A Time To Reflect

charukesi November 9th, 2004

Indian farmers have come up with what they think is the real thing to keep crops free of bugs. Instead of paying hefty fees to international chemical companies for patented pesticides, they are reportedly spraying their cotton and chilli fields with Coca-Cola . According to this article in The Guardian, farmers in Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh have decided that Things grow better with Coke.

Who says sales of Pepsi and Coke are decreasing?
And who says Indians are not innovative?

• Indiawatch
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charukesi November 9th, 2004

Or should that be clowns?

On the idiot box. Which only gets more idiotic and mind-numbing with every passing day. More entertaining than actual tv content is the offline attacks and counter-attacks of tv channels against each other.

Sahara – STAR fracas takes new turn with conflict over tagline, says exchange4media.

This should be fun… I propose viewership ratings for such offline content too…

• Media Matters , - Television
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charukesi November 9th, 2004

My blog is blog of the day today on BlogStreet India. What more can I ask for, having got there inch by slow painful inch

• The World of Indsight
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charukesi November 5th, 2004

Nokia launches SMS in Hindi to widen reach .

The Mera Nokia service currently in Hindi, is soon to be followed by other regional languages including Bengali, Kannada, Tamil and Marathi. Following efforts for providing computing in regional languages, this is a major step in taking technology to the hinterlands - not to mention tapping the huge markets of regional language and rural India…

Link thru Ideas Bazaar which also has an intresting bit on how mobile phones were still posh pagers for the nascent middle classes…. a few years ago when mobile phones were expensive, inaccessible and for those reasons, a status symbol…

It is very interesting to watch how markets shift and products become cheaper and more accessible with technology… Mobile phones, computers, CDs (I still remember paying obscene amounts like Rs.300 for a music CD, sob!)

• Technology , - New media
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charukesi November 5th, 2004

MTNL issues notice to Reliance Infocomm…. According to MTNL and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Reliance Infocomm has been routing international calls on BSNL and MTNL networks as domestic calls

Reliance Infocomm does it again! And they are only getting more blatant and cheeky with every new law infringement…. it would be actually funny if their actions and attitude were not affecting me as a customer….

• Indiawatch
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charukesi November 5th, 2004

Thus begins the piece in Wired News on how India is emerging as an innovation hub, Generations of Indians have grown up recounting jokes about how the only contribution their nation has made to the world is the invention of zero. Innovation was something other people did.

Have they? Is it?

This interesting article talks about how ‘at research labs across the country, Indians are creating technologies specifically designed for the nation’s multilingual masses and its poor. In doing so, the country is emerging as a research hub for technologies geared to the Third World’ .

And this article from the Outlook is on how a country that spews over 3,50,000 engineers a year has surprisingly few innovations and ideas to show for all that effort. And recent efforts including a 25-ft home-theatre, a car that saves 40% fuel, an automatic idli-maker, roads from plastic waste… (The article also has links to some very interesting technology innovations happening across the country)

I think India is and has always been full of the most amazing innovations - maybe not at a high technology level but at the level of day to day survival and ease of living…. for in this country, for millions, day to day existence is a struggle… and life is all about jugaad…

Washing machines for making lassi is of course part of folk-lore and needs no elaboration. Plastic knick-knacks and handkerchieves sold out of umbrellas turned upside down (overheads? what overheads??)… Computers placed in a hole in the wall, exposed to the elements and vagaries of humans… A boat made from PET bottles, used as means of daily transport…

Jugaad, a uniquely and typically Indian concept, meaning make-shift, making-do, putting-together, improvising… Here’s Management by Jugaad (a must-read)

And finally, a lovely post The Bleating Edge by Steven Rudolph… The Bleating Edge refers to a state where one simultaneously experiences technological advancement and simpleness. For example, I am currently typing this post on a brand new Apple iBook, wireless Airport card, the works. Meanwhile outside my window, there are stray cows, pigs, and sheep (whose bleating has inspired the post’s title). Rudolph seems to be a champion of jugaad and has more on it on his page….

• Indiawatch , Technology
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charukesi November 2nd, 2004

In an article titled, Horlicks branded the coolest drink, the magazine USP Age says, according to a British newspaper, The Sun, the 130-year old drink has been granded the world’s coolest drink. The world’s trendiest bars, clubs, and hotels are stocking and serving the old bedtime favourite instead of caffeine packed coffee and tea. blah blah blah… Horlicks is the new fad in upmarket Britain. Can India be far behind?

How and when did the tipping point happen in Britain? Is this to do with alternate - read ‘pretend to live healthy’ lifestyle trends? This would be an interesting case study on how brands and markets tip - and move drastically on the perception plane of consumers…

But Horlicks? I like to imagine that Horlicks must be about the most hated drink in the world. However, I know it is not true… In India certainly, it sells like crazy in the South and East. Which makes sense since Horlicks was initially sold as a milk substitute in these milk strapped regions. (But what is interesting is that people in South India drink Horlicks not in place of milk, but with milk. Ok, I am not actually saying ugh here, but you know).

Glaxo Smithkline has been regularly contemporising the brand with newer variants and remix versions… But can Horlicks ever get actually cool in India? A brand traditionally presented as a token of your best wishes while visiting your sick relative (I mean ill, am not passing value judgments here).

(Till I read this, I assumed USP Age was A&M relaunched. Remember good old gossipy A&M? This certainly has the same feel and layout…)

• Branding and Marketing
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charukesi November 1st, 2004

Pictures from Rajasthan - Kota, Bundi, Jaipur and Jodhpur (Want to write about each of these magical places… oh, for less laziness… later maybe)

Please view them on Colours Of Rajasthan at flickr.

• My Roadblog , - Cities and places
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