January 2023 - GUJRAT INDIA

Uber Ordered to Shut Down in India! State Socialism in Action

In a baffling move by the Indian government, Uber, the taxi sharing application which has become a global craze, was ordered to be completely shut down in the country by the 31st of October 2014. While the country is in dire need to attract as much foreign investment as possible, the government is resorting to its decades of socialist policies, making India even more unattractive for international businesses.

Uber is a heavily funded start up company which offers anyone a chance to become a taxi driver and give rides to customers through an easy payment system. The website has revolutionized the taxi business in many parts of the world where people have found the system to be part car-share part money saver.

It has no doubt served as a controversial company which has seen large scale protests from traditional taxi companies and businesses in places such as London, Paris and even San Francisco. When a union of taxi drivers in London tried to ban the website/application, the government refused lest it makes the city look unfriendly towards international businesses. A smart move from a smart city.

Despite all the controversy the company still grew strong with reportedly strong backing from Google and Fidelity ventures. It entered the growing Indian Market soon and grew throughout the urban areas of the huge country. However, like everywhere else, the Taxi drivers were not too happy. In a country with the largest number of poor people on earth and with a high birth rate/low skilled labour class, driving cars, buses, vans and rickshaws is seen as a lifeline by millions of the uneducated. After expanding to over 10 highly populated cities of India and cutting prices by 25% even large and established cab companies and car rentals started to take notice of Uber.

These companies have now taken extreme measures of blocking Uber from operating in India. Complaints were made to the Reserve Bank of India accusing Uber of violating the country’s strict foreign exchange laws due to their payment system.

In a classic move reminiscent of India’s socialist past, the bank has now given Uber till October to shut down! This would prove to be a disastrous move from the central bank at a time when India requires as much investment as possible. A similar case earlier this year made many global retailers rethink about their strategy in India when they understood that the government is following populist/socialist policies in order to gain rural voters.

Time is still with India and the government should rethink its strategy on international companies. International companies only bring in technology, money and new business methods into a country and forces local companies to play catch up and improve their game. Uber would not have ‘destroyed’ India’s taxi drivers but would have forced them to reduce prices and introduce more services which all add up to customer advantages and economic growth.

It would be interesting to see how the Modi government deals with such issues in the next 5 years.

History of Educational Technology

There is no written evidence which can tell us exactly who has coined the phrase educational technology. Different educationists, scientists and philosophers at different time intervals have put forwarded different definitions of Educational Technology. Educational technology is a multifaceted and integrated process involving people, procedure, ideas, devices, and organization, where technology from different fields of science is borrowed as per the need and requirement of education for implementing, evaluating, and managing solutions to those problems involved in all aspects of human learning.

Educational technology, broadly speaking, has passed through five stages.

The first stage of educational technology is coupled with the use of aids like charts, maps, symbols, models, specimens and concrete materials. The term educational technology was used as synonyms to audio-visual aids.

The second stage of educational technology is associated with the ‘electronic revolution’ with the introduction and establishment of sophisticated hardware and software. Use of various audio-visual aids like projector, magic lanterns, tape-recorder, radio and television brought a revolutionary change in the educational scenario. Accordingly, educational technology concept was taken in terms of these sophisticated instruments and equipments for effective presentation of instructional materials.

The third stage of educational technology is linked with the development of mass media which in turn led to ‘communication revolution’ for instructional purposes. Computer-assisted Instruction (CAI) used for education since 1950s also became popular during this era.

The fourth stage of educational technology is discernible by the individualized process of instruction. The invention of programmed learning and programmed instruction provided a new dimension to educational technology. A system of self-learning based on self-instructional materials and teaching machines emerged.

The latest concept of educational technology is influenced by the concept of system engineering or system approach which focuses on language laboratories, teaching machines, programmed instruction, multimedia technologies and the use of the computer in instruction. According to it, educational technology is a systematic way of designing, carrying out and evaluating the total process of teaching and learning in terms of specific objectives based on research.

Educational technology during the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age

Educational technology, despite the uncertainty of the origin of the term, can be traced back to the time of the three-age system periodization of human prehistory; namely the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age.

Duringthe Stone Age, ignition of fire by rubbing stones, manufacture of various handmade weapon and utensils from stones and clothing practice were some of the simple technological developments of utmost importance. A fraction of Stone Age people developed ocean-worthy outrigger canoe ship technology to migrate from one place to another across the Ocean, by which they developed their first informal education of knowledge of the ocean currents, weather conditions, sailing practice, astronavigation, and star maps. During the later Stone Age period (Neolithic period),for agricultural practice, polished stone tools were made from a variety of hard rocks largely by digging underground tunnels, which can be considered as the first steps in mining technology. The polished axes were so effective that even after appearance of bronze and iron; people used it for clearing forest and the establishment of crop farming.

Although Stone Age cultures left no written records, but archaeological evidences proved their shift from nomadic life to agricultural settlement. Ancient tools conserved in different museums, cave paintings like Altamira Cave in Spain, and other prehistoric art, such as the Venus of Willendorf, Mother Goddess from Laussel, France etc. are some of the evidences in favour of their cultures.

Neolithic Revolution of Stone Age resulted into the appearance of Bronze Age with development of agriculture, animal domestication, and the adoption of permanent settlements. For these practices Bronze Age people further developed metal smelting, with copper and later bronze, an alloy of tin and copper, being the materials of their choice.

The Iron Age people replaced bronze and developed the knowledge of iron smelting technology to lower the cost of living since iron utensils were stronger and cheaper than bronze equivalents. In many Eurasian cultures, the Iron Age was the last period before the development of written scripts.

Educational technology during the period of Ancient civilizations

According to Paul Saettler, 2004, Educational technology can be traced back to the time when tribal priests systematized bodies of knowledge and ancient cultures invented pictographs or sign writing to record and transmit information. In every stage of human civilization, one can find an instructional technique or set of procedures intended to implement a particular culture which were also supported by number of investigations and evidences. The more advanced the culture, the more complex became the technology of instruction designed to reflect particular ways of individual and social behaviour intended to run an educated society. Over centuries, each significant shift in educational values, goals or objectives led to diverse technologies of instruction.

The greatest advances in technology and engineering came with the rise of the ancient civilizations. These advances stimulated and educated other societies in the world to adopt new ways of living and governance.

The Indus Valley Civilization was an early Bronze Age civilization which was located in the northwestern region of the Indian Subcontinent. The civilization was primarily flourished around the Indus River basin of the Indus and the Punjab region, extending upto the Ghaggar-Hakra River valley and the Ganges-Yamuna Doab, (most of the part is under today’s Pakistan and the western states of modern-day India as well as some part of the civilization extending upto southeastern Afghanistan, and the easternmost part of Balochistan, Iran).

There is a long term controversy to be sure about the language that the Harappan people spoke. It is assumed that their writing was at least seems to be or a pictographic script. The script appears to have had about 400 basic signs, with lots of variations. People write their script with the direction generally from right to left. Most of the writing was found on seals and sealings which were probably used in trade and official & administrative work.

Harappan people had the knowledge of the measuring tools of length, mass, and time. They were the first in the world to develop a system of uniform weights and measures.

In a study carried out by P. N. Rao et al. in 2009, published in Science, computer scientists found that the Indus script’s pattern is closer to that of spoken words, which supported the proposed hypothesis that it codes for an as-yet-unknown language.

According to the Chinese Civilization, some of the major techno-offerings from China include paper, early seismological detectors, toilet paper, matches, iron plough, the multi-tube seed drill, the suspension bridge, the wheelbarrow, the parachute, natural gas as fuel, the magnetic compass, the raised-relief map, the blast furnace, the propeller, the crossbow, the South Pointing Chariot, and gun powder. With the invent of paper they have given their first step towards developments of educational technology by further culturing different handmade products of paper as means of visual aids.

Ancient Egyptian language was at one point one of the longest surviving and used languages in the world. Their script was made up of pictures of the real things like birds, animals, different tools, etc. These pictures are popularly called hieroglyph. Their language was made up of above 500 hieroglyphs which are known as hieroglyphics. On the stone monuments or tombs which were discovered and rescued latter on provides the evidence of existence of many forms of artistic hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt.

Educational technology during Medieval and Modern Period

Paper and the pulp papermaking process which was developed in China during the early 2nd century AD, was carried to the Middle East and was spread to Mediterranean by the Muslim conquests. Evidences support that a paper mill was also established in Sicily in the 12th century. The discovery of spinning wheel increased the productivity of thread making process to a great extent and when Lynn White added the spinning wheel with increasing supply of rags, this led to the production of cheap paper, which was a prime factor in the development of printing technology.

The invention of the printing press was taken place in approximately 1450 AD, by Johannes Gutenburg, a German inventor. The invention of printing press was a prime developmental factor in the history of educational technology to convey the instruction as per the need of the complex and advanced-technology cultured society.

In the pre-industrial phases, while industry was simply the handwork at artisan level, the instructional processes were relied heavily upon simple things like the slate, the horn book, the blackboard, and chalk. It was limited to a single text book with a few illustrations. Educational technology was considered synonymous to simple aids like charts and pictures.

The year 1873 may be considered a landmark in the early history of technology of education or audio-visual education. An exhibition was held in Vienna at international level in which an American school won the admiration of the educators for the exhibition of maps, charts, textbooks and other equipments.

Maria Montessori (1870-1952), internationally renowned child educator and the originator of Montessori Method exerted a dynamic impact on educational technology through her development of graded materials designed to provide for the proper sequencing of subject matter for each individual learner. Modern educational technology suggests many extension of Montessori’s idea of prepared child centered environment.

In1833, Charles Babbage’s design of a general purpose computing device laid the foundation of the modern computer and in 1943, the first computing machine as per hi design was constructed by International Business Machines Corporation in USA. The Computer Assisted instruction (CAI) in which the computer functions essentially as a tutor as well as the Talking Type writer was developed by O.K. Moore in 1966. Since 1974, computers are interestingly used in education in schools, colleges and universities.

In the beginning of the 19th century, there were noteworthy changes in the field of education. British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), right from its start of school broadcasts in 1920 had maintained rapid pace in making sound contribution to formal education. In the USA, by 1952, 20 states had the provision for educational broadcasting. Parallel to this time about 98% of the schools in United Kingdom were equipped with radios and there were regular daily programmes.

Sidney L. Pressey, a psychologist of Ohio state university developed a self-teaching machine called ‘Drum Tutor’ in 1920. Professor Skinner, however, in his famous article ‘Science of Learning and art of Teaching’ published in 1945 pleaded for the application of the knowledge derived from behavioral psychology to classroom procedures and suggested automated teaching devices as means of doing so.

Although the first practical use of Regular television broadcasts was in Germany in 1929 and in 1936 the Olympic Games in Berlin were broadcasted through television stations in Berlin, Open circuit television began to be used primarily for broadcasting programmes for entertainment in 1950. Since 1960, television is used for educational purposes.

In 1950, Brynmor, in England, used educational technological steps for the first time. It is to be cared that in 1960, as a result of industrial revolution in America and Russia, other countries also started progressing in the filed of educational technology. In this way, the beginning of educational technology took place in 1960 from America and Russia and now it has reached England, Europe and India.

During the time of around 1950s, new technocracy was turning it attraction to educations when there was a steep shortage of teachers in America and therefore an urgent need of educational technology was felt. Dr. Alvin C. Eurich and a little later his associate, Dr. Alexander J. Stoddard introduced mass production technology in America.

Team teaching had its origin in America in the mid of 1950’s and was first started in the year 1955 at Harvard University as a part of internship plan.

In the year 1956, Benjamin Bloom from USA introduced the taxonomy of educational objectives through his publication, “The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain”.

In 1961, Micro teaching technique was first adopted by Dwight W. Allen and his co-workers at Stanford University in USA.

Electronics is the main technology being developed in the beginning of 21st century. Broadband Internet access became popular and occupied almost all the important offices and educational places and even in common places in developed countries with the advantage of connecting home computers with music libraries and mobile phones.

Today’s classroom is more likely to be a technology lab, a room with rows of students using internet connected or Wi-Fi enabled laptops, palmtops, notepad, or perhaps students are attending a video conferencing or virtual classroom or may have been listening to a podcast or taking in a video lecture. Rapid technological changes in the field of educational have created new ways to teach and to learn. Technological changes also motivated the teachers to access a variety of information on a global scale via the Internet, to enhance their lessons as well as to make them competent professional in their area of concern. At the same time, students can utilize vast resources of the Internet to enrich their learning experience to cope up with changing trend of the society. Now a days students as well teachers are attending seminars, conferences, workshops at national and international level by using the multimedia techno-resources like PowerPoint and even they pursue a variety of important courses of their choice in distance mode via online learning ways. Online learning facility has opened infinite number of doors of opportunities for today’s learner to make their life happier than ever before.

Plan Your Time – Manage Your Time, Invest Your Time

Introduction

At one stage or another we all have heard or read all or any of the below mentioned, Time Related Phrases:

1) Time is money. Time is wealth.

2) Time is a river. Time is wind.

3) Respect your time.

4) Doesn’t matter what you do…time will just pass away.

5) You never know, when your time will change. (Samey bada balvaan hota hai)

6) Each year, each day, each moment is unique in its own way. Once it passes, it will never come again.

7) Respect my time and I will respect yours.

8) With time, all wounds will heal.

9) If I had more hours

10) I don’t have time

There are many more.

But, like money or wealth or your assets can you save your time for difficult days? No, you cannot. Your time is now, invest it or waste it.

We are living in an era where researchers, philosophers and historians are talking, discussing and debating about “Life Management”…”Plan your life”. Every individual should know what he want in his life? Where he see himself after 5 or 10 years? One should know what he or she is expecting in his or her life. Hence, Time Management is an important aspect of our life.

How busy are you? – Your daily Routine

Let’s see, what we (Most of us) do in our daily life. How we are managing our day? As an example, I will take my daily schedule and I am sure that yours too will be closer to that. We spend time in following activities:

1) Rest / Sleep – 8 hours

2) Health: Yoga, Exercise – 1 hour

3) Prayers – 1 Hour

4) Food (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & Snacks) – 2 hours

5) Entertainment – 2 hours

6) Knowledge / Learning / News – 1 hour

7) Socializing – 1 Hour

8) Work/Profession/Career – 10 hours

9) Traveling – 3hours

10) Time for Family – 3 hours

One should do all these activities to have a successful, purposeful, stress free and happy life. If I calculate above mentioned time, it comes out to be 32 hours, whereas there are only 24 hours in a day. So, how to manage? I don’t want to cut any of the activity.

Manage your Time

One can manage his time by using following skills and tools

1) Planning

2) Multi-tasking

3) Optimum use of Technology

4) Delegation

5) Self Discipline

Plan your day. Be disciplined. Respect your time and that of others too. Have proper schedule. Do multitasking. Use technology in a best possible manner.

Let’s plan your day

1) You wake-up in the morning and then go for walk or jogging. At the same time on your walk-man you can also listen to prayers, religious songs etc. Right or Wrong?

2) Once you come back from your walk, at the time of your morning tea or milk, you can scan through Newspaper or News Channels to keep you updated with the latest events and news. Can you?

3) While having your breakfast, you can also spend that time with your kids and family or listen to songs of your choice.

4) While driving or traveling to your office you can either listen to songs or use your mobile – phone to stay in touch with your friends and relatives through messages and calls. If you are at a senior level and really busy and your office is quite far away…you can also have one meeting in your car. You can also go through few reports, analysis; check those reports and also sign those documents that need your signatures and approvals. Can you do this?

5) In office, you do all of the following things:

A) Internal Meetings (There are three types of meetings – Briefing, Discussion / Debate, Review)

B) Routine work (It will be very useful for you to have well defined processes to take care of routine works)

C) Value Addition to your Function and Department

D) Client Meetings (Purpose can be any of the following: update them; get more business; grievance / query handling)

E) Interviews (To add a new person to your team; Employee Retention; Employee Grievance Handling)

Do you think that there is anything more that you do at your workplace; over and above the activities that I have listed???

6) During your first tea-break in office, have a brief meeting with your team-members and delegate your routine work.

7) You can have an important client or business meeting during your lunch.

8) For discussion / debates with seniors or your peers located at different areas, you can either use the technology of Conference Call or Video Conferencing. It will help you in managing your time and save your money. Same technology can be used for interviewing candidates from different locations. You can also use this technology for Induction, Training and Development and also for Media briefing. If you can solve a problem through a simple message on mobile phone or a simple e-mail; you don’ have to call for a meeting. So, use your mobile phone and internet to help you in managing your time.

9) Along with your second tea-break, you can also have another meeting (Review Meeting) with your team.

10) While moving from one office to another or one department to another, you can also send messages to your family members, relatives and friends and stay in touch with them.

11) When you are in a meeting, it is important that you prepare yourself for the meeting and keep it within the limits of discussion. Be there for the meeting, on time and you should also know when to end the meeting. It is a matter of discipline.

12) In the evening, while going home you can do any of the following: Listen to your favorite songs; go through the reports and papers or have meeting with client or customer.

13) Once you are at home, give your time to family. Listen to them. Solve their Concerns. Enjoy with them. Do not bore them by discussing about your day in the office.

14) At the time of Dinner, you can again update yourself with news and current updates.

15) Before, you retire for the day, read something.

Do you think, that you have things to do or to take care that I have not mentioned in the list?

What Busy People do?

1) They respect their time as well as that of the other person.

2) They manage their time in such a manner that they get time to do everything in their life.

3) They use technology in a best possible manner.

4) They are self-disciplined.

5) They plan their day and their time.

6) They know their limitations. They trust people, efficiencies & talent of people around them and delegate their work.

7) They take responsibility and accountability.

What Busy People don’t do?

1) They don’t scream or complain for lack of time.

2) They do not procrastinate or postpone their work.

3) They don’t gossip.

4) They don’t blame TIME for their failures and frustrations.

5) They don’t mix their work with family. They don’t carry their work to home and don’t bring their family emotions and fights to workplace.

6) They don’t blame others.

Conclusion

Number of hours in a day will not change. There will only be 86,400 seconds in a day. It is up to you, how you manage and use each of those seconds. One needs to invest each second. As, it has been rightly said, time once passed will never come again. Busy people are very satisfied, happy and do everything that they want to do in their life. Those, who show that they are busy, end up with frustration, burn-outs, stress and most of the time failure in life and profession.

Before I sign-out, I like to share few examples to let you know the value of Time, I studied these examples when I was in school,

To realize the value of one year; ask a student who has failed a final exam.

To realize the value of one month; ask a mother who has given birth to a premature baby.

To realize the value of one week; ask an editor of a weekly newspaper or magazine

To realize the value of one hour; ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.

To realize the value of one minute; ask the person who has missed the train, bus or plane.

To realize the value of one second; ask a person who has survived an accident.

To realize the value of one millisecond; ask the person who has won a silver medal in the Olympics.

Time waits for no one. Treasure every moment you have. You will treasure it even more when you share it with someone special.

Looking forward to your Comments and Feedback

With lots of love, care and affection,

How To Make Money With Resell Rights eBooks

If you are just starting out in the world of online marketing, you may want to try making money with resell right eBooks. As a matter of fact, if you do it right, you can make a good deal of money from the comfort of your home. For instance, if you get 100 eBooks sold in just 7 days, you can easily gain 100 prospects. Now, you might be thinking where to buy great eBooks with resell rights. Well, there are many websites where you can purchase these eBooks for a one-time fee, and you can profit from this fee time and time again. Let’s find out how you can do it.

Selling eBooks

What topics can you sell eBooks on? Well, any topic will be good as long as it is useful and interesting. In fact, if you have a good deal of knowledge about a specific topic, and you think that the world can benefit from your knowledge, you can share what you know with the whole world.

The beauty of selling eBooks is that the cost of this business is very low. Plus, you don’t have any inventory to maintain. In other words, the whole process will be a lot easier than you can imagine. You just need to use your head and do things the right way.

PLR (Private Label Products)

PLR stands for Private Label Products and it refers to informational products that are usually available in the .doc format. While the content is produced by someone else, you can easily make changes to it based on your taste. After editing, you can get the edited version sold earning a good deal of profit.

The main advantage of this business is that you can get profit each time you make a sale. Aside from this, you will also be able to make money by including links in the books that point to your blogs, sites or affiliate offers.

Sale of Digital Products

If you don’t have enough money to spend, you can sell PLR videos and do experiments with some digital products. It is a good idea to sell good PLR videos as well as some other content in the form of a package. Another way is to sell pieces one by one. The good thing is that you can get these videos from many PLR video websites and other PLR stores. You can make huge profits in a short period of time.

The Takeaway

While selling informational products is a proven method of bringing lots of traffic to your blog or site and then making serious profits, you may want to pick the eBooks after a lot of thinking. When buying eBooks with resell rights, the important thing to keep in mind is the product should have something unique and beneficial for the customers. In the eBook market, there is lots of competition as countless people are doing business selling similar products.

So, it’s your job to offer something that will attract the customers, as this is the key to achieve success by selling resell rights eBooks.

International Etiquette Tips – For Travellers on Business or on Holiday

Long plane rides lend plenty of time for reflection. On an 8-hour flight home from vacation this summer, I started thinking about how handy my business trip to-do list is, even for casual summer holidays like this one. Sometimes international travellers will head to the airport without thinking twice about how their destination might differ from their home country, or how their own customs and manners might fit in with another culture. In my opinion, it’s always best to prepare before travelling abroad: just a little pre-voyage homework can ease your adjustment to a new place and will demonstrate respect for your host’s nation and customs.

My Business Trip To-Do List

Research local customs. Just a bit of background work on your host’s country can give you an advantage with a potential partner or client: it will demonstrate that you are serious about the value of your business relationships and that you are respectful of their culture. Researching local customs and manners is perhaps most important; it can save you from many embarrassing blunders. Look up the procedures and differences in shaking hands, introductions and titles, dress codes, dining and table manners, body language, and appropriate arrival times.

Research current affairs. Before your trip, follow the news regarding your destination country. It is helpful in preparing you for a different political climate or atmosphere, as well as for keeping up with dinner conversations with your hosts. A note of caution: avoid discussing anything too controversial – you don’t want to jeopardize your business relationship with polemic small talk or dinner debates.

Learn a few new words. Though you are most likely doing business in English, don’t assume that you can get by everywhere with it. Learning a few key words or phrases in your destination’s native tongue can help you out of a sticky situation – and again can show your hosts that you have invested time and effort into learning about their culture.

Prepare a host gift. It is a kind gesture to offer your appreciation for your hosts by way of a gift. But first of all, make sure that it is acceptable – culturally and with company policy – for a business guest to give a gift. Once you have determined this, a small gift that represents your hometown or province is a nice way to share your culture as well. Make sure you investigate what is not appropriate: for example, in India the cow is considered sacred, so you would not want to give anything made from or with leather to an Indian host.

Just a few preparations before a business trip not only will make a good impression on your hosts, but also will make you feel more confident in yourself as you plan to navigate a wholly unfamiliar place. And this confidence could make all the difference in establishing that business partnership or sealing a successful deal!

Autocar India – The Leading Automotive News Magazine in the Country

Autocar is clearly the established world leader when it comes to automotive news media. With a history of over 100 years, it easily bears the legacy of the world’s oldest automobile magazine. Autocar was first introduced in 1895, as a weekly British automobile magazine published by Haymarket Motoring Publications Ltd. Today, along with the UK, there are other editions including India, China and South Africa.

Launched in September 1999, Autocar India is the country’s leading authority for motorbike and car owners; always seeking to be a forerunner. The magazine is known for pioneering road testing in India, and is the last word on new cars and bikes because of its authentic road test verdicts. It was also the first magazine to explore the Tata Nano, and showcase its interiors. Other magazines are envious of its reputation for exemplary editorial content, as well as high production standards with the magazine receiving accolades from both the industry and consumers alike.

The Autocar India editorial team ranks among the most experienced editorial teams in India, producing daily news and reviews on the latest cars and motorbikes. Hormazd Sorabjee is the Editor, with an experience of over 25 years in writing about cars; from a 65-ton battle tank to a Formula 1 car, he has driven it all. Shapur Kotwal is Deputy Editor and a part of each of the magazine’s extensive road testing activities. He also supervises test instrumentation, data acquisition and has commanded the most experience as a road tester in India. Akbar Merchant leads the staff writers, who cover all the latest scoops, launches, developments, and breaking news in the Indian automotive industry.

Autocar India’s monthly content includes exclusive news, features, and fascinating automobile stories. The magazine was the first to pioneer the concept of advertorials in India. Incidentally, it contains the largest and liveliest classified services section among any other monthly automobile magazine.

Autocar India promises to- “Get you the perfect fix of heady automobiles and dish out thorough reviews of the latest cars and bikes on Indian streets.” The world of cars is exciting to so many of us and Autocar brings alive its piquant stories and engaging features; making it the must-read magazine for everyone interested in cars.

Autocar India has always remained true to its heritage with its exhaustive and authoritative road tests. The best in the business, they have grown from being just a car magazine to becoming the expert on any car brand. The magazine boasts of a readership of more than twice the readership available for the closest rival, making it, by far, India’s best-selling car magazine. But more than the numbers, it is the content that makes it India’s best car magazine.

Autocar is known for being the only magazine to provide content towards leading dailies like The Telegraph, The Hindu, The Hindustan Times and more. Editor Hormazd Sorabjee also hosts the popular show on UTVi on cars and bikes.

According to a report, the Indian vehicle manufacturing industry has increased its growth by 13% over 10 years now, and contributes 6% to India’s GDP. Autocar India had joined hands with Bloomberg TV to present the awards praising the role of the automotive industry for increasing the growth rate of the Indian economy. Awards include: Renault Duster for “Car of the Year (Jury’s Choice)”, “Viewer’s Choice Car of the Year”, and “SUV of the Year”. Mahindra and Mahindra won the ‘Manufacturer of the Year’ award. “Bajaj KTM 200 Duke” won “Bike of the Year (Jury’s Choice)” and “Viewer’s Choice Bike of the Year” awards.

With India being the third largest internet user in the world, there is little doubt that at least a quarter of them will be hooked onto digital reading, which gives them access to an Autocar India digital subscription. Going by the population of the world and the number of internet users, there is no doubt that digital magazines are the future. Also with the access to mobiles and tablets that can be used as readers, the development of apps for publishing and reading has taken the market by storm; to announce that the future is here! Publishers that have made the switch have already realized the benefits and profits.

Autocar being the oldest automobile magazine has also been the first to switch to the digital version of the magazine. With an Autocar e-magazine you can do much more than you would with a paper magazine. As the magazine is always in the cloud, you can access it at any point in time from practically anywhere; get interactive content on the go and within the app too. Consumers who are unable to carry their favorite magazines around during travel can switch to the digital format of the magazine with ease.

Importance Of Having A Website Banner

Needless to say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression on anyone’s mind. And when a visitor comes to your website so the first thing that makes your company’s impression on their mind is the banner of your website. Therefore, having an eye-catching banner is as important for your website as salt in a dish to add taste. After all, you also want to make a first impression on your visitor’s mind. Don’t you?

On the off-chance, your website doesn’t have any such banner so the chances you are losing more customers than you are gaining right now. A banner is a sort of advertising over the World Wide Web that showcases your offers to your customers and holds their attention. Here are some points that make you understand the importance of having a website banner.

Encourage Visitors: One of the common reasons to have a website banner is that it helps to encourage your customer to stay on your website for further browsing to understand your offered products and services. All in all, it increases the visibility of your website on different search engines and easily captures their attention.

Cheapest Way Of Advertising: Advertising can do wonders for your business growth and if you are not investing in it to save your money so you probably losing the countless business opportunities. Yes, advertising is expensive, but not all the time because website banner is the cheapest way to do it in an effective and creative manner.

Promote Company News: If your business holds any event and want people to know about it, so, website banner is the easiest way to do so. It allowed you to promote your company news and important information in a manner that captures the attention of its visitors, so, more and more people get involved in it.

Highlight Hot Products And Services: Another reason to have a website banner is that it helps to highlight your star products and services in front of your customer. It increases your conversion rate and gives new wings to your business promotion.

What do you think now? All above points clear your doubts regarding its importance for your business. The banner can be challenging to design but can do a miracle for your business growth and therefore you should hire a Website Designing Company to do this task. The banner is the gateway of your website makes sure it should be attractive and informative as well that increases your presence over the World Wide Web.

Why Biometric Technology Is Still Not the Absolute Replacement for Passwords

A good security token is the one that distinctively corresponds to you and which nobody could know, guess or copy. This is the reason why security experts suggest us to use long and random passwords for our safety. However, it is not as easy as it sounds because it gets hard to memorize strong and unique passwords.

Biometric technology as we know right now is the hot favorite technique of securing any place. It had to happen counting it is such a trouble free way of security than that of passwords we have to remember. In biometrics, our finger or thumb impressions not only make our job easier but also are unique by nature.

Also, biometric technology removed the trouble of hacking considering it is not a cakewalk for someone to hack your fingerprints than cracking the pass code. Following the best security practices, setting strong passwords for separate devices and then memorizing the same every time is not an easy thing as compared to biometrics.

So, if a biometric system seems so better in every department, why is there a need for amelioration? Why still the technology is not the astute replacement for the pesky passwords?

First and foremost, it is a certain fact that biometrics will play an important part in future validation. But we need to understand that the system is not a cure for everything at the present moment. There are still many issues that prevail which need to be taken care of in order to make the technology thoroughly invulnerable.

A lot of researchers in the world have stated that it is not exactly true that biometrics cannot be rehashed as they tried on fooling fingerprint readers and successfully got past the digital scanners via some special pair of glasses. More to it, the biometrics that were instigated initially keep all the data stored on server rather than restricting it to the client so breaching the security system isn’t impossible in this case scenario.

Last year it was reported that in a United States Office of Human Resource Management, touch ID’s of millions of government employees were stolen which first raised the suspicion on the tech. Immediately ascertaining the threat, the mobile companies quickly altered the fingerprint system in the devices by adding a password security succeeding the touch ID.

This data breach made it clear that biometrics is not impeccable. In fact they have simply shunned the passwords. Counting it can get very problematic if someone cannot log in with his or her touch ID, all the software companies ranging from Microsoft’s Windows 10 and Google’s Android have provided password tool as well to ensure this does not happen.

So, relying on biometric authentication is not recommended at the current time as having a backup in the form of passwords is very important. This process is called multi factor authentication (MFA) where we can put biometric as one of the two-way security procedure, while passwords the other.

Biometrics are indeed a fantastic method of verification but the tech is not yet a completely error proof. So, it should not be taken as an outright replacement for passwords but instead must be implemented along with it for enhanced protection.

What Role Do Business Directories Play in Indian Export Business?

There are many things going on in the backdrop of the Indian economy that are favoring the growth of India as a key player in the global economic setup. The small and medium enterprises are getting stronger, the value of Indian export goods is rising steadily and the Indian exporters are finding news ways to take their businesses to the international level.

If you analyze carefully, all these things are interrelated to one another. The growth of small and medium enterprises is contributing toward the increase in Indian exports and the exporters from the country are utilizing the concepts like online business directory promotion. And all these things are boosting the demand of Indian goods in the foreign market. As a result, the export industry is increasing its share in the total GDP of the country.

Business directories and Indian liberalization policy came into virtue within the same period. The liberalization policy adopted by the Indian government in the early 1990s allowed the exporters from India to go beyond geographical boundaries and sell their products in the international markets. The internet grew in popularity in the 1990s and the concept of online business directory promotion came into being.

The Indian traders, especially those with small exporting power, required a platform that could help them in extending their reach to different countries. The online business directories seemed to serve the purpose and that too, in a cost-effective manner. Rather than posting at trading directories of different countries, a business directory allows the traders from different countries to join the same place. The exporters India has today are using these directories to post their sell leads that become visible to the interested buyers in different parts of the world.

Here are some benefits that online business directories offer to the Indian exporters to achieve success in their business:

Building long term relationship with retailers and wholesalers is possible by selling trade lead at online b2b business directories. These buyers may be located nationally as well as internationally.
It has become easy for the exporters from India to stay in the competition. Going a step further, their presence at online directories helps them to attract customers of their rivals.
These directories help the exporters to maintain their product catalogs and update them with new products launched by the manufacturers. Traditionally, it would take time to inform the global buyers about the new products that these exporters have to sell.
Receiving queries from interested buyers is fast and easy with an online directory. You don’t have to rely upon traditional methods that would delay the inquiries and orders of buyers. Online forms can be filled by the buyers to contact the exporters.
With the help of online directories, the exporters can easily refer to the demand of the buyers from different countries. This is because an online business directory allows the buyers to post their buy leads and the exporters who have the required products can immediately contact the buyers.

So, the online business directories are acting as the right platform for the Indian exporters to grow like never before. It is indeed a great advantage that internet technology is contributing towards economical growth of the countries like India.

The Conditions Are Now Perfect To Switch To Cisco Phone Systems

For a long time now most business owners have known Cisco is the best when it comes to switching equipment and phone systems. The cost made this “Rolls Royce” solution out of reach for most small and medium business.

The great news is that this has now changed.

Around 5 years ago, Cisco introduced the Smart Business Communications solution using the UC520 for small and medium business. This solution had all the “bells and whistles” of a top end Cisco solution at a competitive price.

The UC520 was still out of the reach of most small businesses with between 4 -16 end users. This was partly due to customers already having an existing data network and only having basic phone system requirements.

Cisco has now introduced the UC320. The major change is that this solution is targeted for a single site customer. This has allowed Cisco to significantly reduce the price of the system but retain all the inherent benefits of a Cisco solution. This has made the UC320 extremely good value and cheaper than most of its competitors whilst retaining all the features that a small business could possible use.

Target Customer Profile

The sweet spot for the UC320 is between 4 – 16 users. The solution is perfect for any business that;

· Requires a basic telephone system – Key System or PBX, or

· Greenfield or Key System replacement

Most businesses would benefit from voicemail, hunt group or auto attendant. This was previously out of reach on all other brands due to cost. These features are standard on the UC320. This solution stands apart from almost all of its competitors when it comes to data integration (wired and wireless). The UC320 is a unified communications system that brings together voice, data, and wireless communications. The key purchase decision factor for small business is price and service.

Benefits

The UC320 is designed and built specifically for Small Business.

· It is a unified communications system that brings together voice, data, and wireless communications

· Comes with an enhanced communications feature set at no extra charge

· Affordable, easy to install and use

· Delivers reliable, business-class performance

· Delivered and supported by Cisco, a trusted brand and the world leader in networking and communications

What’s under the Hood

The UC320 provides the following;

· 1 to 24 IP Telephones

· VoIP capable

· Up to 12 PSTN trunks (4 built-in)

· Up to 8 BRI trunks

· Key System and PBX mode

· Day/Night Ring mode

· Automated Attendant (2×9 menu)

· Internal Voice Mail

· Voice to email notification with audio file

· Music on Hold – Internal or external

· Business Call Control Features (Shared Line Call Appearance, Call Forwarding etc.)

Summary

The conditions are now perfect to upgrade your communications infrastructure to the Cisco brand. This solution is designed specifically for single site small businesses with up to 25 users. Cisco has set the price point of this solution to come well under its competitors with similar features. If you put this together with the high Australian Dollar, there has never been a better time to make the switch to CISCO.