Shopping this Diwali: A boon to the customer, Written for moneymint.in

With the biggest Indian festival just round the corner, the consumer is flooded with attractive offers from various brands to woo him. Here are some of the best ones. The list of what ,where and how to buy this diwali:

In the auto market, the manufacturers are offering discounts in the range of Rs 50,000 on select cars. Added to this is the attractive loan rate offers from various banks. A skoda Fabia is costing you Rs50,000 less than the same time last year and a Hyundai Sonata would end up making a saving of Rs35,000 for you. As far as the car loan rates are concerned, as usual SBI leads the race with as low as 8.5% while ICICI and HDFC hover around the 11% mark.

Moving on to the consumer electronics, the market is flooded with discounts and offers of gifts and other attractions. Samsung is giving out 22-inch LCD TV free with every purchase of 40 or above inch LCD TVs. ompanies such as Sony, Samsung, LG and Voltas are offering interest-free finance schemes, some even translating into zero downpayment and processing fee. If you turn to the newspapers, it is full of offers from all major retailers with their offers.

House buyers are also in for some good news. In case you have zero’ed in for the house, the banks are offering attractive teaser rates for initial years with some lenders giving an option to shift to either fixed or floating rates in subsequent years. Please bear in mind that the loan rates are a must to go up subsequently but we can at least save some money in the initial years. And the concept of processing fees has been waived off by majority of the banks.

Going to mobile segment, Nokia offers gifts upto Rs1,00,000 on purchase of mobiles and attractive gifts such as reebok sunglasses worth Rs5,000 and reebok bags and many other assured gifts on select models. Retailers are not far behind. Univercell, a prominent brand in Tamil Nadu is offering attractive discounts and also 5% cash back on purchases made with a HDFC credit card. The Mobile store has come up with a money back scratch card for all brands except Nokia , by which you stand to win upto 55% of your mobile cash back.

With such huge offers pouring in, cosumers need to observe some restraint and spend some time researching on various topics using internet and calling the respective stores in order to figure out the real offers from the fake ones and get benefitted. Happy shopping Diwali!!

The main article can be found here.

Bangalore Traffic and Diwali

I have experienced it for 3 years. The mad rush of Bangalore traffic on the eve of diwali to reach majestic/station (both are adjacent to each other in case you do not know). This year it began as a different experience for me. First and foremost, no rush in 171 bus from Koramangala stop. So here I was seated comfortably in the bus. Surprise no.1 : Shanti nagar depot having some buses going out to various places. Instant reaction from my brain: Good! They have done their home work well. Surprise no.2: Not much of traffic after corporation circle. Usually this is the place where the whole thing comes to a stop and people walk to bus stand/station during diwali break.
Surprise no.3: I reached majestic in 1 hour time which is a normal duration for Bangalore. Surprise no.4 : By the time I reached my bus platform my bus number was already marked on the list. I was very happy and elated on all this. Thinking that Bangalore has found an answer for the mad rush. The next surprise, told me the truth. Conductor was shouting "Chennai ,Chennai." Thats when I realised, seats in the bus were vacant. Which meant today was not the diwali eve which Bangalore is famous for. Diwali had begun one day earlier for me. And hence without a traffic blast.