Lost opportunity up the hill

I live in a hostel halfway up a hill. If doesn’t have a grocery. And its canteen is open for only a couple of hours every day. This is gross under-exploitation of a captive market, more so because the nearest alternatives are down the hill, a 20-minute walk.

Poor man's business channel

Why isn't there be a TV channel or a newspaper aimed at people who don't play the stock market but are, nevertheless, interested in the economy and business. Particularly, those who don't believe that everything that favours business are 'reforms' and anything that favours poor people is a 'sop'. 

That doesn't mean it'd stay away from the stock market. However, it does mean that analysts will take off their rose tinted spectacles while looking at Dalal St. 

Importantly, it'll have a heavy dose of technology, investigating it's impact on business. Let me take a specific example to explain what I'm getting at. Ambani is considered a great visionary because he gifted us with cross-country phone calls that cost less than a post-card. What is less well remembered is that other operators matched his prices all most immediately. One strongly suspects that the operators already had the technology to provide cheap calls; it's just that they didn't want to pass on the savings to consumers. Ambani had the foresight and the financial muscle to break the cartel, real or imaginary, and all credit to him for that. All the same, let's give technology its due too. 

More importantly, telling people what can be done should encourage them to ask why it's not being done. 

Similarly, we need economists who are not on the right of Ronald Reagen. Again, let me pick an example to explain what good that'd do. Every 'free market' columnist urges the government to close down all government schools, privatise education, and give education coupons or cash handouts to the poor to educate their children. Their pet justification is that the government schools are nothing but a drain on the tax-payers' money. (It helps that income tax-payers rarely send their children to government schools.) 

That read ok till I read Jayati Ghosh's column, titled Services for All, in this fortnight's Frontline. Says she, "It is often pointed out that the quality of education in government schools is poor and occasionally abysmal, but it is rarely noted that this closely tracks the spending per student. The Kendriya Vidyalaya system is run by the government, and there are few complaints about its quality. Yet this is a privileged part of the government school structure, with the cost per child currently in excess of Rs.13,000 per annum. By contrast, most school education in the country is operated on a pittance, of an average of around Rs.600 per student per year. So it is not surprising that there are inadequate facilities and uneven quality of teaching in such schools."

More such hard facts need to be put before us. 

But how would such a poor man's business channel make any money? Should it be a public service channel, run on 'government largesse'? Well, why can't it run like entertainment and sports channels run? On ads for things other than mutual funds?

Class & Colour Plot

Is there a story out there, somewhere, on the meeting of immigrants from different times, for example, a software engineer from India who goes to, say, Canada in 2009 meeting the family of an Indian taxi-driver who immigrated in 1979 or the family of a collie who left way back in the 1909?  

Virtual Museum

Every time I visit an historical site, I remember the idea of a Virtual Museum. This will have photographs, virtual tours, plans and reconstructions. 

For example, many of the buildings in the Red Fort were originally painted white in a technique that made the walls resemble marble. That effect can be recreated in pictures. Similarly, Lucknow's Residency and Rumi Darwaja can be recreated. And so can thousands of other monuments, sculptors, paintings, commentaries, etc. Perhaps a whole city can be rebuilt, perhaps in a tiny fraction of the cost and time needed to archaeologically excavate, restore and maintain a site. I'm quite sure such museums will only increase tourist traffic to the real sites, just as photography and video have. 

Such electronic reconstruction will be especially attractive and instructive for fossils and skeletons. 

Brick & mortar museums should have electronic counterparts anyways, more so in India where the former are criminally neglected.

I'm sure these exist in the West, but I know of no such thing in India. I hope some young entrepreneur takes this up and reap millions. 

Why don't terrorists bomb the West?

Terrorists bomb the poor countries of the East, Middle East, Africa and South America far more frequently than they bomb the rich countries of Europe, Japan, USA and Canada.

(One has to strain one's memory hard to list terrorist attacks on USA, other than 9/11, though a couple of its embassies have been bombed and a few of its civilians killed in foreign lands.)

Why is this so?

After the recent attacks on Jaipur, there was a great deal of discussion in the press, both in print and on TV. Almost all of it was finger-pointing; all of it was juvenile.

And none bothered to tell the public how it can be more cautious (what are the tell-tale signs of a 'suspicious object' or person, which number should one call, etc), or what it should do in the aftermath of an attack.

But the sum of all the steam was that we are targeted because we are a soft state, incapable of “sharp, strong... statements... that we will not negotiate with terrorists.”

Perhaps. I'm no political commentator, but I do think there is some merit in (a) looking at terrorism through the prism of internal security, which is a matter of ways and means and not so much about (political and religious) rights and wrongs and (b) asking why some countries suffer relatively less from it.

There is surprisingly little discussion about internal defence in the media. It certainly doesn't grab headlines as often as, say, filmstars' tiffs do. The little there is, consists of absurd comparisons between India and UK and USA, and of calling the authorities various derogatory names in clever language.

(I am probably being grossly unfair here, because I have next to no exposure to the vernacular media, which addresses a far more matured audience than the English press does.)

But let's try to answer the second question. I am severely handicapped by ignorance here too, yet would like to see how far commonsense can take me.

Well, first there are far fewer of them to kill.

Then, over there it's so much easier to notice if something is amiss. Here, nothing and nobody are in their proper places. How do you know if you've discovered a terrorist's bomb or pushed a fellow passenger into some bribe-loving cops hands?

Third, our government hasn't learnt what our forefathers have taught for ages: To stop 'crime' you need to punish, though not necessarily punish the guilty.

One low caste fellow drinks of the Brahmin well; so all low caste women are raped and men murdered. One Bihari cabbie refuses you a ride; so all Biharis must be hammered. A bus runs over a boy; burn all buses that come down the same road, along with their drivers.

Of course, it isn't fair. But its effective to make an example. The populace is so scared that it ensures that everyone falls in line, and stays behind it.

The West understands this.

Let's say A bombs you, but you have no clue who did it; so you bomb C. C protests that he's your friend, and he condemns all bombing in the strongest terms, that his family, forefathers, and god are all peaceful, and his tigers are vegetarian. “Never mind,” says the West, “Bombing will continue unless we have calm.”

So C finds out who's backing A. Most probably he follows the money till he reaches the final financier, say, B. It tells B, “Buddy, tell A to back off, or I'll kill you.” The message goes through, though circuitously.

(In the Godfather, there is a family whose profession is to supply hostages. It's so ferocious, both sides keep their promises to avoid extermination. This system of slapping Peter to teach Paul works on somewhat similar lines.)

Should we do this? Why not? Because it's unfair and immoral? All war is immoral. All modern conflict is total war and, by definition, unfair.

Besides, how moral and fair is the terrorist?

Ok, if we take to terror, what would be the difference between us and the terrorists? None. So what? Total war is terror on a mass scale. What's the point in spending on forces to wage total terror and not waging it to defend your citizens?

Secretary on call

Salesmen hate paperwork. Everyone does. But salesmen's hate hurts companies, because nobody at HQ has any idea about what's going on in the field.

Very soon salesmen will get super-smart PDAs linked to HQ via satellite, and then the bosses will be able to spy on the poor souls 24/7.

Till that happens, why not try something simple: Give them secretaries.

These secretaries will not travel with the salesmen, but sit at an office and take notes over the phone. For example, a medical representative will dictate, “It's 10.45 pm and I've just met Dr So-and-so of 123 XYZ Lane, ABC city. I have him 23 samples of PQR medicine and 2 thermos flasks.” His secretary would duly note this, and update all records.

Of course, secretaries may be shared between salesmen, just as customer care executives take care of multiple customers.

This way the salespeople will be on a telephonic leash, while not having to do any paperwork.

There will invariably be some problems, but isn't it an idea worth trying out?

Will high fines lead to less crime?

How does one reduce crimes like unauthorised construction or destruction in third world countries, where the systems are rotten from top to bottom?

I think one way could be impose very heavy fines. For example, if the fine for digging a sidewalk is Rs 500 now, the government should raise it to Rs 500,000.

I do not expect anyone to pay that fine. I do though expect officials to hike their bribe rates many fold. That should deter digging. We must learn from Sree Krishna to use vice when good words fail.

Why not an Indian food chain?

My wife and I have lived in Kolkata, Bangalore, Delhi and Bombay. And we are pretty sure that recipes don’t cross borders too well. For example, sambar becomes sweet in Bombay. And South Indians add tej patta to almost everything. While these adaptations may make the dishes more palatable to local palate, there are surely many who want the authentic taste. After all, what’s the fun in eating out if it tastes like the food one has at home every day (Eating out from compulsion is another matter.)

Now, South Indian fried snacks are accepted across the country, as are Delhi chaats, and Bengali sweetmeats. Rajasthani savouries are also relished. So why aren’t there food chains for any of these?

I guess there are a few with shops across India, but none at the scale of, say, McDonald’s or KFC in USA.

Is it a only a matter of time for big chains come up in India?

Or is Indian food far more difficult to cook, and cannot be adapted to industrial cooking the way hamburgers are?

Or is it the ‘vision’ thing?

Get the Tourists Back

Here is very simple plan that can do much for tourism in any country, including ours.

No country, save peculiarities like Annadora, Lichtenstein and Luxembourg, can be truly explored in one visit Yet few – none to my knowledge - bother to invite visitors back. This when they know the visitors' contact details from his visa, and may even have a fair idea of where he's been to.

The simplest thing to do will be to ask for feedback once the visitor is back home (It's quite possible that the tourist won't return directly, but after seeing a few other places, so a reasonable gap may be allowed to lapse before this feedback communication is sent.)

This will be followed up, regardless of response, with a proper invitation to come back (the feedback would also include the invitation), with an offer for all sorts of brochures, CDs, and web links.

Perhaps they can make some offer on the visas, either waiving or discounting processing charges, or reducing the paperwork, or both. Our guess is that the gesture, if made with some genuineness, will do most the selling.

Not everyone will want to go back: You have one life and so many malls across the world. But there may be enough to make this worthwhile. The costs are minuscule, compared to advertising, PR and events. You're talking to people who have already sampled... not only raised their hands by voted with bums on aeroplane seats.

And countries can always swap lists. 'If you like Uzbekistan, you'll love Kyrgyzstan.'

Who is 'they'? They are the tourism boards of various countries, working with their embassies.

Any takers?