Nehru's Views on Reservation

Came across an interesting article expressing Nehru's views on the issue of reservations.



Link
Some excerpts:
".. help should be given on economic considerations and not on caste."

"They deserve help but even so I dislike any kind of reservation, more particularly in service. I react strongly aganist anything which leads to inefficiency and second rate standards. I want my country to be a first class country in everything."

"Let us help the backward castes by all means, but never at the cost of efficiency."

And now hear any pro reservation speaker. They don't have any dharam imaan. It's an easy way for them to get votes. Be a statesman otherwise this country would die its own death.

India stands for Equality or Inequality?

From past few days I have been following the reservation discussion on internet, newspapers and television. Have been listening to the pro-reservation lobby remarks; politicans are just making mockery of whatever good exists in this country.

Sometimes I doubt my indianness. Is this the country I feel so proud of? For what? I came from Austria to India, thinking I would do some good work in India. I want to see my country being one of the best nations in the world - and will this caste politics lead us anywhere?

I am not against reservations, India needs to bring economically weaker societies back into mainstream in order to seriously progress, but the way government is implementing the reservation policy is fundamentally wrong. Hadn't supreme court put up an upper cap on reservation of 50%, the politicans could have gone to any extent. They amend the constitution to suit their own needs. Is this the same constitution - I feel proud of - which provides social justice to all indians irrespective of their caste and creed!

This is what happens to the best and meritorious students in India:




If your heart doesn't cry, whose else would?

And the biggest agony to me, not even a single mainstream politican or a personality has come to the cause and support of anti-reservation lobby. This battle is not about reserving thousands of seats here and there, fundamentally the government is dividing the country which in principle is wrong.

Is something like "Rang De Basanti" is a solution? I don't think so. But I don't know what's the solution? Any views!!!

Mobile Customer Woes

I do have a mobile connection from IDEA Cellular and have other connections from Airtel, Hutch. At times I feel, carriers keep doing stuff to angry their customers and its not just one carrier does, this phenomenon is same across all carriers.

If sending arbitirary SMSes to promote ringtones doesn't end, these guys have started the process of automated voice calls. You get a ring, you pick up your phone - just to hear an automated voice call describing you a new service and then you feel like killing all these mobile operator guys.

And then lot of sales calls - from credit card, loans and from mobile operator representatives themselves trying to get hold of consumers from other operators. I have recieved lot of calls from Hutch, Airtel representatives in the past asking me to switch plans.

Just last week I got a call from Idea Customer care asking me to subscribe to SMS alerts (aap apna rasshefal dekh sakte hain, jokes, news etc.) for 1 rupee per day. And when I asked how many sms will you send - he joyingly said 5 - as if I was going to love it! In case there has been service in order not to recieve any arbitirary sms, I would have preferred that instead. Idea cellular almost daily sends me a wap push sms and then at times 2 or 3 more messages either for ringtones or their service has improved in this area.

I love the idea of alerts but what I don't like is an operator just banging them on my head over and over again.

Last week I recieved another call (you see I recieve so many calls!!) from customer care to subscribe to caller tones and that too for "FREE". That's how they sell. I told them I just don't want the service, not even if you pay me for that. But that annoying guy put an annoying caller tone on my mobile and now I am fighting another battle with customer care of Idea to get this off my phone.

It's been 4 days and 3 calls to customer care - they haven't yet put it off. They just have one response - chinta mat keejiye (don't worry). Within 24 hours your problem will be rectified. And 24 hours pass and still no activity. More than the customer care representative, it's the fault of the company and its policies.

At times when I travel from Delhi to Patiala, my phone keeps beeping every once and often? Can you guess why? As I move from Delhi to Patiala, I pass over 3 different states with different carriers and different carriers keep sending my SMSes that I have reached their network.

Perhaps carriers have so many free SMSes, not sure if any PIL been ever filed against them for this unscrupulous behaviour!

Global News Brands

Got to know some stats about online news organizations from Fred's blog .

New York times - 74 million unique visitors per month
Yahoo News - 67 million unique visitors per month
The Weather Channel - 44 million unique visitors per month
MSNBC and CNN - 36 million (BBC perhaps also at the same level) unique visitors per month
India Times at 22 million unique visitors per month
Sankei and Asahi at roughly 15 million unique visitors per month

Given low internet penetration rates, indiatimes still figures as a major player. Though currently most of the hits might be coming from the indian audience living abroad, but I guess as the internet penetration increases in India, IndiaTimes might exceed NYTimes. It's only a matter of when!!

Just a word to IndiaTimes, most people find the IndiaTimes,(TimesofIndia) website to be wary and at times if not hate, dislike it (there is just no other good alternative). There is just either too much clutter or meaningless advertisements. Just give your website a human touch!

Mandal II - Why?

I still have very vivid memories of what happened during the VP government rule during the Mandal Commission crisis, though I never understood why that happened. I was still in school in my 6th or 7th standard and was too young to understand the consequences of such an act. First time I had heard young students burning themselves live and first time the word RESERVATION.

It was our mid semester exams and a group of students from local university came inside our school exam room and asked us to shout "Mandal commission murdabad". I don't know how come the school authorities allowed them (school authorities do had troubles managing the mob and we had even later police deployed at the compound) but our teachers also insisted to say one or two times so that the mob can then go back and we can safely pursue our exams.

And then for next 1-2 months it was holiday time, every one or two days we used to go and check if school would reopen. I was not an avid reader and did not quite understand what was it all about and with time I forgot about what all that happened.

Today after having gone through the entrance examination route, having an IIT degree, having spent around 3 years in Austria, and now trying to build a product company in India, I am seeing the same stories in newspapers again. Any my heart and my mind questions my soul - why - why again? Haven't we learn't any lessons from the past ?

I am not against doing quotas or reservation but to what extent ? In school I had friends from all castes and I myself never knew what SC/ST actually meant? Had we had the same quotas for getting admission in school, the fact that something like this exists would have created more hatredness amongst various communities.

IIT's have maintained a good standard in providing education irrespective of the quota system. We do had colleagues from the SC/ST category but at times they excelled and scored more marks and others appreciated it. Teachers to my knowledge had never been impartial in giving marks. And the IIT system that one has to clear degree maximum in 6 years or providing a preparatory 1 year course to weak SC/ST students has never affected the high education standards set up by them.

But moving from 25% to a reservation of 49.5%, is that justified even if IIT's maintain that standard of education? Students burn their midnight oil - studying at times 14-16 hours a day and their parents spend an equivalent amount of time guiding them. Visit any IIT- JEE examination center, the day IIT entrance exam is held, one can see the worries of the parents and their concern about their student's future career.

Are we as humans justified in making policies that puts reservations/quotas above excellence and that too of young minds who have yet to start a career and experience life?

The aim of reservation was to make weaker socities economically stronger, so where is the economic justification to reservation? If politicians want to do a 49.5% reservation, I would ask them to add a clause along - Annual income of all those people who want to file a reservation seat should have an annual income below 1 lakh or 2 lakh. Economically a SC/ST family earning 2 lakhs as annual income should be at par with a general category family earning the same amount. So opportunities for kids for both families should be same. But politicians won't do it, it's another issue , it's another day for them!

Tie Group Mentoring Session

Today I was at Tie Group Mentoring Session. The session was an open discussion forum with queries answered by two panelists: Mohit Goyal (co-founder IIS Infotech) and Pradeep Gupta (founded Cybermedia).

My overview of the session is:
- Money is not a constraint to seed fund the venture. People have been putting their own seed funds to venture out.
- What people seriously lack is advice and guidance.
- Lot of people had already built small successful businesses but they don't know how to scale them up and move to the next level.
- Lack of networking opportunities in India - how do you reach relevant people? - not many online/offline forums.
- Building a team who can pull apart.

Panelists asked entrepreneurs to join ENP Program (Entrepreneurship Nurtuting Program of TiE). So I am going to join now and figure out how much it helps.

And also met some pals, old and new. Gave a demo of LinkNSurf to a few people. And found out Wirkle was mentioned in the Band of Angels article. Quite a surprise, so google provided me the answer.

There's been a huge revival in angel investing over the last six to 12 months, especially in the areas of mobile telephony and convergence," says Vish Akela, a Silicon Valley-returnee, who is now funding a handful of budding entrepreneurs like 26-year-old IIT Delhi-grad Varun Khurana's Wirkle, a mobile entertainment company.

Checkout the complete article here.

Vision, Technology and Consumer

Its been around two months since we launched an alpha version of LinkNSurf. These two months have made me realize what it takes to run a consumer focussed startup and what's the difference between vision, technology and a consumer!

If not all atleast some of the startups start with some vision and then work towards it. Technologists try to put the best use of technology and write up some very complicated piece of software. But in the end, it all boils down to weather a consumer needs that piece of software! What specific need your vision and technology fulfills for your consumer?

An online busines needs lot of iterations and one has to adapt quickly. A startup is always constrained and it has to always keep on doing lot of trials and incorporate user feedback. What is more harder in an online business is to specifically identify a target audience and fulfill the need for your target audience. At times your vision would exactly match and at times it would deviate. One has to rethink the basic assumptions at every stage. And at times one would think how could I make such a mistake in the past! But it's all a part of what a startup is. Providing and improving product, improving technology are all easier stuff but actually identifying a business need of a consumer can be much harder, especially for the technologists.

At LinkNSurf we are now exactly trying to solve this problem. We are now having release cycles every 10 days, each release is not about getting new small features done but its about improving usability, its about a user finding a value in the product.

Startups are not just about identifying problems but its about solving them. Business problems can be real hard, but solving them is the thrill. Lot of people appreciate great vision and great technology, but that doesn't build a business out. At the end it's a consumer that builds a business so start talking to your consumer from day one!