Today is a Women’s Day and over the past one week I have watched hundreds of advertisements offering special discounts for women. Marketers are trying their best to attract the biggest spenders and influencers. Newspapers and magazines have come out with special features on women. Television channels are airing programmes dedicated to women. Organisations and associations are conducting seminars. Everyone is celebrating women’s day in their own way and showing their love, respect and gratitude towards women who are god’s best gift to mankind.

Every woman is the most beautiful person in this world. She is a Daughter, Sister, Friend, Girlfriend, Wife, Mother, Companion and also a Career Woman. She does everything with poise, sacrifices all her needs and wants in every role. And we still expect more and more from her. Even after playing these roles, she is the most loveable, caring, understanding and powerful person. We have thousands of examples across the world where women have achieved highest success in every field including Politics, Sports, Business, Art, Technology, Services, Education and many more. All of them have achieved success in their respective professional careers without any effect on their personal lives. I personally know many of them. In our organisation, Disha Direct, most of our H.O.D.s are women and they are driving the growth of our organisation. We have recently set up 6 members strategy team at Disha Direct and 4 of them are women. I feel blessed to work with these focused, talented and passionate women.

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I was thinking about writing a new blog from past few days. And lots of topics were on my mind, but somehow I could not pen it. Few of my friends and colleagues were reminding me to write a blog. When I sat today to write a blog, I thought of few incidences occurred in past one week and I thought of this topic. Will India become a Super Power?

I attended a marriage function spread over three days and five venues with spend of few crore rupees. Believe me, it was a sheer waste of money. I met one of my associates who own an infra company. He told me that he is confident of getting a tender of few hundred crores where the actual work will cost 25 % of total tender cost. Knowing him well, I asked him why he had ventured in to this business. He answered if I won’t do this; someone else will do it so why not me. And he started persuading me to stop doing what I do now and get in to his business.
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Many people including my friends and associates called me and asked me how realty sector will do in 2012. The year 2011 was very challenging for realty sector due to various reasons. Increase in land rate, materials and labour cost.. Slow approvals and permissions… Increase in home loans interest rates.. Inadequate finance available for this sector… and lastly slow demand across all segments..With my limited exposure and experience in this sector I am trying to put my thoughts for 2012.

The real estate sector is essentially divided into three segments. Land, residential properties and commercial properties. It has been  proved over a period of time that land is the best asset class for investments. And it gives you multiple returns on your investments. Not only are the institutions and big investors buying big land parcels but the retail investors too have started investing in small parcels of land. I see this trend to continue in 2012 and large number of small investors will invest in land thanks to falling stock markets, low entry level in land investments and various options available across the country. I also see the large land transactions happening for townships as well as for organic farming. The land prices will increase between 20 to 50 % in 2012 depending on the location.
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The Year 2011 was one of the most happening year in Indian History…full of scams….politicians and corporate leaders going to jail…the high inflation rate and the number of hikes in interest rate from RBI…the industrial slowdown in India…the Anna Hazare Movement, which got tremendous support from common people…The Lokpal bill…the World Cup win…..the list is endless….

With all these events the year 2012 has arrived with many challenges and uncertainty, due to which everyone is confused and concerned about the future. But I am very optimistic about this year.  This year has arrived with lot of hopes and promises and I am sure this year will be one of the best for India. My optimistic thinking is backed by many things. The inflation rate is coming down and most important, food inflation is at its lowest level. With all this RBI will soon start cutting the interest rates.
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‘Ideas for future’ is my passion. And when it comes to listing down the people who have set examples with futuristic ideas and innovations, Steve Jobs tops the list.

Just a few days back we lost this powerhouse of innovation. Steve Jobs was an extraordinary man who built Apple into an extraordinary company. He was an innovator who always focused on presenting great products keeping customers in mind. He stopped at nothing. He too met failures but he accepted them, analysed them and came up with some incredible new products. And as he quotes ‘Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works’. Be it ipod, ipad, I MAC or iphone he, through his finest possible consumer products, has each time revolutionized the industry.

Inspite of being in an altogether different industry, Steve Jobs’s thoughts and work are something which drive me. He says “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
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