Perspectives

• The Roopit "Hi" Video http://youtu.be/9nPBO9p_tH4 – http://www.roopit.com #
• The Roopit "Hi" Video – http://bit.ly/dCVA7z #roopit #launch #startups #india #bangalore #roopit.com #
• Damn it. My gmail is locked, I think. #fail #
• And at the end of it all, @moxada says "I feel like Google" #
• Micromax mobile – Nothing like Anything….This is so profound. I am not able to imagine what that could mean. #
• Horror at Harare #

This is a usual story. But something special has come out at the end of it. We are calling it Roopit.

Earlier I quit Yahoo! and then I quit Flipkart and I was sitting at home mulling over a wonderful idea in Travel space. Around that time the refrigerator at my home conked off. My mom pestered me to find a replacement (rightly so, the milk was getting spoilt). I was without a job and I decided to buy a second hand fridge instead, in an effort to save some cash. And the horrifying experiences and the frustration generated along the way has ended up in Roopit. Usual story.

Fortunately for me, apart from getting frustrated, I took notes about my behavior and thought as I went through the second hand buying experience. The icing on the cake was that I DID NOT find a fridge I liked. And something inside of me knew that of the 80 lakh people in Bangalore, there is someone out there who wants to sell the fridge I want to buy. Alas, I couldn’t find him.

Starting with a budget out 4000 Rs, I ended up buying a pink fridge (with flowers on it!!) for 14000 Rs. And everytime I saw the fridge, I heard my calling.

I read somewhere that there are close to sixty (60!!) online classifieds websites in India. Now, with Roopit around, I wish them all the best .

Chart of Pagerank vs Websites

Have been studying SEO quite seriously lately. Specifically,  I wanted to know how the promotion from one pagrank to another happens, how frequently, and on what basis.

Dont have the answers for all of them yet, but in the process, I made up this chart on the left which lists all the websites from the internet (atleast, the ones that Google knows about) on the y-axis and pagerank on x-axis.A few interesting inductions can be made from this chart.

• There are a ton lot of websites that simply dont have a pagerank. That’s possibly because there isint even one previously pageranked site linking into them.
• But the moment you fall under Google’s pagerank radar, it seems like you get promoted from 1 to 3 quite easily. Indicated by the fact that there are fewer PR 1 sites than PR 3.
• From PR 4, it is a climb against a mountain. Fewer and fewer websites get promoted further up. Infact, there are just 15 websites with PR 10.

So, if your website is in PR 3 or PR 4, it is reasonable to say that is an average website in Google’s eyes. At PR 5, you can really claim you have left the crowd behind.

After some looking around, particularly this post on Ubuntu email with Mailx (which is incomplete, if you follow all the instructions, you will realise that the certificate he is talking about does not exist in the tgz that you download) and a few others, I got my mailx to work with my gmail account.

I guess you can try setting up an MTA such as exim and use sendmail or even mail, but that seemed quite complicated and I wanted to send out a mail from my shell script as quickly as possible.

Here are the steps involved which I wrote up as a little shell script:

Update: The Script got messed up when I ported the blog from Blogspot to wordpress.

#! /bin/sh

sudo apt-get install ca-certificatessudo update-ca-certificates
sudo apt-get install msmtp mailx
echo "# config options: http://msmtp.sourceforge.net/doc/msmtp.html
#A-user-configuration-file
defaults
logfile /tmp/msmtp.log

# gmail account
account gmail
auth on
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
user EMAIL
password PASSWORD
from EMAIL
tls on
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
# set default account to use (not necessary with single account)
account default : gmail" > ~/.msmtprc
chmod 600
~/.msmtprc
echo "# set smtp for nail
set from=\"EMAIL (YOUR NAME)\"
set sendmail=\"/usr/bin/msmtp\"
set message-sendmail-extra-arguments=\"-a gmail\"" > ~/.mailrc

echo "Edit CAPTIALS in .msmtprc and .mailrc and run a test message like this:
"echo "echo Message | mailx -s \"this is subject\" user@email.com\n"

Enjoy!

After close to two years of ignoring my Video ipod, I took it out today to get it back to life. I always had a hunch that it was a hardware issue, but I didnt want to decide so quickly.

The basic problem being, as soon as I power up the ipod, it will show me the “Language” screen and as soon as I try to do anything with it, it will get stuck. And all I got to do now is to reboot/reset it by now famous “holding the Menu and center buttons” for a while.

I tried updating the firmware, formatting, restoring etc. but nothing would work. Then, I decided to install linux on my ipod thinking something might be wrong with the firmware partition of the hard drive.

Atfer spending a few hours, I realised that linux was getting stuck as well. Now, I gave up trying to be nice to the ipod. I ripped open the thing by after reading an article and watching a few videos. Although, I scratched the top case a little bit, it opened up nicely and I pulled out the Toshiba MK3008GAL hard drive out. I am convinced that the hard drive has conked off, but I can’t really prove it.

Then, I started hunting around to see if there are any suppliers of the hard drive in Bangalore. None. Very disappointed. I have sent a mail to a couple of folks from Good-Hardware-old China and found another reseller from Ebay. I have shot them a couple of emails to ask them about taxes and import duties etc. Will post an update once I get a hand to the hard drive.

So, If you have a dead ipod and you are around here in Bangalore, let me know and I will help you with it.

This is a guest post by one of my good friend Rajagopal. Quite a thinker.

National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) act was passed in August 2005, which provides a guarantee for 100 days of employment(unskilled labour) to atleast one adult in every household. Though enacting the same took some more time, it is in place now, and rural dwellers below and near poverty line are definitely benefited by this. The laymen call it “The 100 days of employement Plan”. Though this plan appears to be something that would make a positive impact on our economy in the long run, there is a flip side to it which is due to the lack of policies or thoughts put into making this scheme beneficial in the long run, coupled with the attitude of the beneficiaries towards work, and improving their own economic status.

What do you think is be the work being given to these employees?
The act states that it should be public work. That sounds good! This act should ideally provide employment and at the same time get rid of some of the infrastructure and developmental issues associated with the villages, such as bad road, lack of canals into the farming fields, etc.

But in reality, the people responsible for this in the Panchayat boards seem to lack interest or intellectual ability, and incentive to identify the real issues and address them using the funding that comes through this scheme. It seems that these Panchayat boards aren’t being held accountable for getting constructive work done out of these resources, but just to be able to use up these resources to keep the act active.

“This 100 day employment programme is a boon to us. My daughter-in-law gets paid Rs 80/- per day of employment, without having to do much work. She just signs in an entry register, deweeds the place for an hour, informs the supervisor that she needs to milk the cow at home and comes home, goes back in the evening to sign the leaving register.” said a member of a family being benefited by this plan.

“They would just give us a Shovel(Mannvetti), and ask us to uproot the weeds in a field(specifying which area it is).” said the lady when asked about the nature of work. She also added that it is the same field all the time

The Panchayats are empowered to figure out what development work could be done in their village, and get approval from the Panchayats at the higher level(according to point 13 in the Gazette for this act). The people administering these village panchayats seem to not have the ability to identify, plan, raise fund, manage and execute on real development activities that would benefit the village in long term. And moreover, when they are accountable only to provide 100 days of employment to all households, and there is no incentive from the top down to get any useful byproducts out of the same, why would some one do it, unless they are passionate about making the village better.

Now lets get to the other part of this programme which indirectly affects agriculture.

“Most of the workers who used to come for deweeding, ploughing, cultivation and other activities needed to carry out agriculture no more are ready to work in the fields due to the 100 days employment plan, since they get paid without doing any work. The plan had made them lazy. Given that they get rice at Re.1 per kg, they could get enough money to keep them away from hunger for the year through this plan. Though they could come for the farming activities apart from the 100 days of employment and get paid more, they don’t do that. Agriculture is no more easy to manage given the lack of manpower. The lack of manpower is also fuelled by the self help groups that have emerged. Seems like we’ll just have to sell off the farming fields to these builders and go to the cities where our wards live.” says a farmer in the village, who had been cultivating different crops and been providing employment to a lot of people over several years. This resounded with a few other farmers that I happened to interact with.

There two things that appear scary to me in this:
1) The availability of subsidized rice and guaranteed income through NREG is making the rural dwelling unskilled people lazier than before. They lack the incentive to work, learn skills, earn more, etc. They would gradually turn unemployable along with being unskilled, and would become more dependent on the availability of the subsidy over rice from the government.
2) Due to unavailability of manpower forces the conventional farmers to sell off their cultivable lands and head towards the towns and cities. Given that there is already a decline in the percentage of farmers in India due to monsoon dependency of farming, further decline in farming activities would just make things worse. This might even lead to a state where there might be a requirement to import grains if enough attention is not given to the issue.

These are just things that came OTOH, and there might be more.

The NREG Act would greatly benefit the economy if:
1) The Panchayat officers are given management trainings, and educated and incentivized enough to handle this scheme in a constructive manner.
2) Social Entrepreneurs enter this arena, and provide consulting services to these village Panchayats on effectively handling this.
3) Self help groups be encouraged to do farming activities as well; not just commodities. Self help groups have been developing some skilled labour, and had been stimulating the microeconomy of these villages and continue to exist.
4) Educated people should start looking at agriculture in large scale with modern equipments, and farming methods(that require less manpower). This might help sustain the self sufficiency of food in the country. Risk management could also be done by selecting a set of regions that have differing demographics interms of monsoon. Easily said than done, but operational efficiency would become the core of agricultural success.

The first two suggestions are aimed at equipping the Panchayats to be able to make the right plans and decisions locally without having to expect developmental plans to come from the higher ups. This also would ensure that the human resources are being utilised in a constructive manner.

With appropriate incentives and accountability in place for people executing on these plans, this plan would transform the economy in a positive way. But that doesn’t seem to be the current scenario.

PS: All the conversations above are from a small sample set of people in a few villages in the Cauvery Delta Region(Near Poompuhar) of Tamil Nadu, India.

– Rajagopal
(One of those a***oles sitting in his cubicle cozily with a Mac Laptop and typing out a blog post with the dreams of a Knight in White Horse emerging out of nowhere to make these transformations)

Inspired by Howard Gardner’s five minds for the future (I haven’t yet read the book. Really need to), I thought about writing the five minds for the future Indian leader. When I look at the top five, it seems to me that these minds are essential for any leader. But, I don’t know what it takes to run Burkinafaso, so, I will stick to what I think is critical for that leader who is going to sail India through the rough times ahead of us.

Actually, there are just two minds. The Rational/Analytical mind (Cortex) and the Emotional Brain (Amygdala). And all the minds I list below are really just a combination of these two. Now, I say they are midway between the two and not just a part of the Cortex, because an analytical or synthetic knowledge of the following(cortex) followed by a deep sense of commitment and Passion(emotional mind) towards each of these topics is essential to make the cut. And that will happen only in one who has a healthy rational and emotional mind.

There were a number of contenders. I have listed a few that did not make it to my top five towards the end. There are a few others that I have not listed here, because I felt they were not as important or they could be learnt during the course.

Environment: It is burning in Bangalore. And it is just the beginning of March. I have been here for five years now and I haven’t seen anything like this before. Like most of us, I have always known that we are disturbing our environment but was of the opinion that disaster is still a long way away. As a kid, I recollect reading about “El Nino” as early as my eighth grade. Until very recently (a year ago), I was still skeptical about the seriousness of the problem, motivated largely by alternative perspectives such as the Great Global Warming Swindle etc. But, now I am thoroughly convinced that this is a problem that needs attention at the highest levels, such as the leader of the second most populous country. And this is critical for a country that is largely (60% to be precise) agrarian and that has millions of people living in low lying areas (West Bengal, Kutch, Bangladesh).

Economy: This is a country that is confused if it still is socialistic or if it has jumped over to the other side (capitalism). There is emphasis on both and hence the vision and strategy are quite mixed up. The younger generation seems to thoroughly love the reforms of the 1990s and the older generation wonders what was so wrong about their times. Some of the greatest institutions (Indian Railways, State Bank of India, IITs and IIMs) are all products of the socialist regime. A lot of our leaders still have heavy socialist influences. Combine this with the current or potentially current collapse of some countries (economies) built on Capitalism, One begins to wonder what the right thing to do is. I believe my leader should possess a clear understanding on the rationale behind Nehruvian theories and trends in globalization. The world is truly a global village and advances cannot be made without a big picture.

Energy: This might seem a little off place here. Not many people talk of energy as an essential qualification for a leader. I remember sitting in my physics class and reading in my text book that our oil reserves will last only for twenty years, ten years ago. And the more you look (and read) around, the clearer it becomes that those times (Peak Oil, Volatility in the oil market, our increasing dependence) are already here. And unless my leader appreciates the grave energy situation we are in, none of his policies or infrastructural investments are going to make sense in the hard times that we all live (or going to live) in.

Sociology: India is a Europe. It really is 28 cultures put together. There is a lot of literature around the complexity of the concept that India is. And the more you read, the more you know that any one person understands very little. I believe, only that person who sees the soft nuances of millennia of inter relationships between these numerous cultures & demographics from an outsider’s perspective will be able to resolve, relate and communicate with them all. A vision that is inclusive, fair and free for one and all is the need of the hour. Put this in perspective that much of our resources are depleting and that a conflict of interest between civilizations is impending, you probably will realize that to provide solutions for the future, you need to understand the past.

Technology: It might seem like I am technologist and hence I have a preferential bias towards technology as a future mind for my leader. But, it still makes sense to me. Investing in technology for the greater masses for inclusive governance and mitigating corruption & red-tapism is one thing. Understanding technology as a tool to access knowledge for insightful governance is another. And I want my leader to embrace both these ideas in a manner that is unique & Indian. I don’t really care if he reads his emails on Blackberry though.

And one mind that did not make it into this list but I wish it did:

Gandhi: I am fan of this man and I am not even one of the most well read(about him). But, understanding Gandhi still comes out as a no brainer for understanding India. No other man has travelled the lengths and breadths or spent so much time thinking about (and in some cases thinking for) this country as him. Nobody else’ ability to connect with the Indian Masses, consensual prowess or methodologies worked as best as his. And when one looks at the volatile global situation that we have ended up creating in the last half a century, Gandhi’s ideals (economic or otherwise) appear right more than ever.

A few other minds that did not make into my list:
Law
History
Linguistics.

Now, each one of these topics are huge & probably will require the attention of a life time for deep understanding. Unless my leader is a super hero, he is probably not going to be a master of all these five trades. The next best thing is to have a team of people who are experts in each one of these fields to be a part of the core decision making team.

Alright, so this is what I want in my leader? But, is he out there?

I am starting to believe that Indian businesses don’t know how to do business on a phone. The large corporations (such as ICICIs and Godrejs and Pizza Huts) get the point to a reasonable extent. But, there are multiple issues.

First, there aren’t a great lot of large corporations in India. So, you are most likely going to encounter many small businesses in your life time in India for everyday requirements.

Second, it doesn’t seem like the large corporations are putting in a great lot of effort in getting their phone link to the customer right. I have first hand experience with Bank “A” and I know the main menu of their IVR by heart. But, everytime I have wanted to call them, nothing in the main menu seems to match the question I have in mind for them. And I begin to wonder. I know that if I keep pressing something, Bank A’s IVR gives up on me and transfers me over to the first customer care person available. I subconciously know that once I get to a customer care person, things will start rolling. And, I am the best case scenario. I am in technology and I think I understand the phrase “Technology as an enabler”. Wonder what percentage of people who dial up end up speaking to a service representative. If it is a huge percent, then the point of the IVR is lost.

The worst case scenario is my mom. To begin with, she is perplexed by the idea of an automated voice system which is not a human being. Second, She is scandalized that if she presses a wrong button, the world might end and bad things might happen. She is also worried that this voice person will not give her any help. How is it that she can’t ask questions to this computer voice?

Also, folks at the call center want to put the phone down or transfer the call as quickly as possible to another department. It feels like “red tapism” except it all happens on the phone line and you are sitting. Your time isint anyone’s concern. You are not running around, right?

Lets talk about the Torso and tail, the medium and small businesses. The service stations, restaurants, Gas stove repair, flower shops. And it sucks quite a bit here. It is almost like customers who call up on the phone are second grade and do not require the same treatment as folks who show up in the showroom or shop. It is not like I am not going to pay.

Atleast once, I have been asked to call back later because the person who picked up the phone was busy. She didn’t even care to ask me what it is that I wanted. Because I am on the phone, I am not real? Other times, the person who picks up the call hasnt a clue. I called up a dance company and the person who picked up goes “Oh, you want to talk to my husband?”. More often than not, it is someone’s personal phone number which is listed on the internet. And when you call, the person gets infuriated about how you could call him at 8 PM in the night? I am expected to know his office timings, right? Cutting the call, Number busy etc. have happened quite a number of times as well. And these are all institutions that treat their customers normally when you visit them. What these businesses don’t take seriously is, a bad user experience on the phone is a bad user experience about the way they run the business.

Honestly, this doesn’t come to me as a surprise. On the other hand, It is more of a wishful thought. 400 million phone connections isint a joke. We have virtually covered all people with any purchasing power. I wish our businesses understood the power of remote & voice communication. I am a believer that voice is the most natural form of human communication. And there just isint space in your jeans pocket for a keyboard and a mouse. The fact that 1-800 as a concept is not popular (Not sure what the reasons are here) itself is a standing symptom of how businesses arent embracing the telephone yet.

Just like every other industry in India, telephony is fragmented, de-standardized and over regulated. Customer side phone revolution has already happened. Wont the businesses see this?

I am done writing about Maps & Local in India. It is not interesting to me anymore. And the symptoms are showing. I havent written anything on this blog for over 5 months now. Not that I didnt have anything to say all this while. Just that they didnt fit into a blog that was titled “On Maps & local in India”.

So, here it is. I am taking the blog back to what it was earlier. A blog on thoughts, experiences and incidents from my life. Now that is broad enough that I can write virtually anything.

Adieu Maps & Local.

“The print page is dead”. Put your hands together for in-context printing.
Yahoo! India Maps print page just became better, faster and a lot cleaner. Fancy this, you are new to Bangalore and are staying with a friend in Indiranagar. You have heard much about the new Lido Mall, and the Fabulous seating at the Fame Cinemas Multiplex. You are in a hurry to catch the movie. Now visit Yahoo! India Maps at http://in.maps.yahoo.com, search for “100 feet
road indiranagar to lido mall” and click on the “print” link in the left hand corner.

A helpful pop up shows that your print will need 2 sheets. Now, click on Print and you are all set to enjoy pop corn at the movie. The Map is also in wide screen (landscape), so what you see is indeed what gets printed. The Printout also gives useful tips on the distance, approximate time taken and local auto rickshaw fare, all of which will aid you in making sure you pay only what you need to pay to that friendly Auto driver

Just that Simple

Subramanyan Murali
Yahoo! Maps Engineer