Ponty Chadha: Rags-to-Riches story

18 NOV, 2012, 10.18AM IST, PERVEZ IQBAL SIDDIQUI,TNN Ponty Chadha: Snack seller to liquor badshahLUCKNOW: From selling snacks outside a country liquor shop in Adarsh Nagar area of Moradabad in early 60s to becoming an undisputed booze baron of Uttar Pradesh, Gurdeep Singh Chadha's transition to Ponty Chadha, the owner of a Rs 6,000 crore empire, is a typical rags-to-riches story.

Ponty's death in a shootout at their Chattarpur (near Mehrauli in Delhi) farm house on Saturday in which his brother Hardeep was also killed, will perhaps end up as an isolated case that is sure to leave its impact on government policies in Uttar Pradesh and beyond. Ponty was among a few who was as close to Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati as he was toSamajwadi Party (SP) president Mulayam Singh Yadav. Known for keeping a low public profile, Chadha was rarely in news for anything other than his business deals. It was this phantom-like quality that intrigued media the most. He would visit UP chief minister at Lucknow at 6 am and would be fire fighting business deals at his 10 acre farmhouse in Chattarpur (Delhi) and reading religious before breakfast two hours later. Though he was often seen dressed in Armani designers but was also equally comfortable wearing casuals particularly at home.

People say it was Ponty's nack to work the system to his advantage that brought him the business that he owned. The urge to make it big was so strong that the disability in both hands, which were a result of suffering from electric shock while flying kites as a child, could not hold him back from realizing his dreams.

Chadha took his first big leap during the regime of Mulayam Singh Yadav as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2007. As CM, Mulayam inaugurated his Wave mallcum-multiplex in Lucknow. But Chadha's empire saw a exponential growth after Mayawati handed over liquor licences to him in 2009 which gave him the monopoly over the liquor trade in the state.

The guest list for the marriage of Ponty's daughter Harleen to Harmann in February this year itself speaks of the connections that he had with the political bigwigs in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Punjab and Maharashtra and Delhi as well. Right from the Akali Dal's Sukhbir Badal and Congressman Amarinder Singhfrom Punjab to former Haryana chief minister Om Prakash Chautala, Samajwadi Party leader Ramgopal Yadav, BSP ex-MP Akbar Ahmad Dumpy and Delhi minister AS Lovely were present to bless the newly weds.
Industrialist Vijay Mallya and businessman Suresh Nanda also rubbed shoulders with the 2,000-odd guests at their farmhouse in Chhattarpur where Ponty and his brother fell to bullets on Saturday. Both Mayawati and Mulayam however were concipicuous by their absence.

Just a few days before that income-tax sleuths had raided his establishments across UP, Delhi and NCR. although the raids couldn't yield much, his connections in the right places ensured that the finance ministryreplaced SS Rana with Madhavan Nair as member investigation in the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) shortly after the much publicized "search-and-survey". It is believed that it was the controversy over Chadha's companies being allocated a number of hydro power projects in Uttarakhand that added to the eventual ouster of Pokhriyal as CM.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/ponty-chadha-snack-seller-to-liquor-badshah/articleshow/17263995.cms

Anand Jain's realty funds irk investors

Low returns on Anand Jain's realty funds irk investors

Management asked for reasons state of sector blamed

Dev Chatterjee / Mumbai Nov 19, 2012, 00:58 IST Investors of Jai Corp’s two realty funds — Urban Infrastructure Opportunities Fund (UIOF) and Urban Infrastructure Real Estate Fund (UIREF) — are irked over low returns. The funds have invested in a slew of real estate projects across India over the past six years. Some investors have met the top management, led by Jai CorpChairman Anand Jain, seeking better returns for the funds. Some of the marquee investors in the domestic fund included Life Insurance Corporation, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank. Investors say they are worried as the performances of both funds have failed to match the projections made when launched. “We met Jain in Mumbai, asking a lot of questions on the performance. We were told the funds would need more time for giving positive returns,” an investor told Business Standard. Email questionnaires to Anand Jain on Friday and Saturday did not elicit any response. Jain was unavailable for comments in spite of several text messages and telephone calls. But an insider told Business Standard that due to high interest rates, high debt and a slowdown in the economy, many real estate projects are stuck and are unable to get completed in time. The company source said the company bought back units worth Rs 322 crore from many investors who wanted to exit the fund. In fact, achieving exits have been difficult for the entire private equity (PE) real estate segment, with about only 20 per cent of investments getting exits till now, the source said. In the current financial year, the funds would continue to explore exits from the portfolio investments and execution of the projects. In 2006, Jain had launched UIOF with a tenure of seven years. The funds raised close to Rs 2,434-crore and invested in 34 special purpose vehicles in 15 cities in India. A year later, Jain also launched UIREF, an offshore fund of $295 million. The fund with eight-year-old tenure raised funds from international investors in the high-risk, high-return Indian realty sector. Anand Jain is a close friend of Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani and is also an investor in a special economic zone project in Maharashtra with his listed company, Jai Corp. Jain does not hold any position in Reliance Industries. Experts say early PE investors in the real estate sector are now feeling the heat. A Jones Lang LaSalle report said investments in real estate by funds are marred by lack of transparency and information asymmetry. “PE players used to look towards primarily high-return, due to lack of means and precedence to detail the risk factor in India. This underestimation of risk and subsequent overheating of the real estate sector have made them revert to stringent risk profiling tests,” the report said. Adding: “Early investors having been saddled with delayed project executions and low demand in major Indian cities, funds are now undertaking a more detailed analysis of risks.” In 2009, the income tax department had investigated Jai Corp and the investments made by the two funds in real estate projects in various tier-II cities. The matter is pending. http://www.businessstandard.com/india/news/low-returnsanand-jain039s-realty-funds-irk-investors/492935/

Emotional Quotient - Leadership Success.....

Shyamal Majumdar: Are you emotionally intelligent?

Make no mistake, EQ is central to success in leadership and not just a touchy-feely trend

Shyamal Majumdar / Mumbai Nov 09, 2012, 00:12 IST

The All India Council for Technical Education has made a good beginning by deciding to test the emotional quotient (EQ) of aspiring management graduates in the Common Management Admission Test that it conducts every year for 3,700 management institutions (excluding the IIMs) in the country. For, every single reputed MBA (Master of Business Administration) institute all over the world has been testing EQ of candidates for ages.

To understand what testing EQ is about, take a look at some sample questions (taken from one of the past test papers for management trainees in a multinational company):

“Please be honest to yourself and mark in the appropriate box whether the following descriptions about you are true or false: 1) I am not satisfied with my work unless someone praises it; 2) I avoid fights, expressing my opinion, or doing what I want for fear that I will upset others or lose their love/friendship; 3) When I need to do something difficult or unpleasant, I find it hard to motivate myself to get started”.

There are no right or wrong answers; you just have to tick mark whether they are true or false.
It’s easy to dismiss such tests as a gimmick and treat EQ as a touchy-feely trend that doesn’t tell you anything worthwhile. But that would be wrong becauseemotional intelligence (EI) is the structure that supports effective responses to events, people, and change as you go up the professional ladder. The EQ score gives an idea about whether you already have it in you to be in a future leadership role or can be trained to have it. A Time magazine article put it more effectively: IQ (intelligence quotient) gets you hired, but EQ gets you promoted.
This could well be true, as many companies are finding out. For example, research by the Carnegie Institute of Technology showed that 85 per cent of your financial success is due to skills in human engineering, your personality and ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead. And, just 15 per cent is due to technical knowledge. HR consultancy Hay Group also says EI has a significant impact on performance in many different situations. For example, software developers with high EI levels can develop effective software three times faster than others; sales consultants with high EI generate twice the revenue of colleagues; hiring sales staff with high EI rates halved the first-year dropout rate for a national furniture retailer; experienced partners in a multinational consulting firm who were assessed on their EI levels delivered 139 per cent more profit from their accounts than other partners; and oil refinery managers who participated in the Hay Group EI development programme over two years showed a 20 per cent increase in performance compared to colleagues.
And, Daniel Goleman, who popularised EQ through his book, Emotional Intelligence, has said people with highly developed EQ are usually self-smart — they are able to make sense of what they do and why they do. Goleman also claimed that 20 per cent of success in life is down to IQ and 80 per cent to EQ.
Though many critics have argued that these precise claims have little or no scientific evidence to back them up, no one can argue against the basic premise that EI is central to success in leadership. For example, research has shown two people with the same IQ have had varying results in their career path in almost the same environment. While one became highly successful, the other fell by the wayside unable to cope with the challenges in the senior executive suite.
The good part is unlike one’s level of IQ, which changes very little from childhood, EQ includes skills that can be learnt. That’s precisely why more and more companies are adding emotional competency to their performance benchmarks.
But make no mistake. Harvard Business Review says a team with emotionally intelligent members does not necessarily make for an emotionally intelligent group. A team, like any social group, takes on its own character. So, creating an upward, self-reinforcing spiral of trust, group identity, and group efficacy requires more than a few members who exhibit emotionally intelligent behaviour. It requires a team atmosphere in which the norms build emotional capacity (the ability to respond constructively in emotionally uncomfortable situations) and influence emotions in constructive ways.
The most important part, experts say, is to have EQ embedded in the DNA of the organisation. For example, you are transferring a person after giving him promotion. While a low EQ-company won’t bother about it as it considers the promotion as a high reward in itself, a high-EQ company will also take into consideration the impact that the transfer would have on the employee’s private life. It doesn’t mean the employee would not be transferred with promotion, but the organisation will make sure he either gets enough opportunity to visit his family or facilitate the shifting of his family.
These are little things, but can have a telling effect on your employer brand value.

http://www.businessstandard.com/india/news/bshyamal-majumdarbyou-emotionally-intelligent/492062/

Green Tea for good health

10 reasons why you should drink green tea

Last Updated: Monday, November 05, 2012,18:2

t’s official that tea is good for your health. So go ahead and relish that hot cup of green tea to realize its power and enjoy its numerous health benefits.
Helps you lose weight
If you want to cut those extra inches around your tummy, switching to green tea could be a simpler way. A new study shows that green tea extract increases the rate of calorie burning by the body. It reduces blood fat, cholesterol, bloated ness, detoxifies the body and suppresses untimely food cravings. Enabled with diuretic properties, it also eliminates excess water and thereby reduces excess weight. So the best way to get rid of that paunch is to have green tea along with the right amount of bodily exercise.Boosts exercise endurance 
According to scientists, antioxidants present in green tea extracts increase body’s ability to burn fat as fuel which accounts for improved muscle endurance. It also enhances energy levels and boosts your metabolism.
Reduces the risk of heart attack
Drinking green tea rapidly improves the health of body cells lining the blood vessels and also helps in lowering one`s risk for heart disease.The flavonoids present in this tea protect the heart by relaxing the blood vessels so blood can flow more easily.So,protect your heart and have green tea on a regular basis.
Fights against various cancers
The antioxidants in tea helps protect against a shipload of cancers, including breast, colon, colorectal, skin, lung, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, pancreas, liver, ovarian, prostate and oral cancers. Green tea extract is reported to induce cancer cell death and starve tumours by curbing the growth of new blood vessels that feed them.Hydration benefits
If you love drinking green tea then there is good news for you.Contrary to common belief that tea dehydrates,green tea provides hydration benefits similar to water.Tea not only rehydrates as well as water does, it also has many other health benefits.
Protection from harmful ultraviolet rays
The sun’s UV rays in summer act as a constant threat. Green tea is rich in antioxidants that scavenge harmful free radicals in the body according to researches. Also using green tea extracts along with your sunscreen could afford you the greatest level of sun protection.
Keeps Diabetes in check
Green tea can do wonders to a person suffering from diabetes.Green tea apparently helps regulate glucose levels slowing the rise of blood sugar. It also triggers and stimulates insulin production and activates the functioning of pancreas to some extent.Blood sugar level in the body is also normalized and regularized by the use of green tea. Prevention and treatment of neurological diseasesPolyphenols in green tea may help maintain the parts of brain that regulate learning and memory. So, regular consumption of green tea could help in prevention of degenerative and neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson`s.
Anti- Ageing benefits
Antioxidants found in green tea fight free radicals thereby keeping a check on ageing and promoting longevity.Because it contains high levels of oligomeric proanthocyanidins one of the most powerful antioxidants, Green Tea is thought to help slow down the premature ageing process.Boosts your immunity
Polyphenols and Flavonoids present in green tea boost the immune system to make the human body stronger in fighting various infections. Also, Vitamin C present in green tea keeps cold and flu away.
(Compiled by:Ritu Singh)

First Published: Sunday, November 04, 2012, 21:15

http://zeenews.india.com/news/health/healthy-eating/10-reasons-why-you-should-start-drinking-green-tea_19497.html

ENJOY...Healthy heart can add 14 years to your life...

Tue, Nov 06, 2012 at 14:52

Healthy heart can add 14 years to your life: Study

People with optimal heart health in middle age may live up to 14 years longer, according to a new study.

people with optimal heart health in middle age may live up to 14 years longer, according to a new study. Researchers from the Northwestern University found that keeping cardiovascular disease risk factors low may lead to healthier life. The study found that those who had a healthy heart lived 14 years longer, free of cardiovascular disease than their peers who had two or more cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors."We found that many people develop cardiovascular disease as they live into old age, but those with optimal risk factor levels live disease-free longer," said John T Wilkins, first author of the study. "We need to do everything we can to maintain optimal risk factors so that we reduce the chances of developing cardiovascular disease and increase the chances that we'll live longer and healthier," Wilkins said in a statement.Researchers pulled data from five different cohorts included in the Cardiovascular Lifetime Risk Pooling Project and looked at the participants' risk of all forms of fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular disease from ages 45, 55 and 65 through 95 years of age.All participants were free of CVD at entry into the study and data on the following risk factors was collected: blood pressure, total cholesterol, diabetes and smoking status.

The primary outcome measure for the study was any CVD event (including fatal and nonfatal coronary heart disease, all forms of stroke, congestive heart failure, and other CVD deaths).The study found that men in middle age had lifetime risks of approximately 60 per cent for developing cardiovascular disease while for middle age women the risk was approximately 56 percent. Lifetime risks for cardiovascular disease were strongly associated with risk factor burden in middle age, the study found.The research was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/health/healthy-heart-can-add-14-years-to-your-lifestudy_778292.html