celestri.org

Yeah, another cover story from BusinessWeek. The last few months BusinessWeek has had some very interesting topics. Although the Mittal’s are from India, it’s one area where Arcelor Mittal doesn’t have much of a presence. That could be attributed to the fact that his brothers (Pramod and Vinod) are based in India and might have a brotherly pact in place. The article focuses on Aditya’s rise to the 2nd in power at Arcelor Mittal and how he proved his skills versus just being given the title because his dad runs the company.

I actually ran into Aditya at a wedding back in the summer of 2002 and I was shocked at how unassuming and down to earth the guy was. He didn’t come out and say, “Yeah, I’m a Mittal”, we had a 10 minute conversation at the bar and he really made me put the pieces together and then I finally asked “is your last name Mittal”, that’s when i realized who he was. And to further solidify it, when he went to pay for drinks, he slapped down his credit card – an Amex Centurion Card aka “black amex.”

The rates for calling between these two countries is so low, that in most instances it’s cheaper to call India from the US then to another state. The rates dropped again as of April 1, however only the wireless carriers have updated their rates.

When calling from the US to India you have several options:
Reliance India Call at 7.9 cents/minute (old rate)
Airtel CallHome at 7.9 cents/minute (old rate)
Skype around 13-15 cents/minute
Wireless carriers – forget it their pricing model are from the 80′s

The real fun is when calling from India to the US:
Skype at 2.1 cents/minute
Land line at Rs 7.20/minute (old rate)
Hutch calling cards at Rs. 4.50/minute (old rate)
Wireless carriers (such as Airtel) at Rs. 6.40/minute (new rate)