From President’s speech in 2007:

• “Today, the average age of India’s population is below 25 years. Approximately, 77 crore of our people, or about 70 percent of the population, fall below the age of 35.”

From Tracking The Growth of India’s Middle Class:

• “Over the next 20 years, India will likely grow to become the world’s fifth-largest consumer economy.”
• “If India can achieve 7.3 percent annual growth—a reasonable assumption if economic reforms continue—consumer spending will quadruple, from about 17 trillion Indian rupees ($372 billion) in 2005 to 70 trillion rupees in 2025. The dramatic growth in India’s middle class, from 50 million to 583 million people, will power this surge.”

From “Tainted money” by Devinder Sharma:

• “In India, 77% of the population is able to spend only Rs 20 a day.”

From Atanu Dey :

• “Today one of out every two children below five is malnourished”

From Shashi Tharoor :

• “Anything that you say about India, the opposite is also true. But India is more than the sum of its contradictions.”
• “600 million people don’t have electricity”
• “260 million are below poverty line, i.e., < 30 rupees per day”
• “400 million illiterates”
• “540 million people < 25 years”
• “60 million child labourers”
• “72% of children in govt. schools drop out before 8th standard”
• “IT employs a total of 5 million people, but 10 million people enter workforce each year”

Feel free to draw your own conclusions.

I attended a Bangalore South Lok Sabha Candidates’ debate yesterday, this time held at NMKRV Jayanagar and organized by the Rotary Clubs of South Bangalore.

Only Capt. Gopinath (Independent) had arrived on time. Ananth Kumar (BJP) arrived a bit late but immediately greeted each and every individual in the hall and asked them to vote. When the organizers decided to go ahead even though there were only 2 candidates, Prof. Radhakrishna of JD(S) arrived. Krishna Byregowda (Congress) never turned up at all.

The session was mostly about questions asked by Mohandas Pai (Times of India) to the candidates and gave them roughly a minute each to answer.

Most of the questions were good and thankfully the answers were also forthcoming.

IMHO, Prof. Radhakrishna was rambling more than making sense. Since Krishna Byregowda didn’t show up, I don’t know much about him even though he has spoken well in interviews. Ananth Kumar and Capt. Gopinath were both impressive, made a lot of sense and had vision. It is going to be very tough to choose between these two candidates for me.

Plus points for Ananth Kumar include that he has been an MP four times, been the Civil Aviation Minister, etc. and he answered questions to the point. He indulged in rhetoric about why Congress has brought India down, and why things were great during Vajpayee’s tenure – ignoring these aspects, he seemed like a good candidate.

Plus points for Capt. Gopinath include that he has been an entrepreneur himself – Deccan Aviation made flying possible for the average person, he has been in the army and fought a war in Kashmir, and he voices Bangaloreans’ concerns well. He was vocal about the state of the Metro and questioned why trees in Lalbagh has to be cut down, and the whole crowd cheered for that statement.

Towards the end of the session, the audience also got turns to ask questions, but it turned out to be rhetorical provoking questions rather than questions with real value.

For more details about Bangalore candidates, read the full interviews at SmartVote.in. I’m sure there are more sites out there for the other constituencies in India.

I think there are two takeaways from the day for me.

First, vote for the candidate, not the party. If you think voting for an independent candidate is going to be a “waste” of your vote, think again. Is it better to have 500 excellent people in the Lok Sabha regardless of which party they belong to, or is it better to have 500 people, whose usefulness is doubtful, belonging to 2-3 big parties in the Lok Sabha?

There are good people stepping into politics trying to make a difference and we should encourage them. After all, we don’t jump into politics, let us support those who do. For example:

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I had grown up among engineers, and I could remember the engineers of the twenties very well indeed: their open, shining intellects, their free and gentle humor, their agility and breadth of thought, the ease with which they shifted from one engineering field to another, and, for that matter, from technology to social concerns and art. Then, too, they personified good manners and delicacy of taste; well-bred speech that flowed evenly and was free of uncultured words; one of them might play a musical instrument, another dabble in painting; and their faces always bore a spiritual imprint.

– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in his book “The Gulag Archipelago”

Though the Lok Sabha elections are just a month away, more than 50 per cent of voters in Bangalore still do not have Electoral Photo Identity Cards (EPIC).

Ramakrishna blamed lackadaisical attitude of citizens, especially software professionals, for low EPIC coverage. “People working in IT and BT firms show indifference towards EPIC. Even though our officials go to their doorstep on weekends, they do not respond. They say that EPIC is of no use of them,” he pointed out.

However, there has been a good response from those living in slums, the official added.

– Deccan Herald on March 20, 2009

If you want to find out what jobs are available in startups in India, then there are myriad resources to check:

• VentureWoods
• Pluggd.in ‘coffee’ forum
• Pluggd.in ecosystem section
• Hello Intern
• Sutra Jobs
• Indian Jobs board at ‘Joel On Software’
• Barcamp Mumbai Startup Jobs section
• NEN Startup Jobs section
• Startup Lunches, part of proto.in
• Startup Dunia     [added to this list on Mar 17, 2009]
• Talentty     [added to this list on Mar 28, 2009]
• Work For A Startup     [added to this list on May 15, 2009]
• My Special Job     [added to this list on May 15, 2009]

Are there other resources that should be on this list? Please let me know in the comments.

There are other questions I’m wondering as well:

• Which are the popular places followed by the startuppers who are looking to hire interns, freshers and experienced people?
• For passionate students/freshers who want to work in startups, where do they start? Should they just apply via these sites or should they first do in-person networking at OpenCoffeeClub, Startup Saturday and similar meeting grounds first?

Continuing the “Ideas are Cheap” series, here’s another simple idea that I would personally find very useful but would be difficult to execute in terms of content.

These days I’m finding it hard to read Kannada newspapers because my vocabulary is clearly lacking, and consequently I would probably never get to read novels by Kannada novelists like Shivaram Karanth and other respected writers.

On the other side, there has been an influx of a lot of people from outside Karnataka into Bengaluru in the past few years. Since you can easily get by in Bengaluru with English or Hindi, most of them don’t learn Kannada even though many of them would like to.

What if there were word lists for Kannada just like GRE/TOEFL to improve people’s vocabulary? But in a more fun setting on the lines of what DailyLit is doing – they email you 1-2 pages of a book each day, so if you read your email each day, you’ll end up reading a book as well.

It can also be done similar to what @rajeshlalwani has done with his hindi word of the day series on twitter.

If there is already a service like this, please let me know, I’ll sign up.

My favorite session at proto.in 5th edition was by Atul Chitnis who reinforced the basics of business. He made one remark which seems obvious but something that we don’t put in practice:

“Today is history. Build for the future so that your product can be ready just in time.”

As opposed to only thinking of right now, taking a year to build it and realize it is no longer needed, or more likely, it is no longer the way things are done.

This statement immediately came to my mind when I was reading the announcement of ‘Triple Play’ by Airtel:

Rs. 999 per month which gives 135 channels including 256 kbps broadband speed with unlimited download and a landline connection.

First, you can imagine internet access completely on the television in homes, say in a year or so.

Second, if you combine this with their Online Desktop feature(¹), and you can imagine how people will be accessing computing on their TV just a year down the lane without ever buying a traditional desktop computer. And best of all, users can easily install/uninstall applications (on rental basis) without hassles/worries/dangers of “ruining your computer” since Airtel will be hosting the computing facility.

The question is: If you are a company (whether big or small) in the tech space, do your products and services take this into account?

Similarly, we all know that netbooks are the rage now. Atul predicted that these are stop-gap measures until people realize that they can do the same things with slightly higher-end phones.

Again, ask the same question above.

Technology indeed changes so fast and changes our lifestyle along with it.

Other useful points from the talk:

• It is not the tools you use. It’s how you use them.
• Those who forget history (i.e. learn from others’ mistakes) are doomed to repeat it.
• If product is good, price is right, people will buy it.
• A product is more than just code. A customer wants a solution and a long term relationship with the service provider.
• Today is history. Build for the future so that your product can be ready in time.
• Markets can be created.
• Hint: Assume connectivity. Local storage no longer matters.
• Biggest products are mobile products now. Simple products, not big things.
• Advertising doesn’t pay. Unless you’re Yahoo or Google.
• VC funding is not a viable business model. Unless you’re a VC.

⁽¹⁾ Has this service actually taken off? Who uses it, I wonder.

Last weekend, I was back in Sharavathy Valley in Shimoga, but this time for some water sports.

Here’s a photo essay of the trip:

When we were reaching our camp area, the entrance itself was impressive, and I was excited by such clear blue water.

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Sunday was the day of the second Bangalore Ultra Marathon.

Had to get up at 3AM in order to reach Cubbon Park at 4:30AM for the buses to take us to ‘Our Native Village’ resort in Hesaraghatta. We reached early at 6AM and were waiting for the day to begin.

The 37.5, 50, 75, 100KM runners started off at 6:30AM, and everyone were cheering them on. There was one person Santhosh who was running from 6PM on the previous day doing a target of 24 hours or 200KM. Phew.

On a random whim, I decided to tweet during the marathon.

6:59 AM: Waiting for the 25K run to start at 730, it sucks to wait for an hour after the 50+ K #ultra runners

7:30 AM: Start!

I decide to run without music for the first 20 min.

After a while, I started listening to a talk by David Heinemeier Hansson on ‘The Great Surplus’ which is a really good talk that I recommend any dev should listen to. After that was over, I didn’t have the mental processing energy to listen to more podcasts, so I switched to listening to music.

I think the majority of runners here were either listening to music or running in groups.

Life Lesson learned: Do whatever it takes to keep your motivation high.

9:00 AM: Finished first loop of 12.5 km in exactly 1.5 hours. Not sure if I can complete within my target time of 3 hours.

9:25 AM: Body begs to stop. Mind says hell no.

Life Lesson learned: It’s all in the mind.

9:37 AM: Starting to feel that good pain in the knees.

Life Lesson learned: You need to cross a certain threshold of activity before you start feeling positive and energized. Activity precedes motivation.

9:52 AM: Reached 3/4th mark. 2 hours 23 minutes. There are a few people retired hurt on the mats and doctor is treating them… Getting some electral.

Life Lesson learned: I strangely found tweeting through the marathon actually helped me being more positive. It had the same effect as journaling. In this case, I got to vent my pain and frustration. After that, I felt lighter, felt like I had a fresh start and felt the need to do something more/better that is worth tweeting about.

9:55 AM: This is one beautiful location. Green everywhere.

Life Lesson learned: The right environment matters.

10:04 AM: 50+km runners whizzing by. How do they do that.

Life Lesson learned: There will always be people better than you but you shouldn’t get bogged down. As Bob Parsons says “Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you’re doing. When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.”

10:40 AM: 2km to go. Signs of cramps.

Life Lesson learned: As Bob Parsons says “When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think. There’s an old Chinese saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this: ‘The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.’”

10:55 AM: Finished. 25 km in 3 hours 24 minutes. More than I wished. But ran better than expected. So happy.

11:04 AM: Nothing like pushing yourself beyond what you think you can. Amazing what the human mind and body can do.

Life Lesson learned: Life is more meaningful and fun when you have big hairy audacious goals.

The best part was that my timing had improved significantly from last time where I finished in 3 hr 52 min – an improvement of nearly half an hour! I usually berate myself on not performing well, but this was something even I was happy about especially because I finished strongly and not limping to the finish line as I had experienced in previous marathons.

Life Lesson learned: (Again) As Bob Parsons says: “Measure everything of significance. I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched, improves.”

Life Lesson learned: It’s tough. Are you?

You’re running on guts. On fumes. Your muscles twitch. You throw up. You’re delirious. But you keep running because there’s no way out of this hell you’re in, because there’s no way you’re not crossing the finish line. It’s a misery that non-runners don’t understand.

– Martine Costello

Update: Santhosh finally completed 156KM! Also, Tanvir has compiled a list of blog posts by various Ultra runners.

Every startup needs to do some market research while working on their next big idea. And part of this market research is looking at demographic and economic data to find out the size of your target audience.

For most of those who are reading this, the audience probably is people who use computers. Now, how do we find out such numbers? That’s where the Internet and Mobile Association of India steps in with their “Internet in India 2007″ report (PDF).

Some of the high-level overviews from that report:

• The numbers are based on a survey across 30 cities and 65000 individuals.
• The breakdown of the urban population is explained nicely in this funnel graphic:

• 70% of people who know how to use computers have accessed the Internet at least once.
• 70% of these at-least-once users become regular users.
• Claimed internet users have risen from 32.2 million in 2006 to 46 million in 2007.
• 38% are from the Top 8 urban cities, 12% from 5-10 lakh population cities, and 29% from 2-5 lakh population cities!
• Young Men and College Students are the major chunk of the growing Internet user base.
• There has been a decrease in usage by older men and non-working women.
• PC ownership increased by 48% last year! Thanks to slashed PC prices.
• With Government of India declaring 2007 as the Broadband Year, Internet ownership has increased by 32% last year!
• The difference in increase of PC ownership (48%) vs. increase in Internet ownership (32%) is probably because of broadband penetration and availability
• 36% use a cyber-café, 30% from home, 25% from office, 7% from school/college and 2% others.
  • The cyber-café is still the most prominent point of Internet access.
  • This is a valuable data point to consider regarding security when designing applications – people are NOT necessariliy using their own desktops all the time.
  • Usage from home and cyber-café has decreased vs. Usage from office and schools/colleges has increased. Note that these are percentages, the absolute numbers might paint a different picture, but I couldn’t find them in this report.
• Usage can be classified into three broad categories:
  1. Communication – Email, chat
  2. Infotainer – Gaming, news, blogs, encyclopedia
  3. Sticky applications – Online banking, online ticketing, online shopping
• 61% state communication as the main reason they access the Internet. 25% for information and e-commerce. And 13% for entertainment.
  • What’s interesting is that percentage of people with information as the main reason has decreased from 32% in 2006 to 20% in 2007.
  • I’m guessing that percentage of entertainment will increase with better broadband access.
• 2/3rd of users access Internet 2-3 times a week.
  • 25% access daily, 19% 4-6 times a week, 23% 2-3 times a week, 18% once a week, and rest 15% about a few times a month
  • (It should be strange for us always-on people to see 75% of people not use it on a daily basis!)

These are very interesting numbers. I wonder how they compare with the growth graphs of Internet-advanced countries such as USA or Japan.

The IAMAI have many more interesting reports on topics such as Online Banner Advertising Market in India, Consumer E-commerce Market in India, Online Gaming in India, Mobile Value Added Services in India, and so on.

This weekend, we climbed Mullainagiri and Bababudanagiri. Even though this is my third visit, it never fails to delight me on its beauty. Mullainagiri and Tadiyandamol are my favorite trekking spots in terms of scenery.

In the 3-4 days before the trek, we didn’t spend enough time on the preparation and hence we were worried. So I wrote a “Trekking Howto a.k.a. “The Checklist” which we can read before a trek so that we won’t have to rethink every time about whether we have taken care of all aspects.

It was a perfect trek in terms of weather and company. We had the most fun in looking back after every few hours and seeing how far we have come, since we could actually see the Mullainagiri temple while trekking towards Bababudanagiri.

How to do the Mullainagiri trek : Arrive at Chikmagalur. Hire a jeep to take you to the starting point of the trek, cost Rs.250. The starting point is a small iron gate that will lead you directly into the hill. Follow the path. After 1-2 hours, you’ll reach the topmost point – the temple. You can request the purohit here to stay for the night and they’ll even prepare dinner if you ask them. Wrap yourself up in your sleeping bag for the night because it is going to get really cold.

The next day morning, start early or late depending on whether you want to face the cold weather, but leave at least by 8 or 9. Make sure you donate a good amount to the purohit for being a good host. Follow the path downhill towards the right from the temple. After a few hours, you’ll reach the road. Cross the road towards the right and start trekking downwards. This is the start of a good long up-and-down route towards Bababudanagiri. Once you reach the destination, have some tea and pakodas at the stalls. Then either hire a jeep (Rs.10-20 per head) or walk down to the Bababudanagiri temple. Make sure you catch the 3.30pm bus which will take you back to Chikmagalur.

The photos are of low quality because they are taken using my mobile phone. Regardless, the rest of the photos are in my Flickr set.

Update: Photos by Vikram and photos by Varun.