Parisista

Found this unique coffee name, Garuda Blend, while shopping (no, not for me, I drink the instant kind). Garuda Blend is by Peet’s Coffee. As per Hindu mythology, Garuda, the eagle bird, is the mount of the Hindu god, Vishnu.
Reads Peet’s Coffee’s website, “…Anyone who likes Indonesian coffees will appreciate Garuda Blend’s well-balanced flavor. It is named for the great bird that carries the Hindu god Vishnu, guardian of the world.”

A gentle satirical imitation of the Bollywood movie, Bunty Aur Babli

via an e-mail from “DJ”.

Bundeep Singh Rangar of Ariadne Capital quotes Sunil Mittal of Bharti Televentures,”I want us to be 12-18 months behind the rest of the world mobile phone market.”
Why? India works differently. The Indian market is about not being innovative or having the best solution in town; it’s about old-fashioned notion of price-point. It’s about deploying technology where the low enough price-point makes it to mass market. People in India need a mobile phone that works; a mobile phone for an average Indian consumer is essentially an uncorded landline phone. And like the landline phone it does not need to have voice mail, 3-way calling, color display, or a WAP browser (The caller-id is necessary though).
Reliance Infocomm, understands it well, and this made the Mobile Phone Revolution happen. Other companies like Bharti have followed suit and have now captured 20% of the Indian Mobile market.
The formula seems to be working, the calls are cheap — 2 cents/minute anywhere, anytime. Bells and whistles are cheaper too; a ringtone is only 15 cents to 20 cents compared to at least 99 cents in US.
As a result, investors are flocking to the market. Bharti Tele-Ventures gave its investor Warburg Pincus a near 6X return on its $300 million investment.
Top up it up with a huge demand for content; it is “hip” to open your day with an SMS containing a Shloka¹ (link to original scripture in Sanskrit, may not work in all browsers) from Bhagavad Gita, followed by read/forward of the latest Santa & Banta or Ajit jokes.
¹ Sankhya Yog or “the Doctrines”, is the most read chapter of Bhagavad Gita. This chapter talks about work and how the focus of oneself should be on work and not about reaping the fruits of it. The English translation of chapter 2 can be read here.

John Hammond from Little Rock, Arkansas, paid more than $800,000 for a nice little place in New Delhi which he spotted on the web. The money was paid through an account in Cayman Islands (the account has been closed since, with the money gone. Cayman has wonderful money laundering laws).
The scammers tricked Hammond into a protracted make belief negotiation, which lasted for more than 6 months. They even mailed him the title deed of the PM’s official residence, 7 Race Course Road.
To his ultimate shock the “buyer” only found this out when he flew to India and saw scores of security guard, outside the mansion.
$800,000 amounts to Rupees 3.5 crore (Rs 35 million). The money is enough for an average desi Joe to live life King size for the rest of his life.

The story at CNET News.com.

Om Malik has started a weekly column on the state of Broadband in India.
The ISPs in India have started realizing that the money to be made is in the volume and not the top-tier market and prohibitvely priced premium services. Thanks in part to Reliance InfoComm and the state owned ISP viz. BSNL; High-speed Internet is a reality in India. Atlhough, it is still limited to large ciities/metros. Also, thanks to increased awareness and literacy levels, people are realizing the potential of Internet in India coupled with a hunger for more bandwidth.

In order to curb the flow of Black Money (it is estimated to be at 20% of India’s GDP or $82 billion), the Government of India is proposing a scheme to tax withdrawals (ATMs, Cashier’s Check/Demand Draft, Cash from Teller, etc.) of more than Rs.10,000 per day. This tax is 0.1% of the withdrawal amount. Looks like the whole Indian Finance Ministry worked for a credit card company in their previous lives.
To justify the tax, The Finance Minister added that the idea was to have a tax trail; citing the example of Brazil.
Wake up and smell the coffee:
1. No hospital in India (except for the ones 99% of Indians could not afford) takes a form of payment other than Cash. So, be ready to tip the ATM on your way to the hospital.
2. How about buying 2 wheelers? Cash is king and the average price of a two-wheeler is Rs.20,000
3. How about wage payment? Every Friday (or daily) pay a tip to the teller for paying your workers.
4. Planning for an overseas trip? Need to buy some foreign exchange? Tip again! Ridiculous
What the Finance Minister does not realize that the hoarders of ‘Black Money’ will never park their illegal funds in Bank. There are better routes like soft money loans to construction companies/builders, finance Bollywood movies, launder it overseas or simply stash away in jute sacks in ordinary looking cupboards. It is totally pointless to cite the Brazil example; Brazil did it to raise revenue. Mr. Finance Minister probably needs some help from the IT bigwigs in order to have an United States IRS like paper trail ¹.
On a different note, this sounds like an opportunity for Visa, MasterCard gang. The total spend on personal expenditure using credit cards is less than 1% in India.
¹A bank would notify the IRS if there were cash deposit/withdrawal of more than $10,000.

Resurgent India is being strongly divided into two faces. There are various ways to put it–rural vs. urban, literate vs. illiterate, rich vs. poor, malnutritioned vs. obese, haves vs. have-nots, etc. Each category beckons other. The two faces co-exist with one face wishing that the other would just go away, unmindful of the fact that the social fabric has been stitched that way. India’s burgeoning population of skilled and unskilled labor is the very thing, which is putting it to advantage. Western world is ready to outsource anything involving human labor at the drop of a coin. The very reason that the Indian steel industry majors can think of doubling the output of finished steel from 36 million tonnes is because of cheap labor ( In fact labor never comes to the mind while planning, as it is abundantly available!). Think about the same in United States–most of the large-scale mining and industrial units are on the path of thin margins because of expensive labor.
One face is occupying the springing malls, clean offices, and housing units–The other living in slums, working in dastardly conditions earning just the minimum wage. Take this:

• India still has the world
  

SQ 416 was late by few minutes for its scheduled time at 10:30p. Next was a hassle-free checkout (Thanks to 9 pieces of luggage and two sleepy kids!) through the Green Channel of customs at the Kolkata International airport. The next stop had to be a roadside paan shop. I was carrying a burning desire to chew a paan on arrival.
So, we stopped. The paanwalla(click here for a a look-alike) was chatting on a shining mobile phone. On my arrival at his counter, I could hear him closing the conversation in his local dialect, “…Auron baad mein, kustomber hai”. Translated — Rest later, I have a customer. The counter, which was barely 10 feet by 10 feet also had leaflets of Reliance India Mobile prepaid cards stuck on the side of his wall.
Although, growth in the youth market has been fast last year symbolizing the breadth of the Indian Mobile phone customers; the depth of the market could be estimated when you see a paanwalla handling a mobile phone. A paanwalla could be characterized as someone with minimal or basic education, a non-incorporated small business, no taxes, and possibly without a postal address.
Thanks to popular schemes offering free incoming & intra-carrier calls; Indian users have been adding 1.5m – 1.7m new customers every month with an estimated base of 38 million users.

Last Saturday morning was weary — I was tired sorting through all the shopping and gifts we have been buying for our relatives (Yes, an upcoming trip to India!). Soon, I was commanded to get some food from Chaat Cafe — a local restaurant which serves Indian food at drive-thru speed.
Driving down the rain soaked roads of Fremont; I waited for a final left turn into a shopping plaza. On another left lane there was something, which looked familiar — a scooter. The body contours (read, the body structure) made me feel that it was a desi scooter.
The signal turned green, I followed the scooter in order to confirm my belief. After a few risky driving maneuvers I could read “Chetak”. It indeed was Bajaj Chetak, one of the flag-ship 2-wheelers by an Indian automotive giant Bajaj. The name Chetak comes from folklore in Indian mythology. Chetak was a legendary horse, powerful and fiercely loyal to his master Maharana Pratap.
Back home — after bouts of Naan, Tandoori Wrap, and other indulges — I started researching into what I just saw.
Bajaj is the world’s number one two-wheeler manufacturer. Exports of Bajaj scooters have been growing with an expected 15% contribution in sales for the coming year. Interestingly, Wall Street Journal ran a feature article (cache) couple of months ago on Bajaj’s success in the world market and how the scooter manufacturer is poised to take on it’s rivals on price, features and fuel efficiency. No wonder Bajaj USA has a great fan following.
Here’s the promo being run by Bajaj to woo it’s American customers.

Hamara Bajaj!