The most idiotic way to spend Rs.450 million.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Sphere: Related ContentCouple of days back, Karnataka Minister and Mining czar Janardhan Reddy donated a diamond studded gold crown to Thirumala Thirupathi. Crown is estimated to be worth Rs.450 Million The news was all over the media. After reading the article, I strongly felt, this is the most insane thing any educated idiot can do with the excess money he has, especially when I saw the banner ad which was appearing on this article on timesofindia.com. The ad was talking about a school going dream of underprivileged girl. Not sure how this Rs.450 million worth crown will change the life of Thirumala, but this money for sure would have changed the lives of atleast 10,000 underprivileged kids in the country by sponsoring their education. On the other note, I am still amazed with the strange co-incident of World Vsion's banner ad appearing on the article . I am sure this co-incident was ‘created’ by Thirumala himself to educate these pappu politicians on the much larger issues in the country which needs to be addressed. .
Internet Bus - Google India's new initiative
Saturday, May 23, 2009
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Network(ing) in the upcountry.
Monday, August 18, 2008
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A recent trip to my native village taught me a new lesson in rural marketing with a live case study. It’s a new benchmark set by Bharti Airtel Limited, India’s leading integrated telecommunications services provider, and Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative limited (IFFCO) to usher in the Second Green Revolution to benefit millions of rural consumers. The JV is called IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd. (IKSL) to provide big boost to Indian agriculture and rural economy. IKSL will offer products and services, specifically designed for farmers, through IFFCO societies in villages across the country. On offer will be affordable mobile handsets bundled with Airtel mobile connection. The farmer will also get access to a unique VAS platform that will broadcast 5 free voice messages on mandi prices, farming techniques, weather forecasts, diary farming, animal husbandry, rural health initiatives and fertilizer availability etc. on a daily basis. In addition, the farmer will be able to call a dedicated helpline, manned by experts from various fields, to get answers to their specific queries. (not too sure if this is a toll free no.).
Bharti Airtel will offer competitive calling rates @ 50 paise/minute for calls between IFFCO members. This is expected to promote community building within the society and rural community at large. Bharti Airtel will also set up towers at sites provided by IFFCO societies to provide quality services to farmers.
By 2010, the rural population is likely to touch 800 million and two-thirds of those would be prospective mobile users. The platform will help make available voice advices in all local languages. The Indian farmer will be able to look forward to the benefits of mobile telephony and Internet.
OurVillageIndia.org – Rural India on the web.
Monday, June 9, 2008
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During the last few visits to my native, I had been desperately trying to know the exact population of the region for which I got different answers from each one of them I met. Some said thousand and some said more. To my surprise I got the right answer from one of the newly launched unique website called OurVillageIndia.org. A dedicated team of Indians and Indian Americans have developed OurVillageIndia.org that seeks to provide information about census data, geographic location, infrastructure facilities, local government, history, prominent people, interested volunteers, change-makers and NGOs for all the 600,000 plus villages of India. OurVillageIndia.org is dedicated to put every village in India on the web. Though the main goal is to create a web presence for every Indian city/town/village on the WWW map, the ultimate objective of the makers is to bring people in these places to come together to help their motherland. Organization’s mission is to help accelerate sustainable development in rural India by building up a network of social entrepreneurs, donors, volunteers, role models among individuals, NGOs, projects and village folks.
It’s a place where PIOs, NRIs and RIs can find their roots, learn what is going on and adopt villages/districts for rural development. It’s also a place where one can find subject matter experts on water, education, agriculture, livelihood, training, health, energy, ecology, sanitation and waste management. The portal will also serve to find role model villages and districts; new technologies and methods (solar energy, vermicompost, etc.); NGOs, which are doing work in villages; success stories; and information on how to replicate sustainable development in villages. If you are interested in publishing more information about the village you know, you will be able to request publishing rights for that village. If you are interested in a particular project, you will be able to send a request to the project owner to be included. With a very little effort, we all can make huge difference to the people living in the rural parts of the country by registering as voluntaries for either our own villages or to the villages we know.
For more details, log on to www.OurVillageIndia.org.
Connecting the Disconnected.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
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My work, family, friends and my lifestyle always gives me an opportunity to meet people from various walks of life, from farmers to entrepreneurs, techies to cabbies, housekeepers to house owners, socialites to social evils:). One common thing about all the people I meet is that when ever we catch up over a cup of coffee, knowingly or unknowingly we tend to discuss issues related to technological inventions in the recent past. Needless to say that the discussion predominantly revolves around the INTERNET and the way it is changing our life at the end of this century. Most of the time we only discuss about the initiatives which are made towards making life comfortable for the people who are already living in a comfort zone or leading a luxury lifestyles. Be it about the new feature added in the Mercedes cars, the online railway ticket booking systems, Job boards, eShopping, online banking or anything which falls in the same page. From New York to Tokyo, the Internet has fundamentally changed work, recreation, lifestyle, marriages and even love to name few. But in Kodihalli, a village in Karnataka or Patalgarh, a tribal hamlet in MadhyaPradesh, life remains very much the same as it was 10 years back. Very few people I meet are really concerned about the situation and are aware of those sustainable initiatives in the online space, which are in some way or the other making difference to people who live in the base of the pyramid, for whom the words ‘Internet’ and ‘technology’ are just an alien terms. Having been part of the Internet business in India for over six years and being a strong advocate of economic developments through social enterprises, I get propitious when I come across a new initiative in this space.
Out of the many social enterprises launched in the online space, I would always love to profile, talk and discuss about the 2 portals which are keeping people at bottom of the pyramid equipped for the race of survival. First one is the recently launched Babajob.com and the second one being eChoupal.com. Directly or indirectly, they are also contributing some amount to the over all economic development though their online initiatives.
Babajob.Com: Any online initiatives especially Job sites, help people who have access to the net. However, there are millions of people in the country like cooks, drivers, housekeepers, gardeners, plumbers and etc, whose only connectivity is a friend, family or his employers who have access to digital world. Babajobs have a new model which helps people escape poverty by connecting employers to informal sector employees - such as maids, cooks and drivers - through people they know. Uniquely, when an employer hires someone on babajob.com, Babajob compensates whoever digitally registered the job seeker and up to 2 people that connect the employee to the employer. The Bangalore-based company was profiled in the New York Times piece as a significant innovation that “seeks to bring the social-networking revolution to the world’s poor”
ITC’s eChoupal: The unique web based initiative of ITC’s International Business Division, offer the farmers of India all the information, products and services they need to enhance farm productivity improve farm gate price realization and cut transaction costs. Farmers can access latest local and global information on weather, scientific farming practices as well as market prices at the village itself through this web portal. eChaupal also facilitates supply of high quality farm inputs as well as purchase of commodities at their door step.
Apart from these two, there are few other online initiatives which were launched with an objective of promoting Indian handicrafts, and create sustainable environment for the craftsmen and artists, but however, they were less talked about and I am really clueless about the results these portals are achieving. Hence, I refrained from profiling them.
Art of 'Jollufying'..The Orkut way!
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
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I was recently watching an interview with Shailesh Rao, MD of Google India, in one of the news channels. I was not surprised when he quoted that India is the second largest user of Orkut in the world after Brazil. There is no doubt about it if you have noticed the amount of time people around you spend on the site. Orkut has been used for various activities from tracking down the whereabouts of your childhood friends to finding a new life partner. Orkut is indirectly competing with matrimonial sites as well as job boards to name few businesses. I was bit surprised to know that the religion based communities on Orkut are acting as matchmakers. Below are some of the opening statements I have come across in my 'female friends' (Lemme not complicate it by saying girl friends) scrap books and of course made by the Jollus. These are tried and tested statements, by any chance if you are one of the Jollu in the making, do try and come out with some innovative statements instead using the same old funny stuffs.
P.S: All the characters, statements mentioned below defenetly resemble some one dead or alive and not just a mere coincident. Yes, I have copied below scraps directly from the scrap books and have not bothered to change the senders (jollu’s) names in some cases. If somebody thinks it’s their statement and I have no authorization to publish the same in my blog, they can get in touch with me. It’s been long time that I broke someone in half. If somebody think I am intruding their privacy or copying content, lemme reiterate that Orkut is an open forum and copying scraps from it will not tantamount to plagarism(More over, I am giving credit to the writers by not removing their names).
Like always, my comments in RED.
• Can we cross the limits of being strangers and be friends? (Infiltration is crime)
• Do u agree our friendship. (Where is the agreement??)
• Hi wana b ur frnd. (Will get back to you)
• Hi.. ur face is familiar to me.... (I was your sister in previous birth.)
• Hey.... Was going through ur profile, found it interesting, so am writing to u.....As a normal routine, I know u must be tired of people saying, "hiii there, u r cute, u r pretty, i like ur smile, i like ur eyes....... and stuff"......and i can imagine how irritating it can be when someone out of know where jumps up and says....... "DO u wanna be my friend, or can i be ur friend" and u feel like, Man DO i KNow u ....Hence i would definitely not do the same, neither would i ask u to be my friend... All i shall say is, "WHy dont we start a conversation and let friendship develop on its on....." Hope u would.... (How are u related to Shakespeare??)
• Hi nice smile on ur face iam rohit wann to scrap me. (You are already scrapped off)
• Hai, Add me as a friend. (Will add to my hit list).
• Hi budy u want to friendship with me. (Sure, If you are alive after meeting my Boyfriend)
• hai shwetha how r u i want make friend with u (Make it in your dreams)
• hi........shwetha my name is santosh this is my no 998652***9. Please give mis cal or cal me m waiting yaar. (Indecent proposal).
• u don know me....i too don know u...but u look interestin...if u are here for makin new fnds then scrap me back otherwise leave it...i wil be waitin take care... (If v donno each other, just F**k off)
• Your profile is very interesting…can you tell me more about the picture you have in your album. (Idiot, pictures are self explanatory)
• Hi, how ru m dinesh from haryana will u frndshp wth me.(Why not uncle, I am ur daughter’s friend)
• Hi im mangesh from pune. i wanna know more about u ...can we be frnds ?? (Ask my husband to know more about me)
• Hi… i'm Ravi..may i hav d pleasure of bein ur frnd....?ping me back soooonnn...waitn 4 ur reply ( Not interested in pinging pigs)
• Hi beautiful... i m interested in u through ur profile.. i wud like to know more abt u.. If u also have no probs please do reply (If you also have no probs????what does it mean??)
Why Do You Want a Web Site?
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
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Its very imperative to have a website for any business today. I really don’t know how many of these small business houses, especially in India do some home work before making their site live. In most of the cases we limit our website to publish promoters photos and our contact details. I recently came across this very informative article by Ana Rincon, on the points we need to consider before we go live with website.You’ve decided that you need a Web site and you’re ready to move ahead and have it built. Whoa! Before you take that next step, take time to determine what you want your Web site to accomplish. Your answer will:
1)help determine the functionality and content needed on the site.
2)help you communicate with (and put limits on) your Web developers.
3)allow you to measure your results.
For example, you may decide that the primary purpose of your site is to drive customers to your brick-and-mortar storefront. You can accomplish this with a simple one-page site and smart use of online newsletters, coupons, and promotions.
If you are trying to build brand awareness, though, your site might need a much more substantial design, deeper content, and a well developed online advertising plan.
For a company that intends to make its living from online sales, then the usability of your Web catalog and shopping cart are vital.
You will want to spend more time and money choosing the right platform and software and developing the user interface.
Although a good Web consultant can help you determine your requirements, it’s a good idea to think them through before your first meeting. It’s hard for a developer to resist suggesting that you use the latest software package or high-tech gizmo on your site. Keeping your goals in mind during the development process will help you and your Web company focus on the most important elements of the site and spend less time and money on elements that won’t add substantially to the bottom line.
Remember that a Web site is a business tool, and like other business initiatives, it should be subject to measurement and analysis. Did it accomplish your intended purpose? Was it cost effective? What was your return on investment? Unless you are clear on your objectives from the start, it will be hard to determine the success of your site.
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