Gagan explores thoughts and ideas on technology and business.
It’s happening again. After a continuous downpour last night, the scene outside Takshila once again reminded of the waterworld that was created few years back. Some brave hearts were venturing into the water, letting their mechanical stallions do the fighting and stay alive. There were a couple of people, amongst this lot, who were stranded in the middle of the road blocking further traffic and causing too much inconvenience to the pedestrians. Check out the fresh pictures from today morning:
This weekend would have been just like any other one - sleep late and get up even later. I was slightly miffed with the sudden thought of breaking this (ir)regular schedule by being one of the members of our CSR group that was planning to visit a homeless kids shelter at Mira Road. And of course, given the number of activities that I have participated in the recent past, there were bets in office on whether I will be able to make it ;-). But in the end, I knew that I will go, and so I was awake at 6am, getting ready to be there with the kids. We were scheduled to leave at 8.30am.
Vision in Social Arena (VISA), established in 1997 by Mr. John Abraham, is a charitable trust that looks after nearly 43 homeless children. This is not the popular John Abraham (actor) that we know of and who is covered by our dailies every now and then. Mr. John Abraham of VISA, however, is an icon in his own right. His vision of taking homeless children under his wing and taking care of their basic needs sets him apart from the lot, who are often too tied up with their own individualistic desires. It is heartening to see so much good in the world.
Netscribes, as a part of its corporate social responsibility activities, held a drawing competition for these kids and also treated them with gifts and food. The whole set of activities were not only fun but also fulfilling in their own way for each one of us. It was very different from what I thought it would be. And the kids were amazing - full of energy and fun. There were song and dance performances; and our cheerful gang of Netscribians indulged as well. Needless to say, this was a very humbling experience. It will be very satisfying to see these kids grow up and hold their own in the society. And I am sure, under the able guidance of Mr. Abraham, THEY WILL !!
Mumbai monsoons are back. The city was in a mess today, and normal life came to a halt once again. Here are a few pictures that I had clicked in the morning. I had been waiting for the rains to slow down, so that I could leave for office in the morning. Today was an important day as I had a training scheduled for my team. Armed with my laptop, I just reached the main gate of my society, Takshila. And behold!! There whole road right outside the gates was flooded with nothing plying and the autos nearly in water. So I just came back and changed, and went out again to capture the interesting sight.
As I was going to put the pics online, the electricity also went out. However, the laptops saved us, as we ended up watching two interesting movies with our lappies running on battery.
The pictures are from outside the gate of my residential society - Takshila - in Andheri East.
It was a sudden shift from orange to pink for my mobile phone operator. From an extremely popular and widely recognized brand “Orange”, the mobile operator shifted itself to “Hutch” - a brand popular in Northern India. The transition was supposed to have no effect on the mobile subscribers and all the features and billing plans continued with the status quo. But the first change was imminent when the bill mailing envelope changed color from Orange-Black to Pink-White.
Whether this is related to the shift, or has reasons of its own, but the Hutch network in Mumbai has been deteriorating with time. The service has started to get irritaing with a lot of lost calls, network congestion error messages, erratic voice clarity, and conversations getting disconnected suddenly. It is high time that Hutch took note of this, and revamped its network to take care of such extreme problems. With Airtel on a subscriber addition binge, Hutch should take care not to let its existing customers shift to other operators because of bad network.
I had written about the highly priced GPRS service offering of Orange. However, it seems that Hutch has taken note of this and has reduced its entry level prices. But the data usage charges still remain the same for the INR 499 package; the same being higher for lower tariff plans. But the lower plans seem to be a good start for tapping the increasing pool of people interested in trying out the GPRS service. I am sure that Hutch must have seen an increase in the number of subscribers who have opted for this service.
With Reliance finalising its plan to provide GSM services as well, the competition is getting hotter. On one hand, mobile operators are looking at technologies like 3G and WiMax, but on the other their networks are getting badly marred because of high subscriber additions month-over-month; and no significant improvement in the infrastructure. The entry of Reliance into GSM space would not only mean increased competition and better tariff plans, but it would also put the existing GSM operators in Mumbai under a lot of pressure.
Whether the likes of Hutch take the new threat seriously, and ramp up their operations in order to counter Reliance’s entry - this is a question left for all of us to see within the coming six months. Expect a lot of action in the mobile telephony space. The space has suddenly become HOT and EXCITING.
 
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