The impasse over Singur continues and there seems to be no headway. In this scenario the best option for Tata's seems to be to close shop and move out. Contrary to the sentiments in West Bengal, this would actually be a very good move. Here is why:
1) The project is getting delayed due to Momotadidi suddenly realizing that a lot of the farm lands that were acquired for the project was acquired from unwilling farmers. The story here is a bit different. In a previous post I had talked about the compensation that was being offered, a whopping 30 rs a sq ft. But then the story in West Bengal is unlike any that in any other state. Not all the farmers actually own the land that they farm. They are share croppers, and even when the original owners have willingly given the land to Tata Motors, the share croppers are with Trinamul. An increased package is not going to offer them any benefit. Their best bet would have been if the Nano plant came up and they got work there. But, no....they are too used to the life that they have been leading. If they had been employed at the plant, at the first disciplinary action for not reporting to work or some other misconduct, they would have declared a strike and anyway work would have come to a halt. You see, the average Bengali is very aware of his rights but not his duties.
2) A strong message gets sent out to all such aimless politicians who take up people's issues when they find that the going has just gotten tough. This will also discourage the so called leaders who take up the cudgels on behalf of the minority for those projects that benefit the vast majority. This is nothing new in this country. Under the grab of socialist, secular, democratic republic, we believe in throttling the majority opinion to pamper the minority opinion.
3) Ms. Banerjee's Chief Ministerial hopes are effectively dashed. Can you imagine the rot that would have happened to Bengal if Ms. Banerjee becomes the CM ever? If the Tata's continue now, it would have just added to her armoury. She would have become the messiah for the poor. Now hopefully she will be wiped off once and for all.
The only flip side:
Tata's lose out on a source of educated cheap labour. Well, that has to be taken in while calculating the cost of the nano.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Another Blast....
Yet another blast in Delhi.....what is the world coming to? Are we actually a weak state? These blasts demonstrate that terrorists are able to strike anywhere at will and all our political and governance machinery have failed. There has to be a solution to this....maybe a "Never Again" campaign.....Its the citizens who have to stand up and say "Never Again". It doesn't take much. If all of us pledge to not take things lying down. If the death of even one of our fellow country men causes outrage and a demand for justice, if we don't try to get away from our mistakes but accept them and try to overcome them, if instead of always having an external locus of control we look at ourselves we may be able to stop this.
These blasts are not the handiwork of Pakistani terrorists, these blasts have been done by us, The Common Man of India. Yes, each of us, you who are reading this blog, the man on the street, the cop sitting idle at the police station, the so called government, the I-banker, the Dalal Street share broker, the media covering these blasts, the PYT partying away to glory and also me writing this blog is responsible for these blasts.
Do the Self appointed critics of the failed governance machinery every wonder where do these quantities of explosives come from? Every time you encourage the sale of goods and services without a bill, you are creating a loop hole that these guys can exploit; every time, you walk away when you notice something suspicious, you are creating a loop hole; every time you bribe to get ahead of the Q or to cover up a broken rule you create a loop hole.
Gandhiji started the Civil Disobedience movement, but unfortunately failed to stop it. It is still going strong. And till the time this keeps on going strong, there will be blasts, and terror attacks. Will it really need one person of every family to die in this country before this country wakes up? We are in a slumber since we woke up for a few minutes on the midnight of 15th August 1947 to hoist a flag. Damn it people, you are the damned government, the damned police, the damned everything of this country...how long will you keep depending on external agencies for help? If we are to become a superpower ever, we need to set the trend. Can we have a "Never Again" campaign? Will each of you who is reading this stand up for the law as it is instead of trying to evade it?
Do we have the balls for it? Or are we a bunch of losers who deserve to die? Who will die anyway? and the survivors will carry on as if nothing happened? What is needed to shake these bunch of people awake?
These blasts are not the handiwork of Pakistani terrorists, these blasts have been done by us, The Common Man of India. Yes, each of us, you who are reading this blog, the man on the street, the cop sitting idle at the police station, the so called government, the I-banker, the Dalal Street share broker, the media covering these blasts, the PYT partying away to glory and also me writing this blog is responsible for these blasts.
Do the Self appointed critics of the failed governance machinery every wonder where do these quantities of explosives come from? Every time you encourage the sale of goods and services without a bill, you are creating a loop hole that these guys can exploit; every time, you walk away when you notice something suspicious, you are creating a loop hole; every time you bribe to get ahead of the Q or to cover up a broken rule you create a loop hole.
Gandhiji started the Civil Disobedience movement, but unfortunately failed to stop it. It is still going strong. And till the time this keeps on going strong, there will be blasts, and terror attacks. Will it really need one person of every family to die in this country before this country wakes up? We are in a slumber since we woke up for a few minutes on the midnight of 15th August 1947 to hoist a flag. Damn it people, you are the damned government, the damned police, the damned everything of this country...how long will you keep depending on external agencies for help? If we are to become a superpower ever, we need to set the trend. Can we have a "Never Again" campaign? Will each of you who is reading this stand up for the law as it is instead of trying to evade it?
Do we have the balls for it? Or are we a bunch of losers who deserve to die? Who will die anyway? and the survivors will carry on as if nothing happened? What is needed to shake these bunch of people awake?
Monday, September 08, 2008
Can he be tried for treason?
Enough is enough.....this guy makes arbit statements against every non-maharastrian and gets away with it.He writes to the cops asking them not to discharge their duty
And we dont have a law to charge him with treason against the Indian Union? How is he any different form the moderate terrorists who are asking for freedom in J&K?
How is MNS different from the ULFA? Just because ULFA uses bombs and bullets and this guy uses speeches? Some one tell me please.
A Wednesday
This is a movie which just deserves to be watched if for nothing else but the brilliant acting by Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah. The jingoistic theme aside, this movie is watchable only for the acting.
After a long time finally a movie, in which I wasn't waiting eagerly for the intermission. The fast paced thriller had me glued to the seat throughout.
All in all, a sunday afternoon well spent.
My Rating: 4.5/5
After a long time finally a movie, in which I wasn't waiting eagerly for the intermission. The fast paced thriller had me glued to the seat throughout.
All in all, a sunday afternoon well spent.
My Rating: 4.5/5
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Rock on
Watched Rock On yesterday. Everything said and done, and after getting 4.5 stars somehow the movie disappointed me. Well most of it anyway. I thought Mumbai Meri Jaan was much better.
And yes....on another note, the music is great...so if you could actually buy the CD and not watch the movie...
My rating would be 2.5 stars for Rock On.
And yes....on another note, the music is great...so if you could actually buy the CD and not watch the movie...
My rating would be 2.5 stars for Rock On.
Monday, September 01, 2008
What is the relation between.....
Both are pictures of popular leaders who refuse to acknowledge the birth of a new era that has come.
One did not recognize that the Manchester of the East was looking at a bleaker picture and proceeded to call an 18-month long strike that hastened the demise of an already sick industry. Datta Samant, a massive strike, at the beginning of which an estimated 200,000–300,000 mill workers walked out, forcing the entire industry of the city to be shut down for over a year. As the strike progressed through the months, Samant's militancy in the face of government obstinacy led to the failure of any attempts at negotiation and resolution. Disunity and dissatisfaction over the strike soon became apparent, and many textile millowners began moving their plants outside the city. After a prolonged and destabilizing confrontation, the strike collapsed with Samant and his allies not having obtained any concessions. The closure of textile mills across the city left tens of thousands of mill workers unemployed, and in the succeeding years the most of the industry moved away from Mumbai, after decades of being plagued by rising costs and union militancy. The result.....you just have to walk around the mill areas of Parel and Worli. The mills stand there like ghosts from another era. And those that have been redeveloped are now housing posh offices and malls.
and the other.....Didi as she is called by all, refuses to let industrialization come to West Bengal. Somehow she thinks that returning the land that the Tata's acquired from unwilling farmers is a solution. Does she really think that the unwilling farmers would be able to return to agriculture in the then fertile now barren land? Surrounded by paint shops, forging shops and assembly line? May be Tata Motors will have to create a new designation, Farmer, Farm Labourer for those who will be farming in those areas that are within the gates of the factory.
And what makes the farmer unwilling. Well to look at it one way, the Govt. acquired the land paying a price of about 13-17 lacs an acre. ($32500-$42500 an acre) thats about Rs. 321/sq m ($8 a sq m) or 29.8 a sq feet. The price paid to the farmers for a plot of land in the middle of nowhere the size of a tile in your room is about 30 rs. That is huge amount by any logic. Now the unwilling farmer contents that in any case if the factory comes up, the land has to be acquired. The price of land will shoot up. So the farmer has the opportunity to sell the land at 3 times the present price. No wonder such large numbers are supporting didi's protests and her intelligent argument that Tata's need only about 600 acres, return 400 acres to the farmers. Left to her, the factory will have a paint shop, then a rice farm, then the body shop, and forge, then maybe another farm.
What if Tata's move out of Singur? West Bengal gets tagged with an industry unfriendly status. The only thing left for educated, unemployed youths is roke bose adda maraa aar prem kora....after all who needs industrialization....we are happy, lazy beings.
Of Mumbai Meri Jaan, Bihar Floods, and others
Watched मुम्बई मेरी जान this weekend....thanks to AM who tagged me along. Well whatever the reviews said, this was a movie worth watching if you are a part of Mumbai. For those who haven't watched the movie yet this is what the synopsis is, "On July 11, 2006 the local train service, known as Mumbai's lifeline, was struck by a series of bomb blasts. Bombay Meri Jaan explores the impact of this devastating incident on the lives of the people of Mumbai. From a brilliant broadcast journalist to a patriotic corporate man; from a retiring policeman at the twilight of his life to a rookie cop at the dawn of his career; from an angry and xenophobic unemployed young man to a coffee-vendor struggling to survive and belong: Mumbai Meri Jaan follows the lives of people from all strata of Mumbai's bustling society as they tackle the aftermath of a fatal incident that brings out the best and sometimes the worst in them." (courtesy UTV site)
The movie laced out well and the acting was good. Madhavan was brilliant, so was Irfaan Khan. Paresh Rawal portrayed the retiring cop so well that today morning when I saw a constable with grey hair at the naka I really wondered if he was the inspiration behind the role. On the other hand Vijay Maurya got too much into the skin of the character......or was he not given enough lines?? A new cop, who chooses to ask his senior what his achievement was, questions the system that exists does not pull the trigger on himself without enough reason. Also, Kay Kay Menon I felt overdid his part of being a Hindu Fanatic....and Soha Ali was not genuine enough.....
Maybe because you connect with the places and the people you connect with the movie. I doubt how much a person from lucknow or chandigarh would connect with this movie.
The personal drama did not look to personal for anyone other than Soha and Madhavan. And the usual Hindu-Muslim bashing and then bhai-bhai preaching. It is a tribute to a city, a tribute to the people, but it could have been handled better. Maybe it was not possible to compress this in cinematic time, but a tragedy that 7/11 was, deserves something more than this.
At the same time, one is forced to ask some serious questions. We talk about the Spirit of Mumbai but is it something more than spirit? I think it is desperation that forces people into the Spirit of Mumbai thinggi. Truthfully, who would want to travel in overcrowded trains? Except for the fact that the only other option is at least 2-3 times the train journey time. The most chilling scene in the movie, when Madhavan's friend from the US tells that maybe the next generation will become used to terrorism. To me that is a stark reminder about what life is going to be all about. Survival. And like MM says in her post, that how much longer can we create gated communities and pretend that we are safer just because we chose not to look at the world around us? Isn't it time that we decided that it is important for us to be responsible for our own security. That we cannot keep blaming the police and the government for everything? This brings me to another recent event, the calamity in Bihar. One recent TV report, said that policemen where saving all they could and moving to higher ground and another showed an interview with a villager that prasasan kuch nahi kar rahi.
I know it is the easiest thing to find a scapegoat, but then do we realise, that we are the prasasan, the administrators? The IAS officer is just a representation of the society we live in. He is no superman to save the people. He wants his cut like everyone else. Everyone in this country is out to get his pound of flesh. And by everyone, I mean everyone. We are all cheats and thieves in private and saints outside. Sarkaar kuch nahi karti is our favourite statement. But, the same statement makers will bribe a govt official who pulls you up for breaking a law, will cross the road at anyplace, will spit and dirty the city, you see for us, as long as it doesn't affect us, we are fine. We will rave and rant at the unfairness of it all and then go back to being the way they are.
Where are all these related? Bomb blasts, terrorist attacks and bihar flood.....they are all the product of our apathy.....apathy born out of not trying to be a country.....we are not Indians.....we are hindus, muslims, brahmins, dalits, maharastrian, bihari, everything but not Indians......when we start bribing the cops to let us go for small offences a precedence is created that says that the more money you pay the bigger offence you can get away with......when you pay to get your work done without standing in a que, you start a trend which says it is easy to ignore the rights of people who have been waiting before you......and that is the tragedy from which all the bigger tragedies flow......question is can we say "Never Again" or will it just be another movie being made on another tragedy?
The movie laced out well and the acting was good. Madhavan was brilliant, so was Irfaan Khan. Paresh Rawal portrayed the retiring cop so well that today morning when I saw a constable with grey hair at the naka I really wondered if he was the inspiration behind the role. On the other hand Vijay Maurya got too much into the skin of the character......or was he not given enough lines?? A new cop, who chooses to ask his senior what his achievement was, questions the system that exists does not pull the trigger on himself without enough reason. Also, Kay Kay Menon I felt overdid his part of being a Hindu Fanatic....and Soha Ali was not genuine enough.....
Maybe because you connect with the places and the people you connect with the movie. I doubt how much a person from lucknow or chandigarh would connect with this movie.
The personal drama did not look to personal for anyone other than Soha and Madhavan. And the usual Hindu-Muslim bashing and then bhai-bhai preaching. It is a tribute to a city, a tribute to the people, but it could have been handled better. Maybe it was not possible to compress this in cinematic time, but a tragedy that 7/11 was, deserves something more than this.
At the same time, one is forced to ask some serious questions. We talk about the Spirit of Mumbai but is it something more than spirit? I think it is desperation that forces people into the Spirit of Mumbai thinggi. Truthfully, who would want to travel in overcrowded trains? Except for the fact that the only other option is at least 2-3 times the train journey time. The most chilling scene in the movie, when Madhavan's friend from the US tells that maybe the next generation will become used to terrorism. To me that is a stark reminder about what life is going to be all about. Survival. And like MM says in her post, that how much longer can we create gated communities and pretend that we are safer just because we chose not to look at the world around us? Isn't it time that we decided that it is important for us to be responsible for our own security. That we cannot keep blaming the police and the government for everything? This brings me to another recent event, the calamity in Bihar. One recent TV report, said that policemen where saving all they could and moving to higher ground and another showed an interview with a villager that prasasan kuch nahi kar rahi.
I know it is the easiest thing to find a scapegoat, but then do we realise, that we are the prasasan, the administrators? The IAS officer is just a representation of the society we live in. He is no superman to save the people. He wants his cut like everyone else. Everyone in this country is out to get his pound of flesh. And by everyone, I mean everyone. We are all cheats and thieves in private and saints outside. Sarkaar kuch nahi karti is our favourite statement. But, the same statement makers will bribe a govt official who pulls you up for breaking a law, will cross the road at anyplace, will spit and dirty the city, you see for us, as long as it doesn't affect us, we are fine. We will rave and rant at the unfairness of it all and then go back to being the way they are.
Where are all these related? Bomb blasts, terrorist attacks and bihar flood.....they are all the product of our apathy.....apathy born out of not trying to be a country.....we are not Indians.....we are hindus, muslims, brahmins, dalits, maharastrian, bihari, everything but not Indians......when we start bribing the cops to let us go for small offences a precedence is created that says that the more money you pay the bigger offence you can get away with......when you pay to get your work done without standing in a que, you start a trend which says it is easy to ignore the rights of people who have been waiting before you......and that is the tragedy from which all the bigger tragedies flow......question is can we say "Never Again" or will it just be another movie being made on another tragedy?
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Classics all the way
I picked up this tag from Altoid. Found it interesting enough to make it the first tag on my blog....and I pass it on to Daffodils...lets see if she beats me on this....
"Following is a list of books that decorate most people's bookshelves but not always read. In this tag we are supposed to reveal how ill read we are by showing the ones read in bold, by underlining the ones read at school, and by italicising the ones started but never finished. "
1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
2. Anna Karenina
3. Crime and Punishment
4. Catch-22
5. One Hundred Years of Solitude
6. Wuthering Heights
7. The Silmarillion
8. Life of Pi : a novel
9. The Name of the Rose
10. Don Quixote
11. Moby Dick
12. Ulysses
13. Madame Bovary
14. The Odyssey
15. Pride and Prejudice
16. Jane Eyre
17. The Tale of Two Cities
18. The Brothers Karamazov
19. Guns, Germs, and Steel
20. War and Peace
21. Vanity Fair
22. The Time Traveler’s Wife
23. The Iliad
24. Emma
25. The Blind Assassin.
26. The Kite Runner
27. Mrs. Dalloway
28. Great Expectations
29. American Gods
30. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
31. Atlas Shrugged
32. Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
33. Memoirs of a Geisha
34. Middlesex
35. Quicksilver
36. Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
37. The Canterbury Tales
38. The Historian : a novel
39. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
40. Love in the Time of Cholera
41. Brave New World
42. The Fountainhead
43. Foucault’s Pendulum
44. Middlemarch
45. Frankenstein
46. The Count of Monte Cristo
47. Dracula
48. A Clockwork Orange
49. Anansi Boys
50. The Once and Future King
51. The Grapes of Wrath
52. The Poisonwood Bible
53. 1984
54. Angels and Demons
55. Inferno
56. The Satanic Verses
57. Sense and Sensibility
58. The Picture of Dorian Gray
59. Mansfield Park
60. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
61. To the Lighthouse
62. Tess of the D’Urbervilles
63. Oliver Twist
64. Gulliver’s Travels
65. Les Misérables
66. The Correction
67. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
68. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
69. Dune
70. The Prince
71. The Sound and the Fury
72. Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
73. The God of Small Things
74. A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
75. Cryptonomicon
76. Neverwhere
77. A Confederacy of Dunces
78. A Short History of Nearly Everything
79. Dubliners
80. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
81. Beloved
82. Slaughterhouse-five
83. The Scarlet Letter
84. Eats, Shoots and Leaves
85. The Mists of Avalon
86. Oryx and Crake
87. Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
88. Cloud Atlas
89. The Confusion
90. Lolita
91. Persuasion
92. Northanger Abbey
93. The Catcher in the Rye
94. On the Road
95. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
96. Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
97. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
98. The Aeneid
99. Watership Down
100. Gravity’s Rainbow
101. The Hobbit
102. In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
103. White Teeth
104. Treasure Island
105. David Copperfield
106. The Three Musketeers
There, these are my dismal stats : 33/106.
If anyone else is interested, please do take up the tag.
"Following is a list of books that decorate most people's bookshelves but not always read. In this tag we are supposed to reveal how ill read we are by showing the ones read in bold, by underlining the ones read at school, and by italicising the ones started but never finished. "
1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
2. Anna Karenina
3. Crime and Punishment
4. Catch-22
5. One Hundred Years of Solitude
6. Wuthering Heights
7. The Silmarillion
8. Life of Pi : a novel
9. The Name of the Rose
10. Don Quixote
11. Moby Dick
12. Ulysses
13. Madame Bovary
14. The Odyssey
15. Pride and Prejudice
16. Jane Eyre
17. The Tale of Two Cities
18. The Brothers Karamazov
19. Guns, Germs, and Steel
20. War and Peace
21. Vanity Fair
22. The Time Traveler’s Wife
23. The Iliad
24. Emma
25. The Blind Assassin.
26. The Kite Runner
27. Mrs. Dalloway
28. Great Expectations
29. American Gods
30. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
31. Atlas Shrugged
32. Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
33. Memoirs of a Geisha
34. Middlesex
35. Quicksilver
36. Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
37. The Canterbury Tales
38. The Historian : a novel
39. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
40. Love in the Time of Cholera
41. Brave New World
42. The Fountainhead
43. Foucault’s Pendulum
44. Middlemarch
45. Frankenstein
46. The Count of Monte Cristo
47. Dracula
48. A Clockwork Orange
49. Anansi Boys
50. The Once and Future King
51. The Grapes of Wrath
52. The Poisonwood Bible
53. 1984
54. Angels and Demons
55. Inferno
56. The Satanic Verses
57. Sense and Sensibility
58. The Picture of Dorian Gray
59. Mansfield Park
60. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
61. To the Lighthouse
62. Tess of the D’Urbervilles
63. Oliver Twist
64. Gulliver’s Travels
65. Les Misérables
66. The Correction
67. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
68. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
69. Dune
70. The Prince
71. The Sound and the Fury
72. Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
73. The God of Small Things
74. A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
75. Cryptonomicon
76. Neverwhere
77. A Confederacy of Dunces
78. A Short History of Nearly Everything
79. Dubliners
80. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
81. Beloved
82. Slaughterhouse-five
83. The Scarlet Letter
84. Eats, Shoots and Leaves
85. The Mists of Avalon
86. Oryx and Crake
87. Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
88. Cloud Atlas
89. The Confusion
90. Lolita
91. Persuasion
92. Northanger Abbey
93. The Catcher in the Rye
94. On the Road
95. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
96. Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
97. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
98. The Aeneid
99. Watership Down
100. Gravity’s Rainbow
101. The Hobbit
102. In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
103. White Teeth
104. Treasure Island
105. David Copperfield
106. The Three Musketeers
There, these are my dismal stats : 33/106.
If anyone else is interested, please do take up the tag.
Why Tata Sky and others should start worrying...
Two new news items have generated world wide attention. This and this . In addition by the year end Reliance ADAG is going to launch its Big TV. RCom has also reportedly placed orders for 5-million Set top boxes (STB).
Till now the cable tv scene in India has been that people were at the mercy of their cable operators. The cable scene in India is unruly at best and a gangster's paradise at worst. The introduction of set top boxes and the entry of big players like the Hindujas (Incable), Subhas Chandra's Zee (Siticable) and Rahejas (Hathway belongs to Rajan Raheja Group) has cleaned up the scene a bit. But the last mile connectivity is still provided by the local cablewaala. That is where DTH comes in. You dont have to deal with the local cable operator. You deal with a reputed company. Either Government (Doordarshan), or Zee (Dish TV), or Tata (Tata Sky). Now with the entry of Reliance the customer has one more choice.
This is precisely why the existing operators should be worried. RCom has the pockets to survive the initial years till it breaks even. It with its deals with Steven Spielberg and Bachchan ADAG has in its kitty the power to give the viewers the choice to view just released and yet to be released movies. The average viewer will get to watch the latest movies without having to shell out huge amount for the multiplex experience. That is big bang for the buck.
Lets us face it, most of the viewers have a few chosen channels and that is what they watch. The operators on the other hand have to ensure that they offer something different from the run of the mill to get more people on to their network. The cable TV market is growing at 8-10% in India. With many state governments taking a cue from Karunanidhi, free color TVs will be distributed amongst a lot of people. With just two channels on terrestrial broadcast, these people will increasingly turn towards cable. That is where value packaging comes in. The distributor who can offer maximum value for money will rule the roost. And reliance with its deep pockets can afford to take a hit on the price of its equipments to lure customers. This is what was done when RCom launched its mobile service.
It is time to be worried for the other players. The big hulk is coming. Either adapt or perish. Let us now see which way the wind blows.
Till now the cable tv scene in India has been that people were at the mercy of their cable operators. The cable scene in India is unruly at best and a gangster's paradise at worst. The introduction of set top boxes and the entry of big players like the Hindujas (Incable), Subhas Chandra's Zee (Siticable) and Rahejas (Hathway belongs to Rajan Raheja Group) has cleaned up the scene a bit. But the last mile connectivity is still provided by the local cablewaala. That is where DTH comes in. You dont have to deal with the local cable operator. You deal with a reputed company. Either Government (Doordarshan), or Zee (Dish TV), or Tata (Tata Sky). Now with the entry of Reliance the customer has one more choice.
This is precisely why the existing operators should be worried. RCom has the pockets to survive the initial years till it breaks even. It with its deals with Steven Spielberg and Bachchan ADAG has in its kitty the power to give the viewers the choice to view just released and yet to be released movies. The average viewer will get to watch the latest movies without having to shell out huge amount for the multiplex experience. That is big bang for the buck.
Lets us face it, most of the viewers have a few chosen channels and that is what they watch. The operators on the other hand have to ensure that they offer something different from the run of the mill to get more people on to their network. The cable TV market is growing at 8-10% in India. With many state governments taking a cue from Karunanidhi, free color TVs will be distributed amongst a lot of people. With just two channels on terrestrial broadcast, these people will increasingly turn towards cable. That is where value packaging comes in. The distributor who can offer maximum value for money will rule the roost. And reliance with its deep pockets can afford to take a hit on the price of its equipments to lure customers. This is what was done when RCom launched its mobile service.
It is time to be worried for the other players. The big hulk is coming. Either adapt or perish. Let us now see which way the wind blows.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Mumbai Nagari
Well I am back.................
Exactly a month has passed since I joined one of the most happening general management group companies that came to campus.....move over TAS, ABG, I am joining a dynamic group which is investing billions, which has got some of the top people who retired from one or the other of the Nav Ratnas.
Life has basically been good...nothing much happening....a small tweak here, a small tweak there that is called work....as one of colleagues puts it "Dude, there is no work life balance here. The damned work is missing".
So long we have been left to our own devices....left to search for acco in the unsympathetic city....Ten other poor souls who joined with me have been shunted out of civilization to one of the most alien cities in this country, where it doesn't matter what or who you are, if you don't know the language you are finished...for reasons best known to me and to my extended circle of friends, it was my dream city. I have been promised that on my next stint, so will probable wait out the monsoons, watching the seas around Haji Ali.
Here is where the great Mumbai Dream begins and goes on....but somewhere, just somewhere there is that small voice in my head which seems to be telling me..."Dude, this isn't the end"....Here I come big bad world....
Exactly a month has passed since I joined one of the most happening general management group companies that came to campus.....move over TAS, ABG, I am joining a dynamic group which is investing billions, which has got some of the top people who retired from one or the other of the Nav Ratnas.
Life has basically been good...nothing much happening....a small tweak here, a small tweak there that is called work....as one of colleagues puts it "Dude, there is no work life balance here. The damned work is missing".
So long we have been left to our own devices....left to search for acco in the unsympathetic city....Ten other poor souls who joined with me have been shunted out of civilization to one of the most alien cities in this country, where it doesn't matter what or who you are, if you don't know the language you are finished...for reasons best known to me and to my extended circle of friends, it was my dream city. I have been promised that on my next stint, so will probable wait out the monsoons, watching the seas around Haji Ali.
Here is where the great Mumbai Dream begins and goes on....but somewhere, just somewhere there is that small voice in my head which seems to be telling me..."Dude, this isn't the end"....Here I come big bad world....
Saturday, May 03, 2008
.....another begining.....
All my bags are packed and am ready to go.....there is no taxi waiting yet.....but here it is to a new beginning.......am leaving for Mumbai once again......dear old city.....the place from where it all began......will join one of the corporate houses which has a finger in multiple pies....the HR journey begins....
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
An alternative perspective on Reservation
I know its been long since my last post....and with that my resolution to post regularly goes out of the window.....lot has been happening around...convocation (Pappu pass ho gaya :))- will have a detailed post on that later- sitting at home, lazing around, nothing too exciting....in the meanwhile the reservation debate continues to make headlines....was planning a post on that, when I came across, this. Brilliantly put by none other than Mad Shuks.....you gotta love that man.....enjoy this till I come up with something to blog about....
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Peter principle and definition of success.....
"In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."
This is the Peter Principle which was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1968 book The Peter Principle.
It was a wet evening today, just the kind of evening when you would wish that you had a steaming mug of coffee, a roaring fire and friends to chat with. Well it was just a wee bit different, it was a wet evening, but it was just two friends over hot burgers and coke meeting up at Indiana's, Bangalore. Oh yes, we had a copy of The Ten-Day MBA by Steven A. Silbiger with us.
Here we were, the three year work ex, tobacco salesman, and the fresh, yet to cut his teeth, IR manager; talking about everything, catching up with what common acquaintances are up to, what life is all about, what are the prospects of a jump etc etc, when the discussion turned towards success. What does success mean? Who is a successful person? Are CEO's the only successful people? What about the 179 odd people out of a batch of 180 who dont become the real famous hot shot CEOs. The aam junta might not know who a B. Muthuraman or a J.J. Irani is. But does that make them less successful than a Vijay Mallya?
Or is the guy who passed out of a B-school, decided to take life easy, has found time for his family and for his passion of painting, earns enough to stay in one of the upmarket locales of the city, drive a reasonably decent car, kids go to a good school and are good performers, is he successful. He may not have achieved the kind of life his batch mate did. But can we brand him as not being successful? The question comes down to the alumni meets that B-schools have every year. Who are the people who attend? The top honchos are there but are few in numbers, the majority are the run of the mill people. These are the people you would meet in your daily life and yet not turn and stare.
Success, is a self actuated process. It is that which brings me joy. If I am happy, if I have no regrets for the life I led, if there is no it could have been like this if I had done that thing syndrome, I feel that one is successful. Material wealth, doesn't matter in the long run, position, power, prestige, nothing matters. It is that feeling in the autumn of your life, when you can look back and say, this was a life well lived, that is a measure of success. What could have been, what could be done, what I dint do, those are immaterial. What matters is what I did, how many people did I make a difference to.
This brings me back to the Peter Principle. The principle says man rises to the level of his incompetence, and if you actually sit back and analyze the lives of people you know, take a third party independent view, and look at their lives, their career paths, their life paths follows the equation
y=m ln(x) -b
In the long run, it plateaus out. And initial thrust depends on how good you are. An academic topper will perform better than the last guy who will perform better than the guy who never made it. It is just one of the ways of the world. And thats when Peter principle kicks in, when you thrust a donkey into the world of race horses, the donkey performs, but to his potential, and which might be better than the performance of the average donkey, but is no where near the performance of the race horse.
But, if the donkey decides to sniff the grass, and observe the crowd, if he decides that he is here for the fun of the run and not necessarily to be the winner, it will be a much more enjoyable race for him as well as for the guy riding him. And at the end, when the race is over, everyone is led to a common stable, where they get the same oat to eat. So maybe it is time, that we decided to look around and sniff the air, look at the grass, the meadow and the bright blue sky, for often in our quest for achieving the top of the pyramid, we let life pass us by and then, in the end, it is always, "I was the topper of my batch and could have done such and such, but....". Life is calling, it is up to us to take the plunge.
Friday, February 22, 2008
The curtains fall.....
More than 820 classes, more than 1230 hours, 33 professors, innumerable guest lectures, presentations, assignments, project reports. Sweat, toil, blood and tears. Euphoria of A+s and the disappointment of Cs. Summers, ensemble, elections, public production, juniors nite, parties, placement processes, treats. Myriad of non academic activities, both value adding and non value adding. Finally today XLRI dream run ends. Today at 6 pm, the class of 2008 will move on to a new beginning. A new beginning as alumnus. As managers. For a lot many of us it is the last academic class we shall be having. As one of my close friend has put it, some one press the pause button and rewind...
Friday, February 15, 2008
I need a home
In the wake of the recent controversy unleashed by Mr. Raj Thackeray, here is my take. I am leaving this post open for comments. Help me find an answer.
I was born in Ranchi in erstwhile Bihar, now the capital of Jharkhand. My schooling was in Ranchi and in Bangalore. My parents have settled in Bangalore for close to 18 years now. I studied and learnt Kannada while in Bangalore at the same time out of my own initiative I learnt my mother tongue, which is Bengali. I learnt Hindi as I loved to read the literature in it. I did my engineering in Jamshedpur in Jharkhand. I met my dream girl there who is Oriya settled in Pondicherry. Then I went to work in Pune and subsequently that company transferred me to Mumbai. I got through one of the top B-Schools in the country located at Jamshedpur. The offers from various companies are mostly based out of Mumbai, with a rider that I should be mobile. I am a gourmet and love to eat food from various parts of the world. I love life. I love celebrations. I love to gorge on sweets and burst crackers during Diwali, but come December I eagerly wait to decorate the crib and eat plum cake and pudding. I wait for sewai during Id. I bow down before a temple, a church, a mosque, a gurdwara. My passion is stirred when I see the tri-color. I lustily sing Jana-gana-mana. My best friends are a Punjabi from UP, a Hyderabadi from Orissa, a Malyalee working in Jamshedpur, and a Malyalee from Delhi. I give my identity as an Indian. I love the vastness of this land. Unity in diversity. That is my country to me. It is my country. It is where I was born.
Till date I was never afraid of being an Indian. I dint know my caste till a few years back. I dint care. I was an Indian. I was a son of the soil. Does it mean that to be a son of the soil, I need to be born in the village? Is there any group that I belong to? What if I dont want to be part of any region? What if I say I am an Indian. This is my country. Mumbai blasts shocked me as much as the Nandigram issues. I volunteered to serve my people when the Tsunami hit Tamil Nadu. One of my best friends who is a TamBram started a drive for educating and enriching the lives of orphans in Pune. Should he not do this and stick to his work in TN? Why are you taking my country away from me? I dont want a state. I want the country. It is MY country. India is my Mother land. Should I stop being an Indian and stick to being a Bengali? Or perhaps even that is not acceptable as I was not born there.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
My last bow
One of the few people in XL who were jobless enough to go volunteer, organize, hang around any event that happened on campus, yesterday I took my last bow. Retirement from all social activities in XL. They were immense learning experience. Lots of fun. Got to see that side of people which is normally not seen. Met some very talented people. Some very creative people.
Saraswati Puja was celebrated here. Some of the pics from that.
Saraswati Puja was celebrated here. Some of the pics from that.
Public Production
Public Production at XL is that one evening when the students gang up and inflict a play on the citizens of Jamshedpur. This year was no different. The only difference was the play, it was completely done by XLers. From the writing to the casting to the sets to the costumes to the lights and sounds.
The theme of this year's play, The Shadows Within was Godhra Riots and its affect on individuals who are unconnected and meet on the train. Staged in an innovative split stage method, this play relied on lights and sounds to create the atmosphere needed for the play. My part in the play was behind the scenes, with the props and stage. Here is the stagecomm pic. The Group who rocked the stage, backstage.
The theme of this year's play, The Shadows Within was Godhra Riots and its affect on individuals who are unconnected and meet on the train. Staged in an innovative split stage method, this play relied on lights and sounds to create the atmosphere needed for the play. My part in the play was behind the scenes, with the props and stage. Here is the stagecomm pic. The Group who rocked the stage, backstage.
Friday, February 08, 2008
Testimonial time
It is that time of the year again when you write testimonials for your friends and your friends write one for you. Then there are the year book photos etc etc. Each passing day reminds you how close you are to leaving the campus.
Some wonderful people, some people who you have grown close to. People who you look up to and who look up to you.
To part is the lot of all mankind. The world is a scene of constant leave-taking, and the hands that grasp in cordial greeting to-day, are doomed ere long to unite for the last time, when the quivering lips pronounce the word - "Farewell." It is a sad thought, but should we on that account exclude it from our minds? May not a lesson worth learning be gathered in the contemplation of it? May it not, perchance, teach us to devote our thoughts more frequently and attentively to that land where we meet, but part no more?
How many do we part from in this world with a light "Good-bye," whom we never see again! Often do I think, in my meditations on this subject, that if we realized more fully the shortness of the fleeting intercourse that we have in this world with many of our fellow-men, we would try more earnestly to do them good, to give them a friendly smile, as it were, in passing (for the longest intercourse on earth is little more than a passing word and glance), and show that we have sympathy with them in the short quick struggle of life, by our kindly words and looks and action. - Coral Island, R. M. Ballantyne
Some wonderful people, some people who you have grown close to. People who you look up to and who look up to you.
To part is the lot of all mankind. The world is a scene of constant leave-taking, and the hands that grasp in cordial greeting to-day, are doomed ere long to unite for the last time, when the quivering lips pronounce the word - "Farewell." It is a sad thought, but should we on that account exclude it from our minds? May not a lesson worth learning be gathered in the contemplation of it? May it not, perchance, teach us to devote our thoughts more frequently and attentively to that land where we meet, but part no more?
How many do we part from in this world with a light "Good-bye," whom we never see again! Often do I think, in my meditations on this subject, that if we realized more fully the shortness of the fleeting intercourse that we have in this world with many of our fellow-men, we would try more earnestly to do them good, to give them a friendly smile, as it were, in passing (for the longest intercourse on earth is little more than a passing word and glance), and show that we have sympathy with them in the short quick struggle of life, by our kindly words and looks and action. - Coral Island, R. M. Ballantyne
Thursday, January 31, 2008
on letting go.....
We, as humans, are strange creatures. We forget that we cannot protect and shelter those people we care for most, always. We cannot be there for them forever. We cannot decide for them. Play God for them. It is best to let go when the one you care about is ready to take the leap. That maybe you kid, your younger sibling, anyone....Let go is the buzz word. Stop trying to be the destiny maker. Let them follow their dream. Just be there for them if they stumble and need your help to steady themselves.
Leaving you with a poster of the amazing Walt Disney movie, "Finding Nemo"...
----------------
Now playing: Antaragni - i still ove you
http://foxytunes.com/artist/antaragni/track/i+still+ove+you
Leaving you with a poster of the amazing Walt Disney movie, "Finding Nemo"...
----------------
Now playing: Antaragni - i still ove you
http://foxytunes.com/artist/antaragni/track/i+still+ove+you
Monday, January 28, 2008
.....on growing up
Was talking to Daffodils today....yes the same Daffodils with whom I keep fighting....we do have our shared sibling moments also [:p]...anyway...and that got me thinking....why do we always dread change?...why do we want to cling to the existing present?....here we were just a little over 18 months ago introduced to this place and we longed to go back....and now when we shall actually go back....some part is looking forward to going back...but then there is that little part which doesn't want to let go....wants to remain a child....but I think that aging gracefully is more important...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
