What is the name of this blog again?
Sometimes when you are searching for something you can find something completely different that makes you wonder what people were thinking back then, and if they have ever bothered to acknowledge - "No, I had no bloody clue what I was talking about, and I am sorry!"
There were 4.5 million mobile users in January 2001 - the argument given was mobile users are richer than fixed line users. I don't want to give the low-down on the growth of the industry, it is fairly well documented and the same columnists are saying quite different things. But anyway, I will give some other interesting factoids - in January 2003 when Calling Party Pays (CPP) was introduced, (with everybody's favourite hipocrites the Communists arguing vehemently against it, calling the move 'anti-poor') India had 10.4 million mobile users. That was four years ago - in January 2007 we closed just short of 140 million mobile users. At the rate we are adding subscribers there is a good chance India will blow blast 200 million by the close of the year.
Essentially, something Ms Dalal did not realise. I mean 130 million users in 48 months since CPP was introduced - quite an achievement in my book!
I know six years is a long time, but CPP was the first major 'hockey stick' to the Indian Mobile industry - the secpond major one followed two years later and that was decidedly Indian innovation of 'flexi recharge', but I really don't have the time to get into telecom history, because I will babble away for hours. However, having a socialist mindset doesn't really help does it because mobile phones have empowered the lower classes and most of the growth in Indian telecom is happening from those classes.
If the telecom model was followed for other parts of Indian industry, where the government decided to untangle a highly regulated industry and free it, wonderful things can happen despite who is in charge. For gods sake, two of the most revolutionary telecom ministers were Sukh Ram and Pramod Mahajan.
You know, I sometimes wonder if some of our politicians actually follow a policy of 'enforced poverty' - keep people poor and uneducated so that they can hang on to power as long as possible by encouraging politics of reservation and appeasement. I mean, I'm not a loony right-wing guy, but the Sachar Committee report is insane! Education which will lead to economic empowerment is the governments responsibility which is why I don't really mind the 'Education Cess' on the taxes I pay, but any further increases will be pushing it. The economic empowerment which follows that education cannot be the government's responsibility, it has to flow from private industry. The telecom industry has provided employment for thousands of people - directly and indirectly and shows how things can work. Even if you have columnists who don't know jackshit!
Of course, you have even bigger idiots on TV, from ponytailed 'management clowns' to people in UndieTV who run 'NDTV Exclusive' for news that broke six months ago. According to someone I know who worked with air-headed bimbette she asked what the BSE was? And you are a 'corporate' reporter? CRR, CPP, RoCE, EBITDA I am willing to understand, but knowing what BSE stood for, at the age of 23? Wow, I guess tits really are everything!
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5 comments:
Hav ur K and eat it too!
Im really beginning to enjoy your posts. I find ur narratives really interesting and i find it a really interesting place to learn more about the stories, behind the scene.
I get this strong feeling after reading this story that at some point you have come across sucheta dalal, o r probably u still know her. But whatsoever its interesting
. Keep it going K
Regards
I am not a fanboy of Sucheta Dalal, nor do I read many business columnists, but I must admit she happens to be one of the sane voices in business columnists. Comparing her with dumb journo is downright insulting given the depth of knowledge of Sucheta. Do read her articles about how the corporates sc**w small investors, while the watchdog acts like a toothless guard. Yes, she might be off the mark here, but then, you are being unfair to her. Grossly unfair. Show me a few other journalists, who have consistently written against incumbent Govts and still managed to get a Padma award.
Coming to original article, it is simply unfair, rather naive, to attribute all the growth to CPP regime. The CPP posed problems of a huge matrix of call rates across distance, time and technology. It needed dire simplification. Some policies and Reliance's entry brought death of complex tables which only a number-junkie will understand.
In 2007, Windows Vista is supposed to require 4 GB RAM to run smoothly. That is just two decades after Bill Gates famously said, "640KB ought to be enough for anybody!" You got my point, right?
You got it right when you called the Indian communists hypocrites. It's true that most political parties (left-right-centre) are hypocrtical, but India's left probably takes the crown of hypocrisy.
Their latest series of dumbo policies include:
1) Opposing Kolkata Airport's privatization which means that the incompetent AAI (which cannot manage a cattle shed) will keep managing Kolkata Airport.
2) Oppoosing entry of retailers like Reliance in the state which means the state will miss out on organized retail boom.
3) Attempts to open up government controlled food malls in the city of Kolkata. Remember the idiotic stores run by givernment called Tantuja, Ttantushree where no givernent employee (a memeber of leftists trade union) worked? They only snored while crores of rupees were lost and now they are begging the British government to pay the severence packages!
4) Opposing introduction of modern buses and taxis because the owners of the polluting buses and taxis with no basic amenities are mostly owned by (you guessed right) - communist leaders, politburo members and their relatives.
5) Opposing SEZs in Bengal while other states will zoom ahead on this front.
6) Opposing industrialization of the state (in this they have company of morons like Medha Patkar, Arundhuti Ray and mega moron Mamata Bannerjee and anti national Naxalites).
7) Opposing higher standards in educational institutions because educated people are a threat to the communists.
8) Not opposing child marriage, child labour and bonded labour except in seminars in Delhi. The last time a communist leader was asked about bonded labour in Howrah, she replied that it was a "social" issue and people would die of hunger if the government closed down the bonded labour factories (shame shame).
9) Not opposing communalism of all religions. Indeed who is the bigger communal party - BJP or the Communists? Well both play equally dirty religious votebank politics. The process of industrialization in Nandigram has been stopped because the CPIM is afraid of losing a religious votebank chunk.
10) Not opposing illegal migration which has made West Bengal a 100 million population state with no footpaths empty of encroachers. These are golden vote banks for the communists, but soon people will have to fight for space to stand.
The Indian Communists need to put a big mirror at their politburo meetings in Delhi and see for themselves what evil their policies have brought upon West Bengal and India.
Thanks for the delightful sarcasm....
"You know, I sometimes wonder if some of our politicians actually follow a policy of 'enforced poverty' - keep people poor and uneducated so that they can hang on to power as long as possible by encouraging politics of reservation and appeasement.
I thought that was pretty much a given. Power requires dependence of others. It's that simple. The better off and more empowered the PEOPLE, the less empowered The Person, referring to the Politicians ofcourse.
And yeh, Tits do get everything..
Gotta love tits.
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