By Sajith Pai in Miscellany No Comments
I wrote the 3rd and last of my pieces for New Indian Express on ‘We are all Appizens, Not Citizens’. The link is here.
In the article, I argued how thanks to new apps / tech and wealth, ‘People like us’ can transfer between Indian cities comfortably today. Yet, if apps make settling down easier than ever, they make true citizenship of our cities tougher than ever. We increasingly …
By Sajith Pai in News Media, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments
I wrote an article in Dec’18 for the online tech + business site factordaily.com called ‘Vernacular Apps, English Premium, and Monetizing the Next 200m Users”. The link is below.
In the article, which I am not posting in full here, I argued for why the slew of vernacular apps that have been launching of late, catering to the emerging …
By Sajith Pai in Book Discovery No Comments
I maintain an excel sheet, since 2004, where I track the books I have read annually. This year I read only 13 books, my lowest count in all these years (2016 was the highest with 39 books). That said, one of the books I read this year, and perhaps enjoyed the most, was Sacred Games, which at 947 pages, is like 3 or even 4 books in one. So …
By Sajith Pai in Higher Education No Comments
I write a monthly column for The New Indian Express, a predominantly South Indian newspaper. My column titled Indo-Angliana looks at Indian society, business and culture through the prism of Indo-Anglians, the largely english-speaking, highly educated and largely upper caste Indians who dominate our markets, media and our minds.
My second column was on a concept I call ‘meritshifting’, where elite India is driving a redefinition of merit on subjective …
By Sajith Pai in News Media No Comments Tags: Content, News, Startups
(This was published in Mint, 19th November 2018, albeit in an abbreviated form due to space constraints. This is the complete piece.)
The latest and hottest startup sector is presently invisible to ‘People Like Us’ living in metros. Over the past year, several young founders boasting impeccable academic credentials and work experience have been moving to small town India, launching hyperlocal news apps, viz., LocalPlay, Lokal, Awaaz, Circle etc. These …
By Sajith Pai in Miscellany, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Higher Education, Technology
I have been writing regularly as those of you who follow me on twitter / linkedin are aware, but I have been a tad lazy in not updating this website with the links. So here goes.
For Arre, for their special on India’s 71st Independence Day, I predicted what India would look like in 2089, another 71 years hence. I made three predictions: one each about society, tech & …
By Sajith Pai in Miscellany, Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Personal, Venture Capital
I have been, for long, a keen student of the startup / venture ecosystem in India and outside. I find startups particularly fascinating, because to me, startups are the most obvious signals we get from the future. For each startup is but a hypothesis about the future manifested physically. I have satiated my interest in this space somewhat partially, through my writings and occasional pro bono advisories to startups. But …
By Sajith Pai in Venture Capital / Startups No Comments Tags: Next Billion Users, Startups, Venture Capital
Recently, Rehan Yar Khan, who runs Orios Venture Partners, an early stage venture firm tweeted
Starting with Zomato, then Ola in Australia and now Oyo in China, looks like Indian start-ups have found the answer to beating India's 50M only "real consumers" market: Get out of the box
— Rehan Yar Khan (@rehanyarkhan) May 24, 2018
Rehan Yar Khan wasn’t being sarcastic. He was, in fact, complementing the promoters of …
By Sajith Pai in Miscellany No Comments Tags: Careers, Organizations
Let us say you are a smart, sharp ex-strategy consultant from the Big 3, now working in the Strategy Office of a print major. The company, facing digital headwinds, is muddling its way through. Business is on a gentle decline; that said, the job still pays well, the people are interesting and comfortable to work with, and best of all, there is no …
By Sajith Pai in Alcohol, Miscellany No Comments Tags: Alcohol, History, India, Prohibition
TL;DR
No, he can’t! The Indian Constitution doesn’t have a provision for him to ban alcohol overnight, thankfully. Yes, he can try to amend the constitution to acquire the right, but this will be challenged by Indian States, for whom from liquor sales are a big revenue stream. The resulting dispute will reach the Supreme Court, who will likely side with the states. I detail why below. Finally ,my essay …