The amount of innovations the 35$ tablet can bring in India.

Like others even i was not convinced by the fact that India can manufacture a 35$ tablet. When Kapil sibal announced the success of the product to media I dint even believe that the product exist. I was convinced only after seeing the following videos. Huge appreciation for the will to do it and managing it. Kapil sibal is also convinced that the price will become less than $10 due to economies of scale.




It also brings confidence that OLPC will be a reality. Consider the amount of change it will make to the learning of global society. The students will have  access to the knowledges of the enitre world. For India with a relatively young population, the huge amount of human potential that it can create is unbelievable.

It has a wifi device, a video output port, a sim card port, a usb port and a memory card port. The features are analysed in this gadget guru program of NDTV. Apart from the learning revolution that it can create, I am wondering what are the other potential innovations that can occur?

Will the sim card port be an answer to India's internet connectivity? If india is interconnected the amount of innovations that it can bring is another huge topic.

Will the video output port help to create IPTV platform? It also largely depends on the software that can be built on the system. But if it happens its another area with huge innovation potential.

Anyway these developments augurs well for the future of India.

A small beach on a full moon evening

I have decided not to do any work after 5 30 PM which leaves me nothing to do in the evenings. I was alone in the room and was thinking of what to do. In the morning my sister scolded me that they are paying five hundred INR for internet the only reason for that is to speak to me. It came in my mind, so I spoke to my family. After that I thought of going to the small beach nearby. It is a very small beach on the lake with really beautiful landscape. It is five minutes’ walk from my room. When I reached there, I saw a couple sitting close to each other in a rock opposite to the path and talking. If I have a girlfriend, I will not mind spending hours over there. I went and sat in the usual place where I sit and started hearing songs in my iPod. I started enjoying the nature over there; I found the music from the nature far more interesting than the one from my iPod. So I stopped the music and started admiring the nature. If you notice, you can see the rays of the moon pointing towards you in the water as though the moon is shining for you. The small mountainous landscape looked like a young woman’s breast and confirmed the word beauty is of female gender as described in a poem. There was movement of people over there, there were people standing alone, doing exercise, watching the water, boats, jogging etc. But the place was never been crowded and I see only a very few people over there. As I had nothing to do, I started watching the people over there. It’s always interesting to watch people’s actions.

It was around 20:00 and started getting dark, a girl came and I was not able to see her properly as it was getting dark. But the silhouette of her nose and lips are enough to get my attraction. She went near the water, touched with her hands and came back. The waves started vociferously as though it longed for her touch. She went and sat leaning on a tree and kept her legs near the water. The plants inside the water bowed their heads to acknowledge her presence. She does not seem to be happy and it made the wind to silence itself. I thought of speaking to her but the Vairamuthu's word that "I always feel difficult to disturb someone who is spending time for themselves" came to my mind. So I let her alone. When I gained enough confidence to speak to her, she stood and started walking. Well, this is not the first time. Anyway, what am I trying to say? Summer is almost over and I am going to miss it

The Vagina Monologues

Warning: The post may be little bit offensive for people with conservative mindset.

 Two months back I got invited to an event via facebook.  It was for a play called “The Vagina Monologues” and it was performed by a bunch of students at KTH student union building. The name alone was enough to create curiosity in me. I read the description of the play and it said the play is about raising awareness about women’s issues. One of my friends in Amnesty group of Stockholm University told me that it is really good and suggested me to go for it.

I went for the play. There were few girls from different parts of the world talking about what women think and feel about their vagina, their fears,desires etc. I wondered whether this type of play can be staged in India. This is one of the things I like in Swedish or in general western culture. You have full freedom of speech. No one can sue you for your speech or writings. Well, the thing I wanted to write about is different.

Recently I noticed a trend of the past. The period during 1960s and 1970s which is considered as the golden period of women liberation in the west is strongly coinciding with the period of sexual revolution which happened in the west during the same period. The way in which the western society viewed sex changed during this period. They started accepting sex as a natural part of human’s life and started appreciating the beauty of it. In all the societies where premarital sex is common, I see the women are more liberated compared to the societies where it is not prevalent. I don’t know whether sexual revolution lead to women liberation or women liberation lead to sexual revolution. But I am sure that both aided each other.

 Most of the societies in the past and some societies even now have done everything, both psychological and physical to undermine women’s sexual desires. In India, almost all the religious books, epics, stories, movies, TV shows somehow reiterate that women belong to men and the practice continues even now. Chastity is being considered extremely important for women. She has to preserve herself for someone whom she is going to meet in the future. It is perceived that it is the right of men or to be precise husbands right to open his wife box (hope you understand).  Both fathers and brothers feel it is their duty to protect the girls and her chastity before finding a right guy for her and I can tell you a lot of moral policing is involved in it. I have seen lot of Indian movies which intent to say that it is a mistake for guys to have an illegal affair, but it is the duty of girls to make the guys realize their mistake and accept them whole heartedly if they realize it. But the standards are totally different for women. For women it is a grave mistake to have an affair. They don’t have any excuses. They have to face embargo from the society.

There are also some cruel physical things that are done to undermine women’s sexual desires such as Female genital mutilation (FGM) like removing the clitoris of women. It is practiced in a lot of countries.  Clitoris is the most important part of women’s body which gives sexual pleasure to them. Clitoris has twice the amount of nerve endings as Penis and no wonder why women have more pleasure. Removing clitoris is equivalent to removing whole or major part of penis. Amnesty estimates that over 130 million women worldwide have been affected by some form of FGM. Even though it is outlawed in most of the countries, it is still followed prevalently.  There is one critically acclaimed film called Moolaadé which deals with this issue.

It is also important to think about the mindset of the society. I have asked many of my Indian friends (including the educated ones) whether they are ready to marry a girl who is not a virgin and not surprisingly the answer is no from most of them and it include guys who are not new to sex. (I see a small change in mindset for the guys who lived abroad for quite some time.) I feel this mindset is one of the reasons for low divorce rates in India. It is not so easy to find someone new if you are divorced (Living together relations are not so common in India). Even people with bad marriages hesitate to divorce because they feel that it is better to live with someone rather than being alone. Well, talking about marriages in India is a big topic and it requires a separate post.

I feel sexual revolution created an important impact in the mindset of people in western countries and aided a lot in women liberation. In western countries, women are no longer seen as men’s property and women started having the feeling that they own their body. Men no longer see women as their possession as compared to lot of societies where women are still seen as men’s possession. I am not expecting any change in the Indian society in the near future. Even after living a considerable amount of time outside India and has even though my mind has accepted the Western mentality with respect to sex, my heart still refuses to leave the Indian mindset. I would suggest all the guys to see the play “The Vagina Monologues” if they get a chance, especially the Indian guys. 

Happy mother’s day

I know I am a few days late to write about it. I am not the one who remembers all the days. But accidently I was talking about my mom during this year’s mother’s day to a bunch of my European friends.

Last Saturday night, I was partying along with a group of my AIESEC friends. We were partying till 5 in the morning and all of a sudden, a group of 10-15 people decided to go to Sauna which lies near to the lake.  Sauna, it is one of the things I like the most in Sweden. For the kind of weather in Scandinavia, it is a perfect fit. We were crazy enough to alternate between the cold lake and the hot sauna for few times. After we got tired of lake, we were sitting inside the sauna thinking about what to do. We were trying few games, after a few we came with this one. Everyone has to tell something about them which others don’t know.  We were telling some funny stuff about ourselves. One of our friends told that his mother styled his hair till he was 9 and everyone seems excited about it. It seemed normal to me; I suppose it will seem normal to most of the Indians. When my turn came, I told my mother styled my hair till I was 17.

Well I can easily say I was one of the most pampered kids in the world. My mother fed me food regularly till I went to university. Every time I had an exam, she used to sit near me and feed me when I was reading.  I learnt how to tie shoe lace during my first year in university. I have never washed my dishes nor did anything in Kitchen. Even she used to shower me at times, it continues even now especially when I take oil bath. I used to come home once in a month or so from the university and I always take the last bus at 20:20 and reach home by 12:30. She always waited for me till then and we ate together after that. Every time I went to university from my home, I used to take early morning bus at 6:15 but by that time she would have prepared breakfast for me and also packed me food for lunch. After starting to work, the frequency that I used to visit her become very less. I go home once in three months or so. Every time I go home, she will make at least a sweet apart from different kinds of food which I like. My European friends here in Sweden found it really interesting and they asked me whether I miss her. Do I really miss her?

I have been living out of my family for the past 9 years by now. So I got used to living without my family but that’s not the case for my mother.  At times, I have wondered who are all in this world will miss me if I am not there. Every time the first person that comes to mind is my mother. Every time I call her the first thing she asks me is what I ate and how is my health. Even though I got used to living away from her, she is one of the factor I consider before taking any major decisions in my life right from where I should settle down till whom I should date. She doesn’t know English and I want to live in a city where it is easy for her to have some friends who can understand her. It’s the same thing with the girl whom I am going to be with. She should be able to communicate with my mother and understand her. That’s one of the main reasons why it’s difficult for me to see someone here. I have to admit that it is very hard to control your emotions at times but I hope that I maintain these two things.

Recently my sister started working and she moved out. I am sensing that my mother is suffering from Empty nest syndrome. The only thing she is expecting from me is to hear my voice and show my face once in a while via Skype. But I rarely call her. From now I decide that I am going to call her once in two days. Mom, I know you can’t read this blog, but all what I wanted to say is “I love you”.

P.S: Mother’s day is celebrated during second Sunday of may in India and in lot of other countries.

My first short story (Its little bit strange that it is in Swedish)

Det var en trevlig dag. Solen var upp hela dagen efter tre månader i Stockholm. Han hade en normal dag till den. Han vaknade upp på klockan halv sju och äter han müsli på morgonen. Som vanligt gick han till skolan och kommer hem efter middag. Han borjade sin dator och tittade sin e-post. Allting var bra förut den konstigt telefon samtal. Det var fjärde gång fick han den här telefon samtal. Någon talade på ett språk han inte förstår. Han känner den röst men han vet inte vem denna person. Det var en vecka sen han har fått första samtal från denna person. Han bli mycket nyfiken och omtänksamt. Han ville diskutera med hans kompis. Han gick ut och startade sin bil. Han tog motorvägen från Järva krog till Stockholm. När han körde tänkte han om sin förra år.

Många saker har hänt för honom i förra år. För första gång flyttade han till annan land. Han gick till Mexico som en utbytesstudent. Han hade resa till många länder förut men han hade aldrig bott i annan land. Hans liv i Mexico var fyllt med äventyr, fester och danser. Han träffade intressanta människor båda i liv och dansgolv. Han reste mycket. För Jul reste han till Tijuana att fira Jul med sin kompis. Tijuana ligger verkligen nära till USA gränsen. Under Jultid, Det är en av de mest trafikerade gränsövergång som många personer från Mexico gå till San Diego för Jul inköp. Även de beslutade att gå till San Diego för Jul inköp. San Diego är en solig, ren och modern stad. De besökte andra delar av California och de var kommer tillbaka till Mexico.

De tog motorväg I-5, Interstate highway 5 som fortsätter i Mexico som Mexico Federal Highway 1 till Tijuana. De var en mil innan sista avfarten - 1A i USA när den olycka hände. En svart Volkswagen Golf bil har krockade med de. Lyckligtvis var de säkra men personen i andra bil var mycket skadade. Han gick till andra bilen att hjälpa den person. Den person såg som någon från Mayan civilisationen. Den person ville förmedla något till honom men förut han kan förstår den persons mumlar, den person blev medvetlös och dog senare i hans armar. Båda den persons röst och ansikte ser bekant för honom. Det tog veckor för honom att komma ut av psykiska trauman. Våren var inte trevlig heller. Utbrot av svininfluensen gjorde honom att avbryta sin vistelse och åker tillbaka till Stockholm.

Hans mobil ringde och han kom tillbaka till hans nuvarande liv. Det var hans vän. Han såg en krossade bil på motorväg. Han stannade sin bil och kom ut. Han stod bredvid vägen iklädd endast en tunn troja. Det var mörkt och kallt och han rös till. Bilarna som körde förbi tutade och blinkade med sina strålkastare. Han gick nära till krossade bil. Hans ögon bli bredare. Det var en svart Volkswagen Golf bil. Han fick en samtal och hörde samma mumlar. Han tvekade men tog upp mobiltelefonen och slog 112...

I am putting one of the report which i submitted for "Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries" course in SSES.

"Bringing Sustainability to Educational NGO's in India."

Literacy rate of India is around 65% and it has around 300 million illiterates. The distribution of this number is not uniform throughout the country, it differs from region to region. The policies and measures of the government also differ from state to state. The rest of this document discusses about the state of Tamilnadu, situated in the southern part of India. The literacy rate of the state is around 74%. Although the government is taking various measures to industrialize the rural areas, their livelihood largely depends on agriculture. Non guaranteed income and natural calamities still keeps many under poverty line. The lack of awareness and information combined with the poverty keep most of their children out of school, make them to work as child labours, again leading to poverty which makes the vicious cycle to continue. Because of the various steps taken by the successive state governments, the enrollment of students in primary school increased and it is very high nowadays and the number of school dropouts is also less compared to national average. Education is free till high school. Along with the free education, government provides free bus pass, free books, free uniform and free mid day meal. Mid day meal scheme is a very famous scheme which made a huge impact in the state. The key objectives of the program are: protecting children from classroom hunger, increasing school enrollment and attendance, improved socialization among children belonging to all castes, addressing malnutrition, and social empowerment through provision of employment to women. Due to the success of the program it is extended to the whole of India.

However the success in the primary school enrollment is not replicated in university level education and in maintaining the quality of education. There are two main reasons for this,

One: Lack of awareness among them and lack of sources of information to them.

Two: Financial Constraints.

This is where most of the Educational NGO's come into picture. Generally the NGO's concentrate on providing financial assistance to the students and in training and creating awareness about the opportunities available to them. In the recent times, the number of NGO's started by IT Professionals within India is on the rise. Many NGO's are funded by Non Residing Indians and it is run by a group of volunteers. Funding and volunteers form the two major backbones of NGO's. So, to bring sustainability to the NGO's we have to bring sustainability in funding and in getting volunteers.

Tamilnadu contains around 350 Engineering colleges and around 1200 arts and science colleges. Almost all the Colleges contains a social service unit called National Service Scheme, popularly known as NSS. Few of the main objectives of NSS are

• To enable the students to understand the community in which they work.
• To understand themselves in relation to their community.
• To identify the needs and problems in the community in the solution of which they can be involved.

Each college contains around 50 members and yearly they go for an camp, mostly to a nearby village which is funded by the Government of India. General activities during the camp are cleaning, afforestation, organizing health camps and creating awareness on social problems, education, cleanliness etc. Apart from the camp they also involve themselves in other social activities like organizing blood donation camps, visit to nearby orphanage etc. If the NGO's can tie up with NSS units of few colleges there will be steady flow of educated and socially active volunteer. NGO's can encourage them, to produce training materials for the school students, in providing computer training to the nearby villages, in organizing seminars in the rural areas about the educational opportunities available to them and about the job opportunities related to the education.

Most of the NGO's doesn't have a business model and it depends heavily on funding. The business model of Digipolly (Its the name of a fictional company which we created for the course) suits them as well. The basic Business idea of Digipolly is by outsourcing basic BPO jobs like data entry, medical transcription, web design, digital posters design, etc to the Students.

NGO's have lot of advantages with respect to this business model, many NGO's have people who are in good position and have good network, which will help them in getting the customers for the business. There are many IT Professionals involved in the NGO's who can help in providing training to the students. Their NGO tag will help them in improving the credibility and they can try for partnership with companies like Samasource (http://samasource.org) or Desicrew (www.desicrew.in) to goto the clients or they can partner with some social entrepreneurs to get help in structuring the business. NGO's also have students who are getting scholarships from them, whom they can employ in this business. It also gives a sense of satisfaction among the students as they will get salary for their work and they are standing in their own legs, instead of getting favour from others.

References:

http://nlm.nic.in/literacy01_nlm.htm

http://labour.nic.in/cwl/ChildLabour.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-day_Meal_Scheme

http://www.tamil-nadu.ngosindia.com/

http://nss.nic.in/intro.asp

I am posting one of the mail i wrote to my friends long back about Goldquest. Read my first post regarding this and also a guy's reply for my first post. It will be in the comment of first post.

A legal way of robbing II.

I happened to see a few reply mails for the document legal way of robbing. Here I am pointing out few of the concerns in the mail.

The persons who are into it are reluctant to call it as a MLM, is MLM a sin to do? I feel this is also an MLM only. The difference is with the amount of money and nothing different pertaining to the business which is marketing. If whole thing is a scam anyway, does it matter if it is MLM or not? Why do they excitedly oppose when we call them MLM? Some thought must go into this.

The concern about this business is not whether it is legal or not, the concern is whether it is ethical. I heard that the company is sued. I don’t know why it is sued but some reason should be there for the company to be sued.

My friend pointed out a valid speculation regarding getting permission from the trusts. If they are approaching Tamil nadu government saying we want to spread Tamil by imprinting thiruvalluvar in gold coin, they will not deny it and it is easy to get permission saying so. And of course a committee will be formed to check whether the thiruvalluvar mould is correct. Why it can’t be true in other cases too. I find this as a valid speculation. So the point is, depicting some great person’s coin, endorsed by big authorities does not give credibility. The reason told to them could be very much different from what is told to us to convince us.

Regarding the demand, I heard the same words from them (To make that coin as a rare piece they will destroy the mould) when they tried to brain wash me. I think in most of the cases the no of coins is fixed by them only, because the no is small compared to the effort spent on making the mould.

Regarding the foreign policy ( The foreign trade policy of India registered in 1997 comments that only 8% of the profit made by any company who is head quartered outside India is taken out.), I don’t think any policy is there like that. if they are not able to take their profit first why they have to invest here? If this is not the case there should be many loop holes by which they can take their money out.

Regarding the ways you can make money in this business. Two ways are there. First, by selling their products at a higher margin than what u actually bought it from the company. Secondly, by referring other people to market their products and in turn getting a commission for it. You are getting an eight gram gold coin for 33,000 right. If you are capable of finding a person in India who can get that gold coin for more than 33,000 def you can make money out of it. You can get an eight gram gold for Rs 7000 .

They are claiming they made an investment in Chennai, what investment are they talking about?, what they call as investment is the amount of money they are collecting here and giving a part of that as commission.

The persons inside this are comparing this business with stocks and mutual funds. I don’t find any relation between these two. Most of them into this business don’t know about share market I think. In share market you are giving money for the company to do their business. Let us take some research student have an idea, but he don’t have money what to start an idea. He will try to approach a venture capitalist who can fund the project. If the venture capitalist found this as good idea he will pump in his money for the project. Still if they need more money they will go for the share market. If the business is well established and if they want more money to expand their business they will go for an IPO. Let us take an example of airlines having some 10 flights. It needs money to get 10 more new flights to expand its business. There are many ways to generate the required money. One of the ways is share market where they will sell their stake in the company to one who wants a share in the company. Investing in share market is doing some sort of service to the society because you are giving money for a person to do business and sharing the profit. ‘Stock markets are temples of capitalism. Without it you or I may not have been in our jobs and be earning today’ Please don’t compare this with stocks. It is really foolish.

And one more thing I noticed is they are not doing marketing for the products**, they are marketing only the business saying that you can make money by referring. (**Product is of no value in a country like India, if you try to sell a gold coin for 35,000 means all will try to laugh in different ways. This is the comment I heard from one of my friend.)

I am seeing this typical example given by them. by referring your friend to go to pantaloons you are not getting money. Ok let me clear this point. Why is my friend asking where he can buy a dress? Simply because he is in need to get a dress. What is the need for their product, is it really worth to get a coin for 33,000? Just think about it. It is very clear from their presentation that there is nothing to do with the product in India. Clearly the emphasis is on referring other people and making money.

Let me put my concern about the referral thing, to take your money back there should nine on your left side and nine on your right side totally eighteen. According to them every year people are joining so it will not be an issue. According to their statistics every year five lakh new people are introduced to this business. Out of that forty thousand will be interested to join. Ok let us go by their argument. Let us take this year 40,000 are already into the business, out of which 20,000 will be in last level right. So for getting their money back they should join 20,000 * 18 (3,60,000) people to get their money back. Is it possible. Ok let it be possible. Out of the 3,60,000 there will be 1,80,000 in the last level. For them to take their money back they need 1,80,000 *18 (32.4 lakhs) is it possible to get?? Let us put a small tabulation for this.

Last level	Number of persons needed	New last level
20,000	3,60,000	1,80,000
1,80,000	32.4 lakh	16.2 lakh
16.2 lakh	2.92 crore	1.46 crore
1.46 crore	26.28 crore	13.14 crore
13.14 crore	236 crore	Not relevant

I hope everyone will be clear with the above calculation. The population of India is 100 crore only, where will that 13 crore people will get that money???? It is certain that they will lose that money. The above holds only if people put their efforts to catch other people once in an year, where there are fresh 40,000 people available. If one catches people more frequently, it is equivalent of draining next year’s resources. The doom comes faster and the people in the last level of the trees (who have nobody to catch) come soon. What guarantee is there that you are not one of them? By their claim, there are lot of people in the business already. If so, you have very less opportunity to be at the top.

People just come out and think. You may not know that you are doing robbing. Just sit back and think about it. Think about the money flow. Just think whose money you are getting. It is our own people’s money. Why we have to rob and give it them. We are making others to mock at us.

Here I have explained only about the money flow. I am not pointing out other concerns. Think how others will look at you if they feel you are robbing others money. They will look at you as a very cheap person. I have seen those incidents. Your friends will run away from you with the fear that you will call him to the presentation. Your mind will be occupied thinking whom to refer. 24 hours you will be thinking about this and you have to beg your friends to come for the presentation. Do you want to be in this situation?? Just think before you act. Don’t get carried away by their words. Even if you want to get into this don’t act immediately. Don’t ever swipe your credit cards. Just come back to your home discuss with your friends and act. Just think about the concerns. Act wisely.