See how Falling Rupee hurts and changes your way of life !!

Interest rates

With a weak Indian rupee, it may be difficult for the RBI to cut interest rates at the monetary policy meeting next week. India’s dependency on foreign investors to bring inflows in order to bridge current account deficit is one of the key factors that will be considered for interest rate changes.

Education

A weak rupee can weigh down your chances of studying abroad. Since students borrow education loans in local currency and spend in foreign currency, you will have to shell out more rupees to buy the dollar which would make accommodation, food and cost of education abroad costly.

Travel

If you are planning to travel while the rupee is weak, you may want to reconsider as air fares will be expensive considering an increase in fuel surcharge. Also, eating out when you are traveling overseas will turn out to be costly because you will end up spending more rupees.

Loans

Depreciation of rupee will impact loan seekers in a big way. If you apply for a car loan, you will have to pay more depending on where the vehicle is assembled and the components imported by the automobile company.

Oil prices

Rupee depreciation may prompt oil companies to hike petrol and diesel prices. India is highly dependent on importing oil and companies will have to shell out more money to import crude in dollars

Inflation

A weak currency will increase the price of imports which will translate into an increase in the prices of consumer products. Depreciating rupee will also cause an increase in inflation.

Imports

A falling rupee makes imports more expensive in terms of rupees. India is a major importer of oil, gold and iron ore among other things, and more money spent on imports will show up in inflation data which in turn will lead to increase in electronics, fuel prices and consumer products.

Exports

On the bright side, rupee depreciation will help increase India’s export competitiveness especially with other emerging Asian markets like China and Korea. But, a weak rupee alone may not boost the country’s exports.

Companies

Considering India’s reliance for raw materials from overseas, a weaker rupee affects the profits of companies. While IT and pharma sector gain from a weak rupee, it might be trouble for aviation.

Its good news for a few IT companies operating in India because most of the countries tech firms gain revenue from the US, a weak rupee can help them earn relatively more. Pharmaceuticals companies in the doing business in the country will gain when rupee depreciates because they export more than they import. On the other hand, aviation sector will be disappointed with a weak rupee because most of their earnings are in rupees while they spend in dollars.

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Here is how you are charged at Restaurant...!

A simple thing made complicated

We have an uncanny ability to screw simple things and make it complex. Taxes and charges on seemingly simple stuffs like food and drinks are one such thing where customers are taken for granted. Let’s understand few terms that we see on our food bill often but do not understand.

Service charge

This is charged by the restaurant for the services rendered to you. This money goes to the restaurant. The establishments are free to charge any amount as service charges as there are no guidelines provided by the tax authority. The charge varies from 5% to 10%. Few restaurants don’t charge it. This is equivalent to the tips people usually give to waiters. If you are charged service charge in the bill, don’t pay tips as this charge is supposed to be shared among the staff.

Most of us don’t bother about it even when we feel the charges are higher. One reason is that we don’t think anything can be done about it. Secondly, we don’t want to spoil our evening because of this and argue with restaurant manager. However, the ground rule is that if the menu mentions service charges, you have to pay. If it doesn’t, you can question it.

Service tax

Many people confuse service tax with service charges. Service tax is the tax levied by the Government on the services rendered by restaurants. Service tax is same in all states. It is 12.36% on the 40% of the bill. The bill includes your food and drink and the service charge. The restaurant must be air-conditioned for the service tax. The problem here is that most of the customers are taxed at the full bill and not on the 40% of the bill as directed.

To make things simple, service tax should be 40% * 12.36% = 4.94% on the total bill. Hence whenever you see service tax on the total bill exceeding about 5%, you can question it.

VAT (Value Added Tax)

There is another tax called VAT (value added tax) that is state specific. The rates can be as low as 5% and as high as 20% depending upon the states. Moreover, VAT for food items and drink are different. Many restaurants might club food items and drink and charge a flat rate on the total bill. In such cases, it is good to ask for separate bills for food and drinks. This should clearly show the different VAT for both the items.

Example

Let’s see how service charge, tax and VAT work with an example. Suppose you have dined in an AC restaurant and the price of food items is summed to Rs 900. You will be asked to pay service charges (goes to the restaurant) and VAT and service tax (goes to Government)

Items	Amount
Bill of food item	900
Service charge (assuming 6%)	54
Sum Total	954
Service tax to be levied on (40% of sub-total)	381.6
Service tax (at the rate of 12.36%)	47.16576
VAT @ 12.5% of the sub-total	119.25
Total amount to be paid	1120.416

Many times, restaurants charge the highest rate on the total bill. This is general complaint by almost all the customers.
Source from Yahoo!

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All about Mobile Screens...!

The screen defines your smartphone. This is why its size and the quality of image it reproduces determines, to a large extent, your overall experience of using a smartphone.

No wonder mobile phone makers are investing a fortune in screen technologies. But what makes one screen better than the other? ET explains the mainstream technologies behind smartphone displays.

#1...LCD

LCD, or Liquid Crystal Display, is the most common flat panel display. It uses a combination of layers of liquid crystals and a backlight to produce an image. The properties of the liquid crystals to block or allow light change as current is applied

#2...TFT

TFT or Thin Film Transistor is used to improve readability of LCD panels. Transistors are embedded within the panel itself, reducing crosstalk between pixels and improving image stability. Used mainly in entry-level handsets with colour screens.

#3...IPS LCD

IPS, or In Plane Switching, is a further evolution of the LCD, invented by Hitachi and LG to improve on colours and viewing angles of TFT displays

#4...Retina

Introduced by Apple, this type of LCD uses pixels smaller than the human retina can perceive. Retina displays are found in fourth-generation iPod Touch and iPhone 4/4S.

#5...OLED

OLED or Organic Light Emitting Diodes, produce their own light rather than relying on a backlight. It offers a brighter, more vivid picture with a higher contrast ratio on lower power consumption.


#6...AMOLED

AMOLED, or Active Matrix OLEDs, allow for a larger size screen with a higher number of pixels.

#7...SuperAMOLED

SuperAMOLED Plus & AMOLED Advanced are improvements that increase brightness, reduce reflectance or lower power consumption.

#8...S-LCD

Super, or S-LCD, is a corporation founded by Samsung and Sony. S-LCDs use technology that brings quality and contrast levels to near-Amoled standards, but at a lower price.

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How wikileaks worked...Spy files !

When citizens' protests overthrew dictatorships in Egypt and Libya this year, they discovered listening rooms where devices from companies like Gamma corporation of the UK, Amesys of France, VASTech of South Africa and ZTE Corp of China monitored their every move online and on the phone.

What was extremely difficult to digest, however, was the fact that such wide-scale snooping and tracking had been going on not just in these two countries, but across as many as 25 nations across the globe. The governments in these countries had been keeping tabs on its citizens since 2002.
According to Spy Files released by WikiLeaks, intelligence agencies, military forces and police authorities "silently... and secretly intercepted calls and had taken over computers without the help of telecommunication providers", and tracked the physical location of mobile phone users, even when their devices were only on standby.

#1...25 countries snooped

Mass interception of entire populations is not only a reality, it is a secret new industry spanning 25 countries, according to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. These countries include India, US, UK, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine.

#2...The Indian angle

There are three Indian companies in the WikiLeaks list of surveillance companies. These are Shogi Communications, ClearTrail and Shield Security.

#3...Big names involved

According to Assange, international surveillance companies are based in the more technologically sophisticated countries, and they sell their technology on to every country of the world.

This industry is, in practice, unregulated and has some 160 companies. Some of the significant names include, BEA, Dialogic, Cambridge Consultants, HP, Siemens, Nice Systems, Nokia Siemens Networks and Thales.

#4...How it worked: Computers hijacked

Surveillance companies like SS8 in the US, Hacking Team in Italy and Vupen in France manufacture viruses (Trojans) that hijack individual computers and phones (including iPhones, Blackberries and Androids), take over the device, record its every use, movement, and even the sights and sounds of the room it is in.

#5...How it worked: Voice analysis

Other companies like Phoenexia in the Czech Republic collaborate with the military to create speech analysis tools. Other companies like Phoenexia in the Czech Republic collaborate with the military to create speech analysis tools. They identify individuals by gender, age and stress levels and track them based on 'voiceprints'.

Blue Coat in the US and Ipoque in Germany sell tools to governments in countries like China and Iran to prevent dissidents from organizing online.

#6...How it worked: Location-based spying

The CIA officials have bought software that allows them to match phone signals and voice prints instantly and pinpoint the specific identity and location of individuals. Intelligence Integration Systems, Inc, based in Massachusetts - sells a "location-based analytics" software called Geospatial Toolkit for this purpose.

Another Massachusetts company named Netezza, which bought a copy of the software, allegedly reverse engineered the code and sold a hacked version to the Central Intelligence Agency for use in remotely piloted drone aircraft.

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