September 2008 - Posts - A Romantic Realist

September 2008 - Posts

Kudos to The Economic Times

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
A Mint colleague forwarded a note from Rahul Joshi to the editorial staff of The Economic Times . I don't know Mr Joshi but have little reason to believe it isn't from him because it is fundamentally the right message for any editor to constantly send out and reinforce. And I am glad India's largest selling business newspaper is reiterating...

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How am I really doing or how to improve customer service the Chinese way

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
A lot of ink, digital or otherwise, has been devoted in recent years to comparing India and China, especially in terms of infrastructure--or lack of and their abundance of wide roads, large airports... But what is less talked about is how both countries are taking very different approaches to customer service, especially in terms of government services...

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The out of body experience of reading airline inflight magazines

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
I love India's large private airlines, especially Jet Airways , which I have been a loyal fan of since it started. In Jet, and also Kingfisher (though, unlike many, I have steadfastly stuck to my first love--the why being a matter one day soon of another blog posting,) I see a truly great example of an Indian company/industry that gives most global...

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All The Indian Prime Minister's (Author) Daughters

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
It is turning out to be quite the momentous year for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh . And I am not talking about his well chronicled and quite remarkable resurrection of the India-US nuclear deal, which, early this year, was all but dead. The only Indian Prime Minister to have actually earned his PhD, the erudite Singh and his wife, Gursharan...

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Fighting terrorists by throwing stones from glass houses

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Since the 13 September bombings in New Delhi, there has been a lot written and said in the media about the challenges faced and lapses by police and other government officials in dealing with domestic terrorism. Much of it has focused on what steps ought to be taken in public places. A 17 September Agence France-Press article raises questions about...

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Is Incredible !ndia in danger of becoming far-fetched India

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Two emails since Saturday's New Delhi bombings and a story in 16 September Financial Express on Indian hotels hiking "tariffs despite slowdown, competition" have me thinking about the medium-term impact of the bomb blasts in New Delhi on 13 September on the Indian economy. While ascertaining that we were okay, Shefali, a friend from California...

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All the news that's fit to de-spin?

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Woke up the other day to an email from Nikhil Pahwa of Medianama who asked what I thought about a New York Times article on SpinSpotter , a start-up that claims to have come up with a tool that "exposes news spin and bias, misuse of sources, and suspect factual support." Here is what the NYT article says: Users download Spinoculars, a toolbar...

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Are Indian journalists prisoners of Western journalism?

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
A recent post on Indian prisons ( read it here ) got this interesting, tangential response from Arvind Kumar, a regular commentator on A Romantic Realist (see his comments on the Words Mean Little When It Comes to Gay Rights in India post here ). Kumar's views on Indian journalists may or may not reflect conventional wisdom but do raise interesting...

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Gaming the game--Indian celebrity blogs and media end-runs

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
I don't particularly care of Bollywood or Hollywood stars other than watching the occasional movie on the back of an airplane seat, but I have been a regular reader and fan of director Shekhar Kapur's blog ( read it here ). I discovered it relatively recently, when both of us happened to be on a panel about Indian media at Northwestern University's...

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Bottling the great new Indian train smell

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
I didn't know this until now but, for nearly 10 years, the Paris Metro train system has had its own smell--thanks to Madeline, a scent based on lemons, oranges and lavender. Every month, about 1.5 tons of Madeline are mixed into cleaning fluids and spread on station floors every month. A recent train trip from New Delhi to Haridwar--my first on...

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Will its wines ever make India proud?

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
There aren't that many Indian wine drinkers--snobs or connoisseurs alike--who don't have an opinion on Indian's young wine brands--Grover, Indage, Sula et al. But, leaving aside the limitations of climate and non-availability of certain kinds of grapes, can Indian vineyards ever hope to turn their bottles into brands that come to stand for...

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An Indian Redemption Song--More Prisons or Faster Justice?

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Two recent news items about state of India's prisons and prisoners raise some interesting policy and investment questions. Evidence 1: The Press Trust of India reported on 5 September ( read full story here ) that India's prisons are way past bursting at the seams, with some 373,000 prisoners stuffed into the country's 1,336 prisons that...

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Love and Hate in Airtel Land Redux--Or Why Do We Settle for Lowest Common Denominator

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
A reader's comments (below) on my love-hate affair with Airtel ( see Love and Hate in Airtel Land blog post here ) made me wonder why is it that as paying customers we want to settle for lesser of the evils, a much more pronounced trend in India even among big spending, powerful consumers when it comes to shoddy quality. Is it because there isn't...

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The billionaire love handle

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
Responding in part to the blog post on why Indian newspapers are in love with the word Foray ( see Why This Shouldn't be Called a Foray Into Blogging ), Mint reader Harish Jagtiani asked me why Indian journalists seem to love throwing someone's billionaire status into every possible story. He wrote: "Reading the article "Jet global...

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Killer roads in India and rethinking the death penalty

Posted by Raju Narisetti at 
A four-day, maiden road trip in Uttarakhand on India's National Highway 58 past Haridwar toward Devaprayag, which carries tens of thousands of piligrims and tourists toward the first signs of the Ganges, among other attractions, isn't a good reason to rethink my views on the death penalty. Nor is it a good way to pass judgement on the state...

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