Chakravyu

Nandan Nilekani on The Daily Show

2009-03-19T00:30:00.000-07:00

One would imagine that a visit to the CNBC studios would have been an obvious port of call on Nandan Nilekani's US book tour. But after the events of last week, I guess Jon Stewart is suddenly more important to the potential readers of NN's book!

In case you're on a slow connection, and can't see the video below, the funniest parts are 1) When NN mentions a million electronic voting machines and Stewart asks him whether we call someone in the US when they break down and 2) When NN mentions that Tom Friedman's 'World Is Flat" was inspired by a conversation in his office and Stewart wonders why NN didn't walk across the flat world and kick TF on his a** for some royalties!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

M - Th 11p / 10c

Nandan Nilekani

comedycentral.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor

Too Good To Be True?

2009-02-24T06:15:00.000-08:00

After MTNL's ridiculously overpriced 3G rates were announced, it looked like affordable broadband would continue to be a mirage in India.

But BSNL has (soft) launched its 3G service in Chennai today and the rates are up on the site. The big news is that there is an UNLIMITED data plan (unlike MTNL) and at 3000 bucks a month it's VERY competitively priced. Even the 1000 buck plan looks better than anything MTNL has on offer since the first 5 gigs are free after which its 2048 bucks per gig (Rs 2/MB).

The rollout is going to be state by state so I'm hoping Delhi/Haryana/UP are next after the pilot project in Ambala! BSNL service is a bit of an enigma though. I recently applied for a landline in Gurgaon and they took my form and 500 bucks registration without providing any receipt or tracking/service number. They said they'd come in a day or two but there was no sign of them till more than a week later. They also landed up without any warning/phone call which means I was just lucky that someone was at home to receive them. I have a feeling that GETTING the 3G connection will be a pain but once it's up, hopefully the service will be tolerable.

When Contextual Advertising FAILs!

2009-01-29T04:27:00.000-08:00

see more pwn and owned pictures

Value Systems, Satyam, Rape & Terror

2009-01-16T03:49:00.000-08:00

Do we, as a society have a weird sense of "values"? A couple of articles in different publications caught my attention over this past week as they seemed to link into each other.

This column in Mint seemed to suggest that the Satyam scandal was a manifestation of market induced greed affecting values: "The tragedy of the Raju brothers is that they are also victims of our society’s evolving value system, as we worship the gods of material success.

But from this piece in the ToI about a rally being planned in support of disgraced Satyam boss Ramalinga Raju, you get the sense that our value system is willing to forgive robbery if it's of the Robin Hood variety: "The populace of the district still assert that Ramalinga is an enterprising and highly educated entrepreneur with a sense of social responsibility and that his aberration to tamper with balance sheets could be ‘ignored’... they are willing to condone his manipulation of accounts as part of business strategy ..."

The fact that Raju's clan is willing to stand by him and overlook his crimes is similar to the noted sociologist Dipankar Gupta's analysis of 'bhaichara' (Gupta incidentally is the author of a book on corporate ethics in the Indian context written while he was a KPMG fellow): "Rapes are just for a hoot, and after all, boys will be boys. Listen to their mothers, and this is what comes through. As long as they do not offend clan morals, nothing else really matters."

It looks like we've decided to adopt the worst of both worlds as far as our value systems go ie. the greed of the Wall Street types mixed with the disdain for law outside of the clan. I still remember being fairly disgusted with the rampant cheating during examinations that would take place even in a so-called prestigious institution like St. Xavier's College, even as some of my friends studying overseas were taking tests with the honour system.

Well, in the end it all comes around. The same value system ensures that corrupt customs guys will let RDX be smuggled onto our shores, or passport officers will sanction fake IDs which terrorists will eventually use or that the coastal police will let any boat that pays up go through. A society with this kind of value system probably deserves its fate!

Tech versus Terror: e-security PIL in Mumbai High Court

2008-12-29T19:10:00.000-08:00

Noted techie Vijay Mukhi and lawyer Anand Desai have filed a PIL in the Mumbai high court on behalf of Sarla S Parikh who lost her son and daughter-in-law in the 26/11 terror attack.

"This is the first PIL that we know off that outlines a specific 12 point plan that would cost the Government Rs 50 crore. We need to use large doses of technology not only to gather intelligence but also to collect evidence that can be used in courts to convict the terrorists and also convince the world of the country that they come from. We would encourage others to file PIL’s that specify specific steps that the Government should take which are doable and practical."

I have published a copy of the PIL here.

Do get in touch with Vijay if you have some inputs/suggestions or would like to help in taking this initiative forward.

Was This An Indian Army Conspiracy Too?

2008-12-09T05:53:00.000-08:00

Indus TV News reporter, Mr Chand Nawab was obviously having a rough time at Karachi railway station while filing this report. A 'PTC' or 'Piece to Camera' can sometimes be tough to do in one take, but Mr Nawab is not one to be deterred.

I had mentioned in a previous post that this channel iTV, with its bizarre conspiracy theories would be an ideal partner for our very own India TV. I stand corrected! Even India TV would struggle to match this. (Though they try very hard...)

Smug Alert!

2008-12-03T17:07:00.000-08:00

Both the Mumbai-related Op-Ed pieces in today's New York Times seem to be mirroring my thoughts in the last two posts so am wondering whether to feel vindicated or guilty for (allegedly) being a bleeding-heart liberal in these tense times. I think i'll settle for smug!

Tom Friedman calls out to moderate Pakistanis, some of whom I pointed to in the previous post, while guest columnist Amitav Ghosh warns about reacting to Mumbai in a similar fashion to 9-11 which is on the lines of my argument earlier.

Wits & Twits: Pakistanis on Mumbai Terror

2008-12-03T09:28:00.000-08:00

Just like in India, there are both morons and enlightened folks across the border.

Fatima has a great post linking to the best Pakistani blogging during the past few days and in another example of Social Media feeding the mainstream, the Indian Express article a day after the post, draws heavily on that list.

The morons are easy to find. Just search out some of the Pak newspaper sites or even the big social networks and you'll see lots of vitriolic anti-India sentiment. But special mention must go to a Pak news program called "Brasstacks" which has a wannabe Che Guevara called Zaid Hamid keeping an intensely straight face, while proclaiming that the entire attack was an Indian conspiracy on the lines of "the Jews planned 9-11". In case you don't have time to check out all the parts of the hour-long programme, the last clip, Part 4 is especially hilarious/disgusting,

I suggest that this channel iTV enter into a content-sharing alliance with our very own iTV aka India TV (unofficial blog highly reccomended) which comes up with "Exclusives" like this:

Battling Terror: Learn from USA, Israel? Not Entirely ...

2008-12-02T09:48:00.000-08:00

As the fallout of the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai leads to the inevitable war-mongering and baying for Pak blood from the hardliners, (and of course from 98% of the commenters on rediff.com) it would do us no harm to take a deep breath and act rationally- something that actually seems counter-intuitive right now.

(Pic Courtsey Vinu@Flickr)

There are two major gung-ho schools of thought drawing 'inspiration' from our new partners in the war on terror ie. the US and Israel.

DANGEROUS ARGUMENT No.1: We need to emulate the US' (supposed) hardline response to 9-11.

Answer: Absolutely not! The US has been drawn into two wars that it is losing, an economic quagmire and global isolation. Sure, it has prevented attacks on its own soil but at the cost of countless lives in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as losing moral authority with Guantanamo et al.

Prof Juan Cole has a great piece on his blog, exhorting us not to go down that path:

"Most Indian observers, however, were critical in 2001 (and after) of how exactly the Bush administration (i.e. Dick Cheney) responded to September 11. They were right, and they would do well to remember their own critique at this fateful moment" ... FULL ARTICLE

DANGEROUS ARGUMENT No.2: We need to become a 'hard state' like Israel where every citizen is a commando and which (supposedly) crushes terror.

Answer: What has it got them? The Jewish state is no safer than it was in the last 60 years and in fact risks nuclear annihilation from the likes of Iran and possibly even Pakistan.

And would you believe it, one of their most hardline, right-wing political icons, Ehud Olmert has done a stunning U-turn on his way out as Israeli Prime Minister and admitted that there is no military solution to the Middle-East crisis.

“We could contend with any of our enemies or against all our enemies combined and win,” Olmert said. “The question that I ask myself is, what happens when we win? First of all, we’d have to pay a painful price. And after we paid the price, what would we say to them? ‘Let’s talk.’ ” ... FULL ARTICLE

So should we line-up troops on the borders once again like the last time around or think about this with some amount of pragmatism? Heck, maybe even re-open the 'debate' started a few months ago by the nation's top columnists (links to both pieces at PressTalk) on 'gasp' considering a trifurcation of J&K and thus finding a real solution to the Kashmir issue.

PC Magazine: Another One Bytes The Dust!

2008-11-19T19:13:00.000-08:00

The venerable PC Magazine is dead, long live the magazine ... All hail pcmag.com!

I guess the only person chuckling about this is "micropersuader" Steve Rubel of Edelman PR who got into a bit of a twitter-tangle last year after admitting that he no longer bothers with the physical mag, much to the annoyance of the Editor, who even threatened a boycott of Rubel's PR firm.

I guess at some level veteran tech hack Alice Hill feels vindicated too, though the irony of the piece she wrote on CNET nearly 10 years ago is that CNET itself couldn't keep up with the Web 2.0 wave and sold out to CBS earlier this year.

So basically, the rise-glory-fall cycle is getting quicker than ever before thanks to them internets! It took a long time for print to get out of fashion, shorter for network television and no time at all on the web. I mean wasn't Jerry the messiah just like ... yesterday?

iPhone 3G Reviewed!

2008-08-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought it couldn't get better than the dream debut but it does! My first gadget review for the paper is none other than the iConic iPhone. Yeah sure, its the 3G version but for us in India its as good as a (slightly improved) regular 'jesus phone' - desi version pic below - and the first one we can use legally!

The review appeared in today's Economic Times and there are three different versions online.

NEW DELHI: After a few days of playing around with the new iPhone 3G, I'm convinced that Apple's iconic piece of gadgetry is a misnomer. The "mobile phone" is clearly the most unimpressive and probably the most unimportant part of the second generation iPhone. It's a great computer; to be more specific, a great mobile Internet device probably the best ever made - and it's a pity that it's debuted in the country before 3G networks are up and running.

ET tu Nokia?

2008-08-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

I couldn't have asked for a better way to debut in the country's largest (and in fact the WORLD's second largest) business paper! A front-page scoop shared with a dear friend who happens to be the nation's crack telecom hack!

NEW DELHI: Nokia, the country's dominant handset player, is plotting to steal Apple's thunder. The company is set to launch its latest high-end phone, the N96 which Nokia calls a 'killer product' on Tuesday in India, three days before the much-awaited 3G-enabled iPhone's debut here. The N96 was tipped to be launched globally in October and this may perhaps be the handset maker's first global launch in India.

Industry experts say Nokia is rushing the N96 to India to counter the hype associated with the iPhone 3G, which will be offered by Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar. While Nokia is expected to launch the product in Delhi on Tuesday, the handset is likely to be available in the market from the first week of September. MORE

Z back from India? Expect a controversy soon…

2008-05-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

Mark Zuckerberg seems to have given the Indian media the slip. Facebook PR assured me that he wasn't giving any official interviews and it seems no one managed to win the TechGoss reward for snaps/info of him in India.

Well, if this was indeed just a holiday/spiritual tour, then history suggests the first thing he'll do, when he gets back, is get embroiled in a controversy! Confused? Hear me out on this one:

1. Steve Jobs visits India in 1974 for some spiritual nirvana and bums around a bit. He goes back to Atari and (allegedly) shafts poor Steve Wozniak while working on 'Breakout'. The incident becomes part of tech folklore...

2. Jimmy Wales visits India in January 2008 and after an interview at IIT Bombay, tells me he's headed to the Himalayas for a few days of peace and solitude. He comes back to the US and gets into a mess after (allegedly) trying to influence his (then) paramour's Wikipedia entry.

(Image courtesy Gus Freedman of Wikimedia Foundation under CC-BY-SA license)

3. Google Founders backpack around India 'like a couple of sophmores' in October 2004. They get back and Google is soon faced with an extended run of controversies.

So now that we officially have a 'three-is-a-trend' conspiracy theory, expect the Z to be fire-fighting soon (Does this count?) If he takes the advice of a Guru on the IPO as suggested by Joy of Tech, it would definitely be controversial ...

The Joke's on Airtel!

2008-03-31T20:27:00.000-07:00

Tech sites in general and Google products in particular seem to be take April Fools Day pretty seriously (nice roundup of 2008 gags here). Tech2.com had its own line-up for the big day; in fact the update at the end of the top story was added after NASSCOM called to say that reporters were calling them for quotes!

However, I seriously thought that this was an early Apr 01 joke from Google India though I doubted that AirTel was cool enough to pull off something like that. India's biggest telco's ISP landing page AirTelLive.com is nothing but a google partnerpage which anyone with a domain name can build absolutely free of cost.

Google India, on request helpfully pointed me to a page which has info on a special partner program for ISPs though details on pricing etc. seem to be skimpy. However, the newest version of Google Apps seems to have dropped the ISP Partner section altogether and all the features are available to everybody! I remember trying out Google Apps when it was first launched and it took me exactly 5 minutes to configure something like this.

Contentsutra.com shares the same sentiment, though its pretty obvious that the comments are being seeded by Airtel PR (see comments 2 & 3).

I mean, the least that they can do is basic URL masking so that airtellive.com is all that users get to see instead of partnerpages.google.com... The "Register" link in the 'My Account' gadget at the bottom of the left column is broken. I know that Bharti has pioneered outsourcing of all non-core business (to IBM, Nortel, Ericsson etc.) but c'mon, this is totally pushing it!

Anyway, I have two questions:

1) Does anyone really want an email ID @your_isp.com when all these services are available for free on gmail or your own domain?

2) Why did so many news outfits actually take this seriously and carry it verbatim???

PS: This isn't the first time Google and AirTel have collaborated! The last time they did, the consequences were pretty disastrous!

WiMAX Woes

2008-03-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

After another frustratingly slow session of "Mobile Internet" using one of them USB data sticks, my thoughts drifted towards WiMax, which seems to be sliding downhill after a prolonged stay at the peak of the hype cycle:

I remember attending a live WiMax demo in Delhi as far back as 2004, though it turned out to be quite comical. The company had invited the tech press and some officials including the Wireless Advisor to the DoT. The latter was furious when he heard that the transmitter had been placed on the terrace of a building across the road and insisted that he had given permission only to place it on the terrace of the same hotel! The red-faced execs had to literally scamper after him with profuse apologies and eventually cooled him down with some hot chai!

Gartner (yup, the same guys who came up with the term 'hype cycle') has just come out with a report titled “Beware of WiMAX Hype in India” (subscription reqd) that predicts only about 218,000 users in India this year and maybe 7 million by 2011:

“In the near-term, the Indian WiMAX market is not very promising. Gartner advises carriers to focus on the enterprise market and high end residential subscribers. At the present time, it is not clear if vendors would benefit from risk-sharing models with Indian operators. Overall, the long term potential of the Indian WiMAX market heavily relies on spectrum allocation, WiMAX ecosystem maturation, and the timeliness of WiMAX and 3G licenses.” more (Press Release)

Well, BSNL (which along with MTNL will get automatic allocation of spectrum unlike the private guys who will have to bid) seems to have massive plans for WiMax, but given its current state of connectivity offerings, it's tough to be optimistic.

I wonder if anyone from BSNL attended the recent WiMax conference in Bangkok, where the CEO of Australia's first WiMax deployer Buzz Broadband, slammed the technology in front of a global audience. Quick Summary:

"disaster... miserable failure... mired in opportunistic hype"

You Know There Are Too Many iPod Accessories When…

2008-03-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

... you need another accessory - in this case a pouch from Case Logic - in which to keep all of them! This MP3 Kit was actually a god send. For those of you who really care, this is what my iPod kit currently contains:

Upper Left Side: USB connector cum AV cable (composite)
Lower Left Side: AC adapter plus two 2-pin connectors (one round & one flat)
Upper Right Side Left: Apple iPod Touch (8 GB), protective skin, cleaning cloth
Upper Right Side Right: Various jacks including audio splitter, airplane seat 2-pin connector, thin-to-fat audio jack convertor etc.
Lower Right Side: A pair of in-ear headphones

I admit, I'm a bit of an organisation freak, but you have to admit this case is pretty nifty. In fact I dare say it NEARLY justifies the outrageously inflated price that Case Logic slaps on its products.

Anyway, lest I be accused of being an iPod fanboy again, do see this very nice explanation of why iPods don't support Bluetooth. One-line summary: "Apple wants to maintain a stranglehold over the accessory universe!"

Antique Gadgets In A Bangkok Hotel

2008-03-23T20:47:00.000-07:00

Spent the long weekend in Bangkok - lovely blend of ancient and modern (See inset of the pic below for view from my hotel room). The tech shopping didn't seem too exciting though - prices were similar and often higher than India - the (unlocked) iPhone being the hottest selling item at around 25k Baht. Thats above Rs. 30k making it way more expensive than the going rate here...

(Note: I didn't have explicit permission to take this pic so no faces!)

But the real tech surprise was my hotel room (see inset of pic below) which had a REAL antique AV setup that I just couldn't get over! A good ol' Sony Trinitron, now officially in its last month of production ...

But hey! What's that whacky looking Hi-Fi next to it??? Closer inspection reveals that it's actually also a VCD player ... check out them buttons!

I couldn't find anything on this CMT-VC1 micro system from Sony's retro-styled "Mezzo" range, except this (See last gadget on the page). If the archiving system of the site can be trusted, Sony apparently launched this in October 2001 - the very same month in which a struggling Apple launched another gadget.

Things were never the same for Apple and Sony since then, were they?

Applying to ACJ?

2008-03-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

Its that time of the year again...

As (Indian) grad school application season begins, I get flooded with inquiries about the J-School that I attended, thanks largely to this piece which apparently pops up in online searches. In fact I get so much mail, I've made a block-reply for aspirants - I might as well share it here so that it can show up on the interweb!

Dear XYZ,

Every year, at around this time, I get flooded with enquiries about the ACJ thanks to an article I wrote ages ago on JAM magazine about the college. Apparently the article appears pretty high up on a Google search and my email ID is visibly displayed on it which explains the deluge of mail. However, I'm more than happy to help out aspiring journos and have thus decided it's easiest to make a single block-type reply.

The exam consists of two papers - English and GK. Preparation for this kind of an exam is more or less futile. If you have fairly good written and spoken English, then the first paper shouldn't be too much of a problem - at the most I can advise you to brush up on some basic grammar. The GK paper in my year was rather hard and has got harder in successive years. However, remember that it's all relative and others will find it equally hard. The best way to tackle this is to start reading at least one national daily as of TODAY and keep reading it page to page. Whichever articles have references to issues or people you aren't familiar with, Google / Wikipedia them and have some idea. There's no point mugging up the Manorama Yearbook, but going through the last few issues of Competition Success will be moderately helpful.

As for the college itself, make no mistake - its very good. Brochures usually lie and there are a lot of fraud mass comm courses doing the rounds these days. However the ACJ scores for many reasons. It's backed by extremely credible people, has outstanding faculty and excellent facilities and infrastructure. The downsides are that its expensive and the campus is not residential though they do arrange for fairly swanky accommodation at ridiculously low rates (compared to Mumbai at least) where the atmosphere is almost like a hostel.

One word of caution. This is not a hotchpotch Mass Comm course which teaches you everything from public relations to corporate communications, advertising and marketing, puppetry and Ekta Kapoor style television. It's a hard core journalism school and you have to be pretty motivated about your career choice. I know a fair number of people who were disappointed because they weren't quite sure about the course and couldn't handle the intense curriculum and workload. Others were unhappy about "return on investment" i.e fees versus the salaries they eventually got. Its good to keep in mind that media pays fairly low in the early stages though the hikes and rises are for more rapid than traditional industry. ACJ is a long-term gamble - good contacts and networking for life, excellent grounding in the basics and ethics of the job and very good brand equity that's been built in a very short time and will only get better as Indian media expands. However, definitely NOT a place to "do timepass for a year" after graduating. Be sure that you're in it for the long haul!

8 Years of Tech Un-savviness

2008-03-07T19:50:00.000-08:00

One of the world's top blogs Gigaom picked up a Tech 2.0 story on the possible blackberry blackout.

One of the commenters Ashwath seemed to think that the Indian tech media is "notorious in presenting Indian regulators as Luddites" (Full comment here). While to some extent I do admit that reporters get their kicks from poking fun at clueless officials, I would have to say that the latter can't particularly claim to have been unfairly targetted.

I thought I'd do a quick jog down memory lane and pick one instance every year in the 21st century, that India's administrators have been pwned!

2001: The tragi-comic case of India's 'first cyber crime' that was 'cracked' by the Mumbai cops. The lunacy of it all is best summed up in this Wired story. (A recounting of my personal experiences for a column is here.)

2002: Delhi Police arrests noted Kashmiri journalist Iftikar Gilani on charges of spying after finding "sensitive information" on his computer. Their case falls apart after it is confirmed that the documents recovered from his computer were freely available on the Internet.

2003: Yahoo Groups gets blacked out in India. Beeb report here. I had a Jt. Secy in the Dept. of IT proudly telling me on camera, that "If it's anti-national, we will ban it!"

2004: Baazee (now eBay India) CEO gets arrested by the same cops whom he offered to fully co-operate with, in a case of pornographic content being uploaded on the site. He later told me how they tricked him into coming to the police station on a Friday so that they could jail him over the weekend without a hearing till Monday.

2005: President APJ Abdul Kalam (followed by others including the National Security Adviser) wags a finger at Google Earth. While some claim it's a legit concern, I think that anyone seriously interested in planning an attack is not going to sit and look at 3-5 year old maps that are being sourced from freely available satellite imagery.

2006: The Government goes into overdrive on internet censorship and knocks off most of the blogosphere in the process of targetting 17 (at first random looking, but clearly politically motivated) sites and blogs. Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression indeed!

2007: Cops pick up the wrong guy and keep him in custody for 50 days. Apparently the ISP mapped an incorrect physical address to the IP that was posting the anti-Shivaji content. The cops of course weren't concered with the technical details. Thankfully the poor chap is suing!

We R Like Dis Only!

2008-03-01T13:43:00.000-08:00

This is the kind of stuff that gets slipped under the door regularly:

Poked By Evil Capitalists

2008-02-13T19:51:00.000-08:00

Every now and then, the opinions expressed in the otherwise excellent Guardian surprise me, with some absolute tripe that would make even the most Luddite left-wing loonie blush.

I thought it couldn't get worse than George Monbiot's ridiculous piece some years ago mourning the 100-year anniversary of the first flight by claiming that the airplane was the "world's most effective killing machine." He was in Mumbai a month later having a gala time while attending the World Social Forum. I have a strong hunch he didn't come by boat!

But apparently it does get worse. A guy called Tom Hodgkinson, whose earlier works on the site include "Why I Gave Up On Email" pens an unintentionally hilarious deconstruction of Facebook with a special focus on its board of directors (read here). You know how seriously to take this nonsense when you encounter phrases like, "Clearly, Facebook is another uber-capitalist experiment."

Anyway, the most incredible slap in the face comes from the editor's note right at the top of the article (which was added two days later):

The US intelligence community's enthusiasm for hi-tech innovation after 9/11 and the creation of In-Q-Tel, its venture capital fund, in 1999 were anachronistically linked in the article below. Since 9/11 happened in 2001 it could not have led to the setting up of In-Q-Tel two years earlier.

Beautiful! A simple anachronism rips his CIA conspiracy (which takes up a few paras of his fantasy piece) theory to shreds. Of course this won't stop more loons from claiming that the CIA was planning 9/11 all along. Sigh.

To Bubble Or Not To Bubble …

2008-02-12T19:53:00.000-08:00

The most interesting part (for me) of an interview with Mahesh Murthy on MicroHoo day was about ads on Facebook in particular and social networks in general. From the (rough) transcript of the interview is Mahesh's response to my question on whether the page view economics of Web 2.0 will scale infinitely:

"I really do not think so. Facebook is the kind of environment, which is very immersive for the viewer. The viewer does not want to click on an ad and get away somewhere else. In Google, as a search engine, you have to go and click on an ad and leave the website. So, as a result the predominant paradigm in the business is click on the ad and get away from the site.

We have run lots of ads in Facebook for a dozen of clients. We find that they work on a branding level. They give you impressions and eyeballs. But you don’t get those clicks through rates. You get that by doing the regular contextual advertising on Google."

This observation from basically the head of India's biggest search marketing firm, seems totally in line with these observations (published a day prior to the interview). Money quote: "Fuck, this is a pyramid scheme. There is no money input into this system except venture capital. I remember a time, long long ago, when tech companies spent their own venture capital on each other, so revenues were all booked from the same small pool of money. Yeah, as I recall, it didn't end well."

But before you start humming to the brilliant Bu-bu-bu, Bu-bu, Bubble video below, do read this rather spirited defence from SuperCIO.

[youtube dr3qPRAAnOg]

The Best 'CEO Wanted' Ad Ever

2008-02-01T14:10:00.000-08:00

Even more ironic: Jindal Aluminum's site has a dead 'careers' link!

A Princely Sum

2008-01-15T13:04:00.000-08:00

Yup, a pirated edition of the banned book seems to be doing the rounds of Mumbai all of a sudden. Although the book has been listed for quite some time (though currently unavailable), not many people order from Amazon in India, thanks to the high shipping charges. I thought 400 bucks was quite a steal till GE's post made me realise I'd overpaid. Interestingly, I got the contact details of the peddler from a comment/spam ad, that he left on K's blog. Very good targeted advertising - K deserves a cut! I'll probably put up a detailed review on Amazon sometime, but so far it seems that the Ambanis may just have done Hamish McDonald a favour by getting it banned. It's not as excitingly defamatory as contraband is expected to be. First five pages can be read free of cost :-)

The BCCI's Inbox

2007-11-30T13:37:00.000-08:00

The Answer Is Blowing In The Video...

2007-09-30T14:31:00.000-07:00

Now this is what I call a cool viral...

Subprime Poker!

2007-08-23T14:08:00.000-07:00

What would the "father of the Mortgage Backed Security" have to say on the current subprime crisis in the US? Thats something that struck me the other day, when I saw someone reading the Wall Street cult novel Liar's Poker.

Lewis Ranieri was one of the many "Big Swinging D**ks" at Salomon Brothers where he started the mortgage trading desk and thus shot the firm to its heady heights in the mid 1980s. I hadn't seen him on the US edition of CNBC yet, so I ran a search and found this 'rough transcript' of his thoughts on the issue. Spoiler: The system's broke!

"We're restructuring a loan around a borrower; he can't afford the loan and now we're going to take the NPV of the change and send him a tax bill so the IRS can chase him . . .?" Read more (courtesy: Calculated Risk blog)

Scoop 2.0: We’re Hiring!

2007-07-12T20:54:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting ways for technology watchers to speculate on a company's future plan is to regularly scan its online jobs page. It may not always be accurate, but if the job description is specific enough it can often lead to a scoop!

One of the best examples is this piece from CNET.com about 2.5 years ago which suggested that Google was looking at buying up "Dark Fiber" based on this vacancy:

"Google is looking for Strategic Negotiator candidates with experience in... (i)dentification, selection, and negotiation of dark fiber contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network,"

Before you knew it, Google was WiFi-ing up entire cities free of cost and now could soon become a full fledged telecom giant if the secret "gPhone" project indeed bears fruit. The latest scoop is on Facebook's "we're hiring" page which suggests that the Social Networking poster boy could be looking at an IPO as a"very serious option" in the near future. {Link courtsey Paul Kedrosky}

Gimme A Break, Mr. Prime Minister.

2007-06-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

I don't believe our Hon. PM, Dr. Singh could have said this with a straight face: Coming to Patil's rescue, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rubbished the charges as "mudslinging" saying there was no evidence that Pratibha Patil herself was involved in any of the irregularities.

(Pic Courtsey: IBNLive.com)

Sure, its the BJP that's very openly behind the campaign to discredit the leading presidential candidate and they're pretty open about it. But to say that there's no evidence that Mrs. Patil herself was involved in any of the irregularities is laughable. Either she's dishonest or she's incredibly clueless - both qualities that the average citizen does not want the next President of India to possess. Webster defines "mudslinger" as one who uses offensive epithets and invective especially against a political opponent. In this case, the harshest invective from the BJP is nothing but verbatim quoting of the report from the Reserve Bank of India - the institution that the PM himself headed more than two decades ago!

Forget Valuations … Will My Frequent Flyer Points Be Merged?

2007-05-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

Since, I’m not an investor in any of these companies and I don’t track this specific industry as a journalist, my interest is pretty selfish! Will all of this make life any better for me as a flyer? I’m not talking about dirt cheap prices. I’ve bought enough of these low-cost tickets and been conned enough by the fine print to not chase discounts. Instead I’ve decided to do the counter-intuitive thing and get myself enrolled in all the frequent flyer programs! Credit card points, third party purchases and obesessive internet usage have all contributed to lots of free miles and trips!

I’m in fact specifically interested in whether these mergers will make frequent flyer programs more competitive and more accesible. The internet is the lifeline of any decent frequent flyer program and unfortunately none of our carriers have done a good job online.

IA and AI combined their frequent flyer programs some time ago but the entire process seems to be one big mess. They’ve done a smart thing by starting a new website dedicated to the FF program except that they haven’t taken the old ones down from the IA and AI websites. The result is that all three sites show different versions of your mileage statement since they’re obviously not interlinked. The helpdesk for the FF program has been outsourced to a third-party which is acceptable. What is not acceptable is the fact that the third-party also works with ’sarkari’ timings, processes and attitudes. You still need to download forms, print them out and fax them back to perpetually busy numbers. A couple of days later you need to call the numbers and if you’re lucky to get through, confirm the fact that your fax was received and processed. Its been months and I’m still waiting for my points to reflect. Incidentally the reason I need to claim missing miles is that my FF number could not be entered into the Air Mauritius system when I checked-in. If this is the case with a code-share partner, then being part of a global FF alliance is a distant dream.

Kingfisher is by far the best airline I have flown in India, but their online presence isn’t as classy as the real-world experience. The website is very “1.0″ if you know what I mean and the frequent flyer module looks as if it has been thrown in as an afterthought. There are very few partnerships by way of airlines or other services like Credit Cards. I put in a missing mile claim and the status remained “pending” for days before I decided to register an online complaint. The online error reporting system had a bug (irony!) and so I had to write a generic email. Someone actually replied to it though, saying it had been processed. I logged on to see that the claim showed “rejected” but the miles had been added! Well, I decided to not pursue the matter.

Jet Airways by far has the best internet presence and their online FF module is way better than the competition. There are many more partners and all the partnerships are linked on the site. When I clicked on “The Economist” link, it took me straight the page on the Economist site which allowed me to pay for a subscription through the Jet Airways alliance. However, sometimes too much of a good thing can backfire if it’s not thought through. The airline offers 500 bonus miles as incentive for online ticket bookings. Unfortunately, it gives these miles only on the basis of every PNR generated. This means that if I book a two-person return journey, I only get 500 miles. If I had booked each person’s one-way trip individually, I would make 2000 points since I would have generated 4 different PNRs. Jet, has thus incentivized inefficiency in their system, not to mention that every PNR generated has a cost associated with it. I guess they didn’t bank on people with lots of time to waste and a point to prove such as Yours Truly but with the internet, it doesn’t take much time and effort to beat the system.

Anyway, I hope the consolidation in the air leads to better services for FFs because now more than ever, loyalty is going to determine bottom lines!

Flags & Anthems

2007-04-11T14:12:00.000-07:00

I thought the Supreme Court verdict passed on Republic Day, five years ago, in the famous Naveen Jindal case would put an end to our hypocrisy on flags, anthems and such. However, the two 'controversies' of the past week surrounding SRT and NRN quickly burst that bubble!

The "anthem" controversy has hypocrisy built into it. Pray, can someone explain to me what an 'instrumental version' of a national anthem is, in the first place? Logically, if the instrument starts playing, the crowd starts singing - without any prompting! It's only in India where people are either too embarassed or ignorant, that we need to arrange for a choir of school children to sing, while the rest mumble or just ... stay mum! Whether it's a movie theatre or a stadium, a function or a felicitation, one never hears a thundering anthem being rendered with gusto. Infy had arranged for a five person choir and then apparently dropped the idea because "foreigners might be embarassed". I think the foreigners would have been rather puzzled to see no one on stage or in the crowd singing! We just don't like singing our own anthem for some strange reason.

While the Infy incident raised some hackles because of ~~Chairman~~ Co-Chairman Narayana Murthy's explanation (which he has since apologised for), the Sachin incident is just downright comical. Agreed, whoever decided on the theme for that cake had poor taste (seriously, saffron icing?), but why blame Tendulkar when the Indian High Commissioner himself was looking on approvingly? In any case, when it's quite clear that the intentions are not malafide in any way, why resort to grandstanding and jingoism?

I am loathe to admit that I draw intellectual inspiration from mainstream Hollywood but a few lines from an otherwise trite scene in The American President, sum up my thoughts perfectly:

"You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free."

300: Brilliant Fiction

2007-03-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

I finally found the time to go and catch "300" - the flick based on the "graphic novel" by Frank Miller (which is itself inspired by the 1962 film). I loved the comic book so I was determined to see the adaptation and its allegedly unbelievable special effects. The visuals were brilliant and the acting was intense. While some contend that this kind of film-making will destroy cinema as we know it, the actors themselves confess that it brings them closer to real theatre. Having nothing but a chroma in the background is apparently a liberating experience for a true Thespian.

It was clearly the least politically correct day of the year to watch the film - yesterday was the Parsi New Year and the film is pretty hard on the ancient Persians. However, if it's any consolation to my Parsi friends, I wasn't seeing the film for its take on history - poor Xerxes is made to look like a drag queen! It was purely to enjoy a mindless action flick made using stylized digital techniques. Blood and gore never looked so beautiful!

I was surprised that Iranians are protesting against the film. After all, wasn't it the supposed tyranny of the Zoroastrian kings that the early Islamic conquerors highlighted to get the masses on their side, before driving Xerxes' descendants out? If anyone should be protesting, it should be those original Parsis, a majority of whom wound up in India. Fortunately, they've proven to be far too intelligent a community to take these things seriously and are even apologetic for the few among them who have cried foul!

All I can say to our friendly neighbourhood 'Bawas' is: "Guys - nothing remains of Ancient Greece except touristy ruins! You're still worshipping your God and have made your adopted country proud. The (approx) 300 of your ancestors who braved the Arabian Sea and landed on the shores of Gujarat, centuries ago to start from scratch, are heroes in their own right. Happy Navroz!"

Bun-tea Aur Bubbly

2006-12-12T13:40:00.000-08:00

IIT-JEE Diary

2005-09-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

First published in JAM: Just Another Magazine

The recent IIT-JEE media blitzkrieg brought back some bittersweet memories. Bitter because I regret taking the year off to study for the JEE (and failing) and sweet because the intellectual challenge and academic input of that one year was more than the 2 years at high school and three years at undergrad put together.

The event also allowed me to touch base with the guy who ran the coaching class I attended. No he wasn’t a scheming conman as members of the coaching class community are made out to be but a young, fun-loving and brilliant entrepreneur who kindled my love for physics. He was genuinely upset when I didn’t make it and refunded my entire fee. He even gave me some seed money in those crazy dot-com days to “fund” my own start-up! Little wonder that when my colleagues at CNBC TV18, who were putting together a show that would debate the new format, asked me to invite a panelist, I gave him a tinkle. It was great catching up with Praveen Tyagi after many years.

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Obviously the people who’ve thought up this hair-brained new exam scheme have got it all wrong. Far from putting the coaching classes out of contention, an objective-only exam will widen their market like never before. It was only very focused and motivated junta who would put their hearts into the exam and go for special coaching. Most others were content to concentrate on their boards and get into the second rung tech schools. An objective-type exam suddenly gets everybody who’s taken science in +2 to think. “Hey! Maybe I can do this too!” So instead of a few classes offering JEE coaching, now everyone will be offering coaching and students who otherwise wouldn’t have prepared for the JEE will be cajoled into it by parents and peer pressure.

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On a more fundamental note, the new format opens up a small crack in the once watertight process. The JEE ensured that no one undeserving would ever get in although many deserving students would be left out (yes, yes that’s what I keep telling my sorry self!). Unless you cheated, it was impossible to fib your way through those subjective problems. Now, there is a significant probability that many people will get in using the ol’ heads/tails guesswork. Yes, the proportion will be small, but the probability of some “tukkha” candidates getting in is still high. That would indeed be a shame for however much you got coached in the earlier system, you still had to have aptitude and slog to clear the exam – Kota or no Kota!

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Now here’s some advice to those of you who would just like the IIT ‘chhaap’ but have no particular interest in any engineering stream. Don’t drop a year if you don’t clear the JEE. Opt for a three-year BSc at a decent college instead. In your third year sit for the two-year MSc exam. This is the best-kept IIT secret – it’s the only non-common entrance exam for the IITs. Every IIT administers its own exam for the four to five different MSc courses that it offers. Very often it’s barely a case of 150 odd students competing for 30 odd seats! Out of these about half have not seriously prepared. Way better than 2 lakh serious JEE aspirants for 2000 seats. Assuming you dropped a year and then got in, it would take you four more years for a BTech. This way it takes you 3+2 for a MASTERS degree from an IIT. True, you may not be as well tuned to the IIT system as the BTechers who you will share some courses with – but hey! You want the chhaap and the job don’t you? And if you genuinely get enthu about your subject in those 2 years, you have a Master’s degree in your pocket from an IIT – Grad School USA, here I come!!

Asian College of Journalism

2004-05-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

First printed in JAM: Just Another Magazine

There aren’t too many true-blue journalism schools in the country. While there are tons of so-called “media schools”, only a handful of institutes offer quality post-graduate programs. However all these courses are broad based - embracing Corporate Communication, Public Relations, Advertising, Media Management, Film, Television and Mass media in general.

History
The B.D. Goenka Foundation, backed by the Indian Express Group had set up the Asian College of Journalism in Bangalore but was struggling to keep the institute going. At about the same time, the Media Development Foundation (MDF) was looking to start a full time journalism school in Chennai. The ACJ in Bangalore had already built up a reputation of sorts and thus in order to keep the brand name, the MDF took over the school. The first batch of students of the one-year post graduate program passed out in 2001.

The Columbia Connection
For those of you who aren't in the know, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism is the Mecca of journalism education. The school awards the Pulitzer Prizes every year, has produced America's greatest journalists and is by far the world's most prestigious place to learn the ropes of reporting. One of its alumni, N. Ram (now editor of The Hindu) thought it would be a good idea to set up a school on similar lines but tailored to Asian conditions in general and Indian conditions in particular. The one-year course is modeled on Columbia’s Masters program. While you won’t get a degree from Columbia, you will be taught by faculty of the school thanks to a MoU between the two institutes

Academics:
Three PG Diploma courses of ten month duration are offered by ACJ:
1) Print journalism – 40 seats
2) New Media – 20 seats
3) Broadcast Journalism – 30 seats

The curriculum of the ACJ is far superior to any institute in the country. Highlights include a compulsory course called 'Covering Deprivation' – an attempt at making third world journalists conscious of the social issues surrounding them. After a rigorous lecture series, students go on a week-long tour of a remote part of South India to get a feel of the issues in the ‘real India.’

The first trimester is common for students of all streams. Courses include Media Law, Media history, Key Issues in Journalism, Tools of the Modern Journalist and the cracker of a course, Reporting-Writing-Editing. If you thought your English was good, this course will bring you down to earth pretty quickly. Students get a basic grounding in all three streams.

The next two trimesters are dedicated to “stream work” and electives. The broadcast journalism students take a 12-week course taught by a qualified BBC journalist cum instructor. They then go on to producing full fledged daily news bulletins with reports from around the city, often scooping the mainstream media. They also go through a documentary making workshop and make short films. The Print students learn the basics of layout and publishing and run a weekly newspaper which is circulated to a wide audience in the city. New Media students learn to navigate cyberspace and run a 24-hour website called Digantik. In the final trimester, students have to submit an investigative project as well as a 10,000 word dissertation.

The most fun part of the course for many however is ‘Electives’. Students can chose 4 electives out of a long list that includes Arts & Culture, Business, Politics, Sports, Science, Environment, International Affairs, Photojournalism, Gender etc. Students often sit in for classes from electives that they have not opted for.

Infrastructure and Faculty
The Infrastructure is outstanding. The college is fully air-conditioned, which is half the battle won in sultry Chennai! The broadcast studio in the sprawling basement is fully equipped with a production control room, sound booth and editing facilities (linear and non-linear). Camera equipment is plentiful and the facility is excellently maintained. The college is one of the few places that can actually boast a computer for every student (An entire floor is dedicated just to computer labs!) and nearly all lectures are taken with audio-visual support. There is a well-equipped library and an auditorium that can seat more than a hundred people. The canteen is on the sprawling terrace, where underarm cricket is the official sport.

The Chairman of the college is the formed head of PTI News and later founder of AsiaNet, Sashi Kumar. He occasionally gives lectures, conducts workshops in anchoring and provides feedback on bulletins. The core faculty of half a dozen comprises full-time professors while a large part of the faculty serves in an adjunct capacity. Many of the electives are taken by practicing journalists from The Hindu group of publications. The endless stream of visiting speakers will expose you to a range of ideas that will totally blow you away. To be honest, the real strength of the institute is the sheer spectrum of experts that it can assemble to speak to the students during the span of a single year.

The downsides:
Fees (gulp!) are very high. 1.5 lakh for print and new media and a whopping 2 lakhs for broadcast. There is no hostel facility either since it isn’t a residential campus. The college does however make arrangements for students to stay together. If you factor in rental and living expense it is an expensive affair for one year! Also, a lot of people especially from the North have a mental block about studying in Chennai even though the language problem is rather overplayed. Those of you with strong right wing/neo-conservative or free-market capitalism ideologies beware! This is hardcore liberal, left-wing and often commie territory.

Admissions
Look out for newspaper ads in the month of May and keep checking the website http://www.asianmedia.org . The written exam is held in all the metros in mid-June and consists of an English paper and an extremely difficult Current Affairs and General Knowledge paper. The interviews are held only in Chennai. There are 90 seats in all though 12 are set aside for overseas Fellows.

Financial Aid:
There are a number of partial and full scholarships offered on a merit-means basis. The college also administers the SAF Madanjeet Singh Fellowships to one girl and one boy from each of the seven SAARC countries and Afghanistan. All fees are waived and fellows are paid a stipend as well. Due to political reasons, Pakistani students haven’t yet been able to make it even after receiving the fellowships though the guys and gals from Bhutan, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Afghanistan more than make up for it. The foreigners are usually experienced journalists, so all you America bashers watch out! These guys will give you more than a mouthful on how India is as much of a bully in the region…

Futurescope:
All the major news outlets in the country have ACJ grads working for them and the alumni network is beginning to kick in as well. Lots of people tend to go the NGO / Independent Media way as well. Those who are interested in academics usually apply for PhD programs in the US and UK and their ACJ year is accepted in most big places as a Masters equivalent year of study.

Verdict
ACJ has within a couple of years established itself as an outstanding institution with one foot in the hi-tech future. However it's not the kind of time-pass course one should do just because you can't figure out what you want to do after graduation. This is a full time highly intensive course which can be tackled only by extremely motivated junta.The intellectual atmosphere on campus according to students is electrifying and says Yamini Narayan, 2002 print journalism student, "People in the South have already nicknamed it the NLS of Journalism." Not a bad comparison, for NLSIU was virtually unheard of when it came about and within a decade it established itself as a world class law institution without peer in the country. Incidentally the guy who topped my batch is a lawyer who happened to be Rank 1 in the all India entrance for NLS.

A Must Read for those interested in the 'Asian Miracle'

2003-07-01T09:28:00.000-07:00

First posted as a book review on Amazon.com

The Rise and Decline of the Asian Century: False Starts on the Path to the Global Millennium by Christopher Lingle

The reason that this book should rank as one of the most important books that is seldom heard of and rarely read, is simple. Its predictions turned out to be devastatingly accurate within no time at all. Christopher Lingle, while a senior fellow at the National University of Singapore, wrote an article in the International Herald Tribune, which angered the Singaporean government. Faced with the threat of imprisonment, Lingle fled the country and began working on this book in the USA. The book was published in 1997 - a few months before the catastrophic collapse of the East Asian economies.

Lingle talks about the mountains of literature being churned out in praise of the 'Asian miracle' and the phenomenal economic progress of the Asian and other Asia-Pacific nations, which displayed double-digit growth rates through most of the 80s and 90s. The author contends that the highest-growth industry seems to be the one publishing books about the 'Asian century'.

Lingle attributes the over-enthusiastic optimism for Asia's 'miracle economies' to the classic faux pas of extrapolating short-term observations. While no one can deny the fact that there has been rapid growth of these economies, he points out that, historically, several regimes with fundamentally flawed institutional arrangements have produced relatively long periods of high growth. Spain under Franco in the 50s and 60s, apartheid South Africa, Soviet Russia and even communist North Korea have all shown periods of sustained economic 'progress' until their inherent weaknesses led to an inevitable collapse.

The inherent contradiction is that true economic advance is a direct function of the human spirit and entrepreneurship, both of which are repressed under regimes, which practice collectivist repression in order to maintain the single-party political status quo. The capitalistic tenets of contract law and property rights are fundamentally individualistic in nature and fly in the face of the policies of East Asian regimes.

Lingle takes the bull by the horns in analyzing how the world reached the consensus that indeed the economies of East Asia were 'miracle' economies. It all began when the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) buoyed by the success of the Japanese model at the time decided that it was time for some economic evangelism. The extensively bureaucratic and interventionist model championed by the Japanese was at sharp odds with the World Bank endorsed neo-classical view.

In order to showcase their approach as a theoretical model, which could be successfully adopted by other countries in the region, the Japanese government commissioned the World Bank to produce a report that was published in 1993 under the title 'The East Asian Miracle.' So what were the conclusions of this (at the time, enshrined in economic folklore) report? The most important conclusions of this report were that the 'miraculous' growth experienced by the region was a result of macroeconomic stability achieved by pursuance of prudent fiscal and monetary policy. Much to the liking of its Japanese masters, the report admitted that the large-scale market interventions carried out by these governments had contributed to the 'miracle'

Lingle talks about Max Weber's nineteenth century view that Confucianism would retard the modernization of Asia and how that particular contention seemed to be far from the truth when the Asian ascent began in the 1970s. It soon became widely accepted that neo-Confucianism was a source of East Asian dynamism. This neo-Confucianism, created by selective picking and choosing of tenets from the original belief system and transforming them into a distinct political ideology, justifies the pre-eminence of the rights of the community over the rights of the individual. The 'virtuous rulers' theory, (rather than the choice of the citizenry) advocated by neo-Confucians fitted perfectly in the scheme of things for authoritarian patriarchal governments.

Thus extensive market interventions, rejection of the notion of the self-regulating economy and the ability to enforce stability, resulted in the creation of the myth that East Asia's dynamic yet traditional rulers were responsible for the great ascendancy to economic power. This neo-Confucian inspired set of Asian values is championed by what it commonly called the 'Singapore School', which aggressively promotes its own model of development as uniquely Asian, indisputably successful and easily transplantable.

The distinctive neo-Confucian concepts of 'filial piety' and subservience to authority neatly lend themselves to the one-party authoritarian style of rule of leaders like Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore and Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia. The venerated Confucian tradition of strong family bonds, in a modern context translates into what Lingle calls 'dynastic succession and an entrenched policy of nepotism.'

Examples of course, are numerous. From Sukarno and Suharto in Indonesia to the Gandhis and Bandaranaikes in India and Sri Lanka respectively; from the Korean Kims and Cambodian royalty to the Marcoses and the Acquinos of the Philippines, Asia has a long 'tradition' of dynastic democracies. Lingle points out that such nepotism is in direct conflict with modernizing forces such as marketization. They seem to be more compatible with imperial colonialism than modern democracy.

Spare Us Sony!

2002-10-07T05:12:00.000-07:00

First published on TheHoot.org

The recently concluded Champions Trophy Cricket tournament in Sri Lanka was a washout in more ways than one. We may not have had an outright winner, but there was definitely an outright loser - Sony Entertainment Television (SET). The channel which has won the rights to telecast next years World Cup in South Africa took cricket programming to abysmal depths with its show 'extra innings' that appeared before, after and in the innings break of the ODIs.

To begin with, Charu Sharma is no Harsha Bhogle though that really isn't his fault. In fact to sympathize, one could see how uncomfortable he was in the idiotic format that, I suppose, was thrust upon him. Its one thing for a recorded voice to accompany an ad that says "Super Sixes brought to you by so and so..". Its downright demeaning on the other hand for a sports journalist to be saying, "We'll get back to you Krish, after we take a look at the Kwik 4s package - Kwik ho paas to dard khalas". After the montage of boundaries, we're back in the studio to hear Charu repeating "Well that presentation was brought to you by Kwik, Kwik ho paas to dard khalas! Getting back to you Tony, what do you think ." In fact most of Charu's time was spent interrupting the experts to tell them that there was "lots more to talk about after this next package". Montages are entertaining to watch, especially when Sehwag is in this kind of form. But there is a concept known as "too much of a good thing" and SET totally overdid it. Some of the packages were ludicrous and it was obvious that they had been made for the product and not the other way around. Shouldn't special packages be conceived for their relevance to the game so that a company can then decide whether it deems sponsorship fit, depending on the image of its brand.

Now Ruby Bhatia has been singled out for so much ridicule that I almost feel sorry for her. Some feminist friends told me I was being an MCP when I commented after the opening match that Ruby stuck out like a sore thumb. "Just because she's a woman invading a man's game" was their retort. The ironic part is that the reason she was put there in the first place should raise any feminist's ire. It's quite obvious that she's been put there PRECISELY because of the predominantly male viewer-ship and because she's part of the 'entertainment.' Considering her knowledge of cricket is non-existent we all know what part of the entertainment she was contributing to. India Today's Sharda Ugra is right up there as a top cricket writer and Star's Sonali Chunder is probably the best sports newscaster in the country. The issue was never about women. It's about people who know something about the game. Ruby just consolidated the stereotypical image of women being ignorant of cricket by perennially behaving like the dressed-up doll watching her first cricket match. Patronising men answering her idiot questions probably negates any effort made towards destroying the stereotype, on the pitch by the Indian women's cricket team. Little wonder that a curvaceous damsel with an exotic name was the host of the Indiatimes SMS prediction game in the same studio. Incidentally, one SMS question asked viewers to predict the number of times a fielder would crash into the advertising hoardings. W.G. must be turning in his grave.

Agreed - its entertainment after all. But one must realise that Indians take their cricket seriously. SET may have a strategy of focussing on cricket and Bollywood - but do we have to be forced to watch them being merged into one? Is anyone really interested in knowing at what position Fardeen Khan fielded for his school team? Or whether Arbaaz Khan prefers watching cricket on his home theatre system versus in a pub with his friends? The same bubbly attitude which makes a Ruby a hit as a VJ makes her look like a fool in a studio. The dance sequences are great on the movie screens - but do we need to be shown bollywood clips in a cricket studio?

The one that took the cake though was the tarot card reader - Ma Ritambara Devi. On one hand you have ESPN-STAR using cutting edge technology to make the LBW decision more scientific, and on the other we have SET-MAX bringing mumbo-jumbo into sport. Yes, people are entitled to their beliefs - but why force it upon the general population. What value it added to the programme I still don't understand but it was rather hilarious to watch. 'Ma' would make Ruby pick a card for a team and lo! It would be the 'Card of Integration' which was ostensibly interpreted to mean that the team would 'integrate' all its resources together. (Genius Holmes! You've done it again.) Another would be the 'Card of Shakti', which meant a team would come on to the field full of confidence and energy! When the team in question was Sri Lanka it was 'predicted' that the crowd support would help them.

A particularly hilarious incident occurred before the final when Ruby drew a card for India that showed a figure '8' who's lower region was black and upper white. 'Ma' said that this meant the Indians would 'begin in darkness and come to light" which implied that they would be jittery against the home team but slowly gain confidence. Charu asked her why it couldn't be from light to darkness since the direction wasn't indicated on the card in any way. Ruby saved a flustered 'Ma' by scolding Charu and telling him to stick to cricket rather than Tarot! Considering that if anything, the sunny weather eventually gave way to dark rain clouds, Charu may indeed have discovered a hidden talent!! One wonders why 'Ma' didn't bother to predict who would win the toss or any other such quantifiable parameter. In the end, the most unpredictable science of weather forecasting proved to be more reliable than tarot!

In the final analysis one can only say that the purist dreads what 'ideas' SET has for the World Cup. Could Charu Sharma be forced to spew lines such as "The Indians looked sprightly - Sprite bujhaye only pyaas, baki sab bakwaas'- on the field today." ? Or could we have Bejan Daruwala in the studio contemplating the fact that Saturn is poised menacingly over Sachin's birth star? Maybe the commentators will have former Miss Indias escorting them to their seats in the studio. Maybe the entire Lagaan team and not just Guran could be placed amongst the crowd. One thing is for sure - we'd all love to get back to Good ol' Geoffrey Boycott and even Sherry if we must. As for what SET is putting us through, Boycs would have only one ord ' "Rubyish!"

Lectures For Sale

2001-08-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

First printed in The Daily Raag and reproduced in JAM: Just Another Magazine

Recently, the University of Mumbai introduced the revolutionary concept of hiring teachers on a contractual basis and paying them per lecture. Ah! Bliss! Wouldn’t it be great to have a whole new breed of lecturers who could come and take half-hour lectures in every college on a rotational basis?

This move has been welcomed with such enthusiasm across the Board, that we students propose the following new rules for University employees based on this theory:

* Heads of Department to be paid per 20 students majoring in that subject. This would encourage HODs to aggressively advertise their departments, making them attractive to students by luring them with ‘academic’ facilities such as air conditioned classrooms, cushioned chairs and free coffee.

* Laboratory attendants to be paid per test tube of stock solution prepared for use in experiments. The lab attendants’ union however is campaigning for payment per ounce of glassware broken by students, which would put their salaries at par with MNC CEOs

* University sports coaches to be paid per match won. This would make them far more competitive and aggressive, thus giving Mumbai Univ’s sports the professional edge that we see on WWF pro-wrestling.

* Examination moderators to be paid per student caught cheating. This would transform the usually nonchalant moderators into hawks and thus assure fairness to all students of the University. It’s a minor matter that this will only add further to the tension of the students (who will think twice even before twitching for fear of being accused).gupta classes

* Clerical and office staff to be paid per form filled by the students. This ‘master strategy’ will ensure that the clerks and other office staff will be more efficient. Who cares if they purposely double the amount of paperwork and red tape just to make more money? As long as the government is paying for it, “sab kuch chalta hai.”

Who knows! This argument might catch on in other professions too. Wouldn’t it be a refreshing paradigm shift to have civil engineers paid per brick laid, irrespective of the construction being completed? Or surgeons being paid per stitch, regardless of the patients’ survival? Maybe our armed forces could be given emoluments per bullet fired (at the enemy or otherwise).

The possibilities seem limitless. Aren’t we bursting with pride to be part of the University system - at the very forefront of education desecration?

-Abhimanyu Radhakrishnan

Mood Indigo 2000: Calm before the storm...

2000-12-24T15:38:00.000-08:00

First posted on (the now defunct youth website) Oyeindia.com

URL courtsey: The super fabulous Wayback Machine!

Lose hope all ye who enter here...

The perfect calm...before the perfect storm. If ever one wondered what Rome looked like 12 hours before the opening of the Circus Maximus this would come real close. Yessir! Mood Indigo 2000 at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay@Powai is all set to kick off- in grand style.

The CL (Contingent Leader) Meeting followed by the Mood-I inauguration on Monday evening took place almost unnoticed though the buzz on campus is electrifying. The CL meeting as usual achieved what most of these meetings achieve - nothing. However, it was nice to get to know the Co-ord committee - they seem like a fun bunch of chaps. Most of the serious contingents attended with CL and ACLs, a notable exception being the contingent of the hosts. The IIT-B CL (and who knows who he is) was seen for about a third of a picosecond - he literally took a peek and went out. On being asked by a fellow IITian as to who his ACLs were, he replied 'No idea yaar - Tu banega?' Yup... we're in for one hell of a time this Mood-I.

The stand-out feature this Mood-I are the number of outstation teams who've landed up. Bangalore deserves special mention what with 20 odd guys from Law School, some great quizzers from RVCE and a small contingent from Mount Carmel's too.

The 'outstie' influx seemed too much for the Hospie dept. who had some major accommodation problems to sort out. The happiest guys in Powai seem to be the cabbies and ricksha-wallahs. Stories from bleary eyed Bangaloreans about outrageous fares - 500 bucks from Kurla to Powai and 70 bucks from Kanjur Marg to Main Gate - sent us Mumbaikars into fits of laughter. Talk about rip-offs!

The main attraction on Day 1 will definitely be the rock show elims. Four bands will be selected to perform at the 'Livewire' finals on Friday night - only one will make it to the big stage. The Classical nite also promises to be fabulous.

Christmas Day was low key at IIT-B but the next four days are gonna be anything but that. Amazing prize money has attracted top class competition and if you can win, say, a quiz at Mood-I then you're an exponent of 'Godgiri' - IIT lingo for performer of miracles. Futchas (freshers) scurry around plastering last minute banners, the last few changes to the schedule are made, fingers are crossed... Utopia...here we come...