1% rate hike may up housing EMI by 7%

Interest rates are all set to go up by 50-100 basis points, following the RBI's decision to increase the lending rate on funds to banks by half a percentage point. Punjab National Bank (PNB) CMD K C Chakrabarty said the step taken by RBI will lead to a minimum increase of 50 basis points in interest rate. Some banks might increase the rate even to 75 basis points, he added.

However, a senior official of a private sector bank said increase in the lending rate might go up to one percentage point (100 basis points). As the interest rates are going upward for last quite some time and not likely to come down in the near future due to inflationary pressure , many banks will increase the rates by one percentage point from July 1, 2008.

CMD of Union Bank MV Nair said the present round of increase in the policy rates will force them to raise their prime lending rates by 50 basis points to 13.25% from the present 12.75%.

He said the present tight money policy pursued by RBI to contain inflation will affect more those banks which normally borrow in the overnight money market to meet their lending requirements. Because of rise in the repo rate by 50 basis points to 8.50%, the interest rates on short term funds has gone up immediately.

In fact, many banks had not increased their lending rates, when RBI had increased its repo rate any cash reserve ratio in April.

A senior banker said that banks had absorbed them thinking that interest rate will come down. But as inflationary pressure aggravated, and RBI tighten the money supply further, he said, banks have no choice but to increase the rates.

According to a senior banker, the cash reserve ratio has been increased by 1.25 percentage point in the last three months to 8.75%. This alone has increased the cost on funds by 45 basis points. Besides this, because of repo rate hike, banks will be forced to hike the rate by 50 to 100 basis points.

The worst hit by this would be the home loan borrowers. A senior bank official said that as the rates are increasing, default rates would also go up.

This will increase the cost of funds, forcing banks to further hike the rate. At the same time, as interest rates are going up, the value of the government securities will also fall. To minimize these effects, CMD of a bank, who does not want to be quoted, said that banks will have no choice to lend at much higher than the prime lending rates, which might be increased by only 50 basis points.
That means, the difference between real rates that a customer will have to pay will be higher than the rate that the bank will fix for its best of the customers.

As shown in the chart, increase in the interest rate by 100 basis points on a 20-year loan leads to increase in EMI by almost 7%. On the other consumer loan also, the increase in the rate will be higher than one percentage points.

At the same time, RBI is likely to sell dollar to contain the depreciation of rupee. The rupee's depreciation has led to increase in the import cost, which has also contributed in the rise in the domestic prices. But, this will further tighten the liquidity. A senior banker said that such majors will only worsen the condition for borrowers.

Bill Gates to step down as chairman of Microsoft today

The world’s richest man, Bill Gates, is all set to step down as the chairman of Microsoft on Friday.

The God of geeks, an inspiration to many a wannabe millionaires and a shrewd businessman, Mr Gates would always be remembered for the huge contribution that Microsoft did for spreading the IT revolution in the world.

Over 90% of the world’s desktops work on Microsoft Windows and almost all of the world’s word processing documents, spreadsheets, are created on Microsoft software.

All started in Albuquerque, US, in 1975, when Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and started ‘Microsoft’ with buddy Paul Allen at age 20. Paul was two years older to Bill. Both wrote the BASIC programming language for the Altair 8800 microcomputer. Within three years, Bill and Paul earned their first million dollars via sales of BASIC and two other software.

Bill Gates became CEO for Microsoft in 1975, a title he handed over to his Harvard mate Steve Ballmer in 2000. Bill Gates went on to become the richest man in America with a fortune of $9.35 billion in 1994. He married Melinda French from Dallas, the same year.

The next year he was crowned the world’s richest man with a worth of over $12.9 billion. He visited India in 2005, and announced an $1.7-billion investment.

In June 2006, he announced his intention to step down as Microsoft chairman by July 2008. Mr Gates expressed his intention to focus more on Global Health & Development Program run by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation has an endowment of $34.6 billion. The donations from the foundation each year amount to over $1.5 billion at minimum, largely from Bill Gates’ own fortune.

Even though Microsoft’s monopoly may erode over the years as open source and web technologies gain momentum, nobody can forget the enormous contribution of Bill Gates to the world both in terms of a software revolution and his philanthropic efforts.

Quake in Andaman, jolts felt in Chennai

An earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale shook the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and parts of Chennai on Friday triggering panic among residents.

With its epicentre near Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the quake occurring at around 1700 hrs lasted a few seconds and rocked several parts of Chennai including the busy T Nagar, Nugambakkam and Koyambedu areas, Met office sources and the police said.

Employees working in a multi-storied building in Venkatnarayana Road in T Nagar rushed out of office as they experienced the tremor, police said.

However, there is no immediate report about any loss of life or property due to the quake.

Ash-Abhi not so happily married?

Be it award functions, film promotions or press conferences, the gorgeous Bachchan bahu is evidently quite happy whenever seen with family. Recently, Ashs usual over the top behaviour became a cause for embarrassment for hubby Abhishek. The couple lately had a heated argument, on their way to attend the IIFA ceremony, when the actress was getting a little too loud and Abhi wanted her to just be soft in her expression.

As the couple was proceeding to attend the award function, with actor Kunal Kapoor, Ash got too loud and vocal, while Abhishek subtly asked her to keep her voice low. Understanding the need of the situation, Kunal promptly left the place in order to stay out of their marital spat.

However, reports reveal that the actress in spite of being warned by hubby couldn't maintain a low profile. Abhishek then took wife to the hotel lobby, made her sit peacefully and had a word with her to make himself clearly understood.

According to sources, things did not work out for them and Ash continued auguring at the top of her voice, and which is when Abhi completely lost his temper and ended up telling his personal security guards to escort his wife to her room.

Now, does that imply that the couple has finally outgrown the so very happy-happy beat of their marriage? We definitely hope not.

Set up Autocorrect in Microsoft Word and Outlook Express

The Auto Correct feature is one that enables the application to correct the spelling of misspelt words — automatically.

The advantage of Auto Correct over Spell Check is that Spell Check will only report the misspelled words and provide a list with the option of words that can be replaced. One will have to manually choose the correct one from the list of options whereas in AutoCorrect, the correct word gets replaced automatically.

For instance, if we type the word “the” as “teh”, if Auto Correct is enabled, the application will change the word to the correct spelling “the”.

This feature is useful for persons with low vision or visual impairment, people with learning disability and users with mobility impairment.

This feature is available in Microsoft Word and from Outlook 2002, also referred as Outlook XP. To enable this in Word, please go to the “Tools” menu, Click “AutoCorrect” (in Word 2000) in Tools menu, “Auto Correct Options” in Tools Menu (in Word 2003), in “AutoCorrect: English” dialog box, in the Auto Correct Tab. Select the check boxes “Replace text as you type” and “Automatically use suggestions from spelling checker”. In the same AutoCorrect tab, you can scroll down to browse through a long list of words with correct spelling for replacing in AutoCorrect. You can also add words for this auto correction.

To add words to AutoCorrect, please type the word to be added in the word document and highlight it by selecting it. Then click AutoCorrect in Tools Menu. In the AutoCorrect tab, the ‘With’ box will display the highlighted word. Select the Formatted text radio button if you want to retain the format of the text, or select Plain text. Type the word that has to be replaced with, in the Replace window.

It is possible to move the Auto Correct entries from one computer to another. More details about this are available at this URL: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/207748 for Word 2000 and at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/826147 for Word 2003.

To enable Auto Correct in Outlook 2003, from the Microsoft Outlook window click Options in Tools menu. In the Spelling tab, select the check box “Use Auto Correct when Word isn’t the e-mail editor”. Click the Auto Correct options button. The Auto Correct dialog box will open. “Select the check box Replace text as you type”.

Spell Check is available in Outlook Express and if you run it, will prompt you to manually replace with the correct words.

Enrich the search for local information with a mouse click.

Returning to India after a stint in the US, Ravi, an avid surfer of the Internet, found it difficult to locate small yet useful information — such as a Chinese restaurant in his area/place of posting.

Not to worry. There’s a way out. “The India-specific search product, Google Local Search, is a useful tool for users searching the Web for locally relevant information,” says Amit Somany, Product Manager, Head of Search, Consumer Application and Infrastructure at Google India.
People search the Web for all kinds of information — placement consultant for a business process outsourcing firm, PG Diploma in Fashion Technology, travel information and booking, among others.

By simply doing a search on one can get information of local relevance, says Somany.

But that’s not all. The surfer has a role to play too, for information on local businesses, such as restaurants, shops and hotels, will not be available if the same has not been added to Google Local, says Somany.

Take, for instance, coaching classes for Plus Two children.

You probably are conducting the class for 50 students in a small room. You may be known in and around that area. How do you get better reach and for free? Just get online, make your listing, such as contact details, address, your offering, etc, available to users, even if you are working offline.

The Google Local Business Centre at <> allows any business to add its information to Google Local for free, he says.

When users search on Google Local Search, the listed business information is displayed.
Local Business Centre already exists in other geographies.

“The Local Search and Local Business Centre will provide better local business results by increasing the corpus and depth of business listings and ensure visibility on the Internet for free,” he says.

These will typically provide the address, phone contacts and location of local shops, establishments and institutions — and will also link their own Web sites, if available.
According to Somany, millions of questions are posed everyday on the search engines — from eye clinic to fashion institute, to old age home in Bangalore, guest house in Anna Nagar, Chennai, or best place to hang out in Delhi.

Such information can be made available at the click of the mouse by listing it on Google Local, says Somany.

India clinches first foreign deal to sell Dhruv

India has made aviation history by concluding a USD 51 million deal with the South American Republic of Ecuador for the sale of seven 'Dhruv' Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH).

The deal signed between Ecuador Aviation Authority and bluechip state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) envisages the supply of seven helicopters in semi knock-down conditions to the Republic in a time-frame of 15 months to two years, Defence Ministry officials said.

With this, India has joined a select group of nations with a capability to bid for international contracts for choppers. So far, the helicopter market has been dominated by US, European companies and Russia.

The ALH 'Dhruv' has been making waves in international air shows worldover from the past two years but international sales of the helicopter have eluded HAL.

HAL came very near bagging its first international order when it bid for the Chilean armed forces contract two years ago, but was beaten to the closing line by the US competitors.