Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad Ad

I read this interview on rediff and felt "inspired".

Remember those "Lok Seva Sanchar Parishad"¹ messages on Doordarshan in good old days? There were so many of them. I think in those days those messages used to outnumber the commercial ads on DD.

Anyways I dont want to get distracted by their memories right now, what I want to mention here is a particular message out of those numerous messages. I dont remember it exactly but it went something like this:

An unemployed guy in a village is shown cursing the government for his situation, and then in another scene a 'self-employed' guy is shown running his own business, it is shown that he is also employing a couple of other people.

Finally the clip used to end with a punchline "Kudh bhi rozgar pao aur dus aur logon ko bhi rozgar do" ( Get yourself means of living and also give employment to ten more people).

The idea obviously was to encourage young people to start their own businesses and not depend on government for jobs.

I don't know how effective that message was and what difference it really made to the lives of unemployed youth, but some how I imbibed it deeply; and that is partly why I find interviews and articles like the one mentioned above very interesting and inspiring.

Having said that I guess I don't want to start a business just to create new employment, my idea is to do something more meaningful than I am doing now and do that with real passion.

I guess I need an idea to start with. When will I get my idea? Is there something as novel and as big as "Internet" going to happen?

I don't know and its difficult to forsee also, but what I know is that I should be ready.
Right now everything is abstract in my mind. I don't even now what should I do to be prepared. For now I am just going to entrepreneur.com to read some articles.

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1: I forgot what they used to call it in english. Anybody who is reading this please let men know, if you know - Thanks in advance

Sonia Gandhi resigns from the Parliament!

This morning when I opened my laptop for the news the surprising news was: Sonia Resigns

Although not a 'Congress fan'; I appreciate this decision taken by Mrs Sonia Gandhi. After all how many of our politicians are willing to take such a bold decision? Even the left has said that their MPs won't resign.

One must also remember the decision taken by her Mother-in-law when she was disqualified from the Lok sabha. She imposed Emergency on the country.

Times are different one might argue and also Sonia Gandhi today is on a far high pedestal vis-a-vis other politicians, but still this is a very good development for Indian democracy and must be welcomed.

In my view Mrs Sonia Gandhi has set an example.

Google - just an obsession or is it for REAL

Like a billion other people I am also thoroughly impressed with Google!

The way they started off,
The way they have expanded their business based on one core competence "Search", one would have never imagined that search can be so powerful!
The way they listed their stock.
They have an "official blog" AFAIK no other major corporation has one.
The way they recruit.
Time management policy (the 20% free time rule).
Their Amazing products! ( I just love my google desktop search) including recently launched Google finance

The list can go on and on...

Due to above reasons and some of my "Gut feeling" I wanted (or do I still want?) to own Google stock.
I started tracking it when it had already run upto 420-430$ after listing at 85$ in their IPO.
Google was having its dream run. After figuring out that it is possible for me to own it, I had
decided to open a brokerage account with scottrade here in the US.

But then one fine day Google began to slide coz of some bad news and has slipped by about 100$ since.
I postponed my decision indefinitely :-) and am watching it closely.

While discussing this with a friend it occurred to me that its better for me to stick to the "known" waters of the Indian stock markets, afterall they are giving some very good returns for the past
few years! But then "in the Indian market can one find a stock like Google?" goes the counter argument.

I think I need to do some more home work before arriving at any decision.

DVD Wars - Netflix and BlockBuster

When I was India, I had seen Netflix ads on the internet but never bothered to figure out what it is.A couple of weeks back I got to know about how Netflix has put DVD rental giant Blockbuster out of business in the issue of knowledge@wharton .

At the same time an "NRI"(well he doesn't claim to be) friend of mine suggested subscription to Netflix so I decided to figure out what this Netflix thing is all about. The first stop was their website. It offers 2 week of free trial and unlimited DVDs + no late fees + free both ways shipping. I was amazed at the business model. It seems that Netflix founder got the idea once he had to pay 40$ as late fees to his DVD rental company(which is an obvious reference to Blockbuster).

I checked out their collection and was happy to see a lot of Bollywood movies there.

I was wondering how Netflix is making money! Then I found this from wikipedia.

It was a smart business model but was unfair to the customers. Even now the same practice of 'throttling' exists but it seems they disclose it in their fine print.

Hence finally decided not to subscribe to Netflix!

Blockbuster also decided to open a "me too" DVD rental service, But I don't know if that also suffers from the same "flaw". They are offering one month free trial.

Ann Arbor Library

Ann Arbor has an excellent public library system (website).

I had heard about libraries in America but still for me it was hard to believe that such a good facility can exist in such a small(relatively) American city.

I am even able to find DVDs for bollywood movies! Having said that I found that the only way to get what you really want is to use their website and reserve the items in advance. Having a policy of "unlimited checkouts allowed" ensures that none of the "hot" items is available on the shelves.

Overcome by greed I reserved and got about 5 DVD's of my favorite actor Tom Hanks ...But didn't found the time to see them....

Still managed to see "Sleepless in Seattle", "LadyKillers", "You've got mail" (this is for the nth time I have seen this one), currently I am watching "The Green Mile".

also got "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintaining" as I was not able to finish it earlier in India...Somehow I had lost that book....

TFTs continued..

Its been pretty exciting ..my last 2 months in the states,Here is a list of TFTs (Things done for the first time :)

1. Experienced tempratures below -10 C for the first time in my life :-)In fact one day a walk across the road felt as if I am on a trek to the north pole! ...wait a sec ..I think I need not goto that level...otherwise I will have to write for the rest of my life..so henceforth only the"substantial" things...
2. Flew a single engine small plane!!!.wait here is the fine print*... The snaps are here.
3. Got into a swimming pool! ..definately a substantial achievement for me!!! yet to learn swimming though.
4. Played Tennis!!! this was as recent as last sunday..12th march.

* with the help of an instructor.