All Posts in Review

|In: Books|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

Indian cinema has seen a major shift with movies like Gangs of Wasseypur, Gangs of Wasseypur-II, Ugly, Shahid, Udta Punjab, etc. They also proved that good script backed by awesome performance can win audience’s hearts as well as garner appreciation by critics [and be a box office phenomenon]. When was the last time when you read a book and got an adrenaline rush as you encountered when you watched these movies. Most of the movies in this genre clicked with the audience since the story was told with panache ensuring that the local flavor, be it language, clothes, etc. of the characters were retained in order to make it look authentic!

The Jeera Packer by Prashant Yadav, a first-time author and entrepreneur narrates a story that sticks well with the audience since it is a story of each one of us, at some point in our lives. So, let’s go ahead and review The Jeera Packer. The publisher is Fingerprint! Publishing.

About the Author

Prashant Yadav is an entrepreneur and founder of BodhiSutra. He graduated from IIT Kharagpur, IIM Ahmedabad and Stockholm school of Economics. For more information, please visit his LinkedIn Profile.

The Jeera Packer – Trailer

As mentioned earlier, The Jeera Packer is Prashant Yadav’s debut novel. It is a story of a former dreaded gangster who once changed the history of Uttar Pradesh with a gun and a finger. However, this was around thirty years ago. He now packs jeera in a basement. His life takes a sudden twist when one of his former companion reaches out of him with a task to assassinate the Chief Minister (CM) of UP. What happens next? Will he take up the assignment, will he be caught, whether he would be successful in assassinating the CM? You would find answers to all these hindering questions in The Jeera Packer.

Politics, UP and Crime are three keywords that makes The Jeera Packer an intriguing read !!

The Jeera Packer – Detailed Review

The Jeera Packer is a fiction with politics as its backdrop. Of late, politics has become very interesting with social media adding some more flavor to it 🙂 Politics in Uttar Pradesh [UP] has always been closely watched & followed even by non-UP residents, recently concluded UP elections proves that point!

In order to weave a very good story centered around crime and politics in UP, the author has chosen a Jeera Packer. The main protagonist was once the best sharpshooter in the state. Fast-forward thirty years, he now lives a normal happy, stable life with his wife and a college going son. He now runs a small kirana shop in Ghaziabad. His wife manages the daily operations of the store and he packs jeera in the basement. He is going through a mid-life crisis and is not happy leading a common man’s life. Due to these problems, he is now loosing confidence as well as self-esteem. He comes to the conclusion that in order to be happy he needs to take control of his life.

As they say fortune favors the brave, a chance encounter with his older acquaintance could turn to be a stepping stone for him. He is handed the task of assassinating the Chief Minister who is himself a notorious man and has committed many crimes. For the Jeera Packer it is not only the question of regaining his self-confidence but also the question of doing something good for the people of UP. So, would he be able to pull off this one last act? Will he able to brush away the jeera dust and rediscover himself or has the sharp-shooter already left his soul ? The remaining 320+ pages of the book answers these questions in a very effective manner.

Though the central protagonist of the book is a dreaded gangster, he manages to leave a mark on the readers. The writing is very lucid and Hindi is used at appropriate places. As a reader you can easily co-relate to the instances with the drama that normally unfolds in UP politics. Other than the Jeera Packer, other characters are politicians namely Lal Mani, Nawab Sahib, Nanhe Samrat. Every character is crafted with detailed perfection and the suspense keeps the readers hooked on to The Jeera Packer. The plus point of the story is that these characters can be easily visualized especially in UP politics.

The ‘Suspense Element’ reaches a new height when it is revealed when not only the Jeera Packer, there are others also who plan to kill the Chief Minister and it is a matter of self-respect as to ‘Who will kill the Chief Minister first’. The book also sheds light on the corrupt political system and how power-hungry politicians can ruin the entire state/country.

Closing Thoughts

The Jeera Packer is a well-etched political crime thriller where each character is crafted to perfection. Being a thriller, it was very important that there are few characters in order to stick to the story-line and Prashant Yadav has managed to deliver the same with The Jeera Packer.

The book comprises of 41 chapters and each chapter deliveries the story with a punch. Through the last few chapters, the story becomes a bit predicable but it manages to recover the lost mojo quickly. Each one of us do a self-introspection to assess ourselves in life and hence you can easily co-relate to the central character of the book.

If you have liked loved Bollywood movies like Gangs of Wasseypur, Udta Punjab, NH10, etc. then you would love reading The Jeera Packer. Barring aside a few shortcomings, The Jeera Packer has the perfect ingredients for hit Bollywood movie 🙂

You can purchase The Jeera Packer by Prashant Yadav by clicking on the link below

Thanks Prashant for sending us the review copy of The Jeera Packer, we enjoyed reading the book…

|In: Books|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

There are tons of self-help books by Indian as well as International authors, but many of them dish out gyaan leaving the reader confused about the application of the tips mentioned in the book. I am sure you could easily co-relate to that ‘Never judge a book by its cover‘ scenario where the book cover looked interesting but the contents of the book were not so engaging leading to less takeaway from it 🙁

As a 90’s kid I really enjoyed the mythological series of Ramayana and Mahabharata though it was only meant for entertainment purpose. My thoughts towards Ramayana & application of learnings from it changed after I read [as well as reviewed] Shubha Vilas’s book Ramayana : The Game of Life: Shattered Dreams and Ramayana : The Game of Life: Rise of the Sun Prince. The books had stories on Ramayana with learnings that can be applied in today’s life!

Today we review another book Open-Eyed Meditations by the noted author Subha Vilas. The tag line of the book is ‘Practical Wisdom for everyday life‘

About the Author

Shubha Vilas holds a degree in engineering and law with specialization in patent law. But in essence, he is an author, a motivational speaker, lifestyle coach, and a storyteller par excellence. You can find more about him here

Detailed Review

Open-eyed Meditations is a beautiful compilation of thoughts wherein each meditation takes you on a journey to the past, bringing a secret herb to heal a problem of the present. Similar to the previous books penned by Shubha Vilas, this book also uses the wisdom of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata to solve your everyday problems!

Considering that there is so much stress in everyone’s life, one option to find peace and solace is mediation. As it is known that meditation should be done with your eyes closed but this book spells the other side of meditation that can be practiced with ‘open eyes’ and ‘open mind’. The book comprises of 64 chapters and each chapter follows a unique approach to help us address questions and issues that we have in our life, through the aid of short snippets quoting examples and behaviors from the Ramayana & Mahabharata.

Though the book comprises of 64 chapters, every chapter is kept short [keeping the crux intact] and language used for narration is simple. The reader need not be aware of the characters in the mythological series and this where lies the beauty of the book! Whether you are facing issues at your workplace, going through a turmoil in your relationship, facing problems with decision making or want to enhance your leadership skills; this book offers valuable nuggets of wisdom and action point resources to deal with it all. An ideal way to read the book is to look the Contents/Index and select a chapter that might be able to potentially address your concern.

Shubha Vilas retains his traditional writing style where he ends each chapter with a summary [or helpful tips to be more precise] that can be used in our day-to-day lives. The book is written in a very simplistic and contemporary manner, which keeps the interest alive!

Key Takeaways

Each and every page has some learning in it and that is the key highlight of the book. Below are some of the chapters that we enjoyed reading the most [Note : Choices might vary from reader to reader]

  • Chapter 3 – Do all problems have quick fix solutions?
  • Chapter 4 – Why don’t I make the right decisions in life?
  • Chapter 5 – Spirituality @ Workplace
  • Chapter 10 – Can your talent be your enemy?
  • Chapter 12 – A formula to re-brand your mind
  • Chapter 14 – Who controls my opinions and decisions
  • Chapter 17 – Are you programmed to be someone else?
  • Chapter 18 – From Information to transformation
  • Chapter 21 – Is lack of focus a disease or a choice
  • Chapter 22 – An idea to prevent hacking of ideas
  • Chapter 27 – The investment that returns hearts
  • Chapter 29 – Can your success be your failure?
  • Chapter 37 – The science of how to let go
  • Chapter 40 – A compliant against complaining
  • Chapter 42 – Art of leading leaders
  • Chapter 43 – Seven secrets of innovation
  • Chapter 45 – Indivisible leadership
  • Chapter 50 – Do ‘Likes’ make my life?
  • Chapter 53 – Leading through mistakes
  • Chapter 54 – Leading without a title
  • Chapter 55 – Making leadership last
  • Chapter 59 – X factor influencing success
  • Chapter 62 – Constructive thoughts about team building

Some of the notable excerpts from the book are mentioned below

Competition : Compete with yourself not others. Competition with self improves performance and causes no heartburn either. Further comparing yourself with others undermines your uniqueness. Gratitude for our individuality can reduce self-destructive habit of comparison. Unlike flattery, appreciation requires skills and comes from the heart.

People : People want to deal with others’ strengths and not weakness; their abilities and not idiosyncrasies. Rather than rejecting a person due to this bad side, the need is to provide emphatic assistance in dealing with the shortcomings.

Being positive : Talented people with negative attitudes are unable to cope with the ups and downs of life. Right attitude helps to move on in life. Relationships too wither away without the right attitude

Re-brand your mind : Human mind, thoughts, beliefs, values, culture, all operate through symbolism. We have bandwidth to upgrade our symbols and climb up a higher rung of the value system. We could also end up downgrading our symbols to an abyss of negativeness and anxieties.

We can choose a symbol that inspires or choose one that revives bad memories and creates self destruction.

Embrace my embarrassments : We all have embarrassments that we want to run away from. One perspective is to look at them as God’s way of keeping us grounded amid success. The secret is to handle embarrassments with dignity and humility, which is also how we should handle success.

Art of leading Leaders : The first step in leadership training is to find and hone potential leaders at the earliest. Then, shortlist them based on their ability to deal with sticky situations and take personal interest in guiding and developing young leaders, to focus their efforts on upgrading what they have.

Leadership training model can resemble Kangaroo-type, that gives protection in safe havens, or Bird-type, which gives strength to find wings.

Leading though mistakes : Leaders make mistakes too. After the mistake is made, ineffective leaders look for a scapegoat to put the blame on. By taking responsibility, a leader allows himself that scope of error.

A thinking leader considers mistakes as an opportunity. To lament for one’s mistake is important, but far more important is to learn from that mistake.

Leading without a Title : A leader wanting the support of a heavy title is bound to fail. The title can be used either to inspire or terrorize, depending on whether he wants to control his followers or make his followers achievers.

Leaders, who heavily depend on titles, bask in glory during the happy times and hide themselves during hostile times. Title-less leaders come out during challenging times and hide themselves during happy times. For a title-less leader what is more important is performance. A position is only a decoration and when push comes to shove what matters is performance.

Closing Thoughts

Open-Eyed Meditations is a book for all moods and all seasons. 64 chapters are covered over 280 pages and this is where lies the beauty of the book i.e. learnings are conveyed in a short yet effective manner.

It is a book that can be read again and again since it reveals many profound thoughts that can nurture a different aspect of your life. As mentioned by Shubha Vilas in the introduction section of Open-Eyed Meditations

Read this book the way a cow eats grass while ruminating. Chew on every word carefully till you have milky lucidity that nourishes every aspect of your life. This book will help you learn the art of meditating with your eyes wide open as you keenly observe the world around you and allow it to enlighten you.

It definitely stands by that promise since each chapter delivers a powerful learning. In a nutshell, Open-eyed meditations is a book of thoughtful sutras that can become life sutras.

You can purchase Open-Eyed Meditations by Shubha Vilas by clicking on the link below

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

A few weeks back we reviewed the offerings from DigitalOcean and how it is addressing the needs of the developer community. Apart from DigitalOcean, there are options like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, etc.  that are available for developers as well as enterprise. However, the only bottleneck of having many options is that choosing the right option becomes much more difficult since you need to keep a tab on the budget as well as your technical requirements.

Image Source – Mobile App Development

The major benefit of moving to the cloud is that you can now focus on your core business rather than spend time on setting up server infrastructure! Hence, choosing the right tool or platform can definitely result in reducing the overall development time, whether it is a website or a mobile application. The only difference between a website and mobile app is that there is less real-estate on the mobile and understanding the user behaviour becomes a key to retention.

Evolving mobile landscape

There could be plenty of reasons why a user uninstalled an app, could be annoying push notifications, frequent hangs, battery drainage, etc. hence as an app developer you only have a moment to create a good impression. As per a study, 97% of the apps are abandoned within 30 days of installation and 80% of the apps are deleted after one use [Source]. In today’s hyper-competitive mobile environment, apart from acquiring new users it also becomes important to retain existing users. This is where engaging users during the mobile moments [a point in time and space when someone pulls out a mobile device to get what he or she wants immediately, in context] becomes much more critical.

Image Source – Mobile Moments

However, for developers to follow fast effective app development & release cycle they need to roll out the features quickly, solve bugs, retain users, etc. and this is where right set of tools for mobile app development are of importance.

Mobile app development tools – They do matter

Building apps can be a daunting task [which varies on the type of application and the scale at which it is solving the problem] and the plethora of development tools available for app developers are a blessing in disguise. Since there are many tools available, developers do not have to re-invent the wheel and can follow the lean methodology of app development i.e. build, test, release, measure, feedback & follow the same cycle.

Image Credit – Mobile App Development

There are mobile app development tools like ST.Tarter that provide powerful features for developers to build and scale their apps through user-engagement & retention programs. With ST.Tarter, you can develop responsive mobile apps quickly!

ST.Tarter : Addressing developer needs

ST.Tarter is a product from India-based startup SpurtreeTech. With user retention and Referrals being the core of ST.Tarter, it combines many features that are necessary for any mobile app:

Communicator – It has an instant messaging framework with support for Private, Group Chat and Broadcasting support. With this feature, developers can now send personalized push notifications as well as generic broadcast messages!

Coupons – With Coupon support, developers can now retain as well as reward customers thereby optimizing the overall sales funnel.

Referrals – With ST.Tarter, developers can devise customized referral marketing campaigns and boost the app downloads!

Wallet Support & Power API for development – You can now setup any content structure and retrieve the same via API’s supported by ST.Tarter. The best part of this is that you need not do a rebuild of the code! With India now moving towards becoming Digital India, wallets can no longer be left behind 🙂 ST.Tarter support implementation of all the Closed Wallets

The best part of ST.Tarter tool is that it does not require any local installation since it is a 100% cloud-based platform. It uses NLP for Spam detection and Abuse detection. Within minutes, developers can now build bulletin boards, group chats and enable sharing features on their app [that too at a click of a button]. ST.Tarter is an ideal tool for someone who is trying to test waters of app development but has limited coding knowledge 🙂

Since it supports closed Wallet integration, building a shopping cart, converting visitors into shoppers via referrals, coupons and other campaigns can be done at ease with ST.Tarter.

ST.Tarter : Conclusion

There are a plethora of tools for mobile app development but as a developer, it becomes very critical to choose the right set of tools that can help in developing and scaling the app with ease. Considering the features of ST.Tarter that has development, retention, and marketing [of the app] in the forefront, it looks an interesting and lucrative proposition!

ST.Tarter is definitely an ideal tool for developers who follow the lean development methodology. If you are an app developer, do give ST.Tarter a try and leave your feedback in the comments section…

|In: CloudComputing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

There was an era of MS-DOS [Microsoft Disk Operating System] in the 80’s & 90’s when our computer systems used to have around 512 MB of RAM. In fact, this was considered as a very high end configuration during those times! However, with the advent of time the OS was replaced with operating systems that offered rich GUI’s with support of CLI [Command Line Interface]. Fast forward now, we have so many operating systems for PC’s i.e. Windows, Linux [with various distributions], MAC, etc. Not only has the demand of an average user changed but there has been a gradual shift in the expectations of the developers.

Important applications like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. that are used by millions of users are now accessible without local installation of those softwares. This is all possible due to the advent of Cloud Computing that has been a buzzword for quite a few years! Thanks to cloud computing, companies can now focus on core business instead of spending time & effort on costly server infrastructure.

In a nutshell, there has been a gradual shift to ‘Pay Per Use‘ or ‘What You Use Is What You Pay‘ economy. Cloud computing eliminates the expense required for buying quality hardware, reduces overall cost, guarantees better reliability and performance [depending on the maximum up-time mentioned by the cloud service provider].

According to the latest data by Synergy Research Group, Amazon Web Services [AWS] continues to remain the market leader followed by the likes of Microsoft, IBM, Google, etc. [Source]. Though AWS from Amazon is considered the ‘Big Daddy’ of the game, smaller [and rising] players like DigitalOcean are upping their game by following a very different strategy [that does not directly confront with Amazon].

DigitalOcean : Overview

DigitalOcean is a cloud infrastructure provider founded in 2011 and headquartered in New York with data centers worldwide. The company is founded by Ben and Moisey Uretsky who earlier founded ServerStack, a managed hosting business and while surveying the cloud hosting market, they realized that most of the hosting companies were serving the enterprise market leaving a void that needed to be filled!

Unlike AWS that targets variety of customers, products from DigitalOcean cater to solving developer needs. DigitalOcean became one of the fastest growing cloud-hosting companies offering SSD virtual machines [Source]

They have data centers located in 12 countries around the world with one server located in Bangalore which is a huge boon to the growing startup [and developer] community in the city!

DigitalOcean – Data Center locations

DigitalOcean : Droplets, Pricing and more

The Virtual Private Servers [VPS] are termed as Droplets and each droplet that you create is considered as a new VPS. For the review, we created a VPS/droplet with 20 GB space, 512 MB RAM and running Ubuntu 16.04. The installation process was very simple and it took us couple of minutes to setup the droplet.

Droplet Installation – To create a droplet, you need to login to the Digital Control Panel. On successful login you need to click on the ‘Create Droplet’ button. You would be prompted with the available linux distros that you can use to create your first droplet.

Once you have zeroed in on the distro, you need to select the right storage option that suits your requirements. There are variety of options available as shown below:

The plans are very flexible and you can change the Droplet’s plan based on your future requirements. If you are a newbie who is testing the waters of cloud computing, then you can opt for the least expensive plan that offers 512MB of RAM with single core & 20GB of SSD storage. As seen above DigitalOcean offers a very different pricing model, something that even looks very lucrative to developers!

The next step in setting up the droplet is very crucial as it can have a major impact on the performance (and reduce latency). In this step, you select your nearest data-center region. For our test, we selected Bangalore as the preferred location 🙂 Amazon that offers AWS has a server in Mumbai that offers Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) [Source] but they do not have a server in Bangalore!

Once the Droplet region is selected, you would be prompted with additional options like setting up backups, IPV6 enabling, etc. You can name your droplet for easy identification purpose and also set up an SSH key. You can now breath a sigh of relief for completing the ‘simple’ task of setting up your droplet.

We could setup the droplet in a couple of minutes, thanks to the awesome UX of DigitalOcean that made the task look very simple.

Pricing – As stated earlier, pricing offered by DigitalOcean caters to a range of customers (particularly developers). Pricing starts at USD 5 per month and goes all the way upto USD 640 per month where you get 640 GB SSD storage! On Amazon’s EC2 platform, the closest equivalent [of the most popular droplet that offers 30GB SSD disk, 2TB transfer] is a t2.small instance which starts at USD 0.026 per hour, almost double the cost of a DigitalOcean droplet [Source].

Effective Pricing, high performance machines, simplicity and developer focused approach are the pillars of strength for DigitalOcean.

DigitalOcean – Vibrant Community

DigitalOcean has a very vibrant Community where you can find a host of tutorials that cater to a range of topics centered around DigitalOcean. They also have an active YouTube channel and a very active topic on Quora (Moisey Uretsky, Cofounder at DigitalOcean being one of the active contributors of that topic! You can follow their official blog here

DigitalOcean – Backups, Performance and more

Backups can be enabled for the droplets with just 1 USD per month. As per this particular thread on Quora

Backups on DigitalOcean are strangely infrequent-which could worry you depending on how your backup plan is. Right now they do it once every 3 days, which is fine for my personal blog, but not for any applications I work on. Amazon requires a laborious setup to do backups that isn’t as straight forward as “click here to buy backups”.

In this case I have been using both. A DigitalOcean Droplet with daily backups to S3 and Glacier. This in my circumstances has been offering the best combination of offerings for small-midscale projects.

From a performance/value perspective, DigitalOcean follows a bulk pricing model. For customers who need higher RAM, they don’t necessarily have to upgrade to a larger sized Droplet. They could merely choose from DigitalOcean’s High memory plans which provide larger amounts of RAM and which would be relevant for use cases such as running databases, in-memory caches, etc. For more information on the plans, please visit  High memory Droplet pricing.  For customers who need more storage than what is available by default in a Droplet, they could use DigitalOcean’s Block Storage offering which provides highly available SSD based storage without having to scale the number of cores. The block storage volumes can be attached to their existing Droplets, and the pricing starts at just $0.10/GB per month. For more information on the plans, please visit  SSD Block Storage pricing.

From a developer’s point of view, debugging [apart from development] is a very crucial phase in the life cycle of a product 🙂 DigitalOcean has an exhaustive Developers Section where you can find the API documentation and insights into how to use those Tools. A sample snapshot of the CPU load on the droplet that we installed is below:

DigitalOcean – Offerings for Indian Startups

In India, DigitalOcean has partnered with several top-tier accelerators, incubators and VCs based in India to support the startups from their portfolio with infrastructure credit.

DigitalOcean – Conclusion

DigitalOcean is not a direct competitor to the behemoths e.g. Amazon, Azure, Salesforce, etc. of the Cloud Computing since it addresses the needs of a very specific market – The Developer Community. With One click app support, developer can even skip the installation as well as configuration and get started with the deployment of code using any one of the pre-built images supporting various languages. A snapshot of their 2016 achievements below

Image Source : DigitalOcean Blog – What’s Shipping next

If you are a developer looking for affordable linux servers that support only a few well-known tools, than DigitalOcean could be an ideal match. Unlike AWS, Azure, etc. that provide Infrastructure-as-a-service [IaaS], Platform as a service [PaaS] & Software as a service [SaaS]; DigitalOcean provides reliable as well as affordable IaaS platform for developers!

If you are an existing customer of DigitalOcean, please leave your feedback in the comments section…

|In: Review|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

November 8th, 2016 needs no introduction! It would definitely be remembered for many more years from now for the boldest announcement made by the government-Demonetization. Last few months there has been mixed reactions to it where many terming it as a brave move to curb black money, curb funding used in cross-border terrorism, push to promote cashless transactions, etc. On the other side, due to the shortage of lower denomination currency; it resulted in huge queues at ATM’s, small scale industries getting affected (especially those who paid their salaries by cash), falling interest rates in safe investment options like Fixed Deposit, PPF.

Image Source – Real Estate

Demonetization-Real Estate: Short-term Impact, Long-term Gain

The Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) has already received deposits close to Rs. 15 Lakh crore in Rs. 500 & Rs. 1000 junked currency notes (Source). Such huge deposits by individuals and business owners has resulted in increased inflow of funds in banks thus alleviating the banks from the liquidity crunch. As mentioned earlier though increased liquidity has brought down the overall deposit rates, the silver lining is that it has resulted in reduced lending rates! As per financial experts, the effect of demonetization would remain for at least 1~2 years & this is the best time to buy a new property due to reducing home loan rates (Source).

Pokhran Road: Malabar Hill Of Thane

It is a well-known fact that Mumbai has a dense population and life in the city is very fast 🙂 Being from Mumbai, I can blindly vouch for this and it goes without saying that the property rates in western & suburban Mumbai are the highest. Due to the exaggerated property rates, residents from those areas look out for viable options in upcoming places like Vashi, Thane, etc. Thane was recently included in the list of Smart Cities thus ensuring that there would be interrupted power supply, proper waste management, efficient transportation systems, IT connectivity. We all know that buying a good home is an important personal decision since your entire life savings would be put in buying that dream home and you should have a sense of pride in address owing it.

Thane is the preferred destination for home buyers since it offers great physical infrastructure. Pokhran Road, located between Ghodbunder Road & Central Thane is considered the prized jewel of Thane and is also termed as the Malabar Hill of Thane. Malabar Hill is an upmarket residential area in southern Mumbai. Pokhran Road (precisely  Pokhran Road 2) provides a natural green environment, thanks to its close proximity to Yeoor hills & Upvan Lake.

Image Source – Yeoor Hills Waterfalls

While purchasing a dream home, buyers evaluate the locality based on connectivity, infrastructure as well as value creation and Pokhran Road offers much more than that! Several malls, hospitals, educational institutes are within easy reach due to which Pokhran Road 2 has received a lot of investor interest. It is located just ten minutes away from the railway station and Eastern express highway & Ghodbunder Road have added an icing on the cake, making it an ideal tourist and residential destination. Tourists can easily reach the famous Sanjay Gandhi national park from Pokhran Road. It is a coincidence that the postal code of Malabar Hill is 400006 & Pokhran road, Thane is 400610 🙂

Pokhran Road has projects from famous builders namely, Dosti Group, Ackruti, Cosmos, Neelkanth, etc and a lot of up-scale apartments have recently come up in the locality. The latest entrant in the list is Serein from Tata Housing that is located on Pokhran Road No 2, Thane West. It is set to re-define luxury and promises Homes that make a legacy.

Serein from Tata Housing: Living amidst affluence

Serein from the famous Tata Housing is located at Pokhran Road 2 and can be considered as the Epitome of luxury living. It is first of its kind project by Tata Housing that is centered around Wellness. The project has plenty of open spaces, a lot of greenery and breath-taking views. Amidst the busy city life, residents could enjoy the beauty of nature at Serein.

If you are a nature lover, there are plenty of reasons to buy a home at Serein since instead of frequenting malls; you can enjoy the chirping of birds, sounds of nature, etc. at Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Upvan lake, Yeoor hills that are located in close vicinity of the project.

Tata Serein has focused a lot on Wellness and they have gone an extra mile to ensure the well-being of its residents. Safety & security are also given utmost importance. Some of the steps taken by Tata Housing for ensuring sustainable wellness are below (Source):

  • Efficient designing of lighting system
  • Rain water harvesting system
  • Solar water heater
  • Use of low VOC material
  • Use of native species for landscaping
  • Centralized waste management system
  • Dehumidifiers
  • Vitamin C Showers
  • Daylight penetration

Amenities are a critical factor for the success of any project and Serein is loaded with tons of amenities. You would feel like living amidst affluence! Some of the amenities are below:

  • Organic garden with outdoor dining
  • Pet park
  • Nature trail
  • Jogging and Bicycle track
  • Tennis court
  • Skating rink

Importance has been given to minute detailing e.g. Usage of  Vitamin C showers enhance your skin and Solar heating cuts down the electricity bills! If you are looking for an ideal investment in the real-estate sector and want to enjoy the beauty of nature without giving up the benefits of city life, then you should definitely have a look at Serein from Tata Housing.

Though Pokhran Road is famously referred as Malabar hill of Thane with the arrival of the posh & luxurious Serein, it might be termed as #MalabarhillofThane!

For more details, please visit the official website of Serein from Tata Housing.

|In: Review|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy is an age-old adage that still holds a lot of relevance. For a matter of fact, this saying is becoming more & more relevant with changing times and one factor that has made this adage more relevant is Stress!  Stress, one word that lately each one of us can easily co-relate to. In this fast paced life, stress can sometimes get over you and can hamper your productivity & also your personal life. Stress levels have been on the rise and number of factors like increased work pressure, personal finance, peer pressure, instability in the world economy, etc. are some of the major contributors leading to it’s phenomenal rise 🙁 It is not only the adults who have stress, this menace is on the rise amongst children.

However, where there is stress there needs to be a stress buster, a way to calm your body and mind. The mechanism or methodology a person follows to beat stress is also unique e.g someone might find happiness in doing Yoga or reading or playing games or playing adventure sports, etc. My biggest stress buster is playing cricket since many times it becomes important to move away from our phones/laptops and have some fun.

Image Source – Kayaking

Talking about Adventure Sports, it is not only an effective way to beat fatigue but it is an industry that is garnering a lot of attention especially after PM Modi’s initiative of World Yoga Day. As per Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Tourism and Culture – Seeing tourist presence and investors interest, it seems adventure sports are the future of tourism in India. We honor Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to promote extreme sports. Our government, as well as the state government is committed to developing this region as a serene and safe spot for adventure sports [Source]. Adventure Tourism is also a burgeoning industry and the availability of low-cost airlines is acting as a catalyst for its growth. Vacation over beach side, sight seeing are loosing their Midas touch to adventure activities like skydiving, scuba diving, kayaking, etc.

As per a recent study about the Adventure Tourism Market

The international adventure tourism market is likely to grow at a fast pace during the forecast period and is anticipated to post a CAGR of more than 46% by 2020. Much of the segment’s growth can be attributed to the increased popularity of international holiday destinations among global tourists. This analyst forecast the global adventure tourism market to grow at a CAGR of 45.99% during the period 2016-2020. According to the adventure tourism market report, increased preference for adventure over other tourism activities will be a key driver for market growth.

Though India is not a very popular adventure tourism destination [when compared to Europe, other Asian countries, etc.], adventure sports like Paragliding, Mountain Biking, Scuba Diving and Kayaking in India are garnering popularity. Whitewater Kayaking is a niche sport and initiatives like Malabar River Festival by Kerala Kayak Academy and Madras Fun Tools acts as a medium to take this sport to Kayaking enthusiasts.

Since Kayaking and other such water sports have a niche fan following, availability of high-quality paddling equipment’s [both online and offline] could further boost the interest in the sport as well as adventure tourism. They are not even stocked [or not available] at sporting retailers like Decathlon. This core problem could only be solved by passionate & enthusiast kayakers as they not only love the sport but have also experienced this problem first-hand! Madras Fun Tools started by Jacopo Nordera, Manik Taneja, Raymond Shaw is the only online equipment store dedicated to the sport of White Water Kayaking where you could buy SUP in India.

Equipment’s available on Madras Fun Tools

Madras Fun tools specialize in distributing and retailing high-quality white-water & recreational kayaks, stand up paddle boards [SUP] from famous brands such a Dagger, AT paddles, Wavesport, etc. Enthusiasts can log on to Madras Fun Tools, place an order and get the order delivered at their doorstep. They have also established a partnership with Confluence Outdoor, #1 manufacturer of Kayaks, Canoes, and Accessories.

Niche e-commerce portals like Madras Fun Tools are solving a genuine problem that could otherwise clog the growth of the sport in India. If you are a sporting enthusiast with inclination towards white-water sports/adventure sports, you need not hamper your passion as high-quality kayaks in India are just a click away @ Madras Fun Tools

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A couple of years back, owning a car was considered a luxury and a distant dream for many of us but now the car has become a commodity! The rise in disposable personal income, higher aspirations of working middle class, easy access to loans and growth of the on-demand economy are some of the factors that have led to increased demand for cars in India.

As per a report from the Indian Brand Equity Foundation, sales of passenger vehicles increased by 16.7% to 258,000 units in August 2016 driven by better-than-expected monsoon and strong buying sentiment. Sales of commercial vehicles grew by 1.53 per cent to 52,996 units [Source]. These staggering figures definitely indicate that the auto industry in India is one of the largest in the world!

Image Source – Auto Market in India

Ever changing automobile market landscape

The automobile industry landscape is changing at a rapid pace and the shared mobility torch-bearers namely Uber, Ola are driving force behind this change. A couple of months back, Ola signed a deal with Mahindra and as mentioned by Mr. Mahindra – The auto industry will grow but will it grow as much as it would have in the absence of car sharing, definitely not. That will certainly affect the potential of the market. In a country like this, starved of infrastructure with urban congestion, may be that is a very good environmental solution. People will buy cars when they want it as a sign of aspiration. Given the very low penetration, a car park of only 30 million here, there is a clear opportunity to grow both fleet market and individual buyers’ market [Source]

Even though there is a burgeoning growth of the automobile industry, the automobile repair and services industry continues to remain highly unorganized. India’s car servicing industry is slated to be a Rs 33,000-crore business by 2020, up from Rs 20,000 crore now [Source]. Since the car services market is highly fragmented, car owners have to depend on local garages for repair & service and most of the times the experience might not turn out to be pleasant. Local garages using bogus spares, delayed delivery, lack of customer service & orientation, incomplete repair works creates an overall bad customer experience. However, thanks to the increasing penetration of internet, car owners can now avail important car services at a click of a button. Startups like Fulltank are on a journey to organize the automobile repair services market by Providing an exceptional on-demand car repair and service at the doorstep.

Fulltank – Important car services available on a click

Fulltank is a car service provider currently operational in Bengaluru and Coimbatore. Whether your car broke down on a highway & you need assistance or you want to avail important services like a car wash, buying tyres, stepney change, etc. right from the comfort of your home, Fulltank would come to your rescue.

Unlike local garage shops, the spare parts used by Fulltank are 100% genuine. Their services are 24*7 available via their Android & iOS app. They also provide immediate assistance for any Break downs, Punctures, Fuel Out, Flat Tyre, Towing, etc. that happens all of a sudden in your vehicle.

Fulltank – Roadside Assistance, Chauffeurs, Car Insurance and more

Apart from being a handy companion in emergency situations, Fulltank also provides a gamut of services listed below:

Roadside Assistance – Be it fixing a puncture, towing a vehicle or replacing tyres, Fulltank provides all these services at the convenience of your fingertips. It charges a nominal fee for the service being provided. They have on-boarded verified mechanics who ensure that your car remains in awesome condition even after service!

Chauffeurs – Sitting in a car becomes an experience only if the steering is controlled by the right person. In order to provide an exceptional experience, FullTank offers chauffeurs rental service. The chauffeurs present on their platform possess good competency and clean driving record.

Maintenance Services – They provide comprehensive maintenance services such as scheduled 10000 km, 20000 km, oil change, etc. Fulltank also assists its customers with car insurance, car service, car wash as well as repair.

In a nutshell, Fulltank has a range of services built for well-being of your car

Fulltank – Mobile app for your car service needs

As mentioned earlier, the Fulltank app is available on Android as well as iOS. The app has user-friendly interface and once you download the app, you need to enter the car details [like the brand, car number, engine type, etc.] in Fulltank. Availability of some of the services like tyre replacement, battery replacement, stepney change, etc. might vary across different car models.

To top it all, in order to delight it’s customers Fulltank would offer up to 71% off on car wash services with free pickup & drop once you complete the following survey. #BeaHero and join the fight against the industry villains by downloading the Fulltank app. If you have used services from Fulltank, please leave your feedback in the comments section.

As it is rightly said by Alexandra Paul

The cars we drive says a lot about us

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Each one of us has dreams and milestones to achieve, whether it is on the personal front or professional front. Very few of us get to that target due to various reasons since life can sometimes be topsy-turvy. Though all of us would have encountered our fair share of failures [which is very important], the learnings from those failures still remain with us and a wiser person ensures that the same mistakes are not repeated. When you face challenges and come across failures, always Raise Up and fight back.

You Raise Me Up by Arjun Hemmady is based on the same premise where Aalok Sharma, a 27-year-old Chartered Accountant falls for a girl named Priyanka Mehra. Aalok and Priyanka are two different personalities and the book highlights their respective journeys. Will Aalok confess his love and affection for Priyanka or not, the novel You Raise Me Up provides answers to these questions.

About the author

Arjun Hemmady completed his schooling from St. Mary’s ICSE [Mazgaon] and College from RA Podar College of Commerce and Economics. He is pursuing his Chartered Accountancy from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India [ICAI]. His past times include writing, reading books, and watching movies. He works in a manufacturing company. You can find more about the author here

Detailed Review

As mentioned earlier, the main protagonists of the book are Aalok Sharma and Priyanka Mehra. Aalok is 27 years old chartered accountant and is an introvert by nature. He has been through lots of ups & downs in life. Priyanka is a Dehradun born girl who stays in Delhi and works in the legal department of Mahindra & Mahindra.

The story unfolds with Aalok accidentally meeting Priyanka on a flight from Delhi to Mumbai and as shown in Bollywood movies, it is love at first sight 🙂 As it is said opposites attract and both of them get along very well, right from the first discussion they have on the flight.

But having gone through a rough patch in life, Aalok takes each step very carefully whereas Priyanka is very open about his love for Aalok. Like a romantic movie, the first part of the book showcases the feeling of love and hesitance between Aalok & Priyanka. The second part of the book takes us back in time [10 years] and introduces three more characters – Aalok’s parents, twin sister Isha & family friend Tanvi Rao. We liked that the female characters are etched positively and show a lot of grit: Isha is a kick-boxing champion and Priyanka is into wrestling.

Aalok marries Tanvi and their life goes through a tough patch since Aalok is not able to give more time to Tanvi due to work pressure. In order to release stress, Tanvi becomes alcoholic which doesn’t go well with Aalok and they file for a divorce. The third part of the book brings the story out of flashback where Aalok’s sister Isha forces him to inform Priyanka about his past which he is hiding from her. As expected, Priyanka leaves Aalok and this is where Isha decides to play the role of Cupid [and tells her brother to always Look Up & never Give Up]. Isha meets Priyanka, has a kickboxing match with her and finally manages to convince Priyanka 🙂 In spite of Aalok’s dreadful past, Priyanka accepts Aalok. Aalok’s ex-wife Tanvi also gives up alcoholism and moves with Shashank, her good friend since college days.

They then live happily ever after 🙂

Closing Thoughts

The story is written in simple English, though sometimes it becomes predictable. The reader can easily visualize Aalok’s agony in not being able to accept his feelings for Priyanka. The divorce between Aalok & Tanvi happens without much drama which was required else it would have dragged the story unnecessarily!

The author Arjun Hemmady has admitted that he has never been in any relationship nor watched any romantic movie nor read any romantic novel and in our opinion, this worked in his favor in some of the cases. Raise Me Up is a breezy read and the romantic novel is targeted to the youth. Though in some places, the storyline becomes completely flat but overall it is a story that a reader can easily co-relate to!

Final Verdict – 3.5/5

Thanks to Arjun Hemmady for sending a review copy of You Raise Me Up. You Raise Me Up is available on Flipkart and Amazon, links below