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Big Ears Some people have really big ears! Well, I am one of them. My husband never tires of teasing me about them. However, I have quite convinced myself that they are God’s daily reminder asking me to ‘Talk Less…

Sovereign Gold Bonds Gold has been an absolute favourite investment vehicle for almost every Indian household for ages now. However, with the passage of time and generations, there is a shift in terms of modes of holding this gold( awareness…

Airline safety announcements and the role of an advisor

While traveling by air, I prefer to take the emergency exit window as one gets better legroom there. Every time, before the flight takes off, one crewmember appears and briefs about the safety and how and when to operate the emergency exit. This briefing is specific to those seating near the emergency exit. Apart from that, there is also a safety announcement for all passengers.

This is done for each and every flight. No passenger could ever say that one is not aware of this procedure. For someone like me, who prefers the emergency exit window, I know the whole script by heart by now. And still, the airline crew would perform the ritual.

What does this do? Such a ritual achieves a simple purpose of making the passenger aware of the risks, but at the same time also gives comfort that there are enough safety mechanisms to reduce the risk to almost nil.

From high up in the sky, let us come down to the ground where an investment advisor meets an investor or a potential investor. The regulations require that the investor be made aware of the risk factors. The industry complies.

However, such regulations have two possible side effects.

1. The intermediary creatively hides the risk factors. This can be achieved in different ways.

a) Someone had said, the best place to hide is a crowd. If you offer too much information, it is easy to hide the material facts. This could be called non-disclosure by too much disclosure.

b) Use of technical terminology is another way of hiding facts. Jargons need interpretation and many clients do not have enough financial education to even doubt something or seek clarification.

2. The other side effect is that the investor gets too scared to even consider investing. At the least, the investor delays the process.

Intro Remember back in school, we found learning a few subjects more difficult than others? Did we have an option not to learn those? I wanted to understand what exactly made the subject difficult for me. I was honest enough…

Our Parents are Our Children too!   The burden borne by the parents in birthing a child can never be repaid, even in a hundred years! –Manusmriti Ashramas is a system of stages of life described in the ancient texts…

Disconnecting to connect A lot is written about yoga and how it connects the mind, body, and soul to not only help destress your life but to also help you practice your personal and professional values with integrity. I experienced…