December 9, 2014 – The Metrognome

Financial journalists, this one’s for you

Shriram Sanlam Awards invite entries in financial journalism, will be judged by an eminent panel of editors and corporate personalities.

by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Financial journalists in India need to take note: the Shriram Sanlam Awards for financial journalism is currently inviting entries.

This is the third edition of the Shriram Sanlam Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism constituted by Shriram Group along with the South Africa-based Sanlam Group (South Africa) in association with the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR), Chennai, in 2012.

Journalists can submit or nominate anything in the purview of financial journalism, ranging from Indian Economic Policy, Macro Economic Issues, Financial Markets including Equity, Debt and Foreign Exchange, Banking and allied services, Sectoral Issues, financial inclusion and financial literacy. There will also be a Life Time Achievement Award, for which recommendations are welcome. This year, the categories of Awards will be decided after receiving nominations. Journalists and editors are free to nominate as many entries or people as they wish. Parameters for the Awards are Insight, Analysis, Depth, Uniqueness, Originality, Comprehensive and Balanced Approach, Level of research, Follow up of story by others leading to wider discussion, and overall impact of the story.

Entries are being accepted up to January 31, 2015.

One of India’s most respected media personalities, TN Ninan (in pic on left, Chairman, Business Standard) has been inducted on the jury panel of the Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism 2014. He was also the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2^nd Shriram Sanlam Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism in the year 2013. He will join a distinguished panel of independent jury members comprising, amongst others, Gopal Srinivasan (Chairman and Managing Director – TVS Capital Ltd.), Srinivasan K Swamy (Chairman and Managing Director, RK Swamy BBDO), Ashu Suyash (CEO, L&T Mutual Fund), Adit Jain (Chairman, IMA Asia) and Swaminathan S Aiyar, Consulting Editor of The Economic Times.

GS Sundararajan, Wholetime Director, Shriram Capital Ltd., said, “This year, the jury has a good mix of corporate personalities and eminent media editors. We are striving to ensure that renowned editors act as mentors to financial and corporate journalists. Financial journalism in the country needs to evolve dynamically as India braces itself for higher goals with challenges therein. These Awards are a step towards inspiring financial journalists to achieve higher levels of professional excellence.”

Look up www.shriramawards.com for rules and nomination form. Entries need to be mailed to awards@shriram.com from official email IDs. The grand finale of the Awards Function will be held in April 2015.

(Featured image courtesy blog.meraevents.com)

‘Is this sex product Jain?’

That’s right. Indians are asking for some truly bizarre sex products and experimenting with the sexual experience like never before.

by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Indians are buying intimate products online, and the things they’re asking for sometimes border on the bizarre.

According to a report recently published by an Indian personal products website,ThatsPersonal.com, when it comes to buying sex products online, Indians are anything but shy. However, most women were seen to register purchases in their partners’ names, to maintain their privacy.

Said Samir Saraiya, CEO, ThatsPersonal.com, “We recently conducted a comprehensive quantitative survey on the buying behaviour for intimate products in India, after analysing our sales and website traffic for 18 months. This quirky and fun research is our way of giving society a good laugh. Talking about sex has been a taboo for quite some time in our country, however, people have shed their inhibitions and pre-conceived notions and are ready to explore and experiment.” He added that the site routinely gets some extremely unusual requests and queries about sexual wellness products. “There are queries about certain products being Jain or non-Jain. Then there are questions on how to ‘do it’ for the first time. However, we decided to respect our customers’ privacy and published only the figures for aggregate sales and traffic.”

According to their research, Western India clearly leads the way in buying pleasure products, as the region accounts for 36 per cent of their total sales vis-a-vis only 7 per cent from the Eastern part of the country. North India lags slightly behind at 21 per cent, whereas the South market comprises a large chunk of their market share accounting for 31 per cent of total sales. The research also threw some light on smaller cities, which provide a substantially higher basket value. Surprisingly, a Tier 2 city like Baroda was found to have the maximum women buyers.

Also, age-wise segregation showed that the age groups of 25 to 34 years were the most active buyers. Men were found to be higher spenders and surfers than women.

Lubes and condoms lead the sales, thus emphasising the safe sex message and India’s growing awareness about protected sex. Although the condom remains the most bought and trusted product, Indian men now want to experimenting with other fun stuff like handcuffs, edible lingerie, adult card games (very popular at bachelorette parties), edible body paint and the likes.

As per the research:

– Hyderabad men love to get their hands on handcuffs.

– Gujaratis buy a lot of fun, adult games

– Kerala buys more of latex free condoms.

– South Indian women are maximum buyers of delay gel.

– North Indian men buy a lot of edible lingerie.

(Pictures courtesy www.national-awareness-days.com, www.womendailymagazine.com)