6 AM Pacific

Auto-rickshaws in Mumbai

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. More »

Number Games - BEST TV Advertising

Among business newspapers in India, Business Standard is good and is constantly improving; Mint is new but very good too. Both have an online presence [B-S Mint] and do not have irritating pop-up ads. The B-S site is not password protected (Mint is) which makes it an ideal solution for linking to. I wouldn’t want my readers to be subjected to the advertising irritants that an Eco Times creates.

Here is my first link to B-S. An article in today’s B-S reports that BEST buses in Mumbai have installed TVs in their buses which will show ads. The idea is clever but not novel. It has been tried but has met with resistance in the US where fares are not (or less) subsidized. Bus Radio is a similar project that does radio advertising in school buses. In India where the fares have to be kept very low to remain affordable, this could be an interesting way to help keep the fares down. More »

Sound and Fury - the 123 Agreement

I’m in India right now and over the weekend have been on a forced diet of the news channels. Top of the news menu is the possible fall of the government over the 123 Agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation between India and the US.

The coverage since yesterday on NDTV seems more like a soap opera than anything else. Like a soap opera it is low on content, high on drama but the acting is terrible. At the end of an hour long program in which many pols from both CPI(M) and Congress were interviewed, I was no more enlightened about the issues as I was before the program. (thank god for Wikipedia!). To the credit of the NDTV anchor, he tried his best to get his guests to talk about the issues, but it was clearly not a top priority for them. They preferred to refer to documents and dates without talking about what was in them. Make bombastic statements about the sovereignty of India being compromised or protected. And of course throw accusations at the other party about their motivations. More »

The Importance of being Articulate

If you happen to travel in the US-India corridor, as I do, next time watch CNBC in the US and then go watch CNBC in India, or vice versa. You’ll immediately notice some differences.

One difference is in how the two channels see the stock market. CNBC in India treats the market as an ‘actor’. It doesn’t just go up or down, it often has a mind of its own and moves in ‘mysterious ways its wonders to perform’. A lot more air-time is spent on the ‘technical’ analysis of the market. CNBC in the US takes a more ‘fundamental’ view of the market – changes in the market are an ‘outcome’ of what’s happening to the economy, sub-prime loans, oil prices or whatever. More time is spent on analysis of companies and the economy. I wonder what lies at the bottom of this difference in how they see the markets.

Another difference that is immediately evident is how articulate business leaders are on CNBC in the US compared to their counterparts in India. They are not only better tutored on how to handle the press and TV but they are just plain better speakers. More »

Kerala Ban on Organized Retail - What’s the Logic

Kerala is all set to ban organized retailing. An article in the FT quotes C. Divakaran, minister for food and civil supplies:

The mood of the people is against the entrance of Reliance in the retail sector. We are going to add some powers to the state government to restrict or prevent these monopoly houses in the state-level retail sector.

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Trip to IIM Ahmedabad

Last weekend I made a trip to my alma mater – IIM Ahmedabad. Prof. Arvind Sahay who teaches Marketing and is the Chairman of the PGP X program, invited all the entrepreneurs from my batch (and his). Ten entrepreneurs from PGP 89 came to campus and participated in various classes, panel discussions and presentations. It was great fun. With hugely successful entrepreneurs like Sanjeev Bikhchandani (naukri.com), R. Subramanian (Subhikhsa) and Rahul Bhasin (Barings Pvt. Equity) in the class, the students got a massive dose of ‘from the horse’s mouth’. More »

In Mumbai

Landed in Mumbai a couple of days ago. Sahar airport has improved quite a bit in the last 2 years that I have been flying into Mumbai. It is far from the kind of airport that one would expect the financial center of India to have, but I think the airport authorities are doing a good job with what they have. The immigration lines are now well managed. Baggage claim has more capacity and the baggage carts are new and improved. More »

The real deal with offshore captives

Recently Forrester Research released a report that says that offshore captives, which have been much in vogue for the last three years, are “imploding”. A blog post here makes for interesting reading, especially the comments. More »

The H1-B visa program needs a revamp

This year the INS received 150,000 H1-B visa applications for the coming year starting in October, on the first day that it started accepting applications - for a total of 65,000 visas! An article in the New York Times takes a look at the issues surrounding this. A table from the same article reproduced below gives you the breakup of the visas requested by company. Indian IT Services companies are the only companies at the top of the list.

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The difference between KBC and a lottery

“Kaun Banega Crorepati” (KBC), India’s version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” is watched by between 15 and 20 million Indians. In parts it is great entertainment. But a part of it is pretty darned close to a lottery.
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