40 things most people dont know...

1) Mosquito repellents do not repel. They hide you.
The spray blocks the mosquito sensors so they do not know you are there.

2) Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet
away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from
the flush.

3) The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood
plasma.

4) No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.

5) Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.

6) The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.

7) Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

8) Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the
morning.

9) The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.

10) Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.

11) The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.

12) Pearls melt in vinegar.

13) The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola
and Budweiser, in that order.

14) It is possible to lead a cow upstairs but not downstairs.

15) A duck's quack does not echo and no one knows why.

17) On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.

18) Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.

19) Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

20) It is physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.

21) The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year
because when it was built engineers failed to take into
account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

22) A snail can sleep for three years.

23) No word in the English language rhymes with MONTH.

24) Our eyes are always the same size from birth but our nose and ears
never stop growing.

25) All polar bears are left handed.

26) A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

27) A group of twelve or more cows is called a flink.

28) Giraffes cannot cough.

29) DREAMT is the only English word that ends in the letters MT.

30) Mona Lisa has no eyebrows in Leonardo da Vinci's painting.

31) A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

32) A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.

33) Shakespeare invented the words ASSASSINATION and BUMP.

34) The longest earthworm in the world was reported to exceed 150ft. in
length.

35) A shrimp's heart is in its head.

36) The only word in the English language with all the vowels in reverse
order is SUBCONTINENTAL.

37) A cat uses its whiskers to determine if a space is too small to
squeeze through.

38) The poison arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people.

39) An ant can survive for up to two weeks underwater.

40) Almost everyone who reads this post  will try to lick their elbow.!

Looking at today's market crash, I feel tempted to add......

41st Thing Most people don't know........

When the market is going to crash!!!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bogelindah/ - - - - - - - - - http://mail.google.com/mail/?realattid=0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.1&attid=0.1.0.1.0.3&disp=emb&view=att&th=10f5e21115b1e7c5 -

A woman came out of her house and saw 3 old men with long white beards sitting in her front yard. She did not recognize them. She said "I don't think I know you, but you must be hungry. Please come in and have something to eat."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bogelindah/ - -

"Is the man of the house home?", they asked.
http://mail.google.com/mail/?realattid=0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.3&attid=0.1.0.1.0.2&disp=emb&view=att&th=10f5e21115b1e7c5 - - http://mail.google.com/mail/?realattid=0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.4&attid=0.1.0.1.0.4&disp=emb&view=att&th=10f5e21115b1e7c5 - - http://mail.google.com/mail/?realattid=0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.5&attid=0.1.0.1.0.5&disp=emb&view=att&th=10f5e21115b1e7c5 - -


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bogelindah/ - -

- "Then we cannot come in", they replied. - In the evening when her husband came home, she told him what had happened.The woman went out and invited the men in"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bogelindah/ - - - "We do not go into a House together," they replied.


- http://mail.google.com/mail/?realattid=0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.3&attid=0.1.0.1.0.2&disp=emb&view=att&th=10f5e21115b1e7c5 - - http://mail.google.com/mail/?realattid=0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.4&attid=0.1.0.1.0.4&disp=emb&view=att&th=10f5e21115b1e7c5 - - http://mail.google.com/mail/?realattid=0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.0.1.5&attid=0.1.0.1.0.5&disp=emb&view=att&th=10f5e21115b1e7c5 - -
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bogelindah/ - - - One of the old men explained: "His name is Wealth," he said pointing to one of his friends, and said pointing to another one, "He is Success, and I am Love." Then he added, "Now go in and discuss with your husband which one of us you want in your home."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bogelindah/ - -
The woman went in and told her husband what was said. Her husband was overjoyed. "How n ice!!", he said. "Since that is the case, let us invite Wealth. Let him come and fill our home with wealth!"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bogelindah/ - -
His wife disagreed. "My dear, why don't we invite Success?"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bogelindah/ - -
Their daughter was listening from the other corner of the house. She jumped in with her own suggestion: "Would it not be better to invite Love? Our home will then be filled with love!"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bogelindah/ - -
"Let us heed our daughter's advice," said the husband to his wife.
"Go out and invite Love to be our guest."
The woman went out and asked the 3 old men, "Which one of you is Love? Please come in and be our guest."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bogelindah/ - -
Love got up and started walking toward the house. The other 2 also got up and followed him. Surprised, t he lady asked Wealth and Success: "I only invited Love, Why are you coming in?"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bogelindah/ - -
The old men replied together: "If you had invited Wealth or Success, the other two of us would've stayed out, but since you invited Love, wherever He goes, we go with him. Wherever there is Love, there is also Wealth and Success!!!!!!"

MY WISH FOR YOU...
-Where there is pain, I wish you peace and mercy.
-Where there is self-doubting, I wish you a renewed confidence in your ability to work through it.
-Where there is tiredness, or exhaustion, I wish you understanding, patience, and renewed strength.
-Where there is fear, I wish you love, and courage.

Absolutely wonderful post Sanjay.....

Joke for the day.....

A minister dies and is waiting in line at the Pearly Gates. Ahead of him is a guy who's dressed in sunglasses, a loud shirt, leather jacket, and jeans.

Saint Peter addresses this guy, "Who are you, so that I may know whether or not to admit you to the Kingdom of Heaven?"

The guy replies, "I'm Joe Cohen, stockbroker, of Noo Yawk City."

Saint Peter consults his list. He smiles and says to the stockbroker, "Take this silken robe and golden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

The stockbroker goes into Heaven with his robe and staff, and it's the minister's turn. He stands erect and booms out, "I am Joseph Snow, pastor of Saint Mary's for the last forty-three years."

Saint Peter consults his list. He says to the minister, "Take this cotton robe and wooden staff and enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

"Just a minute," says the minister. "That man was a stockbroker-- he gets a silken robe and golden staff but I, a minister, only get a cotton robe and wooden staff? How can this be?"

"Up here, we work by results," says Saint Peter. "While you preached, people slept; his clients, they prayed."

Some more one the list of "things that most people don't know-this time @ the stock market.....!

Bull Market - A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.

Bear Market - A 6 to 18-month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry and the husband gets none.

Momentum Investing - The fine art of buying high and selling low.

Value Investing - The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E ratio - The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.

Broker - Poorer than you were last year.

"Buy, Buy" - A flight attendant making market recommendations as you step off the plane.

Stock Analyst - Idiot who just downgraded your stock.

Stock split - When your ex-wife and her lawyer split all your assets equally between themselves.

Financial Planner - A guy who actually remembers his wallet when he runs to the 7-11 for toilet paper and cigarettes.

Market Correction - The day after you buy stocks.

Cash Flow - The movement your money makes as it disappears down the Toilet.

Call Option - Something people used to do with a telephone in ancient times before e-mail.

Day Trader - Someone who is disloyal from 9-5.

Yahoo - What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for Rs.5240 per share.

Windows 2000 - What you jump out of when you're the sucker that bought Yahoo for Rs.5240 per share.

Institutional Investor - Past year investor who's now locked up in a nut house.

Profit - Religious guy who talks to God.

Bill Gates - Where God goes for a loan.

Rakesh Junjunwala- God. !!!!

Right then, this thread was started with "40 things Most people don't Know". Since the market has now retraced back to the levels to where it was when this thread was started,(!!) I thought this is the right time to add to the list... So here goes.......

MORE THINGS MOST PEOPLE DON"T KNOW:

1. Baboons can tell the difference between English and French. Zoo keepers at Port Lympne wild animal park in Kent are having to learn French to communicate with the baboons which had been transferred from Paris zoo. 

2. Humans can be born suffering from a rare condition known as "sirenomelia" or "mermaid syndrome", in which the legs are fused together to resemble the tail of a fish.

3. One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed.

4. It's possible for a human to blow up balloons via the ear. A 55-year-old factory worker from China reportedly discovered 20 years ago that air leaked from his ears, and he can now inflate balloons and blow out candles.

5. Lionesses like their males to be deep brunettes.

6. Bosses at Madame Tussauds spent £10,000 separating the models of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston when they separated. It was the first time the museum had two people's waxworks joined together.

7. The = sign was invented by 16th Century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde, who was fed up with writing "is equal to" in his equations. He chose the two lines because "noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle".

8. One person in four has had their identity stolen or knows someone who has.

9. In America it's possible to subpoena a dog.

10. When faced with danger, the octopus can wrap six of its legs around its head to disguise itself as a fallen coconut shell and escape by walking backwards on the other two legs, scientists discovered.

11. There are an estimated 1,000 people in the UK in a persistent vegetative state.

12. "Restaurant" is the most mis-spelled word in search engines.

13. Cyclist Lance Armstrong's heart is almost a third larger than the average man's.

14. Only 36% of the world's newspapers are tabloid.

15. You're 10 times more likely to be bitten by a human than a rat.
 

16. It takes 75kg of raw materials to make a mobile phone. 

17. The Pyruvate Scale measures pungency in onions and garlic. It's named after the acid in onions which makes cooks cry when cutting them. 

18. Newborn dolphins and killer whales don't sleep for a month, according to research carried out by University of California.

11. You can bet on your own death..

12. It takes less energy to import a tomato from Spain than to grow them in this country because of the artificial heat needed, according to Defra.

13. The hotter it is, the more difficult it is for aeroplanes to take off. Air passengers in Nevada, where temperatures have reached 120F, have been told they can't fly.

14. Giant squid eat each other - especially during sex.

15. First-born children are less creative but more stable, while last-born are more promiscuous, says US research.

16. It takes a gallon of oil to make three fake fur coats.

17. Each successive monarch faces in a different direction on British coins.

18. One in 18 people has a third nipple.

19. Japanese knotweed can grow from a piece of root the size of pea. And it can flourish anew if disturbed after lying dormant for more than 20 years.

20. Pulling your foot out of quicksand takes a force equivalent to that needed to lift a medium-sized car.

21. A single "mother" spud from southern Peru gave rise to all the varieties of potato eaten today, scientists have learned.

22.Spanish Flu, the epidemic that killed 50 million people in 1918/9, was known as French Flu in Spain.

23. Ordinary - not avian - flu kills about 12,000 people in the UK every winter.

24. You are 176 times more likely to be murdered than to win the National Lottery.

25. Koalas have fingerprints exactly like humans (although obviously smaller).

26. Bill Gates does not have an iPod.

27. The Japanese word "chokuegambo" describes the wish that there were more designer-brand shops on a given street.

28 . "Making Profit" and "profiteering" are not one and the same thing!!

Disclaimer: Only the last one is my original creation!!

Hi TEDies, Nice to to back on TED after a 2 month break... thought i'd start off my innings with my favourite thread...  so here goes...

SOME PONDERISMS:

used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes

Garden Rule: When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant.

The easiest way to find something lost around the house is to buy a replacement.

 Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.

Life is sexually transmitted.

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?

Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?"

Who was the first person to say, "See that chicken there? I'm gonna eat the next thing that comes outta its butt."

Why does the OBS-GYNO leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

That was nice how about the boss's reply:

In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes!

There are 18 different animal shapes in the Animal Crackers cookie zoo!

Should there be a crash, Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same airplane as a precaution!

Your body is creating and killing 15 million red blood cells per second!

The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache on a standard playing card!

There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos!  

There is one slot machine in Las Vegas for every eight inhabitants!

During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food, that's the weight of about 6 elephants!

Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they cant find any food!

Dolphins sleep with one eye open!

The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is over 9000 years old!

In space, astronauts cannot cry properly, because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow down their faces!

There are more plastic flamingos in the U.S, than real ones!  

About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30!

More people use blue toothbrushes, than red ones!

A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.!

Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe!

Ha ha!! Wait for the much awaited correction, Kulman, you'll have many more standing in that line, considering the heavy outstanding F&O positions ...

TAX STRUCTURE IN INDIA

Sir Ji, Do you have to deal with customs/sales tax department? My CA tells me they are the most courteous and honest of the lot

But you pay a penalty! (Children)

Your world is in your brain

It Creates The Mental State In Which Each Of Us Exists: UK Researcher

   We all live in the world of our own, and now even scientists say so. Researchers from UK have summed up in their latest study that the brain does not pass on all the information that it soaks up from the surroundings and instead uses this raw data to create a mental world in which each of us exists.
   Professor Chris Frith, a neuro-psychologist from University College London, says that our brain can work without our interference is an evolutionary hangover that has helped humans survive.
   Frith puts forward a mind-boggling prospect: the majority of the work that your brain does goes on unconsciously. In fact, your whole world, your consciousness, your reality, is an illusion, created by our brains, every one of which constructs them slightly differently, says UK's Sunday Times.
   Our brains are constantly soaking up and processing information from the world around us, monitoring, checking and assessing. But most of the information from our 100 trillion or so brain cells never reaches us. Instead the brain takes this raw data to create a model of the world and this is the mental world in which each of us lives, say Frith and other leading brain experts, while examining the topic of consciousness and the mental world in which we live, at this year's British Association for the Advancement of Science Festival in York.
   Using noninvasive brain-scanning equipment that provides a window on the brain, clearly showing which brain areas are being used, scientists are gleaning insights into the parts of our brains that produce our conscious selves. The researchers are using this knowledge to gain insights into what happens when we lose consciousness — if we're in a coma, for instance, or under anaesthetic — and to help people with mental disorders and distor tions of consciousness, such as schizophrenics.
   So, if only a small amount of our brain activity is used to generate our personality, and our worlds, what is the rest doing, and why don't we use it? The answer, according to Frith, is that if we did use all this information, it would simply put our consciousness into meltdown; we wouldn't be able to handle it.
   "We can unconsciously bring together information from many different sources, without thinking about it at all," Frith was quoted as saying.
   Frith says that if we start to think about how we do things — for example if you start thinking about how you physically move your limbs, or how you actually understand the meaning of these letters on the page — you start to get a bit confused and your brain doesn't work as well.
   The brain's ability to act on its own, without any conscious interference by you, may be an evolutionary hangover that helped us to survive, says Frith. For example, if you see a snake in your path you immediately jump out of the way before you've had time to consciously think to yourself, "Eek! Snake in my path".
   If you did think about it, in the time spent assessing your actions, you probably would have been bitten. So how have scientists worked out that most of our brain activity is unconscious, and what is actually going on inside our heads?
   To answer the first question, Frith says the fact that we can do many skills at once — for example, driving a car, while thinking about something completely different, such as what to buy for dinner — has suggested that there are many conscious levels in our brain. And recent experiments using the brain-scanning technique fMRI, which pinpoints active brain areas, has confirmed this.

• Have you stopped beating your wife?

• Have you started bathing everyday?

• Have you stopped picking nose in public place?

• Have you stopped behaving like a Mungerilal in stock market?

Add to this list...

Have you stopped watching TV18 for reasons other than the stock market!

 Here are some more....

*There are over 58 million dogs in the U.S!

Dogs and cats consume over $11 billion worth of pet food a year!

Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!

Humans blink over 10,000,000 times a year!  

In the year 2000, Pope John Paul II was named an "Honorary Harlem Globetrotter."!

Every second, Americans collectively eat one hundred pounds of chocolate

A fetus develops fingerprints at eighteen weeks!

The fear of vegetables is called Lachanophobia!..

 

There are approximately fifty Bibles sold each minute across the world!

Every year, kids in North America spend close to half a billion dollars on chewing gum!

An earthquake on Dec. 16, 1811 caused parts of the Mississippi River to flow backwards!

A person uses (international average) approximately fifty-seven sheets of toilet paper each day!

Honolulu is the only place in the United States that has a royal palace!

One gallon of used motor oil can ruin approximately one million gallons of fresh water!

More money is spent on gardening than on any other hobby!

In 32 years. there are about 1 billion seconds!

Rice paper does not have any rice in it!

*A rat can last longer without water than a camel.

*Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.

*The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.

*A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

*A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate. (cat view:unfortunately the same is not true with Humans!)

*Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

*During the chariot scene in "Ben Hur," a small red car can be seen in the distance (and Heston's wearing a watch).

*On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily!(That explains a few mysteries....)

*Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

*The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 18,979,564,000.

*There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple and silver.

*Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.

*The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

*Weatherman Willard Scott was the first Ronald McDonald.

*If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death. (Who was the sadist who discovered this??)

*Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to s-l-o-w film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.

*The original name for butterfly was flutterby.

*The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

*The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.

*Roses may be red, but violets are indeed violet.

*By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.

*Celery has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.

*Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.

*An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than three steps backwards while dancing!

*The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from public libraries.

*Bats always turn left when exiting a cave!

Some are realy good ones, CatCall. Few comments ..

Oh what is this……. X-Box, Smart cat and Catcall Please reply..

37 Things You may not Know!

BALANCE SHEET OF LIFE

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Our Birth is our Opening Balance !

Our Death is our Clos in g Balance!

Our Prejudiced Views are our Liabilities

Our Creative Ideas are our Assets

Heart is our Current Asset

Soul is our Fixed Asset

Brain is our Fixed Deposit

Thinking is our Current Account

Achievements are our Capital

Character & Morals, our Stock- in -Trade

Friends are our General Reserves

Values & Behaviour are our Goodwill

Patience is our Interest Earned

Love is our Dividend

Children are our Bonus Issues

Education is Brands / Patents

Knowledge is our Investment

Experience is our Premium Account

The Aim is to Tally the Balance Sheet Accurately.

The Goal is to get the Best Presented Accounts Award.

WTI and Indian Crude Oil

Anand James, Sr. Analyst, Geojit Financial Services

Types of Crude Oil

There are about 161 different internationally traded crude oils, according to The International Crude Oil Market Handbook, 2004, published by the US Energy Intelligence Group. They vary in terms of characteristics, quality and market penetration. Of these crude oils, WTI, Brent, Dubai and OPEC Basket Price are the main price markers seen as global price reference.

WTI Crude Oil

WTI refers to West Texas Intermediate, which is mostly refined in the Midwest region of the US. It is a high quality oil with an API gravity of 39.6 degrees (making it a ‘light’ crude oil), and containing only about 0.24 per cent of sulphur (making it a ‘sweet’ crude oil). Thus being light and sweet, makes WTI ideal for refining in the US, which is the largest consumer of oil.

WTI and MCX Crude Futures

WTI Crude is the benchmark for oil futures trading in Nymex, which is the world’s largest Energy exchange. At the same time, MCX Crude oil futures contracts are broadly structured on Nymex’s contracts, and their settlement, as well as price movements match very closely.

Indian Crude

The Crude Oils that India normally imports are the Oman-Dubai sour grades and the Brent sweet, mostly in the ratio of 58:42. One main reason for preferring these sour grades over the more expensive, and high quality oils like WTI, is that the environmental standards in India permit higher sulphur content in petrol and diesel. It means that, unlike in US, India can import and refine cheap crude even though its products (petrol, diesel etc.) may contain higher sulphur content, as it is presently permissible in India.  Now the big question is whether movements in WTI affect Indian petrol prices. The answer is not yet an affirmative yes for the following reasons:

1. The Crude Oils that India imports are mostly the Oman-Dubai sour grades and Brent, making the Indian import bill less elastic to WTI price moves. But to the extent that WTI is still considered as the global benchmark for Crude prices, Indian prices do not stay isolated, and respond to WTI’s price moves, sooner or later.

2. The settlement logic in MCX follows that delivery hardly happens against the futures contracts, which means that domestic oil/product prices remain largely unaffected by MCX/WTI price moves. However, high volumes in MCX crude futures and a correlation between WTI and MCX futures consistently hovering around 1, save exchange rate fluctuations, indicate that price moves in MCX are mostly market driven and could soon emerge as a benchmark for domestic crude oil prices.

3. Even though, APM* was dismantled in April 2002, the Indian prices are not purely market driven yet. This is because, the Government continues to issue directives to OMCs (Oil Marketing Companies), thus deciding the end consumer’s price indirectly to some extent. However, even though the domestic market is not as responsive as it would have been if it were purely market driven, it is much more exposed to international price volatility than earlier, though moderated through Government’s efforts. Moreover, customs duty remains high, and the OMCs continue to be paid the import price parity for the products, thus more or less assuring good refining margins, and their profitability.

*APM (Administered Price Mechanism) protected Indian consumers from high volatility in international prices, by absorbing the same through an oil pool, created for this purpose. The retail petrol/diesel prices thus remained more or less irresponsive to international prices, while the margins for the oil companies were decided by the government and met from the oil pool.