Jewellery sales could rise 20% in Diwali

JEWELLERY sales could go up by a significant 20 per cent this Diwali.

Thanks to extension of provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act or PMLA from the present limit of Rs 50,000 to Rs 2,00,000 in the case of jewellery purchases, there is suddenly a spring in every jeweller’s step.

Going by the rise in sales in the weekend post the announcement, it is understandable. “More than 50 per cent of sales in gold jewellery happen in the Rs 50,000 and Rs 2,00,000 range. The move is great news for the middle class whose average buy is in that range. The spend from this tier of the customer base will definitely go up,” predicted Nitin Khandelwal, chairman, All India Gems & Jewellery Trade Federation (GJF). Jewellery stocks posted gains on Monday after the government relaxed the know your customer (KYC) norms for purchase of jewellery and kept the sector away from the ambit of money laundering laws ahead of the festive season. The industry has received some relief after a string of government decisions that hit sales, including import duty hike, excise duty, demonetisation and GST.

Titan saw the shares moving up 5 per cent to Rs 628 per piece on Monday. Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri gained 7.78 per cent to Rs 130.80 a share and was trading at Rs 127.75 a share, up 5.27 per cent, when the market closed.

PC Jewellers saw its shares gaining 6.7 per cent to Rs 398.70 a share, Gitanjali went up 7 per cent and closed 3.8 per cent up at Rs

72.40 per piece and Thangamayil Jewellery went up 4.76 per cent to Rs 418.95.

Rajesh Exports went up 2 per cent to Rs 829 a share and settled at Rs 814 at the end of the session.

During the weekend, the government had relaxed KYC norms and had announced that a customer need not submit PAN, Aadhaar card or any other identity details for jewellery purchases above Rs 50,000.

Further, an entity dealing in gems or jewellery or any other high-value goods with a turnover of Rs 2 crore or more will not be covered under PMLA, 2002.

The organised jewelers have been hit by the norms since January 2016, when the government had mandated the submission of PAN details for purchases above Rs 2 lakh.

The limit was brought down from Rs 5 lakh. Unorganised

jewellers doing unbilled transactions had taken away a good portion of sales from the organised players.

“Over the past 20 days we had met each and every department and key personnel in the government. The support that we got from various associations and chain store owners on this concern was phenomenal. This is really a proud moment for our industry and we look forward to good

business during the festive season,” said Khandelwal.

Said Saurabh Gadgil, chairman and managing director, PNG Jewellers, and director, Indian Bullion Jewellers Association: “This year’s Diwali outlook seems bullish. Surge in gold pricing has come down and stabilised. Hence, we feel this year demand for gold and gold jewellery will be up by 10 to 15 per cent compared to last year. The market sentiment seems

positive for both investors and buyers.”

Jewelers are finally looking at recovering from a lackluster Navarati this September, where sales had dipped.

According to industry estimates, imports fell by 43 per cent in September compared to last year after the government made furnishing of PAN mandatory.

Gold sales are gaining momentum across the country and wedding shopping

too has taken off in full swing this weekend soon after the relaxation in KYC norms were announced.

“It is a positive move for this sector and will improve sales. Many buyers fear sharing personal details with shopkeepers. This step is expected to encourage buyers to buy from registered shops. The sale and demand of branded jeweller is likely to rise,” said an analyst from Religare Securities.

The All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation, the trade body for the promotion and growth of trade in gems and jewellery across India, made a series of representations with the financial intelligence unit, directorate-general of goods and service tax intelligence and NITI-Aayog highlighting the various concerns of the industry. (With inputs from TickerNews Service)

Psychology of economics: Richard Thaler bags Nobel

Richard H Thaler was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science on Monday for his contributions to behavioural economics.

Thaler, born in 1945 in East Orange, New Jersey, works at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. The Nobel committee, announcing the award in Stockholm, said that he was a pioneer in applying psychology to economic behaviour and in shedding light on how people make economic decisions, sometimes rejecting rationality.

His research, the committee said, had taken the field of behavioural economics from the fringe to the mainstream of academic research and had shown that it had important implications for economic policy.

Thaler said on Monday that the basic premise of his theories was that, “In order to do good economics you have to keep in mind that people are human.”

Asked how he would spend the prize money, he replied :“This is quite a funny question .” He added :“I will try to spend it as irrationally as possible .”

The economics prize was established in 1968 in memory of Alfred Nobel and is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Mainstream economics for much of the 20th century was based on the simplifying assumption that people behaved rationally. Economists understood that this was not literally true, but they argued that it was close enough.

Th aler has played a central role in pushing economists away from that assumption. He did not simply argue that humans are ir rational, which is obvious but also unhelpful. Rather, he showed that people depart from rationality inconsistent ways, so their behaviour can still be anticipated.

For example, he showed that people do not regard all money as created equal. When gas prices decline, standard economic theory predicts that people will use the savings for whatever they need most. In reality, people still spend much of the money on gas. They buy premium gas even if it is bad for their car. In other words: They treat a certain slice of their budget as gas money.

THALER HAD A CAMEO APPEARANCE, ALONGSIDE SELENA GOMEZ, IN THE BIG SHORT (2015), IN WHICH HE USED BEHAVIOURAL ECONOMICS TO HELP EXPLAIN CAUSES OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

He also found that people care deeply about fairness. For example, an umbrella store might not raise prices during a rainstorm — or at least might not raise prices as high as it could — because it was aware that people may choose to get wet rather than reward a shop that they considered to be price gouging.

The Nobel committee described how Thaler’s theory of “mental accounting” explained how people simplify financial decisions by focusing on the narrow impact of each decision rather than on its overall effect. He also showed how aversion to losses can explain why people value the same item more highly when they own it than when they do not, a phenomenon called the endowment effect.

Thaler’s theories also shed light on why New Year’s resolutions can be hard to keep and on the tension between long-term planning and short-term doing.

Succumbing to short-term temptation is an important reason many people fail in their plans to save for old age, or to make healthier lifestyle choices, according to Thaler’s research. He also demonstrated how seemly small changes in how systems work, or “nudging” — a term he invented — could help people exercise better selfcontrol when, for example, saving for a pension.

Thaler had a cameo appearance, alongside the actress and singer Selena Gomez, in the film The Big Short, in which he used behavioural economics to help explain the causes of the financial crisis. Asked about his “short Hollywood career,” he joked that he was disappointed his acting prowess had not been mentioned during the summary of his achievements when the award was announced.

Why was the work important?

Thaler’s work has forced economists to grapple with the limits of traditional analysis based on the assumption that people are rational actors.

He has also been unusually successful in directly influencing public policy.

One of his most important contributions is his influence on the shift to retirement plans that automatically enroll employees, and to policies that offer employees the option of increasing their contributions over time. Both reflect Thaler’s insight that inertia can be used to shape beneficial outcomes without limiting human choice.

In a 2008 book, Nudge, written with Cass R Sunstein, Thaler argued governments had many opportunities to improve the design of public policy.

Two years later, the British government created a behavioural economics unit based on Thaler’s advice that pursued such opportunities. Other countries, including the United States, have followed suit. Some victories are relatively minor, such as sending to people who have not paid auto registration fees a letter with a picture of the car, which has been found to increase the rate of payment. Others are more profound, like automatically enrolling eligible children in school meal programmes.

Bungalow architecture blooms

AT this bungalow off Dunearn Road, Singapore, it’s hard to tell where the garden ends and the house begins.

The long passageway – designed to run down the side of the house for feng shui reasons – that leads to the main door is decorated with tropical plants such as the bright red Heliconia marginata, the blood banana plant with its patterned leaves, and an old white frangipani tree.

The roofs of the car porch and patio, which are next to each other, are blanketed with shrubs and small plants. A balcony on the second level overlooks this mini garden and has a long bench built in, where one can rest and enjoy the greenery.

Rows of Vernonia elliptica ,a creeper, cascade from the patio roof, creating a green “curtain” that partially shields the house from the main road.

Beyond the patio is a garden that is now home to two old trees: A tall Dalbergia oliveri, with its droopy branches and leaves; and a dense and layered Bucida molineti, salvaged from an empty piece of land that was being prepared for a new development.

Towards the back of the house, a small courtyard is sandwiched between the living and dining rooms. A tall frangipani tree stands majestically in the centre, with a pond surrounding it.

The bungalow’s architect, Yong Ai Loon of architecture consultancy firm Timur Designs, explains that “The house is a backdrop for the garden”.

While many home owners shy away from having lots of greenery as plants can be hard to maintain, this owner – a businessman – pushed Yong for a plant-filled abode.

So she worked with John Tan, owner of Esmond Landscape and Horticultural, to make the owner’s green dream a reality.

Tan says: “The owner wanted plants to be a big part of his home, so I got involved right from the start. For him, getting the plants in was not an afterthought.”

The 929sq m house has two storeys, an attic, and a basement. The old house that stood in its place was torn down and the new building – now home to the owner, his wife and their two children – went up in about 15 months.

Yong and Tan’s collective greening effort was rewarded when the house recently won the Gold and Best of Category awards in the Design and Build segment at the Landscape Industry Association Singapore landscape award competition.

Greenery aside, the architect conceived a house with a seamless layout. The interiors are spacious, airy and bright, thanks to the large windows and openings in the facade that let sunlight through.

The first floor has been set aside for the living and dining rooms, which open up to a pool. At the end of the pool is a pavilion, from which you can take in the view of the quiet residential neighbourhood.

The bedrooms are on the second floor, while the attic is reserved for guests who stay the night.

In keeping with the nature theme, tones of green, brown and beige as well as natural materials such as wood and stone were picked for the furnishings and fittings. For example, the ceiling of the house is clad in teak, while a table in the patio is a live edgewood piece.

The owner, who declines to be named, says: “Even before the renovation, I decided that this house would have a huge garden and lots of plants. I wake up in the morning and I can hear birds singing in the garden. I love being close to nature.”

A perfect fit

When it came to designing this bungalow off Farrer Road, architects from RT+Q Architects took a leaf from the shape and structure of huts, barns and old tropical houses.

With its pitched roof, raw fair-faced concrete walls and timber sun-shading screens, verandas and gardens, this house is a modernday interpretation that combines various features of these humble buildings.

The 1,200sq m, two-storey house, which also has a basement, is home to a multi-generation family that includes two grandparents, their daughter and son-in-law and their three grandchildren.

To accommodate the need for the occupants’ own private time and communal gatherings, the architects carved out separate wings for the older folk and the younger generation. These wings, which are off to the sides of the building, house bedrooms and library nooks.

The whole family comes together in the long communal block that runs down the centre of the bungalow. On the spacious first level, the family gathers for meals or parties. The living room upstairs has a floor- to-ceiling house-shaped display cabinet filled with Chinese antiques.

While the interiors are impressive, the outdoor area, which boasts gardens, a pool and a pond, is also stunning.

The daughter’s wing is fronted by a manicured garden, dotted with two large mature Dalbergia oliveri trees. With their lush crowns and long branches, the 30-year-old trees form a screen between the house and the main road.

The architects also designed a double-height “dining box” on the first floor of this wing that opens up into this garden.

Tucked behind is a pool, where overhanging trees drape over the pool’s edge.

The true centrepiece of this house is a Japanese-themed garden and pond. The pond comes up to the sheltered veranda of the grandparents’ bedroom and can be seen from the dining room.

Keeping to the style of such traditional gardens, there are stepping stones, gravelled surfaces and a thriving koi pond.

These outdoor zones bring nature to the doorstep of the home’s occupants. The son-in-law, who is a landscape architect, collaborated with RT+Q on what would go into these garden spaces.

The firm’s director Rene Tan, who worked on the house with co-founder T.K. Quek and project architect Melvin Keng, says: “This house is unique for us because it is one of those rare moments where the form was largely driven by a landscape strategy, instead of an architectural one.”

While the gardens dominate the space, the property was christened “The House With Shadows” because of the different lines and shapes it casts during the day.

It is competing against 16 other projects in the House – Completed Buildings category at the prestigious World Architecture Festival Awards held in Berlin. The winner will be announced in November.

Futuristic facade, cosy interiors

The rounded, grey facade of this house, with two skylights punched into its roof, makes it look as if a spaceship has landed on top of a hill in Siglap.

And though this futuristic-looking home is on a street chock-ablock with homes of varying sizes, the interiors are so spacious that its occupants say they do not feel they are so close to their neighbours.

The house belongs to a restaurateur and her husband. They have three children aged between 17 and 25 and both their mothers live with them. It has a built-up area of 852sq m and was completed earlier this year after a 20-month renovation.

Besides the usual features of a house – a living room, dining room and bedrooms – the architects have fitted in a pool, a gym, an entertainment area and a private theatre that can seat up to 25 people.

The multi-purpose, two-storey bungalow with an attic and basement is the creation of a team from architecture practice AD Lab. Warren Liu, principal director at the firm, worked together on the house with associate director Lim Pin Jie and design executive Dawn Lim. He says: “It’s a self-contained home that has everything.”

The large family spends a lot of time at home and often entertains friends and family there, especialy during during the holiday season. The restaurateur, who declines to be named, says: “I wanted to have a house that welcomes everye.one. It’s nice when the boys ask their friends over to hang out.” One of the nicest spaces in the house is the rooftop garden that is decorated with plants. A barbecue grill and an outdoor dining table with chairs complete the set-up.

While rooftop gardens are common in most houses today, this one steals the show with its view of the Marina Bay area and the Central Business District’s soaring skyscrapers in the distance.

The architects orientated the rooftop towards the cityscape to take advantage of the unblocked landscape. Even the bedroom and communal spaces on the first and second floors have snatches of the city views. Liu says: “We didn’t have to try too hard. We let the view dominate the space.” – The Straits Times/Asia News Network

LADOO LOVE: EAT RIGHT THIS DIWALI

Enjoy the sweets and savouries this festive season, but do so without piling on the kilos

Be it jalebis dipped in rabri or deep-fried pakodas and samosas, festivities are all about sweets and savouries. During Diwali, it’s hard to resist the temptation to gorge ourselves on these tasty things. The bad news is, if one is on a diet, Diwali might derail it.

However, experts give us tips on how not to binge eat and what to keep in mind. Skip fake sweeteners:

One often picks food items with artificial sweeteners, thinking they have fewer calories. These sweeteners trick our bodies into thinking that it will receive calories in the form of sugar, which should satisfy our craving. However, since that doesn’t happen, we end up with cravings and then binge eat. “One then eats calorie-dense foods that are not just high glycaemic index carbs (e.g. a cookie) but also loaded with trans fats,” says nutritionist Munmun Ganeriwal.

Trans fats are bad, and high glycaemic index carbs give one an energy spike that doesn’t last long. It’s better to go for natural sugar that comes from sugarcane. “Make sweets at home to ensure good quality ingredients. Avoid sweets from shops that mass produce,” advises Ganeriwal.

Go for home-cooked food: Home-cooked fried food is not bad, as you’d use good quality oil that has not been reused. Packaged products have unhealthy trans-fats. “Home-cooked sweets have dry fruits, ghee, milk, sugar and even grains that regulate blood sugar, making you feel more energetic,” says Ganeriwal.

Also, eat only one savoury item at a time, and don’t indulge in too much fried — especially deep-fried — food.

Don’t think just calories, think nutrition: Even when you pick sweets, choosing what you eat is important. “Take rasgulla over gulab jamun, as rasgulla has calcium and protein. Similarly, pick kheer — rich in protein and calcium — over carb-heavy sooji ka halwa,” suggests nutritionist Kavita Devgan.

Go slow with alcohol: Sip on alcohol slowly and don’t mix your drinks. Sipping slowly gives you time to think and the ability to stop without drinking too much. Don’t drink on an empty stomach and have water after every glass. “Keep your body hydrated; it lowers the temptation to have cola and alcohol,” says Devgan.

Have a small wholesome snack: Before leaving the house, have a healthy snack to avoid eating out. “Poha, upma, cheese toast, or rotighee and jaggery roll are a few options,” says Ganeriwal.

Don’t miss working out: During the festive season, we often skip working out, when this is actually the most crucial time for being active, what with all the extra calorie intake. So, exercise regularly. As Devgan says, “Maintaining your weight would spare you the trouble of shedding the extra kilos later.”

Spiritual, intellectual awakening in Madhya Pradesh

Journey to the heart of India promises an expansion of mind and spirit. Mid-August this year, The Jakarta Post’s Sebastian Partogi was invited to stay for six days in Madhya Pradesh as a delegate of the first India-ASEAN Youth Summit. Here is his story ab

With Indian authors Jhumpa Lahiri and Arundhati Roy having been two of my favorites since my teenage years, I have always been curious about visiting the country. I find myself being hypnotized by the spiritual and intellectual traditions of the place.

Madhya Pradesh is a state in central India. The fifthlargest state in the country by population, the region has a long-standing tribal heritage, with several monuments having been named UNESCO world heritage sites. Besides its cultural heritage sites and museums, the state’s hospitality scene is also unique.

We stayed in the Jehan Numa Palace Hotel. Different from the hotels owned by multinational operators, the Jehan Numa exhibits a very vintage and ethnic design, and it is not a high-rise building. The whole hotel is a spacious labyrinth-like three-story complex located in a big compound. The hotel itself used to be a palace for the local royal Muslim family in the 19th century ruled by the begums, or Muslim ladies of high rank.

The hotel boasts beautiful tiles and the architectural influences of British colonialization, Italian renaissance and Greece, hypnotizing the visitors with the smell of incense and spicy coffee served with cardamom.

One morning, we took a cruise ship to cross the crystalclear Bhopal Lake near the hotel. A flock of swans were sitting on the dock or making their way across the water over there. I was zoning out for a while to feel the breeze caressing my face on that sleepy morning when music started to play.

First, it was just a few people dancing spontaneously on the deck, before most of the summit’s delegates descended there to join them. My vivacious friend Sandhya Manoj was teaching us how to perform an Indian-style dance as we made our way across the water. Soon I was able to let go of my shyness and danced energetically, in union with them.

I was hoping that the cruise disc jockey would put on “Chunari” by Salman Khan and Sushmita Sen – I first heard it in Mira Nair’s film Monsoon Wedding and God, how can you not dance to that music? But I did not get my wish. Still, I was very happy.

A visit to the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya and Madhya Pradesh Tribal Museum allowed us to learn about the biological and cultural evolution of humankind. Both museums present the evolution of the human agricultural processes and societal systems through beautifully designed rooms as well as interesting relics such as war weaponry used by the ancient people. Human beings turn out to have been a war-mongering species for a very long time.

The opposite of war’s destructiveness is our creative endeavors through the arts. The Tribal Museum, in particular, is designed in a sophisticated and contemporary architectural style, which is set to blow your mind the first time you see the façade of the museum itself, which looked like a huge traditional hut with ornaments decorating its roof and walls. Inside, it is rich with ornaments decorating the walls, with beautiful relics arranged unconventionally.

For example, the museum features makeshift caves featuring real live bats, which visitors can walk inside. Contemporary visual artworks and installations embodying local mythology related to the cycle of life are also present in the museum.

Both museums show us that human conditions, including communication, violence and community, are expressed differently throughout history, from the hunter-gatherer period to today. The experience of visiting the two museums became more complete after I took my friend’s recommendation to read Sapiens, a book by Yuval Noah Harari. We also traveled to the Sanchi Buddhist complex by bus on a highway through agricultural fields, where cars had to stop or swerve their way to maneuver through a number of cows, which frequently crossed the roads. Many car drivers had to honk their horns loudly when the cows made their way slowly across the road.

The Sanchi Buddhist complex features beautiful stupas and temples, dating back to the third century BC, erected by Ashoka the Great who, upon observing the suffering brought by war, decided to turn around and dedicate his whole life to spreading Buddha’s teachings. The buildings there showcase sophisticated architectural prowess, with circular shapes and complex reliefs.

The whole compound also has lots of big trees and you can see monks donning orange clothes sitting beneath the huge trees.

On our final day, we visited the Taj-ul masajid grand mosque in Bhopal, a huge square also comprising boarding houses for its students. The mosque itself has always been populated by Islamic students reciting the Koran in between prayer schedules. On a green pond situated in the middle of the square, you can see people performing ablutions.

When I walked inside the mosque, I was mesmerized not only by the beauty but also the tranquility brought by its interior. To our delight, the majestic building had a cool temperature inside. The views of the building and its elements seemed to pop out from the pages of the National Geographic magazine.

Both the Buddhist and Muslim sites are very pristine and I find them to be carrying incredible spiritual vibes that bring peace to our minds.

Breather Likely Soon for Multinational Retailers

Procurement for global ops may be counted for local sourcing obligations

New Delhi: Multinational retailers such as Ikea and H&M could soon enjoy easier sourcing norms with government planning to relax the conditions for 30% mandatory local purchase for their Indian retail operations.

The industry department is finalising a proposal that will allow foreign companies to count the procurement they do for their global operations from India as part of their local sourcing obligations. The current policy stipulates that any foreign retailer who owns more than 51% of its Indian arm will have to locally source ‘30 % of the value of goods purchased’ for its domestic operations.

The department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) is drafting guidelines which will provide relief to global retailers. Ikea and H&M have earlier requested the government to allow them to offset the condition of minimum 30% sourcing against their overall global sourcing from India. In 2013, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) had disallowed Ikea from doing so. “Sourcing of the Ikea entities from India or the Indian entity of the Ikea Group, cannot be included for compliance of Ikea India,” a DIPP note had stated.

DIPP is drafting guidelines, which will provide relief to global retailers

But, under the new commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu, DIPP appears amenable to this change. “We are very keen to go ahead with this policy change…These companies have been sourcing for years from India for their global markets so it makes sense to count that when we are talking of local sourcing for single brand retail,” a go- vernment official told ET.

The official added that the move would not only increase ‘ease of doing business’ but also spur job growth in the economy.

H&M, a fully-owned subsidiary of the world’s second-largest fashion retailer which entered India 18 months ago, already operates about 21 outlets and plans to open more than 25 stores by the year-end.

Ikea plans to open its first India out- let in Hyderabad in April 2018. The company has been sourcing from India for more than 30 years. It has around 50 suppliers in India with about 45,000 employees directly involved in the production of Ikea products.

The company says its long-term objective is to maximise local sourcing. “We don’t see 30% as a goal for our sourcing but aim higher than that. The long-term objective is to maximise local sourcing from India, even beyond 30% to be able to offer more affordable products to Indian customers,” said Patrik Antoni, deputy country manager, Ikea.

Next generation of wayang puppet masters

The art of wayang puppetry is an important legacy for future generations and a recent gathering of young exponents of the art showed that the tradition is being well preserved. Almost 190 children participated in the seventh edition of Temu

Dalang Bocah Nusantara (Gathering of the Archipelago’s Junior Wayang Puppet Masters) at Taman Budaya Jawa Tengah in Surakarta, Central Java.

Among the participants were three girls, Kanindayu Giwang Restuti, Aisyiah Asyfa Ust Stani and Tiara Sotyaning Bathari, from the Baladewa wayang art studio in Surabaya, East Java.

The puppet masters come from 28 cities including Blitar, Blora, Bojonegoro, Boyolali, Depok, Jakarta, Karanganyar, Purwokerto, Sidoharjo, Surabaya, Surakarta, and Tangerang.

The number of participants was the highest since the gathering debuted way back in 2005, during which it featured only 29 young puppet masters.

Each puppet master performed for between 20 and 40 minutes. They were divided into three groups — kindergarten to second grader, third to fifth grade and sixth to eighth grade.

There were no limitations on what kind of stories or acts the puppet masters could put on. Each puppet master had limitless possibilities to express and deliver their craft during the gathering.

The chief organizer, Singgih Sri Cundomanik, said that the event was important for the preservation of wayang because it provided a platform for young puppet masters to hone their craft and gain experience as performers.

Bilingual kids may learn NEW LANGUAGE FASTER

According to a recently conducted study, bilingual brains, used to switching between two languages, are also good at managing multiple tasks at a time

Children who are bilingual can be better and faster at learning additional languages later in life than their peers who are monolinguals from their early childhood, researchers say.

The findings showed significant difference in language learners’ brain patterns.

When learning a new language, bilinguals rely more than monolinguals on the brain processes that people naturally use for their native language, the researchers said.

“We also find that bilinguals appear to learn the new language more quickly than monolinguals,” said lead author Sarah Grey, assistant professor at the Fordham University in New York City.

For the study, published in the journal Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, the team enrolled college students who grew up in the US with Mandarin-speaking parents, and learned both English and Mandarin at an early age.

They were matched with monolingual college students, who spoke only English.

The researchers studied MandarinEnglish bilinguals because both of these languages differ structurally from the new language being learned.

Both groups learnt to both speak and understand an artificial version of a Romance language, Brocanto.

The researchers found clear bilingual or monolingual differences. By the end of the first day of training, the bilingual brains, but not the monolingual brains, showed a specific brain-wave pattern, termed the P600 -- commonly found when native speakers process their language.

In contrast, the monolinguals only began to exhibit P600 effects much later during learning -- by the last day of training.

Moreover, on the last day, the monolinguals showed an additional brain-wave pattern not usually found in native speakers of languages.

“There has been a lot of debate about the value of early bilingual language education.”

“Now, we have novel brain-based data that points towards a distinct languagelearning benefit for people who grow up bilingual,” added Michael T. Ullman, professor at the Georgetown University in the US.

Another study shows that Bilingual people tend to produce fewer words of any given semantic category than people who only speak one language fluently. In other words, their individual vocabularies in each language tend to be smaller than that of people who only speak one of those languages.

Though Bilingual people tend to have weaker verbal skills but the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. Some of the major advantages of being a bilingual includes:

The bilingual brain is used to handling two languages at the same time. This develops skills for functions such as inhibition (a cognitive mechanism that discards irrelevant stimuli), switching attention, and working memory. Because bilingual people are used to switching between their two languages, they are also better at switching between tasks, even if these tasks are nothing to do with language.

As already found by the aforementioned research, People who speak two languages have also been shown to have more efficient monitoring systems. Also, they outperform monolingual people in spatial working memory tasks.

Taking part in stimulating physical or mental activity can help maintain cognitive function, and delay the onset of symptoms in people suffering from dementia. The onset of dementia symptoms is significantly delayed - by as much as five years - in patients who are bilingual.

Our brains change and adapt as a result of experience.

Studies have shown that people who are multilingual have higher density of grey matter, and that older people who are bilingual tend to have better-maintained white matter in their brains.