Beautiful and Exciting CAIRNS ....

I strongly feel that there are very few places on the face of Earth which are both Beautiful and Exciting...Cairns, in Queensland Australia is one such place.

Recently, during our Easter holidays we planned a trip to Cairns...

Situated in upper tropical region of Australia, this city has a tropical weather...surrounded by mountains, rivers, creeks, Word oldest rainforests and the an enchanting Ocean with the Great barrier reef.

Accomodation is not a problem in Cairns it has options for everyone, starting from the Backpapacker budget (25$ per night), Family budget (100 - 200$ per night), Honey moon budget (200-350$ per night) or any budget!

Regarding adventures you can go from extreme to serene...from white water rafting to tubing to a romantic cruise.

We being the faint hearted...hence did the last two. Honestly tubing does have its challenges as well; you should have seen the faces of the participants during the rapids...(attaching one example..offcourse its me...the brave one!)
Well, this tubing adventure had another positive entrepreneurial story; Peter and his partner run this company with amazing confidence and spirit.

You can visit them at - http://www.aussiedrifterz.net/

Talking Cairns one thing surely comes to the mind and that is the Great Barrier Reef. Amazing colourful corals, variety of marine life and gust of sea breeze...

We went to green island , perched on a coral bed just 50 minutes away from the main city.

There are a variety of activities that you can do in the Green Island like Para sailing (135$), Snorkelling (35$), Sea bed walking (150$) etc...

Another major attractions around Cairns is Kuranda - a rainforest village, which can be accessed by the:

• Sky rail - Worlds Longest Sky Rail 7.5 kms, glides over the Rain forest canopy, Barron Gorge.



• Kuranda Scenic Railway - MOre than 110 years old



• 1.5 hr scenic drive by Car.

Also, once in Kuranda its a good idea to go ahead and do the Barron river river cruise, we had a very informative guide who shares a lot of information about the rainforests an its importance.

To change the pace, we went for a relaxed crocodile tour on the last day, where we saw crocodile in the natural mangrove habitat and also visited a Crocodile farm! Yes you read it correct a farm...from where crocodile skin is exported to Fashion houses in Italy and France!!

Who else other than a true Indian can appreciate the concept of a Night Market ... Yes they have it in Cairns right in the heart of Cairns. It starts at 4:00 PM and remains open till 11:00 PM. It has variety of shops starting from delicous food (My Favourite though is the Indian curry house there), Chinese Accupressure Massage, exotic Souveniers and a very interesting live manufactured glass sovenier shop where you can customise your own glass souvenier!

Yes I have to agree, we went there only 4 .5 days and that was not sufficient...you should have atleast 7 days to completely enjoy Cairns...and the places around it like Port Douglas, Daintree rainforest and other Great barrier reef islands.

Hope you enjoyed reading this article....and would plan your trip to Cairns soon!

Important inputs:

• Best time to Visit - May to Ocober



• Approx Expenditure - 1500Aud ( Inclusive of Accomodation {3 star}, food and other expenses - 2 person, for 4 nights [excludes flight Travel])



• Airport to Cairns City - Taxi would charge 14 - 17 Dollars (Approx)



• You can hire a cycle for as less as 25 $ per day, this would help you in going around Cairns



• Locals are very helpful and friendly

My Rating: ****

Finding true love...could be good fun!

Hello everyone...
I know the movie which I am going to discuss in this blog is almost 1 to 2 months old. But honestly, these reviews are meant for people who are planning to see it in coming weeks, people who have been busy and couldn't catch up with the latest flicks...
Dil to bachha hain Ji
Director: Madhur Bhandarkar
Starring: Ajay Devgan, Emran Hashmi and Omi Vaidya

Well the movie rotates around the life of these three guys, other actors in the movie are just cogs in the whole setting.
Ajay Devgan plays the character of a middle aged, about-to-be-divorced father of a kid. This character amazingly portrays what's going on with 'Men' folks in their married life in these days. Looking out for somethng new, more exciting and often forgetting that you are too old for excitements lest you are looking at the right age group.
Emran Hashmi as usual plays the role of a casinova and one hwo falls in love every day with a new girls, till he meets with his dream girl, who dicthes him to show him the right picture.
Lastly, Omi Vaaidya - hope you remember him from teh 3 idiots, has done an amazing job of an honest and good humanbeing, inspite of which he gets ditched just to find at the end, his perfect soulmate.

Acting has been superb from all the three guys, except for a few characters, which I am sure you would be able to find out in the movie. Screen play is superb and easy flowing. Music is ok from Pritam.
Last question: When should you watch this movie?
You should watch this movie when you are in a gloomy piece of mind or your your partner is too angry on you or you have just recieved a scolding from your parents regarding the pocket money or you had a bad day at the office...take my words watch it, it won't dissapoint you!
Rating: ***1/2 star

No one is above the law....Encouraging!

Hello everyone, It has been a long time since I posted any review ...well I am back with a movie - "No one killed Jessica" . It is an inspiring and encouraging tale of how justice was done to the aam aadmi.

The script was strong, and off-course stories like these have had been a common happening in an around India because of its corrupt bureaucratic and judicial systems. The story has been told through the narration of Meera (Rani Mukherjee), who is a reporter with NDTV and has strong character and presence in the movie. It starts with the scene set in Kargil where the nation is fighting a war with the infiltrators from our neighboring country and it flows seamlessly to celebrity party set up in New Delhi where an innocent a girl - jessica Lall, is fatally shot just because she did not budge in to the demand of an extra glass of drink, from the kin of a influential politician. The story that follows is an ordeal of two ladies Sabrina and Meera.

Sabrina Lall (Vidya Balan) is the younger sister of Jessica who fights relentlessly for 7 long years jut to be denied justice. Then comes the second part where Meera takes in the case and shows how media can and could be powerful enough to change the face of this corrupt judiciary, law enforcement and bureaucratic system.

Both Vidya balan and Rani Mukherjee have shown strong screen presence. I must agree Vidya is turning out to be a actor with strong sense of script and the role. Direction has been good through out except that Meera's character could have been done with less 'F$#k You' and 'WTF' words. Music did not impress much, but scripts like these can do with out songs.

All in all a good package.....worth 3 start

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Rating - 3***

Ford Figo...way to Go!

This weekend I got my hands on a brand new Ford Figo (EXI, Petrol version), which had already done 500+ kms…
Well before I go into the details of my experience, let’s know some technical details about the car which really matters:
Engine: 1196 (Petrol), 1399 (Diesel)
Power: 71 hp (Petrol), 69 hp (Diesel)
Length / width: 3795 mm / 1680 mm
Road Clearance: 168 mm
Fuel tank Capacity: 45 ltrs

The one thing that I striked me as soon as I got into it, was the space. The driver’s seat was well positioned and gave you a good view of the street. The A –pillar is well positioned not creating a blind corner. The steering was well positioned and gave a good feel of the road, the 14 inch wheels made the car very stable at high speeds. The The AC was powerful but and did not have any direct impact on the engine, but at higher AC fan speeds made a lot of noise. The instrument panel was ok, nothing flashy about it. But at higher versions it does come loaded with features like Bluetooth etc. The central panel is ok, could have been good with some place to keep the Discs , documents etc.. The emergency break looks ugly and stands out like sore thumb. Moving to the rear, the rear seat is spacious and has enough leg space even when the front seats are pushed back to its maximum. The boot space is one of the best in this class, can easily hold two medium size suitcases and still have space for that small bag over it!
The interiors are the worst thing to happen to this car, it looks to plastic like and really does not go with the beautifully carved exterior. The front flaring headlamps give the Ford Figo a aggressive look and the streamline design does give the car a look of luxury sedan-hatchback feeling.

Mileage: The car is new to the Indian Roads, being here only for last 7 months, it would take somemore time to understand how much the mileage would be on Indian conditions. But from my understanding , in city condition, the Petrol version should give some where 12-13 Kmpl and the diesel version should give somewhere near to 17-18 Kmpl.
Price: The Ford Figo price range starts from 3.58 Lacs to 5.38 lacs, So on-road it the range would approximately be between 4.2 lacs to 6 lacs. It has 4 variants LXI,EXI,ZXI and Titanium in both Petrol and diesel versions.
Service & Repairs: I understand as soon as we talk of this parameter, only baseline we see is Maruti. Well honestly we need to stop this comparison, since Ford is a new entrant in India and would very soon build up the servicing chain. None the less, the servicing should not be a problem for buyers in Metros and Tier 1 cities.

Overall, I believe Ford has delivered with Figo and till now it has received amazing response from the market .
My rating: ***1/2

Coal India IPO...here it comes!!

When so much is going on world over, regarding Coal India IPO then how can this blog be left out. Let me try to give you an insight about this IPO to the best of my abilities. I will try to answer whether this IPO is worth so much hype it is creating?

Lets understand the whole coal mining scenario through these basic questions, before moving into an opinion:

What business is Coal India in?

It is in Coal Mining, and statistics says that it is the worlds larget coal producer, with a production of 431.26 million tonnes of raw coal in Fiscal 2010.

What is the future of Coal as a fuel?

I understand that there are many alternative fuels coming in, but Coal is one of the most economical fuel available to any industry. The rimary users of coal as a fuel are the steel and the cement industries. According to studies, by various economic bodies, the consumption of coal is going to increase at a rate of 2% - 3 % every year. More over the world has reserves of coal in almost every country, which is going to last for more than 100 years. So as long as you have coal available in the desired form, you would see the Sun shining over the coal mining industry.

How is Coal India Ltd. (CIL) Positioned?

Though Coal India Ltd is worlds largets coal producer, but still it is far less than what many countries produce. Infact Coking coal which is widely used by the steel industries across the world, is just around 8% of the total coal production. So all of a sudden you realise that Coal India would not be able to feed a major client, in case we see a surge in steel industry.

Now we would try to understand the basic fundamentals of the market and analyse how Coal India IPO is been looked by people/investors from various sects.

There are two basic things which drive the price of any share:
1. Fundamnetal drivers - like track record o fthe compnay w.r.t. growth, Profitability, debts etc.
2. Sentimental drivers - This is something where you can never have any predictive mathematics work. It is a question like why would one prefer Sharukh Khan more than Salman Khan or vice Versa. Well It is that inkling feeling amongst the investors which says even with 3 flops one after the other I would invest my money in a Sharukh Khan movie rather than an Amir Khan movie.

So from both the angles Coal India has scored very high points.After the de-regulation of coal prices in 1996 coal India has scripted an amazing turn around story and has remained profitable in the past decade.
So, over all from a very basic point of view here are some of my basic observations:
1. I believe that as retail investor, one would reap the best profit in the medium term i.e. 5-7 years .
2. Though Coal India Ltd. has started investments outside India, but it should be quick in making these investment over the next 2 years so that it has a better international clout, just like ONGC Videsh.
3. Now some guesstimate: I believe Coal India shares will touch 290-310 Price band in a couple of months.

Hope this layman analysis would help you in understanding this huge IPO!
My Rating: ***1/2

Filmy reviews..Anjaana Anjaani / Dabaang

Though I know this is a bit late for movies which were released a month back, but better late than never...

Anjaana Anjaani

Here is a movie, which revolves round the life of two people

Priyanka Chopra - Kiara

Ranbir Kapoor - Akash

The story begins with the scene set in New York , where Kiara and Akash meet each other over the George washington bridge, while trying to kill themsleves to end their unfortunate life. Akash been hit by the 2009 recession and Kiara being dejected in her love life.The story revolves round them, where they both try to support each other through their personal life trauma and eventually fall in love with each other.

Well the story line was strong, but unfortunately it was too badly presented. Priyanka was amazingly miserable in her acting and so was the direction. Could have been a better movie.

Surprisingly, half of the people had left by half time and I heard some of the best comments, since my engineering days, that were passed in the hall!

Music department has also been a big let down.

My rating: *

Dabaang

Salman Khan - Chulbul 'Robin Hood' Pandey

Sonakshi Sinha (Shatrughan Sinha' Daughter) -

VInod khanna & Dimple Kapadia - As parents of Chulbul Pandey

Arbaaz Khaan - Makhi, Chulbul Pandey's Brother

Sonu Sood - Chedi Singh

Well this movie was welcome relief after Anjaana Anjaani. Salman khan is at his best, story line had nothing new in it, but the presentation and screen play is good and interesting.

Salman Khan play the role of Chulbul Pandey who is a very arrogant, corrupt and fearless cop in 'Lalgunj', a small town in Uttar Pradesh. He fights against local political goon Chedi Singh who tries to kill Chulbul Pandey by using Makhi. But ultimately, both the brothers are able to get rid off Chedi singh and avenge the death of their mother.

The movie introduces a new face Sonakshi Sinha, who had a very brief role, but seemed very promising. The movie keeps you riveted with surprises, some gravity defying stunts , amazing colourful Bollywood songs.

Music has been nicelty dealt with, Sajid-Wajid has done a good job. "Munni Bandnaam Hui" has been a big hit and has some amazing choreography.

Over all a complete bollywood package, do not expect any thing which would get nominated for Oscars. Go with an open mind and come out fresh.

My Rating:***