Ultra Marathon Man

Just finished reading "Ultra Marathon Man - Confessions of an All-Night Runner" by Dean Karnazes - an absorbing and overwhelming story of his early athletic prowess, loss of his sister to accident, his subsequent forays away from running for 15 years and rediscovery of running to running ultra marathons to running crazy distances and impossible feats like running the south pole marathon, running 199 miles non stop etc. His heroic attempt at running the Western States 100 miler and succeeding first time and the Badwater Marathon and failing first time have been very poignantly told. A very nice inspirational story with dollops of quotable quotes for keeping in one's mirror or desktop. The paperback edition has given details of his training plan, nutrition, strategy etc. at the end so that helps in people who are planning to run short distances like the marathon instead of crazy distances like ultra marathon and beyond. A must read for all running addicts. 

The Accidental Billionaires

Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook – A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal (2009) is a literary cocktail of intrigue and ambition, a heady narrative that chronicles the messy yet meteoric genesis of a platform that would irreversibly transform human connectivity in the 21st century. Written with the velocity of a thriller and the colour of a novel, it reconstructs the birth pangs of Facebook amidst a swirling vortex of camaraderie, rivalry, litigation, and the irresistible temptations of fortune and fame.

Mezrich eschews the dispassionate sobriety of orthodox reportage in favour of novelistic dramatization. His reliance on extensive interviews—most notably with Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder turned aggrieved financier—renders the account both vivid and partial. Zuckerberg’s refusal to participate ensures that the narrative leans heavily toward Saverin’s vantage point, lending it emotional immediacy even as it compromises objectivity. Dialogue is reconstructed, interiorities are imagined, and events are rendered with the verve of a potboiler rather than the precision of history.

The saga commences in Harvard’s hallowed halls of the early 2000s, a milieu of privilege, pedigree, and exclusionary clubs. Here emerges Mark Zuckerberg, depicted as a socially maladroit but algorithmically gifted wunderkind; Eduardo Saverin, the convivial confidant and initial financier; and the Winklevoss twins, embodiments of patrician entitlement nursing a grievance. Mezrich dramatizes the embryonic “TheFacebook,” its wildfire propagation across campuses, and the eventual rupture between Zuckerberg and Saverin as Silicon Valley’s siren call beckoned the company into uncharted realms of hyper-capitalized success.

At its core, the book is a morality play of betrayal. Saverin—the erstwhile benefactor—finds himself unceremoniously edged out, his equity diluted as Zuckerberg aligns with Sean Parker, Napster’s flamboyant enfant terrible. Mezrich sketches Zuckerberg as coldly utilitarian, Parker as rakishly visionary yet reckless, and Saverin as the sacrificial lamb immolated on the altar of technological destiny. The emotional fulcrum lies in the disintegration of friendship: a study in how differing ambitions—Zuckerberg’s obsessive compulsion to build, Saverin’s pursuit of financial and social legitimacy, and Parker’s hunger for notoriety—collided and combusted.

Beyond the personal, the book juxtaposes the cloistered traditions of Harvard’s East Coast elitism with the anarchic, disruptive ethos of Silicon Valley. In Mezrich’s telling, Zuckerberg’s genius is presented as a Faustian bargain: brilliance purchased at the expense of empathy, trust, and loyalty.

The prose is propulsive, making the work eminently readable even for those indifferent to the intricacies of technology. It encapsulates the zeitgeist of the nascent 2000s, when social media shimmered with utopian promise before metastasizing into a global behemoth. Its subsequent cinematic adaptation—Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher’s The Social Network (2010)—distilled Mezrich’s account into an Oscar-winning modern parable, immortalizing Zuckerberg as the archetypal ruthless antihero of the digital age.

Ultimately, The Accidental Billionaires is less an unimpeachable chronicle of Facebook’s founding than a dramatized fable—an allegory of ambition, avarice, and betrayal. It enthralls, it provokes, and it reminds us that in the theatre of success, friendship is too often the first casualty. Goodreads 5/5

Non resident guarantee for non fund based facilities between two resident entities

Hitherto RBI had allowed a resident entity to make payment to a non resident entity who had given guarantee on a ECB loan on the invocation of the guaranty. Now it has extended this facility further by allowing the same even for non-fund based facilities between two resident entities in India (i.e. letter of credit/ guarantees/ letter of undertaking/ letter of comfort). The provisions of FEMA will become applicable only when the guaranty is invoked so when that happens the non resident guarantor will satisfy the guaranty to the resident lender in India and the principal debtor in India will then make the necessary arrangements to repatriate the funds to the non resident guarantor.

http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=7531&Mode=0

Hedging facilities for QFIs

Hedging facilities have been made available to Qualified Financial Institutions to hedge their currency risk on account of their permissible investments in India. QFIs have been allowed to invest in rupee denominated units of domestic mutual funds and listed equity shares and to purchase debt securities on repatriation basis. Contents of the RBI circular allowing this can be found at http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=7537&Mode=0

Service tax on remittances

Ministry of Finance, Central Board of Excise and Customs has clarified that no service tax is appliable on remittances from abroad in foreign currency. The "service" as defined in section 65B(44) of the Finance Act, 1994 excludes transaction in money. Since remittance amounts to transaction in money, the service tax becomes not applicable. Any fee or conversion charges levied by the foreign banks or by their Indian counterparts to the foreign banks are also out of the ambit of the service tax because the place of rendering the service is outside India and therefore the Place of Provision of Services Rules 2012 does not apply to that service. A welcome clarification from the CBEC, but I wonder why it is issued as a circular by the CBEC and not as a notification by the service tax department.

I would also wonder if the CBEC would clarify how "acting" becomes a service and actors have to pay service tax on their acting!! Bizarre!!

A copy of the CBEC circular can be found here

service tax on railways

Service tax on travel by Railways in first class or air-conditioned coaches as well as transport of goods by railways exempted upto 30th September 2012. So expect increase in train fares from 1st October 2012 for those travelling by first class or air-conditioned coaches, of which latter is usually the norm even for middle class passengers looking to travel in some comfort. Also with service tax on transport of goods kicking in from October 2012 do not expect inflation to abate. I think looking at the government inability to curb the monster called "inflation" of which the supply side constraints is baffling the government the most, it would have been wiser to leave transport of goods from the service tax ambit. But don't expect the revenue mandarins to think in the same way as the economists or the politicians who of course do not think at all of the common man!! The copy of the service tax circular can be found here

XBRL filing for FY 2011-12 ended

MCA has vide its circular dated 6th July 2012 clarified that

1) there is no change in the applicability criteria for XBRL filing for the financial year ended 2011-12 i.e. listed companies, companies with paid-up share capital above Rs.5 crores or turnover above Rs.100 crores;
2) The taxonomy for XBRL filing which will be based on revised Schedule VI is not ready, so
3) No additional fees will be levied for filings done upto 15th November 2012 or 30 days from the date of AGM whichever is later. Since the AGMs will necessarily have to be held on or before 30th September 2012 for companies having 31st March as the financial year, the exemption is available upto 15th November 2012;

Copy of the MCA circular can be found here