The Fountainhead - Book that changed my life

Though there are number of books which have inspired me over the course of time, one book which brought a major change in my thinking and approach is “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand. History of book is a big inspiration in its own way, rejected by 12 publishers it was later hailed as one of the best novel of all times, and a philosophical phenomenon. Written in 1943, it still inspires hundreds of new readers and old acquaintances with a revived eagerness and curiosity. Every reading gives you a new vigour to stand by your ambitions.

The Fountainhead, a fictional work focuses on the life of Howard Roark, an exceptional young architect who fights evil in the form of whole society but refuses to give away the supreme confidence in the his artistic vision. “Roark laughs”, marks the beginning of the novel, as he is expelled from the college for his refusal to follow the designs of the old masters. Roark later explains the indifference in this way:

“Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site, the materials determine the shape. A building is alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single theme, and to serve its own single purpose. A man doesn't borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul and every wall, window and stairway to express it.”

As the plot unfolds Roark sees himself fighting his second hander and a vacuous classmate, Peter Keating who rises to fame using his connections along with copied and borrowed designs. Lacking a strong identity, he seeks to construct one by taking opinions of others, lacking self-respect he seems satisfied by adulation given by others. He takes helps of Roark in major commissions. Roark fights his love, Dominique who tries every way to stop Roark from destroying himself. She considers he won’t be able to fight the evil in society and people won’t understand Roark’s architectural genius and integrity. Dominique does her bit to herd the employees of Roark to Keating’s way by marrying him. Roark also finds an enemy in the form of a clever socialist, Ellsworth Toohey who denounces his work forming a public opinion through newspaper columns. He despises Roark’s individual achievement and tricks him into a trial due to which Roark loses his job and contracts. Later, Keating takes help of Roark on a big contract, who agrees only on the promise of no change in design, which actually gets changed at the last stage due to Toohey. Roark finds the change which conflicts his visions and dynamites the building. He goes to trial with public opinion completely against him. He finds a lone friend in the form of Gail Wynand, a newspaper owner who bets his business to protect Roark. Roark appears before the jury and speaks these famous words:

“Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons—a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man—the function of his reasoning mind.
But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.”

He is acquitted and becomes one of the best architects.

Character of Howard Roark through the idea self-fulfilment—not through acceptance by society, but through acceptance of himself, gives an individualistic point of view. Considered uncompromising and egotistical, he actually lives to serve mankind by serving himself first and foremost. He lives to his fullest ability and loves men when they do the same. As Roark explains, the egotist "does not exist for any other man – and he asks no other man to exist for him."

Ayn Rand’s work gives a highly rational, incredible and inspiringly uplifting vision which tells you that you have no meaning in life without your dreams. There is a powerful message in it. It tells you life is not about anguish and pain, but about success and exaltation. It asks you to understand your power and achieve your goals. It inspires you to stay put on all the dreams and aspirations in spite of adversities and hardships faced during the course of it. It gives you the conviction to do better, to rise higher and go where you have never gone before. It challenges the inane thoughts of “Who is happy?” and "Enjoy yourself while you're young, because when you grow up, life is not fun, life is a burden". It says achievement is possible, happiness is possible. It validates the individual and the power of the individual human mind. It proves through a story based on our ages that people who struggle, suffer, work hard and find success, actually find happiness, same happiness which a kid finds when he learns to speak, walk after a trying numerous times. The Fountainhead is a celebration of human worth and a vision that upholds all the positive possibilities in his life.

US Recession - Fears that are engulfing India

Okay, this won me a First prize in my company for Blog Writing..!! A copy from company's official blog:

Every morning, we wake up and read yet another article on the Business Page of newspapers on ‘Has US slipped into Recession?’ We see yet another disappointing data coming out from American economy. While Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke may deny it in a technical sense, Warren Buffet says ‘by common sense definition’ US economy is already in recession. The signs are there to see- Jobless claims have been highest in recent times and eighty thousand job cuts this quarter makes the figure even worst, Manufacturing has declined by 5.3 percent, some investment banks have gone bust, other have suffered huge loss. Bernanke has already confessed “No or a little growth expected in first half of 2008”. GDP projection for financial year of 2008-09 at 0.5% makes the calls of deadly ‘R’ word even stronger, the only question is ‘For how long?’

What’s a Recession?

Recession in technical terms is defined as a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales. A recession begins just after the economy reaches a peak of activity and ends as the economy reaches its trough.

It all started with Subprime Mortgage crisis with the bursting of US Housing bubble. High default rates and other adjustable rate mortgages (loans) were made to higher-risk borrowers with lower income or lesser credit history than “prime” borrowers. Long term profits and rising house prices lured borrowers assuming that they will be able to repay the mortgages later on as the property prices rise. However, as the housing boom started cooling down borrowers panicked and it became highly difficult to pay back the mortgages, many of them defaulted. As a result of that Mortgage Lenders (mostly Banks) started getting affected. Many of these lenders had given the rights to the mortgage payments and related credit/default risk to third-party investors via various securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO), these securities were given very high ratings by various agencies such as S & P due to the high returns in last few years. Corporate, individual and institutional investors holding MBS or CDO suffered significant losses, as the value of the underlying mortgage assets declined. Some of the investment banks dependent on MBS went bankrupt, later bailed out by governments, major examples- Northern Rock, Bear Stearns (bought by JP Morgan Chase later with the help of Federal Reserve) and other reported major losses. Shares of investment banks declined suddenly (Bear Stearns share price reduced from 60$ to 2$ in a day). Stock markets in many countries declined significantly due to panic created and many investors suffered major losses which led to a ‘liquidity crunch in stock markets’. Subprime Mortgage crisis also led to downward pressure on GDP growth as there was less investment due to high interest rate and panic. There was a dynamic downturn in housing prices in many areas which made situation worse. Responding to ‘liquidity crunch’ Federal Reserve reduced interest rate gradually from 5.25% to 2.25% which led to more deprecation of US currency. As the cliché goes, whenever the US sneezes, the world catches a cold; this has led to lower earnings of trading partners which depend on US imports. On the other hand US exports have strengthened due to more money they are getting from stronger currencies. Foreign firms dependent on US currency are showing relatively lesser profits leading to low share prices and more job cuts.

Bad News

The general viewpoint of ‘Decoupling’ (American recession not having any impact on East) can true in a broader sense, but it is a plain rhetoric when it comes to specific sectors. Indian exporters, especially IT Industry have felt biggest pinch with deeper cuts in their pockets. This crisis has created a ripple effect and it might take some time before things get back to normal. Lakshmi Narayanan NASSCOM chairman says “The current situation is not temporary”. There are three major concerns in front of Industry now:

1. Decrease in IT spending by US:

With American companies accounting for 60-70% of IT spending coming to India, sector is facing major troubles due to reduction in spending due to slump. December report on Indian tech sector by Morgan Stanley states that uncertainty in United States may delay tech spending in the first half of 2008. While Product based companies will largely remain unaffected, companies having large accounts providing financial services will be seriously impacted, with recession hit investment banks expected to cut spending on IT Infrastructure. Lehman Brothers has already closed an Indian based Mortgage Capital Division, in turn closing a big account in one of the major IT Company.

2. Dollar weakening:

With US growth rate slowing down, Dollar has seen gradual weakening against all the major currencies of world. Rupee has appreciated 15% in last 5 years and alarmingly high 11% in since January 2007. Thanks to RBI for accumulating Forex reserves, dollar has stayed above 39 Rupees otherwise, it could have fallen further. This coupled with steep salary hikes has led to lower revenues and tightening of overall margins drastically. Last year, overall operating margins reduced to 6% from average 13% in 2006 and figure can reduce further this year.

3. Threats to most preferred outsourcing destination:

Rise of China, Philippines and Malaysia, adding to great Indian Infrastructure problem and no special encouragement from local government, India’s ‘Most preferred outsourcing destination’ status is under threat. India has been taking the crown for granted and China has declared a war with an army of software engineers charging lower than their Indian counterparts. With fewer infrastructure concerns and supporting government policies they are confident to win. Quality is yet to be ascertained but they are surely taking away relatively easier work such as testing and support. On the other hand Indian Firms grappling with ‘Production worthy’ skill shortage and other domestic concerns have a major problem in hand.

Countering Bad News

Indian IT Industry can weather this storm without much concern if it is willing to apply some patches to already existing software. Following steps can prove helpful:

1. Diversifying Global Presence:

Indian companies have relied on US for far too long, diversification is need of the hour. They need to focus on other markets mainly European Union.

2. Tapping local markets:

Indian IT firms can look forward to fast growing Indian Retail, Power and Financial sectors as their next big clients. With big revenues and even bigger order books these sectors will turn to Industry for their IT needs.

3. Fighting the Infrastructure devil:

With bigger cities collapsing under weight of population and over-utilization of resources, there are still number of properly developed and well connected cities waiting for large investments by Indian Majors, Satellite cities to four metros and Bangalore being prime examples. It all depends on who makes the first move.

4. Tackling ‘Skill Shortage’:

There is an easy way out to every problem related to knowledge- ‘Spread the knowledge’. Organize “Technical trainings’, ‘Workshops’, ‘Internship Programs’ right at the college levels. There are enough graduates in country; onus is on IT Industry to make them employable.

5. Decreasing Attrition Rate:

Skilled employees are always best resources for company; they can always bring more money than what they are paid. Retaining them at a little higher cost should be a prudent option. Other creative steps which keep them attached to the Name of company should be taken.

Every cloud has a silver lining. With lesser outsourcing from Financial Sector, there is a possibility that a tighter hand of all the majors in America may propel outsourcing in other sectors. It may come slowly and with lesser budgets but can certainly prove handful. Age old saying “Don’t do different things, but do them differently” has to be brought under practice in these changing scenarios. At the end of every crisis we emerge stronger. This crisis will also help Indian IT Industry in the longer term and fittest will definitely survive.

References:

1. Financial Times: Credit Squeeze Explained

What India needs- An IIT or 10 primary Schools?

One more Independence Day went by(Frankly, It was just another holiday for me,a nice break in one hectic or rather boring training schedule),our super-intelligent PrimeMinister came up with great social agendas including setting up new IIT's' and IIM's'... Yeah Nice, Isn't it? But is it really wise to talk about setting new IITs and IIMs err.. should I say USIIT(United States Indian Institute of Technologies) for the brain-drain, when our primary education system is actually frail. If you do a small survey on a current batch in IITs, 80% of students entering these premier institutions are a result of spoonfed courses given by number of institutes run by some highly paid,qualified professors. Setting up more of such central universities now will not only increase the business of such institutes but it'll also increase their success rate to 80% right now,to 90%(unbelievable isn't it!!) and inturn, it will attract other more qualified teachers to leave their respective jobs to join these institutes. (they will make more money). All those students getting success because of them belong to urban of higher middle class who can pay such huge fees and later on make money after completing course in these world famous institutes : "Rich gets richer Poor gets poorer" (where is Red bastion?).

On the other hand we can build 10 primary schools pulling some good teachers tempting them with good salaries at the cost of one single department of IIT and that is precisely the need of this hour. I am not against setting of a new IIT or IIM (it will be good for me too ;-) ) but we should get our priorities right if we have to perform well as a nation in future. Its always better to make a strong foundation and then try to make a big building on that. Instead of going for higher education straightaway we should look for a planned way to uplift primary education system which actually indirectly benefits the society more. At the same time IITs and IIMs can find some other ways to raise funds for themselves and their new siblings.
"There won't be a single vacant seat even if IITs increase their fees by 10k per semester and IIM by 1 lac per year".

WorldCup 2007 and Indian story

So everyone coming out with their suggestions and propositions now after the shameful exit from the first round , and Just look at the number of people who actually thought India to win the World Cup. How can you?? I mean Patriotism is just another thing,we are just a shade better than most of the upcoming teams(not minnows) like Bangladesh, Kenya on the the International stage. There are so many impuissances in the team that an exit in first round comes as a no surprise to me or very frankly most of us. And even if they had somehow managed to enter the super-8 teams like Australia, South Africa, New Zealand would have clobbered them badly. So instead of crying over the previous loses,BCCI,concerned individuals and fans as well should take it positively as a lesson.
What India needs is some fresh blood combined with a good attitude towards the game. Making Australian team as their role model they have to work on their athleticism,attitude,team selection.. err.. virtually everything . Right now there is simply no comparison between the two teams.

If we dissect the Indian team which went for World Cup carrying our Billion hopes we would find that,that hope for a World Cup win was inconceivable and practically impossible.

Robin Uthappa- Was never tested at such big stage. Just 7,8 matches and he was drafted as an opener basically to cover up Sehwag. No wonder he failed but then we had no option with Kaifs and Rainas proving their inutility earlier.

Virender Sehwag- He played ok,or rather well. His kinda attitude was required in the SL match. Indian batsmen needed to break the shackles earlier on so that they can play Murali easily later,something called calculated risk which nobody did.

Saurav Ganguly- I personally don't see him fitting much in One day Team though he can come good in Test arena. Ganguly has a problem of playing on only one side of the wicket,he is a bad runner,fielder and a very slow starter. Opposition captains has small worries when he is on strike,make a 7-2 field,bowl an off stump channel line even at bad lengths or just short of good length and middle stump line.Ya he occupies the crease but then he does nothing else,no rotation of strike,not much attack. Which creates a pressure on non-striker and while chasing Indian team mostly succumbs to it. So he actually plays for his side in the team not for the team. He has that flair of hitting sixes later on but with all important power plays being lost by Ganguly playing full over without singles he is a waste more often than not.

Sachin Tendulkar- He is past his prime agreed but finding a replacement for him is very difficult considering the talent India has in their backyard. The X-factor which led them to trophies(small numbers) is lost now. It was mostly Sachin who took them to finals and then won one or two. With his favorite position as an opener taken by someone like Ganguly. He needs some time to fit in new position. Another excuse maybe.but Sachin is indispensable atleast right now.

Rahul Dravid- The third of the Big Three he has lost his flair of taking singles and doubles with ease. He is still a very good player. Probably the best player in the team right now, spare of those statistics that how blah blah has a better average than him.

Yuvraj Singh- He was desperately needed in SL match; He was in great nick and could have bailed India out of trouble. Sadly as often happens he was run-out. He is the captain of future Indian team. Good fielder in the side but only relatively .with others being the worst ever. He is not an outstanding or excellent and can work to improve.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni – At last India found a better a wicketkeeper-batsman and he is actually very good. He is the only “busy player” in the side who can rotate the strike with his rather unconventional shots and play some big ones as well. And he is also an intelligent cricketer.

Kumble, Harbhajhan Singh- Well so called Indian spin attack has totally lost its sheen now. They have nothing new to offer and many a times the target of opposition to score good and fast runs. They might be good in slow turners of India in test matches but for ODIs team is better off without a spinner just like South Africa and Australia.

Zaheer Khan- He is comeback well and is a very good bowler. He will surely stay and perform well for next 2-3 years.

Ajit Agarkar- Another okish fast bowler. The only one having some pace and a good fielder as well, the only good arm in Indian team. He should also stay for sometime.

Munaf Patel- A good fast bowler sans any attitude for the game. He must be the laziest cricketer at present. A very bad fielder but a good future prospect.

All said and done about the team, India seriously needs to find some good talent which is not present at the moment. They need.

1)A fast bowler who is actually fast . Australia is producing one after another Shaun Tait,Mitchell Jhonson and they have a good accurate medium fast bowler as Nathan Bracken.
2)Two or three Busy cricketers who can run fast,.field well and control the middle order by taking singles and doubles with an odd boundary here and there. Probably too much to ask but Australia has Micheal Hussey,Clarke. Sount Africa has Ashwell Prince,Justin Kemp. New Zealand has Mcmillan,Ross Taylor.Sri Lanka has found a good talent in Chamara D’silva,Dilshan,England has Peiterson,Collingwood. India has none. These player don’t play for records they have their averages in 30s ,strike rates in 80s but they play when required.
3)One or two seriously good fielders who are good at direct hits and catches. I haven’t seen a great run-out from an Indian fielder for about an year.
4)A good all-rounder like Jacob Oram,Shane Watson,Collingwood.

5) A hard-hitter with brooooaad shoulders like Hayden and Symonds who can take the attack to opposition when required.

This all won’t happen all of a sudden but if such team is built with good spirits filled with attitude it would go a long way. For the time being India are seriously lacking goods to be even among top 6 of cricketing nations.

Fans: Finally its just a game,and someone has to lose it. They played their best,did some mistakes and that costed them dearly. But Its our mistake as well,we created hoopla and expectations out of nothing.. Team was not that good.They didn't want to lose. They played their best. And comparatively They are not playing with your tax money as politicians are.. Finally its just a game,not the end of world.

Excuse for spellings of names.

PagalGuy post link- http://www.pagalguy.com/forum/725794-post424.html

Microsoft Vista and Beyond!!

Windows 95 was released at the time which marked the beginning of Internet and progression of operating systems. Lines of buyers ten years ago was visibly longer than on January 30,2007 when Microsoft released its newest version Windows vista. After numerous failures,five years,spending $6 billion and two year behind schedule finally Microsoft released not so desperately awaited Vista.This is only one of many indicators reflecting the end of Microsoft era or a start of Open era. The era of youtubes and flickrs, era when email is used as storage media and documents and spreadsheets are prepared on online software. It doesn't matter which operating system you are on when most of the services are freely available on Internet. Things are changing rapidly now,open source softwares are rising. Open source are usually written by volunteers instead of a company,and so is constantly open to upgradation,enhancements and changes.Mozilla FireFox is one of the best examples,it was virtually an unknown 2 years back but now it is widely replacing Internet Explorer as default browser for all kinda surfing. Microsoft has retaliated but its not good enough. All of a sudden it has to come up with a new Internet Explorer which is all but same as its competitor,with some bugs as well. Open office the open source counterpart of Microsoft office is slowly but steadily catching up. Linux replacing whole Windows as OS as a whole will take time but not much. Most of the web-servers are already running Apache open source server. Being open these are readily available for download and in days of Internet revolution it is not really too much to ask for, is it??
During the days of Windows 98 and Windows 2000,Microsoft kept its operating system and applications on a common code,which proved to be other developers nightmare(to make a flawless software on same code as of Microsoft) but with Internet revolution now developers can write their own code and let the network be a platform rather than OS running the computer. So instead of selling it,companies developing them are finding new ways of making money like subscriptions,opening them and earning through advertisements. Ending Microsoft's monopoly immediately.
Security is another major concern for Microsoft. After windows 95 each operating system was developed by bringing some changes(usually small) in code and hence with time it was becoming more and more vulnerable to attacks. So Vista was planned to have a whole new code, it was a plan to start it with scratch to form a new and more secure operating system but due to number of failures some of the major changes were abandoned and already running behind schedule Microsoft decided to launch Vista. Within a few days researchers came out with major security bugs and many other vulnerabilities. This time,Microsoft initially planned not to open Vista's kernel to other security softwares and firewalls to improve security but after attacks from other companies of Microsoft using it as a backdoor entry into another business,Microsoft backed down and access was provided.
It is not that Microsoft is unknown to such threats,it is answering to this rise by adjusting and improving. In 2006 Microsoft struck a deal with Novell,an open source company. It is also moving into new services like Office Live,Windows Live providing online features and only recently Hotmail was renamed to Windows Live. In area of online gaming X-box Live has more than 5 million members. It is also venturing into new business like softwares for television set-top boxes,mobile phones(Windows Mobile). Zune media player in competition to I-pod being a a new hardware launch after X-box,most of you must have already heard about Microsoft mouse,keyboards and UPS. Probably its Microsoft's time to IBM way which moved to services from hardware but is Microsoft too late for that??

The Corus Burden

Triumph of Tata's against Brazil's CSN (Companhia Siderurgica Nacional) in acquisition of steel major Corus is termed as a next or rather first big step in Global Indian Takeover. It may sound utterly stupid but Tata-Corus might have been more of India's nwe nationalism than a good business strategy. And consequently much hyped deal may prove to be a dead end for Tata's.
A $13.2 billion bid,when through would make company 5th largest steel maker in the world,according to an estimate this would be 9 times the largest previous acquisition of a foreign firm by and Indian company.

From all possible calculations the decision of raising the initial bid from 455 pence/share to 608 pence/share makes it a highly overvalued deal.It is even higher than price offered by Mittal steel to better performing Arcelor which was also a much larger takeover. According to Financial Times and other analysts 450-460 pence/share would have been a fair-value for Corus and anything above that would require returns from other factors and synergies. And country's new economic hero Mr. Ratan Tata must be banking upon such returns only. Tata group is relying upon benefits as a producer having its iron-ore sources,to produce cheap steel and Corus being technological partner with good access to markets,to change that cheap stell into high quality stell product. So the obvious strategy is to ship the low cost steel to Corus in Europe and that later sold off to bigger customers. Tatas have been trying a similar strategy in Singapore and Thailand off-late. But there are way too many problems to make it a success.

1) Capacity at Tata steel is very less to maximize returns at Corus. Corus can produce maximum 20 million tonnes a year,would want atleast 15-16 million tonnes from Tata steel to maximize its profits. Tata's are only producing 4-6 million tonnes at present. Even after complicated expansion plans it would take about 6 more years to reach that capacity.

2) If Tata chooses to import more iron-ore or acquire mines now,it would neutralize all the planned cost savings.

3)Corus would never find markets large enough for such high capacity. Moreover,demand for steel is going down and more so in European countries. There is no respite from China where is capacity is increasing and demand going down every month.

4) Corus is already behind its other counterparts in Europe such as Arcelor and Thyssen Krupp of Germany in terms of performance and that is the most important reason it was up for sale. Profits are slipping for past one year.

5) There are concerns over how Tata's are going to finance the acquisition. It will be a 50:50 debt-equity ratio most probably which means Tatas will have to put about $6.5 billion which would be very difficult,increasing there debt to equity ratio to 100% from 15% at present.

6) Main reason behind the deal was to decrease any vulnerability of Tata Steel being bought itself by a bigger company,but this deal makes them even more vulnerable with above mentioned problems.

It is turning out to be a big gamble for Tata's right now which might prove to be a disaster in long term.

sensex crosses Dow Jones-reality check!!!

There were jubilations in sensex on 29th march,after all sensex has crossed Dow Jones industrial average index (DIJA). Riding on the back of sustained FII investments of which some 80% are questionable,sensex is touching new highs every week 11800 being the latest record. Starting of 2006 experts dismissed all speculations of even 10k and look where sensex is today,leaving all that cliche of corrections and overvaluation I would shed some light on numbers game of
"Dow vs sensex"
though Dow and sensex have same 30 stocks, the methodology to calculate Dow is different as compared to sensex. As explained in previous post about calculation of sensex sensex is calculated on the basis of market capitalization weighted method with different companies having different weightage according to their market capitalization. But Dow has a equal weightage to all 30 companies which means a more uniform method of calculation.taking an example
if infosys or BHEL goes up by 10% on a one particular day sensex will be flying high irrespective of how other stocks are performing because these stocks have a good weightage in sensex and that is what has been happening for past 4,5 months. FIIs and local mutual funds have been chasing some 100 companies which form an important part in sensex and has led sensex rocketing past 11000. This is not essentially the market sentiment with many of small cap stocks hitting their low in past 9 months. Adding to the irony all the non index stocks have negative returns.
But Dow has a better method of calculation of its index,with a consistent rise even if one or two stocks fairing highly it's equal weightage method gives more accurate results as far as index is concerned.
since there is no criteria to convert weighted index to uniformly distributed or vice-versa,comparing sensex and Dow will be stupidity, just to satisfy some inane minds of stock brokers misleading public.

sensex can definitely be compared in terms of returns on which it is way behind Dow in absolute terms,considering last year returns sensex registered a growth of 40% with Korea composite index 53% and other index of developing countries fairing quite well in high 30s.

yes,sensex is reaching a new high everyday but it is not a true representation of what is going on in markets. A deep correction may not in sight for times to come but people investing in small companies are playing with fire.