Why I am moving from FundsIndia to FundSupermart

I have been a FundsIndia customer for a very long time - almost from their infancy days. I love their neat and clean UI and the user experience. However, recently I have started contemplating a move from FundsIndia to FundSupermart.

I have concern about their new open-ECS-mandate for SIPs. This open-mandate looks way too open to me.
Attached is the open-ECS mandate of FundsIndia -

The problem I have is with the language used here. Let's consider this example. Say, I want to start an SIP of Rs. 30,000 per month. That means I should give a mandate which allows FundsIndia to deduct maximum Rs 30,000 per month. Now, if we notice the highlighted parts (Frequency & Amount ) in the attached mandate, it says that the mandate allows deduction of Rs 30,000 PER DAY!!!

It means for investing Rs 30,000 per month, I have to give a mandate for deduction of Rs 900,000 (Rs 30,000 per day * 30) per month! Why would I want to do that? To add to it, the minimum duration for the mandate is 5 years! Giving this mandate feels like giving post-dated cheques for Rs 30,000 for each day of next 5 years!

The mandate does not anywhere say 'once a  month' or 'maximum amount per month' etc.!

When I contacted FundsIndia customer care, they informed that the daily limit is set to allow customers choose any day of the month for SIP and I think that may be a valid statement - I do not counter that.
I understand that it gives flexibility of choosing any date as SIP date. On FundsSupermart, we have to select a specific date out of the ones they have listed (Any date out of 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th etc.) - this reduces the flexibility but then I would (any customer would) prefer clarity on the document we sign as opposed to such flexibility. mandate of FundSupermart clearly mentions the frequency as monthly and maximum deduction limit per month! (their ECS mandate attached below)

Before this post sends out any wrong signals, let me clarify - I trust FundsIndia that it will not make any unauthorized debit from my account but still when it comes to signing a 'cheque', I would strictly go by the wordings of the document!

I am open to any suggestions my understanding on the mandate is incorrect! FundsIndia customer care could not give me satisfactory answer if my understanding was wrong!
On the flip side, I feel when a document is too complex for a common man to understand, it is better to be apprehensive :)

I had a very long mail chain with the customer care of FundsIndia and in the end, we agreed to disagree on this point.
FundsIndia chose to stick to their mandate and I chose to avoid signing such a mandate.... avoid SIPs with FundsIndia.

Kerala Trip

A good trip was long long overdue.... to be precise, almost 5 years! We have not had done any travel since our honeymoon in Dec 2007 due to various genuine reasons - except small trips around Pune. So after quite a few deliberations and considerations about various places like Kashmir, Ladakh, Shimla, Kerala we finalized on Kerala [It was wife's first choice! :)].

So the dates finalized for the trip were 20th Sept to 28th Sept - two reasons for finalizing Sept month. One - I had to complete my leaves by end of September and Two - from 1st Oct, peak season starts in Kerala taking costs up by 30% to 50%! The best value-for-money months for Kerala trip are Aug and Sept (Aug may witness some mild rain occasionally)!

Now before digging into details, some main points about the trip:
Flight: Spice-jet return (direct) flight Pune-Kochi-Pune cost about Rs. 6000 per person for return ticket! (booked through MMT) - Total Rs 18000 for 2 adults + 1 kid (2.5 years)
Kerala Local Package: Package for 8 nights 9 days, Total cost Rs 37000 for two adults + one kid, including car, hotels everything. (does not include flight tickets)
Tour operator for Package: A1 Kerala Holidays - http://www.a1keralaholidays.com.
My overall experience with the tour operator: Excellent - I would highly recommend! Got best rate from them and service was excellent!

Now some details about planning of the trip:
I booked my honeymoon trip to Mauritius through MakeMyTrip. While the service was good, when I met some other couples who were in the same hotel and same flight as we were, I realized that cost of MMT was about 10% higher than the local travel agents. So this time I preferred going with local travel agents and not any of the OTAs!
Through google search I found A1 Kerala Holidays. One more interesting site (a startup) I found during my search is http://www.traveltriangle.com. On travel triangle, one can post his travel requirement and local travel agents will provide quotation for the trip competing with each other.
I received quotes from various agents but the best one was from A1 and hence I decided to go with them. Initially I was a bit apprehensive as I didn't find any reviews about them on net (not even on TripAdvisor!). However, the closest quotation I had was more than 10% higher and A1 is a General Sales Agent of KTDC and TTDC so decided to take a chance and go with A1.

Itinerary:
My itinerary was something like this -
Cochin (1 night) - Munnar (2 nights) - Thekkady (1 night) - Alleppey houseboat (1 night) - Kovalam: including a day trip to kanyakumari (2 nights) - cochin (1 night) - cochin departure

My Hotels:

Cochin : Hotel SeaLord (Meals: Breakfast)

Munnar : Las Palmas (Meals: Breakfast)

Thekkady : KTDC Aranya Nivas (Meals: Breakfast, Dinner)

Alleppy : A/c Deluxe Houseboat (Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner)

Kovalam: KTDC Samudra (Meals: Breakfast)

The cost for the package - 37000/ for 2 persons + 1 kid (2.5 yrs)

Originally I was suggested following hotels by A1 where I upgraded two hotels - In Thekkady & Kovalam :

Cochin : Hotel Sea Lord/similar (Meals: Breakfast)

Munnar : Las Palmas/similar (Meals: Breakfast)

Thekkady : Silver Crest/similar (Meals: Breakfast)

Alleppy : A/c Deluxe Houseboat (Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner)

Kovalam : Sagara Beach Resorts (Meals: Breakfast)

The cost for the package - 34000/ for 2 persons + 1 kid (2.5 yrs)

Suggestions based on my experience:
Following are some of my suggestions based on my experience of the trip.
If you are planning similar duration of trip, I would recommend skipping Thekkady and adding a day in Kovalam instead.
Upgrading hotel to KTDC AranyaNivas in Thekkady cost me Rs 2000 extra. While Aranya nivas was simply superb, I would suggest you should go to Thekkady only if you want to do some trekking or jeep safari in jungle and in that case you should give 2 to 3 days to Thekkady. If you are not interested in trekking, skipping Thekkady is highly recommended. More than saving a day, saving on the travel-time is more important. Travel by road takes a lot of time in Kerala. On an average you can expect to travel not more than 30km/h in Kerala which means 150 kms is a long time-distance of 5 hrs... almost half of your day!

Another points was that Arrival and departure should not be at same place. If you arrive at Cochin, depart from Trivendrum and vice versa. In my case, there was no direct flight to Trivendrum from/to Pune and the cost was also almost double w.r.t. Cochin flight.

So for the same duration, I would suggest following itinerary:
Cochin (1 night) - Munnar (2 nights) - Alleppey houseboat (1 night) - Kovalam (3 nights) - Trivendrum departure

Reviews: 
A1KeralaHolidays: As I already mentioned, most competitive and excellent service. One more thing, our package included A/C Indica car but we got a free upgrade to A/C Tavera. Definitely added to comfort factor! The driver Binu was very humble and always eager to help. The complete experience has been very good with them.
Contacts:
Phone: +91 4842377880  |  Mobile: +91 9567860874
www.a1keralaholidays.com | Email: info@a1keralaholidays.com

In general I felt politeness is imbibed into the very nature of Keralite people. Very humble people and they do understand the fact that tourism is the main industry driving Kerala and hence they have very positive attitude towards tourists. Unlike other parts of India, in general you won't find people trying to cheat a tourist.

Kochi: Kochi is one of the main cities of Kerala. Has good historical places. 1 day is more than enough for this place. I spent two nights here as I had onwards and return flight both from Kochi.
The hotel SeaLord was really a good hotel. It is located in city center and Marine drive is just opposite the hotel. No scenic views though.

Munnar: An awesome place with pathetic roads! (This can be generalized for Kerala as well) It is a beautiful hill station. However, if you are coming to Kerala to relax and have only 4-6 days, you can give a skip to Munnar and choose only backwaters (Alleppey) and beaches (Kovalam). Munnar is famous for its Tea Gardens. We visited Eravikulam national park (beautiful!), Tea Museum, Punarjani's Kathakali performance, flower garden and Muttupatty Dam (awesome views). Tea available at tea museum is about half the rate what you find in major Indian cities (at least I can compare with Pune)
Hotel Las Palmas was good hotel. It was a bit far from central Munnar. There was no mobile signal as well in the hotel. When we entered the room, the room smelled a bit due to dampness in the room walls I think. They applied some room freshener on our request. Fresh air from the window as well helped getting rid of the smell of dampness. Hotels in Munnar do not have A/Cs as the atmosphere itself is cold enough.

Thekkady: As I wrote above, unless you want some trekking experience, it is highly recommended that you skip Thekkady. Mainly to cut down the travel time! Thekkady is famous for its spice garden. We did shopping for spices from Thekkady.
The hotel Aranya Nivas was simply awesome! Right in the middle of the Periyar wildlife century - a highly recommended hotel if you are going to Thekkady. It is a KTDC resort but the staff is the most efficient staff I witnessed - no traces of that government  employees attitude! KTDC must be doing something right to ensure such an agility and proactiveness in their staff.

Alleppey: The houseboat we stayed in was arranged by our tour operator only so we don't know the name of the houseboat company but the boat had 'Whispering Waves' written on it. Not sure if it was houseboat name or the company name. However, I got the feeling that all the houseboats would be equally good as government has strict rules for maintenance of the houseboats! One night in the houseboats is a MUST HAVE experience in Kerala. The food on the houseboat is also something to cherish if you want to experience authentic Kerala food.

Kovalam: The most beautiful part of the trip. Awesome beach, awesome experience!
The hotel KTDC Samudra had awesome beach view rooms. However, there were hell lot many mosquitoes in the room. I hated it - could not sleep properly both the nights. I had to kind of pack myself in the comforter to avoid the mosquitoes! One more negative was that no one responds on their room service number (shows not-so-good attitude of the hotel)! Hence the hotel left a little bad taste in my mind. If not for the views, I would have simply discarded this hotel. I would recommend checking out any other hotel with good beach views before going for this one.

Narendra Modi

Every one, every where is talking about candidature of NaMo (Narendra Modi) as next PM of India. I though let me give my 2 cents [as if my opinion matters :)].

As I have always maintained (read my earlier blog here), good governance is not just about being non-corrupt or patriot. It's about capabilities.... about being smart and innovative in handling both - politics and development. 

A couple of examples of good but not-so-capable persons:

- Nehru: I truly believe that Nehru was someone who had good intentions for the country but was pathetic when it came to capabilities and vision. 

- Manmohan Singh - Definitely has good intentions for the country and is non-corrupt. He is even capable for development work. Where he fails miserably is at handling the party politics. He is just not capable enough to handle it smartly such that the party (read Gandhi's) allows him to work for development of the country.

Now some positive examples:

Lal Bahadur Shastri: After the death of Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastri became India's PM. He died after just 18 months of becoming PM. During these 18 months, despite having to face a war against China, he brought Green Revolution in the country. Before his rule, India was heavily dependent on US/UN aid for food. He laid the foundation for India becoming self-reliant for food in very short period of time. He also attempted for de-licenseraj... some thing India could achive only in 1992.

PV Narsimha Rao: I would not bet high on his capability for development work but he had really smart brain to handle party politics. He partially made up for his in-capabilities for development by bringing in people like MM Singh, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Chidambaram, AN Verma. It required shrewd political skills of PVN Rao to pass the reforms through parliament. Remember, reforms meant cutting the powers of all the MPs by introducing de-licenseraj and hence taking away their opportunities in making money (black money, of course). To get these ministers approve the reforms meant convincing them to cut their own wings. It took hell lot of smartness to achieve this. How Rao went about achieving this is a whole new topic... may be in some other blog in future.


Narendra Modi: Now, coming to the 'title topic' of NaMo (Narendra Modi). He symbolizes a perfect combination of the capabilities I have emphasized upon. The capability to handle both - politics and development. He comes up with really innovative ideas. (Example, Solar energy through Narmada Canals - http://youtu.be/NJ6kUjIv83E. Also read his other speeches on development ideas). 
I am not saying that he is the only capable politician for development. After all, we still have MM singh, Ahluwalia, Chidambaram etc in the government who, I feel are, really capable for development work. The problem is they are not smart enough to handle party politics to do this development work. In fact, I feel they are investing all their energy in handling only the politics. Handling politics diplomatically is certainly important and is absolutely essential but the issue is they are investing all of their energy only for politics. Development has been pushed somewhere in the backyard. Are they handling politics well?.... it is a debatable topic!


NaMo has handled both quite effectively. Remember, it is not just inter-party politics that they need to handle. Intra-party politics is equally important. He has been smart enough in projecting himself as the PM candidate without he himself speaking. He has very aggressively focused on development work because of which others have started projecting him as PM candidate and other PM candidates in BJP are also compelled to praise him! 


However, he has to win 2012 Gujarat elections. It doesn't look like he would lose it but if at all he looses, doors of PM candidature will close for him, at least for 2014 election.


In my personal opinion, best PM candidate for NDA would be Nitish Kumar who has good image for development and doesn't share non-secular image with NaMo.  But obviously NDA's PM will be coming from BJP so he is out of question. 


For NaMo to be PM in 2014 following things are important (in order of their complexities):
- He has to win 2012 Gujarat elections
- No unfavorable results in the communal violence case against him in Trial court till 2014.
- Image makeover to a secular leader.


Regards,
Sarang

Scotland trip

Will write more about the trip later [Not that you will be interested in reading :))] For now, link to some of the snaps of the trip..... http://picasaweb.google.com/sarang.anajwala/ScotlandMyCam?authkey=XPmeo8uADvs



Luv Olweiz,
Sarang

A Trip To Heaven....

Well..... This was gonna be my first leave at work in last 8 months - and I am sure I made best out'ta it!
It was a 3 day trip to Switzerland.
I hope this travelogue will help you plan your itinerary, especially if you are planning a similar - 3/4 day trip.
[For others... I think, this will be a bit boring :)]
Click here to see some of the snaps of the trip....

Day 1:
Left from UK by easyJet flight @7.35am GMT. Reached Geneva @ about 10.30am Swiss-time (9.30am GMT)
Geneva:
Bought a "4-day Swiss Youth Pass" from Geneva airport. You can use any train or bus in whole of Swiss for 4 days using this pass. (It comes to around CHF 190 if you are below 26) (At some places you have to buy tickets but you get discount if you have this swiss pass - one such place is Jungfrau)
Went to Geneva main station from Geneva airport by train.
I had two bags with me - one, my laptp bag and second, bag with my cloths and all. I forgot my bag of cloths in the this train during this journey from airport to main station. Remembered after about 15 mins but it was too late! What a start of the trip....!!! :-)
I contacted infomration desk at railway station and they informed me how to report lost baggage via internet. (Haven't found it yet)
At Geneva, we went to UN Office which is about 15 mins from station. (Tram no. 13 or 15 from station)

Geneva to Interlaken:
At about 12.30pm, We took train from Geneva to Montreux.
We reached Montreux @ 1.39pm and at 1.45pm, took Golden Pass Line from Montreux to Zweisimmen. It was about 2 hr journey.
From Zweisimmen, we took Golden Pass Panoramic train to Interlaken.

The whole path from Montreux to Zweisimmen to Intelaken Ost is a scenic journey, especially lush-green landscapes and natural beauty.

Day 2:
Interlaken:
We had our first night stay at FunnyFarm, Interlaken. (Booked through www.HostelWorld.com)
A decent hotel for about £25 per double-room.
We reached 'Interlaken Ost' at about 5pm. Spent some time at Co-Op (dept. store) near railway station. Especially I was interested in buying some sweater or some warm cloths as I lost my thermal wears in my bag. But could not find anything useful.
Hotel was about 15 mins walk from station. Had our dinner at McDonalds and slept at about 8pm. I was feeling very sleepy as I slept hardly 2 hrs previous night. Moreover, we had to leave early morning next day.
In winter, it is must to start your day early as it gets dark by 4pm.

Interlaken - Jungfraujoch:
We took 7.20am train to the peak Jungfraujoch, the top most point of Alps and also the whole of Europe. And while going up, we took the route Interlaken-Lauterbrunnen-Wengen-Kleine Scheidegg-Jungfrau and on return took another route Jungfrau-Kleine Scheidegg-Grindelwald-Interlaken.
Jungfrau was simply awesome but we heard that there was another peak called Schilthorn which is much better than Jungfrau(!!!). However, we couldn't go there as it was closed at that time.
If you are planning a trip to this place and if Schilthorn is open, I would suggest you to take the route Interlaken-Kleine Scheidegg-Grindelwald-Jungfrau to go up.
You need to go to Murren to go to Schilthorn; so while coming back, you can take Jungfrau-Kleine Scheidegg-Wengen-Lauterbrunnen route. From Lauterbrunnen you can go to Murren and from Murren (via cablecar) you can go to Schilthorn. And can come back via Schilthorn-Murren-Lauterbrunnen-Interlaken route.
It's about 2.30 hr scenic journey from Interlaken to Jungfrau. Also you will end up spending some 3 hrs or more on the top. So overall, Jungfrau is about 8 to 9 hr journey. If you plan Schilthorn, it should be additional 3-4 hrs I guess..... But it's all worth! :)

Also, you need to buy a ticket for the journey from Interlaken to Jungfrau(or Schilthorn or any other peak there). It's some CHF 80 ticket (after 50% discount on your swiss-pass) which covers trains to all the peaks from Interlaken.
And yeah, Do not miss Ice palace at Jungfrau :)

Lucern:
We left Interlaken at about 3.30pm/4pm and travelled to Lucern, again by Golden Pass train. It's about 1 hr scenic journey.
Lucern was like a posh city. (I found it even better than Zurich.) We had our booking at Hotel Alpha - again, booked through HostelWorld.com. This was relatively better hotel for almost same rate as funny-farm.
That day we had Foundue - a Swiss item - in Dinner. Off different types of Fondues, we had Cheese Fondue and chocolate Fondue (dessert foundue). I guess being in Swiss, foundue is a must have. Not that it was extra-ordinary in taste (it was good, for a change), but I liked the ambience of the restaurant, the way foundue is served and the way it is eaten.

Day 3:
Lucern - Mt. Pilatus:
Next day (Monday) morning, we left at about 8am, knowing that Cablecar to Pilatus starts only at 8.30am
From Lucern railway station, we went to Kriens by local bus (about 10 mins). Kriens is the stop in Lucern from where Cablecar for Mt Pilatus starts.
The cablecar from Kriens to Frakmuntegg takes about 30 mins and from another cablecar Frakmuntegg to Pilatus-Kulm takes about 5 mins.
There is one more route to reach Pilatus-Kulm, via Alpnachstad. You can go to Alpnachstad via lake-cruise and from there to Pilatus-Kulm via cablecar; but again, at that time this route was closed.
We spent about 3 hours on Pilatus-Kulm and came back via same route.

Again, tickets for the cablecar, which came about CHF 40 (after 50% discount on Swiss-pass), are not totaly covered in Swiss-pass.

We came back to Lucern at about 1pm and headed for Zurich but I think you can plan to stay some more time in Lucern. Mt Titlis is said to be better than Pilatus but, that too, was closed at the time we went. (However, we didn't have enough time to cover two peaks at Lucern.) If you have enough time, there is one more peak in Lucern called Mt Rigi that you can visit.

Zurich:
It's about 2 hr journey from Lucern to Zurich. We reached Zurich at about 3.30pm and roamed around for a couple of hours for shopping.
We had flight at 7.30pm from Zurich to London.

...And that was the end of a great trip but I am certain that I will not let go any opportunity to visit this place again.

Luv olweiz,
Sarang.

Special wishes for new year.

This weekend - last weekend of the year 2005 - was quite eventful.

Friday evening Chintu & Dattu(friends) landed in bangalore from hyd.

Rachit was going to leave for Pune on Sunday and hence saturday eve was his party.... afterall, he was awaiting for this x'fer for almost two years.

Sunday morning, Rachit left for pune.... Afternoon, chintu n dattu left for hyd... Evening, Bobby came from ahmedabad., after 2 months stint at onsite-london.

Now... the most interesting event of the weekend(!)
Today morning at abt 7.00 am, Yogi was about to leave for office and started searching for his shoes!!!
I heard him cribbing for his shoes... his shoes were not found anywhere.
I woke up... even my shoes were missing..... me, jigar and yogi started looking for the shoes....
Somehow(!) bobby woke up, just to find out that even his shoes were missing!!!

Didn't take long for all of us to realize that it was "New year - wishes" by some crook!!!!
What a start of the new year!!! :-)
But then, so what if my shoes were of Rs.2500, I'll get to wear new shoes in new year, thanks to the #%$@$. (Ppl say one must always think +ve)
:-)

We lost 3 pairs of shoes worth Rs.7000 - approx.
But we were not the only ones blessed by the looter... Ppl staying on the first floor of our house (6 software guys) lost abt 10 pairs of shoes worth Rs.15k to 17k.

Anyways.... "Happy and prosperous new year to all of you".... take care of your shoes in the new year. :-)

River Rafting Trip - 6

Looks like a butterfly, isn't it???
But it's a sea shell!!!!

River Rafting Trip - 5

A Close up shot of the sand!!!!

River Rafting Trip - 4

There it goes!!!!!!
Start of an adventurous experience of about 3 hrs.....

River Rafting Trip - 1

A Crab and a star fish!!!!