Memoirs of Tomorrow

Yes I’m alive and Ready with a Hack and I’m announcing my feed Mashup with Twitter using Yahoo Pipes

2009-01-14T22:56:00.004+05:30

UPDATE: A slightly modified version of the same is published here

This blog comes to life again (Oh Big day, big day), but then I have to wake up. At least for about 9 poor souls who have subscribed to Memoirs of Tomorrow. Wait a minute, you were 12 yesterday. Don’t give up on me. Will ya? please…...

Any ways, this is an important announcement, from now on the readers via feeds to this blog would be not only getting the blog posts in their feed readers but also my tweets. I so much want you know that I am alive, kicking and still untangling the world wide web. Another rationale behind including tweets in the feed is that I am determined to post only what adds value to me and hopefully to the readers. There is no point in duplicating around the web. And then there is so much out there that is just worth sharing in less than 140 words!!

This post is a productivity hack, and trust me this is worth sharing. I used Yahoo Pipes (this in fact is a big day, do you see me dancing like a funky chicken?). I will beautify my twitter feed with pipes.

What you see above is the actual twitter feed as seen in a feed reader. It would have been nice if the title was different from the actual post. C’mon, lets log into Yahoo pipes and straightaway lead to the pipes dashboard and drag the fetch feed module.

As you see, I have already pasted my Twitter feed in it. Now comes the tricky and the last step. This uses Regex operator in pipes. Regex is an acronym for “Regular Expression”. I don’t know why we call these regular expression, this is the most irregular thing I have seen in my life. But is good fun. Join the feed module to Regex operator.

Before we elaborate, let me first clarify about what we are going to achieve through this. As you see in the first image, both the title and content of the feed is same, which is not only confusing but looks ugly too. Secondly, I want to remove my nick from the description. Thirdly, as I usually point to some link via tinyurl, I want this link to behave like a link and not just text [reader should not have to paste this in the browser, just click and go]

Ok….from one layman to another, we learn one thing at a time, but before everything, just expand whatever you see in the debugger [see image below]

As we have already linked the feed module to the regex operator, we would now try to achieve the things mentioned above.

Under rules choose item.title, in the “replace” box type everything inside the curly braces {^.*$} and in the box next to “with” type whatever you like. This would replace the nickname from the title.

Add another rule, choose item.description, type everything inside the curly braces { [^:]+: } in the box next to “replace” This would completely remove the nickname from the text

Under item.description in the “replace” box paste { (http://\S*) } and in the box next to “with” paste

{ <a href="$1">$1</a> } This is the third rule that will find any hyperlink and ensure that it behaves like one in the feed reader.

Viola, this is it.

But most importantly, the fourth rule don’t ask me anything about the regex module, I don’t know what is what. Uncle Google helped me.

This is how the feed will look in any feed reader

I simply joined my blog feed to this using the union module. Have fun!

UPDATE: A slightly modified version of the same is published here

Some Facts on Agri-produce Storage Scenario, Wastages & New Initiatives

2008-09-07T18:42:00.001+05:30

Development and management of marketing infrastructure is one of the main concerns of agriculture in India. Infrastructure is gaining increased attention in the wake of global food scenario, ushering the second green revolution, enhancing incomes & living standards of farmers and ensuring food security in the country and reducing the enormous wastages evident in the food chain. These challenges facing Indian agriculture are more pronounced than ever before and are being compounded by the rising income levels coupled with changes in dietary habits of the consuming class, dependence of a high proportion India’s working population on agriculture and nearly stagnant agriculture growth.

Unlike developed countries, the farming in India is fragmented with a big majority of farmers falling under the small & medium category. Moreover, with the declining average landholding size in the country (presently standing at about 1.06 hectares in 2006 as compared to 2.3 hectares in 1970 – 71) renders a drawback on the risk taking abilities of farmers, and consequently manifests itself in form of distress sales due to the need for ready cash after harvest. Evidently, there is a need for a mechanism to enable farmers to store their produce for sale at best time, achieve reduction in agri-produce wastage, maintain quality and at the same time ensure that farmers avail themselves of with credit facilities for their short term monetary needs.

It has been estimated that effective price realizations from the sale of agri-produce by farmers range between 30-40 percent. The remaining gets appropriated across the various intermediaries existing in the Indian Agri-value chain. One of the severest drawbacks facing farmers in India, is their inability to manage post harvest stocks, as indicated previously, most of the farmers belong to the small & medium farmer category, which promotes a high degree of risk aversion as well as the ability to invest in the development of storage infrastructure at farm level. Consequently, farmers tend to dispose of products at throw-away prices.

Amazing facts on agri-produce wastage in India

Storage woes: Of total production, about 60% is retained and stored by the farmers for consumption, seed, feed and payment of wages to laborers. Nearly 30 percent of the produce is stored under open conditions, leading to wastage and distress sales. Most farmers store foodgrains and oilseeds in gunny bags, mud bins, baked earthen containers; in heaps on flat floor; bamboo structures; wooden bins and underground structures. As these are not scientific ways of storing food grains, nearly 5-10% losses in quantitative terms are incurred during storage period of 3-8 months, especially during rainy season. The remaining 40% produce, which is the marketable surplus, is handled by traders and Government agencies. The marketable surplus too is prone to enormous wastages. It has been estimated that nearly 12% of the post harvest stock stored in public warehouses gets wasted due to lack of quality storage. Preventable post-harvest losses of foodgrains are estimated at about 20 million tonnes a year, which is nearly 10.5% of the total production.

Infrastructure Issues: The paucity of infrastructure facilities like roads, cold chains and especially storage facilities becomes apparent in huge wastages of agricultural produce of the country.

Roads: India has the largest road network in the world, aggregating around 3.32 million kilometers it consists of 65,569 km of National Highways, 1,28,000 km of State Highways, 4,70,000km of Major District Roads and 26,50,000 km of other District and Rural Roads. Yet still, our capacity is much below the level expected for efficient transfer of goods from one place to another. National Highways account for only 2 per cent of the total length of roads carry about 40 per cent of the total traffic across the length and breadth of the country. Further, programmes on rural road connectivity mostly concentrate linking the villages, which for one, is important. Yet from agriculture marketing aspect, availability of efficient infrastructure to connect farm produce to the collection centres / mandi is absent. Providing farm roads not only helps in transportation of the farm produce without loss of time and therefore protecting the quality of the produce, it also helps in maintaining the quality of perishables. Since, handling of the perishables is still in primitive stages i.e. more often stuffed in gunny bags, or tightly packed in the baskets and staked one above the other, the quality of the road decide the extent of the damage to the produce.

The government, last year, admitted that as much as Rs 58000 crores worth of agriculture produce is lost due to absence of proper infrastructure, and in case of perishables like fruits & vegetables, nearly 25 – 30 percent of goods are lost in absence of adequate infrastructure. Over the years since 2003-04 it has been estimated that quantity of food grains damaged in India is increasing.

Source: Department of Food and Public Distribution, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Government of India

Inadequate Cold Chain Infrastructure: Until a few years back, cold chain network in India was practically non-existent and moreover, stand alone cold storage were passed of as cold chain network. As on December 2006, 5,101 cold stores in India with a total capacity of 21.7 million metric tonnes were operational in India. Out of the total cold storage capacity in the country, nearly 66 per cent (14.27 million MT) is confined to two states i.e. Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal with UP having 41 per cent of the total installed capacity. In terms of products, nearly 78 per cent of the cold storage capacity was utilized for potato and potato seeds (which according to estimates is still inadequate, presently standing at about 42 percent of the total cold storage requirement for potato) and only about 0.4 per cent was used for fruits and vegetables. Technology utilised in most cold storages are archaic and there is a need for involving new and innovation techniques to save on cost and improve shelf life. At present single chambered, single product facilities are utilised to stock potato and seed potato for about 6 months a year and lie idle during the rest of the year. Consequently, there is a need for multi commodity cold storages with latest facilities for quality control, and processing & packing. A detailed analysis of the warehousing structure in the country has been undertaken in the following section.

to be continued.....

Analysing The World Food & Fuel Situation, It's Impact and Avenues For Growth

2008-06-02T11:36:00.001+05:30

Let’s face it, the global economy is reeling; it is tottering under the pressure of two most pressing demands from humanity; Food & Fuel. With the fissures between the developed and the developing worlds closing on, scampering for every last bit of resource available is never before. Lifestyle has been a major catalyst behind; developed world led by USA has been trying hard to maintain its wasteful living standards, on the other, developing countries like India and China, egged on by their new found riches are creating additional pressures on world supplies of food & fuel. If you think the present scenario is short term, here is a small did you know for you:

The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) warned that the present stock of world food would last only for 57 days [1]
World inventories of rice have fallen by nearly 50 % from a record high of 147.1 million tonnes in 2000/01 [2]
Between March 07 & 08, the world food prices have jumped 57 %, Cereals, which are major consumable of world’s poor notched an increase of 88% [3]

And, above all,

The world decreased poverty by about 0.68 % annually starting from 1984. But at the current rate of annual poverty increase induced by rising food inflation the entire global 22 year improvement in impoverishment will be completely erased by 2012.[4]

4 years, just four years to throw us back to the levels of poverty as witnessed in 1984. Shocking as it is, it is true as well. The heat is on and the projections maddening. Rice, a staple for about 3 billion people around the globe, a big majority of which are from the developing world, now has the potential to rake the biggest humanitarian catastrophe, food riots. It is estimated that the world will need an additional 50 million tons of rice a year in the years to 2015, about 9 percent more than current production. Of this, Asia will account for 58% and sub-Saharan Africa - 21%.[5] Just enough to cause food riots and hoarding campaigns.

The rising food prices, though is a recent phenomena, and presumably (what one might think of as the first underlying cause) India and China are to blame. This is only a fraction of what the realityholds. The existing price trends reflect not only that shortfall in production as opposed to consumption; they also reflect an attempt to rebuild the stocks, thereby putting even greater pressure on demand relative to supply.^{^[6]} Further, the present scenario is simply not a by-product of demand supply interactions. Another factor that did not get sufficient coverage is the rising attractiveness of the commodities sector to the investors. The recent financial market turmoil has exerted enough pressures on investors to look for avenues with higher returns. Commodities with high expected rates of return in contrast to money market instruments have attracted investors. Speculative trading in agricultural commodities has grown dramatically. Several big investment banks have launched agricultural commodity index funds, as they look for new areas to make profits in following the credit crunch. The result has been enormous fluctuations in market prices that do not appear to relate to changes in fundamentals such as supply and demand. Four years ago $10-15bn was invested in agricultural commodities funds - now that figure is more than $150bn. Wall Street investment funds own 40% of US wheat futures and more than one fifth of US corn futures.

Given the situation at hand, the leading lights of the world have now a task to burn the midnight oil. From Oil, which traded a $ 33 a barrel just about a year back, is all set to leapfrog the $150 threshold, after which it is supposed to stabilise. During last year, the escalating oil prices pushed up the cost of food production dramatically, as a result, fertiliser is up more than 70%, fuel for tractors and farm machinery is up 30%, pesticides, which depend on oil, are rising too[7]. Two countries majorly are behind this, China & USA. India, which is the world’s fifth largest consumer of energy accounting for 3.9% of world’s annual energy consumption is heavily skewed towards coal (about 50%) and oil & gas (about 42%), with hydro (6%) and renewables (1 – 1.5%) contributing for much less.

In a period of just about 10 years, China has increased its oil consumption by 86%. From 4.2 million barrels a day in 1997 to 7.8 in 2007, and projections now point to 8 million bpd in 2008. While the domestic supplies remained more or less static at about 3 million bpd, China today imports nearly 4 million barrels a day. On the other hand, USA consumes 21 million bpd and imports 13 million bpd. It is US consumption which sets the pace in international oil markets. Given the Chinese competition, both USA & China are competing for access to overseas supplies, thereby edging up prices. Of course, shrinking oil output from such key producers as Mexico, Russia and Venezuela; internal violence in Iraq and Nigeria; refinery inadequacies in the U.S. and elsewhere; speculative stockpiling by global oil brokers are other factors to blame.[8]

Analyzing Food & Fuel Price Shocks[9]

World Bank’s food price index climbed 57.5% in the first quarter of 2008 relative to the corresponding figure a year ago. At the same time, energy prices have also been on an upswing, with the World Bank’s oil price index growing by 66.5% in the first quarter of 2008. This cascades to developing Asian economies’ growth and inflation prospects. The rise in oil prices is critical in analyzing food price increases since fertilizer prices, which are highly dependent on petroleum and natural gas prices, move in tandem with energy prices.

Since food carries a large weight in the CPI of many of the Asian economies, global food price increases translate to higher prices in developing Asia. Considering both the Global oil price increase along with the world food price increases, it is estimated that

The regional inflation would rise by 2.38 percentage points in 2008. Consequently,
The private consumption is expected to shrink by 1.38 percentage point
In order to prevent inflation from spiralling uncontrollably, the government would raise interest rates, according to ADB estimates interest rates in developing Asia would go up by 2.79 percentage points, and as a result
GDP growth in developing Asia is estimated to shrink by 1.41 percentage points in 2008 and in 2009 by 4.15 percentage points

Fiscal Impact of the Rising Food and Oil Prices

Given the poverty considerations in many developing countries, governments run food safety programmes, these programmes, heavily reliant on subsidies from the government aim at providing subsidized food to consumers and providing subsidized fertiliser to farmers. Rising food and oil prices are directly adding to the food subsidies in food importing developing countries and in other countries the governments are under pressure to increase procurement prices in order to give right price signals to farmers and generate a larger supply response. In the context of India, assuming the government has to raise the procurement prices by 10, 20 and 30 percent respectively, it is estimated that the budgetary cost of this higher procurement prices would be in the tune of 4%, 9% and 13% respectively.

Impact on Procurement Prices in India

The Way Forward

The present stalemate, though long term, is not without a solution. It is highly recognised that the developing world, now, commands an impressive growth prospects. Agriculture, which is fraught with rudimentary production practices in such regions, is one such sector that can not only support local economy but also help improve world food situation. It has been estimated that the World Food Program has a shortfall of about $ 755 million in its funding and given the slowdown in the world economy, pegging such a gap is nearly impossible. On the other hand, there has been a rise in the number of countries such as United Arab Emirates, Norway, Saudia Arabia, Kuwait, Singapore, China and Russia which owing to their oil exporters’ status lends them an ability to maintain Sovereign Wealth Funds in G-8 economies. These countries have nearly $2 Trillion tucked in sovereign wealth funds for investment abroad and as much as 35 countries, now manage $3 Trillion through such funds. Even if, say 1 % of this amount is invested in areas where agriculture needs support in form of R&D for raising productivity, infrastructure development and modernisation of farming practices etc much of the world’s problem can be solved. Africa is one such region.

[1] The Daily Star: Managing Food Crisis

[2] Reuters

[3] FAO

[4] HuffingtonPost: Bird Flu, Rice and Gas Guzzling

[5] Bloomberg: Rice May Withstand Climate Change, Top Scientist Says (Update2)

[6] Asian Development Bank [ADB]

[7] Guardian: FAQ: The five factors that are driving up costs

[8] LATimes: The U.S. and China are over a barrel

[9] Food Prices Inflation in Developing Asia; ADB 2008

Easily Bypass Copyscape's 10 Search Per Month Limit

2008-04-02T20:43:00.001+05:30

Ok, you've done as much as you can to deter plagiarists from copying your content, but putting a Copyscape banner is just as good as giving the profile link to readers. They read and go on. Genuine bloggers, when they will use other's text, will link back to the original source. On the flip side, unscrupulous among us would just use other's text in full and pose it as.....you know how - their original masterpiece!

Copyscape, though a good resource to check copies of your work on the web and keep plagiarists at bay, comes with a handicap of just 10 free searches per month. Consequent to which, one has to pay $.05 per search. If one is not willing to pay for the service, the quota gets over well before the task is begun.

Here is a hack to bypass this limitation, all we need is Google very own cache search services. Just run a query to get the cached version of your post / blog on Google.com.

cache:http://your post/bloglink

All you have to do now is to copy the link in the address bar and paste it in search box on Copyscape homepage.

The only consideration is that Google should have cached your post.

I must say this, I don't know how long or how many queries one can make this way. I just discovered it today. And, don't worry if you see your blog/post as the first result.

Don't know why, but I feel guilty for copyscape people, I hope they find a roundabout to prevent misuse and preserve their income flows. Guess I have been spoilt by Google's priceless freebies, so much so that I want everything for free.

Slideshare Presentations for Offline Use

2008-03-24T11:49:00.001+05:30

Every once in a while when we need some good information on business, economy or any sector, we use google. More specifically we use google file type searches. Another information resource that I now frequently resort to, includes Slideshare, especially this section on slideshare

But then slideshare is very network intensive and though I run on a broadband, its no better than a dial-up. As a result, I prefer to download these presentations for my offline reference. Moreover, several users of slideshare (me included) do not allow downloading presentations from slideshare. As such rendering us to refer back to the site again and again.

This hack, which though is crude & time consuming, is a way to get these presentation for offline reading. Here's how

(1) View the presentation in full screen
(2) Print Screen
(3) Open Powerpoint --> Select slide & Paste
(4) Save the ppt

We will have to manually do this for every slide in the presentation. In the end all the slides would be visible as jpegs in the presentation. Obviously, these slides cannot be edited. Thats it.

The resulting presentaion can be heavy in size, just in case you would like to share the resulting presentation via email, you may right click on any slide --> view picture toolbar --> compress pictures, as shown below.

In my experience, if we first save these pictures as jpegs and then use MS Paint as mentioned in this post, the resulting images are even more lighter. Using these images in powerpoint would rather make the ppt file size much lesser.

Author's Note: It is pertinent to claim that we do not encourage plagiarism. This hack or call it a roundabout, is for people, who like me, run on very slow networks, as a result, refering back to site everytime we need some info, becomes a big pain. Needless to say, if any one from the slideshare team reads this, putting a watermark, at least in the full screen mode would deter free-riders from deriving undue benefits from other people's hard work.

----------------------------
You may like to read on:
Easily Resize Image, Reduce Image Weight & Without any External Softwares &
Easy Way to Manage Google Search: Enhance Search Productively

Perspectives on Retailing in India and Rural Marketing V

2008-03-20T07:43:00.001+05:30

Continues from previous post here. This is the fifth and the concluding part to a series of posts posted during last 5 days. Previous posts can be viewed by clicking Label Thoughts in the extreme left column of the blog. The middle column, where you see Recent Posts for now will automatically populate with the posts in this series as well as other posts in my Thoughts archive.

The India Context for Proactive Marketing

The glaring fact that the proportion of agri-dependent population in total rural consumption expenditure is almost the same as the population not involved in agriculture.[1] Nearly 75 per cent of the rural population is dependent on agriculture, this indicates that much needs to be done to improve their consumption levels. This is also where the opportunities for pro-active marketers lie. An opportunity to improve the productive capacities of people and consequently derive benefits out increased consumption, and thereby, expanding the scope of marketing to creating the potential of rural markets.

The foremost task ahead of us is to strengthen our agriculture sector, more importantly, agriculture marketing. Agriculture in India still is in primordial stages with rudimentary production activities starting right from sowing to marketing. These include low capital availability, unbalanced fertilizer use, low seed replacement rate, poor yield, inadequate post harvest value addition, mass production of undifferentiated product not in sync with market needs, imperfect markets, multiple intermediaries substituting for infrastructure adding to costs and wastages. The current scenario does not portend well for agriculture growth, income generation and consumption expenditure. Bringing farmers to the forefront and helping them improve their earnings is an opportunity, which is going to have profound impact on the future of rural markets. And, this is where the challenge for a marketer lies.

Agriculture Marketing Scenario in India

Agriculture Marketing System is the critical link between the farm production system on one hand and the non-farm sector, industry and the urban economy on the other. In an ideal case the agri-marketing system is expected to facilitate not only the physical transfer of agri produce but also price discovery at different stages and dissemination of price signals. An efficient agri-marketing system would ensure increase in farm income, widening of markets and resource use optimization.

The agri-market scenario in India is far from ideal, it is laden with challenges, which encompasses both infrastructure and technology. These drawbacks to name a few, include, poor and unreliable infrastructure, fragmented supply chains with multiple intermediaries, outdated, inadequately maintained and inefficiently utilized processing technology. As such rendering agri-marketing practices undeveloped and unproductive across all the platforms where rural buyer-seller exchange transactions take place. These have been covered in the following section:

Rural Haats: Haats or Rural Primary Markets are estimated around 47000 in the country and of these, 75 per cent are held weekly, 20 per cent twice a week and 5 per cent daily. These haats, predominantly located in interior areas serve a large number of farmers, it is estimated that almost 90 per cent of the total marketable surplus in remote areas is sold through these markets.[2] Rural Haats are also a place where daily necessities like soaps, utensils, clothes etc are sold. However, rural haats disappoint in terms sales of spurious goods, no guarantee of quality, sale prices being higher than maximum retail price, clutter & congestion of markets and non-availability of supportive services[3].

Wholesale / Assembling Markets: There are about 7557 wholesale / regulated markets scattered across the Indian states. The sale purchase process in these markets is governed by the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act, which empowers the state governments to set up and regulate wholesale and regulated markets. In practice, from the farmers’ viewpoint, the Act has several inconsistencies that include restrictions on direct marketing of produce, setting up of private mandis, commission charged by the agents across the markets and commodities and non-uniformity with respect to loading/unloading charges (at present the Model APMC Act 2007, has provisions that allow such practices and check the irregularities, the Model Act is still to be adopted by respective state governments). As a result, farmers are not able to derive optimum benefits in the current status. It has been estimated that the effective realization by farmers on crops ranges between 30 – 40 per cent; various intermediaries appropriate the rest across the agri-value chain. The mandi are further marred by poor physical infrastructure, as a result, as much as 7 per cent of grains, 30 per cent of fruits & vegetables and 10 per cent of food species end up waste due to poor handling. It has been estimated that the inefficiencies in the present set-up result in an estimated loss of Rs 500 billion.

Inadequate Infrastructure in Wholesale / Regulated Markets[4]

Covered or open auction platforms exist in only 2/3rd of regulated markets
Only 1/4th of markets have drying yards
Trader modules, viz. shop, godown & platform in front of shops exist in only 63% of markets
Cold storage units exist only in 9% of markets
Grading facilities in less than 1/3rd of markets
Farmers’ resting facilities 50% of the markets
Basic facilities like internal roads, boundary walls, electric lights, loading & unloading facilities, weighing equipments etc. not available in nearly 20% markets

Vulnerability of farmers with respect to farm operations (a topic, which separately requires an in-depth analysis) and poor agri-marketing scenario negatively impacts their income generation capabilities and further affects their consumption. Proactive marketing strategies, effectively try to tackle these shortcomings by offering him good quality inputs, services like soil testing, best practices, price information and so on, thereby increase his chances of deriving optimal benefits from farm operations. Proactive marketers, then utilize the enhanced purchasing power of farmers by offering them products and services to improve their standards of living. These strategies have been successfully employed by organisations like ITC, DCM Shriram and Godrej through their initiatives e-choupal & Choupal Sagar, Hariyali Kisan Bazaar and Godrej Aadhar.

During recent years, agriculture sector has witnessed a flurry of activities from corporate sector, which has expressed interest to offer an integrated bundle of services ranging from technical help in agricultural package and practices, supply of inputs and so on. This has been a result of a slew of reforms measures, notably being amendments to the Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act, that now provides for direct marketing of agri-produce, setting up of private mandis / yards and contract farming within the wholesale/regulated markets. Further, the Act makes provisions for rationalization of the license system and market fee, development of marketing infrastructure, organised retail and establishment of terminal and futures markets by the private sector. Yet still, the private sector though encouraged to make forays into the farm sector and develop appropriate agri-marketing strategies, faces numerous challenges, viz. lack of open and transparent price discovery mechanism and trading, restrictive marketing practices in some of the wholesale market / mandis, weak infrastructure and credit inclusion. These factors often act as hindrances for the companies to scale up their operations and also impinge upon farmers, who fail to derive expected benefits from direct sale and purchase.

As a result, the ongoing agri-reforms agenda must ensure that the inadequacies of the current marketing set-up be removed and that the free play of market forces is promoted. Two issues, that need careful consideration in this regards include (i) enabling appropriate linkages to improve crop productivity & price information flow and (ii) avoiding wastages by developing the entire supply chain i.e. sorting and grading centres, warehouses, temperature and humidity controlled warehouses, cold storage's, temperature controlled transport up to consumer location.

Conclusion

It is time that all the stakeholders redefine their roles. While the government should expedite the progressive reform measures that it has introduced, the corporate sector should come forward and contribute to enhancing the productive capacities of the rural populace. We have already alluded to a few innovative programmes. It is time that the corporate sector in conjunction with the government scales up these efforts. This is important for tapping the vast latent potential of the rural markets. Further, it is only through such a collaborative approach that the fruits of growth would percolate to the lowest strata and we as a nation can move forward in attaining today’s foremost public policy objective i.e. inclusive growth.

[1] Growing Rural Retail, Financial Express, November 25, 2006
[2] Report of the Sub-group on Agriculture Marketing Infrastructure for XI Five year plan on Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure & Policy required for Internal and External Trade, Planning Commission, October 2006.
[3] Growing Rural Retail, Financial Express, November 25, 2006
[4] Mr U K S Chauhan, Joint Secretary (Marketing) and Agricultural Marketing Advisor, Department of Agriculture & Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture, GOI at National Conference on Emerging Platforms for Agriculture Marketing, September 20-21, 2007, FICCI

Perspectives on Retailing in India and Rural Marketing IV

2008-03-19T07:19:00.001+05:30

Continued from previous posts, Part I, Part II & Part III (will open in new window)

Marketing to Rural Consumers – Proactive Approach

Another point of view that redefines marketing as a set of activities that influence the environment by playing a part in its development. It is important to mention that the considerations and actionables as mentioned in BOX 1 remain the same regardless of the marketing strategy an organisation pursues. The only difference lies in the approach. Cost, income and access issues are also important considerations for proactive marketers, but access assumes enhanced significance. Reaching the un-reached, calls for collaborations whereby stakeholders benefits are ensured without much strain on the financial resources. A better example of such a strategy would be the venture of Telenor[1], a Norwegian Telecommunications Company in Bangladesh.

Box 1

Considerations

Actionables

Cost

Development of low cost processes for offering quality goods and services at cheaper prices

Income

Marketing and sales programme to match erratic incomes

Access

Initiate collaboration with existing players / networks

Starting out in 1997, through a joint venture with Professor Mohd. Yunus of Grameen Bank, Telenor established two separate entities, one a pure commercial model: Grameen Phone and the other with a social objective of catering to the poor, namely Grameen Telecom. Grameen Phone, which broke even in 2000, is now the second largest taxpayer besides being one among the largest private business companies in Bangladesh. It commands a subscriber base of as much as 16.48 millions at the end of December 2007.[2] Grameen Telecom, which is non-commercial, is also a profitable venture by accounting for more than 10 per cent of Grameen Phone revenues. Grameen Telecom has created more than 1,00,000 micro entrepreneurs, also known as Village Phone Ladies, who provide phone services in unconnected villages, thereby allowing people to easily connect and save on by avoiding costly trips to towns. Such a strategy not only has resulted in gains for Telenor, it has also helped empower several people by offering them a regular source of income.

Moving a bit further into the past would let us know the reasons behind the success of the venture. NORAD, which is the Norwegian Agency for Development had invested in development of fibre-optic network for internal communication of the Bangladeshi railway system, this network was not being used to its full capacity. Telenor was able to procure this important constituent at very cheap rates. Further, since venture had a social arm, Telenor was able to access cheap funding from ADB, IFC, NORAD and the Commonwealth Development Corporation, effectively lowering the cost of capital to Telenor. And most importantly, collaborating with Grameen Bank, the brand that it is, brought in the much-needed trust not only from the government but also from the populace of Bangladesh. Bangladesh has become one of the most profitable growth markets for Telenor.

Such a strategy that redefines marketing, specifically in rural areas, essentially involves improving the productive capacities of producers as a seller of goods and services and in turn transitioning him into a productive consumer of goods and services. The perspective to empower rural producers essentially covers the all exchange relationships in rural scenario. These relationships have been depicted in the matrix.

Cell I to III in the matrix covers all types of exchange relationships that occurs in a rural scenario, it is essential to note that the above framework recognizes rural populace not only as consumer of goods and services (as is predominantly emphasized in popular culture) but more importantly as the producers of goods and services. Recognising the above would help us realize the potential that the rural population has. This is where the real opportunity for marketing lies, the opportunity to increase the productive capabilities of rural producers both in intra-rural and rural seller – urban buyer exchange / transactions.

To be Concluded in next post though an India specific perspective on Proactive Marketing.....

[1] Seelos, Christian and Johanna Mair; “Profitable Business Models and Market Creation in the Context of Deep Poverty: A Strategy View”; IESE Occasional Paper. October 2006
[2] Source: Wikipedia; retrieved as on February 21, 2008.
[3] Rural Buyer Seller Matrix; Vaswani L K, Rajesh Aithal, Debasis Pradhan, G Sridhar (2005), International Conference on Marketing Paradigms for Emerging Economies, IIM Ahmedabad

Perspectives on Retailing in India and Rural Marketing - III

2008-03-18T07:27:00.001+05:30

If you are coming here for the first time, I'd suggest you to read the first two posts in this series. For others, welcome back. To put things in perspective, by now, with the two servings in this series you have already read about trends in retailing in India & how rural markets are an essential ingredient for retail growth. The second post dealt with why rural markets are gaining prominence. This post essentially classify retail operations in rural areas in to 2 categories, viz, Proactive and Reactive.

Needless to say, these are my opinions, you may or you may not have divergent view.

Perspectives on Rural Retailing

Employment, income & consumption trends are now becoming sufficient portends for organized sector initiatives in rural areas, yet still, reaching out to rural consumers is not as easy as it seems. Retailing in rural areas is fraught with challenges like inadequate & poor infrastructure and erratic incomes, hence call for separate marketing strategies to cash in on the potential that rural markets have. These marketing strategies can be generally be classified in to two types: Reactive and Proactive.

Reactive marketing can be termed as pure retailing as they focus on the consumption needs of the people. Proactive marketing, on the other, focus on productive capacities of the people, how these productive capacities can be enhanced so as to increase the incomes of the consumer and consequently the consumption of goods and services. More so, reactive marketing, in crude terms, focuses on tapping the potential that rural areas have. Proactive marketing, rather, lays stress on creating this potential.

Marketing to Rural Consumers – Reactive Approach

The commonly understood notion of marketing is that companies market to segments, which have the potential for profit; in other words, the environment (i.e. demography, infrastructure status, income levels etc) influence marketing. This influence is in the form of redesigned products or services that would cater to taste, preference of the target population and most importantly offering these products and services at levels affordable by people. Marketing essentially invokes restructuring of product lines by taking into consideration the above and further by cost rationalization & realignment of supply chain. These interpretations have been further reinforced by examples of marketing practices initiated by HLL and later on followed by others, which included appointment of redistribution stockists in every market to feed smaller or more remote customers, card board light delivery boxes etc. A rather nascent example of marketing being guided by environment is 3A Bazaar[1], which presently operates out of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. The idea behind 3A Bazaar is that rural people do have disposable income and do not mind spending it for better quality products. 3A Bazaar follows a very simple modality, every morning five vans stuffed with nearly 13000 items ranging from food items to FMCG & clothes, worth Rs 2 – 2.5 lakhs, visit its neighboring villages, roughly about 700, some once a week and others once a month. 3A Bazaar effectively tries to tackle some of glaring deficiencies of rural India, which include, absence of adequate infrastructure, inability to push sales on a regular basis due to restrictive incomes available with rural people and problems of attracting people from neighboring villages unless some promotion activity is undertaken. The average daily sale of 3A Bazaar is about Rs 8 - 10 thousands. 3A Bazaar has been considerably successful in tapping the rural marketing potential.

Wipro GE Healthcare[2]: Wipro Ltd and General Electric Co. have joined hands to introduce a wide array of high-end medical technology products in India at a fraction of their global costs. These products targeted mostly at rural population include digital X-rays, computed tomography devices, portable ultrasounds, and maternal-infant care etc. Through this initiative Wipro-GE are trying to address three basic parameters for serving the rural consumers, which are, cost, mobility and ability to run on limited power. This assumes enhance significance as a result of the fact that only 24 percent of rural areas have health care facility, further as much as 90 percent of these are manned by sole practitioners, creating problems of reach (which adds to consumer costs and service delivery). The launch of a mobile unit Cathlab on Wheels, where GE Healthcare had partnered with a leading Bengaluru based cardiologist, registered more than double the patients from rural areas primarily due to reduction in costs by as much as 50 percent and comfort of medical facility nearer to home, thereby saving time.

Rs 5 Sachets of Fortune (edible oil)[3]: Adani Wilmer, a joint venture between Adani group and Wilmer International, has recently announced that it’s flagship brand Fortune (Soybean oil) is set to roll out in sachets of Rs 5 each. Such a move according to Adani would help them make inroads into rural India. Soybean oil presently occupies 40 per cent of the total edible oil market in India valued at Rs 75000 crore. Fortune, which occupies the leading position in Soybean oil market at 25 per cent, in Rs 5 sachets is expected to further consolidate the brand in the market. Soybean oil is 30 per cent cheaper than Sunflower oil. Such a move is in line with the assertion that consumers prefer better quality at lesser price. Incidentally, Bunge India, the owner of Dalda, was the first to initiate such a strategy.

In all, reactive marketing strategies focus on addressing three basic parameters while reaching to rural consumers, these include, cost to the consumer, income of the consumer and accessibility issues. Many of the policy prescriptions like Bottom of Pyramid essentially revolve around these issues and much research has been undertaken to understand the psyche of this class. A new terminology, The Next Billion[4], goes on to suggest 6 potentially striking factors of this market, these include, their being smart shoppers with fluctuating incomes, domestic constraints, unfamiliarity with many products, their search for trusted advice and their demand for respect. Reactive marketing strategies as such reflect the presence of an aspirer class, a segment, which is willing to consume what urban India does and emphasizes on ways and means to serve such consumers.

Continued in the next post with Proactive Marketing.....

[1] Retail on Wheels in Rural India
[2] ‘In India, for India,’ GE Health eyes rural market, The Mint, November 07, 2007
[3] Edible oils shampoo their way into sachets, Business Standard, December 11, 2007
[4] Decoding the Next Billion Consumers, Boston Consulting Group, November 2007

Perspectives on Retailing in India and Rural Marketing - II

2008-03-17T07:26:00.001+05:30

Continued from previous post.....

Emerging Trends from Rural India

Employment: Non-farm activities in rural areas are witnessing a rise in entrepreneurship and employment, which are growing at a faster rate than urban areas. These trends can be seen in the findings of the Fifth Economic Census 2005, excluding crop production and plantation, which puts about 25.81 million enterprises (61.3 per cent of total enterprises) operating out of rural areas. These rural enterprises are clocking an average annual growth of about 5.53 per cent and employ more than 50 million people (51 per cent of the total). Further, rural enterprises are recording an average annual growth of 3.33 per cent in total employment, which is higher than that of urban enterprises. What is striking about rural enterprise is the rising level of entrepreneurship, which is indicated through low number of hired workers (presently standing at about 2/5 of total persons employed).

Income: There are as many middle income and above households in rural areas as there are in urban and almost twice as many lower middle income households as there are in urban areas. National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) projects that middle and high-income households in rural areas would grow from 80 million households to 111 million households by the end of 2007. Nearly half the 145 million rural households earn between Rs 1000 – 5000 per month[1]. Further, rural BPL trend is registering a decline over the years.[2] as shown in the table below

Percentage of Population Below Poverty Line[3]

	*1973 -74*	*1977 -78*	*1983*	*1987 -88*	*1993 -94*	*1999 -00*	*2003 -04*
Rural	56.4	53.1	45.7	39.1	37.3	27.1	21.8
Urban	49	45.2	40.8	38.2	32.4	23.6	21.7
Total	54.9	51.3	44.5	38.9	36	26.1	21.8

Consumption: Rural Consumption patterns are suggesting a shift from sustenance driven consumption through a near parity between amount of expenditure on food and non-food items. Further, rural consumption expenditure is growing at nearly double the rate of urban consumption expenditure growth. The 61st round of the National Sample Survey (NSS) report 2004-05 on consumer expenditure in rural and urban areas reveals that the average monthly per capita consumption expenditure (average MPCE) in rural areas to be Rs 559, a bit more than half of urban India. Further, about 5 per cent of the total rural population has MPCE of Rs 1155 or more and another 5 per cent has MPCE in the range of Rs 890 – Rs 1155. Rural consumption expenditure, when compared over the two time periods of 1999-00 and 2004-05 indicate an increase of 7.81 per cent, which is substantial when compared with urban consumption expenditure that grew by just 4.32 per cent.

Another interesting feature of the findings were that the pattern of rural consumption are now showing a near balance between the amount spent of food items and non-food items. While food items account for 55 per cent of the total consumption expenditure, non-food items like fuel & light, clothing & footwear, education, medical, miscellaneous consumer goods, conveyance, other consumer services and durable goods accounted for 10, 5, 3, 7, 6, 4, 4 and 3 per cent respectively. Until 2000, food consumption expenditure accounted 62 percent of total consumption expenditure. It is worth noting that there has not been a fall in the real expenditure on food, indeed per capita real spending on food has grown by over 3 percent. At the same time, non-food items registered an increase of 17 percent over a period of five years since 2000. Certain other trends have been briefly covered below

Rural India is also increasingly recognized for Rising Awareness Levels and its Consequent Influence on Lifestyle, this is primarily being led by development of telecommunications, exposure to televisions & media and rise in literacy levels that are dramatically affecting rural perceptions. As a result, rural India is registering Changing Consumption Patterns; which is again being catalyzed by the transition towards varied economic activities like manufacturing, fisheries and services. With this changing economic scenario, rural consumers are not only becoming more aware about the availability of a large number of products but are also willing to try out brands.

Continued with III post here

[1] Raj, S John Mano & P Selvaraj, “Social Changes and the Growth of Indian Rural Market: An Invitation to FMCG”; 2007

[2] Chandramouli S, “Innovations as Cutting Edge Solutions in Rural Marketing” at Rural Marketing Summit; FICCI- 2007
[3] Source: Government of India

Perspectives on Retailing in India & Rural Marketing

2008-03-16T11:27:00.001+05:30

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This post is part of a series of posts on Retailing in India and Rural Marketing. keep coming back for updates!

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By the year 2011, 1200 hypermarkets and 3000 supermarkets would function across India. Retail, which will be rapidly transforming the Indian landscape during this period, would be attracting an investment of as much as US $ 25 billion, more than 12 times that was invested during the last one decade. Most of this growth is estimated to come from greater than 1000 tier II towns of India.[1] In fact, Indian retail has elaborate plans for smaller cities and towns, several reasons, as indicated below have been cited for this.

Striking features of Indian Retail[2]

At Subhiksha, 40 per cent of revenues and space come from cities that are not state capitals.
At Vishal Megamart, 80 per cent of revenues come from tier II and III cities
Around 70-75 per cent of visitors end up buying from retail outlets in smaller places, whereas, in large cities, it is around 50-55 per cent
Retail Operations in smaller cities result in extra 3 – 4 percent margin

Retail Outlook[3] (US$ Billion)

While these are familiar statistics, which one encounters frequently in news dailies and popular writings, there are enough motives to believe that retail growth projections will be fructified within time if not before. Several reasons, notably liberalized economy, easier availability of goods etc have been assigned to all the developments that we are witnessing today. Yet still, it is the India growth story and the way it impinges upon us in form of income, consumption and demand of goods and services that is the raison d' être for such trends.

The India Growth Story

Strong macroeconomic fundamentals combined with vigorous growth define the first decade of the Indian economy in twenty first century. An exceptional growth rate of nearly 9 per cent, which surpassed expectations on most counts, reflects a robust macroeconomic scenario. Investor friendly climate and innumerable domestic opportunities makes India an attractive investment hedge. This distinctly upbeat confidence is further reinforced by an investment upsurge across sectors in the economy.

The transformation of the Indian economy synonymous with the hallowed Hindu Rate of Growth to the new land of opportunities, though almost a dream run, has been brought about by the robust performance of the industry and services sector, which together contributed more than four fifth to the nation’s GDP in fiscal 2007, with their share standing at 26.4 and 55.1 per cent respectively. Agriculture, with a share of 18.5 per cent in 2006-07 accounts for remaining of the GDP.

These developments consequently are being reflected in the rising per capita income, which has been growing at an impressive rate. The per capita income, which stands at $797 during fiscal 07, has nearly doubled since the start of this decade (at $460 in 2001-02). At the end of the current fiscal year 2007-08 the per capita income is expected to rise to $1000.[4] It is further expected to double in nine years[5] if the current rate of GDP growth is at least sustained if not surpassed. As a result the disposable income, which is growing at 10 to 12 per cent[6] is having profound impact on the demand for consumables and makes India a huge and growing market.

Retail Scenario In India[7]

One can contend that such projections predominantly refer to the urban marketing potential; rather rural India would be affected in insignificant terms. In fact, some believe that organized retail’s attraction with rural India has been slow. As has been indicated previously, organized retail is fervently trying to expand its reach beyond metros, but barring a few, is limited to tier II and III cities.

Retail sector in India is estimated at US $ 280 billion[8] and organized retail, which forms a meager 5 percent of the retail pie (US$ 14 billion), is poised for a huge growth in coming years.[9] Besides increasing disposable incomes, as cited above, the other factor that drives this growth is the potentially strong rural consumer market.[10] In another independent analysis, Technopak[11] has estimated the absolute size of Indian retail market at around US$ 324 billion with rural-urban split ratio of 55:45, pegging rural market at around US$ 178 billion. Technopak’s previous analysis[12] states that rural market consumes as much as 53 percent of FMCG and 59 percent of durables in India.

While the figures on market size and growth potential vary depending on the source one refers to, there is one thing that cannot be ignored, which is, the large untapped potential of rural markets and which the organized players are trying to tap in their different ways. These claims can be viewed in the context of emerging employment, income and consumption patterns in rural areas.

Continued with the II installment here & III post here (will open in new window)

[1] India Retail Report 2007
[2] Bigger growth: smaller towns next stop for organized retail, The Mint, December 27, 2007
[3] Technopak retail Outlook, October 2007, Volume I
[4] “Per Capita Income May Rise to $1000”; Economic Times, November 5, 2007
[5] Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007 – 2012); Volume I: Inclusive Growth; December 2007
[6] Dr Ajay Dua, India Retail Report 2007
[7] Winning with Intelligent Supply Chains, Ernst & Young, 2007
[8] Ernst & Young, 2007
[9] Planning Commission, Government of India
[10] Ernst & Young, 2007
[11] Technopak retail Outlook, October 2007, Volume I
[12] “Growing Rural Retail”, Financial Express, November 25, 2006

Managing Lifehacker RSS Overload

2008-03-15T14:26:00.001+05:30

One of the blogs that I make sure to read on a daily basis is Lifehacker. Not only because its excellent but also because I don't want to exert myself with RSS overload. Lifehacker updates too many times in a day.

Moreover, several things, like MAC OS X and Linux related stuff doesn't help as I do not use them. All such posts add to my RSS exertion, if I do not clean my reader regularly. At least for now, I just need windows related stuff. Perhaps, if I could just filter the unwanted from the lifehacker feed.

Of late, I have been tinkering with Yahoo-Pipes a bit. So I tried my hand at that. In fact filtering lifehacker's RSS feed for my purposes was fairly easier than I thought. Yahoo-Pipes is a great rescue!

Here is how I got through this.....

Step I: Fetch the feed on the pipes dashboard, expand the items in the debugger and look for category. Expand the category, what we would find, are the tags assigned to the post.

Step II: Once you know the tags, drag the filter operator on to the dashboard and permit as below. (Note that, lifehacker has too many tags, but Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are common)

That's it, we are done. You can look for other tags and accordingly pipe a totally different feed. In this case, the pipe will only allow feeds where category matches the post tags. We can either stop here or tweak it further. In fact, I just wanted to restrict Mac and Linux related post and not the several other post which are neither Windows, Mac or Linux specific.

Just to allow other posts, I would once again fetch the lifehacker feed on the dashboard, then use the filter operator to block the posts tagged Mac OS X and Linux. Then join the output of the two by using the union module and then use unique module to block duplicate entries. This pipe can be viewed here

In fact, Yahoo Pipes are extremely useful for blogs that do not give label feeds. Categories in pipes would identify the labels. Once we know this, rest is cakewalk.

Easy Way to Get Cricket Scores Online

2008-03-04T15:12:00.003+05:30

Most of us in India, live cricket. Cricket runs in our blood. When there is cricket, we put that before food & job. Yes, that's the way we are.

Now, if you are at work, in all probabilities, you would be accessing live scores from rediff.com. As you can see there is a small refresh button, which has to be continually pressed for getting updated scores. Sometimes, this is very harassing. But, there is a round about, if we use Opera web-browser.

Here's how we do it,

Right click on the score page, in menu under Reload option, we have Reload Every-->

Select any time interval you want, I use a custom time interval of 10 seconds between two successive reloads. Enable this, and you are done.

The score page will automatically reload (or refresh) after time expires and you will get updated scores and most importantly spare yourselves of manually refreshing the rediff cricket score page everytime.

Easy Way to Manage Google Search: Enhance Search Productively

2008-03-02T14:32:00.001+05:30

Of all of us who use Internet, almost everyone would visit Google every once in a while. In fact, if we count the number of queries on Google by us, it would out-number the "O's" in Google :)

Anyway, with every passing day & with the amount of information being indexed by Google, the search process is bound to get complicated. More so, finding the most relevant, would now become a Herculean task in itself.

Some of us do employ tricks to narrow down are searches, these include file-type searches, site specific searches and so on. Many such tips & tricks can be found on Nitin Pai's Web-log Techtracer, here & here. Some of them were news for me. For e.g.: A file type search query would be like

(search terms) filetype:pdf / doc / ppt and so on or

(search terms) site:abc.com / .edu / .net and so on

Still, such a process is lengthy for me. Why not shorten our search process even further! We can, if we use Firefox.

We all know about the search bar in the top-right corner of the Firefox window. Mozilla provides us with some custom search plugins.

We will just design a few custom search plugins for us. These plugins would save us from typing extra parameters in Google search query. Every search plugin would take care of specific Google search patterns.

In the end, we only have to select the right Google Search Plugin and type in the query, leaving the rest to Google.

I am including a few of these Google search plugins, which I use. You may also like to use them, feel free to download the Google Search Plugin. All you have to do is to save these plugins in Program Files --> Mozilla Firefox --> searchplugins. After you do this, restart Firefox & we are ready to use these custom Google Search Plugins.

Save any plugin you like!

For Scholars: Google provides 2 very good services, viz, scholar.google.com and books.google.com. So, instead of opening the respective sites first, we just need to select the relevant search plugin and type in the query. Below are some plugins:

Google Book Search	PDF Search
Google Scholar Search	MS-Word Search
Google Educational Site Search	PPT Search

For Movie Aficionados: In order to know about show-times of movies or read reviews, we have to log on to movies.google.com. The following Google search plugins for Firefox, let us know about the same in a jiffy.

Google Movie by Show-times in Your City Plugin (for e.g.: Movies in New Delhi)

Google Movie Review Search Plugin (for e.g.: Review of The Matrix)

For Frequent Travelers or For Arranging Business Meetings: Several times in our workings we have to call overseas, ignorance about the time gap between the two countries may lead to embarrassing situations. Further, when traveling such info is of great use. Google again has come to rescue

Google - Country Time Search Plugin [ for e.g.: New Delhi Time ]

Google Weather Search Plugin [ for e.g.: New Delhi Weather ]

Miscellany Google Goodies: No further need to log in to images.google.com. Just use the plugin here. And further, get the definitions on anything by using the Google Define plugin.

Google Images Plugin

Google Define Plugin

Google Experimental - Straight from the Google Labs: A few experiments that Google is dabbling with right now is the Timeline search, which basically deals with the available history over anything. (for e.g.: This is a time-line search on humans). Or may be just like we use labels on our blogs, get results in the similar fashion from Google. (for e.g.: This is a Left Hand Contextual Search on Humans)

Google Timeline Search Plugin

Google Left Hand Contextual Search Navigation Plugin

Hacks / IT Productivity Tips: If you are tech savvy, or look for hacks to improve your online experience, you might every once in a while log onto blogs like lifehacker, digital inspiration and so on. I use a Google Custom Search Engine, which sieves relevant information from some of my selected blogs. Helps me a lot and saves me much time. Below is the Firefox Search Plugin for my custom search engine. Save it, you may find it useful. I keep on adding sites to it, as and when I find a good one.

Productivity Tips Plugin

Once again, all you have to do is to save these plugins in Program Files --> Mozilla Firefox --> searchplugins. After you do this, restart Firefox & we are ready to use these Custom Search Plugins.

Easily Download Songs which are Restricted for Download from Esnips

2008-02-13T15:50:00.002+05:30

Update: Apparently, this hack does not work any more. Esnips is now embedding flash player to play songs.

While we have already seen a trick to download a song from esnips without registering or even signing in to our accounts. Yet, still with the advent of the new audio policy, uploaders can restrict download of songs.

While there is a dilemma within me on downloading restricted songs from Esnips as I would be encroaching upon the privacy of the uploaders. However, I also feel that it would have been right if the uploaders allowed downloading songs provided it was not used for commercial purposes. It would have been easy for most of us, as we seek zero commercial gains from downloading songs, what we seek is access to songs which are unavailable in our areas for purchase. Had it not been peer sharing, I would never have got access to one of my favorite groups Toots & the Maytals, I could never find them anywhere in New Delhi.

Anyway's, enough rambling, here's the tweak to get un-downloadable songs from Ensips. Simply follow the steps in the previous post, but in the last instead of saving the song, just open it. What will happen is that the inbuilt media player on your OS will start buffering the song.

Let the song finish, when done, just go to your temporary internet files folder, where you will find the mp3 files with the exact file name as mentioned on the site.

Moreover, the reason behind letting the inbuilt media player buffer the song, is that if you let the player in the site play it, you might have the file in the cache, but it will have something like id:23256sdf as the file name which will make it difficult to find.

Just let media player handle it, you'll have the mp3

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You may also like to read on: Easily Download Songs from Esnips

Easily Resize Image, Reduce Image Weight & Without any External Softwares

2008-02-10T10:13:00.001+05:30

In case we use a DSLR, we all know, higher the resolution of camera, higher is the image size. Now, if we want to show these images on web-sites, probably we all know that lower we keep the image size (in terms of weight), faster would the site load.

While we can do image resizing through a variety of softwares as mentioned on fortysomething, but image resizing & image weight reduction can also be achieved without any external software and without any visible loss in image quality for web-sites. Our good own MS Paint is all we need. Here's how, but don't forget to have a back up of the images for future reference

Select any image ---> right click ---> edit ---> Save

We would see the magic right away with out any visible loss in quality for web-site purposes. I used this technique to reduce image size for some images that had been taken with a Nikon D70s. The resulting images were 80 % lighter (in weight), the dimensions remained the same and with no loss of EXIF data.

Further, if we reduce the dimensions of the image, the resulting image would be even lighter. In the above steps, just press CTRL+W after edit and insert about 40% in the stretch value.

But then, this is not enough :). How fast and how productive we can become in this? Well, the answer would depend on your installed RAM. In case, you have good amount of RAM (256 MB is slow, higher is better), just remember these steps, Select multiple images with mouse, right click, edit and

CTRL+W (stretch value about 40%) --> CTRL+S --> ALT+F4

Happy hacking!

You may also like to read on: Easiest Way to Send Inline Images in Emails

Easily Download Songs from Esnips

2008-02-09T13:48:00.003+05:30

Update: Apparently, this hack does not work any more. Esnips is now embedding flash player to play songs.

Esnips is a huge repository of songs, which most of us refer to when needed. Of late Esnips has come out with a new audio policy that leverages uploaders to restrict the download of songs.

Here is a way out.

We suggest use of Firefox, not only because it is better but also Firefox along with the excellent addon AdBlock Plus does all the trick. And you also need not be signed into your account to do this. Lets see how..

Open any music file on Esnips. If you have AdBlock Plus enabled we'd see something like below just above the player.

The Area in red above shows a notification by AdBlock Plus, which perceives it be an advertisement. Just click it, the AdBlock preferences dialogue will open up (as below) and would give the direct link to the file. Copy this link (highlighted with red) and cancel the preferences window.

Just paste this link in the address bar of the Firefox and press enter. We'd see as below, rest we all know what to do....

I trust this works, though I have not used this extensively.

Have fun downloading songs, but keep in mind that we have to respect the privacy of people who only wish to share their music for listening online. Even though the next post would specifically deal with how to download songs, which still could not be downloaded. Moreover, I have a moral dilemma on this.

So long, till I mull over my future actions.

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Update: Find a way to Easily Download Songs which are Restricted for Download from Esnips

Easiest Way to Send Inline Images in Emails

2008-02-08T10:21:00.001+05:30

Every once in a while we receive emails that have images in them, these images rather than being attachments are inline i.e. part of the message body including the texts. While there are several ways to achieve this, yet still the problem lies in the fact that most of the email clients are configured to block external images. As a result we see a message like below on opening the mail.

~~For peo~~For people like me who regularly send picture emails of the latest trips, it becomes extremely frustating as the person may or may not see the pics. Here's a way which ensures not only avoiding such notifications for inline images but is also very easy.

I use MS Word and Outlook for this purpose.

Step I

Create a table in a word document and insert pictures in table, you can use your imagination to decorate the table with available styles in MS Word. Once we are done with this, click the E-mail button, which is just besides the print command button.

Step II

Click the E-mal command, you'll find something just like Outlook, just fill in the details and send. That's it :)

I have been using this method for some time now and have been successful avoiding the display images notification for inline images. Of-course we'll have to configure Outlook with the our email accounts.

Multiple / Double Exposure Pics via Picassa

2008-02-07T13:24:00.001+05:30

Multiple or double exposure is a technique whereby a film is exposed twice to to two or more different images, thereby extending to it a ghostly character. Several of the photography hoaxes have been rendered via this technique.

Image courtesy: Wikipedia

Multiple / double exposure is a complicated technique and the intricacies way beyond my explanation. Yet, multiple or double exposure images can be made very easily using our good own Picassa. Here's how

Select any two or more pictures in Picassa and just click Create ---> Picture Collage ---> Multiple Exposure.

In order to achieve impressive multiple / double exposure photographs, following two things should be kept in mind.

Of the two photographs selected, one should be shot in Landscape mode and the other one in close up.
Best results would come if one of the images is less brighter than the other.

Here's a few snaps that have been converted in multiple exposure images, these are mobile camera pics

Create HTML Signatures for Gmail in Easy Steps with MS Word

2008-01-30T23:03:00.001+05:30

No matter how much we love Gmail, there are certain issues where Gmail simply sucks, no support for html signatures is one such thing. A recent post on Multiple HTML signatures in Gmail on lifehacker is good news for all us. It points us to a Greasemonkey user script by Jerome Dane which enables us to have html signatures. Though the script specifically allows us to have different signature for different ids, it also helps us have images in our signature, which previously was not possible.

However, extremely little exposure to HTML puts me at loss to create one. Many other people, just like me also feel helpless when it comes to coding. Here is an easy roundabout for creating html signatures without any knowledge of HTML

I was quick to create a new html signature for me. I have used MS Word to get mine, as explained below

Create a new table in a word document and inserted an image and some text in the table

I also added a hyperlink to my blog to the image, so that if the reader clicks it, he reaches my blog. [so much for shameless advertising :)]

Remove the table borders and saved the word file as a web-page

It will look something like this

Now comes the real part, select the text and image on the page by dragging the mouse and view selection source

This will look something like this.

Copy this text and simply follow the easy steps as mentioned by the creator of this script on the script-page.

One may also view the complete page source and copy everything that is between the body tags in the source file. Do not forget to upload the image file to any site like Imageshack or even your Google Pages and insert the direct URL for the image in the source file. (search for img src)

Finally my signature looks like this.

Of-course, if you create the same in dreamweaver, the code would very light, here it would be slightly bigger, yet the idea here is to suggest a way to create a HTML signature without harassing ourselves with codes. What we get in the source file only has to be pasted in signature window, once the script is installed. Further, its slightly tricky to maintain the format in this method, but right things happen in a few trials.

Playing With the Sky's Blue

2008-01-27T02:17:00.001+05:30

A small park close-by has become the playground of a photography enthusiast. Mornings and evenings he can be seen out there working, oblivious of the surroundings and carefully trying to consider things that would miss the normal eye. When decided, he gives a careful consideration to the exposure level and the camera angles. He shoots, re-shoots until he can get the best shot. In the process, he unlearns several tips that have been passed on to him and develops several insights of his own. One of which is highlighting foreground / background.

But before he goes on to share his learning, there's still much that need to be learnt. Yet, he believes that you will notice the difference

Did you ?

Water

2008-01-15T20:48:00.001+05:30

If the world's water fitted into a bucket, only one teaspoonful would be drinkable.

About 1,460 teratonnes of water covers 71% of the Earth, yet 1.1 billion people in the world do not have access to safe water, this is roughly one sixth of the world's population. This is primarily because the world's population tripled in the 20th century; the use of renewable water resources has grown six-fold. Within the next fifty years, the world population will increase by another 40 to 50%.

Search for drinking water is an enormous stress on persuasion of economic activities; to quote, 40 billion working hours are spent carrying water each year in Africa. Households in rural Africa spend an average of 26% of their time fetching water, and it is generally women who are burdened with the task. The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads is commonly 20 kg, the same as the average UK airport luggage allowance. The average person in the developing world uses 10 litres of water every day for their drinking, washing and cooking. The average European would use 200 litres and North Americans would use 400 litres per day. But, 2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation; roughly two-fifths of the world's population

Statistics source: WaterAid

For Your Eyes I

2008-01-14T21:48:00.001+05:30

A rose is arose is a rose !

A Visit to Jantar Mantar

2007-04-01T13:59:00.001+05:30

Time always has a sense of history. Every moment that passes by progresses for growth and its eventual decay, it can either be relished or despised. Moreover, every second gone past is a testimony of beliefs, ability and above all, the efforts.

These images are from the famous astronomical observatories Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, which were built in 1724 AD by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh II. The sheer beauty of Jantar Mantar, which is a series of masonry built of brick, rubble and lime, lies in its precise calculations regarding celestial positions of the Sun, Moon and the planets. Sadly, all the instruments have been lying unused for most part of their nearly 300 years of existence and need some surface work

The Misra Yantra lies their amidst high rise buildings, I wonder if the building in background could last even half as long.

The Ram Yantra makes it very easy to compute local coordinate measurements of celestial object. The pillar in centre or the Gnomon is exactly of same height as the distance between it and the inner circumference of walls. The computation process in simplest terms can be defined as the centre of the shadow of gnomon on the walls or floor of the observatory / yantra.

Samrat Yantra above, is the largest and most imposing structure in the observatory. The triangular structure in the middle is the gnomon, hypotenuse of this structure is parallel to the earth's axis, as a result it roughly points towards the Pole star. But it is unusable in its current state. Some volunteer efforts though have been undertaken by the Nehru Planetarium, S.P.A.C.E. and Amateur Astronomer Association, Delhi and we might expect Samrat Yantra to be functional in some time soon.

What Flowers Can Tell Us

2007-03-27T09:55:00.001+05:30

Of Late I have been using my camera phone rather vigorously, these images have been taken through the last week. I felt they have a message, which I am now sharing with you.....

Moreover, I am not able to verbally communicate with you, this leaves me with the only option to use least words and communicate visually. This is smallest introduction to my presentation.....Feel the Show !!

Saying without words

2007-03-16T12:11:00.001+05:30

There wasn't much to say......

Mumbai Through My Eyes

2007-02-23T15:32:00.000+05:30

There are no words to describe Mumbai. It seems so surreal; you are one among the hundreds in the crowd, yet everything is on a pause….. aloof. The bikers zooming on marine drive, the sea that seems still; the traffic billowing smoke on your face, the cool breeze that takes it all away; such beautify.

Somewhere there is solitude gladly awaiting you in all the din and chaos of Mumbai…..

Some moments.....

The Gate Way of India

Necklace at Marine Drive

Sunset at Bandstand

Don't remember where I took this

Spice up Your Phtographs Using Free Softwares

2007-01-19T13:42:00.000+05:30

Here are some ways to spice up your photographs,

Ascii o matic: Asciiomatic is as the name suggest converts images in plain text formats. Asciiomatic services are available for .jpeg format images and size not more than 60*50 pixels, this is a free online service

Rasterbator: Make rasterised posters from any image, these posters can be as long as 20 metres. Rasterbation services are available for almost all formats; there are two choices, online (free) and offline. Online rasterisation is supported for images less than 1 Mb, offline rasterbation is supports even for files larger than 1 Mb. Download it here (free)

Comparison between the two

The image in the left is the rasterised version and image in the right above is from asciiomatic. Both the services have their benefits, while asciiomatic images will spice up your computer screen, the rasterised version can sparkle the wall behind ;)

Even more image conversion tools may include:

PosteRazor: Another Rasterisor, but works better than above, it is fast and output quality is much better. PosteRazor is available for free download for Windows and OSX

Pixelize: This is interesting, I still have to use it, but it uses several images to build up, as closely as possible, another image. This is also a free download

And this is original image :(

Download Videos from Any Site: A Simple Hack

2007-01-18T20:34:00.000+05:30

All of us daily visit some site that has video, but due to slow internet connections or video loading time the pleasure of watching the video is reduced. There is also a desire to save the video on our hard disks. There are several ways in which you can download videos from sites, watch them at your leisure and any number of time. These include:

VideoDownloader Firefox Extension, Almost all of us kniow about this, this extension will download videos from a select set of video hosting websites

You can access KeepVid, simply paste the url of the page holding the video, it will download the video for you.

The following is simple hack on how to download a video from any site (at least for now !) I hope this helps you.....

STEP I

Open the link that is hosting the video, right click and view the source file of the page

STEP II

Press CTRL+F to search for .wmv or .rm extension files, these have been highlighted in the image below

We have to understand that link is for the directory / folder that is storing the video file and the main folder is the home page url. Copy this link.

STEP III

Go to the homepage of the site, paste this link after the home page url. FOr example: if the home page is http://www. abcd.com/index.html, your new link will look like http://www.abcd.com/video/xyz.wmv

Click go, media player (either Windows Media Player or Real Player or any other player that you use) will pop up. Close the player.

Go to File, click Save Web Page

Click Save

Download and you have your video

More Clues About Web 2.0

2007-01-15T11:05:00.000+05:30

There is too much confusion regarding Web 2.0 meme, every other day we will find new interpretations and uses in the modern day context. These interpretations will be from varied perspectives, some technological and some management / organisational.

Purely from the organisational point of view, Web 2.0 requires change in how the Top Bosses view technology for their business. On one hand we have people who have identified oppurtunities and ventured as a Web 2.0 organisation and on the other there are people who are thinking on whether to adopt the meme in the organisational operations and if yes, then how?

Being a Web 2.0 enabled organisation requires considerable change in how you see your prospective website audience, be it employess or users / consumers. This has both pros and cons attached to it, on one hand the best of your offerings get recognised very fast through user generated content, and on the other it is extremely difficult to control and monitor how your users use the service

The question of joining the Web 2.0 bandwagon and how, would depend on the product / services being offered; Product classes:

Software as a Service: Web 2.0 is today marked with too similar services by too many vendors. The question here becomes of creating a niche, which eventually pays in creating sustainable revenue models
Tangibles: More importantly than above, in the case of tangible service / product offerings, Web 2.0 will become more of a productivity enhancer through use of Social Softwares that allow people interaction become visible over time (An example, may be not the most appropriate)

Further,Web 2.0 consists of three things

User contributions
Openness and
Rich interfaces (such as 3-D)

Many organisations these days are building upon containers within their own site that lets users generate content, another oppurtunity to improve product offerings based on user expectations. But on the flip side the organisations will have lesser control over the way their site is used.

The image in the top right is from GT Mcknights flickr photostream, who has just stacked up some coporate logos and redefined them in Web 2.0 fashion.

Civil Engineer Jobs

2007-01-13T11:07:00.000+05:30

My parents were very keen on me pursuing engineering, especially civil engineering. At that point of time I felt that civil engineering jobs are too rare, I was wrong. Now I see huge opportunities in the domain and with presence of specials services in Civil Engineer Jobs I feel that this could be an opportunity to cash in on my qualifications. The link mentioned is team of 14 professional recruiters with combined experience of more than 60 years dedicated to work with Civil engineering candidates and companies. This makes even more sense primarily because they represent over 50 leading Civil Engineering firms, which mean high chances of getting into prospective organisations, plus their stand on complete confidentiality and building relationships boosts confidence in opting for their services.

Apple iPhone

2007-01-11T15:28:00.000+05:30

Yes, it is the THE PHONE; it combines an iPod, a camera (2MP) and an Internet browser in a phone. It is the same thing that within the day of its official launch has brought down the stocks of Palm by 5.7 % and Research in Mobile (BlackBerry) by 8 %

So here is some detail about it

A smart phone, similar to the Palm Treo or RIM's BlackBerry
Models (1) 8 GB ($599) (2) 4 GB ($499)
OS: Mac OS X
Compatibility: GSM and EDGE
Controls: No buttons or switches, by touching
Battery life: 16 hours of audio & 5 hours of talk
Built in WiFi and Bluetooth antennas

USPs (at least for now)

Automatic Screen Rotation: Whether you hold the iPhone in portrait or landscape mode, the internal motion sensor will automatically rotate the screen, orienting it to your view
Power Saving:

It will immediately turn off the display to save power and avoid inadvertent touches when you lift iPhone to your ear for talking.
Synchronisation with the Ambient light: The built-in ambient light sensor will automatically adjust the display screen’s brightness with thecurrent ambient light.

Allows users to make calls by simply pointing at a name or number.
Favourite list: For your most frequently done calls
Voicemail Sortie: Choose the Voicemail which you want to listen first from a listing
QWERTY Keyboard: Drafting an SMS is a more simpler game with predictive text services as an addon
Multitasking on Net: You can read a webpage while downloading an attachment from your mail. iPhone will also work with most industry standard IMAP and POP based email services, such as Microsoft Exchange, Apple .Mac Mail, AOL Mail, Google Gmail and most ISP mail services.
Display: A 3.5-inch widescreen, 160 pixels per inch touch screen
Built-in Google Maps

Criticisms are flowing in right away

No 3G network support? The iPhone handles Wi-Fi, which is good for surfing the Web at home, or in an airport hot spot.
How smart is the screen?
How strong is the screen? Will it scratch, like many iPods? Will I need to wipe it down after the warm LCD is sitting on my cheek for 30 minutes each call? (all these via Dan Frommer)
Comparing it with my N-90, the twist-n-turn functionality in N-90 proves to be of great ease while capturing images / videos. But in Apple?

Here is an interesting Gender perspective on iPhone and be sure to check out the iPhone Concept blog

Related / Sources: David M Ewalt and Nino Marcheti

My way or Highway

2007-01-09T12:32:00.000+05:30

If you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME, very true, but somewhere else, not in Blogosphere where we speak, write, share and comment to enhance our social learning. And this process begins with very moment we act, as result the boundaries, be it geographical, intellectual or specialists, get redefined for the larger audience.

Why Assume in Blogosphere?

The answer is why not? Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan who made Blogger, assumed that there is captive audience (with little or not understanding of html, web designing etc) just waiting to connect. Later, Google saw potential business logic in investing in this assumption; and as of now the Blogosphere is doubling every 236 days and we have more than 57 million blog being tracked. The underlying assumption being the people, the same set of people, which until blogs had been passive recipients of information. Now, blog is the power of people, the power to receive information, to approve and to criticise and this adds to its logic, business or otherwise.

It does not end here, this is just the beginning; numerous people with little stakes in all the developments are working to improve this experience on the browser end. Many among us bloggers have near zero understanding of the technicalities but we use several hacks developed by more advanced bloggers just to enhance the blogging experience of our readers. Blogging is nothing less than ecommerce, but there is a catch, Blogging is ecommerce sans commerce in its real sense. The fight is for readership, which will flow from content, ease of use and simplicity of the web design.

Simplicity of design brings me to the recent changes in this blog. This blog is now powered with Neo template by Ramani, this template uses AJAX particularly JSON. How we see this blog today is some assumptions, some hard work and some imagination by Ramani who made this template. To quote Ramani

Neo template is not just some CSS magic. It is an ultra-fast template with which one can navigate through your blog very quickly. As a result, your visitors would enjoy their stay in your blog. It employs the cutting edge technology called AJAX (in particular JSON) and makes best use of the advanced features of new Blogger such as Label feeds and Per-post comment feeds.

I trust that you will now find the browsing experience at Memoirs of Tomorrow more fast and easy. As we had read before, this does not end here, there is more to do and may be these are some thoughts for Ramani to devise future hacks, I read this at Deeje Cooley’s blog, to quote him

My desktop aggregator doesn't show conversations around permalinks, and doesn't allow me to add comments directly… I have to browse to the permalink in question and figure out how to read and leave a comment, if I can at all.

I hope Ramani got his clues. As for us lay men, Assume is AS Seamless as U and ME canbe !

I leave you with the inside story of Apple iPod. (44 mins approx)

Where do You Plan to See Yourself this New Year?

2007-01-01T08:06:00.000+05:30

Hawaii Condos I must say, because it where I also dream of seeing myself in future. How much of this will materialise is only a matter of time. Let’s see.

This is a site dedicated to the purpose and it has several programmes like the CondoList Programme which allow several people like Realtors, Owners and Developers to list condos for sale in Hawaii and the Building Specialists Programme that has been recently launched for real estate agents specialising in luxury high rise condos.

So, whatever your interest, be it selling, buying or facilitating, this can be the one stop shop for a high rise patio in the Hawaiian condos. As far as I am concerned, it is the dream of this new year.

Hypothecating Enterprise 2.0

2006-12-29T21:13:00.000+05:30

If you have read the previous post on Internet, which touched upon the Enterprise 2.0 thing, this is further to that. So, what is Enterprise 2.0? At the time of writing that post even I did not have much clarity about the concept. What follows now would be my limited understanding of the concept, which surely won't be technical but from a business perspective.

What is Enterprise 2.0

Enterprise 2.0, henceforth referred to as E2 for the sake of ease, is a relatively new (or poised to be) dictum. You must have seen the following in the aforementioned post.

This is a rough estimation of what E2 is and can be. Further, still there remains a lack of unanimity over the definition. Closest we can get to defining E2 is through the writings of M R Rangaswami who defines it as a Synergy of a new set of technologies, development models and delivery methods. And Andrew McAfee who coined this term as: Use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.

Confused? So am I

Lets take a real life situation, most of us daily get calls from one or the other organisations regarding some product which they want us to buy. Just a few days back I received a call from an employee of Deutsche Bank who wanted me try out their credit cards, but I was interested in savings account. I refused to opt for credit card and there was no deal. The caller since was not looking after savings, hung off. And Deutsche Bank which had a lead for a potential savings account customer, lost on converting it. If we monetise this, the organisations gets nothing in spite of investing some money in lead generation, approach and conversion.

Now, take a situation where the bank has an E2.0 intranet, which uses Open Source Mediawiki wiki software. This caller would have accessed a database to get to my number and other details. This database would be on the intranet of the bank. We already know about tagging in Web 2.0, almost all of us access del.icio.us, digg. If this person, who called me, can tag my name under potential savings customers, other bank employees dealing with savings and who also access this intranet, can have this information in a fast, low cost and seamless manner. More so, once the information has reached the appropriate person, it can be further tagged as taken for action. The senior management's role here becomes to monitor the process of information through proper tagging and then the progress regarding action. Further, if an employee lands on an internet page that is of the organisation’s interest she can simply tag it for the others to see. This is only one of the many examples and uses of E2 that one can think of. Prof McAfee in one of his posts points out to a real life example of deep E2 penetration

Does this make sense? If it does, then there are a few catch phrases with Pro McAfee's definition, these are

E2 use Social Softwares, social softwares enable people to meet, connect and collaborate.
These Social Softwares are Emergent i.e. it lets patterns and structures in people's interaction become visible with time.

And now, the difference between the two definitions by Rangaswami and McAfee that we read above, it lies in what you see on your screen (for eg: tags) and what brings it onscreen (the service architecture / technology behind). E2 is more about people who use it and less about technology, models and delivery formats. It is also about wide and deep penetration of social softwares that they become an inextricable part of an organisation's culture and technology infrastucture.

Again, does this make sense?..... You say.

Get Ready for WEB 3.0

2006-12-28T06:48:00.000+05:30

Web 3.0 is when you can Read-Write-Share & EXECUTE. It is also when people have the tools to craft their own softwares. Many more descriptions at Wenhu's Space. It's a good read

So We have Munnabhai Again

2006-12-28T06:33:00.000+05:30

But this time, it is a different reason.

Increasing Business Efficiency: Your Office is Now Online

2006-12-27T18:20:00.000+05:30

Web 2.0 is becoming a fascinating thinking in action with every passing day. If you are now used to blogs and wikis, here's more for you. I was expecting this to happen for long as this makes increased business sense in terms of efficiency, reach and time management. So what is this? this is MS Office in almost all it's glory is waiting to be shared, edited and presented online. And no this is not a Microsoft endeavour. This integration of Web 2.0 technologies with the traditional desktop environment has been brought though ThinkFree

ThinkFree is an web2.0 ajax based online collaboration service for MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint. To quote from WorldTechLogic blog:

You can schedule tasks, keep track of tasks, create elaborate invitations, publish files for everyone to see, create Microsoft Office compatible files (MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint), view the revision history of a document with the ability to roll back to its previous revision, and post your documents to your blog or web page, or publish them on the web.

You have two options in ThinkFree Quick Edit, which is a fast lightweight document editing tool based on AJAX and provides you with basic editing features through your browser and the other Power Edit which requires launching JAVA but provides you with more (or nearly all) MS Office features. From the point of technophobic users, ThinkFree interface is as close to the MS Office products as it can be. If one has a working knowledge of MS Office products, it is exactly what required to game on ThinkFree. And if you know the shortcuts of MS Office, they are exactly the same here too.

Since it is product that nearly provides all the features of MS office, it is natural to compare the product offerings with that of actual MS office. Here are a few of the striking features of ThinkFree

Inserting an image directly from Flickr
Saving the document as PDF
Posting directly to blogs and websites (This post has been written on ThinkFree and is accessible here)

Some issues that as a traditional office user I found in the product are listed below

It lacks Language tools, the only language supported is English (US), further word look up as opposed to MS Office is not there
It lacks auto save feature, only time the file is auto saved is when the PC is accidently turned off
The power edit tool which provides all the functionalities of MS Office is slow

A detailed technical and critical appraisal of ThinkFree like lack of extensibility etc can be found at in the blog entry and comments sections of Ismael Ghalimi's IT-Redux Blog and tagging system for the desktop edition etc at the Dennis Howlett's Accmanpro As regards my observations, in one of my previous posts I had said that Web 2.0 is also a group of enterprise that offer too similar products / services. So what in case ThinkFree gets its competitors who are ready to offer server editions for at a much cheaper price or even free based on some alternative revenue model. The $30 per user per year is a price tag that makes it cheaper to have MS Office and rely on USB drives and eMails for sharing and presenting.

Even though ThinkFree has it's share of criticism I would like to end with what David Howlett starts with, to quote

"it is the most 'complete' offering I'vd seen that's comparable to Microsoft Office. The taunts of 'crippled product' put forward by naysayers of online office productivity can be safely ignored"

Related: Product offerings from ThinkFree Online, Server, Desktop & Portable

Want to send Anonymous eMails ?

2006-12-26T07:57:00.000+05:30

Here is your answer, Cosmic Mailer by Suntex-Softwares is an anonymour eMail sending software. It allows one to bypass the compulsory From Field when sending an eMail. A user can either bypass this step by either filling an invalid eMail id or simply leaving it empty. Ofcourse in case you want a reply, fill up the from field.

Application features

Program Type: Shareware (Demo and Full)
Release Date: 12 / 20 / 2006
Cost: 5 USD / INR 200
Languages: English
OS supported: WinXP, Windows2003, Windows Vista Starter, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate
Install Support: Install and Uninstall
File Size: 774 KB

Something that is missing in this application is lack of attachment support.Cosmic Mailer only supports text eMails. Further demo version will display an advertisement and the user's computer id and ip address.

To me anonymity does not sound as a good idea, but for others it might be useful.

Disclaimer: I am not associated with this software, this is only for the information of the reader. I won't be held resposible for any damages incurred with the use of the hitherto mentioned application.

The Year that was for Internet: Future & Even Beyond

2006-12-25T14:37:00.000+05:30

With every passing year, the world is moving towards its realisation of being a global village. Information, connectivity is reaching to almost every nook and corner of the world. Internet now is both maturing and evolving. Maturing in terms of its reach, which signifies its increased business sense; to quote Michael Bloch The days of Anglo-Saxon “domination” of the online world are surely numbered! and evolving in terms of modes of information dispersion through blogs, wikis, etc.

Below are a few statistics from Internet World Stats

Developed Countries like USA, UK, Canada and Australia have nearly matured in terms of Internet Penetration. (US: 69.9%, UK: 62.5%, Canada: 67.6% and Australia: 70.7% of population)
Asia is all poised for world domination. Internet penetration in India and China is only 3.6% and 9.4% of their population. As a percentage of total internet users in Asia, India stands at 10.6% and China at 32.5%
Internet penetration in other Asian economies is maturing in Japan (67.2%), South Korea (67%), Taiwan (60.3%) and approaching saturation in Malaysia (40.2%)

Indo US Comparative analysis

US with nearly 209 million internet users at 69.9% penetration accounts for 19.4% of world internet users. India on the other hand with just 40 million internet users at 3.6% penetration accounts for 3.7% of the world internet users. Indian internet users' population has grown by nearly 700% since 2000

Near Past, Present and Near Future

Internet as a medium has also graduated from Read Only to Read-Write & Share or simply putting it as from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. (Read my previous post on Web2.0) Web 2.0 has also its share of criticism prior to Google's acquisition of You Tube for $1.6 Billion. Web 2.0 has again boosted the confidence of investors to an extent, but is web2.0 another bubble? Om Malik has rightly put it The Myth of Web 2.0 is the investment opportunities. The reality of Web 2.0 is too little original thinking. Web 2.0 is also a group of enterprise that offer too similar products / services. Take for eg: You-Tube and BlipTV. The major source of their earnings is onsite advertising.

Web 2.0, simply put, is a set of technologies and a new kind of thinking, which companies like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and AOL are incorporating in their products. Om Malik:The Myth, Reality & Future of Web 2.0

Again he says,

The way I see it, there is a lot of commonality in Indian food and Web 2.0. Even as early as 1990s, Indian food was not familiar to the American palette. It took a long time before people got used to the earthy aromas and spices. But once they did, the Indian restaurants blossomed in America. But even now I don't think people are adventurous enough to try anything other than Chicken Tikka Masala and/or Daal (Lentils) with rice.

Is Web2.0 another bubble?

Sourced from IndianPRwire; it is too early to say so, and various reasons can be given for both pros and cons. On one hand 455 million of 1.63 Billion VC funding so far (through the third quarter of 2006) has gone in to 79 web2.0 companies. Free flow of money has been on a mere buzz word called "Web 2.0". On the other hand, Web2.0 is being seriously taken up by enterprises like

Intel which have recently announced about launching an assembly of a software suite that includes blogging, wiki, and content syndication software
AT&T's Blue room
Oracle is planning to deploy a web2.0 platform to undertake the integration of the recently acquired products
Today enterprises are launching corporate blogs and RSS feeds
American Express is experimenting with internal use of wikis. It uses RSS, and invites its customers to provide feedback to influence product design

Some of the findings from the China Web 2.0 Market Annual Report are

As Internet user market develops, Internet enters user's life and show clear characteristics of sociality. With the prevalence of technologies like XML, Tags and Ajax, there is a tendency of smart network. Internet has more and more characteristics of semantic network
Competition convergence will become the biggest problem of Web2.0 service providers. Innovators face the danger of reproduction in service, application, business mode or even Web site interface
Mainstream Internet portals keep provide Web2.0 service products. And the target users are the same user group. Web2.0 market will face more fierce competition
Providers of fundamental platform with user participation mode and providers who can aggregate and reconstruct user content can win user stickiness. Leaders of market segmentation will develop rapidly
"Forever Beta version" will be the developing trend.

And now Enterprise 2.0

What is Enterprise 2.0?;Watch the slide 9 in the presentation below

Forbes' World's Densest Cities

2006-12-24T13:50:00.000+05:30

How come any city from India, especially Bangalore is not here?

Trivia Aishwarya

2006-12-24T13:30:00.000+05:30

Some trivia about Aishwarya Rai

The latest member of the elite L’Oreal Dream Team, joining beauties Catherine Deneuve & Andie MacDowell as their international ambassador
She graced the covers of the prestigious TIME Magazine. Time Magazine has also listed her on their list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World Today”.
She has graced numerous covers worldwide including USA, UK, China, Russia, Israel, United Emerites, Italy, Spain and France.
Also listed on Rolling Stone Magazine’s annual “Hot List”
Hello Magazine’s Most Attractive Women in the World”. She was voted the number-one attractive woman of 2003, beating actresses such as Nicole Kidman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Gwyneth Paltrow
Over 17,000 websites are dedicated to her

More info on VipStars.

Another Google Aquisition

2006-12-24T13:12:00.000+05:30

Yes, Google recently acquired Endoxon. Endoxon was the company which had pioneered Internet mapping solutions through it's drag-drop-click-zoom interface in online maps. Endoxon had predated google maps by almost six months. This acquisition will enable Google to leverage analytical capabilities and improve functionality of Google Earth and Google Maps across Europe.

Creating a Buzz This Holiday Season

2006-12-24T09:52:00.000+05:30

As we become more and more hard pressed for time, our social existance becomes even more difficult. This time around the year is perfect for making an impression and even more making the closed and dear ones realise that we are there for them.

I landed on this website for Online Flower Delivery and found something intersting which this enterprise has, these are

Florist Direct Flower Arrangements

Field Fresh Flower Delivery

Both of the above sound interesting from a consumer's point of view, one can get freshest varieties of her / his choice. Also, it offers a diverse selection of gift baskets, gourmet food etc.

So in case you are planning to create some buzz through your online gift giving, it might be worth to look at it.

WEB 2.0, Money and Mankind

2006-12-24T07:06:00.000+05:30

All of us blogging, posting videos, podcastings, contributing to online encylopedia's and even using mail platforms like gmail are using web 2.0. More recently AT&T's Blue Room which is an interactive consumer entertainment site comes under Web 2.0.

So what is WEB 2.0? In every case of a web 2.0 enterprise, people collaborate with companies and contribute to sites. Web 2.0 is the "Participatory and Dynamic Web" More readings Here At an institutional level Web 2.0 companies represent the second wave of technology advancements and company formation. Web 1.0 companies generically are said to be formed between 1993 and 2000. Formed after the bubble burst, web2.0 offers a "more aggressive presence through self-publishing, video blogging and podcasting" (Source: Alan Weinkrantz from SATechBlog.com).

Moreover, telecom companies are fearing a threat from Web 2.0, Web2.0 is affecting the US political strategies. Interestingly, average Joe like me has been named the Person of the year by Time

Still confused about Web2.0, digg it.

Related / Source: Risemedia

33 facts about Guys

2006-12-22T20:55:00.000+05:30

Interesting mail forward I got today, I never knew guys can also be too complicated.

33 Facts about Guyz, believe it or not

Guys like their gadgets & bikes more than a girl. Guys don't actually look after good-looking girls. They prefer neat and presentable girls.
Guys hate flirts.
When a guy says he doesn't understand you, it simply means you're not thinking the way he is.
Guys may be flirting around all day but before they go to sleep, they always think about the girl they truly care about.
When a guy really likes you, he'll disregard all your bad characteristics.
Guys go crazy over a girl's smile.
Guys will do anything just to get the girl's attention.
When you touch a guy's heart, there's no turning back.
When a girl says "no", a guy hears it as "try again tomorrow"
You have to tell a guy what you really want before he gets the message clearly.
Guys love their moms.
A guy would sacrifice his money for lunch just to get you a couple of roses.
A guy often thinks about the girl who likes him. But this doesn't mean that the guy likes her.
You can never understand him unless you listen to him.
If a guy tells you he loves you once in a lifetime. He does.
Beware. Guys can make gossips scatter through half of the face of the earth faster than girls can.
Like Eve, girls are guys' weaknesses.
Guys are very open about themselves.
It's good to test a guy first before you believe him. But don't let him wait that long
Guys hate it when their clothes get dirty. Even a small dot
Guys really admire girls that they like even if they're not that much pretty
If a guy tells you about his problems, he just needs someone to listen to him. You don't need to give advice
A usual act that proves that the guy likes you is when he teases you.
Guys keep secrets that girls tell them.
Guys think too much.
Guys fantasies are unlimited.
Girls' height doesn't really matter to a guy but her weight does
Guys tend to get serious with their relationship and become too possessive. So watch out girls!!!
Guys are more talkative than girls are especially when the topic is about girls.
You can truly say that a guy has good intentions if you see him praying sometimes.
If a guy says you're beautiful, that guy likes you.
Guys hate girls who overreact.
Guys love you more than you love them IF they are serious in your relationships.

Does this all make sense?

Internet Marketing

2006-12-22T12:59:00.000+05:30

In one of my previous posts on Link Popularity I had wrote about some ways to bring traffic to your site. As per the latest research 70 - 80 percent of prospective customers use search engines / search directories to find content / product / services related to their needs. In light of this, it becomes imperative to successfully market yourselves and your products. But given the technicalities involved it is not everyone's cup of tea.

Successful online marketing depends largely on your ability to identify those that provide the best opportunity to reach your target audience in a scalable and cost effective manner. There are several online marketing oppurtunities available right now. But, before one decides on her / his internet marketing strategies one should focus on these three

Brand awareness
Audience development, and
Customer retention

I have been planning this for long, I came across this internet marketing firm that is offering

Search Engine Optimization
PPC Bid Management, and
Trusted Feed services

All three mentioned above target the Internet's major search properties so as to bring your target audience to your site. In case you are planning to start a venture or are planning upon some internet marketing, get an understanding of the firms offerings. Might Help !!

Last Secret of John Lennon

2006-12-22T12:50:00.000+05:30

The FBI has released the last 10 documents from its secret files on slain Beatle John Lennon that had been withheld for 25 years on the ground they could prompt "military retaliation" against the United States. Some of the excerpts from the documents

Only well known information about Lennon's ties to left-wing leaders and antiwar groups in London in 1970 and 1971
Lennon "encouraged the belief that he holds revolutionary views ... by the content of some of his songs."
Lennon "emphasized his proletarian background and his sympathy with the oppressed and underprivileged people of Britain and the world."

Source: Reuters

Tech Top 50 Companies

2006-12-22T12:25:00.000+05:30

Recovering from the bubble-bursting years of 2000 and 2001, longtime tech sector bellwethers such as Intel, Dell, IBM, and Microsoft found their growth restrained in an economy in where tech spendings have been registering slower growth rate. Couple this with the selling prices that have been showing a downward trend. It was a gloomy picture.

So what have been the reason behind growth, here are some excerpts from an article on Business Week. Some of the key aspects of growth were

Innovation Scores Big: Apple's iPods, Google adverts
Gobbling for Growth: Mergers and aquisitions are the order of the day
Good old-fashioned financial responsibility: The Amkor Story

More info / Related: Bweek's interactive gallery

Online Phd

2006-12-22T11:59:00.000+05:30

For the past few months I have been thinking for studying further, given the task at hand it is extremely difficult for me to leave job and pursue another academic stint. Came across this interesting proposition from Capella University which is offering Online Phd

CAPELLA UNIVERSITY is an accredited online university offering 76 graduate and undergraduate spelicailisations in business, information technology, education, human services, and psychology, and bachelor’s degree programs in business and information technology. It serves students from nearly 63 countries.

I think once my present assignments are reduced, I might look for more information for this. For now it is a national leader in online education. This sounds as a promising idea to me for pursuing further academic interests.

Related: www.ncahigherlearningcommission.org

Choosing an ecommerce Solution

2006-12-22T11:40:00.000+05:30

For long I have been looking for some info regarding this,

There are three main ecommerce solutions available in the market today, viz

Amazon.com/E-Bay/MSN Shopping as an eCommerce Solution
Templated eCommerce Solutions
Custom Developed Solutions

While the Amazon model is easy to implement it lacks flexibility and there is no option for product configeration. Templated eCommerce Soultions are comparatively inexpensive and great for small businesses but sometimes are transaction based. Most imporatantly they are difficult for optimising for search engines. Custom developed Solutions on the other are as in the name developed to your specific business requirements, it is also great for established ecommerce providers, and large businesses looking to go online.

I still have some questions though which I will put up in the later posts. We can get further information through this article on How to Choose an Ecommerce Solution

Rich Daddys of the World

2006-12-18T15:35:00.000+05:30

Here are some statisics, courtesy Rediff. Probably I am in a Statistical Mode (puns intended) today.

The richest two per cent of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth
Richest 10 per cent of adults accounted for 85 per cent of the total global assets
almost all of the world's richest individuals live in North America, Europe, and rich Asia-Pacific countries. Each of these groups of countries contribute to about one third of the world's wealthiest 10 per cent.
The second group of richest people belong to China, while India, Africa, and low-income Asian countries dominate the third group.
37 per cent of the richest reside in the USA and 27 per cent in Japan.

Off I go for a beer!!

Idle Funds, Suitable Investment

2006-12-18T15:18:00.000+05:30

In case you have some money that is lying idle with you, it is always better to invest. Since most of us either lack the clarity of market movements or are hard pressed for time to follow the trends. Both of which put us in a fix regarding investment decisions. More so with the globalised regimes, cross-country performance further affects the overall financial performance.

As opposed to buying stocks, in my opinion a more prudent approach would be investment in precious metals. For eg: The World demand for silver now exceeds annual production, and has been increasing every year since 1990. Given the past trends the prices of precious metals in bound to increase and pay good returns.

Came across this interesting investment opportunity in Silver. See it!!

ecommerce and Media

2006-12-18T15:06:00.000+05:30

Adults and teens in the USA will spend over 3,000 hours in 2007 consuming media. That’s the equivalent of 5 months
It’s estimated that on average just over one week of people’s lives will be consumed by online activities during 2007
The total amount of media consumption represents an approximate increase of 10% over 2000

You must be thinking what is the use of this statistics. More so why this?

This is because as we are progressing towards a Connected Planet, it is becoming or will become more difficult for marketers and advertisers to grab and sustain the attention of the audience. The above statistics are from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007 (PDF)

Related entries / Source: tamingthebeast

IE 7, Security Against Phishing and High CPU Usage

2006-12-18T14:50:00.000+05:30

Internet Explorer, the ubiquotus browser by Microsoft got an uplift this October with the release of IE7. The major focus behind this was phishing protection, designed against malicious Web sites that trick users into handing over their personal information.

Inadvertantly, the feature in IE7 that protects against fraudulant websites, in some cases could bog down computers running Windows. This could happen when a Web page contains many frames or when a user browses many frames in a short time. Microsoft has quietly released an update for Internet Explorer that fixes a problem with the browser's phishing shield. In case you are a user of IE7, this phishing fix is available on Microsoft's website.

Related: Article on ZDNET

Your Site's Link Popularity - Ultimate Step To Your Search Rankings

2006-12-16T12:45:00.000+05:30

So how do you drive traffic to your site, easiest answer is create quality content. But how will an enterprise which has a quality offering get people to their site and ultimately to their product offerings. It all depends on how well your site is placed on the Google search results. If your site is placed within in top 30 results of the Google search results, chances of people flocking to your site are high. Beyond the first 30 results, in my opinion, the chances of people trying a different set of keywords increase.

I came across this interesting topic on link popularity today. But that is later.

Here are my 2 cents on the myths and realities of search rankings

Google considers both on-site and off-site factors when deciding on your search rankings. Some of the onsite factors may include, assigning Meta Tags on your pages, though there are contradictions in this statement, some say that Google does not consider Meta Tags while others say that it does
Off - Site factors roughly are said to be of 35 - 45 % importance to Google's search criterion or simply the algorithm

Experts claim that what Google really looks for now is the quality and quantity of links pointing to your website. This leads us to question, whether getting 50 links from websites with good page rank is better than 200 links from websites with lower page ranks. I read at the aforementioned link that 1000 links from different websites with low levels of Page Rank work better in increasing your rankings within the organic results of Google.

Further, Google looks at

Where the link is placed on a website, more value is given to a link within the textual content as opposed to a link at the bottom of the page
Text that surrounds the link
Title Tags and SEO factors like H1 Tag and META data
How words are related to each other, this is more related to the words of the page where the link is originating from

Then, how do I increase my link popularity

Press Release Distribution: Make the content of your Press Release interesting enough for the publishers to write about
Purchase Links: Not most effective as you do not get the best links and many times not within the textual content
Link Baiting: Your will have to come out with unique and popular link content
I will not divulge the last thing because as a blogger I believe that it is important for us all to realise the importance of collective enlightenment. You can read this here on a post on Link popularity.

So You Have An Idea

2006-12-15T18:57:00.000+05:30

I wont Waste time, here is your community / audience

1 Go to CrowdSpirit
2 Define your best ideas along with your community investors
3 Test your prototype
4 Customers purchase your products

According to Engadget, it is one of the latest internet buzzwords, some devices proposed include a GPS device and a radar detector..... huh Do check out the intersting suggestion on Engadget.

Automobile Insurance - Understanding, Options & Choice Making

2006-12-14T21:16:00.000+05:30

For the past few days I have been trying to find the optimum insurance policy for my vehicle. Choosing upon an insurance plan has always been a problem. There is no doubt that most of us end up choosing the wrong policy.

But, more importantly, before even choosing the best policy, it is important to know safe driving tips and techniques. I came across a safe driving manual when I was searching for Car Insurance Rates and landed on this page. This manual has been released by Geico and is available at http://www.geico.com/auto/safety

Coming back to insurance, right now I can say that

Know the rules and regulation of the area before deciding upon a policy
Build scenarios where you might need insurance cover for eg: what in case my friends take my vehicle and crashes, or what are my options in case my car is totaled in an accident. A good option may be to refer the Learning Center at the aforementioned link
As there are numerous service providers, try getting quotes from them. An easy option would be get the quotes online which is available at the aforementioned car insurance rates link

What Pays in Advertising, An Enthusiast Viewpoint

2006-12-11T13:14:00.001+05:30

Everyday we see several advertisement campaigns on the Television that position / reposition a product in the minds of the prospective consumer. It is important to realise that the consumer today is overloaded with information, which ultimately reflects in poor brand recall.

In the light of this the job of an advertiser becomes difficult to the extent that he / she have to ensure that the message does not loose its product focus. Many an ad campaign that we see today definitely brings smile. Simply from a marketer’s point of view, a smile on the face of the viewer is not what we want. What we want is the smile on the face of our consumers and especially in the case of our prospective consumers, which will eventually result in positive brand recall and ultimately in the purchase decision. It is here that the product orientation of the advertisement campaign becomes important.

Many of us will remember the Fevicol Advertisements (TVC shown below) which started way back on 1990 and still have not changed their brand positioning statement or punch line i.e. Yeh Fevicol ka Mazboot jod hai; totega nahi (This is a Fevicol bond, it won’t break). The remarkable point in the punch line and the overall message is that it has not deviated from the product. Creativity here is utilised to showcase a product and never it has overshadowed the product.

That brings us to the important question of creativity overshadowing the product. A very impressive and widely acclaimed TV campaign was Waah Sunil babu (view Storyboard here) by Asian Paints. This campaign was launched somewhere around 2002, and the aforementioned punch line widely captured the fantasy of the people and became a matter of common parlance. Right now in 2006 many of us would not be able to correctly recall which brand the above punch line was associated with.

Both of the above TVC’s were exceptional; the only difference lay in creativity. In the case of Fevicol creativity juxtaposed a product in the minds of the consumer and in the case of Asian Paints creativity superimposed itself on the product, so much so that the punch line still is a hot cake but the product has moved on to another positioning statement, which is Kyunki har rang kuch kehta hai.

Related: Print Campaign of Fevicol, Asian Paints review by Ravi Dixit on Mouthshut.com, download Fevicol TVCs and participate in a contest.

Fevicol Print Campaign image from vivekshah.wordpress.com

Vote for Taj

2006-12-05T19:28:00.000+05:30

For years it has been among the favourite tourist spots in the world. It is an eloquent demonstration of the undying love of an emperor. It has withstood the change of times and is an inspiration for lovers.

It is Taj Mahal.

Almost everyone waits to see the architectural marvel that is the taj, at this juncture The Taj is waiting for you. Taj Mahal Along with 20 other contenders is up for a new listing of The Seven Wonders of the World.

The New Seven Wonders Foundation, a privately-funded Switzerland-based organisation, is asking people to vote for places that according to them should be in the new 7 wonders of the world list.

The beauty of the process is that it is people who across nationalities and beliefs would be deciding upon what is best.

We can cast our votes here.

Related links: On Wikipedia, my previous post regarding doubts over architectural history of the Taj

To Smoke And How Not To Smoke

2006-09-22T17:36:00.001+05:30

Smoking Kills, no body can deny this. Several reasons are given against smoking. These include

It killed almost 5 million people worldwide in 2000. One in Ten of all deaths in the world is due to smoking

Half of all teenagers who take up the habit will be killed by it

Tobacco kills one out of every two people who smoke it. It increases the risk of 24 deadly diseases including cancers, heart disease, strokes and bronchitis

Of late Anti-Smoking lobbies in India are gathering momentum. They are increasingly getting vocal in their cause of tobacco eradication. Now with the support of the Government their mandate is going to get at least some recognition. Add to this some film celebrity, it sure is going to get some attention.

The above advertisement and news items do not effectively appeal. There is no reason why smokers including me do not get influenced by it, even though all accept the dangerous side effect of smoking (both active and passive). Yet again why does all the social marketing done against it, fails?

Probably, one of the reasons is that we consider smokers as one. The smoking class can be divided into three age groups basically, which are Adolescents (age 13 - 15 years), Teens and Young (age 15 - 30 years) and Mature (age 30 and above). For every category there are different reasons for taking up smoking and there would be different reasons / motivations for quitting cigarettes

Adolescents take up smoking primarily they get inspired by others around them who smoke, it primarily is the curiosity that induces an adolescent to smoke. But for a teenager or a person in the age group up to it actually is peer pressure, work pressure, to show off or just a new found expression of financial independence. For the Mature category, which by now is so inured to nicotine that it accepts it as a way of life.

We have different motivations for smoking and hence we need different enablers to induce quitting. Different strategies are used to do this; all are used broadly across the categories. The foremost among them is the FEAR FACTOR which primarily works best on an Adolescent as he / she is more prone to get influenced without questioning. In the case of a young person, fear will not work as he / she is predisposed to ignore all such suggestions about the ill effects of smoking. What works best here is PERSUASION. The mature group has emotional issues attached to it, it is his / her family, that will act as the best persuader to quit, but this also can be questioned in terms of appeal as the smoker has now hardened enough to ignore such appellations. But still, it is only in this age that EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENTS are the most and it is only the emotional persuasions (like the fate of the family) that can affect the behaviour.

The above advertisement will appeal only to the young class and it would not have any affect on the other two categories given the message content.

Given so much disparity in the audience, how do we induce the desire to quit?

We can use the FEEL GOOD FACTOR, why cannot we portray a person who does not smoke and is healthy for his / her age. All the smokers recognise the bad effects and they also recognise the benefits of not smoking. Then why not we use positive persuasion and reaffirm it in the minds of the people. At least this would ensure that people do not ignore the crux of the message.

A person takes up smoking because he / she willed to and in many cases of people who left smoking it was their desire to quit that induced a positive action. I believe we should let people decide what is good for them and accordingly act. And we can enforce this decision making process by spreading the positives of not smoking and not the other way around.

Munnabhai: ei Circuit, bole to lage raho

2006-09-04T08:07:00.001+05:30

This is a film review of Lage Raho Munnabhai, which incidently is absolutely hilarious, I mean the review too. This review has been done by one of my seniors or rather Super Seniors, Praveen Morchhale from the Institute of Rural Management, Anand. I still have not seen the movie but given this, this weekend is booked.....

Bole to, bande mein hai dum, review mein hai dum.....Vande Matram!!

The Review:

Munna : e circuit, bole to lage raho chalega kya..kya botla tu.

Circuit : Bhai, chalega nahi..ye to dodega..100 % dodega.

Munna : Apun ko bhi khuch khuch aisaich lagata hai..ye film ko bhi public pyar ka jhappi jaroor dega..Ee circuit Lekin lage raho me alag kya hai. Apun ka Mumbai film sala sab imported chori story per banata hai.....wo kya bole usko.holiwood imported

Circuit : Bhai ye apunk ka khallas India ka story hai.puccka apun ka Idli Sambhar..wada pav..... original screen play and mind..Mind bole to no copy..kya ..ye "Dal-pizza" nahi hai bhai..bole to..INDIAN. touching heart story..

Munna : Kya bolta tu circuit?

Circuit : Sach bhai. Aur apun ka Gandhi ji to bhai India kaich hoga na..

Munna : Ee circuit. Jok kai ku marta hai..Gandhi ji aur India ka?

Circuit : Ee bhai tum bhi. Gandhi ji ..apuna ka Gandhi.purana wala..danda chhap.....Old is Gold.....not imported…...Bhai man gaya appko bhai Gandi koich bhul gaye...lekin ek bat sach sach bolu. bhai Sanjay Dutt aur Arshad ne fillam me comedy accha kiyela hai.. Bole to Basu Chatariji / Hrishikesh Mukherjee type ka comedy hai bhai..

Simple dialogue, no vulgarity, whole family entertainment..mind blowing..touching heart..good song

Munna : circuit ye tero ko English kab se aane laga.. khuch gadbad to nahi na..tu bhi fillam banarela kya.?

Circuit : nai bhai.. wo kya ki apuna ka kanta chal riya hai..Wo English bolti hai..to apun bhi toda coaching woching kar riya hai...bhai impress karne ka hai.Please Bhai chalo na Lago raho dekha ate hai weekend per..

Munna : tu bolta to Apun ekela jayega. Baccha logo ko film dikhayega to wo apun ko chaku goli marega circuit. Hindi ka film to chori murder kaisa karne ka ye sikhata hai..sab bigad dega baccha logo ko..

Circuit : kya bhia tum bhi..ye film iasa nahi hai bhai.baccah log khub enjoy karega..Aur bhai akele jayego app to bahut nuksan hoga Money ka..

Munna : kyon ?

Circuit : Nuksan hoga bole to eisa ki.... Bhabhi akela baccho ke sath jaygeya.....to ek show ke bad dusara show bhi wo log dehega Jaror.Double bar.2 time bahi...to bahir tumhara to jeb khali na..

Munna : tu bolta to chal sab dekhte hai..sala apun family ke sath kab film dekha last time..yadich nahi apun ko…Lekin Circuit film accha hai na..teri haddi tod dunga accha nahi hua to..samjha le..

Circuit : Bhai..appun hai na udhar...Gaurantee se bolta hai... Jaldi karo nahi to black me ticket kharidana padega..Wo bhai apun jaise logo ko..bole to.....

END RESULT : Munna Spent Rs. 600 for family happily this week. And all came smiling..laughing..

Memoirs of Tomorrow goes official

2006-09-02T19:18:00.000+05:30

Its always hard to start an enterprise, and if it is a dreamer like me who try to (a)malgamate creativity with cash flow projections, one can add as many zeroes as his / her creativity permits.

Whether this is possible or not, that should not deter me or other dreamers like me to at least have their own business seal. So here it goes for Memoirs of Tomorrow

GET YOUR OWN HERE

Way we Advertise

2006-09-02T01:00:00.001+05:30

If somebody would ask me what is the best thing on TV, I would say, The Advertisements.

I find this new Rahul Dravid advertisement on air these days rather amusing. This advertisement is being aired by the Heroes Project, which is a national initiative that works with media organizations and societal leaders in India. This initiative is doing a commendable job of bringing together Indian Media, Business houses and Societal leaders like sportpersons and filmactors on a platform to put forward an idea of AIDS awareness creation. But, all due respect to their noble intentions, purely from the advertising point of view I would rather say that the advertisement in question misses to convey the point.

How? Advertising is primarily about two things

1 Creativity ( I know 99 % of the people, including me, would say this as the first thing. It ofcourse encompases many more things),

but more importantly advertising is about

2 Creating a Message that Lasts, a message that lasts in the deep recesses of the audience' brain, which already is being bombarded with excess information.

The real task is bundling creativity with creating a message that lasts, and that too in a time limit of as low as 30 seconds. This is daunting and many of the advertisements that we see now a days lack one or the other. In this advertisement (read the below text as spoken by Rahul Dravid)

First Sentence: Walking onto the field with no protection, Foolish isn't it?

What Rahul Dravid is doing along is padding up for the field, which gives an impression that he's trying to promote some cricket accessories. The moment you see the red ribbon, you realise that this must be an AIDS awareness campaign, but what he means by the field then.....Hmmm, that is interesting

Little understanding of advertising that I have (though I left the books long back), here lies the problem. At the first we are trying to focus upon a problem directly and then we are choosing similies to convey the idea or is that a pun?

Second Sentence: And yet people do the same thing, don't play with your life

If somebody misses to notice the red ribbon he will remain under the impression that this is a sports referal.

Third Sentence: Don't take chances with AIDS, protect yourself and others

Only after this line that we get the message, which is avoiding AIDS and not a sports accessory.

This Video can be seen here

Still though, Walking onto the field thing is an interesting simile or may be I'm too weird.

The Humourous world of Melvin Durai

2006-08-31T10:23:00.001+05:30

Melvin Durai, was born in India, raised in Zambia and brainwashed in America. So to speak. If you've never read his humor columns, you're in for a special treat.

To quote from his website:

On this warm afternoon, the professor is teaching three ambitious students how to communicate with Indian customers. Professor: "Okay, Gary, Randy and Jane, first we need to give you Indian names. Gary, from now on, you'll be known to your customers as Gaurav. Randy, you'll be Ranjit. And Jane, you'll be Jagadamba.
Now imagine you just received a call from Delhi. What do you say?"
Gary: "Name as tea?"
Professor: "I think you mean 'namaste.' Very good. But what do you say after that?"

Read this article here

All of Melvin Durai here

And what does humour mean to a lazy blogger like me - Copy Pasting and spreading the word around

Funny English

2006-08-27T19:17:00.001+05:30

English is a funny language, our diversity makes it funnier.....Just see below

In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a hotel in Athens: Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 and 11 A.M. daily.

In a Japanese hotel: You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox monastery: You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant: Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

Outside a Hong Kong tailor shop: Ladies may have a fit upstairs.

In a Vienna hotel: In case of fire, do your utmost to alarm the hotel porter.

A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest: It is strictly forbidden on our black forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men and women, live together in one tent unless they are married with each other for that purpose.

In a Czechoslovakian tourist agency: Take one of our horse-driven city tours -- we guarantee no miscarriages.

In a Rome laundry: Ladies, leave your clothes here and spend the afternoon having a good time.

At a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

More such things here

Pluto isn't a Planet; WOW

2006-08-25T14:17:00.000+05:30

No body will ever understand how happy I feel today, Pluto is not a planet! !

Yes, that is what I wrote during my half yearly General Knowledge examination in grade three. But the moronic teacher marked the question wrong, I bet she will have to eat her words right now. It was the only examination of my life where I got close to 100, but because of this silly blunder by the teacher I got 99. All I could do as a nine year old was to accept my knowledegeable teacher's point of view. I feel like I am going to sue her for ruining my grades.

Fate it is said is destined to be with those who believe, and I believed. It took 18 years by the International Astronomical Union to prove my point and August 24, 2006 marks the relegation of my instructor's views.

When Pluto is nearing its closest approach, it initially seems as if Neptune is about to catch up to Pluto. But Pluto speeds up due to the gravitational acceleration from the Sun, stays ahead of Neptune, and pulls ahead until they meet again on the other side of Pluto's orbit.

I bet she is from Pluto, and like many other Plutonians in the world she wanted us tiny toddlers to accept that. But the world with its HUMANS was not happy by Pluto's inability to clear its neighborhood. She might have felt proud that her planet at times gets closer to the mighty Sun than Neptune. But who gives a damn to these emotive thoughts of planets superceding each other in the race to perambulate the Sun. Sadly, the teacher did.

As for the International Astronomical Union, kudos, for you had the courage to stand up against a neurologically handicapped tyrant that was my teacher. Be warned that your union is now going to get divided into two fragments, one that will believe Pluto is not a planet and the other that thinks the otherwise. Many Plutoians much like my teacher will have considerable stakes in promotion of the second class. I warn you to ensure that such fragments be nothing more than asteroids who strike once in a while or have mass not more than UB₃₁₃,

As for the Teacher, here is a word of wisdom.....

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

-- T. S. Eliot

Money More Money, Yes Honey!!

2006-08-23T18:03:00.000+05:30

How much is too much?

When it comes to money, there is no word like too much.

My Grand Father used to earn Rs 359 a month, which he claims, was enough to feed his family army of eight kids. When my father started earning, he started at 15 times of what granddad earned, that was just enough to feed two of his kids. I stated at 7 times what my father earned in his first job, I am single and it is hard to manage my expenses ;)

No matter how much, money always is too little?

Without money, we are in poverty
With money, you are my property
If you are very ugly, don't worry
There is expensive plastic surgery
If you are one who is totally boring
Spend, spend, spend and stop worrying

- Sylvia Chidi

Money the only god,
Earning the only prayer
Spending the only religion,
It's the only thing we care.

- Akash Kulkarni

I live to earn; you live to earn. Is there anybody who earns to live?

When I'd Die

2006-06-14T20:24:00.001+05:30

When I'd Die, I know you would be there, like I have always known you, demure, gullible.
When I'd begin to gasp for air, you would hold my hand like ever
When my light would begin to fade away, you would not shy away
When all my pains turn numb, you would still not succumb

I would then remember everything,
Your first sight
Your furtive glances
Your first smile
Our first touch

The pains you and I shared
The joys we lived with

And as I'd lie dead, I know you'd also have left; with me you are also as dead

You'd want this again, I know our love will yet again begin

Yes I know you Life, our love will yet again begin.....

Bhutia it is.....

2006-06-10T17:19:00.003+05:30

Germany. The German authorities have finally disclosed the identity of the mysterious man who jumped over the fence during the football match between the Germany and Costa Rica as Bhaichung Bhutia. Few would recall Bhutia as the only Indian footballer worth a kick.

Constable Whorely Pedophire, described Bhutia as deeply disgruntled with India not being able to partake in the world cup. Bhutia was found out be on a high dose of cocaine and morphine, and perhaps it was in the high of the moment that he decided to take a high kick, only to forget that one kicks with legs. Bhutia fell like a goalkeeper in a busty buxom photographer when actually he had planned to execute his famous Bicycle Kick from behind the goal post. He ended up receiving free kicks from the photographers on the periphery of the ground.

Bhutia might also face molestation charges from Ms Surly Neverlaid, the buxom women whose lap Bhutia fell into. Ms Neverlaid claimed Bhutia compromised her propriety and commented "what the fuck, I see two footballs". Ms Neverlaid refused to acknowledge that Mr Bhutia is a star Indian Footballer, "Had he been a footballer he'd have known that handling the ball is a foul, but he tried to", said Ms Neverlaid. She reiterated that he did not jump to execute his so-called famous Bicycle Kick but he tried to outrage her modesty. Surely, Ms Surly Neverlaid had a point.

The Indian Ambassador to Germany Ms Shanker went on record to say that there was no clarity over whether Mr Bhutia tried to take a kick or consciously tried to get close with Ms Neverlaid. She tried to brush off the event as an isolated event. She said, "This was the result of a lascivious mix of cocaine and morphine" later she corrected lascivious with lecherous.

Meanwhile, back home, the situation took an ugly turn when Women Right's Association of India demanded a complete ban on Mr Bhutia's professional engagements with East Bengal. On the other hand the Communist Bengal sees it as a capitalist ploy to destroy Indian football.

"Bhutia is an emotional person, which had just overflowed. Perhaps he should have taken some time for the opportune moment", his coach Mr Thupden Rabgyal said. He did not clarify though what he meant by opportune moment, if it was for the Bicycle Kick or for Ms Neverlaid.

The political rank and file of the nation is anguished over the event with sympathies and support for Mr Bhutia flowing in from all the directions. Mr Vajpayee today broadened the meaning of his remark about Rahul Mahajan that "mistakes do happen in young age" to include the middle aged too. Perhaps he could have said "To err is human". But it does not mean that he has a generous viewpoint over cocaine use

All in all the situations remains tight legged; Mr Bhutia is right now planning an exile in Columbia

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a satire, none of events mentioned herein, ever happened in real life....

Love's Labour Lost

2006-06-08T08:02:00.001+05:30

Jefal Ayesh, a Palestinian fell in love with a married woman Wedad Mustafa whose husband is associated with Al Aqsa, a militant organization on the Israeli watch list. Jefal and his paramour decide to get married by removing the only obstacle, her husband Muhammad Khamis Ammar.

Israel which is on the lookout for Ammar and his commander Hammoudeh Ishtaiwi, comes to Jefal, blackmails him for the illicit affair, and Jefal who along with Wedad become informers for Israel.

Israel ultimately kills Ammar and his commander only later to be found out that Jefal was the traitor against the Palestinians who are fighting tooth and nail for statehood. Jefal is dragged blindfolded on the street, numerous shots fired at him from all ends. Later Wedad is hauled on street and killed in the name of family honour. Wedad's four children now stay with their grandparents

For some this might be a pot boiler, an apt story for Hindi movie or may be also a Hollywood flick. This has all the ingredients, love, sex, deceit, murder, villains, terrorists, conflicting national interests, murders and two petty mortals. The irony is that this is for real. Guardian Story over the event

Some might say that they deserved their fate; others might feel a bit sorry for the two and the four children who will now live as a martyr's progeny and a traitor's descendant. Ironic isn't it.

Who is to be blamed for the tragic fate of these two lovers, howsoever illicit their companionship be; I do not know why I feel sympathetic for the two.

The false patriotism over nationhood, the fight over race, religion and lifestyles does not do any good to the vigor and vitality of humanity. It is only further weakened; those who survive, survive with pain, anger, mistrust and become the potent fuel for fire against compassion.

On the one hand, the world is seen as the Global Village, on the other primordial thoughts of demagogic leaders and their followers widen the chasm. Who wins and who loses out is question for history.

Equality, respect, inclusive being are just cliched expressions and have nothing to do with the reality. The situation remains the same on whichever side of chasm we stand.

Tragic, isn't it

Does this ring the bell ?

2006-06-06T17:00:00.000+05:30

Increasing number of people are using mobile phones for secondary features as cameras, mp3 players etc. Around 44 percent of the people in the world use their handset as their main camera, 67 percent expect their phones to replace portable music player.

68 percent Indians use it as the main camera. For some this would be bizarre but the Value for Money in Indian context is the varied uses an application offers. Another example of the Indian Value for Money would be the TV market where a television is judged more by the sound quality it offers.

But this is not enough 72 percent of the people use mobiles as an alarm clock. I had the habit of putting my mobile in the corner pockets with alarm in the vibrating mode as the vibrations on the wrong end helped me wake faster ;) I do not wonder why 33 percent won't mind losing their wallets than misplace a mobile. Count me on that too.

Some details of this study by Nokia can be found on BBC

Vodafone has come up with a study that shows how current mobile technology would increase productivity, improve patient's health and enable greater access to health care, here

This is interesting:

"The mobile phone is now a common artifact in myriad public places, offering a means for social connection for the user and unsolicited melodies, chirps, and half-conversations for co-present others." This is an interesting study on perceptions of mobile phones in College Classrooms, and can be found here

Want more? read this

Shag the Hague Baby.....

2006-06-02T12:51:00.001+05:30

The first Sex movie I had seen was at the age of 11. Vividly I remember those moments of The Girl from Trieste that exposed me to the regions then unexplored and how can I not mention the Hard Hunted Girls that has remained my favorite for the last 12 years.

But this is hilarious; a new political party has come up with a mandate to decrease the age of Sex with minors from 16 to 12 years. Now this is Tight!! And God Bless this would not stop here, sex with animals should be legalized if we go by this outfits' claim. Gosh I feel like howling now.

Now this is called a fresh approach to politics, I presume many a parents with children less than 16 years will willingly support them. Or the bard owners willingly opening up their gates for some shag in the nature, God, I hear a donkey mooing in consent.

Endnotes: What would be the party mascot ?
A horny bull with a humane face !

The Invisibilty Cloak and me.....

2006-05-27T20:07:00.001+05:30

What will I do if I get something like this?

I'll still use my deodorant
I would share my room in Maurya Sheraton, New Delhi with a new guest everyday
I'll make a video "Me Myself and My Urine" and post it on You Tube (geez I'm weird)
I would return to my office in night to download a movie
Perhaps someday I'll make Memoirs of an Invisible Man Part II, where I will invisibly dance around trees with Gracy Singh and Amisha Patel, wait for this blockbuster till I am able to invisibly loot Mr Om Prakash Chautala
I would ask Mr Arjun Singh in a typical Chidambaram tone, "Might I kick your Ass Sir, please?"

Those of you thinking what on earth I am talking about, it all started with Amit Varma

Here's a cheap trick to try at home, Stick a webcam on your back and hold a laptop in your front with screen facing out. Anybody will see right through you..... Want to know more, Hop here

An Open Letter to Hon'ble Human Resource Minister Shri Arjun Singh

2006-05-24T21:37:00.001+05:30

I wish I could stand there with those doctors who are braving the batons, facing water canons, getting stomped and yet rising. But even if I am not there with them, I wish they could know that many others and I are with them, atleast ideologically.

As a matter of fact, reservation had never been an issue with me as long as there was a seat for me to fight for. But, this is reckless, firstly reservations were for a 10 years, then again 10 years and now the latest salvo. How long will you harp on the same tune.....?

Let me bring some facts that I presume have miss the benign information of our elected representatives, as per the 55th round of the NSSO Survey in 1999 – 2000, the sum total of percentage ST and SC graduates in Rural and Urban India was 2.3 % and 15.6 % respectively. This is almost ten years after the Mandal I was initiated.

Source: Meeting the Challenge of Mandal II, The Hindu Dated: 22 May 2006

If Mandal I was very effective then the condition of the downclassed should have improved as a result of the legislation, unfortunately the answer is negative, given NSSO findings on education. It would not be remiss to assert that the very premise on which the Reservation Theory was based is flawed.

Further, we widely recognize the spill over effects of an initiative, that in a very broad terms are the indirect benefits of the initiative undertaken, mainly measured in terms of access to education, change in lifestyle, in savings and in consumption patterns. Here also as per the NSSO findings the effects have been minimal, considering the ten-year period involved.

NSSO, which is a government-recognized body, puts the percentage of Indian OBC population as 32 %, as of now, quoting again NSSO, OBCs occupy 23.5 % of the university seats (Read Here). The facts do not make much of case for reservation. In case the fresh wave of reservation spree is on the same lines as the previous then this seriously needs some rational thinking. Hindustan Times finds that nearly one third of the of the quota for the SC and ST is not utilized, consequently, the void remains.

The solution lies in things which are starkly different from the realities as being projected, the way out of the current socio-economic situation lies in market, free play and competition and the State assuming a regulatory role alongside ensuring the fulfillment of social objectives.

The solution lies in investment, it lies in development of Infrastructure, there still are 66822 villages in India that still do not have Village Public Telephone, of these 14183 are remote and far flung villages, (Read Here )

It is no denying that Government initiatives augur well in intensions but somewhere down the line it is target that rules, target here is not beneficiary upliftment but the focus remains on beneficiary coverage.

Our country is vivid with examples of alternative strategies to tackle the actual development problems These may include N-logue that takes communication to the rural populace in an affordable manner as well as an alternative source of employment and information. (Read Here and Here). Information is the key to empowerment, what could be a better example than Drishtee. It provides employment oppurtunities, reverses rural migration, enhances e governance, access to education, health and insurance.

Performance Review after two years of UPA Government puts 66000 villages as not having road connectivity, During the year 1955 annual percapita Water Availability was 5277 cubic metres by 1990 this fell to 2464 cubic metres. Given the current demand projections the per capita availabilty is likely to drop below 1000 cubic mertres. Reservations will not help out here, but the solutions are Tarun Bharat Sangh Here and Here, N M Sadguru Water and Development Foundation )

The solution lies in enhancement and promotion of Research and Development, it lies in forward thinking and preparing for the challenges that we have to face as we integrate ourselves with the global economy. Biotech, Nanotech, Multilateral Cooperation, Trade Promotion are the catchphrase. Nanotechnology is an upcoming field, it can have deleterious effects on our agriculture, and how can we prepare for that? (How it can affect us)

Did we ever understand why an initiative like E-choupal resulted in an increase of around $ 2 per tonne for a farmer (Case Study by Michigan Business School and Harvard ) whereas on the other hand, the Rural Employment Generation schemes like SGSY and SGRY (for which SC and ST are the focus beneficiaries) are satisfactorily judged on the basis on numbers of training provided and number of trainees covered? ..............No we did not understand.....

There are cases that have made a positive impact on the social and economic patterns of a village. (To name a few: HP Kuppam i Community, Project Employability - Lafarge India ), Mixing Ecology with Economics - Heubach India.

Do we ever realize why projects like HLL i-Shakti have been more successful than many development initiatives by the State that target women as the prime beneficiary? Perhaps the sooner we understand this, the better it will be for National Level Policy making.

None of the initiatives mentioned above have been based on caste computations, their principal objective is to provide avenues that expand the horizon of the people to explore a rewarding income alternative.
These alternatives reduce the dependence of the populace on traditional means of earning
These alternatives positively affect not only the people but also the economy of the region.
Lastly, these alternatives are based on mutually rewarding proposition for the people and the implementer.

Inclusive Growth has now become the buzzword in the policy documentation, but what better alternatives than these can be mentioned, of course there are many others too. These initiatives focus on poverty, social empowerment. Caste has never been the prerogative or is the least criterion when deciding upon the course of action.

I only tried to present the picture as it appears to me, I might be wrong somewhere I quote a fact, but I've tried to present with the latest, in case you are more updated, please do correct me.

Pissettiquettes

2006-05-19T22:24:00.002+05:30

All this and more at FUGLY

9 - 11 fiasco

2006-05-17T19:05:00.000+05:30

No body on earth would plan destruction on his / her on ground just to prove his / her case. But I guess in US this is possible. In one of my previous rants I visualized Bush planning a biochemical attack on Afghanistan. But this was far from reality and was just a figment of my imagination.

But what follows now is something more closely linked to reality, how much, is a question that needs an expert. Everything on earth is susceptible to probe, 9 - 11 as we distinctly know was the handiwork of Alqueda. Is it? Really.....?

A new video 911 In Plane Site has been released, the video and its makers doubt if this really was the deed of Alqueda. The video is an eyewitness account of firefighters, reporters and other people. It claims that photographic evidences suggest that a plane did not hit the Pentagon. To quote "BEFORE the outer wall had collapsed showing only one 16 ft. hole. Many people do not realize that the outer wall did not collapse until a full 20 minutes after the initial impact" and "Given that the outer wall of the Pentagon had not yet collapsed and the only hole is approximately 16 ft. in diameter - how does a jetliner over 44 feet tall and 125 ft. wide fit into that hole as shown in the crystal-clear and close-up photographic evidence from the Pentagon?"

Another hypothesis posted is that the WTC collapsed due to explosives attack. This image though a bit blurry raises a few more fundamental doubts, this is the image of the Woolworth Building that was close by the then twin towers. Reading it reveals another blasphemous analogue.

Meanwhile, a new video has been released by the Reuters on the Pentagon Attack Here.

Fahrenheit 9 11 bamboozled others and me alike, with this video I do not know what I going to happen. But somewhere I believe nothing will happen besides leaving us as an enlightened passive being.

If you are really interested, the I part of the video (54 minutes) can be downloaded from Here

Other links to the video Here and Here

Update 1

Taj Mahal or Tejo Mahalaya.....

2006-05-13T19:44:00.000+05:30

I am not judgmental, nor do I have any misconceptions about me being an evangelist of the lost pride. Neither do I carry any hate agenda. Yet, as a citizen of a liberated country I believe the truth should not be hidden, if it exists.

All of us know about The Taj, this piece of architectural excellence has been inscribed in the World Heritage List . It is known as the Mausoleum of Mumtaz Mahal to the world, Indian Government too promotes it as ShahJahan's ode to Mumtaz Mahal Link 1 and Link 2

But there is a missing link in the history of The Taj. I have come across some articles that claim Taj Mahal as exactly not built by ShahJahan and that its construction predates the rule of ShahJahan. Here it is claimed that Taj is not Mumtaz's tomb but an ancient Hindu temple palace of Lord Shiva (then known as Tejo Mahalaya). This architecture then known as Tejo Mahalaya was usurped by ShahJahan from Maharaja of Jaipur, Jai Singh. In his book Taj Mahal: The True Story (ISBN: 0-9611614-4-2), Prof P N Oak, claims that ShahJahan admitted in Badshahnama to have taken an exceptionally beautiful grand mansion in Agra from Jai Singh for Mumtaz's burial.

Prof Oak has further gone down to assert that linking Taj Mahal to Mumtaz Mahal is illogical on two counts; first her name was not Mumtaz Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani, second observation though it is less palatable to me claims that "one cannot omit the first three letters 'Mum' from a woman's name to derive the remainder as the name for the building- Taj Mahal". A more believable argument that follows is that the term "Mahal" has never been used for a building in any Muslim countries from Afghanistan to Algeria.

Further, scientific claims like carbon dating of the riverside doorway of the Taj by Prof Marvin Miller of New York revealed that the door was 300 years older than Shah Jahan.

Writings of travelers like Johan Albert Mandelso and Peter Mundy who visited Agra in 1638 and 1632 respectively. Mandelso made no reference to Taj and Mundy's writing suggest Taj as a noteworthy building well before ShahJahan's time. Mumtaz Mahal died in 1631.

To me this was being too credulous, but what follows now is something that will for sure render any reader to doubt the Taj as Mughal architecture.

In his website Stephen Knapp has gone down to prove that Taj Mahal was infact something more than a mausoleum and it for sure has visible Hindu (I would prefer Indian for Hindu) architectural influences.

The first thing worth notice is the two flanking identical building on the either side of the main building. Only one these are a mosque, the real catch is that the direction of the mosque does not point towards Mecca as opposed to most mosques which are designed to face the Mecca.

The second important thing, the architecture of the Taj has prevalent Hindu Influences. The frontal view of the Taj is octagonal, Hindus believe in 10 directions, the pinnacle pointing to the heaven and the foundation points to the nether world. The 8 surface directions make it a total of 10 directions claimed to hold sway on Divinity and Royalty.

The biggest catch I believe is the pinnacle atop the dome, The Hindu horizontal crescent and the coconut top together look like a trident from the garden level. Islamic crescents are always oblique. Moreover they are almost always complete circles leaving a little opening for a star.

The image to the right is the Naqqar Khana or the Music House. Close by stands a mosque; the proximity of a mosque to the Music House is incongruous with Muslim tradition. If Taj is a Mausoleum, then it definitely needs silence. A Music House close in a mausoleum makes it inconsistent with the architecture.

Embossed designs of this blooming 'OM' is drawn over the exterior of the octagonal central sanctorum of Shiva where now a fake grave in Mumtaz's has been planted. While perambulating around the central chamber one may see such 'OM'.

These are only few things that I feel are pertinent enough to share. All this and more can be found here, Itihas Patrika, Marvin Mills, Prof P N Oak, Badshahnama references page and BBC's view.

I am not a religious zealot; I don't feel in disputing the views as expressed by the history and those by these articles. The reason I wish to share is to an extent ideological. The figure below shows the share of the top ten states in Domestic Tourism.

Clearly, the state of Uttar Pradesh is at the peak, it accounts for 24.4% of the total revenue generated from domestic tourism. It does not take much guessing that most of these tourists definitely would have gone for The Taj.

My point is these tourists come to visit Taj Mahal as an edifice of Immortal Love, but somewhere there also is story that also speaks for itself. There is truth, even if it is not widely accepted or that has to be proven in a more elaborate and scientific manner. This reality, if it can be said so, should also be open for the general public.

Indian culture is known for being a potpourri of diverse influences which to an extent live in close harmony with each other. Any sane individual in my view should willingly honour the diversity of views.

Image Courtesy: Stephen Knapp and Ministry of Tourism

Happiness is Smile Shaped

2006-05-12T14:16:00.001+05:30

I come from a city that goes by the slogan, "Muskuraiye ki aap Lucknow mein hain" (Smile coz you are in Lucknow). To an extent I believe that is true for Lucknow because you have TIME (yah, I mean BIG TIME), with an ambling pace of life in Lucknow you can have the leisure of passing a smile, a very genuine smile.

But I do not live in Lucknow any more; my expressions of happiness have changed to a brief nod for an approval of a humorous incident, it's also not that I was smiling ear to ear in Lucknow (like Ajit Jogi). In the entire hullabaloo that my metro life is, smile is an economic commodity; I'll deal with this later when I talk about Gross National Happiness (GNH). It is also a customary gesture that has to be extended irrespective of your mood. I guess almost everyone has at a point or the other said Hiiii when she / he really means is Bye or Get lost Bugger, lemme live.

A few days back I happened to meet a batch mate from IRMA who had come to Delhi. This lady or my Mom, that was my nick to her, though she is junior to me by some years.

Barring a brief discussion over coffee when she came last time to Delhi, I was meeting her formally after almost a year's gap. What followed was a series of discussion over a range of topics till 01:30 in the night.

In a year after graduating from IRMA, I find myself a changed individual. May be because of the job my priorities / ideologies have changed. Something I was expecting to be true on her part too. Vividly recalling her as a person who would smile for free (remember smile is an economic commodity) I had a belief that she might have changed too. To my pleasure she was the same ol' Mom of mine.

By the time it was 02:30 I was taking her to the guesthouse, she had a flight in the morning. I had positioned the rear view mirror on the bike so as to see her. And she is smiling. Anything worth mentioning that moment was that it was clear road and that the breeze was cool. Nothing I felt worth smiling about. But she is smiling, not once or twice but all throughout the way. Maybe there was something in the air, the rhythm of the breeze, the dancing leaves on the trees; I don't know or I never felt this was worth noticing.

Small things you see..... we miss them in our search for the real happiness.

On my way back after dropping her at the guesthouse, I looked back in the same mirror again and again just to witness the same serenity that was she. All I could see around was a dilapidated hoarding, the dust and Delhites rushing for home.

Content is in everything but material and Smile is just an extension of it.....

June 06, 2006

2006-05-02T15:28:00.000+05:30

It is already 23:45 on the night of June 05, 2006; Bush Jr is sitting with his closest aide Rumsfield discussing a covert Biological weapons attack on the Taliban tomorrow. "So how do we go about it?", quipped Bush.

"Dunno, I'm all jittery, we've waited this for long. Ever since Bush Sr gave the go ahead for the project, our scientists have been developing this toxin that will explode all the nerves of the affected within the next five days" Rumsfield sighs, "But he'll die in next 48 hours though".

Bush: "But we need to get our men outta there, right pal?, How many do we have there? I guess it won't be right to risk our soldiers' life in that desert?"

Rumsfield: "Ya..we don't need a domestic catastrophe, an American getting affected will be the Democrats's advantage. To the contrary I was thinking why not explode a car bomb in Baluchistan, and we can claim that the deadly Al Kaeda has access to Biological weapons too.This will strengthen our case against Al Kaeda, Taliban as the abettor, and even Iran as the ally to global terrorism"

Bush: "I dunno pal, I'm not good at this, have to sleep now, take your chances, you have my consent"

Meanwhile somewhere in the hills of Kandahar, Muhammed Al Zawahiri is confiding with his close lieutenants that another Indian who is a Senior Technician with Alhuda Constrauctions, will be kidnapped. "But now we'll not give the kafir Indians any time, we'll straightaway behead the kafir"

"We've got our packages inside America again; I guess we can strike tomorrow, Fidayeen are waiting for your signal", the lieutenant claimed wth a victorious smile on his face

"Ok, that's a good news, ask them to offer their sacrifice Tommorow" Zawahari said before running out of his ever changing temporary abodes
=====================

Is this really going to happen on June 06?, I do not know whether June 06, 2006 (read 06/06/06 or 666) marks a diabolical trajectory in to the turn of events on the face of this earth. Presumably the day has been prophesiesed as the Satan's Day. The day for the birth of the antichrist, if we go by the prophesy the day will be marked by numbers of death, accidents, suicides and what not. Do we really need to believe this, or is it just another piece of netlore floating on web, I do not know.

666 as per some calculations is the number associated with the Satan / AntiChrist. The number 666 is just an old myth. The reason why it is associated with the devil was because in the year 666, lots of people died due to the black plague. This was because of poor medical conditions of course, and no one could stop the plague. People were dropping like flies and no one could explain why, the only reason they could think of was that the devil was doing this to them. They burnt down many villages to try stop the plague. Therefore, the number 666 is associated to the devil to this day. Is it just a number or bit more than that, I cannot guess

But, Here is what people mathematically prove that 666 infact has some diabolical bent to it. Another interesting view can be found Here . Wikipedia though has a whole lot of information over Here

TVS Apache ..... Precursor to MouthShut review

2006-04-08T22:36:00.000+05:30

I am adding a few images of my TVS Apache as a precursor to my review on the bike at MouthShut.com

Apache..... isn't that a chopper in the US army, that is what I felt when I first heard of this new entrant into 150cc bandwagon. Pulsar sure does rule the roost in the segment, but when posed with a question of a new bike, I had made up my mind to not buy what every second person in my age group (even lower) wants.

This has left me with little choice as I had already dismissed the market leader; Apache came at the moment. I was decided that I would buy this only,

Though the bike is a bit low in height, the design aspects are excellent and overall outlook is of a very compact bike that has been engineered as a high power city bike. Though you can always zoom on, given a 150cc engine there always will be a lust to push the throttle to the max.

The bike for sure zooms up rapidly; I am told that for 0 to 60 kmph it falls after Pulsar by just a second at 5.7 sec. But how many of us will do that, I leave Schumaker to try this when feels so.

The instrument panel is also sleek; Apache is mix of Unicorn, Pulsar on the design aspects. The two modes on the meter help you know whether you are in the cruise mode or in the zoom mode (which obviously takes more petrol). The other thing is Clutch which is just smooth and feels better than most other bikes in the segment

On the economy aspects, I am a bit more than happy as I did not expect the petrol consumption by Apache this way. I still have to recheck this, within nearly two weeks I have filled up the tank with 4.5 litres; as of now there is still around 1.5 litres left in the tank. Now with the meter reading of 231 that leaves me with an economy more than 70 kmpl. Cool isn't it, but so far I have not gone into the zoom mode i.e. I hover around the economy mode of 50kmph for the while.

The bike sure has some problems with the transmission, one needs to put in some effort to change gears. Besides this I really am not impressed with the Gasox suspension the Apache offers, I very much feel the jerks as they would feel on my older splendor and pulsar.

A Good number of people claim of vibrations when they drive Apache, sincerely I do not consider that worth talking about, as there is no bike that does not have vibrations. All due respects, vibrations are ok to me.

One of the good things about TVS bikes will definitely include the Headlights; Apache too has a very good Head Light beam. I am told that with 1-degree change in the positioning of the bulb, there is a 10 percent change in the headlight beam quality. Two thumbs up to TVS for the impeccable quality.

Another thing that impresses me is the rear brake lever that has been positioned nicely enough. As a result I am not unnecessarily pushing the lever when I do not need it. That will save a lot of wear and tear. Front disc as usual are excellent.

Update as on 01 September, 2006: If you are looking for a high power commuter bike which also is economical; GO FOR APACHE, I still am getting an fuel economy of 60 - 64 kmpl (with catch that driving speed in less than 55 kmph. But if you are looking for a balls in your mouth feeling; GO FOR PULSAR and if you want performance GO FOR UNICORN

Creepy..... Hell Yeah

2006-04-05T14:49:00.000+05:30

Have come across a somewhat creepy website that makes you send rather ghastly mails or wishes to the community; may be even to your parents. I believe papa is going to advice some psychiatric help to me for an appalling mail that I had sent him.....

This is what I have for you too.....click the link below

Link

What you do next is your own volition.....

Smiles.....

Windows VISTA

2006-04-03T21:47:00.000+05:30

Windows are coming out with a the new and the much awaited VISTA.... Here are a few screen shots of which on my comp..... VISTA has an excellant visual appeal....

VISTA has an excellent user interface

Hey this is not excatly VISTA but a transforming pack that will give the computer the whole new VISTA look.....

More details and the programme script can be found at Link

About Nitin Srivastava

2006-03-28T16:14:00.005+05:30

Nitin Srivastava espouses to be a libertarian, well at-least; a geek (kind-off); wannabe writer (yes, he is); a photography enthusiast (may be more than that) and an info-junkie. He claims to be a surreal persona with varying degrees of proficiency in all of them.

He is a technophile, this is when he has no formal education in IT or it's related fields. Rather than reading web-sites, he spends more time making sense of web-page source files. It won't be remiss to state that he is addicted to source files. He seeks webmasters' forgiveness for he is only compensating for his loss of technical know-how by venturing behind the web-pages.

He is a rural management graduate, he works towards strengthening a sector that is getting glamorous with every passing day: Agriculture. No, he is not a farm labor, neither does he directly get involved with farming (he's been there - done that), rather he works on policy issues for strengthening private sector involvement in Agriculture.

Sundown Burnish 1

2006-03-17T23:59:00.001+05:30

B: Hey, that is the way job is done

N: So, you think that he can do everything right, right.....is it? I will have to say yes when he feels so or I will do anything he asks when I know its shortsightedness

B: No thats not what I mean, He has experience, you need to learn from it

N: Ok.....what about an idea he has no experience of, what will I learn then. What will I do when he knows nothing of it.....What about positioning an altogether new thinking, what about creating a niche in the competition, What about raising the levels to creativity based on financial logic? Till when do I have to swerve out from the same old rigmarole?

B: This is the system.....that is how the work is done..... that is how people rise..... Non-conformism doesn't help

N: Yah this is the system, you have boss, you have work, you have salary, but good boss with good work and good salary is mirage. But, you rise, rise up to the occasion to rise in the career, isn't it?

B: You don't get me, it's about being flexible

N: Yah it’s about being flexible till you bleed, it's about adjustment till he steps on your shoes, isn't it?

B: Well, dunno, its 7:30, its about time.....seeya tomm

Confu`Vrooom`sion

2006-03-17T13:45:00.001+05:30

I believe several people, when they write, portray an image of being confused…. confused with what they have to chose from. But this is far from truth, these people have a deep-seated understanding of the issues that lie before them.....they simply present the nuances..... just enough to confuse the petty mortals like me.....

Confused ? .....am I .....don’t know..... but I am posed with the question of commuting, of dragging this moribund soul from home to office, of simply adding some spice, some jizz to the unwanted process. The question is of buying a bike.

Globalisation for sure has added more choices than ever before to our basket, but on the intellectual level rather I should say intellectual levels with varying degrees of appellations, globalisation has added to bewilderment. The tumultuous changes of the last decade following the deregulation of the automobile industry are provoking unprecedented clamour among the automobiles companies to stay on the top.

I look at the positioning statements of various bikes that we have in the market.....

Pulsar, is Definitely Male, by god it is the commonest of the commonest of the males hitting the road today..... I cannot buy this and why cannot Bajaj Discover the fifth gear.....

Avenger, the so called cruiser, it will make me Feel like God..... Gosh with an average of 25 - 30 kmpl, it will make me a beggar who feels like God..... can't buy this either

TVS, does not have a resale value, Holy cow, is this a criterion before you buy, don't believe people think of selling something before they could even buy it. Still, going by the dictum, I'm confused

Hero Honda, why have they stopped CBZ, my favourite, Splendor, oh come on.....I’m not that old family man.....Unicorn, hey that is a performance bike, but with little styling

Somebody tells me TVS is coming with Apache, another 150CC performance bike but with an exception of an average of 55 - 60 kmpl. I don't know if I have to take it with a pinch of salt or a bag full. Whatever, I am waiting for it to launch in Delhi. I am though impressed with the styling, had a dekko on the website tvsapache.com

Performance, Looks, styling, average, market share and so on..... the tamasha is striking gold for makers.....

Hey..... did I tell you my choice.....

Weird Extensions

2006-03-16T23:31:00.000+05:30

As Bachhi Karkaria in one of her columns put it..... If you think of saving a Pakistani wife what will happen to La`whore. I'd say bring her to India.....we'll Bang`al`whore