Neither player can trust one another, and un-der the assumption that op-ponent takes drugs, each player’s best option would be to also take drugs so that the match becomes equal.

Both players try to maxi-mize their benefits. But why would players take the drugs if they risk losing their reputa-tion? What about the conse-quences of being caught?

What do criminals, ten-nis players, and US politi-cians have in common?

A study by Beuchel, Em-rich and Pohlkamp (2013) identifies consumers (view-ers), who effectively sponsor the matches, as a third party

in the prisoner’s dilemma. A viewer is likely to withdraw his support if his favourite player is taking drugs. Thus organis-ers implement less stringent drug testing procedures to protect their profits. And this is the heart of the problem.

Democrats and Republicans

The power struggle in Ameri-can politics can partially be attributed to the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The US national debt has been spiraling over the past few years and there have been repeated re-negotiations over the debt ceiling. This has resulted in conflicts between Demo-crats and Republicans, who have different beliefs.

The ideal way to reduce national debt would be a mixture of reduced spending and increased taxes, involv-ing compromise and cooper-ation between both parties.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma

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The prisoner’s dilemma aris-es here due to the fact that there are two goals here. One is to reduce the debt ceiling, while the other is to gain political power for fu-ture electoral gains. The lat-ter often becomes a priority, and so the problem begins.

The democrats’ health-care reform law (Obamac-are) is an attempt to provide insurance to those who can-not afford it, but is an exer-tion on government spend-ing. While this law gives the party public support, it does not align with the aim to reduce the debt ceiling.

The Republicans are more free-market driven than the Democrats, and believe in low taxes (unlike Democrats who believe in progressive taxes and higher taxes for the rich). They gen-erally do not support exces-sive spending on Obamac-are. Keeping taxes low would give them a political advan-tage with the public, while to raise taxes would be more cooperative in the interest

to reduce national debt. If one party takes ac-

tions to increase public sup-port, and the other does not, it would be seemingly unpopular. Cooperation to reduce the debt ceiling re-quires actions that are dis-liked by the public, and neither party would want to take such actions in fear that they will be relatively more unpopular if the other party does not cooperate.

Because of this failure to cooperate, there will be a political deadlock and in-creased fiscal imbalance. Both parties are trying to max-imize their political advan-tages and in the end are hurt-ing the economy. Last year, Democrats and Republicans failure to cooperate lead to the US government standstill!

How can these prob-lems be resolved? In the ath-letes’ case, the sport event organisers must be rigorous from the very beginning and continually maintain thor-ough testing procedures. For the U.S. government, co-operation and trust be-tween the parties, as well as a separation of political and macro-economical incen-tives. Both of these however, are easier said than done! .

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Vinita Manek

One of the most challenging jobs is to create logos that not only stay with the consumers but also convey what the brand is about in a way that is not too obvious! Pheeww! That is a lot of brainstorming. Here are some of the most interesting logos with a hidden mes-sage.

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc is an American interna-tional electronic commerce company. It is the world’s largest online retailer. The ama-zon logo is an extremely simple logo, and while the arrow might look only like a smile, it actually points from a to z. This represents that amazon sells everything from a to z and the smile on the customers face when they buy a product from amazon.com

NBC

The national broadcasting company is an American commercial broadcasting televi-sion and radio network. The NBC logo has a hidden peacock which is looking to the right and represents the company’s motto to look forward and not back, and also that they are proud of the programs they broadcast.

Fedex

FedEx is an American corporation for global courier services. The FedEx logo may look like plain text logo but if you take a second look between E and X you will notice a rightward arrow in the negative white space. The ar-row represents the speed and the accuracy of the company’s delivaries.

Sony Vaio

Sony vaio is well known brand for laptops. The Vaio represents a hidden meaning, the first two digits representing analogue signal and 1 and 0 representing the binary digital signal.

Whats (Not) in a name

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Facebook Places

Facebook places is a new geological prod-uct which is in direct competition with current leader, Foursquare. If you take a closer look at the logo you will notice a 4 in the square. Well, is this a simple coincidence or a dig at foursquare?

Northwest Airlines

Northwest Airlines is a major American airline company. This is the old logo of northwest airlines. If you look carefully, the symbol ac-tually represents both N and W and because it is enclosed within a circle. It actually rep-resents a compass pointing in the northwest direction.

The guild of food writers.

The guild of food writers is a dedicated or-ganisation for excellence in culinary articles and knowledge. Mark closely you can see a spoon in the nib of the pen.

Baskin Robbins

The logo of Baskin Robbins may look like a simple logo with its initials B and R but it actu-ally indicates the number 31 which is in pink showing the original 31 flavours offered by the company.

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems logo is one of the most in-telligent ambigrams. Sun Microsystems is the developer of java software. You can read sun in any direction in the left symbol: verti-cal and horizontal.

London symphony orchestra

Do you see LSO the initials of London sym-phony orchestra or do you see an orchestra conductor?

To an untrained eye, figuring out hidden mes-sages in a logo may not only bring inspira-tion but also awe! The effort and the thought graphic designers put into creating a logo is commendable . In such a competitive world, it is the logo that stays with a customer and hence is an integral part of forming a com-pany’s brand image.

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Saaniya Pandit

Patriotic fervour. Reli-gious devotion to one’s na-tion. They make for promis-ing movie concepts, and bestselling book ideas. After all, one’s country is referred to as their Motherland. And to whom do we owe more loyalty than the very woman responsible for nurturing us in the womb and beyond? (Sounds cheesier than Dom-ino’s Double Cheese Burst pizza, agreed. But what’s life without cheese? Jer-ry the mouse, pizza fans and audiences world over, all echo this sentiment.)

On a more serious note, our nation not only provides us with the physical space we inhabit, it is also lends us part of our identity in the form of the traditions and heritage passed down to us by our ancestors. (Yes, yes. You there. I see you rolling your eyes and insisting that you’re very modern. With that Beatles T-shirt and those glares, you sure must be.) It’s just that cultural influences are more than skin deep

and they manifest them-selves in more ways than cliches can catch up to.

Of course, to most of us today, borders were merely lines in the sand that were washed away with the first wave of social media frenzy. And patriotism is reduced to a sentiment revisited twice a year in the form of mind-numbing WhatsApp for-wards. Don’t forget the Face-book posts that go,”Hit Like if you like your country. Com-ment if love. Hit Share if very much love. If ignored, the country gets colo-nised again.”

In fo r ma-tion, like a loaded gun, is instrinsical-ly neutral. It’s the use we put it to that gives it context. For i n s t a n c e , while an i n c re a s i n g amount of urban Indian youngsters live more connected lives, their discontent-ment with their own coun-try grows at an exponen-tial rate (And if you’ve ever been a student of Math, you know that word is trouble).

While they swear by their modernity, it’s easy to draw parallels between today’s youth and their “backward”, ancestral counterparts. An-cient Indians believed in spirits, ghosts, Heaven and Hell. Likewise, the coun-

try’s youth believes in myths such as the attainment of complete and utter bliss by moving to another country. While, in olden times, people were ardent followers of reli-gion, the urban Indian youth worships foreign embassies.

Yes, such is your aver-age Indian youth. Why are they so unhappy with the nation, you ask. Well, here is your angst-ridden reply. “The nation suffers from over-population, lots of pollution, resource depletion, corrup-tion, deforestation, social

stagnation, the op-pression of wom-

en, a lack of sanitation, no signs of slum r e h a b i l i t a -tion...” The list is end-less. They have much to oppose. And no solu-tions to pro-

pose. Hence, the obvious

answer lights up their addled

minds with an al-most blinding intensity:

Escaping to another country.Said country is more de-

veloped, more advanced (both in technology and thought) than our own. And simply more aligned with the lifestyle preferences of the young Indian, who feels burdened by the so-called weight of traditions. So, with their backpacks slung across their shoulders, they set off like Marco Polo, on a quest

The Indian Identity (Crisis)

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for “self-discovery”, anticipating a shower of wealth and a glorious destiny awaiting them. (Yes, a scene right out of the mov-ies. Just add an orange sunset to the mix.)

Now, if only reality lined up with their vi-sion of heavenly perfection. These pseudo-Westerners are more Indian than they real-ize. So imagine their surprise when the fast-er-paced lifestyles abroad and the culture aren’t completely to their liking. To add to their rapid disillusionment, is the fact that most foreigners don’t completely know how to distinguish between different types of eth-nicities found in our country, and they find themselves the butt of misdirected racism.

Or...maybe all of them won’t go through

this routine. But even then, it’s worth ques-tioning the implications of this phenomenon.

Is this Indian identity crisis simply social, or does it mean, that we, as a people, run from who we are? After all, a national identity, even in this age, remains an integral part of

oneself. When something is so personal, it is hard to leave it behind.

Therefore , the solution does present itself in terms of bundles of foreign currency piled up in the bank, nor does it stem from wearing dif-ferent attire and acquiring an accent. Se-curity comes from a healthy sense of self .

Ronak Pol

It was Napoleon who fa-mously described England as the ‘nation of shopkeepers’. The statement not to be tak-en literally is an insightful one as it identifies commerce as the source of British power.

Turning to current day In-dia, the source of our great country’s strength does not lie only in it’s stock ex-change or big businesses, but by the commerce built by the common man, who

has found opportunity and created a vast ecosystem of economic activities mostly unaided by the system and much less understood by it.

The world of the small business sector is the foun-dation of our country. In terms of size did you know it represents perhaps the larg-est disaggregate business ecosystem in the world? It directly employs 100 million people sustaining more than half of the Indian families.

One would expect the corporate giants to be the ones who fuel our economy but it is the MSME’s {micro, small and medium enter-prises} contribution which is underestimated. The stats on the next page go to show that Indian shopkeepers, vegeta-ble sellers, small truck opera-tors, machine operators and others who power the coun-try’s economic engine have

surpassed expectations in terms of GDP contribution.

Sources of Funding for SMEs

The ministry of MSME es-timated gross production of 12 lakh crores currently. Typically the small busi-ness sector requires capital equal to 25% of its annual turnover, which boils down to around 3 lakh crores.While the service sector of SME has an annual output value of 20 lakh crores cur-rently there is a high require-ment of working capital for the service sector. On a con-servative side it reveals that there is a credit requirement of 6 lakh crores per annum.The national commission on enterprise in unorgan-ized sector (NCEUS) esti-mated that in 2007 THERE WERE 680 LAKH SMALL BUSI-NESS ENTERPRISE IN THE

The Underdogs

“Hit Like if you like your country. Comment if love. Hit Share if very much love. If ig-nored, the country gets colonised again.”

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NON-REGISTERED SECTOR.

NBFC

To fill the gap between organized lending sector and SMEs, NBFC (non bank-ing finance companies) have provided a sec-ond line of credit so the SMEs can keep flourishing in the midst of ad-equate amount of funds. NBFCs have played a crucial role by pro-viding loans to these credit starved sectors.

Due to the problem of asymmetric information

commercial banks have cho-sen to take cautious steps while lending to unorganized sector. These problems have largely been addressed by NBFCs providing specialized and consumer centric facili-

ties to the “Self or-ganized sector”

N B F C s have em-

ployed peo-ple from the so-

cio economic sector that they cater to. Because

of their deep domain knowl-edge NBFCs have proven to be more flexible and in-novative in their approach. These consumer centric roles of NBFCs have made them a huge success while pro-viding soft loans to the indi-viduals and business houses.

Along the years the unor-ganized sector has shown its efficiency leading to growth of parallel economies in the nation, which are self funded and equally efficient. SMEs are subject to more intrusion and less inclusion. Microfi-nance aims to change that.

Unless it suc-ceeds in its en-deavors, which is a precious task in itself, the economy will lose out on

a significant part, which is too important to fail .

Economic contribution of SME

Percentage %

GDP 50 Exports 40

Manufacturing 45

Economics of Immigration

Meemansa Bhandari

As of 2012, the Interna-tional Organisation for Mi-gration has estimated the

number of foreign migrants worldwide to be more than 214 million. Europe and North America are found to be the hosts to the largest num-ber of immigrants, most of which come from Asia. Chi-na and India have recently been documented as the world leaders in Brain Drain! Due to this staggering and ever increasing figure of the number of migrants, it is im-portant to find out the eco-nomic and social impacts on the host and the home coun-try. So let’s look at the costs and benefits of immigra-

tion and check whether the costs outweigh the benefits.

The most important rea-son which compels peo-ple to migrate is the wage differential between their home country and the for-eign country (i.e., a move-ment from low wage areas to high wage areas). Other reasons why could include a search for better quality jobs or a move away from disaster prone areas.

The host countries direct-ly benefit from immigration in a few ways. If the immigrants are high skilled, they will help

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in expanding the output of the host country and eventually the growth rate of per capi-ta output. The presence of these high skilled workers is likely to create an atmosphere of research and development in the host economy. This would lead to human capi-tal formation which would then increase the total factor productivity of the economy. In the long run, there would be secondary cul-tural changes in the economy with the new generation being brought up in an environ-ment of progressive and creative thinking.

On the other hand, loss of high skilled workers (commonly known as brain drain) would affect the home economy adverse-ly. If the home economy is a developing economy, with greater emigration its output would take a hit and the productivity would fall further, which would not be a good combina-tion with rife illiteracy, poor health conditions and vast income inequality. The UNDP estimates that In-dia loses $2 billion a year because of the emigra-tion of computer experts to the U.S. Look at the re-cently appointed CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella!

If the immigrants are low skilled, the host country does not benefit a lot. The low skilled immigrants would put a pres-sure on the host country’s resources and on the social services provided, by not contributing enough to the output of the host economy. Unless the low skilled immi-grants are stopped from entering the econ-omy after a point, in the long run the host economy would suffer as the growth rate of output is expected to fall due to the de-creasing levels of capital accumulation.

Now let’s look at the effects of immigra-tion from the workers’ point of view. Although the migrated workers are happy with the rise in their wages, they face social costs or as the psychologist Michael Zarate calls it, “cultural inertia”. But it can be argued that migrants must be highly motivated to move from their home to a different country in the first place.

Hence this inertia would usually be short lived. Recently, Coca-Cola helped a few lucky workers for whom the social costs of staying away from their family were huge. Ahead of Chinese New Year, Coca-Cola re-united three families sending migrant work-ers home to their children, building on its brand message about connecting people.

As discussed in the paper “The eco-nomics of Immigration” by Borjas G., “the demand for immigrants depends upon the impact of immigrant flows on the employ-ment opportunities of natives, the social fabric of the country and the generosity of social insurance programs”. Hence the host country would derive benefits from the im-migrants depending upon whether they

are high skilled or low skilled in na-ture. If there is an abundance

of high skilled workers in the host country, it would be open to low skilled im-migrants and vice ver-sa. So the government regulation policies on immigration would be designed in a way so

as to maximise eco-nomic and political gains.

In their book “That used to be US”, Friedman

and Mandelbaum highlight the importance of immigra-

tion by saying “low skilled but high aspiring immigrants...keep American so-ciety energised and the best minds in the world…enrich our universities, start new companies, and engineer new break-throughs from medicine to engineering.”

Hence, immigration does have its ad-vantages and disadvantages. But a coun-try can benefit from immigration by for-mulating a regulation policy tailored to suit their needs depending upon the com-position of the native workers. Immigra-tion has long lasting impacts and we are only starting to discover its various con-sequences on the world economies .

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Android Smartphone War 2014

Rohit Iyer

The mobile world congress 2014 marked the launch of 2 new flagship de-vices- Samsung galaxy s5 and the Xpe-ria Z2. Let us have a look at their features.

Samsung Galaxy S5The much awaited successor to the gal-

axy s4 has arrived. The Galaxy S5 is similar to the Galaxy S4 but has a new back panel (it is still plastic but looks and feels like leather). The specifications of the phone have been given a boost and 2 new very impressive features have been added, a fingerprint scanner and a heartbeat sensor. The Galaxy S5 also fea-tures one of the best cameras one can find on a smartphone, it comes with a 16MP sen-sor and has optical image stabilisation. The

build quality of the Samsung Galaxy S5 is yet again a disappointment and the updated touch wiz interface is disappointing as well.

Sony Xperia Z2The Xperia Z2 successor to Z1 is a minor up-

grade to the Z1 but it eliminates all the prob-lems with it. The Z2 has a slightly bigger display but what really stands out about the display is the new live LED technology, it breathes a new life into the phone and makes the dis-play absolutely stunning. The new upgrade to the user interface also helps in increasing the beauty of the display. The only other no-ticeable changes in the phone are android Kitkat and the 3GB RAM, otherwise it’s pret-ty much the same as the previous phone .

Xperia Z2 vs Galaxy S5

5.2 INCH 1080P HD live colour LED technology Display,424 ppi

Display 5.1 inch 1080p HD display, 432ppi

Quad-core 2.3 GHz Krait 400 Processor Quad-core 2.5 GHz Krait 4003GB RAM 2GB

20.7 MP Camera 16 MPAndroid 4.4.2 Operating Software Android 4.4.2 with touch wiz skin

Water resistant and dust resistant Additional Features Heart rate scanner, fingerprint sen-sor, water resistant

3200 mAH Battery 2800 mAH

2g,3g,4g Networks Supported 2g,3g,4g

One-piece aluminium frame with glass panels

Build Polycarbonate(plastic) body

Students Section

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Can you tell us a little bit about kickboxing?

Kickboxing is considered to many as a street sport.

Two fighters sweating it out and the end result - bruises, blood and gore. Kickboxing is completely different from this pre-concieved notion. It is like an art. All moves are calculated. The fighter has to be mentally strong to decide his next move and predict his opponents moves too.

Kickboxing is an integral part of my life. In spite of being a dangerous sport, it makes a person develop qualities like self discipline, hard work and concentration and is a stress reliever. It makes one attentive and alert since once wrong move or a lapse of concentration in a match means you’re doomed.

Bikramjit Singh Hundal

Working with Ernst Young, gave me a critical insight on how corporates think and perceive. I was working for Transaction Real Estate Ad-visory Services/ Transaction Advisory Services(TREAS/TAS) arm of Ernst Young. Where I.• Worked under all India di-rector of TRES/TAS.

• Attended annual TRES/TAS training, where industry ex-perts from B.E. Billimoria (Con-tract builders) and Nishith Desai (Legal and Tax coun-seling) were invited. The for-mer were invited to explain the importance of cost and time control in construction industry and the latter spoke about technical aspect of carrying out a transaction in-ternationally.• Did feasibility study of Ma-harashtra and Gujarat for low cost housing townships for a premier Indian con-glomerate, were we short-listed 3 cities in each state on the bases of connectivity, income level, literacy rate and existing and proposed government and JnNURM in-frastructure projects.• Co-presented the feasibil-ity report to the client.• Researched on latest cost

controlling and cost saving construction technology.• Researched on the real es-tate climate in Dhaka city, Bangladesh regarding ‘A’ grade office and retail spac-es.• Did primary research with a colleague on ways to as-sist Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DPR) to relocate the slump dwellers to temporary sites while MADHA constructs the buildings.• Visited the pilot project for DPR by MADHA, to under-stand the nature of construc-tion and division and alloca-tion of land

Intern Speak

Knock Out Aman is a national level kickboxing champion

-Gold medalist in zonal and state competitions

-Silver medalist at the National Unifight

Championsip 2012

-Mumbai champion for two consecutive years

Aman Kothari

Excerpts from an inter-view with Aman Kothari, National Level Boxer.

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Aditi Singh

Education, as preternatural as it may sound is a spiritual experience, I believe. Unlike what dictionaries describe of it: The process of receiving or giving systematic in-struction, especially at school or university. This definition paints a picture of a building of homogenous sculptures created alike for purpose of prediction, but mankind was never meant to be tamed to patterns. The species evolved further than our counter-parts in the wild due to our individualistic ability of breaking out of norm. Then why now are we to be stencilled to uniformity?

The aim of the essay isn’t to shut down educational institutions, but for one to real-ise the importance of self education. Educa-tion or enlightenment that is acquired from thoughts of one self, that teaches each in-dividual wrong and right, more importantly, the grey matter between the wrong and

right, to discriminate between your perspec-tive and the true story by not only by means of what sight aids but including also one’s vision that is external from physicality, that is, the vision of the mind. In conclusion, it is a functioning based on self isolation from what you are, and what you are taught to believe.

These institutions that we talk of provide us with learning. Learning breeds creativ-ity, which leads to thinking, and this thinking constructs knowledge. Thus you owe it to our school, college or any centre of learning, for what they teach you, but you also ought to educate yourself by yourself. Not only does this apply to academics, but it also applies beyond it – once you contribute to the being you become, then only do you contribute to existing bodies of knowledge. The lack of thought intended for the sake of mental sat-isfaction is the greatest hurdle to expanding our horizon. We now think only when com-pelled to, only if there involves an external incentive. Hence, in spite of efforts invested, the return is negligible in comparison to our true potential. So, I urge, I urge you to mas-ter you mind before it’s enslaved by factors external to your power. Not to make name, but to grow, to prosper within yourself .

What motivates you?

The answer is simple – the feeling after winning a match and the crowd ap-plauding my hard work and praising me for my moves motivates me. I feel a sense of pride to be called a boxer – it makes me feel like I have achieved something in life.

How much effort do you need to put in?

It is not an easy task. I have to follow a regular and strict training and workout ses-sion. I have two personal trainers who help me and things aren’t taken lightly.

How has kickboxing changed you?

It has made me a stronger both from the inside and outside and has helped me fight my weakness and boost my self-confidence .

Education of the Self

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Top: From left to right, Mr Jamshed Daboo, CEO, Trent Hypermarkets; Ms Anjali Bansal, Managing Director, Spencer Stuart; Mr Ninad Karpe, Chairman, CII Maharashtra State Council and CEO & Managing Director, Aptech Ltd; Dr. Mrs. Vandana Lulla, Director, Podar World College; Mr R Mukundan, Chairman, CII WR and Managing Director, Tata Chemicals Ltd. Below: Discussion with students and faculty

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) CEO Connect The India We Want

College Events

Student Council Presidents, Mr. Aziz Currimji and Ms. Sanjana Shrouti

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Sports Day

College Events

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Students of the yearWe would like to wish everyone those graduating this year all the best! Hope you find all the success in your futures, you will be missed.Below we have some photos of all of them , how many can you recognise?

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9

1 0 1 1 12

1) Aziz Currumji. 2) Memansa Bhandari. 3) Akanksha Sharma 4. Shikha Suresh 5) Mohit Mandloi. 6) Abhishek Mathur. 7) Bhavik Kothari. 8) Bikramjit Singh Hundal. 9) Zubin Nagla. 10) Andrew King. 11) Hema Thakur. 12) Dhanashree Guruji.

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1. Political Revolutionshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Springhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colour_revolutionsPicture: http://hyderabaddailynews.com/wp-con-tent/uploads/2013/12/wpid-a-arvind0.jpg2. What to expect when you’re expecting changehttp://www.voanews.com/content/us-senate-confirms-janet-yellen-as-new-central-bank-chief/1824726.htmlhttp://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.usnews.com/news/ar-ticles/2014/02/03/janet-yellens-fed-challenges-start-immediatelyhttp://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-inflationary-risk-of-us-commercial-bank-reserves-by-martin-feldsteinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnershiphttp://www.livemint.com/Politics/3o7Qc0WmbVsTsdV4lEQrrL/Raghuram-Ra-jans-RBI-The-rush-for-change.htmlhttp://www.thehindu.com/business/rbi-is-antiinfla-tion-asserts-raghuram-rajan/article5150312.ecePicture: http://trendrender.com/trend/Janet-Yellenhttp://finance.fortune.cnn.com/tag/raghuram-rajan/3. “Irrational Exuberance” in the art worldhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_the_arts_and_literaturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_world_economicshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-galenson/the-not-so-curious-econom_b_2790531.htmlhttp://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/visu-alarts/ArtMarket/ArtMarketEconomics.htmlhttp://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/kuspit/kuspit3-6-07.asphttp://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryntul-ly/2013/03/08/passion-investments-or-irrational-invest-ments/http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryntul-ly/2012/08/23/is-your-art-an-investment/http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryntul-ly/2013/12/24/top-10-art-sales-of-2013/2/http://www7.gsb.columbia.edu/ciber/sites/default/files/files/Jia_Guo_Chinese%20Art%20Market.pdfhttp://www.christies.com/about/press-center/releas-es/pressrelease.aspx?pressreleaseid=6701http://webneel.com/webneel/blog/30-most-expen-sive-paintings-all-time-inspiring-showcasehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Bassin_Aux_Nym-phéashttp://www.artmovements.co.uk/impressionism.htmhttp://www.adamsmith.org/blog/media-and-cul-ture/in-which-we-praise-damien-hirstPicture: http://studio43.com/warhol-cocacola3/4. “Mind” your Investmentshttp://www.fpanet.org/journal/BetweentheIssues/LastMonth/Articles/ABehavioralViewerofHowPeople-MakeFinancialDecisions/

http://m.seekingalpha.com/article/1777332Picture:https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/uWB-97VAZtGDhnDIYNud0xdruGbiUS3KI5gb1vjf4k6HZ8rZu-3MaRnAYMhEi1IaQYQT-lK6qnuK0Av5WdAfBG3qA7d-nu1nBixzCIw8qb9oiDS3ZmH5F45. Money is what money doeshttp://bitcoincharts.com/http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21590766-virtual-currency-it-mathemat-ically-elegant-increasingly-popular-and-highlyhttp://www.forbes.com/sites/investope-dia/2013/08/01/how-bitcoin-http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/11/bitcoin-survival-guide/Picture: http://www.cringely.com/wp-content/up-loads/2013/09/bitcoin-logo-3d.jpg6. Google’s Ad Auctionshttp://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~hal/Pa-pers/2007/costa-lecture.pdfhttp://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/mag-azine/17-06/nep_googlenomics?currentPage=allhttp://investor.google.com/financial/tables.htmPicture: http://www.google.com/intl/en/adsense/start/images/highest-paying-ads.png7. Burgernomics: The Big Mac Indexwww.economist.com8. Prisoners Dilemmahttp://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/regaining-americas-balancehttp://theaspiringanalystblog.blogspot.in/2011/07/voters-must-give-ultimatum-to-obama-and.htmlhttp://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/44627/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-cana-da-24370967Pictures: http://www.bet.com/news/sports/2013/01/10/mlb-to-expand-drug-testing-pro-gram/_jcr_content/featuredMedia/newsitemimage.newsimage.dimg/011013-sports-enhancing-drugs-testing-drug.jpghttp://www.rhinoden.com/wp-content/up-loads/2013/10/democrat-republican-300x200.jpg9. The underdogshttp://www.imcnet.orgIMC promotional pamphlet on NBFC10. Eonomics of Immigration“That used to be US” by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum Borjas, G. ‘The economics of immigration’, Journal of Economic Literature, 1994Krugman, P. and M. Obstfeld International Econom-ics: Theory and Policy.http://adage.com/article/global-news/coke-reu-nites-families-chinese-year/291310/en.wikipedia.org/11. Android Smartphone War 2014http://www.inspireandelite.com/sony-xperia-z2-phone-specification/http://samsungsvi.com/samsung-galaxy-s5-vs-s6-price/

References