Railway Budget 2015 Live. Highlights & Key Announcements

Indian Railway Budget will be unveiled by Railway minister, Shri, Suresh Prabhu today. We will be bringing you Highlights and key announcements about this budget live as it happens.

So, what are common man’s expectation from this Railway Budget? Reduction of fares? No Fare hikes? Bullet trains? Internet connectivity on trains? new routes? modernization? Cleanliness? We will find out shortly.

Railway Budget 2015 Live. Highlights & Key Announcements

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– 1000MV Solar plants to be set-up by developers on land and on railway building via private partnerships.

– A full-fledged university will be setup during 2015-16

– Rs. 2000 cr for Coastal Connectivity Program; Rs.2500 cr through BOT/Annuity route. 1000 MWSolar plant; 100DEMUs to dual fuel

– Indian Railways will monetize its assets rather than sell them

– Process & procedures simplified to prevent delays; Internal Audit will be conducted of Railway systems

– Indian Railways will decentralise, deregulate and delegate to make freight business simpler

– Framework to facilitate private investment has been completed; MUTP-III, JV with states and PSUs

– Corporate safety Plans to be introduced; ISRO to be involved, 3438 level crossings to be eliminated, Railway expense will be increased by 2600 %

– The transformation of Railways will have huge opportunities for ‘Make In India’ campaign

– Speedier Railways – 9 hi-speed corridors to be introduced, high speed trains

– Private freight terminals reviewing of WLS, SFTO, PFT schemes under process; automatic freight rebate system launched and to be expanded

– A new State of the art perishable cargo center coming up for farmers.

– 1330% increase in railway electrification over previous year.

– Removing Bottlenecks – 100% more funds allocated for the same.

– To create Fast tracks is highest priority. Budgetary allocation 84% higher; 77 new projects -Doubling, tripling/quadrupling/ electrification

– New Satellite railway terminals in major cities – 10 select stations in 2015-16

– Station to be redeveloped through simpler processes – faster redevelopment. Monitoring cell constitute

– 400 Railway Stations will have Internet WiFi facility

– Now you can book rail tickets 4 months ( 120 days) in advance against current 60 days

– Station redevelopment of select stations to be processed through simpler processors for faster redevelopment

– Request all MPs to use a part of their funds to improve the customer amenities at the platform

– Allocation of 67 percent more funds allotted for passenger amenities

– 120 crore has been provided for new installation of new lifts and escalators to facilitate movements

– Modern trains called “Train sets”, which will save 20% journey time within next 2 years

– 24 to 26 coaches will be introduced in certain identified trains, more general class coaches and existing ladders to be replaced

– Modern facilities for disabled citizens, senior citizens, patients through IRCTC

– Surveillance cameras on select mainline and ladies compartments

– SMS alert on mobile, customer portal promoting digital India campaign –

– Unreserved ticket purchase made simpler through smart phones & debit cards

– All india 24 X 7 helpline number 138 from 1/3/15 ; Toll free No.182 – for security complaints

– Railways has Collaborated with NIFT and NID for better bed rolls, inner coach designs

– New Bio-toilets will replace the existing ones, nearly 18000 of them in this year.

– No increment in Passenger Fares

– It is important to harness the talent of our rail employees through training and development

– To increase track capacity by 14% to 138,000 km:

- Goal 1-Customer experience to receive a huge boost, Goal 2 – Safer Travel, Goal 3 -Modernize infrastructure; Goal 4- Indian Railways- Financially self-sustainable

– Good governance emerges out of participative governance

– People’s involvement very high with railways

– Emphasis on increasing capacity on high density networks.

– 492 section of Railways are running at a capacity of more than 100%; 228 running between 80-100%

- 12:10pm: Budget Starts

- 11:46am:

- 11:30am: We will update it as it happens.. the budget is yet to start.

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Micromax Sends Out Feelers to Alibaba, Softbank. Considering Partial/ Complete Sellout

One of India’s largest homegrown handset vendors, Micromax, is rumoured to be exploring various strategic options at present. The producer of budget smartphones and feature phones, who were earlier toying with the idea of an IPO, has now hinted that they are looking at several other possibilities.

Working on the advice of Goldman Sachs, the company has indicated that it might be willing to sell a significant minority stake in the company or even sell the total business entity, if their valuation expectations are met. Various sources placed at the highest echelons of the company who are aware of the plans have been able to divulge only those details for now, on the conditions of anonymity.

“A stake sale of at least 26% now will also have a clear roadmap to a change of control.This will be a strategic and not a financial investor. You need a professional management to run the company during transition or even afterwards. But the promoters are also exploring selling out completely provided they get their premium,”said one of those cited above.

The IPO plan, around which the entire course of action of the company seemed to be revolving till late 2014, then suddenly seemed to have fizzled out.

Micromax is already said to have sent out feelers regard this proposed partial/ complete sellout to the richest man in China (the Alibaba founder owner Jack Ma) and the richest man in Japan (Softbank founder owner Masayoshi Son).

The promoters of this indigenous brand are looking for a valuation of $3-3.5 billion or as much as Rs 21,000 crore which is 2.5-2.9 times FY14 total income of Rs 7142 crore ($1.1 billion), according to Registrar of Companies (RoC) filings. It posted EBITDA of Rs 439 crore and profit after tax of Rs 284 crore that year.

Major Shareholders in Micromax

Micromax was founded in 2000 by four entrepreneurs- Rahul Sharma, Rajesh Agarwal, Sumeet Kumar and Vikas Jain—to supply mobile phone parts to Nokia. Taking rapid strides, the company soon started making affordable but feature-rich branded handsets of its own and became a force to reckon with in the Indian market, inspite of Apple and Samsung sitting pretty on the top of the table.

In 2010, the company got funds worth Rs 225 crore from TA Associates after being valued at Rs 1,500 crore. Buying up 15 percent of the company, the investing firm came on board five years back.

Sandstone Capital and Sequoia Capital own a 2.68% stake each. A 0.4% share is owned by Madison India Capital while China based Spreadtrum Communications, a fab-less semiconductor provider, also went on to invest $10 million in the company in 2012.

At present, the four founder owners own a little less than 80% of the company. Last year when the company was thinking in terms of an IPO, they had gone on to hire Bharti Airtel veteran Badal Bagri, former Bharti Airtel top honcho Sanjay Kapoor and Samsung India mobile head Vineet Taneja, hoping they together would help propel the company to greater heights and build a bigger brand before an IPO.

“For the last few years, the founding promoters have taken a backseat and have allowed Kapoor (who is now the Chairman ) and his team of senior professionals (obvious reference to Vineet Taneja, the current CEO) to run the operations for them,” said an insider.

Micromax Market Position at Present

The Gurgaon based company which has today come a long way from being a supplier of mobile parts a decade and a half back to the Number One player in the Indian mobile market, putting even the likes of Samsung behind them, is certainly placed at a very enviable position right now.

Having sold 3 million handsets (of which 45 percent were smartphones), the sales are at an all time high but there is a lot more going in into the valuation of the company than probably meets the eye.

The Chinese etailer Alibaba which is on an acquisition spree after buying an unspecified minority stake in a Chinese handset maker Meizu Technology Co for $590 million might show some love for the Indian manufacturer to milk in on its YunOS.

Softbank, the Japanese communications giant, has also been betting highly on tech companies and internet based projects with Indian roots in the last few months, Snapdeal being one of their most loved projects.

Rising manufacturing costs in China and the growing challenge to Android from the Cyanogen platform will also be major influencing factors.

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OnePlus Brings 16GB Version To India For 18,999, Priced 1k lesser Than Mi4

The much talked about OnePlus One is now available in India in 16GB version and it is priced Rs. 1000 below Xiaomi Mi4, it’s closest competitor in Indian Smartphone Market.

As per the announcement made by OnePlus on their forum today, the 16GB silk white version of OnePlus One will be available in India for a price of Rs. 18,999.

OnePlus One was first launched in India couple of months back, but had only bought their high end 64GB version priced at Rs. 21,999 and was exclusively sold on Amazon in their customary invitation-only based model.

The 64GB version has got overwhelming response, and even after two months of launch many are still scampering for OnePlus invites. According to our estimates, even with invitation only model, they have managed to sell over 65,000 phones in India (see how we arrived at that figure).

The OnePlus One Silk white version does not have difference in terms of specifications, except that it has 16GB space and is priced Rs. 3000 lower. The 4G Silk White OnePlus One is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and features a 13 megapixel rear camera and 3100 mAh battery. Differing only in storage capacity, the 16GB Silk White One lives up to its Flagship Killer moniker and is an equal match for its 64GB Sandstone Black counterpart in power and performance.

Like in case of 64Gb, the Silk White OnePlus One will also be available on invite. The same invite can be used for either the 64GB version of the 16GB version. If you want to get an invite, you should visit OnePlus’ Indian Facebook page or the OnePlus Forum to participate in a contest to receive an invite today.

If you already have an invite, you can start making purchase of 16GB version from tomorrow (February 24th) on Amazon.in.

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ECommerce Sector will Witness Sharpest Salary Hikes This Year: Report

Reeling under heavy losses and relying largely upon fresh funds to go on with their operations and aggressive marketing strategies does not seem to deter e-commerce majors from giving unprecedented salary hikes to their best performing employees.

Almost all employees working with e-commerce companies can expect a 12.4% hike on their salaries this year while the top performers might get upto double that amountof increment. This is expected to be the healthiest and the best pay raise to employees anywhere in India.

Aon Hewitt’s Annual Salary Increase Survey in India has, after covering 580 companies across the length and breadth of the country, predicted a ‘cautious’ 10-6% raise across various sectors. The increment hike charts produced by the company show e-commerce sector on top, followed closely by infrastructure, life sciences and media.

The salary hikes, say experts, have been fuelled by changing sentiments. As the e-commerce sector in India, inspite of being in the umbilical stage, is bubbling with activity, the employee expectations have gone up too.

“The increment expected by the average employee of ecommerce sector is 26% more than what he got last year,” points out the report.

Anandorup Ghose, rewards consulting practice leader at Aon Hewitt India, who has been observing the trends across several vertical for a long period of time now, draws our attention to the steep hikes seen by the telecom sector in 2005. He says that ‘excess optimism or froth’ in any sector is followed by a period of stabilization.

Salary increase is happening in established and matured ecommerce players, he said.

The survey also helps highlight the fact that the salary hikes will be linked to performances and not rolled out to everyone working for the company. While the best performers in ecommerce sector will get an increment which is upto 2.3 times morethan that of their other colleagues who just managed to ‘meet expectations’, the best performers in other industries will see a raise of 1.6 times more than their average counterparts.

At a time when these sectors are witnessing unprecedented growth, which is expected to interpolate into the future as well, no employer would want their best brains or most industrious performers to move on to join another platform. Worse still, a rival.

Keeping this in mind, mobile payments and ecommerce platform Paytm proposes a salary hike of upto 30% raise for its best employees while those who met their expectations or targets will get a hike of 15-20 percent, an increase over the 13-15 percent rolled out to them over the previous year.

“We need to retain the best because there are many who want to join ecommerce from other sectors but very few who have the skills that we need. We have to train them and therefore cannot lose (to competition),” said Amit Sinha, VP, people and business for Paytm.

Echoing the same sentiment, Ashu Malhotra, vice president and chief human resources officer (CHRO) at Jabong, also said that salary is one of the most important factors that helps in drawing and retaining the best talent.

The proposed salary hikes also come at a time when Indian employers have taken to doling out generous bonuses by way of all expenses paid foreign vacations, cars and, the most recent case, the highly desired iPhone 6 devices to reward those driving growth.

KPMG India partner Ashvin Vellody, who tracks ecommerce, attributes sharp rises in the rate of salary increments to the major players in the sector scaling up their operations in both B2B and B2C sector in the coming period, because of which it becomes imperative for them to attract the best brains while making sure that the ones already aboard the team do not quit as they see greener pastures elsewhere.

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Indian Mobile Phone Landscape: 95 Brands Launched 1137 New Phones In 2014!

The mobile phone landscape in India is on steep rise, even after about a decade of incessant growth, and from the looks of it, it does not look like it will slow down anytime soon.

Just to give you an idea of the growth, around 95 phone brands launched 1137 new phone models in 2014. This means 3 new phones were launched everyday throughout the year in 2014!  In comparison, 957 new phones were launched in 2015, a growth of nearly 20 percent.

The mobile phone landscape report released by 91mobiles.com found that not only the growth in number of mobile phones has been tremendous, even the average price of the phones has increased by almost 18% over the course of the year.

One of the reasons for the phenomenal growth has been that new and resurgent brands like Xiaomi, Motorola and Lenovo grew sharply in their popularity.

Interestingly, Indian and International brands both grew at same pace. However, number of new phones launched by Indian brands were more than double that of International brands (476 vs 215).

Online Only Model, A Big Hit!

Selling online only model grew sharply in popularity over the course of the year. Searches made by users in regards to online-only models grew from less than 5 percent in February to almost 20 percent by the end of the year.

Popularity of Smartphones in Budget Segments

Smartphones in the Budget segment (Rs. 5k to Rs. 15k) were most popular and new entrants to Indian market mostly attacked this segment. Brands like Obi, Oppo, Asus Mi and Motorola each launched multiple phone models in this segment in India.

Compared to previous year, 2014 saw the popularity of budget segment rise by over 13 percentage points. Popularity of budget smartphones grew from 46% in 2013 to close to 60% in 2014.

While the overall mobile price witnessed a 18 percent rise, when it came to Smartphones, the average selling price of smartphones fell by 19 percent over the course of the year. The average selling price of the smartphones in January 2014 wasRs. 8,118, which came down to about Rs. 6,603 by December 2014.

Failure of Android One Initiative

Google’s much talked about Android One initiative launched last year did not find too many takers. Multiple Android One Smartphones were launched by multiple brands, but none of them even made to top 100 phones on the basis of popularity on 91mobile.com website. The price point of the phones at Rs. 6000 was still higher than what Indians had expected and hence not many people went for these phone.

In addition to this launch of feature rich phones at lower price point like Redmi 1S severely dented their demand.

Same Spec’ed phones Price halved in One Year

In 2014, with arrival of value for money phones from Asus, Motorola, Mi and Huawei, the high specification phones witnessed price fall by more than half. Cheapest full HD phone in 2013 was priced at Rs. 15k, the price for same came down to Rs. 8k in 2014. Cheapest quad-core phone price came down from Rs. 5.5k to Rs. 3.5k. Check out the comparison below.

Other Key Highlights

• Despite the smartphone segment being abuzz, feature phone launches kept growing.
• Indian brands grew in the sub-15k range, but felt the heat from international names in the 15k+ segment
• International brands virtually vacated the entry-level segment (below Rs 5k) and shifted their focus to higher-range devices
• Karbonn launched maximum number of smartphones in 2014 followed by Intex, Micromax, Lava and XOLO.
• International brands dominated when it came to launches priced above Rs 15,000. Samsung, LG and HTC all launched 12 phones in that category
• Samsung focused in the above 25k segment, and reduced launches in all segments below 25k
• Micromax started moving up the value chain from feature phones to smartphones
• Samsung still had most popular smartphones in all 3 segments – Budget, mid and high.
• 60% of all smartphones launched in 2014 were powered by quad-core and above processors
• Phablets constitute ~60% of all devices in the super-premium segment (above 35k)
• Over 60% of devices above Rs 5k packed in a gigabyte or more of RAM
• Smartphones with 13-megapixel and above registered massive growth
• 35 phones launched across all price segments in 2014 were slimmer than iPhone 5s

You can check out the entire report from 91mobiles.com here.

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Your Facebook Likes Can Reveal Your Emotional Instability & Desire For Alcohol

Two scintillating, and hard hitting psychological studies have been conducted on the human psychology behind Facebook usage, and the results are surprising. The likes, comments and status updates are much more than simple clicks and taps – they are in fact like that crystal ball which can reveal what is going inside the user’s minds.

If we believe the results coming out from these studies, then it seems that Facebook holds the key to understand human behavioral weaknesses; and the journey has just started.

Relationship Fears, Emotional Instability & Facebook Likes

Do you know any Facebook user who frequently posts on Facebook, sometimes after every couple of hours? Does he or she post comments and likes on other’s posts after every 5 minutes, leaving no one from the newsfeed? Does his or her comments are self-centric, narcissist and attention-grabbing?

Chances are that there is some kind of relationship issues, and what that person is actually doing is seeking validation of their thinking and assurance to calm their nerves.

These starling results were derived from a study titled: “Attachment theory as a framework for explaining engagement with Facebook”. It was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

The results from the study show that relationship insecurity leads to hyper activity on Facebook. Such people needs lot of self-assurance that they are loved and pampered, and are generally very sensitive to other people’s views about them.

Joshua Hart, associate professor of psychology at Union College and the lead author of the study said, “Compared to more secure people, those higher in attachment anxiety are more feedback sensitive. They report feeling much better about themselves when they get a lot of comments, likes and other feedback on their posts and worse about themselves when their Facebook activity generates little attention.”

The study concluded that there are basically two types of persons on Facebook:

a) Those who are higher in attachment anxiety, and
b) Who are higher in extraversion.

The study primarily analyzes the A category Facebook users, for finding out the reasons which force them to fulfill their emotional and relationship needs on the Internet.

About those persons who are extrovert in nature, and are very active on Facebook, the study doesn’t derive any psychological conclusions, and have left an opening for future research.

The study interviewed 600 people in the age group 18-85 years, seeking their actual relationship status and problems in real life, and analyzed their Facebook posting habits to derive the results.

Desire for Alcohol & Facebook Posts

Researchers from Michigan University selected 400 students, and showed them three Facebook Pages, which had alcohol marketing posts, paired with: a) An image which glorified and promoted drinking alcohol; b) A graphics which was an anti-drinking campaign created by public service department and c) A non-alcohol ad such as advertisement for banking or mutual funds.

It was observed that those who liked/commented or shared these alcohol marketing post paired with an image which encouraged drinking, were more likely to consume alcohol as their brain has picked up the subtle communication and their desires have manifested, sub consciously. The more the engagement, the greater are the chances that the person will consume alcohol very soon.

On the other hand, those who didn’t take any action such as like, comment or share, they were not interested in drinking, even if they consume alcohol in general. Now, for the other two page which had anti-drinking post with an alcohol marketing post and a non-alcohol ads, the results were the same: more the engagement, greater are the chances that the person will consume alcohol.

This means that the alcohol related social media communication on Facebook, which led to some action, actually encouraged drinking, even if the associated image tells to stop it or shows any other product in the graphics.

Saleem Alhabash, an assistant professor of advertising and public relations who headed up the study at Michigan University, said, “Alcohol content is everywhere. Underage drinkers will see these ads, think they’re cool, and then like or share. They interact with it and start thinking about it.”

Although the study of human behavior using Facebook as a lamp-post is still in nascent stage, as there lots of variables which cannot be controlled or tested. However, these studies show us a glimpse, gives us a hint regarding the Facebook effect on human psychology.

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Your Privacy At Stake! Facebook & WhatsApp Hacked By Young Geeks

Two incidences occurred last week, involving world’s most widely used social networking site Facebook and messaging app Whatsapp, which tells us how vulnerable their security structures are and how easily our privacy can be attacked.

Your All Facebook Photos Could Be easily Deleted

22 year old student from India, Laxman Muthiyah was able to delete photo album of any Facebook user, using just 4 lines of codes. It is as scary as it sounds!

Few days back, Laxman was playing around with Facebook’s Graph API and Facebook Access Tokens, when suddenly he discovered this vulnerability. All needed was the unique access token which is assigned to every Facebook profile, which appears in the URL of all photos, albums and posts of that user.

He sent these 4 lines of codes to Facebook’s API:

And Facebook’s servers replied back:

Or, in layman’s language, album deleted.

Here is a video uploaded by Laxman where he demonstrates this hack:

Considering that he had no evil intentions, he immediately contacted Facebook’s security team, which responded within 2 hours, and rectified this security flaw.

The Facebook Bug Bounty Program, which rewards such reporting of security flaws recognized the awesome work done by Laxman, and rewarded him with $12,500

There are more than 350 million images uploaded everyday on Facebook, and there are 1.2 billion users of this website. Imagine the mayhem and destruction which Laxman could have done from this exploit. $12,500 reward, is actually only a fraction of what could have been the consequences.

WhatApp Or Stalking Tool?

A Dutch university student Maikel Zweerink has created an online tool called ‘WhatsSpy Public’, which can stalk any WhatsApp user, even if the strictest privacy settings has been activated.

Some of the activities of random WhatsApp users which can be tracked using this tool:

• Timeline depicting when the user changed their profile picture and status message
• How much time were they online; when did they come online
• Comparing usage history of two users
• Status messages history; timeline of changes

As per the Maikel, “the application is setup as a Proof of Concept that WhatsApp is broken in terms of privacy.”

Anyone can download this tool from the Internet, if he can arrange a rooted Android phone or jail broken iPhone and a SIM card number not used by WhatsApp.

At the time of writing, WhatsApp had not taken any action on this tool, and no further security measure was announced to stop its working.

Stalking has certainly been made super easy with this tool; but the question remains: Is our privacy so easy to breach and compromise?

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