The resurgence of the people’s movement

The adage ‘United we stand, divided we fall’ conveys the power of unity and the failing of division like no other. For ages, the power hungry rulers (and of late the politicians) have used the truth conveyed in the second half of the proverb ‘divided we fall’ to their advantage but fortunately we have had some great people who, having united people, validated the first half of the maxim ‘united we stand’. And like we have seen, read and heard in our mythological stories, in the fight between the good and the evil the good may suffer initially but eventually it prevails over the evil

My fondness for NaMo is known by all my blog readers (read non-existing blog readers!) His life and particularly his attitude towards work has been modivating (read motivating). Hopefully, one day the word ‘modivating’ will officially become part of the dictionary and I will have my share of fame in the process! I remember him addressing an enthusiastic Indian diaspora at Madison square garden where he enthralled everyone present including the US Congressmen who were happy to act as cheer leaders for NaMo when he walked-in to a thunderous applause which was as deafening as a fighter jet! One of the points that he made there will be etched in my memory forever (like most of his other points!) His point was with regards to involving the people of India in every initiative that he would undertake, making it a ‘people’s movement’ 

Let me elaborate it as per my understanding. Hundreds of freedom fighters fought selflessly and gave up their lives for a nation wanting to free itself from the shackles of British rule. They fought and lost their lives for India but unfortunately their sacrifice went unnoticed. More fortunate freedom fighters managed to survive and fight long enough which ensured them a place in history books so that we could study and learn from them struggles for years to come. Both these kind of leaders; the ones whose struggle were recorded and found a place in history as well those whose sacrifices went unnoticed made immeasurable contribution towards India’s freedom movement with their intellectual as well as physical power. And then there was Gandhiji, who with his enormous work acquired the title of Mahatma. Coming back to NaMo’s speech at Madison square garden, what Gandhiji did differently was NaMo’s answer to challenges faced by India and world in general today. Gandhiji involved the common people in the freedom struggle at a scale which was unprecedented. Be it the conceiving of the idea of ‘Satyagraha’ in South Africa or the civil disobedience movement in India to protest against the salt tax or the non-cooperation movement urging people to say ‘NO’ to British goods, he took the freedom movement to the people making it a ‘people’s movement’ the results of which are well known.

Now compare that the point that NaMo made to his actions and you will realize (in case you have any doubt) that he is a man of his words. Before the elections, we saw all parties in their individual capacities doing TV ads, radio campaigns, hoarding etc to let the people know as to why they should be voted to power. One form of media that played a significant role in turning BJP’s fortunes was the digital media: social networking sites like facebook, Twitter and messengers like WhatsApp. If you think over this a little bit, you would realize by forwarding those messages talking about NaMo’s credentials and the rest of funny stuff floating around with regards the elections at that point in time, we became NaMo’s brand ambassadors! We were campaigning for NaMo without realizing that we had become involved in the people’s movement! (In hindsight, thank god we did!) And what happened after he became the PM? The people’s movement continues!

He got us involved in the ‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana’ by encouraging people to participate in the naming of the ‘yojana’ including deciding on the logo. He started a website mygov.in where he invites everyone to make suggestions on various topics which is then discussed online and vetted by the experts to check the feasibility of the same. He has instructed ministers to use social media extensively in reaching out to people at large for suggestions and feedback. ‘Swachh bharat abhiyan’ was another initiative where he got the entire country involved and made everyone the stakeholder. He wants to use the digital media in reaching out to those who are still deprived of basic education and then use the same media to create awareness about preventive health care. This is the kind of participatory democracy that we haven’t seen for a while; a democracy where everyone has a say and everyone has a responsibility towards making it a success. We have seen a lot of people who only claim to be Gandhiji’s followers but here is a man who is following him with his actions and how!     

When we united (people’s movement) under the leadership of Gandhiji, we gained independence and hopefully, when we unite under the leadership of NaMo, we will develop a better India!

Maha Elections Part II !

So the drama is over and the curtains have fallen. Maharashtra assembly elections, which were expected to be a cliffhanger, have not disappointed. The build-up to the elections was extremely exciting with old allies BJP-Shiv Sena parting ways which was followed by another break-up between Congress-NCP. It was these break-ups which made it a five-way contest with MNS expected to be a beneficiary but the results were more than an upset as far as MNS is concerned, more on it later

The campaigning prior to the elections was ruthless with NaMo again coming to the rescue for BJP, Raj Thackeray leading the charge for MNS, generally quite Uddhav Thackeray going extra mile for Shiv Sena and NCP head Sharad Pawar going aggressive as a lot of personal comments were made by everyone in order to get a one-up on another. The results have been equally exciting with BJP just missing the clear majority mark by few seats. The takeaways are as follows:

BJP, as expected, was the biggest gainer winning 122 seats, managing almost three times the seats won by them in 2009 i.e. 46. One must note that this is almost equal to the number of seats they were planning to contest from had the alliance with Shiv Sena not broken! A cynic may put forward an argument that despite NaMo personally addressing rallies, they were not able to cross the half-way mark and that whatever they won was due to anti-incumbency factors etc. But hey, three-fold increase is nothing short of a spectacular achievement especially when they have emerged as the single largest party. And considering the fact that they contested from a number of those seats where their ally Shiv Sena used to contest from for years, no one can deny the fact that it was the Modi wave that got them through without being actively present in lot of these regions. So if anyone had any doubt, let me again make it very clear that the Modi wave is alive and kicking! I am saying this as a voter. Let’s face it, people are voting for NaMo and not for the individuals or the party (which could prove dangerous in long term). This is the best time to be in BJP, everything seems to be going right for them

As far as Congress is concerned, this election was just a repeat of the general elections with them winning as many seats (42) as they lost compared to the last elections in 2009 (82)! They say in Cricket, if two batsmen go out of form, the one with better footwork and who is technically sounder is likely to come back in form quicker compared to the other one as he has his basics in place. And whenever nothing is going your way, the least you could do is get your basics right! Considering the negative publicity that the Congress party has been subjected to due to poor performance when they were in power, they are not likely to come back in form anytime soon
Shiv Sena would have realized by now that breaking-up with BJP was a mistake. You should not challenge the strongest guy around, especially when others are not expected to come to your rescue. Though they did extremely well in getting their tally to 63 as compared to 44 in 2009, they would have been better off going into the elections with the BJP. BJP-SS combine’s tally could have been bigger than the sum total of their individual tally. If one goes by the latest news, the two parties are on the verge of sealing a deal and tie-up again to give a stable government in Maharashtra  

I am still not sure as to how NCP position themselves before the electorate vis-à-vis other parties in Maharashtra, but considering the quantum of fall that Congress has seen in Maharashtra, NCP did well in winning 41 seats

MNS’s performance was the biggest shocker. To be honest, I expected them to play a very critical role in the post election scenario in case no party was unable get the simple majority, which is the case this time around. But the unfortunate part is MNS is nowhere in the picture. Whereas MNS managed to win only one seat, MIM making its debut in Maharashtra won two. Though the making of blueprint for Maharashtra was a good initiative, I guess it was their marathi versus non-marathi pitch that worked against them. Why it worked against them when local parties across various states in India are doing the same thing, i.e. appealing to a certain community, successfully?  I think it was because they mixed the same pitch (appealing to a community) with the blueprint for Maharashtra i.e. development pitch (appealing to everyone). If they wanted to appeal to Marathi manoos, which they have all the right to, they should have stuck to places where they were strong. There was no point contesting from 230 seats. I strongly believe had they restricted themselves to locations where they felt they had a good change and had they played to their strengths, they would have done better and not seen their tally go down to one from thirteen

Overall, I believe the elections have been a great equalizer. BJP falling short of majority is a signal that the strong regional parties can challenge even the party for which everything is going right and that no one can take the voter for granted 

Tale of e-tail, again!

Whenever someone decides to write a book on India's e-commerce story, flipkart will find a special mention in it. It is responsible for getting people, who were used to buying things after physically examining them, to shop online at a scale unprecedented in India's history. Personally speaking, all my limited online purchases have happened through flipkart only. So flipkart's 'big billion sale day' came as a huge respite for the masses planning their Diwali shopping! Snapdeal also announced its own version of the 'big discount day'. The sale started with a lot of fanfare with millions logging in to find the best deals. By evening both the marketplaces claimed to have sold about Rs.600 cr worth of merchandise each! 

But the good news ended just there. Number of people took to social media platform to vent out their anger against flipkart for reasons varying from technical issues preventing them completing transactions, cancellation of orders, for things getting sold out in no time, basically questioning the authenticity of the sale. 'The big billion sale day' turned into the 'the big goof-up watched by a billion plus population'. (It is amazing how the same social media which you use to create buzz about your upcoming launches can turn against you in case you fall short of expectations. It works either ways you see! Another element of social media worth noting is the speed at which news spreads. People knew something went wrong with the sale day even before the companies could announce their sales figures for the day!)

Whereas I do not question the authenticity of the overall theme of the discount day (who would purposely want to mess up their own special day), I think the only thing that could have gone wrong was the manner in which they approached it. My argument is as follows: from the day it started it has been in news for all the right reasons be it being responsible for bringing about path-breaking changes in how India shopped, to acquiring Myntra, to raising $1 billion etc. They were under pressure to make this day special. There were huge expectations from all quarters. A company which was already selling goods at discounted prices was expected to do something extraordinary. And of course the fear of competition: with snapdeal and amazon planning their own version of sale day/week, flipkart wanted to make theirs bigger, better and more memorable. 

All these factors combined made them go overboard with the sale and in the process they couldn't foresee the problems coming their way. Cynics may argue here saying the technical errors are understandable but the inventory levels could be better handled. In retrospect, we can say a lot of things but let us just give it to them for putting up such a great show as, I am sure, they would have put in their heart and soul to make it a memorable one. They were humble enough to issue an apology with clarifications. They surely have learnt their lessons (and the competitors too!)

Amazon may have had the first mover advantage in this business category worldwide; flipkart had the same honors in India. The 'sale day' first mover advantage again went to flipkart and snapdeal but it ended up saving the day for the second mover (amazon) in this case. Amazon would have become more cautious with their 'amazing week' campaign! (Please note the word play here!)

What this development has led to is even more interesting than the development itself! Future group has termed this exercise of ‘jaw-dropping prices’ as unfair saying the predatory pricing impacts the brick-n-mortar stores in general which tend to lose out. One would have thought this would lead to a court battle between the marketplaces and large retailers having brick-n-mortar stores but then came the news that future group has tied up with amazon to market its products, followed by another news where nerolac tied up with flipkart to sell their products online. Synergy is the way to go! And there could be many such possibilities where the marketplaces like flipkart/snapdeal could partner with the brick-n-mortar companies to capitalize on each other’s strengths. I just read yesterday: amazon has decided to open a brick-n-mortar store in USA! It will act as pick up and return store to start with but just the developments that have happened in last few months re-emphasises that we can expect the unexpected in future!

Maha Elections!

There are mainly two types of news. One: which we read/listen and forget. Basically the nonsense stuff which makes no difference to our lives but it somehow ends up on some form of media when there is dearth of worthwhile news. One can refer to it as useless stuff or (news)less stuff! The other type of news is the one which acts as a starting point of debates, the opinion makers. News that make views! Finally we have something to talk about and discuss: Maharashtra assembly elections

The BJP-SS (Shiv Sena) divorce has made this assembly election a five-way contest and it could give the general elections a serious run for its money on the ‘excitement quotient’! As if the four parties were not enough, now we have five major parties, other smaller parties and number of independents vying to represent us at the state level. Some of these independents could really come to the party in case of a close contest which is very likely as none of the parties are expected to get a clear majority. Agenda remains same as the general elections with little change in the overall positioning. BJP has decided to stick to the all-encompassing agenda concentrating on development, growth etc. with the great orator NaMo personally addressing rallies. (BJP, since the general elections, has become so much dependent on NaMo that it is hard to imagine them winning without NaMo’s presence. Their condition is quite similar to what the Indian cricket team used to experience years back, we couldn’t imagine India winning without Tendulkar) For the rest of the parties the agenda remains same as ever, target NaMo apart from the community based politics (this could also be because they do not have much to talk about on their performance or the development front) Some of the political pundits may have you believe that they are committing the same folly as they did the last time around but hey these are not general elections. Going by the by-elections results, what works at the national level may not necessarily work at the state level. 

There are various takeaways from all this: 

Firstly, if BJP does well, one could safely conclude that we have moved away from being an electorate that could be influenced by community based politics to an electorate which is only concerned with jobs, growth etc. This is not to say that BJP has a monopoly on growth and development related matters but going by how parties have positioned themselves it seems only they are interested in development and this is where I think other parties are committing a blunder. I am sure NCP, MNS, SS and Congress could be and are equally pro-development but they have chosen to position/brand themselves differently. At the end of the day, even if a party appeals to a certain community, it promises them a better life through jobs, growth etc. So the agenda for them is also same as BJP but the only difference being they want to only target a certain community. 

Secondly, I would really like all these parties to do well and have a universal agenda of development and growth which will be most idealistic situation. It will be interesting to see how parties which fight on the same universal agenda compete with each other.

Then there is another view that at state level you need to appeal to the ‘majority’ of people of that state. Unfortunately in case of our country the ‘majority’ only means majority of a community in a particular state. And there is a good reason why this has worked for years in India. One may think of himself as a secular individual but let us face it; we are not that secular as we may think of ourselves to be. A non-gujarati may have voted for a gujarati PM at the national level but he is very likely to vote for a fellow community member at the local level. Similarly, a gujarati may prefer a gujarati over another community member even at the local level. This is because of the environment that has been created over the past few decades by people with vested interests which has forced us into thinking that only our own community members can represent us. 

BJP has been lucky in this regard. As NaMo’s performance in Gujarat has allowed BJP to move from being a party that was majorly dependent on certain communities to a party which has a larger appeal. It will be interesting to see how people of Maharashtra vote this time as this election could change fortunes for some of the parties for times to come. 

Tale of retail – Part II

When Manoj Kumar made ‘Roti, Kapda aur Makaan’ (1974), little did he imagine that 40 years down the line his idea of bare necessities of life would undergo such a transformation (by the way, the something similar to the movie name was used as the election catchphrase during the general elections in Pakistan then). Today those necessities have changed forms completely i.e. Roti (junk food), Kapda (branded clothes where the hefty premium that we pay for quality is mostly not justified), makaan (better and bigger dwelling place). Though there still remains a certain section of the society for which the basic needs remain same as ever namely: Roti, Kapda and Makaan. However for the rest of India, the growing middle class or whatever you want to call it, these very necessities have changed dramatically. The change is not restricted to the needs alone, more interesting is the manner in which we are going about achieving or satisfying our ‘basic’ need (read greed). What Benjamin Franklin said years back is more relevant today than any time in the history of mankind:  he said ‘time is money’. Going by the same adage, the transition is quite understandable and justified. The saying signifies two of the most important resources at our disposal. We need to utilize them in the best possible manner to satisfy our greed, oops sorry need! So time plus money equals food, clothes and shelter. One factor that has made this entire process faster, easier and more comfortable is the growth of e-commerce. You are hungry? Why go to a restaurant, subject yourself to mad traffic, long queues? Order online. Need clothes? Why travel to a nearby mall and wait in queues, which refuse to end, to pay your bills? In case you know what you want, just place an order online (not many do that but writing is on the wall). Presently, we are at a stage where most of us are brand conscious but open to consider various brands (depending on where we are getting a good deal!), but there will come a time when we will graduate to the next stage: where we would be clear as to which brand we want to buy and that is when buying clothes online will reach a different scale. Latest trend is buying properties online. Few companies have tested the model and surprisingly they were relatively successful. Though it is a farfetched idea but the days are not far when more and more people would start exercising this option (regulator for the industry would help the cause). Coming back to the resources/needs equation, you would notice that e-commerce not only saves time but also ends us saving money as things bought online generally come cheap vis-à-vis regular modes, for obvious reasons. It was only a few years ago that we had heard about the advent of modern retail in India with malls coming up at every possible place, at times next to each other! And now we see even good malls seeing vacancy levels of almost 20-25%. Personally I have seen myself graduate from buying books outside Churchgate station (for years) to buying at organized retail outlets (for sometime) to ordering online (for times to come, I guess). This list of roti, kapda, makaan is not exhaustive as host of other products and services are being sold online. Forgot about buying online, people have started selling online and how! A scary thought: just imagine the chaos if suddenly everyone stopped buying/selling online! We would encounter never ending queues and pay more for goods and services. Bonus: A pizza delivery chain in Mumbai recently delivered a pizza via drone! As they say ‘change is the only constant’ and with the emergence of O2O (online 2 offline), the times ahead are exciting to say the least. Our generation will be a witness to this fascinating process where people would go from standing (in)line to buying (on)line!

Cricket versus other sports in India

Recent performance of Indian cricketers in England has drawn a lot of disdain from the ‘cricket followers’ in India! (Not to mention the England tour has also been responsible for triggering a series of jokes on Whatsapp, last seen during elections!) I am sure by now our cricketers are day dreaming those glory days of world cup victory when they had become demi-gods overnight. I have already expressed my displeasure at the manner in which the cricketers have been ridiculed and censured in my previous blog so I am not getting into it again. It is even more disgusting when the criticism gets personal and their private lives are dragged in. The thing that is going against them is their extremely good performance in IPL followed by poor performance in longer versions of the game. Every year their income figures make it to headlines during IPL. So even if they have one bad day at office, they are run down like anything. Recently concluded tour has actually exposed chinks in their armour. One may argue here saying it is too early to write them off and I agree wholeheartedly. And knowing us, I am sure one good series and everything will be forgotten, so just hang on there guys! However the only worry and a big one at that for overall cricket scene in India is a combination of factors: Sachin Tendulkar’s retirement (we had literally identified cricket with Sachin and vice-versa), fixing allegations, poor performance. People may disagree with me but I still believe the void created by Tendulkar will have a huge impact on the popularity and following of the game in India. 

However someone who likes watching a good game of sport will never be disappointed. And that brings me to my new found love, Kabaddi! Pro Kabbadi has come as a huge respite for me personally. It is as exciting as any other sport that I have seen. Not only it is fast paced, it has that raw feel to it. Most importantly, it has this ‘Indianess’ to it. There is hardly any dull moment in it. Simple and low-profiled players bring humility to the game. It is so nice to see how shy lot of these players are while giving interviews  as they are not used to the limelight and suddenly they are in focus. What is most heartening to see is that they are finally getting their due in terms of fame and money and the game is getting much needed recognition. In case you do plan to watch it on TV, make sure you have the Hindi commentary on! They are more exciting than many of the English speaking cricket commentators who have literally mugged up select phrases for all possible situations in cricket! I am sure Pro Kabaddi will only get better with time. According to reports, Pro Kabaddi’s viewership has overtaken FIFA’s viewership in India by a decent margin, super start to say the least! With Indian Super League round the corner, sports followers in India are in for some exciting stuff.   

Orkut, I will miss you

Orkut, which introduced most of us to the world of social networking and helped us take baby steps towards socializing online (with friends and strangers at times), is shutting down on 30th September

Host of networking sites have come into existence over the past few years riding on the wave created by Orkut and sudden fancy that we had taken to networking online. But most of these, I would guess, have not created the kind of frenzy they would have liked to and in the process lost prominence. Lot of us joined these not-so-popular (may be defunct by now) sites, lost interest later on and stopped visiting them. Today, we are least bothered as to what happened to these sites, whether they still exist or not as we are not using them anyways

But Orkut is an exception. Despite not having logged in to Orkut for a long time, I was a little taken back when the news broke and felt sad about it closing down. At the end of the day, it was Orkut which helped us find our old friends after years as most of us were not ‘online’ prior to the development. We were in touch with only those who we could touch, literally! (I mean close friends who we were in touch with regularly!). This is precisely the reason we have an emotional connect with Orkut. Because by the time other networking sites became popular we were ‘connected’ anyways, through one way or the other. So there was no ‘discovery of friends’ factor at play! One could even go further and describe Orkut as the school of social networking from which people graduated to the popular sites that exist today, but hey, school is always special! Why it is even more special in my case vis-à-vis any other is because I never graduated to the next level. I started with Orkut and stopped there and never joined any other networking site! Why people in our part of the world are even more regretful is because India along with Brazil was (and still is) one of Orkut’s biggest markets in terms of number of users

If you were to ask anyone as to what went wrong, you would get regular replies like it was not innovative enough to compete with other alternatives, it didn’t change with times, and especially when people started switching to networking on their mobile phones, it almost lost relevance. There could be multiple reasons. Google executive did mention that since other similar company websites had taken off well, there was not point continuing with Orkut. I will miss Orkut.

Bonus: Google’s practice of allowing employees to spend 20% of their time on things which may not be related to their job responsibilities gave birth to Orkut (called ‘the 20% project’). Who would have thought that what Google employees worked on during their free time (i.e. 20% of their working time) would lead to something like Orkut (read social networking) where people would end up spending almost 100% of their time!

Maria Sharapova versus ‘select set’ of cricket fans

Chetan Bhagat’s ‘3 mistakes of my life’ may be a best seller but if Maria Sharapova decides to write something on the ‘mistake’ committed by her and names the book as ‘the only mistake of my life’, I don’t think it will have any takers in India! As the ‘mistake’ she has supposedly made is that of upsetting those ‘select set’ of cricket fans/followers/fanatics who expect the entire world to know Cricket despite knowing themselves that it is only played by a handful of countries. One may argue here that ‘not knowing cricket is okay but how can you not know Sachin Tendulkar?! And a simple reply here would be that if someone does not follow any particular sport one bit and especially someone in whose country that sport is not as popular, chances are that he may not know about its best players.

Recent episode involving Maria Sharapova who did not recognize Sachin Tendular drew irk from hundreds on social networking sites and in few cases the comments and reactions did cross the limits of decency. And the reason why I describe them as ‘select set’ of cricket fans is because they form a very miniscule percentage of the total cricket fans in India but they have managed to disrepute an average cricket fan like most of us. I am sure most of these so called cricket followers cannot name top 5 players of our Hockey team which is our national sport, forget about naming the Kabaddi team’s captain. Despite being ignorant about other sports in India themselves, they expect outsiders to know Cricket.

But if you think over this entire situation a little bit, you will realize this is not surprising as this ‘select set’ of fans will not spare even their favorites when they fail to perform. They will burn their effigies; throw stones at their houses etc. I fail to fathom as to why we go to such extremes? Making fun of someone online is fine as long as it is done in good humor but why make it personal and nasty? My only request to these ‘fans’: please don’t embarrass Sachin Tendulkar. If we actually think of him as the ‘God of Cricket’ (which the whole of India actually does and rightly so) then please understand that Sachin Tendulkar like God is beyond reach of most of the sports personalities, beyond criticism from any human being and certainly requires no certificate of recognition from commoners like you, me or Maria Sharapova for that matter! And coming back to my earlier point about writing a book on Maria Sharapova’s mistake, how about naming it “Maria yeh tune kya kiya?!”

Life in a Metro!

If there is something that has caught the imagination of Mumbaikars, over the past few days, like never before then it was the grand opening of Mumbai Metro rail. Frenzy that was palpable on the first day was unprecedented. Though none of us existed when the first train was inaugurated way back in 1853, but I am quite certain that the excitement then was not even fraction of what we saw this time around! People from all walks of life gathered at Ghatkopar/Versova station to get a glimpse and firsthand experience of a 4-coach train covering 12 stations that was expected to change (for good) the way Mumbai looked at transport system. To be honest, excitement was justified considering the delay and the wait all of us had been subjected to! Multiple dates had been declared over the past few months for the start of metro but every time it was postponed to a later date.

Ages before it actually started running, people had started talking about it in social circles, online, on radio etc. Then it was time for the D-day! My friends and I decided to take an afternoon ride thinking (hoping) we would avoid rush. We boarded the train from Ghatkopar (the king of suburbs) and reached Versova in 20 odd minutes flat! To say it was a dream-like situation would be an understatement as people generally spend about 20 minutes waiting for Versova bound buses! Since the token acted as a one-way ticket, we had to get the same for the return journey and that is when the dream turned into a nightmare! Since most of the travelers on the first day had come for a one-off ride and in turn taken a one-way token, they all had queued up for a return token which resulted in queues longer than we had imagined when we embarked on the historic and life-changing journey! A little tiring experience considering it was supposed to be a leisure trip. Finally we boarded the train for our way back to Ghatkopar. But then, the bigger surprise was yet to come when owing to a technical snag it took us more than 50 minutes to reach our destination. Halt time at station was more than the time it took to get to the station! One could sense the feeling of surprise/frustration/shock from fellow passengers’ faces. But at the end of the day, what was nice to see was that everyone showed a big heart and forgave the technical error thinking it was a one-off thing. It was a big achievement for Mumbai and the sense of pride had out powered the sense of frustration.

Next day saw newspapers, radio and online media covering the same with great interest. Though the technical error was mentioned, overall it was a very positive coverage (and rightly so). It just goes to show Mumbai’s positive attitude towards things in general. From the first day onwards, more than 2 lac people have been using the metro on daily basis. But then good things don’t last much, do they? I was travelling in Gujarat when I got pictures showing hundreds of people who got stuck at Ghatkopar station as the shutters were brought down due to over-crowding! I am not sure whether this was again due to some technical error or some management issue but it was a little disappointing. Hopefully, these are all teething troubles and things will smoothen out in future. Life has always been good in our metro (Mumbai) and now with metro (rail) in place, it will only get better!

Man of Extremes

Whatever little I have followed NaMo over the past few years, I think it will not be an exaggeration to conclude that his has been a career of extremes.

It goes without saying that NaMo is arguably best orator that India has seen in a long time. He has this uncanny knack of coming out with funny/profound/thought provoking one-liners/examples at the most appropriate time. He is gifted with this ability to present the most commonplace ideas in the most interesting manner. He has a way with words in short. One of the things that he said in one of his interviews aptly summaries his political career, especially what has happened in the last few years. He said “aafat aayi toh badi aur khushi ke din aaye toh woh bhi bade” and such has been his political life. Either one would be a hardcore NaMo fan or a NaMo critic. Very few people have had a ‘neutral’ view about NaMo.

Let us consider some events that have shaped his career in the recent past. His record as a Gujarat CM is something that has been debated more than anything else on prime time. I don’t want to get into the data as there are various sources providing the same data with huge variances. But a common thread that runs across the data derived from various sources is usage of terms like ‘largest’ or ‘fastest’ or ‘biggest’ with regards to the achievements of Gujarat under the leadership of NaMo. A NaMo critic may argue that Gujarat’s record on certain indicators like infant mortality rate has not been impressive. Apart from few slip ups, Gujarat has done well than most of the states adding a feather to NaMo’s cap. So the ‘extreme’ growth figures are largely justified.

Gujarat riots were one of the most of unfortunate incidents in Gujarat’s history. If someone is at fault then he should be punished accordingly but whether someone is guilty or not is for the judiciary to decide. But in NaMo’s case lot of people passed judgment without waiting for law to take its own course. Like he also mentioned once that no politician in India’s history has been targeted the way he has been in the past few years. Another extreme here: most targeted leader

Recently we witnessed another extreme: the ‘most exciting & extremely well planned campaign’ in the history of Indian politics. It has had far reaching effect if one were to consider the number of people it managed to mobilize and the number of seats BJP (read NaMo) ended up winning! He travelled more than 3 lakh kms, addressed more than 430 public meetings apart from his 3-D rallies and ‘chai pe charcha’ ! He not only managed to hold entire country’s attention over such a long period of campaigning but at the same time influenced people’s opinion positively by conveying the same message though various mediums with great effectiveness.

When you manage to influence so many people at the same time with your ideas, you are bound to get some media attention. According to CMS media labs, NaMo got 7.5 times more TV coverage (read ‘most coverage’) than Rahul Gandhi. So one hand he put in more efforts than anyone else to win people’s hearts/votes and on the other media coverage helped his cause. It was my eureka moment when I multiplied the number of seats won by Congress by 7.5 and got the number which was ‘extremely close’ to the number of seats won by NDA!

After all the hard work, it was the results time. And I must say NaMo did ‘extremely well’ with BJP managing to win majority of the seats. Again you would have cynics arguing that BJP only won 31% of vote share or 38% with allies included. But one cannot deny that it was and will remain ‘one of the biggest’ margins ever in terms of number seats won by a party. The achievement is even more noteworthy in the era of coalition government. And post the results; it was time for the ceremony! More than 4000 plus peopled gathered at his swearing-in ceremony. As I mentioned earlier: “khushi ke din aaye to who bhi bade!” Being a patriot that NaMo is, I am assuming it was his way of informing the world that “a new India has arrived”

Elections highlights

Though I have already written few posts on elections, I got tempted to write one more! Given below are the highlights of 2014 election. Please note the list is not exhaustive as I am only writing those things which are coming to my mind while I am writing them! So you can expect annexure to this post at a later date!

Let us start with the agenda of the parties. BJP’s agenda was to offer development and good governance to the people under the leadership of NaMo. BJP allies had a common agenda: to convey that they were NaMo’s allies and that is it! Rest of the opposition parties had a combined agenda: to criticize NaMo. They were so insecure and focused on bringing NaMo down that they lost their individuality in the process and ended up doing publicity for NaMo!

I have already done AAP’s AAPraisal in my previous post but just to reiterate they only managed to win four seats and that too in one state and that too not Delhi! Fortunately they fought Punjab election like a state election where they addressed local issues so they were able to garner decent support enabling them to open their account in general elections. Otherwise at national level they got more than a billion thumbs down and that is quite a number! Jaadu was AAP’s symbol but it was BJP which managed to sweep the polls in style! Tough times ahead for AAP with Shazia Ilmi and Capt Gopinath leaving the sinking ship (please notice the word-play here: usage of words ‘Capt’ and ‘ship’!)

Congress prior to the election was competing with BJP to retain power and now it will compete with AIADMK and TMC to at least get opposition leader’s position! Had Congress put in even fraction of the efforts, they used up in criticizing NaMo, to reach out to people and for some genuine work, they would have seen better numbers but lost anyways!

Defeat of people like Nandan Nilekani, Meera Sanyal and many others proves individual capacity is one thing but at the end of the day it is the brand that you work for and represent that matters!

Caste based politics didn’t work in Bihar and UP. Hopefully, this is the end of such politics and not an aberration. People voted for a clear majority helping form a stable government which will not be bound by coalition pressure and will take firm decisions and be responsible for it. It was the best time to be a BJP ally!

NaMo mania had reached such heights that BJP would have ended up winning majority of the seats even in US presidential elections if it went to polls around the same time! NaMo’s intent was quite visible in his rallies where one could see how desperate he was to serve the nation and make India proud. It is a small thing but I believe clarity of thought in his speeches conveyed his message well to the audience. BJP and NaMo’s marketing acumen will become a case-study for future generations

Threatening entry

I remember studying Porter’s five forces model in college explaining how five forces namely: bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes and rivalry within the industry impact the overall competitiveness and attractiveness (profitability) of the industry/market. Last few days we have been seeing how one of these factors has come to the forefront in two industries/sectors. The factor that I am referring to is the ‘threat of new entrant’ and two industries/sectors are aviation and online retail. AirAsia’s ambitious plans to take the aviation sector by storm with its competitive pricing strategy (please notice the word-play here: usage of words ‘storm’ and ‘aviation’!) and Amazon’s attempt to sweep the online retail marketplace like an aggressive river flowing at full speed (kindly again notice the word-play here: usage of words ‘Amazon’ and ‘river’!) has made everyone take note of the same

Interesting thing is to see how existing players are readying themselves to face the upcoming onslaught in the form of cut-throat competition (most likely to lessen profitability). On one hand, we have AirAsia India, a JV among Tata sons, Telestra Tradeplace and Malaysian low-cost airline AirAsia, which promises to redefine the budget air travel with their unbelievably low prices (Google search about their India strategy, you will come across some interesting stuff) but right now facing hurdles in starting their india operations. They allege that the entire industry is trying to block their entry because they are very good at what they do. Technical argument being put forward by the industry association is that FDI is allowed in aviation to help the existing carriers and not the new ones as it will only lead to more competition! I am not an expert to comment on the matter but the fact remains that it is the ‘threat of new entrant’ which has got the existing players worried as it is likely to impact the attractiveness (profitability) of the industry in a negative way. Anyways, most of them are not making profits! Till the time the deadlock remains, it is the end user who loses out

Then we see a more acceptable way of tackling competition. Flipkart recently bought Myntra to take on Amazon. I always thought Flipkart was the best thing that happened to online retail but then Amazon launched its one-day delivery campaign which was quickly followed-up by Flipkart with its own one-day delivery campaign! Of course, the service comes at a cost but there are people who are ready to pay little extra for that service. This just goes to prove that there was always that scope for improvement but it was made possible by Amazon (a new entrant). New entrants will always try to innovate and provide something ‘extra’ vis-à-vis existing players, which in turn force the existing players to improve. I am sure various factors impacted this deal including cost advantage, Flipkart’s desire to hit the online fashion market in a big way and others. But Amazon’s entry certainly expedited the same! Finally, a word of appreciation for the genius Michael Porter who developed strategy models like ‘Porter’s five forces’ years back but they are still useful/applicable today, providing a basic framework for studying industries’ competitiveness

AAPraisal

It is appraisal time across companies, so I thought of doing one myself for AAP. I call it AAPraisal!

India’s population can be divided in three categories when it comes to AAP: One that supports AAP, second one that does not support AAP and the third one that used to support AAP when it made its debut in Delhi but lost faith afterwards. I fall into the third category. It was really nice to see a party come out of nowhere to try and make a positive difference to people’s lives. It was almost like witnessing a revolution. I would have ideally liked AAP to start on a small scale (Delhi was the perfect launch pad) and then graduate to national level. Being a conservative investor myself, I prefer a fixed return scheme over some risky instrument giving high returns and a better part of India also thinks on the same lines I guess. If you draw parallels with AAP, I was hoping after winning Delhi, they would take it easy and consistently grow like a fixed return scheme over a long period of time. But now I get a feeling that it was almost like winning a lottery! They won the lottery in the form of Delhi, became big overnight and lost everything in 49 days! They got too big for themselves. Clean slate and a uniting factor like ‘fight for a corruption free government’ worked in their favor to start with but trying to solve every problem on earth in their own unique manner and that too quickly failed them. After winning and then leaving Delhi in no time they decided to focus on general elections. It was more than disappointing for the people of Delhi who voted a new party like theirs to power hoping for a better government only to be left without government after 49 days.

With the Delhi fiasco to their credit (or discredit), the slate was not clean anymore. Now the destination was national elections. To attract attention statements were made against other parties, AK decided to fight the election himself from the same place where a national party’s prime ministerial candidate was contesting. They campaigned aggressively with people from all walks of life coming to support in their own capacity. Result: they could only win four seats! Even shocking was the fact that they did not win a single seat in their home ground Delhi! It was an outright rejection of a party which had just won the assembly elections in Delhi and hearts across India. Like their way of working, their results have also been quite extreme and all this happened in hardly few months’ time. Now they again plan to go to Delhi’s voters apologizing for exiting suddenly and requesting another mandate to come to power. It will be interesting to see Delhi’s response to their request and whether they will manage to comeback to power again. We will know soon if the saying ‘Subah ka bhoola shyam ko ghar aaye to use bhula nhi khete’ actually applies in politics!

Exit door for exit polls

We are an impatient lot (myself included). Even though the election results were due on 16th May, news channels were eagerly awaiting for the last phase of election to conclude so that they could start projecting number of seats that parties were likely to garner and who would form the next government. (It is as if all criminals and wrong-doers had gone on strike in India and there was nothing happening in the country worth reporting till the election results were out. Funnily, you would have noticed once the elections got over, channels started finding enough ‘regular news’ to report and manage to hold your attention even without any elections! They are so good at it!

Last few days any news channel that one switched to, one could see numbers getting flashed on TV screen indicating likely performance of parties at state and national level. Of course, the numbers differed from one channel to another, reasons being: tie-ups with various research companies having their own unique methodology, differences in sample type/size etc. One may try to be as neutral as possible but I am sure personal prejudices also would have played a role in at least interpreting the results. Despite all these limitations and past record of highly off-the-mark projections, we had experts on all channels screaming from the rooftops and explaining as to why the results (exit poll numbers) had come the way they had, what went right for the winners, what went wrong for the losers and how those fence sitters would play a vital role in formation of the government, mind you all this drama happened while we were still awaiting the ‘actual results!’

If there is one issue on which I agree with the congress party wholeheartedly, it is their decision to refrain from indulging in any kind of debate on exit polls. One may argue here saying they have been avoiding it as they were most likely to be on the losing side. But the fact remains that even during the last couple of elections, which I followed with great interest; they were never keen on discussing the exit poll numbers. Also please note that my reasons for disliking exit polls are very different from those of Congress party. I don’t like the idea of speculating when it comes to elections as it takes the fun out of it and Congress does not like it as they are mostly shown as a close/distant second! But now that as a party they have taken a stand, they will regret it later in case there are exit polls in future showing Congress on the winning side as they will not be in a position to participate in exit poll debates and capitalize on the same!

This time the situation was such that predicting an NDA was like stating the obvious! And still when it came to numbers, most of the channels got it wrong! I just feel we need to rid ourselves of this obsession with exit polls and wait for the ‘actual result’ as exit polls do not serve any purpose. Let there be no place for speculation in such matters, it just takes the excitement out of the whole exercise. And considering most of the projected poll numbers were poles apart from the actual numbers, it is about time we showed the exit door to the exit polls!

Election news

Days before the elections started, we have been hearing, listening, seeing, reading (literally getting attacked) from all possible sources as to why it is important to vote and why this time we will see people coming out in record breaking numbers to exercise their franchise. So it didn't come as a surprise when I (heard/saw/read) that we have seen our highest voter turnout ever! But then again we should see this number in relation to other numbers/facts mentioned below.
First shocker: election expenditure for 2014 elections increased by 131% to 3426 cr compared to 2009 elections! Of course, one may give an excuse saying inflation has played its part but one of the major reasons for such a hike has been the huge amount of money spent on creating awareness about voting and rightly so. Now, add to that money spent by political parties (figures unknown) to market their respective candidates and encourage their 'support base' to go out and vote to ensure their victory. I am sure the increase percentage here is much more than 131% vis-a-vis last general elections considering the fact that these parties have been giving a tough competition to the corporate world in terms of marketing blitzkrieg they have undertaken in order to sell their respective candidates and political agenda. Add to that vibrant news media coming out with series of programs/news articles throwing light on important election issues, enlightening and in turn pushing their readers/viewers to go out and vote. Finally, the fascinating contest involving leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal with their numerous rallies giving much required boost to their respective support base. So on every front we notice that the resources put in terms of efforts, money, manpower etc has jumped manifold to obtain one objective: to achieve higher turnout of voters compared to 2009 elections. And result: voter turnout percentage increased from 58.2% in 2009 to 66.4% this time around. So much incremental input for an incremental output of 8.2%! Though, I do agree even a small percent increase is a huge increase in terms of absolute numbers and I am not an expert on such matters but as a layman I still feel the 66.4% number is low considering the quantum of resources that have gone into creating awareness about voting.

Skipping technologies!

A popular show on TV has a game called ‘skipping stones’ where participants are supposed to run from one side to another by jumping/skipping stones ‘floating’ on water. The catch is that some of those stones are so light that hopping on them will lead to participants mostly falling into the water body, ending the game for them. Of course, it is next to impossible to differentiate between the actual stones and traps set up in the form of stones while one is on the run. So some decide to take it slow and be cautious while running but I have noticed that most of the winners run faster while hopping from one stone to another. So even if they jump onto a wrong stone, they will be quick enough to hop onto another and prevent falling in the water body. One can safely conclude that while playing this game one is likely to get better results running faster. It may not be the only way to win it but certainly the most adopted strategy

Now compare that with the overall technological scenario in any country. People talk about growing gradually in life as it is more sustainable but when it comes to technology the pace is anything but gradual (I want to admit at the outset that this is not an intellectually challenging observation about technology but just a reiteration of fact). As technologies become obsolete in no time, individuals/companies/countries are always on the lookout for the ‘next’ technology which will help them get to the other end (‘other end’ here implies technological progress), like in the skipping stones game. Similarly, if they decide to be slow and test every technology (stone) coming their way, they are likely to get outdone by those who are fast and skipping certain technology (stone) on their way to the other end. Few examples will put things into perspective. I am not sure whether people would even remember a luxury called telephone which was a rare thing even in metros few years back. People desired a telephone connection then. Switch to present: most of the people who yearned for a telephone skipped the telephone culture and jumped directly onto the mobile bandwagon. This was of course made possible by better technology, lower cost and good marketing which was lacking earlier. Similar trend is being seen in the world of online payment/transfer via PCs and laptops. One may quote various figures saying how the population of internet users has increased over the past few years allowing for more transactions online. But the fact remains that the growth in the usage of mobile phones for transacting seems to be outpacing PCs/Laptops. (I do not have figures to back up the claim, but interactions with people certainly suggest this trend). Download of such mobile apps could be one of the indicators. And with mobile phones costing even more than the PCs/Laptops, the manufactures/retailers do not seem to mind this trend! Pathetic internet connections at times and the efforts involved in logging in through PCs have also helped the cause!

Most exciting thing about this is that some of the most successful models are being challenged y these newer technologies. M-pesa, tried and tested model in certain parts of Africa is now being implemented in European countries, courtesy visionary telecom companies which see the writing on the wall. Now this does threaten the payment gateway companies which have been proving alternate payment services for a while. Especially a country like ours, which may boasts of a good number of card users, but such new technology disrupts the status quo for sure allowing people to skip directly to the M-pesa like system. This is not to indicate that the payment gateway companies will be impacted greatly by such newer tech as they are of utmost importance in certain cases and even they would have expected such change and prepared for it in advance (innovation or improvisation)

It will be interesting to see as to how and when we will get to the other end of the race. Difference between the game of skipping stones and skipping technologies: in the game, person running the fastest also hurts himself the most in case of a fall but in case of technologies one needs to be as fast as possible in order to stay relevant

Hobots!

I remember years back my auto-enthusiast friend discussing about the use of robots for assembling vehicles and how we were stunned on hearing it. Of course, they were being used for lot of other purposes even then but the point that I want to drive home is that usage of robots for ‘things earlier done by humans’ has always intrigued people in general. The tech enthusiasts have always welcomed such developments, at the same time you have had people criticizing the practice as such advancements tend to put lot of people out of work. What makes it even worse is the fact that the working class has been the most adversely affected by it (whether machine replacing man is a good thing or a bad thing is a debate for another day) However there are certain tasks that necessitate human touch and soft skills allowing humans to sustain that edge over the robots (it goes without saying that Robots at end of the day are human creations and it is a no brainer that humans are better off, however certain section of the working class is impacted negatively due to technology)

Now compare that with the following. I was in for a big shock when I read that some university is working on the technology that will allow humans to download skills to brains! I don’t want to dwell into the technical details as I don’t know it myself and this blog is just based on a one-liner that I read about the same! But as per the news, this will make it possible for an individual to download (learn) piano playing, kung fu, reducing mental stress, flying plane, speaking a new language etc. Of course not literally but let us assume for argument’s sake that we will be able to develop/download skills without much efforts. Just imagine the scale of impact such technology could have on mankind in general. If everyone manages to reduce mental stress then expenditure on stress reducing medicines will come down drastically! If learning a new language becomes easier then country like India where cost per person is low and language skills are good will see a sudden drop in outsourcing revenues as its competitive advantage (language skill) will no more remain. Positives could be: improved productivity due to less stress, reducing inequality between haves and have nots, better life overall. But certain apprehensions linger: lazy person who learns through the technology will compete with someone who would have put in efforts to perfect a skill. Skills which are in demand will encourage people to learn (download) the same which in turn will increase the labour supply resulting in a lower income. Our biggest attribute is the diversity vis-à-vis others in terms of our individual attributes! And that very attribute is challenged by this technology as lot of us will tend to do lot of things in the same manner almost like Human robots (Hobots!)

Above mentioned examples are too elementary and are not meant to question or support the DOT (Download Skills Technology as I like to call it!) which will have much profound impact on things in general. The functionality, applicability, success/failure of it remains to be seen. What I have written above is not even a layman’s perspective; it is just a stupid enquiry into the future

WhatsAAP!

There are things that elicit feelings of shock, awe and surprise at the same time. Couple of news that attracted global attention and inspired feelings mentioned above share some characteristics. Business news that made headlines was the $19 billion Whatsapp deal which made its cofounders Jan Koumiss and Brian Acton into billionaires. $19 billion by itself is a huge figure, add to that the fact that the company only started in the year 2009! Here is a story of someone who had a humble background, started on his own, understood his market, offered something user-friendly (that too cheap) and ended up making billions! Generally words 'cheap' and 'billions' don't fit in the same sentence but in case of some extraordinary achievements like these they do. (It is even a bigger achievement considering in India people don't even pay $1 per year; instead they uninstall the app every time $1 becomes due and then reinstall it!) It is just amazing to see how the app which was virtually free for end-users ended up making so much money for the makers. Of course, the value lies in the database of users, potential of capitalizing on the database etc. But the fact remains that as an end-user I am using one of the best apps for free.
The master stroke was to sell it at a time when its use was at peak. I can say this with confidence as an avid user of the app myself! This is not to say that its users will not increase anymore at the same rate, it will continue to attract new users. But the timing was really good, as of late some similar apps had begun providing an alternate to Whatsapp. So it was a good decision to sell it while it was still a 'unique app' rather than sell it at a time when it becomes 'one of the apps'. I don't think the deal will have any significant impact on me as a user of the app. Only time will tell though.
Now compare the app with the AAP! Launched as recently as late 2012 (though the ground work started some time back with team Anna) AAP captured the imagination of the country when it formed the government at Delhi with Congress supporting from outside. Again, it was started by a common man with a humble background, who understood his audience, had a solution in the form of corruption free India, sold his idea honestly and ended up becoming the chief minister! I am not sure if AAP has seen its peak or it is yet to come, but no one can deny the fact that AAP has found a following across all age groups and classes of people and it is a serious force to reckon with especially in the coming Lok Sabha elections. Companies toil for years reaching that $1 billion figure and then put in constant efforts sustaining it; Whatsapp took approximately five years to do that! Similarly political parties spend years convincing people why they will offer a better government than the existing one and still lose out in the end which results in another five year wait. But here is a party which took less than a couple of years to win a state election and become a serious threat for national parties.

It is election time!

So the dates are out! Largest democracy in the world will vote from 7th April-12th May (with results due on 16th May) to elect the new government. And it promises to be a nail-biter with both national parties; Congress as well as the BJP fighting for allies, dealing with internal party disputes, calling each other all kinds of names, and marketing their respective PM candidates through hoardings, banners, social media etc (perfect case study for learning integrated marketing communications)
Couple of things makes this election even more interesting. Firstly, the emergence of AAP which made a stylish debut in Delhi as BJP refused to form the government, Congress agreed to support the AAP government, and AAP accepted Congress’ support to form the government! It would have been a completely different ball game altogether had Delhi not happened. Secondly, the possibility of third front surfacing as the game changer (game spoiler for the national parties) and with as many as PM candidates as the number of parties, it will certainly add spice to the already spicy set-up! Variety is indeed the spice of life
Contest between two national parties Congress & BJP (UPA & NDA with their respective allies) plus two game changers (AAP & third front) is going to be like reading a suspense novel full of twists and turns. How boring it would be, if even ours was a two-party system! Diversity of our country with various interest groups and resultant existence of regional parties adds charm to the elections. Of course as an individual, one would prefer having fewer parties so that the possibility of one party getting a majority increases which leads to stable government. But hey, I like my food spicy!
Things that I am looking forward are AAP performance considering their meteoric rise, offbeat approach and attitude towards things in general. Also it will be interesting to see how and to what extent the Modi wave with a tremendous track record in Gujarat, large rallies and promising speeches converts into votes for BJP and how Rahul Gandhi's vision, discussions at school and college levels with a smaller audience, and long term outlook will translate to votes for his party.
Icing on the cake is the 'None of the above' option which is being introduced for the first time! Assuming a voter turnout of 55 percent, one would think the rest 45 percent weren't happy with any of candidates representing their constituency so there was no point voting for them. Going by that logic, there should be a higher turnout this time around as rather than sitting at home and saying no one is good, you can come out and convey the same by exercising your right to vote.  Considering the rate at which people are losing confidence in various political parties, NOTA Party i.e. 'None of the above' party may come out a winner!

Mission made possible

I know I am running as late as the central railway train during monsoons so far as expressing my views on Mangalyaan is concerned. I was planning to write this for a long time but somehow never got down to write it. In Nov, 2013 ISRO became the 4th agency in the world to accomplish this feat. One would have expected people to be extremely praiseworthy of the same, and most of them were. But as always, you also had a group of people explaining as to why it was a waste of money. I am sure everyone is entitled to his opinion but I fail to understand why we criticize achievements like these. Total cost of the project is around 450 cr. The number is huge but pales in comparison to our defense budget of around 2 lacs cr plus. In percentage terms, cost of this mission is approx 0.23% of the defense budget!
I agree, such comparisons are unfair as country’s security is of prime importance and budgeting for country’s defense is always on the priority list (however, how much money should be spent on ammunition has been the topic of many debates). Logic being that a belligerent but sane entity will not try to harm you if it sees you as someone who is loaded with latest ammunition and capable of striking back. One will only attack those who are not prepared for it. It is amazing how countries spend on ammunition to avoid wars which will necessitate its usage! Despite everyone knowing the dangers of weapons’ usage, they are forced to spend on it as some rogue entity may not think twice about the consequences before attacking someone. So defense spending is thus justified. A businessman also would prefer doing business/investing in a country which is safe and protected. One more reason why people do not mind spending more on defense is because they want to feel safe and eliminate the fear factor. However, when it comes to spending money missions such as Mangalyaan, lot of people look at it as wasting money as they do not see themselves getting benefited from it. These are the same people who wish their children to become engineers one day without realizing those very engineers will then dream of working on such missions in future!
Like good defense shows India’s military strength, missions such as these help showcase India’s intellectual power and it should be encouraged in every way possible. One may argue those 450 cr could have been utilized for some other purpose, but we should appreciate the fact that at least it is being utilized for the purpose for which it is allotted and not being siphoned off like we see elsewhere! One should also consider the benefits that will accrue to us and future generations due to missions like these and stop being so narrow minded. Investing in future is not a bad thing after all.