Kerala Cafe

[Aslesh]

Originally Posted by Malayaali

It's not Hi-tech! Its primitive

കാശ് കൊടുക്കേണ്ടല്ലോ, ഞാന് ഹാപ്പി

Definitely you have to pay money to its owner/trainers. Like we do for elephants.

[Malayaali]

Originally Posted by Aslesh

Definitely you have to pay money to its owner/trainers. Like we do for elephants.

അറിയാം മാഷേ! നമുക്ക് ഒരെണ്ണത്തെ വാങ്ങി വളര്ത്തിയാല് മതിയല്ലോ!

[murlee]

Guys... What happened to the treasure in Padmanabaswamy temple?? There is not much talk about that in the media now-a-days..

Is anything covered in the local media??

[Xeno Axe]

Originally Posted by murlee

Guys... What happened to the treasure in Padmanabaswamy temple?? There is not much talk about that in the media now-a-days..

Is anything covered in the local media??

The inventory and documentation of the treasures started today.

See the Trivandrum forum for more details. There is a thread for the temple.

[murlee]

Thanks Xeno!

[RajeshVR]

Rs 4,000-crore worth illegal gold trade thrives in state



No wonder 2 gold merchants have already purchased private aircrafts. We can expect more from these guys

[vinod/kakka]

And no sales tax is collected even from the "official" gold sales channels, but we do collect sales tax on cancer medications and hawaii chappals.

[maheshponneth]

Rs 4,000-crore worth illegal gold trade thrives in state

An underground gold trade, unofficially estimated to be worth at least Rs 4,000 crore or 20 percent of the mainstream gold trade, is thriving in this gold-crazy state.

It is the tonnes of gold pledged in private finance companies that finds its way into the warehouses of these underground traders.

The parallel business functions on the basis of the ‘friend in need’ principle. These traders, without bidding, come to the aid of those finding it impossible to cough up the money required to take back their pledged gold.

They are willing to pay even the interest that has accrued over the months or years the gold was locked in the bank. And then they express a willingness to purchase the re-claimed gold at the prevailing market rate.

A win-win situation. Jewellery thieves have found this the most convenient hassle-free route to convert stolen gold into cash.

The gold is then transported to a central godown from where it is fanned out to households on the basis of the orders placed.

There are no showrooms, only a large network of young sales executives. In underground jargon, the sales model is termed the ayyan shrinkala or the ‘youth network’.

The payyans or the young sales executive does the door-to-door canvassing and place orders at the central storehouse. The gold reaches your doorstep at prices far lower than the market rate.

The soliciting of customers happens right in the open. The classifieds pages of major dailies are sprinkled with words of such ‘friends in need’ with their mobile numbers.

However, commercial sales tax commissioner Suman Billa admits his helplessness. “We have no way to net them.

They effectively work out of the system,” he told DC. A source said that the mobile phones the sales executives are given are purchased on fake addresses and even this is changed every month.
a

dcithum koodi onnu vayikkanam. Avare kuttam parayan pattilla. karanam Government itself supports them for their benefit. This is not only in jwellery sector, almost all sectors have this kind of problems.

[Malayaali]

Traders to go global with ‘Made in Kerala’ tag

KOCHI: Painting Kerala's growing industrial might before the world will require more than intense shades of green. It will take efficient quality control, a green tag for the best products and a deserving attribution.

The 'Made in Kerala' label should do just that. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), along with the Kerala government, is planning to issue 'Made in Kerala' labels for select products and services from the southern state.

Along the lines of 'fairtrade' labelling, the new label will be used to market products or services which are "green, egalitarian and accepted by the local community". Jose Dominic, chairman of CII's Kerala chapter, told TOI that the labelled products would be aimed at premium customers in domestic and global markets.

"Made in Kerala will represent a spectrum of related values - green, non-polluting, eco-friendly, organic, healthy, participative, compliant with the laws of the land, transparent, made with zero child labour, premium, among others," Dominic said.

'Made in Kerala', said Dominic, represents a unique competitive advantage that has the potential to attract investments into certain highvalue industries generating employment in both manufacturing and service sectors.

However, experts say the positioning of such products in domestic and global markets will be tricky. "This type of brand will succeed in the global markets only if it has the premium image that comes with the green, egalitarian and organic attributes of the products. For the pricesensitive domestic consumer, these attributes may not work now. However, these products may find premium consumers even in India," said Sumit Mitra, associate professor of strategic management at the Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode.

To promote the concept of branding premium products and services out of Kerala, CII will conduct a 'Made in Kerala Conference' on March 10. CII has also laid plans for a 'Made in Kerala Foundation' to oversee branding and labelling activities on the side.

[DileepKS]

Remember seeing a part of a movie while channel surfing, where Prithviraj acts as one such ornament dealers.

[ajithv]

Source: Metro Manorama

[abhilashtvpm]

Performance evaluation system soon

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Taking a cue from countries like UK, New Zealand and Malaysia, the State Planning and Economics Affairs Department is set to evaluate the performance of all government departments in Kerala.This means that all ministers and departments will become more accountable as a quantitative analysis with points on performance of their respective departments, will be put on the public domain after each fiscal.

“Kerala is the first state in the country to introduce a comprehensive performance monitoring and evaluation system, Results Framework Document (RFD), which was given to all departments last September. The first review meeting will be held in April and after tabulating the performance for the financial year, marks will be awarded to each department out of a total of 100. This system will make each minister and department heads more accountable,’’ said Subrata Biswas, Secretary, State Planning and Economic Affairs Department.

RFD provides a summary of the most important results that a department expects to achieve during the financial year.The marks will be presented in a five-point scale - Excellent = 100 per cent - 96 per cent Very Good = 95 per cent - 86 per cent, Good = 85 per cent - 76 per cent, Fair = 75 per cent - 66 per cent, Poor = 65 per cent and below.Biswas said that RFD would shift the focus of the department from process-orientation to result-orientation and provide a basis to evaluate the overall performance of departments at the end of the year.

“What is now being practised is evaluation of departments based on spending. Under the new system, the overall performance of each department will be evaluated. An ad hoc committee of the Union Government will be conducting a third party evaluation in April,’’ he said.Kerala State Planning Board vice-chairman K M Chandrashekar told ‘Express’ that the basic concept of such performance monitoring is to make each department more proactive.
“Usually officials tend to be reactive.

A performance evaluation system will make them proactive. In the beginning of every year, they will be asked to list the objectives that the department wants to carry out. At the end of the year, the performance will be evaluated after discussions by an expert panel comprising of academics, management experts and resource persons,’’ he said.He said that every three months the departments will be asked to review their objectives as outside factors like a financial crisis can play a role in governance.

IBN

[Aslesh]

Fishermen killed in Kerala: mediation on behalf of Cardinal Alencherry and Catholic Ministers
A story of a Catholic Cardinal, Catholic Fishermen, Catholic K.V. Thomas and Catholic Ministers in Government of Kerala.

[SajithVijayan]

Originally Posted by Aslesh

Fishermen killed in Kerala: mediation on behalf of Cardinal Alencherry and Catholic Ministers
A story of a Catholic Cardinal, Catholic Fishermen, Catholic K.V. Thomas and Catholic Ministers in Government of Kerala.

[binujoseph]

Punish the guilty, says Cardinal Alencherry

Kochi: Cardinal Mar George Alencherry issued a press statement on Wednesday after an alleged remark by him on the fishermen deaths sparked a controversy. The Cardinal said, "The report of the Italian press agency is wrong. The agency removed the report and expressed their apology for the mistake. I have not tried to intervene in this matter, nor have I contacted any ministers regarding this."He added, "Two precious lives have been lost. Strong legal action should be taken against the guilty."In a report published by an Italian news agency on Wednesday, Alencherry was quoted as saying that the Kerala government must not "precipitate action" on the issue, and that the Opposition in Kerala might look to "exploit" the situation.
Alencherry, an archbishop from Kerala, was recently ordained as a Cardinal in Rome.Father Babu Joseph, Spokesperson, Catholic Bishops Conference of India too said that Alencherry had been misquoted."The Cardinal has in no way intervened. We should let it rest at that and let the two governments deal with the situation. The Indian government and other sources are saying that he was misquoted.I think we should move on from this. Misquotation is not exclusive to the Indian media, it can happen anywhere in the world," the reverend said.Chief Minister Oomen Chandy, meanwhile, refused to be drawn into the controversy. He merely said that the Syro Malabar Church had refuted the reports and therefore, he was not going to say anything on the matter.He, however, added, "The police is seriously questioning the culprits. We will continue to take all action under the IPC. There is a lot of concern about the security of fishermen. We are calling a high level meeting with the Coast Guard and the Navy. We will not let the guilty escape from here."
Opposition leader in Kerala Assembly VS Achuthanandan, meanwhile, said that the statement of the Cardinal was condemnable, if he had made such a remark. "If the statement was true, it showed that the Cardinal was with the persons who killed and not with the victims. The Cardinal tried to justify the incident more than the Italian authorities," he said.Referring to the Cardinal's alleged remark that the Opposition would try to "exploit" the situation, he said it was unexpected that such an "irresponsible statement came from a person like the Cardinal".The Syro Malabar Church of Kerala, however, said that the Cardinal was keen that both India and Italy resolve the matter in a "peaceful and amicable" manner. A spokesman of the church, Father Paul Thelekat, told PTI in Kochi that he had spoken to the Cardinal following the controversy over his reported statement.

[RajeshVR]

Originally Posted by Aslesh

Fishermen killed in Kerala: mediation on behalf of Cardinal Alencherry and Catholic Ministers
A story of a Catholic Cardinal, Catholic Fishermen, Catholic K.V. Thomas and Catholic Ministers in Government of Kerala.

+1
Above all ,who is ruling India, Sonia Gandhi ROMAN(Italy) Catholic

[DileepKS]

These Guineas are worse than the Pakis in giving out false news!! I honestly do not think a catholic bishop would make such utterly foolish statement. They hold allegiance to the holy see, not Italy, and they know very well where their constituency stands.

And Rev Alenchery is in fact a very good guy.

[franclin]

Commually charged statements from the tread should be deleted !

[RajeshNair]

Originally Posted by DileepKS

These Guineas are worse than the Pakis in giving out false news!! I honestly do not think a catholic bishop would make such utterly foolish statement. They hold allegiance to the holy see, not Italy, and they know very well where their constituency stands.

And Rev Alenchery is in fact a very good guy.

+1
I think this paper in question is the vatican version of a tabloid. Vatican has nothing to do with Italy any way.

[Malayaali]

Originally Posted by franclin

Commually charged statements from the tread should be deleted !

+ 1

Politics can be discussed, but better to keep Faith/Religion out of SSC.