Byapaar.com -The Indian Business Blog

As usual, before I do a personal blogpost – here is some business updates that caught my attention over last couple of weeks.
• First and foremost among them is huge decrease in the rate of inflation that is almost @ 0% (.27% to be exact) which is the lowest in the last 30 years (lowest since 1977-78).
There is nothing surprising though with the figure as the Parliamentary election is little bit more than two weeks away and the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is doing its best to utilize as much economic mileage as possible even if at the expense of the state exchequer. I have serious doubts if this inflation rate is a genuine reflection of the market or a manipulated one as I don’t see any marked reduction in prices of daily essentials which is so important for the poor and lower middle class people like me!
• The second major business development that attracted my interest is the official debut of “Nano” Car by Tata Automobiles Ltd. which has become the cheapest car in the world priced about $2500.
The irony is that, the car is rolling out for the first time from Mumbai, and not Singur or Kolkata as was originally planned. As they say “History repeats itself.” There was a time when the left front came to power in West Bengal after sweeping the rural Bengal on the promise of Land Reform Movement. The left front government did keep its words and introduced laws for sweeping change in land allocation favoring poor and landless farmers. This caused industries and businesses to move away from Bengal. But now, the same Left Front government has been trying to attract new investments and industries after realization that agriculture alone can not take Bengal too far and to bring more jobs, development – industry is the only way. As much power as they enjoy with huge majority in the Assembly, their only roadblock is one lady, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, the Trinamul Congress Supremo. While the left front give red carpet welcome to any industrialists interested to invest in Bengal by way of offering Tax soaps, lands of their choice – Ms. Mamata is leading an ever growing movement against usage of fertile land for industry.
The Clock has now turned full circle in Bengal politics, business and economics. :p
• The third notable development is strong demand by most political parties to bring back the $1456 billion black money kept deposited in foreign banks (mostly Swiss Banks) by Indian super rich, corrupt politicians and officials.

Now, I may write some personal notes which might be helpful for some in credit card debt. Some of my old readers might have read one of my posts that I did few months back on how reckless use of credit card may put someone in serious debt trap.
Now that I have my own credit card and more importantly as I want to use it very frequently on my web business, there is huge chance that I might use it for just about everything and might have to seek help of credit card debt consolidation companies offering help to people suffering from the bad habit of misusing a credit card.
But I promise, as I know the danger before-hand, I’ll not fall into the trap and use it with out most caution. Besides paying for hosting and domains of my sites from time to time, my primary usage will be to invest money in domains. Domain business has been one of the most mysterious and interesting of all online businesses for some time now. One has to learn a lot, do huge amount of research about the market, find premium domains and invest in them. Thousands of $$$ might be left unused for long, but it might also fetch huge profits. (business.com was sold for $8 million). So, I am planning to join this business and use my credit card only for this purpose.
I already bought a domain for $110 and I reckon it is worth around $250.
In the beginning I’ll start slowly, going one step at a time. Once I am confident, I will get into this seriously. And for this I must need a credit card. Domain registrars accept payment only through credit card or Paypal (also require a card for verification). The great advantage fr

Can you do business in India? – Probably yes.
Can you do business in Bengal? Keep reading the post ….

I thought I would not cover this story as it is so controversial and getting huge media coverage. But now I think I should do my bit of .the story.
It seems Communism has come full circle in India and West Bengal in particular. It was during 60’s and 70’s that the communists took the nation by storm with their war against then existing feudal system and were instrumental in the introduction of Land Reform Law in West Bengal after they came into power for the first time in 1967. They have been ruling the state continuously since 1977.
The turning point came in 2000 when the Patriarch of the party Jyoti Basu retired from Chief Ministership and handed it over to Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, a young and energetic leader with an eye for development. It must be noted that between 1977-2000, almost all industrial and business houses left Bengal and it became a industry back-burner from a leading state. Soon after assuming office Mr. Bhattacharya decided to correct it and started to transform the government into a business friendly one. His government were now wooing foreign investors and promoting Bengal as a favored business destination to set up industries. Business man too got impressed by his genuine attitude and signed lots of Memorandum of Understandings with the government. So came big business houses like Tata! The Tata Automobiles choose to set up their pet project of Rs. 100,000 car Nano factory in Singur.
The Nano is arguably the most inexpensive car in the world conceived in 2003 by the Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata and aimed primarily to give a city car to millions of Indian middle class families who can’t afford other cars but can afford motor bikes and scooters. Presented for the first time in the 9th Auto Expo in Delhi in January 2008, the car has already created huge excitement among prospective consumers.
But the reason of this post is not about the car – rather its about the proposed manufacturing unit. In a state where land is of prime with a population density of 904 per square kilometer, the West Bengal government allocated 997 acres of land for the factory in a fertile agricultural area and about 15,000 farmers have been dislodged. Now they fear that the government will not compensate them and they would thus loose their livelihood. Enters Mamata Banerjee, the nemesis of the ruling communists and firebrand leader of Trinamul Congress, the main opposition party in the state. It seems her only goal in politics is to oust the communists from power, by hook or by crook. She immediately grabbed the opportunity at Singur (after she fought a prolonged battle with the ruling party at Nandigram where the Selim group was allocated thousands of acres of farmland for a proposed SEZ) and was now giving the same medicine like Hartals (strike), blockade to the communists who used these as their main weapons during the land reform movement in the state few decades back. The Tatas had to stop construction work due to continuous disturbance and finally announced on 2nd September that they were pulling out the project from Bengal! Read the rest of this entry »