So what were the Indian politicians’ reactions after Obama’s won the Presidential elections for second time?
(Please note that these are fake remarks intended for humour alone and hence readers are requested not to get offended by the same)
Digvijay Singh
I have solid evidence that Obama took huge sum of money from anti-social elements in order to drive his election campaigns not only this year but in 2008 as well. And the US presidents should not involve their families in political matters and election campaigns (they should instead create political heirs like Indian political parties do)
P Chidambaram
Statistically speaking, although Obama won, there might have been a percentage of technical error that affected the final outcome for Mitt Romney. We intend to fix this over the next 40 years, via stringent measures and policy creations without which the GDP growth of 0.0001 percent cannot be achieved nor can inflation be brought down under 20%.
Mamata Banerjee
Obomo treat Bongol like step sohn. This is not occeptoble and all his peepal are CPI(M) cadres, Maoist cadres…. The real ‘Poriborthan’ is what we need just like we are doing in Bongol.
Arun Jaitley
The voters are entrusted the Obama yet again just like the aam admi did it for UPA in 2009. I am sure they will regret the mandate given by them sooner or later. I believe that the Republicans will form a very supportive opposition (just like we are doing) to take the country to the next level. At BJP, we believe that they have a bigger role to play (to make sure that the house is disrupted in every single session) in this context.
Sitaram Yechury
We will not let Obama take up any development activities in the US – especially anything that affects the common man. Our Polit bureau is closely watching the developments and we intend to come up with our white paper soon. As for Mitt Romney, he’s no saint either. We hope to see a Chinese immigrant or genuine Socialist Russian leader leading the United States soon. (As for us, we will not let anyone rule, we don’t want to rule either, we are just genuine activists concerned about all types of development activities)
Bal Thackeray
Obama won just because of the immigrants who are causing trouble all over the nation. If the US president dares to visit in India again, I warn that Shiv Sainiks will spoil all cricket pitches in India.
Devegowda
Mitt Romney lost because he did nothing for the farmers. Only those who support farmers will be supported by our party (so that we can acquire as many farm lands and farm houses as possible). I hope to see Obama taking up more farmer friendly policies (such as making Ragi Muddhe available in the White House Canteen)
Nitish Bharadwaj
We will fight till Obama gives special economic status to Bihar. However, I will not accept the economic package if Modi is teaming up with Obama.
Narendra Modi
Have you seen his Billion Dollar bailout girl friend err… wife? She did the trick for him. (Obama: If you don’t like billion dollar girlfriend, why don’t you tell us more about your simple school teacher village wife)
Yeddyurappa
This is all black magic. Obama did black magic with the help of two famous Californian and Iowan black magicians. On top of this, he also visited 100 Hindu temples in 10 days and got the job done by bribing gods. I had advised Romney to visit at least 200 temples but he didn’t listen to me, fearing me to snatch power. See what happened now?
Kejriwal
Obama must RESIGN first and face election again. Mitt Romney is no saint either and he should RESIGN as well. And if there are any other contender out there, he is corrupt and they should all resign. Resign! Resign!! Resign!!!
…and…
Manmohan Singh
Mmm… Grin… Sigh… (Gets up, looks at the match referee Soniaji for approval and hesitantly waves at Obama like a Cricket umpire feebly signaling a boundary hit by ‘The Sachin’)
If you are into Indian stock markets, here are some stock recommendations for you. I personally hold most of these stocks and hence your risk is mine as well. I am not providing detailed analysis of these companies but that’s out there for you to explore on websites such as Moneycontrol.com
Indian Stock Recommendations
Please note that, I am not talking about ‘trading’ here but long term investment here. Long term for me is at least a 1 year term.
Here is my list with their recommended entry prices in the bracket (In some cases it is my own entry price for these scrips).
1. Shriram City Union Finance (765)
2. Kitex Garments (58)
3. SpiceJet (38)
4. DQ Entertainment (18.50)
5. Escorts (64)
6. Acrysil India (80) – After Bonus adjustment
7. Kwality Dairy (31)
8. Manappuram General Finance (35)
9. NIIT (33)
10. APM Industries (13)
I shall keep updating on what am I doing with these ‘multi-baggers’ in the next months. Currently the target for each of these stocks would vary from 75% to 300% within a 12 to 24 months investment window.
Disclosure: I hold some of these stocks and I may have vested interest in these companies. Please do your own research before investing.
(I was staying away from the stock markets for a couple of years now but made a re-entry seeing some good opportunity in the recent bull run)
Update on January 02, 2014
It has been about 15 months since I recommended the above stocks. I still hold some of them while I have recently sold most of these stocks in the current fluctuating markets. I wouldn’t be tracking most of the stocks again but would like to provide the following update on how they fared.
Stock name (Recommended price, High since)
Shriram City Union Finance (765, 1230) – Still going strong
Kitex Garments (58, 83.85) – Still going strong
SpiceJet (38, 48.30) – Bound to various government regulations and recommend to enter only at very cheap levels
DQ Entertainment (18.50, 47.95) – Still going strong
Escorts (64, 145.15) – Still going strong
Acrysil India (80, 240) – Still going strong
Kwality Dairy (31, 38.70) – Hold
Manappuram General Finance (35, 46) – No more attractive due to gold woes
NIIT (33, 33) – So so
APM Industries (13, 28.85) – Still going strong
Those stocks that are marked as ‘Still going strong’ are good for holding for long term, in my opinion
I had some tough luck with my previous attempts of mastering the art of making Kerala Porotta’s at home. But not any longer! This time the experience was better and my porottas turned out to be really good and delicious. (Well, it could be still better…)
So here’s how you go about making Kerala Porottas or Malabar Porottas (Alternatively you could directly jump into our Kerala Porotta making Video)
Ingredients (to make 8-12 porottas)
Maida (All purpose flour): 500gms
Salt: ½ to ¾ tsp
Sunflower oil or your favorite Vegetable oil: About 100ml
Egg: 1 (Beaten)
Baking soda: ½ tsp (if you like more leavening, I avoid this)
Warm water: As required
Some people like with a tinge of sweetness and in that case you may add a teaspoon of sugar as well. I personally do not do this
Method of Preparation
The complete step-by-step instruction to make Kerala Porotta is available in the following video that I recorded recently.
However, if you want a written recipe, here is how you go about making Kerala Porottas.
Step 1: Take half a kilo maida in a wide mouth bowl and make a well in the centre. Add half (or as per taste) a teaspoon salt, about three tablespoons of oil, one beaten egg to this and mix well. Add warm water and mix thoroughly and evenly for about 4-5 minutes to make a soft and rubbery ball of dough. You may keep adding more water and oil during this process.
Step 2: Apply some oil on this dough ball and keep it covered with a wet cotton cloth for about 60 minutes.
Step 3: After an hour, split the big ball of maida dough into smaller sized (about the size of a very small orange) dough balls and keep them aside. Half a kilo of maida will usually make about 10 such dough balls. Apply some more oil on them and keep them covered with the wet cloth again for about 10 minutes.
Step 4: Now for the difficult part. Take each of these dough balls, flatten on your clean kitchen counter and lift and beat them on the counter as demonstrated in the video. You have to lift (not so high) the flat dough with your left hand, beat on the counter while supporting from the top with the right hand. Do this till the dough becomes a flat long dough mat. This process needs some expertise, in fact, I am still mastering it. If you can’t get it completely flat and thin, help with your hand to spread it further.
(The above process is what earned Kerala porotta the name ‘Veeshu porotta’ because it’s just like you are using a paper fan)
Step 5: Now, lift from one of the broader sides of this dough towel and fold it towards the other side to make pleats (refer to the video) to make a long pleated length of dough. Further, this length has to be coiled into a dough spiral and tuck in the the other end nicely down. That’s it and we have to repeat (Step 4 and what we just did for all other dough balls)
Step 6: Now, it’s time to toast the porottas. Heat a tawa or skillet and pour about one teaspoon of oil in it. Reduce the flame into medium to low. Flatten the dough spirals on the counter with bare hands to make it to a 5-6” diameter porotta. Place this in the tawa and you have to toast it for about 3-4 minutes occasionally (every 30 seconds) flipping it. It’s better to use a large tawa that can accommodate 4-5 porottas.
Step 7: The last step is the fluffing up process. When 4-5 porottas are ready from the tawa (and when they are still hot), stack them up on the counter and tap them firmly using your palms from the sides (refer to video). This fluffs up the porotta layers making them soft and nice. And that’s what make them quite unique from other types of rotis or parothas in India.
That is it! Delicious Kerala porottas are ready!!
Kerala Porottas are best enjoyed with protein rich spicy curries such as Kerala style beef curry (non beef eaters, please excuse), Chicken or Mutton curry, Egg masala or even Green peas masala. One of the hot favorites in Kerala road side shops (thattukadas) is beef fry or beef chilli with Kerala porottas.
Health tips
Kerala porotta is not exactly a good habitual food, health-wise. Since it is made of white flour and drinks a lot of oil, it’s bad on your intestines. White flour tend to increase your bad cholesterol (LDL) levels as well. I recommend that you eat a lot of onion salad (Sliced onions rubbed with salt and vinegar) along with porottas and beef to help with your health. Also, make it a habit to drink a lot of hot water after eating porottas to help with the digestion process and ease stickiness.
Please note that your favorite roadside shops may be using Dalda (Vanaspati or Margarine) for making Kerala porottas. Though this is tastier, it’s extremely harmful for health
…and let me know how your Kerala porotta making experiment turned out to be.
I have always been a huge fan of Airtel Broadband ever since I started using their services way back in 2006. Their Internet services offered high uptime and the promised speed almost always. Airtel’s customer service has been pretty good as well when compared with many other brands.
However, the recent rollout of the so-called SmartBytes product has spoiled all my good impressions about Airtel and I am on the verge of discontinuing with them. It is turning out to be a major SCAM by Airtel whereby they try to force sell this product to existing customers on the pretext of making available high speed Internet even when you don’t need it. Read on…
How Airtel SmartBytes work?
Every unlimited BB package from Airtel Broadband works the following way. Basically when they sell a 2MBPS (for example) unlimited bandwidth product, the 2MBPS speed is only applicable to a predefined transfer limit (e.g 20GB as in my case). Once you reach this 20GB limit in a particular billing cycle, the speed drops to the minimum guaranteed speed of 256KBPS or 512KBPS.
At this point, the customers can opt for the so called SmartBytes using which you can continue using the high speed internet. All that you have to do is to click and buy the package that you want (for example 5GB for Rs.299/-). This sounds good and really helpful for the broadband consumer in need. So what is the problem?
SmartByte Nuisance!
Once you run out your high speed limit of your so-called Unlimited package, the following is what will happen:
Every time you login to your PC and browse any site (say Google.com), you are redirected to the SmartBytes website (screenshot below). No matter, how many other sites you try to browse, it will STILL redirect you to this SmartBytes sales page. This highly irritating behavior continues for about a minute
The ugly SmartBytes sales page forces you to either buy a High speed package OR Continue as per the plan BUT only after typing in a Captcha. This is a highly unacceptable behavior from any service provider as it’s nothing but force-selling
For a billing cycle, it’s probably ideal to show this page once but NOT every single time I login – especially after I opted out of it once
Whenever you are run out of the highspeed limit, for no explicable reason it disconnects you from the web every couple of hours and each time, the SmartBytes page is thrown
Now, why is it so bad?
First, I don’t want to see an undesirable sales page every time I login.
Second, it should be SMART enough to remember my selection at least during a billing period.
Third, if you are doing some important transaction and left your page unattended, when you come back, you are likely to be redirected to the smart page thereby losing all that you entered.
Even worse, the kids who are using your home PC or laptop can, by mistake, click and buy SmartBytes as it doesn’t require one to swipe any credit card.
What does Airtel Customer Support say?
I have raised THREE tickets with them in the last two months. Every single time, the dumb support person will say that, he doesn’t have the ‘authority’ to stop this. So twice, I requested him to put me through to whoever has the authority but no use. Obviously, Airtel has forgotten business ethics and is trying to milk customers by luring them into buying their SmartBytes product with a highly irritating landing page.
Probably the next step for me to write to none other than Mr. Sunil Mittal (sunil.mittal@bharti.com) – the big boss of Bharti Airtel – and forward a complaint to the consumer forums.
Do you suffer from this Airtel Smartbytes Scam or fraud? If so, did you try to deal with the same? Let me know.
Planning to buy some Gold jewellery in India and confused about how the whole thing works? Well, I was equally puzzled by all those terminologies and promises that you get to hear in Jewellery shop commercials until I decided to dig out some information.
So here’re some tips and education that might help you in the future.
What is Karat, 916, BIS Hallmark etc?
Karat (NOT Carat) is a measure of the purity of gold. 24 carat is considered pure gold.
Since pure gold is too soft (and hence would easily bend) to make any jewellery out of it, there has to be certain other metals such as copper, silver, cadmium etc added to make it strong, shine and with the desired shade. Based on how much extra metals are added, the Karat value of the gold reduces to 22Kt, 18Kt, 14Kt or even 10Kt.
For example, 18K gold is 75% pure gold (i.e. 18/24) where as 14K gold has only 58% real gold in it.
In India, 22K gold is considered the most valuable for jewelries and hence it has more resale value as well. 22Kt gold jewellery means it has 22/24 percent pure gold in it or in other words 91.6% purity.
And this is what is called 916 gold (symbolizes 91.6%).
BIS Hallmark SymbolIn order to make sure that the jewellers actually sell 91.6% pure gold (when they claim to sell 22Kt gold), the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) made it mandatory to emboss a hallmark on all standardized gold jewellery. And such a jewellery is known as a BIS Hallmark jewellery. Before this standardization, many jewellers and goldsmiths used to cheat people with below 22Kt gold while they claimed to sell good quality 22K gold. I figured this out while selling some old gold jewellery recently.
[BIS Hallmark is NOT just for 22Kt gold. You may take a look at the BIS site for all BIS components]
Making Charges, Gold Wastage charges etc
As I mentioned earlier, there has to be certain metals added to pure gold to make it tough and good enough to make jewellery. This is the first level of added cost to the making process followed by the actual making charges to convert the gold bars or blocks into beautiful jewellery patterns.
The making charges (‘Panikkooli’ for Malayali friends) is the cost of converting raw gold into jewellery. This is usually expressed in Rupees per gram of gold. In most cases, the making charges per gram of gold vary from 25 to 35 rupees. Compared to the price of gold today, this is a negligible number.
However, there is another scary number called the ‘wastage charges’ (‘Panikkuravu’ as Keralites call it). In the good old times, the goldsmiths used to make gold jewellery by melting gold, cutting and shaping it into tiny pieces and join them together to make great handmade gold jewellery. In this process they ‘claimed’ that certain quantity of gold go wasted though these goldsmiths are actually smart enough to collect or retrieve most of the gold without wasting any. Nowadays, the gold ornaments are made in advanced machines and nothing really go wasted. However, this tradition of calculating ‘wastage’ continues and this is expressed in terms of ‘percentage’and they charge that to the customers.
The amount charged to the customers for the ‘wastage’ caused is known as the ‘wastage charges’. It’s quite ridiculous that there’s no norm for this wastage charge component and that’s exactly where your jeweller cheats you. The wastage charges typically vary from 10% to 18% in most shops while it’s quite possible to have it as high as 20% or 24% or even as low as 8%. Unfortunately, nobody knows why certain ornaments has to have more wastage than some others as claimed by the jeweller.
Hence the actual cost burden on you while purchasing gold jewellery is:
Actual cost of gold as per the day’s rate + Wastage charges + Making Charges + VAT if any. In addition, if your jewellery has any precious stones, that cost will be added up as well.
Cost of Gold Jewellery = Making Charges + Wastage Charges + Cost of Stones, if any + VAT
For example, assume that the gold rate is at Rs.2500/- per gram for 22 Karat gold. When you buy a 10 gram gold chain with the making charges at 35 rupees per gram and wastage charges at 12%, the following will be the calculation to arrive at the final price:
(1) Cost of gold alone = 10 * 2500 = 25,000/-
(2) Making charges = 10 * 35 = 350/-
(3) Wastage charges = 12 * 25,000 / 100 = 3,000/-
The total cost before VAT = 28,350/-
If the VAT is at 1% that becomes 28,633.50/-
Recently the jewellers have started representing the Wastage Charges and Making charges together as VA or ‘Value Addition’.
Gold Jewellery buying tips for Indians
As a smart buyer, you may keep the following things in mind when you deal with jewellery shops.
First, if you are exchanging gold (selling old ornaments and buying new) make sure that you are getting the full price of what you are selling. i.e. As long as you are selling 22K gold, the shop may not reduce any price but give you the actual market price of the 22K gold by its weight. There are some jewellers who charge melting charges, handling charges or whatever they may call it but never ever fall into that trap
Each and every piece has to be weighed separately and tested for purity using the electronic purity tester while selling. i.e. if you have a pair of ear rings, test them separately
Ask for the current gold price on your purchase day and their standard making charges before commencing your shopping
Check for the BIS hallmark on the inner or back side of each of the pieces you are buying
Ask for the ‘wastage charges’ for each of the pieces that you are picking and be prepared for the negotiation
You may start by asking the ‘BEST wastage charge’ as per the salesman. Negotiate with him and tell him that you are serious about the purchase if he’s forthcoming in terms of a reduced rate. He will mostly give one percent less. Take it to the store manager or supervisor at the next level to get 2-3% negotiation done. You WILL definitely get 2-3% discount if you are making bigger purchases. If you are gone there just to pick a little 2gm earring or so, you better not negotiate much. But if you are on wedding or engagement shopping, you may save a lot by negotiating
Further tips:
There may be some sales people who may try to belittle you on your miserliness and even might raise their voice. You may remind such people that you know this business and it’s your money that is at stake. Further, you may ask them why there’s no norm for this so-called wastage charges (Hopefully at some point the government will normalize this as well).
Most jewellers may offer you a discount of 40 or 50 rupees per gram on the prevailing rate as if they are doing you a great favour. Please note that your REAL saving comes from the wastage charge negotiation. The ‘special discount valid only for today’, or ‘pick a chit and get your lucky discount’ etc are the gimmicks that they play to preempt further negotiation. Don’t fall for those tricks.
You may advise your respective wives to stop exchanging jewellery too often. Because, every time you exchange, all those value addition charges come into play and you lose a lot of money.
If investment is your goal, avoid buying jewellery but go for gold coins or even Exchange Traded Funds on Gold (ETF Gold Funds).
That’s pretty much for now. I just thought of jotting down these points after coming back from a minor purchase at Chemmanur Jewellers – not that I was hugely successful in negotiating this time. But I have certainly seen my relatives, in-laws, friends etc negotiating big time and making a huge difference in the final bill.
I have been longing for an affordable 5-seater SUV in India for a long time. The likes of Honda CRV – and even Skoda Yeti for that matter – is out of my reach while stuff like Mahindra Thar (though not exactly a five seater) are more for adventurous stags or Army people. I got really excited when Renault launched their mini SUV the Renault Duster in India (Dacia Duster in Europe) and I actually test drove it last evening in Bangalore. Now, is it worth all that excitement and hype? Let us find out.
Review material
The variant I tested was a white colored 110HP Diesel high end version without the option pack. i.e. Duster (D) – RXZ. This model costs 11,04,702 Ex-showroom which means around 13.65L on road in Bangalore – thanks to the high Road tax that we have here. If you were to take the option pack (leather seats and wood finish on inside door handles) the price goes up to 11,35,102 (Ex) and 14,01,131 (On road) respectively for the high end Diesel variant. 14 lakhs is a big amount and hence the expectations were really high for me. Review Material - Sorry for the poor mobile pic
Renault Duster – Exteriors
From its high and wide stands, I must say that it’s one of the good looking vehicles in that price range – especially since I have had my reservations about the rear styling of SUVs such as Mahindra XUV-500 and Skoda Yeti. As for the Duster, it looks good from almost all angles. The muscular looking wheel archs and chromy grilles with nicely designed headlamps add to the punch. If something has to be improved in the exterior, that’s the poor looking alloy wheels (design wise), the door handles and perhaps the black plastics on the air dam. May be the plastic part can be camouflaged with a nice looking IND license plate? Despite minor hitches, I give a 4 / 5 for its exterior design.
Interiors
Now, let us open the door to get to see the problems right away! The door of the Renault Duster showed the poor engineering and ‘Indianising goals’ behind. It opened almost like an Ambassador or Tata Sumo – Well, it’s good to be heavy but the doors should offer firm and predictable movement. We are talking about a vehicle that has hardly run 5000 kms and that’s a minor engineering disappointment – but nothing compared to what is expected further inside. The dashboard is not as good as it looks in the picture
The photos of the Renault Duster interiors looked stunning on the web and in their commercials but I must warn you that you will be thoroughly disappointed when you take a closer look. The beige and black rough plastic combo on the dashboard looks and feels pathetic. I mean really P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C when compared to any vehicle with that kind of a price tag. It definitely looks like it was made solely with the final price tag in mind. And the typical Renault AC vents and poorly designed controls positioning adds to the misery. There’s a factory fitted entertainment unit which looks (and sound) cheap but the gear knob and the steering column looked decent. The blue tooth and audio controls are positioned at a weird location right behind the steering wheel right hand side and looks like the steering column design was reused from the Europe (blinker control is on left and wiper lever on right). Overall, I was in a confused state after seeing all the mess out there. I couldn’t really find a single control where I would expect it naturally – probably horn being an exception ?
Talking about the door panel garnishes and seat fabric – it is pretty much of the same poor quality as the plastics – Very bad looking and taxi quality, I would say. The option pack comes with a wooden trim as per the sales guy (chrome as per the manual) but the one I drove had highly glossy black plastic handles that was gross. The floor carpeting was equally bad with thin looking material all around.
The other weird thing was the rear seat A/C vent that juts out too much into almost the private parts of the rear middle passenger. This is the first time I am seeing something like that on a car. Probably, they could have changed the orientation of that unit to the front to create a beautiful armrest for the driver.
Overall, I would give a 2 / 5 for Duster interiors and if you ask me this is the single most reason why I wouldn’t buy this vehicle. I mean, you can change pretty much everything else including alloys, upgrading tyre sizes, leather seats but what the hell can you do about the dashboard?
The Engine, Gear box and Driving experience
Time for some action. I started the engine with the windows rolled up. The engine gave a nice grunt and with all that poor plastic assembly, it still wasn’t all that noisy inside the cabin if not silent. The sales person gently reminded not to lift the little ring on the gear lever or else I may engage the reverse gear. Yes, we have a 6-speed Gear box in Duster and the reverse as well as the first gear has to be engaged to extreme left towards the front. However, on engaging the reverse gear there’s useful beep that reminds me where you are at.
I took of the vehicle and I liked its heaviness and pull. This vehicle – at a low weight of 1150Kgs or so – actually felt stable and nice. Slightly higher seating position actually don’t feel weird and it feels almost like a car. The visibility towards front and sides is excellent while the smaller and roundish back light (rear windshield) restricted my viewable area a bit, I thought.
Before I joined the highway, I had a stretch of almost non-existing entrance to the road (Bangalore roads!!!). The high ground clearance (205mm) and mini-offroader like capabilities helped me to maneuver to the main road pretty easily. Actually the 2WD vehicle almost felt like a 4×4 off-roader in lower gears. Very nice indeed!
As for the power, the engine is smooth in all gears. It didn’t knock when I was slowly moving under 10Kms/hr in 2nd gear, nor it complained when moving in 4th gear at 35km/hr. Excellent vehicle for very bad city traffic conditions, I must say. When I accelerated gradually, I could feel the turbo charger kicking in between 1700 and 1800 RPM. This is very good because when you need power in 2nd or 3rd gear you can avail it. The best thing I liked about this vehicle is its 6-speed gear box under which the car never complains. However, I didn’t ride too long with the sixth gear, I must add here. Overall, it is not a very powerful engine but adequate and felt nice. I am sure it should do good on highways as well with the overdrive options.
The ride quality is very good and so is the cornering without any sort of body rolling. i.e. even while making good use of its very low turning radius (5.2m), it didn’t give any hint of instability. In fact, on all types of roads and in all speeds it was pretty good. I particularly liked the electro-hydraulic steering which wasn’t butter smooth like some cars but nice and firm. It felt firm and nice. And at 248Nm torque, I would think that it can easily pull some weight without taking toll on your fuel bill. The sales man claimed that it would give a mileage of 13-14km/ltr of diesel in city traffic conditions, which I tend to believe.
A mention about the brakes (front disc and rear drum) – the top variants are equipped with ABS, EBD and Brake assist which together does a good job in my braking experience on gravel roads.
Overall, I liked the way the 1.5 litre dCI engine behaved assisted by a good gear box. I would give 4 / 5 for the engine and gear box.
Other features
Poor looking Alloys - probably the only bad thing about Duster's exterior design
The top variants are equipped with almost all that you can ask for – Airbags, 2DIN integrated audio entertainment, a 12V socket, USB-Aux in, keyless entry, Electrically adjustable ORVMs (not electrically foldable), blue tooth, reverse parking sensors and there was even a switch to turn off the parking sensors. It all boils down to getting used to where these switches actually are! Overall, for its price, I must say that this vehicle is feature rich.
Summary
Overall I would say that the Renault Duster in India is a failure in terms not living up to its brand image – every other Renault model is good looking in its class, I would say (Fluence, Koleos and even Pulse) . As I mentioned above, if they had worked on the interiors and increased the price by 1 lakh, I would have still bought this vehicle. And that’s the exact message that should go to Renault from the Indian consumers. Let them not end up like other foreign car manufacturers who initially offer quality and then start the cost-cutting there by providing cheap stuff for the Indian consumers.
Having said that , there is a lot of buzz and excitement from the taxi crowd for the 85BHP diesel model that starts at 8 Lakhs (Ex) and offers excellent mileage. I wouldn’t surprised if that becomes a huge hit but the higher segment thoroughly disappoints.
What I liked the best about this vehicle?
Exterior looks and styling
Pricing of the Diesel variants
Reasonably powerful and responsive engine
6-speed gearbox
Drivability and composure of the vehicle including minimal off-roading capabilities
Huge trunk space (475 Litres)
Claimed mileage
Low turning radius and high ground clearance
What I hated the most?
Cheap interior plastics and fabrics (say that 100 times) – Can’t do anything about it!
Alloy wheels design and tyre (need to upgrade to 235, manageable)
Protruding rear A/C vents (somewhat ok)
Positioning of the controls (still ok)
Service attitude (Are Mahindra people still at Renault?) (still ok)
Not a 4×4 (still ok)
Overall Rating: 2.5 / 5
(The rating would have easily become 3.75 had they provided good interiors)
If you happened to really test drive Renault Duster India version, you may share your experience here!
I have been longing for an affordable 5-seater SUV in India for a long time. The likes of Honda CRV – and even Skoda Yeti for that matter – is out of my reach while stuff like Mahindra Thar (though not exactly a five seater) are more for adventurous stags or Army people. I got really excited when Renault launched their mini SUV the Renault Duster in India (Dacia Duster in Europe) and I actually test drove it last evening in Bangalore. Now, is it worth all that excitement and hype? Let us find out.
