India’s total subscriber’s base is 300 mn, but its mobile connections are over 900 mn (close to a bn) now. It follows the strange situation in the developing markets, where the ratio of SIM cards to users of mobile devices stands at 2.2. India is a case in point. The country’s 900m mobile connections (second only to China’s) are in the hands of just 300m of its 1.2 billion people, the lowest proportion among big emerging economies. The GSMA estimates... Read more
With world’s second largest population and a deep penetration of the cell phones already reaching a billion and growing, India has a unique problem at hand. It is running out of new mobile phone numbers! “There might be a serious problem if a new series of numbers are not brought in by the middle of next year. We are theoretically reaching the limit of existing number sets with a subscriber base of one billion,” said Rajan Mathews, director general of... Read more
India and Israel commenced full relations in 1992. It was in the time of Atal Behari Vajpayee that the relations between the two countries were taken to a new height. Now, both the countries have come out with stamps to mark the festive season and also strengthening of the ties. The stamp celebrates Jewish festival, Hannukah and Indian festival, Deepavali. The theme of the stamps is “Festival of Lights” – Israel’s stamp features the menorah with the word “Zion” inscribed... Read more
Netflix has come out with a new job ad that suggests this movie distribution juggernaut may be entering India very soon. This is what the ad is looking for: We are looking for highly motivated individuals with the right mix of technical, organizational and communication skills to provide localization for the Netflix experience in the following languages: Turkish, Dutch, Hindi, German, Italian, Norwegian, Korean, and Japanese. Native fluency, localization experience and creative writing in one or more of the above... Read more
In today’s program by Fareed Zakaria, I saw something very interesting – discussion on corruption in China. China has been hit by corruption scandal involving a high ranking official Bo Xilai. Fareed’s guest Evan Osnos – reporter for New Yorker based in Beijing. Evan Osnos: Last year, there was a report that went up from the Chinese Central Bank, just for a few hours, on the Internet before it was taken down, which suggests that they never meant to release it. And... Read more
Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement, 2011 Bill (LARR Bill 2011) is an important regulation, the final draft of which was cleared by the “Group of Ministers” (GoM) this week. It will now be introduced in the Winter Session. It has also been renamed as Right to Fair Compensation, Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Bill. The Act’s provisions will apply when the “appropriate Government” acquires land: (a) for its own use, hold and control; or (b) with the purpose... Read more
Yesterday, Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney sparred in the 2nd Debate, which was in Townhall format. Candy Crowley of CNN anchored the debate and her one Fact Check of Mitt Romney’s rather offensive remarks on Obama’s assertion about what he said in the Rose Garden, the day after, will go down in history as one of the most remembered moments of any debate. She was, btw, the first woman to anchor a debate in 20 years of debates! Here are... Read more
The Bangalore real estate market saw sales of 15.58 million sq ft of residential space in the first quarter of this fiscal year. This amounts to 13.9% share of the entire real estate market in the country. On the other hand, although Mumbai Metropolitan Region and National Capital Region (NCR) had more sales in terms of residential space – 15.98 mn sq ft and 28.86 mn sq ft respectively – the saw a reduction (rather a fall) in sales by... Read more
Remember Mohammad Bin Tughlaq? The wise fool, who came up with currency long back, and suddenly everyone was minting money because he didn’t use the right material. Well, until 2009, India hadn’t come out of this Tughlaqian mindset! Those Re 1 coins, which were rather huge, served a special purpose – not just of giving alms to beggars. They were being smuggled to Bangladesh and melted into safety blades and were worth Rs 5! Such was the arbitrage opportunity for... Read more
Indian politicians, however educated or illiterate, can beat anyone to some pretty nutty humor. Here are the choicest of quotes by Indian politicians in the past few years which will go down in ignominy and humor both! All are amazing, but the last one from Rahul Gandhi takes the cake. This dude is one BIG dud!! Doh!! Terrorists have advantage of surprise –Manmohan Singh after Mumbai terrorist attacks When you can buy ice cream for Rs 20, why complain... Read more
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