A 'clever' blog of a 'free' mind
Posts tagged india
Say hello to ‘nano’ !
01050 days
TATA nano was launched yesterday in India and the bookings for the ‘world’s cheapest car’ will start on 09 April 09 !
Well done TATA to help millions of Indians dare to realize their dream of buying a 4 wheel drive. This is a moment for all Indians to be proud of and hail TATA for fulfilling our dream !
I would love to buy a nano, not just because of its price tag or me being patriotic Indian, but it looks really good ‘small’ car and its really cute to be in one !
TATA should be applauded to dare to dream and subsequently fulfil it. Apparently TATA got the idea of nano when he saw a family of 4 driving on a scooter. He wanted to give Indian people a safe option and more importantly an affordable option to drive on Indian streets and he has definitely achieved his ambition.
Although the basic version of nano will not exactly cost as the price mentioned on its tin (100k rupees) but would eventually cost in the range of 120-130k rupees depending on where you buy.
Visit nano’s website for more information and take time to visit and appreciate the work there by TATA !
Proud to be an Indian !
IPL lost its “Indianness” – start of death of cricket in India?
11051 days
by Swapnil
in Sports thoughts
So finally IPL is moved out of India by greedy BCCI officials! Now you decide whether it is the start of the death of cricket in India or the final nail in coffin by BCCI in the “Indian” cricket?
Since last few years, BCCI has always shown its “business” side than “cricket” side to the Indian public as well as the world. From making the players play tours all over the world without break to banning ICL and its related entities from cricket related activities, just shows how greedy BCCI has been in recent years and could go to any low point to ensure they continue filling up their pockets !
India have played more One day and Test matches in last two years than any other country and cricketers have, albeit in lower voices, have raised their concerns on the toll its taking on them. They have played more than 30 one day matches & more than 15 test matches in 2008 alone which way ahead of any other team in the world.
I think, BCCI’s intention of maximizing the cricket potential in India and milking money from every opportunity will soon start to have negative impact on India. Prime example of this being the once famous and eagerly awaited India Pakistan cricket series! Until few years ago, it used to be the most anticipated series in the world cricket. Since the current management of BCCI took over, there were more than 4-5 series played over a period of 2 years that really devaluated the excitement generated by these matches. They soon became routine cricket matches !
Behaviour of BCCI over the ICL issue was absolutely pathetic and really discouraging site for Indian cricket. OK, understood and agreed that BCCI is so called only “legal” body in India to govern the cricket at all professional levels but surely should not be empowered to stop anyone from playing on TV cameras until they are given permission ! In my opinion, this was absolutely unacceptable and discouraging site for Indian cricket. Why should ICL be banned when there are quite a few other tournaments played in India, domestically and sponsored by locals, but in the form of a gully cricket ! In fact we used to have a cricket tournament in our college where we invited all other colleges to play and was shown in the local TV ! Did BCCI think that we also should have taken their permission before playing cricket?
The IPL was started as the response of BCCI to ICL and yes, it was a huge cricket & commercial success in its first version. When it was started, it was advertised as a new era of cricket in “India” and “India” really embraced to the club cricket during IPL. The names of the teams were mostly based on the cities they represent and you had a feeling of belongingness to the team that was playing on behalf of your state, region.
How would you feel if “Mumbai Indians” plays home matches as Johannesburg and away matches at places like Durban, with no relation whatsoever to Mumbai and Mumbaikars? How would you associate yourself with a team that is playing with the name of your state / region but based 5000 miles away and you can not watch them? Would there be the fever of IPL that was witnessed almost in the entire nation during the first edition? Would it catch the same attention, generate excitement?
In my opinion, the answer is plain NO.
IPL should have stayed in India and understandably should have been played around the election schedule in India. For an average Indian, no way cricket is better or more important than the government and elections. Elections must take priority and rightly so the Indian Government had asked IPL to reschedule the matches around the election schedule so as to avoid clashes.
The greed of IPL organizers (read BCCI) unfortunately prevailed over the common sense and thus all Indians will miss the buzz & excitement IPL that was present last year.
Now, I would not surprised if South Africa becomes India’s host country in next few years !
Protectionism of economy.. continued
01064 days
I wrote my thoughts yesterday on how the economic protectionism could come back and harm the economy in the long term and I did put a comment on Sramana Mitra’s blog about this to request her comment. She has been kind enough to respond back and point me to one of her earlier blog article on Forbes.com that talks about Perilous Protectionism.
One particular impact she states in her article was about the eventual cost increase if the outsourcing to other countries were to stop. She has also given an example of how Motorola will find it difficult to keep the prices of its cellphones down, if its been forced to operate in the US only region for manufacturing its goods.
I would recommend a read on this article who wants to know more on this topic.
Protectionism – is it good for economy in the long term?
01065 days
I have been having this question in my mind since a very long time and unfortunately could not find anything that would give me right answer.
After reading much about President Obama’s stimulus plans & his policy over outsourcing jobs, things do not look very promising for Indian companies. There is a good news article written on BusinessWeek.com that outlines how his policies would affect Indian IT & outsourcing companies in India. In one of his policies, Obama outlines how he plans to prefer giving jobs to more native americans than immigrants. Sort of protectionism !
I can obviously understand the rationale behind him doing so, i.e, to create more job opportunities for the americans and try to revive the economy. Good enough reason ! On another note, he is not ‘forcing’ the companies to stop doing outsourcing to other countries, he has only stopped them from availing the tax benefits. If the company thinks they get good profit by moving work offshore (at lower labour & operating costs) they might as well continue to do so, but obviously need to pay more tax.
What impact this change in policy will have on US itself? Is it being more protectionist and changing its image of the most open economy in the world? Is it moving towards protectionism?
I have heard cries about how US is playing its foul play and being protectionist over its economy and assets and how they should not do it. In this context, when I think of India, I do not find much difference itself in what India have been doing in past.
Protectionism has been happening in democratic India since a very very long time. May be from the time of its independence from the British rule. The very form of protectionism in India is called “quote & reservations” in education, government jobs & quite a few other areas for few typical casts & religions. The original idea of cast reservations in education & jobs was to give the backward class sectors an opportunity to learn and upbring themselves on par with other (so called advanced) societies in India. However, over the years, this has become misused over and over again and has totally lost its original meaning.
Year on year, the governments in India have been unable to remove, or even reduce the reservations and unfortunately moving towards allocating it to more casts. Considering today’s world, I believe the concept of “reservations” is outdated for for a developing country like India. We need talented individuals to come forward and help build the nation.
What worries me, in long term that, if the countries such as US & those in Europe go further on the way of protectionism and impose policies that would stop (or significant impact on) immigration and inflow of talents from India and other developing countries, where would this talent pool go? The dearth of opportunities for higher education and government jobs in India for talented individuals is making them look for private sector or move out of country for seeking better opportunities and if the developed countries shut their doors, what will happen?
Lack of entrepreneurship & innovation in India – root cause in education system?
41079 days
There is an article on Forbes.com by Sramana Mitra where she debates about the lack of innovation & entrepreneurship in Indian IT industry and also lack of any enthusiasm from the upcoming engineers to venture into innovation.
She has made few very good points on the topic and I agree on most of the points with her. In her post she mentions of the incubator programs that are run within the IITs that promote entrepreneurship within the aspiring engineers and guides them whilst they are still pursuing their studies.
One point that made me think further as a reason on lack of entrepreneurship was the fact that the increasing width between Tier 1 engineering colleges (IITs) and Tier 2 (NITs) and Tier 3 (regional universities and others) colleges. To really find out further information, I actually visited the websites of each of the IITs in the country and have a look at their incubators and obviously left me impressed with the level of work that is being carried out in there. Myself, being an Alumni of a NIT, (National Institute of Technology), considered only next to IITs in India, I could not stop myself compare the work done in IITs as against some of the top notch NITs in India and I actually found a significant difference in there !
Within none of NITs (of the ones I visited) I could find any similar program as IIT incubation programs and I really wondered what kind of innovative programs are being run in these institutes ! If this is the state of the Tier 2 engineering colleges in India then I really wonder how and where you would find entrepreneurs coming out !
In India, the IT service industry is still the most powerful in terms of job availability and obviously most of the curriculum of the Tier 2 & Tier 3 colleges is more of providing service oriented engineers rather than innovators. As correctly mentioned in one of her posts, generic requirement of an IT engineer is to earn a well-to-do job so he / she can buy a car, a house and so on .. !
On the point of innovation, I guess its more to do than just what culture you have in your degree college etc., Its more in the root of primary, high school & college education than those 4 years in the IITs or NITs or your engineering college.
Education in India, right from primary college is more of a culture of “learn-what-is-told”, rather than “learn-on-your-own-with-experiments”. Teachers teach you from pre-defined set of books all those years and you are expected to answer in the exact way as mentioned in the books, anything extra and you would lose your points in exam. The education culture does not encourage thinking, innovation, experimenting but eventually discourages the student to do so.
There is a great change required in the education system in India to make the education to promote experiments, innovation and unless this happens from ground level, I guess, there will always be a shortage of Indian scientists, innovators and entrepreneurs !
As Obama said, “The world has changed, we need to change too”. I hope India is listening.