In a couple of interviews that I’ve given so far, the folks asked me, so why is cricket so popular in India? The question comes because I represented Hyderabad district in the U-16 AP School Games Federation tournament, as well as my fascination with cricket trivia. Recruiters are often curious about how in the age of lacrosse, softball, squash and croquet (this is what the resumes they’re getting say I presume) I represented a passe sport.

It’s come up more than once and so I thought it made sense to put it down here.

There are several parts to it, why is cricket in itself popular; why popular in comparison to other sports in India; alternatively, why aren’t other cricket playing nations so addicted to the sport?

Few points to address these questions.

Historicity: Historicity has definitely an important role to play. Unlike the other sports that British brought to India, cricket was relatively easier to adopt. This meant that people of any size could play it, anywhere. The historicity is important because it lead to the initial infrastructure and institutions to be put in place (The hill station of Chail for example has I think the highest cricket ground), which came from the Royal families. This includes the grounds yes, but also the local shields (Harris Shield for example, or the Bombay Quadrangle trophy) and leagues

Consistent Heroes: As a spillover effect of this, while it is only recently we have been very good as a team in the sport, we’ve always had individual heroes emerge in the sport, whether it was Vinoo Mankad or Kapil Dev (highest wicket taker for a long time) or Gavaskar (highest run maker) or of course Sachin. This has been consistent throughout. The rate at which we were producing cricket heroes was much higher than any other sport. Compare this to most other countries that play cricket outside the subcontinent, where other sports competed with cricket.

BCCI: Another important factor is the complete monopoly of the cricket board when it comes to sporting associations in India (at least for a long time). BCCI is one of the richest sporting bodies in the world today (and hence has a significant clout at the ICC). Compare this to the cricket associations of other countries, which results in the number of matches a nation plays, or the publicity generated thus.

Corporate backing: A natural corollary to the BCCI backing the sport, and individual heroes coming up, and cable TV coming to India, was the corporate bandwagon jumping on to support the players as well as the series.

Sundries: Equipment is cheap (even for the professional level, most cricket equipment is made in India and is very cheap, relatively).

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

Few thoughts:

The number of Indian technology/consumer internet startups coming out from ex-Yahoo employees (and to an extent Amazon) is overwhelming. Of course this is part of a larger trend of start-ups coming up in general.  Here’s a list of the well known ones (do add the names in the comments of others that you might know). There’s Crazeal (formerly Groupon), Exotel, Zivame, Fashion and You,  Slabble, Flipkart, Goyaka, OoBi and well Pluggd.in (hey, it counts!). In all Linkedin gives a total of 58 results for people with current designations as Co-Founder+Past work-ex with Yahoo+India. Most of these 58 are leading organizations which someone plugged into the startup ecosystem (Bangalore+NCR) is constantly hearing about. Amazon gives about 30 results.

Surely, I am not comparing Yahoo/Amazon in India to the Paypal Mafia.

Of course as one can see, the Infosys, TCS and Wipro brigade has produced hundreds of entrepreneurs. Though only a deeper understanding of each of these entrepreneurs would tell us of the sectoral focus of these entrepreneurs.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

Thanks to Vijay, who is helping build Exotel, I get to hear of so many interesting start-ups. Quite a few of them seem to have one thing in common: Flipkart. I understand that this could be a selection bias, but I am inclined to think that Flipkart is an early customer of a lot of interesting young start-ups which are seeing some traction. Interviewstreet, Exotel, Gharpay (I think), Zipdial (ok, so perhaps they aren’t young anymore), 99tests.

I think Flipkart should just have an event where it invites all these startups and make an affair of it.

Disclaimer: I don’t think Flipkart is a startup anymore, with over 2500 employees, though it certainly seems to be running in startup based on the feedback I get from my friends who work there.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

As some of you go about building your companies, or are thinking about building your notions, I thought of sharing this with you. This something that has been on my mind for a while now. It is also not directly related to start-ups, though I hope reading it will help shape a perspective which will affect the type of business we want to run or work for.

Obsolescence is all around us.

We have experienced it, and in fact even endured and in this process have contributed to it. It drives our decisions, not only the large public policy ones, but also the minor ones that deal with our day to day existence such as the technologies we want to adopt or the type of music we want to hear. And, often, we don’t even have a choice, our favorite products are just removed from the shelf because they are “passe”. Some might bring in biological factors to explain this (such as survival of the fittest) or some might view it from a more cultural, sociological angle (such as zeitgeist viz “the spirit of the age”).

Thomas Kuhn explained in the Structure of Scientific Revolutions how Science progresses; promoting newer paradigms that lead the way, with the old ones ending up on a shelf as vintage lost art (by a process of communities battling it among themselves). I was going through a list on Quora (which I check every couple of months) called : What professions or careers have virtually disappeared due to disruptive or innovative technologies. The list is turning into becoming a massive cesspool of history.

At the heart of economics (and hence business) is the belief that value can be extracted from utilities (whether it is a service or an object) and this is achieved through trade. And that this is in turn essential for the progress of mankind.Is obsolescence the necessary price one pays for progress? Darwinism would think so.

Massive choice plus herd mentality plus looking into the future than living in the present seems to me to only lead to obsolescence.

Some of the questions it raises:

1) One of the tenets of progress is that, it seems to take a utilitarian view. This results in a situation where things good for the majority makes things easier for them where as it makes things harder (relatively) for the minority and these sections are asked to keep up with the pace, or adapt to the changes. This is such an important point in my opinion, which often get sidelined. There is talk of too much choice (choice fatigue?), but seldom talk about how choice often gets restricted due to the supply side.

2) It plays a huge role in educating the future generations. The way we learn. While focusing on the concept is indeed important, the role of looking at concepts to solve problems is a popular view (in fact many will argue that it is the only way, knowledge will advance). However focusing too much on the method of these particular problems is also a challenge worth noting. Let me illustrate: Many colleges in India still teach engineering drawing to students on sheet of papers, where as most universities in the developed world have moved onto CAD softwares. Rather than the concept, one is focused on the method (and calculations). When these students go out, the companies say that they aren’t employable and lament that they have to teach them the skills required all over again.

3) Is progress just about making life better? And if it is, how inclusive is it? Often, new products or services that are introduced into a market, make it a point unto themselves to create demand for it. An executive once said, don’t bother asking the public what they want, they clearly have no idea, it’s our job to tell them what they want. And they will want it.

Some of the questions which I can see would be raised about this blog post:

1) Too preachy.

-I can empathize with that.

2) Doesn’t apply to the “real” world. There is competition all around, if you don’t exploit, someone else will. Also, there’s the bit about the responsibility towards one’s share holders.

-That’s fine baba. Important part is to own up to one’s stand (I have been guilty of finding it tough to do so myself at times). To clarify: I’d say you can’t call yourself a social enterprise, if all you are doing is giving microloans. Using that logic, every business is a social enterprise, because it has customers, which form part of the society.

3) What is the point of writing this?

-To see if people resonate with this or some part of this. Also, to bring up several points, one of them being that a majority is what it is, a majority.

4) Is there some socialist or Conservative (or communist?) agenda behind writing this?

- Not that I can think of. Just one of autonomy.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

Censure comes from Latin and means to pass an opinion or assess.

Film censorship becomes necessary because a film motivates thought and action and assures a high degree of attention and retention as compared to the printed word. The combination of act and speech, sight and sound in semi darkness of the theatre with elimination of all distracting ideas will have a strong impact on the minds of the viewers and can affect emotions. Therefore, it has as much potential for evil as it has for good and has an equal potential to instill or cultivate violent or good behaviour. It cannot be equated with other modes of communication. Censorship by prior restraint is, therefore, not only desirable but also necessary

Supreme Court of India

Why do you think we have so much vulgarity, songs, dances, pelvic thrusts, bathtub fantasies and dream sequences – because you won’t allow a simple kiss

Film maker Vijay Anand in an interview with India Today, 2002

I am currently reading The Republic by Plato, I am reminded of the noble lie that Socrates devises up to educate the republicans.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

I have always wanted to maintain a list of books I have finished reading. I have used Shelfari, Goodreads and some of the other portals (even 43 things long back) but realized that what I need is something rather elementary. So, Google Docs it is. Every time I finish reading a book, I enter it along with the date into the sheet. This will help me track what I am reading, as well as when I am procrastinating.

So now look at the top of the page to the menu bar, do you see a “Books and Articles” tab there? Yes, that’s the one. Click it.  The list should be considered meticulously updated, post 2006, that is once I entered college. Prior to that, while I had read a lot, I just don’t have the energy to put it all down in the form. The page also has my delicious link, which can help you track my bookmarks.

Also, I hope to write reviews of some of the books that I have read.

With the onset of the Young India Fellowship, I am hoping for the reading spike to become steeper than what it already is.

If any of you have a book recommendation to make, please do mail me at rishabhkaul at gmail dot com. I am always looking out for suggestions on what to read.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

My friend and super super senior from college Dilip D Souza recently released his new non fiction book: Roadrunner. He’s hosting a little quiz over at Twitter, winners of which get free copies of his book.

The book is about his travels in US, to little heard of corners of US (he was present in New Orleans and witnessed Katrina’s aftermath),  the Indian version of which we’re creating with Grassroutes

I have read few pages of the book, but my friends who have read the entire book have given it a thumbs up and have recommended everyone to give it a shot.

Dilip has been writing about development issues, politics, occasional pieces on bras and has been published in most of the esteemed publications you read these days.

His twitter page is @DeathEndsFun, do give it a shot and hope you win a copy of his book!

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

This space has been largely empty for the most part of post college duration. The reasons are obvious, but I hope to resume blogging now.

Living in Delhi has been very entertaining. Entertaining is the right word to be used here because someone that is the flavour of the town.

The area where I reside also contributes to that. With half the world’s population living here with me, (and the rest settled in Karol Bagh and Chandni Chowk I am led to believe) I am in the midst of the action. Be it getting up to go to work, which unlike BITS demands 100% attention (in terms of my physical presence), or randomly arranging last minute plans to meet someone, Delhi has kept me immensely occupied and more than mildly satisfied.

I was lucky to have found The Attic, a cosy little corner in Connought Place which brings regular doses of really good speakers. The best thing about the place being the suspiciously small audience. Consequence being, you get to interact a heck of a lot more than at usual conferences.

The place where I work, NCAER, comes out with fantastic reports, advising government and corporations on policy making. The next 5 months is going to be challenging and a learning experience with the vast amount of human as well as literary resources that NCAER providing me with.

The BITSAA Global Meet, which is the other activity that is taking up considerable amount of my time is also shaping up nicely with the panel discussions being finalized and scouting for speakers being the next step.

For those with an appetite for development and responsible businesses, I have started updating my Nextbillion with my experiences on the field with the Stories from Sarvajal’s Turf series. 2 posts have been put up and I believe I have material for 2 more which should be up by the end of next 2 weeks.

Facebook too has been of tremendous value in such times, with me needlessly messaging everyone in Delhi who I can lay my hands on and devoting my time to them. It’s part of the whole settling in phase I believe. Give me a month more, I am sure I will go back to my anti-social, virtual self. Though, I hope that doesn’t happen.

Also, I have 2 incredible roomies who have been tolerating my idiosyncrasies for long and I am grateful to them for that.

Lets see what’s in store next.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

If you want to set up shop in Gujarat but have no ideas. Tobacco is the answer. Possibly the most profitable retail business in entire rural Gujarat would be the sale of tobacco. Every single person enjoys chewing it and spitting it out. It’s like cigarettes in Bengal.

Next would probably be telecom. They all have electricity in their homes thanks to the Jyoti Gram scheme introduced by the Modi Government. And now most of them have cell phones.

Ok, so may be I am wrong about the Telecom bit.

But Tobacco is extraordinarily popular here. It’s also ironic, considering this is the state that banned Liquor since 1961 a la Gandhigiri but left Tobacco alone.

P.S: My fellow intern, Prateek Bhatt who studies in a jail was overlooking as I was writing this post and adds “No, please set up shop in Orissa instead.”

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

[Image courtesy Really Natural]

With the COP15 approaching soon and the world chattering about whether a binding agreement will be signed, I have been thinking about the impact this will have on the developing nations. To start off to understand what is going to be discussed at Copenhagen here’s a brilliant post by my friend Abhishek Nayak that cuts through the jargon and as he likes to call it, makes you a UNFCCC expert (who is going to represent the Indian Youth Delegation at Copenhagen next month).

Jeffrey Sachs’ Commonwealth raises some valid issues about climate change and says that summarizing the effects of GHG as “global warming” is far too simple. That’s true for there far too many specific impacts this is going to have on our planet.

Changes in Water availability:

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink ;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

-  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

Apart from the Glaciers’ melting and reducing the freshwater availability in valleys below (which will cause floods first and then water shortage immediately after that), there’s also the issue to evapotranspiration which increases at higher temperatures and so there will be less water left for human use (and crop cultivation) in hotter environments before it evaporates.

Increased Natural Hazards:

The graph shows the prevalence of malaria in USA. As you can see, after a spike in the 60s, Malaria is almost non existent in USA; its completely eradicated in Canada. However with the rise in global temperatures, diseases such as malaria will become more common in non-tropical nations where the temperatures earlier were too low for the disease to transmit.And this will only make the conditions only worse in tropical countries.

Agricultural Productivity:

Rise in temperatures might help some regions which are very cold to increase the productivity, but is going to do much more harm to the warm and dry regions of the world who will end up with a considerable decline in their food productivity.This will harm tropical nations such as Africa, India and the like.

Needless to say the Rising Ocean Levels are going to submerge our good friends living in the islands and coastal areas and eventually come after the others who right now are a safe distance from the oceans.

Issues such as destruction of habitats (for example the corals, fish etc) will also be inevitable.

All this just means more trouble for the developing world for they will be affected the worst due to their poor buying power and inadequate aid.

And if they are to have any chance, the more developed nation will have to extend their help and what they’re doing right now doesn’t seem to be enough. There are massive discussions between what form of help will yield best results. There are many including Sachs, who believe that aid is an important ways to tackle the issues of the widening income gap. On the other hand he faces stiff opposition from Dambisa Moyo who wrote Dead Aid, in which she discusses how foreign aid has only made things tougher for the people, at least in Africa. They have been locking horns for quite some time and then William Easterly joined in as well supporting Moyo.

I don’t propose I know the solution, but I do know that major changes cannot take place without the government being involved. I also know that there’s no white and black area and that for something to work out a hybrid solution is required, in this case be it aid, cross subsidies, entrepreneurship, low cost technology.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

After watching the India New Zealand clash where India started off quite spectacularly before Vettori did his bit, I couldn’t help but get a sense of deja vu. A similar situation had arisen during the Asia Cup in 1999 where we had Pakistan struggling at 20 something for 5 and ultimately let them reach 170 odd. It was partly due to the heroics of Moin and partly due to our boys slacking.

It would make for an interesting analysis to see how does India fare in general after getting to a vantage point with a good start.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

…or atleast that what it looks like.

As I am writing this post, Me along with some 14000 other people are being bombarded with back to back messages from Hugh Macleod, more popularly known as Gaping Void.

The spamming started at approx 3.20 PM IST and ceases to stop. All the tweets start off with a “Hi! My name is Hugh MacLeod, I make a living selling ads on my blog”

Here’s a screenshot of the page

 

While majority of tweets focus on him living off the ads on his blog, there are the occasional tweets addressing a different topic

In the past there were instances of Britney, Obama and few other high profile tweeters whose accounts were hacked, so is this yet another case?

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

I am home for a couple of days to spend the remainder of my winter break (to read about my road trip click here). And what’s the first thing that greets me here? My brother.

I am 20 and my brother is 11. That’s a difference of 9 years.

However, I believe he’s all grown up now. He’s started playing GTA and started referring to Bipasha Basu as “that sexy thing”. It’s brought a tear to my eye. I have been waiting for this coming of age for so long. Sigh.

He asked me if I’d watch Bachna e Haseeno with him. I obliged and listened to him explain how Deepika Padukone is simply too simple in the movie and hence isn’t worth the hype. Bipasha on the other hand is the real deal and deserves Ranbir.

Also, the other day I was asking him if he plays a character of African American descent in GTA San Andreas. With a look of contempt as if mocking my ignorance, he says “they’re called niggas bhaiyya!”

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

As a parting note: We should have been smarter. We should have picked up the hints right away. And where were the hints? In this article which no one bothered to take seriously.

Pakistan is as safe a country as India and we had even promised state level security for the Australians and other teams. This incident only shows the double standards of Australian cricket, 

-Shafqat Naghmi, chief operating officer of the PCB told fumed. 

Clearly unmistakable.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

Ah how good I felt after going through news portals last week.

What started with an angst against the passionate yet unruly Indian cricket spectators as well as the presumably lethargic Indian batsmen has now become a platform for us to showcase our achievements.

Reactions follow a typical pattern:

An introduction leading up to Hayden’s comment.

The next paragraph features why Hayden’s comment is factually wrong, with links to the relevant statistical data.

The third para demands that Hayden issue an apology; followed by some kinds words directed towards his mother.
Since the second paragraph would also unfailingly mention our wonderfully executed lunar mission, Hayden can give himself a pat on the back for contributing to this unique SEO method for promoting Chandrayaan-1.

Those trying to bank on satire have been dealt with severely, for example Their reaction to his post forcing him to apologize for his actions (seen in the update section of the post).

Akram is pissed and so is the BCCI. Australian Cricketer’s Association has even suggested a shrink accompany the team on every tour to tackle the stress their players encounter on such tours. Though the ACA have not mentioned explicitly mentioned Hayden’s name here, the implied reference should not be missed.

But then there’s the other side of spectrum too. People from all walks of life are coming forward and joining Hayden’s Sympathisers Anonymous (HSA). This tweet by a BBC Mastermind winner who has been identified solely by his initial J, says it all

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

Minutes before a friend’s birthday, where he would be subjected to the vilest of rituals, my wingie Yogesh had an interesting experience to narrate.

His teacher had a very innovative method punishing them while at school. She would make three children stand in a circle and slap each other in a clockwise (or anti clockwise) manner. As Yogesh explained it to me (and as you would have figured by now), this method went on fine till each student understood the dynamics of the situation and did not fall for the bait. Gentle nudges could never harm anyone.

It’s when one of them fucked up.

To express anger at the gentlemen who slapped him earlier, the second guy would whack the third guy. And it’d be proper. This would set the wheels in motion at top notch speed.

Such innovation should be appreciated. From the teacher’s point of view this is much better than throwing dusters and rulers at children and thus jeopardizing their career, instead why not let the students punish each other? After all, now the ball would be in the student’s court. Now all that’d be left would be how they’d play ball.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

Ah yes, its going to happen now.

Just like when Usain Bolt won, the news papers had a gala time coming up with headlines to suit their fancy. Bosey has articulated that in a brilliant post. Similar stuff is going to happen now.

Obamania, Breaking the Barracks!, Remember, remember the 5th of November and what not. Twitter is flooded with it and so is every other blog apart from the mass media obviously.

Come on people. Don’t pretend you weren’t expecting him to win. Quit acting so surprised, just like you did when Hilary was chucked off.

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

Rishabh Kaul is Economics & Engineering student at BITS Pilani who is interested in entrepreneurship and social innovation. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com