Income tax eases in budget

Here's a glance of today's tax proposals for individuals announced by the FM in his budget speech (the image is courtesy Rediff):

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Destiny’s child survives after falling from train

At the last count at least 7500 sites have picked up the story all over the globe. Some even have produced videos like the one below by msnbc.



The Associated Press also has a video story, broadcast on YouTube. This one has some elements of impurity, for the trains and tracks shown do not unfortunately seem to be from India (at least not where the incident happened).

But perhaps no one blames AP. After all the story was too hot to give a miss. Here is the video.




No doubt the incident was purely miraculous, which is why the news has spread like wildfire. Let’s have it from The Canadian Press though I believe it was yesterday’s Times of India that first broke the news.

AHMADABAD, India - A newborn in India is reported to have fallen through the toilet of a moving train and onto the tracks moments after being born - and survived.

The baby girl was found alive nearly two hours later. The child's mother, who uses the single name Bhuri, was travelling with relatives on an overnight train when she went to the bathroom shortly before midnight Tuesday.

Her brother-in-law, Arjun Kumar, says that after the train had travelled past two stations, "we knocked on the door" and Bhuri opened it, covered in blood.

He says she told them she had given birth and that the baby had fallen through the toilet, at which time she lost consciousness. Toilets on Indian trains have holes that open directly onto the tracks, and there is no indication authorities doubt Bhuri's story or plan to investigate.

The child, who has not yet been named, was eight to 10 weeks premature and weighed only three pounds, three ounces. However, despite the fact she had a low heart rate and body temperature, doctors expect her to survive.

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PE funds queuing up for realty pie

Image source

The realty expo now underway at the Science City Grounds is billed as the largest in east India. It was inaugurated by the Chief Minister 2 days back, and according to the organizers, the expo may see footfalls exceeding 40,000 over the 5 days.

The newspapers have brought out sponsored pullouts coinciding with the event. A quick glance into it, and it was clear Kolkata has at last come of age.

Several prestigious and mammoth projects have got off the ground like Eden City at Maheshtala, Shapoorji Pallonji’s 20000 homes at Rajarhat, and the 262-acre Calcutta Riverside at Batanagar with a 9-hole executive golf course.

Each of these is huge in scale, and no one would have thought a couple of years’ back that such projects could ever happen in Kolkata.

Now that they have, there now appears a scramble among the moneyed to pick the best sites. And so what is happening now is perhaps just the tip of the iceberg.

A Feb 28 report in the ToI informs that foreign private equity funds are betting big on the city’s real estate scenario. Eden City is an example of that.

As briefly mentioned in my earlier post, 2 US PE funds, Starwood Capital and Walton Street, have poured $50 million each into a 150 acre mixed use project being developed Hindustan Motors’ surplus land by the Sriram group.

The tempo seems to not only continue unabated but increase in the foreseeable future. This year the total investments from PE funds into Kolkata’s realty projects may touch Rs.1000 crore.

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Thrill of Google’s GrandCentral

Back in July last year Google took GrandCentral under its wings. That buyout now seeks to change the way people talk on the web.

It was Skype that first made it possible to talk free of cost through its web interface. Acquired by eBay in late 2005, Skype soon became a promising arsenal in eBay’s armor along with PayPal that made buyer-seller exchange ‘smooth as silk’ (to hire the famous Thai Airways slogan).

Both Skype and PayPal have flourished independent of eBay. That means you don’t need to use eBay to take advantage of the 2. But they also added to eBay’s fortunes.

To talk about Skype, just how popular it is can be gauged from the fact that since its 2003 (before eBay bought it) launch the 276 million Skype users all over world have already spoken for more than 100 billion minutes.

To put that in perspective, it took "McDonald’s nearly 40 years to serve 100 billion hamburgers (from 1955 to 1994)."

Okay, so that was about Skype. When all this was happening, Google was not sitting idle. The first change came when Google unleashed Checkout, a potential PayPal rival, in mid-2006. And then it was the turn of GrandCentral.

I’m particularly gung-ho about GrandCentral because it’ll allow my visitors to talk to me from this blog-site. Well, not yet though ‘cause the service is only for US people as of now.

If you’re in US, you can do so many things with GrandCentral as you can see in this Google announcement (excerpt):

GrandCentral offers many features that complement the phone services you already use. If you have multiple phone numbers (e.g., home, work, cell), you get one phone number that you can set to ring all, some, or none of your phones, based on who's calling.

This way, your phone number is tied to you, and not your location or job. The service also gives you one central voice mailbox. You can listen to your voicemails online or from any phone, forward them to anybody, add the caller to your address book, block a caller as spam, and a lot more.

You can even listen in on voicemail messages from your phone while they are being recorded, or switch a call from your cell phone to your desk phone and back again. All in all, you'll have a lot more control over your phones.

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Is she critically ill?

Secrecy shrouds her every moment. There is no way you can know about her without her consent, which is something that happens rarely if ever.

So when the Belle Vue Clinic installed extra security at vantage points, word soon leaked out that it ought to be Suchitra Sen who must have been hospitalized.

In the event it proved to be true. After being in the same hospital for 18 days during the last year’s puja for several ailments, she has been admitted again yesterday night.

According to reports, she was having breathing problem, and so carted to the ICCU on admission.

Here is an excerpt from TT news. The above image is also courtesy TT.

The clinic was cordoned off by cops all day long as word of Sen's hospitalisation spread. "She is paranoid about being seen in public or being photographed. During the 18 days that she was here last October, she had made it clear that if there was any violation of her privacy, she would hold it against the hospital," said a source in Belle Vue.

"And despite being quite weak and unwell this time, she reiterated her request for extreme secrecy," added the source.

So, if the main gate was cordoned off by police and private guards, there was a security barrier near her ICCU cabin, too.

"Only the doctors and nurses directly involved with her treatment are being allowed near her cabin," said a junior doctor denied a glimpse of "the enigma".

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Bandel local every 6 minutes

In today’s budget, the railway minister may announce populist projects with an eye on the coming elections. If you think that is bad, what is comforting is that during his tenure Lalu Prasad Yadav has done many good things as well.

He famously said once a cow half milked is a liability for all. The Indian Rail is a behemoth, a huge entity that has limbs spread in all parts of the country.

Over the years the assets of the railway rather proved to be constant drains from its earnings. As a result every railway budget used to ask for doles from the union government.

Lalu Prasad Yadav not only stopped that, he turned the sick railways into making profits. He simply put the assets of the railway into their optimum use. Of course he was aided by some smart brains.

And now for the first time in living memory there will be sincere attempts to correct the schedules of local trains from Howrah. See the report below taken from ABP’s Feb 21 issue.


According to the plan, instead of 13 destinations in the Howrah division, the trains will ply on 6 of them only. They are Howrah to Bandel, Howrah to Bardhaman (Chord), Bandel to Bardhaman, Bandel to Katwa, Bandel to Naihati, and Sheoraphuli to Tarakeswar.

This means Bandel will become a hub and all other destinations will rather be spokes. This plan will simplify the entire running schedule as can be seen in the graphics.

For example, Howrah to Bandel locals will run every 6 minutes, totaling 144 pairs every day instead of 107 pairs now. Similarly, average frequency of trains from Howrah to Bardhaman Chord will reduce to 30 minutes from the present 69, while the numbers of trains will more than double from 21 to 48.

When the plan comes into effect, Howrah will operate trains to only 2 destinations – Bandel and Bardhaman Chord. This means less need for platforms – 3 in place of 7 now.

There are plans to make these platforms double-discharging at Howrah, meaning passengers can get in and out from both sides. This is what you get to see at Central Railway’s CST, Mumbai, and also at 1, 4, and 4A at Sealdah Main.

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Now a home in Singapore

If you’re looking for proof of average Indians’ growing financial clout, here is one. The Far East Organization, a Singapore-based realty developer for 50 years, has come to Kolkata to sell residential properties there.

Their exposition at the Hotel Hindustan International ran for 2 days and concluded this evening. Response from those interested is said to be quite good.

Going by reports, Far East’s bouquet of offers included 100 villas and 1200 apartments. Prices ranged between Rs.2.5 crore to Rs.15 crore.

The table model brought was that of VIDA, located in the affluent district of Cairnhill Rise [image below courtesy]


The minimum property price is higher than the RBI’s maximum limit of forex outgo for an individual’s property investment abroad. This amount is $200,000, which comes to about Rs.80 lakh.

So how does a Kolkattan buy a Singapore apartment? Far East asked for a booking amount of 5% in the fair to be followed by another 25% in a month or 2.

The developer will then arrange bank loan in Singapore for an average interest as low as 3.5%. This can help one to circumvent the RBI rules.

Apparently, Far East will also oversee leasing out of property once it’s ready, thus ensuring some income. And if the owner needs to sell out the property in 3-4 years time, that too is arranged by the company.

According to survey done by Far East and their Indian marketing partner, Delhi-based Land Solutions, many students from Kolkata study in Singapore.

They hope therefore that their moneyed parents may be interested to set up another home in the city-nation, if only for the duration for their kids’ studies.

For the record, Far East Organization and its Hong Kong based sister company, the Sino Group, have a combined annual turnover of $4 billion. Their total assets are valued at over $25 billion.

Together, the Far East Organization and the Sino Group employ over 12,000 staff worldwide. Impressive, no doubt.

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New design for train coaches

The week from tomorrow will have the country’s largest economic exercise on Friday. 2 days prior to the Union Budget is that by the railways.

For the charismatic LP Yadav, this years’ railway budget will be the fifth in a row. During his tenure he has preserved and enhanced railway’s profitability. And he also sprang surprises now and then, often to others’ delight.

This year he is likely to announce major changes in the interior design of 3-tier sleeper coaches. The figure below – courtesy ABP, Feb 1 - is a schematic of the new design.



According to the proposal the coach will be divided longitudinally into 2 equal halves. Instead of one corridor there will be 2 that will clearly lessen the crowding of passengers.

Windows will be made larger as in Rajdhani Express to give a feel of more space. However these will be along side berths only. The coaches will have the same dimensions outside, and the number of berths too will remain unchanged.

A couple of disadvantages that come to mind are:

• There will be no privacy since there will be no concept of cubicles. Chance of theft of luggage will increase.
• If your seat comes on the wrong side of the coach when it stops in a station, it’ll be difficult to buy things from the platform while remaining inside. Also, the Indian tradition of ‘seeing off’ will become difficult in that case.

Yet for all that matters, the change may be welcome if only because we’re tired with the looks of sameness all these years. And we can thank LPji for his strive for innovative thinking and putting new ideas into action.

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Cricket’s day out

Top 5 cricketers in IPL auction [picture courtesy]

Few eyebrows rose when the BCCI auctioned ownership of regional T-20 teams sometime back. Maybe people couldn’t hazard a guess what that would turn out.

In the event Shah Rukh Khan emerged victorious for the Kolkata team while Preity Zinta bagged the Mohali team. For those who won the bids, including Vijaya Mallya for the Bangalore team, it was pure business. For BCCI the sum collected was nothing short of windfall.

Bigger surprise was to come yesterday when the players were put ‘on the block’. Indian sports have never seen such moneyed frenzy as player after player fetched enormous sums in the auction.

Dhoni held the top spot with a price tag of Rs.6 crore for the Chennai team. Aussie all-rounder Andrew Symonds came next with Rs.5.4 crore for Hyderabad team. There was no sign of acrimony during the bidding concerning his recent row with Harbhajan.

The Kolkata team bagged Ishant Sharma, a good prize considering his sterling performance currently in Australia.

Leaving Sourav here are the prices of team Kolkata players that were ‘won’ at the auction:

Ishant Sharma ($950K)
Chris Gayle ($800K)
Brendon Mccullum ($700K)
David Hussey ($625K)
Shoaib Akhtar ($425K)
Murali Kartik ($425K)
Ricky Ponting ($400K)
Ajit Agarkar ($350K)
Umar Gul ($150K)
Tatenda Taibu ($125K)

Below is a video of Kolkata newspaper headlines (ToI, ET, ABP, and TT). They all screamed about the auction.

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Speak and it’s done

Speak for 15 seconds and have that emailed to you in 2-3 minutes. That’s Jott, www.jott.com.

So what’s great with Jott? For me what appeals is that you (if you’re in US) can blog your voice that gets deciphered into text that in turn appears automatically in your blog.

If blogging is there, can social marketing be far behind! It can’t, and so Jott lets you connect through Twitter and Jaiku.

It may seem improbable, but in a recent Seth Godin webinar I learn that Jott’s short speeches are ‘speed-typed’ by someone in a distant shore real time. It then appears in real text in the speaker’s mailbox.

It’s an excellent example of outsourcing simple works, and super-profiting in the interim. See the video below collected from Jott’s site.

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Nowhere to go

A pregnant tigress strayed away from her habitat in the Sunderbans, and managed to hog the limelight the entire yesterday. She suffered an extended ordeal for close to 18 hours before she could be taken away on a steamer for treatment and releasing thereafter.

The Telegraph has an elaborative graphic (below) that explains how things went wrong.


The big cats in Bengal are relatively safer than in other places in the country. A recent survey showed there are only 1411 tigers in the country.

The Times of India brought out an alarming tale of the possibility of the beast’s extinction in India, one of its earliest natural habitats.

The figure doesn’t include Sunderbans populace since it was not available at the time of announcement. A ToI illustration is reproduced below.


Tigers are not the only casualties. In North Bengal 32 elephants died last year. The figure is so high that the forest officials can no longer afford to ignore the matter.

Of the 32, 5 each died due to electrocution, lightning strike, and train accident. Since NFR railway tracks run through the dense forests in Dooars, the trains often encounter the pachyderms on the way.

The trains run at high speed giving the animals no chance to escape death. This year has already seen 2 deaths of which one was because of train accident.

Looking at these figures certain things become clear, at least in Bengal. One, poaching of elephants and killing tigers appears to have reduced somewhat. But two, the forest area is constantly dwindling due to human encroachment.

This has meant that while the wild beats may be gradually increasing in number, they are finding it very difficult to live in depleting forests comfortably.

Perhaps this is the reason why we often find marauding elephants in both south and north Bengal straying into human habitation. Does it seem that there’s no solution forthcoming soon? Maybe only experts can tell.

Update, Feb 20, 2008:

All is well that ends well


No media person could afford missing the event. If not the duty to report, they could hardly let go the lure of seeing the beautiful beast of the Sunderbans that lay captured on a boat.

The release ceremony started after the important attendees reached the venue. They included Kanti Ganguly, the WB minister for Sunderbans, and Atanu Raha, the Chief Forest Conservator.

Of course the media was there in full bloom armed with cameras and other visual aids. For, otherwise all the today’s editions wouldn’t have had those eye-catching images like the one above.

When the gate opened, the tigress leapt so powerfully to the 'safety' of the river that it took the breadth away of the assembled people. It looked as if she was pouncing on her prey with all the might.

Women from nearby villages blew conch-shells and ululated to welcome the beast’s release.

After swimming till mid-river, she turned and let go a fulsome roar that silenced everyone.

As one paper reported, "When its echoes faded away, there was only the sound of the jungle breeze. No one stirred on the deck."

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Chinese consulate in Kolkata

Mao Siwei, the new Chinese consul general in the city, doesn’t mind his plate getting full with meaty works. In fact many of these he plucked out from elsewhere to put on his plate. To each of them he wants to give his undivided attention if and as chance permits.

For now the job heading the list is to start giving visas to China from Kolkata. Mao feels the demand for the visa could easily touch 50,000 this year from his office. That averages to nearly 140 a day.

According to him, 460,000 Indians traveled to China last year as against just 70,000 coming the opposite way.

This explains why the China Eastern Airlines that began thrice-a-week direct flight to Kunming late last year now plans to make it daily from next month.

Among his other priorities is the plan to culturally connect with 3000-strong Chinese community in the city, the biggest in the country. He’ll also raise the issue of poor civic infrastructure in the eastern fringes where the Chinese mostly live.

Coming later will be 2 more important projects. The first is to build a bigger permanent location at Rajarhat. The other will be to promote Chinese language program in Kolkata in a big way.

Clearly Mao Siwei’s mandate is to facilitate for the long haul. Though Bangalore figured prominently for China to open their third consulate in India, they instead decided to have it in Kolkata for geo-political reasons.

With the Chinese consulate, the city now houses 11 full-fledged diplomatic missions in the city. The others are the US, UK, Russia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

[See TT news for more]

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Why RelPower Is Issuing Bonus?

Biting dust is not a sweet experience. Especially so when it concerns none other than the ADAG Group of Anil Ambani. He is one of the richest persons in the world, and only he can be the right claimant to the audacious quote he made in ET: "Jab haathi ki sawaari nikalti hai to kutte bhonka karte hain (When elephants walk, dogs can only bark)."

Successes are however not always scripted on mere wishes. Many a time they need solid base to firmly stand on, which was something that was missing in the recent RelPower IPO.

Let’s however make no mistake. No one is saying RelPower will not succeed. In fact so huge is India’s power requirement that is leapfrogging every single moment that it’ll be a miracle if efficiently run power companies don’t make money for a long, long time to come.

Anil Ambani has efficiency in abundance. He is extremely ambitious, and an excellent manager of giant projects. After all in just a little less than 3 years, his ADAG group has vaulted in market cap from Rs.15,000 crore to the present mind-numbing Rs,3,25,000 crore.

With that in perspective, the failure of RelPower to sustain the issue price on listing is a serious blot. Perhaps that is the reason why the company is mulling bonus shares to the new shareholders – kind of averaging out the price disadvantage.

When that happens, it will go down as the first and a rare incident in the history of Indian stock market.

The saying however goes that the main reason for the unexpected bonanza is because the group is likely to come out with several mega offerings (IPOs’) later in the year.

Obviously the ADAG group does not want to antagonize the small shareholders who have been the mainstay thus far with nearly all Reliance group’s IPOs.

Meanwhile, the common refrain among small investors like me is that we need not bother with what the behemoths do. We’re happy we’re getting some shares free. Long live Anilbhai.

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10 more years or eternity?

I cannot help but write again on Kolkata’s vehicular pollution. The trigger this time is the lead article in today’s TT Metro.

Refer the image at left. TT Metro has charged the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government with culpable homicide (sometimes amounting to murder)… (underlined with blue and shown with green arrow).

The charge is serious but true. The Kolkattans are living in hellhole. But as I said in my last post, the average city dweller is powerless.

The TT article says in the end that as a safety measure (you) shift to a city where the government values human health and life.

Come back after 10 years. Hopefully by then the powers-that-be will be compelled to place more value on the health of fellow humans who populate the city.

Incidentally, no Indian city ranks in the top 40 tourist destinations (refer TravelPod’s list at right). Maybe all our cities are suffering acute growth pangs and/or having planning malnutrition.

Wonder if better planned cities like New Delhi cannot make the rank yet, how long would it be – or, would it ever be? – for Kolkata to make the grade..!

Update, Feb 19, 2008

The Telegraph's article above triggered a flood of emails to the newspaper office. Some of these came out in today's edition. Each reflects the agony and helplessness of the sufferers. I select 3 of them below:

Pooja Agarwal

I live on Moore Avenue and work on Prince Anwar Shah Road. The two-kilometre drive down NSC Bose Road — that takes 45 minutes every morning — is an ordeal. Stuck in traffic jams, we inhale all those toxic fumes emitted by the unruly autowallahs who have found a foster father in our dear transport minister! No wonder our sons and daughters are all asthmatic and ailing. Is conversion to a cleaner fuel costlier than the lives of our children?

Debarya Banerjee

Government agencies are to blame for the poison air choking the city. They refuse to take action against polluting buses, taxis and autos because of political affiliation. If they don’t take corrective steps now, what will happen to our children? Just think of what air they will breathe in...

D. Chaudhry

The West Bengal government is prompt in suppressing protests against forcible seizure of land, but does nothing to stop pollution by the buses, autos, trucks and taxis. The whole city is suffering. People are dying. Wake up, Buddhababu! Have the courage to act.

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Kolkata getting worse

You may feel today is a red letter day for Bengal because at long last the government is able to acquire and handover land to the Salim Group for the chemical hub.

I though feel the claim to fame goes to yesterday (Feb 14) because for the first time a foreign diplomat pointed out that Kolkata’s air pollution is so high that it may hinder growth (refer today’s TT story).

In a seminar on environment, the British deputy high commissioner Simon Wilson rapped the government for failing to control auto emission. He said if things do not improve, then investments from abroad are likely to suffer. [Image source above]

Mr. Wilson is absolutely right. I live near the Bypass, and I can vouch for deterioration in the quality of air I breathe – this in a locality where there still are large open spaces.

My own analysis is that this condition will worsen in the coming years as the vehicular population increases, and the government’s apathy continues. Here the last factor, namely government’s apathy, is of huge importance. Let me explain.

The real power in Kolkata lies with that group of people who care a damn about the rule of law. Ironically the government cares for them the most. Take the case of auto-rickshaws.

There are about 40,000 of them plying in the city, more than half of which are illegal and have no valid license. Except the miniscule few that run on LPG, all others use a typical concocted fuel that creates heavy pollution.

Everybody knows this but no one can touch them. Similar is the case with both state and private buses. They flout traffic rules with impunity, many buses emit obnoxious fumes, but once again you and I cannot dare touch them.

Looking at it more closely you’ll find that about a lakh or so people (40000 auto owners + 20000 bus owners + 40000 street hawkers) wield enormous power that can hold the 18 million (taking the greater metropolis) strong city dwellers to ransom. They find support from the inactivity of the government, so they do whatever they like.

Will this continue for ever? Perhaps not. This will continue till the balance of power decisively shifts from these people to the mainly middle class who mostly abide by the laws. Lately, such shifts have been occurring in other cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, etc.

Kolkata’s turn will come at least 10-12 years from now. When people with money and sense of well-being start congregating in the city from other parts of the country and abroad, they will exert pressure for improvement in living standard.

It is then and only then that the government will find it costly politically to nurture the vote bank of ‘poor’ people who have no qualms to make life hell for all others.

Till then we’ve no alternative than fret and fume from time to time like Mr. Wilson and let respiratory disease take its toll.

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Roads for upgraded airport

Roads planned for new Kolkata airport terminal [Image courtesy The Telegraph]

At least this time the slumber hasn't lasted long. Plans are on the drawing board to meet the challenge of manifold increase in vehicular traffic once the new airport terminal comes into being.

As is usually the case, no credit can belong to the state government. The AAI-Kolkata's in-charge of modernization, SPS Bakshi, has made the blueprint of what he feels must be done for the increase in traffic.

Bakshi has suggested 3 elevated roads, 2 near the airport and the other a 4-lane flyover from Chitpore to Lake Town - VIP Road crossing.

Of the 2 near the airport, one will start from the place where Belghoria Expressway meets the Jessore Road. It will take a left turn on to the VIP Road and terminate at the New Town - VIP Road crossing while producing an arm - also an elevated road - that goes straight to the new terminal.

The terminal is being planned to have 2-tier entry/exit. The ground floor will house the departure terminal, and the first floor the arrival terminal. It's the arrival terminal that will be linked with the city-bound road.

Bakshi is the former Chief General Manager with the NHAI (National Highways Authority of India). He is acutely aware of the dangers less roadspace poses for a traffic monster. He has done his homework well before submitting it to the state government.

How soon the state's transport department will wake up to the reality is anyone's guess. Looking at the imbroglio that has happened in case of Nivedita Setu, it's better that we keep the fingers firmly crossed.

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Modern day Rabindranaths

When they were named Rabindranath, their parents certainly hoped that the talent of the Nobel laureate would rub off on their offspring. Some amount does seem to have rubbed off but in a wrong way, for otherwise the honorable MLAs, Rabindranath Bhattacharya and Rabindranath Ghosh wouldn’t be what they are today.

They have of late earned the fame of disrupting normal flow of life to register their protests. It is clear that there is very little common between them and Bengal’s most famous poet.

They are however elected representatives, which the writer of the national songs of 2 countries was not.

Let’s look at the 2 Rabindranath’s recent claims to fame.

Rabindranath Bhattacharya is the Trinamool MLA from Singur constituency. He is actively involved in the land losers’ struggle against the Tata’s car factory in Singur. The factory is on its way to completion, and recently the High Court rejected appeals that wanted to stall it.

None of those are enough to let Rabindranath Bhattacharya see reason. Last week on Feb 8 he participated in a novel protest when he led protesters to enjoy picnic on the Durgapur Expressway near the car factory.

A large contingent of police was present on the occasion, armed with water cannons, Kalashnikovs, tear-gas shells, sticks and shields. But none were put to use because the police wanted to wait and watch instead of removing the demonstrators.

This meant the police virtually guarded the picnic as it went off smoothly for more than 3 hours from a little before 11 in the morning (ref: ABP, Feb 9).

Like Rabindranth Bhattacharya’s protest, that of Rabindranath Ghosh was also peaceful. The latter is the Forward Bloc MLA from Uluberia and a minister in the state cabinet.

He sat for hours on a chair on the railway line at Uluberia station on Feb 6, 2 days before the protest of Rabindranath of Singur.

Both the Rabindranaths were able to completely disrupt the flow of traffic – road and rail – for several hours. That their protests actually harmed ordinary people was not a concern at all.

That is not surprising, because over the years the entire political class in Bengal – and indeed the country as a whole – barring perhaps just a few have mastered the art of ignoring the common people’s plight unless it has the potential to serve their narrow political ends.

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Saraswati Puja 2008

Saraswati Puja at my sister's place.

The sun shone brightly despite the forecast of a gloomy day. Maa Saraswati was welcomed with an eye on spending the day in high spirits.

To the thousands of schoolchildren and ex-schoolchildren these were reasons enough to rejoice and come out in droves in special dresses. After all, rare are times when they can officially chill out in the company of near and distant friends from the opposite sex.

And while they did that, they also prayed to the goddess of knowledge. They implored her to shower them with marks in the forthcoming exams, no matter whether they studied well for that.

Saraswati Puja has always been a day long awaited. Not only does it signal the end of the yearly puja festivities, it also is what I call the Bengalis’ Valentine Day.

The good feeling will linger for some more days, and then will gradually appear the demon of examinations. Joy and fear – what else is life without them!

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Crashing Sensex

All eyes riveted on Anil Ambani as he walked up beaming to sound the gong sharp at 0955 hrs at the BSE yesterday. It was an auspicious day. It was Basant Panchami there in Mumbai, and Saraswati Puja here in Kolkata.

At Anil Ambani’s signal the shares of Reliance Power started trading at the bourses. No sooner the sound waves of the gong vanished in the thin air, the riveted eyes instantly shifted to the computer screens. The magic would now unfold.

But alas it was a different magic altogether.

The scrip began well but soon crashed. No amount of pre-issue hype and the frenzied subscription to the IPO could sustain the selling pressure. The myth that a Reliance share can never fail came undone.

The worse then followed. Sensex crashed 834 points by the end of the day, the 3rd steepest fall after the two that happened only last month.

Many small-time investors who chose the Reliance Power IPO to debut in stock trading will find the ground shaking under their feet. Quite a few analysts felt that the unused refunds from the IPO will find way to fresh buying of the stocks in the secondary market.

But that hope seems to have waned. The stock prices are tumbling like ninepins. According to S&P, Indian stocks lost 16% value in January making the market the 4th biggest loser in the world.

Veterans who do not lack wisdom find the present situation lucrative to build fresh low-cost high-value portfolio for the long run. Few small investors share that optimism.

But this is not new. This has happened many times before, and each time this happens, the smart guys go picking the cherries for future feast.

Meanwhile, here is a video of today’s headlines that scream about the crash in unison.

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Free marketplace for ideas

Have an idea? Can sell it? If the answers are yes, you’re welcome to FreeIQ to realize your dreams. It’s the free marketplace for ideas.

As Brad Fallon, the CEO of FreeIQ says:

Everyone knows something that’s valuable to someone else. And some people know things that are very valuable to many other people.

A few days back I talked about Ideablob that pays you $10000 if your idea is voted the most popular. Here you earn a prize only if others feel your idea is the best.

FreeIQ differs in that you can endlessly upload/include your ideas there free of cost. And you can sell them. Let me give an example.

Suppose you’re a fitness trainer. You can record an audio discourse on an effective method of weight-control, and upload the file to FreeIQ for selling. Similarly you can sell digital products in other forms like an ebook in pdf format.

If not selling, you can have free content as well that can act as magnets to your paid product.

The reason I like FreeIQ is that it has a very easy interface to do all your works. The learning curve is nearly flat, which means you can get going in a short time.

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Most deserving online industries

Time was when competition centered on laurels like best website design, best newcomer, and suchlike. Then the online world was simple, rather easy to follow and predict.

Leapfrog to 2007. The year just gone by has seen phenomenal interest in social media. Sites like Facebook and Digg have snowballed into gigantic prominence.

Today, any Internet marketer worth his salt cannot afford to ignore the social media sites even if the so-called search engine optimization (or SEO) takes a backseat.

Keeping with the new flavors, TechCrunch’s selection of The Crunchies for 2007 presents less of surprise, but more of the pointers of tomorrow.

Here is a selective list of the awardees, citations quoted verbatim. You can see the details at this page.

1. Best Overall: Facebook > Facebook revolutionized the idea of what social networking could be.
   
   
2. Best video startup: Hulu > Hulu put television online. Their broadcasting system was modeled on the success of social video sites and drawn the praise of its previous critics.
   
   
3. Best user-generated content site: Digg > Digg’s simple voting system defined the emerging social media revolution. Getting “dugg” quickly became a badge of honor and established a coveted place in the geek lexicon.
   
   
4. Best mobile start-up: Twitter > Twitter, the new addictive microblogging platform. It wasn’t until after the South by Southwest conference that people realized the value of the incredibly simple microblogging platform.
   
   
5. Best International startup: Netvibes > Based in London, Tariq Karim and Freddy Mini’s Netvibes has made waves in the U.S. as a top personalized web portal.
   
   
6. Best design: SmugMug > SmugMug is professional photo site. SmugMug’s attention to detail and design can command as much as $150 per year from their users.
   
   
7. Best new startup: iMedix > iMedix combines search and social networking to change the way people find health information online. Users are encouraged to help each other by sharing health experiences and links from around the web.
   
   
8. Best use of viral marketing: StumbleUpon > StumbleUpon’s service lets users bookmark and discover new sites they love. With only a $1.5 million investment in 2005, StumbleUpon gew to over 4 million Stumblers and was bought by eBay in 2007 for $75 million.

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Yacrosoft or Micrahoo?

A tech issue taking shape in faraway US has captured the pole position of lead story in 3 Kolkata newspapers. All the 3 – The Telegraph, Times of India, and Economic Times – have quoted stats to speculate the outcome.

And so must be all the leading papers across the globe. [Image below source]


The issue is monumental for the online world. Microsoft seeks Yahoo’s hand to take on the monolith Google. From the tone of comments from those who keep tabs it appears Microsoft will acquire Yahoo, come what may.

Google is the king in both natural and paid search. According to Hitwise, Google’s search share in Nov ’07 was 65.1%, while comScore puts it at 61%.

In sharp contrast, both Yahoo and MSN (the Microsoft search-arm) lag far behind. Going by comScore figures, the coming together of the 2 will not pose any foreseeable threat to Google.

It may seem Google is invincible. At the moment it is so indeed. What the future holds is a guess not worth yet to spend time on.

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