0		India Aviation, Praful Patel

India needs 400 airports and 3000 aircrafts in the next 10 years. And I need a Lamborghini Gallardo and $500 million in cash in the next five years. Make that three. I really can’t wait that long. Need is one thing and fulfilling it is another. The statement is made by the aviation minister Praful Patel. Not sure if it is a need or a hope. Either way fulfilling it is a tall order because, India is not China.

There were similar claims made by the respective ministries:

1. India needs 100 million broadband subscribers in the next three years. It has eight million users now
2. India needs 500 million telephone subscribers by 2010. This was met. An exception
3. Four percent growth rate since 1997 to feed the billion plus population. Never met
4. Roads: 20 kms of road to be laid per day. Never met or no way to know
5. Twenty GW of solar energy by 2020:  We just have to wait for 2020 on this one. If you would like to know what is its installed capacity in solar energy it is 2.12 MW. And there are no typos in the figures mentioned
6. Half a million Twitter followers for an Indian politician in one year. This was met. Shashi Tharoor did it in less than six months. He now has 671153 followers. But this was never a goal. What a shame
   

I don’t have a problem with the numbers. I like them. In fact I am sucker for numbers and goals. But when we attach them to aviation and make big hairy audacious goals where only two percent of the population travels by air and where the country ranks between Ethiopia and Nigeria in air travel, I have a problem. A big one.

So here is a request to the ministries. Please don’t pull out numbers from hats. Do some math. You know the intelligent kind, where highly paid people use spreadsheets to come up with numbers called projections. I mean the real ones. Or give us a number and tell us how you are going to achieve it. How many by the end of 2012, how many in three years from now and so on.

Ten year horizons have two problems. I might not be blogging 10 years from now and you might not be the aviation minister anymore.

PS: There is an argument of aiming for the moon and reaching a star. That doesn't work all the time. The only argument left is “I am quoting this out of context”.

PPS : About the Lamborghini, I decided against it. I will take a Prius and the rest in cash. Come to think of it, Gallardo doesn’t have much of ground clearance and in India all we want is ground clearance – A minimum of 180 mm.

	0		Gamechangers, Fake IPL Player, IPL, India blogger books

The Fake IPL Player is back and this time with a book called The Gamechangers. Surprisingly or for the first time, the author of the book is Anonymous. Not sure if that is the first name or the last name. The author is Fake IPL Player or Anonymous – whatever your choice is.

The Fake IPL player created a lot of buzz when the IPL-2 moved to South Africa. Nobody knew who the Fake was. Could it be a player or a journalist or a celebrity? Irony is no one knew who the Fake was a year later so how could we think of finding the 26/11 terrorists? The publisher of the book is Harper Collins. Maybe they know. Maybe that’s a start.

Mint has published an ‘email’ interview with the author without revealing the identity. He, assuming he is a he, reveals some stuff and hints at the juicy tidbits coming from the journalist community.

I just want to know one thing. Was he with any of the IPL teams? If yes, he has some gumption. If no, he's got a talent at writing fiction. If it is neither we are so screwed.

It could just as well be a marketing gimmick. For crying out loud, it could be Lalit “IPL” Modi. Who is the Fake IPL Player? And will we ever know his true identity? Aah! What the heck and who cares, I am going to pre-order the book now.

Let me leave you with a quote from the Mint interview. This is what Yuvraj said to Sreesanth :

“Attitude toh poora masala dosa ka deta hai, aur bowling appam jaisa karta hai,”

PS:: The Fake IPL Player revels in anonymity. So do we.

	0		Upside Learning, Mobile apps, Startup, Gaming

 

How about knowing more about soccer through an iPhone app? That’s what Upside learning is trying to do with its new mobile application available on iPhone and Blackberry. Game is called Soccer Quiz which has 10 trivia questions about football.

Questions like the color of cards referee carries in football match or who won the 1998 world cup. Other similar questions :

The database of questions is really small. I can see that the 10 questions are being repeated. Maybe it is because Soccer Quiz is a free app. But for a 2.3MB application I expected more questions in the database.  

As you can see my score is 4 rights and 3 wrongs. Not a big football buff. Overall this game does raise awareness about football if you are not into it already. If you are into it, then it just bolsters your position.

Upside Learning is a Pune based startup which specializes in eLearning solutions and is venturing it mobile based training solutions. It provides learning and technology solutions for training companies and SME’s. It plans to introduce more game like Soccer Quiz which are diverse and complex. (source)

Learning through games is a very innovative way of learning. I hope Upside learning really turns learning upside down. Not just for football but for everything else.

PS : How about a similar app for Cricket? 

 

	1		Minglebox, Education, Online applications MBA, MBA India

The single most thing I dreaded in my school and college days is the application process. I still have the appphobia. I still get this from time to time when I am filing my tax returns or applying for any new account. I am sure many of the students out there are facing the same problem.

Minglebox is simplifying the application process for MBA students. After a student fills in the common details, Minglebox lets the users apply to 100 MBA colleges with just one click. The personal details are saved and are replicated across MBA applications. Minglebox also has reminder features which will help the students with the due dates. Life has never been this easier.

This might not be a complete online solution. This is a hybrid approach of online-offline model. In the application process, Minglebox has leaned and digitized all the processes which it can digitize. I think this is what is happening in the background :

The forms of various colleges are scanned and digitized and the personal details are reproduced on the app form and made available as a pdf. The student then downloads the pdf, prints out and sends out the application to the respective college with whatever fees required. 

Not many colleges allow online applications or online fees. This is the biggest challenge for the online application model. And as per the press release this is a yet-to-come feature from Minglebox.

To further this initiative, Minglebox.com is working towards an association with major colleges in making this application process completely online and adding features like allowing students to pay the form fee online. The company is also looking at expanding these online applications to a larger pool of colleges. (Press Release)

Complete online or a hybrid approach, Minglebox has leaned out the process and I like that. You only have to fill your details once and it is replicated across a 100 possible applications. I don’t think any one person would apply for 100 different colleges but even applying for 10 different colleges would now be easier.

I wish I had this when I was filling out my MBA applications. No wait, I never filled out an MBA application. 

 

	0		Internet, Broadband

 

4 in 5 believe that Internet is a fundamental right as per the latest study conducted by BBC.

A poll of 27,000 adults in 26 countries for the BBC World Service showed 78 percent of Internet users believed the Web gave them greater freedom, while nine in 10 said it was a good place to learn. Half of them believe web should never be regulated.

This should come as no surprise because Internet by far is the most important tool making the world flat. Thanks to Twitter, people found greater uses for Internet. No wonder it is nominated for Nobel peace prize.

Finland has already recognized this. It made Internet as a legal right along with food and water. Fundamental right or legal right Internet has come a long way. Nobody no longer wonders if Internet is good or not. It is just like electricity.

Water, Food, Shelter, Electricity and Internet – respectively in that order.

I know I missed TV in that order.   

Over 70 percent of respondents in Japan, Mexico and Russia said they could not live without the Internet. (Yahoo)

It’s  hard to beat that. Now the question is how can we get the other half of the world on the net. 

 

	1		Twitter, Twitter India, India Internet, India broadband

Twitter took India by storm or India took Twitter by storm.  Either way Twitter and India are inseparable. Thanks to Mallika Sherawat for bringing Twitter to India. Twitter now needs no introduction. Real thanks to Shashi Tharoor, Shah Rukh Khan, Chetan Bhagat and other celebrities who took on to the platform which catapulted Twitter to stardom.

India ranks in the top 10 countries using Twitter. Not the kind of statistic or the top list India associates with. Especially when it has only 8 million broadband connections, 50 million Internet users and 512 kbps qualifies as a broadband speed.

Celebrities in India are using it to reach out to fans.  Politicians are using it to get into trouble . Here’s the latest comment from BJP politician Venkaiah Naidu on Shashi Tharoor -- @shashitharoor‘s tweeting will lead to him quitting.

 People like me are use it to consume news, ideas and information. How are the companies using it?

Many companies are using Twitter actively and many users are on Twitter but not much activity. Iffort Consulting, a NCR based social media consulting firm has researched the Twitter usage by companies in India.

The study which profiles 66 companies from 9 different verticals analyses them on different quantitative & qualitative parameters like no. of tweets, tweet type, conversation type. (Source)

Here is what they found :

Companies are using it for many purposes. Mostly companies are on Twitter for brand building and user engagement.

MSN India is the top news brand. Didn’t know that. I thought I follow all the news brands financial express, economic times, dna, indiatoday, livemint. I will start following MSN India now.

Tata DoCoMo (@tatadocomo), the mobile telecom arm of Tata group has used it very well to get through to early adopters when it launched. It has 7,500 followers on Twitter and few million mobile subscribers. As per Iffort’s survey @tatadocomo is the most re-tweeted brand on Twitter.

MTV India (@mtvindia) is the most followed brand with 59,644 followers. Must be the Roadies.

ICICI is the most conversational brand. ICICI has at least 3 twitter handles (@ICICIbank_care , @ICICIFoundation, @ICICIElemEduc) and none of them are verified. Not sure which handle was referred in the survey.

BookmyShow.com is the oldest brand (since Oct 2007).  Acer India and Apollo hospitals are the most inactive brands. (source)

These are fairly early stages for Indian companies. Many other companies can find real use in Twitter be it with brand promotions or solving user problems based on their complaints. How else can the companies use Twitter?

PS : All of the Twitter accounts of the companies above are not Verified. Isn’t verification necessary for companies too? In fact, companies are at a greater risk than celebrities.