September 2007 – 6 am pacific

BCCI and Indian Cricket – Monopolies are Never Good

Last week the returning winners of the Twenty20 World Cup, jammed up traffic in Mumbai. Sharad Pawar, the BCCI President and also Union Minister for Agriculture, cancelled all his appointments to receive the Indian cricket team. There was a big press conference, at which he made a speech that was, it seems, more a political speech than anything else.

And why not? He is a politician in a cricket crazy country. Why shouldn’t he take advantage of the rare occurrence that is an Indian team winning a major championship? Many other politicians in various states had the same idea and showered gifts and cash upon their home state players. Everyone loves a winner.

I Hope You are Enjoying This!

I normally don’t post links if I don’t have anything to add to the matter. But this one is just so funny that I will.

Business Standard’s Kishore Singh wrote a review (here) of a book called “Entry From Backside Only” by Binoo John. An excerpt from the review

Now I am growing up in too many small places as Father is on transfer, and so I am not khit-pit in English in weigh these hi-fi people in Bombay and Delhi our, but I am knowing that this Mr John, he is kraking these jokes about small town people who are not so well knowing the language. At first, I am enjoying and laufing and saying, Oh, this Mr John, he is telling good-good jokes. But then he is saying that this is not write way to right English, and that this is Indian-English, which is not true English, and I am thinking perhaps he is CIA foreign hand, he is wishing to disallocate this great country.

Need I say more? If you grew up in India, go read the review, it’ll cheer you up.

I salute Kishore Singh. I wish I could write like that!

Indian IT Services – Right Turn Ahead

Is the Indian IT Services party over? Is a decade of growth and wealth creation coming to an end? And if that is so, what can we read in the tea leaves.

There are three fundamental reasons why the IT Services industry finds itself in a challenging environment. One, the dollar-rupee rate. Two, wage growth. And three, slower revenue growth.

Old Retail vs Farmers – Now It Gets Interesting

A couple of months back, I wrote about Kerela’s ban on organized retailing. Most readers agreed that it was wrong-headed. But there was some skepticism about my claim that organized retailing would be beneficial to the farmers. Well, here’s the tangible evidence.

Auto-rickshaws in Mumbai

Photo by Mark Hillary

There is much good to be said about autos in Mumbai. They are generally available in plenty at all times of the day. And to a lesser extent even in the middle of the night. They generally charge by the meter, which is more than can be said about Delhi or Bangalore. And they (again generalizing here) have a more positive attitude towards their passengers and humanity at large than their brethren in other metros.