I was watching a video by @deepakshenoy where he spoke nicely about how, contrary to perceptions, Tata were generally unfriendly to shareholders when compared to Reliance.

He gave a wonderful example of ACC to highlight that.

Which led me digging thru the history of ACC Because ACC has a close connect to a quote that I had read sometime back.

"If you want to study the cartels of a country, study its cement companies"

And the origin story of ACC reflects that quote perfectly

The story of Cement started in India in the year 1904 in Madras

Only an Indian govt body, like the BMC, can wash their hands off of a tragedy that tragically killed several people by saying they didn't approve what was supposedly India's largest hoarding and they didn't know it was there.

So they aren't responsible. The funny part is the hoarding guy advertised as India's largest hoarding. But the BMC guys didn't realize it was there.

I mean what level of obliviousness are BMC guys operating on, that they miss India's largest hoarding, which was also apparently illegal.

Rounding up my Australia & Sport series, here's the most Australian sporting success story, in the history of sport

That too from sport hardly any of us know

Short track Speed Skating

Here's the stunning story of Australia's first winter Olympic Gold Medalist, Steven Bradbury This is not a Disney movie story, or like that of Shashank Singh, where a guy gets picked randomly out of nowhere and then achieves Success.

This is a story of persistence, bloody mindedness and some luck, which all came together in one magical moment to create magic.

Indian elections are uncertain, but I think the results for the 2024 polls are more or less done

I think, we will witness a govt with the highest majority since 1984

And this means an amazing opportunity

I know this post means nothing, but here's my Wishlist for the next govt This govt should focus on the boring things. Because boring things, build civilizations

We need to start by streamlining babudom. And a timebound approval system.

In this digital age, taking two weeks for a GST certificate or 67 permissions to build a hotel is ridiculous.

If you noticed, a week ago my handle was changed to "Wormhole" and the profile Pic had changed to some arbit picture

And then random bitcoin posts were made.

In case some of you thought I had gone over to the other side, dont worry

Here's one small story of my sorry stupidity I was just getting of my amazing fight with the VW fanbros, when I got a DM from a verified account. The account said they were from Barrons.

The same GRE/GMAT Barrons.

Now the message said they were exploring some kind of collab with me, regarding some kind of podcast.

In the last 5 years, the Brit Royal family is averaging scandals a day. The latest one involves a lady called Rose Hanbury

Now, I normally stay away from regal scandals. But this time I decided to make an exception.

Because this one has a Mumbai connection

Intrigued? Read on The story starts in the 1700s, in Iraq, when Iraq was a part of the Ottoman empire

By now, the various East India companies controlled global trade and Iraq, thru its location, had become very important.

And most of the trade in Iraq was controlled by one community.

The Jews.

On Jan 22nd when the Prana Pratishtha ceremony was conducted in Ayodhya, the dreams and aspirations of thousands of people was finally realized

It took the efforts of people across the world, to bring this vision to reality, Including as far away as Denmark

Confused? Read on The year was 1937 and India was under the British rule and Europe was dark with the clouds of war. In those dangerous times, a Danish Engineering company called FL Smidth decided that they wanted to do business in India and sent one young Engineer as their representative.

If I ask you which is the most important company in the world today, chances are you will name Apple, Google, Samsung, Nvidia etc.

What if I tell you, there is one company, that too a Dutch one, which is more critical than the ones above.

Surprised?

Read on Most of the technology today that you use, be it cars, watches, phones or aeroplanes, all run on microchips. Chips with so much computing power that it will make Superman blush.

These nanotubes of wonder are the ones that make the life as we know today, possible.

The death of Henry Kissinger was one of those deaths that was universally celebrated.

However, there's a section in India, which wished that we should have had our own Henry Kissinger.

I don't blame them. Maybe they didn't know how evil he actually was.

Let's educate them. The beauty of Henry Kissinger is that he started to be evil, before he actually got into the position where he could be actually evil.

In 1968, the US Presidential election was fought between Hubert Humphreys and Richard Nixon.

And the Vietnam war was raging on the side.

People glamourize Silicon Valley companies which started off in Garages & how they are now worth trillions of dollars.

Here's a garage, where a movement which uplifted 50 million people out of poverty, took off

This is probably the greatest garage of all time

Here's its story The year is 1948. India is newly independent. You are from an elite family, who was just graduated from the Michigan state University, on Govt Scholarship and have come back to India.

You would think you life is all set and you are going to live happily ever after.

Two things are certain post India's world Cup win.

One are the firecrackers & the other are the management lessons from India's victory posts, on LinkedIn.

To ensure you don't miss out on that party, here are some posts which you can freely use to sound like a management guru. Post 1:

For any organization, leadership is extremely critical. A good leader is worth their weight in gold in this complicated environment.

A great leader is selfless, inspiring, puts organizational goals above personal ones, recognizes people's skills and supports them.

The more I read about it, the more i believe that the only logical explanations of why we signed the Simla Agreement in 1972, is that

1. Zulfikar Bhutto was a master hypnotist
2. He had a MIB style neuralyzer which enabled him to stun Indians into signing it. We had won the war, bombed the shit out of their most important city, repulsed them everywhere and held 93,000 prisoners.

If this was a mobster den, then we were the Godfather.

We could have extracted pretty much anything at that point in time.

The closest financial fraud to Sam Bankman Fraud, that India has experienced is the Satyam Scandal.

Ramalinga Raju lied about Rs 7000 cr, falsified accounts and cooked books like he was in an Accounting MasterChef.

It was a big scandal.

Lets see what happened after that. The scandal broke out in 2008.

Police arrested him in Jan 2009.

He immediately complained of Chest pain and got admitted in Hospital.

Police somehow managed to get him back to jail and they succeeded in keeping him there till Sep 2009.

He once again complained of Chest Pain

The closest financial fraud to Sam Bankman Fraud, that India has experienced is the Satyam Scandal.

Ramalinga Raju lied about Rs 7000 cr, falsified accounts and cooked books like he was in an Accounting MasterChef.

It was a big scandal.

Lets see what happened after that. The scandal broke out in 2008.

Police arrested him in Jan 2009.

He immediately complained of Chest pain and got admitted in Hospital.

Police somehow managed to get him back to jail and they succeeded in keeping him there till Sep 2009.

He once again complained of Chest Pain

Sam Bankman Fraud's fraud was caught in Nov-22.

He was arrested in Dec-22. Charged in Feb-23. Trial started in Oct-23. He was proclaimed guilty in Nov-23.

Starting 2024, he will be in Jail.

Because it was the US, it all went down in a year.

Now, imagine if SBF was in India. First, he will say he is not guilty. All he has to do, is make one weepy reel and his followers will defend him to death.

And before you know it, he will escape to London, live a life of luxury while showing us a big bmiddle finger

And in case he gets arrested before he runs?

Everyone is doing a lot of analysis on Jio Financial and how they have everything to conquer the market.

But most analysis have missed the most deadly arrow in Jio Financial's quiver.

Tally.

The data and information Tally has on small businesses, all other NBFCs can only dream Tally has the exact payment details of most Indian small businesses. Their sales. Their recievables. Their payment history. Their credit worthiness. Their payment cycles. Their overdues. Their payback time.

Basically everything that you need to determine the worth of a party.

Usually, it is very difficult for one person to single handedly influence billions of people.

And if someone does that, chances are most of us will know about him.

This thread is about one such person. But in all probability, you know nothing about him.

Intrigued, Read on. The beginning of the 20th Century was also the beginning of what we call, the age of the consumer

Technology had progressed big time leading to lots of things being made by different companies, quickly and efficiently.

And more importantly, people now had money to buy them.

Thanks to @ashwinidamani for the insight.

It wouldn't be right for me to compare Vardhman textiles and MamaEarth.

They are too different Industries to be compared. Let's compare them with someone in the same sector and in a way competitors

Jyothy Laboratories. Jyothy Labs is valued at Rs 13,500 cr.
MamaEarth is seeking a 10,500 cr

Sales
Jyothy Labs - Rs 2500 cr
MamaEarth - Rs 1400 cr

Profit
Jyothy Labs - Rs 239 cr
MamaEarth - Are you kidding?

Distribution

Jyothy Labs - 3000 Distributors & 25 lakh outlets
MamaEarth - Non Existent

My Favourite IPO MamaEarth is back.

Last time they wanted a Rs 24,000 cr valuation for having a profit of 24 cr.

This time around they have made a net loss of Rs 151 cr.

So they are being very very reasonable now.

They are only asking for a Valuation of Rs 10,500 cr. Let's see what a Rs 10,500 cr company looks like, and compare it to MamaEarth.

Vardhman textiles Market cap is similar to what MamaEarth values itself

Their Annual Revenue is 10,317 cr.
MamaEarth is 1/10th of that.

Their net profit is Rs 764 cr
MamaEarth's made a loss

As someone said, we are defined by the battles we fight. It is what makes a person legendary.

MS Swaminathan decided to fight hunger and starvation.

But what very few of us know, that he had an ally in this fight

His name was Norman Borlaug.

And this is his legendary story And like many great stories, this one begins with failure.

When Norman Borlaug applied for admission to the University of Minnesota, he was rejected.

But that year, to India's great fortune, they opened a new school to which he was sent.

It was the school of Agriculture.

Imagine you are the PM of a 17-year-old country which was born in bloodshed and fire.

And the person you are taking over from was a megalomaniac of a PM, who repeatedly put his personal biases over national interest.

And thanks to his disastrous policies The coffers are empty. The country doesn't have food and are getting by on weed infested wheat rejected by the animals of the western world.

There's no industry. Economy is in shit. We have no money. And nobody wants to help us.

Because our Foreign policy is in tatters.