Rishabh Kaul's Weblog

Why Cricket?

Rishabh — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:15:14 +0000

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

Creative Monopoly

Rishabh — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 18:32:02 +0000

David Brooks over at the Times writes about Peter Thiel’s class at Stanford. This Times post focuses on one of the core philosophies behind Thiel’s curriculum. The thesis being that, competition gets you focusing most of your energy on survival and beating the competition. Instead of doing that, one should go about defining new markets, not to beat the competition, but enter a new category where no competitor exists. Yet. This is what Brooks calls “Creative Monopoly”.

This presents interesting parallels from Clayton Christensen‘s Disruptive Innovation as well as the Innovator’s Dilemma.

Couple of thoughts that I gathered from this:

1) Competition is so essential for this sort of creative monopoly to exist or even emerge. One provides the incentive for the other (in this case, the disincentive) The way I see it, creative monopoly is at best a phase of a business (the size of that phase determines the success of the monopoly). And for it to be sustained, either there has to be a stroke of serendipity or one has to be adept at being a visionary In new terrains, there are no benchmarks. One can possibly decide what are the implications, by the current sales or in hindsight.

2) The role of top universities in churning out inventors and entrepreneurs who are likely to come up with these “monopolies” is only going to increase. The way I see it, for such new markets, often one requires resources, in terms of pilot testing, product development, research and so on. One way is if you have tons of cash lying around (if you’re Apple/IBM) or you need endowments. The idea of folks pursuing PhDs to incubate their ideas (especially in technology/social sciences) seems like one way out.

Thiel’s classnotes can be found here.

School Talk

Rishabh — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 21:31:27 +0000

A tiny late night conversation with someone in the ICSE tenth grade got me revisiting some of my days back in school. (However, my schooling was done in CBSE, which according to many is the lowest common denominator, at least till the tenth standard).

1) “The syllabus is simply too huge, upto 30 chapters in certain courses.”

2) The person went to elaborate. The vastness of the subject presents 2 major challenges. Firstly, the size of the syllabus itself, presents a herculean task to understand it all. Given the unenthusiastic teachers (caveat: This is one of the so-called top 10 schools in India, and the person is among the top 3 in his school), the burden is carried disproportionately onto the students, who in a desperate attempt to complete the syllabus, end up memorizing the texts. Secondly, the texts themselves don’t seem very relevant. “If we’re made to study the Lucknow Pact, I want to know what is its impact today, instead of knowing it just for its sake”.

3) But hasn’t this been overstated, and how bad is it? To which, the person brought up some interesting points. “Why do we study about the Mughals for so long? I have been reading about the Mughals all throughout 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th. I mean, its good and everything, but come on, isn’t it a little too much?. Instead what about the post independent India?”

4) “Why doesn’t ICSE have more practical subjects, which don’t require memorization. The sorts like sports, where I learn by doing. My school doesn’t even have a proper ground”. Reminded me of my time in school. I remembered the lack of practical exposure. I also remembered that the most I learnt was on the cricket field and while quizzing.

5) “Why doesn’t school have lectures or classes on corruption? I want to know more about it, why do I have to just turn to the papers about it, I mean its not like its a recent phenomenon”.

The last point struck a chord in me. In Tupac Resurrection, a 17 year old Tupac Shakur said “I think there should be a class on drugs. On sex education. Real sex education. There should be a class on police brutality. There should be a class on apartheid. There should be a class on why people are hungry. But there are not. There are classes on [laughs] gym. Lets learn volleyball.”

[Jobs]: Technology Business Incubator Manager at BITS Pilani

Rishabh — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 03:31:32 +0000

Every so often there comes an opportunity where one has the power to make a HUGE impact. The one I am sharing below is one such opportunity.

BITS Pilani has had a massive entrepreneurial culture and with the young blood on campus already charged up (on an average BITS passouts are churning out 10-15 enterprises every year). This is a great opportunity to support the increasing number of companies on campus as well as help increase the impact of TBI on campus and beyond.

–

Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani is looking for qualified and results-driven applicants to fill the under-listed
position:

Job Title - Technology Business Incubator Lead at BITS PILANI, RAJASTHAN

Please refer to attachment for required role and functions of TBI manager Please click at http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in/pilani/TechnologyBusiness/TechnologyBusinessIncubator to know more about Technology Business Incubator, BITS PILANI, RAJASTHAN.

Technology Business Incubator – Lead

Role and Functions

Role

Business Incubation Lead shall be responsible for building an appropriate and self sustaining incubation model at BITS campuses across the country by incubating high impact technology driven enterprises.

Functions

Identifying and attracting incubates to BITS incubators and extend them with support system by leveraging best practices, incubation frameworks and processes for their success.
Build and manage virtual and physical infrastructure and support systems necessary for business incubation activities.
Facilitate networking with mentors, fund providers, experts, consultants and advisors for the incubate companies.
Identify technologies/innovations which have potential for commercial ventures.
Liaison and strengthening relationships with government, other incubators, venture capitalists, angel funders/ seed funding institutions in India and abroad.
Undertaking consultancy activities in the field of technology based innovations.
Market BITS developed technologies towards their commercialization.
Project Management and monitoring of TBI’s and incubates.

Experience and Qualification

The candidate would be young and dynamic having both business and technical background, and experience in program management and cross-functional team facilitation.
A strong interest in identifying, evaluating, and launching successful new start-up businesses.
At least 5-7 years relevant experience as an incubation manager, product manager, investment banker, venture capitalist, or as a proven strategy and business consultant with strong collaboration and influence skills.
Ability to analyze market opportunities and develop go-to-market strategies

Compensation

Selected candidate will be placed in appropriate stage in a grade of Associate Professor or Assistant Professor with other perks extended to faculty members such as medical reimbursement, children education, Leave Travel Concession, Housing subject to availability; as per institute rules.

Brief on Technology Business Incubator

Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani in association with Department of Science and Technology (DST),
Government of India had established a Technology Business Incubator (TBI) in the area of Embedded Systems and VLSI Design to promote entrepreneurial leadership across all disciplines, facilitate entrepreneurial activity on campus and commercialization of R&D
efforts at BITS. Institute is in the process of setting up TBI’s at Goa and Hyderabad campus. The incubation set ups would include
physical as also virtual incubation facilities and the incubates could be located in either of the BITS campuses or even outside.

Do existing start ups like Startup Weekend?

Rishabh — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:19:36 +0000

1. Spoke to a young woman entrepreneur in Mumbai who runs a social enterprise for social enterprises. She was skeptical of youth entrepreneurship (especially in the social domain) for she felt that that there are lots of them coming up new organizations and not enough folks ready to commit themselves full time to it. The main concern for her was the amount of resources going into it (in terms of funding/time spent) to promote these activities. She opined that there should perhaps be more of these young folks spending time at an already established startup, learn from there and then move on (instead of start directly from school). This would increase the likelihood of them actually coming up with a sustained startup, when they actually do have one of their own.

2. Spoke to another person, who had c0-founded a startup (they recently closed their Series A) in Bangalore, who says that events like 54 hour startups, or Startup Weekend are good for visibility, but not sure how much of an impact is it creating in India (in terms of getting new startups up and running).

The interesting common factor here is this: Growing number of young startup founders are opining that there seems to be a skew in the ratio of smart, committed people joining startups as compared to starting something on their own (be it part time or full time) and sustaining it.

Few Questions this brings about:

Is hiring that big an issue? Based on my 3 years in the ecosystem, I would say yes, definitely.

Should the smart folks who are going hanging out at Startup Weekend or the hazaar hackathons around the country, be looking at early stage startups, instead of startup ideas of their own? Well, an increasing number of entrepreneurs tend to echo: Yes.

Based on the Delhi EDU Startup Weekend I attended a couple of days back, here were some of my observations which are applicable to existing startups and how they could benefit from such an event:

It is a great way to scout for existing talent.

However, a caveat here, the startup attending Startup Weekend to find talent, needs to really push their idea. Most of the folks attending these events are already super charged with many opportunities on their plate. To get them on your team, there better be a very compelling reason for them to join your team.

It is a great way to brainstorm on technological extensions to your product offering.

One example being Earth Labs Schools. They used this Startup Weekend to get Enviral out, an app which uses mobile gaming to spread their core message of using schools as a laboratory for promoting sustainability. Now chances are that the team that made this product, might most not join Earth Labs. But Earth Labs now has a prototype out, which it can try to improve upon.

p.s: If young folks are going out and starting companies, it is a good thing and not a bad thing. My personal opinion is that it is responsibility of the startup hiring to have a compelling value proposition. If a young guy is starting something due to the owner angle, the recruiting startup should seehow they could bring that ownership angle to their startup environment (a new project? a new feature of an existing product?) If the young guy is starting something because he likes the fame (there are few who feel that way), perhaps the recruiting startup can see how to provide that gratification to the hire. But it is the responsibility of the startup, not the hire.

p.p.s: Loved how this Startup Weekend was organized at TLABS (and their emphasis on customer validation). Having such events organized at incubators is crucially important. Also, in terms of success, I’d say, if every such event can get even 1 startup up and running (for example how UberLabs got started in the last Startup Weekend at Delhi), I’d say the proof of concept is valid. There is then the spill over effect of getting teams together, and serendipity of stumbling upon possible new ideas.

What I’ve been reading

Rishabh — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 02:05:44 +0000

1) Investing for Sustainable Growth: The Aavishkaar Experiment for Sustainable Financing, a 2003 paper written by V Anantha Nageswaran very soon after Aavishkaar was registered under SEBI. Aavishkaar ofcourse is a very well known name and since the time of the paper, has raised a total of 4 funds now. However it was interesting to hear about the beginnings. Nageswaran (also a board members) makes references to Raghuram Rajan’s Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists, while making the point that mainstream early stage VCs were more busy funding IT/services companies. There are relatively more VC funds that provide access to the sectors that Aavishkaar focuses on (Microfinance, Agri business, Water/Sanitation etc), but Aavishkaar has clearly been the initiator of this sort of financing.

2) The Nageswaran article in turn got me to read Rajan and Zingales’ introduction to Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists. The authors speak about the how the role of the incumbents of capital (be it aristocracy or executives at large financial corporations) don’t want to give away their power. At the same time, during the time of financial crisis, people who have been laid off lose faith in markets. The two factors are a major threat to the existence of free markets. They argue that one doesn’t focus on the opportunities that the markets end up creating or have created in the past and goes on to speak about the politics of the markets. It is a compelling account. But then, there’s this.

3) Rajan’s paper introduced me to search funds, a concept whose origins lie in the MBA programs of technology focused universities such as Stanford. Simply put, it is a tiny amount to fund aspiring entrepreneurs to scout for companies that they can buy, grow and later sell. These funds typically fund a modest living expenditure/travel for the entrepreneur. Upon identification of a suitable business, the entrepreneur often goes back to the investors of the search fund to raise the amount to buy the chosen company. I would want to know of any search funds existing in India and what has been their experience.

Startup Kashmir

Rishabh — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 16:38:41 +0000

An oft quoted thesis of fighting violence, is to promote enterprise and development. The reasons being simpler: opportunities increase, people find things to get involved with and find an incentive to apply their energies to something constructive.

Kashmir has been a hot and controversial topic for a long long time. I recently found an interesting initiative a few weeks ago called Startup Kashmir, its backed by Mercy Corps. The plan currently is to empower the youth to startup, and move later to a wider audience. I will be tracking their progress and seeing how they engage the larger ecosystem, be it the government (which one needs on their side, especially in Kashmir), the talent, the Kashmiri Pandits who migrated out and anyone else who would like to be part of the Kashmir growth story.

This one document which speaks about the market opportunities in Kashmir was something I spent the latter half of my day going through. I would recommend you to have a look as well. About 80 different industries are covered, with the market size and opportunity at the local (Kashmir), national and global level.

Before a fire, comes a Spark

Rishabh — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 23:17:37 +0000

Importance of Colleges in creating wealth, jobs and all that jazz

By now most of you would have heard stats about the impact MIT entrepreneurs have had on the world. They have created companies that generate ridiculous revenues, something on the lines of 1 trillion USD. The impact of great institutions with an entrepreneurial culture on the nation’s (and the world’s) economy and society is fairly evident.

Looking at India and trying to find parallels with my college, I see that my alma mater, BITS Pilani (and the other campuses) has produced so many entrepreneurs and so many companies. Sadly no comprehensive study has been done to measure the impact created by BITSian entrepreneurs, but as I just look around, some of the largest companies across sectors have been started by BITSians. Here are some of the global names that you might be familiar with: Hotmail (Sabeer Bhatia), Bharat Forge (Baba Kalyani), Akamai (Preetish Nijhawan), Amkette. Closer home: redBus (Phanindra Sama), Janaagraha (Ramesh Ramanathan), Fabmall, now Indiaplaza (Hari Menon), Onida (Gulu Mirchandani), Microtek. I am certain if I go deeper into the numbers the total revenues will run into hundreds of billion dollars and millions of jobs.

BITS and Startups

The entrepreneurial bug has also hit a lot of youngsters in the last decade and today I am seeing my immediate seniors and batchmates start companies of all sizes, attracting investment from the top VC firms and seeing some awesome traction within the first year.

At this juncture, it only seemed natural that BITS Alumni Association come up and support the BITSian startups, nurture them by providing support in terms of mentoring, funding and creating a formal platform to aid the already growing ecosystem. With this in mind and a vision of putting BITS Pilani University (with its 4 campuses) among the top 3 entrepreneurship institutes in India, a spankin’ new initiative called Spark was launched a few months ago.

So for the last few months, I have been deeply involved with Spark Angels; an angel network looking to make seed stage investments (25 lakhs- 2 crores INR) in BITSian companies. The list of confirmed angels can be viewed here and what an exciting list it is indeed. The current plan is to have multiple investment rounds in a year. The startup side is equally exciting. Over the last few years I have met many startups with BITSian co-founders and there are multiple things that I am excited about:

They are young (average age less than 30).
They are diverse: Internet, Mobile, Cleantech, Healthcare, Education, Heavy Engineering, Retail, Logistics, Robotics, Food and Beverages, Non-profit, Law.
They want scale: I am yet to meet a BITSian entrepreneur who wants to be the king of his alley. Almost every single company wants to grow to capture a large chunk of the market. Yea yea, that’s what they all say. But in this case, what is reassuring are the type of customers, the traction, the clarity of the opportunity at hand and suchlike.

Apart from the entrepreneurs themselves, it is also great to see many BITSians part of the enabling ecosystem, be it Varsha (of Yourstory) or Hari (an entrepreneur who is now SVP at Venture Intelligence). Again, these are names that first come to mind. There are so so many more.

In the coming months, I will be posting interesting snippets about the learning from this experience as well as the progress on Spark’s mission on supporting BITSian entrepreneurship.

Hard Problems. Stupid Problems

Rishabh — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:32:04 +0000

We look at a phenomenon and at times label them as problems. Wanting to change the course of the phenomenon causes us to search for solutions to these problems. Sometimes these problems can have complex solutions. This is where education, healthcare, managing large data might fit. Then there are what Anand Giridharadas calls stupid problems, where the solution is often simple but we tend not to act.

I was witness to one such stupid problem last night.

Waking up at my usual time- midnight, I see this.

Turns out someone left the tap open and forgot to shut it. By the time I went out and shut it, we had a marsh.

What are some of the stupid problems that you have come across?

So which companies are startups coming from?

Rishabh — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:00:57 +0000

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.

Flipkart and Start-ups

Rishabh — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:21:03 +0000

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.

On volunteering

Rishabh — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 05:17:13 +0000

People often work tirelessly towards a cause they deeply care about. In MANNA in the Wilderness of AIDS, a book about how the Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance (MANNA) was set up; an organization which supplies food and forms a support system for those suffering from AIDS, co-founder Prof. Kenwyn Smith (one of our faculty at the Young India Fellowship) writes about how a lot of people who volunteered there were people who had family members or friends affected by AIDS.

Which makes me think, what are the other motivations for people to associate with a particular cause? Are there any stories of sustained volunteerism in smaller organizations? This brings two important factors.

How to reach out to those who would most likely identify with a particular cause because of some personal experience which is directly related to that cause?
How to reach out to those who haven’t had such an experience?

Personal experience as well as talking to folks who run such organizations tells me that the first has a much higher chance of succeeding. The latter however, presents an exciting opportunity and an interesting topic for further exploration.

Any leads, research, organizations of success stories?

Parting note: If you are someone or know someone who would be interested in volunteering at an organization which works towards alcohol/substance abuse (very hands on and grassroots level) in Delhi, do ping me at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com.

Progress and Obsolescence

Rishabh — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:15:47 +0000

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.

Data Collection: Now and Then

Rishabh — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 18:46:28 +0000

I was reading Suicide by Emile Durkheim (this is a link to a summary); a 450 page behemoth with numbers and inferences about suicides. Durkheim’s work has been seminal to the understanding of suicide from a sociological perspective. Durkheim admits in the introduction to the book that attempting such a task such as recording suicide can be quite a challenge given how many deaths can escape this categorization.

I would think that if Durkheim was born in this age, he would be thoroughly pissed. Perhaps, with the rising world population, with more urbanization kicking in and larger sociological factors which could lead to suicide, documenting these facts would be quite a challenge today. The relative detachment from religious institutions which recorded such a data in the past would also be a contributing factor in making it more difficult to assess the numbers. On the other hand, would the state, which has taken over that responsibility (have they?), be recording such data? Or are we left to the mercy of randomized control trials?

I was just thinking about how with rising populations some things would become tougher to assess, no matter how improved the technology is. Not because the technology is lacking, but because contributing factors to a variety of events are coalescing and perhaps our technologies and data gathering techniques are just not able to match up to the speed with which our society and populations are changing.

A possible workout playlist?

Rishabh — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:43:11 +0000

Yesterday I was asked to make a workout playlist, which is supposed to charge up one’s senses and make them jog their heart out. Of course there were some considerations that had to be taken into account. Firstly, I don’t work out. So, at best, this list would be me indulging in wishful thinking. Secondly, I was given strict mandate that it should include various genres. But what it really means is that, it better have a fair amount of trance/dance stuff with a teeny weeny of other things. Thirdly, person summoning me is a woman.

With groggy eyes and little bit of reputation at stake, I embarked on the project. Here is the bastard child. Comments in brackets.

Modern Rock:

Joker and Thief – Wolfmother (Johnny Knoxville thinks its cool. So do I. But seriously speaking, right from the kick ass intro, the song is perfect for a morning jog)
Last Resort- Papa Roach (Old favorite from school days)

Classic Rock:

Start me up- Rolling Stone (It’s the frikkin Stones man)
Working Man- Rush

Hip Hop/Rap/Rap Rock:

American Boy- Kanye West
Ante Up- M.O.P (Probably one of the most thugged out songs ever, love the energy. Though, I will say this, this song is more likely to get you into a fight)
Remember the Name- Fort Minor (The NBA uses it, bitch!)
Numb/Encore – Jay Z/Linkin Park Low – Flo rida

Trance/Dance/Pop:

It ain’t gettin over- David Guetta, Fergie (If you ask me, this is really a token Guetta song, for they all sound the same to me)
What is Love- Haddaway (I remember this song playing in most bowling alleys and arcades during the early 90s)
Pump It- Black Eyed Peas (Because it reminds me of Pulp Fiction. It probably will give you more of a heist feel than a workout)
Baya Baya – Safri Duo (With that kind of percussion, of course!)
I got a pocketful of Sunshine- Natasha Bedingfield
Bad Romance- Lady Gaga
Tik Tok- Kesha (what to say)

Notes: The last three are definitely very catchy, though I am kinda embarrassed they made it to the list. I would have liked a few RATMs in that list.

(Image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jnforte/)

Where can I find all the works of MF Husain?

Rishabh — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:20:59 +0000

Art Appreciation (by Prof Anunaya Chaubey) is one of the courses that I am pursuing this term at the Young India Fellowship. One of the assignments is to visit the National Gallery of Modern Art, pick a painting and write about it, keeping in mind various criterion discussed in class.

I liked Satish Gujral’s Ecstasy, MF Husain’s Cyclonic Silence, an untitled work by SH Raza and a few other miniatures.

Upon returning to my hostel I thought these are big names, one could easily find their works online. Surely there must be scores of websites dedicated to their work.

How wrong I was.

Some of the foreign galleries have used technology and presented online viewers with a virtual tour of their paintings. Some other contemporary artists have their own websites showcasing their entire collection. The problem arises with artists, especially the Indian ones whose career span into decades. Websites are mostly maintained by fans, but there is again an inconsistency in the presentation, comprehensiveness or the regularity. And understandably so.

But I get a feeling that this must be the case with art in general. It is much easier to present music or text online. Paintings become a tough endeavor. The galleries don’t allow photography, and even if they are put up online, I am assuming the tagging done is so badly that it is virtually impossible to locate some of the earlier and relatively lesser known works online.

This however, might also be a worthy investment for a project. Perhaps by some like Soros’ Open Society Institute or perhaps Google itself. There should also be some crowdsourced medium where folks can upload the works of some of the great artists (to start with), so that there exist places, which aim to become the exhaustive catalog of these artists. And I think this is crucial especially from an Indian context.

Passing Opinions

Rishabh — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 09:40:12 +0000

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.

Do other countries have Mosquitoes like they do here in Ghana?

Rishabh — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 23:42:35 +0000

Term 2 has Media, Culture and Globalization being taught by Prof Radha Hegde. This obviously means that there’s a lot of reading to be done. There’s also a lot of watching that has to be done. This is the first course I have been a part of which showed an R Kelly video (Snake). The video was used to portray Orientalism. But I digress.

One of the course particulars includes us watching this video from Ghana where ~~I suspect some NGOs~~ Anya Kandel, founder of Momentus International (more about it here) and a graduate student at NYU, went around asking the kids about the questions they had for “The Man”. Here’s a video for your viewing pleasure:

Some questions are simple, such as why don’t the Heads of State fight wars themselves like duels of the past, as was the case during Aristocracy or why do Western nations come and work in Africa but make it tough for Africans to work there. Those are the hardest to answer. Then there were those which asked, why was it that in Africa they cane people. The answer to that I suppose could be because developed nations seem to have found an expensive alternative: suing.

One simple enough question on which I indeed had an opinion was when one boy asks whether there were mosquitoes in other countries, because here in Ghana, they bit them like crazy.

A simple check would tell you that Canada and US has anywhere between 400-2000 (?!) cases of Malaria each year, most of them attributed to immigrants from Asia and Sub saharan region. (Source). This is hardly surprising given the temperate regions that these nations lie in.

Jeffrey Sachs in End of Poverty and Commonwealth highlights how with the onset of rising temperatures, there are higher chances of US and other temperate regions facing a rise of malaria apart from a myriad of other diseases they’d have never experienced. As I have always maintained, while climate change will affect all of us (Remember in the long term, we’re all dead ), in the short term it will create winners and losers. Of course, with the rising temperatures, that’s going to be the least of their worries.

Update: After watching the video, we had a skype call with Anya to discuss her work and learning in Africa. Some interesting take aways from that:

1. The schools in South Ghana that Anya met had Muslim and Christian associations. Yet, when Anya asked them about a communal rift, they seemed puzzled. Anya shared that there was absolutely no communal issue, at least at the school level there.

2. The children were puzzled by the amount of waste that was being dumped into Africa by the developing nations. Having read a little about it earlier, I am aware that Africa is one of the largest dumping ground of electronic waste in the world.

3. Western nations have a intricate and violent history and there’s no escaping that. Any development work that takes place there needs to keep that in mind. At the same time, it’s also important to understand that Africa isn’t a homogeneous continent. Some nations have stable governments, some don’t. Some have done well for themselves as far as governance and economy goes (Rwanda for example under the leadership of Paul Kagame), some have well…not done so well.

It was nice chatting with Anya. She was quite patient with our questions and told us that she too was facing similar questions (Academia vs Corporate world/ notions of development/ impact vs approach ). Sort of tells us, despite the cultural differences, twenty somethings (or people in general) around the world have multiple strands connecting them.

Gandhi, Modernity, modernization

Rishabh — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 00:59:51 +0000

The 2nd semester at the YIF has a course called Gandhi’s critique of Modernity.

This obviously means that there is tons of reading to be done. I thought of sharing some of the articles on this blog for benefit of others.

“Gandhi After Gandhi After Gandhi” by Ashis Nandy. In the essay, Nandy speaks about how he can distinctly carve out four different Gandhis and how each Gandhi has his followers. While distinguishing them might not always seem the most obvious thing to us, it does however helps us realize that we are always at a risk of oversimplifying this complex man and his ideas. Merely tagging something with the word Gandhian, then, does little to put things into the right context.

http://www.littlemag.com/nandy.htm

Anand Giridhardas in a conversation with Eric Li, a chinese VC and nationalist thinker, discusses about Eric’s views on modernity (which he claims echoes China’s views of the same). The discussion brings to light how according to Eric, Modernity as an idea has evolved from the western civilizations and its main pillars of liberal democracy, capitalism and the individual as a basic unity of society might be debated in other parts of the world. He distinguishes this from modernization, which he refers to the material advancements and desires. (not part of course curriculum)

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/14/step-aside-american-dream-heres-chinas/

Of course no course involving Gandhi can be completed without My Experiments with Truth, which takes us deeper inside them man’s life (till about mid 1930′s). This is coupled with Attenborough’s Gandhi and if time permits, Jinnah.

Before jumping into Gandhi, we spent a considerable time on understanding how history is written and presented to us. For this, the class is advised to read the Introduction to Bernard Cohn’s Colonialism and Its form of Knowledge. This is a really good crash course in understanding the various modalities of history.

The sessions are being taken by Prof Vivek Bhandari.

Initial thoughts on Anish Kapoor’s Flesh

Rishabh — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 11:34:15 +0000

I had written a tiny piece for my writing class last week. The assignment was to take an art object and describe how we felt when we first saw it. To begin with I wrote about an Air Conditioner. After further discussions, I decided to write about another art object, this one more mainstream as far as recognizing it as an art piece is concerned. So here is my attempt at recreating the moment when I first saw Anish Kapoor’s “Flesh” last year at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi.

Next step is to take an idea from this and write another essay. But that is for later.

Core

View more documents from Rishabh Kaul.

As always, feedback welcome in the comments section or directly to me at rishabhkaul at gmail dot com