Gold award for Premier Estates

 For More Information Click  : http://kulswaminilandmarks.com/


A panel of 21 independent experts, chaired by the Property Ombudsman, reviewed several hundred entries from across the UK before deciding to bestow the honour on Premier Estates.

“An extremely good all-round company with an inherent desire to provide excellent service” is how the panel described Premier Estates. It also praised the firm’s “excellent service”, its focus on zero carbon developments, and regular visits by block managers to all of the developments the company manages.

Commenting on the award, Premier Estates’ Managing Director, Ben Jordan, said: “Our entire team works incredibly hard to ensure we provide the highest possible levels of customer service and communication, and it gives everyone a massive lift to receive an award that recognises us nationally as the best company in our industry.

“That said we never rest on our laurels; we have an ethos of continual evaluation and improvement and continue to innovate to raise standards across the board.”

Luxury housing finds space in Thane

“Luxury projects in Thane? You must be joking. Isn’t the location meant for affordable living of working class?” Well, you may also have had the same reaction in the past if you weren’t tracking the developments in and around Thane’s property market. This region is on a fast forward mode of development and the growth has been both, horizontally and vertical. The fact is that Thane is changing and it is changing fast. Luxury projects which had a stronghold in South Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, have steadily made inroads into Thane and a couple of luxury projects in the vicinity are all set to change the urban landscape of the market known for affordable projects thus far.

It seems the Thane region is all set to give competition to the other luxury locations of Mumbai due to its ticket size and green surroundings. Who would have thought that Thane would emerge on the luxury landscape of Mumbai property? If the projects in the pipeline are any indication, already many of the leading developers have planned their luxury projects in Thane. They believe this is the time to change the ‘affordable’ perception which has more appreciation potential than the saturated luxury markets of Mumbai. As a result, the NRIs, HNIs and other big-ticket investors are closely monitoring the developments in this pocket.

Analysts tracking the market in this part of the world are not surprised either. They believe these emerging locations offer more space to developers to innovate than the established locations. Thane has, anytime, more potential for appreciation than the traditional pockets of luxury across Mumbai. Neeraj Bansal, partner, Real Estate & Construction with KPMG India, says in time to come, the investors would be more willing to look at these locations as a matter of investment strategy. “It is not just the return on investment (ROI) that is anytime higher than the established luxury markets but even the ticket size is quite attractive. An investor can have two to three projects, rather than one project when he decides to enter in such luxury projects, in a luxury market of this size. In these turbulent economic times, it makes a perfect business sense,” explains Bansal.

A Kalpataru spokesperson maintains that Thane today, offers the widest choice of product offerings, suitable for all types of customer needs. There is a holistic city development that is happening which is ideal for any city to develop and prosper. Improved infrastructure has attracted well-known developers who envisioned Thane as a luxurious residential market. “Today, Thane has some well-known luxury projects to suit the needs of HNIs, NRIs, businessmen and film artists. These projects are located at prime locations and enjoy good connectivity,” says Kalpataru spokesperson.
There has been a radical change in Thane, with improved infrastructure and multiple luxury projects taking place in the city. For example, in July last year when one of the developers announced the opening of the second phase of their mall, the analysts and critics were wondering whether it makes sense for a 13- acre plot spread over an area of one million sq ft to be fully operational in Thane. However, the fact that inauguration of the mall had witnessed the opening of more than 60 brands including Shoppers Stop, Marks & Spencer, Lifestyle, Pantaloons, Home Centre, Splash and many more for the first time in Thane, made it a case study for serious researchers of the property market.
Within a year now, some of the other experienced players in the retail format are flocking to Thane, with a number of malls in the pipeline. Property analysts are wondering though whether there is a method in the madness. Will the conservative spending patterns of Thane actually transform into a mall culture? Will the retail chains that have opened their stores in the city through franchisees, make inroads?

Ashwin Sheth, MD, Sheth Developers & Realtors had said, “We are working towards creating an enriching shopping experience for our consumers.”

Analysts maintain big ticket retail entry is just an indication of the emerging luxury quotient of Thane. The fact that the corporate sector is also increasingly making Thane its choice indicates that the demand for luxury housing will only increase in the region. This, in effect, will revitalise the economy of Thane. Luxury projects do have a market in Thane and it is only the initial phase of development. Quality retail and office spaces, added to the fact that the multi-national companies are also entering Thane, indicate that the luxury quotient of the region is set to grow.

Soon, Thane promises to make its presence felt as one of the top luxury destinations of India. It may be the initial phase of luxury launches in the region but if the initial trends are any indication, it seems there is enough appetite for luxury projects in the city. First movers are already smiling their way to the bank.

Source : -magicbricks

Daughter who helped parents in suicide pact stood in stunned silence watching them die, inquest hears

Georgina Roberts tells inquest that she helped her parents David and Elizabeth Arnold to kill themselves at their home in Newbury, Berkshire, out of "compassion and love" 

A GP’s daughter told on Wednesday how she prepared a lethal drug to help her elderly parents commit suicide on “the hardest day of my life”.

David Arnold, 82, a retired doctor left bedridden after a leg amputation, and his wife Elizabeth, 85, a former teacher who had Alzheimer’s Disease, killed themselves at home after watching the Proms on television, an inquest heard.

Their daughter, Georgina Roberts, 59, had bought the fatal medication online, which she gave to her parents with a chocolate to mask the drug’s bitter taste, as well as a whisky for her father and a glass of port for her mother.

Mrs Roberts said they quickly slipped into a deep sleep and she stood watching them in “stunned silence” for 20 minutes.

The couple had previously made a failed attempt to kill themselves, and approached the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland but were turned down because of Mrs Arnold’s dementia, the inquest in Newbury, Berkshire heard.

They “could not face life apart” and had spoken openly to family, friends and even doctors of their plan to end their lives together when they became too ill, the hearing was told.

Giving evidence, Mrs Roberts said her father had insisted that it was up to her mother when they would finally kill themselves.

She added: “My actions were motivated entirely by compassion and love for my mother and father.”
On July 13, 2012 Dr and Mrs Arnold talked on and off for hours about acting out the suicide pact they had entered into five years earlier, the inquest heard

Their daughter recalled: "Mum told me dad had talked to her. He had had enough and so had she. She said she did not want to go on. She was getting worse with her memory and she didn't want to live without dad.

"I knew then that this was going to be the hardest day of my life."
Mrs Roberts said she asked them if they were sure it was the day, and they replied that it was but they wanted to see the Proms first.

She described mixing up the drug and giving it to her parents, adding: “Mum drank it very fast. Dad took his and drank it and I gave them both a chocolate each. Dad then had a whisky and mum had a port, I think.

“They quickly slipped into a deep sleep. I stood there for 20 minutes in stunned silence watching them. It was surreal."

Mrs Roberts later phoned 999 and rang her brothers Stephen and Simon to tell them what had happened.

She initially told police that she was not at her parents’ house in Newbury when they killed themselves, but later corrected her story.

Defending her actions, she said: “I'm a human being who loved my parents very deeply and wanted to help them when they couldn't help themselves.”

Assisting someone to commit suicide is a criminal offence, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided it was not in the public interest to charge Mrs Roberts with any offence.

The Berkshire coroner, Peter Bedford, recorded a narrative verdict, saying: "Mrs Arnold and Dr Arnold had discussed openly and over a period of years their intention to end their lives if they felt their quality of life was deteriorating to a point when it was no longer worth living.

"I fully accept from all the evidence I've heard that Georgina was genuinely motivated by compassion and a genuine desire to carry out her parent's wishes."

Source : telegraph

Four Travel Resolutions You Can Keep

I get it. We see New Year’s as a fresh start and all that. But, really, are those life-changing resolutions such a good idea? Many people say no, and point to the failure rate of such promises–particularly the more pie-in-the-sky ones (say, a resolution to cut out greasy food or to jog more and use social media less).
The tradition of New Year’s resolutions isn’t likely to go away, nor is it new. Babylonians did it, Romans did it, medieval knights did their sword-toasting “peacock vows” of eternal loyalty.
Fortunately for us, travel resolutions are easier to keep–if you’re realistic about them. And though they might not take care of those love handles, they’re sure to make the next year of your life on Earth a lot more enjoyable. 

Here are four I came up with to help get you started:

1. Use your dang vacation days.
This just in (especially directed to you Americans out there): you’re being silly. You have, on average, 14 days of vacation a year (according to the latest “vacation deprivation” study from Expedia), yet only use 10 of them. (French citizens, meanwhile, gets 30 days of vacation a year and more often than not use all of them. Sacre bleu!)
We see these kinds of stats every year–and apparently the number of unused days is rising. Still, at the same time nearly three of five Americans feel “vacation deprived.” So, let 2014 be the year we stop whining and start using the few days we have, even if it’s a random mid-week day off at home to see a part of your hometown you haven’t seen before.
Speaking of which…
2. See something new at home.
No more excuses: If you’ve lived in Dallas for 20 years and have never been to the Sixth Floor Museum, one of the most compelling museums in the U.S., well, you’re going in 2014. (I’ll be watching to make sure.)
Often the things we haven’t done at home rank high as essential things tourists want to do when they come to visit. Join them. Resolve to see that jazz festival, get in your car and take that fall-foliage drive, or go see the annual holiday extravaganza that everyone always talks about. Everyone but you.
Whenever I’m back to visit family and friends in Oklahoma, where I grew up, I make it a goal to see something new. Most recently, I homed in on McGehee’s, a legendary catfish shack overlooking the Red River on the Texas border, and each crisp bite lived up to the hype.
3. Put down the smartphone.
Think you can do it? Try. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Five times a week, sit in a public place, turn off the phone, and see if you can focus on what’s around you. For ten minutes. “Ha, guy’s got ‘conference voice’ on that al fresco business call; poor sap.” “There’s some tourists who don’t know which way to go.” “Hmm, hadn’t noticed that gold top on that building before.” “Trees sure look weird.”

My sketch of a weird tree I came across on a recent trip to Namibia (Photograph by Robert Reid)

Then take this new skill on vacation. Some resorts require you to surrender your cellphone on arrival, but you can do this on your own with enough willpower. I challenge you to spend a full day where you’re fully present and without any connection whatsoever.
To help, I travel with a Moleskine drawing pad and a handful of colored pencils to draw random scenes on trips. Creating works of fine art isn’t the point. Giving myself time to stop, disconnect, and really see something–even a weird tree in Namibia–is.

Eye on the Economy

Growing Optimism for HousingRings in the New Year

The new year has opened with a sense of growing optimism for housing.

Existing home sales climbed 5% in December while inventories dropped more than 9% to a 6.2 months-supply, down from 7.2 in November, which should help reduce downward pressure on home prices and increase confidence in the housing sector.

Single-family housing starts rose 4.4% in December to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 470,000, their fastest pace since the end of the home buyer tax credit program in 2010. This was consistent with recent improvements in builder confidence, as indicated by the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), which rose to 25 in January ― its highest level since the summer of 2007.

From an unsustainably high level in November, starts in buildings with five housing units or more fell 28% in December to a rate of 164,000 units, which was still 69% above the pace of a year earlier.
Although overall construction hiring slowed somewhat in December, 2011 is expected to be the first year since 2006 in which total hires exceeded total job losses in the construction sector.
Consumer prices and producer prices ― including building materials ― were both flat at the end of 2011, after increases earlier in the year.

The NAHB/First American Improving Market Index (IMI) has grown to 76 markets, many of which rely on health care and educational institutions for a solid economic base. As construction and other sectors continue to improve in 2012, the list of cities on the IMI is expected to grow.

And housing has been receiving attention from the Federal Reserve, which remains concerned over foreclosures, prices and tight credit conditions, even as improvements in multifamily building provides a boost to some areas.

Examining problems in the housing market ― including an excess supply of vacant homes, reduced availability of mortgage credit and an inefficient foreclosure process ― a Fed white paper concludes that restoring health to the housing market is necessary to promote a more robust economic recovery. While suggesting possible solutions, the paper indicates that there is no one policy that will accomplish this task.

Latest Financial and Economy News from around the web.

Liberty Global to buy Virgin Media for $23.3bn

US billionaire John Malone's cable group, Liberty Global, has agreed to buy the UK's Virgin Media in a cash and stock deal worth $23.3bn (£15bn).

It will create the UK's second biggest pay-TV business after BSkyB.

The deal, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval, puts Mr Malone in direct competition with Rupert Murdoch, whose media empire owns 39% of BSkyB.

Liberty Global already has operations in various European countries including Germany and Belgium.
"Adding Virgin Media to our large and growing European operations is a natural extension of the value creation strategy we've been successfully using for over seven years," said Mike Fries, chief executive of Liberty Global.

Alongside the announcement of the deal, Virgin Media reported its operating profit rose nearly 30% to £699.1m last year.

It said it added a record 88,700 new customers to its cable business during the year.
Shares jump
 
Neil Berkett, chief executive of Virgin Media, said: "The combined company will be able to grow faster and deliver enhanced returns by capitalising on the exciting opportunities that the digital revolution presents, both in the UK and across Europe."

Virgin Media was created from the merger of NTL and Telewest, and Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Mobile in 2006.

As part of that deal Sir Richard retained a 3% stake in the company, which has a 30-year brand licensing agreement with his Virgin Group.

Mr Malone, who is the chairman of Liberty Global, clashed with News Corp's Mr Murdoch in 2007 when the two companies vied for control of DirecTV Group, the largest US satellite TV broadcaster.

BSkyB leads the UK pay-TV market with 10.7 million customers compared with Virgin Media's 4.9 million.
Virgin Media's main listing is in the US on the Nasdaq technology stock exchange, where its shares jumped 17.9% on Tuesday amid speculation that a deal was imminent.

 

Government Dependents Outnumber Those With Private Sector Jobs In 11 U.S. States

America is rapidly becoming a nation of takers.  An increasing number of Americans expect the government to take care of them from the cradle to the grave, and they expect the government to dig into the pockets of others in order to pay for it all.  This philosophy can be very seductive, but what happens when the number of takers eventually outnumbers the number of producers?  In 11 different U.S. states, the number of government dependents exceeds the number of private sector workers.  This list of states includes some of the biggest states in the country: California, New York, Illinois, Ohio, Maine, Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, New Mexico and Hawaii.  It is interesting to note that seven of those states were won by Barack Obama on election night.  In California, there are 139 “takers” for every 100 private sector workers.  That is crazy!  The American people have become absolutely addicted to government money, and it gets worse with each passing year.  If you can believe it, entitlements accounted for 62 percent of all federal spending in fiscal year 2012.  It would be one thing if we could afford all of this spending, but unfortunately we simply cannot.  We are drowning in debt, and we are stealing more than a hundred million more dollars from future generations with each passing hour.  No bank robber in history can match that kind of theft.

Yes, we will always need a safety net.  There are many people out there that simply cannot take care of themselves.  We certainly don’t want to see anyone sleeping in the streets or starving to death.

But if the number of people jumping on to the safety net continues to grow at the current pace, the net will break and it will not be available for any of us.

For example, the number of Americans on food stamps grew from about 17 million in 2000 to more than 47 million today.  It nearly tripled in just 12 years.

What will happen if it nearly triples again over the next 12 years?

The federal government even has a website (benefits.gov) that guides people through the process of figuring out what welfare programs they can take advantage of.

Overall, the federal government runs nearly 80 different “means-tested welfare programs” and more than 100 million Americans are already enrolled in at least one of those programs.

Yes, I realize that figure is very hard to believe.  I had a hard time believing it when I first came across it.

And it is even more shocking when you realize that the figure of 100 million Americans does not even include those who only receive Social Security or Medicare.

Today, there are 56.76 million Americans on Social Security.

To support all of those Americans on Social Security, there are only about94.75 million full-time private sector workers.

So there are just 1.67 full-time private sector workers to support each American that is on Social Security.

Medicare is also growing like crazy.  As I wrote about the other day, the number of Americans on Medicare is expected to grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.

How much farther can we push things before the entire system collapses?

In order to support this exploding entitlement system, we need a lot more Americans to be working good paying jobs.

Unfortunately, millions of good paying jobs continue to be shipped overseas and they aren’t coming back.

We are even losing good jobs to our own prisoners.  The United States has the largest prison population in the world by far, and the exploitation of that low wage labor pool has become a boom industry in America.  Even Microsoft and Boeing are using prison labor now.  Just check outthis video.

Meanwhile, there are millions upon millions of law-abiding Americans thatcannot find jobs and that cannot take care of their families.

So poverty and dependence on the government are absolutely exploding.  We have a system that is so messed up that it is hard to even put it into words.  The middle class is being viciously shredded, and most Americans just continue to applaud the politicians from both parties that are doing this to us.

Our economy is being gutted at the same time that the welfare state is experiencing unprecedented growth.  Instead of giving us real answers, our “leaders” just continue to borrow, spend and print more money.  We are about to hit the debt limit again, and the Obama administration is saying that we should just do away with the debt limit permanently.

Most of our politicians don’t seem to understand that they are systematically destroying our economy and the bright futures that our children and our grandchildren were supposed to have.

But there are some politicians out there that get it.  Unfortunately, many of them live in other countries.  For example, Canadian MP Pierre Poilievre seems to have a firm grasp on what debt is doing to the United States.  The following are some excerpts from one of his speeches…

“By 2020, the US Government will be spending more annually on debt interest than the total combined military budgets of China, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, Italy, South Korea, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Spain, Turkey, and Israel.”

“Through government spending the indulgence of one is the burden of another; through government borrowing, the excess of one generation becomes the yoke of the next; through international bailouts, one nation’s extravagance becomes another nation’s debt”

“Everyone takes, nobody makes, work doesn’t pay, indulgence doesn’t cost, money is free, and money is worthless.”

You can see his entire speech right here.

And if we continue down this path it is most definitely true that our money will eventually become worthless at some point.  Just today I was down at the grocery store, and a can of chili that I was able to get on sale for 75 cents a couple of years ago now has a “sale price” of $1.69.  If the Federal Reserve keeps recklessly printing dollars, eventually we will be fortunate to get a can of chili for 10 bucks.  Things cost too much already, and the Fed seems absolutely determined to cut the legs out from under the U.S. dollar.

Unfortunately, printing money is the only way that we are going to be able to service the gigantic amounts of debt that we are accumulating.

According to Chris Cox and Bill Archer, two men who served on Bill Clinton’s Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform, there is no way in the world that we could raise taxes high enough to pay for all of the obligations that we are currently taking on.  They say that even if we taxed all corporations and all individuals at a 100% tax rate on all income over $66,193,  “it wouldn’t be nearly enough to fund the over $8 trillion per year in the growth of U.S. liabilities.”

Are you starting to get an idea of how much trouble we are in?

We don’t have enough money to pay for all of this.

We are broke.

Our current economy is a debt-induced illusion, and we will soon be waking up to a tremendous amount of pain.

Are you ready?


The Economic Collapse

Article Source : http://www.fedupusa.org/2012/12/government-dependents-outnumber-those-with-private-sector-jobs-in-11-u-s-states/