mantracare's Timeline

Reviewed Indian Premier League

IPL3: There is something2learn from, for all of u

This was a review written & sent to a straight-jacket newspaper fr South, which will remain nameless, just before IPL3 finals (aka just before Modi was sacked!); as they have not published, you can read through this forum: Everyone has a view point on IPL & the surrounding glory and/or gloom. He...Read more

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Reviewed Kotak Mahindra Bank Visa Credit Card

Kotak Card-they steal Svc Tax paid while refundng

Scrutinise your past statements carefully. They have made a promise in they will refund service charges levied for petrol filled on ALL PUMPS in India. On top of the pump-fuel amount, a merchant-banker charge is levied & further service tax of appx 10% on the latter. Subsequently, Kotak ca...Read more

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Commented on DevinC's review

Kotak Securities won awards - what a joke!
Kotak Securities

It is a sick company as afar as Customer Service goes. Its current head Hitesh Sindhwani makes big promises on persistant complaints, ofcourse nothing in writing, but goes on to focus n the next award without working and deserving for it. If any CS Award issuing agency is impartial enough not to be ...influenced by their hospitality and possibly gratis to grant all those flash aads, they should ask for a random 1000 complaints received in the past siz months & look at the reponses if any, quality of them. THeir CS is so blatant, that they will simply repeat what you said for eg 'You complaint is that KEAT eats up market watch once in a while'. And then conclude atrociously 'hope we have solved your problem to your satisfaction'! They have been roping in new Customers left right and centre, without bthering if their trading system can handle additional log-ins. Ona busy day, their trading website just stalls denying all trading opportunities. Their tele-trading s best not tried at all!! Their Tech service is provided by smart swindlers Asian CERC who dump useless features on KSec fools and charge hefty but dont care to address the hundreds of tech issues (not improvement but problems - you could lose money due their trading system misbehaviour!!) remaining unsolved for years!! AVOID. DONT TRUST THEM FOR THE AWARDS. THE AWARD GIVERS ARE SLOPPY READY TO BE BRIBED SOUNDRELS TOO!!Read More

Reviewed Ministry Of Petroleum & Natural Gas

Presto! ITR series IT Return forms are simpler!!

Presto!  New ITR series IT Return forms are simpler than Saral; so says FM! Years ago the Income Tax babus started off with IT forms named Saral(series) to mean simple to handle for end users.  After n number of reviews, simplicity is still eluding these morans. Honourable SOB FM(just to a...Read more

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Reviewed Kotak Mahindra Bank

Expect Sloppiness but good ku coo communication!

Here is yet another bank which is a lot of bells and whistles and ku-coo ing by customer service officers (hmm!) who can speak a lot but doing anything out of the ordinary in-terms of speed or real-customer service that leaves a lot to be desired. The knowledge their officers/customer service...Read more

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Reviewed Indian Budget 2006-07

Tax proposals - FY 2006-07

Yet again we face the maze called budget that makes lots of verbal promises to help the poor, allocates very little real-allocation & yet leaves enough provision to inflation adjust the pay-n-perk of the bloated bureaucracy without any modicum of efficiency in its functioning. Ordinary Indian...Read more

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Commented on Tongue_in_cheek's review

Circus time again!
Ministry Of Finance

Good commentary; I am reading nearly after 3 years. Yet, ironically, the opening comments of budget speech you have highlighted is largely the same this year (2005) and the previous & the... As regards investment in Infrastructure in the 50 years since independance, you are wrong that not enou...gh is spent. Look at the number of minister's brother-in-laws that have become richer 'serving' Govt road contracts. Roads? You are asking for too much; they have been addressing better fund allocation for Infrastructure & making people richer. Afterall you cant please all on the latter count yet. The Sleeping Courts & Corrupt Investigating agency gives enough cover for all of these scoundrels to enjoy sunshine & continue to speak of poverty eradication, BPL etc. The middle class is spending its hard earned money thru taxes to fund such 'selective poverty alleviation' programme! Emergency is bad; but we need it for a couple of years, to round up The dalit saviour buying hotels & shopping malls, Fodder scamster hub and wife, Imelda marcos of south giving away elephants at temples & the like in every part of the country & the corrupt to core Bureaucrat in every department, particularly at the very top (who make money to grant 'lucrative' posts & thereby breeding corruption). Fewer dictators will also become rich; but that is better than large population of these swindlers at multilevel making us & India pauper & worse still fooling everyone that they are in 'people service'.Read More

Reviewed Kotak Mahindra Asset

IPO Scam-Interest earned on idle time!

In the good ole days when online trading was not conceived & brokers had the last word, the IPO/Primary Issues were a rage as there was some transparency of price! So companies used to put out few thousand shares on a Primary issue & collect few hundred crores as application money; with their...Read more

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Reviewed Sify Broadband Internet Connection

BSNL Dataone Home500 No charge till 5GB+40p/MB

BSNL Dataone Home500 No charge till 5GB+40p/MB! Yes,that is what BSNL should be saying to the likes of Sify and AirTel and deny them BSNL's hardearned customers. Introduction of technically depedndable Broadband by PSU is itself a remarkable achievement. They have also done it across major...Read more

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Reviewed General Tips on Websites

Must visit www4Mr Dayanidhi Maran,TRAI Bureaucrat

A must visit site to know that the country that is supplying internet tools to the rest of the world(from its s/w Industry) is the 172nd out of 178 countries ranked, in usage of Internet!  Attn Maran, TRAI & other babus responsible for creating inhibiting policies! http://www.nationmaster.com...Read more

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Reviewed Reserve Bank Of India

Bad economics is good politics!

Indeed ''Lending Should be a Dharma for Banks'' - Quote P Chidambaram's speech on July 1, 2005! http://www.hindu.com/2005/07/02/stories/2005070217120100.htm In the Indian context, the related other Dhrama perpetuated by Finance Ministry, India (of which P Chidambaram is the current boss......Read more

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Reviewed BSNL Dataone Broadband Service

Watch out! BSNL cheating on D1 night time billing

BSNL stopped the trial offer of 'unlimited download on 16/17 Aug 2005 & introduced 'free night time download' - ie between 0200-0800 hrs. However, due to their stupid 'activity log' system not having the ability to record precisely the traffic till 0200 hrs & thereafter but till 0800 hrs, you...Read more

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Commented on ackava's review

Reservation & Ticket Checking
Indian Railways

This is clearly a a case of few cheats causing maximum inconvenience to the majority law abiding lots like Mr Patel. Though carrying the document is the rule, surely the TC has the latitude to condone looking at the physical evidence; no wonder such TCs are treated the fair way of getting thrown ou...t of running train by irate public in Bihar & such bad lands of our country. TCs in Eastern Railway will salute the goondas that gate crash without ticket into reserved compartment & cause nuisance the law abiding majority passengers & poor TCs too. Surely the TC wont have the guts to call in RPF - welcome to wonderland of India!Read More

Reviewed Union Budget 2005

FMs Agenda for middle-class - Indian Budget 2005

So is it a dream Budget 2005 from PC? - hardly! On the back of robust growth and positioning for similar performance this year, one would have expect courageous budget. Alas, Left has managed to scare enough, the PM and FM that the annual planning and statement of intent (and more importan...Read more

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Commented on own review

Difficult to believe - Even TATA Co cheats!!
Tata Indicom ADSL Broadband

Indeed Ponds is right, after buying a car at whatever price, if there is a downward revision, the earlier buyer cant ask for a refund. But if they offer a new convertible add-on and say that it is available at discount only to new buyers, at discounted price & deny the same to existing customer...s despite the fact that the existing customers paid higher amount for the car, then that is blatantly unfair...Appears Pond has not understood the case presented properly. Back to VSNL..I think they are paying the price for playing with current cleintele & losing in drove to BSNL & RIM going by the Industry story in Feb 2005; their aggressive campaign and new offers remain always on at xx Rs etc on their dog dial-up only re-iterates that VSNL is licking its wounds.Read More

Commented on own review

Will VAT achieve its objective come April 2005?
Indian Value Added Tax - VAT

There is no doubting that VAT is motherhood and applepie! Period. My opening paragraph of the review re-iterates this. The article as titled was NOT intended to anlayse whether VAT is good or bad instead only doubting whether it will succeed in its implementation (as intended). In that conte...xt, I believe that the RTO scenario painted is relevant. Anyway, thanks for the feedback!Read More

Reviewed BSNL NetOne Dial Up

BSNL DataONE - Chennai

I have just been using for a day, the Home500 plan of BSNL (as of 9 Feb 2005 in Chennai). Aside the fact that one had to kick the PSU bureaucracy all the way to get the conx and get them to do just what they promised thru installation, enabling conx etc etc, the network performance was amazin...Read more

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Reviewed Indian Value Added Tax - VAT

Will VAT achieve its objective come April 2005?

Agreement reached with all State Govt to create a single market Production base across India, through VAT, thereby permitting Industry to best locate their assets, based on need and performance rather than myopic tax incentive considerations is welcome. UPA & in particular Congress has been p...Read more

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Reviewed SEBI

Common Sense (lack of) and Govt Agencies

<H>Common Sense (lack of) and Govt Agencies</H> Indian Finance Ministry thru SEBI has made it mandatory for lakhs of investors and tax payers to do MAPIN registration & obtain TIN (Tax Information Network number) before March 31, 2005. This costs Rs 300 & indeed as with any Gov...Read more

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Reviewed Tips on Choosing a Bank

Tip to increase Bank/Mf productivity n save costs

How to save operating costs of Banks and MFs and increase India's Productivity The second biggest cause of wasted productive time at work of Indian Bank/Mf staffs, after Internet in office, is the practice of stapling, atleast twice, every envelope that is already sealed well. Besides, the...Read more

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