DesiNews

India'slower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha, has 545 elected lawmakers. As of May2011, approximately 30 percent have criminal cases pending against them.Current election rules state that politicians may stand in elections or servein elected positions while on trial or while appealing convictions. In suchcases where the accused chooses to stand trial, the average criminal case in Indiafinishes 15 years after charges are initiated.

In July 2008 WashingtonTimes reported that nearly a fourth of the 540 Indian Parliament members facedcriminal charges, "including human trafficking, immigration rackets,embezzlement, rape and even murder".

List of politicians in India charged with corruption
name	position	charges	trial result
Prakash Singh Badal	Chief Minister of Punjab	Cheating, Possessing assets disproportionate to known sources of income	Acquitted after witnesses turned hostile
Sukhbir Singh Badal	Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab	Cheating, Possessing assets disproportionate to known sources of income, Intimidating journalists^[7]	Acquitted after witnesses turned hostile, Other cases still pending
Ashok Chavan	Former Chief Minister of Maharashtra	Adarsh Housing Society Scam	Accused by CBI, trial pending
Suresh Jain	Minister for food and civil supplies, Maharashtra	corruption in Jalgaon District Co-operative Bank	Implicated by the Sawant Comission
Balram Jakhar	Union minister and Speaker	Hawala (illegal foreign exchange) case	Acquitted of all charges
Pratap Singh Kairon	Former Chief Minister of Punjab	Corruption	Commission of inquiry Indicted him. Resigned. Finally assassinated
Suresh Kalmadi	Member of Parliament	Criminal conspiracy and cheating related to 2010 Commonwealth Games	Indicted and arrested, Awaiting trail
M. K. Kanimozhi	Member of Parliament	2G spectrum scam	Indicted and arrested, Awaiting trial
Jagir Kaur	Former Minister in Punjab	Conspiracy to murder her own daughter	Trial continuing
Madhu Koda	Chief Minister of Jharkhand	Rs 40000 crores (USD 8.8 bn) graft money case	In jail since 2009, investigation continues
R.Balakrishna Pillai	Ex-Minister of Kerala	Idamalayar Dam Graft case	Convicted, serving sentence
A. Raja	Union Cabinet Minister for Communications and Information Technology	2G spectrum scam	Indicted and arrested, Awaiting trial
Sukh Ram	Former Telecom minister	Corruption	Sentenced to five years imprisonment.
P. V. Narasimha Rao (deceased)	Ex-Prime Minister	Alleged offering of bribes, alleged framing of V.P. Singh, and cheating Lakhubhai Pathak	Higher court overturned conviction in the first case and the trial court acquitted him in the other two cases
Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy	Member of Parliament	Accumulating huge wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income	Charge sheeted by CBI ,Awaiting prosecution
Pinarayi Vijayan	Kerala State Secretary of CPIM	SNC-Lavalin case.	Awaiting prosecution
Lalu Prasad Yadav	Chief Minister of Bihar, Minister of Railways	Fodder scam, others	acquitted in 2006
B. S. Yeddyurappa	Former Chief Minister of Karnataka	Illegal mining scam	Surrendered to Lokayukta court, in judicial custody awaiting trial

Customs seize 1st Speak Asia import worth Rs100 crore

2011-09-16T23:51:00.003+05:30

The Customs have seized the first import consignment worth over Rs100 crore of the Singapore-based online survey company Speak Asia after police investigations revealed that the import licence contained the wrong address. The address was actually that of a pizza shop in Andheri (East), revealed police sources.

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch arrested six persons in the case, including Chief Operating Officer (CEO) Tarak Bajpai and Rajiv Mehrotra, head of information technology of the company, in July this year.

According to EOW sources, the first consignment of Speak Asia, containing electronic appliances like washing machines and LCD TVs, arrived from China a month ago. The consignment was over Rs100crore in value with a tax of Rs14crore. “When we checked the company’s address mentioned in the licence, it turned out to be a pizza shop in Marol area of Andheri (East),” said an EOW source, requesting anonymity.

He added that this information was shared with the Customs department, who then seized Speak Asia’s import consignment at Nhava Sheva port in Raigad district. “Speak Asia officials claimed that they had been selling electronic appliances under the brand name of YUG, which they said was a Germany-based company. In fact, the goods imported were manufactured in China,” added the source.

Another interesting fact that has come to light is that the company was conducting camps in several rural areas of the country and has allegedly duped several villagers in their multi-level marketing fraud. “Company officials would conduct camps in rural areas, first targeting public leaders or the sarpanch, and convince them to invest in their companies. Subsequently, villagers fell in their trap and invested their hard-earned money,” said another EOW officer.

He added that the company had conducted 200 rural camps in one year, even reaching far-off northeastern places like Tinsukhia and Dibrugadh. In Raigad too, the company had convinced several villagers to invest.

“We have seized two Mercedes cars, office space at Andheri and Goregaon, and two flats in Versova of accused Manoj Sharma. Tarak Bajpai’s bank accounts, personal accounts and a few properties have also been seized.

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_customs-seize-1st-speak-asia-import-worth-rs100-crore_1587624
Friday, Sep 16, 2011
Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA

Speak Asia makes another frantic effort to fool panelists from filing FIRs

2011-09-10T16:31:00.002+05:30

Speak Asia makes another frantic effort to fool panelists from filing FIRs

Pro-SAOL (speakasiaonline) sites are giving Breaking News of the Exit Option commencing from September 10, 2011. However, while bizbasket.net is stating that payments will be made from Singapore as and when RBI allows TT transfers, speakasiaonlinemarketing run by Ashok Birwyani that self-proclaims itself as the official site of SAOL until SAOL’s website gets going is stating that payments would be made with RBI allows SAOL banking facility in India. These jokers are attempting to quell the unrest among the panelists who are now resorting to filing FIRs against this company. Various State High Courts are preparing to take up cases on the basis of the FIRs being filed similar on the lines of Andhra Pradesh Court that has frozen bank accounts of distributors/franchisees and re-arrested SAOL employees. The fact is that RBI is in no mood to allow banks to give banking facility to SAOL which is being treated as MLM and whose main source of income will continue to be getting more panelists though showing e-commerce is just an eyewash to fool one and all. The Exit Option actually confiscates panelists Reward Points earned on doing their surveys/opinions.

SAOL, actually run from Mumbai via a private company of its CEO, India, Manoj Kumar makes no mention of the name of their new bank in Singapore after their earlier bank, USB had terminated its accounts. Global CEO, Haren Kaur, and CEO India, Manoj Kumar continue to abscond abroad towards the Indian Authorities propose to issue Red Alert notice via Interpol.

Though these pro-SAOL sites also claim that EoW has no case against SAOL as per the final judgment by Mumbai High Court on Sep 7, yet they continue to harp that the website is in the hands of the EoW!

Promises on dates of restart of website and normalizing of functions have been postponed now for four months.

Registrar of Companies to submit report on SAOL to Ministry of Corporate Affairs

2011-07-10T23:54:00.001+05:30

What RoC must also look into is that SAOL is only a front of Haren Ventures Pte Ltd, Singapore, owned by Haren Kaur where all the registration amounts of all panelists go. $20 million in Indian banks of HVP's distributors/franchisees and another $480 million in UOB bank, Singapore have been frozen. RoC must look into HVP too which is the brain behind SAOL and funds the expenses of the latter. SAOL is only opening a 100% subsidiary in India whose objectives as per their Memorandum of Association is marketing, clients for surveys, product distribution, and content development. The bank account that SAOL plans to open in India after registration is to cater only for expenses of such objectives and not to pay accumulated Reward Points (RPs) of panelists. All these gimmicks are being undertaken to fool the panelists that their payments will be from India itself and, thereby, continue the drive to recruit new panelists, and also fool the governmental and banking authorities both in India and Singapore so that $500 million lying frozen get released to them.

SAOL had planned to launch its new website today, July 10, 2011. However, it is midnight in India and the launch is yet not on. The popup message is:

Important

Dear SpeakAsian,
All of us have been waiting for this moment when the new website would be unveiled. In the next few hours the wait will be over as we would be upgrading and moving to our new website.
Speak Asia Online Pte. Ltd.
Address: 10 Ubi Crescent, #07-68, Ubi Techpark,
Singapore 408564

Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) Meet with Speak Asia, COO (India) Mr. Tarak Bajpai

2011-06-19T02:51:00.001+05:30

Latest Updates & Announcements of 18 June, Lucknow Meeting with Speak Asia, COO(India) Mr. Tarak Bajpai

1. U get Exit or Continue option when new website will be launched –if u Agree with all term & condition and want to work with speak asia than all your data switch over including your tree to new website . If u say No than company send your 11000/- in your bank account back. Refund money depends on whatever cash u get back or not.

2. For achiever Mobile and LCD TV will not be send through courier now u can get it through directly from distributor .

3. LED TV will be provided in place of LCD to achiever.

4. U can book your ticket for travel through speak asia anywhere for u or other person and get rewards.

5. U will get payout in 4-8 weeks till problem comes. for that we are trying to start banking transaction in India. Date not confirmed due to depends upon government working style. Most probably in July.

6. U can book advertisement and just select pin code where u want advertise and get rewards.

7. U can take Insurance policy through speak asia and get rewards.

8. Joining is starts now and we are going to touch 21 lacs panelist.

9. Speak Asia is not a any investment company where u invest and forget, here u do some activity than u get rewards so please do'nt use this word investment.

Many new activities comes in future.

So let say we are proud to be speak asian.

As posted by Rajesh at http://www.speakindiaonline.com/forum/topics/latest-updates-announcements?id=5257613%3ATopic%3A282028&page=3

Dear Rajesh:

All Haren Kaur's future plans for

India

are welcome. But first we want our money at least equivalent to the amount we paid to becoming panelists. That date as you state is 4-8 weeks most probably in August after they set up their office (permanent establishment) in India as opening of a bank account in India will depend on that. With the starting of a new website at the end of June, the company may be hoping for panelists to encash their RPs by buying products until the bank account becomes operational. Not necessarily. Once bitten twice shy. Majority of panelists would yet want cash for our RPs first. All the meets by Speak Asia is just to ease the fear and tension out of the minds of the panelists so that they continue or restart their recruitment drives. I would advise the public to yet wait and see as other than words nothing has physically materialized. Then there are the Indian authorities too waiting on the sidelines. There is yet the question of Rs102 crores frozen in Indian banks of agent to be transferred to HVP and many more millions of dollars frozen in UOB, Singapore of which until now only $16 million (Rs80 crores) have been released as claimed by Speak Asia and mentioned on Star News. Until everything is normalized, Speak Asia is too hot to touch. One question will always come in the mind of the people as why does it continue to ask for 11k? The selling of e-zine is total crap. Again if it is not an MLM then other than Rs1000 as registration fees for life it should not ask for any money to make a panelist who then can do genuine surveys and earn or by participating in other schemes. After all no body is buying their surveys as yet which has no market value due to huge duplications where panelists have opened a number of sub-panels and doing the same surveys over and over every week. A single family member may be doing the surveys for all other family member-panelists. So these are not 100% genuine opinions. Wonder what Bejan Daruwalla has to say on the future of Speak Asia and Harendra Kaur. Bejan has commented on the downslide of Congress, Manmohan and Sonia starting 2012, and that Anna would sit on the chest of the government and beat drums. There are yet too many ifs about Speak Asia. They got into trouble due to their own faulty planning and are trying hard to wriggle out of the MLM tag and to lay their hands again on all the frozen bank account money that they accumulated from India's 20-lakh panelists.

CONGRESS NE HAMARE BHARAT KO PHIR GULAM KAR DIYA PAISE KE LIYE

2011-06-06T01:20:00.000+05:30

Who owns the media in

India

[In Mid Year 2008] Gujarat election have witnessed unaccountable money paid to media persons of both, print and electronic by Saudi Arabia to discredit Modi and the Hindutva forces, which Media did very faithfully without success.

There are several major publishing groups in India Let us see the ownership of different media agencies.

India Today: which used to be the only national weekly which supported only 1 political party is now bought by NDTV!! Since then the tone has changed drastically and turned into Hindu bashing.
CNN-IBN: This is 100 percent funded by Southern Baptist Church with its branches in all over the world with HQ in US. The Church annually allocates $800 million for promotion of its channel. Its Indian head is Rajdeep Sardesai and his wife Sagarika Ghosh.
Times group list: Times Of India, Mid-Day, Nav-Bharth Times, Stardust, Femina, Vijay Times, Vijaya Karnataka, Times now (24- hour news channel) and many more...Times Group is owned by Bennet & Coleman.'World Christian Council does 80 percent of the Funding, and an Englishman and an Italian equally share balance 20 percent. The Italian Robertio Mindo is a close relative of Sonia Gandhi.
Star TV: It is run by an Australian, who is supported by St. Peters Pontifical Church Melbourne, extermly focusing on destroying Indian Culture and country.
NDTV: A very popular TV news media is funded by Gospels of Charity in Spain Supports Communism. Recently it has developed a soft corner towards Pakistan because Pakistan President has allowed only this channel to be aired in Pakistan . Indian CEO Prannoy Roy is co-brother of Prakash Karat, General Secretary of the Communist party of India. His wife and Brinda Karat are sisters.
Hindustan Times: Owned by Birla Group, but hands have changed since Shobana Bhartiya took over. Presently it is working in Collaboration with Times Group.
The Hindu: English daily, started over 125 years has been recently taken over by Joshua Society, Berne, Switzerland. N. Ram's wife is a Swiss national.
Indian Express: Divided into two groups. The Indian Express and new Indian Express (southern edition) ACTS Christian Ministries have major stake in the Indian Express and latter is still with the Indian counterpart.
Eeenadu: Still to date controlled by an Indian named Ramoji Rao. Ramoji Rao is connected with film industry and owns a huge studio in Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Jyothi: The party of Hyderabad known as MIM along with a Congress Minister has purchased this Telugu daily very recently.
Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle: Is owned by a Saudi Arabian Company with its chief Editor M.J. Akbar.

Gujarat riots which took place in 2002 where Hindus were burnt alive,

Rajdeep Sardesai and Bharkha Dutt working for NDTV at that time got around 5 Million Dollars from Saudi Arabia to cover only Muslim victims, which they did very faithfully. Not a single Hindu family was interviewed or shown on TV whose near and dear ones had been burnt alive, it is reported.

Tarun Tejpal of Tehelka.com regularly gets blank cheques from Arab countries to target only 1 community in only, it is said.

The ownership explains the control of media in India by foreigners.

PONDER OVER THIS. NOW YOU KNOW WHY EVERY ONE IS AGAINST TRUTH.

All Indians should know who feeds them with biased news and information- yet call themselves secular.

Long live Anna Hazare! Long live Ramdev! Shameless Congress is scared of them as they will stand exposed via the Lokpal bill and drive to treat black money stashed abroad as National Wealth for having sold

India

for a few million dollars.

Facebook member

Speak Asia Speaks Half-Truths

2011-06-03T09:00:00.006+05:30

Due to the exposures in the working of Speakasiaonline Pte Ltd, Singapore (SAOL) by Star News and Aaj Tak, on June 2, 2011, came up with a message for its panelists only : “compiled a list of queries arising from various sources and has put them in a FAQ format.” Source: http://assets.speakasiaonline.com/static_popup/news_0262011.html

These are half-truths with evasive answers. The company has agreed that Podium Rings International located in the tax haven of British Virgin Islands is the Holding Company. However, it yet declares Harendra (Haren) Kaur as the Global CEO.

According to their own version of FAQ, for joining SpeakAsiaonline (SAOL) FOR FREE, one has to pay 6k or 11k to Haren Ventures Pte Ltd, Signapore (HVP) for an annual subscription for EZINE TODAY. With this clever move, SAOL has made itself into an innocent “bakra”. The money from panelists via Franchisees/Distributors is not to SAOL but rather HVP who in return pays SAOL for marketing assistance services from Singapore with the use of SAOL portar. Great. Then from where had they accumulated $482 million Rs4800 crores at the time UOB froze their two bank accounts in Singapore? HVP is just a cover up.

The Service Tax department should confirm that the challan for the Service Tax paid is in whose name?

The distributors/franchisees who are the authorized representative of HVP Singapore not SAOL, are also required to provide basic training to Panelists for using the SAOL site effectively. Crap. They only provide you with the subscription code and then register you at SAOL portal for which they get 20 RP. RP means Reward Points. Up to May 29 they were giving figures in $ and used to state that $1=Rs50. Panelists also register new applicants via their RPs in e-wallet. NO SERVICE TAX IS PAID ON THAT. Do these RPs get transferred to HVP?

Who had taken out the online message only to panelist via http://www.speakasiagroup.com/future-vision/speakasias-upcomming-future/

that there would be an increase premium panel rate from $220 to $299 and standard panel rate from $120 to $169 (surprisingly they continue mention dollars here as its is their earning, but as far as earnings of panelists are concerned they mention figures RP. Does that not tantamount to a Double Face?) to compensate for the additional expense in giving parallel income opportunity via e-commerce where all the product transactions will take place, service tax, corporate tax and storage media servers? Speak Asia Group of course. So Media and government departments should target all the SpeakAsia Group companies and not SAOL alone. The Podium company is also part of this group. Accounts of all such companies must be bared to the Indian Media for examination.

What is the source of earnings of SAOL of $82 million proclaimed proudly by its CEO, India at its press conference on May 16, 2011? Surely it cannot be from just providing marketing assistance services from Singapore to HVP with the use of SAOL portal. It has no advertisement based surveys yet. It has no clients to do surveys on their behalf. So what is it?

At http://assets.speakasiaonline.com/static_popup/news_0262011.html for the eyes of panelists only they have mentioned that they have two domains:

Precision Marketing in which “the company engages in filtered/narrow casting of marketing and sales related services. These services to name a few are providing survey panels, Advertising, lead generating and also sales.” None in the first year of operation.

The other is what they have crapping all along “is to provide knowledge, information and training to its panelist.” The knowledge and information is what a panelists gets to read via online EZINE/EBULLETIN on surveys already filled in. Where is the training? As earlier stated above, the same is the domain of the distributors of HVP who are only interested in imparting subscription codes for 6k/11k to new panelists and registering them on the portal of speakasiaonline for which they get paid 1k. All training programs are held by a mix of franchisees and panelist for which each attendee has to pay a fee. The idea behind these training programs is also to get panelists as referrals under whoever is conducting such programs.

Speak Asia continues to crap that they are creating a community of empowered sovereign consumers towards which I have already exposed their nonsense in my earlier posts. For this the company rewards them by RPs for participating in companies activities which to date is only online bogus surveys or for recruiting more suckers. Their plan at GEN-X Bazaar early May was to showoff to selected product manufacturing/selling companies their big panelist size of enthusiastic buyers out to use their E-Shopping Wallet to buy products online. According to Speak Asia there were 1.3 million panelists at this fair. I wonder at this figure as at the Press Conference later their

India

CEO had announced that they had roughly 1.2 million panelists!.

The above stated news article of June 2, 2011 has failed to give a statistical breakdown of these panelists. Every single panelist can have maximum of three IDs and under each ID a panelist can have 9 sub-panels. Every member of a family can be a panelist including kids so long as they are 14 years in age or above. All family members as panelists can register with a single mobile number, same e-mail ID, and same back account and each of these family members can have max of three IDs with 9 sub-panels. under each. Most panelists are doing such that thinking that Speak Asia is a gold mine where each of the panelists has to simply do 30 pairs of similar surveys. It is all nonsense that each pair of surveys would be different. So how many panelist were actually their from there so called “Empowered Community of Sovereign Consumers”?

The way these so called "Empowered Community of Sovereign Consumers" are hitting out against all who criticizing the business module of Speak Asia in order that it continues to function like the goose laying golden eggs from downline referrals (MLM) makes me wonder whether they should be better termed as Empowered Community of Sovereign Cheaters.

Another half-truth being thrown to the panelists is that since UOB has frozen/closed its accounts, it would take them 6-8 weeks to open another bank account in India. So expect no payments until then. No one is going to believe this shit. The actual reason is that the Supreme Court of India has listed their case for hearing sometimes in mid-July which is 6-8 weeks ahead and only after that can they hope to get clearance to operate. In that 6-8 weeks all requisite autonomous and government authorities will complete their paper work to give a “Standing Ovation” to SpeakAsia. The case will drag on and Speak Asia will come forth with some more half-truths for its panelists in order to prevent them in joining the fight against them. The RPs (reward points) will keep accumulating digitally on their portal only.

More information is required from you Haren dear of your group of privately held companies of not only statistical data but also detailed accounts audited or un-audited. Only on your clearing the cloud of doubts of your integrity via the various private companies floated to harness money from panelists would you be allowed to continue operations in India else be banned to Thy Kingdom Come.

Obituary SpeakAsiaOnline ??

2011-05-29T19:12:00.013+05:30

Born May 10, 2010

Media-Paralyzed May 25, 2011

Much water has flowed since Star TV exposed the tip of the deceptive iceberg carefully laid by Speak Asia in India after the GEN-X meet in Goa on May 9-11, 2011.

Empowered Sovereign Consumers and Team India has been there theme. They stated that they wanted panelists to refer their friends as panelists or family members only who the panelists felt were fit to be empowered consumers. However, they have turned the Nelson’s eye when their panelists have used the medium of websites and blogs to go hammer and tong in recruiting panelists whom they have never seen or spoken let aside ascertain that there referrals were fit to be empowered consumers or merely to use the medium to increase their “investment” four-fold in a short span of 12 months. As far as Speak Asia was concerned the term Empowered Sovereign Consumers was a red herring as they allowed a panelist to have three IDs in one’s name with nine sub-panels under each; thereby, a person could get a tidy return from doing similar 30 pairs of surveys every week.

Team India was another red herring while the management and owners fleeced Indian panelists and Indian exchequer dry. After all they had not made their initial investment of $40 million not for philanthropic purposes. They entered India via their franchisees and distributors. There office was on the global net whereby they could bye pass all regulations of Reserve Bank of India, FEMA, Companies Act, Income Tax, etc. as they had no physical presence in India. Money was transferred to their bank in Singapore by their franchisees not in Singapore dollars but US dollars. What they may have missed is the bilateral agreement between India and Singapore on unearthing unscrupulous elements and their extradition. Their franchisees and distributors (which they called as their agents) collected all the dough and transmitted in dollars via ICICI and ING Vyasa Banks to the company’s UOB bank account in Singapore. All the talk that they are concerned for their panelists and their families would not have been nonsense if they had maintained at least a bank account in India to which part of their collections could be transmitted by their “agents” or from their account in UOB Singapore from where via online banking, payments could have been made to the accounts of panelists of their earnings in full (only for panelists online US$1=Rs50) without deduction of bank transfer charges of 3% with minimum of US$7.50 per transaction and then further currency conversion depletion when panelists’ banks credit the amounts to their respective accounts by purchasing dollars at Rs42 each and not Rs50. That is Team work where one thinks of each other and moves as an empowered group.

Press Conference of May 16, 2011

Who did the tutored India Management of Speak Asia think that they were addressing? Kindergarten kids or captive audience? They dumped 1.25 lac panelists from Bangladesh by saying that they do not have any operations in Bangladesh. All subscriptions codes to become a panelist are issued online by Speak Asia. Then why did they issue the same to the panelists from Bangladesh and later informed them by an e-zine to open bank accounts in the branches of Prime Bank?

They stated that 11k was being charged for an ONLINE SURVEY’S TODAY E-Zine that is sent by e-mail to the panelists. I never received one. Well the only online magazine is E-bulletin comprising of articles on each every survey that panelists have already done. What they refer to as E-Zine is their propaganda e-mails they send to panelists from time to time. On Imagine TV they had given a breakup of 11k as follows:

Rs Purpose

1000 ` Service Tax

1000 Franchisee income

1000 Referral income

2000 Training Charges even when they charge for such training from applicants attending seminars and training programs.

6000 Binary income up to 12 levels @500 per survey.

____

11,000

In the above, where is the component cost for that so called online magazine? That clearly means that you are paying 11k for doing surveys ONLY.

Again, in order to carryout their bluff of an increase in charges from May 20, 2011 by nearly 4k they changed the Service Tax component in above table to Registration Charges and played innocent that the service tax hitherto paid by their agent who now have to be paid by the panelists and that is why there was an increase in charges. STUPID.

As far as data collection from surveys is concerned they do not have a single client. Who in his/her right frame of mind would be interested in such data where panelists are given same surveys whether they are minors or young or old people and regardless of gender? Giving surveys to minors on owning diesel cars or that to girls and women on shaving blades. And as mentioned above where a panelist can have three IDs and open nine sub-panels under each. Who would be interested in such duplicacy? STUPID.

Speak Asia had used the concept of huge incentives to recruit panelists fast. Other than giving a one time 1k for each referral a panelist secured, 6k of the 11k charged was only for distributing binary incomes up to 12 levels. Look at like this. Starting operations on May 10, 2010, by November 2010 (seven months of commencing operations) it had just 1 lac panelists. However, by end of March 2011 it had 1.2 million panelists, an exponential growth of 11 lac panelists in just four months. The incentive for this exponential growth was the huge binary income. Such exponential growth emboldened Speak Asia to increase the enrollment and renewal charges by another Rs4000 starting May 20, 2011 on the pretext to pay for service tax hitherto paid by their agents and to cover the cost of setting up their own 42-server farm in Singapore on the lines of the Indian Railways to cater not only to their huge number of panelists being online but for a GEN-X online bazaar. What crap. A company makes such futurist investments from the profits it accumulates and not ask their paid panelists to pay more. I believe that in a single year of operations, Speak Asia has already accumulated billions of dollars as profits.

Off the cuff the management at the Press Conference of May 16, 2011 threw figures of US$80.5 million as their gross revenue as of March 31, 2011 having commenced operations on May 10, 2010. They also stated of an earning of $18 million from sale of their survey data, and having paid through their agents Rs68 crores in the same time, $35 million transmitted to panelists as survey and panel income, and having expended $9 million for marketing, training & business development in the same period. As of March 31, 2011 they had 1.2 million panelists. As of May15 the figure had jumped to 1.9 million most probably panelists jumping on to their bandwagon to avoid the proposed increase charges from May 20, 2011. Let us analyse these figures. Rs68 crores service tax @10.4% paid by its agents at Rs45=US$1 implies a gross revenue from making of panelists of about $145 million and not $80.5 million. What about the panelists who have used their online points/income to get new referrals as panelists? One can safely say that another 50% turnover was a result of the same on which no service tax is paid. Therefore, gross revenue would be $217.50 (for near about 1.2 million panelists some of which would be standard panelist having paid Rs6500). Now let us work out the rough profit and loss account.

US$ (in millions) Details

217 Gross revenue recruiting panelists.

18 Sale of their data as claimed by them

235 Gross Revenue

Less Expenses

15 Service Tax (Rs68 crores) as claimed by them

9 Marketing, training & business development as claimed

52 Paid to panelists being binary and survey income

159 Net Revenue in 10 months. Their accounting year end is May 31

The above is the figure for 1.2 million panelists as declared at the press conference of May 16^th for period ended March 31, 2011. They added another 0.8 million panelists in less than two months the exponential growth factor being the proposed increase in charges by Rs4000. So they garnered another $ 106 million gross from new panelists of which only on 50% there agents would have paid service tax amounting to $5 million. The rest of the income would have come from panelists surrendering their income in panel and survey wallet to make new panelists while retaining the cash paid by the referrals. As of around May 20, 2011 they were sitting pretty on around US$260 million when their two bank accounts at UOB, Singapore got frozen on request from the Indian Government. As declared in their e-zine sent by e-mail to all its panelists on May 27, 2011, they had not made (or were unable to make) any payment to panelists beyond May 12, 2011.

My above calculations were made on the basis of figures provided by them at the Press Conference of May 16, 2011. However, their CEO by a message of May 29, 2011 has proved me wrong. He has stated that he has got $482 millions in the bank accounts of Speak Asia at UOB bank and that he can pay survey income for up to two years without new panelists joining. Read further crap here.

At the above stated blog it is also stated that Payment Requests will remain disabled till next week. For the fact at speakasia’s website one is only informed that payments have been suspended and panelists will be informed when the same are resumed.

Seems like either the management of Speak Asia or some Indian panelists who have already made a lot of money from Speak Asia are attempting to make fools of all and sundry. By Jove! The Indian Authorities are bound to kick their chuff.

Cheat India

The owners, management and panelists were referred to as being part of a team. However, they failed to reveal their accounts to the panelists. Any panelists daring to inquire about them or asking uncomfortable questions were blacklisted and their login IDs stopped functioning. Their survey and panel income was confiscated. To the best of my knowledge a case is pending in the Supreme Court filed by 20 such panelists from Kanpur and Delhi.

The emails (which is the only e-zine) sent from time-to-time by Speak Asia management including Harendar Kaur to panelists were just half-truths. Via their e-mails they clearly stated that panelists should believe only in what was stated in their propaganda e-mails and not what was depicted by the media or what was written at various forums of Speak Asia like speakindiaonline.com or mlmnewsblog.com.

The Rs11,000 being charged to become a panelist is inclusive of 10.4% service tax paid to the Indian Authorities. Excluding this service tax of Rs1036 and franchisee charges of Rs1000 per referral, the balance Rs8964 was transmitted to Speak Asia’s UOB bank by the franchisees through their bankers at dollar sale conversion rate of Rs45 to Rs47 which is around $190 to $200 per panelists. The panelist who got the referral got #20 online while the rest was retained by Speak Asia for future distribution as binary income, survey income and their profits. Their much touted training sessions or “Torch” meets were carried out by enthusiastic group of panelists who charged a fee for every entrant. Speak Asia spent nothing on such sessions. The owners and managements were guests of honor for getting a good crowd that paid for watching the event. Speak Asia had neither filed its balance sheet in Singapore nor ever disclosed the same to its panelists while all along using the deceitful term Team India, which I am now sure means Cheat India.

As if their share of profits from $200 retained/distributed by them was not enough from each the 1.9 million panelists as of May 20, 2011, they decided to go in for an increase of about $80 (Rs3950) from renewals and new panelists quite sure that yet they would reach their growth target of 10 million “empowered” panelists by December 2011.

Real Reason For Increase In Charges

The reason for the increase in charges from 11k to 15k to become a panelist is as explained by Manjeet to reduce the componential panelist growth factor from 5.42% reached by just getting 1 million panelists to 3.62% for the next million with further increase for the next million and so on. Speak Asia has already made its billions for setting up their own 42-server farm.

Well, well that is not to be Harendar Kaur. Your money making project stands paralysed as your bank UOB, Singapore, as frozen your two accounts as per request of the Indian Government pending investigation by various departments. They will remain so at least until July, 2011 when your case will come up for hearing before the Supreme Court.

Greed and trying to make a fool of the public got the better of Speak Asia’s senses.

They should have presented their business model right from day one to the media and public that paid surveys (or better still MLM as no one was buying their survey data) was Phase 1 to get the targeted number of panelists to start Phase 2 being M-Commerce. They must not have stated that 11k was for a non-existent E-Zine Magazine being mailed to panelists and should have kept the amount of joining fees at around 5k and not got further emboldened to increase fees within a year of operations. They should have had a registered office in India (be it not a company) and a bank account in India where part of their earnings from Indian panelists could have been retained to pay their panelists in full in Indian Rupees the income they had earned without deductions of bank charges and further currency conversion charges. Concealing facts from the media and their own panelists’ tantamounts to having something to hide. That they must never have done. They should have depicted at the website at least audited six-monthly accounts.

Honestly, I hope that they come clear only after mending their ways so that 2 million panelists from India do not suffer the ignominy of having wasted their hard earned monies.

Under what provisions of what Act, service tax of 10.40% is payable?

I think the Indian Government may take a shortcut by broadening the scope of Chit Funds (Banned) Act 1978 to include MLMs/Pyramid Scheme.

E-Bulletin.. Account at Speakasia Online Are these posthumous articles appearing after surveys on the same have already been done is what Speak Asia referring to as E-Zines for which they are charging 11k from each panelist? ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Electric Geyser

Mobile Tariff

Dish Wash Bars

Diesel Car

Car Audio

Liquid Shoe Polish

Union Railway Budget

Heel Care Products

Bike

Touchscreen Mobile Phones

Health and Fitness

DND (Do Not Disturb)

Men's Shirt

Mobile Number Portability (MNP)

Mobile Advertisement

Herbal Toothpaste

Personal Skin Care

Windows Operating System

Liquid Mosquito Repellent Machines

Mobile Banking

Dish Wash Bar

Mineral Water

Mobile Telecom Operator

Internet Advertising

DTH V/S Local Cable Service

Food Inflation

Telecommunication In Modern Day World

Opinion - Has The Worlds Cheapest Car Nano Failed To Deliver

Internet Banking

Tariff War - Telecom Space In India

Men's Fairness Cream

Airtel Image Makeover

Packaged Milk

Television Censorship

Liquid Mosquito Repellents

Credit Card A Necessary Evil?

Most Trusted Mobile Manufacturing Company In India

Future Of IPTV In India

Cyber Security

Customer Service/After-sales Service

Consumer Spending Pattern In India

Business directory portals in India

Online Transactions

Most Effective Media Of Advertising

Internet / Web Browsers

Insurance companies in India

Insurance products in India

OTC Cough & Cold Brands in India

Adhesive Products

Commonwealth games

Debit Cards

Digestive Medicine Tablets

Baby Food

Confectionery Market

Consumer Preference of Medicine

Consumer AC Purchase Behavior

Evaluation of Inverter usage in India

Pain Relieving Balms in India

Awareness of Inverter Brands in India

Awareness of Online Travel Booking Websites in India

TV Channel viewing pattern in India

Journey of the TV

The Music Systems

The communication revolution

Gearless vehicles

Automobile sector in India

How to write effective online surveys?

What are Online Surveys

2011-05-27T19:00:00.006+05:30

Speak Asia Will Win The Battle?

Dear Fellow Speakasians,

Together we have worked very hard, night and day, to build a Brand, which has positively transformed the lives, of Lakhs of families across India in less than ONE year. There are so many heart-warming stories of personal triumphs and financial successes amongst the 19 lakh panellist community all across India already and we are poised to take the Brand into its India based operations phase.

This was achieved by our investments in IT systems/Infrastructure along with the pride and passion of Panellists and our Sales and Support staffs in India and Singapore, who are inspired with the Big Vision of creating a Global online business model FROM India and very soon becoming Asia's largest sovereign panellist community of empowered consumers.

The vicious media disinformation campaign, prompted by business rivalry, started at the closure of the successful and unique GenX Bazaar, on 11 May 2011.

We responded by proactively reaching out to the various Indian Govt. authorities, including the PMO on 15 May 2011 by email, requesting a thorough investigation into our business. This is to satisfy the authorities that the company was properly looking after the interests of all SpeakAsians, be it our Panellists or hardworking staff in the field. Our proactive action, is keeping in mind YOUR business interests, forever in the days ahead.

It has been brought to our notice, by our banking contacts, that despite the fact that authorities, have not replied to us formally or responded to our emails/letters of 15th till date, unfortunately, some Banks have temporarily frozen accounts of our India based agents.

Due to the media noise, on 25 May'11, UOB Bank at Singapore has also pressed us, for closure of our 2 Bank accounts within 2 days, without giving us the chance to present our case or even listen to us. Please note, in order to set up a seamless International Banking Gateway like the one at UOB Bank, takes at least 6 to 8 weeks of interbank and managed IT infrastructure coordination and implementation.

IMPACT:

All the payments processed by Speakasiaonline between 13 to 20 May 2011, have been held up because the TT's have not been sent from Singapore to India, by the UOB Bank. On enquiring urgently, they provided us with a closure letter dated 25 May 2011.

Please be assured, that the Account Balance at Speakasia's UOB Bank accounts, is for and behalf of our Panellist, Vendors and Staff.

Whilst ALL the payments due to our Panellist community, is banked at UOB Singapore, nevertheless we have also urgently requested the UOB Bank and our law firm, to move the UOB Bank balance on the closure date, into a new Bank account or a Client Escrow account, to be held on behalf of the Panellists, Staff and Vendors of Speakasia ;

An Escrow account would ensure certainty along-with the law firm's supervision that the panellist money is kept for your benefit and stand the scrutiny of any authorities.

(An Escrow account is an arrangement where an independent trusted third-party (bank) receives and disburses money and/or documents for two or more transacting parties, with the timing of such disbursement by the third-party dependent on the performance by the parties of agreed-upon contractual provisions)

Due to these banking account related actions we have been FORCED to temporarily delay our normally prompt payout cycle, pending set up of new banking operations and clearance from the authorities.

NEXT STEPS:

We are moving the Supreme Court against the govt. Authorities and concerned Banks, for taking this SUO MOTO (without asking for clarification) action, without paying any attention to the interests of our Panellists, Vendors and Staff and their families;

We are prepared with all records, for submission to the authorities, if and when they communicate their requirements to us. Also we have written to them asking for an appointment to explain our case.

This has been a most disrupting experience for us ALL and we are MOST concerned about the disruption to your bank accounts and/or finances, that these actions prompted by the malicious media activity, thereby forcing the authorities have caused to us.

We will update you with progress daily, through our website, our staff and Helpline. Please DO NOT pay attention to any other sources of Dis – information, which are designed to mislead and upset you and your families.

We request all the panellists; to be with the company and have faith during these troubled times. We reiterate, that when the company had proactively gone ahead in order to submit the facts in front of the Govt. of India and authorities, then all the false allegations raised against us by various agencies, some of whom are competing unfairly with us, should not be allowed to prevail.

As already committed by the untiring management team in India, in the press conference of 15th May 2011, we have initiated the setting up our PE (Permanent Establishment) through a Branch office in India, so that the wrong allegations about our being suspect because of our Singapore origin, will be silenced once and for all time to come.

The entire company and its management is HERE TO STAY and are fighting, for our Panellists, Staff and Vendors and their families.

We are sure to win this battle together!!.

Ms. Harendar Kaur
Chairperson & C.E.O

2011-05-25T10:30:00.002+05:30

Welcome to Speak Asia - Asia's Largest Survey Group

The Program of Paid Surveys and proposed M-Commerce stands suspended. Please check back in August, 2011. I am answerable to my downlines as to when Speak Asia will pay up.

Speak Asia is playing games with the dues of the panelists as their bank account in Singapore and that of their agents in India have been frozen by the respective governments as Speak Asia had the smell of a MLM business. They propose to launch a new website in July offering white good for which panelists can burn their RPs. For all you know, until confirmed, SAOL may redeem RPs in the ratio of 60:40 i.e. 60% for buying their displayed white goods by their own marketing company YUG and 40% encashment of the RPs. Due to tight liquidity the encashment can be delayed for months.

My contention is that A Company is a separate entity by law. We panelists are neither shareholders nor staff of the company SAOL, paid a salary. Our services have been hired to do surveys for the company just like an advertisement company being hired for carrying out advertising campaigns. We are entitled to demand our contracted amount having regularly done surveys diligently. SAOL is often used the term "Team India" to fool the panelists in thinking that we all are paid staff of this company. We are not. For a upfront fee we have been contracted to do something for the company and that is doing surveys. Whether the company had an outlet for such surveys or not was no concern of ours. That’s it. Pay up or request the governmental authorities to setup a mechanism to pay up our accumulated RPs with the minimum of 6k/11k to those panelists who have not made more than that, from the bank accounts of the company, SAOL/HVP.

Letter from Dr. Abdul Kalam (my favourite former President of India)

2011-02-03T05:51:00.003+05:30

Why is the media here so negative?

Dr. Abdul Kalam letter....

Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our

achievements?

We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we

refuse to acknowledge them. Why?

We are the first in milk production..

We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.

We are the second largest producer of wheat.

We are the second largest producer of rice.

Look at Dr. Sudarshan , he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters.

I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news.

In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime.. Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign T.Vs, we want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India . For her, you and I will have to build this developed India . You must proclaim. India is not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.

YOU say that our government is inefficient.

YOU say that our laws are too old.

YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.

YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke. The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.

YOU say that our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits.

YOU say, say and say. What do YOU do about it?

Take a person on his way to Singapore . Give him a name - 'YOURS'. Give him a face - 'YOURS'. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground links as they are.. You pay $5 (approx.. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity… In Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU?

YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai .. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah.

YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs.650) a month to, 'see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed to someone else.

YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, 'Jaanta hai main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost.'

YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand .

Why don't YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo?

Why don't YOU use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston ???

We are still talking of the same YOU.

YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but cannot in your own.

You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground.

If you can be an involved and appreciative citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India ?

In America every dog owner has to clean up after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan.

Will the Indian citizen do that here?'

He's right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility.

We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of bathrooms.

We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity.

This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public.

When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl child and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? 'It's the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry.' So who's going to change the system?

What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of his hand or we leave the country and run away.

Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England . When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too…. I am echoing J. F. Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to Indians…..

'ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY'

Lets do what India needs from us.

Open Letter to AHDI

2008-09-12T05:46:00.001+05:30

Via membership number 150956, you have enrolled Venu Gopalarao Suraneni of Askribe Medical Transcription Services, Hyderabad, India, as an educational member of the Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity. This is to inform you that he has two web sites: www.askribe.com for office training and www.andhrascribe.com for online training. Presumably, this is a certification membership; however, he displays the certificate as a certificate of merit only at his andhrascribe.com to fool online aspirants who are taking training from their homes. The training completion certificate also carries the watermark of ahdi. Based on this false propaganda, he has been time and again raising his fees for online training and fooling aspirants that he would be providing them home-based MT jobs.

He opened his office training program much later after making money by fooling online aspirants to whom the training material was slipshod with little audio practice mostly scrounged from the SUM program’s BMT files. No IMT or AMT whatsoever. Other than anatomy and cardio, he provided no other text material. Some HTML sample report files were provided and aspirants were asked to memorize medical terms and drug names. He provided outdated medical and drug word finders (I wonder he had a license to do the same). Lot of sample reports (without dictation) was provided that had been gleamed off various web sites via search of Google. We were asked to visit another of his web site: http://www.transdine.com/. The whole course was in a haphazard manner leaving a trainee totally confused. Before a trainee had even gone through the course, he was given an ftp address to download feedback and further practice files. Online queries were seldom answered. There is no methodology for evaluation of a trainee. As for the promised home-based job, the trainee was thrown to the wolves by being asked to post their resume at his Yahoo Group: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/askribeindia/. Very, very few could pass the evaluation tests of firms looking for HBTs. For the rest, all their investments in installing a computer system at home, inverter, broadband and electricity bills, course fees, their dreams, were crushed by this internet thief who attracts gullible people by projecting himself as a kind and helpful person.

I really wonder how a reputable organization like AHDI could be fooled by this scoundrel whose interest is only in making money who having himself failed in this profession. Put him to a test in front of you and you would come to know of his skills in MT. His English is the poorest of the poor. Does the government of India recognize his online MT course? The answer is NO. He got popular on Google by hiring a company to develop a whole lot of keywords so searches would lead to Andhrascribe being shown on the page.

Read all about this scoundrels episodes in India in the chat section at http://mtjobs.getweblist.com/index.php by searching for venu or venugopalarao or grace, etc. He has more websites that the shirts on my back.

ahdi@ahdionline.org

Job Security for HMTs

2008-08-31T05:38:00.000+05:30

GREATER NOIDA (UTTAR PRADESH) INDIA: Following an advertisement for 397 sweeper posts by the district administration of Gautam Budh Nagar, 1,076 applications were received. Among the applicants are more than a dozen postgraduates and graduates. Those selected would get jobs as sweepers in the villages of Gautam Budh Nagar.

The administration believes the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission in December is a major factor in getting so many applications from overqualified candidates.

"We understand that job security must have driven these highly qualified people to apply for jobs as sweepers, but we conduct practical tests too and those who can sweep properly and don't shy away from cleaning even sewers would be selected," an official added.

"Currently the total salary of a sweeper is nearly Rs.5,500, but after implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission, it would touch around Rs.10,000.

"Probably they thought it is better to work as a sweeper than to remain unemployed," an official added. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3427289.cms

Most home-based medical transcribers are at least graduates and, then, have undertaken professional training in medical transcription, and have some years of in-house experience. In place of the broom, they have invested more by setting up a computer system at home along with expensive softwares, broadband connection, and an inverter. How many of them earn regularly Rs. 10,000/month? Forget about job security, most of them are lucky to get their earning cheques at the end of the month without numerous followup calls with nail biting tension. Most scamsters in North India look for HMTs from South India and vice versa with the intention to cheat as distance would be a major hurdle to cross to realize dues.

Ahoy! Enemy Within

2008-08-29T05:28:00.003+05:30

It was in the news that one-sixth of the world’s population of those living below the poverty line are in India. Is this an achievement? One-sixth of the world’s population is in India’s State of Uttar Pradesh. Everybody knows that the only popular industry in the State of Uttar Pradesh is baby production. Baby production due to uncondomed sex as most do not earn more than a square meal or less to even think of purchasing packets of condoms. Thank the Lord not for the daily bread but libidos. Now exactly how many are below the poverty line in the State of Uttar Pradesh? 90%? 80%? Please ask the U.N. or is it the statisticians in GOI (government of India) not to give us algebraic variables. Readers want the facts in plain Queen’s English.

Why should the politicians in the government of India care? First, they are busy keeping their coalition partners happy by turning a blind eye to their doings. Then, they are busy with money laundering to survive votes of confidence in the Lok Sabha. Finally, it is time for re-elections, and the governments at the center and States, especially those run by opposition parties, are busy trying to outdo one another by pushing through populist vote catching government orders for a section of the people.

Should anybody in authority care for an inflation of 14% that is still rising? Mind you, not at consumer price-index (that would be very embarrassing even for the statisticians in the Ministry of Planning) but at wholesale price-index. Prices of essential commodities are steadily going beyond the reach of the common household. In order to control inflation while the Reserve Bank of India is attempting to reduce money supply in the market by tightening bank credit, friends across the borders are running a mint in printing Indian currency and offering at low “profits” to the desperate Indian households. Our mentioned friends across the border are also able to lend authenticity to their trade by exchange of currency through their friends in banks in India. They have a lot of friends in the State Bank of India, which is the largest public sector (read government-owned) bank in India. So what? The government of India has with one stroke sorted out this matter by making a person liable for persecution for holding such currency even if it has come out of the ATM of their nationalized banks! There …. A big opportunity for Chinese enterprisers to manufacture low-priced (do not ever attempt to repair) currency notes x-ray scanners for the common man. Ever-ready to keep the Chinese happy (and forgetful of their favorite pastime of border intrusions), GOI will gladly import the same and subsidize them too.

For a long time I have not read the Unemployment and Underemployment News. I am quite sure that here too the State of Uttar Pradesh must be winning hands down with the greatest population of Muslims whose only aim is to reduce the Hindus to minority by their baby boom policy via their legalized bigamy. Sorry Hindus. The law of India does not allow you to venture in that area.

The GOI is trying to upstage the opposition ruled States by waiving off the bank loans of the farmers. Wow! What a lottery for the farmers. There are plenty of well off farmers who are trying to capitalize on this free-for-all Farmers’ National Lottery. The amount involved is to the tune of about Rs. 75,000 crores (US$ 20 million). Nothing stops the farmers to have their debts written off and then re-apply for another until next waiver.

Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, a former head of the Ministry of Planning, and an economist, etc. etc. is no politician. But he too wants to be remembered after he moves out of the limelight. Having survived the vote of confidence created by the Marxists pulling the plug of support to his party’s coalition, he is pushing his Nuclear energy dream riding in USA “Bushyback” attempting to cross the last hurdle of the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group.

Difficult to comprehend keyboarding speed

2008-08-29T01:11:00.000+05:30

I recently saw the post of Indian Scribes (indianscribes@gmail.com) in a MT forum in India wanting to shortlist Freelance Transcriptionists/Medical Transcriptionists who could understand and accurately transcribe audio recorded in US/UK/Australian accents.

Is it the arithmetic that I find difficult to comprehend or that there are such fantastic medical transcribers in this profession that makes me wonder.

Requirement 1: Typing speed of 70 wpm.
This implies 280 characters per minute assuming (on the safe side) that the words on an average comprise of 4 characters (though medical terms can be as long as 22 characters or more). At 65 characters per line with spaces, 70 wpm would imply four lines per minute. That also means 280 lines per hour.

Requirement 2: Ability to devote at least 10 hours per week to the job.
That implies two hours per day of five working days. Correct?

Requirement 3: Ability to meet a turnaround time of at least 1 audio hour per day.
That implies a minimum of 500 lines in a 60-minute audio. Correct?

In other words a person should be able to transcribe 250 lines per hour and that too with 98.5% accuracy. In my opinion, to maintain such accuracy standards, a MT doing long hand would not have time to check medical terminology words in the medical word finders or new drug names on the net. Medical terms, drug terms, surgical terms, etc. are not plain Queen’s everyday spoken English. To me it seems the speed of 70 wpm has been set after arithmetical calculations above. And if a medical transcriber needs to check references, then he should have a speed of 80 wpm or 90 wpm or ……..or better still run a speech to text editor running in the background as Express Scribe downloads files so that the medical transcriber only has to edit and, hence, can go through it at a fast speed.

If I had to apply I would first check if my pockets are deep enough to invest Rs 45k (US$ 1100) for Dragon Natural Speaking software professional version 9 with a medical dictionary.

Sorry. I have yet to earn 45k working from home for the last six months where firms initially agree to give you 50 minutes of dictations after familiarization with a set of physicians. However, as soon as their immediate requirements are met, not only forget the minimum quantum of dictations/day but most of the time start using vague excuses like “their being little work today,” “first we need to give sufficient work to in-house MTs who are drawing a fixed salary,” “please look elsewhere for now,” “if you could do direct upload work at 90 paisa/line (2 to 2.25 cents/line) then we could consider,” etc. Some may even buzz you after a couple of months to see if you could do the extra work that they had by mistake downloaded from a MTSO and if I could do it for them in the middle of the night. Having gotten it done there chat ID blip on my Yahoo! IM map goes dead again. Forget the payment. It was a favor until next time. I better stop as I am going off the subject matter.

I hope some forum members at MT Stars are reading the plight of an Indian MT and may, henceforth, be less critical of outsourcing to India that holds one-sixth of the world’s population of those living below the poverty line.

HMT aur Whore main kya Difference?

2008-08-20T05:34:00.002+05:30

A home based transcriber in India had been made to feel like a whore. A whore is also human and would like to familiarize with a small set of clients rather than have one and all clients. With a small set of clients, a whore can know them and understand their nuances better with each visit and, thereby, no how to perform better the next time they come calling. If the whore gets infrequent clients who are only interested in voiding their libido and care not where they do it, you can never perform to get them to visit you again.

That is what happens with home based transcribers too. There is no minimum guarantee of daily work (line count) or/and regular clients (dictators). If the HBMTs join big accounts like hospitals, etc. both their line count and quality takes a hit! Much of the time MT firms recruit HBTs for overflow work or quality of dictations being such that their regular office-based MTs take too much time on or find difficult to do or want the HBT to break into new difficult dictators.

Have a look at the statistics. Work is available five days a week, Sunday and Monday no work, i.e. on an average for 24 days, excluding labor days, Independent Day, Valentine Day, and others, no work and no earnings. Now if the HMT wants to earn Rs. 10,000 (just $250) per month and gets paid (say) 80 paisa (just 2 cents) per line of 65 characters with spaces then he needs to do 12,500 lines/month, 520 lines/day in 6 hours. This is not a tall order as most MT firms expect 92%+ accuracy @80 paisa/line. The query is how many HBTs really get work equivalent of 12500 lines per month to do? How many of them get clean clear dictations and not whispering or Latin/Spanish accented dictators. Imagine a Spanish accented dictator, dictating a surgery at 100-meter sprint with a bad English pronunciation, grammatical errors, abbreviations, and fill in the blank yourself sentences!

It is really not worth being a HBT in India at least. You will not earn enough to repair and maintain your “assets” let aside have a healthy diet and medical attention as propounded in the dictations, not to say anything about other expenses of daily living. Better join as full-time employees and earn at least a salary.

India's Broadband in Doldrums

2008-05-20T15:33:00.000+05:30

At http:\\broadbandforum.in one comes across various subscribers or to be subscribers complaining of one or the other private broadband providers.What they fail to understand is that how private broadband providers hoodwink the Telecom Regulator (TRAI) and the public in the area of last mile connectivity.

BSNL and MTNL provide last mile connectivity to your home/business premises be it of telephone line or ADSL2 broadband via the same. AirTel, Reliance, Tata Indicom, Sify, etc. do not provide last mile connectivity. This the private operators have passed on to local BSAs/CTOs who do not use the same technology in distribution of connections as BSNL/MTNL do.

BSNL & MTNL have multiwired cables coming from the local telphone exchange to each junction box of your locality. In the junction box there are DP switches for each telphone connection. These DP switches get connected to the telephone exchange via the multiwired cables. As a result repair of a fault in one connection does not result in all telephone connections in a junction box being switched off.

Private operators providing telephone connectivity are providing only wireless except for AirTel in some areas. Wireless can support internet connectivity at the most up to 144 kbps, the average being 56 kbps, not exactly broadband. As a result all private operators provide broadband connectivity through local BSA/CTO who get the same through a wired connection from the city office of the provider who in turn gets it via wireless/satellite form the provider's servers.

The BSA/CTO has just one cable emanating from their PC, unlike BSNL/MTNL who have multiwired cables emnating from their exchanges to different covered localities. This single cable goes piggy back via street lamps or BSNL/MTNL telephone poles and splits as per requirements of subscribers via splitters. The splitters split further depending on the direction where the subscribers are located, and so on.... So, if one subscriber has a problem, the tech guy will work at the splitter end from which the subscriber is connected. This will necessitate disconnection of BB connections down the line from there. This, in other words, means that the nearer a subscriber is to the office of the BSA/CTO the lesser the disconnections. This is the "bania" system of distribution of last mile connectivity provided by the local BSA/CTO for which he charges one time installation of Rs. 1500 and monthly charge of Rs. 100 over and above the broadband rate. This is the rate as of Sify Broadband.

Sify customer care is totally impotent to complaints from customers. For the fact, Sify has to just pacify the subscriber as the BSA/CTO can even threaten to cut of connectivity to an ever cribbing subscriber. The situation is worse with Reliance and Tata Indicom where the customer care guys only hear complaints if the the complainer first hears to their marketing talk of some of their other products not necessarily related to broadband, else the complainer will either receive no attention or abusive language.

TRAI seems to be another impotent watchdog who can only come out with white papers knowing well that it cannot force implentation as all the private operators will then cry hoarse of it not getting BSNL/MTNL to provide last mile connectivity, which has been a contentious issue for upteen years for fixed line connectivity turned down by DoT.

Now you got the picture? This is the way India's Government, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), TRAI, Service providers all in this order have to function. The subscribers who voted this "SOB" government to power are reminded constantly of their error.

Do send in your comments.

Lucknow Mein Software Park Ki Bukwas

2008-05-15T05:43:00.000+05:30

The Mayawati Government has sent a proposal to the Central Government for opening of a Software Park in Lucknow on the lines of that in Chennai and some other centers. Basically, this is a proposal to attract central government funds for the purpose. Earlier, such proposals by the previous State government of Gundo Ka Badshah, Mulayam Singh had been trashed for lack of infrastructure. There is no BPO in Lucknow. Wipro had opened one about three years ago, but had to close the same for lack of infrastructure in the form of reliable electricity and broadband. The situation is no different now if not worse. However, with Lok Sabha elections next year and the Congress Party needing outside/underside support of independent outfits, Mayawati thinks she is in a position to do arm twisting despite the fact that her earlier proposal of Rs. 80,000 crores ($20 billion) for development of U.P. had been cold shouldered as all know that most of it would have been wasted on Ambedkar parks with the statue of her mentor and herself.