New survey shows blogging is less preferred by young internet users

If the outcome of the recent US survey by Pew Internet and American Life Project is any indication of the future of social networking, blogs are less preferred by the younger generation. The study shows that the young bloggers of the age groups 12-17 years and 18-29 years have come down drastically, with the former having halved to 14 per cent since 2006. The study also showed that about 55 per cent of 18-29 year-olds and 27 percent of 12-17 year-olds prefer to access the internet from mobile phones. The possible reason quoted is the preference for short and snappy updates, text messaging and similar features, while blogging requires typing longer text and text blogs which are content-driven needs patience to read the blogs.

Interestingly, the study also shows that there is a small increase in blogging by those who are 30 years or older, whose numbers had increased from 7 per cent in 2007 to 11 percent in 2009. The study suggests that this trend is responsible for the prevalence of blogging among overall grown-up internet population and their numbers remaining steady at about 10 per cent.

In recent times there have been tremendous technological improvements in the tools and other features showcased in social networking sites because of which such sites continue to grow at very fast rates. Because of this the younger generation seems to be exchanging macro-blogging for micro-blogging with status updates, which has made blogs less preferred by them. Any way, Twitter is not to be blamed for the new trends.

Twitter has emerged as a revolution in micro-blogging with those 140 characters, but it is not the reason for the reduced interest in blogging by the younger generation, as teens are not using Twitter in large numbers, although teens have been the biggest users of almost all other online applications, but Twitter is an exception, the study says. On the other hand, there is a surge of tweets from men and women of older age groups tweeting away on all possible topics or grabbing attention to what they find interesting with 140 characters.

PayPal suspends personal payments and local bank transfers in India

The online payments and receipts service provider PayPal has suspended personal payments and local bank transfers in India, informs Anuj from the communications team at PayPal, in a blog posted at the PayPal Blog. This includes transfers to and from local banks in India.

He wrote, ‘I’m writing to let you know that personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in India have been suspended while we work with our business partners and other stakeholders to address questions they have about the service”. As per the post, ‘during this time, customers can still make commercial payments to India but merchants cannot withdraw funds in Rupees to local Indian banks’.

PayPal is trying to resolve the situation at their earliest and regrets the inconvenience that this may cause PayPal customers in India and around the world, the blog post says. If you are the one affected by the suspension of services you can check for updates on this problem from PayPal Blog.

I hope the problem is resolved soon as many thousands of Indians who depends on PayPal for online payments will be affected, especially the small guys like bloggers and small businesses using PayPal services for collection and transfer of payments using their services. As it looks, transfer of funds to your PayPal account may not be affected but getting the money back to banks located in India will be on hold till the problem is resolved.

10 Tips to tide over your financial problems

10 Tips to tide over your financial problems

Deciding about how much one should spend at times like this when the flow of income is unduly restricted and we do not find easy, effective and legal ways to supplement the sagging income is rather difficult. While we rue the fact that the income has come down to uncomfortably lower levels, when spending we tend to follow the trends that used to rule us during the periods of surplus cash. It happens so because, the spending habits take time to change. While shopping, for anything for that matter, we conveniently forget our reduced financial status and spend as usual. Possibly, we remind ourselves that it was over-expenditure or a wasteful one only after parting with the cash. And, again possibly, we resolve to ourselves that we have to change the pattern of spending to strike a balance with the income levels so that all on a sudden we are not confronted with deficits in our home and personal budgets.

While we reconcile ourselves to the reduced income levels, it is a bit difficult to curtail the spending habits. It is a psychological riddle. Sometimes, especially in the presence of others, no matter the other person is an outsider, a friend or even a member of the family, we spend as before simply because our egos do not permit us to spend less. We may even be assuring ourselves that it does not matter much this time and the excess spend can be set off with a budgetary cut next time. But it never happens.

For the above reasons and many other reasons, a proper balance is not maintained between income and expenditure and it creates all the problems. Here are a few ways that can help you sail through the times of recession, or situations of low incomes, without much of heartburn.

01: Review your budget

The first step to restore comfortable spending habits is to review your personal or home budget. If you are a person who has never drawn up a budget, do it now. List all your incomes and expenditures and add them up. Draw the balance. If your income is less than your expenditure, it is certainly a cause for worry. If the gap is very wide, you are in for a bigger financial collapse. In that case, check each item of expenditure and strike off those spends that are not essential now. Such items may include expenditures that can be classified as avoidable luxury or other types that can easily be postponed for a future date, or for all times. In most cases, this first step itself will put you out of the red.

02: Cut on nonessentials

Expenditure on food, education, healthcare, etc. are mostly unavoidable, though one can reduce expenditure by avoiding expensive restaurants, costly partying and expenses of similar nature. But, if you have enough clothing and accessories you can comfortably avoid the temptation to add more on such expenses. We can indulge in them when the income levels are back to normal. By doing so, we hardly face any problems and mostly no one will notice them. So, while thinking of purchasing any nonessentials, ask yourself this question, “Do I need it now?” If the answer is NO, do not purchase that item. Remember, money not spend is as good as money earned.

03: Save something for the rainy day

Recession or no recession, income levels are very high or low, building on your personal savings is the key to your happiness and boosting your confidence levels. It not only keeps you out of monetary troubles, but also helps you earn more because of higher confidence levels and by investing the saved money in growth-oriented, income-generating investment opportunities. Building a good amount of savings also takes care of very bad situations like losing a job, unforeseen financial pitfalls, and loss of business incomes in the case of persons depending mainly on businesses.

04: Keep your savings above possible inflation levels

Inflation is a fact of life, wherever you are living, whether in a rich country or in a developing nation. In many economies, inflation ranging from 5-10 per cent is considered normal. In many developing economies inflation of even 20 percent or thereabouts was experienced in 2009. So, if you save $100 this month, the next year by this month, for the same goods and services you have to pay $110 if the inflation is 10 per cent. Generally, people save to pay for expenses on a future date or for building wealth of a permanent nature. It makes no sense to save now and pay more later with borrowed money.

05: Invest your savings wisely

In order to take care of situations of inflation, do not keep your savings in unproductive accounts or at home. Invest them wisely in portfolios that bring in returns more than the bank rates, inflation, etc. Some options can be stocks/shares, gold, and real estate if you have sizable savings. Always study the market trends and the rate of return on investments (ROI), before you invest. If you are not good at understanding these trends, seek the opinion of professionals or friends who are knowledgeable in such matters.

06: Avoid borrowing to spend

Well, everyone knows it is bad, but most people overlook the financial implications of borrowing to finance current spending, especially in today’s consumerist culture and overdependence on credit cards. Borrowing can hardly be justified unless the money borrowed is spent on some assets that will generate income now or in the future, for example, for investing in business. Other occasions when one has to borrow, though not prudent but cannot be avoided, are if a person is trapped in a harsh financial situation and do not find any other way out for survival.

07: Learn to live in the current situation

There is no fun in blaming the general cash crunch of the whole economy, employment levels or your own situations. You have to live with the current situations. Though it may sound harsh, the best option to avoid future financial troubles is to tighten the belt now. Always spend within your current means.

08: Invest in insurance

Put aside enough money to pay for insurance including personal accident insurance, and against investment losses, health insurance and other options available. It will take care of unforeseen circumstances you and your family may have to face in the future. Unless it is only to cover unforeseen expenses, most well-planned insurance policies will take care of your future financial needs too. Some of them even help you to retire comfortably without any financial worries.

09: Find emotional support

Do not hide your current financial situation from your family or the dearest ones who may have to face the problems with you. Discuss your budget with them, tell them about the financial problems and seek their opinion. It will sometimes help you to plan better than you yourself can do. Additionally, they will give you emotional support and the courage to brave the situations comfortably. They shall, many a times, treat your problems as their own and make you more confident and brave.

10: Hide your financial status where required

Yes, you have to hide your financial status at many places, from many people, not only in recession, but in affluence too. If you are super rich and keep on trumpeting about it, may be your enemies, burglars, and others may trouble you in many ways. If you are in financial trouble and keep on telling all the people around, again, it will be inviting your enemies or jealous people to trouble you as there can be people who look for a ‘poor you’ to settle some personal score or enmity. But you never know who such a person can be. So, the best thing is to disclose your financial status to only those people to whom you must disclose for one reason or the other, including legally required disclosures.

So, finally, from now onwards, start living in the real world. Stop dreaming about opportunities and projects that are not real. Weigh your options; discuss with professionals about your business or personal finance plans. There can be many people out there who can help you out of trouble without burning a hole in your pocket. There is nothing wrong in accepting help from others. Similarly, be helpful to others.

Burj Dubai opens on Jan 4, 2010

Burj Dubai 03, originally uploaded by niman_lakra.

Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower; Burj in Arabic means tower), built by the company Emaar, will be inaugurated on January 4, 2010 by the UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, according to reports. Burj Dubai is now the world's tallest building. The Burj Dubai, intending to host the world's highest nightclub, is near the world's tallest fountain, called the Dubai Fountain.

Incidentally, January 4, 2010 marks the fourth anniversary of the accession day of Sheikh Mohammed as the Ruler of Dubai.

Though Dubai was through a financial crisis, it is all set to offer an entirely new experience of spending the rest of your days thousands of feet up in the air, as Burj Dubai is not only the world's tallest building but the world's tallest building by some 1,000 feet. At 2,683 feet (818 meters) height, it has the combined height of the current highest skyscraper Taipei 101 in Taiwan and the Eiffel Tower.

8 million cubic feet of concrete, 31,000 tons of steel, 167,000 square feet of stainless steel cladding, and 1.1 million square feet of double glazing have been mixed together to create a spire visible from 60 miles away across the desert or the sea. It is taller than the new 1,776 feet 1 World Trade Center or the "Freedom Tower", being built on Ground Zero in New York. Emaar's rival in Dubai, Nakheel, a subsidiary of Dubai World and the builder of the Palm Islands, proposed a one-kilometer tall tower in 2008 but it seems it is an abandoned idea for now while Dubai is grappling with its multi-billion dollar debts. As the global debt-fuelled property boom came to an end, Dubai's vision has turned to nightmare and with Dubai's fall from grace after admitting a multi-billion-dollar hole in its finances, the Burj took on a deeper symbolism.

On November 26, 2009, the government owned company Dubai World proposed to delay repayment of its debt, which is the largest government default since the Argentine debt restructuring in 2001. Then Dubai World wanted to delay for six months payment on US$26 billion of debt. The extent of the debt rattled many markets from Tokyo to New York causing many indices to drop including oil prices.

Dubai World had debts of US$59 billion, about 75 per cent of the emirate's US$80 billion debt. On November 28 Abu Dhabi, one of the emirates and the capital of the United Arab Emirates, announced that it would "pick and choose" how to assist Dubai World. But Dubai World said it was seeking to renegotiate only the US$26 billion in obligations held by the troubled real estate developer subsidiary, Nakheel. On December 14, 2009 the Dubai government received US$10 billion in aid from Abu Dhabi for assisting Dubai World.

Climate Change in India: food for thought

In India, that usually holds buffer stocks of food supplies for the last two decades, after intermittent periods of shortages of food items and importing food items to meet the shortfalls before, has become self-reliant by implementing aggressive agricultural policies and modern agricultural methods. But the worst droughts that hit India in 2009, and followed by unexpected rains after the usual monsoon periods, which the climatologists claim is due to severe climate changes due to global warming, have brought down food production drastically.

Prices of food items in India have gone up by 19 per cent from the prices a year ago, as per government sources and other economic indexes, stung by supply crunch in staple items following one of the worst droughts in the last 40 years. The wholesale price index-based inflation figure has jumped 19.05 per cent for the week ended November 28 from the figures a year ago. The real implication is that the retail prices at which the households purchase food items tend to be much higher, adding the middlemen’s profits, retailers’ profits and other incidentals till the food stocks reach from the wholesaler to the retailers. Add to this the artificial shortages and subsequent price hikes due to hoarding and black marketing by unscrupulous traders at various levels, extending up to the retailers at the times of shortages, a usual practice to cash in on the common man’s woes.

Significantly, prices of staples such as potatoes have more than doubled from the prices a year ago, while the prices of pulses have gone up over 42 per cent hitting hundreds of millions of people. The rise in price of potatoes has gone up over 102 per cent, vegetables 31 per cent, onions 23 per cent, cereals 12.8 per cent, wheat 12.6 percent, fruits 12.5 per cent, and milk by 12 per cent. Against a demand of 18 million tons of pulses, the production was only 14.8 million tons. Against a demand of 23 million tons, the production of sugar was only 16 million tons. And the story is no better in the case of most other key items of food items from the agricultural sector.

As a knee-jerk reaction to the increase in prices, the government may be forced to import food supplies such as pulses and sugar to control prices. A natural fallout of the fluctuations in the food items market is that it has a tendency to pull down the prices of manufactured products because wages and input prices go up and excessive spending to pay for food at very high prices make little money left with consumers of low and middle income households to buy manufactured items. It will have a long-term effect in the cases of industrial sector, especially automobiles and most consumer durables that have registered exceptional growth in 2009, despite the global recession.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which is the central bank of India studying statistical trends and suggesting regulatory measures for the central government, has forecast that by the end of the year the inflation will accelerate to 6.5 percent by the end of the fiscal year in March 2010.

India has been experiencing unusual climate conditions for the past several years, especially either very low precipitations in the months of the sowing of crops and sometimes by floods or unwelcome rainfalls at the time of harvesting. The result is a two-fold loss to the farmers; crops cannot be planted due to very dry climates and whatever is planted cannot grow healthy due to adverse climate and whatever crops are ready are destroyed by untimely rains and floods.

Farmers who suffer heavy losses depend on the weather gods for their farming, as most of them depend on natural conditions, with a very small percentage depending on irrigation from dams and other organized irrigation systems. In addition, the ever-worsening groundwater depletion over the years has made tube well irrigation too inefficient. The drying up of rivers in the Gangetic plains, which were perennially fed by the Himalayan glaciers are a cause of big concern as the glaciers have receded several kilometers away from the sources of the rivers that traditionally used to irrigate the northern plains that used to be the major food-producing region of India.

Hope for the best from Copenhagen

The climate change summit at Copenhagen, COP15, on December 7, 2009, is the biggest meeting of global leaders after the last meeting at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 1992 where the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the global policy guidelines on climate change was adopted.

About 100 leaders of from 192 nations and about 1500 delegates will deliberate at Copenhagen on how to tackle the climate change issues. On December 18, the last day of the conference, the summit is expected to announce an agreement, possibly, to reduce carbon emissions by 25-40 per cent relative to 1990 levels and scaling up to 80 per cent cuts by 2050. With this, the summit seeks to ensure that the global temperatures do not rise more than two degrees Celsius by 2050.

The Danish government’s proposal to replace the Kyoto protocol that expires in 2012 with a new protocol found acceptance from the US, Europe and Australia. India and China are of the view that they agree to the proposals, provided no mandatory emission cuts are imposed on developing countries, no mandatory peaking years for emissions are prescribed, and clear financial commitments are made by rich countries for the developing world to change to clean technologies.

Though USA, India and China were reluctant to announce any commitments initially, the United States has announced to cut emissions by 17 percent, China by 40-45 percent and India by 20-25 per on their 2005 levels by 2020. Europe has announced 20-30 per cent reduction on 1990 levels by 2020. Brazil announced a cut of its carbon emissions by 36-38 per cent of the projected levels by 2020. Japan would be reducing carbon emissions by 15-20 per cent on 1990 levels and Indonesia has announced a reduction of 26 per cent by reducing deforestation by 2020. South Africa too will be making reductions, it is reported, possibly, if financial support is made available.

As a financial support for the developing countries, the US committed to provide US$10 billion every year to fight climate change after 2012, while European Union promised US$100 billion every year.

According to UNFCCC Executive Secretary and the chief negotiator of the UN on climate change Yvo De Boer, who has been lobbying with the world leaders for a couple of years to arrive at a pragmatic consensus, the possibility of an agreement has emerged brighter. Rich countries should reduce emissions, developing countries should limit the growth of emissions, developing countries should be helped to fight climate change and funds must be made available for climate mitigation and adaptation.

As per reports, a petition signed by 10 million signatories calling for a fair, ambitious and binding action at Copenhagen would be delivered to the UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo De Boer on Monday. There are reports of demonstrations by climate change activists in London, and other cities of UK and Europe. There will be demonstrations by activists in Copenhagen and other places worldwide on December 12, 2009 to draw attention to the urgent need for cutting carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases.

Negotiations at different levels of governments and participating delegates and hard bargaining are expected in the coming days before the summit comes to a final decision on climate change on December 18, the last day of the conference. The figures and commitments as mentioned above may change by then, hopefully for the better, and more countries may be committing to positive measures to reduce emissions. Let us hope, the world leaders come to a more realistic understanding of the enormous threats climate change, melting glaciers, rising temperatures and sea levels pose to human existence, and they take more effective measures before it is too late.

Copenhagen Summit: Will it be a turning point in carbon reductions?

As a result of intense lobbying around the world with leaders of nations including the political and government leaders of major countries emitting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, industry leaders, scientists and others, it is reported, the UN's chief climate negotiator Yvo de Boer and UN’s IPCC chief Rajendra Pachauri are hopeful that some landmark commitments will be made at the Copenhagen Summit on climate change. We can have some hopes, as they say, because the United States, China and India have announced their readiness to cut emissions, though initially they were reluctant for any commitment. The latest to join in for a committed reduction in greenhouse gases is South Africa, making its first quantifiable target on emissions.

Earlier, USA was the topmost emitter of greenhouse gases that has come down to the second position as the Peoples Republic of China is now on top of the table, but the US still continues on top of a list as the top per capita carbon emitter. Russia is third on the list followed by India, as the fourth largest carbon emitter. The newly emerging fast growing economies like India and China depend largely on coal and fossil fuels for all their energy needs including electricity, clean sources like nuclear power stations, hydro-electric projects, wind energy, solar energy and other clean technologies accounting for a very minor percentage of their total energy production. The worst emitters are their coal-fired thermal power plants that depend on low-grade coal that emits more harmful gases, soot and suspended particles. Many of these power plants are very old and rely on old technologies that produce less energy and more pollutants. If this is the case with China and India which are economically well of compared to other developing countries, the lesser developed countries are still far worse technologically and they together emit the major bulk of the harmful emissions.

Practical, technological and financial constraints make it difficult for developing countries to reduce carbon emissions unless they want to shut down their power plants, factories, and stop running their transport systems including automobiles which are all depending on technologies and machinery that are many decades old when no one seriously talked about greenhouse gases or climate change. If they shut down such sources of gas emissions, their entire populations will suffer economically and in many other ways. In fact these countries started development projects in the last few decades, and their total emissions of harmful pollutants may work out to less than 10 percent of the total atmospheric greenhouse gases, because, most countries including European countries and USA were burning fossil fuels right from the times of the industrial revolution, adding most of the atmospheric pollutants present in the atmosphere now.

Everyone talking about climate change knows this, they also know that it is difficult to reduce emissions immediately and if immediate action is not taken the world will become incapable of sustaining life in the next few decades. Even the deadlines they talk about and the target they fix like for 2020 and 2050 will be too late as already many countries are suffering from severe droughts, floods, untimely rainy seasons, hurricanes and typhoons, and rising sea levels.

Even in the Copenhagen summit, not much is going to happen, as no country is ready to commit to legally binding agreements. Though UN's Yvo de Boer told reporters on the eve of the summit that offers of finance for clean technology for poor countries were also coming through and talks were progressing on a long term vision of massive carbon cuts by 2050, it may be clearly understood that no country has made any firm and binding commitment to help poor countries, excepting the promise by USA to provide US$10 billion and the European Union US$100 billion, every year after 2012. Considering the enormity of the work to be done and the cost of building new projects, this offer of financial help, to be spread over all developing countries in the world, is not even enough to construct one plant each in each country. Only talks are going on and 2050 is when nobody will be around to talk any climate change or offer help to anyone because, global warming does not wait for anyone and it is accelerating right at this moment, and worsening day by day.

The main points the Copenhagen summit will discuss include targets to control greenhouse gas emissions particularly by developed countries, financial support for adapting measures to reduce emissions by developing countries and a ‘carbon trading scheme aimed at ending the destruction of the world's forests by 2030’, as the UN representatives and other organizers of the summit point out.

Delegates from 192 countries are meeting in Copenhagen, with some 100 world leaders and 15,000 delegates taking part in the discussions. The leaders who promised to attend include US President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and the head of the UN's panel of climate experts Rajendra Pachauri will be addressing the opening session.

In a survey by Globescan, 64% of people surveyed were of the opinion that global warming a very serious problem, up by 20% from a decade ago. It is a positive indication that more people are concerned now. Also, there are reports that 56 newspapers in 45 countries will be publishing in 20 languages a jointly written same editorial on Monday warning that climate change will ‘ravage our planet’ unless action is agreed upon at Copenhagen. "At the deal's heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world," the editorial says. Also, many thousands of environmental activists marched in London, and other cities of UK and European countries on Saturday and protests are planned in Copenhagen, and around the world, on 12 December to encourage delegates to reach the strongest possible deal for cutting emissions. These underline the importance of agreements will be made at Copenhagen because it will replace the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 on climate change as the targets set at Kyoto will be running out in 2012.

The fast rate at which the glaciers in Antarctica, the north pole and nearby areas, like Iceland and Greenland, and the Himalayan glaciers melt, as many recent surveys and researches conclude, will submerge many small island countries and even big cities on seashores. The indications are already there in many places as flooding at the time of high tides and receding coastlines in countries like India, for example, many villages in coastal Orissa have vanished under the advancing sea.