iThink therefore iBlog

Sports Marketing – Opportunities and Challenges

2011-01-21T11:55:00.000-08:00

[Originally published in 'Markezine', the quarterly magazine of the club 'Markup' at IMT Ghaziabad. http://www.clubmarkup.com/downloads/Markezine_dec10.pdf ]

Ever since marketing started playing a prominent role in businesses, the frontiers of its reach have been expanding to include new areas under its purview. As businesses diversify and move into the virtual space, new media of marketing are being sought after. This evolutionary expansion has now culminated in online and mobile marketing with social media. During the dilation, the need for marketing sports and marketing through sports arose when the television broadcast of spectator sports gained popularity after the broadcast of 1936 Summer Olympics at Berlin that marked the first live television coverage of a sports event in world history.

The term ‘Sports Marketing’ can sound ambiguous if used out of context as it may refer two very different aspects of marketing viz. marketing of sports and marketing in sports. The former is marketing through sports where a company promotes its products or services by using sports or sport events whereas the latter is promoting sports, sporting events or sport icons. The success of the former is in direct correlation with the success of the latter.

Marketing in Sports:

Sponsorship is the most favoured of the sports marketing techniques used by businesses today. A survey by Ernst & Young predicts that going by the present growth rates, and with two more editions of the Olympic Games, 2012 (London) and 2016 (Rio de Janeiro) and Asiads (China and the one in 2019, for which bidding is still on) and one more CWG (Glasgow, 2014), the sports sponsorship market will be more than doubling across the globe by 2019. This clearly shows that the enormity of the opportunities available for companies with ambitious global expansion plans. India now has just 1 percent share of the current sponsorship deals (90% of which are cricket based) worth $40 billion and they are primarily coming from companies in Clothing (sports), Automobiles and Telecom industries. As games other than cricket gain popularity, companies investing there will not only get singular brand recognition, but also appeal to the customers’ social responsibility quotient for supporting other sports.

In sponsorship, some companies align with a sporting event while others build a strong association with either a team or a player in depending upon the sport in contention. There are distinct advantages and disadvantages in either of the strategies. While charismatic individuals can build trust in the brand quickly, sponsoring leagues or teams reduces the risk of being affected by scandals, bad behaviour or poor performance of individuals. Companies like Accenture, Gillette and AT&T that featured Tiger Woods in their promotions were suddenly forced to rethink their strategies after the recent imbroglio. The challenge here is to choose relevant sports, right team/event and an appealing player to align with for long term mutual benefits. McDonalds and Coke, for example, are long standing partners with the Olympic Games and have always been leveraging their partnership for expansion by taking their brands to wherever the games go.

Marketing of Sports:

As the proliferation of different sports and sporting events engrosses consumers, efficient marketing of sport events becomes a highly exigent task. Different sport federations and teams around the world are competing among themselves for viewership which brings them sponsorship and advertisement revenues besides royalty fee from sale of merchandise that often peaks after the teams’ victory. Relationship Marketing forms a key element of sports marketing and sport bodies and teams can embark on the Web 2.0 bandwagon to easily connect to their fans as in case of NBA and LA Lakers, which have more than 2.1 and 1.6 million followers respectively in Twitter. NBA’s recent expansion through increased broadcast coverage and introduction of web pages in local languages have served the cause of increasing fan following and hence higher revenues. The marketing success of sport events like NACSAR and Nike’s association with sport are often cited examples of the synergy between marketing in/of sports and how it can build a win-win relationship. The key to NASCAR’s success is successful management of their brand as they realize that stock car racing is more than a sport, it’s a lifestyle. Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ campaign, on the other hand, capitalized on the sentiments around different sports and successfully appealed to the consumers’ senses by linking those sentiments to their need to stay fit.

Sports Marketing as a Career:

For marketing students with special interest in sports, opportunities galore with rise of specialty sports marketing companies (e.g. Globosport) and sports focused marketing groups within organizations. VISA, for instance, has a separate sponsorship division that looks into sports sponsorship, among others.

Financial Inclusion - Not a choice but a compulsion

2010-12-31T06:28:00.000-08:00

The seemingly recent realisation of the inevitability of financial inclusion is no act of serendipity. It arose out of various long-made recommendations from studies related to the close correlation between financial exclusion and poverty. With 80% of the country’s poor having no access to formal financial services according to a World Bank estimate, exclusion, it is believed, is one of the factors preventing poor from escaping poverty as it forces them to manage their finances on a cash-only basis without equitable sources of credit. This lack of access also results in the poor depending on non-institutional, expensive forms of credit which often cause debt traps. H.R.H. Princess Maxima of the Netherlands, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development spoke about the significance of Financial Inclusion in achieving development goals in the event ‘Financial Inclusion: A Path to the Millennium Development Goals’ during the MDG Summit in September 2010 at New York. When asked why none of the 8 Millennium Development Goals mentions financial inclusion, Princess Maxima said, “This is because financial inclusion is a cross-cutting issue, financial inclusion is not an end in itself; it is a means to an end. Financial inclusion helps the development of private sector; it helps create income; it generates jobs”. If India were to achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals, especially that of halving poverty by 2015, financial inclusion cannot just remain an option, but has to be a compulsion.

Access to credit at affordable rates remains the single most focussed objective on the part of the Government and NABARD, the apex Development Bank for rural India. NSSO figures state that 51.4% of farm households (45.9 million households) in India do not have any access to credit, formal or informal and only 27% have access to formal sources of credit. Public sector banks and microfinance institutions are expected to play a critical role in providing this essential credit. The concept of microcredit started gaining popularity after the United Nations declared 2005 the International Year of Microcredit and the award of Nobel Peace Prize for Muhammad Yunus. The success of Grameen Bank’s microcredit model, of which rural women and Self Help Groups (SHGs) formed more than 94% of clientele, incited an ontogeny that culminated in the arrival of many such institutions around the world in the last decade. Microcredit, in the recent years, has proved to be a potential candidate for rural empowerment with banks like Equity Bank of Kenya building innovative, profitable and hence sustainable social enterprises. Microcredit from the formal banking system can also help in debt swapping of loans of ultra-high interest rates (estimated to be between 40% and 120%) borrowed through the informal channels. Having said that, it is essential to concede that the Indian microfinance industry is still in its infancy and the proposed regulatory body under NABARD has to ensure that sustainable social business models are practised so that MFIs do not have turn money lenders loan sharking the underprivileged.

Although the primary focus of financial inclusion remains on availability of credit, the importance of savings cannot be overstated. A study in Western Kenya revealed that poor women entrepreneurs who had access to savings had 40% higher productive investment than entrepreneurs who did not. These women were also found to spend 37% more on personal items and 13% more on daily food. Studies have also shown that access to institutional savings reduces indiscriminate spending in poor households and hence often results in the reduction of demand for expensive credit. Besides, the process of accessing savings draws familiarity into banking and financial processes.

The errant weather pattern and crop yields affecting farm sector in India in recent years call for an increased focus on insurance cover for these vulnerable communities. As the low-income groups lack access to adequate risk-management tools, they often fall back into poverty at times of hardship. For instance, when the breadwinner of the family dies or when high medical expenses force families to take out loans against high interest rates, access to insurance can make all the difference. As with microcredit, microinsurance, which covers risk on life, crop and livestock etc., is also believed to possess the answers to some of the aforementioned problems.

The word ‘remittances’ often reminds us of the billions of dollars of money that comes into India from Indians living abroad as we tend to overlook the thousands of crores of rupees of money that internal migrant workers send back home every year. The intriguing story of Tappawalas gives an account of the scale of remittances within the country. Tappawalas, as the Ganjam’s (in Orissa) money courier men are called, carry home close to 500 crores of money every year according to an estimate. Typically, a Tappawala would buy a bank draft with the remittance money in the originating town and he would cash that in Berhampur near Ganjam and reach the village by bus or jeep as he carries cash for 80-100 kilometres amid the risk of being robbed or assaulted. As Orissa had seen in the past, a few postmasters making off with crores of rupees in savings and money orders entrusted to their care by mostly illiterate people, migrants increasingly feel more secure with the Tappawala as his family usually lives in their village. Although illegal, these men serve a long ignored need of the rural migrant population. Such a large scale operation in a small village in Orissa brings to the fore the need for legal, reliable and faster remittance systems that the poor migrant population in India always needed. NABARD recently studied the success of Ahmednagar DCCB (District Central Cooperative Bank) in making remittances easy and believes that it could provide vital cues for emulation.

The two important concerns to be dealt with in offering financial services to the poor are accessibility and affordability. While the established banks and microfinance institutions can take care of the affordability problem, the decision by RBI to allow use of Business Correspondents (BCs) to provide these services in the remote areas should, upon punctilious implementation, address the issues related to accessibility. NABARD’s report prepared by the committee on financial inclusion cites the significant role the BC organisations play. These BCs can be used in dispersal and recovery of credit, collection of small value deposits, and sale of microinsurance products, among others. The report, however, highlights the importance of banks conducting due diligence on NGOs, MFIs or individuals who play the role of BCs to ensure that they are well established and enjoy the confidence of local people.

There are two communication services that can play a vital role in taking financial services to the poor. First is the long existing, trusted, government owned India Post, which has more than 1,55,000 branches all over India, twice the number of commercial bank branches in India. Today, India Post has become a major banking player as it carries 3, 23, 781 crores of public money in its savings schemes and its financial services (which include money orders and payments in MGNREGS) contribute around 45% of its revenues. For it to play a bigger role, the Money Order service has to evolve from being just a means of cash transfer from one person to another to transfer from one India Post Account to another. Besides India Post being a banking service provider, its long serving Postmen can act as BCs and if UIDA’s vision comes true, can also carry the mobile micro ATM devices that provide access to UID enabled bank accounts.

The second is the registered private mobile phone dealers’ network that the banks and mobile operators can leverage. Nokia, for example, has over 1, 60, 000 distributors across India, again twice the number of bank branches. Nokia Money, a service that Nokia piloted with YES Bank in Pune earlier this year has shown remarkable results and Nokia hopes to build its mobile payment and money transfer services into an open ecosystem for profitable financial inclusion. Mobile banking and money transfer is also beginning to be adopted in many of the African countries. In Kenya, for instance, three phone operators had launched the service and enrolled over 9.5 million customers and recruited over 27,000 agents in the last three years. The success of services like M-Kesho M-Pesa launched by Safaricom helped the total transactions reach Sh1.8 billion per day and Sh56 billion per month recently. Taking cue, Indian strength in mobile telephony can thus be leveraged to augment the reach of financial services manifold.

We should not be oblivious to the fact that financial inclusion is not just about providing affordable rural banking services; it’s also about focussing on the urban poor. The challenge ahead for NABARD and other regulators in the financial inclusion space is to ensure that the industry, in the name of social good, does not become exploitative and see that a sustainable business ecosystem that benefits all the stake holders is built.

The MahaMandi Experience

2010-10-31T11:29:00.000-07:00

Dinesh RC

Mainak Kanjilal

Utsav Ghosh

(This post was originally written for Advanc'edge magazine from IMS - http://www.advancedge.com/articles/Basic_Bytes_NITIE_Maha_Mandi_2010.htm)

A strenuous span of 2 years bombarded with assignments and exams, a nightmarish period when sleeping is an unaffordable luxury and introspection becomes a rare delight, typifies the life of an Ivy-league business school student. Experiential learning is a word which is rarely echoed in the hallowed portals of these highly worshipped institutions. As a result, while the sobriety of a 7-figure salaried job is easy to find in the collars of these intellectually supreme demigods, the knowledge of frenzied muddy streets and cramped up lanes that one is learning to design strategies for, in the comfort of air-conditioned class-rooms, is easily lost.

At NITIE, however, every year management students flow out of the campus, into the streets of Mumbai to hawk their wares in their quest for experiential knowledge. Mandi, as the event is aptly named, conceptualized in 2003 by Dr. T. Prasad or Dr. Mandi, as his students affectionately call him, is aimed at plugging the gap of experience and classroom pedagogy.

Besides the valuable experience, Mandi also provides students a chance to work for a social cause; the entire proceeds from the event given to a NGO, Navnirmati. Dedicated to bringing about literacy in terms of elementary mathematics, science skills and competencies, Navnirmiti’s basic objective is to reach all those who otherwise would not have access to good education. The theme of education extends into the products sold also. The Mandi product basket which comprises of primarily these educational toys, are sold by these management students in this yearly sales exercise.

This year round the NITIE students decided to take the event to a whole new level. MahaMandi 2010, as the event was christened involved participants from other B-schools including schools like TISS and K.J. Somaiya. Not only this, the product kitty was also expanded to further include ‘Mandi’ T-shirts and honey. This meant the fledgling salesmen had to segment their clientele before targeting them for a particular product. An arduous task, getting refined with every sales pitch made, while an increasingly slick undertone made sure Mumbai streets could not ignore our budding manager-salesmen.

A culmination of several days work, Mandi justified the hours that had gone into its planning and putting up the show. By the 30^th of June, students of NITIE had segregated themselves into smaller groups handling typical functions of event management like ‘Themes and creativity’, ‘Publicity’, ’Public Relations’, ‘Sponsorships’ and ‘Infrastructure’. And like Richa Agrawal a 1^st“membership to any of these teams was in itself a learning ...An experience which at the onset of management studies is no mean thing”. AIMA or ‘All India Management Association’ recognized this innovative concept for its unique pedagogy that drove a strong sense of social responsibility while engaging students in a hands-on ‘experiential marketing’ lesson in their yearly award function, held at ISB last year. year student of NITIE puts it,

Going back to the making of Mahamandi 2010, the preparations commenced when MIG or the ‘Marketing Interest Group’ at NITIE, came out with the shortlist of 75 candidates on the 30^th of July, who had made it to the organizing committee. Comprising of further sub-teams for Creativity, Sponsorship, Public Relations, Publicity, this formidable workforce took to the fields for making this event a grand success. While the creativity team put their brains to conjuring up slogans, designing brochures, flexes and logo for the event, the publicity team got in touch with the different colleges in and around the city of Mumbai for the purpose of inviting them to participate in this marketing extravaganza. To ensure the excitement only grew, the star-studded flag-off ceremony had the PR team on their feet at all times. And finally making sure the cost-benefit analysis wouldn’t be constrained, sponsors like Canara and Rediff gave generous funds to endorse the cause, for all its academic philanthropy.

On the day of the event, following the inauguration ceremony and flagging off, the buses left the campus taking students to destinations of their choice. The arrangement was so made that all major regions of Mumbai were covered with minimum possible routes. But in-spite of all the operation efficiency and planning, the so-far incessant rain which showed no signs of relenting, yet again proved the genius of Murphy. However far from being deterred, it only made the day an even more challenging and an exhilarating pursuit.

Trying to put into practise what they learnt in class, identifying prospective customers and enticing them into buying the toys, it was as exciting as it could get. After experimenting with options of purely relying on their selling skills versus strengthening the credibility quotient through the social-marketing route, the students could gradually begin to decipher the psyche of the Indian consumer. In the thousands of people who were approached, some rejected outright, while some others were more patient, appreciating of the cause, like the old man selling edibles at Juhu beach, who volunteered to buy merely because some young students were involved.

There were incidences where toys were sold to alumni from NITIE and other B-schools like IIM-A and journalists from popular magazines who intrigued by the activity, chatted with students and recounted similar activities during their college days. One particular gentleman, who initially said that he did not want to confuse his child with more math based toys, after effective pitching from the students, finally agreed to buy four packs of ‘Number Balance’.

Selling on the streets is a tough job, and while some fared extremely well, a good few took time to get into the groove. And by the time most of the groups sold their last products it was close to midnight. As Mumbai entered the early hours of 1^st August, groups of bedraggled and wet students headed back to their colleges, carrying empty bags but with their heads filled with that elusive yet priceless commodity, ‘wisdom’. And that’s how Mandi ended.

To sum up the experience in the versifier’s language, like Aditi Jain, a 1^st year student of NITIE would put it ‘Selling is an Art, And MahaMandi... was just the start’.

From Ambition to Aspiration, From Acquiring to Becoming

2010-09-06T04:40:00.000-07:00

[ This post was written for an essay competition conducted by UN International Year of Youth and Shri Ram Chandra Mission. More details -http://www.sahajmarg.org/essay-event/year-2010/india ]

The topic of the essay may, prima facie, seem redundant to many of us. But in an increasingly material world, where the focus remains on reaching the summit faster and not on living every moment en route, the dissimilarities between ambitions and aspirations remain highly unappreciated. Hence it is, through this essay, the author’s intent to explore the similarities and distinctions between treading an ambitious path and making an aspiring journey.

The English word ambition comes from Latin word ‘ambitionem’, which literally means ‘going around’, and is understood to mean “An eager or inordinate desire for some object that confers distinction, as preferment, honour, superiority, political power, or literary fame; desire to distinguish one's self from other people”. Aspiration comes from the French word ‘aspirer’ meaning “To hope or dream; chiefly after what is elevated or spiritual”. In line with the literal definition, ambition can sometimes, although not always, be driven by external compulsions and expectations or an internal drive to acquire significance. Hence it is not always a deep desire to progress in the path of desire, but rather a compulsive behaviour to prove one’s worth and hence to get benefitted. Ambition is not necessarily negative, but in its urge to reach the top, it does have a tendency to override values, principles and more importantly, the passion of one’s soul. On the other hand, aspirations are driven purely by the soul’s internal desires and passions and are highly considerate of the means of reaching where one wants to. In short, an ambition can convincingly answer questions related to ‘what’, whereas an aspiration can provide answers to questions pertaining to ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ about an individual’s actions.

Ambition, as discussed earlier, is not necessarily an unconstructive value to posses. However, it is essential that an ambition is born out of one’s subjective desires, interests and passions and not out of trends matching common, objective definitions of success. To understand this topic better, one could pose a few questions to oneself and seek answers for those. Simple, as they appear initially, they are questions which reflect the reality of the state of one’s being. The questions are these, 1. What is your passion? 2. How do you discover (or invent if you can’t) your passion? 3. How do you intend to set your ambition based on your passion? Quite clearly, answering the questions is difficult, but if one could answer all the above questions and has no intention of negatively impacting others’ lives, he can said to be an aspiring individual.

The distinction can well be appreciated on looking at people dissatisfied with their jobs. Most of them want to be out of the ordinary, but are not sure what gets them there. Is this self-disparagement really a result of boredom resulting from doing something un-passionate? Is it otherwise because of the frustration arising out of the reason that they too are categorized as just another whatever they are (a software engineer, may be), despite they being smarter and better at what they do? Also, sometimes it appears that what we now know as our ‘other interests’ are more interesting than our daily professional work. Is it really because we are passionate about those or is it because they, after all, take very limited time of ours? One could wonder if these interesting hobbies can remain so if they consume 8 hours in a day, deadlines and targets attached. But upon looking at people cricketers, musicians, actors, writers, environmentalists, social workers, businessmen who are very passionate about what they do, it seems that there are indeed eternally interesting things which people can find. An aspiration arises out of one such passion and hence will remain eternally interesting.

The monetary benefits one gets out of his activity, is not usually the primary focus of an aspiration. It could, however, be an important outcome. Ambition, on the other hand can be focussed merely on the pecuniary and material benefits. Although it sounds derogatory, the intent here is to ensure that ambitions do not end up being mere targets for accumulation of material wealth and they instead become driving factors for one’s spiritual wholeness. As aspirations are focussed on happiness and not pleasure, they are thought to be wholesome and make success a journey and not a destination. Aspirants enjoy every moment on their road of success; whereas ambitious people tend be focussed on the destination and overlook subtle joy that accompanies their route to success.

Since aspirations are guided by internal urge and not any other compulsion, they tend to be a way of life. While an ambitious person tries to fit himself into the shuttle of an unfitting shape and size, aspirants build vests for their comfort and hence the journey is much more enjoyable. Ambitions tend to take different directions when trends change, when the going gets tough and when the paybacks are not as much as supposed, whereas aspirations continue in the same direction, only to further every time a mile stone is reached. Aspirations have the potential to drive excellence, as ambitions cannot always guarantee excellence when shortcuts and workarounds become viable.

The above discussion makes a strong case as to why aspirations are to be key drivers for one’s growth. Instead of reading ambition and aspiration separately, the synergy of the two should remain the object of interest and hence aspiration should play a vital role in shaping one’s ambition. If the goals and ambitions of individuals are pivoted with a strong sense of willingness and urge, they have the potential to unfold an ever-enjoyable journey called life.

‘Groove’d in the Groves at NITIE

2010-07-10T11:32:00.000-07:00

The first day in any new place is probably the most cherished of all for many of us. We tend to look back wondering how apprehensive we were during our initial days in a new place, when there was not need to be. I still remember my first day at college and at workplace, where I dropped in neophobic, unsure whether I’ve come to Ceylon or Ayodhya. My experience at NITIE on the first day is no exception to this hypothesis. First impression, they say, is the best impression and it sometimes gives us a hint of what to expect and in some cases, what not to. Ironically, when I landed at Mumbai, the first impression, as I’ve realized now, happens to be worst I’ve I ever had. Mucky roads, unrelenting rain, unbearable humidity, incognizable language (nope, I don’t refer to Marathi, but Hindi :P) welcomed me to this strange new city. But all these changed the moment I entered into the NITIE campus. Serenity marked the entrance, thickets flanked the buildings in the left, the famous NITIE pond shimmered in the right and distant voices spoke familiar languages thus bringing the taxi drive from Airport to NITIE to a heavenly climax.

During the dinner time that evening, I could hear some new entrants talking about the student induction program (codenamed ‘Groove’) to be held for the next few days. Team Impact, the student committee which is responsible for Groove divulged no prior details about the event which was to begin the next day. Some apprehensive, some excited and some indifferent minds (me included) awaited this most talked about event. The expectation from me was nothing more than a few hours of sleep-inducing swagger talks from the members of faculty and the dreary self-introduction sessions and hence the indifference. But it was not long before I realized why the event was rightly named so.

The evening of June 17th marked the beginning of a series of Groove sessions. As expected, there were student introduction sessions, but we just didn’t end up telling about ourselves, but instead performed on the stage, something that reflected our Unique Selling property (USP). There was everything from dancing, singing, swinging both hands in at once in opposite directions to konnakol (vocal percussion) from students which humbled me. I am sure I didn’t witness anything polymathic that day, but there was some serious versatility in talent in some.

Just as we thought we were done for the day, there came an announcement from our seniors asking us to assemble again at 11.00 PM after dinner. Now, never before in my student or corporate life, was I asked to assemble at 11.00 PM and hence I thought, “They’ve gotto be kidding”, but they weren’t. Lots of group activities followed that night and they made us sweat a lot, sometimes literally too. It was 12.30 AM already and just when everyone thought that we’ve had enough for the night, then came a bombshell, a finance case study assignment that had to be completed by 7 am the next morning. Physical exhaustion was already taking me down and on top it came what was called a case study, something I only vaguely remembered having seen in some business magazines. There was temptation to get back to the room to sleep off the wooziness and let the others in the team take care of this case, but we were warned that there was no impunity for unruliness, come what may. Besides, I never wanted to miss anything in Groove and hence managed to stay put and complete the exercise.

By the end of the case study exercise at around 4.30 AM, we hoped for late wakeup in the morning. But again, there was no let up. There was a campus tour organized for early morning on the next day. As we walked around the beautiful, but small campus we listened to stories about the wild visits that recur in the campus during the monsoons (snakes, lizards, and allegedly a leopard were said to be sighted), and hence demarched cautiously. The early morning view of Vihar Lake and the adjoining Sanjay Gandhi National Park from the top of MDP (Mangement Development Program) hostel was a treat to the eye.

Another session with the professors and the hostel warden followed this at around 10.00 AM. This was followed by another group event which involved conceptualizing and marketing of any product. Some exceptionally creative skills were put on display and valuable feedback from the members of the faculty made it a good learning experience. Our group, which conceived and marketed a touch-abled overhead projecting concept, was selected to be the best.

The next event was in the evening again and we were asked to perform and impromptu skit based on some pun intended topics. Although I could not appreciate the efforts of the students in totality in these skits, (as I could not comprehend some of the Hindi dialogues), the audience response echoed it all. Since there was case study the previous night at around the same time, we expected another one that day and there it was. The day ended with another case study based on Supply Chain Management. It was a lot more straightforward than the jargon-full Finance case study and hence we could complete this earlier around 3.30 AM and get some much needed sleep.

The next day began with rumors of a mystical game to be played by us. As we gathered in our respective rooms designated for our assemblage, the name of the game was revealed. It was called Mafia’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_(party_game). I had little idea on what it was hence was very excited. As the seniors completed explaining the rules of the game and demonstrated the game by playing it in front of us, most of us were already itching to go right ahead and start playing. The whole afternoon was spent with Mafia and the evening was spent in a sprightly and scintillating Quiz at the auditorium. As it happens on most occasions with the team I am a part of, our team missed the opportunity to make it to the finals by scoring one less than what was required :P. Another case study with a similar deadline, on Marketing this time, followed that night, sleep-depriving the battered souls yet again. That early morning completion of the case study marked the end of the groove sessions that allowed us to have a sneak peek of the life ahead for the next couple of years.

The results of the case study contests were announced the next day and three teams were selected for the final round. It was followed by presentations from the selected teams. We could already see from the presentation that NITIE had the best of the minds and I was proud and belittled to be seated amidst them. Besides helping us in bonding better with each other, these sleep deprived three days put us through an eventful, thoughtful and gratifying journey, that helped us understand how important it is to think, listen, read, write, speak, present better in the coming days. We seemed to have got used to the “A case study a night” life in these initial days, some subsequent nights now appear to be uninteresting :).

BiomimiCry – This is no ‘Pun’ny Cry

2010-02-12T09:33:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was no special occasion and hence there were no sirappu nigalchitigal (‘special programmes’) to watch on TV. Hence as most of us do, I kept changing channels aimlessly at a constant pace with little idea on where I was heading to. (The old remote-less, 8-channelled TV sets with limited choice could sometimes serve better for a satisfying TV watching experience). Usually, such an act of mindless hopping would invite ridicule from my father or mother who comes to point out my continuing callousness in handling expensive items at home. But on that occasion, there was no need for a boring counsel as I happened to stumble upon a talk show on “sustainable development” in BBC World Service and being a self-proclaimed champion for the cause of environment and bio-diversity, I decided to stick to the programme and steal some information that I could use for exhortative talks with other less informed audience.

It was only in this show, I heard the term ‘Biomimicry’ for the first time. During my quest to understand what biomimicry meant, I realized that the word ‘mimicry’, as I had understood, did not make much sense when bio suffixed. Upon looking for an answer in the always-helpful-yet-not-everyone-writes-the-truth-there Wikipedia, I finally figured out that the word mimicry also meant this - “Mimicry is the similarity in appearance of one species to another that protects one or both”. Aah, then there was another question that came up - If mimicry, by definition, is related to species and life, why should it be bio suffixed (Greek for ‘life’ is ‘Bios’) to make it sound tautological? As I turned to Wikipedia again, some anonymous benefactor there defined Biomimicry as “the examination of nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspiration from in order to solve human problems sustainably.” The last word in the definition explained why it was discussed in a show on sustainable development. As I read and listened to more on this, I realized that after all, it was not just the nomenclature that proved to be the object of interest.

Going beyond the Wikipedia definition, biomimicry can be simply defined as studying bio-forms around us, learning from them, and finally copying their designs and processes to help us get over the challenges in our daily lives efficiently and sustainably. The solutions we thus derive from nature could be very promising to humanity, either by the inherent simplicity in themselves or by what they imply in terms of hope for finding new ones. Some of the examples of that I cite below (sourced from www.asknature.org , www.n100best.org and BBC World Service) could serve as fitting illustrations of the above argument.

Self-cleaning, water-repellent surfaces - Lotus plants, as many of us have seen, stay clean, thus helping in photosynthesis and they do so without using detergents. This, according to biologists, is because their leaves are made of a nano-rough surface looking like a mountainscape when seen through a microscope. Since the dust particles just keep wobbling on top this rough surface (as opposed to adhering to a smooth surface), running rain water just carries away these dust particles and hence the leaves always remain clean. This concept is now being used to design self-cleaning exteriors for buildings.

More information - http://www.asknature.org/strategy/714e970954253ace485abf1cee376ad8

Fog harvesting inspired by a desert beetle - The Namib Desert beetle, as the name suggests, is native to The Namib Desert, one of the driest regions in the world that gets less than half an inch of rain per year. How does this beetle get water for survival? - When fog blows horizontally across the surface of the beetle's back, tiny water droplets, 15 to 20 microns, or millionths of a meter, in diameter, start to accumulate on top of bumps on its back, which upon filling up, allows water to roll down to its mouth.

More information - http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/beetles-0614.html

You can find several other such mimicking concepts in the sources stated above. All of these concepts are helping us do things very efficiently with limited resources and in a highly sustainable manner.

Fascinating as it is, it’s important to note that the success of biomimicry depends on bio-diversity, which in turn is threatened by climate change and hence thousands of different species are facing extinction today. Hundreds of new life forms, especially marine, are being discovered each day and we are in the risk of losing many of these. Losing a species is not just losing an element in the ecosystem, but also losing forever, a vital opportunity to learn from it. An example for this is the gastric-brooding frog, which brooded its eggs in its stomach and for doing so, it literally turned off and on, the secretion of stomach acids. Had this frog not been extinct, its uniqueness could have been studied further to see if it was possible to find cure for stomach acid related disorders in humans. This reminds us how important bio-diversity conservation is for humans. Having said this, species conservation should not be looked upon as just another ‘useful’ measure since it’s more of a moral and ethical responsibility of humans.

Nature has always been and will always be caring for humans (but not just humans). Humans rarely did but inevitably should care to let nature be natural and in the process, not just stop unhelping other species, but also help themselves.

The Connected Climate

2009-12-07T21:07:00.000-08:00

Gareth Mitchell

With big thanks to Dinesh for hosting this on his blog, here’s my account of recording the recent programme on energy production in India for the BBC’s The Climate Connection season.

The first sign of trouble was a heated exchange that suddenly blew up between an armed security guard and our driver Antony. Though the raised voices were in Tamil, it was clear that the guard was deeply unhappy, pointing angrily to my camera and recording equipment.

We were at the entrance to Kalpakkam, a small township that serves the nearby Madras Atomic Power Station. We had interviewed the plant’s chief superintendent for our edition of The Climate Connection season on the BBC, exploring how India can meet its sharply increasing demand for electricity whilst keeping its carbon emissions in check.

After the interview, we’d wandered into the township to speak to the residents. We expected them to be lauding the employment and economic benefits of having a large power station on their doorstep and crowing about this reliable source of electricity, a luxury unavailable to many who live in India’s rural communities.

Instead, we heard that the power actually bypasses the township in favour of the 8 million inhabitants of Chennai about 70km north. They told us that the power station forbids other businesses locating within the area, thereby curbing job opportunities.

Most seriously, the villagers claimed that power station workers had become ill, with several dying of cancer and that some the township’s children were sick and lethargic. How can you be sure? I asked, anything could be making them ill, you can’t be certain it’s the power station. But, they pressed on, repeating their claims that the plant was a source of harm and hardship rather than wealth and opportunity.

The guard threatened to report us to the authorities and was making noises about us being detained until Antony worked some kind of magic and the man let it go. But the villagers’ revelations were safely recorded and I had a stash of photos. Right now, it was definitely time to go.

However attitudes to the power station are different in the city.

The ever-resourceful Antony drove us to a neighbourhood of workshops and small business units in Chennai where he knew twin brothers who run a successful firm manufacturing and exporting cashew nut processing machines. The city’s creaking electricity supply only provides 70 per cent of the power they need to run their heavy machinery.

Annoying though that seems, the brothers are quite sanguine. Out in the countryside, full power is only available for five hours a day. At least their supply is relatively stable, even if it is a lower fat version of what they’d ideally like.

And, for them, the Kalpakkam nuclear power station is a good thing. It’s not, by a long way, the sole source of their electricity but the brothers are glad it’s there and they’re hoping for more nuclear plants in the future. They dismiss any suggestion that nuclear is a source of health problems. Anything that props up the power supply will be good for business.

Earlier we had interviewed Dr Pugazhendi – a firebrand of a man who has examined many Kalpakkam residents. Talking at us for forty minutes without pausing for breath, Dr Pugazhendi listed cases of cancer and other illnesses associated with the nuclear power station, insisting that he has solid evidence but that he has been blocked from carrying out full studies and publishing the findings.

The fact remains that there is no hard, published evidence that the nuclear plant has caused any illness among the local population. The station’s management told us that they take their workers’ health very seriously, regularly monitoring their wellness.

One of the villagers we met in Kalpakkam had given us Dr Pugazhendi’s mobile phone number and when I called him, he jumped at the chance of talking to us. He’d drop everything, he said, and come and find us wherever we were.

Whilst he was on his way, we turned up unannounced at the HQ of the Tamil Nadu State Electricity Board. A contact in town had recommended we speak to the board’s chairman, Mr C P Singh.

Sure enough, Mr Singh, an affable gentleman in an office overlooking the sprawling monsoon soaked metropolis granted us an interview. The most penetrating questions came from my companion Hita Unnikrishnan, a feisty young ‘Climate Champion’ of the British Council of India. A recent life sciences graduate, she now lectures in Botany at Banaglore’s Jyoti Nivas College. She was travelling with me, taking on the role as local protagonist in our programme.

Mr Singh obligingly fielded Hita’s onslaught of questions. We learned that Tamil Nadu was the first state in India to supply electricity to all households and that it is one of the most progressive in the country when it comes to green energy. Half its power comes from hydroelectric and wind.

But the board is struggling to keep up with Tamil Nadu’s rapidly increasing demand. Whilst renewables are part of the solution, the state needs more power stations. For now, there will be more power cuts and the state will have to continue buying in expensive electricity from outside.

But I spent most of the interview in a state of considerable anxiety. Earlier, after negotiating with Mr Singh’s assistant for permission to meet the boss, I had been awaiting the verdict in a holding room down the corridor, when Dr Pugazhendi called me, saying he was in the area. I let slip exactly where we were.

This, I feared, was a potentially catastrophic move. One assumes that a well-known and vocal local opponent of the state’s nuclear power station would be less than welcome in the Electricity Board’s offices.

Throughout the interview with the chairman I had unsettling visions of Dr Pugazhendi, barging his way in, pushing aides and assistants aside and insisting on speaking to the BBC.

In the event, we met Dr Pugazhendi later on in a car park down the road and our interview at the Electricity Board passed off without incident. This was good. I could have done without a second altercation with security officials in as many days.

You can hear the programme at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0053sqq

Video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbLSM2hFL7Q

Photos on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23404067@N06/sets/72157622927385208/

(Gareth Mitchell is with the BBC and is the presenter of 'Digital Planet', BBC's weekly technology show. He is also a lecturer in Science Communication at Imperial College, London. )

Earth Hour 2009 - March 28 - 8.30 PM to 9.30 PM

2009-03-25T06:50:00.000-07:00

Earth Hour is an annual international event organised by the WWF (World Wide Fund), held on the last Saturday of March every year (since 2007), that asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change. This year, the earth hour falls between 8.30 PM and 9.30 PM on 28th of March.

WWF is urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference 2009 to be held in Copenhagen later this year. (Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming). People from 825 cities across 80 countries have pledged their support to VOTE EARTH during Earth Hour 2009, and this number is growing everyday. The objective of earth hour is not to conserve power by switching off lights for an hour, but to spread awareness on climate change and the threats it poses to the people, especially to those who are already living in drought ridden conditions. So let's become a part of a noble effort to bring out this critical issue to the forefront. At this juncture, we should also pledge to do our bit to fight climate change by all means possible.

"Climate change is a very important issue facing us today. We are all in a position to make a contribution to help change our planets future. Earth Hour is a great opportunity to make this contribution whether it is turning off lights or a candle lit vigil with our friends. I encourage all of you to join me in supporting Earth Hour ". - Sachin Tendulkar

Visit the WWF India blog http://wwfindia.blogspot.com and sign up now.

Education - Expansion, Excellence and Engaging Everyone

2009-03-03T10:15:00.000-08:00

[This post is an essay written for the National Knowledge Commision's online contest]

Excellence - Teaching and Learning:

Our current system of education in the government run schools and some private schools – the ones in which young people like me grew up in – lays emphasis on the ‘what, who and when’ part of information. But instead, when the primary focus of information changes to the ‘why, how and why not’ part of it, it is only then we can say we have a system which instills wisdom into the minds of children. This ‘learn-by-heart-and-reproduce’ style of learning advocated in most of the schools in India has come under severe criticism from several quarters for a long time now. But unfortunately, nothing seems to have changed in the methodology of teaching or in the pattern of examinations at the school and college levels. This is partly because of the fact that the easiest known way of testing someone’s ability is to look at his academic score and hence the marks-focused teaching and learning is hitherto, the order of the day. But having said this, it would we very unfair to conclude that those students who have earnt high marks and thus got into good institutes of higher learning are not par excellence. It is, however, just to argue that only the analytical skills of these students are being leveraged and their creative and lateral thinking abilities often go untested and under-utilized.

This problem need not be addressed by making a complete overhaul of the educational system. Small changes to the syllabi, teaching and learning styles, examination patterns, and emphasis on more practical oriented education can start the process of unlocking the creative and inquisitive potential in every student. Understandably, under the present system of conducting public examinations, the test papers cannot have questions whose answers are evaluated on the basis of subjective interpretation of the teacher evaluating it. So the examinations will have to remain predominantly objective, but the answers need not be traced back to some ‘between the lines’ words in the text books and instead should be based on the extent of comprehension of the subject. But in doing so, we must not fail to realize that there will be no level playing field for students coming from the poorly managed public schools. So this process of engaging students creatively should start from the primary level at every government run school. The classroom sessions should be interactive and the internal test papers should be more reasoning based. Practical sessions, demonstrations and multimedia content sharing should be done wherever possible to sustain interest. Incentives should also be made available to teachers who promote creative thinking and encourage the attitude of asking questions.

Aside from imparting noesis on various subjects from history to science, education plays a very important role in shaping the attitude of children. I remember one of my teachers who, when responding to a student’s argument that women are inferior to men, said “when 10 years of education has not changed your attitude, then this education is going to take you nowhere”. According to her, shaping of one’s attitude is one of the most important roles of education. Shaping the attitude can refer to anything from changing one’s thought processes to character building. Acts like demanding explanations, looking to learn something from everyone, traits like mutual respect, humility, positive thinking etc. can be examples of commonly agreed principles of good attitude. In this respect, I strongly believe in the following words, “A mediocre teacher teaches, a good teacher motivates, an excellent teacher inspires.” This inspiration can be anything from good academic commitment to strong character and values. Nevertheless, it is also education which is responsible for creating students who are willing to get inspired, because without this willingness, none of the inspirations in the vicinity will be of any assistance.

Inclusion and Expansion:

Inclusiveness in education is one of the biggest problems facing India today. It is about including all children irrespective of their religion, caste, sex, status into the mainstream education system. It’s also about taking special care to bring in the differently-abled children into the system.

There is now a healthy trend in the reach of education as the number of children, both male and female entering primary schools is on the rise in most parts of the country. The members of the Public Report on Basic Education (PROBE) team (which surveyed primary schools in about 200 villages in undivided Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh in 1996 and 2006) writing in The Hindu, say that the school enrolment rates have risen sharply, for example, from 80 to 95 per cent in the age group of 6-12 years from 1996 to 2006. The report also highlights the fact that the social disparities in school enrolment have considerably narrowed, the schooling infrastructure has improved and the schooling incentives like the mid day meal scheme have expanded considerably. The mid day meal scheme, in particular has been the driving factor in bringing in poor anorexic children into the mainstream education system. But on studying further, the team realizes that the good news ends there. Although the quantity part of it shows good signs, the quality aspect of it a cause for concern. Unmanageable teacher-student ratio, poor attendance levels of the students and teachers, little engagement of classes by the teachers are apparently the issues to be addressed. The study also showed that even in classes where there were some ‘learning’ activities, they were nothing more than chanting mathematical tables or reciting notes without comprehension. So even if we achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education by the year 2015, we cannot be oblivious to the fact that there are great leaps to be made in the quality front.

Private schools, which were once thought be the answer for all these problems, have not been able to impact the lives of these ill-fated children. Close to 80 percent of the country’s children are still in the government schools and hence privatization of primary education has not helped the majority. Also, well managed private schools which collect a moderate fee have either become economically unviable to run or seen to compromise on those very aspects, which form the purpose of they coming into existence. Hence in the rural country side, there is nothing much to choose between a state run institution and a privately managed one.

Coaching classes and tuitions, which have almost become inevitable for students in the towns and cities, are still a distant dream for their counterparts in the villages.

The scenario in higher education is no different as excellence and inclusion are still unintelligible jargons here. The share of private institutions in higher education increased from a third to over half of all enrolment in the last few years, most of them in the areas on Engineering, Medical Sciences and Management. But studies from various organizations like the NKC have shown that the standards of a very large proportion of institutions are abysmal. The regulatory bodies like AICTE, NBA and MCI have not been able to operate efficiently without genuine autonomy and hence there is very little regulation. With a high fee structure in most of these private institutions, students from average families find it extremely difficult to pursue higher studies and hence India still educates only 10-15 percent of its young people in institutes of higher learning.

The other interesting phenomenon in higher education is the sudden surge in the professional education streams and hence the decrease in the fervor for pure science based courses and research related works. The situation is evident when we look at the number of PhDs that India produces in Computer Science every year. The figure which was 50 in the year 2006, is exactly the average number of PhDs completed in every US University each year. India’s dominance in Information Technology arena would’ve been much higher if we had more research work happening in the related areas. This clearly demonstrates the need for stronger institutes of higher learning and better incentives for pursuing research which needs higher funding and better channelization. Ironically though, the student loan disbursement of over Rs.20,000 crores by public sector banks till the end of financial year 2007-08 stands in striking contrast to the total central plan allocation for higher education - Rs.3263 crores for 2007-08 and Rs.7600 crores for 2008-09. This, experts say, is clearly not enough to achieve all that we hope to. But much of this can also be industry driven with a world class infrastructure already by their side

Besides the government, the NGOs operating in this space are indispensable and hence they should continue to play an important role in the universalization of education. As individuals, we must also do our part to help anyone possible in their education and thus sow the seeds of their empowerment. As Dr. A.P.J Abdul kalam says, if we desire to do something for our country, then the best way of doing it is by helping a child in his/her education.

Through all these collective measures, if the gaps are bridged and the reach and quality of primary and higher education is improved substantially, then it will give a huge fillip to the country’s innovative capabilities. When millions of more young people are empowered through quality education, it means that there will be several times more ‘thinking population’ in India, thus making it one of the most powerful engines of growth in the country. Our dream of making India truly a knowledge economy will then be ever closer and definitely within reach.

unPROJ{t}ECTed TIGER

2008-03-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

The recently released tiger census report titled ‘State of tiger, co-predators and prey in India’ brought into limelight the grim reality of the plight of tigers in India, home to the single largest tiger population in the world. To read that the tiger population has decreased by more than 50% to 1,411 from 3,642 in the last five years was a shocking experience to all those who were hoping to see a reversal of trend ever since the ‘Project Tiger’ initiative was launched. The report said that there had been an overall decrease in the tiger population in all the states except in Tamil Nadu where the numbers have gone up substantially from 60 in 2001-02 to 76 now. The assessment has shown that the tiger has suffered due to direct poaching, loss of quality habitat and its prey. And all this has happened despite ‘Project tiger’, which had shown signs of change early on. But some NGOs and field biologists have asserted that there has not been a great decrease in the population of tigers, but the difference in numbers is partly due to the difference in the methodology of the census, as the contentious pug-mark method was not used this time, thus giving more accurate results. Be that as it may, the dwindling tiger numbers has sounded an alarm to the government to give a fillip to tiger conservation and thus to larger wildlife conservation efforts.

How has the tiger's fate come to this? The foremost reason is poaching to meet demand for tiger products used in traditional medicines in China and other parts of East Asia. The other crucial factor is the continuous loss of tiger habitat, which is down by about 40% across India in the last decade, along with which has disappeared much of its prey. The Forest guards are ill equipped to counter the increasing threat of poaching. There are over 30 per cent vacancies in most national parks. Inadequate buffer zones also remain a concern. Adding to the misery is the local communities being kept isolated from conservation programmes.

I came across a ‘Tiger anthem’ in WWF India’s website which was quite interesting,

Tiger Anthem

My son asked me the other day
Do we have tigers only in the zoos?
My teacher tells me the forests are gone
The deer are gone, wild animals are gone
The king of the jungle now kills our cattle
Poachers on his trail
Now people live where once he lived
His skin is up for sale.

I said son, your teacher's not fully right
Tigers are in danger, but still they survive
You can still see them in the wild
Sure I will take you there someday
The future of the tiger still hangs by a thread
But the battle is still not lost
We don't wanna see tigers only in the zoos
We'll save them at any cost

And it’s now or never, for the future of the tiger
It is time to decide if we wanna see the tigers in the wild
And he looked you in the eye, when you shot him, before he died
It is time that we ensure we gave the tigers a safe home.

Well son, the tiger needs your support
In you his future lies
If the tigers live, the forests live
And we need it for us to survive
I take the vow not to buy anything
That has tiger part
And I will try my best to gain all support
For the tiger with all my heart

And it’s now or never....

In the Union budget 2008-2009, the allocation for the Ministry of Environment and Forests has been increased from Rs 1,539 crore in 2007-08 to Rs 1,707 crore in 2008-09 and the funding for the Project Tiger programme has been enhanced from Rs 61.50 crore to Rs 72 crore. Also, the FM has announced a grant of Rs 50 crore for a Tiger Protection Force. So with resource issue being taken care of, the success of the initiative now banks on the state governments and the establishment who are involved in the actual implementation with the help of wildlife experts. As ordinary people, we can only hope that this does not become another case of outlays in the budget being rendered futile by the actual outcomes.

In Bandipur National Park, the increasing number of tourists every year is becoming a major concern as non-adherent travelers are making life all the more difficult for the wild animals. Hence, the rules should be communicated clearly to all those to travel inside a wildlife territory, and any violation of such a law should be stringently dealt with. So as common people we need to be responsible enough to conform to the protocols established by the forest authorities while making trips inside reserved forests or wildlife habitations. In doing so, we may prevent the situation from aggravating further.

The Road if taken

2008-01-06T20:38:00.001-08:00

One of my friends had joined the Indian Air Force five years ago as an Airman. He was in his first year at the higher secondary school by then and decided to curtail his academic interests hoping to make a good career out of the iaf. But he had little idea about the airman position in the iaf and the responsibilities to be handled and only hoped to an iaf pilot one day. He had to make that not-so pleasant choice bearing in mind the financial position of his family and moreover the prospect of becoming a pilot made it a hard choice for him to resist. Also, it seemed to be a better choice then with all the pecuniary benefits that were in the offing. It was believed to bring some respite to his family but finally ended up not just falling short of his expectations but also adding to his woes.

The airmen position is not similar to the ranks of designated technical officers or commanders who come in through the NDA. Airman recruitment happens at even earlier stage where the candidate is just expected to have passed 10th standard or equivalent. So he was not involved in technocracy or stuff like that and neither was he was involved in combat operations. The job profile in fact was related to bookkeeping and accounting which required no more than basic knowledge in computers. He had little idea that there wasn't much room for personal growth in such a profession. Sadly, it was also learnt that his dream of becoming a pilot can barely be realized being an airman, thereby making it an untenable a profession to move on. But by the time he realized all of that, it was already too late as he had already signed a service agreement for at least 20 years which was unbreakable at any cost.

Notwithstanding that his job did not require a good physique; his initial training was similar to that of the commando training. He had a 15 months rigorous training program at various training camps all over India. All through that period, he had to get up as early as 3.00 in the morning and run for 10 – 20 kms before taking on his customary exercises. The rest of the day would be occupied by parades and other physical fitness trainings, trainings on agility and furtiveness that we often get to watch in movies. Despite all this, once in every week every airman was deployed in patrolling and guarding responsibilities around the ground station, which has its horror stories to tell.

He was promised a pay package of Rs.7000/- per month initially, with the food and accommodation at free of cost. This meant that he could save most his earnings and help his family, thus making it an attractive option. But as with many other contemporaries, he had to call up his girl friend quite often and that cost him (only financially) more than anything else. So the by end of all this, he could not have made a great deal of money every month. The saddest part of his salary though is the appraisal that he gets at the end of every year. It still remains a pathetic 60 rupees, which ideally will increase his salary by a mere 1,200 rupees by the end of twenty tormenting years. But of course when the ‘promotion’ factor comes into picture, there might be a nominal increase in his salary. Even then, the increase in salary will still remain Rs.100 every year thereafter. So one can clearly observe that he is severely underpaid and he can never hope to live his dreams with such a skimpy amount of money.

Life has never been easy for him ever since he embarked on this challenging mission. At a time when the inevitability of liberalism is becoming a reality among the civilian community, the essentiality of conformism is still the way of life for him. There are rules and regulations for almost everything he does, even in repast so to say. “Your Boss is always right“ is the code that one has to live by as never can one question the basis for an order passed. Thus drawing parallel with the lives of young people like us today makes him feel guilty for having made a decision that changed his life forever. Nobody ever expected that an engineering degree would fetch a high-paying job in sorts like ours' and may be that’s why he wanted to seek a professional career early in his life. Today in retrospection, it definitely appears to be a mistake not because he chose the iaf, but because for his ability, he had chosen too small a confinement in the iaf. Unfortunately, there is not even a single person in his company who can speak reassuringly to make him feel better. But of course to say that his life has been messed up might be an understatement, although one can say that his life has been taken a little off course. Hence even today he is desperately trying to break the shackles and come out of it to live a life that he thoroughly deserves. Wishful thinking as it may sound to be, I hope that he will be flying a MiG aircraft one day.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited or Balaaji, Service Nehin Limited

2007-12-25T10:32:00.001-08:00

The country’s state owned telephone company, BSNL is the country’s largest fixed telephone and broadband service provider. But not many of us would be in concurrence if someone says that it is also known for the quality of service it offers.
A hilarious incident that happened last week involving my friend SP.Balaaji (spb) is an illustration of the shape in which the organization is being run.

Balaaji, a customer of bsnl’s high speed internet access service called DataOne, had to call up bsnl’s customer care service seeking resolution of a technical snag.

After several attempts to find the customer care’s call center number, which by itself was a hectic ask, we finally managed to find not just one, but three numbers. One of the numbers was assigned to an automated answering machine, as is the case with most of the customer service centers. Here is the sequence of events that transpired when Balaaji made the call,

The voice: “Hello, Welcome to bsnl’s DataOne customer services, Please dial ‘1’ for English and ‘2’ for Kannada.”

spb dialed the ‘1’ button to choose English

The voice: “ Invalid digit, Please try again”

spb dialed ‘2’, hoping for a reversal of fortune this time around,

The voice: Invalid digit, Your maximum number of tries are over, Please try again later. Thank you for Calling bsnl.

The call was disconnected then.

We were rendered speechless and awestruck by the outcome. We were not sure if this was a meticulously thought out strategy of bsnl to counter the criticism that it did not have a 24*7 customer service centre or was it merely some technical issue with the automated system. But there were two instances which made us consider seriously such a possibility. One was the ‘maximum number of tries are over’ response which was atypical of any customer care service, let alone the lucky draw contests. Another was the fact that we were not able to reach any of the customer care representatives through their direct landline numbers. Also, no mobile phone numbers were given to us during the installation. These made us believe that it was definitely conspired by bsnl in order to prevent the customers from trying to reach the non-existent customer care representatives in the weekends and during public holidays.

Amazed by what had happened, we decided to step in directly into bsnl’s premises, hoping to figure out what exactly was happening. But we never expected that another surprise was in the offing for us. The kind of reception that we got was even worse. Spb went to a lady, who appeared to have all the patience on earth to listen to and solve our problems. But it was not long before he realized that it was indeed deceptive. She received us with a sulking “what?”. Spb explained that we could use the internet for some weird reason. Then she replied “Oh yes, the server is down and they are working on it”. When asked when the issue will be resolved, she bluntly replied “How do I know? Come here on Monday if you have the same problem”. I understand that it was not in her capacity to deal with the customers directly, neither was she trained to do so. But nobody requires training to be humane. We greeted her and then came back discerning that it was after all, the characteristic of a government run institution.

Neo-fraternalism Redefined ..

2007-10-20T02:26:00.000-07:00

Living in Bangalore, one of the cities worst hit by the western mania (synonymous to globalization these days) in our country, I can already sense changes in the way we live everyday. But unfortunately, the anthropology of globalization is still in its infancy, concerning only the urban elites of our country. Life here has become fast paced, so much so that we sometimes become apathetic to what’s happening to people around us. For the youth traveling alongside the city’s suburban areas, the place is rendered abstract through the air-conditioners, obscure and closed windows, high speed, loud music and animated conversations. The cry of the desecrated souls living outside in appalling conditions does not permeate this glass and iron. I might sound like a septuagenarian, making this seemingly far-fetching allegation against today’s youth, but I am indeed one of those culpable youth, still trying to ascertain why we have lost our ethos. The Silicon Valley of India has truly been a blessing ground for many, providing the all important career to them, but for many other distant cousins living in the outskirts of the city, what’s happening here is a mere spectacle and the one that they can never hope to seek to be a part of.

I have always wondered why we are budging towards the west when everything begins in the east. I am finding it very difficult to understand why the American way of going about life is considered to the best when there are so many other cultures that are still extant, worth emulating. But even if doing so is considered to be progress, then we ll have to inherit all that complements ours and not that substitutes ours. Sadly though, we have derived all but the vital and essential from the transoceanic culture that we are so obsessed with. Bangalore, once called as the garden city, is today called as the city of pubs, with the highest number of pubs in the country. We do not realize that the Starbucks, the McDonalds and the pubs are not the reason why the US is the most developed country in the world; they perhaps are the result of such supremacy. If the current trend prevails, we may boast to have the same number of shopping malls, multiplexes, pubs and recreation centers as the US does, but end up having lost badly in the other and the most important ‘social’ front. We may not provide endowments in billions of dollars to our universities as the Americans do, but we can still contribute to the society in our small way.

According to a recent McKinsey report, the number of people living in poverty (in absolute terms) in India is at a level of just above 200 million. For all those who are reading this, it’s a mere statistic. But the meaning of poverty can only be felt and cannot be truly appreciated unless we take some time off trying to comprehend what it means to be in poverty. Every time I hear the word ‘party’, for some weird reason, I am reminded only of the exact opposite word ‘poverty’. I think of the 60,000 odd villages which do not even have electricity, 100,000 odd villages which do not have a telephone connection. The plight of the people, especially women and children in such places goes way beyond our imagination. Huh.. Well, apparently we cannot afford to have pArty pOVERty (read CAPS first).

Well, ‘Who’s responsible for this?’, this is not the question I am trying to seek an answer for, rather I ask myself, ‘why not make some difference to the lives of a few people around us, instead of avidly searching for a reason to go out for a party?’. Well, but that’s where it all ends. I have never made any tangible difference to anyone’s life, every time making one or another lame excuse under the pretext of being busy and I feel compunctious for that. Nobody here is against partying, but if we can cut down the number of parties in a year by one, and spent the proceedings on a common cause, then we thoroughly deserve to savor the other parties for the year. The contribution that we make can be related to the education of rural children, as education means social empowerment, if not economical or can be anything that brings smiles in the face of the under-privileged. Such an act can undeniably bring a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment never felt before.

I know that many of who are reading this are already associated with a few of such works in your own way and all that I want to ask you is to keep up your good work and continue to inspire people like me into doing the same.

Life's like that..

2007-09-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

Against all odds, I went home after a hectic day’s work on 8.9.2007 (Saturday), hoping to show my new laptop to everyone in my family. But fate had other plans for me for the weekend as I went there only to learn about my maternal grand father’s death.

I was in my house unwrapping my laptop bag to show the contents to my sister, who had just come back home from college, when the news about this fateful incident reached us through one of our relatives. As always, I was sitting in my room unaware of what was happening outside. When my sister opened the door to convey the news to me, I could sense a sense of exigency in her action and on looking at her face, I could sense that something had gone terribly wrong. When she finally managed to express herself, I was reminded of very similar incident that happened before. It was she who with a similar facial expression let me know about the death of one of my beloved friends five years ago. When I observed the same face again, it was a tear-jerking experience.

Ironically, it happened to be the day on which my thaatha and paati were to come home (as they always did when I went home from Bangalore). So we were expecting them any time; but we didn’t know that he was expecting us in Madathoor (his native village) for performing his last rites that we owed him.

I could do nothing but to look helplessly at his corpse and wonder what could have killed this otherwise hale and hearty person. He apparently suffered a severe Myrocardial infarction, commonly known as Heat Attack. ‘What caused it?’ , was a question that we all were trying to find an answer for. Then came the realization that it could perhaps be a ‘sun stroke’, a terminology that was quite new for many of us. Yes, he died doing what liked the most, working under hot sun. A Steve Irwin kind of death perhaps.

At an age of 74, one could not have asked for more from him. He worked day in and day out, relentlessly looking for one work or another to keep himself engaged. This eventualised into his death after his fragile physique relinquished support to his agile psyche.

Thanks to the advent of ubiquitous ‘mobile phone’, everyone concerned was informed about his sudden demise within an hour. So he was buried on the same day after all the rituals were performed. Since my thaatha was instrumental in initiating quite a few community works in the locality and provided his unequivocal support to any common cause, almost all in the village knew him and many of them loved him for his serene nature. He was known as “ Periya veetu naikkar “ among the people there. Since the death was a shock for all of us, it was not easy to come out of it and take care of all the arrangements on our own. But thankfully, we had people from the village volunteering to take care of everything. I was surprised with the pace at which all the arrangements were made by the local people with very limited access to the township as the bus connectivity is quite infrequent. There was no “what-do-i-get-out-of-this’ attitude among them and it made them work selflessly towards any common cause. I reckon this is a characteristic of a village and one may not expect such selfless participation from our neighbors in a seemingly busy city or township.

I wanted to stay back there for a week or two and comfort myself besides being an emotional support to my dejected uncle. But the circumstances did not allow me do so and hence I had to come back to Bangalore in a few days.

How’s life going to be after his death??. Well, it might appear to be the same for an outsider, but it is never going to be the same again for me. I wanted to get take my thaatha and paati to Bangalore and show them around to get a feel of what a city life is all about. Ever since I came to Bangalore, where ever I went, be it a mall or a temple, I always dreamt of taking them there and was even wondering how is a ‘shopping mall’ or an ‘IT park’ known in Tamil, so as to help them understand it better. I even went to the extent of making a tentative plan for their visit to Bangalore. In fact, I considered that making my grand parents happy was one of the purposes of my very existence. Now that he is dead without experiencing any of these, I feel as if my dreams are shattered and one of the purposes of my life seems to be lost. My dream can now come true only in state of hallucination. Had it not been for this incident, my life would have ensued seamlessly. This is all the more reason why I wanted to write about the incident.

After death, one does not feel blissful for what he has been , neither does he feel remorseful for the same. This contention helps me console myself every time I feel bad for not having done enough for my thaatha. So I assume that he is still alive and I can realize my dreams. After a few years, when I take my family for a travel around, I will assume that he is with us. Sometime later, say in 2010, I will assume that he dies after having spent time with me happily. So from 2010, it might not matter if I have done all that I wanted to or not. This is because after death, nothing makes any difference to him.

Is this quite hilarious?? It might sound so. But without such an intricate
delusion, my nostalgia can never be overcome.

Despite this figment of the imagination, life is never going to be the same any more. Weekends are never going to be same without him. But I still am learning to live with realities of life.

About Guru, the Prasad

2007-08-30T02:54:00.000-07:00

Having been influenced by great bloggers like you for a long time, I finally decided to write one on my own. But my first impediment was not far away as I didn’t know what to write about. I wanted to start off with something that would magnetize all my friends into reading it. For such an objective to be pulled off, I was left with no other option but to write about Guru S.Prasad, the name which epitomizes excitement.

“ I want to be an Engineer, I want to be a economist, I want to be a mathematician, I want to be with ISRO (or NASA), I want to be an entrepreneur, I want to be an investment guru, I want to be an MLA, I want to be an IAS officer and finally I want to be a guitarist, ……….. ”
Yes, u guessed it right!! This is how Guru Prasad (referred to as ‘Guru’ henceforth) replies when someone asks him what he wants to be.

It’s not that all of us have unambiguous aspirations in our lives, but he is different not because he is directionless, but because he is multi-ambitious. He is the only known person to me who has appeared for GATE, CAT, XAT, GRE, and ISRO exams in the same academic year. This by itself is a testimony to my seemingly larger than life claim that he is multi-ambitious.

In my book, Guru has got the ingredients to grow to be whatever he aspires to become. Some say that he has no clear path laid down to stride in his life; some say that his is a typical case of problem of plenty. But to me, the reason why he seems to be rootless in life is that he has got a great sense of appreciation and is highly inspirable.

He appreciates the work of all the above mentioned vocations and likes doing all of them. He gets inspired by all those who seem to be good in what he wants he wants to excel. As a result, he tries to emulate his inspirations and ends up doing the work of many. But surprisingly, he does all that with ease and without much fanfare. This ability to do different stuff simultaneously and yet carry them out successfully is an amazing quality in exclusive possession of the versatile genius.

Moving away from his academic life, guru has always been a rational being. There has never been any room for emotions to take over rationale in his life. Another aspect of his which really amazes me is that he doesn’t commit himself to judgment on any issue unless he possesses adequate information to do so. I say this because the problem with some of us is that we have more opinion than information, the fallout of which is unnecessary differences in opinion.

He talks everything ranging from prime numbers to sachin tendulkar and he is great to listen to. He is known for his rapid gasping talks. He is quite short tempered but that’s what makes him a fun to be with. He is a good guitarist, not to mention his exceptional ability to sing (haha….). As an ending note, I would like to thank him for having provided me with an easy topic to write on.

Enough of Guru, I guess. Please leave your comments about this post.

PS: Do inform me about grammatical or semantic errors, if any. The same is regretted.