Buy gold online, e-retailers deliver it at your doorstep

Popular e-retailing sites are cashing in on falling gold prices — currently at a 15month low — by selling gold coins and jewellery the same way they sell fashion apparel and accessories.
“The fall in gold prices since April 15 has led to a 300% increase in gold sales,” said Amit Maheshwari, VP, fashion merchandising, Snapdeal.
To address quality concerns, many e-retailers have tied up with leading jewellery retailers. For instance, Jabong is selling gold coins through an exclusive tie-up with leading Delhi-based jeweller Mehrasons. Ebay has tied up with global online precious metal dealer, APMEX.
The gold products are delivered at the customer’s door — the same way as all other products — but they are sent through special premium services provided by select courier partners.

“The risk of theft or loss is covered by insurance,” said Maheshwari. “We have added more options in our precious jewellery segment, which includes gold coins of 50 grams and 20 grams. We also plan to offer silver bars for sale soon,” said Manu Jain, a co-founder of Jabong.com.
“But gold coins, in particular, are selling like hot cakes and far exceed gold and diamond jewellery sales,” he added. “The sale of jewellery comes in second behind coins,” said Snapdeal’s Maheshwari.
The e-retailers, however, declined to reveal sales figures or volumes.
Ebay, the leading global online auction and shopping portal, is offering vintage gold, silver and platinum coins. On offer are the antique coins that go back to the Mewar dynasty, British India era including the British India 2 annas and even the 1883 silver Indian coins.

Govt breathes easy as crude, gold prices slide

Govt breathes easy as crude, gold prices slide

New Delhi: Softening crude and gold prices come as a huge but temporary relief for the government battling to repair the widening current account and fiscal deficits but economists say more sustained effort is needed to steer the economy out of troubled waters.
    For consumers, the slide in global crude oil prices could mean a further cut in petrol prices. Oil companies have already reduced prices twice in view of the global trend.
    A sell-off in commodities saw the prices of gold and crude sliding sharply. Brent crude hit a ninemonth low of $101 per barrel on Friday. The decline in prices of the country’s two biggest imports may have a sobering impact on public finances if the trend is sustained.
    “India is more vulnerable to global oil prices as it subsides oil, suppresses oil inflation and is one of the largest importers. The sharp decline in global oil prices should help the subsidy bill and the easing gold prices should help in efforts to trim the current account deficit,” said D K Joshi, chief economist at ratings agency Crisil. He also said the government’s efforts to rationalize domestic fuel prices would have a positive impact on the subsidy bill.
    Joshi said estimates show that oil prices in 2013-14 would be at least $5 a barrel less than in 2013-14 due to several factors such as the global demand slowdown and the US becoming self sufficient in energy.
    The government has said that it is committed to keep the fiscal deficit within the target of 4.8% of GDP in the current fiscal and efforts are underway to tame the problem of unwieldy subsidies.
    The current account deficit (CAD) widened to a record high of 6.7% of GDP in the December quarter to $32 billion due to a spurt in oil and gold imports ringing alarm bells for policymakers. The CAD is ameasure of the amount of net capital flows from abroad that an economy depends on, whether in the form of borrowings or investment.
    The government has taken several measures including an increase in the import duty of gold to tame the current account deficit. Finance minister P Chidambaram has said he expects the current deficit annual number for the 2012-13 fiscal year to be “more tolerable.”
    The UPA is also trying to attract foreign capital with Chidambaram leading the charge. The finance minister will leave for a one week two-nation tour to Canada and the USA on Sunday as he launches another bid to attract foreign investors. Chidambaram has already made a pitch with investors in Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
    The finance minister will take part in the annual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB). He is also scheduled to attend the G-20 finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ meeting on the sidelines of IMF-WB gathering, and also hold bilateral talks with US treasury secretary Jack Lew. Efforts are also on to boost exports and expectations are that the government may unveil a package for exporters when it announces the foreign trade policy later this month.
    But there are several problems still hovering over the economy. Industrial growth is weak as investments stay on the sidelines while business confidence is yet to recover. Food inflation continues to be a problem despite some moderation in overall inflation while the rupee continues to remain volatile.

REASON TO CHEER

MP village home to 16th C tale of Tota Maina love birds

MP village home to 16th C tale of Tota Maina love birds

Burhanpur: The famous Kishore Kumar song “Tota Maina Ki Kahani” from the ’70s film, ‘Fakira’, has always epitomized eternal love. What is little known is that the story originated in Burhanpur, a nondescript district in Madhya Pradesh. Now, 40 years after ‘Fakira’, Suraj Nagar, a subdivisional magistrate, is making a movie which has a scene dedicated to this love story.
    Quamaruddin Falak, a historian, claims that this love story is not a myth but a forgotten history. When Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khana, one of Akhbar’s navratnas, ruled this city in the 16th century, the region suffered a severe drought. Rahim then got a reservoir constructed on the top of a hill from where water was later brought to the city. It still exists.
    But few know the role Tota and Maina played in getting water to the city. They belonged to a seer called Hazrat Shah Mustaqbil and fell in love while being kept in different cages.
    It was said that whoever went to the seer seeking water never returned empty-handed. During the drought, Rahim went to him and the seer said he would set his birds free and they would guide him to water. “The birds went to a hill and sat on a stone which suddenly caved in to reveal a hollow, full of water,” adds Falak. But the birds could not be found. Later, they were found dead, wrapped in each other’s wings.
    When they were brought to the seer, he said that they preferred dying together than living in seperate cages. Impressed, Rahim got their graves built next to each another. Falak claims that this is a fact recorded by books, including one written by Sir Thomas Roe, a British ambassador who visited Burhanpur.

BIRDS OF LOVE: The grave of Tota Maina in Burhanpur

NEW FACES OF BOHO CHIC

NEW FACES OF BOHO CHIC

Bohemian fashion is fusing with the most popular trends of 2013 to create exciting new styles. Introduces you to eight of them

    CALL it an effect of the shift in global consciousness or a gypsy revival, the fashion world is witnessing a bohemian bonanza this summer. The boho chic movement — defined by a marriage of colourful folk-inspired elements with simple modern pieces — is storming the ramps and the high street with fresh zeal and modern updates.
    Says Delhi-based designer Rajdeep Ranawat, “With the ecological shift the world is going through, fabrics and shapes are getting sturdier and more organic in contrast to the volumes of viscose and polyester of the past.” The new-age bohemian trend is all about slimmer silhouettes, well co-ordinated prints and contemporary accessories that either pair well with current trends or create their own.
    Contrary to past tendencies towards esoteric frills, the emphasis now is on accessibility and travel-friendliness. Although experimentation is the key, modern boho chic is about practicality; comfort gets more importance than adornment. Says boutique owner Rasika Wakalkar from Pune, “Whichever avatar you sport, it should look like it has just been thrown together with careful disregard.” We present eight new avatars.
 
GREEK GODDESS Pia Pauro borrowed from the clothing and hairstyles of the ancient Greeks to infuse sexiness into her signature boho look. Pick a frilly white off-shoulder mini that has colourful embroidery at the hem. Cinch it at the waist with a narrow belt. Slip into golden gladiator heels, and bring out your inner goddess with a braided Grecian updo. 
 
NATTY NATIVE Eclectic designer Daniel Syiem from Shillong, Meghalaya, has taken daily wear outfits of the Khasi tribe and translated their fluidity into shift dresses. Support sustainable fashion in your own way by buying modern pieces made from indigenous fabrics and recycled materials on your next shopping spree. 
 
EGYPTIAN FLAIR This soft and structured look is inspired by the enchanting land of Egypt, its sand dunes and regal motifs. Think simple, flowy Indo-western wear such as dresses, gowns and saris, with delicate gathers and exaggerated collars. Keep the colour palette earthy — fresh cream, copper, mud and bronze. Pick tribal accessories made from natural materials. 
 
HIPPIE BOBBY Give a boho chic twist to the iconic mini-skirt-and-knottedtank ensemble seen on actress Dimple Kapadia in the 1973 film Bobby. Contrast a multicoloured knotted blouse with a block printed mini. “Keep the prints big and the colours bold,” says designer Simrita Dhillon from Mumbai. To be attempted only if you have a small waist and enviable legs. 
 
WORK WARRIOR Incorporate the effects of snake skins and tattoos of warrior tribes — specially the Mauri tribes of New Zealand — with natural fabrics like khadi, linen, silk and cotton for fusion workwear with an edge. Pair an elegant maroon striped asymmetric coat and tuxedo-style shirt in black organza with slim trousers and black pumps. 
 
SASSY TOURIST This is the most corporate among the new boho chic avatars. Pick sheath and draped dresses in soft pastels with earthy touches, made out of fabrics that will stand the rigours of an executive’s fastpaced lifestyle — cotton chambray, satin, twill, linen, lycra and silk. The silhouettes are crisp with hints of trims and subtle layering. 
 
DESI BABYDOLL This variation is an offshoot of the traditional anarkali. Ask your darzi to stitch a flared, multi-layered, multi-coloured anarkali in a floral print. The hem should end at the knee. Pull on a neon dupatta but lose the pyjama. “Complete the look with bright wedges and chunky stacked bangles,” suggests Delhi-based designer Gautam Gupta. 
 
AFRO GIRL Priyangsu Maji and Sweta Tantia’s collection at Lakme Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2013 merged Indian weaves with North African tribal concepts. To sport this cybercool-meets tribal look, shop for asymmetrical blouses and blazers embellished with hand-tucked embroidery, pearls, pleats or buttons, and pair with slouchy trousers.

SUPERCHARGE YOUR BROWSER - HOW TO USE YOUR BROWSER TO...

SUPERCHARGE YOUR BROWSER

HOW TO USE YOUR BROWSER TO...

    WE use the web for everything – from entertainment, in the form of online videos and games, to working with documents and databases in the cloud, and even keeping in touch with friends and family through our social networks. It’s no wonder then that our web browsers are the most important pieces of code on our machines today. But did you know that you can add extra functionality to this software in the form of free plugins and extensions? 
 
    Download YouTube videos We all love watching online videos. But did you know you can download your favourite videos using browser plugins?
    People who use Internet Explorer can use IE Download Helper. Get Version 3.3 of the software because the new 3.5 version puts a limit on the size of the video file for free users.
www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Download-Managers/IE-DownloadHelper.shtml

    For Firefox, we suggest Video DownLoadHelper (available on the Firefox extensions page). When you access a web page with embedded videos in it, this extension processes the links from where the video can be downloaded in either FLV, MP4 and 3GP formats in resolutions of up to 1080p.
    Chrome users can use YouTube Downloader. This works best as it creates a download button under the video you are watching. And it even works with sites like Vimeo and Dailymotion.
www.chromeextensions.org/utilities/chrome-youtube-downloader

    Control music playback Do you listen to music while browsing the web? Download FoxyTunes. This plugin allows you to control audio playback from within your browser if you use Internet Explorer or Firefox (version 18 or lower). After you install it, you can change volume settings, skip tracks and pause songs from your browser window, without switching to your media player running in the background. FoxyTunes manages this feat by mirroring your playback software in a toolbar under the browser’s URL bar.
www.foxytunes.com 

    Read lengthy articles and take notes Whenever you read an article on the web, you are often plagued by sponsors who’ve placed advertisements – in the form of links, images and pop-ups – around that piece. Evernote Clearly is an extension that strips a web page of all that distraction and leaves behind just what you want to see. You can select between light and dark themes – and if you have an Evernote account, you can even clip the article or highlight portions of it for future reference.
    EC is available to users of Firefox and Chrome from their respective extension pages. Those who use Internet Explorer can use Evernote Web Clipper after installing the Evernote program on their PC.
evernote.com/webclipper/ 

    Manage multiple tabs Incredibly powerful and yet easy to use, TabMixPlus (available on the Firefox extensions page) is a tool that helps you manage open tabs within Firefox. Once installed, you can use it to group tabs, view them as thumbnails, lock them in a position and recall pages after closing – and most of these features can be accessed with a right click inside an open web page.
    For Chrome users, there’s TooManyTabs (available on the Chrome web store) that comes with similar functionality. 

    Play Angry Birds Yes, you can play the world’s favourite mobile game in a browser. Chrome users can simply install the game as an extension and play it not only when they are connected to the web, but also when they are offline. Firefox and Internet Explorer users, however, can play the game on www.chrome.angrybirds.com. This will make the office a little less boring. Just keep an eye out for your boss.
 
CHROME Attachments.Me: This is a nifty tool that allows you to quickly save files from your Gmail account onto online services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Box or Skydrive. The extension, which also allows you to attach files from cloud storage, creates several easy-to-use buttons within Gmail’s compose and view windows. And users are also provided with an overview of all their files saved across the services.
 
HootSuite: This is a full-featured extension of HootSuite, a program that allows you to track your social networks using a single window. Install and connect it to your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. After that, you can use it from within the browser to keep an eye on your social media feeds, as well as tweet or post status updates.  

SplitScreen: This is a great tool for when you work with two pages simultaneously. After you install this extension, click on its icon to open a single Chrome page with two windows; each with its own URL bar. By default, however, one half serves as a blank notepad, allowing you to take notes. These can be saved as a local file, or cached automatically so that when you open SplitScreen the next time, your data is intact and you can start working from where you left off. 

MagicActions for YouTube: A “must-have” for video junkies, this extension adds several features to YouTube – the most important being its cinema mode that puts the clip inside a black box and removes all distractions from the page. And you can also use it to auto repeat your favourite song so that it plays repeatedly in a loop. Other options include sharing videos on Facebook; choice between a light and a dark theme; and volume control through your mouse scroll wheel. All Chrome plug-ins can be found at ‘chrome.google.com/webstore/category/home’ and can be installed directly within the browser. 
 
FIREFOX Thumbnail Zoom: With TZ, you don’t have to click on an image to view it in full size. Simply hover over a thumbnail to see it in a floating window. This not only saves time, but also helps you keep your browsing session neat and tidy. By default, this extension works with over 15websites including Facebook, Twitter and Imgur.  

CopyPlainText: If you’ve ever copied text from the internet and pasted it directly into a rich editor like MS Word, you’ll know what a mess its formatting can create. Most users therefore prefer to paste into Notepad before copying and pasting into an email compose window or MS Word. CopyPlainText strips away the troublesome formatting from web text and helps save some time.  

FireTube: Install this extension to turn YouTube into your personal radio station. It adds a tiny toolbar –complete with fast forward, rewind, pause, and volume controls buttons – at the bottom of the page from where you can search a song on the video service and stream it as an MP3. But that’s not all. If you want, you can even download the file in MP3 format.

Feedly: Now that Google Reader is dead, you can use Feedly to manage your RSS subscriptions. Or if you are not into RSS feeds, you can use it to just browse fresh daily content from websites like New York Times or CNN. This extension adds a Feedly button near the back and forwards buttons and clicking on it opens a tab with the news of the day. Feedly is also available for Chrome. Firefox extensions can be installed directly from ‘addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions’ 
 
INTERNET EXPLORER ieSpell: IE 10 has an inbuilt spell checker, but if you’re running version 8 or 9, you should download ieSpell. This tool is a boon to those who compose emails and blog posts in their browser. Once installed, spell check can be accessed in the contextual menu that pops up after right-clicking. With ieSpell you can also highlight a word and look for its meaning on the Merriam Webster web site.
www.iespell.com/download.php 

iMacros: With iMacros you can record the actions that you perform on a web page to complete a task. For example, to access Twitter you first type twitter.com into the URL bar, hit enter, then login using an id, hit tab, enter in your password and hit enter again. With iMacro, you can record these actions, and subsequently log onto Twitter by simply replaying the macro. You can use this tool to record as many macros as you want.
download.cnet.com/iMacros-for-Internet-Explorer/3000-12512_4-10586882.html 

ALOT Radio: This toolbar is easily one of the best there is for music lovers because it allows easy access to hundreds of international radio channels. It even has a Facebook tab that allows you to keep an eye on your feeds; an eBay tab to browse through products you may want to buy; a YouTube app for video search; and a weather tab for local forecast.
download.cnet.com/ALOT-Radio-App/3000-12512_4-75147660.html 

Google Toolbar: We don’t usually recommend the use of toolbars, but this one adds several features to IE: It allows you to carry out an internet search without going to www.google.com; automatically translates text whenever you encounter a web page in a foreign language; and if you give it necessary permissions, it also gives you one-click access to your Google services including Google+.
www.google.com/intl/en_uk/toolbar/ie/index.html IE plug-ins have to be installed on your PC before they can be used within the browser.