Infinite thoughts

Two personalities have been making rounds in Pune for the last few days. Vidyanand Bapat and Santosh Pandit . Both appear to stand against the establishments, yet now appear to have lost the narrative. Mr. Bapat does have a very valid point that DJ and loudspeakers should be banned. They do not serve any kind of purpose in "celebtating" Ganapati Utsav in a traditional way. The utsav was started when there was a need to bring various social strata together under one umbrella. After independence, that need was gone, but the tradition continued. However, over the last couple of decades, this has become more of a nuisance than a way of being together. Almost every corner of the city has a separate pandal, with its own speakers spitting out anything but the "bhakti geete". I must admit there are certain "मंडळे" who do good work, have some social initiatives all round the year. But these are far and few. I want to focus on the noise others generate, as that is ...

  It has been a while now since digital payments in India have become more mainstream. Although digital payment options were available to Indian consumers for a long time, the real growth happened after the demonetization in late 2016. PayTM jumped on the opportunity and benefited to a large extent as they already had the network, the infrastructure and marketing muscle to materialize the digital push. However, there were other players as well - MobiQuick wallet, PhonePe, GPay etc.  Another great enabler was the Indian invention called UPI by NPCI - Unified Payments Interface. Although the UPI was launched before the demonetization (Apr 2016), it wasn't understood enough by the masses. I remember an incident when I had tried convincing my vegetable vendor to accept UPI payment instead of insisting on cash. He was absolutely unsure and reluctant.  Fast Forward to 2022. The UPI payments are ubiquitous. Every nook and corner accepts the UPI payments. In fact, a person like ...

It has been 50 days now since demonetization was announced by Indian Prime Minister Mr. Modi. And we all have experienced wide set of emotions through these 50 days. We have been happy, ecstatic, overjoyed, sad, pained, frustrated, hopeful and what not. And every time we have felt our emotions are justified. I have been through many of these emotions except for pain and frustration. I haven't had to stand in a queue for more than 15 mins and have been able to use digital payments at most of the places, conserving my cash that I had exchanged in mid-November. After initial surge in usage of digital wallets, the downward trend is very evident now. I have seen people giving out reasons such as wallet is full, swipe machine not available to avoid accepting digital payments. To the extent that one of my regular lunch outlets allowed me to pay the bill after I "get" the cash.  On one of the occasions, swipe machine of my vegetable vendor wasn't really working. I encour...

Government of India launched a very ambitious initiative on 25 Sept 2014 - Make In India . As anyone can guess this was to increase the investments in India in the core sectors such as manufacturing, biotechnology, aviation, construction and thus increasing the employment and  entrepreneurship.  Until now, we were getting only the news about who has promised investment in India and how much. But announcements usually outnumber actual actions. Now that it is little over a year from the start of the initiative, we are seeing some progress happening through this initiative. Xiaomi and Huawei have already started their manufacturing plants in India. Lenovo joined in recently with their Motorola smartphone plant near Chennai. Total proposals for investment received so far are said to be Rs. 1.10 lakh crore. While the three entities mentioned above would form only a tiny fraction, another news came in which was more heartening and encouraging. IITs - our elite institutes ...

As I opened the newspaper today morning, a very good news took my attention.  No more subsidized food in Parliament canteen from January 1 Parliament canteen food rates have been in the news for a long time now. In July one of the sitting MPs called for rate revision of the canteen food and then every newspaper published the rate card. Any sane person would go insane by looking at the subsidized rates available in that canteen.  Image Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/parliament-canteen-subsidy-mps-jay-panda/1/451861.html Speaker of the Parliament had ordered the review of rates in the canteen via food committee and the new rates are effective today. Rates have been revised so as to operate the canteen at "no profit no loss" basis .  The actual revision is not really the good part, the good part is that this government listened to the anomalies brought to the government's notice and has taken corrective measures. This, indeed, is a very ...

As Mr. Narendra Modi took oath yesterday, hist official journey as 15th Prime Minister of India started. Well, almost everything has been written about his journey until now and we'd all see how it goes from here. This particular blog is to express what I felt yesterday evening as I watched the ceremony. Not once in my memory I had the excitement to watch the oath ceremony. Forget that I didn't even care if it was being telecast live or not. But, yesterday was different. I was super excited to watch this live telecast and as I watched it, it gave me goosebumps. Right from the national anthem until Mr. Modi completed his oath and formally became the Prime Minister of India.  I see a sense of achievement in this. I had been a supporter of Mr. Modi right from the time he was announced the Prime Ministerial Candidate by BJP. Then was carefully reading news about his, listening to his speeches wherever available and whenever time permitted. He has carved out a victory with met...

Some are inline with many others out there, but some may not be...  Everyone needs to understand and imbibe that this is not Anna's or Team Anna's fight. This has to be everyone's own fight. Unless it remains "Team Anna's fight" or "Team Anna's movement" it will never reach true success. "Jan Lokpal Bill" is going to be just one of the ways to fight corruption, it is not going to eradicate the corruption completely. To end corruption, we all, including you and me, need 100% commitment not to give up to the temptation of shortcuts and quick bucks and short term conveniences. As a leader of the movement, Team Anna definitely owes a lot more to the nation. Have they come out clean of all the charges against them? I haven't seen. If this is true, there has to be a deliberate attempt and process from Team Anna to clear every person off the charges through proper channel. And more importantly, if there have been mistakes in the pas...

Quite contrary to my belief in Team Anna's campaign in India Against Corruption, I am of the opinion, Indian democracy is not yet matured/ready for implementing "Right to recall" the elected candidates. I understand Team Anna must have made due diligence while proposing it, but as an individual, I feel the time has yet to come. Let's see some influencing facts: Indian democracy, still, is largely made up of people who do not think much before voting for a candidate. It is driven more by the then-current-issues rather than a holistic view of the situation. Neither the people take enough effort to understand the candidate and his/her stand on various current issues nor they follow up or persuade them after the election for fulfilling the election manifesto. If it would have been otherwise, Congress couldn't have been putting up the same agenda of "Garibi Hatao" for last 50 odd years!! Additionally, the local politics usually revolves around personal ...

Some recent experiences. Except for one, rest are pretty good. Domino's Pizza : Few days back, I came to know that Domino's has started with online ordering system. With my recent adventures of online shopping, there was nothing to stop me and I ended up in ordering online. The experience was pretty smooth and hassle free. Given that it was first time, Meghana confirmed the order by calling up the concerned outlet. Incidentally, we checked the watch exactly at 30th minute and realized that the pizza hadn't reached us yet. And then it was hard to stop Meghana to call up the outlet to check what's happening with our pizza. To our surprise, when she mentioned that it is already past 30 mins, the outlet manager was kind/professional enough to agree to keep the "Domino's promise" and promptly asked us to call him back when the delivery boy reaches. The Delivery boy also gracefully returned some 300 bucks, no questions asked. The wonderful thing happened af...

Yipit is a daily deal aggregator which is providing value added service on top of the daily deals provided by various sites. As per this report on TechCrunch , the service currently caters to 335 deals in 32 cities and is having 250,000 subscriptions already. The value that Yipit adds is the interest based deals sent to you in an aggregated email. You can store your preferences (e.g. Restaurants and Yoga, but nothing on hair loss treatment) and based on that the deals will be sent to you. Of course, you would get the deals in your city or the city that you subscribe for. Another interesting value add is "deals near you". Apparently each deal is accompanied with location information, which is mapped with the address that you provide (optional) and then you can get the deals which are closer to your address. I feel this is a very cool aggregation and has very good potential, especially in the domain of location aware mobile app. I should be able to find ou...

While everyone is waiting for prices to come down in the real estate market, which won't happen anyways, even the virtual land is up for sell. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is all set to allow domain names including any suffixes. So far there was a standard list of domain suffixes available, but with this new scheme, anyone can claim domain name ending with any string. Read more at the times article or directly from ICANN website . Businesses would need to ensure they pick up right domain names, and now probably multiple such names to retain their internet identity and safeguard the customers. This could mean a lot of cash, which is really unnecessary, if all that I need to do is to redirect all such domains to my primary website. What it means for end users? Nothing much if you are a simple web surfer. You would still be able to reach the required website as you would usually rely on the search engine to give you the right URL. Ho...

Anna's victory is all over in the media and rightly so. In the backdrop of this important news, few other items tell us how much more work is yet to be done. Anna and all others have rightly said - this is just a beginning... RTI activist was attacked yesterday in Pune - This is one more incidence when RTI activist is attacked for invoking RTI against unlawful activities. Madhav Godbole is slamming Anna's victory - while the "common people" is feeling it is a victory over the politicians, Mr. Madhav Godbole ex-bureaucrat is not feeling the same way. While his criticism on UPA is valid, I feel he hasn't understood the reasoning why Anna had to start "fast unto death". NCP is not happy with comparing Anna with Gandhiji - This one is a funny one. Just because Anna is going to be part of the committee working on Lokpal Bill, NCP has a problem comparing him with Anna. I'd say, by accepting a position in the committee, Anna has also accepted the respon...

As I attended the republic day flag hoisting ceremony at Mrunmay's school and now while watching the "RD Parade " on television, I have mixed feelings. On one side I am immensely proud about our nation, at the same time I keep on wondering about what kind of society my son would have 15-20 years down the line. Some random thoughts on this republic day: Why is the Republic day boiled down to flag hoisting ceremony? (Same is true for Independence day..) Why do schools feel that is the ONLY way to inculcate patriotism in the kids? How many people from this vast population really know what is a "Republic Day"? I want to see the RD pared LIVE. Don't know when would it happen... I want my kid to be loving this country. (Frankly I don't know what does that really mean..) Would my son be presented with equal opportunities to shape his career and life? Or he would also keep on feeling that he should migrated to some "apparent" equal countries? What ...

I have mixed feelings on this subject. While the terrorist attack (yet another) has left me furious, I couldn't understand why does the Government want to continue with talks with Pakistan. In my opinion, the talks with Pakistan would not yield anything. But the more I am thinking about this, the more I am getting confused or double minded. It's very easy for anyone (including BJP, SS or non-UPA parties) to ask government for banning the talks with Pak. Everyone knows that even though we stalled these talks, nothing is going to change. People who are responsible for terrorist attacks on India may not be the ones whom India would be talking to, and even if it is the other way round, what has changed on the ground so that just by talks those people will change their mind and stop attacking us? On the other side, there's no way left for India but to continue with the talks. Since it is very difficult (almost impossible?) to attack Pak, given it's ties with USA, China, Tali...

I happened to watch the Republic Day Parade after a really long time. For most part of it, the entire Rajpath was covered with dense fog with visibility of barely few meters. However, it was a memorable event to see the exhibits from all the wings of Indian military forces displayed. Unfortunately I missed the distribution of Gallantry awards, but heard about it from Meghana and was filled with extreme pride. Because of such people, we all can have a sleep at night and can enjoy our time with family. But as Pranav said in one of his FB updates, even I wish to see an RD parade WITHOUT any Gallantry awards. Not sure when would that day arrive, but I surely hope it happens at least in my lifetime. In the later part of the Parade, it had the "Rath" representing various states in the country. This was the point where I got really disappointed. I felt, most of them were doing it just because someone in the government asked them to do. For example, Tripura showcasing the contributi...

Update: This is an old post saved in draft mode for almost a year. For some reason, which I don't remember, I didn't post it and found it today while screening through the list. Amidst the much hyped Indian economy's struggle to keep up the pace, some good news has arrived. Abhinav Bindra has won a gold medal at Beijing Olympics 2008 . This comes as a welcome surprise considering usual dismal performance of Indian sportsmen at this world stage. In India, there is only one game and that is Cricket. However bad performance the Indian team may display, almost every Indian will still hope that India will win next match. At the same time, we show complete lack of interest in any other sport. Sania Mirza tried to steal the show many times, but lacks consistency. Same is the case with Paes and Bhupati . We know both of them more for their bickering than their game. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathor , who bagged a silver medal in Athens Olympics 2004, seems to be nowhere in picture in 20...

Interesting list of items that can be done by those unfortunate folks who either have lost the job because of the recession or were unlucky enough not to have one at first place. I have started becoming fan of his writings. Lots of things to learn from his posting. I had something similar in my mind while on the topic of unemployment in general, not necessarily due to recession. Specifically in India, we see many young folks not getting the right job or not getting it at all. But many-a-times what is observed is they either waste time with friends of same problem, or they go the depression way. How many of them really take effort to improve their skills and make themselves more markettable? How many of them think that they can actually spend part of their time towards NGOs and spend rest of the time in honing their skills? Many of the items listed by Seth may not be directly applicable in Indian context, but how about replacing them with some of the tasks that fit the bill and get goin...

Finally, the good news came in .. The much awaited NSG waiver has been announced and that gives us a good reason to rejoice. TOI has a special coverage for the same. What is more important is that Manmohan Singh has established himself as a very good and strong PM. Oppositon and Left have exactly opposite view (what else they could see when they are in "opposition" :) ) Few days back these people had taggen the PM has the weakest PM ever, but now that doesn't matter any more. The hurdle for Neuclear trade is cleared. Now, even if we face some opposition in/by the US senate, we are still eligible to obtain the Neuclear supply for other countries like Russia and France. So the options are now open. How to play the cards is entirely upto our government!! Some are afraid that what if tomorrow US stops the supplies? The answer could be - we need to reduce the dependency on the US anyways. We'd need to create newer friends and newer ties which would keep the supply continu...

Doesn't seem so. Have a look at the latest report in Outlook India - Was It All Track-II ? (Registration required, else pick up Sept 20, 2007 issue of Outlook). Last year I had quoted a story from Outlook India, on Lalu, how has he turned around the future of railways, in an article - Revisiting past belief . I was very curious to know the details of how was this achieved. All of the media was zapped by the numbers thrown by Lalu's ministry. But as this report reveals, most of it is just a play with numbers than actual profit. In addition, he has succeeded in extracting more money from "Aam Aadami" in various ways. Unfortunately, no one from media seemed to have followed up on this huge success and revealed the truth, except for Outlook. This latest report details out how all these figures were tossed up to show a huge profit. Some examples: Declaring trains superfast without any reduction in the time taken Mangling with the "TatkaL scheme"...