Basab Pradhan

Of Mice and Men

Researchers at the University of Virginia have studied the effects of jet lag on mice and the news is not good for us flatworld types. We may be looking at prematurely flat-lining, so be sure to write your wills.

Notes from TiEcon Delhi

I attended TiEcon Delhi for a day in October. The energy in the main hall and the deal-making in the lobby outside, spoke volumes about how hot the Indian venture scene is. I met old friends as well as some new entrepreneurs. And came away with much to chew on.

Startups in India have opportunities and challenges that are quite different from the ones in the US. Ditto for VCs. A few observations:

My Government School

I grew up in a small town called Hisar in Haryana. My father was a Professor at Haryana Agricultural University and I did most of my schooling at Campus School. As the name suggests, the school was meant for the children of University staff.

I left Hisar after my 10th boards. On trips back to Hisar to see family I would drop in for a chat with my school teachers. Then my family left Hisar and I never went back until recently the internet brought some of my old school mates together. On this trip to India I went back to Hisar and to Campus School after more than 20 years. It was quite a trip down memory lane.

Salon.com coverage

6 AM Pacific, this blog, got some ink on salon.com. Andrew Leonard in his blog about globalization, ‘How the World Works’ calls the post Imperial conference calls

He says –

Six a.m. Pacific might be the best time for a global conference call because everyone, everywhere that counts, is theoretically awake at that time, but there’s little question whom that time is really best for. The early bird gets the globalization worm. The sun sets on global conference calls, but it rises in Silicon Valley. For the moment.

You don’t need a subscription to see the full article. It’ll want you to watch an ad, which you can abort and move ahead by clicking on ‘Go to Salon.com’.

Salon.com is a critically acclaimed online magazine and I appreciate the coverage, but it has has had one downside. It has brought the blog to the attention of ‘comment spammers’ and I am having a hard time keeping the blog comments from becoming rated R. Thanks anyhow Mr. Leonard!

FDI Controls in India – what are they really about?

From time to time you hear some government minister or bureaucrat in Delhi making a proclamation that the FDI limit (Foreign Direct Investment) on such and such industry has been raised from X% to Y%. The press dutifully covers it, the Communist parties huff and puff about it and another credit is chalked up on the Indian government’s liberalization scoreboard. But most people like me, remain uninformed about the issues behind the decision.

My Secret Starbucks Name

One of the many challenges facing the global executive is the important task of pronouncing and spelling foreign names. Indians in the US do face some difficulty with American names – a strong Mallu accent can change a ‘John’ to a ‘Joan’ for instance – but in general they do fine. American first names are designed to be simple. The ones that aren’t, are mercilessly shortened to nicknames. I know many Tims, but no Timothys.

Americans pronouncing Indian names is an entirely different matter.

My Mother-in-law Blogs!

It’s true. And it is a great blog!

Geeta Padmanabhan is Deputy Editor of the Ability Foundation. In her spare time she also writes for the Hindu Metroplus – Chennai (her articles here) as a free lance journalist and writes English grammar books. After all this, she still finds the time to be a prolific blogger on her own blog – Grandma’s Tales.

Those of us who know Geeta, admire her energy and zest for life. She brings that passion for life and for good writing to her blog. Grandma’s Tales is a unique mix of observations about the English language (in the style of Eats, Shoots and Leaves) and life in general.

You’ll like it.

Indian startups making a mark

Last week’s post on IndiaPost raised quite a storm of comments. Some of them were supportive of my central thesis that for Indian citizens to get better public services the issue of labour flexibility within public service organizations is the most important one to address. Many were not. Of these some thought that IndiaPost has actually done well, given the circumstances, and that I was looking at the glass half-empty.

So for a change, let’s look at the glass half-full. Let’s talk about some Indian startups that are being noticed.

Indian Public Services – Crying for Change

An article on the Indian Postal Service in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) portrays the service so pathetically, it almost reads like a children’s book describing a distant kingdom where everything goes wrong all the time. Unfortunately, this is no fairy tale. It is very, very real.

Here are some damning stats and facts about Indiapost:

New Blogsite

If you are reading this post, you have found your way to the new home of my blog http://6ampacific.com. So far I have been using Typepad’s service which has worked well for my early needs. But now that I have been blogging for a few months, I want to try out some things that Typepad, or any other consumer oriented service doesn’t offer.

My new blog runs on a customized installation of WordPress. WordPress is an open source blogging software. You can also get a hosted service from wordpress.com, but one that is a little limiting like Typepad’s service. I plan to customize WordPress to offer some new features and a slicker look in the future, but currently I’ve got it working well enough that I felt I could transition my readers to the new blogsite.

As I move the blogsite, this is also a good time to thank my readers. Thank you, you make writing worthwhile.