Dreamzzz, Desires n Desperation...: March 2008

Mar 6, 2008

Love them or Hate them: But You need Them..

A migrant worker (img courtesy BBC)

When management guru C. K. Prahlad wrote the famous book “Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid” he had the millions of poor living across the world in his mind. This came almost at the time when India was waking up to the opportunities available around the world and the benefits of having a large population hungry for success. Soon we saw India becoming the back office of the world. Remittances from middle-east and other countries doubled and tripled in no time. Increasing number of call centers, IT offices, H1B visas and increase in remittances sent to India created demand for consumer goods, services, luxury goods and all these factors combined, propelled our economy into a higher growth orbit.

Before this period what was the identity of India across the world? In 1980s some of our doctors and engineers were considered just good enough to taxi in New York. All across Canada and US you could have found Indians working in grocery stores at gas stations, as lorry drivers and in all other menial jobs that you can imagine. They faced abuse, harassment and all other dirty things but still they kept their feet and head grounded and the only reason was that they have to send money back home. Every-one of them had dependent parents, unmarried sisters, siblings studying in colleges and they knew that if they rebel against the inhuman conditions, that will be like murdering the dreams of the people whom they loved and cared for. So they kept on ticking, and kept pushing themselves in the hope that things will change.

Things changed in the 90s. Our government woke up and liberalized certain policies. The money pumped back into the country created engineers, doctors, and managers who could redefine the word India and Indians. India was believed to be the land of snake charmers. The “hungry India poor India” image was beefed up with all those shots of people living in extreme poverty and the backward image was reinforced with news of riots, caste clashes and mob violence. People had an image in their mind but the question is that “Was the whole India poor or backward or illiterate at that time?” Weren’t there enough rich, civilized and intellectual people out there at the same time? Myself being an Indian know the answer to these questions and I actually laugh at those innocent remarks.

The point I want to drive is that the old image of India in the world is now of Bihar (and some parts of UP) in India. The question remains the same, are all the Biharis dirty, poor or illiterate? Add one more allegation “threat to a civilized culture” to it and it becomes a political agenda. Fifteen years ago India was the base of the world’s economic pyramid where it positioned itself as the cheap labour supplier and now it is the duty of states like UP and Bihar to supply labour to all the major industries. Will it be possible for Surat’s diamond industry to survive without migrant workers? I don’t think that Punjab will produce even half of the wheat that it produces now without the workers from Bihar and eastern UP. The same will happen to rice producing regions of Haryana. Who will work as the temporary workers in the construction sector (which is on boom now) for cheap? Without the cheap supply of labour would the balance sheet of these construction companies would look even half lucrative? Who will sell vegetables and fruits on the streets of Mumbai? Who will work as motor mechanics, tailors, coolies, carpenters, cycle rickshaw pullers, security guards and in many other unthinkable jobs without which our lives won’t look half as comfortable as of now?

Forget the menial jobs, how the numerous private engineering, medical and management institutions would survive in the absence of students from these states. Do a random survey and you’ll find that an average Bihari middle class family spends maximum part of it’s earnings on the education (an investment which will change everything) . In the absence of educational institutions in the state, where is this money going? The answer is: it’s going to cities like Pune, Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai etc. Can our society do away with Bihar and UP? Well some people can still afford to say yes but not before they make sure that all the minerals and other resources are loaded away.

It’s unfortunate that the past governments in Bihar and UP have not done enough for the people in those states but does that give us the moral right to humiliate those poor people and deprive them of their basic fundamental right to earn a living at a place of their choice? Why do we forget that 25% of our population resides in these 2 states and it’s the generosity of state like Bihar that all our industries are flourishing now (about 60% of all the mineral deposits were in Bihar and Jharkhand) add to it the human resource available and then you will see that these 3 states combined form the rock solid base of our economical eco system. Migrant workers from Bihar and UP have changed the colours of islands like Mauritius and Fiji.

It’s easy to target these poor people to gain political mileage because everybody knows that they can not struggle. Anybody whose main struggle is to manage the next meal, how come they could struggle against organized mob violence? Time never stands still. 15 years ago nobody gave India a chance but it happened. Today nobody gives Bihar and UP a chance but I know it will happen again. With 25% of population in their fold, they are capable of doing amazing things only if the government wake up and take positive steps to create an environment of growth. They just need to recognize their potential and we should not forget that they have the capability to slow the whole economy down or to speed it up. They form the base of our ecological system and if the base shaken you can just imagine what will happen to the edifice. It's just a matter of time.

Mar 5, 2008

Is your brand RED-e?

More and more brands are turning red these days by choice (luckily stock markets can't be held culprit for this).



Chennai is a colourful city and much of it is due to the tall and broad hoardings which runs on the sides of all the roads however wide or narrow they may be. These giant structures (or strictures) does not differentiate between roads and locality and are omnipresent across the city. However recently on a ride across one of the busiest roads (which is also blessed with lots of hoardings) I noticed an interesting pattern among the various brands which have come across the last one year. More and more brands are turning to colour Red. And to substantiate the statement, it all started with the Aditya Birla promoted brand of departmental stores 'MORE'. And when I started noticing, the whole gamut of brands appeared to have something red in them (it's another thing that most of them are also seeing red in stock market).

After the More stores, again what caught my attention is the posters of Arvind Mills promoted discount stores MegaMart which promises a 365 days sale. The posters covered like 2 kms stretch of the road near Guindy and announced the opening of the first big store in Chennai. It was again all Red.



Then I stumbled upon the Reliance Fresh outlets and noticed that how everything is designed on a Red theme. The boards, the refrigeration units, interiors and even the lighting casts a spell of red all around. I think Mukesh Ambani has a fascination with red colour because Vimal suitings which was re-launched last year had got a new look with Red colour all around. The new logo has a vibrant Red colour as the background. Walk down the road and there you'll get Subhiksha mobile stores teasing you with a prominent Red and little Blue on the display boards. It immediately reminds me of one of their competitors "The Mobile Store" which again has a red theme around their logo. Well, if you want to shop around then take some money out first. Walk into the Axis Bank ATM next door which again has a pleasingly Red (though looks more on the maroon side but will still qualify as close to Red) display board welcoming you to use the facility. Want to get a recharge coupon for your mobile? thousands of outlets are lined up one after another offering top up but well, Vodafone is also Red and to add to the agony, the colour Red also has to play a big part in their competitor's logo: Airtel.



I like red colour but what surprises me is that most of the brands that I noticed have come up in the past 12-18 months and they all have chosen Red as the base colour (or atleast one of the prominent colour) to design their brand themes. MegaMart, The Mobile Store, Subhiksha, Axis Bank, Reliance Fresh, Vimal and More are all new brands which have decided to take the Red Route. My engineering logic tells me that as the colour Red has the largest wavelength, it can be seen from a farther distance so most of the brands prefer to have some element of Red in it. It's not only the new brands old big wigs like HSBC, AirTel, Punjab National Bank has some elements of Red in their logo. But my intuition tells me that the choice of red has something more then mere engineering logic. May be the Red displays are cheaper than others or may be some astrologer or colour consultant out there is making lots of money. "Going Red by choice seems to be the new Mantra".

Have time to kill online?

Then read on....

Only last week I realized that I am a member of contests2win.com when they sent me a reminder that I haven't participated in any of their contests since long. I don't even remember becoming a member because there were too many sites of that genre which offers you little brownie points to do things that they want you to do. Yeah it's something similar to our mothers telling us to get grocery from the next store for the promise of a chocolate. So there was bargain for both of us. Mother has the convenience of not getting out of home and we are getting the chocolates. I am not very surprised to see that the same thing has become business model. There is just a little difference and this little difference was hyped to be a revolutionary concept. Though our parents use to reward us for fetching grocery or doing other chores (like getting a hair cut, completing home work, cleaning room etc) they never paid us to play video games or for that matter any other game. After all, ours is a society which is built on the principles of "पढोगे लीखोगे बनोगे नवाब, खेलोगे कूदोगे बनोगे खराब" (Simple translation is "just keep yourself immersed in books, you dare go out of home to play).

Our English administrators were really successful in driving the point home and boy-oh-boy, look how successful they were actually. Though the 1 billion population is not good enough to get even a single Olympic gold medal, every other day a son of soil starting an IT services company (back offices are easy to setup and start). The older generations can feel happy that what they sowed all these years, is bearing fruits now. Well, to come back to the point, for people like us who were emotionally attached to sports and whose teachers and tutors made it sure that they don't waste their time on useless things had no other resort than to turn to virtual world. I may not be right but what else can explain the cricket craziness of 1 billion people? Why is that every average Indian can advise Rahul Dravid as to how to hold the bat or how to hit Bret Lee over the top or for that matter how to rotate strike in one dayers? Most importantly it's the feeling of guilt in most of us that we lost some of our precious time reading books rather than getting dirty in the field.

Well, coming back to the business plan, we have seen some good websites coming up during the last couple of year like Zapak.com, contests2win.com etc etc. Their business model "we pay you to play games online or we pay you to have fun on the web". And a nation where sports grounds are best used for grazing cattle or hosting big fat weddings the only resort of the young, literate and computer savvy people like us is to indulge in computer gaming and as internet was becoming a hype so by the rule of association internet gaming became the buzzword. Was it a new concept before zapak or contests to win came on the scene? My answer is an emphatic 'No'. Yahoo had Yahoo gaming and Indiatimes use to give brownie points for even reading news on Times of India (well otherwise who will read Times of India online?). Well, Indian startups have made it an habit of picking up an idea existing in US or other markets and then repackaging and re branding it for Indian masses (not a bad idea in itself because I have also plans for doing this only). So online gaming came to India with a bang. Anil Ambani bought Zapak.com and there you go (comeon! if Anil Ambani believes in online gaming then you know this must have some potential).

What's in there for us?

Games like Sudoku is simply boring and are better to do offline. Other small games are simply time waste and have no real fun. Contests to win goes a step further and asks you simple questions (which any idiot can answer and if he/she doesn't then it's a warning signal that their IQ is less than 40 and their parents should take them to a doctor) which any one can easily google. The business model is based on the number of participants because the more people will participate, the more money the website will make and the less chances you have to win contests. I don't know what fun is there in answering questions like "Who married Aishwary Bachhan"? or "Who is the director of movie Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag"?. Well, I know the answers are not simple and many people will mistake Amitabh for Abhishek but who cares, I will get those 5 points on offer.

And how many points you need to redeem a 256 MB pen drive? A staggering 10000 points for a 100 Rs। thumb drive? Isn't it a cool reward? Well, ofcourse it's cool but not for a person like me who has to spend around 6 hours online attempting for all those stupid questions or games to get points (that too over an entire month) and have to pay the broadband bill at the end of the month. It's other thing if my father pays for it. So guess who is making money out of our stupidity. But well there are no brownie points for answering that question. So contests to win staff! be assured I understand your tricks. Now will you please stop spamming me?

Mar 3, 2008

Update about HDFC Bank fraud attempt..

The bank didn't even bother to reply me. May be they never thought that it was a serious attempt of fraud. Or the most likely scenario could be they didn't read my mail also. Great going and it feels so good to think that even in a responsible position, you can afford to be lazy.

Hariot Balmers of the world, are you reading this blog??

Read my post on net banking security threat

What goes up, it comes down..


This is the share price graph of a company named Krishna Filaments for the period 3rd Dec to 3rd March. Looks like a perfect normal curve and is an example of the sweet poetic justice of stock market.

In the past few months, some of the companies have got soaring valuations but then our Finance minister is making sure that no any investor earns money (only the speculators can). Well, I was keeping a watch on this company. The stock price was simply going off the roof and though I was trying daily to buy this stock since it was Rs. 7, I never got a chance as it use to get locked in the circuit the moment it opened. Within 6 weeks it went on to hit Rs 60 (multi bagger) and I decided not to buy as it seems overpriced. And then suddenly without any rhyme or reason it started coming down. I doubt that whether anybody was able to sell it because on the ride down, it was hitting lower circuits daily and normally you can't sell that time.

Well, that is about stock but it also confirms an age old fact that "What goes up, it comes down". You just have to wait for the right time and when it comes, it feels like a sweet poetic justice.