Harshal Dewangan

CEO & Founder at Dewa Direction

Total Pageviews

Breaking

Saturday, June 30, 2018

June 30, 2018

Anatomy of a crash: Lessons for aviation from a 69-yr-old tragedy

The plane crash in Ghatkopar, Mumbai has a curious parallel from almost exactly 69 years back. On July 12, 1949 the KLM Constellation aircraft Franeker crashed in the hills between Ghatkopar and Powai, killing the 34 passengers and 11 crew members aboard. It was India’s worst air disaster till that date and it attracted international attention because the victims included a large group of American journalists, including HR Knickerbocker, a Pulitzer Prize winner who had become famous in the years leading to World War II for his prescient reporting from Berlin about the dangers of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. The plane was on its way back to Europe from Indonesia, where the journalists had been taken by the Dutch government in an attempt to show their side of the ongoing liberation struggle. In sympathy with the revolutionaries, newly independent India and Pakistan had initially refused permission for the colonial government’s carrier to land and refuel, as was required by the aircraft of that time. India had relented and allowed the plane to land in Delhi, but Pakistan apparently refused permission for it to land in Karachi. According to the detailed report in the Times of India (ToI) on July 13, this was why it had to attempt the difficult monsoon landing in Bombay. The plane had made a first approach, but with runway “temporarily unserviceable”, it had taken off for another sweep. The Ghatkopar area is now a concrete jungle, but it was almost an actual jungle at that time. The ToI reported on how locals had heard “a deafening detonation” and gone to investigate through “thick undergrowth, across waterlogged fields and nullahs swollen by unceasing rain.” Horrifyingly, the first victim they found was still alive, “a woman in agony”. She died as they tried to help her. 64802352 ToI reported the international attention that followed and the funerals of the victims. Most of them were buried between the city’s Haines Road and Sewri cemeteries, with the two Chinese origin victims being interred at the Chinese cemetery at Antop Hill. “The Chinese consul performed the obsequies which included the burning of joss sticks and the offering of food and wine to the spirits of the dead.” Most important of all, ToI followed the formal inquiry. This placed the blame on pilot error, but also urgently recommended upgradation of Santa Cruz airport, which clearly had to be ready to deal with a huge increase in air traffic, in all weathers. The measures included “development of the east-west runway at Santa Cruz airport as the main instrument runway, equipping it with high intensity lighting and approach lighting” and more equipment, all for an estimated cost of Rs 34 lakh. The recommendations also included blowing up the tops of the hills which had caused the problems and installing permanent beacons. The latter was done, but the reduction was not felt to be feasible at that time. Yet over the decades this has effectively happened simply due to rampant development—but with the substitution of tall buildings as a new hazard. The new crash in Ghatkopar is a stark reminder of the problems that remain with such a busy airport in an intensely crowded area. The crash was both tragic in itself and a vivid warning of a far worse disaster waiting to happen with a larger aircraft. Bombay in 1949 learned from the Ghatkopar crash and upgraded Santa Cruz airport. Will Mumbai in 2018 learn from this crash and expedite development of its much-needed second airport.

from The Economic Times https://ift.tt/2KChHF4
June 30, 2018

85 shopping malls likely to be launched in next 5 years: Anarock

Nearly 85 shopping malls are expected to come up in the country over the next five years, despite growing trend of online marketing, according to property consultant Anarock."There is so much talk of the death of brick-and-mortar retail as a consequence of the aggressive advent of e-commerce into the country, when the fact is that shopping malls have just got started in India - and they are definitely here to stay," Anarock Retail MD and CEO Anuj Kejriwal said in a report. Over the next five years, the consultant said that nearly 85 malls are expected to come up in India. Out of 85, more than 30 new malls accounting for nearly 14 million sq ft area will open just in the top eight cities by 2020. Kejriwal hoped that mall revolution in India will go for next cycle of evolution as real estate developers learn through their experience to find more winning formulas for their malls and also as retailers get more into omni-channel selling. Explaining why Indian mall story rocks, Kejriwal said: "Unlike 'couch potato' e-commerce shopping, malls offer an experience... a touch-and-feel benefit which online shopping cannot". Further, he said that going to a mall becomes an outing for the family and friends and that too in an air-conditioned comfort. "The massive Indian middle class loves this experience and online retail is unlikely to put malls in the shade in India anytime soon," he said. However, he said that e-commerce has had an effect on mall business as online portals offer deep discount. Kejriwal said that both online shopping and physical retail will continue to coexist in India, without impacting each other too much. The consultant said the cities that have seen maximum malls include the national capital region, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and Pune. The expansion of shipping malls are now taking place in tier-ll cities because of low vacancy levels and high rentals in big cities. Overseas retailers are now expanding not just in metros but even tier 2 cities namely Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Jaipur and this has led to mushrooming of malls all across the country, Kejriwal said. "We are definitely not looking at a deathbed scenario here - as a matter of fact, just the opposite. However, like every other real estate vertical in India, retail has also had to evolve with the times in order to retain its allure," he said. Stating that no mall in India can survive on just shopping experience, the consultant said developers have understood that they need to transform their malls into a prominent 'shoppertainment' locations. The consultant also said that large malls tend to do better as they are better able to incorporate all the features required for successful operations. Many malls have failed in India due to variety of reasons such as wrong location, insufficient or unscientific parking arrangements, unsuitable tenant mix and lack of a food court, among others. Strata-ownership of shops was also a major issue in many of the failed malls.

from The Economic Times https://ift.tt/2tHa1YN
June 30, 2018

No single silver bullet for dealing with NPAs: Jayant Sinha

In an interview with Supriya Shrinate of ET Now, Jayant Sinha, MoS, Aviation, talks about a range of options for dealing with NPAs and that a bad bank could also be an option worth considering. He also says that investment is happening, but in new sectors. Edited excerpts:It’s one year of GST and obviously the government is in a big celebratory mode. The opposition believes it was not a very well laid out GST and the rates are too high. In the hindsight, do you believe the government could have done it differently? In your present capacity, you are trying to push ATF under the GST. How hopeful are you of that going through? We are hopeful that ATF will get included in GST. That will be the economically right decision to make. We have to get the states on board. The central government obviously has been advocating that all petroleum products should come under GST. That is exactly why the constitutional amendment included petroleum products and we had set the trajectory for that and hopefully we will get there once the states are on board. But overall, I would say that GST has been outstanding success. We are getting revenues of up to Rs 1 lakh crore a month which is a very robust growth from where we were earlier. We have added 45-50 lakh new indirect tax payers which is a stunning growth in the number of indirect tax payers.The most remarkable thing about GST is the effect it has on formalisation of the Indian economy. The EPFO numbers that are being added to payrolls in a formal way is growing every month. It is showing a very strong and robust progress. People are gradually settling into and using the GST forms and understanding how to do that and that is making us more competitive, efficient and enabling further growth. GST is a signature reform for this government. Never before in human history has this level of tax reform been attempted in such a large country and implemented so successfully within a year.GST was meant to be a game changer. I am glad it is at least turning out to be one after its initial teething troubles. The other part of your reform drive has been to clean up India’s toxic public sector banks and the idea of a bad bank seems to be back on the table. Could this add to the multiple layers of cleaning up banks? I would caution anyone on looking for just one silver bullet. The reality of the NPA situation in India is we have to do a host of different things. There is a lot of work which we started doing some years ago when I was in the Ministry of Finance and that has progressed very well. We are looking at the various sectors and seeing what can be done to heal those sectors and ensure that those sectors are vibrant once again.We attempted that in steel and steel has turned around and the NPA situation has abated there. We are looking at what we can do with power assets. Clearly, there are things we need to do in real estate as well. So, we have to look at the underlying sectors and try and improve the health that is one thing. Second, we have to get the ARC process to work well and clear the markets. Three, we have to get the insolvency in bankruptcy code working. It has now started to work and we have to get resolution there. Four, there may be ways in which we can see whether we can create a bad bank, good bank type combination. In Air India, that is exactly what we did. I brought over my experience from the Ministry of Finance to see whether we can do that in Air India and maybe we can follow that up with IDBI as well.In Air India, we took a whole host of assets -- the non-core real estate, the art and the artefacts, some of the debt, Centaur Hotels, Alliance Air and several of these assets and we put them into Air India Asset Holding Company. That enabled us to create a clean efficient well run airline on the other side. So, we separated it. Now, if we have a bad bank and the good bank combination, that becomes a much more attractive proposition. So, these are the fout things that we have attempted. When we look at the situation with NPAs, let us not just look for one silver bullet. There is a range of options we have to consider and potentially the bad bank could be also an option that may be worth considering. The policy makers are looking at this and will take the right decision in the interest of the economy. There cannot be just one silver bullet and there have to be many options but all of this is geared towards one aim and that aim is to make industry begin investing to deleverage balance sheets and clean up banks so that they can begin lending. When do you think that is going to happen? I disagree with that entire idea. I disagree because every time we have a new growth cycle, it is led by new industries and that is the way any modern day economy works. Today many sectors are seeing massive investments. Swiggy got a large investment right now and became the newest entrant to the unicorn club. So food delivery is getting huge investments. We just saw the investment of Walmart into Flipkart. A massive investment is happening in logistics, in building supply chains, in procurement and so on. Rivigo is another unicorn that has now become the largest purchaser of trucks in India. So, investment is happening. Perhaps investment is happening in different sectors That is how growth happens. New sectors come up. The aviation is a great example and you do not see the investment in aviation showing up in the investment numbers because all the planes are leased. We have massive orders for planes coming up. We have over 900 planes on order right now that is billions and billions of dollars. We have lakhs of crores invested in airports as well. So, investments are happening, it is just that they may not happen in the sectors that we were looking at previously because that is like looking in the rear view mirror. We have to look out the windshield and see where the growth is happening. But given the kind of sectors that are now drawing in investments, are interest rates largely becoming irrelevant? For Swiggy to raise funds and be a unicorn, it does not matter what RBI’s interest rates are, whereas for a steel company to set up a new project it remains relevant. Do you believe that the high interest rates regime that we are entering, is largely irrelevant? Interest rates are obviously important for capital intensive industries or for debt financing and consumer purchases. Perhaps, more important, are real interest rates. Though the important question for India now is the real cost of capital going up, because easy money policies of the central banks in the develop world is now changing. That will mean we have to be careful in India as the cost of capital is going to go up, not so much because inflation is going up but because the entire paradigm is shifting.You started off this interview by saying that this was market dynamics that perhaps did not see so much of investor interest do you believe some of that market dynamics some of that sentiment has been marred by questioning of Air Asia or summoning of Tony Fernandes? Is this kind of institutional activism once again taking a toll on investments? I cannot speculate on why people choose to bid or not bid. I really cannot get into that as I said the consolidated feedback from the transaction adviser suggest that it was really market circumstances, industry dynamics that inhibited bidding.

from The Economic Times https://ift.tt/2KCEb9i
June 30, 2018

France v Argentina - PROMO! by FIFATV on YouTube

France v Argentina - PROMO!
Enjoy our promo for the match between France and Argentina! Find out where to watch live: fifa.tv/watch2018 More match highlights: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCGIzmTE4d0hww7NG9ytmooEUZov2k-23 More from Russia 2018: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCGIzmTE4d0ia-PWE7WoysqLao-0y7jEz More World Cup stories: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCGIzmTE4d0j5nOjvXOP55xyW3aJCyeGo Follow all the action from Russia across the FIFA Platforms: 👉 http://www.youtube.com/fifa 👉 https://ift.tt/1lBiWzz 👉 http://www.twitter.com/fifaworldcup 👉 https://ift.tt/1M0OH0G 👉 http://www.fifa.com


View on YouTube
June 30, 2018

Uruguay v Portugal - PROMO! by FIFATV on YouTube

Uruguay v Portugal - PROMO!
Enjoy our promo for the round of 16 clash between Uruguay and Portugal. Who do you think will win? Find out where to watch live: fifa.tv/watch2018 More match highlights: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCGIzmTE4d0hww7NG9ytmooEUZov2k-23 More from Russia 2018: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCGIzmTE4d0ia-PWE7WoysqLao-0y7jEz More World Cup stories: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCGIzmTE4d0j5nOjvXOP55xyW3aJCyeGo Follow all the action from Russia across the FIFA Platforms: 👉 http://www.youtube.com/fifa 👉 https://ift.tt/1lBiWzz 👉 http://www.twitter.com/fifaworldcup 👉 https://ift.tt/1M0OH0G 👉 http://www.fifa.com


View on YouTube
June 30, 2018

Presnel KIMPEMBE (France) - Match 50 Preview - 2018 FIFA World Cup™ by FIFATV on YouTube

Presnel KIMPEMBE (France) - Match 50 Preview - 2018 FIFA World Cup™
Find out where to watch live: fifa.tv/watch2018 More match highlights: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCGIzmTE4d0hww7NG9ytmooEUZov2k-23 More from Russia 2018: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCGIzmTE4d0ia-PWE7WoysqLao-0y7jEz More World Cup stories: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCGIzmTE4d0j5nOjvXOP55xyW3aJCyeGo Follow all the action from Russia across the FIFA Platforms: 👉 http://www.youtube.com/fifa 👉 https://ift.tt/1lBiWzz 👉 http://www.twitter.com/fifaworldcup 👉 https://ift.tt/1M0OH0G 👉 http://www.fifa.com


View on YouTube

Popular Posts