Teacher’s – The best Scotch Whisky in India

Teacher’s Highland Cream

Teacher’s

Whisky, one of the world’s largest spirits, has a history of its own. The name ‘whisky’ itself is a variant on the phrase ‘water of life’ indicting spirits. Teacher’s Highland Cream Scotch Whisky and Beam Global Spirits & Wine Stall have won the biggest recognition awards.

First: Teacher’s Highland Cream Scotch whisky won the InSpirit 2008 award for the best bottled in India scotch.

Second: Beam Global Spirits & wine stall, the makers of Teacher’s, Jim Beam & Sauza won the Best Promotion Award as well.

November 18th, 2008: The fourth largest spirits company in the world, Beam Global Spirits & Wine, has won the IndSpirit Award 2008 for its flagship brand Teacher’s Scotch. Teacher’s Highland Cream Scotch has been awarded as the Best Bottled in India Scotch for 2008 making it the undisputed leader in its category. This Award was presented to Teacher’s by Mr. Gavin Hevitt, Chief Executive, Scotch Whisky Association. In addition, Beam Global Spirits and Wine India also won an award for the Best Stall which served exotic Sauza cocktails and had blind tasting sessions for the authentic Jim Beam bourbon whiskey.

Commenting on the association, Mr. Harish Moolchandani, CEO & MD, Beam Global Spirits & Wine India and Indian Sub-Continent, said, “The acclaim and recognition that adorns us will always be a source of great pride and commitment to refine and expand the base of our admirers. We are pleased to accept this appreciation for our brand & its quality in India. This Award will further distinguish Teacher’s Scotch in the wide array of its genre of spirits.”

Teacher’s traces its roots as far back as the 1830s – to William Teacher, a Victorian grocer who started selling whisky in Glasgow, Scotland. Teacher’s uses over 35 different single malt whiskies in its blend. These malts are balanced and harmonised delivering the same full rich taste that William Teacher created over 178 years ago. The blend has an exceptionally high malt content which gives it a richer full bodied flavour. Today, Teacher’s is one of the leading and largest selling Scotch brand.

IndSpirit is a mega alcobev trade event that is held annually. The two day conference serves as
a congregation of not just the alcobev industry in India, but also those who are directly or indirectly connected to this brand, from the importers & distributors to the consumers.

About Teacher’s

Teacher’s Family takes great pride in meticulously following a 178 year old tradition of producing the finest spirits known to man. Teacher’s 50 is a premium 12 year old Scotch whisky – A legacy that was started by William Teacher’s in 1830. Teacher’s is a key Whisky brand in the Beam Global portfolio, a dominant global Scotch player and a market leader in India.

About Beam Global Spirits & Wine

Inspiring conversations around the world, Beam Global Spirits & Wine, Inc., is building brands people want to talk about.  Consumers from all corners of the globe call for our brands, including Jim Beam® Bourbon, Sauza® Tequila, Canadian Club® Whisky, Courvoisier® Cognac, Maker’s Mark® Bourbon, Laphroaig® Scotch Whisky, Ardmore Scotch Whisky, Larios® Gin, Whisky DYC®, Teacher’s® Scotch Whisky, DeKuyper® Cordials and Liqueurs, Knob Creek® Bourbon and Starbucks™ Liqueurs.  Beam Global Spirits & Wine is part of Fortune Brands, Inc. (NYSE:FO), a leading consumer brands company with annual sales exceeding $8 billion.

Where is the Bond I once knew?

James Bond 2008

Bond with a heart?

Quantum of Solace is a sequel to a high octane adventure of James Bond in Casino Royale. Betrayed by the woman he loved, James Bond makes this mission personal and continues to fight in order to reveal the truth behind his misery. However, where is the Bond we once knew? This new bond movie looks like any another action thriller where hero beats the crap out of the enemies. Since I am a true fan of Bond movies, it came as a disappointment. Like all other Bond fans, I wanted to see Bond using his Hi-Tech gadgets and gizmos with Bond’s world famous theme track playing in the background.

Can you imagine Superman with no powers, struggling to fly and penetrate walls through his laser beam coming out his eyes?  Imagine Spiderman who can’t use his spider web to swing around in the city. These two superheroes will look nothing better than mock up artists portraying themselves as Superman and Spiderman.  In Quantum of Solace Bond has only one gadget and that was a Hi-Tech cell phone. What a shame!! Nevertheless, Daniel Craig looks toughest of all the Bonds who can break a rock solid wall with his fist.

What comes to your mind when you think about James Bond, a 007 agent? A charming man with an impeccable intelligence and possesses an attitude of a daredevil. Remember that scene from Goldeneye where Bond drives a Russian tank through the streets of St. Petersburg following Ouromov’s car, leaving behind a path of destruction.

Children in India grow up referring Bond as the toughest character. I am sure you must have said or heard this line sometime “He thinks himself a Bond” or “Who is the Bond of this area?” James Bond new looks and behaviour is fine for a change, but I hope Bond comes back to his normal self. James Bond is a name enough to make this movie a big hit but if 007 keeps behaving like a heartbroken man then his charm will be over soon.

Leave Racism Leave Obama – He is as human as we are

Barack Obama

President Obama

Obama’s tremendous victory embedded a single weakness: fairly narrow margin victory, about 52 percent of the vote. That means that almost as many people voted against him as voted for him. As he is enjoying the transition, the best part of a presidency, challenges are taking different shapes to test his ability.

To name a few:

 

1.     Obama’s agenda vs. expanding his political base

2.     U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq

3.     The Afghan dilemma

4.     The Russian Question

5.     Global Finance and the European Problem

But, one more challenge is building after Barack Obama’s historic election as America’s first Afro-American President. According to hate-crime monitoring group and analysts, it has led to a surge of racist incidents across the United States.

Recent reports:

1.     An interracial couple in Pennsylvania found the remains of a burnt cross in their front garden.

2.     In a California town, some have spotted cars and garages being vandalized with swastikas.  All of them were covered with racist epithets and slogans such as “Go back to Africa”.

3.     Effigy of a black citizen hung from noose in an island community in Maine.

4.     “Assassinate Obama” is what students chanting on a school bus in Idaho.

The last week of the US election campaign and its immediate aftermath had witnessed hate-related incidents in hundreds, said Mark Potok, Director of the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Centre.

“Kill Him!” shouts were reportedly heard from the section of a crowd during election rallies by Republican vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin. Potok added, what we’re witnessing now is everything from cross burning to ugly racial incidents schoolyards around the country.

It seems the rise in hate crimes would stay fit into part of a longer term trend, said Brian Levin (Professor at Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino). He also contributed by saying, “there is a significant spike in hate crimes from around the election period up until now”.

Levin also said White supremacist internet websites such as StormFront server cashed on the day after the election due to increasing hits in activity.

Potok said, “This soaring rate of racist crimes could be attributable to a “Perfect Storm” of conditions.

US Census Bureau recently estimated, by 2040 whites would lose their majority status with increasing non-white immigration. This would lead to unemployment and eventually create a favourable climate for hate group.

Potok said, “The idea having black man in the White House with a significant number of whites who feel the country built by their forefathers has somehow been stolen and they have lost everything. It seems sheer identity crises on the parts of whites.
 
Levin said, “Any advancement in race relations would result in concomitant violent backslashes referring to Klu Klux Klan which was formed just after the abolishment of slavery in 1865.

White supremacists refer this as the doomsday scenario wherein Obama is preparing to appoint yet another African-American as an Attorney General, Eric Holder. According to them Obama is nothing less than the Anti-Christ.

Barack Obama has come as a perfect storm that provoked the hardcore racist movement in the United States of America.

Why do people forget that colour cannot divide humans! It is a free world and everyone has equal rights to live under the same blue sky.

Citigroup to sack 50,000 employees

Sad news for employees

Banking gaint

What is stored for the employees when retrenchment is the sore reality in corporate India today? Companies are crumpling overnight and downsizing, cost cutting and improving efficiency usually translate to loss of jobs. In the past few months cost cutting and downsizing have been a recurring phenomenon. Industry giants like the Tatas and Birlas have sacked 10,000 and 3,000 employees respectively. If government doesn’t take any corrective actions then today’s situation might take an ugly turn, warned by corporate India’s leaders in India Economic summit on Sunday.

After the Tatas and Birlas who is the next?

In the coming quarters banking giant Citigroup Inc. is cutting approximately 50,000 more jobs. It’s supposed to be the recouping strategy to steady itself after suffering losses from deteriorating debt. The plan is already posted on company’s website and discussion with CEO Vikram Pandit is underway at the town hall meeting in New York.

The company had already announced in October that total headcount will be reduced by 20 percent from the total strength of 375,000 calculated at the end of 2007. As a proactive measure company has already eliminated about 22,000 jobs from those levels. The total workforce reductions include other thousands of jobs that are set to be axed when Citigroup complete the sale of German retail banking business and Citi Global Services.

Citigroup has incurred four straight quarterly losses including a massive loss of $2.8 billion during the third quarter. In addition to job cuts, company plans to reduce expenses by 20 percent approximately. Citi shares are falling down continuously and trading at 13-year lows. It would be irresponsible for Citi and other companies not to concentrate at staffing in the event of long running economic meltdown, said Citigroup Chairman Win Bischoff at a business forum in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Bischoff added, “We have carelessly added extra number of people during this benign period. The job losses will fall particularly on the financial sector in London and New York.

However, a Citigroup spokesman said that while concentrating on job cuts in certain regions, this would generally be across the entire company around the world.

Citigroup’s plan to sack employees includes top leaders would go without bonuses this year. A move that would effectively amount to a substantial pay cut for the company’s executives.

What will happen to the lost bonuses? Bischoff said, “Watch this space”.

MySpace Vs Hotselling iPod?

This is a strange world of Technology which outdates as soon it is launched. Competitors chew their brain cells and pour all the talent to bring down the product from another manufacturer. According to the recent news MySpace, the popular online social network, may develop a digital music player to compete against Apple Inc’s hot selling iPod. However, Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and chief Executive, made it clear and said “We have no immediate plans to make or sell such a device.

MySpace has recently launched a music joint venture with major music labels and it quite a possibility MySpace eventually build a device for listening to music, said DeWolfe. He also added that company is just focusing on the service right now. MySpace, the largest online social networking site, company launched MySpace Music in September, aiming to become the ultimate one-stop for music lovers.

 The joint venture partners such as Sony BMG, Universal Music and Warner Music with MySpace widen access to all the music services, from streaming to merchandising. The advertising sponsors of the site are McDonald, Sony Pictures, Toyota and State Farm.

“We wanted to come up with a program that meets the needs of music companies and artists, by definition, and users,” DeWolfe said. And added people streamed music more than 1 billion times in the first few days and have created 80 million playlists since the launch.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea since driving competition to iTunes and boost sales by another player has been in agenda for all the music companies.

MySpace vs. iTunes
Warner Music Group Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman said MySpace was different from iTunes in its focus on “community and sharing.” People can share playlists, peruse their friends’ music choices and discover new songs that way.

Apple has just added “Genius,” which builds playlists and offers recommendations based on songs in a person’s iTunes library.

But DeWolfe said the “Genius” feature doesn’t make iTunes a competitor to MySpace Music because Apple continues to focus on selling their music devices. And added “if anything, we’ll be accretive to iPod sales” as people use MySpace Music to download more music and videos for their iPods. “Unless we develop a device” said DeWolfe.

Whatever would be the end result, MySpace launches some device against iPod or not, but people will have all the time available to tune into their favorite music.

Cell phones + Gas station – A Hoax or a Fact?

Explosion

Cell phone sign

You are just a call away no matter which part of the world you are. Sounds interesting!! Credit goes to people who first believed this technology was possible and proved it right by creating Cell Phones. In one hand people have high-tech cell phone connectivity and on the other alarming genetic damage due to cell phone emissions. According to industry-funded study cell phone emission may cause tumors, increased blood pressure, weakening of the immune system and memory loss. No concrete evidence could surface around this so people are least bothered and using it with no fear.

Cell phones are always surrounded by numerous warnings and in the recent time warnings have taken a different turn, a more incendiary kind. Large number of mails floating on the internet warning drivers who do not switch off the cell phone while fueling their cars being blown off in gas vapor explosion. A faulty cell phone can cause sparks or build up a static electricity in the user but could be duplicated under controlled condition. However, cautious cell phone manufacturers and gas station take no risks and advise users to switch off their phones. The warning email claims the Shell Oil Company as its source and quote incidents of gas station explosion due to cell phone emissions.

Incidents listed in the E-mail: 1) A cell phone rings on the boot and generates a ball of fire. 2) A person got a nasty facial burn while speaking on the phone. 3) Cell phone rings in the pocket and causes burns to the groin and in the thigh region. This hoax mail was first landed in the inbox of a Shell employee who rebroadcasted it with Shell Company seal on the mail. The non approved Shell seal gave the hoax more credibility. After a hard search no one had ever found the news reports that confirm any of the three incidents mentioned in the E-mail. Later, Shell denied having issued any such warnings and quoted:

We understand that there is an email, purportedly official Shell communication, circulating which describes various incidents that are supposed to have occurred as a result of cell phones ringing while at a retail station.

Please be advised that the email in question does not originate from Shell and we are unable to confirm any of the incidents quoted.

The first question: Can a cell phone ever set off a gas station fire? And the answer is NO according to ATB (Australian Transport Bureau) who closely investigated the reason behind 243 petrol fire cases happened worldwide between 1993 and 2004.  Even AMTA (the Australian Cell Telecommunications Association) and API (American Petroleum Institute) followed the statement by saying, “We have not found a cell phone responsible for any fire since the beginning of mankind”. In an episode of the popular television show MythBusters the myth that static electricity from a cell phone can ignite a nearby gasoline vapors fell flat to all the corners. The National Fire Protection Association conducts the research and tries permutations combination to address the potential gasoline vapor explosions. According to the guidelines fuel containers stay 18 inches deep below the customer fueling area and it doesn’t have explosive concentration of vapors. Fuel filler necks are located just 18 inches above the containers and expectancy is down to ZERO for any such explosive concentration of gasoline vapor in normal operating conditions. 

The second question: What was the reason behind 243 petrol station fire? And the answer is Static Electricity. All of us have seen or felt a spark coming out of synthetic clothing during dryness of winter, and synthetic car material stings needles while sliding in and out of the car. Synthetic material can build up a big static charge, if the wiring on the petrol hose is broken and you touch the metal nozzle of the petrol tank to any metal petrol tank, a visible spark can be easily discharged. In conclusion, synthetic clothing and materials are the culprits most of the time, cell phones are ok though.

The third question: Why do phone companies and gas stations post warnings? The first answer: Cell phones do not have “Intrinsic Safety” to make it suitable in truly hazardous inflammable vapor situations. The second answer: Fear of legal liability, despite of all the evidence proving cell phones non- hazardous at the gas station.

The last question: Is there still a chance of setting it off? According to the experts there is a risk involved in using a cell phone near the gas station as it may set off an explosion. We not only have found no real life incident of such an explosion so far, nobody has ever demonstrated experimentally that it is even possible. According to Nokia and Ericsson risk is too small that something will happen, but since risk is involved, it should be counted to avoid the unforeseen disaster. So far nothing gives a concrete reasoning to switch off the cell phones but why take a risk when it takes only a few minutes to refuel the thirsty car and zip on the road to explore other proven facts. Until then, cell phone setting the gas station on fire stays a myth.

Is this the fall of champions? Australia v India

Inida Celebrate victory

Victory

Hayden’s send off

Ponting’s nightmare

What a victory! India won the second test match in Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2008/09. It seems like the end of Australian world domination in Cricket. Indians have troubled Australians in recent past. Where Australia ruled the roost against all other cricket playing nation, they failed to prove their mettle against India. Australians found it hard to confront India in all format of the game, be it Tests, One day international, T20. Over a period of time playing against Pakistan has lost its charm but against Australia, it couldn’t get any better. It gives an immense pleasure to beat the world champions. Even Australians love the tussle against formidable Indian blend of young guns with experienced force. Media takes this battle to the next level by frame to frame coverage of sledging between players and well made advertisements.

 

The battle between Australia and India has picked up its pace since Indian T20 world cup victory last year in 2007. Ponting added fuel to fire with his comments “India was lucky to win the T20 world cup”. India proved Australian wrong by beating them once again in T20 match up held last year in Mumbai at Brabourne stadium. Ponting had to eat his words and said India is better than us in T20 format. However, India lost the Test series prior to T20 victory. The message was loud and clear with T20 victory that Australian champion’s throne is at risk.

 

Let’s see the result formation between these two cricketing giants’ encounters in recent time.

 

Tests

Australia v India test series 1996/97 – India won 1-0

Australia v India test series 1997/98 – India won 2-1

Australia v India test series 1999/00 – Australia won 3-0

Australia v India test series 2000/01 – India won 2-1

Australia v India test series 2003/04 – Drawn 1-1

Australia v India test series 2004/05 – Australia won 2-1

Australia v India test series 2007/08 – Australia won 2-1

Border-Gavaskar Trophy, India 2008/09 – India won the second test match (2 more to go)

 

T20

2nd semi final: Australia v India at Durban – India won

Only T20 international Australia v India at Mumbai – India won

Only T20 international Australia v India at Melbourne – Australia won

 

ODI

India’s performance in ODIs against Australia hasn’t been exciting but it is surely building up to threaten the Aussies.

 

Commonwealth Bank Series, Sydney 2007/2008 – India won

Australia v India ODI series, India 2007/08 – Australia won 4-2

ICC Champions Trophy, India – 2006/07 – Australia won

 

All in all Border-Gavaskar Trophy is still on and two more matches yet to be played. It might swing anyway as Australians would fight back strongly and Indians would counter attack. Let’s see how the third and fourth match would shape up, however, a best win ever in history against Australian.

Bizarre planet and its Bizarre animals

Copella Arnoldi (Splash Tetra)

Pairing up to spawn

Male tetra

Animal Planet was showcasing a documentary on Amazonian aquatic animals during flooded forest. And what I watched a moment later can be described as “Bizarre”. An amphibian laying eggs outside the water is one thing, but a fish? Sounds unbelievable? Believe it. The fish called Copella Arnoldi (Splash Tetra), found in streams and creeks in the lower Amazon region of South America. A shimmering golden-red male finds a perfect place under an overhanging leaves by the river edge. He waits until female splash tetra nudges the male with her head and ready to spawn. The pair leaps outside the water, side by side. The bizarre scene, female turns a somersault and lays 5-10 eggs on the underside of the overhanging leaf. To make it even bizarre the male fertilizes the eggs half way through his somersault and both dive back into the water. This is the act of a master Gymnast. The pair repeats this laying and fertilizing exercise until female has laid up to 100 eggs.

 

Isn’t it a jaw dripping stuff? But this is not the end just yet. Soon after the extraordinary exercise female abandons both, her eggs and mate (Justice done to the females on land, human of course). Then comes male’s compassion for parenthood, he keeps the eggs moist from the harsh sun until they hatch and the fry fall into the water. He positions himself right under the overhanging leaf, bends his flexible body, and with rapid tail flicks he splashes water up into the eggs. In just two days the hatchlings consume their yolk sac and start their everlasting journey for food. Sometimes nature creates such wonders that seem out of this world.

 

Enjoy