How Estee Lauder built its beauty products company

Amol Agrawal posts an insightful article from Knowledge@Wharton.

Shanghai becomes the largest port

For almost five years Singapore retained the number one position among the world’s top container ports but in 2010 Shanghai finally overtook Singapore to become the leading box port. Its throughput in 2010 reached 29.1 million TEUs, whereas Singapore handled 28.4 million TEUs, reported The Hindu on April 24, 2011.

“The only Indian port that finds a place among the top 30 container ports is the JN Port in New Mumbai”, states report. Its position slipped from 24 to 25 in 2010 in spite of handling 4.28 million TEUs (twenty feet equivalent unit) and registering a growth of 10.9% over the previous year.

Truck Rentals: Up for a fall?

Truck rentals from Delhi to southern destinations declined by Rs 1,000 per tonne due to lower cargo movement. Read why?

Normal Rainfall in 2011: Forecasts IMD

If the first forecast by the IMD comes true, then it is expected to give a push to the economic growth as rainfall has direct and indirect impact on several industries in the economy. These include, food grains, cash crops, agricultural inputs such as fertilisers, pesticides & hybrid seeds. Industries such as tractors, consumer durables, FMCG, are some of the indirect beneficiaries of a good monsoon.

Tea Industry: Becoming hotter or cooler??

Globally, tea output has received a setback with production trend reflecting to be lower than target. Tea production in Kenya—one of the largest producers and exporters of tea — recorded a decline in February 2011 due to hot and dry weather conditions in the main Rift Valley producing areas. Similarly, tea output in Tanzania—Africa’s fourth largest producer — is expected to be lower than target after a drought affected yields.

Indian Paper Industry to Consolidate?

Post the acquisition of Andhra Pradesh Paper Mill by International Paper Ltd, given the smaller size of operations of Indian paper companies compared to international players and surge in demand for paper in India, Indian companies may look to consolidate.

Paper Industry

Yash Papers gives a nice insight in to the Paper Industry in its Annual Report.

Dolphins around Mumbai.. you kidding me?!?

Like I my mentioned in my earlier post, I am a travel lover. But work and other responsibilities take a toll on your travel plans. And rising inflation aggravates the problem.

Being a regular traveler, my budgets are usually low. In the month of February this year, we decided to visit a beach–350 kms from Mumbai. My first reaction was beach not again!!

I thought it would have been like our regular weekend getaways like alibaug or so & i wanted to experience something new. Nonetheless, we decided to explore the place. So there we go.. from Mumbai to Karde beach (in Ratnagiri district).

NELP IX receives lukewarm response

The Indian government received a lukewarm response from oil companies particularly the large global companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron. It is suspected that long delay in granting government approval to the Cairn-Vedanta deal has kept the foreign companies at bay.

Nuclear Power: Boon or Bane?

Post the Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Agreement became operational in October 2008, India was all set to embark upon a nuclear power generation program to meet the burgeoning needs of the power-deficit country.

A number of nuclear plants were planned and one among them was the 9,900-mw plant at Jaitapur in Maharashtra by Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL). The proposed Jaitapur plant was to be developed by Areva of France after India signed nuclear agreements with France and Russia. While setting up of such plants was disputed by various stakeholders, signing of the nuclear agreement raised the prospects of the proposed plants. The ruling government in Maharashtra went all out to support setting up of the plant in spite of hurdles in acquiring land. However, all of it has come to a standstill now with earthquake-generated tsunami hitting nuclear power plants in Japan.