Who would have guessed that the first Jewish female chieftain of The New York Times (unless you count Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger) got herself tattooed in violation of the rabbinical ban against tattoos? I owe an apology to Lucy Kellaway who was right about Jill Abramson's nutty body art. The Financial Times columnist yesterday poked fund at Abramson's heretical tattoos, one of the Times' Gothic T and another, a red H, celebrating Harvard. Abramson is old enough to have attended Harvard's female annex, Radcliffe. I thought Kellaway goofed; it was me (and Abramson) who did. Apologies to Lucy.

My closest “shiksa” (non-Jewish) girlfriend Heather is converting to Judaism the week after next. I am seriously worried about my social circle becoming monolithic.

Moreover the latest whiz interpretation of Britannia, the homeland of my husband's family, translates the ruler of the waves as brit (covenant), ana (favor), and ya (God.) The Lord may be hidden in your name too, eTeacherBiblical writes. That's forcing things but so is tattooing your employer's logo on your back.

My name, Vivian, can be written as Chaya in Hebrew or as Zoë in Greek but it is Latin and means nothing in Hebrew. My friend's name translates to Avrash. But since heather barely grows in the Middle East, the more usual translation is Netta meaning small plant. My favorite aunt bore that name.

The British stockbroker who arranged the Kindertransport for Jewish children to the UK from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, Sir Nicholas Winton, has just turned 105. The Czech Republic has again nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Today as promised I look into how investors can play the overwhelming but potentially polarizing Modi victory in India and write up news from Mongolia (not again!), Thailand, Britain, Mexico, Canada, Ireland, Hong Kong, and South Africa. Here is part 1 of what is coming from my India sola toppee.

*Thailand is now under martial law which may be an improvement over red- and yellow-shirts killing each other on the streets of Bangkok. The baht had fallen along with the SET (stock market) before the central bank intervened to support the currency. Thai Fund (TTF) is down.

*It is tough to forecast what the Narendra Modi victory will produce in India because his control of the upper house of parliament is still in negotiation, which will affect the makeup of the new government. The BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) this morning saw over 71% of stocks advancing on Modi Day 2. The rupee is flagging in part because of the uncertainty.

Both easy US fund vehicles, Morgan Stanley India Investment, IIF, down 0.5% and Aberdeen India Fund, IFN, down 1.32%, are suffering from morning-after sickness. Meanwhile Ascendas India Trust is up all of 2% today, still below its 52-wk high of 64 cents at 60 c. ACNDF mainly trades in Singapore so it is lagging the round of 2^nd thoughts.

Both US closed-end  funds were created in 1994 when the International Finance Corp.'s Antoine Van Agtmael was promoting closed-end fund investment in emerging markets, the term he invented. IIF is still being run by Morgan Stanley, its founder, but the ever-growing Scottish Aberdeen Group has captured IFN, which is about twice as large.

The two groups are both into diversified multi-sector positions in India, with a few nuances, and the old focus on smaller cap from the former India Growth Fund which we used to own is no longer available in a USA version from JP Morgan.

Being bigger with $737 mn in assets under management gives IFN a lower expense ratio than IIF, with only $349 mn in AUM, 1.17% vs 1.43%, not material. The higher expenses also reflect Morgan Stanley's more active management, with a 46% annual turnover last year vs 3% at Aberdeen, clearly very different. The Aberdeen fund pays out 4.34% to shareholders which may or may not be yield; many Aberdeen fund payments include return of capital which gives shareholders back their own money. It says only 0.41% of the payout was income and doesn't spell out capital gains on its site.

IFN is “team managed” while IIF has been run by the same Indian manager since 1998. It made no payouts of either dividends or capital gains last year.

The most recent portfolios by size follow. The Aberdeen fund owns HDFC's mortgage arm (9.6%); ICICI Bank (9.5%); Tata Consulting (8.9%); Infosys (8.5%);ITC (7.5%); HDFC Bank (4.9%); Hero Motors (4.9%); Godrej (construction, 4.2%);Hindustan Lever (4%); and Ultratech Cement (3.6%). The top 10 account for 65.6% of the portfolio and all are big companies.

The Morgan Stanley version owns HDFC Bank (7.25); Reliance Industries (6%);Larsen & Toubro (construction, a recovery play, 4.6%); ICICI (4.4%); Eicher Motors(4.3%); Tata Consulting (4.1%); Infosys (3.9%); HCL Tech (3.4%); and ITC (3.3%). The top ten account for only 41.2% of its portfolio and also are big companies. But there is room for some smaller choti plays in the remaining 58.8% of the portfolio.

By sector too the funds are different, again according to size of holdings: IFN is in consumer goods, finance, tech, industrials, healthcare, oil and gas, telecoms, and utilities which cover pretty much the whole fund. IIF is more diversified, with holdings in finance, industrials, tech, consumer goods, oil and gas; healthcare, consumer services, basic materials, and utes.

IIF is at a double digit discount from net asset value (10.3%) while IFN is at 9% but these metrics can turn on a rupee. IIF returned 19.92% in the last 12 months to shareholders, entirely in the form of higher net asset values as it made no distributions. IFN's market return was 16.4% to which you should add back whatever part of the payout was real.

If you put a gun to my head and demanded that I pick an India generalist fund today I buy Morgan Stanley IIF, as it's much more actively managed and diversified. I don't like funds tracking an index. That is the main reason why I am looking at closed-end funds rather than exchange-traded ones. However, for now I am sticking with ACNDF.

*The next exercise by Vivian the Gurette will be looking into Indian ADR stocks which may benefit from the new raj: almost all the banks and several IT companies in the IFN-IIF portfolios have listed ADRs. Of course ADRs don't normally trade at a discount from NAV and now that the Bombay and National Stock Exchanges (which lists ~5000 companies, many of them small caps) and has all the usual modern bells and whistles even including front running and algorythm electronic trading. Its BRICS mart system exchanges data with other BRIC countries. However, because of exchange controls, you cannot buy directly in India unless you are a non-resident Indian. We have many of them on our rolls. For this choti contingent, here are some of our faves in India (from Abhimanyu Sisodia) none of which can be bought except in India: Zeemedia, the Murdoch press-TV-movies Indian arm; Jain Irrigation (the parent, not the US sub); Hindustan Unilever which may be taken over; and Essar Shipping and Logistics or its parent Essar Group. Non-NRIs can buy Essar Energy plc, the less appealing UK sub of the latter.

*A quirky alternative is to buy Pakistan. As the leader of the Hindu sectarian BJP party, Modi could pull a Nixon in China or an Ariel Sharon out of his sola topee. I'll look into that tomorrow inchallah. There no longer is a Pakistan Fundwhich I used to own in honor of my fellow Radcliffe graduate, the late Benazir (Pinky) Bhutto. Pakistan has been boosted (because of its good performance) to 8.9% of the MSCI Frontier index, double where it was a year ago. We own this one through an open-end fund (converted from closed and therefore dropped from the model portfolio) Morgan Stanley Insitutional Frontier Emerging Markets Fund, MFMIX, which weights Pakistan at 9.3% (No. 4 after 3 Gulf countries.) Those who didn't buy it with me now have to put up $5 mn to buy in.  We need an alternative.

*Drug discovery is a casino. Today GlaxoSmithKline reported at a thoracic congress that its nuscarinic antagonist umeclidinum (UMEC) when added to inhaled coriticosteroid and beta2 agonists in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, a GSK franchise) improved lung function significantly during phase 3 trials. Some 600 COPD patients were given the new combo over 12 weeks using inhalers, half with and half without UMEC. The test was how many times they used puffs of rescue medication. There were no significantly different adverse events or COPD exacerbations.

However phase 3 trials of ofatumumab (Arzerra) when added to the standard treatment of chemotherapy failed to outperform rituximab plus chemo in patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse B-cell lymphoma with increased progression-free survival. The trials failed to meet their primary end-point. But more analysis of the increase in serum creatinine among ofatumumab-treated patients is still going on.

*Stock picking is another casino. Our new China hand, Vivian Ng, wrote up Naibu Global, which is off, and Anton Oilfield Services which is up smartly. Both NBU:UK and ATONY are attempts to play reform in China, via consumerism and cleaner fuel. Worse still in Guangshen Railway, GSH, my pick, viewed as a been-there-done-that export stock.

*Canadian Solar is up over 5% today on forecasts that 30% more solar cells and photovoltaic panels will be bought this year than last, according to NPD Solarbuzz, which tracks shipments. Demand this year is slated to hit 50 gigaWatts. The news boosted CSIQ more than the firm NPD Solarbuzz said would sell the most,Yingli Green Energy, which actually fell. Yesterday Industrial Info Resources reported that despite the CSIQ failure to match analyst forecasts for Q1 profits (of 9 cents vs the 7 cents it actually earned) it has more than $1 bn in active projects and module shipments and prices should grow at the leading total solutions solar company (for power plants).

*With post-split Tencent ADRs still not tradeable, the action has shifted to its ~40% parent, Naspers, NPSNY is South African and Tencent, now frozen as G8752148, is from Hong Kong.

Fund news follows:

*New Ireland Fund will hold its AGM June 10 at the Harvard Club where managersKleinwort Benson Dublin will propose two new candidates for director. I wonder if Jill Abramson is among them?

*Mongolia Growth Fund (MNGGF or YAK;TSE) under new CEO Paul Byrne, today announced that it has identified ~C$500,000 of forecast and recurring expenses which can be cut or deferred to improve cash-flow. It anticipates that real estate expert Byrne, appointed in March, will use the money saved to add to investment on the ground in Mongolia while cutting down on spending in Canada. The cuts will begin in H2 and produce (we hope) results in 2015. Also helping the bottom line is the sale earlier this year of its insurance arm, Mandal Daatgat.

*Mexico's Fibra Uno shareholders dropped their protests and voted for the management's agenda. FBASF dissidents forced concessions on corporate governance and fees from the El-Mann family managers of the REIT before the annual meeting. The fast-growing fund invests in Mexican shopping malls and commercial sites, factories, industrial warehouses, and office and school sites.