(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 …
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 & …
This was originally published in The New Indian Express on 18 November 2018.
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In Indo-Anglian circles, no topic gets as much importance as education or specifically higher education. For it is education that creates and defines us Indo-Anglians and remains a key marker of identity. In my (Indo-Anglian) circles, with our kids now reaching teenagehood, talk quickly veers these days to career and college options. Increasingly these days …
(From September to December 2018, I wrote 3 posts for the New Indian Express. It was to be a monthly column giving a glimpse into the Indo-Anglian hive mind, or the world of the elite English-speaking Indian. I couldn’t sustain it – there were multiple reasons. For one, no feedback at all from anyone. Not sure how many were reading it! Then the fact that i had to fit …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Sometime around 2012 or ’13, my daughters stopped speaking in Konkani, our mother tongue. It isn’t entirely clear what provoked it; perhaps it was a teacher at their Mumbai school encouraging students to speak more English at home. Or perhaps it was something else. It doesn’t matter.
What did matter was that our home became an almost exclusively English-speaking household, with the occasional sporadic Konkani conversation. We were not alone. …
It is now just over 20 years since Amazon had its IPO, setting it off on the path to e-commerce dominance and well over $500b in market cap. In these 20 years, Amazon, and its peers expanded across categories, from books and electronics to fashion and even grocery. And in parallel, a ruthless focus on shaving off delivery times and cost ensued, helping reduce buying friction and making online buying …