“You can never evaluate anything standing from outside; you have to evaluate yourself first.”

Aruna Roy (born on 26 May 1946) is an Indian political and social activist who co-founded the Mazdoor’ Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), a social grass root organization for the empowerment of works and peasant along with Shankar Singh, Nikhil Dev, and others. MKSS was a major civil rights movement in India and helped in passing the Indian ‘Right to Information Act’, a major step in reducing the country’s corruption and promoting government transparency.

For 6 years, she served as a civil servant in the Indian Administrative Service. In 1974, she left the political service to join the Social Work and Research Centre (SWRC), a rural development organization in Tilonia, Rajasthan, founded by her husband Bunker Roy who is also an Indian social activist and educator. Eventually, she founded the MKSS, an organization devoted to empowering workers and peasants and also increasing, the accountability of local governments. She has been associated with several campaigns including the Right to Information Act, the Right to Work (then REGA), and the Right to Food. She has been honored with Raman Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership and the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in Public Administration, Academia, and Management. She served as a member of the National Advisory Council of India until 2006 and is part of NAC (National Advisory Council) II. She was inducted into National Advisory Committee in 2004 which was set up by the then Congress government.

As a member of the Pension Parishad, she was involved with the campaign for a universal, non-contributory pension for unorganized sector workers and the NCPRI for the passage and enactment of the Whistleblower Protection Law and Grievance Redress Act. In 2011, she was named as one of the ’100 Most influential people across the world’ by Times magazine.

Life lesion- leaders like her are always a part of the problem-solving process.

They keenly identify the problem,
analyze it,
try to find the root cause of the problem,
create all possible alternative solutions to solve the problem,
analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each solution,
select the best possible one,
implement the idea
And at regular intervals, they take adequate feedback by monitoring the implementation process.
If the solution is implemented aptly, they plan the next course of action, if not, they try to find better alternatives to resolve the issue till they achieve their goals but won’t quit until the problem is solved. Like her, we all must try to be a part of solution and not apart from solution.

Deepa Malik (30 September 1970) is an Indian athlete who has won a silver medal in shot put F-53 Category with lifetime personal best performance of 4.61 meters at Rio Summer Paralympics 2016 making her first Indian woman ever to win a medal at Paralympics games. She has also won gold in F 53/54 Javelin event at the para athletic Grand Prix held in Dubai in 2018 and is currently in the world number one in the F-53 category. She has participated in Raid De Himalayas which is one of the toughest motor sports in India. It includes eight continuous days of driving and 1,700-km drive in sub-zero temperatures which included a climb to 18,000 feet (5,500 m).

Daughter of a veteran Infantry Colonel BK Nagpal, wife of veteran Colonel Bikram Singh and mother of two adult daughters, Deepa is the first paraplegic Indian woman biker, swimmer, car rallyist, entrepreneur, and motivational speaker. She is a paraplegic, paralyzed from the waist down. She has braved 183 stitches between shoulder bladders and 3 spring and tumor surgeries in the past 14 years. Deepa was diagnosed with a spine tumor at the age of 8, her recovery took 3 years. In 1999, while her husband was in Kargil her tumor relapsed and the doctors were left with no other option but to operate, she was in coma for 25 days. After the surgeries, it took almost 6 years of physiotherapy to prepare her to start her career as a swimmer and then as a para-athlete. Today, she has over 53 national medals (47 gold, 5 silver, 2 bronze) and 13 international medals in various sport including swimming, javelin throws, and shot put. She holds 4 Limca World records. She is the first paraplegic to receive rally license for rally vehicle and also receive an official rally license from Federation Motor Sports Club of India (FMSCI). She is the only Indian woman to win medals in 3 consecutive Asian Para Games and set a New Asian Record in Asian Para Games 2018

She began taking the sport seriously at the age of 36. At the age of 45. she is the oldest member of the country’s Paralympics games. She is the receiver of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, President Role Model Award, Arjuna Award, Padma Shri Award, First Ladies Award – Ministry of Women & Child Development, and many more. She is also the ‘Clean India’ brand ambassador for NMDC (National Mineral Development Corporation).

Life lesson- You’re never too old to start learning, and you’re never too young to aim high and achieve great things. You are never too old to dream, too -

learn new art or hobbies
pursue to passion,
build your competencies,
discover your talent,
start a new venture/ career,
enlighten your spirit,
start the work you love.

In total assets, the largest banks all over the world start from three billion dollars as of number one in the list, and end with two billions and a half. Chinese banks take a big bite of the world finance, Japan and America follows next. Let us have a look at the largest banks in the world as estimated by relbanks.

10 Barclays PLC
Barclays is one of the big names in Britain. It was founded in London in the beginning of the 17th century. Still, the bank has branched all over the world. Nearly there is no one type of transactions Barclays are not working in from investment to wholesale and retail.

9 Credit Agricole
The bank’s headquarter is located in France and was founded in 1885. Credit Agricole service is friendly as they have founded the Point Passerelle in which customers suffering from any problem like threatened with getting their accounts suspended can find solutions and a helping hand.

8 Bank of China
Founded in 1912 in the Chinese capital Beijing, the Bank of China has different branches around the world.

7 Agricultural Bank of China
Built in 1951 in Beijing, the bank branched out in Japan, U.S, Australia, German, Korea and Singapore. It has around hundred million customers across these branches. It has an advanced rank among the top ten in the world, in number of transactions. The bank witnessed a number of bad circumstances that affected its presence, however it continued to be.

6 JPMorgan Chase & Co
Known as Chase, JPMorgan Chase is a public bank that was founded in 2000 in the United States of America. Chase is the largest bank in the States. Its total assets are estimated to be around above $2 trillion.

5 MUFG
The Mitsubishi UF J Financial Group is based in the Japanese headquarter, Tokyo. It was founded in 2005 and has an average of $2.5 trillion in assets. Although it was founded only 20 years ago, it was able to precede other banks in number of transactions. As usual, this big bank merged with other important bank in Japan; Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and. Such merging always increases the bank’s scope and power and adds to its security.

4 BNP Paribas
Founded in France in 1848, BNP Paribas had enough time to spread its branches worldwide. Like Barclays, Paribas is stretching a hand in every transactional sector like retail, investment and wholesale.

3 China Construction Bank
Founded in Beijing in 1954, is one of the four biggest banks in China as a whole. In addition to the various branches around the world, the Bank of America staked around $3 billion in 2005 and holds above %10 of its shares as well. However it decided that it would sell half of those shares.

2 HSBC
The world known bank HSBC is mainly British with its headquarter in London, the bank was founded in 1865. The bank’s total assets are above $2.6 trillion and big revenue of $68 billion. This is mainly because of its wide scope that covers many countries in America, Asia, Africa, and Europe.

1 ICBC
Founded in 1984, the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China is the major bank in the country. Take into consideration the amount of transactions made with China, now all this money comes here! The ICBC as a company ranked first in Forbes list of biggest companies in the year 2000. Unlike the widespread of HSBC branches all over the world, ICBC is doing it timidly. Only four of its banks are built in the Middle East in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, and Kuwait.

Is your company a home for one of those banks above? It could be a yes if we speak about multinational banks. Let me hear from you in the comments’ section below!

A very important aspect of your financial plan should be to save money on groceries, as they tend to be one of the biggest expenditures of any family. All of us were already worried about recession and with inflation also on the rise it becomes very difficult to keep the budget under control. Your debt is already causing sleepless nights and the grocery bills add to the misery. Most families are shocked to see their grocery bills rising. What do you do? Is there a way you can win over inflation? Is there a financial plan to control the ever increasing prices? You are not alone, in this battle and we will help you get a plan in action to create a win-win situation. Here we go!

Don’t shop when you are hungry – Hungry and grocery shopping! Never do your groceries shopping when you are hungry as you tend to buy things that you don’t need. You will indulge in a lot of impulsive shopping.
Plan your meals – You should have a definite plan; you should know what you need and what you don’t. If you walk around the shop aimlessly, thinking about your meals, you will grab whatever you see. Try to do grocery shopping for the entire week.
Hunt for deals – Most grocery shops announce deals once every week and this could be advertised in the local newspaper. You could get very good deals on a specific day and this will help keep the cost down.
Store brands – Most customers are apprehensive of the store brands against reputed brands. Surprise! You will get better quality products of store brands and the prices are also very cheap.
Multiple item sales – Five items for just $30.00! It is one of the best marketing strategies available where a combination of products or multiple items are offered for sale. Most of us fall for this. Be careful and chose the deal wisely.
Coupons – You will be surprised to know that you can save money on groceries by cutting the coupons that are available in newspapers. Somehow not many of us do it nowadays. Maybe we tend to think of it as cheap. But every time you use these coupons you will save some dollars.
Discounts and frequent shoppers – There are a number of grocery chains that offer discounts to customers who are loyal to the chain and you can avail of such discounts and save valuable money.
“Little drops of water make the mighty ocean”. Every cent you save will add to your overall saving and using this money you can also slowly take care of your debt. You can trim the fat of your bill and save money on groceries if you plan it right.