The Window Visitors

Either these birdies know that they get posted online or the area around this office and the climate is really attracting the birds here!! A few more....
The Lunch time Visit! I think this is a bird very similar top common sparrow..

Can someone please help me identifying this very tiny and a very pretty birdie?

A new visitor on my window ledge

this time was a Spotted/Scaly Breasted Munia or Lonchura Punctulata. Here are some grainy shots shot using my standard BB curve 8900.

I am sounding all intelligent about the name of this little birdie, courtesy Google Image Search, what else?!

After a long hiatus!

The only thing that this post is - is Random!

I have realised I am the minority in this city. I voted.

Barring the fact that the lady at the booth got over excited with the painting stick it was a quick one.

I saw a man wearing a pink shirt riding a pink scooty!!

The reptile friend visited my window cill again!

A very very dear friend lit up three weeks in April! Hugs Snigi! Loved having you around and re-connecting and talking and laughing and bitching and partying!! She actually prompted me to take a half day off and travel to Mumbai to party! Very unlike me!! But we had a great time!! 

Too Close For Comfort

Too many narrow escapes...
Too many saves by a whisker...
Too many times we are hanging on by fingernails...
These are more than fare share of close calls I am ready to handle...

Need to do something about this... Dunno what though....

I love 4pm in office End of May!

May ends and June beginnings! You know this is that time of the year when you see tufts of super white clouds in perfect sky blue skies. This is when the clarity of vision is superb. You know what I mean, right? Have you traveled in this time of the year by road?? Then you will know! The visibility of the horizon and clarity of the view somehow is maximum. For example on Mumbai Pune highway you can really see a mountain line after another extending so far ahead that the last mountain line totally looks deep purple-blue (like that bruise which starts showing up on the skin, well after it has stopped hurting! No, seriously! That IS the right shade!) The temperatures of the summer peak start easing around this time as well and the days and nights find a breeze with a promise of first showers!!!


It is a total joy to sit in this site office at this time! I have a West side facing window and the sun shining through the clouds lights up my desk with soft rays after 3pm. And all I see outside is lawn we have stitched ready for monsoons due to arrive shortly, those lovely clouds and lines of mountains intercepted by trees! Here's a sneak peak:

This is moi cluttered desktop sun-bathing

Looking out

Pushing those blinds away!

Heavens smiling!!!!

Now you know why I am such a workoholic!!!!

PS All pictures taken with a BlackBerry Curve phone camera...

This is my last bit on STPI vs. SEZ

"This will give the Government sufficient flexibility to take a well considered decision and announce it at the appropriate time. "
Ya right!
More of the press release on credit policy here
And as for this being the last bit, well, at least for some time for sure!!! ;)

STPI vs. SEZ

The IT/ITES has been the golden sector of India for past decade or so. It almost certainly is this sector that has fuelled growth and most importantly the sentiment behind the India Story. Some say this could happen because of the incentives that were given by the government for the growth of this sector apart from the more obvious cost arbitrage story. Net-net however, these companies have not paid any tax at all if they were located in an STPI unit. And of course all them made sure they were! who wouldn't?!

And now that under the STPI scheme, 100 per cent tax deduction on profits under Section 10A and Section 10B of the Income-Tax Act are available only until March 31, 2009, the companies registered with the STPI will have to pay tax at an estimated rate of 33.99 per cent in the absence of these deductions.

Now whether or not the government will increase this scheme has been a debate going on for more than 2-3 years now. Mr. Chidambaram however, found this matter hardly noteworthy in the budget speech!

To make matters more interesting the SEZ policy does provide the tax holiday to the IT/ITES companies within their premises!! Under the SEZ Policy, units in SEZs will be 100% exempt from corporate income tax for the first five years; 50% exempt for the next five years and, for the final five years, 50% of the profits ploughed back will be exempt from tax. This in addition to a plethora of other duty benefits. Oh, and no company can 'shift' into the SEZ. It has to have a 'different' business.

And this has created a lot of uncertainity in the market! And following are two stories published on consecutive day by reputed publications show how unsure the market sentiment is on this issue:

Infotech slowdown bites real estate hard

17 Mar 2008, 0001 hrs IST,T Surendar,TNN

MUMBAI: Real estate firms are beginning to feel the heat of the slowdown in IT/ITeS sectors. Leading IT companies are saying that lease of office space to software and BPO firms have fallen by over 30%. The trend is particularly bound to affect firms like DLF and Unitech which are building several software SEZs (special economic zones) across the country.

IT cos’ demand for SEZ space rising, post-Budget
Non-extension of software technology park benefits

Moumita Bakshi Chatterjee
New Delhi, March 16 2008

Real estate developers are seeing a sharp rise in enquiries from IT and BPO companies making a beeline for space in Special Economic Zones (SEZs), barely a fortnight after the Budget ducked the crucial issue of extension of the Software Technology Park of India (STPI) scheme.

I officially love confusion, uncertainity, inefficiencies in information 'cos this is when most opportunities tend to present themselves!!!!!!!

Launching BlueRidge!!

Watch this space for more on this 'little' something very close to my heart!!

(Check www.blueridge.in . However, don't expect to the world there till the 27th of October!!!!)