Mobile Marketing: Potential or Pain?

Mobile advertising has off late gathered lot of intellectual discussion. Some see it as a great potential and others treat it as a pain in the a***. Mobile advertising today, as I know, mainly comes in the form of SMS (Text Message/Multimedia Message). I am keeping the advts. which a user sees while browsing internet through his mobile phone separate from this.  A quick look at Wikipedia suggests that worldwide, over 90% of mobile marketing is done through SMS.

I personally feel that mobile advertising has one of the biggest nuisance value as compared to other conventional mode of advertising. I would request readers to pour in their views and correct my opinion.

Well, in case of TV advt. I switch on my TV to watch my favourite show and attached with it comes few advt. which I see during the breaks. Thus, I don't switch on my TV to watch Advertisements! 

I pick up my favourite news paper to read the latest news/articles/opinions and while browsing through the pages I get to see some advertisements. Again, I didn't pick the newspapers to check the advertisements!

Let's take the case of web advertising as well, and there also I go to my favourite website to browse it and I see few ads while browsing through my favourite website. Thus, the ads come with my favourite website which has some helpful content for me. I didn't go on internet to see ads.

You can apply a similar logic for hoardings, banners, etc which you see on your way. You usually don't go somewhere to check the hoardings or banners.

Based on the above cases, I can say that advertisements seem to be accepted when they come along with something which is useful to us or asked by us. We usually "make an effort" to see/do things which we like to do or are important for us. Advertisement comes along with them in the process. Thus we don't "make an effort" particularly to see an advt.

This basic principle is not respected my mobile advertising. The very idea that advt. is being sent through SMS/text message, implies that it needs to be read/seen asap. This is what you do when you get any sms.  That is why you get a ping/alert whenever the message arrives. SMS with advt. comes as an interrupt. But usually an unwanted interrupt. Then the user "makes an effort" to pull out his mobile phone from his pocket/bag and pushes few buttons and goes on to read the advertisement! So all the effort purely to read an ad! not good... What comes along with something you wanted is still ok. But ads in this form irritates the user.

There is another advertising medium which suffers from similar problem. Ads in an e-mail. Why doesn't it work? Well, it again breaks the fundamental rule where the user makes an effort to open a mail and read it without getting what he actually created his e-mail account for. This still has a lesser effect as he at least signed into his e-mail account to check his own mails, thereby some of his effort went into something which he more legitimately wanted. Still advertising of this form has now taken a derogatory name called "SPAM". Have you ever thought why an ad in news paper or during the commercial break in TV shows are not called SPAM or any such similar word?

If the fate of e-mail ads is such then think of the effect that mobile advertising is likely to create in the user's mind. It's awful.

So I would say that if you are looking to advertise and especially through a mass media then try to embed/bundle your ads with something more legitimately asked for by the user. The challenge is to embed the ad so seamlessly that the ad should be able to attract the attention of the user if he is interested in it but if he is not, the ad should not spoil the user experience of using the medium.

Mobile media surely needs to be tapped. Today, mobile phones outnumber TV sets by over 2 to 1, internet users by nearly 3 to 1, and the total laptop and desktop PC population by over 4 to 1(Source: Wiki). Also, the mobile media, unlike TV, Newspaper or Radio, is a two way media. It remains to be seen when marketers would be able to effectively start tapping the vast potential of mobile marketing.

elle...girls...femme...she...ragazza...

“chal yaar indrapuri ke hostels se aankhe sek kar aate hain… «

Well anyone from Indore will realize what I am talking about. I donn know why but this is the story of almost everyone who has lived a bachelor’s life. What do we get from just staring at girls...well all of you know. :P

So when we stare at a girl, what are her reactions? This was the topic my team was discussing at lunch table today. My 50 year old boss was sharing that when he went to Brazil and one day while he was just walking around, he started staring at a girl. That girl instead of being shy, started feeling good and replied with a smile. Then this guy, my boss, stared in a more confident manner and she started directly looking into his eyes.

Next to him on the lunch table was another guy from Brazil and he told “ya..this is true...in Brazil...girls do a lot to get their body in good shape...and if you are staring at her...it shows that her efforts are paying off”.

Now what’s the reaction of a girl when you stare at her in France or to be specific in Paris. Well a Parisian girl will give such an uncomely reaction that you will stop staring at any girl from next time. Although I haven’t. Well according to the reasoning given by my Brazilian friend, a Parisian girl should also feel good if someone stares at her. They also do a lot to keep themselves in good shape. At least this is what I can say after staring at them for 3 months in Paris.

Now let’s come to my own country India. In India, when you are staring at a girl, even though that girl would be feeling delighted inside her heart, she simply won’t look at you. With her eyes down, she will just cross by. Well there are lot of thoughts going in her mind at that instant which I will come up with sometime later.

Why? Why do we stare so much all the time? Well reason is simple...if you are a MAN...you will do it. Some days back I also got a forwarded mail saying doctors have scientifically proved that staring at girls keeps you healthy. Why not?

Well nowadays while staring I keep guessing age of a girl most of the time. In India it’s actually very easy to guess age of a girl. But if her bosoms are still in the so to say developing stage, she must be somewhere in 16-19. If are they in good shape, she must be somewhere around 20-21+. If her face looks mature as well, she must be more than 22-23. If she has gained weight, she must be married and more than 24-25. But nowadays things are changing for better. Lot of cosmetics companies are investing heavily and things are gonna be different after 5 years.

But here in France, it’s very difficult to guess the age. Let me tell you, cosmetics industry is truly advanced here in Europe. You just can’t guess age of a girl just by looking at her. Just look at a woman from back, her body looks like that of a 21 year old girl. Then later you will realize that she is a woman somewhere around 40.

After lot of perseverance and constant practice, I have come to the conclusion that it’s the hands of a girl which can reveal her true age. The more mature and wrinkled the hands are, the older she is. Trust me. Yesterday I was looking at a girl and from her face she was looking like Emma Watson of Harry Potter’s latest release, a typical teenage face. From her body, she was looking bit older around 23-24. But when I went close to her and had a look at her hands, I realized she must be more than 26-27 at least. Well, lot of opportunity for manicure industry, huh.

So next time when you go out, just observe the hands of a girl and you will come back and click on “Must Read” in “Reactions” at the bottom of this blog.

Role of Fiscal and Monetary policy: American context (Part 2)

Welcome to part 2. (Click here to read the first part) I will begin this part with the modern panacea for recession. Loosen monetary policy, let your currency depreciate boost your export and plough back out of recession.

This looks efficient as well as effective in most cases. Although the sanity of increasing liquidity in the market was not suggested to the Asian tigers or the Argentinean government during the crisis, still it is now a well established fact to do so in order to fight recession. However, it might not give its usual results when we look at America.

The USA is a net importer with huge trade deficit and USD is the global trade currency. Many other countries are dependent hugely on trade with the USA and also dependent on the value of USD. This has propelled most of the developing countries to maintain the value of their domestic currency against dollar to keep them competitive in the export market and also to prevent losing the value of their forex reserves. These nations which include the likes of China, Russia and India, have chosen domestic inflation over stronger local currency (Click here to better understand this phenomenon). Another factor which plays a role in keeping the dollar strong against other currency is that US lies in the centre of today’s mono polar world. Thus no major economy across the world stays untouched from US recessions. You can see on the graph how Euro area follows US GDP growth rate.

What this means for the US economy is that when monetary policy is loosen in times of recession, USD doesn’t lose as much value as expected and thus US gains no particular advantage in the export market. Thus US gets no better at successfully targeting the foreign demand and it rather needs to prop up domestic demand to recover from recession. In the first partwe talked about the interaction of domestic demand and expansionary monetary policy where there is an emergence of a catch 22 situation. (Are we seeing a similar phenomenon now? When there is liquidity in market and the proof is asset prices are increasing, stock market all over the world is on their way up, Gold is at its all time high; though the queue outside employment offices in US isn’t decreasing at the same rate, which emphasises that money available is being invested in assets rather than production.)

The democrats in US are currently using a mix of fiscal and monetary policy to provide stimulus to the economy. But the majority money till now has gone into saving the collapsing financial system which in turn used the money to write off bad debts. The road from here on would need a script for creating more jobs and stimulating demand. Let’s see what US does now, keeping in mind that USD hasn’t lost much against other major currencies. Will the expansionary monetary policy be used again or the fiscal policy will get its due? With interest rate already near 0% there is not much scope left here!

Thanks for your patience :) Feel free to compliment/criticize.

Bhasker Siddharth

http://bhasker-siddharth.blogspot.com/

Role of Fiscal and Monetary policy: American context (Part 1)

Hi friends,

I started off with the aim of exploring recessionary economics. I wanted to find out the different ways in which a recession is triggered and steps which can lead a nation out of it. But as I spent more time on it, the length and complexity of the scenarios to be considered kept increasing. I wanted to present a simple model which can explain different kinds of recession and give a clear picture of the phenomena which everybody can understand. But as I said earlier it’s now taking too much time. Let’s see when I complete it, if I complete it at all.

Right now I will give a quick over view of the role of fiscal and monetary policy and understand them in today’s context. I will also try to explore how they work in the American economic system.

We typically have two kinds of tools to bring changes in the economic condition of a country: fiscal policy and monetary policy. We use an expansionary fiscal/monetary policy to plough out of recession. Here is how they work and the basic difference between them.

Fiscal policy focuses on controlling the government spending in order to accelerate or retard economic growth. During recession, an expansionary fiscal policy is used which aims at increasing government spending to directly increase investment, employment and thus domestic demand. Expansionary fiscal policy is either financed through borrowing or tax increase.

Monetary policy aims at controlling the liquidity in the market to spur up or slow down the economy. It is implemented primarily through interest rate control (though there are other ways as well). Usually the central bank is responsible for fixing the interest rate. During recession, an expansionary monetary policy is implemented (easy money) which aims to bring down interest rate or make money cheaper. It is then expected that with cheaper money, the private sector will increase production, which will increase employment and then demand.

The effectiveness of the above tools depends a lot upon the source which triggered the recession, severity of the recession, objectives which the government/central bank is looking to achieve (like exchange rate stability, price stability, et al), financing options, how soon the results are desired, etc. Both got a validation and initial acceptance after the great depression. However, while recovery from the depression of 1933 saw the use of fiscal stimulus, the world today is seeing more of monetary policy being used to fight slumps in economy. There are various reasons for this

1.   1. Monetary policy is governed by independent central banks which don’t have to go through slow democratic process of fiscal policy and are thus implemented much more quickly.

2.   2. Shift in economic structure towards free market economy where government keeps off from influencing the market (laissez faire).

3.   3. Continued success of monetary policy to come out of previous slumps. In the last two slumps, US primarily used expansionary monetary policy to successfully come out of the slowdown triggered by IT bust and 9/11 attack in 2000-2001.

However, there is a catch with expansionary monetary policy. There is cheap money in the market which can be used by the producers but the consumption level is still low and unemployment is high. Cheap money alone is not sufficient for producers to increase supply. Producers don’t start increasing production without seeing a growth in demand.

Demand can come from two places, either domestic or foreign. Producers wouldn’t increase supply for the domestic market until there is a demand and consumers wouldn’t start spending unless they are employed back. This creates a tussle where private firms tread slowly resulting in slow progress. However, lower interest rate brings down the domestic currency and makes you more competitive in export market, thus giving the producers enough incentive to increase production to cater foreign demand. This increase in production gradually increases the domestic employment level and then domestic demand. The process is simple and backed by top economists of our time. Loosen monetary policy, let your currency depreciate boost your export and plough back out of recession.

At this point I would like to stress upon the objective of creating demand. The ultimate objective of any recovery plan has to be the creation of demand (and not trade, inflation, employment, production, et al)which can then take care of production as well as employment. The importance of creating demand as the centre piece has to be understood and should be incorporated in policy decisions.

Continued in part 2.

Of judgements and Indians

A: abbe tu kabhi blog pe kuch post karega ya saari zindagi sirf baate hi banata rahega

me: abbe likhoonga yaar.....

This is a small part of one of the countless conversations which i had with the creator of this blog. I started wondering.....what is it that keeps me from writing......am i scared of people's reactions or as Saty says for conversations, i just don't have anything constructive to add......may be that's true......However, more than anything I am scared of being judged.....sure, i am judged all the time by my actions....but writing is just another action....and that will be judged....

I can recount a similar incident when "junglee" who is revered and considered very wise by one and all(God only knows why)......posted on this blog.....and everybody, me included commented on his post (personally, not in writing ) when we ourselves cant write to save our lives.....

There are two reasons for this....one, we expect a lot from junglee and two, we have this urge to judge others (by default)

Reason one may be understandable....however, i would focus on reason two....I believe that we have developed this over the years, a quality (if u can call that) of criticising, commenting, judging others......and it can be a variety of things.....think about it...food, politics, clothes,cricket, sport (they are diff for Indians), language, blog posts, drinks,cocktails, anything and everything......we either like it or want something to be better or someone to be better.....We seem to have opinions about everything......immaterial of whether we are good at it....(Exhibit A : Cricket)

Now, I wonder if this is the quality Indians possess or is it a quality that mankind has....lets assume that its just us indians who are in this world to have an opinion about anything and everything in this world......(might be true).......If that is so....its great although it can get very irritating.....is it because of our "great Indian democracy" where the PM also doesnt have great power and is bound by expectations to perform in a certain manner?

P.S: Parting gift for Ashwini who leaves Paris in 2 days....and starts a new chapter in his life in Madrid......All the best!!!

Remember Swades...

I am listening to 'Swades' track "Yeh vo bandan hai jo kabhi toot nahisakta". The scenes from the movie go auto playing in my mind. Powerful the song must be for the emotions it evokes. I remember, while I was working in a call centre, I was talking to the only girl in our batch. We were talking about the movie. She said the movie touched her. I had said that it touched me too, though the actress of the movie (Gayatri) had a more profound effect on me, she simply stole my heart. She smiled. I then happened to ask her what exactly in the movie touched her the most. She vividly described a scene when Mohan bhargava (apna SRK - playing 'An Indian NASA scientist') is travelling from one Indian village to another in a train and how a young boy is running on the platform of railway station to sell water in a kullad for 25p. I distinctly remember Mohan was visibly perturbed by the fact that this could well be the means of livelihood of some brethren of his own race. I mean here livelihood of a person who is as human as he is and therefore pointing to the stark contrast in levels of existence.

Then, probably inspired by 'Mind of Strategist by Kenichi Omahe' which I happened to be reading at the same time I was listening to the song, I starting analysing and realised that perhaps is no investment in this business activity but it requires great deal of labour. It would have involved gathering mud, make it amenable to being casted intokullad, then giving shape to kullad on a rotating wheel and finally filling water and making the sales effort. Now, taking into consideration the settings shown in the movie (which were quite life like), a rough estimate of the money he would be able to make would be at max 4 rupees. These 4 rupees should be able to buy a village person enough wheat to just manage survival of a family for a day. In a non agriculture season sustaining livelihood by this means may well be an ingenious idea. Though, I am not too sure of that. To think of that more realistically that was the way one family was surviving at least in the movie.

This brings to light the evolution of man kind from a prehistoric to a modern man. Needless to say, both survived fine. What is different is the survival needs, what is a need for one is beyond luxuries for the other. A modern man (put yourself in his place) can't think of living without soap and a shampoo. A normal human if we go back some centuries didn't even knew about these things. To quote a specific instance of what I am talking about, I recount a incident that stuck me while I was working with Infosys (a software giant) in puneIndia. We (4 people sharing an apartment) were invited to a societydusshera function after which we were served dinner. However, there were no spoons. People were accustomed to eating with hand. Even my other flatmates managed somehow, but I born an brought up in a spoon using family (pun intended) could not eat and therefore I had to waste chawal. This might sound funny which it is but something similar can happen to anybody and therefore, the incident demands observation and contemplation.

This incident made me believe that we have complicated ourselves where where we could have been living very simply. If we consider a normal human being life cycle, a person is born, he studies, he works, he grows old and eventually he dies. On an organism level it is immaterial whether there was a technological advancement on the planet or not, it is also immaterial if the organism was able to understand the cosmos and the diseases plaguing it. Sometimes, I also began to think of the futility of what we are all striving for in this world of cut throat competition. To put it bluntly, one is simply going to die and it would be immaterial what one made of oneself after he/she ceases to exist. And it doesn't require a particular spiritual bent of mind to figure this out. That is also the reason I sometimes feel 'I am flowing with the river' like most others. Mind has so been constricted by the society that it only can think between and not beyond. I wish and hope sincerely that there is a more reasonable explanation.

Worth of a Human Life!

Hey Hi!! I am Abhijeet, Ek kahani sunana chahta hun aapko, chhoooooti si ‘pakka’! Zyada time nahin lunga aapka I promise.

 I am from Gurgaon and I work with reliance as relationship manager for ‘Reliance Fresh’ in delhi. I like to make new friends and u knw wat??? My friends say that they admire me for being such a helping friend, I love to help my friends in any way I can, Kya hai na the satisfaction u get from this is incredible. Dil khush ho jata hai sach . Ghar ka khana acha lagta hai. Weekend pe family ke saath ghumne jaate hain. My mom stays with my elder brother in old delhi, we have a 25 year old house there. Kabhi ghar bhi chala jaata hun aur fir Chess ki game na ho to maza kaisa.

Life has not been a piece of cake for me,I have struggled through out my life, I struggled when I wanted to study, I struggled when I wanted materialistic things when I was young, I struggled when I was searching for a job, I lost my dad when I was 14 …….Life has been a series of sorrows for me, Maine sab dekha hai!

But with my confidence and dedication I overcame all the difficulties in my path, aur pata hai, Niki gave me the best gift of my life in the form of a beautiful daughter (giggles). “Niki aur mannat ke saath kab time nikal jata hai kuch pata hi nahin chalta”. I have been happily married to Niki for past 3 years bas ab to aisa lagta hai ki saari problems khatam ho gayi hain .I think now is the time to fulfil all the unfulfilled dreams.

5 saal ho gaye hain meri splendour  ko I am plannin to purchase a brand new Maruti Ritz next month, aur kya ab to promotion bhi ho gayi hai and then even Mannat is too sensitive to dust and dirt. Responsibility aa gayi hai na ab to, Doctor banaunga beti ko. I will make sure my baby gets all the comfort in the world that even I could not enjoy! Ghar bi banana hai, Mom ki angioplasty bhi due ho gai hai, Niki bhi apna ek boutique kholna chahti hai….. proud hota hai Niki pe. She is so intelligent and understanding.

Arey baaton baton main to bhul hi gaya!

It rained like nething day before yesterday and as expected it was amazing weather yesterday. Everything felt so good and fresh while I was riding my bike to my office in the morning.

 Niki wanted me to stay home for some more time in the morning (smiling), but office is office and then besides I am the manager, so no compromise. But neways I kissed mannat goodbye and left for the office.

There was this freshness in the air, so pure I could almost feel like I was flying. I took the road near sector-56 which connects to the delhi-gurgaon border, newly built road saves me a lot of time. I was smiling thinking of Mannat and waiting for the red light to turn ‘green’. Finally after a long wait it turned green.

Traffic started to move and which I earlier thought to be just water clogged due to rain was actually and big pot hole around 1 feet deep right there in the middle of the road and the front tire of my bike almost emersed completely in the hole got stuck. (tears building up in the eyes finding right words)

8 seconds left for the traffic light to turn red I was still struggling to come out of the hole (tears start to flow down) I mite have already got a heart attack as I saw a SUV just around 2 meters behind speeding towards me. I died on the spot.

This young guy driving the SUV was getting late for college and as he saw few seconds left for the traffic light to turn red, tried to overtake the mini truck and hit a calf walking on the road. He did try to brake when he saw me stuck but water clogged on the road did the damage.

Mannat ko doctor banana chahta tha, ek nayi car, ek naya ghar, mom ka operation, Niki………whu will take care of them …………Meri kya Galti thi (crying)????

Shall I blame the rain? Shall I blame the authority for the water on the road or potholes? Or shall I blame the calf or SUV driver????

Wat is the worth of my life? Ur life??? Are these broken roads and terrible water sewage worth more than our life? Wat did me and my family do to deserve this (silent)?

Acha chalta hun, Mannat aaj 3 saal ki ho gayi hai! Yaad karti hogi mujhe!

DRIVE SAFE, Its not always our fault………..Some time we don’t even get a chance to make a mistake! Everyone is a father, a son, daughter, mother, wife, husband!

Value their life as U value yours!

Be patient on road!

Real Things..

“Beta I feel very alone since your father has been transferred to Pune. I am going to your nanny’s village for some time. And this time don’t cancel it, come straight to the village. It’s been long beta, you are coming just second time in 9 years since you went to the UK. And yes ask Swati once more, maybe she can manage to get some days off from her office” Tanuj’s mom is trying to persuade his son to visit her. She does that very often but this time she is a little bit hopeful.

“.......thanda nimbu paani 2 rupaiya glass thanda nimbu paani 2 rupaiya glass.....paav bhar jalebi 10 rupiya mai, paav bhar jalebi 10 rupiya mai...., babuji ye kharbooj dekho shahad se mitthe saste lagaye hain.... “

Surrounded by the clamour on Nooh bus stand Tanuj is waiting for another bus to his final destination Kaanjigarh, a small village in Rajasthan. He is looking at the things and the people trying to sell them by bursting their vocal chords. He is looking at the things. He notices that it is not only the lemon that has made water look dirty and that the flies sitting on the jalebees may sit on the faeces too lying in the nearby vast open field. A guilt feel spreads on his face and he feels like spitting when he remembers that he used to crave for all these things when he used to visit his nanny in his childhood summer vacations. He looked at the one rupee water pouches and 8 rupee water bottle but the lousy packing confirmed that they have been filled from the esoteric water tap. Suddenly a huge crowd starts running towards the loud rattle sound. He too could board the bus but cursed himself for not booking some luxury line. He didnt even think that no luxury bus goes to Kaanjigarh. His feeling good factor about India’s progress which arose due to good new airlines and fast trains till Jaipur; was fading fast on this last part of the journey.

Finally he reaches the nanny’s house but something is missing. He missed the deep hearted welcome by her nanny with her weak trembling hand unsettling his hair for more than 5 minutes. She would never forget to kiss him on forehead after that. His nanny passed away 3 years back. He liked his mama and mamy too. They also loved him a lot. His mom broke down the moment she saw him. She loved him even longer than his nanny this time. He pays respect to his mama and mamy by touching their feet and hugged their son Monu.

He spent most of his time with Monu roaming the village streets, bazaar and nearby school grounds and visiting his old friends. In the past seven days he had seen the whole village twice for the village is small with around 1500 people, 2 small schools, one bank, one market, one bus station and a small clinic. He is seeing people doing very basic and mundane activities. They are cooking and eating food, washing clothes, cleaning their houses, buying and selling again food and clothes and little complex things like medicine and farming tools. And he is seeing them again and again with the same relaxed faces without any wrinkles on their foreheads. They are not walking fast; they stop at almost each person passing by like ants do and they are not carrying any sandwiches in their hands while they are heading their work.

Tanuj had already spent 7 days. Suddenly he thinks would it be possible for him too to devote so much of his time, had his friends visited him in the UK. He replied to himself that he is much busier than these guys; they don’t go to office and just help their fathers at their local grocery or medicine or clothes shops. But is it good to be busy in life?

American recession fuelling domestic inflation?

American economy is influencing the world economy as never before and particularly the Asian developing nations which are increasingly becoming dependent on GDP growth fuelled by $ based trading. The present American recession pushed the US interest rate down to almost zero. However, the crisis didn't require similar cut back in interest rates for other economies. Though we saw strong measures to increase liquidity in developing nations. Why were the interest rates cut down so much and increased liquidity was ensured through various means. Why did it all happen and why in this large proportion? Was it only to fight liquidity crunch in the domestic market of developing nations? No, the reasons are not so simple. There was another very important factor playing a role. "Developing nations dependence on Dollar based world trade".

As lowering interest rates in US devalued the dollar, developing countries like India had to follow suite. Developing nations had to make a choice between stable exchange rate and domestic inflation. Most of the nations chose to maintain their currency against dollar rather than to maintain a stable domestic inflation rate. In doing so, almost every developing nation increased the flow of domestic currency in the local market, but this was done not only to fight credit crunch but to match the falling dollar as well. The extra bit of effort made to maintain the value of dollar cost the countries a recent surge in inflation.

Well, free market economy is all about choices. The developing economies chose to defend dollar to maintain their cost advantage but in the process stoked inflation which will anyways hurt export. The question is which would have hurt more? A weaker dollar or domestic inflation?

Please write in your views.

Bhasker Siddharth

PGPIM(2007-09)

"New bill to curb traffic violations": Delhi Gov. Will it Work?

How to effectively implement traffic laws?

There is no denying the fact that violation of traffic laws is rampant across India. Well, Delhi has its own share of problems too and Delhi Government looks determined to put things right this time. To achieve the same, Delhi Gov. has come up with the plan of hiking penalty charges for breaking traffic laws. For instance, the new Bill proposes to hike the fine for jumping red lights or not wearing seatbelt from Rs 100 to Rs 500. It is also proposed that parking in no-parking zones would invite a fine of Rs 1,500 instead of Rs 100 at present and so forth.

So how much is this going to help?

To find out if this is an effective solution we first need to understand the problem in detail. The problem is not only a lenient system which doesnt adequately penalize the violators but also an ineffective law enforcement agency (traffic police). No matter what happens on road, an offender knows that he can easily bribe the traffic police personnel and get away. The problem is that by hiking the penalty we are giving even more reasons to the offender to bribe the policeman rather than paying up the fine. For a fine of Rs. 100 an offender used to pay Rs 10-20 to get off, for a fine of Rs 500 he will now perhaps offer Rs 50-60. Surely the offender would try even harder to evade the hiked penalty. Under such circumstances how can we ensure proper implementation of traffic laws? Surely an increased penalty would also mean an increased bribe and a bigger dent in offender’s pocket and thus a bigger deterrent. However, this is surely not enough. It would never be able to bring desired results.

What incentive can we give an offender so that he prefers to get punished rather than bribing? I don’t see any particular way of doing that until and unless penalties are made too lenient which is surely unacceptable. Thus offenders will always find a way to escape fine by bribing policemen till policemen are ready to accept the gift.

Well, then can we influence the policemen to reject the illicit offers? Of course one option is to use technology to better monitor whatever is happening on the road as well with the policemen. However technology is expensive and its implementation will surely take time. So let’s forget technology for now. Well, just like we have heavy penalties for traffic rule violators, similarly we can have even heavier penalties for policemen found guilty of taking bribe. Also make sure that penalties are not only monetary but also career threatening for greater impact. But who will catch the corrupt policemen? Non-Gov. agencies can keep a vigil but still not an easy solution to implement. Another option can be to incentivise giving a ticket, say through sharing a portion of revenue earned through penalty with the police personnel. But this method can’t be overstretched as it might lure policemen into penalizing innocents for their own benefit.

So we have tried heavily penalizing offenders for breaking traffic laws and also traffic policemen for accepting bribe. However, this still doesn’t seem to be enough. Can we also introduce a system which ensures more cases to be booked rather than let off through bribes? I believe there lies another option in numbers and statistics. How about finding out the average number of violations, in say Delhi, each day? Can we break down the result in the type of violation, area in which committed and time during the day when rules were broken? There are numerous NGOs, NPOs and even Bhagidari which can collect this impartial data specially related to seatbelt, jumping red lights, rash driving, parking in no parking zones, use of mobile phone while driving, et al. It is for everybody’s benefit to regularly monitor this data. To begin with, we can take an average number of violations of each type, committed on each day in each area. Then we can ask the law enforcement agency to at least ensure that we bring to books at least 60% of the violations happening each day in the respective areas. This figure can be increased gradually. This will not only give invaluable regular inputs about traffic law violations happening across the city but also ensure that majority of them are brought to books rather than ending up in bribes.

Of course even the combination of all three options pointed out above can’t ensure a perfect system but it can surely be a step towards an improved system with lesser loopholes.

To read more on this topic click here

http://bhasker-siddharth.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-bill-to-curb-traffic-vilations.html

http://parkheavens.blogspot.com/2009/03/chalans-and-penalties-not-only-solution.html

Cheers,

Bhasker Siddharth

All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.

For PGPIM eyes only

“ Friends, Romans, Countrymen”

“I have a dream...”

“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”

“I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”

These are some oft-quoted, legendary words that have been uttered or written by some great men. And I am sure that some of you will be clueless, a la VG in Prof. Ashra’s economics group presentation, about the attributes of at least one of these. But the 34 fortunate souls of PGPIM have had the honour of hearing another quite memorable phrase which the rest of the world has no idea of. They will never have the pleasure of being able to giggle or laugh out loud (I detest the acronym used liberally for this expression and can’t bear the English language being sodomised as it is) at the wonderful collection of words spoken so confidently by one of us. How could our friend have known the impact it would have on PGPIM? Or how was it possible for people to connect so well, like Mr. Harish Jain and Keshava in statistics class, over one incident? On no one topic could people anywhere be so much in agreement with, not even on the quite obvious alarmingly retarded IQ level of one George Bush.

As all of you are aware, the lifestyles that we’ve chosen won’t do us any good over the long term. Sitting in front of the laptop the whole day, writing the most boring and random blogs ever, no exercise, starting chain mails for no good reason at all other than that you have nothing to do in office, etc. will no doubt lead us and the readers of the aforementioned blog to their graves (I think we may be the only ones reading) not much later than 60, maybe 70 if you’re lucky and significantly earlier if you read the blog.But when the last surviving members of the class have a reunion sometime in the 2060s, even ones with the alzheimer’s disease would show a flicker of recognition each time the phrase is spoken, falsely raising the hopes of doctors in finding a cure.

It happened in one of our earlier classes where we were asked to introduce ourselves and state what fields we wanted to work in after this course. When all of us starting reciting the same old stuff, “I would like to go into marketing”, or finance or strategy, etc., this bright young student must have thought of deviating from the trodden path, breaking the norms and separating himself from the mundane by conjuring up a career choice nobody had an inkling of. I am assuming this guy must have been forming the sentences in his head before his chance came. How could he not have sensed then?
So when the person to his right was saying,
“I want to have a career in finance and strategy”, he would have felt smug at the banality of the responses of his classmates and his upcoming brilliant introduction. How could he have envisaged that the choice of words would become the butt of all jokes in the class or that he would be haunted by that day for eternity? There was still time to reconsider and not set the wheels of hilarity (for us, that is) in motion...Alas,

He sanguinely stood up at his turn and said,

“Sir, I am Vaibhava. I want to..... ”

Beer aur Bakar

The whole world is going ga-ga over the 3 R’s. If you are blinking at this new acronym or googling for 3 R’s, you are among those nerdy few who just watched BQC or an India V/s XYZ cricket match on television. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle: the 3 R’s propagated by the Cartoon Network’s green super-hero Captain Planet. Go Planet! Like the true ardent follower of Captain Planet and his fascinating battles with the polluters of the planet, I have decided to recycle some waste into something even more rubbish. Yes, I am recycling a post by a fellow blogger on this site. He is famous for his long and moronic posts which best serve as sleep inducers during those insomniac nights.
A few days back, I happened to be a part of one of those ‘interesting conversations’ that only beer can bring about. It goes something like this:
ABHI: : Beer se tangg aa gaya hoon yaar... Har baar wahi peete rehte hain.. Maine decide kar liya hai ab se beer nahi piyoonga
BHOLA: Kya baat kar di tune! Beer se kaise bore ho sakta hai koi ?
ABHI: : Ek hi cheez lagataar peete rahenge to bore nahi honge kya.. Soch agar koi bhi bore nahi hota beer se to kya hota.. Koi aur daaru banti hi nahi!
GANPAT: Sahi kaha... Beer me wo baat nahi rahi ab. Koi bhi cheez zyaada karo to bore hona hi hai... Chahe wo beer ho ya kuch aur.
ABHI: : Eggjactly.. Kuch naya peene ka mann hai ab.. Soch raha hoon whiskey peena chalu karoon..
BHOLA: Ye kya baat hui... Kal ko kahoge ki mujhse bore ho gaye... To kya humaara har weekend pe aise beer peena band ho jaayega?
GANPAT: Tune to abhi abhi beer peena chalu kiya hai.. Aur tujhe kaise pata ki mera pehla choice beer hi hai.. Main isiliye kam peene lag gaya hoon aajkal.. Jamta nahi hai...
ABHI: : Chalo isi baat pe ek bottoms up....
Gulp Gulp Gulp.... Have you noticed how we never ever need a reason for a bottoms up...
GANPAT: Bottoms up to kar liya par kis baat pe kiya wo samajh nahi aaya...
BHOLA: Chadd gayi tere ko... :D (another often repeated phrase)
Laughs all around which indicates that the conversation is going to get more animated and ‘deep’!

Of Religion and Politicians..

It started long back, when the 1^st 'thinking' human being mutated. He was strange, peculiar, he was kind of curious; he observed and reflected on that. It was something new because it was un-necessary and it didn't fetched food. But nothing could reverse this change, when after a hard day of hunting with stone axes and eating raw flesh, he laid down under the open sky and looked at the stars, he wondered what was it all about. The stars kept moving slowly through the skies, the clouds kept flying, there was wind which could be felt but not seen. The moon kept growing and shrinking and also moved across the sky. The sun got out of nowhere every morning and disappeared every night, sometimes suddenly there was water coming down from the sky, thunderbolts hitting the ground, sometimes the earth shook heavily, while other times there was huge fire in the jungles.

He felt helpless like his fellow humans and was afraid too, since he had no control over anything. And it baffled him; he couldn't stop brooding about it rather than accepting it as a fact and moving on with life. He asked his fellows about it and they didn't knew much either. Finally after few generations some genius solved the mystery and brought things to peace by declaring that all the above, sun, moon, stars, fire, water, air, clouds, earth anything beyond control was meant to be that way and the only thing that could be done about it was to be afraid of them and respect them, like was popular culture at that time, bow to what you can't fight (I am sure there must have been a feudal revolution against the aristocracy of the floods and volcanoes, but it wouldn't take a lot of thought to see what must have happened to such a revolution). They learnt some strage ways to try to appease these nature gods.

I can henceforth deduce this was the 1^st time when a form of God like figure were discovered or invented or produced to satisfy the need to fill that void. The void which was created in the minds of the 1^st thinkers, by the absence of any plausible reasoning they could attribute to these beyond control activities which kept happening all around them all the time. The earliest known Gods as are known today are in accordance with this hypothesis as followed by almost all cultures in pre historic times. Ancient pagans believed in Air, Water, Fire and Earth as the primary gods. Hindu religion also has similar analogies with an extra God the Sky.
Although I have a natural question here which is why were these things taken as gods and not demons? becasue all these forces harmed humans at least in the short term, so was it just out of fear we accepted them as gods? Was it lack of definition of good and bad at that time, so probably they couldn't attribute a good or bad tag to these forces?

Does God Not Exist?? Vol-II

for the unitiated read or scroll down to 'does god not exist?' underneath..
so I left it at a point where it seemed like god might exist afterall despite all the claims from science and biology and evolution that they can explain everything naturally.
Now can this argument be countered?
I took about a day and some reading to figure this out...
but I was myself really confused before I finally saw the solution, here it goes.
It's like we have come to the bottom line that if god exists then he has made some effort to conceal his presence and being a god has effectively done so. Now, what's not so subject to subjectivity is the fact that the universe does exist afterall (we talk about the illusionary universe concept later) and it's complex, so we conclude that someone must have designed it, because it seems improbable that something so complex would happen just by chance.
So, god designed the universe and did it in such a way that his presence is not apparent. well fair enough so far. The watchmaker's analogy has lead us this far now moving on, a watchmaker makes a complex watch, because he has a reason, he wants to sell it, the watch has some purpose of existence, to exhibit time that is. So if someone has designed something sensible it should have some purpose.
Does the universe, our existence, the various animals and birds, the micro-organisms etc that exist, the pain, the agony, the wars, the coups do they have a purpose that was planned in advance? Or is it just a random chance based occurance?
There might be a few cases
1. God exists, and has planned everything and this is part of master plan.
2. God exists, and hasn't planned it, is conducting an experiment and observing results.
3. God doesn't exist, we came into existence after a huge number of failed co-incidences and then after another few hundred generations of evolution have become capable to self sustain and develop on emotional as well as tangible fronts.
4. God doesn't exist and neither do we, it's all just an illusion that's taking place in the mind of a young boy who has taken booze for the first time, in some other world. (sounds ridiculous but will write a post later on this)

now considering 1st case, everything is planned, sounds really boring, and I am sure god too would be bored of just playing the storywriter,

The Tendency to be Bored..

Gosh I never thought I would write on this one, but as you will know soon, I had nothing else to do but to write on this one..

In a line this one is about how I get bored of even my most adored passions and habits. And how it affects life, mine and of those around me. A classic example which would for now sound familiar to everyone, is that of songs. One week am listening to November Rain like 300 times, youtube, winamp, my cell phone, remembering the lyrics, searching Wikipedia for the song's performance on billboards and reception by public, the works. The very next week the song has vanished, just plain gone, gone out of the current playlist, gone out of youtube favorites and worst one gone out of mind.

So basically I got bored of liking the same song and decided to dislike that song and move on with life, sounds fair enough, but soon enough I again get bored. This time of disliking the song which once I liked so much and hence I again start to like the song, I mean what is that supposed to mean. I understand one thing, which says "Change is the only Constant" but does there have to be a change just for the heck of it?? On one hand is the danger of being a single tracked person who can't open up to new ideas, who cannot accept change even when it comes or is needed. Whilst on the other hand we have the case which I am suffering from I can't bloody hold on to one thing for a long duration of time without being distracted.

Well, I don't know sometimes I feel happy and lucky to be like this since I get to think of new ideas, or if we take the case of songs get to listen to new songs which I wouldn't have had if I would never be bored of the 1^st song. Sounds like a progressive thing to do, something like you are moving on with life, exploring new things, new ideas and not giving up on the old ones but building up on them. Combining the ideas gained during the break with the previous ones and coming with better deeper thoughts, more broad analysis and probably a more effective end result.

All well and good, but now comes the problem part, which seems to be specific when this same attitude gets implemented on humans. It's one deadly combo. Imagine this, you are with a person, really engrossed like with November Rain I was mentioning above. So while you were liking them you were totally drowned in them, doing everything together, like listening to November Rain while brushing the teeth or in the bath tub or while washing dishes. So as always there was an excess of something and in a few weeks of months or whatever your limit is, you get bored. There is a slight difference though; unlike November Rain now the other party has feelings! All the ingredients of a death trap are in place! You got bored of a person before they got bored of you (which would have happened eventually in any case, if you hadn't been the first one to fail).

Why so many Boundaries?

Well, I am in Paris for the last six months now. And last month I got an intern in Madrid finally after much effort (pun intended). So far everything had been smooth. But, things were going to change very soon. I was going to face the Visa monster. Yeah that's how fed up and scared of Visa I am now. Apparently in spite of having a valid Schengen Visa I was required to get the Spanish student's Visa I don't know why! Anyways, I started realizing I needed some typical documents to be able to apply for this Visa. And hence started the vicious cycle. There was one particular doc which asked me to get a police clearance certificate for the last 5 years. I said Gosh, hypocrites!! But then I had to visit the Indian embassy like 10 times in about 10 days to finally get that doc, which included getting to know things like Fax machine out of order, phone not working, passport office Bhopal is lying, their Email is bouncing. Bureaucracy at its best!

Anyways I gave up after wasting 10 days to no use and was going to get a plane ticket for India, when I got the call from the Amb-Inde that my doc was ready. Finally some relief I thought, and then I got the doc after 2 more days, taking which I happily reached the Spanish Consulate, only to know that now there was some problem with my sponsorship documents. Apparently they couldn't convert the money which was obviously shown in Indian Rupees in my accounts and affidavits to Euros. I felt like pulling the hair off my head. On the other hand, I was under pressure from my university as well my employer, and I was losing all hope slowly if I would ever be able to get this Visa in time.

Amidst all this fuss, I started thinking why are there so many boundaries? Why is there a separative force inside humans? What is the need that comes out in various forms like, having own identity, a cultural group, a smaller and smaller community which one can call one's own, and this tendency never seems to be satisfied, however pieces people do themselves, however lines people draw between each other, they want more and more. Everyone wants to be different, first they divide lines on countries, then color, religion, then race, caste, sub caste, language, economy, work, cities, on practically anything and everything conceivable we want to differentiate from others and be someone or something specific. Although I totally fail to understand what is the root of this desire, since the effects of this desire are definitely disastrous, it makes sense to question the cause.

Probably people want to take pride in belonging to a particular group. Feel dedicated and loyal to some community or cause or region. Probably they want to be part of a smaller group where people are closer to each other than the rest of the world. This probably has to do with a feeling of security and belongingness, like in case of a family, where one can trust each other and stand up for each other without a second thought. Another reason might be devotion or belief in a certain common cause, probably political parties or terrorist groups can be cited as examples (no hidden meanings in keeping the two together).

All of the above sound like good reasons to come together and be for each other, or reasons where being a group is better than being alone. But doesn't justify the tendency to keep breaking groups into smaller and smaller ones, does it?

Does God Not Exist??

Ahem ...

so here I am starting what I regard as one of my favourite dissertations..

before I begin I would just like to pray to the almighty to give me the strength so that I can convince all you readers of mine that there is no such entity as 'god' ...

ok there was an apparent paradox in the above sentence and that's the basic theme of this post. We will see various aspects of the arguments during this post..

Let me open with the classic watchmaker's theory, which states that if there is an intelligent design, a structure which is complex in nature (DNA, solar system, structure of an atom etc.) and can't possibly be generated out of sheer chance, natural causes then the only possible explaination is that it should have an intelligent designer. It's called the watchmaker's theory because it was developed based on comparison of the universe with a watch, which can't be made due to natural causes, and sheer chance and hence by law of negation it should have an intelligent creator.

Well developed in the 17th-18th centuries the theory was caught on by the church and widely propogated and the concept of creationism was born. God was obviously given the status of the creator of all that we see around, as it was supposed at that time that something so complex could not otherwise have come to reality.

As it turned out soon to follow up was the famous theory of evolution by Charles Darwin which showed how very complex structures, DNA, nervous systems, so many species of insects, birds etc could be explained by the terms, 'genetic mutation', 'natural selection' and 'survival of the fittest'. I won't go into details of 'evolution' because this post is about something else. So as it turned out the watchmaker's theory was effectively blown to pieces, even other complex phenomenon like solar system etc were explained by laws of gravitaion and nebular hypothesis etc.

So, the reason which was cited for God's existence was taken away, and in effect we can safely say today that we don't need god to create our universe because it can exist on it's own, and develop into complex sturtures through either long durations of hit and trial operations or based on natural laws of nature which can be nearly explained by science today.

But does this put an end to the eternal debate?

Push N Pull

The more u pull harder it pushes... I am not describing any porno scene but its the real fact that I have sensed during this job life. During the last few months I have learned a lot but I am not clear whether it is the right thing I am learning, is it better for me or I m just killing time. But truly I have started hating this life.

I have experienced the sick atmosphere prevailing in manufacturing industry, I shouldnt say corporate world bcoz it doesn felt that much but I am sure it has started hitting me. I hav learned how to throw the ball to others court and how to kick the ball coming towards you without making a single movement. How good deeds are becoming bad and vice versa. During this pathetic factory registration work, yess I am the coordinator but what say u getting all the big balls in yours ... but you kick them all and make others work...

But the gud things r really gud. Yaa I also worked a lot but again it was kinda push n pull. More u try to pull your supplier more your boss n customer specially internal tries to push you. Well its kinda weird but its the real fact. Thus whole thing moves around Supply chain or managing movement of goods and stuff.

Being a good manager depends on how you fulfill your target dates and keep your boss happy...bcoz boss is always right...

Everyone knows how to do their work in their own way and some knows how to spoil other works. They dont find difficulties in their working but with others only.

Wen looking back I always see myself as someone who was good in techs n wanted to be a real techie n join an automobile company, n yaa my dream came true with AL but say what it all ended as soon as I was under training I started diverting towards management. I started going gaga over management gurus n their fundas n specially supply chain. hell lot depends on it. can save upto certain folds which u cant imagine. But was I right I still cant fgure it out. Sometimes I feels like being a manager is one of the easiest thing and other side its like big bang which keeps on expanding its limits more and more as you try to touch its boundaries farther you go away from it. I hav never failed in my tasks and I kwow will never, but then till when I will keep behaving unlike me?

Again its not about earning money but its about keeping your boss happy...bcoz boss is always right... And I still admire supply chain which is the real backbone of any industry and thats why I still am going on despite all the negativities I am feeling...

Right now I am listening to Smack My Bitch Up & what the hell I am writing I dun kw. But I kw one thing, how will I manage my boss tomorrow morning...

The REAL Me!

The real me, the real me, the real me………whu is the real me???
Am I just being myself or am I trying to be wat I really wanna be?
Or I can also ask you!! The one reading this one?? Whu are you? Is this the real you? Are u still the same since u landed on dis planet or have u changed?
If ur answer is that u r still the same then my answer is “Dats a BULLSHIT!”
You know actually its strange that soooooooooooo many people come into our lives, some stay forever, some stay for just few hours, some get lost in cris cross paths of life, some are there but stil invisible BUT the fact is that they affect our life in aaalllll different ways that they can……
Same affect ur thinking, some affect ur eating habit, some affect ur clothing style, some affect speaking style……and eventually we become a little bit of every influential person whu has made an impact on our lives in a way or the other!
If I sit down today and start thinking whu am I…….I can go back in time just to realise:
I am a little bit of Ashwini……..for now I like watchin Hollywood movies, television series and besides raising voice for my friends is so easy…
I am a little bit of Mohit Arora…….for now helping my friends is something I cant live without.
I am a little bit of Pooja…..for now I knw how to handle when someone cries on my shoulder even if I am sad.
I am a little bit of Ranvir….for now its easy for me to maintain a healthy relationship even after a long communication gap.
I am a little bit of Gargi…… as now being sometimes in a dream world is really beautiful.
I am a little bit of Amit….. for now believing to change the world one day does not seem to be just a dream.
I am a little bit of Neeti….. for now I know what actually respecting parents for someone could really mean and when I believe in myself.
I am Abhijeet sir for sometime when I care for my juniors and when I wanna make sure they do not face any problem.
I am Shalini mam when its important for me to spread happiness and send positive vibes come wat may.
I am Vikas Gupta when I wanna enjoy every part of life but still wanna score good.
I am Sayyam Ladha when helping my dear ones and making sure they remain happy gives me the ultimate satisfaction.
I am Gaurav Luthra when I am ambitious and picture myself to be successful oneday.
I am Sonal Dutta when I sacrifice things in life to make sure someone I love doesn’t have to compromise.
I will be Monica if I learn to manage every minute of my day and work hard.
I am Sachin Kumar coz giving few but inerasable memories is far better then giving too many but faint memories.
I am Sheetal to knw that Life can be really hard at times but that doesn’t mean I kneel down to life.
I am Saloni Mathur as I love dogs, animals, birds and I knw the importance of pampering someone I like.
I am Gaurav Sharma if I knw money is not the ultimate source of happiness, there is a lot more to life.
I am Sahil Verma if I believe that Love exists and time pain could be really severe.
I am Manish Kumar if I don’t wanna run away from my responsibilities when comes the hard time.
I am Rohit Garg and Mini when I am selfless and counting what I have done for others is immaterial.
I am a mixture everyone I mentioned above and a lot lot more but I am also myself when I forget things so soon and so easily…………lol
There are so many names that I can still think but can not define in words some names I am able to recall but they could never make a impact………
So eventually in short I am not wat I am but a mixture all the names I mentioned above n m sure a lot more….
Wat are u made of?