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Filter Coffee has moved

sadmin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:19:00 GMT

Filter Coffee, along with all of Livemint's blogs has moved to a new Wordpress platform. Visit http://blog.livemint.com/filter-coffee/ for more on literature, science, travel and culture or simply click here. Also don't forget to update your RSS feed readers and tell all your friends!

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On the Job has moved

sadmin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:14:00 GMT

On the Job, along with all of Livemint's blogs has moved to a new Wordpress platform. Visit http://blog.livemint.com/on-the-job/ for more on office humour or simply click here. Also don't forget to update your RSS feed readers and tell all your friends!

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An Awkward Corner has moved

sadmin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:11:00 GMT

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A Daily Download has moved

sadmin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:55:00 GMT

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Why Sunil Mittal will keep trying

Sukumar Ranganathan — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:42:00 GMT

As he has grown his family's business from bicycle parts and gelatin capsules to India's largest telco, Sunil Mittal has displayed several interesting traits. One, he has been willing to dilute his family's stake in the company as long as it means they end up with a smaller (but still controlling) holding in a much larger company. Two, he has been quick to walk away from deals that haven't really worked out, including a proposed joint venture with Singapore's Changi Airport for modernising Delhi's airport, a contract that was eventually won by a consortium headed by the GMR Group.

So, why has he tried hard, twice, for MTN (and failed both times)?

The answer lies in the nature of the markets where Bharti and MTN operate. Bharti largely operates in India. Growth, in mobile telkephony, in the country, will come from the rural hinterland. The amount individual companies here will spend on mobile telephony every month (called average revenue per user in industry lingo) will likely be small. It will also cost much more to roll out services to rural areas. Still, that's where up to 80% of Bharti's new customers in India will come from. To ensure profitability. Bharti has to move out, preferably to Africa.

Why Africa?

Because the continent will see the fastest growth in mobile services over the next decade. Fixed line or land line telephony has been a non-starter in Africa. The state of strife in several countries in the continent makes it impossible for these lines to be laid. And when they are laid, they don't stay underground for long: people dig them up and sell them for copper. Revenue per user in Africa is already higher than in India (where it is around six to eight dollars a month. And Africa is already seeing several interesting experiments in mobile banking and transactions (no one wants to carry around money or plastic in Africa).

Mittal has known this for several years. Which explains why he will keep trying to acquire an African company.

There may well be a third act to the Bharti MTN saga.

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Still Single in the City has moved

sadmin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:15:00 GMT

Still Single in the City, along with all of Livemint's blogs has moved to a new Wordpress platform. Visit http://blog.livemint.com/still-single-in-the-city/ for more posts about being single in a new city or simply click here. Also don't forget to update your RSS feed readers and tell all your friends!

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Lab Rats has moved

sadmin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:21:00 GMT

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Life Etc... has moved

sadmin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:22:00 GMT

Life Etc... along with all of Livemint's blogs has moved to a new Wordpress platform. Visit http://blog.livemint.com/life or simply click here for more news on health, persoanl finance, gadgets, spaces and other musings. Also don't forget to update your RSS feeds and tell all your friends!

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Simple Equation has moved

sadmin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:09:00 GMT

Simple Equation, along with all of Livemint's blogs has moved to a new Wordpress platform. Visit http://blog.livemint.com/simple-equation for more personal finance and money management tips or simply click here. Also don't forget to update your RSS feed readers and tell all your friends!

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Play Things has moved...

sadmin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:00:00 GMT

Play Things, along with all of Livemint's blogs has moved to a new Wordpress platform. You can access the new site and more cool gadget, web and time-passy posts on http://blog.livemint.com/play-things or simply click here. Also update your RSS feed readers and tell all your friends!

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LiveLounge has moved...

sadmin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 06:36:00 GMT

Livelounge, along with all of Livemint's blogs has moved to a new Wordpress platform. You can access the new site for more reviews, opinions and events by copy pasting http://blog.livemint.com/livelounge or clicking here Also update your RSS readers and tell all your friends!

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Have you heard has moved...

sadmin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 06:12:00 GMT

Have you heard, along with all of Livemint's other blogs has moved to a new Wordpress platform. Simply copy paste http://blog.livemint.com/have-you-heard into your browser or click here for the latest political buzz and gossip. Please update your RSS feed readers and tell all your friends!

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First cut has moved

sadmin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 06:01:00 GMT

First Cut, along with all of Livemint's blogs has moved to a new Wordpress platform. Please visit http://blog.livemint.com/first-cut for more news, opinion and reviews from Priya Ramani. or simply click here. Don't forget to update your RSS readers/feeds and tell all your friends!

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Bookends has moved

sadmin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:54:00 GMT

Bookends along with all of Livemint's blogs, has moved to a new Wordpress platform. So visit http://blog.livemint.com/bookends for more book related news, off the cuff links and the weekly Thursday books quiz. Also update your RSS feeds and tell all your friends!

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Urgent - please update your RSS/Blog readers

Sandeep Parekh — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:21:00 GMT

If you were reading my blog entries in a blog/RSS reader, you will likely have to update the reader to the new website of my blog as Mint has upgraded the blog platform. You will continue to be directed to the right page if you go to the previous location by typing in the old location, but your blog/RSS readers will not update automatically. Please delete your old RSS feed and add the new one from http://blog.livemint.com/initial-private-opinion/ The good news - the site supports many new feature...(read more)

SEBI proposals on financial disclosures - viva short term

Sandeep Parekh — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:54:00 GMT

SEBI's advisory committee on disclosures and accounting standards has come out with several recommendations for improvement of disclosures standards of listed companies. One of the proposals is to increase the frequency of the disclosure of the balance sheet from the current annual basis to a semi annual basis. This is being recommended on the basis of: "In the wake of the recent global financial crisis and subsequent cases of global corporations going bust, the issue of solvency and not...(read more)

How Important is Salary?

Tarun Matta — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:56:00 GMT

I was chatting with an old friend, SN over coffee last week. He graduated from a top business school 3 years back, got a good career break right after graduation and is doing reasonable well in his current job.

SN: I heard company XY is hiring aggressively these days.
TM: Yeah.. I heard that too..
SN: I am thinking of applying
TM: hmm.. I thought you were doing well in your current job
SN: Its going well so far. I am getting tremendous exposure and my contribution seems to be valued
TM: So, why do you want to switch jobs?
SN: There hasn't been any salary hike this year.. Company XY might offer me a higher salary
TM: hmm.. Does it really matter?
SN: Sure, It does.
TM: Okay. Lets say we increase your gross salary by 25% .. or even 50%. What'll you do that you can't do now?
SN: hmm.. I can travel the world. I'll go to Europe!
TM: Can't you do that today? You can easily travel the world, with the kind of money you making right now..
SN: yeah.

Of course, salary is important and nobody can work for free. The point here is would 10, 20 or even 25% increase in salary make any difference to your quality of life.

I've had this conversation so many times - with myself and my friends on numerous occasions. Why do we negotiate so much for a few percentage increases in salary while accepting new job offers and at the times of appraisals? My personal experience is that higher salary feels good for the first few months and then it just doesn't matter thereafter. Below are some of the factors that will surely determine if you are happy (or not) in your job -

1. Do I like what I am doing?
2. Am I acquiring new skills and/or polishing existing skills?
3. Is my contribution being valued by my employer?
4. Do I have good relations with my peers, supervisor, and management?

Answers to these questions are far more important than worrying about 15 or 25% increase in salary levels. What do you think?

--------------------
Tarun Matta is the founder of iimjobs.com – an exclusive job portal for MBAs from IIMs and other premier business schools in India.

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Vijender Singh's Secret Punch

Krish Raghav — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:16:00 GMT

Sportspeople love secret, special moves.

Saqlain Mushtaq had the Doosra. Douglas Marillier had the Marillier Shot. Maradona and Zinedine Zidane had that trademark 360 spin dribble called the 'Marseille Turn'. My friend from Class 6 claimed he had a secret table tennis move called the Toofani Smash.

Boxer Vijender Singh has his own ace up his sleeve.

At a press conference today on the team's performance at the AIBA World Championships (where the man won a bronze medal), I asked Vijender, dressed in a green t-shirt and jeans with a hairdo out of a Tintin book, if he had a favourite punch, a trademark move.

He smiled, cocked his right arm, and sent it thrusting forward. It made an unnerving whoosh sound as it sliced through the air.

'The Right Straight' he said in Hindi, 'It's my killer move. I put all my body strength into it. Sometimes it knocks my opponents straight out. I love that punch."

I took his word for it.

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Moving

Samanth Subramanian — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 08:57:00 GMT

As I'd mentioned in my last post, Bookends has moved to a spanking new location: http://blog.livemint.com/boookends. Please do visit -- two new posts today, including on the first review of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol -- and bookmark the new URL. All future posts will be put up there.

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Oh Calcutta and Dilli Meri Jaan

Sushmita Bose — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:51:00 GMT

It felt funny to be out of the blogging loop for three weeks. But despite my best efforts, I couldn't find time to go about it. I was in India for almost the entire time; I spent a lot of time in Calcutta (my parents don't possess the gadget known as the PC), and a fair bit in Delhi. My brother, who was in Calcutta too (on vacation) with his family, managed to take the wind out of my sails in the City of Joy. He got hit by bronco-pneumonia, and was hospitalised for 10 days, where he spent a substantial amount of time toying with the idea that he was dying. "Of course you are not!" everyone kept hollering at him. "I think I am," he'd keep whispering miserably.

After a capital touchdown on the 21^st of August, I landed in Calcutta on my mother's birthday -- the 26^th morning. It wasn't much of a birthday celebration: I reached home, gave her a gift and although she appeared to be genuinely thrilled to get a bottle of designer perfume, she cut to the chase: "Let's go to the hospital, shall we?"

Brother is much better now, and shifted to my parent's place while I was around. He's now writing a ghost short story set in Darjeeling and has completed about 2,000 words.

Bits of interesting things happened while he was hospitalised. One evening, my sister-in-law and I were leaving the hospital -- Apollo Gleneagles on the EM Bypass, a nodding distance away from where my parents now live in Salt Lake -- after visiting hours, and looking for a taxi to take us home. The main gate opens up to a little shelter where a group of Bengali men hang out. They obviously have precious little to do except in indulge in adda (whoever said it was dying form?). We were both greeted by loud calls of "Orrey baba, aar parchhi na" that roughly translates into "Oh father (the reference is to probably to ‘Our Father, who art in heaven', the Almighty), I cannot control myself any more".

It seemed a little odd to be subject to such trivia just outside the rather serious business of a hospital, but nobody was particularly bothered. Even the hospital security grinned broadly. What followed was even weirder. The hospital-controlled taxi queue was running a little racket. They were charging passengers multiple times over. "AE Block, Salt Lake," I said to a cabbie. "That would be Rs 200," he replied, chomping on what was probably gutka. "Listen, I paid Rs 40 getting here," I thundered. "Besides, this is a hospital queue -- you are supposed to take me wherever I want, by the metre... Not haggle over the fare."

He shrugged his shoulders and walked off to join a few more his ilk, all furiously fleecing hospital visitors. "Let's catch a bus," my sister-in-law suggested. But there was no bus-stand close, so we had to wait for half an hour in order to get a ‘running taxi', the driver of which tried his best to take the scenic route. After incessant arguing, I finally managed to show him the way.

There is a phuchka-wala (the gastronomically far superior Bengali variant of the gol gappa) right next door to my parents' place; he serves up awesome stuff: the spicey imli and pudhina water just right, the potato mix ekdum perfect, and the chassis of the phuchkas crisp and savoury. I -- again with sis-in-law in tow -- walked across one early evening to gulp down a few mouthfuls. We passed an Alto with a Bengali bhadralok sitting inside with a kid. Mwwuuaaaaah, he slurped, really loudly. I actually stopped in my tracks to look back at him, at which point he quickly turned his face and pretended he hadn't seen me while the kid giggled uncontrollably. "Welcome to Calcutta," my sister-in-law winked.

My parent's landlord -- who, I hear, is a ‘fan' of mine along with his wife (no, they don't know of this blog) because I am so "wonderful" (at least that's what they keep telling my folks) -- gave me two firm kisses on my cheek, while his wife gave me a bear hug.

"Guess what, your landlord kissed me," I informed my mother, as she fussed around my brother who had just come back home from the dreaded hospital.

"Oh really?" she responded grandly. "Well, he kissed me too -- on my birthday. This was right before you got here."

"You mean you managed to get kissed by your landlord before you guys came over to see me at the hospital?" my brother reacted in mock horror, from the patient's bed.

"Yes," she mumbled, before bolting inside the kitchen to fix some tea.

I came back to Dubai last week, and it felt so good to be back -- chiefly because I'd hardly slept while I was on vacation and I looked forward to some intense (and undisturbed) sleeping.

The big news here is that the Dubai Metro is on track: it was promised that the city would get a Metro on 09.09.09 and, voila, the commitment was honoured. It was a big -- and proud -- moment for everyone who lives in this city, and even though I tend to be unsentimental about these kinds of things, I too experienced a frisson of well-being. I am still to ride on a train, but since it's an overhead system, I am seeing the sleek, blue machines snake up and down for the past few days.

The timeliness of the Metro here almost made me nostalgic about India - for entirely different reasons. My apartment is still "almost ready", whereas I was supposed to have taken possession in November last year. The builder company's representative had given me his "word of honour" in the middle of last year when they wanted the down payment double quick. The handing over the keys has been getting postponed since the end of the last year. Every month, I have been hearing a different story.

This time, I routed my trip via Delhi because I had been PROMISED possession on 22 August. Alas, that was not to be. Apparently, some seepage problem has crept up, and my key-getting is an act being preserved for posterity. This, I found out after I called the building manager some 30 times; he kept disconnecting my calls, and finally took one that I dialled from a different number.

The kindly Tiger offered to come along with me -- since I am a woman, and builders in Indirapuram don't take women seriously, more so when there is a fight on their hands.

"But I came down especially for this -- and I'd booked my tickets after consulting you," I shouted at the smug-faced manager, as the site engineer looked on impassively. "I cannot keep coming to Delhi like this -- you know, based on your false promises."

"Too bad madam," Smug Faced said gleefully, as the site engineer looked very bored indeed. "You will have to."

"I want to complain to your corporate office, I want your company's CEO's number," I was getting hysterical.

Smug-Faced was looking smugger than ever. "You want to complain? Go ahead, be my guest. But remember one thing: you'll be living here at some point, I'll be working here, we'll be meeting each other every now and then... Why do you want to spoil things between us?"

"Is he threatening me?" I asked Tiger, after dragging him out of the building front office. "He IS threatening me! After screwing up on delivery time by almost a year... I can't believe his cheek!"

"It's no use," Tiger growled. "They are like that only... in fact, we are like this only. Welcome to India."

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Should India have its own 9/11 memorial?

Melissa A. Bell — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 06:40:00 GMT

Eight years ago, 34 Indians were murdered at the World Trade Center in New York. It’s not a huge number. Many more died in Bhopal, in Mumbai, in Ayodhya. But after the UK and the US, India lost the most citizens out of any other country in the world on that bright blue morning.

And now, according to an article in the New York Times, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (the company that owns the remains of the WTC), are offering cities free of cost the twisted remnants of steel that once stood towering over Manhattan. About 1,800 pieces are available to any city in the world that requests one. I’d like Mumbai to ask for one.

Every year on this day, I remember the worst day of my own life: the terror, the pain, the fear. But this year I also remembered something else. Those shining, beautiful days afterwards, in which we walked around shorn of our defenses and our pride. United by pain, but united nonetheless. It was a heady time. For a few weeks, we were not strangers, the world embraced us, and we were all just people vitally aware of our own fragility.

Tim Kreider wrote of this feeling today in the New York Times:

“Jealously tended hierarchies temporarily evaporated, and the worthless currency of human decency reacquired street value… Graffiti appeared that actually spoke instead of just marking territory, like the overheard murmurs of a city talking to itself or fitfully dreaming. I saw a spray-painted message that would’ve seemed trite or sentimental a week before: YOU ARE ALIVE.”

Rather than dwell on the terror wrought that day, the wreckage later strewn across Iraq and Afghanistan, the ill will the US has rightly brought on ourselves, I’d like to see the world celebrate what has lingered of that feeling—the walls that have been torn down, the relationships that have been strengthened. Eight years ago, India and the US were not close. Now, the US is lucky to have India as one of its strongest allies.

I’d like to see a 9/11 memorial in India. And I’d like to see a 26/11 memorial in New York. We need a reminder, not that terror exists, but that after the terror, we are still alive, we are not strangers, and we should all be embracing one another more often.

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Really dandy dudes

Anindita Ghose — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:05:00 GMT

Okay so I don’t really dig my men wearing eye makeup (exceptions made for Johnny Depp). Super slick hair is not a big scorer either. But then this was not about the men—or me. Ravi Bajaj’s show titled Dandy March at the Van Heusen India Men’s Week in Delhi yesterday was about the clothes, in all their velvety, silky, shimmery glory.

This was the first time that the veteran designer took part in a fashion show. Apparently he didn’t want to deal with their divisive politics all these years. So now, after 20 years of specializing in the hard-edged 80s executive style, he decided to break out of his ‘clean cuts’ image and plunge headfirst into a fashion sea of opulent fabrics and elaborate scarf knots. Yesterday, his dandy dudes wore surma in their eyes and had their hair gelled back into clever hair knots. They wore luxurious fabrics with pretty embellishments. Scarves framed their shoulders in elegant (and previously unseen) ways. Bajaj managed to have his men look like little boy dolls without giving up on their masculinity.

The macho tone was defined right at the start of the show with the whirring of a classic Harley Davidson. Yes, on stage! Bajaj had his friend Navin Ansal—Dehli socialite and interior designer—open the show for him. Ansal wore a cream bandhgala and slim fit paisley-printed trousers. At 6 feet, age 52, and perched atop a Harley, Ansal was the epitome of male hotness. The message was clearly this: We will wear silk and be dandier than thou. But we will still be men.

The colours in the collection ranged from white and beige to black, with purple making strong punctuations. The men wore tailored scarf jackets, velvet hoodies, French farming shirts and narrow jamewar trousers. For the Indian segment, they wore silk kurtas in odd lengths paired with wide bottom pyjamas. Outrageous bedfellows were created: A plum velvet jacket came with pinstriped trousers; a camel-coloured leather jacket with paisley-printed pants. Oh, I wanted some of the clothes for myself.

The little touches were magical: A black suit had a delicate sprinkling of shimmer on one shoulder and knee. Don't think gaudy glitter. It was shimmer. And the pretty man was born right there on the stage.

One of them has been around for longer though. When Bajaj walked the ramp, the crowd stood. His contemporary Narendra Kumar—dressed in a lime green jacket and yellow shoes—clapped. Bajaj led his dandy dudes dressed in a printed brown waistcoat and matching trousers. A black pinstriped jacket made a stark contrast. He was the dandiest of them all.

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Thursday afternoon books quiz - 19

Samanth Subramanian — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 11:16:00 GMT

... is actually available here.

This is a new WordPress platform that Mint will be gradually adopting for its blogs, over the next few days. It should be a lot more flexible as far as what we're posting, and most importantly, it is a lot more orange. So please, ladies and gents, head over to the new Bookends and send in your answers to this week's quiz.

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The best parts of Khatron Ke Khiladi 2

Parizaad Khan — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:53:00 GMT

Vomiting up milk, suffocating under water and trying to free your head from a box full of cockroaches. And seeing models without their make-up! Reality TV seriously doesn’t get better than this.
After Rakhi Ka Swayamwar and an upcoming show called Lux Perfect Bride, it seemed Indian reality TV shows could not be redeemed. Until, that is, the second season of Akshay Kumar’s Khatron Ke Khiladi started airing on Colors this week.
When the show was first launched over a year ago, it was a hit. I was glued to it every weeknight, watching female models and actors, and their partners perform stunts to try and win the grand prize. Even though it was nowhere close to the original Fear Factor when it came to insect and other creepy crawly consumption, it was like nothing we had seen on Indian TV before.
This one promises to be as riveting, with models/actors/singers such as, Sushama Reddy, Jesse Randhawa, Carol Gracias, Bruna Abdullah, Mandira Bedi, Nauheed Cyrusi, Rosa Catalano, Pia Trivedi, Rupali Ganguly, Shonali Nagrani, Shweta Salve and Anushkha Manchanda. And there’s Sonika Kaliraman, a pro wrestler.

The show is quite a revalation into the personalities of these models. Last season, Pooja Bedi wouldn’t stop talking, but you had to admire her guts when it came to doing the stunts. Vidya Malvade was so cowardly that one wondered, as did Akshay on many occasions, why she had taken part in an adventure show at all.
This season’s girls seem stronger. Nauheed’s proved herself to be a good swimmer, Carol’s competent and Bruna and Shweta are good sports. Maybe it’s too soon to say, but I expected more from Sushama. She’s supposed to be athletic and an avid trekker, so a bit more staying power in the stunts would be appreciated. Unlike last season, many of them are not petrified of the water, so we are thankfully spared simpering women when the water stunts come on. Not that women vomiting milk like they were last night is any better, but I couldn’t find fault with the girls for that one. I don’t think I would have been able to down four glasses of milk and then be hung by my heels and spun around at high speed, while trying to grasp a slippery rope, only to crash into cold water when I let go. Thinking about four glasses of milk alone makes me borderline nauseous.
I have my favourites, like last season (that was Yana). I adore Jesse—she’s a tigress on the ramp, but even with dripping hair and no make-up, she’s stunning. Thankfully she’s got guts as well. I also like Sonika the wrestler. I think her partner Janice is a bit of a drama queen, but Sonika, with her North Indian accent is fun to watch. She shows her vulnerabilities despite being a pro wrestler, and that makes her endearing. And she has a beautiful face, better than many of the models.
Maybe for a model, being on the show itself is a huge leap, because, you’re bared on national television without pancake. For some of the girls such as Jesse and Bruna, a superb bone structure and sharp features make up for the lack of make-up, but some of them look washed out. Yana lost a fan last season, when one of my friends who though she was the hottest thing since freshly baked bread was shocked at how “ordinary” she looked. When natural, even the Yana Gupta level of natural disappoints, it just proves how much Photoshopped images have changed our perception of beauty. But that’s a discussion for another post.
Akshay, as a host, is brilliant. It’s not his title as Bollywood’s top action star that makes him a perfect host for this show, but his humour. He is stern with or makes fun of the girls when they’re being squeamish or silly, gives pep talks when needed the most, often breaks out in song and is rather free with his hugs. And he’s not afraid to show he has a heart. I thought his little speech to Bruna’s crying partner was rather touching, but then again, I’m a bit of a sucker for good drama. Even if it is on the Indian version of Fear Factor.

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Karaoke, Puppets and Women’s Lib: The New Literacy

Saabira Chaudhuri — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:02:00 GMT

Whether through an all-female newspaper in rural UP, activity based learning methods in Karnataka, or a karaoke approach to learning on national TV, India’s NGOs are thinking out of the box when it comes to combating illiteracy. On International Literacy Day, Mint takes a look at some of the more innovative and effective projects that are currently being undertaken to raise literacy levels in India.

Khabar Lahariya – Nirantar

Khabar Lahariya is a weekly Bundeli language newspaper that is written, edited, illustrated, produced and marketed entirely by women in the rural Chritrakoot and Banda districts of Uttar Pradesh – most of whom are newly literate and/or from marginalized communities. The paper has a print run of around 4000 copies, and a readership of over 25,000. It is sold for Rs. 2 a copy in over 400 villages in both districts.

Khabar Lahariya offers a mix of local news and entertainment -- covering topics like the functioning of panchayats, local politics, and community schools and hospitals. It also aims to highlight instances of violence against women, political apathy and bureaucratic corruption. Delhi based gender and education NGO Nirantar, which started Khabar Lahariya, has worked to train the paper’s staffers -- helping them develop their writing, editing and reporting skills, their understanding of politics, and their ability to interact with officials in the public sphere.

News in rural areas is traditionally a male dominated space, and Khabar Lahariya has been hailed as a progressive effort. On World Literacy Day, the newspaper is being awarded UNESCO’s $20,000 King Sejong Literacy Prize, which rewards NGOs and government agencies that have displayed effective results in combating illiteracy.

Click here to view a slideshow depicting Khabar Lahariya's functioning and operations

Same Language Subtitling – PlanetRead

Nonprofit PlanetRead has a karaoke approach to combating illiteracy. Aiming to capitalize on the Indian public’s penchant for Bollywood, Planet Read has created a program that runs same language subtitles on film songs as a way to teach viewers how to read.

PlanetRead’s CEO, Nirav Shah, tells Mint that the SLS program reaches about 200 million plus viewers, and is currently operative across 8 different song programs in 8 different languages. Rangoli, Doordarshan’s most popular song based program, which broadcasts nationally on Sunday mornings from 8-9AM, is one of the programmes offering the subtitles.

First conceived of 13 years ago at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad, the program was tested in 2002, by implementing the subtitles on two nationally televised TV programs of Hindi film song programs, Chirahaar and Rangoli. An impact study examined about13,000 illiterates and semi-literates (judged based on their ability to read a simple paragraph of Hindi text, at Grade 2 level) randomly drawn from five states in order to get a snap-shot of their reading skills at the baseline before the SLS intervention in 2002, a year later in 2003, and then again in 2007. In other words, the same individuals were revisited and administered the same test (subjects were asked to read 40 unique syllables in text) after a period of exposure to SLS.

The data was collected and analyzed by independent bodies, and included studies of both children and adults. It was found that the minimum average improvement for the high SLS group was 6.2 syllables, as compared to 2.7 for the group that had not been exposed to SLS.

Activity-based learning and multilingual education -- UNICEF

UNICEF India is supporting a variety of governmental and non-governmental educational initiatives across various states. In an interview with Mint, Sara Poehlman, UNICEF’s head of education in India, highlighted the need for better teacher training and a curriculum that is far more child friendly.

She described how various states, like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Jharkand and Rajasthan, are starting to move from traditional one-dimensional methods of rote learning to more interactive, activity-based, child friendly methods.

Click here to view a slideshow depicting UNICEF's child-friendly learning initiatives across the country.

UNICEF is also partnering with JNU in New Delhi to develop a national multilingual education resource center. “The issue is not really about language, it’s about learning,” explains Poehlman. “Imagine for the first time you’re trying to learn mathematics, you’re trying to near how read and write, and at the same time you’re trying to learn a foreign language. The Right to Compulsory Education act says that as much as possible, children should be instructed in their mother tongues – they master the information much, much faster.”

Click here to listen to an interview with Sara Poehlman about child literacy levels in India, UNICEF’s literacy programmes and why different states must have different approaches to education.

Poehlman also touched upon programmes that are attempting to address the particular issue of education for girls. UNICEF supports endeavours like girls’ clubs in Asssam, which have taken on the role of addressing issues faced by girls in tea plantation communities – such as early marriages, or not being allowed to attend school.

Bihar, Jharkand and Rajasthan are among the states that have the highest gender gap in terms of school enrollment. Poehlman highlights the fact that different states must have different approaches to the issue of gender and education, taking into account the region’s own particular social context.

Click here to listen to an interview with Sara Poehlman about gender and literacy in India, and what UNICEF and various state governments are doing to address the gender inequity.

Computer Based Literacy Program – Tata Consultancy

Tata Consultancy Services has designed what it calls a 40-hour solution to illiteracy: a computer based functional literacy program. The program is implemented using computers, which deliver the lessons via puppet shows in multimedia form. These are then supplemented by textbooks from the National Literacy Mission and State Resource Centers.

The company explains that the solution does not require trained teachers and has a much lower drop out rate than that of conventional learning methods. The software is currently available in 9 Indian languages and Tata Consultancy Services claims that over 100,000 people have been made literate with its help.

Like many seemingly easy solutions to tough problems however, Tata’s leaves many important questions hanging in the balance. As Madhav Chavan, head of education NGO Pratham points out, if the program is in fact so effective and easy to implement -- it claims “the CBFL project can make 90% of India functionally literate in three to five years” -- why has it not scaled up. Why are India’s illiteracy levels still so high?

In an email interview, Tata’s representatives omitted to respond to this, along with several other questions – such as what Tata’s definition of literacy is, how people become literate 40 hours, and how exactly the solution is implemented across India.

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