Tag: trends

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Trends

Need blood tests? Don’t step out of home

You can get your blood work done and X-rays taken in the comfort of your home. We tap the trend.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Mulund resident Sushila Paranjape (56) suffers from diabetes, and for the last two years, a recurring back problem that makes sitting impossible. “I need physiotherapy twice a week, and a blood test once a month. However, the local pathology laboratory is always crowded, and last year, I stopped going for blood tests because the lab could never do my blood work immediately and I had to wait for a long time.”

Her physiotherapist suggested that she call blood technicians home. “I was initially hesitant because I thought that it would cost me more to get the technicians home, but I found that the laboratory also did home blood testing at a very nominal home visit cost. They were very quick and the results came back within a few hours. Now I don’t go to the laboratory myself unless I am assured of immediate attention.”

Like Sushila, there are several others who are increasingly getting their testing done at home. “It’s faster and I am more relaxed because it happens in the comfort of my home,” says Santacruz resident Ruchit Hattangady (36), who gets a check-up done every six months. “Not just blood tests, the local hospital near my house also offers urine testing, lipid profile and other tests. I call them as per my convenience and I get the results the next day,” he says.

blood test at homeThe trend is catching on

Several diagnostic facilities and hospitals are now offering ‘testing packages’, where patients can choose which tests they want to undergo and pay as per the particular package they select. “For instance, we offer a package where we do a variety of tests through just one blood sample, right from Vitamin D levels to bilirubin, and from blood sugar to blood cholesterol levels,” says a technician attached to a private hospital in Powai. “There are some 20 tests in the most basic package, and most people opt for it. However, there are others who want more tests, such as bone and muscle strength tests, for which we offer separate packages.”

A single such package may contain a minimum of 10 tests and may be priced Rs 1,500 and above. Says Dr Shashank Ahuja, a cardiologist, “We find that many patients are hesitant about undergoing a battery of tests at private hospitals, where every test comes with prohibitive costs. They are happy going to a diagnostic lab they trust and get a range of tests done at a lesser cost. Also, labs are presenting the results in a detailed manner, so with a bit of research, even the patient understands the state of his or her health.”

Even X-rays can be taken at home

In Mumbai, there are at least three private clinics offering the option of getting an X-ray taken at home. “People are always short of time, and X-ray machines are more portable and light-weight than they used to be, so carrying them to the patient’s home is not an issue,” says a technician. “Of course, the price of this facility is higher than the money one would spend in getting it done at a hospital. But people are willing to pay.”

Three years ago, a company in Thane started manufacturing kits for malaria testing for as low as Rs 30. “A person could purchase the kit from a chemist but the blood would have to be drawn by a technician. Doctors also feel that the test is a fairly accurate one and since it is so cheap, even the poor will not hesitate to get themselves tested,” said the manufacturer of the kit.

A diagnostic facility in Mumbai said that recently, a family requested for cardiac testing on a 74-year-old man to be done at home. “Since this requires a stress test and a treadmill test, we tied up with a local gym to conduct part of the test there. We are now looking at offering cardiac testing at home, though the costs will be higher,” says a spokesperson for the facility.

Names of diagnostic facilities and hospitals have been withheld.

(Pictures courtesy www.nyu.edu, online.wsj.com. Images have been used for representational purpose only) 

Categories
Trends

Fine dining gets dearer as rupee falls

Sliding rupee hits imports and impacts eating out at five star hotels and restaurants. Drinks and spirits become costly, too.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

It’s not just the prices of onions that are making us cry. Rising inflation and the sliding rupee are taking away the joy of shopping or even going out over the weekend. And among those rethinking their recreational habits are the people who indulge in fine dining quite regularly.

rupee slideAs per a survey conducted by trade body ASSOCHAM (Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India), five star hotels and fine dining restaurants have registered a significant decline to the extent of 20 per cent in the last three months due to the falling rupee. Releasing the ASSOCHAM paper on ‘Weak rupee dampens spirits of fine dining restaurants’, DS Rawat, Secretary General, ASSOCHAM said, “Due to a fall in the rupee, five star hotels and fine dining restaurants are revising their menu card rates as the weak rupee pushes up prices of imported food ingredients and spirits.”

With negative market sentiments of an economic slowdown and weak rupee, the fine dine market segment may lose its sheen. The paper further highlights that the fine dining market registered a decline of over 20 per cent than last year in the major metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.

The paper further points out, “Due to the rupee depreciating against major foreign currencies, prices of imported products have shot up by as much as 30 to 35 per cent. Some restaurants import 85 per cent of its ingredients from Japan, France, Italy and Thailand for its signature dishes.”

Rawat added that premium hotels and restaurants use imported olives, olive oils, legumes, meats like salmon, tuna steak, porkfish sushi roll pepperoni and turkey ham, Italian and French cheeses, fine wines and spirits to tickle the taste buds of Indians. Nearly 45 to 60 per cent of the food cost of specialty restaurants, depending on their cuisine, accounts for the cost of imported food products. “The rupee devaluation has majorly impacted imports, from meats and seafood to cheese and legumes. Nearly 60 per cent of the food produces at specialty restaurants are imported and does not have local substitutes here in India. As a result, restaurants are bound to revise the prices of their menus,” adds the paper.

The current size of the Indian food industry stands at Rs 2,50,000 crore per annum and is expected to grow at 12 per cent to touch a staggering Rs 4,25,000 crore by 2018. The size of the gourmet food market in India is Rs 7,500 crore, growing at a CAGR of 20 per cent. The market is expected to cross Rs 15,000 crore by 2015. The Indian gourmet food market includes fine dining restaurants, café markets as well as food retail.

The availability of imported ingredients is another factor for growing demand for fine dining restaurants. Ingredients such as truffles, artichokes, asparagus, Australian lamb and Norwegian salmon have found their way into the Indian food and beverage space. The paper also highlights that imported spirit prices increased between 7 per cent and 12 per cent in the last three months, where bars and nightclubs have also seen a similar slump.

                                                                                                                                                           (Pictures courtesy louisekwoods.wordpress.com, www.finediningindian.com, www.theunrealtimes.com)

Categories
Trends

More women are buying jewellery online

Ease of shopping, higher spending power and a plethora of options has helped many women increasingly shop for jewellery online.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Kavita Prabhu (26) leads a very hectic life – she works six days a week at her agency’s client servicing department, and has to travel a lot for work. She has hardly any time or energy left on her one weekly holiday to budge out of her house. “I can barely make a parlour visit once every two weeks,” she says. She can’t even remember the last time she checked out a Plain gold jewellery clothes sale.

So there’s one thing Kavita does to save on time – shop online. Recently, she had to make some quick purchases for an engagement party. “I bought clothes, shoes, and the best thing of all, a pair of dainty gold earrings. I wouldn’t have had the time to go to an actual store to pick these things up,” she says.

Like Kavita, Mumbai’s Mohana Shetty (34) has also taken to online shopping, and she is especially hooked on to jewellery shopping. “To tell you the truth, I love shopping alone, and I hate having an assistant breathe down my neck when I’m trying to select an item of jewellery,” the mother-of-two and Goregoan resident says. “A friend told me about shopping for jewellery online, and I love browsing so many designs at my ease and making the purchase without a fuss.”

Why shop online for jewellery?

According to an April 2013 report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI), jewellery, personal and healthcare accessories have a 3.7 per cent market share at Rs 240 crore out of a total e-tailing market size of Rs 6,454 crore in January-December 2012. The e-tailing market for jewellery, especially costume and office wear jewellery, is only set to grow.

Says Gaurav Singh Kushwaha, Founder, bluestone.com, “We have observed an increase in the number of transactions made by women over the past one year. Jewellery is not an impulse purchase category and women like to take their time to select the right product and design before making their purchase. Online stores provide them the ease of browsing over days without compelling them to make a decision immediately. This comfort is absent in the offline jewellery buying space which becomes a reason for women to shop for jewellery online.

jewellery set“Secondly, industry-wide, more numbers of women have started to transact in the online space due to the ease of getting a credit card. As women have become much more independent and have started earning big bucks, banks have taken special measures to cater to their financial needs.” Naturally, this makes it easier for women to spend more and get the jewellery they want. Kushwaha says that though most women buy traditional jewellery online, the workwear jewellery space is also on the rise.

Says Preeti Shankar (27), “I once had a very bad experience with an online portal, so I am very sceptical about making expensive purchases online.” Preeti’s concern is echoed by a lot of other potential customers, who fear a lack of security for their transaction, and worse, not liking the jewellery they bought. “Sometimes some products look better in pictures, but when you touch them and see them, they may not look so nice,” Preeti says.

Understanding this trend, several online jewellery stores try to remove all obstacles in the purchasing process, so that the Ringscustomer feels assured. “We have to appreciate the concerns and challenges that jewellery as a category poses for the customer. We address the trust issue by making the ordering process smooth,” Kushwaha says. Another step in this process is the handing over of a certificate that clearly discloses the details of any item it accompanies, providing confidence for both buyer and seller.

If you are disbelieving of claims from online shopping portals about stores letting customers try on jewellery at home before buying it, you can breathe easy: reputed online jewellery stores make good on these claims. While they will not only offer you the chance to try the jewellery out before buying it, they will also allow you to return it in a certain amount of time with a refund.

How to make a good jewellery purchase online
– Browse only reputed sites.
– Compare prices of items on different sites.
– Look for user testimonials on the site.
– Ask for recommendations from women who’ve shopped for jewellery online. From them, you can find out how their overall experience with a particular portal was.Bangle
– Don’t be afraid to ask questions and clear doubts. Most reputed online stores will put you in touch with a customer care executive to answer questions.
– Research the overall purchasing process. Some sites promise a full refund on exchange of the purchased item within 30 days, but you may find that they refund only a part of the money, as per prevalent market rates.
– Find out about the portal’s money-back policy, exchange policy, try-before-purchase policy and whether a shipment charge is included in the price of the product.
– On purchase, check for BIS certifications for gold jewellery and certifications from third parties such as GIA for studded jewellery.
– Ask if the portal also has a physical store in your area so you can see the jewellery before you make the purchase.

(Pictures courtesy ripplelinks.com and bluestone.com. Pictures used for representational purpose only)

Categories
Wellness

A city of overweight children?

Leading surgeon finds young children in Mumbai and other cities are more prone to obesity; calls it a ‘generational curse’.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

We see them everywhere. On their way back from school, or rooted firmly to their seats in front of their computers, or lounging for hours in front of the television – fat children, with ever-expanding waistlines and astounding weights for people so young.

When children are infants, a bit of extra weight seemingly adds to their chubby charm. What is alarming is, however, that some children are not just unable to shed the baby fat, they are unable to stop expanding at all.

Dr Shashank ShahSays Dr Shashank Shah (in pic on left), noted laparoscopic and bariatric surgeon with a huge practice in Mumbai and Pune, “In my practice, and overall, the trend we are observing is that this current generation of adolescent and pre-adolescent children is afflicted not just by an unhealthy lifestyle, but a ‘generational curse’. It seems to be a shift in evolution that is prompting their metabolism to not function at peak optimum levels.”

What does this mean?
This simply means that the metabolic set point for this generation has moved; doctors are increasingly seeing children with BMIs (Body to Mass Index) of 28 and above; 28 is considered the ideal BMI for adults. “There is a shift of the BMI to a higher level. This does not happen suddenly – it is both genetic and evolutionary in nature,” Dr Shah explains.

Not eating the right foods, not exercising enough or at all, and not being encouraged to lead a healthy lifestyle, are all combining to create obese childfatter, diseased kids. “Recently, at my clinic in Mumbai, there was a 12-year-old boy who came to see me,” Dr Shah says. “It seems difficult to believe, but 100 kgs is fast becoming an average weight for children.”

Diseases galore
A worrying trend, apart from the excess weight obese children are lugging around, is that they have several diseases right from a tender age. “Hypertension, diabetes, cardiac disorders…all of these are very common among obese children,” Dr Shah says. “Other problems that come at a later stage are fertility issues. Besides this, the fact that they are overweight and unable to do most activities that their peers can, also plays on them psychologically. However, many parents are slow to react to the problem. I have had several parents tell me that they enrolled their child in the gym because the weight was embarrassing,” Dr Shah explains.

He adds that most parents hardly ever realise that obesity is not an isolated disease – it brings with it other life-threatening conditions. “Their priority is weight loss. But why do they wait till the child becomes obese? They should see a doctor the moment they notice excessive weight loss,” Dr Shah says.

eating junkWhy is Mumbai at risk?
Simply because there are so many food choices and not enough spaces for recreation and outdoor play. “Working parents also have no time to see what their children are eating every day. Children also have liberal amounts of money to spend, so they tend to buy unhealthy junk food with friends,” says Dr Shah, adding that the cities in India and also Tier II cities like Pune are showing an upwards obesity trend in children due to poor eating choices.

(Pictures courtesy www.ibcclub.org, www.hindustantimes.com, infozone.wordpress.com, navimumbaicity.com. Pictures are used for representational purpose only)

Categories
Trends

Young and the restless investing in realty

Majority of urban young are shying away from investing in gold and stocks, preferring real estate amidst a global slowdown.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

With the rupee showing further signs of a slide, and stocks and mutual funds becoming a riskier investment proposition, about 85 per cent of the urban working class is preferring to invest in real estate, finds a survey.

The survey, titled ‘Rise in demand for real estate in urban cities’ was conducted by premier industry body ASSOCHAM (Associated Chambers of Commerce) in the metros – Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata – and other cities such as Pune, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. The survey sample included directors of companies, officers/managers in Central/State bodies, teachers and self-employed professionals like lawyer, CAs, doctors, consultants, druggists and small traders. A unanimous thought to emerge from the survey was that a global slowdown and a weak rupee have started casting a shadow on stocks.

The Mumbai city skyline is seen from a s“Over 1,500 respondents felt that investments in real estate, residential and commercial properties are found to be lucrative and much safer these days as such investments are completely insured as against those in gold, stocks and mutual funds,” the survey found. “As many as 82 per cent said that real estate should be the preferred investment option compared to gold and other traditional investment instruments.

“According to them, investment in yellow metal is not as profitable as that of real estate, as they expect that gold prices to further fall. The recent fall in prices has led many to believe that funds can face increased redemption pressures because of the general change in belief that gold is a safe haven. This trend has slowly changed in the country, especially among the investment-savvy class.”

Releasing the survey on Sunday, June 30, the ASSOCHAM Secretary General, DS Rawat said, “About 78 per cent of the urban working class remain keen to park their surpluses in buying residential properties in view of better connectivity, infrastructure and basic facilities and they attach not much preference towards buying commercial properties as these properties are beyond their means which involve higher volumes of investments. On the other hand, about 22 per cent working class and professionals give preference to the commercial properties especially in tier I and tier II cities as they feel that within one or two years, prices of commercial properties will also jump up substantially to get them an attractive premium.”

The survey also revealed that the  maximum concentration of real estate investments from urban working class and professionals are seen towards residential properties in emerging tier II and III cities which include Jaipur, Bhiwadi, Rishikesh, Haridwar, Nainital, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Sonepat, Panipat, Pune, Nasik, Jaipur etc. Moreover, this is also indicative of the fact that buyers in tier II and III cities are looking for quality development and developers with proven track records are reaping the benefits on those given scale of expectations. Over 62 per cent respondents from the professionals’ lot chose real estate properties in Tier I cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, entire NCR, Hyderabad and Bangalore for maximum returns.

Expressing their opinion about the investment in stock markets, a majority of respondents felt that with global slowdown most of the corporations are rationalising the salary structure of their employees with emphasis on cost cuttings, thus dampening the spirit of investment in capital markets.

Nearly 200 respondents, however, still favour stock markets to park their funds and feel that it can give them best returns in a shorter and longer time. They expressed hope that in future, stock markets will bounce back and catch investors’ attention as usual.

As far as urban working class, the investment in gold is concerned, the survey has revealed that the fall in gold and jewellery prices have discouraged the working class to invest in it.

More than half of them said they would prefer to stay in rented apartments and instead, invest in their tier II and tier III city home town for better appreciation potential. About 78 per cent of those working professionals with double income, who bought a house in a metro city, wanted to invest in their home town for a second home.

(Pictures courtesy www.vakilhousing.com, india.nydailynews.com)

Categories
Trends

Dangerous on field, dangerous off it

His IPL antics put fear in the hearts of his opponents and made him the most ‘dangerous’ cricketer in cyberspace.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

The Indian Premier League’s (IPL) sixth edition was concluded very recently, and Mumbai Indians took home the cup after defeating the Chennai Super Kings. However, far from the on-field antics and off-field match-fixing scandals, the IPL’s cricketing stars proved to be dangerous in cyberspace as well.

chris-gayle Yesterday, security technology giant McAfee unveiled results of its ‘India’s Most Dangerous Cricketer’ study which researched this season’s top celebrities of the cricketing world on their risk quotient in the Indian cyberspace.  Christopher Henry ‘Chris’ Gayle took the top slot in the survey, followed by Brett Lee and S Sreesanth.

Such studies are routinely conducted by McAfee; its last big survey a couple of years ago centred around Indian celebrities from film, music, sports and other fields, and found that Katrina Kaif was the most ‘dangerous’ celeb online.

Commenting on the findings of the present study, Venkatasubrahmanyam Krishnapur, Vice-President of Engineering (CMSB), McAfee India Centre said, “Cyber criminals constantly leverage famous personalities and very cleverly time their attacks to coincide with popular events in luring people to websites with malicious software.  In the context of the ongoing cricketing leagues, cyber crooks are leveraging famous cricketers for their nefarious gains. During such events, eager cricket crazy fans are highly motivated to search for photos, videos, scores and stories of their favorite cricketers online, and in that moment of weakness, they are lured into clicking malicious links that puts them at considerable risk.”

Cyber criminals follow the latest trends, often using the names of popular celebrities to lure people to malicious sites designed to steal passwords and personal information. Fans looking for results on search engines using strings such as ‘name of cricketer’ combined with words like ‘free downloads’, ‘hot pictures’, ‘wallpapers’, and ‘videos’ are at risk of running themselves into malicious sites, the study revealed.

The study for ‘Most Dangerous IPL Player’ used the McAfee® SiteAdvisor® site rating which indicates the sites that are risky to search for cricketing celebrity names on the web and calculate an overall risk percentage.

Other ‘dangerous’ cricketers included Yuvraj Singh, David Miller, Mitchell Johnson, Sachin Tendulkar, Dale Steyn, Kieron Pollard, Kevin Pietersen and Virat Kohli.

(Picture courtesy thecricketprofile.blogspot.com)

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