Mobile Repair Culture

On the last night of my most recent trip to Delhi I spent an evening trying to understand India's informal mobile phone repair culture by visiting Karol Bagh Market. Throw in the noise, heat and smells of Delhi and you already have a rich consumer experience.

As in Nehru Place, Delhi many of the mobile phone shops and street kiosks offer mobile phone repair service. Many of these guys can strip and rebuild a mobile phone in minutes. How do these kind of services affect the mobile phone user experience? What happens when everyone has affordable access to these kind of services?

Side-note: a lot of the hyperbole surrounding western hacker culture makes me smile compared to what these guys are doing day in day out.

Changing Face Of India

Since many people in India's countryside often need to share one phone, Nokia's new models include features enabling multiple users for each handset. For the first time, the phones have a call-tracking application and a multi-phonebook to make phone sharing simpler for customers at the bottom of the pyramid. The low-cost cell phones will have FM radio and even a flashlight at prices as low as $19.

Kallis King - A tribute to the allrounder

I was a huge Kallis fan when he came to India for the first time and mesmerized everybody on and off the field. I must pay tribute to Jacque Kallis. Recently I’ve been on a private little ‘Kallis watch’ as he approached 235 Test wickets, Sobers’ mark. His 3/31 yesterday took took him to 236.

Kallis passed Sobers’ 8032 career runs ages ago, and now he’s above him on the wickets table. So Kallis is officially the top allrounder in cricket history.

Kallis for all this while faced criticism for batting for himself or getting runs against the minnows.But this is the main point: Kallis is not Ponting or Lara or Sehwag. He is not Viv Richards or Barry Richards or indeed Garry Sobers. He came into the South African team when ‘90 for 5’ was our all-too-regular scoreline.
In his seventh Test, he had to bat all day against a full-strength Australian attack in Melbourne to save the match. This is how his playing personality was shaped. Kallis took the approach of Rahul ‘The Wall’ Dravid, the path of Steve Waugh, not Mark – eliminating risk, protecting his wicket, allowing others to bat freely by being ‘Mr Reliable’. Calling this selfish is to misunderstand the interplay that cricket imposes between team needs and personal goals. Calling it slow or boring is to ignore one of cricket’s delights, the inch-by-inch battle for domination, as different from the Lara or Sehwag approach as trench warfare is from mounted charges, but no less enthralling.
Criticizing Kallis for not batting like Lara is like criticizing A R Rehman for not playing as well as Adnan Sami– it is beside the point.

Kallis’ real problem is that he hasn’t ‘marketed’ himself well. Steve Waugh and Rahul Dravid are rightly revered for their role and contributions – but Kallis is Steve Waugh together with Jason Gillespie in a single player, Dravid and Javagal Srinath rolled into one. He deserves his spot up there with Sobers.

Please notice I have not used 'Sachin's' name anywhere. People please stop comparing him to ANYBODY. He is just ONE.

Shashank

Monopoly- Microsoft, Google

There are only a few people in this world who enjoy monopoly in their industries. Carlos Hemu, Microsoft, Google, all middle east royal families and George W. Bush enjoy it to an extent that there exists no competition and no threat in near future. For purpose of this blog, I will stick to Microsft and Google - my all time favorite topic.

Monopoly exists in industries due to an entrepreneur's unique vision and industry leadership. Microsoft had the unique vision of PC's and its implementation on a marketing and strategic point of view was undoubtedly the best ever we had. All those guys who hate Microsoft cannot help acknowledge this fact.
Google on the other had a very simple vision to remain simple. Thi was google what it was in the beginning but just after that, they grew from strength to strength. Page ranking improvements, web page crawling, shadow programming, google maps, ok I can talk about google's history and features forever. They changed how internet is used forever. Today, in the business field, they are best known for their unique revenue model for AdSense and AdWords.

Yes, there have somethings in common - innovation, untapped opportunity, growing market, absence of competition and CRITICISM.

We forget to realize these companies are successful for the same reason they are criticized for.
Microsoft has a policy of a fixed license fee per machine for the OS. It costs them less than a dollar to make one additional copy/license (marginal cost =0). And the product life is 3-5 years after which the product is replaced by the whole Industry and is deemed to be accepted as a standard everywhere. Its an ongoing stream of revenue which cannot be stopped in a day.

Google took the unique privilege of killing privacy. The success in the later years came to Google not just because of its improved algorithms but success to create bots/robots to read, interpret, execute information about a user in the way it wants and take advantage of the user's RELIANCE on Google. They kept integrating and innovating, resulting in a vast monopoly which was thankfully cut short by a fraction by the Chinese govt.

Today, it is hard to imagine life without Google and Microsoft. There is lot to learn from Bill Gates and Larry Page but what stands out it the acceptance of user after all harsh criticism due to absence of a suitable alternative product. In a world of free trade and free laws, there exists no competition and the entire trillion dollar industry rests on what these companies have to exhibit.

Shashank

Google Again

I got an informal feedback that some readers were not able to understand the 'user' and 'commodity' relation in the blog written day before - Google and its commoditization. What it means is - We, the users use google as a search engine and in turn google showcases this power ( number of users using google) to attract advertisers. So what happens is, the user become the product manufactured by google and consumed by the advertiser. In the mean time as the product is a living thing enjoys the benefits in the transformation. Hope this explains it all, otherwise do not hesitate to leave a comment.

The blog from now on will not showcase any personal diary expressions but have topic specific blogs. Hope this would make a more interesting reading.

cheers

Shashank

Library - Is it still a physical entity?

I write this to get attention of many students and researchers alike who use library as their primary source of knowledge and information. When I refer to library it means the physical building that exists in our campuses and not the E Source E catalogs E Libraries E journals and E etc.
Professors, Lecturers and deep analysts still believe there is nothing to beat the library when it comes to authority, accuracy and depth of knowledge.
On the other hand there are people like me and many others, who believe Internet is 'THE SOURCE'.
If you know how to use it, you can do wonders with it, it remains up to you whether you want to use wiki or scirus or a blogging column or a Reuters' report on WMD in Iraq. It remains a matter of one's ability, perception and the manner in which one can tap the resource on the net. There is information overflow, there is inaccuracy, there is wrong information but at the same time it is fast, vast, interactive, communicative and LATEST. So yes there are pros and cons and such a topic can fuel a debate in a silent sleepy class anytime.

The pic above is a shot of Lady Djanogly Library at Jubilee Campus, Nottingham.

Shashank

Google and its commodization. - New marketing techniques

In today's world of computer ubiquity, we find computer not as a facilitator, or a product, or a service, but its a commodity. Commodity in the sense of 'commodization' of IT has a whole. Its no more a new product or service, its omnipresent and is a commodity.
Microsoft was able to extract oil in it, but Google extracted oil, took it out, made polymer, moulded it, sold products, bought them back , recycled them and sell it again. They did something which was never imagined and it cannot be termed as vertical integration, by no means is it that. THEIR MARKETING techniques, REVENUE MODEL and investment strategies go against the best ever talked about in the best of business schools.
They provide any service you can imagine of and all is free of cost or ARE THEY PAYING you to use their service in the sense that you do not pay for a product or service.

What are they doing? how do they earn?

Their users are not their customers, but their users are their products which they make, and they sell this 'user' to the 'customer' which is the advertisers.
So in a sense it is a win win situation for anybody who is in this circle.
Its the most unique business model ever thought of.
Imagine you get free food at Pizza Hut for just coming and having food there. May be this is what the world is coming to. Advertising expenditure will take over the necessities in our lives and make them free.
Is it not 'that' what Shahrukh Khan does? By actively coming in all interviews, news channels, other movies for free, he creates value for himself and viewers of such shows are products 'manufactured' by him. He goes and sells this to his film producer or whoever.

Are we coming to an age of free commodities?

I would expect active user and reader participation in this. MAY BE YOU CAN TURN MY BLOG TO SUCH AN ENTITY. :D

Shashank

Day 5 - Jourmey

I have a few things to share about Dubai on the way back to home.
I was looking for a subject to write in that day's blog when I suddenly noticed Dhoni in the duty free - yeah you are right, our very own Dhoni.
He was shopping alone with some HOT girl 0 may be 20 or 21 with an attitude like Winehouse. They were happy and gay (ok now i cant use that for a team sportperson when i sighted him like that). So they were happy until I noticed who that guy was in Prada shades at 2 AM in an enclosed complex. i was with a friend and we went up to him to have a chat and a snap clicked with the most popular cricketer amongst the girls. He was calm, warm, no celeb attitude, and conversing in good young hinglish. And that grew attention of fellow passengers. Soon he was flocked by Indians, locals, Sri lankans and I could see the authorities getting worried about it.
We were in Dubai and things were control in a minute, but the best part was i was with Dhoni on the other side of the police controlled crowd.
Got a snap with him, not my biggest achievements, but one thing that impacted me was his behavior towards his fans - absolutely commendable, down to earth and communicative more than photographic.
I would remember this incident because of how different he is projected in news media. From a non Dhoni fan, he's on the list of my favs : Sachin, Sourav, Lara and Pollock. Yeah thats an elite list but he finds it there for his attitude more than his cricket.
Its hard to bear such an attitude when you are being scrutinized by each pair of eyes in public and you are the highest paid sportsperson in a country of a billion.

DO NOT JUDGE SOMEBODY BY WHAT news channels suggest but everybody who has heard of Udayan Mukherjee would know, you can trust that guy blindly - Making millions the easy way.

Shashank

Car manufacturers

I know blogging is not about copying, plagiarising or lifting or however you want to call it. But this beautiful email sent to me by friend, Arpit teaches us finer marketing techniques which I bet cannot be taught at Wharton's or Kellogg's, it can come to you out of passion and the war in the industry itself. Therefore, I blog what I learned from this and defy plagiarism. :)

BMW comes up with an advertisement provoking AUDI without doing a market research how that might backfire them. Stupid consultants, the CEO must be thinking.
Audi says its not new in the field and they are no novice.
Definitely taking competitors' names in the adverts is either dirty marketing or a style statement.
Now these things happened to be none when Subaru enters this fight.

And the style quotient was realized in its class and attitude when we see Bentley showing what it wanted to. Speak for my brand. I hope this is not morphed because i have not done my research either.

Hats of to the marketing consultants and the top executives of the company to work together and fight against each other at such a low stage. OR

Shashank : you never know it was a game plan by the four giants in their niches.

Shashank

Day 4 - Order of the day - serial blasts

Day 4 - 26 July, 2008

Whatever I wrote yesterday seems to be already stale with 16 serial blasts in Ahmedabad. The same agony, pain, destruction and political drama seems to happen consecutively. The strange fact about these (attacks) (blasts) (anti social activities) is that they are amateur, very well planned and not that destructive with a toll of less than 10 people in two days in a dense environment. All this directs to one conclusion they want attention and nothing else. Nobody has come up to take claim or there have not been additional findings by the ATS or any other force. IS it what we will have to continue to live with?
I think by writing on these blasts I give them what they want - attention. Therefore from tomorrow, you will see my blog carrying lesser baggage and get concerned with other simpler and sweeter things in life which might bring more traffic and give my blog an uplift.

Shashank

Day 3 - Another blast and the blame game begins

Day 3 - 27th July, 2008

It was disheartening to see the start of a new blame game after the serial blasts at Bangalore. If amateurs with destructive ideals are going to use ammonium nitrate and make explosives, where are we heading too?

The BJP says there is no check on the rise of terror attacks from the center. The Congress says its a state subject also. In the meantime, Left blames both and launches a multi million campaign on inflation. Again full of chaos and making no sense to the ' COMMON MAN' when he is striving to get home/work in a safer environment.

I was asked funny questions from my friends from Turkey, China, Chile, Germany, Belgium, war countries like Israel and of course the States. These questions seemed funny to me but very conscious and important for them to know.

Who is responsible for the attack?

Who do you think would be behind it?

How does it affect the local citizen?

You ve been at war with Pakistan for almost 60 years. Do you think they would use such methods to obtain Kashmir and divert public grievances.

Do you think a political party might be behind this?

Does it make any difference when 10 people die in a country of 1 Billion + population.

To all this, i just had to say, we are bound to think in a manner in the way the politicians and journalists want us too. They want us to sympathize on attacks at Mumbai trains, we do that. They want us to revolt on attacks at Akshardham we do that. They want us to remain neutral and do nothing when there is curfew at Jammu, we do that. We've become their slaves in today's Information World. Our reactions are no more risen from within with pity, sympathy or agony. You see vengeance, anger, hatred and repulsiveness against the people who perform such acts.

Its not a defense in any way but simply, the manner of our thinking needs to be autonomous and think and look upto with some softness. There is a very different reaction I witnessed in the Indians back home and in London. People in India were little less moved or shaken compared to the people who were here. God knows why or is it all to do with perspectives.

Nevertheless, I feel sorrow for the citizens of Bangalore and all Indians

Singing off for the weekend. - Back to home sweet home ! :)

You can find newbollymusic at facebook also by its name as a group.

Shashank

Laal Salaam

I find this letter beautifully depicting the plight of CPI M in modern India and the basic errors committed by them. The problem remains the voter is too smart and political parties do not often learn from their strategic errors. Way to go for them and all.. liberal article so no offense to anybody.

- Shashank

Red Letter Day

A letter to the Left

Lal Salaam Comrades! Your tenure in government seems to have ended. How different things were four years ago! Four years ago you were faced with a unique opportunity. The 'communal' BJP-led NDA had suffered a surprising electoral defeat. The 'secular' UPA was to take over the reins of government. In a hung house, you with your 60 MPs formed the crucial outside support to the government. At that time you smiled broadly with your hands held aloft with other leaders of the UPA. You delivered sharp sound bites on the Common Minimum Programme, on the basis of which you gave your support. With your best ever electoral performance, it seemed as if the Communists had finally arrived on India's national stage.
Today, four years later, where are you? The Congress government is getting ready to survive its remaining few months in power without you. Prakash Karat's dream of the 'non Congress' 'non BJP' Third Front lies in tatters. Mulayam Singh Yadav with whom you once shared an anti-Bush platform has ditched you and made common cause with your dreaded Indo-US nuclear deal. The CPI has long ceased being a national party and the CPM is preparing to go back to writing stirring editorials in People's Democracy. In a few months, AK Gopalan Bhavan will wear a deserted look. Even the TV cameras will switch off. Alas, comrades. You are men and women of such unimpeachable personal honesty, such depth of scholarship among so many of your leaders and sympathizers. You have stood sentinel against religious hatred and never hesitated to scream out against social evils. Yet in the end, you have scripted your own tragic drama of irrelevance.
Why did this happen? Your first mistake was that you refused to join the government or take on ministerships. You preferred to be the eternal college campus rebel, always oppositional, always agitational, but never responsible, or adult enough to recognize that in this country, managing change is about negotiating a myriad interest groups. You could have taken over portfolios like the HRD ministry or Women and Child Development where your progressive commitments and social sector expertise would have been put to excellent service of the people. But you refused to hunker down and work with processes of governance, instead you preferred to criticise from the sidelines. Perhaps you are just in love with your own youthful avatar, refusing to grow up because you cannot accept that you are no longer fiery and young. Perhaps your rage against the world is simply fury against the inexorable truth of advancing years.
Your second mistake was that you failed to realize that you are aged in a country of the young; you have failed to come to terms with the new India. Economic globalization, despite your consistent opposition, is raging through the country like a wildfire. Like it or not, India's young are rushing towards new opportunities with open arms. Today a constable from Himachal can become a wrestler on the world stage. A police officer's orderly can become an Indian idol. The son of a Congress worker can build a telecom empire. The son of sweepress can set up his own fast food business. A conquering cricket team can be made up of boys whose fathers are railway mechanics and tyre repairmen. Icons of the poor like Mayawati are not dressed in rags and jholas, instead they are proudly clad in diamonds and silk, embodying the tidal wave of aspiration that every reporter sees in the dirt tracks of UP and Bihar. There are lots of things wrong with this New India. It does not have the social conscience you like, it is creating vast inequalities between rich and poor, it is pauperizing traditional trades and providing little hope for those scratching out worms from riverbeds to survive.
But this New India is also shaping itself into an avalanche of upward mobility. You are trying to tame the avalanche. You have stalled pension reform, stalled banking reforms and for long stalled the privatization of airports.You did not realise that keeping airports as a state monopoly was only preserving it as a sector for the rich. That all over the world air travel is dirt cheap precisely because it is privatized. When leaders like AB Bardhan say, 'Baadh mein jaye Sensex' (to hell with the Sensex)he pours scorn on millions of middle class Indians who invest and trade.
But what must lead you to BJP-style atma chintan is the crisis confronting you in your bastions. In Kerala you are factionalised in a way that makes even the Congress look good. You are split wide open down the middle. In Bengal you badly misread what happened in Nandigram leading to shocking gram panchayat defeats in both Nandigram and Singur as well as recently, very important defeats for you in civic body elections. Last year, your protests against joint Indian and American naval exercises got little response from the public. This year your so-called campaign against petrol price hike was largely ignored by the people.
Your opposition to the nuclear deal once again shows your distance from India. Sure, it's a commercial transaction, but why is anything to do with commerce necessarily evil? Even at the height of the Cold War 2 million Indians lived in the US. The links between India and America are so massive, that as a leading economist put it, the Indo-US nuclear deal is an offshoot of a long process of civic exchange with America, not the basis of it. You hate America, but do Indians feel the same? There are important reasons to criticise a country that bombs and invades other countries at will, but there is also the need to recognize that anti-Americanism is hardly hardwired into the Indian DNA.
No to nuclear deal, no to reforms, no to change, no to newness, no to price rise, no to America, negativism seems a reflex action. Your contempt for change, your constant lamentation, your moral righteousness are incongruous in a country shouting 'Chak de India.' Eleven years ago you committed the 'historic blunder' of not letting Jyoti Basu become prime minister because you were unwilling to share power. Today you have committed suicide because you did not know how to use power.
Posted by Sagarika Ghose - CNN IBN

Day 2 - Politics Tamasha

Day 2 - 25th July, 2008

Finally the great summer of UK is coming to an end for me when i will be heading back home. I think this was most the fruitful 4 months spent in UK since i have been here.

I am sure everybody saw the big tamasha in the Parliament on the trust vote day. Lot of criticism and lot of shame. The other angle of the Parliament Paradox is that YES India still is the most democratic nation in the world. A person could come to the top most legislative house and demonstrate what he was being offered (or put up an act of that). I am not defending what happened. But there was a lot of praise in the US NRI media after the incident and coined "Upholder of the democracy".

IS this what we want or is this the new face of Indian politics.

At the same time it is a delight to see "JAAGO INDIA Party" 's advert in India Today - the one with Amar Singh at the cover. If you guys recall it is the same party formed by ex-IITians to remove corruption and bring young intellectual Indians in the mainstream politics. More of Mani Ratnam's Yuva may be.

Some friends, journalists, critics found Rahul Gandhi to be quite mature and articulate in the script he recited in the parliament. It took him 5 hours to write down what an Indian thinks and how was he defending the government's actions by not talking about the transparency in the Nuclear Deal or was he trying to avoid the subject because he knew little about it just like all other INDIANS.

People like to laugh even if Laloo makes no sense in his jokes. Is it just the manner in which he speaks or is it the content what he speaks that is funny. Or is it that the only thing left with him now is his funny manner with no content in it. It was disheartening to see news channels giving him all attention and praise for his crap yet again.

Today's blog was about crisis in the Indian Politics and how helpless one feels about it.

Anyways hope India Performs better on DAY 3. All the best to Sachin.

Cheers,

Shashank

Kismet Konnection

I went to see a Bollywood flick with some masti, fun, romance, comedy, action and the usual stuff. Not expecting any Out of the box or breakthrough stuff from Aziz Mirza. It was disappointing to see how he could not get one of so many aspects right and one could feel he was not following a script. No wonder Shahrukh refused to do a role in it. Yes i am starting a new rumor. :).
It was a tedious task to sit through such a lousy movie making no sense from the top to bottom with no characters defined, Juhi Chawla being wasted in her own sense and bankrupt architect having a LCD.
The only thing to cheer about the movie was the side characters, well potrayed and enacted. Shahid did a decent job and Vidya Balan not being able to find her act together since Parineeta. I would suggest the movie to somebody who like Tashan.

Waste of 3 hours and your money. Not worth a watch.

Day 1 - The Beginning

Day 1 - 24th July, 2008

Today is my first day at blogging. I am getting into the mood of it. Loads of things to talk about but concern of the moment is LSE. Last day at LSE and gotta sum up tomorrow whatever i did in the past three weeks. Had a great time and learnt a lot from my colleagues and made a few friends.

My life is at that moment where everything is calm and balanced and at the same time the whole goal of life seems to be unbalanced where i see myself in 2 years time. So its more of mixed emotions kinds.

Heading to home within two days and all excited about it.

I know it is not the greatest piece of article i have written, but will learn slowly and hopefully steadily. Lets see if patience ever pays. not a big fan of it.

I have this site designed for all commercial reasons and would like you guys to viisit it newbollymusic.googlepages.com

I thought i ll upload this abstract pic i clicked in Bath to show my state of mind right now. Its more of a state where i know my shadow but trying to find myself.

I have no interface for you guys to leave comments so will have to mail me at newbollymusic@googlepages.com

Shashank