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Equities will grow 3x in 5 years and then will enter bear market
Adidas will finally start selling shoes made by its robot factory
#9: Race
#10: Rock: The Kasbah
Adidas will finally start selling shoes made by its robot factory
#10: Rock: The Kasbah
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Equities will grow 3x in 5 years and then will enter bear market

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 02:22 AM PDT

In an interview to ETNow Ridham Desai, Head-India Equity Research and Managing Director, Morgan Stanley said India is in a recovery that started about six quarters ago. Edited Excerpts. ET Now: We have got some special augmented realty graphics, which will crystallise the theme of your report, but before we get into specifics of the report, how are you feeling about markets 25 per cent up this year, and then a little bit of underperformance that is par for course right we should not worry about anything? Ridham Desai: Markets have underperformed. The EM index is up little bit more than India; China is up 40 per cent and India is up 20 per cent actually in dollar terms. The reason it has underperformed is that we went through a soft patch in growth and I think the markets started anticipating the soft patch way back in April. So that is when India started giving up relative performance. We did not get to see it here because the emerging market rally has been very strong, so obviously in absolute terms the market did not actually come down until EMs started to correct little bit. So I think we are done with the soft patch. The worst was probably the June quarter and we should have started recovery with July and as the data comes in I think it will be quite visible that we are now back on track, which has been something that I think people were already anticipating and surprisingly the market forgot that in May and June people were really worried about GST and the forecast for GST were far worse than what we actually got. GST has been significantly smoother than what we were all anticipating, so I think that is good actually we should be done with this. ET Now: So you are saying all the concerns around the economic slowdown, the fact that earnings have still not come in they are not as real or not as gruesome as some experts are making it out to be? Ridham Desai: No, no. The facts are that earnings have slowed down but we are in a recovery that started about six quarters ago. We got two blips in that, we got the DeMon blip, we got the GST blip and particularly if ignore the GST blip actually revenue growth is at a seven quarter high and earnings are already accelerating. So margins have just started to expand and you will see that revert in this quarter. So I am fairly sure that we are in a new earning cycle. It has been a slow steady one not like the V-shape one we saw in 2003-2004 and therefore this has been the longest bull market in India's history, but also the slowest one. I mark the bottom in March 2009 after that the Nifty has made successive highs and successive lows, higher tops, higher bottoms as technical analysts will call it. Nifty was 2,200, today it is 10,000 and it has already been a five-bagger, and I think it has got another three to go. ET Now: But just in the short term would you think that with what the RBI said yesterday they have revised the GVA number downwards to 6.7 per cent now I know for some between 6.5 per cent to 7 per cent is great but for a lot of market watchers 7 per cent becomes a pivot point for the markets sort to speak from a growth projection perspective. Do you think that there were some disappointment on that front where people will restart reworking their earnings forecast also lower based from what the projection and even though the Prime Minister has defended that mark saying by the end of the year we will recover? Ridham Desai: So that was a mark to market if you look at the number it actually embeds an acceleration in the second half. ET Now: Yes, that is right. In the fourth quarter we will grew about 7.7 per cent. Ridham Desai: Yes, so there is an acceleration so that is what I am referring to. So it is a mark to market, which is that the second quarter turn out to be able to worse than what everybody was expecting because of the inventory drawdowns that happened. Now the inventories have refilled so I would not worry too much about it. I think we are in a secular growth story in India. Give or take a few points here and there 7 per cent GDP growth is where we see it in the next few years and I think we should not expect it to be much higher than that for that to happen I think we need significantly more infrastructure investments, which may come and that is our bull case but I think the base case is we get 7 per cent growth. ET Now: From 2017 to 2027 according to Morgan Stanley and Ridham's team projections, the economy could be 3x. So if the economy becomes 3x what will happen to the stock market, what will happen to India's GDP and where earnings are likely to move. Now this is the most interesting one where according to Morgan Stanley estimates the mutual fund AUM is likely to significantly increase perhaps they are referring to the fact that Indians would be migrating more towards financial savings. They will move out of gold and they will move out of real estate, which already started that trend I think is clearly visible but Ridham and his team are making a case that this trend will only magnify going forward and the market cap to GDP even if we assume that the stock market trades at a ratio 1 that means we are looking at Nifty multibagger ho sakta hai that is a bottom line, 3x is a multi bagger. Ridham Desai: So I will say something here is that markets are non-linear as we all know so there is no genius in that so even while the GDP grows to 3x in 10 years I think the market will do it in five. So our projection is that the market does 3x in 10, but inside that we have a view that most of those returns 90-95% of those returns come in the next five years and then we will enter a bear market. ET Now: Are you just boycotting all the global concerns? Ridham Desai: No, no I am not in fact. ET Now: Something could haunt us big time. Ridham Desai: So that is the biggest caveat I think so far the signs are that 2018 is okay. Second half of 2018 may be fourth quarter of 2018 is when we may start seeing the first signs of a global slowdown, which may then probably start accelerating in 2019. However, if that happens earlier than there is a risk to this story. Overall on a more medium term perspective the fact is that India will not be benefitting from strong global growth like China did when it did its 10 per cent growth. The global growth average was around 4.5-5 per cent. The likelihood is that we are now at 3-3.5 per cent, so we are suffering from that headwind and it is unlikely to go away because global debt, global demographics actually against acceleration in global growth so that is why India does not actually grow much faster than 7 per cent. ET Now: So you said 2018 we are going to have a global economic slowdown, what is going to lead to that? Ridham Desai: No I said it is likely that in the fourth quarter we may see the first signs, even that is not our base case. Our base case view is that we are in a pretty healthy global growth situation right now. ET Now: That is a risk you think which can pop up. Ridham Desai: That is a risk yes. That is a risk that we have to worry about ET Now: So what would lead that? Ridham Desai: I think it is likely to be inflation because that will then mean that central banks have fallen behind the curve and we will get rate hikes, which will be accelerated in nature and that will spook equity markets and it will also hurt global growth. It may also be because leveraging accelerates a lot faster in the next few months because interest rates are pretty low even now even after the hikes that have happened and real rates are in negative territory in most part of the western world. So it does promote a bit of leveraging. So it has been a slow recovery out of the 2008 crisis, but it has been a steady one and global growth is actually doing quite okay. You can see that in the trade data. So Korean trade data last month hit multi-year high and we will see it in the Indian trade data when it comes. You will see very strong exports from India and likelihood is that imports also in India are accelerating. In fact if there is one indicator that you should rely on when you are looking at the macroeconomy because the domestic indicators tend to be very noisy. Look at non-oil, non-gold imports from India that has been in this type of recovery. It had a bit of a soft spot last quarter but it is now coming back and that is telling you that the domestic economy is actually doing quite okay. ET Now: Do you sense that we are headed into that frenzy sort of state from now up until whenever that slowdown is going to come in. Ridham Desai: In the world or here? ET Now: No here in India because suddenly everyone has realised oh! my God I missed out on the best of the bull run… Ridham Desai: No where frenzy… ET Now: No there will be a massive catch up. Ridham Desai: There is no frenzy at all okay. Let me just tell you why… ET Now: I am not saying now. Will it happen? Ridham Desai: Okay we will lay down the matrix to track. So what I look at is price to book because earnings have got lot of cyclicality to it. So bull markets peak with peak earnings and peak multiples. We are not there right now. We are turf earnings and rising multiples. So the best way to look at this is to look at price to book. So this is a price to book range that India has followed over the last 25 years. At the bottom it goes to 2 and at the top it goes to 5.5. Where are we right now? 3. Where is the frenzy? There is no frenzy. It looks on PE multiples because earnings are very depressed. The profit share in GDP has collapsed to multi-year lows and that will actually recovery in the next few years quite sharply actually which is why I think earnings may compound at about 20% in the next five years and stock prices will do the same. If you take a 20% compounding, you get to almost three times Nifty from here in five years. So Nifty has to only track earnings and without any multiple expansion you will still get there. The likelihood is that you will also get a multiple expansion. So there is a possibility and that is why our bull case that we underestimate the bull run that comes. Global markets, I am not so sure. We still do not think it is a frenzy and our US strategist is quite constructive on the Dow. So he thinks we are hitting higher levels in the next couple of quarters and so far as that ET Now: As is the rest of the world, everybody… Ridham Desai: Yes so far as that remains, I do not think the Nifty is going to correct in absolute terms in a major way. 5% correction here and there will keep happening. ET Now: If I look at India's GDP growth in nominal terms, I think for last seven or eight years we have had double digit growth, in nominal GDP for India. But that has not translated into very strong absolute earnings. One year it is pharma, one year it is IT, one year it is oil marketing companies. So do you think we should stop getting obsessed with what the Nifty earnings picture is? Markets are obsessed with Nifty ka PE, total aggregate Nifty growth. Do you think that is the wrong way of looking at this market? Ridham Desai: No it is not. But you made a very important point in your question at the start. So nominal GDP growth is actually not accelerating. Even in your 7.7 per cent number the nominal GDP growth is around 11. So it has been there but you did not get earnings growth because earnings do not depend just on nominal GDP, they depend on few things. If I would simplify it, it depends on the mix between real and inflation. So in the last five or seven years, forget last two years, prior five years, you essentially had high inflation and low real growth that is not a good mix for earnings. Mix for earnings is slightly lower inflation, higher real growth. The other way to look at it is that earnings depend on the mix between investment and saving. Now there is a big shift happening here which is in the saving pool. Households have moved away from physical assets to financial assets and that is a very sharp move and in fact I think we are just at the start. Picture abhi baki hai. Four billions we got into mutual funds in August. I think the September number is going to be pretty strong and we are just at the beginning of what is going to be a secular shift into household in financial assets. So households are just about tasting the joy of holding on to financial assets which is every month you get an yield unlike gold which sits in your vault, cost money to save and does not produce anything and you have to wait for the price to go up and that does not happen always like people have discovered in the last five years gold can also go down so that household in India discovering now supported by very constructive policy environment. So unfortunately I missed the prime minister speech yesterday but one of the most important changes that they have made in the last three years is that they have forced provident funds and the national pension scheme to invest in equities. This is like the 401(k) movement, 1980 it was exactly 37 years ago that America had 401(k). At that point people did not realise what that was going to do to US equity markets but following that we had a secular bull market in America because savers in these pension schemes and in these provident funds come every month and put money. They are going to be net buyers. They will never be selling. For the next 30 years they are not going to be selling because net flows into them and what you are seeing today is the domestic mutual fund story what has not been covered in either the press or in the popular narrative is what is going to happen to NPS and NPF. There is going to be geometric progression. Those assets will become so large which is why one of the forecast in our report is that ETFs in India because PFs are (23:12)… ETFs are going to grow, they were like 6-7 billion dollars. They will become 200 billion dollars, 30x growth. ET Now: Do you think that this is what we are experiencing right now is like the 1989 the cusp of the bull market that we witnessed in the United States which lasted like 12 years are we at the start of that right now, I mean are you going to make that comparison? Ridham Desai: We are in that. So it is not the start because I think we started a few years ago, it has been slow and therefore it has not been felt like a bull market because we got used to the 2003-2008 bull market which was a very rapid rise in the index. The index went up seven fold in four years. So that is not the type of bull market this is, it is one which really makes you work hard, it causes you to sweat because it does not actually give you quick results. And I think it will progress in a much faster fashion as we approach its end, which is probably another three-four years away. ET Now: You have said that exports are going to come back in a big way, when we are looking at the trade data that is where the cue would lie, what are you picking up on the exports front because so far the sound bites that we keep getting are that exports slowdown is hitting us hard, the rupee appreciation is bad for us and which is one of the reasons why the government is not intervening in the fall of the currency so what are you picking up on that trend? Ridham Desai: On a relative basis our exports are lagging for sure right but on an absolute basis they are still going up. So again this is about relative and absolute, which is on a relative basis Nifty has lagged the EM index but on an absolute basis it is still going up. So the global growth is supportive for better exports. I would suggest that manufacturing exports will actually do quite well and some of them have already started doing well and you will see the numbers in the next phase. ET Now: But is not this about competitiveness, is this not about gaining more market share on the global platform, right, unless India does that with a competitive currency we would not be able to support our growth as much? Ridham Desai: Okay. So again, how do you judge whether the currency is overvalued or undervalued and there are a lot of models out there, the RBI uses the real effective exchange rate where it adjusts the normal currency for relative inflation differentials. But the real story for me is where is your current account, if you current account is in surplus which means you are saving more than investing that tells you that the currency is overvalued. Our current account is in deficit so our currency is not that poorly positioned as people want to make it out to be. They are looking at the absolute number that is the INR USD cross that tells you more about the USD than it tells you about the INR or let us put it, it tells you 50% of the USD so if the USD appreciates the INR will depreciate, does it mean that the currency is losing ground, we do not know. We do not know unless we see the trade data. The trade data actually exemplifies this much better. ET Now: If I look at the growth in airline traffic it is 20% every year, that means the industry is actually doubling in about two, two and half years, car sales have been breathtaking, two-wheeler sales are making a comeback, if I look at the economic backdrop job creation is a challenge, it is not that everything in the consumption space is looking strong, volume growth which FMCG companies have reported it is hot and cold both, so where is this demand coming from, is this Indians are getting more lever up or this is demand which we have not discovered yet? Ridham Desai: That is an excellent question you have asked. There are multiple dimensions to this. So first is what is happening on the consumption basket; so India's per capita income is rising so we are at $1700, our report suggests we will be at $4100 in 10 years which is high middle income. But this transition happens, food loses share, we are a poor country right now, 60% of what we consume every day Rs 100 we consume, Rs 60 is food. But as we get richer the share of food falls because there is only that much food you can consume so it tops out at 60. So when your consumption goes from 100 to 110 that 40 has grown to 50, it is 25% growth. So that is the first story. So you have nominal income growth which is about 10-11% that is your GDP growth and you have a shift in the consumption basket. Then the second point you made about leveraging, which is that there is a advancement of consumption that is happening because people are spending their future income like we never did before. I have never spent my future income, a large part– you may have never spent it but the 20 and 30 something's in your office are spending their future income, right. So you are bringing forward, that is what America did in the '80s and '90s, right. So that is the second thing that is at play which is why discretionary is doing a whole lot better because discretionary is where you can spend your future income. ET Now: And Indians can suddenly buy a phone worth Rs 80,000 even though it is difficult to justify? Ridham Desai: Or cars. And you know the charm about this is that it actually then boosts staple consumption also because once you have spent your future income buying discretionary you have spared your current income to buy staples. ET Now: I got a SMS from one of the finance companies a couple of days ago; come and celebrate your Diwali and you can pay on EMI, it means that you go for a Diwali dinner you can pay the dinner on EMI? Ridham Desai: So it is going to get a bit crazy in the end, we have not gotten there because consumer debt to GDP in India is only 15% so we have a way to go. And in our report we project it to go to 25% which is still a far cry from where China is and where US are, of course we are not at the same per capita income but we will get there. So that is what is happening on consumption, that is why you get these mixed signals. I think they will get more and more strong as you go forward because it will spread into various other consumers. ET Now: Is it become a fad that a lot of brokerages are coming out with these 10-year projections now whether it is for companies, whether it is for the macros and when I read your report I was not as– please do not take offence but I was reminded of the BRICS report in 2001 which also made a 10-year projection. In fact they called the next decade belonging to the BRICS, I just want to know how clients take to such long term projections because for investors it is really three to five years cycle when it comes to calculating their returns so what do they make of these 10-year projections? Ridham Desai: So again with no offense to the media, media focuses on the headline conclusions GDP 6 trillion, market cap 6.1 trillion, Sensex 1,00,000, what we are doing in this report is to provide a framework to think because unless you provide that framework you do not know how to pick the stocks in your portfolio. So really the purpose of the report is a framework to think and not really make those 10-year forecasts and of course it grabs the limelight which is collateral damage or gain as you want to look at it of the report because that is the ultimate conclusion of the framework. But is basically the framework to think. ET Now: So let us we align with your thought which is that India is going to grow, earnings will make a comeback, we will start leveraging more, what themes one should bet on, to keep it very simple, I mean just for an ordinary layman? Ridham Desai: Buy financials, buy consumption. Discretionary consumption looks really good, staple stocks look expensive save for a couple, be very sensitive to valuations there because if the starting point of valuations are high you do not make money on stocks because remember we are not buying companies and this is no comment on the companies in the space, the companies are really good it is about the valuations. I think financials are still okay. A lot of private sector financials I think trade at very reasonable valuations for the type of return on equity they produce and the growth that they are likely to produce. In financials, actually they have an additional tailwind which is that the public sector is going to give them share. So you have got 10-12% nominal growth plus you are grabbing 3% market share every year from the public sector so you are growing 15% that is very good number. If you have a company that can grow 15% for five years and it is trading at three times book I think you are set up for good returns. ET Now: By that login in insurance as well because insurance is now a sector and again it was only LIC a couple of years ago, the sector is growing. Ridham Desai: Be sensitive to the valuations because I do not think you can keep that aside, after all we are buying stocks not companies so in that space the entire asset manager space, the brokerages, the insurance companies, the private sector banks, the NBFCs I think are all set up in a very sweet spot. And then you have discretionary consumption which includes autos, which includes household effects, which includes household goods and it includes other form of discretionary consumption which may or may not have been touched in the report for lack of coverage but things like entertainment, education, I think all these spaces are going to see a pretty strong growth in the next 5-10 years. ET Now: It is rare that you see competition talking great about competition so you are saying that look you know the sector is doing well, I am not listed, my counterparts are, go and buy those stocks? Ridham Desai: You know Charles Schwab listed in 1989, take a guess how much the stock was up by the end of 1999 in 10 years, 500x. It is 500x. ET Now: That must have been the average because a lot of stocks did that? Ridham Desai: It is 500x not 5x.
Source: ET

Adidas will finally start selling shoes made by its robot factory

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 02:22 AM PDT

The robot factory Adidas built in Germany is now fully functional and ready to start making the first Speedfactory shoe that will be sold to the public. Adidas has revealed that it plans to use its Speedfactory's robots to manufacture a series of Adi…

Source: engadget

#9: Race

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 02:21 AM PDT

Race
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#10: Rock: The Kasbah

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 02:21 AM PDT

Rock: The Kasbah
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Adidas will finally start selling shoes made by its robot factory

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 02:12 AM PDT

Source: engadget

#10: Rock: The Kasbah

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 02:12 AM PDT

Rock: The Kasbah
Bill Murray (Actor), Leem Lubany (Actor), Barry Levinson (Director) | Rated: U/A (Parental Guidance) | Format: DVD
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#10: Ganesh Vegetable & Fruit Chopper Cutter With Chop Blade & Cleaning Tool

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 02:08 AM PDT

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Repair works to choke city roads for a year

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 02:04 AM PDT

Bengalureans must brace up for one year of traffic jams and diversions as the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is all set to begin white-topping of 30 arterial roads stretching across 94 km.

The Palike will kickstart the Rs 972-crore project on October 9 from the ever busy Mysuru road. The actual concrete laying work will commence from October 20 and the entire project is scheduled to be completed in August next year, according to the contract agreement. To be precise, this would mean perpetual traffic snarls and congestion for close to one year.

Initially, concreting will be taken up on 33 km of heavy traffic density stretches – Outer Ring Road (ORR) between Mysuru Road junction and K R Puram (22 kms); K R Market Circle to BHEL Circle (4.80 km); Sampige Road to Metro Cash and Carry on Dr Rajkumar Road; and Mehkri Circle to Prof CNR Rao Circle (6.20 km).

Anticipating traffic gridlock, the BBMP has been holding back-to-back meetings with the Traffic police for the last one month.

Source: DH

Gujarat HC rejects Zakia Jafri’s plea against clean chit to Modi

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 02:04 AM PDT

Gujarat High Court on Thursday rejected the plea by Zakia Jafri challenging a lower court order giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by a Special Investigation Team in connection with the post-Godhra riots of 2002 in Gujarat.

The Supreme Court-monitored SIT in its report on February 8, 2012, had concluded that Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, had made enough efforts after Godhra train burning to see that law and order situation in the state did not deteriorate.

Activist Teesta Setalvad, meanwhile, has stated that the High Court had party allowed criminal revision of Zakia Jafri. The High Court has allowed Zakia Jafri to challenge lower court’s decision that it did not have powers to direct SIT to investigate the case further.

“Matter can now go before either magistrate or other forums,” she said in her social media message.

Zakia, wife of deceased Parliamentarian Ehsan Jafri, who was killed in 2002 communal riots in Ahmedabad. Ehsan Jafri was among 68 people who were killed at the Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad, when a mob attacked the society on February 28, 2002, a day after burning of Sabarmati Express near Godhra killing 59 kar sevaks and leading to state-wide riots that killed about 1000 persons.

Zakia, along with activist Teesta Setalvad’s NGO Chitzen for Justice and Peace, had moved a criminal review petition in HC alleging a ‘larger criminal conspiracy’ behind the riots.

Their petition sought that Modi and 59 others, including senior police officers and bureaucrats, be made accused and being part of a larger conspiracy that facilitated the riots. It also sought High Court’s direction for a fresh investigation into the matter.

A special court in Ahmedabad had convicted 24 for the massacre that it described as “darkest day in the history of civil society”.

Ehsan Jafri and 68 others were apparently dragged out of their homes and burnt alive by the rioting mob. The court had acquitted 36 others and stated that it did not see any larger conspiracy.

The Gulberg Massacre, as it had come to be known as, was one of the 10 major riot cases of 2002 that were re-investigated by SIT.

Zakia moved to HC in 2014, after the metropolitan court rejected her plea in December 2013.

Teesta, meanwhile, has stated that Zakia Jafri “will now begin again her struggle for justice. In Babri case, it took 25 years. How long will this take us now?” she stated.

Source: DH

Adidas will finally start selling shoes made by its robot factory

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 02:04 AM PDT

Source: engadget

Inside details of Modi’s powerpoint presentation to shut critics crying slowdown

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 01:57 AM PDT

NEW DELHI: Top officials worked intensely on instructions from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to put together the 'correct perspective' on the economy to enable him to lash out at critics of his economic policy. The PM wanted to reassure the common man that the situation would improve soon. He specifically didn't want anxiety to spread and wanted to show allegations were largely 'panic generating' and the country had gone through similar blips in the past too. Official sources said that the PM wanted his speech to be filled with factual figures to present an accurate picture. "Everyone knew the months immediately after GST would have problems and this was not the time to spread pessimism. The PM wanted that to be quelled," an official said. For this data from RBI, GST Council, investigation agencies were brought in, collated and presented in detailed graphics, which was shared by the PM's social media accounts. According to officials, the PM in his recent meetings had stressed on the need to "show the bigger picture to Indian society, especially the poor and the middle class and assure them their future was in safe hands." He felt the despondency was overdone by opposing figures. He wanted to say there were causes for concern but many things had gone right and the situation would only improve in the coming months, an official said. Every criticism of party veterans and top edits in national and international newspapers were analysed before the rebuttal was prepared. "The data was all there, but it had to be collated and presented well in a relatable way. The PM filled his speech with narratives and simple explanations because he wanted to address the common man," an official said. In the last few days, top officials had also looked at shifting the narrative on how the poor and middle class had benefited after government took action against black money hoarders and shell companies. "Our business model for long has been based on tax evasion. This government has challenged that, brought several lakhs of people into the tax bracket. The nation first policy of the PM is most visible in the way he is changing the economy. Falling real estate prices will benefit the poor. That needs to be highlighted," an official said. The PM also talked about demonetisation being a great success as it reduced cash to GDP ratio to 9%. "The PM is aware that top economists of the world have cited demonetisation as the best way to reform economy. The PM wants the nation to know that he not only had political guts but also bases his decision on sound analysis," another official said.
Source: ET

India’s rich get richer, Mukesh Ambani retains top slot: Forbes

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 01:57 AM PDT

Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani emerged as India’s wealthiest for the 10th straight year as his net worth swelled to $38 billion (nearly Rs 2.5 lakh crore) while the wealth of 100 richest rose by 26 per cent despite economic hiccups. Wipro’s Azim Premji was the distant second with a net worth of $19 billion, moving up two places from last year, while Sun Pharma’s Dilip Shanghvi slipped from his earlier second place to the ninth now ($12.1 billion) on Forbes magazine’s annual ‘India Rich List 2017’. Forbes said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “economic experiments” barely affected India’s billionaires while none gained more than oil-and-gas tycoon Mukesh Ambani, who cemented his decade-long hold on the top slot by adding a staggering $15.3 billion (67 per cent) to his last year’s wealth to become one of Asia’s top five richest. Anil Ambani, Mukesh’s younger brother, was ranked much lower at 45th place with $3.15 billion. He was ranked 32nd in 2016 ($ 3.4 billion) and 29th a year before that. Patanjali Ayurved’s Acharya Balkrishna, known as a close associate of yoga guru Ramdev, made a big jump from 48th place last year to 19th now with a net worth of $6.55 billion (about Rs 43,000 crore). “Despite India’s economic hiccups, tycoons on the 2017 Forbes India Rich List saw their wealth soar as their combined fortunes rose 26 per cent to $479 billion (over Rs 31 lakh crore),” the magazine said. “India’s turbo-charged economy sputtered in the quarter ended in June as it grew at a three-year low of 5.7 per cent, due to the aftershocks of last November’s demonetisation and uncertainties over the rollout of a nation-wide Goods and Services Tax. Despite this, the stock market scaled new heights and boosted the fortunes of the nation’s 100 richest,” it added. In the case of Ambani, improved refining margins and his telecom unit Reliance Jio’s thundering success in notching up 130 million subscribers since its 2016 launch pushed up shares of Reliance Industries. The Hinduja brothers are at the third position with $18.4 billion while Lakshmi Mittal is now ranked fourth ($ 16.5 billion) and Pallonji Mistry fifth ($ 16 billion). Forbes said the list was compiled using shareholding and financial information secured from the families and individuals, stock exchanges, analysts and regulatory agencies. The ranking lists family fortunes, including those shared among extended families such as the Godrej and Bajaj families. Public fortunes were calculated based on stock prices and exchange rates as of September 15. Private companies were valued based on similar companies that are publicly traded. More than four-fifths of those who kept their spot on the list from last year saw their wealth rise, with 27 listees adding $ 1 billion or more to their net worth. The richest newcomer is cookies-and-airline tycoon Nusli Wadia at the 25th place with a net worth of $ 5.6 billion. Among the five other new entrants to the list are Dinesh Nandwana (88, $ 1.72 billion) of e-governance services firm Vakrangee; Vijay Shekhar Sharma (99, $ 1.47 billion) of fast-rising mobile wallet Paytm and Rana Kapoor (100, $ 1.46 billion) of Yes Bank. Veteran investor Radhakishan Damani, boosted by the listing of his supermarket chain D-Mart in March, returned to the list at 12th place with a net worth of $ 9.3 billion. Other returnees are Future Group’s Kishore Biyani (55th, $ 2.75 billion) and siblings Murli Dhar and Bimal Gyanchandani (75, $ 1.96 billion). However, a dozen have turned poorer than a year ago, with half of them from the pharmaceutical sector, which has been plagued by challenges. Pharmaceutical magnate Dilip Shanghvi is the biggest dollar loser on the list as his net worth fell by $ 4.8 billion, ending his three-year run as India’s second-richest. The Gupta family (40, $ 3.45 billion), heirs of patriarch Desh Bandhu Gupta, who died in June, saw their fortune shrink as shares of their generics maker Lupin declined. Brothers Shashi and Ravi Ruia suffered a drop as their Essar Steel faced bankruptcy proceedings under India’s stricter new law, Forbes said. The 100 wealthiest on this year’s list are all billionaires. The minimum amount required to make the list was $ 1.46 billion, up from $ 1.25 billion last year. DRR BJ ARD
Source: ET

#8: Novoflex 100mm Cable Ties, Natural White, Pack of 100

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 01:13 AM PDT

Novoflex 100mm Cable Ties, Natural White, Pack of 100
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(Visit the Bestsellers in Industrial & Scientific list for authoritative information on this product’s current rank.)

Via Amazon.in: Bestsellers in Industrial & Scientific

Discovery and Google team up on globe-spanning VR travel series

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 12:57 AM PDT

Discovery is partnering with Google on a virtual reality travel series that spans all seven continents. The 38-episode experience explores the rituals and traditions of cultures in North and South America, Asia, Australia, Africa, Antartica, and Euro…

Source: engadget

Here’s how Kishore Biyani is getting ready for a looming online-offline war with Amazon

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 12:43 AM PDT

Kishore Biyani of Future Retail is preparing for a war with Amazon. There are reports that Amazon will make its nationwide debut in online food retailing in India soon. It also plans to start a private grocery label in India later. It will face biggest resistance not from online rivals but India's mega offline retail chain, Biyani's Future Retail. And Biyani is getting ready to take on Amazon. It is now buying HyperCity, a premium chain of 19 hypermarkets from Shoppers Stop for Rs 700 crore. Once the HyperCity deal is sealed, it will add about 1.4 million square feet of retail space to Future Retail, taking the total store count to more than 900 outlets. Future Retail now operates around 13.8 million square feet of retail space in 221 cities, with annual sales of Rs 17,075 crore. Consolidation in the grocery space will help it push its private label consumer products, which earn higher margins than other items. According to Euromonitor data, Big Bazaar, is already India’s market leader, with a 22.4 per cent share of the organised store-based retail market in 2016. Merger with Bharti Retail and Big Apple had strengthened Future Retail's presence in north with over 250 stores. It planted a big foot in south through the acquisitions of Nilgiri’s and Heritage. HyperCity will help it expand in the west. HyperCity acquisition also help the company meet a long-term goal—to more than treble its revenue to Rs 75,000-1 lakh crore by 2021. When Amazon enters the battlefield, it will be an online versus offline war. Biyani's brick-and-mortar will test Amazon’s strategy, stamina and strength. Amazon will try to pitchfork itself into the market with aggressive pricing. But that's where Future Retail will offer a challenge. Future Retail is is planning to build a loyalty-based convenience stores, which will be driven mainly by low prices. The Future Group will open in the next four years about 10,000 convenience stores where member-shoppers will get more discounts than those offered by brick-and-mortar chains such as D'Mart, or online rivals Amazon and Flipkart, which recently entered groceries. “No one can match the prices we will offer. We have built the entire ecosystem such as logistics, partnership with FMCG companies and customer database around the stores. The concept is a hybrid between the kirana (neighbourhood) store, connected commerce and large supermarket,” said Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani, speaking to ET earlier this year. Amazon recently got government approval for stocking and selling food and groceries in India online and through brick and-mortar stores. Initially, it is likely to focus only on online. But Future Group can jeopardise its brick-and-mortar strategy too because by the time Amazon steps into it, Future Group might have consolidated its position. Each Future Group store will enroll 1,500 customers for an annual fee: Shoppers will get 10 per cent additional discount on each bill apart from existing applicable offers, consumer credit, home delivery options, and access to the online shopping platform. These smaller stores will have four badges if HyperCity deal comes through— Easy Day, Heritage Retail, Nilgiri's and HyperCity. The company has been opening about 15 smaller stores a week. It has been piloting a similar programme at Easy Day and has managed to enrol moe than one lakh members so far. The target is to have five-lakh members this fiscal. By doing so, Biyani hopes to achieve sales of Rs.40,000 crore through these stores by 2021, double the earlier target of Rs.20,000 crore he had set few years ago. Biyani is more confidant about his brick-and-mortar play than his online business. He has said he wouldn't invest or operate in the e-commerce space for at least two years. And he has his reasons: The group has already sunk Rs 300 crore on such ventures, and the industry's mega ad blitz aside, it is reeling under losses. Future Retail is focusing all its energies and cash on the conventional business since that generates much higher returns. Biyani said none of the e-commerce firms in India was making money and losses were as much as their turnover. Amazon’s food retail gambit will ride on low prices and a big brand name but Biyani’s expansion too will be based on pricing strategy. This can lead to a fierce price war in which consumer will be the winner in any case.
Source: ET

Kishore Biyani readies his arsenal in looming online-offline war with Amazon

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 12:43 AM PDT

Indian services activity returns to growth in September: PMI

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 12:37 AM PDT

Services sector activity in India expanded for the first time in three months in September as it rebounded from GST-related contractions, driven by a surge in new business orders that supported job creation, a monthly survey said on Thursday.
Source: TOI

Indian services activity returns to growth in September: PMI

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 12:36 AM PDT

All you need to know about the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 12:36 AM PDT

Who won the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry?
The 2017 Nobel prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Jacques Dubochet (University of Lausanne, Switzerland) Joachim Frank (Columbia University, New York) and Richard Henderson (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, U.K.) “for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution”.

What was the need to go beyond electron microscopy?
For many years — in the 1970s, the electron microscope was the only way to look into the cell and observe the minute beings that play such an important role in our lives such as viruses. However, the powerful beam of the electron microscope would destroy biological material, so it was believed that such microscopy could only reveal images of dead cells and dead organisms. Also it was then impossible to view solutions as water would evaporate under the microscope's vacuum.

That was until this year's laureate Richard Henderson came on to the scene. To get the sharpest images he travelled to the best electron microscopes in the world. They all had their weaknesses, but complemented each other. Finally, in 1990, 15 years after he had published the first model, Prof. Henderson achieved his goal and was able to present a structure of bacteriorhodopsin at atomic resolution.

However the problem still remained of imaging biological molecules which got destroyed when the electron beam of the microscope was focused on them at normal temperatures.

A detour: What is cryo-electron microscopy?
"Cryo", short for cryogenic refers to very low temperatures. Though the actual temperature is not well defined, it is below minus 150°C. In the context of electron microscopy, it refers to the fact that the object to be imaged is frozen to such low temperatures to facilitate being studied under the beam of the electron microscope.

This method is so effective that even in recent times, it has been used to image the elusive Zika virus: When researchers began to suspect that the Zika virus was causing the epidemic of brain-damaged newborns in Brazil, they turned to cryo-EM to visualise the virus. Over a few months, threedimensional (3D) images of the virus at atomic resolution were generated and researchers could start searching for potential targets for pharmaceuticals.

Back to the story
The question was whether the method could be generalised: would it be possible to use an electron microscope to generate high-resolution 3D images of proteins that were randomly scattered in the sample and oriented in different directions?

Prof. Frank had long worked to find a solution to just that problem. In 1975, he presented a theoretical strategy where the apparently minimal information found in the electron microscope's two-dimensional images could be merged to generate a high-resolution, three-dimensional whole. Between 1975 and 1986, Prof. Frank succeeded in merging two fuzzy images of a molecule to get a three-dimensional image.

in 1978, Prof. Dubochet was recruited to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg to solve another of the electron microscope's basic problems: how biological samples dry out and are damaged when exposed to a vacuum. The solution he envisaged was to freeze water rapidly so that instead of solidifying into a crystalline solid, it freezes into a disordered state, which is like a glass. Though a glass appears to be solid, it is actually what is called a supercooled liquid in which individual molecules are arranged at random instead of a periodic crystalline solid structure. Prof. Dubochet realised that if he could freeze the water to form a glassy state, what is known as vitrified water, it would not dry up when excited by the beam.

In the early 1980s, Prof. Dubochet cooled water so rapidly that it solidified in its liquid form around a biological sample, allowing the biomolecules to retain their natural shape even in a vacuum. In 1984, he published the first images of a number of different viruses, round and hexagonal, that are shown in sharp contrast against the background of vitrified water.

Source: XM

#9: Autofy Habsolite All Purpose Safety Helmet with Strap for bikes (Black, Free Size)

Posted: 05 Oct 2017 12:34 AM PDT