PF interest rate increased to 9.5% for FY 2010-2011

Summary:
The government Employees' Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) has announced the increase in interest rate of employees’ provident fund from 8.5% to 9.5% for the current financial year 2010-11.

Impact:
Every employee of private and public sectors will earn more interest in their PF contribution for this year.

Why do they increase interest rate for current financial year?
Increasing the interest rate by 1 percent will increase burden of Rs 1,600 crore for the EPFO. The EPFO has over Rs 1,731 crore in the interest suspense account since 1952-53. The unclaimed PF money includes 1) Non active account 2) people do not transfer PF contribution to new account when they change job 3) no new contribution since many years.

Will you get 9.5 percent interest rate in future?
EPFO will take a call next year based on inflation rate and other parameters.
We are getting extra 1% interest rate for current year because of unclaimed PF money. Every year, there may be or may not be change in the PF interest rate. It was reduced from 12% to 8.5% from 1989 to 2009.

Latest EPF Balance - Employees' Provident Fund Balance online / on your mobile

Much awaited tool to know your EPF Balance has been launched by Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (A Statutory Body Under Ministry of Labour & Employment, Government of India) on 1st July 2011.

This tool is not full fledged application to manage entire EPF portfolio online.But, it will send an SMS to your mobile with last updated EPF information on given mobile no, upon providing required input. This tool is available only for 41 offices as of 11th September 2011. All other EPFO offices will also be added soon.

Process to know your EPF Balance:
1) Go to http://www.epfindia.com/MembBal.html ( http://www.epfindia.com/ )
2) Select your EPFO Office where PF account is maintained.
3) Enter your PF Account Number – Don’t enter Extension (4th field) unless your PF Account has this field. Under Employee PF Account Number* : first two fields are State & City followed by Establishment code - Maximum 7 Digits (3rd), Extension - Maximum 3 Characters / Can be left blank in case of no extension (4th) and Account Number - Maximum 7 Digits (5th) fields respectively.

This Project is really Well Executed by the so called Application Service Provider - Good Job.

4) Enter your Mobile and Name, Accept Terms and condition and Submit.
5) You will receive an SMS with the Balance Details from EPFO as:-
"EPF Balance in A/C No. AP/HYD/XXXXX/XXXX is EE Amt:Rs XXXXX, ER Amt: Rs. XXXXX as on 09-09-11 (Account updated upto 31-03-2010)-EPFO"

EE = Employee Contribution and ER = Employer Contribution on date mentioned in your SMS. It does not show current balance of PF Account as on Today.

If you get error while opening "know your EPF balance" page then please try again after sometime.It shows error sometimes, due to server busy /link failure / some other problem.

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Indian Tablet Makers Eye Success with Cheaper Gadgets

Sunny Sen, Business Today, On Thursday 8 September 2011, 11:47 AM

When Mahendra Kumar Jain first thought of manufacturing a touch screen device four years ago, the word 'tablet' had only one meaning - it was something the doctor prescribed. He wanted to be in the infotainment device segment, and the touch screen seemed just the right device to make. However, by the time he unveiled his device in mid-August this year, an enormous change had occurred: the tablet had become the gadget of desire for the well-heeled. So much that in the April to June quarter Apple's iPad grew at 183 per cent year on year, while the global PC industry grew 2.6 per cent in volumes.


Apple sold 9.25 million iPads during the period. India, the last of the major global markets to get the iPad, already has six to seven tablets on offer, including Samsung's Galaxy Tab and Research In Motion's PlayBook, apart from the iPad. Yet, Jain, Managing Director of Bangalorebased Laxmi Access Communications Systems, or LACS, fancies his chances of making a dent.

His cheapest tablet costs Rs 4,500, with the price rising up to Rs 36,000 for more costly versions.

The iPad costs Rs 28,000, the Galaxy Tab Rs 26,000 and the PlayBook Rs 27,000. LACS, which was so far into information technology distribution and manufacture of coated paper, is not the first Indian company to try and crack open this market by offering tablets cheap.

Reliance Communication has come out with its own at Rs 12,000 and Beetel, a Bharti company, has launched one for Rs 9,999. Around six months back, HCL Infosystems also came out with a range of India-made tablets, priced at Rs 12,000 onwards.

Will tablets follow the mobile handset pattern? Long dominated by multinationals like Nokia, Samsung and Motorola, and later raided by RIM's BlackBerry, Apple's iPhone, and various HTC models, this market was turned on its head by a clutch of Indian manufacturers who based their operations in countries like China and Taiwan, and pulled off a coup.

As the market share of the Indian manufacturers, led by Micromax, Lava and Spice, climbed from zero in 2008 to more than 20 per cent in 2010, market leader Nokia lost ground, with its share falling from 46 per cent to 35 per cent in the same period.

What gave Indian companies the edge was a rich list of features and long battery life for their products, and low prices. Should we brace for an encore in tablets? "The tablet market is clearly going the mobile handset way," says Naveen Mishra, lead telecom analyst at Cyber Media Research. He believes the market adoption of Indian tablets will speed up once Broadband Wireless Access takes off. Tablets are all about use of data on the move.

The tablet market is at 100,000 pieces a year and expected to grow at 35 per cent, say current estimates. "Beetel is trying to break the affordability barrier," says Vinod Sawhny, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Beetel Teletech. Jain of LACS is trying to do exactly the same, and more forcefully. He believes that many people in India aspire to owning a tablet - make it more affordable and they will come in droves. "At Rs 6,000-7,000, our products will have a much larger multiplier effect," says Jain. More so because he has tied up with finance companies, so customers can buy his tablet on a 12-month instalment scheme.

Sawhny and Jain both believe that there is a large untapped market in the rural and semiurban space. The lowering of the entry price, therefore, would be critical, as will be the world of applications that these companies can open up to the user.

Source: Yahoo News

Brought New Chairs - How are these?

Kandireega Movie Review - by Chaitanya Kumar Vummethala

Entertaining Movie with Hilarious Comedy - Don't expect any Logic :(


Though Ram's extra-ordinary energy levels combined with command on the language, dialogue delivery, stunning fights and dance steps (of course with his usual over action and Power Star's imitation style); Glamorous Heroines; Fabulous Art work by Chinna; Cinematography by Andrew showing Beautiful Ladies shown much more pretty on screen is a real visual feast to audience and more importantly Sonu Sood's impressive performance among veterans like Chandra Mohan, Brahmanandam, Jaya Prakash Reddy, MS Narayana, Dharmavarapu, Raghu Babu, Brahmaji etc., are the key elements. One man should be praised, the debutante Santosh Srinivas (Story, Screenplay & Direction), who did an amazing job like an experienced director - excellent work by the whole team.

Story, Screenplay & Direction: Not a Superb Story, but the twists are good! Director is successful in showing what he actually wants to show by taking utmost care on the subject with his gripping narration. One word - Great Job!

Editing: No mistakes by Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao - decent job.

Dialogues by Rajendra Kumar, not too powerful but never missed the punch! May be the credit should be given to the Hero (as most of the dialogues are for Hero, Ram).

Music by Thaman, as in his past movies background score was pretty than for songs. Nevertheless added value to the movie!

Cinematography by Andrew: This is the one aspect I liked the most in the movie, what an excellent photography and picturization, locations were really cool and he did justice to his job. Especially the way he showed the lead ladies was amazing.

Art Director, Chinna has exceeded the expectations. Set on the ring road is too good.

Artists Performances: Lead Pairs, Sonu Sood, Aksha, Ram & Hansika are competed very well and contributed their part of responsibility. Supporting Cast - Jaya Prakash Reddy, Chandra Mohan, Brahmanandam, MS Narayana, Fish Venkat, Raghu Babu, Dharmavarapu, Dil Ramesh, Brahmaji, Pragati, Hema, Rama Prabha etc did justice to their roles. Comedy part was never missed by any artist which is crucial to the theme.


Over all Analysis: Except Sentiment and emotion episodes almost all the mass elements are involved at the right proportion made it a hit!

My rating for Kandireega is 3.25/5

Vinayaka Chavithi Photos