Month: August 2018

Natural Mineral Water Indian Industry Analysis

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Natural mineral water
According to American and European Regional Codex Standard, natural mineral water:
is obtained directly from natural or drilled sources from underground water – bearing strata.
is collected under conditions which guarantee the original natural bacteriological purity.
is bottled at the point of emergence of the source with

particular hygienic precautions is not subjected to any chemical treatment.

Indian bottled Water Industry

The bottled water industry in India is estimated at about Rs 1,000 crore and is growing at 40 per cent. “By 2010, it will reach Rs 4,000 – 5,000 crore with 33 per cent market for natural mineral water.

The formal bottled water business in India can be divided broadly into three segments in terms of cost: premium natural mineral water, natural mineral water and packaged drinking water.

It is estimated that the global consumption of bottled water is nearing 200 billion litres – sufficient to satisfy the daily drinking water need of one-fourth of the Indian population or about 4.5 per cent of the global population at the fourth World Water Forum held in Mexico City in March 2006.

In India, the per capita bottled water consumption is still quite low – less than five litres a year as compared to the global average of 24 litres. However, the total annual bottled water consumption has risen rapidly in recent times – it has tripled between 1999 and 2004 – from about 1.5 billion litres to five billion litres. These are boom times for the Indian bottled water industry – more so because the economics are sound, the bottom line is fat and the Indian government hardly cares for what happens to the nation’s water resources. Since 1991-

1992 it has not looked back, and the demand in 2004-05 was a staggering 82 million cases.

Mineral Water Market in India

For example, the per capita consumption of mineral water in India is a mere 0.5-liter compared to 111 liter in Europe and 45-liter in USA.

But over the last ten years, it has witnessed tremendous growth. The change is very much evident. Once a product found mainly at railways stations, mineral water today occupies a place on the shelf in most superstores, grocers and even paanwalas. From a mere 60 towns in the year 1997, it is predicted that mineral water is today available in more than 1000 towns and cities across India. With a compounded annual growth rate of close to 30% over the last decade, the mineral water market has witnessed a large growth in terms of volumes.

The market is highly competitive with the entry of MNCs like Pepsico and Coke. There are a lot of brands available in the market, each with its own proclaimed differentiation.

2.2 Player in the market

In natural mineral water there are very few company like Himalayan, Aava, Evian is playing in the market. 50% of the market is captured by Himalayan.
While a thousand bottled water producers, the Indian bottled water industry is big by even international standards. There are more than 200 brands, nearly 80 per cent of which are local.
Most of the small-scale producers sell non-branded products and serve small markets.
Despite the large number of small producers, this industry is dominated by the big players – Parle Bisleri, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Parle Agro, Mohan Meakins, SKN Breweries and so on.

Consumption of bottled water in India is linked to the level of prosperity in the different regions. The western region accounts for 40 per cent of the market and the eastern region just 10. However, the bottling plants are concentrated in the southern region – of the approximately 1,200 bottling water plants in India, 600 are in Tamil Nadu. This is a major problem because southern India, especially Tamil Nadu, is wate starved.

Mineral water business is restricted only to big hotels & Restaurants. This field has lot of scope because of unawareness in the market and people are becoming health conscious.

Penis Size Fixation — A Medical Condition Or An Industry It Is A Major Cause Of Ed.

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Are you one of the hundreds of millions of men out there who worries about the size of his penis on a daily bases? If you are, then at least you have lots of historical and anthropological good company. Do not be fooled. Penile size fixation is as old as time itself and a male obsession that seems evenly spread across all cultures and civilizations down through the ages. Moreover, to judge by the number of contributions on the subject in these pages, it is an obsession showing very little sign of going away. Indeed it is, if you will pardon the pun, something of a growth industry even during these recessionary times.

The earliest written references to penis size obsession perhaps date back as far as 1400. When it came to sex and how it should be done, The Kamasutra of Vatsyayana was a right Jack the Lad. The illustrations that accompanied his writings show men with stallion sized phalluses performing feats of copulating gymnastics that would make even the editor of Playboy Magazine blush today. Pursuers of this medieval pornography could hardly have felt other than slightly inadequate as they thumbed their way feverishly through these pages.

But the Kamasutra was something of a late arrival in the art of how to make your fellow man feel inadequate through distorted images of penis size. Judging by some of the images left behind them on cave walls, our Stone Age ancestors were no shrinking violets either when it came to depicting penis size in man and animals! And so it goes on to this very day. Today, no self-respecting pornographic star would be found dead on stage sporting anything less than a shillelagh- sized erection. That this thing had been pumped up with inter-penile injection of alprostadil is hardy the point. No, in matters pornographic size does indeed matter, in fact it is all that matters. Thus, the myth is perpetuated for all time.

No religious sect, culture or ethnic group can escape. Indias holy men or Sadhus are known to attach weights to their penises in order to make them appear longer and fatter. This perhaps is understandable since they have a tendency to parade themselves around town wearing very little cloths from the waste down. The practise does make one wonder though if their holiness is very holistic. Ah well, it is not for us to judge now is it?

When it comes to tribal ingenuity in the penis-size-fixation department, the highland people of Papua New Guinea would be a hard act to follow. They still wear their beloved penis guards or Koteka as they are locally known. These cool little numbers, made from hollowed out dried gourds, are worn to cover the entire length of the penis and sometimes scrotum. The trick is to procure a Koteka that is about four sizes too big and it must be pointing upwards too of course. Into this, the wearer hides his flaccid penis while at the same time outwardly suggesting very generous endowment of a straight standing nature. It is hardly surprising that attempts to discourage this practise of wearing phallocrypts in Papua New Guinea have always fallen flat.

However, the surprising aspect to the small penis fixation industry is the fact that not one of the proffered remedies actually works. Vacuum pumps, weights, hand exercises, pills, herbs and potions are all of them a total waste of money and time. Not one of them would stand up to even the most cursory scientific scrutiny. However, does this deter men from lashing out their hard-earned money on these sham products? Not at all. When it comes to having a small penis, hope seems to spring eternal.

The sad reality though is that there are, as always, those waiting in the short grass ever eager to exploit the vulnerable and the weak. Men with small penis fixation are vulnerable and easy prey. You might as well try taking the Koteka from a New Guinean tribesman as expect some men to have a bit of sense. It is indeed a sad world we live in.

Five Emerging Trends for the Insurance Industry

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Five Emerging Trends for the Insurance Industry
Over the past few months, I have delivered a number of insurance oriented keynotes and, later this week, Ill be addressing a conference on Emerging Technologies for the insurance industry. While I cover a wide variety of trends in the information technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology sectors, here are five trends already impacting the insurance industry and which will only grow more prevalant over the coming years:

1. Genomics: Since 1998, the price of sequencing a base pair of genes has plummeted 100 million-fold. An individual can now have his or her genome sequenced for about $10,000. Obviosly, this still isnt practical or affordable for the average person but the price will soon decrease to $1000 and then $100and eventually even lower. The impact on human health will be profound and the implications for the insurance insurancein terms of life expectancy alonewill be immense.

2. Gaming Dynamics: The ability for smartphones to monitor everything from a persons heart rate and blood pressure to their glucose levels is impressive. To date, however, most of this data was just collected and then transferred wirelessly to healthcare providers who helped the patient make sense of it. This is about to change and gaming dynamics will lead the way by providing users new ways to engage, interact and, ultimately, control their own healthcare. Imagine, for example, receiving a lower insurance rate because you could verify that you exercised for 40 minutes and burned 400 calories. The potential for gaming dynamics to unleash new, innovative business models for the insurance industry is real.

3. Locational Intelligence & Pervasive Connectivity: Due to the exponential advancement of GPS technology and sensors, it is now possible to know a persons location to within a few feet. While this has made it easier for the “directional-challenged” to find their friends house a little quick, the technology is poised to revolutionize the insurance industry by making it feasible to monitor a persons driving habits. For instance, if a person is going too fast, braking too suddenly or driving or parking in a crime-ridden area, itll be possible to adjust that persons insurance rates accordingly. Undoubtedly this raises significant privacy concerns which might ultimately doom the technology, but it is just as feasible that cost-conscious consumers will be willing to provide access to such information in return for lower rates.

4. Computational Analytics and Data Mining: When a mild earthquake hit Washington, DC this past August, the first Twitter report reached New York 40 seconds ahead of the quakes shock waves. An impressive feat to be sure but itll pale in comparison to the type of information that will soon be delivered by data-mining Twitter and numerous other social networking sites. Officials at Southeastern Louisiana University recently reported they could track influenza outbreaks by collating the rise of Twitter texts from people complaining about flu symptoms. Other researchers have discovered there is a strong correlation between a persons physical health and the health of their friends. One future possibility is that publically-available social network data can be data-mined by insurance companies to offer discounted rates to individuals who travel in healthier social circles. (Again privacy concerns and regulations may prevent such uses but, then again, maybe not.)

5. Hyper-Personalization: The foundation of the insurance industry is based on the idea of pooling risk. This strategy has worked well for centuries but in the not-to-distant future it is entirely possible that many individuals will prefer to be insured based on their individual actionsand not the statistical average of a large group. This is especially true if the person in question is healthier, a better and safer driver, and cost-conscious to the point that they arent concerned with sharing certain data with the insurance provider in return for securing a lower premium for themselves.
This future is coming. The only question is whether you, your business, your association or your industry is ready.

His latest book is Higher Unlearning: 39 Post-Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future.