Parryware and potters wheel

Parryware is a renowned brandname in sanitaryware in India. Company which manufactures them is EID Parry&co. ever wondered what EID stands for. One would presume they are the initials of this fellow Parry who started this company. So it was a revalation to me when i came across this article which says, EID stands for East India Distillaries!What is the connection distillaries with sanitaryware, you may well ask.It is a long story.
Let me begin at the beginning,that is East India Company.Parry's were appointed as agents of East India distillaries and sugar factories.The parent company had its outfit in Ranipet.Overtime EID and Parrys merged to form EID Parry. (Parry by the way was Thomas Parry;random information of no relevance to us now, he he)
So there is this distillary in Ranipet. Students of chemistry know that sulphuric acid is one of the by products of distillation.Hence Parry started a fertiliser business. Some smart assistant in the factory felt the need to make acid resistant containers, hence imported 5 tonnes of clay!So a new business called Pottery was formed.It made pickle jars and acid jars. All of know the market for pickle jars, right?
So this is the story of potters wheel and pickle jars.
And from this to go into sanitaryware is simple upward integration and going up the value chain.
Dont forget it was EID Parry &co who brought bathrooms out of the closet as it were and called it "glamourooms".Quite a sensation it made in those days with this promo!

Unionism in IT industry

Vote politics.One can see it everywhere.The latest is the move to unionise workers in IT industry. Communist party is desparate for vote banks . IT industry is the fastest growing in the country.And they had their traditional vote bank in industries and industrial workers.
IT industry employs no industrial worker in the traditional sense. It has very little hierarchy and hence the unionism ceases to have any relevance. But then politicians are ingenuine. they see the call centres and BPO as traditional sweat shops. Unnatural timings, rigorous work schedules and impossible deadlines are sure fire formula for entry of unionism in their midst.Media has also played a part in blowing up the health hazards faced by workers in these industries.
Typical response of industry leaders are: There is no scope for unionism in our outfits as all of them are highly qualified and hardly what you might call a worker. Each one of them aspires to be a CEO very soon, how can they have grievances which they will look for redressal to an outside agency? We have such excellent hr practices that we anticipate and address any issues that come up in informal discussions.
Between the two parallel lines of argument lies the truth. It is a fact that the IT industry imposes impossible deadlines which make them work 12/14 hours a day non stop for months/years on end. The companies vie with each other for getting a contract and accept impossible time schedules and hence the team has to work literally round the clock. while it could be exciting in the short run, it tells on the health/family life of the professional.
while world over the focus is on balance between professional/personal life and leisure, Indian IT industry is moving inexorably in a path which can give room for disgruntled elements to enter . Maybe they will not be your employees. But politicians are very smart ,dont forget that.

golden opportunity for banks

Indian banks are into gold marketing.Yes, with diwali season in full swing, banks have caught on to the customer's fancy with the yellow metal. ICICI bank was the first to offer branded gold coins for purchase.The usp in this transaction are guarantee of 99.9 % purity of gold, 24 carat, Assay certified, lakshmi coins, available in 5g, 8 gm and 50 gm deominations.Everything has been done to tap into the deep pockets of the burgeoning middle/upper middle class segment.They have a love affair with gold. Period. They had salted their wealth in ornaments but that has become passe; how many necklaces can you wear anyway and with the law and order being what it is,one gets to wear it only sparingly.some of them really look to gold as a hedge against inflation,hence this scheme is ideally suited for them. Giving a laxmi motif on the coins is pure marketing. And doing it during diwali when laxmi is worshipped is again a very clever ploy to tap into sentimental value to promote sales.
Can one say Golden era of banking is starting and this is the first step?

When it rains , it pours

Very unusual post this is. Yes, posting about surplussing of water in chennai and Tamil Nadu is not an everyday occurrance.There is water released from Andhra and it is overflowing in Kandaleru.The farmers along the canal in Andhra pradesh are not busy tapping off from the banks; reason is obvious; they have copious supplies themselves and dont need to siphon off water illegally.So water from telugu ganga is crossing Kandaleru and pouring into Poondi. Some time back it used to be a big joke about telugu ganga water reaching Chennai. Everyday newspapers will announce that high level talks with chief minister/water ministers/water secretaries of both the states have agreed to release water. But the same story will be rehashed for days on end with some photos now and then.But not a drop of water will enter Tamil Nadu. A new word was coined; zero point. water has reached zero point headlines will scream.But still no water to poondi reservoir. We were told there were seepages along the canal(isnt it a basic requirement of any canal, that it should convey water to the destination and not allow seepages.)Various excuses were given;farmers were siphoning off the water; the parched lands in Tamil nadu has soaked up the water... so on and so forth. It was almost like a crime thriller!
In this background, read the post from the beginning to 'soak' in the happy tidings.Veeranam lake has also received copious waters from catchment areas.Excess water stands released from mettur reservoir and all along the canal,flood alert has been sounded. Arey, flood alert along mettur, not heard of for a while.Karnataka and tamil nadu governments used to have interesting meetings to agree to release 1 cubic cc of water to mettur not so long back; Sambha crop is withering;it will be terribly late for kuruvai crop used to be the pleas from tamil nadu. Like sholay's amjad khan, "are oh sambha and are oh kuruvai" were not potent weapons in the hands of the state!what a pity.
So to cut a long story short, there is water water everywhere and lots to drink!Chennai is experiencing wet spells.Travelling is a pain.So dont travel, curl up with a crime thriller, lots of fried verkadalai and order for garam chai.BLISS

diwali crackers; now remote controlled

It is the turn of deepavali crackers to get into the safety mode.Recently a model of remote control to light the crackers has been released.It costs 800 rupees though. But a simple incense stick costing 2 rupees is the financial outlay for lighting crackers.Some fun would also be taken out of lighting crackers. No more going near the cracker and coming off thinking it is lit.The entire neighbourhood knows you are a darpok!With this new device you can be safely in your verandah and light the cracker 10 feet off. Interesting!
Wonder how many customers would want to buy it at that price.But then if it is a lighting device then it can be used for the kitchen stove. This feature gives it the colour of an appliance at home, and one is sure that the housewives will pitch for it as a status symbol!
Deepavali is in the air and police have come out with their announcements to the public to celebrate a safe deepavali.It is now a regular yearly feature.While anti cracker lobby has gained ground among some children studying in elite schools, it has not made a significant difference in the cracker sales.Or the type of crackers. They are getting bigger, noisier and looooooooonger. The 10,000 walllahs and the 20,0000 wallahs still dot the streets of chennai.

alpha and raffles

Alpha matriculation school chennai has entered into a tip up arrangement for student exchange programme with raffles institution singapore.It also facilitates teacher exchanges to give them a global perspective in education.Alpha is cooing over this arrangement saying ooh aah raffles is a 160 year old institution and they have agreed with such a chota school in chennai a measely 40 years old. I wonder what the euphoria on the other side of the table is.I guess, ooh aah, we are having an exchange programme with a school in India, which is millions of years old; whereas ours is only a 40 years country!
Remember i had said in one of my previous posts about the singapore team visiting many prominent schools in
chennai here for a possible exchange programme.But then alpha school is not one of the upmarket happening schools.No, not on the top of the pecking order as far as parents/students are concerned.Wonder what made them ink the deal with this school and not with others.

Move over movie songs

Movie songs reflect the current trends in society. Hence it is no surprise that lyricists are naturally inserting names of technology companies in their compositions.NOKIA has made it to that hallowed space in "Anniyan" a latest hit tamil movie.It is almost every morning that one gets to hear it in the top ten hits in tamil cinema.Of course one hears it in the afternoon /evening/night too.But then one is busy being 'vigilant' to be distracted with these songs.I have truly become addicted to this song.
NOKIA is setting up a huge establishment off Chennai and the pace of work is unbelievable.News of the company setting up shop has not yet died down and they are proclaiming to start operations by mid 2006!Mind boggling.
Hence when it is now announced that CISCO is setting up a $1 Billion establishment in India , which could be the greatest off shore facility for them,I immediately thought of words rhyming with cisco in Tamil lexicon of movie songs.But then it need not be tamil words; nokia rhymes with the word mafia in that particular song.So any other language will do..Scratch,scratch..
There is another trend discernible among tamil movie song writers of late.They are the purists who swear by the beautiful/resourceful language.All that one would want to express in a Tamil movie is available there and some to spare they claim.
CISCO will not be a part of their lyrics, i bet.

SWAN project is not a swan song

IT savvy minister in the union cabinet ensures every other day there are some new initiatives of the government being featured on the newspapers.Latest is an initiative christened "SWAN". Nice name,evokes positive and pleasant response in one's mind.Indian literature is liberally strewn with references to swan.Tamil literature in particular(I dont know any other,so )has innumerable 'anna paravai" making swaying appearances. The lead lady character will walk like one and will always have one anna paravai as her friend and confident to whom she will address all her woes of separation from her beloved!
Coming to the main point, SWAN here is state wide area network.Minister plans to have 1 lakh computers duly networked installed in, yes you guessed right, one lakh villages;Honeycomb model of networking will be used he says.Villagers should not be harassed to come to state headquarters for their needs to access information for their benefit which is in the government domain.Land records, caste certificate, jobs for their children and also to see their marks in public exams.
Tamil nadu is one of the few states which has immediately shown interest and initiative in the project.You guessed right,the minister hails from Tamil nadu.But then Uttaranchal and west bengal are the other claimants to fame.Surprising, but then uttaranchal seem to have policy makers who are able to see the power of IT to bridge the "mountain divide".Surprisingly keral does not figure in the list of front-runners.
8 lakh villages; 1 lakh computers duly networked!Wow!!!

ennappa - jatropha

Bio fuels are in the news and ministers are forever spouting biofuels as a panacea for all evils on this side of the globe. Petroleum minister has given a deadline for oil companies to use 5% of biofuels in all their distribution outlets.
But an agricultural scientists is shocked that without any background work into this technology, the upward and downward stream so to say,how has this been announced.Hew says glycerine will constitue 20% of the byproduct and makes an estimate that there are no technologies available to use this quantity of glycerine.(did you know glycerine is already in excess supply?But one would not believe looking to mega serials,would they?)
The residue which comes out of oil extraction from jatropha has not yet been found useful.Rapeseed and soya which are used elsewhere in the globe for biofuel have been used as cattlefeed.But jatropha residue is not edible.So we have quite a few end product and byproduct which are not known to be useful.Why are these issues not addressed before making announcements?
Ministers make policy annoucements and technocrats have to make it feasible.Roles are very clear.Challenging policies have to be made by ministers keeping votebank in mind. Technocrats and bureaucrats are known to make it a reality.Perhaps this is a challenge for them which they would reluctantly receive but efficiently deliver.

who is bigger- google or Indonesia

What a question.Comparisons can only be made between two comparable entitties. Here on the one hand we have a country and on the other an internet company.But then comparison is sought between the market cap of indonesian stocks and the marketcap of google.They are comparable right.But then it appears that google wins hands down.So would you invest in google or in Indonesia is the question being asked in "hIGH FINANCE" circles.
One pundit sanguinely says he would invest only in the 18000 island archipelago with all its natural resources,never mind the abject poverty and extreme disparities and recent terrorist attacks.
He bets his luck on past history of microsoft and south korea. A similar comparison was made at a point of time(1988 to be precise) and today south korea has raced ahead of its techno rival and has doubled its networth.So beware worshippers of google and blind faith in its invinsibility.
But then trivialities apart, google is a part of every netizen's life and all encompasing,whereas Indonesia is a part of geography text book and at best a an interesting find in the pages of an atlas.Yes, and i do know of a group of youngsters who cannot visualise a life beyond google.My advice to them yes, worship google, google it but then bet on Indonesia..

Banjarong

Yes, this is a restaurant strategically located on the way to work.It has very artistic lettering and a picture of a stylish Thai lady holding a dinner plate tantalisingly aloft.Been eyeing it for a while.Heard recently that it has very interesting menu and excellent serice and yes most important is not very crowded.So wanted it as a birthday treat!Been dropping not so subtle hints to people who matter!
So it was a pleasant surprise(!) that we had dinner at this place last eve for my birthday.It lived up to its reputation of being not very crowded.There were lots of quaint little rooms artistically decorated which could seat a set of four diners each.Lots of thai curios and artefacts.there was a dainty women sitting near the entrance on a small brass platform,delicately carving vegetables into roses, crysanthamums.They were beuuuutiful!
Yes, yes i am coming to the food part.Well, we happned to order a soup which has coconut milk as its base.And it was good and tasty and made me want to try it at home!Which goes to show it was tasty and appeared simple to try and has an input output ratio of time effort and effect in the correct proportion. And also ordered main course which had coconut gravy alongwith vegetables.No, we are not particularly partial to cocoanut,but anchored on it as we could not decipher any other familiar item.So it all had the same taste. But the starters was very very tasty. It was corn fried and sauted and served in crisp baskets. I liked the crunchy and tangy taste very much.The lemon tea served alongwith the meal was good too.Many of the dishes had a pungent leaf in it, appeared like leaves of lime treee. Mommy used to call it "nartha elai".Yes i forgot the hibiscus juice.Very good for health!Had a delicate colour and was very refreshing.
Broke with tradition and ordered dessert of date pancake with icecream.Need not have taken the trouble to break tradition....
Banjarong,yeah we will visit again only with a guide who will help us to meander through their special dishes.

Train to the roof of the world

Remember the general knowledge quiz rounds one had in school?A sure fire question was "name the city which is called the roof of the world" and every hand will shoot up for "tibet".But then one more quiz question will be doing the rounds for which the right answer is "tibet" once again.It has just been connected by the "Highest elevation railways in the world".
China is proud to annouce this feat to the world recently.The railway line is across 5500 metre high mountain ranges of which 550 km is frozen!.The entire stretch is roughly 2000 km long over one of the most arduous terrains in the world.The last 1000 km was the toughest and was completed in 4 years!People of these inaccessible regions are simply delighted as they thought this project will go on and on and will never get completed in their lifetime.
While i was marvelling at this feat and waxing eloquent,I heard a most sobering comment.The whole project is to make India through the Himalayas more accessible.there are no altruistic designs.My spirits dipped.Before me the school geography lessons once again started unfolding where himalayas were picturised as the most inaccessible mountains in the world and how it has helped alter the fate of India against foreign invasions.
A pure joy tinged with remorse!

Right to information

A revolutionary act is being implemented from october 12th all over India.It is Right to information act.This act enables any ordinary citizen to ask for as his right any information which is relevant or material to him.Each office has a specific official who is named information official(no,not again!) and it is expected that the govt,civic society and the media would work in coordination to make government function transparently.
Yes, I have attended a few meetings and read reams of newsprint about this act.It could be abused is what senior government officials feel and they feel that they would not like to take bold decisions(when was the last time that they did that anyway!) and would play safe.The public are wary and feel the bureaucracy will find ingenuine ways to scuttle this power in the hands of the public.When was the last time public servants really serve the public,you may wonder.
But there have been some pockets of influence like in Bangalore where the citizens do approach the government with a demand to show them how allocation to various projects have been spent.I do recall long back when a journalist visited Brazil,he was taken around the slum areas. There he was able to see a new initiative that the public have taken.Whenever a government project for a particular locality is sanctioned,the local youth wing gets involved in the project.They continuously monitor the execution of the project,and see that it gets completed without delay.This was more than 6 years back.
So this act could usher in unimaginable changes in the way govt functions and govt functioneries take decisions and monitor implementation.
And the scene shifts to citizens waking up from their rip van winkle slumber and indifference.

Shastra- An annul event in IIT - It is ISO 9001 certified

IIT Chennai has two events in their annual calender which are eagerly awaited by college students in Chennai and elsewhere in the country.Saarang and Shastra.The former for the aamjanta and the later for the techsavvy,who eat,drink and work on technology.
The preparations for both start almost a year ahead of the scheduled dates and the organising committee fans out all over the city to get sponsors.It gets lapped up and late entrants have to wait for the next year's event if they are lucky( and of course if they are around still)
I knew this much but the recent information that Shastra is the only iso 9001-2000 certified event was something new.I have a strong association with iso 9001 and my eyes will immediately latch on to this wherever i go.I should have guessed, as starting a well one year in advance gives a clue about the organisation,systems and processes that go into it.And that is iso 9000 for you simplified!
I have known a well known hairstylist in Anna nagar put up a bill board that his shop is iso 9001 certified!I have known a few Insurance agents who have got themselves certified as iso 9001 professionals.Hence when offices/departments/shops and individuals can aspire for this branding,events follow naturally.
Yes this event is on now in IIT Chenai for the interested and curious.

say NO to unintelligent coaches

No, i am not getting into the Indian cricket coach/captain controversy.In fact you are wide off the mark if you thought so.By coaches i mean the steel and aluminium railway coaches that we travel in, remember!Are there then intelligent and dull coaches?It appears yes from what the General Manager of The Integral Coach Factory which churns out coaches for the Railways had to say recently.He says Indian consumer of railways has become very savvy and will not accept ordinary coaches which dont have intelligence.Maybe they will accept coaches which are not born with intelligence but has intelligence thrust on them!!
It appears customers want the coaches to tell them about the time of reaching the next station;speed at which the train is travelling; search facility to locate our friend whom we want to meet and another person we want to avoid!It should also have safety features built in like fire alarm and fire dousing mechanisms, detecting flaws in the track sufficiently in advance to break the train.Of course aesthetic look and facilities for charging mobile phone; the list goes on.
As anybody who works in customer relations area will tell you,there is no such thing as customer satisfaction,it is an ever expanding horizon. But then there lies an opportunity for newer and newer technological breakthroughs to keep the customer forever gaping and asking for more.
But i can tell you no amount of intelligence built into the coaches will make it answer this querry accurately : What will the railway miniter proclaim next?

laptop for 100 dollars

School children in remote villages in India are in for a big surprise.An US company is planning to deliver laptops to them at 100 dollars.The driving force is of course you guessed it "market".But at 100 dollars? I would be really interested in this idea happening.It is also propsoed that the laptops would be light(kids have to carry and keep them on their tiny laps you see).It has to be rugged,as kids are known to throw things around playfully and would most likely treat them as play things.It would also have a superior shutting option, as kids wont wait to see that the laptop closes properly!It will have battery operation option and should be maintenance free!
Breakthrough technologies and marketing strategies rather than incremental changes are going to rule the world.
I can visualise our young boys and girls sporting psychedelic colour laptops and throwing off their schoolbags.Perhaps it might also answer the anguish of our educationists who worry about the unnatural burden of weighty school bags on children.
This will be the ultimate tool to bridge the digital divide.