Mihir's Impressions

According to the latest news filtering through the Registrar of Companies (RoC) in Hyderabad, DCHL have now mortgaged their printing presses located in Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam and Coimbatore with IndusInd Bank to raise Rs 100 crore. DCHL has created an exclusive charge on these three printing presses along with a first charge on current assets of the company, excluding Deccan Chargers.

The money has been raised by DCHL at a 3% interest rate over and above the base rate being levied by IndusInd Bank and is repayable on demand, the RoC declaration indicates. DCHL promoters had earlier mortgaged a prime 2,460 sq metre plot of land along with buildings located adjacent to DC's corporate office with Indian Overseas Bank to raise Rs 70 crore. They have already mortgaged printing press machinery at their facilities in Chennai and Andhra Pradesh with Canara Bank in mid-March this year to raise Rs 30 crore by way of urgent working capital requirement.

IPL governing council has also drawn its swords against DCHL promoters for mortgaging their IPL team the Deccan Chargers without BCCI’s consent with Religare Finvest, Yes Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank. All of which are DCHL’s lenders.
 

I tried to speak to DCHL to comment about news development, but there was "no response."

Bosch inaugurates Rs 34-cr facility in Goa

Bosch's 33,000 square meters property will see a new plant. As per reports, the new plant built with an investment of Rs 34 crore will meet the demand of India’s fast growing packaging market as well as international markets.

Bosch Packaging Technology India has initiated its operations in Verna from a leased location in 2007.

From a modest turnover of Rs 2.5 crore (about 400,000 euro) in the year 2000, the Bosch Packaging Technology, a division of Bosch Limited, has grown with a 33.6 percent CAGR and registered sales of Rs 60.5 crore (about 10 million euro) in 2011 and is poised to reach the landmark figure of Rs 100 crore (about 15 million euro) in the next few years.

Bosch in India does end-to-end manufacturing of form, fill and seal machines for flexible bag packaging, flow wrapping machines for confectionery and food applications as well as filling and closing machines for liquid pharmaceuticals. To-date, Bosch in India has sold over 1200 packaging machines in India and international markets; to the leading names in the food, confectionery and pharmaceutical industries.

Plastic currency ready for trial run

This is news which may have far-reaching impact on the Indian print industry. With the aim to save cost on printing and ensuring longevity of the currency, the union government of India is all set launch plastic currency with augmented security features. The minister of state for finance Namo Narain Meena had previously said that the government would introduce polymer bank notes on a trial basis. Introducing polymer bank notes, or in simple words, plastic bank notes had been on the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) agenda since 2009.

During the field trial phase the polymer bank notes will be introduced in Jaipur, Shimla, Bhubaneshwar, Mysore and Cochin. These cities were chosen for the trial run with their different climatic conditions and geographical locations in mind to test the durability of the plastic currency notes.

In the initial stages Rs 10 notes will be printed on biaxially-oriented polypropylene. India will become the seventh country to introduce these polymer currency notes.

Tech-Watch
I came across this bit of trivia. It is about a P&P office waste processor designed by Chinese designers Chengzhu Ruan, Yuanyuan Liu, Xinwei Yuan and Chao Chen. Looks like a promising innovation. The device gobbles up your paper waste basket contents and spits fully formed pencils out at the press of a button.

The designers have made the clever connection between an office’s waste stream and supply needs with a satisfying design that produces something truly useful. You simply feed a sheet of paper into the top and the device will wrap it tightly around a graphite stick, adding a bit of glue to keep the paper together. Once ready, the freshly minted pencil pops out the side.

There are plenty of paper-based pencils in the market, so the product is viable; a transparent roof on top lets you to see the entire process. The P&P will even pre-sharpen the pencil before spitting it out. The same hole is also an automatic pencil sharpener.

The LiteOn award winning device looks promising, but as of yet, it’s not in production. It could be very useful in libraries and schools - and of course my office. I hope my boss is reading this.

Mario Miranda’s cartoons to bring 1950’s Goa back to life
The second book, The life of Mario 1950 of the quartet, The life of Mario published by Architecture Autonomous and edited by Gerard Da Cunha has sketches by Mario Miranda. The entire series is based on the diaries that ace-cartoonist Mario Miranda used to maintain during his lifetime right from an early age when his mother saw him drawing his home walls and bought him a blank book, which he calls his Diary ". Miranda diligently drew in his diaries throughout the years come rain, come sunshine.

Miranda kept a record of all the vignettes of Goan village life while he stayed at his ancestral village of Loutolim, Goa after completing his education at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai.
 

The sketches do not have the standard acumen that oozed from his works in the later stage of his career. But one can notice the signs of one of the most talented cartoonists of India in the making. They show his unmatched ability to spot interesting faces and people, observe their quirks and, most importantly, to find humour in strangest of situations. These traits later made him a formidable social commentator who would go on to leave a massive footprint on our nation’s psyche.

Amazon to rent textbooks to college students in US

World’s largest online retailers Amazon Inc have started rental services for physical books to reduce the burden on college students’ wallets.
 

The online retail giant is offering semester-long rentals of books, with most titles in the $30 to $60 range. Amazon promised savings of up to 70 percent off the print-list prices. The rental period lasts for 130 days, with one 15-day extension allowed. Textbooks are shipped at standard prices, and Amazon covers the cost of returning them. Renters may receive a book that is new or used, depending on availability. This rental service is only available in the United States as of now.

Amazon last summer unveiled its Kindle textbook rental service, which lets students rent textbooks on their Kindles or Kindle apps for up to a year.
When will Junglee.com do the same in India? Or will they wait for FlipKart to take the lead?

- Mihir Joshi

PS: Looking forward to meet the legends of the print industry on 30 August at the PWI Awards.