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April 16, 2013


  

START A ELEPHANT POO PAPER  MAKING
Animals which eat a lot of vegetable matter and have poor digestive systems generate poo that is suitable for making paper. The animal droppings are washed and boiled for many hours. The solution is then blended or spun to soften and cut the fibers. Other things such as dye and/or other fibrous materials may be be added to give the solution the proper consistency. The slurry is then sifted onto rectangular sieves and allowed to dry. When dry, the thin layer of plant fibers is peeled off the sieve and made into paper and paper products
The method used for making elephant dung paper is more or less the same as making other varieties of handmade paper. There are minor changes we have had to make because of the fibrous nature of the raw material. Making sure that the paper is not harmful for the papermaker as well as the user was our biggest challenge… so disinfectants are used to make the paper as bacteria free as possible.



1. COLLECTING THE POO

Dung Collection - gathering the poo
Dung is collected from various elephant stables. The colour of the dung varies from season to season, as what the elephants eat depends on the crop of the season.

2. CLEANING THE POO

Cleaning the Poo - Elephant Poo cleaning
The cleaning of the dung is one of the important stages… the dung is washed thoroughly with water in large tanks. At the end, all what is left is the fibre. Since this process is water intensive, it is preferably done close to cultivated land… the water acts as a fantastic fertilizer.


3. POO IN THE POT - COOKING!

Cooking the Poo - Softening the elephant dung.
Paper can only be made with this fibre if its soft enough to be beaten into pulp. To get the fibre ready for the next stage of pulping, it is cooked in water for over 4-5 hours with salt and then washed with hydrogen peroxide to complete the first stage of making the paper bacteria free.


4. SORTING

Sorting - Dry elephant poo is sorted.
After cooking, the water is drained out and the dung is left to dry out in the sun. Once its dry, it is sorted and any non-usable fibre is removed.


5. PULPING

Pulping - The softened and sorted Elephant poo is beaten to a pulp.
After the fibre has been softened and sorted, it goes into the Hollander Beater, to be beaten to pulp. This process takes about 4 hours. The fibre goes through the process of being beaten into very fine pulp and also being washed again. Disinfectant is added here to kill any bacteria still in the pulp.


6. LIFTING THE POO PULP

Lifting - pulp through a sieve is paper!
The pulp is then taken to cement/ wooden vats filled with water. Depending on the weight of the paper to be made, the required amount of pulp is mixed with the water. A flat sieve-like mould is used to lift a layer of pulp out of water. A sheet of paper is made.


7. COUCHING

Couching - Piles of sheets pressed together.
The sheet is then placed on a muslin cloth by applying gentle pressure onto the mould. This process continues till there is a heap of about 100 sheets.


8. DRYING THE POOPER

Drying - paper is hung dry in shade.
The heap of interleaved sheets is then placed in a hydraulic press and compressed to drain out as much water as possible. The paper is then dried on lines, in a shady area. Direct sunlight is not good for drying the sheets unless they’re white as the colour fades under the sun.


9. CALENDERING

Calendering - Dry sheets of elephant poo paper are smoothened.
Paper sheets are then calendered to make them smoother and writable. Calendering involves interleaving a bunch of sheets with zinc coated metal sheets and passing them under pressure, back and forth between two rollers.The sheets are then cut to the specified size, packed and sent to their required destinations.


PRODUCT CATEGORIES:

 Bags
Elephant Poo Paper Carry Bags from Haathi Chaap
Elephant poo paper bags certainly add a whacky value to the gifts you’re giving, so you could use these for anything from a book to a blanket and from a perfume bottle to a potted plant (a small one please!!).

Frames

Elephant Poo Paper Photo Frames from Haathi Chaap
Put your favorite photographs in these colourful elephant poo paper frames. We also have a range of collapsible ones which can be used as greeting cards.


Photo Albums

Elephant Poo Paper Photo Albums from Haathi Chaap
Handy pocket photo books and corner-cut albums to store your photographs…. memory books in different sizes to store all your memories…. we try and have them all.

Notebooks

Elephant Poo Paper Notebooks from Haathi Chaap
All kinds of journals… bright and funky for the adventurous, smart and slick for the corporate and handy ones for the travelers. Have a look at the range in our catalogue.

Stationery

Elephant Poo Paper Stationery from Haathi Chaap
Stationery sets for those who still believe in writing letters, notepads to put next to the phone or files to brighten up an office… its all there.


Cards & Tags

Elephant Poo Paper Cards & Gift Tags from Haathi Chaap
Imagine receiving New Year greetings on an elephant poo paper greeting card. Or an ele poo gift tag on the present you’ve just received. Would be something you remember for a while.

Funky Stuff

Elephant Poo Paper Clocks from Haathi Chaap
Here’s something for people with a sense of humour… Our magnetic clocks, calendars as well as the gulel sets are a hit.

Kinck-Knacks

Elephant Poo Paper Knic Knacks, Coasters from Haathi Chaap
Souvenirs these are… a bookmark or a set of coasters!! Can be used as giveaways in school as well as conferences.












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April 09, 2013

Lloyds of London
Insurance is often described as banking without money given it engages in a risk management business model using other people's money. But is it wise to invest in such insurance companies? Definitely Yes ! Many analysts say the insurance market is in better shape than banking, and it may be an ideal time to invest in companies with better fundamentals and history.

Insurance is the transfer of risk from one party to another in exchange for the payment of a premium. The premium, in turn, is invested and used to pay out future claims and to operate the insurance company. In short, insurance companies are engaged in two primary revenue streams:
1. the assumption of other people's risk in exchange for money/premiums.
2. the management of such premiums (asset management).

What should investors look for when investing in insurance companies?

As with traditional metrics of investing stocks, there are some things that investors should look at while investing in insurance companies.
The first and foremost thing would be look at is its business model. As mentioned above it all depends on how well the company is selling its premiums and how well it manages such premiums.A critical piece of an insurance company's operations is to ensure that it always has enough capital to manage all the risk it has assumed.
Premium growth - Premium is the life-line of any insuring company’s growth. Premium growth is so important that commissions paid are generally the largest expense after premiums paid.
Credit rating. All insurance companies have a credit rating which reflects a third parties assessment of their ability to pay policies as they become due. The higher the credit rating the better.
Investment income. Money is made mostly through investment income. Investors have to watch out for, how well the insurance companies manage the investment income and what they are investing in and whether they are engaging in any hedging strategies.

Hence,  insurance companies satisfying the above criteria and with good fundamentals can be considered for investing.  Investors should look at the business side of the insurance companies and good distribution network. For those looking to invest in such insurance companies, you should keep an eye on Lloyds of London , where there is a lot of information on movements within the insurance industry.

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April 04, 2013





Any veteran shall say, just blindly following the big guns of the capital markets will leave you nowhere. And the same comes true when we look at the performance of the big bull Rakesh Jhunjhunwala’s portfolio in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal.


For the aforesaid period Nifty- the benchmark index of the National Stock Exchange, was declined by just 4.5% while some stocks from the Big B’s portfolio declined as much as in the range of 40-70% for the same period.

Small investors often overlook the rationale behind investment, the entry price of the investment and the time-horizon envisaged by these capital market honchos and blindly start buying shares and eventually end up repenting.

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala had recently bought shares of Titan Industries at a price which was about around 150 times of his first purchase(of the same stock). 

This means, the first batch of shares had given him a whopping return of 15,000 % and this is why even a major price-drop from the last purchase price keeps him unperturbed.

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April 01, 2013


Indians are highly perturbed with high interest rates prevailing in the country. From corporates to individual loan subscribers, all are feeling the heat of high interest rates.
Earlier all eyes were on the RBI to cut policy rates but even after it slashing the repo rate by 50 basis points (or .5 %) in this calendar year banks and other financial institutions were unable to cut the lending rates significantly. Higher interest rates are resulting in piling NPAs (Non Performing Asset or bad debt) besides lower NIMs (Net Interest Margin).

Why banks are not slashing interest rates significantly?

Mere RBI slashing policy rates shall not enable banks to drop interest rates significantly but for that deposit rates too need to be slashed. Deposit rates refer to the interest payable on the deposits of the customers- time deposits (FD, RD etc) or demand deposits (saving account etc).

Now the question becomes- why banks are not reducing the deposit rates?

And the answer is-Sluggish growth in bank-deposits prevents banks from cutting deposit rates.
Rising gold and appreciating real estate in the past few years made investors to pull funds from banks to invest in gold and real-estate.Investments in the aforementioned assets being long term created the scarcity of funds for banks and this scarcity of funds prevented banks from cutting deposit rates.
With retail inflation rate hovering above 10 %, Real-Interest Rate from debt instruments (any instrument on which interest is payable like FD, RD etc) turned negative.

Real interest rate is nothing but the interest rate adjusted for inflation.For example, if your FD pays you 9 % interest per annum and inflation rate is 10% per annum, then your real interest return is – 1%.
This means you are not gaining from your investment but losing money on it due to higher inflation.

Why Gold and real estate gave fantastic returns?

Gold being the best hedge against the inflation, investors started hoarding it. Global economic activities like US quantitative easing and similar money printing measures by European and Japanese economies resulted in ample liquidity which when flew into real estate resulted in sky-rocketing prices.  


Is there any remedy?

This scenario shall not change until inflation becomes benign i.e. lower CPI inflation orretail inflation. Besides this, there should be an improvement in bank deposits, and this shall be possible when gold and real estate shall cease to deliver lucrative returns.
Indian government too needs to do the needful to curb the spiralling inflation in India.
When inflation shall be tamed, RBI too shall proactively reduce the policy rates and thus lending rates shall be reduced.
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