Monday, September 30, 2019

Abortion Subject

The topic of women having abortions can be an intense subject. This subject has always been a debate because the people of society cannot agree on weather â€Å"abortions† are right or wrong. In this paper I will give multiple reasons why abortions should be legal for women to have. Abortions are legal and should remain legal because women should have the right to decide what happens with their bodies; some women that become pregnant are not ready emotionally or financially to be mothers; and abortions is the best answer for an unwanted pregnancy. It’s a woman choice I agree abortions should be legal because not all women can afford to take care of a child or give them the necessities they need. I also believe this choice should be up to women. This is the same with any medical procedure, if a person was to have a tumor while pregnant and it was life threatening, what you will choose to do save the baby or the woman. This is where abortions come in. People need not to look at this like a disease and start treating abortions like any other medical procedure. According to the Washington Post NBC/WSJ polls find that, on the 40 anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, 70 percent of Americans want the landmark abortions rights ruling to stay (Weiner, 2013). Indeed, as we learned from study there are more people who agree to keep this order in place for woman. This alone says it is a safe procedure if done right by experienced physician. Keeping abortions legal is the right choice because this is something that helps women have a choice on what to do with unwanted or unsafe pregnancies. While abortions can offer ways to help women with any kind of issues they may go through while pregnant, another important information women need to know is be safe and observe the physicians to ensure they are well qualified physicians. Pros of an abortion There are plenty of pros when it comes to this topic. Abortions are not as negative as everyone might want to think. Abortions are done in the case of women being raped; there are very few women that really want to keep their child in cases like this. Is abortion such a terrible thing in this situation? I do not think so. Doing research on this topic there are pros to legal abortions, study show A woman’s right to choose abortion is a fundamental right† recognized by the U. S Supreme Court. The landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade was decided on January 22, 1973, and remains the law of the land (ProCon. org, 2013). Certainly, there are people that do not agree with abortions and never will, but one person’s opinions should not affect other decisions. Although people say abortions are wrong and it’s killing another human being, it’s also important to remember why abortions are necessary. In cases abortions are not done for malicious intent, but in some cases they are done to save the life of women. Cons of abortions Where there are pros there are cons to any subject or topic. On the topic should abortions be legal, many say there are some cons that others do not believe. With this topic people will never be 100 percent comfortable. The only con I believe is getting the procedure done wrong by an unprofessional doctor that will lead to death and not by an experience doctor, nurse, or physicians to ensure your health. For example, study says† women should use contraceptives not abortion, to avoid unwanted pregnancies. A center for Disease Control and prevention study show that 19-25% of women who received abortions in 2006 had previously had one or more abortions. If abortions were not available, women would use preventable measures (ProCon. org, 2013). Having a negative attitude about abortions will lead to not looking at the positive sides of having a abortion. Seeing these kinds of negative impact puts a negative influence on others and confuses others about what is right for them and their body. After reading study, I have to say I disagree, just because woman have abortions and they are available does not mean all woman abuse the system. For example if a woman is raped she should have used protection to prevent her from getting pregnant. That does not make sense. Whose to say why women have abortions, society just follow the number of abortions and studies which can be misleading at times. What’s the risk of abortions? I personally believe in abortions but I also know there are health risks when having abortions. Currently in the United States over the years there have been a number of abortions happening. There is risk at everything we do, like including abortions. To avoid such risks according to study† currently in the United States, a patch work of state regulations determines who can provide abortions with several states specifically prohibiting non-physician clinicians from performing the procedure (News RX, 2013). Indeed, having educated nurses and other health physician handling patients that has had or is contemplating an abortion is the safest thing to do to ensure all women are cared for correctly while having this procedure. If people don’t take abortions seriously then people can have false information about this issue. This will lead to unsafe conditions do to abortions. Increasing the types of health care professionals who can provide early aspiration abortions care is one way to reduce this health care disparity (News RX, 3013). While there are risks to having an abortions the rate of abortions has fell 29% between 1990-2005 from 27. 4 to 19. 4 this is not counting the level cut from 2005-2008 (ProCon. org, 2013). With this being said the rate of abortions are continuing to fall which is a positive thing. Abortions help saves lives According to (Planned Parenthood) legal abortions protect women’s health. For tens of thousands of women with heart disease, kidney disease, severe hypertension, sickle cell anemia and severe diabetes, and other illnesses that can be life threathing, the availability of legal abortions has helped avert serious medical complications that would have resulted from childbirth (Planned Parenthood, 2006). Reasons why abortion should be legal If abortions were not legal, than women would have no options for an unwanted child. Let’s talk about unwanted children. For one every child wants to be wanted, and loved by someone. If women are forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, the outcome would be society has unloved, unwanted children having abandonments issues. This is another problem of its own. Again this is why I personally believe abortions should be legal. What abortion does is help some women who are not ready to be mothers financially and or emotionally. We all know that women have abortions for many different reasons even if society disagrees on this issue of abortion. Also abortions are a way to keep some of our children from having to grow up financially and emotionally deprived. Everyone looks at abortions as if it’s an easy task,† don’t want the child go have an abortions†. For some it’s not that easy and the reasoning behind having an abortion is not that easy either. It’s important not to judge someone for their actions and to not really know the reason as to why some women have made this choice. Reasons As I said before women have abortions for many different reasons. One may be because it wasn’t planned, â€Å"what some would call an accidental pregnancy†. Another reason could be in the case of rape. Majority of women would not want to be reminded of that kind of experience so abortion should be an option. Another reason is what if the baby had a birth defect that caused harm for the baby and the mother. Again abortion should be an option or even in the case of incest. I don’t think any women would want to keep a baby by someone from their own family they have known them their whole lives and that has raised them as a child. You have to be a very strong woman to go through these things, and there are plenty in our world. Having a child and being a parent are two different things if you look at it. Being a parent is someone who is going to guide you, nurture you, and loves you unconditionally, who provides and protects you. Now having a child any woman can do that. But for some they do not want or cannot do for their child/children. Having a child is a major responsibility financially, psychologically, and morally. Raising a child demands time, patients, effort, a sane mind and can’t forget money.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

Egyptian Art: Sakhmet

The archaeologist came to this conclusion based on hieroglyph samples at Gaza, which showed clear and deep cuts in diorite and granite. Sesames is an Egyptian, African sun goddess whose name meaner â€Å"The Powerful One†. Sesames reigned over Egypt from 1390- 1352 B. C. E. It's said she was known to have always been draped in red garments hence another one of her many nicknames was â€Å"Red Lady'. The symbolism of her red garments, were from the blood of her conquered enemies. Her name is derived from the Egyptian word â€Å"Seem† (which meaner â€Å"power† or â€Å"might†) and is often translated as the â€Å"Powerful One†.She is depicted as a lion-headed woman, sometimes with the addition of a sun disc on her head. Her seated statues show her holding the ankh of life, but when she is shown striding or standing she usually holds a scepter formed from papyrus (the symbol of northern or Lower Egypt) suggesting that she was associated primarily wit h the north. However, some scholars argue that the deity was introduced from Sudan (south of Egypt) where lions are more plentiful. It was said that her breath formed the desert. She was seen as the protector of the harass and led them in warfare.Sesames was associated with the goddesses given the title â€Å"Eye of Re† she wore a sun-disk and cobra on her brow, identifying her as the daughter of the sun god Re. According to myth, Ra became angry because mankind was not following his laws and preserving Matt Justice or balance). He decided to punish mankind by sending an aspect of his daughter, the â€Å"Eye of Ra†. He plucked Hath from Areas on his brow, and sent her to earth in the form of a lion. She became Scheme, the â€Å"Eye of Re† and began her rampage. The fields ran with human load. However, Re was not a cruel deity, and the sight of the carnage caused him to repent.He ordered her to stop, but she was in a blood lust and would not listen. So Re poured 7,000 Jugs of beer and pomegranate Juice (which stained the beer blood red) in her path. She gorged on the â€Å"blood† and became so drunk she slept for three days. When she awoke, her blood lust had dissipated, and humanity was saved. In another version of the myth, Path is the first thing she sees on awaking and she instantly fell in love with him. Their union (creation and destruction) created Unfetter (healing) and so re-established Matt. The saving of mankind was commemorated every year on the feast day of Hath/Scheme.Everyone drank beer stained with pomegranate Juice and worshipped â€Å"the Mistress and lady of the tomb, gracious one, destroyer of rebellion, mighty one of enchantments†. A statue of Scheme was dressed in red facing west, while Bass was dressed in green and faced east. Bass was sometimes considered to be Sesames ‘s counterpart (or twin depending on the legend), and in the festival of Hath they embodied the duality central to Egyptian mythol ogy. Scheme represented Upper Egypt while Bass represented Lower Egypt. In her role as the eye of Re, Sesames was dispatched abroad to destroy Egypt enemies.Sesames became angered when she discovered Re set another goddess in her place while she was away. The Eye refused to return and protect Egypt, until pacified by wine, music, and dance. The Egyptians explained the sun's annual motion toward the south and then back to Egypt as the Eye's departure and return. In other myth's, Re's Eye symbolized natural phenomena, such as the Niles flood and the Egyptian new year. Although Kismet's true form was believed to be hidden, this bust's lioness face refers to her power and fierce nature, which could either defend or destroy.The goddess's benevolence and protection were deemed particularly necessary at times of transition, such as the new day or year. Amputated Ill commissioned two or more Sesames statues for each day in the year, compelling the goddess's favor and protection. Many statue s of Sesames were found in the precinct of Mute Kara. Since Kismet's actions were primarily destructive while Mute represented protection, the two goddesses were sometimes insider as the positive and negative aspects of one deity.In conclusion, my trip to the Brooklyn Museum of art was not my first, nor will it be my last, but it was the most entertaining and informative trip. Next time I go I will definitely bring some friends along so they can enjoy the rich Egyptian culture as much as I did. This is a statue of Sesames. Medium: Grandiosity Place Found: Thebes, Egypt Dates: ca. 1390-1352 B. C. E. Dynasty: XVIII Dynasty Period: New Kingdom Dimensions: 39 x 19 7/8 x 15 9/16 TN. (99 x 50. 5 x 39. 5 CM)

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Now...This by Neil Postman Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Now...This by Neil Postman - Article Example The understanding is also tolerated. There is no destruction so cruel, no tremor so ravaging, no political error so high-priced--for that matter, no ball score so provoking or weather description so threatening--that it cannot be erased from minds by a newscaster saying, "Now . . . This."Â  (Postman) What the newscasters purport is the previous matters have been thought about for a long time. Therefore, it is necessary for alteration of the scene and perception of the viewers. This can be done by changing what preoccupies the mind with a new idea or news fragment. This is done in the mentality of commercialization in terms of promotion and marketing to meet the current demands by the community. This process of thought does not take more than an hour in psychological mind. Television and radio are mediums that are used by a discrete event in every halt an hour to disseminate separate contents. The contents may have separate contexts and emotional characteristic structure from the follows and precedes it. Because the media promotion takes place in minutes and seconds, maybe because the audience can be manipulated through the communication platform of imagery and words, the structuring of programs is done in a way that each segment of 8 minutes’ ability to stand as a separate complete event. (Stewart) News in the television is merely entertainment. It is engulfed with a cast of actors who are admirable and credible. Analytically, the Television news anchors are mostly women of the age gap from 20 to 45 and are exceptionally beautiful. It also includes men who are handsome, who are not bald, fat, have neither long noses nor closed eyes. In the definition of truth, the ultimate propositional test of the teller determines the television’s credibility. This means that if the society trusts in the teller then what he or she says is classified as the truth. In other words, the truth

Friday, September 27, 2019

Nuclear proliferation in North Korea Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Nuclear proliferation in North Korea - Essay Example In assessing the constitutionality of North Korea’s nuclear schedule and possible US reactions, below are the several universally identified origins of international statute that may have application: International conventions, whether universal or specific, developing policies clearly distinguished through the disputing governments International custom, as proof of a universal exercise allowed as statute The collective conventions of statute identified through civilized countries Subject to the requirements of Article 59, court conclusions and the philosophies of the majority of the greatly eligible publicists of the different countries, as supplementary ways for establishment of policies of statute. International conventions An example of a convention that applies particularly to nuclear weapons is the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). North Korea became a party to the NPT in 1985 and departed during January 2003. NPT Articles 2, 3, and 10 have in total possibly had infringeme nt through North Korea. Article 2 requires: Each government, which is a member of the NPT, agrees not to collect any load from any of nuclear weapons or supplementary weapons. ... North Korean item for more enhancing uranium, a North Korean official accepted that North Korea â€Å"had remained following the establishment of nuclear weapons by the method of more uranium enhancement†. Despite North Korea finally attempting to deny this acceptance, the international society greatly overlooked these protective arguments and established the proof versus North Korea to be enough (Beres, 1994). To carry out deeds of nuclear terrorism, insurgent or revolutionary teams could need view to nuclear weapons, nuclear supremacy plants, or nuclear dissipate storeroom items. More proof of North Korea’s infringement of the NPT’s veto on producing nuclear weapons emerged in 2006 when, â€Å"North Korea carried out a secretive nuclear blast in the neighborhood of P’unggye†. This assessment heavily proposes that North Korea infringed the NPT’s veto on producing nuclear weapons whereas yet a member to the agreement since the assessment blas t illustrated that an enhancement schedule should have had progress for a long duration. North Korea has in addition possibly infringed Article 3 contained in the NPT. The Law of the IEAE â€Å"provides technological and monetary aid in the establishment of nuclear capacities for non-stipulated aims to Party Governments†. Moreover, the IAEA carries out examinations of Party Governments nuclear items to make sure that such items have no application for armed forces functions. No matter a government not remaining a member to the IEAE Law, the NPT orders that every member complete a protections treaty with the â€Å"IAEA†. In agreement with its duties found in Article 3, North Korea joined into the Protections Treaty with the IAEA on January 1992. Following the Protections Treaty, if North Korea always prevented examiners access

Thursday, September 26, 2019

ESL Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

ESL - Essay Example Each level of learning would have a different level of discovery that they need to make. At the end of the fifteen minute period, each student would need to state in English what they learned about their conversation partner. The sample demographic that is used for this assignment is adult students in a classroom environment when the school is in their own home nation. The ages of the students range from 21 to 38. The students are divided into the three groups, beginner, intermediate, and advanced so that they can communicate at the level they have attained or are in which they are working. Through creating partnered conversation, the students can achieve participation and interaction so that they can gain confidence and begin to develop communications strategies. This will give them more confidence in their ability to communicate in the English language. The goal for all three groups is to work towards fluency. One of the best ways in which to teach speaking skills is to have studen ts speak to one another in the classroom. The time frame should be fifteen minutes of conversation for all three groups. The beginning group will use phrases that are short. These phrases may contain only three to five works but can be used to develop a conversation. The instructions for beginners will be to greet one another and introduce themselves. They should talk about their family, give the time, and talk about how they are feeling. They should be instructed to thank each other at the end of the conversation. The intermediate conversation should be conversations in which they ask for details about ideas, they give opinions, and they begin to work with agreeing and disagreeing. The advanced students should be paraphrasing what each other has said during the course of the conversation. One learner will make a comment on a topic after which the second learner must first paraphrase the comment of the first learner, and then contribute their own opinion. In a class with multiple ad vancement levels, the best way in which to teach the subject is to have one activity, such as a conversation between paired students, which has different instructions for each level in the classroom. This way there is group experience even when the students do not all have the same level of education on a subject. The following table shows how the instruction lesson would be broken down. Beginner Intermediate Advanced Phrases 3 to 5 word phrases Full sentences Paraphrases of the partner’s opinions. Information Name, age and something they like. Details about their family and work life. Opinions about the world. Identify Problems Is pronunciation correct? Is sentence structure correct? Are the ideas developed? Assignment Two: The students in this classroom are learning from within their own nation and are adult learners. They have three levels of skill within the one classroom: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. The ages of the students range from 21 to 38. The lesson that will help them to learn to listen would first include a film. The film would be in English and would have a variety of information in it that the students could learn. Before the class session would start, the film would be playing as the students come into the classroom. An example of a film that might work is the BBC documentary, Technology of the Future (Prabh Stories 2013). This film has English spoken in American style, but in relatively

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Archeology and History of the People Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Archeology and History of the People - Essay Example provides data and evidence that gives a unique perspective on history of human culture and other aspects, which has greatly contributed to a clear understanding of recent and ancient past. Archeology not only explores when and where humans lived, but also how and why they lived, which involves examination of cultures overtime through changes and patterns from when and how people came to inhabit a particular place, for instance, America. Archeology also explores and reveals information about origins of complex societies and other activities such as agriculture (Orser 102). History primarily relies on written documents and records to interpret great events, lives, which do not provide exclusive and conclusive information about history and culture of a people. On the other hand, archeology allows people to delve way back into the period before existence of written languages, and have a glimpse of everyday lives of these people through analysis of the tools they made and things they left behind. Similarly, archeology helps in understanding regions inhabited by people because it covers geographical regions, as well as all times periods. For example, through archeology, people have been able to understand the history and concepts of important topics such as Egyptian religion, colonial events in Jamestown Virginia, origins of agriculture in Near East, lives of Africans enslaved in North America, early Mediterranean trade routes and so on. Moreover archeology informs people about lives of families, individuals and even communities which would otherwise remain invisible to the current generation. Historical archeology, for instance, explores cultures that existed thousands of years ago or a period of recorded history in Old World, as well as a number of years ago in the... The paper explains the importance of this science. As the primary source of information of men's cultural evolution for long periods in the prehistoric times, archeology provides sustained efforts that has enabled tracing of man’s antiquity on the planet several years ago. This is achieved by the systematic study of fossils and tools embedded in terraces; through which humans can be able to learn the nature of mans implement of offence and defence, habitat, way of life and tool techniques. As such, archeology has achieved reconstruction of the Stone Age man’s environment, and also his adaptations and responses to the climate. For example, archeology has achieved reconstruction of proto-historic cultures of India, pushing back Indian Civilization from the Vedic period to about 3000B. Archeology not only provides primary source of the information on historical cultures of people, but also the supplementary source of the information. Evidently, it fills the gaps created by uncertainty found in the written documents and records about the historical period. For example, it provides valuable information about Ikshvaku dynasty, which had scrappy information before archeology came in. Likewise, archeology has revealed more information through excavations at Satanikota, Vijayapuri and Kaveripattanam, which show trade contacts with Romans during the early periods of Christian era.

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Country Exploration (5 of 5) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Country Exploration (5 of 5) - Essay Example Thus, refinement of commodities makes an economy enter and survive into the international market. Hence, the simplest way of measuring the value of a product is the demand of that commodity. The same is the case with measuring the value of entering the international market. Entering into an international market gives the commodity an introduction with global perspective, where the exporters and importers belonging to the pole apart regions as well as divergent communities, races, religions and ethnic groups exchange their views regarding different products and the producers get an opportunity of highlighting the merits of their commodities on the one hand, and improving their quality to bringing them at international standards on the other. This is also applied on the growing economy of the world i.e. India. The Indians have command over selling their commodities in an extremely distinguished manner. It is also a fact beyond suspicion that India sometimes imports products from other countries, but presents these products as her own at international level. For example, Gujranwala city of Pakistan produces the best of the best rice, which has no match all over the world, but Pakistan does not know how to sell it at international market. So, Pakistan sell s rice to her neighbor country i.e. India, and India presents the same rice as her own product in a very sophisticated manner, and earns a lot out of it. Not only this that India earns financial gains, but also wins applause from all corners because of her splendid presentation. Hence, entering into international market helps India enter into more and more new contracts with other importers and businessmen of the world. Consequently, India finds magnificent economic gains while entering the international market. Thus, the best methodology of measuring the value of entering of an economy into an international market is the growth in the export volume and number of the

Monday, September 23, 2019

Create or use an existing company Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Create or use an existing company - Term Paper Example There are some main factors that company has to deal with. As most of the soft-drink and beer bottles are liable for reuse and recycling, company gets some of its raw material from defected and used bottles that are supplied back by the beer companies. However, a number of bottles do not reverse and company has to involve glass as the raw material of new bottles. There had been a stagnant increase in the market since last three years which provides and estimation for supposed upcoming market demands. In light of those factors company has to keep a safe number of bottles that can be supplied urgently when required by buyers. On the other hand, a large number of bottles made in advance can create a burden over company’s investing strength. That would also create a lack of fluency in company’s cycle of work. Thus, company has to involve a concrete Inventory management that keeps the overall demand and supply chain in a safe and trustworthy position to provide continuous pr ofit to Volga Glasses. The supply chain and IT Factors Obviously, the purpose of Volga Glasses’ is to enhance and manage its supply chain to perform with a perfect smoothness that does not shake even in the conditions of an urgent tide in market situations. Company uses elegant IT techniques to manage that smoothness. Chiefly the bills are collected as electronic data providing an exact record of supply over a particular period. While mostly a supply chain is maintained over longer period like a year or six months, Volga Glasses is bound to use three month estimation because of the nature of its assets and frequently wavering requirements. Three years ago company has ordered a software organization to design software for their inventory management. The software had produced good results while it had been quite dependent of human inputs and mandatory analysis by the supervisors of Volga Glasses. This software ‘Smart-Task’ bases its strategy in collecting the suppl y data and comparing the overall cost of raw materials added with the labor and mechanical expenses. Over the time it also manifests the comparative graphs of market tides during various supply chain periods. Company manages to base its strategies in short term chains such as three months as well as yearly managements of supply chains. During last years it had come out that Smart-Task has been accurate and efficient in processing the data to manifest a scenario of the market. However, during the recent immediate ups and downs of market the estimations of Smart-task have failed when external situations like a temporary recession had stricken the market of soft drinks. Therefore an analysis of Company’s requirement and reliability of IT over numerous patterns of system of research is mandatory. Synchronization of IT and HR Out of the data processing methodology of Smart-Task, it has come out that it depends solely on human inputs which provide a base for calculations and estima tions. Company’s HR department is responsible for providing the supposed information for future uplifts and lowering of market because Smart-Task puts the data in various graphs that ease the methods of comparisons provide a manifestation of supply chain. The requirement of advance inventory is calculated on a

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Critically discuss the view that anti-globalisation arguments Essay - 8

Critically discuss the view that anti-globalisation arguments seriously undervalue the benefits that globalisation has delivered for all countries 02084 - Essay Example This stimulates an even platform for all countries in their endeavours to import or export products to or from other countries. The policy allows sharing of trade and imports or exports without extra cost, i.e., there is reduced cost in terms of trading items between countries (George & Wilding 2002). This policy of globalization enhances relationship and understanding amongst countries globally. In addition, it has created an opportunity for the formation of formal and informal international institution such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund, etc. These have played a significant role in ensuring that there is equitable distribution of resources across the world. Therefore, developed countries are now taken into consideration in the global platform. This has played reduced poverty levels in the world and improved the employment rates. A very good example is the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the European Union. These two represent good examples of free trade and the p ath towards globalization. Currently, the world has experienced a lot of transformation as a result of globalization. The communication infrastructure has improved tremendously. Some of the remarkable changes in communication sector are the entry of internet and social media in the world. In addition, there is a great development of telecommunication sector in the world. People are now able to communicate with others who are located in different parts of the world. This factor has had a great transformation in the business sector. Entry of internet in the world has open up a platform for business to interact and market its products at very low costs (Germain 2000). The businesses are now able to get feedback from their clients an aspect that is enabling them to produce goods with features that are demanded in the market. This has played a crucial role in reducing loses that were incurred due to changes in consumption behaviours.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Earle Spencer Eulogy Essay Example for Free

Earle Spencer Eulogy Essay I stand before you today, the representative of a family in grief, in a country in mourning before a world in shock. We are all united not only in our desire to pay our respects to Diana but rather in our need to do so. For such was her extraordinary appeal that the tens of millions of people taking part in this service all over the world via television and radio who never actually met her, feel that they, too, lost someone close to them in the early hours of Sunday morning. It is a more remarkable tribute to Diana than I can ever hope to offer her today. Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity, a standard-bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who who transcended nationality, someone with a natural nobility who was classless, and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic. Today is our chance to say thank you for the way you brightened our lives, even though God granted you but half a life. We will all feel cheated, always, that you were taken from us so young and yet we must learn to be grateful that you came along at all. Only now you are gone do we truly appreciate what we are now without and we want you to know that life without you is very, very difficult. We have all despaired at our loss over the past week and only the strength of the message you gave us through your years of giving has afforded us the strength to move forward. There is a temptation to rush to canonize your memory. There is no need to do so. You stand tall enough as a human being of unique qualities not to need to be seen as a saint. Indeed to sanctify your memory would be to miss out on the very core of your being, your wonderfully mischievous sense of humor with a laugh that bent you double, your joy for life transmitted wherever you took your smile, and the sparkle in those u nforgettable eyes, your boundless energy which you could barely contain. But your greatest gift was your intuition, and it was a gift you used wisely. This is what underpinned all your other wonderful attributes. And if we look to analyze what it was about you that had such a wide appeal, we find it in your instinctive feel for what was really important in all our lives. Without your God-given sensitivity, we would be immersed in greater ignorance at the anguish of AIDS and HIV sufferers, the plight of the homeless, the isolation of lepers, the random destruction of land mines. Diana explained to me once that it was her innermost feelings of  suffering that made it possible for her to connect with her constituency of the rejected. And here we come to another truth about her. For all the status, the glamour, the applause, Diana remained throughout a very insecure person at heart, almost childlike in her desire to do good for others so she could release herself from deep feelings of unworthiness of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom. The world sensed this part of her character and cherished her for her vulnerability, whilst admiring her for her honesty. The last time I saw Diana was on July the first, her birthday, in London, when typically she was not taking time to celebrate her special day with friends but was guest of honor at a fund-raising charity evening. She sparkled of course, but I would rather cherish the days I spent with her in March when she came to visit me and my children in our home in South Africa. I am proud of the fact that apart from when she was on public display meeting President Mandela, we managed to contrive to stop the ever-present paparazzi from getting a single picture of her. That meant a lot to her. These were days I will always treasure. It was as if we had been transported back to our childhood, when we spent such an enormous amount of time together, the two youngest in the family. Fundamentally she hadnt changed at all from the big sister who mothered me as a baby, fought with me at school, and endured those long train journeys between our parents homes with me at weekends. It is a tribute to her level-headedness and strength that despite the most bizarre life imaginable after her childhood, she remained intact, true to herself. There is no doubt that she was looking for a new direction in her life at this time. She talked endlessly of getting away from England, mainly because of the treatment that she received at the hands of the newspapers. I dont think she ever understood why her genuinely good intentions were sneered at by the media, why there appeared to be a permanent quest on their behalf to bring her down. It is baffling. My own, and only, explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this: a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age. She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys, William and Harry, from a similar fate. And I do this here, Diana, on your behalf. We will not allow them to  suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair. And beyond that, on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men, so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition but can sing openly as you planned. We fully respect the heritage into which they have both been born, and will always respect and encourage them in their royal role. But we, like you, recognize the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible, to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead. I know you would have expected nothing less from us. William and Harry, we all care desperately for you today. We are all chewed up with sadness at the loss of a woman who wasnt even our mother. How great your suffering is we cannot even imagine. I would like to end by thanking God for the small mercies Hes shown us at this dreadful time; for taking Diana at her most beautiful and radiant and when she had joy in her private life. Above all, we give thanks for the life of a woman Im so proud to be able to call my sister: the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana, whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds.

Friday, September 20, 2019

Innocents Market Entry In Spain

Innocents Market Entry In Spain Introduction To evaluate the possibility of a market entry in Spain, a brief analysis concerning the company and the market will be conducted in this report. Chapter 1: Profile of the innocent company The large-scale company Innocent Ltd was founded by three friends in London in 1999, where it also has its headquarter and today employees about 275 people (Datamonitor 2009). Before they could start their business they had to find and investor, which was very difficult, as they wanted to go on a competitive market, the big drink and food industry. (Germain Reed p. 48 2009) The UK juice market is dominated by Pepsico owned Tropicana and Copella which is the parent company of the PJ smoothie brand. (Germain Reed p. 111 2009) The product range consists of â€Å"smoothies, smoothies for kids, superfruit smoothies, thickies† followed by â€Å"orange juice† and â€Å"veg pots† in 2008 and extended by â€Å"pure fruit squeezies† for kids in 2009 and a recipe book is available. (innocent 2009) The company has a strong brand image standing for natural, healthy and tasty products. They describe their main values as follows: â€Å"Natural, entrepreneurial, responsible, commercial and generous.† (p. 79) Thereby they created a USP by using only natural ingredients and this leads to a competitive advantage against their major competitors â€Å"Merrydown Plc., Kallo Foods Ltd., Princes Limited, SHS Group Ltd. and Britvic Plc.†(Datamonitor 2009) Innocent can be associated with a social and environmental responsible business, which can be seen in a large number of charity and environmental projects. In general a minimum of 10 % is given to Charity each year (Germain Reed p. 83 2009). Through developed communities on facebook, twitter und youtube Innocent is in a continuous informal dialog with their customers. The multilingual webpage provides consumers with detailed information about Innocent, their operations and an advisor page about healthy eating. (innocent 2009) In contrast innocents deal with Mc Donalds to sell the kids smoothies aroused discussions concerning the brand image. It was found that innocent had put sugar in their Juicy Water in 2007. (Daily Telegraph, 2007) There had been some controversial discussions about the production of smoothies, if they are really fresh and natural when the fruit and ingredients travel on a long way. (Donoghue, 2008) In the first three years sales increased from 2 to 16 million euro. S. 64 the predicted turnover will be between 105 and 110 million pounds in 2009. (Tryhorn Sweney 2009) Innocent is the market leader in its product segment in Europe (Daniel 2009) which serves a niche market and has an 82% market share in the UK. (IRI Infoscan 2009) In general the market decreases but in 2009 Innocents sales increased again, e.g. due to the new product vegetable potsâ€Å". (Sibun 2009) Markets Currently the company operates in the European market in 13 countries. Innocent launched its smoothies at first in the UK and then in Ireland, which was a logical step, as the market provided the lowest risk because of similar conditions. Today Ireland is innocents second largest market. (Germain Reed 2009) Innocent incrementally entered the following markets: Germany, Sweden, Northern Ireland, Finland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and Denmark. (Germain Reed, p. 64, 2009) Channels The company concentrates on its core competences are RD and Marketing, such as creating new recipes and their knowledge about fruit in general and creating a brand image. All the manufacturing parts of the business are outsourced to their partners, which saves them a lot of money, because they do not need to invest in technical equipment for the production process. (Germain Reed, p. 58, 2009) Moreover they have subsidiaries in Ireland, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany. (Reed, 2007) Innocent has distribution partners selling their products to over 10,000 retailers. (innocent 2009) In the UK the innocent products are available in all Sainsburys, Waitrose, Somerfield supermarkets and in some branches of Morrisons, Budgens, Tesco, Safeway and Asda. Furthermore the products are available in chains such as Starbucks, Bagel Factory, Boots, Booths, Road Chef, Welcome Break, Moto, EAT, OBriens and in â€Å"independent sandwhich shops, delis, health food places and the odd meditation centre.† (innocent 2009) Furthermore premium food outlets and food halls of well known department stores should underline their image of quality food. (Germain Reeds, p.122, 2009) The latest discussion this year was the investment of Coca-Cola as a minority stakeholder with 10 20 % for 30 million pounds. It seems to be a common issue for niche companies that they need more capital to grow but at the same time need to convince people that they are still the same company with the same values. Innocent published a statement on their website. They will use the capital to invest in their European expansion. (Thryhorn Sweney 2009) Chapter 2: Analysis of the Spanish market For the assessment of the Spanish market potential for innocent smoothies it is necessary to carry out a market analysis which can be done by following the 12 C framework and Porters five forces. First of all general information about the country and a focus on the macro environmental factors is needed to get an overview about the political, economic, socio cultural, legal regulatory and technological forces a company might have to deal with in that market. Country: The Kingdom of Spain has a population of 40 million inhabitants that live in a country of 499,542 km ². (p. 10) Political forces: Spain is a member of the EU which has a close integration with other members and profits from EU economic supports that helped the nation for a better standard of living. (Country Report, p. 3) Spain has a parliament monarchy (p. 36) which is ruled by a government with a thin majority at the moment and is therefore dependent of regional parties such as the Catalan and Basque to precede new legislations. This has a negative effect on the promptness of economic processes (p. 14) The federal structure with its regional units autonomy faces difficulties with Basque and Catalonia which fight for independence and that represents a risk of political instability (p. 15) Economic forces: As every country, Spain has to deal with recession and the GDP growth is expected to be negative with 2% (p. 49) Furthermore this country has the biggest drop of all developed nations to 1.8 % in annual economic growth in 2009 (p. 17) Since 2008 the major challenges the country has to deal with are falling inflation and the level of unemployment which is very high and might increase further. (p. 17) Weak domestic demand is also a result of the crisis (p. 2) But the financial system itself is well-developed and integrated into international financial markets. Normally the Spanish banks stand for a high standard of solvency. (p. 3) Along to lines of the EU recovery plan, Spain has implemented some activities such as tax cuts and investment projects to stimulate the economy (p. 54) as well as a fiscal stimulus package that should help increasing investments. (p. 3) In general the economic crises with all its effects leads to an economic slowdown and a long-lasting recov ery period. (p. 16) Social cultural forces: The official language is Spanish, but in certain regions the people speak Catalan, Basque and Galician. The main religion is Roman Catholic which a company should keep in mind when creating advertisement. (p. 10) Spain has to face the problem of an aging population and unemployment which increases an inequality in income and causes social tension as well as the increasing immigration in Spain. (p. 4) The income differs as well between the different regions. (p. 22) The tertiary education grows which could provide the opportunities for companies to get well educated people in that country. (p. 3) Most of the population that means around 78 % of the people live in urban areas around the big cities and many of them around the capital Madrid. (p. 65) Legal regulatory forces: Improvement of legal climate was made by the Spanish government with several reforms such as reduction in tax rates and foreign investment regulations are simplified. (p. 80) Government has an important role in wage fixation (p. 2) which could be important to know if companies develop a subsidiary in Spain. In general the intervention of the government in the market is a challenge. (p. 27) Because the legal Spanish rules and trade regulations are adapted to EU standards business across borders should be easier now. (p. 80) Spain has a high economic freedom score and is on 16th place among 43 countries. Property rights, business, trade, financial and investment freedom are very strong. In contrast to that it is weak in government size, labour and fiscal freedom. (p. 83) Technological forces: Weak input form venture capitalists and private sector causes a lack of entrepreneurship and innovation. (p. 23) Compared to other EU members Spain has been not so quick in adopting technological advancements, but there are things done to change it. (p.71) For example the communication and information segment grew fast in 2002-2006 (p. 73) The environmental policies were created by following EU guidelines (p. 4) and different measures are or will be implemented to reduce impact on climate change (p. 8) Impact of hot climate and a possible gap in water supply may influence some companys production process. (p. 88) (Datamonitor Country Analysis Report Spain, April 2009) Market-specific analysis The juice market includes products from concentrate and not concentrated juice as well as fruit and vegetable drinks and nectars. (Juice Report, p. 7) Market potential: The market value for beverages constantly increases in Spain and has an overall growth of 49% from 1999 2012. (Datamonitor table 2009) The beverage industry can be divided in different categories. The smoothies belong to the soft drinks under non-alcoholic beverages. In comparison to the other non-alcoholic beverages smoothies have the highest market value growth in Europe from 1999 2012 with 458 %. (Datamonitor table 2009) To evaluate the market potential for innocent smoothies in Spain it would be necessary to gather more concrete data. Market size: Spain has a population of 40 million people (Country Report, p. 10) Fruit drinks from juice/concentrate have the highest market share with 36.3 % by value in Spain. 100 % fruit juice that means not from concentrate has a market share of 16.6 % by value in 2008 and the vegetable juice 21%. (Juice Report, p11) Hence there is a market for innocents smoothies but as in other countries it is only a niche market. Market growth: In 2008 the total revenue was $ 2.4 billion, that means an annually grow with a rate of 2.2 % in the period of 2004-2008 and it is expected to reach $ 2.7 million by the end of 2013. (Juice report, p. 7) Profit potential: Until 2013 the market volume is expected to grow with a rate of 2.8% annually. The market volume is expected to increase with 14.8 %. (Juice Report,p.29) The market value is predicted to grow until 2013 with a rate of 2,5 %. (Juice Report, p. 28 ) Indirect competitors: In the beverage industry, especially non-alcoholic drinks, softdrinks: concentrates, functional drinks, juices, bottled water, carbonates, tea, coffee, hot drinks, baby drinks are indirect competitors. (Datamonitor table 2009) Concentration: The Spanish drink retail market is less concentrated in comparison to other countries in the EU. (Juice Report, p. 15) It is necessary to find a statistic where the spread and number of different supermarkets or chains can be seen all over Spain, to decide which retailer could be the most effective for innocent. Therefore it is also important to keep in mind that most of the population lives in urban areas around the big cities. Culture/consumer behaviour: Spain is a typical Mediterranean country with different cultural groupings. (see socio cultural forces) How the Spanish people decide for products and what has the major influence on their purchasing behaviour should be analysed in more detail with a closer look on their lifestyle. In general it is known that they live how it comes and are more spontaneous. But one of the purchasing influences could be that the income between regions and people is really different. (Country report, p.22) Choices: If innocent should launch there products on that market requires a deeper analysis of the companys possible strengths and weaknesses in the Spanish market. As well as on the other European markets. innocent has a niche product and has to compete against global big players in the beverage industry. Their strength is the natural product with environmental and social business ethics. The analysis of suppliers is also necessary. The supplier power is not that strong because numerous operate as small companies. The fruit and vegetable growers sell to with the help of wholesalers or directly to manufacturers. (Juice Report p. 16) For innocent it could be possible to order their fruits from Spanish fruit suppliers which could also help them with their image that they support local companies in their supply chain. Competitors on the Spanish juice market are Juver Alimentacion, S.A. with a 13.3 % market share by volume, followed by PepsiCo, Inc. with a market share of 6.3 % and J. Garcia Carrion with 5.6 %. (Juice Report, p. 13) Juver Alimentaction S.L.U company has a wide range of brands and operates mainly in the Spanish market and also exclusive in restaurants. (p.20) PepsiCo, Inc. is a global player with a wide range of brands and products in the food and beverage industry. (p. 23) J Garcia Carrion produces wine, fruit juice and soft drinks operates primarily in Spain. (p. 26) Other beverage products are indirect competitors which the company has to keep in mind. New entrants is possible as well through product diversification of an operating company in this market or for example a foreign companies export products which would be innocent (Juice report p.17) How much of the Spanish juice market is from imported products and how open the consumer is to non national product needs to be find out. Consumption: Demand for juice can be found in Spain as mentioned before, the market share and value of juice is increasing. A deeper end use analysis should be made by the innocent company for their smoothies. A threat of substitutes such as other non-alcoholic drinks as mentioned before can be found on the Spanish market because switching cost would be relatively low for retailers and consumers. (Juice Report p.18) Contractual obligation: Spain is a member of the EU and therefore business practice, ways of insurance and legal obligations should be similar to the other countries innocent already operates in. (See legal + economic forces) For specific matters the company should cooperate maybe with lawyers or business people in that country. Commitments: To extend their products to the Spanish market innocent has the advantage that Spain is a country of the European Union. Trade incentives and barriers should be moderate. But as stated in the Country Report on p. 17 the EU has comparatively high import tarrifs for fruit juice which could make retailers not import juice from foreign countries. Channels: The market access would be in geographical term easy to proceed. Spain has a well developed infrastructure with ports, airports and one of the best railway systems in Western Europe (Country Report p. 24) Innocent could use most of their current supply chain which would save them time and money. The distribution system in the Spanish juice market is dominated by on-trade with 27.9 % followed by independent retailers 25.2%, supermarkets/hypermarkets 24.9 % and 22% others. (Juice Report p. 27) Communication: Media infrastructure as stated in technological forces is growing and available to reach the target group. Marketing in collaboration with retailers and on TV might be the most effective way to reach the target group. In the big cities big adverts might be also a good solution. It would be good to do further evaluation of the costs of the different modes and how often people watch TV or which media such as newspaper, internet and mobiles they use in which way. This also should include how and through which channels the Spanish people do their shopping. Innocent could also use their company cars for promotion tours. Capacity to pay: As found out in the economic forces the unemployment is high and income divers among the people and between the regions, so that it is reasonably that the capacity to pay is very different across the Spanish country and probably higher in big cities. The price level is 10 % lower than the EU average. (eurostat, p. 4)To find out more about the culture of pricing and trends, how insurance terms work and what common conditions of payment are in Spain, a more specific analysis is needed. The ECB controls the fiscal policy in Spain because it is a member of the EU. Price stability is a main intention of the central bank in Spain. (Country Report p. 59) Insurance regulator, to prevent unhealthy practice Currency: As all the other countries that innocent operates in Spain has the Euro currency as well. The Euro is at the moment a stronger currency in comparison to UKs sterling. Exchange controls nearly do not exist anymore (Country Report p.80) and restrictions are widened and adapted to EU standards. (see legal forces) Caveats: Innocent should be aware of the fact that Basque and Islamic terrorist groups have a presences in the country which might be a risk. (Country Report, p. 3) Porters five forces: new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers and buyers the threat of substitutes and the market competitors with their intensity of rivalry (Hollensen p.) are seen as moderate in the juice market in Spain (Juice Report p.15) and are included in the 12 C analysis. Some of the large chains and buying groups boost buyer power. (Juice Report p. 15) Rivalry is weakened because the 3 competitors mentioned earlier are operating in more than one segment. (Juice Report p. 19) Chapter 3 Challenges The principal challenge of the Spanish market is first of all that there are already many companies on the juice market. Innocent offers only a niche product with a relatively high price which could be difficult as a high unemployment rate and an unequal income is characteristically for the country. Furthermore the potential consumers are spread in the country side and in contrast to that a bigger concentration with people live around the big cities. Product: Innocent should think about if they have to adapt their products. It may be that the Spanish people have a different taste. The product labels need to be in Spanish. It might be that people from Catalan and Basque do not buy the smoothies because they are not in their language. The Spanish people might be not open to fruit products from the UK, as they have their own fresh fruits in the country. Promotion: Cultural difference should be taken into account when innocent creates their advertisement. Most of the Spanish population is Roman catholic. All the materials have to be in Spanish so that the people can understand them. To promote the product on this new market innocent will need to invest a lot of time and money to achieve a certain degree of brand awareness and a positive customer perception. Therefore they should first concentrate on regional advertisement and later on national advertisement. Price: They have to explain their premium price to the Spanish consumers and therefore need to create a perception by the consumer that they will benefit from this product. If they want to have a chance it this market they might have to adapt their price to common prices in the Spanish juice market. Place: Innocent has to find distributors that can supply their products to the target group. In every country innocent uses retailers and supermarket chains in the respective country. It will be a challenge for innocent to get stocked with Spanish retailers, as they need those who have a wide spread over the country and a good reputation. The space is rare on the supermarket shelves and they will need a good strategy to convince the retailers to exchange products with those from innocent. Furthermore innocent needs to find such retailers or stores that match to there brand image. When they get contracts with Spanish retailers they might also loose a certain control over the supply chain of their products. Chapter 4 Market entry modes For the first two years it is recommendable that innocent uses export modes as a market entry model. At the beginning the risk is higher that the Spanish people will not accept the smoothies. Export modes are less cost intensive and therefore present a lower risk for the innocent company. For a direct export mode the innocent company needs to build up contacts with distributors or agents in the Spanish market. In the beginning they should mainly concentrate on big cities such as Barcelona and Madrid and the urban areas around these big cities. High end supermarket chains which need to be researched in detail by innocent are most suitable for their brand image. How to go into markets? tried different versions franchise brand, joint ventures? Having team in the country, mix of know hoc innocent and local Try to get in the best outlets PR- vans out on the road Word of mouth When certain distribution level reached, regional advertising, national advertising campaign hotels Trade regulations most of the products import from EU countries without duty or not much depends on product.t preferential tariffs and EU trade barriers are also applied p. 82 â€Å"Spanish law permits foreign investment of up to 100 % of equity, capital movements liberalized, â€Å"authority of Spanish competition commission widened to make enforcement more effective p. 4 Bibliography Dan Germain, Richard Reed Innocent our story some things weve learned. 2009 London, Penguin Books Donoghue, A. (2008) Innocent Smoothiess green claims go pear-shaped. Business Green, 8 August. Sibun, J. (2009) Tough time for smoothie maker Innocent. Daily Telegraph, 8 November. (2007) Innocent has lost its innocence. Daily Telegraph, 20 May

Thursday, September 19, 2019

In act four of The Crucible, Arthur miller shows the varying views of :: Essay on The Crucible

In act four of The Crucible, Arthur miller shows the varying views of justice of the characters How does Arthur Miller use a range of dramatic techniques in Act 4 to conclude his exploration of the theme of justice? In act four of ‘‘The Crucible’’, Arthur Miller shows a turning point for some of the characters and that they have an unfair and incorrect viewpoint of justice. In order to understand this, we need to look at how harshly John Proctor comes about to be judged by his wife and himself. Another key idea to explore is how Judge Danforth does not seem very fair in making judgements, as he believes he is honest and scrupulous whereas he is a strong believer of theocracy and his view of justice is warped. Another of the writer’s concerns is how a society ensures justice and fairness when it believes that its fundamental beliefs are under attack. John Proctor is at first one of the only characters in Salem who sees the injustices of the court. Due to his ethical and moral beliefs, he believes that by the end, the right thing will come about and justice will be served. Proctor is able to see that Abigail is using her authority to get rid of Elizabeth so she can take her place as his wife. "I'll not give my wife to vengeance." By saving his wife and friends, he himself ends up condemned. He does the right thing and dies for it, and once again, the court failed to recognise the truth because they were relying on their rulings of intangible evidence. By the end, Proctor seems purified as he does what is good even if it is going to kill him. In the film version, an extra scene shows Abigail talking to Proctor while he is imprisoned where she asks him to run away with her. However, by this time it is apparent that his feelings for her have changed and blue lights show this coldness. It becomes obvious that by this time he does not care about Abigail and even hates her. Furthermore, Proctor seems to take on the role of Jesus as he was persecuted and executed in similar ways to him. In addition, just before Proctor was hanged, Elizabeth said to him â€Å"You take my sins upon you† and Jesus took other people’s sins and died for them. These dramatic techniques cause the audience to think of Proctor as a heroic person who has done nothing wrong. Proctor’s pride was the main reason for his death because he felt bad about what he had done with Abigail and then lied to try to save his

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Undergraduate Education: Adapting to a New World Essay -- College Univ

Undergraduate Education: Adapting to a New World Since medieval times, undergraduate universities have provided the education necessary to fulfill the needs of societies in terms of a professional work force. After completing the liberal arts curriculum taught at medieval universities, students could go on to study medicine, law or theology; but these disciplines could take up to a decade of continuous studies. The students that didn’t want to pursue those degrees could find other lucrative careers that society demanded at the time. Universities broadened the fields they taught to fulfill the always-changing needs for new skills in the workplace. The same way, universities throughout time have always restructured their undergraduate curricula according to structural changes in the society such as technology, economics, and international relations. In the past ten years undergraduate universities and colleges in the United States have changed dramatically their curricula to keep up with the changing environment of the ninet ies. Technology has been one of the most important, if not the most important factors for the restructuring of undergraduate education in the United States. According to a report entitled â€Å"Shaping the Future† from the National Science Foundation’s Division of Undergraduate Education, ten years ago there was virtually no Internet, no World Wide Web and computers in classrooms were few and far between. Today, a great portion of the freshmen in college have at least a basic knowledge on how to use a computer and its applications. With the constant release of new software, college students are expected to keep up with latest ones and be able to learn new versions as soon as they come out. But technology is... ...en though research is still a major objective, the need for improvement in the quality of teaching has made undergraduate education move higher in the list of priorities of most universities. Even thought the objective on and undergraduate education is still to increase our sensibility in the arts, create awareness of the diversity of thought in our society and increase our critical thinking abilities, it is also to prepare men and women for professional challenges. Our universities are responsible for creating competitive individuals able to meet job-related expectations and achieve self-actualization. Structural changes in technology, economics, and the globalization of business practices affect many aspects of our lives. It is the dutie of higher learning institutions to keep up with those changes and transmit them to their students so they take advantage.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Essay :: essays research papers

The impact that athletics has had on my Life   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The impact that athletics has had on my life is everything. It made me a better person. For example it made me to be more responsible, focus, and more determined to accomplish my goals.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ever since I became being an athlete I’ve learned that there’s responsibility. And one of them is being responsible for me and me only. I have to watch what I do and who I hang around with because hanging with the wrong people can mess up my opportunities an athlete. But it’s more than that; it’s also being responsible inside the classroom. Taking care of my grades and doing my work.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Being an athlete it made me more focus of what I do. For example, it makes me focus in the classroom, so I will be able to get good grades. Getting good grades keeps me focused because I want to get an academics scholarship than an athletic scholarship. Don’t get me wrong I would be happy if I got an athletic scholarship but I just prefer an academic scholarship. What also keep me focus are coaches help keep me focused as well. Player who gets a grade lower than a B   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Moss Has to jump a bench. This bench is about 3ft long and very wide with sharp corners. And the coaches determine how many you jump by how many points that you’re away from a B. For example, say if I got a 70 he would make jump a hundred because I was ten points off from getting a B.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As an athlete I’m determined to accomplish my goals. Those goals are to go to a college with my academic or my athletic abilities and to be successful in my life.

Monday, September 16, 2019

Attitude, Meaning Symbolism and Allegory Essay

Part 1: Discussion with Others on Symbolize Pool, Highway and Character Needy The â€Å"Swimmer† is one of a long familiar works of John Cheever (1964) which is illustrative of his suburban stories in which John relates individuals living by using symbolize themes such as Pool, highway, character Needy, suburbia and foreshadowing. How these symbolizes used by John Cheever to narrate his story summarize the realisms, surrealism and humoristic description of suburban life. I believe the pool is the excavation of water. But in John Cheever’s ‘the swimmer†, the pool is the subversion of the nature which represents the place of characters. Cheever relates his story that the confining nature of the suburbs is inexplicit in the approximation of the pool itself. It is the structure by which the water, the most important natural of all earthly and an essential of life is set for activities or leisure. John Cheever considers in story, the life of in the suburban as a pool of individuals that share same interest of living. In John Cheever’s story, highway is the swimming pools of his county used by Neddy Merril (369) as a means of transportation back to his house. The author point of view Needy used the pool as highway to travel from neighbor to neighbor. From pool to pool/ He travel through the dark underbody of suburbia, and discover the labor of both his and his community’s lives. The highway is the path that allows Neddy to participating his community’s lives and discovers his own life. The Character, Needy consider himself to be an adventurer or a pilgrim when he determines and continues as such even if the end of the story and his unusual decision describe near. As Neddy goes into one pool out to another, he considered himself as reborn each time, finding out that the world is not the informal place he at one time comprehended. He considered the word as a complex that place he never comprehends because of the diversity of human activities and needs. Foreshadowing and alcohol two symbolize that are important to the outcome of the story. In the Swimmer of John Cheever, the foreshadowing designated what is wrong between the realities and the surreal materialize. The author used the foreshadowing by means of the simple description everyday objects and events. For example the example pool, strange approaches storm despite the perfect sun moment the smell and signs of autumn. The author did not specify to the reader that this man getting a hallucination or something is wrong. The Swimmer of John Cheever represents the alcohol as a motif and the symbol and important to several levels. As a motif alcohol nearly likes a handshaking or a tranquilizer and polite, temporary motion. It is the main object around which all social or parties’action rotates. This is mentioned at the beginning of the story when the narrator talks about how nearly everyone â€Å"drank too much†. The alcohol gesture symbolizes an invitation to form aside reality and join others in a covering of reality. The ready find out that Neddy covering the reality and drinking was only the part of the case There may be different interpretation by the readers because each reader has his way to comprehend or understand the themes or the entire story. Certain readers amend or contrast what the author or narrator develops in his novel or book. Some readers explain things according the way he likes things to be, while others exculpate what someone has developed his story. For example there are many interpretation of the pool in the â€Å"Swimmer† of John Cheever. Part 2 I believe when you dream of water. it means the individual will be a powerful and rich man. The water defines the prosperity and tranquility of life according of certain culture. The snake defines the manhood and the fear. When some dreams of snake, means it will give a birth of boy and he will be a group leader. Falikou from another country had a different point about these dreams. In my country, when someone dreams of water means a long lasting problem which extend to whole country; wile, when someone dreams of snake defines poverty and physical distress. As far as my concern, the multiples interpretation of the same story by different readers because his reader has his believe and his culture in addition to his understanding of  the story. That why there are humorist, naturalist, surrealist, existentialist and anthropologist. These different categories of people will have different interpretation of same story. The multiple interpretations of the same story occur when different opinions of different categories of people amend or contrast the writers ‘stories, novels or books. References Cheever, J. (1964). Author of â€Å"The Swimmer† in Introduction to Fiction Poetry, Drama, and Writing. X. J. Kennedy. Dana Gioia

Plant Lectin on Blood Agglutination

Lectin is a protein that is commonly found in certain plants such as grains   (wheat), legumes (soybeans and peanuts), and also can be found in potato, tomato, eggplant and pepper. It is found to be toxic, especially if the food containing it is undercooked. It causes damage to the gut wall in the stomach. Lectin’s toxicity may even cause rapid death. Lectin is a glycoprotein. As a glycoprotein, it is capable of binding to carbohydrate. It tends to bind to carbohydrates in specific and reversible manner. It is a protein that has binding site specific to carbohydrate. Because of this ability of lectin, it can cause agglutination of red blood cells. It does so by interaction with the sugar moieties of the cell wall leading to the clumping together of the cells. In blood agglutination by lectin, its active sites are the ones that bind to the sugar moieties present in the cell wall of the red blood cells These active sites are consists of certain amino acid residues. It was suggested that there are two or more amino acid residues that are present in the active site of lectin (cited in Sharon, 2007). Some of these amino acid forms hydrogen bonds with the hydroxyl group of the sugar or carbohydrate moiety. The other amino acids interact hydrophobically. Aside from these interactions, other kinds of interactions such as coordination with the metal, like interaction with the iron compound of the hemoglobin in the red blood cells, and electrostatic interaction might occur as well.   Further interaction of these active sites to other carbohydrate part of the blood cells results to large mass, then the clumping of cells occurs. Specificity of lectin towards carbohydrates depends on the kind of amino acid present in its active site. This made plant lectin found its usefulness in the field of medicine. One application of plant lectin is in determining blood group. Lectin can agglutinate specific types of erythrocytes. Different sources of lectin may have different active sites, therefore may dictate the kind of carbohydrate it binds with. Plant lectins, despite of the danger it may pose in our health, can be still useful in our life. As the study and research on lectin progresses, more benefits that we can derive from these compounds are revealed. Reference Sharon, N. (2007). Lectins: Carbohydrate-specific Reagents and Biological Recognition Molecules. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 282, 5, 2753-2764. Retrieved December 9,   2007 from, http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/full/282/5/2753   

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Assess the sociological explanation of science and ideology of belief system? Essay

Sociologists argue that science and ideology can both be belief systems. In the 18th century was the era of the enlightenment. People started to think and question was there more than just a God and that’s where science was introduced. People started to use rational ways of thinking to explain things that happened. Science has been used to develop different parts in society such as medicine and technology that we use in everyday life. But it has also caused problems such as pollution and global warming. Science has cognitive power, it can allow us to explain, predict and control the world. According to Popper science is an open belief system where every scientist’s theories are open to scrutiny, criticised and tested by others. He says that science is governed by the principle of falsificationism. This is whereby scientists set out to try and falsify existing theories, deliberately seeking evidence that would disprove them. Such as the fact that the big bang is a theory that everyone accepts but there is much more that scientists do not know and more needed to be found therefore it could be false. It argues that there always can be more and more evidence for every theory that has ever been made and proven. Then when disproving these knowledge claims allows scientific world to grow. It is cumulative, whereby it builds on achievements of previous scientists. This explanation shows that science can be a belief system as nothing can ever be proven 100% as there will always be something or someone that will disprove a theory with other evidence and therefore people belief what they have been told. This is much like religion in a way by the fact that religion cannot be proven it is something that people belief in. If popper is correct then it still leaves the question of why science has grown over the last few centuries. Merton argues that science can only thrive as a major social institution if it receives support from other institutions and values. He argues that this occurred in England as a result of the values and attitudes created by the protestant reformation especially Puritanism. The beliefs that they had to study nature led appreciation of God’s works, encouraged them to experiment. They stressed social welfare and were attracted to the fact that science could produce technological inventions to improve the conditions of life. Like Popper, Merton argues that science as an institution or organised social activity needs ethos that make scientists work in a way that serves the goal of increasing scientific knowledge. He identifies four such norms,  communism because scientific knowledge is not private property and they must share their findings with the scientific community. Universalism, the truth or falsity of scientific knowledge is judged by universal, objective criteria and not by the particular race or sex of the scientist who produces it. Disinterestedness, the means being committed to discovering knowledge for its own sake by publishing their findings for others to check their claims. Organised scepticism, the fact that no knowledge clam is sacred. Every idea is open to questioning, criticism and objective investigation. By contrast despite Popper’s view of science as an open and critical, some others argue that science itself can be seen as a self-sustaining or closed system of beliefs. For example, Polanyi argues that all belief systems reject fundamental challenges to their knowledge claims; science is no different, as the case of Dr Velikovsky indicates. One example for scientist’s refusal even to consider such challenges comes from a historian of science. Kuhn argues that a mature science such as geology, biology or physics is based on a set of shared assumptions that he calls a paradigm. This tells the scientist what reality is like, the problems to study, and what methods and equipment to use. Scientific education and training is a process of being socialised into faith in the truth of the paradigm, and a successful career depends on working within paradigms. For these reasons, any scientist who challenges the fundamental assumptions of the paradigms. Others in the scientific community will no longer regard him or her as a scientist at all. The only exceptions to this are during one of the rare periods that Kuhn describes as a scientific revolution, when faith in the truth of the paradigm has already been undermined by an accumulation of anomalies, the results that the paradigm cannot account for. Only then do scientists become open to radically new values. Interpretivist sociologists have developed Kuhn’s ideas further. They argue that all knowledge including scientific knowledge is socially constructed. That is rather than being objective truth; it is created by social groups using the resources available to them. In this case of science, scientific fact- those things that scientists take to be true and real are the product of shared theories or paradigms that tell them what they should expect to see, and of the particular instruments they use. Therefore Karin Knorr- Cetina argues that the invention of new instruments, such as telescopes or microscopes, permits  scientists to make mew observations and construct or fabricate new facts. Similarly she points out that what scientists study in the laboratory is highly constructed and far removed from the natural world that they are supposedly studying. According to the ethnomethodologist Woolgar, scientists are engaged in the same process of making sense or interpreting the world as everyone else. With the evidence from experiments they have to decide what it means. They do so by devising and applying theories or explanations, but they then have to persuade others to accept their interpretations. An example of this is in the case of the discovery of pulsar. The scientist’s initially annotated the patterns shown on their printouts from the radio telescope as LGM1. Recognising that this was an unacceptable interpretation from the view point of the scientific community they eventually settled on the notion that the patterns represented the signals from a type of star which is unknown to science. There is still a debate about what the signals really meant. As Woolgar notes a scientific fact is simply a social construction or belief that scientists are able to persuade their colleagues to share. This therefore shows that science can be a believe system as science is socially constructed and people believe in what they are told even if it true or not. There are also other critical perspectives such as Marxism and feminism which see scientific knowledge as far from pure truth. Instead they regard it as serving the interests of dominant groups, the ruling class in the case of Marxists and men for feminists. Therefore many advances in supposedly pure science have been driven by the need of capitalism for certain types of knowledge. For example biological ideas have been used to justify both male domination and colonial expansion. In this respect science can be seen as a form of ideology. In a different sense postmodernists also reject the knowledge claim of science to have the truth. In the view of Lyotard for example science is one of a number of Meta narratives that falsely claims to possess the truth. In Lyotard’s view science falsely claims to offer the truth about how the world works as a means of progress to a better society, whereas in reality he argues science is just one more one way of thinking that is used to dominate people. Sociologists have come up with a definition for ideology which is a worldview or a set of ideas and values, which is basically a belief system. Although ideology is used in many ways these are a distorted, false or  mistaken ideas about the work, ideas that conceal the interests of a particular groups, ideas that prevent changes by misleading people, and a self- sustaining belief system that is irrational and closed to criticism. here are a number of theories of ideology one of which is Marxists that see society as divided into two opposed classes, them that own the means of production and control the state, and a majority working class who are property less and therefore forced to sell their labour to the capitalist. They see the ruling class to not only control the means of production but ideas through institutions. In a result it produces the ruling class ideology, ideas that legitimate or justify the status quo. The dominant ideas are them or the ruling class and they function to prevent change by creating a false consciousness among workers. However despite these ideological barriers, Marx believes that ultimately the working class will develop a true class consciousness and unite the overthrow capitalism. This shows that ideology is a belief system as in Marxism’s case it uses the ruling class believes to stop the poor from becoming successful. Feminists see gender inequality as the fundamental division and patriarchal ideology as playing a key role in legitimating it. Because a gender difference is a feature of all societies there exists many different ideologies to justify it. For example how ideas from science have been used to justify excluding women from education. In addition to patriarchal ideologies is science, those embodied in religious beliefs and practices have also been used to define women as inferior. This also shows that ideology can be a belief system in terms of beliefs and ideas about women and how inferior they are to men. Mannheim sees all belief systems as a partial or sided view worldview. Their one sidedness results from being the viewpoint of one particular group or class and its interests. This leads him to distinguish between to board types of belief system or worldview. They are ideological thought which justifies keeping things as they are and utopian thought which justifies social change. Mannheim sees these worldviews as creations of groups of intellectuals who attach themselves to particular classes or social groups. However because these intellectuals represent the interests of particular groups and not society as a whole they only produce partial views of reality. The belief system of each class or group only gives us a partial truth about the world. In conclusion there is evidence to show  that both science and ideology can be a belief system. This is shown by using things such as science as an open and close belief system. The fact that science can never be objective because theories and experiments are carried out by humans which have feelings and therefore subjective. Science also seen as being socially constructed. The fact that Marxists and feminists see science also as a belief system that serves the interests of dominant groups. The idea that ideology is a belief system is seen as true as this is how sociologists define ideology.

Saturday, September 14, 2019

Role of Icb in the Development of Capital Market in Bangladesh: a Performance Evaluation of Icb Sponsored Mutual Funds

INTERNSHIP REPORT Dept. of Business Administration Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet. INTERNSHIP REPORT Role of ICB in the Development of Capital Market in Bangladesh: A Performance Evaluation of ICB Sponsored Mutual Funds Supervisor Ms. Nafsaniath Fathemaf Lecturer Department of Business Administration Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet. Submitted By Muhamad Abul Lyse 4th Year 2nd Semester (2nd Batch) Reg No: 0099730014 Dept of Business Administration Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet Date of submission: July 06, 2006 Date July 06, 2006 It is an immense pleasure for me to certify that this internship report entitled â€Å" Role of ICB in the Development of Capital Market in Bangladesh: A performance evaluation of ICB sponsored mutual funds† submitted to the department of Business Administration, Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet is an original work done by Muhammad Abul Lyse, a student of BBA 2nd Batch of Department of Business Administration, bearing the Registration number 0099730014. He has successfully completed the internship program at Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB) and prepared this report on the aforesaid title under my supervision. I wish him every success in his endeavors. Signature: †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Ms Nafsaniath Fathema Lecturer, Dept. of Business Administration Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology Sylhet-3114. July 06, 2006 Ms Nafsaniath Fathema Lecturer, Dept. of Business Administration Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology Sylhet-3114. Sub: Submission of internship report Dear Madam, Have the pleasure in submitting my internship report titled â€Å"Role of ICB in the Development of Capital Market in Bangladesh: A Performance Evaluation of ICB Sponsored Mutual Funds . As an integral part of my BBA degree, I have been assigned to work on the topic, with a view to well integrate the theoretical knowledge I have learned throughout my four years of study and thus to fine tune these knowledge with practical work experience in a financial institution like ICB, the pioneer and largest Investment Bank of the country. The Internship Program was very much valuable as it helped me to gain a real life experience working in a professional environment. I tried my best to get an in depth coverage of the topic and emphasized on using authentic data I am grateful to you for your kind suggestion and helpful advice in preparing this report. Once again, thank you very much indeed for giving me the opportunity to work under your kind supervision. Yours Sincerely Muhammad Abul Lyse Reg. NO: 0099730014 Department of Business Administration (2nd Batch) Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet. Contents part one Chapter one : iNTRODUCTION CHAPTER TWO: icb and ITS FUNTIONS CHAPTER tHREE: role OF ICB IN THE CAPITAL MARKET OF BANGLADESH CHAPTER FOUR: PERFORMANCE OF icb CHAPTER FIVE: SUBSIDIARY COMPANIES OF ICB part two CHAPTER ONE: ICB SPONSORED MUTUAL FUNDS CHAPTER TWO: findings and recommendations of an actiOn an PLAN Detailed contents pART ONE CHAPTER 1: iNTRODUCTION 1. Objective of the Study1 2. Scope of the Study1 3. Methodology of the Study2 4. Limitations of the Study4 CHAPTER TWO: ICB AND ITS FUNCTION 1. Background of the ICB5 2. Objectives5 3. Functions of ICB6 4. Business Policy7 5. Capital Structure7 6. Share Price of ICB8 7. Share holding Position of ICB9 8. Products of ICB11 9. ICB at a Glance14 10. Investors Scheme of ICB16 11. Organization Structure of ICB20 12. ICB Mutual Funds22 13. ICB Unit Funds23 14. Development Activities of ICB27 CHAPTER THREE: ROLE OF ICB IN THE CAPITAL MARKET OF BANGLADESH 3. 1 Capital Market28 3. 1. 1 Role of Capital Market in the Economic Development of a Country28 3. 1. 2 Investment Process29 3. 2 Financial Market30 3. 2. 1 Objective of the securities Market30 3. 2. 2 The Role of Government30 3. 3 Financial Market of Bangladesh31 3. 3. 1 Money Market32 3. 3. 2 The non-Securities segment of the Capital Market32 3. 3. 3 The Securities-segment of the Capital Market32 3. 4 The Elements of Security Market33 3. 5 Creating a Supply of Good Securities in Market333. 6 The Origin and development of Capital Market in Bangladesh33 . 7 The Present Scenario of Bangladesh Capital Market35 CHAPTER FOUR: PERFORMANCE OF ICB 4. 1 Role of ICB in the Capital Market of Bangladesh36 4. 2 Operational Activities of ICB41 4. 2. 1 Consideration of Applications41 4. 2. 2 Commitment42 4. 2. 3 Disbursement 46 4. 2. 4 Loan Portfolio47 4. 2. 5 Trustee, Custodian, and Issue Manager48 4. 2. 6 Lease Financing49 4. 3 Portf olio Management50 4. 4 Other Operational Activities51 4. 4. 1 Advance against ICB unit and Mutual Fund certificates Scheme51 4. 4. 2 Consumer Credit Scheme52 4. 4. 3 Merchandising Operations52 4. 4. 4 ICB Mutual Fund52 4. 4. Transaction of Securities53 4. 5 Participation in International Activities53 4. 5. 1 ICB’s involvement with South Asian Development Fund (SADF)53 4. 5. 2 Investment in South Asia Regional Fund (SARF)54 4. 6 Financial Result of ICB 55 4. 6. 1 Total Expenditure56 4. 6. 2 Net Income56 4. 6. 3 Dividend57 4. 6. 4 Some Key Financial Ratios58 CHAPTER FIVE: THREE SUBSIDIARY COMPANIES OF ICB 5. 1 Subsidiary Companies of ICB595. 2 ICB Capital Management Limited (ICML)59 5. 2. 1 Background of ICML 5. 2. 2 Vision of the Company59 5. 2. 3 Mission of the Company60 5. 2. 4 Some Salient Features of ICML investors’ Scheme60 5. . 5 Advantages of ICML Investors’ Scheme61 5. 2. 6 Margin Loan61 5. 2. 7 Financial Performance of ICML63 5. 3 ICB Asset Management Li mited (AMCL)63 5. 3 ICB Securities Trading Company Limited (ISTCL)66 PART TWO CHAPTER ONE: ICB SPONSORED MUTUAL FUNDS 1. Some key issues of Mutual funds 68 1. Definition of Mutual Funds 68 2. Types of Mutual funds 68 2. ICB Mutual Funds 69 1. Nature of Business 70 2. How to buy existing Mutual funds 70 3. Management of the funds 70 4. Assets of ICB Mutual funds 70 5. Management fee, Charge etc. 71 6. Declaration of Dividend 71 3. Operational Highlights of ICB Mutual Funds 72 4. Financial Statement Analysis of ICB’s Mutual Funds 76 1. Earnings Per Share (EPS) 76 2. Dividend Per Share 78 3. Dividend Payout Ratio 79 4. Earning Yield Ratio 80 5. Dividend Yield Ratio 81 6. Price Earning Ratio 82 CHAPTER TWO: FINDINGS AND recommendation 1. Finding about The Capital market of Bangladesh83 2. 1. 1 Lack of Confidence83 2. 1. 2 Frequent Monetary Change83 2. 1. 3 Liquidity Crisis84 2. 1. 4 Volatile Market Situation84 2. 1. 5 Absence of good Securities85 2. 1. 6 Absence of Government initiative85 2. 1. 7 Market Maker85 2. 1. 8 Awareness85 2. 1. 9 Lack of knowledge85 2. 1. 10 Mass Participation86 . 2 Findings about Investment Corporation of Bangladesh86 2. 2. 1 Services stopped by ICB86 2. 2. 2 Unfair dividend Policy of Mutual funds86 2. 2. 3 Irredeemable Mutual funds87 2. 2. 4 Absence of efficiency in Portfolio management of MF87 2. 2. 5 Lengthy Processing87 2. 3 Recommendation of an Action Plan88 2. 4 Conclusion 90 Bibliography 92 Acronym and Appendices I. Appendix : Or anagram of ICB II. Appendix: Balance Sheet and Income Statement of ICB Executive Summary Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB), established in 1976, is virtually the only Investment Bank in Bangladesh. In a broader sense, ICB is both an investment Bank and Development Financial Institution. (DFI). ICB plays a pivotal role to encourage and broaden the base of investment and thereby to help to develop a vibrant capital market in Bangladesh. ICB caters to the need of institutional support to meet the equity gap of emerging new companies. ICB works with a view to mobilise savings of general public and inspires small and medium savers for investment in securities. As s single entity, Government of Bangladesh holds majority shares of ICB (i. e. 27%). With diverse functions, ICB operates on commercial basis, provides financial assistance to projects subject to their economic and commercial viability and arranges equity and loans singly or through consortium of financial institution. Functions of ICB include; purchasing of shares and debentures including placement and direct participation, managing existing mutual funds and investment accounts, providing investment counseling to investors and helping government to its divestment programs. The following report titled â€Å"The Role of ICB in the development of Capital Market in Bangladesh: A Performance Evaluation of ICB Sponsored Mutual Funds† contains a comprehensive overview of ICB with special emphasis on ICB’s role in the development of capital market in Bangladesh. Likewise, an analysis of ICB sponsored Mutual funds is made with detail financial analysis as ICB since its inception, have been performing a pioneering role in the capital market of Bangladesh by managing the portfolios of ICB’s eight mutual funds. Since 1980, ICB floated a total of eight mutual funds with paid up capital of Tk 17. 0 crore. After taken a restructuring program of ICB under Capital Market Development Program (CMDP) initiated by the government of Bangladesh and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and in terms of power conferred in the ICB ordinance three subsidiary companies, namely (1) ICB Capital Management Limited (2) ICB Asset Management Company Limited and (3) ICB Securities Trading Company Limited have been created and made operational to carry out merchant banking, mutual fund operations and stock brokerage functions respectively. The report is divided mainly into two parts. Part One contains a comprehensive coverage of ICB with its role in the development of capital market in Bangladesh and Part Two establishes part one by analyzing the ICB sponsored Mutual funds as ICB plays a central role in the capital market of Bangladesh by managing its eight mutual funds. Part One consists of Four Chapters. Chapter One includes the objective, scope, methodology and limitations of the study. Chapter Two describes historical background, objectives, business policies, functions, capital structure and products of ICB. Chapter Three explain the financial market and various segments of financial market of Bangladesh. The chapter also establishes the role of ICB in the development of Capital Market in Bangladesh. Chapter Four illustrates the performance of ICB. Chapter Five includes a description of three subsidiary companies of ICB. Part Two consists of two chapters. Chapter one evaluates the ICB sponsored mutual funds. This chapter initially deals with some theoretical concepts of mutual funds and then an in-depth financial performance of ICB mutual funds. Chapter two includes some findings of the study with recommendation of an action plan. The report ends with a bibliography and an appendix. Acknowledgments I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Md. Nazrul Islam, Head and Associate professor of the Department of Business Administration of Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet and All of the Teachers of the Department especially to my supervisor Ms Nafsaniath Fathema who constantly inspired, supervised, and encouraged me with valuable advice and cooperation through the whole period of my internship Program. I would also like to express my special regards to Ms Nasreen Sultana, AGM of the Personnel Department, who allowed and gave me the opportunity to work in Investment Corporation of Bangladesh, the pioneer Investment Bank of the country. I am also highly grateful to the authority of ICB and all the AGMs of various departments who helped me a lot and cooperated me during my internship period. I am in pleasure to the express my gratitude to the internship and placement committee of the Department of Business Administration especially to the oordinator of the committee, Mohammad Imtiaz Ferdous, also the Assistant Professor of the Department of Business Administration. I would like to extend my special thanks to Ms Sharmin, Senior Principal Officer of Personnel Department, Subashis Chakrabarti, Assistant librarian of the ICB and all the respective officers of ICB for their cordial cooperation and helpful advice. As the first work of my life, I would bear this fond memory of ICB for the re st of my life. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |PART ONE | | | | | | | | |CHAPTER ONE | | | | | |INTRODUCTIONS | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1. 1 Objective of the Study Learning by doing is an effective way of acquiring knowledge. To have a real life exposure, each student of Department of Business Administration, of Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology has to carry out an internship program as an integral part of his/her BBA degree. Since, only the theoretical knowledge can not make one fit for increasing competitive situation of the world, the internship placement committee had placed me at ICB for a period of three months. Other objective of this study is as follows: ? To relate academic knowledge with real life business world. ? To have an overall idea about the role of ICB in the capital market of Bangladesh with a special emphasis on ICB sponsored Mutual Funds[1]. ? To analyse the profitability of ICB sponsored mutual funds. ? To find out prevailing drawback and lacking of ICB, if there is any, and recommend an action plan. 1. 2 Scope of the Study The scope of this report is only one organisation i. e. Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB) and specially the Mutual Funds as it is the focus area of this report. It has been mentioned earlier, the main objective of the study is to analyse the role of ICB in the development of Capital market in Bangladesh with an emphasis on ICB sponsored mutual funds. The report gives an overview of ICB followed by a part on financial involvement of ICB. The report establishes the theoretical and conceptual framework comparing with which the capital market will be judged. There is one elaborate part that deals with the ICB sponsored mutual funds. The study will also present some problems of ICB observed during the internship coupled with some recommended action plan. 1. Methodology of the Study Methodology can be referred as underlying principles and rules of organization or the philosophical systems that work at the backdrop of any study. It clarifies the problems involving the research in a very ordered and systematic fashion. Strategies are det ermined at this stage for future implementation. In conducting any formal survey and preparing any research paper two kinds of data i. e. Primary Data and Secondary Data, are used. I tried my best to collect both types of data and information and have firm intention to emphasis on primary data as it is often up-to-date and more useful than any published information. Initially we collected raw data from departments of ICB and then sort out useful information relevant to my paper. Approaches and methods that have been used to prepare this report are as follows. 1. Personal interview: ICB has 25 departments and three subsidiary companies so far. I personally interviewed almost all AGMs of all departments and talked with the senior Principal Officer, principal Officer and other officer of concerned departments. 2. Briefing Session: Division heads (DGMs[2]) and department heads (AGMs) or their approved officials gave briefs about their respective departments. Information gathered from these sessions has been used in the report. 3. Published reports: a large amount of data are taken from the published sources such as ICB’s annual reports of previous years, Annual reports ICB Mutual Funds, Monthly review of Dhaka and Chittagong Stock Exchange. 4. Selection of the sample: the sample area of this study covers the head office of ICB. Since the central financial activities are done under surveillance of the Head office of ICB, so the selection of sample of this study is justifiable. Data collected from different divisions of ICB are all equally important segments of sample used in this study. ICB as a national investment institution has added a tempo in developing the capital market of Bangladesh. As a result of this importance the selection of ICB as the sample area of this study is presumably the demand of the time. 5. Time schemes: As stated earlier since the purpose of this internship program is an exposure to practical life, the ICB management has deputed me to all the division, departments, sections and cell to acquire hand-on-experience about each of them. I have visited the departments according to the following schedule. | |Name of the Departments |From |To | |   |   | |   | |1 |Personnel Department |27. 03. 2006 |28. 03. 006 | |2 |Secretary Department |29. 03. 2006 |   | |3 |Planning research and Business development Dept. |30. 04. 2006 |09. 04. 2006 | |4 |Management Information Dept. |10. 04. 2006 |12. 04. 2006 | |5 |Securities Analysis Dept. |13. 04. 2006 |16. 04. 2006 | |6 |Investor's Dept |17. 04. 2006 |19. 04. 2006 | |7 |Shares Dept. and reconciliation Cell |20. 04. 2006 |25. 04. 2006 | |8 |Unit sales Dept. |26. 04. 006 |27. 04. 2006 | |9 |Unit registration and collection Dept. |30. 04. 2006 |02. 05. 2006 | |10 |Mutual Fund Dept. |03. 05. 2006 |07. 05. 2006 | |11 |Central Acco unts Dept. |08. 05. 2006 |10. 05. 2006 | |12 | System Analysis Dept. |14. 05. 2006 |15. 05. 2006 | |13 |Programming Dept. |16. 05. 2006 |17. 05. 2006 | |14 |Loan Appraisal Dept/Lien Cell |18. 05. 2006 |21. 05. 2006 | |15 |SAARC Cell |22. 05. 006 |—- | |16 |Project Implementation Dept. |23. 05. 2006 |—- | |17 | Loan Recovery and Monitoring Dept. |24. 05. 2006 |25. 05. 2006 | |18 |Project Loan Account Dept. |28. 05. 2006 |—- | |19 |Public Issue Dept. |29. 05. 2006 |—- | |20 |Trustee Dept. |30. 05. 2006 |31. 05. 2006 | |21 |Law Dept. |01. 06. 2006 |04. 06. 2006 | |22 |Audit and Method Dept. |05. 06. 2006 |06. 06. 2006 | |23 |Department Control Dept |07. 06. 006 |—- | |24 |Establishment Dept. |08. 06. 2006 |11. 06. 2006 | |25 |public Relation Dept. |12. 06. 2006 |—- | |26 |ICB Asset Management Company Ltd |13. 06. 2006 |15. 06. 2006 | |27 |ICB Capital Management Ltd |18. 06. 2006 |20. 06. 2006 | |28 |ICB Securities Trading Ltd |21. 06. 2006 |2 6. 06. 2006 | Table 1. 1: Schedule of working at ICB 1. 4 Limitations of the Study Limitations are obvious in any study so do here. Since this is an internship report, the limitations regarding the internship programm has acted as the limitation of the study. The findings we figured out, and the recommendation we made may not be 100% accurate and may not represent the exact situation. Eventually, in completion of my study, a number of constraints and limitations I faced. These can be considered as follows: ? Performance analysis of ICB and its mutual funds may not represent the current condition of the organisation and its mutual funds as all the analysis are based on the data of June 30, 2005. Since the current year financial disclosures are not public yet, so the analysis is a little backdated. ? Officials of ICB maintain a very busy schedule. So they were not always able to provide enough time to enrich the intern students every time, even if they had the intention to do so. ? Due to security reasons and organizational privacy we didn’t have access to some core areas of ICB. ? I had to go almost every department of ICB during my three months internship programm at ICB. Three months is a very short span of time to get an in-depth knowledge about a giant organization like ICB. ? The area covered by the report â€Å"The role of ICB in the development of Capital Market in Bangladesh: A Performance Evaluation of ICB Mutual Funds† concerns a huge a number of activities and it is very difficult to sketch a total picture of the financial activities in a report of this short scale. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |CHAPTER TWO | | | | | |ICB AND ITS FUNCTIONS | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 2. 1 Background of the ICB The investment corporation of Bangladesh (I CB) was established on 1st October 1976, under â€Å"The Investment Corporation of Bangladesh ordinance, 1976† (no XL of 1976). The establishment of ICB was a major step in a series of measures undertaken by the Government to accelerate the pace of industrialization and to develop a well organized and vibrant capital market particularly securities market in Bangladesh. ICB caters to the need of institutional support to meet the equity gap of the companies. In view of the national policy of accelerating the rate of savings and investment to foster self –reliant economy, ICB assumes an indispensable and pivotal role. Through the enactment of the Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (Amendment) Act 2000 (no 24 of 2000), reforms[3] in operational strategies and business policies have been implemented by establishing and operating subsidiary companies with ICB as the holding company. 2. 2 Objective As the country’s Pioneer Investment Bank, ICB has been working to assist the small investors in mobilizing their savings. ICB works with a view to broaden the base of the investment of the country, ensure mass participation of general people in the capital market and thus to contribute towards the GDP of Bangladesh. ? To encourage and broaden the base of investments ? To develop the capital market ? To mobilise savings ? To promote and establish subsidiary companies for business expansion. ? To provide for matters 2. 3 Functions of ICB To develop the capital market of Bangladesh, and mobilise the savings of small investors, ICB carry out a range of diversified functions. With a solid view to foster and accelerate the economic growth of the country, ICB provides all sorts of financial services to the potential sector. Ensuring equal distribution of economic benefits gained by the economy among the grass root level is one of the main objectives of ICB. Various functions of ICB can be mentioned as follows. Unlike any other financial institutions, ICB maintains a portfolio of the government comprised of different securities of listed companies and helps government advising regarding fiscal and monetary policy of the country. As a market maker it floats mutual funds, issues unit certificates, underwrites securities and manages issuance of securities. | | | |Underwriting of initial public offering of shares and debentures | | |Underwriting of right issue of shares | |Basic |Direct purchase of shares and debentures including Pre-I[4]PO placement and equity participation | |Functions |Providing lease finance to industrial machinery and other equipments singl y or by forming syndicate | |Of |Managing investors' Accounts | | |Managing Open End and Closed End Mutual Funds[5] | |ICB |Operating on the Stock Exchanges | | |Providing investment counseling to issuers and investors | | |Participating in government investment program | | |Participating in and financing of, joint-venture projects | | |Dealing in other matters related to capital market operations | | |Trusty, Custodian, Bank Guarantee | | |Consumer Credit | 2. 4 Business Policy The corporation has adopted a realistic business policy framework within which its operation is conducted. The corporation, acts on commercial consideration with due regard to the interest of industry, commerce, depositors, investors and to the public in general. | | | | |To provide financial assistance to projects subject to their economic and commercial viability. | |Business |To arrange consortium of financial institutions including merchant banks to provide equity support to | |Policy |projects and thereby spread the risk of underwriting. | |Of |To develop and encourage entrepreneurs. | |ICB |To diversify investments in securities. | |To create employment. | | |To encourage Investment in IT sector. | | |To encourage Investment in joint venture capital/project. | 2. 5 Capital Structure | Capital Structure of ICB -as on June 30, 2005 (Tk in crore) | |Authorised capital |100. 00 | |Paid up capital |50. 00 | |Reserve |84. 11 | |Retained profit |5. 6 | |Long term govt. Loan |5. 25 | |Debentures |61. 80 | |Others |24. 89 | |Total |231. 41 | Source: Drawn based on the data of ICB Annual Repo rt 2004-2005 Figure 2. 1 Capital Structure of ICB Share price of ICB Share price of for the last year was as follows: Fig 2. 2: 2. 7 Share holding Position of ICB Equity participation from a range of institution along with the government of Bangladesh has made the capital structure of ICB as a unique. Nationalised banks, Private commercial banks, Bangladesh Bank including the general public have ownership in ICB. |Shareholding position of ICB (as on June 30,2005) | |Shareholder |No. of share holder |No. of shares |Percentage | |Governments of Bangladesh |1 |1350000 |27. 00 | |Nationalised Commercial Banks |4 |1137220 |22. 4 | |Development Financial Institution |2 |681550 |13. 63 | |Insurance Companies |3 |618286 |12. 37 | |Bangladesh Bank |1 |600000 |12. 00 | |Denationalized Private Com Banks |2 |454263 |9. 08 | |Private Commercial Banks |3 |28286 |0. 7 | |Foreign Commercial Banks |2 |26531 |0. 53 | |First BSRS Mutual Fund |1 |6900 |0. 14 | |Other Institution |9 |26949 |0. 54 | |General Public |927 |70015 |1. 54 | | Total|955 |5000000 |100. 00 | Table 2. 2: Shareholding Position of ICB Source: Annual Report 2004-2005 [pic] Figure: 2. 3 Shareholding position of ICB 2. 8 Products of ICB Private Placements ICB is authorized to act as an agent of the issuers and investors for private placements of securities. Under this arrangement, ICB places securities to individuals/institutions on behalf of the issuer for which it charges fees. ICB also acquires shares/securities for its own portfolio both in pre-IPO placement and equity investment. Underwriting[6] In order to raise long term equity from the primary market, the government bodies, enterprises, corporations or companies may seek intermediary assistance from ICB in the form of underwriting. Because of its long and proven experience, reputation, asset back up and established network of regional offices, ICB is in an excellence position to attract the potential investors to the proposed issue of shares, debentures and other securities for successful flotation of IPO and placement. Custodian and Banker to the Issues To act as the custodian to the public issue of Open-end & Closed-end Mutual Funds, ICB provides professional services. It also acts as the Banker to the issues and provides similar services through the network of its branches. Fees in this regard are negotiable. Mergers and Acquisitions Companies willing to expand their business through mergers or acquisitions or o divestment projects that no longer viable into present capacity of operation can contact the Corporation. ICB provides professional services & advices in respect of shaping up the cost and financial structures to ensure best possible operational results. Besides, in case of divestment, the corporatio n, through network and established business relationship, bring buyers and sellers together, help them to negotiate final agreement and advice on the emerging corporate structure. Advance against Unit Certificates Scheme Advance against ICB Unit Certificates Scheme was introduced in 1998, especially designed for the ICB unit- holders to meet their emergency fund requirements. One can borrow maximum Tk. 5 per unit by depositing his/her unit certificates under lien arrangement from any of the ICB offices where from such unit certificates were issued. The rate of interest on the loan is reasonable and competitive. Corporate Financial Advice Government enterprises and Companies intending to go public issue often seek professional & financial advice on corporate restructuring & reengineering. ICB through its expertise provide such services through its expertise. Lease[7] Financing ICB Provides lease finance mainly for procurement of industrial machinery, equipment and transport. ICB prov ides professional advice and financial assistance to the intending clients. The period of lease, rental, charges, and other terms and conditions are determined on the basis of type of assets and the extent of assistance required by the applicants. Since introduction of this scheme in 1999, good responses have been received from the intending lessees. Trustee to the debenture and Securities assets ICB is acting as a trustee to the debenture issues and asset-backed securitised bonds. ICB acted as trustee to the issues of 17 companies of which 7 companies has been redeemed successfully. Bank Guarantee scheme ICB introduced Bank Guarantee scheme in 2002-03. ICB provides (i) Bid Bond for enabling the business people to participate in any tender or bidding; ii) Performance Bond for helping the business community to continue their business smoothly by fulfilling their obligations promised by them to their clients; and (iii) Customs Guarantee for solving different disagreements between the customs authority and the business classes at the initial stage. The maximum limit of guarantee is Tk. 2. 00 crore and would be issued against at east 20% cash and 80% easily encashable securities or against 100% cash margin. Re-guarantee from other financial institution is required for guarantee against the amount exceeding Tk. 2. 00 crore. Consumer Credit Scheme As part of business diversification program, ICB has introduced â€Å"Consumers Credit Scheme† in 2003-04 considering at the need of various household commodities of different employees of govt. , semi-govt. autonomous bodies and some established private sector organizations. Under this scheme one can enjoy minimum Tk 1. 0 lac but maximum 5 lac credit facilities. The rate of interest on the loan is reasonable and competitive which is fixed by the board of directors of ICB considering the bank rate and with the guidelines of Bangladesh Bank. 2. 9 ICB at a Glance |Particulars |Cumulative up to June 30, 2005 (Tk in Crore) | |Authorized Capital |100. 00 | |Paid up Capital |50. 0 | |Financial Assistance to projects (Commitment) | | |No of projects |431 | |Amount |536. 87 | |Disbursement of project loan | | |No of projects |308 | |Amount |114. 2 | |Trustee to debenture issue | | |No of companies |17 | |Amount |184. 15 | |Trustee to issue of bonds | | |No of companies |5 | |Amount |134. 6 | |Custodian/Trustee to issue of Mutual Funds | | |No of funds |4 | |Amount |60. 00 | |Manager to the issue | | |No of companies |41 | |Amount |104. 9 | |Lease financing | | |No of projects |34 | |Amount sanctioned |92. 93 | |Public Issue (ICB Assisted) | | |No of companies |111 | |Size of issue (General public) |368. 3 | |ICB Investors’ scheme | | |No of accounts opened |77207 | |Investment made |760. 82 | |ICB Mutual Funds | | |Number |8 | |Capital fund |17. 0 | |Total market value of investment |67. 66 | |Dividend per certificate in eight mutual funds for the year 2004-2005, ranges | | |from Tk 15 to Tk 210) | | |ICB unit fund | | |Gross sale |940. 8 | |Rate of dividend for the year 2004-05=Tk12 per certificate | | |ICB’s Transaction in the Stock Exchanges including subsidiaries | | |DSE |769. 90 | |CSE |268. 73 | Financial Results (For the year 2004-05) (Tk in crore) |Income |170. 38 | |Net profit after Tax |21. 3 | |Dividend (Tk per share) |12 | |Manpower (as on June 0,2005) |396 | |No of shareholders ( as on June 30, 2005) |955 | 2. 10 Investors Scheme of ICB Investor scheme is one of the core functions of ICB. Through investors’ scheme, ICB ensures Participation of small investors in the capital market of Bangladesh. The Investors' Scheme was introduced in 1977 with the objective of broadening the base of equity investment through mobilising savings of small and medium size savers for investment in the securities market. In addition to Head Office, Investment Accounts are also operated at the 7 branch offices of ICB located at Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barisal, Sylhet, and Bogra. However in view of strategic changes in policy reform, from 01 July 2002 ICB stopped opening new accounts and ICB Capital Management Ltd. started opening and managing investment accounts. ICB will continue to provide services to its existing accounts only. Table 2. 3: Comparative operational activities of the investors’ scheme in 2004-2005 and 2003-2004 |Particulars |04-05 |03-04 |Increase/Decrease |Cum as on June 30, 2005 | | | | |(%) | | |No. f accounts opened | — | — | — |72207 | |No. of accounts closed |807 |776 |4. 26 |28327 | |No. of net operative accounts |48880 |49687 |-1. 62 |48880 | |Deposit received |22. 7 |27. 31 |-16. 62 |314. 87 | |Loans disbursed |159. 5 |58. 73 |171. 58 |707. 8 | |Investment Made |118. 26 |62. 91 |87. 98 |760. 82 | |Interest accrued |25. 09 |30. 48 |-17. 68 |— | |Interest waived |19. 06 |31. 26 |-39. 03 |55. 52 | |Recovery of margin Loans |179. 6 |103. 14 |74. 13 | —| |Fund withdrawal |40. 18 |13. 09 |206. 95 | —| Further steps were undertaken to enhance the quality and speedy service under the scheme like computerization of all activities and installation of merchandizing operation management software. This enables the management to offer better and quick service to the investors including instant supply of the financial statement, portfolio, balance of the accounts, etc. Installation of telephone banking system in Investors' Account enabling investors to collect information and operate their account over telephone was at the final stage of operations. Besides, installation of Electronic display system of DSE online trading on the floor of ICB has been set up. Through investors’ scheme ICB provides the following services. Authority of Operation An account may be operated by the account holder himself/herself or he/she may authorize to another A/c. holder of investors account of ICB by written consent in the prescribed form, some one else to operate the account on his/her behalf. In case of joint account holders, account may be operated by single or joint signatories or by authorised operator. Margin Loan Presently ICB grants loan up to two times i. e. at the ratio of 1:3 against the deposits of account holder(s) subject to a maximum of Tk. 3, 00,000. 00 to an account. However, management of ICB, at its discretion, may limit such loan. Loans are repayable as per repayment schedule given by ICB. In the event of default of loan repayment, the outstanding amount may be recovered by sale of securities held in the account. Portfolio Management The account holder may use his/her equity and the loan to buy securities which ICB keeps as collateral. Purchase and sale orders are executed by ICB within the shortest possible time, subject to the availability of fund in the account and scope of matching of buyers/sellers and securities in the stock exchanges. An account holder or his/her authorized person may place purchase/sale execution order in the prescribed form, indicating whether, the order is a limit order i. e. an specifying the max. /min. rice at which he/she is willing to buy /sale, or at a market price i. e. without any limit of price. The purchase and sale orders are valid for seven and ten days respectively, if not revalidated / cancelled otherwise by the account operator. Withdrawal of Securities/Funds All or any amount of fund or securities may be withdrawn from an accou nt subject to keeping of minimum credit balance of Tk. 5000. 00 in cash or in securities to keep the account running alive. Application against IPO All activities relating to application for securities and collection of allotment letter / refund warrant and certificates, as the case may be, against the IPO[8] are done by ICB on behalf of account holder. Collection of Securities and Benefits Right shares, bonus shares, dividends, interest, converted shares etc. accruing to an account are collected by ICB from the respective companies. Registration and custodial services Registration of shares/ securities with the company is made before the closure of the company's share / debenture transfer book, after completing all the required formalities, on behalf of the account holder. Volt and other custodial arrangement for assets of the account are provided by ICB. Counseling and data support In order to develop diversified and balanced portfolio to minimize risk and maximize profit, ICB provides professional advice to its clients. Data support in the form of securities analysis sheet, daily purchase/ sale position, statement and portfolio of each account, etc. are provided on demand and on regular interval. Income Incomes from investments by way of dividend, interest, bonus shares, capital gains etc. are credited to the respective account. Expense Interest on loan (currently-12. 5%) and brokerage (0. 5% for non CDS & 0. 5250% for CDS) on sale/ purchase of securities are charged to the respective account. To encourage the small and medium savers, ICB at present does not charge fees for most of the services rendered by ICB to its customers, including fees for management, investment advice, custodial service(for non CDS securities),etc. Closing of Account An account may be closed by written order subject to settlement of fees & dues, if any. There is no provision of revival of a closed account. Risk Management Risks of investments in the securities market are minimized through prudent & professional portfolio management. 2. 11 Organization Structure of ICB Management of ICB The head office of the corporation as per the requirement of the ordinance of ICB is located at Dhaka. The board of directors of ICB is very much rich as it consists of distinguished professional and managing director of other organization. The Board consists of 11 members including the Chairman and Managing Director. The Board of Directors consists of the following members. The Chairman and Managing Director (MD) are to be appointed by the government o The directors to be appointed by the government from among persons serving under the government. o One Director to be appointed by the Bangladesh Bank o The Managing Director of Bangladesh Shilpa Bank (BSB), ex offi ce. o The Managing Director of Bangladesh Shilpa Rin Shnagsta (BSRS) o Four other directors to be elected by the shareholders other than the government. ICB- its Divisions and Departments Investment Corporation of Bangladesh split, into 25 departments and 11 divisions in its head office. Beside that ICB has seven branches in different districts. These are situated at Dhaka (local office), Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Khulna, Bogura and Barisal. ICB is functionally divided into two broad wings. One is operations wing and another is Administrative wing. The functions of operational wings involve the activities of project Financing, Planning Research and Business Development, Lunching Unit and Mutual Funds (launching if new funds is now stopped and currently the function is accomplished by ICB Asset Management Ltd), transaction and maintenance of Investor Accounts. The function of administrative Wing involve the activities of Account and Finance, Legal affairs, Implementation and Recovery, Project Implementation, Law and Public Issue. It is mentioned earlier, that ICB consists of 11 Divisions and 25 departments. The following table lists all the divisions and departments of ICB. An appendix at the pf the report contains the full Organ gram of ICB. Table 2. 4 |Division |Department | |A. Administration |01. Personel | | |02. Establishment | |B. Loan Appraisal |03. Loan Appraisal | | |04. Economic and Business Research | | |05. Securities Analysis | |C. Legal Affairs |06. Public Issue | | |07. Law | |D. Merchandising |08. Investors’ | | |09. Shares | | |10. Transaction | |E. Funds |11. Unit sales | | |12. Unit Registration and Procurement | | |13. Mutual Funds | |F. Computer |14. System Analysis | | |15. Programming | | |16. Management Information System | |G. Audit And Methods |17. Audit And Methods (Head Office) | | |18. Audit And Methods (Branches) | |H. Accounts and Finance |19. Central Accounts | | |20. Project Loan Accounts | |I. Implementation |21. project Implementation | | |22. Recovery and Follow-up | |J. Secretary’s |23. Secretary’s | | |24. Public Relation | |K. Branch and Subsidiaries control Division |25. Branch Control Department | 2. 11 ICB Mutual Funds It is a recognized principle that diversification of investment reduces risk. An individual may not have the time, expertise and resources to undertake such diversification. Here arises the advantage of a Mutual Fund. Mutual Funds pool the savings of a great number of investors and make investments in a wide array of securities. In Bangladesh ICB has pioneered Mutual Funds for the sake of investors and of the capital market. Mutual Funds are also known as close ended Mutual Funds. The issued capital of a Mutual Fund is limited, that is, a Mutual Fund offers a limited number of certificates for sale to the public. The amount of capital and the number of certificates of each Mutual Fund remains unchanged. ICB Mutual Funds are independent of one another. Price of Mutual Fund certificates after IPO is determined on the Stock Exchanges through interaction of supply and demand. The market price of a Mutual Fund certificates is available in Stock exchange quotations and in newspapers. An investor can purchase any of the existing eight ICB Mutual Funds certificates through the Stock Exchanges at the prevailing Market Price. The Mutual Funds are managed by ICB as fund manager for which receives commission @1%. ICB Mutual Funds Certificates holders shall have unfettered ownership in the assets of the Fund to which they are related. In case of winding up of the Corporation the assets belonging to any ICB Mutual Fund shall not be treated as the assets of the Corporation. At present management fee @ 1% on the paid up capital of the Fund is charged annually. No amount is charged on account of custodial and trust services. The net income received on investments of Funds on account of dividend, bonus, interest, capital gain etc. are distributed amongst the Certificate Holders as per decision of the Board of Directors of ICB. Board declares such income in the form of dividend at the end of July each year. Dividends declared by ICB in the past on the Mutual Funds were very attractive. A detail analysis on ICB sponsored mutual fund will be followed on the second part of the report. 2. 12 ICB Unit Fund Sponsored by the Government of Bangladesh, ICB Unit Fund was established on April 10, 1981. Its main objective is to mobilize savings through sale of its units to small investors and invest these funds in marketable securities. The scheme provides a potential source of equity and debt to industrial and commercial concerns and thus contributes to the industrial development of the country. Unit fund is an open ended Mutual Fund. It provides an opportunity to the unit holders to invest their funds in a well managed and diversified portfolio with a high degree of security of capital and reasonable yearly returns. Investment in Units is safe and ensures a continuous and regular source of income for the holders. Units are easily encashable. As such, investment in Unit is comparatively more attractive. By investing in this scheme an investor may derive personal benefit on the one hand and also contribute towards the economic development of the country on the other. ICB units are securities within the meaning of Trust Act. 1882. Issue, Transfer and Surrender of Unit Certificates (I) Units are available in 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000, & 5000 denominations. The names with addresses of the holders are recorded and dividends are dispatched to them accorded and dividends are dispatched to them accordingly. II) Units may be transferred through prescribed transfer form duly filled in and signed by the transferor and transferee. No stamp duty is required for such transfers. (III) Units may be encased by way of surrendering the certificates along with the prescribed surrender forms duly filled in and sig ned by the registered holders and no prior notice is required. The certificates are required to be surrendered at the prevailing Repurchase Price. Price Fixation: Changes in repurchase prices of units are notified through the newspapers and price of a Unit is fixed periodically by ICB as its fund manager. Among others, valuation of the assets of the Fund is taken into consideration while fixing price of a unit. Public Participation The Fund is divided into units which are generally known as â€Å"ICB Unit†. Each Unit bears a certain value in the assets of the Fund. The Unit holders are the owners of the fund and only they are benefited from it. Unit certificates can be purchased in single or joint name (s). At present maximum of 10,000 Units can be purchased in a single or joint name(S) at a time. Units are not sold to institutions. Professional Counseling Professional Counseling is rendered to the prospective & existing investors who are eager to purchase ICB Units through ICB offices and authorized Bank branches. Presently this scheme is operated by ICB Asset Management Company Limited. Investment by Bangladeshi Citizens Abroad The Bangladeshi citizens living abroad may invest in certificates on fulfillment of the following terms and conditions: (I) The value of Units purchased is to be remitted through bank channel, (II) The money invested in Units and benefits thereon are not allowed to be repatriated, (III) The investors must mention their local and bank addresses in Bangladesh for convenience of registration of Units. Investment by Foreigners Residing in Bangladesh The foreign nationals residing in Bangladesh may also invest in Unit Certificates, provided they produce certificates to the effect that money being invested are their own savings and is not borrowed as loan or overdraft from any bank. These certificates are to be collected from a Gazetted Officer or a Banker not below the rank or Deputy General Manager. Fund Management The responsibility of managing the fund rests on ICB for which management fee @ Tk. 1. 25 per Unit (net outstanding) is charged. The Corporation also discharges the responsibility of loading and unloading of securities in and from the portfolio in the interest of the Unit holders. It is also the custodian of all assets of the fund. Dividend The total income earned on investment/ deployment of funds, net of expenditures incurred, in a financial year is distributed among the unit holders as dividend. Dividend is normally declared at the end of July each year by the Board of Directors of ICB. Dividend Warrants are dispatched soon after declaration of dividend. Since launching of the scheme in 1981 till FY 2004-05 the rates of yearly dividend declared/ paid are as under: Figure 2. 4: dividend performance of ICB unit fund The graph shows that the fund provides an attractive cash dividend each year to the highest of 25% in 1988-89 and to the lowest of 11. 01% in 2004-2005. Figure 2. 5: Dividend yield on ICB unit fund The graph shows a dividend yield on opening price of the unit fund. Tax Benefits (I) Investment in Units enjoys the benefit of Investment Allowance under Sec. 44 of Income Tax ordinance 1984. (II) Units are treated as approved securities in accordance with the Section 2993 of the Companies Act. 1994 and Insurance Act,   1938. These are also treated as Securities as per Sec. 20 of the Trust Act, 1882. Cumulative Investment Plan (CIP) Under this scheme a holder instead of receiving dividend may reinvest such dividend income accrued for purchasing Unit at a confessional rate. In such case, Units are issued at Tk. 1. 00 less than t he opening price of the financial year. 2. 13 Development Activities of ICB Equity support through consortium arrangement ICB inve