Happy New Year 2017. We are very happy, enjoying our journey to Chennai.
Our train is running twelve hours late. Nilay is delighted that he'll be spending an extra twelve hours in the train. He finds the journey more exciting than the destination.
More excitement awaits us in Chennai. Shaastra and Saarang 2017.
So I made some albums using Google Photos today. The experience is so much better than Facebook.
Now I want to share them on Facebook. I don't want to make them public, since these albums have my kids in them. Google will only let me select people from my Gmail address book to share with. What I want to do is share it friends-only on Facebook.
And that's when I realised. Google has its own social network. They want me to use that for friends-only sharing.
Well played, Google, well played. If you can't build a more popular social network, build an awesome photo software.
So, this just happened. I wrote a nonsensical comment on a former classmate's post, and the next person to waltz in and comment is an actual successful movie actor. Now I don't know whether to leave my stupid comment there or remove it.
Saurabh Jain. An embarrassment to his friends since 1985 (before that they were too young to notice).
मेरे पास सौ-सौ के सौ नोट हैं। तुम्हारे पास क्या है?
My first withdrawal since the demon struck. Didn't even have to visit the bank. The perks of maintaining a healthy banking relationship over a long period.
(Actually, the perks of having your own business with an accountant who maintains a healthy relationship with your bank for you.)
Today we watched two plays at Jashn-e-bachpan, NSD.
The first was a Malayalam play about the environment. The kids could relate to much of the story without understanding the dialogues. After the play, apart from the story, we also talked about the age of the actors (all little kids), their fluency and flawlessness, the beautiful colours, props, lighting, sound, etc.
The second was an Assamese play. It had special children as part of the cast. Actually, there are one of two possibilities. Either the special children were fantastic actors. Or the children were exceptional actors who could copy the mannerisms of a special child without making it theatric. We had to leave midway because the kids were hungry.
Watching both plays, we realised that theatre provides a window not just to stories from other cultures, but also the language, clothing, houses, lifestyle, mannerisms, hairstyles, etc.
We had actually gone rushing for a Hindi play but it was running house full. We hadn't booked in advance because I wasn't expecting to be free today.
Tickets only ₹20. It would be a shame if you live in Delhi with kids and don't attend. Don't bother about the language, just go.
I would be very grateful if, as a gesture of celebrating my birthday, you would spend some of your bank balance to buy food or medicines for those who do not have the means. I know it sounds cliched and cheesy, but hey, haven't I always been that way :p
Even better, if you have some (usable) cash, please buy from the little guys. They do not want your charity. They need your change to get the cash economy going again.
Thank you again for making my day really special. Jai hind!
Crores of people with Jan Dhan and other bank accounts have never used their debit-cum-ATM cards. Why? Because of a lack of financial literacy in India.
Impart financial literacy to those around you. Help them cope with life after cash (if you believe that the current demonetisation move will lead to a cashless Indian economy).
Now is an excellent time for all of us to ask our banks to move from MasterCard and Visa to RuPay.
When you swipe your debit or credit card at a shop, the merchant receives money in their bank account. The bank that issues the POS terminal to the merchant, charges them a fees per transaction. There is a fixed fees and a variable fees. The variable fees has been capped by the Indian government at 0.75% for transactions under ₹2,000, and 1% for transactions above ₹2,000.
This percentage fees only applies to cards issued by MasterCard and Visa. There is an Indian initiative called RuPay, where there is no percentage fees at all!
Are you using a RuPay card? To my knowledge, 100% of Indian ATMs and POS terminals accept RuPay. Stop making videshi companies richer. Go swadeshi with RuPay.
When other card issuers charge 1%, RuPay was merely charging ₹1 per transaction. Even that has been waived two days back. Gotta love these guys!
Now is a great time to force the government into encouraging Business Correspondents. BCs have been allowed to exchange notes, which is a shot in their arm.
Now is a great time to force the government into improving our ATM infrastructure and penetration levels. One way of doing that is to promote non-bank ATMs. Read more...
Let me clarify. I personally stand to benefit tremendously from this drive against black money. Although the industry I am in, hardware, is mostly "white", there is still significant evasion. This means that our competitors do not have pay income tax on their margins, like we do. This encourages them to lower prices - they take home the same profit as us even if they reduce margins by 33%.
However, nothing we are seeing right now will reduce the long term evasion of income tax. Folks will continue to under invoice imports, thus paying significantly lower import duties than us for the same components. They will also evade excise tax by creating shell companies that "manufacture" up to ₹1.5 crores worth of goods every year, while being exempt from excise. But most significantly, they will continue to show phantom employees on their books, who are all paid in cash at the end of each month. Now these employees will be paid in ₹2,000 notes. Nothing else will change.
Rudyard Kipling called General Dyer the "saviour of India" after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. How little history we know, and how littler we choose to remember. We all sit and enjoy the Jungle Book as if...
Please see this. It is refreshing to see an Indian media outlet use data visualisation to explain something that affects us on a daily basis. Wonderful, and so useful.
Bangalore is the only major city that is livable. Mumbai appears livable, till you realise that the peaks during the morning and evening are very high, and that exposure is also bad for kids.
Elsewhere, smooth operators are cold calling small business owners like me, asking if we want cash converted to white. And expressing surprise and disappointment when I proudly declare that all of our business has always been in white.
Are you an entrepreneur, business owner, or director in a company. Has anyone called you asking to convert your cash into white for a "small percentage"?
Our lives revolve around money. We earn it, save it, spend it, lend it, worship it. And then one evening, just like that, someone declares it worthless.
Technically, cash, gold and bank balance only have notional value. But we never acknowledge that. Our houses, cars, clothes and stocks have some intrinsic value. But their market prices are almost always inflated. These too can come crashing down any day.
So what is real wealth? Some invest in relationships. But every day I hear stories of people being stabbed in the back by their own.
Others invest in knowledge. I build technology. Most of the stuff I learn becomes worthless within three years, as the next big fad comes along.
People build self respect. Social recognition. But look at the Syrians now. Where is their sense of identity? Their assets, experience, education, all ground into dust.
Everyone invests in themselves. You can travel. Meditate. Exercise (or, like me, eat). In that case, where is your wealth? Can you trade it with others? Can it be demonetised through an executive order? Can all your inner peace and sophistication wash away in the fury of one election result?
I'd like to hear from you. What is your wealth (material or otherwise)? How do you prevent others from taking it away from you? How do you exchange that wealth for things you need? Does it give you a sense of safety? Do you fear it losing its value overnight?
Dear Customer, As per RBI directions, IDBI Bank branches will not be operational for public dealing today, November 9th 2016. ATMs will remain closed for today, November 9th 2016 & tomorrow, November 10th 2016. Debit/Credit Cards/Net Banking services at merchants/e-commerce can be availed.
They're telling me they are closed today - after end of business hours. These same people are supposed to carry out the largest currency exchange exercise ever! 🙄
Many of my American friends are already talking of emigration.
May I suggest India? And not just to those who are of Indian origin. (I know, I know, Modi is no Trudeau, but it's not like you're moving to another country to live with the PM.)
Sure, we have pollution, corruption, myriad other problems. But to a capable mind these are merely opportunities. Maybe not to make money, but definitely to make a difference to this world.
So if you don't buy into Make America Great Again, come to India. It's already pretty damn great here.
There is also an FAQ section now. Please, please ask questions. I've received some excellent questions over WhatsApp and I will be including those here later in the day.
Meanwhile, the US has built a gun that costs $800,000 per shot. Which is so expensive that even the US cannot afford these bullets.
If this is happening under Obama, what will happen under Hillary or, god forbid, Trump?
The guns have been built. Eventually the bullets will also be bought. Every time they are fired, how many potential college scholarships would go up in smoke? And at the other end, how many lives would go up in a fireball?
I'm a little irritated right now, and I'll share my troubles with you.
As soon as the demonetisation news came out, people started sending jokes over WhatsApp. I find some of these in very poor taste, for two reasons.
First, there is the image of Mahatma Gandhi on all of our current banknotes. The most distasteful forward shows a roll of ₹500 notes, with Gandhiji imprinted on them, being dispensed as toilet paper.
Second, it's all paper. When I was young, I was taught to respect paper. Not to step on it, or throw it on the floor. All paper was vidya, knowledge, an incarnation of Goddess Saraswati. I may be an atheist know, but I still culturally ingrained in me to respect what I may have an excess of but others find hard to get - money, knowledge, food.
So, excuse me if I snap back at you for your jokes. We are looking at them from different perspectives, and you may not appreciate mine.
Unfortunately, in all this, it is the police that gets a bad name. It then needs to run PR campaigns to come across as friendly and citizen-centric. Until the next time it is made to beat up the same citizens again. This happens in India, the US, pretty much everywhere you look.
Good morning Gurgaon. PM2.5 at 500µg/m3, PM10 at 1,000µg/m3. What a beautiful morning 😑
Please make your children wear pollution masks. My younger one is embarrassed to be wearing his mask in public. If more children wear masks, he won't be the odd guy out.
Lands like Australia and the USA have traditionally been ruled by white immigrants. I've often wondered what would happen if, through some stroke of legal jiggery-pokery, the native people of these lands were made the rulers instead.
In the light of what's happening with the Dakota pipeline, and the rather meh presidential choices currently on offer to the American public, I wish this weren't just a pipe dream.
If the world is to survive, we need less wars and more respect for nature. The typical 'Red Indian' in Western movies is always indulging in tribal warfare. I don't know how much of that is based on fact. But this much is sure. There would be lesser focus on short term economic gain - the Wall Street model. And greater focus on healing the earth.
Is there any place in Gurgaon/Delhi that has a community display of fireworks? Not that I am condoning the bursting of firecrackers on Diwali. But if someone's going to be doing the deed anyway this season, the kids might as well go and watch.
I'm officially in love with this man and his mission.
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