The Great Sun.

So with nanosolar having hit the grid parity on solar, it's only a matter of time before the world starts to get meaningful share of it's energy needs from my personal favorite of energy source .. The Great Sun.
When I was a kid - my pa told me about the solar streetlight installation in the village - where I grandpa had a shop. It was apparently not very effective - but that was then .. and what have we now -
With such technology we can create a grid connected solar farm - which in capital investments will cost no more than creating a coal based plant. Plus no fuel will be burnt, very little opex will be required .. less people, less pollution .. . only downside - A large area will be required.
How large - lets see. The Great Sun gives 1000 Watt per square meter. Nanosolar is claiming 17% efficiency but some bloggers won't buy that .. they say 14% .. so thats 140 Watts/sq meter of solar installation ...
Thats 7 square km for a 1000 MW Plant. I am sure that's VERY BIG compared to a coal plant. But I would still do it.
Hope I can muster the guts to import stuff from nanosolar and create a put together - may be a smaller installation - in Rajasthan ... Moser Baer - Beware.

What makes a good financial advisor

Lately, I have been giving free financial advice a few colleagues. I have noticed how eager I am to help them - equipped with my knowledge of a few basic ideas on diversification, inflation, cash flow and its valuation.

Doing this far too often, I can articulate very well these ideas. But investment theories is not the only thing I learnt at IIMA. I remember the lessons in slightly softer courses as well - which makes me resist the temptation of giving advice.

So I am now the financial advisor - who goes on ranting about possibilities - and doesn't deliver advice. I break down the problem at hand for the advisee (is that a word?) - and say - "think about it and take a call".

I wonder if the guys banks send when you want a loan, insurance or your friendly neighbourhood portfolio manager - only gave you 'analysis' - would you really be thankful ? Would such a behaviour result in loss of 'sales' .. because people want to hear - "this will make 20% return year on year" or .. "Unit linked plans are always best for you" ...

So who would you call a good financial advisor .. one who gives you assurance that your investment is going in the right direction .. or one who gives you all data and analysis and doesn't even tell you if you are making a right choice.

Because anyone who tries to do both - will have to end up using pretty confusing language like: "Diversified equity funds have traditionally done better than sectoral funds over any 5 year horizon between 1980-2000. Though past is not really a good measure of future - I would recommend that you put a significant portion of your savings flow into such a fund".

mobile phones and fish market

I have written about my interest in Economics. Though I read about dollar-rupee rates / inflation and unwanted RBI interventions, this is an example of the kind of stuff I like about economics:-
Mobile phones bringing price efficiency in fish markets
Good part about such stuff is that it doesn't take graphs or 2X2 matrix to explain it. It's simple, elegant and very interesting (well, at least to me).

TV18 Gets it

I have been watching the consumer internet space in India with some interest for a while now. VCs are exercising reasonable caution when it comes to putting money in an Indian startup in the space (which is different from the situation in silicon valley where too much money is chasing few good ideas).
That aside, I couldn't help notice how good a job TV18 is doing with a whole bunch of initiatives. They are hardly innovative ideas: cricketnext, compareindia, homeshop18, tech2.0, indiwo or their bread and butter moneycontrol. But there's clearly a thrust on building communities which shows that they have taken a long term view. A diversified set of web assets, presence in the content side (being a media company) give TV18 an edge. If it's not already doing so, this is one company which will give indiatimes and rediff a run for their money.
I would buy their stocks, but a lil expensive right now. So I have it on my shopping list. Hoping for the markets to cool off before june/july.

Bheja Fry - Laugh it out.

Last weekend, my wife - Neha, called me up to ask if I was interested in watching 'Bheja Fry'. Now, I am not a big fan of hindi movies and I wasn't particularly impressed with the promos I had already seen but I reluctantly agreed .. mostly to avoid being alone on a Friday evening. (She threatened to go alone on this one, if I persisted with my love for dark ones like the departed, 300, Apolcalypto).

The movie is appartenly unoriginal (I read that it's 'inspired' by Le Diner De Cons - The Dinner Game).

I couldn't care less - as long as it made me laugh. And it did. It was after a long time that I saw such a good work on comedy from bollywood. I might have missed the funny ones in recent years, but after the times of Golmaal, bollywood comedies have centered around poor jokes, double meaning dialogues and overly complicated situations.

Vinay Pathak did a great job but I would want to give credit to the script writers (the french guys basically) for the character maintained remarkable consistency throughout the movie.

Sarika had too insignificant a role to impact the movie. Rajat Kapoor seemed very comfortable. Ranveer's character kept a strange face and a body language that was not needed at all. His character and situation was funny enough without it.

So its a copy and some of it could be done better but overall, its worth watching in beautiful company. Especially, if she insists on a hindi movie...